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Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

When we show up, we win.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

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

We still have time to mess this up!

This really is a full service blog.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

So many bastards, so little time.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

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War for Ukraine Day 1,177: A Brief Friday Night Update

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A quick housekeeping note: Sorry this is coming in late. It was another long day here. Got a few more of them and then things should start to settle back to normal. I’m just going to run through the basics tonight.

The mid-level Russian functionaries that Putin sent to Istanbul decided to make Pytin’s objectives explicitly clear.

“We don’t want war, but we’re ready to fight for a year, two, three—however long it takes. We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?”

Russia doesn’t want peace. If this wasn’t obvious from the fact they they started the war, it should be from this sentence

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) May 16, 2025 at 1:21 PM

“Maybe more of your loved ones will die”:

russia’s threat at #Ukraine peace talks revealed

russia says it’s ready to fight “forever”-despite nearly a million casualties.

euromaidanpress.com/2025/05/16/m…

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— Eugene McParland 🇺🇦 (@eugenemcparland.bsky.social) May 16, 2025 at 1:11 PM

From EuroMaidan Press:

“We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?” That was the message delivered by Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky to the Ukrainian delegation during recent peace talks in Istanbul, according to The Economist’s Oliver Carroll, citing an informed source.

Medinsky, who led the Russian side, also reportedly said Russia “does not want war” but is ready to fight for “a year, two, three—however long it takes.” Another statement attributed to him warned: “Maybe some of those sitting here at this table will lose more of their loved ones. Russia is prepared to fight forever.”

These remarks came during a rare face-to-face meeting—the first between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in more than three years. The two-hour session resulted in a 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner exchange agreement, confirmed by Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, though no implementation date was announced.

According to Carroll’s report, the Russian delegation conditioned a ceasefire on Ukraine withdrawing all forces from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—regions claimed by Moscow since 2022 but only partially occupied. Ukrainian diplomatic sources said Russia also threatened to seize Kharkiv and Sumy, expanding its territorial demands.

A source told Reuters the proposals were “detached from reality,” while a Kyiv official told The Telegraph that Russia considered Ukrainian withdrawal a “minimum requirement” for any progress.

Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko also claimed that the Russian delegation issued threats to take Sumy region during the meeting.

Despite these allegations, neither delegation publicly mentioned any threats following the talks. Both sides acknowledged only the prisoner swap. Medinsky confirmed the deal and noted Ukraine’s request for a presidential-level meeting, but no additional negotiations were announced.

More at the link.

There’s a couple of different things to keep in mind. The first is that Medinsky and his colleagues are just mid-level equivalents of Lavrov. They are trusted to go out and weaponize Russia’s diplomatic power, but they are not in the inner circle around Putin and have no real influence within the Kremlin. The second is that none of these demands are even remotely surprising. Even though it is now completely clear to everyone that Putin cannot achieve his war objectives, he will demand that they simply be delivered to him or else. And then he’ll make additional threats and demands tethered to them. He can’t be negotiated with and, as a result, Russia cannot be negotiated with because negotiations arenot meant to get all the parties to their best alternative negotiated agreement, bur merely to drag things out another day, week, month, or year because he is convinced that the US, the EU, and NATO will either eventually run out of interest in providing support or one of the nativist, neo-fascist parties he supports either overtly or covertly will win an election and make things easier for him. He’s probing for mush and if he finds it he will order Russia to advance further until the probing hits steel.

President Zelenskyy addressed the European Political Community Summit today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Totally Out of the Loop Open Thread

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The past three days for me have been totally about trying to put my house back together after at least 3 weeks of disruption and chaos.  At this point, my closet room (small bedroom that I turned into a closet years ago) is a disaster, and I can barely step into the room because the floor is nearly covered.  At one point I thought, “oh this must be what it’s like to be a hoarder”, trying to find a spot where you can take the next step without tripping and hurting yourself.

And my dining room table is covered with stuff I have to deal with and put away…. somewhere?   Not to mention all the stuff I shoved under the dining table to get it out of the way while the work was being done.

So at this point, the chaos is now quarantined into those two areas, and the rest of the house feels more like a normal house again.  I have the weekend to get those two areas workable and live-able again.  It’s been a ton of work, and I have almost completely ignored the outside world.  It’s really hard for me to focus on anything when I am surrounded by chaos.  Guessing that most of us are that way?

Except that a couple of times a day I look to make sure it hasn’t been 8 hours since the last post, and then I read a couple of lines of the top post and find out the next totally unbelievable over-the-too crap that is being done in the name of government.  Holy shit, they aren’t drowning it in a bathtub, when they aren’t setting it on fire they are bludgeoning it to death.

I find myself hoping that some good stuff has happened, too, and also hoping you guys can share some of those things in the comments.

What have you guys been up to?  I had a humorous moment yesterday when the nice Amish man who put in the hardwood floor came to move the furniture back.  About halfway through that process he said “I was really surprised to see your sign” and I’m thinking, “what sign?  I don’t have a sign”, and then I wondered if he mean my “NO KINGS in America since 1776” bumper sticker.  He must have seen the quizzical look cross my face because he gestured toward something in the living room.

Then I knew!  I have a nameplate (where your name and possibly job title would normally be) that says:

LET ME FILE THAT UNDER

fuck it

As I was taking all that in, he said “You seem like such a nice lady that …”, and I laughed and said “I thought it was funny!” and he said “I did, too.”

So we had our little moment.  He was surprised that this nice lady would have that sign, and I was surprised that the nice Amish man thought it was funny, too.

Open thread.

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Squid Game (Open Thread)

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These are some deeply twisted, horrible people.

DHS Is Considering Reality Show Where Immigrants Compete for Citizenship
‘This isn’t ‘The Hunger Games’ for immigrants,’ says the producer behind the pitch

WSJ (gift link) — The Department of Homeland Security is considering being part of a television show in which immigrants would compete for potential U.S. citizenship, an idea the producer pitched as far back as the Obama administration.

Department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said she had spoken to the producer of the proposed television reality show and that consideration of the idea was ongoing.

It is “in the very beginning stages of that vetting process,” she said, adding, “Each proposal undergoes a thorough vetting process prior to denial or approval.”

Pro-tip for show pitchers: if you’re obligated to put a “it’s not The Hunger Games” disclaimer on your pitch, throw the pitch in the bin, and then go back and rethink every life choice that led you to this moment.

The pitch for the proposed citizenship-competition show comes from Rob Worsoff, a producer and writer whose credits include the “Duck Dynasty” reality show. Worsoff, who emigrated from Canada, told The Wall Street Journal that the show is meant to be hopeful and a celebration of what it means to be an American citizen.

Oh, the guy who thrust the mumbling right-wing “Duck Dynasty” dipshits into public consciousness. Worsoff says he pitched the show to DHS under Obama and Biden but “the project didn’t come together.” Probably because it’s a profoundly grotesque idea.

The reality TV genre has a lot to answer for, including the shitty current president.

***

In other news from the WSJ, Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” failed to make it out of committee in the GOP-controlled House:

WASHINGTON—House Republican spending hawks blocked the party’s giant tax-and-spending bill on Friday, delivering President Trump a setback over disagreements on Medicaid, clean-energy tax breaks and budget deficits.

They’ll take another swing at it next week. I figure something small and ugly will eventually emerge. Trump is having a hissy fit on his janky knock-off Twitter clone, shrieking GRANDSTANDERS at the so-called fiscal hawks, who will almost certainly cave eventually. There’s not enough vertebrae among the 220 members of that caucus to form a single spine.

Open thread.

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Lunch Among the Ruins (Open Thread)

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I met some family for lunch in Cedar Key, a remote coastal community that was devastated by a brush with Hurricane Helene last year while still recovering from the walloping it received the season before from Hurricane Idalia. The town is slowly recovering.

The storm surge washed out a bridge that leads to the main waterfront drag, Dock Street. Workers were paving the rebuilt bridge yesterday, so that’s progress.

Some buildings containing restaurants, shops, etc., on the Gulf (of MEXICO) side are still in shambles, but a few places have reopened.

Empty piers in the water where a wooden building once stood. Adjacent buildings have visible damage.

Dog help Cedar Key if it gets hit again this year. The malicious, corrupt idiot Trump put in charge of DHS immediately gutted FEMA, and the agency is wholly unprepared for hurricane season. It starts in two weeks.

***

On the way there, I listened to a This American Life episode that originally aired a few months ago called “Ten Things I Don’t Want to Hate About You.” It was about a son’s wager with his delusional Trumpist father.

In January 2024, the father bet the son $10K that 10 predictions the dad made would happen by December 31, 2024. The predictions were kooky stuff like Biden, Obama and the Clintons would be convicted of treason, martial law would be declared in the U.S., etc.

The son took the bet hoping that when the dad’s delusions were revealed as false, he would finally have an epiphany. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to reveal that the scales did not fall from the dad’s eyes.

He concluded his timing was just off, though, to his credit, he gamely paid up. Meanwhile, over the course of that year, the family basically fell apart due to the father’s pig-headed delusions.

It reminded me a little of a conversation in comments here recently. Those of us with MAGA family members know — there’s no changing their minds. The question is will you disown your relatives or not. Some do, some don’t. Same with the family in the podcast episode.

***

Speaking of family, my spouse and I have an anniversary coming up at the end of the month. It’s not a big-deal round number anniversary, but we are planning to throw a small party anyway, just a few friends and family members here at the swamp compound.

We have many talented cooks among the commentariat, so I thought I’d ask y’all for hors d’oeuvres suggestions. It will mostly be outdoors, and I don’t want to spend a lot of time fussing over things when guests are here, so I’m thinking room temperature things that can be made in advance would be ideal.

Thanks in advance!

Open thread.

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Friday Morning Open Thread

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— Mike Luckovich (@mluckovich.bsky.social) May 14, 2025 at 2:54 PM

From a Puck email, Abby Livingston on “Johnson’s Reality Bites”:

Speaker Mike Johnson’s “big, beautiful bill” is the largest, most complicated legislative push since Obamacare, which took more than 14 months to pass with much larger Democratic margins in both chambers. We’re not there quite yet—but while Johnson seems determined to meet his self-imposed Memorial Day deadline to get the G.O.P. tax plan passed in the House, reality is beginning to dawn on K Street and Capitol Hill Republicans.

Every step in the process is proving time-consuming and difficult: Freedom Caucus members are signaling that they’re not above pulling their support as a negotiating tactic. As we foresaw back in November, members of the SALT caucus are also playing hardball. And some preferred Medicaid cuts could imperil the seats of vulnerable incumbents such as California’s David Valadao; ditto SALT stinginess for New York’s Mike Lawler, who’s fighting tooth and nail to raise the deduction.

There’s a growing fear that the legislation moving through the House right now could create new opportunities for Democrats. Republican Andrew Garbarino’s recent admission that he will be politically doomed if the SALT deduction cap isn’t raised touched on a legitimate concern shared by Republicans I’ve spoken with, as well as Garbarino’s Long Island neighbor Nick LaLota. Theirs were not previously thought to be competitive races. Hovering over all these decision points is the perennial concern that Johnson could force his members to pass a bill with unpopular provisions, only for the more moderate Senate to sink it.

They need a catchy title for this.
How about: The Kill the Children, the Old and the Needy to Make the Rich Richer Act of 2025?
House Republicans Push Forward Plan to Cut Taxes, Medicaid and Food Aid

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— davidrlurie (@davidrlurie.bsky.social) May 15, 2025 at 6:04 AM

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Dank Grey Dawn Open Thread : Shut Up, Comey

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I don’t know why he did it, but James Comey (who has a novel coming out) posted this pic on Insta today and the right wing marketplace is screaming that it’s a death threat (86 47).

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— David S. Bernstein (@dbernstein.bsky.social) May 15, 2025 at 5:15 PM

Apparently ’86’ is restaurant slang for ‘get rid of’. Eighty-six that ribeye,it’s too far gone even to sell as ‘well-done’. Quite the wag, our boy Jim; if all publicity is good publicity…

"We are aware of the recent social media post by former FBI Director James Comey, directed at President Trump. We are in communication with the Secret Service and Director Curran,” says FBI Director Kash Patel, reacting to Comey’s “86 47” seashell arrangement on Instagram.

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— Steve Herman ?? (@newsguy.bsky.social) May 15, 2025 at 7:27 PM

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War for Ukraine Day 1,176: Happy Vyshyvanka Day!

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Quick housekeeping note: I’m fried. It was another long day. Not bad, just very long. So I’m going to just run through the basics so I can get cleaned up and rack out.

What they doin ova der is Vyvyshanka Day!

Vyshyvanka Day in Kharkiv ❤️🇺🇦

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) May 15, 2025 at 11:08 AM

Vyshyvanka is the genetic code of Ukrainians💛

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— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) May 15, 2025 at 3:00 PM

President Zelenskyy traveled to Turkiye today. He met with Erdogan and also held a press conference. Here’s that video:

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