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balloon_juice_feedNBC News broke into the Olympics coverage of women’s downhill skiing mid-run and I saw BREAKING NEWS across the screen and I yelled “OMG HE’S DEAD” and it is just about Nancy Guthrie I am just so crushed right now.
The post DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT appeared first on Balloon Juice.
balloon_juice_feedNB: In the continuation of a theme, this is a repost of a cri de coeur I posted over at Linked In. By way of background: you may have heard that I’ve got a book coming out, an angry, hopefully useful polemic history of opposition to vaccines. I’m being advised/coached/commanded to live in the real world of book promotion as of 2026. That means, I’m told, working across the social media landscape. With Twitter a crater that means (for me), Bluesky (@tomlevenson.bsky.social), LinkedIn, and Substack.* (To my intense horror, I’m also being asked to make vertical videos that draw folks into the story-world of the book. I am definitely a behind-the-camera kind of guy.) So there’s going to be a steady diet of these posts that I want to put up here so as to eliminate any possible barriers to entry. If that gets onerous? Well, unless John objects, I’m gonna say that this what the scroll function is for. ;-)
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I was hoping to write about something not infuriating today–maybe that pulsar that has been tentatively detected near the center of our galaxy, or, more on my usual focus these days, on the accumulating studies that show certain vaccines may help reduce the risk of dementia in older folks.
But RFK Jr. and his crew can’t stop—won’t stop—making America sicker…
…and today’s news is both bad in itself and deeply threatening for what it suggests we may face soon.
The news: the FDA will not review Moderna’s application for approval of its new mRNA based flu vaccine.* This isn’t a case of a submitted application that has been rejected for some discernible reason. It’s a flat out LALALALALA I-can’t—won’t—hear-you rejection of the application itself.
John touched on this below, but there’s a deeper layer to this egregious abuse of procedure that I want to highlight.
The justification for this refusal is that Moderna didn’t do an “adequate and well-controlled trial” of the new shot.
That is a lie. Moderna did the study agreed with the FDA in 2024, and while it did not accept an agency suggestion—not a requirement—for one modification of the trial, it provided the results of an independently conducted study that covered what the FDA was concerned about.
Which is to say that the stated reason for this blanket refusal to see if this shot could save some of the multitudes of Americans who die of the flu each year (45,000 estimated in the 2024-25 season, with a recent high of 52,000 in 2017-18) is a fig leaf to cover the actual policy decision here.
That would be to shadow ban vaccine research as a prelude to barring US access to as many vaccines as possible. To refuse to evaluate a vaccine application is to shut down years and millions of dollars of research. No one in the for profit drug business is going to put their resources into such work. Why should they?
And this move, if left to stand, will have a similar chilling effect on not-for-profit research. Grants won’t flow and researchers would have less and less incentive to stake their careers on work that might go nowhere. Not because of any scientific shortfall, but because anti-vaccine cultists have decided they’d rather hold power than save lives.
And yes…I had hoped that despite my editor saying in December 2024 that RFK Jr.’s rise to power meant that I had to write my vaccine polemic, I still (Oh! The innocence!) so desperately hoped that the depth of experience and expertise in the FDA and CDC and similar would insulate the country from the worst that could happen.
He was right and I was wrong, and I am deeply worried for us all that this is so.
What to do? I’m not sure, but calling your senators and representative and screaming in rage can’t hurt.
Open thread.
*I’m aware of sharp divisions of opinion on Substack. Some, including at least one front pager, see it as part of the neo-Nazi support structure. Others (including me) see it as part of a mediascape we can’t abandon to the assholes. I’ve been following Brad DeLong on this, and he’s both aware of the very much non-zero possibility that it won’t be possible to sustain that view and has, so far, concluded it’s worth sticking around. He’s my canary in the coal mine.
My somewhat Polonius-like solution has been to keep everything I write in front of any paywall. That might someday change for specific reasons (mostly that I might want to expand the effort to include other writers in a simulation of that radical innovation, the magazine) but that’s not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
Image: Unknown artist, The Laughing Fool, c. 1540, possibly c. 1520.
The post Those F**kers appeared first on Balloon Juice.
dailykos_feedBy any normal metric, the Turning Point USA “All-American Halftime Show” was a massive failure. At its peak, it had 6.1 million concurrent views, which might sound good until you learn that the actual NFL halftime show with Bad Bunny had 135 million based on preliminary reports. If that number holds, it will be the most-watched halftime show ever, knocking last year’s Kendrick Lamar show from the top spot.
An alternative that couldn’t even pull 5% of the real-time eyeballs affixed to the dreaded Bunny is not a success, full stop. iIn a normal world, immediately announcing that you were going to do it all over again in 2027 would be deeply odd and delusional.
But the pathetically low viewership doesn’t matter, because the point of the TPUSA halftime show was to gin up outrage over the real halftime show, not to create a well-produced, well-run, or well-performed event. And with so much right-wing money sloshing around, there is no pressure for anything like this to succeed. It just has to come into being.
Notably, the TPUSA show was also not a success as a show. It wasn’t filmed anywhere recognizable and ended up looking like the performers had wandered onstage at CPAC. Headliner Kid Rock’s lip-syncing was off. TPUSA head Erika Kirk couldn’t be bothered to attend. Not exactly a world-class event.
This was never a serious enterprise. Artists weren’t even finalized until a week before the Super Bowl, despite being announced in October. That sort of delay might have been fine if TPUSA had ultimately revealed some amazing heavy hitter, but instead it coughed up the infinitely washed-up Kid Rock and three other country singers who were in no way household names but did have the requisite MAGA grievance politics.
If anything, this haphazard slop shows a complete disregard and disdain for TPUSA fans, Kid Rock fans, and fans of the also-rans: a last-minute lineup, a shitty venue, and no actual broadcast rights. Just a hastily assembled, low-rent event whose purpose was not to provide people with quality entertainment but to serve as a way to howl about Bad Bunny.
Nonetheless, there is an impressive level of post-show flop sweat as conservatives try to tell themselves what a massive success this thing was. Right-wing activist Jack Posobiec declared the event was the number one YouTube livestream of all time in various categories and that Kid Rock’s hot new release passed Bad Bunny on iTunes, but without any, you know, proof.
But by midday on Monday, Posobiec was bragging that somehow 40-50 million people watched the thing on some combination of live and streaming and platforms and whatever and therefore, as Posobiec said, “VOTED WITH THEIR REMOTE CONTROLS LAST NIGHT.”
Except that is obviously not true. Even if somehow 40-50 million people really did tune in to see Kid Rock beclown himself, it didn’t make a dent in the official halftime show numbers. There was no mass voting via remote control, with people clicking away from Bad Bunny. Instead, it appears that Bad Bunny put up the biggest halftime numbers ever.
This is clearly some self-soothing for Posobiec, but it isn’t really necessary. The money will always be there for next year’s alternative halftime show, because TPUSA had revenue of $85 million in 2024 alone. Under Charlie Kirk, the group raised $389 million from 2012 to 2023, and conservative billionaires just love to give the group money. Even the existence of the alternative halftime show was a fundraising opportunity.
At first glance, the MAGA entertainment world seems similar to the closed world of evangelical entertainment that has been around for decades. However, that stuff is actually popular, albeit with a limited market. It’s telling that TPUSA didn’t pull any of those high-profile Christian recording artists, who arguably would be aligned with TPUSA’s values. Instead, they got a has-been who has a song bragging about statutory rape and some Nashville denizens whose phones aren’t ringing as much as they used to.
The right having such a tremendous amount of money warps the incentives here. No one needs to put on a good show. No one needs to get good ratings. External metrics are meaningless because the point was not to actually dethrone the NFL halftime show, a ludicrous proposition even if TPUSA had landed big performers. The point was just to be angry, to scream about Bad Bunny, and to offer a tepid, half-assed alternative that conservatives are forced to pretend was terrific.
That’s true of Bari Weiss at CBS just as much as here. Normally, coming in and having your ratings immediately nosedive and making weird choices to put yourself on camera despite being not at all good at it would be serious missteps for a new leader.
But Weiss isn’t there to do good work. She’s there to push a right-wing agenda. And when she isn’t doing that, she’s got the most low-rent material imaginable, like putting her sister on air to talk about a random Free Press piece.
It’s also true of “Melania,” the documentary that was really just a way for Jeff Bezos to bribe the president. Bezos spent $40 million to make the thing and another $35 million on advertising. Eager conservatives with smaller pocketbooks then had their own opportunity to suck up to Trump by purchasing massive amounts of tickets to artificially prop up sales.
But those moves only work one time, so sales for the second week of this epic tale dropped 67%. As with the TPUSA halftime show, there’s an attempt to pretend the film is an actual real piece of art and that people really want to see it, but why bother? The film has already served its dual purposes: letting Trump know just how far Bezos will go to curry favor and giving conservatives talking points about how Real America craves this sort of thing.
At best, this stuff is a waste of time, at worst, pure propaganda. But so many people behind it are in such an insular world that they have convinced themselves that everyone shares their fixations. Normally, that insularity would be pierced by the consistent failures of these projects, but with all that sweet right-wing cash, that never happens. These folks will continue making rage bait for each other, all the while telling themselves they are speaking to the majority of Americans.
dailykos_feedYour support is what keep cartoonists like myself cranking in times like these. If you like what I do, subscribe to my Patreon page to get more toons, behind-the-scenes pix, and sneak-peeks at some of my upcoming projects.
Cheers!
Keef
Related | Grant guidelines for libraries and museums take 'chilling' political turn under Trump
dailykos_feedA daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know.
GOP whines over Democrats fighting back in redistricting war
There’s nothing worse than getting a taste of your own medicine.
Bad Bunny's halftime show explains why so many Latinos backed Trump
Latino culture and conservatives have more in common than they realize.
Democrats have 44 GOP-held seats on their midterms chopping block
“Democrats are on offense, and our map reflects the fact that everyday Americans are tired of Republicans’ broken promises.”
American optimism hits new low
It’s hard to be positive these days.
Cartoon: Hazardous to your health
We yearn for the good ole days when it was smoking.
Watch Trump's inept Commerce chief squirm over Epstein ties
The textbook definition of “hypocrite.”
balloon_juice_feedThe NY Times smells blood:
This is Clinton emails territory. It feels like there might start to be a little movement on Epstein- Ro Khanna is out spitting fire as well as many other Dems. So that is good to see.
MAHA and Microwaved Mel Gibson keep going out of their way to kill you:
The vaccine maker Moderna said on Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration had notified the company that the agency would not review its mRNA flu vaccine, the latest sign of federal health policy that has become hostile to vaccine development.
Dr. Vinay Prasad, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, rejected the company’s application for approval over a concern that Moderna’s clinical trial had compared its experimental vaccine against a product the agency did not consider the best on the market. People in the comparison group received Fluarix Quadrivalent, a flu vaccine sold by GSK.
I am terrified to think about how many new treatments and lifesaving measures this administration is destroying but I do not think it is hyperbole that these four years will set the US back 20 years, if we can even recover.
Honestly, maybe it is better to have all our medicines and technology originate from the EU, who at least tries to prosecute criminals and make people healthier.
Todd Lyons, one of the clods at DHS- the one behind the memo denying the need for judicial warrants, testified today before the House today, and Rep. Goldman did a pretty good job grilling him. My favorite part was when he got Lyons to admit that ICE is using the same tactics as Nazis and Russian secret police, which after he realized the trap he had walked into, Mr. Lyons yelled over Goldman for fifteen seconds. Give it a watch:
If you have not been following the “negotiations,” one of the sticking points is Trump and the gestapo don’t want to give up warrantless home invasions, which is odd, because THAT IS THE CURRENT FUCKING LAW so they are now on record admitting they are habitually and regularly breaking the law. The whole thing is maddening. Nuremberg.
In other pleasant news, a March For Life rally turns into a measles super spreader event because of course they are not vaccinated:
Anti-abortion demonstrators at the March for Life may have helped spread a potentially fatal disease.
The march and concert, held on January 23 in Washington, D.C., draw thousands to the National Mall each year. This time, though, the D.C. Department of Health says that multiple cases of measles have been reported following the event.
“DC Health was notified of multiple confirmed cases of measles whose carriers visited multiple locations in the District while contagious,” the department said in a press release Sunday. “DC Health is informing people who were at these locations that they may have been exposed.”
Stupid is as stupid does. Betty Cracker brings this to my attention:
We have fresh evidence that the president, his top donor and the commerce secretary all lied about their relationship with a notorious child sex trafficker. How about you fuckfaces investigate THAT?
— Betty Cracker of Florida (@bettycrackerfl.bsky.social) February 10, 2026 at 12:30 PM
Apparently the Republicans noticed some gay men dancing and saw some scantily clad people, so they are losing their shit. Honestly this just sounds like an excuse for a bunch of horny old white guys to watch scantily clad latinas in slow motion HD over and over and over again.
That’s it for me. Hope y’all are keeping your spirits up. I’m off to chat with Joelle and watch the Olympics (I like to try to give her an hour with no people when she gets home from work.
*** Update ***
Would also like to note there are no drag queens or trans people in the Epstein files. Although there might be as victims.
The post Tuesday Night Open Thread appeared first on Balloon Juice.
balloon_juice_feedso apparently a March For Life rally has turned into a measles super spreader event because of fucking course they are not vaccinated
newrepublic.com/post/206352/…— Cake or Death (@johngcole.bsky.social) February 9, 2026 at 10:55 PM
… The march and concert, held on January 23 in Washington, D.C., draw thousands to the National Mall each year. This time, though, the D.C. Department of Health says that multiple cases of measles have been reported following the event.
“DC Health was notified of multiple confirmed cases of measles whose carriers visited multiple locations in the District while contagious,” the department said in a press release Sunday. “DC Health is informing people who were at these locations that they may have been exposed.”
D.C. health officials said that the disease could have easily spread at major transit points, including Ronald Reagan National Airport and Union Station. Infected people also visited Catholic University of America and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
The march is a big event for religious conservatives, this year attracting politicians such as Vice President JD Vance, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and Republican Representative Chris Smith. Many on the right oppose vaccination, with some citing religious reasons, making the march a possible hotbed of measles infections. The two major outbreaks in the U.S. right now are in South Carolina, which is facing the largest outbreak in the U.S. since 2000, and Texas, where an ICE family detention center had to go on lockdown last week…
People of DC, more than two weeks into being totally iced in, now get news of measles spread—brought in by Right to Life marchers.
Looking for people exposed on the Metro, at DCA, at Children's Hospital, on Amtrak.
Gee, thanks, RFKJr et al.
dchealth.dc.gov/release/heal…— James Fallows (@jfallows.bsky.social) February 8, 2026 at 10:57 PM
“Take the vaccine, please.” 🤡
@apnews.com
apnews.com/article/meas…— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) February 10, 2026 at 7:52 AM
Shanley Hurt, at Mary Geddry’s SubStack — “Dr. Oz Discovers Measles”:
On Sunday morning TV, Dr. Mehmet Oz did something that, by the standards of our current national health discourse, counts as a small civic miracle: he advised Americans to get vaccinated against measles. “Take the vaccine, please,” he said, as if he were pleading with a toddler to eat one bite of broccoli before the screen time kicks in. Which, in a way, he was…
But the smallness is part of the point. The story of our era is not usually dramatic ideological conversions. It’s the slow, reluctant emergence of self-preservation, people doing the right thing not because they love the right thing, but because they have finally realized the wrong thing is going to leave a stain that won’t come out in the wash.
Measles has that effect. Measles is what happens when the consequences stop being theoretical. It doesn’t politely restrict itself to op-eds and vibes. It spreads, it leaps across rooms, it finds the unvaccinated, and it turns a society’s abstract mistrust into a pediatric ward problem…
Oz… has always been a man of two worlds. He is trained as a physician. He is also trained, in the deepest way, as a performer. He knows how to deliver a message with just enough authority to sound like science and just enough ambiguity to keep the audience that wants magic from turning the channel. That combination is how he became Dr. Oz in the first place: a figure who could talk about medicine while flirting with the edges of the supplement aisle. But now his job is not to sell the feeling of health. His job is to help govern it…
What we’re watching, potentially, is Oz discovering a basic truth about political alliances: they are delightful until they are not. They are a warm bath until suddenly they are a subpoena. They are a brand synergy until they are a headline that says, “Hundreds of cases,” and your name is printed next to the word silence. So yes, let’s entertain the uncharitable but extremely plausible reading: this is Oz slowly breaking with Kennedy to save his own reputation.
Not in a heroic, principle-driven way. Not the romantic version of dissent where a man risks everything for his conscience. More the pragmatic version where a man looks at a fast-approaching train and thinks, I should probably not be on the tracks when this hits. Because if you are Dr. Oz, trained physician, famous TV doctor, government appointee, you can survive many things. You can survive being mocked for miracle cures. You can survive being memed. You can survive being the punchline of late-night jokes. But you cannot survive being remembered as the adult in the room who had the microphone and chose to mumble while a preventable disease surged through schools…
Measles is a consequence. It’s also an embarrassment. It’s a disease we had essentially pushed off the stage, the kind of thing Americans treat as a grim documentary segment about somewhere else. For it to return, and for officials to flirt with indecision, creates a uniquely potent kind of national shame, the sort that even cynical political actors can recognize as dangerous.
So perhaps Oz sees it. Perhaps he looks at the outbreak map, the child cases, the headlines, and he understands that there are only so many times you can wink at conspiracy-adjacent rhetoric before history files it under “complicit.” Or maybe he doesn’t “see it” in the moral sense at all. Maybe he just sees the brand risk…
It shouldn’t feel like hope. It should feel like basic competence. But in 2026 America, basic competence is a radical act. And if even a few people who once flirted with the fringe start to inch back toward reality, not out of enlightenment, but out of fear of being remembered, then yes: maybe there is hope for us yet. Not because the system suddenly became wise. Because the system finally remembered it can’t out-spin a virus.
BASH: Is this measles outbreak a consequence of the administration undermining support for vaccines?
DR OZ: I don't believe so. Secretary Kennedy has been advocating for measles vaccines
BASH: Oh, come on— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 8, 2026 at 9:29 AM
Trump let you bring measles back?
— Ken Martin (@kenmartin.bsky.social) February 9, 2026 at 1:41 PM
The post Open Thread: No Anti-Vaxxers in Foxholes appeared first on Balloon Juice.
dailykos_feedTodd Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, faced hellfire at a House hearing on Tuesday.
Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey aimed her righteous anger at Lyons, calling out his religious hypocrisy as he carries out President Donald Trump’s deadly anti-immigration agenda.
“Mr. Lyons, do you consider yourself a religious man?” McIver asked.
“Yes, ma'am,” he replied.
“Well, how do you think Judgment Day will work for you with so much blood on your hands?” McIver said.
“I'm not gonna entertain that question,” Lyons responded indignantly.
“Oh, okay, of course not,” McIver said. “Do you think you're going to hell, Mr. Lyons?”
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino, a New York Republican, cut McIver off, chastising her for breaching committee protocol. McIver responded, “Mr. Chairman, I'm just asking a question. You guys are always talking about religion here—in the Bible. I mean, it's okay for me to ask a question, right?”
A 2025 study from Pew Research Center shows that while a strong majority of Americans view immigration as a positive, white Americans who are highly religious are the most wary of it.
One might hope that some of these conservative Christians would at least crack open the book they so often cite.
dailykos_feedThe Super Bowl has come and gone, but conservatives just can’t stop obsessing over Bad Bunny. They didn’t manage to stop him from performing, and they certainly didn’t manage to pull better ratings with their pathetic little alternative halftime show. So now, it’s time to try to get Bad Bunny and the NFL in trouble instead, by tattling to the Federal Communications Commission.
Come on, guys. This is just sad. You’ve been at this for months.
Shortly after Bad Bunny was announced as the 2026 Super Bowl halftime performer, conservatives figured they could flex their cultural might and derail the show entirely just by howling about it and also threatening to have Immigration and Customs Enforcement there to deport … Puerto Rican citizens?
When that didn’t work, they pivoted to hyping the amazing Turning Point USA alternative halftime show, but that turned out to be even more pathetic and low-rent than expected.
In contrast, Bad Bunny turned in a performance so good that even MAGA types had to admit it was great, a performance filled with devotion to family and community.
Conservatives spent Monday self-soothing, telling themselves that the alternative halftime show was a runaway ratings success. No matter how many ways they tried to spin it, though, they couldn’t get around the fact that Bad Bunny’s performance netted the highest halftime viewership ever. Even if tens of millions of Americans really did watch Kid Rock’s shambolic antics, they apparently did so while also keeping Bad Bunny on their television screens.
MAGA couldn’t stop Bad Bunny from performing. They couldn’t stop people from watching Bad Bunny perform. But maybe—just maybe—they can get the FCC to punish Bad Bunny and the NFL for daring to exist.
It’s such an obviously coordinated switch in tactics. As soon as it was clear that Kid Rock and friends weren’t even going to come within the same zip code, ratings-wise, Tuesday’s message became that it was time to investigate Bad Bunny et al., for the crime of being sexy and party rockin’.
So we’ve got GOP Rep. Mark Alford, who didn’t watch the whole thing and doesn’t speak Spanish, but is sure that everything was “much worse than the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction.”
We’ve got the reliably stupid Rep. Andy Ogles saying that the performance was “dominated by sexually explicit lyrical themes and suggestive choreography” and “explicit displays of gay sexual acts” and “openly glorified sodomy and countless other unspeakable depravities.”
The “gay sexual acts” of which Ogles speaks seem to be limited to a brief moment of two men grinding, which, despite this administration’s best efforts, is not actually illegal. Ogles’s concern about lyrics promoting “unspeakable depravities” seems to have been reached because he did a google of Mr. Bunny’s lyrics rather than paying attention to what parts of songs he actually performed and realizing it did not include the explicit parts that so terrified Ogles.
Ogles is just aping Rep. Randy Fine, who also did a google to find some Bad Bunny lyrics and then just insisted that is what was performed. Per Fine, he’s tattling to Brendan Carr, Trump’s reliable attack dog at the FCC, because “Puerto Ricans are Americans and we all live by the same rules.”
Apparently, Fine understands the citizenship status of Puerto Ricans only when he wants to bring the hammer down. He should likely touch base with Ogles, however, as the latter’s take is that since Bad Bunny might be saying naughty words sometimes, somewhere, that is “conclusive proof that Puerto Rico should never be a state.”
You’d think that conservatives wouldn’t want to rely on saying that Bad Bunny is problematic based on lyrics he didn’t even perform given that their TPUSA headliner, Kid Rock, has a song about liking underage girls.
Heck, Mr. Rock actually performed his biggest hit, “Bawitidaba,” for the alternative halftime show. That little ditty glorifies drug dealers, drug users, topless dancers, sex workers, crooked cops, and pornography, but somehow you don’t see liberals calling the FCC to whine about it. Perhaps Fine and Ogles should be looking into reporting TPUSA instead?
These people are all nitwits, but they are dangerous ones, and they are making their complaints to an utterly compromised FCC, where Carr is more than happy to use his position to improperly suppress speech Trump doesn’t like.
Notably, the conservative ire here is twofold: Bad Bunny was being sexxxxy, and he was doing it IN SECRET BECAUSE SPANISH. As if since these muttonheads don’t speak a language that over 40 million Americans do speak, the entire performance was a ruse, designed to smuggle in sodomy via a foreign language.
Without quite saying it, the message from people like Ogles and Fine is that the NFL shouldn’t even be allowed to have non-English-speaking entertainment.
Even if the FCC decides to rap the knuckles of the NFL or Bad Bunny, it isn’t going to matter. No one who is already listening to Bad Bunny is going to stop because some pasty conservative weirdos got him in trouble with the government. Nobody who isn’t already inclined to endure Kid Rock is going to start giving him a whirl because the FCC got mad at the NFL. The people have already voted with their eyeballs, and they love Bad Bunny. Stop trying to make fetch happen.
balloon_juice_feedi know pokemon is still popular with younger people but millennial cultural hegemony is going to rock. we're just aging into the marketing demographic where everything is going to be catered directly to us. it's going to rule and we will do whatever it takes to make it last until we're 300 years old
— lauren (@lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com) February 8, 2026 at 9:24 PM
To be honest, I’ve never played either Pokemon or Magic the Gathering (heck, I couldn’t even handle D&D back in the early ’80s, when my not-yet-Spousal-Unit was DMing in our home every week), but I will always cheer for Team Nerd… and Team LGBTQ+.
Congrats to Breezy Johnson and Amber Glenn on bringing home gold medals for Team USA! Team LGBTQ+ is making our country so proud!
— Representative Becca Balint (@balint.house.gov) February 9, 2026 at 2:54 PM
Amber Glenn, a queer Texan who started ice skating at the stonebriar mall in frisco at age 5, who plays magic the gathering, is an olympic gold medalist
— gwen howerton (@kissphoria.bsky.social) February 8, 2026 at 5:45 PM
… Glenn grew up in Plano and is making her Olympic debut at 26, making her the oldest American woman to qualify for the Olympic singles team since 1928. Her path to the Olympics involved winning the U.S. national title in figure skating last month. Glenn won her third consecutive title, making her the first woman to do so since Michelle Kwan did from 2002 to 2005. Glenn is one of two Texans on the Olympic figure skating team, with Pasadena’s own Emily Chan being the other. But Glenn is also an icon for her representation of the queer community. That she’s doing so as a North Texas native feels extra special.
Glenn came out as pansexual in an interview with the Dallas Voice in 2019, where she discussed practicing with skating pair Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc, who are both from Dallas. LeDuc, who is openly gay and non-binary, became the first gay skater to win a pairs title and the first non-binary athlete to qualify for the Winter Olympics.
“The fear of not being accepted is a huge struggle for me,” Glenn said at the time. “Being perceived as [going through] ‘just a phase’ or [being] ‘indecisive’ is a common thing for bisexual/pansexual women. I don’t want to shove my sexuality in people’s faces, but I also don’t want to hide who I am.”
In a recent interview with ESPN, Glenn would later say that watching American skater Karina Manta come out as bisexual in 2019 would inspire her to do the same. Glenn received tons of coverage in both mainstream publications and the LGBTQ+ press.
“I did not expect it to blow up in the way that it did,” Glenn told ESPN in January. “But I’m grateful because they got my message out there. I was able to represent a lot of people who are in skating, especially queer women.” …
Glenn is an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and often skates with rainbow flags and wears pins of the LGBTQ+ pride flag. At a team press conference ahead of the Winter Games in Milan, Glenn said she felt it was important to use her platform and speak out against rising anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, specifically from the Trump administration.
“It’s been a hard time for the [LGBTQ] community overall in this administration,” Glenn said. “It isn’t the first time that we’ve had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights. And now especially, it’s not just affecting the queer community, but many other communities.” …
We’re with you all the way, Amber. 💙💛
It takes strength and courage to stand up for what’s right.— Human Rights Campaign (@hrc.org) February 9, 2026 at 6:00 PM
MAGATs are phenomenomaly stupid…
Amber Glenn. Gold……— JeffTrnka (@jefftrnka.bsky.social) February 9, 2026 at 1:11 PM
The post Open Thread: Triumph of the Nerds appeared first on Balloon Juice.
balloon_juice_feedI loved this explanation because you can send it to your grandma or grandpa and they will totally understand. Your crazy uncle might be a lost cause.
These guys are not afraid to tell the truth, regardless of consequences. I haven’t seen any slowing down on their favorite causes – raising funds for injured and rescue dogs. They seem to be raising funds like crazy every time they need to.
I have a bunch of backlog good news and climate change info, I just need to find the time to write it up for the blog. We could all use an emotional recharge, so I will make it a priority this weekend.
Here’s the requisite pups photo:
I have no idea what’s going on, except poor Scout always so put upon. And I’m sure I’m being judged and found wanting. What’s new, LOL
Totally open thread…
The post Open Thread: We Rate Dogs Bringing the Truth Bombs Again appeared first on Balloon Juice.
dailykos_feedFirst lady Melania Trump’s non-documentary documentary was already a public relations nightmare—thanks to her unpopular husband—before its release, but now that it’s fully settled in theaters the team behind the self-titled flick has a usage battle on its hands.
Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and film director Paul Thomas Anderson requested that the Brett Ratner-directed “Melania” remove Greenwood’s song from the film Monday.
According to the two, the track “Barbara Rose,” which appeared in Anderson’s 2017 film “Phantom Thread,” was used in “Melania” without their permission.
In a statement to Variety, Greenwood and Anderson’s attorney said that while usage rights are controlled by Universal, the company must consult them before handing over tracks for use in any other creative works.
“It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the ‘Melania‘ documentary,” they said in a statement. “While Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use which is a breach of his composer agreement. As a result Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.”
Firing back on the far-right Breitbart website, the first lady’s senior adviser and “Melania” producer Marc Beckman said that the claims were “ridiculous.”
“We have a legal right and permission to use every song and piece of music in the film. We have the legal rights to use it,” he claimed. “We’ve done everything the right way. We followed protocol. We respect artists. We compensated everyone for their music.”
The former fashion model’s flick pulled in $13.35 million after two weeks at the box office and $7 million during its opening week—but that’s just a fraction of what it cost to produce the film.
Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Studios coughed up a collective $75 million for the aspiring film creator (yes, really) to create and promote a film critics have called terrible and labeled as “propaganda.”
And while getting people across the nation to buy tickets to her film was a tough sell, Republicans looking to get on the Trump administration’s good side seemingly used the opportunity to their advantage.
Related | 'Melania' tickets are the latest way to bribe Trump
GOP Rep. Andy Barr of Kentucky, who is running to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell, gave away free tickets to a showing. It’s unclear, given the promotional method, if campaign funds were used to purchase the tickets.
As for the music, it remains to be seen if “Melania” will have to make some major post-release edits.
Then again, it’s not unheard of for someone in the Trump family to be accused of plagiarizing or using someone’s work without their permission.
dailykos_feedDemocratic Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois scorched the earth Tuesday during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing with the heads of three major immigration agencies.
"Chairman, my mother, a Guatemalan immigrant and an American, taught me that I have the responsibility to look evil in the eye and to fight it back," Ramirez said.
She then delivered a detailed accounting of the civil rights violations, civil liberties abuses, and crimes perpetrated by the Department of Homeland Security and its fascistic Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations across the country.
Ramirez punctuated this torrent of facts by rejecting claims that Immigration officials and agents are the true victims of public scrutiny:
You would both have us talk about respect for your mission and your agents, but your agencies are unaccountable paramilitary forces, and I have just as much respect for you as I do for the last white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color. I have no respect for the inheritors of the Klanhood and the slave patrol. Those activities were immoral then, and criminal—and so are yours.
Todd Lyons, the acting head of ICE; Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection; and Joseph Edlow, the director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, faced a Democratic barrage amid growing calls to abolish ICE. Their efforts—alongside the Republican Party—to portray immigration enforcement officials as victims rang hollow to lawmakers who detailed the terror and brutality inflicted on American residents under the Trump administration.
dailykos_feedRight-wing conspiracy theorist and podcaster Dan Bongino has pivoted from his short and rocky tenure as deputy director of the FBI under President Donald Trump and is returning to Fox News. Bongino made an appearance on Monday night’s edition of “Hannity,” after the network announced that he would be a paid contributor to the network.
Bongino, a veteran of the U.S. Secret Service, previously worked as a Fox News host. He was touted as the replacement for Rush Limbaugh after the racist radio host died, but Bongino never achieved Limbaugh’s level of influence in the conservative media. He also ran for Congress three times and failed three times.
Fox News hired Bongino despite his admission in December that he had spread conspiracies and disinformation while he was a pundit. The confession came as he attempted to differentiate his role with the FBI versus someone who pushed false stories about a purported government cover-up of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Fox News has decades of experience promoting and originating fake stories, so Bongino can settle right back in.
When Trump announced his hiring last February, Bongino was one of the more well-known conservative media figures to join the administration. Bongino was infamous for his conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, and for that work, Trump rewarded him with a top spot at the FBI.
By May, though, Bongino was publicly complaining that the job was too hard. In an appearance on Fox, he rambled, “People ask me all the time, ‘Do you like it?’ I say, ‘No, I don’t.’ But the president didn’t ask me to do this to like it. Nobody likes going into an organization like that and having to change things and make big bold changes.”
The job was an apparent burden on Bongino even though subsequent reporting revealed that the job requirements were lowered for him. FBI Director Kash Patel allowed him to skip a required polygraph test when he was hired.
When he was working, Bongino returned to his roots in the conspiracy world. He told followers on social media that he would use agency resources to investigate the leak of the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion—a leak that angered the right for years.
But after Bongino spent years promising supporters that Trump would reveal the details of the government’s case against accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, Bongino ended up in the middle of a massive White House operation to conceal the files. Reports emerged that he was unhappy with the development, and soon after, it was announced that an unusual co-deputy director of the FBI, Andrew Bailey, had been hired.
The clock was ticking on Bongino in the administration, and he left in the new year. Now he’s back among the serial liars and disinformation peddlers at Fox News.
Bongino can add another failure to his resume, but Fox News is happy with him as long as he is yelling loudly at the camera—the truth doesn’t matter.
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dw_newsdw_advocacy highlighting everything that's going on (and what stage the lawsuits are in), because folks who know there's Some Shenanigans afoot in their state keep asking us whether we're going to have to put any restrictions on their states. I'll repeat my promise to you all: we will fight every state attempt to impose mandatory age verification and deanonymization on our users as hard as we possibly can, and we will keep actions like this to the clear cases where there's no doubt that we have to take action in order to prevent liability. dw_advocacy so people know the status of all the various lawsuits (and what actions we've taken in response), but every time I think I might have a second, something else happens like this SC law and I have to scramble to figure out what we need to do. We will continue to update dw_news whenever we do have to take an action that restricts any of our users, though, as soon as something happens that may make us have to take an action, and we will give you as much warning as we possibly can. It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have to have this fight, but we're going to keep fighting it for as long as we have to and as hard as we need to. dailykos_feedCommerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified before a Senate committee on Tuesday, ostensibly to discuss broadband funding. But Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland opened his questioning by pressing Lutnick about the nature of his relationship with convicted sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, including a recently revealed visit he made to Epstein’s infamous island in 2012—seven years after Lutnick claimed he was so “disgusted” by Epstein that he cut off all ties.
“I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,” Lutnick admitted. “My wife was with me, as were my 4 children and nannies. I had another couple with, they were there as well with their children, and we had lunch on the island.”
“I don't, I don't recall why we did it,” Lutnick added.
Van Hollen explained that Lutnick’s credibility was at issue, and not any accusation of lascivious activity.
Lutnick, who was Epstein’s neighbor in New York City, said during an October 2025 podcast that he was invited to tour the sex criminal’s newly renovated mansion in 2005, which left a bad taste in his mouth:
“I say to him, 'Massage table in the middle of your house? How often [do] you have a massage?' And he says, 'Every day.' And then he, like gets, like weirdly close to me. And he says, 'And the right kind of massage.' And in the 6 or 8 steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”
According to the limited number of Epstein files released by Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, Lutnick’s claims of cutting off Epstein did not hold up. Records show that after Epstein’s 2008 Florida conviction for soliciting sex with a minor, the two began a business correspondence that appears to have continued until at least 2018.
As lawmakers call for his resignation, Lutnick may be hoping a technicality—merely being on an island and not “in the room” with Epstein—will count for something.
Related | 'Not a crime to party with Mr. Epstein': Trump team's new line of defense
dailykos_feedAmerican optimism has hit its lowest point in nearly two decades, according to data released Tuesday by Gallup. The sour feeling months before the midterm elections stands in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, in which he has dismissed Americans’ concerns about affordability and inflation.
Gallup’s poll found that just 59.2% of Americans in 2025 felt they would have high-quality lives in five years. That is the lowest such rating since the firm first started asking the question in 2009.
Additionally, only 62.1% of Americans said the current state of their lives was high quality, making for the second-lowest level in the poll's history, trumped only by the 59.5% level of satisfaction recorded in 2020, during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sour mood in the country isn’t reflected in Trump’s spin of the country’s poor economic performance during his first year back in office.
Last month, Trump declared that issues surrounding inflation had been “solved,” a statement starkly at odds with Americans’ experiences. In reality, inflation is still above the Federal Reserve’s target of a 2% annual rate, and polls show it is a top issue for voters.
Confronted with consumer concerns about affordability, Trump has insisted that it is a “hoax” being pushed by the Democratic Party—a false accusation in line with his years of promoting baseless conspiracy theories.
Economic indicators like job openings and layoff announcements are all flashing red. Despite inheriting a recovering economy from former President Joe Biden, Trump has put in place policies like tariffs that are proving to be a drag on growth. In his first term, Trump had a net job loss, and his second term policies are on a path to similar levels of failure.
Instead of reversing course, Trump has stuck to his policies and is currently pushing to install Kevin Warsh at the Federal Reserve. Warsh is a Trump-approved yesman who made a series of incorrect calls about the 2008 financial crisis.
Beyond economic concerns, Americans’ falling optimism may be tied to the chaos from Trump’s mass deportation policy. Families are being disrupted, citizens have been detained and harassed, and innocent people have been shot and killed by federal agents, though Gallup’s survey was fielded before agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month.
Trump has said he doesn’t know why his approval ratings are in the toilet, but the answer seems very clear: It’s him. He and congressional Republicans seem to be doing everything possible to tell voters to throw them out of office and limit their power.
And the voters seem to be listening.
feministdailynews_feedOn January 21, 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), issued a Notice of Violation to the State of Illinois. This notice alleged that the 2016 Amendment of the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act (HCRCA) violates the Weldon and Coats-Snowe Amendments as they relate […]
The post Illinois Faces Federal Defunding Over The State Law Requiring Abortion Referrals appeared first on Feminist Majority Foundation.
feministdailynews_feedLos Angeles County has seen five maternity wards close since 2023, bringing the total number of closures to 16 over the past decade. As a result, hospitals across the county are struggling to meet the needs of pregnant patients. Los Angeles General Medical Center, a teaching hospital, has treated approximately1,400 pregnant patients who arrived through […]
The post With LA Maternity Wards Closing at Alarming Rates, Patients Are Giving Birth in ERs appeared first on Feminist Majority Foundation.
balloon_juice_feed - DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNITballoon_juice_feed - Those F**kersdailykos_feed - The right-wing halftime show did just what it needed to do—griftdailykos_feed - Cartoon: Black Inventiondailykos_feed - The Recap: Democrats set sights on GOP midterm seats, and American optimism nosedivesballoon_juice_feed - Tuesday Night Open Threadballoon_juice_feed - Open Thread: No Anti-Vaxxers in Foxholesdailykos_feed - 'Do you think you're going to hell?': ICE chief faces hard questionsdailykos_feed - Creepy conservatives are hell-bent on punishing Bad Bunnyballoon_juice_feed - Open Thread: Triumph of the Nerdsballoon_juice_feed - Open Thread: We Rate Dogs Bringing the Truth Bombs Againdailykos_feed - ‘Melania’ documentary embroiled in music-stealing messinessdailykos_feed - Democrat blasts immigration officials as modern-day 'slave patrol'dailykos_feed - Dan Bongino crawls back to Fox News after failing at the FBIdenise in dw_news - Update on legal cases: one new victory! :) One new restriction :(dailykos_feed - Watch Trump's inept Commerce chief squirm over Epstein tiesdailykos_feed - Cartoon: Hazardous to your healthdailykos_feed - American optimism hits new lowfeministdailynews_feed - Illinois Faces Federal Defunding Over The State Law Requiring Abortion Referralsfeministdailynews_feed - With LA Maternity Wards Closing at Alarming Rates, Patients Are Giving Birth in ERs![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}