Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

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

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Second rate reporter says what?

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Let me file that under fuck it.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

In my day, never was longer.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

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

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Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread: Good News!

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Big news in the election media landscape: ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and CNN will no longer get their election results from Edison. They're signing on with the AP, which was already the main source of election results for newspapers, etc.: www.ap.org/media-center…

— Nathaniel Rakich (@baseballot.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 11:22 AM

*****

Also, Pastor Speaker Mike continues to make himself the face of everything people loathe about politicians…

Pretty sure that *NO KINGS* is a "foundational truth[] of this republic."

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— Heidi Kitrosser (@heidikitrosser.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 10:58 AM

They seem scared. And they seem to actually promote this rally Barbara Streisand-style.

— Marcel Steeman (@steeman.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 10:57 AM

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Janet Mills for Senate

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Simon Rosenberg raises some interesting points relative to the entrance of Janet Mills into the race to unseat Susan Collins.

The entrance of Governor Janet Mills into the Maine Senate race is another significant new pressure point on one of their most significant cracks, Senator Susan Collins. In the only public poll we have Mills leads Collins by 5, 42%-37% in a state Harris won by 7 points (Platner is tied with Collins 38%-38% in this poll).

Again Rs can only lose 3 votes in the Senate to pass a budget with a simple majority. Senators Paul, Tillis, and Collins all voted against the big ugly bill. Senator Murkowski has voted against the Administration repeatedly this year.

If Collins now becomes a hard no on the Trump agenda due to Mills getting in Thune gets one step closer to losing control of the chamber – even if they get rid of the filibuster for the final budget vote.

Also, a quick reminder that we did flash fundraising for this very same Janet Mills on a Sunday in 2022 when she last ran for governor.  We raised $8,245 in an afternoon.

Seems like a good idea to watch this interview with Janet Mills before dismissing her run out of hand because of her age.  Janet Mills knows exactly how old she is and she knows exactly how she feels.  And she saw what happened with Biden – but can we please not litigate that again here today?

My guess is that Janet Mills feels that she has the best chance of getting Susan Collins the hell out of the Senate and a new senator in the D column.  She’s not running for some ego trip or because she always always always wanted to be a senator.  She is sensible and she wants what’s best for this country.

Or maybe it’s like the old guy who ran for president decades ago – I don’t recall his name but I seem to recall something about the pentagon papers? – and while we all knew he couldn’t win, a whole issues were discussed in debates because he was willing to bring them up, and he didn’t have anything to protect.

Is it possible that Chuck Schumer is stuck in some mindset where we go what’s safest?  Maybe.  But maybe not.  If we want to take back the Senate, we basically have to run the table.  If she has the best shot, I don’t care how old she is.  If she had to step down in 2 years for whatever reason, I like our chances in a special election.  But we need to take the senate in 2026, so I say we take our winners where we can find them!

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Jack Smith Breaks His Silence and Sounds the Alarm

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The State of the United States

DOJ and Jack Smith (LIVE) Now 2

Jack Smith spoke with Andrew Weissmann  at the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism.

The Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism, based at the UCL Faculty of Laws, is a world-leading scholarly community for those working on questions of constitutional resilience.

Few if any of the global risks facing humanity can be solved without the leadership of democratic governments. However, democratic constitutional governance is in global retreat rather than advancement. But while the challenges of democratic decline and backsliding are well known, they are often framed solely in terms of politics or law. The Centre recognises that these threats to constitutionalism and the rule of law also jeopardise our global pathways for solving the existential issues of our time: climate change, migration, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism (to name but a few).

By creating an exceptional research community dedicated to the study of democracy, the rule of law, and constitutional resilience, the GCDC seeks to advance our understanding of the foundational issues on which our global future rests.

Here’s the full conversation. I plan to watch the whole thing later today.

The MSNBC clip below (about 10 minutes) gives some sense of the things Jack Smith spoke about.

It’s almost heartbreaking to be reminded of the hope we had that FFOTUS would truly be brought to justice.   (Cake, anyone?)

The nazis are already lying about Jack Smith, so it seems like a good idea for all of us to get the truth about Jack Smith straight from the man himself.

Open thread.

 

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: They Break Upon Us

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mike johnson’s son currently confiscating his phone and deleting all his news apps

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— GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) October 14, 2025 at 7:53 PM

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i am making a THEY DO NOT BREAK US THEY BREAK UPON US flag that i will wave as high as i can on saturday for no kings. repost this with what you intend to do. encourage every person you know to hit the streets.

— GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) October 15, 2025 at 1:00 AM

we have the rest of this week to rally every fucking person all of us knows to hit the streets, i have ten people i am bringing out, repost this with better numbers than mine, you competitive people, beat my numbers

— GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) October 15, 2025 at 1:24 AM

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Fox News, the former employer of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has joined a near-unanimous outpouring of news organizations rejecting new rules for journalists based in the Pentagon.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) October 14, 2025 at 8:00 PM

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A Florida judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the planned transfer of prime downtown Miami land for Donald Trump’s future presidential library.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) October 14, 2025 at 9:30 PM

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War for Ukraine Day 1,328: A Brief Tuesday Night Update

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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 going to do a brief(ish) update tonight.

First Lady Zelenska hosted Reem al Hashimy, the UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation, in Kyiv today. where an agreement was signed between the Olena Zelenska Foundation and the UAE was signed. Here’s the video:

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

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Early Evening Open Thread

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The baseball post will be going up soon and I don’t see anything happening in the back room, so I thought an open thread would be good.

Time for me to go walk on the treadmill.  Not thrilled about that today.

Is anyone watching the new season of Slow Horses?   Or The Morning Show?  I am waiting until the whole seasons are up and then I’ll subscribe again and watch.  The great thing about streaming is that you don’t have to wait a week between episodes, dammit!

Greedy bastards!

Open thread.

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