Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The willow is too close to the house.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Second rate reporter says what?

Come on, man.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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Tuesday Evening Open Thread

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Did someone force the House Oversight Committee to release the transcript of the testimony of Kevin Morris?  (Yahoo News)

The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday released the transcript of the testimony of Kevin Morris, a friend of and attorney for Hunter Biden, and his statements undercut everything Republicans have said about the embattled first son.

Morris is a high-powered entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles who met Hunter at a 2019 presidential fundraiser for his father, Joe Biden. Morris has loaned Hunter nearly $5 million in the years since. He testified about his relationship with Hunter in a closed-door committee hearing last week.

Initially, Oversight Chair James Comer just released a list of paraphrased highlights from Morris’s testimony. Comer claimed that Morris informally loaned Hunter the money and does not expect to be repaid until after the 2024 election—or possibly ever. But the transcript shows this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In reality, Morris never once mentioned the possibility of forgiving the loans. Instead, he said he has a “100 percent” expectation that Hunter will repay him, and repeatedly states that he and Hunter have a series of promissory notes agreeing the younger Biden will pay back the money.

What’s more, Morris testified that there is a “balloon” on the loans set for after the election. This means that Hunter is currently making low or even no payments but will start making lump repayments in 2025.

The only person who mentions loan forgiveness in the entire interview is Representative Andy Biggs. The Arizona Republican has been a vocal critic of the Biden family, accusing them of criminal wrongdoing. Biggs asked what consequences Hunter would face if he defaulted on these loans.

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I didn’t even know there was a group called Mothers Against Greg Abbott, but there must be because there is a Mothers Against Greg Abbott PAC.

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So eloquent!

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This fellow’s style of communication reminds me of Pete Buttigieg, demolishing right-wing Christianist bullshit.

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They fucking nominated “Ken” but not Barbie or the director?  WTF?  It’s 2024 and women are still not equal.

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This seems important.

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How is John Harwood at predictions?

Open thread.

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War for Ukraine Day 699: Russia Once Again Bombards Civilian Targets 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".

(Images by NEIVANMADE)

Been a very long day, so this is going to be brief (for me).

Also, late last night/early this morning commenter piece of peace asked:

Adam and commentors, I appreciate receiving knowledge about the conflicts and problems going on in the Middle East, formed with easily-readable explanations.  Otherwise, I’d be tempted to ignore it.  Thank you all.

I will try to do a Mess O Potamia post this weekend. I won’t have time before then. I hope that will be sufficient.

One last housekeeping item. What I’m covering tonight is grim. We may not know the full butcher’s bill for a few days. I’ve chosen not to post a lot of the video and imagery that’s on social media. This includes the animal shelter video. I am asking you all, and for once please just actually comply, DO NOT post links to or embed the nitter links to those types of posts in the comments. Once you’re done with today’s post you’ll know what happened if you didn’t already. You don’t need to subject yourselves and others to even more of it. It is not going to actually help anyone in Ukraine if you force yourselves to watch that stuff if you do not have to.

Russia once again spent the morning bombarding Ukraine.

From this morning:

https://twitter.com/IrynaVoichuk/status/1749650861611970879

https://twitter.com/Euan_MacDonald/status/1749652022435913757

From this afternoon:

https://twitter.com/IrynaVoichuk/status/1749887115175891275

https://twitter.com/K_Loukerenko/status/1749887554713796810

More on this after the jump.

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

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Another Rainy Day

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Rained pretty much all day today, and at some points it rained so hard it would be a legitimate gully wersher in West By God Virginia. I had to spend some time on the road, because last night before bed Thurston chewed through my sleep apnea mask. Just the cloth part. I only noticed as I was getting into bed and just screamed “god damnit thurston” and had a solid laugh cry.

I tried to macgyver something with cooking twine, and that didn’t work, and then Joelle fixed jury-rigged up something to get me through the night with, I shit you not, one of Jack’s bandannas and KT tape for her knees. Whatever black magic she did, it worked, but I needed to replace it. So I had to drive to a medical supply place in Mesa because my fucking head is so big that the Phoenix and Tempe stores did not have the right size.

Got all the way out there, got up to the register to pay for it, and… Arizona is like one of four fucking states in the country that require a prescription for a sleep apnea mask. They regulate the machines everywhere, but the masks? All I can figure is it is either a money grab or something related to meth use or production. At any rate, as one can imagine, I do not carry around my sleep apnea prescription, so I just used my internal voice to SCREAM FUCKKKKKKKKKKK all the way back to the car.

I have one coming tomorrow from Amazon so I did not even bother calling my doctor and having them fax over the fucking prescription. I asked Joelle if she has any old nylons with runs in them and we’ll use them to fix something for tonight. God damned dog.

Did some more organizing today and made a batch of pico de gallo. About half way through cutting everything up I remembered that Joelle had a food processor that someone had gifted her and she had used maybe once. I took it down, put the right attachment in, plugged it in, and discovered that the machine has two modes- “off” and “VIOLENCE.” It sounded like one of those space movies when the ships warp drive spins up and it vibrated across the counter.

I immediately unplugged it and put it away, and I called Joelle and said “we’re selling the food processor neither one of us needs to be around that ever” and she said “ok.” Longtime readers will remember back when my father lost his thumb in a wood chipper a couple weeks before heading to the beach for the winter. I don’t remember when exactly but he was in his 70’s, the asshole. And NONE of us knew he had a fucking wood chipper.

At any rate, as soon as they were gone my sister Devon drove down in her truck, loaded it up, took it home, cleaned it, and immediately sold it. She then either mailed them a check or called them and sold the wood chipper. Dad started to protest and Devon cut him off and said he’d lost his wood chipper privileges and regardless that wood chipper had a taste for blood now.

That’s how I feel about that food processer.

Not much going on otherwise. Had a nice salad for dinner and just taking it easy for the rest of the night, I suppose.

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Tuesday Evening Open Thread: The Sportsball Circus

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Don’t pretend to understand football, but I usually find Ray Ratto a good read. From Defector – “The Chiefs Are The NFL’s Traveling Circus”:

… Yes, the Chiefs in all their weird three-ring magnificence have advanced to the penultimate step in their campaign, “How To Make The Most Histrionical Super Bowl Ever.” All they have to do is beat the Baltimore Ravens this coming Sunday to wed the people who obsess over Taylor Swift and her allegedly witchy tendencies, for good and ill, with the people who agree that Jason Kelce is the NFL’s newest and nudest spokesman for everything the Super Bowl in Las Vegas could, should, and would be…

Nobody [else] has bundled-up Taylor Swift evidently invoking timely wind gusts, and nobody has Jason Kelce shotgunning cans of beer like the quality-control elf at the brewery, barging about the suite while dressed in Western New York formalwear: no shirt, pants looped below his waist like Saturn’s saddest ring, and scaring his kids. Not even Jim Harbaugh dressed as a gorilla on the sidelines giving Connor Stalions piggyback rides during the national anthem would beat what the Chiefs will be bringing. CBS even had trouble keeping its Taylor highlights straight, not showing her after Travis Kelce’s second touchdown but showing her after Isiah Pacheco’s, as though she was there to suss out Kansas City’s running game. The network is clearly losing its keen eye on America’s taste for pandering.

But what about the Lions and the lovely story of their long wait to take center stage, you ask. Why can’t they be America’s Team? Please. You haven’t spent enough time in the new post-COVID America if you think a good football story is enough. And that goes for the Ravens and 49ers as well. The three of them just play football, and that’s not the kind of thing America needs in an election year, especially this one.

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Even By Florida Standards

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Even by Florida standards, this is grotesque:

A push by some Florida Republicans to use taxpayer money to help pay for former President Donald Trump’s multiple legal battles quickly fell apart after Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened to veto the legislation.

State Sen. Ileana Garcia, a Miami Republican who endorsed Trump’s reelection, has filed a bill for this year’s legislative session that could allow the state to hand out up to $5 million to the embattled Republican front-runner for president. The legislation has already won the endorsement from Jimmy Patronis, the state’s Republican chief financial officer, who for months has been publicly calling for taxpayers to pay to defend Trump from criminal charges.

How much actual contempt must you have for the voters of your state that you would spend their tax money defending that piece of shit? Thank god most of the Republican legislators in WV are functionally illiterate and won’t read about this but might have heard about it when it reached Fox News, but now won’t. Because it would have passed here and would not have been vetoed.

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Biden Live: Reproductive Rights Event Open Thread

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My schedule is all wonky today, so hopefully this will post on schedule if I’m not around to check on it.

 

As we mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Kamala Harris, Jill Biden, Douglas Emhoff, and I are highlighting the stakes of this election and the critical fight ahead against MAGA Republicans’ attacks on reproductive freedom.

 

And I know DeSantis is DeToast, but we can still kick him around for a few more days, right? I thought my Governor had an important take. For those who don’t know, Gov. Polis is a dad, husband, Jewish, and Gay, so he’s pretty savvy when it comes to assholes who try to vilify groups.

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This is an open thread

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