Saturday Happy Hour

Enjoy

Our Friends, The Houthis

It seems Trump has turned his back on his former good friends in Saudi Arabia.

Stop Lis Smith Before She Kills (A Campaign) Again

This is the message that Lis Smith's organization, Majority Democrats, is pushing on Instagram.

I don't think this is true, or certainly not unarguably true. You probably win against Paxton because disgusted Republicans stay home (true swing voters are weird and you do not appeal to them like this) and you inspire Democrats to go vote. 

But even if we accept that it is true, wearing a big T-Shirt that says "I am trying to appeal to Republican voters" does not actually appeal to Republican voters! 

This is how you get on TV and you get big donors to give you money. This is how Lis Smith continues her career. It is not how candidates that she supports win. Ask Mallory McMorrow, who flamed out after going the full Lis.

Lis doesn't win elections. She wins her salaries.

You can argue to yourselves that the big donors and PACs that push candidates are actually not the candidates' campaigns, but sometimes they essentially are. All on the same page.

Expertise

There are many things I happily admit I know nothing about, though after having ingested The Discourse into my brain for 25 years, I am also very sure that most people who are presented as wise experts on most subjects know little more than I do about them.

This predates "bloggers" and social media. Influential opinion columnists have long held forth on whatever occurred to them in the shower that morning. TV producers and editors enlist people because they are buzzy, because they have good PR, because they fill a spot on the political spectrum that they think needs to be filled. Bari Weiss is gone from the New York Times, but people like her (not necessarily sharing her views, but equally (un)qualified and (un)intelligent) still influence who gets published there.  And, of course, she runs CBS News.

Most people who know things don't have the inclination or time to set themselves up as "public intellectuals" or even to bother submitting an oped to "Bari" for her approval. They certainly don't have time to wait for cable news producers to call them.

Dash Sulzberger, son of Pinch, grandson of Punch, great-grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, great-great-grandson of Adolph Ochs, is the latest in the long line of nepo babies who run the Times. This is meritocracy.

Dash is, obviously, dumb as shit. Everything in that newspaper flows from him.

Experts, or people who actually know things, would be nice. We rarely meet them.

Morning

Slacker Saturday

Happy Hour

 ...the weekend

Sure Why Not

Berks county is nowhere near Erie, either the lake or the city which is a somewhat famous place. 

Rep. David Maloney, a Republican who represents parts of Berks County, wants to rename Lake Erie to “Lake Pennsylvania,” arguing that the state’s only Great Lake has become increasingly important to Pennsylvania’s economy and identity.

...

This is Pennsylvania’s only Great Lake,” Maloney said in a post on X. “Its modern economy and identity are increasingly tied to the boaters, anglers, families and tourists who come to enjoy it.” “Ohio has plenty of shoreline. New York already has two Great Lakes. Canada has four others,” he said. “Pennsylvania has one. Let’s call it Lake Pennsylvania!”

There is so no Lake New York or Lake Ohio. WHAT THE FUCK IS HE TALKING ABOUT 

Chat, Is This Good

Something the belligerent warmongers who populate DC really don't understand is that peace is a delicate equilibrium, too easily shattered 

Known as the Gate of Tears, this narrow passage is a critical artery for crude oil and fuel travelling from the Gulf to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal, as well as for Asian commodities and Russian oil.

Al Jazeera’s Yousef Mawry explained that controlling Mocha could give the Houthis a “stranglehold along the Bab is a “stranglehold along the Bab al-Mandeb”.

And many existing arrangements, such as Hormuz being free-to-travel, exist because of some lingering recognition of the common good and not due to pure unenlightened self-interest.

...and more than Mocha.

After seizing the crucial city of Mocha, the Houthis have taken control of Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline, expanding their grip over the strategic Bab al-Mandeb strait, one of the world’s most important trade routes.

I won't claim to have any real idea what the implications are.

Origin Stories

80% of the actual story here is that Adam Jentleson hitched his wagon to Fetterman, that didn't work out, so he reinvented himself as "guy who was on the left who fights the left" to get rich people to drop bags of money on his doorstep. The other 20% is, of course, this:

The way Democrats have handled the issue of transgender rights is especially resonant for Jentleson. In 2021, his spouse, the writer Benny Peterson, came out as nonbinary. Jentleson and Peterson tried to make it work, but last year, after Peterson decided to transition, the couple split up. The pair co-parent two children and still vacation together as a family, but they now live in separate houses on the same street. Amid these personal developments, Jentleson has publicly urged Democrats to recalibrate their position on trans rights, particularly as they relate to sports and to gender-transition care for children

Admittedly a bit more of a life event than Yglesias being asked to clean up after himself in the Vox break room, but still very Elon Musk antitrans politics-as-revenge.

It doesn't really matter if people's shit politics are in good faith, but it is the case that fake think tanks pushing the 370th flavor of centrism don't get money dumped on them if the people who run them aren't for sale. 

As Corrupt As They Are

They obviously don't think corruption is wrong. They just think it is their right, not yours.

Trump: "Please right your right hand. I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States. That loves us so much he can't even breath. That I will go out with my family, my friends, I'll do it any way - I don't care if I'm registered or not, I'm going to try to cheat like hell..."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 11 September 2026 at 04:32

Scientists Had Theorized The diGenova Ethics Constraint Did Not Exist

Too much corruption even for him?

Joe diGenova submitted his resignation to Attorney General Todd Blanche amid what sources described as growing frustrations from Trump and senior DOJ officials regarding his work on the so-called "grand conspiracy" investigation based out of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Florida.

NYPost reporter:

The most good faith interpretation possible is that these guys believe Dems are corrupt as they are, so of course evidence of massive crimes would be easy to find.

I am sure the ethics limit does not exist. He just couldn't find shit.

Morning

Happy 9/11 day

Thursday Evening

Enjoy

Ransomware

Finally the killer app for AI - pay us protection money.

Afternoon

Busy with some things.

The Price of Money

Cheap money was one reason some people were nostalgic for Trump I.

(From)

Most Moral Army In The World

Don't think I have seen a single "oops my bad" from anyone in 3 years.

The interviewees detail the secret methods used by the Israeli military in Gaza, including AI-based systems built to identify large numbers of potential low-ranking Hamas targets, who were then bombed in their homes at night, in the knowledge attacks would also kill their families.

The Israeli military hacked into phones to identify the location of such targets, and covertly listened into conversations with their wives and children moments before they were all killed.

Years of people screaming at anyone who observed what was happening and quoted the words of top Israeli officials verbatim. 

Sure Why Not

Dear Dems: you can choose "Trump never keeps these promises/never pays his bills" or you can go on TV and talk about the deficit. I know which one you should choose...

US citizens will receive $5,000 if Republicans win midterms, Trump claims in lengthy convention speech

 Another option: outbid him.

Don't Let The Terrorists Win

On (almost) 9/11 day, I suppose it is appropriate for Trump to return to the rhetoric from that era: the enemy wants the Democrats to win!

Trump: "I think the war is gonna end immediately after the election. Because they can't hold out any longer. They're desperate to try to affect the election."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 9 September 2026 at 20:36

A certain kind of DC insider - dems included - fondly remembers that bipartisan era, which is both ahistorical and a big fuck you to people who volunteered as they were collecting their checks.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Top Democrats slapped Sunday at a remark by House Speaker Dennis Hastert that al Qaeda leaders want Sen. John Kerry to beat President Bush in November.

 

At a campaign rally Saturday in his Illinois district with Vice President Dick Cheney, Hastert said al Qaeda "would like to influence this election" with an attack similar to the train bombings in Madrid days before the Spanish national election in March.

Just the first one I found.

 

I wonder what happened to Hastert.

Morning

Thoughtful Thursday