Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I really should read my own blog.

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

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

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

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

I was promised a recession.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

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Reader Interactions

92Comments

  8. 8.

    me

    Will Republicans go Galt on US currency?

    They’ll just buy gold from one of Glenn Beck’s sucker magnetssponsors.

  9. 9.

    Liberty60(Veteran, Great war of Yankee Aggression)

    Damn, you know your wingnutz!

    Now pardon me, I need to see if I can Paypal a chicken to Sue Lowden.

  10. 10.

    Midnight Marauder

    “Might as well be a Euro…”

    What kind of fucking excuse is that? That is just the laziest kind of muckracking you can dredge up. “What are you, a teacher? Might as well be a serial rapist…”

    Just the craziest thing. Really.

  13. 13.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    This is all especially silly because the new bill was designed and approved by the Bush administration. It’s meant to resemble the vagina of Barbara Bush and to serve as a tribute to the evil old douchebag.

    Republicans know this, of course. But they never let the truth get in the way of a slam at Democrats.

  14. 14.

    Jeff Fecke

    @MikeJ:

    No doubt. Replacing my $100s with €100s would increase my bottom line by a robust 33%. Of course, I could only buy socialism with them — but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

  16. 16.

    JSD

    @ Doug J

    That it would show up on Drudge goes without saying. Where else would it show up? From Drudge to Fox to Greater Wingnuttia.

  17. 17.

    Violet

    Who put one of those long-haired hippie guys on the hundred dollar bill? Our founding fathers must be spinning in their graves.

    They’re so predictable it’s almost comical. They Onionify themselves before The Onion does.

  18. 18.

    Yutsano

    @JSD: That would be the normal progression of right-wing memes, at least since the President suddenly became blackity blackity black. Of course the fact that currency designs are about 3-5 years in the making is an irrelevant fact, because shut up that’s why!

  22. 22.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Okay this is getting weird. As the Wingopalypse draws closer, time and space are warped so that you can not only see the next Wingnut meme as it floats by on the distorted time waves from the future, you can actually write it yourself, and just drop it in, and see it in a matter of hours.

    As the process accelerates, will time distort to the point where it laps us, and we realize that they’re actually feeding them to us, to then feed back to then, in our satirical carelessness?

    The philosophical implications are staggering.

  23. 23.

    GregB

    Word on the street is that these will be distributed to every American by shoving it down our throats.

    It is also a fact that Ben Franklin has a micro-chip inserted into his taint.

  26. 26.

    Yutsano

    @GregB: Bring it on baby. Bring it on. And I’ll even volunteer to take some from the wingnuts to spare them the indignity from Obama’s evil sociaIist moolah.

  27. 27.

    Pigs & Spiders

    I love that he has the gall to refer to it as “Obama’s hundred dollar bill” as if Barack cut the fuckin’ lithograph* himself!

    *Fully aware they probably don’t use that method anymore, but it was an excuse to use such an excellent word.

  28. 28.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @MikeJ:

    I would greatly prefer getting euros to dollars.

    No kidding. If I hear one more time how inferior soçialist Europe is I’m going to bring some of my far more valuable Euros and buy an ad on Fox making fun of US money.

    That’s one part I love about visiting there, everything seems so cheap.

  29. 29.

    Yutsano

    @Bill E Pilgrim: I am not of the American exceptionalist crowd, however I do believe that the Euro right now is overvalued on the world markets. Part of it is due to the debt situation true, but another is because the economic disparities between the east and west are still not as smooth as the EU leaders would have liked. There’s still some structural economic weaknesses that the PIIGS situation is now exposing. That and China keeping a damper on the yuan throws everything out of whack.

  31. 31.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @GregB:

    Word on the street is that these will be distributed to every American by shoving it down our throats.

    That’s gonna get even worse when we make the conversion to chickens.

  32. 32.

    Mike G

    My prediction was that there’d be some rightard comparing it to Kenyan currency, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

  33. 33.

    jl

    feel very nerdly tonight. Thus I will disquisite as would a nincompated pedagogue

    I find it passing odd that the wingnuts haver fallen in deep patriotic wuv with the oppressive, uncreative, bureacratic, dull, perhaps even slightly totalitarian, and gangrene rotten green appearance, of the Federal Reserve Note.

    I would think they would find that whole rot fungus green genus of currency design as repulsive and ugly and the fraud of the Federal Reserve itself.

    This new funner paper money looks more like the colorful and dynamic good old fashioned old paper money our free ancenstors used before big money was green and controlled by federal government bureaucrativ thugs.

    See and behold the Federal Reserve’s online
    American Currency Exhibit

    http://www.frbsf.org/currency/index.html

    Don’t you all agree, pray tell?

    Which is why this multicolor funny money is dangerous. It is trick to take our attention away from important things.

    The give-away is that the security watermark protrait on the 100 dollar bill is not Franklin, it is Jack Benny. But no one will listen! No one will listen!

  34. 34.

    TenguPhule

    That’s gonna get even worse when we make the conversion to chickens.

    Mayo is your friend.

  36. 36.

    Allan

    Drudge announced that he would refuse to stuff this decadent European currency into the star-spangled thongs of patriotic American go-go boys.

  37. 37.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Yutsano: There are many factors obviously but to hear right wingers in the US tell it, Europe is an economic wasteland, hobbled by soçialism.

    In fact, places like France, while hit by the crisis, weathered it far better than the US. Unemployment rose to 10% in January, pretty much matching the US. It remains high when US levels drop, but it doesn’t double like the US’s rate does in a downturn.

    They also emerged from the recession earlier.

    And I know you’re not comparing the overvaluation of the pegged Chinese currency to the situation with the Euro, but obviously it’s an entirely different situation.

  38. 38.

    Bob K

    It’s hard to explain what a great storyteller Al Stewart is. You say “Year of the Cat” and people say. Barracuda? You say Cavalier or Roundhead? People say – what are you – some kind of Freak? And I say “Google Third English Civil War Bitchez.”. Anyway if you’ve never heard the song “Nostradamus” fellow Cavaliers, please click on the below link.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa89bt0GZvQ

  39. 39.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @jl: That was great, thanks for the link.

    Some of that Confederate money was downright colorful, one of them is positively Boehner orange.

  40. 40.

    MikeBoyScout

    Amazingly the people who most often complain about our becoming like Europeans look an awful lot like Europeans and usually voice disdain about their fellow countrymen who look least like Europeans.

    Funny that.

  41. 41.

    Yutsano

    @Bill E Pilgrim: You’ll have to forgive me because I’m high on pain meds and may not be able to express myself clearly. When I said China throws everything out of whack I’m not saying that’s the cause of a high Euro compared to the dollar. China’s market manipulation affects all currency trading, and that makes an honest valuation among any currency difficult. If it were just the dollar and the Euro then we could talk about how Europe’s stronger safety nets blunted the impact of the recession on Europe or how American manufacturing can somehow regain its footing in a competitive global labor market (an issue that affects Europe as well). But then you take the Chinese economic engine and pair that with a government that says regardless of market conditions the currency is worth this, then both currencies have to adjust somehow to compensate for that. If all this is clear as mud blame the Vicodin.

  42. 42.

    different church-lady

    I hate you Cole. I just came back from a 16 hour day at work, I’m exhausted, my eyes are falling out of their sockets, and now I can’t go to sleep because there’s an ENTIRE PAGE of new, worthwhile, important, and highly engaging posts I want to scour IMMEDIATELY.

  43. 43.

    jl

    They used to have bare nekkid women on them bank notes, with nice b 0 s 0 0 m s.

    You will note the hint of sexual tension between the lusty rustic mechanic and the buxom lass of Art.

    I haven’t deciphered the symbolism of the obliquely thrusting locomotive, but find it mysteriously intriguing.

    I want some money like this, please.

    http://www.usrarecurrency.com/1902$50SeattleNationalBankWashingtonSn20637.htm

    Some Balloon-Juice commenters will be appalled, but they can give their money to me if they want, which I will put in a very safe place.

  44. 44.

    jl

    No, changed my mind. I want full on buck nekkid women on my money. Lots of them.

    Like this one.

    http://usrarecurrency.com/1896$5SilverCertificateFR268EducationalSn7423707.htm

    I think Rush would approve of this (maybe, not sure about his preferences to be honest).

    Old money was funner. And worth more. Had chicks in it. Our money now is dull, drab, and sexist.

    If Nobama the Traitor Commie would produce a nice paper money like this, Rush the Radio Libertine Horndog Righteously Reactionary would approve.

    And our torn and bloody land would be at peace again.

    Edit: the caption says that the oppressive prude and jackass Anthony Comstock made a fuss, shut this bill down and it was withdrawn, for indecency. Oh, the humanity!

  45. 45.

    OriGuy

    @DougJ: Yeah, but I’d seen the post at Wonkette before. After I saw this post, I went to Drudge. Ok, I guess it’s my fault.

  46. 46.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Bob K:

    Al Stewart is awesome. He’s still touring. The last time I saw him was in 2007 in Bellevue. “Nostradamus” is fantastic, as is “Roads to Moscow” and his later “Joe the Georgian”.

  47. 47.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Yutsano: No worries, I was reading before my first cup of coffee so I can claim no better lucidity than yours, for entirely different reasons.

    I think I agree with what you just wrote, but I need to go out and get my cafe before I’d swear to that.

    PS in very general terms, here’s a site you might enjoy in case you don’t already know it, this guy works in banking and posts a lot at GOS which is where I saw his stuff years back, and has a sort of politically-similarly-leaning European site, at:

    http://www.eurotrib.com/

  48. 48.

    Yutsano

    @Bill E Pilgrim: C’est nes pas un probleme. If you come back from caffeination and you think my comment was written by a crack smoker, you’re not that far off the mark.

    @asiangrrlMN: Especially if she’s dressed in full Angola rebellion gear. Otherwise I shall be very disappointed.

  49. 49.

    asiangrrlMN

    That tears it. When Obama’s tenure as prez is over, I DEMAND that he gets put on some bill, any bill, wearing bling and flashing gang signs. If that doesn’t bring wingnuttia to its peakiest, I don’t know what will. Oh, maybe having Michele on the bill with him. That ought to do it.

  50. 50.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    I heard one of the safety features of the new Franklin is when you look at Franklin’s face and tip the bill into the light it will morph into Obama’s face. That and when you roll it up to snort a line of coke it releases an RFID chip that embeds itself into your nasal cavity.

    ETA: The wife just showed me her latest knitting project, The Tunch Cap. It’s a white cap with cat ears and three strategically placed brown spots.

    John needs one…lol!

  52. 52.

    jl

    @DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):

    Suddenly occured to me that I want bills with Tunch on them. I would trust that money.

    Pic of Tunch wtih ‘Spend!’ underneath.

    Edit: Or, when economy needed savings, embed a microchip that changed the slogan to ‘SAVE!’. It would be new macroeconomic stabilizer.

  53. 53.

    asiangrrlMN

    @jl: I could get behind that. And, it should have “Save!” on the back. That will confuse the wingers. By the way, I have been loving the stream-of-consciousness you’ve been doing on this subject. Thanks for the laughs.

    ETA: I like your eta better than my Save on the back idea.

  54. 54.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Just be careful what you are snorting… :)

    I am going to take a couple of pics in a few then I will post them. I loled when I saw it, I think it looks good.

  55. 55.

    jl

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Hope this goes over OK on a politically correct blog like this, but I want some scantily clad hot chicks too. Like in the old days.

    Have to honest.

    TunchNotes with babes. Everyone will want US money again.

    Edit: Somehow I always knew Balloon-Juice would be a home for my currency links. It was fate.

  57. 57.

    Polar Bear Squares

    Wow.

    Is that a crescent and a star I see in the corner?

    There’s Muslim Commies under my bed!!!!!

  59. 59.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: Oh yeah baby, I’m sensing an ancient Greek art revival all over our new currency. Nudity everywhere and it’s all legal too! I’m suddenly so glad not all our transactions have gone to full-on debits from bank credits, this shit is way too much fun to play around with!

    @DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): My SIL has made three hats very similar to this, she loves cat ear caps in winter. She also looks very cute in them, I wonder if there’s any way to get CafePress to make something like that. I’d buy her one in a heartbeat!

  60. 60.

    jl

    @asiangrrlMN: We should get ourselves appointed to whatever currency board decides.

    The dollar will RULE forever.

    And, I also demand pic of TunchCap. Someday, a pic with Cole snugly ensconced beneath. Smiling. Payback for putting those poor animals in Steelers gear.

  61. 61.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: That would be so awesome! Nudity is better than plucking a chicken, any day!

    @jl: Man, we would so totally rock on that board. And, if you could get Cole to wear the Tunch hat, I would salute you.

  62. 62.

    Mark S.

    WTF? Seriously, what is in the water some Republicans have been drinking lately? Truth serum?

    Why should an African-American vote Republican? “You really don’t have a reason to, to be honest — we haven’t done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True,” Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told 200 DePaul University students Tuesday night.

    It gets better

    This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don’t walk away from parties, Their parties walk away from them. For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South.

    A Republican not on his deathbed admitting to the Southern Strategy? I keep checking to make sure this article wasn’t written on April 1 and that it’s not The Onion.

    via

  68. 68.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Thanks, he’s a pretty cool kitteh. That pic of him playing ‘otter’ with his tennis ball is pretty cute. He stole the tennis ball from the dogs next door. Their owner works with my wife and when I told her Sammy stole the ball and brought it inside she told us to keep it.

    He plays with it all of the time. Rolling on his back like an otter is one of the things he does…lol

  70. 70.

    Randy P

    Re: the pics of old Silver Certificate dollars and the switch to a chicken-based economy. I suppose it goes without saying that our new currency design should include the words, as the old certificates do, “This certifies that there have been deposited in the treasury of the United States: One Hundred Chickens”.

    And that we need to back it up by actually keeping chickens at the Federal Reserve.

  71. 71.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Randy P:

    And that we need to back it up by actually keeping chickens at the Federal Reserve.

    One word: Boullion.

    (To recycle a joke I used threads ago)

  72. 72.

    Xenos

    @jl: While I am generally in favor of naked women in most contexts, I am most impressed with the Seattle National Bank putting the author of the Sherman Antitrust Act on their $50 bill. Mr. we could use a man like General Sherman’s brother again…

  73. 73.

    Xenos

    A question for Bill E: How is the cost of living in Eastern France these days (IIRC that being where you live)? I am looking at a move to Luxembourg in a few weeks, but considering becoming a frontalier instead to save mucho euro.

  74. 74.

    WereBear

    @Mark S.: Is Michael Steele trying really, really hard to get fired for some reason?

    A la George Costanza wearing Babe Ruth’s uniform and getting mustard on it?

  76. 76.

    HeartlandLiberal

    @ Bob K

    @ Wile E. Quixote

    About three years ago we drove down from Bloomington to a small college town in western Kentucky and attended Al Stewart’s performance. It was an intimate group of less than 200 people. Tables were set up on the stage of the auditorium, and Al and Dave Nachminoff performed with guitars and a keyboard setup. We sat at a table in second row, not more than 20 feet from them.

    Afterwards, we got to line up, meet him, shake his hand, and chat briefly while he signed CDs, the program, whatever we handed him.

    It was the most compelling, moving, accomplished, thoughtful, music filled live performance I have ever attended. His talent is limitless, the thought and depth of the lyrics of his music astounding.

    Anyone here who does not know Al Stewart needs to correct this deficit in their path to being a better person.

    Al Steward Official Web Site

    You can also get on mailing list for updates on concerts and buying merchandise. I have about 20 CDs that are special pressings of concerts, outtakes, all sorts of fascinating stuff, that were never available through retail channels, and are absolutely wonderful. Not bootleg, but special editions pressed by the guys who handle his merchandising and fan club operations now, Neville Judd: http://www.nevillejudd.com/

  77. 77.

    jim k

    Brian Williams picked up the ‘it looks European’ comment last night on NBC Nightly News. I guess we now know that he reads Drudge.

  78. 78.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @WereBear:

    Thanks, I agree! :)

    She’s already working on a design for Tunch Cap v2.0…lol! It’s going to be “fuzzier”.

  79. 79.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    @Mark S.:

    “I have advised our state chairs: Don’t turn your nose up, or turn away those who are active in the Tea Party movement. Embrace them. Welcome them. Talk to them,” Steele said.

    So. I guess that gets filed under evidence the GOP is walking away* from African-Americans.

    I say again. I can not wait for the next installment of “Yo brown people, vote Republican. Or else.” ads.

    *Notice I did not make a white flight joke. ‘Cos that would be nine hundred and eleven million times more racist than shouting the N word at John Lewis.

  80. 80.

    Ash Can

    @HeartlandLiberal: I’ve always loved Al Stewart. His music is pleasant and his lyrics are amazing. The first time I heard Roads to Moscow on the radio (back in the bad old Cold War days, yet) I was left with my mouth hanging open, and immediately scrambled to find out more about the wizard who wrote that phenomenal song. He’s never had the fame I feel he deserves. He’s truly exceptional.

  81. 81.

    Legalize

    Anyone know of a good currency calculator that can convert the Obama Commie Buck to good ol’ Chicken?

  82. 82.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    I have always been puzzled about how gawd awful US currency is. I mean all the bills the same size and color? What the hell is a blind person supposed to do, hand over a bill to a cashier or a waitress and hope like hell its a 20 and not a 100 and that the cashier/waitress is honest as the day is long? Its about time they did something to make the notes easier to distinquish from each other. As far as European currency goes there were some classic comments in the Vanity Fair piece about “progress, the US finally gets it” or something like that.

  84. 84.

    TrevorB

    I am pissed they did not listen to blind advocacy groups and change the size of the bills. Blind people cannot count american currency, how fucked is that? How is that not a violation of handicap access laws? Nearly every other country has money that can be counted by the blind, but we are more ass-backwards than Cambodia. End rant

  87. 87.

    Surly Duff

    That does look just like a Euro, except for the picture of Ben Franklin, the spot where it says “United States of America”, and the seal of the United States plastered on the front. But other than that, and the fact that it still is worth only 60% of European currency, its exactly the same. Holy shit, we are slowly becoming France!

    I think this calls for swift and immediate action by our government to pass a resolution changing the name french fries back to Freedom Fries, again. Our democracy is at stake!

  88. 88.

    Neemo

    @jl: I seem to recall that that European money also frequently has ARTISTS and SCIENTISTS on it — not just politicians and military leaders!

    Those damned socialistic, egghead, elitist, “aren’t we so smart and sensitive” intellectuals!

  90. 90.

    DBrown

    Do these ass sucks realize that the new bill (really bills since all our maony has been changing) have been in the works for many years,and I am sure that this latest one was in development long before Obama won, much less took office.

  92. 92.

    tgp

    my only problem with this design is the blue strip right down the middle of the bill. we couldnt put that anywhere else? this type of change reminds me of obama. lets make tiny incremental changes till we get where we need to go. im ready for the redesign with holographic portraits different lengths of currency multiple colors and feeling like plastic.

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