Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Shut up, hissy kitty!

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

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

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

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

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

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

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: So Much GOP Disarray

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DOKOUPIL: Republicans says what you're really fighting for is taxpayer dollars for illegal aliens. I know that's not strictly true–
ELIZABETH WARREN: Excuse me, not strictly true? It is a flat out lie!

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 3, 2025 at 10:19 AM

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Reminder that I generally view the Trump government as four distinct governments:
1.) Miller/Hegseth/Noem (plus Vance)
2.) Lutnick/Bessent/Wiles + Congress Liasons
3.) Vought/DOGE
4.) Kennedy/Oz HHS

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 3:31 PM

One of the truly disconcerting parts about this government is that none of these four work in concert with one another, and you can see this because whoever gets Trump's ear suddenly becomes the main focus in the media for a little bit because Trump's tweeting insane shit from them

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 3:39 PM

This also leads to the deranged nature of this government, imho, there's so much flying thick and fast because you really have a bunch of different competing power centers who immediately go about being as loud and angry about their priorities as possible the second they get Trump's attention.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 3:39 PM

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idk man, if you’re getting to the point where you’re accusing prosecutors, judges, and metro police of being the enemy, i am skeptical you have achieved the kind of consolidation you need for this kind of a project

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— GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) October 4, 2025 at 6:53 PM

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He's gonna be so mad when it sucks again because snappy parades isn't how the US military works.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 4:23 PM

Per AOL.com, “Trump Heads To Virginia For Grand Navy Celebration As Shutdown Continues”:

… The event, titled “America’s Navy 250: Titans of the Sea — A Salute to the Fleet,” marks the 250th anniversary of the Navy and comes as the federal government remains in limbo as the shutdown stretches into its fifth day…

While the government’s lights remain off, the Norfolk naval base will be lit up with concerts, fireworks, and massive crowds of sailors in white uniforms for the milestone celebration.

Navy ships are expected to be open for public viewings, and service members will meet with attendees as part of the community outreach festivities…

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents roughly 800,000 federal workers, sued the administration Friday, claiming the Department of Education violated furloughed employees’ First Amendment rights by inserting partisan language into their government email replies — blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

That lawsuit adds fuel to a deepening standoff that’s shuttered national parks, stalled paychecks, and crippled federal operations — even as the president prepares to take the stage in Norfolk.

For now, the government stays closed, but the celebration “must go on.”

Sunday Morning Open Thread: So Much GOP DisarrayPost + Comments (95)

Late Night Open Thread: Worse Than K(r)ash Patel’s Challenge Coin

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Only cops and dudes who never deployed like this type of shit.

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— Jack Murphy (@jackmurphyrgr.bsky.social) October 3, 2025 at 1:57 PM

Tom Nichols, at the Atlantic — “Kash Patel’s Challenge Coin Is Perfect for Him” [gift link]:

Members of the U.S. military have long had a tradition of giving or exchanging “challenge coins.” The medallions have no monetary value; they come in various shapes and sizes, but most are about the size of a silver dollar, and they carry the symbols and names of military units or commands. Members of those units carry them to give to others as tokens of esteem. (They are called challenge coins because they can be used to prove that you are a member of the unit; sometimes they are called “commander’s coins” when they’re given out by a senior officer.)…

FBI Director Kash Patel has created such a coin for himself that he’s now handing out, and Americans can only wish that he’d take them all and lock them in his desk, never to be seen again.

The coins are, to put it gently, ridiculous. On one side, they have what appears to be the symbol of the Punisher, a Marvel character. The Punisher is a vigilante who does … well, vigilante stuff, killing evildoers at will as revenge for the death of his family. The symbol is popular with a lot of people, including criminals, law-enforcement officers, soldiers, and some extremist groups such as the anti-government Three Percenters. None of this is good, especially because the character’s creator long ago admitted that the symbol was partly inspired by the Nazi SS’s Totenkopf, or “Death’s Head,” uniform insignia. (The author of the series also notes that the Punisher hates cops, something the police officers wearing the mark don’t seem to get.)

If you’re not a comic-book fan, the front of the coin looks more like a depiction of a space alien, or maybe a skull—or maybe a space alien’s skull—with spiders in the eye sockets and K$H on the forehead. (“Kash.” Get it? So edgy.) The face has a Greek or Roman helmet under the nose, and a pistol on each side, and together, it looks like a key or maybe a bottle opener. The other side carries Patel’s signature, the FBI seal, and a depiction of a tommy gun, perhaps as a romantic reminder of the days of J. Edgar Hoover hunting down John Dillinger or something.

This is not a challenge coin: It is something kids use to pop the caps off beer bottles at a gaming meetup or a cosplay convention. If someone pressed one of these into my hand at an official function, I’d think I was being pranked (or maybe being given a discount token to a local Halloween house). It is as unserious as the director himself, a metal symbol of the hollowness of Patel’s leadership. The FBI, prone to rogue operations under Hoover, has for decades been the nation’s premier law-enforcement agency. It is run and staffed by agents—serious men and women—who once struck fear into the hearts of bank robbers, kidnappers, and enemy spies. After Hoover, the agency’s directors were always drawn from the ranks of people with backgrounds in law enforcement or justice, people of significant accomplishment.

Patel’s coin does not convey this kind of gravitas. Instead, it says: “I am a grown man who has spent way too much time on the internet.” It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to get from someone with a lot of hardware hanging from their face and tattoos on their neck. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we might expect a bit more formality from a G-man.) Then again, maybe it’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from a guy who noted the death of Charlie Kirk by saying that he and Kirk would meet again in “Valhalla.” It’s sort of a Goth-horror movie-gamer coin that will never scare a bad guy or inspire respect in a colleague or a fellow law enforcer, but that might elicit a “Cool, dude” from an easily impressed middle schooler…

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War for Ukraine Day 1,318: Russia Once Again Shatters the Small Hours of the Ukrainian Night

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A painting by the Ukrainain artist NEIVANMADE. The upper 1/2 is grey and there are black Shahed drones on it aimed towards the bottom of the painting. The bottom half of the painting has a blood red background and in the center of the bottom is a house, to it's left is a swing set, and to its right is a car. They are charcoal grey on the blood red background background. The drones are targeting the house, swing set, and car. Above the house and below the drones are the words "Russia Kills To Erase Free People".

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

A quick housekeeping note: Cole asked me to relate the following to you all:

Please tell everyone I am alive, I am in a foul mood, my laptop died, and I took my computer apart to clean and am too lazy to put it back together tonight.

The Russian Tu-95s are up:

❗️❗️A group of Tu-95s was recorded taking off from the Olenya airfield!

— MAKS 25 👀🇺🇦 (@maks23.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 5:55 PM

Monitoring resources report that indicators suggest preparations are underway for a massive russian missile strike by Tu-95ms / Tu-22m3 bombers on the night of October 5th, as well as big drone attack.

I guess it’s going to be another night, huh?

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 2:32 PM

Russian planes are out again, flying to launch missiles at Ukraine. The drone attack has been ongoing for hours.

This is how our weekend is going here in Ukraine. Again.

Keep us in your thoughts tonight, please.

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 7:33 PM

And the drone swarms that precede them are making their way east to west across Ukraine.

Hundreds of Russian/Iranian Shahed attack drones invading Ukrainian airspace tonight, Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers airborne and likely to launch salvos of cruise missiles.

The war could reach Western countries if they don’t give Ukraine more help to defeat fascist Russia.

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— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 6:38 PM

As a result air raid alerts are up for all but the five westernmost oblasts as of 2:30 AM local time in Ukraine/7:30 PM EDT. I expect the air raid alerts will go up for the last five will go up shortly.

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

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GOP Venality Open Thread: They Can’t Make Me Feel Sorry for James Comey

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FBI agent relieved of duty over refusing Comey perp walk, four people familiar say reut.rs/46AfymJ

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— Reuters (@reuters.com) October 3, 2025 at 7:25 PM

… But apparently they *can* make me despise his tormentors even more than I already did.

I want the beefiest agents you got. Hard. Tight. Muscular.
Preferably wearing tight pants.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 3, 2025 at 11:43 PM

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It's killing them that Comey is like 6'8"

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— The Book of the Void (@eddyrobinson.bsky.social) October 3, 2025 at 11:47 PM

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“i thought the guardrails would save us” dude you were the guardrails

— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 1:48 AM

the comey shit is atrocious and an affront to all that is justice but yet again he’s a dude that thought he could tame a gorilla and didn’t realize a gorilla could rip your fucking face off in five seconds and go back to jacking off in a forest.
miscalculation imo

— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 1:46 AM

sorry it didn’t work out for you, dude

— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) October 4, 2025 at 1:47 AM

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Dedicated Baseball Thread – American League Baseball Post Season Day 1

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Jackie, provider of baseball information here, tells me that:

Each team plays up to 5 games in this round.
The team that wins 3 games advances to the next round.

Best of 5, just like in volleyball, a sport I actually know! :-)

Game 1: Chicago Cubs @ Milwaukee Brewers, starts at 2:08 pm ET on TBS

Game 2:   NY Yankees @ Toronto Blue Jays, starts at 4:08 pm ET on FOX

Game 3: LA Dodgers @ Philadelphia Phillies, starts at 6:38 pm ET on TBS

Game 4:  Detroit Tigers @ Seattle Mariners, starts at 8:38 pm on FS1 (Fox Sports 1)

“LET’S PLAY BAAALL!”

Since this thread will be active all day, at least for a few of you guys, let’s keep this one for all things baseball!

 

Dedicated Baseball Thread – American League Baseball Post Season Day 1Post + Comments (165)

Our SecDef… SecWAAARGH!!!, Pete Hegseth — And His ‘Boss’

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Hegseth 1

(h/t Washington Post)

He wants them to kill Americans and break the Constitution.

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— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 5:40 PM

I’ve often heard this said in military circles, but more as a sobering reminder, not an applause line.

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— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 4:53 PM

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the american military is the greatest fighting force in the history of the world because they are good at paperwork and schedules.

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— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) October 2, 2025 at 10:35 PM

most of these people think military effectiveness is homoerotic guys in tank tops playing volleyball between fighter jet missions but the real military is ten thousand people in an office making sure food goes where it needs to

— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) October 2, 2025 at 10:38 PM

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Hegseth "has focused less on meeting with his foreign counterparts and more on doing pull-ups" for social media.
The military officers were silent, "though at least some of them were seething. … 'Those guys have got a lot more dust on their boots than he does.'"
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/u…

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— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell.com) September 30, 2025 at 2:21 PM


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