Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

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

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

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

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads

War for Ukraine Day 1,047: The Strategist’s Dilemma

by | 21 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

Quick housekeeping note: I’m going to keep tonight’s update to mostly just the basics as I’ve got a couple of things to do this evening.

Right now – 6:45 PM EST/1:45 AM local time in Ukraine – a little over half of Ukraine is under air raid alert. Right now it looks like drones, not glide bombs or missiles.

Stupid russian drones, fly away‼️

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) January 5, 2025 at 5:21 PM

President Zelenskyy did not give an address today. He did, however, do over 3 hours on the Lex Fridman podcast. Since I do not listen to or watch podcasts, I had to look Fridman up. Dr. Fridman, who was born in the Tajik SSR, now Tajikistan, is a researcher and lecturer focusing on robotics and machine learning at MIT. So if there are any issues, any of the questions bother you, please complain to Tom Levenson. He is in charge of the Balloon Juice MIT complaint department.

Let’s start with this bit:

“This is bullshit, sorry”: Zelensky says he asked the US to intimidate Putin pre-invasion with weapons and sanctions:

“Don’t say, ‘If he invades, we’ll impose sanctions.’ That’s bullshit, sorry.”

[image or embed]

— Maria Avdeeva (@mariainkharkiv.bsky.social) January 5, 2025 at 3:46 PM

If this sounds somewhat familiar, it should. I wrote a post arguing the US needed to do something adjacent to this back in January 2022:

And this is why I think we are still moving far too slowly and are far too late in placing the necessary assets in place to back up our diplomacy and our use of economic power to try to deter Putin. Right now Putin is getting what he wants: bilateral recognition and negotiation with the US. Putin believes Russia is still a great power the way the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. Being able to negotiate with the US, publicly demand written answers – as if formal diplomatic communication would be done some other way – and then receive them because that’s simply how diplomacy is done allows Putin to claim that victory. In order to deter him, he has to be shown that we have the will and the capability to respond. Deploying some Operational Detachments Alpha and putting the equivalent of a brigade combat team and a half on standby is not going to cut it.

In order to actually demonstrate that we have the will and the capability to respond we would need to mobilize and deploy V Corps and all of 1st Armored Division (all combat brigades and the division artillery), plussed up with one brigade combat team each from 4th Infantry Division, 101st Airborne Division/Air Assault, the 82 Airborne Division, and the 1st Stryker Regiment. This should be accompanied by a country team from the 853rd Civil Affairs Brigade with a full complement of Civil Affairs Teams Alpha (CAT-As) and a country team from the 4th Psychological Operations Group’s 6th Psychological Operations Battalion to place Tactical PSYOP Teams (TPTs) into theater. I’d put the Corps headquarters in Poland, the Division headquarters in either Finland or Estonia, and distribute the conventional forces throughout Poland, Eastonia, Latvia, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The Special Operations assets – Civil Affairs and PSYOP – go into Kyiv. Then I’d put the Wasp and Kearsarge Amphibious Warfare Groups (AWG) into theater. Wasp and her float off of Finland and Kearsarge and her float in the Black Sea. I’d keep the carrier group farther out for now. In fact I’d put it in the Irish Sea and even more specifically in the “Irish Box” between Ireland and England. I’d also want Air Force Special Operations – Air Commandos and Para-Rescue, as well as forward observer controllers who paint targets – moved into theater. I’d also want our NATO allies to keep doing what they’re doing, put moving three or four Dutch F-16s to Poland isn’t sufficient either.

More at the link.

Here’s the full podcast:

show full post on front page

War for Ukraine Day 1,047: The Strategist’s DilemmaPost + Comments (21)

Medium Cool – Books That Shaped Your Views on Race and Ethnicity

by | 132 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

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.

Let’s talk about what shaped your views on race and ethnicity.  Books, TV, movies?  A teacher?  A friend?  People you met?  Travel?  A particular experience?

I’m sure there are generational differences in cultural items that influenced us. I almost hesitate to post this because I’m sure that if you’re a person of color, you don’t read a book at the age of 13 or 17 that makes you first think about race, or watch a movie that teaches you about racial injustice when you’re 10.

These are some of my early influences.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Medium Cool – Books That Shaped Your Views of Race

Medium Cool – Over and Over and Over Again

Have your views changed?  If so, what changed them?  Popular culture?  Current events?  (Is there a difference between popular culture and current events?)

I don’t know that my views have changed, as much as my understanding has changed.  Sad to say, Treyvon Martin changed my understanding in a way that could not be un-seen, even though it had been right there in front of me all the time.

How about you guys?  Are there cultural changes that contribute to your understanding?  There is definitely no lack of current events to influence us.

Note: for those new to Medium Cool, these are not open threads.

Medium Cool – Books That Shaped Your Views on Race and EthnicityPost + Comments (132)

Reverse Festivus

by | 102 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Welcome to our fourth annual Reverse Festivus!

Reverse Festivus? 6

Here’s what I wrote in our inaugural Reverse Festivus in 2021.

It’s been quite the year.  Quite the few years, in fact.  So much loss, so much stress, so much anxiety, worry, stress, fear, anger, pain and rage.  (Yeah, I added stress twice, I think it deserves double-billing.) But some really good things, too.

And in 2023 (after The Apocalypse)

So to get us started with Reverse Festivus, I want to say how grateful I am that we kept our community together, how grateful I am that we got our site back, how grateful I am that we got our history back, and how grateful I am that we did it with all our relationships intact.

“So much loss, so much stress, so much anxiety, worry, stress, fear, anger, pain and rage.”  4 years later – Is this Groundhog Day?

I am still immensely grateful that we don’t have ads on Balloon Juice.  That was a classy move and a leap of faith for Cole, and I’m so grateful for that decision.

Anybody else up for joining in on reverse Festivus?  The holidays are mostly behind us, maybe you can pop in and tell us what you’re thankful for.

Or not.

Not an open thread.

Reverse FestivusPost + Comments (102)

Who are the Real Predators?

by | 40 Comments

This post is in: 

Who are the Real Predators?

Kristen Browde, who describes herself as “a parent, lawyer, activist and out transgender woman” has created a database of sexual assaults on children between February 10, 2023 and May 23, 2024.  In that period, she’s found 5 trans perpetrators, 1 drag queen perpetrator and 846 perpetrators with some form of religious affiliations.  67% of the politicians who are perps are Republicans.

Kristen runs a TikTok where she reviews assault cases.  Her database is freely downloadable to be fact-checked.  What a great public service.

Who are the Real Predators?Post + Comments (40)

The Reconciliation Stragedy

by | 33 Comments

This post is in: 

I still would have rather seen a dozen votes and a lot more public drama over the speakership, but I’m fully aware that Pastor Johnson’s slim majority and herd of Freedum Caucus cats will make his speakership tough.  Apparently, the new plan is to try to shove one “big beautiful bill” down everyone’s throat via reconciliation.  Here’s Martin Longman’s take:

I mention this because Politico just reported that congressional Republicans have shifted strategies. Originally, the idea was that they would pursue two budget reconciliation bills in 2025 to advance Donald Trump’s agenda. But now they apparently will attempt to get by with only one.

Here’s what I think happened. House Ways & Means chairman Jason Smith (R-Missouri) met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and convinced him that attempting to do two reconciliation bills in a single year was too risky. Trump then called Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and told him to scrap the original plan and pursue “one big beautiful bill.”

[…]

By putting everything in one bill, it really raises the stakes. It forces Republican lawmakers to accept things they don’t like or risk a complete failure to deliver on any of Trump’s major legislative goals. They might not like how the tax bill looks, but rejecting it will mean no energy or immigration bill. Or they might not like parts of the immigration bill but will have to stomach them to keep the tax cuts. When near unanimity is a prerequisite of success, this kind of pressure gives the GOP a better chance of success.

Before I conclude here, I have to add in other factor we have to keep in mind.  It is also possible to do a budget reconciliation bill to raise the debt ceiling. This can be done as a standalone bill, and in addition to a kind of reconciliation bill we’ve been discussing. But the Republicans can’t pass debt ceiling extensions in the House without relying on Democratic votes, and that involves making concessions. In an attempt to avoid this, the Republicans are considering adding a debt ceiling hike into the “one big beautiful bill.” The thinking goes that this is a way to convince House Republican holdouts to authorize more debt. Either they do it, or they sink everything else they want and cripple Trump’s presidency.

We all know that Trump’s first two years won’t have any steps forward, and the goal will be to keep the backward steps to a minimum.  My question is what was said to the two Reps who changed their votes (Ralph Norman from SC and Keith Self from TX), and whether whatever arm twisting worked with them will work with the crew that will inevitably oppose the big beautiful turd of a bill.

The Reconciliation StragedyPost + Comments (33)

Here is the News, Coming to You Every Hour on the Hour

by | 68 Comments

This post is in: 

Auto Draft 123

This Paul Musgrave deep dive into media consumption is a couple of years old, but I’d guess that it’s still relevant to our conversations about reaching voters and non-voters.  Another interesting chart in the piece examines social media usage by age.  Instagram has a wide swath of users by age, YouTube and Facebook skew older, TikTok and Twitter (of the time of the survey) skew younger.

In somewhat related news, many in the comments mentioned the resignation of Pulitzer winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes over management pulling her cartoon showing Bezos (and others) sucking up to Trump.  Here’s Telnaes’ explanation for her decision.  This take by Jamison Foser is interesting to me because he doesn’t categorize Bezos’ actions as “obeying in advance”:

Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post spiking a cartoon that portrayed Jeff Bezos harshly is not an example of Jeff Bezos obeying Donald Trump in advance. It is an example of Jeff Bezos’s malign rule over the Post.9 Bezos is the autocrat in this scenario, not the supplicant.

A whole lot of people — many of them quite powerful, many of them not — are reacting to the rise of autocracy in America not by “obeying in advance” but by gleefully lending a hand, either because they enthusiastically support right-wing autocracy or because they think they can use it for their own ends. Either way, we need a harsher — and more accurate — condemnation for them than “obeying in advance.”

When Bezos bought the Post, I approached it with the same attitude that I use for other realms where big money investors throw money at a product:  I’ll enjoy the cheap,  good thing, but I’ll keep my eye out for the inevitable moment when the investors start demanding profits, and the thing isn’t cheap and/or good anymore.  The first big tell on that score for the Post was Bezos’ hiring of a British tabloid exec.  The second was the refusal to endorse. The cartoon is just another step in the inevitable decline of a business that was mainly supported by older liberals, but felt that their viability depended on them shitting on their paying  audience.  The audience has wised up, and I’m guessing that the dumb decisions made by billionaire owners of outlets like the Post and LA Times have just hastened their long-predicted death spirals.

Here is the News, Coming to You Every Hour on the HourPost + Comments (68)

Sunday Morning Open Thread: America, F*ck Yeah!

by | 380 Comments

This post is in: , ,

I am an Indian American who was born here and it's crystal clear that the Democratic Party sees me as American and a large part of the base of the Republican Party does not. I hope Indian Americans remember this moment at the next election. They don't see you as one of them. And never will.

— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden.bsky.social) December 27, 2024 at 9:08 AM

Possibly because two & a half of my four grandparents were immigrants (my maternal grandmother was reportedly conceived in Ireland, but born in New York), I was raised to believe that immigration was not only Good, but a key factor in America’s glorious transglobal success. (The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N was one of the first ‘grown-up’ books I read, and unlike Mr. Roberts, or Against the Fall of Night, or Teahouse of the August Moon, I didn’t have to illicitly borrow my dad’s paperbacks to do so.)

Of course, because I was a native New Yorker, I was also raised to believe that nativists were ignorant rubes who had nothing to be proud of beyond multiple generations of squatting on the same patch of stolen-from-the-natives soil, so it’s not as if chauvinism was an unknown factor in my education, either.

If nothing else, this whole saga might make you feel slightly better about American idiots…

I remember how it all started in Transnistria, the thin sliver of land on the eastern edge of Moldova, where I was born, raised and lived the first 17 years of my life. An eternal borderland, forever stuck between Slavs, Romanians and Turks, it had been a part of Ukraine, Russia, the Ottoman Empire and Romania. Always in turmoil, never truly settled in as a part of any nation, constantly populated by fighters, adventurers and crooks, but whose most prominent citizens always turned out to be Jews of extremely peaceful vocations, my home town of Bender was built by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, once housed the Swedish king Charles XII, and loved erecting monuments to Glorious Russian Military Past, even though nobody in Russia proper ever knew it existed.

When Stalin annexed Moldova in 1940, he, as was his custom, redrew the borders, taking the eastern bank of the Dniester river from Ukraine and giving it to the new “Moldavian SSR”, in exchange for Moldova’s southern area of Bugeac (pronounced “Boo Jack”, but don’t bother remembering). The region has remained about two thirds ethnically Slavic (most of the Jews, like myself, had the good sense to blow the joint when the going was good) and almost universally Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking since. And, of course, as was the case of most such areas of the USSR, subject to colonization by Russian settlers and complete erasure of most traits of Romanian national identity.

So it came to pass that in 1990, as I was fruitlessly trying to convince a female classmate in a tiny provincial high school that my height and erudition trumped the terminal handicaps of my Jewishness and fashion sense, Moldova had the bad taste to declare independence, and all hell broke loose. It all began the same way it would in eastern Ukraine in 2014: with the defense of Ze Greyt Rashen Kalchur. With fears that Moldova’s Romanian speakers would exact their revenge upon Russian colonists. With proclamation about the sanctity of Russian monuments, of the Russian language, of returning to the Russian history of the region, of the utter unacceptability of ever letting this piece of The Great Motherland to become a part of the collective, hated West. Bender, incidentally, is on the west bank of the Dniester and thus couldn’t even claim to be a part of historical Russia torn away by “Stalin’s mistake”, but since most of its population spoke Russian, the colonists claimed it anyway.

Spurred by KGB agents hastily sent from the metropolis, the locals organized against the despised “Romanian nationalists” and proclaimed their own quasi-state, catchily named “Pridnestroviye”, which Romanian speakers referred to as Transnistria (literally “land beyond the Dniester”). As the USSR got busy dying, this thin strip of land was resolved to carry on the Soviet legacy. The flag of “Transnistrian Republic” and its coat of arms carried the hammer and sickle, its national languages were Russian, Ukrainian and “Moldavian” (a Soviet invention, which constituted nothing more than the Romanian language transcribed in the Cyrillic alphabet)…

Thus started the Transnistrian War, a short conflict in which Russia, the biggest nation in the world, fought Moldova, one of the smallest and poorest countries in Europe. Not that Russia ever declared war, of course. It merely sent in its troops, disguised as Cossacks, insurgents and volunteers, and then swooped in as “a peacekeeper”, effectively occupying the region. But not before several hundred of the locals, clad in their faux leather jackets and their knockoff “abibas” track suits and carrying Kalashnikovs handed out by covert Russian agents, perished in their assigned roles as front-line cannon fodder. All of this in the name of Ze Greyt Rashen Kalchur and “fighting Romanian Nazis”, mind you. If it’s hard not to see this piece of bloody bullshit as a dress rehearsal for Ukraine, it’s only because this is exactly what it was…

show full post on front page

Sunday Morning Open Thread: America, F*ck Yeah!Post + Comments (380)