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“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Stay strong, because they are weak.

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

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

Bark louder, little dog.

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

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

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

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

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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Open Thread (and wondering)

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I am using this TOTALLY OPEN THREAD as an opportunity to also ask a question, but please treat it like an open thread!

Hoping you guys can help me out here.  We sold 284 Balloon Juice Pet Calendars in 2021, and we have sold 87 so far this year.

So i’m wondering…

  • Less enthusiasm this year because of the Cafe Press paper issue last year?
  • Current events leaving people less motivated about, maybe, everything?
  • Less enthusiasm because you’re less engaged this year b/c you didn’t send in photos this year?
  • Don’t care for the design?
  • We have put up fewer reminder posts?
  • Has the BJ pet calendar run its course?
  • Were you guys buying calendars before more as a way to support the pet charity, but we also have a thermometer now?
  • Have been planning to order, just haven’t gotten around to it yet?
  • Something else we haven’t thought of?

Anyway, it would help to understand what’s up so we know what to do next year.

If you’ve never bought BJ pet calendars in the past, no need to comment about the calendars, for you, this really is just an open thread.

OPEN THREAD.

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FL Republicans phoning it in

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Moms for Liberty cofounder Bridget Ziegler used to seek the spotlight. She was behind Ron DeSantis when he signed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill she loudly championed (second adult blonde from the right). The bill’s statehouse sponsor, former Rep. Joe Harding, was also looking on (directly behind the governor).

DeSantis signing Don't Say Gay law

Harding, a squinty fascist who spent his short political career yapping about his Christian values, has since resigned and been sentenced to prison after the DOJ busted him for small business loan scams. And as everyone now knows, Ziegler’s husband, FL GOP Chair Christian Ziegler, is being investigated for rape, and both bible-thumping Zieglers told investigators they’d had three-way sex with the accuser in the past.

The Moms for Liberty extremist organization is trying to distance itself from Bridget Ziegler, but at least one out of state chapter has adopted a less embarrassing brand name due to the Ziegler scandal fallout. This week, Bridget Ziegler resigned her gig at the conservative Leadership Institute think-tank, where she was in charge of training other religious kooks to take over school boards.

But so far, she’s hanging onto her Sarasota County School Board seat. She’s also still a DeSantis-appointed member of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board, which the governor created to punish Disney for criticizing the Don’t Say Gay law.

The school board meets next week. The tourism board met yesterday. Since this scandal is getting wall-to-wall coverage in Florida, lots of people wondered if Bridget Ziegler would show up in person to the board meeting as usual. Nope — she chickened out.

Ziegler phoned in on Zoom, appearing as a disembodied “BZ” on a screen. The other DeSantis-aligned religious fanatics and grifters on the board were present and ignored the BZ elephant in the room.

Instead, they stuck to their talking points, yammering about Disney’s operational fuckups to provide cover for the governor’s blatant attacks on free speech. But in the public comments portion of the meeting, a hero emerged in the person of Celebration, Florida resident Debra McDonald.

After noting that the governor has called on accused rapist Christian Ziegler to resign as FL GOP chair, McDonald took up the issue the board ignored: (Daily Beast)

“Bridget should follow,” McDonald continued. “Mrs. Ziegler has not made Florida a better place. She is the face of the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ revolution, which brought this board to where it is, to this place today, and has caused untold harm in our classrooms and in our communities…”

“(Bridget Ziegler’s) role in demonizing members of the LGBTQ community is hurting the state, while she has apparently been a part of the letter B in that group,” McDonald wryly observed.

Then she addressed BZ directly.

“Bridget, you need to do what is best for the greater good,” McDonald said. “We live in a free Florida, not an autocratic pseudo-Christian dictatorship.”

McDonald again spoke to the board as a whole.

“What Mrs. Ziegler does privately with other consenting adults is no more our business than it is the behavior of the other consenting adults,” McDonald said. “It is the rank hypocrisy of attacking others for what she personally practices that should disqualify her for a position of public trust.”

With that, McDonald returned to her seat in the audience.

Well done, Ms. McDonald!

I hope Sarasota residents will show up at next week’s school board meeting and follow McDonald’s example. Both Zieglers need to be hounded out of public life, and if the husband is found guilty of the crimes he’s accused of, he should go to jail for a long time. Enough with these spiteful fucking hypocrites.

Is it possible that this massive scandal implicating the state’s GOP establishment and its AstroTurf activists, combined with DeSantis’s humiliating flop on the national stage, will inspire Florida Republicans to rethink their approach? Not until they start losing elections, and they’ve been winning since the turn of the century.

That said, normies are getting an extremely unflattering close-up of the state’s culture warriors. And the hard-right state supreme court is expected to clear the way for the governor’s six-week abortion ban to take effect any day now.

It’s hard for a Democrat to be optimistic about Florida politics, so I’m a pessimist as a defense mechanism. But I will say it’s rare to see the stage set so completely for voter backlash to party overreach. We shall see.

Open thread.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: The Old Warrior Has One Last Battle In Him

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NBC News, “Biden says he’s ‘not the only one who can defeat’ Trump”

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he didn’t think he was the only Democrat who could prevail over former President Donald Trump next year but that “I will defeat him” — a day after he suggested he wouldn’t be running for re-election had Trump stayed out.

Biden was delivering remarks urging Congress to pass his national security package when he responded to a reporter’s question about whether he thought another Democrat could defeat Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner.

“Probably 50 of them,” Biden said.

“No, I’m not the only one who can defeat him, but I will defeat him,” he added.

On Tuesday, Biden said that his re-election campaign was prompted in part by Trump’s decision to run for president again and that it was an effort to block his predecessor from reclaiming the White House.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden said at a campaign event in Boston, adding that he “cannot let him win.”…

Politico adds:

…This comes after there has been a new focus on Trump’s authoritarian tendencies in the campaign. In a town hall with Fox News’ Sean Hannity earlier this week, Trump again indicated that he would use the levers of power to take revenge on his enemies if he is reelected.

“He says ‘you’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’” Trump said. “I said ‘no no no, other than day one.’”

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Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: The GOP Also-Rans, Still Debating

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Pretty much the entire political media has accepted the reality that, barring death, TFG will be the GOP nominee. As the stakes get smaller, the fighting for second place gets meaner. Rooting for injuries!

Truest comment of the evening, for all the good it’ll do:

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Wee Hours Open Thread

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Looks like we could use an open thread.  Is anybody still up?

I am not often up in the wee hours of the night, but I got my flu shot on Wednesday and I was so tired that I went to bed at 7 pm!  That’s crazy early around here, so my little Henry just woke me up to go out, and here I am.

What a crazy time we are living in, with ups and downs coming so fast we can hardly recover from one before the next one comes. Not a fan of rollercoasters, but here we are.  It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon, so we have to take care of ourselves along the way.

With that not-so-deep thought, I am headed back to bed to get some sleep.  But I will leave you with a picture of my sweet Willow.  Miss Willow is her name most of the time.  Before I named the two kitties (siblings) for a few days they were “Miss Girl” and “Mr. Boy”.  Then they became Willow and Little Bear.  Then they became Miss Willow and Mr. Bear.

Sunday Afternoon Open Thread 17

P.S.  I cannot believe that Christmas is just over two weeks away.  How did that happen?

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Late Night Open Thread: Speaker Johnson & the Domestic Terrorists

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It could be argued there’s an outside chance Speaker Johnson really believed the Capitol tapes would show ‘peaceful tourists’ quietly browsing the People’s Palace. Or it could’ve been argued, if he hadn’t immediately hustled to cover up criminal behavior by tampering with the evidence. A revered Republican tradition!

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War for Ukraine Day 651: Just a Brief Wednesday Night Update

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Graphic by NEIVANMADE of a Russian bomb with a "Z" symbol on it crashing through the roof of the Ukrainian Postal Service delivery hub. "Everyone Is a Target" and "Stop Russia" are written in the space between the destroyed roof and the fins of the bomb.

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Quick housekeeping note: This has been a very busy week. I’m somewhere between almost and deep fried. So tonight’s update will just be a briefer one than usual, as will tomorrow night’s.

The United States announced a new package of weapons and equipment for Ukraine valued at up to $175 million.

We are grateful for your unwavering support. This is a great congratulation to our warriors on Armed Forces Day.

Capabilities provided in today’s package include air defense munitions, additional ammunition for HIMARS, artillery ammunition, High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles, anti-armor missiles, small arms ammunition, demolition munitions for obstacle clearing, equipment to protect critical national infrastructure, and spare parts, ancillary equipment, services, training, and transportation.

Together, we are stronger!
🇺🇦🤝🇺🇸

Unless the Biden administration and the Democratic caucuses in both chambers of Congress can make something happen in the next week or so, this is going to be one of the last packages of US aid to Ukraine:

The Russians opened up on Ukraine again overnight:

russian terrorism shall not pass!

Overnight, the Ukrainian Air Forces shot down 41 out of 48 “Shahed” kamikaze drones in our sky.

Also yesterday, warriors of the Air Command “South” destroyed a russian SU-24M bomber near Zmiinyi Island.

Glory to Ukrainian defenders!

📹: The Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mykola Oleshchuk

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

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