Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

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

This blog will pay for itself.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

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

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

A consequence of cucumbers

Everybody saw this coming.

You cannot shame the shameless.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Bark louder, little dog.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

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Reader Interactions

70Comments

  1. 1.

    liberal

    GG has an awesome post today.

    Of course, linking to GG makes baby Jesus cry, at least here at BJ comment sections.

  5. 5.

    MaximusNYC

    Perhaps this video is a sort of metaphor for Obama vs. the GOP? One jumps around wildly and makes a lot of noise, the other slowly, quietly, steadily pursues its goals.

  6. 6.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    I’m just thrilled that we have a rubber stamp Congress and everything Obama wishes for magically gets legislated into law. I prefer these boring days where every piece of progressive legislation is whisked right through.

  8. 8.

    Redshirt

    Hehe. Turtle.

    I’ve risked my life on two occasions pulling big turtles off the highway. Little did I know turtles are such jerks! Next time, maybe I will not be so kind.

  9. 9.

    ellaesther

    @liberal: Hey, I saw your apology late yesterday (after I saw that you directed me to it), but I’m finally here to say: Thank you! And I apologize for saying what I caught a whiff of….

    And re: your last comment in that same old thread, I could go into how all national movements (in this case Zionism) are based in culture that goes back centuries, long before modern-day nationalism was invented, because nationalism as we conceive it (including Zionism) is a modern construct, and yet, if we accept that construct as the organizing principle for international relations we have to deal with (note: “deal with,” not necessarily “like”) the inconsistencies of basing modern-day decisions about land and water, etc, at least in part in ancient culture and ideas of belonging, because that’s how we’ve organized nationalism, and thus the answer REALLY can’t be saying “this nationalism is ok, but that nationalism is just silly,” but rather reaching a point where we, humanity, get beyond nationalism — but I won’t.

    Because an OT with a tortoise chasing a dog should be fun, and that is not a fun topic. (Geez, and how much did I want to tell that young lady “IT’S NOT A TURTLE!!” But then again, bless her for sending that video out into the world!)

    And I certainly wouldn’t want to link to anything like this, where I provide background to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and even address the question of clashing nationalisms, because I’ve been very blog-pimpy lately, and maybe I need to settle down.

    Ahem. I think my point here was: Thank you!

  10. 10.

    Joe Beese

    Balloon Juice still has nothing to say about Lt. Dan Choi chaining himself to the White House gate yesterday?

    Wishing the fags would just shut up about their rights for a few days while Obama pushes the health insurers bailout across the finish line?

  13. 13.

    Don K

    Pretty funny stuff there.

    When our male cat was fully-grown but still adolescent, he began nosing around a groundhog’s burrow in the culvert under our driveway. Long story short, the groundhog chased him the full width of the front yard, and he learned not to mess with groundhogs again. The groundhog moved on to a new territory – I guess he figured cats are a hassle, even if you can chase them off.

    You know, you mostly see groundhogs lumbering and waddling around, but they can really move when they’re pissed off. Billy easily outran the groundhog, but I’ve never seen a groundhog run so fast.

  16. 16.

    Violet

    That video is awesome. Is that tortoise a pet or did it just wander into the backyard, I wonder.

    @The Grand Panjandrum:
    Awesome news! I wonder if a few more will domino. Everyone wants to be on the winning side. Please, please, please let “health care reform passes” be the winning side!

  17. 17.

    HRA

    They are coming around 1 by 1 on TV for HCR!

    Tim, I really have to commend you for getting people involved for HCR. You have done a great service to us all.

  18. 18.

    Mike Kay

    The decline and fall of FDL continues.

    They’re now attacking the CBO score saying it’s fake. This is a right wing meme.

    They’re now moving their precious Overton’s window to the right by invoking right wing frames of attack.

  21. 21.

    Michael D.

    @Joe Beese:

    Wishing the fags would just shut up about their rights for a few days while Obama pushes the health insurers bailout across the finish line?

    Nice.

    And then:

    “Wishing the fags would just shut up about their rights for a few days so Obama can get the troops out of Iraq by August!”

    And then:

    “Wishing the fags would just shut up about their rights for a few weeks while the Democrats concentrate on getting re-elected in November!”

    And then:

    “Wishing the fags would just shut up about their rights for a few weeks while Obama gets his immigration bill through congress!”

    And then:

    “Wishing the fags would just shut up about their rights for a few months while Obama runs his re-election campaign!”

    “Wishing the fags would just shut up about their rights for a few days while xyz…infinity!”

    Us “fags” know where we stand with our so-called allies.

  24. 24.

    beltane

    @Mike Kay: It’s becoming pretty obvious that the whole point of the Norquist/Hamsher alliance was to divide and weaken the left. The Republicans are usually good at this kind of thing, but in this instance they have failed miserably.

  25. 25.

    FormerSwingVoter

    @Michael D.:

    I think you missed the point. He was accusing us of “wishing the ***s would shut up”, not claiming it as his own position.

  26. 26.

    Fergus Wooster

    @MikeJ: They’re just questions, Leon. Questions designed to provoke an emotional response. In answer to your query, they’re written down for me.

  27. 27.

    ellaesther

    @Litlebritdifrnt: I will never forget the sound of tortoises mating in the backyard of the home in which I once served as a nanny (many, many moons ago). You know the term “knocking boots”? The tortoises actually knock shells, and you can hear it inside the house. It was something else!

  30. 30.

    Redshirt

    @Maude: Punny! No, and now that I’m recalling these events, one of them was snapping at me as I raced to get him off Interstate 95. Ungrateful and mean – must have been right wing Tortoi.

  32. 32.

    Violet

    @Michael D.:
    It doesn’t bother me if gay rights activists like Dan Choi do things to bring attention to the DADT situation at this juncture. Obama can multitask. He wasn’t the one who “suspended his campaign” to deal with the financial crisis.

    He’s doing healthcare. He’s also dealing with Israel. And there’s stuff happening with Russia right now too. It’s not getting a lot of attention because of the health care real-time drama, but it’s a big deal:

    The United States and Russia have resolved all major issues in talks on a new arms control pact and are on the brink of an agreement, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday.

    —

    “Our negotiating teams have reported that they have resolved all of the major issues,” Clinton said after meeting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at his residence outside Moscow.

    —

    “There are some technical issues that remain but we are on the brink of seeing a new agreement,” she said.

  33. 33.

    Brandon

    @Joe Beese:

    Sometimes I have a hard time spotting a really good troll from someone who’s sincere around these parts.

    Just in case, my sincere reaction to Choi’s stunt is that if he wants action on DADT, he should go chain himself to office door of whomever is chair of the Armed Services Committees in the House & Senate. The Administration has already done the heavy lifting on this issue and there is not much more they can do until Congress acts. They basically delivered the repeal of DADT to Congress in a nice little package and if Congress cannot deal with it now, then well the issue is not with Obama, but with spineless Democrats who would not act out of fear, despite public support being in their favor, with significant thanks for that due to the Administration’s adroit handling of the issue so far.

  34. 34.

    Chyron HR

    @Joe Beese:

    Balloon Juice still has nothing to say about Lt. Dan Choi? Wishing the fags would just shut up?

    Uh-huh. When the Balloon Juice commentators want someone to “shut up”, they do so by not saying anything about them. They certainly don’t write frequent vitriolic articles calling that individual out and demanding that she (to pick a pronoun at random) shut up.

  37. 37.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @ellaesther:

    My mother has two females, we used to have a male but he was kidnapped from the back garden (believe it or not since it is now illegal to import them into England they have become a very valuable commodity), anyhoo I certainly remember the din when Rusty was going at Georgina or Mrs. T. Rusty was alot smaller than either of the two girls and it was comical watching him trying to get their attention.

  39. 39.

    TooManyJens

    I feel like I did the week before the 2008 election — all I want to do is refresh web sites all day to see what the latest news is. I’m running out of stuff to refresh. I need to find some more people to follow on Twitter or something.

    ::twitch::

  45. 45.

    Joel

    that tortoise looks like an ornery motherfucker.

    i certainly wouldn’t want to mess with it.

  47. 47.

    BDeevDad

    Wow, I don’t know if I should believe it because it’s Sean Hannity scamming that he cares for the troops or not because Debbie Schlussel figured it out.

    According to its 2006 tax returns, Freedom Alliance reported revenue of $10,822,785, but only $397,900–or a beyond-measly 3.68%–of that was given to the children of fallen troops as scholarships or as aid to severely injured soldiers.
    On the other hand, 62% of the money went to “expenses,” including $979,485 for “consultants” and an “advisor.”

  48. 48.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Joe Beese: I though Choi timed his stunt wrong. We’re in the middle of counting every vote on health care. All he managed to do was get arrested with no cameras in front of him. He should have waited a week.

    As for DADT repeal, I think it’s time to start working on it, but it’s not going to get changed for a little bit. Every fight with the Republicans is going to look like health care.

  49. 49.

    Napoleon

    So I have been reading up on todays HCR vote action and that guy Lynch from MA. who is claiming to be voting no because of the excise tax and to protect labor (even though they meet with him yesterday and said they support it and he should vote for it) is known to be an extreme social conservative and it is suspected he is pulling a Stupak but blaming it on something else.

  51. 51.

    bemused

    @Litlebritdifrnt:
    Same thing with horns and antlers. I heard someone make the mistake of asking a reindeer handler about their “horns”. A very snippy lecture followed.

  52. 52.

    Corner Stone

    I dislike it when they say employers will save $X and will possibly pass that difference to workers in the form of increased wages.
    Never happen.

  53. 53.

    Martin

    That looks like our house. We’ve got a california desert tortoise (just woke up last weekend) and a corgi. The tortoise doesn’t move as fast as the one in the video, though, so there’s not much in the way of chasing going on. They aren’t exactly buds, but they seem reasonably content to share the yard.

  55. 55.

    The Moar You Know

    Balloon Juice still has nothing to say about Lt. Dan Choi chaining himself to the White House gate yesterday? Wishing the fags would just shut up about their rights for a few days while Obama pushes the health insurers bailout across the finish line?

    @Joe Beese: Poor Joe. He’s all butthurt that he got kickbanned from over at the GOS for constantly trolling every single post he could horn in on.

    Must be getting a little bored, eh, Mr. Beese?

    At least now I know who your new account name is over there. That was a hilarious troll dairy you put up last night.

  56. 56.

    MikeJ

    @GregB: Love how that news article starts with “Democrats are taking flak from all sides” and then goes on to show flak from the right and none form the left. Because they feel obligated to say both sides do it.

  57. 57.

    General Egali Tarian Stuck

    @The Moar You Know: A good sign that Joe is wrapping up his HCR trollery and moving on to something else. When repealing DADT reaches critical pol mass and is done, maybe Joe will finally go full metal on Obama’s Kenyan citizenship. Seems perfectly unnatural.

  58. 58.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    Here’s a little something to cheer everyone up:

    It’s no longer a question of “if” but of “when” between now and January 2013 that John Ensign’s short, previously happy, suddenly unhappy life as a senator will end.

    Let’s not forget that Ensign is getting a free ride right now because the establishment media is still busy gaming out the HCR horse race.

    ETA: But this is going to leave a mark.

    Hmm. Sounds almost exactly what President Bill Clinton did to cover up his indiscretion. And John Ensign called on him to resign.

  59. 59.

    Felonious Wench

    @The Moar You Know:

    Poor Joe. He’s all butthurt that he got kickbanned from over at the GOS for constantly trolling every single post he could horn in on.

    Precious.

    As for Lt. Dan Choi, I really don’t care if he wants to chain himself to a fence. But I do care about wasting time and energy in the wrong direction. I care about inefficiency. It’s a strategic blunder, and I don’t care how passionate someone is about an issue, they still need to think things through as to how to get the most done.

    These types of protests don’t work any more. Tell me ONE case in the past 10 years where someone chaining themselves to something actually did anything other than to give their opposition ammunition to say “See? They’re nuts.” Cindy Sheehan, anyone?

    I am not saying we need to wait until the economy is golden and we have a public option. I want to see DADT repealed as fast as possible. That means focus and strategy. Lt. Choi didn’t think this through. His most effective place in this situation is getting back in with the military and serving as an example of a great soldier. THAT’S what will get attention, “See? The world didn’t fall apart when he came back.”

  60. 60.

    FormerSwingVoter

    Dana Titus in NV confirmed as a “yes” vote. They’re falling like dominoes, man.

  61. 61.

    Older

    I didn’t know tortoises could play. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening there. At one point the tortoise turns away from the dog and “runs” from it. And hey, I didn’t know they could run, either.

  63. 63.

    burnspbesq

    Seven minutes into the game, and West Virginia still doesn’t have a field goal.

    What was that about the Big East?

  65. 65.

    Joseph Nobles

    I was talking about Choi’s arrest here yesterday.

    Choi is still being discharged, according to him. So he wasn’t getting the option of getting in and being the best soldier he could be. In fact, he’d already been doing that right? And what did it get him?

    In fact, it sounds like the timing was thrust upon him. Do it while he was still a soldier.

    And, I’m sorry, but Obama has most certainly NOT done everything that he could do. I’ve seen him whip an issue. He’s not whipping DADT repeal.

  66. 66.

    Paul L.

    Can someone help me with the talking point that Republicans used deem and pass.

    Can someone cite the Laws that the Republicans used deem and pass “demon pass” to enact?

    Or when self executing rules were referred to as deem and pass “demon pass” by the Republicans?

    All I get for progressive blog is the Republicans used self executing rules in the past.

  68. 68.

    Paul L.

    @The Moar You Know:
    I’ll take that as there is no law passed by Republicans using deem and pass “demon pass”.
    I do not follow many nutroots blogs. So I could be missing the smoking gun law passed by Republicans using deem and pass “demon pass”.

  69. 69.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Felonious Wench: He was still being honorably discharged, so there was no going back in and being a great soldier for him.

    @Joseph Nobles: I agree with you on this. I am not sure if Lt. Choi chose the best action, but I can certainly see why he did it–especially given what gets attention these days from the media.

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