Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

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

Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.

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

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

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

Come on, man.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Books are my comfort food!

You are here: Home / Archives for 2024

Archives for 2024

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Joe Biden, Still Our President

by | 80 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

******

Tuesday Morning Open Thread 17

(Clay Bennett via GoComics.com)

 

show full post on front page

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Joe Biden, Still Our PresidentPost + Comments (80)

North Carolina Supreme Court race update

by | 36 Comments

This post is in: 

North Carolina Justice Allison Riggs has opened a lead of 623 votes (practically a landslide given where we were this am).

That’s because Forsyth Co. just added its provisional ballots.

Forsyth was 1 of just 2 counties that hadn’t reported its provisionals. Other, Craven, much smaller. Near over.

— Taniel (@taniel.bsky.social) November 18, 2024 at 9:10 PM

It sure looks like Democrat Allison Riggs has defended her seat on the state Supreme Court.

This win was a necessary but insufficient step to any pathway of a Democratic majority on the court by 2028. The Dems had lost several seats in squeakers over the past four years so winning one in a squeaker is a good thing.

Assuming this leads holds up in the recount, the North Carolina Democratic Party did really well at the state level this cycle.

North Carolina Supreme Court race updatePost + Comments (36)

On The Road – comrade scotts agenda of rage – Pomeroy Lakes Colorado

by | 11 Comments

This post is in: ,

comrade scotts agenda of rage

I’ve been 4-wheel camping and backpacking with a friend since the early 80s.  When doing the former, we typically find places that are tough to drive into, then do some moronically tough day hike as part of the trip.  Despite both of us being in our 60s, we do these hikes as if we were back in college together in the early 80s.

Pomeroy Lakes is a typical trip.  You go south from Denver on US-285 until you get to Nathrop, then head west.  When heading into the mountains, that takes you thru one of our more noted “ghost” towns, St Elmo.  The old narrow-gauge RR grade heads up to an actual ghost town, Hancock, itself a popular place for camping and out-of-state hunters in season.

Before you get there, you take a side route that leads to the Lakes.  This route goes past the Mary Murphy Mine, another wonderful shambling wreck of a place typical of the Colorado mountains.  The entire area is chock full of fantastic camping sites, 4-wheeling, backpacking and views like these.

We would only go so far to the lakes since our 4-wheel vehicle doesn’t have all the clearance to make it to where the first lake is located.  Instead, we found a spot, pitched camp, then hiked the rest of the way the next day to include going up to a razor back ridge.  Probably for the first time in our lives, the two of us said “Maybe we’re getting too old for hikes like this one.”

On The Road – comrade scotts agenda of rage – Pomeroy Lakes ColoradoPost + Comments (11)

On The Road - comrade scotts agenda of rage - Pomeroy Lakes Colorado 4
Pomeroy Lake ColoradoSeptember 3, 2023

View of where we’re going from lower Pomeroy Lake.

Late Night Kremlinology Open Thread (For Entertainment Purposes Only)

by | 91 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Thing about Kremlinology — fellow Olds will remember — is that it can be very difficult to parse out the difference between actual disagreements & kabuki theater intended to send a message, frequently to more than one audience. Per Axios:

… The friction between Musk and Boris Epshteyn — a top adviser who’s pushed for Cabinet picks that include Matt Gaetz for attorney general — surfaced in public last week. It signaled a rivalry stemming from Musk’s growing influence on the president-elect, to the dismay of some Trump loyalists.

* Musk — who fueled Trump’s election effort by giving at least $119 million — has questioned whether Epshteyn has had too much influence in Trump’s selections, especially his top Justice Department picks and the White House counsel, three people familiar with the conversations told Axios.

* At the same time, Musk has begun to push for his own Cabinet favorites.

* Epshteyn has bristled at Musk’s questioning the qualifications of Epshteyn’s favored candidates, two of the sources said.

Zoom in: Their rocky relationship came to a head last Wednesday during a heated discussion at a dinner table in front of other guests at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, three people familiar with the episode told Axios.

* At one point during what the sources described as a “massive blowup” and a “huge explosion,” Musk accused Epshteyn of leaking details of Trump’s transition — including personnel picks — to the media.

Zoom out: The rift between Musk and Epshteyn wasn’t a surprise to Trump senior staffers and confidants who’ve seen tensions between them bubble up during the transition meetings at Mar-a-Lago that began shortly after the Nov. 5 election….

 
Potential Easter egg, the NYTimes article referenced by Axios is a joint Maggie Haberman / Jonathan Swan piece on “The Trump Lawyer Who Wields Outsize Influence on the Next White House” [gift link]:

President-elect Donald J. Trump was flying to Washington for his first face-to-face meeting with President Biden since winning the election when a top aide offered a startling idea to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.

The adviser, Boris Epshteyn, who coordinated the legal defenses in Mr. Trump’s criminal cases, suggested to the president-elect that he should be Mr. Trump’s special envoy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to four people briefed on what took place.

show full post on front page

Late Night Kremlinology Open Thread (For Entertainment Purposes Only)Post + Comments (91)

Monday Night Open Thread

by | 130 Comments

This post is in: 

Starting to feel a lot better and would even put myself at around 65-70%. Went to go get a recliner off facebook market today for 125 bucks, drove 45 minutes, and the fucker stood me up. I still need a seat besides the one at my computer desk that is comfortable. Joelle loves the couch, but I can last about ten minutes on it before things hurt. Getting old sucks.

Here’s a fun story– a pig was running wild in Washington state and they named it Notorious P.I.G.

Somewhat related, I have become infatuated with hairless cats and oriental short hairs, and if you are ok with giving all your information to the chicoms, there is a tiktok account of a hairless cat named Nudicras who I follow. Here is the instagram.

Can you still say chicom? It’s just short for chinese communist, right? Or is that going to get me canceled? Fuck it, cancel me. I’m ready for it. I’ll fuck off somewhere and drive a school bus or something.

I’m trying to find the right balance between the existential fear i have for this upcoming government with finding productive things to do about it while not sending everyone into a froth. But I think an early marker is if they can not find a way to block Gaetz and Hegseth, there ain’t no cavalry coming ever. No one is gonna stop them from doing shit. The only thing that might slow things down is if the stupidity tanks the economy so bad that the cost of living becomes so unpleasant that the half of the country in the klan will pass up on their favorite past times of telling everyone how christian they are while watching the government brutalize and terrorize the people they hate- the poor, the brown, the immigrant. And then we have to hope there are still Democrats willing to run in 2026.

So that’s where I am mentally and why I have been loathe to post here because I don’t want to be told I am being a doomsayer or that I am right. Both options fucking blow.

Monday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (130)

War for Ukraine Day 999: Rolling Blackouts Return & Odesa Is Again in the Crosshairs

by | 9 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

A quick housekeeping note: Rosie is still doing great. We went about 2/10ths of a mile farther this evening, her pace was much faster, and she was not dragging the last few tenths of a mile home. Thank you for all the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations to help cover her chemo.

As a result of Russia’s targeting Ukraine’s power generation and transmission system, which is a war crime, rolling blackouts have returned to Ukraine.

For the first time in months, rolling power outages and the growl of countless power generators emanating from Kyiv’s streets are back, following Russia’s massive missile and drone attack against Ukraine on Sunday.

— Christopher Miller (@christopherjm.bsky.social) November 18, 2024 at 11:38 AM

Power outages in Bucha, the third season, yay!

— Illia Ponomarenko (@ioponomarenko.bsky.social) November 18, 2024 at 11:15 AM

Russia also targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure in Odesa early today. This is also a war crime.

Ukraine’s Zelensky said Russia launched a “barbaric” missile attack on Odesa, killing 8 people. “Innocent lives were lost & many people were injured—lives that could have been saved if we had the capability to destroy Russian launch systems, supply chains, arsenals, & war factories at their source.”

[image or embed]

— Christopher Miller (@christopherjm.bsky.social) November 18, 2024 at 7:28 AM

Odesa these minutes. Russian forces launched a ballistic missile, striking a residential area in the city.

[image or embed]

— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) November 18, 2024 at 5:37 AM

There are a lot if videos and still images of the aftermath of the strike bouncing around online and on social media, many from official Ukrainian sources. They are very graphic. I have seen them, you do not need to look for them or see them.

Russia also opened up on Sumy only hours after the previous genocidal strikes on civilians and civilian targets there.

Hours after a missile strike on a residential building in Sumy killed 10 civilians, including two children, and injured more than 50 people, russian forces launched another attack on the city, targeting infrastructure and plunging it into darkness.

[image or embed]

— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) November 17, 2024 at 6:08 PM

President Zelenskyy did a battlefield circulation to Kupyansk and Pokrovsk today, which is where he delivered his address. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

show full post on front page

War for Ukraine Day 999: Rolling Blackouts Return & Odesa Is Again in the CrosshairsPost + Comments (9)

Monday Evening Open Thread: ‘The Narrowest of Margins’

by | 56 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Donald Trump's "landslide" victory was secured by votes equal to the population of Fargo, North Dakota. Add up all the rest of the states that flipped from 2024 — and Kamala Harris only fell short of a “Biden-esque national landslide” by about 300,000 votes.
www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/the-narrow…

[image or embed]

— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg.bsky.social) November 18, 2024 at 4:48 PM

Dana Houle, one of my favorite political commentors, linked to this — Garrett M. Graff on “How to think about Donald Trump’s narrow, narrow victory”:

… The most important and least important headline of the weekend was that as the final votes of 2024 continue to be counted, Donald Trump slid beneath 50 percent of the popular vote. With about 152 million votes counted, and more still to come, Donald Trump is sitting just a tiny bit below 50 percent of that total…

And yet, it’ll be a reshaping and a path that a majority of voters who showed up for the election victory actually opposed. For all the talk of the “country moving right,” by almost every vote tally the nation has voted more Democratic over the last generation than it has Republican. Here’s a stunning way to think about it: No American born after 1987 had ever voted in an election where the Republican won the popular vote. Now they have—but barely…

Donald Trump’s election the first time in 2016 was the result of just 80,000 votes across three states — just six-hundredths of one percent of the race’s 137 million votes. That time around, his winning margin was just 10,704 votes in Michigan, 46,765 in Pennsylvania, and 22,177 in Wisconsin. Had those votes shifted or had 80,001 more voters in those states turned out for Hillary, President Clinton would have likely filled out a more liberal Supreme Court during her term and Roe would still be the law of the land, probably for a generation.

The winning margin in the electoral college this time around appears like it’s going to be about 130,000 votes—so bigger than 2016, in one sense, but Trump’s popular vote victory will rank as one of the tightest in modern US history. We’re still waiting for final counts, but it appears Wisconsin’s margin will be a difference of about 16,000 votes shifting; Pennsylvania about 72,000 voters; Michigan about 41,000. Even as it is, in neither Wisconsin nor Michigan does Trump appear to win a majority of votes.

Put that margin up against the idea that nationally nearly five times as many Americans — 634,858 voters — voted for some guy named Chase Oliver, the Libertarian candidate for president. (Or heck: Both Jill Stein and RFK Jr. each tallied about 750,000 votes nationally.)…

show full post on front page

Monday Evening Open Thread: ‘The Narrowest of Margins’Post + Comments (56)