Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s finish the job.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

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

He really is that stupid.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

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

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

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

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

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

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

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120Comments

  2. 2.

    Comrade Mary

    This really is my favorite holiday.

    No shit, John.

    My feat of strength today will be loading up the bike with ingredients for the last batch of Christmas baking, then exerting the willpower not to NOM all the stuff as it cools.

  5. 5.

    Tom Levenson

    I blame John for all the time spent here when I shoulda, coulda, woulda have been writing a book/reading a book/cooking/eating/hanging with my spouse/and…oh yeah…I’ve got it somewhere…rollicking with the truly bizarre window on the world that is an eleven year old boy.

    All your fault, man. (See — I can too get inside the mindscape of the modern GOP!)

  6. 6.

    Rosalita

    I’ve been waiting for this all week, guess that means it’s become my favorite holiday too. Heh. So many grievances, so little time. But here’s one:

    John you’ve been slacking on the pet pics and posts.

    Remember, we come here for the politics and stay for the pets.

    That and all the awards Taylor Swift keeps winning pisses me off. All sounds the damn same to me. I have to shut her off, and I LIKE country music.

  7. 7.

    JPL

    I’m shocked, just shocked..the house just passed the payroll tax cut extension. I guess they decided that it was necessary being the holiday season and all.

  8. 8.

    MattF

    My grievance is the WaPo op-ed page. A menagerie of hacks, liars, crackpot economists, ex-libruls, assistants to war criminals, neo-cons.

  10. 10.

    Brachiator

    Oh he’ll yes. Festivus, for the rest of us.

    I have been waiting for an appropriate thread to wish happy holidays to all Balloon Juicers. You are a rambunctious, sometimes contentious bunch, but also some of the most consistently interesting, challenging, and insightful that I have run across anywhere on the InterTubes.

    Thank you, especially John Cole. And all obeisance to the mighty Tunch. And please don’t costume Lily in any Xmas Steeler gear this holiday season. Or don’t go overboard, at least.

    And with that, I’m getting my holiday on.

    Cheers

  11. 11.

    Cassidy

    Republicans. I can’t stand those ratfuckers. If we were still “tribes” they’d be the skinny little shits to cowardly to go into battle.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    You know, my grievance is about bagels. As in, why is it “Festivus yes, bagels NO!”.

    But then Cosmo always was an odd sort.

  14. 14.

    beltane

    The other day I managed to simultaneously separate a couple of eggs while making a bechamel sauce with nothing more than a saucepan and hand whisk, all while talking on the phone to my mother. I feel this makes me qualified to be the new Business & Economics editor at The Atlantic.

  16. 16.

    Comrade Mary

    Yeah, my grievance is the lack of pet pics.

    YOU HAVE THREE CATS AND THREE DOGS IN THE HOUSE, JOHN. STOP BRAGGING AND START UPLOADING.

  18. 18.

    dmsilev

    @JPL: Let me guess. There’s an entire cloakroom just off the House floor filled with Teahadists that were bound and gagged by the saner Republicans to keep them off the main floor and screaming their objections.

  19. 19.

    BruinKid

    My previous comment got lost among some fighting in the earlier open thread, but have you guys seen what Stephen Colbert is trying to do in South Carolina?

    Oh man, if he can actually get that referendum on the ballot about corporate personhood………….

  23. 23.

    terry

    So many grievances and so little time! But here’s one:

    Young Earth Creationists. I loathe you people’s belief system. You people tell me the earth is less than 10,000 years old, that some doddering old man collected one million species and sailed on a boat, that radiometric dating is inaccurate because one form of it isn’t useful past 50,000 years, that everything living NOW is descended from the life that was on that boat even though that’d be seen in our genes and it’s NOT, and that the god who killed everything is loving and I should worship it? What the fuck you people.

    but i’m wrong because I know evolution is real and the earth is 4.5 billion years old.

    fuck Creationists.

  25. 25.

    Mark S.

    Ha! Here’s some real contrarianism (I don’t think the article is available online):

    Perhaps inevitably, North Korea’s attempt appears to be tottering. But seeing how South Korea has turned out — its Koreanness utterly submerged in neon, hip-hop and every imaginable American influence, a romantic can allow himself a small measure of melancholy: North Korea, for all its faults, is undeniably still Korea, a place uniquely representative of an ancient and rather remarkable Asian culture. And that, in a world otherwise rendered so bland, is perhaps no bad thing.

    What a fucking asshole! He’s going to miss all the famines and gulags because he imagines that’s somehow more authentically Korean?

  26. 26.

    BruinKid

    Grievance: Ron Paul fans who tell me that because Ron Paul wants to end the “racist war on drugs”, he therefore cannot possibly be racist, and the media’s trying to destroy his candidacy by, you know, asking him questions about those racist newsletters.

  27. 27.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @beltane: I feel this makes me qualified to be the new Business & Economics editor at The Atlantic.

    But then would we get articles like “Why We Stopped Spanking”?

    Which, since I have no intention of actually reading any of it, I have assumed is personal advice for other newlyweds.

  29. 29.

    Zifnab

    How come we haven’t been named weblog award winner since 2007? We’ve been here four years afterward and get no respect. No respect, I tell you! You’ve got Tom with all that beautiful artwork he stays up late painting. Tim has, like, three PhDs by now. DougJ works the snark mines week in and week out. And our blog-host John Cole hasn’t given us a WordPress Blog Failure in months, maybe years. Isn’t that worth anything around here, internets? Maybe can we get a little appreciation? You never write. You never call.

  31. 31.

    Yutsano

    @Mark S.:

    North Korea, for all its faults, is undeniably still Korea, a place uniquely representative of an ancient and rather remarkable Asian culture

    This statement is wrong on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin.

  32. 32.

    Benjamin Franklin

    Ok. I’ll don the Grinch costume and say it…

    My grievance is Christmas.

    Occupy Xmas ….

    http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/23/what-christmas-owes-to-abolitionists/

    “Before Christmas emerged as a commercial success, it led a checkered social life. In the 13 American colonies and the early days of the United States, it was known as a festival of heavy drinking and brawling.

    But as the struggle over slavery heated up in the 1830s, a band of Christian women abolitionists guided it into a holiday devoted to the prince of peace and emancipation.

    In 1834, members of William Lloyd Garrison’s newly formed Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society – African-Americans and whites, men and women – saw Christmas as an opportunity to expose a hypocritical republic that proclaimed liberty for all yet held millions of African men, women and children captive in slavery.”

  33. 33.

    cathyx

    John-
    Sorry you’re not spending your favorite holiday with your family, although I would have done the same thing if I were in you place.
    Grievances? Only one. Why can’t retail stores open before 10:00am all year round?

  34. 34.

    suzanne

    Grievance: I got a stern talking-to for calling Ben Roethlisberger a rapist.

    Another grievance: Fat-hating is still all OK and shit.

    A third: I still don’t have a 2012 Balloon Juice calendar to go purchase.

    And finally: No one has given FourLoko a brain transplant and she still throws up all over the blog.

    I can live with all of the above.

  37. 37.

    suzanne

    @Mark S.:

    He’s going to miss all the famines and gulags because he imagines that’s somehow more authentically Korean?

    That is obnoxious hipster nostalgia for other-people-living-simple-lives-for-my-amusement-on-vacation WRIT HUGE.

  41. 41.

    Gin & Tonic

    My grievance? The continuing decline of copy editing. Yes, yes, I know all you permissivists will say “English is a living language” — and I agree with you, if we’re talking about “truthiness” or “bleg” or the like. But, sweet Jesus, “their”, “there” and “they’re” [and shut up, Oxford commaists] are distinct words for a reason, as are “palate” and “palette.”

  44. 44.

    burnspbesq

    @suzanne:

    “No one has given FourLoko a brain transplant”

    As I understand it, the consensus is that the risk that her body would reject such a transplant is too high to justify the attempt.

    El Tiburon is next on the list, followed by AA+ Bonds and Benjamin Franklin.

  45. 45.

    Jerzy Russian

    I don’t like the slow drivers in the left lanes of highways, especially when they think it is a good idea to go along side a slower car in the other lane.

  47. 47.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    My grievance is that matoko is still permitted to fuck up perfectly good threads with her incessant obsessing about her g*ddamned brilliance in using game theory to explain everything, including, it seems, her stunningly superior understanding of the one true superstition.

    I’m particularly pissed right now, as she has vomited all over soonergrunt’s heartfelt thread about his friend the sergeant, which includes schlemizel’s description of his son’s return from service. It’s just wrong to let her ruin such things.

    And I want my pony, right after my personal assistant. Double quick.

  49. 49.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    ESPN talking about the New York Giants-New York Jets game like it is the only F*****g NFL game going on. What about the other games ESPN? And Dick Vitale’s worship of the Duke Blue Devils

  54. 54.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @IrishGirl: Holiday visitors, while their people go off to celebrate in the southern Cole christmas location. Clearly John is delighted.

  57. 57.

    Quarks

    Where to begin?

    1) I still don’t have a personal teleporter.

    2) Also, I still don’t have a personal food replicator thing that provides fudge and Haagen-Daas on demand.

    3) My mother. But that would take a several day Festivus celebration….

  58. 58.

    Mike in NC

    Two days before Christmas and it’s 72 degrees outside. Everybody is wearing shorts and t-shirts. Good or bad, I can’t decide.

  59. 59.

    Satanicpanic

    Grievance- I miss ED Kain
    I’m just kidding. This is maybe the best blog on the internet, keep up the good work Cole

  61. 61.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    One more thing, this season’s episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, were very disappointing, I think the show has ran it’s course. And Sons Of Anarchy may be close to jumping the Shark, that last episode…Meh!

  62. 62.

    burnspbesq

    @suzanne:

    “@burnspbesq: Don’t forget eemom.”

    Not going there. My friendship with e goes way back. She disappoints me occasionally, but I’m sure I disappoint her occasionally.

  65. 65.

    tesslibrarian

    @Quarks: I share your #3 and raise it to #1 status, but only because she’s coming today, for 3 days, when my husband and I have both been sick, I’ve had to work this week (because I’m just feel-bad sick not contagious-sick, like other people at work), the house is a mess, I have to face the grocery store, our cat had a biopsy yesterday to determine whether he also has the super-rare cancer that killed my other cat exactly 2 years ago Wednesday, but I won’t find out for sure what’s happening until UGA labs come back from holiday.

    Also: this blog has no Preview button, and it’s been in the 60s and 70s all week.

    (wow, I *do* feel better now…thanks!)

  68. 68.

    burnspbesq

    @eemom:

    The Spectator is where Andrew would be working if he hadn’t emigrated. Alex Massie wants to be Andrew when he grows up. Proceed with caution.

  69. 69.

    eemom

    @suzanne:

    aaaw, that’s harsh, snookums. I mean not everyone can measure up to the abundance of self-love with which your own heart overflows for all to share on these threads.

  70. 70.

    suzanne

    @burnspbesq:

    My friendship with e goes way back. She disappoints me occasionally, but I’m sure I disappoint her occasionally.

    Whatever trips your trigger.

  73. 73.

    Josie

    We need descriptions of the interactions of the three dogs and three cats – where are they all hanging out, who is chasing whom and so forth. Videos would be helpful.

  75. 75.

    Phylllis

    This bullshit about Christmas trees being representative of the Xtian ‘Tree of Life’. Blechh.

    And no preview button.

  76. 76.

    waratah

    How about English muffins, crumpets and current scones?
    My gift to me arrived yesterday from Wolferman’s. came with a toy, a muffin splitter and spiced honey.
    Hard to wait until tomorrow morning. We will have these with a sourdough vegetable strata.

  79. 79.

    kay

    This is not a grievance, but is gloating. I have the best Christmas tree of my entire adult life. It’s perfect. It looks artificial, but it’s not.

    A fluke. A freak accident. I did what I always do, which is buy it after carefully shopping (for 35-40 seconds, or until I get cold and/or wet) from the people with the trailer on the corner by my house. This year is the Christmas tree high point, for me.

  81. 81.

    kindness

    I bought a nice fleece jacket at REI yesterday and when I got it home and was removing all the tags I found they never removed the damned security thingy from it. ARRRGGGH! It’s one of those that has the two dye packs in it (it’s transparent). Do I schlep all the way back to REI, receipt in hand to ask that they please remove the dye pack & let me wear my jacket or do I use my Dremel and cut the thing off without cracking the dye packets? Don’t know. Wish REI wasn’t so far away.

    OK, that’s it with my complaining for now.

  84. 84.

    eemom

    @kindness:

    that’s happened to me before. GOD it is frustrating. If I were you I’d take it back to the store, raise hell about the inconvenience and not stop until they gave me a free gift card or something.

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    @kay: You deserve it! Do you remember the story of the little christmas tree that nobody wanted? I loved that story.

  88. 88.

    burnspbesq

    @Tom Hilton:

    Naah.

    Hamsher’s Descent Into Madness appears to be permanent and irreversible, so what’s the point?

    And while it would be nice if Santa were to bring Greenwald a good editor for Christmas, on balance he’s more nice than naughty (although it’s a close call).

  89. 89.

    A Humble Lurker

    @jeffreyw:

    THIS. This is my grievance. jeffreyw posting pics of food that make me drool uncontrollably but I will never be able to make and/or partake in. :(

  91. 91.

    kay

    Thanks watergirl.
    My son just said ‘it makes me sad though, because it’s a living thing” so the Christmas tree “makes him sad”.
    Great :)

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    My allergies keep causing migraines, so I guess I finally have to break down and have my doctor refer me to an allergist.

    I have a crapload of house cleaning to do, and I am the world’s worst housekeeper. (Seriously, I’m shocked that camera crews from Hoarders haven’t shown up at our apartment yet.)

    We have to drive 8 hours tomorrow to get to spend one (1) full day with my family for Christmas, and then drive another 8 hours back home, because we’d rather do that than spend $400 on plane tickets.

    I have to fucking work on New Year’s Day. Fuck you, Weight Watchers.

    I brought my iPod stereo to work so I could listen to Christmas music and try to get back in the spirit, but I forgot the damn iPod at home.

    I’m wearing my Grinch shirt today in honor of all of the above.

  94. 94.

    Bubblegum Tate

    Can we just take a second to marvel at how cathartic it is to shout, “I got a lot of problems with you people!”? Frank Costanza, you’re a goddamn genius.

  96. 96.

    eemom

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m wearing my Grinch shirt today in honor of all of the above.

    hey, thanks for reminding me! I have a Grinch shirt and I’d forgotten all about it.

    @Tom Hilton:

    I’m wichoo. Can’t stand that insufferable little twerp no way, no how, no when.

  97. 97.

    shortstop

    I’m aggrieved that we’re hosting a crowd tomorrow and I have a giant fever and a cough that won’t quit. But everything else is cool and gratitude-inducing.

  98. 98.

    shortstop

    @kay: We had similar luck with a $14.99 tree from Menard’s parking lot. I was kind of looking forward to the Charlie Brownesque decorating challenges it would present when we got it home and unbagged it, but there weren’t any. It’s perfect.

  99. 99.

    Morbo

    I have a crapload of house cleaning to do, and I am the world’s worst housekeeper. (Seriously, I’m shocked that camera crews from Hoarders haven’t shown up at our apartment yet.)

    Oh so true. Probably 80% of my problem is not taking out recycling but not being willing to put it in the trash.

  101. 101.

    wrb

    @Morbo:

    Oh so true. Probably 80% of my problem is not taking out recycling but not being willing to put it in the trash.

    Our waste company solved this problem.

    I asked a guy there what they did with the recycling. He said they gave up trying to sell it years ago. Shipping cost more than they were paid. They respectfully collect everyone’s carefully sorted trash and then dump it all in the landfill.

  102. 102.

    WaterGirl

    @kay: Enjoy your good fortune with the perfect tree, and tell you son I said to tell him how lucky he is to have you for his mom.

  104. 104.

    harlana

    so there is a holiday dedicated to bitching about stuff that still sticks in your craw? I guess I never really realized what Festivus is all about.

    As a Kos commenter said a few years ago, about being right about Iraq and then just being dismissed/scorned as an America-hater, where is my fucking apology?

  105. 105.

    harlana

    also, i’m sick, i think i have some sort of mini-flu thing; it’s great being off and actually geting paid for it for a change, though, so I ought not complain just because i’m sick on my day off.

  109. 109.

    Loneoak

    Isn’t this blog a year-round airing of grievances? It seems like that’s all we do, plus an occasional pet rescue thread/fundraiser.

  112. 112.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, too, one of my co-workers had three adorable mostly-Ragdoll kittens show up on her doorstep, so I haz a jealous now. They lost both of their cats within six months of each other, so apparently the Cat Fairy decided it was time for them to adopt a new set of cats.

    (Added linky to what Ragdolls are.)

  113. 113.

    Tom Hilton

    @burnspbesq: Dahlia Lithwick cares about preserving our civil liberties. She’s smart and intellectually honest. She’s worth paying attention to.

    Greenwald cares mostly about getting paid. (Getting paid, of course, depends on maintaining a high level of outrage among a fair number of people.) To the extent that he does care about preserving “civil liberties”, he defines them in an extremely narrow sense–the sense, that is, in which libertarians define the term. And in pursuing both these goals (the cash and the “civil liberties”) he habitually distorts, exaggerates, or invents facts to support his skewed interpretation. His writing has no value because it is unreliable.

    That’s the plus side of Greenwald. On the negative side, he’s a) pimping a racist paleofuckwit whose whole political philosophy is inimical to the rights of anyone who suffers or might suffer from discriminatory conduct; and b) working non-stop to defeat the current President, which means he’s effectively working to elect whatever dipshit wins the Republican nomination.

  114. 114.

    ruemara

    The most wonderful time of the year. I am spending most of my life supporting a jackass, a selfish one, at that. My house is so cold that, despite the sweater, shirt and sweats combo, I can feel my body fighting the convulsions as the chill seeps into my core. And I’ve been baking, so this place should be warm, but not my seat. I’m going to drop off some gifts to the local shelter and the post office, where some motherfuckers appreciate kindness and generosity instead of being a jackass. And my parents, having gotten their gifts, have told me they will be the usual multiple days late. That’s not too bad, actually. I more used to them forgetting. Now, my feat of strength is not killing people. At all. For the holiday.

  115. 115.

    opie jeanne

    My gripe is trivial, but it’s my gripe: Someone in my daughter’s company decided that the cast of her show should spend Christmas together, rather than with their families, so we dropped her off at the airport a little while ago, Australia-bound.

    The show doesn’t open for another week.

    They flew her home because it was cheaper than having to house the cast while the show equipment moved from Indonesia to Australia so at least we had her for a few days.

  116. 116.

    opie jeanne

    @ruemara: I’m sorry, but how does anyone forget Christmas? I ask this since this is what my 41-year-old son does, after he has opened his presents from us (and so have his friends), forgets to give us a call because he forgot that it was Christmas. He was better until we moved to Seattle, but still.

  117. 117.

    Ruckus

    @cathyx:
    I open at 11. 10 is so last year.

    Mainly because the number of customers that most stores see before 10 is minimal. IOW it costs more to open than is made.

  118. 118.

    WaterGirl

    @ruemara: Someone here had to do all the planning for their own birthday party this year and as of mid-day her person/partner/husband/whatever hadn’t remember it was her birthday. Was that you?

  119. 119.

    Jamie

    – Assholes that take up both seats on the subway. I’ve started going out of my way to make them move.
    – The asshole that broke bottles right outside of my door last week. I get it, you’re homeless, and it sucks, and you’re angry. But that’s not an excuse.
    – Clients that think completely changing the function of software after it is in testing should not cost more or take time to make happen.
    – How much dentists cost.

    I know, first world problems.

    For my feat of strength, I will snuggle this kitten until it breaks down and purrs.

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