GOP Death Cult

Monday Morning Open Thread: GOP, the Party of Bad Faith & Cruelty

by Anne Laurie| December 8, 20256:46 am| 214 Comments

This post is in: GOP Death Cult, Open Threads, Trump Crime Cartel, Our Failed Media Experiment

This is such hilariously bad messaging.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) December 7, 2025 at 3:47 PM

Mr. Bessent Americans think things are too expensive and are concerned Donald Trump lied about affordability concerns.
"Well maybe Americans should stop being punk ass wimps. Stupid nerds."

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) December 7, 2025 at 3:52 PM

What's really telling here is that the administration clearly doesn't have the people ideas or mechanisms to do anything but stick first policies. They're like this because they have literally 0 answer to what to do other than do more warcrimes or abuse immigrants.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) December 7, 2025 at 3:53 PM

Stop *helping*, Joe!

“.. What they might say: ‘It’s taking longer than we anticipated. We’re working very hard. We’re stabilizing things,’ ” Manchin said. “You can’t tell me it’s sunshine outside when it’s raining like hell.”
@wsj.com
www.wsj.com/politics/pol…

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) December 7, 2025 at 10:11 AM

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if you're going to have these rat bastards on the air, you have to have follow up questions ready. tom cotton is the chairman of the senate intelligence committee, "i dunno, haven't asked" is, if true, a deliberate dereliction of his duties both as a senator and in his current role as a senator.

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— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) December 7, 2025 at 6:22 PM

it is quite literally cotton's job to ask questions about the pardon of a convicted cartel trafficker and former president of a foreign nation currently serving a sentence in an american prison, and it is the job of reporters and anchors to point that out and ask him about it.

— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) December 7, 2025 at 6:24 PM

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Monday Morning Open Thread: GOP, the Party of Bad Faith & CrueltyPost + Comments (214)

Open Thread: (No) Surprise! – The J6 Pipe Bomb Suspect Is A Trump Supporter

by Anne Laurie| December 5, 20255:33 pm| 56 Comments

This post is in: GOP Death Cult, Jan 6: Insurrection, Open Threads

BREAKING on MS NOW:
Brian Cole Jr., the suspect accused of being the Jan. 6 pipe bomber, confessed to agents that he planted the bombs and has indicated he supported President Trump, according to two people familiar with his interview.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 10:05 AM

Per NBC, “Pipe bomb suspect told FBI he believed 2020 election conspiracy theories”:

… Brian Cole Jr., 30, is cooperating with the FBI, NBC News has reported, citing a separate person familiar with the matter. Cole appeared in court Friday, one day after he was charged with leaving pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee in the hours before Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Trump has falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged.”

Cole confessed to planting the devices outside the parties’ headquarters in the hours before the Capitol attack, three people familiar with the matter told NBC News. A federal prosecutor said in court on Friday that the suspect spoke with the government for more than four hours, but did not reveal the contents of those discussions.

Cole was charged with transporting an explosive device and attempted malicious destruction by means of explosive materials, according to charging documents. The FBI has not publicly cited a motive…

Trump’s claims about the 2020 election were part of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into his efforts to overturn the results. In his final report on the investigation, Smith said that Trump “inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence” by spreading “demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false” claims about the 2020 election. Trump has publicly maintained that he believed he won the election.

The criminal case against Trump in connection with the Jan. 6 attack was dropped after he was elected in 2024, but Smith said that “but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”

Smith recently said he wanted to publicly testify about his investigation, but House Republicans rejected his request, instead planning to interview him behind closed doors on Dec. 17.

(Which, cynically, explains the timing of this arrest.)

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Open Thread: (No) Surprise! – The J6 Pipe Bomb Suspect Is A Trump SupporterPost + Comments (56)

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie| December 3, 20256:52 am| 392 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, GOP Death Cult, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Trump Crime Cartel

It’s like a wake, where everyone takes turns saying a nice word about the dearly departed.

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— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) December 2, 2025 at 1:44 PM

Trump dozes while Marco Rubio speaks to him directly next to him. Just insane optics.

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 2, 2025 at 1:46 PM

From the Independent, “‘Taking the gloves off’: Trump just held the Cabinet meeting from Hell”:

You can laugh, or you can cry. But what you definitely cannot do — without a stiff dose of irony — is treat this as normal. Because the current Donald Trump feat. Pete Hegseth Show (working title: “Were They War Crimes? And Other Questions We Don’t Care to Answer”) is already stranger than satire…

“We’ve only just begun striking narco boats and putting narco terrorists at the bottom of the ocean,” [Hegseth] said, at a hundred miles per hour, eyes alighting on every corner of the room. He’s “taking the gloves off.” The strikes are such successful deterrents already that “it’s hard to find boats to strike right now.” And “just like President Trump always has our backs,” he “always has the backs” of people in the military who might make decisions that may or may not be referred to as war crimes. But to be clear, he’s not going to take the rap himself…

This was a particularly awkward Cabinet meeting, which opened with almost an hour of Trump meandering about the new ballroom in the White House and whether Melania gets bothered by the construction noise; the “rigged election” of 2020; Joe Biden; the idea that the word “affordability” doesn’t have a definition; Joe Biden; a “very low-IQ congresswoman” he doesn’t like; his physical health, which is apparently impeccable because he “got A’s on everything” during his annual physical; Joe Biden; how he made Ozempic cheaper, or, as he put it, “the fat drug, F-A-T, for fat people”; how he didn’t get the Nobel Prize even though he deserved it more than anybody else in the world; how people “love to correct me even though I’m right about everything”; Joe Biden; how the environmentally friendly Green New Deal was a “scam” because “they talked about global warming and all that crap”; why the green tiles that, yes, Joe Biden chose for a bathroom in the White House weren’t very nice; why the New York Times is a bunch of losers; and, to round it all off, another description of the new ballroom…

There are moments in American politics when the curtain lifts and what’s shown behind is the country’s raw, unfiltered id staring straight into the camera. This meeting was one of those moments: a 55-minute stream-of-consciousness performance from a president who began and ended with décor critiques and featured a pep rally for ocean-based vigilantism in the middle. And of course, it was punctuated with a lot of painful, forced laughter from the people around the table…

The MAGA worldview is now one in which the president is the only protagonist, the only source of truth, the only man with straight A’s, a worldview in which reality bends not to evidence but to assertion. And Hegseth’s frenetic monologue showed where that worldview leads: into the ocean, where people are blasted apart because of a war that exists in someone else’s head, and where the moral framework is “taking the gloves off.”

America is being told a story — not a Franklin the Turtle story, but a much more narratively dishonest one — where the president is simultaneously the victim and the hero, the builder of ballrooms and the man who will somehow abolish income tax, a charming uncle and a terrifying specter who demands loyalty at all costs. Here, grievances are policy and insults are ideology.

And the people in the room just laugh and laugh and laugh, because the alternative is unthinkable.

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Wednesday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (392)

Open Thread: World Aids Day

by Anne Laurie| December 1, 20254:58 pm| 145 Comments

This post is in: GOP Death Cult, Healthcare, Open Threads

Today is World AIDS Day, a day that reminds me of the decades-long fight for dignity, science, and compassion. We’ve come so far because activists, researchers, and communities refused to be ignored.

— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) December 1, 2025 at 11:56 AM

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fuck you
the memories of a generation lost because of Reagan's homophobia will not be erased
i think we should do something in DC that would make david wojnarowicz proud tbh

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— Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@theradr.bsky.social) November 26, 2025 at 2:27 PM

NYTimes gift link
David Wojnarowicz

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"The US government will not be commemorating World AIDS day this year".
Silence = Death
There are 1.1 million people living with HIV in the United States, 40 million globally

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— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 3:09 PM

"The official instruction US agencies and country-based programs received in a recent email."
substack.com/inbox/post/1…

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— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 3:12 PM

Choosing silence on #WorldAIDSDay doesn’t make the HIV epidemic disappear. It erases the 1.1 million people living w HIV in the U.S., the thousands we’ve lost over 44 years, and the enormous efforts of communities, clinicians, researchers, and advocates who have carried this response on their backs.

— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 3:45 PM

It also dismisses the U.S. government’s own powerful legacy in the global fight programs like #PEPFAR and #USAID, which have saved millions of lives and remain pillars of global health.

— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 3:45 PM

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Trump and his administration won’t stand with people living with HIV/AIDS on World AIDS Day, but Democrats will.
Today, we remember all those we’ve lost, and recommit ourselves to the fight of eliminating HIV/AIDS worldwide.

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— Ken Martin (@kenmartin.bsky.social) December 1, 2025 at 1:42 PM

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This time last year, I was on the South Lawn of the White House helping to lay out the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
This year the White House did nothing and the State Department instructed empoyees and grant recipients to “refrain from publicly promoting World Aids Day through any communication channels”

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— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape.bsky.social) December 1, 2025 at 12:48 PM

Open Thread: World Aids DayPost + Comments (145)

Open Thread: Tick… Tick… Tick…

by Anne Laurie| November 27, 20253:33 pm| 102 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, GOP Death Cult, Trumpery, Lock Him Up...Lock Them All Up

Trump: “If I say it, they’re going to it. They’re not going refuse me, believe me.” (2016)
Trump: “Can’t they just shoot [protesters] in the legs?” (2020)
Vance: “I don’t give a shit [if it’s a war crime].” (2025)
Trump: “we should use [US cities] as training grounds for our military” (2025)

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 2:42 PM

GOP: “why would anyone be concerned that Trump might issue an illegal order?”

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 2:42 PM

From Mary Geddry’s Substack, “Thanksgiving on Thin Ice”:

It starts, as these things so often do now, with home décor. The president steps out on the South Lawn, not to talk about wars or famines or mass deportations, but to brag that he’s had the grass ripped up so no one’s shoes get muddy at the turkey pardon. He lingers on the new patio like an HGTV host who accidentally seized nuclear codes, proudly announcing, “I hope you like our new beautiful patio with matching stone to the White House,” and assuring everyone that if he hadn’t remodeled the place, “you’d be sinking into the mud like they’ve done for many years.” The first message of the day is clear: nothing says “normal democracy” like tearing up the lawn so your donors don’t sink into it while you rant about crime…

He cannot resist one of his favorite recurring bits: the omnibus bill he describes as a legislative cornucopia of glory. He calls it a “great big beautiful bill” so many times it begins to sound like a children’s book written under duress. It contains, he claims, “the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country for middle-income people” and “the biggest jobs bill ever passed.” Democrats, he tells us, are so impossible to work with that Republicans “stuffed four years, actually probably eight or ten years,” of material into one bill because “I think that was our one shot.” Call it a legislative turducken.

When he finally introduces the actual turkeys, Gobble and Waddle, he considers calling them Chuck and Nancy but decides against it: “I would never pardon those two people.” He then marvels that the birds weigh over 50 pounds, grilling the farmer about whether they’re “a little fatty.” He appears genuinely invested in the idea that their BMI might undermine the ceremony’s dignity.

He asks if they’re violent. “Will they attack as I walk over?” It’s the closest we get to suspense all afternoon.

Now comes the part of the holiday speech where someone, somewhere, always needs to be incarcerated. After praising the turkeys, he notes that some of his staff were already preparing to ship them to El Salvador’s mega-prison, a place he praises with the cheerful detachment of a man describing an all-inclusive resort. “Even those birds don’t want to be there,” he jokes, before pivoting to crime stats so imaginary they’d make a Hallmark movie blush…

Eventually we wander into international diplomacy. One year ago, according to him, the king of Saudi Arabia told him the United States was “a dead country,” but now it is “the hottest country anywhere in the world.” He claims $18 trillion in new investments in nine months, a number that would qualify as a global paranormal event, and announces that churches across America are filling up again because of him. “Religion is coming back,” he says, the turkeys looking like they’d very much like to be excluded from this narrative.

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We hit the grocery price fantasia next: Walmart’s Thanksgiving meal “down 25 percent,” turkey “down 33 percent,” potatoes “down 13 percent,” ham “down 15 percent,” eggs “down 86 percent since March.” Gasoline, he promises, will “soon be hovering around $2 a gallon.” The birds, who have eaten smoothies for months to achieve their ceremonial girth, refrain from comment.

At last, the sacramental moment arrives. He thanks Melania, notes that Waddle is “missing in action,” and steps forward to grant the pardon with all the solemnity of a man blessing a casino opening. “You are hereby unconditionally pardoned,” he declares. Someone in the crowd calls out “Praise the Lord!” and he repeats it, as if Gobble’s salvation has redemptive benefits for the rest of us.

And that’s the turkey pardon now: a holiday ritual repurposed as a victory lap through delusion, grievance, and invented statistics. What once was a lighthearted White House tradition is now a stage for claiming he saved last year’s birds from a Biden death convoy, ended murder in Washington, crushed immigration to absolute zero, personally revived American religion, and negotiated with God and Walmart for cheaper sweet potatoes.

In case the Thanksgiving turkey pardon wasn’t surreal enough, it turns out the man Trump praised from the podium, “FBI Director Kash Patel, who has been very busy and doing a great job also, thank you” — may be circling the drain before the gravy has even congealed…

And as all of this unravels, the turkey psychodrama, the imaginary borders sealed to perfection, the SWAT-team-for-my-girlfriend subplot, the re-litigation of last year’s poultry, the self-contradictions delivered back-to-back without a blink, it’s impossible to ignore the larger, more chilling truth hovering behind every one of these public appearances. This isn’t just chaos; it’s disorganization. Deep, unspooling, unmistakable disorganization from a man who holds the nuclear codes.

Every part of that turkey-pardon performance ricocheted like a pinball machine on the fritz: one moment he’s bragging about patio stones, the next he’s invalidating ceremonial pardons, then he’s insisting the border is at “zero,” then he’s ranting about Chicago murders, then he’s praising a prison in El Salvador, then he’s promising $2 gas, then he’s declaring he ended “eight wars in nine months,” then he’s doing stand-up about fat governors. It’s not just off-topic; it’s untethered. The through-line isn’t policy; it’s impulse….

Trump: “They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country right now is perceived as weak.” (on China’s bloody suppression of Tiananmen protesters in 1989, said to Playboy magazine in 1990)

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 2:46 PM

GOP: “It’s a complete mystery why anyone would bring this up, except to undermine discipline in our armed forces.”

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 2:49 PM

Trump: “The big problem is the enemy within. We have some bad people … it should be easily handled … by the military” (2024)
Trump: “This is going to be the big thing [for the military] because it’s the enemy within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.” (To top generals, 2025)

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 2:56 PM

When I die, the world *should* end… [Gift link]

“..Trump in his second term has started scheduled events in the afternoon on average, at 12:08 p.m. .. The number of Mr. Trump’s total official appearances has decreased by 39 percent.”
@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/u…

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 7:03 PM

Open Thread: Tick… Tick… Tick…Post + Comments (102)

Monday Morning Open Thread: Don’t Panic, Yet

by Anne Laurie| November 10, 20255:35 am| 424 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., GOP Death Cult, Open Threads

The Senate appeared to be moving toward securing enough support for a bipartisan deal to end the longest government shutdown in history.
The proposal excludes added ACA subsidy funding and still needs House approval and President Trump’s support.

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— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost.com) November 9, 2025 at 8:04 PM

Not the beginning of the end, just the end of the beginning, per the company paper in the town whose monopoly industry is politics. “Senate takes key vote toward ending government shutdown” [Gift link]:

… After bipartisan negotiators struck a deal during a rare weekend session, seven Democratic senators and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) voted with almost all of the chamber’s Republicans to take the first step toward reopening the government. Sunday’s vote, which needed 60 votes to pass, is the first of many that will be necessary to pass the agreement in the upper chamber.

But the deal split the party. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) came out against it.

“This health care crisis is so severe, so urgent, so devastating for families back home that I cannot in good faith support this CR,” Schumer said on the Senate floor, referring to the bill, known as a continuing resolution.

Most rank-and-file Democrats also opposed the deal.

“I think it’s a terrible mistake,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) told reporters as she left a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats that lasted more than two hours Sunday evening. “The American people want us to stand and fight for health care, and that’s what I believe we should do.”

The bipartisan compromise combines three full-year funding measures into one package with a stopgap funding bill that would reopen the government through Jan. 30.

But the deal would not extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, which Democrats have warned will cause health insurance premiums to skyrocket for millions of Americans.

Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) committed to holding a separate vote on legislation to extend the subsidies by the second week of December, after the government reopens…

The promise to vote on ACA subsidies at a later date is unlikely to be enough for most House Democrats, who have demanded that Republicans agree to extend the subsidies before they agree to reopen the government. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has not committed to holding a vote on a bill to extend the subsidies, which many Republicans would prefer to see expire…

The agreement aims to reverse more than 4,000 federal layoffs the Trump administration attempted to implement earlier in the shutdown. It also includes language that would prevent future layoffs through Jan. 30 in a federal workforce reeling from tens of thousands of layoffs earlier this year. Lawmakers would also appropriate funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, through September 2026.

Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada), Tim Kaine (Virginia), Dick Durbin (Illinois), John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire), Jacky Rosen (Nevada) and Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) voted to support the deal, as did King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats…

It could take days for a final bill to move through the Senate. The House has been out of session since Sept. 19 and would also need to come back to Washington and vote on the measure.

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Republicans control the Senate 53-47 but needed the support of Democrats to reopen the government. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, meaning at least eight Democrats needed to vote yes because Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) voted no.

As news began to break that a deal was in the works, Jeffries and other House Democrats began to voice opposition to the agreement’s framing…

The Trump administration over the weekend ordered states to stop distributing full food assistance benefits for November to the 42 million low-income Americans at risk of food insecurity — stretching out an ongoing fight between the federal government and states.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been left without pay for nearly six weeks. And help lines at the Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service have gone silent as those workers are furloughed, with field offices that provide services for small-business owners, farmers and ranchers, and veterans shuttered.

More Americans blame Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown than they do Democrats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted in late October…

Probably the best take I’ve seen all night.
It starts all over & there could be another shutdown in 10 weeks, right as Trump is supposed to give the SOTU. And after people will lose their insurance.
The 8 shouldn’t have voted yes, but it’s still the Repubs facing the bigger political problems

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— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 11:10 PM

BREAKING: Senate takes first step to end government shutdown after some moderate Democrats agreed to proceed without a guaranteed extension of health care subsidies, angering many in their caucus who say Americans want them to continue the fight.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) November 9, 2025 at 11:03 PM

… In a test vote that is the first in a series of required procedural maneuvers, the Senate voted 60-40 to move toward passing compromise legislation to fund the government and hold a later vote on extending Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire Jan. 1. Final passage could be several days away if Democrats object and delay the process…

The moderates had expected a larger number of Democrats to vote with them as 10-12 Democratic senators had been part of the negotiations. But in the end, only five Democrats switched their votes — the exact number that Republicans needed. King, Cortez Masto and Fetterman had already been voting to open the government since Oct. 1.

The vote was temporarily delayed on Sunday evening as three conservatives who often criticize spending bills, Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, withheld their votes and huddled with Thune at the back of the chamber. They eventually voted yes after speaking to Trump, Lee said.

Another Republican, Sen John Cornyn of Texas, had to fly back from Texas to deliver the crucial 60th vote…

Democrats had voted 14 times not to reopen the government as they demanded the extension of tax credits that make coverage more affordable under the Affordable Care Act. Republicans said they would not negotiate on health care, but GOP leaders have been quietly working with the group of moderates as the contours of an agreement began to emerge.

The agreement includes bipartisan bills worked out by the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund parts of government — food aid, veterans programs and the legislative branch, among other things. All other funding would be extended until the end of January, giving lawmakers more than two months to finish additional spending bills…

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries blamed Republicans and said Democrats will continue to fight.

“Donald Trump and the Republican Party own the toxic mess they have created in our country and the American people know it,” Jeffries said…

3 GOOD: some real approps working right for the first time in EONS, built based on need & politics, not from toplines. SHALL language on backpay 4 feds. Good anti-RIF language we’d want to see continued
2 BAD: Nothing forces Trump to actually FOLLOW the approps. A vote we could have forced already

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— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 7:10 PM

(UC = Universal consent)

During Trump’s first term, we actually had a shutdown that lasted a few hours *entirely* because Rand Paul refused to give UC.
Again, if we don’t get UC, then the Senate won’t actually be able to pass this thing until Saturday at the earliest (and then the House could pass it shortly thereafter).

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— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 8:50 PM

To clarify, if Rand Paul had given UC to speed things up, we could have passed the bill much earlier, but he didn’t, so the vote to open the government wasn’t able to take place until like 5 am, with the government technically shutting down at midnight.

— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 8:53 PM

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Yeah, I think it’s weird that people are blaming everyone else in the party instead of the 2 (Cortez-Masto & Fetterman) who’ve sucked on it from the start, Shaheen (who’s always been kind of crappy & may be the least accomplished Sen Dem not in their first term) & women who voted like this last time

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— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 11:57 PM

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Seriously, for their own good, Dems who voted for this need to not be saying “we did a good thing, this is why.”
The line needs to be “we fought like hell to get healthcare back, but Donald Trump was willing to burn the country to the ground.”

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— Andrew S. (@shoutingboy.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 10:59 PM

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MIKE LEE SOLD HIS LOYAL MAGAT CONSTITUENTS OUT!

If you're in Utah its time to call Mike Lee's office and praise him for holding the line against the perfidious democrats and their attempt to shackle Donald J. Trump.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 9:21 PM

+++++

Trump and Hegseth booed mercilessly for 2 minutes straight tonight by Washington Commanders fans.

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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 6:52 PM

Monday Morning Open Thread: Don’t Panic, YetPost + Comments (424)

Sunday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie| November 9, 20257:12 am| 297 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, GOP Death Cult, Open Threads, Pet Rescue

With SNAP benefits going out late, nonprofits are begging for pet food donations to prevent desperate owners from surrendering their dogs and cats to animal shelters.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) November 8, 2025 at 11:00 AM

From Mr. Pierce’s weekend blog (which is only available to subscribers):

… I have flown all over this country and Canada, and to Ireland, and to South Korea, and to Japan, and to Qatar, before we turned it into an aircraft carrier. I have flown on commercial jets and on a prop plane in rural Alaska. (The difference in customer service between the two was not vast.) I have bounced through all kinds of different weather. On a flight to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, I woke from a long nap to discover that Michael Jordan’s parents were sitting in front of me. Stan Musial once gave me his first class seat so he could sit with his wife back in coach. (Nice job there, MLB.) I once flew on John Kerry’s campaign plane in 2004 only to discover that it had once been a tour plane for the Rolling Stones. There were mirrors everywhere, and I seriously considered asking for a hazmat suit before buckling my seatbelt. If those seats could talk, they’d all end up in jail.

But all of those flights, and all of those experiences, had one thing in common: Fundamentally, they were all acts of faith. To step on a large metal tube that does its work 35,000 feet above the ground, you have to believe in the principles of aerodynamics. You have to believe the plane’s mechanics know their business and that the pilot is sober. And you have to realize that you are completely in the hands of people staring into screens in dark facilities several miles below.

In 2015, the National Institutes of Health issued a quality-of-life report on the effect of their jobs on air-traffic controllers. According to that report:

Air-traffic controllers (ATC) work shifts and their work schedules vary according to the characteristics of each airport. The human body adapts to shiftwork differently. These adjustments affect the health-disease process, predisposing ATC to risk conditions associated with sleep deprivation and lack of night sleep, which can lead to conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, mood disorders, anxiety, and obesity. This study investigated the characteristics of health, sleep, and quality of life of ATC exposed to eight-hour alternate work shifts and six-hour rotational work shifts. As though the job weren’t crushing enough on the people who do it, ever since the last presidential election the work pressures have grown even more intense.

First came DOGE, and then came the government shutdown, during which the administration has chosen to treat the controllers the way it’s treated hungry poor children—as bargaining chips, as a gun to the heads of congressional Democrats. In doing this, it threatens the act of faith that is necessary for anyone to step off the Jetway and into the cabin. In October, as the shutdown was beginning, the ATC union warned of dire consequences if the job was somehow made harder…

In our current moment, the ostensible authority is Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, a former reality TV star and egregiously forgettable congresscritter. In truth, of course, like every Republican official in this administration, Duffy is merely a finger puppet for the president with the tiny hands. Circumstances are turned on their heads. Air traffic controllers are caught in the middle again. And this time, they have no control over their fates. From The Hill:

“If this continues, and I have more controllers who decide they can’t come to work, can’t control the airspace, but instead have to take a second job — with that, you might see 10 percent would have been a good number, because we might go to 15 percent or 20 percent,” Duffy said at a Breitbart News event in Washington, D.C. on Friday.
. . . Duffy on Friday also responded to concerns that the flight reductions were a political move aimed at pressuring Senate Democrats to pass a Republican-crafted, “clean” stopgap to reopen the federal government, which they have repeatedly rejected as they make demands on health care and other issues. “I’ve had some complaints from Democrats, ‘We want to see the data . . . This is political,’” Duffy said during the event with Breitbart. “This has not been political. We have worked overtime to make sure that we minimize the impact on the American people.”

Every airplane flight is an act of faith, and faith is too easily shaken these days.

Sunday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (297)

“They all knew.”

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

The willow is too close to the house.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Republicans in disarray!

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

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

This really is a full service blog.

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

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Come on, man.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Trump should be leading, not lying.

We will not go back.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Monday Morning Open Thread: GOP, the Party of Bad Faith & Cruelty

Open Thread: (No) Surprise! – The J6 Pipe Bomb Suspect Is A Trump Supporter

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Open Thread: World Aids Day

Open Thread: Tick… Tick… Tick…

Monday Morning Open Thread: Don’t Panic, Yet

Sunday Morning Open Thread