Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Republicans in disarray!

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

Everybody saw this coming.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Bark louder, little dog.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

People are complicated. Love is not.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

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

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Let there be snark.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Previous Site Maintenance / We’re Having a Baby

We’re Having a Baby

by | 131 Comments

This post is in: ,

Tomorrow morning, at 6 am, the site will be unavailable. Right about now, long time commenters and readers are thinking “Sounds about right, it’s a date that ends in ‘y'” or more likely “FYWP!!!”

But wait! There is more! This is a PLANNED outage, and as you know, we don’t plan ANYFUCKINGTHING around here, so there must be a good reason for it. And there is! Tomorrow at 6 am, we will begin to migrate the website over to the new site, and at some point tomorrow (hopefully early afternoon, but I am not promising anything), the new website will be up and running and you can go about your normal daily business of ignoring your kids, pets, and work and arguing because SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET and sending me emails about how much you hate the website.

You’ve been warned. I’m excited and nervous. And remember, it’s bad form to tell anyone their baby is ugly.

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  2. 2.

    Mousebumples

    Seems like a way to make me more productive on my last day of maternity leave…

    I look forward to the (faux) outrage that is sure to follow the launch. And effusive thanks to you, John, and Watergirl and all the testers!

  4. 4.

    jl

    “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything” Dwight D Eisenhower.
    Not sure if that is an auspicious or inauspicious quote to offer right now. Good luck.

  5. 5.

    laura

    Get water girl an epidural STAT!
    The willow tree is presenting breach.
    I dont know nothing ’bout birthing no blog.

  7. 7.

    AM in NC

    Hey John,

    I’ve been a BJ reader and occasional comment for over 10 years, and I just wanted to let you know how appreciative I am of all of your work and that of all of the front pagers over the years. It isn’t easy to build a community that lasts, and you have done so. Thanks, and let’s impeach the motherfucker already!

  8. 8.

    WaterGirl

    @Spanky: Too funny! I almost sent a link of that song to John instead of calling to let him know that tomorrow would be the big day.

  12. 12.

    WaterGirl

    @p.a.: My dad was in the army and he told me to NEVER volunteer for anything. I’m not so much volunteering as I am confessing.

  14. 14.

    Duane

    Remember, e-mails should be in ALL CAPS, because you’re mad and the damn print is too hard to read anyway.

  15. 15.

    WaterGirl

    @TomatoQueen: What time do the hearings start? Eastern time. I hope it’s early in the morning so I can distract myself. Like John, I am excited and not exactly nervous, but definitely something in that neighborhood. Let’s call it a heightened sense of anticipation.

  17. 17.

    maiXai66

    But… “That sure is a clean baby you got there,” slides right on past politeness editor. If you don’t hear anything further, from me, on the subject, you can rest assured “that baby is really clean!”

  18. 18.

    Patricia Kayden

    Looking forward to the baby’s reveal and a great place to trade barbs about Trump’s impeachment. Tomorrow, it’s going down!

  20. 20.

    Ohio Mom

    @TomatoQueen: Thank you for reminding me about tomorrow’s hearings. I was operating on the assumption I needed to make no special note of the day or time, I would just see them when I opened the blog.

    @Mousebumples: Belated congrats on the arrival of your little one!

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: I’ll be putting up a post with details after dinner. But the *short answer is that there will be updates on John’s twitter.

    edit: *short answer to a question that I either imagined or that is no longer there. :-)

  27. 27.

    WaterGirl

    @p.a.: Nope! And we’re even transparent enough dumb enough to provide a link called Site Feedback. I swear my IQ is in the triple digits, even if you might be questioning that after reading my first sentence.

  33. 33.

    Martin

    I would like to file an objection. Anne Laurie plans a LOT of things. On an almost daily basis she’ll draft a post and schedule it to go up only for Cole, like a toddler on meth, to post something 30 seconds later, either on exactly the same topic, or because a pet kicked him out of bed.

  38. 38.

    TS (the original)

    @WaterGirl: Thanks for all you have done (& no doubt are still doing) for the crowd. I’m down to reading 2 blogs on the inter tubes & this is one of them.

  39. 39.

    Sloane Ranger

    So about 11am UK time. Great, I had to do some work on my taxes anyway and this will force me to get started.

    Seriously, thanks to John for this wonderful online community, WaterGirl for her hard work and all our volunteer front pagers for their insights

    Hoping for a quick and easy birth with no complications.

  41. 41.

    sdhays

    This is exciting, but possibly even more exciting is what will happen while the site is down and no one can post. Will Dump resign? Will Mulvaney accidentally email a recording of Jared green-lighting the Khashoggi killing to Speaker Pelosi while trying to send talking points to House Republicans? So many possibilities!

  42. 42.

    J R in WV

    Flhying Spaghettii Momster save us !!!

    Where can I go to talk about the impeachment tomorrow..???? !!!!

    Trump going down, Blog coming up !!!

    Woot!!!

  43. 43.

    Professor Bigfoot

    I’ve been a BJ reader since I found the place after the passing of Steve Gilliard.

    I tell people all the time that if they really want to understand what’s going on in our politics, they need to follow the comment threads here.

    From the front pagers to the Jackaltariat— this place is a lot like home. Thanks, John Cole.

  47. 47.

    Patricia Kayden

    No what’s interesting is how they didn’t need the whistleblower bc so many Trump appointees came forward to confirm he abused the office by extorting a foreign leader for his own benefit. Besides, you’re supposed to be deflecting onto Schiff this week. t.co/wvvy5kAenm— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) November 12, 2019

  48. 48.

    OzarkHillbilly

    This is a PLANNED outage, and as you know, we don’t plan ANYFUCKINGTHING around here, so it must go tits and balls up…

    Thanx for the warning John. The rest of you? I’ll see you in a week or 2. Don’t know WTF I am going to do with my mornings until this shit gets straightened out.

  52. 52.

    TomatoQueen

    I just checked PBS Ch 26 WETA for tomorrow morning: Special Coverage begins at 10:00 am (eastern time), goes until it stops, then there is a repeat starting at 8:00 pm. So, unlike a previous announcement in WaPo I think or somewhere else, PBS News will after all offer live gavel to gavel then a highlights show, just as they did when they were getting started in 1973. If it is half so riveting as in those days…

  54. 54.

    joel hanes

    An acquaintance who Did Not Particularly Care For Children, when shown a new baby by the adoring parents:

    “I’ve seen babies, and I’ve seen babies, but *that* is a *baby*!”

  55. 55.

    Sab

    EXCITING. I love babies, especially if they are blogs.

    @Professor Bigfoot: Yes, I miss Steve Gilliard. What a voice. What a mind.

    Thanks John Cole. Home in America where the FSM flies over often

    .o@debbie: Laundry and dishes.

  58. 58.

    TS (the original)

    Speaking of tomorrow’s hearing, I just ran into this description in wapo.

    The Republicans last week swapped out committee member Rep. Eric A. “Rick” Crawford (R-Ark.) for Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), a close ally of Trump, who is expected to go hard in his defense of the president.

    Did they mean to describe Jim Jordan this way?

  63. 63.

    WereBear

    @jk: Adam Schiff is a huge fan of The Big Lebowski

    Then he has the right attitude to preside over an impeachment right out of Ionescu.

    “I just dropped in, to see what condition my condition was in…”

  66. 66.

    Mary G

    About the story on Stephen Miller’s racist emails to Breitbart:

    A White House official also provided us with this response on background: "This is clearly a form of anti-Semitism to levy these attacks against a Jewish staffer." t.co/SUg9e1nOZz— Zach Basu (@zacharybasu) November 12, 2019

  68. 68.

    Aleta

    Thanks John. There must be moments when you consider how much easier your life would be w/o this massive thing hung around your neck that tells you it can’t be abandoned and sustains a jillion people you don’t even know.

  74. 74.

    cmorenc

    @John Cole:

    it’s bad form to tell anyone their baby is ugly.

    OK, won’t say anything about the baby, but the baby has an ugly daddy.
    :=)

  78. 78.

    mousebumples

    @Ohio Mom: Thanks! Daddy is taking his 12 weeks of FMLA after I go back, so hopefully I won’t be a complete mess my first day back…
    I

  79. 79.

    Elizabelle

    @TS (the original):

    Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), a close ally of Trump, who is expected to go hard in his defense of the president.

    That is classic. One cannot unsee it. WTG, WaPost writer Colby Ikowitz.

  80. 80.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Photoshopped, no doubt. Nope, until she shows up at a STL meetup… An STL meetup I actually show up at by the by, I will doubt her existence. Then again, has anybody ever actually met me? Maybe I’m a bot. Woops, dinner is calling. Bots have to eat after all.

  88. 88.

    Baud

    This should be the 404 page when the site is down.

    I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.” 

  91. 91.

    japa21

    I have no doubt that the new site will rapidly become the 9,999th most read political blog. We’re moving on up.

  92. 92.

    chopper

    so, the betting pool as to how long the site is actually out for is ON.

    i give it a full 2 days. cole will be so bored he’ll actually look and find the goddamn mustard.

  100. 100.

    hitchhiker

    @WaterGirl:

    Your dad gave good advice. My mom once told me NEVER to offer to bring potato salad to the picnic, because it’s a pain in the ass to make, and then you’ll always be expected to make it.

    I listened to her, but I’d make an exception for a jackal picnic.

    Maybe.

  101. 101.

    Mo MacArbie

    Dammit, I was just getting my old rut re-established in my new digs. I’ll have to be productive, or some shit.

  104. 104.

    scribbler

    It’s been years since I didn’t check in on Balloon Juice (in a lurking way) at least once before noon. Tomorrow morning is going to seem strange. Sigh.

  105. 105.

    karen marie

    @Sloane Ranger: Hear hear.

    This is happening much more quickly than I expected. Fingers are crossed for a smooth transition.

    Thanks to all involved, but especially our host John Cole and our duola watertiger.

  107. 107.

    NotMax

    An observation (as opposed to a complaint) for those who haven’t seen it – the left-hand column is about the same size but the portion of it devoted to displaying content is around 2/3 as wide (the rest is plain white space), so expect to do more vertical scrolling.

  109. 109.

    Joy in FL

    It will be weird not to read Balloon Juice first thing in the morning tomorrow.
    Looking forward to the new site.
    Thanks to all who worked and tested and coordinated it.

  113. 113.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: The actual 404 error page:

    Not found, error 404
    Sorry, we couldn’t find that page.

    We looked everywhere, and even Lily couldn’t find it.
    Thurston?!!

    You can return to the homepage and see if you can find what you are looking for.

    Or, you can try finding it by using the search form below.

  115. 115.

    Aleta

    Tomorrow afternoon as thousands of people check every 5 minutes whether the site is up, will that show on satellite images? Will it cause alarm in Freedonia?

  123. 123.

    Fair Economist

    Do we get a gender reveal party? I’ll bet BJ could manage an amusingly disastrous reveal party.

  126. 126.

    Miss Bianca

    @OzarkHillbilly: I can’t get over seeing “planned outage” as “planned outrage”.

    That’s all I’ve got for right now, I have to write two articles for the paper tonight! And then we’re waking up to a brand-new blog tomorrow, woot!

  127. 127.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mary G:

    A White House official also provided us with this response on background: “This is clearly a form of anti-Semitism to levy these attacks against a Jewish staffer.”

    Now *that’s* chutzpah!

  129. 129.

    Kattails

    OK PUSH now breathe (pant pant pant) Ready? PUSH
    Luckily we won’t be able to hear Cole’s hollering. I am told that mothers in the throes can say quite nasty things to the partner/perpetrator.

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