Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

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

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

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

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The revolution will be supervised.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / Saturday Night Open Thread: One of the Dumber Timelines

Saturday Night Open Thread: One of the Dumber Timelines

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Yes, I investigated, and you can take my word: It’s every bit as stupid and pathetic as the nastiest satirist could imagine. Or even worse!

This clip may, or may not, have been the instigation:

Reader Interactions

146Comments

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    I remember when Possum Queen would single out and try to mock Jim Acosta during pressers (what great fun). I see Jim Acosta still at work with a paying job.

  7. 7.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Is this the first time the MAGAts have actually acknowledged his unnatural coloring?

    I think that would be great if they took on oranges as their symbol. I imagine it would piss off TFG, which would be funny as hell.

  9. 9.

    frosty

    Ok. I read the post. I clicked the link. I have no fucken idea what any of this is about and I don’t care. I think I’ll go back to getting on with my life.

  12. 12.

    Soonergrunt

    So.

    20 years.

    Congratulations to John, especially, and to all the Front Pagers, and again, thanks for the honor.

    It was Anne Laurie who first suggested the idea that I should do FP, and the thought that people might be interested in what I had to say was surprising.

    Again, thanks to all of you for helping me to find my voice. Even though I haven’t posted in years to the front (and I can’t even find the damn interface anymore) I still lurk here from time to time, and will always be thankful that you all didn’t handle me too roughly.

    Here’s to Balloon-Juice’s first 20 years, and great anticipation for the next 20 years.

  15. 15.

    Ken

    On the bright side, a year ago the MAGAts tried to storm the Capitol and overthrow the government. Now they’re holding down the repeat key on their smartphones, probably while giggling uncontrollably at how much they’re owning the libs.

    (Though I suppose “Speaker Trump” may have been in the “instigator”, not the “into battle”, category last year too.)

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Soonergrunt:

    It is so nice to see you here! Thanks for stopping by, and please comment more frequently. You’re a real favourite around here, SG.

  18. 18.

    randy khan

    Not even as clever as the Rose Twitter snake emoji from early 2020.  And they weren’t very clever, either.

    Clicking on the link above leads to, besides a truly amazing bit of, uh, poetry, a whole bunch of people who have decided that Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers on job creation must be made up.

  19. 19.

    frosty

    @Soonergrunt: Hey, good to see your nym and glad to hear you’re lurking from time to time. Don’t worry about being handled roughly , we’re a tender hearted group of jackals.

    This week. We’ll go back to vitriolic and vicious as soon as the anniversary celebrations are over!

  31. 31.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    For as long as I’ve been using emojis on my iPhone, I was five minutes ago years old when I realised that if I’m in, say, “Frequently Used” and need something from, say, “Objects” or “Flags,” I don’t have to side-scroll/swipe a million times to get to that section. There’s a row of little icons across the bottom that’ll take me right to the section I want. Has that always been there and I just never noticed, or is it a new feature?

  33. 33.

    persistentillusion

    @Soonergrunt: So good to hear from you!  I have been a (mostly) lurker since the late aughts and your’s was one of the voice that captured my attention and kept me engage in this wonderful madhouse ever since.  Thanks!

  39. 39.

    Ken

    @Steeplejack: I was trying to bring a bit of class and refinement to the conversation, as they tried with The Emoji Movie by casting Patrick Stewart as the voice of that character.

    (Which I haven’t seen, since all the reviews said it was a steaming double-sized U+1F4A9.)

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I don’t have an iPhone, but it’s probably been there for a while. I’ve had that experience of suddenly discovering the easy way to do something that I was laboriously doing the hard way. I used to go to some website to copy emojis, and then I discovered that in Win10 you can hold down the Windows key and press the [period] key and—boom!—emoji palette. ?

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Anyone who supports TFG is a domestic enemy of the Constitution, and therefore MY enemy.

  48. 48.

    Mike in NC

    We’re still rewatching “The Loudest Voice In The Room”, starring Russell Crowe as the filthy shitbag Roger Ailes. Glad to know he is still dead.

  49. 49.

    Leto

    @raven: for a moment I was afraid that the Japanese ghost was going to leap out of my screen and get me, but then I remembered that photography was relatively new in the 1850s :P

    But that’s still neat!

  52. 52.

    Kent

    So what is the actual point of this stupidity?   Are they just making sure that no one bothers to read or retweet their twitter threads?  OK then.

  53. 53.

    raven

    @Leto: From what I’m reading that is one of two anchors “near” the ship with no more identifying information! Damn, it’s like the “German” youth knife my old man left me. I decided to get information and the first site I hit said “if it says “Germany” on it it’s fake! It would say Deutschland if it were genuine! The Boulevard of Broken Dreams!

  55. 55.

    Felanius Kootea

    Reading about the California legislature’s recent proposal on universal healthcare. Every news article I’ve seen so far focuses on the fact that it would mean tax hikes and on Republican/doctor association opposition to those hikes. No discussion of what it means to have so many people without regular access to healthcare 2 years into a pandemic. No discussion that asks any questions of patients, providers who work in the safety net, or people facing bankruptcy-inducing ICU bills. Typical.

  56. 56.

    Mike in NC

    @Leto: The imbecile Donald Trump was committed to advancing the careers of the most mediocre white men that ever lived in this country.

  57. 57.

    Leto

    @raven: once we’re able to travel more, I wouldn’t mind hitting some of the museum sites like that. If I remember correctly, the 8th AF museum is right there on the GA/SC border on 95. We passed it quite a number of times on the drive between Biloxi and Charleston.

  58. 58.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    That’s like the old story of the guy who went to sell an antique coin to a collector. “It’s really old! Look at the date on it — 378 B.C.!”

  61. 61.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Felanius Kootea: The media owners, in collaboration with their fellow greedhead parasites, don’t want anyone to know that what this will do is lower overall health costs, which means that the middle men will have to find honest work for a change.

  62. 62.

    Ken

    @SiubhanDuinne: Another one: A tourist enters a shop in Egypt and sees two skulls, one large and one small. In response to his question, the shopkeeper says they are the skulls of the famous queen Cleopatra. When he expresses skepticism, the shopkeeper explains “One is the skull of Cleopatra as an adult, and the other when she was a child.”

  65. 65.

    hells littlest angel

    So it’s a reference to Trump demanding reporters look into the “oranges” of the Mueller investigation?

  67. 67.

    JWR

    Shorter: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Intel reports repeatedly failed to forecast Capitol riot

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Intelligence reports compiled by the U.S. Capitol Police in the days before last year’s insurrection envisioned only an improbable or remote risk of violence, even as other assessments warned that crowds of potentially thousands of pro-Trump demonstrators could converge in Washington and create a dangerous situation.

    The documents, obtained by The Associated Press, underscore the uneven and muddled intelligence that circulated to Capitol Police officers ahead of the Jan. 6 riot, when thousands of Donald Trump loyalists swarmed the Capitol complex and clashed violently with law enforcement officers in their effort to disrupt the certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election. The intelligence reports in particular show how the police agency, up to the day of the riot itself, grievously underestimated the prospect of chaotic violence and disruptions.

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    @Soonergrunt: You still have your WordPress account here.  Send an email to watergirl at balloon-juice.com if you want the details.

    So good to see you here!

    edit: If Sooner is already gone, I would appreciate it if one of you guys who does Twitter would let him know and give him my email address. thanks

  77. 77.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I am just so tired of talking about anything to do with TFG. I know we have to do it to hold him and his pals accountable but I just wish they would just all go away. These are horrible people who intentionally caused  the death of Americans for politics. Completely and totally unforgivable.

  85. 85.

    FelonyGovt

    @Ken: Here’s an ethnic joke from my youth, repurposed so it’s not offensive.

    Two Republicans are out walking when they see a head lying in the street. Repub 1 picks up the head, holds it at arm’s length and says, “isn’t that Chad?” Repub 2 says, “no, of course not! Chad is much taller!”

  89. 89.

    Ken

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: he’s running.

    The Great Betrayer, the one responsible for the failure of the Glorious Revolution*, thinks the base will vote for him?  I see he’s as intelligent and politically adept as ever.

    * Not to be confused with the original, which among other things worked and involved actual royalty.

  90. 90.

    Suzanne

    One other thing that stood out to me about Mike Pompeo losing weight…. he apparently used to work at his desk and eat cheeseburgers. Is that, like…. a thing? That normal grown-ass men do?

  95. 95.

    Suzanne

    @delk: Apparently he was eating a metric fuckton of cheeseburgers, I can imagine you drop a lot of weight quickly if you stop that!

  96. 96.

    Ken

    @Suzanne: Well, I don’t; but I’m also not trying to signal that I’m a hard-working caring politician who devotes his lunch hour to serving the people, and a regular Joe guy who shares their love of real American food.

    (I will admit to eating at my desk a lot, but that’s because my desk has been fifteen feet from my kitchen for nearly two years now.)

  97. 97.

    Suzanne

    @Ken: I eat at my desk a lot, too…. but more snacky food. Apple slices, string cheese, almonds, those damn flat pretzel cracker things. The idea of eating a big meal like that while at my desk honestly seems bizarre to me.

  98. 98.

    Ken

    So I’m sitting here with an old Star Trek on TV, “The Lights of Zetar”, and getting annoyed. There’s a character, Mira Romaine, who’s reached the rank of Lieutenant in Star Trek and is a highly-trained scientist. She will be supervising the transfer of information and equipment at Memory Alpha, the Federation’s most important data repository. She was played by Jan Shutan, who was 36 when it was recorded.

    So how do Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty refer to her nearly every time? “The girl.”

  99. 99.

    Steeplejack

    @JWR:

    Forget the Capitol Police. The FBI and Homeland Security should have been on this too. But all of these agencies have massive blind spots because too many of their ‘intelligence” people are conservative, white and Trumpian, just not quite as radicalized as the January 6 nutters. They’re too busy looking for Antifa and BLM under the bed to notice that their next-door neighbor is stockpiling ammo and writing racist screeds on RedState.com.

  103. 103.

    HumboldtBlue

    Fellow on Twitter posted the other day he was unashamedly enjoying  A Sound of Music and always has and made no apologies for it.

    I’m all like, my heart wants to sing every song it hears, and me and Julie are making eye contact on a Saturday night.

  104. 104.

    Urza

    @Ken: TOS really does not hold up well in so many ways.  But it started something.  I think the newer series will hold up better over time, but will any of them truly be classics other than TNG.

  109. 109.

    Kay

    What it’s like to live in a county taken over by MAGAS, when you’re not one:

    But some people in Brevard County have another, related theory for why so many of their neighbors were arrested in the storming of the Capitol: They were inspired in part by the rhetoric and actions of their local elected lawmakers and officials.
    Brevard is home to a group of bellicose Republicans — all of whom have embraced former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — who in recent years have targeted their political opponents with a particularly vile and vindictive mix of harassment and mendacity. The result has been incidents of alleged violence, vandalism, intimidation and even a false report of child abuse.

  111. 111.

    HumboldtBlue

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    My grandmother used to tell the story of grandpa in Germany/Austria post-war and how, while he was impressed, always insisted he’d seen similar natural beauty here in the states with that bristly-mustached-white-haired-square-headed Dutch/Irish look of his.

  112. 112.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    Thank you for the link. I’ve been reading articles about Wordle and it sounds great fun, but when I went to the Apple store and searched “Wordle,” it gave me so many different options that I stalked off in disgust. Glad to be directed to the right one.

  117. 117.

    Another Scott

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: We saw it when I was a kid shortly after it came out in a huge CinemaScope-ish theatre (“shot in TODD-AO!”) in the Atlanta suburbs.  Very impressive on the huge screen.  J has to watch it every year.  It’s less impressive the 37th time on a small screen at home with commercials…  ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  118. 118.

    Leto

    @Steeplejack: we visited that a few times when we lived just down the way in Biloxi. That was a good one

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: if we get to Cali (I think Avalune and I would enjoy the west coast) I wouldn’t mind checking that out. Then drive down to SD and visit some good friends there we haven’t seen since the UK.

  119. 119.

    JWR

    @Steeplejack:

    too many of their ‘intelligence” people are conservative, white and Trumpian

    A-yup. That was my first thought exactly. Also I read sometime ago that of the thousands of BLM marches that summer, 3% turned violent. And I wonder how many of those 3% where instigated by “umbrella” people?

  120. 120.

    Felanius Kootea

    @Benw: I’m hooked on wordle too.  Not surprising since I’m also a Scrabble freak. I blame Suzanne (just kidding – but she posted a wordle link to BJ recently).

  121. 121.

    Leto

    @Steeplejack:  @?BillinGlendaleCA: Idk… I mean, we had like 7-8 casinos, amazing Vietnamese food, the best BBQ I’ve ever had, the catfish and po boys were just out of this world… ok, I’ve run out of stuff and the casino’s don’t count :P

    We lived in Biloxi from 2003-2008 and haven’t been back since. Well, I’ve been back for some training classes at Keesler, but you know what I mean.

  122. 122.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    Well, I appreciate it. I start every single day with a mix of online word games, logic puzzles, spatial manipulation, trivia, and cards. Whole sequence takes well under an hour, but it’s the way I get my brain in gear. Wordle will liven things up.

  127. 127.

    Steeplejack

    @Leto:

    My family lived at Keesler from 1972 to about ’75. Dad was the hospital commander. I was just out of college and got a job in Mobile; was there until ’79. Used to run up and down the whole Gulf Coast from Pensacola to New Orleans. Good times.

    My middle brother graduated from Biloxi High—one of the tragedies of his life, because he was uprooted from several years at a good high school in Minot, ND, to spend his last year at a shithole Mississippi school.

    He took a car-camping trip from Las Vegas to Key West and back over the last few months and stopped in Biloxi. The house they lived in was gone—I think the whole neighborhood got destroyed in a hurricane and wasn’t rebuilt—and he said Keesler was unrecognizable. Of course it has been 50 years. Tempus fugit.

  130. 130.

    Leto

    @Starboard Tack: Thanks for the recommendation!

    @Steeplejack: Oh man, thinking that Minot had better schools… aye yi! Yeah Katrina, which I was there for, totally reshaped the Gulf Coast and several miles inland. Speaking of your dad’s hospital, when the storm hit the hospital eventually lost power and also eventually lost backup power. The generators were flooded from the tidal surge from the back bay. Here’s a few articles you might find interesting:

    Keesler AFB Takes A Half Billion Dollar Blow From Katrina Published: Sep. 11, 2005 at 12:32 AM EDT

    Keesler Medical Center rebounds from Katrina Published Aug. 29, 2006

    $1B invested in Keesler since Katrina Published: Tue, February 23, 2010 4:27 AM

    Also it continues to show just what a small community we are (mil vets/family); can’t turn a corner without finding one of us :)

  131. 131.

    Leto

    @Steeplejack:

    Also found this: 16 years later; A look back at the AFMS response to Hurricane Katrina 09.15.2021

    In one of the articles above, it talks about how the runways were cleared 11 hours after the storm. I remember that. I remember all the C-17s coming in and transporting students and medical patients out. At the time, we honestly thought they were going to close the base. They did that at Holmstead AFB, FL after Andrew destroyed it. This was so similar. I think 3 days after the storm there was this rumor that it was going to happen, and this sheet started circulating around asking where’d we like to go. It was such a crazy time.

  132. 132.

    Eunicecycle

    @Ken: ugh I was watching that, too, and thought the same. They were all so condescending to her, especially Scotty.

  134. 134.

    frosty

    @Leto:  If you’re still here, the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola is a must-see. Aircraft from WWI through Korea. Count on spending at least half a day.

  136. 136.

    Leto

    @frosty: put it on the list! Avalune and I spent at least that amount of time at the UK Royal Naval Air Museum. Essentially the same thing, aircraft from about 1920 to present.

  138. 138.

    Steeplejack

    @Leto:

    Thanks for the links. Interesting stuff. Yeah, Katrina was it. I was blanking on the name.

    My family’s house was on this odd curved street on the back bay. One side of the street was “base housing”—really just six or eight ranch-style homes—the other (bay) side was larger civilian houses. The Biloxi mayor’s house was catty-corner across the street! You could get to my family’s house without going through a Keesler gate. Very odd. I lived there only a few months, then got the job in Mobile and would visit on weekends.

    The tragedy for my brother was mostly that he was thrown into a new school for his last year of high school. That’s tough. I went to two high schools, grades 9-10 in one school, 11-12 in the other, and that was much easier. There was some talk of leaving him in Minot to live with his best friend’s family and finish school there, but for some reason that got vetoed. In retrospect, I think it would have been much better.

    The other place he visited on his recent trip was Laughlin AFB outside Del Rio, TX. When we were there (’64-67) the base was about 15 miles outside of town. Now the town has expanded to almost engulf the base. He sent me some pictures of the house we lived in. Of course it looks tiny now. That was grades 8-10 for me.

  140. 140.

    Leto

    @Steeplejack: Our son did the 9-10 in Italy (Vicenza Army Base HS), and 11-12 at Hogwarts. That’s what we called his really fancy upscale English private school where he went. Seriously, it was fancy af.

    The rules surrounding kids entering their last year of HS have changed: the member can now apply to stay in place for a year to prevent disruption to the kid/family. I knew some people who took advantage of that. Frankly it’s a good change just because I knew families who either 1) left their kid with a close family to let their child finish that final year or 2) had the poor kid do their final year at a new school. Both options sucked so I’m glad they changed it.

    Regarding housing: when I was going through tech school (97-98) we lived on D street, which was a few blocks from the hospital. I think we were maybe a block from the side gate. Later when we were in England, we knew people who’d lived in the village all their life and spoke about how the base didn’t have a fence surrounding it. They’d simply walk onto base, visit friends, attend events. I can’t remember if it changed before 9/11, but I know they said after 9/11 they couldn’t do that anymore. It always struck me as so odd that a base wouldn’t have some type of security perimeter, but just goes to show different time/different expectations.

  141. 141.

    Steeplejack

    @Leto:

    That’s a good change. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that my brother was not allowed to stay in Minot because somehow it could have had an adverse affect on my father’s career? “Unstable family”? I have no idea. It seems ridiculous now, but, like I said, it was 50 years ago. Back then just getting a divorce was a big deal.

  142. 142.

    Steeplejack

    @Leto:

    “Hogwarts.”

    Heh. Dad was stationed at Ruislip Air Base from 1957 to 1960, and I started my education as a proper English schoolboy at the Montpelier School in Ealing. “Public school,” meaning private school, of course. Somewhere there’s a photo of me in full school uniform at about age 7 looking like a 40-year-old maths professor.

  143. 143.

    Leto

    @Steeplejack:

    Dad was stationed at Ruislip Air Base from 1957 to 1960, and I started my education as a proper

    Long dead thread but wanted to say that now, at that spot, is a State Dept facility. When we’d go into London, we’d drive from Croughton to the Ruislip facility where we’d park the car in their secure area. Then simply walk out the back gate and be directly at the tram station. It was so incredibly nice to be able to do that

    We had to buy our son two suits, some extra pants/shirts, and a few ties so he could attend. Not quite the “40 year old maths professor” but def different than what he was previously used to. We made it an adventure for him though. Went to Mark and Spencers, had the woman there help him, let him make choices for most of the stuff. He was 16 at the time, so it was another step into adulthood for him.

  144. 144.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Leto:

    This is a fair approximation of my kit. Everything gray—flannel shorts, shirt, sweater vest (as needed), blazer and cap—with pops of the school color (purple) on the tie, cap and blazer pocket

    ETA: Base housing was not available, so we lived “on the economy,” in a semi-detached house on Lynwood Road in Ealing.

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