Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

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

The choice is between normal and crazy.

No one could have predicted…

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

It’s a doggy dog world.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

In my day, never was longer.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: State of Our Union

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  2. 2.

    Ken

    I am very, very grateful Joe Biden is our president in these challenging times.

    And yet according to the tabloid I saw in the checkout line last week, she is running again in 2024.

  6. 6.

    BellyCat

    The alternatives could be substantially worse — a fact which eludes 40% of the U.S., courtesy of the “Biden has terrible polls” media. Remarkable…

  10. 10.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    I’m concerned about the tone of Zelensky’s most recent reported statements. They have an air of fatalism that sound like a farewell address before light’s out. Hope I’m wrong.

  12. 12.

    MisterDancer

    More powerful psyops from the Ukrainians:

    Billboards all around Kyiv: “Russian soldier, stop! How can you look into your kids eyes? Remain human”, “Do not kill your soul for Putin’s oligarchs. Leave without blood on your hands”, and the UA MOD’s call to receive 5 mln rubles in case they lay down arms

    Tweet has video proof of one of the billboards: https://twitter.com/ngumenyuk/status/1499015411932745731

  14. 14.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    Oh, the owners will be setting the overall narrative tone through their media lackeys in short order. It’ll all be “millionaire ball players, greedy over playing a game”, and many people will believe that, ignoring that the real value of the entertainment of sport is set by the personality and skill of the players.

    People don’t buy tickets, fan gear or items advertised on televised games based on watching owners own or seeing MBA bean counters in the head office.

    Undoubtedly, there will be some new movie about lucky scabs filling in rosters.

  17. 17.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @MisterDancer:

    and the UA MOD’s call to receive 5 mln rubles in case they lay down arms

    Isn’t that like $40 these days?

  18. 18.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I watched the SOTU last night, which I never do. I’m just so relieved to have someone sensible in charge.

    We’re going to the orchid show at the Chicago Botanic Garden today. I’m looking forward to a glimpse of spring.

  19. 19.

    Kay

    @MisterDancer:

    Putin’s problem with “psyops” is he launched the thing on a pack of lies, which has really restrained his ability to sell it. Ukraine is doing better with a moral argument because they have one.

  20. 20.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    And the more I think about it, I wonder if Gene Hackman, Jack Warden or Keanu Reeves ever felt any shame about appearing in “The Replacements”?

  23. 23.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @OzarkHillbilly: Inorite? My son and I were planning to go to a game (White Sox!) when I visit him in Chicago this summer. First world problems, but ?.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    A cuckoo clocks in (emphasis added).

    The Republican-hired investigator of Wisconsin’s 2020 election testified Tuesday that the state Legislature should “take a very hard look at the option of decertification of the 2020” presidential election, a move that GOP leaders reiterated they won’t make and that nonpartisan attorneys call illegal.

    Michael Gableman released a 136-page “interim report” amid a nationwide GOP effort to reshape elections following President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.

    Gableman, a former conservative state Supreme Court justice who revealed Tuesday that he voted for Trump and whose probe has been dismissed as partisan by election experts and some Republicans, spent three hours detailing his findings before the Assembly elections committee.

    It was immediately met with bipartisan criticism.
    [snip]
    Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called Gableman’s work a “circus,” an “embarrassment for our state” and a “colossal waste of taxpayer dollars” that spreads misinformation about the election, attacks the integrity of election workers and emboldens people to harass and demean public servants.

    He urged Republicans to end the investigation.

    But Gableman, who said he was negotiating a contract extension, said he would keep doing the work without one.
    [snip]
    Gableman said he had spent about $360,000 so far on the investigation and issued 90 subpoenas, but no one with information about how elections are run has spoken with him. Source

  25. 25.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, just damn. The only bright spot is that it doesn’t affect minor league baseball, so the Springfield Cardinals season will start on time. I wonder if the strike drags on will that mean our AA team will have a more stable roster? If you ever come this way in the summer you should try to catch a game – it’s a lot of fun to watch the possible eventual Cardinals. It’s easy to get their autographs, too.

  26. 26.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Former Supreme Court justice, and he doesn’t know that there are laws that lay out how elections are run?  Or that there are a few hundred thousand poll workers who could tell him how they work in practice? About what we’ve come to expect from Republican hires.

  27. 27.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @O. Felix Culpa: I try to get to a couple games every year with my baseball fan son. And every year I promise myself that this is the year I finally get down to Springfield or Memphis or Peoria for a minor league game. Who knows, the minor leagues might be the only available baseball this year.

  28. 28.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Like every Democrat, I have a rebuttal to Biden’s speech in my living room.

    Is it covered by your repantsal?

  31. 31.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: I keep saying that someday we’re going to go to Memphis. I don’t know why they don’t give season ticket holders vouchers for a game at Memphis!

  33. 33.

    Ken

    @Baud: If you stand in front of a mirror with a lit candle and say “Watergirl” three times, she will appear and you can ask her to edit your comment.

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Well, now you’ve lost my vote for your Preznitential run in 2048. Of course, if I’m even still around, I probably won’t remember this vow, so you’re probably OK.

  38. 38.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @OzarkHillbilly: I love minor league ball. There’s an independent team in Santa Fe, the Fuego, and a Triple-A team with a sweet ballpark in Albuquerque, the Isotopes. We usually go to a few games of each every year. I used to take my boys to the White Sox and an area minor league team, the Kane County Cougars. Unfortunately the latter are quite a ways out of town from Chicago, so unlikely we can get there this year if the MLB owners continue being assholes and blow up the major league season.

  39. 39.

    Yarrow

    Yep. Republicans are trash.

    In a different era, a congresswoman shouting and heckling the president at the SOTU while he was talking about US soldiers Killed In Action — and was about to invoke his own dead son — would be widely condemned across the political spectrum. Starting with her caucus leader.
    — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 2, 2022

  40. 40.

    debbie

    Didn’t catch the name of the Russian in this BBC interview just now, but he said that children and even a dog had been detained during yesterday’s protests. FFS.

  42. 42.

    Soprano2

    @Yarrow: I think this is going to become a yearly “event” for those on the right, the minute when one of their members yells an insult at the Democratic president. It’s gross and disgusting, so right on brand for them.

  43. 43.

    Kristine

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    We’re going to the orchid show at the Chicago Botanic Garden today. I’m looking forward to a glimpse of spring.

    I was a volunteer staffer for the show a few years ago. Bowled over by the stunning blooms. Hope you enjoy it.

  45. 45.

    Yarrow

    @Soprano2:  It’s just so trashy. Has a Democratic legislator ever heckled a Republican president at the SOTU? I don’t remember that happening.

  46. 46.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    Cant’t help it – the very demise of that movie tasks me, like Khan said about Kirk.

  49. 49.

    Yarrow

    This picture of Boebert and Taylor Greene heckling Biden at the SOTU. They’re The Two Karens. It could be a buddy movie. Hopefully with a bad ending for them.

    When they ask to speak to the manager and you tell them you’re the manager on shift pic.twitter.com/tFkyUXlbzj— Prufrock451 (@prufrock451) March 2, 2022

  50. 50.

    Soprano2

    @Yarrow: Not that I know of. I’m sure Republicans think it’s “ballsy” and that it shows them standing up to Democrats. I think most people see it as what it is, which is just plain rude.

  51. 51.

    Soprano2

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Sure, but remember that all of the best pitchers were in the minor leagues at one time too. One of the fun things about AA ball is watching the players improve and eventually move up. I knew Kolten Wong was going to be a major leaguer halfway through his one season here. The diamonds usually really shine brightly. The absolute best things is the prices; you get really close to the action for not that much money compared to the major leagues.

  52. 52.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Soprano2:

    I think most people see it as what it is, which is just plain rude.

    I hope so. I don’t remember congressional heckling of a SOTU before Obama and the infamous “you lie” moment. These people ain’t got no class.

  53. 53.

    Hoodie

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:  Yeah, there often is a lot of raw velocity and movement but noticeable lack of command.   However, sometimes you get to see guys clearly headed for the Show.  A few years ago when traveling to Dallas, stopped overnight in Memphis and caught a Redbird game with Jack Flaherty as the starter.  He was maybe 21 but you could tell immediately he had big league stuff and composure.

  54. 54.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Soprano2:

    The absolute best things is the prices.

    True dat. A Santa Fe Fuego ticket costs $6 with free parking. Maybe with inflation it’s up to $7 now. Way cheaper than going to the movies, much less a major league game, and a whole lot of fun.

  55. 55.

    Soprano2

    @Hoodie: Yep, I got to watch him pitch in Springfield too! That’s what I mean, you get to see the good ones early. You never know what you’re going to see next. And, for the more Covid cautious, it’s outside in the fresh air!

  56. 56.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    It sounds like Biden state of the Union was more impactful than normal for speeches, which was oddly predictable from all the media pundits calling it a failure a full day before Biden made it. It’s like some weird form of jealousy with these media clowns.

  57. 57.

    Soprano2

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: They have their narrative, dammit, and no one is going to dissuade them from it. The NY Times is getting dragged on Twitter for their “fact check” of his claim about creating the most jobs ever, because they said “Well, it’s true but we’ve only been keeping that statistic since 1939”, which was a way for them to say he wasn’t being truthful when he was!

  58. 58.

    Edmund Dantes

    @Soprano2: if you think it’s horrible what owners are doing at major league level, you should be running screaming in the other direction at the minor league level. It’s indentured servitude. Players barely subsist unless they are a lucky one that is a draft bonus baby.

    the rest are super exploited (even making less than minimum wage) warm bodies.

  60. 60.

    narya

    Back in the Before Times, I used to see the occasional UWisc hockey game–it’s definitely entertaining to see someone in the NHL whom I saw at the Kohl Center.

  62. 62.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Soprano2: They have their narrative, dammit, and no one is going to dissuade them from it.

    Plus they have get on to the important stuff like dealing with their condo owner association because their kid put a Ukraine flag in the widow (thanks for that Biden) and googling the best wine to order with the braised duck necks at Falansai tonight (which will cost a small fortune thanks to Biden not keep the peasants in their place) Who has time to watch some boooring old speech when so many important things to do for a top tier political reporter?

  63. 63.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: NYT: “Well, it’s true but we’ve only been keeping that statistic since 1939”

    “There’s a chance that more than 6.4 million jobs were created in a year when the US had less than half its current population, and nobody noticed.”

  65. 65.

    Geminid

    A local Colorado news source, telluridenews.com, has an interesting article about Lauren Boebert’s CO 3rd District primary. State Senator Don Coram (Montrose) is challenging her. When Coram entered the race, Boebert’s campaign denounced him as “a super woke social liberal.” Coram, a 73 year-old with a commercial hemp farm and a coffee shop, responded, “I have no idea what that means.”

    The telluridenews.com article also reviews the Democratic primary field.

  67. 67.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: Do you have some app that alerts you when your nym is mentioned on Balloon Juice?  If so, my apologies — I didn’t intend to re-create the “Macbeth” skit from Blackadder.

  76. 76.

    kindness

    I’m sickened by all the Republicans proclaiming Biden’s weakness at not stopping Putin from invading. These very same miscreant Republicans helped and celebrated every step of Trump’s trying to deep six NATO and not give help to Ukraine. That this fact isn’t shoved in every single one of their grovelling faces 1st thing when given any media interaction shows the stacked deck our media operates under wrt Democratic vs Republican administrations.

    The media is hurting America.

  80. 80.

    Darkrose

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The owners still think it’s 1994, when they could set the narrative of greedy players. Even granting that my Twitter feed is pretty heavily curated through liberal use of the block and mute features, I’m still seeing lots of baseball fans who are furious at the owners. We feel like we know the players. We watch videos by and about them and we follow them on social media. We don’t know the owners; a lot of them never show up to the ballpark. What we do know is that they’re billionaires.

    The AP piece talking about Max Scherzer showing up for negotiations in an electric Porsche got ratioed hard, with both fans and journalists pointing out that half the owners showed up in private jets. The SF Giants’ owner keeps getting caught giving money to horrible Republicans; I’d much rather see Brandon Belt driving his Lamborghini.

    We also know that the 750 guys on MLB rosters are the lucky ones. We’ve heard the stories of minor leaguers subsisting on fast food and living four to a one-bedroom apartment. We’ve seen MLB try to justify paying minor leaguers below minimum wage when they’re charging $12 for Coors Light at the ballpark.

    Fans are also aware that the owners and Manfred (*spit*) are the ones insisting on the blackout rules that mean I have to have cable to watch the Giants. Manfred is widely loathed by fans and players for many good reasons, most of all that he seems to dislike baseball.

    I don’t think this is going to turn out like the owners and Manfred expect.

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