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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

That meeting sounds like a shotgun wedding between a shitshow and a clusterfuck.

T R E 4 5 O N

We will not go back.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

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

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

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

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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Open Thread:  Hey Lurkers!  (Holiday Post)

Open Threads

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Trump Has Gone Way Too Far, and He Needs to be Stopped

by WaterGirl|  April 2, 20249:59 am| 234 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Trump Indictments

Trump needs a new hat this time around.  Instead of MAGA, the new acronym should be BID – Burn It Down.

This is the guy whose attorneys suggest the same timeframe for two different cases, thus creating a conflict, and then plays the victim and calls for delay of both trials because of the conflict.  This is the guy who baits Judge Engoron, repeatedly, in order. to throw him off his game and get him to do something that can be used on appeal.  And then plays the victim because the judge is mean because Trump was found guilt

This week, he’s the guy who attacks Judge Merchan’s daughter, trying to create an impossible situation, then plays the victim because he’s running for president.  There’s nothing about running for president that requires you to be able to attack judges, juries, prosecutors, family members.

This is one giant game of chicken, and it’s time for Trump to crash and burn.

The only way Trump will stop this shit is if his bail is revoked.  And of course, he thinks he wants that, too, because he gets to play the victim.

To normal people, someone playing the victim is both unattractive and unappealing.  What is wrong with these people who look at Trump and think he’s strong?

Just a few sentences in, I have changed my mind.  Forgot Burn in Down.  Let’s go with Always The Victim.  ATV.

It seems that the judges are ready to say “I’ve seen enough”.  Judge Merchan’s ruling on Monday.

One day following the issuance of said Order, Defendant made several extrajudicial statements attacking a family membcr of this court. Contrary to the position Defcndant took in his opposition to the People’s February 22,2024 motion for an order restricting extrajudicial statements, i.e. that his statements “plainly constitute core political speech on matters of great public concern and criticism of major public figures,” Defendant’s opposition to 2/22i24, pgs. 8-9, this pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose. It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but tbeir family members as well, are “fair game” for Defendant’s vitriol.

Thc conventional ‘David vs. (Goliath’ roles are no longer in play as demonstrated bv the singular power Defendant’s words have on countless others.  Threats to the integrity of the judicial proceedings are no longer limited to the swaying of minds but on the willingness of individuals, both private and public, to perform their lawful duty before this Court. This is evidenced by the People’s representation that “multiple potential witnesses have already expressed grave concerns about their own safety and that of their family members should they appear as witnesses against defendant.” People’s 3/28/24 * Letter.

It is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a thread to thc integrity of the judicial proceedings. ‘I’he threat is verv real. Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint. The average observer, must now, after hearing l)efendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they bccome involvcd in thcse proceedings, cvcn tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself. Again, all citizens, called upon to participate in these proceedings, whether as a juror, a witness, or in some othet capacity, must now concern themselves not only with their own personal safety, but with the safety and the potential for personal attacks upon their loved ones. ‘I’hat reality cannot be overstated.

The Washington Post article (gift link) documents his many threats to judges, and also his repeated attempts to force judges to recuse themselves from the case.  If you’re female, you can’t oversee any case that impacts women.  If you’re Latino, you can’t oversee a Trump case because he wants to build the wall at the border.  He’s the most disgusting, racist, evil person – and the biggest threat to our way of life.

Legal experts and judges are voicing alarm about Trump’s comments on judges, cases and defendants prosecuted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, whom the former president has sought to glorify as “hostages.”

“The theme for Trump since the start of all of this has been there are two different games: one is political and one is courtroom and he’s constantly playing one rather than the other,” said Kenneth White, a former federal prosecutor in California who specializes in free speech issues. “It’s all part of a strategy which is sort of delegitimizing the entire system, delegitimizing the court system, and any judge who purports to rule on him.”

138 attacks on judges and family members!

A Washington Post analysis of Trump’s social media posts since the start of his campaign in late 2022 showed that he has gone after judges or their family members by name 138 times. The weeks of March 24 and March 17, respectively, included the second- and fourth-highest number of posts attacking judges overall. Trump criticized judges most frequently during the week of Jan. 7, with 14 individual attacks, nearly all targeted at Engoron.

Trump’s attacks also come amid growing concerns about the safety of federal judges.  You think?

Trump’s attacks also come amid growing concerns about the safety of federal judges. A Reuters analysis found that threats against federal judges have more than doubled since late 2020, when Trump significantly increased his criticism of the judiciary.

Time for Trump to be the big loser in his game of chicken.  Lock him up.

Trump Has Gone Way Too Far, and He Needs to be StoppedPost + Comments (234)

Late Night Open Thread: (Even) Chris Christie Rejects No Labels

by Anne Laurie|  April 2, 20243:15 am| 84 Comments

This post is in: Elections 2024, Excellent Links, Grifters Gonna Grift, Proud to Be A Democrat, Our Failed Media Experiment

Late Night Open Thread:  (Even) Chris Christie Rejects No Labels

News w/@michaelscherer: Christie declines a No Labels presidential bid after extensive discussions with the group. His team commissioned polling, calculated a potential budget, studied maps and met with donors but decided he couldn't make it work. https://t.co/Zjr99Eu3NO

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) March 27, 2024

Cynical professional Ed Kilgore, at NYMag — “Chris Christie Rejects No Labels, Accepts No Voters Want Him”:

When former New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced his 2024 presidential candidacy last June, the general reaction was bewilderment. He had, after all, run in 2016 and dropped out of the race after finishing ninth in Iowa and sixth in New Hampshire. He ended his two-term tenure in Trenton thoroughly loathed by his constituents. So irrational were his aspirations for the presidency that my colleague Gabriel Debenedetti suggested in a piece on “Chris Christie Syndrome” that the man seemed haunted by his failure to run in 2012…

Running against Trump again in 2024 had all the hallmarks of another attempted Christie do-over. But even more than his 2016 race, it represented comically poor timing. He chose to be the loudest-and-proudest anti-Trump candidate at the very moment the party emphatically gave its heart to Daddy. He began the campaign with the highest unfavorability ratings among Republicans (and, for that matter, the general public) in the field. His announced strategy of driving Trump weeping to his knees in candidate debates fell apart when the former president decided against participating in debates at all. He didn’t even bother to compete in Iowa and never rose beyond a distant third place in New Hampshire, far and away his best state and the place where he concentrated all his resources.

With much of the non-Trump portion of the GOP shrieking at him to get out of the race and give Nikki Haley a clean shot at the front-runner, Christie finally dropped out with few votes and no delegates, but on his way out the door he damaged Haley by commenting on a hot mic that she was “going to get smoked” by Trump…

Yet Christie 2024, bizarre as it may seem, didn’t end there. It has now come to light that the twice-humiliated Republican presidential candidate had an extended dalliance with the nonpartisan No Labels organization, which has been searching high and low for someone (preferably a Republican) to head up the “unity ticket” it has been planning to launch at some point this spring. Christie, who had once referred to the entire No Labels enterprise as a “fool’s errand,” apparently considered becoming its champion very seriously, as the Washington Post reports…

… “I appreciate the encouragement I’ve gotten to pursue a third-party candidacy,” Christie said in a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday. “While I believe this is a conversation that needs to be had with the American people, I also believe that if there is not a pathway to win and if my candidacy in any way, shape or form would help Donald Trump become president again, then it is not the way forward.”

This last remark had to come as a rude shock to the No Labels folks. They dismissed past warnings that they might inadvertently help Trump as Biden-campaign agitprop — but it seems the Republican agrees. But it appears that Christie took a long, hard look at the numbers and decided the whole thing might backfire…

Joe Lieberman's death leaves a hole at No Labels as it tries to recruit a 2024 third-party candidate https://t.co/i6z3l4ieJy

— The Associated Press (@AP) March 28, 2024

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Coincidentally… right about the time of Christie’s decision…

When No Labels’ critics got the loudest, it was Joe Lieberman who came to the group’s defense.

The former Connecticut senator was a founding chairman of the centrist organization that focused, above all, on promoting bipartisanship in national politics. Despite its benign stated mission, No Labels inflamed many people across politics by working to recruit a third-party presidential candidate that some fear might tilt the 2024 election in Donald Trump’s favor.

At almost every major turn, Lieberman served as the group’s chief public defender. He was also a private force in No Labels’ presidential recruitment push. He insisted repeatedly in interviews, as recently as last week, that the nation is craving an alternative to Trump and President Joe Biden…

Now, Lieberman is gone. He died on Wednesday due to complications from a fall. He was 82.

Lieberman’s death not only marks an irreplaceable loss for No Labels, it injects a new level of uncertainty into the organization’s 2024 ambitions…

Already, No Labels had courted and been denied by would-be White House contenders in both parties including Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

On Thursday, a fresh wave of critics called on No Labels to abandon its 2024 plans.

“At this point I’m not sure what else the No Labels crowd needs to hear. Every serious person who has taken a look at this gambit immediately sees they would just be helping to elect Donald Trump,” Sarah Longwell, who founded Republican Voters Against Trump, wrote on X. “Time for No Labels and its donors to pull the plug.”…

It’s like Murphy the Trickster God was sending a message!

No Labels co-founder: Potential candidates ‘afraid’ of helping Trump https://t.co/D1EjY49YE3 via @politico

— Jennifer Truth Over Phony Balance Rubin ???????? (@JRubinBlogger) March 29, 2024

Late Night Open Thread: (Even) Chris Christie Rejects No LabelsPost + Comments (84)

War for Ukraine Day 768: A Brief(ish) Monday Night Update

by Adam L Silverman|  April 1, 20248:09 pm| 43 Comments

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

Before we start, the Israelis appear to have killed four World Central Kitchen staffers in an air strike in Gaza around 6 PM EDT. Video and pics of the casualties are circulating online. Trust me, you do not need to watch them or loock at them. Expect more clarity in tomorrow’s news reporting.

Russia appears to have taken the night and day off from the mass bombardment of Ukrainian civilian targets and infrastructure Right now – 6;35 PM EDT – only Dnipropetrovsk and Russian occupied Kherson Oblast have air raid alerts up. While air raid alerts over any part of Ukraine are bad, let’s hope things stay quiet overnight and tomorrow.

I have now had a chance to read The Insider‘s deep dive reporting on the Havana Syndrome, which, apparently, was the focus of last night’s 60 Minutes. I’ve also read their in depth interview with now retired CIA Senior Operational Service officer Marc Polymeropoulos. I have a few thoughts. The first is that I am not qualified to determine if a directed energy weapon is even feasible. The second is that a whole lot of people who have been definitively saying it isn’t are also not qualified to do so. What I do know, however, is a whole lot about Russia’s premier wetwork unit: the GRU’s Unit 29155. While the evidence presented in the reporting about Unit 29155’s involvement is circumstantial, there is just too much of it to discount as coincidental; leaving aside that at this level of national security there are no coincidences. The open-source evidence of the Havana Syndrome being a Russian wetwork operation in The Insider‘s reporting, as well as other open-source reporting I’ve seen on the topic, is similar to the type of evidence presented in Buzzfeed’s detailed seven part series on Russia’s assassination program.

The Insider‘s reporting places the first attacks in 2014, which is several years earlier than has previously been reported. Moreover, they place them in Europe. This fits with what we know about the timeline of Putin’s largely non-kinetic world war primarily using the elements of national power other than military power against the US, the EU, and NATO. Moreover, as is the case with so much of that war, it is designed to wrong foot the US. As I’ve written here several times over the years, the US’s counterintelligence capability has two distinctive features. The first is that its conclusions are never intended to see the light of day. So even if it has been determined that Russia has spent the past decade targeting US intelligence and military personnel, as well as at what the reporting seems to indicate was at least one political appointee, those findings would never see the light of day unless leaked. The second is that our counterintelligence capabilities are a shadow of their former self. This is a result of year on year, decade on decade lack of resources and, quite frankly, lack of emphasis on this important capability. Given these two unfortunate realities, this type of wetwork is the perfect type of Russian op, just as the poisoning and beating operation that Buzzfeed documented extensively was/is.

It is also the perfect type of operation to ramp up and expand during the Trump administration as none of his political appointees would do anything about it. Either because they were in agreement with Trump’s views on Putin and Russia or because they were scared to get crosswise with Trump and his enforcers in the White House personnel office and wind up losing their phony baloney jobs. As a result, the senior civil servants wouldn’t either. They saw what happened to senior career DOJ and FBI personnel who got crosswise with Trump over Crossfire Hurricane and the Mueller investigation and learned the intended lesson. This is reflected in Marc Polymeropoulos’s recounting of how the senior appointed and career leadership at the CIA treated him and his colleagues that were suffering from Havana Syndrome. While it is true that the US nat-sec bureaucracy has a long, sad, and unfortunate history of either actively covering up or just ignoring the effects of war, warfare, and American uniformed and civilian personnels’ exposure to all sorts of noxious substances and the resulting negative health effects*, what The Insider reporting and Polymeropoulos’s interview indicate is that this both included this almost reflexive response and, at the same time, went far beyond it.

As I indicated in my first paragraph, I cannot speak to the weaponry, but I can speak to what we know of the tradecraft. And everything I know about that Russian tradecraft tells me that this is a Russian wetwork operation and Unit 29155 is up to their eyeballs in it. I’d be very interested to see whether there’s also a pattern of attacks on French personnel, especially in Africa, given that the GRU’s private military contractor (PMC) front group – Wagner PMC – spent years working to undermine French interests in the Sahel that led to the wave of coups in the central and western Sahel last summer and fall, which forced France out of the region and realigned those Sahel states with Russia.

I think that’s enough of that.

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

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This year raises a number of fundamental questions about NATO-Ukraine relations – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

1 April 2024 – 19:29

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

A brief report for today.

I had a rather long and thorough discussion with the military and government officials about drones, all their necessary types – from FPV to our attack drones, which are showing remarkable results in destroying Russia’s military potential in the rear. Today we talked about the nuances of production, support and financing, contracts, and the necessary flexibility in setting priorities. Our defense industry must produce precisely what the war requires in the amount that is necessary and as timely as needed. Obviously, drones will be one of the decisive factors for victory in this war, and it should be a Ukrainian factor, Ukrainian drones, Ukrainian victory, which means we need more and more efficient Ukrainian drones. We can ensure this. Today’s meeting also focused on electronic warfare systems. We now have a significant number of Ukrainian products, and we have a great determination of our manufacturers to strengthen our defense with electronic warfare. We are providing the state resources to the maximum extent necessary and are working on comprehensive solutions. Solutions that will provide the necessary cover for the entire front. Everyone in the government of Ukraine, everyone in the Defense and Security Forces of Ukraine who is responsible for the drone program, knows their tasks clearly. Time and efficiency in fulfilling the tasks will be crucial. And I commend everyone who works one hundred percent efficiently in this area.

Second. NATO. Today I held a special meeting on our work with the Alliance on interoperability and prospects for this year. It was attended by all our international relations officials, the Minister of Defense, and the international cooperation team of the ministry. This year raises several fundamental questions about Ukraine-NATO relations. In particular, this concerns the summit in Washington and many other aspects of cooperation. Only with Ukraine in the Alliance can we count on real security in Europe.

Third. Today, in the White Hall of Heroes of Ukraine in the Mariyinsky Palace, I presented the Golden Star Orders to our warriors and the families of the fallen Heroes. The best of our warriors who have distinguished themselves in battles in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv regions and the south of our country – wherever Ukraine is fighting for its life and independence. Wherever our people show the best qualities of Ukrainians.

I am proud of each and every one of our warriors! I am proud of all our people who are defending Ukraine and doing everything to make normal life possible despite the Russian terror. From Kharkiv to Chernihiv region, from positions in Donetsk region to Odesa. I thank everyone who has dedicated their life to serving Ukraine. We must definitely win.

Glory to Ukraine!

The cost:

Instead of a thousand words.

A father by the portrait of his son who died defending Ukraine.

📷: Volodymyr Tarasov pic.twitter.com/VCespwkVsf

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 1, 2024

On the second anniversary of Bucha’s liberation:

"The international symbol of mass graves, of executions, bodies of the dead lying in the streets." On the second anniversary of the liberation of Bucha, journalist and author @IAPonomarenko reflects on Bucha then and now. pic.twitter.com/E00PXKqS9C

— Kim Brunhuber (@kimbrunhuber) March 31, 2024

Tonenke village, near the Avdiivka front, Russian occupied Donetsk Oblast:

pic.twitter.com/kcPF2YpRx4

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) April 1, 2024

March 30, 🇺🇦Ukraine’s 25th Airborne repels a massive attack by 36 tanks and 12 BMPs (!!!) of Russia’s 90th Guards Tank Division’s 6th Armored Regiment near the town of Tonenke, the Avdiivka section.

Russians ended up losing 12 tanks and 8 BMPs in their frontal assault. The Ukrainian lines not breached.

Seriously, I have no idea how Ukrainian troops manage to get through this, again and again, being so severely and chronically outnumbered and outgunned.

It’s just a man-made miracle that they do.

Javelin doesn't miss a shot.

📹: 25th Airborne Brigade pic.twitter.com/UdJjeRMp7l

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 1, 2024

Blessed St. Javelin!

Kharkiv:

All critical energy infrastructure of Kharkiv is almost destroyed – Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov

In Kharkiv:

▪️ more than $10 billion is already needed to rebuild Kharkiv after the Russian attacks and every day this amount is increasing;

▪️ Russia has started hitting the city… https://t.co/jtlF3DFehE pic.twitter.com/SVNcERh1R7

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 1, 2024

All critical energy infrastructure of Kharkiv is almost destroyed – Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov

In Kharkiv:

▪️ more than $10 billion is already needed to rebuild Kharkiv after the Russian attacks and every day this amount is increasing;

▪️ Russia has started hitting the city with new munitions – they cover a distance of up to 90 kilometers (there have already been two such strikes in the last week, the Russians are also hitting with S-300), most often “coming” from Belgorod region;

▪️”Unfortunately, there is not enough voltage. We had to end the heating season early to save money. The introduced schedules of light outages are hourly. We decided not to light the streets,” – Kharkiv mayor.

Kharkiv is my native city. It is so painful to see what Russia does to it. To all our Ukrainian cities and villages.

📷: Kharkiv during a blackout/Reuters

The BBC has details:

In central Kharkiv you hear the rattle of generators on every street.

Ten days ago, Ukraine’s second city was plunged into darkness by a massive, targeted Russian missile attack on the energy system – it was the biggest since the start of the full-scale war.

As Kharkiv works to restore power, there has been a wave of additional strikes across the country targeting the energy supply.

Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned what he calls Russia’s “missile terror”.

The Ukrainian president has also renewed his calls to his country’s allies for more air defence systems as protection.

The authorities in Odesa on the Black Sea in the south of the country say the energy system there was the latest to be hit overnight, with missiles and drones, causing partial blackouts.

In Kharkiv to the north, the damage is more serious.

Kharkiv’s mayor, Igor Terekhov, has said it will take weeks to restore full supply and that is if Russia’s armed forces don’t strike the same targets again.

The initial attack on the city’s energy supply even knocked out the air raid siren. There is now a screeching noise that comes straight to people’s mobile phones instead.

There can be hours of those missile warnings in the city each day – during one on Saturday night, the blast wave from a strike blew out dozens of windows in a block of flats.

But the Russians have increasingly been aiming at the power grid.

The damage is very serious,” Mr Terekhov told the BBC.

“We need time to repair it,” he added, suggesting that meant a couple more months at least.

Russia’s defence ministry confirms that its latest strikes have been focused on Ukraine’s power supply. It says the aim is to disrupt the work of the country’s defence industry and claims that “all aims of the strike were achieved”.

The ministry has a long history of disinformation.

But the Kharkiv mayor did tell the BBC that the city’s manufacturing sector, which requires significant power, has been affected by the blackouts. There are no further details.

The impact on civilian life is more obvious.

Blackout periods have been introduced in order to conserve energy, and there is a schedule for the city. On Saturday those power cuts lasted six hours, but by Sunday they had been reduced to four hours.

The timings can slip.

“They were supposed to cut the power to my area at 09:00, so I got up especially early to charge everything,'” a friend messaged. “Then I got in the lift and got stuck. They’d cut the power early!”

A hair salon in a Kharkiv back street is one of many small businesses with a generator whirring noisily outside the door. On Saturday it was on for seven hours, allowing the salon to keep operating.

The same goes for cafés and companies throughout the city centre, although many have sheets of wood over their windows to cover a gap where the glass has already been shattered or to protect it from future blasts.

Some of the boards are painted with birds and flowers.

“We’ve been working on generator power since Monday,” salon owner Natalia told the BBC. “Of course it’s really hard, especially because we’re all women and when we finish work late at night it’s so dark!”

Russia has attacked Ukraine’s power grid before, in the first winter of the full-scale war.

As engineers scrambled to perform emergency repairs then, residents shivered in the dark in their homes or headed for central “invincibility points” for warmth and power.

More at the link!

Vuhledar front:

/2. Geolocations of Russian AFVs. The column was destroyed near Novomykhailivka. https://t.co/pWiN68HpOU

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 1, 2024

Here’s the full text of the first tweet:

Destroyed Russian AFV column on the Vuhledar front.

“The column of Russian equipment, which prepared for the assault in the amount of 8 AFVs, was noticed in time.

On its way, the column was reduced to 6 AFVs, of these 6, 4 AFVs were hit by joint efforts. The rest of the scrap – 2 AFVs, threw out 8 infantrymen, only 3 of which reached across the field to their old positions…”
https://t.me/usinfantryman1/16760

Bakhmut front:

As the author said, Bakhmut Front, in the video an attempt of a Russian assault, 6 AFVs attacked, only 2 of them survived and retreatedhttps://t.co/QlPCOTySfK pic.twitter.com/RBGCCpJ5HB

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 1, 2024

The Kreminna front:

Destroyed Russian BMP column. Kreminna front. Terny area. https://t.co/717V7OqI0n pic.twitter.com/V3GCsNJhTT

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 1, 2024

Novomykhailivka front:

Russian BMP hits an antitank mine. Novomykhailivka front. Video from a Russian drone. pic.twitter.com/8jVWTiQF4Q

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 1, 2024

The Black Sea:

⚡️Ukrainian Warriors shot down one of the most expensive Russian drones over the Black Sea – Forpost, South Operational Command reports.

It's worth about $7 million. It is quite large, can conduct reconnaissance and carry an additional combat load in the form of 2 missiles or… pic.twitter.com/QMZ3sCsRul

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 1, 2024

⚡️Ukrainian Warriors shot down one of the most expensive Russian drones over the Black Sea – Forpost, South Operational Command reports.

It’s worth about $7 million. It is quite large, can conduct reconnaissance and carry an additional combat load in the form of 2 missiles or other weapons to hit ground targets.

Glory to Ukrainian Defenders!

Here's some backstory about the Russian Forpost drone, one of which the Ukrainian Armed Forces shot down today.

Back in 2009, Russia purchased two Searcher II drones from Israel for study (a total amount of $12 million). In October 2010, the two countries signed a contract worth… https://t.co/f6bnWsgZBk pic.twitter.com/GpvjucYCFc

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 1, 2024

Here’s some backstory about the Russian Forpost drone, one of which the Ukrainian Armed Forces shot down today.

Back in 2009, Russia purchased two Searcher II drones from Israel for study (a total amount of $12 million). In October 2010, the two countries signed a contract worth $300 million. According to this document, the Searcher II drones were to be produced at the Kazan Helicopters manufacturing company using Israeli components.

Curiously, just two years later, in 2012, the Ural Civil Aviation Factory started producing new reconnaissance systems (command vehicle + localized drones), which were named Forpost.

The main task of the Russian combat Forpost drone is to collect intelligence and conduct search-observation flights and search operations. This drone can also carry armament in the form of a container with an ATGM missile.

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos tonight, so here is some adjacent material.

Ukrainian Defender of the 92nd Mechanized Brigade rescued two boarlets in the forests of the Kharkiv region and named them Tisha and Tosha. Another Defender with the call sign "Sladkii" ("Sweet") sheltered a red-listed marbled polecat.

Ukrainian soldiers constantly rescue wild… pic.twitter.com/osgiLQ5twq

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 1, 2024

Ukrainian Defender of the 92nd Mechanized Brigade rescued two boarlets in the forests of the Kharkiv region and named them Tisha and Tosha. Another Defender with the call sign “Sladkii” (“Sweet”) sheltered a red-listed marbled polecat.

Ukrainian soldiers constantly rescue wild animals from shellings and take care of the animals that have lost their homes and found themselves at “zero line.”

Open thread!

* Full disclosure: I have what is referred to as Burn Pit syndrome. Though in my case it wasn’t just burn pits. It’s that the idiots that decided where to build FOB Hammer situated it on top of the old impact area of the Iraqi Army’s Besmiyah artillery range. So we were living on top of a bunch of bits of depleted uranium and other not so nice materials. But wait, there’s more! The 3rd BCT/3rd ID commander, eventually disgraced and run out of the Army as a 2 star because among other things he was a walking zipper malfunction, did not want to have to wait for a new dining facility (DFAC) to be built. So he had the only one not in use shipped up from Kuwait. Why was it in Kuwait? Because it was supposed to be destroyed as a health hazard as it could not be kept to minimum sanitary standards. How did he get it shipped up? He got the Division commander to issue an exemption to policy. But wait, there’s even more. Someone up the chain in Iraq or the DOD determined that grey water – as in somewhat treated, but not potable and not safe for human ingestion – could be used for the showers, sinks, and laundry, as well as sprayed on the dirt roads to keep the dust down. But wait, there’s even more more! These geniuses sited the base about 12 to 14 km south of the Nahrwan brick factory, which burned heavy fuel oil in the kilns. Many days we’d wake up to a dark black haze of noxious and toxic smoke. The kicker to all this is because I deployed to Iraq before the program that sent my teammates and I there was a program of record, and before all the civilians were converted to civil servants, I was a contractor. And, as a result, I can’t even enter my symptoms in the VA’s database for Burn Pit syndrome because only uniformed personnel and government civilians are allowed to do so. Even though I have a 25 to 35 page supplemental insert in my medical file that my brigade’s public health doctor prepared for everyone that details everything he could document that we were exposed to. As I type this I am suffering from a flare up of one of the health souvenirs I came home from Iraq with. What I was exposed to is nowhere comparable to what Polymeropolous and others have been exposed to in the attacks on them, but I do have experience with both the bureaucracy stonewalling on adjacent problems and, as a result of the contract nature of my service in Iraq, the inability to even just enter my condition and symptoms in the tracking database, let alone get help as I’m not entitled to do so.

War for Ukraine Day 768: A Brief(ish) Monday Night UpdatePost + Comments (43)

Florida to Ban Abortion in 30 Days

by Betty Cracker|  April 1, 20244:43 pm| 68 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, The War On Women, Women's Rights Are Human Rights

Breaking news from the Tampa Bay Times:

TALLAHASSEE — Florida voters will get the chance to vote on protecting abortion access after the Florida Supreme Court on Monday allowed the amendment onto 2024 ballots. But the court on Monday also released an opinion upholding the state’s current 15-week abortion ban.

Upholding the current law triggers a six-week abortion ban that lawmakers approved last year to go into effect. That law offers limited exceptions for rape and incest, and will go into effect 30 days after Monday’s ruling.

The change will disrupt abortion access not only in Florida, but for women across the southeastern U.S., giving them fewer places to turn to for legal abortions in a part of the country where many states ban abortion almost entirely.

Though the court was expected to rule on the abortion amendment because of an April 1 deadline, its decision to release an opinion on the state’s current 15-week ban came as a surprise.

This is a developing story. Check back at tampabay.com for updates.

Every one of the justices is a Republican appointee, and the majority were elevated to the state supreme court by DeSantis. The wingnut wife of one of the judges introduced the 6-week ban bill that DeSantis signed while running for president. (No, the judge didn’t recuse because Republican.)

Consider the contradictions heightened. Will the voters of this state turn out to reject this theocratic bullshit by a margin of 60% or more? I wish I were more confident they would. But at least everything is on the table and the stakes in November are perfectly clear.

Open thread.

Florida to Ban Abortion in 30 DaysPost + Comments (68)

Deplorati Donny-Brook

by Betty Cracker|  April 1, 20241:05 pm| 105 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity

I thoroughly enjoyed this CNN account of Republicans rhetorically punching each other in the snot-locker, stomping fellow caucus members’ insteps and kneeing one another in the beans with great force. The donnybrook concerns an upcoming GOP primary in the Virginia 5th between arch-conservatives Bob Good, the incumbent and GOP House Freedom Caucus chief, and challenger John McGuire.

House GOP reps are blasting each other with a level of rancor I can’t recall seeing before the whole party went feral. It’s hard to guess who is on the side of whom, given that everyone involved is a hard-right creep:

“Bob Good didn’t come here to govern. He came here to be famous,” [Derrick] Van Orden, a Wisconsin Republican, told CNN. “Bob Good’s wearing our jersey, and he’s not on the team.”

Van Orden added: “If you look at what we have not been able to accomplish in this Congress, it’s predominantly because of Bob Good and his ilk.”

Van Orden is a gigantic dick in his own right — you may recall him as the asshole who screamed and cursed at Senate pages who were lying on the floor in the Rotunda taking photos at the end of their term last year. And speaking of massive fore/dickheads:

“This is the most important primary in the country,” said [Florida Rep. Matt] Gaetz, who led the charge to oust McCarthy and has targeted two other sitting Republicans in their primaries so far this cycle. “Bob is our masthead. Bob Good is our leader among House conservatives to get us on the same page to ensure that it is the people’s interests that rise above the special interests. They know that they hate us. But you know what, there are more of us.”

Good backed DeSantis in the primary, which is the focus of most of the verbal slap-fights. Earlier this year, Trump advisor Chris LaCivita told a Virginia paper that “Bob Good won’t be electable when we get done with him.” But LaCivita declined the opportunity to slam Good anew for the CNN article, so perhaps Trump’s attention is on other things right now, like hoovering up RNC money.

Other members of the Deplorati also expressed opinions on Good:

Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana, a former Trump Cabinet member who is backing McGuire, added: “We can do a lot better than Good,” he said. “We can do great.”

And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – who was booted from the Freedom Caucus last year after sparring with her GOP colleagues – has endorsed McGuire, saying Good “cannot be trusted and will work against Trump.”

“John McGuire endorsed and supported President Trump while you stabbed him in the back,” she posted on X.

Good angrily dismissed her.

“Nobody cares what Marjorie Taylor Greene says or thinks. And she’s a one-man show, she’s grandstanding and she wants attention,” Good said.

It would be a shame if these irredeemably terrible people kept hurling insults at each other, right up until the June primary vote! (I assume they’ll all scuttle back under their rocks if Trump opens his fat orange yap to endorse one of the candidates.)

I know nothing about the district, but my guess is if it elected Good, it probably isn’t gettable for Democrats. (Maybe knowledgeable friend of the blog Geminid or someone else with local knowledge will weigh in with a more informed take?)

Anyhoo, here’s hoping crushing pressure and high temperatures harden already hard feelings into a diamond-like consistency in the House GOP. Open thread!

Deplorati Donny-BrookPost + Comments (105)

Institutions – Martin, Promoted from the Comments

by WaterGirl|  April 1, 202411:16 am| 99 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Martin had something really interesting to say about institutions the other day, and I think it deserves a wider audience.

So, here is my philosophy of institutions.

Institutions do not care about people. That’s not their job, and assigning that to them leads to a lot of disappointment. Institutions are a mechanism for organizing people to solve problems that we cannot solve individually (this can be government or businesses). You still rely on the people in that institution to care about people, because that’s the real source of it.

You design institutions to do a given job. If you’re a business, that job is to make money – in the short term/in the long term. If you’re a government, that job (should be) to serve the voters. Sometimes that job is to consolidate power. Sometimes it’s to make money for yourself (graft).

Remember: ‘‘Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets’

If the system gets corruption, it was designed to get corruption. Someone did that. Someone made it that way. Democrats like to believe that government institutions have neutral designs. It’s a different kind of hagiography for the founders that liberals tend to believe that the constitution is this divine machine that will always spit out neutral results if only people stop fucking with it, when the only reason it spits out neutral results is because people within and without the institution demand that it do so. USSC is not departing from what the Supreme Court is supposed to do with decisions like Dobbs, because the only thing it really ever can do is a be a vehicle for the judgement of its members to inform lesser courts how to act. Its members are how the machine works.

What then matters with the design of the institution is how you identify the right people to work within it and how the institution gives them agency to do good work. This is a double-edged sword because that same agency usually allows bad work to be done as well – with the difference being found in who you invite into the institution.

So how you qualify people for the job is incredibly important. If the qualification is you must be a white male lawyer, well, you’re going to get a very specific set of outcomes. if the qualification is the you represent a different part of society and have experience in public facing, ideally hands-on policy, you’ll get a very different set of outcomes.

In the end we’re responsible for that, not just in how we individually vote, but in how we culturally shape who is qualified. If ‘government should be run like a business’, that will shape how people select. If ‘government needs to support the needs of the people’, that will shape it very differently. Democrats are very shy about expressing their theory of qualification. They need to unlearn that. It’s most of the game here.

Democrats also need to get real about how to wield institutions and stop pretending that they will naturally, of their own accord, revert to some mean of civility. That only ever happens when the people in the institution agree to do that. If half of them don’t agree, the other half need to respond to that, and stop pretending that they do agree.

This is the lesson of ‘tire rims and anthrax’. Not everything can be negotiated. Some things need to be coerced (and there are good and bad ways to coerce an outcome).

Your thoughts?

Totally open thread.

Institutions – Martin, Promoted from the CommentsPost + Comments (99)

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: The Higher the Monkey Climbs…

by Anne Laurie|  April 1, 20242:22 am| 87 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You, Technology, Schadenfreude

Still probably overvalued. https://t.co/nmLZjHgjo8

— Clean Observer (@Hammbear2024) March 31, 2024

… the more he expose!

For entertainment purposes only… Ed Zitron, at his blog Where’s Your Ed At, on “The Descent of Elon Musk”:

… Musk is, on paper, the most successful man in the world. He’s a social media star, a multi-billionaire with his own social network, and he owns a 20.5 percent stake in the world’s most valuable car company by market cap. He knows — or can easily get in touch with — almost anybody in the world, and has the means to start or incubate any venture under the sun.

Yet with the world at his fingertips, Musk seems joyless, marinating in misery, surrounded by an air of existential bleakness…

Lemon’s interview is fascinating for many reasons, chief of which is that Elon Musk sounds really, really stupid. The supposed real-life Tony Stark is ineloquent, stumbling through his answers with the verbal agility of somebody that just woke up, his dialogue a buffet of “uhs” and “ums,” with even his answers to softball questions feeling like he’s making the answers up in real time. Within five minutes, he effectively admitted to not watching Don Lemon’s show, claiming Don (and CNN) were “center-left,” yet not appearing to have a clear answer as to why.

Elon Musk, a man with unimaginable money and power, has the elegance and eloquence of a nervous teenager. His delivery is stilted, convoluted yet specious, echoing a lack of research or real understanding of anything he’s talking about beyond what he might have glanced at in between posting stolen memes and begging people to use his website. He seemed uncomfortable, and professionally-speaking, these aren’t the actions of an introverted or shy personality, but somebody who hasn’t had to answer a real question in decades. It’s remarkable that we’ve never seen an interview like this with a tech founder, let alone Elon Musk, made more-so by how much even the lightest brush with criticism aggravated and frustrated him…

Fundamentally, he seems miserable. He looks tired, not the kind of tired you get from doing something you love, but from the exhaustion one gets when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel…

show full post on front page

The Broke Mind Virus
Over the last few months, Musk’s character arc has shifted from fucking around to finding out. In late January, a Delaware judge ruled that the $50+ billion compensation package given to Musk by Tesla’s board was “an unfathomable sum” that was unfair to shareholders, arguing that the board of directors was beholden to Elon, with the Wall Street Journal reporting a few days later that directors felt “pressured” to do drugs with a man who controls numerous government contracts and the backbone of America’s electric vehicle infrastructure…

Musk is out of tricks to buoy Tesla’s already-bloated valuation as the markets and media grow increasingly incredulous when faced with his bloviating, partly due to the raw numbers turning against him and partly because he’s really, really annoying.

Twitter has become a public referendum on Musk, both as a person and an executive. As its owner, Musk has destroyed somewhere between 71% and 90% of its value in just over a year, and NBC reported last week that Twitter’s global daily active users had fallen 15% year-over-year, and 18% year-over-year in America, its largest market, with growth flat or declining every single month since 2022. While Musk claimed that bots were rife on the platform before he acquired it, the problem is now unquestionably worse, with spammy and scammy ads flooding the platform, and seemingly every post getting a response from either a cryptocurrency or pornography bot…

Even if you can somehow put aside his disgusting personality, Elon Musk is also a woefully ineffective executive. Twitter has gone from the world’s town square to the red light district of social media, with every popular post flooded with “verified” users making nonsense posts in the hope that they’ll get a cut from Twitter’s “creator program” that indiscriminately and arbitrarily pays money to users, including rigging the system to pay Mr. Beast $250,000 for posting one video. It’s not hyperbole to say that almost every post I make on the platform gets someone saying “nudes in bio” or attempting to recruit me into some sort of cryptocurrency grift, and by choosing to no longer verify accounts based on anything other than them having eight dollars, Musk has created a hotbed for scams, with some of them leading to dark and dangerous places…

The Blue Albatross
Though it’s unlikely that Musk ever goes broke, his current situation is deeply, deeply unstable. Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire collapsed — other than the fact that he was a giant fraudster — in part because he leveraged funds that he could never sell, and Musk’s reliance on Tesla’s eternal growth engine as a means of funding his expensive lifestyle is deeply rickety…

Elon Musk’s fortune was built on the Elon Musk brand, a brand that was built off of the vagueness of his legend and his assumed intelligence. That legend is collapsing under the weight of Musk’s need for attention and inability to retreat at exactly the time where Tesla needs a stable, reliable and consistent executive.

And as things begin to fall apart, Musk will become more deranged, more bigoted, more cruel and more chaotic. Twitter has maybe a year left before it fully buckles under the weight of his terrible decision-making, and outside of a miracle growth-spurt, Musk’s reign at Tesla is coming to a close.

Though much of what I’ve written here is deeply depressing, I do want to leave you with some good news:

Elon Musk is absolutely miserable, and there’s little good news in his future.

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: The Higher the Monkey Climbs…Post + Comments (87)

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