Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

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

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Petty moves from a petty man.

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

Be a wild strawberry.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

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War for Ukraine Day 1,010: Zelenskyy Shakes Up His Command Structure

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President Zelenskyy has laid down a marker in advance of the President-elect’s second term:

⚡️Zelensky suggests ending ‘hot phase’ of war in exchange for NATO membership without occupied territories.

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— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) November 29, 2024 at 2:36 PM

“If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should quickly take under NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That’s what we need to do first, and then Ukraine can get back the other parts of its territory in a diplomatic way,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) November 29, 2024 at 2:36 PM

Here are the details from The Kyiv Independent:

To end the “hot phase of the war,” NATO would have to offer membership to Ukrainian territory under government control, with the invitation recognizing the country’s internationally recognized borders, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with Sky News

“If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should quickly take under NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That’s what we need to do first, and then Ukraine can get back the other parts of its territory in a diplomatic way,” Zelensky said during the interview, which was published on Nov. 29.

According to the president, Kyiv has never considered such a proposal, since “no one has ever offered that to us officially.”

Donald Trump’s election has intensified uncertainty around Ukraine’s war effort. He criticized U.S. military support provided to Ukraine by Joe Biden’s administration. Some reports also indicate this would entail forcing Ukraine to cede territory and at least temporarily give up on its NATO accession plans.

Zelensky’s latest remarks are somewhat at odds with his previous statements. He said that the signals of Ukraine’s accession to NATO in parts is “nonsense,” and Ukraine “will never exchange any status for any of our territories.”

The president’s comments to Sky News imply that territories currently occupied by Russia would not fall under the “NATO umbrella” in this scenario.

Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts are partially controlled by Russian troops. Russia claims to have annexed the whole territory of those regions in 2022 despite not controlling two regional capitals — Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Moscow also controls all of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

Throughout 2024, Ukraine has faced a challenging situation in its defense of the front line, particularly in Donetsk Oblast, where Russia has consistently concentrated its offensive potential.

Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September 2022 but has yet to receive a formal invitation.

Despite high expectations in Kyiv, the last two allied summits brought only new steps toward deepening Ukraine-NATO cooperation and a declaration that the country’s membership path is “irreversible.”

This is very strategic communication. President Zelenskyy is trying to position himself and Ukraine as reasonable, open to negotiation and compromise knowing that Putin has made it clear that the only acceptable outcome to the war is a Ukraine completely subjugated to him and Moscow. President Zelenskyy knows that the President-elect has demanded an end to the war, declared he’ll end it in within 24 hours of being inaugurated, and has appointed a special envoy who is hostile to Ukraine’s ongoing defense against Russia’s genocidal re-invasion. Because he knows that Putin will never agree to any compromise that doesn’t keep Ukraine, even a rump Ukraine, out of the EU and NATO, Zelenskyy is able to make magnanimous statements like this that provide the President-elect with what he wants to hear. The trap has been baited and set. No we wait and see if it is taken and sprung.

President Zelenskyy has also shaken up his command structure.

We’ve got a new Land Force Component Commander:

Wow, finally a very good staffing decision by Zelensky – Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, the hero of Ukraine’s famed 72nd Mechanized is the new Ground Forces commander.

Everybody knows Mykhailo as an extremely combat-hardened soldier having great respect in the milirary since the very 2014.

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— Illia Ponomarenko (@ioponomarenko.bsky.social) November 29, 2024 at 10:13 AM

Zelenskyy appointed Maj.Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi as Commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces – good news. Drapatyi is known for his organizational skills, shown most recently when he stopped a Russian offensive in the Kharkiv direction after being assigned there following a breakthrough

— Tatarigami (@tatarigami.bsky.social) November 29, 2024 at 2:25 PM

And a new Deputy Commander in Chief (CINC) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine:

Another awesome staff decision is the promotion of Colonel Oleg Apostol, the heroic leader of the elite 95th Airborne, to the deputy commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces.

The key to our future is in the hands of the new generation of post-2014 battle-hardened military leaders.

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— Illia Ponomarenko (@ioponomarenko.bsky.social) November 29, 2024 at 4:24 PM

These moves are the focus of his address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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A Lesson in How Trump’s Bit Works

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I posted about Trump’s tariff threats towards Mexico, as well as how his advisors are talking about a war with Mexico, and predicted that it would amount to nothing, which it did.  I’m not a genius to make that prediction, btw. How, exactly, it amounted to nothing, and how quickly nothing arrived, is worth a closer look.

After Trump’s tariff saber rattling, he and Claudia Sheinbaum had a call.  Here’s what Trump said about the call on Truth Social:

A Lesson in How Trump's Bit Works

This is what Claudia said about it:

A Lesson in How Trump's Bit Works 2

So, here’s what happened:

  1. Trump shit talked about tariffs, Claudia pushed back.
  2. She and Trump had a phone call, where I’m guessing she pushed her point that Mexico had already done a lot to stop the flow of migration.
  3. Trump chose to not listen well and/or misrepresent Claudia’s position the call to justify not having a tariff war that he wasn’t going to have in the first place.
  4. Claudia again pushed back and now we have a both sides view of the conversation reported in the media.

Trump’s bit or schtick:

  1. Provocation and big media coverage.
  2. Discussion with the target of the provocation framed by Trump as capitulation.
  3. Media reporting normalizing this – not treating it as shit talk followed by a non-capitulation.
  4. Trump finds a new target and issues a new provocative threat, repeat ad infinitum.

As long as media and other observers fail to recognize the schtick and call it out, Trump’s going to run this play over and over, because, let’s be clear, it works really well for him, and has for most of his life.

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This is Our Situation

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Here’s where I think we are with regard to our message and having it penetrate the vast stupid emptiness of media in our time:

  1. The Democratic Party establishment / electeds, especially those who have been around for a while, do not like to “do politics” between elections.  There are some efforts, but on the whole, the Democratic media ecosystem is a far cry from the right wing media ecosystem because Democrats only want to campaign between roughly May and November of an election year.
  2. Any effort to do year-round messaging/politics for the left or center/left has been grassroots and underfunded.  This blog,  a community-financed effort with unpaid writers, is an example.  Similarly, today’s for-profit blogs, Substacks, are generally fragmented and have small communities around them:   for-pay content is a total dead end for mass messaging.
  3. Around the mid-2000s, say 2004-2010, blogs actually had a decent following as alternative media, but the rise of social media since then has lessened our reach, for a number of reasons:
    1. Some people who would otherwise blog instead just pushed out social media posts
    2. Social media runs on advertising and Democrats’ inclination not to run year-round campaigns left us with smaller pocketbooks compared to the right.
    3. Social media algorithms are tuned to promote outrage and the right is a rage machine.  We aren’t.
  4. Dems have a few deep pockets donors who might be inclined to build some kind of media ecosystem, but for a number of reasons, these efforts never go anywhere.  The reasons include:
    1. The fecklessness of the rich, who do things for idiosyncratic, ego-driven reasons.
    2. The lack of any real incentive for donors to donate (i.e., they won’t profit from tax breaks or other incentives Republicans dangle in front of their donors).
    3. The fact that Democrats don’t have rich corporations on their side, and they play a huge part in pushing the messages of the right.
  5. Democrats’ messaging is consistently sabotaged by a group of “centrist” “savvy” pundits and political consultants who shy away from controversial messaging and believe that some sort of mealy-mouthed triangulation is the way to win elections.  Matt Yglesias typifies this sort of thinking, but there are others, such as Seth Moulton, who has an op-ed in today’s Post about “the word police”.
    1. The post-election calls to abandon trans rights on the parts of some pundits is a good example of this.
    2. The false statement that the Harris campaign was too “woke” is another.

I’m sure there are other barriers to our messaging getting out, but that’s about all I can think of in my post-Thanksgiving hungover state.

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Post-Thanksgiving Open Thread

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I hope all who celebrate it had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was pretty good. My sis and I traveled up to be with our Suwannee River kin. My aunt did most of the cooking and as usual did a terrific job.

Publix (supermarket chain) had a BOGO deal on Chateau Ste. Michelle Indian Wells Red, which three separate parties brought as their contribution to the feast, so the wine was good.

Although pretty much everyone up there is a Repub, only one person brought up MAGA bullshit, and my sis and I (the only out Dems at the gathering) were fortunately out of the room though within earshot. The MAGA turd in the punchbowl wasn’t a relative, just a rando who dropped by after dinner.

He sounded like a cultist, so the bullshit was easy to avoid and ignore. (He idiotically [and predictably] gave Trump credit for migrant policies Mexico put in place 18 months ago.)

Anyhoo, I’m back home now. A cold front is coming through today, so it’s gloomy out. Bill and I are chilling out with the leftovers, watching the Gophers whup the Badgers.

What are y’all up to today?

ETA: I think this guy’s Badgers hat is objectively sillier than my Gators hat…

Fan with a taxidermy-style WI Badgers hat.
Call & Response (Open Thread)

 

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2025 Pet Calendar – Please Check the Listing Below

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If you indicated that you wanted your pets to be in the pet calendar, please check below.

This is sorted by Balloon Juice name (Nym).

If your pet name is bolded, that means I didn’t have your pet pic when this post went up.
If that resembles you, please get your pet pics in right away.

The goal is for the calendars to be available for order on Dec 1, so we are trying to move pretty quickly here.

Please check for the following:

  1. Is your pet in the list?
  2. Is the name spelled correctly?
  3. Is the “Heart” column correct?

If you find an error, please mention it in the comments AND send me an email message.

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Friday Morning Open Thread: Still on the Job…

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Our Boston-area turkeys have gotten lazy & incautious — kudos to the feline making his living in the freeway-girt exurbs!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING BIPEDS
MAY YOUR DINNER TASTE AS GOOD AS MINE

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— Natick Bobcat (@natickbobcat.bsky.social) November 28, 2024 at 9:54 AM

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On The Road – UncleEbeneezer – Eastern Sierra Fall Foliage 2024- Silver Lake, June Lakes, CA (Part 2/8)

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UncleEbeneezer

We woke up Monday morning feeling much better about our campground.  In the morning light it was much nicer than the gloomy/rainy night before.  We had a fairly packed itinerary for our day, planning to drive up to Bridgeport and maybe up to Sonora Pass, so we wanted to get moving quickly.  So instead of making coffee and breakfast at our camp we instead opted to grab breakfast at the Silver Lake Cafe which is one of the better-rated breakfast spots in June Lakes.  The breakfast itself was tasty but portions were disappointingly tiny.  For the $ it was bordering on a rip-off, honestly.  Oh well.

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On The Road - UncleEbeneezer - Eastern Sierra Fall Foliage 2024- Silver Lake, June Lakes, CA (Part 2/8) 8
Silver Lake, June Lakes, CAOctober 7, 2024

After breakfast we decided to stroll around Silver Lake a bit.  Silver Lake is home to the Silver Lake Resort, the oldest resort in the Eastern Sierra.

The Resort started with the vision of Roy & Nancy Carson in 1916 when they moved from Pasadena with their children to build the cabins, with some still existing today. The Resort was known as Carson’s Camp until they sold in 1940. The Jones family is only the fourth owner of the Resort and they continue to restore older cabins and structures and add new ones that still have that rustic mountain feel.

In the early years Hollywood celebrities discovered Silver Lake and built cabins around the lake. Wallace Berry, Noah Berry Jr., Frank Capra, Walter Lantz, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford and others were frequent visitors to the Carson’s Camp store – even into the 1980’s.