Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

We still have time to mess this up!

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

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

Come on, man.

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

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

An almost top 10,000 blog!

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

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

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

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A dog by any other name (open thread)

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Slate published an article that says dog names are trending more human-style in recent years. Anecdata from my circle seems to confirm this.

Humans tend to name new dogs immediately for obvious reasons. But sometimes I wish I’d gotten to know these fellows better before naming them.

Badger and Pete (dogs)

“Badger” and “Pete” suit them well enough. But as a pair, they are so Felix and Oscar! Or maybe Tessio and Fat Clemenza (sorry, Pete, but I know damn well your mind would be on the cannoli, even after a mob hit).

I also think “Feldman” would have been a terrific name for our bug-eyed Badger dog. Pete would make a fine ”Ralph” too — even though “The Honeymooners” was before my time, I can detect Pete’s Kramden qualities.

Oh well. We do the best we can in the moment and move on.

Open thread!

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Open Thread: Capt. Theresa Claiborne Retires After A Groundbreaking Career

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United Airlines Capt. Theresa Claiborne accumulated more than 20,000 flight hours during her...

She’s been flying planes, both military and commercial, for about 43 years, breaking down barrier after barrier along the way.

But on May 23, Captain Theresa Claiborne will land her “final flight” at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey after traveling from Lisbon, Portugal, with her friends and family in tow.

“I’ve had a great career,” Claiborne told CNN Travel via Zoom shortly before setting off for Lisbon. “And it’s time for me to park the brakes for the final time on a big airplane.”

Retirement flight

While she’s looking forward to “closing that one chapter and starting another,” Claiborne can’t help but get a “little teary” when she thinks of the “wide-eyed” children who often marvel at her as she strides through an airport in her pilot uniform.

“After this, walking through the airport, I won’t have a uniform on,” Claiborne says. “People will just look at me like I’m just a passenger like everyone else; that’ll be a little different … I’m hoping that I can still make an impact on the industry.

“To still impart that knowledge on young people, and particularly young Black women, that they can do this.”

Becoming a pilot was something Claiborne, originally from Virginia, could never have imagined for herself as a young girl. She was about 7 years old when she took her first flight — an international jaunt to Turkey.

“My father was military,” she says. “So I grew up really all over the world … I’d been on big airplanes before but never dreamt of flying one.”

That all changed when Claiborne joined the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) during college and was given the opportunity to fly in a T-37, a twin-engine jet trainer.

“Once I got that first taste of being in the air and being in command of the airplane, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is what I’m going to do,” says Claiborne, who was about 20 at the time.

Sink or swim

While she was keen to apply for undergraduate pilot training, Claiborne explains that the US Air Force was only training 10 women a year at the time and “had already selected the women for my graduating class.”

However, this number soon increased, and Claiborne jumped at the opportunity to earn her pilot wings.

Around six months after graduating from California State University in Sacramento, she began pilot training.

“It’s sink or swim … Either you make it, or you don’t,” she says, pointing out that she found it particularly difficult at first as “she didn’t have a strong math background.”

“I just beared down and made sure that I made it, because that’s the kind of personality I have.”

Read the rest here.

Hoover award winner Theresa Claiborne was the first black woman to become a pilot in the United States Air Force. She describes her career in the military and commercial airline pilot along with the challenges she’s faced.

 

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War for Ukraine Day 824: The Bombardment Continues

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Quick housekeeping note: The girls are both fine. Rosie has another week off before her next round of chemo starts. I want to thank everyone, again, for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations. They are all greatly appreciated. I’m going to keep today’s update shorter.

One additional item: I know the news from Gaza is bad. I’ve seen the videos of the aftermath of this morning’s (local time) strike. You DO NOT need to see them. Or the screen grabs or pictures. It is enough to know what happened.

Russia attacked Kharkiv again today.

For the third day in a row, rescuers have been removing rubble from the store, finding the remains of the bodies of civilians who were killed. Meanwhile, russian forces attacked Kharkiv again today with three glide bombs, targeting a candy factory and an agricultural machinery factory. A 46-year-old woman was killed, and 11 other civilians were injured.

#LetUkraineStrikeBack

📷Suspilne Kharkiv

President Zelenskyy travelled to Spain today. Among other things he signed a joint security cooperation agreement. The video to his joint press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is below.

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Monday Afternoon Open Thread

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Not sure if I have shared this photo yet of Henry sliding off his pile of dog beds.

This was before his recent haircut.

And yes, that is a box of Christmas ornaments in the background.  And on my coffee table I have a ziploc bag of the ornaments that I have in a basket on my deck for the season, next to the front door.  At least they made it to the coffee table, where they were pushed aside to make room for my Easter decorations, which were pushed aside to make room for the vases of peonies.

Pretty soon I’ll have the whole cycle of holidays and seasons represented on my coffee table.  If I don’t run out of room first!

Open thread.

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Memorial Day Monday Open Thread

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Going back to at least the medieval church calendar, there’s been a community tradition of scheduling a ‘holiday’ approximately once every six weeks. And from what I’ve read of medieval history, decrying the behavior of people who chose to celebrate every sacred holiday with feasts, festivals, and avoiding their religious duties goes back just about as far…

… 3. HAS MEMORIAL DAY ALWAYS BEEN A SOURCE OF CONTENTION?
Someone has always lamented the holiday’s drift from its original meaning.

As early as 1869, The New York Times wrote that the holiday could become “sacrilegious” and no longer “sacred” if it focuses more on pomp, dinners and oratory.

In 1871, abolitionist Frederick Douglass feared Americans were forgetting the Civil War’s impetus — enslavement — when he gave a Decoration Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery.

“We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation’s destroyers,” Douglass said.

His concerns were well-founded, said Ben Railton, a professor of English and American studies at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. Even though roughly 180,000 Black men served in the Union Army, the holiday in many communities would essentially become “white Memorial Day,” especially after the rise of the Jim Crow South, Railton told the AP in 2023.

Meanwhile, how the day was spent — at least by the nation’s elected officials — could draw scrutiny for years after the Civil War. In the 1880s, then-President Grover Cleveland was said to have gone fishing — and “people were appalled,” Matthew Dennis, an emeritus history professor at the University of Oregon, told the AP last year.

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Cold-Eyed Dawn Open Thread: ‘Even Donald Trump has trouble getting New York’s attention’

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Because it’s a holiday weekend, and a gift link… The ever-reasonable Philip Bump, at the Washington Post:

… By dropping into the middle of a predominantly Black and Hispanic community in the Bronx, Trump was, among other things, doing the same thing: trolling the left and his critics. He hoped to get a rise out of his opponents, and he did.

At least among those who noticed he was there.

The rally had a footprint in the neighborhood, but a modest one. Despite the insistence of some Trump allies, the Bronx rally wasn’t huge. The hilltop where he spoke allowed for people to spread around the podium on all sides about 40 people deep, though it rarely extended that far. It was a small-club performance by design, not an arena show.

It was, however, much more diverse than any Trump rally I’ve attended. His audiences tend, like his voting base, to skew heavily White. This rally had a disproportionate number of Black, Asian and Hispanic attendees, reflecting the surrounding community. Many of those in attendance were, in fact, from the Bronx; others were from other places near New York City: Westchester County to the north, or out on Long Island…

The rally had the familiar microeconomies that accompany Trump as he campaigns. There were merchants outside selling hats (a visor with fake orange “Trump hair,” for example) and T-shirts. (“I WAS THERE!” one popular shirt read. “BRONX NEW YORK / TRUMP.”) A number of people had placards showing Trump’s mug shot photo from his arrest in Georgia, but those were being given out by the campaign. There was also a surfeit of members of the pro-Trump media universe that has been fostered by the overlap of his popularity and the advent of cheap tools for streaming content.

Some of America’s more famous hustlers also showed up. Former New York congressman George Santos was there, as was Billy McFarland of Fyre Festival infamy. As rapper Sheff G made his way through security, fans called out to him from the line of people waiting to get in. He would later join Trump onstage, each of them dealing with the criminal justice system in New York City. This was the first Trump rally I’ve attended where the smell of marijuana was pervasive, though it was not the first park in the city where I’ve experienced that…

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Sunday Night Open Thread

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I do love me some Jack Smith.

https://twitter.com/7Veritas4/status/1794553084363895088

Full text:

Dear Donald,

I’m sorry you stepped outside your MAGA bubble and got beat up like a rented piñata at an anger management seminar.

To remedy this harsh dose of reality, you could announce a MAGA rally next week in a safe zone, sell a few hats, issue some “they’re out to get me” fundraisers, post some Taylor Swift concert crowds and claim them as your attendees.

Hope this helps.

Yours truly,

Jack

Open thread.

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