Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

This blog will pay for itself.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

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

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

T R E 4 5 O N

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

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

We won’t go back.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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134Comments

  2. 2.

    Mnemosyne

    Charlotte has decided she likes to flop on the floor like an otter with her belly exposed. However, as with most cats, you attempt to rub her belly at your own peril.

  4. 4.

    muddy

    Is that because humans are responsible for their own bras, but because it’s the dog you pick up after her?

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mnemosyne:
    That’s very much an individual cat thing. My Bianca is no lap cat, but she’ll let me blow a raspberry on her tummy.

  7. 7.

    jl

    thnx for Cole petpic.

    But poor persecuted Rosie. She quiets down and naps in an out-of-the-way corner (well, OK, middle of the floor, but she’s not all that big, is she?)
    And Cole is still complaining and snarking.

    I call JRT slander. Edit: and continued Rosie defamation.

  8. 8.

    Mary G

    Now I am imagining a tiny Rosie-sized bra and laughing. The pillow probably feels good under her sore hips. Her coat looks beautiful. You are a good dad.

    Completely unrelated to Rosie, there is a good article in the Atlantic called The Era of ‘The Bitch’ Is Coming.

    If Hillary Clinton wins the White House in November, it will be a historic moment, the smashing of the preeminent glass ceiling in American public life. A mere 240 years after this nation’s founding, a woman will occupy its top office. America’s daughters will at last have living, breathing, pantsuit-wearing proof that they too can grow up to be president.

    A Clinton victory also promises to usher in four-to-eight years of the kind of down-and-dirty public misogyny you might expect from a stag party at Roger Ailes’s house.

    You know it’s coming. As hyperpartisanship, grievance politics, and garden-variety rage shift from America’s first black commander-in-chief onto its first female one, so too will the focus of political bigotry. Some of it will be driven by genuine gender grievance or discomfort among some at being led by a woman. But in plenty of other cases, slamming Hillary as a bitch, a c**t (Thanks, Scott Baio!), or a menopausal nut-job (an enduringly popular theme on Twitter) will simply be an easy-peasy shortcut for dismissing her and delegitimizing her presidency.

    I plan to adopt the author’s solution:

    Until then, forward-thinking women might want to start working to reclaim the word “bitch” from the haters ASAP. Seriously. Bitches of the world unite! Indeed, if Hillary wins in November, I am immediately ordering a dozen hoodies emblazoned with the theme of that brilliant Saturday Night Live riff Tina Fey did about Clinton’s 2008 run: “Bitches get stuff done!” All my girlfriends should expect one for Christmas.

  11. 11.

    ET

    It’s like she just sat there and while she was thinking what trouble to make, just passed out.

  13. 13.

    schrodinger's cat

    Is it too hot to wear a bra in WV, right now.

    BTW some women should never go without a bra, just as some men should never wear tank tops in public. There are somethings I don’t need to see, when I go grocery shopping. Kthxbai.

  14. 14.

    Patricia Kayden

    Your pets are all so sweet, John. Wish I had a bigger house so I could adopt a few more doggies (and add some cats).

    @Mary G: I would argue that the era of The Bitch is already here. Secretary Clinton has been subjected to sexist derision for decades. Being called a bitch is probably nothing new or shocking to her at this point in time. And the GOP sexism about to be unleashed against President Hillary Clinton will just shore up her support among women and non-sexist men.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    @Mary G: I will have to look for my “Uppity Women Unite!” button from my college years.

    Did the author happen to define “genuine gender grievance”? Because if I get to dismiss all men because some guy was an asshole to me /all women because my mom hit me when I was 13 / all dogs because a dog bit me when I was 5… well, I’m not sure I would have to be nice to anybody, human or animal kingdom. And that bunny who has been eating the flowers in my garden, watch out bunnies!

  22. 22.

    Drunkenhausfrau

    Let me know when I can order a BJ Bitches get things done shirt. Preferably with Rosie as the mascot.

  23. 23.

    Humdog

    @WaterGirl: I remember last fall when I said, “ooh look, we have a bunny down the driveway, how cute!” Now there’s enough bunnies to “trim” the garden and keep the dogs barking for hours as the bunnies know the dogs cannot breach the fence to chase them out. Damn bunnies!

  26. 26.

    ruemara

    Interview done. Went OK, as far as I can say and wrapping up a mid-afternoon weightlifting sesh. Unfortunately, I put a 95lb bar down on a sliver of my palm and the rack. It’s getting purple. I’m headed off to cryotherapy. I might as well do the whole body treatment, since I decide today was clumsy day.

  27. 27.

    dmsilev

    @gogol’s wife: In Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, one of the regular characters is a female werewolf, who at one point mentions “that nagging feeling that she should be wearing three bras”.

  29. 29.

    dp

    From flooded Baton Rouge (high and dry personally, family not so much), thanks to all for the good wishes as well as the more tangible contributions!

  31. 31.

    debit

    @kindness: Walter’s pick up is scheduled for August 27 and he should arrive at my place sometime on the 28th. But I’m taking the 29th off just in case (and to spend some time settling him in).

    @schrodinger’s cat: John did say that he was planning on painting all sorts of colors at his new place.

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    @Humdog: Bad bunnies. When I pull into the driveway at night and catch one of the bunnies in the headlights, I shout “death to bunnies!” And then get out of my car, go into the house, and do absolutely nothing to the bunnies. But they do make me mad! They ate 5 of my gazanias in one sitting on wednesday. Bastards!

  33. 33.

    J R in WV

    I made a bottle of pepper vinegar, kind of in the mode of a Thai condiment I enjoy. Lots of slicing peppers, then stuffing the slices into a little bottle mouth.

    Wife was putzing in the kitchen, decided suddenly (like the puppie) to lie down.

    I was up on the all-nite thread last night, til nearly 6 am, got to sleep just before dawn. Will try hard to go to sleep early tonite.

    Thanks to those who populate the over-night threads on blogs! When you can’t sleep, a blessing.

  35. 35.

    Eric S.

    @Mnemosyne: Ozzie has limited times where he allows a belly rub. After 5 (6?) years together I can identify them most of the time. The visitor that sees a soft upturned belly is in for a prickly reception if s/he tries though.

  36. 36.

    WaterGirl

    @J R in WV: Have you ever grown hungarian hot wax peppers? I tried them for the first time this year and those peppers pack some heat!

  37. 37.

    Miss Bianca

    @WaterGirl: Bunnies seem to like to throw themselves under the wheels of my car. It’s like I’m the gorram Suicide Bunny Queen. “Smite me!” “No, smite ME!”

  40. 40.

    WaterGirl

    I just finished making homemade brownies for the guard who is there every morning for the early morning swim. I try to make them every year as a thank you. I haven’t made them for a long time; hoping I haven’t lost my brownie mojo.

  41. 41.

    WaterGirl

    @Miss Bianca: Oh, no. I would hate that. I hit a squirrel once when I was trying to avoid him, and that’s when I learned the meaning of death throes. I cannot get that vision out of my head. Chanting “death to bunnies!” and letting my dogs out to scare the shit out of him is as close as I get to hurting them. The dogs will never catch him, but I always hope the experience might make him consider going down the block instead of continually dining at my house.

  43. 43.

    Humdog

    @Miss Bianca: I am the smiter-by-car of pigeons. Ran over two in one week. Lucky when I actually run them over and not hit them with another part of my car. Maybe you should come visit my place to help with my bunnies in the drive and garden issue and I can help those neighborhoods bothered by pigeons!

  44. 44.

    debit

    @WaterGirl: I am glad my new yard doesn’t seem to have bunnies, because Ellie would catch one and rip it to shreds. She caught a groundhog a couple months ago and turned from sweet elderly black lab into a sleek killing machine. It was a bit of a shock.

  45. 45.

    Miss Bianca

    @WaterGirl: last time I ended up in a ditch, it was on on a deserted county road after a snowstorm – and it was because I was trying to avoid a damn jack rabbit. Fortunately, a guy with a winch on his truck came by after about 40 minutes or so. Heck, I think even the rabbit survived that one!

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Thank you for posting a picture of Rosie, John! She never seems to be around when you take photos of Thurston Howl, Lily, and/or Steve.

  47. 47.

    R-Jud

    @ruemara: Owwwww. I’ve pinched skin right off my hand doing that. I also bounced a 65 snatch off the top of my head at my last competition. No lift.

    Well done with the interview– hope you hear back soon!

  48. 48.

    FlyingToaster (tablet)

    @WaterGirl: We grew those the first two years (2004-2005), but we didn’t have enough appropriate recipes. this year we have jalapeño, habanero, cayenne, Thai hot, numex, a bunch of full-size and lunchbox bells.

    ETA f spellcheck

  49. 49.

    Miss Bianca

    @Humdog: Running over birds is so weird. It’s like, “yo, dude – those things on your back? Right, my people call them “wings”. USE.THEM!”

    Not too many pigeons here in my neck of the wood, except for rock doves on the river banks. However, I have braked more than once for wild turkeys and quails.

  50. 50.

    pat

    A few years ago we had just landscaped around our new house and an abundance of bunnies came by in the winter to dine on the young shrubs. I bought a live “havaheart” trap and transported 12 or 13 of them to the other side of the airport where there were no houses. I don’t thing they came back.

    One morning the trap was gone from the front deck, I found it, with a slightly bleeding bunny, under the porch.. A coyote had tried to get him. After that I chained the trap to the deck posts.

  55. 55.

    raven

    Goddamit. My buddy Jim was undergoing cancer treatment at the Huntington W VA, VA. I emailed him and he said he was doing ok. I just got word he was in a motorcycle wreck that he should have survived but his heart gave and he didn’t. He and I went to high school together and I was able to go up to Pleiku to see him when he was a cherry and I was short. He worked as a coal mining surveyor, a skill he gained being a canon cocker. We hadn’t seen each other in nearly 20 years but I always figured we would get together sooner or later. It will have to be later. RIP JA, you were the best.

    eta, he was a serious dog lover

  56. 56.

    Villago Delenda Est

    It’s 108 F outside here in Tracktown, USA. But not to worry, with the wind chill, it’s only 107!

  60. 60.

    Gemina13

    @Amir Khalid:

    My tuxedo cat, Lucky, was one for tummy rubs, zerberts, and kisses once in a while. But he didn’t care to nap on the floor unless it was hot out. And he was a pretty chill cat, if also a bit of a goof.

  63. 63.

    Tazj

    Rosie is so cute. I expect to see John Cole any day now on one of those Swiffer commercials with all his managerie. Seriously, I have a hard time keeping up with the pet hair from my two pets.

  65. 65.

    dmsilev

    @FlyingToaster (Tablet):

    There’s a dead goose a couple blocks from here (inbound Mem Drive’ near MIT). WTF?

    One down, 999,999 to go.

    There was a heron in the pond outside my office today, which was pretty nice. The turtles that live there normally didn’t seem to mind the visitor.

  66. 66.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    Oh Raven, I’m so sorry. What a loss for you. May your friend Jim R.I.P.

    My own best friend from high school (I met her in geometry class in 1957; we were in each other’s [first] weddings and have stayed friends for all these years) was scheduled for lung cancer surgery yesterday. I’ve been on the road all week and haven’t seen any updates, so I’m hoping no news is good news, but at our age I’m not sure I can be that sanguine.

  73. 73.

    Michael Bersin

    @Miss Bianca:

    Earlier in the year one of my blog partners and I were cruising to Jefferson City (to cover the General Assembly) on U.S. 50 (two lanes at that point) at around 65 (hush, the speed limit). Between the two of us we had five cameras with sufficient telephoto lenses. The cameras and lenses were in camera bags in the back seat. It was an overcast day. In the distance we noted a crow on the yellow line picking at some roadkill. As we approached it the crow appeared bigger than any crow I had ever seen. It started a slow lumbering takeoff as we approached. Our perception slowed down, almost painfully. I missed hitting a bald eagle with the vehicle by about a foot. And, of course, we cursed ourselves the rest of the way to Jefferson City for being the two moron photographers who missed a shot because they left their freakin’ cameras in bags in the back seat.

  79. 79.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @raven: So very sorry. Provides perspective on one’s own “troubles.” Much comfort to you and all who loved your friend.

    I got let go from one job (PT) the beginning of this week – by email, while on vacation – and then turned around and fired a new employer today. I’m leaving the organization in a pickle, but all the signs from the hiring manager were horrendous. Walking away is hard to do given my overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and, maybe,just maybe, I’m developing a better survival instinct.

    Oh, and I turn 60 tomorrow. :)

  82. 82.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gemina13:

    tummy rubs, zerberts, and kisses

    Tummy rubs and kisses I know, but have never heard of “zerberts” (autocorrect wanted to turn that into “zero ergs”). Please, what is a “zerbert” when it’s at home?

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Rosie is a modest, self-effacing individual,

    Um, you are aware she’s a JRT, are you not?

    unlike Thurston, who thinks he’s William Shatner.

    Shatner only chews the scenery. Thurston Howl chews everything.

  85. 85.

    Shana

    @Miss Bianca: I remember a really bad punk band (but not their name) who had a song called “The Squirrels in My Neighborhood Are Committing Suicide.”

  88. 88.

    Miss Bianca

    @Shana: Was it in response to their music, I wonder?

    Punk Band X (not to be confused with punk band ‘X’): “Driving Squirrels Nuts!”

  92. 92.

    CaseyL

    @raven: Jesus H., survive cancer and die in a motorcycle crash. I am so sorry. Hugs to you, your friend, and his family.

  96. 96.

    eric

    @raven: very sorry … i dont have words other than to say i will be on here late if you have trouble sleeping and want to chat on here

  97. 97.

    Patricia Kayden

    @raven: Sorry to hear of your friend’s passing.

    @WaterGirl: We have bunnies here but I never see them eating anything in my yard. They just hide out in the shade and run away when I get out of my car. They’re kind of cute.

  100. 100.

    WaterGirl

    @O. Felix Culpa: Always trust your instincts! And it sounds like you do. I “fired” a new employer on the first day of my new job. They left voicemail for me the night before to let me know that HR said they couldn’t pay me what they had promised. I figured if they were willing to screw me before I even started, it would only go downhill from there, so I went in on day one and said I wasn’t taking the job after all.

    Raising a glass to knowing you deserve to be treated well! I bet you’ll get something good. After I “quit”, I applied for 7 jobs and was offered 6 of them.

    P.S. What kind of a dick do you have to be to fire someone by email? While they’re on vacation!?!?! (damn, what’s the name of the “?!” thingie?

  104. 104.

    Mary G

    @raven: I’m sorry for your loss of Jim, Raven. It’s reminded me to get in touch with all those people I keep meaning to get caught up with in person and stop putting it off.

  105. 105.

    The Lodger

    @WaterGirl: It might work as a bunny repellent if the plants you’re trying to protect aren’t pollinators or their leaves aren’t edible by humans, though.

  107. 107.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    (damn, what’s the name of the “?!” thingie?

    Interrobang!

    Looks like this (copy and paste, that’s what I did):

    ‽

  110. 110.

    Cckids

    @Mary G: My daughter and her friend were the first and second female Presidents of Venturing in the Las Vegas Council (Venturing is coed, but about 75/25 male still). Sometimes when at events with crews from other areas, especially Texas, some of the guys would get teased about having a girl as President. Most of them would respond in a similar way, “They get stuff DONE. There’s no B-S-ing around. They make plans & shit happens!”

  112. 112.

    SWMBO

    @John Where the hell is her chocolate and wine?! If she’s going to have a figurative bra strewn behind her, have a figurative box of chocolate and a glass of wine…

  113. 113.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @WaterGirl:

    What kind of a dick do you have to be to fire someone by email? While they’re on vacation!?!?! (damn, what’s the name of the “?!” thingie?

    Thanks for the encouragement and empathy…and for the lead to the interrobang thingie! I learn so much from the BJ commentariat. Sometimes I even impress the offspring with knowledge culled from the interwebs.

  120. 120.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Emma:

    when your instincts start screaming, pay attention!

    Thanks! I know I did the right thing…and I feel bad for the person who recruited me, as she will probably end up having to take over the course I was supposed to teach. But I’m not responsible for everyone, I keep reminding myself.

  123. 123.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    Very sorry about your friend.

    Something always gets us. You can survive war, you can survive cancer, but sooner or later something always gets us and there is no rhyme or reason. Had a cousin who died at 6 months old, sister in her sixties. I got reminded again today, at the VA, that life is short, enjoy what you can and enjoy your friends while you can, because at some age you can’t.

  124. 124.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amir Khalid:

    Our half-feral cat Annie LOVES to have her belly rubbed and will actually demand it, but won’t sit on laps because she doesn’t trust us. It’s a little weird.

  126. 126.

    Prescott Cactus

    @raven: That’s important.

    Peace to you and your buddy JA. You may not have seen him in 20 years, but by checking on his ongoing cancer treatment it sounds like you have been there for him.

  132. 132.

    rikyrah

    Jennifer Duffy
    ‏@jennifereduffy
    Ratings change: And the Senate gets more interesting as #NCSen moves to Toss Up. There are now 8 GOP seats that are too close to call.

  133. 133.

    rikyrah

    Josh Barro ‏@jbarro 4h4 hours ago

    Related themes were in the prepared remarks, but the generalization of all blacks as poor and jobless was not.

  134. 134.

    Aleta

    @O. Felix Culpa: Just this afternoon a friend was telling me about a bad PT provider company that treated her husband in a rehab facility after knee replacement. He’s now going to start over again, this time with lots of pain due to shortened ligaments and tendons. Sounds like trying to practice PT under a bad employer could be harmful to more people than just the employee, and I admire your decision. PT is such an amazing healing practice.

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