Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Books are my comfort food!

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

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

All hail the time of the bunny!

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

This really is a full service blog.

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

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

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    34Comments

    9. 9.

      Spanky

      A Balloon Juice miracle! The Creator laid his hands upon the blog, and it was healed!

      Or maybe “just” Watergirl working her usual magic.

      Reply
    11. 11.

      Martin

      I mean, if you were to power a website using squirrels it would sometimes work, just not always work. We’re in the powered by squirrels reliability state.

      Reply
    13. 13.

      Scout211

      Recent comments are still stuck.

      OTR still displays a 404 error.

      But as Baud reported, the site opens to the most recent thread.  So the front door is now open.

      Reply
    16. 16.

      WhatsMyNym

      OTR is flaky, seems to want to go to a page number instead of the title half of the time.​
       
      ETA: page number doesn’t exist.

      Reply
    17. 17.

      Spanky

      I’ll just note that the part of Maryland denied FEMA help is MAGA country.

      ANNAPOLIS, Md. —

      The Trump administration denied a request for disaster assistance for Western Maryland after floods caused damage across the region.

      “Based on our review of all the information available, it has been determined that supplemental federal assistance under the Stafford Act is not warranted. Therefore, I must inform you that your request for a major disaster declaration is denied,” a letter from FEMA to Gov. Wes Moore read.

      The storm turned the streets in the city of Westernport into a raging river when heavy rains caused the Georges Creek to reach near-record levels.

      In a statement, Moore said the state will appeal FEMA’s decision and seek “all available resources to support the recovery efforts, saying in part:

      “I requested federal disaster assistance for Allegany and Garrett counties on June 13. The request followed a swift and comprehensive assessment involving an in-depth review of damage costs, community impact and site visits to secure federal support as quickly as possible. Through the coordinated assessment process, FEMA, the Maryland Department of Emergency Management, and local officials estimated more than $15.8 million in emergency response costs and damage to infrastructure, including more than 200 homes, numerous businesses, roads and bridges, railroads, sewer systems, drinking water, and public utilities.

      “These estimates are above and beyond the thresholds for disaster assistance set by FEMA. Historically, if the joint damage assessment process demonstrates eligible costs over and above the county and State indicator, disaster assistance has been awarded by the President. Allegany County’s threshold for FEMA Public Assistance is $321,460 and Maryland’s is $11,674,953.

      “The State of Maryland immediately took action to make funding available directly to residents and businesses to assist with recovery. The Maryland Department of Emergency Management awarded Allegany County $459,375 from the State Disaster Recovery Fund on June 10. An additional $1 million was made available to Allegany and Garrett counties through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. We will continue to stand with our fellow Marylanders in Western Maryland as they rebuild from the damage caused in May.”

      In a joint statement from U.S. Sens. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Maryland, and Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, and U.S. Rep. April McClain Delaney, D-District 6, all echoed Moore’s statement, saying:

      “Marylanders in Allegany and Garrett Counties were hard-hit by May’s historically intense storms. Two months after flash flooding tore through these communities, they are still in need of support to repair public schools and libraries that were inundated, roads and bridges that were washed out, and homes and businesses that were left severely damaged. Even though the cost of the damage in these two rural Maryland counties exceeds the threshold for federal assistance, the Administration is refusing to come to their aid. We strongly urge the President to reconsider this decision and deliver federal resources to Allegany and Garrett Counties so they are not forced to shoulder the burden of recovery on their own.”

      Reply
    22. 22.

      New Deal democrat

      Since the site was still borked this morning, it ate a comment I made about the latest outrage from the Supreme Court.

      Roberts and the GOP6 want the lower courts to treat their unsigned, un-opinioned shadow docket orders as precedent. From yesterday’s ruling on the CPSC firings:

      “Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases.”

      The unanimous Supreme Court opinion from 90 years ago holding that the President may not fire some bureaucratic agency appointees except “for cause,” has in effect been overturned without so much as even full briefings and argument.

      You simply cannot say that we have “the rule of law” where a legal principle that has been accepted by Congress, Presidents, and previous Courts, without complaint, for more than entire human lifetime is wiped away on the whim of 6 people who believe “they know better.”

      Reply
    24. 24.

      Layer8Problem

      @Spanky:  ” . . . U.S. Rep. April McClain Delaney, D-District 6 . . . ”

      Western Maryland’s represented by a Democrat, who’da thunk?  That’s probably got something to do with vindictive administration assholes denying aid.

      Reply
    26. 26.

      Bill Arnold

      I saw precisely the same problem with rawstory about an hour ago; it was displaying a feed (usa news) with the newest content from yesterday.

      Cloudflare?

      Reply
    27. 27.

      lowtechcyclist

      @New Deal democrat: ​

      Roberts and the GOP6 want the lower courts to treat their unsigned, un-opinioned shadow docket orders as precedent.

      Would be great if a few of the circuits said, in effect, “Nope! We don’t know what this ruling really means in the absence of a majority opinion. Let us know when you’ve bothered to do the work, schmucks.”​

      Reply
    29. 29.

      Spanky

      @Layer8Problem:  I suspect it has more to do with Maryland in general being Blue, with a melanin-enhanced Governor. However, from Wikipedia:

      after redistricting in 2022, the district became much more competitive, giving up a portion of heavily Democratic Montgomery County in exchange for a more Republican-leaning portion of Frederick County. The district leans just slightly Democratic, with the heavily conservative, white, and rural regions of Western Maryland being balanced out by politically competitive Frederick County and heavily Democratic and culturally diverse suburbs in Montgomery County such as Gaithersburg and Germantown.[6]

      Reply
    31. 31.

      lowtechcyclist

      @Layer8Problem: ​

      Western Maryland’s represented by a Democrat, who’da thunk? That’s probably got something to do with vindictive administration assholes denying aid.

      Western Maryland is sparsely populated, so the district includes all of Frederick County and a good chunk of Montgomery County in order to have enough people in it for a MD Congressional district. So if whoever at FEMA is thinking of it down to this level, they’re punishing the two westernmost counties for being in the same CD as Frederick and part of Montgomery.

      My WAG is they’re not even thinking that much about it. They’re probably just going: “Maryland? Democrats. They can fuck off.”​

      ETA: Beaten to it by Spanky.

      Reply
    33. 33.

      WTFGhost

      @New Deal democrat: Roberts (for whom the term “chief justice” curdles my stomach) does, in fact, believe he “knows better” and he has no judicial humility. In a speech, or interview, he said people were just angry about the “correct” decision.

      Anyone working for the court that produced Dred Scott has no right, under any circumstances, no matter how specifically unique they may be, to say that they render, now, in the past, or in the future, the “correct” decision.

      Roberts would have his slaves trained as assassins to murder people who questioned his decisions in the 1860s, and he hasn’t changed his mind since.

      Reply
    34. 34.

      RevRick

      My sister-in-law and brother-in-law (MrsRev’s sister) came from Maine for a visit, yesterday. Coincidence?
      We took them to the America on Wheels museum this afternoon, and now this place seems to be running. Coincidence?

      Reply

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