Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

đŸŽ¶ Those boots were made for mockin’ đŸŽ”

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

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

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

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Reader Interactions

45Comments

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    That’s a lot of strawberries.

    I’m planning on making some strawberry sorbet this week, so I need to pick up a pound or so, and then somehow manage not to eat them before hand.

  4. 4.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    More fucking stupidity from know nothing, knuckledragging kindred spirits of Marjorie Taylor Greene:

    A business in Nashville received serious criticism online for “not vaccinated” patches evoking the Holocaust.

    An Instagram post from Hatwrks showed off a patch in the shape of a yellow star with “NOT VACCINATED” displayed on it, resembling the yellow Stars of David Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust.

    WZTV reporter Rachel Tiede reported on air that she went to the business to ask questions to the owner, who “was not exactly happy that we were there today” and “told us to leave the property.”

    h/t https://www.mediaite.com/news/nashville-business-criticized-for-not-vaccinated-patch-evoking-the-holocaust/

  5. 5.

    HumboldtBlue

    I find it hard to follow the news, it’s enraging, even more so than the past four years.

    At least I’ll get to go and visit with and cook some food with my friends on Sunday for the first time since Dec. 2019.

  8. 8.

    James E Powell

    I find it hard to follow the news, it’s enraging, even more so than the past four years.

    C’mon man! No way is the news worse than when every day was TFG’s day.

  11. 11.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    A lot to be said for cutting back on the politics.  I recommend comedy.

    Someone did an AI that lets you do voice files based on computer game characters. Right now I got Skyrim’s Mercer Frey, perhaps the stupidest thief in fantasy, spewing Donald Trump quotes.

  14. 14.

    Kelly

    Went to the beach Monday. Got home yesterday. Had a massage today. First massage in a long time. After THG chaos, the COVID chaos, the economic chaos, the Beachie Fire chaos, the election chaos, the post election chaos I figured I was carrying some tension. Knew about a few tight spots. Oh man she found a dozen I hadn’t noticed and dealt with them firmly. I’ve scheduled more appointments. We’ve been thru a bad time. Treat yourself to something good.

  19. 19.

    glc

    My choice is between Republicans and cicadas.

    The cicadas aren’t that bad -they don’t eat anything at all in their adult form, and die fairly quickly (it’s a Romeo and Juliet thing) and soon they’ll all be gone for 17 years. But their music is uninspired. I think it’s called techno (or house, maybe, if you’re feeling generous).

    Advantage: strawberries (points for no music).

  22. 22.

    Origuy

    It’s Bing cherry season here in San Jose and I am on a low-carb diet. There’s a family that is selling them out of their truck every day just down the road. I stopped by and got a bag but only ate a few; my house mates had some too. Without the diet I would eat the whole bag. Rainier cherries are coming in now. Those are the red and yellow ones. Need to resist.

  23. 23.

    opiejeanne

    @HumboldtBlue: I thought that was just me. I find that even though I don’t wake up at 4am wondering what horrors TFG  is creating, the Republicans at the state level are creating new horrors on their own.  I have no patience for any of this right now, so thank goodness the rain has let up enough for us to work in the garden for a few days.

  24. 24.

    opiejeanne

    @Origuy: Don’t resist those Rainiers;  the season is too short.

    We have a Rainier tree and last year because of a nasty late frost, didn’t get many cherries. Also, the birds got way too many. This year we might get a good crop, but the Montmorency sour cherries look like they may have an off year. I’m going to hanging some flashy ribbons to deter the birds.

    We bought a Morello sour cherry last spring and it has a surprising number of cherries ripening on it.

    I have bags of frozen Montmorency cherries from last year, and some of our kids are coming over tomorrow for supper, so I’m going to make a cherry pie

  25. 25.

    opiejeanne

    @Another Scott: Yes, there is lots of good news. I just find that I need to ignore the bad stuff, I know it’s happening but I feel powerless to fix the stupidity in places like Texas and Georgia, so I  go listen to the birds in the garden and dig up the morning glory and ox-eye daisies, and buttercup that are trying to choke the garden. I may curse at them a bit while I’m yanking them out of the ground.

  26. 26.

    satby

    @opiejeanne: It’s 4 am here, but when I get home from the farmer’s market in about 11 hours and it’s light, you’ve reminded me to go have a look at the cherry tree I planted way in the back of my yard. it had so many blossoms before one of our freezes, now I want to see if any cherries develop.

  27. 27.

    satby

    @opiejeanne: too many people on this here blog are fixated on telling us constantly how bad the Republicans are (we know), how hard they’re working to subvert democracy (yup, knew that too), women’s bodily autonomy (known that forever but thanks), etc, etc, etc.  It’s tedious and the opposite of empowering; it discourages people and makes them want to disengage… which is another tactic the RW has used for years to make people tune out of politics. It’s sort of a Stockholm syndrome response, adopting the tactics of the abuser and ratcheting up the outrage daily.

  28. 28.

    Geminid

    @satby: Put another way, the trump years created a lot of PTSD in people. I see it a lot here. We do have a lot of serious problems to solve, but the fear and hopelessness that carried over from the last four years can be debilitating.

    Hope it’s a good market day for you! We have rainy weather here in Virginia, but that is a good thing as it was getting awfully dry.

  29. 29.

    satby

    @Geminid:  Thanks! We had two much needed days of rain here, and now a cool spell which is a relief! Near 90° is too hot for May, and for me. Have a good weekend.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: [Cherry] pie them, in all honesty.  A very few commenters here are demoralizing, enervating, and not that interesting or useful.  Maybe it makes them feel better to spew the despair, but that type of commenter does not deserve our attention.  You can toggle, to see if they’re saying something of interest, but if not — skip the rest of their output and back under the pie.

    Self-care.

    You would not sit next to everyone you meet in a coffee shop.  You do not need to do it here.   Thank dog for the pie filter.

    Avalune has provided some clever artwork.

  31. 31.

    Elizabelle

    @Geminid:  You are kinder than I am.

    Yes, enjoying the sound of rain on the roof.  We needed it so bad.  The park’s soccer fields have turned brown, and the ducks and geese are standing around on mudbars.  You can walk across the creek.

    Had not realized it had gotten so dry, so quickly.

    Rain, rain, rain. Lucky us.

  33. 33.

    Cameron

    I’m a silent movie fan, and have found a lot of them (uncut!) on YouTube over the last couple of years  I’m thinking of trying to convert my friends who aren’t into silents by posting one a week on FB.  Only slightly related:  I did not know that before Hollywood was the US film capital, Jacksonville, FL had that role.  Curious to get up there and take a look around one of these days.

  35. 35.

    lowtechcyclist

    @John Cole: ​
     

    I think strawberry season is pretty much over, here in southern Maryland. Last Saturday at the farmers’ market, only one vendor still had berries, and they didn’t have many. They were still good, though.

  36. 36.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: For those within traveling distance, pick-your-own strawberry operations in the Shenandoah Valley and on the Piedmont side of the Blue Ridge are going strong. Although Liberty Mills Farm, near Somerset, Va. says cool weather earlier this Spring has delayed peak production. Their Strawberry Fest was yesterday and today.

  37. 37.

    sab

    @Elizabelle: Nice rainy day yesterday and hopefully more today. Very old fashioned kind of rain. For the past few years we have been having a combination of drought alternating with monsoonlike downpours. It’s nice to be back to all day drizzle pattering on the roof.

  38. 38.

    Booger

    We planted strawberries last year and this is the first year they are bearing fruit, and so for the last week and a half or so we’ve been picking a pound or more a day.

    It’s quite the first world problem to have more fresh strawberries than you can eat, so we’ve been hulling them and freezing them on cookie sheets in the deep freeze, then vacuum sealing them in pound bags. Frozen this way, they are like little sorbet bombs that melt in your mouth, no sugar no syrup no nonsense, just amazing strawberry flavor…and the freezer is filling up with them!

    Drop a couple in a glass of wine with some seltzer, ain’t no better way to relax on a nice spring evening!

  39. 39.

    debbie

    Strawberries and blueberries, oh my! I will happily overeat both while waiting for the too-brief black raspberry season.

  41. 41.

    Chris Johnson

    @Booger:

     I buy cherries for that purpose. Just nom them one at a time, straight out of the freezer. Beats ice cream :)

  43. 43.

    Ol'Froth

    Attention Captain Queeg!  The extra key to the wardroom refrigerator is at Cole’s house!

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    @Ol’Froth:  WordPress does not like apostrophes in screen names / nyms.

    That means that every time you comment with a nym with an apostrophe, your comment won’t show up until one of us manually releases it.

    So I know it’s not ideal, but you may want to change your nym slightly.

  45. 45.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ol’Froth: I just watched The Caine Mutiny for the first time ever the other night, and yeah, my mind went there, too! “Where are the mess boys? Why didn’t they help Cole out with the strawberries?”

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