Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

The National Guard is not Batman.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Let me file that under fuck it.

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

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Their freedom requires your slavery.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

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

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

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

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

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

The revolution will be supervised.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

People are weird.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

You are here: Home / Open Threads / It’s Not the Size of the Dog in the Fight (Open Thread)

It’s Not the Size of the Dog in the Fight (Open Thread)

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Not the biggest fan of Newson these days, but if all our allies in this fight have to be perfect, it’s gonna be a very lonely loss.

I am not interested in fighting with one hand tied behind my back, so I love seeing a response like this.

Republicans count on us playing by the rules.  The old rules, from the time when comity was a thing. The time for that is long gone.  More of this, please.

It's Not the Size of the Dog in the Fight

It's Not the Size of the Dog in the Fight 1

 

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94Comments

  3. 3.

    sukabi

    there’s a name for that strategy, I read about it earlier this week… for the life of me I can’t remember what it was called…

  5. 5.

    Archon

    Liberalism fatal flaw is it’s adherence to the rules even when their enemies break them.

  8. 8.

    Ramona

    Ghislaine Maxwell has been moved to a minimum security facility in Texas. Unprecedented for a convict so early in a sentence.

  10. 10.

    Eyeroller

    The current Supreme Court will probably discover that since the Founders didn’t allow minorities (which might have included Germans) to vote, discrimination against minority/Democratic voters is perfectly constitutional, but discrimination against white Republicans is unlawful.  But California should do this anyway.  Every state with full Democratic control should do it.

    Obeying norms is like a game of Prisoner’s Dilemma and it’s been shown that at least one of the best strategies for repeated games is tit-for-tat.

  12. 12.

    lowtechcyclist

    Fuck yeah, let’s gerrymander blue states good and hard.

    Let’s not overlook Colorado. The Cook PVI of its districts is D+29, D+20, D+11, D+8, Even, R+5, R+5, and R+8. Right now those last four are all in GOP hands. All the Dems would have to do is spread their statewide advantage evenly over the districts, and they’d all be D+6, and we’d win all 8 seats in 2026, going from 4-4 to 8-0. So gerrymander the fuck out of CO so that there are no even or GOP leaner seats.

  16. 16.

    NeenerNeener

    @Ramona: I don’t expect Maxwell to live very much longer no matter where she is. She’s a danger to TACO even if she signs an NDA and enters a convent that practices silence.

  17. 17.

    bbleh

    @WaterGirl: all that yes. But ya gotta admit, it’s overtly hilarious. Shame we have to live it but omg it is to laugh. It’s opera buffa, in our own real lives!

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    I’m not a fan of Newsom, but I do love a Mean Democrat. Even better if they’re funny-mean. I can get behind this.

  19. 19.

    WaterGirl

    @NeenerNeener: Are there windows to fall out of  in the minimum security prisons

    Seriously, though, I thought rapists, child molesters and sex traffickers were the least popular people in prisons.  She might have been better off where she was.

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    @eclare: Yes!  It’s our second day of 75 degrees here.  We get one more before it goes back up.  What a relief while it lasts.

  23. 23.

    sukabi

    @Baud: lolol

     

    fitting but no…. the article I read was  centered around dealing with problems created by narcissists …

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    If I am only likely to watch one, would you guys recommend the Hunter Biden interview with Channel 5 or Hunter Biden on the Jamie Harrison podcast?

  29. 29.

    Soapdish

    OK, so does this extreme gerrymandering work out in favor of Team R or Team D?  What states would enact it and what would the partisan breakdown be?  Rs get all of TX, FL etc., Ds get NY, CA, etc.  Who’s looked at what states have a supermajority (or at least control of the Gov and state house/senate) that would enable a side to supergerrymander?

  33. 33.

    HopefullyNotcassandra

    Oh yeah!  The norms and even laws are worthless when the people in power are breaking all of them.

    Thank you Governor Newsom !

    “You ask, I’m going to use your words ‘Who’s to blame?’ Know this. That’s the word choice of losers.” Greg Abbott 

    Over 100 dead

    Who is to blame?  Folks like Abbott who lied and refused money from President Biden which well spent would have saved every life!!

    Joni Ernst “We are all going to die.”

    Well Senator, before that happens, we Americans are going to make it difficult for you and the Trumpery team to eradicate the United States of America   !

    Thank you Governor Newsom !

    Please, sir, may we have some more?

  35. 35.

    Nukular Biskits

    Good evenin’, y’all.

    Republicans count on us playing by the rules. The old rules, from the time when comity was a thing. The time for that is long gone. More of this, please.

    Shorter: FUCK CIVILITY.

    My name is Nukular Biskits and I approve this message

  37. 37.

    NutmegAgain

    All I can say is I love looking at pictures of Danes. So beautiful!  I had to relinquish my most recent dog back to rescue, which has been so unbelievably painful. But he was 140 lbs, and got super reactive outside the house & yard. Honestly it was not safe for either of us. But I’m in talks with some other giant breed rescues, to see about fostering. I’m guessing it’s mainly mill dogs who need a foster, and I’m up for that. I’ve fostered a couple puppy mill Newfys, and it’s so gratifying to see them able to be placed in a well matched home.

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    Jackie just sent this to add to the discussion.

    Someone Waived Ghislaine Maxwell’s Sex Offender Status to Move Her to a Minimum Security Camp in Texas, by Allison Gill, Aug 1.

    According to sources, you can’t move someone with a Public Safety Factor (PSF) designation – which Maxwell had – without waiving it. That’s what happened here.

    About an hour ago, CNN and NBC reported that Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a minimum security camp in Texas.

    According to sources who have spoken on the condition of anonymity, she has been moved to FPC Bryan, about 100 miles northwest of Houston.

    The reason for the move is listed as a “lesser security transfer” (code 308) according to a transfer document I reviewed, which is completely inappropriate of for inmates who are in the early stages of serving their sentences, according to another source. “This is such obvious corruption. I have never seen this before,” said another person at BOP familiar with the situation.

    The unit that approves waivers for sex offenders to be moved to minimum security camps is the Designation and Sentence Computation Center near Dallas. Currently, the senior deputy assistant director is Rick Stover, a career BOP employee who speaks frequently with White House officials.

    I can’t help but wonder whether this is part of a deal struck between Maxwell and Blanche in exchange for her testimony.

    If you have any additional information on the waiver or the transfer, please feel free to reach out to me on Signal at Muellershewrote.23; I will keep you anonymous. And while all my content is always free, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber to support independent media.

  40. 40.

    Soapdish

    Republican Trifecta in 23 states controlling 208 House seats
    Democratic Trifecta in 15 states controlling 152 House seats.

    If this goes nuclear it will certainly be interesting to see what happens.

  43. 43.

    sab

    • My American Staffordshire Terrier (fondly known as our dear pitbull) had her ears all chewed up and damaged by chihuahua siblings riding around attached to her ears. They clamped on while she raced around the yard with chihuahuas on her ears, everyone barking in glee.
    • Chihuqhuas can bark while hanging on ears. Pitbulls can bark while peeing and simultaneously holding a milkbone in their mouth.
  47. 47.

    HopefullyNotcassandra

    @Jackie:  no doubt

    Redistricting California politically is not becoming the trumpery team.  It is recognizing reality.

    Redistricting California rids no-one of their healthcare.  Redistricting New York throws nobody into a concentration camp.  Redistricting Illinois halts zero cancer research and starves absolutely zero children.  Redistricting New England imprisons neither man nor woman without due process.  Redistricting Colorado bankrupts absolutely no farmer anywhere.

    Redistricting blue states might end all of the trumpery team’s evil and give us a real chance to end that evil for decades.   

    May a wonderful Friday be upon you!

  49. 49.

    persistentillusion

    @lowtechcyclist: Good luck gerrymandering CO CD-5. Currently El Paso Co, only.  Home to five military installations and the 4th largest number of military retirees.  We’ve been trying for a lot of years.

  53. 53.

    sab

    @Soapdish: Didn’t Tom Delay in Teaxas do extreme gerrymandering and thereby lose his seat? (Same number of voters, spread into different districts. He included too few Republicans in his. Overconfident.)

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Just rub it in, why don’t ya?

    I don’t know…

    I think a C student gets to totally brag about getting an A on something, and I think anyone who has lived with the heat dome these past several weeks gets to exalt in a break for the hideous heat.

    It’s those 75-degrees all the time California peeps who don’t get to say a fucking thing about their weather this summer. :-)

  56. 56.

    Ramona

    @Jackie: do you recall who reported this? I saw on Axios that Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s family have spoken out about this transfer. I don’t want to link to Axios.

    Julie K Brown the Miami Herald reporter who relaunched this sordid tale said on the Daily Beast YouTube channel that Maxwell believes Epstein was murdered and fears for her safety.

  57. 57.

    Fair Economist

    @WaterGirl:

    Seriously, though, I thought rapists, child molesters and sex traffickers were the least popular people in prisons. She might have been better off where she was.

    Oh, now she’s in with all the financial criminals – mostly Republicans. They’re going to be nice to her to get tips on luring underage girls.

  58. 58.

    HopefullyNotcassandra

    @sab: Tom Delay got indicted for being a bigger grifter than Bob Ney ever dreamed of becoming.
    Somehow that indictment went poof.

    Jack Abramof must be so confused.

  59. 59.

    Splitting Image

    @Soapdish:

    OK, so does this extreme gerrymandering work out in favor of Team R or Team D? What states would enact it and what would the partisan breakdown be? Rs get all of TX, FL etc., Ds get NY, CA, etc. Who’s looked at what states have a supermajority (or at least control of the Gov and state house/senate) that would enable a side to supergerrymander?

    In the long run it will benefit the Republicans. Gerrymanders make for bad government because congressmen can’t properly represent their districts when they snake around the map taking bits and pieces of different counties. Anything that makes good government impossible benefits the Republicans. It also plays into the lazy “both sides do it” cynicism, which also benefits Republicans.

    In the short term, it might help the Democrats in the next midterm election and in 2028, because most of the Republican states are already gerrymandered out the wazoo while many of the Democratic states are not. The Democrats winning in ’26 and ’28 is crucial to there being elections at all later on.

  61. 61.

    Ramona

    @NeenerNeener: I too used this thought to comfort myself but murder is not justice. Justice is when society acknowledges the harm the perpetrator does to the victim and metes out proportionate punishment. POTUS treating their victimizer leniently is a renewed subjection of the victims to the crimes perpetrated on them with impunity by the powerful and elevated in society.

  65. 65.

    Nukular Biskits

    @WaterGirl:

    For me, a “heat dome” is just another hot South MS day.

    Years ago, I was in SAN for business for a few weeks and flew the family out for a week. That weekend, we went to the Zoo. The temps were in the mid-80s, a little warm for coastal SoCal, perhaps, but that’s a spring day for me. Locals were complaining about the heat.

    It’s all relative.

  66. 66.

    Hoodie

    @Splitting Image: There’s also that elections have become nationalized anyway, so concentration on constituent service doesn’t seem to matter that much anymore.  The way to get that back would be to increase the size of the house and reduce the size of districts.

  67. 67.

    Ramona

    @NeenerNeener: if I were on a jury at Maxwell’s murder at the hands of a victim or family member of a victim, I’d do my best to convince my fellow jurors to acquit and if I fail, I’d hang the jury. Of course, I’ve just rendered myself ineligible  to sit on a jury.

  69. 69.

    Ramona

    @WaterGirl: Lev Parnas on The Left Hook right now anticipates Maxwell will be moved to Wit Sec within the Federal Prison system and we’ll no longer have eyes on her so she could be quietly pardoned.

    I want to SCREAM!!!!

  70. 70.

    sab

    That photo would not work at all with a grey chihuahua and an orange great dane. But of course orange great danes do not exist in nature. Grey chihuahuas probably do.

  71. 71.

    chemiclord

    @Jackie: There’s a degree that you worry about that scenario after the dust has settled.  At some point, you need to focus on the fight in front of you before you fret too much about the fight down the road.

    But make no mistake, as soon as that dust is settled, you better be ready to yank the chain on those that remain, because people in power have a rather annoying tendency to learn the wrong lessons from those they vanquish.

  72. 72.

    Soapdish

    @Splitting Image: They might be gerrymandered out the wazoo, but they can definitely become even *more* gerrymandered. We’re down 50 seats if that happens.  It’s not like they haven’t been using Project Redline for 15+ years now; they’ve got the maps.

  73. 73.

    Ramona

    @Jackie: As long as our goal is equality before the law and equitable distribution of the fruits of our collective labor and we work hard to never lie to ourselves, we are in no danger of becoming them.

    If they see that Blue states are willing to gerrymander if they gerrymander, they’ll likely back off. If they don’t and we win the House because of our gerrymander, we’d still legislate for the benefit of all. Republicans rule in order to ensure the misery of most, even of their voters. So what if a potential gerrymandered victory on our part results in getting their voters to eat their vegetables so to speak! They’ll be better off and have always been better off under Democratic ruling majorities since FDR!

  82. 82.

    Martin

    So, a 52 blue map likely throws a lot of incumbent Dems out of their districts. Even with each district D+10, you have to wonder how many reps will volunteer for unemployment or will the Dem caucus reject this idea. Not sure, but it’s not without cost.

    Will note that mutually assured destruction is a stable political state, but not a pleasant one. If we go down this road, better gear up for voting roll purges and limitations to access by the left, because that’s definitely next in the escalation by both sides. If you choose to go to war, you can’t afford to get squeamish.

  85. 85.

    Reverse tool order

    @WaterGirl: Well, I’m going to anyway. Yes, this year there has been a persistent low pressure area pulling in nice air off the Pacific. Sometimes we get the opposite flow from inland. Three years ago set an all-time record of 114 F. I’ve felt 110 near here several times. It’s true the most extreme heat is only for a few days bracketed by 90-100+. And it is always a dry heat with total rainfall of around one inch for the warmest half a year. A definite factor in combustion kinetics.

    Most of the inland great valley, Redding to Bakersfield, is a different, “continental” story. You just don’t hear from most of the population on Balloon Juice.

  86. 86.

    HopefullyNotcassandra

    @Martin:  alternative scenario

    Encouraging  the very lefty crew to come back  into the franchise and vote (it looks like there are 5+ million Joe Biden 2020 votes there)

    Helping those without faces thanks to leopard appetites back on their feet with kindliness aforethought and proving by our actions that the Goypers are lying about us and everything else

    I am quite certain there are other options which have not occurred to me this evening.

    Striping Americans of their franchise is not on the menu.  Revealing the emperor’s nakedness is.  IMHO

  87. 87.

    JoyceH

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: I think escape is the reason they moved her to minimum security. It took two days before Blanche was convinced she’d understood and would comply with his increasingly heavy-handed hints that her best bet was to disappear and live comfortably abroad with the money you know she has stashed somewhere. That would be the way she could get free from prison without Trump having to take more obvious action. “Whoops! She’s gone! Who coulda known?”

  88. 88.

    Marc

    @Ramona:  Of course, I’ve just rendered myself ineligible  to sit on a jury

    No, you won’t, you will not be asked any questions about that.  I did a little jury nullification once myself.  Late 70s Boston, I’m a 20-something black guy in a pool of 24 potential jurors for a trial.  Prosecutor systematically objects to all 3 black people in the pool, defense objects, discussion at the bench, I’m on the jury as the foreman.  Case is minor, homeowner in “white” suburban Medford files a calls about surprising two blacks kids in their kitchen when they come home, give basic description of clothes.  Police arrest 4 kids for running while black when they’re spotted a few blocks away.  Homeowner identifies two despite the fact they were not wearing the reported clothes at the time of arrest (minutes later), whole lot ends up on trial, no stolen property found with them.  First jury poll 11 to 1 guilty (guess who?).  I just said you believe the police when they say there are no black kids in that neighborhood, when I  have an aunt who lives two blocks away (true). If I had been on my way to her house that day, I’d also have run if a police car slowed down near me, and there would be 5 of us on trial today. There is no way I ever vote guilty.  Next poll 12 to 0 acquit, pragmatism wins ;)

  89. 89.

    wjca

    Not sure if Newsom is trying to mess with the heads of the Texas Republicans, or to hearten the Democrats.  But he has to know that he has NO influence over Congressional (or, for that matter, state legislative districts) in California.

    We’ve got a non-partisan board which draws the districts.  Mandated by a popular initiative, which means the legislature can’t touch it, even if they want to.  Which they do, of course.  And have since it was created.  Tough.

  90. 90.

    Martin

    @HopefullyNotcassandra: Oh, I think there are a lot of alternative scenarios, but they require alternate politics and so far we’ve only got a shift from ‘complain’ to ‘fight’, which is a good shift. I’m not sure that’s enough of a shift to do it, though. Maybe.

    Even though Dems have gained the party preference in to 2026 the party has a 28% approval rating. It’s got to be better than a race between a pile of shit and a pile of shit with sprinkles on it if Dems want to ensure a win. We’ve burned 9 months of a 24 month cycle and even with this move we’re on defense as it’s a response to Texas. Democrats need to figure out a message, and I don’t think Epstein alone is going to cut it.

    Regarding this fight shift, I’m not thrilled with what looks like both parties escalating toward violence, but I am pleased to see that Democrats are ready to kill some sacred cows. I wish they would do some of that on the policy side, but no sign of that yet.

  91. 91.

    Martin

    @wjca: There are two paths they are exploring – the more likely one is a ballot initiative in a special election this November, to rescind or modify that previous one or to simply put the proposed map before voters instead of the independent map. Doesn’t look like they plan to change the state legislature maps.

  92. 92.

    Martin

    @HopefullyNotcassandra: I would also note, we didn’t lose because of the lefty crowd. We lost because the working class abandoned us – white, black, and latino. Trump won working class voters for the GOP for the first time since ’84. Whatever lefty voters Harris lost were small in number compared to the loss of the working class.

  93. 93.

    Archon

    @wjca: Seems like a ballot initiative can restore making district maps back to the legislature. I suspect it would pass too since we live in a world where 40 Democratic Congressmen in the minority might as well be zero. Also people are pretty fed up with playing by rules Republicans won’t follow.

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