Monday Night Open Thread

A late one tonight- had a busy day and have a lot of things on my mind and am agitated and have not been swimming enough. But enough with me, on the news, and it is grim as the tonton macoute murdered another man in Maine:

Daniel Boucher was getting ready for work Monday morning when he heard what sounded like fireworks going off outside of his home near downtown Biddeford.

He rushed to the window, where he said he saw an SUV trying to ram a small white car in the intersection. Moments later, agents in vests stopped the car and pulled the driver out.

“He was bleeding profusely from the head,” Boucher said later Monday morning. “He was talking. He said, ‘I tried to stop.’”

Boucher watched in disbelief as the man’s legs stopped moving as he lay on the ground. He believes he watched him die.

I am being completely serious that ICE and CBP under Trump will be (or should be) remembered by history as modern equivalents of the tonton macoute, the triple A in Argentina, or the saddam fedayeen or similar right wing paramilitaries. Abolish and prosecute ICE is the moderate position right now.

I mean why the fuck not nothing matters anymore:

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday appointed Darline Graham Nordone, the sister of Sen. Lindsey Graham, to serve the rest of the late Republican senator’s term, which ends in early January.

“Today, under the law, it’s my duty to and honor to name someone to serve in the place of this irresistible man, this irreplaceable man, this extraordinary man, for the remainder of his term,” McMaster, a Republican, said at a news conference alongside Graham’s sister.

“Lindsey took care of his little sister in years long departed. It’s my honor to ask his little sister, Darline Graham, to finish his work for him now,” he said.

Graham Nordone thanked the governor for selecting her. “It is such an honor,” the senator-designate said. “Lindsey has always been there for me, and now I will be there for him.”

You can tell she’s a Graham because when approached she didn’t immediately recoil at the poor taste of the suggestion but instead ran to the cameras.

This stupidity and criminality has been swatted down temporarily again:

A US judge has voided a legal agreement between President Donald Trump and federal agencies that granted him immunity from tax audits and allowed his administration to create a since-abandoned $1.8bn (£1.3bn) “anti-weaponisation” fund.

The fund, intended to compensate individuals claiming they were unfairly targeted by the government, was unveiled in May in exchange for Trump dropping his personal $10bn lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

But on Monday, US District Judge Kathleen Williams said the suit was filed for an improper purpose.

She also referred a Trump lawyer to state authorities to determine whether ethics rules were violated and disciplinary action required.

In the ruling, Williams cast Trump’s lawsuit – which he, two of his sons and the Trump Organization filed in 2026 – as far from a dispute between two opposing sides. Instead, she described it as more of an action carried out by lawyers with ties to Trump and those who claimed to have been government targets.

Williams wrote the lawsuit “was never about a party seeking judicial resolution of a legal issue or a factual dispute” between Trump and the IRS, which he controls as president.

I knew they were going to be crooks, everyone did. I just didn’t realize how open and nonchalant they would be about it.

I was facetiming Joelle a bit ago and she asked me if I had weighed myself lately (she thinks I have lost weight- I have not, fwiw) and I told her that I have not because the last time I tried to was a couple weeks ago and it read 187 and I said “that’s not right” and then fizzled out so it needs new batteries. I then explained I am in the 2-3 week phase of not remembering to get batteries when I am downstairs and will eventually remember and get them. Could I walk down there right now and grab them? Yes. But that is not the point the point is I will do it when I am down there already and kill two birds with one stone.

The most realistic timeline for the scale having new batteries is about two weeks from now. I will be downstairs at some point and realize something I need downstairs will need batteries so I will walk over and get them, and while in that drawer remember that I need batteries for the scale upstairs. At which point I will grab them, put them in my pocket, and have them for when I go upstairs. I will then go about my business, completely forget about the batteries in my pocket, and throw the clothes in the hamper. Then, in several days, when I go to do laundry, I will go through the hamper and check the pockets for things like my wallet or my fitbit or other shit I have forgotten about, and the batteries will fall out and more than likely one of them will land painfully on a small toe. I will then stumble into my office and replace the batteries in the scale.

This may sound insane to you, but this has worked for me for 56 years so I am not changing.

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