Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

75% of people clapping liked the show!

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

White supremacy is terrorism.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Most of you should go to bed and try to be better Jackals in the morning.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

I really should read my own blog.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

American history and black history cannot be separated.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

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Wisconsin is in the News

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The deadline for new maps in Wisconsin was 5 pm this afternoon.

Wisconsin is in the News

🌼  Maps Discussion link

Hey, that’s today!

Several of the submissions have now been made public, including maps from the plaintiffs in the case, represented by Law Forward, Stafford Rosenbaum, the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, Campaign Legal Center, and Arnold & Porter. You can see those submissions on Dave’s Redistricting App (DRA) here (Senate, Assembly).

Senate Democrats have also submitted maps and posted them on DRA. You can see those maps here (Senate, Assembly).

Gov. Tony Evers has also submitted maps and posted them on DRA. You can see those maps here (Senate, Assembly).

We know our readers here at The Recombobulation Area are very interested in redistricting and these maps, so please, share your thoughts, insights, and any additional information in the comments below in this thread.

🌼

Any other news from Wisconsin?  Or your own state?

Open thread.

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Good News, Bad News Open Thread: Repubs Against Feeding Hungry Children

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Catherine Rampell, at the Washington Post — “There’s nothing pro-child about the GOP’s resistance to food aid” [gift link]:

In the 18 months since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Republican officials have had ample opportunity to prove they’re not merely antiabortion but also pro-child. They keep failing.

GOP politicians across the country have found new and creative ways to deny resources to struggling parents and children. Take, for instance, the summer lunch program.

Under a new federal program, children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches can also receive food assistance during the summer. The policy, created as part of the bipartisan budget deal in 2022, gives eligible families $40 per month per child, or $120 total over the summer. It often works essentially as a top-up for food stamps, since these families must buy more groceries when their children lose access to nutritious school meals when classes go out of session. (It’s similar to a temporary program offered during the pandemic, though it’s much less generous.)

The federal government pays the entire cost of the benefits associated with this new food program and half the administrative costs. The program isn’t automatic, though; states had to opt in by Jan. 1.

Republican governors across 15 states chose not to, as my Post colleague Annie Gowen reported. Up to 10 million kids will be denied access to this grocery aid as a result…

So, potentially, almost half of the children eligible for this program live in just fifteen states.

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Mom Briefly Deprived of Liberty

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Moms for Liberty has endured several months of scandalous bombshells about members staging keggers for kiddies, engaging in gross GOP power player three-ways, hobnobbing with Proud Boys, threatening opponents and quoting Hitler in newsletters. Now a Moms for Liberty-affiliated school board member in Tennessee resigned after getting busted for shoplifting at Target! The Daily Beast:

A Tennessee school board member who advocated for “parent choice” and was backed by a member of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty has resigned after being accused of swiping goods from Target.

Keri Leigh Blair, 43, was arrested and briefly tossed in jail on Jan. 5 for allegedly stealing $728.61 worth of stuff during seven shopping trips at a Target in Collierville, according to Fox 13.

Police said in an affidavit that Blair—who was released on $7,500 bond—would “skip scanning items at the self-checkout,” with amounts ranging from $63.38 to $140.49. All of the incidents took place between Nov. 25 and Dec. 20, 2023.

To paraphrase something I read about the self-checkout business model, theft at that point of purchase is just labor reclaiming stolen wages. But yeah, this Liberty Mom is another degenerate in a long list from that organization. When will these Moms for Liberty skanks stop grooming kids for a life of crime?

Open thread.

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*Seriously*, Thank Murphy the Trickster God It’s FINALLY Friday Morning Open Thread

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On The Road – Munira – At Home

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Munira

In these posts, I’ve frequently talked about the differences between classical Japanese haiku (and tanka) and the poems we’re now writing in western languages (like English). The kigo or season word is an important part of traditional Japanese haiku. Kigo are found on a list called a saijiki, and their use can be somewhat restrictive. For example, the kigo “moon” refers only to the autumn moon. If the moon appears in a haiku referring to a different season, that season has to be specified – for example, the winter moon or the summer moon. Good old Wikipedia has a pretty good description of the kigo if you want more information – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kigo.

Needless to say, we western poets, don’t always follow this practice. In fact, though many, probably even most, of our haiku are still written about nature, we have expanded into a lot of other areas – work, home, hospitals, museums – you name it. Anything is fair game.

I got the idea for this post one Saturday when I was doing a non-residential (Zoom) mindfulness retreat in my apartment. It was time for a walking meditation. It was pouring rain outside, so I started walking slowly back and forth from my bedroom to the kitchen. As I walked, I began to take note of some of the objects I’d had for many years. Some of them I hadn’t actually looked at for a long time, and I didn’t even remember where I’d gotten them.

The meditation mind (like the haiku mind) notices things, sees them in a different, deeper way so, of course, haiku started to materialize as I was walking. Later I went back and took photos of the objects I was writing about. I also started looking at earlier photos from my cabin in Quebec and matched them with haiku I’d already written.

So this post is a glimpse of what home means to me – a cup of hot tea, produce from the garden, my piano, and nature coming through my window in the form of plant shadows.

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On The Road - Munira - At Home 9
West Brome, QCMay 20, 2014

not quite forgotten—
the six points
of a crystal star

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: VIVEK! Pivots!

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It’s a crazy idea, but it just might work… Cynics have suspected this was Ramaswamy’s end goal all along, but now it’s official — he’s running, frantically, for TFG’s vice-presidential appointment. Per CNN, “Ramaswamy urges Supreme Court to overturn Colorado ruling removing Trump from ballot” :

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is urging the US Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court ruling barring Donald Trump from the state’s ballot.

Ramaswamy, who has previously denounced the Colorado court ruling, told the justices in a friend-of-the-court brief filed Thursday that he disagreed with the state court’s finding that the Constitution’s so-called insurrectionist ban applies to the presidency.

But he also stressed that if the justices in Washington, DC, leave the Colorado ruling intact, the consequences “will extend far beyond the dispute over President Trump’s eligibility,” potentially incentivizing voters and decisionmakers in states to find ways to kick candidates off the ballot for their own personal and professional benefit…

He’s pulling out Nixon’s 1952 vice-presidential playbook: Attempting to position himself as the second-in-command choice most popular with the GOP’s rabid right wing. (Whether VR, like RMN, is also ratf*cking horsetrading behind the scenes is something we can’t yet know)…

America First! (of dank historical record):

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