Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

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

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

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

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

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

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

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

We still have time to mess this up!

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

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

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

The words do not have to be perfect.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

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Too Good Not To Share

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BlueSky tweet from Governor Pritzker.

Reporting live from Chicago, there’s no “hellscape” I’d rather be in.

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— Governor JB Pritzker (@govpritzker.illinois.gov) October 9, 2025 at 11:19 PM

I also want to share this fun roundup from the fellow at Status Kuo.

He calls these posts Just for Skeets and Giggles, and it’s too good not to share – a nice lighthearted collection of things gleaned from here and there over the previous week.  All political, of course, mocking the (dangerous) clowns that are running the country.

He links to Seth Myers mocking the 9 different ways he displayed dementia in a single clip of the orange guy.

He’s got a tweet from a fellow who wrote this:

Too Good Not To Share

An absolutely awesome one-minute TikTok video riffing on American being (not) great again.

Followed by some guy named Jason Salmon (look for the link to some guy wearing a lime green shirt) that is totally worth watching.

I want to add this image directly, because I’m sure I’ll be suing using this one again.

I didn’t include direct links to most of these because I think Jay Kuo deserves the clicks for putting it all together.  And his substack articles are typically interesting and well thought out.

Also, his sort-of-twitter links go the mirror site that doesn’t give any clicks to the devil site.

Open thread.

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Sunday Afternoon Open Thread

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We’re having a lazy Sunday, mostly lolling around on the sofa watching football, which started early since there was a game in London. It’s chilly by our standards, and all the windows are open, so we’ve been snuggling with the dogs under blankets.

However, a small flock of Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks landed noisily on the shady, muddy bank of the lagoon about 15 minutes ago, and that was enough to get me outside with the Nikon to sneak up for a few shots. The ducks were not amused:

A pair of chestnut colored ducks with black undercarriages, white-edged wings and pink bills and legs.
This Great Blue Heron observed the ducks’ nervous distress from a sunlit sandbar in the river about 30 yards away:

Long-necked wading bird standing in shallow water.

Since the birds were clearly pissed about a hairless pink ape crashing the party, I went back inside to resume watching football. Probably nothing else will tempt me back to the riverbank, unless it’s an otter. Or a flamingo, obviously.

Open thread!

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War for Ukraine Day 1,325: Gremlins from the Kremlin

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The cost:

On Oct 10, energy workers from Chernihivoblenergo were returning from repair work when a Russian drone hit their car. After the first blast, they rushed to save a wounded colleague. That’s when Russia hit them again.

Anatolii Savchenko, crane operator, and Ruslan Deineha, driver, were both killed

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 11, 2025 at 9:14 AM

Several of their colleagues got wounded.Russia also shelled the fire brigade arriving to help.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy shared their photos. Eternal memory 🕯

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 11, 2025 at 9:14 AM

The little green men have made an appearance at the Estonian border!

Estonia has urgently closed part of its border with Russia following the appearance of armed “little green men,” ERR reports‼️

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 11, 2025 at 3:29 PM

“We’ve observed large, heavily armed groups engaging in suspicious activity. These are clearly not border guards, and the situation poses a real threat,” Estonian border officials stated.

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 11, 2025 at 3:29 PM

More seriously, this is exceedingly ungood. Now I know some of you are thinking and likely to comment that there is no way that Putin could successfully invade Estonian given how bogged down he is in western Ukraine where his forces have spent almost four years getting a lot of Russian troops and equipment blown up in exchange for taking a couple of kilometers of land. And because Estonia is a NATO member. First, this would be a very different type of operation. Specifically one that Russia is very good at. They’ve successfully infiltrated their little green men into Moldova carving off and creating the organized crime statelet of Transnistria, into Georgia where they’ve captured two regions, and into Ukraine where they did the same thing in Luhansk and Crimea and a good chunk of Donetsk. In all three cases local traitors working on Russia’s behalf and Russian personnel have held these gains. In the case of Moldova and Ukraine, the little green men were a mixture of local traitors aligned with Russia, Black Sea Cossacks, and Spetznaz. The Georgian op was just local traitors and Spetznaz. Second, that was part of the effectiveness of the Moldovan, Georgian, and Ukrainian invasions: enough local traitors working for and with Russians to muddy the waters enough to provide local cover for the invasion. NATO is not going to get involved in something that can be portrayed as a local and internal matter. We don’t know yet who these little green men are in regard to Estonia, but the Estonians are off to a good start trying to prevent the incursion.

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

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Curious: Black & White, or Gray?

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So I was thinking about Law & Order just now as I was doing some baking.

The current lead prosecutor on Law & Order is a pompous, self-righteous prick who pisses me off in nearly every show.  He also regularly pisses off the other lead prosecutor, a woman, who is always second chair.  She does not share his black & white view of the world.

Anyway, he absolutely sees the world in black and white and he refuses to take the big picture into account.  It’s all about the win; he could care less about the people or about extenuating circumstances.  He doesn’t care who is destroyed in the process.

All of which led me to think about the current polarizing state of affairs and everything that has led up to it, and I wondered whether I now see the world more black & white than I used to, or whether I now see more gray.

The answer isn’t immediately obvious to me, which is what made the question interesting.  But I can say with confidence that I care a lot more about justice than I do about the letter of the law.  And I am generally a lot more “spirit of the law” than “letter of the law”.  So maybe that’s my answer?

But now I’m curious.  What about you guys?  Do you feel you see the world as more black and white than you used to, or more gray?  Which trumps the other – justice or letter of the law?   I would love to hear your thoughts around all of this, as well as what colors your answer.

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Open Thread: Never Starve Your Troops, Emperor

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Man I'm not sure that they've thought this through.
Missing paychecks to the military historically has… not gone well for the head of state.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 11, 2025 at 12:40 PM

Per CNN:

… It’s the most dramatic step yet by Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson to attempt to force Democrats to end the government shutdown, even as they realize their party will, too, face political pain for the move. And it comes at a high-stakes moment for both parties: This will be the first time in recent history that active-duty military service members will miss a paycheck on a large scale during a shutdown.

But behind the scenes, Thune and Johnson have agreed that Republicans can make no attempts to lessen the pain they argue Democrats are causing millions of Americans by rejecting the GOP’s plan to simply extend current funding — concerned that if Congress took that step, Democrats would face less pressure to reopen the government, according to multiple GOP leadership sources.

As the shutdown drags into its third week, tensions are rising in the GOP with no clear way out. Lawmakers are angry at one another for getting into now-viral hallway confrontations with Democrats or doing high-profile interviews where they blame their own party for the lapse. Some are angry at GOP leadership for failing to address the military pay issue from the start, or for the optics of keeping the House out of session for weeks on end. But those CNN spoke with expressed an acute anger at Senate Democrats.

“I’m going back to DC. I’ve had enough,” GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, who has raised his concerns with House GOP leadership, said. “I just can’t fathom why we would not be there.”

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Saturday Morning Open Thread

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No Kings 2 is Saturday, Oct. 18.
Nobody is getting paid to be there. But you can demonstrate to the world that you oppose the rise of fascism in the U.S.
Find your local protest here: www.nokings.org#map

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— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 10:57 AM

Making sure all my enemies know that there's a big rally about how much I suck coming up, & also that it really bothers me

— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 12:30 PM

******

This is an odd assessment, imho, because the WH actually doesn't really care about congressional priorities and the first real time it encountered them, the entire thing fell apart and the government shut down.
Most of the WH is about pulling levers where congress has given it power.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 10:16 PM

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War for Ukraine Day 1,324: When Winter First Begins to Bite

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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"

The cost:

This is Makar. He was 7. Russia murdered him🕯

On the night of October 10th, a Russian drone struck the Dorosh family’s home in Zaporizhzhia.
Everyone was inside: mother Svitlana, father Hryhorii, their two daughters: 17-year-old Oleksandra and 13-year-old Yaroslava, and 7-year-old Makar.

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 9:42 AM

Makar sustained injuries incompatible with life and died in the hospital. His father, Hryhorii, remains in intensive care in critical condition.

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 9:42 AM

WARNING!! WARNING!! GRAPHIC IMAGERY!! WARNING!! WARNING!!

This 58-year-old woman was killed in Kostiantynivka by russia, which deliberately and cold-bloodedly targeted a civilian vehicle with FPV drone.

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— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 6:17 AM

ALL CLEAR!!!!

An employee of the Chernihiv regional energy company was killed and several colleagues were injured by a Russian drone strike today.

These civilian workers were targeted while in their vehicles, risking their lives to provide essential services.

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 6:15 PM

Here’s what the Russians threw at the Ukrainians last night.

Routes of drones (yellow) and missiles (red) used by fascist Russia to attack democratic Ukraine overnight. The latest Russian Blitz attack hit energy infrastructure in the north and east of the country. Ukrainian officials have said Ukraine will respond to such attacks in kind.

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— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 12:38 AM

Last night, russia murdered a 7yo boy in Zaporizhzhia and brought a lot of damage to the Ukrainian energy system attempting to freeze us into capitulation in winter.

This won’t stop until russia tastes its own pill. Every effort to manage escalation has only led to impunity and more escalation.

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— Olena Halushka (@halushka.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 8:24 AM

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

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