Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

Let’s finish the job.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

No Justins, No Peace

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

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Saturday Night Open Thread (and question)

Saturday Night Open Thread (and question)

by | 118 Comments

This post is in: 

Looks like we can use an open thread.

This is totally worth watching.

Plus, two people have just reported that they got the “Slow down, you are posting too quickly” message.

Is anyone else getting that?  If you are, and you can’t post, please send me email.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  1. 1.

    Poe Larity

    Give those poor guys running the intertuben hamster wheels a break folks.

    Type slower.

  2. 2.

    WaterGirl

    You knew that when you said it, you knew that when you sat at your kitchen table and lied to us.

    Love Christine Pelosi for doing this.

    And hey, when Christine Pelosi is talking, you can actually hear authenticity and emotion in her voice.

  3. 3.

    Bill Arnold

    I was being blocked from commenting with that message (with a European VPN endpoint, and once with some random Tor endpoint and a different (Brave) browser). I tried just now with a different computer and a different endpoint (that seems to be a Canadian IP though supposedly Central American; VPN provider is lying), and it worked.
    Various browsers have similar but not identical extension loadouts.

  4. 4.

    Tom Levenson

    I like that Christine Pelosi. I wonder if she’s had any exposure to politics, cause she seem good at it.

    ;-)

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    That’s pretty damned powerful. I saw somewhere that Katie Britt’s “spokesperson” has acknowledged that the rape trafficking story was a lie and the Senator knew it; but AFAIK it wasn’t an apology, and in any case it wasn’t Katie Britt herself saying it.

    Several people, here and elsewhere, have suggested there’s a strong possibility that the Kitchen Table Rebuttal will be the cold open on SNL tonight. I haven’t watched that program in years. Is it worth my staying up for another half hour on the off-chance it might be, you know, actually funny?

  9. 9.

    Lyrebird

    Yes I got the “posting too fast” block, and it might have been within 5 minutes of a previous comment, but I had gone from a US politics post over to Adam’s Ukraine update and scrolled down, just wanted to thank Gin & Tonic for replying, so it wasn’t like I was rapid-fire posting.

     

    ETA: THANK YOU a million times over for posting this from Christine Pelosi.  Good on her.

  11. 11.

    WaterGirl

    I asked in an earlier thread, and I don’t think I got a response.

    Someone suggested that the rebuttal was kind of her audition for VP.  Were they really thinking / hoping that she would be VP, ala Palin and McCain????

    Horrifying thought.

  12. 12.

    Chetan Murthy

    @WaterGirl: It’s what I read in various places.  That the big-ticket donors who’d clammed their wallets shut wanted her as the VP, and that’d cause them to donate.  And hey, it makes some sense: “da wimminz are Stoopid, we just gotta run one o’dem and they’ll vote for our guy amirite amirite!!?!?!?!”

  13. 13.

    piratedan

    have to admit, this endless series of own goals by the GOP in mainstream media is really something.  I mean the Biden Impeachment debacle, the Speaker issues and passing a budget and the foreign aid issues are showing that they can’t even get work that an overwhelming number of people want.  Plus the fuck up that was the Immigration Bill.  the obvious corruption from SCOTUS, that everyone remembers that the GOP rammed thru with little damn oversight.  Then we have all of the GOP statehouses going absolute handmaid tale, letting the few fig leafs drop about birth control, recreational sex and IVF.

    Then we get to DJT himself and all of campaign gaffes followed by all of the shit he’s saying in court.  It’s really getting to the point while the MSM may not want to talk about it, its pretty much plain to see.

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: Three things.

    One, yes, very powerful.

    Two, I haven’t seen the spokesperson’s statement, but I understood 2nd hand that she acknowledged that the name of the person referred in the rebuttal was indeed the person everyone thought it was from years ago in Mexico.  When I asked MazeDancer if she had actually said “I lied”, the answer was no.

    Third, it’s not staying up for if you’re tired – there will be clips in the morning if it’s any good.

    Fourth, there was a most excellent cold open within the last year, I hope someone will post the link – it was maybe a bunch of men (in the civil war?) sitting around a campfire?

    It was the funniest thing I had seen in a very long time.

  15. 15.

    Jackie

    @karen marie: 50/50

    After what happened to her father, thanks to TIFG, she might have to think on it. I, personally would love her to get involved. But I certainly won’t blame her if she chooses to get politically involved behind the scenes rather than front and center.

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    My first thought when I was watching her the other night in real time was that she was auditioning for veep. I think I might have mentioned it in the comments. Evidently it was a widespread opinion, because I’ve seen a lot of similar speculation over the past two days.

    ETA: And yes, you’re right, horrifying thought. All of Pence’s smarmy worshipful slavering over Trump, but in Fundie Girl Voice.

  18. 18.

    dmsilev

    She of course won’t apologize. Her words were very carefully chosen to not state that this tragedy happened under Biden’s watch but very definitely to strongly imply it. She and her press people will use that ‘technically correct’ fig leaf and ride it as far as they can.

  19. 19.

    WaterGirl

    @dmsilev: Seems to me that she’s dead in the water whether she apologizes or not.

    I guess now Republicans just brazen through it, like Boebert pretending she didn’t really give that guy a hand job.  She was just “dancing” in her seat.

    And she was on camera!!!

  20. 20.

    Lyrebird

    @piratedan: Really something, indeed!

    About the immigration-bill piece, as you righhtly say:

    the fuck up that was the Immigration Bill…

    ..I can’t find it now, but did you see the photo of Sen. Lankford glaring?  Supposedly at Rep. Johnson, maybe at Biden really, but either way, it sure looked like he was just sitting there seething, knowing Prez Biden was handing them their hineys on this issue, specifically because the House Republicans decided to go full on fascist toady…

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    I remember seeing that SNL clip. Yes, it was very funny. If I’m still awake in 10 minutes I’ll turn on NBC. If I’m drifting off, I won’t force the issue.

  23. 23.

    Chetan Murthy

    @WaterGirl: I think it was all “reporting” about rumors.  Which is all we’ll get, right?  Nobody’s gonna go on the record about this stuff.

  27. 27.

    Chetan Murthy

    @dmsilev: This is why the term “bullshit” is different from “lie”.  She was bullshitting us, gaslighting us.  She took true things (and perhaps some false things, I’m not sure, and don’t care to look hard) and glued them together to make something that was untrue.

  30. 30.

    Jackie

    @Lyrebird: I thought he was glaring at Biden’s words about the GQP voting against his border bill? Not glaring at Biden, but at the bill’s failure.

    Lankford is still pissed about the senate’s 180 re the bill, because TIFG stepped in and quashed it.

  33. 33.

    wjca

    @Chetan Murthy: I think it was all “reporting” about rumors.  Which is all we’ll get, right?  Nobody’s gonna go on the record about this stuff.

    Only consider al, the things that they have, inexplicably (at least to me), gone on record about.  Unlikely someone will, but not even close to impossible with these clowns.

  36. 36.

    Chetan Murthy

    @HumboldtBlue: There’s a point about a minute in when she starts really raising her voice and gesticulating.  I guess the “fundie baby voice” lessons didn’t take *grin*.  She’s good, and true, and forceful.

  39. 39.

    HumboldtBlue

    Women who KNOW Katie Britt are calling her out.

    Ya know what’s amazing?

    Donald Trump hasn’t told the truth in two decades and his endless stream of nonsense, outright falsehoods and craven bullshit are considered normal and if not normal, at least openly accepted by the purported media narrators. Katie Britt, young and gullible and willing to be a dummy for the GOP, is getting excoriated in real time because somehow we expect far more from her than we do from a man who is a former president.

    Misogyny is a motherfucker.

    And here is a YouTube link to SNL opening, go to 8:00

  41. 41.

    Chetan Murthy

    @HumboldtBlue: Misogyny is indeed a motherfucker.  But Sen. Briitt lived by the Misogyny; if she dies by the Misogyny, it’ll only be right.

    Listening to this woman, she’s asking for something that’s really needed.  She’s righteous and clearly correct.  It is an atrocity that nothing she wants, which people so desperately need, is something Sen. Britt would ever want to deliver.  Sen. Britt would want to do the opposite.

  44. 44.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Parfigliano:

    I don’t think her political career is done. She’s a Senator in Alabama, and the next time she’s up for election, they’ll vote her right back in.

    I doubt this has any lasting effect other than as a meme, the same way Jindal and Rubio et al ended up.

  51. 51.

    HumboldtBlue

    Da church to da club

    Hahahahahaha

    We are steeped in the blood of patriots in a castle built of bones! Good night, kids!

    Johansson is brilliant.

  52. 52.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @Chetan Murthy: ​
    wasn’t part of Britt’s speech, I assume it has to do with a movie Scarlette was in?

    Or the movie Get Out? I didn’t see that but a lot of bluesky referenced it

  53. 53.

    Chetan Murthy

    @HumboldtBlue: I normally don’t find SNL funny.  It all seems really forced.  This was laugh-out-loud funny, and Johannsen clearly was having a ball doing it.

  59. 59.

    Gvg

    @HumboldtBlue: Depends on timing. If the country gets to the point where collectively we start not re-electing terrible republicans in red states now or near this time, she could loose, because it’s fairly fresh in voters minds. On the other hand, if we still have some years before the backlash happens, and she lays low, or even gets wiser, she might do fine.
    Jindal got caught doing some illegal stuff and went to jail, lost a cushy job etc. I think he has a job again but no where near what it could have been.

    Palin also crashed.

    Rubio and Cruz seem to be laying low, not getting attention like before. I’d say they are a little smarter and possibly not doing much illegal.

    She is probably going to get scrutinized quite a bit for awhile. Something else might come out.

  61. 61.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Gvg: Wait, Jindal?  I don’t remember anything like that.  Are you conflating him with Jefferson ?  Jindal just faded out b/c he wasn’t gonna go any higher as a G(r)OPer, bein’ all, y’know, as dark-skinned as me.

  62. 62.

    Wapiti

    Lying might be a sacrament of sorts.

    If someone has chosen to follow the Timeshare Salesman of Lies, Donald J. Trump.

  63. 63.

    Shalimar

    @The Lodger: Her performance played to the Republican base.  Those voters know who she is now more than they did before.  She isn’t losing a primary.  If anything, she decreased the chance that any Republican will even challenge her.

  64. 64.

    glc

    @JCJ:  Meanwhile, Jordan Peele has edited an anthology of new horror by Black writers called Out There Screaming. He talks about the “oubliette” and how that inspired the motif  of the Sunken Place in Get Out. And he explains:

    In this collection, nineteen brilliant Black authors give us their Sunken Places, their oubliettes.

    To name a few contributors: N. K. Jemisin, Rebecca Roanhorse, Nnedi Okorafor, Nalo Hopkinson, P. Djeli Clark, Tochi Onyebuchi.

    (Published 10/2023.)

  71. 71.

    mrmoshpotato

    I haven’t – and won’t – watch the Republican “rebuttal” but I did hear about it.

    And good on Christine Pelosi for calling out Katie Britt for lying about a horrific event for political gain.

  73. 73.

    Chetan Murthy

    @mrmoshpotato: Honestly, there’s no reason to watch it if you’ve already read about it.  I tried to watch, and within a couple of minutes I had to stop, b/c Britt’s affect was so, so goddamn off-putting.

  76. 76.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Hoppie:

    Slow down, you type too fast

    You gotta make Balloon Juice last

    Just scrolling down the open threads

    Hoping for snark and feeling gloomy…

    …

    I got no fucks to give, no spell-check and no math,

    I’m sitting here pantsless just out of the bath

    Let an open thread mock all the MAGAts for me;

    I’ll write postcards, you can sue me…

  77. 77.

    Rusty

    The SNL open was very good.  What got me in Katie Britts delivery was the bizarre juxtaposition of smiling, breathy mom delivering lines about America being a hell hole.  It was so jarring the difference that it was disconcerting.   That’s what made it so creepy.  It was like someone on happy pills reciting a horror story.  It was just so weird and strange, which pretty much describes the current Republican party.

  78. 78.

    Ivan X

    So, you know, since this is an open thread, I want to talk about how we don’t give MTG enough credit.

    Sure, she’s not on our side, but if we want to be fair minded, and consider all positions, we have to admire that she has been consistent.

    Second, she’s hot. I don’t mean regular hot, I mean smoking hot. When she opens her mouth to make sounds against the President, if I mute it, I have to admit she really has a something that does it for me. That’s some all American hot girl, right there.

    Next, she is successful. When did you first hear about her? Not long ago. You have to admire someone who has dominated in a highly contested, fairly drawn district. Look, I don’t agree with everything she says, but Americans love winners, and she’s a winner.

    Also, she really protects the executive branch. I believe in separation of powers, and her challenges to the President are, in that way, patriotic.

    Finally, I’m really attracted to her. Did I mention she’s hot? Would you really rather have some 65 year old man in congress with flab boobs or would you rather have a beautiful, vibrant woman in the prime of life with smart things to say in a tight dress? I can’t be the only American man who feels this way.

    So, I’m a big fan of President Biden, but I think he is probably just doing what his handlers tell him to. But MTG, she follows her own script, and she is gorgeous to boot. I don’t agree with her always, but what a woman!

    Thank you for having an open thread so I can share these feelings.

  84. 84.

    gene108

    @piratedan:

    are showing that they can’t even get work that an overwhelming number of people want. Plus the fuck up that was the Immigration Bill.

    People who approve of what Republicans want to do are not spread out equally across the country. They seem to have a strong base of support among white people in parts of the South, Midwest, and Rocky Mountain states. Keeps them from ever going away, no matter what they do.

  85. 85.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Ivan X: MTG grabs attention the same way a spectacular car wreck grabs attention, in my opinion. And I cannot bring myself to assess her physical attractiveness without remembering her poisonous worldview and her schoolyard-bully demeanor. Things like that can neutralize the attractiveness factor for anyone in my book.

    (And I mean anyone. If I were confronted at my front door by a woman with looks to rival Helen of Troy, offering me an extended weekend of carnal pleasures to exceed my wildest Neanderthal fantasies, but she was wearing a MAGA cap, I’d still slam the door in her face.)

    What you find admirable in MTG, I find terrifying.

  86. 86.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: @Ivan X:

    You have to admire someone who has dominated in a highly contested, fairly drawn district.

    This is either parody or trolling.  I’m so old I remember when the Dem candidate who stood against MTG was run out of town with death threats.  Not just out of town, but out of the whole damn state.  I could go on and on with fisking this post, but why bother?  Though, I also remembered “Jewish space lasers.”  Anybody who thinks somebody spouting that shit is “hinged” is …. in need of a spare neuron.  Or as we used to say in grad school,  a “single neuron disease victim”.

  87. 87.

    Citizen Alan

    @Ivan X: I read this twice and I’m still wondering whether it is either sarcasm too subtle for me to detect or you are.In fact marjorie taylor green posting through a sock puppet. I find her absolutely repulsive.

  91. 91.

    Yutsano

    I have a confession. I normally find Scarlett Johansson’s acting kind of stilted and wooden. But oh my gravy did she kill that open!

  93. 93.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Yutsano: Some films don’t know how to use Johansen properly. For example, as much as I love Lost in Translation, it’s Bill Murray’s movie because Coppola uses Scarlett as a well-lighted coat hanger. Oddly enough, other than Wes Anderson, the MCU movies knew how to play to Scarlett’s strengths.

  95. 95.

    Baud

    Via reddit

    The Pentagon released details Friday of its plans to construct a temporary pier off the Gaza Strip’s coast to help flow more than 2 million meals a day into the territory, using an established military capability that officials say can build and deploy the structure without having any American troops on the ground.

    Over the next 60 days, roughly 1,000 troops will deploy to the Mediterranean Sea to build a floating platform where cargo ships can offload aid onto smaller military vessels, which will transfer them to a causeway attached to the beach, where trucks can pick it up and distribute it within Gaza, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters

  96. 96.

    Rich2506

    Yeah, I tend to just save up a whole bunch of entries and post them all at once in the morning. Several years ago, I got a warning from Facebook that I was posting too quickly. They said they were worried that I was a commercial spammer (or maybe they were concerned I was Russian propagandist). What I do now is that I post for an anti-nuclear weapons group, so I put up three of my posts, put up something for them, then put up the rest of mine. It works. Haven’t gotten a warning since.

  97. 97.

    Ivan X

    In case not clear to anyone regarding my MTG post: /s.

    She’s a garbage person, truly awful.

    Also, if there were a congresswoman I found attractive, I certainly wouldn’t publicly extol that attribute as one of her virtues.

    @Chetan Murthy: Apparently so!

  99. 99.

    lowtechcyclist

    What’s weird to me about SNL is that it’s still around at all. I mean, I was 21 when I first watched SNL. I’m 70 now. What else is still on TV that was there in 1975? Meet the Press, I suppose.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    WordPress, feeling Groovy:

    “Slow down, you’re moving too fast.

    Got to make this Comment last….”

  103. 103.

    Geminid

    @Parfigliano: Britt’s political career is her Senate seat, and Britt hasn’t done anything I’ve seen to make me doubt she can win reelection in 2028.

    By then, her SOTU response will be very old news for most Alabama voters. Even now, it’s likely bigger news on this forum than it is in Alabama.

  104. 104.

    AM in NC

    @HumboldtBlue:   That is the best thing the internet ever produced. It still brings me to tears of laughter every time. Same for everyone I’ve shared it with.   Thank you for posting it today.

    But SEVEN years ago? Good Lort.

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    @Geminid:

    By then, her SOTU response will be very old news for most Alabama voters. Even now, it’s likely bigger news on this forum than it is in Alabama.

    I’m  not at all sure that you are right about that.  I think this is big news everywhere.

    After watching the two videos from women who are from her state, it’s clear that she has offended them on several levels.

    I don’t think this is going away, and the beauty of it is that it’s sparking all these public statements about what the GOP is doing, especially to women, but not at all limits to that.

    I think this has done serious damage to the junior senator, who made a fool out of herself and the republican party.

    I also think this sets the state to possibly see some better media coverage when T**** inevitably rolls out a non-serious candidate for VP.

    Time will tell.

  106. 106.

    zhena gogolia

    @sukabi: She did a good job. I didn’t get the Get Out reference because I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it.

  108. 108.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: This speech is big, big news among people like the ones on this site, and in the greater world of political commentary. I bet most Alabama voters are not as concerned or even as interested as people here are, and will be much less so in five years

    As for the effect this speech on Brtt’s speech on her prospects for the VP nod, all I’ll say is that Trump’s gotta pick someone.

  109. 109.

    Tony G

    Right-wing evangelical leaders lie, and their followers believe the lies.  That’s what they do.  Lies are the entire basis of their cult.  Reagan made an alliance with that toxic cult 44 years, and now they are the primary foundation of the Republican Party.

  112. 112.

    Kathleen

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: FWIW, she leads a very popular cross fit class on Capitol Hill, per my Dem Rep Greg Landsman (OH#1) who expressed that info in a neutral tone. No indication if both Dems and Rethugs attended.

  114. 114.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @topclimber: “I aim to please. (You aim too, please.)” ;^D

    (Hey, if Duchamp could find sculpture in a urinal, I can find poetry there too.)

  117. 117.

    WaterGirl

    @Geminid: Seems like we are talking past one another, and you missed the points I made in the earlier reply to you.

    On this one, I’m done.  We’ll just have to agree to disagree.

  118. 118.

    Geminid

     

     

    @WaterGirl: I got your points and I saw the comments from Britt’s former college classmates I think you were referring to. They were all over Twitter last night.

    I just do not think this event will impair Britt’s reelection prospects in 2028, and that is the most important question if we’re talking about her political future.

Comments are closed.