Pretty sure an order like that has never been issued or needed in American history, until now.

Oh yay, it’s one of those random, unpredictable cases where the Supreme Court lets the Constitution into the discussion. Not to be too pessimistic, but it’s usually a PR move, so they can stash the Constitution away again for the next half-dozen rulings…

But DOJ appeals Alaska Senate ruling to Ninth Circuit, where it faces long odds

Alaska Governor orders criminal investigation, Trump demands Peltola be removed from the ballot, as Alaska Senate stupidity grows louder

This scandal is a giant chunk of nothing, but where’s Peltola? Haven’t seen any response from her or her camp on this beyond this article’s quote, “Just another distraction,” which is true but more is needed. Dems gotta fight back, but they’re mostly quislings and fighting back is against their nature.

Both parties tried to game Alaska primary field

ACLU cuts to the point

Excerpt: Imagine if the federal executive could pluck a few words like “election integrity” from some statutory preamble and, on that basis alone, bend the machinery of state elections to his will, preemptively blocking certification of a U.S. Senate election to protect his preferred candidate from defeat and then subjecting voters to a law-enforcement-led inquest about who they “really” supported. Imagine that world and ask whether it is what the Framers wanted or precisely what they most feared.

Republicans signal that they’ll block Peltola from the Senate if she wins

… and signal again

They’re sending them back because they’ll be persecuted, not ‘despite’.

The stupidity of all this is occasionally comedic. Dude’s Canadian, on his way to Canada, but they got him but good… and took him to Canada.

Excerpt: This regime is perhaps the dumbest to ever regime.

This is a web version of the Department of Peace icepick CLI tool

When I read the headline, a dumb joke instantly came to mind — Mafia Don Trump is only angry because he didn’t get his cut. Turns out it’s not a joke. That’s exactly why he’s angry. The corruption doesn’t bother him, only that nobody wet his beak.

Excerpt: Angered at the size of Mrs. Mildon’s deal, Mr. Trump has told aides and allies that she should donate a portion of that money to his future presidential library or another Trump-related entity, according to multiple people briefed on the conversations.

I changed the headline’s ‘unusual’ to ‘illegal’, because these days there’s nothing unusual about Social Security sending pro-Repubican spam. I’m on Social Security, and in the Before Times they never sent anything but factual and financial notices, but now I’m routinely spammed and propagandized.

Excerpt: “I am deeply troubled by what happened here in this case,” Judge Faruqui said. “What has transpired here cannot be described as anything other than weaponization.”

Trump boots South Africa from preferential trade program over “anti-white racism”

Excerpt: “In effect, President Trump argues that once he declared the Letter a ‘fake,’ Defendants should have disregarded everything else they learned in their investigation and not published the story,” Judge Gayles wrote in a 20-page decision. “But that is not what the actual malice standard requires and runs afoul of the First Amendment.”

Oh no, not “pressed”!

Excerpt: In October, Mr. Suh asked the judge in his case, Philip M. Halpern, to push his sentencing to January, citing a desire to finish his academic term at Columbia, as well as complete a program aimed at rehabilitating felons. Federal prosecutors did not object.

“Blue no matter who” always and only means “Support right-wing Democrats.” It never means right-wing Democrats should support the genuine left.

Am I allowed to feel a little sorry for Haley Stevens? She’s politically awful, of course, but from all the coverage I’ve read, my impression is that something’s gone kerblooey in her head. I sincerely hope she gets help and gets better, and gets out of politics.

Murphy isn’t on my shortlist of the 7 or 8 Democrats in Congress I respect, but he ain’t awful, at least in comparison to the rest. Hope he recovers fully and fast.

Excerpt: Asked for a response to the speech, a person close to the President texted a facepalm emoji.

Me again: Imagine the horror when America’s next fascist President isn’t a gibbering madman, but actually a skilled and intelligent fascist politician…

They can tell the difference. They’re simply lying.

What an odd and misleading headline, making it sound like Obamacare is a mechanism gone awry, probably Obama’s fault. In reality, the Republicans are starving it, by ending tax credits and making it more difficult for folks needing medical coverage to qualify for the ACA. Which, by the way, is what it is — ‘Obamacare’ is Republicanspeak, like saying ‘the Democrat Party’.

This item is a bit stale ‘cuz I missed it when it was news, and my brow-furrying is not even about the woman tortured by the botched execution.

Pause and ponder, please: Emergency help was delayed about half an hour while officials and responders tried to figure out whether they were being pranked.

Maybe 9-1-1 gets pranked a lot? Maybe a 9-1-1 call to a prison is weird? I imagine a lot of 9-1-1 calls are weird, but it’s a profoundly bad idea to have officials and responders waste time verifying whether any (perhaps every?) emergency call is legit.

More tech, more — I want my stove, microwave, calculator, and corn chips to be on the internet, too!

Why has the New York Times written this headline in past tense, as if the war is over, as if there won’t be more profits to come?

Excerpt: Andy Yen, the CEO of Proton, had a message for an employee in the company’s security Slack channel who urged the company to at least take a few days to pen-test newly written code before pushing it live. “That’s bullshit and loser thinking. Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure,” Yen wrote in the channel at the end of August. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.”

Excerpt: There is a reason that, in every western democracy during the last 20 years, neoliberal politicians have campaigned under the slogans “Hope”, “Change”, or their various synonyms and translations. It is because very highly paid PR consultants have told them that what the people lack, what the people need, what the people desperately crave, is hope and change. Riot and rebellion are acts of extremely high risk which are the resort of the otherwise hopeless.

I’m a little distressed that (as of Monday morning) all the more mainstream coverage of this uses stock photos of Martha Stewart in ordinary Marthawear, not the photo (below) of her homeless getup.

Excerpt: Speaking to the Middle East Institute yesterday, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy stated that several members of Congress were briefed on potential forthcoming U.S. military strikes against Iran that may seek to target “civilian infrastructure.” Murphy stated that this would “lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law.”

Iran has never been a daydream destination for me, and I’m opposed to almost everything I know about that nation’s government. They’re pretty good at war, though, they’re the victims here, and I generally root for victims when they fight back.

For the first time in decades, US Army is now training soldiers to dig mass battlefield graves for American troops

Excerpt: “This is an unmanned systems war,” Petraeus said. “Tanks aren’t survivable there anymore.”

But for the rest of the world, Petraeus said, the fighting in Ukraine is a window into the future and a warning about the dangers of being underprepared for the battles to come.

“Really, no NATO country and not even the United States is undertaking yet the urgent revolutionary institutional change that should be taken based on what we see in Ukraine, which is the future of war,” he said.

Me again: David Petraeus, maybe you remember, was CIA Director until he pled guilty to illegally sharing classified material with the author of his biography while they were extramarital porking.

Which doesn’t make him wrong about drones — he’s probably right — but it’s damned peculiar that ① he’s still a respected voice on national security and ② the article doesn’t mention the porking or guilty plea.

US starts at ‘basically zero’ in building cheap military drones

Hegseth, of course, scuttled the American drone warfare project, so now we’re losing the drone war before it even starts. Let’s get cracking, building bigger & better and more & more airborne kill machines! And make sure local police have plenty, too…

The US is starving Cuba. Will it invade too?

Pentagon urges NATO allies to tone down warnings about Russia

“Appeasing dictators brings only humiliation”: Estonia’s Prime Minister rejects softer rhetoric toward Russia

Putin shuts down Russia’s last independent newspaper

Russia moves to legalize stolen cars from Europe, Canada, and Ukraine

Man, Trump and Netanyahu are reading the same mimeographs.

Excerpt: Then the guy said he’s with Secret Service, and I said, oh, is this about the concession stand? and he said, what’d you do at the concession stand? I said nothing, but it was closed super early and I’m starving. And uh, he didn’t like that. And then they walked me out.

This is perhaps the tiniest but funniest scandal among the Trump regime’s many thousands, and I spent about 45 minutes following a livestream of Friday’s hearing in this case. My verdict: You don’t need a law degree from Yale to know the dude from DOJ was being squirrelly, sidestepping every question.

So I went to the 22 Minutes YouTube page, where I’ve been loitering for 45 minutes now. Haven’t yet seen a sketch that isn’t funnier than anything and everything on SNL.

Excerpt: The bill’s passage was a major victory for animal-rights activists, who have waged a yearslong campaign against the carriages. Those efforts, which had previously failed to attract substantial political support, gained momentum this summer with the death of Romanch Mahajan, an 18-year-old tourist from India.

Data centers are hotspots of hellishness, but I’d need to see the detailed calculations behind this claim (and wouldn’t understand the calcs if I saw them).

Behold, the rarely-seen and more rarely-enacted good idea.

Excerpt: More deputies soon entered the hospital room with a piece of paper already signed by a local judge seeking to release Greer from jail custody. But in his vegetative state, Greer couldn’t actually sign the form—a so-called personal or PR bond, which listed various conditions he must agree to in order to be released from custody.

So the deputies pulled out an ink pad, grabbed Greer’s limp hand, pressed his thumb on the ink and then onto the signature line of the release form. Greer was pronounced dead the next day.

Excerpt: He was 101, having survived into his 11th decade by avoiding fresh vegetables and subsisting largely on TV dinners, chocolate and red wine.