Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

The willow is too close to the house.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

I really should read my own blog.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

This really is a full service blog.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

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

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads

It’s Up To Us Now, As it Always Was: First Stop, Montana

by | 120 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

THIS IS AN OPEN THREAD.

We’re trying to raise about $9,000 more for Four Directions Montana, where the Native vote is more than the margin of victory in past elections.   We need Joe Biden, and the House and the Senate – and as part of that, we need to keep Jon Tester in the Senate.  He’s not just a Democrat; he’s a great senator.

Reminder: Four Directions Quilt Raffle is still ongoing.  Raffle tickets $25 each – donate through the thermometer, and send email to WaterGirl for the raffle tickets.  Here’s the quilt, in case you missed the earlier posts.

Quilt Raffle for Four Directions Montana – Let's Keep This Senate Seat

Raffle tickets alone aren’t going to get us to the goal of $45,000 in the thermometer, and we have a Balloon Juice Angel to help get us there.  The $1,500 Angel match will match up to $25 per person.  In order to be matched, add your donation amount in the comments.

If you want raffle tickets with these donations that are being matched in the thread, please send me an email message, thanks!

Reminder: If we hit $45,000 in the thermometer, that will be $80,000 for the Native vote in Montana. $45k in the thermometer, a $5k Angel check, plus the $30k external match that we met before Thanksgiving. $80k will go a long way in Montana!

It’s Up To Us Now, As it Always Was: First Stop, MontanaPost + Comments (120)

Serenity Now

by | 244 Comments

This post is in: ,

This week’s New Yorker Radio Hour had a fascinating segment on what Joe Biden thinks about the upcoming election. Host David Remnick spoke to New Yorker journalist Evan Osnos, who wrote a book about Biden’s 2020 campaign, “Joe Biden: The Life, The Run, What Matters Now.”

Osnos interviewed Biden extensively for that book a few years ago. In the podcast, he talked to Remnick about a January 2024 Oval Office interview he conducted with Biden for an New Yorker profile that was published earlier today.

Addressing the age issue right off the bat, Remnick asked Osnos if he noticed a change in Biden after interviewing him nearly four years ago and again this year. Osnos said Biden is “slower in movements and gestures” and his voice has changed but said he saw nothing that indicated Biden’s mind is different.

IMO, the conversation reassures listeners who need it, indicating that Biden fully understands the stakes and what he’s up against. Remnick and Osnos touched on the topic of media coverage of the campaign so far, and Osnos reports that Biden is “testy” on the subject in a way that may resonate with readers here:*

Osnos: “He said over and over again that he thought the press was not really engaging either his wins adequately or Trump’s menace adequately.”

Remnick: “Do you agree with him?”

Osnos: “Look, I think the press is doing what the press does, which is it presses hard on questions of significance, so his [Biden’s] age is a legitimate and significant question. I think there is a degree though to which the press has become kind of accepting of the idea that everything Trump does is just another level of endless extremity — ‘what does it really mean?’ ‘how much can he get away with?’ There is a piece of that. I think the press is a part of this election in an awkward way that we’re still trying to navigate.”

Remnick: How do you mean?

Osnos: It’s become assumed that Trump is in this commanding position. The best example of this was in the Davos conference in January, when everybody was essentially assuming, according to the reporting there, that Trump is on his way to winning. And that becomes baked in, to use your term, there comes a sense of ‘this is an inevitability…’

It’s noticeable that the Biden people and Biden himself, they’re not panicking, which frankly gives Democrats a lot of concern. There is an almost ostentatious level of serenity, as if they say, they feel a lot of the numbers and commentary is wrong.

I never want to fall into “unskew the polls” territory since that way lies embarrassing delusion and self-beclowning. But this far out and in this media environment? Yeah, I think the Biden people are probably onto something there.

Osnos believes the race is a “dead heat.” That seems objectively true right now, which is horrifying. But I think Trump is at his 2024 highwater mark, and as more people pay attention, more crazy shit dribbles out of Trump’s pie hole and more footage of Trump acting the fool in court comes out, Biden will pull ahead.

Could be wishful thinking, but that’s what I believe. I also think the perception (and reality) that this will be a close race could dampen enthusiasm for third party votes, as happened between 2016 and 2020.

Specific to polling, several of y’all flagged analysis that calls into question the most recent object of poll panic, the NYT Siena findings. It raised red flags by claiming Biden and Trump are tied with women post-Dobbs and that Dean Phillips has 12% support among Democrats. That sounds like bullshit to me.

Anyhoo, the 20-minute or so podcast isn’t paywalled, and I thought y’all might find it interesting too. Osnos’ New Yorker piece, Joe Biden’s Last Campaign, was published this morning, and I look forward to reading it.

Open thread.

*Kindly note this is my transcription, which was fueled by a single cup of coffee. I don’t think I got anything important wrong or left anything critical out but want to flag that nonetheless.

Serenity NowPost + Comments (244)

Supreme Court Ruling Today – What To Look For and What It Means

by | 87 Comments

This post is in: 

Supreme Court Ruling Today – What To Look For and What It Means
Assuming that the announcement from the Supreme Court today is a ruling in the Colorado 14th Amendment insurrection case, this seems like it will be very helpful as we look to understand what it says and what it means.

Update: Supreme Court ruling  (per curium)  Which means that all justices are concerting on this opinion.

SCOTUSblog is live blogging.

I’ll update with specifics after the announcement, but in the meantime, something to think about.

When the Supreme Court Rules on Colorado’s Ballot, Pay Attention to What It Doesn’t Say  (Slate)

Excerpt

When the Supreme Court issues its opinion in the ballot access case, therefore, smart court watchers will be looking for not only the legal bottom line on whether Trump can stay on the ballot, but also what signal the court sends the public about Trump’s underlying conduct. Because pending before it is a case in which the Colorado courts expressly found that Trump did engage in an insurrection. In fact, every entity that has ruled on the merits of that question—from the Colorado courts, to the Maine Secretary of State, to now the Illinois judiciary, to the findings of the January 6 Commission and the House impeachment inquiry—have so agreed. Will the Court reject all those conclusions? Will the Court take this opportunity to absolve Trump of insurrection? If the Court declines to do that, it will speak more loudly than whatever it formally holds on the technical legal arcana it seems likely to focus on in its opinion.

That doesn’t mean everyone will hear it. If history is any guide, one likely reaction from the press will be a host of “Trump exculpated!” stories, in much the same way the Mueller Report was treated as a blanket exoneration. It’s a forgivable error. Technical legal arcana is technical and arcane and “Trump exculpated!” is journalistic dopamine. But that doesn’t mean reporters should knock over the proverbial phone booths in rushing, en masse to announce that Trump has “won” or “lost” the case once the opinion is released. Journalism focused on the horserace and not the stakes will be unlikely to capture the fact that the court may not dispute Trump’s participation in an insurrection when presented with the chance to do so, although that latter is the headline as well as a fact more relevant to the things voters will need to weigh come November. To our minds, “Court rules Trump can remain on ballot, Declines to absolve him of Insurrection” feels like a more accurate framing of the actual stakes of the Colorado case, assuming the case goes how we anticipate.

h/t Mousebumples for the article

Open thread.

Supreme Court Ruling Today – What To Look For and What It MeansPost + Comments (87)

Monday Morning Open Thread: Counting Every Vote, Each At the Same Value

by | 228 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

A spate of reports, in advance of Super Tuesday tomorrow:

It’s best, of course, if people want to vote for President Biden & to encourage their friends to do the same. But, realistically, not every voter will be fired up, especially for a primary in March. Good news is that a ‘reluctant’ (or a ‘spite’} vote weighs in the tally exactly the same as those cast with the greatest enthusiasm. Per the Associate Press, “Fear and loathing in a Super Tuesday state: Democrats angry at Biden back him anyway to stop Trump”:

HOPKINS, Minn. (AP) — Aishah Al-Sehaim laments the 30,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, a grim statistic from a war with Israel that she wishes President Joe Biden would try harder to stop.

But the 38-year-old clinical data scientist, an Arab American from the Democratic-heavy suburb of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, is voting for the Democrat on Tuesday anyway because her top priority is stopping Republican Donald Trump.

“It’s not even about hope to affect change in the coming years, but simply that things don’t get more screwed up nationally and internationally,” she said.

Biden’s campaign isn’t likely to trumpet endorsements such as Al-Sehaim’s. But they give credence to the reelection effort’s strategy of promoting Biden administration programs but also turning out disaffected Democrats by invoking their fears of Trump…

Biden is still expected to sweep Democratic primaries in Minnesota and 15 other states on Super Tuesday and will likely secure his party’s nomination in the coming weeks.

“I’m not sure, because of the poison that’s been injected into the system over the last 10 years, if anybody gets that morning-in-America enthusiasm again,” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, referring to Reagan’s famous reelection campaign television ad. “It doesn’t surprise me that much that what you’re finding is people who say they’re going to support him, but it’s not an Obama-type new thing.”

Biden aides argue there is more enthusiasm for the president than the interviews suggest. They point to the 600,000 voters who voted in Michigan’s primary this past week, more than three times the turnout for Obama in 2012…

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, “A chunk of Republican primary and caucus voters say they wouldn’t vote for Trump as the GOP nominee”:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A small but substantial chunk of Republican primary and caucus voters say they would be so dissatisfied if Donald Trump became the party’s presidential nominee that they would not vote for him in November’s general election, according to AP VoteCast.

An analysis of the data shows that many of those voters were unlikely to vote for Trump, some even before this year, but it still points to potential problems for the former president as he looks to consolidate the nomination and pivot toward an expected rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.

According to AP VoteCast surveys of the first three head-to-head Republican contests, 2 in 10 Iowa voters, one-third of New Hampshire voters, and one-quarter of South Carolina voters would be so disappointed by Trump’s renomination that they would refuse to vote for him in the fall.

This unwillingness to contemplate a presidential vote for Trump isn’t confined to voters in the earliest states…

show full post on front page

Monday Morning Open Thread: Counting Every Vote, Each At the Same ValuePost + Comments (228)

War for Ukraine Day 739: The Butcher’s Bill from Russia’s Attack on Civilian’s in Odesa Continues To Grow

by | 17 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

Painting by NEIVANMADE. It has a black border. There are grey buildings with black windows along the left side. The center is a yellowy-grey, perhaps Ukrainian wheat fields. There is a black shadow figure striding through it. The figure's legs and feet are all that is visible of it. On the right side are red Zs, which symbolize Putin's/Russia's "Z" war/special military operation in Ukraine. The sky above the buildings is light grey. "GENOCIDE IS GOING BUT WHO EVEN CARES?" is painted in black in the upper left hand corner.

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

The death toll from Russia’s strike on civilian targets in Odesa yesterday continues to go up.

Heart-wrenching news from Odesa: military couple Oleh and Tetiana Kravets and their 7-month-old daughter Lisa found dead, 9-year-old Serhiy and 8-year-old Zlata still missing. Oleh and Tetiana met during their service. Oleh’s brother was killed in action in 2014, leaving him the only son💔

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

show full post on front page

War for Ukraine Day 739: The Butcher’s Bill from Russia’s Attack on Civilian’s in Odesa Continues To GrowPost + Comments (17)

The Dog Lanterns’ Pet Portraits!

by | 32 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , ,

Dog_Lanterns

I decided I wanted to have some portraits done of the dogs. This is why I asked in a war update post a few weeks ago for contact info for Larime, which Cole provided. Larime is now back up and running in the making art business after Sylv’s passing last year and all the craziness that goes along with that and I figured now was a good time to have it done. They did the two current doggos, my previous three who have passed on, and they also did my brother’s dog and cat. I’m not posting these last two because I haven’t given them to my brother and sister in law yet and because I have no idea if they’d want their pets’ portraits posted on the Internet. So nobody ruin the surprise!

I’m going to post the portraits of Rosie and Ruby, my two current lab mixes, above the jump and the remaining three portraits of Genni, Kylie, and Blue after the jump.

I asked Larime to do two-in-one portraits of Rosie and Ruby that included them as puppies and as adults. I have good quality pics of them from 3 months old until just last week (over the past thirteen years for Rosie and 10 for Ruby), but not for the others as they were puppies well before we all had good quality cameras in our phones.

Here is Rosie. She’s a black Lab and either German shepherd or Belgian shepherd dog. Rosie has the longer, leaner Belgian shepherd dog body, the lab face, and ears that are sort of in between. She also has a partially purple tongue.  And she’s got a ruff and the double coat and is currently the resident Flooferina. The puppy photo Larime used was what was advertised by the rescue organization and, once you see Kylie’s portrait, you’ll understand one of the reasons I thought to adopt her. The adult pic I sent to Larime is of her hanging over the edge of the couch.

Pet portrait of my black Lab mix Rosie. The bottom picture is a of a grinning 3 month old black Lab mix, her ears up with the tips flopped over, and her tongue partially sticking out. The upper picture is of an adult Rosie. Her red collar is visible, as is her front left paw. She has her ears pricked up with the tips flopped over. Her eyes are brown.

(Rosie)

Here is Ruby. Ruby is a chocolate Lab mixed with ? The rescue thought her mom was a Lab/boxer mix, but Ruby has the body of a Bull & Terrier (and the permanent toddler disposition to go with it). She also has crystal eyes and spots on her paws, which are hallmarks of a Catahoula leopard dog. She also has a white tip on her tale, so beagle? She’s predominantly chocolate covered, but has caramel brindle markings, as well as a cream patch on her chest, and cream socks with brindle spots on her paws. The puppy photo I sent to Larime, which is the upper image in the portrait below, is of a two or three month old Ruby running across the wood floor at the foster family’s house in PA. I like to refer to it as the “NO BREAKS!!!!” puppy pic. This was the same foster family and rescue organization I got Rosie from. When Kylie died I reached out immediately about adopting a puppy after a two to three months.

The adult pic was taken after an annual vet visit. She hopped into the driver seat of my car and grinned up at me with the look you see below as if to say “GET IN THE CAR!! NO TIME TO EXPLAIN!!” The next pic I took right after that, not included in the portraits has her looking at the dash like “how do you start this thing?” Ruby is my forever toddler. And despite a fierce bark, she’s a sensitive soul who just wants to be next to or on me at all times.A portrait of my chocolate lab mix Ruby. The bottom portrait is of her as an adult with an open mouth smiling directly at the viewer with her head cocked to the right. One ear is visible. She is chocolate brown with caramel brindle markings. The upper pic is Ruby at two or three months old. She is running. Her ears are flopping widly and she has a grin on her face. You can really see the cream white patch on her chest, the caramel brindle on her legs above her cream white socks, and the chocolate color that is predominant in the rest of her coat.

(Ruby)

Genni, Kylie, and Blue after the jump.

show full post on front page

The Dog Lanterns’ Pet Portraits!Post + Comments (32)

Sunday Afternoon Open Thread

by | 131 Comments

This post is in: 

Boston terrier looking stern.Regular at the bar. Dapper little gent. A bit too enthused about the snack options sometimes.

Open thread.

ETA: At some point this week, I was driving and heard some legal analysis on an NPR program, I think. I was only half paying attention.

Anyhoo, the speaker was reviewing the “novel” perspective Justice Kavanaugh or Gorsuch* brought to the debate about bump stocks. To wit: will no one think of the poor buyers who already own bump stocks and who only wanted to convert their AR-15s into fully automatic machine guns, which are illegal even in this gun-psychotic country?

Seriously, that’s something they’re taking under deliberation. We are ruled by corrupt sociopaths.

*I confuse those two because they seem like interchangeable aging frat boys of a similar vintage.

Sunday Afternoon Open ThreadPost + Comments (131)