Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

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

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Giving up is unforgivable.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

This really is a full service blog.

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

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Let me file that under fuck it.

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

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

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

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

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Ups & Downs (Open Thread)

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Gold Bar Bob Menendez (D-Egypt) is probably relieved that the House GOP clown show and the Israel-Hamas battle took the spotlight off a new DOJ indictment that accuses him of acting as an agent for a foreign government. But Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) isn’t dropping the issue. From The Hill:

Thus far, only one Senate Democrat has called for an expulsion vote to take place and say they would vote to expel Menendez: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who lit the fuse of what has quickly become a nasty back-and-forth with Menendez over his future.

The two senators also got into an in-person tiff as they rode the escalator in opposite directions to the Capitol from the Senate subway area Tuesday morning. According to sources, Fetterman told Menendez that Tuesday would be a great day to resign.

Menendez reacted, telling Fetterman that he is hanging onto this issue too closely, echoing a line he told HuffPost a night earlier. Fetterman mockingly responded that he is “consumed” by Menendez’s indictment.

Menendez’s prissy response was that Fetterman shouldn’t get “consumed” by the case and should instead focus on things that are important to the people of Pennsylvania. I bet if you asked them, the people of the Keystone State (and the 49 other states) would tell you they don’t want corrupt politicians selling them out (though sadly too many voters in too many states keep returning crooks to office).

As a person who is represented by two Repub senators, one of whom (Rick “Medicare Fraudster” Scott) is cartoonishly corrupt, I can tell you that I’m grateful to Fetterman for speaking out on the issue. Ordinary citizens probably aren’t too keen on foreign agents chairing the Foreign Relations Committee either. Menendez wielded that gavel until forced by rule to step aside after the indictment.

Anyhoo, the Hill’s account of the escalator razzing says the two senators were riding the escalator in opposite directions, but it doesn’t say who was going which way. I like to think Fetterman was heading up while Menendez was going down. More Fettermans! Fewer Menendezes!

Open thread.

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Final Push for our 2 Virginia House Candidates!

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We have one more Balloon Juice angel!

He will match donations up to $25 per person, for a total of $500!

⭐️

The fundraising numbers for September were just released, and as promised, we are assessing whether to hold tight where we are or to try to raise a bit more funds Michael Feggans and Kim Pope Adams– both are young, up-and-coming African-American progressives in the swingy Hampton Roads area.

Thanks to our Balloon Juice angels and all who donated, we’ve raised over $20,000 for our two Virginia House of Delegates candidates!   Michael and Kim are challenging very vulnerable and ideologically extreme Republicans –  one-term incumbents Kim Taylor and Karen Greenhalgh.

There’s a lot of money flowing into Virginia for this election, especially into the handful of toss-up races.  And it’s hard to predict some of these races:  there’s no polling, and the districts were all re-drawn last year.  There’s a lot of guesswork.  But the Republicans are clearly worried about the two shaky Republican incumbents we are challenging on Balloon Juice.

So where do things stand?

At the end of September, dark Republican money poured into the Republican Greenhalgh and Taylor campaigns:  Hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Republican Commonwealth Leadership PAC and Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC were dumped at the end of the month.  Roughly  two tenths of one percent were donations under $100 for these Republicans.  That’s less than 1%; – hell, that’s less than half of a half %!  They have no grassroots support.  But they have panicky dark money.

Our candidates have done well with grassroots fundraising, and they held their own in bigger donations as well, but they are not sitting on the financial cushion their opponents have from the last minute influx of dark money.  So let’s direct a bit more money to our two candidates.  We’re at $20,500,  have a final $500 angel match, so that will get us to $21,000.  

Can we try to get the thermometer to $25,000?

We looked at the other race in Virginia that is considered a toss-up (white guy vs. white guy) and both are really well funded) so our money wouldn’t make a difference.

We also looked a slightly lean Democrat – or “tilt” Dem, as they say in Virginia!   He was most interesting of the other Democrats we have been watching, but he is over-performing in fundraising, and looks to be in good shape.  So at this stage, tossing a few thousand dollars to him would be superfluous.

The Republicans are clearly worried about the two shaky Republican incumbents we are challenging on Balloon Juice, and the last-minute dump of Republican big money agains our two candidates tipped the scales in terms of whether to try to get them a bit more funding  So let’s give our all to our two promising up-and-coming African-American progressives!

This election is so important – we all know that this is not just a local race –  and Balloon Juice peeps have stepped up!  I like to think we made a difference with our targeted fundraising.

I think our two candidates here have bright futures – let’s do our best to get then started NOW!

I hope you guys will all share your thoughts on Virginia!

Open thread.

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Fingers Crossed for Payback Against Gym Jordan and His Bullying

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Dare we hope?  Fingers seriously crossed for some payback for Gym Jordan and his bullying.

He cried, begged, pleaded and bullied the wrestlers when they were coming forward.  I hope that Gym Jordan comes to understand – just like Trump – that has has brought consequences upon himself by flying too close to the sun.

Mock here, and Watch on C-SPAN  (in theory, it starts at 11 am Eastern)

Fingers Crossed for Payback Against Gym Jordan and His Bullying
(click the image above to see the non-blurry version of the image.)

Open thread!

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And the clown car rolled on…

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The latest horserace report from Politico says that Jim Jordan allies’ attempts to strong-arm colleagues into falling in line has backfired and “could soon doom his speakership push outright.” The Jordon skeptics seem especially irate about Sean Hannity publishing the 20 GOP defectors’ names and phone numbers to activate the Fox News army of angry recliner chair-bound voters, calling the effort “a coordinated push with a threatening theme: Vote for Jordan — or else.”

Again, welcome to the party, pals. Please excuse the rest of us for drinking all the punch and hoovering up the hors d’oeuvres while y’all were still part of the rampaging extortionist mob. Here’s our offer: nothing.

Acknowledging that his speaker bid is in limbo, Jordan punted his plan to hold a second vote on Tuesday after Republicans privately warned he was at risk of seeing his opponents’ numbers grow. Instead, he is expected to huddle with allies and make calls in an attempt to get his bid back on track before a second vote as soon as Wednesday.

“We’re going to keep working, and we’re going to get the votes,” Jordan said on Tuesday night, saying that Republicans were having “great conversations.”

But one House Republican, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about private conversations, said that Jordan and his lieutenants are “calling people who voted for him trying to stop the bleeding.” And they warned that those calls are “pissing off” members rather than winning them over, noting Jordan has failed to strongly and publicly disavow the attacks against his detractors.

Even if Jordan publicly calls off the flying monkeys today, it may be too late. Unnamed House Repubs in the Politico piece said the attempts to bully members into submission “amounted to a preview of the tactics that the ultraconservative Ohioan could employ if he claimed the top gavel — a readiness to unleash online wrath from the GOP base and its favored conservative pundits.”

That was okay when Jordan helped gin up a mob to overturn the 2020 election and then held a knife to the U.S. economy’s throat by threatening to not pay our bills. The GOP holdouts are only squawking now because the Freedom Caucus is aiming the mob at them.

I’m going to call my shitty Jordan-supporting rep today to once again register my objections to the absurd notion that a person who encouraged a mob to invade a congressional chamber should lead it. If you have a Democratic rep, consider thanking them for voting for Jeffries — and encourage them to stay strong.

Open thread.

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War for Ukraine Day 601: ATACMS? I Don’t Even Knowm Ems!

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Last night I included a tweet from  Special Kherson Cat with video showing that Ukraine had hit the Russian air base in Berdiansk. Now we know what munitions the Ukrainians used. The Biden administration has, apparently, very quietly sent ATACMS to Ukraine:

The Ukrainians very loudly passed them on to the Russians!

The Kyiv Independent has details:

Ukraine struck Russian forces with the U.S.-supplied long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), marking their first usage on the battlefield, unnamed U.S. officials confirmed to CNN on Oct. 17.

The missiles, previously unknown to have even been deployed in Ukraine, were reportedly used in overnight strikes against Russian military airfields in occupied Luhansk and Berdiansk that were reported on Oct. 17.

The strikes reportedly destroyed nine helicopters, an air defense system, an ammunition warehouse, and other airfield infrastructure.

Dozens of Russian soldiers were also killed and wounded in the attacks, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces claimed.

Debates and premature announcements about the U.S.’ delivery of ATACMS to Ukraine have been regularly reported for months, but no official date was ever announced.

Their delivery was deliberately kept secret, the unnamed officials said, because they were concerned that Russian forces would move equipment out of the missile’s range if they knew when they would arrive.

ATACMS can hit targets deep behind the front line at a range of up to 300 kilometers and can be launched from M270 multiple rocket launchers or the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

However, photos of the missile debris shared on Russian Telegram and Twitter indicate that the missiles used likely belonged to an older class of missile, with a range of 160 kilometers.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, unnamed sources confirmed that the missiles provided have a range of about 160 kilometers.

The occupied cities of Luhansk and Berdiansk are located about 85 kilometers and 100 kilometers, respectively, from the closest front line.

As a result, the usage of ATACMS in the attacks on Luhansk and Berdiansk does not in of itself demonstrate that Ukraine now possesses the newer class of missiles that can strike up to nearly 300 kilometers.

More at the link!

Over to CNN for more details:

The US secretly provided Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles in recent days, according to multiple US officials, providing Ukraine with a significant new capability that could allow its forces to hit new Russian targets that were previously out of reach.

The confirmation came on Tuesday after images of the missiles’ submunitions inside Ukraine began circulating on social media.

US officials indicated to CNN on Tuesday that Ukraine has already used the ATACMS, some variants of which have a maximum range of approximately 186 miles, to attack Russia’s Berdyansk and Luhansk airfields in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military tweeted on Tuesday that the attack destroyed several Russian helicopters, an ammunition depot and an air defense launcher, but did not specify whether they used ATACMS to do it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the ATACMS in his daily address and expressed his gratitude for the agreements with the US being implemented.

“Today, I am especially grateful to the United States. Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented. They are being implemented very accurately – the ATACMS have proven themselves,” Zelensky said.

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that “The United States recently provided Ukraine with a type of ATACMS capable of ranging out to 165 km as part of our ongoing support for the people of Ukraine as they defend their territory against Russia’s brutal invasion. We believe this will provide a significant boost to Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities without risking our military readiness.”

A US official said the version of the missiles the US provided to Ukraine, which carry cluster munitions instead of unitary warheads, are not in the the stockpiles the Pentagon would draw from if the US became directly involved in a war, so there were no concerns that transferring them would hinder US military readiness. National security adviser Jake Sullivan first asked the NSC in mid-July, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive appeared to be moving more slowly than anticipated, to work with the Pentagon to provide an updated memo on ATACMS options that assessed the potential impacts on US military readiness, the official said.

The official said the missiles were provided “in recent days,” and that Biden signed off on their transfer in mid-September. In a meeting with Zelensky at the White House on September 21, Biden told Zelensky about his decision to send this particular variant of the ATACMS, known as APAM or anti-personnel/anti-materiel.

The US decided to send them quietly because they wanted to take the Russians by surprise, especially after months of public back-and-forth over whether Biden would agree to send the weapons, an official said. The Russians are aware of the range of the missiles and the US was concerned they would move equipment and weapons out of reach before the missiles could be used, the official said.

More at the link!

And more on it after the jump too.

President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today is after the jump. Both the video and the English transcript.

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Tuesday Evening Open Thread: There’s Always Money In Predicting That Democrats Are *Doomed!!!*

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A reminder, while we watch the GOP Death Cult eat sh*t… its own:

…the low-propensity _white_ voters may have leaned more Dem. Among white voters college degrees weee correlated w both more consistent turnout & w voting Repub. But that link is breaking. In recent years white voters w college degrees have swung Dem. Turnout & partisanship…

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