Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

We’re not going back!

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

He really is that stupid.

I really should read my own blog.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

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

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The words do not have to be perfect.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

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

Congrats to Sage the Poodle!

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After last night’s disappointing baseball game, I watched the finale of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show while Bill and our own two dogs snoozed. As soon as I saw Sage, a miniature poodle from Houston, prancing around the ring, I figured she’d take home the top prize:

As many a grifty preacher has demonstrated, a fancy haircut and charisma can be an unstoppable combination! In a sense, it doesn’t seem fair for other dogs to have to compete against poodles, who seem to have the most elaborate coiffure options in addition to their formidable smarts.

Last night’s outcome is also a feel-good story from the handler’s perspective. Kaz Hosaka has competed for decades and went out a winner in his final show — all thanks to Sage! That very good girl received melon and chicken plates as treats after collecting her ribbons.

Open thread!

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Ritual — Sacred, Profane, & Otherwise

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Best wishes to those who celebrate!


 


 
Y’know, I’m beginning to suspect Joe is enjoying giving the NYTimes the… snub:

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COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: May 15, 2024

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*Sigh*… It’s a start:

… The new funds include $101 million to continue work to prevent, test, track and treat animals and humans potentially affected by the virus known as Type A H5N1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said. And they include about $98 million to provide up to $28,000 each to help individual farms test cattle and bolster biosecurity efforts to halt the spread of the virus, according to the Agriculture Department.

In addition, dairy farmers will be compensated for the loss of milk production from infected cattle, whose supply drops dramatically when they become sick, officials said. And dairy farmers and farm workers would be paid to participate in a workplace study conducted by the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far, farmers have been reluctant to allow health officials onto their farms to test cattle because of uncertainty about how it would affect their businesses, researchers have said. Also, farm workers, including many migrant workers, have been reluctant to be tested for fear of missing work or because they didn’t want to be tracked by the government…

The new spending comes more than six weeks after the first-ever detection of an avian bird flu virus in dairy cattle — and one confirmed infection in a Texas dairy worker exposed to infected cows who developed a mild eye infection and then recovered. About 33 people have been tested and another 260 are being monitored, according to the CDC…


 
Thread for nervous wonks:

The political version of Oppositional Defiance Disorder (and the professional grifters who fatten off them):

… Since March 25, when the bird flu virus was confirmed in U.S. cattle for the first time, weekly sales of raw cow’s milk have ticked up 21% to as much as 65% compared with the same periods a year ago, according to the market research firm NielsenIQ…

… CDC officials warned last week that people who drink raw milk could theoretically become infected if the bird flu virus comes in contact with receptors in the nose, mouth and throat or by inhaling virus into the lungs. There’s also concern that if more people are exposed to the virus, it could mutate to spread more easily in people.

States have widely varying regulations regarding raw milk, with some allowing retail sales in stores and others allowing sale only at farms. Some states allow so-called cowshares, where people pay for milk from designated animals, and some allow consumption only by farm owners, employees or “non-paying guests.”…

From 1998 to 2018, the CDC documented more than 200 illness outbreaks traced to raw milk, which sickened more than 2,600 people and hospitalized more than 225.

Raw milk is far more likely than pasteurized milk to cause illnesses and hospitalizations linked to dangerous bacteria such as campylobacter, listeria, salmonella and E. coli, research shows…

I’m willing to allow the argument that raw milk ‘tastes better’, but right now, I wouldn’t drink unprocessed milk even from a cow I *did* know personally!
 

***********

 

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Late Night Open Thread: ‘A Pride Movement for Bad People’

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With Donald Trump barred from publicly attacking the key witness in his hush money trial, his campaign brought to court a phalanx of Republican elected officials to speak for him.

“The thing that the president is prevented from saying, which is a disgrace, is that every single person involved in this prosecution is practically a Democratic political operative,” U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio said outside the courthouse Monday during a morning break…

Bringing allies to court allowed Trump’s campaign to press his message without violating the gag order. It also gave those allies a high-profile platform to demonstrate loyalty to their party’s presumptive nominee and perhaps audition for higher office.

According to Trump’s campaign, all of his courthouse guests Monday volunteered to appear to support the former president and were not explicitly invited by people affiliated with the campaign. But U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who was at court with Trump last week, said Monday that he had been invited by Susie Wiles, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign and also a longtime Florida GOP operative who advised Scott’s 2010 gubernatorial bid…

Vance, widely seen as a contender to be Trump’s vice presidential pick, was part of a group that arrived at court with Trump and stood behind him as he addressed reporters before heading into the courtroom. It was the biggest single showing of the allies joining Trump in court for the hush money trial since it began last month.

Others in Monday’s group included Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, and a pair of attorneys general, Steve Marshall of Alabama and Brenna Bird of Iowa. Former GOP rival Vivek Ramaswamy, who shuttered his campaign earlier this year but is considered a likely part of a new Trump administration, planned to come to court on Tuesday, according to a spokesman for the entrepreneur…

Outside court with Vance, Tuberville on Monday questioned the citizenship of the jurors, suggesting there were “supposedly American citizens in that courtroom,” and portrayed Bragg as a publicity-seeker.

He described Trump as “going through mental anguish in a courtroom. That’s very depressing.” …

Tuesday, it was ‘Leader’ Johnson’s turn atop the klown car:

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War for Ukraine Day 811: A Brief & Late Tuesday Night Update

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

A quick housekeeping note: Sorry for the delay tonight. I just got back from the emergency vet. Not for Rosie, Rosie is fine! Ruby, however, got into something she shouldn’t have earlier and we went to the emergency vet, which is the same vet as the oncology vet, to make sure she’s okay. I got home about 1/2 an hour ago. All of Ruby’s bloodwork is good, they got her to puke up what she shouldn’t have eaten so that’s all out of her system, but they’re keeping Ruby overnight as they want to get her fever down. So she’s being monitored, getting IV fluids, antibiotics, and the vet expects she’ll be coming home tomorrow. So that’s why tonight is delayed.

The only air raid alerts as of 11:06 PM EDT are for Luhansk and Crimea, which always have air raid alerts, and Kharkiv Oblast.

The Russians are still hammering away at Kharkiv and Sumy Oblasts:

Twitter/X is literally preventing access to Voichuk’s, as well as Maria Avdeeva’s tweets with videos of the attacks aftermath. If I click on the tweets they disappear. If I try to embed them here, this is what I get:

https://x.com/maria_avdv/status/1790417111937958329

Notice how that isn’t actually embedding.

Kyrylo Budanov, Chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine commented on the threat of the Russian offensive in Sumy region:

“From the very beginning, the Russians were planning an operation in Sumy region. As of now, they are keeping small groups of forces in the border area – they have the town of Sudzha, and we have the Sumy area, but the situation has not allowed them to take active action and start implementing their plan,” Budanov said.

From The New Voice of Ukraine:

“Everything that was in the border area has already been deployed. Next, they will have to bring in their reserves,” Budanov said. He noted that the Russians had planned an offensive operation in Sumy Oblast from the very beginning. However, the situation had not yet allowed them to implement their plan.

<p “margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:=”” justify;line-height:150%”=””>”As of now, they are keeping a small group of troops in the border area near, let’s say, the (Russian) town of Sudzha, and from our (Ukrainian) side it is in the deirection of Sumy.”

Earlier, on May 14, Budanov said that Russian attacks in Kharkiv Oblast would continue for “another three or four days,” after which Russian troops were expected to “make a hard push in the direction of Sumy.”

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

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Reminder: VAAC Zoom Tomorrow (Wed) at 7:30 Eastern, VAAC Angels, and What Comes Next

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Zooming!

Just a reminder that the zoom with the great folks at VAAC is tomorrow evening – Wednesday – at 7:30 Eastern.  We’ve got several VAAC peeps who are showing up to meet with us tomorrow – they are really special people and once you hear their stories, I guarantee that you will come away inspired.

I mean, really, who couldn’t use a little extra inspiration these days?

Oh, and if you missed all the previous posts about VAAC (Voting Access for All) click on the category link above, and also copied here for your convenience, .  You’ll find 6 or 7 recent posts about VAAC that will supply lots of information about the organization.

To RSVP and get the zoom link, send email to WaterGirl.

Brutal honesty?  I have not had the number of RSVPs we hoped for. I hope it’s just that BJ peeps have been busy or focused on the NY trial, and have just forgotten to RSVP. Let’s make it worth their time, and let them know they have our support. 

Donating!

We reached $15,000 on Monday, which is really great!   And we have a $2,500 check from an angel who did the double-angel-matching, which won’t show up in the thermometer, but does count toward our $25,000 goal!

So all wee really need in order to reach our goal for VAAC is $7,200.  And we have 2 angels who came forward, each with $1k to match for you guys.  So that $2k (once you match it!) will count toward the $7,200.

So really, we just need to pull together and donate $5,200 through the thermometer, and we will have met our $25,000 goal for them.

So until further notice, we have an angel match and the external match, so all donations  up to $100 are really 4x the donation amount.

If you donate for the match, either add it to this thread or send me an email message.

Thanks so much, guys!

What’s Next!

After this we’ll take a couple weeks off from fundraising, and then we’re looking at some new organizations we’re excited about and we’ll have more details for you in a week or so.

Totally open thread!

 

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