Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Everybody saw this coming.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Stand up, dammit!

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Come on, man.

The National Guard is not Batman.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

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Dank Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: No Ethics Labels, Slumping Towards Obscurity

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If I ever hear the name Joe f*vking Lieberman again, it should be in conjunction with his obituary, preferably one that involves words like ‘to be buried in an unmarked grave’. However, Lieberman’s found his natural fit with the attention-seeking grifters — per the Washington Post, “No Labels announces committee to select presidential candidate”:

The centrist group No Labels announced a committee of 12 people Thursday who will decide in the coming weeks who should appear on the group’s potential third-party presidential ticket.

Led by co-chairs of the group — including former senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), retired Navy Adm. Dennis Blair and civil rights activist Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. — the committee will then take its recommendation to a separate group of No Labels supporters that is prepared to formally nominate the ticket on 48 hours’ notice…

The announcement comes a day after the resignation of another co-chair of the group, former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory (R), for reasons that have not been fully explained in public. “I wish them the best,” he said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.

It also comes days after No Labels started serious conversations with former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan (R). Duncan traveled to Sea Island, Ga., last weekend, where leaders of the American Enterprise Institute think tank were holding their annual donor retreat. He held off-site meetings there with potential supporters about a possible No Labels candidacy, according to multiple people familiar with the meetings, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations…

Lieberman said in an interview on Wednesday that the group would have the ability to stop a candidacy from moving forward after a few months if it failed to gain traction and appeared to be a possible spoiler that could help elect former president Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee.

“We want to give the American people the third choice — bipartisan, moderate — that they say they want,” Lieberman said. “But if for some reason after two or three months, they say they don’t want it, we have got to be realistic and say, ‘This is not the year.’”…

Pat McCrory can sense a trainwreck coming when it’s close enough to hear the engineer yelling:

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Thursday Night Open Thread

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Busy busy day today. I really wanted the living room to be habitable before leaving even though we never got the painting done there, so I ran around all of Arizona it seems picking up two last pieces from estate sales. Got a throw rug for dirt cheap at one place, and I picked up a table with footstools/seats for the living room.

Thursday Night Open Thread 6

As I was telling Joelle, we may not have chosen a paint yet, but were about 3-4 more sample containers away from having enough paint to paint the living room 11 colors. Picked up the pineapple pillows for 4 bucks a piece today because Joelle and her sorority sisters have a 30 year running joke about pineapples and no before anyone asks we are not swingers I don’t have the energy or patience for more than one woman in my life.

Thursday Night Open Thread 7

That is Curtis, the mostly blind and completely deaf shiba inu who is 15 years old, has the mannerisms and behavior traits of Felix Unger. And finally, we have Jack trying out the new carpet:

Thursday Night Open Thread 8

I just can not tell you how much I love Jack and will miss him, as he is just the best dog. He’s really very much like Lily in that it is as if his personality was completely custom built to be with me. He is by my side most of the day as I work at the computer or around the house, goes with me everywhere, and I would totally take him home if his owner was not in hospice and looking forward to seeing him on weekends (Joelle drives him to the home for visits).

So, to recap:

Laundry room organized and has a good storage space.
Kitchen is completely reorganized and functional.
Living room has most everything done except we need a lamp and to paint it, and I need to replace one of the deadbolts on the front door we never use.
Sunroom was completely gutted, painted.

Going through it all, we probably spent about 2500 bucks total on everything, which is just a fuckton of money, but since we bought everything used and I did all the labor, I really feel like we got a lot of bang for the buck. The living room was the major expense, with “new” credenza, cabinet, couch, rug, coffee table, tv, sort kind of a morris chair, and curtains. Of that 2500, a solid 800 was just on initial outlays of tools and expenses like paint, putty, etc. It’s not really my style, but everything works and the couch is comfortable and the important thing is she is happier.

Most everything works now with the exception of a couple things that an electrician needs to deal with and I have to do something long term about the fucking doorbell I ripped out of the wall because it would randomly just go off and made me mental and one day I just ripped the fucking thing off the wall and covered the leads electrical tapes and covers. Joelle looked at me a little scared when it happened but sometimes violence is the answer and she understood that the doorball had to be put down quickly and ethically. It was for the better.

I really did not want to leave without getting the hallway and living room painted, but we just couldn’t decide on a color and we didn’t have a free weekend to do the hallway painting, as that is a two person job- me painting, and Joelle keeping the menagerie away from me and more importantly the wet paint. On the other hand, I am glad that got most of the things that were not functional taken care of and all the safety hazards are gone. Got new smoke detectors installed. I still need to get a fire extinguisher and fire blanket for the kitchen, but Joelle does not cook much when she is alone so that can wait a little bit.

I’m just happy I will be able to sleep and not think about those things and everyone is not in danger. That’s it for me.

*** Update ***

I almost forgot about the pizza ordeal. Because it was March 14th today, aka pi day, some asshole running a local pizzeria decided that they FUCKING LOATHE their staff and was selling two cheese pizzas for $6.28. Joelle decided she wanted to bring two to work and asked me to pick them up. I voiced my objections and was ordered to the Eastern Front anyway, arrived 10 minutes after the pizzas were supposed to be ready, and waited in line behind the entire fucking population of Tempe before reaching the counter and having some poor young girl in tears say that she can’t even find their order and they are super behind and asked if I could come back later. So I fucked off a couple miles down the road to this Mexican place I had eyeballed a number of times but never made it in.

And it was banging. Just a delightful little outdoor garden with lots of shade, and the food was delicious and the staff was great. Maybe not the best Mexican I have had down here, but still amazing, and all of it was made better by the charm of the place, the kindness of the staff, and knowing it was a local mom and pop. So if you are ever in Tempe, make sure you check out Parilla Los Picos. For 9.95 on Thursdays you get a burrito and beverage and chips and salsa. Very good.

Went back an hour and fifteen minutes later, and the line was the same size but I just skipped it and went to the pizza warmer and told the guy my order and name and he handed it to me. The poor girl at the register was near a meltdown by that point and people were just being horrible. I’m never going to that place again (the name of the place is Sauce). Plus the pizza was garbage.

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Thursday Evening Open Thread: The Wisdom of Our Elders

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Happy 91st birthday, Michael Caine…



(This is also Cole bait — nothing like a fresh post from me to attract the Blogmaster Bigfoot!)

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War for Ukraine Day 750: Russia Takes Another Shot at Sumy and Kharkiv

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Screen shot of new artwork by NEIVANMADE. The background is black. In the bottom foreground are grey Ukrainian homes and apartment buildings being bombarded by red Russian missiles with the Special Military Operation "Z" symbol on them. Above the missiles, written in red is the word "Ruzzians". Below the buildings being attacked is the statement "Turns Homes Into Graves".

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Russia targeted Sumy again today, as well as Kharkiv.

https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1768223649595572254

https://twitter.com/IrynaVoichuk/status/1768252261845602510

https://twitter.com/IrynaVoichuk/status/1768197757032858088

https://twitter.com/IrynaVoichuk/status/1768356853409353779

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Without Apology: Portraits Of Pride

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Without Apology: Portraits Of Pride 2

“It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.”

— Paul Strand

Throughout the long and turbulent existence of the United States, history has warned us that the American Dream is a nightmare for anyone who isn’t a white heterosexual cisgender male, so it isn’t surprising that one of the first things white authoritarian bigots do prior to enacting their genocidal policies is to burn the history books. They’re pouring the concrete for The Narrative they’re constructing.

What happens next is dividing American citizens into Us vs. Them, and they do that by amplifying hateful rhetoric about the people they’re brutally objectifying. They lie.

“When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies”, Michael Ende observed. “Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.”

And when people are transformed into the Other, atrocities are just around the corner because it’s not happening to human beings anymore. Kidnapped Africans are enslaved, Indigenous people are murdered for their land, Black Wall Street is burned down, and Japanese Americans are herded into internment camps and their property stolen. It’s easy to abuse stereotypes because stereotypes don’t bleed. That’s why it’s so important to perpetuate the lies about the marginalized group you want to erase.

We’re seeing the same tactics being used against the LGBTQ community in the amplification of eliminalist rhetoric and punitive legislation, their rationale being that these freaks of nature are lust-crazed predators seeking to victimize America’s children so they must protect themselves by any means necessary.

These are the lies deluded right-wingers tell themselves to justify their cruelty. It’s a different target, but it’s using the same playbook.

This is why Without Apology: Portraits of Pride by photographer Beth Austin is so important. Beth is an award-winning photographer featured in The Nation, The Washington Post, RVA Magazine, WHURK, and on the cover of Sinster Wisdom 106: The Lesbian Body.

“I’ve photographed everything from concerts, album covers, promotional shots for musicians, candid portraits, community events, private parties, small unconventional weddings, food shots for restaurants, and even a training session (with live ammo) for a shooting range”, Austin says proudly.

“Because I love a challenge, I have yet to say no to a project.”

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a photograph can negate a thousand lies. It’s a powerful rebuttal to the vicious propaganda aimed at the LGBTQ community by the usual right-wing suspects.

“You’ve got to tell the world how to treat you,” James Baldwin said. “If the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.”

Austin’s beautiful, joyous, and inspirational photographs tell the stories of people who won’t live in their designated closets anymore and refuse to define themselves by the rigid and inhuman standards of homophobic liars. They’re the stories of lawyers, activists, police officers, barbers, schoolteachers, and other everyday heroes who refuse to live fraudulent lives. They’re the stories of our parents, our families, our friends, and our next-door neighbor, our co-workers.

“Photography cannot change the world,” Marc Riboud said, “but it can show the world, especially when it changes.” Lewis Hine exposed the exploitation of children working in unsafe factories. Gordon Parks revealed the lives of black families in Mississippi being brutalized by Jim Crow. Jacob Rils documented the poverty of New York’s Lower East Side at the turn of the century.

And Beth Austin shows the world the glorious spectrum of human beings in Queer Culture–gay, biracial, and transgender–who won’t be stereotyped.

“I’m hoping that it’ll change some hearts and minds,” Austin says. “Opening hearts and minds across the board, even in our own community because we don’t always understand each other.”

The LGBTQ citizens of the United States want their rightful share of the American Dream, and they’re willing to fight for it. By any means necessary.

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Boots on the Ground in Maricopa County!

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Arizona is one of our highest priorities for 2024.  The state has 11 electoral votes, and we want them!

Our goal is to raise $40,000 for Worker Power that will fund a boots-on-the ground team for three weeks.

Biden-Harris won by roughly 10,000 votes out of 1,672,143 cast (0.3%).  There’s an open Senate seat and a promising Democratic candidate, Ruben Gallego.  Gallego is likely to be challenged by crazy-eyed Kari Lake, whose ethics are as out of focus as her on-camera appearances.  This, of course, is the seat besmirched by Kyrsten Sinema.  We need Arizona in order to hold the Presidency and we need the AZ Senate seat.

To do that, we need to up our ground game.  And we’re starting now.  Our Balloon Juice donations will help with voter registration now, before it gets too hot for people to be going door-to-door, and then we’ll fund a GOTV team in the Fall.

Our goal is to raise $40,000 for Worker Power that will fund a boots-on-the ground team for three weeks.  The voter registration team will be focused on two Legislative Districts in northern Maricopa County, District 2 and District 4.  Why focus on these two districts?  It’s all about strategy!  And bang for the buck!

These two districts will help us flip the U.S. House of Representatives.  Both state legislative districts are within House District 01.  It’s an R+2 district, and the Republican incumbent, David Schweikert, is vulnerable.  He squeaked out a victory in 2022 against Jevin Hodge, a young newcomer Balloon Juice supported.  Hodge is not running again (the primary is in July), but Schweikert is in trouble.  Here’s what the Arizona Republic says:

While the area leans Republican, newcomers to the district are changing its political composition. The district is expected to become bluer in the future and some experts say that change is happening faster than anticipated.

Also, Schweikert is an unprincipled asshole.  He has already racked up $175,000 in campaign finance violations, and was sued for homophobic ads aimed at a primary opponent.  This is a strong potential pickup  – and a very rewarding one, at that!

Remember, as part of our strategy, we’re only focusing on local races if there are national implications.  Flipping at least one of the chambers most certainly would have national implications.

But we’re micro-targeting this effort even more.  The Arizona Legislature is narrowly-divided, with Republicans holding a two-seat lead in both chambers.  Worker Power sees a strong potential to pick up two AZ House seats and one AZ Senate seat in these two districts. 

AZ is trending blue for many reasons – increased immigration, priced-out Californians, an increasingly extreme Republican state party, etc.  Not to mention part-time West Virginians!  And the state Republican party is a shambolic mess.  They can’t win the battle through messaging – they have to do it through voter suppression.

The Republican party in Arizona has been on a tear trying to pass voter suppression laws and chip away at Arizona’s popular “permanent” vote by mail list.  Flipping even one chamber will thwart these efforts to impede Arizona’s trend to blue.

 Topping the list of Bond Villains in Arizona is AZ State Senator Shawnna Bolick in District 2.

  • She’s an election denier.
  • She introduced legislation that would have allowed the state legislature to invalidate Presidential election results.
  • She’s active in the Charter School movement.
  • And wait, there’s more:  Clarence Thomas is her son’s godfather.

The other two Representatives on the villain list, Justin Wilmeth and Matthew Gress, are also vulnerable.

All in all, micro-targeting these districts serves multiple purposes, and  we have to get boots on the ground quickly before it becomes to ungodly hot to canvass.  Canvassing started on March 11, and our $40k will fund one of those teams for an additional 3 weeks.

Open thread.

 

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What Has President Biden Done For Us Lately?

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What has Joe Biden done for us lately?  A picture is worth a thousand words.

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Not just settlers, but the whole outposts.

(Axios)

The Biden administration is expected to impose new sanctions as soon as Thursday on two illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank that were used as a base for attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians, three U.S. officials told Axios.

Why it matters: It would be first time U.S. sanctions are imposed against entire outposts and not just against individuals.
The move comes as the Biden administration ratchets up pressure on the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over a range of issues, including settler violence against Palestinians and the war in Gaza.

There were nearly 500 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians between Oct. 7 and Jan. 31 of this year, according to the UN humanitarian office (OCHA).

Open thread.

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