Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Come on, man.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

In after Baud. Damn.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2012 / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Labored

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Labored

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(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
__
Certain juxtapositions are irresistable. Here’s Doghouse Riley on the GOP’s “Fuck You Society“:

Last Sunday, Absentee Governor and Retired Lawn Ornament Mitch Daniels went on FOXNews to call for an end to public-sector unions. Sorta. Daniels is from the wing of the party which doesn’t like to say that sort of thing without the required hemming and hawing necessary to prevent it from being held accountable for the crazy shit it’s going to do anyway…

Is this really what this election should come down to? Is it really someone’s definition of “economy”? Eliminate public unions, and our wealthy job creators will be free to create jobs, namely, security guards and private bucket brigades.

Was the 2012 election really decided when Big Donors chose up sides in 2010?

Is this really the United States of America in the 21st century? Don’t tell me.

Do we really have to relive the excesses of the fucking Gilded Age just because rich people won the 1980 Presidential election?

This is the program which has failed, publicly and demonstrably, time and again, since. Incontinent tax cutting and irresponsible regulation are precisely what got us here. And they are promoted by the likes of Mitch Daniels, public liars, political cowards, and “principled” men who won’t actually do anything except accompanied by a new moon, and the sort of massive PR campaign which convinces Americans to eat pig anus stuffed with bacon and cheese…

Apart from the fact that, as Churchy LaFemme would say, Friday the Thirteenth fell on a Wednesday this month, what’s on the agenda for what’s left of the evening?

Reader Interactions

67Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    I’m swearing off all sources of news and information until after the election, including other blogs. If it’s not on Balloon Juice, I won’t know about it.

  8. 8.

    jl

    Daniels is quiet back room type of guy.

    Has Brooks ever pimped him as a worthy Very Serious Just Authority Power competent follower-haver?

  11. 11.

    El Cid

    Is there a past? Are there things that we know? I’m not sure. It seems troubling, the notion that things have happened before and we should remember them. What if doing so interferes with how we vote?

  12. 12.

    Ben Cisco

    Gearing up for an MRI this week; the meds have been masking the pain, but it’s time to get to the bottom of this thing and kill it dead.

  15. 15.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    Well at least there is some sanity coming back, North Dakotans rejected a motion to ban all property taxes and told the Right to lifers, to Shut the F^^%$ Up trying to use religious beliefs to restrict women’s right to reproductive freedom

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Glad to see Mike Luckovich back at work. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to take vacations.

  18. 18.

    Soonergrunt

    Accused pedophile Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer, Joseph Amendola, in his opening statement yesterday:

    “Jerry loves kids so much that he does things most of us wouldn’t think of doing.”

    Oh, dear.

  23. 23.

    beltane

    @Linda Featheringill: I have had four brain MRIs over the past decade, the last one while I was suffering from severe vertigo, and will refuse to have another one unless I am thoroughly sedated.

  27. 27.

    beltane

    @Mr Stagger Lee: Isn’t the Democratic Senate candidate doing pretty well in the polls there as well? Maybe North Dakota will be the first state to emerge from the far side of the wingularity.

  28. 28.

    Richard Sloat

    My comment! Frustrated by the absurdity of the Republican Tax policy, balance a budget with no new taxes, I have made a political satire called “Taking the Tea Party Republican Tax Pledge” and placed it on YouTube.
    Here is the link youtube.com/watch?v=Rfk6eVoUGPM
    If you conceive of any use for this piece , you are welcome to freely use it or link it, as you wish. My best.

    Peace, Richard Sloat

  29. 29.

    RalfW

    Oh, and apropos the cartoon:

    Senator Jeff Sessions Argues Food Stamps Increase Not Moral, Mocks Senator Kirsten Gillibrand – FYI, Senator Gillibrand is Catholic and by arguing against cutting food stamps, she’s in line with the US bishops, Catholic Charities, and the Catholic social justice tradition. But, apparently, to the GOP, feeding poor people is immoral. via @CatholicDems

  30. 30.

    Mark S.

    @Soonergrunt:

    Yikes.

    I’m coming to the conclusion that Assassins Creed Revelations sucks. I really liked AC 2. Brotherhood started going a little downhill, but this one is just awful. The bad stuff they introduced to Brotherhood is even worse and the brand new stuff (tower defense, bombs) is downright horrible. I’m about half way thru and haven’t enjoyed a single mission. Bleh.

  31. 31.

    jl

    @RalfW:

    The text in the link suggests that Sessions does not understand what a macroeconomic multiplier is, or how food stamps work.

    The world is crazy. I do not understand, cannot believe the stuff I see hear and read in the political news. The Sessions food stamp BS is just one example.

  32. 32.

    Soonergrunt

    @Mark S.: I haven’t played any of the AC games. In fact, I haven’t played any games at all in the last few weeks. I have no idea when I’ll actually get some quality gaming time in, for that matter.

  33. 33.

    Yutsano

    @beltane: Keep in mind this is the Post so they go out of their way to polish the knob of the Republican, but the Senate race is a dead tie. And Heitkamp is getting major support from the DSCC. Only Rove is spending money so far there, but apparently Berg is a lazy campaigner. Could be interesting.

  34. 34.

    catclub

    @RalfW: I hate it when I agree with people who are crazy on other issues. But I fully agree that Football stadiums are gifts of public money to corporations — and so do these wackos.

    Of course, there is probably a bit of Abramoff in this: pay us to support your (casino, football stadium, whatever) and we will, don’t pay us and we will oppose it with fury. Wasn’t that what Dick Armey was doing?
    All the issues that his teaparty group was up in arms about just happened to line up with issues his lobbying clients were up in arms about.

    Given that the Koch’s don’t need money. maybe there is more principle and less payoff, here.

  35. 35.

    piratedan

    @RalfW: makes you wonder when someone is going to melt down on this idiocy. Someone like myself would find it very difficult to tolerate this kind of wanton cruelty

  36. 36.

    Cacti

    The halcyon days of the American middle class were a historical aberration that were winding down by the time I was born in the 1970s.

    When was the last time a single income could support a middle class lifestyle for a family of four? The Johnson Administration?

  39. 39.

    Hill Dweller

    Stewart’s entire first segment is about Obama doing a lot of fundraising, but he failed to mention Citizens United one time. And the bigger sin, at least for a comedian, was the bit wasn’t funny.

    WTF has happened to Stewart?

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    @beltane:

    The big banks have become like cockroaches, likely to survive after every other living thing around them has perished.

    IIRC, cockroaches are a tropical insect that’s able to survive in northern climates because we provide them with heat and light. If humans died off, cockroaches would quickly follow because they wouldn’t be able to survive without us to provide them with what they need.

    Which just makes your analogy even more apt, IMO.

    ETA: Shorter me, interpreting you — the banks are parasites that are determined to kill their host organism.

  46. 46.

    Suffern ACE

    @Mnemosyne: While I wouldn’t mind reigning in the banks or letting them fail, I was kind of hoping for an approach different than mass group suicide of all humanity.

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    @Suffern ACE:

    I would prefer it if the banks could be reined in or allowed to fail, but I’m worried that the banks have enough money and power to prevent that.

    And if the banks did destroy the world economy, it wouldn’t be suicide, at least not for us non-banksters. More like murder-suicide.

    ETA: I’m quite the Little Mary Sunshine right now, aren’t I? I should probably go nurse my headache instead of trying to cause them in others.

  48. 48.

    jl

    Winner is icummen in,
    Lhude sing Got Mine,
    Income drop and savings slop
    And how the plebs doth whine!
    Sing: Got Mine.
    Stoppeth schools and breaketh tools,
    An ague hath my hind.
    Sludgeth river, broketh giver
    Damn you, sing: Got Mine.
    Got Mine, Got Mine, tis why I dine,
    Got Mine.
    So ‘gainst the hobo’s balm
    Sing Got Mine Got Mine, sing Got Mine
    Sing Got Mine, sing Got Mine,
    Mine!

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne

    @Stuck in the Funhouse:

    I was just down there. Maybe that’s the source of the headache.

    (Actually, it’s probably due a sharp drop and rise in humidity that we had today — turns out the freakin’ weather can trigger a migraine. Who knew?)

  52. 52.

    Stuck in the Funhouse

    @Mnemosyne:

    Do what you need to make it better. I’ve had a couple of migraine headaches, or with similar symptoms, and jesus they just suck the life right out of you

  55. 55.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    @Mnemosyne:

    I get weather headaches all the dang time. For me, i think it’s the pressure shifts, since it always hits before or during stormy weather.

  56. 56.

    Geoduck

    @efgoldman:

    One of oh, so many remakes that really didn’t need to happen.
    I’m a commie liberal, and I was always a commie liberal, so I never watched Dallas back in the day, either. Of course I knew all the taglines, the goddamned thing was that pervasive.

    For what little it is worth, it’s not a remake, but more of a next-generation deal; Hagman is back as JR, along with others from the original cast.

  57. 57.

    brettvk

    @Ben Cisco: It’s a lot like being in the middle of a minimalist all-percussion symphony. I thought it was kind of interesting, but a) it was my knee so there weren’t claustrophobia issues and b) it’s a little disturbing that everyone else gets behind heavy shielding.

  60. 60.

    A Humble Lurker

    Ezra Klein’s been doing Rachel’s show this week. I don’t know what it is about guest hosts on that show, but I can never stand them. Even if I like them off that show. But now that Ezra’s been assimilated I just. Can. Not. Watch. Hope Rachel’s back by next week.

  64. 64.

    kd bart

    I’m expecting a speech from Hologram Jay Gould at the Republican Convention on the virtues of Gilded Age Economics.

  65. 65.

    bjacques

    @jl: When the weather’s crappy I sing Ezra Pound’s version while swaying like in the final scene of The Wicker Man. Pound was a thorough scumbag but that’s a damn funny poem.

  66. 66.

    Shana

    Can I just say that I love that there have now been two Pogo references recently on BJ? Favorite comic strip of all time. I’ve been using that “Friday the 13th come on a __ this month” with my family for 25 years now. Cracks me up every time, but they just give me one of those Mom’s being weird again” looks. Oh well.

  67. 67.

    Nathanael

    “Do we really have to relive the excesses of the fucking Gilded Age just because rich people won the 1980 Presidential election?”

    Yes. It’ll be worse this time because the Gilded Age didn’t have to deal with global warming.

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