Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Second rate reporter says what?

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

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

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

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

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Books are my comfort food!

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

He really is that stupid.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Always Moar Process Progress

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… We choose to… do [these] things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.

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Dank Grey Dawn Open Thread: Monsters From the Id

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*I* want to believe, among other things, that Nancy Mace — who is neither stupid nor a true believer — is ruefully considering the life choices that led to her publicly quizzing a McCarthy-style ‘whistleblower’ about ‘biologics’.

Speaking of little grey horrors…

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War for Ukraine Day 518: (Some of) You Have Questions, I (May) Have Answers

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

The Russians opened up on Ukrainian civilian targets again overnight:

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1684275507368525824

Last night in comments, Urza asked:

I may have missed it already, whats your thoughts on the talk of the Wagner group making a strike through Poland to unite the outlying Russian territory to Belarus?  That seems like a terrible idea as it would guarantee NATO involvement.  On the other hand it could be a feint to get troops ready to reinvade northern Ukraine.

You hadn’t missed it as I hadn’t written anything about it. Every single story on this – including from the legit outfits like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – all lead back to something Lukashenko allegedly said. Given Prigozhin’s statements about refocusing on Africa and other places he’s been operation, I would treat this as agitprop and misinformation until we have something more than Lukashenko’s utterances.

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

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The Kids Are All Right–MIT Science Writers Edition

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Got some stuff I’ve been meaning to share from the students in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing–the joint in which I do much of my teaching.

As part of the core curriculum in that masters program, there’s a one-semester class on making science documentaries that I teach.  There are a couple of reasons why we require them to devote 1/8 of their coursework at the ‘Tute to developing skills in a medium which they as writers and reporters may not see as their first love.

There’s the pragmatic justification: a science writer who can tell a potential reporter that they can handle a camera and Adobe Premiere has a leg up over an applicant who can’t, and some of our alumni have indeed found that video has become a bigger part of their working life than they anticipated.

Then there’s a more abstract argument for the class: it’s a class in documentary production–which means that it asks the students not just to come up with an idea for a film and put it together with tools we provide, but to organize  all of the elements that go into creating a finished video that can be released to a general audience. That is: I emphasize that the creative process for filmmakers has two facets.  There’s coming up with and executing the ideas; and there’s assembling the resources to do all that–time, equipment, money, materials and so on.  If you don’t have the cash or the days or whatever to get some brilliant notion into the camera, then you have to be clever in matching your vision to your logistics–or at least that’s what I hope the students figure out.

And finally, there’s the reason closest to my heart: working in the documentary medium makes you–has made me–a better writer.  Film/video is a relentlessly unforgiving medium. You can only tell what you can create images and a soundscape to convey.  Throat clearing, any delay in getting to the point of a shot, a scene, a sequence, is immediately apparent to viewers and will in short order cause attention to flag.  The amount of story and feeling that can be conveyed without exposition through shot making and the artful use of sound is amazing–and there are analogues in prose to be found.  I find my film making muscle memory kicks in most when I’m moving from a first draft to the revision of a book or long piece–and it’s been invaluable to me.

The Kids Are All Right--MIT Science Writers Edition

So that’s why we ask our students in the GPSW to give over their time and energy to a medium most of them  are unfamiliar with when the semester begins.  What is so gratifying to me as their instructor is how well almost all of them take to it, both the technical craft bits and the habits of mind. Every year we get fascinating glimpses of some aspect of the scientific enterprise; there’s sometimes some pain involved in the journey, but even if they take the long road home, it seems always to come out alright on the night. (Mix metaphors much?)

Anyway, that’s all background to what follows below: short documentaries from two teams in the MIT GPSW class of ’23.  Both of them depart from the most common formula for these films, that of following an idea or experiment through a lab. Instead they focus in different ways on the human experience of a place like MIT–and especially what it means to be someone other than white-male-avatar of  science.  They both required a lot of time and thought and so many edit room hours to arrive at the stories the students wanted to tell, and I couldn’t be prouder of both teams and their work.

So–enough preamble.  Take a look.  If nothing else, it ain’t doom; it ain’t GOP fecklessness or TFG evil.  It’s just–and this is so much more than enough–talented and focused young people figuring out their world, both in front of and behind the camera.

 

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That’s all from me. The thread, as ever, is as open as Winnie the Pooh’s heart.

Image: Pieter Claesz, Still life with a skull and a writing quill, 1628

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Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread

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Rest in peace, Sinéad O’Connor. In 1990, she refused to appear on Saturday Night Live because the program was hosted by misogynist creep Andrew Dice Clay, who was inexplicably popular at the time. In 1992, O’Connor did appear on SNL, and this happened:

Damn if she wasn’t right again. She was a troubled soul and also a brave truthteller. There may be a connection between those two things.

***

In other news, Mitch McConnell appeared to stroke out mid-lie during a press briefing. I know that’s a mean thing to say — we are all fragile creatures — but also, fuck Mitch McConnell.

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Lastly, remember when the Ron DeSantis campaign amplified a weird incel-themed video that caused enormous controversy and then the campaign got busted for passing it off as the work of fan boys when it was actually produced in-house? They did it again, only this time the video was Nazi-themed and a DeSantis speechwriter, Nate Hochman, was fired (or laid off due to the cash crunch — unclear).

Josh Marshall points out that such weirdos aren’t a DeSantis campaign aberration. Similar dudes staff sitting US House reps and are all over mainstream wingnut outlets:

This spring, TPM’s Hunter Walker brought us the story of George Santos consigliere Vish Burra. Then there were the staffer and intern from the office of Rep. Paul Gosar. There are numerous other examples we’ve seen over the last couple years. There’s some variety in the general profile. But some basic commonalities show through. The first is that most are quite young — like mid-20s or younger. At 32, Burra is a relative elder statesman. Their digital histories also run the gamut from willfully offensive to explicitly neo-Nazi. The common thread, however, is a political awakening in the toxic world of far-right message boards and social media “edgelords.” That’s the language and visual idiom of these DeSantis videos. If you’re not familiar with it it can just seem bizarre. If you are familiar with it it still seems bizarre but the meaning is more clear and because of that understanding usually a lot more disturbing.

They’re also getting jobs and sinecures in what now counts as the GOP mainstream. (DeSantis-aligned influencer Pedro) Gonzalez’s LinkedIn biography lists bylines and jobs at various right wing publications, including Chronicles and its parent organization, The Charlemagne Institute, internships at the Claremont Institute and membership at the increasingly right wing New York Young Republican Club, where Burra was executive secretary before getting his gig with George Santos. Hochman was a staff writer at The National Review before taking his job with the DeSantis campaign. In the summer of 2021 he was an intern at Claremont’s house publication, The American Mind. He even got a lengthy think piece about the future of conservatism published in The New York Times.

Great job, everybody.

Open thread.

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Things fall apart…

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WaPo says Hunter Biden’s expected guilty plea on misdemeanor tax charges is falling about over questions on immunity from additional charges.

WILMINGTON, Del. — The plea deal for Hunter Biden was on the brink of falling apart Wednesday, when the two sides could not agree on whether admitting to two tax crimes would immunize the president’s son from possible additional charges.

U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika pressed federal prosecutors and Biden’s lawyers to come to some “meeting of the minds.” But that appeared unlikely, as the two sides said they did not see eye to eye about the precise terms of their own plea agreement. At one point in the hearing, Biden’s lawyer declared there was no deal.

The judge urged the two sides to spend some more time talking on Wednesday, in the hopes that the guilty plea hearing might be salvaged. If not, prosecutors could decide to press ahead toward trial.

So, we might enter an election year when one party’s nominee is himself on trial for multiple felony counts and the other’s son in on trial for misdemeanor tax charges. Personally, I prefer candidates who aren’t under multiple felony indictments.

Open thread.

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