NJ

Storyteller. Writer. Reader. Cat mom. she/her

[Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance]

At what point do we acknowledge what’s happening here? Or do we just stand by like good Germans?

[Molly Ploofkins @Mollyploofkins]

We don't give enough love to @atrupar and @Acyn. They're the only reason we know what's going on in real time.

[Spencer Althouse @SpencerAlthouse]

this tribute to Catherine O'Hara at the Emmys was soooo sweet wow. and the camera cuts to Martin Short and Steve Martin crying...I'm not okay. her on-screen children Macaulay Culkin, Annie Murphy, and Dan Levy spoke so highly of her

Macaulay: "She was encouraging. She was warm. She was funny. But the word that I think of is 'momma.' She was my mom. She was our mom. And by extension, she was all of our mom. She may have forgotten me...twice! But we will always remember her."

[NJ @LaughingNJ]

I probably shouldn’t be snicker-laughing at this post (and the comments), but I am. . . 😏 🤣

[Ben Meiselas @meiselasb]

So the story is that a guy with codename dude bravo survived a free fall to the ground in Iran after his F-15 was shot hitting the ground at speeds of close to 100 mph. He then ran 20 miles and found a cliff that was 7000 feet high and climbed that cliff and was extracted in a two day period

[NJ @LaughingNJ]

What planet did I parachute in from? I mean, WTF!

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

PATEL: The previous regulation automatically disqualified any individual who participated in either side of it

KENNEDY: Either side of beastiality? So you disqualified the animal?

PATEL: Well, we have great canines, but we're not going to disqualify them

KENNEDY: I'm trying to understand why you did this. Why did you get into beastiality?

[NJ @LaughingNJ]

@RealHippoKing @JudyAshxx @WildSentences Yes! This! This goes beyond oral hygiene and brushing and flossing. The man was keeping food in his broken tooth on purpose for later!

[NJ @LaughingNJ]

@LuckyMe1950 @redhotnerd You’ll probably wait longer there.

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

His brain is now just a Mad Libs template with the same answers written in over and over.

"What do you think of [issue] and [country]"

"[issue] is going great. [country] is very eager to make a deal."

You can insert almost anything and get the same answer. Cognitive problem.

[CSPAN @cspan]

"My father Michael Massaroli...you do my dad's legacy and the legacy of all these victims no honor by using this tragedy to spread hate. We have seen a medley of people come up today, of all races, all religions, all creeds and this tragedy is just that, it's a tragedy. I've had to grow up and spend the past 25 years seeing people use it to hate on our Muslim brothers and sisters, to hate on people who don't look like them. That's wrong. That does no honor to the victims here...please stop."

Full video here: https://t.co/nWIx9b9yGR

[Ron Filipkowski @RonFilipkowski]

Look at this loathsome repulsive creature yelling at a reporter. In addition to the fact that he’s the worst president in US history, he’s one of the worst human beings on planet earth. His supporters have a very serious defect in their characters.

[Jamie Bonkiewicz @JamieBonkiewicz]

“The president is just trolling!”

Hey, here’s a wild thought. Maybe I want my country to be run by someone who isn’t a fucking internet troll.

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

NEW: Every week, a Philadelphia nun drives to the immigration court in Harlingen, Texas, to sit beside unaccompanied children, some as young as four, who face a deportation judge with no lawyer and no parent.

This week, an undocumented migrant who is facing imminent deportation called Sister Rose Kuhn his “angel.”

This comes as Catholics across the nation, inspired by Pope Leo XIV, are standing up to the White House’s immigration policies.

[PoliticsGirl @IAmPoliticsGirl]

No one man should ever have this amount of power again.

[Ben Wikler @benwikler]

When Scott Walker gutted public unions and attacked private-sector unions with right-to-work laws, Tom Tiffany voted for them.

Now he wants to be governor so he can attack workers yet again. We can’t go back

[Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 @cmclymer]

Today, I read an article in The Daily Beast—written by Michael Daly—that some military brass within the Pentagon have privately begun referring to Pete Hegseth with the nickname "No Tab Pete" and I nearly spat my drink out.

While Mr. Daly offers some good context in the article, it doesn’t quite capture the ruthlessness and humiliation of this nickname, which I believe cuts into the hollowness of Hegseth’s ongoing and cringey search for masculine validation more than anything else I’ve heard or read.

In the U.S. Army, there are skill tabs for elite military courses — little, canopy-shaped patches that go on your uniform shoulder and indicate you’ve graduated from that course.

There are four such tabs: Special Forces, Ranger, Sapper, and—the newest tab—Jungle.

The only context y’all need here is about the Special Forces and Ranger tabs.

Just qualifying for acceptance into these courses is difficult, and actually graduating from them is, of course, very difficult. Ranger School is just under nine weeks, assuming you don’t get rolled back. The Special Forces Qualification Course (“Q course”) is at least a year, assuming you don’t get rolled back.

They are not for the faint of heart. They suck. They’re brutal. We’re talking very little sleep, little food, constant and ridiculous physical exertion, and being graded the whole time on top of it. Total and complete suckage.

And the shitty thing is: even if you manage to make it to the end of the course, there’s a chance you may not graduate and earn the coveted tab.

In the culture of the U.S. Army infantry, the Ranger tab takes on enormous importance. If an infantry officer wants to make a career in the Army, she or he needs to earn a Ranger tab. It's basically a requirement to advance up the ladder.

You’ll notice I wrote “she” there because many women have graduated from Ranger School since the course was opened up to all genders in 2015; in fact, the most recent confirmed total is at least 154 women. All under the same exact standards as the men.

Additionally, there are two women who have earned the Special Forces tab.

In 1980, Captain Kathleen Wilder completed the Special Forces Officer Course but was denied graduation over a failed final exercise. She filed a sex discrimination complaint, there was an investigation, and the general overseeing her case found in her favor. She was never an operational Green Beret, but she did earn the tab and was authorized to wear it for the remainder of her career.

In 2020, a National Guard soldier completed the entire modern Q course and earned her Special Forces tab and was assigned to an operational unit as an engineer sergeant. Obviously, we don’t know her identity because she serves in a highly classified setting. Because she’s a Green Beret. Badass.

These tabs are serious business in the U.S. Army. The old cliché goes something like this: when a new lieutenant arrives at their unit, the commander will shake their hand and immediately look at their shoulder for the tab.

Does this really happen? No, but the fact that it's a cliché indicates the importance. If you want to be a true infantry officer, you gotta at least earn either the Ranger tab.

Anyway, Pete Hegseth, a former infantry officer, never earned a Ranger tab. He never attended Ranger School. He never attended the Q course. Nor did he attend Sapper School. He hasn’t even attended Airborne School.

That’s a very strange thing. Here's this supposedly gung-ho dude who swears to anyone who will listen that he’s a "man's man" and our military isn’t “manly” enough and that women don’t belong in combat arms.

This guy has made the very curious and bizarre decision to assess the testosterone levels of our soldiers. He has lectured generals and admirals on “lethality” and military readiness despite the fact that they have far more experience than he ever will with these things.

He seems to relish posting videos to Department of Defense social media accounts that show him (poorly) attempting pull-ups and all sorts of other physical things.

And yet, when these Army generals and their staffs refer to him as "No Tab Pete," they're calling out his performative masculinity.

They're saying he's a little bitch. He didn't have the guts to attend these courses.

He's weak. He's not a warrior.

No Tab Pete. Delicious.

----
Link to full essay available here for easier sharing: https://t.co/DPRn9hblTt

[Jeff Timmer @jefftimmer]

Imma type this slowly so that you inbred MAGA chuds might be able to follow along:

Donald Trump is a fully-vaxed 600% beta pussy ass bitch who cowered, hid, and lied to avoid serving in the military. Weakest POTUS ever. It's not even close.

[NJ @LaughingNJ]

@ANNELAMOTT @MollyJongFast 🤣

[NASA Solar System @NASASolarSystem]

I can see the light of a clear blue morning
I can see the light of a brand new day

Dolly, it was an honor to have traveled around the Sun with you.💫

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

The President of the United States said that de-transitioning surgeries are being done on his personal orders and no one has paused for a moment to wonder if any rational person would say something so completely and feverishly crazy - because it's just part of the new normal.

[NJ @LaughingNJ]

Why, Wisconsin? Why? 😭 I don’t understand my own state. Sooooo embarrassing. 😭

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Sen. Ron Johnson: "Dr Fauci fear-mongered, scare-mongered just like he did with AIDS. Remember that? 'AIDS is gonna be household transmission.' No, that's not it. But he did that the same way because he's a vaccinologist."