Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

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

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

He really is that stupid.

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

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

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

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

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

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

No one could have predicted…

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

When we show up, we win.

The lights are all blinking red.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Democrats Deliver, Repubs Block & Obfuscate

by | 161 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

show full post on front page

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Democrats Deliver, Repubs Block & ObfuscatePost + Comments (161)

Dank Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Go Away, Dean

by | 129 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (Minn.) announced significant layoffs within his campaign Friday, but vowed to continue his long-shot bid against President Biden.

“I found it almost impossible to raise enough to do this campaign the way I want,” Phillips said. “And today, sadly, I had to announce layoffs to a lot of my staff members… amazing people who gave up a lot personally and a lot professionally to join this remarkable campaign,” Phillips said in a TikTok posted Friday to his X account, formerly Twitter. “And it was a really tough day for all of us.”

“But I made a promise to them and I’m gonna make it to you, I’m not giving up,” he added. “I’m gonna continue.”

In his X post, Phillips called on supporters to donate so he could stay in the race — claiming a majority of Americans believe Biden is “too old” and the GOP front-runner, former President Trump, is “to corrupt.”…

show full post on front page

Dank Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Go Away, DeanPost + Comments (129)

On Wisconsin!

by | 86 Comments

This post is in: , ,

An important day for Wisconsin!

I say this with hope, and as a bit of a prayer – Wisconsin peeps, take back your state, and may you be the next Michigan!

The people of Wisconsin who came out in droves to vote for Janet Protasiewicz in the state Supreme Court race are happy.

The Democratic governor, Tony Evers, is happy.

And Ben Wikler is happy.

Full text from Ben Wikler:

The long, dark night of ultra-partisan gerrymandering is over, and a new day for democracy now dawns in the Badger State.

The stroke of Governor Evers’s pen today marks the end of the shameful period that began in 2011, when Republican lawmakers—bound in secrecy by nondisclosure agreements as they worked with operatives at a lobbying firm—drew legislative lines that guaranteed that even landslide election losses wouldn’t cost them their majorities. The result was one of the most egregious, extreme partisan gerrymanders in American political history.

Ever since, Republican politicians in Wisconsin have used their power to take more power away from the people of our state—restricting access to the ballot, removing authorities that voters had entrusted to statewide elected officials like the Governor and Attorney General, and smashing the freedoms of workers to organize and advocate for themselves. For thirteen years, the democracy-proof legislature has been laying siege to democracy itself.

Last April, years of tireless organizing culminated with Wisconsinites electing Justice Janet Protasiewicz in a landslide, charting a new course for our state that has led us to the new, vastly fairer maps signed into law by Gov. Evers today. In November, at long last, Wisconsin voters will have a real choice in who represents them in Madison. The majority will determine the majority.

The candidate recruitment process now goes into overdrive. And at the same time, we remain vigilant in case Republican politicians in Madison and their allies once again, through the courts or any other strategy, attempt to thwart majority rule.

Today, we made progress towards true democracy in Wisconsin—thanks to the efforts of so many grassroots activists, tireless supporters, and elected leaders. We stand ready to fight back against any attempt by Republicans to undermine the path towards democracy and accountability, and we commit to doing everything in our power to ending the Speakership of Robin Vos and paving the way towards a Democratic trifecta that can, at long last, translate the will of the people of Wisconsin into the law of the land.

It’s been a long time coming.  Big congratulations to the Wisconsin peeps and especially to anyone who worked and wrote and donated to help make a day like today possible.

Open thread.

On Wisconsin!Post + Comments (86)

War for Ukraine Day 726: Lithuanian Foreign Minister Landsbergis Has Something Else You Need to Hear

by | 24 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

Screen shot of new artwork by NEIVANMADE. The background is black. In the bottom foreground are grey Ukrainian homes and apartment buildings being bombarded by red Russian missiles with the Special Military Operation "Z" symbol on them. Above the missiles, written in red is the word "Ruzzians". Below the buildings being attacked is the statement "Turns Homes Into Graves".

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Landsbergis has something else he wants you to hear.

The Ukrainians splashed two more bandits today.

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 726: Lithuanian Foreign Minister Landsbergis Has Something Else You Need to HearPost + Comments (24)

Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Concerning the Death of Alexei Navalny

by | 106 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Alexey Navalny spent at least a decade standing up to the Kremlin when it seemed impossible. He was jailed and released. He was poisoned, and survived. He was warned to stay away from Russia and didn’t. He was arrested in front of dozens of cameras, with millions of people watching. In prison, he was defiant and consistently funny. For three years, his jailers put him in solitary confinement, cut off his access to and arrested his lawyers, piled on sentence after sentence, sent him all the way across the world’s largest country to serve out his time in the Arctic, and still, when he appeared on video in court, he laughed at his jailers. Year after year, he faced down the might of one of the world’s cruellest states and the vengeance of one of the world’s cruellest men. His promise was that he would outlive them and lead what he called the Beautiful Russia of the Future. On Friday, they killed him. He was forty-seven years old.

Hours after the news of his death broke, his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, addressed the Munich Security Conference. “I don’t know whether to believe the news, the terrible news, which we are only getting from state-controlled sources in Russia,” she said, from the conference’s main stage. “As you all know, for many years we’ve been unable to believe Putin and his government. They always lie. But, if it is true, I want Putin and everyone around him, his friends and his government, to know that they will be held responsible for what they have done to our country, to my family, and to my husband. The day of reckoning will come very soon.”…

Navalny, who was educated as a lawyer, became active in politics in the early two-thousands and emerged as a public figure around 2010. His early politics were ethno-nationalist, at times overtly xenophobic, and libertarian. He advocated for gun rights and a crackdown on migrants. But he found his agenda and his political voice in documenting corruption. He built a movement based on the premise that citizens, even in Russia, could and should exercise control over the way that government money is spent. In the ensuing years, he evolved from an ethno-nationalist to a civic nationalist, from a libertarian to a social democrat. He learned new languages, read incessantly, and incorporated new ideas into his program. He focussed, increasingly, not only on political power but on social welfare. During the past three years, he used the pulpit provided by an endless series of court hearings to air his political views. In a courtroom speech on February 20, 2021, he outlined a vision for a country with a better health-care system and a more equitable distribution of wealth. He proposed changing the slogan of his political movement from “Russia will be free” to “Russia will be happy.” He continued to assert this hopeful agenda, even as he grew more and more gaunt and even as he was forced to appear in court on a video screen, separated from his audience by glass, a grate, and thousands of miles…

show full post on front page

Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Concerning the Death of Alexei NavalnyPost + Comments (106)

‘Cause the Wankers gonna Wank, Wank, Wank, Wank, Wank

by | 176 Comments

This post is in: 

As soon as I saw it on my podcast player, I knew Ezra Klein’s “Democrats have a better option than Biden” podcast was going to be incredibly annoying and very skippable.  I have too many naps to take, and too much scotch to drink. to listen to yet another take on how some imaginary candidate X would wipe the floor with Trump, and yet the Democrats won’t pick X.

But I was wrong – it’s worse.  Young Ezra has grown from a young participant in the bong parties following a freshman PoliSci seminar into a full-fledged wanktastic pundit, because he’s trotted out the oldest pundit masturbatory topic in the book:  the brokered convention.  Apparently — and here I have to admit I’ve only read about his podcast and not listened to it — he thinks that Obama, Anita Dunn, and the rest of Biden’s inner circle need to stage an intervention.  They (merely) need to say, Joe, you’ve gotta go, we had it once, we ain’t got it anymore.  Then, Joe, who as we all know likes trains, will buy a ticket on the central line and leave DC.  His rapid and drama-free departure will leave the convention wide open for candidate Captain Marvel/Superspiderman (or woman), who will swoop in to the accolades of the smoky backroom fixers and we’ll all live happily ever after.  Be sure to check for belongings under your seat before exiting the theater.

There are so many reasons that this is stupid that I don’t think I need to go into them with this audience, though I will mention that nothing gets a wanker pundit to wank harder than imagining the democratic will of the people being thwarted by a few backroom fixers. Still, Ezra’s got people talking about this moronic idea instead of whatever screw up the Republicans are perpetrating today, so at least it’s a win for his Republican employer, the NYT.

Anyway, here’s where I can mention that I get a chuckle out of people in the comments here and elsewhere re-litigating the primaries, saying that some candidate ruined another’s chances in the general by making some criticism of that candidate in the primary.  That’s a real misreading of the role of primaries.  Primaries are, in theory at least, where our side dukes it out to find out if Candidate X is the real thing or just plays a superhero on TV.  History books are full of candidates that looked good for a bit, then shit the bed when it was time to run a campaign.  Only someone whose contact with politics is quasi-academic, and who’s spent too much time reading fantasy novels, would want to substitute a brokered convention for primaries.

Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee because nobody serious stepped up to challenge him.   There will probably be zero delegates voting against him because the non-serious challengers won no delegates.  That’s how Democratic nomination conventions work in the current century, no matter how many fantasies people like Ezra crank out.

‘Cause the Wankers gonna Wank, Wank, Wank, Wank, WankPost + Comments (176)

U.S. backed ceasefire proposal at the U.N.

by | 240 Comments

This post is in: , ,

If Netanyahu wasn’t more worried about his own future than his country’s, he’d find this alarming:

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 (Reuters) – The United States has proposed a rival draft United Nations Security Council resolution that would underscore the body’s “support for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable,” according to the text seen by Reuters on Monday.

Washington has been averse to the word ceasefire in any U.N. action on the Israel-Hamas war, but the U.S. draft text echoes language that President Joe Biden said he used last week in conversations with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The U.S. draft text also “determines that under current circumstances a major ground offensive into Rafah would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement including potentially into neighboring countries.”

Israel plans to storm Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than 1 millions Palestinians have sought shelter, prompting international concern that such a move would sharply worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The draft U.S. resolution says such a move “would have serious implications for regional peace and security, and therefore underscores that such a major ground offensive should not proceed under current circumstances.”

I think this represents a pretty significant break with the Netanyahu government since the U.S. usually shields Israel from U.N. resolutions aimed at restraining it, including a couple of times recently.

I have no idea what Israeli citizens’ perspective is on storming Rafah. Does anyone know? My guess is that matters to Biden more than what Netanyahu thinks.

Open thread.

U.S. backed ceasefire proposal at the U.N.Post + Comments (240)