Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

People are complicated. Love is not.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

The revolution will be supervised.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

No Justins, No Peace

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

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Reader Interactions

82Comments

  1. 1.

    Mark S.

    Before the game.

    There’s a Beach Boys concert going on right now at his library or somewhere. Snow Princess gave a speech there last night.

  2. 2.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    The Beach Boys thing is the weirdest. I know nothing about their politics, but wouldn’t, I don’t know, Frank Sinatra Jr, Peggy Lee, Loretta Lynn or Tony Bennett be more appropriate? Is Up With People still active? The Grinning Americans? I guess it would be awkward to get Orrin Hatch’s Barber Shop Quartet back together.

  4. 4.

    The Dangerman

    “Oh Mighty Anagram, what message should we get from the Black Eyed Peas performance?”

    Black Eyed Peas = Beck Yap Sealed

    Verily, let it be so.

    Edit: Palin was in Santa Barbara, not at the Library in Thousand Oaks; I don’t think it was at the Ranch (the road to it blows). Reports are that some of the guests loved the red meat but didn’t want her to run in 2012. If you’ve lost Reagan devotees…

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Omnes Omnibus: I was thinking more in terms of generation than politics, though I am glad to know Bennett’s on our side. I just can’t picture Ron and Nancy putting Pet Sounds on the hifi back in the day.

    @M. Bouffant: oops. Was it a fever?

  12. 12.

    Viva BrisVegas

    November this year is the 25th anniversary of the Iran/Contra affair.

    I intend to celebrate by dressing up as a Contra and conducting mock executions of some Nicaraguan teachers.

    Good times.

  13. 13.

    Dee Loralei

    Weren’t the Beach Boys banned from some concert on the Washington Mall by James Watts during Reagan’s term? Maybe Nancy is trying to make up for that gaffe? This entire year of hagiography is going to annoy me to no end. Just as the week long death orgy did a few years ago. Sheesh Republicans the man isn’t Elvis. I didn’t hate the man, hell I voted for him twice. In my defense I was 18 the first time and 22 the second. And dear Lord do I regret my wild, miss-spent youth as a Republican party activist. I’ve learned many mostly unflattering and pretty heinous things about Reagan and his legacy since then, but I do have a wee bit of a soft spot for the man himself. But dear God the week-long funereal orgy was even too much for my forbearance and personal fondness for the man. I may have to stab my own ears before this centennial year is out.
    Did Nancy have to sit thru the entire weekend? Isn’t she kinda sickly herself? I wonder if she’s just holding on to receive the year long accolades and tributes to her Ronnie…..

    (Also in my own defense, it was easy to be socially liberal and be a Rep back then, the religious right hadn’t completely come to dominate the party yet. I left by ’94 when they had a death strangle and the crazy started to control the party.)

    ETA to correct those damned homophones

  14. 14.

    JGabriel

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The Beach Boys thing is the weirdest. I know nothing about their politics, but wouldn’t, I don’t know, Frank Sinatra Jr, Peggy Lee, Loretta Lynn or Tony Bennett be more appropriate?

    Not sure, but I think Mike Love has been kind of a wingnut for a while, like back to the 60’s or 70’s. No one else from the original band is left in it — except kinda sorta Bruce Johnston, who filled in on tour for Brian Wilson starting circa ’65 — so Mike picks the gigs.

    For what it’s worth, they played at Reagan’s second inauguration in ’85.

    .

  17. 17.

    JWL

    Corporations began their frontal assault on journalism after the election of 1980.

    In that year, George Will referred on-air to Reagan as having turned in a “thoroubred performance” during ABC’s Sunday morning show after a Carter-Reagan debate. He did so, despite having coached Reagan for that particular debate.

    He made no mention of that rude fact while praising the Gipper.

    Even after his transgression came to light (and that within days), Will was not fired. Not only that, but not a single journalist stood tall in defense of their profession by calling for him to be fired.

    Money corrupts perception.

  19. 19.

    PS

    @Dee Loralei: Yes Watt did try to ban all rock bands, but was forced to back down. Nancy apologized to the Beach Boys themselves pretty much at the time.

    Mike Love may well be a wingnut of some variety, but a slightly odd one — I think he’s also still into Transcendental Meditation and he had a long career of, uh, appreciating a wide variety of women. But the cool ones are gone — Carl, who was a conscientious objector in the Vietnam era, and Dennis, who was the surfer, both passed away years ago; and the great Brian hasn’t been involved with the Beach Boys Business for decades, except to swat away lawsuits from Mike objecting to his use of his own music.

  20. 20.

    Steeplejack

    @Steeplejack:

    After pondering it for a few minutes, I think that may be the most painful video ever made. Day-um. Here’s a palate-cleansing video to cleanse the palate of the previous palate-cleaning video: “I Get Around” from the TAMI show.

  23. 23.

    mai naem

    I always remember a couple things about Reagan – first the book that some called something like The Reign of Error which has all the erroneous quotes of Reagan. It was worse than what the Slate guy did on GW Bush. I wasn’t in this country when he was elected but there was a quote from Jane Fonda about Reagan something to the effect of “He was a B list actor and he’ll be a B list president” Also too, I remember I was listening to Radio Luxembourg when they broke into their programming to announce that he had been shot.

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    In 1985, from March to September, I was on temporary duty in Honduras.

    While I was there, a buddy of mine from my tour in Germany, an Infantry officer, who was with the 82nd Airborne at the time, came down to our base on the Honduran plateau to conduct some reconnaissance. Officers from the 82nd Airborne Division Artillery were there, too, checking out the primitive road network near the Nicaraguan border.

    At that time, I suspected that the groundwork was being laid for a US intervention in Nicaragua.

    Then Iran-Contra happened, and I’m pretty sure that short circuited any further planning on US intervention to support the Contras from Honduras into Nicaragua, which would have been insane, regardless, given the terrain involved.

  26. 26.

    mai naem

    @JWL: Didn’t George Will also steal the debate briefing books or whatever left behind by Carter’s people inadvertently? I cannot stand George Will. Asshole. He always looks like he’s sitting on the commode trying to pass a walrus.

  27. 27.

    PS

    @Steeplejack: OK, the go-go dancers are excellent (ahem, and now safely into their 60s) but Mitch? I think not. I was raised in the UK and he did not translate, unlike the Beach Boys, who very much did. IMHO, the Great British Public knew what it was doing in that instance, though we made plenty of mistakes all of our own.

  28. 28.

    M. Bouffant

    Original “Fever”.

    The tea-bagging will not be at half-time.

    FOX SUPER BOWL PREGAME
    2 p.m. (ET): Super Bowl XLV Pregame Show
    2:30 p.m.: Super Bowl Red Carpet begins
    3:30 p.m.: TMZ dirt from Super Bowl week
    4:30 p.m.: President Obama with Bill O’Reilly
    5:30 p.m.: Terry Bradshaw with Big Ben
    5:53 p.m.: Declaration of Independance
    6:15 p.m.: Michael Douglas narrates open
    6:24 p.m.: Christina Aguilera national anthem
    6:29 p.m.: SUPER BOWL KICK OFF!

    I saw that the Declaration has been read ever since 9/11, but have no memory of it.

  29. 29.

    JGabriel

    @mai naem:

    Didn’t George Will also steal the debate briefing books or whatever left behind by Carter’s people inadvertently?

    Carter has since retracted the accusation, according to Wikipedia:

    In 2004 and again in 2005, Carter accused Will of giving the Reagan campaign a top-secret briefing book stolen from Carter’s office before the 1980 debate. In a 2005 syndicated column, Will called his role in Reagan’s debate preparation “inappropriate” but denied any role in stealing the briefing book. As he had done to Carter privately, Will wrote in his column that he gave the book a “cursory glance”, and found it a “crashing bore and next to useless—for [Carter], or for anyone else.” In response to Will’s column, Carter wrote a letter to the Washington Post retracting his accusations. Carter apologized to Will for “any incorrect statement that I have ever made about his role in the use of my briefing book … I have never thought Mr. Will took my book.”

    .

  30. 30.

    frosty

    @Mark S.: If it helps clear your mind of the Beach Boys, I’ve been going through Youtubes of the Shangri-las….Remember Walkin’ in the Sand. Out in the Streets. Train from Kansas City.

    Now there was a group! Hit the big time through an amazing set of circumstances, crashed from music industry venality, bad business decisions, and missed opportunities.

  32. 32.

    frosty

    @Dee Loralei:

    I didn’t hate the man, hell I voted for him twice.

    Proud to say that I did hate the man and I got to vote against him at least three times, since I was living in California when he ran for governor.

    ETA: Damn, I’m wrong! He didn’t run in ’74 so I never got a chance to vote against him for gov. Looks like it was just twice. Damn!

  34. 34.

    JWL

    @mai naem: George Will murdered his father, fucked his mother, wed his sister after buggering his brother, all during the week after he had endorsed the Gipper.

    Or so I’ve heard.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    @PS:

    Aw, hell to the no! Er, I mean I must respectfully disagree. Mitch Ryder was one of the three great “blue-eyed soul” shouters of the ’60s. His album All Hits! is wall-to-wall awesome: the original mono mixes of an impressive string of hits cranked out in 1965-66–“singles which fired like a howitzer through the grille cloth with every drop of your dime and punch of the numbers–hot, tight, sweaty and relentless.” Word.

    The other great blue-eyed soul shouters? That would be Eric Burdon of the Animals and–take your pick–Felix Cavalieri of the Rascals or that guy from the Buckinghams.

  37. 37.

    PS

    I was in Georgia in early 1980 with California plates, and developed a shell with which to face those who tried to compliment me on our (ex) Governor.

    More importantly, herewith the dawn of British rock: Cliff Richard, Move It

  39. 39.

    frosty

    @PS: Sweet music, but shouldn’t those bikes in the video be Triumphs, BSAs and Nortons? And maybe a Vincent Black Shadow?

  42. 42.

    PS

    @Steeplejack: We certainly agree on Eric Burdon! I just never “got” any of the other three, none of whom did squat in Britain. Yes, all of whom are definitely better than, ah, Brian Poole or Eden Kane let alone Adam Faith and Marty Wilde certain singers we shall not mention who did do just fine over there.

    Aside from the Righteous Brothers, blue-eyed soul was much less popular in the UK than Motown, Otis, Pickett et al. James Brown didn’t really get the respect he was due, but James Jamerson, the greatest bass player ever (and does anyone dare contradict me?), is said to have been completely amazed when Motown toured the UK and people knew who he was. And wanted his autograph!

  44. 44.

    frosty

    @Steeplejack: Yeah, I remember that from when she posted it. Two thoughts: 1) How come nobody dances on the counter at the local diner? and 2) If I could only sing and play guitar like that I wouldn’t be grinding out a living as an engineer.

    It’s not like I didn’t try from time to time. Turns out there really is such thing as talent. Damn!

  45. 45.

    PS

    @frosty: Sad to say, Cliff was (and is) a bit of a wimp at heart and I doubt he ever mounted a bike. But his first album is great, as are parts of the second and third. The first was recorded live in studio, with an audience of screaming girls including Richard Thompson’s sister. Richard seems to be quite proud of that, as well he should be.

  47. 47.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I knew if I posted that you would appear. Sort of like saying “Beetlejuice” three times. Hee.

    Hey, I’m off work for the weekend, I’m drinking champagne, and I’m polluting Balloon Juice threads with dusty old music. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

    ETA: I heard on the street that Big Mamou is in town. How’s that going?

  48. 48.

    frosty

    @PS: Well, it was more of a comment on the guy who recorded the video of a British singer with shots of US hotrods and Harleys. And Marilyn. I’d’ve liked to have seen more local content.

    Like the rock band with the fiddle???

    Good for Cliff for never mounting a bike. I gave it up the second time I ended up face down on the pavement.

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack

    @frosty:

    If you looked like that, then maybe you could dance on the counter at the diner. Pretty people get away with a lot.

  51. 51.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steeplejack: I’ve been chasing you down ALL WEEK! Glad you have the weekend off. Champers again? Nice! Ma mere is not in town yet–thus the mad cleaning frenzy. Frankly, I need a little more frenzy and a little less mad.

  52. 52.

    frosty

    @Steeplejack: Sadly, no. Can you spell old bald short white guy?

    And even if I was pretty, I’m not four (or was it five, I lost count) pretty people simultaneously. :-(

  53. 53.

    JGabriel

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    5:53 p.m.: Declaration of Independance

    What the hell?

    HA! i kNEW yOU lIBTRARDCS d0N’;T bELIEVE iN iNDEPENDECE! a tRUE pATRIOT wOULD nEVER sAY wHAT tHE hELL! hE WOULD rECITE aLONG wITH IT: foUR sCORE AND 7 yEARS aGO…

    (Actually, you have to pay attention to the spelling. The Declaration of Independance is a one hour infomercial targeting tea baggers — to sell them remaindered copies of Dance Dance Revolution.)

    .

  56. 56.

    Steeplejack

    @PS:

    I think a lot of it comes down to what you are exposed to at a certain point in your life. In the U.S. in the mid-’60s, AM radio was a vast melting pot such as has rarely ever been seen. It didn’t seem weird to have, say, the Electric Prunes coexisting in the Top 40 with Aretha Franklin and the Casinos.

  57. 57.

    Yutsano

    @Steeplejack:

    I knew if I posted that you would appear. Sort of like saying “Beetlejuice” three times.

    This will sometimes work for FH #1 as well. Though your particular recall switch has yet to be located. We’ll keep looking though.

    @asiangrrlMN: Steepman started the Mavericks mini-craze here, so I give him full faith and credit for that earworm. I just introduced you to swarthy Jake Owen.

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    Just had a comment go into moderation, and I have no idea why. No boner pills, no discredited political systems, etc. Hmmph. I assume it will emerge at some point.

  60. 60.

    frosty

    @asiangrrlMN: Funny, I just watched that. It’s my least favorite of all their songs, as a matter of fact. Poor girls have to go through the “biker” making fun of them.

    Looked more like Robert Goulet to me, but I can’t say for sure. Hope would have looked older in the early 60s.

  63. 63.

    frosty

    @asiangrrlMN: Yee Haw. Really.

    So when did it become acceptable for country music guitarists to play DFH guitars like that Les Paul? I thought they were strictly Telecaster guys. Looks like I haven’t been keeping up.

  64. 64.

    asiangrrlMN

    @frosty: I like it because it’s so emo. It appeals to the JAZZ HANDS! in me, I guess. Yeah, Goulet would make more sense.

    @Steeplejack: Sorry, man. I just find it fascinating that you have an ex who looks like that.

    @JGabriel: Holy shit. I like that. Thanks!

    Big sigh. Time to do more cleaning. Night, bitchez.

  68. 68.

    Steeplejack

    @frosty:

    Hey, if you look closely, all current country guys are interchangeable with mainstream Southern rock guys from the ’80s. Right down to the mullets.

  70. 70.

    frosty

    @Steeplejack: So country now is just Allman Brothers with a steel guitar, a singer with a twang, and no icky black guy playing drums?

    Oh, and less talent. Or shouldn’t I have said that?

  71. 71.

    Steeplejack

    @frosty:

    No, there are good country artists out there now, and good country music. But it is very similar to a certain strand of mainstream rock from about 20 years ago. Plus (like mainstream pop music) it has gotten American Idol–ized way too much.

  72. 72.

    Yutsano

    @Steeplejack:

    Plus (like mainstream pop music) it has gotten American Idol–ized way too much.

    Most of the major record companies have divisions in Nashville. That pretty much means the RIAA is as much in control of country music as just about every other genre. But I defy you to say that Jennifer Nettles doesn’t have pipes. Not to mention Darius Rucker going through a career renaissance as a country artist. And some of his shit is damn good.

  73. 73.

    cmorenc

    @JGabriel :

    As much as the Reagan-Carter debate was remembered as a pivotal point which finally gave Reagan the underpinnings of confidence with enough of the electorate to pull away from a close race in the last week before the election…

    The REAL pivotal point where the history of the last 40 years might have turned out completely different was the “October surprise” mission to rescue the hostages in Iran that was foiled by an untimely sandstorm in a sparse area of Iranian desert on the raiding trip to Tehran. However, a crucial reason the mission failed was also that Carter’s inner circle had tried to balance the size of the force sent (especially the number of helicopters used) against concern that it not be so large as to appear as a military invasion rather than a military rescue mission. And so, when a couple of the coptors crashed as a result of the sandstorm, there was not enough redundancy to successfully carry on with the mission, even though the rest were still operational.

    That to me is the biggest “what if”…had Carter’s October mission succeeded in rescuing a substantial portion of the hostages, even with some losses, roughing up the Iranian Revolutionary Guard with casualties in the process…it probably would have given Carter a huge, timely lift from pulling off such a bold, high-stakes strike. And Carter would have probably pulled off a 52-48 win by reassuring a majority of the undecideds that whatever their dissatisfaction with many things during Carter’s presidency, better him than a cowboy movie actor who still (as of early October 1980) made a substantial slice of the electorate nervously reluctant to vote for changing the country over to him instead of Carter.

  75. 75.

    hilts

    A golden oldie from Ronald Reagan

    Discussing Nixon’s opponent for the presidency, the author [Ronald Reagan] wrote:

    “One last thought—shouldn’t someone tag Mr. Kennedy’s bold new imaginative program with it’s proper age? Under the tousled boyish haircut it is still old Karl Marx—first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a government being Big Brother to us all. Hitler called his ‘State Socialism’ and way before him it was ‘benevolent monarchy.’ ” The signature—”Ronnie Reagan.”

    The letter was unearthed from a trove of Nixon’s papers in a branch of the National Archives in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Last week Walter Mondale read the passage to campaign audiences to back up his charge that Reagan is guilty of “political grave robbing” when he invokes the names of such Democrats as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman—and, yes, John F. Kennedy. Presidential Spokesman Larry Speakes replied that Reagan “had been pleasantly surprised to find the difference between Kennedy the candidate and Kennedy the President.”

    h/t http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954438,00.html

  78. 78.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    @Dee Loralei: Watt tried to ban the Independence Day concert, the BBs regularly headlined.

    And ya’ll stop kicking up a fuss about the Republicans’ Necrophiliapalooza. Nothing announces a party’s failure like the inability to come up with a ReaLAMErican Hero(R) who still has a pulse.

  79. 79.

    Tonybrown74

    Gipper Porn Redux …

    Oh Joy …

    I think I will just spend the day remembering how he blamed the poor for their own poverty. Or the fact that he decided to announce his candidacy in Philadelphia, MS. Or the fact that he refused to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic in his health policies, which probably killed hundreds of thousands due to delayed research and treatment …

  80. 80.

    Redshirt

    @cmorenc: We’ll never know, of course, but a sandstorm in an obscure part of Persia has led us directly here, now, where we here in America are on the cusp of falling into a a true dark age, all thanks to the Gipper and his legion of crazed followers.

    What could have been instead. Alas.

  81. 81.

    Mouse Tolliver

    Ronald Wilson Reagan. There are six letters in each of those three names. If he was black Glenn Beck would be telling us he’s the Anti-Christ and that he’s still alive somewhere planning the one world government because only The Seven Daggers of Megiddo can kill him.

  82. 82.

    PS

    @Steeplejack: Whoa! The thread comes together (I’m late, but still) — one of the folks I scored through as subpar was Brian Poole, whose backing band The Tremeloes continued without him … and had the original hit with Here Comes My Baby:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bswxaeyQDFI
    Cat Stevens (audio only, from when he was young and good and not sappy, let along religious):
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9miKkSPgOM
    But the dancers with the Mavericks are supercalifragalistic.

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