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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Bark louder, little dog.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

In my day, never was longer.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

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

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

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Open Thread:  Hey Lurkers!  (Holiday Post)

Open Threads

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads

Reminder

by Tim F|  January 22, 201010:44 am| 110 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Phone your Representative. It feels better than yelling at pseudonyms on an internetblog.

Here is how you do it.

(1) Use a phone. Email has nigh on zero impact. Trust me on this. Letter mail gets read, but you don’t have time. Reach the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121 .

(2) Remember, this person works for you. You pay his or her salary and you voted for them. You’re the boss here, or at least one of them, and it’s they who should worry about what you think of them.

(3) Identify your name and the town or neighborhood where you live zip code. If you are not a constituent don’t bother. Since you guys never listen to me, at least google a zip code in the appropriate district before you call.

(4) State the issue. This is easy: pass the Senate bill or the party gets it. We can (and certainly will) fix the shortcomings later.

(5) How strongly do you feel? Don’t apologize about feeling passionate or pissed off. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

(6) What are you going to do about it? (Updated from earlier) This part is not that relevant when they’re getting a ton of calls. Every teabagger threatens the end of the world, so they get pretty jaded about it.

One last, important point. We want to track where Representatives are swinging on this and who is willing to commit. However your Rep’s intern responds about the Senate bill, please email me or post it in the comments. We are most interested to know who is voting yes, who will vote no, who will not commit and whether the abortion language is a problem with conservative Dems.



***Update***

It can’t hurt to assure the intern that you hate the Senate too, and you’ll gladly get behind punishing those guys just as soon as we get this stupid bill passed and over with. House members are LIVID at the Senate right now.

***Update 2***

As BTD points out, it cannot hurt and may do a ton of good if you call your Senator as well. The ultimate win situation is to have the House commit to passing the Senate bill while the Senate commits to fixing its bill through reconciliation.

I may be too jaded to hope for that kind of win, but who knows. I would never feel happier to be wrong.

ReminderPost + Comments (110)

Negotiating Against Themselves

by Tim F|  January 22, 201012:24 am| 27 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Maybe someone should ask Olympia Snowe whether she would vote for a bill with watered-down protection for pre-existing conditions. Otherwise it seems rather silly just to toss it out there.

Negotiating Against ThemselvesPost + Comments (27)

No Politics Thread

by Tim F|  January 22, 201012:11 am| 115 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Suggested topic: name the first book that you can remember reading. I don’t recall spending any time with children’s books, but I remember feeling totally captivated by a Time-Life series on ghosts, aliens and the unknown. Pro tip: let your subscription lapse after number ten or twelve.

No Politics ThreadPost + Comments (115)

ActBlue Update

by Tim F|  January 22, 201012:01 am| 17 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Question for people with more experience than I have. Does there exist a mechanism to set up an account that only accepts pledges until I trigger it to take cash? Here’s the plan: I want to keep adding names of certified yeses until a vote is scheduled, and use the size of the pledge pool as a carrot to draw more Representatives in. This would clearly only work if pledges have some sort of commitment attached to them, since anyone can “pledge” $10,000 and a thoroughbred pony. Email me or discuss it here.

Take the poll. Also.



Never used BlogPolls before, so it’s my fault if the poll doesn’t work.

***Update***

Being new, I forgot that we can’t promise money for a specific vote. Oh well.

ActBlue UpdatePost + Comments (17)

Project Runway Open Thread

by John Cole|  January 21, 201010:04 pm| 45 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

For Max. Screw you haters.

Project Runway Open ThreadPost + Comments (45)

Money Money Money Money Money

by Tim F|  January 21, 20109:14 pm| 112 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Once again, Josh Marshall. There is no plan. Nobody on Capitol Hill has any idea what to do. My reading of your comments and emails says the same thing: when Nancy Pelosi acts like she knows where things stand, she’s full of it. Pelosi has not put any serious pressure on her chamber. She has not gamed it out with the her leadership. She doesn’t know whether she has the votes because most Representatives don’t know themselves.

It’s time to put another carrot in the mix. In a couple of days I will set up an ActBlue account for Reps who stand up for HCR. The account will activate the night the House passes the Senate bill (or, obviously, never). I have my ideas about who should go in, but first I want to hear from you guys. My instinct is to include everyone who commits early. That threshold obviously has plenty of flex in it. If I put in everyone who eventually votes for the bill and the bill passes then I might as well give to the DCCC. Share your thoughts in the comments.

Money Money Money Money MoneyPost + Comments (112)

Thursday Night Open Thread

by John Cole|  January 21, 20107:19 pm| 129 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Laura, Ahab, and I are still working on the Cafe Press experiment to raise money for animal rescue, and Laura has enlisted Evelyn DeHais (her blog is here) to do some graphic work. Here is her first piece (well, second, actually, because she did the Tunch is Watching You, too):

lily

If you have any logos or slogans you would like to have on the products, fill me in. Also, if you want to submit graphics to use, they should be 8 MB files (ideally 2000pixels x 2000pixels @ 200 d.p.i.).

Thursday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (129)

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