Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
I know we have a lot of talented BJ peeps. One of our commenters took these photos of the NYT on a walk recently, and I thought with all this talent in the commentariat that perhaps some of you might want to have some fun enhancing one of these photos. Two photo options, very similar, but slightly different.
Anyway, if you do, please have some fun and send me your new version.
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This is an open thread, you know what to do.
(Image by NEIVANMADE)
A quick housekeeping note: Rosie is still doing well. She starts round 3 of chemotherapy on Monday. Thank you all, again, for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.
Last night Russia launched a drone attack against Sumy Oblast, as well as other parts of Ukraine.
After Russian attack with Shahed drones, Sumy lost electricity and water supply. While some power has been restored, 100,000 households still remain without power. With disruptions of pumping and draining systems, we could be looking at a major humanitarian disaster. pic.twitter.com/kjCsPQwxCl
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) July 6, 2024
Emergency crews are currently on scene and are investigating the extent of the damage.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) July 6, 2024
Here’s the full text of the first tweet:
⚡️Russian drones damage energy infrastructure in Sumy Oblast.
A Russian drone attack overnight on July 6 caused damage to energy infrastructure in Sumy Oblast, leaving several communities in the region without power, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported.
The Kyiv Independent has the details.
Editor’s Note: This is a developing story and is being updated.
A Russian drone attack overnight on July 6 caused damage to energy infrastructure in Sumy Oblast, leaving several communities in the region without power, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported.
In recent months, Russia has intensified its attacks against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure in a renewed assault against the country’s energy grid.
Explosions were heard in Sumy Oblast shortly after midnight local time, Suspilne reported, as the Air Force warned of the threat of Russian Shahed-type drone attacks.
Emergency crews are currently on scene and are investigating the extent of the damage, the military administration said.
Earlier in the night, local officials in the city of Sumy said that a Russian drone attack temporarily cut off power to the local water system and disrupted the water supply. Water usage was restored by 7:30 a.m. local time, Suspilne Sumy reported.
As a result of the attacks on energy infrastructure, Ukraine began implementing rolling blackouts on May 15.
Due to dwindling energy supplies caused by Russian attacks, Ukraine’s largest privately-owned energy provider DTEK has warned that Ukrainians have only have electricity for 6-7 hours per day in the upcoming winter.
In a “worst-case” scenario in which Ukraine is unable to repair damaged energy facilities and prevent future attacks, Ukrainians could experience up to 20 hours of blackouts a day, DTEK Executive Director Dmytro Sakharuk told the Kyiv Independent in an interview on June 9.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
War for Ukraine Day 864: Russia Sends the Shaheds Against Sumy OblastPost + Comments (26)
Two quick things for this open thread.
First. Biden cancels his speech (scheduled for Sunday) because there is a strike, with picket lines, and we all know that Joe Biden will not be crossing a picket line. h/t Chris Johnson
You know what the media will say, you know what social media trolls will say; now you know what the real deal is in advance. Forewarned is forearmed.
Second. An interesting take on troll behavior, from Chris Johnson the comments. I’ll be interested in hearing your thoughts on these thoughts!
I coin the term ‘Trollster’, check it out :)
You can (and we did!) get pairs of trolls with the following characteristics:
- Instead of trying to persuade, they’re hammering narratives very unappealingly. It’s brazen, annoying.
- The narratives may have a common factor (Biden bad) but will outline OPPOSITE positions. Trump stronk/weak, Kamala Prez/dumped, like that.
- The trolls WILL NOT intersect. Strictly one thread for the one, one thread for the other. If invited they will not intersect, though they seemingly have opposite takes.
- If discovered they can retreat or one will drop out so the other can troll normally.
The purpose of Trollstering is to get information back about the subjects that have opposite takes. They, or somebody, is taking note of how they’re argued against and what sticks. The reason they will not intersect even when invited, is because it’s actively a rule for them not to do, and the reason for that is it’d ruin the data! They can’t argue with each other, they’re strictly gathering data on YOU. I would bet money there’s an actual rule against them posting in each others’ threads.
So, if the trollage seems unusually obnoxious and it really seems to be picking fights, check to see if you’re being Trollstered. Is there a nearby thread with a whole other troll, who is being just as obnoxious but over literally opposite points?
Getting normally trolled requires getting some sympathy, but getting Trollstered can be way more adversarial, because you’re being watched on how you respond to the side-issues. They’ll be incredibly on-message, but there’ll be another one where the message has a contradictory aspect. It’s a poll
Here’s the usefulness: it’s a window into what narrative might get pushed next, and it reveals weakness. If the narrative is going perfect they don’t need to do this.
If anyone has questions about how the pie filter works, we have answers. Just ask!
Open thread.
What else you got going on between now and November?
Surely nothing more important than this.
The only thing that has changed since last week is that the corporate media have gone balls to the wall to create an ‘ongoing crisis’ for Democrats that they can milk until election day – which they were always going to do anyway – and the utter scum infesting the Supreme Court have gone balls to the wall inventing a Conservaconstitution to replace the one that has worked for 200+ years – which they were always going to do anyway.
You can’t do anything about that. Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of.
All you lot can do is donate, volunteer, campaign, and keep on taking any opportunity you can to remind ‘normal’ voters that the choice is between progressive Government under Democrats and a descent into crab barrel fascism under Stench and the Hench Party.
What else you got going on between now and November that’s a better way to pass the time?
What Else You Got Going On Between Now and November?Post + Comments (276)
Busy week working, and I am back at it today, but I took one minute to check in on my buddy, the (fake) jack Smith.
This week:
Taraji P. Henson calls out Project 2025.
More people google it and are alarmed by Trump’s plans to institutionalize tyranny.
Trump pretends he doesn’t know about it.
The Heritage Foundation, Trump’s think tank, chalks it off as locker room talk.
Takeaway: stand up…
— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) July 6, 2024
Let’s model Taraji’s behavior, shall we? We are not famous, but what if each one of us shared Project 2025 information with just one person this weekend. What would the ripples be?
And if you didn’t catch the awesome poem by niqaeli torres in yesterday’s thread, go check it out.
She is right. All there is is what we do now. This fight is for everything. Get up and fight.
Open thread.
Black Women Are Showing Us The Way. Again.Post + Comments (240)
Asked @POTUS whether he can serve another four years, he says “I’m positive.”
He also told @andrea_shalal he’s “completely ruling out” dropping out of the race.
— Akayla Gardner (@gardnerakayla) July 5, 2024
The president addressed an overflow room of supporters at his WI rally where he doubled down on staying in the race.
Key note: He did not use a teleprompter for his remarks to the crowd. “This is the most dangerous election in U.S. history,” he said. pic.twitter.com/hdrKFIghCQ
— Akayla Gardner (@gardnerakayla) July 5, 2024
I see no teleprompter.
I see no medical emergency.
I see a kind decent and extremely successful president.
And anyone who wants to throw that success away is a goddamn fool.pic.twitter.com/FTuAF51Ysw
— Democrats in Array 🏳️🌈 (@DemsInArray) July 6, 2024
*********
Related, and yet not: This is a very important piece of legislation!
We welcome the proposed creation of a federal heat safety standard by the Biden-Harris Admin. This common-sense & life-saving rule proposed by @OSHA_DOL will, once effective, protect the health and lives of farmworkers who have no choice but to work during dangerous temps. 1/ pic.twitter.com/JgLWQeH7UN
— United Farm Workers (@UFWupdates) July 2, 2024
Full statement @ https://t.co/b1wmKQgkoa 3/
— United Farm Workers (@UFWupdates) July 2, 2024
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Hot Enough for Ya?Post + Comments (284)
You think Biden's having a bad news cycle? RFK Jr is on Fox News answering questions about a photo of him with what appears to be a barbecued dog pic.twitter.com/mH6NgLp3MS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 2, 2024
RFK Jr.’s Family Doesn’t Want Him to Run. Even They May Not Know His Darkest Secrets. https://t.co/zErxGnZJRs
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) July 2, 2024
The family may not have shared every unpleasant detail, but all the cousins knew enough not to ask each other too many questions. Bobby Jr was, and is, someone who “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness… and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” Here’s the article that seems to have sparked this week’s agita, Vanity Fair “RFK Jr.’s Family Doesn’t Want Him to Run. Even They May Not Know His Darkest Secrets.”:
… Long before he entered the 2024 race with a wagon train of conspiracy theories, the wider Kennedy family was intimately familiar with RFK Jr.’s problematic personality—the outsize confidence masquerading as expertise, the “savior complex” (as one family member called it) that drives him to take up quixotic causes and cast himself as a lone hero against established powers, and, above all, as one old friend calls it, his “pathological need for attention.” A few months ago I began talking to Kennedy family members and close friends, some on the record, others on background, to get insights into the man they know well, and to ask some pointed questions: Rather than merely rubber-stamping Joe Biden’s already fatally faltering campaign, shouldn’t you be telling voters what you know about your brother and cousin, whose candidacy threatens to swing the presidential election to Donald Trump and upend American history forever? With the future of the country riding on the narrowest of polling margins, shouldn’t you be describing in fine detail the acute dangers of the person you know so well—before your own family’s tragedy becomes the nation’s?…
After initially denouncing his candidacy last summer, most of the 105 Kennedy relatives —including Bobby’s eight siblings, the largest branch of the family—had hoped his campaign would collapse under the weight of his many bizarre claims and alliances with anti-vax cranks and Trumpworld figures like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. Instead the family has played defense, going public only when Kennedy’s statements went so far out of bounds they had no choice, like when he suggested COVID was “ethnically targeted” to spare Jewish and Chinese people; or his claim that anti-vaxxers suffered worse oppression than Anne Frank (a statement sister Kerry called “sickening and destructive”); or when he claimed there was a mysterious alternative shooter in the death of his father in 1968 (going so far as to interview Sirhan B. Sirhan in prison and proclaim him innocent); or that the CIA was possibly involved in the assassination—claims that caused deep pain for his siblings.
Their private efforts to get Bobby to drop out—or at least wait until 2028 to run—have also come to naught. “I’ve spoken to Bobby about this race, about what’s at stake, about the importance of supporting Joe Biden, of the impact of the Trump presidency on our country and on the world,” Kerry Kennedy, who leads the nonprofit Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and is disciplined in how she speaks of her brother, tells me, “and I was clearly unpersuasive.”…
Late Night Open Thread: RFK Jr, Chaos AgentPost + Comments (122)