Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

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

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Come on, man.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Balloon Juice Is the Little Engine That Could (Open Thread)

Balloon Juice Is the Little Engine That Could (Open Thread)

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This post is in: 

WE DID IT!  

I took the thermometer down because we are at $30,000!  (As soon as the final angel adds theirs, and I left a little bit of room for Omnes.)

Balloon Juice peeps are the best.

We’ll be coming hot and heavy with the next fundraising very soon.  No rest for the wicked  weary !

To everyone who donated or encouraged others, thank you!

What else can we celebrate today?

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

123Comments

  8. 8.

    rikyrah

    Jen “I dissent ” Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) posted at 2:23 PM on Mon, Jul 15, 2024:
    By choosing Vance, Trump has made clear where he stands on violence, Russia, conspiracies, Jan. 6, abortion, spousal abuse and more. The worst possible pick for convincing anyone Trump is a normal candidate. In choosing the most inexperienced VP in history, he also raises the frightful prospect of an utterly rudderless ship should Trump not be able to serve.
    (https://x.com/JRubinBlogger/status/1812930895684509801?t=xxCeowSwf5oZ0ZLDiYijeA&s=03)

  9. 9.

    lowtechcyclist

    @rikyrah: ​
     

    And a whole bunch of Rethugs (especially evangelicals) want to do away with no-fault marriage. And since that would make it harder for anyone to leave any marriage, it would make it harder for women to leave an abusive marriage. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that’s the point.

  10. 10.

    Belafon

    @rikyrah: Trump is about grift and self-preservation. Vance would be about putting non-straight, non-white, non-cis-male, non-Christians in their place.

  12. 12.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah: able to serve who?  Jen Rubin is kidding herself about Trump being an experienced statesman.

    This is the bustout part of the operation, no?

  13. 13.

    artem1s

    Now that we know it’s Vance expect the MSM to start the hatchet job on Harris (and simultaneously insist that she must shiv her boss in the back and force Biden to step down). Accept that no matter what happens in the coming weeks and VP debate the regular trolls will be out in force telling us all that we are deluded if we don’t agree that it was a disastrous performance. The FYNYT had their headlines written for this last fall. Don’t feed the trolls!

  15. 15.

    Tractarian

    Pretty clear Trump made the decision some time in the last two days.

    Vance was easily the most prominent R to explicitly blame the shooting on Biden, so.

  18. 18.

    Eolirin

    @lowtechcyclist: Women are already just not getting married. They also need to do things like get rid of restrictions on child marriage and force women out of the work force. I don’t think they’re going to have an easy time succeeding at that.

    Though beating Trump is quite important in making sure they fail.

  19. 19.

    hueyplong

    Not unreasonable to imagine that Thiel outbid Burgum.

    Thiel is Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate (1962).

  23. 23.

    M31

    1) no divorce

    2) no birth control

    3) no child labor laws

    that’s right ladies, pump ’em out and send ’em to work, that coal isn’t going to mine itself

  26. 26.

    M31

    So a girl born in Trump’s first term will be ready and able to birth her rapist’s baby in his second term!

    VICTORY!!!!!!

     

    ok maybe that’s too dark

  29. 29.

    Eolirin

    The one thing Vance can be counted on to do is not certify the next election for any Democrat, regardless of the outcome

    If elected, Democracy is dead.

  30. 30.

    rikyrah

    Olga Nesterova (@onestpress) posted at 2:46 PM on Mon, Jul 15, 2024:
    JUST IN: #BidenHarris 2024 Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon released the following statement in response to Donald #Trump naming J.D. #Vance as his running mate:

    “Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate because Vance will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people.

    “As Trump’s running mate, Vance will make it his mission to enact Trump’s Project 2025 agenda at the expense of American families. This is someone who supports banning abortion nationwide while criticizing exceptions for rape and incest survivors; railed against the Affordable Care Act , including its protections for millions with preexisting conditions; and has admitted he wouldn’t have certified the free and fair election in 2020.

    “Billionaires and corporations are literally rooting for J.D. Vance: they know he and Trump will cut their taxes and send prices skyrocketing for everyone else.

    “Over the next three and a half months, we will spend every single day making the case between the two starkly contrasting visions Americans will choose between at the ballot box this November: the Biden-Harris ticket who’s focused on uniting the country, creating opportunity for everyone, and lowering costs; or Trump-Vance – whose harmful agenda will take away Americans’ rights, hurt the middle class, and make life more expensive  – all while benefiting the ultra-rich and greedy corporations.”
    (https://x.com/onestpress/status/1812936724030582990?t=u0dh4uJPdwxypmuelQkPxQ&s=03)

  31. 31.

    rikyrah

    The New York Times is the #VichyPress (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 6:30 AM on Mon, Jul 15, 2024:
    The MSM really did abuse the concept of “anonymous sources” to the point of absurdity by using it to push whatever anti-Biden narrative they chose, and then had the nerve to snap the public by journalist-splaining Journalism 101 to them.

    It’s why the trust is gone.
    (https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1812811851924652332?s=03)

  32. 32.

    lowtechcyclist

    @rikyrah:

    J.D. Vance supports a nationwide abortion ban. He has opposed exceptions for rape survivors and once described rape as “inconvenient.”

    Someone who says that ought to be “inconvenienced” in that manner.  Just to see if it changes his mind or anything.

  34. 34.

    rikyrah

    Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) posted at 2:20 PM on Mon, Jul 15, 2024:

    JD Vance has made it clear he would not have certified the 2020 election results.

    In February, he said, “If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and so many others that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the US Congress should have fought over it from there.”

    (https://x.com/kylegriffin1/status/1812930345794252833?t=0LVTFVpzwhI10uDKnG5mYw&s=03)

  36. 36.

    sab

    I wonder if Ohioans will remember at the next senate election (2028) that JD Vance had no interest in doing his day job.

    We mostly vote for Republican senators, but we prefer them to be innocuous.

  37. 37.

    Dagaetch

    “Look, JD…hey are your names Jimmy Dean? Man, I love that sausage. Anyway, you weren’t really my first choice. But my advisors said I couldn’t pick Ivanka because that would weird people out. I don’t know why, she’s so attractive, who wouldn’t understand why I picked her. But anyway, after her, I was gonna go with Rubio…I mean, he’s a total pushover, but it would have made me look all inclusive and possibly picked up some votes from the brown people. But there was this stupid thing about Florida. Probably because Ron DeSantis doesn’t like me, he coulda fixed it, I’m gonna make him pay one day. But anyway, yeah, so you’re my guy. Make sure that your speech is basically all about me, okay?”

  41. 41.

    M31

    lol Vance said that no-fault divorce meant women were getting divorced like they were changing their underwear.

    uh, dude, you need to change your underwear more than that

  42. 42.

    Belafon

    Trump’s going to need one of Putin’s tables when Vance is in the same room as him.

  44. 44.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Remember when NPR-esque media painted Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” as nothing more than a thoughtful, honest look at rural, white Americans and not just thinly-veiled racism?  I sure do.

  49. 49.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Thank you to the Black Women who exposed JD Vance’s white grievance politics before anyone else. I knew who he was before many of my peers, thanks to you.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    @M31: Jeez, when you put it that way…..

    The Epstein Center for Reproductive Health sounds catchy.

  54. 54.

    West of the Rockies

    Vance is an excellent choice!  ( For Democrats.)

    Every chance Trump has to look even microscopically contrite, grateful, compassionate, or thoughtful, he instead chooses to boast and bray, to punch and spit.

    This choice will succeed…

    …in calling further attention to Project Trumpy-Trumpy-Five.

    Well done, imbecile!

  55. 55.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @rikyrah: They are currently having an AR-15 giveaway at the Republican convention

    Is it…the one…?

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    @M31:

    lol Vance said that no-fault divorce meant women were getting divorced like they were changing their underwear.

    uh, dude, you need to change your underwear more than that

    Calling Whole Man Disposal Services! He doesn’t change his underwear!

  60. 60.

    Chris Johnson

    One thing about it, this selection makes it much more possible for Trump to pretend he’s doing a unity pivot and yet not be believed by the rabid maniacs.

    Vance is a reassuring pick to the most insanely hardcore right, I think. Not absolutely sure of that. Vance is Trump trying to have it both ways, and Vance is acceptable to Vladimir Putin.

    It seems to be like trying to thread a needle between pretending (with the MSM assistance) that he’s totally pivoting to a unity platform, and signalling to the very worst radicals that it’s a bluff and he’s going to do ALL the worst Project 2025 stuff and more.

    I don’t know if that will work, but I expect that will be what’s attempted.

  62. 62.

    Mike in NC

    Has Vance shaved yet? Fat Bastard hates facial hair. Remember his disdain for John Bolton? But his two eldest sons grew beards to try to hide that they had no chins.

  64. 64.

    wjca

    @rikyrah: Trump VP pick J.D. Vance

    Just want to say to everyone who argued that TCFG would pick Vance:  You were right; I was wrong.

    Guess he’s more desperate for money than I thought, that he’s willing to pick someone who might will upstage him from time to time.

  66. 66.

    Chris Johnson

    @West of the Rockies: So what I’m expecting is that yes, that, but simultaneously he’ll have the MSM narrativizing 24/7 that he and Vance are REALLY pursuing a unity ticket.

    I think it’s going to be stroke-inducing cognitive dissonance. Might get really wildly insane. They have to walk both sides of the line, for two wildly different audiences, both suspicious, in the age of the internet.

    Seems real dicey.

  67. 67.

    zhena gogolia

    @wjca: I thought it would be Burgum for that reason.

    But I ALWAYS knew it would not be a woman or POC.

  68. 68.

    Captain C

    Based just on what I’ve seen in the first part of this thread, did they even vet this guy?  Or does the TCFG party not even care anymore?

  69. 69.

    Captain C

    @Eolirin:

    I don’t think Vance even helps him shore up any part of his coalition either.

    Spineless hedge fund managers?

  70. 70.

    Jay

    I guess nobody told Vance what almost happened to 34 Felonies Rapist Pedo’s previous VP.

  72. 72.

    Trivia Man

    Trolling opportunity: Anytime they say “Vance” ask for clarification.

    You mean Mike Vance of Indiana? Again?

  73. 73.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Captain C: Vance gives him Thiel and other techbros money. These are the equivalent of the German industrialists before WW11.

  75. 75.

    West of the Rockies

    @zhena gogolia:

    I think choosing Burghum would have been like Trump saying, “For VP, I choose… abandoned white tube sock!”

    Zero buzz, zero excitement.

  78. 78.

    Belafon

    @Jay: Vance isn’t going to run to someone who cares about the constitution to find out what he should do.

  80. 80.

    Hilbertsubspace

    @rikyrah: When I was quoted by a newspaper in ’81 they shortened what I said and put an exclamation point on it.

    The actual changes made were worse but this is close enough.

    Me (calmly): People think this is terrible, but it’s par for the course and unsurprising.

    Newspaper (quoting me): This is terrible!

  81. 81.

    Trivia Man

    @wjca: Maybe a straight TV play? Pasty White, unlike Rubio or Scott. Comfortable on camera with some energy, which Bergum lacks. And a true penis-haver unlike Niki or Stefanik or Ivanka.

    I bet $ to doughnuts he had focus sessions on a Vance v MVP debate and thinks this is the winning play.

  82. 82.

    Mai Naem mobile

    The Republican convention is just so white.  Finally seeing a black guy wearing a Lincoln hat in the SC delegation. Wonder if he gets the irony of wearing a Lincoln hat in a SC delegation.

  83. 83.

    Chris Johnson

    @Mai Naem mobile: Note also, Thiel is SUPER creepy. He’s kind of stealth, but Thiel is tied to a movement called the Dark Enlightenment. Just like you can google search Project 2025, try googling this:

    “dark enlightenment thiel”

    You’re welcome.

    It’s a radical-right monarchist movement. You simply don’t get more anti-democracy than Thiel and his kind of people. If the name ‘Mencius Moldbug’ means anything to you, you know how Thiel ties into this movement. If you’ve never heard that name, have fun.

    Bringing Thiel’s people in to control the campaign is a VERY revealing move. If you guys aren’t familiar with Dark Enlightenment people, HOO BOY WHOA NELLY, googling this shit is even more lively than googling Project 2025.

    It’s way worse!

  85. 85.

    MazeDancer

    What, you think Suburban Women aren’t gonna like a guy who wants to limit divorce, end abortion nationally, no exceptions, and feels they should stay in an abusive marriage, you know, for the kids?

    Because nothing kids like more than watching Daddy pulverize Mommy night and day.

    I know Vance brings Thiel’s moola, but he is loathsome. Ted Cruz level repulsive.

    And he’s Putin’s plaything. And all in on Project 2025.

    Couldn’t be happier with Trump’s pick.

  86. 86.

    BlueDWarrior

    Picking JD Vance as running mate to me speaks that only play that Trump ever had, and still continues to only have, is adherence to white grievance politics.

    To me the only question, relative to that, is how many persons of color sympathize far too much with said white grievance politics to the point where they functionally have the same politics?

    It’s hard for me to say outright but it is something worth considering, or at least something that I personally feel worth considering.

  87. 87.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Chris Johnson: I’ve poked my head around those circles from time to time and yeah… these are basically people we would see as villains in philosophical works that say basically humanity is too stupid to govern itself so a bunch of enlightened despots should do it for them.

    And really those despots being “enlightened” is negotiable…

  89. 89.

    LanceThruster

    Money is speech. That being the case, there needs to be a concrete multiplier mechanism, not just the brag rights of small dollar donations. Like a required 1/2 price on ad buys or something. The corporate dollars as free speech has so many damn elements of stacking the deck.

    Much easier to marshall, as opposed to the herding cats of group efforts.

  93. 93.

    LAC

    @BlueDWarrior:To me the only question, relative to that, is how many persons of color sympathize far too much with said white grievance politics to the point where they functionally have the same politics?

    Huh?

  95. 95.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @schrodingers_cat: also to separate big dollar Indian donor money from Kamala. Peter Thiel’s money in the number one motivator but this is also one of the factors.

  96. 96.

    Poe Larity

    The thing is, getting rid of no-fault divorces will probably lead to a collapse of an already low marriage rate.

    As usual, JD may not be thinking this through.

    And Melania, she’s still covered.

  97. 97.

    sab

    I know in JD Vance’s Senate election he kept his head down and mou1th mostly shut, and let Tim Ryan ramble on as Republican lite. Neither side was honest. Ryan wasn’t Republican Lite, and Vance is a shifty sneaky lying ball of slime.

    I wonder how he will do now that we see him. My guess is his future is at think tanks, like Paul Ryan. He hasn’t done much with his life except polish his resume and suck up to Thiel and Trump.

    Obviuously I trust the American people to let us win this election.

  98. 98.

    DougL

    @japa21:

    @WaterGirl: No, he picked a remora.  Although he may find out the situation will end up reversed.

    Picking Vance is just another sign of how much Trump has lost mentally. His self preservation instincts should kick in enough to recognize how dangerous Vance is – he makes Trump totally expendable to the billionaires in a way Pence (and now someone like Burgham sp?) did not. That bullet ain’t gonna miss a second time with JD safely ensconced as next in line. The Trump of old would not have missed that fact.

  101. 101.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    Vance gives him Thiel and other techbros money. These are the equivalent of the German industrialists before WW11.

    The German industrialists mistakenly thought they could control Hitler. Thiel and Musk want a monarchy dictatorship.

  102. 102.

    West of the Rockies

    @LAC:

    Guessing this refers to people like Diamond and Silk, Kanye, Tim Scott, Jindal, et al.  I don’t know…

  104. 104.

    Chris Johnson

    @BlueDWarrior: Oh, that ain’t the half of it. If you think Elon MUSK is a psychopathic billionaire, he ain’t got nothing on Thiel.

    Seriously, get people to google ‘dark enlightenment Thiel’. You’ve got Wikipedia and everything.

    Letting Vance in means Thiel is in there, Vance is a mere puppet. And Thiel is a straight-up monarchist. You do not get more antidemocratic than Thiel. It doesn’t even stop there, the shit Thiel gets up to goes way beyond even what I’m saying. His ideas about longevity of human life and what he does about it… woof.

    It’s very like what the Nazis privately got up to with their creepy science, but it’s modern day and if you know where to look, you can find lots of information about these people, just like you can google Project 2025.

    It’s kind of amazing to me that they managed to get MORE creepy.

  105. 105.

    Chris Johnson

    @Sister Golden Bear: No, look up ‘dark enlightenment thiel’. It’s not even hidden. Thiel controls Vance, and Thiel’s on record that he does want monarchy. You can say ‘dictatorship’ thinking that it’s worse, but the idea that he’s unironically a monarchy guy is more shocking to Americans, I think.

  106. 106.

    Suzanne

    @Harrison Wesley: I doubt JD uses drugs, other than maybe to party on occasion. But there’s a subset of “downwardly mobile” white people — and I would bet the Venn diagram with MAGA is close to a single overlapping circle — that I have seen describe themselves as “humiliated” by and judged for the drug use in their communities.

    It’s part of the educational/cultural divide in white people, right? Opioids and meth on one side, shrooms and cocaine on the other.

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris Johnson: the first people I ever saw called “alt-right” were THOSE folks. They’re even weirder than the normal fascists. They want to take us back to the year 1300 on a mountain of skulls. With… computer science? They’ve got this theatrical dourness to them, too. Like John Derbyshire on meth.

  109. 109.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Sister Golden Bear: you’re right. My analogy is inaccurate. I just don’t think Thiel and Musk are thinking of the unexpected consequences of supporting an autocrat. I’m sure all those oligarch pals of Putin thought they were being so smart and, yet, plenty managed to fall out of windows.

  111. 111.

    Chris Johnson

    @Matt McIrvin: Yup! Even weirder than the ordinary fascists is an accurate description. The neat thing about ‘dark enlightenment Thiel’ is that some of the first stuff you get is Wikipedia. There are other searches around Thiel where you wouldn’t believe what you saw, the Mencius Moldbug creepiness is just what normal humans can even process.

    DO NOT try looking into his ideas on longevity if you want to sleep at night. Let’s just say they’ll have a use for the unhoused people they’re looking to round up. These people are FUCKED UP beyond all reason.

  112. 112.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @DougL: i think TFG just wants money for himself and his loser family. Who would hire Eric or Jr?  TFG is  still broke as fuck and needs to pay legal bills. TFG is like the troubled kid in a large family who sucks the wealthy parents dry from paying out for all his self created situations.

  114. 114.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Thiel was also an early backer of the original astroturf Reaganomics-For-Housing group in CA, a grift that has adherents here.

  115. 115.

    DougL

    @Jay:  all in all there is some very weird shit happening right now.  If you don’t think of conspiracies at this moment in time you have a severe lack of imagination.

  116. 116.

    lowtechcyclist

    @VOR:

    And I’ve said, half joking, that they really want to repeal the Enlightenment.

    Some of the people in the Christian fellowship at my college were into Francis Schaeffer, and it was from them, 50+ years ago, that I first came across the notion that the Middle Ages had been this wonderful time of deep faith, and the Enlightenment had been a bad thing.

    I didn’t even try to argue with them – I just looked at them like they were crazy.  It’s a shame that Monty Python and the Holy Grail was still two years in the future, I’d have been cracking “Bring out your dead!” jokes.

  117. 117.

    wjca

    Gotta wonder if Thiel (who IIRC is gay) has read Project 2025.  Or does he somehow imagine that his money would buy him an exemption?  When, after all, they could just confiscate his money and preserve their vision.

  118. 118.

    Pink Tie

    @wjca: that is exactly what he imagines. He thinks his wealth will allow him to float above the fray and do whatever he wants in private.

  123. 123.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Eolirin: Let’s go to the Electoral Count Act of 2022, shall we?

    “(b) Powers Of The President Of Senate.—
    “(1) MINISTERIAL IN NATURE.—Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, the role of the President of the Senate while presiding over the joint meeting shall be limited to performing solely ministerial duties.
    “(2) POWERS EXPLICITLY DENIED.—The President of the Senate shall have no power to solely determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate or resolve disputes over the proper list of electors, the validity of electors, or the votes of electors.

    Of course, all this is only as good as the crooks in the Supreme Court decide it is. But they seemed leery of just nullifying the election for Trump in ’20. I know that if J. D. Vance decides to get up to such shenanigans in 2029 I will be citing this chapter and verse.

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