Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

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

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

I really should read my own blog.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

In my day, never was longer.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

He really is that stupid.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Another Unfortunate Coincidence for JEB

Open Thread: Another Unfortunate Coincidence for JEB

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From the Gawker post:

… For unfamiliar Yanks, [Jimmy] Savile was one of Great Britain’s most beloved and popular entertainers during his lifetime, covering the gamut from radio to television to charity work and everything in between. He was even knighted by the Queen in 1990. But after Savile died in 2011, what had long been sporadic and stifled allegations of sexual abuse began to blow up. And up and up and up.

By November of 2012, it was revealed that 450 alleged victims had come forward in the mere ten weeks since the police launched an investigation into Savile’s behavior. According to a BBC report from the time, of the hundreds of alleged victims, 82% were female and 80% were “children or young people.”

In 2014, a new report from the Health Secretary revealed that Savile also may have sexually abused patients at over 40 different hospitals he had visited under the auspice of “charity work.” With the Daily Mail writing that “Savile is thought to have abused patients aged from just five to 75.”

And before all that came to light, Jimmy Savile had a wildly popular children’s show called Jim’ll Fix It…

One British Gawker contributor is quoted “… The show was way before my time, but I knew about it because it was a big cultural reference point. And now it just has such horrifying connotations. Very similar to the Cosby thing.”

Queen of the Media Village Mean Girls Maureen Dowd had an uncharacteristically nasty piece about the Bushes last weekend — normally, such super-scavengers are careful only to attack dead or dying prey. “Fall of the House of Bush“:

… As much as Poppy Bush scoffs at “the D-word,” as he calls any reference to dynasty, the Bushes do consider themselves an American royal family. They have always pretty much divided the world into Bushes and the help. The patriarch once sent me a funny satire referring to himself and Barbara as the Old King and Queen, W. as King George of Crawford and Jeb as the Earl of Tallahassee.

At 91, 41 is living to see Jebbie become president. He is mystified by a world in which Trump, whom he considers a clown, could dethrone the crown prince.

Jeb said in New Hampshire that Poppy is prone to throw his shoe at the TV when Trump comes on. Fortunately, the former president always has very stylish socks…

When the Bushes had to stick a shiv in the ribs of their foes, they behaved like gentlemen and outsourced it to henchmen. They can’t fathom a world where that vulgarian Trump is doing his own dirty work…

…[T]his campaign has been defined by Trump parachuting in, like an Elvis impersonator in Vegas, and disrupting the royal coronation. Jeb had been out of politics for eight years and he strolled back, mistakenly assuming that the vassals were waiting eagerly to hail him.

With Trump belittling him for being low energy and running to Mommy and Daddy for help, Jeb realized he was in a new world.

His brother’s muscle-bound presidency led to Barack Obama and the diffident Obama led to a new brand of furious, Tea Party-infused Republicans…

Jeb is trapped in a nightmarish déjà vu. Once he was cast as the wonky one while his brother, the sparky one, slipped ahead. Now Jeb is cast as the wonky one while Marco, the sparky one, slips ahead…

Guess MoDo figured she’d better empty the venom sacs before old CIA hand George H.W. “What Iran-contra Scandal?” Bush actually kicks off, when the Media Village Idiots will all be required to put on their grown-up sadfaces and pretend Poppy handing his balls over to Ronald Reagan didn’t indicate the start of the Teabaggers’ GOP takeover. When it comes to properly acknowledging the distance between Our Well-Endowed Betters and the rest of us, there’s nobody can be counted on like America’s “best” pundits!

Reader Interactions

228Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Queen of the Media Village Mean Girls Maureen Dowd had an uncharacteristically nasty piece about the Bushes last weekend

    lolwut?

  2. 2.

    chris

    Just checking in from soshulist Canuckistan where we are about to get moar soshulist. Works for me.

    So does the new! new! site. Well done all.

  4. 4.

    Jane2

    I was shocked when I saw the slogan on Twitter. Obviously not one person on his campaign team has read a British newspaper in years.

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    The Jeb campaign and the UK thing are completely different. For instance, there are more people of color in the Jim version than will be associated with the entire run of the Jeb shop.

  7. 7.

    benw

    At some point, a simply incompetent campaign starts to look no different from an elaborate piece of performance art positing the meaningless vacuousness of American political narrative discourse.

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    Just the use of the word “fix”, in any way, is really awful on the Jeb campaign’s part. Fix? Fixer?

  9. 9.

    Arm The Homeless

    I bet W. loves the fact that ¡Yeb! is no longer thought to be ‘The Smart Bush Scion’.

    I sure hope ¿Yeb? comes knockin’ in Tally. I would love to remind those assholes about their part in the Schiavo affair.

  11. 11.

    jl

    Rubio is the ‘sparky’ one? I guess compared to Jeb?. But compared to any other candidate?

    And any ‘spark’ I do see in Rubio is sprayed on PR BS, not the real thing.

  14. 14.

    Corner Stone

    There are three things that make this blog worth a darn, operationally. Recent Comments (RIP, old friend), comment numbering, and a functioning Reply feature.
    Cole straight murdered Recent Comments. Apparently numbered comments also must somehow drag down the databases somewhere, somehow so a putsch is being attempted early on. And the redheaded half ass questionable offspring version of the Reply feature/can’t get back to where you were seems to be headed for 0 for 3.

  15. 15.

    Corner Stone

    He’s a grinder. He eats nails before his breakfast.

    Is he running for president or for the nomination to be one of Gruden’s Grinders?

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    What picture of what dog?

    ETA: Never mind, I went back to main page and saw the dog. I suppose it’s one of Anne Laurie’s papillons.

  21. 21.

    Corner Stone

    @Pogonip: I’m not a fan of the slow scroll back up the blog when you click on a linked comment and the immense amount of whitespace everywhere makes me wonder if I am commenting in Idaho in winter.
    If I wanted to be surrounded by so much whiteness I’d buy a ticket to CPAC.

  23. 23.

    Renie

    Any minute RtR aka (for today) as Real Change will be along to let us know about the new (post Jeb WIll Fix It) rebranding. ?JEB? is turning into the political Dr. Who with all these new generations of himself.

  24. 24.

    satby

    @Corner Stone: supposedly there’s stuff in the offing that will make us “stand up and clap”, which is not actually what I want to do when I sit down to read a blog. The plot, she is lost.

  26. 26.

    beltane

    Whoever would have predicted that Donald Trump of all people would be the vessel of divine retribution? The Bush family was deserving of humiliation, but Donald Trump? The FSM must have a sense of humor.

  27. 27.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Corner Stone: He’s a grinder. He eats nails before his breakfast.

    And shits thumbtacks?

    And the Canadian company behind the Keystone pipeline has pulled its application from the State Dept! Now that connotes excitement.

  29. 29.

    Mike J

    @Baud: I don’t see one at the top, but if you go back to the previous post and look at the icon on the next post, the dog appears.

  30. 30.

    Ruckus

    I’m so glad I’m not a hundred yrs old and no longer capable of seeing change as a positive thing.

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @satby: supposedly there’s stuff in the offing that will make us “stand up and clap”,

    I thought maybe that was from a new internal campaign memo from Jeb!

    Reply function works for me, but I would also like to see numbered comments come back, and less whitespace.

    Is the fact that I long for grey an indication of depression?

  35. 35.

    schrodinger's cat

    I miss the old format. I find the nth degree of redundancy annoying
    Example:
    Header says Balloon Juice
    Then the first page says Balloon Juice blog

    WTF is a quote rotator? Everything doesn’t need a caption. We are not in kindergarten.

  40. 40.

    The Sailor

    so far, this sucks. And not in a good way.
    The colors are all wrong, you can’t see the buttons, and waaaay too much white space.
    But that’s just me, YMMV.

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    ‘scuse me while I pat myself on the back…

    ‏@ benshapiro
    White males, those universally despised creatures, gave women the vote, @ crproudman, and not because Meryl Streep threw molotov cocktails.

    Memory fades, the lights of snarkness past grow dim… Is this the erstwhile Virgin Ben, or was that Domenech? and are both or just BD frequent token annoyances on the Hayes show (where Comcast has crapped out in the middle of the Krugman interview)?

  43. 43.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: She’s always nasty, but not about the Permanent Republicans or other very serious persons. If MoDo feels safe attacking Poppy — never mind Jeb — the Bush Dynasty is in serious trouble.

  45. 45.

    Corner Stone

    @schrodinger’s cat: IMO there seems to be an element of commercialism somewhere, like a product for sale and if you repeat it enough times in the first eyeballs you may close a sale.
    I’m not sure why the Recent Posts are all crammed at the top in a list view. I have no idea who the author is, or what the lead-in is. Is it a DougJ play on music titles and favorite songs from the winter of 1978 that I could care less about? Is it a Mayhew referee story where technique is involved? Heaven forbid I have to scroll down a little to see the blurb that goes with each post before I decide to click on it. Which is what I was going to do anyway, so why cram them up my cramhole instead of just listing posts?

  47. 47.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: Us front-pagers need to choose “an image” (in this case, my dog Zevon). I was supposed to be able to disable that image for a particular post, but while the embed function worked, the ‘disable’ button didn’t. Learning curve…

  48. 48.

    Corner Stone

    Colts just snakebit this season. I like Luck but this season is heading toward epic levels of disappoint.

  49. 49.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Corner Stone: After the redesign, the blog has become less functional and less pretty. We seem to have sacrificed both form and function.

    ETA: What is with the tiny fonts and huge amounts of white space. There are about 4 comments visible on my laptop screen.

  55. 55.

    The Sailor

    MNF is my team playing.
    Go Colts, oh, fuck me. The offense can’t block and now the center can’t snap. Seriously, it wasn’t even a long snap, grab it and put it up between your ass and your cup.

  56. 56.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Right, Virgin Ben, and white people gave civil rights to black Americans out of the goodness of their hearts and not because of any boycotts or marches. History is easy when you ignore all facts and context!

    (Ben Shapiro is The Virgin Ben, Ben Domenech is The Plagiarist Ben.)

  61. 61.

    Iowa Old Lady

    The Republican debate revolt seems to be coming apart. Trump says he’ll negotiate directly with the networks. Christie and Fiorina won’t sign the letter. I blame Obama.

  64. 64.

    Corner Stone

    I do like the “Last Post” “Next” place markers that stay with you no matter where you are in the thread. You can refresh and see there’s something new without having to scroll all the way to the bottom. The “All the way up” arrow is also useful, IMO.

  65. 65.

    Anne Laurie

    @Corner Stone

    : If I wanted to be surrounded by so much whiteness I’d buy a ticket to CPAC.

    Give Tommy credit, it *is* less blindingly white than it was last night. For which my aging eyes are grateful!

    There will be a learning curve on both sides here, but — as I’m sure you remember — it’s nowhere near as godsawful as previous site migrations, so there’s that.

  74. 74.

    chris

    Whoa! People this is FYWP remember. If you think it sucks out here imagine what it’s like in the boiler room. No need to worry about the poisonous snakes they’ve all been killed by the spiders.
    Seems like there’s one brave soul, Tommy, working on it. Give him a chance.

  75. 75.

    Corner Stone

    Riverboat Ron going for it on 4th down & 1 near goal.
    TD CAR
    This Colts D just has nothing going for it and it’s making Andrew Luck take waayyy too much on himself. That earlier INT was just an awful series of choices by a Luck who obviously feels if he doesn’t do it no one else will. And he’s right. So…

  78. 78.

    raven

    There is a video intro to the new look that Tommy put together, I’m sure some of you experts can run over there and find a bunch of shit to cry about too. Fucking douche bags,

  79. 79.

    Fair Economist

    @Corner Stone: It’s really a tragedy, but I guess you’ll just have to stop commenting. Don’t worry, much as we’ll miss you, we’ll soldier on.

  82. 82.

    Corner Stone

    I love it when they say, “they have to play complementary football!”
    “Friend, your ass looks fabulous in that uni!”
    “Thanks, you! BTW, you look great in that mayflower blue, really brings out the green in your eyes!”

  85. 85.

    The Sailor

    @chris: Whoa! People this is FYWP remember.

    I would quote that, except the buttons are the same color as the text on the buttons.

    And no, they didn’t have to change anything. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
    Some of you may recognize the crossed wrench & rubber logo, if I could find a way to post it: If you can’t fix it, fuck it.

  86. 86.

    Chyron HR

    @raven:

    There is a video intro to the new look that Tommy put together

    The fact that someone felt it necessary to make an instructional video teaching people how to read the new website is in itself a red flag.

  89. 89.

    M. Bouffant

    @Ruckus: I am completely disoriented. Balloon Juice seems odd somehow, the sun is gone yet it’s barely six, & now wet stuff falls from the skies. Not long ’til the meteors, I guess.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I repeat: Looks like TransCanada has withdrawn their request for the State Department to approve the Keystone pipeline. Not officially dead, but it looks like it’s in critical condition.

  94. 94.

    Anne Laurie

    @Miki: Oh, Hugo is indeed gorgeous!

    Zevon is a rescue, and quite smart, but not particularly ‘typy’. Apart from his ‘wolfy’ head, he’s got an incorrect double coat (not to mention a chronic skin issue that the vet says usually occurs in cockers or poodles) and he’s just over 12″ at the shoulder (at least a third bigger than a show Papillon). He has the winning Pap-ersonality in spades, though!

    My first Papillon (first dog) was a ‘pet prospect’ from one of the top breeders — another oversized boy, who is fondly remembered by everyone who ever met him. Our next two were also from that breeder (one retired show girl, another not-quite-up-to-those-standards yearling). The four since then have been acquired off the internet, three from breed rescues & one from Petfinder.

    The Spousal Unit & I both hope to own another adorable Papillon puppy some day… but right now our three variously “imperfect” rescues are as much as we can handle!

  97. 97.

    The Sailor

    @raven: “A red flag of what, it takes time to make a major change? ”

    They had time, or didn’t you notice how long the whole site was down?

  102. 102.

    The Sailor

    “It hasn’t worked on Chrome for six motherfucking months. Is that what you call “if it ain’t broke”? ”

    It still doesn’t.

  103. 103.

    Big Picture Pathologist

    This is a bit unfair… I read a number of articles on JS and even I didn’t hear of that particular slogan.

    Don’t let this defense obscure the fact I find Jeb tied for first with Ted Cruz for most loathsome candidate.

  104. 104.

    raven

    Nutella says:
    November 2, 2015 at 6:46 pm
    Can I just say that, as a web app developer, I’m glad I’ve never had to deal with UX demands from a hundred snarling jackals (aka site users) on go-live day demanding more changes or fewer changes that must be done or undone right now? I usually have 2 or 3 clients sending me bug reports and feature requests and that’s plenty to deal with.

  110. 110.

    ed_finnerty

    seriously

    $100 million and they come up with “Jeb! will fix it”

    what is he Goober Pyle

  113. 113.

    Miki

    @Anne Laurie: Hugo is oversize – probably close to 13 inches. His breeder knew he would be a big boy. I don’t think she knew he would be so gorgeous! He has a ginormous personality – my friend was a bit overwhelmed by it for a time. But they’ve figured out how to live together and both of them have blossomed! I adore him. I’ve been sucked in by poodles (standard and miniature) for the last 20 years but my next breed will be a Pap. They’re darned near perfect.

  117. 117.

    The Sailor

    @raven: I used to do this shit for a living. No, you don’t roll it out when it doesn’t work, you roll it back.

    What, it’s developed for IE? It doesn’t work on Chrome, it doesn’t work on Firefox, it doesn’t work on Safari.
    And you didn’t notice the whole site was down yesterday to roll this out!?

    With your mad skillz I’m sure you could have changed the local CSS to make Chrome work for you. And obviously, you did something, you’ve been here all along.

  118. 118.

    raven

    @The Sailor: What do you do now, roving critic?

    eta I didn’t do anything. I started using it on Chrome and it worked. It used to simply freeze up.

  120. 120.

    gah

    not liking this redesign one bit. it’s just garish to my eyes, and doesn’t seem to solve anything from before…

    at some level, i’m resistant to change, like most humans, but when i try to climb above that sentiment, i still don’t understand what the gain is here. it’s clunky, ugly, and even less accessible than it was previously….

  121. 121.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Big Picture Pathologist:

    It sounds like it was the name of Savile’s long-running TV show, not a slogan. One of those things that would be instantly familiar to Brits but not to Americans.

    So it’s more that the Brits are snickering at Jeb’s cluelessness than that it’s something everyone in the US should have known.

  122. 122.

    The Sailor

    The only thing worse than the MNF game is the announcers for it.

    [ETA]
    Wow, maybe the refs.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    I’m like a Bush dead-ender at this point. I’m still convinced he manages to pull this out. I don’t know how! They’ll think of something!

  132. 132.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: Gossip on Tweety was there are more shoes to drop on Li’l Marco’s comingling” of personal and party money. I think they used to call it “grifting”, if not “embezzlement”

    I think that’s the kind of thing that sticks if he starts to stumble. The big threat to him I think is trump talking about immigration.

  135. 135.

    Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA

    I just want Jeb…? to stay in the race, only so Mommy has to spend months worrying her beautiful mind with the fact that the country has finally, at long last, figured out that she raised nothing but parasites and trash.

  136. 136.

    Ruckus

    @satby:
    None of this is aimed at you, it’s just a rant on my part. I just came back to BJ and checked in and your post is one of the first I saw.

    For about the sixth time, I like it. Would I have changed it if it were my blog? Have no idea but it seemed rather clunky and some days worked very poorly. For me this is better. Yes it’s new, yes I’ll have to get used to it, it’s no longer my internet blankie. But in the last 3 yrs I’ve gone from having no job and no money and sleeping on a friends floor to having a job that pays decent to living in a nice apartment. Of course I go tomorrow for a biopsy, I’m under the care of a neurologist for a possible debilitating disease with no cure, I’m having a migraine for the third week in a row, so maybe I’m still trying to look for the brighter sides of things.
    Many here are not privileged but the complaining about how horrible this is has become very tiring in the over all scope of things as I see it and to me is a classic case of first world problems. I’ve got much bigger fish to fry than how someones blog looks. And yes I spend an inordinate amount of time here like many others. It just isn’t all that important.

  137. 137.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Not him. That family. I always thought George HW was vicious, but I never like the moderates as much as other people do.

  138. 138.

    Anne Laurie

    @Kay:

    Do we have avatar photos?

    The Site Designers would like all us front-pagers to pick “an image”, as I understand it. Not sure it’s the best way to flag separate posters on this particular blog — as people have mentioned, poor Zevon doesn’t deserve to be associated with #FailBush — but this is still a work in progress.

  142. 142.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Oh, good. The Florida state GOP was horribly corrupt and that was during his rise. I don’t know though- Republican voters seem not to care about corruption anymore. They’re so belligerent now “so? who cares? they’re all crooks” It kind of fits into (fake) anti-government postures they take.

  144. 144.

    The Sailor

    @raven: For a lot of reasons, I’m in a shitty mood tonight. I apologize to you and everyone else here.
    (But I still hate the bloglift;-)

  147. 147.

    Anne Laurie

    @Kay:

    I always thought George HW was vicious, but I never like the moderates as much as other people do.

    GHWB is the grandson of a man who made his fortune enabling Nazis and the son of a man who climbed to his Senate seat playing footsie with Joe McCarthy. Anybody who expected CIA head “Poppy” Bush to be other than a self-serving monster just wasn’t paying attention. And gods know, nothing he did from his introduction to the national stage going forward has been anything but self-serving and monstrous!

  148. 148.

    gogol's wife

    @Anne Laurie:

    So that’s why every Zandar post today had a tipping-over matryoshka doll or something. I didn’t see how it was relevant to every post he was writing. Now I get it. It’s like the little purple-people-eater avatars they gave all the commenters once.

  151. 151.

    Debbie

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Help me understand your objections. I just looked at your blog and the font’s much smaller.

    My eyes are beyond aging and I admit I’d like a slightly larger font and a little less leading, but I don’t get the ceaseless carping (and it’s barely been 24 hours!). People have voiced their gripes and made their requests and that should be enough. Saying it more won’t make it magically change.

    Thank the universe I did not become a kindergarten teacher. I wouldn’t have lasted.

  152. 152.

    normal liberal

    Thanks to Tommy for all the work he’s done already, even since this went live – I can now resize on my iPad, for example. Perhaps he gets some time to work through the list in John’s post below? I too would like comment numbers, more contrast on various buttons and so on, but Rome wasn’t built, etc., especially when some of the earlier coding was apparently done in Julius Caesar’s day.

  153. 153.

    Anne Laurie

    @redshirt:

    It’s so weird the Bushes are like secret Mainers.

    Only in exile to “summer” together. Bar & Poppy were among the original WASP Aryans from Darien, CT, before the state was overrun with NYC day-trippers and those people in Hartford.

    Dubya’s not leaving Texas, nor Jeb! Florida (unless the posse catches up with them). Those big Sunbelt states are much more amenable to the Boomer-Bush generation’s unvarnished grifterism.

  154. 154.

    Kay

    @Anne Laurie:

    Thanks. I was afraid it was for commenters and we all had one but I just didn’t see mine for some reason. I’m using my son’s Chromebook.

    I didn’t get asked to pick an avatar but I don’t blame them- I hardly ever post anymore. If I ever start again I’ll have to pick one, that is if I can still get into the editor and figure out how to post.

  155. 155.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anne Laurie: JEb reminds me of Poppy in that he’s willing to be as dirty as a turd blossom (to pick an image at random), just not very good at it.

  157. 157.

    Corner Stone

    @Ruckus:

    Many here are not privileged but the complaining about how horrible this is has become very tiring in the over all scope of things as I see it and to me is a classic case of first world problems. I’ve got much bigger fish to fry than how someones blog looks.

    Complaining…about people complaining…about how a blog looks. And you’re going to go with that sounds like first world problems?

  158. 158.

    The Sailor

    @gogol’s wife: “Stop lurking and join the (inane) conversation :) ”

    I’ve been hanging out for years. The first time I commented I introduced myself, like a polite guest, explained my ‘nym, but I don’t usually say anything if I got nuttin’ to say.

  159. 159.

    Keith G

    @The Sailor:

    I would quote that, except the buttons are the same color as the text on the buttons.

    The button in question changes color when the pointer passes over it. I would hope that that level of effort does not present an insurmountable barrier to blog commenting.

  160. 160.

    Anne Laurie

    @gogol’s wife:

    So that’s why every Zandar post today had a tipping-over matryoshka doll or something.

    I think it’s a Weeble, like his contact address (but even my youngest sibs were too old for 70s toys).

  163. 163.

    Kay

    Tommy, if you’re reading it looks fine and it seems speedier somehow. It just takes a little getting used to, but thanks for agreeing to do it.

  165. 165.

    PurpleGirl

    @schrodinger’s cat: At some point this afternoon, Tommy had taken off the title “Wisdom????” and the tag was there alone. Then “Quote rotator” appeared. Yeah, we really don’t need being told that there’s the rotating tag line.

  167. 167.

    Ruckus

    @Anne Laurie:
    This!
    There is a reason it’s generally known as the Bush crime family.
    I’m nearly half Sicilian and family story, great grandfather was asked to leave Sicily as he was supposed to be a huge asshole in his role as an enforcer. So if this is true and one believes in things like original sin, sins of the father, etc I’m worse than any Bush. But I haven’t started any wars, or lacked the empathy of a flat rock, made money from supporting monsters or mobsters or actually been either one of those or benefited from same, so I’m thinking not so much for me being worse. I have gotten a speeding ticket before though, so there is that.

  170. 170.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Debbie: My blog is a free blog hosted on wordpress.com, and your point is well taken. I am going to upgrade to the paid version so that I have more control over what it looks like. Compared to Balloon Juice my readership is minuscule.

    Besides, what does my blog have to do with the Balloon Juice upgrade?

  172. 172.

    Kay

    @Ruckus:

    I just didn’t “get” them, the elder Bush couple. When people would say Bar Bush reminded them of their mother or grandmother I was thinking “really? to you..grandmother?” She has mean eyes.

  174. 174.

    Corner Stone

    @Ruckus: And you see, I get that. You’re an old ass broke dick joke. You have nothing to say that anyone wants to see or read. You make a lot of words about things. Good for you!

  178. 178.

    Corner Stone

    @Ruckus: It’s really a tragedy, but I guess you’ll just have to stop commenting. Don’t worry, much as we’ll miss you, we’ll soldier on.

  182. 182.

    Another Holocene Human

    @redshirt: The Bushes are from Milton, MA, where the chocolate factory is. (Unless they’re from CT and I’m confused, which is possible.) Sadly, the factory shut down but the Bush clan is still with us.

  184. 184.

    PurpleGirl

    @The Sailor: The site was down for a few hours — how awful is that, really. I waited until midnight to re-open and found it had been up for some time by that point. You can’t live without a particular site for a few hours? I suggest getting a life.

    ETA: I do issues with the new design — the lack of comment numbers and the size of the typeface. I noted those in the appropriate thread and look forward to seeing the response from Cole and Tommy.

  187. 187.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: I admit I fell for that schtick for a long time. In the eighties, she was often favorably compared to Nancy Reagan. I used to think MoDo was being silly (back when I had some regard for MoDo) when she talked about the Luca Brazzi of the WASP Corleones. Now, after watching the clan for almost thirty years, I think she understated it. She’s Luca, Barzini, Tataglia, Tessio and Hyman Roth rolled into one.

  189. 189.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Debbie: OK I should have been more clear, its not the font size I mind, its the huge amounts of white space compared to the font size. The tiny font size in the sea of white space looks like vegetation in the tundra. I don’t see the point. Of course, YMMV.

  193. 193.

    Anne Laurie

    @Kay:

    When people would say Bar Bush reminded them of their mother or grandmother I was thinking “really? to you..grandmother?” She has mean eyes.

    Have to admit: Behind their backs (mostly), we referred to my grandmothers as the Dragon Lady and the Toad Queen.

    They were, in their separate ways, excellent role models for a smart-mouthed little girl, but they did have beady little mean Irish eyes!

  201. 201.

    Corner Stone

    How could CAR be on the brink of winning their 11th straight game? Did they win the shadow Superbowl somehow?

  203. 203.

    Another Holocene Human

    The white space jarred me at first, but I find it very user-friendly on this Mac/Chrome. Scroll is fast. I would have stopped seeing it by now if not for the umpteen comments about white space. *shrug*

  204. 204.

    The Sailor

    @PurpleGirl: It’s hard to find the buttons when you can’t see them.
    It makes no more sense than expecting to wield supreme power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

  207. 207.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Corner Stone: I respectfully decline to comply with your request. Also, I’m staying open-minded about the redesign until it gets finalized. For now, it is a work in progress.

  211. 211.

    PurpleGirl

    @The Sailor: I’m looking at them right now. There is a black outline and when I hover the cursor, I see the text in white on burgundy. How hard is it to bring the cursor over since you have to to click on the box anyway. I’m using Firefox and Win XP (yes, still, I can’t afford a new computer right now or new peripherals and software).

  212. 212.

    J R in WV

    My take on JEB!#$ Can Fix It! was the 2000 election, when he and his Secretary of State cleaned many Democrats from the voter’s lists, sent broken voting machines to Democratic voting stations, and generally trashed the system of democracy in Florida, to fix the election for George W “Shrub” Bush.

    He’ll need to do a lot of fixin’ to take the 2016 race, I can tell you that!

  214. 214.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Debbie: Bringing up issues and preferences is what commenters have been asked to do. Bitching about the timeline for things getting “fixed;” well, that’s another thing.

  215. 215.

    Kay

    Gross:

    nor mentioned in the release is the fact that both Brzezinski and Scarborough earlier this year attended a weekend in Palm Springs, California, for the American Recovery Policy Forum, put on by the Kochs’ organization, the tax-exempt Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce.
    The weekend was closed to the public and the media but nevertheless contained many members of the press — including ABC News’ Jonathan Karl — who networked with donors, business leaders and other denizens of the Koch kingdom. Also in attendance were presidential candidates Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio, who headlined the event with an informal debate around “free markets and the role of government.”
    Neither MSNBC nor the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce would answer questions about whether the Koch organization paid the travel or other expenses for the MSNBC hosts.
    Once the MSNBC duo returned to New York to tape their show, they treated viewers to several days of glowing reports from their trip to Kochland. Brzezinski, the resident liberal to Scarborough’s cranky-but-lovable conservative persona, raved for two days about the unappreciated passions of the “awesome” oil magnates as her male co-host nodded beside her.
    “They’re definitely not what you think,” Brzezinski said the first day back. “I mean, it’s everything that you don’t think, and you don’t know,” she went on the next day. “There are different facets of the story you get to see when you actually go and observe events like this.”
    “Liz Koch, ever met her?” Brzezinski continued, mentioning Charles Koch’s wife. “She’s a ball of fire! And she’s got this incredible program for helping the poorest of the poor kids in several inner cities that she’s developed.”

    You have to look at the photo, too. I had a car that came with satellite radio and I found myself (essentially) listening to Morning Joe because I disliked all of them so much. I have a different car so I don’t do it anymore, which is probably healthier.

  216. 216.

    Corner Stone

    @Kay: Joe asked this morning why there was not a single Republican advisor in big media. Why can’t we hire at least one Republican operative?

  217. 217.

    Cervantes

    @Anne Laurie:

    GHWB is the grandson of a man who made his fortune enabling Nazis and the son of a man who climbed to his Senate seat playing footsie with Joe McCarthy.

    Hmm … If his grandfather was his father, that might help explain something about Jeb and George W.

  224. 224.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Corner Stone: An artillery officer with jump wings? Been there done that. Being the guy asked to surrender at the Battle of the Bulge? No, it reads like a film script, but is actually real.

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