Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

We still have time to mess this up!

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

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

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Not all heroes wear capes.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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

The words do not have to be perfect.

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

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

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

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

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Reader Interactions

43Comments

  1. 1.

    burnspbesq

    MOG is worth the $9.99 per month just to be able to check out new releases on Tuesday.

    Like the new Eleanor Friedberger record, but probably not enough to buy it.

    “Kids in L.A.,” by a band called Kisses that I know nothing about, is getting my attention.

  2. 2.

    Cacti

    So, when will one of Bradley Manning’s resident cheering section speak up and tell us why it was okay for him to release personal information on 74,000 US military personnel?

    What heroic, whistleblowing, information wants to be free, greater good did this act serve?

  4. 4.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Redshirt: But only as long as they’re on the mission.

    What did the gods do with used saints? – Cazaril, The Curse of Chalion

  5. 5.

    Trollhattan

    Big rally at the Capitol today against Medi-Cal cuts, looks to be well attended. Anybody not leaving town afterwards won’t need Medi-Cal after Saturday, when it’s predictedthreatened to hit 109. We’re all going to be dead by Sunday.

  6. 6.

    catclub

    Demonstrations in Raleigh, NC with lots of arrests. I am amazed I even saw coverage of it on Yahoo front page.

  7. 7.

    IowaOldLady

    Men are jackhammering up my basement floor trying to change something so water no longer comes in. Bye, money!

  8. 8.

    Quicksand

    I haven’t seen “Blue Brothers.” Is it about the bonds forged between cops in an inner city police precinct?

  9. 9.

    lamh35

    I’m shocked nobody’s posted about Christie yet. I hear Christie basically chickened out on making a “controversial” choice. Booman has an interesting article on a possible reason why Christie made the decision he did. Loved to hear what ya’ll think:

    Christie is So Screwed
    by BooMan

    I told you Chris Christie had no good options. He called a press conference today to announce that he had set the general election for Frank Lautenberg’s Senate seat for October 16th, just two weeks before his own general election day. Why would he do that when he could have set it on the same day as his own and saved the state 25 million dollars? Because the likely Democratic nominee, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, is black, and Christie fears that Booker’s candidacy will drive higher than normal black turnout.
    Faced with the choice of taking a hit for wasting $25 million in an atmosphere of fiscal austerity or dealing with higher black turnout, Christie chose the wasting money route. Flip a coin on that one, but his decision also infuriated Washington Republicans who think he just threw away a chance for them to hold Lautenberg’s seat for a year and a half and maybe even win the full term…

    Oh, but I thought Christie was a stubborn mofo who ain’t scared to tell anyone off.

  10. 10.

    lamh35

    Isn’t Jasper, TX where the older Black man was dragged behind by some white guys?

    Video captures Jasper, Texas, police officers beating woman

    Security cameras at Jasper’s police headquarters captured the incident:

    There’s no audio on the video, but Diggles and Grissom were apparently arguing when Officer Ryan Cunningham comes in behind Diggles and attempts to handcuff her. When she appears to raise her hand, Cunningham grabs Diggles by the hair and slams her head into a countertop. The officers wrestle Diggles to the ground before dragging her by her ankles into a jail cell.

    “She got her hair pulled out, broke a tooth, braces got knocked off … it was brutal,” Bernsen said.

  11. 11.

    Trollhattan

    @IowaOldLady:

    Good times. Did you know a grinder-pump can do a great job grinding and pumping cash away from your home? You could look it up.

    Had an ephemeral basement leak any winter the rain was enough to saturate the soil above the hardpan layer. It would emerge from beneath the (new) furnace and run to the other corner of the basement, where I’d have to mop it up and lug the bucket upstairs to dump. Some years it continued for three or four months with several buckets/day at the worst times.

    This got old. After a few winters I amassed a pile of borrowed power tools and a six-foot breaker bar, then chipped and hammered my way through the concrete (amazingly tough) and into the hardpan until there was enough space for a box and a sump pump. Plumbed the sump and waited for the next winter.

    Quelle surprise, water no longer surfaced under the furnace, it dutifully filled the sump basin, which the pump automagically empties. Best as I can tell, sinking the collection box relieved water pressure beneath the slab and the water no longer has an opportunity to push through the cracks. I don’t even have to keep everything on blocks now.

    I wish you great success, and some balance left in the bank.

  12. 12.

    IowaOldLady

    @Trollhattan: We bought this house new and have had nothing but trouble. Leaky windows. Basically water problems everywhere. Are we sure home ownership is good?

  13. 13.

    daverave

    Saw the Blues Brothers on New Year’s Eve, 1978 playing at the closing of the Winterland in SF with the Dead and NRPS. Bill Graham rode a giant joint down from the mezzanine to the stage at the stroke of midnight as the Dead broke into Sugar Magnolia. Show ended at 6AM with breakfast for all in attendance. Probably dropped a few life-weeks that night.

  14. 14.

    piratedan

    very happy that season 5 of the Venture Brothers is finally here. For anyone that cut their teeth on the original Jonny Quest, this show is simply da bomb!

  16. 16.

    Trollhattan

    @IowaOldLady:

    Yeesh, are you out of warranty? With proper site prep and construction, a new house should never leak anywhere, ever. Mine’s built in the ’20s so I’m reduced to yelling at dead people when something goes pear-shaped.

  17. 17.

    IowaOldLady

    @Trollhattan: We’re out of warranty. My contractor told me that he has a house the age of yours and it never leaks. He says that today’s builders have better sealers and so they (and architects) tend to rely on them whereas older builders had to rely on things like overlap to keep the rain out and that tends to last.

    We first ran into trouble here with the brand new Pella windows, which leaked and rotted. Pella had some bad production runs at some point and our house is full of those windows. Or it was. We had to replace a bunch and that was under warranty. It’s been down hill since then.

  18. 18.

    Bruce S

    I watched some of Blues Brothers last night as well – and I have to say, I’d forgotten how terrible they were and what an apparently deliberate mess the movie is. A total waste of an uber-talented back-up band IMHO. I guess that was the point…and car crashes.

  20. 20.

    IowaOldLady

    I love the Blues Brothers.

    I see John McCain says women shouldn’t join the military until the sexual attack crisis is resolved. Why should women curtail their actions because men are committing crimes? How come we don’t say men shouldn’t be allowed to join the military until this is resolved?

  21. 21.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Redshirt: Really. That’s one movie I’ll try to watch whenever I’m reminded of it.

    I’ve been a passionate SF/F fan as far back as I can remember. My mother was a chick flick sort of person. (I suggested seeing Apollo 13. She asked “Is there any love in it?”)

    But because I was underage at the time, I begged her to take me to see the Blues Brothers. She went along grudgingly, expecting another Star Wars. She started laughing during the first car chase, was I think the only person in the theater that day to recognize Cab Calloway when he did Minnie the Moocher, and just thoroughly enjoyed herself.

    And while I’m on the subject of jazz….

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:

    I, too, was underage when The Blues Brothers came out. My parents were very strict about not letting me see R rated movies, so my older brothers decided to take me to the evening show while my parents were out. We’re waiting to get into the theater when guess who walks out of the previous showing? And spots us?

    So our parents look at me, they look at my brothers, they look at me again, and say, “It’s a good movie,” and keep going. Because, really, it’s only an R for language, and they knew I’d heard worse riding over in the car with my brothers, so no big deal.

  26. 26.

    Bruce S

    @Corner Stone:

    All I was saying was that I’d forgotten how awful they actually were. If anyone were willing to assert that the Bros were anything other than totally ridiculous parodies of great music, that would be a conversation that had ended very badly indeed – but not for me.

    Next up – was R.Crumb’s Mr. Natural a great spiritual leader?

  28. 28.

    Mike Dixon

    @Redshirt:
    Yeah, seriously, waht.

    When I was a kid, I read the paperback novel, because my parents wouldn’t let me see the movie. Tons of great background info, and I assume it’s canonical, and thus, essential reading for true headz.

  32. 32.

    Bruce S

    @Redshirt:

    Do I know how to laugh? Yes. I’m laughing at the notion that the Bros were anything other than ridiculous parody. I’m assuming that was their intention – as some sort of comedy tribute to music they loved, but couldn’t play worth crap. I’m sorry, but this isn’t controversial. Anyway, enjoy whatever the hell you happen to enjoy, even if it’s ridiculous parody. That’s all that matters.

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    @Bruce S: Man, you have missed this movie in about every way that it is possible to be missed.
    Do you think, for one instant, that B&A were giving you a comparative musical score?
    The Blues Brothers movie, not the resulting franchise, was a classic that is incomparable regarding the movie making craft.

    I mean, Jesus Christ but this is JMN levels of “not getting it”.

  34. 34.

    Bruce S

    @Corner Stone:

    “classic that is incomparable regarding the moving-making craft”

    Really? That’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever read. You clearly are the humor impaired here, because you take this stuff totally seriously. I love the Marx Brothers – much more than the Blues Brothers in fact – but no one in their right mind would claim that their comedic genius also reflected “incomparable movie-making craft.” There’s no evidence over dozen’s of movies that John Landis is capable of “incomparable movie-making”, even given that he’s made some hit comedies – a couple of which are actually funny.

    Beyond that, I called the Bros a ridiculous parody – so your question about “comparative musical scores” is pretty fucking idiotic and the epitome of not “getting it.” Try applying some reading skills before going off your rocker and embarrassing yourself.

  36. 36.

    Paul in KY

    @Bruce S: I think it’s a great movie. Funny as Hell, with a nice message.

    Also included running over Nazi losers! Come on Bruce baby, losen up :-)

  40. 40.

    Rowdy P. Nutt

    The problem with “The Blues Brothers” was not that they parodied musicians, it was that they parodied black musicians and black people. And, with the Ray-Bans, they threw in a little ‘parody’ of blind blues musicians too. Only good thing about the movie was the inclusion of real, good blues musicians.

  42. 42.

    Paul in KY

    @Bruce S: It’s not a perfect movie by any stretch and they weren’t trying to be motown quality performers. Don’t look at it as if it was directed by David Lean & was supposed to highbrow entertainment.

  43. 43.

    Paul in KY

    @Rowdy P. Nutt: Personally I don’t see Jake and Elwood as parodies of black people.

    Maybe parodies of white, music-obsessed weirdos with their hearts in the right place?

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