Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I really should read my own blog.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

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

Hot air and ill-informed banter

This really is a full service blog.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

I was promised a recession.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

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

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

An almost top 10,000 blog!

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Bark louder, little dog.

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Reader Interactions

113Comments

  1. 1.

    PIGL

    Is that Tunch’s place setting? Or just the kitchen counter.

    I am gazing out at Douglas Fir and Arbutus and roses on a smallish island off Canada’s west coast.

    Thinking fondly of my box of Shiraz which I am about to tap in modest abandon. While I spend yet another Friday night revising a manuscript so that it might eventually be published.

  2. 2.

    kdaug

    Damn, that’s a shitload of tea, Cole.

    Just hanging with the wife and dogs, watching something on the tube.

  3. 3.

    Mustang Bobby

    Went to the usual Friday night dinner with friends at the local Mexican restaurant up the street: chile rellenos, beans, rice, tortillas…

    Catching up on TiVo’d “Boston Legal”, then Rachel. I was gonna watch Bill Maher, but Ann Coulter is going to be on and I would rather dive headfirst into my own vomit than listen to her banshee come-hither squeal. I think I’ll work on my new play.

  4. 4.

    Derf

    A day in the blogging life of John Galt Cole.

    1) Read Greenwald and blow spunk on the wall
    2) Scan the headlines for bad news spin on Liberals
    3) Concern troll about Obama
    4) Talk about friends coming to dinner (probably just his dog and cat)
    5) Look for more bad headlines to concern troll about

  5. 5.

    robertdsc-PowerBook

    RIP Betty Ford. When they meet again, I hope the President gives his beloved wife a great big hug.

  9. 9.

    Villago Delenda Est

    What? Not in the Firelands getting your buns toasted?

    Betty Ford…damn, she ALMOST made up for her lackwit husband and his unconscionable preemptive pardon of the criminal Nixon.

    Rest in peace, classy lady. One of our better first ladies.

  10. 10.

    John Cole

    So does this mean that you didn’t have a date?

    If it was a date I would have said so. It was my friend Walt and I thought my friends the Ills would be coming, but they went out to eat. So it was just me and Walt, and then my brother came home for the weekend.

    And yes, Walt is gay. He’s actually like one of the gayest people I have ever met. I should probably even say he is GAY in bold. And no, I am still not gay.

  11. 11.

    Larkspur

    You are such a social butterfly! Dinner looks delicious.

    Since this is an open thread, I will tell you about the dumb LaRouche guys who set up a little leaflet and moronic poster station on a corner of my town’s main street. It was typical stupid LaRouche stuff, and their little sandwich board, set up right by the curb, had the usual Obama-with-a-Hitler-‘Stache on it.

    This is not a town that’s receptive to this kind of horseshit. I think someone called the police; they pulled up and spoke with the two young male LaRouche guys and politely asked them to move their table a little farther off the sidewalk so pedestrian traffic wouldn’t be impeded, which the guys did.

    I was waiting while my car got repaired, so I had some time. I never imagined talking to them, because why would you discuss anything with anyone who is displaying Hitler-mustache-wearing anything? I imagined kicking the curb sign over. Then I imagined spray-painting all over the sign to obscure it.

    I know they are not worth getting a citation or incurring a court appearance. But they are such nasty little nimrods, even though I know I should feel sorry for them, even though I know they are longing for public victimhood.

    So I bought a newspaper and stood right smack in front of their curbside poster for 45 minutes until my car was fixed. They moved the sign once, and I moved with it. I never looked at them. They never challenged me. An hour later, though, I was hungry again.

  12. 12.

    MikeJ

    After dinner? I haven’t even fired up the grill for the halibut.

    RIP Betty. She was an ok broad, mostly. Which is as good as anybody can really hope for.

  14. 14.

    Larkspur

    Oh, and by “butterfly”, I was not coyly implying gayitude. Butterfly sexual preference is one of the many things about which I know zip.

  15. 15.

    erlking

    Smoking a pork butt in a NC monsoon and getting ready to hie meself, the erlqueen, and kidlings out to the Outer Banks for a week of absolutely. no. internet.

    Have a great week, ya’ll.

  16. 16.

    JPL

    John, Michele Bachmann will be pleased because gay is choice you know…
    And yes, Walt is gay. He’s actually like one of the gayest people I have ever met. I should probably even say he is GAY in bold. And no, I am still not gay.

  17. 17.

    cathyx

    If it was a date I would have said so.

    Really? You would have told us that you were having a date? And open yourself up to who knows how much teasing? You are a brave man.

  19. 19.

    j

    So, MSNBC is wasting time and pre-empting stuff because Betty Ford died. Who knew she was still around?

    Now they are “interviewing” Mrs. Greenspan, because they were pals way back in the 1950s!! It’s time for Andrea to “retire”.

    I’m waiting for the first “She’s dead?!, I thought she was embalmed in the 1970s!” comment.

  22. 22.

    jl

    Thanks for food pic.

    I the delicious reality of the black eye pea salad did not hit me until I saw the pic. I want some.

    BTW, I think a food sharing widget would be a good idea for the next blog upgrade. More important than the reply thingee.

    As for Cole’s non denial denial about his very hot date, whoever she is, I smell yet another BJ blog scandal. Cole said ‘friends’ in the post, then only mentioned one ‘friend’ in the comments. Very clever, Cole.

    I’m going to play this blog post backwards in slow mo, and find out what is really going on.

  27. 27.

    Trurl

    “Any member of any party who participates in this effort does not deserve, and should not get, the support of anyone who values Social Security and cares about its preservation. The amount of damage that the Democrats under Obama have been able to do has been immeasurable, by virtue of the fact that they are less awful that George Bush. But where George Bush failed, Obama will probably succeed. … We’ll fight this, because it’s the right thing to do. We will probably lose. But we will make it as painful as possible for any politician from any party to participate in this wholesale looting of the public sphere, this “shock doctrine” for America. And maybe along the way we’ll get a vision of what comes next. Because what we believe in as Americans, and what we stand for, is not something the Democratic party represents any more.” – Jane Hamsher

  28. 28.

    James Hare

    My fiancee’s shitty job has her working the 2-10:30 shift, which causes some serious complications after I got hit on my scooter and it was totaled. I’m spending my Friday night eating takeout and hoping I’ll stay awake long enough to pick my lady fair up from work.

  30. 30.

    Linnaeus

    Just got home after work (a job I won’t be having for much longer), opened up a bottle of New Belgium 1554 and wondering if I should order out for Chinese or pop in one of my frozen dinners into the microwave.

  31. 31.

    Yutsano

    @ Trurl:

    When Jane stops sucking Grover’s cock I’ll start taking her seriously again. But she needs to publicly denounce that unholy alliance or else she’s nothing but a two-faced hack.

  32. 32.

    cathyx

    jeffreyw:

    You sound like that guy in that movie “Sideways” who gasped at the thought of drinking Merlot. My favorite condiment is mayonnaise, (I’ve been known to eat mayonnaise sandwiches) but on a hamburger, I make a “special” sauce of mayo, mustard, and ketchup where you can’t actually taste the mustard.

  33. 33.

    Jules

    I’m waiting for Torchwood: Miracle Day to come on.
    Starz has better not fucked things up.

  34. 34.

    LM

    Me? It’s my birthday so I bought donuts. Any other night, I might consider donuts too fat-drenched and evil to indulge in. But there’s no one here but moi, and what’s a b’day without a secret sin or two?

  35. 35.

    j

    @ jl – July 8, 2011 | 9:10 pm · Link

    You have to time it with the fourth beat of “The Dark Side of the Moon” to get the full effect.

  37. 37.

    scav

    Celebrating the first bloom of my great-grandmother’s poppies that I managed to grow on the balcony (light pink, that’s all I know of them). I’m having to do it sober though. sigh. On the upside, I can now wonder about the sexual preferences of butterflies which I’ve decided to make very very complicated and dependent upon windspeed and direction in Brazil.

  39. 39.

    Elizabelle

    NY Times reporting that Betty Ford has died, per statement from Nancy Reagan.

    I always liked President and Mrs. Ford. Class acts. RIP.

  40. 40.

    Arclite

    With Bachmann saying she’ll get rid of all Porn, she just lost the male vote. Utah is the most conservative state in the nation, and consequently, the largest consumer of porn…

  41. 41.

    cathyx

    jeffreyw:
    Ok, at the risk of sounding like I can’t be pleased, (and I’m not really like that) it all looks good except the onion. I’ll be tasting them all night if I ate that. And I’ll bet no one would want to kiss me either.

  43. 43.

    RossInDetroit

    The Fords were always well liked. If more Republicans were like them and like Bill Milliken my blood pressure would be 10 points lower. But the party of caution and fiscal conservatism is no more. I’m sure none of them would be welcome in the GOP of 2011.

  44. 44.

    cathyx

    jeffreyw:
    Now you’re talking. Can there be a better combo than mushroom and swiss? As a kid, I always ordered that at Burger Chef. Yum.

  45. 45.

    hamletta

    Just had some fish tacos and am trying to teach myself Git.

    Since I am a git, I’m wondering if some beers would help.

    ETA: RIP, Betty Ford. She was a very brave lady.

  46. 46.

    JPL

    President Ford is the last Republican President that I voted for. I felt he made a deal with Nixon and did the best he could during those tumultuous times…

  47. 47.

    cathyx

    efgoldman:
    Thanks for the offer. Do you know that if both people ate the offending food and then kissed, then they cancel each other out and you don’t notice it? It’s true.

  48. 48.

    Linnaeus

    As a kid, I always ordered that at Burger Chef.

    Burger Chef! Now that’s a blast from the past.

  49. 49.

    Svensker

    I am gazing out at Douglas Fir and Arbutus and roses on a smallish island off Canada’s west coast.

    Galiano? Salt Spring? Pender? I’m jealous. My dream is to live on SSI one day.

    I can’t get used to “arbutus” though — they’ll always be madronas to me.

  50. 50.

    jl

    I thought picky eaters were banned from this blog.

    Not directed at anyone in particular, just sayin’.

    Edit: Yes, rest in peace, Betty Ford.

  51. 51.

    PeakVT

    I’ve been working on a stand for my Blues Jr. I had an old piece of plywood in the basement I was tired of looking at, so I decided to turn it into something. I need to order some tolex and other bits to finish it.

  52. 52.

    eemom

    RIP Mrs. Ford.

    I remember when she caught a bunch of shit for saying she was sure her kids had “tried” marijuana. Even though she quickly added that they didn’t LIKE it.

    The Fords may well have been the last decent republicans.

    Good, honest, generous to a FAULT…..

  53. 53.

    RossInDetroit

    I predict that Krugman’s legacy will be the mirror image of Greenspan’s. Greenspan was discovered to be horrendously wrong long after it was too late to do anything about it.
    Years from now some scholar reading by torchlight amid the ruins of an American university will find that one guy at Princeton saw it all coming and was largely ignored by everyone with any power.

  54. 54.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I liked Betty Ford. Classy, funny lady.

    Does anyone remember the time she had a cameo on the Mary Tyler Moore show? Just a two-line piece of telephone dialogue:

    BF: Hello, this is Betty Ford.
    MTM: Right. And this is Mary Queen of Scots.

    I think MTM said many years later that BF was drunk when they taped the scene. Would have to look up dates but it was obviously long before she went into treatment, let alone founded the BF Center. But all of it — dealing publicly with breast cancer (before that disease was discussed much in tones above a whisper), going public with her alcohol and prescription drug addictions, and founding the BFC — was pretty courageous stuff back then. RIP Elizabeth Anne Bloomer Warren Ford.

  59. 59.

    PanAmerican

    So I was waiting for a nurse to finish up her prescription calls….

    “Fucking Fridays, they all want their Vi~agra and Co~deine.”

  60. 60.

    RedKitten

    I’m just taking a beer break. We’ve got a big work event tomorrow evening, so I’ve been fine-tuning speaking notes and all of that happy shit.

  62. 62.

    MikeJ

    OK, now the fire is lit. Halibut with lemon pepper going on the cedar plank, asparagus wrapped with bacon, and skipping the grill, spinach and strawberry salad.

  63. 63.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    Spent some time in my pool with some friends I’ve known since grade school and their children. It was nearly 90 in the Twin Cities today so it was a perfect day for it.

    Now I’m just wiped out and watching the Twins game.

  64. 64.

    hamletta

    “The last mosquito that bit me had to check into the Betty Ford Clinic.”
    —Patsy Stone, Absolutely Fabulous

  65. 65.

    scav

    Yes, thinking about it, Gerald and Betty Ford do hark back to a time when Republicans, even of the political ilk, could be actual complicated and contradictory people rather than flesh-based instances chosen from a restricted number of acceptable PR-tested flag-waving church-going stereotypes. She was a good woman, take her for all in all, we shall not look upon her like again.

  66. 66.

    eemom

    @stuckinred

    Amazing film.

    “Il n’y a personne la haute! Il n’y a personne la haute!”

    Skip the sequel Manon of the Springs though, it sucked. Check out Germinal — another good tragic Depardieu film, about French coal miners.

  67. 67.

    jl

    @53:

    Betty Ford bios already posted

    Betty Ford Dies at Age 93: Wife of Gerald R. Ford and Former First Lady
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX0vH6iAhfs

    I was too young to remember stuff like her being honest about her kids and the silly flap that followed. Didn’t even know about it.

    I looked for interviews on youtube but couldn’t find any. Would like to see one. Anyone have a link to an interview?

    I do remember enough to think she was very honest and down to earth. I don’t believe that is permitted anymore.

  68. 68.

    stuckinred

    eemom

    We’ll watch it, it’s double sided and it’s a nextflix. Beart was insane in Bitter Moon.

  70. 70.

    PIGL

    @Svensker: Gabriola Island, a little further north and a little less twee then Salt Spring Island. I’m skulking at a friends place on the rural southern end.

    Arbutus is the learned specific name, but also what everyone calls them on our side of the line. Although, the new coffee shop is called Mad Rona’s. But most people wouldn’t get that, any more than they’d get a pun like “Strawberry t(r)ea”.

    I would move here in a minute if I could figure out how to make a living.

  71. 71.

    Steeplejack

    Emerged from a semi-comatose torpor a while ago in time to watch the Nationals lose a close one to the Rockies. Switched over to the Orioles, and they seem to be engaged in fisticuffs with the Red Sox.

    Whatever. Just needed to make sure my circadian rhythms are completely messed up. I’m wide awake now, but I need to go to bed in a couple of hours so I can get up at 6:45 a.m.

    ETA: Maybe I will finish reading Henning Mankell’s The Man from Beijing. I have enjoyed some of his Wallander novels, but this one is shaping up to be an ungainly potboiler.

  72. 72.

    MikeJ

    @eemom: So if I get a TV show I have to have everybody I ever slept with on as a guest? I don’t know if it would be too boring or amusing.

  73. 73.

    stuckinred

    jl

    and her hubby was cast as a clumsy buffoon because of Chevy Chase and SNL. As much as I hate Michigan you are not a Wolverine o-lineman and linebacker if you are not an exceptional athlete.

  76. 76.

    parsimon

    PIGL at 71: On the smallish island off Canada’s west coast: good lord, I am indeed envious as well. I adore that region. Spent some time on Hornby Island a while back, and am not likely to forget it soon. People there knew Gabriola, of course.

    As you say, I’d relocate in a heartbeat if I could figure a way to make a living. Enjoy!

  78. 78.

    Yutsano

    Happy birthday to you

    The number of crabs around these parts has me itching for a big boiling pot of water and Old Bay seasoning.

  79. 79.

    karen marie

    Hey, Derf, you do realize that you can make your own blog for free with WordPress or Blogspot?

    I can’t figure out why you bother visiting BJ. You seem mighty unhappy with everything that happens here.

  80. 80.

    Larkspur

    When I was growing up in Lincoln Park, Michigan, one of our neighbors was a woman named Arbutus. She was older; her children were all grown up and gone. Her hobby was sun-bathing. She had her tanning recliner and would dutifully move with the sun, and she had those aluminum foil tanning-mirror reflecting thingies.

    The preceding comment has been almost 95% random. But Arbutus is a very fine sort of name, yes? I mean, would you really mess with someone named Arbutus? I never did, and also too I wear the 30+ SPF all the time, (’cause moonlight is dangerous, too. Shut up, it’s sunlight).

  81. 81.

    RossInDetroit

    her hubby was cast as a clumsy buffoon because of Chevy Chase and SNL.

    He had a bum knee and wasn’t very mobile. Add to that a laconic manner and you could portray him as an amiable clod. Unfair, but that’s comedy.

  83. 83.

    Larkspur

    The number of crabs around these parts has me itching….

    I am sorry, but this is infelicitous.

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @me #75 and @hamletta #65:

    Okay, that was not supposed to say “hamlet” — it was up before I realized that I needed to correct the incorrect AutoCorrect, and then WordPress refused to let me post my correction.

    All together now: FYAC!! FYWP!!

  86. 86.

    RossInDetroit

    Open thread?

    Neko Case and Nick Cave cover The Zombies’ She’s Not There.

    I love the idea of this almost as much as I love the thing itself.

  89. 89.

    Yutsano

    The Texas Rangers have value for only one reason: Josh Hamilton. Otherwise eewww.

    And I just saw why I-5 was a parking lot this afternoon. Mariners home game plus Man U vs the Sounders. I picked a decent day to call in sick.

  93. 93.

    RossInDetroit

    Here it is on Youtube. The buffering at Rolling Stone was really slow

    Thx. We were watching a clip of Neko on YT and I said I’d love to hear her and Nick Cave in a duet, not knowing that they’d collaborated. My wife found that one in about 11 seconds. And it’s for True Blood, one of our favorite shows.

  94. 94.

    MikeJ

    @Yutsano: How many tickets are the Sounders offering for sale this year? I seem to recall that they only sell half the stadium or so, with the other half blocked off. They’d rather have artificial “sell outs” than more fans in the seats.

    Also too, I didn’t think the Man U game was until the 20th. They don’t play my team[1] this year, except for DC United[2].

    [1] Yes, too many people will give me shit for liking them here, but they’re my neighborhood team in The Smoke.

    [2] DC United is my 3rd footy team, behind the one in [1] and the Sounders.

  96. 96.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steepman, thanks for the review on the Mankell book. I adore his Wallander series and was thinking of picking up the Beijing book. I think I’ll skip it.

    @jeffreyw., I have missed the food pron SO much!

    @Yutsy, how you be? Any Dawg sightings?

  97. 97.

    Yutsano

    Isn’t I-5 always a parking lot?

    Actually when I go to work and go home I-5 isn’t bad. But I’ve seen it tangled up to no end. And it sure was at 1 PM today. Maybe it was just a wreck or something.

    Any Dawg sightings?

    THE Dawg went back overseas. But I did have a nice chat with the New York Dawg this afternoon.

  99. 99.

    Brachiator

    Got home late and ate the Cobb salad I didn’t have time to eat for lunch at work. And more work tomorrow.

    The bright spot was listening to the BBC Friday Night Comedy podcast, an episode of the Now show that deftly picked apart the Rupert Murdoch News of the World mess. Oh, it was a good one, worth listening to, fro iTunes and other sources.

    Was also playing around with the google music application. I guess I will let it scan my music overnight. To the Cloud and beyond!

  100. 100.

    Yutsano

    you and your Dawgs. SO complicated

    Hee. It’s not that complicated. There’s only two!

  102. 102.

    Yutsano

    @ wifey: oh yeah…sure get me on a technicality. Speaking of which, what the hell ever happened to Bnut? I haven’t seen him around in like forever. I recall him saying he was gonna get busy so I hope he’s lurking. And maybe this will press him to come forth. Or something.

  104. 104.

    Yutsano

    He was like, poof! Maybe he got re-deployed.

    Last I heard he was out and damn happy to be so. And I thought the thing he was talking about involved school. So now I’m not sure…

  105. 105.

    trollhattan

    @RossInDetroit

    Neko Case and Nick Cave cover The Zombies’ She’s Not There.
    __
    I love the idea of this almost as much as I love the thing itself.

    Love the song; love this treatment. I can totally see Tarantino working it into a film. Neko can do no wrong.

    Also, too: I’m another Betty Ford fan. Sorry we’ve lost her.

  108. 108.

    burnspbesq

    Mets beat Giants. Scott Hairston (eek!) drives in the winning run on a pinch-hit homer (egad!) off Brian Wilson (say what, now?).

    I was sure my team was going to suck this year. Looks like I was wrong. They may be mediocre.

  109. 109.

    RandyH

    John-

    Does your brother know that you are gay yet? I think it’s time to tell him. He can probably take it.

  110. 110.

    Yutsano

    They may be mediocre.

    Welcome to life as a Mariners fan. Don’t worry, we’ll suck your child in.

  111. 111.

    David Brooks (NTO)

    Just been in a kickass rehearsal of Mahler 3, along with my son, the principal cellist.

  113. 113.

    Svensker

    @ PIGL –

    @Svensker: Gabriola Island, a little further north and a little less twee then Salt Spring Island. I’m skulking at a friends place on the rural southern end.

    Haven’t yet been to Gabriola, but they’re all beautiful and superb.

    Love “Mad Rona’s”. Heh.

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