Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

This fight is for everything.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

In my day, never was longer.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

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

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

People are weird.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

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

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

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

Stay strong, because they are weak.

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

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

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Trump Crime Cartel Open Thread: Where’s the *Binder*, Mark?

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Per CNN, “The mystery of the missing binder: How a collection of raw Russian intelligence disappeared under Trump”:

A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Its disappearance, which has not been previously reported, was so concerning that intelligence officials briefed Senate Intelligence Committee leaders last year about the missing materials and the government’s efforts to retrieve them, the sources said.

In the two-plus years since Trump left office, the missing intelligence does not appear to have been found.

The binder contained raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election, sources tell CNN…

The binder was last seen at the White House during Trump’s final days in office. The former president had ordered it brought there so he could declassify a host of documents related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. Under the care of then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the binder was scoured by Republican aides working to redact the most sensitive information so it could be declassified and released publicly.

The Russian intelligence was just a small part of the collection of documents in the binder, described as being 10 inches thick and containing reams of information about the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. But the raw intelligence on Russia was among its most sensitive classified materials, and top Trump administration officials repeatedly tried to block the former president from releasing the documents.

The day before leaving office, Trump issued an order declassifying most of the binder’s contents, setting off a flurry of activity in the final 48 hours of his presidency. Multiple copies of the redacted binder were created inside the White House, with plans to distribute them across Washington to Republicans in Congress and right-wing journalists.

Instead, copies initially sent out were frantically retrieved at the direction of White House lawyers demanding additional redactions…

Click the link for a whole lot of interactive information on the Who, Where, What of this intelligence heist.

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Saturday Afternoon Open Thread

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Looks like we can use an open thread!

Mr. Bear is having some health issues, so we are all struggling a bit.  He’s still my beautiful boy, though.

Though he doesn’t exactly look pleased, does he?

I can’t blame him.  I have to give him a pill that apparently smells repulsive, I have to stick medication in his ears, and he acts like I am stabbing him, and he has to wear the collar because he has a big sore on his face that was not responding to antibiotics.  The vet did an imprint of his face and sent it off to the vet school, so 5 days later, we now know what antibiotic to use from because it’s an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria.

Hope things are going better for everyone else!

Open thread.

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Here comes the rain again…

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Optional soundtrack for the post:

Big storm coming in off the Gulf of Mexico today. It has tropical components, so I’m having a bad hair day but my orchid (the sole bit of flora I am responsible for on the property) is loving it.

***

I finally got a chance to read the much-discussed NYT behind-the-scenes look at how the corrupt FedSoc-captured SCOTUS vaporized equal citizenship for half the U.S. population and guaranteed that tens of millions of women of childbearing age lost access to modern healthcare. Here’s a gift link to the piece, authored by Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak, if you want to read it too.

Spoiler: all the GOP judges are shifty shit-weasels, but Alito is the slimiest, most conniving prick of all. The NYT doesn’t say this, but I am 100% convinced the investigation of the Dobbs draft leak was inconclusive because everyone knows Alito did it, and no one wanted the court to take that reputational hit.

It’s almost worth eating fucking KALE to improve my already excellent odds of outliving Alito, that revolting, smug shart in the shape of a man. I want to read his obit with great satisfaction one fine morning.

Also, I am heartily sorry Justices Kagan, Jackson and Sotomayor have to share a workplace with such a pompous popinjay. No matter how great the catering and coffee, it cannot possibly be worth it.

***

Is anyone watching the latest season of “The Crown” on Netflix? I’m down to the last two episodes. I think they should have quit after season four.

The cast is excellent: Imelda Staunton, Jonathan Pryce  and Lesley Manville in particular are great, IMO. But the writing went downhill last season. (Could they have bludgeoned us over the heads with the Queen = HMS Britannia analogy any harder? We get it, man!) The storylines for QE2’s grandkids are not compelling, at least to me. It’s become a tedious soap opera with high production values.

I think show creator Peter Morgan mentally checked out after season four, which is too bad because his signature project started off strong. Maybe it was easier for him to create narratives for a period further back in history, before his own time.

Now the mystery is gone, and it’s just celebrity click-bait. Arguably, it was all along.

***

To wrap up with something less depressing or cynical, here’s a classic that asks the right questions and offers great advice:

Open thread!

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Rudy Still Has Some Things to Go Through

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Rudy Still Has Some Things to Go Through

From the Washington Post, “What to know about the $148M defamation verdict against Rudy Giuliani” [unpaywalled gift link]:

On Friday afternoon, a jury ruled that Rudy Giuliani must pay $148 million to two women he falsely accused of helping tamper with election results in Georgia. It’s a verdict that comes almost exactly three years after he appeared in front of state legislators in the swing state and tried to convince them that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump by poll workers like Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss. A deceptively edited video was used to claim that they were adding fake ballots to the totals and doctoring computer tallies with a USB drive; in reality, they were counting papers from regular ballot boxes and sharing a mint.

While state officials quickly debunked the allegations of election fraud, Giuliani continued to spread the accusations in television appearances and on social media. The two women sued a few weeks later, saying they “have become objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment … because of a campaign of malicious lies.” The two Black women testified in front of Congress and then before a federal jury in Washington that violent, racist threats forced them into hiding. Moss quit the job she loved as an election worker; Freeman abandoned her home.

How did the jury get to $148 million?
The jurors were asked to award damages to compensate for the reputational harm done to the two women, damages for the emotional distress caused and punitive damages to make a statement about the seriousness of the conduct.

The plaintiffs only gave a suggested number for the reputational harm; a sociologist from Northwestern University testified that it would cost roughly $47 million to counter all the false allegations about the two women on social media. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Michael Gottlieb, said Moss should also be compensated for the roughly $800,000 she would have accumulated over a lifetime had she remained in her job as an election worker. On those damages, the jury went lower than asked, awarding Freeman roughly $16 million and Moss roughly $17 million…

The jury responded by awarding each woman $20 million for emotional distress and added a whopping $75 million in punitive damages.

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War for Ukraine Day 660: A Brief Friday Night Update

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Art by NEIVANMADE of a Ukrainian painted black and outlined in blood red kneeling in grief with hands covering the face surrounded by the bodies of Ukrainians killed by Russians on a grey background. "Russia Is Committing Genocide Right Now" is across the top center of the image.

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Two quick housekeeping items. First, it’s been a very long day, so just a brief(er) post today.

Second, just a reminder that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is not the defense appropriations bill. The former establishes the DOD’s budget, as well as some budgetary matters for other agencies and departments. It also delineates what will be funded within that budget and establishes priorities. No actual money was appropriated with the FY 2024 NDAA’s passage yesterday. It is wonderful that back pay for uniformed personnel whose lives were upended by Tubberville’s idiot hold was included. As well as the large budget for Ukraine. However, there isn’t actually any money appropriated for either of these things, as well as anything else in the NDAA, yet. That’s a separate bill. It is unclear when, or perhaps if, the GOP majority House will actually finish drafting, let alone vote on, the FY 2024 defense appropriations bill. All we do know is it won’t be until sometime in January as the House went home for the holidays yesterday.

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

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Rudy Giuliani Is Learning The Eternal Truth: #ETTD

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You may recall that two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, had sued Giuliani for the harms they endured after he falsely declared Freeman and Moss had tampered with ballots in 2020.

The trial that has just concluded was not about whether Giuliani had done the deed.  He both admitted to the facts in question and so completely failed to meet his obligations in the discovery phase of the trial, which led the judge in the case to render a default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. This trial was all about damages:  how much America’s embarrassment owed for his sins.

This afternoon, after less than two full days of deliberation, the jury has given its answer:  Giuliani owes $148 million to Moss and Freeman — $33 million in direct damages for the defamation; $40 million for emotional harm, and $75 million in punitive damages.

As Josh Kovensky writes at Talking Points Memo, Rudy made it easy for the jury:

It’s a stunning damages amount, one which reflects not only the vicious campaign of harassment that Giuliani unleashed by falsely claiming that a video showed the two tampering with ballots at a Georgia voting center, but the extent to which Trump’s consigliere went out of his way to make things as bad as possible for himself. Giuliani earned Howell’s wrath throughout the pre-trial phase by repeatedly ignoring evidence requests from Freeman and Moss’ attorneys. During the trial itself, Giuliani stood outside the courtroom and repeated the claims which led to the defamation claim in the first place, further enraging the judge.

Oh–and Giuliani hasn’t got the lolly. Not even close. Odds are he’ll have to make a whole bunch of cash between now and then to merely die broke.

Rudy Giuliani Is Learning The Eternal Truth: #ETTD

Oh–and in the biggest surprise since the dog bit the man–his former client does not have his back, as Kovensky reminds us with this chef’s kiss:

Giuliani reportedly begged Trump himself for cash over the summer to cover his legal bills, but the former president refused.

Yup.

Everything Trump Touches Dies.

Image: David Teniers, Two beggars on the outskirts of a village, between 1660 and 1670.

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Friday Afternoon Open Thread

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For most of us, it’s important to our sanity and emotional health to take note of what’s going well, not just what isn’t going well or even what could go wrong.  Courtesy of (fake) Jack Smith:

Diary of the Mad King #4:

The wretched harbingers of justice continue to darken my days.

Despite my attempts to dissuade them, threaten them, turn my subjects against them, they remain undeterred, gaining in speed and strength by the day.

It is the ultimate cruelty to be robbed of what I crave most. Power, prestige and legacy.

I watch helplessly at Letitia empties my coffers.

As Jack crushes my legal gambits.

As Fani turns my pawns against me.

I can sense the dire-wolves approach, the dragons breath on my neck.

I can feel the relentless march of those yearning to end my terrible reign.

The final battles loom like an ominous prophecy.

Let us savor.

Totally open thread!

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