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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

No one could have predicted…

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

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

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

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

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

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

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

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

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

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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Open Thread:  Hey Lurkers!  (Holiday Post)

Open Threads

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads

Medium Cool – Halloween!

by WaterGirl|  October 27, 20247:00 pm| 76 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered.  We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.

Tonight let’s talk about Halloween!

Traditions, costumes, memories. Trick or treating with friends.  Family memories.  Puking from eating too much candy as a kid?  Films, stories, horror movies.  Do your pets wear costumes?  Are you more Charlie Brown or Friday the 13th?  Is there such a thing as Halloween music?

Tonight it’s all things Halloween!

Note: for those new to Medium Cool, these are not open threads.

 

Medium Cool – Halloween!Post + Comments (76)

Look for the Helpers and the Leaders

by WaterGirl|  October 27, 20245:52 pm| 144 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Call me crazy, but I think that with the latest from Trump campaign, Trump has gone too far.

I find myself wondering if Trump and company aren’t trying to drum up a Civil War, precisely because they know he’s losing.  To me, it feels like he is trying to set the country on fire.

It’s a tactic.  If you feel like you are turned upside down by seeing the awful things they are saying, take a step back and realize that’s exactly what they want.   It’s a HUGE DISTRACTiON.  They want you to be upset and outraged.

Michelle Obama is begging us to stay active and focusing on her DO SOMETHING message – and Trump wants us to be shocked and outraged and paralyzed and disheartened.

Who are you going to listen to?  Choose carefully – we only have 8 days before election day.  Do not fall for their trap.

This is what @realDonaldTrump and his people believe about Latinos and Puertoricans…and Haitians and Mexicans and actually about anyone that is not like them…..@KamalaHarris @TeamKamala will support Latinos and will work hard to be a President for all
Americans! @Vegalteno… https://t.co/kEWRAqJO05

— Chef José Andrés 🕊️🥘🍳 (@chefjoseandres) October 27, 2024

Look for the Helpers and the LeadersPost + Comments (144)

Following Politics Will Never Be The Same Again

by @heymistermix.com|  October 27, 20243:52 pm| 99 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Politics Will Never Be The Same
The Word from Wordle Central.

Twenty years ago — hell, 10 years ago — I would have given you a far different view of how a person who is seriously interested in politics should follow it.  That view would have included judicious reading of mainstream media outlets, looking at poll average sites, and following specific journalists on their blogs (20 years ago) or Twitter (10 years ago).

That’s all over now, baby blue.

The Washington Post and LA Times’ decisions to chicken out instead of endorsing the obvious choice for preserving democracy (and, really, preserving themselves) is just another instance of the rot of journalistic institutions coming out into the open, like the sawdust from the rot of a termite-infested timber.  Even if they weren’t as rotten and awful as they are, they’re mostly irrelevant to today’s politics.  The DC press might drive some of the DC conversation, but even though they are now, and have long been, wired for Republicans, the Republicans don’t listen to them.  These rotten institutions (especially Wordle central) have done nothing for Democrats but drive a vile, inhumane, both-sides quasi-centrism, one which was always uncomfortable with full-throated support of reproductive freedom, constantly chipped away at sensible social welfare measures (including a decent public healthcare system), and treated Democrats who aren’t really that far left as hopeless, out-of-touch radicals.  The Democratic party has been deeply damaged by our lingering view of these rotten institutions as arbiters that deserve some degree of respect and attention.  The Biden administration and Harris campaign are treating  the DC press with the lack of respect they richly deserve.

As for polls and poll averages, I think we’ve all seen that they are in the midst of constant recalibration that may or may not leave us with a better sense of where the election stands, but the rise of telemarketing so annoying that few people will pick up a strange number, combined with Republican resistance to answering pollster’s calls, means that the last dozen years of polling is a real work in progress.  Plus, we’re such a closely divided country that polling is constantly within the margin of error.

Finally, blogs and social media.  Twitter is a walking corpse, which may be replaced by Bluesky, though the collapse of journalism as a business means that  journalists on Twitter are like a scared school of fish that’s being picked off one-by-one by a nearby shark.  They’ll probably be there for a lot longer than makes sense.  Blogs have devolved into substacks, and though I can’t blame any journalist for trying to make a buck, I don’t have hundreds of bucks to spend on subscriptions, and I’m more motivated than most to read some journalists’ substacks.  Some kind of micro-payment model, where I can pay to read a story or two from a newspaper, substack or other online entity, has been needed for 20 years, but because the money that could be made there keeps it from happening.

I don’t know what’s next, but I do know what has been.

Following Politics Will Never Be The Same AgainPost + Comments (99)

Sunday Morning Open Thread: Michelle Obama *Speaks*

by Anne Laurie|  October 27, 20248:32 am| 179 Comments

This post is in: Elections 2024, Kamala Harris for President, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat

Today I’m heading to Michigan to join @KamalaHarris on the campaign trail!

In this final stretch, we have to give it everything we’ve got. It’s time for everybody to #DoSomething!

Find ways to get involved today at https://t.co/6g4HZzYgIQ. pic.twitter.com/InEgtjZryq

— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) October 26, 2024

Rock star reception for Michelle Obama in Michigan pic.twitter.com/hcZurGfuvQ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 26, 2024

Wow Michelle Obama continues to be very good at this pic.twitter.com/SqsY7VOSWS

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 26, 2024

.@MichelleObama: Kamala Harris is not losing her train of thought or stumbling over her words. And she's doing it all with vigor and with grace. That's because Kamala Harris is a grown-up. And God knows we need a grown-up in the White House pic.twitter.com/hIlcTvySMY

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 26, 2024

show full post on front page

Politico goes with its strengths — “Michelle Obama makes the case for Harris in Michigan, as Dems see signs of hope”:

… Michelle Obama returned to the campaign trail for the first time since the Democratic National Convention on Saturday to make an explicit appeal to one of Vice President Kamala Harris’ weakest voting blocs — men — and other constituencies Democrats are scrambling to turn out.

Introducing Harris at a rally here, Obama said the race between the vice president and former President Donald Trump is “too close for my liking” and she is “deeply concerned … that too many of us are still confused and buying into the lies and distortions from people who do not have our best interest at heart.”

One of the Democratic Party’s most popular surrogates, Obama challenged the perception that voters — including some Democrats — feel like they still don’t know enough about Harris, arguing the vice president is being held to a “higher standard” than Trump. She delivered a blistering critique of the former president, from his failures in handling Covid-19 to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot after “the American people fired him from a job that was too big for him to begin with.” And she issued one of Democrats’ most explicit cases for abortion rights yet in an appeal clearly targeted toward men.

But “let’s not just sit around and complain,” Obama said. “Let’s do something.”

As Obama pleaded with Democrats to turn out, the party is starting to see reason for optimism in Michigan. Public polls have started to swing Harris’ way, though the race remains within the margins. And there are positive signs for Democrats in early voting returns, from the sheer volume of ballots already cast — nearly 1.5 million as of Saturday, per state data — to where and from whom those votes are coming…

Michelle Obama closes with a warning on those considering third parties: "If we don't get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage. So are you as men prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children…

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 26, 2024

Michelle Obama closes with a warning on those considering third parties: “If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage. So are you as men prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children that you love and tell them you supported this assault on our safety?”

Six-minute extract (c’mon, it’s Sunday morning)…

I ask every man who follows me to send this to five ambivalent men in your life. pic.twitter.com/XMwDwau3ky

— The.Ink, from Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) October 26, 2024

 
ABC / FULL SPEECH: Michelle Obama rallies for Harris in Michigan

Sunday Morning Open Thread: Michelle Obama *Speaks*Post + Comments (179)

Blago II (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker|  October 27, 20248:17 am| 40 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics

One of the many public figures who should shut the fuck up for the next 10 days or so speaks:

New York Times headline: New York Mayor Says Trump Shouldn’t Be Called FascistRemember when Adams called himself the new “face of the Democratic Party?” The true corresponding anatomical metaphor is a couple of feet lower and on the posterior side.

If anything, Adams is the new Rod Blagojevich — a shameless crook trying to curry favor with another shameless crook in hopes of a favor down the road. FFS, do better next time, NYC voters.

Open thread.

Blago II (Open Thread)Post + Comments (40)

Late Night Open Thread: Rudy Loses His Shirt

by Anne Laurie|  October 27, 20242:45 am| 91 Comments

This post is in: Grifters Gonna Grift, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Trump Crime Cartel

Late Night Open Thread:  Rudy Loses His Shirt

(Matt Davies via GoComics.com)

 
The meme is that Everything TFG touches dies… but it’s not as though his ‘victims’ are lambs led astray. Giuliani was a two-bit bent pol back in the 1980s, when he and his crony Donald Trump were livin’ large at Studio 54 & carousing on SNL, and he’s still a two-bit bent ex-pol now that he’s old and broke.

Rudy Giuliani must turn over a variety of his assets to two Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him, including his New York City apartment, sports memorabilia and a 1980 Mercedes, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. https://t.co/96PB0lBijJ

— The Associated Press (@AP) October 22, 2024

They can’t touch his pension but beyond that I genuinely think he’s indigent. Have you seen him in public? https://t.co/SkMJs1JGvO

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) October 23, 2024

(CNN) — A federal judge has ordered Rudy Giuliani to turn over all his valuable possessions and his Manhattan penthouse to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Georgia election workers he defamed and to whom he now owes $150 million.

pic.twitter.com/PS8gw3clD2

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) October 22, 2024

If it were me winning all rudy giuliani's worldly possessions in a lawsuit my social media would be absolutely insufferable

— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) October 23, 2024 at 1:11 PM

show full post on front page

MTV cribs but it's ruby freeman and shaye moss showing off all the shit they won from rudy giuliani's dumb fascist ass

— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) October 23, 2024 at 1:16 PM

2025 calendar with pictures of them in a different room with a different valuable belonging for each month. https://t.co/OUsb8nYxVu

— Barbara Smith (@nanaslugdiva) October 22, 2024

Hayes Brown at MSNBC — “Rudy Giuliani’s downfall feels downright karmic”:

… Since helping orchestrate former President Donald Trump’s failed attempt at election theft, Giuliani has lost his law license in New York and Washington, D.C.; been charged criminally in Arizona and Georgia; and faced a slew of other defamation lawsuits for the lies he told after the 2020 election. It’s a turn of events that feels downright karmic given the scale of the damage he’s caused, part of a chain of consequences and repercussions that have hounded him over the last four years. And as Trump and his allies prepare to challenge a loss next month, Giuliani’s downfall should serve as a reminder that their actions can have a steep cost.

Given his meteoric plummet from grace, it can be easy to forget that Giuliani was living a lavish lifestyle between his time as mayor of New York and serving as Trump’s personal lawyer. He was earning millions of dollars each year in fees from consulting and spending it almost as quickly. The number of legal troubles he’s faced and bills he’s left unpaid sent him to bankruptcy court last year — which promptly dismissed his filing, allowing Moss and Freeman to resume asking for what he owed them.

In the opinion from U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman, Giuliani is ordered to turn over two pages worth of valuables within the next week. At the top of the list are the co-op shares and lease to his condo on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which was listed on the realty website StreetEasy for $5.175 million within the last month. The list also includes 26 luxury watches, a 1980 Mercedes-Benz once owned by actress Lauren Bacall, and the contents of several checking accounts (minus any amounts the court deemed exempt)…

The trinkets Morgan and Shae will be receiving are valuable, but the most interesting thing they now possess is intangible: roughly $2 million in debt Giuliani is still owed from Trump’s 2020 campaign and the Republican National Committee. Incredibly, Giuliani requested that the debt not be turned over until after Election Day, since the plaintiffs could use it to spread confusing lies and stir up a media frenzy. “The profound irony manifest in Defendant’s alleged concern is not lost on the Court,” Liman wrote. “By his own admission, Defendant defamed Plaintiffs by perpetuating lies about them.”…

Concerningly, Trump-supporting billionaire Elon Musk repeated the Dominion lie in recent days without any seeming worry about drawing costly litigation. It’s for that reason that there is a limit to how much schadenfreude Giuliani’s pending impoverishment can bring me. Being poor in a system like America’s is not a moral failing, despite what the rich and powerful have continuously claimed. But the same reasoning that will wrest these funds from Giuliani will much more easily strip a working-class person of their few assets.

And yet there is still a righteous satisfaction in seeing someone like Giuliani brought low, given the depth of his crimes. As Moss and Freeman testified to the House Jan. 6 Committee in 2022, his false claims that they had handled suitcases filled with ballots lead to death threats against them, forcing Freeman to flee her home. He did so despite knowing Trump had lost the election and has shown no remorse for the way he uprooted their lives. It is easy then to see the justice in Giuliani’s former home being turned over to Freeman after driving her from hers.

Late Night Open Thread: Rudy Loses His ShirtPost + Comments (91)

Saturday Night Open Thread

by John Cole|  October 26, 20249:00 pm| 138 Comments

This post is in: John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House", Open Threads

Welp, here we are. Another Saturday night. Not even two weeks until the election. And it sure as fuck feels like we are the rebel alliance just fucking fighting for our lives and I dunno if this is the battle of hoth or the battle of Yavin. And I need to be clear, it’s not that I think Kamala and all of us are going to lose. I honestly think we have a good chance and might even win big.

It’s that the fear of him winning is so overwhelming that it knocks any positive thoughts right out of my soul.

As a palate cleanser, here is a picture of my trees doing their thing:

Saturday Night Open Thread 23

Soon the leaves will all be gone and so will I, off to Arizona.

***

It was a lovely day, today. I see there are some mild repercussions going down at the WaPo, and it’s hard to imagine what can excuse the cowardice. I really wish I knew the answer to fixing our media problem, but I suppose I would start by not letting billionaires own them.

Still working my way through C.B. Strike, and after that I need a new show- something Like CB Strike, Line of Duty, Jack Irish. Any suggestions?

Saturday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (138)

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