Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

Books are my comfort food!

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

In after Baud. Damn.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Bark louder, little dog.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Friday Evening Open Thread: Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

Friday Evening Open Thread: Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

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Everybody’s a critic:

… The Games are a crowning moment for Mr. Putin, a chance to demonstrate anew his mastery of the global levers of power, but perhaps not for the country he governs. With Russia’s natural-resource dependent economy slowing as commodities prices fall, and with foreign investments drying up, the Kremlin has already signaled that it would have to cut spending. The $50 billion or so lavished on Sochi is becoming a political liability…

The sheer cost of the Games has suddenly become a liability even in a political system that allows little room for public debate about the wisdom of government spending.

“It is about a lost chance,” said Aleksei A. Navalny, whose Foundation for the Fight Against Corruption recently published an interactive website charting what critics have called excessive waste and corruption in the construction of the Olympic facilities. “It is about what Russia could have done with this money. We could have had a new industrialization along the same lines as the industrialization under Stalin.”

Instead, he added, “it’s just one crazy little czar who chose to throw money right and left in some kind of madness.”…

***********
Speaking of crazy little czars and non-stop complaining, what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?

Reader Interactions

95Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh36

    Keep an Eye on This

    We haven’t focused much on this. But the White House stood down and forced AIPAC to cave in its efforts to torpedo the White House’s Iran nuclear diplomacy. That happens very rarely. (AIPAC is going back to the well and pouring money now into pushing the Senate into Republican hands next year.)…

  2. 2.

    jl

    So what? There have been crappy sports in the Olympics for a long time.

    I don’t follow that particular one, since seems like we should dominate it, but we don/t for some reason. So I never watch it, out of spite.

    Edit: and this Olympics is corrupt? And a Russian corruption watchdog is disappointed? Except for the records, very little new news comes out of any Olympics.

  3. 3.

    lamh36

    Wow. This shhhh. I’ve never been so glad to know that former Presidents continue to get SS protection after their term. I just have an idea of these idiots feeling emboldened with Obama as a “normal citizen”

    Rep. Has Cordial Chat About Whether Obama ‘Should Be Executed’ (VIDEO

    A town hall meeting with Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) took a bizarre turn recently when a woman in the audience declared that President Obama “should be executed as an enemy combatant” and the congressman kept speaking cordially with her.

    Bridenstine issued a statement on Thursday denouncing the remark, but that wasn’t until eight days after someone posted a video of the town hall online…

  6. 6.

    different-church-lady

    Next we bitch about how the opening ceremony sucked. Then we bitch about American Television coverage. Then we bitch about the closing ceremonies. A few places along the line we bitch about the behavior of some of the athletes. Towards the end of the games we bitch about the behavior and morals of all of the athletes.

    Once the games are over we bitch about how rich the star athletes are getting on endorsements.

    Before the next games begin we get to bitch about the selection process and how corrupt the IOC is.

  7. 7.

    Cacti

    Between the yellow tap water and the shower cameras, I think Vlad is going to miss his “Triumph of the Will” moment.

    Mostly I’m hoping that no innocents get bombed over the next 16 days.

  8. 8.

    esc

    I’m watching the preliminary round of the team figure skating event that NBC put up on their Olympics site. It would be great if there wasn’t an enraging “Coverage will continue momentarily” card put up almost totally at random throughout the video. It isn’t buffering, and this isn’t live, so I have no idea why it is happening but it is just beyond annoying.

  9. 9.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lamh36: and the media will dutifully compare it to the moment John McCain gently explained to some lady who all but had a tinfoil hat on that Obama wasn’t a Muslim terrorist, having completely forgotten the moment one of Palin’s howler monkeys screamed out “kill him!” in the middle of one of his speeches, and McCain blinked, took a breath and went on with his speech. Obama used to stop people from booing.

    @jl: Your overconfidence is very Amero-centric. You know how many pounds of cabbage and beets the average Russian eats in a year?

  13. 13.

    jl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    ” Your overconfidence is very Amero-centric. You know how many pounds of cabbage and beets the average Russian eats in a year? ”

    It’s hopeless this year. I usually lie to myself that our chili and nachos will get us through. They never give enough points for fragrance.

    BTW commenter above forgot about bitching about incompetent and corrupt judging. (unless we win)

    How can you have a fun Olympics without incompetent and corrupt judging? I ask you.

  14. 14.

    Mnemosyne

    We could have had a new industrialization along the same lines as the industrialization under Stalin.

    When you have Russians longing for the good ol’ days of Stalin, you’re in big trouble.

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    The one (sort of) defense I’ll make is that it may have been like when the guy who’s sitting next to you on the bus suddenly starts talking about how the Illuminati are following him around. You don’t want to agitate that person, so you just nod and smile until they finally get off the bus. And if you’re at the same stop, you wait one more just so you don’t have to share a sidewalk with him.

  18. 18.

    KG

    @different-church-lady: I don’t get all the bitching… I usually skip the opening and closing ceremonies (I think I watched one year in the Summer Games because a girl I went to high school with was on the indoor volleyball team and I wanted to see if she got any screen time). With NBC expanding its coverage to cable, internet, and app viewing models, you can just straight watch events without all the human interest crap if you want. And I have no problem with anything any of the athletes do because it’s all bound to happen (here’s an idea, let’s put a punch of 20-35 year old people in really good shape who have reached the top of their competitive field in a couple of apartment buildings where the media can’t get to them, what could possibly happen?)… But if we’ve learned anything in the last 15 years or so, it’s that people gotta bitch.

  20. 20.

    Corner Stone

    Snowden Docs: British Spies Used Sex and ‘Dirty Tricks’

    British spies have developed “dirty tricks” for use against nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into “honey traps.”

    Documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and exclusively obtained by NBC News describe techniques developed by a secret British spy unit called the Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group (JTRIG) as part of a growing mission to go on offense and attack adversaries ranging from Iran to the hacktivists of Anonymous. According to the documents, which come from presentations prepped in 2010 and 2012 for NSA cyber spy conferences, the agency’s goal was to “destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt” enemies by “discrediting” them, planting misinformation and shutting down their communications.

    Both PowerPoint presentations describe “Effects” campaigns that are broadly divided into two categories: cyber attacks and propaganda operations. The propaganda campaigns use deception, mass messaging and “pushing stories” via Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube. JTRIG also uses “false flag” operations, in which British agents carry out online actions that are designed to look like they were performed by one of Britain’s adversaries.

    In connection with this report, NBC is publishing documents that Edward Snowden took from the NSA before fleeing the U.S., which can be viewed by clicking here and here. The documents are being published with minimal redactions.

    The spy unit’s cyber attack methods include the same “denial of service” or DDOS tactic used by computer hackers to shut down government and corporate websites.

    Other documents taken from the NSA by Snowden and previously published by NBC News show that JTRIG, which is part of the NSA’s British counterpart, the cyber spy agency known as GCHQ, used a “denial of service” (DDOS) attack to shut down Internet chat rooms used by members of the hacktivist group known as Anonymous.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/snowden-docs-british-spies-used-sex-dirty-tricks-n23091

  21. 21.

    Corner Stone

    Senate Fails to Pass Three-Month Extension of Jobless Aid

    WASHINGTON — The Senate failed to move forward on a three-month extension of assistance for the long-term unemployed on Thursday, leaving it unlikely that Congress would approve the measure soon while undercutting a key aspect of President Obama’s economic recovery plan.

    Fifty-nine senators, including four Republicans, voted to advance the legislation, falling one vote short of the 60 needed to break a Republican filibuster effort.

    Republicans and Democrats, many from the nation’s most economically depressed states, had been trying to reach a solution that would allow people who have exhausted their unemployment insurance to continue receiving benefits as long as the government offset the $6 billion cost.

    Ultimately, how to pay for the program proved too big a hurdle for senators to overcome.

    “We’ve given them everything they wanted. Paid for,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, flashing his irritation at Republicans who blocked the bill.

    He said Democrats would keep pushing to extend the benefits, which expired at the end of last year, cutting off more than 1.3 million Americans. That number has since grown to more than 1.7 million.

    Democrats hope to turn the issue into an election-year cudgel and have accused Republicans of ignoring people who are out of work. Republicans have balked at that as political smoke.

    “We know it’s a political game,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah. “We know they’d like to bring it up every three months and bash Republicans with it.”

    Mr. Obama has repeatedly pressed Congress to extend the program, an emergency measure enacted during the recession to provide up to 47 weeks of supplemental payments to the long-term unemployed.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/us/politics/senate-fails-to-advance-unemployment-extension.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-thecaucus&_r=0

  22. 22.

    Warren Terra

    There are a lot of important and scary stories to be told from Russia, and there are a lot of not-very-important and funny stories to be told from Russia.

    And then there’s things like that photo, which is a fake. In fact, it’s in a compilation of fake-funny-Sochi-pictures that I saw yesterday.

  23. 23.

    Corner Stone

    JPMorgan’s Blythe Masters to Join Swaps Regulator Panel

    Blythe Masters, head of JPMorgan (JPM) Chase & Co.’s commodities division, joined an advisory committee of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

    Masters, 44, is a member of the CFTC’s Global Markets Advisory Committee, the Washington-based regulator of futures and swaps said on its website. She was invited by acting Chairman Mark Wetjen to sit on the panel and is scheduled to participate in a CFTC meeting on Feb. 12 to discuss cross-border guidance on rules, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

    JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank, is selling the part of its commodities division dealing in physical assets, such as metals and oil, as regulators examine whether federally backed lenders should be involved in those markets. Masters probably wouldn’t join Mercuria Energy Group Ltd., which is in exclusive talks for the unit, a person with knowledge of the auction said this week.

    The CFTC has been enacting rules required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act designed to reduce risk and increase transparency in the global swaps market, after some firms’ bets on the derivatives helped fuel the 2008 credit crisis. The agency put in place more than 60 rules seeking to have most swaps guaranteed at central clearinghouses, which accept collateral from buyers and sellers, and traded on execution facilities or other exchanges.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-06/jpmorgan-s-blythe-masters-to-join-swaps-regulator-panel.html

  24. 24.

    BGinCHI

    Wait until the Summer Olympics in Passaic, 2024. Now that’s quality corruption. Assuming Christie is still Governor.

  25. 25.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @srv: Reminds me of the realization I had about FoxNews– which I never watch so I was a bit late– when they were ginning up the “czars” bullshit and the ex-Morning Zoo blonde, I forget her name but I know she was a Stanford grad, pretended to be SHOCKED when she “looked up, I mean googled ‘czars’, and I found out it meant” /eye bug out in terror/ “KINGS!”

    That’s how much contempt Fox has for their viewers. They pretend that the meaning of “czar” is obscure historical knowledge. I do think a few of them– Hannity, the other two boobs on the Morning Zoo Croo– are genuinely as stupid as a few others pretend to be.

  28. 28.

    jl

    @lamh36:

    ” Racism and Homophobia Lose as Nearly 50% of Viewers Dump Duck Dynasty ”

    There you go. Nobummer violating the first amendment. Again! Thanks Nobama!

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    @hilts

    That was also barely 1½ months after the airport name was changed from Idlewild (although officially New York International, Anderson Field) to John F. Kennedy International. Many signs had not yet been updated, and remember reporters tripping up and still using the name Idlewild out of habit.

  32. 32.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    I like the Winter and Summer Olympics. If someone wants to be a miserable hater then go for it. Go for the gold even.

  33. 33.

    jl

    @BGinCHI:

    ” Wait until the Summer Olympics in Passaic, 2024. Now that’s quality corruption. Assuming Christie is still Governor. ”

    I can just imagine the headlines.

    Chaos as they close two lanes on the 4 x 400! Connection to hoagie concession payola?

  34. 34.

    stickler

    @Mnemosyne: Russians have been longing for Stalin for a while now. Say what you will about him, Stalin got things DONE. (and a lot of people died in the doing …) The USSR didn’t have oligarchs stealing everything when he was in charge.

    $56 billion is a lot of money, too — maybe it wouldn’t have changed the economy like in the 1930s, but I bet it could have bought something better than ski ramps and hotels with hilarious construction mistakes.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @Yatsuno:

    But, but, but…the GOP let a woman give the first of several Republican responses to the state of the union speech. That should have worked.

  37. 37.

    kindness

    It’ suppose to rain all weekend out here in N Cal and I am happy about it.

    Gonna hit a new BrewPub when I get home. Supposed to have a great selection of microbrew beers to choose from.

  39. 39.

    jl

    @srv:

    ” This is nothing. Obama has literally dozens of czars spending away the future of our country. ”

    And have we gotten any gay-curious shirtless beefcake out Obama’s czars? No, not one pic.

  40. 40.

    ET

    Just read an article that instead of apologizing fr the America the Beautiful commercial Coke ran a long we version. Haha.

    Of course I am sure that the guy who made his family switch to Pepsi products likely had a problem with all the people boycotting Chik-fil-A after the comments of the founder.

  43. 43.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @jl:

    And have we gotten any gay-curious shirtless beefcake out Obama’s czars? No, not one pic.

    Thankfully.

  44. 44.

    Corner Stone

    Someone should shove a pack of thermal wool socks down the throat of Schweitzer.
    Dude is a complete buffoon.

  50. 50.

    Corner Stone

    @Baud: I know he said some stupid shit about Obama. But he’s continuing his monumental stupidity in the effort to support the Keystone Pipeline.
    And just flat lying about shit.

  53. 53.

    Cacti

    @Corner Stone:

    British spies have developed “dirty tricks” for use against nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into “honey traps.”

    Spy agencies practice spycraft? Dios mio! The horror.

  57. 57.

    kindness

    @Corner Stone:

    Freakin’ furriner. Go back where you came from!

    You mean any part of California, Texas or any number of other states? Let us all understand this as snark. I was not suggesting Corner Stone was serious.

  61. 61.

    Chris

    @lamh36:

    I eagerly await the flood of people angrily denouncing Political Correctness and Obummer, explaining that Duck Dynasty had a God-given right to that 50% of their audience, and all that good stuff.

    I absolutely fucking love it when the free market fucks them over. Sorry, assholes. You were selling a brand, your customers liked it until you did something that pissed them off, and then they withheld their money. Market at work. Suck it up.

    @stickler:

    If not Stalin, I understand perfectly well why they’d long for the Soviet Union.

    What’s capitalism ever done for them? Yeah, okay, in the old days there was oppression, poverty, corruption, a shitty safety net. Now there’s still oppression, there’s still poverty, and there isn’t even a pretense of a safety net. Cops didn’t become less brutal or arbitrary with the end of the Soviet days, and now there are gangs and mafias to contend with as well. Capitalism didn’t bring the wealth that was promised, only a small minority got anything out of the transition, which really makes the current wealth distribution no different from the old Soviet days [substitute “robber barons and mob bosses” for “Party apparatchiks” as needed]. Corruption is the same as it ever was. And now, the admittedly lumpy mattress that used to soften all of that is gone and left nothing behind to replace it but cold hard floor.

    What are they supposed to think?

    Sad thing is that by all accounts they were very ready to try something else around 1990, and if the capitalism that was imported had been better, it probably would’ve been a hit. But instead, they got the full package of AEI-style neoliberalism. Instead of “how the economy in the West works,” they got “how one school of thought in the West thinks their economy should work.” The results speak for themselves.

    TL/DR: if you have to choose between Karl Marx and FDR, choose FDR, but if you have to choose between Karl Marx and Ayn Rand, that’s another story. (Credit to… some Balloon Juice front-pager or other for that nugget of wisdom).

  63. 63.

    Ian

    @Yatsuno:
    From the article

    “There’s more work to be done. Republicans are good at speaking from our head about facts and figures. We also need to speak from our heart and make sure people know that we care,” added McMorris Rodgers, the House Republican Conference chair

    Methinks shes talking about figures they get from some other place.

  66. 66.

    2liberal

    Speaking of crazy little czars and non-stop complaining

    ooooh they’re going to be mad at you.

  67. 67.

    mclaren

    The agenda for Democrats now is clear. Since the Democratic party is turning into the Republican party circa Ronald Reagan’s reign of error in 1984, the main goal now is to gloat about minor Repubs who self-destruct (Christie, Boehner, Jindal, Paul Ryan) while ignoring the massive corruption and depravity and extreme rightward shift of the Democrats.

    We must never turn our glance forward at the next Democrat presidency in which Hillary Clinton eagerly launches endless unwinnable new wars in the middle east while jacking up America’s already obscene and pointless military budget, presides over massive new tax cuts and legalizings of vast new crimes by the financial industry, and expands universal surveillance police-state criminalization of even the smallest most innocuous non-violent public (or private) protests. No, let’s not mention any of that: instead, let’s jump up and down and scream with orgasmic jubilation about how tremendously important it is that gay marriage has now been legalized in yet another state.

    We must never discuss the lies and broken promises of our elected Democratic leaders. Instead, we must shout in a united Three-Minute Hate about the hypocrisies of the Republicans.

    We must never examine the savagery of our continent-wide system of gulags which imprisons more people per capita in America than any other nation on earth, including Russia. No, instead we must trumpet the glorious new initiatives of our magnificent Democratic leaders, which include yet another Save-the-Spotted-Owl $5000-a-plate banquet at a swanky Georgetown luxury resort.

    We must not discuss the fact that our president is now treated like a Renaissance prince, pampered with gourmet food at all hours of the day and night, waited on hand and foot by corps of trained butlers and maids, and cocooned inside an armored limousine whenever he steps outside his armed-and-armored White House fortress. Instead, we must publicly rail against the delusional fantasy world in which the typical Republican Koch-brother billionaire lives…pampered with gourmet food at all hours of the day and night, waited on hand and foot by corps of trained butlers and maids, and cocooned inside an armored limousine whenever he steps outside his armed-and-armored Fifth Avenue penthouse fortress.

    The fact that there is now essentially no difference twixt a sheltered pampered spoiled-brat Republican billionaire surrounded by servile yes men, and a sheltered pampered spoiled-brat Democratic president surrounded by servile yes men cannot be allowed to disturb the beautiful minds of the Balloon Juice commentariat.

    And as the American government grows increasingly totalitarian, at first kidnapping U.S. citizens to torture them in secret “black prisons,” then ordering the the murder of U.S. citizens without a trial or even charges, then ordering the universal surveillance of the entire population everywhere at all times, and finally outright censoring and shutting down any news media which report facts the U.S. government doesn’t like — above all, everyone on Balloon Juice must refrain at all costs from drawing parallels between this behavior and Stalin’s Russia, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or the mirror-sunglassed colonels who ran military juntas in countries like El Salvador or Guatamala.

    That’s what’s on the agenda tonight and every night, Anne Laurie.

    Denial: the most dangerous drug known to humanity.

  72. 72.

    Jebediah, RBG

    @Baud:

    So…join a terror network and you get to have sex with a British spy?

    What do I need to do to qualify for getting busy with Lana Kane?

  73. 73.

    Jebediah, RBG

    Speaking of crazy little czars and non-stop complaining, what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?

    Singing to my dogs as soon as I get home from work. To a tune from “Bye Bye Birdie:”
    “I love you Juno
    Oh yes I do
    I love you Chucky
    Also too”

    They are not a tough audience.

  75. 75.

    Heliopause

    On CBC TV the opening ceremonies have already been broadcast twice. I only had it on in the background and didn’t pay real close attention but I can report [SPOILER ALERT]:

    A stray firework struck Bob Costas, who reportedly has third degree burns over 90% of his body, though incredibly his hair was untouched.

    The French team’s outfits were designed by Simone Lo.

    During Putin’s brief remarks a fart-like sound was clearly audible and some of the folks around him seemed to be repressing laughter.

    June Foray does the English voiceover for most of the female characters in the presentation.

  77. 77.

    NeoOstracon

    Crazy like a fox. All that corrupt spending just paid off those supporters that keep him in power.

  78. 78.

    NeoOstracon

    Crazy like a fox. All that corrupt spending just paid off those supporters that keep him in power.

  83. 83.

    SiubhanDuinne

    what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?

    I’m turning my attention to Slavic fairy tales and going to see Rusalka tomorrow afternoon, in the company of a couple of dear friends whom I haven’t seen since my retirement party last June. MetLiveHD, for those who don’t know.

    As I said to (was it Burnspbesq?) (apologies if someone else) a few days ago, this is an opera with which I am not at all familiar, but am panting to hear and see. Renee Fleming, who suddenly has a very high profile thanks to her SSB at the Superb Owl, so there may be a bit of a struggle for good seats. (Normally, at least in metro Atlanta, that’s rarely an issue!)

  85. 85.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @hilts:

    This brings back such memories. In 1964, I got married (May 23, FWIW) and I have a memory of the Beatles’ being the soundtrack to the last few months of my engagement.

    I was pretty conservative then, in every sense of the word. Those Beatles did look extravagantly hirsute in 1964, although it’s lame today.

  88. 88.

    Amir Khalid

    @lamh36:
    Governor Creosote doesn’t quite grasp the concept of “plausible denial” — or at least, not the “plausible” part.

  89. 89.

    different-church-lady

    @Heliopause:

    June Foray does the English voiceover for most of the female characters in the presentation.

    In real life she has enough talent to actually pull that off!

  94. 94.

    Mnemosyne

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Hell, the anti-PropH8 commercials muddied the waters, too, until the last couple before Election Day. WTF was that It’s okay to hate gay people as long as you let them get married bullshit one? I wanted my donation back after seeing that.

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