Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

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

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

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

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Republicans in disarray!

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

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93Comments

  2. 2.

    norbizness

    The Ladytron remix of the song is pretty good. I wonder if Gang of Four lost their usage rights after it was inexplicably used in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette?

    My favorite was always Lust for Life in Carnival Cruisers. Of course Kathie Lee has had it in the ear before.

  3. 3.

    Steeplejack

    File under “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we hang them,” etc.

    Really, I don’t think they listen to this stuff. It’s just noise behind their commercial. And the guys at the ad agency think they’re all edgy and subversive for sneaking it in. While sucking up to the Man and cashing his checks, of course.

  5. 5.

    pdf

    I saw this commercial the other day and recognized Gang of Four, but couldn’t ID the exact song. (BTW, the video misquotes the lyrics, it’s actually “I do love a new purchase.”)

  8. 8.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    @pdf:

    BTW, the video misquotes the lyrics, it’s actually “I do love a new purchase.”)

    That’s what I thought too, but when I do a lyrics search, it comes out as “ideal love a new purchase”.

  10. 10.

    West of the Cascades

    Entertainment is one of the top 50 best albums of all time.

    Also one of best album covers: “The Indian smiles, he thinks that the cowboy is his friend. The cowboy smiles, he is glad the Indian is fooled. Now he can exploit him.” Brilliant.

  12. 12.

    Raenelle

    V. I. Lenin once remarked that a capitalist would sell you the rope with which you intend to hang him.

  16. 16.

    Sly

    Or Royal Caribbean using “Lust for Life” in one of its advertising blitzes. Because nothing says holiday in the Caribbean like a song about Iggy Pop’s decades-long struggle with heroin addiction.

    However, I can conceivably see Bank of America using “Rape Me” to market a future line of home mortgages.

  19. 19.

    danno

    As much as I’d love to sign on to the theories that this is somehow co-opting an anti consumerist message to some nefarious ends, I have enough friend in advertising to know the real answer is much more uninteresting: the creative director/copy writer for the ad in question is a huge Gang of Four fan and loved the idea that someone might see the ad, google the song, and go out an buy the album.

    Seriously. That’s the reason.

    No, I don’t know the person who wrote the ad in question, but I know people who wrote ads for Target using obscure, 1970s Minneapolis punk songs, and lesser known Devo tracks, following the exact same logic. I’ll bet MY Xbox that’s why Gang of Four is in that ad.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @asiangrrlMN: I enjoyed the game. The only thing that really disappointed me is that Donald Driver’s streak of games with at least on catch ended at 133 tonight. I wanted GB to win, I wanted no injuries for GB, and I wanted Favre to get beaten up. More or less 3 for 3.

  25. 25.

    sven

    If your blood pressure is within a healthy range, Charles Murray has a new op-ed up at WaPo.

    Apparently America is ruled by a New Elite.

    Billionaires? Nope,… liberals who watch The Sopranos!

    Get into a conversation about television with members of the New Elite, and they can probably talk about a few trendy shows — “Mad Men” now, “The Sopranos” a few years ago. But they haven’t any idea who replaced Bob Barker on “The Price Is Right.” They know who Oprah is, but they’ve never watched one of her shows from beginning to end. Talk to them about sports, and you may get an animated discussion of yoga, pilates, skiing or mountain biking, but they are unlikely to know who Jimmie Johnson is (the really famous Jimmie Johnson, not the former Dallas Cowboys coach), and the acronym MMA means nothing to them.

  26. 26.

    M. Bouffant

    Few pay any attention to pop lyrics except (possibly) the chorus, if it’s understandable & all chanty/anthemic, &c. Certainly not corporate weasels.

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne

    @sven:

    But they haven’t any idea who replaced Bob Barker on “The Price Is Right.”

    Drew Carey. And I didn’t even have to look it up.

    Though I do love that Republicans are still pulling the “we’s just plain folks here!” card. I will bet you any amount of money that Murray has never sat through a whole episode of Oprah, much less watched an MMA match.

  28. 28.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @sven: 1. Charles Murray is a racist idiot. 2. From the bit you posted, I would rather stick needles through my tongue than click on the link.

  30. 30.

    Nick

    where are the hippies who want the Democrats to “fight dirty” and/or use Republican tactics. I feel like punching some.

    ppppolls: By a 41-24 margin Democrats in KY think Aqua Buddha was inappropriate. You can imagine what everyone else thinks

  33. 33.

    Sly

    @sven:
    The New Elite doesn’t think that eugenics is an idea worth pursuing, so of course Charles Murray doesn’t like them as much as he likes the Old Elite.

  34. 34.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Omnes Omnibus: I wanted Brett Favre to get knocked out of the game. I wanted AP to win the game. I wanted Randy Moss to take himself out of the game. I wanted the Vikes to win the game. I got 0 for 4. Good thing I didn’t make any bets with you Packers fans!

    ETA: I guess I am no more the New Elite than I was the Old Elite. Good to know.

    @freelancer: What the hell did I miss last night?

  36. 36.

    BGinCHI

    I have the Gang of 4 box set and it’s excellent. So many songs that still sound great that I hadn’t heard. Smart band all the kids should be rediscovering these days.

    “At home he feels like a tourist….”

    I love that song.

  38. 38.

    BGinCHI

    @Omnes Omnibus: That’s fucking Jeff Tweedy’s fault. Yeah, that’s right, Tweedy lives in the suburbs.

    Saw Billy Bragg play two shows (Fri/Sat) at the 40 Watt in Athens, GA (old location: longish cinder block garage with a bar and a dirty bathroom) in 1990. It was mind-blowing. The energy was as good as any show I’ve ever been too (and that’s lots). God he was good.

  40. 40.

    Jay S

    @arguingwithsignposts: Let’s try again, none of the links to pages below //arguewithsigns.net/reviews/ (about, comment, the post itself, categories, feeds) except images (reviews/wp-content…) seem to work. They all 404. It’s not just the RSS feeds.

  43. 43.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: I am never betting on the Seachickens again. Evah. It already cost me a debt I haven’t paid yet. I haven’t forgotten.

    Oh and new kitteh is anti-union. Well not really, she was just attacking the lanyard they gave me when I joined up. Gawd I’ve turned so sociaIist it’s not even funny.

  46. 46.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: She came pre-named, but since she has the little lynx tufts on her ears it should be related to that somehow. Right now she’s Lexie, but I get the feeling she will tell me what her real name is in due time. For now she’s settling into things and figuring out what’s what.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yutsano:

    Sometimes the name they come with turns out to be their real name. Annie has been Annie since the day we brought her home — we were never able to find a name that suited her better.

    ETA: Though G did have a dream the other night that other people adopted our cats and re-named them, and they called Annie “Sneakers.” So sometimes we tease her that her new name is Sneakers. She does. not. like. that.

  51. 51.

    Yutsano

    @J. Michael Neal: Sigh. I know. It’s why I’m being mum for now as to the exact source of her kitteh fud funding. That would get most unpleasant quite rapidly.

    @Mnemosyne: Just for that instance until she tells me otherwise her formal name is Lwxanna. I won’t call her that though, mostly because it doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well.

  54. 54.

    M. Bouffant

    Perhaps the “New Elites ” don’t know who replaced Bob Barker & have never watched an entire Oprah because they are at work all day long, rather than retired & racist like Murray. Wonder what he really thinks of Oprah.

  55. 55.

    J. Michael Neal

    @Mnemosyne: Monster, Dirk and Ringling were all strays that we found, so their names were provided by us. Eddie got that name at the pound, and it’s perfect for him, though it did take him 18 months to learn that it meant him. (He still thinks ‘Ringling’ means ‘Come here.’)

    Monster got her name because the day after she showed up, I was watching the Dom DeLuise episode of The Muppet Show, and one of the monsters was making the same facial expression she did.

    Dirk has long, flowing fur and is very pretty. So he named to be one of the male characters on the cover of romance novels.

    Ringling was, at that time, the fifth cat to join the house. I said that, if we took her in, our house would become a circus.

  56. 56.

    asiangrrlMN

    Shadow was Shadow when he arrived, and the name suits him. Raven was Midnight, but he was pretty emphatic about being Raven. Midnight never fit him.

    @Mnemosyne: That’s cool about Olive. In my case, my Chinese/Taiwanese name and my American one are the same–just pronounced differently.

  57. 57.

    Mnemosyne

    @J. Michael Neal:

    Keaton started life as Kiki, but that just didn’t seem to fit a boy cat. Technically, Keaton is his middle name since he’s named after Buster Keaton, but we thought having a Boris and a Buster in the same house would get too confusing, so he’s Keaton.

    Charlotte is the one we named ourselves since G found her and her sister in a parking lot. We actually named them Chuck and Olive after the characters on “Pushing Daisies” but once Olive went to her forever home, it made more sense to call her Charlotte.

    Olive actually kinda/sorta kept her name — the woman who adopted her works with G and is Taiwanese so, like her owner, the cat has a Chinese name and an American name and Olive is her American name.

    Delving into the late cats, Boris was Boris because he had that beautiful Russian Blue coat, and when I adopted a girl cat, of course she had to be Natasha (aka Tashi).

  58. 58.

    Yutsano

    @Mnemosyne: The Japanese word for kitten is koneko…hmm…I may have to muse over this some.

    OH!! Before I forget…she’s a rescue from my mom’s (now fixed) barn cat.

  59. 59.

    Martin

    @sven: You know what book is read more than “Left Behind”? The dictionary.

    Maybe our teabagger elitists could get down with us regular folk and crack it open now and then.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Olive’s Chinese name is Lan Lan (IIRC), but I have no idea if one has anything to do with the other.

    She’s also very chubby and spoiled and has her own pink cat carrier. She definitely landed soft. ;-)

    ETA: Sorry — it’s a pink fake Chanel carrier. That detail seemed important.

  62. 62.

    Anne Laurie

    @sven:
    __

    I’m told David Brooks loves professional wrestling.

    There’s a lot of screaming, threats & chairthrowing, but it’s all carefully scripted in advance, with winners and losers pre-determined for best marketing value. Sweaty, muscular individuals pose in costumes that allow them to be easily identified even by those of very low intelligence and/or people not paying much attention. Behind the scenes, it’s a megacorporate network where a few entrepreneurs have made millions exploiting legions of low-paid serfs who “legally” sign away control of their own bodies…

    Of course David Brooks loves professional wrestling — it’s his dream of the way American politics should be!

  64. 64.

    JGabriel

    Charles Murray via sven:

    Get into a conversation about television with members of the New Elite, and they can probably talk about a few trendy shows—“Mad Men” now, “The Sopranos” a few years ago. But they haven’t any idea who replaced Bob Barker on “The Price Is Right.”

    How did anyone ever take this asshole seriously? Racist jackass writes an entire fucking book just to say “blacks are dumb“, then bitches about people not knowing who’s the host of a fucking game show?

    Fuck you, Charles Murray. Fuck you with a big black serrated fucking dick.

    .

  65. 65.

    Mark S.

    Here’s my favorite line from Murray:

    They can talk about books endlessly, but they’ve never read a “Left Behind” novel

    I think Murray is a total idiot so I didn’t read him very carefully, but he seems to divide the country into two camps: those in the top 0.1% economically and socially, and the rest of us who apparently think getting dressed up entails putting pants on for the few times a week we can summon the strength to get off the couch (probably to get more Left Behind books on tape). There doesn’t seem to be any in between.

  67. 67.

    MikeJ

    @JGabriel: Maybe we don’t know who hosts daytime game shows because we’re out creating the culture and economy while the wingnuts sit at home and watch TV.

    As for who does what on TV, I can tell you that if anybody else works at the Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson has them handcuffed in the basement. Beyond that, I mainly watch TCM.

  70. 70.

    mclaren

    @JGabriel:

    Question number one: Mr. Murray, why did you write a book about population genetics when you don’t know a thing about population genetics and your doctorate is in political science, not genetics or statistics or mathematics or population genetics?

    Response: (sound of crickets)

  72. 72.

    Anne Laurie

    @J. Michael Neal: Toby is a nondescript grey tabby we adopted because the shelter group wouldn’t let us have the adorable plushy blue-cream tortie we would name Isis unless we took her “brother” as well. It was clear that Toby had inherited all the brains in that litter, so the Spousal Unit chose Toby Tyler “who always looked after his little sister carefully”. Toby is now 17, has outlived Isis by several years, and is basically the cranky old butch lady she was born to be.

    Madeline was a calico cowering at the back of the crate at the big-box pet-store ‘adoption event’. When she joined Figaro, Isis, and Toby, she was “the smallest of them“, but for most of the last 10 years she’s been known, with reason, as Fat Maddy.

    Kishkan came with her name (“kitten” in Faroese). The owners she’d chosen, by laying siege to their house, were moving ‘temporarily’ back to the islands, where there’s a six-month rabies quarantine. Since Ms. Kish is a six-pound tabby Maine Coon analog with the sort of commanding personality best exemplified by actresses with names like Crawford and Hepburn, it seemed appropriate. That was seven years ago…

  76. 76.

    sven

    @JGabriel: That is literally the only time I would have found dinner with David Brooks entertaining. I have $10 that says it was Jim Bunning.

  81. 81.

    Anne Laurie

    @J. Michael Neal: That’s why I called Kish ‘a Maine Coon analog’ — she’s just little, by “real” MC standards, even though she’s got all the other recognized markers (tufted ears, ruff, snowshoe paws, slab-sided rectagular build & tiny silly squeaky voice). Every shelter in New England is full of cats carrying the original, unrefined version of the Maine geneset. Well adapted to the local climate, obviously — not least in their piratical personalities, which have enabled the proud inheritors to make themselves at home in the flinty hearts of the local Ethan Fromes and Hester Prynnes.

  86. 86.

    freelancer

    Last night I found the thing I will be falling asleep to for the foreseeable future. A small business I work at on weekends pipes Soma FM’s Indie pop station through its PA as Muzak and looking around at the different channels, I came upon a station that blends ambient electronic with archival recordings of NASA audio recordings. Too cool, and all of it available for free online. This is Soma FM Mission Control.

  89. 89.

    MarkJ

    Thanks for the reminder on that Gang of Four album – it’s fantastic. I had it on cassette in high school but it turns out cassette tapes don’t have an unlimited shelf life, so I must buy it again soon.

  91. 91.

    Cacti

    As for Charles “negroes are genetically inferior” Murray’s lament about the new “elites”

    I’ve never watched an episode of the Sopranos or Mad Men.

    Drew Carey replaced Bob Barker.

    I don’t watch Oprah because I’m not her target audience.

    My favorite sport is baseball.

    He contradicts himself about Jimmy Johnson not being famous. If he wasn’t famous, why would more casual observers know who he is than JimmIE Johnson, the nascar driver?

    MMA stands for Mixed Martial Arts – where the wingnut racist heavyweight champ of the UFC, Brock Lesnar, got KTFO this weekend (that stands for Knocked The F**k Out).

  92. 92.

    jake the snake

    On commercials, anyone noticed Howling Wolf as the soundtrck for the Viagra ad? From what I know about Wolf, he wouldn’t have cared as long as he got paid.
    He might have taken some of it in pills, though,

  93. 93.

    chopper

    there’s that stupid car commercial showing some broad taking the kids to soccer practice or some such with ‘if i should fall from grace with god’ in the back. wonderful.

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