Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

We still have time to mess this up!

People are complicated. Love is not.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

People are weird.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

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

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

He really is that stupid.

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

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Reader Interactions

135Comments

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    It was a damn fine speech, although her delivery style is not in a class anywhere near Obama or even WJC.
    I still thought it was pretty ballsy.

  6. 6.

    Tree With Water

    The dual citizenship, fellow traveling-pinko Bernie Sanders would be lucky to draw 1/4 the numbers of that Wurlitzing crowd of reporters (and not only is his message as succinct as Hillary’s, he opposed the Bush-Cheney plot to war, too).

  7. 7.

    Joseph Nobles

    Go review theater? Wow. I knew Dave Weigel had it in him, but I didn’t know he’d ever let it out. Bravo!

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    Man, that Amy Chozick at the NYT is something else. She’s got a real hard on for Hillary.

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    “It’s a song called ‘Yesterday,’ ”she said. “They believe in yesterday.”

    Oh now she’s lost Paul McCartney’s vote.

  10. 10.

    David Koch

    Gotta give Weigel props for calling out Susan Page. Like the news outlet she works for (USA Today) she’s always been one of the worst. I remember when Al Franken had a radio show he would frequently call her out for her pitiful tripe.

  11. 11.

    Valdivia

    Good on Weigel for so correctly diagnosing the problem with most of the political reporters and their obsession with ‘optics’ at the detriment of policy. He can be a little too enamored of the libertarians he covers and sometimes a little too savvy but boy does this redeem him in my eyes.

    From everything I read Hillary’s speech was great. Glad to hear it. I understand she will follow up this one with policy speeches detailing everything she touched on today. Excellent idea, she just needs to kepp on keeping on while the idiots in the media follow the shiny ball of the day.

    ETA: I have no idea how this totally false rumour that Sanders has a dual citizenship came up (I know Rehm asked him on NPR). But boy is it annoying to see our own side repeating something that is a blatant lie.

  12. 12.

    MazeDancer

    Very good line from speech:

    “The top 25 hedge fund managers make more than all of America’s kindergarten teachers combined, often paying a lower tax rate”

  14. 14.

    Elizabelle

    Found this in my new (third) favorite blog today, pqed (philosophical questions every day) by Jack Russell Weinstein, a professor in the Great Northern states.

    From March 8: Why the current email controversy is evidence that Hillary Clinton will be president. (Or, some thoughts on political argument).

    Hillary Clinton is the single most qualified presidential candidate in the 2016 election cycle. In fact, she is one of the most qualified people to ever run for president, period. Only a few candidates have ever had eight years’ experience in the white house, only six presidents have been Secretary of State, and her time as Senator of New York, combined with her understanding of rural politics in Arkansas, means that she understands better than almost anyone what it means to govern America. Her doing all of this as a woman only makes her achievements more impressive. Women are not treated well by the American political process.

    I’d say that Bernie Sanders is well qualified too — and he’s certainly asking the right questions — although HRC has the depth of experience here. I would be delighted to support either candidate.

    The Klown Kar is the Klown Kar, no matter how different Jeb! may be from W.

    It’s frightening the Klown Kar starts with about 47% of the vote to lose. Although that may be high. People — not necessarily our press corpse — are realizing how whacked out the GOP is. And these are still hard times. Not the luxury of electing an idiot.

  15. 15.

    fuckwit

    weigel ftw.

    our media is useless, they’re entertainers.

    this is the new world, we have internets, the village will whither away, along with its idiots

  17. 17.

    Tommy

    I have come to flat out love Dave Weigel. He is the only political reporter I follow on Twitter and he is a great source for info. I get he isn’t a liberal like myself, but he seems to actually report the way a Journalist is supposed to. If you use and watch a Twitter feed on your phone or desktop give him a try. I think you will find it an enjoyable experience.

  18. 18.

    Schlemazel

    Maybe Susan is on to something . . . Jesus himself could not get anything useful past the bastards in Congress. ERGO – it is pointless to elect Hillary because despite all good intentions and great ideas she will fail to get them all enacted. Better we elect one of the bozos from the clown car so we don’t expect to get better.

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    C-Span 1 allegedly carrying HRC speech now, started at 3:52 p.

    It will air again at 8:00 p, and at 11:04 p Eastern.

    Also at 5:41 a tomorrow morning.

  21. 21.

    David Koch

    Good speech, but Hillary made a big error by wearing a fur coat made out 101 dalmatian.

    I mean, Bernie is gonna pounce all over that.

  22. 22.

    Ruckus

    @Schlemazel:
    Well of course if Jesus did get elected they’d all deny that he was their Jesus because he’s a dirty fucking hippie and doesn’t believe in stealing the golden calf.

  23. 23.

    Gravenstone

    “Heavy on desires, short on approach”. Yeah, because she can’t exactly say that we basically have to remove EVERY Republican at all levels of government if we have any realistic hope of getting things back on a stable footing for the long term.

  24. 24.

    David Koch

    @Ruckus: not only that, he wears birkenstocks and does commie things like throwing bankers out of the temple

  25. 25.

    sharl

    @Amir Khalid: I assumed, and certainly hope, that TWW was snarking.

    Susan Page is a regular substitute for Diane Rehm (especially when DR has to take a break for her regular voice treatments – see a bit beyond half-way down here for background), as well as frequent participant in her “Friday news roundup: The domestic politics hour”.

    DR’s very reckless and uncalled-for use of a Facebook comment to ask Bernie Sanders to justify his (non-existent) dual citizenship seemed to bring this full circle for me. Maybe they could put DR, SP, Steve Roberts, etc. in the old Duggars time slot on TLC, and find a more alert and thoughtful bunch of folks to occupy Rehm’s 10-noon (ET) weekday slot on NPR.

  27. 27.

    Corner Stone

    So, one of the problems with Jurassic Park beyond all the science items, is that how many years would it take one of the really big a saurus varieties to grow to full size?
    Just because you could clone and hatch one, it still has to grow up. How long does that take?

  28. 28.

    Tommy

    @David Koch: How about it. I am an atheist now but raised a Methodist. My church taught me to care for my fellow human. Give the shirt off my back. Help those less fortunate than myself.

    I might not go to church nor believe in Jesus and the “sky god” but I can’t argue with anything my church preached about social responsibility. The Methodist church was pretty spot on here.

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    Susan Page is a guy?

    Who knew?

    Variation on an old joke:

    Q: Why don’t the Villagers use bookmarks?

    A: They prefer having the Page bent over.

  31. 31.

    Tree With Water

    @MazeDancer: I look at Hillary today the way Hunter Thompson once looked at a portrait of Dean Rusk and felt prompted to ask, “Where’s the blood on his hands”?

    At a commemoration at a military cemetery in Italy shortly after the end of WW2, General Lucian Truscott at one point turned towards the acres of American graves and apologized for any mistakes he committed that might have led to their soldier’s death.

    If Hillary finds it in herself to give such a speech about her role in the Bush-Cheney plot to wage war in Iraq, I’ll be all ears. As far as I’m concerned, until she does that everything amounts to political sleight of hand on her part. She aspires to become commander and chief of the United States armed forces. Just what- if anything- she has learned in the interim is an eminently fair question. At the very least she owes it to the American dead and wounded of that war.

  32. 32.

    Tommy

    @sharl: Generally speaking I love me some Diane Rehm. I love NPR. But her questions to Sanders about his citizenship, and then her shitty statement saying she was sorry freaked me out.

    Saying she got that info off the Internet. You can get a lot of amazing info off the Internet, but you have to fact check it. Are you telling me NPR does not have Nexis/Lexis. She does not have a staff, heck an intern to fact check stuff?

  34. 34.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Schlemazel: Jesus himself would not be allowed anywhere near Congress – brown man who’s clearly a socialist and not a hawk. Hell, they might not let him walk around loose in the District.

    I love to watch RWNJ Xianists’ heads nearly explode when I tell them that Jesus looked a whole lot more like OBL than like the fair skinned dude with reddish brown hair and blue eyes that is depicted in so many church portraits. Of course they know I’m wrong.

  35. 35.

    Corner Stone

    @Keith G:

    Forest Gump grew up in 10 minutes and we still had 2 hours and 15 minutes of classic dialogue left.

    Yeah, but at least then we got to hear Sally Field take a serious humping. What kind of like bargain did we get from the rapid growth of the dinos? I’ve seen Lula Fortune naked, they could have at least given us a little reprise.

  36. 36.

    Keith G

    @Tommy: Freaked you out? Come now. Put away the smelling salts.

    She has a staff. Some one fucked up and now is in fear of their job. It happens. I am sure she will see to it that that type of embarrassment does not happen again. It’s not like she launched a drone attack on a wedding.

  38. 38.

    Corner Stone

    Can I just say that I can not stand commercials where a young child is obviously speaking in “baby” speak when it’s clear they are old enough to speak in understandable pronunciations.

  39. 39.

    Tommy

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): How about it. When I forced to go to church as a kid Jesus was always about as white as white can get hanging up there on the cross.

    I am no expert on the topic but I do read and love me things like the History Channel. Jesus could not have been as white as I am as a Scot. He was born in the Middle East and clearly a few shades darker than myself.

  41. 41.

    VFX Lurker

    @Corner Stone:

    So, one of the problems with Jurassic Park beyond all the science items, is that how many years would it take one of the really big a saurus varieties to grow to full size?
    Just because you could clone and hatch one, it still has to grow up. How long does that take?

    For kicks, I Googled the growth rate of a blue whale and found this info:

    – conception-to-birth takes one year of gestation. When born, the blue whale calf is 23 feet long and weighs 2.5-3 tons.
    – the nursing calf then gains weight at a rate of up to 10 pounds an hour or over 250 pounds/day for six months.
    – after six months, the weaning calf has an average length of 52 feet.

    250 pounds/day for 180 days yields 22.5 tons on top of the calf’s original 2.5-3 tons. So it is possible in nature to go from zero to 25.5 tons in eighteen months.

  44. 44.

    Pogonip

    I think dual citizenship should be illegal. If Israel, or Pago Pago, for that matters, offers you citizenship and you accept, congratulations, here is your itty-bitty flag of your new nation to hold in your first picture, and here is your notice that your U.S. citizenship was automatically revoked as of the moment you became a Pago Pagan. And if we insist on tolerating dual citizenship we certainly should not allow those who have it to hold U. S. political office. Persons who hold dual birthright citizenship should be required to choose on or the other upon attaining majority.

  45. 45.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Should I be concerned about the fact that I have never heard of Susan Page?

  46. 46.

    Tommy

    @Keith G: Look I just don’t like stupid shit. Saying I was freaking out is strong words. I don’t think I am the knee-jerk guy that thinks the sky is falling everyday. For me the questions were like are you a real American asking about citizenship? I didn’t like that. Seemed to me like it was an op-research question from somebody/campaign.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    I thought the contrast with the other side was good, and these really are new things- daycare, prek, sick leave- we don’t have those as a guarantee. It’s also great that JIT (Just In Time) scheduling is now considered an upper-tier issue.

    I also think it’s smart not to go to specific Republican candidates but to treat them as an indistinguishable mob, because that perception could be bit of a problem for them. There are a LOT of them.

    As a bonus, they’ll absolutely hate being lumped together because they’re competitors and of course unique and singular Leaders, each one :)

  49. 49.

    Pogonip

    @SiubhanDuinne: No, because I haven’t either, and I’m not worried at all!

    Well, I’m concerned, but that’s because enormous thunderstorms are rolling through so I have to decide, do I go ahead to the store and use my $10 coupon which I forgot about that expires today, ans risk a power outage upon filling the freezer and fridge? But Susan, whoever she is, doesn’t concern me a bit.

    I’m leaning towards forfeiting the coupon, because they ran one last Thursday and this Thursday, so odds are they’ll do it again this Thursday.

  50. 50.

    mdblanche

    @Elizabelle: Historically both parties have entered an election with about 40% of the vote each locked in. I’d guess recent political polarization has bumped that figure up to 45% and made a 1964 or 1984 style map impossible for now.

    @Corner Stone: The problem I have with all these Jurassic Park sequels is shouldn’t they be buried under a mountain of negative publicity and wrongful death lawsuits that should have shut the park down by now?

  53. 53.

    Tommy

    @Pogonip: I agree. One of my good friends is from the Netherlands. He married a US citizen. The number of hoops he had to jump through to become a US citizen would hurt your head.

    There was nothing he wanted more. He had spent almost his entire life in the US, even if born elsewhere, and he so wanted to be an American citizen. It took almost a decade and the pics of him becoming a US citizen were staggering.

    I don’t think he is a dual citizen. He has a US passport and he very, very happy about it.

  55. 55.

    joel hanes

    @Corner Stone:

    how many years would it take one of the really big a saurus varieties to grow to full size?

    The largest and best-preserved T. rex, in the Field Museum of Chicago, is thought to have lived to almost 29 years, although it would have achieved adult size after 20 years. “Sue” is 12 metres long from head to tail, and estimated to have weighed around seven tonnes, underlining the rapid growth rate of such dinosaurs during their (relatively) short lives

    http://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/feb/07/dinosaur-lifespan
    http://bio.fsu.edu/~gerick/sciencemag/

  56. 56.

    Howard Beale IV

    I will not vote for Hillary. No way, no how. The last thing we need is another neoliberal, and she’s one in spades. Guaranteed she’ll vote for the Grand Bargain if she gets in-you watch.

  57. 57.

    sharl

    @SiubhanDuinne: Heh, I don’t think you need to worry. I think she is of interest primarily to those of us weirdly interested in how the Conventional Wisdom sausage is made, and who is working in that kitchen.

    I actually don’t think Page is the worst of the lot; I would rate the likes of Ron Fournier and Cokie Roberts in that category, with occasional showings in that inner circle of political journalist Hell by others, e.g., Mark Halperin, a “reporter” who was scheduled to conducted sunrise pilates today with well-healed GOP donors.

    I don’t remember for certain, but I think Halperin is Weigel’s boss. Assuming that’s true, it offers the possibility of the existence of verrrry interesting internal private chats between those two.

  58. 58.

    Pogonip

    @Baud: Safety first!

    One time we decided to stock up before a predicted ice storm. I’ll never do that again. Once it became clear the power wasn’t coming back any time soon we had to hurriedly empty out storage bins so we could put the food in them and stick it outside without it turning into a smorgasbord for cats, foxes, and raccoons. There were Halloween and Cheistmas decs EVERYWHERE.

  61. 61.

    Corner Stone

    @joel hanes: That’s good, thanks. I wonder how that translates against the really big o’saurs like the 70 ton dreadnought? I’ve searched 4 sites now and they don’t want to give a growth rate for something that large.

  63. 63.

    raven

    We’re going to see Far From the Madding Crowd even though the original is one of my favorite movies.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    @Pogonip:

    I’m sorry, I did write that wrong. Pre kindergarten. The same guarantee as K-12 but extended. We actually have it here already- it’s public, in the same building as the K-2. It is wildly popular, especially among working class parents which is nice because they’re the target group who are supposed to benefit. They jumped right on it.

    We’re building a new school and it has a whole set of prekindergarten rooms. The idea is lower income kids fall behind before they get to kindergarten or, alternately, higher income kids start ahead, I guess.

  65. 65.

    Corner Stone

    @VFX Lurker: That’s interesting but I think there are a couple problems using it to compare/translate. First, the whale doesn’t have to support it’s body weight on a hard surface. And second, I’m referring to land based objects that are some 3 to 4 times larger in total weight.

  67. 67.

    KarenJ503

    @Tommy:
    Dave Weigel has evolved in the past 4 years…no, make that the past 7 years, from being a green wannabe Journolist scribe to a “both sides do it” parrot in 2010, to what he is now. Apparently the scales regarding the wackos in the Republican Party have fallen from his eyes.

  68. 68.

    Pogonip

    @Helen: Divided loyalties. We have quite a number of U.S. politicians who represent the interests of another country.

  69. 69.

    Tommy

    @Pogonip: Have I missed the news you have a huge storm coming your way. A lot of rain. Power off for a time. Relax. I’ve lived through some storms. Where I drank water out of my bathtub, which was filled for that use. It is rain dude. Hunker down and get through it. Not the end of the world. I know I sound like a bitch saying this, but so be it.

  70. 70.

    Corner Stone

    @Howard Beale IV:
    I will not vote for Hillary
    No way, no how
    I will not vote for Her
    Whether she be sow or cow
    I can not vote that way
    My pearls be clutched too tight
    Nothing you say can sway
    I know that purity makes right

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    @Corner Stone:

    , one of the problems with Jurassic Park beyond all the science items, is that how many years would it take one of the really big a saurus varieties to grow to full size?

    Yep. Godzilla is a much more accurate giant lizard movie.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @Pogonip:

    It was fun to watch it evolve because there was this whole theory of “chaotic homes”- poor people have chaotic homes. People like David Brooks loved it because it’s a moral issue to them- “if you were just better planners”

    They can’t “plan” anything. They have no idea when they’re working or what they’re getting paid or when they need a babysitter or how they’re getting to these crazy shifts. Plan that, David Brooks. Good luck.

  73. 73.

    Pogonip

    @Tommy: My aunts jumped through those same hoops.

    The official position of the U. S. government is that dual citizenship is tolerated but not encouraged. This needs to change. And if you’re all that fond of the old country, you sure don’t need to hold office in this one. I understand that Israel automatically issues citizenship to all Jews and that our government can’t control what they do, but it can and should lean on them strongly to stop encouraging dual citizenship. After all, they need us a lot more than we need them.

  74. 74.

    mdblanche

    @Pogonip: If we didn’t want people in Pago Pago to be US citizens, we shouldn’t have made it part of an unincorporated US territory. Just sayin’.

  75. 75.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Tommy: Problem is that when

    it is rain dude

    with accompanying lighting, it’s not unusual for a bad storm to tail behind it. Tornado, as an example. I can assure you that in that case,

    hunker down and get through it

    is much more difficult than it might sound. I speak from personal experience. It’s easy to be flip on the internet.

  76. 76.

    Kropadope

    “this speech is too heavy on policies.”

    God forbid one ever fail to feed brain-dead clip-length quotables to the MSM.

  77. 77.

    Tommy

    @Kay: I am not sure the politics. But where I live we have great public schools. Some of the best in the state if not the country. My niece had pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. Pretty sure my brother and his wife didn’t pay a single penny. It was a public school kind of thing.

  78. 78.

    Pogonip

    @Kay: I think it’s more the other way around–people who lead chaotic lives tend to become poor. Then they end up in a shitty just-in-time job, ensuring their lives will stay chaotic and they’ll stay poor.

  79. 79.

    Gvg

    Disagree on dual citizenship. It should remain allowed. we are a nation with a tradition of immigrants and freedom. People marry whom they love which does not nessesarily mean they want to change citizenship nor do you know what future the offspring will want. Circumstances vary and we don’t always know what’s best for thousands of other people we have never met. we should mind our own business not make arbitrary rules that only imagine one set of circumstances. Would you forbid birthright dual citizenship to children of immigrants? Leave well enough alone.

  80. 80.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    You should be concerned that you now have heard of her.

    I shall now attempt to expunge her from my awareness.

  81. 81.

    Helen

    @Pogonip:

    Yeah I get the politician thing. In fact there are some Federal employees (the US Attorney’s office for one) who, while not outright disallowing it, make you come up with a real good reason why you feel it’s necessary to have dual citizenship.

    But for non-politicians I don’t really see the harm.

  85. 85.

    Pogonip

    @Helen: Well, I could go along with having renunciation of all foreign citizenships a condition of holding office and ignoring hoi polloi. Hoi polloi could even have Greek citizenship! (Grin.)

  86. 86.

    Corner Stone

    @Pogonip:

    I think it’s more the other way around–people who lead chaotic lives tend to become poor.

    I don’t really disagree but would just say that money insulates from chaos. And you don’t have to be rich to have a layer of protection, just not borderline vulnerable. Repeated chaos means you should probably check your life decisions, just saying.

  88. 88.

    the Conster

    Twitter has turned these old columnists into laughingstocks. They have one more election cycle in them apparently, but they’re irrelevant, and they’re too old at this point for any saving self-awareness. If you don’t have anything meaningful to say in a column length format then tweeting isn’t going to save you, twitter will bury you. Hopefully sooner than later. Who reads columns anymore anyway unless you’re stuck somewhere without your phone, and who waits for a Susan Page or George Will or Richard Cohen column to figure out how to think about something? Some shut-in in Peoria?

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @Tommy:

    The politics of it is weird, because local (and sometimes state) Republicans support it. My district was the last to get it in this area. The tiny rural districts had it first. Of course it would be more complicated if you had a huge population, 50,000 pre-k’ers or something. In a very small rural district it’s literally like 20-30 kids, total. Relatively easy to add.

  90. 90.

    Tommy

    @Corner Stone: Yes this:

    I don’t really disagree but would just say that money insulates from chaos.

    Yes. I have done a few dumb things in my life and access to money caused those problems to almost go away. Money never helped at the core of the issue, but to make a problem vanish, sure. If people don’t understand this they not are not living in the real world.

  91. 91.

    Pogonip

    @Corner Stone: Yes, it does. I know a guy with 3 babies under 5, from 2 different baby mamas. He married baby mama 2 who’s caring for the whole bunch. Children’s Services is giving them the stink eye in a way that would not happen if he were equally irresponsible but could afford to keep the electricity on. And he is completely irresponsible, no doubt about it–his own parents are ready to strangle him–but that’s not his real offense in the eyes of the law. His real offense is he ain’t rich.

  92. 92.

    mdblanche

    @Corner Stone: I still don’t see how you could suppress all the news stories. No way anybody would go there for family vacations. I suppose it could still work as a private hunting park for rich assholes who have to sign a ream of liability waivers before being let in.

  93. 93.

    Ruckus

    @Helen:
    As the world we occupy gets fuller and traveling around gets easier there will be more people who will be dual citizens. They have earned the right to have two(or more) by following the rules to get the second one. Limiting them to less than full citizens after all that sounds an awful lot like asking them to be 3/5 of a person. It assumes that someone born in say Italy has to live there forever, in the same vein of someone born it TX can not move to RI or that someone born here can not move to Italy. It assumes that someone who believes in Islam could not defend this country because they are not christian. It is as old an idea as mankind, you are not of our tribe. You can go through the motions of becoming a member but you can never have full membership. You may be one human but you are 3/5 of a citizen.

  94. 94.

    Corner Stone

    @mdblanche:

    I suppose it could still work as a private hunting park for rich assholes

    IMO, capitalism being what it is, if word got out that dinos were real and killing people on the island(s) then you’d have a wait list of bazillionaires paying to go there.

  95. 95.

    Brachiator

    @MazeDancer:

    top 25 hedge fund managers make more than all of America’s kindergarten teachers combined, often paying a lower tax rate”

    Didn’t Chelsea Clinton work for a hedge fund and marry an investment banker? This does not invalidate HRC’s remarks, but still, you gotta note the irony.

  96. 96.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Tommy: I think you misread the post, which discussed whether it was worth going out to use an soon-to-expire coupon given the coming storms. In a later post the stocking up for an ice storm misstep was discussed.

    You stock up so you’re in good shape if you can’t get anywhere for days. Then the power goes and you have to cool the food outside. Because if the power is off for long…

  97. 97.

    Tommy

    @Kay:

    In a very small rural district it’s literally like 20-30 kids, total. Relatively easy to add.

    That is my nieces thing. Less than 20 kids. What we have. Not sure why we can’t scale it to larger school districts.

  98. 98.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Corner Stone: sounds rather dangerous for bazillionaires. Wouldn’t they rather shoot doves?

    As soon as a rich asshole was presented with a liability waiver he’d chicken out. I don’t think the rich fucks are brave enough to hunt dinos.

  99. 99.

    JPL

    @Howard Beale IV: lol… Just stay home or vote for Nader then and see what damage is done to our country.

    btw,… I like Bernie but he’s not this great progressive. Although a President cannot stand up against the NRA, he could have used his vote.

  101. 101.

    Corner Stone

    @Germy Shoemangler: I see it as the opposite. Look at assholes like Richard Branson and Steve Fossett. The other CEO/founders who think Obamacare is like Nazi shit. These guys aren’t tracking with reality because their money keeps their bubble intact.
    The whole movie series is about capitalistic excess and hubris.

  102. 102.

    Pogonip

    @Ruckus: My idea is you can LIVE anywhere you want, or everywhere you want, but shouldn’t hold multiple citizenships if one of them’s a U.S. citizenship.

    Active dual citizenship complicates taxes in both countries, so most people do pick one and stick with it.

  103. 103.

    sharl

    @KarenJ503: I pretty much agree with you about Weigel, although I’ve mostly* liked him since his days at Reason magazine; the rotten fruit thrown at him by the most assholish of the Reasonoid commenters there only confirmed my opinion. [For what it’s worth, Reason’s Hit-&-Run blog founder Virginia Postrel also has a low opinion of those dirtbags, as do other former H&R front pagers (e.g., Julian Sanchez).]

    I thought Weigel really came into his own at the now-defunct shoestring operation Washington Independent, also a way station for a few other reporters I like (e.g., Annie Lowery, now at NY Mag; and Aaron Weiner, until recently the urban housing guy at Washington (DC) City Paper, now at Mother Jones).

    I might disagree with you a bit on the JournoList thing. The entire concept was a dumb idea hatched by Ezra Klein, which was rashly signed onto by a lot of his fellow young journalists, Weigel included. But while dumb, IMO it was never the big scandal the Wingnut Wurlitzer made it out to be (and continues to do, at least on Twitter). Weigel has always come clean about it, and I particularly admire the way he did it in this post about conservative media’s Operation Groundswell, where – unlike the JournoList forum – coordinated messaging really was the goal.
    Of course, the whole JournoList thing cost Weigel his job at WaPo, where he was covering conservative politics. To replace him, the now-spooked WaPo chose… Jennifer Rubin. I cannot think of two entities more deserving of one another.

    *When it looks like Weigel is going to get into gender-related issues, I get into pre-cringe position. Most of time he ends up doing OK (he seems to learn from his mistakes). But sometimes, not so much. Maybe it’s just because I like his work, and that I’m a fellow white dude, that he makes me a bit nervous in those moments. Mostly I would like to see him succeed without compromising journalistic principles. He’ll never bat 1.000 – almost no one does, in any profession – but IMO he comes closer than most.

  104. 104.

    Helen

    @Ruckus:

    I’m with you. I am all for dual citizenship. I have it myself. I did it mostly because I want options in my life. I want to travel freely and live wherever I want (subject to both country’s rules).

    And quite frankly, it was easy for me to get, all I had to do is be born! Even though my mother came here at age 18 and became an American citizen 9 years later, as far as Ireland is concerned, she died an Irish citizen. And as her daughter I automatically had citizenship. In fact because she was born in Belfast I had the option of choosing the UK or the Republic of Ireland.

    I chose Ireland, got an Irish passport for proof of citizenship (just proof – not the citizenship itself) and PRESTO – I can live just about anywhere in the EU.

  106. 106.

    Ruckus

    @Pogonip:
    And if you want to be part of this tribe instead of part the world, then fine. That person has earned the right to be a citizen of two places. The only point of restricting that citizen is bigotry. Why should someone born here be more of a citizen that someone born in another country who goes through the process and becomes a citizen? Did that person decide to be born here? There is no logical rational behind this, it is tribal. I want to be a good citizen of the world, after all I live in a place that is part of that, not the end all be all of it.

  108. 108.

    Tommy

    @Corner Stone: The rich, super rich don’t understand. My father has a PhD. Worked 30+ years for the DoD. He has a pension and health care through said DoD. Mom and dad have had some health issues the past few years. They paid ZERO money for them. My mom in the ICU and three weeks.

    My mom has come my way, voting liberal in the last few elections. She says and I jump up and down saying the rest of America would like to have the health care she has. You get world class service and don’t get billed a single penny.

    We all want that ………

  109. 109.

    different-church-lady

    @Amir Khalid:

    It’s my understanding that Bernie Sanders has denied having dual citizenship in the US and Israel.

    He’s gone further than simply denying it: he also doesn’t in fact.

  111. 111.

    Ruckus

    @Helen:
    The world is changing. Slowly but changing. Some are and will continue to fight any change or even to revert back to even more tribal times. But that change will come. People will decide to live in different places, their job may take them there, they may like the climate or the people or the language or fall in love. What is the point of giving up the citizenship they or their parents were born with?
    For all it’s monetary problems the EU was a great idea, you could travel or live in a different country and not have to stop every 2-4 hrs, show your passport, get a visa, etc. The people still have their languages/identities/politics but I’d bet that most like it a lot more now. We will always have wars (humans) but creating artificial barriers to people moving makes one more reason to have them.

  113. 113.

    different-church-lady

    @Corner Stone:

    …money insulates from chaos.

    Money means you can buy your way out of chaos — pay other people to make your life simple. You’d be amazed how much you can do in a day when everyone is doing it for you.

  115. 115.

    Suzanne

    @sharl: The JournoList thing was ridiculous. Frankly, JournoList itself sounded ridiculous, like a bunch of cool kids hanging out, talking shit about everyone else. But losing your job for saying that Matt Drudge sucks? Um, I say much worse than that daily, and I am still employed.

  116. 116.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @stinger: Yes, please refer to the women involved as “women.” While “baby mamas” may sound cute or clever to some, it’s quite dismissive of women. Thanks.

  117. 117.

    Anne Laurie

    Full video, courtesty Melissa Harris-Perry/MSNBC, at the top of the page.

    Excellent speech!

  118. 118.

    Kay

    The speech seems like it’s being received fairly well. Here’s a comparison to Eleanor Roosevelt and the WaPo piece was basically “bold!” (my one word summary- they didn’t ACTUALLY use “bold!”)

    http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-13/hillary-clinton-channels-eleanor-roosevelt-on-the-stump

    Roosevelt herself declined to run for political office. “Eleanor was asked to run for Senate, and asked to run for vice president, and indeed asked to run for president. Each time she said, ‘I would rather be chloroformed than run for office,’” Cook said. Harold L. Ickes, one of FDR’s chief aides, had pleaded with Eleanor Roosevelt to run for Senate. She was adamant. But years later, in the battle for a Senate seat against Representative Rick Lazio, one of Clinton’s top political advisers was Ickes’s son Harold M. Ickes.

  119. 119.

    Zinsky

    The media is never, ever, ever, ever going to give Hillary Clinton fair and equitable coverage. The Villagers feel like it is their God-given right to lie, make up shit and just generally throw mud at the Clintons with no accountability or any obligation to fact-check. Fuck ’em! Turn off your TV and keep your radios tuned to Air America and Thom Hartman cuz the next 16 months will be infuriating!

  122. 122.

    Josie

    @Pogonip: I disagree. I’ve been at both ends of the economic spectrum, and being poor creates chaos. Having money gives you the ability to solve many of life’s problems and bring order out of chaos. When you get behind financially, it is almost impossible to right the ship again. A good job with a decent wage is your only hope, and that is a real impossibility for many people. No one works the horrible hours and wages for retail because they want to. They do it because they have no other choice, and retail hours can be a nightmare for anyone with chlldren.

  123. 123.

    Anne Laurie

    @chopper:

    wait, aren’t you the one who wrote in hils instead of voting for O in 2008?

    Either your snark meter needs recalibrating, or mine does!

  125. 125.

    VFX Lurker

    @Corner Stone:

    That’s interesting but I think there are a couple problems using it to compare/translate. First, the whale doesn’t have to support it’s body weight on a hard surface. And second, I’m referring to land based objects that are some 3 to 4 times larger in total weight.

    If the park owners were in a dino-sized hurry, they could have 3d-printed their giant creature the way that we are looking into 3d-printing heart valves right now. Then it’s a matter of getting a large enough printing bed, a enough biomass, and clog-free nozzles. ;-)

    I’ll be watching the film tomorrow. Maybe they mention the timeframe of how long it took to make the new park attraction.

  126. 126.

    Marc McKenzie

    Oh, come on, Dave Weigel…were you asleep during the 1990s? The MSM has always sent daggers at Bill and Hillary. Go read Conason and Lyon’s The Hunting Of The President. And also remember that this is the same MSM that performed verbal fellatio on George W.Bush while telling us how awful Al Gore was because he wasn’t “authentic”. The Naderites bleating “Not a dime’s worth of difference” and “Bush and Gore are the same” didn’t help either.

  127. 127.

    sharl

    @Pogonip:

    I think dual citizenship should be illegal.

    I think this would be much too harsh, though I think in situations where a divided loyalty might pose practical problems – e.g., in Federal government diplomatic or national security posts – there would be justification for forbidding it. [Years ago I knew someone who was given the choice between her dual U.S.-Iranian citizenship, and her Defense Dept. job (which didn’t involve classified information, but apparently in the minds of the Powers That Be, put her in close enough proximity to it to make them nervous)].

    As it stands, there are plenty of loyalty-conflicted U.S. sole-citizenship types, and no such rule is going to make them go away. Jonathan Pollard and his fan club come to mind. And of course there are all those former citizens of Cuba and their political allies who think our foreign policy should be warped into a shape that satisfies their sense of aggrievement (an aggrievement which may often be justified); thank goodness Obama has lanced that longstanding festering boil.

    The thing with Sanders is that his sense of alarm as an aspiring U.S. politician was fully justified. Given the widespread concern about undue Israeli influence on U.S. policy, and the fact that someone with Diane Rehm’s credibility among likely Democratic voters said what she said, Sanders was well-justified in slapping that down, and slapping it down HARD.

  128. 128.

    NotMax

    @VFX Lurker

    Granted, it would make for a very short movie, but few (if any) of the dinos would survive very long after birth, as the composition of the atmosphere is so different from the one they originally evolved to live in.

  129. 129.

    chopper

    @NotMax:

    I would figure if they could genetically engineer a dinosaur from many million-year-old DNA soup (not that that’s at all feasible) they could probably tweak the genome for growth factors.

  130. 130.

    Citizen Alan

    @Amir Khalid:

    It’s my understanding that Bernie Sanders has denied having dual citizenship in the US and Israel.

    It’s my understanding that he didn’t just deny, he looked at the reporter as if she were insane for asking, and when he pushed back, she basically admitted it was just some rumor she saw an Facebook.

  133. 133.

    joel hanes

    @Corner Stone:

    A site I saw said in passing that it was likely that herbivores lived longer than carnivores, and big lived longer than little, so probably the big sauropods lived to be sixty or eighty.

  134. 134.

    fuckwit

    @different-church-lady: I completely agree. Money makes everything easy. You simply throw down cash and your problems disappear. It’s magical. If you’re born with it, you never realize how magical it is until you don’t have it anymore. Then suddeny you’re like, HOLY SHIT, this is hard. And your life is destroyed, permanently.

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