Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

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

The words do not have to be perfect.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

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

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Republicans don’t trust women.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

This blog will pay for itself.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The willow is too close to the house.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Cheap Snark Open Thread: Being Mean to MAGAt Morons

Cheap Snark Open Thread: Being Mean to MAGAt Morons

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I try not to encourage being mean to people (yeah, you should read me when the filters are *off*), but when people waltz into someone else’s online conversation attempting to ‘slay’ them, well — don’t start none, won’t *be* none, fellas. Since Ben Shapiro is well-compensated for being a professional Guy Who Never Learns, only fitting he lead this clown parade…

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46Comments

  1. 1.

    The Dangerman

    I was listening to CA Central Valley radio (San Joaquin Valley is quite Red) and the host was going on about how you shouldn’t be able to vote if you can’t speak English. He wanted an English test to vote.

    To which, I said fine (not really, but roll with me here), I want a test on basic mathematics before you can vote, too. If you really believe that a tax cut can be revenue neutral through growth, let’s have a numbers test.

  2. 2.

    billcinsd

    The problem with having a test to determine the right to vote is who writes and grades the test. Southern States used this to not allow African-Americans to vote

  3. 3.

    tomtofa

    Romney, 2024. Voter: “Oh, come on now. That was then, this is now.”

    Barr, 2021. Fuck, yeah.

    Vote.

  4. 4.

    Anne Laurie

    @billcinsd: Of course there are predictable ‘who sets the standards’ issues — that’s why these idiots have been taught to parrot ‘English only’ or ‘citizenship test’ when the subject is voting rights.  But while they’re immune to reason, they’re obviously *not* immune to mockery!

  5. 5.

    JWR

    @The Dangerman: I was in my polling place one time, and an older white lady was scanning all the Spanish-language voting material available when she suddenly said, “I don’t understand this at all”, pointing to a Spanish-language sign. I tried to find out what it was that so confused her, but before long her implication became quite clear: Can’t speak English?, you shouldn’t be allowed to vote!, at which point I gave up. Can’t fix (or reason with) stupid.

  6. 6.

    sanjeevs

    My take from the 2 primaries:

    1. Sanders is not very popular amongst Democrats
    2.  Sanders biggest threat before Iowa was Biden, then it became Biden or Warren. His social media machine has the capacity to seriously damage any candidate that stands in his way
  7. 7.

    Kent

    @JWR: Teacher here.  I once had a kid carefully make flashcard biology definitions from the glossary at the back of the textbook.  Except that he accidentally used the Spanish glossary and didn’t notice.  All his definitions were perfectly written in Spanish.

    “Teacher…I don’t understand any of these definitions”  I walk over to look “Um..Tyler, that’s because you did them all in Spanish”

    Tyler responds – “Really?!  Cool.  I didn’t know that I knew Spanish”

    Sigh.  Sometimes there is no fixing stupid.

  10. 10.

    MisterForkbeard

    @sanjeevs: I think this is basically right. We saw this happen to Harris too – leftbros everywhere went from thinking she was fine (though not good) to thinking she was the antichrist.

     

    They managed to do a lot of damage. Sanders strategy has always been to hold his base and fragment the rest of the party, and that might actually work for the primary.

    But it’s going to have terrible effects in the general, even if he loses the primary

  11. 11.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @sanjeevs: Sanders is not very popular amongst Democrats

     

    He scratched out a 1 point win in an all white, neighboring state, where exit polls showed 11% of republicans voted to fuck up the results. This was his best state. Which bodes poorly when facing a closed primary or diverse state.

  12. 12.

    Martin

    @The Dangerman: I think the only test should be that you have to calculate your own tax rate and bill, list your top marginal rate and your effective rate, and list the total federal tax subsidy that you received.

  13. 13.

    Duane

    If Ben Shapiro is concerned about what’s beneficial to a democracy he could STFU. That would help.

  15. 15.

    Kent

    @Martin: Yep.  They went to the state championship that year and lost to a team from Austin quarterbacked by a future Heisman Trophy winner named Baker Mayfield.

  19. 19.

    hitchhiker

    Back when I was teaching high school I once signed up to take the SAT, because I realized I was standing up there quacking about it & hadn’t laid eyes on it since like 1969, which was 25 yrs ago at the time.

    What a revelation! I’d forgotten what it’s like to be treated like shit. Sit here. No talking. One restroom break. We’ll let you know when. No, I don’t know where the restrooms are. No talking. Etc.

    And then the test, which lasts for hours and is of course designed with answers that look right but aren’t. Every time they give it, they have one section with questions that won’t be part of the score, but will be used in future tests once it’s determined how frequently each possible answer appears in the batches. Students, in other words, are building future test questions unwittingly, which will be chosen and tweaked so that the results, year after year, will form a lovely bell curve, which “proves” that the test is valid because it matches the IQ distribution.

    Anyway … after that experience I decided that it would make sense to have every politician, teacher, and admissions officer take the SAT every few years and be required to publicly post their scores. If it matters that 17-yr-olds be good at this, it must matter even more that adults are.

  20. 20.

    SectionH

    @Kent: Ouch. It’s the “can’t fix stupid” level.

    I come from a long line of women who were teachers. I most vididly* remember the answers to my mom’s “general knowledge” handout she’d do at the beginning of the semester for her courses at [regional state u]. Basic answer: that course was remedial high school. And on happy note, some of them learned and liked it. Not many, but hey…

    Still, it’s no wonder Media totally rules.
    *BJ spellchecker didn’t know the word… srsly. That’s wft territory to me.

  22. 22.

    moops

    A citizens test would have some history and the constitution?  Would anyone dare put current events on it?  A lack of basic numeracy might help, but to understand things like national debt requires pretty advanced reasoning.  I think most Americans actually understand gerrymandering.  It is just that many Americans have been surprised by how many of their fellow Americans are cool with it.   Maybe to vote you should espouse at least lip service to the ideals of our own elections.

  23. 23.

    moops

    Talking nonsense about how democracy works is Shapiro’s job description. His dumby-dumb-dumb clatter about testing voters is right on target for him.

  24. 24.

    Hob

    I gotta say I am not at all down with “only people who can do X should be citizens” arguments, even as hyperbole. Birthright citizenship is really fucking important and if you need to throw it in the garbage rhetorically in order to make your joke work, it’s not a good joke. Any step toward allowing people who are born here, and have nowhere else to go, to become a permanent underclass because they don’t meet some standard – whether it’s a malicious standard or a well-meaning one – would be really bad news; the only reason a knowledge-based test for naturalized citizens is at all OK is that those people already have citizenship somewhere else, so not passing doesn’t mean becoming a stateless person.

    Short version: if nations are to be a thing at all, it’s necessary for everyone to get at least one for free.

  25. 25.

    opiejeanne

    @hitchhiker: I was in band in HS, and when I was a junior we came back from a parade one Saturday and took the NMSQT*. We had been at the school at 6am to be bused to a parade that started at 10, back by 12:30 with no time for lunch. And then the five hour test. I remember part of one question: Compare the economy of Bulgaria to one of the following: Priming the Pump…

    I don’t remember the three other options, nor which one I chose because I didn’t know squat about Bulgaria’s economy.

    160 was a perfect score. The board didn’t like giving more than 2 scholarships to a school of our size, and the qualifying score was usually 150, unless there were more than 2 students, in which case they bumped it up to 155. We had 4 students who scored at least that high. I did pretty well but didn’t realize it because it was only 135. Then I noticed all the A students staring at me because they’d gotten lower scores and they thought I was a dummy. I was an A- student because I was immature and lazy.

    By the time my own kids were in HS the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test was no longer a 5 hour test, I think it became part of the SAT.

  27. 27.

    moops

    @opiejeanne: His rhetoric, such as it is poorly practiced, provides comfort to the comfortable.  His comfortable bosses and oddly invisible funding sources like him telling the commoners these things.  They know it makes him look stupid but is not their concern.

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I love Slava. I think it was you that turned me onto him Anne, for which I need to thank you.

  29. 29.

    JAFD

    I’ve spent a good many Election Days working the polls for several Boards of Elections.  The only time I’ve ever seen someone who wasn’t ‘qualified’…

    A couple in their ’80’s.  Wife ‘leading around’ husband, who was suffering from advanced Alzheimers, or similar illness.  He was closest thing to a zombie I ever hope to see…

    Thought of making objection, decided that poor lady had enough hassle in her life…

    So a senior citizen effectively got two votes that November.  Probably not the next year.  And may the Lord have mercy on our souls.

    Happy Lincoln’s Birthday, everyone !  And Presidents’ Day !  And a joyful Valentine’s Day to all the young ladies* of Balloon Juice !

     

    *When you reach age 69, you find that the world is full of young people.

  31. 31.

    Patricia Kayden

    @sukabi: Yes, I love his tweets.  Republicans who think their side would do great on citizenship tests are beyond delusional.

  34. 34.

    Arclite

    @billcinsd: “The problem with having a test to determine the right to vote is who writes and grades the test. Southern States used this to not allow African-Americans to vote”

    Not surprising at all that Republicans want to return to this well.

  38. 38.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Betty Cracker:

    Is there a BJ-specific spell-checker or is it just your browser spell-checker? Whatever it is, apparently I have it turned off. I rely on the blessing/​curse of copyediting for 50 years.

  39. 39.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    First problem for the MAGA hats is the Mormons wanting to recall Mitt, they think the guy is the Savior of the US.

  40. 40.

    Percysowner

    The “they’d never pass the test” is sadly, not true. We have had literacy tests for voting before. “Good” i.e. white voters got questions like what are 2+2. “Bad” i.e. voters of color got questions like, explain Einsteins theory of relativity.

    Here is an example. The whole point is to rig the system and yes, the people demanding the tests would make sure that “their people” passed and “those people” didn’t.

  41. 41.

    Kosh III

    @Arclite:
    I suspect many white Southern GOP’ers want to turn the clock back to 1950 or better yet 1850.  I grew up in rural Tennessee and live in a blue enclave surrounded by idiots like Sen. Marshamarshamarsha.

  42. 42.

    mrmoshpotato

    The Internet is forever?  Ok!  Just let me say…

    You sad dumbasses. Sad, sad dumbasses.

    …BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! (cough, wheez, falls over)

    I’m ok. -Tina Belcher.

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    @Hob:

    As I understand it, most countries do not have geographic citizenship or just born within it’s borders as we do. There are several concepts of citizenship, ours is rather easy to work with, as long as you can prove you were born here. A registered birth certificate is usually all that takes and is rather normal today. It wasn’t always and within the lifetimes of people alive today.

  46. 46.

    PenAndKey

    @Ruckus: Unless we’re going to join most of Europe and go to a jus sanguinis policy, where the status of the parents comes into play, birthright is about the best we’ve got. No child born in the US should ever have to worry about being stateless.

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