Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Infrastructure week. at last.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

I was promised a recession.

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

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

This fight is for everything.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

This really is a full service blog.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

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

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

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38Comments

  1. 1.

    Shabbazz

    I’ve developed an appreciation for Tequila since moving to the South West. I strongly recommend AsomBroso El Platino. It is the most phallic looking bottle you’ll ever see, but it is some damn fine tequila!

  2. 2.

    Dreggas

    I highly recommend Margartiaville tequila for, what else, margaritas. It’s not overly priced and quite smoothe. Of course for my money I am a cazadores fan when it comes to shots/sipping.

  4. 4.

    Kevin

    I don’t know anything about tequila as tequila, but I’ll take my brother’s fiancée’s judgement on something for margaritas, something caled “puerto vallarta”.

  7. 7.

    Cain

    No sleeping problems tonight.

    I am just flat out hammered.

    Wanna spoon?

    I’m flattered. Toss in some hula fruit, and I’m there!

    BTW, great rebuttal by Wonkette, on that whole flowbee tape thing.

    cain

  8. 8.

    Freemark

    It may be a friend tonight, but I doubt it will be so friendly in the morning.

  9. 9.

    Jon H

    I find it worrisome that the US border patrol is running help wanted ads via blogs, especially if the ad I saw here is coming through Pajamas Media – seeking to hire wingnuts likely to be most hostile to immigrants seems like a bad idea.

    (Not so much here, more the other Pajamas Media sites, like Hot Air)

  10. 10.

    cbear

    I am just flat out hammered.

    Wanna spoon?

    No thanks, I’m using a straw, but thanks for the offer.

  11. 11.

    cbear

    that whole flowbee tape thing.

    Oh, but it only gets better….the latest post up at NoShit is The Sun Queen (complete w/ picture).

    Hillary as Sun Queen — beautiful, strong, iconic — is a rather unusual move at the end of a campaign. She radiates power, empathy, and the vulnerability of John F. Kennedy and is strikingly similar to another woman of the people, Eva Peron:

    I really can’t take much more of this—I almost choked to death on a potato chip when I saw this latest post—somebody please stop me from going to that site. I’m begging you.

  12. 12.

    Bot LaBeer

    Anyone ready for an Obama/Clinton ticket? According to Chris Cilizza and Matthew Mosk at the WaPo (via MSNBC), the Clinton fundraisers and the Obama fundraisers are in talks to combine forces.

    I know there’s hatred for the unity ticket because I’m one of the haters, but there’s some serious fundraising power between the Clinton bundlers and the Obama machine that McCain could never compete with.

    I still hate the idea, but I don’t hate it as much as I did a few weeks ago.

  13. 13.

    Jasonconga

    Back from 8 days of couchsurfing in Romania, I had some local liquor called Zinca or something (pronounced Zeench I think) and it was intense, definitely not for your weak-willed…man, Romania is an insane country, at times just as modern as anywhere else with cafes with wireless internet and then going by is a horse-drawn cart….

  14. 14.

    geemoney

    As long as this is an open thread, can one of you please define SA2SQ for me? Teh Google really only references blog posts. And the Urban Dictionary…not so much.

  16. 16.

    Bot LaBeer

    I had some local liquor called Zinca or something

    It’s Americanized spelling is Tzuika – It’s originally a type of gypsy moonshine distilled from plums.

  17. 17.

    geemoney

    BLB, thanks. Part of me was afraid that the answer to the question would be…fitting.

    Cheers.

  18. 18.

    Jon H

    “Hillary as Sun Queen — beautiful, strong, iconic — is a rather unusual move at the end of a campaign. She radiates power, empathy, and the vulnerability of John F. Kennedy and is strikingly similar to another woman of the people, Eva Peron:”

    IMHO, it looks more like some Maoist or North Korean design.

  19. 19.

    Jon H

    “I know there’s hatred for the unity ticket because I’m one of the haters, but there’s some serious fundraising power between the Clinton bundlers and the Obama machine that McCain could never compete with.”

    It doesn’t seem to me like a unity ticket would really be required to get the combined fundraising.

    If Clinton’s not on the ticket, many of her fundraisers are still going to want to put their markers down on the new administration in order to garner influence, and in hopes of forestalling a McCain win.

    The two camps might well be talking, but it might just be a matter of the Obama camp preparing to integrate the Clinton fundraisers, rather than trying to set up a unity ticket.

  20. 20.

    sal

    I don’t think Dios mio is grammatically correct. Mi Dio = My God.
    Can’t drink tequila myself since college, but there’s a tequila bar a couple towns from here with over 150 brands of tequila. There’s one that’s something like $12 a shot. They have tequila tasting nights like wine tastings.

  22. 22.

    jake

    I find it worrisome that the US border patrol is running help wanted ads via blogs, especially if the ad I saw here is coming through Pajamas Media – seeking to hire wingnuts likely to be most hostile to immigrants seems like a bad idea.

    It’s a waste of your tax dollars. The Brown Squirts aren’t going to do anything that involves personal risk. They’ve convinced themselves that all illegal immigrants are violent thugs and there might be a few terrists sneaking in that way.

    Really, try to imagine someone like Cornfidiot Wankee patrolling the New Mexico border in August.

  23. 23.

    Dennis - SGMM

    From Asia Times Online, what you didn’t see in the MSM:


    US plot to nail Iran backfires
    By Gareth Porter

    WASHINGTON – The George W Bush administration’s plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shi’ite militias in Iraq has encountered not just one but two setbacks.

    The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki refused to endorse US charges of Iranian involvement in arms smuggling to Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, and a plan to show off a huge collection of Iranian arms captured in and around the central city of Karbala had to be called off after it was discovered that none of the arms was of Iranian origin…

    Bushco and its pet general can’t even pull off a decent frame job. That our Iraqi clients wouldn’t play along suggests that Iraq has joined the rest of the ME in ignoring Bush through the end of his term.

  24. 24.

    Darkness

    The topic of the Hidden Imam and how much it influences Iranian politics came up in our house and I felt compelled to find out what that was about, being an ignorant American surrounded by obnoxiously informed foreigners. Fascinating stuff. Thought I’d share.

    http://www.iranian.ws/cgi-bin/iran_news/exec/view.cgi/9/15612

    I just flat out pity these guys–honestly the only emotion this generates in me. The level of cognitive dissonance required to conform to all this and just get through each day so you can lay down to sleep again for an all-too-fleeting respite staggers my mind.

  25. 25.

    Wilfred

    what you didn’t see in the MSM

    Here’s a sample paragraph from the paper of record’s introductory drumbeating Hezbollah’s Actions Ignite Sectarian Fuse in Lebanon

    Hezbollah’s brief takeover of Beirut led to brutal counterattacks in northern Lebanon, where Sunni Muslims deeply resented the Shiite militant group’s display of power. The violence energized radical Sunni factions, including some affiliated with Al Qaeda, and extremist Sunni Web sites across the Arab world have been buzzing with calls for a jihad to avenge the wounded pride of Lebanese Sunnis.

    “hezbollah, brutal, resented, militant, power, violence, energized, radical, al Qaeda, extremist, jihad, avenge, wounded, pride” – The Times is a gold mine for discourse analysis.

    The Israelis will invade Lebanon as we bomb Iran – they’ve been setting this up for months. The Times and the rest of the MSM is providing a bit more sophisticated manipulation than the run-up to Iraq, a longer set-up, at least.

  26. 26.

    Dennis - SGMM

    Here’s a sample paragraph from the paper of record’s introductory drumbeating Hezbollah’s Actions Ignite Sectarian Fuse in Lebanon

    That’s how the NYT saw it – just like Bush saw it. You’d think that they’d dig into things a bit more after their senseless cheerleading for the Iraq fiasco.

    Again, an excerpt from Asia Times Online, in this instance about the Hezbollah “coup” in Lebanon:

    …As it turns out, Hezbollah made the Siniora government and its Saudi backers look very foolish. As Israeli military intelligence chief Major General Amos Yadlin put it, Hezbollah proved last week that it is the strongest force in Lebanon – “stronger than the Lebanese army” – and could have seized power if it had wanted to. “Hezbollah did not intend to take control … If it had wanted to, it could have done it,” Yadlin told Ha’aretz newspaper.

    Equally, the US and the Saudis, in their acute embarrassment, have tried to characterize the dispute as religious. But it was the Siniora government’s decisions concerning Hezbollah’s communication system and the sacking of the chief of Beirut airport which triggered the confrontation. These decisions were interconnected and had manifestly security-oriented overtones.

    At any rate, Siniora’s government was supposed to confine itself to running the day-to-day affairs until a Lebanese president is elected, but instead it made a strategic decision of countering Hezbollah’s expanding influence. (This followed secret visits by the secretary general of the Saudi National Security Council and former intelligence chief and ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, to Beirut.) In retrospect, Hezbollah would seem to have staged a “counter-coup” rather than a “coup”…

  31. 31.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    Since yoy’re fucked up, John, i think you should watch this dance remix of O’Reilly’s Inside Edition flipout.

    Hahahahaha!!!

  32. 32.

    J. Michael Neal

    “hezbollah, brutal, resented, militant, power, violence, energized, radical, al Qaeda, extremist, jihad, avenge, wounded, pride” – The Times is a gold mine for discourse analysis.

    The Israelis will invade Lebanon as we bomb Iran – they’ve been setting this up for months. The Times and the rest of the MSM is providing a bit more sophisticated manipulation than the run-up to Iraq, a longer set-up, at least.

    Hezbollah is brutal, resented, militant, violent, energized, radical, and vengeful. The problem is not characterizing it as such. The problem is using such mindless tactics to reduce their influence that you accomplish the opposite. Among those things is not recognizing that a lot of the other factions in Lebanon can be characterized in exactly the same way.

  33. 33.

    Gebghis

    John, it’s time for an examination of why John Stewart asks better questions (and gets more revealing answers) of political guests than Russert, Stephanopoulos, Matthews. Stewart’s handling of Doug Feith last week was incredible. By comparison, Tim and George ask questions, and the guest pontificates with an answer to a question that wasn’t asked. How is it that a comedian can outshine an entire class of career journalist?

    Best…H

  34. 34.

    protected static

    [M]an, Romania is an insane country, at times just as modern as anywhere else with cafes with wireless internet and then going by is a horse-drawn cart…

    Last winter, I was in Kerala, a state in southern India; my most surreal moment was seeing women in saris using hand tools to dig a trench… for fiber optic cables.

    Never did get to try the local hooch; where we were, kallu (a kind of palm wine, also called toddy) is largely a low-brow affair, and our hosts would have been appalled if we’d gone to a toddy shop.

  35. 35.

    Perry Como

    The Mrs. likes Milagros, I prefer Porfido. But I’m still recovering from last night’s send off of a Sgt. to Iraq. Sad to see a guy that was career — left the service, and signed up for the NG — get sent back to the meat grinder. Why the fuck is the National Guard fighting a war in a foreign country?

  36. 36.

    Carol

    I lurk here when I need a good dose of sanity and no-BS discussion, so thanks for the site. It’s helped me get past a few “chicken little” moments around this campaign.

    I hope it’s OK to share a link, because there’s a great post on dKos about how to talk about Obama with your Republican friends. It made a LOT of sense to me; I intend to try a few of the talking points out on some Republican colleagues who gag when they think of voting for McSame.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/18/03541/2524/944/517720

    I’d be curious to know what some of you here think about that poster’s ideas? A lot of my family is old Arizona Republican stock (they’re almost ALL leaning heavily toward Obama) but I’ve been a Dem so long that I am not always sure I can frame things in a way that really speaks to them.

  37. 37.

    Wilfred

    The Bush Administration is brutal, resented, militant, violent, energized, radical, and vengeful. The problem is not characterizing it as such, the problem that the United States is characterized as such throughout the Muslim world.

    Hezbollah is a viable, legitimate force for religious nationalism, and spare me any Bushspeak about terrorism – it wasn’t Hezbollah that littered South Lebanon with cluster bombs. Drumbeating and ‘words of power’ as practiced by ignorant reporters only serve to mobilize the forces of jingoism in the US.

    For a takedown of Worth and his article see here; the author is no friend of Hezbollah, either.

  38. 38.

    Apsaras

    Matt Taibbi’s latest editorial compares the Clintons’ attempt to strongarm the nomination progress to the politics of former Soviet client states.

    Here’s the editorial

    And for the tl;dr crowd, my favorite parts.

    So no more Hillary: no more Rocky references, no more Tom Petty, no more carefully orchestrated leaks of human imperfections mined deep in the anus of Barack Obama’s increasingly sullied biography. No more guilt-by-association raps, no more purges of insufficiently ruthless campaign staffers, no more woe-is-me whining about media conspiracies and the “race card” and Florida and Michigan and her empty war chest — no more whining about being outspent, from a candidate who had eight years of White House chips to cash in. No more tearful “How can you do this to my mom?” phone calls to superdelegates from Chelsea Clinton, no more of a hectoring, red-faced Bill Clinton lecturing us about whatever side of his ass we forgot to kiss that day. The Clintons are finally done. They were a big draw for a long time — but I think we’re all going to be surprised by just how much and how thoroughly we won’t miss them once they’re finally gone.

    When all’s said and done, what may end up being most interesting about this race is that we all knew it wasn’t really over, even when the voters said it was over. We’ve advanced to a stage of our politics where the transfer of power is no longer simply a matter of counting votes: Now we have to wait for the dust to settle, to make sure the secondary, post-election political battle reaffirms the status of the “elected” winner, and the only way we know for sure how things have turned out is to see who’s actually sitting in the Oval Office at the end of the fight.

    In places like Russia and Uzbekistan, the votes are less important than who’s counting them, and the only math that matters is the aggregate of a bunch of phone calls whizzing across the capital in the middle of the night, in which the only important considerations are purely geographic in nature: Who’s controlling the TV stations? The election commission? The police station near the Kremlin? The army in the Western District? At 4:08 a.m., which (read: whose) federal judge is most likely to answer his telephone? Like a game of poker, you can’t guess the outcome until you know who’s holding what cards.

    But its all good stuff, so read the whole thing.

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