Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

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

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

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

“Alexa, change the president.”

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Giving up is unforgivable.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

Petty moves from a petty man.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Evening Open Thread: Seal the Damned Bubble!

Friday Evening Open Thread: Seal the Damned Bubble!

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There is now a solution!

Give ’em a subscription to their preferred (anti)social media channel and automatic Domino’s delivery, we can reduce the local annoyance factor by at least 40%…

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  2. 2.

    scav

    What!  Have Elon & Puttie’s hordes of bots somehow failed to pump up the numbers?  Don’t they know infrastructure has to be maintained?

    How sad it is when your old imaginary friends fail you.  Clearly yes, they have to turn to the latest ego-cuddle.

  3. 3.

    Mousebumples

    Not sure if this theory for why GOP small dollar donations has dropped has been posited before, but….

    Are the unvaccinated COVID deaths and disabilities making an impact?

    Might be just thinking of anecdata and area Trumper I’ve recently seen obits for, so might be overstating my own recent/local experiences.

    Rooting for injuries, as always.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    Having conservatives spend all of their time arguing with ChatGPT seems like a good way of keeping them busy rather than their normal activities of cramming evil down everyone’s throats. Maybe someone should fund WokeGPT or whatever strictly to give conservatives an endless windmill to tilt at.

  5. 5.

    Matt McIrvin

    This reminds me of Lem’s “The Futurological Congress” in which there’s a company called Procrustics, Inc. which will for a fee provide you with realistic android simulations of enemies you can abuse and murder to your heart’s content.

  7. 7.

    EngineerScotty

    Someone dropped a poll the other day showing Biden losing Wisconsin to Nikki Haley by twelve points or so, to which Imma calling bullshit, but given the recent and continuing trend of special election results being FAR better for Democrats than polls indicated, I’ve a question:

    Is the actual electorate in many of these things, majority-female?  Are women getting out and voting more in the specials, and the bros staying home, but bros showing up in November in large numbers a thing?

    For a long time, it was generally accepted wisdom that special-election voters were more Republican-leaning than general-election voters, as right-wing pastors whipped their flocks, and the lower stakes of such elections often resulting in a higher turnout among the retired vs those who need to be at work on a random Tuesday.  But the recent special-election electorate has been far more liberal than the polls indicated.

    Might the conventional wisdom being reversed here?  Or is it more likely that the polls are BS, and continuing to oversample Republican and Republican-leaning voters?

  8. 8.

    Mousebumples

    JR Ross (@jrrosswrites) posted at 8:40 AM on Fri, Feb 23, 2024:

    BREAKING: @EthicsWi alleges Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee and @RepJanel schemed to evade campaign finance limits as part of an effort that steered at least $40k to the ’22 primary challenge of @SpeakerVos, according to records obtained by @wispolitics.

    (x.com/jrrosswrites/status/1761038346086711561?s=03)

  10. 10.

    Mousebumples

    @EngineerScotty: anecdata, again, but myself and my female Wisconsin friends and relatives are ready to #GOTV in November.

    But I don’t answer calls from numbers I don’t know, so I don’t do polls.

  11. 11.

    BlueGuitarist

    Mike Rogers, r candidate for US Senate in Michigan pretended to support IVF
    Elissa Slotkin, running against him:

    ”Come on, Mike. In your 14 years in Congress, you co-sponsored FOUR bills — the last one with Jim Jordan in 2013 — that would have the same effect as the Alabama Supreme Court’s IVF ruling, making it impossible for millions of couples to have a family. You don’t get to run away from your own record because you’re just now understanding the consequences.“

  12. 12.

    smith

    AG James is on a roll:

    After five days of deliberations, a jury in New York on Friday held the National Rifle Association liable for financial mismanagement and found that Wayne LaPierre, the group’s former CEO, corruptly ran the nation’s most prominent gun rights group.

  13. 13.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … RollCall.com:

    Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP leaders are discussing the possibility of not coming back to Washington next week, at least until there is a spending deal to put on the floor, according to sources familiar with the planning.

    No decisions have been made, and members would be on call to return to the Capitol with 24 hours’ notice before any votes are scheduled on an agreement negotiated between leaders in both chambers. The mere possibility that the House won’t return next week raises more questions about lawmakers’ ability to avoid a partial government shutdown starting March 2, after next Friday’s deadline for four of the 12 annual bills.

    The House had been scheduled to reconvene Wednesday, with an expectation that spending bills would be on the floor shortly thereafter. But talks have been moving slowly on key issues that were kicked up to leadership to decide, despite progress in talks between House and Senate appropriators on much of the bills’ substance.

    For their part, House GOP leaders expect to be in Washington next week to continue negotiations with the Senate over a four-bill appropriations package whose funding expires March 1. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., is expected to make an announcement on appropriations Sunday night, but House sources downplayed expectations that an agreement will be reached by then.

    While lawmakers hoped to roll out an initial package of bills Sunday night, according to a source familiar with the negotiations, substantial differences between the parties remain. Instead, some sources said if there is an agreement, the legislation could be posted as early as Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

    Rank-and-file lawmakers have largely been in the dark on the status of negotiations. House Republicans are set to hear from Johnson, R-La., during a Friday night conference call on the state of play, according to sources familiar with the plan.

    Lawmakers need to pass either full-year fiscal 2024 appropriations or another short-term stopgap measure by the end of the day March 1 to avoid a partial government shutdown affecting agencies covered by the Agriculture, Energy-Water, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD bills.

    Appropriators have been waiting on decisions from Johnson and Schumer on policy riders, which could allow them to move forward on the first package of bills. Republicans have been pushing for a variety of provisions on hot-button topics like guns, abortion and diversity initiatives that Democrats say they won’t accept.

    The second tranche, which includes the remaining eight spending bills, includes more contentious policy areas that could be harder to figure out ahead of the March 8 deadline. Sources said among those final eight bills, negotiators have made a lot of progress on, and are closer to wrapping up, the Interior-Environment and Defense measures.

    Lawmakers are considering a stopgap spending measure for some, if not all, of the bills to March 22, which would give appropriators more time to work out the remaining issues, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

    IOW, Johnson still hasn’t decided what poison pills he’s going to try to ram through.

    Clowns.

    But this is to be expected. The whole point of these multiple deadlines is to try to force Biden and the Senate to panic and give the bomb-throwers what they want.

    There isn’t going to be any agreement until the last minute (or later), as always.

    🎶 🎵 … if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice! 🎵 🎶

    Brookings has a helpful summary of what actually shuts down during a (partial) government shutdown.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  14. 14.

    Jackie

    Latitia James wins again!

    After five days of deliberations, a jury in New York on Friday held the National Rifle Association liable for financial mismanagement and found that Wayne LaPierre, the group’s former CEO, corruptly ran the nation’s most prominent gun rights group.
    The jury determined that LaPierre’s violation of his duties cost the NRA $5,400,000, though he already repaid roughly $1 million to the organization.
    LaPierre, staring forward with his hands clasped in his lap, sat in the first row of the gallery while the jury read the verdict.
    abcnews.go.com/US/jury-finds-nra-liable-mismanagement-wayne-lapierre-violated/story

  15. 15.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Mousebumples:

    Not sure if this theory for why GOP small dollar donations has dropped has been posited before, but…. Are the unvaccinated COVID deaths and disabilities making an impact?

    Maybe, but I doubt it. Rage can be addicting, but its also exhausting. People are still mad about high prices, but it is improving. The economy is good. Gas prices came down and, as we are producing a record amount of oil, can’t say Biden ruined the industry. We aren’t at war. There are plenty of jobs. The trans panic that really heated up in the run up to 2016 is dying down a bit. The pandemic restrictions are all gone. The Dems actually tried to do something bipartisian about the border. Plus, the GOPers keep getting mired in ugly scandal after scandal. Rightwing media keeps trying to stoke the flames, but it seems to me the fuel’s a little damp.

  17. 17.

    JaySinWA

    NRA, LaPierre, Phillips and Frazer are losers to  New York Attorney General Letitia James.

    nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nra-trial-New York Attorney General Letitia James-rcna138827

    The jury ruled largely in favor of James, finding that the National Rifle Association failedto properly run its nonprofit and its assets at any timebetween March 20, 2014 and May 2, 2022.
    Jurors also determined that LaPierre, Phillipsand Frazer allviolated their statutory obligation to discharge the duties of their position in good faith

    ETA And Jackie beat me to it

    As did smith

  18. 18.

    Geminid

    @BlueGuitarist: An interesting post today from Newsday reporter Yancey Roy:

       Those IRC-drawn redistricting maps? “They’re dead,” a source with knowledge of the discussion told Newsday.

    Albany Democrats are discussing passing a U.S. House map of their own design, and it sounds like they will. A critic called the map drawn by New York’s Independent Redistricting Commission an “incumbent-mander.”

  19. 19.

    Matt McIrvin

    @EngineerScotty: Essentially all elections these days are majority-female. It’s just a question of how big the majority is.

    I know Dave Wasserman has speculated along the same lines as you and thinks the traditional Republican advantage in low-turnout elections has reversed, meaning Democrats can’t take so much encouragement from these wins. I guess we will see.

  20. 20.

    Another Scott

    @smith: Maybe!  Dunno.

    IIRC, a Discharge Petition is “privileged”, but presumably the House does need to be in session.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  22. 22.

    Ken

    Andrew Prokop quotes: “Trump has to get his followers hooked on the “donate” button now so they keep giving closer to November 5.”

    I think this ignores the strategy he used four years ago, where clicking on the “donate” button sets up a recurring donation — not that the donate page mentioned that.

  23. 23.

    Xantar

    @Mousebumples: even though COVID deaths are disproportionately impacting conservatives, the total number of those deaths is still an order of magnitude smaller than the number of voters coming out in the primaries or making donations. If deaths from COVID-19 are having an impact, it wouldn’t be as big as what we are seeing.

  25. 25.

    gratuitous

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    [Now, if I could just disengage with Balloon Juice…]
     

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: What, the photos of Cole aren’t doing it?

    As to the topic at hand, I have maintained since the last election that Trump has hit his high water mark. Think about people who either voted against him in 2016 or 2020 or didn’t vote in those elections at all. How many of them are looking at Trump’s endless grieve-a-thons and saying to themselves, “Maybe I judged this guy too hastily! I really need to think about voting for him.”

    Yeah, nobody, that’s who. Despite the herculean efforts of the popular media, re-inflating the Trump balloon just isn’t going to happen. Biden’s got some hurdles to overcome, but he’s a seasoned politician and campaigner, and I trust his experience and judgment to run his re-election campaign (and February is way too soon to be bringing the A game).

  26. 26.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: I remain hopeful I will someday see a President invoke the Article II Section 3 power to convene both houses. “No, you can’t have your vacation until you do your job.”

  28. 28.

    Jeffro

    @BlueGuitarist:Republican chair of the NRSC, committee to elect Rs to the Senate urges R campaigns to defend IVF but cosponsored a bill to outlaw it, lying like R SCOTUS nominees

    they ARE in a tizzy about it, aren’t they?

    I’m excited to hear GOP pols explain how those embryos are most definitely not people and everything is hunky-dory there SHUT UP ALABAMA SUPREME COURT WE’RE TRYING TO FOOL VOTERS WIN AN ELECTION HERE!

  29. 29.

    Jackie

    125 House GQP members back “Life at Conception”:

    Most House Republicans have cosponsored a bill declaring that life begins from the moment of conception, a position under increased scrutiny after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are ‘unborn children.’” Business Insider reports.

    “This Congress, 125 House Republicans — including Speaker Mike Johnson — have cosponsored the ‘Life at Conception Act,’ which states that the term ‘human being’ includes all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.’”

    Wall Street Journal: Trump and Republican lawmakers forced to defend IVF as GOP abortion woes mount.

    TIFG started this GQP nightmare – and it IS a nightmare for him, and he’s fully aware of it. 125 of HIS disciples are ignoring his demands to fix this.

    His three SCOTUS picks started all of this. The genie is out of the bottle and is not going back in.

  30. 30.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Geminid:

    “incumbent-mander” because the independent commission map helps R incumbent Marc Molinaro and D incumbent Pat Ryan and not a lot of change beyond that.
    iirc the map needs a 2/3 vote in the state assembly and state senate and vote will be soon.

  32. 32.

    Geminid

    @BlueGuitarist: Westchester County Democrat Tom Watson (@tomwatson) follows this story and other state political news. He reposted Roy’s post with the comment:

     Gloating by Zeldin, Cox and Molinari may well have killed the compromise-and cost NY Republicans a couple of seats.

    It sounds like Zeldin and the others spiked the ball before they got to the end zone.

  33. 33.

    EngineerScotty

    @Ken: Can that be defeated with a pro-forma session?  i.e. Speaker Johnson, or his delegate, shows up in the well of the House, gavels the House into session (with nobody else there), and then immediately moves to adjourn?

    Don’t think that either POTUS, or the Senate (which needs to give permission for the House to adjourn for more than three days IIRC) actually can compel the other house to have a quorom for business, let alone conduct any.

  35. 35.

    Chief Oshkosh

    FWIW, ABC News presents completely watered-down report on the IVF outcome.

    And, so far half way into the half-hour “news” program, and nothing on THE story since at least 2010: The Russian takeover of the GOP. Nothing.

  39. 39.

    Hob

    @TBone: don’t know if you’ll see this, but I wanted to follow up on Ivan X’s reply to you earlier – not to pile on, but in hopes of clarifying why so many people responded the way they did. Besides the “all her stuff” remark, I think you probably made things a bit worse by going so quickly to this kind of thing:

    “I don’t learn much by censoring my intake, but opposing and varied views enlarge my thinking”

    I mean… literally no one disagrees with that. I think it’s a safe bet that there’s not one single person here who only reads stuff they agree with. Conversely, we all “censor our intake” in that we don’t feel compelled to read literally every damn opinion that is out there— I have some standards, and so do you— and I’m sure there is some stuff that you feel is pernicious and doesn’t deserve to be recommended. So if you use the “Well, I have an open mind” type of comeback when someone was just saying they think this particular writer is full of shit and not worthy of a recommendation… that comes off as a dodge, and kind of an insulting one.

    I’m sure you’ve run across the kind of guy online who tells you to read some bizarre wingnut material and then, if you say no thanks, goes off about how liberals are all in a bubble and don’t ever want to see any opposing views, whereas he is an independent thinker. We’ve all run into that guy a million times. So remarks that follow that pattern can be a sore spot.

  40. 40.

    BruceFromOhio

    Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The terminator would never stop. It would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.

    Give ‘em what they want.

  42. 42.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: Tbf the Biden campaign has been hitting me up *extra* hard since I already gave them a taste. But they didn’t do the “surprise recurring donation!” thing

  44. 44.

    moonbat

    These numbers re: falling engagement by the rage-addicted presages even worse for Musk’s ill-advised investment in the Twitter machine. The whole “business plan” as far as there was one was to let all the racist, hateful crazies back in so they could endlessly rage at and abuse the “lie-bruls” they so despised. Now the shine is off that too.

    Whomp-whomp, as they say.

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