Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

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

This blog will pay for itself.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Republicans don’t trust women.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Come on, man.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

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

T R E 4 5 O N

The words do not have to be perfect.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

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

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

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

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

He really is that stupid.

You are here: Home / It’s Luke Russert’s world, we’re just living in it

It’s Luke Russert’s world, we’re just living in it

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Another dispatch from the media meritocracy (via Dave Weigel):

The daughter of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has been named a special contributor to “The Early Show.”

Ayla Brown, who was a season five contestant on “American Idol,” filed her first report today on Jordan Romero’s quest to summit Mt. Everest.

I, for one, am looking forward to future epic blog wars between Liz Cole and Megan Hamsher.

Reader Interactions

65Comments

  2. 2.

    Anya

    I, for one, am looking forward to future epic blog wars between Liz Cole and Megan Hamsher.

    You meant to say Lily Cole, right?

  7. 7.

    Loneoak

    Everyone must read this speech by Richard Trumka at Harvard. I saw it linked over at Ezra’s place, and every lefty blog should be frontpage-ing it.

    I am going to talk tonight about anger—and specifically the anger of working people. I want to explain why working people are right to be mad about what has happened to our economy and our country, and then I want to talk about why there is a difference between anger and hatred. There are forces in our country that are working hard to convert justifiable anger about an economy that only seems to work for a few of us into racist and homophobic hate and violence directed at our President and heroes like Congressman John Lewis. Most of all, those forces of hate seek to divide working people – to turn our anger against each other.
    ….
    For a generation, our intellectual culture has suggested that in the new global age, work is something someone else does. Someone we never met far away in an export processing zone will make our clothes, immigrants with no rights in our political process or workplaces will cook our food and clean our clothes.
    And for the lucky top 10 percent of our society, that has been the reality of globalization—everything got cheaper and easier.
    But for the rest of the country, economic reality has been something entirely different. It has meant trying to hold on to a good job in a grim game of musical chairs where every time the music stopped, there were fewer good jobs and more people trying to get and keep one.
    …
    The fact is that for a generation we have built our economy on a lie—that we can have a low-wage, high-consumption society and paper over the contradiction with cheap credit funded by our foreign trading partners and financial sector profits made by taking a cut of the flow of cheap credit.
    So now a lot of Americans are angry. And we should be angry. And just as we have seen throughout history, there are plenty of purveyors of hate and division looking to profit from our hurt and our anger.

  10. 10.

    someguy

    Speaking of celebrities in the news, I see Big Ben Rapeoethlisberger got away with it. Way to go, Ben! Wonder how much that cost him…

  12. 12.

    beltane

    Did they fire Jenna Bush?

    We should rejoice in this, because it is highly likely that Ayla Brown has worked harder and longer than anyone else in the history of the world and that her humongous paycheck is richly deserved. Suck on it, ye lowly peasants.

  13. 13.

    Keith

    On the plus side, she probably didn’t show up to the first day of work with a hairdo shaped by a mouthful of spittle.

  19. 19.

    licensed to kill time

    I, for one, am sick of everybody and their fucking brother climbing Mt. Everest. Leave Mt. Everest alooooooooooooooone!

    And clean up the dead bodies and garbage, fer chrissakes.

  20. 20.

    AxelFoley

    The daughter of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has been named a special contributor to “The Early Show.”

    The fuck?

    SMH

  26. 26.

    jrosen

    Note: according to the Boston Herald (Murdoch’s beachhead in Beantown), Scott Brown has declined an invitation to join the Palin in a rally on Boston Common, claiming that his Senate responsibilities conflict. I’ve just been over there (link at Washington Monthly campaign roundup) and the comments on the item are hilarious. About half of what I got through are for him, but the other half…foaming at the mouth Tea Baggers threatening doom, screaming betrayal, and some remembering that he voted for Romneycare (the model for Obamacare), and was pro-choice as a State Senator. There will not be enough popcorn in the world to suffice for the entertainment this will provide. As a former resident of Massachusetts I can hardly wait for the show to begin.

  27. 27.

    kc

    I think Jenna Bush is with NBC, right? I was unlucky enough to catch some of her Olympics commentary.

    So I guess now ABC can hire Megan McCain.

  28. 28.

    MikeJ

    @kc: Too old. Yes, she’s stupid enough that you might think she’s had no life experience, but the big nets like the young stuff.

  29. 29.

    licensed to kill time

    I like this: Medvedev appreciates a ‘thinker’ in the Oval Office

    MEDVEDEV: He’s (Obama) a very comfortable partner, it’s very interesting to be with him. The most important thing that distinguishes him from many other people — I won’t name anyone by name — he’s a thinker, he thinks when he speaks. Which is already pretty good.

    heh heh. He Who Shall Not Be Named, any guesses? ;-)

  32. 32.

    Joshua

    Hiring sons and daughters of the people you are pretending to cover? Is this the new “beat sweetener”?

  35. 35.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I think it will be akin to the dog/cat diaries that abound on the internet Lily would be all:

    Ooooh breakfast my favorite thing, oooooh a walk my favorite thing, oooooh a ball my favorite thing etc., etc.,

    Tunch: day 546 of my captivity the pink thing has reduced my kibble intake yet again, no doubt in an effort to make me talk (or walk not sure which), etc., etc.,

  37. 37.

    flukebucket

    @licensed to kill time:

    This is what makes me so very glad he won the last election. Finally a President who does not make you cringe every time you see him.

    Can you imagine President McCain forgetting who he was and where he was and why he was there and who he was with?

    {shudder}

  39. 39.

    licensed to kill time

    @Culture of Truth:
    Why yes, I believe he did. As Ezra Klein said:

    Asked WH for text on Prez’s speech. They said it wasn’t pre-written. He was just talking. It’s like there’s a teleprompter IN HIS BRAIN.

  40. 40.

    jeffreyw

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Buddy’s tweets would be amusing, I’m sure:
    Gotta pee, let me out.
    Done peeing, let me in.
    Hungry, when’s dinner?
    Sleepy, I’ll be on the bed, if you need any barking done tell Jack to handle it.
    Need to pee, let me out.

  42. 42.

    Culture of Truth

    Can you imagine President McCain forgetting who he was and where he was and why he was there and who he was with?

    Yes, I can.

  44. 44.

    burnspbesq

    Brown’s daughter would arguably be qualified for a job as a sideline reporter for ESPN, as she played Division 1 college basketball. Other than that, not so much.

  45. 45.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @jeffreyw: Somehow that doesn’t strike me as all that different from what I’ve seen on Twitter so far. But I haven’t looked that much.

    One thing I don’t get is why the 140 characters thing is such a big deal. Tolstoy wrote novels with 140 characters and that was in the 1800s.

  50. 50.

    licensed to kill time

    No one would ever have said Bush had a teleprompter in his brain. Maybe a Word Salad Shooter(tm), as someone here said about Palin (I loved that).

    Yes, a Prez to be proud of :)

  51. 51.

    rootless-e

    It’s an effin meritocracy
    we don’t do quotas
    on TV
    you got to have
    talent to burn
    your place
    is something you earn
    you got to make it
    on your own
    unless your dad
    knows
    who to phone

  57. 57.

    Felonious Wench

    @Tonal Crow:

    On the TV, no one knows that you have the cognitive abilities of a dog.

    Don’t insult Lily, makes John cranky.

    And to continue this digression, if the camera adds 10 pounds, Tunch on TV would look even more like a weeble-wobble.

  59. 59.

    Karen in GA

    I never watched The Early Show. I guess I have to start watching it now so I can make a point of stopping.

  60. 60.

    asiangrrlMN

    @jeffreyw: Aw, Buddy looks so happy. We should have a BJ animal twit club!

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Hm. Very true. My boys would twit: If I stare at HER long enough, I will GET the smoked salmon!

    SHE makes a good scratching post–especially her bewbies.

    Fuck HER for moving and interrupting my eleven billiontieth nap of the day. Harumph.

  61. 61.

    Violet

    That twit Ayla Brown gets a plum job just because her Daddy’s a Senator? Ugh. What about all the hard working kids whose Daddy’s aren’t Senators and whose Mommy’s aren’t TV anchors? Don’t they deserve a shot?

    I remember her on “American Idol” and she had this insecure and entitled air about her that was incredibly off-putting. Her voice is okay, but her attitude bugged. I don’t expect anything to have changed.

  62. 62.

    Elizabelle

    Pulitzer Prizes announced. Politico did not win one. Pro Publica did.

    The Washington Post took home four, including one to Kathleen Parker for commentary.

    NYTimes got three.

    Hank Williams awarded a posthumous Pulitzer citation because he “expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life.”

    http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/washington-post-wins-four-pulitzers-new-york-times-gets-three/?hp

    Well well about the Post. Surprising to me. (Anthony Shadid, Post international coverage winner, has moved to the NYT.) But still …

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SGBurton:

    since when is summit a verb?

    Since Ayla Brown, who was a season five contestant on “American Idol,” filed her first report.

    SATSQ

  64. 64.

    Egypt Steve

    I suppose this thread’s dead but I couldn’t help but point out: Ayla Brown seems to be named after the cave-woman heroine of the “Clan of the Cave Bear” novels. As far as I can remember, she invented sex in the missionary position, among other modern necessities. Insert Geico “so simple a cave-woman can do it” joke of your choice.

  65. 65.

    Katherine Hunter

    i believe summit is used as a verb by mountain climbers but i dont have any direct quotes at hand. One “summits” Mt Everest, for example.

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