Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

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

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

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

You cannot shame the shameless.

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

Giving up is unforgivable.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

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

I really should read my own blog.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

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115Comments

  3. 3.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I saw Rubio’s line about “government can’t control the weather!” and thought it was childish and embarrassing. Then I saw a clip of him today repeating it for Gretchen Carlson’s Morning Zoo and Dooce Crew, with a Preibusish little grin. He’s proud of that line.

  5. 5.

    Hill Dweller

    The Village also twisted themselves in knots trying to avoid calling the wingnuts’ filibuster of Hagel anything but a filibuster.

  6. 6.

    Hawes

    He’s ended his political career before it even began.

    He speaks Spanish in English.

    He once voted against the Violence Against Women Act just to see if he could be a bigger asshole than Ted Cruz.

    He is The Least Interesting Man In the World.

    “Stay Thirsty, my friends.”

  7. 7.

    Baud

    I’ll take that over America’s media discussing how Rubio is the brown Reagan (or Breagan), which is what the story would have been if he hadn’t taken the sip.

  9. 9.

    Maude

    There’s an asteroid coming by Earth on Friday. Should be big enough to obliterate the Senate and the media. That’s a start.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    @Maude:

    There’s an asteroid coming by Earth on Friday

    That’s not an asteroid. It’s the BJ site redesign.

    Much more destructive.

  12. 12.

    MikeJ

    If we had a smarter electorate I would agree that we shouldn’t waste time on trivialities. Given what we’ve got, use anything.

  14. 14.

    srv

    You people have no idea how dehydrated you are. This is a crises of epic proportions in America.

    We should send him some nalgenes.

  17. 17.

    Dan

    That wasn’t a “sip” of water. That guy almost needed medical attention. He should have a lifeguard next time he takes a drink.

  19. 19.

    Anya

    The weirdest Rubio thing was not the way he sips water awkwardly but fake smile at the end. It looked like he was on his way to his first day in school and was trying to be brave.
    Watch this video

  22. 22.

    Hal

    I just don’t see how this guy is ever going to make it to a candidacy for President. It wouldn’t surprise me if all of his financial issues and lies about his family history derailed Romney from choosing him for VP.

    Rubio owes far more on his $384,000 Miami home than it is worth. He bought the home in 2005 for $550,000 with a $495,000 mortgage. He soon had it appraised for $735,000 and took out a home equity line of credit for $135,000.

    In 2008, despite earning a declared $400,000 – including his $300,000 salary from the Miami law firm Broad and Cassel – Rubio failed to pay down the principal on his home for several months, according to Florida campaign finance disclosures.

    During the same period he did not pay down the balance of a $100,000-plus student loan from his days at the University of Miami, the disclosures said.

  24. 24.

    srv

    What would happen if he had to answer the 3 AM phone call? Would he have to take a drink of water first?

  25. 25.

    Maude

    @Yutsano:
    i read that it will be 15 minutes away. That must be space time which I don’t understand at all. Voyager2 tweets how far she is from earth in hours etc.

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    Want stupid? I’ll give you stupid, scented with bvile. Herr Reichsmarshall LaPierre:

    No wonder Americans are buying guns in record numbers right now, while they still can and before their choice about which firearm is right for their family is taken away forever.
    After Hurricane Sandy, we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/nra-exploits-made-up-version-of-hurricane-sandy.html

    How I wish he’d go hunting with Cheney.

  27. 27.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    Rubio got off easy. Howard Dean had the nerve to give a loud cheer at a political rally, and it was all we head about for eons.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    @Maude:

    i read that it will be 15 minutes away. That must be space time which I don’t understand at all.

    Not sure, but I’m guessing that 15 minutes means the time difference between when the Earth and the meteor are in the same spot in space.

  30. 30.

    Funkula

    @Maude: With Voyager it’s light-hours. I don’t know if that’s the same for the asteroid, but if so, it’s not all that close…the moon’s orbit is only around seven light-minutes if I recall correctly.

    ETA:
    @Baud:
    That makes more sense.

  34. 34.

    jl

    But the shifty water lunge, thirsty stare, and ‘gwwrp-GLLLP’ were the best moments of the speech.

    If this thing was pre-recorded, and they could, like plan it out and stuff, could they not redo it? They ran out of cash for the vid, or what?

    I want weekly Rubio ‘gwwrp-GLLLP’ thread, it is that important.

    Or a doofus reactionary GOPer of the week thread.

    Hit me, I’m ready, meteor!

  35. 35.

    Maude

    @Baud:
    I’ll look this up tomorrow. It will involved, I am sure. I’m too tired tonight.
    It was a tweet, so I didn’t get more info.
    I think it’s kinda exciting.

  36. 36.

    trollhattan

    Think Far Side, cat fud, and “Oh please, oh please…” while reading this. You’ll feel better, honest.

    With Rubio being stamped as the early favorite in the 2016 Republican White House race, is Paul emerging as a leading alternative among tea party faithful and other hard-line conservative activists?

    If so, does he risk further fracturing a Republican Party that’s trying to move toward the center and soften its rough edges in the wake of Obama’s decisive re-election three months ago?

    Paul, who joined Congress at the same time as Rubio in January 2011, acknowledged Wednesday that he is weighing a presidential run.

    “I’m thinking about it, but I haven’t made my mind up and won’t until 2014,” Paul said in an interview. “I’m mostly concerned with trying to do my job as a United States senator from Kentucky, and making sure I’m paying attention to problems in Kentucky and to the national problems we can deal with. Being part of the national debate and doing my job as a Kentucky senator sort of overlap.”

    http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/13/5188574/come-2016-sen-rand-paul-could.html#storylink=cpy

    Can we possibly be this lucky?

  38. 38.

    waynski

    John collective punishment for our stupity is not the answer. Perhaps we can wish a cosmic event on the south.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    @Maude:

    While the asteroid, which Nye said is comparable in size to the one responsible for the 1908 Tunguska event, is expected to pass harmlessly by, Nye said it is a very close shave, relatively speaking.

    “This one will miss us by about 15 minutes,” Nye explained. “Fifteen minutes difference and that’s it.”

    If it were not for those 15 minutes, life for millions of people could end.

    “If such a meteor were to hit Atlanta or New York City or Boston, that would be it for those municipalities,” Nye said. As much as 1,200 square miles would be destroyed, Nye added.

  44. 44.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Funkula: The moon is 1.282 light seconds from earth. Not sure where your light minute distance is coming from. The earth is about 8.3 light minutes from the sun.

  47. 47.

    Maude

    @Baud:
    343
    People still get nervous about comets.
    Thanks for the info, I bookmarked the link.
    I just look at a picture of the Grand Canyon and am glad an asteroid or meteor doesn’t get closer.

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Funnier than the water bottle are John Boner’s real time reactions. You can almost feel how much he wants to be at home in his Lazy Boy with a Marlboro and a big glass of something yelling, “Ah, fercrissake!”

  49. 49.

    amk

    I would rather the media hacks laugh and mock at him than give him a public tongue bath as the savior a la now dying time mag.

  54. 54.

    raven

    Have You Seen The Stars Tonite?

    Have you seen the stars tonight?
    Would you like to go up on A-deck and look at them with me? Have you seen the stars tonight?
    Would you like to go up for a stroll and keep me company?
    Did you know We could go We are free
    Any place You can think of We can be
    Have you seen the stars tonight?
    Have you looked at all the family of stars?

  55. 55.

    Chris

    America’s Media elites just spent the day giggling about a Senator having a sip of water while talking to an audience.

    New scandal!

    After Iran-gate, Monica-gate, Pardon-gate, Weiner-gate and Benghazi-gate, can we call this one… Water-gate?

  56. 56.

    lamh35

    didn’t watch the SOTU or the response live. I was instead watching Pride & Prejudice with Colin Firth. How much to I love this version, I watched it again today…lol.

    I know I’ve said it before, but man I love Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy. I may be really biased, but IMHO he’s the best actor to ever pay the character…lol. I will NOT listen to any disagreements…lol.

  58. 58.

    Chris

    @amk:

    I would rather the media hacks laugh and mock at him than give him a public tongue bath as the savior a la now dying time mag.

    Amen. Ridicule these people with everything you’ve got. Don’t worry, it’ll never reach the vileness of swift-boating, Birtherism or the rest of that shit.

  60. 60.

    Bnut

    @raven: Totally agree. My rack has 10 (and I was only an E-4!) and the only one that means a damn is the Combat Action Ribbon and the NUC. Hell, I got 4 for just showing up for deployment. And another for not getting written up after my first 4 years. Compare pictures of multiple year combat WW2 vets with a PFC with a single tour these days. It’s night and day. And giving some zipper suit in a trailer in Nevada an award higher than a Bronze Star cheapens it even worse.

  62. 62.

    Hypatia's Momma

    Discuss why it would be a waste of a meteor to blow up this planet.

    Because baby otters are astoundingly cute. Also, if you can’t appreciate the wonder and glory that is the Dance of the D. discoideum, well. I just don’t know.

    So no meteors. Maybe a plague that only takes out H. hooliganus but leave the rest of the planet alone.

  63. 63.

    lamh35

    @raven: missed Mardi Gras this year. New job, unable to take time off until after 90 days. So unfortunately I was an hour away and still unable to go :(

  64. 64.

    raven

    @Bnut: Yep, they even decided to give us a Korean Defense Medal 50 years late and then said the AFEM could get worn too. The funniest one I have is the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with PALM Frond!

    eta I do have a “Certificate of Appreciation” singed by Westy!

  66. 66.

    Yutsano

    @Bnut:

    And another for not getting written up after my first 4 years

    Must…hold…back…snark…

    But yeah, it’s male cow fecal matter.

  69. 69.

    Funkula

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): Thanks for the correction. I believe I must have been remembering the distance to the Sun. I really thought I remembered that the Apollo missions had multi-minute delays for transmissions, but I must be thinking about hypothetical or fictional missions at greater distances.

  71. 71.

    lamh35

    @raven: there was supposed to be something, but it was pretty rainy here and unlike in NOLA, the one “parade” was cancelled due to the weather.

  76. 76.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: My view is that the only person who knows the value of the medals on any person’s chest is the person wearing them. What medals I got are minor and were for doing a halfway decent job at what I was supposed to be doing. OTOH I was definitely pleased by getting my parachute badge.

    ETA: My grandfather, a WWII vet, said that the GCM was the only he had to earn; the rest just came for showing up.

  80. 80.

    raven

    @efgoldman: Read John Reeds piece on the Bronze Star above.

    “During World War II, my dad was a battery clerk in an artillery battery of the 79th Infantry Division in Europe. Battery clerk, more often called company clerk, is the job made famous by Radar O’Reilly in the movie and TV series M*A*S*H. My dad was not like Radar O’Reilly, but he held the same central position in the battery so he was privy to all the paperwork coming through. He got the job because he was the only man in the battery who could type, a skill he learned in a high school course.

    He said that one one day during World War II when he was in Europe, word came down from higher headquarters to award the Bronze Star medal to all the officers in the battery. Another WW II vet who read this and who was in the same part of France as my dad during the war said,

    [The bronze Star without a V device for valour] was called the officer’s Good Conduct Medal.

    The Bronze Star is supposed to be awarded for courage under fire or meritorious achievement, that is, doing your job well.

    That’s a big “or.” It’s like awarding the Congressional Medal of Honor for intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty or getting no cavities at your annual dental check-up.”

  81. 81.

    srv

    RUBIO BLAMES GOD

    Marco Rubio was also in good spirits this morning after the twitter frenzy surrounding his quick drink of water during his response to President Obama’s State of the Union address last night. “I needed water, what am I going to do” Rubio told me this morning on “Good Morning America” while pulling out a bottle of water and taking a sip. “God has a funny way of reminding us we’re human,” he said.

    CULTURE OF RESPONSIBILITY!

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: IIRC everyone above an E-6 in the 1st Armored Division got a Bronze Star during the Gulf War. 2d ACR led the fighting during the bold flanking maneuver and only a handful of soldiers got a Bronze Star. The shit does not get handed out fairly. Again, I am not personally bitching; I got the minor medals that matched the degree to which my service stood out.

  83. 83.

    raven

    I cannot tell you how great it is to see the Illini kick the fucking dog shit out of Purdue. Painter just got thrown out!!!!

  85. 85.

    Ash Can

    Don’t be sIlly. The media elites weren’t giggling about a senator taking a sip of water during a speech. They were giggling about yet another GOP rising star outing himself as nothIng more than an overgrown high school student council wannabe. If the guy had simply excused himself and taken a drink fully on camera, with maybe a little wisecrack to go along, nobody would have batted an eye. But he didn’t. If he can’t handle an attack of dry mouth while speaking, how can he handle the far more serious issues a president has to face?

  91. 91.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @raven:

    As one of my superiors once said at an awards ceremony, we can’t increase your pay, so these ribbons will have to do instead.

    Decorations have been something of a joke in the military for a very long time. There is, and I am not joking about this, a ribbon (The Army Service Ribbon) to wear that signifies you graduated from basic training and advanced individual training (or officer basic course, for the commissioned folk). I call it the “redundant with the uniform” ribbon.

  92. 92.

    different-church-lady

    America’s Media elites Balloon Juice’s other front pagers just spent the day giggling about a Senator having a sip of water while talking to an audience.

    It’s not often I get to fix things for Cole, but there it is.

  93. 93.

    TG Chicago

    @Disco:
    The meteorite is a source of the light
    And the meteor’s just what we see
    And the meteoroid is a stone that’s devoid
    of the fire that propelled it to thee

    And the meteorite’s just what causes the light
    And the meteor’s how it’s perceived
    And the meteoroid’s a bone thrown from the void
    that lies quiet in offering to thee

  94. 94.

    Bill Arnold

    @Maude:
    Space geeks might like the “Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:” table at spaceweather.com. I’ve been eyeballing the 0.1(0.09 now) LD (Lunar Distance) Feb 15 encounter in that table for a few months. (The distances in that table might be between the centers of mass.)

    Roughly, they can’t hit any slower than Earth’s escape velocity, 11 kilometers per second, and usually hit faster. At 2.3 kilometers (2300 meters) per second an object has kinetic energy equivalent to its mass in TNT. Square the ratio, e.g. (11/2.3) squared == 23. So a 1 ton rock moving at 11 kps has kinetic energy equivalent to approximately 23 tons of TNT.

  96. 96.

    TG Chicago

    @Ash Can: Agreed. I mean, this is pretty much a nothingburger, but it’s not that he took a drink of water. It’s that he did it in the most awkward way possible, short of spilling it on himself.

    And let’s not forget the multiple times he was wiping sweat from his brow…

  97. 97.

    Quaker in a Basement

    THANK you! Even the gang over at Josh Marshall’s place have gone all snickery about this. I was starting to think I was the only one who was thinking, “Yeah! He drank some water! So?”

  98. 98.

    gnomedad

    @Ash Can:

    If the guy had simply excused himself and taken a drink fully on camera, with maybe a little wisecrack to go along, nobody would have batted an eye.

    This. It was as if he was hoping nobody would notice.

    If he can’t handle an attack of dry mouth while speaking, how can he handle the far more serious issues a president has to face?

    Um, that’s a bit unfair. The big thing for me was how amateurish the production looked, as if they decided in the last minute to do something a little more formal than Rubio recording himself on his phone.

  100. 100.

    muddy

    I thought the most comical part was that he felt the need to retain eye contact with the camera throughout the water maneuver, made it much more odd looking.

  101. 101.

    Suffern ACE

    You know, if we want to actually be good at this kind of thing, it’s important to link the inconsequential act back to the character flaw. If he were a Democrat, Dowd would note that it was very par for the course for such an emasculated man to behave that way. Kraut hammer would note that he had mental cases who drank water. I don’t think we’ve reached that level yet. Just Sally Quinn cattiness.

  102. 102.

    Mandalay

    @srv:

    “God has a funny way of reminding us we’re human,” he said.

    Actually Marco, that is your body’s “funny way of reminding you” that you were in a fight or flight situation, and so your saliva glands shut down. In non-medical terms Marco, you were a terrified little bunny wabbit in front of the cameras, shitting your pants.

    And STFU with that God stuff if you really want to be president. There aren’t nearly as many votes in your pathetic pandering as you think, you disgusting fraud.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I have no idea what medals I got. I think I wore them once for some inspection or something. I didn’t save them(or any of my uniforms). I was just glad to get out with my skin intact.

  104. 104.

    Mike E

    @raven:

    I do have a “Certificate of Appreciation” signed by Westy!

    I once visited a couple who received a wedding gift of crystal glassware from Gen Westmoreland (ret). They proudly displayed the set and would tell guests, “His accompanying note said, ‘Enjoy these dozen fine crystal glasses’ and we were thrilled to receive his thoughtful gift!”

    There were only nine in the set. (-;

  105. 105.

    Citizen_X

    Say what you like, but I still think the name Agua Rubio is pretty funny.

    So was Colbert crawling across the studio to get a drink of water, saying, “It’s all right as long as you keep eye contact!”

  106. 106.

    FlipYrWhig

    @trollhattan: you know what would make a world full of irritated, tense people with limited supplies much safer? Guns! Guns for everyone! One for me to protect myself, one for me to threaten the other guy who acts all like he’s protecting himself, but I got my eye on him, one false move and “blam!” Instant safety.

  107. 107.

    Bob In Portland

    @Hal: Watch who buys it for above market value. That’s one of the ways to pay off public figures. Another way is to give him a huge book contract for some crappy tome.

  108. 108.

    Atticus Dogsbody

    From ABC’s translation of Rubio’s Spanish speech:

    Olympic athlete dormant podium I think that our top bottom Scioscia system — on the — my — this year but some aren’t getting enough — You don’t know Hamas known couple that went — — — but it was a thousand isn’t exception on board — today — — pick us and Oman and god alone us about us — this Llosa. He get dole said Romano didn’t that it shall dollop of deals are you out of town labels on so stunning to speak how — the — — On the bottom of my adios to felony insists. The outer space.

    I think that just about sums things up. I don’t know why it didn’t make it into his English speech.

  109. 109.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Atticus Dogsbody: that bit on Colbert was fantastic. It brought back memories of the foreign-language music videos captioned by “buffalax,” like “minor bun engine made Benny Lava” and “Mr. Disco summoned it.”

  110. 110.

    My Truth Hurts

    @Funkula The transmission delay between the earth and the moon was about 26 seconds. So it was a 1 minute round trip. That is because radio waves travels slower than light waves. So the light reflected off the moon that we see here on earth can be only 1.2 seconds old while radio transmissions from the moon to the earth can be 26 seconds old at the same time.

    It’s the same with sound being slower than light and the same reason you see a flash of lightning from a distance before you hear the thunder. It gets worse as you get further out. Transmissions from mars takes up to 30 minutes depending on it’s position relative to earth, while the light reflected from mars isn’t nearly that old. It’s really quite mindblowing.

  114. 114.

    JoyfulA

    @raven: My father explained his WWII medals I discovered in an old box as “This one’s for being in the same ocean as the Japanese, this one’s for being in the same ocean as the Nazis, . . .”

  115. 115.

    Maude

    @Bill Arnold:
    Late back to the thread. I follow them on Twitter and will look at the site.
    NASA is doing a live stream of the asteroid on Friday. That should be fun.
    I get all discombobulated about the speed of light.
    I am suspicious of the statements that it is a stable speed.

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