Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

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

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Let there be snark.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

“But what about the lurkers?”

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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

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Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    So, one of the people commenting is Joe Walsh. From his twitter address, I take it he’s the teatard who spends much of his time avoiding paying child support.

  3. 3.

    David Koch

    Fashionably sensitive but too cool to care

    For the life of me, I’ve never understood why some people quote “the invisible hand” twins of Sully and Friedersdor.

    The latest from Conor — he can’t understand why people are ripping him for saying he says opposes discrimination against gays, but thinks it’s worse to enact laws banning discrimination.

    @bobcesca_go @sullydish we aren’t apologists for discrimination. We abhor it, but stop short of wanting to make it illegal

    Yes, yes, the invisible hand worked so well in ending discrimination in NazI Germany and in the Confederacy.

    Sickening white male privilege at it’s starkest.

  6. 6.

    Suffern ACE

    @David Koch: For Sully, a lot of the point is that he considers the civil rights movement to be a failure for minorities and he doesn’t want gay men to be considered minorities.

  7. 7.

    frank in midtown

    What do you expect from a society that is obsessed with if the children is learning? Maybe it just needs more awesome sauce, oooh, and some shock, more Shock and Awesome sauce.

  8. 8.

    Elizabelle

    What’s wrong with it?

    More appealing to me than Pajama Boy. No one is questioning this dog’s testosterone level.

    Are they?

  10. 10.

    Suffern ACE

    @Roger That: Yep. That’s pretty much been the master story that’s been told since forever. Feminists, African Americans, Pacifists, and all sorts of progressivism were winning in the 1960s, and then the gays came along and caused such a big backlash that everyone was set back 20 years.

    I’m sure Brian Fischer would be all for equal pay for women in the workplace and is committed to women who attempt to find meaning outside of traditional roles of mother or whore if only those gays hadn’t come along.

  11. 11.

    Big R

    Going to attend a speech by the director of the Speech Language Disorders Clinic at the University of Tennessee. Should be interesting, since we contribute pretty heavily to them. Dinner will be served.

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    IIRC, it’s technically not LOLspeak, but damned if I can remember what Kids Today call it, and it actually is the big new thing.

    I’m going to be the first one to go against the crowd and say that the problem is the Olds in the media who aren’t as hip and cool and up on the trends as they think they are.

  13. 13.

    Jim C.

    If anyone’s interested in some reading for the evening…this reminded me just a touch of the first John Cole “I’m done with these fuckers” (paraphrased) post that I followed a link to that got me following Balloon Juice in the first place.

    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/twilight-of-the-right/

    Maybe a bit more politely worded (and wordy) and a little more handwringing and reluctance to admit that it’s all been a lie all along, but an interesting reflection nonetheless and worth reading IMO.

    An excerpt:

    “I’d like to think that a movement incapable of critical self-examination is doomed, but I have been wrong before. As late as 1992, I wrote in the Washington Post that the Reagan years were a period in which conservatism “was transformed from a philosophy of cautious stewardship into an ideology that encourages individuals to pursue self interest, whatever the consequences to others.” This, again, was probably wishful thinking. I’m no longer persuaded that American conservatism as it has existed for half a century has ever been a “philosophy of cautious stewardship.” I’m not even sure, given the magnitude of this country’s challenges, that “cautious stewardship” will be good enough.”

  14. 14.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Roger That:

    What a WATB that guy is (and all the scum at AFA are).

    No, you can’t recreate Jim Crow for gays, asshole. Won’t happen.

    Religious freedom, my ass.

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jim C.:

    The “cautious stewards” nowadays are all people that “conservatives” actively hate on…environmentalists, regulators, those who value the rule of law…

  20. 20.

    James Gary

    IIRC, it’s technically not LOLspeak, but damned if I can remember what Kids Today call it, and it actually is the big new thing.

    “Doge.” I’m over 40, BTW.

  21. 21.

    jl

    As long as post concerns health:

    Estonian and Finnish researchers think they have found a simple blood test that accurately predicts five year mortality.

    Maybe some people who know about this stuff can say what they think. Article should be open access.

    Biomarker Profiling by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy for the Prediction of All-Cause Mortality: An Observational Study of 17,345 Persons
    PLoS Medicine
    http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001606;jsessionid=208472FDCFE1A0D469F2708051C4155A

  25. 25.

    PIGL

    @Mnemosyne: sounds like Chinese too me. And yes, the olds are not at al trendy. Like most of us, they think the cool they absorbed in their 20s or 30s (or —save us — High School) is timeless. Sad, really.

  26. 26.

    JustRuss

    @Jim C.: Yes, it’s almost as if “cautious stewardship” is the direct opposite of the “what could possibly go wrong?” that accompanies every hare-brained conservative scheme.

  32. 32.

    PIGL

    @Villago Delenda Est: In one Le Carré’s novels, Smiley refers to Control’s “old man’s innaccurate use of contemporary idiom” or something like that. I first read that line 40yrs ago, and now I are one.

  35. 35.

    Lyrebird

    @Elizabelle: Oh I would welcome a (perhaps 15 yrs older verson of a) Pajama Boy to visit ANY time.

    But this is cute. Predictably oldspeak fail or whatever, but heck, if the snide remarks get more free press — might well be worth the effort.

  38. 38.

    EthylEster

    @Jim C.: nice read, thanks. my favorite part is below. it made me laugh (to myself, not out loud).

    But at last year’s CPAC, the venerable Stan Evans offered these worry warts cause for hope. Conservatives might not be having babies fast enough, he said, but liberals “are aborting themselves out of existence.” I am still figuring out whether conservatives should think this is a good thing. If it’s true, they should be able to relax and let the demographics work their will, though that seems a rather Darwinian way to get the job done. I also wonder how it might factor into their “pro-life agenda.”

  39. 39.

    EthylEster

    @jl: I’m reading it now. But am blown away by the Editors Summary. I want every technical article to have such a useful feature!

    Citrate?

  40. 40.

    danielx

    What’s on the agenda? Figuring out how to pay bills for the next month because client told me he can’t afford to pay me until April 1st. So a month with only the spousal unit’s income, which isn’t going to get it, and by the time April 1st rolls around I’ll have to spend three days just figuring out what I’ve already done and why I’ve done it, since I don’t plan to work on that particular project again until I receive a check.

    Lack of a full time job with an employer who can afford to pay me and provide benefits truly sucks. I know very well there are so many people who are worse off; I’ve got a roof over my head and I’m broke, not poor. But I can’t afford to fix my house or car and middle class things like going on vacation are long past, and…it wears you down.

    Enough

  41. 41.

    EthylEster

    @James Gary: ya know, there are a lot of things that are too stupid to keep track of. this might be one of them. i read the wiki article (meme!). very…uh, forgettable IMO.

  43. 43.

    Lyrebird

    @danielx: good thoughts comin’ your way if you’d like ’em.

    I teach at the univ. level, without (so far) a permanent job. When the ultra senior (permanent) folks here complain that the toes of their legacy might get stepped on when they (comfortably) retire, well… I just wanna make ’em go fix your car, fund your new boiler/roof/whatever, shovel your walk, and generally wake up!

  44. 44.

    FlipYrWhig

    I had to look up what “doge” was. All evidence suggests it is far, far stupider and more annoying than LOLcats.

  48. 48.

    Cervantes

    @Jim C.:

    Maybe a bit more politely worded (and wordy) and a little more handwringing and reluctance to admit that it’s all been a lie all along, but an interesting reflection nonetheless and worth reading IMO.

    Alan Crawford has been thinking about this a long, long time. In 1977, before direct-mail fund-raiser Richard Viguerie and his New Right allies (e.g., Paul Weyrich, Joseph Coors) were enthroned in DC, Alan warned us about the “conservative movement” in the pages of The Nation:

    [Viguerie argues that] conservative Republicanism is political poison. It cannot be marketed because a rigid adherence to the free-enterprise system has caused traditional conservatives to overlook an entire segment of the American electorate — the blue-collar “social conservative” — who shares with traditional conservatives an opposition to busing, gun control, abortion and detente. If only conservatives would surrender some of their attachment to free-market economics and their distrust of labor unions and federal power, Viguerie believes, there would be more than enough agreement between the blue-collar workers and the Reaganites to form a powerful new party.

    That’s Crawford writing in 1977. You can download the article here (provided you do it soon).

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