Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Nothing worth doing is easy.

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

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

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

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

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

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

An almost top 10,000 blog!

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

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

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

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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

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

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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Reader Interactions

106Comments

  17. 17.

    Jay S

    @PaulWartenberg: @eemom: Wait a gol durned minute. I thought this post was to get away from guns? ETA now I see that Adam started it.
    Thanks Adam, your take on the automatic Booman? unit random post generator as a musical interlude is a reasonable riff off my random headline proposal. ETA now we can fight about guns and music.

  18. 18.

    Mary G

    Just got home from Black Panther and dinner out. Fight scenes bore me, but I did enjoy Michael B. Jordan shirtless. Story is really layered and we talked about it all the way through dinner. Art direction, cinematography, and costumes are amazing. Go if you are on the fence. Shuri is going to need her own movie spinoff.

  22. 22.

    guachi

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    LOL. He masturbates about stuff from 200 years ago and tolls (OMG!!! TOLLS!!!!) for half his tirade. Then the best part, and I eagerly anticipated it coming, was to actually attack Delaware for no sales tax. Apparently sales taxes, which disproportionately affect the poor, are a good thing now!

    Chait can go suck it.

  23. 23.

    NotMax

    No knock whatsoever intended or implied on the artist performing, however the title is pure R/CPAC/[insert choice of font of right wing villainy here].

              I Want To Be Evil

  30. 30.

    frosty

    @guachi: Delaware has no sales tax because it has the I-95 toll taxing every traveller between DC and NYC. Leave it on the list for that alone.

  33. 33.

    guachi

    It gets a mere 6% of its tax revenue from the toll. That’s not why it doesn’t have a sales tax.

    So Delaware taxes out-of-staters to give a tax break that benefits the poor more than the rich. The monsters!!!!

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: I did not.

    This is clearly Alain’s fault. And I will make sure he receives a sternly worded text message in the morning!

  42. 42.

    PJ

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): @guachi: Chait comes across as a centrist tool in his writing for New York magazine (notably consistently shilling for charter schools, and often not disclosing that his wife is an executive at one of the largest charter school chains), and this piece reinforces his cherry picking argumentation to support his own self-interest. He notes the state’s racist past (how many states are immune from this?), its pro-corporate and banking laws (but New York is ok because reasons), but his real beef is with having to pay a toll on I-95 (which can easily be avoided with a 5 minute detour at the exits before and after the toll). He is personally inconvenienced, so the state must be evil. (He also claims the state has no gas tax, which, as an editor notes, is false). He is the personification of the pundit, like Andrew Sullivan, whose personal interests and grievances are of paramount importance and anyone else’s concerns are irrelevant.

    Delaware has its share of ugly history and places, but it also has nice beaches, some beautiful countryside, and gave us Tom Verlaine.

  43. 43.

    Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)

    @Wag: I bought it when it came out, then wouldn’t listen to it for a long time because I expected it to depress the hell out of me. When I finally listened to it, it actually had the opposite effect — it was like he left behind this beautiful, life-affirming gift.

  44. 44.

    maeve

    @WaterGirl:
    Michael B. Jordan (the actor, not the basketball player) was one of the best things about Black Panther – totally villainous but you could see where he was coming from – his last line was devastating (bury me in the ocean … ) not quoting the whole thing because of spoilers.

    Just saw BP after it was sold out last weekend.

  45. 45.

    jl

    I haven’t seen this news item mentioned in recent BJ posts or comment threads on guns, but I may have missed it. I think a subtext to the Bloomberg story, and others that I have read, is that the gun and ammo industries are far down the road of drug dealers and big tobacco, or cults that have tie-ins to marketing ploys (Alex Jones probably a good example).

    Remington Is Planning to File for Bankruptcy
    By Eliza Ronalds-Hannon and Polly Mosendz. Bloomberg.
    February 12, 2018
    ” The company’s fortunes took a hit after the election of Donald Trump, a self-proclaimed “true friend” of the gun industry, because Hillary Clinton’s defeat erased fears among gun enthusiasts about losing access to weapons. Sales plummeted, and retailers stopped re-ordering as they found themselves stuffed with unsold inventory. ”
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-12/cerberus-s-remington-will-cede-control-to-lenders-in-bankruptcy

  54. 54.

    maeve

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Scarecrow (SCARECOW) is one of the songs from my childhood. I believe it is one of the songs that my sister and I used to use when cheating at Hearts (the card game). There were 4 of us – the perfect number for card games – hearts was our favorite) – recently moved to a new location in a hot humid summer in downstate iIlinois the weather of which we were not used to – didn’t know other kids so were reduced to playing cards in the cinderblock storeroom which was at least a little cooler – my sister (one year older) and I were not exactly challenged by my 2 brothers (3 and 5 years younger) so resorted to cheating like mad to make it interesting. We’d use songs to indicate which suite we wanted to pass from one to the other in our toes. I know “Secret Agent Man” was one – and just from the fact that I remember the lyrics I think “Scarecrow – scarecrow – the soldiers of the king knew his name” might have been one.

    (A year or two later we named our cat “John Henry” after the Smothers Brothers song but that is a different story.)

  61. 61.

    Baron Elmo

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Agreed and then some. Siouxsie’s version better than John Cale’s!? Surely you jest. The Cale version features one of the great head-frying guitar solos of all time — played by Phil Manzanera, tweaked by Brian Eno while Phil laid it down.

    Another great firearm song: Steely Dan’s “With a Gun.”

  62. 62.

    Steve in the ATL

    @eemom:

    Should have included Guns n’ Roses. Who also covered Knockin’ on Heavens Door.

    As long as that song is not included. Axl’s vocals ruin it.

  66. 66.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    Wilmington is the new Camden and opioids are out of control

    Bullshit. Camden has a riverfront and nothing else. Wilmington has its share of drugs, but most of the city is perfectly safe. Delaware has a completely Democratic delegation to Washington, supported single sex unions before it was the law of the land, and has one of the most progressive tax structures in the country.

    ETA: and it’s not our fault Chait doesn’t know how to shunpike.

  69. 69.

    Major Major Major Major

    I just got a very nice rejection letter for my story, from a Very Serious Magazine.

    Thank you for sending us [story]. We really enjoyed this piece, but we didn’t feel it was right for [the publication].

    We hope that you will continue to send us your work.

  81. 81.

    HumboldtBlue

    For all the winks and smiles the knowing glances and eager display of identification to gain entrance, the weed at the new licensed shop is still weed.

    I smoke weed every day.

    I bet them Jeffro Tull boys smoked some weed.

  87. 87.

    Bruuuuce

    We lost Dave Carter way too soon, but before he left, he wrote some of the world’s great music. Here’s his ode to a gun. I’m never sure whether it’s admiring or afraid; I think that’s probably one of the reasons it’s such a good song. “41 Thunderer”

  89. 89.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Can’t find a suitable video on YouTube, but I’ll close with a mention of the Beatles’ “Happiness Is a Warm Gun.”

    I’m out. Gotta be up early for the dentist.

  93. 93.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Mike J:

    Nice.

    You made me go to YouTube again, and that made me think of Junior Walker & the All-Stars, “Shotgun.” Although I think he’s talking about legitimate hunting, so he’ll probably be given an exemption.

    Damn, and there’s “Hey, Joe” (many versions) and that Cher song where bang bang her baby shot her down. Must stop now.

    When we give up the guns we can go back to a “Poison Arrow.”

  95. 95.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @M. Bouffant:

    Jeez, when you see it written down like that, I’m not sure he could pass the psych test for possession. Good thing it’s got a good beat and it’s easy to dance to.

  96. 96.

    Fair Economist

    @Beautifulplumage:

    Rap hits my ears like bad poetry slamming over found music.

    Because that’s basically what most of it is. My son has gotten into making rap music and that’s literally what he and his friends do – rap atrocious poetry over samples.

  97. 97.

    opiejeanne

    @Adam L Silverman: We stumbled onto the church used in the Disney “Scarecrow of Romney Marsh” purely by accident while trying to find a different church on the same marsh but miles away. The pew boxes were painted a pale pink by Disney with the promise to paint them back to white when they finished filming but the parishioners decided they liked the pink and decided to keep it. The pink “reads” better than white on film.

    St Clements of Romney Marsh

    Church interior

  100. 100.

    manyakitty

    @eemom: Also, too, Warren Zevon, “Lawyers, Guns, and Money” and he also covered “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”

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