Balloon Juice - Open Threads Archives

Chese & Krakens

by Betty Cracker| September 15, 20232:09 pm| 153 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Trump Crime Cartel, Trump Indictments

Fulton County Judge McAfee is creating a hellish charcuterie board, and the cheese doesn’t want to be paired with the crispy Kraken, but the judge says that’s too damn bad. (Daily Beast)

Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect of the so-called fake elector scheme launched in a frenzied attempt to keep former President Donald Trump in office, just can’t get away from Sidney Powell.

After ruling last week that the two will be tried together, Fulton County Supreme Court Judge Scott McAfee on Thursday further ruled that their trial will be conducted apart from Trump and 16 other co-defendants in the sprawling racketeering prosecution brought by District Attorney Fani Willis over attempts to subvert the state’s 2020 presidential election returns…

“Mr. Chesebro has never physically met Sidney Powell; Mr. Chesebro has never sent an email to Ms. Powell; Mr. Chesebro has never received an email from Ms. Powell; Mr. Chesebro has never called Ms. Powell; Mr. Chesebro has never received a phone call from Ms. Powell; Mr. Chesebro has never texted Ms. Powell; Mr. Chesebro has never received a text message from Ms. Powell; and Mr. Chesebro has never communicated with Ms. Powell through any social media or telecommunications application,” Chesebro’s motion stated. “In sum, there has never been any direct contact or communication between Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell. Similarly, there is no correlation or overlap between the overt acts or the substantive charges associated with Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell.

The defense lawyers consulted for the article (i.e., not affiliated with either coup plotter) imply the Cheese Bro is desperate to separate himself from the Kraken Lady because he expects a lot more damning evidence to emerge in her case and fears it will taint him in the eyes of the jury. Unfortunately for Cheese Bro, the judge interpreted his severance motion (and Kraken Lady’s much less vociferous one) as evidence that the risk of evidence overlap is minimal.

It’s starting to look like that speedy trial motion will not redound to Chesebro’s benefit. Womp-womp-womp-woooooomp!

Open thread.

Chese & KrakensPost + Comments (153)

Odds & Ends (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker| September 15, 202311:27 am| 171 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging, Open Threads, The State of Being Trans in America

HuffPo did an investigative report about the paid experts who travel around the country helping wingnut states defend anti-trans laws, such as bans on gender-affirming care, so-called “bathrooms bills” and trans participation in youth sports. Y’all will be shocked to learn the “experts” are greedy, unqualified, bible-humping assholes who don’t give a shit about the laws’ impact on real people’s lives! An excerpt:

Most…practice medicine in a field related to gender-affirming care — such as psychiatry or endocrinology — but have treated only a handful of adolescent patients for gender dysphoria, if that, and haven’t published relevant research. Several belong to openly anti-trans groups and have urged state legislatures to pass the very laws they get paid to defend.

Some of the most prominent witnesses were recruited by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal powerhouse whose mission is to realize a country governed by far-right Christian values. And many share ADF’s extreme antipathy toward LGBTQ+ people.

“They’re hired guns,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a lawyer for the LGBTQ+ rights group Lambda Legal who has faced Hruz and his cohorts in several cases. “These are not real experts. They’re manufactured as experts by the opponents of transgender rights.”

Still, for a rate of hundreds of dollars an hour, they can lend a sheen of scientific rigor to school bathroom restrictions and bans on gender-affirming care.

And they are increasingly having an impact. On Aug. 25, a Missouri judge temporarily upheld the state’s four-year ban on most gender-affirming treatments for minors, writing, “The science and medical evidence is conflicting and unclear.”

When a trans kid’s mom shared her fears about the heightened risk of suicide for adolescents who are denied gender-affirming care, one of the profiled “experts” told her to read Pope John Paul II’s opinions on the topic and said, “Some children are born into this world to suffer and die.”

That sick motherfucker’s name is Dr. Paul Hruz. According to HuffPo, he is a pediatric endocrinologist and has testified in 12 cases. Sarah Huckabee-Sanders’ state government in Arkansas has paid that man more than $41K.

Thinking about people like Hruz makes me stabby, so I’m gonna abruptly change the subject to dogs, okay?

The heroic police dog who nabbed the fugitive murderer in Pennsylvania earlier this week is a four-year-old Belgian Malinois named Yoda. Here is that good boy:

Police dog

Thanks, Yoda!

Open thread.

Odds & Ends (Open Thread)Post + Comments (171)

Friday Morning Open Thread: Shana Tovah!

by Anne Laurie| September 15, 20237:08 am| 313 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, President Biden, Proud to Be A Democrat, Religion

Dip your apple in the honey…

At Rosh Hashanah reception at the Vice President’s residence, VP Harris quotes the Talmud (Pirkei Avot), “It not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.” pic.twitter.com/irNXcBjiHA

— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) September 13, 2023

Honored to be at the home of @VP for a Rosh Hashanah celebration. My grandparents were chased from Russia. Today I celebrated the coming New Year at the VP’s home, where a mezuzah adorns the entrance. pic.twitter.com/QlHT7DPeDD

— Rep. Steve Israel (@RepSteveIsrael) September 12, 2023

======

For @MSNBC: No Joe Biden is not dropping out of the 2024 race; he’s not booting VP Harris from the ticket … and he’s still the Democrats best hope to win in 2024 https://t.co/qTlTM2QSFs

— Michael A. Cohen (NOT TRUMP’S FORMER FIXER) (@speechboy71) September 14, 2023

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Friday Morning Open Thread: <em>Shana Tovah!</em>Post + Comments (313)

Late Night Open Thread: Every Man His Own Martyr

by Anne Laurie| September 15, 20232:30 am| 48 Comments

This post is in: domestic terrorists, Jan 6: Insurrection, Open Threads, Republican Venality

“You have the right not to wear T-shirts incriminating yourself, you… you fucking moron.” https://t.co/pDHffn5z3K

— Euan MacDonald (@Euan_MacDonald) September 14, 2023

Do me a favor, Henry: Make this into an ad. Vote Trump, so seditionists can run the streets again! https://t.co/PdkJnVvhjU

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) September 14, 2023

I wrote up a piece for @ArcDigi about some of the MAGA responses to the Tarrio sentence. Sarah Palin asked “what’s the point of being a good guy?” And the likes of Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles naturally talked about child traffickers and rapists. https://t.co/pXDbnc5NO8

— Alan Elrod (@aselrod) September 8, 2023

If Tarrio showed up unannounced in her nice suburban neighborhood, Palin would either call out the neighborhood watch or ask him where his landscaping equipment was.

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Sarah Palin went on Eric Bolling’s Newsmax show this week to express her displeasure at Enrique Tarrio being sentenced to 22 years for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection. For Palin, Tarrio’s sentence is an outrage for a fairly simple reason: he and other January 6 defendants are the good guys…

Palin’s argument is perfectly in step with how extremist nationalism operates. The people acting on behalf of the nation cannot be doing wrong. They’re by definition heroic figures. If they’re not that, they’re redeemed by their sheer everydayness.

This is typical of January 6 apologia. The insurrectionists were some combination of patriotic, harmless, and understandably outraged people, united by being normal Americans.

At worst, they were people who got carried away and committed some minor offenses like scuffling with officers and damaging property. At best? It was 1776.

What’s important is that these are the good Americans, the good guys. Their actions don’t deserve or necessitate the use of the state’s powerful capacity to apply justice. In fact, doing so delegitimizes the state because no good government would treat them like the real criminals who are deservedly punished by our police and courts every day…

Matt Lewis, at the Daily Beast:

… Former Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake took the opportunity to revisit an old trope, calling it a “staged riot,” and saying that “many of the people were encouraged to go in by FBI informants.”

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested that, as president, he would pardon rioters who were handed “excessive sentences.” Like others on the right, DeSantis went out of his way to argue that “a lot of people with the BLM riots… didn’t get prosecuted at all.”…

… Likewise, presidential candidate and tech bro Vivek Ramaswamy lamented that “Antifa and BLM rioters roam free while peaceful Jan. 6 protesters are imprisoned without bail.” As such, Ramaswamy pledged to pardon “all peaceful, nonviolent Jan. 6 protesters who were denied their constitutional due process rights.”…

Regardless of the sentencing, it seems likely that the fate of the Capitol rioters will ultimately be determined based on which party wins next year’s presidential election. So while their prosecution wasn’t politically motivated, their pardoning most certainly would be.

This is an open secret that is already being used to encourage MAGA voters to get-out-the-vote…

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee declared this week that “People in power use their police agencies to arrest their opponents for made-up crimes in an attempt to discredit them bankrupt and imprison them, exile them, are all of the above. And if you’re not paying attention, you may not realize that Joe Biden is using exactly those tactics to make sure that Donald Trump is not his opponent in 2024.”

“If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024,” Huckabee continued, “it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets.” (Regarding Huckabee’s dangerous rhetoric, it’s unclear where the warning of violence stops and the inciting of violence begins.)…

Every woman, too…

“Don’t take me seriously, I’m a fucking blowhard” is true of 99.995% of these people. They’re just unserious fucking blowhards.

The problem, of course, is the remaining 0.005%. https://t.co/i7gkmkElMF

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 11, 2023

JUST IN—

Ashli Babbitt’s mother was captured on video making a death threat against Nancy Pelosi.

Again.

She claimed it wasn’t a threat because she wasn’t going to follow through on it. https://t.co/BVD43UmC2n

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) September 11, 2023

Micki Witthoeft, the mother of January 6th insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, once again called for Nancy Pelosi to be hanged in another sick violence-laden rant this weekend…

“Being an equal opportunity rope swinger, I think Nancy Pelosi belongs at the end of a rope,” Witthoeft said to deafening cheers from the crowd of terrorists. She went on, “again these are not threats because I don’t want to get hit with seditious conspiracy or some other charge. So while you’re writing the indictment FBI get that straight. I said they deserve it, not that I’m going to do it.”

Witthoeft: “I’m not a vigilante, and I don’t plan on stringing Nancy Pelosi or [Capitol Police Officer] Michael Byrd up. So I will have to wait for God to give them their justice, or the American people. Because it’s within our power.”

Just to note: the FBI, just like any agency of the DOJ, or Jack Smith, or any DA or prosecutor, doesn’t have indictment capability. That power rests with citizen grand juries.

The FBI does, however, have the ability to investigate the increasingly violent calls for terrorism on the right.

Also the charming Ms. Witthoeft:

Great story by @ArthurDelaneyHP, including this… interesting exchange https://t.co/TzcbnT7GOo pic.twitter.com/BjnDVbW5D4

— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) August 19, 2023

Meanwhile, at the Justice Department…

Justice Dept is stacking up more Jan 6 guilty pleas (650+ so far)

Tyng Yang of Illinois has pleaded guilty to civil disorder.
Prosecutors said, "When.. officers attempted to clear the crowd, Yang forcibly interfered by physically grabbing hold of an officer’s baton"

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) September 14, 2023

A growing wave of new Jan 6 arrests. Feds have now charged Billy Gober of Texas. They allege Gober confronted officers as police line collapsed & “Gober charged at another MPD officer, grabbed the officer’s baton, and attempted to take it.”

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) September 14, 2023

Late Night Open Thread: Every Man His Own MartyrPost + Comments (48)

Schadenfreude Read: That’s What I Call Ponzinomics!

by Anne Laurie| September 14, 20239:02 pm| 87 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Excellent Links, social media, Sociopaths

Congrats to @ZekeFaux on the publication of his rip-roaring fun book on the crypto con game, NUMBER GO UP, which is out today. The whole thing is great; here's a little sample from his @NYMag excerpt https://t.co/UFvZaAZriJ

— Andrew Rice (@riceid) September 12, 2023

Mad props to Zeke Faux, at NYMag — “With Sam Bankman-Fried, Gisele, and a credulous Michael Lewis at the zenith of crypto hype”:

“Three years ago, nobody knew who you were. And now you’re sitting on the cover of magazines. And you’re a gazillionaire. And your business is, like, one of the fastest-growing businesses in the history of the planet.”

Sam Bankman-Fried giggled and nodded nervously, shaking his messy crown of curly hair, as the writer Michael Lewis lavished him with praise. They were onstage at a resort in the Bahamas for a conference put on by the 30-year-old billionaire to celebrate the success of his crypto exchange, FTX. It was April 2022, and pretty much everyone who mattered in the world of virtual currencies had flown in for the occasion — plus Bill Clinton, Katy Perry, and Tom Brady for good measure.

Bankman-Fried was dressed slovenly as usual, in gray shorts and a gray FTX T-shirt. Lewis looked like a prep-school headmaster, wearing a blue blazer with peak lapels and a white button-down with blue accents, his floppy hair parted perfectly to the side. The way he was talking about Bankman-Fried, he sounded as if he were presenting a prize to his star pupil. “You’re breaking land-speed records,” Lewis said. “And I don’t think people are really noticing what’s happened, just how dramatic the revolution has become.”

I’d heard that Bankman-Fried was going to be the subject of Lewis’s next book. But the author’s questions were so fawning they seemed inappropriate for a journalist. Listening from the packed auditorium, I started to question whether Lewis was really writing a work of nonfiction or if FTX had paid him to appear. (Lewis later told me that he was there as a reporter and that he was not compensated.)

I’d come to the Bahamas because I was about a year into an investigation of the crypto world. I wanted to understand why the prices of bitcoin and hundreds of lesser coins — with ridiculous names like dogecoin, solana, polkadot, and Smooth Love Potion — were going up and up. Crypto boosters claimed they were in the vanguard of a revolution that would democratize finance and create generational wealth for those who believed. The roar of the rising prices drowned out the skeptics. Incomprehensible jargon became inescapable. Blockchain. DeFi. Web3. The metaverse. What these terms meant was beside the point. Newspapers, TV, and social media bombarded readers with stories of regular people who invested and got rich virtually overnight.

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Crypto seemed like a giant slot machine that had been rigged to pay out almost every time. Hundreds of millions of people around the world gave in to the temptation to pull the lever. Everybody knew somebody who’d hit it big. And the more people who bought in, the higher prices rose. By the time of the conference in the Bahamas, the total market value of all of crypto was $2 trillion.

From the beginning, I had thought that crypto was pretty dumb. And it turned out to be even dumber than I imagined. There was no mass movement to actually use crypto in the real world. The crypto apps hyped as the future of finance and art barely worked. As I crisscrossed the globe, from El Salvador to Switzerland to the Philippines, all I saw were scams, fraud, and half-baked schemes. By the end, I’d find myself in Cambodia, investigating how crypto fueled a vast human-trafficking scheme run by Chinese gangsters…

Bankman-Fried’s other turns onstage at the conference were similarly mindless. He stumbled through an interview with the former British prime minister Tony Blair and Clinton, who at one point extended a fatherly hand of support. He exchanged banalities about charity with Gisele Bündchen, with whom he’d posed for an FTX ad campaign that ran in Vogue and GQ, and platitudes about leadership with her husband, Tom Brady…

It was depressing to see that many people whom I had admired had been co-opted by Bankman-Fried to promote crypto gambling. I’d later learn Brady and Bündchen were paid about $50 million in stock for their endorsements. Clinton was reportedly paid at least $250,000 to appear at the conference.

The crowd there lacked the quasi-religious fervor I’d seen at more plebeian crypto gatherings. Instead, the attendees fell into three groups. There were the venture capitalists, who’d gotten in early, watched the tokens they bought climb to ludicrous heights, and now believed they could predict the future. There were the founders of crypto start-ups, who’d raised so many millions of dollars that they seemed to believe their own far-fetched pitches about creating the next generation of finance. Then there were the programmers, who were so caught up with their clever ideas about new things to do inside the crypto world that they never paused to think about whether the technology did anything useful.

At a party for a project called Degenerate Trash Pandas, I asked one coder if crypto would ever be helpful for regular people. “Why is it that you think that is important?” he said to me, in total sincerity. “I really would like to know.”…

Another crypto executive showed me a digital image of a sneaker that he’d bought for $8 and that he said was now worth more than $1 million. He told me that recently, all owners of these imaginary sneakers had been issued an image of a box, which was itself worth $30,000. When he opened the box, he found another picture of sneakers and another box, each of them valuable in their own right. “It’s this never-ending Ponzi scheme,” he said happily. “That’s what I call Ponzinomics.”…

The next time I saw him was in November 2022, in the lobby beneath his $30 million apartment. It was eight days after FTX declared bankruptcy with $8 billion of his customers’ money gone missing. On the way over, I had imagined Bankman-Fried’s mood would be grim. I’d even worried that he might be suicidal. But when he greeted me, shoeless, in his familiar wrinkled uniform, he seemed surprisingly upbeat.

“It’s been an interesting few weeks,” Bankman-Fried said, and together we rode the elevator up to his penthouse.

I’d think that right now, among the myriad people looking to strangle SBF, Michael Lewis would not be in the rearguard.

Sam Bankman-Fried's philosophy led him to some dark places says 'Number Go Up' author and Bloomberg reporter @ZekeFaux https://t.co/wfEF73k7xA pic.twitter.com/fA9u4NLor8

— Bloomberg (@business) September 14, 2023

ok, so previously… SBF leaked his ex Caroline's diaries to the NYT (and got his bail revoked for witness tampering)

but turns out SBF also leaked his own diaries to @TiffanyFong_ who now leaked them to the NYT too?

amazing shenanigans!!!!! 😂https://t.co/mLIDBFgl8R

— Tracy Wang (@0x_tracy) September 14, 2023

investigative journalism is still being kept alive and well by the likes of reporters like @ZekeFaux

in this clip, zeke describes traveling to cambodia to investigate "pig-butchering" crypto scams

oftentimes, these rackets are put on by chinese gangsters holding workers captive pic.twitter.com/9lElhkcUMo

— This Week in Startups (@twistartups) September 14, 2023

Schadenfreude Read: <em>That’s What I Call Ponzinomics!</em>Post + Comments (87)

War for Ukraine Day 568: Russian Occupied Crimea Under Threat

by Adam L Silverman| September 14, 20237:26 pm| 44 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Military, Open Threads, Russia, Silverman on Security, War, War in Ukraine

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Ukraine struck Russian military targets in Russian occupied Crimea overnight.

First, drones targeted the ‘eyes’ of the complex, including radars and antennas. After disabling the radar stations, Navy units launched two ‘Neptune’ cruise missiles, wiping out ‘Triumph’

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) September 14, 2023

More on this after the jump.

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

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We need a powerful system of the warriors’ rights protection in the defense sector itself – address by the President of Ukraine

14 September 2023 – 22:11

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

A few highlights from the day.

Our country celebrated the Day of Tank Forces today for the first time. Previously, there was a Soviet date for the professional day of tank forces. And now there is not just a motive to give a Ukrainian meaning to all such days, not just the desire of our people, but also the specific result of the Ukrainian warriors that should be honored at the level of the entire state.

I honored our tank crewmen with state awards. Soldiers, sergeants, officers. Our bravest warriors! With the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Order “For Courage”, and the medal “For Military Service to Ukraine”. Two warriors – Sergeant Vladyslav Simak and Senior Sergeant Oleh Palamarchuk – received the Crosses of Combat Merit for their bravery and efficiency. I thank you guys! I thank all Ukrainian tank crewmen! It is very important that our tank forces are constantly progressing – training and using more advanced and modern tanks in combat. There will also be Abrams tanks under Ukrainian flags – we are constantly reinforcing our warriors.

I held a meeting with the Minister of Defense of Ukraine and discussed some key issues. The decisions that our society in general and Ukrainian warriors in particular expect from the Ministry of Defense. The Minister will present them upon finalization of all the details. Today, I would like to emphasize the joint work of Rustem Umerov and the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets on such a new institution as a military ombudsman. This is truly necessary. We need a powerful system of the warriors’ rights protection in the defense sector itself.

Today I met with representatives of the Ukrainian Jewish community – rabbis from different cities of Ukraine, and our warriors. It was a very warm meeting on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. It is important that all communities in Ukraine are united in the goal of defending Ukraine and ensuring a normal life for all our people. I awarded the warriors with state awards – the Orders “For Courage”. I thanked the representatives of religious organizations for supporting people here in Ukraine, supporting the state, and telling the whole world – the entire Jewish community of the world – the truth about Russia’s aggression and terror.

Today we have a good result in our cooperation with the International Criminal Court. A result that brings accountability for Russian war crimes closer. The International Criminal Court has opened a field office in Ukraine, and it is the largest ICC office outside of The Hague. And it is great that there is full and coordinated cooperation between the Prosecutor General’s Office, all Ukrainian law enforcement institutions and the International Criminal Court. It is this cooperation that helps us bring the moment of justice for Ukraine and all our people who have suffered from this war closer – the moment of lawful and deserved sentences for Russian criminals.

One more thing. The entire staff of the Security Service of Ukraine and our Navy should be specially commended for this. I thank you for today’s triumph – the destruction of the occupiers’ air defense system on the land of our Crimea. It is a very significant achievement, well done! Glory to all who fight for Ukraine! And thank you to everyone who helps!

Glory to Ukraine!

Yevpatoria, Russian occupied Crimea:

Preliminary BDA assessment thread on successful Yevpatoria attack: tonight, videos surfaced, showing explosions in close vicinity to Yevpatoria. Satellite imagery confirms S-400 battery engagement, destroying at least one S-400 TEL near Zaozerne.
🧵Thread: pic.twitter.com/6Np5Ffpo7P

— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) September 14, 2023

3/ It appears that other vehicles are in motion, having left their revetments, indicating an attempt to relocate. Notably, the absence of the all-altitude detector 96L6-1 suggests that it either wasn't originally present or was the first vehicle removed from the site pic.twitter.com/EaeveMt4pW

— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) September 14, 2023

5/ The deployed S-400 system, a cutting-edge air-defense system in russia, has been destroyed, revealing vulnerabilities to Ukrainian weaponry. This weakens their air-defense capabilities and creates new opportunities for deeper strikes.

— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) September 14, 2023

Made updates per @GuyPlopsky suggestion (removed E from the radar name, which is for export versions)

— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) September 14, 2023

🛸/1. In the early morning a UAV attack on Crimea. Presumebly, Russian air defense base near Yevpatoriya was attacked. pic.twitter.com/euVkll4wly

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) September 14, 2023

🛸/3. Footages of UAVs used during attack on Yevpatoriya area this morning.
Russian Ministry of Defense claims that at about 05.30 air defense downed 11 Ukrainian aircraft-type drones over Crimea. pic.twitter.com/aXRNFt7V3O

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) September 14, 2023

🛸/5. https://t.co/msGUGHr478

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) September 14, 2023

🛸/7. Detailed satellite image of the results of todays early morning attack on Russian air defense base near Yevpatoriya, Crimea. https://t.co/WUH1L8mJ9t

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) September 14, 2023

Sevastopol, Russian occupied Crimea:

This video shows the large landing ship Minsk after the strike against the ship repair plant in Sevastopol. pic.twitter.com/xwwtI1E0VQ

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) September 14, 2023

Andriivka:

Andriivka is liberated! We are moving forward 💪🏻🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/UUmKFq6jjy

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) September 14, 2023

Orikhiv Axis:

ORIKHIV AXIS /1315 UTC 14 SEP/ UKR drives back Russian attacks N of Konka River and Verbove: Russian losses heavy. A RU attack at Novodanylivka was also broken up and driven back. pic.twitter.com/ugCbp9faxa

— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) September 14, 2023

Velyka Nosilka-Vuhledar:

VELYKA NOVOSILKA-VUHLEDAR /2200 UTC 14 SEPT/ UKR forces remain in contact on northern limits of Zavitne Bazhanya. Fighting continues on the Mokri Yaly Valley / T-05-18 HWY axis. pic.twitter.com/RrbbN2CSYm

— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) September 14, 2023

The Black Sea:

Russian patrol ship Vasily Bykov meets Ukrainian air drones. It appears there’s no place in the Black Sea for Russian warships. pic.twitter.com/3j2D79wIGG

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) September 14, 2023

Naval News has more details:

Two Russian ships, the tanker Yaz and the suspected arms runner Ursa Major, are headed to Istanbul where they will leave the Black Sea. Evidence suggests that, at the same time as the cruise missile attack on Sevastopol, they were targeted by Ukrainian maritime drones.

The first indications of the attack, shared with Naval News, came before 3am local time on September 13. By morning imagery of fierce fires in Sevastopol were coming in, and it soon emerged that two Russian Navy vessels were hit. The cruise missile attack on Sevastopol got world attention. A Russian Navy landing ship and a submarine were damaged, possibly destroyed.

Taking these vessels out of the fight is a significant success for Ukraine. But there is a lot which has been going less reported. Ukraine also attempted to thwart Russia’s vital weapons and military fuel supplies which flow in and out of the Black Sea.

Simultaneously with the cruise missile strike there was an attack by Ukrainian USVs (maritime drones). It is likely that the USVs (uncrewed surface vessels) were targeting key Russian ships sailing across the Black Sea.

The attacks are part of a wider shift in the Black Sea. The launching of ten Storm Shadow or SCALP-EG cruise missiles can be tied back to the destruction of an S-400 system in northwest Crimea on August 24. Together with prying Russian surveillance systems off gas platforms offshore, this will have contributed to the Ukrainian jets’ ability to operate over the water. Russian air defenses remain a serious threat, but Ukraine is gaining space.

The upshot is a spectacular strike on Sevastopol, Russia’s main naval base in the region. Current information suggests that 5 Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer jets launched 10 missiles. Some of the missiles were shot down, but several hit the dry dock. There the Project 775 Ropucha Class landing ship Minsk was reduced to a twisted wreck. Most of the superstructure was razed, with the main mast left leaning precariously to starboard. Nearby the Project 636.3 Improved-Kilo class submarine Rostov-on-Don was hit. Again, the damage is believed to be significant.

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Quick Reminder

by Anne Laurie| September 14, 20236:48 pm| 63 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Venality

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)

For folks who primarily consume right-wing media funded by billionaires, let me help on the Hunter issue and what's not been proven:

1. The committee has not found any direct evidence that President Biden personally benefited from any of his son’s biz dealings.

— Heidi Przybyla 🌺 (@HeidiReports) September 5, 2023

“National investigations, Politico” reporter:

a report released by Senate Republicans that found Hunter Biden's role on the board of Burisma "awkward" and at times "problematic" .. but provides no new evidence and found no instance of policy being altered as a result of his role."https://t.co/b1QoA2FXg0

— Heidi Przybyla 🌺 (@HeidiReports) September 5, 2023

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Thursday Evening Open Thread: Quick ReminderPost + Comments (63)

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

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

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

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

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Second rate reporter says what?

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

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

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Chese & Krakens

Odds & Ends (Open Thread)

Friday Morning Open Thread: Shana Tovah!

Late Night Open Thread: Every Man His Own Martyr

War for Ukraine Day 568: Russian Occupied Crimea Under Threat

We need a powerful system of the warriors’ rights protection in the defense sector itself – address by the President of Ukraine

What’s unfolding

Signs of success

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Quick Reminder