Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Everybody saw this coming.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

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

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

White supremacy is terrorism.

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

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

People are complicated. Love is not.

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Reader Interactions

86Comments

  1. 1.

    redshirt

    Better McArgleBargle: All citizens should have pouches of pink Himalayan salt tied to their belts. In the event of a mass shooting, you – as a citizen – are required to throw salt into the eyes of the shooter.

    Issue resolved. Next up: Is Chilean sea bass artificially floating fish prices?

  2. 2.

    Rational Subjectivist

    Unbelievable. How does this idiot have an exalted public platform from which to dispense such dangerous nonsense?

  3. 3.

    gogol's wife

    I’m glad ABL described this up above so I don’t have to click. This makes me sick to my stomach.

  5. 5.

    Cmm

    I dread the day she and her husband decide to spawn. Just the anticipation of her idiotic and narcissistic insights into the process of trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, and raising a kid makes me grind my teeth.

  6. 6.

    Fwiffo

    Her basic argument boils down to “nothing we can do right now that will actually be really effective is politically possible, so we shouldn’t even try, and yeah, we can do some things that might save some lives and maybe we should do them but really we should just give up. Oh and we can do is train children to rush the shooter.”

    It’s amazing what is possible if you treat it as a generational problem (see, e.g., gay marriage, which was an even bigger joke than gun control a generation ago). We went to the fucking Moon, dammit.

  7. 7.

    SatanicPanic

    I thought suggestions of arming teachers and quoting noted “responsible gun owner” William Burroughs were going to be tops, but this wins.

  8. 8.

    Mark S.

    If only those 7 year olds had gang rushed the shooter, only about half of them would be dead now.

    Oh my god, if she still has a job after this, she has some pact with the devil.

  9. 9.

    Andre

    In my sheltered youth, the first time I ever felt the need to disagree with Kevin Drum was when he posted a defense of McArdle along the lines of “You guys wouldn’t be saying this stuff if she was a man!”

    Granted, some of the criticism is unforgivably sexist, but she really is one of the stupidest people I know who is paid to have an opinion.

  10. 10.

    low-tech cyclist

    Dumb and amoral. Can’t forget that.

    Good Lord Almighty, I thought that it wasn’t gonna get much worse than Mike Huckabee and Bryan Fischer. And yet McMegan easily limbos under that bar.

  13. 13.

    Anonymous

    It says something about one’s ideology when “train five-year olds to suicide rush en masse” is a higher priority than “make reasonable and popular regulations on owning a gun.”

  14. 14.

    Narcissus

    The shooter also wouldn’t have been successful if any of those children had spontaneously manifested mutant powers.

    But, they didn’t.

    So who’s fault is that?

  16. 16.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I’m now longing for the days when she talked about $1000 blenders.

    Isn’t an assault rifle mowing down onrushing children just a different type of blender?

  17. 17.

    opie_jeanne

    Our son was here for a visit and we all went to see “The Hobbit”. There were the usual announcements about turning off your cell phone and not talking during the movie, and then there was this thing that I had never heard before, asking us to be vigilant, to use caution, and to report anything suspicious to the management. This is because of the shooting at the Batman showing in Colorado, and it’s stupid.

    And because I’m just a little bit contrarian I remarked to my son that we should be on the lookout for someone wielding a battle axe as the matching weapon of choice for this movie.

  18. 18.

    MattR

    @Anonymous: I am not going back into the cesspool to look for it, but there was a good comment that pointed out this was the perfect example of what libertarians espouse.

    For some reason I am reminded of this tidbit from the RNC

    Tampa city leaders have already proposed a host of banned items (lumber, hatchets, gas masks, chains and “super soaker” water cannons) – but they are prevented from outlawing concealed guns

  19. 19.

    Rosie Outlook

    Whyfore you guys give these stupid people page views? If there are no page views, and thus no eyeballs seeing the ads, won’t their employers dismiss them?

    And speaking of stupid–John, I checked out the Clip Patrol who said you lied about your service, and I would bet the south 40 that the only combat most of these heroes have seen is the fight over who gets the last Cheetos in the bowl. And really, I should be on their side. I’m not a liberal. I was a battered wife once so I know how important it is for a woman, in particular , to have a means of defense. I am skeptical that passing gun law 20,001 will do much to prevent massacres that the previous 20,000-odd gun laws have not stopped. I am not rich so I know that not overmuch of the police department’s limited resources will be spent on protecting me so I had better be ready to protect myself as much as I can. All that–and I still thought they were jerks. They are not doing their cause any good. Their argument boils down to “Because I want it, regardless of who else gets hurt.”. There are liberals who sound exactly like that on another issue, and they aren’t doing their cause any good either. (I’m not going to go into that issue because I understand this is a liberal site and, as a non-liberal, I’m only here on sufferance; I am only trying to point out that extreme of selfishness is not very persuasive to the rest of us.). So, John, I think you won that debate hands down.

  20. 20.

    Quicksand

    The one thing that brings obots and firebaggers together, the left and liberals, democrats and socialists, cats and dogs — is the compulsion to spell McArdle’s name wrong.

    And then to dump on her stupidity.

  23. 23.

    chuckieboy

    One common thread the pathetic right wing assholes have in common is HYPOCRACY. Every disgusting one of them I am sure her father as an employee of the city of New York, was a union member. Once I ve gotten mine, FUCK EVERBODY ELSE.

  24. 24.

    Turgidson

    @Andre:

    Granted, some of the criticism is unforgivably sexist

    That may be – I’ve never seen criticism of McArdle that seemed blatantly sexist, but I don’t doubt it has happened. Men can be sexist assholes to just about anyone.

    But it would also be a mistake (and sexist in its own way) to refuse to acknowledge that a woman can be one of the dumbest fucking people on the planet just as easily as a man can. And…well, McArdle is so fucking dumb that refusing to say so out loud for fear of seeming sexist, is more sexist than just saying so and defending the claim on the merits, which is usually blindingly easy – this pile of unfathomably stupid, callous drivel being a particularly stark case in point.

  26. 26.

    ChrisNYC

    Off her rocker. Off her rocker! And, by the way, in order to avoid the terrible freedom-killing statism that she so opposes, she wants to “drill it into people’s heads” that they should cast aside every human instinct and run toward a person shooting. FREEDOM McArdle style. Hilarious. Perfect.

  27. 27.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @Anonymous:

    “train five-year olds to suicide rush en masse”

    I couldn’t even train 5-year olds to kick a soccer ball at the right goal!

  28. 28.

    Turgidson

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Feith’s name immediately jumped to mind as I wrote that. Tommy Franks got at least one thing right, at least.

    Any number of those idiots in the gun nut thread Cole participated in are also contenders. Which would place them high in the running for dumbest worldwide.

  30. 30.

    debbie

    Sadly, she’s not the dumbest. That award goes to the woman who called into NPR’s On Point today and insisted that more children died from Satanic rituals than from shootings.

    At this point, what is even worth saving about this country?

  31. 31.

    CZHA

    Sure… small children could rush the shooter, but they’ll need additional training to run the obstacle course of blood-slicked floors and to vault over the bodies of their wee fallen classmates. Not that the noise and general pandemonium would add to the trauma.

    I get the feeling that McArdle’s Walter Mitty fantasies could raise Krafft-Ebing from his grave.

  32. 32.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @debbie:

    insisted that more children died from Satanic rituals than from shootings.

    Let’s see now…how many kids died at the RNC in Tampa, the largest gathering of Mammon worshipers in this country this year?

  33. 33.

    Ken_L

    McArdle is a professional contrarian. Think of something outrageous that defies the received wisdom and present it as serious commentary. It works a treat if your aim is to attract attention. And obviously attracting attention is the only thing she is interested in. You seriously think she reads these comments? She’ll just be revelling an all the page hits. Rosie Outlook #19 is dead right but bloggers and their commenters never learn not to feed the fuckwits. It’s like you all have some compulsive/obsessive disorder that makes you go back and back and back.

  36. 36.

    donnah

    My son attended college as a journalism major, at the Scripps School at Ohio University. He interned at our hometown newspaper for four summers, paid.

    He couldn’t find work; the local paper was laying people off when he graduated college. So he found a job in marketing instead. He makes a decent living, but he could have done more.

    He is a good journalist. He could write better stuff in his sleep than this stupid excuse for a writer, no, this stupid excuse for a human being. That she gets paid money to crap this out is an insult to good writers everywhere. Honestly, this pisses me off and I want to slap her silly face.

  37. 37.

    JenJen

    @Cmm: Amen to all of that. Good gawd. I hadn’t even considered the possibilities.

    @donnah: Tell your son this proud Bobcat alumni wishes him all the best. I sure hope he keeps at it.

  38. 38.

    vtr

    McArdle’s analysis of current events shows why conservative libertarianism is to American politics as beef is to McDonald’s. I know high school kids who comprehend reality better than she does.

  39. 39.

    Calouste

    @low-tech cyclist:

    That’s not limboing, that’s digging. On a positive note, if we leave McCardle digging like this unchecked, I think we will have a train tunnel from New York to London ready in about 6 months.

  40. 40.

    Spanielboy

    The US Army emphasizes in their Anti-Terrorism (AT) training to not to rush the shooter, unless a last resort. So should we require 5- and 6-year olds AT training while school staff get gun training? Gawd this is so easy for a solution!!

  41. 41.

    donnah

    @JenJen:

    Thanks, JenJen, I’ll pass along your encouragement. He still writes, but just for himself. And of course, he does marketing work. But he was a good, honest journalist. With a brain!

  42. 42.

    Jamey

    Ten gets you twenty that Megan stays in the back of the room while a dozen six-year-olds take slugs meant for her big bobble-head.

  44. 44.

    JenJen

    @donnah: I just hope he doesn’t give it up. We need him! And he is the graduate of an excellent university with a most excellent J-School, if I may say so myself.

    By the way, McMegan’s digging in hard on the Twitter.

    In that post, I explicitly discounted the possibility of children rushing the shooter. I was talking about adults

    She uses the words “young people” in the piece about the mass murder of first graders, but we were supposed to infer that she was obviously talking about adults, obviously.

  46. 46.

    burnspbesq

    @Catherine:

    Oh, McMegan. Bless her heart, she tries so hard

    Are you sure you didn’t mean to say, “bless her heart, she’s so trying?”

  47. 47.

    Unsympathetic

    I thought the entire point of having guns was to be able to take over the country “if need be.”

    However, if that ever becomes even the remotest hint of organized, those folk are disappeared and labelled terrorists.

    Back in the day, folk could organize without anyone able to keep tabs on them. Not possible any more, now that the domestic surveillance / totalitarian state solutions have been implemented.

  48. 48.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    So even a Galtian like McMegan will support the concept of collective action for the sake of the group…so long as it steers the conversation away from guns.

  49. 49.

    jl

    @Anonymous:

    ‘ It says something about one’s ideology when “train five-year olds to suicide rush en masse” is a higher priority than “make reasonable and popular regulations on owning a gun.” ‘

    The new face of compassionate conservatism.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @Unsympathetic:

    I thought the entire point of having guns was to be able to take over the country “if need be.”

    Crazy people think the point of having guns is so they can overthrow the government. Non-crazy people have a somewhat different perspective.

    But I think I can see from the rest of your post why you’re having trouble distinguishing between the two.

  51. 51.

    Tom Levenson

    I’m just so happy that John and Imani both hammered this one. Zander tried to goad me into losing a morning with a 4,000 word fisking, but now…

    I’ll say my favorite combined demonstration of her claim that nothing could be done was to argue that because we already have an automatic weapons ban a semi-automatic ban would not work/would not be effective (unclear in her typically turgid prose.) Captures an astonishing ignorance of so many things in one tiny argument.

    But I’m not going to let myself get started…

  54. 54.

    cthulhu

    @Ken_L: ding ding! However the link is not to the original horror so she isn’t guaranteed page views. Actually, it would be best if she were quarantined this way. Some single reader reports out to the rest of us and we tsk tsk at a safe distance.

  55. 55.

    Lyrebird

    I’m now longing for the days when she talked about $1000 blenders.

    Painfully true.

    And I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for you, John, and other people willing to speak truth and be human. Tip of hat to Sen. Manchin today, too.

  56. 56.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    McCardle has some competition:

    SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wash. – Police have arrested a 19-year-old Skagit County man who threatened on Facebook to “shoot up every school within a 100-mile radius” if his gun rights were taken away after the Connecticut school massacre.
    __

    Authorities had been looking for the man, identified as Korry Martinson, 19, since Friday at about 7:20 p.m., after he allegedly posted the threat on his Facebook page, police said.

    LINK

  57. 57.

    celticdragonchick

    @debbie:

    At this point, what is even worth saving about this country?

    Nature has a couple of ways to thin out the herd, so to speak. The Yellowstone volcano would be one, and bolide impacts are another.

    Of course, they don’t tend to discriminate very much.

  61. 61.

    Liberty60

    @Unsympathetic:
    The gun nuts would be the very first ones to stand and salute the new overlords, whoever they may be.

    Seriously- nothing they worship more than Order that Makes The Rabble Obey.

  62. 62.

    Yutsano

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: Oh Jeebus. That’s the redneck patch north of Seattle that never got over the drawing of the border between the US and Canada in the 18th Century. It gets a wee bit scary on I-5 right before you get to Canuckistan. Until Bellingham anyway, then it’s hippieville. And quite lovely.

  63. 63.

    Ken_L

    @cthulhu: But what’s the point even of tsk tsking? She’s still leading the conversation and being perceived as a serious commentator. The fact that she is being talked about makes her important. The only way to deprive the stupid cow of relevance is to stop talking about her. Millions of people write idiotic things on the internet every day and have zero impact because they are ignored. She should join them.

  69. 69.

    RaflW

    Up untill now I’ve been OK with her prattle, it was a free-market test: would the Atlantic be destroyed in the marketplace of ideas.

    But now I’m ready to just say fire that moranic bag of Morton salt water and bones. She’s a moral black hole. A dangerous idiot. A boil on the ass of our culture.

  70. 70.

    Betsy

    @Ken_L: she’s the dumbest fucking asshole alive, but super-glib. Just churns out the fifty-cent sentences one after the other like a dandelion does seeds.

    A lot of people just crumble with shivering awe at entitled-acting, glib, overbearing slags — I can definitely see how she got her “job.” But yeah. Worthless crazy raving baloney- bitch. What a complete slag.

  71. 71.

    Betsy

    @Ken_L: she’s the dumbest fucking asshole alive, but super-glib. Just churns out the fifty-cent sentences one after the other like a dandelion does seeds.

    A lot of people just crumble with shivering awe at entitled-acting, glib, overbearing slags — I can definitely see how she got her “job.” But yeah. Worthless crazy raving baloney- bitch. What a complete slag.

  72. 72.

    Betsy

    @ChrisNYC: can you imagine what she would say if some public school system school system (farfetchedly) implemented this? LIBERAL INDOCTRINATION, Galt, liberty, don’t touch my child’s brain etc.

  73. 73.

    Joel

    @Ken_L: that ship sailed long ago. At some point, you have to face the idiots head on. Ignoring the tea party didn’t make them go away.

  75. 75.

    different-church-lady

    @Ken_L:

    You seriously think she reads these comments?

    Actually she is well known for incoherent defenses in response to comments on her own blog.

  76. 76.

    different-church-lady

    @Betsy:

    A lot of people just crumble with shivering awe at entitled-acting, glib, overbearing slags

    That’s quite impressive the way you just took down David Brooks without even mentioning his name.

  77. 77.

    different-church-lady

    @JenJen:

    She uses the words “young people” in the piece about the mass murder of first graders, but we were supposed to infer that she was obviously talking about adults, obviously.

    That would be a McInference, natch, to go along with your McEstimate.

  82. 82.

    Jay S

    @opie_jeanne: Judging from the screen image you have 9 letters starting with s and 6 letters starting with w and ending with s. Your crossword puzzle skills combined with a swearing dictionary should fill in the blanks.

  83. 83.

    Soprano2

    I went to a training class at work about what to do if there is an active shooter in your building. “Swarming” the gunman was one technique the trainer talked about, and he even showed a video that gave an example of how it would work. It works the same way what she’s talking about would work. He was talking about teenagers and adults, but this is a technique they talk about as being effective. I don’t know what his class will be like now, the two incidents he talked about the most were Columbine and VA Tech. He said VA Tech made them start training classes like this one, because even though the police were there in 8 minutes that guy managed to kill 32 people. He said you can’t wait for the authorities, you’ve gotta get away, hide or fight back to stay alive. I’m sure he wouldn’t advocate that 6 year-olds fight back, though.

  84. 84.

    Triassic Sands

    …if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun…

    And, one assumes, Ms. McArdle will be directing the “gang rush” from a remote location safely out of bullet range.

    This is what libertarians have to offer?

  85. 85.

    Tonal Crow

    McArdle is always “dumb” in a way that promotes Republican craziness. This makes me think that “dumb” does not properly describe her.

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