Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

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

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

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

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

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

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

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What Mistermix Said…And THIS

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We have a fight ahead of us and Biden hasn’t given up on us, why should we give up on him?

 

Doomerism is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.
It is how authoritarians win. Let’s try to fight the doom.

Michael Mann and Timothy D Snyder

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The Constant Pants Shitting Gets a Little Old

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The Constant Pants Shitting Gets a Little Old

I’m at the gym and the Fox Chyron said something about Axelrod speculating about replacing Biden.WTF is wrong with these supposed political professionals?  Apparently there are also others but I sure can’t be bothered to find them, though a better person would mark their names down for eternity as unable to manage a campaign for dogcatcher, much less President of the United States.  (Sorry, just remembered that Jon Lovett was one of them on last night’s PSA – which made me lose some respect for him.)

I stand by my post last night saying that Biden didn’t have a great debate.  But it’s a far reach from that to consider replacing him.  The logistics alone are insurmountable, nevermind that Biden’s the best choice for the party and the country even if he had a bad night.  Plus, it’s his decision, not fucking David Axelrod or Ezra Klein or any other wanker.  (I’ve said my piece about this when Ezra brought it up a few months ago, here and here. But, in the words of a great philosopher, “I’ve said it once before and it bears repeating now.”)

Have these people just lost the plot?  Are they so far up the rectums of the DC press that they don’t know the smell of shit when it exits their useless pieholes?  What is their major malfunction?

Also, I posted this on Bluesky last night in response to some poor person who was doing a little post-debate pants shitting, but it’s about as serious as one should be about replacing Biden (i.e., not at all serious):

The Constant Pants Shitting Gets a Little Old 1

If people are living in a fucking fantasy world, treat them as such and move on.  We have an election to win.

 

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Supreme Court Decisions Again Today at 10 am ET (June 28 Edition)

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

If you want to follow along on SCOTUSblog.

I’ll copy the short summaries as each one shows up on their website.

Here we go!

In City of Grant Pass v. Johnson, the court rules that “camping ban” laws restricting the homeless from sleeping on public property do not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” and are therefore not prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

Sotomayor writes the dissent:

“I remain hopeful that someday in the near future, this Court will play its role in safeguarding constitutional liberties for the most vulnerable among us. Because the Court today abdicates that role, I respectfully dissent.

OPINION:  6-3  rating (bad)

 

The court overrules its 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which held that courts should defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the court rules 6-3 that courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.

OPINION:  6-3  rating (fuck, this is really bad)

 

 

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Now More Than Ever, TGIFriday Morning Open Thread

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Now More Than Ever, TGIFriday Morning Open Thread

(Clay Bennett via GoComics.com)

 
After watching the debate, keeping up with the CNN, Guardian, and Washington Post liveblogs, reading all your comments on my posts (and MisterMix’s and the Blogfather’s), and skimming a chunk of twitter… well, all the smart money said in advance that it wouldn’t change anyone’s mind, and so far it hasn’t. There’s a lot of triumphalism from the GOP, entirely too much rending of garments among the professional Democratic ‘operatives’, and an awareness among the normies that we’ve got four more months of hard work ahead of us.

My personal analogy is that the debate dumped a big, very badly made quilt of lies, over-information, and missed chances on stage. It’s up to us, during the next days weeks & months, to pick that quilt apart and re-use the best bits to create our own narrative quilt. And there is lots of material in those 90 minutes where TFG shows all his worst behavior, while Biden defends Truth, Justice, and the American way. Seam rippers at the ready!

And, as always: Sharing is caring!

show full post on front page

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Non-Political Open Thread: Also in Atlanta, the Copa América (Soccer)

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Will Leitch, at NYMag — “The U.S. Men’s Soccer Team Is Excellent. Does Anyone Care?”:

Last Thursday, my soccer-obsessed 10-year-old son and I sat in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta and witnessed 70,000 people humming the Argentine national anthem together. This was just before the first game of the Copa América, the South American soccer tournament hosted this year by the United States, and almost everyone in the stands wore the national jersey of reigning World Cup champions Argentina. The true attraction, of course, was Lionel Messi, the most famous athlete in the world. That a crowd this massive could gather in Georgia to cheer him on may have once been surprising, but certainly isn’t any longer. Last year, SSRS, a research firm that’s been surveying Americans for three decades, found that the most popular athlete in this country was not LeBron James, Tom Brady, or Stephen Curry, but Messi. Some portion of the crowd was surely singing along to the anthem in what must have been a profoundly moving moment for any Argentinian in attendance. But most of us were just humming along. We didn’t know the words. We didn’t speak the language. We were just there to see Messi.

This week, the United States men’s national team (USMNT) will play its second Copa América match, also in Atlanta. I’ll be attending that as well, and let me tell you: Tickets are a lot cheaper. This is partly understandable: The U.S. is playing Panama, not Messi and Argentina, after all. But as someone who attended the last game the USMNT played in Atlanta, a miserable Gold Cup loss in 2015 to Jamaica at the since-demolished Georgia Dome, the lack of anticipation for the U.S. men’s national team playing in Atlanta — a city that has, in the years since that Gold Cup loss, launched a highly successful, championship-winning MLS team that regularly plays some of the most well-attended soccer games on earth — is palpable. Eight years ago, the Georgia Dome was packed with maniacs dressed up like Benjamin Franklin and wearing T-shirts with bald eagles on them; this week, I can’t find anyone around here who even knows the team is playing…

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Post-Debate Thread

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Post-Debate Thread

Well, unfortunately, my wife, a normie, wanted to watch the debate.  We watched it together.  Here’s my frank take:

  • Biden looked terrible.  Bronzer!
  • The moderation was awful.  An 8th grader could have done as well by watching the clock and reeling off questions.  This is especially true when you have a liar like Trump involved.
  • Biden perked up towards the end but overall I think he missed the mark.  He tried to pack too much into every question and that worked against him.
  • Trump did his best to lose by circling back on things that pricked his ego.  He also spouted a bunch of nonsense that might turn off people who have a clue.
  • Biden’s closing statement didn’t mention the word “abortion”.  That was a miss.

Overall, I think debates don’t matter that much, and this one matters less since we’re a long way from the election.  But, we all should steel ourselves for a negative turn in the polls and bad media reactions.  This was not a good debate for Joe Biden.  He stumbled at the start and recovered pretty well.  This was not a good debate for CNN.  They allowed Trump to platform lies with basically zero pushback.  If it wasn’t a good debate for Biden, and it wasn’t a good debate for CNN, we have to recognize that it was a good debate for the other person on the stage. I don’t think debates matter that much, but here we are.

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