Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

I really should read my own blog.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

No Justins, No Peace

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

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

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

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

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

Let’s finish the job.

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

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

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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

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Reader Interactions

114Comments

  5. 5.

    bemused

    Speaking of masochism, Undefeated is on Reelz Channel tomorrow night.

    Reading the entertainment section of Mpls Strib, the review gave Game Change 2 stars and Undefeated one star.

    I’m watching. I usually skip stuff like this but making an exception to see Moore.

  6. 6.

    jheartney

    Don’t have HBO, but I can say I was just in a B&N. Going Rogue and America By Heart were in the discount pile, next to books on the greed of the rich and some picture books of the Third Reich.

    I think we’re in the final throes of Palin’s notoriety.

  7. 7.

    lamh35

    I’ll pass thanks, but since we are talking about a movie about the current queen of all vicious, race-baiting, just plain hate speech …

    I just watched an old episode of “Criminal Minds” (2 weeks old) and the episode is about a serial killer who stages home evasions where the whole family is killed and the “assailant” is “allegedly” gunned down by the homeowner, but that not the case, what is actually happening is that the serial killer is staging this evasions to hide the fact that he’s purposely killing “browns and blacks” and leaving them at the home evasions to ramp up the fear of the residents against gangs.

    But here’s the trick: the reason he’s doing this? Because a candidate for mayor that he supports is big on hate rhetoric ala blacks, illegals and gangs are ruining nice white neighborhoods. The candidate is actually putting the idea in the killer’s head that black and latinos are the enemy.

  8. 8.

    Elmo

    No HBO, so I’ve been watching Dante’s Peak (90’s disaster flick with Pierce Brosnan, yummy). We were watching Game of Thrones on DVD, but partner fell asleep cuz we had a long day. So I’m web surfing and half watching TV.

    And +3, if you’re curious.

  9. 9.

    S. cerevisiae

    @bemused: I saw the ads for that while I was watching a movie on Reelz the other day, I think I would rather dig my eyeballs out with a grapefruit spoon than watch the homage to St. Sarah of the North.

  10. 10.

    JGabriel

    bemused:

    Reading the entertainment section of Mpls Strib, the review gave Game Change 2 stars and Undefeated one star.

    Yeah, AV Club gave it a C. That said, I’ll still watch it. I’m just waiting for it to become available online.

    .

  21. 21.

    Mike in NC

    This week’s mail brought both ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 1 DVD sets, so Caribou Barbie is not on the top of the must see list.

  24. 24.

    Trentrunner

    I love Julianne Moore generally, but I just don’t see how her own brittle vulnerability will match up with Palin’s dumkopf hard bright blitheness.

    Julianne looks like everything could hurt her.

    Sarah looks like nothing gets through to her.

    Be interesting to see what Julianne does.

    (West Coast viewer, 2 hours to go.)

  26. 26.

    sloan

    “Sarah, do you know what the Fed is?”

    “Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9/11!”

    “You can actually see Russia from land, here in Alaska.”

    Cue Tina Fey. OMFG I’d buried this in some dark corner of my mind.

  29. 29.

    lamh35

    Ugh, count me as one of the people who has so far liked Steve Schmitd as GOP pundit on MSNBC, after Game Change, I’m firmly in the camp that Schmidt should never be able to show his damn face on any pol show. The idea that he was comfortable with this woman being a McCain heartache or McCain cancer resurgence away from the Presidency….F(@ him. He should be ashamed to show his face. “Country First…” my ass.

    Also as a woman it really pisses me off because there were alot of female Senators, governors, Rep, etc who McCain could have chosen instead of Palin, but it never fails that a man will think with his gonads and not his brain!

    For my money Schmidt and all the dicks come off a lot worse than the women in this thing, even Palin.

  35. 35.

    rikyrah

    @lamh35:

    Ugh, count me as one of the people who has so far liked Steve Schmitd as GOP pundit on MSNBC, after Game Change, I’m firmly in the camp that Schmidt should never be able to show his damn face on any pol show. The idea that he was comfortable with this woman being a McCain heartache or McCain cancer resurgence away from the Presidency….F(@ him. He should be ashamed to show his face. “Country First…” my ass.

    I hear ya.

    I hear ya.

    Still waiting for Country Last to apologize to the country for foisting this stupid, ignorant grifter upon us

  36. 36.

    opie jeanne

    @lamh35: Which part? I only made it halfway through, when they were arguing about why Romney changed his mind about being pro-choice. I couldn’t take it any more.

    But what is there that you don’t know about the Mormon beliefs that shows up in that video? Does he start in on Mitt about Kolob?

  43. 43.

    Bondirotta

    The movie makes her an innocent doofus-victim. There is no trace of how venomous and hateful she was towards Obama.

  44. 44.

    opie jeanne

    @Bondirotta: And still is.

    My youngest found a speech she made (no idea how old it is) in which she talks about how Obama wants to take us back to the not good days before the Civil War which was fought about classes, and it was bad when people were different classes, when blacks were in a different class and gosh darnit we’re all created equal. etc.

    Never once mentioned slavery.

  45. 45.

    David Koch

    I didn’t think it was possible, but this movie is really making her look worse than she already does.

  48. 48.

    opie jeanne

    @Bondirotta: Here’s the whole word salad, and it’s from yesterday. The sheer tone-deafness is astonishing:

    What we can glean from this is an understanding of why we are on the road that we are on. Again, it’s based on what went into his thinking, being surrounded by radicals. You could hearken back to the days before the Civil War, when too many Americans believed that not all men were created equal. It was the Civil War that began the codification of the truth that here in America, yes, we are equal and we all have equal opportunities, not based on the color of our skin. You have equal opportunity to work hard and to succeed and to embrace the opportunities, the God-given opportunities, to develop resources and work extremely hard and as I say, to succeed. Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand that the gravity, that mistake that took place before the Civil War and why the Civil War had to really start changing America. What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin. Why are we allowing our country to move backwards instead of moving forward with the understanding that as our charters of liberty spell out for us, we are all created equally?

  49. 49.

    lamh35

    @Bondirotta: it does make her look like a doofus. People alreasy know about the venom, this movie is really making her looks like a possibly mentally-challenged unbalanced individual and it doesn’t make the McCain campaign look any better.

  50. 50.

    The Tragically Flip

    I liked the bit where Shmitt cheers Palin up by telling her that Reagan blamed pollution on trees. Republicans actually do find the long tradition of picking simpletons for the most important jobs to be a source of reassurance instead of shame.

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Started it late. Two of the key premises of this movie are that 1) the Iraq War was a good idea, and we were “winning” it in 2007 2) Joe Lieberman (and John MCCain) are figures of transcendent nobility.

  52. 52.

    danielx

    Witch movie marathon courtesy of the daughter…first Enchanted and now Practical Magic. She said after the first twenty minutes of Practical Magic: “This is a LOT better than the Twilight movies”. Yes, yes it is…she thinks the aunts are the best.

  55. 55.

    Anoniminous

    @Davis X. Machina:

    Wie sagt man “He sold us out!” auf Deutsch?

    Er is ein Berliner.

    (He is a jam filled doughnut with confectioner’s sugar sprinkled on top.)

    ETA: Some heretics dunk the doughnut in the confectioner’s sugar. They are heathens who must be treated as Republicans and sinners.

  56. 56.

    wobblybits

    If this was supposed to be a sympathetic portrayal of Palin, it’s not working for me. There are actually a few times when she pouts…she actually pouts like a kid.

  57. 57.

    danielx

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Joe Lieberman (and John McCain) are figures of transcendent nobility.

    Joe Lieberman a figure of transcendent nobility…I thought this hadn’t been a bad day until I read that line. You have just pissed all over my parade from a considerable height. I know you don’t think that, it’s just the absolutely putrid thought of Joe Lieberman being a transcendent figure of anything other than selfishness.

  61. 61.

    lamh35

    don’t know what some of ya’ll are seeing, but Palin does NOT come off as sympathetic at all.

    She’s giving female politicians a bad name.

  63. 63.

    The Tragically Flip

    The movie is kind to her in respect of the stories that she’s a bad mother, has a sham marriage, and so on, and shows McCain as kind and sympathetic toward her difficulties in the campaign, but overall, this is a staggering indictment of the people involved. You just can’t put lipstick on the astonishing ignorance and stupidity we saw of her in public.

    It’s basically kind to her personally, but rips her in half for her lack of knowledge, boundless ambition and massive ego.

    It is very kind to McCain.

  64. 64.

    WereBear (itouch)

    I see Game Change as scrupulously fair. “Put the best face on it” fair. And yet Palin comes off as someone who reacts to being way over her head not as a challenge to stretch and grow, but as an excuse to fall back on tricks and ‘tude.

    I think Moore is doing a great job. It also shines a light on the right wing system where belief matters more than facts. It’s better than I expected it to be.

  66. 66.

    lamh35

    @Raven: Mika wouldn’t know what a respected female is supposed to be liek. Have you see how she lets Joe treat her like the “lil lady”…And as for Joe “dead intern” Scarborogh Joe has no need for strong women.

  71. 71.

    well paid replicant

    I don’t have HBO, but even if I did I’d have to give it a pass. Seeing Caribou Barbie (even when expertly portrayed by Tina Fey) causes me feel symptoms of angry anxiety…raised pulse, clenched teeth, desire to throw items at TV.

  73. 73.

    Soonergrunt

    As far as John McCain goes, never forget that he put Sarah F. Palin in a position where she could have been one 79-year-old torture victim’s heartbeat away from the nuclear launch codes.

  74. 74.

    Anya

    Okay, I’ve figured why my comment is in moderation. Apparently, a web link with the word social!st puts you in moderation. What kind of a random idiocy is this? Why is social*st a problematic word?

  76. 76.

    lamh35

    @Raven: That was based on her job before MJ when she was a “respected” journalist or some such. Personally I don’t believe she wrote most of it. I suspect a ghost writer, IMHO.

  78. 78.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Anya:

    The word coincidentally contains the name of a certain type of pharmaceutical. Starts with ‘C’.

  79. 79.

    Soonergrunt

    From Twitter user John Fugelsang, just now:

    Not only is Julianne Moore great as Sarah Palin, she also didn’t quit playing her halfway through production.

  80. 80.

    Anne Laurie

    @Anya:

    What kind of a random idiocy is this? Why is social*st a problematic word?

    Because, like “specialist”, it makes the FYWP spam filter think you’re trying to pimp boner pills. The FYWP spam filter is ot-nay ery-vay art-smay…

  82. 82.

    BO_Bill

    Well, I am very happy that I have my very own internet at my new residence because it does not appear that I will have the opportunity tonight to enjoy a cream-pie with a female who is neither married nor a slut. The other great thing about having internet at your home is that you can drink and blog.

  83. 83.

    lamh35

    @Soonergrunt: Amen. Fuck him, Schmidt, Wallace, Rick Davis et al for putting this woman on the national stage.

    I hope they cringe every time Sarah Palin is on the damn television and saying her bullshit. They all deserve a kick in the nads for it.

  85. 85.

    handy

    Rumor has it that if you put span tags between said problematic word you can evade the spam filter. Lemme try.

    socialist

  86. 86.

    The Tragically Flip

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t mind that so much, given that the characters are all Republicans, so it’s realistic that they say those sorts of things, but they really make McCain look like such a honourable statesman.

    It’s really hard to buy into this vision that McCain somehow floated above all the rank cynicism that went into making Palin half-way passable at the VP debate, or even her very selection.

  88. 88.

    Anoniminous

    @Anne Laurie:

    (Putting on my Marketing hat …)

    If someone – but not me (ahem) – posted a comment consisting entirely of “boner pills,” say ’bout 1,000 times … it would bring a whole new internet niche demographic to Balloon Juice.

  91. 91.

    Soonergrunt

    @Spaghetti Lee: Ironically enough, I watched The Big Lebowski again today.
    “The Dude abides. I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that.”

  92. 92.

    Nicole

    I watched. Meh. Though I loved the line, “When you’ve lost the moral high ground to Dick Cheney, it’s time to reexamine your life.”

    What really grated on me was the portrayal of McCain as this genial, passive gentleman. I mean, wut? They think we all forgot, “that one”?

    Acting was good, though.

  94. 94.

    phoebes-in-santa fe

    Excellent, just excellent. Anyone who writes that it was a sympathetic look at Sarah Palin should watch this movie again. Julianne Moore – who’s excellent in whatever she does – if fabulous. She captures Palin, down to the walk.

  95. 95.

    freelancer

    @lamh35:

    Hmmm so anyone check out “Awake” on NBC? If so what’d ya’ll think?

    The first two eps have been very, very good.

  96. 96.

    handy

    @Anya:

    That’s trickier, if for example the href (the link itself) contains said bad word, I think you’re SOL, but I believe you can put spans in the content within the anchor. So the wikipedia entry wouldn’t work but some other non-offending URL would.

  97. 97.

    MazeDancer

    Moore was astonishing. Thought the whole show was riveting.

    Palin came off even more scary than she seemed during the campaign. Didn’t think that was possible.

  98. 98.

    Soonergrunt

    A reminder before you all go to bed tonight–Ladies in red states, please don’t forget to set your clocks back 50 years.

  99. 99.

    Anya

    @Nicole: From the clips I saw, he came off a bit confused looking. In one of the clips he had the same look as my friend Leah’s grandpa, the first time he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Kinda bewildered and frightened. I guess that’s sympathetic, but it doesn’t make you think: I wish he was president now.

  100. 100.

    gbear

    @opie jeanne:

    My youngest found a speech she made (no idea how old it is) in which she talks about how Obama wants to take us back to the not good days before the Civil War

    Obama’s already got a campaign ad using the Palin clip.

  101. 101.

    Canuckistani Tom

    Spent the evening watching Robot Chicken on YouTube, and LOL’ing.

    The weird thing is, there’s one short clip that makes me laugh almost uncontrollably, even thinking about it me chuckle. And I can’t figure out why

  102. 102.

    handy

    @gbear:

    Good. Hopefully this will be the mark of his second term in office. Going after Republicans and their lies head-on.

  104. 104.

    Mnemosyne

    @Anya:

    If you have a Naughty Word in the actual link, you can use something like tinyurl.com to change the URL that WordPress sees.

    @opie jeanne:

    I’m not sure if this makes it better or worse, but I think she’s confusing the Civil War with the Civil Rights Movement.

  106. 106.

    handy

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m not sure if this makes it better or worse, but I think she’s confusing the Civil War with the Civil Rights Movement.

    That actually didn’t occur to me but it makes a lot more sense in context. I too am not sure though if it makes it better.

  109. 109.

    Merp

    This is awful

    1. There’s an overabundance of details that were put in to make it seem like we’re getting the “true to life details behind the headlines” without actually documenting anything worthwhile. Palin drinks diet Dr. Pepper, says “in what respect, Charlie?” in preparation for the Gibson interview in which she uses the phrase, prays before events, Nicole Wallace pops back in the movie 45 minutes after we last saw her and says she couldn’t bring herself to vote, etc. Who gives a flying fuck stuff. But we don’t actually get any information or insight about the campaign that wasn’t available in real time as it was happening. Which kinda sinks the whole enterprise, dunnit? It’s not like the movie’s entertaining.

    2. There is an ideological component to the movie though, and it’s that the dark power of the American psyche must be dampened by elites for the good of the country. The last half hour is about Palin unleashing the forces of darkness which McCain foresees and tries to avoid, intoning ominously that “there is a dark side to American populism.” The reason why the theme is in the movie, and its usefulness by the forces which made the movie, I hope are self-explanatory.

    3. There are more individual motives for the movie, as well. The obvious people who informed a lot of the screenplay were Steve Schmitt and Nicole Wallace, either of whom I think are in every scene that isn’t exclusively about Palin’s family. Unsurprisingly they are the most sympathetic people depicted, trying to work under incredible time and information constraints to make the best of their candidate. Neither of them should ever be able to find work in the public eye ever again, not only for this destructive campaign but for their previous work; Wallace was one a part of the treasonous Bush media team in 01-04, and worked on the swiftboating of Kerry in 04. But Schmitt is now happily ensconced at MSNBC, and if the movie’s depiction of her gains sway Wallace can go on fucking CBS news with Charlie Rose if she wants to. Of course McCain comes out looking like the wise old Christmas Future of Politics with that ridiculous ending where he intones to Sarah not to through in her lot in with Limbaugh and the crazy extremists.

    4. And that message, I think, is the one thing to take away from the whole thing. In the end Palin’s selection as depicted was a tragic misunderstanding: the head of the campaign thought the vetting team would handle policy, the vetting team thought vice versa, and Palin wouldn’t have become the destructive force she is if the campaign had just designated a person to ask her “What is the Fed? Where is Germany?” etc. And that is the biggest political lie of the past three years, and one that we’re still living through: pretending that the Republican party hasn’t been deliberately stirring up insurrection and preventing the Democratic party from governing effectively.

    The scandal about Palin wasn’t that she was unprepared. It was that her positions are insane. Pretending to make it about whether she was vetted properly ignores the traveshamockery of ideas that unite the Republican party and the extreme lengths they have gone to and will continue to go to in order to keep a Democrat from controlling the levers of power.

  113. 113.

    Sammy

    @The Tragically Flip: If you want to know the real story of the Palin’s parenting, try reading Joe McGinnis, author of The Rogue: Searching For The Real Sarah Palin, The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power by Geoffrey Dunn and Boys Will Be Boys: Media, Morality, and the Coverup of the Todd Palin Shailey Tripp Sex Scandal.

    Also, too, use the google and seacrch for blogs by bloggers from Alaska. I won’t give you any links because if you really were interest in the truth you would make the effort.

    P.S. The movie glossed over the Palin parenting skills, which did not exist, i.e., carrying her months old baby around like a sack of potatoes without coat and socks and shoes during the winter. Photos exist, look for them.

    Add to this the fact that her children did not graduate high school, or have been kicked out and one even vandalized a bunch of school buses by cutting the brake linings.

    Good mother, my a*^&.

  114. 114.

    The Tragically Flip

    @Sammy:

    WTF. Here’s what I said:

    The movie is kind to her in respect of the stories that she’s a bad mother, has a sham marriage, and so on, and shows McCain as kind and sympathetic toward her difficulties in the campaign, but overall, this is a staggering indictment of the people involved.

    Emphasis added. Where do you get the idea that I believe the movie’s portrayal? Where is the call for this:

    I won’t give you any links because if you really were interest in the truth you would make the effort.

    Since you ask, I don’t really care if Palin is a good mother or not. I tend to believe not, and am aware of multiple accounts to that fact, but that’s not what concerns me about Palin. Her being a good mother would not redeem her glaring flaws as a governing official and candidate. Her failures as a mother are only important in so far as “family values” is viewed as some kind of major governing qualification by the right, and even on that generally irrelevant metric of leadership acumen, she apparently fails too.

    But all that said, my point was that the movie, while kind to her in those respects, still accurately portrays her other damning limitations and makes clear she was never qualified or competent to any office whatsover.

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