Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

The revolution will be supervised.

I was promised a recession.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

We still have time to mess this up!

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

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

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

Infrastructure week. at last.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

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94Comments

  3. 3.

    jeffreyw

    Been there and done that, only in S Illinois. I avoid such these days, just kicking back and being all retired and shit. Wasted the entire morning upgrading to a new video card that broke file explorer, otherwise seemed to be working fine. No luck finding a fix so I went back to old card, seems all ok now.

  6. 6.

    patrick II

    I thought you were going a little faster than I would in that snow. Then I remembered you drive a subaru all-wheel-drive, so that looks like fun.

  8. 8.

    Gimlet

    Almost heaven, West Virginia
    Blue ridge mountains, Shenandoah river
    Life is old there, older than the trees
    Younger than the mountains, growin’ like a breeze

  9. 9.

    donnah

    Very pretty, and reminds me of the mountain roads we drive to visit my mom’s side of the family near Beckley. They live right next to Lake Stephens and I admit, snowy roads like that can be treacherous. Lots of hairpin turns on the roads we take to get there.

    Stay safe and warm! Surround yourself with pets!

  11. 11.

    John Cole

    @patrick II:When I watched the video, my first thought was that it looked like I was going a lot faster than I really was. In real life, it seemed much, much slower. I was only going 30.

    It might be that the video doesn’t have peripheral vision like humans do, so it gives you a more tunnel like experience that seems faster than it really is.

  17. 17.

    BruceFromOhio

    Ah, the slow, steady course through the slushy-mush, arriving home with no intentions of going anywhere unless there is family emergency or a fire, then curling up with favored pastimes, people, or pets and just letting Ol’ Man Winter do his thing.

    I have to watch checking in on Balloon Juice at work, the Intimissimi ads for Italian skimpy things is right on the border of NSFW, and I’d be embarrassed as heck if one of my coworkers was looking over my shoulder.

    Not that the ads aren’t eye-catching …

  19. 19.

    geg6

    Looks like we have the same weather, Cole. Winter has finally hit and, to be honest, I’m not going to complain about it after the last two winters. We’re about halfway through January and this is the worst we’ve had. Supposed to get a bit more snow here until tomorrow morning, when it will also have turned ridiculously bitter cold. Not looking forward to that.

    Today was Lovey’s first experience with a real snow fall (we had a dusting a few days ago that didn’t really prepare her for today). She kinda bounces through it, loves to stick her nose in it, but absolutely will not pee or poop in it. Which means pee pads inside until she can get used to the cold, wet, white stuff. So she bounced around the front yard in a circle and right back into the house. She’s such a funny little thing.

  20. 20.

    PurpleGirl

    @Origuy: My most common ad is for women’s clothes from some outfit called WE Style.

    ETA: NYC is supposed to get a little snow tonight. I don’t mind snow. I hate ice. And, yes, being retired means I can stay inside on really bad days. Big Six Towers, my development, has a commercial building with a supermarket and I can easily get out to get supplies if I need them. (We also have our own power plant.)

  21. 21.

    geg6

    @PurpleGirl:

    Today, it’s been Staples for me all day. I have no idea why. I do not buy office supplies and have never been to their website. The mysteries of the interwebs.

  22. 22.

    Keith G

    Speaking of things gullible…. So that happened again:

    Police in Cincinnati say a man has fatally shot his 14-year-old son in their home, thinking he was an intruder

    I figure “good taste” would veto the president including this item in his SOTU, but this really needs to be brought up.

    Remember from the town hall presentation last week:

    As a survivor of rape and now a mother to two small children, it seems like being able to purchase a firearm of my choosing, and being able to carry that wherever me and my family are, it seems like my basic responsibility as a parent at this point. I have been unspeakably victimized once already, and I refuse to let that happen again to myself or my kids. So why can’t your administration see that these restrictions that you’re putting to make it harder for me to own a gun, or harder for me to take that where I need to be is actually just making my kids and I less safe?

    At that point, I wanted Obama to school her about what the statically reality is about guns in the home. He did not.

    Now he has a “ready for prime time” do-over, and yet….

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    I wouldn’t want to have to drive in those conditions, but it sure is beautiful. Stay safe and warm!

  25. 25.

    Applejinx

    I already miss my Subaru (which was so old the wheel basically snapped off at 60mph on the highway last Saturday).

    I would totally be going that fast in that snow, in a Subaru. They’re proper little rally cars in the snow.

  26. 26.

    gogol's wife

    It’s amazing that you don’t see a single other car on the road in all that time. That wouldn’t happen around here.

  28. 28.

    FlyingToaster

    @BruceFromOhio: Wow. Usually I get Staples ads, but today the default seems to be FashionMia and StyleWe, trying to sell clothes that will never fit me.

    Since my work browser isn’t my shopping browser, it hasn’t picked up on the idea that I’m actually looking for tank tops and shorts for my 8-year-old to wear to Grandma’s on February vacation. More’s the pity; most of my usual sources haven’t any yet. Land’s End may be the only one to come through for me, at least with shorts. And where I used to buy her stuff down there in February — Miramar or Tanger — no longer have Old Navy, so I suspect I’ll be scaling back on the summerwear until like May.

  29. 29.

    jharp

    I don’t go out in weather like that any more. Just ain’t doing it.

    Last big trip was thru the wilderness to Duluth Minnesota when it was 30 below zero with blowing snow.

    Fuck that. And on the way home, black ice.

  30. 30.

    raven

    @John Cole: It’s funny, when I took the Cobra flight in the spring we made a run straight down at 150+ mph, flipped upside down and came back on the target. The video I shot doesn’t come close to showing the speed.

  31. 31.

    MomSense

    I’m hoping for a big snowstorm tonight so we can have a snow day tomorrow. I’m dying to get my snowshoes on and walk the beast in the woods. Last time we walked in the woods, it was really icy and it was like pairs figure skating with the worst partner ever.

  32. 32.

    vheidi

    Nothing could persuade me, but perhaps another NYC BJ denizen could take one for the team.

    At the New-York Historical Society

    BERNARD AND IRENE SCHWARTZ DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS SERIES
    The Story: A Reporter’s Journey
    With Judith Miller, Bret Stephens (moderator)

    TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 6:30 PM
    Judith Miller, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter formerly with The New York Times, turns her reporting skills on herself and her career, discussing her early years with the paper, her controversial work regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and the decisions she made during the Scooter Libby investigation. Bret Stephens, foreign affairs columnist and deputy editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, will moderate.

  33. 33.

    catclub

    @jharp:

    when it was 30 below zero with blowing snow

    This can be the most beautiful thing to watch. Unfortunately I was driving (but no harm done).
    Watching moving water in all its forms is worth it.

  34. 34.

    Soylent Green

    BURNS — The armed militants occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge announced Tuesday morning that they will drive into Burns at the end of the week to hold a community meeting and inform residents when they will leave

    Militants say they’ll reveal exit plan Friday.

    Hello, is this the FBI? I have a small suggestion.

  35. 35.

    Roger Moore

    @JPL:

    Try driving in the Atlanta area during a storm.

    I’m mostly glad I’ve never had to experience what the Los Angeles area would be like after a snow storm. I think the smart play would be to stay home until it melted.

  37. 37.

    trollhattan

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    Talk to any tow truck driver or CHP officer about who’s most likely to need yanking out of a snowdrift and it’s mostly AWD drivers.

    There’s capability and then there’s ability.

  44. 44.

    David Koch

    PPP says birther issue is dragging the Canadian Rafael Cruz down.

    AAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHH

  46. 46.

    Poopyman

    Apologies if this came out in the No Labels post down below, but this is from C. Pierce’s piece:

    In his next life, Joe Lieberman is going to come back as a spittoon.

    From Charlie’s lips ….

  47. 47.

    catclub

    Map of the Day: We Have Met the Enemy, and the Enemy is Squirrels

    Kevin Drum

    Terrorist Squirrel attacks on the electrical grid.

  48. 48.

    Mike J

    @trollhattan: (from your link)

    In early 2011, stock in Arch Coal peaked at $260 a share — on Monday, shares in Arch Coal were worth less than a dollar. During that time, Arch Coal executives doubled their pay, despite falling share prices.

    And far from the first scalp. At least seven coal companies went bankrupt last year. I’m hoping this one kills the coal terminal they want to build out here.

  49. 49.

    Keith G

    @Soylent Green:

    Hello, is this the FBI? I have a small suggestion.

    It seems to me that letting the cast of Bundy’s Island attend a community meeting, might well be a genius move. They are interlopers and will be told so. After they face that bit of humiliation, they can disperse or not, but nonetheless know that moving up to the top of their To Do list will be raising funds bail and/or for legal fees.

  50. 50.

    Gimlet

    Now that he has raised questions about Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) Canadian birth and American citizenship, Donald Trump has started playing Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” before campaign rallies

  51. 51.

    Mike J

    @Keith G:

    It seems to me that letting the cast of Bundy’s Island attend a community meeting, might well be a genius move. They are interlopers and will be told so.

    They were told so at the meeting last night.

  53. 53.

    rikyrah

    POSTED WITH JUST THIS QUESTION…..

    WHAT IF THESE ‘ ARMED PROTESTORS’ WERE BLACK?

    UH HUH

    UH HUH

    ………………….

    Oregon Sheriff Accuses Armed Protesters of Intimidation, Harassment
    by TIM STELLOH

    Local law enforcement is accusing armed protesters who seized an Oregon wildlife refuge of harassment and intimidation.

    In a statement Monday, Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward described an “uptick” in reports of “law enforcement officers and community members being followed home; of people sitting in cars outside their homes, observing their movements and those of their families; and of people following them and their families as they move around the community.”

    Ward added, “While not direct physical threats, these activities are clearly designed to try to intimidate.”

    Federal employees of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the site occupied by the protestors, also reported “a number of uncomfortable instances” of “unknown” outsiders idling outside their homes, watching them and initiating debates about their employment.

  54. 54.

    J R in WV

    @trollhattan:

    There have been a bunch already, big ones, too. Patriot Coal. Alpha Natural Resources. The WV company owned by Murray, who killed all those miners in Utah pulling pillars in a soon-to-be abandoned underground mine. Those are the square hunks of coal left to hold the mountain up while you work under it.

    Some of these mines may reopen if and when the energy market reverses itself. I’ve seen mines closed for decades reopen successfully.

    John, if you were going 30, you were doing it right. I’ve been in bad snow storms with several inches on the road, and people slow down so much when they enter a banked curve, they slide down the bank into the ditch, because they were going too slow to stay up on the camber of the curve.

    One night years ago around 1 am I was driving a heavy 4×4 and we stopped to pull a guy out of the ditch. As we worked, I talked about how he got there, in the ditch at the bottom of a steep curve with lots of camber to help cars take the curve faster than you could if it was flat and un-banked.

    I let him take off ahead of us, and after a couple of hundred yards, we came to the next sharp curve, down he slid into the ditch, again. I had to keep on going, I wasn’t going to pull him out of the ditch on every sharp curve between Hinton and Beckley – there are a hundred of them!

    So going too slow can be as hard to get anywhere as going too fast, although the accident from going too slow will usually be gentler than one from going too fast.

    It has snowed here, but it turned into big wet flakes, and then into rain. There’s little piles of slush on the steps. I may go out and sweep the suv off before it freezes, or not. The radar shows that most of the precipitation is already east of here, so this may be all there is for this “storm”.

  55. 55.

    David Koch

    @Gimlet: Now THAT’s Entertainment

    I guess this is what PT Barnum must have been like.

    P. T.” Barnum was an American showman and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus.

  60. 60.

    David Koch

    Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday that the issue of whether U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is legally eligible to run for the presidency because he was born in Canada is “fair game” on the Republican campaign trail.

    “When you run for president of the United States, any question is fair game. So let the people decide,” Branstad told reporters at his weekly press briefing at the Iowa Capitol.

    Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, to an American-born mother.

    I don’t think he’ll win a single state. This Canadian thing is lethal.

  62. 62.

    PurpleGirl

    @Gimlet: I hope that Trump’s legal eagles got permission from The Boss to do that. The Boss will probably ask for an injection to stop it and take Trump to court. The Boss don’t like things like that.

  63. 63.

    Gimlet

    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/265555-quinnipiac-poll-sanders-surges-to-lead-in-iowa

    Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton in a major Iowa poll for the first time since September, the latest sign the Democratic primary race is tightening between the two candidates.

    The Vermont senator wins 49 percent of likely caucusgoers in the Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday, compared to Clinton’s 44 percent. It’s a significant drop for the former secretary of State from last month’s Quinnipiac poll, which had her up by 11 percent.

    Sanders is boosted by his 30-point lead among men, a significantly higher favorability rating, and more favorable views of his character traits and values. He’s seen as a better steward of the economy and climate change, while Clinton wins on foreign policy, terrorism and healthcare.

  64. 64.

    Mary G

    That is a tiny little road – can you even pass another car if one comes along? Glad you are stocked up, now stay home with your animals and keep safe.

    We had two big days of rain last week and more was forecasted for this week, but has not appeared.

  65. 65.

    Kristine

    I found that video oddly restful. Probably because there weren’t any semis bearing down from the other direction.

    We had a couple inches of heavy powder here in far NE Illinois. Now it’s COLD, single digits with below zero wind chills. Then it warms–rain expected over the weekend. Then another wave of cold.

    I’m ready for Spring.

  66. 66.

    japa21

    @David Koch: Personally, two things that should be more lethal are why didn’t he renounce his Canadian citizenship until just a couple years ago? and why does he refuse to use his real name? Is he ashamed of his heritage?

  67. 67.

    Anoniminous

    @Gimlet:

    The Gold Standard for Iowa is the Des Moines Register poll and they haven’t released one since December. A PPP poll conducted (more-or-less) at the same time gave 46/40 Clinton/Sanders. Need to win the I-80 corridor to win Iowa and I can see Sanders taking Johnson and Story counties I’m not convinced he can overtake the “establishment Dems” in Linn, Polk, and Scott counties.

  68. 68.

    BGinCHI

    Amazing that it’s nicer in Norway than in the NE and Midwestern US.

    Yesterday clear and 40s, today 30s. Thanks to being near the ocean….

  71. 71.

    David Koch

    @japa21: Exactly – great point.

    Carly Fiorina says she finds it odd it took so long for Ted Cruz to renounce his Canadian citizenship, … “I just think it’s odd. Why would it take you this long to renounce a Canadian citizenship?”

    His answers seem to only raise more questions

  73. 73.

    Gimlet

    @Anoniminous:

    No idea if Sanders can take Iowa.

    Quinnipiac says maybe. Momentum shifts pretty much every day. People at “MoveOn” are impressed with Bernies populist appeal also.

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    @Soylent Green:

    They supposedly planned for months but didn’t realize they would need food and sleeping bags? What the hell were they doing all that time, writing non-canon fanfic about how totally awesome it was going to be?

  75. 75.

    bystander

    I thought it was discarded footage from “The Shining”. The tonal shift was moody and insouciant.

  78. 78.

    A Ghost To Most

    As someone who lived in the Blue Ridge mountains for 26 years, but now is accustomed to CO roads, the thing in the video that struck me was all the guardrails.

  79. 79.

    Shana

    @Roger Moore: My daughter’s boyfriend moved here to Northern Virginia with her after she graduated from college. He’s spent his whole life in and around DeKalb, IL. We’re anxiously waiting for our first snow here to see his reaction to how everyone here reacts to snow. I told him that he needs to find that clip of Obama’s reaction to the first snowfall when his daughters’ school was cancelled after a couple of inches of snow.

  80. 80.

    Mnemosyne

    @Shana:

    Okay, it took me a second, because I was thinking, DeKalb gets a ton of snow — that’s why I moved the hell away from Illinois! But I got it on the second read.

  84. 84.

    PurpleGirl

    Cole’s little video — which is great — reminds me of the ride back to Peekskill from New Jersey the day I bought I my first computer. My friend Nick took me to a computer fair and we looked around at computers and components for a few hours. The ride back to Peekskill was along snowy roads, with over hanging trees that were covered in show and icicles. The landscape was wonderous and beautiful. I was sitting in the back of truck, looking out the windows.

  85. 85.

    J R in WV

    @A Ghost To Most:

    The guardrails sometimes tear up the side of a car, but they keep you from rolling down the hill, over and over.

    You sometimes need body work from grazing the rail, but they save lives. We have them on roads where there are steep drops even on narrow roads with no paint stripes whatsoever!

  87. 87.

    A Ghost To Most

    @John Cole: only 300 feet? /smartass

    You should drive Red Mountain pass between Ouray and Silverton. 900 foot drop, oncoming trucks, and no guardrails

  88. 88.

    PaulW

    Where’s the plot twist? Where’s the sudden surprise AHA JUMP SCARE?! Where’s the Bigfoot in the woods or the UFO in the fog ahead?! This was the most boring horror movie I ever seen.

  89. 89.

    PaulW

    @catclub:

    It’s a plot for the latest Squirrel Girl comic book series.

    There’s an evil opposite of Squirrel Girl: the Anti-Squirrel Girl, and she is the one character that Squirrel Girl CANNOT DEFEAT…

  91. 91.

    Satby

    Add enough blowing snow for some whiteout spots and that was my ride to the job I just quit this morning. Slower driving too.

  92. 92.

    J R in WV

    @donnah:

    Hi Donnah,

    I grew up in and around Beckley, my Grandma lived in Harper, and kept a general store there for many years, from 1932 until the mid 1950s. I grew up walking up the road behind her small farm, Sand Lick. Before they built Lake Stephens we once drove up to the left of Sand Lick, onto the ridge between Route 3 and where the Lake was built and visited a Mrs. Snuffer on her farm, who was elderly compared to my Grandma Grace. I believe the Lake cut off access to that farm, so they bought the farm as they accumulated land for the park.

    My folks began letting me stay with Grandma on weekends, which I thought at the time was for my benefit, but of course was really for their benefit. Grandma and I (and later my younger brother) would go on Sunday drives all over the country out there, Surveyor, Lester, Trap Hill, even over Bolt Mountain (before Route 99 was built on the old road… name escapes me now). Sandwiches, and we would stop at a country store for a Coke, and often sit by a creek and eat lunch.

    I don’t remember all the road names now, it was 50 odd years ago now, but I remember the sights as if it was yesterday

    So it was good to see a comment from someone familiar with that part of the country.

  93. 93.

    J R in WV

    @John Cole:

    Thanks for that, very nice summer time view of your drive. There’s a coal seam on your uphill side, too! So common everywhere you drive, even here in the big city of Charleston. Well, not here, near here.

    We’re in Tango, which was a Lincoln county town back in the early 1900s Oil Boom, Post Office, Church, School, and General Store, all gone but the church. And the people. Oil boom mostly gone, now they drill for gas. Beginning to FRAC, wish us luck!

  94. 94.

    John W.

    I cannot imagine living in a place that gets snow and thank the Powers I don’t have to. I’ve seen snow (for an hour) once in the last eight years where I live in Southernmost Western Oregon. You ought to move here!

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