John Cole

Republicans in disarray:

Members of the House of Representatives came back from their two-week break on Tuesday night as planned, and cast votes to name no fewer than 14 post offices.

After accomplishing that, majority Republicans’ plans went awry.

By Wednesday morning, their efforts to renew a warrantless surveillance program that is set to expire next week had run into trouble, and a Democratic bid to force a vote to restore deportation protections that President Trump is trying to end for Haitians living in the United States was on track to succeed.

The one-two punch reflected divisions in the G.O.P. ranks that are on display at the least opportune time, with midterm elections only months away. It also showed how the party’s minuscule vote margin and the political headwinds it is facing have conspired to snarl its agenda.

And it underscored the dysfunction that has taken hold in the House, where a bipartisan deal to end the two-month-long shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security remains stalled while Republican leaders refuse to take it up because of resistance in their ranks.

I am not even sure what their agenda is and I read the entire article, but whatever it is their own internecine pissing contests are keeping them from it. The Senate, however, is busy kissing Trump’s ass:

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked the latest Democratic-led effort to curb President Trump’s authority to wage war on Iran, as a fragile cease-fire frays, dueling blockades choke traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and failed talks leave the next phase of the conflict uncertain.

The move to take up the measure failed on a vote of 52 to 47. It fell largely along party lines, with Republicans and a single Democrat, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, opposed and Democrats joined by a lone Republican, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, in favor.

I wish Fetterman would just fucking resign already. Or have his wife (or separated wife or whatever they are these days because they are not together) take his seat. I have not seen any horrifying headlines so I am assuming is just the usual awful in the middle east today.

Just absolute great news for everyone:

Wearing a penis costume to a No Kings rally is a 1st Amendment right. Alabama’s efforts to prosecute were firmly rejected today. www.al.com/news/2026/04…

[image or embed]

— Joyce White Vance (@joycewhitevance.bsky.social) April 15, 2026 at 5:39 PM

Does this mean it is also legal to wear a penis costume to the grocery store? Gym? Pharmacy? Asking for a friend.

Let’s check in on the male loneliness epidemic. Nope, not fucking lonely enough:

Around the world, teenage boys are saving Instagram and Snapchat images of girls they know from school and using harmful “nudify” apps to create fake nude photos or videos of them. These deepfakes can quickly be shared across whole schools, leaving victims feeling humiliated, violated, hopeless, and scared the images will haunt them forever.

The deepfake crisis hitting schools started slowly a couple of years ago, but it has since grown considerably as the technology used to create the explicit imagery has become more accessible. Deepfake sexual abuse incidents have hit around 90 schools globally and have impacted more than 600 pupils, according to a review of publicly reported incidents by WIRED and Indicator, a publication focusing on digital deception and misinformation.

The findings show that since 2023, schoolchildren—most often boys in high schools—in at least 28 countries have been accused of using generative AI to target their classmates with sexualized deepfakes. The explicit imagery, containing minors, is considered to be child sexual abuse material (CSAM). This analysis is believed to be the first to review real-world cases of AI deepfake abuse taking place at schools globally.

I honestly have no idea how we unfuck this mess. I really do not. I don’t know how you outlaw the technology because it is not going away. Maybe make it a felony to make a nude digital facsimile of someone without their consent? There has to be something that can be done but I don’t know what.

Checking in on the guy in charge of the nation’s health:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an avid animal genitalia researcher in his spare time, once pulled the family sedan to the side of the road after spying a dead raccoon and swiftly cut off its sex organs so he could “study them later.”

The bizarre account by the nation’s top civilian health official was unearthed in the new book “RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise,” authored by The Post’s own Isabel Vincent, who drew upon a wide range of sources including private journals he penned while living in New York City between 1999 and 2001.

“I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a road killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be,” reads a surreal passage in which the Health and Human Services head, 72, was reportedly lamenting his rocky relationships with his brother Douglas Kennedy and cousin Bobby Shriver.

What the fresh fuck is wrong with these people how do they keep doing such new and original weird shit?

Speaking of freaks:

For the second month in a row, Pete Hegseth, who likes to call himself “secretary of war,” read a violent prayer — that echoes a scene in the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction — during a worship service at the Pentagon on Wednesday (April 15) to bless the U.S. war against Iran and call for “great vengeance and furious anger.” Hegseth also argued that what they hear in the worship service should impact the policy and military decisions they make — including decisions related to the war.

“Fifteen minutes ago, I was talking about blockades with Admiral Cooper, and now we’re going to study the Lord’s word. And may what we talk about, how we worship today inform the remainder of our day and the remainder of our week and who we are and how we conduct ourselves, no matter what we’re doing,” he said. “That’s why I just wanted to share briefly this morning what my devotion was from this morning, from this very morning.”

Standing at the podium with his Bible stamped with a Jerusalem Cross and “Deus Vult,” Hegseth then read from Luke 7, when John the baptizer sent a couple of his disciples to ask Jesus if he really is the Messiah. Jesus responded by reminding them of the miracles they saw and how “the poor have good news preached to them.” Jesus added, “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

I suppose at least he is quoting from the holy bible Pulp Fiction edition and not arguing with the Pope about Just War Theory.

That’s enough from me. You all behave. And if you missed it (I missed a bunch because west coast time) make sure you watch the rebroadcast of the zoom book club with Tom Levenson when Watergirl reposts it. We’re so lucky to have so many smart people here I am not sure why you let me stick around.

Wednesday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (43)

Let’s do something new and different and check on some different garbage people for a change:

Anetwork of militant neo-Nazi active clubs from around the US has been participating in riot-style combat events with other white nationalist groups in Virginia as part of what their founder called a “tip-off point for a fascist cultural revolution”. Social media posts and group chats show members of so-called active clubs from Texas, Tennessee and Pennsylvania have in recent weeks and months traveled to Lynchburg, Virginia, to train together at a secretive compound. The compound is run by the Wolves of Vinland, which the civil rights watchdog the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as a neopagan white nationalist hate group. Also present were members of the white supremacist hate group Patriot Front and the neo-Nazi skinhead group known as the Hammerskins. Active clubs, a loose network of localized white supremacist groups, were founded by the violent neo-Nazi Robert Rundo, who served jail time in 2024 for conspiring to stage riots at California political rallies.

Active clubs, a loose network of localized white supremacist groups, were founded by the violent neo-Nazi Robert Rundo, who served jail time in 2024 for conspiring to stage riots at California political rallies.

Experts have warned that these groups, which mix rightwing extremism with fitness and combat sports to recruit and radicalize members of communities across the US, pose a potential public danger.

A Guardian investigation found that participants in the Virginia gatherings included a Georgia-based licensed school teacher, a one-time West Virginia police officer who now runs a grappling gym catering to small children, a Tennessee emergency medical technician, the son of a prominent Maine anti-abortion activist and the owner of a Vermont dog-walking business.

In some somewhat related news:

Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia has signed into law a bill to end tax exemptions for a slate of Confederacy-related organizations in the state.

The signing by Ms. Spanberger on Monday is the culmination of a yearslong Democrat-led push to shake off the state’s legacy as the capital of the 11 Southern, slaveholding states that seceded from the country in the 1860s.

The new law’s most significant target is the United Daughters of the Confederacy, founded in 1894 for descendants of Confederates. The organization’s stated purpose is to honor the members’ ancestors through, among other things, working with homeless shelters, food banks and other civic groups. Throughout its history, the group built hundreds of Confederate memorials around the country, which have become flash points for protests over historical memory and racial injustices in the last decade.

In the past, the organization has said that losing the decades-old tax breaks could hinder its ability to maintain its headquarters in Richmond and carry out its operations.

This shit matters and the reason you can tell it matters is because this is going to infuriate Republicans and MAGA. The other day Spanberger signed this bill:

Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed Del. Dan Helmer’s bill to end the renewal of commemorative Robert E. Lee license plates in Virginia Wednesday, according to a press release.

A portion of the sale of these plates has previously supported the neo-Confederate organization known as the Sons of the Confederacy.

“The Confederacy was a four year period in which traitors hellbent on preserving slavery tried – and then failed – to divide the Union,” said Helmer in a statement. “The Confederacy and its leaders do not deserve our commemoration, and its adherents certainly do not deserve taxpayer dollars.”

Robert E. Lee and a lot of them should have been hanged as traitors and we should have listened to Thaddeus Stevens. Give Democrats a majority and governorship, and they can do good shit.

In local news, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette has a reprieve of sorts:

Barely two weeks before it was due to shut down, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said Tuesday it had found a last-minute buyer — a successful nonprofit journalism operation that has agreed to keep the struggling newspaper open.

The resolution to a months-long worry in western Pennsylvania about the paper’s shutdown comes at a difficult moment for the American newspaper industry, which has shed jobs, resources and sometimes entire companies due to the upending of the traditional revenue model by the internet at the beginning of this century.

The Post-Gazette dates its ancestry to 1786, the first newspaper to open west of the Allegheny Mountains, and its closure would have left Pittsburgh as the nation’s largest community without a city-based paper.

It will still publish twice a week and maintain a web presence, so that is, I suppose, better than it just dying. Still sad, though.

Every time I read shit like this I blow a fucking gasket it makes me so mad:

In testimony to Congress last month, David Steiner, the postmaster general, delivered a dire warning. Without drastic measures, he said, the U.S. Postal Service could run out of cash in less than a year.

He called on lawmakers to consider significant changes to save money, like allowing the service to increase prices, decrease delivery days and rethink revenue-losing routes.

On Thursday, the Postal Service proposed increasing the cost of stamps by 5 percent, and said that it would temporarily suspend some payments to a government retirement fund.

The push for belt-tightening comes after the Postal Service’s most profitable product, first-class mail, has been in decline for about two decades. In fiscal years 2024 and 2025, the service incurred net losses of $9.5 billion and $9 billion — roughly 10 percent of its operating budget.

There is nothing wrong with the fucking postal service- well, there are tons of things wrong but nothing that can not be fixed and nothing that hasn’t been caused by criminal underfunding and making delivering the fucking mail a partisan issue. The post office is fucking GREAT. Just yesterday I got a package of mail that was sent to me from West Virginia by Gerald. It was postmarked on Friday. A package- a box of things that are important to me, was dropped off in the middle of fucking nowhere West Virginia, transported safely all the fucking way across the country, and delivered to me with little more than my name and a street address. Almost as fast as you could drive it yourself, and for under a couple dollars. It does not get better than that. This and our modern logistics (don’t get me started on tap water and that miracle) are absolute fucking wonders of the world.

The problem here is that there’s money to be made and the Republicans are and always will be crooks, so they want to get their hands on it and their friends hands on it, so we run the fucking thing like private equity runs a restaurant chain instead of how it is supposed to be run, as a FUCKING CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATION WHERE PROFIT DOESN’T ENTER THE FUCKING EQUATION. The money we have spent in the last month in Iran could fund the USPS for a decade and they’d even be able to go back to the electric fleet Trump fucking killed off.

Makes me so god damned pissed off. We spend so much money murdering and blowing shit up when we could have major public investments into water and bridges and the power grid and on and on that would not only make everyone’s lives better and safer and healthier but would also create good paying jobs. Every town in West Virginia should be trying to get solar and battery manufacturing and in on green energy. Blerg.

I got distracted for a while because Joelle came home and I needed to make dinner, but that is over and I forget what else I wanted to talk about, but I do know I want to talk about the coloring variant of this pigeon that started to show up my house:

I’ve never seen a pigeon this color and marking. I’ve seen variegated (is that the right term?) ones with almost an appaloosa like markings and I’ve seen ones with caramel colorings and spottings but I have never seen one looking like it is all brown but with white tailfeathers and butt.

Joelle mentioned birders may call this “shiny” or something.

At any rate, will talk to you tomorrow.

Tuesday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (98)

Apparently it is take out the trash day because not only has Swallwell resigned, as mentioned by WG below, but Tony Gonzalez is stepping down tomorrow:

Rep. Tony Gonzales said he plans to resign from the House Tuesday, weeks after the Texas Republican admitted to having an affair with a staff member.

“There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all,” he said in a statement on X. “When Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office. It has been my privilege to serve the great people of Texas.”

He did not specify if he intended to leave his seat Tuesday or at a future date.

The Texas Republican, who previously announced he would not seek reelection due to the allegations, said he would resign outright just over an hour after Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California announced he would leave his seat amid his own allegations of sexual misconduct with staff.

Were this a functioning legislature I would guess but parties leaders said “You two have a choice, it’s resign or everyone is going to vote you out unanimously, and the fact it doesn’t change the partisan balance makes it twice as likely they will all vote that way because no one wants to fucking answer questions about your behaviors.” This is not, however, a functioning legislative body, however, because these guys would already have been gone given the alleged claims that it was an open secret for Swalwell and the straight up facts about Tony Gonzalez, not to mention Corey Mills. So let’s see what happens.

The lengths motherfuckers will go to to avoid culpability:

In a matter of days, MAGA media figures have gone from defending President Donald Trump as God’s chosen president to making the case that he is actually the antichrist.

The accusations reached a fever pitch on Sunday night, after Trump posted an AI-generated image depicting himself dressed in a white robe and red sash and placing a hand radiating golden light on a man in a hospital bed. The image, which Trump deleted from Truth Social after around 14 hours, seemed to invoke Jesus Christ, and it outraged some supporters who likened Trump’s behavior to the antichrist—a figure in Christian theology who opposes Christ and whose appearance many believe could augur the end of time.

Major figures in the MAGA universe quickly spoke out. “It’s more than blasphemy. It’s an Antichrist spirit,” former congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene posted to X on Sunday.

First off there is no such thing as an actual antichrist but I will let the biblical scholars discuss the scant references because I don’t care about the particulars I just know this is wrong. Second, HE IS EXACTLY WHO THE FUCK HE WAS FOR THE LAST HOWEVER LONG HE HAS BEEN ON THE SCENE. You supported all the awful things he said he was going to do and cheered on Project 2025 because you really thought it would be amazing. You would still be supporting him if all of this had worked out and the public didn’t fucking hate all of you because of what you have done. So let’s dispense with all the bullshit. He’s exactly who he said he was doing exactly what he said he would do and you got nothing to blame but your own damned self because you were not hoodwinked by some biblical black magicks, you fucking assholes.

I still have no firm idea what the fuck is going on in the Strait of Hormuz- allegedly we are blockading it but we are letting some ships through and some guy with all the charisma of a discarded dildo in a back alley who I’m told is the Vice President had this to say:

We’ve just heard from US Vice-President JD Vance who is accusing the Iranian government of engaging in an “act of economic terrorism” by blocking traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Vance tells Fox News’ Brett Baier that President Donald Trump has shown that “two could play at that game”.

He says if the Iranians “engage in economic terrorism” the US will abide the principle that “no Iranian ships are getting out either”.

Vance also discusses the talks with Iran over the weekend saying a lot of progress was made.

“The ball is in Iran’s court,” he says.

He says Iran has to be flexible and accept the “critical things” the US demands – US control of Iran’s enriched uranium, and a verification mechanism to ensure it does not develop a nuclear weapon.

That certainly clears things up- we are blockading, they are blockading, we’re all terrorists, and the American leadership still does not understand that they have rogered this up so bad that there is absolutely no winning move but to not play anymore (eat your fucking heart out Matthew Broderick). Trump and Vance and those chowderheads simply can not get it through their fucking heads that the Iranians do not give ONE FLYING FUCK if anything gets sunk right now. Could not give a shit. On the other hand, the United States loses a couple billion dollar destroyer with a couple hundred sailors and loss of the illusion of invulnerability alone will cost thousands of American lives and who knows how much money. The people who do know these things are, of course, being silenced:

Republicans in Congress have scrapped an opportunity to publicly question senior Pentagon officials next week on the war in Iran, postponing a scheduled hearing until late May as they continue to resist exercising oversight of the far-reaching military operation.

The House Armed Services Committee had scheduled testimony by Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson, leader of the military’s Africa Command, on April 21.

But majority Republicans put off the session until May 19. And it was not certain whether a Senate panel scheduled to hear from the same officials on April 23 would go forward with that hearing either.

The senior Democrat on the House committee, who said the delay was based on Admiral Cooper’s availability and his being “busy with the war,” criticized the move, arguing that it would deprive lawmakers of a crucial chance to get answers about the conflict.

“Congressional oversight is crucially important,” said Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. “We are six weeks into this conflict. And we still haven’t gotten a public briefing from anyone in the administration about the war.”

Everything is just great. Also, Trump is sending Rubio to the Lebanon/Israel talks so I am sure he will bring his special magic touch.

I am feeling sick and also rapidly approaching having to head back behind the Iron Curtain to West Virginia, so mood is predictably pretty shitty. Plus the weather has been achy and overcast. Feh.

Be cool.

Monday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (76)

So it was a lovely day yesterday and I screwed around too much and lost track of time and before I knew it it was seven o’clock which is ten ‘o’clock eastern and I just decided, welp, I’m not posting today. And so I didn’t. To make up for it, here is a picture of Maxwell who was perfectly posed for a great “catloaf” picture and as soon as I got him to look at me he yawned.

Look at them fangs!

At any rate, on to the big news:

Standing on a stage beside the Danube, overlooking Hungary’s magnificent parliament building on the other side of the river, Péter Magyar’s speech looked almost choreographed.

Magyar has been addressing Hungarians this way, in town squares and cities for two years, but tonight he went national and global with a stirring message that harked back to President John F Kennedy.

“Today we won because the Hungarian people didn’t ask what their country could do for them, but what they could do for their country,” he told his supporters, who chanted back “Ria-Ria-Hungaria”.

Magyar compared the ousting of Viktor Orbán to the Hungarian revolution in 1858 and the 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union.

Condemning what Orbán’s government had done to the economy, healthcare, child protection and law enforcement, he said the system that took over Hungary and its institutions was finished.

“It’s over, it’s over,” the crowd chanted, as Magyar offered a hand of reconcilation in a bid to unify Hungarians.

“Let this be a victory be a victory for all Hungarians.”

This is great news, of course, bad news for Putin, and bad news for boy blunder JD Vance who was sent there to rallies to support Orban:

Vice President JD Vance waded into Hungary’s election to help a friendly candidate, but his attempt to tip the scales appears to have blown up in his face.

Vance suffered a stinging embarrassment Sunday as voters ousted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—an ally of President Donald Trump and an icon of the global right—despite the vice president’s on-the-ground campaigning blitz last week.

Orbán’s Fidesz party is on track to receive just 54 seats with over half of the votes counted, while his challenger Péter Magyar’s Tisza party is set to win 138 seats in the 199-seat parliament, The Guardian reports. Orbán, 62, has conceded defeat.

Old JD’s whirlwind diplomacy tour was not quite over, as he then popped on over to Islamabad to work on Trump’s nobel peace prize:

US Vice-President JD Vance remained tight-lipped as he returned from Islamabad on Sunday without a major breakthrough in high-stakes talks to end the war in Iran.

It was unclear how much, if any, progress was made in the highest-level diplomatic negotiations between the US and Iran in decades.

After 21 hours of back and forth in the Pakistani capital, Washington and Tehran remain far apart on key sticking points, including Iran’s nuclear programme.

The two sides did not reach an agreement on what to do with the regime’s enriched uranium, said a US official, who offered new details on the talks on the condition of anonymity.

Random thought- I wonder who is going to win next year’s FIFA Peace Prize? At any rate the talks weren’t successful because they keep sending nincompoops like Vance, Kushner, and Witkoff, who are just complete fucking morons, and Trump and his team don’t really having any idea what a US victory looks like so they can’t even articulate their demands let alone understand the Iranians. And that’s not even going into the subtext and the decades of history attached to each demand/requirement. So that means were are now here:

The U.S. military said on Sunday that it would blockade any ships “entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas,” but said it would allow other ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz, hours after President Trump had said the United States would fully block the economically vital waterway.

The blockade on Iranian ports would begin on Monday at 10 a.m. Eastern time, U.S. Central Command said in a statement posted on social media, adding that U.S. “forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.”

No one really knows what the fuck is going to happen other than that someone is going to win some more polymarket bets and there’s gonna be more market manipulation. And I’d wager if he is dumb enough to enact a blockade, we’re going to lose a ship. A bright fellow named Silverman has written about the risks of this sort of nonsense for years but I can not find the link.

So yeah, everything is still bad and getting worse with the exception of Hungary, but who knows what will happen there is still time for a military crackdown.

I don’t know how to wind down this post. I had a theme in my head where I was going but I lost it. Talk to you later.

Sunday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (187)

Well, that should be about the end of Swallwell:

A former staffer of Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, says that the congressman raped her when she was heavily intoxicated and left her bruised and bleeding, an allegation Swalwell strongly denies.

“I was pushing him off of me, saying no,” the woman told CNN of the incident, which she said happened in 2024 after she had stopped working in Swalwell’s office. “He didn’t stop.”

She said it was the second time Swalwell had nonconsensual sexual contact with her while she was drunk. In 2019, when she was still working for him, she said she woke up naked with him in a hotel room after a night of heavy drinking. She said she had no memory of what happened but could feel physically that they’d had sexual contact.

Three other women who spoke with CNN also alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by the Democratic congressman – including Swalwell sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.

I’m a pretty firm believer if that a couple of women come forward with allegations (and in this case, pretty serious ones), then there are probably more coming and more even that won’t come forward because who wants to be called a liar or slut or blackballed? And you know what? Even playing the devil’s advocate and arguing all the claims are lies, who fucking cares? He can fix his reputation later, because the California governor’s seat is too fucking important and I don’t want to have to run someone with sexual abuse allegations. We’re already gonna have a guy running in Maine with a nazi tattoo.

I mean obviously if they are all false it sucks for Swallwell, but he can deal with that on his own. Not my fucking job. My job is supporting candidates who can beat back the nazis. And honestly, I feel ridiculous even playing devil’s advocate for this long because it will turn out to be true. Apparently the only male Democrat who can have affairs with consenting adults of the same age is Hunter Biden, and he’s on crack.

I haven’t heard a peep from Charlie Kirk about the black man piloting Artemis 2.

— Noelle (@finallynoelle.bsky.social) April 8, 2026 at 9:23 AM

The Artemis II has successfully splashed down:

Four astronauts and their Orion space capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean today, bringing the first crewed trip around the moon and back since 1972 to a successful end.

“What a journey!” mission commander Reid Wiseman said moments after splashdown.

During their 10-day odyssey, the crew of NASA’s Artemis 2 mission — Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — became the most distant travelers in history, swinging more than 4,000 miles past the moon’s far side. Koch is the first woman to venture beyond Earth orbit, Glover is the first Black astronaut to do so, and Hansen is the first non-U.S. astronaut to make such a trip.

The flight tested the Artemis program’s hardware and procedures to prepare the way for sending astronauts all the way to the lunar surface by as early as 2028, and for building a permanent lunar base in the 2030s.

The video is pretty cool:

It’s really a good lesson in how if we get out of the way of the experts and scientists we can really do amazing things. We just need to keep the ivermectin drinkers busy with their Brawndo.

The crime boss has issued the marching orders- do whatever I say because I will get you off the hook:

President Trump has repeatedly promised his top administration officials pardons before he leaves office, according to people who have heard his comments.

“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump said in a recent meeting to laughs, according to people with knowledge of the comments. That radius appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line. Another person who met with Trump earlier this year said the president quipped about pardoning anyone who had come within 10 feet.

In one conversation with advisers in the dining room next to the Oval Office last year, Trump said he would host a news conference and announce mass pardons before he left office, some of the people said. The people said they weren’t aware of specific pardons being offered to specific people for specific acts.

The entire Republican party from bottom to top is a crime family committing a giant criminal conspiracy. I can not restate how important this is that if we get back in power these people need to be investigated, charged, and tried. Since Ford pardoned Nixon, no one has paid a price for their sins, and a message has to be sent and sent hard.

Bluesky is so many light years better than Twitter that I will never go back:

Bluesky didn’t set out to be the go-to destination for internecine progressive political discourse, as COO Rose Wang is quick to note. “That was not by design, but by circumstance.”

But thanks to an accident of timing and the uniquely open digital framework, or protocol, on which it operates, Bluesky has become one of the rare social media startups to grow large enough to compete with the likes of Meta and X, garnering some 40 million users in just two years. Many of them are Twitter refugees who skew left, but that’s not all the app has to offer.

“We’re seeing that academics are coming here, because they lost access to reliable data and research communities. Journalists came because their reach and distribution were being throttled,” Wang told Semafor’s Max Tani and Ben Smith on the Mixed Signals podcast. “Links are downranked on a lot of platforms. And what we’re seeing is there’s a majority of new users that are coming on, who are just people who want a simple chronological feed, or genuine connections, or freedom from engagement bait.”

The question of how to make a business out of those connections has proven as vexing for Wang and Bluesky as for any number of earlier startups, and the community’s top users have been experimenting with a variety of ways to make money.

Is there a bunch of left wing factions committing internecine violence and united only in disgust for Democratic leadership? Absolutely. And I follow as many of them as I can. I read shit on the regular that would give many of you in the comments section her the absolute vapors. Why, I even have a bunch of people I follow who routinely speak fondly of Bernie Sanders. And I just scroll past it or engage when I agree. It’s just so much better than having a firehose of just right wing bullshit and open nazis in my mentions, and I like these debates and people going at each other because that’s what we are supposed to do. Argue shit out.

And the mute and block functions are amazing. Someone comes in your mentions hot and starts pissing you off and you have never heard of them, nuke them into orbit.

But overall, it’s all the best aspects of twitter with none of the downsides. Engagement is way down- over on twitter I could mention anything asking a questions and have dozens of responses, over there not nearly as many. But it is just better. Our next rebuild will hopefully have an embedded bluesky feed with all our front pagers in it.

Time for me to go watch the birds. You all behave.

Friday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (132)

Yeah, so I didn’t see this shiv coming, especially not from her, because I thought she was his handler:

My attorneys and I have fought these unfounded and baseless lies with success and will continue to maintain my sound reputation without hesitation. To date, several individuals and companies have been legally obligated to publicly apologize and retract their lies about me, such as The Daily Beast, James Carville, and Harper Collins UK.

Now is the time for Congress to act. Epstein was not alone. Several prominent male executives resigned from their powerful positions after this matter became widely politicized. Of course, this doesn’t amount to guilt, but we still must work openly and transparently to uncover the truth.

I call on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors. Give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress, with the power of sworn testimony. Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public, if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the Congressional Record.

Then, and only then, will we have the truth.

She has to understand that there are women under oath who have testified about Trump, right? Or is this their way of making them go public so they can destroy their lives?

But yeah, I am sure somewhere around January 2nd the the democratic majority leader is going to LOVE getting all the women who want to to publicly testify.

In other news, it appears the Hegseth run military is exactly the fucking goat rodeo you thought it would be, only deadly and with a ton of lying:

About one week before the launch of Operation Epic Fury, most American soldiers and airmen stationed in Kuwait were relocated to positions in Jordan and Saudi Arabia and further away from Iranian missile range. Some soldiers said leadership advised them they wouldn’t be gone long — to pack for 30 days and leave behind most personal equipment, including their military-issued computers. The goal: don’t be a target.

“The way it was described was ‘Get off the X,'” meaning away from the danger zone, one soldier who just returned from deployment explained.

But for several dozen members of the Army’s 103rd Sustainment Command at a major U.S. base south of Kuwait City, there were a different set of orders: pack up everything and relocate to Port of Shuaiba, a smaller military outpost off Kuwait’s southern coast.

The tactical operation center was similar to structures commonplace during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — before the rise of drone warfare. Steel-reinforced concrete barriers known as T-walls surrounded the building. These types of barriers are designed to shield service members from the blast of a mortar or rocket but offer no protection from aerial attacks.

“It’s just kind of a classic, older military base,” one soldier recalled. “Some small barriers. There’s a bunch of little tin buildings where we can set up makeshift offices.”

From there, a logistics staff would manage the operational and informational flow of munitions, equipment and personnel across the Middle East theater. Still, the soldiers told CBS News, they had questions about why they remained well within range of Iran’s missiles and drones. One soldier said they saw intelligence showing the post was on a list of potential Iranian targets.

“We moved closer to Iran, to a deeply unsafe area that was a known target,” the soldier said. “I don’t think there was a good reason ever articulated.”

He said they were protected by little more than a thin layer of vertical standing blast barricades that did not provide cover from above.

“From a bunker standpoint, that’s about as weak as one gets,” he said.

Asked to describe the degree of fortification, he responded: “I mean, I would put it in the none category. From a drone defense capability … none.”

A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on the soldiers’ claims, citing an active investigation into the Port of Shuaiba attack.

In a post on X addressing prior CBS News reporting on the incident, Assistant Secretary of Defense Sean Parnell said “every possible measure has been taken to safeguard our troops — at every level” and that “[t]he secure facility was fortified with 6-foot walls.”

It’s fucking maddening and used to be the kind of thing that would get people court martialed and removed from office. No reason for them to be there, no units to support or way to defend themselves, in a known targeted area. Just sacrificed for nothing. This is actually multiple times more egregious than Benghazi. Just a complete and total waste of human life in the service of no real goal.

In other random news, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is leaving twitter. Their reasoning is that’s it not worth it because Elon has throttled down their traffic so much that’s it not worth staying at the Nazi site. And before you say they should have left before, I agree with them that they, like other groups like I would think the ACLU and what not, should be everywhere because they are protecting people’s rights, even on nazi sites.

Having said that, anything that gets twitter closer to being sold by Elon is fine by me.

Meanwhile, while Rome burns, our semi-sentient fecal smear of a Caesar was all apoplectic (gift link because I know you all love a good train wreck) because people said mean things about him:

President Trump on Thursday assailed Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and two other leading conservative podcasters who oppose the war in Iran in a blistering 482-word Truth Social post that insulted his critics in starkly personal terms.

The president reserved some of his sharpest attacks for Candace Owens and Alex Jones, two conspiracy-minded conservatives who in recent days have called for Mr. Trump to be removed from office. The president had faced weeks of criticism from all four media figures, but had largely ignored them until Thursday.

“They have one thing in common, Low IQs,” the president said of the four media figures. “They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!”

Mr. Carlson, who appeared particularly bothered by the Easter statement, described Mr. Trump’s threats to Iran as “evil” and called on members of the Trump administration to stand up to him. “Now is time to say no, absolutely not, and say it directly to the president: No,” Mr. Carlson said on his podcast.

On Tuesday, after Mr. Trump threatened to wipe out the Iranian civilization, Mr. Jones posted that Mr. Trump sounded “like an unhinged super villain from a Marvel comic movie.” Ms. Kelly asked: “Can’t he just behave like a normal human?”

In his post on Thursday, Mr. Trump described Mr. Carlson as a “broken man,” saying he has “never been the same” since his dismissal from Fox News in 2023. He revived a long-running feud with Ms. Kelly over a question she asked during a debate in 2015 regarding statements he had made about women, writing that she had treated him “nastily.”

He commented on Ms. Owens’s appearance, writing that Brigitte Macron, France’s first lady, was a “far more beautiful woman.” (Ms. Owens repeatedly accused Ms. Macron of being a man, prompting a lawsuit from her and her husband, President Emmanuel Macron.) And he wrote that Mr. Jones “says some of the dumbest things,” giving the example of his “horrendous” false claims about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

“These so-called ‘pundits’ are LOSERS, and they always will be!” Mr. Trump wrote.

God, they are all just such awful people. I could have lived my entire life happily without knowing any of their fucking names. But we do, so always, I’m gonna treat it like a pretend Patriots/Cowboys superbowl and root for injuries. The thing is, though, they are all such awful people you can’t really even root for them to kill each other because that still means one of them will survive (metaphorically, mr. Secret Service agent).

I am tired and want to go back to watching that Port Protection reality tv series. They are all so funny- a bunch of rugged individualists who moved to the middle of fucking nowhere on an island off the coast of alaska and canada, and they spend every episode helping each other (“it takes a village”) and basically have discovered community. The last episode they were putting up a community greenhouse. And running a drill with volunteer a search and rescue team. And six of them spent the day rebuilding Gary’s boardwalk with him because he is 70. They are so fucking close to discovering socialism in real time.

Thursday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (51)

I am currently in the zoom with Tom Levenson, arriving late because it’s been a heck of a day. I actually can not remember if I have babbled about the new refrigerator? At any rate, we bought a new refrigerator this past weekend, and it was delivered today, and I had just an absolute ton of stuff to do to prepare. This fridge was the bane of my existence- and I really didn’t realize how much I hated it until we replaced it the other day and then all I have been able to think about was how nice it was going to be to have a new one.

The fridge we had came with the house (and remember, her house was a rental for years), and was well beyond by say two decades it’s time to be replaced, but it kept plugging alone so she kept it. I have hated it since I got here, because the freezer is on the top and the lights don’t work well so I can never see anything in the bottom shelves, it had parts of the fridge where things would freeze and other parts where things were almost 40 degrees, and the doors did not seal properly so condensation was always forming, and the shelves on the door were broken, and, well, it just sucked. But given all the other priorities (roof, ac, power box), this was pretty low on the list.

That doesn’t mean I hated it any less. Our kitchen here is a very narrow galley kitchen, and it needs to be completely gutted- it has those old synthetic brown- I want to say vinyl or laminate or something but that is not it- you all know what I mean, that light brown fake wood vinyl stuff that you saw everywhere in the 70’s-90’s, and the cabinets are all falling apart and a mess, and the stove is old and there is no vent fan, the dishwasher is a piece of shit and I never use it, etc. So replacing the refrigerator while leaving all of that just makes no sense. Just save up until you can do the whole thing.

At any rate, that means I spent the entire day from the time I woke up and dropped her off at work (her trike has a flat and I have to fix that tomorrow) moving things around and deep cleaning because I would have been mortified if they moved the fridge and it was disgusting when the delivery men were there. And it was disgusting and for several hours this afternoon I really liked Joelle a lot less. But it is all clean now and installed and over, and I am super stoked. When I sell my house and we redo the kitchen and the addon, this can become the patio fridge (I’m gonna have an indoor/outdoor room).

Timed it perfect, too- was finishing up the deep clean when I got the text notification, quickly unloaded the frezer stuff and the frifge stuff we were keeping into waiting tubs, they took the old one out and put the new one in, and the food was out of the freezer for no more than 30 minutes.

It’s very hard, btw, to find a fridge with just a fridge and freezer but with the freezer at the bottom that is narrow enough for our kitchen. I spent months looking just in case, and the in case happened on Sunday when I went into the kitchen and the door was open because IT NEVER FUCKING SHUTS and flew into a froth and yelled “THIS HAS TO STOP” and bought one the next day. I found just the right one at Lowe’s and it was on sale and under 700 bucks and I did it.

OH-OH! While I was going from appliance store to appliance store looking I went to Costco to check theirs out and in the parking lot I saw my first road runner. Just ran right in front of me with either a rodent or little bird or lizard in its mouth. Much cooler than I thought it would be from pictures. A very interesting bird- S-tier for sure.

I spose I should talk about politics but I am not going to. It’s bad and he is very unstable. Good election news yesterday though.

*** Update ***

Joelle just was given the grand tour of the refrigerator and it is just so bright and nice and clean. It occurred to me that Donald Trump and Elon Musk will never be as happy about anything ever as I am about my new 700 dollar fridge. They’ve never been as happy as I am right now about anything. If they were not such despicable and miserable pricks that would be sad.

Wednesday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (102)