Balloon Juice - Open Threads Archives

Monday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie| September 15, 20255:48 am| 285 Comments

This post is in: Local Races, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You, Trump Crime Cartel

Dachshunds having fun on a dirt pile: #AGoodPlace
Source: www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmil…

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— Michelle says: Be kind. Always. ?? (@snarkysillysad.bsky.social) September 11, 2025 at 6:20 AM

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(H/t commentor Prostratedragon)

My name is Jasmine Clark. In 2018, I flipped a Georgia House seat Republicans held for 20+ years. Since then, I’ve defended it again and again, even after Governor Kemp redrew my district 3 times. I don’t back down from a fight, and now I’m running for Congress to fight for GA-13.

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— Rep. Dr. Jasmine Clark (@jasmineclarkforga.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 3:02 PM

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That's the problem with shamelessly lying about the price of things at stores. Donald can lie about Ukraine, and average Americans will be oblivious, but they notice grocery prices every week.

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— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 2:38 PM

The biters, bitten:

… The economy grew faster in the second quarter than initially anticipated, productivity was revised upwards, inflation hasn’t surged despite new tariffs and gas prices have fallen to levels not seen in decades. Republicans also avoided what would have amounted to a major tax increase with Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill earlier this year.

But polls show Americans remain anxious about high prices, and there are signs the economy’s resilience is starting to fray, making it harder for the administration to close the delta between how the economy looks on paper and how people feel. The Congressional Budget Office also said Friday that the megalaw will have little effect on economic growth before the 2028 election, its gains blunted by the president’s tariffs and immigration crackdown.

“That’s a thing that I know the White House political team is nervous about because there’s a reality and there’s a perception. And the reality is the economy is doing fine and the perception is people are still worried about things like grocery prices, which are still high, and still growing,” said Stephen Moore, an outside economic adviser to Trump who the president featured in an impromptu Oval Office press conference last month…

Trump in public: If SCOTUS takes away my illegal tariffs it'll be the Great Depression all over again!!!
Trump's White House in private: We'll be lucky if they do.
www.politico.com/news/2025/09…

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— emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) September 13, 2025 at 10:29 AM

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American soybean farmers don’t have a single order from China as they head into harvest season. China usually buys 25% of the entire crop.
Crisis looms for the farmers and there’s only one man responsible.

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— Mark Chadbourn (@chadbourn.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 3:06 PM

Monday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (285)

Late Night Open Thread: Eternal Verities

by Anne Laurie| September 14, 202511:56 pm| 54 Comments

This post is in: Humorous, Open Threads, Religion

The new statue of the Madonna at Santa Teresa di Gallura is an "abstract of Mary's form" ??

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— Dewie (@judgedewie.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 4:41 AM

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Cue loads of men wandering around the area, frantically trying and failing to find it.

— Mike Collins (@m1kecollins.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 4:46 AM

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Late Night Open Thread: Eternal VeritiesPost + Comments (54)

War for Ukraine Day 1,298: Putin’s Polish Gambit

by Adam L Silverman| September 14, 20258:28 pm| 32 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Military, Open Threads, Russia, Silverman on Security, War, War in Ukraine

I wanted to bring my comment reply on what I think Putin is trying to accomplish with his drone overflights of Poland and now Romania too.

I think Russia’s strategy in overflying or attacking Poland and Romania, which I expect will be expanded to the Baltics, Finland, Norway, and Sweden in short order, is to 1) gathered data on responses, response times, air defense targeting and efficacy, etc and 2) to draw one of these states, or another NATO member state supporting them, to pursue a drone or a MiG or a Tu in way that brings them over Russian airspace. At that point Russia will claim it has been attacked/invaded by a NATO member state. They’ve been seeding that into the informational environment for fifteen plus years. My professional assessment is that Russia has now directly and intentionally attacked NATO member states. These are acts of war. These states, and NATO, need to accept reality and respond appropriately.

I would also like to win the lottery.

An apparent irony in the modern geopolitical landscape:

A non-NATO country that has not been accepted into the alliance is now teaching a full-fledged NATO member how to defend itself by shooting down russian drones.

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 3:09 PM

One of the main problems, as Jay flagged in a comment of his own last night, is that no NATO member state has any actual combat experience with conducting or countering drone warfare in general and the type of drone warfare the Russians employ in specific. In fact there is only one state that has significant experience countering drone warfare, as well as more experience conducting offensive drone operations than Russia: Ukraine. If Russia were to attack one or more NATO member states none of them be asking the US for train, advise, and assist assistance right now. Nor any other state except for Ukraine. The Ukrainians are the subject matter experts and have all the technical expertise.

🇺🇦🇵🇱 It is the Ukrainians who will teach us to resist Russia, not the other way around. This is something that the public and governments in the West must urgently realize, — Sikorski

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— MAKS 25 👀🇺🇦 (@maks23.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 1:19 PM

Polish anti-drone teams will receive training from Ukrainian operators at a NATO center in Poland, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski announced. Ukraine’s expertise in countering Russian drones will help bolster defenses after recent incursions.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s…

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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 11:44 AM

Who could’ve possibly imagined?

NATO’s larger/overall problem, which is also the problem for each of its member states in Europe, is that neither NATO nor its constituent European member states don’t have a coherent strategy at all. The reason for this is because NATO’s and its member states’ policy has been to let the US lead. Well the US led, but only so far, under Biden and his team. And is not leading at all under Trump and his team.

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

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We Have Significantly Restricted Russia’s Oil Industry, and This Significantly Restricts the War – Address by the President

14 September 2025 – 19:15

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

I want to especially thank all our warriors today who are inflicting truly significant losses on Russia. Losses at the front. Losses along the border. Losses on Russia’s own territory thanks to our long-range strikes. The most effective sanctions – the ones that work the fastest – are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots. We have significantly restricted Russia’s oil industry, and this significantly restricts the war. Russia’s war is essentially a function of oil, of gas, of all its other energy resources. I thank the special forces of the Security Service of Ukraine, who did a great job in Primorsk recently, hitting Russia’s largest oil terminal on the Baltic Sea. There is substantial damage; everything has been verified. And this is tangible for the enemy. Our special forces are also keeping an eye on the port of Ust-Luga and all other Russian points of access to the world market. Today, the Security Service of Ukraine’s drones are capable of operating at distances of more than a thousand kilometres. The Special Operations Forces, the Unmanned Systems Forces, the Foreign Intelligence Service, and the Defense Intelligence are also involved. I thank them all for their accuracy. When there is a result, we praise the result. Russia could have ended this war long ago – and we have proposed this. Partners have proposed this. Many times. Russia has rejected everything related to peace. Accordingly, we are defending ourselves. And it is important that we are constantly expanding the range of weapons we produce and use. Of course, the details are extremely sensitive. But I also want to thank every Ukrainian company that provides us with this strength. We will not name the companies. For now. They already know who will use which weapons. What matters is that we have such companies. What matters is that they’re ramping up production. What matters is that, at the state level, we support every such business that enhances Ukraine’s defense capabilities and restores justice for us. I also want to acknowledge the producers of our drones, especially interceptor drones – we are increasing volumes, and it is essential that the development of such drones does not stop. A technological war requires constant innovation, and I thank all the engineers, developers, every enterprise, everyone who helps, every one of our volunteers – all who keep our defense at the proper technological level. The defense of Ukraine is truly a common task. And we are ready to teach all partners how to carry out such defense. Everyone can see that the Russians are probing – looking for ways to bring the war onto the territory of Poland and the Baltic states. The Russian army is also testing Romania. Of course, NATO has Patriots, other systems, and powerful fighter jets. But against Russian “shaheds” and “gerberas,” we in Ukraine have much cheaper, more scalable and systemic solutions. It is important not to waste any time.

Today, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi delivered a report. There are good results in the border area of the Sumy region. Our units continue to advance toward the state border of Ukraine. I thank the warriors of the 225th Separate Assault Regiment and the 71st Jaeger Brigade. The Russians are also suffering significant losses in the Kharkiv region – in Kupyansk – and in the Donetsk region. We continue our actions in the Dobropillia sector. Importantly, our men are repelling the Russian assaults. Special thanks to the warriors of the 1st, 225th, and 425th Separate Assault Regiments, and to the 79th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades. Well done, guys. We are also acting according to the situation in the Zaporizhzhia region. I thank everyone who is defending our state and our people! I thank everyone who stands with us, who stands with Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!

Georgia:

Regime prisoner families and activists continue spreading the regime prisoner newspapers in all of Georgia.

The great @mariamnikuradze.bsky.social is also there, providing us with these amazing pictures that will go down in school history books.

#GeorgiaProtests

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— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 4:16 PM

When I say that everyone’s on edge in Georgia, some tell me that “we’ve been here before.”

Yes, but that was about electoral victory, not victory through the streets.

#GeorgiaProtests

— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 8:10 AM

“Russian Dream,” @Helenkhosh wrote on Kakha Kaladze’s banner.

“Solidarity for Megi,” she later wrote on FB.

23-year-old student Megi Diasamidze was arrested for writing “Russian Dream” on a banner. On Sept 12, Judge Davit Kurtanidze set her bail at 2,000 GEL and released her.

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— Publika.ge (@publikage.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 1:08 PM

Democratic leader @Helenkhosh wrote “Russian Dream” on GD Mayor Kakha Kaladze’s campaign banner at the Melikishvili office.

They began criminal prosecution against a 23-year-old girl for the exact same reason.

Elene’s defiance very often goes unmatched. ✊🏻

#GeorgiaProtests

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— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 11:09 AM

The policeman be like: “Ms. Elene, it’s not allowed.”

Oh really 🤣

— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 11:09 AM

The so-called Ministry of Internal Affairs began criminal prosecution against democratic leader Elene Khoshtaria over “damaging” the GD campaign banner.

Elene is already one of very few leaders who aren’t in jail.

Let’s see if they detain her or if they put the case on a shelf.

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— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 1:12 PM

“You cannot erase the true word of a truthful man. Neither by jailing, nor by decapitation – you cannot keep the truth contained.” – Metropolitan bishop Grigol of Poti and Khobi.

It’s so reassuring to hear some humanity and sanity from among Georgia’s largely Russified clergy.

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— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 9:21 AM

❤️

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— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 11:16 AM

The Georgian Dream is having a campaign for the sham local elections.

In Tbilisi, their neighbourhood talks & gatherings last mere minutes as people actively lash out at them.

Even in rural areas they are often confronted or engaged in a dissatisfied manner.

#GeorgiaProtests

— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:16 PM

For about a week now, activists have been putting up leaflets shaming GD thugs in their neighbourhoods. #GeorgiaProtests

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— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 2:52 PM

Poland:

russian serviceman btw👇🏻

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— Mira of Kyiv 🇺🇦 (@reshetz.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:48 PM

NATO, the EU, Canada, the US, etc, etc:

😵‍💫 Putin sees the war in Ukraine as existential for him, that is, something on which his political future depends, — Politico

The launch of Drones over Poland on September 10 was a signal to the West: the Kremlin does not plan to stop the war.

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— The Ukrainian Review (@theukrainianreview.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 4:05 PM

From Politico:

When Vladimir Putin sent at least 19 drones into Poland last week, the Russian president was delivering a message: He’s not planning to end his war against the West anytime soon.

The Russian incursion into NATO airspace follows weeks of aerial attacks in Ukraine that killed dozens of civilians, damaged buildings housing the EU and British delegations and struck for the first time a government building in central Kyiv.

Far from being ready to strike a peace deal with Ukraine under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, Putin has pegged his political survival to a simmering conflict with the United States and its allies.

“Putin is the president of war,” said Nikolai Petrov, a senior analyst at the London-based New Eurasian Strategies Center. “He has no interest in ending it.”

Having fashioned himself as a wartime leader, going back to being a peacetime president would be tantamount to a demotion. “No matter what the conditions are, he cannot give up that role,” Petrov said.

As Putin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine drags toward its fourth year, the Russian president arguably has the most cause for optimism since the early days of the war when the Kremlin hoped to capture the country in a matter of days.

With Ukrainian forces hamstrung by a lack of weapons and manpower, Russia has been grinding deeper into the country.

But Moscow’s progress has been slow — and costly. The Kremlin’s armed forces have suffered an estimated one million casualties and the conflict has taken its toll on the Russian economy, which threatens to tip into recession.

And yet, politically, ending the conflict comes with risks.

The Kremlin’s tight control over the media and the internet would likely allow it to sell a peace deal to most Russians as a victory. But that’s not who the Russian president will be worrying about.

With Russia’s liberal opposition decimated, a small but vocal group of nationalists now presents the biggest threat to his rule, said Petrov. And he has promised them a grandiose victory, not only over Ukraine but over what the Kremlin calls “the collective West.”

“There’s a desire among the hawkish part of the military-political establishment to destroy NATO,” Alexander Baunov, a former Russian diplomat now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told DW’s Russian service. “To show NATO is worthless.”

Since Putin met with Trump in Alaska last month in what the U.S. president had touted as a summit dedicated to striking a ceasefire, Moscow has ramped up its campaign of hybrid warfare against Europe, according to military analysts.

Before Wednesday’s incursion, Russian drones had repeatedly ventured into Polish airspace from neighboring Belarus, circling cities before turning back. In August, a Russian drone crashed some 100 kilometers southwest of Warsaw.

According to WELT, a sister publication of POLITICO in the Axel Springer Group, five of the drones that crossed into Poland were on a direct flight path toward a NATO base before being intercepted by Dutch Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.

In an opinion piece published two days before the drones crossed into Poland, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, accused Helsinki of planning an attack, threatening that any assault “could lead to the collapse of Finnish statehood — once and for all.”

Analysts noted the article’s rhetoric resembled the Kremlin’s talking points ahead of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Moscow has also begun to shift vital industries, including shipbuilding, to the east of the country, away from its border with NATO, Petrov pointed out. On Friday, Russia began carrying out large-scale military exercises with Belarus, including just across the Polish border. The exercises are expected to conclude on Tuesday.

“Whatever Putin achieves in Ukraine, the confrontation with the West will not end there; it will continue in various forms,” said Petrov. “Including militarily.”

With actions like the incursion into Poland, Putin is issuing a warning to Trump and European leaders discussing providing security guarantees for Kyiv after a potential peace deal, said Kirill Rogov, founder of the think tank Re:Russia.

“Putin showed that he can attack NATO countries today and they have no defense systems in place,” he said.

Much more at the link.

Back to Ukraine.

🇺🇦🚀 Zelensky: “The most effective sanctions are fires at Russian oil refineries, terminals and oil depots.”

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— MAKS 25 👀🇺🇦 (@maks23.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 2:43 PM

Russian oil refineries bingo by Bloomberg 😏

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:57 PM

🔥 🛢️Map of campaign against Russian oil refineries.

A total of 13 refineries have been attacked, combined processing capacity of targeted oil refineries — 114.5mln tons per year.

📌 Support the fundraising to help the 14th USF Regiment push their reach even further: www.help99.co/patches/spec…

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— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:40 PM

August map of confirmed Ukrainian drone and missile strikes across Russia records 45 incidents. Targets include 8 oil depots and gas facilities, 14 refineries, 2 airfields, 12 railway sites, 3 ports and warehouses, plus 6 defense industry enterprises.

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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 5:32 AM

All this as Ukraine’s “long-range” strike capabilities are only starting to come online.

At sea, fascist Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was defeated and had to flee to a Russian port.

On the ground, Russia’s army is bleeding out for tiny gains.

In the air, Ukraine grows stronger.

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— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 2:32 PM

🇺🇦🦾 Happy Ukrainian Tank Forces Day!
Tankers are the heart of the offensive, the steel fist that breaks down barriers and protects our people. They know the value of discipline and camaraderie, because inside a tank lives a team as united as Ukraine itself.

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— Vitalis Viva (@vitalisviva.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 1:17 PM

Ukrainian MiG-29 deploys French AASM-250 Hammer guided bombs.

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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 1:22 PM

Kramatorsk:

This is the current state of the road to Kramatorsk. Russian drone strikes are so frequent that anti-drone nets are now essential.

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 8:32 AM

Kyiv:

Air alert in Kyiv – fascist Russian jet drone approaching from the east.

I presume US envoy Keith Kellogg has left the Ukrainian capital.

I’ve had a good couple of nights’ sleep, at least.

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— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 2:56 PM

Russian occupied Luhansk Oblast:

Russian ammunition depot is detonating in Severodonetsk, Luhansk region.

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— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 7:44 AM

Zaporizhzhia Oblast:

This time, HUR targeted Russian BUK-M3 air defe system. Not in Crimea, as usual, but in Zaporizhzhia region.

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— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 7:17 AM

Kherson:

Volodymyr Nikolayenko, the former mayor of Kherson, returned to his homeland on Ukraine’s Independence Day, August 24, 2025. He had spent nearly three and a half years in Russian captivity, much of that time at Penal Colony No. 7 in the village of Pakino, located in Russia’s Vladimir Oblast.

1/n

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:41 PM

When Russian forces entered the city, Nikolayenko stayed. He received a phone call from Kirill Stremousov, a local blogger who was one of the then-leaders of the occupying administration.

2/n

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:41 PM

Stremousov offered Nikolayenko a “position,” and told him that if he refused to cooperate with Russia, he would be sent “to the pit”—imprisoned in one of the makeshift jails the Russians had set up in Kherson.

3/n

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:41 PM

Nikolayenko refused to cooperate, and soon after, he was lured to a meeting and arrested by FSB officers. They accused him of “actively hindering” the advance of Russian troops in Kherson.

”They thought they had come for good, that ‘Russia would never leave here’,” Nikolayenko recalled.

4/n

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:41 PM

“They told me to agree to cooperate. ‘You will publicly recognize the new government or go to a prison you will never leave’ they said. ‘And if you don’t agree with us, your family will suffer as well’At the time, a child I was caring for was living with my family, and I was very worried about him”

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:41 PM

Speaking about the situation in Kherson, Nikolayenko said, “They sent me a video of what the city looks like now. I watched it. It’s a horror. As soon as the doctors allow it, I will go there.” After a pause, he added, “We will rebuild it, and if we have to, we will defend it.”

6/n

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:41 PM

Nikolayenko noted that it still feels unusual for him to be free, even though it’s an everyday reality for those around him.

7/n

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:41 PM

”For some people, freedom is just an illusion,” he said. “The most important thing for them is, excuse me, having sausage or bread in the fridge. But I want to say, my friends, that is not what’s most important.

8/n

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:41 PM

The most important thing is true freedom. If it is taken from you, you will have neither sausage nor bread. You will have nothing. Cherish your freedom.”

9/end

Translated from the BBC Ukraine interview by the link: www.bbc.com/ukrainian/ar…

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:41 PM

Leningrad Oblast:

The impact moment in Leningrad, Kirishi oil refinery💥💥💥

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 13, 2025 at 10:06 PM

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) September 13, 2025 at 10:13 PM

👌 The Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces confirmed the strike on Kirishi Oil Refinery

800 km from the Ukrainian border. This oil refinery is the main supplier of petroleum products for St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Novgorod and Pskov regions.

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— MAKS 25 👀🇺🇦 (@maks23.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 4:18 AM

🔥🛢️ Second largest Russian oil refinery — the Kinef Oil Refinery in the Leningrad, was targeted tonight.

Kinef has a production capacity of more than 20 million tons per year and is located 800 km from the front.

(59.4851629, 32.0711122)

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— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:50 AM

/2. Additional footage from Kinef

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— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:50 AM

/3. Moment of the strike on Kinef Oil Refinery

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— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 12:51 AM

St. Petersburg, Leningrad Oblast, Russia:

A train carrying 15 fuel tanks derailed in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is reported that sabotage may have been the cause.

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— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 3:30 AM

/2. Derailed Russian train in St. Petersburg

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— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 4:05 AM

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

A new Patron video!

@patron__dsns

Pov: ви кліпнули 👀😌 #песпатрон

♬ original sound – whiskey

Here’s the machine translation of the caption:

Pov: you blinked 👀😌#песпатрон

Open thread!

War for Ukraine Day 1,298: Putin’s Polish GambitPost + Comments (32)

Emmy Awards & Red Carpet Thread (actual awards at 8 pm ET, the red carpet starts now)

by WaterGirl| September 14, 20256:45 pm| 70 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

We’re having Medium Cool as usual tonight, at the usual time. This post is for people who love the Emmys, and of course, for people are mildly interested or who hate watch.

One year I tried making Medium Cool about the awards show, and that was a total flop. Other years we have an awards thread but it goes up at award time and all the red carpet discussion is littered across multiple threads and it’s hard to follow. So I thought I’d try this. Maybe it will work out well, but who knows, I wouldn’t lay money on it. But a girl’s got to try, right?

Have fun!

I haven’t seen any of these movies, but my vote goes to… Sterling K. Brown because I love him in anything!

Emmy Award Info (today.com)

On Sunday, Sept. 14, the red carpet at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles will be filled with Hollywood’s most stylish celebs attending the 77th annual Emmy Awards.

Hosted by comedian Nate Bargatze and is expected to run until 11 p.m. ET.

“The Penguin,” “The White Lotus,” “The Last of Us,” “Severance” and “The Studio” were among the titles that earned the most nominations this award season.

Quinta Brunson (“Abbott Elementary”), Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”) and Jean Smart (“Hacks”) are among the nominees for best lead actress in a comedy series, while Seth Rogen (“The Studio”), Jason Segel (“Shrinking”), Martin Short (“Only Murders in the Building”) and more are nominated in the best lead actor in a comedy series.

For best lead actor in a drama series, Sterling K. Brown (“Paradise”), Adam Scott (“Severance”) and Noah Wyle (“The Pitt”) earned nominations, while Kathy Bates (“Matlock”), Sharon Horgan (“Bad Sisters”), Keri Russell (“The Diplomat”) and more are nominated for best lead actress in a drama series.

Here’s what to know about the red carpet pre-shows for the 2025 Emmy Awards.

Fans who want to tune-in to watch the fanfare before the Emmy Awards can find plenty of pre-show content.

“E!” will also have plenty of pre-show content for viewers.

“Live From E!: Countdown to the 2025 Emmys” airs at 5 p.m. ET and will feature Bresha Webb, Melissa Peterman and Zanna Roberts Rassi as they discuss the award show’s nominees and arrivals.

Afterward, “Live From E!: 2025 Emmys” airs at 6 p.m. ET, which will feature Zuri Hall and Heather McMahan interviewing celebrities right from the red carpet.

Update:

This is fun, posted by Scout211. 50+ photos of various people in their Emmy outfits. People Magazine.

Emmy Awards & Red Carpet Thread (actual awards at 8 pm ET, the red carpet starts now)Post + Comments (70)

Interesting Read: Narcissists Anything-But-Anonymous

by Anne Laurie| September 14, 20254:58 pm| 50 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links

apple.news/AvrJZIJYWSq6…
Narcissists, and They’re Proud – New York Magazine

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— katruwa.bsky.social (@katruwa.bsky.social) September 11, 2025 at 4:19 PM

You knew it would happen eventually: Narcissist Pride! (or, at least, Self-Awareness).

The link in the above BlueSky embed should go to an unpaywalled version of the NYMag story: “They’re Narcissists, and They’re Proud”:

In the winter of 2017, Lee Hammock was at home in Durham, North Carolina, spending the evening blaming his failures and unrealized potential on his 7-month-old son. Hammock has an engineering degree, but, at 32, he was working on the floor in a warehouse. And what he actually wanted to be was an actor. As his son lay on the floor sobbing, Hammock told him, “See? This is why I’m not successful.” Hammock’s wife, Delaney, happened to walk in at that exact moment. She was appalled, which he considered another perfect example of how his family was holding him back. He shouted at her until she stormed out. She yelled from the doorway, “It’s so hard living with a narcissist!” Later, Hammock Googled the word and found the symptoms for narcissistic personality disorder: a grandiose sense of self-importance and entitlement; preoccupation with fantasies of success, power, or beauty; demanding excessive admiration; envy; a lack of empathy. Damn! he thought. That described him pretty accurately. He Googled the cure. Therapy. Damn! he thought again.

Hammock had always felt he was different from other people: less emotional and empathetic. But he’d never thought that there was anything especially wrong with him. If anything, he believed his callousness made him exceptionally resilient. Over the following weeks, he began to question himself — looking over his past, his every word and decision — wondering if this strange force, narcissism, had been motivating him all along. Hammock found a Facebook group for people diagnosed with NPD where a few hundred users disclosed their outsize fantasies and chatted about the shame of discovering their condition. He recognized himself in these posts and felt for the members of the group something he rarely experienced, even for members of his own family: empathy. He decided to go to therapy after all, and soon after, he was officially diagnosed with NPD.

During the pandemic, he began posting videos on TikTok and then YouTube about his day-to-day experiences with the condition under the moniker “Mental Healness.” His therapist suggested this might be a bad idea — a constant need for validation being his central problem — but he decided to ignore her. Which ended up being a wise decision in terms of raising his profile, at least. In 2021, he posted a video explaining why going “no contact” with a narcissist is the only way to effectively remove them from your life. It quickly hit 360,000 views.

Today, Hammock has around 3 million followers. He isn’t the only professional or self-aware narcissist. In fact, he’s on the front lines of a growing population. Influencers like “the Nameless Narcissist,” “Recovering Narcissist,” “SpiritNarc,” and, more puzzlingly, “the Bat Wolf” have, through their narcissist-forward content, inspired others to proudly proclaim their NPD diagnosis and seek treatment. A sub-Reddit for people with NPD — similar to the group Hammock joined several years ago — currently has about 52,000 members. (It has nearly doubled in size in the past three years.) Across the world, diagnosed narcissists are sharing their stories and calling for compassion for those suffering from NPD…

Recently, and though he has no certificates or degrees in the field, Hammock has begun offering personalized coaching sessions to his followers. For $75, anyone can video-chat with him for 30 minutes and pick his brain. Sometimes he talks to people who suspect they might have NPD, and he encourages them to go to therapy. More often, it’s people who suspect their romantic partners are undiagnosed narcissists. Operating on the assumption all people with NPD think the same, they view Hammock as a kind of medium, capable of offering a glimpse into that agonizing black box: a lover’s mind. He tells me about a woman he met with recently whose boyfriend wouldn’t stop cheating on her. “She was boo-hoo crying,” he says. Putting on his “narcissist hat,” as he calls it, he imagined himself in the position of her boyfriend and told her what he would do. He would keep cheating on her, he said. “If it’s so bad, why do you keep taking me back? It’s like you’re signing a permission slip for me to do it again.” He tried to help her understand that narcissists respond only to consequences. Forgiveness, he says, is actually a form of encouragement.

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Hammock’s content is controversial. Many people don’t believe that narcissists deserve to profit from their condition. He understands that position, but he also feels there’s a special stigma reserved for narcissists, an animosity directed at no other population of mentally unwell individuals. Healthy people hate them, and pop-science writers deride them in books like Swimming With Sharks: Surviving Narcissist-Infested Waters, Divorcing a Narcissist, Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare, and Dear Narcissist: F*ck You. In anti-narcissist rhetoric, there’s a common refrain: Narcissists can’t change. They’re incurable, lifelong assholes, and if there’s one in your life, run. Interestingly, the same idea percolates in narcissist circles to the opposite effect. If our condition is incurable, they reason, then how can we be punished for having it — or for profiting from it?…

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Lee Hammock may be the most famous of this wave of “self-aware narcissists,” as they call themselves, but he’s not the first. That would be Sam Vaknin, a North Macedonia–based psychology professor and a diagnosed narcissist who has 419,000 subscribers on YouTube. He “came out,” so to speak, in the mid-’80s and ever since has been explaining NPD to the world via his books, recorded lectures, and confessional videos in which he investigates the intricacies of narcissism through the prism of his own disordered mind. Over the past 15 years, Vaknin has produced more than 1,900 videos, some focused specifically on the subject of Sam Vaknin. Many of his viewers are people who believe a loved one is a narcissist. But others are narcissists themselves who take comfort in his extended confessions.

Vaknin, who is 64, sounds and looks a lot like Count Chocula with dark nose-diving eyebrows and impressively lush gray hair. His epiphany that he likely had NPD came while serving an 18-month prison sentence for securities fraud. Like Hammock, he happened upon an article about NPD, and he then recognized its symptoms in himself. He recalls the realization in one of his many books: “The exact moment I found a description of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder is etched in my mind … It was suddenly very quiet and very still. I met myself. I saw the enemy and it was I.” Over a Zoom call from his office, he explains a critical difference between narcissists and everyone else: their experience of empathy. Narcissists, he claims, can experience only an impaired form called “cold empathy.” “They can identify your state of mind, slap a label on it, and say, He is crying, so, therefore, he is sad,” he says. And they can feel that they should care, “but they aren’t going to experience your sadness.”

What’s more, Vaknin tells me, narcissists experience only a limited range of their own feelings. “They have no access to positive emotions,” he says, “only negative ones. They have access to envy, anger, and hatred, but they don’t have access to love. They never experience joy.” (This is disputed among psychologists but true in his experience.) Instead, he claims narcissists experience joy’s cynical, selfish cousin, “elation,” which he says is what a young child feels when doted on by their mother. “It’s a form of merging with another person, fusing with them,” he says — in other words, it’s parasitic rather than empathetic. “It has nothing to do with joy. It’s a high induced by the drug of merger.”

I ask if he thinks self-awareness might help mitigate narcissism. After all, the term self-aware narcissist strikes me as practically an oxymoron. If you understand that you have a delusionally inflated sense of self-worth, are you still delusional? Vaknin seems disappointed in me for having asked such a naïve question. “Narcissists engage in something called ‘external regulation,’” he says. “They outsource their internal psychological landscape. They allow other people to regulate their mood. The narcissist is completely controlled by the outside. An internal event, like self-awareness, has zero impact. Narcissism cannot be healed or cured — it’s irreversible. Narcissism is who you are.” Vaknin, who speaks in a baritone, emits a high-pitched giggle, as he often seems to do after saying something dire.

Vaknin says he is more interested in creating cautionary videos than relatable ones. He wants to help others avoid getting into relationships with people like himself. “I’ve leveraged my mental-health issue to help others. I’m incentivized to obtain attention and to self-enhance my fantastic, grandiose self-concept by affording succor, disseminating information, educating, and so on. It’s lucky. The alternative,” he says ominously, “of course, is less savory.”

I ask why he continues to explore NPD given that he believes he’ll never be cured. He explains that he’s captivated by the sheer mystery of the disorder. He can’t look away. “If extraterrestrials landed on Earth, wouldn’t you spend 30 years of your life studying them? You would. We already have an alien race among us,” he says. I’m lost and begin to open my mouth, but Vaknin continues. “There are good philosophical grounds to say that narcissists are not human. If you take away empathy, positive emotions, the ability to tell reality from fantasy, what is left that qualifies as human? I’m not quite sure.”…

Interesting Read: Narcissists Anything-But-AnonymousPost + Comments (50)

Eyes Wide Open, Yet Still Hopeful

by WaterGirl| September 14, 202512:15 pm| 71 Comments

This post is in: Democratic Politics, Open Threads

We can learn a lot from one of our great senators who continues to do great work every single day. He has to be one of the hardest working Democrats in the Senate. At the same time, he is speaking out against the atrocities and calling it like it is. But he’s still doing the work.

Ossoff: Did anyone really think the sexual predator president who used to party with Jeffrey Epstein was going to release the Epstein files?

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) July 12, 2025 at 4:20 PM

Today, Sen. Ossoff demanded RFK Jr.’s resignation after months of the Trump Administration’s attacks on the CDC.

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— Ossoff’s Office (@ossoff.senate.gov) September 4, 2025 at 10:56 AM

“It’s not me, it’s the moment.” @ossoff.bsky.social talks with Jen Psaki about the unprecedented enthusiasm he is seeing from voters attending his events.

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— The Briefing with Jen Psaki (@briefingwithpsaki.bsky.social) July 15, 2025 at 8:34 PM

Senator Ossoff, earlier this week:

Allow yourselves to feel hope. Allow yourselves to believe in victory. The only way that we don’t win these elections is if we lose faith in ourselves and our ability to shape the country’s future as citizens. We still have that power as bleak as it seems.

And we still have the power to build a country that we believe in and to present an agenda that can unite the country again.

But if we lose faith, that’s what worries me. So keep the faith, help me in Georgia, keep fighting.

If all we allow ourselves to mostly focus on the guy who was killed, we are contributing to the culture that assigns more importance to the death of this guy who was important to Republicans than it did to the MN elected official who was murdered along with her husband and her dog. More importance to him than to the school kids who were invaded on the same day. More important than Epstein, which is clearly their Achilles heel.

How can we focus all our energy on this one guy and still be doing the work we need to do to win? Because winning these elections is our best shot at getting out of this abhorrent timeline.

We cannot let the bastards win.

Update: I just saw this from Simon Rosenberg.

Trump is weak, not strong.

A failure, not a success.

A loser, not a winner.

An old ailing man, not a virile one.

A villain, not a hero.

And a clear sign of his weakness and decline is his inability, despite their extraordinary information superiority, to bring the country along with him on the things that matter most.

It’s a sign of how his powers are ebbing, why he has been so manic and desperate of late – for the country is growing more distant from him – and why we have to keep working as hard as we can.

Is it easier to be angry than it is to be hopeful?

Eyes Wide Open, Yet Still HopefulPost + Comments (71)

Repub Venality Open Thread: The SC(R)OTUS Traitors

by Anne Laurie| September 14, 20259:54 am| 139 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Supreme Court Corruption, Lock Him Up...Lock Them All Up

Kavanaugh says no one has too much power in US system. Critics see Supreme Court bowing to Trump
flip.it/BVkaPv
LOL

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— Greed Apocalypse (@juanmunoz.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 1:26 PM

There’s a club, and we’re not in it…

WACO, Texas (AP) — Justice Brett Kavanaugh says the genius of the American system of government is that no one should have too much power, even as he and other conservatives on the Supreme Court are facing criticism for deferring repeatedly to President Donald Trump.

Invoking the list of grievances against King George III that the nation’s founders included in the Declaration of Independence, Kavanaugh said Thursday the framers of the Constitution were set on avoiding the concentration of power.

“And the framers recognized in a way that I think is brilliant, that preserving liberty requires separating the power. No one person or group of people should have too much power in our system,” Kavanaugh said at an event honoring his onetime boss, Kenneth Starr, a former federal judge and solicitor general celebrated by conservatives who died in 2022.

Trump’s aggressive effort to remake the federal government did not come up inside a gymnasium on the campus of McLennan Community College in Waco…

Kavanaugh’s appearance in Waco highlighted Kavanaugh’s long history with Starr, most notably his stint as a prosecutor in Starr’s independent counsel investigation of President Bill Clinton.

Starr became a household name in the late 1990s because of his investigation of Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Kavanaugh pushed Starr to ask Clinton in graphic detail about phone sex and specific sexual acts, according to a 1998 memo…

Starr followed Kavanaugh’s advice and his report, filled with the salacious details, was released in full by House Republicans, who ultimately impeached Clinton for lying under oath. The Senate acquitted him…

In 2018, Starr was among those who publicly defended Kavanaugh, then a Supreme Court nominee, as he faced sexual misconduct allegations, including from Christine Blasey Ford, who said he groped her at a party when they were teenagers and tried to remove her clothes…

Ken Starr did varied work after the Whitewater investigation. He represented Jeffrey Epstein when the financier was first accused of having sex with underage girls. Epstein pleaded guilty to minor charges and accepted a light sentence in Florida in 2008, in a deal that avoided a more serious federal prosecution.

Starr served as dean of the Pepperdine University law school in the Los Angeles area and then as president of Baylor University, also in Waco. But he was forced out of the Baylor job in 2016 in the midst of a sexual assault scandal involving players on the school’s football team. A school-commissioned report found that under Starr’s leadership, Baylor did little to respond to the allegations.

Then in 2020, Starr joined Trump’s defense team that won Senate acquittal of the president after his first impeachment.

John Roberts:

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— Nied ?? (@nied.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 4:45 PM

Andrew Perez and Ryan Bort, at Rolling Stone — The Supreme Court Is Trump’s Partner in Crimes Against America:

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Donald Trump inflicted plenty of damage on the United States over the course of his first four years in office, but the most enduring blow may have been his radicalization of the Supreme Court. He appointed not one, not two, but three conservative justices, all of whom were hand-selected by right-wing activists.

The remade court quickly paid dividends, issuing decisions overturning Roe v. Wade and granting Trump immunity from prosecution for acts committed while president. Now, it’s actively enabling the restored president’s fascist regime.

The conservative justices have already made it harder for judges to shut down Trump’s lawlessness and overtly unconstitutional orders — such as his effort to eliminate the constitutional guarantee to birthright citizenship — and keeps allowing him to fire ostensibly independent regulators and government workers en masse without any basis. Worse yet, the court has decided that Trump can arbitrarily deport immigrants to third-party countries to which they have no ties, even to exceedingly dangerous countries like South Sudan, with little opportunity to challenge the government’s decisions.

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued perhaps its most profoundly un-American ruling yet, allowing Trump’s masked immigration thugs to indiscriminately stop people on the streets because they are speaking Spanish or working as day laborers in the construction industry, so Trump officials can check their citizenship status and add more victims to the administration’s churning deportation machine.

The court continued to allow Trump to ax independent regulators on Monday, as well, with Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily greenlighting the president’s ability to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a member of the Federal Trade Commission. Slaughter’s lawsuit over her termination will continue. On Tuesday, the court allowed Trump to temporarily withhold $4 billion of congressionally appropriated foreign aid spending, and agreed to speed up a hearing over the legality of Trump’s tariff regime…

I think we should all just assume John Roberts is compromised. Maybe he isn’t, but everything he’s done since 2023 or so is what you’d expect from someone who’s compromised.

— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 5:52 PM

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Nice judiciary you’ve got there. Shame if something happened to it.

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— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 2:21 PM

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The new John Roberts portrait just dropped

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— Jen Taub (@jennifertaub.com) September 9, 2025 at 5:46 PM

(Roger B. Taney, of Dred Scott infamy)

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My hat is off to the lower courts. Who would ever think that the lower courts would have to call the Supreme Court.
Appeals court judges publicly admonish Supreme Court justices: ‘We’re out here flailing’ – POLITICO share.google/QsiXTzCb6dva…

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— Mike Lowe (@mike-lowe.bsky.social) September 13, 2025 at 1:10 PM

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"Three times in the past few months, the majority knowingly and summarily disregarded a major Supreme Court precedent that had constrained another president." www.thebulwark.com/p/supreme-co…

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— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) September 12, 2025 at 1:00 PM

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that is precisely the message of Trump v. Slaughter
the Supreme Court keeps telling lower court judges not to do as the Court does, or to do as the Court has said, but to do what everyone knows the Court wants to say: “Whatever Trump wants goes”
ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/trump…

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— Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie (@audrelawdamercy.bsky.social) September 8, 2025 at 4:34 PM

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Repub Venality Open Thread: The SC(R)OTUS TraitorsPost + Comments (139)

Geminid on Sunday Night Open Thread (Nov 10, 2025 @ 4:06am)

YY_Sima Qian on War for Ukraine 1,354: A Brief Sunday Night Update (Nov 10, 2025 @ 3:54am)

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knally on Medium Cool – All Things Poetry (Nov 10, 2025 @ 3:44am)

knally on Medium Cool – All Things Poetry (Nov 10, 2025 @ 3:42am)

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

The willow is too close to the house.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

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

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

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

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

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

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

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Monday Morning Open Thread

Late Night Open Thread: Eternal Verities

War for Ukraine Day 1,298: Putin’s Polish Gambit

We Have Significantly Restricted Russia’s Oil Industry, and This Significantly Restricts the War – Address by the President

Emmy Awards & Red Carpet Thread (actual awards at 8 pm ET, the red carpet starts now)

Interesting Read: Narcissists Anything-But-Anonymous

Eyes Wide Open, Yet Still Hopeful

Repub Venality Open Thread: The SC(R)OTUS Traitors