Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

The willow is too close to the house.

“Alexa, change the president.”

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

We will not go back.

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

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

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

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

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Late Night Open Thread: Elon Musk, Global Child Pornographer

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this is how every outlet should refer to X

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— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) January 6, 2026 at 12:11 PM

Per Rolling Stone, “Grok Is Generating About ‘One Nonconsensual Sexualized Image Per Minute’”:

… Over the holiday break, a critical mass of X users came to realize that Grok will readily “undress” women — manipulating existing photos of them in order to create deepfakes in which they are shown wearing skimpy bikinis or underwear — and this sort of exchange soon became alarmingly common. Some of the first to try such prompts appeared to be adult creators looking to draw potential customers to their social pages by rendering racier versions of their thirst-trap material. But the bulk of Grok’s recent deepfakes has been churned out without consent: The bot has disrobed everyone from celebrities like [Sabrina] Carpenter to non-famous individuals who happened to share an innocent selfie on the internet.

Though Grok is not the only AI tool to be exploited for these purposes (Google and OpenAI chatbots can be weaponized in much the same way), the scale, severity, and visibility of the issue with Musk’s bot as 2026 rolled around was unprecedented. According to a review by the content analysis firm Copyleaks, Grok has lately been generating “roughly one nonconsensual sexualized image per minute,” each of them posted directly to X, where they have the potential to go viral. Apart from changing what a woman is wearing in a picture, X users routinely have asked for sexualized modifications of poses, e.g., “spread her legs,” or “make her turn around to show her ass.” Grok continues to comply with many of these instructions, though some specific phrases are no longer as effective as they had been.

Musk hasn’t shown much concern to date — quite the opposite, in fact. On Dec. 31, he replied to a Grok-made image of a man in bikini by posting: “Change this to Elon Musk.” Grok dutifully delivered an image of Musk in a bikini, to which the world’s richest man responded, “Perfect.”…

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Late Night Open Thread: Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino, Aspirational Nazi

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This is a real thing that a judge had to say to the Chief of US Customs and Border Protection.

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— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) October 28, 2025 at 11:20 AM

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I assumed this had to be AI.
It is not AI.
It's like concept design for Neil Patrick Harris at the end of Starship Troopers that Verhoeven rejected for being too on-the-nose.

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— Zeddy (@zeddary.bsky.social) October 28, 2025 at 12:12 PM

"Dress for the job you want, not the job you have"

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— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social) October 28, 2025 at 1:48 PM

Here's the CNN interview he showed up dressed like that for. Photo Credit: Mustafa Hussain (Pulitzer-pending I hope) www.cnn.com/2025/10/08/p…

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— Zeddy (@zeddary.bsky.social) October 28, 2025 at 12:18 PM

… Nearly three decades into his career with the US Border Patrol, Gregory Bovino has become the on-the-ground face of Trump’s effort to surge federal law enforcement into blue states and cities regardless of whether local officials want them there — first in Los Angeles, now in Chicago, with other possible cities on deck.

But if he and his officers are an unwelcome presence or face interference from protesters, Bovino said he is not dissuaded.

“We’re going to carry out that mission,” Bovino said in an interview with CNN in Chicago on Tuesday. “And that’s paramount, or else we shouldn’t be here. We’re going to carry that mission out.”

He added that if “someone steps in the way, then … that may not work out well for them, and if we need to effect an arrest of a US citizen or anyone else, then we’ll do that.”

Local officials have described Bovino as leading a branch of law enforcement which deploys tactics that are frighteningly authoritarian and which has been styled into Trump’s own personal police force, used by the president as a cudgel against Democrat-led localities and the people — citizens and noncitizens alike — who live in them…

Bovino, 55, holds the title of chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector and has been the lead on the administration’s crackdown in cities — now, 2,000 miles away from the California sector he helms. His newfound resurgence in the agency under Trump finds him in a position of power unique among his peers in Border Patrol.

His heavy-handed tactics, including immigration sweeps in parking lots and smashing car windows, have fueled consternation among some in the Trump administration while also garnering praise from senior Homeland Security officials…

Greetings from the Dirksen federal courthouse, where Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino is set to appear before U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis.
What you need to know, for @wttw.bsky.social:

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— Heather Cherone (@heathercherone.bsky.social) October 28, 2025 at 9:48 AM

From Ms. Cherone’s (long, worth reading!) thread:

… We are underway.
Ellis calls Bovino to the stand. He is wearing his uniform.
He is sworn in.
He has no visible head injury, even though federal officials said he was struck Friday in the head by protestors before he deployed tear gas in Little Village.

Ellis is reminding Bovino of the oath he took when he became a Border Patrol officer — the same oath she took when she became a federal judge.

“We both agreed to support and defend the Constitution,” Ellis said.
Bovino is listening impassively.

Ellis says her job is to ensure that Bovino and the federal agents under his command are acting in accordance with the law and court orders.

Ellis “It may be that what I am seeing is the result if one of three things:”
1. Perhaps the order is unclear
2. No one read the order
3. “Folks actively chose to ignore it”

Ellis said it could not be No. 3, because that would violate Bovino’s oath…

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Open Thread: Stephen Miller Is (At The Moment) A Very Powerful Man

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Stephen Miller is an extremely dangerous and dishonest man
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— Joni Askola (@joniaskola.bsky.social) September 13, 2025 at 3:21 AM

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It's true Stephen SAYS this.
But it's not as easy to do as Stephen says, NOT LEAST bc there is no DOMTERR statute–he should ask the terrorists Trump freed from prison the first day on the job how hard this is.
Stephen has actually FREQUENTLY faceplanted when trying to fulfill legal threats.

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— emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 2:06 PM

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Stephen Miller has become America’s — if not the world’s — most powerful unelected bureaucrat.
With Trump’s blessing, Miller has been allowed to run and remake the country in a manner unheard of for an official of his rank.
More: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol…
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— Rolling Stone (@rollingstone.com) September 14, 2025 at 11:06 AM

Thing is… when the ICE raids and the National Guard deployments and the general Nazification of America’s security apparatus all goes to sh*t (foreign allies are offended, local economies are blasted, the Oval Office Occupant’s approval ratings tank), a scapegoat will be found who can be held liable for all the Mistakes (that) Were Made. And Stephen Miller has been obscenely, egregiously eager to be marked as the one responsible for it all!

… More than seven months into Trump’s second term, Stephen Miller has become America’s — if not the world’s — most powerful unelected bureaucrat. With Trump’s blessing, Miller has been allowed to run and remake the country in a manner virtually unheard of for a U.S. government official of his rank. Think of any egregious policy from the Trump administration: Chances are, it was driven by Stephen Miller.

All of it bears Trump’s signature, but the president is not the one spending his nights writing executive orders and bending legal theory to his will; nearly all of this bears the authorship (or, at least, co-authorship) of Miller. Everything you loathe or love about Donald Trump’s America, you hate or cherish about Stephen Miller’s republic of fear…

They’ve quickly turned much of federal law enforcement into the masked, nameless, unaccountable secret police, working at the whims of the president and his staff. The president can deploy armed National Guard troops, and even U.S. Marines, to the streets of an American city any time he wants — and deem it enemy territory. The administration has made censoring media organizations, comedians, and aging rock stars a policy priority, in an anti-free-speech crusade waged from the West Wing to the Federal Communications Commission…

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Open Thread: Say Naught But Good of the Dead…

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James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and one of the most influential voices in the conservative evangelical movement, has died at age 89

— David S. Bernstein (@dbernstein.bsky.social) August 21, 2025 at 9:21 AM

Per the Blogmaster’s rule: James Dobson just made the world a slightly better place.

he will be confined to a blanket and a hundred toddlers will beat him with wooden spoons any time he steps off of it for all eternity.

— Michan Connor (@michanconnor.bsky.social) August 21, 2025 at 10:37 AM

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… More than 1,000 quote-skeets on this, and I’ve never seen so many ways to celebrate

— David S. Bernstein (@dbernstein.bsky.social) August 21, 2025 at 10:32 AM

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Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: In Elon’s Mind, We Are All NPCs

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Maybe I’m just an aging Cynic, but it surprised me that none of the professional commentors I’ve read saw this clip and didn’t (ahem) grok that soutpiel Elon Musk lost it when a guy Musk perceived as Coloured didn’t automatically support him. Elon does not grant uppity not-Whites an audience! His minions failed him when they allowed this pretender into his magnificent domain!

NPCs are non-player characters — less-than-autonomous ‘filler’ in tabletop or video games, virtual-world spear-carriers. It’s become a gamer insult that ‘people who don’t agree with my opinions’ are ‘NPCs’… not actually human. Gosh, why would an Independent Thinker like Mr. Musk resort to neck-beard level slang like that?…

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Repubs Trying to Dodge Consequences

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Now that the Senate has made it clear his vaunted impeachment is going nowhere, I guess Green plans to slither back home to Tennessee and present his ‘achievement’ as a personal best. Per the Associated Press, “House Homeland chairman announces retirement a day after leading Mayorkas’ impeachment”:

Tennessee Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green on Wednesday announced that he won’t run for a fourth term, pointing to the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas just the day before as among the reasons it is “time for me to return home.”

“Our country – and our Congress – is broken beyond most means of repair,” Green said in a statement. “I have come to realize our fight is not here within Washington, our fight is with Washington.”

As chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, Green was a driving force behind the Mayorkas impeachment push over border security in a deeply partisan and highly unusual attack on a Cabinet official. His panel conducted a months-long investigation of Mayorkas, his policies and his management of the department, ultimately concluding Tuesday that his conduct in office amounted to “high crimes and misdemeanors” worthy of impeachment…

Green flirted running for governor in 2017, but suspended his campaign after he was nominated by former President Donald Trump to become the Army secretary. He later withdrew his nomination due to criticism over his remarks about Muslims and LGBTQ+ Americans, including saying that being transgender is a disease. He also urged that a stand be taken against “the indoctrination of Islam” in public schools and referred to a “Muslim horde” that invaded Constantinople hundreds of years ago.

After winning the congressional seat in 2018, Green once again made headlines after hosting a town hall where he stated, without citing evidence, that vaccines cause autism. He later walked back his comments but not before state health officials described the Republican as a “ goofball.”…

Presumably because it’s frowned upon to use the (correct) word ‘asshole’ in an official document.

Green’s not the only Repub sidling towards the exits:

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Good News, Bad News Open Thread: Repubs Against Feeding Hungry Children

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Catherine Rampell, at the Washington Post — “There’s nothing pro-child about the GOP’s resistance to food aid” [gift link]:

In the 18 months since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Republican officials have had ample opportunity to prove they’re not merely antiabortion but also pro-child. They keep failing.

GOP politicians across the country have found new and creative ways to deny resources to struggling parents and children. Take, for instance, the summer lunch program.

Under a new federal program, children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches can also receive food assistance during the summer. The policy, created as part of the bipartisan budget deal in 2022, gives eligible families $40 per month per child, or $120 total over the summer. It often works essentially as a top-up for food stamps, since these families must buy more groceries when their children lose access to nutritious school meals when classes go out of session. (It’s similar to a temporary program offered during the pandemic, though it’s much less generous.)

The federal government pays the entire cost of the benefits associated with this new food program and half the administrative costs. The program isn’t automatic, though; states had to opt in by Jan. 1.

Republican governors across 15 states chose not to, as my Post colleague Annie Gowen reported. Up to 10 million kids will be denied access to this grocery aid as a result…

So, potentially, almost half of the children eligible for this program live in just fifteen states.

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