Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

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

People are complicated. Love is not.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

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

No one could have predicted…

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

In my day, never was longer.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

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98Comments

  2. 2.

    LT

    Dude – I’m still a Bills fan. I mean come on.

    (I had color, full newspaper page images of The Juice on my wall for years when I was a kid.)

  3. 3.

    Jim

    Here’s an extremely depressing report from the Washington Post

    “I’m a Democrat. I’m voting for Brown,” said Cathy Donahue, 65, who works two jobs, both waiting tables. She has been “scrapin’ and scrappin’ for any kind of a job” since being laid off from an administrative position in the financial district seven years ago, at an age when it’s hard to get hired for a desk job.
    …
    “I just don’t like her,” Donahue said. “She really hasn’t done much.”
    …
    “Plus how she stands for the Medicare. I don’t want that to get in.”

    I’m sure this sixty-five year old, uniquely American voter has great insurance from her two jobs slinging hash, and won’t be at all relying on the Medicare program she has such a firm grasp of. No wonder she’s voting for tax-cuts for the people who fired her from her desk job.

    No offense, Cathy, but you are why I’m a proud elitist.

  4. 4.

    DougJ

    I had color, full newspaper page images of The Juice on my wall for years when I was a kid.

    At this point, the bloody sock bugs me more than the bloody glove.

  5. 5.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Well, I’m a Reds fan and don’t have much use for the American League, cept to beat them in World Series. That said, I hate the Yankees with a passion and the Mets more than that. So by defacto, I guess I’m a Red Sox fan, abeit never in the WS.

    I would be root for Herpes if they played the MFY’s.

    But Curt Shilling is a caustic wingnut turd, so sayeth we all.

  6. 6.

    beltane

    Why were you ever a Red Sox fan? A little bird just told me that if Brown wins tomorrow, the Red Sox will not win another world series until the last of his voters has passed on to the great beyond.

    Go Yankees!!!

  7. 7.

    asiangrrlMN

    Now, now, DougJ. There’s no need to go that far, is there? I mean, casting off sports loyalties in the name of politics? Boy, do you have your priorities backwards.

    @Jim: Sadly, I have a friend in Mass whose female friends are all voting for Brown because they ‘just don’t like Coakley’ and because they think Brown is cute. Ugh.

    @lamh31: True that. Thank you for reminding me.

  9. 9.

    Dannie22

    I always like the Casque of Amontiallado ( I know it’s spelled wrong). It was one of my favorite short stories.

  11. 11.

    DougJ

    I always like the Casque of Amontiallado ( I know it’s spelled wrong). It was one of my favorite short stories.

    I like Poe a lot.

  12. 12.

    Jim

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I was just thinking that a lot of the anti-Coakley sentiment is because she’s a woman, even from women. She’s not warm, motherly, likeable whatever-the-fuck people mean when they talk about this shit. I am feeling very frustrated with my country. Again.

  13. 13.

    valdivia

    @Jim:

    Isn’t this like all those female democrats interviewed by the media who would be voting for Palin because she had female bits? I really don’t know how this will turn out but the reports from the ground and the people who I trust on reading dynamics is encouraging. The media is now dancing for Brown just like they did for Hoffman. We’ll know tomorrow no?

  15. 15.

    jharp

    Can anyone explain what’s going on at intrade.com?

    Brown is a 5:2 FAVORITE over Coakley for God’s sake.

    I don’t believe it for a second. What gives?

  19. 19.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Jim: Yeah, I think this might be true. It frustrates the hell out of me (as someone who is not a very womanly-like woman myself) that women can still be such damn harpies towards other women for whatever reason.

    And, Dave Stewart incorporating MLK for an Obama video. I know it’s old, but I don’t care.

    @DougJ: I love Poe, surprise, surprise.

  21. 21.

    area man

    I won’t apologize for being a Red Sox fan as I never recall ever being given much of a choice. My earliest acquaintance with soul-crushing disappointment was at 8 years old watching Bucky “Fucking” Dent hit that homerun and seeing Yaz’s shoulders slump. Over the years that feeling has become so intermingled with my history as a liberal voter that I can’t even pick them apart anymore.

    I know it’s oft posted but Mencken sure did nail it:

    “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

    Courage, mes amis!

  22. 22.

    Dreggas

    In other news it’s raining so hard and the wind is so vicious here in So-Cal that one gust literally shook our building here at work.

  23. 23.

    valdivia

    @jharp:

    Nate did a post a long time ago on how Intrade seemed suspicious to him and the trades were being driven by one or tow individuals in political contracts. I think Intrade reflects the CW no?

  24. 24.

    Tax Analyst

    I USED to feel sorry for the Red Sox, especially after the Billy Bucks play against the Mets. But they have totally cured me and now I would almost prefer ANYBODY win other than them. Well, maybe not the Yankees.

    OH…any brave and courageous he may be, Curt Schilling’s political preferences should have absolutely zero relevance to any sentient human being. Someone should dismantle the platform he uses to spew them out from, or at least move it out of everybody else’s way.

  25. 25.

    Joel

    Can’t Schilling just move back to Arizona? We only rooted for the laundry, you fat douchewaddle.

  26. 26.

    Dreggas

    oh and WRT the coakley “gaff” about schilling, maybe she meant it as…you know…an insult to schilling? I mean c’mon that’s insider stuff that most people in MA would pick up on. It’s like saying “Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries” to a monty python fan.

  27. 27.

    Jim

    I think progressive sports fans have to keep a firewall in their brains and souls between politics and the players they root for. Randian greed-heads and bible-thumpers, most of ’em.

  28. 28.

    Kilks

    I can’t handle this Scott Brown stuff.

    He’s from my town and I know people are going to vote for him just because of that.

  29. 29.

    ellaesther

    “Open thread” means “open thread,” right? One can talk about anything, right?

    So, I’m going to try something again for which I got almost no love this morning — but which, to my mind, was perfect for this crowd! I’ll give it another shot.

    A gift for my Balloon Juice pals, on this federal holiday:

    “[The] prevalent tendency toward softmindedness is found in man’s unbelievable gullibility… seen in the tendency of many readers to accept the printed word of the press as final truth. Few people realize that even our authentic channels of information—the press, the platform, and in many instances the pulpit—do not give us objective and unbiased truth. Few people have the toughness of mind to judge critically and to discern the true from the false, the fact from the fiction. Our minds are constantly being invaded by legions of half-truths, prejudices, and false facts. One of the great needs of mankind is to be lifted above the morass of false propaganda.” [emphasis mine]

    This quote is from Martin Luther King’s Strength to Love. The book was published in 1963, but if I understand its chronology correctly, the sermon from which that passage is taken was written in about 1955.

    There is nothing new under the sun, and Dr. King had us pegged more ways than we even know anymore.

  30. 30.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Jim: This is actually true for me. I have to disregard so much of the shit that goes along with sports in order to actually enjoy them. And, to be honest, I have watched less and less as the years go by. It really isn’t easy to be somewhat of a progressive and love sports.

    @ellaesther: Wow. Talk about speaking to the truth way before his time. Dr. King sure knew of which he spoke, didn’t he?

  31. 31.

    Kilkee

    Schilling I knew to be a jerk, but I was crushed to see that Doug Flutie is also aboard the Wingnut Express.

  33. 33.

    Tax Analyst

    @ #22 Dreggas:

    In other news it’s raining so hard and the wind is so vicious here in So-Cal that one gust literally shook our building here at work.

    That’s no shit, man. On my way to work this morning (about 11:30am) I’m on the 105 East and it was pushing my car all around my lane. At first I thought it might be my alignment…just had it adjustment about a month ago, but I looked ahead and saw a lot of other cars moving rather randomly back and forth within their lanes…and some other idiots tail-gating just like it was another bright, clear, dry, sunny day.

  34. 34.

    Toast

    If Scott Brown wins tomorrow, I am no longer a Red Sox fan.

    So at least some good would come out of that horrible defeat.

  36. 36.

    beltane

    @asiangrrlMN: There was a study done that showed women were more likely to be critical of female candidates than men were. It was done before the ’08 primaries and I wish I could remember more about it because it did ring true for me.

  37. 37.

    Sentient Puddle

    @valdivia:

    I think Intrade reflects the CW no?

    Pretty much. You’d think that this sort of mindset would have gone out the window after that whole “Dems can’t take back the Senate” crap, or at least after ’08 proved every vestige of CW wrong. But no. The news cycles are still incredibly important to Intrade, and for that reason, there’s no good reason to rely on it as an indicator.

    By the way, I was unaware of the fact that Nate did a post on it, but I searched and found it. As is typical, a good read.

    And speaking of Nate and election indicators, the scenarios he gamed out are about all you need right now.

  39. 39.

    Toast

    I was crushed to see that Doug Flutie is also aboard the Wingnut Express.

    Shit. On. Me.

    I have spent countless hours defending that fucking midget, trashing Rob Johnson and Wade Phillips up one side and down the other, and he’s a winger?

  40. 40.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Chad N Freude: Now you’re just baiting me, aren’t you? Neither. Ugh.

    @beltane: I would completely believe it. Women have always been very critical of other women, unfortunately. It’s part of the mean girl syndrome, and we tend to let men get away with shit more than we do other women.

  41. 41.

    Jim

    hmmmm…… Chuck Todd is speculating/predicting that Scott Brown could win by as many as ten points, which will be a clear and strong rebuke of Obama’s agenda by the country as a whole, in this off year election in Massachusetts.

    This is the most optimistic I have felt about the MA race in a week.

  42. 42.

    Lisa K.

    As one Red Sox fan to another-Curt Schilling is the blowhard to end all blowhards. While I will love him forever for the bloody sock, if I never heard him open his mouth again it would be far too soon.

    The Red Sox transcend Schilling. Don’t let that asshole take away ALL your joy.

  43. 43.

    Sentient Puddle

    @MikeF: And in response to this, I think the default model includes that Brown +15 poll that nobody takes seriously. Might be wrong on it, but until we get a new post up, I’d take that 75-25 split with a grain of salt.

  45. 45.

    Tax Analyst

    @#27 Jim

    I think progressive sports fans have to keep a firewall in their brains and souls between politics and the players they root for. Randian greed-heads and bible-thumpers, most of ‘em.

    This.

  47. 47.

    Toast

    Oh, and Flutie’s a winger? I’ve logged at least a hundred hours defending that damned midget and trashing Wade Phillips and Rob Johnson. And he’s a winger? Damn it all to hell.

  48. 48.

    Chad N Freude

    I, too, am an admirer of Poe (one of the Poe folk, I suppose). Were you aware that Poe anticipated the existence of Rush Limbaugh?

    “It is the beating of his hideous heart!”

    QED

  53. 53.

    OriGuy

    How stupid is this:

    Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.
    At the end of the serial number on Trijicon’s ACOG gun sight, you can read “JN8:12”, a reference to
    New Testament book of John, Chapter 8, Verse 12, which reads: “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” The ACOG is widely used by the U.S. military.
    __
    The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

    Anybody every heard of the Sepoy Mutany?

  55. 55.

    Dreggas

    @Tax Analyst:

    Driving in on the 55 wasn’t too bad this morning given that it’s a fed holiday, so holiday lite when it comes to traffic. Going home i expect to be another story.

    It’s pouring here and no sign of letting up any time soon and the wind has been hellacious.

  56. 56.

    rec

    I’m not a Cowboys fan, but I sort of like Romo, and I figured if Ta-Nehisi likes them they’re not all bad.

    After seeing this I wanted nothing more than for them to get creamed Sunday.

    Now, I’m not a big Scott Brown fan…

  59. 59.

    area man

    @ellaesther:

    Thanks for posting that, ellaesther. Too true. Listening to some of Dr. King’s speeches today on the radio I was struck by how much of what he talks about is off limits in today’s media landscape. He repeatedly called out the military-industrial complex. These days hinting at the merest reservations about the “Moar War 4-evah!” philosophy instantly confers DFH status and reveals one as a deeply unserious person. Hell, in one of the speeches I listened to today he actually proposed a national minimum income for every citizen. Can you imagine how a-quiver that would set George Will’s nostrils if some national figure proposed that today? Gaming the refs sure has worked wonders for the conservative movement in this country.

  62. 62.

    ellaesther

    @ellaesther: Sigh. Still no love….

    Ok, BJ, I tried to give you a present! I’ll just take it back to the imaginary Quote Store from which I bought it in my imagination, if you don’t want it.

    Also, just to be on-topic a smidge, this whole election in Massachusetts has me so fucking nervous that I can barely even think about it.

  63. 63.

    jharp

    I still don’t understand the intrade.com thing.

    Shouldn’t we be loading up on Coakley at nearly 2 1/2 to 1?

    Or is there a legitimate betting house that offers realistic odds? Wouldn’t one want to protect one’s Coakley bet with an even money one on Brown, the true odds? I figure you can’t lose.

  65. 65.

    Chad N Freude

    @Tax Analyst:

    tail-gating just like it was another bright, clear, dry, sunny day

    It is necessary to do this in bad weather to obtain a CA driver’s license.

    Fun fact: When it rains hard after a period of no rain, oil, and maybe other petroleum products, dripped from cars into grooves and pits in the pavement of the freeways rise to the driving surface, making the freeways a lot like high-speed Disneyland thrill rides.

  67. 67.

    Chad N Freude

    @ellaesther: My apologies. I have been so busy pretending to be humorous on various threads today that I did not take the time to respond to your MLK quote. It’s an eloquent statement of an immutable law of nature, and I thank you (twice) for posting it.

  71. 71.

    DougJ

    “Not even God would bet on the Bills.”-Det. Meldrick Lewis

    “I couldn’t find my own behind with a map and a three day headstart.”
    –Det. Meldrick Lewis

    I love the guy. Better than Bunk, IMHO.

    And better than the newspaper guy in Season 5. (I’m not sure which is a better comparison — Bunk is the same character, newspaper guy the same actor).

  72. 72.

    Sentient Puddle

    OK, so Nate just posted his numbers, and like I expect, he kept CrossTarget (that firm that had the Brown +15 number, as well as another one with its finger on the scale). So yeah, I don’t buy the 3:1 odds. And I’m going to call it now: There’s no way in hell Brown can win by double digits.

    I hope Nate follows up with some rejiggering of the numbers like he did the last post I linked.

  73. 73.

    Svensker

    @Chad N Freude:

    What I remember about driving in L.A. in the rain (besides the fact that my 65 VW convertible would fill up with water like a bathtub until a boyfriend shot a hole in the floor) was that everyone went insane. Right turns from the left lane, running red lights, trying to defy not only all traffic laws but laws of physics as well. Just freaked out because there was this WET stuff all over — they were like, OMG!

  74. 74.

    Chad N Freude

    @Svensker: Nononononono! That is normal SoCal driving behavior. Down here, red lights are suggestions. And turns from any lane always begin with a quick lurch in the direction opposite the turn direction, presumably to let other drivers know that it is not safe to pass a turning car.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    @Chad N Freude:

    I, too, am an admirer of Poe (one of the Poe folk, I suppose).

    Oddly enough, a news story about Poe today.

    The man in this cheerful watercolor portrait from around 1843 is none other than Edgar Allan Poe, author of such macabre masterpieces as “Masque of the Red Death” and “The Raven.”
    …
    This likeness, by portraitist A.C. Smith, was purchased for a few dollars from an estate and is expected to fetch $50,000 or more at auction this weekend. According to the Associated Press, the portrait shows Poe as the successful — and apparently charming — man of letters that he was in the mid-19th century.

    From the Poe folks at home.

  76. 76.

    Chad N Freude

    @Brachiator: Thanks for that. We should go out and wall somebody up, at least a cat, in honor of his birthday.

    Modern viewers are more familiar with a later daguerreotype, which shows the writer wearing a somber expression.

    Not only a somber expression, but considerably thinner and somewhat haggard features.

  79. 79.

    Chad N Freude

    OMG. It has stopped raining and the sun has broken through! All of those donations to Pat Robertson have worked! Hallelujah!

  82. 82.

    ellaesther

    Good lord, I completely missed asiangrrl and area man! I’m very sorry!

    And also Chad N Freude and Svensker: Yay! Pouting worked, too! (Please don’t tell my kids).

    I’m reading the book that passage is from and it’s just so amazing. I thought I knew a little bit about the man, and I did, but I knew about him, I hadn’t read him . He was so young when he started his work (I think that when he wrote the above he was somewhere in the vicinity of 26 years old) — it just slays me.

    If Dr. King had not been taken from us, what would he have achieved? I feel like I’m just now beginning to understand the enormity of our loss.

  83. 83.

    Comrade Kevin

    I see that Schilling and Flute have weighed in. Has anybody checked in with Tom Brady yet?

  84. 84.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @ellaesther: et al., people whitewash King’s political evolution. He became more radical later on in the ’60s.

    King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation. Toward the end of his life, King more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice.[89] Though his public language was guarded, so as to avoid being linked to communism by his political enemies, in private he sometimes spoke of his support for democratic socialism. In one speech, he stated that “something is wrong with capitalism” and claimed, “There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”

  85. 85.

    Chad N Freude

    @Kobie: Been done. see this. It’s another BJ tradition.

    Edit: Sorry, I missed “again” in your comment. The rain made me do it. Is “pederastery” the GWBush spelling?

  88. 88.

    JK

    Doug,

    Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I will continue to love what Curt Chilling did for the Red Sox despite the fact that I despise his political views.

    Keep in mind that former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee is a progressive.

  89. 89.

    JK

    arguingwithsignposts, ellaesther, Chad N Freude

    History professor Peniel Joseph discussed Martin Luther King’s progressive politics on BookTV’s After Words program in an interview about his new book “Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama”

    http://www.booktv.org/Program/11233/After+Words+Peniel+Joseph+author+of+Dark+Days+Bright+Nights+From+Black+Power+to+Barack+Obama+interviewed+by+Kevin+Merida+national+editor+The+Washington+Post.aspx

  93. 93.

    chrome agnomen

    major league sport players are lifelong-pampered, insulated from real life, vastly overpaid performers. no one can be surprised that they will be predominately conservative. they have their own chapter in the best-seller IGMFU.

  95. 95.

    Redshirt

    I’m so sad Flutie’s a winger. I used to love him, but that’s enough for me to know he’s either evil or really dumb. Either way, another fallen hero.

  96. 96.

    BruceK

    If Schilling’s efforts grant victory to the nihilists, then may every team that ever gave him money know nothing but misery and failure until every ballpark he ever called home returns to the ground from whence it came.

  97. 97.

    twiffer

    wait, people listen to schilling? i thought we just tolerated the blabbering cause he was a good pitcher, and now that he’s retired, we were ignoring him and encouraging him to spend more time running his video game company.

    no one ever actually listened to him, did they?

    also, if he fucks up healthcare reform, will that affect the value of his autograph? cause i’ve got his sig from when he was in the minors.

  98. 98.

    BruceK

    @twiffer: Thanks for reminding me that I still haven’t gotten around to microwaving the High Heat CD that had him on the cover. One more thing to add to my to-do list…

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