Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

So many bastards, so little time.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

This chaos was totally avoidable.

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

In my day, never was longer.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

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

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Republicans do not trust women.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

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

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

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

Peak wingnut was a lie.

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On Video: Republicans to Redact Republican Names from Epstein Files, but Leave Democratic Names

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Who would have guessed?

First, who would have guessed that there would be no honor among these pedophile and sex trafficking supporters?

Second, who would have guessed that the entity behind getting that admission would be… James O’Keefe and the James O’Keefe Media Group.

I recommend stopping the video as soon as O’Keefe (I presume that’s who it is) comes on to add his own blah-blah -blah.

 

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A post shared by 92.7NY Sound Power Culture (@92.7ny)

h/t Leto for helping me find video I could embed.

This from a DOJ Deputy Chief.  Fuck.  I bet everyone who every worked at the DOJ is inconsolable, seeing what it’s become.

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Open Thread: Department of Cringe

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Only someone who avoided the draft would want to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

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— Captain Mark Kelly (@captmarkkelly.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 7:25 PM

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because nothing says 'I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize' more than renaming your Department of Defense to the Department of War

— Jeff Tiedrich (@jefftiedrich.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 8:13 PM

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It is impossible to overstate the inanity of the vapid and stupid stunt of renaming the Defense Department, and Congress should step in and put a stop to it immediately.
Gift link:
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv…

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— Tom Nichols (@radiofreetom.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 10:51 PM

Curmudgeon Tom Nichols, at the Atlantic, dismisses “Pete Hegseth’s Department of Cringe”:

…Last month, when the plan was still just a hypothetical, the president was asked why he favored it. He said that Department of War “just sounded better” and that it would be a callback to the name under which U.S forces fought in the two world wars. But the change is also a reflection of how much Trump and Secretary of Defense (his title for now) Pete Hegseth think of themselves as tough guys, real fighters who will no longer trifle with silly names about “defending” things. Hegseth in particular is obsessed with “warfighters”—a clunky Pentagon term that’s been around for far too long—who will engage in “warfighting” with great “lethality.”…

It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.”

These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies.

In 1949, after two years that included a massive reorganization of the U.S. military (and the establishment of an air force), Truman christened the new United States Department of Defense, which consolidated elements of the previous War and Navy Departments. That name was good enough for Truman, who served in combat in World War I and dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. And it was good enough for President Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme allied commander, who oversaw the largest military operations ever undertaken in all of human history…

And about that paperwork: The cost of renaming the DOD will run into tens of millions of dollars, maybe much more. Isn’t this an administration that only months ago unleashed an ignorant bazillionaire on the federal workforce in the name of efficiency and cost reductions? Everything from official seals to uniform patches and medals might have to be replaced—and for what? Because a president who never served a day in uniform and a macho-obsessed former Army major think that using words like war will provide the sense of purpose and gravity they both lack?

I have a better idea. Let’s skip the “War” name and go right to the “Department of Cringe.” It may not strike fear into the hearts of evildoers overseas, but it will resonate with Americans who take national defense seriously, because it is the emotion many of them already feel every time the former Major Hegseth says “lethality” and “warfighter.” If the leaders of the United States are going to make fools of themselves and of the dedicated men and women who serve in uniform simply to own the libs and put on a show for the party faithful, any name will do. They might as well choose one that’s accurate.

Okay this is dumber than expected

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— Doc Revan (@docrevan.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 8:23 PM

Open Thread: Department of CringePost + Comments (95)

The Status Kuo: Zooming In and Zooming Out on Venezuela

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Venezuela   (Status Kuo substack)

The Trump regime, claiming its right to stop drug smuggling, attacked a vessel in international waters outside Venezuela, killing 11. But it’s about far more than that.

The Status Kuo: Zoom In, Zoom Out on Venezuela

Some excerpts:

Let’s take everything the White House said about the attack at face value (though after reading this, you will understand why many do not).

Assuming this was a small drug smuggling vessel, why didn’t the U.S. Navy simply intercept it, arrest the smugglers, and then provide evidence of drugs on board? That’s the standard procedure, usually conducted by the Coast Guard, sometimes with backup from the Navy, as Charles Savage of the New York Times noted in his analysis.

Savage interviewed Jeh Johnson, who served as the Pentagon general counsel and Homeland Security secretary during the Obama administration. Johnson noted that Congress had not authorized using military force against South American drug cartels. He further observed the Coast Guard, with the help of the Navy, has long interdicted suspected drug-smuggling boats rather than destroying them outright.

“Here the president appears to be invoking his amorphous constitutional authority to kill low-level drug couriers on the high seas, with no due process, arrest or trial,” he said, adding: “Viewed in isolation, labeling drug cartels ‘terrorists’ and invoking the ‘national interests’ to use the U.S. military to summarily kill low-level drug couriers is pretty extreme.”

With everyone on board dead and the vessel itself sunk, there’s no way to prove or disprove the White House’s claims that this was in fact a drug-smuggling vessel. How convenient.

.

The White House has provided shifting narratives on this, too. Secretary of State Marco Rubio first said the vessel was headed to Trinidad, which would undermine the idea that it was laden with drugs headed to the U.S. But Rubio changed his statement after Trump insisted that the small vessel was heading to the U.S.—again, over 1,000 kilometers away.

As demonstrated by its record with “administrative error” resulting in mistaken renditions of non-criminal immigrants to CECOT in El Salvador, as well as its “strike first, ask questions later” mistakes in Yemen, where it claimed to have killed militants but instead struck a tribal gathering celebrating the end of Ramadan, this regime has not earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to its actions or its version of events.

He has much more to say.  I encourage you to read the whole thing!

I have just one thing to add.  In High School, I could not understand how the world could allow the Nazis to do what they did to the Jews.  I could not understand how the whole world didn’t rise up to stop it.  I wondered the same thing in College.  I wondered that for most of my adult years, too.

I no longer wonder.  It’s because millions of good people have no idea what the fuck to do about it.

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Balloon Juice Angel for Kimberly Pope Adams

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Update at 1:00 pm on Friday:

The match has been met, thanks to all who donated, and to our anonymous BJ Angel, too!

This gets us to just halfway over our goal for Kimberly Pope Adams!

We have an anonymous Angel who will match donations up to $50 per person, for a total of $500, for Kimberly Pope Adams.

You all know what the stakes are, so I won’t share them here, but I would love it if some of our Virginia peeps could pop in and remind us of why these races are so important.

Let’s FLIP this seat!

Remember, people who come out to vote for state level offices usually vote the whole ticket!

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Thank You Simon Rosenberg for Writing Something That Doesn’t Make Me Want to Go Back to Bed

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There’s enough good stuff in this article that I may just use parts of it across multiple posts in the next few days.

On Trump’s Escalating Madness, Epstein, Compromise And The Unsustainable Path He Has Chosen

It often feels like Betty Cracker speaks for me, putting into words what I am thinking about current events but haven’t really been able to sort through completely.  (Thanks, Betty!)

Today, it’s Simon Rosenberg.  I probably spent two hours this morning cruising through substacks, etc and there wasn’t a thing I thought I could bear to write about.

Today’s post is a more of a collection of notes rather than a coherent essay as we all try to asses where we are now after Trump’s terrible August of spiraling madness and physical decline.

I think Trump’s disappearance last week was a significant event, and suggests that he is having significant physical and/or cognitive challenges. As we’ve discussed Trump had not taken a vacation all summer – an odd thing for such an old man in such a demanding job – which I’ve felt was a sign of disquiet and worry in his mind, a desperate need to reverse his declining poll numbers and growing sense that his government is failing, to somehow make Epstein and his horrible past disappear, of the shock of two buddies, Elon and Putin, turning on him. Rather than being a slow month to rest and reset ( as JD Vance viewed it), Trump manically attacked August – the wild, impulsive and destructive tariffs; the red carpet for Putin; the occupation of DC; the firing of the heads of the BLS and DIA and a Fed governor; Kennedy’s medieval assault on our public health; the escalating campaign to steal Congressional seats and make our elections bend the knee to him; the venal harassment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia; a new effort to illegally and unconstitutionally wrest control of federal spending away from Congress; the dark middle of the night loading of young children to traffic them to Guatemala, Uganda or god knows where else…..

Then he just disappeared without any explanation of where he had gone. No “vacation” – which would have been deserved and welcome – no a few days golfing. Just gone. Off camera for a week. After his manic and reckless August it was a bit of a shocker, and does suggest that his health problems – evident to the eye, unable to be AI-ed away – are far more serious than they admit. Then there was this bit of palace infrequent – Vance saying he was fired up and ready to go if anything happened to Trump….

I did rather like the Esquire headline:  Trump’s not dead, but it sounds like Vance wouldn’t mind if he were.

Yes, it’s horrifying to see it all laid out like that, but it’s reminding me of a conversation I had with someone while I was still at the University.  It started out with “I feel stressed but I don’t really know why” and then mentioned this one thing, and another thing, and another thing, and before I knew it, I had laid out 5 or 7 things that were going on,  I hadn’t put it all together until I started rambling, and then I felt much better somehow because of course a person would be really stressed with all that going on!

Anyway, reading this from Simon Rosenberg helped in the same way.  Forget about it, Jake.  It’s crazy town.

Every single day.

Update at 10:40 am.  Another article from Simon Rosenberg:

As Trump’s Powers Ebb We Must Fight To Win The Fall And Send A Clear Message The Tide Is Turning Against Him (New Video, Analysis)

Please call your Senators today and demand Kennedy be removed from HHS!!!!!

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Friday Morning Open Thread: Waiting on the Weekend

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✊🏾🖤❤️💚♀️
Amy Sherald takes canceled Smithsonian show to Baltimore Museum of Art – The Washington Post share.google/cH4efVgyNQGY…

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— AceTheGreat (@dryoungsr.bsky.social) September 3, 2025 at 6:35 PM

*One* good thing, to start the morning… Per the Washington Post:

… “Presenting American Sublime at the BMA is a celebration of our creative community and a joyful reunion with those shaped by Amy’s extraordinary power to connect,” Asma Naeem, the museum’s director, said in a press release. “We’re thrilled to share her transformational work with our visitors.”

“American Sublime,” which explores Black American life with large-scale portraits that include acclaimed depictions of Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor, will open at the BMA on Nov. 2 and remain on view through April 5, 2026…

Sherald, who attended the Maryland Institute College of Art, spent much of her career in Baltimore, and her work had previously been acquired by the BMA, where she once served as a board member.

In recent years, the museum has made headlines for bold efforts to diversify its programming and collection. In 2020, Sherald and fellow artist Adam Pendleton resigned from the board amid a controversy over the museum’s plan to sell three major artworks to fund such efforts. (The sale was called off just before auction.)…

According to the museum’s press release, “Free BMA Member tickets available starting October 1.
Tickets go on sale for the general public on October 8.”

******

And, for something completely different… if you want a quick recap for your normie friends, who haven’t yet grasped the whole ‘Bobby Jr is a murderous eugenicist’:

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Excellent Rebuttal Open Thread: No, We Do *Not* Have to Hand It to The Monsters

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As one can imagine, I have some thoughts. Here’s a thread no one asked for:
1. SCIENCE IN THE US IS POLITICAL. No matter how much you want to ignore that fact, it is supported by taxpayer dollars and is therefore, political by nature.
2. BUT it has had bipartisan support for decades, which…

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— Colette Delawalla (@cdelawalla.bsky.social) August 23, 2025 at 12:15 PM

For at least the fifty years I have been reading the Atlantic, it has made a habit of having one or two excellent stories in every issue… larded with a slurry of pop-cult political faddism and a never-ending stream of ‘all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds’ punditry. Katherine J. Wu’s covid reporting was one of the main reasons I finally broke down and paid for a subscription, and her article treads a careful line in reporting the GOP’s trap [gift link]:

Practicing science in the United States has become more politically fraught in the past seven months than it has ever been in this country’s history. As the Trump administration has fired vaccine advisers, terminated research grants in droves, denied the existence of gender, and accused federal scientists of corruption while publicly denigrating their work, the nation’s leaders have shown that they believe American science should be done only on their terms.

As of late, some in the scientific community have been pushing back, organizing marches and rallies, publicly criticizing government reports and agency priorities, and quitting their jobs at federal agencies. Professional medical societies have banded together to sue the Department of Health and Human Services over Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unfounded restrictions of COVID vaccines and dismissal of vaccine experts. Academic scientists have done the same, to fight for grant funding. Researchers are convening extragovernmental panels to evaluate evidence on vaccines; the American Academy of Pediatrics has published vaccine recommendations that deviate from the CDC’s, and several states in New England are mulling doing the same. This week, for the second time, hundreds of HHS officials have signed a public letter criticizing the department’s leaders for interfering with the integrity of their work.

And yet, these counterattacks may be ensnaring scientists in a catch-22. Their goal is to defend their work from political interference. “If scientists don’t ever speak up, then the court of public opinion is lost,” one university dean, who requested anonymity to avoid financial retaliation against their school from the federal government, told me: Americans would have little reason to question the government’s actions. But in retaliating, scientists also run the risk of advancing the narrative they want to fight—that science in the U.S. is a political endeavor, and that the academic status quo has been tainted by an overly liberal view of reality. “When you face a partisan attack, it’s extremely hard to respond in a way that doesn’t look partisan,” Alexander Furnas, a science-policy expert at Northwestern University, told me. “It’s a bit of a trap.”…

 
But Ms. Delawalla is also correct:

2. has made doing science ~feel~ apolitical. We’ve not really ever HAD to fight because everyone could agree this was a good ecosystem to maintain.

3. NUMBER 2 IS NO LONGER TRUE. Sorry, it’s just not. This means we have to do things a little bit different, which can feel uncomfortable 🤷🏻‍♀️

4. THE STAKES ARE FUCKING HIGH. Every. Single. Day. Someone asks me “but why would they do all this? People are going to die!”

Yes. Exactly.

It’s eugenics. It’s Lysenkoism. It’s what happens when a group of ppl in power want to reestablish a class system that has been threatened by evidence.

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