Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

In after Baud. Damn.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

Books are my comfort food!

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

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Monday Evening Open Thread: Proud to Be…

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The Democratic Party is Its Voters And They’re Doing Just Fine talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-d…

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— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 4:00 PM

Gotta (mostly) agree with Josh Marshall here — “The Democratic Party is Its Voters and They’re Doing Just Fine”:

… On the one hand, the Democratic Party is “floundering,” “directionless,” “lost.” It’s approval numbers are bleak. And then, often in the same articles, you have all this evidence of voter intensity. Turnout. New activism. Lots of new people running for office. What seems like an apparent contradiction resolves itself if you get your terms right. I don’t think the Democratic Party is in a tailspin or floundering at all. In many cases, the elected leadership of the party is. But the elected leadership is not the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is its voters. Especially it’s primary voters. This is just a signal understanding of what a party is and what constitutes its health or disfunction. I saw a headline a few days ago that was roughly, The Dems’ Latest Nightmare: Primaries As Far As The Eye Can See.

But that’s not a nightmare. Certainly not for the party. It may be a nightmare for some incumbents. But again, they are not the party, not in the most meaningful sense. They are most properly seen as the employees of the party. Or perhaps the executive leadership, which is accountable to a board. And the raft of primaries and threats of primaries show clearly that the bosses have, in that icily awkward phrase, decided to go in another direction.

As far as I’m concerned, the more primaries the better. A primary against a presidential incumbent can be damaging. The idea that it strengthens that candidate is, empirically speaking, nonsense. But the dynamics are different with congressional primaries, especially when it’s a general election in which the party will almost certainly have a strong electoral environment.

Of course, the danger with primaries is that you can end up saddled with candidates who are too extreme or ideological to win. But I don’t see a lot of evidence of that in the primaries that are coming into view or the candidates who are gaining momentum in fights for open seats. Voters in New Jersey and Virginia just chose two strong and electable candidates for governor. As I and many others have expressed in recent months, the hunger is not primarily for more ideological or left-wing candidates but for those who are willing to fight Trumpism and have the creativity to come up with novel ways to do that — fight! — in the current environment. That’s the anger in the Democratic Party. What are you doing? Why aren’t you fighting? Why aren’t you thinking outside the box more? Why are you overthinking norms and institutionalisms that have been yesterday’s news for a decade or maybe 25 years?…

When things aren’t working right, you need tumult, even if it comes with some messiness. A lot of the weirdness of press coverage of the current Democratic Party, its goals, its abilities and its future get resolved if you have a clear set of definitions about who and what the Democratic Party actually is. The more primaries, the better. Basically every poll you see with the public standing of the Democratic Party at an historic low is based on Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who are fed up with the party because they see it as ineffective and weak. That is about the elected leadership. And that anger and realization is a good thing, not a bad thing, because it shows that voters aren’t satisfied with the current party, the current elected leadership. They are, as they say, looking to go in another direction. And that’s great.

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Repub Venality Open Thread: Chief ‘Just Us’ Roberts Is A Very Bad Man

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“Chief Justice John Roberts is maddeningly silent on the biggest issue in America: President Donald Trump’s growing lawlessness.”
New, at Law Dork:

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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 8:32 AM

My google-fu is not strong enough to retrieve my 2005 opinings here, but I think I have achieved a solid record: John Roberts is a bad justice whose pathetic bletherings will not outweigh his endless machinations in favor of the current Felon-in-Chief and all his Republican fellows. I’m not personally convinced Roberts is worse than Judge Taney… but at least Taney had the excuse that he couldn’t know his ‘Dread Scott compromise’ would nearly destroy the United States along with countless individual lives. ‘Just Us’ Roberts doesn’t care about the predictable consequences, as long as he believes he’s got the power and the resources to live out his remaining days in a secure 1950s-style suburban bubble.

Chris Geidner, at Law Dork — “John Roberts puts off deciding where he stands on fascism”:

… Roberts — who will have been chief justice of the United States, not just of the Supreme Court, for 20 years this fall — spent Saturday telling Americans that criticism of judges that rise to the level of “threats” are “unacceptable” because they can lead to “serious threats of violence and murder of judges just simply for doing their work.”

Accordingly, “political people” criticizing the courts must “keep that in mind,” Roberts said at a judicial conference organized by judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Roberts is right that violent threats — and, obviously, actions — are unacceptable…

And yet, the day before Roberts’s speech, he quietly joined the Supreme Court’s purportedly procedural opinion opening the door, at least for now, to one of the most lawless actions of the Trump administration in its Miller-led efforts: Trump’s January 20 executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship.

Roberts does not see that threat of violence.

Roberts, again quietly, also joined the Supreme Court’s similar action at the start of the week, too, blocking a district court order that merely required the Trump administration to provide basic due process to people subject to deportation when the Trump administration was seeking to send them to a random country — the so-called “third country removals” that have included efforts to send people to Libya and South Sudan, two places on the State Department’s “do not travel” advisory list due to the risk of “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”

Roberts did not see that threat of violence.

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Bad Optics (Open Thread)

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There are many underlying reasons for why we can’t have nice things in the U.S., including racism, misogyny and xenophobia. But the current shit-sandwich of a bill in Congress right now has a direct cause too. It’s what happens when you have government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy. So, wealthy Republicans are transferring funds from the poor and middle class TO the wealthy. Of course they are.

Will folks who don’t pay attention to politics because both parties are the same catch on when Meemaw gets kicked out of her nursing home and dumped on their lawn? When hospitals shut down? When Big Balls redirects Social Security funds to a crypto scam? When a hurricane blows their house away, but oops! we spent all the FEMA money on building concentration camps for immigrants in the Everglades?

I don’t know, but it occurred to me the optics were interesting this weekend when the Republican reconciliation bill drama played out while Jeff Bezos was marrying an AI-generated hologram in Italy. Hilariously, Newsweek had this to say about the obscene cost of the wedding:

Jeff Bezos’ Venice Wedding Was Relatively Cheap

The cost of the nuptials on Friday was estimated between $47 million and $56 million, according to Reuters, citing Luca Zaia, president of the Veneto region where the Italian city of canals is based. And while this sum may appear lavish to any ordinary American, it amounted to just 0.0193-0.0230 percent of the Amazon founder’s estimated $244 billion net worth, as recorded by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The average and median net worth of an American family is $1,063,700 and $192,900 respectively, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Federal Reserve. This means Bezos’ wedding was financially similar to an average American spending less than $250 on their wedding—about the cost of a family dinner or a new pair of sneakers.

Wow, okay, relatively. Without trying to, I stumbled across several photos from that grotesquely wasteful shindig online, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in fancy dress boarding a boat, plus assorted Kardashians. It was kind of jarring to see all that conspicuous consumption juxtaposed with stories about hardships to come when the Republican bill passes.

The optics, man. Not good! It adds to other New Gilded Age images that have been seared onto our eyeballs since Trump 2.0, like the billionaires lined up at Trump’s inauguration.

If there’s a Reign of Terror in our future, some as-yet-unidentified revolutionary might decide the guest list for the Bezos wedding is a logical place to start. Just saying.

Open thread.

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Monday Morning Phone-a-Rama

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Soon to be retired Senator Tillis (R-NC), wearing a bolo tie for reasons I can’t fathom, sort of tells the truth about the reconciliation bill:

Republican Senator Thom Tillis: What do I tell 663,000 people and two years or three years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid. Trump’s advisers in the White House are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise.

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— Protect Our Care (@protectourcare.org) June 29, 2025 at 9:22 PM

I say “sort of” because Tillis implies that Trump doesn’t understand that the bill will strip healthcare from millions of Americans. The truth is Trump doesn’t give a shit, and whether he knows what the bill does or not is immaterial. But it’s rare enough for a Republican to tell the truth that even a half-truth is remarkable.

Anyway, I contacted my shithead Republican senators and pointlessly left a message asking them to find the courage to oppose this piece of shit bill. They demonstrably don’t give a shit about their constituents either, but maybe they care about their political prospects going forward, so I noted that Trump won’t have to face voters again when the full effects of this bill are known, but they will.

It won’t change my senators’ votes — both are deeply corrupt right-wing hacks. But I do think there’s some value in squawking.

Open thread.

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Late Night Repub Venality Open Thread

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Second Four hundredth thirty-seventh verse, same as the first, a little bit louder & a little bit worse…

9pm: I rest
9am: I vote to take twenty million people's healthcare

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 10:08 PM


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The Senate Republican budget policy:
Tax breaks for billionaires are FREE!
But health care costs money, so CUT!
It’s magic math — and cruel hypocrisy.

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— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) June 29, 2025 at 4:20 PM


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Predictable. Fraudster, conspiracy goon, lying shyster, and trump sycophant. #EatShitRonJohnson

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— Jim Witkins (@jimwitkins.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 7:25 PM

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[fallout 4 voice] seems to be going well

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— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) June 29, 2025 at 7:40 PM


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they’re all going to be punching each other before this is over

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— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) June 29, 2025 at 9:30 PM


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War for Ukraine Day 1,221: FAS

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Last night pieceofpeace asked:

Adam, for some time now, my choices are made with the results of questioning “Is it appropriate,” which is similar to suitable, yet causes more self-inquiry in my way of thinking (works well for me, but mostly in non-urgent situations).  To me, the implication involves personal responsibility?  Is the FAS test purposely more “just the facts, ma’am!”?

Here’s my default translation from doctrine of what feasible, accessible, suitable (FAS) means:

FAS is the default evaluatory criteria for whether a policy or a strategy may be effective. Feasible, in regard to policy and strategy, refers to the ability to accomplish the policy or strategy within established time, space, and resource constraints. The acceptable metric balances costs to be paid, including human and physical resources and potential risks, with the advantages or benefits that will be accrued by adopting a given policy or implementing a given strategy. For a policy or strategy to be suitable, it must be achievable while also conforming with the law, norms, and customs. In short feasibility asks if a proposed policy or strategy is affordable, acceptability deals with risks, costs, and benefits. Suitability asks if the proposed policy or strategy will actually achieve the objectives and do so in a legal manner.

The cost:

In the early hours of this morning, during a large-scale enemy aerial attack, Maksym Ustymenko, a First Class pilot born in 1993, tragically died in his F-16.

The pilot skillfully deployed all his onboard weaponry, successfully shooting down seven airborne targets.

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 7:20 AM

While engaging the final target, his aircraft was hit and began to lose altitude.

Maksym bravely managed to steer the damaged plane away from a residential area, but he was unable to eject in time. He died a hero.

The fallen pilot was an alumnus of Kharkiv Air Force University.

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 7:20 AM

He leaves behind a four-year-old son.

RIP hero.

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 7:20 AM

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

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Sportsball Read: ‘The World Cup Is a Year Away. Will We Be Good Hosts?’

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The 2026 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the U.S., is less than a year away, but the planet’s biggest sporting event may not showcase America at its best, writes Will Leitch.

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— Intelligencer (@intelligencer.com) June 26, 2025 at 6:10 AM

The always readable Will Leich, at NYMag:

The biggest sporting event on the planet is not the Olympics — it’s not even close. It’s the World Cup, specifically the men’s World Cup. (While the women’s World Cup has grown dramatically in the past two decades and regularly bests the men’s World Cup in American television ratings, in terms of revenue and scope I’m sad to say it’s also not even close.) There is no sporting event like the World Cup. It is the one true global event for the one sport that the entire world is absolutely mad about, the one sport everybody plays. Even the most recent World Cup, in Qatar, played out of season with a compressed game schedule under an authoritarian regime in a country where you couldn’t even buy a beer at the stadium, brought in $7.5 billion in revenue in three weeks. Nothing is bigger than the World Cup.

And next year — in now less than a year — it is coming here.

Specifically, it’s coming to the United States, Mexico, and Canada, three countries that have traditionally cooperated on the global stage, whose joint bid in 2018 was assumed to be rock solid, even if now it looks a little less so. When President Donald Trump met in the Oval Office with FIFA president Gianni Infantino last month, he was asked whether the three countries would still be able to cooperate. His response was less than reassuring. “Oh, I think it’s going to make it more exciting,” he said. “Tension’s a good thing.” And that was before the ICE crackdown was kicked into overdrive. Can you imagine where we’ll be in a year?

The first match of the 2026 World Cup will be in Mexico City on June 11, 2026; the first match in America (where most matches will be played) will take place on June 12 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. It will be on us before you know it. And it is fair to say that the biggest sporting event on the planet will be arriving at a time when the United States is, well, perhaps not at its best…

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