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Wednesday Open Thread

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Happy Transit Operator Appreciation Day everyone. If you said “thank you” enough while exiting your bus, the Water Taxi fairy will reward you.

Comments

  1. Pelosi retiring.

    Saikat Chakrabarti who worked on AOCs first campaign is the first to announce a bid.

    Let the AIPAC money flow to a centrist.

    Game on.

  2. America First!

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-issues-temporary-waiver-of-jones-act-requirements-in-bid-to-fight-rising-domestic-energy-prices-143752583.html

    The Jones Act, formally the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, requires that ships transporting cargo between US ports be US-built, US-owned, US-flagged and US-crewed — costly requirements that raise the expense of domestic seaborne goods flows. Trump’s waiver, granted on Wednesday, allows foreign-flagged vessels to transport cargoes around the United States for 60 days, Leavitt said.

    https://horsesass.org/2026/03/18/wednesday-open-thread-181/#comments

    Bad decisions lead to America last!

  3. From previous thread

    Because kids on Campus are Anti-Semitic. But Joe knows the truth about the control of World affairs by the shadowy hand of the Jews.

    And now we are in the arms of the “Towel Heads” too!

    Isreal wasn’t the only one to get us to have this excursion with Iran, Saudis too, based on 5B for Jared.

  5. Cuba gonna have a good Q2.

    Robby B
    @bobrockmn

    Maduro gone, oil flowing, beaches open, nightclubs bumping, flights landing, commerce happening, beating America in baseball…what an absolute unreal Q1 for Venezuela

    7:55 PM · Mar 17, 2026

    I can wait.
    ·

  6. WSJ:

    The Journal reviewed the contents of one call between a senior Iranian police commander and an agent of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign-intelligence service.

    “Can you hear me?” a Mossad agent can be heard, speaking in Farsi. “We know everything about you. You are on our blacklist, and we have all the information about you.”

    “OK,” the commander said in the recording.

    “I called to warn you in advance that you should stand with your people’s side,” the Mossad agent said.

    The calls are coming from inside the Iranian house.

  8. @4

    The Trump administration on Tuesday widened its efforts to stamp out Medicaid fraud, at least in its fifth state this year, calling on Florida officials to share information on how they identify, prevent, and address bad actors in their state program.

    Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz had previously sent similar requests to New York, Minnesota, Maine and California in what has been a growing, Trump administration-wide initiative to crack down on fraud, waste and abuse.

    The letter to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state leaders is the first such request that Oz has announced to a Republican-led state as the administration seeks to convey that fraud won’t be accepted regardless of political leadership.

    Oh I get it. kon-klown DEE-Santis, the reptile on risers, his peeps musta “fucked it up”..

    So the feds had to step in. Got it!

  10. Should he disqualifying but no…

    SLOTKIN: Who won the 2020 election?

    MARKWAYNE MULLIN: We know that President Joe Biden was sworn into office

  11. @4 It probably will lead to some Republican politician, maybe a doctor, who profiteered from Medicare. Have you ever met an honest Republican?

  13. The totally defeated and obliterated Iranian forces blew up a very large natural gas facility in Qatar today.

  14. Rand Paul is saying he’s a “no” on the dwarf amateur MMA plumber for DHS sec.

    But Fettertumor is saying he’s a “yes”.

  15. The Iran Disaster needs to stop immediately. The US is NOT the World’s police force.

  16. @15 Investors should assume Trump doesn’t have a plan, doesn’t know what he’s doing, is surrounded by incompetents, and this adventure will go off the rails.

  17. A prominent proponent of Christian nationalism says the goal is to make Christianity involuntary for all Americans. “We’re going to impose it on you,” he said.

    https://www.rawstory.com/trump-admin-2676305505/

    Of course, that’s inconsistent with the First Amendment and Americans’ notions of freedom, so I assume he intends to impose a religious dictatorship similar to what they have in Iran, complete with public hangings of heretics from construction cranes. Schemes like this is what the Second Amendment is for.

  22. @20

    Also the Saudi’s Plan. They paid Jared for this, and it falls in line with their plan to fail with a purpose.

  23. We wouldn’t be in this huge fucking mess if Republicans had just released the Epstein Files in the first place. Now we get $6 gas, boxes full of dead Marines, and a half a billion tax dollars wasted.

    Just release the files.

  24. $200b.

    That’s what the pentagon is asking ABOVE current regular funding for the excursion to Iran.

    We could put every homeless person in the country into a $1000/mo apartment for 30 years for that.

    We could need every child born regardless of parental income until age 18 for the next 50 years for that.

  25. A $200 billion war could be a tough sell to voters who were just told a Republican Congress can’t afford their health care.

  26. Another $.04/gallon rise from yesterday. That adds another $1.44 to an empty to full gas up in the F-150 totaling $139.82.

    Imagine being a Republican running in 2026 and trying to tell your district the economy is boffo when they can’t afford to drive to work anymore.

  27. “It looks small. But in person it’s very big. It’s the only plane capable of carrying a 200,000 pound bomb.”

    The B-2 has a maximum ordinance payload capacity of 40,000 lbs.
    There are no 200,000 lb bombs. The “Bunker Buster” is over twenty feet long and weighs 30,000 lbs.

    President Grandpa is saying weird, delusional shit like this now several times each day, all day long. The fact is that most people are unprepared to recognize it when someone with such an aggressive, bombastic, angry, hostile personality succumbs to advanced dementia because it does not present the same way. His mind is gone. All that’s left is the aggression, paranoia, and showmanship.

    But AOC paused and Joe Biden stuttered.

  28. When Ana Kasparian of “The Young Turks” and LTC Daniel Davis of the “Deep Dive” podcast are in agreement about the stupidity of the Iran War, strange things are afoot at the Circle-K!

    Ms. Kasparian and LTC Davis are nearly polar opposites on almost all political and social issues, but when they are both in total agreement about “Trump’s-War-to Take-Everyone’s-Mind-Off-of-the-Epstein-Files,” something is definitely strange.

    Trump has either lost his mind or the Zionists own him, lock, stock and barrel!

  29. @ 27

    The B-2 has a maximum ordinance payload capacity of 40,000 lbs.
    There are no 200,000 lb bombs.

    Just as there are no 51st, 52nd, 53rd, 54th, 55th, 56th, and 57th states. Why, did Barack disqualify himself from the presidency for overtly implying that there are?

    Weak sauce, Elijah. Say, would you have any interest in a list of similar inaccuracies spoken by our 46th president? Just for balance?

  30. @ 25

    A $200 billion war could be a tough sell to voters who were just told a Republican Congress can’t afford their health care.

    I’m not worried about selling the war to illegal aliens registered to vote.

  31. While one is tempted to tell them they are getting exactly what they voted for.

    What happens if American farmers in the crucial coming month come to grasp with the fact that planting this year’s crop is not affordile?

    Des Moines Register

    About a month away from planting this year’s crops, some farmers say local suppliers have declined to provide them with a price for nitrogen and other fertilizers. Those who’ve gotten estimates say prices are as much as 40% higher than they were last fall. 

  34. HOW DARE YOU THIS PRESIDENT IS DOING THINGS NINE OTHER HAS DONE AND I’MNOT GOING TO SIT HERE UNDER OATH AND HEAR YOU TRY TO TEAR DOWN THE GREATEST

    h WHEN THE DOW IS HITTING 44,000!

  35. Can we bet on Pete Rose entering the Hall of Fame?

    MLB Press Release

    MLB names Polymarket exclusive Prediction Market Exchange partner and signs agreement with CFTC to establish Iintegrity framework

    Polymarket Becomes MLB’s Official Prediction Market Exchange Partner; The CFTC Signs a First of Its Kind Memorandum of Understanding with a Major U.S. Sports League

  36. Remember Baby Chase?

    When Georgia kept a dead woman alive until the corpse could no longer support a fetus due to Donald Trump overturning Roe they did deliver little Chase via C-Section in June last year.

    The baby is now 11lbs and still in the NICU.

    But the Christian Taliban has moved on from the sacred miracle they made happen and the family is bankrupt from the co-pays.

  39. (Fortune) The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is already lost for the United States. Even if Iran is militarily defeated, it is unlikely the United States’ political objectives will be achieved. And, on balance, the United States will come out weakened from this war. President Trump’s biggest problem lies in his attempt to square an impossible circle: imposing regime change in Iran without committing ground troops. Trump understands that neither his MAGA base nor the U.S. public has any appetite for another prolonged ground war in the Middle East. But regime change from the air does not work for a 90 million-strong country that is four times the size of Iraq and has been preparing for this eventuality for decades.

    https://democraticunderground.com/100221107746

    CUBA CUBA CUBA

    your forgot about Epstein Epstein Epstein.

  40. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/03/19/us-iran-war-trump-gas-prices-qatar/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzczODkyODAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzc1Mjc1MTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3NzM4OTI4MDAsImp0aSI6IjdhYTM4NjM0LTNmMjctNDQ5Yi1hYTY0LTBmMjc1ZjNjODQ5ZSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS93b3JsZC8yMDI2LzAzLzE5L3VzLWlyYW4td2FyLXRydW1wLWdhcy1wcmljZXMtcWF0YXIvIn0.2dRYXip0HAVKqBYt9MA2IeBV5OMb4pcw5dsEtOAkOqE&itid=gfta

    Winning!

    Let’s stick with ABORTION, ABORTION, ABORTION, and TRANY, TRANY, TRANY, we can win!

  48. So we’re told that Cuba, a Venezuelan despot and his wife in an American jail and killing a bunch of Iranians and blowing up their shit..

    will make pants shitter voters FEEL GOOD about higher gas prices and prices of almost everything else going in the wrong direction.

    And distract from the orange sociopath they voted for being a child rapist.

    glwt…

  51. A thought:

    As we watch the incredibly swift canceling of Cesar Chavez, we should consider the fate of society’s memory of MLK Jr. when the FBI files on him are released next year.

    Somehow I think the reaction will be quite different.

  52. Nice to see the EU and the UK join Japan and Canada in issuing a statement of willingness to contribute to the safe passage of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz.

    Press release
    Joint statement from the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan and Canada on the Strait of Hormuz: 19 March 2026

    Better late than never.

  53. As we watch the incredibly swift canceling of Cesar Chavez, we should consider the fate of society’s memory of MLK Jr. when the FBI files on him are released next year.

    You mean the Heterosexual Neanderthals are special and supreme?

  54. @52

    Yeah sounds like they’re doing their own thing out of their own interests, nowhere is the statement that they’ll be working with the United States or are taking any orders from the Inited States. Do you want them to sit back and do nothing? They’re not helping, they are trying to fix what the US fucked up.

    More bullshit lies. You pretend, like as if you were in the room and listening to them with Donnie, as if you know all
    The details.

    You don’t even know how to read an xray

  56. @26 Imagine a Republican running in 2028 telling voters he wants to draft their kids, but not his own, to fight and die in Iran for the greater glory of Israel.

  57. @ 53

    You mean the Heterosexual Neanderthals are special and supreme?

    I mean liberals give Roman Polanski a pass because he’s white and still useful to them in some way.

    Liberals are canceling Cesar Chavez because he was/is neither.

  59. …when the FBI files on him are released next year.

    Without realizing it, the lying troll has generated new proof of an expanding spatial universe by giving us an ever receding distant point that we can never, ever reach.

  60. 52,
    Oh my.

    Golly.

    Troll’s lying (by implicit exaggeration this time).

    Again.

    “We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait.”

    It’s a very aggressively firm declaration of their intentions to consider various options and consult with experts on possible future negotiations to enhance maritime security in the strait whenever Netanyahu and his orange hand puppet decide they have had enough and taco.

    Nobody with any credible capability is going to offer to clean up after Fat Hitler shit the global oil economy bed.

  61. 54,
    He’s living entirely in his own head now.

    It’s like a MAGA Burning Man festival of delusions in there.

  62. Thanks to Fat Hitler and MAGA blowing up the Strait of Hormuz, Qatar is getting ready to dial back helium production (they produce about 1/3 of the global supply) because they can’t access bulk transport safely.

    All the tech-bro masters of the universe who have hyper inflated a money bubble around AI did it predicated on the assumption that chip supplies would remain cheap and plentiful. But a 1/3rd reduction in global helium would crush chip production.

  63. @ 56

    Imagine a Republican running in 2028 telling voters he wants to draft their kids, but not his own …

    In 2028 JD Vance’s four children will be 11, 8, 6, and 2 years of age, respectively. That is well below draft age.

    Unless you are claiming that Donald Trump will run for a third term.

    Neither of the above merits anything in response other than scorn of your unseriousness.

  64. It is “unserious” to point it out when unhinged, careless, blind-ignorant, posturing MAGA turds blunder into a useless and dangerous overseas conflict that has no important benefits to U.S. citizens or their security they always expect somebody else to fix it for them.

    I am UNSERIOUS.

  65. Truly a delight watching Senator Rand Paul dismantle the dwarf amateur MMA plumber on television. Some wonderfully viral moments.

    I was impressed with Paul’s intensity and commitment. It’s just a shame that he’s one of the most disliked members of the GOP Senate caucus. While he may have changed a few minds, I doubt he changed a single vote.

    https://youtu.be/-cIdBeM9yck

  66. Danish troops deployed to Greenland in January responding to Fuck Around threats from Fat Hitler, and working in consultation with NATO allies and EU security advisors brought along enough high explosives to obliterate the island’s runways at the airport in Nuuk and an abandoned fighter base in Kangerlussuaq.

    The plans to try to prevent an airborne invasion by destroying the infrastructure were approved at the highest levels of the EU and among a select group of NATO leadership.

    And yet today the phenomenally stupid lying troll wants you to think these same nations are sailing off to the Gulf of Oman to begin performing minesweeping and maritime intercept missions that the US Navy refuses to perform.

    This is what Finding Out looks like.

  67. In 2028 JD Vance’s four children will be 11, 8, 6, and 2 years of age, respectively. That is well below draft age.

    He’s not the only Repukes with kids. Maybe he can suggest, recommend, advise, and point out which Repuke members have kids that would be fighting for the greatest of this country, and speak of their great sacrifice they would make for their country and make Daddy proud.

    Would that be so hard for him to do that you can’t come up with excuses of bone spurs?

  68. @29 “Disqualified” for “implying”? Really? Trump isn’t the only one whose mind is gone. That is, if you ever had one.

  69. @30 I’m not worried about selling the war to illegal aliens registered to vote.

    Me neither. I only worry about things that actually exist.

  70. @38 “Buy. buy, buy Opportunities!”

    Not yet. The market will go lower, and perhaps much lower.

  71. @40 Well, the war is good for one thing, and that’s shifting political headlines and voter attention away from trans people to gas prices and potential shortages. With elections just around the corner, you gotta wonder why Republicans did it.

  73. @63 I was thinking of congressional elections, idiot. Here’s a pop quiz for you. Who approves conscription?

    [ ] 1. Trump
    [ ] 2. Congress

    You have a 50% chance of getting the right answer by throwing darts.

  74. @65 This GOP Senate will confirm anybody, and I mean anybody. After all, they confirmed a rapist to the Supreme Court and a dog murderer for a cabinet position.

  75. @65 Yeah, Mullin sounds like he’s all-in for beating up, gassing, and shooting protesters, or anyone going about their business that some hyped-up ICE agent thinks made eye contact with him.

  76. The United States Navy has released a statement to the media announcing that it is opening a criminal investigation into allegations that sailors serving on the USS Gerald Ford deliberately started a fire aboard the $13 billion nuclear carrier to end their current deployment in the Red Sea in support of President Grandpa Dementia’s Sport War against Iran.

    The Ford is currently sailing to safe berthing in Crete to undergo repairs and reconsider its life choices.

  77. @76 The Navy will scapegoat someone, count on it. Just ask Adm. Brown, Seaman Mays, and the late Seaman Hartwig’s family, among others.

  80. … Republicans pointed to a promise from Mullin to require Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to get judicial warrants to enter homes and businesses, rather than the internally approved administrative warrants they’ve frequently relied on recently. … “We need it in… writing,” Murray told MS NOW ahead of Thursday’s meeting.

    https://www.ms.now/news/lawmakers-negotiating-end-dhs-shutdown

    First, agreeing to respect 4th amendment rights should be a given, not a negotiation concession. Second, Republicans being what they are, if it isn’t in writing, it doesn’t mean shit. Finally, Democrats ought to hold out for respecting 1st amendment rights, too.

  81. Then Republican Deep Bench.

    Christopher Vanden Heuvel The GOP nominee in New Mexico failed to turn in enough signatures to get on the ballot and is disqualified.

    Well oiled machine.

  82. 81,

    BuT tHe GoP iS kIlLiNg DeMs WiTh ThEiR fUnDrAiSiNg!¡!¡🤪

  83. Do you Democrats favor totally open borders for the US? Do you think the illegal immigrants should come into the country at will, with no vetting or checking of anything about those immigrants?

  85. @83 I think Congress should fix our broken immigration system by providing pathways to citizenship for immigrant who obey our laws, want to work, and are needed in our economy. I think DOJ should hire more immigration judges, give them judicial independence, and timely process asylum applications. I think CBP and ICE agents should operate lawfully, which means they can’t enter private homes and apartments, or the non-public areas of businesses, without judicial search warrants; must stop racial profiling; must stop throwing immigrant children in cages; must respect the due process rights of immigrants; cannot detain U.S. citizens; and must respect protesters’ rights and cease unlawful violence. In addition, CBP and ICE agents must be properly trained, including on the laws, and must be properly supervised and subject to discipline for misconduct or policy violations. None of these things are too much to ask for, because they’re what the Constitution and our laws already require. Not one penny of funding for DHS until CBP and ICE clean up their act.

    Any more questions?

  86. 83,

    CBP/ICE executed a couple of U.S. citizens in broad daylight on camera. They’ve attempted to execute quite a few more.

    No patriotic American wants to see children being tortured to meet a quota.

    Fuck off outta here you weasel bitch.

  87. Er, how does Trump plan to stop them?

    He can’t. He won’t.

    Putin is one of his bosses.

  88. The International Energy Agency is calling for people to cut oil demand by working from home more, flying less and driving slower, as the Iran war rocks global energy markets.
    The agency says those measures, alongside steps such as sharing cars and switching to electric cookers, are needed to help with the “largest supply disruption in the history of the oil market”, which has pushed the price of a barrel of oil above $100.

    https://www.ft.com/content/f6ebd241-b2a6-4d56-ac8a-ef186203c1af

    Cheerful news brought to you by incompetent, careless, reckless, distracted Republicans.

  89. @88 Trump is FO why previous presidents didn’t do what he just did. But such is his advanced state of decomposition that I doubt the lesson will take.

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