Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

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

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

White supremacy is terrorism.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

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

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

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

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: ‘Tis the Season…

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… For saaaad office Christmas parties. And the GOP knows from sad! Per the Washington Post‘s Style section, “Inside a congressman’s 15-minute Christmas party, featuring Santos Claus”:

Capitol Hill is a very busy place with very important people, so what’s the perfect Christmas celebration? Perhaps it was Thursday’s speed-soiree in the Longworth House Office Building.

1:30 p.m.: The party had just started but was nonetheless in full swing. Rep. Tim Burchett’s third annual bash had a strict time limit: 1:30 to 1:45.

“I came up with this idea because everybody has the Christmas parties and it’s kind of obligatory,” the Tennessee Republican said. “They go on forever and the music’s too loud and somebody’s always got you cornered with wine breath. I just thought, ‘How do I get out of this mess? Or how did I get into this mess?’” His solution? “I thought 15 minutes was just enough to get them in and get them out. They get a little Christmas cheer and they’re out the door.”

But Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, arrived almost 10 minutes early, which was technically a violation of the rules but also a very big deal. Burchett ushered him in, made jolly small talk and offered him first dibs of the party menu: “Can I get you a Mountain Dew, peanut butter and jelly or maybe charcuterie?” That’s Burchett’s term for Easy Cheese on crackers.

“None of the above,” said Johnson only half-kidding, which Burchett took not as an insult but a challenge: “When in Rome, baby.”…

1:31 p.m.: Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz walked in, saw Johnson in the crowd and loudly asked Burchett, “What vote did you promise the speaker?” Laughs all around because the only thing the two Republicans really disagree on is cheese spray.

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War for Ukraine Day 1,018: A Brief Saturday Night Update

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A quick housekeeping note: I’m still feeling horrid, so I’m just going to work the basics again tonight and then rack out.

We now know why President Zelenskyy did not make an address yesterday or today. He was traveling to Paris, where he held a trilateral meeting with President Macron and the President-elect.

In Paris, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy participated in a trilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Donald Trump for his unwavering resolve and expressed particular gratitude to Emmanuel Macron for organizing the meeting.

The discussion focused on our people and ways to support them, the overall situation, and the establishment of a just peace.

“We all want peace. But it is crucial for us, and this is our position, that the peace is just for all of us, and that Russia, Putin, or any other aggressor has no possibility of ever returning. And this is the most important thing — just peace and security guarantees, strong security guarantees for Ukraine,” the President concluded.

The leaders committed to continued cooperation and communication.

Following a meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Dec. 7, President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the meeting as “productive and meaningful.”

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— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) December 7, 2024 at 1:28 PM

The previously unannounced meeting comes ahead of the January inauguration of Trump. It is the first in-person encounter between Zelensky and Trump since Trump won the U.S. presidential election in November.

— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) December 7, 2024 at 1:28 PM

From The Kyiv Independent:

Editor’s note: This is a developing story and is being updated.

President Volodymyr Zelensky met with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris for a trilateral meeting on Dec. 7, as world leaders visited France for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The three leaders reportedly spoke for about 35 minute at the Elysee Palace. Zelensky praised the meeting as “productive and meaningful”  in a post on social media.

“President Trump is, as always, resolute,” Zelensky said. “I thank him. I also extend my gratitude to Emmanuel (Macron) for organizing this important meeting.”

The three leaders “spoke about our people, the situation on the ground, and a just peace,” Zelensky said, without providing further details.

The previously unannounced meeting comes ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. It also marks the first in-person encounter between Zelensky and Trump since Trump won the U.S. presidential election in November.

While Trump has pledged to get the U.S. “out” of Russia’s war and negotiate a quick peace deal, Ukrainian officials have urged the president-elect to maintain support and adopt a “peace through strength” approach in dealings with Russia — sentiments that Zelensky echoed in his statement following the meeting.

“Peace through strength is possible,” Zelensky wrote.

“We all want this war to end as soon as possible and in a just way.”

Zelensky and Trump previously met on Sept. 27 in New York, while Trump was still the Republican nominee for president. Zelensky used the occasion to present his five-part victory plan.

Two of the ideas in the plan were explicitly prepared for Trump, according to the Financial Times (FT).

The leaders then held a phone call on Nov. 7 after Trump won the U.S. election. Zelensky congratulated Trump on his victory during the call.

A Ukrainian delegation, led by Presidential Office head Andriy Yermak, also met with Vice President-elect JD Vance and other aides to Trump in Washington on Dec. 4.

About 50 heads of state and government convened for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, which has been under reconstruction since 2019 due to a fire.

There are two separate issues here. The first is that President Zelenskyy clearly has a detailed strategy for dealing with the President-elect to, if not get what he thinks Ukraine needs from the US after the inauguration at the end of January 2025, then at least minimize the potential damage from the change of administration and the President-elect’s return to the presidency. This is smart on President Zelenskyy’s part. The second issue is more troubling for Americans: it appears that the President-elect and his people have decided that he is, for all intents and purposes, already the president again. Unsurprisingly, there seems to be little adherence, let alone acknowledgement, that the US only has one president at a time. Moreover, it does not appear that President Biden nor his people really seem to care.

This is a problem, regardless of the fact that the lame duck period and the two and a half months between election and inauguration is too long and too often leaves the US in the weird limbo we’re now in. A limbo that is exacerbated by a clearly exhausted President Biden, who, along with his senior appointees, is impotent in the face of international and domestic challenges and threats.

President Zelenskyy also met with the President of Georgia while he was in Paris:

⚡️Zelensky meets with Georgian President Zourabichvili, urges Georgians to ‘not let government surrender country to Putin.’

“Ukraine supports and stands in solidarity with the Georgian people, who are currently fighting for a worthy future,” Zelensky told Zourabichvili during their meeting in Paris.

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— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) December 7, 2024 at 2:26 PM

“It is important to always respect the will of the people and not let the Ivanishvili government surrender the country to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” Zelensky added.

— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) December 7, 2024 at 2:26 PM

The details from The Kyiv Independent after the jump.

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Saturday Evening Open Thread: Who Elected These Schmucks?

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You should call your member of Congress and ask if they support this plan for "hundreds of billions" of cuts. If they tell you please contact me at TPM and let me know.

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— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) December 6, 2024 at 2:58 PM

One of the central features of Trumpism is that Trump never wants to deal in pain. Not for people who might vote for him. Or at least, no pain to anyone who might vote for him … that they would blame on him. That’s why, at least in concept, he’s always said he’d never support cuts to Social Security or Medicare. That’s in concept of course. What happens down in the fine print of administrative decisions or omnibus tax bills is another matter. But the position in concept is still important and fairly consistent. But over the last couple weeks things have gone sideways in a pretty big way. And key players in his administration-in-the-making are now proposing massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Let’s go to Trump and Musk’s DOGE clown show. As you know, Trump has in some post-politics, performative sense authorized this government streamlining panel, run by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, which will radically cut the size of the federal government and reduce its spending by at least one third — two trillion dollars annually. Completely insane numbers. But for the moment, DOGE is the great performative political shiny object of the Trump 2.0 Era. Republicans and the part of modern conservatism that blends into right-wing influencer culture is giddy about the possibilities. Democrats are terrified that Musk is essentially taking over the federal government. What everyone agrees — for better or worse — is that it’s a huge, huge deal.

I’m normally not the biggest fan of the Punchbowl newsletter. But this, from yesterday, is actually a good rundown of what DOGE remains, just an advisory thing that will propose things to Trump and the Republican Congress. It’s as powerful as whatever Trump feels he can do by executive action or Congress can do with legislation. For now, every Republican and even a few Democrats want to group around DOGE and get some of the magical fairy dust, kind of a post-reality rave and dance party for bad people. But the appropriators, the people in Congress who decide how money is spent, are mostly saying nice things and “we’ll get back to you, but sounds lovely” and moon-walking away from the conversation…

Starting a few days ago, Musk commented approvingly on a long thread by a longtime Social Security abolitionist, Senator Mike Lee, making the case for abolishing Social Security and replacing it with private accounts. This was followed by a series of remarks by both either saying Social Security is a scam or, alternatively, that you can cut billions or hundreds of billions and no one will notice. Just Wednesday Ramaswamy went on CNBC and in addition to discussing various other ideas about innovation and efficiency, noted that there are “hundreds of billions of dollars of savings to extract just from basic program integrity measures” out of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The rest of the quote suggests he thinks he can claw back these savings by cutting off benefits to people who don’t really deserve them or are legally entitled to them…

Just for the record, let me remind you that the actually-elected Sen. Mike Lee (… roy Jenkins!) is really, really dumb. Sincere, yes — but stupid. Also, here’s a chunk from the Punchbowl article Josh cites:

Mega-billionaire Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are coming to Capitol Hill today to talk about their much-hyped effort to cut government spending and streamline the federal bureaucracy.

The meeting is at 3 p.m., after the Senate leaves town for the week. (The rhythms of Congress are hard. It takes everyone time to learn.)

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A Quarter of a Billion Dollars to Enable Hawk Tuah Memecoin

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The Guardian has a breakdown of FEC filings in the Presidential race.  Trump raised $273.2 million:

The analysis of new election data from the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) shows the increasingly heavy influence of the tech industry in US elections. Advocates of cryptocurrency were particularly active in this election as they fought to stave off regulation, pumping money into the presidential campaigns and key congressional races.

I really have a hard time writing about crypto with any level of seriousness because it is one of the dumbest fucking things I’ve ever heard in my entire life, most of which has been spent working on technology for a living.  Case in point:

Who could have guessed that buying up a token based around the long-past-its-expiration-date hawk tuah meme might turn out to be an unwise investment? Haliey Welch, the originator of the raunchy catchphrase, launched a memecoin that she insisted was not a cash grab but a “good way to interact with her fans”. (The “interaction” in question here was limited to ” fans give money”, because she had no other specific plans for the token).

The token followed the typical pattern of quickly pumping, then crashing spectacularly, losing around 90% of its “value”. This is often an indicator of a pump-and-dump scheme by insiders, but Welch vehemently denied such wrongdoing, blaming the crash on “snipers”.

“I really lost $43k apeing in ‘hawk tuah’ coin,” wrote one buyer on Twitter. Other Twitter users marveled at a wallet that swapped $1.4 million worth of MOODENG (a memecoin based on the tiny hippo of the same name) only to lose it all on the $HAWK token.

Another example is the kid in his early teens who parlayed a $350 investment in his own memecoin into a $30K cash out in the span of an evening.  There are many other stories like this on Molly White’s Web3 is Going Great blog

Anyway, here’s the problem Democrats face.  We should be laughing at this shit while simultaneously calling for regulations.  But that sweet crypto cash is pretty fucking tempting.  This graph is from the Guardian article linked above:

A Quarter of a Billion Dollars to Enable Hawk Tuah Memecoin

So as usual in our big tent, C.R.E.A.M. for a discouraging number of Democrats.  We have electeds across the ideological spectrum who want us to be part of the crypto “revolution”, ranging from Kirsten Gillibrand to Ro Khanna.  (You can see who the crypto industry thinks is or isn’t in their corner at this link.)   As part of our post-election dialogue here, I wonder if anyone has any smart ideas about how the party can disentangle itself from the crypto time-bomb that is certainly coming and might just blow a hole in the entire economy.

(Edit:  Forgot to add Bret Terhune’s TikTok video on Hawk Tuah memecoin, which is hilarious.)

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The Last Abortion Clinic in Wyoming

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This is the opposite of a Cletus safari and it’s really well done:

“We see patients from Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah” and “from Montana, from Nebraska,” says Katie Knutter, the executive director of Wellspring. “We regularly have patients who are traveling up to eight hours,” she adds. Some patients have even come from Georgia and Louisiana. Wellspring is also the closest clinic to multiple Native American reservations—one of which, the Oglala Sioux Reservation, is in South Dakota, which virtually bans abortion altogether.

“There is no one-size-fits-all” patient, says Brown. “I have seen 15 year olds, I have seen 50 year olds. I see married women, I see single women. I see women who have a whole bunch of kids already. I see women who’ve never been pregnant before.”

“Hero” might be an overused term, but not in this case:  the nurses, staff, volunteers and physicians serving this clinic are heroes.  They face the possibility of death every day at the hands of the terrorists who stalk clinic employees.

You may remember this clinic because it was the target of arson a couple of years ago.  Wyoming has a constitutional amendment passed during the “death panels” freakout that guarantees the right to make healthcare decisions.  A judge in Teton County recently struck down two laws limiting abortions on the basis of them violating the state constitution.  The cases now go to the Wyoming Supreme Court.  If this clinic closes, the next nearest place for an medical abortion in the vast open spaces of the Mountain West is probably somewhere in Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon or Washington state.   Patients at this clinic are already driving long distances, and sometimes having to come back more than once.

In other abortion news, Missouri, like every other Republican state faced with the people voting for an initiated measure or constitutional amendment they don’t like, is trotting out all the fuckery they can muster to try to make sure that the will of the voters is thwarted.   Meanwhile, in Texas, women are still dying for lack of a D&C.

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C is for Cookie Dough Open Thread

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Happy Saturday. Every year at Christmas I send out about two dozen boxes of cookies to friends here in the UK. Today I’m mixing up all the doughs; tomorrow I’ll bake off the first five boxes, and then bake-and-send in shifts all week. One of the last things I ever bought off Amazon was an off-brand stand mixer, and boy does it help during this time of year. Here’s the chocolate chip cookies in progress:

Holiday Prep Open Thread

Today, as it happens, is a perfect day to spend at the kitchen counter for two reasons: one, I’m just coming out of a bout of bronchitis; two, Britain is currently being battered by Storm Darragh. I’m about as far inland as you can get in the UK, but every now and then a 60-MPH gust slams past the house, and the rain gets hurled against the windows with a sound like a bucketful of gravel. I feel as if I’m in a ship at sea.

So what’s in this year’s cookie box? Links to recipes after the jump.

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