Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Books are my comfort food!

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

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

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

This fight is for everything.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

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

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

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

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

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Monday Afternoon Open Thread: Today’s Distraction

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But are eggs gonna be okay
www.cnn.com/2025/06/22/b…

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— George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 (@gtconway.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 6:54 PM


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I don't know man I feel like if you're committing us to a regional war over uranium enrichment levels you should at least have some idea what the Department of Energy does.

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— Zeddy (@zeddary.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:23 AM


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I mean, this kinda reads like a panicky response to global economics that is going to have serious repercussions for a president's popularity. But ymmv.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:08 AM


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The problem is that American oil operations also exist at a certain price point that fundamentally cuts against "low low prices"

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:50 AM


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Americans are notably nonchalant about the price of their gasoline, I'm sure it's fine.

— Joy of Arc (@amethystjoy.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:38 AM


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Yes. bsky.app/profile/jfee…

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— Zeddy (@zeddary.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:33 AM


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Odds & Ends (Open Thread)

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What this guy said:

OK, here is your one-minute primer on the whole concept of “trickle down economics,” from the obituary of Fred Smith, the founder of Fedex.

I mean, if you still can’t see it, I have no hope for you.

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— Jon Boeckenstedt (@jonboeckenstedt.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 10:40 PM

It’s relevant again because one of the main purposes of the Big Ugly Bill currently working its way through Republican-held Congress is to make these temporary regressive tax cuts permanent. Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy were unpopular during his first term — the only tax cuts that have ever been unpopular with Americans, as far as I know.

Weird how we’re often told that Trump utterly transformed the Republican Party into an organization that is unrecognizable in relation to its former self. And yet tax cut windfalls for billionaires and wars of choice in the Middle East are still a Republican thing. Same as it ever was.

***

Speaking of the current Middle Eastern war of choice, here’s an item from CNN’s live feed:

The US is tracking multiple missiles fired from Iran toward US military installations in Qatar and Iraq, according to two officials familiar with the matter.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine are in the Situation Room, according to a White House official.

I don’t know a thing about JCS Chairman Caine except that he was apparently willing to accept an appointment from Donald Trump, which isn’t encouraging. The rest don’t have a thimble-full of brains between them. God help us.

***

Lastly, anyone need a pair of ducks?

Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks keeping a wary eye on the paparazzi. The one in the foreground may have the hiccups. Or maybe it was just manifesting a wish that I’d go away. (Wish eventually granted!) 🪶

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— Betty Cracker of Florida (@bettycrackerfl.bsky.social) June 17, 2025 at 8:14 AM

These beauties have been visiting daily for the last couple of weeks. I hope they show up soon.

Open thread!

Odds & Ends (Open Thread)Post + Comments (99)

The Vibes War

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“A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”

— Hillary Clinton, 2016

Donald Trump and the Republican Party he acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary are a catastrophe for the United States. We’ve lost ground on every important metric, becoming less free and prosperous at home and less influential as a force for democracy and innovation abroad.

Trump’s U.S. has discouraged and betrayed allies while emboldening and strengthening foes. Trump Republicans are reversing fragile social progress and exacerbating wealth inequality, setting in motion repercussions that will reverberate for generations.

Given the massive setbacks we’ve experienced under Trump’s malign and chaotic rule, it’s unsurprising that so many opponents credit a foreign influence operation for Trump’s rise. And indeed bad actors like Russia indisputably played a part in producing this endlessly humiliating clown show.

But the major force in all of this is something much more pathetic and less sophisticated than spy vs. spy shit. The core fact is that it’s trivially easy to manipulate a belligerent, vainglorious bully, as Hillary Clinton pointed out almost a decade ago.

Although it’s easy to manipulate a dumb and insecure yet powerful person, it’s dangerous too. We’ve all witnessed the sad parade of “dignity wraiths” who’ve attached themselves to Trump to achieve their own ends, only to be cast aside when they proved inconvenient. Jefferson Beauregard Chifforobe Sessions was possibly the first in that now very long and pathetic line.

But the fact remains that Trump really is easy to manipulate — it’s just that the consequences are unpredictable. Elon Musk appears to be sorting through that fallout now.

Though currently sidelined, it’s possible Musk will emerge victorious if he and fellow billionaire elites succeed in creating and controlling a surveillance state to underpin a techno-feudal form of government in Trump’s wake. But that outcome isn’t preordained.

Right now, thanks to Trump’s fragile ego, whoever is in charge of Fox News programming is in effect running foreign policy. New York Times political coverage is terrible, but one thing access journalism occasionally horks up is insight into how decisions are made, and holy shit:

Mr. Trump had spent the early months of his administration warning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel against a strike on Iran. But by the morning of Friday, June 13, hours after the first Israeli attacks, Mr. Trump had changed his tune.

He marveled to advisers about what he said was a brilliant Israeli military operation, which involved a series of precision strikes that killed key figures in Iran’s military leadership and blasted away strategic weapons sites. Mr. Trump took calls on his cellphone from reporters and began hailing the operation as “excellent” and “very successful” and hinting that he had much more to do with it than people realized.

Later that day, Mr. Trump asked an ally how the Israeli strikes were “playing.” He said that “everyone” was telling him he needed to get more involved, including potentially dropping 30,000-pound GBU-57 bombs on Fordo, the Iranian uranium-enrichment facility buried underneath a mountain south of Tehran.

In a podcast released just before the U.S. attacked Iran, Josh Marshall noted that Trump is very much in favor of blowing shit up, but he fears commitment. Marshall said Trump would find a “one-night stand” type of military engagement irresistible, and that turned out to be true.

The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved. Several Trump advisers lamented the fact that Mr. Carlson was no longer on Fox, which meant that Mr. Trump was not hearing much of the other side of the debate.

The very silly statements administration officials have made since the bombing — like J.D. Vance’s absurd claim that the U.S. isn’t at war with Iran but only with Iran’s nuclear program — underscore the point that Trump believes this was a “one-and-done” military action. But in a war, the opponent has agency too.

That’s the unknown here. What is known is that for the foreseeable future, we’re all hostage to one uniquely terrible person’s ego-driven whims and how they are shaped by the media he consumes.

Open thread.

The Vibes WarPost + Comments (265)

Late Night Open Thread: Not All Heroes Wear Capes

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just saw a group of masked men stuffing masked ICE agents into an unmarked car, who were saying "we're ICE we're ICE!" but the abductors shouted to the crowd "no we're ICE!" no one knew who was ICE, so no one in the crowd said anything.

— derek guy (@dieworkwear.bsky.social) June 21, 2025 at 1:36 PM

An excellent response to JDivan Vance’s kabuki thuggery. Backstory from the Guardian:

Derek Guy was a relatively unknown menswear writer with 25,000 followers on Twitter in 2022. Now, in 2025, Guy has 1.3 million followers on the platform, now called X, where this week both the vice-president of the United States and the Department of Homeland Security posted threats to deport him from the US – the country he has called home since he was a baby.

“Honestly didn’t expect this is what would happen when I joined a menswear forum 15 years ago,” Guy quipped on X on Monday. “Was originally trying to look nice for someone else’s wedding.”

The threats targeted at Guy, a fashion writer known for lampooning the sartorial decisions of rightwing figures, including JD Vance, marked another alarming escalation in the White House’s ongoing project to mass deport millions of immigrants – raising the prospect of an administration wielding deportation as a weapon of retribution against its critics…

By 2025… Trump and Miller were back in the White House, pursuing a campaign promise to “remigrate” millions of everyday people out of America. In recent weeks they appeared to ramp up this ethno-nationalist project, with disturbing footage emerging online of masked, heavily armed Ice and DHS agents abducting Latino people from schools and courthouses, or kidnapping them off the streets, often separating them from their children.

Guy felt compelled to stand up and be counted.

In a long post on X, he recounted his family’s harrowing story of escaping war in Vietnam, a journey that ended with his mom carrying him across the US border while he was still an infant. Guy revealed that he was one of millions of undocumented people living in the US.

“The lack of legal immigration has totally shaped my life,” he wrote. “It has made every interaction with the law much scarier. It has shaped which opportunities I could or could not get. It has taken an emotional toll, as this legal issue hangs over your head like a black cloud.”

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War for Ukraine Day 1,214: Ukraine’s Defense Continues Regardless of Where the World’s Attention Is at the Moment

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A painting by Ukrainian artist NEIVANMADE. The words "NEVER AGAIN" are repeated over and over, from left to right and top to bottom, in a faded, washed out black against a white background. Red, the color of blood, runs and drips down across 2/3rds of the painting. "WHILE YOU TOLERATE TYRANTS" is written/painted in the bottom white corner below the three rows of "NEVER AGAIN".

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Don’t forget: russia is waging a genocidal war against Ukraine.
Right now.
Still.

— Olena Halushka (@halushka.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 1:24 PM

As the world focuses on the escalating war between Israel and Iran, the war in Ukraine has not paused. Russia continues its brutal campaign, targeting civilians. These images, taken and shared with us by volunteer Jana, show the aftermath of recent strikes in Pokrovsk area

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— Tatarigami (@tatarigami.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 8:24 PM

Which is why air raid alerts are up for all of north central Ukraine to eastern Ukraine at 3:40 AM local time/8:40 PM EDT and the air raid alert maps are indicating that Russian guided aerial bombs have been launched at Ukrainian targets in both Sumy and Donetsk Oblasts.

We are expecting to be hit with 200-250 russian drones tonight. Over 90 are already in Ukrainian air space.

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 3:59 PM

The cost:

Another similar horrific case of the Ukrainian defender dying less than a month after returning home. Valerii Zelenskyy from the Luhansk oblast spent three years in russian captivity. He couldn’t recover from the inhuman treatment there.

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— Olena Halushka (@halushka.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 5:29 AM

Before we continue, just a quick note regarding the ongoing strategic mess involving the US, Israel, and Iran. From statements made by Bibi, his Defense and Foreign Ministers, and other members of his extremist governing coalition, we know that Israel has two strategic objectives: 1) destruction of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and 2) regime change. Neither of these can be accomplished by Israel. Neither of them can be accomplished by Airpower. Not even by US Airpower. Frankly, it is NOT possible by a combination of Airpower and Landpower. As I wrote in 2018, Iran is a human geography trap that would make Iraq and Afghanistan look like a kid’s party. Israel has no ability to project its own Landpower into Iran. The land component of the IDF is exhausted. It is designed for no more than 90 days of continuous operation once the reserves are called up. It has now been operating for over twenty months in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria. About a week or so ago another group of Israeli Air Force reservists resigned in protest of what Bibi and his extremist coalition government is doing. We know that the US is not good at undertaking the type of operations that would be required to undertake regime change through boots on the ground. We don’t have the bodies and I suspect that with the exception of the British, we wouldn’t be able to put together a multinational coalition to help this time.

As I’ve also written before, a proper translation of Long Dead Carl’s maxim is that “war is politics with other means.” Bibi has been trying to get the US to undertake regime change in the US since the early 1980s. And to go to war with Iran on his behalf because Iran is “a year away from having a nuclear weapon” since 1995. We’ve all seen the video clips and montages of Bibi making these statements in English. Sometimes before Congress. Bibi has a vision for the Middle East. One that can only be accomplished by politics with other means. And he would prefer that the bill be paid not in Israeli blood and treasure, but in America’s dearest currency. Hamas’s attack on 7 OCT 2023 combined with the extremist governing coalition he has built, Biden’s inability to realistically see and understand what Bibi was doing, and now Trump’s return to the presidency have provided Bibi with the opportunity he has long sought. An opportunity that he was taught by his father to believe is his destiny to seize. Bibi’s megalomaniacal belief that he is a world historic figure and the only legitimate leader of Israel and world Jewry is not an achievable strategic objective. It isn’t a strategic objective at all. Whether last night’s US strike on Iran is really a one off or more strikes will eventually happen, there’s no achievable strategic objectives for the US to achieve here or to help the Israelis achieve. There’s just more politics with other means.

Speaking of:

Zelenskyy: We have evidence Russians are preparing military operations in Europe.

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 9:37 AM

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

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Excellent Read: Return of the Mad King

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Trump said you can measure a presidency by the wars you avoid, and for once he was right. Saturday's Iran bombing was the exclamation point on his abject failure
Trump is copying dictators from Mussolini to Putin in seeking glory through pointless war. My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/dona…

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— Will Bunch (@willbunch.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 1:44 PM



Will Bunch, at the Philadelphia Inquirer – “A mad king’s pointless war is where Donald Trump was always heading”:

“We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”
— Donald Trump’s second inaugural address, Jan. 20

In a sense, you gotta hand it to Donald Trump. America’s 45th and 47th president — and first dictator — may have made 30,573 false or misleading claims in his first term, but he started his second term with arguably the most prescient and honest words he’s uttered since descending from his golden escalator 10 years and one week ago.

A mad king’s impulsive, unchecked decision on Saturday to send waves of U.S. B-2 bombers halfway around the globe to drop the world’s most powerful nonnuclear bombs on three targets inside Iran is indeed a perfect way to measure Trump’s success after just over five months back in the White House.

And by every measure, Trump 47 has been an abject failure.

One week after 5 million Americans flooded the streets for a massive “No Kings” protest, with his approval rating heading underwater faster than the next climate-fueled flash flood, with his masked-secret-police deportation drive starting to alienate his own voters, with gas prices and 20-something unemployment starting to soar, and almost zero legislation despite GOP control of Congress, Trump showed that even a POTUS who hates canines can still wag the dog.

It took another epic failure — the inability of any of America’s democratic institutions since World War II to constrain the war-making abilities of an “imperial president,” which is a polite euphemism for “emperor” — to give Trump this option: to try and reinvent his disastrous reign by picking up the phone and ordering death and destruction 6,500 miles away…

The current wave of death in both Iran and Israel probably could have been avoided if not for another arbitrary and pointless Trump decision: to rip up Obama’s Iran deal in 2018. Not because that made the world safer. But because Trump — who showed his true self yet again last week in failing to observe the federal Juneteenth holiday — was on a mission to undo every achievement of the first Black president.

The truth is that another foreign war is always where Trump was going to take America, no matter what horse manure about world peace he spread during his 2024 presidential campaign. That’s because starting wars is what ego-driven personalist “strongmen” do — to stake their dubious claim on both national and personal greatness, to change the focus from domestic disasters and the suffering of their own people, and to create the perfect excuse to silence dissent and a free press in “the homeland.”…

This is not a time for Americans to “rally ‘round the flag” — not for a war being waged on behalf of one American and not the other 339,999,999. This is a moment for resistance and for accountability, in whatever ways are possible today, and more forcefully once the people can take our country back. And it starts with this basic understanding: that Trump is revealing the fallacy behind “strongman” rule.

He bombed Iran because he is a weak man.

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