Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

All hail the time of the bunny!

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

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100Comments

  1. 1.

    Capri

    Yeah – Go Spartans!

    Hey. at least the Big East has two teams left in the women’s final four.

  2. 2.

    John O

    The Big Ten sucks, blah, blah, blah.

    Penn St. won the NIT, too. A basketball nobody, if there ever was one.

    As an Illini fan, I hate Michigan State. But they’re awfully good every year, and excellently coached. They play good, fundamental, tough basketball.

    Kudos to the Spartans.

    Go, Villanova!

  3. 3.

    Bootlegger

    I would say the Big East is overrated, but that is not true. Michigan State is playing the toughest ball right now. If NC wins tonight MichSt could become only the second team to beat three #1s and win a championship. I was at the other school that did, even observed the riot afterward. Pepper spray, rubber bullets flying, flash-bang grenades–good times, good times.

    Who’s the other team to beat 3 #1 seeds and the title?

  4. 4.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    The only ? in Villanova v. UNC is how long Villanova will be able to keep up.

  8. 8.

    Bootlegger

    Another hint…it’s in the desert, but the school moto is "bear down".

    Of course I always wondered about the bears in the desert, but turns out the death-bed student who said it was talking about effort. After that I couldn’t get birthing or constipation out of my mind.

    {I know, I know, I’m a sick fuck.}

  12. 12.

    John O

    This game is looking to be a complete and boring blowout.

    UNC was the pre-season consensus favorite, so I guess it is what it is. No shortage of talent on that team.

  13. 13.

    Dr. Squid

    As a Purdue fan, I suppose I’m supposed to hate Moo State, but I don’t – I only really hate Michigan, Ohio State, and Indiana in the Big 11.

    @Frank Sobotka: St. Joe’s or La Salle? Old neighbor was St. Joe’s and she felt the same way.

  14. 14.

    Carrie

    OT/
    So sorry….but this is kind of an emergency.
    Are there any vets in the house?
    Dog with an ear infection…. and i think i might have made matters worse.
    Help?

  15. 15.

    Comrade Darkness

    Oh come on. Even I was rooting for the Spartans. It’s so much fun watching the MSU students burn their little town to the ground . . .

  17. 17.

    South of I-10

    I just can’t get into the basketball. I sorta half-assed pretended when LSU was in. Anyway, my 22 year old neighbor is having a wedding shower for a friend, complete with a DJ in the back yard. Is this music just until the old people leave? Brick House? Strokin? Jesus, I feel like I’m waiting tables again!

  19. 19.

    Bootlegger

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Apparently. UNC v. MSU will be a great game though.

    The *only* team to beat 3 #1 seeds, and the only way possible is to not be a #1 seed, beat the top seed in your bracket, beat a #1 in the semi, and a #1 in the final, is…..University of Arizona Wildcats in 1997.

    I went to the celebration on 4th Avenue (the pub district) and there was lots of people but nothing crazy. Then around 11 pm the cops started blasting over their loudspeakers "please disperse and return home". As a grad student studying criminology I thought "cool, a case study right in front of me".

    So me an another guy in my grad class walked around the area and saw the cops gearing up in a nearby park–armor and weapons. They formed a line and started walking down 4th avenue. We went to the other end and found another line there. A ranking officer told us to leave, I laid my "I’m a sociologist and I’d like to observe" schtick on him and he said "fine, but when we say move, you move." So we stood a little off to the side and looked up the street in the direction the police line was coming from.

    We heard the change in crowd noise first, kind of like a herd of cattle that smell the ozone from lightening in a thunderstorm. Suddenly a wall of smoke rose up down the street, side to side, blocking the whole street. Some bottle flew back into the smoke. Maybe 2 or 3 minutes later the crowd breaks and is running straight toward the police line we’re standing next to. The side streets are open so people break down the side streets.

    Then a cop with a shotgun breaks out of the crowd chasing some guys and as fast as he can pump his shotgun empties it at them. I realized its rubber bullets because you can see see and hear them ricochet off the cars the guys ducked behind.

    Suddenly I’m shoved from behind and its the police line next to us moving up, into the fleeing crowd, and they’re using their shields to shove me toward the cop with the shotgun. A girl next to me fell down and I bent to help her up and when I looked up a cop sprayed me, straight in the face, from behind his shield, with pepper spray. So now I turn and stumble down the side street and I hear bullets flying around me, just like the movies (or Falujah I suppose) when a can throwing sparks skids on the ground past me and the other people running away. BANG! Loudest thing I ever heard, bright flash, right in front of me. I stagger on down the street and run about two blocks before I stop and look back at the police staring back at us.

    At that point all I wanted to do was grab a brick, a bottle, anything, and fight the cops. By that time my friend found me and we headed home. He was shot in the back with a bean bag, had a nice welt. I had to use milk and butter to get the pepper spray out of my eyes.

    After that I did a couple of papers on "police riots", the notion that police overreaction produces extra violence. I even got subpoenaed and testified before a fact-finding commission, got interviewed by the local PBS, and gave a few academic presentations on my research.

    The professor I had for "social control" at the time, Travis Hirschi, only said "well, what were you doing there? What did you expect."

    Sorry so long winded.

  21. 21.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Bootlegger: Great story. I think yer right about the matchup. UNC is a machine but Michigan State might be able to outquick them and Suton will be a formidable opponent for Hansbro. I expect UNC to win comfortably but it will be a good game.

  22. 22.

    Carrie

    @HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker:
    Don’t know for sure, but i have a feeling it’s a full ear infection only because she’s been cramming her ears into drafty doors, rubs her ears into the very few ice patches she can find…she’s not her regular self and she’s been rubbing them on the area rugs.
    A few months ago i bought Avina Sativa from the vets and tonight i rubbed some of it a little too deep in the ear canal… i followed the directions, but have a feeling it was a badly translated version)
    My pup is sufferring..the vet isn’t open tomorrow.

  26. 26.

    South of I-10

    Uh oh. Mr. South just decided he’s gonna wait about an hour, put on his tux and crash their party. This may get interesting.

  27. 27.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Carrie, I don’t wanna tell ya what to do because I don’t wanna be responsible if yer dog keels over or something. But if it was my dog, I’d give him some aspirin and then let him sit with me. (I’m the alpha so he likes my attention.)

  28. 28.

    HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker

    @Carrie:

    Okay, well read up on the ear mites. Look in the ears, if you see a lot of crud or in particular some material that looks like coffee grounds, it’s ear mites. Your pet supply store should have drops for ear mites. What you describe is pretty classic for a dog or cat with ear mites. But I am not a vet, just a pet survivor.

    Good luck, hope your pooch feels better.

  31. 31.

    demimondian

    I’ve seen two scholastic sports riots in my life, one a police riot (IU’s NCAA B’ball championship in 1986) and the other a genuine student riot (UW-Madison’s NCAA Hockey championship in 1981). I’ve got to say that fleeing down State Street just ahead of the riot in Madison is still one of the scariest memories of my life — I was running ahead of the cars being upended on the side streets by the end.

  32. 32.

    Capri

    Hey Carrie – I’m a vet. Ear mites don’t typically infect dogs, I wouldn’t worry about that. They do get lots of ear infections. Sounds like they itch – does she scratch at them? I’d suggest using oto-cleanse (over the counter for people) to gently clean the outside of the ear ear canal. You can clean out the parts of the ear you see, but don’t push stuff down the canal. Massaging the area on her head directly underneith the ear will help bring stuff up out of the ear canal. If her ears itch, she’ll absolutely love this. If they’re infected and are sore, not so much.
    If it seems more like the outside of the ears bother her, not the ear canal – and often this means dogs itching themselves so much that they get sores on the outside edges of the ears – then I’d by very suspicious of sarcoptic mange (you might be getting bitten by the mites too if that’s the case and have itchy skin lesions). That is treated with insecticides including ivermectin (an ingredient in some of the heartworm preventatives).

    Good luck

  33. 33.

    Carrie

    @Just Some Fuckhead:
    Thanks for that, Fuckhead, but this isn’t the Huskita, it’s my little girl (american cocker spaniel)….might give her a half aspirin tonight and see how she holds up…there is an emergency clinic in Ottawa and might have to bring her tomorrow….

  34. 34.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Carrie: I thought of you tonight when I made my Fuckhead Fried Salmon sandwich with horseradish-paprika-mayo sauce, spinach leaves and red onion. Sorry yer having such a shitty evening.

  35. 35.

    Carrie

    @HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker:
    Thanks so much HWPK
    Her ears are clean though….no foul smell and no coffee ground deposits.
    Just the ear rubs (against the floors or area rugs) and for a few weeks i’ve been saying that she refuses to listen to me…..maybe she can’t hear me?

  37. 37.

    Comrade Darkness

    @Carrie: I thought with dogs you could flush their ears with ear flusher stuff and they love it. Worth a try. Cats will hate you until the heat death of the universe if you try it.

  39. 39.

    South of I-10

    @LauraW: He is still threatening to crash, despite my gentle reminders of our behavior at her age (much, much worse). I think he just wants to wear his tux. Apparently I need to create more formal moments for him.

  40. 40.

    Carrie

    @Capri: @Capri: Thank you so much Capri,
    i’ve had this little girl for almost a year now and knew she was prone to ear infections…..didn’t realize how much she would suffer.

  42. 42.

    Bootlegger

    @demimondian: I coined the term "celebration riot" because they occurred, originally, in the winning team’s home digs. And yes, some of them are not caused by the police.

  43. 43.

    Bootlegger

    @Carrie: Our Dood was having chronic ear problems and someone here suggested feeding him food without corn. I was surprised how much corn is in most dog foods. No more ear problems.

  44. 44.

    Laura W

    @South of I-10:

    Apparently I need to create more formal moments for him.

    Or, maybe this sudden burst of spontaneous, romantic, madcap madness will inspire HIM to create more such moments for YOU!

  45. 45.

    Capri

    As long as there are Cocker Spanials, Poodles and Bull dogs veterinarians will never go out of business. If she only has ear problems count yourself lucky.

  47. 47.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @John Cole: I don’t think tomato would work. I love tomatoes but this particular sandwich gets it’s twang from the horseradish and the little bit of lemon juice in the special sauce.

    I don’t have any recipes. I cook from intuition. Here’s how I make this particular sandwich.

    Use a frozen salmon filet, thaw it and then let it soak in a beaten egg with salt, pepper, paprika and some random green spice (I used basil tonight but dillweed is good.) for about ten minutes. Then drop it in flour and coat it heavily on both sides and fry in bacon grease. Get the bacon grease hot hot hot then drop the fish in, scour both sides (you kinda wanna get almost a shell around the fish so it stays together on the sandwich when you eat it because salmon likes to flake off.) Then turn it down low and let it cook all the way through.

    To make the sauce, start with a little mayo, add in horseradish sauce to taste, a couple drops of lemon juice, a fuckton of paprika and either cracked pepper or relish. I used relish tonight because Mrs. Fuckhead was having one too and she doesn’t like too much pepper. Stir it up real good, checking the taste to see what it needs more of (always horseradish.) It will turn a nice shade of orange.

    Very lightly toast a large sandwich/sub roll. Smear loads of special sauce on the top roll. Cut a fairly shallow salmon-sized channel in yer bottom sandwich roll and put the salmon in it because otherwise it will slide around on ya when yer trying to eat it. Garnish with red onion slices and fresh spinach leaves.

  48. 48.

    Tattoosydney

    OK. Yesterday, I suggested that "You can’t stop the music" was the gayest thing ever filmed (due largely to the presence of Steve Guttenberg in short shorts – not a sight to be beheld with a weak stomach).

    I was wrong. This is the gayest thing ever. I have no idea what the hell this is, but it scares me a lot.

  51. 51.

    Davis X. Machina

    I’ve seen two scholastic sports riots in my life,

    I lived two blocks off of Franklin St in 1982, when UNC won it all. There were two cars parallel-parked in front of my house. On the lawn. And a guy 30 feet up in a tree across from the post office, naked, painted like an ancient Briton in Carolina blue.

    One part Hieronymous Bosch, one part Horse Feathers. Only one GSW I was aware of, and only a half-dozen vehicles flipped, up on Cameron, I think. Heard about them only by word of mouth.

    I gave a quiz the next day (TA). Hey, it was on the syllabus.

  55. 55.

    Tattoosydney

    @Laura W:

    Even the Liza can’t compete with a song which has lines like:

    "I want my polka-dotted dickie with the crinoline fringe. … I want my lavender spats, and in addition to that, I want my honey coloured gusset with the herringbone hem."

  56. 56.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Laura W:

    OH?

    Ha. Mrs. Fuckhead completely agreed with you.

    The gayest thing I ever saw was a movie called Red Hand Larry. I don’t have a link and it’s prolly best I don’t.

  60. 60.

    Mark S.

    That was some great shooting by Villanova. The Tar Heels have more talent, but I wouldn’t be surprised is Mich St wins Monday. They’ll have the fans and they are playing great defense.

  61. 61.

    John Cole

    I just had one of those really weird injuries no one ever believes, but I just burnt the living shit out of my fingers on a cup of tea.

    I was doing dishes and in a hurry, so I just threw a cup of hot water in the microwave for two minutes, the same amount of time I always do when I am not using the kettle on the oven, and when it was done I grabbed the mug and burnt myself on the handle.

    That has never happened before.

  65. 65.

    J. Michael Neal

    Sundays are tough for finding a vet but in a big metro area like mine there are always one or two open.

    The advantage of living near a university with a top notch veterinary school. The emergency room is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I feel very fortunate, since I decided that Eddie’s paw was an emergency at 3am on a Saturday morning. I have a feeling that, had I gone to my regular vet, they wouldn’t have thought to take the biopsy that diagnosed lymphoma.

    So, see if you have one in your area.

  68. 68.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @John Cole: Maybe the handle was wet when you put it in? Microwaves cook by exciting water molecules which makes them heat up. Too many of ’em on the handle, handle get hot.

  69. 69.

    J. Michael Neal

    @Laura W: I can think of a lot of adjectives to describe that mix of grating New York accent trying to do a German accent, but "gay" isn’t one of them. Monumentally irritating is closer.

  70. 70.

    Laura W

    @Tattoosydney: I’m tempted to make a Red Hand Larry/Red Hand John Cole joke given the posts that have followed, but I’ve already been accused of casting aspersions on John’s manly whatever, which I NEVER DID.
    So I won’t.

  72. 72.

    Tattoosydney

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Even scarier:

    There have been many reports of injury to people using microwave ovens to heat water to make hot drinks. Water heated in a microwave oven may be superheated and when objects (e.g. a spoon) or granulated materials (e.g. instant coffee) are put into it, the water may boil very vigorously or even appear to explode out of the container. The vigorously ejected boiling water can cause serious burns. Sometimes even the act of taking the container out of the oven and or putting it on the bench can cause the boiling.

  74. 74.

    AhabTDefenestrator

    I’ve already been accused of casting aspersions on John’s manly whatever

    Well, calling it a "whatever" isn’t exactly a way of winning friends and influencing people, for one thing.

    And, as for the manly part…

  76. 76.

    Laura W

    @J. Michael Neal: One person’s "monumentally irritating" is another person’s gay. It’s all perception, you know, so why waste time and energy quibbling over such minutia? Go ask that lady out for a date, for Christ’s sake.

  79. 79.

    Church Lady

    It looks like the final result for the top 10 in the tournament pool will pretty much stay the same no matter what happens Monday. It was a lot of fun and kept me watching even after my team flamed out. Many thanks to Bootlegger for his role as Commissioner – you did a great job.

  82. 82.

    Church Lady

    @John Cole: Check the mug for microwave safeness. If the mug has any lead in it, it will heat up. I did it once and burned the hell out of my hand getting it out of the microwave. Now I check the bottom of the mug to see if it is microwave safe. If it doesn’t say so, I don’t use it.

  83. 83.

    Bootlegger

    @John Cole: I can top that AND win the gayest injury award. I had surgery on my thumb three weeks ago to remove a splinter the diameter of a toothpick about a centimeter long from my thumb joint. I’m a do-it-yourselfer, cut and split my own firewood, and generally abuse my hands. So, how did I get the splinter? Wiping the kitchen table. I scrubbed a spot and ended with a flourish. We have a wormwood table and my thumb caught on one of the worm tracks. The only thing sticking out of my thumb was a piece of thread from the dishrag. The surgeon said they’d never cultured bacteria in a wound like what they found in mine.

    I had to go to the emergency room and there was a short wait, only three people with various end-stage terminal diseases. I walk in and say, "I’ve got a splinter in my thumb."

    The only thing saving my masculinity is that it hurt like hell and I could have lost my thumb.

  84. 84.

    J. Michael Neal

    @Laura W: Now, see, Richard Simmons is both monumentally irritating, and gayer than the 90s. Liza Minnelli is just irritating; Joel Gray gives it his best effort, but really can’t bring enough gay to compensate.

  87. 87.

    Bootlegger

    @Church Lady: You’re welcome. It allowed me to prove yet again that I am the Kiss of Death for any team who ends up in my brackets.

    SNL’s Weekend Update is pretty damned funny tonight.

  90. 90.

    Bootlegger

    @Corner Stone: Oh, no doubt. The militarization of policing has crossed a very big threshold over the last 20 years. Of course people will point to the shootouts over the last two weeks as evidence that tactical units are necessary, or that the property rampages of Collegers (my son’s term) is evidence that fully-equipped riot police are needed. But I can’t shake the notion that the ontological question is far from settled.

  93. 93.

    Corner Stone

    @Bootlegger
    I would suggest that the injection of a "less than lethal" alternative has led to a decrease in training and overall effort of our police forces. They have a "safe" go-to solution and lean on it big time.
    As for the ontological question – I would also suggest that there’s no doubt that large gatherings of testosterone amped up professionals make a mediocre situation worse.
    One of my own stories – guy I grew up with next door is now a police officer. I went on a ride out with him one night. We saw a speeder in a porsche and start to run hot after him. Guy starts weaving in and out of traffic and doing 100+. Even though it’s against the rules to take a ride along into a situation like this, my friend either thinks it’s ok or isn’t thinking at all and gets right after this guy.
    Finally the porsche comes up to a four way stoplight and decides to stop. My friend the officer screeches to a stop, leaps out and literally pulls the guy outta the car, all the while screaming and cursing at him about how he could’ve got people killed.
    Now, we all know this is a normal reaction to adrenaline. However, put into a group, with the mindset most police officers I know have – "us against them" – the crowd control situation is just asking for nasty shit to happen.
    IOW – I’ll go with "yes, the police made it worse" in your situation.

  94. 94.

    J. Michael Neal

    Now, we all know this is a normal reaction to adrenaline. However, put into a group, with the mindset most police officers I know have – "us against them" – the crowd control situation is just asking for nasty shit to happen.

    Interesting story. I’ve got one that I didn’t experience first hand, obviously, but tells me a lot about people under that kind of stress.

    If you remember back a few years, there was an incident in Iraq where US troops denied medical care to an insurgent until he was willing to talk. The captain in the article was one of my best friends in high school. The story there just doesn’t sound at all like him. I haven’t talked to him in almost 20 years at this point, but it still boggles my mind.

  95. 95.

    Bootlegger

    @Corner Stone: I would also suggest that there’s no doubt that large gatherings of testosterone amped up professionals make a mediocre situation worse.

    I agree, in fact it was one of the bullet points in my presentation. Cops have something like a "danger mode" that they can instantly shift in to. Probably even hard wired into the human nature given its obvious advantage for evolution.

    I see the training differently, however, because the cops spend a lot of time training on these activities plus they are outfitted with all that cool equipment. What adrenaline junky wouldn’t find an opportunity to use both the training and tech? Once they train up for it, the scenario becomes self-fulfilling prophecy.

  97. 97.

    Corner Stone

    @Bootlegger

    I see the training differently, however, because the cops spend a lot of time training on these activities plus they are outfitted with all that cool equipment. What adrenaline junky wouldn’t find an opportunity to use both the training and tech? Once they train up for it, the scenario becomes self-fulfilling prophecy.

    I don’t really have any first hand knowledge to add here except to say that my friend and other officers get a lot of training on how to be self-aware of adrenaline (and other fight or flight symptoms) and how to combat them and remain professional. Doesn’t always take of course.
    IMO however, the taser has changed a lot of expectations in police forces. Instead of commanding a situation they reach for the "less than lethal" option. We see it every week, literally. It’s lazy and it’s bullshit.
    Speaking for myself, I’ve had a lot of self elected training and I look forward to never using any of it.

  98. 98.

    Bootlegger

    to say that my friend and other officers get a lot of training on how to be self-aware of adrenaline (and other fight or flight symptoms) and how to combat them and remain professional.

    I’m certain the better academies do just this, and its rare to see one just totally flip his or her wig. But you can see it in their eyes, in how their speech changes, or how their hand always rests on their weapon. Frankly you can’t blame ’em, its a dangerous freakin’ job and death is literally just around any corner.

    I’ll grant you that having the tech means using the tech. I guess I’m just not buying the too-lazy-to-take-command-of-the-situation argument. I don’t see "commanding a situation" as some kind of lost art form. Some cops are good at it, some aren’t. The ones who were bad at it still are, only with the tech they make a hash out of the situation differently than they did pre-tech.

  99. 99.

    Woody

    I for one was delighted to see BOTH U-Con and ‘Nova take a dump.

    There appear to be suggestions that the saintly U-Conn coach may have broken a few rules to project a second-rate school into the top ranks of the sport.

    I have no dog in this fight, caring over much for tneither the Big 10 nor the ACC (i’m an SEC/Big12 guy, m’seff)…

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