Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Republicans in disarray!

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The willow is too close to the house.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Consistently wrong since 2002

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

This blog will pay for itself.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

He really is that stupid.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

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Reader Interactions

75Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    1. Who took the picture?
    2. Is the black dog Thurston? I didn’t think he was that big.
    3. If Steve is under the bed, who is the pet next to your left arm?
    4. I love how there’s a whole other half of the bed THAT ISN’T BEING USED…

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA AH AH

  2. 2.

    trollhattan

    Do the city fathers know you’re running a kennel? That’s an actual passel of doggies.

  3. 3.

    rikyrah

    So, she got $30 billion instead of $60 billion? How ever will she survive?[/snark]

    BREAKING NEWS: Jeff Bezos settles his divorce with wife MacKenzie but keeps 75 percent of their Amazon stock instead of losing half
    By JENNIFER SMITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

    PUBLISHED: 13:27 EDT, 4 April 2019 | UPDATED: 13:31 EDT, 4 April 2019

    Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie have settled their divorce – and the richest man in the world got off lightly.

    On Thursday, the Amazon founder tweeted the news as did his wife. She revealed that she will keep a quarter of the Amazon stock they owned together which amounts to around 20million shares, instead of half.

    At $1,813 a share, her stake in the company is worth $32billion – half of the $70billion she was entitled to.

    She will hand over her stakes in The Washington Post and Blue Origin as part of their deal and give her ex-husband voting control of her Amazon shares.

    There was no mention of how they will divide their sprawling property portfolio or other investments.

  6. 6.

    Fred Fnord

    @NotMax: Or don’t, if you can avoid it. Amazon and Bezos are a huge part of what is wrong with this country.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    I get emails…

    In response to the burgeoning market demand for environmentally friendly extraction processes for a wide range of natural oils, foods and cannabis, $COMPANY has developed the e710 supercritical CO2 extraction pump system.

    (I’ve bought stuff from this company before. No, not cannabis purification equipment, they also make valves and tubing that are rated to 15,000 psi and that’s something I need at work.)

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    Say goodbye to sleep, AMC is showing all 22 Marvel movies in an insane 59-hour marathon
    Oliver Whitney
    Tuesday 10:44am

    Now that spring has finally arrived, many of us are rejoicing over the warmer temperatures and the glorious gift of leaving work when the sun is still out. But soon, a select brave (er, insane) few will venture out of the daylight and into darkness to complete an honorable (again, insane) mission: watching every Marvel movie back-to-back for a whole two and a half days.

    AMC knows MCU fans care little about maintaining healthy vitamin D levels or normal sleep patterns, and are practically incapable of seeing a Marvel movie too many times. (Never forget the fan who saw Infinity War 100 times in the theater). Such has been proven by previous AMC Marvel marathons before — one nearly sucked the last remnants of sanity from The A.V. Club’s own Alex McLevy — but now the theater chain is getting truly fucking bonkers. Starting on April 23, AMC will show all 22 MCU movies in a massive Marvel movie marathon that asks the true diehards to prove their fandom once and for all by sacrificing sleep and body hygiene.

    If you’re worried about feeding yourself and staying properly hydrated during such an endeavor, thankfully the Alamo Drafthouse has you covered. If you’re lucky enough to live near an Alamo location, the chain is also hosting a marathon of every MCU movie.

    Both marathons will kick off with 2008’s Iron Man, leading up to Captain Marvel, and of course ending with Avengers: Endgame. That’s a whopping 59 hours and 7 minutes in total, according to Slash Film, which is a fuckton of Marvel to put into your eyeballs in one sitting. That also means you’ll need to sit through 56 hours of movies before you even get to the final three-hour Thanos showdown. So please, begin stocking up on Red Bull and deodorant now and planning which movies (Thor: The Dark World, obviously) you’ll be taking some quick naps during.

  11. 11.

    J R in WV

    I too want to know who took the photo, and who the pet at the left arm is….

    Important questions we need the answers to!!!

    I have trouble some nights with cats walking around on me. It means they want me to get up and open the door so they can go out, sometimes. One cat really likes a spot that coincided with a tender place on my hip, and I’ve stopped putting up with it, once I wake up. But she gets huffy and stalks off if I try to relocate her.

    Other cat is more easy going, and now slides under the feather coverlet, but over the quilt, between us. Then she purrs loudly, which is soothing and pleasant. This is all good, she the bigger, heaver kitty. They both like to get on my chest, and sneak towards my shoulder purring while I read prior to turning off the light at bedtime. That can interfere with seeing the book/ereader tablet.

    Going to visit puppies at friends goat dairy cheese making farm. Pretty summer-like day!! Hooray!

  12. 12.

    ruemara

    @rikyrah: I really wonder why the media reports so much on this stuff but can’t figure out how to report on our eroding democracy at all. That being said, I’d give my shares & my vote up to my cheating asshole husband some time between neverember & fuckyounovember

    How in the world do you even get sleep, John? You’re being smothered in fur.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    Cole and his critters, plus extras — and a photo taken by someone else.. I’m guessing that BFF Tammy took that photo either before or after she and Cole took the trip to NC (or SC?0 pick up Mom and Dad Cole.

  17. 17.

    Paul Wartenberg

    I have two cats. I know they hop about me during sleep, I may get Ocean settling on my chest for a few minutes before she gets agitated and hops off the whole bed. I wake up most mornings to Mal sitting at the corner of the bed facing the bedroom door. I miss my first two cats Tehya and Page. They would settle on either side of me, Tehya in particular would insist on curling up on in shoulder to rest.

  18. 18.

    Gravenstone

    @dmsilev: Amusingly, a friend of mine is getting into the hemp side of things now that it’s been legalized up here in Tundraland. The processing outfit she plans to contract with uses supercritical CO2 extraction.

  19. 19.

    Gravenstone

    @rikyrah: I know people doing their own marathons in preparation for End Game. Of course, they’re doing them in doses of a film or two at a sitting, not all in a row. Not everyone is insane, even these days.

  22. 22.

    Ohio Mom

    @WaterGirl: Yes, your answers are the same as mine: BFF Tammy took the photo, and the two dogs who are not Lily and Thurston are hers. Though I thought Tammy had one puppy and there are two here.

    Plus, none of the animals (not even her own) sleep with Tammy?

    Not so easy answering what’s going on here, after all.

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    @Ohio Mom:

    Not so easy answering what’s going on here, after all.

    Simple: Cole has dog-fu. How else do you explain he ends up finding them all in the first place?

  26. 26.

    kindness

    I’m thankful only one of my cats wants to sleep on the bed. Everyone else prefers other places.

  27. 27.

    MoxieM

    Oh goodness, that is so sweet, I am massively jealous. None of my puppers would/will sleep on the bed. They get overheated (if you want to find the cool spot in the house, look for where the Newfy sleeps). Sigh. Nothing better than dog cuddles.

  28. 28.

    rikyrah

    Rigged Shows How an Organized, Well-Funded System of Voter Suppression Doesn’t Bode Well for Black Folks—or Democracy
    Angela Helm
    Today 10:30am

    You know how the extrajudicial killings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, and Philando Castile moved so many of us to action—whether it was creating art, taking to the streets, or being more involved civically? Right. Well, there was another turning point in American history that spurned some to action as well, even though to most, that “incident” was a good thing, a beautiful thing, even.

    The 2008 presidential election of Barack Hussein Obama struck fear into the hearts of small men, and, according to a new film, Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook, supercharged efforts to make it that much harder for those who elected Obama to vote, ostensibly ensuring that something like that never happened again.

    “Basically, Obama won with 25 percent of his plurality coming from younger and nonwhite voters,” Tim Smith, co-executive producer of Rigged, told The Root. “With the growing demographic of nonwhite voters in America, I think in five years, more whites will be dying than are being born, and traditionally whites have voted for Republicans. And so [the GOP] basically had two choices in 2008: the first was to appeal to a larger demographic on social issues and legislation, and the other was to keep them from voting in large numbers. They obviously chose the latter, which is what our film is all about.”

    Narrated by outspoken actor Jeffrey Wright, Rigged follows the recent trajectory of voter suppression in the United States, and outlines a voter suppression playbook, which outlines at least 10 ways certain players are putting forth a concerted, well-funded effort to disenfranchise voters and maintain power— from purging voter rolls, to Voter ID laws, to “cracking and packing” congressional districts to consolidate power for one group or break up power for another.

  31. 31.

    Martin

    @rikyrah: Consider that means that should Bezos sue AMI, he has a legitimate claim for $30B in damages due to the settlement of his divorce.

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    @dmsilev:
    One of the mass spectrometer companies has decided that it’s important to sell themselves as the go to company for cannabis testing, and they regularly let everyone know about it in their sales literature. I guess I shouldn’t complain too much, since at least one or two former coworkers are now working in the burgeoning field of commercial cannabis testing. I could probably change fields if I have problems with my current job. Amazing as it might sound, it turns out it’s easier to teach a mass spec person about cannabis than it is to teach a cannabis person about mass spectrometry.

  34. 34.

    Keith P.

    @rikyrah: A hospital I was staying at for two weeks ran a Phase 3 marathon. At one point I was so delirious I thought I was moved to a secret floor run by Wakanda

  36. 36.

    Mike in NC

    Border emergency is so dire that now they want to wait a whole year before closing the border. Guess it didn’t play well with anybody not named Stephen Miller.

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

    Indiana school district turns unused cafeteria food into take-home meals for kids
    POSTED 9:53 AM, APRIL 3, 2019,
    BY TRIBUNE MEDIA WIRE

    ELKHART, Ind. – An Indiana school district has partnered with a non-profit organization for a pilot program to make sure kids get enough to eat at home, WSBT reports.

    Students at Elkhart Community Schools get breakfast and lunch at school, but sometimes they may be without food at home on the weekends.

    The district has partnered with the non-profit organization Cultivate to provide weekend food to a group of students at the elementary school by using unused cafeteria food.

    “Mostly, we rescue food that’s been made but never served by catering companies, large food service businesses, like the school system,” Jim Conklin with Cultivate told WSBT. “You don’t always think of a school.”

    “Over-preparing is just part of what happens,” said Conklin. “We take well-prepared food, combine it with other food and make individual frozen meals out if it.”

    “At Elkhart Community Schools, we were wasting a lot of food,” said Natalie Bickel, student services. “There wasn’t anything to do with the food. So they came to the school three times a week and rescued the food.”

    According to WSBT, 20 students will receive a backpack with eight individual frozen meals every Friday until the end of the school year.

  38. 38.

    Martin

    @Roger Moore: Not 2 weeks after the law passed, there were two large panel trucks from MedMen unloading boxes up to our biochem lab wing. There’s a legit land rush out there.

  39. 39.

    dmsilev

    @Roger Moore: The particular supplier that sent this blurb to me mostly caters to the oil&gas drilling industry. I guess I can’t blame them for wanting to diversify their customer base.

  40. 40.

    Martin

    @Mike in NC: I’m guessing someone figured out that when mexican produce stopped crossing the border, that California would be selling more in-state. You’ll be lucky to find an avocado east of the Hoover Dam once the border closes.

  43. 43.

    ruemara

    @Roger Moore: You never know, you could get superpowers. Able to generate beer foam with a wave of his hand, it’s BEER MAN! BOOZE BUBBLES, AWAY!

  45. 45.

    Mary G

    BFF Tammy has two dogs. I think, though too lazy to check, that No. 2 is named Charlie. Samantha is a ham and usually hogs the camera time.

  48. 48.

    SRW1

    Getting everyone ready for bed is not easy:

    Yeah, that’s a lot of doggies to tie down one dude!

  49. 49.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @Keith P.: Which would not be a bad fantasy to have given the fantastic healing properties of vibranium…

  50. 50.

    Mart

    Tech man Yang for President 2020 just finished with Ali on MSNBC. Main pitch was $1,000/month to everyone in US over 18 and not already on the dole. Paid for by VAT tax and happier healthier population. Concern is robot overlords will have all our jobs. Not a bad pitch, but it seems these billionaires are determined to get Trump reelected.

  54. 54.

    Gravenstone

    @Roger Moore:

    Amazing as it might sound, it turns out it’s easier to teach a mass spec person about cannabis than it is to teach a cannabis person about mass spectrometry.

    That should surprise exactly no one who has operated an analytical instrument of any stripe.

  55. 55.

    catclub

    OT;I will say that Herman Cain is probably MUCH more qualified for a seat on the Federal reserve, considering he was a chair a of a regional fed bank, Than Rick Perry was/is to oversee our nuclear security in the DOE.
    But some Slate headline says ‘God help us’ over Cain.

    I think there was a mention today about ‘the overconfidence of underqualified white men’ in this here blog.

    Note that I am not saying Cain is very qualified for the job, or competent.

  56. 56.

    Gravenstone

    @raven: Yes. I’ve taken a crash course in CBD since my friend has decided to enter that field. CBD and THC are extremely similar molecules (as are the variety of other bioactives from the cannabis family).

  57. 57.

    Roger Moore

    @raven:
    As I understand it, they’re running different tests for different things. The mass specs are used for testing the levels of various desirable chemicals (THC, CBD, terpenoids) that are used to standardize potency of things like CBD oil. They’re also used for pesticide residue testing. There are other tests for fungal and bacterial contamination. California has pretty rigorous testing rules.

  59. 59.

    Gravenstone

    @A Ghost To Most: A cursory search finds a small automated system (aimed at the cannabis market, so likely being priced at a premium) is about $90k. I’m sure small manual systems can be had for less.

    Of course, that only gets your oils extracted. This does nothing for concentration/recovery, purification and characterization of the extract.

  62. 62.

    A Ghost To Most

    @dmsilev: Yeah, likely. Luckily, making kief is as easy and cheap as an empty Tide bottle and some superfine mesh. I need the exercise anyway.

  65. 65.

    Mnemosyne

    This photo reminds me of the time that G had a dream that he had to go to a special workplace training about bears that were getting into the library and sleeping on people. In the dream, everyone was advised that, if that happened, they should just lie still until the bear woke up and wandered away.

    He woke up to find two of our cats sleeping on him, with the fuzzier one twitching his tail against G’s face. ?

  68. 68.

    Dan B

    @lamh36: I’ve wondered if Pete could rouse a crowd. He’s good on TV because you don’t want a shouting cheerleader in your living room for long but he doesn’t have the Beto charisma.

    I’d love to see him on stage with Abrams, Harris, and Warren. And maybe Castro. There’s something that tickles my curiousity about how he’d fare with these powerhouses. He might suddenly look like cabinet material.

  69. 69.

    Dan B

    @rikyrah: Sounds like a good movie to precede a rending of flesh and tearing of garments party. Or maybe they have solutions and/or stories of successful pushback. Of course I only read the first chapter of Dark Money. I’m a lightweight when it comes to adrenaline fests fueled by billionaire monsters. (Monster billionaires? Is there much difference? Oh, I know of a few. Exception proves the rule stuff.)

  70. 70.

    Dan B

    @ruemara: Unleash the belly! Shouts Beer Man to his humble sidekick Pinky Zinfandel as Puritanizilla roars in rage.

    Sorry. Imagined superhero outfits with not so secret weapons.

  71. 71.

    Ohio Mom

    I just figured out what is bothering me about this photo: where is John’s beloved sleep apnea mask and the rest of the set-up?

  73. 73.

    sukabi

    Uuuhhhh John, you appear to have a stalker who takes pictures on your phone while you’re sleeping…..or this is FAKE NEWS!!!

    Crisis actors.

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