Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

When we show up, we win.

So very ready.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

All hail the time of the bunny!

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: T-Day

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: T-Day

(Shoe via GoComics.com)

Happy Thanksgiving

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— Lakota Man 🪶 (@lakotaman.bsky.social) November 27, 2024 at 10:24 AM

Showed up late to cannibal Thanksgiving and got the cold shoulder

— Stone Cold Jane Austen (@abbyhiggs.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 10:57 PM

Genius, or… ?

I started using my waffle iron to make crispy leftover stuffing waffles with gravy on the day after Thanksgiving. They are now one of my family’s favorite Thanksgiving traditions.

— Denis McDowell (@denismcd.bsky.social) November 27, 2024 at 8:12 PM

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Late Night Open Thread: Dysfunctional Family CirKKKus

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in other "look at where this guy comes from" news, Elon Musk's father just did a lengthy podcast episode that opens with the host saying "I bet the last time you had this many black people in your house someone was trying to rob you"

youtu.be/KH1U5x8LXgs?…

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— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.io) November 26, 2024 at 12:25 PM

Yes, you just might be spending tomorrow avoiding certain genetic relatives, but at least you don’t have literally thousands of total strangers sharing tales of your misery…

in case your wondering, his answer was literally “oh no, I have lots of black friends… I actually just bought Cyril Ramaphosa’s [the president of South Africa] Bentley”…

he tries to say that Elon and Kimball had black friends, but basically only says that Kimball did (the interviewer, who is black, performs polite surprise)

Apartheid was bad, and nobody wants to go back, says Errol Musk, but back then the white government had a paternalistic sense of obligation to help black people that is sadly lacking today. There it is, your nuanced apartheid take of the day…

“we inherited South Africa from the European countries, Britain and everything you know, they gave us all the rules”

there was really nothing to do but profit as much as humanly possible from the institutionalized racism that had absolutely nothing to do with me, a white South African

the origin story for Errol Musk’s infamous emerald mine is that his pal Botha made a speech insisting that white rule would last forever, and investment in South African development dried up, and Musk’s engineering business with it… “although I was living on money I had, it was hard for me too”

he was selling a plane he owned to raise some cash due to the economic downturn, and he wanted to save money by not flying to Jedda during the Eid festival and was killing time and Lake Tanganyika, where he met the Italian emerald mine owners and effectively traded his plane for a 50% share…

Errol Musk confirms that Elon is lying when he says his father didn’t own a mine and that he didn’t benefit from it. Elon was both physically at the mine, and personally involved in selling emeralds to Tiffany’s in New York.

“Elon knows all about the emeralds. It’s just because, you see, he wants to tell the people in America that he also had a hard time.” ~Errol Musk…

Errol describe Maye Musk’s parents as being “fanatical” in their support of Apartheid. “Her parents came to South Africa from Canada, because they sympathized with the Afrikaaner government”

“They used to support Hitler, and all that sort of stuff” (!!!!)

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War for Ukraine Day 1,008: For Want of a Nail

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Pathetic

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— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) November 27, 2024 at 1:12 PM

From The Wall Street Journal:

The Biden administration doesn’t have enough time left to use the billions of dollars lawmakers have authorized to arm Ukraine, U.S. and congressional officials said, leaving in President-Elect Donald Trump’s hands what to do with the remaining money.

The administration still has more than $6.5 billion left in what is known as drawdown authority, which allows the Defense Department to transfer weapons and equipment to Ukraine from its own stocks, U.S. officials said. The Pentagon has reached the limit of the weapons it can send Ukraine each month without affecting its own fighting capability, however, and is facing logistical challenges in getting the arms to Kyiv’s forces, they said.

The U.S. would have to ship more than $110 million worth of weapons a day, or just shy of $3 billion in December and January, to spend the remaining funds in time. “I would say it’s impossible,” one congressional official said.

What Trump decides to do with the remaining money will have implications for the battlefield and could help determine how much leverage Kyiv has going into any potential peace negotiations with Russia. Trump has said he would end the war, and U.S. officials worry that his incoming administration could choose to withhold weapons to get Kyiv to the negotiating table.

The remaining funds “offer the next administration considerable leverage to stop or suspend shipments to Ukraine,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank. “The Trump administration’s first order of business will be to decide what to do with remaining equipment and how best to pursue the next supplemental request to Congress.”

A spokesperson for the Trump transition team didn’t respond to a request for comment.

On Wednesday, Trump said on Truth Social that he planned to nominate retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served in his first administration as a top national-security adviser, to the role of special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg has advocated seeking a negotiated settlement of the Ukraine conflict but continuing to arm Kyiv to ensure Russia makes no further advances and wouldn’t attack again.

The Pentagon is now aiming to transfer $500 million to $750 million worth of weapons per month from its stocks to Ukraine, said one senior defense official, an increase from the average amount in previous months. But any more than that would require the Pentagon to draw down U.S. inventories to levels that would affect the U.S. military’s own readiness, which defense leaders are unwilling to do.

“We are scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of easy stuff to send off the shelf,” the senior defense official said.

The upcoming shipments are expected to be largely ammunition and artillery, in part, because they are easier to ship, U.S. defense officials said. Heavier equipment such as armored vehicles or tanks can take months to inspect, test and clean before it can be delivered.

The White House, which until two weeks ago said it was confident it could send the full amount to Ukraine before the end of the administration, is now backing off that claim, but it is arguing that people, not arms, are the major challenge for Ukraine.

The Ukrainians “now have healthy stockpiles of the vital tools, ammunition and weapons that they need to succeed on the battlefield,” a senior White House official told reporters Wednesday. “Today, the most pressing challenge for Ukraine is manpower.”

More at the link if you can stomach it.

Also, for accuracy, it is LTG (ret) Kellogg. He’s a retired 3 star, not a retired 4 star.

⚡️Some commitments from NATO summit in July remain unfulfilled, Zelensky says.
Key commitments from NATO’s July summit in Washington, including some air defense systems and other military support, have not been fulfilled, President Volodymyr Zelensky told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Nov. 27.

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— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) November 27, 2024 at 4:47 PM

From The Kyiv Independent:

Key commitments from NATO’s July summit in Washington, including air defense systems and other military support, have not yet been fully implemented, President Volodymyr Zelensky told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Nov. 27.

“This significantly affects the motivation and morale of our people,” he said, emphasizing the need for timely delivery of promised support.

Zelensky also raised concerns about Russia’s use of new ballistic missiles, urging NATO partners to provide specific air defense systems that are readily available.

“The recent authorization of long-range strikes against military targets in Russia has helped. But the pressure on Russia must be maintained and increased at various levels,” Zelensky added.

The two leaders also discussed strengthening Ukraine’s ties with the United States and other allies, ensuring the execution of existing agreements, and advancing efforts for Ukraine’s eventual invitation to NATO.

While Ukraine didn’t get a firm commitment to join NATO at the alliance’s summit this year, the 32 allied countries did declare Ukraine’s path to membership “irreversible”.

Along with air defense systems, Ukraine was promised $43 billion in funding, a NATO representative in Kyiv, and new bilateral security agreements.

Sorry, but lowering the draft age to 18 for the sake of getting more manpower while partners still spend months and years weighing the risks of escalation with every single weapon and equipment type that Ukraine begs for does not seem to look like a good long-term strategy.

— Illia Ponomarenko (@ioponomarenko.bsky.social) November 27, 2024 at 12:45 PM

It is not a good long term strategy.

I have deleted what I originally wrote here in response to all of the above. When one’s words are no better than silence, one should be silent.

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

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Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Why Not Both?

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Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Why Not Both?

(John Deering via GoComics.com)

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There Ain’t No Such a Thing as a Moderate Republican

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Mike DeWine was always considered at least a little bit “reasonable”:

On Wednesday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed SB104 into law, banning transgender individuals from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Under this new law, trans women will be forced to use men’s restrooms and trans men will be required to use women’s restrooms if gender-neutral facilities are unavailable. The law’s passage marks a significant escalation in anti-transgender legislation, applying to individuals of all ages and extending to colleges and universities, including private institutions known for their high LGBTQ+ enrollment. It also mirrors the recent controversy in Congress, where Speaker Mike Johnson has declared that Congresswoman Sarah McBride will be banned from women’s restrooms on Capitol grounds. As the first anti-transgender law passed following the 2024 election, SB104 signals a troubling development in the national battle over transgender rights.

The Ohio bathroom ban faced significant hurdles in its initial form but was ultimately revived by tying it to the College Credits Plus Act, a popular bill designed to help dual-enrolled students earn college credits. The new law states that “no institution of higher education shall knowingly permit” transgender individuals to use restrooms aligning with their gender identity. Unlike earlier anti-transgender laws that primarily targeted youth, this bill expands its scope to include colleges and universities—both public and private—and applies to transgender people of all ages. Its reach extends beyond students to affect visitors, faculty, and anyone present on college property, marking a significant escalation in the breadth of anti-trans legislation.

Potty police, arrest this man — he’s like a detuned radio.

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So Trump’s Gonna Invade Mexico – Yeah, Right

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So Trump's Gonna Invade Mexico - Yeah, Right
I saw thousands of variants of this sign everywhere in Mexico last Fall.

When one of my nephews was a wee lad, he learned the joy of peeing outside.  At one point, he excitedly exclaimed, “I’m going to pee on everything — I’m going to pee on the whole world!”

I’m reminded of that story when reading this nonsense:

Within Donald Trump’s government-in-waiting, there is a fresh debate over whether and how thoroughly the president-elect should follow through on his campaign promise to attack or even invade Mexico, as part of the “war” he’s pledged to wage against powerful drug cartels.

“How much should we invade Mexico?” says a senior Trump transition member. “That is the question.”

I’m no expert on Mexico or war, but it would appear to me, as someone who’s spent a couple of months there in the past couple of years, that any “invasion” would be pretty daunting.  The Mexican border from, say, Nogales west to Tijuana, is crowded border towns surrounded by huge, dry desert.  Heading east from Nogales, there’s a lot of desert until you hit Juarez, then the Rio Grande and Big Bend, which is some of the most remote country in North America.   So, an invading army would be faced with urban warfare in those big towns, or having to maintain hundreds of miles of supply lines through the desert.  The minute the war started, what the hell would happen to the maquiladoras (US corporate manufacturing plants) in Mexicali, Nogales, Saltillo and other places where cars, appliances, clothing and the like are manufactured?

Even if we’re going to unilaterally have airstrikes and drone attacks on cartels, how the hell would we find them?  It would be guerrilla warfare with a pretty determined, wealthy and decently armed enemy.

Why is this in the press all of a sudden?  I’m guessing it’s because a 62-year-old Jewish woman who happens to be the current President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, shit in Trump’s Wheaties the other day.  After threatening reciprocal tariffs, she did this: [probably paywalled link]

Sheinbaum read out the entire letter, which in its penultimate paragraph said that a U.S. tariff on Mexican exports would be met with another tariff “in response.”

In her letter, the president also:

  • Told Trump that Mexico has developed a “comprehensive policy” to attend to migrants who “cross our territory” en route to the United States. She told the president-elect that he “probably” isn’t aware of the efforts Mexico has made to stem migration to the U.S.
  • Highlighted that “encounters” between United States authorities and migrants on the Mexico-U.S. border declined 75% between December 2023 and November 2024.
  • Told Trump that Mexico and the United States need to jointly develop “another model of labor mobility” that responds to the U.S. need for workers and provides “attention to the causes that lead families to leave their places of origin.”
  • Told Trump that if the United States allocated “a percentage” of what it spends on “war” to “the construction of peace and to development,” it would be able to substantially reduce migration.
  • Pointed out that Mexican authorities have seized tonnes of drugs so far this year, confiscated more than 10,000 weapons and arrested over 15,000 people “for violence related to drug trafficking.”
  • Highlighted that 70% of “illegal weapons” seized in Mexico come from the United States.

“We don’t produce the weapons, we don’t consume the synthetic drugs,” Sheinbaum wrote in her letter to Trump.

“The deaths due to crime that responds to the demand for drugs in your country, unfortunately, we are the ones who … [suffer] them,” she told the president-elect.

Claudia, like her predecessor AMLO, has a daily morning press conference (“mañanera”) where she meets the press to make her statement of the day.  When I was following Mexican politics more closely, it was clear that AMLO (who’s a bit of a weirdo, IMO) would use some of that time to grind axes about some of his favorite grudges.  Claudia’s latest mañaneras have been on the topics of trade and violence against women.  She strikes me as a more serious, more focused leader than AMLO.

Anyway, I hope she keeps it up.  She’s got big work ahead of her in a country with a lot of problems.

So Trump's Gonna Invade Mexico - Yeah, Right 1
I took this in La Paz, Baja California Sur (BCS) in February, 2022. Rough translation: The police do not take care of me (female). My friends (female) take care of me. #ACAB #The Police Rape #The Police Kidnap (female) #The Police murder us (female). #BCS Femicide

Also, I thought it was funny that Ryan Cooper and Jon Favreau discussed mañaneras and thought they were a good idea — honestly, they might be, because we could learn something from how Morena (Claudia and AMLO’s party) communicate.

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Thanksgiving Zoom at 8 pm Eastern on Thursday

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Hey everybody,

Let us know in the comments if you are interested in joining a Thanksgiving zoom.

If you are interested, what times might be best?

At most, we’ll have two, to accommodate various mealtimes and time zones.

And if you’re a YES or a maybe (depending on what time the zooms end up being) send me an email so I can send you the link.

Thanksgiving Zoom at 8 pm Eastern on ThursdayPost + Comments (55)