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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Books are my comfort food!

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

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

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

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

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

So many bastards, so little time.

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Open Thread:  Hey Lurkers!  (Holiday Post)

Open Threads

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads

Jen Rubin Out at the Post

by @heymistermix.com|  January 13, 202510:05 am| 198 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

She’s writing at a new Substack called The Contrarian:

Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission — defending, protecting and advancing democracy. The Washington Post’s billionaire owner and enlisted management are among the offenders. They have undercut the values central to The Post’s mission and that of all journalism: integrity, courage, and independence. I cannot justify remaining at The Post. Jeff Bezos and his fellow billionaires accommodate and enable the most acute threat to American democracy—Donald Trump—at a time when a vibrant free press is more essential than ever to our democracy’s survival and capacity to thrive.

I therefore have resigned from The Post, effective today. In doing so, I join a throng of veteran journalists so distressed over The Post’s management they felt compelled to resign.

[…]

Which is why I am so thrilled to simultaneously announce this new outlet, The Contrarian: Not Owned by Anybody. The Contrarian will offer daily columns, weekly features, podcasts and social media from me and fellow pro-democracy contrarians, many of whom have decamped from corporate media, others who were never a part of it. I am launching this endeavor with my cofounder, Norm Eisen. Founding contributors will include Joyce Vance, Andy Borowitz, Laurence Tribe, Katie Phang, George Conway, Olivia Julianna, Harry Litman (who recently resigned from the LA Times for reasons similar to mine for leaving the Post), and Asha Rangappa, among many other brilliant voices. We will provide fearless and distinctive reported opinion and cultural commentary without phony balance, euphemisms or gamified political punditry.

The last part of her post has a big shoutout to Fred Hiatt, who ran one of the worst Opinion sections of the War on Terror era.

Rubin is a good example of someone who’s right on Trump, but has been wrong on a lot of things in the past.  That includes some embarrassing encomiums to Mitt Romney.  I won’t be subscribing to her Substack.  If she says something of interest, I’m sure it will bubble up on Bluesky or on the blog of someone who has been more consistently right than her.

Jen Rubin Out at the PostPost + Comments (198)

Monday Morning Open Thread: Friday the 13th Falls On A Monday, This Month

by Anne Laurie|  January 13, 20256:56 am| 167 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Religion, Republican Venality

Topped off the fluids, time to pull the crank start on the “they’re fucking weird” machine.

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— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 12:59 PM

Title’s from an old Walt Kelly trope. But danged if the last few months haven’t felt like every one included at least half a dozen officially unlucky days!

The Harris and Trump campaigns both found that the best testing Trump ad wasn't any transgender spot but rather a video of Harris saying "Bidenomics is working" www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol…

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— Nick Field (@nickfield.bsky.social) January 11, 2025 at 2:19 PM

Glass half full:

we talk a lot about how bad the information environment is and how much people hated inflation and republicans still barely won and are now on track to do a lot of unpopular shit most people didn’t think they voted for
many of them are not going to like it very much

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— Micah (@rincewind.run) January 12, 2025 at 3:49 PM

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Glass into which Repubs are currently… spitting:

Two Republican senators have said they expect the new Republican-led Congress to ask for a laundry list of requirements to be met before allocating desperately needed disaster aid to authorities in wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles.

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— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 9:16 PM


 

Millions of Hindu devotees, mystics, and holy men and women from all across India flocked to Prayagraj to kickstart the Maha Kumbh festival, which is being touted as the world’s largest religious gathering. https://t.co/nil8oB4NZ9

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 13, 2025

Not saying I’d ever go do this, but I understand the desire to break the cycle…

Millions of Hindu devotees, mystics and holy men and women from all across India flocked to the northern city of Prayagraj on Monday to kickstart the Maha Kumbh festival, which is being touted as the world’s largest religious gathering.

Over about the next six weeks, Hindu pilgrims will gather at the confluence of three sacred rivers — the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati — where they will take part in elaborate rituals, hoping to begin a journey to achieve Hindu philosophy’s ultimate goal: the release from the cycle of rebirth…

Hindus venerate rivers, and none more so than the Ganges and the Yamuna. The faithful believe that a dip in their waters will cleanse them of their past sins and end their process of reincarnation, particularly on auspicious days. The most propitious of these days occur in cycles of 12 years during a festival called the Maha Kumbh Mela, or pitcher festival.

The festival is a series of ritual baths by Hindu sadhus, or holy men, and other pilgrims at the confluence of three sacred rivers that dates to at least medieval times. Hindus believe that the mythical Saraswati river once flowed from the Himalayas through Prayagraj, meeting there with the Ganges and the Yamuna.

Bathing takes place every day, but on the most auspicious dates, naked, ash-smeared monks charge toward the holy rivers at dawn. Many pilgrims stay for the entire festival, observing austerity, giving alms and bathing at sunrise every day…

The Kumbh rotates among these four pilgrimage sites about every three years on a date prescribed by astrology. This year’s festival is the biggest and grandest of them all. A smaller version of the festival, called Ardh Kumbh, or Half Kumbh, was organized in 2019, when 240 million visitors were recorded, with about 50 million taking a ritual bath on the busiest day.

At least 400 million people — more than the population of the United States — are expected in Prayagraj over the next 45 days, according to officials. That is around 200 times the 2 million pilgrims that arrived in the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage last year…

(Apart from everything else, since 2019, India has lost a literally uncountable number of people to the global pandemic.)

Monday Morning Open Thread: Friday the 13th Falls On A Monday, This MonthPost + Comments (167)

Late Night Open Thread: Peter Thiel Wants to Speak to *All* the Managers

by Anne Laurie|  January 13, 20253:04 am| 83 Comments

This post is in: Grifters Gonna Grift, Information Warfare, Open Threads

All I can say about this Peter Thiel op-ed in the Financial Times is that it reads like something he actually wrote. No comms team or AI chatbot is capable of producing this strange paranoid string of sentences www.ft.com/content/a46c…

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— Micah Loewinger (@micahloewinger.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 8:21 AM

Back on Friday, the Financial Times published an op-ed by Peter Thiel which has attracted a certain amount of internet scorn attention, even over the weekend. Some people say that Thiel, after spending lavishly of his own money & effort to install J.D. Vance on the incoming maladministration undercard, is just annoyed that his old running buddy Musk has side-stepped the official rules and moved into the top slot through the sheer leverage of money. Others point out that Thiel, like Elon, is a known (‘but of course he has a prescription’) ketamine user, and ketamine may assuage depression but it has concerning side effects.

Or then again, comes the rejoinder, maybe these Very Important Tech Dudes all got lucky — just happened to be standing outside with buckets when it started raining soup — and this is what the insides of their sweaty little brains have always looked like. In any case, here’s (ex South African) Thiel on A time for truth and reconciliation…

In 2016, President Barack Obama told his staff that Donald Trump’s election victory was “not the apocalypse”. By any definition, he was correct. But understood in the original sense of the Greek word apokálypsis, meaning “unveiling”, Obama could not give the same reassurance in 2025. Trump’s return to the White House augurs the apokálypsis of the ancien regime’s secrets. The new administration’s revelations need not justify vengeance — reconstruction can go hand in hand with reconciliation. But for reconciliation to take place, there must first be truth.

The apokálypsis is the most peaceful means of resolving the old guard’s war on the internet, a war the internet won. My friend and colleague Eric Weinstein calls the pre-internet custodians of secrets the Distributed Idea Suppression Complex (DISC) — the media organisations, bureaucracies, universities and government-funded NGOs that traditionally delimited public conversation. In hindsight, the internet had already begun our liberation from the DISC prison upon the prison death of financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2019. Almost half of Americans polled that year mistrusted the official story that he died by suicide, suggesting that DISC had lost total control of the narrative…

We cannot wait six decades, however, to end the lockdown on a free discussion about Covid-19. In subpoenaed emails from Anthony Fauci’s senior adviser David Morens, we learnt that National Institutes of Health apparatchiks hid their correspondence from Freedom of Information Act scrutiny. “Nothing,” wrote Boccaccio in his medieval plague epic The Decameron, “is so indecent that it cannot be said to another person if the proper words are used to convey it.” …

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Our First Amendment frames the rules of engagement for domestic fights over free speech, but the global reach of the internet tempts its adversaries into a global war. Can we believe that a Brazilian judge banned X without American backing, in a tragicomic perversion of the Monroe Doctrine? Were we complicit in Australia’s recent legislation requiring age verification for social media users, the beginning of the end of internet anonymity? Did we muster up even two minutes’ criticism of the UK, which has arrested hundreds of people a year for online speech triggering, among other things, “annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety”? We may expect no better from Orwellian dictatorships in East Asia and Eurasia, but we must support a free internet in Oceania.

Darker questions still emerge in these dusky final weeks of our interregnum. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen recently suggested on Joe Rogan’s podcast that the Biden administration debanked crypto entrepreneurs. How closely does our financial system resemble a social credit system? Were an IRS contractor’s illegal leaks of Trump’s tax records anomalous, or should Americans assume their right to financial privacy hinges on their politics? And can one speak of a right to privacy at all when Congress conserves Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, under which the FBI conducts tens of thousands of warrantless searches of Americans’ communications?…

The future demands fresh and strange ideas. New ideas might have saved the old regime, which barely acknowledged, let alone answered, our deepest questions — the causes of the 50-year slowdown in scientific and technological progress in the US, the racket of crescendoing real estate prices, and the explosion of public debt…

Identity politics endlessly relitigates ancient history. The study of recent history, to which the Trump administration is now called, is more treacherous — and more important. The apokálypsis cannot resolve our fights over 1619, but it can resolve our fights over Covid-19; it will not adjudicate the sins of our first rulers, but the sins of those who govern us today. The internet will not allow us to forget those sins — but with the truth, it will not prevent us from forgiving.

As we would say in the funky-scented dormitory lounges late at night, back in the early 1970s: Heavy, maaaan.

It is easy to picture him writing this, his face aglow with moisture of unclear provenance.

— Triplejake (@triplejake.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 10:24 AM

The Financial Times didn’t exactly use an eye-roll emoji, but its readers seem to have construed that its publication was not an endorsemnt:

Wow. I have never seen a comment hit 1,000+ "recommended" before
www.ft.com/content/a46c…

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— Librarian Capital (@librariancapital.bsky.social) January 11, 2025 at 7:58 AM

I cannot believe the FT agreed to publish this. This piece isn’t news. It is not even opinion. I is openly gaslighting the readers. This is unacceptable and unprofessional from the FT’s editorial team.

 
Be that as it may. Insert ‘Let them fight’ gif…

Steve Bannon: “Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Elon Musk, are all white South Africans…go back to South Africa. Why do we have the most racist people on earth, white South Africans making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?” https://t.co/7PKxTFbovO

— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) January 12, 2025

Late Night Open Thread: Peter Thiel Wants to Speak to *All* the ManagersPost + Comments (83)

War for Ukraine Day 1,054: Those Boots Won’t Lick Themselves

by Adam L Silverman|  January 12, 20257:02 pm| 21 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Military, Open Threads, Russia, Silverman on Security, War, War in Ukraine

Tonight in “Yeesh, this guy:”

⚡️Serbian president offers to host Trump-Putin meeting in Belgrade.

“There is no country that can compare to Serbia in terms of the level of support for President Trump. … And on the other hand, it is a country where President Putin is still very, very popular.”

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— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) January 12, 2025 at 4:10 PM

From The Kyiv Independent:

Serbia will officially offer to host the upcoming meeting between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in a television broadcast on Jan. 12.

Trump announced on Jan. 9 that plans for a meeting with Putin were already underway, but no concrete details have been made public.

Belgrade is ready to host the future meeting and can guarantee appropriate security for both leaders, Vucic told the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation (RTS).

“(Serbia) is the country where President Trump had the greatest support in all of Europe,” Vucic said.

“There is no country that can compare to Serbia in terms of the level of support for President Trump. … And on the other hand, it is a country where President Putin is still very, very popular. So, I think that this is a place on the globe that would be extremely suitable for both of them.”

Serbia is well-suited to host Trump and Putin because it is not a member of any military alliances, such as NATO, Vucic said.

Serbia maintains a friendly attitude toward Russia and has refused to join international sanctions against Moscow in the wake of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, Vucic has called Ukraine a “friendly country” and previously affirmed that Crimea and Donbas are Ukrainian sovereign territories.

Switzerland has also put itself forward as a potential site for the Trump-Putin talks. Nicolas Bideau, head of communications at the Swiss Foreign Ministry, told Swiss media on Jan. 12 that Switzerland had already communicated its willingness to host the meeting.

The framework of the upcoming meeting is still being determined, incoming U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said on Jan. 12. A phone call between Trump and Putin to work out the details is expected “in the coming days and weeks.”

The Kremlin has said a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders will have to wait until after Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Shoe polish and leather, it’s what’s for dinner in the presidential residence in Belgrade.

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

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Ukrainians Can Help Americans Protect Lives; We Already Have 150 Firefighters Prepared – Address by the President

12 January 2025 – 21:48

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

Today’s update.

First of all, a detailed report from Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi on our actions at the front. I want to commend all our warriors who are steadfastly holding their positions and destroying the invader. In particular, I’d like to highlight the warriors of the 68th Separate Jaeger Brigade and the 25th Separate Airborne Brigade for their battles in the Pokrovsk direction, which is currently the most intense. I also thank the guys of the 82nd and 95th Air Assault Brigades for their actions in the Kursk region.

The Security Service of Ukraine continues to work with prisoners of war from North Korea. One of them has expressed a desire to stay in Ukraine. The second one wants to return to Korea. If Kim Jong Un even remembers these citizens of his and is capable of organizing an exchange for our warriors being held in Russia, we are ready to transfer such soldiers. Undoubtedly, there will be more POWs from North Korea. I am grateful to all our units that are contributing to Ukraine’s exchange fund.

Next.

Today, I instructed Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs and our diplomats to prepare for the possible participation of our rescuers in combating the wildfires in California. The situation there is extremely challenging, and Ukrainians can help Americans protect lives. This matter is being worked out, and through appropriate channels, we have offered our assistance to the American side. We already have 150 firefighters prepared.

And regarding Moldova.

This week, I had a conversation with Moldovan President Maia Sandu. We discussed how to address the humanitarian crisis in Transnistria. Due to deliberate actions by Russia, there is an energy resource vacuum there. People are suffering. This is a calculated move by Russia to undermine public sentiment in Moldova ahead of the elections. Ukraine can help with coal supplies. However, we haven’t yet seen a response from those who effectively control the situation on the left bank of the Dniester River. If they are playing into Russia’s hands, that’s one thing; it’s entirely different if they genuinely want to help the people of Transnistria. On our part, we are ready.

Glory to Ukraine!

Germany:

🗿 German foreign minister insists that Germany should provide Ukraine with more weapons than planned

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— Ukrainska Pravda 🇺🇦 (@pravda.ua) January 12, 2025 at 3:28 PM

From Ukrainska Pravda:

Annalena Baerbock, German Foreign Minister and co-leader of the Greens, insists that Berlin should provide Ukraine with more military aid than currently planned in the budget.

Source: Spiegel, as reported by European Pravda

Details: The foreign minister made such comments while speaking to the media in Saudi Arabia on the sidelines of a meeting on the future of Syria.

When asked by Spiegel about Chancellor Scholz’s alleged blocking of an additional aid package for Ukraine, Baerbock said that if the aid isn’t provided, Ukraine “will be less able to defend itself and therefore less able to defend us”.

She added that providing Ukraine with assistance would be the best contribution to the security of Europe and Germany itself.

Previously:

  • Earlier, Spiegel had unofficially learned that there was a dispute within the German government over an additional arms package for Ukraine worth about €3 billion. The package was put together by Baerbock and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius based on Ukraine’s urgent requests.
  • However, Chancellor Olaf Scholz opposed it, saying that the amount of ear-marked aid was sufficient and that Kyiv could buy weapons with funds allocated through a joint G7 loan, and that it would be unfair to make such promises right before the formation of the new German government after the early elections in February. Some Social Democratic Party members share this opinion.
  • According to the latest media reports, negotiations on additional weapons supplies were allegedly constructive until Christmas, and then the chancellor abruptly changed his mind. The dispute is attributed to the political considerations of the parties before the early parliamentary elections.

Georgia:

Day 46. Tension since yesterday as the regime woke up from the holidays. Arrests & scuffles continue in Batumi and Babilo restaurant in Tbilisi (judicial banquet). At the Parliament, we chant “no justice, no peace” and “fire to the oligarchy!” #GeorgiaProtests
📷 Gio Burjanadze

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— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 1:30 PM

Family members and descendants of #SovietRepression victims marched on Rustaveli Avenue in #Tbilisi with the slogan “No to Repressions” on the 46th day of #GeorgiaProtests.

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— Batumelebi&Netgazeti (@netgazeti.org) January 12, 2025 at 11:30 AM

A water cannon was spotted near restaurant Babilo where the judicial corporate banquet is. With individuals exiting getting egged and confronted by protesters, the remaining majority of regime pillars need to go home at some point, right? #GeorgiaProtests #terrorinGeorgia

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— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 2:24 PM

Freezing. Sanctions. Now.

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— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 2:41 PM

January 12 – #Tbilisi
🔻 Police began detaining citizens near the Babilo restaurant, where a corporate party for judges was being held, as protesters gathered outside to demand the release of those unjustly detained.
📣”Unjust Judges, Unjust Georgia” – a slogan frequently heard there.
#GeorgiaProtests

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— Batumelebi&Netgazeti (@netgazeti.org) January 12, 2025 at 12:15 PM

January 12 – #Tbilisi

🔻 Police have arrested several more protesters near the judges’ corporate party.
#GeorgiaProtests

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— Batumelebi&Netgazeti (@netgazeti.org) January 12, 2025 at 1:38 PM

⭕ After at least 7 protesters were arrested at the #Batumi rally, the remaining demonstrators marched to the pre-trial detention center before continuing through the city streets.

#GeorgiaProtests
#RepressionInGeorgia
#TerrorInGeorgia

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— Batumelebi&Netgazeti (@netgazeti.org) January 12, 2025 at 3:11 PM

🔻Special Tasks Department employees insulted citizens outside the “Babilo” restaurant, in #Tbilisi, where judges had gathered for a corporate party. Outside the restaurant, the protest was taking place. Several people are arrested.
🔻The judges have since left.
#GeorgiaProtests

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— Batumelebi&Netgazeti (@netgazeti.org) January 12, 2025 at 3:58 PM

We now blame Lithuanians for spit in the food of the judicial clan 🤡

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— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 4:41 PM

⭕ Mzia Amaglobeli, founder and director of @netgazeti.org has been detained under Article 353^1 of the Criminal Code — assault on a police officer.

The charge carries a sentence of 4 to 7 years in prison.

#GeorgiaProtests
#terrorinGeorgia

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— Publika.ge (@publikage.bsky.social) January 11, 2025 at 8:25 PM

Journalists protested outside the govt building in #Tbilisi, displaying posters similar to those used by #Batumi protesters last night leading to repressive arrests. This was to show solidarity with Mzia Amaghlobeli, who was arrested for the same act first & then on criminal charge.
#GeorgiaProtests

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— Batumelebi&Netgazeti (@netgazeti.org) January 12, 2025 at 10:29 AM

Elene Khoshtaria, one of the leaders of the Coalition for Change, has been released. They will probably fine her. Likely, they’ll state that she was released soon since she’s officially still an MP – the illegitimate Parliament protracts approving her request to have her mandate invalidated.

— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 4:18 PM

The bitter irony is that the Georgian Dream came to power with the mandate to be more humane and to ameliorate the judiciary. Yet, they just incorporated and kept feeding the exact same individual judges and violent policemen as under the UNM rule. 1/2

— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 1:43 PM

They say they’ll ban the UNM (and by UNM they mean the entire opposition) for past crimes but employ the same criminals, and justify their crimes with their total propaganda. 2/2.

— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 1:43 PM

The fact that all these rotten pillars know that they won’t be able to switch allegiances and be accepted by the new Georgia is precisely one of the key reasons why this transition is more painful than any before.

— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 1:56 PM

From today on, the judicial rot in Georgia knows that people want them all sacked. Thus, they have two options: support the people while they still can, or double down on repressions. I don’t have illusions that they’ll switch sides, because they cannot afford it, they are too deep in the dirt, 1/2

— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 4:28 PM

and the system will be blackmailing them too. Thus, the zero-sum game of this public vs regime clash goes a level deeper. Forcing the judges to obey despite public anger & incoming sanctions might be one of the reasons this banquet was held in the first place. #terrorinGeorgia #GeorgiaProtests 2/2.

— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 4:28 PM

Back to Ukraine.

Life imitates art:

Owl intercepts Russian drone. Video published by Russians.

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— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 12:47 PM

This is the crest of the Ukrainian Main Directorate of Intelligence/the HUR; LTG Budanov, proprietor.

The owl affronte in flight and holding an unsheathed sword in its talons is the symbol for the HUR. The bat is the symbol for its opposite number, the Russian GRU. LTG Budanov has a painting of an owl affronte in flight with a bat in its talons hanging over his desk.

The Kursk cross border offensive:

Ukrainian serviceman Volodymyr Demchenko x.com/brokenpixelua shares an intriguing perspective on North Korean fighters. According to Demchenko, they are formidable warriors with no fear of death, making them exceptionally difficult to capture…

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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 5:37 PM

He expresses concern about the potential consequences if they bring this combat experience back to North Korea, noting their genuine hostility toward the West, solid tactics, and relentless approach to battle. You can find more from Demchenko on Twitter.
bsky.app/profile/brok…

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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 5:37 PM

“I want to live in Ukraine.” Zelensky posted a new video showing North Koreans being interrogated. One soldier says he didn’t know he was sent to fight in Ukraine and believes the trip is just a regular training exercise, unaware of his true destination.

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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 3:24 PM

Zelenskyy shows interrogation of North Korean POWs, proposes their exchange – video

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— Ukrainska Pravda 🇺🇦 (@pravda.ua) January 12, 2025 at 5:59 PM

From Ukrainska Pravda:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has shared the first video of the interrogation of North Korean soldiers captured in Russia’s Kursk Oblast and stated that Ukraine is ready to return them to their home country as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia.

Quote: “In addition to the first captured soldiers from North Korea, there will undoubtedly be more. It’s only a matter of time before our troops manage to capture others. There should be no doubt left in the world that the Russian army is dependent on military assistance from North Korea. Putin started three years ago with ultimatums to NATO and attempts to rewrite history, but now he cannot manage without military support from Pyongyang.

Ukraine is ready to hand over Kim Jong Un’s soldiers to him if he can organise their exchange for our warriors who are being held captive in Russia.

For those North Korean soldiers who do not wish to return, there may be other options available. In particular, those who express a desire to bring peace closer by spreading the truth about this war in Korean will be given that opportunity.”

Details: When one of the prisoners is questioned if he realised he was fighting against Ukraine, he shakes his head in denial. As the interpreter translated, the prisoner was told he was merely going for training.

The prisoner originally expressed a desire to remain in Ukraine, but subsequently stated that he would “do as he is ordered”. The interpreter explained, “If he has to return, he will. If given the chance, he will stay here.”

Another North Korean prisoner nodded affirmatively when asked if he wanted to return to North Korea.

Update: Later, in his address, Zelenskyy said one of the prisoners had expressed a desire to stay in Ukraine, while the other wanted to return to North Korea.

Quote: “If Kim Jong Un even remembers these citizens of his and can arrange an exchange for our soldiers held in Russia, we are ready to hand over these soldiers. There will undoubtedly be other prisoners from North Korea.”

Kursk:

8th Separate Special Purpose Regiment unit shared a 7-minute video repelling a mass North Korean assault that lasted over 8 hours in the Kursk Operational Zone. The unit says Koreans had a significant superiority in numbers but failed to harm even one Ukrainian warrior.

t.me/ua_regteam/280

[image or embed]

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 2:09 PM

Kharkiv:

Rooftop recap from Kharkiv’s Saltivka after way too long

[image or embed]

— Maria Avdeeva (@mariainkharkiv.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 11:23 AM

Chasiv Yar:

Chasiv Yar: Another town reduced to rubble.
Russia brings only destruction and death.

[image or embed]

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 9:03 AM

Kherson:

In Kherson region, in the last 24 hours, by Russia

1 killed
2 injured
47 settlements shelled
2 highrises
8 private houses
1 warehouse damaged

Human safari goes on. Today:

2 women attacked and injured by Russian FPV drones
(2 drone victims yesterday)

📸Kherson Non Fake Tg

[image or embed]

— Zarina Zabrisky (@zarinazabrisky.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 3:59 AM

Kurahove:

A Russian occupier shared a clip from the Kurakhove direction. He claims they spotted an armed Ukrainian while unarmed themselves. After asking, “Who are you?” the man vanished. They stormed a house with grenades, but he emerged, shouted he was “one of theirs,” and escaped before they reacted.

[image or embed]

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 3:03 PM

Full video is here: t.me/wartranslate…
Thought they’re mostly just clearing the house, and their rage is at the very end as I shared in the lead tweet.

[image or embed]

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 3:03 PM

Novoh

There is no information on casualties yet—Russian channels are completely silent about this.

t.me/supernova_pl…

[image or embed]

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 12:28 PM

rodivka, Donetsk Oblast:

Supernova shares a likely video of a strike on the command post of Russia’s 2nd Guards Combined Arms “Army” in Novohrodivka, Donetsk region, earlier today. The explosion was so powerful that the floors of a five-story building collapsed, and clouds of dust rose hundreds of meters into the air.

[image or embed]

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 12:28 PM

The Engels-2 air base, Russia:

🔥 Oil depot in Russia’s Engels remains ablaze for fifth day after drone attack

[image or embed]

— Ukrainska Pravda 🇺🇦 (@pravda.ua) January 12, 2025 at 7:51 AM

Just three more days to a new Ukrainian Jewish holiday!

You can do it!!!!

💙😻 We always ride together on a combat mission!

[image or embed]

— Vitalis Viva (@vitalisviva.bsky.social) January 2, 2025 at 12:20 PM

Open thread!

War for Ukraine Day 1,054: Those Boots Won’t Lick ThemselvesPost + Comments (21)

Medium Cool – Sneakers!

by WaterGirl|  January 12, 20257:00 pm| 156 Comments

This post is in: Medium Cool, Open Threads

Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered.  We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.

Tonight, let’s talk about Sneakers!  (sort of)

Shortly after he died, I recorded a bunch of Sidney Poitier movies on Tivo but never watched most of them.   My Tivo got to be about  95% full, so after the election I started catching up on some of the recordings that have long gone unwatched.

I recently watched In the Heat of the Night and The Defiant Ones, and last night I watched Sidney Poitier In His Own Words, which will be the lead-in for another Medium Cool post in the next few weeks.

Anyway, on Saturday I started watching Sneakers, a film I had wanted to see when it first came out, but I never did.  Wow, I was flabbergasted as the names of the actors flashed across the screen in the introduction.  I would never  have guessed that someone would cast a movie with this motley collection of actors.  Sidney Poitier and Robert Redford, sure.  But adding Dan Ackroyd and River Phoenix and Ben Kingsley in the mix?  Big surprise.  And Mary McDonnell.  That must have been a fun movie to film!

As I write this, I am only 10 or 15 minutes into the movie, and loving it.

Slight digression for a moment:  I had watched a British show the night before, and I had the captions on for that.  I hadn’t taken conscious note of the fact that they were still on.  So I’m watching the first scene, trying to figure out what’s going on, as you do with a new movie, and I’m unconsciously reading the words on the screen.  So here’s the dialogue:

Person 1: “What’d we just do?”

Person 2: “The Republican Party just made a generous donation to the Black Panthers.”

Person 1:  “Farm Out.”

Person 2: “Right arm”

Wait, what?  I guess the person responsible for captioning wasn’t familiar with “far out” and “right on” ???  Too funny.

Anyway, here’s my question to start us off in tonight’s Medium Cool:

Are all the best movies made with actors that only brilliant casting would put together?

So talk about that, talk about casting, talk about chemistry, talk about what makes a film, a play, or a show great.

Have fun!

Medium Cool – Sneakers!Post + Comments (156)

Our Fragmented Media Environment

by @heymistermix.com|  January 12, 202512:55 pm| 162 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

I’m getting ready to watch the Bills/Broncos game so this will be quick.  I think the Bills will pull it off but the Broncos looked really good last week against the Chiefs.  I’m in Denver right now and the level of Broncos fandom is far, far less than the level in Buffalo and Rochester.

But that’s not the point of the post.  I was talking with my brother the other day and we were discussing the evergreen topic of how Democrats keep getting their ass kicked in the propaganda war with Republicans.  The point I made is that there’s no way we’re going to win with a bunch of $5/mo Substacks.  Don’t get me wrong, I subscribe to some and I support people being paid for their work.  But it’s just like a swarm of gnats attacking a bear: unless there are millions of them, the bear’s going to win.

Similarly, Dems also seem afflicted by a set of grifters, the members of that set differing depending on who’s naming them.  For example, MeidasTouch, a popular media channel, did a lot of shady fundraising in 2020.  These go by the generic label of “resistance grifters”, which I think are characterized by groups getting a lot of attention but not engaging on the ground (generally) or if they do, they do so in a way that doesn’t make financial sense except as a way to line their pockets.  I’d tag The Lincoln Project as a group that puts out decent ads but also has their hands out.  Angry Black Lady is on a tear on Bluesky about resistance grift this morning if you want to see some of the charges against this group.

So we have fragmentation and grift filling the media vacuum for a party that only campaigns a few months of every two years.  I don’t have a positive answer to what to do, and I have a game to watch, so maybe someone in the comments has thoughts for a better way.  I do like the idea of a shadow cabinet, fwiw, but I doubt that the party as currently constructed will be able to do that.  I also think there’s a difference between “resistance” and “resistance grift”.  The former had some success during the last Trump term.

Our Fragmented Media EnvironmentPost + Comments (162)

Sunday Morning Open Thread: Easy Listening

by Anne Laurie|  January 12, 20259:07 am| 222 Comments

This post is in: Music, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat

From our heroic first responders to the neighbors who are helping each other, Californians are stepping up and showing the best of the American spirit in a moment of crisis.

Our Administration will continue to do everything we can to support state and local response efforts. pic.twitter.com/0NSLMfW7eA

— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) January 11, 2025

Who is the digital director or staffer responsible for this pitch?! Please come forward and receive your flowers. Great video! pic.twitter.com/pZ9zmTdaGv

— Symone D. Sanders Townsend (@SymoneDSanders) January 9, 2025

I'm confident that a century from now, future Americans will look back on the work we’ve done—much as we look at the Hoover Dam—and see how the Biden-Harris Administration's "Big Deal" for infrastructure made big things possible. pic.twitter.com/SQEjzm8Mi6

— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) December 31, 2024

President Biden is doing what every President in history has done. Using the last months of his Presidency to lock in policy he supports. Fake never-Trump Conservative "intellectuals" (aka the dumbest sons of bitches on the planet) want you to believe this is somehow an "abuse of… https://t.co/eV5fZMWyN7

— You Should've Said Nicer Things About Joe Biden (@What46HasDone) January 3, 2025

President Biden is doing what every President in history has done. Using the last months of his Presidency to lock in policy he supports. Fake never-Trump Conservative “intellectuals” (aka the dumbest sons of bitches on the planet) want you to believe this is somehow an “abuse of power” because he’s doing things like making it harder for their parent’s Country Club buddies from destroying the environment.

Just because these people find Trump gauche doesn’t mean they’re any less evil.

******

I discovered Tami Neilson through The Brokenwood Mysteries; she’s a Nashville artist, born in Canada, now a citizen of New Zealand. This particular concert was recorded in 2021, as New Zealand was beginning to come out of a pandemic lockdown that made ours look like the pathetic sham it was. Thought some of y’all might enjoy her versions of songs like ‘Stay Outta My Business’, ‘Work A Little Harder’, and ‘Big Boss Mama’. She also does a fine duet on ‘Be Still My Soul’, one of the hymns sung at Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

Sunday Morning Open Thread: Easy ListeningPost + Comments (222)

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