Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

T R E 4 5 O N

I really should read my own blog.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

People are complicated. Love is not.

I was promised a recession.

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

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

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

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Readership Capture / Bring your good times and your laughter too

Bring your good times and your laughter too

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The DC inauguration get together is Bailey’s Pub at Ballston Commons Mall (EDIT: possibly relocated, wait for future updates) at 5 pm today. I *think* today anyway, the email I got from eemom said “tomorrow, Sunday” but was sent at 1 am when tomorrow would have actually been Monday. Maybe one of you can help me out on the day in the comments.

Update. It’s today…but it may be relocated.

Reader Interactions

84Comments

  1. 1.

    newsouthzach

    Would have loved to come by but wild horses couldn’t drag me down to Virginia this weekend, and that goes double during a Ravens game. Maybe we can put together a get-together up here in the People’s Republic of Maryland sometime.

  2. 2.

    Steeplejack

    It is still scheduled for 5:00 today at Bailey’s Pub, but I put up the bat-signal for eemom to think about relocating it. When we were discussing this on Friday I didn’t remember that this is a huge NFL day and Bailey’s will probably be packed with football fans.

  3. 3.

    eemom

    Sunday, TODAY, Sunday. At least I think today is Sunday. Sorry for the confusion, Mr. Galt — seeing as how precision is my stock in trade, I should have known better.

    Anyway, now I am freaking out because it is a sports bar and I didn’t factor in the goddamn football games, and my husband — who declines to come along for moral support — assures me that one will be raging at 5 pm with another about to start at 6:30. Aaargh.

    However, I am still game (haw haw) if others are.

  4. 4.

    Steeplejack

    @Doug Galt:

    Do you have a date yet for your February visit to D.C.? Several people have requested longer lead-time notification so they can plan to attend a meet-up.

  5. 5.

    eemom

    @Steeplejack:

    Thank you! Now tell me pretty please, where all should we relocate to?

    I don’t know the Ballston area and I am an elderly social outcast who never goes anywhere in any event.

    ETA: I’ve now seen the above and also the suggestion for Rock Bottom. I’m game to either (1) change the location, or (2) postpone until Feb. Just let me know, y’all.

  7. 7.

    scav

    Basically, whew. As my relief at avoiding worse is comprehensively occupied today, it can a) deal with even a sports bar and b) accompany you without adding to the physical crush. Consider yourselves haunted, only by a more cheerfull spirit willing to delegate its share of the physical drinking of same, plural.

  10. 10.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Kool and the Gang FTW!

    “Do you, Barack Hu…cough cough! Obama swear (or affirm) to faithfully execute the office of Preznit of the United (sort of) States to the best of your ability, and to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States (to include the “well regulated militia” part) against all enemies, foreign (this means crazed Muslims, Yurpeans, Commies, and assorted Hindus) and domestic (this means crazed militias, Christianists, rapacious CEOS, and assorted stupid TV executives that cancelled the original “Star Trek”, so help you FSM?”

  14. 14.

    Corner Stone

    Hey DougJ, do you think you could toss up a self-portrait like Betty did on the below thread?

  17. 17.

    PeakVT

    The inauguration really needs to be on the 3rd, not the 20th. The election should be moved as well. A 75-day gap is just way too long.

  18. 18.

    Steeplejack

    @eemom:

    I just called Rock Bottom to get a feel for how much of a sports bar they are. (They come across as slightly snootier on their Web site.) Answer: very. So I don’t think it would be that much different from Bailey’s, as far as crowding.

    I can’t think of another place around Ballston that I would recommend right now, so at this point my recommendation would be to fall back and plan a big wingding for next month when Doug Galt is in town. But if people want to go for it, fine. It might be fun.

    Full disclosure: As I said before, I was not going to be able to come to this one today in any case.

  19. 19.

    Violet

    Because of that post about the guy who got his employee to change his catheter, I’m getting “Urology and Catheter Supplies” ads. Yay.

  21. 21.

    Corner Stone

    @PeakVT:

    The election should be moved as well. A 75-day gap is just way too long.

    But what about the farmer legislators who must make their way in from the frontier?

  23. 23.

    NotMax

    @Corner Stone

    That’s marginally more comprehensible. Thank you.

    Found it interesting that, even though the oath taking was all of maybe a minute and change, there did not seem to be an interpreter for the deaf in the camera shot.

  25. 25.

    The Dangerman

    There’s a bar/pub/watering hole of any kind that won’t be packed for the games today? C’mon, DC, represent!

  31. 31.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    Just watched the C-Span highlight of President Obama being sworn in. I will admit, when he says Barack HUSSEIN Obama I know many a racist wingnut head is exploding. But you know what, when he was elected I knew America turned the corner that no racist dirtbag will ever reverse, but now with his 2nd term, no matter what, the racists F-sticks and dirtbags now will have to deal that the “Birth Of A Nation” America, is as dead as the bones and dust of General Forrest, you may try to say you will rise again white sheet, but you are irrelevant, and I hope the day when I see the first Latino or a LGBT, or Jewish or any other non WASP elected and sworn in. This was not the country I was born in, but in some good ways, this is a country I don’t mind dying in and of course, may that day be a long time coming(preferably after the Cleveland Browns win a few Super Bowls :-D ) I do have some optimism for this land though it may be a long time coming.

  32. 32.

    Valdivia

    @Doug Galt:

    Thanks for giving us the time frame Doug. I hope it’s not the 10th cause I will only be coming back to DC that day from nyc and I would hate to miss yet another DC get-together.

  33. 33.

    ding dong

    I think Anne Romney is having a bad day. She s being looked after by Biff,Skip ,Buzz and Tagg who are trying to draw her out of her fetal position. She can be heard moaning “That black woman is standing on my preordained spot. ” and “Mitt should be swearing on our bible.”

  35. 35.

    eemom

    I was just reminded of the Whitlow’s at Clarendon. Don’t THINK that’s a sports bar, but again, I haven’t been there since probly 1999.

    (The ORIGINAL, real dive-y Whitlow’s was across the street from my office back in the late 1980s — place was freakin awesome, with killer onion rings, and a tiny old fierce waitress whose customer service consisted of a growled “What’s yours?” Alas, like all else possessing a shred of authenticity in DC, it’s long gone.)

    Now tell me — WHAT DO Y’ALL WANT TO DO??

    ETA: leaving now to take eegrandmom to the train station….hope there’s a consensus by the time I get back.

  36. 36.

    Valdivia

    @eemom:

    I hope you guys are able to get together and I am truly sorry this weekend didn’t work out for me. Thanks for organizing and looking forward to the mid Feb one!

  41. 41.

    shortstop

    @scav: You’ve already started without them, haven’t you? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. And why the hell is it always so cold in this town?

  43. 43.

    Jewish Steel

    @shortstop: Ha! Yes. Right out of fiction. Poor fella.

    Still, three hot meals a day plus his diabetes medication. I’m glad he came up with a creative solution. Greatest Nation On Earth.

  44. 44.

    shortstop

    @Anya: Yes! What an excellent remark. I think I’ll repost it on my hideous cracker stepmama-in-law’s FB page. I am sure she will be in step with our sentiment.

  45. 45.

    chopper

    @Steeplejack:

    rock bottom used to be less sports-y back in the day. i used to go there all the time because the brewmaster was a buddy of mine. made really fucking good beer, but then moved to indiana.

    ah, the halcyon DC days.

  46. 46.

    Mike in NC

    @dmsilev:

    I take great pleasure in the fact that none of us have to care about what any Romney thinks or does.

    The decent thing to do would be to invite Willard to the BJ party. That alone would make it worth traveling to DC just to be able to taunt him: “Please proceed, Governor”!

  47. 47.

    Corner Stone

    I just don’t understand how anyone could look at that slimy fuck Ted Cruz and decide that was the guy they wanted to vote for.

  48. 48.

    SFAW

    Wherever you end up today/tomorrow, don’t forget to hoist one for Gex, and to Kate’s memory.

  50. 50.

    SFAW

    @Corner Stone:

    I just don’t understand how anyone could look at that slimy fuck Ted Cruz and decide that was the guy they wanted to vote for.

    Substituting the name of any of the Tea Baggers for “Ted Cruz” would not lessen the truth-value of that statement. Actually, the name of any typical Rethug would work, too.

  51. 51.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Corner Stone: I told you, right, that Ted Cruz was the freshman college roommate of a friend of mine from high school? It was only after the guy got elected that I realized the crazy Republican politician was the same bizarre, creepy guy I had first heard stories about in November 1988.

  52. 52.

    James E. Powell

    @Mr Stagger Lee:

    Totally with you. African-American president and African-American first family are now part of normal America. What’s next? I don’t know, but for everyone who is not a white, wealthy, Protestant male, your chances are a little better than they were before.

    But, sadly, the Browns chances for a Super Bowl win just receded another five years.

  53. 53.

    scav

    @shortstop: content, giddiness. . . to repeat myself oh Huzzah! for our black socialist fascist communist muslim atheist, kenyan no-long-form leader that organizes communities! long may he drive them round the bend of the short pier!

    and without a few brisk dips to at least the sub teens, I wouldn’t know where I was.

  61. 61.

    shortstop

    I have a Bucky Badger hat and I’m not even a Sconnie. I’m not actually sure when or where I acquired it.

  63. 63.

    FlipYrWhig

    @shortstop: Nothing scandalous or anything, just that he was awkward and greasy (supposedly he practically left a film on everything he touched, which became known as “cruzz”) and had shelves full of books about Satan’s influence on American politics. So, you know, sometimes we start to think that wingnuts are putting on an act to snooker the rubes. But Cruz is by all accounts genuinely weird and entirely committed to his weirdness.

  64. 64.

    FlipYrWhig

    @FlipYrWhig: I usually have a bit of sympathy for the weird misfit kid, but he was in a whole separate category, creepy and tightly wound verging on unsettling. And it’s not like Princeton isn’t full of assholes, or Republicans. But there was something uniquely strange about the guy even then.

  66. 66.

    Josie

    @FlipYrWhig: Texas is a huge media market. I wonder if a lot of people simply pulled the lever for the Republican candidate without knowing very much about Cruz. I’m hoping that he gets overexposed and thrown out when his re-election time comes around.

  67. 67.

    NotMaxn

    @Maude

    Bullpuckey.

    It was (a) investiture into a public office and (b) offered live to the media.

    Private, my foot.

    And you can’t convince this old coot that the White House doesn’t have at least one interpreter on staff or on retainer who will work on a Sunday.

  69. 69.

    mai naem

    The first time I saw Cruz on teevee he came across as an in the closet gay with kinky skeletons. Worse than Lindsey Graham who just comes across as a regular in the closet pol.

  70. 70.

    eemom

    Still at Union Station….traffic in the city absolute hell. No meet up for me today. DougJ plz update

  73. 73.

    MB

    FWIW (and as someone who lives just a few blocks away from Bailey’s), Rockbottom will definitely have fewer yelling bros. Whitlow’s, while vastly superior in every other way, will not be any better of a location. If you’re attached to Ballston, for some reason, Carpool is big enough that a group of any size should find some workable space there.

    (If it’s just a dozen or so people, I point you down the street to Jay’s Saloon and Grille, one of Arlington’s last dive bars.)

  75. 75.

    Woodrowfan

    @MB: There’s a good Mexican place down on Pershing (I think) next to the Popeye’s Chicken. A bit too far from Metro though, and a bit small./.

  78. 78.

    LGRooney

    My apologies, folks. It seems my anonymity gave me a nasty headache. I just woke up from a nap and my head’s still pounding.

  79. 79.

    eemom

    Sorry for any confusion. I meant well, I most truly did — and if any BJers make it to Bailey’s, I hope they find each other.

    Let’s try again in Feb.

    And now, to quote Travolta in Pulp Fiction — after 4 hours spent trying to get to Union Station with every fucking street within 10 blocks of the WH or Capitol blocked off, an experience only slightly less harrowing than having one’s mob boss’s wife almost die of an OD while in one’s care — I’m going home and having a heart attack. Well, actually I am home. Whatever.

  81. 81.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Mr Stagger Lee: Here here! I also look forward to a day when we get a Latino, LGBT, woman, atheist, Jewish or another non-Wasp President/Vice President. If it can’t be Hilary Clinton in 2016 (for health reasons), then hopefully, it will be someone else to make the Rightwingers’ collective head explode.

  83. 83.

    DLew On Roids

    @Woodrowfan: El Paso Cafe. Great place.

    For future reference, my recommendation at Ballston Common is always Union Jacks. Good beer selection, friendly bartenders.

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