Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We still have time to mess this up!

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

“They all knew.”

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

“Alexa, change the president.”

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Optimism opens the door to great things.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

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

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Everybody saw this coming.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

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Ben Wickler for DNC

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Today, the country we love needs the Democratic Party to be stronger. To unite. To fight. And to win.

In Wisconsin, we run a permanent campaign. We organize and communicate year-round, in every community—and it works. We’ve ended GOP control and unrigged our state.

What has made a difference here can make a difference everywhere. So I’m running for Chair of the Democratic National Committee—to UNITE, FIGHT, and WIN across every state and territory in our country.

Not only is he an organization-builder and fighter, he looks like he could be John Cole’s son.

Ben Wickler for DNCPost + Comments (47)

Say It, Over and Over Again

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A Cabinet of Abusers

Brian Beutler responded to this by posting a piece he wrote earlier this year.  What he wrote then still rings true to me:  [gift link]

Charitably, we could say Ron DeSantis’s primary campaign flopped because he and other Republicans chose not to write Donald Trump out of the party after January 6, 2021, and so there was no niche for him to fill. If Trump’s response to losing the 2020 election isn’t disqualifying, maybe it means he was right to be mad; maybe it means he didn’t really lose. If that’s the case, then he’s a strong option for 2024, and there’s no need for a pretender. With Trump out of the way, the primary would’ve been a real dogfight between many more candidates; with him in the picture, nobody cut from the same cloth stood a chance.

More accurately, DeSantis lost because he has no charisma, and lacked the courage and integrity to level with ride-or-die Trumpers that Trump actually lost the 2020 election. He also has an annoying voice, and is short. His height is actually pretty average, but he’s shorter than most successful male politicians in the U.S., and (most importantly) he’s highly self-conscious about it. He carries himself in a way that makes people view him as short, more than he actually has difficulty reaching things on high shelves.

And so Trump and his supporters exploited it. They mocked him over these superficial weaknesses knowing that his character weakness (his lack of dignity and integrity) would inhibit him from responding in kind. You might say the meatball was in his court and he curled into the fetal position.

This is all quite stupid; it’s actually pretty demoralizing for people who got into politics for high-minded reasons. But it’s an irreducible fact about any calling that rewards popularity. And so people who take the elevated aspects of politics seriously, who want to protect their accomplishments and make progress on others—they have to make some degree of peace with the fact that low-brow means can advance high-brow ends. And if the high-road leads to hell, they shouldn’t take it.

When the insider account of the Harris/Walz campaign comes out, and we find out which highly paid consultant stopped Walz from saying “weird”, I hope we make sure that person is never employed by any Democratic campaign in the future.  Walz was onto something.  They’re abusers, and they’re also weird.  DeSantis is deeply, irrevocably, weird.  Walz also had way more insight into how to talk to Fox-addled voters than any DC consultant, because he had to do it to win in his red House district.

One thing that really bothers me about the whole Walz/weird thing is that they may have stopped saying it because the political reporters and insiders got tired of hearing it.  But you can’t listen to reporters / pundits /consultants when they’re “tired” of something, because repeat, repeat, repeat your message is Politics 101.

They’re weird, they abuse women, they rape teenagers and they believe a bunch of nonsensical shit.  I see no downside in repeating that.

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: Objects in Media May Be Smaller Than They Appear

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: Objects Media May Be Smaller Than They Appear

(Clay Bennett via GoComics.com)

This suggestion by Mark Cuban caught my eye; might work, certainly worth floating, but I think insufficiently cynical. Opposition to phasing out coal isn't about jobs; it isn't even, mostly, about profits. It's a front in the culture war. 1/

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— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 7:47 AM

Coal mining stopped being a major way of life a long time ago — not because of eco-freaks, but because strip mining and mountaintop removal made most workers unnecessary 2/

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— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 7:51 AM

Coal output didn't begin falling until around 2010, mainly because of fracking and to some extent renewables. But by then there were already very few miners (the personal training industry employs about 20X as many people as coal) 3/

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— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 7:54 AM

But coal as an idea — big, tough men (approaching Trump with tears in their eyes) has outlasted coal as a reality. West Virginia thinks it's a coal state, when in reality it's mostly a health care state (supported by Medicare and Medicaid, which the people it votes for want to cut) 4/

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— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 7:59 AM

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Urban Wildflower Pockets

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Urban Wildflower Pockets

From doggedly determined urban gardener JeffG166:

Top photo: The trifoil camellia I planted in spring. Will flower anywhere from January to April. Planted out the dinning room window in a bed I can see easily. This is the second plant I bought. The first one worked.

Celosia cockscomb heads. The self seeding flamingo creatures found a recessive gene somewhere and produce them:
Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Urban Wildflower Pockets 1

Celosia flamingo feather seeds. Self seeded into the brick sidewalk on the street for the third year in a row. The dogs water and feed them. I think I have several thousand seeds.
Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Urban Wildflower Pockets 2

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“Small patches of wildflowers sown in cities can be a good substitute for a natural meadow, according to a study which showed butterflies, bees and hoverflies like them just as much.” I love wildlflowers, that’s the post. (via @bug-gwen.bsky.social) [theguardian.com]

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— kottke.org (@kottke.org) November 22, 2024 at 4:22 PM

This particular study was done in Poland, but I’m assuming — hoping — the results would be approximately the same on our side of the Atlantic. Per the Guardian, “Patches of wildflowers in cities can be just as good for insects as natural meadows – study”:

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Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: They Did Nazi That Coming

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Per the Columbus Dispatch, “Body cam footage: Neo-Nazis who marched in Short North claimed to be victims of violence”:

A group of neo-Nazis who marched through the Short North this month were not arrested because police determined they were not the aggressors in a fight that broke out, according to documents and video footage.

In body camera footage Columbus police released Monday, the neo-Nazis told police they had never experienced a response like the one they received in Columbus. They said people pulled guns on them and threw cans and vegetables as they marched, waved flags and yelled racial slurs. One of the officers noted the men were “covered in” pepper spray.

The Nov. 16 march drew stern condemnation from city hall to the White House, but no arrests were made. A group of Black men organized a counter-march the next day, following the same route in the Short North with a message of peace. In a statement, Columbus police previously said they could not find sufficient probable cause to file any charges against the neo-Nazis.

Police initially made contact with the neo-Nazis in a chaotic scene on a sidewalk near Goodale Park at about 1:15 p.m., according to a radio log printout from Columbus police. There the neo-Nazis, wearing black and red clothing and carrying black flags with red swastikas, told police they were leaving because they were under attack. In the background, bystanders shouted at them to take off their masks.

They told police they were marching because “our country is being invaded and white people are being ostracized.” While they refused to tell police where they lived, they referenced past marches in other cities.

Police said they’d received a report that they were spraying people with pepper spray and hair spray. The neo-Nazis said they were pepper sprayed first, and hadn’t instigated any violence. Footage previously obtained by the Dispatch showed one of the neo-Nazis spraying something in a person’s face, and 911 callers said the neo-Nazis had pepper sprayed people.

Several officers, including multiple Black officers, were present at the scene on the sidewalk. One Black officer tried to reason with the marchers, pointing out that they were bound to see confrontation from people for shouting hateful things.

“I definitely feel your First Amendment rights to say whatever nonsense this is, but c’mon, man,” the officer said. “The Buckeyes are playing. Man, come on.”…

A police report identified the group as “Hate Club 1844.” The driver is the only neo-Nazi named in the report. The others are identified only as about 10-11 unknown white men.

“We do this all over the U.S., and we’ve never been attacked like this, man,” the driver told police from his seat in the U-Haul.

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War for Ukraine Day 1,011: “The Russians Are Very, Very Busy in Ukraine… Thank God for the Ukrainians.”

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Two quick housekeeping notes. First, Rosie is doing great. We did an additional 1/1oth mile during today’s walk and she did great. We’ll hold that for the week then add another 1/1oth. She’s also jumped up onto the bed again. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations to help with her chemo.

Second, I said I’d only cover what is going on in Syria if it started becoming related to what is going on in Ukraine. I was thinking along the lines of actual evidence or confirmation that MG Budanov’s merry band of mirth makers were working with the rebel forces or taking advantage of the rebel advances to further degrade Russian capabilities. None of that has happened. The Russians are complaining on Telegram that both of those are happening. There’s no actual confirmation or evidence from legit sources that it is. Rather, the simple reality of Ukraine’s stout hearted defense against Putin’s genocidal re-invasion has changed the dynamics in a battle space almost 3,000 km/1,800 miles away.

“The Russians are very, very busy in Ukraine, and that’s a big part of it,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a group that advocates for democracy in Syria. “Thank God for the Ukrainians.” www.wsj.com/world/middle…

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— Shashank Joshi (@shashj.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 3:39 PM

So, now Russia can’t handle the Aleppo offensive because its air power is tied up in Ukraine? Is this what they call a second front?

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— Maria Avdeeva (@mariainkharkiv.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 8:43 AM

There are a lot of things going into the rebel assault over the past several days. For instance, the anti-Assad forces spent month’s planning and shaping the battlespace.

I just want people to know that my friends in Idlib literally told me this offensive was going to happen, it was telegraphed weeks if not months ahead of time.

The Regime lines still collapsed the moment they came into contact with the offensive.

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— Oz Katerji (@ozkaterji.bsky.social) November 29, 2024 at 9:51 AM

Israel’s degradation and reduction of Hezbullah is also a huge contributing factor.

However, the ripple effects of Putin’s genocidal re-invasion are continuing to be felt. For instance, the loss of Prigozhin and a significant amount of the top layer of Wagner is now being felt in Syria. And that is all the result of events that began with the genocidal re-invasion of Ukraine and events in Ukraine.

And we have a correction regarding President Zelenskyy’s NATO accession remarks:

Ukraine corrected Sky News interview translation. To secure a peace deal, he said a NATO invitation should extend to all recognized territory of Ukraine, but NATO protection only territory under Kyiv’s control. He’d then work diplomatically to regain territory held by Russia bbc.com/russian/live…

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— Glasnost Gone (@glasnostgone.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 3:10 AM

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

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Saturday Night Open Thread

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Hey everyone. I hope everyone has been having as relaxing a weekend as we have. Just puttering around the house doing things, watching some tv shows (1883 and 1923), etc. It was a beautiful day so Joelle and I went to the pool- every community should have an outdoor or indoor pool. It’s just so nice to get a little sun and exercise and relax. Public spaces used well are good, even for introverts.

I had forgotten how nice it is to have someone around to make me do shit. Makes it harder for me to get lost in my head.

So did evertone’s sportsball team win/

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