Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Republicans in disarray!

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Everybody saw this coming.

In my day, never was longer.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

This really is a full service blog.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

We still have time to mess this up!

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Archives for 2024

Late Night Open Thread: No Scruples Labels Reaches A Decision Point

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Ed Kilgore, at NYMag, is extremely skeptical:

… “No Labels has said for months that our movement plans to regroup shortly after Super Tuesday to evaluate whether we should offer our ballot line to a Unity presidential ticket — and that remains the plan,” the official said. “On March 8, we will gather our 800 delegates from all 50 states — who would ultimately approve a final Unity ticket — to discuss and vote on whether they want us to continue moving forward.”…

Tara Palmeri, journamalistic botfly, at Puck:

So it’s finally put up or shut up time for No Labels—the disorganized dark money group that counts Nelson Peltz, Steve Schwarzman, and Harlan Crow as donors—to execute its quixotic plan to assemble a unity-ticket to challenge the increasingly inevitable disappointment of a Trump–Biden rematch. Over the last two years, the third-party group has raised tens of millions on the assumption that No Labels and its opportunistic C.E.O., Nancy Jacobson, could recruit a viable candidate—Larry Hogan, say, with Joe Manchin as V.P. Sure, No Labels has been able to get their name on the ballot in 16 states. Unfortunately, they just haven’t been able to find that dream ticket, which will prevent them from ballot access in many others.

So on March 8, just three days after Nikki Haley is set to be demoralized in 16 states on Super Tuesday, No Labels is handing over the power to their 800 delegates to make a choice about whether to move forward, and with whom. Their ideal candidate, of course, has been Haley, herself…

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War for Ukraine Day 737: Russia Began Their March Bombardement as the 1st Turned to the 2nd in Ukraine

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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)

Over the past several hours Russia began tonight’s bombardment of Ukrainian civilian targets.

From The Kyiv Independent:

A Russian drone attack on Kharkiv Oblast killed one man, local authorities reported on March 2.

The 76-year-old man died under the rubble of his house after a Russian drone struck his home in the Kupiansk district of Kharkiv Oblast at around 12:10 a.m. local time. Regional police also told local media that an elderly woman was evacuated from a nearby house.

Earlier tonight, Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov announced that a drone attack on the city of Kharkiv, the regional capital, destroyed four cars and damaged the windows of at least ten residential buildings. No casualties have been reported in the city.

Due to its proximity to the Russian border, residents of Kharkiv Oblast have faced near-daily attacks since the start of the full-scale invasion. Part of the region was also occupied in early February 2022 before its liberation in early September.

More than 20,000 buildings have been destroyed in Kharkiv since Feb. 24, 2022, according to Ukrainian government figures.

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

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PhaedrusOnBass – Murdering the Classics!

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If you would like your talent featured in Authors in Our Midst or Artists in Our Midst, just send me an email message and we’ll make it happen.  Don’t be shy!  I have no more Artists or Authors posts in the queue, so please get in touch if you would like to be featured.

Let’s give a warm welcome to PhaedrusOnBass!

Hello! This is PhaedrusOnBass (Ethan McCaffrey), inveterate lurker and occasional commenter on this wonderful site. I’ve been invited to share details on my music project’s latest release, so here they are.

Audiot Savant grew out of several bands in the Sacramento CA area in the late 1990s-early 2000s. In 2006, my vocation took me away from home often, so I had to give up the bar band thing. A couple of years later, my guitarist friend Chris Plescia and I started messing around recording songs in Chris’s garage. By 2010, we had enough material that we decided to self-publish a CD called “Work in Progress,” an all-instrumental album.

We worked through the 2010s producing more music, learning the techniques of record production and getting better at songwriting. We enlisted the help of a few friends as well to round things out. The biggest change for us was going from working together to always working apart, since I moved away from California five years ago. We now use Dropbox and Zoom to collaborate, and still create good music (at least we think so). “Murdering the Classics” is the fifth release from this project, released March 1, 2024.

Our musical influences are all over the place, and Chris and I are different enough that the music draws from both our eclectic tastes. We don’t do this for money. We just want to learn more about music production and continue to have fun exploring songwriting and playing music. We are not a “playing” band* due to our separation, but we still have a good time.

You can find our music on all major platforms worldwide. Here are a few links:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5QAa43IB5QqfweFFI4B2q7

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3h4qUIkfBTPBClQpDn6jxA

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/music/player/artists/B00D3HX8II/audiot-savant

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/audiot-savant/655153810

Website: https://writeethan.com/music/

If you subscribe to Spotify, Amazon, or Apple, the music is included with your subscription. YouTube plays are free to all. Yes, I did say we don’t do this for money, but if you feel inclined to throw us a few shekels, you can purchase the full CDs on Amazon or Apple.

Please check us out, and we hope you like what you find!

* Well, we did play one gig…with the help of some friends…in 2017…in another friend’s backyard…

 

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Fani Willis Closing Arguments

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Closing arguments this afternoon on the GA case where Trump & company try to get Fani Willis disqualified.

According to an article in the NYT , Team Trump and his odious attorneys argue that the appearance of impropriety is enough for Fani Willis to be disqualified in the GA case.

A judge in the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump is hearing final arguments on Friday afternoon on a motion to disqualify the prosecutor who brought the case, Fani T. Willis, on the ground that a romantic relationship she had with a subordinate created a conflict of interest.

In their first line of attack on Friday, defense attorneys tried to set the bar low for disqualification, arguing that even the appearance of a conflict of interest could lead to the dismissal of Ms. Willis and her entire office from the case. The question could be pivotal to the outcome of whether the disqualification effort succeeds.

“We can demonstrate an appearance of a conflict of interest and that is sufficient,” John B. Merchant III, a lawyer for one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants, Michael Roman, told the judge, Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court.

Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Steven H. Sadow, picked up the theme in his own remarks, arguing that “once you have the appearance of impropriety,” the law in Georgia is clear: “That’s enough to disqualify.”

But according to Anthony Michael Kreis, that is not the case.  (Law professor, political scientist, ATL enthusiast | Constitutional law, American Political Development, Supreme Court, civil rights, law of democracy 🏳️‍🌈)

Anthony Michael Kreis

A few brief highlights of my argument. The standard for prosecutorial disqualification is an 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵 not the 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 of a conflict or an appearance of impropriety. Judge McAfee on February 15th suggested that the standard could be either.

Judge McBurney indicated this could be the standard when he disqualified the Fulton County DA’s Office from investigating Burt Jones’ role in the 2020 election aftermath while the Special Purpose Grand Jury was empaneled. Here is Judge McBurney’s footnote. fultonclerk.org/DocumentCenter…

The question of prosecutorial disqualification is a matter of Georgia law. The appellate courts have not always spoken with a clear unified voice on the question of what the standard is.

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U.S. Aid Airdrops (Open Thread)

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Good news if true from CNN:

President Joe Biden plans to announce Friday that the US will airdrop humanitarian aid and supplies into Gaza, according to people familiar with the plans.

A White House official told CNN earlier on Friday that Biden plans to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the efforts that the US is making to address the dire situation that civilians are confronting there.

Those comments are expected to come when Biden speaks ahead of his meeting with the Italian prime minister in the Oval Office Friday, according to that official.

I’ve wondered about this option since I grew up reading about stories like the Berlin Airlift. According to USAID Administrator Samantha Power, it’s “a matter of life or death” in Gaza now. The article says several other countries have already airdropped humanitarian aid, including France and Jordan.

Open thread.

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This Is Bravery

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This is bravery.

***I’m hoping these sources are all legitimate. Hard to tell, so if you find one that is inaccurate, let me know.***

Image

Photo credit: Moscow Times

More photos and updates from the Moscow Times here

So the least we can do is go out and convince folks to vote for democracy.

Open thread

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“sufficient indicia of credibility”

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I’ve been half-assed monitoring the mainstream political media’s reaction to incontrovertible proof that the House GOP based its impeachment inquiry on a threadbare Russian disinformation campaign. In normal times, that would have been an earthshaking revelation, right? That one of the two viable political parties in the U.S. is using its constitutional powers to work the political will of a genocidal foreign dictator?

Of course, these are not normal times, and the latest score for Putin’s intelligence services isn’t a bit surprising to folks who’ve paid attention since Donald Trump descended that accursed escalator in 2015. We’ve watched from the cheap seats for damn near a decade now as a malignant foreign power manipulated that dope, coopted his morally and intellectually bankrupt party, and vaporized any objections to unconditional surrender with pitiful offerings of flattery and domestic political assistance.

But our high-minded elite political press is loathe to describe this reality in such stark terms. Maybe they fear if it’s as simple as telling folks what happened and explaining how it affects domestic and foreign policy, anyone could do their outrageously lucrative jobs. So, how are they coping? This snippet from a 2/22 piece by Susan Glasser, staff writer for The New Yorker, is a representative sample of the genre, IMO:

The Crazy Collapse of the House G.O.P.’s Impeachment Case Against Biden
“A Big Russian Intelligence Op” flops on Capitol Hill.

…There is much still to unravel about how this came to be. In the government’s court papers this week, Smirnov emerges as an almost comically obvious liar, telling multiple versions of his Biden bribery story, while bragging about contacts with various foreign intelligence services. How is it possible that this guy was an F.B.I. informant for more than a decade?

That’s a good question, but it has a corollary: Why did the mainstream political media, including Glasser’s husband, chief NYT White House correspondent Peter Baker, treat the House GOP goat rodeo as if it were a serious inquiry rather than a 5-alarm scandal featuring members of congress serving as the unwitting dupes or active partners of a hostile foreign regime?

It’s not like the links between the GOP House committee’s recent accusations and prior attempts to smear Joe Biden by corrupt Trump operatives like Rudy Giuliani weren’t “comically obvious” all along. Same bullshit lies, same repeatedly discredited liars.

It looks like Glasser and other elite media figures plan to just integrate the latest revelation into the preexisting scandal without a moment’s self-reflection on the role they themselves played in the mess. It’s a Republican circus, you see, and they are merely reporting on the acts:

In the “perfect” phone call that Trump himself publicly released, he pushed Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to open an inquiry into Biden, referring to allegations that Biden had “stopped the prosecution” of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that had paid Biden’s son to serve on its board, at a time when the then Vice-President was helping oversee U.S. policy toward Ukraine. This is the same conspiracy theory that Republicans have been pursuing in the current impeachment inquiry into Biden, all these years later. It did not matter to them when the charge was dismissed as unproved Russian disinformation back in 2019, and, I fear, it will not matter to them now that this latest iteration of the tale, with its own Moscow angle, has been discredited, too. The circus tent is not coming down; it has taken up permanent residence.

If only there were a class of expensively educated and highly influential people whose job it is to ferret out the truth and shout it from the rooftops. Regardless of how traitorous and corrupt the facts make one of the two major parties look. Maybe AI could figure this political reporting shit out?

BTW, “sufficient indicia of credibility” was Trump-appointed prosecutor Scott Brady’s excuse for passing Smirnov’s lies along to DOJ special counsel David Weiss, another Trump holdover who was put in charge of investigating Hunter Biden in August 2023. Glasser (and Baker, et al.) won’t say so, but it’s true — it’s time to clean house at the DOJ while there’s still a “sufficient indicia of credibility” left in the joint.

Open thread.

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