Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
I am so busy I forgot to put up a post, and I don’t have time to write anything because the new episode of a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms drops in 15 minutes and we are HOOKED to this show it really is as good as the best seasons of GoT. Just the pacing, the story, ending every episode on the right note. Plus with all the big Game of Thrones feel and sound. Just great.
So here is a place if you do not want to talk about the misery going on in Ukraine. It’s so fucking depressing to think about.
(Image by NEIVANMADE)
All of eastern and central Ukraine – just over 2/3rds of the country – is under air raid alert at 3:30 AM local time/8:30 PM EST. While there’s no indication of drone swarms or inbound missiles on the air raid alert map as of now, these countrywide alerts are usually indications that one or both of those are coming.
President Zelenskyy sat for an interview with Politico yesterday.
❗️Zelenskyy: “A great mistake is to allow an aggressor to take anything. I do not want to be the president who repeats the same mistakes.”
“This was a great mistake right at the beginning, from 2014. I can even say it was earlier — when they attacked and occupied part of Georgia,
— 🪖MilitaryNewsUA🇺🇦 (@militarynewsua.bsky.social) February 15, 2026 at 10:23 AM
Zelenskyy to Politico:
“We had Budapest Memorandum, that was just security guarantees.
We gave nuclear weapons, and other different weapons, and a lot of jets, etc. Dozens of jets. And we’ve got security guarantees that our sovereignty will be ours, and we will have independence.
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 15, 2026 at 10:20 AM
At the end, we don’t have such weapons and we don’t have security guarantees, because Russia came and nobody attacked Russia. Nobody saved our independence.”
Moral of the story is you need nukes.
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 15, 2026 at 10:20 AM
Zelenskyy:
Europeans made a lot but didn’t put sanctions on nuclear energy, on Rosatom, on people, on their relatives, their children which live in Europe, in the US, study in the universities of Europe, have real estate in the US.
Fuck away to Russia! Go home!
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 15, 2026 at 10:44 AM
You don’t respect anybody in the US. You don’t respect rules. You don’t respect democracy. You don’t respect Ukraine, Europe, etc.
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 15, 2026 at 10:44 AM
Here’s the video:
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
War for Ukraine Day 1,452: Ukraine Faces Another Long Deadly NightPost + Comments (5)
Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Tonight, let’s talk all things olympics.
Best and worst opening and closing ceremonies!
Favorite Olympic events? Least favorite? Things that should be olympic events, but aren’t?
What about Olympic coverage? Do you love it? Hate it? Eyes glued? Never watch?
Best thing you’ve seen this year? How many years / decades since you’ve watched!
Why do you watch? Why did you stop watching?
Unrelated, or maybe semi-related, because they are both happening in the same timeframe – what about the Puppy Bowl last week? I used to love it, but now it seems filled with stupid chatter and so much product promotion that it’s hardly about the puppies anymore. Kind of like how I feel they have ruined the olympics for me, so commercialized, in both senses of the word. Anyone think the Puppy Bowl is still super cute? (My sister, for one.)
And here’s one for the pedants. Should it be Olympics all the time, or sometimes Olympics and sometimes olympics? Maybe I should just alternate between Capital and lower case, as I have here? Nah, consistency is key, so I would actually like to know. Is it Olympics if we are speaking generally, and olympic events if we are being more specific? And while we’re at it – Superbowl or Super Bowl? Superb Owl!
Also while we’re at it, feel free to carry on here about how much you love or hate football or sports or award shows or the olympics.
I can just see some DHS dipshit with an 8th grade education, two DUI’s and a restraining order after beating up his girlfriend going, “Dude, check this out,” while trying to use his new death laser to cut a minivan in half to grab a toddler.
— TBogg+ (@tbogg.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 10:04 PM
Our Trump Era version of Poe’s Law: Any snark about Trump-related events is all too liable to be mere reporting…
Wow, quite a story behind the surprise shutdown of El Paso's airport.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) February 14, 2026 at 10:45 PM
Per the NYTimes, “Inside the Debacle That Led to the Closure of El Paso’s Airspace” [gift link]:
Last spring, in the early months of Steve Feinberg’s tenure as deputy defense secretary, Pentagon staff members briefed him on plans to employ new high-energy laser weapons to take out drones being used by Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs across the southern U.S. border.
But their use was conditioned on getting a green light from aviation safety officials.
The law, the staff members at the Pentagon explained to him, required extensive coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Department, which could slow the testing of the system. Transportation officials could even block the system’s use if they determined that it posed risks to aviation safety.
Two people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive matters, said they recalled that Mr. Feinberg felt the Pentagon had the authority to proceed anyway. Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, denied their account, saying it was “a total fabrication.”…
Now the question of whether the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security followed proper procedures and the law in deploying the laser weapon has become a flashpoint within the Trump administration. Working alongside military personnel, agents from Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Homeland Security Department, used the weapon this week not far from El Paso International Airport, prompting fury inside the F.A.A. and a brief shutdown of the airport and airspace in that region.
Late Tuesday night, the F.A.A. administrator, Bryan Bedford, caught off guard that the system was being used without authorization and concerned for public safety, believed he had little choice but to close the airspace for 10 days, according to more than a half-dozen people. It was an extraordinary decision that surprised the flying public and local officials.
Open Thread: The GOP Fustercluck in El PasoPost + Comments (46)
Friends,
The New York Times reports that the Department of Homeland Security has sent Google (owner of YouTube), Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and other media corporations subpoenas for the names on accounts that criticize ICE enforcement. The department wants to identify Americans who oppose what it’s doing.
I’ll save them time.
I like this defiant Robert Reich!
Hello? Kristi Noem?
Robert Reich here. I hear you’re trying to find the names of people who are making negative comments on social media about ICE enforcement.
Look no further. I’ve done it frequently. I’m still doing it. This note to you, which I’m posting on Substack, is another example.
If you want more details, just type “Robert Reich” into an internet browser, followed by YouTube or Facebook or Instagram or X or TikTok or Reddit. Or Substack. Then type in your name, or ICE, or the Department of Homeland Security. That will give you plenty of evidence.
If you read what I’ve said, you’ll find it’s very critical. I’ve done some videos that are very critical of you and ICE, too.
Let me not mince words: I really truly believe you’re doing a sh*tty job.
I’ve said and will continue to say that many of the things you and ICE are doing are unconstitutional.
For example: Pulling people out of their homes in the middle of the night without search warrants. Arresting people without giving them due process of law to defend themselves. Putting innocent people into detention camps. Not giving them adequate food or medical care. Not letting their families know where they are. Sending them out of the country to brutal prisons in other lands. Even jailing children. Arresting journalists reporting on protests against you. And murdering two innocent Americans and not allowing a full criminal investigation of those murders.
All this is forbidden by the Constitution of the United States, Madam Secretary. The federal courts keep telling you this, but you and your department keep defying the courts. This is unconstitutional, too.
You’re even violating the Constitution by sending administrative subpoenas to Google, Meta, and all the rest, seeking accounts like mine that criticize what you’re doing.
I have a right under the First Amendment to criticize you without fear of the consequences.
It’s my government, Madam Secretary. You see the possessive pronoun I’m using? My government. It’s your government because you’re a citizen of the United States, not because you’re a government official.
You and your boss are supposed to be working for me and every other American. You swore an oath. The people of the United States hired the two of you to do your jobs, which doesn’t including spying on us or jailing us or trying to intimidate us or murdering us.
I was once a Cabinet officer like you are, Madam Secretary. I had a big office like you do. I had a big staff, like you do. Taxpayers paid for all of it, as they do for everything you’re up to — except when Congress stops the funding, as they have now, because you’re doing so many despicable things.
When I was in the Cabinet, Madam Secretary, I was acutely aware of my responsibilities to the Constitution of the United States. I told myself every day that I had sworn an oath to uphold it. I worked very hard every day to fulfill that responsibility.
I’m not boasting or bragging. I merely did my duty.
I visited communities where my department’s inspectors were attempting to keep people safe, to make sure they were doing what they were supposed to be doing.
I did what federal judges told me to do.
I invited criticism of me and my department. That was an important way to get feedback on what we were doing, to learn if we were making mistakes, to improve the way we served the public. Feedback is very useful in a democracy. You might even say it’s essential to democracy.
What the hell are you doing, Madam Secretary?
Robert Reich
So many good people rising to the occasion.
.
I have Tivo set to automaticaly record anything with Sidney Poitier, and this popped up for next Saturday.
Reel America
Hollywood Roundtable DiscussionHarry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, James Baldwin, Charlton Heston and Joseph Mankiewicz talk about their participation in the August 28,1963 March on Washington.
It’s showing on TV on C-SPAN 2, but I’m guessing it’s also available online.
Link from Sure Lurkalot (thank you!)
Marlon Brando, Actor
James Baldwin, American writer, and civil rights activist, and author of The Fire Next Time – with Robert Kennedy
Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Charlton Heston at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963
Joseph Mankiewicz, Director
*****
Charlton Heston – “radical to right wing” – is a good reminder of how people can change.
In both directions. See also, Cole, John G.
*****
If anyone else is interested in watching this, I would love to put up a post so we can discuss it.
Anyone interested in a zoom discussion? (at a different time from the post)
Let me know in the comments.
Open thread.
He’s certainly done a lot for pedophiles.
— Rep. Jim McGovern (@repmcgovern.bsky.social) February 7, 2026 at 6:04 PM
Lots of stuff going on last week, but I wanted to highlight the distinction between our own Democratic Christians and the GOP’s ‘perfect’ Christianists…
The difference could not be more stark.
— Democrats (@democrats.org) February 5, 2026 at 3:56 PM
"Trump has become a parody of a 1980s televangelist, openly grifting his followers for massive amounts of cash. (His ballroom is practically his own Heritage USA.) But Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart put on a more convincing show." — @playtyperguy.com
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 14, 2026 at 12:50 PM
Trump’s ‘Perfect People’, per Stephen Robinson at Public Notice:
… According to a recent Pew poll, 69 percent of white evangelical Christians approve of his job performance. That number has dropped slightly from last year, but the investment Trump made in winning over religious conservatives continues to pay dividends.
The question is what any self-proclaimed religious person gets out of the deal…
The closest Trump ever comes to genuine religious conviction is his insistence, despite all contrary evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Otherwise, he sees religion through the same distorted funhouse mirror that he views the world. It’s all about dominance and power, never humility and compassion.
For instance, Trump boasted about his administration’s effectiveness killing people in countries that are far less powerful than our own.
“We knocked the hell out of them the other day in Nigeria because they were killing Christians,” he blathered. “When Christians come under attack, they know they’re going to be attacked violently and viciously by President Trump.”…
Peter Wehner at The Atlantic argues that Trump’s evangelical supporters regard his “viciousness as a virtue,” and at the prayer breakfast, Trump invoked Southern Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress’s cynical description of him: “He may not have ever read the Bible, but he will be a much stronger messenger for us.” …
Trump even flexed his mobster muscle at this year’s breakfast — not so subtly threatening his own supporters if they don’t stay in line.
“We worked hard on getting rid of the Johnson Amendment,” he said. “You can say anything you can. Now, if you do say something bad about Trump, I will change my mind and I will have your tax exempt status immediately revoked.” …
There is no clear blueprint for religious faith. People can choose to find in the scripture either moral inspiration or callous vindication. Religious conservatives had long sought someone who’d help them justify their own selfishness and cruelty. This makes Trump their ideal leader. He wields religion as a blunt instrument, one that can only injure and never heal. He’s incapable of even trying to seek grace through his faith, as that would require admitting his sins and working toward genuine redemption.
The reason Trump’s unhinged, hateful remarks at this year’s prayer breakfast don’t disgust his far-right evangelical supporters is that they share his seething cultural resentment and endless persecution complex. For them, his unrestrained rage and open contempt for their mutual enemies resonates greater than a true sermon.
Back in 2017, Trump read from the script he assumed was necessary to maintain his support among evangelicals, who he probably didn’t fully understand. Almost a decade later, Trump knows religious conservatives and their motivations well enough that he doesn’t feel a need to perform anymore. Like his supporters, he’s stopped pretending he’s anything other than his worst self.
Devil worshipper
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 9:08 PM