Figured we needed one.
Open Thread
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Open Thread
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
“Squeaker” McCarthy
Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.
They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.
I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.
Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.
Come on, man.
It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.
A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.
I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.
Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?
Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll
The revolution will be supervised.
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.
Hot air and ill-informed banter
Damn right I heard that as a threat.
The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.
CorgiFan
Why?
Amanda in the South Bay
I wouldn’t be against a SF Bay Area meet up for BJers. Maybe dinner at Applebees, where we can talk about how real Americans support tax cuts and the metaphysics of gay marriage.
Or something else, perhaps.
Cat Lady
Why go to the movies when we can see The Road, the Prequel, for reals?
Violet
Is there where I whine about the heat? Because it’s so hot I can hardly stand it. I do everything possible to avoid going outside between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Dangerous heat advisories every day are no way to live.
August is the worst month and September isn’t far behind. The cool breezes of October are so far away I can hardly imagine them.
beltane
When I’m feeling ambitious enough, I plan to write the libretto to an opera about Progressive angst called Under the Bus or Sotto l’autobus. It will go something like the following synopsis of today’s Daily Kos comments:
He sold us out, he sold us out, he sold us out.
The pain it stings. It stings like the bite of a fire ant
Or a slap in the face, the slap of a scorned lover.
I will not eat his shit sandwich, not even if it is wrapped
In Elizabeth Warren.
I will stay home in November. He will see that I am not a lover
To be trifled with. No sheeple am I. He will see that. He will learn. When he sees the teabaggers at my bedroom door, teabagging my social security, he will then know that I am serious.
sven
@Amanda in the South Bay: If there’s a salad bar, I’m in!
Crashman
Wedding planning is just as horribly stressful as everyone says it is. I thought they were exaggerating, and I was wrong.
Cat Lady
@beltane:
Ha! There needs to be a verse about cutting themselves and then running away with a boy he wouldn’t approve of. Also.
geg6
Oh goody. I approved (with a few quibbles) of an E.D. post today, so I expect a “good BJer” and a pat on the head, mkay? And I am simply too exhausted by my job in commie egghead public university-land to argue about who is more stupid and has more delicate fee fees, dumb shit Robert Gibbs or the assholes he dissed.
But I do want to say that I thoroughly look forward to Top Chef tomorrow night which features a most delicious set of challenges, the first featuring the most awesome NancySMASH as guest judge, and the elimination challenge, the always grueling and deliciously cruel Restaurant Wars. Me likey Top Chef in DC.
Lev
Hey, Ned Lamont lost his race for Governor of Connecticut. I expect brand new gloating articles from TNR, Weekly Standard, and Commentary before long.
Frankly, that seemed an odd race for him to make. Lieberman is up for re-election in two years. Why not do that?
NobodySpecial
@Crashman: That’s why elopement and Justus O’Peace are so popular after all these days.
And Cole – Open Thread? Big deal. I wanna see a Closed Thread. Those are rarer than frog’s hair.
beltane
It looks like Benet beat Romanoff for the Colorado senate nomination. David Sirota should be writing a diary about it momentarily.
Apologies for the shit sandwich of a libretto; I’m just sick of all crying and hurt feelings. The progressive blogosphere feels as weepy as Extreme Home Makeover on days like this.
Cat Lady
@Crashman:
Good grief, this. I’m in month three of planning daughter’s wedding, and I’m trying to go the DIY route as much as humanly possible. FSM have mercy on my poor soul and checkbook.
SiubhanDuinne
Dfr
Er
Open thread? Good.
/clears throat/
REDKITTEN DECLARE YOURSELF. Come out, wherever you are. SamKitten has his first birthday and I want to know every detail of the plans for his party — the gifts, the cake, the beaming grandparents — come on, share and pledge to put about a gazillion photos on your Flickr site.
Crashman
@Cat Lady: My future MIL has taken care of a lot; she’s been a godsend. We’re six weeks out now and the crunch is really starting.
All I can say is that you are a saint for your efforts.
SIA
@Violet: I hate summer anyway (GA) but this one has been brutal. In the NE (think that’s where you are?) it’s been even worse than the south at times. I work out of my house and I’m starting to feel like I’m in some kind of Twilight Zone of Summer. Honestly, I don’t go out except to get in an car with AC. The days flow and creep and someday it will be October.
So yeah. I know what you mean!
CJ
@Lev:
Speaking as a longtime Dan Malloy intern (since the exploratory committee days), HELL TO THE YES! Sorry, it’s too much fun to be on the winning side.
*ahem*
I think Ned was led by consultants into doing the Gov race, he never really had his heart into it. Certainly his wallet, $9mil to be exact, but never his heart.
Just my take.
Mark S.
Should Jeffrey Goldberg call anyone else’s “writing on the Middle East . . . a bit comically one-sided?”
RareSanity
@SIA:
You can say that again…the summer in here in GA has been brutal. No relief from that devil spawn also known as my son, that upon us arriving at home after a long day, all he can bring himself to say is, “Daddy, can I go outside and ride my tricycle?”
That means I have to get on my bike and make sure my idiot neighbors don’t run him over.
Devil child I tells ya…loves to play outside in the hellfire of an Atlanta summer.
mr. whipple
@beltane:
Well done! A progressive buffa.
I would add:
Kos says they should have never
raised hopes so high
It’s all their fault
for unicorns in the sky
geg6
@Crashman:
Much as I wish you well, there is a reason I always swore I would never marry and, despite plenty of opportunity, happily never did and never will. The whole wedding thing is probably at least 1/3 of my total disgust and distaste for the entire enterprise. My Barbies were the only ones in my neighborhood who only had career and evening wear. My Barbies weren’t gonna ever wear a bridal gown when I could buy a cocktail dress and several business outfits for the same price. I’d seriously rather be shot in the head after serving a night as Rush Limbaugh’s sex slave than throw a wedding. Can’t understand why anyone wants to do it. But even gays, who I usually find quite sensible on most things, want to do it. Let them, I say. But I’ll never understand the impulse. At all.
Wedding planning…shudder. You have my sympathies.
Lev
@CJ: Makes sense. Nate Silver tweeted an NYT article that said he moved to the center during the campaign, which makes sense (most governors are moderates), but I can see why people became less enthusiastic about him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mark S.: No. Now to click on the link to find out whom he’s talking about.
I feel bad for Lamont. I know he’s not the most forceful of campaigners, and I don’t live in CT, but he stepped up to the plate when no one else would, and got screwed by a lot of people.
General Stuck
The monsoon rains are in a pause and it warms up pretty quick in summer when that happens. But only in the low 90’s or so right now, and no humidity. I don’t have air conditioning so it’s probly near a 100 inside from the sun baked bricks, where at a southern latitude and 6000 ft. elevation the intensity of the sun is cruel here this time of year.
But the winters are wonderful. I used to hate winter back east with the damp rainy climate. But it warms up in the daytime usually in the 50’s and 60’s, and gets crisp at night for good sleeping.
Have two box fans running on rock and roll a few feet away and it’s like sitting in cargo hold of a C 130. Otherwise, I’d probly heat stroke out in no time.
But for some reason, my Hummingbirds have disappeared, though that happens sometimes, it makes me sad and cranky.
jeffreyw
Thread needs more cherry pie.
soonergrunt
@Beltane, Cat Lady, and Mr. Whipple:
LOL to the LOLs!!!
You should set it to “Cat’s in the Cradle” when you get it completed, because that would just be EPIC!
And as a side note, Balloon-Juice is the ONLY website that I consistently have problems with under IE7 or IE8, and I look at bunches of different sites on a daily and weekly basis. The problem is with the site, not with IE.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@beltane:
Another reason to be glad for Bennet’s win! I started out neutral, but I got so sick of Romanoff’s preening self-righteousness. I’m not one against negative campaigning as a rule, but you would’ve thought Bennett was Ben Nelson’s eviller twin, and he never mentioned Republicans at all. When I found out smarmy Andy was an Iraq War supporting DLCer, it would’ve been hard to pull the level, never mind writing a check.
Dave
The warmth up here in Maine isn’t an issue during the summer (though we had a 98 degree day recently). It’s in the winter. Sebago Lake hasn’t really iced over in two years. But no, there’s no global climate change.
burnspbesq
@Lev:
Lamont has lost running from the left, and he’s lost running from the center. There’s some sort of message there.
jeffreyw
@General Stuck:
I’m seeing more hummers molting.
ellaesther
@Crashman: I had two weddings, about six months apart, in different countries.
I remember thinking that it was a full time job for which people were expecting me to pay them.
Something Fabulous
@Crashman: I seem to remember starting to read here, just when you were contemplating proposing, if I am thinking of the correct person! Circle of life and all that. Sunrise/Sunset. All manner of show tunes in your general direction! Congrats!
General Stuck
@mr. whipple: I vote to ban the word progressive.
jeffreyw
Thread needs puppies.
General Stuck
@jeffreyw: Yes, I have that too, but I’m not sure it’s molting. My research on it last summer was more like a feather disease, that actually killed several when it spread to their beaks. This pic looks very similar.
Corner Stone
@Crashman:
Thank God. There’s still time. Run. As fast as your chubby little legs will take you.
burnspbesq
@geg6:
Nonononono … you get more than a pat on the head.
You get … a hot fudge sundae.
jeffreyw
Sammich? With slaw, maybe?
SIA
@RareSanity: Wow, you’re a good parent! I won’t even walk my dogs until it cools off. Being in Atlanta, you know how by this time of the summer all the pavement has soaked up the heat and then throws it back at ya when you open the door. Ugh. Awful. Why do I live here?
SiubhanDuinne
@SIA, raresanity, any other georgians:
It’s ridiculous. It is 11 at night and I’m so hot that my grey cotton tee is drenched black with sweat.
The flip side is that my office building keeps things so cold that we’re all hugging heavy woolen cardigans around our shoulders five days a week. It’s a small miracle that the whole office haven’t come down with summer colds.
jeffreyw
@General Stuck:
Ack! I hope not.
SIA
@SiubhanDuinne: I was just thinking about you & demo woman. Looks like it’s really close but Nathan Deal may win the GOP guvnor runoff? (Spit in your eye Sarah Palin!) Hope Barnes can beat whoever does win.
Redshift
@Lev: I didn’t pay close attention, but I kinda figured that having been an executive, being governor was more appealing than being one of a hundred senators (like with Mark Warner.) And if it didn’t work out, as long as he didn’t lose badly, his nationwide fundraising base would probably come back for a rematch against Lieberman in a couple of years.
Cat Lady
@General Stuck:
The bats in New England may be extinct in our lifetime. It’s not looking good for us humans either.
burnspbesq
@SIA:
Because you love Thai food, and the awesomest Thai restaurant there is is on 14th street a couple of blocks west of Peachtree (drawing a blank on the name)?
Redshift
Yeah, it’s been nonstop brutal here, too (Northern VA.) We have concert tickets for tomorrow night, but it’s at an outdoor pavilion and the high temperature is supposed to be like a hundred. Ms. Redshift doesn’t tolerate heat well; I hope she doesn’t end up in the emergency room.
beltane
@Cat Lady: Heard about this on VPR two weeks ago. Whatever it is that causes white-nose syndrome survives in the caves long after the bats are gone. When new bats enter the cave, they become infected and die. I was always afraid of bats, but it is strange not seeing them anymore.
General Stuck
@jeffreyw: If you start noticing deformed beaks, then it’s not molting. I had several little guys that way sitting at the feeder, but their beaks were twisted and deformed and they couldn’t get a drink. I saw one finally just keel over dead. I have discussed this problem with flickr friends mostly out west here, though this year it doesn’t seem as bad as last. I hadn’t heard about it about with the Ruby Throats back east, but maybe your birds really are molting. I don’t know all that much about it.
burnspbesq
Anyone watch US-Brazil? Did we suck as much as the ESPN.com story suggests?
SIA
@burnspbesq: Hmm. Ask SiubhanDuinne – she’ll know it probably. SD? I always liked that one on Piedmont near Monroe, especially their dee-lish-us Thai iced coffee.
But. That’s just not a good enough reason to live like a mole for 5 months of the year. :-)
ETA: BTW do you live down heah too?
suzanne
@Crashman: Oh, it’s awful. We just got married in December, and, Good Lord, what an epic pain in the ass. Don’t sweat the small stuff! And it’s mostly–if not all–small stuff.
Peter
Between Starcraft II, Silent Hill: Homecoming, and Alien Swarm, I am drowning in new (for me) video games.
burnspbesq
@Redshift:
Wolf Trap or Nissan Pavilion? The seating area at Wolf Trap isn’t all that bad, because it’s completely covered. The lawn will be a bear. Get a couple of those mister thingies, the small battery-powered fan attached to a water bottle. Those can do a good job of keeping you comfortable. And drink drink drink to keep your core temp down.
General Stuck
Cat Lady
A lot of strange diseases seem to be popping up with wildlife, and humans as well. I have talked at length with my Rheumatologist about all the new variations in autoimmune disorders they are seeing. The likely culprit, I think, is us and all the poisons we have pumped into the environment.
SIA
@Redshift: Virginia is kind of like Missouri – you get the worst of winter and summer. Very humid there too, right. I have family outside of Leesburg, and they had that crazy snow all winter, now they’re saying the heat is unbearable. Ah! The halcyon days of global warming.
SiubhanDuinne
@burnspbesq: Nan
burnspbesq
@SIA:
Have friends down there, and get there occasionally for work. Went to the Women’s Final Four at the GaDome in 2003 – never seen so much damned orange in one place, between the Texas fans and the Tennessee fans. Atlanta has two great pen stores, Artilite on Piedmont Road and Total Office Products out in (I think) Smyrna.
SiubhanDuinne
@burnspbesq: Nan
In my building (Colony Square, Ptree @ 14th), Nan’s son runs another awesome Thai restaurant called Tamarind Seed.
I belive Nan actually used to be called “Tamarind” but that changed a few years ago.
suzanne
I’m officially halfway done with this pregnancy. OTOH, it feels like it’s almost completely done with me. God, I’m so friggin’ exhausted. Temperatures over 110° aren’t helping matters… I walked two blocks to pick up my daughter from school this afternoon, and I thought I was going to pass out. Damn Sprog thinks it’s time to get a headstart on kickboxing lessons around midnight every night. And I look like Tunch. (Slightly less furry.) Christ on a cracker.
And we found out yesterday it’s a girl (very exciting), so now I have no excuse to avoid coming up with a name (shit!).
SIA
@burnspbesq There’s also Sam Flax art supply store you might like, on Northside Drive, not that far from downtown.
burnspbesq
@SiubhanDuinne:
Bingo! The owner catered the Champions Dinner at the Masters the first time Tiger got to pick the menu.
burnspbesq
@suzanne:
We started talking about names before we knew the kid’s gender, and we focused on names that work for either gender. I was (and still am) a big fan of Blair, but I got outvoted.
SiubhanDuinne
@SIA: Demo and I were talking politics one thead down. I read the fact that Handel failed to get an unambiguous victory as a TOTAL REFUDIATION of Palin.
Nellcote
North coast of CA. 2nd coldest summer in 50 years. It’s Aug. and some plants are fucking molding from lack of sun/warmth. Tomatoes just look pissed off. Help! send the sun back!
SIA
@suzanne:
It sounds rough, but congratulations! Aw! A little girl! We will be expecting photos, you know. When it’s time to come up with a name, just turn it over to the commentariat. Heck, we’ve named puppehs and kittehs! Why not a little babeh?
Kat
god I love the internet…
Girl quits job via dry-erase-board photos, emailed to everyone in her office.
Corner Stone
@suzanne:
I would suggest not going with this.
Lev
The Bennet win is the one I was looking for. Think about it: a guy who has actually run a big city education system, and therefore knows a lot about education, and happens to be in his early forties. This is a guy who can serve 30-40 years in the Senate and exercise a lot of influence on something he knows a lot about.
Plus, Romanoff is a weasel.
SIA
@SiubhanDuinne: From AJC:
I’d prefer Deal to win, even though I know he’s a resoundingly stupid moran, just to slap Sarah in the face under the bus. Hopefully Barnes will pull it off.
soonergrunt
@burnspbesq, #62;
We had a long list of (what we thought were) cool-sounding and exotic names drawn up when my wife was pregnant with our first child.
My wife’s mother came to visit and asked us about names and we started talking about the ones we liked and how we couldn’t decide on which ones and she interrupted us and said “just go to the back door, and shout each name three times at the top of your lungs, and that will help you decide because that’s how you’re going to be using the child’s name for most of his or her life.”
Our children are Justin and Caitlin.
Lev
@Nellcote: Yeah, what’s up with the summer in Northern California? I live in the East Bay, so it’s usually never too hot here, but it’s freakin’ August and the temperature is in the 80s? Sacramento is usually like Tucson this time of year, but I visited there this weekend and it’s almost pleasant.
It’s just weird. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying it, but it’s strange.
Morbo
Oh, this looked like fun:
Oregon TP tried to adopt 4chan meme. Hilarity ensued.
Mike Kay (Team America)
hahahhahahahhahahahha-
Ned Lamont LOST again!
After spending $8 million and leading the polls through out year, up to today, he got blown out 58-42 in CT.
You have to tip your cap to the Firebaggers — once they give you the kiss of death, you stay dead.
The FDL graveyard: Dean, Edwards, Lamont, Halter, Zombie Lamont.
Heh!
Redshift
@burnspbesq: Nissan, though Jiffy Lube bought the naming rights, so now it has the supremely silly and suggestive name of “Jiffy Lube Live”. My brother-in-law lives in Manassas and tells us that the local nickname for it is “The Lube”.
We’re in the pavilion, so it’s not as bad as it could be. I’ll have to check if they’ll let us bring in the battery-powered fan; that’s a good idea.
Dave
John, I love, love your site. But is there any possible way to get rid of the ads asking me to pimp Michele Bachmann or buy Newt’s book? If I wanted to descend to that level of idiocy, I’d spend all my time with Jim Hoft.
Bella Q
@suzanne: I always thought of “shit” as more of a boy’s name, the diminuitive of shithead.
suzanne
@Corner Stone: God, you’re such a BUZZKILL.
@SIA: All right, if the commentariat wants to make suggestions, I’d be more than happy to hear them. The parameters: Due to liberal feminist parents, she’s going to have two last names, the first being recognizably British, the second being Guido-riffic and four syllables long. Older sister is named Sarah, and since I’m not married to George Foreman, we’d like them to have different names. I tend toward the Shakespearean Greco-Roman/ Classical oeuvre, and essentially reflexively hate anything trendy or having to do with celebrities’ babies.
Redshift
@SIA: Well, normally, we don’t get the worst of winter; often we hardly get any at all. This winter was very unusual.
But summer, yeah. This summer isn’t hotter or more humid than the worst of most summers, it’s just more continuous horrible heat.
Kat
Seriously – this is brilliant and hilarious.
Check it out.
Violet
@Kat:
That is awesome. That girl is almost as good as the flight attendant. Her facial expressions are priceless.
eco2geek
@Kat: BoingBoing calls BS on the validity of the “girl who quit via dry erase board photos” story. (Which is not to say they’re not amusing.)
Re: the Gibbs statement, I’m not a member of the “professional left” (who does he mean by that? The Netroot Nation crowd?), but it would be nice to see a genuinely progressive president elected sometime in my adult lifetime. Probably not gonna happen. It’d also be nice to have a president whose administration knew it wasn’t a good idea to take a shit on a group of people that put a lot of time, money, and energy into his campaign (and really have nowhere else to go). It’d also be nice to have a president who kept his motherfucking campaign promises.
Pathetic.
Kat
@Violet:
Balls the size of Texas, that one!
It’s very difficult to explain how funny it is, when there’s nothing there you can quote without losing those priceless facial expressions.
CJ
@Lev:
He talked a lot about running the state like a business, not quite a Democratic idea.
I think he ran into a lot of problems when he went negative, it was perceived as overkill and punching down. At one point last week people received four pieces of mail from him a day. Add in annoying robocalls all the damn time, and you’ve got yourself an unhappy electorate.
Violet
@eco2geek:
Too bad it’s fake. It’s still funny, but not as awesome as flight attendant guy. Now that was inspired.
suzanne
I’m thinking all these hilariously dramatic stomping-off-the-job stories are going to become this year’s O.J. trial crap. With so many people out of work, and the overwork/abuse of those who still do have jobs, I predict widespread societal backlash is not far off. Maybe it’ll encourage companies to hire and treat their employees a bit better, now that the worst is over.
Kat
@eco2geek:
Fake? Awwww – that’s so sad.
Either I’ve got a caffeine deficiency, or I’m losing my discriminatory touch.
Maybe I should change all my credit card numbers again, just in case. haha
Mike Kay (Team America)
@eco2geek: Lefties who say “obama is just like bush” and “obama hasn’t kept his promises” are the ones who are pathetic. They’re just as pathetic as the creeps who said “there’s no differene btwn bush and gore.”
Sentient Puddle
On the topic of primary results, I’d also like to point out that Ken “vote for me because I don’t wear high heels” Buck won on the Republican side for senate. And governor, man, that’s probably going to recount. Maes is up by about 2000 votes right now, but there’s still more to count.
Republicans in Colorado are failing so epically right now. It’s kind of funny to watch.
eco2geek
@Mike Kay (Team America): The phrase “lefties who say Obama is just like Bush and Obama hasn’t kept his promises” is a talking point with some catchy half-truths in it which allows you to dodge any substantive debate.
Allison W.
not buying that dry erase thing either.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@General Stuck:
Christ, man. No air in the desert? Not even an evap?
You can score an 8000 BTU room ac at Home Depot for under $200 and in your climate that is enough for a 12 x 12 room easy, perfect for sleeping. I have one of these in my office down here in Phoenix where it is a lot hotter (a room separate from the rest of the house) and it works great. It will freeze you right out of the room and can’t cost more than $15 a month to operate.
Stop melting.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@eco2geek: Oh, I see. When you cite glen and digby instead of standing on your own feet and formulating your own argument, then you’re weak.
And it isn’t a talking point, it’s your own quote. What wrong with you, do you suffer short term memory loss? Are you embarrassed when I hold a mirror to your face? You specifically said Obama hasn’t “kept his motherfucking campaign promises”. Now you’re running away from you’re own remark. As to “obama is just like bush” – that’s the remark Gibbs was responding to.
Al Gore is a right to be pissed at people who said “there’s no difference btwn Bush and Gore.” Gibbs is right to be pissed at loons who say “Obama is just like Bush”. Hell, go over to Dkos and it’s not uncommon to run across someone posting “obama is worse than bush”.
Come back when you can construct an argument of your own.
Until then, Lefties who say “obama is just like bush” and obama hasn’t “kept his mother fucking promises” are pathetic creeps, including you.
JGabriel
@beltane:
Translated from Sappho? By Anne Carson?
.
NobodySpecial
@Mike Kay (Team America): Um, hey, dumbass?
Lamont rode to the center like you guys said he had to in order to win elections.
What’s that do to your theory?
Oh, wait, it’s Mike Kay. The closest he comes to theory is ‘DURR HURR’.
FlipYrWhig
@NobodySpecial: Were a lot of people saying that Democratic candidates for statewide offices in New England should run to the center?
FlipYrWhig
You know what phrase is getting under my skin lately? “Catfood commission.” It’s just like “shit sandwich.” Is Atrios behind both of those?
Yutsano
@FlipYrWhig: In a Democratic primary nonetheless? I suppose that distinction is lost however.
Anne Laurie
@Dave:
As I understand it, Cole doesn’t control what ads appear — it’s an algorithm that hasn’t been exposed to the difference between ‘citing’ and ‘mocking’. Until Soros ponies up the funds to keep Balloon Juice aloft, the usual suggestion is to keep in mind that every fReichtard/Talibangelical/Robber Baron ad is money they’re paying us to abuse them.
eco2geek
@Mike Kay (Team America):
I missed the law that says I can’t rely on arguments from other bloggers. Also, the one that says I have to have to come up with an argument as well-written as either Digby’s or Glenzilla’s before posting my opinion.
Hey, cleek’s disemvowler works. WTKF, Mike.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: And when you click on said ad they pony up a little bit of cash for the click. So it’s really a win-win situation for us: we keep an eye on their latest craziness and also get to drain their coffers ever so slowly. Death by a thousand cuts never tasted so sweet.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@NobodySpecial:
hahahahhahahahhaha So sad. You guys got took again. Funny how griffters like Edwards and Lamont pick your pockets clean. I hope Ned didn’t funnel any donations to some pregnant-new-age-hippie mistress. You true believers are as gullible as the Jesus freaks.
Perhaps you born losers wouldn’t be such easy marks if you brushed your teeth and took a bath once in awhile. Keep waiting for the 2nd coming, patsy, the revolution will not be keyboarded from mommie’s basement.
Dem Primary Voters – 5 Firebaggers – 0
NobodySpecial
@FlipYrWhig: Well, they were certainly saying that he couldn’t win running as a…what’s that term folks like to use around here? It ain’t ‘centrist’.
But then again, I should know better than to expect Mike Kay to construct a logical argument that remains coherent to his earlier trolling. He’s now running around claiming that all the evil lefties were 100% Edwards/Kucinich supporters when he spent the better part of a year bashing them for being Hillarybots.
asiangrrlMN
Three MN Dems entered the ring for the primaries in the governor fight. Apparently, one has emerged the winner. For the first time in a long time, I would have been happy with any of the top three Dem candidates. The important thing is beating Asshole Emmer in November.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@eco2geek: There is no law. But it still makes you weak. And like any weak minded fool who depends on others to tell them what to do and how to think, you seem comfortable as a cultist. In fact, you’d make a perfect dittohead: “I heard on Rush….”
Mike Kay (Team America)
@NobodySpecial: I see you’re illiterate, as well. Maybe not, maybe you’re just disturbed, like palin, and can’t help yourself. After all, most stumble-bum losers are schizophrenic.
FlipYrWhig
@NobodySpecial: Maybe there was a conversation I missed or something. Because I thought the usual idea was that we shouldn’t be surprised when Democratic candidates in “red states” weren’t particularly liberal; but, as a corollary to that, we should find it pretty much anathema when Democratic candidates in “blue states” weren’t particularly liberal — which is why Lieberman and to a lesser degree Feinstein have so long caused so much angst.
But I thought Mike Kay was mostly trolling Jane Hamsher by proxy, using Lamont as the occasion but not really as the target.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@FlipYrWhig:
No, Atrios coined the phrase “dirty fucking hippies” and “hippie punching”.
Hamster coined catfood… and shit… She specializes in alliteration, racist caricatures, and losing primary elections.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@FlipYrWhig: No, I was trolling the self-delusional online left, who’s candidates have crashed and burned in every single election. The list of online losers is far larger than just an elitist hollywood has-been who hangs out with grover norquist.
It’s like that video Keith Olbermann plays of a bear falling out of a tree and landing flat on his/her face. No matter how many times he plays it, it’s funny every single time.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike Kay (Team America): Well, Webb and Tester were championed by DailyKos. That was part of why after I moved to Virginia I made a point of voting for Webb in his primary, which had a turnout of some ridiculously low percent, like, 4 or something.
DailyKos used to spend a fair amount of energy trying to help get conservative Democrats elected in conservative electoral climates (like Stephanie Herseth in SD, which worked, and Brad Carson in OK, which did not). His credo used to be that it was a partisan blog, not a liberal one. At some point that changed, and I’ve always been kinda curious about why.
Sly
@FlipYrWhig:
It finally sunk in that he wasn’t going to be anything remotely resembling a Democratic king-maker?
I readily concede that this may be nothing more than wishful thinking on my part.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@FlipYrWhig:
Webb and Tester were championed in small part by DailyKos. Dkos was all Ned Lamont – 24/7. Markos himself, actually appeared in a commercial for Lamont. Part of the reason why Ned got into so much trouble over Hamsher’s racist caricature of Loserman was because she was actually involved in his campaign.
But the blogs who really put their backs into the Webb campaign were NotLarrySabato.com and Raising Kaine.com
Webb and Tester were afterthoughts for DKos. It’s no different than how the sestak race was an afterthought for Dkos, while they poured millions into Halter.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Sly: He’s too flaky to be a king maker. Look at how absent he was during the HCR debate. While people like Ezra Klein and Jon Cohn made a name for themselves for their coverage, his blog dithered. Then, he showed up at the last minute to say “kill the bill” only to retract his position, when Nate Silver PWND him.
Sly
@Mike Kay (Team America):
I’m talking 2005-2008, when “The Internets is the Wave of the Future” became all the rage and several prominent liberal bloggers and bloghosts decided that their visitor traffic equaled a political constituency on the order of AARP or the AFL-CIO, and claimed the ability (nay, the right and duty) to hold elected officials accountable for their actions on policy.
I think Markos was certainly caught up in this, judging by his two books, and the negativity regarding Obama is just a realization, conscious or otherwise, that the initial premise was pure folly.
NobodySpecial
@FlipYrWhig: Which is why, of course, when Lamont is held up by folks like Mike Kay, it’s because they’re an example of primarying to the left as a good thing?
No?
No, they don’t.
They’re quick to say ‘That’s too liberal for X state’ when a candidate comes forward no matter the candidate, the location, or the positions they’re running on. Halter was wrong for Arkansas, even WITH the positive movement it made Lincoln do. Lamont was wrong for replacing Joe Fucking Lieberman to them, too. Likewise, any time a primary challenger comes up on the left, they act as if a crime of nature.
They like to talk about it being a ‘center-right’ country, but they never talk about moving it left in any way other than electing center-right Democrats. Well, the ones who seriously argue, anyways. That lets out Mike Kay, who really wants to troll FDL and isn’t brave enough to log in over there or something.
FlipYrWhig
@NobodySpecial: Well, I can’t speak for Mike, but I always figured the basic electoral strategy was for a candidate to pitch herself somewhere near the midpoint of the people who’d be voting for him. Because Connecticut voters are to the left of Arkansas voters, it’d be consistent to think primarying Lieberman was a good idea but primarying Lincoln was a bad idea.
(Personally, I liked the Halter attempt; I actually think Halter wasn’t much more _liberal_ than Lincoln, but he was more _populist_ than Lincoln. But the “netroots” kind of blurred that distinction and started to present Halter as the liberal candidate… which Lincoln then turned to her advantage.)
But if part of the point is that you think the “netroots” believe in stupid strategies, you might taunt their candidates regardless of their ideological positioning, and that’s pretty much what Mike said.