Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickle?”

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

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58Comments

  4. 4.

    Paul Wartenberg

    Any word yet on if Alaska is moving their primary to Jan. 2nd? ‘Cause if they do, Florida is bound to move their primary to Thanksgiving of this year.

  5. 5.

    Dreggas

    See to you moonbats in the “reality based community” it’s monday but things are changing now, we’re MAKING reality, all you’ll be able to do is study it someday. So it’s not Monday, it’s FreedomAndDemocracyDay.

  8. 8.

    Punchy

    I want to know why Mr. Cole hasn’t been shipped overseas via the IRR yet. There’s a war going on, or didn’t you know that? Refusing to serve your country in a time of need? Some patriot…

  9. 9.

    jrg

    GOP politics is damaging religion
    What a surprise. I wonder when the flat-earthers will wake up and realize that “Separation of Church and State” is meant to protect both the Church and the State.

    This news sucks for those churches that focus on philanthropy over Taliban-style fire and brimstone B.S.

  12. 12.

    Jake

    Thank god for Sudan

    Heh. Will Tony Snow try to spin this into evidence of success; ignore this report all together or say it’s just a number?

    Place your bets ladies and gents.

  15. 15.

    Punchy

    Why does anyone care?

    B/c the guy went out, chain-smoked his way thru the hardest golf course in teh U.S., and even beat the best player in the world, doing so. That’s why.

    So me any other sport where some fat-ass foreigner can chain-smoke his/her way to win the sport’s biggest event.

  17. 17.

    mrmobi

    So me any other sport where some fat-ass foreigner can chain-smoke his/her way to win the sport’s biggest event.

    First off, Golf is not a sport, it’s just a way to ruin a perfectly nice walk. A good rule of thumb is, if you can smoke while doing something, it’s not a sport.

    Second, for pure sleep inducing, mind-numbing stupidity, Golf is only surpassed by bowling (also not a sport) as being a pox on our culture and source of some extremely bad televised programs. I’m with George Carlin. We should televise executions, they should be mandatory viewing. You can’t beat state-sponsored murder for pure entertainment value.

    Thank you and good night.

  18. 18.

    Andrew

    So me any other sport where some fat-ass foreigner can chain-smoke his/her way to win the sport’s biggest event.

    Though “sport” is a rather loose use of the term when a fat chain-smoker can be very competitive, allow me to suggest that poker, pool, darts, and (historically) auto racing are all areas where fat, foreign chain smokers have done well. I’m not sure about bowling, though. I think America still rules the lanes.

  19. 19.

    Rusty Shackleford

    I’m so tired of the “both sides do it/both sides are to blame” talking point every Repubican apologist throws out there to blunt the criticism that should be directed squarely at the GOP.

    The latest example.

    I have never been much for third parties and independent candidates.

    For all of its flaws, the old two-party system has brought us a long way in this country, and I’m slow to change. But as I watch the Senate fumble around with the immigration bill, it made me wonder: Has our two-party system lost the ability to get anything done?

    We keep hearing that both parties are playing to their base.

    Republicans don’t want to offend conservatives so they block real immigration reform.

    Democrats fear the liberal left, so they don’t want reform.

    Result: Nothing gets done on that or anything else.

    Yet polls show a majority of Americans want reform, want a guest worker program for illegal immigrants in this country, favor a way to make their status legal. Who speaks for that segment of the electorate? Certainly, not Democratic and Republican leaders, who are so busy pacifying those so-called base voters.

    I hope we do see a third-party candidate in the presidential race next year, not because I favor anyone who might run as an independent, but because a third choice would force both the Republicans and the Democrats to move more to the center to stop an independent from siphoning off moderate voters.

    If both parties are forced to shift their hunt for votes to the center rather than the edges of their parties, who knows? They may find some common ground every once in a while and actually get something done.

    Of all the examples Schieffer could have given, why did he choose immigration reform to illustrate his “both sides do it” argument? It has been clear from Day 1 that the Kennedy-McCain immigration reform fronted by Bush has always enjoyed more support from the middle left than it has from the middle right. Why should the Democrats be assigned the blame that should be directed at the Tom TanKKKredo wing of the Republican party?

  20. 20.

    ThymeZone

    Though “sport” is a rather loose use of the term when a fat chain-smoker can be very competitive, allow me to suggest

    Allow me to suggest that when you can drive a ball 300 yards to within 30 feet of a spot, and then drop a 160 yard pitch to within an arms length of another spot, then you can have an opinion.

    Me, I just watch these guys in fucking awe.

    I’m pretty sure that Roger Maris used to smoke in the dugout between home runs. So what?

  21. 21.

    Punchy

    Second, for pure sleep inducing, mind-numbing stupidity, Golf is only surpassed by bowling (also not a sport) as being a pox on our culture and source of some extremely bad televised programs.

    Wow, I’d hate to be as jaded as you. Keep on playing those video games…maybe one day you’ll win U.S Open2007 via Sony.

  22. 22.

    Zifnab

    So me any other sport where some fat-ass foreigner can chain-smoke his/her way to win the sport’s biggest event.

    I know home-grown chain smokers have dominated baseball for generations. Unless there’s something the US drinking supply, I suspect foreign chain-smokers could do just as well if they were bigger baseball enthusiasts.

    That said, show me a chain smoking soccer player and I’ll show you a 20-year-old with a set of iron lungs.

  23. 23.

    ThymeZone

    Cabrera is big, but hardly a fat-ass, and hardly as much of a fat ass as a lot of football players are.

    And some big, heavy-hitting baseball players.

    Gold doesn’t require running, so what difference does it make anyway? From what I can see, pro golf at that level requires mostly gonads of steel.

  25. 25.

    Face

    Why should the Democrats be assigned the blame that should be directed at the Tom TanKKKredo wing of the Republican party?

    I’ve come to the conclusion that the “base” of the Republican party will accept nothing less in immigration “reform” than hanging all the n#ggers, deporting every ‘wetback’, arresting and imprisoning anyone with a beard and a hyphen in their name, and building one god damn enormous 4 story wall from South Padre to Baja.

    Even then, TanKKKredo will bitch about something related to “illegals”.

  26. 26.

    Andrew

    From what I can see, pro golf at that level requires mostly gonads of steel.

    Does the ball hit back?

    Let’s have tiger face off against a pro MMA fighter. Tiger can even use his clubs.

  27. 27.

    Bubblegum Tate

    That said, show me a chain smoking soccer player and I’ll show you a 20-year-old with a set of iron lungs.

    This kid I went to high school with was a pretty heavy smoker. He also played both soccer and lacrosse–and was quite good at both. It really was mystifying. Dude could inhale Marlboros like they were going out of style, then run with the best of them.

  28. 28.

    Dave

    That said, show me a chain smoking soccer player and I’ll show you a 20-year-old with a set of iron lungs.

    How about a basketball player: Vlade Divac. Big time smoker.

  29. 29.

    ThymeZone

    Does the ball hit back?

    Heh. Obviously you are a miniature golf player.

    And by that I mean, a tiny little person who plays golf.

  30. 30.

    mrmobi

    Keep on playing those video games…maybe one day you’ll win U.S Open2007 via Sony.

    That would be good. In video golf, perhaps it would be possible to change gravity, eh?

    I’m not jaded, Punchy, just crabby because my run yesterday got shortened by about a million cicadas. I got to this place on the path I run and suddenly there were thousands of the erratic little dive bombers and many more crunchy carcasses underfoot. I wonder what it’s like on golf courses around here now?

  31. 31.

    mrmobi

    I’ve come to the conclusion that the “base” of the Republican party will accept nothing less in immigration “reform” than hanging all the n#ggers, deporting every ‘wetback’, arresting and imprisoning anyone with a beard and a hyphen in their name, and building one god damn enormous 4 story wall from South Padre to Baja.

    Not sure about that, Face. I think he’s a hero to real 28%ers, but doesn’t really have a chance for the nomination.

    Of those who do, here’s a recap from the Carpetbagger that pretty dead-on:

    * Rudy Giuliani — Matt Taibbi recently made the case that the former NYC mayor is actually “worse than Bush.” Giuliani is autocratic, thin-skinned, and self-absorbed. He’s inexperienced, ignorant about policy specifics, and his only selling point (performance on 9/11) doesn’t stand up well to scrutiny. His campaign is built around demagoguery — driven solely by fear.

    * John McCain — A shadow of his former self, the senator appears to be a man who’ll do anything to win. McCain is combative and intolerant of dissent. He defends the indefensible and lashes out angrily at anyone who dares to disagree with him. He’s become dishonest, condescending, and egotistical, while pandering shamelessly to some of the worst elements in Republican politics.

    * Mitt Romney — The man appears to have no real convictions at all. On most of the major political issues of the day, Romney believed the exact opposite fairly recently, and has struggled to explain his metamorphosis from moderate governor to far-right candidate.

    * Fred Thompson — The actor/lobbyist/senator doesn’t seem to have any real rationale for seeking the presidency, other than the belief he might win. Thompson is at least as phony as Romney — the red truck story should be humiliating to him — and developed a Bush-like reputation for being lazy and incurious. He considers moving to northern Virginia “getting out of Washington” and his most valuable skill seems to be his ability to pretend to be someone else.

    When describing his concerns about Romney, Josh Marshall said he’s “never seen a presidential cycle when the Republican field looks more feeble, dispirited and generally languid than this year.” I’m inclined to agree (though the ‘96 GOP field was a real doozy).

    But who’s the scariest of the bunch?

    I think they’re all scary, and they should scare the shit out of America, too. It appears my first choice, the Newtster, isn’t going to jump in. I’m still hoping, though.

  32. 32.

    ThymeZone

    The actor/lobbyist/senator doesn’t seem to have any real rationale for seeking the presidency, other than the belief he might win.

    I think you are exactlym precisely right.

    In fact, I think he thinks he might win, and get to take his wife up on Air Force One.

    Just another ambitious asshole, only more so.

  33. 33.

    ThymeZone

    Modern journalism in action.

    Matt Lauer asks the cute princes if they “had each other” when their mother died.

    They allow that they they did.

    Headline: “We had each other.”

    The fucked up bathos machine is in full throat today.

    We are truly not worthy.

  36. 36.

    Chad N. Freude

    Prince Harry: ‘We had each other’

    And was it good for both of you?

    Aside from providing an opportunity for a virtuoso performance by Helen Mirren, why exactly do we still have the British Royals?

  37. 37.

    ThymeZone

    why exactly do we still have the British Royals?

    To prop up the grotesque British class system?

    To provide the Bathos-sphere with material?

  38. 38.

    Rome Again

    Aside from providing an opportunity for a virtuoso performance by Helen Mirren, why exactly do we still have the British Royals?

    Because the top one half of one percent of income earners in the entire world still believe in feudalism? Because many of the power players are still descended from the British Royal family or it’s cousins? Because Burke’s Peerage is still one of the most discussed genealogical books ever written?

    Just a guess.

  39. 39.

    Tax Analyst

    Actually, neither gold, nor golf, require running.

    Nor does typing, when all is said and done.

    Is “typing” a sport? I’m really very good at it, you know…maybe 90wpm and most of my mistakes are on words that most of today’s college graduates can’t spell right anyway…Maybe I should start training for the ’08 Olympic Trials.

    OH…I would consider Golf more of a “Skill” than a “Sport”…and Vlade Divac was indeed a heavy smoker…and if you followed the Laker’s very closely you might have noticed how freaking quickly he got winded when the game’s pace was fast. With better wind the guy would have been a Hell of a ballplayer instead of merely a good one – A highly skilled shooter, great ball instincts, great hands, an adept and clever passer, a good rebounder, very team-oriented player…OK, so his defense often sucked…which gets back to my point about his wind…if he’d had any left he might actually have been able to move his damned feet and play real defense instead of depending on the old “flop-aroo” to bail his sprung lungs out in the 2nd half. Bowling…was only palatable when Chick Hearn was yakking up a dumbed-down version of it (“Bowling For Dollars”) way back in the 70’s & 80’s (now there’s a concept, “Bowling” being dumbed down…lol).

  41. 41.

    Jake

    …why exactly do we still have the British Royals?

    So Sue Townsend can write the Queen & I and we can laugh.

    Plus, someone has to keep the rabid hordes of paparazzi/British tabloid industry occupied. Do you want hordes of unemployed camera wielding maniacs and trash journalists roaming England’s green hills with nothing to do? DO YOU?

  43. 43.

    ThymeZone

    Do you want hordes of unemployed camera wielding maniacs and trash journalists roaming England’s green hills with nothing to do? DO YOU?

    Don’t we have job for them on the Nancy Grace show?

    America is the land of opportunism, after all. They should love us for our freedom.

  45. 45.

    Chad N. Freude

    … hordes of unemployed camera wielding maniacs and trash journalists roaming England’s green hills

    Night of the Living Tabloids. Ravaged celebs litter the landscape, victims of the insatiable cravings of the dreaded paparazzomibies.

  47. 47.

    HyperIon

    Aside from providing an opportunity for a virtuoso performance by Helen Mirren, why exactly do we still have the British Royals?

    my thoughts before/during/after viewing “The Queen”!

    but this

    Matt Lauer asks the cute princes if they “had each other” when their mother died.

    reminds me of a rant that has been festering…

    the questions asked by reporters today are really STOOPID.
    just by sheer chance you would think they would occasionally ask a cogent and coherent question. sadly, no! and these dunce journalists evidently have no clue about how to compose an inquiry that is neither rhetorical NOR leading. i guess no one in jschool explained that interviews are to discover what the interviewee thinks, not what the interviewer would like him/her to think.

    if folks being interviewed occasionally fired back something along the lines “wow…really stupid question..too stupid to answer…next?”, i wonder what would happen.
    it’s hard to think of the “press” as the good guys when they spontaneously act clueless.

  48. 48.

    Chad N. Freude

    i guess no one in jschool explained that interviews are to discover what the interviewee thinks, not what the interviewer would like him/her to think.

    The function of the interview is no longer to discover anything substantive about the interviewee. The objective is to elicit a sympathetic emotional response from the audience. This requires questions that touch only upon expected, clichéd pseudofeelings, and that the answers be strictly conventional, matching the expectations of the audience (and the interviewer). It would be much more interesting, not to mention real-seeming, if the princes had responded by saying that they had been furious at their father’s treatment of their mother and their mother’s playgirl response. But that would violate the rules.

  49. 49.

    Rusty Shackleford

    ThymeZone Says:

    Modern journalism in action.

    Matt Lauer asks the cute princes if they “had each other” when their mother died.

    They allow that they they did.

    Headline: “We had each other.”

    The fucked up bathos machine is in full throat today.

    We are truly not worthy.

    June 18th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

    There are worse people in the world than the Princes William and Harry. The 2 guys actually seem to be fairly decent people, for what it’s worth.

    A few years ago there was a report on the royal family and the people of Britain were rather taken back by how relatively modest the Queen and her family lived.

    Like I said, there are worse people in the world…

  51. 51.

    The Other Steve

    I’ll bet you moonbats didn’t even know that Paris Hilton made a card for her Father, and had a nice visit with the family, because the MSM always focuses on bad news coming from Iraq, instead of what is important to folks back home in flyover land!

  52. 52.

    The Other Steve

    Mother Hilton describe the card as “a beautiful Father’s Day card with pretty pictures”.

    This stuff is important! Why won’t the media report on it!?

  53. 53.

    Chad N. Freude

    Paris Hilton made a card for her Father

    Doesn’t she have people to do that for her?

  55. 55.

    ThymeZone

    Plus, each issue features an “Ask Newt” section where Newt responds to questions from his readers, about the issues facing our nation.

    That sounds a lot like the “Mighty Flabog” from the old SNL show, to me.

    Every week, his fellow Muppets would ask, “Mighty Flabog …. what is the answer?”

    And the Flabog would say, in his gravelly blobness, “What is da question?”

  56. 56.

    Tax Analyst

    Paris Hilton made a card for her Father

    Hey, you know what? I hadn’t heard it, but on the face of it I think it’s actually kinda sweet. No matter how crappy it actually was it was a positive act on her part. She actually was cognizant it was Father’s Day and made something for a father that I sort of imagine didn’t spend a whole lot of time “personalizing” anything about his relationship with this daughter he helped produce. I don’t know if I feel any sorrow about her “plight”, but it’s very clear that nothing was ever expected of her and most everything was handed to her as a reward for meeting that “nothing” standard of expectations. Between her looks and family name and fortune she has been allowed to coast through life without ever having to give even the slightest serious thought to what to do with her life. For someone who was probably not inclined to deep or serious thought is there any reason anyone should have expected her to bear more gravitas?

    Oh-oh, I think I’m gonna cry now…

    …Nah, it’s time for me to go home now and that just makes me too freaking happy to shed any tears…

  57. 57.

    Chad N. Freude

    is there any reason anyone should have expected her to bear more gravitas

    I think you’re confusing gravitas with post-adolescence.

  58. 58.

    ATS

    The worst thing about golf may be the nicknames. The walrus, shark and golden bear and Tiger. Please

    Is it too much to ask to show a little creativity? How about the “Great Vowel Shift”? “Higgs Bosun” “The Whizzenator”?

    For all its flaws, pro BB is much better: the Answer, Flash, Air Canada, the Big Shaq Daddy, the Big Fundamental, Agent Zero, etc.

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