Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

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

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

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

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

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

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

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

No one could have predicted…

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads

War for Ukraine Day 1,348: The Russian Butcher’s Bill for October 2025

by | 15 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , ,

A black and white cartoon with Popeye the Sailor Man facing forward and to the left. His word bubble says "I Yam Disgustipated"

I am still trying to recover, energy wise, from the last ten days to two weeks, so I’m going to keep tonight’s update on the shorter side so I can get cleaned up and rack out.

Here’s what Russia hit Ukraine with during October 2025:

In October alone, the Russian army launched 5,298 drones and 276 missiles at Ukraine. One of the month’s largest attacks took place on October 30, when Russia used 705 pieces of weaponry.

[image or embed]

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

President Zelenskyy did not deliver a daily address today. But he did have a press conference. Here is the video:

show full post on front page

War for Ukraine Day 1,348: The Russian Butcher’s Bill for October 2025Post + Comments (15)

Monday Evening Open Thread: 73, 28, 60 Minutes

by | 88 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

No, I’m not watching 60 Minutes. I’d rather swallow live bees.

— George Hahn (@georgehahn.com) November 2, 2025 at 8:23 PM

CBS aired a condensed, 28-minute version of a 73-minute interview for “60 Minutes.”

[image or embed]

— Forbes (@forbes.com) November 3, 2025 at 10:55 AM

Sixty Minutes in the Twilight Zone
Trump’s CBS meltdown reveals a president who doesn’t understand tariffs, nukes, health care, or democracy, but does know he’s “better looking” than Zohran Mamdani.
marygeddry.com/p/sixty-minu…

[image or embed]

— jimjudistar (@jimjudistar.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 9:55 AM

Best summary I’ve seen is from Mary Geddry’s Substack — “Sixty Minutes in the Twilight Zone”:

… It’s been five years since Donald Trump last sat for a 60 Minutes interview, and it shows. What aired Sunday night wasn’t so much an interview as an extended field study in cognitive decay, delusion, and denial, a slow-motion collapse that CBS wisely trimmed from 73 minutes down to 28, lest the viewing audience perish from secondhand embarrassment.

There he was, the self-styled “very stable genius,” looking orange, shiny, and utterly lost, alternating between claiming the economy is perfect and insisting Democrats are destroying America. The throughline? Trump has no idea what tariffs are, how nuclear weapons work, or what the president actually does…

Asked point blank whether tariffs were fueling inflation, Trump snapped, “They haven’t led to inflation. We have no inflation. We have zero inflation. Biden had inflation and he didn’t have tariffs. He didn’t use tariffs.”

He denied inflation exists entirely, “It’s done. Gone. Everybody in America is happy right now”, except for beef prices, which he promised to “work on,” perhaps personally, with a fork and knife. Grocery costs? A liberal hallucination. “Nope, you’re wrong. Grocery prices aren’t going up,” he told O’Donnell, who had the gall to suggest otherwise. Recession signals? Fake news. “We have the best economy maybe in the history of the world,” Trump insisted, before adding his favorite bedtime story: “Everybody has a 401(k), everybody’s invested in the market.”

Which, to be fair, is true, if you ignore the roughly 60 percent of Americans who don’t…

When the topic turned to his potential use of the Insurrection Act to deploy the military in U.S. cities, Trump’s eyes practically lit up. “I could use it immediately,” he said. “Immediately. And no judge can challenge you on that. Nobody. They can’t stop you.”

O’Donnell asked whether he’d actually considered doing so during recent protests. Trump smiled: “I think about it all the time. I didn’t do it, but I could have. And frankly, I should get credit for that. Nobody gives me credit.”

He seemed genuinely disappointed he hadn’t tried it yet, promising to “hope for credit” for his restraint, the political equivalent of congratulating yourself for not committing armed robbery today.

show full post on front page

Monday Evening Open Thread: 73, 28, <em>60 Minutes</em>Post + Comments (88)

Open Thread: SNAP Back Saga

by | 91 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

“Don’t starve them, just make sure they’re hungry”

[image or embed]

— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 1:29 PM

President Donald Trump’s administration said Monday that it will partially fund SNAP after a pair of judges’ rulings required it to keep the food aid program running.

It’s not clear how much beneficiaries will receive, nor how quickly beneficiaries will see value show up on the debit cards they use to buy groceries. The process of loading the cards, which involves steps by state and federal government agencies and vendors, can take up to two weeks in some states. The average monthly benefit is usually about $190 per person…

The Trump administration has a legal obligation to use the contingency fund to deliver benefits this month. But there’s not enough money to cover all benefits.
The Trump administration has a moral obligation to transfer money into the contingency fund, like it did w/ WIC, to provide more benefits.

[image or embed]

— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 12:33 PM

so, this times out to them running out of money for real basically a week or two before thanksgiving, right?

[image or embed]

— GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) November 3, 2025 at 12:37 PM

Details on how payments will roll out are still to come
The administration said it would provide details to states on Monday on calculating the per-household partial benefit. The process of loading the SNAP cards, which involves steps by state and federal government agencies and vendors, can take up to two weeks in some states. But the USDA warned in a court filing that it could take weeks or even months for states to make all the system changes to send out reduced benefits. The average monthly benefit is usually about $190 per person.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a news conference that it would take his state about a week to load benefit cards once the funding is made available.

“These are folks who are hungry, and every day matters,” Bonta said…

Patrick Penn, Deputy Under Secretary Food Nutrition and Consumer Services for USDA, said in a court filing Monday that the department chose not to tap other emergency funds to ensure there’s not a gap in child nutrition programs for the rest of this fiscal year, which runs through September 2026…

show full post on front page

Open Thread: SNAP Back SagaPost + Comments (91)

Leaders are Stepping Up

by | 71 Comments

This post is in: , ,

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

I have always found that to be true.

I think the same is true of leaders.

The moment is calling for them, and leaders are stepping up.

Some of them are surprising; others are not.

Not the first we’ve seen of him, but an incredibly impressive leader in this moment – Joe Neguse

Anne Laurie posted one of these, and TaMara posted all three, but I know that everyone doesn’t read every post.  If you are up for some hope and inspiration, please take a minute.  They aren’t long.

Choosing Country Over Party – Judge Michael J. Luttig

Judge Michael Luttig is one of those leaders.  I don’t care at all that he’s a conservative – I care that he believes in democracy and that he is willing to stick his neck out in defense of it.  In the war for our nation, in the war to retain our democracy, we are on the same team.

More truth-telling.

.

.

Part of what we are missing, compared to the 60s, is protest music.

Am I crazy to think that?  Is there any new music out there that helps us remember that in this fight we are part of something bigger than ourselves?

Leaders are Stepping UpPost + Comments (71)

Will the 6 Corrupt Members of the Court Restrict the Tariffs This Week?

by | 113 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Supreme Court Decisions Again Today at 10 am ET (June 26 Edition) & Open Thread

(Euronews)

The Supreme Court could restrict Trump’s use of tariffs, challenging his unprecedented trade strategy.

President Donald Trump sees tariffs — or the threat of them — as a powerful tool to bend nations to his will.

He has used them in an unprecedented way, serving not only as the underpinning of his economic agenda but also as the cornerstone of his foreign policy during his second term.

He has wielded import taxes as a threat to secure ceasefires from countries at war. He has used them to browbeat nations into promising to do more to stop people and drugs from flowing across their borders. He has used them, in Brazil’s case, as political pressure after its judicial system prosecuted a former leader allied with Trump. In a recent dispute with Canada, the president also used tariffs as a punishment for a television advertisement.

This week, the Supreme Court hears arguments on whether Trump has overstepped federal law with many of his tariffs. A ruling against him could limit or even take away that swift and blunt leverage that much of his foreign policy has relied on.

Trump has increasingly expressed agitation and anxiety about the looming decision in a case he says is one of the most important in US history. He has said it would be a “disaster” for the United States if the justices fail to overturn lower court rulings that found he went too far in using an emergency powers law to put his tariffs in place.

Trump had said he wanted to take the highly unusual step of attending the arguments in person, but on Sunday said he had ruled it out, saying he did not want to be a distraction.

Narrator: More like they wouldn’t let him!

“I wanted to go so badly — I just do not want to do anything to deflect the importance of that decision,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

The Justice Department, in its defence of the tariffs, has highlighted the expansive way Trump has used them, arguing that the trade penalties are part of his power over foreign affairs, an area where the courts should not second-guess the president.

Earlier this year, two lower courts and most judges on the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that Trump did not have power under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to set tariffs — a power the Constitution grants to Congress. Some dissenting judges on the court, though, said the 1977 law allows the president to regulate imports during emergencies without specific limitations.

The courts left the tariffs in place while the Supreme Court considers the issue. Meanwhile, Trump has continued to wield them to pressure or punish other countries on matters both related and unrelated to trade.

“The fact of the matter is that President Trump has acted lawfully by using the tariff powers granted to him by Congress in IEEPA to deal with national emergencies and to safeguard our national security and economy,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement. “We look forward to ultimate victory on this matter with the Supreme Court.”

Still, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the Trump trade team is working on contingency plans should the high court rule against the Republican administration.

“We do have backup plans,” Leavitt said on Fox News. “But ultimately…we are hopeful that the Supreme Court will rule on the right side of the law and do what’s right for our country. The importance of this case cannot be overstated. The president must have the emergency authority to utilize tariffs.”

(Business Insider)   h/t Jackie

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments over whether those tariffs can stand.

If the Supreme Court kicks Trump’s tariffs to the curb, it’ll be taking away one of the most powerful and flexible tools the president has used to pursue his economic agenda. If it lets Trump keep them, it’ll reflect the Supreme Court’s ever-broadening view of presidential power.

To legally justify the “Liberation Day” taxes on American importers, the White House leaned on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. The Carter-era law allows presidents to limit international transactions after declaring a national emergency, and has typically been used to justify sanctions.

The Supreme Court is considering whether the IEEPA allows presidents to impose tariffs, a power no previous president has ever claimed. If the court decides yes, it’ll take up a second issue: Whether giving the president this power tramples upon Article I of the Constitution, which says it’s Congress’s job to set and collect taxes and duties.

Those questions give the justices room to choose their own adventure in how they approach the case, according to Rachel Brewster, a professor of international trade at Duke Law School.

If they zero in on the text of the IEEPA, they might be more inclined to uphold the decisions of lower courts, which found the tariffs illegal, she said. If their questions center on national security, things could swing in Trump’s favor, according to Brewster.

“There’s multiple frames,” Brewster told Business Insider. “It’s a mix of all these things — it’s a mix of domestic taxation, it’s a mix of domestic regulation, but it also implicates foreign imports and foreign negotiation. So I think there’s a lot of wiggle room.”

“I think there’s a lot of wiggle room.”  God help us all!

Surely at some point even the 6 corrupt members of the Supreme Court have to wake up and realize that if they don’t stop him now, he could set his mobs on them.  Thanks to the court’s own corrupt ruling!

How can 6 otherwise smart (even if evil) “justices” not be able to draw a fucking dotted line from one thing to another???

Open thread.

*edited to add the Business Insider quote and to clarify what should be obvious – that I am not talking about the 3 justices who still care about the rule of law.

Will the 6 Corrupt Members of the Court Restrict the Tariffs This Week?Post + Comments (113)

Monday Morning Open Thread

by | 234 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Amaury Guichon creating an intricate, edible dragon head: #AGoodPlace
Source: www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatis…

[image or embed]

— Michelle says: Be kind. Always. ❤️ (@snarkysillysad.bsky.social) November 2, 2025 at 7:23 AM

===

Two-thirds of registered voters say Trump and his administration have fallen short of their expectations on the cost of living
www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna240…

[image or embed]

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) November 2, 2025 at 9:39 AM

Trump Job Approval Among 18-29 Year Olds:
🔴 Disapprove: 75% (+38)
🟢 Approve: 20% (-22)
YouGov / Oct 27, 2025
(% Change With Feb 4, 2025)

— Polling USA (@usapolling.bsky.social) November 2, 2025 at 5:16 PM

===

the plan is to take the ACA apart brick by brick and replace it with nothing, there, i spoiled your top double secret healthcare plan

[image or embed]

— GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) November 2, 2025 at 12:50 PM

But they can't even take the bricks out! Like they barely zeroed the mandate penalty in a massive reconciliation bill after just a punishing and ugly session. The Medicaid Expansion demanded a SCOTUS case that could only be a half measure. Trying to zero ACA subsidies are going to murder them.

— Charlie Thomas (@cthomasjamh.bsky.social) November 2, 2025 at 1:03 PM

Basically I think we all need to stop and marvel at how well the ACA was put together that after 15 years of unrelenting hostility it still stands, the parts they can effect don't undo the whole (despite worries about the mandate penalty), and touching anything else is suicide.

— Charlie Thomas (@cthomasjamh.bsky.social) November 2, 2025 at 1:03 PM

===

Donald Trump is sending $40 billion to Argentina. I want to send America's seniors an extra $200 a month.
The cost of everything from groceries to utilities to health care is up.
My new bill is an emergency lifeline for seniors struggling to survive in Trump's economy.

[image or embed]

— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) November 1, 2025 at 10:34 AM

===

1) He did not
2) Throwing a glitzy, over-the-top "let them eat cake" party deliberately celebrating decadence and luxury in the midst of a government shutdown is not the same as a round of golf.

[image or embed]

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) November 2, 2025 at 2:17 PM

===

I think Susie Wiles & the gang screwed up the shutdown fight by going with a "Trump is UNSTOPPABLE" narrative instead of a "Trump is being completely hamstrung by the EVIL DEMOCRATS", & I suspect it's because both they & Trump himself are insecure about his ability to project strength.

— Chatham Harrison dba TRUMP DELENDUS EST (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) November 1, 2025 at 12:17 PM

Monday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (234)