Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Finding joy where we can, and muddling through where we can’t.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

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

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Usually wrong but never in doubt

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

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

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

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

You cannot shame the shameless.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

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Archives for 2024

Blue in Red Places (Open Thread)

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This weekend I was driving to the grocery store, and I saw a crowd gathered at the courthouse square. It’s where local protests happen — I had the pleasure of taunting protesting “Stop the Steal” MAGA sore losers several times after 2020.

At first, from a distance, I took these folks for MAGA choads:

Distant crowd in front of courthouse

Then I took a closer look:

Guy with Harris-Walz sign

According to the local supervisor of elections, this county has around 120K voters. About 68K are Repubs, 28K are non-affiliated, and 22K are Dems.

We are outnumbered, but we are here, even in the reddest places. Open thread.

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New Angel Matches for Wisconsin and Pennsylvania State Races

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On Wisconsin!

I just received an email message from an Angel offering a $1k Angel match for WI and a $1k Angel match for PA.  (Sorry, OH!)

Matching up to $100 per person per thermometer.  To be matched, ell us about your donation in a comment or by email to WaterGirl

.

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Open thread.

New Angel Matches for Wisconsin and Pennsylvania State RacesPost + Comments (45)

Elon Gets a Letter

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Tim Sheehy – Unfit for the Senate – Caught in More Lies and Scandals Every Day

Elon, let’s start with you, shall we?

Mousebumples just sent me this.

The Justice Department’s head of election crimes sent a warning letter to Elon Musk’s America PAC Monday, alerting it that it was a crime to knowingly offer anything of value to register to vote or vote, a person familiar with the warning letter told 24sight News.

Robert Heberle, the head of the Justice Department’s election crimes branch, wrote in the brief warning letter to America PAC lawyer Chris Gober, that offering anything of value to influence voting was in violation of U.S. law barring payments to sway votes.

The warning letter did not specify any immediate legal action, according to the person familiar with the DOJ warning to Musk, but it did spell out the penalties for breaking U.S. voting laws, including possible imprisonment of up to five years.

Musk, an ultra-rich Trump mega-donor, has been offering $1 million to registered voters in swing states via a sweepstakes-style petition in support of the First and Second amendments. Musk has been touting the voting sweepstakes on his super PAC’s account on X.com and at rallies.

Legal experts have said that Musk’s requirement that sweepstakes entrants show they have registered to vote very likely breaks U.S. voting laws, as longtime election law expert Rick Hasen wrote on his blog Saturday.

I would call him a dipshit but Musk is so much worse than a dipshit.

Open thread.

 

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Wednesday Afternoon “News” Thread

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Tim Sheehy – Unfit for the Senate – Caught in More Lies and Scandals Every Day

I started putting together a post about John Kelly stepping up (finally!) but the noticed that Anne Laurie had already started composing a post about that for later.  So ix-nay on that.

Let’s make this a political news-sharing post.  What’s going on?

Anybody up for that?  Please include good news, too!!!

Oh, and the Jump, You Fuckers! image is directed at the media and awful Republican everywhere, not at BJ peeps.

Wednesday Afternoon “News” ThreadPost + Comments (218)

Tim Sheehy – Unfit for the Senate – Caught in More Lies and Scandals Every Day

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Tim Sheehy, a businessman, retired former Navy SEAL, is hoping to unseat three-term incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) next month.

And Montana public officials appear to be putting a lot more than a thumb on the scales in their apparent attempts to make voting an almost overwhelming challenge for Native people.  That should be a scandal in itself!

Tim Sheehy is also a racist pig, untrustworthy, and a lying sack of shit.

Exhibit 1: (Raw Story)

Tim Sheehy is hoping to unseat three-term incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) next month. But his campaign may have caught a snag after a park ranger came forward to dispute his story about a supposed war wound.

According to the Guardian, Sheehy has claimed that he was shot in the arm while on a combat tour in Afghanistan. But 67 year-old park ranger Kim Peach — a former ranger at Glacier National Park in Montana — is now saying that Sheehy’s gunshot wound was self-inflicted.

Initially, Peach made his allegations anonymously. But he has since come forward publicly in a recent interview with the Washington Post, recounting how he met the Republican Senate hopeful at an area hospital after the 2015 incident.

In that interview, Peach described how Sheehy’s gun accidentally went off while he was in his car, resulting in a bullet being lodged in his arm. The park ranger found a shell casing after inspecting the Montana businessman’s gun, and wrote up a $525 citation for discharging a firearm inside a national park.

“I remember Sheehy obviously being embarrassed by the situation but at the same time thankful that it wasn’t worse,” Peach said.

Exhibit 2: (NBC)

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: It’s the Waiting That’s Wearing Us Down

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This is a great — possibly our best — clip on why to vote for Kamala Harris:

Q: What concessions would you be willing to make on abortion?

Vice President Harris: More than 20 states now have Trump Abortion Bans, some with no exception for rape or incest. A basic freedom has been taken from the women of America. We need to put back in the protections of Roe v. Wade, and that cannot be negotiable.

And here’s the second-greatest clip of the morning!

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COVID-19 Coronavirus & H5N1 Updates: October 23, 2024

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This is an important story, and yet it doesn’t change what ‘we’ need to do right at the moment. “Inside the Bungled Bird Flu Response, Where Profits Collide With Public Health”:

… [O]n March 25, the USDA lab confirmed that dairy cows in Texas and Kansas had indeed been sickened by a form of bird influenza known as H5N1. Though versions of the so-called bird flu virus have circled the globe for almost two decades, spreading to species ranging from pelicans and polar bears to sea lions and skunks, the announcement stunned the scientific and agricultural communities. “Every honest virologist will tell you: We did not see this coming,” says Kimberly Dodd, dean of Michigan State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

With continued spread amongst cows, or to another “mixing-vessel” species like pigs, the virus “could mix and match, then you get a whole new genetic constellation,” says Jürgen Richt, regents and university distinguished professor at Kansas State University. Experts are hesitant to speculate about what could happen if the virus were to begin more widely infecting humans, for fear of spreading panic, but the toll could, in the worst case, dwarf that of COVID-19. If the virus “infects a person infected with a human flu strain, and something comes out that is reassorted and adapted to humans? I don’t even want to imagine,” Richt says. “Not good.”…

At that existential moment back in March, when the virus was first detected in cows, veterinarians involved in the response had every expectation that a well-honed network of experts, led by USDA scientists, would immediately rev to life.

But it didn’t. “Nobody came,” says one veterinarian in a Western state. “When the diagnosis came in, the government stood still. They didn’t know what to do, so they did nothing.”

Now, H5N1 has spread to more than 324 dairy herds in 14 states and has sickened at least 26 farm workers exposed to infected cows and poultry. Those numbers are widely assumed to be vast undercounts, as there is no formal nationwide surveillance program, many dairy farmers oppose testing, and few farm workers are being screened….

Big dairy farms — not least in places like central California, which sent Devin Nunes to Congress — are more concerned about minimizing their financial losses (profitable milk-producing bio-units turned into sunk cost disposals) than they are about a (so far) handful of low-wage human workers who’ve contracted a messy cold with pinkeye. State and national government agencies need to step up their enforcement, but that’s not something you or I or presumably anyone reading Balloon Juice has the power to command. So: Stay watchful, don’t drink raw milk, and wash your hands after any contact with farm animals, stray wildlife & ferals, or bird poop (cleaning feeders). Which I assume we’re all doing anyway!

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No new BNO numbers this week — I don’t know if the site has stopped reporting on covid (they’re still covering H5N1) or if it’s just a twitter glitch. Meanwhile, their previously dormant sister site has been reactivated:


PANDEMIC MITIGATION COLLABORATIVE

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COVID-19 Coronavirus & H5N1 Updates: October 23, 2024Post + Comments (31)