Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

In my day, never was longer.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

We still have time to mess this up!

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

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

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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Reader Interactions

27Comments

  1. 1.

    El Cid

    Someone else who equates Fox News with MSNBC: Senator Jay Rockefeller (D):

    “More than just retransmission consent ailes our television markets. We need new catalysts for quality news and entertainment programming. I hunger for quality news. I’m tired of the right and the left. There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox and to MSNBC, “Out. Off. End. Goodbye.” It’d be a big favor to political discourse, our ability to do our work here in Congress, and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and, more importantly, in their future.”

  3. 3.

    JPL

    Rockefeller is just trying to be fair and balanced. Yadda, yadda, yadda.. both sides do it. Fox news is a propaganda machine and they fought for their right to spew lies in a courtroom and they won.

  4. 4.

    Laura W.

    Goddam do you people have a lot of cats and dogs.

    The equine, bullfrog, ferret, and farm animal demographics were grossly underrepresented, weren’t they? I thought we’d have more avians as well. Not to mention that my Lard Ass (who is the Tunch of the Comet Goldfish kingdom) was the only fish? She can be admired in Jan. and April. At least the Lapins turned out in good numbers.

    Thanks for the pimp, and the purchase, MM!

  5. 5.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @El Cid: Yep, it’s all the fault of the right and the “left”. They are just fucking everything up for the sensible middle that prefers an unchallenged rightwing narrative.

  7. 7.

    Rosalita

    Goddam do you people have a lot of cats and dogs.

    and our collective menagerie made for a great calendar! I was pleased to see my Bitsy (RIP) immortalized (Feb).

  9. 9.

    Laura W.

    @debit: It would not have been the only bike. Did you see the one in Dec. keeping the dog company in what looks to be the garage? A professional photographer Juicer sent that in. It’s gorgeous at full size.

    Oh look! It’s directly underneath Fuckhead’s new kitten squatting in Max the dog’s water dish!

    (Glad you were tickled by the bonus Oliver shot. When I saw that in a thread, how on earth could that not be included?)

  10. 10.

    TheMightyTrowel

    You know what else is alive and well in the UK? Tory asshats. Not only did the Tories appoint known bigot Theresa May minister for equalities and women, they sitting smugly by as she guts the equalities act under the broad heading of ‘sort your own problems out’ and ‘f*ck the poor’. MFing tories.

  11. 11.

    JPL

    @Laura W.: I haven’t ordered my calendar yet, but will do so soon. Moxie is terrified of cameras. I’ve been trying to take pretend pictures and rewarding her with treats but to no avail. Any ideas?

  12. 12.

    mistermix

    @Laura W.: That is a great shot.

    Don’t miss the October sheep, keeping company with two cats whose eyes look like green balloons in the lower left.

  14. 14.

    Amir_Khalid

    Just got back from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. IT IS NOT TO BE MISSED. Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince both sacrificed a little too much of the story’s richness in order to accommodate the main plot, but this one has everything that needs to be there.

    Plus, it’s a reminder that even when the Death Eaters have taken over the Ministry for now, all is not yet lost.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    For some reason, this cracks me up. The William Hung of American politics thinks delusional, untalented people should be forced to face hard truths about their lack of fitness for the careers to which they aspire

    n one of several scanned pages of the book on the US website Gawker, Palin says: “No one they’ve encountered in their lives – from their parents to their teachers to their president – wanted them to feel bad by hearing the truth. So they grew up convinced they could become big pop stars like Michael Jackson.”
    The argument concludes: “Cowell can be a little harsh at times, but he upholds the highest standards, and something in us recognises and responds to that.”

  16. 16.

    Laura W.

    @JPL: Well that explains why there were no Moxie submissions. I wondered about that often. As to why Charlie is MIA, I hope Stuck has a good excuse.

    @mistermix: How about the sheep up to its neck in snow in Sept? Have to give a shout to the lone snake, right under the horse, in the bottom center of March. One man sent in a photo of a dog, cat and a MASSIVE iguana (I think?) all sitting on the carpet together but it was too blurry to use. Truly a one-of-a-kind, interspecies caucus.

  18. 18.

    Origuy

    There is an article in the latest Archaeology magazine about the Veterans Curation Project.

    The Corps of Engineers has thousands of boxes of archaeological material from years of excavation on their projects. The VCP is employing veterans, many with PTSD, to record and catalog this material.

    Oh, and it’s funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

  20. 20.

    Amir_Khalid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Simon Cowell, an upholder of the highest standards? The same Simon Cowell who reckons he’s more significant for Sony Music than Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, because of his “stars” whose hits will be forgotten before the decade is out?

    Cowell doesn’t give a damn about good music, he only cares about what he thinks will sell. He would be just another A&R guy if he hadn’t hit on the notion of crowdsourcing the talent-spotting part of his job. In his own way, he’s a kind of grifter too. I suppose that makes him Sarah Palin’s ideal judge of standards.

    I will give William Hung credit for this: at least he was aware that a complete lack of ability was the basis of his brief celebrity. Sarah lacks that self-awareness.

  21. 21.

    MobiusKlein

    If John actually got to San Francisco, he could have visited a REAL camera obsucra –here

    The videos you can find of it on youtube don’t do it justice.

  22. 22.

    Chasseur

    camera obscura is really fantastic though. my maudlin career is basically a great pop country album.

  23. 23.

    DFH no.6

    Camera Obscura was one of the highlights for me at Coachella this year. Enjoyed every song, and the friendly crowd of stoned kids (mostly) in the tent seemed to be of the same mind.

    Just a fun, sing-alongable pop band in the classic sense (and I’m also a sucker for any and all Anglo-accented female singers, from Dusty Springfield to Lily Allen and M.I.A.).

    They made up for the disappointingly lousy sets by Florence and the Machine and Grizzly Bear (both of which seemed plagued by sound system problems) as well as Corinne Bailey Rae’s, which was just wrong for that festival (she needs a smaller, more intimate venue).

  24. 24.

    DFH no.6

    And fuck politics for now – after nearly 60 years on the planet, many hundreds of hours canvassing for candidates, and many (too many) thousands of dollars donated, I find myself pretty far these days from even cautious optimism, to say nothing of idealism, and I don’t want to move all the way to outright cynicism.

    Should have taken the blue pill, I suppose. Not individually, but collectively, Americans richly deserve what we are getting from our masters.

    Music and pets, kissing my girl, playing catch with my (now grown) son in the warm sunshine, fruit (grapefruit, for me) right off the tree and good one-hit weed. Fuck politics for now. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

  25. 25.

    shortstop

    Goddam do you people have a lot of cats and dogs.

    Best compliment I’m likely to get all week. It made me smile.

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