Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Consistently wrong since 2002

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

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

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

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

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Republicans in disarray!

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

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Late Night Open Thread: Schadenfreude

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might be one of the funniest videos i’ve ever seen

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— onion person (@junlper.beer) October 26, 2025 at 3:27 PM

Now that she’s turned thirty (according to her Wikipedia page), Kaitlin ‘Gun Girl’ Bennett seems to have decided that elderly ladies would be an easier target than college students. Another bad life choice, Kaitlyn!

…

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— JazDog (@jazdog.bsky.social) October 26, 2025 at 6:03 PM

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God bless the internet

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— ???????? Grim Pierce ?????? (@unchi.org) October 26, 2025 at 5:50 PM

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Is this the idiot gun girl from some Ohio college?
The funniest part about this video is her trying to compare herself to Charlie Kirk.
All of these performative right wingers desperate to fill his slot and tap into that sweet, sweet rube cash.

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— Rap Bastardz® (@rapbastardz.bsky.social) October 26, 2025 at 6:32 PM

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War for Ukraine Day 1,340: Another Long Night/Early Morning for Ukraine

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A black and white cartoon with Popeye the Sailor Man facing forward and to the left. His word bubble says "I Yam Disgustipated"

Just a quick housekeeping note: I have three more very long days after today’s, so I’m just going to run through the basics again tonight.

Russia hammered civilian targets in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Kryvyi Rih, etc again last night. We’ll get to all of it after the jump.

The cost:

Anastasia Masliy was 19 years old. Russia killed her last night in Kyiv, along with her mother. The women suffocated in their own bathroom, hiding from the fire started by a Russian drone 🕯

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 26, 2025 at 11:46 AM

3 ppl killed and 29 injured, including 6 kids, in the russian overnight attack against Kyiv. The russian terror is explicitly mocking all the American “peace efforts”. Meanwhile, the EU leaders can’t agree on using russian assets for Ukraine not offering any other alternative.

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— Olena Halushka (@halushka.bsky.social) October 26, 2025 at 10:30 AM

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Sunday Evening Open Thread: Pity the American Farmer

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Democrats should carpet bomb the Midwest with ads of this clip during the closing stretch of the 2026 campaign.

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— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) October 26, 2025 at 1:22 PM

LOL- he's a landlord to corporate sharecroppers.

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— Dennis See Sea (@dennis-see-sea.bsky.social) October 26, 2025 at 1:44 PM

Please sir I am just a small soybean farmer and a common man

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— amanda moore 🐢 (@noturtlesoup17.bsky.social) October 26, 2025 at 2:21 PM


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Reaping, sowing, things of that nature…

“Since siding with [Obama] twice, Iowa has become a stronghold for Mr. Trump. Yet perhaps no state has struggled more with his economic policies. During the first quarter of 2025, Iowa’s GDP dropped by 6.1%, more than any other state aside from neighboring Nebraska.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/u…

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— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur.bsky.social) October 26, 2025 at 12:35 PM

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Final Push in Virginia – National Ground Game and the Youth Vote at Virginia Tech!

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Election day is November 4 and Virginia is more important than ever. 

This off-year election gives us the chance to make the Old Dominion state the next Democratic trifecta.  Not to mention that Virginia is a bastion of reproductive rights in the Old South.

Balloon Juice peeps have done our part so far.

  • helped fund Four Directions in their expansion into Virginia to work with the Native vote there.
  • raised funds for two flippable seats in Virginia.
  • National Ground Game is the third leg of our stool in Virginia!

Dollars?

  • raised over $30,000, plus $40k in matching funds for Four Directions
  • raised over $8,000 for Kimberly Pope Adams, who is now projected to win.  (fingers crossed!)
  • raised over $5,000 for Virgil Thornton, who is on the verge of moving from toss-up to projected win by a very slim margin.

Side note: auction and raffle winners – have you received your quilts?

NEW @statenavigate.org poll in VA HD-86

GOV | 🔵Spanberger +5
LG | 🔵Hashmi +1
AG | 🔵Jones +1
HoD | 🔵Thornton +6

statenavigate.org/new-poll-sho…

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— Chaz Nuttycombe (@chaznuttycombe.bsky.social) October 21, 2025 at 12:58 PM

THERMOMETER REMOVED BECAUSE WE HAVE MET OUR GOAL, AND HAVE FULLY FUNDED THEIR ACTIVITIES FOR VIRGINIA. YAY YOU GUYS!

And in late-breaking news, Virginia Democrats are holding a special session tomorrow to draw a new Congressional map that could net us two or three additional seats in 2026.

Jay Jones, running for Attorney General, had a slight lead 4 days ago, but is slipping.  He’s a complicated candidate, but he beats the hell out of any Republican.  We need the AG in the Democratic column to actively support the new congressional map that could help us make up 2 or 3 of the seats the Rs are trying to steal with their TX gerrymandering.

All of this requires electing Abigail Spanberger for Governor and the Democrats retaining (and expanding) their razor-thin 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates.  (Senate seats are not up for re-election until 2027).

Let’s talk more about the ground game.

We helped National Ground Game register and turn out voters in Florida’s two Congressional special elections in April.

We had started to raise money for their fun and creative effort to counter-program high profile Charlie Kirk rallies on Virginia college campuses.  They were bringing in liberal influencers and Tik Tok celebrities with widespread youth appeal to counter the venom spewed by Turning Point USA (as well as register voters).

For obvious reasons, they needed to pivot in the wake of Kirk’s death.  They stepped back temporarily out of respect for the situation and to avoid adding any fuel to the overwrought martyrdom fire.  I stopped actively promoting the fundraising to give them time to regroup and make arrangements to get back into Virginia before the election.  Nevertheless, to date we have raised $4,225 for Ground Game in Virginia.

And now we’re back in the game – and with our funds, National Ground Game is  going back into Virginia!  Ground Game has jumped the bureaucratic hurdles to obtain permission to hold a get-out-the-vote event on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg featuring.

The rally will feature, among others, popular live-streamer and political commenter Destiny, who is sure to be a big draw with the yutes.  Although early voting has already started, the event will fire up college voters to turn up at the polls, provide them with late registration information, and sign them up as future volunteers.

So we are funding a big, celebratory Democratic presence on campus, days before the election!!

But wait, there’s more.  Ground Game will circulate flyers promoting House of Delegates candidate and challenger Lily Franklin.  Lily was highly recommended to us by Good Kim (see below) as an excellent campaigner and top-notch future representative.  But Lily was (fortunately) well-financed without us, so we raised funds for Virgil Thornton, hoping for a flip there.  Looks like we chose well because that seat has show as a toss-up until just a day or two ago.  Anyway, this is our chance for us to help pull Lily Franklin over the finish line, as well.

With so many fingers crossed, it’s hard to type!

The National Ground Game projects a total cost of $6,500 to underwrite this event, which includes permits, insurance, transportation, security, some paid staff, volunteer meals and related expenses.   I’ve set our goal at $7,500 because when does anything like this ever come in exactly at, or under budget?

We have a $500 angel in the wings!   pat’s Angel Match has been met, thank you!

We can do this TODAY, I hope!

Here’s hoping we can easily raise the additional funds to completely fund this fun and inspiring event.

 Things are looking good in Virginia.  Virginia election forecaster Chaz Nuttycombe has predicted a narrow win for BJ-supported candidate Virgil Thornton and a 5-point margin for Kimberly Pope Adams (our “Good Kim”), flipping two Republican held seats (h/t Blue Guitarist).  And he gives Democratic challenger Lily Franklin a 61% chance of flipping the Republican seat centered on Blacksburg and Virginia Tech.

There are 5 additional R-held seats projected to be very close – Consider volunteering to phone bank!

What they need are people to virtual phone bank from anywhere, and folks to canvass if you are in range to help with that.

Details at mobilize.us

Watch for a post early next year – and a zoom to meet the National Ground Game folks – to hear about their 2026 plans to resume counter-programming Turning Point rallies and organize stand-alone events of their own.  This is creative and exciting stuff, targeted at young voters whose political ideology is still in flux!

No Regrets!  That’s the name of the game.

 

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: Pastor Mike, Serving A Congregation of One

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Democrats should hold a press conference and announce that if Mike Johnson has no interest in running the House they'd be happy to do it for him

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— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 8:25 PM

I assumed Speaker Johnson was just preternaturally grateful that Trump’s tantrums handed him a position he’d never have been able to achieve on his own merits, but maybe there *is* something to the rumor that Trump has a blackmail hold over him. Even the NYTimes is getting suspicious — Annie Karni, “Keeping the House Absent, Johnson Marginalizes Congress and Himself”: [gift link]

… Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to put the House on an indefinite hiatus that is now stretching into its second month while the government is shut down is the latest in a series of moves he has made that have diminished the role of Congress and shrunken the speakership at a critical moment.

It’s an approach born of political expedience that could have far-reaching consequences for an institution that has already ceded much of its power to President Trump. And Mr. Johnson, who without the president’s backing wields little influence over his own members, has chosen to make himself subservient to Mr. Trump, a break with many speakers of the past who sought in their own ways to act more as a governing partner with the president than as his underling.

“I’m the speaker and the president,” Mr. Trump has joked, according to two people who heard the remark and relayed it on the condition of anonymity because of concern about sharing private conversations with him.

Mr. Johnson has done little in recent weeks to contest the point…

His strategy of indefinite hiatus means that Mr. Johnson has not engaged in the typical political theater that speakers often employ during shutdown fights to jam the party out of power: scheduling tricky votes on bills to reopen parks or pay certain categories of federal workers, like agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection.

Democrats had been bracing for him to do so. But instead, he has spent much of the shutdown appearing daily at news conferences at the Capitol, hammering them for refusing to fund the government and making the case that Republicans need not negotiate. He is insistent that the House has nothing to do but wait for the stalemate to end. And he defends a growing list of extreme moves by Mr. Trump.

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War for Ukraine Day 1,339: The Russian Butcher’s Bill for Last Night’s/This Morning’s Attacks

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A painting by the Ukrainain artist NEIVANMADE. The upper 1/2 is grey and there are black Shahed drones on it aimed towards the bottom of the painting. The bottom half of the painting has a blood red background and in the center of the bottom is a house, to it's left is a swing set, and to its right is a car. They are charcoal grey on the blood red background background. The drones are targeting the house, swing set, and car. Above the house and below the drones are the words "Russia Kills To Erase Free People".

As I mentioned last night, it was another long day today, so I’m just going to run through the basics. Please remember, these updates are tariff free! For now… THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!!!

There is no daily address from President Zelenskyy today. I expect this is because he is traveling back home from the meetings in London yesterday.

Russia, however, did not let up because President Zelenskyy was meeting with other European leaders, as well as the leadership of the NATO member states.

Russia opened up on civilian targets with ballistic missiles again last night/this morning.

Kyiv:

Kyiv this morning

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— Mira of Kyiv 🇺🇦 (@reshetz.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 4:49 AM

Moment a ballistic missile strikes Kyiv overnight captured on video. 8 reported injured as missiles fired from fascist Russia’ Bryansk Oblast hit energy infrastructure and residential area in NE Kyiv. Fires and damage in several locations, possibly also due to shoot-down debris.

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— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) October 24, 2025 at 11:07 PM

Since that attack, Russia has frequently activated the Kapustin Yar launch site. This has jangled nerves, but no other Oreshnik has been launched, and it’s uncertain whether Russia actually has any other operational missiles of this type.

— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) October 24, 2025 at 11:34 PM

In Kyiv, firefighters are still extinguishing flames after last night’s Russian ballistic attack.

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 2:37 PM

Russian ballistic missiles strike the city, yet Kyiv’s weekly market continues to operate as scheduled.

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 6:16 AM

Here’s Ukraine’s air defense tally from last night:

Ukrainian Air Force: “The enemy attacked Ukraine with 9 Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 62 strike drones

4 missiles and 50 drones were shot down or suppressed.

Hits of five missiles and 12 UAVs were recorded in 11 locations, as well as debris falling in four.”

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— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 2:11 AM

30 minutes ago – 3:oo AM local time in Ukraine/8:00 PM EDT – Russia began this morning’s attacks on Kyiv:

Kyiv is under russian attack again‼️

City’s mayor reported a strike on a multi-story residential building at the level of 2nd-3rd floors‼️

Murderous bastards.

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 7:59 PM

More on Ukraine after the jump.

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Saturday Night Open Thread

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I was thinking the other day- it has been forever since I have talked about an actual issue. Now every second of every day is occupied recoiling in horror and the idea of talking about a good green energy policy or a good way to expand health coverage and improving outcomes while lowering costs or anything, really, is just so fucking quaint. Nothing fucking matters.

It’s really just keep doing the things you do to keep yourself sane and waiting for when it’s time to do our thing and take the country back. But making long-term plans? Nah. Just stay alive.

I had some chicken thighs in the freezer I bought a while back when they were super cheap, and I need to use them before I leave, so I made mulligatawny stew. I had all the ingredients in stock except for some heavy cream, although I only had four carrots and I usually like more than that because carrots soaked in curry just taste so good, especially if you make big slices of carrot, and I served the whole thing over a little jasmine rice and topped with some cilantro. Very good and I have a couple meals worth, although I used up the last of the rice.

I was babbling earlier on bluesky- when I was a kid growing up, I had no idea that people ate chili not only without beans, but without rice. The way we made it you put a big mound of rice in the bowl, ladled a couple things of chili over it, and then topped it with a little shredded cheese and crushed fritos. I suppose it is probably just one of my dad’s low budget fill the kids up meals that also happens to taste just as good or better than just chili.

I was thinking I need to create a couple spotify playlists for the trip. Other than that, I got nothing. I am so tapped out today and just drained, and I don’t know why.

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