Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Battle won, war still ongoing.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

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

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

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

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

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

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

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

This blog will pay for itself.

Come on, man.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

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Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    pacem appellant

    OT: Who’d rather be playing SimCity right now instead of reading blogs/(not) working?

  5. 5.

    Violet

    That’s some hard-hitting reporting right there. Pretty much sums up our political class. More concerned about he said, she said than doing actual reporting.

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    I saw Django Unchained over the weekend. I’m glad it was the first movie I saw after Lincoln. As a depiction of slavery’s horrors (accurate as far as it goes, so I’ve heard), Django strikes me as an indispensable complement to Lincoln. And Tarantino’s mental attitude is an equally necessary antidote to Spielberg’s self-important high-mindedness.

  7. 7.

    Julia Grey

    Apparently the Cypriot parliament has voted down that great “deal” they were offered by the European central bank.

    Nobody knows what happens next, but at least people’s bank deposits are not going to get an automatic haircut.

  8. 8.

    Julia Grey

    Apparently the Cypriot parliament has voted down that great “deal” they were offered by the European central bank.

    Nobody knows what happens next, but at least people’s bank deposits are not going to get an automatic haircut.

  9. 9.

    Suffern ACE

    @Violet:

    That’s some hard-hitting reporting right there. Pretty much sums up our political class. More concerned about he said, she said than doing actual reporting.

    I think someone should ask Priebus if his balls are indeed tingly on MTP this weekend. Opinions differ on that matter.

  10. 10.

    Josie

    Well, even though it isn’t journalism, I kind of like knowing that one Republican is calling another “numb nuts.” It makes me smile.

  12. 12.

    Roger Moore

    @Violet:

    More concerned about he said, she said than doing actual reporting.

    Agreed. We need less stenography and more investigational journalism. Instead of just reporting that Steele called Priebus “numb nuts”, somebody needs to be asking the tough questions. Are his nuts really numb? Does he actually have nuts that might be numb in the first place? Why is nobody looking for these important answers?

  14. 14.

    Trollhattan

    @Suffern ACE:

    I think someone should ask Priebus if his balls are indeed tingly on MTP this weekend

    Doesn’t that presuppose one very critical, if teeny detail?

  15. 15.

    The Moar You Know

    This has been the second GOP douche that Malkin has attempted to score publicity points off of in the last two days. Her star has really fallen, hasn’t it?

  16. 16.

    Mandalay

    Ohio’s AG is not messing around about threats arising from the Steubenville rape case:

    “Let me be clear. Threatening a teenage rape victim will not be tolerated,” DeWine said in a statement on the attorney general’s website. “If anyone makes a threat verbally or via the Internet, we will take it seriously, we will find you, and we will arrest you.”

    Good for him.

    I hope that direct threats made on the internet will eventually become like DUI cases: people without self-control will still do it, but they will almost certainly face charges and prosecution if they are caught.

  18. 18.

    Amir Khalid

    @Roger Moore:
    And how does Michael Steele know that Reince Priebus’ nuts are numb? Did Steele actually test their sensitivity to, um, stimulation?

  20. 20.

    Redshirt

    As we watch traditional media die, and cheer on the death, I start to get a bit uneasy. When the dust settles and all these MSM outlets are gone, will there be anything to take its place? Its much needed place in keeping tabs on the powerful and exposing that which the powerful wish to keep in the dark?

  21. 21.

    pacem appellant

    @MikeJ: He should’ve been forced to play during the launch. Maybe that will be his personal hell. Good riddance to the out-of-touch.

  23. 23.

    mdblanche

    @Redshirt:

    When the dust settles and all these MSM outlets are gone, will there be anything to take its place? Its much needed place in keeping tabs on the powerful and exposing that which the powerful wish to keep in the dark?

    Where have you been for the last decade?

  24. 24.

    ? Martin

    @pacem appellant:

    Electronic Arts announced today that John Riccitiello will step down as chief executive officer and as a member of the Board of Directors effective March 30.

    I guess John Riccitiello has time to play. Between shit earnings and this PR disaster, oh and this other PR disaster

    Major vulnerability in EA’s Origin platform lets hackers overtake PCs

    has proven too much.

  29. 29.

    mdblanche

    @Redshirt: I don’t know what can take their place, but even if they survive we still badly need something to supplement them.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    @Yutsano:
    I can think of several less icky ways of finding out that Priebus’s nuts are numb. For example, maybe Steele heard Reince complaining about it. Or maybe he kicked him there and got no reaction; it’s hard to imagine anyone being in the same room and not wanting to give it a shot. Maybe repeated kicks in the groin are why his nuts are numb.

  32. 32.

    The Moar You Know

    I hope that direct threats made on the internet will eventually become like DUI cases: people without self-control will still do it, but they will almost certainly face charges and prosecution if they are caught.

    @Mandalay: What floors me is that the people making threats are doing so via their Facebook accounts, using their real names.

    I just don’t get that.

    However, my point is that I disagree rather profoundly with you; while making threats is appalling and unacceptable, the infrastructure needed to successfully prosecute such cases would lead to the end of anonymity on the internet.

    And for better or worse I think we need that anonymity.

  33. 33.

    Trollhattan

    Lord/FSM, deliver us from thinkbelief-tank experts.

    SACRAMENTO — Tapping California’s oil-rich Monterey shale using hydraulic fracturing could boost the state’s economic activity by as much as 14.3% and create hundreds of thousands of jobs, according to a new USC study.

    As detailed in Money & Co. blog, the development of the 1,750-square-mile formation in Central California could have a transformative effect on the Golden State’s economy, with the state potentially reaping oil-related tax revenue of $4.5 billion in 2015 and $24.6 billion by 2020.

    “Based on the experience of other states, not only would state unemployment fall, but significant migration of properly skilled workers into California would occur,” said the report, which was conducted by USC and the Communications Institute, a Los Angeles think tank, and funded in part by a grant from the Western States Petroleum Assn.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/political/la-me-pc-fracking-could-boost-economic-activity-in-california-by-14-study-says-20130315,0,1515971.story

    Also, too, I know plenty of “properly skilled” California workers right now, thanks.

  34. 34.

    burnspbesq

    @Mandalay:

    A Republican elected official who knows his job and is willing to do it? I’m actually old enough to remember when that wasn’t big news.

  35. 35.

    kindness

    @Trollhattan: Don’t worry. California and the Monterrey area in particular have no water to be fracking. Seriously, they don’t. Fracking takes a ton of water and there isn’t any over there unless they want to use sea water and they don’t.

  37. 37.

    burnspbesq

    @The Moar You Know:

    However, my point is that I disagree rather profoundly with you; while making threats is appalling and unacceptable, the infrastructure needed to successfully prosecute such cases would lead to the end of anonymity on the internet.

    Too fucking bad. There are some things that are more important than anonymity on the Internet, and being able to successfully prosecute criminals who use the Internet to commit crimes is one of those things.

    With all due respect, your priorities are backwards.

  39. 39.

    burnspbesq

    @kindness:

    Wait, what? Are you actually suggesting that providing drinking water to San Francisco is more important than providing water for fracking?

    What are you, some kinda pinko hippie wierdo?

  40. 40.

    gelfling545

    The IUPU campus was given the all clear about an hour ago & we talked to our family member who is on staff there. Blood pressure now approaching normal again.

  41. 41.

    burnspbesq

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That’s probably correct, but he’s doing the right thing right now in an important matter. I’ll deal with his reversion to mean when it happens.

  43. 43.

    Trollhattan

    @kindness:

    It’s a head-scratcher where they plan to get it, but I always remember the saying, “Water flows uphill to money.” If a farmergiant ag company wants to resell “their” water at a high price instead of raising crops, then that’s what they’ll do.

  44. 44.

    Mandalay

    @The Moar You Know:

    while making threats is appalling and unacceptable, the infrastructure needed to successfully prosecute such cases would lead to the end of anonymity on the internet.

    “would lead to the end of anonymity” => That ship sailed a long time ago.

  48. 48.

    gogol's wife

    OT, so can I say how much I can’t stand Alessandra Stanley? Today’s brilliant piece basically says, “Oh, thank God Lena Dunham didn’t take her clothes off this week, because she’s not model-thin so she’s not supposed to take her clothes off, and how can men actually find her attractive.” It’s clothed in mealy-mouthed “feminism,” but that’s the basic message:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/arts/television/lena-dunham-gives-girls-season-a-romantic-finale-on-hbo.html?_r=0

    I’ve never seen Lena Dunham’s show, but the way Stanley describes her you’d think she weighed 300 pounds. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    I’m still disgusted with Stanley for gratuitously comparing “Downton Abbey” to “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Don’t ask what the logic was; it was nonexistent.

  50. 50.

    Trollhattan

    @Roger Moore:

    Out of curiosity I looked up what water conveyance might be in the neighborhood, and came up with the Hollister Conduit.

    http://www.usbr.gov/projects/Project.jsp?proj_Name=San%20Felipe%20Division%20Project

    And farther south, the SWP Coastal Branch.

    http://www.water.ca.gov/recreation/brochures/pdf/Coastal_Branch_Brochure.pdf

    Surely, some over-watered customer can spare a few thousand AF for a struggling oil exploration company? Think of the children.

  54. 54.

    Trollhattan

    @Redshirt:

    Have worked with geos and hydro-geos, but never seismologists so don’t have much insight. The geos think you might be able to trigger fault slippage but question whether you could control the response to any extent.

    California is experimenting with a Japan-style quake early warning system, with early success. All it does, though, is give you some seconds of warning one is about to hit (presuming you’re not on top of the event, then good luck to you!)

    Hardly any tornadoes here, though.

  55. 55.

    Roger Moore

    @Redshirt:
    Sadly not. It turns out that most of the energy on a big fault is released by the occasional maximum scale earthquakes rather than by the more frequent smaller ones. So increasing the frequency of small quakes is unlikely to do much to defuse the larger ones unless it’s a truly massive increase. And since there’s already a fair amount of tension on the San Andreas, there’s the real worry that the increase in smaller quakes would actually trigger a full scale event. If you want to experiment on earthquake faults, please do it in your own state, not mine.

  56. 56.

    bootsy

    As horrid as the Post is, I must correct anyone who doesn’t realize that the “Examiner” (and their hit-trolling website, which occasionally lets fact-based reporters post there for free) is the same thing as the Koch’s Reason and other billionaire-criminal rags… It’s the sole creation of a similar shit-stain named Philip Anschutz. I figured it was always designed to lose money, but was presented as if it was a daily paper to lend credence to its stories.

  58. 58.

    bootsy

    @bootsy: Also, when I worked for a minor conservative ‘publicity firm’ (actually lobbyists) in DC, they would boast about their causes being on the front page of the Examiner…

    Of course, said firm actually wrote the stories for the ‘journalists’. I have to imagine this is what it’s like at the Post, too, at least for Krauthammer and his ilk.

  59. 59.

    Southern Beale

    The Washington Examiner is shuttering its doors? The one owned by right-wing Christian Sugar Daddy Phillip Anschutz? Playing the world’s tiniest violin…

  60. 60.

    Suffern ACE

    @Southern Beale: yep. I’d forgotten about that lovely guy. Whenever you go to see a movie at a regal cinema, you’re contributing to some god awful cause and keeping the weekly standard afloat.

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    @Maude:

    Hasn’t there been small earthquakes from fracking?

    There have been earthquakes in areas where fracking is taking place that otherwise haven’t had any, but proving causality is always tough. I still think that people who want to play with that stuff should avoid doing it near me.

  62. 62.

    pacem appellant

    @? Martin: I got an unsolicited offer from EA to work there. It was two days after the Sim City release and still hadn’t completely been able to build a city yet. I replied “no thank you”.

  64. 64.

    Left Coast Tom

    @burnspbesq: The water concern isn’t in an area that affects SF’s supply (the Tuolumne River), its on the Salinas River, which affects the Monterey County wine appellation.

    Water for growing wine grapes is definitely more important than fracking.

  65. 65.

    Mike in NC

    Michael Steele as head of the RNC was pure grifter, merely looking for a paycheck, and never seemed to actually believe any of the crap he said on TV. On the other hand, Reince Priebus is a true believer who must think that Mitt Romney simply wasn’t a real conservative. That can only be a good thing.

  67. 67.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Baud:

    I was thinking that the walls of toilet stalls in public restrooms would be the next go-to place for their former readers-to-be.

  68. 68.

    AxelFoley

    @Amir Khalid:

    @Roger Moore:
    And how does Michael Steele know that Reince Priebus’ nuts are numb? Did Steele actually test their sensitivity to, um, stimulation?

    It would be irresponsible not to ask.

  69. 69.

    Starlit

    @Violet: Is this part of that “online journalism” output that’s in every city now? The outfit that said it was part of the SF Examiner? ‘Cause if it is, it seems kind of lame.

  70. 70.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Amir Khalid: It’s accurate in the brutality, psychology, and immorality, although some of the details are fictitious or anachronistic.

    The ending is also problematic, but maybe somebody will follow up with a better movie.

    Like many viewers, I felt that sarcasm and black humor and revulsion approached the subject better than the kind of ‘serious’ takes that unconsciously romanticize slavery while attempting to condemn it.

    Though there really needs to be a good F. Douglass biopic.

  71. 71.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Southern Beale: I wondered why everyone was dissing the Examiner but realized that I was confusing it with the Washington Monthly. Please don’t go away, Washington Monthly.

    @danielx: I thought the Moonies sold their controlling interest and it was barely hanging on.

  72. 72.

    Another Halocene Human

    @gogol’s wife: I’ve never seen Lena Dunham’s show, but the way Stanley describes her you’d think she weighed 300 pounds. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    Gabourey Sidibe can take her clothes off any time. Don’t mind the view.

    I wonder if that ID-iotic column ran in the same section with an article about an exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Shall we install Ashcroft curtains over the 18th century European collections, lest little minds be corrupted with the notion that normal female fat deposition patterns are, er, normative?

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