Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

“Alexa, change the president.”

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Fight them, without becoming them!

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

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

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

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

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

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2024 Pets of Balloon Juice Calendars

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It’s pet calendar time again!

Cafe Press seems to have resolved their paper issues, and they once again have the option to create your own calendars.  Yay!

Final Preview of 2022 Pets of Balloon Juice: Calendar B! 1

Here’s what beth and I are thinking re: the 2024 Pets of Balloon Juice Calendars.

The designs for the two pet calendars for 2023 were completely finished, except for the import into Cafe Press, where things came to an abrupt halt because of supply chain issues.  With just and hour or so of work – changing the covers so they say 2024 instead of 2023, and importing the files into Cafe Press – we can WILL have Calendar A & Calendar B available with the photos from last year.

Reminder: the month of January in both calendars (A & B) from “last” year is a tribute to Lily and all of John’s pets.

BJ Pet Calendar 2023 – A  (soon to be 2024)

BJ Pet Calendar 2023 – B  (soon to be 2024)

IF THERE IS INTEREST, we will also open up submissions for new photos for another calendar for 2024, with just photos that arrive this year.

So here’s what we need to know from you.

  • Is there interest in purchasing 2024 calendars that were designed with last year’s pet pics?  Clearly YES, we will do this.
  • Is there also interest in purchasing a new 2024 calendar with pics you send in now?
  • Is anyone else interested in postcards of their pets?  We can make those and add them to the BJ store in Cafe Press.

Please chime in and let us know, because time is short – we want to have the calendars available for purchase by Dec 1.

Oh, and if you want to submit pics, please start getting them ready now – I’ll be setting up the photo upload site in a day or so.  Remember, all photos submitted go into the calendar, but high resolution is the key to being able to have a bigger photo that is more visible in the calendar.

Open thread.

Update: we can also make postcards from your pet pics and add them to our store on Cafe Press.  If you are interested in that, chime in below!

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Monday Morning Open Thread: Keeping Up the Good Fight(s)

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Great slogan, IMO:

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Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: Concerning ‘Activist’ Spite Voters

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War for Ukraine Day 620: The Cost

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Graphic by NEIVANMADE of a Russian bomb with a "Z" symbol on it crashing through the roof of the Ukrainian Postal Service delivery hub. "Everyone Is a Target" and "Stop Russia" are written in the space between the destroyed roof and the fins of the bomb.

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

The cost:

Ukrainska Pravda has the details: (machine translation)

Yuri Glodan died in the war, whose family was killed in April 2022 Russian missilesand, which destroyed the residential complex “Tiras” in Odessa.

After the loss of the family, Yuri decided to join the ranks of the Armed Forces.

On November 5, his colleague Alexander Yakovenko announced that Yuri died at the front.

Alexander is a co-owner of a confectionery in Odessa, where Glodan previously worked.

Recalling the tragic day when Yuri lost his family, Alexander says that Easter in 2022 was the first weekend of the confectionery. The man spent time with his family, went to the store, and when he returned – “his world was destroyed”. 

Then the Russian rocket was injected into the house where the Yuri family lived. The tragedy took a life 3-month-old daughter Kira, her mother Valeria and grandmother Ludmila.

“He committed as a worthy man of the Ukrainian nation – went to the Armed Forces.  First “Azov”, then the 3rd assault. Today (November 5 – ed.) We learned that he died defending his nation. Light memory, a man with a big heart”, – written by Alexander Yakovenko.

In April 2022, the man admitted that the service is not easy, because professionalism requires time and training.

“Time to draw, the enemy is not waiting. The fact is that here is a war, we do not paint grass under the line. Wrong — you’re already 300 or 200. It hurts a lot to lose your fellows, and it’s a shame to understand that in his place could be you, or you, in fact, can be next”, – told then the man of “Public”. 

Yuri Glodan died in battle. His body was recognized by the cross. 

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Medium Cool – Song Lyrics!

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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.

Medium Cool – Song Lyrics!

Let’s talk song lyrics today!

Lyrics that speak to you.  Lyrics that are poetry.  Lyrics you love.  Lyrics that are offensive!  Lyrics that fit the music perfectly.  Lyrics that do the opposite.  Lyrics that capture a time in your life.

Don’t just tells us about them, paste the lyrics in the comments if you can.  (But not if that’s a pain on mobile devices.)

It’s all things lyrics today, have fun!

Update:

Pro tip: If you want your lyrics to look like this:

How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways

and not this

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways

Just hold the shift key down when you press return OR if you are pasting it in from elsewhere click the TEXT tab before you pasted it in.

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Sunday Evening Open Thread: RFK Jr Goes Mask-Off

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Open Thread: RFK Jr Goes Mask-Off

Steve Bannon has been having, by his debased standards, a very good run of late… and the conspiracy-fueled right-wing embrace of RFK Jr. is another ‘win’ for right-wing chaos agents.

NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny reports as “RFK Jr. comes ‘home’ to his anti-vaccine group, commits to ‘a break’ for U.S. infectious disease research”:

At an anti-vaccine conference in Georgia on Friday, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed his commitment to the cause and spoke to his base about how he, as president, would serve the movement he built.

“I feel like I’ve come home today,” he said to a standing ovation, crediting the assembled audience with his candidacy.

He then laid out his vision for a Kennedy presidency, which would include telling the National Institutes of Health to take “a break” from studying infectious diseases, like Covid-19 and measles, and pivoting the agency to the study of chronic diseases, like diabetes and obesity. Kennedy has suggested without evidence that researchers and pharmaceutical companies are driven by profit to neglect such chronic conditions and invest in ineffective and even harmful treatments; he includes vaccines among them.

“I’m gonna say to NIH scientists, God bless you all,” Kennedy said. “Thank you for public service. We’re going to give infectious disease a break for about eight years.”

Kennedy’s remarks came at the end of the first day of a conference for the country’s largest anti-vaccine organization, Children’s Health Defense. Kennedy signed on with Children’s Health Defense in 2015 and served as its chairman and chief litigation counsel until April, when he announced he would go on leave to run for president…

Kennedy has mostly shied away from anti-vaccine advocacy on the campaign trail and has said, despite years of public statements to the contrary, that he is not opposed to vaccines. This spring, he told NBC News vaccines were “not an issue that I’m leading with.”…

In addition to his proposed moves at NIH, Kennedy said that as president, he’d appoint a like-minded attorney general, “maybe Aaron Siri,” he said. Siri is a lawyer who has done millions of dollars of work for leading anti-vaccination groups, including a recent case that opened up religious exemptions for childhood vaccines in Mississippi. The crowd erupted in applause.

He said he would use the power of that attorney general to threaten editors of medical journals and force them to publish studies that had been retracted (he often cites the retracted studies saying ivermectin, a parasite drug, is an effective treatment for Covid). “We’re gonna say we’re fixing to file some racketeering lawsuits if you don’t start telling the truth in your journals.”…

RatF*cker Jr, friend to all the best modern plagues, including ‘religious’ grifters and lawyers.

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Ladies Auxiliary (Open Thread)

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Lauren Boebert, berserk MAGA political stuntwoman, is discovering her party’s boundaries in the wake of VapeGropeGate. The rules are simple enough even for a person of her limited intelligence to understand.

It goes like this: Trump can grab coochies, shag a porn actress behind his wife’s back, spy on half-dressed underage beauty pageant contestants, etc. But elected MAGAs of the female persuasion better confine their antics to activities like making violent threats, cyberstalking mass shooting survivors or heckling bereaved parents in front of TV cameras — even consensual public groping isn’t allowed.

According to this NYT article (gift link), a chastened Boebert is making the rounds in her district, apologizing for the “Beetlejuice” incident and looking for “a lot of mercy and a lot of grace” in hopes of holding onto a job for which she is wildly unqualified and performs poorly. Recall that she almost got bounced from the best job she’ll ever have in 2022, when she hung onto the seat by fewer than 600 votes.

The Times reports that some members of the GOP establishment in Colorado are ready to cut their losses and have endorsed a primary opponent, Jeff Hurd, who holds similar views on issues like guns but is less overtly feral. Hurd’s backers include brewery bigwig Pete Coors.

But I don’t think Hurd is going anywhere, despite releasing photos of himself sitting at the head of the table at a wholesome family dinner, a not-so-subtle contrast with public strumpet Boebert. Here’s why:

Asked if he had voted for Mr. Trump in past elections, Mr. Hurd declined to answer, but then described a vision of the Republican Party where “we believe in, you know, the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power in elections.”

Bzzzzzzzzt! Wrong answer for a 2024 Republican primary candidate. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict a Boebert primary win because worshipping the Orange Calf seems more important to the base than punishing moral turpitude in the MAGA ladies auxiliary.

“Lauren’s made it harder for herself,” said Kathy Elmont, the secretary of the Ouray County Republican Party, who has supported Ms. Boebert since her first campaign. “But I look at it as a Christian.” She recalled the passage in the Gospel of John in which Jesus admonishes a crowd against stoning an adulterous woman: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

But Mrs. Elmont pointed out that wasn’t the last of the story. “He ended with, ‘And sin no more,’” she said.

Elmont means no more sexy-time scandals; threatening violence, stalking traumatized shooting survivors, heckling bereaved parents, etc., is okay. Hopefully Boebert’s Democratic opponent can pick her off.

***

Remember when I filled y’all in on Trump’s plans to crush DeSantis at this weekend’s Florida Freedom Summit? If hat sales tell the tale, it’s mission accomplished for Hair Furor. From The Tampa Bay Times:

KISSIMMEE — The hats weren’t selling. They were off-white and polyester and embroidered with three words: DeSantis for President.

So LeeAnn Crotty decided she’d reduce the price to $5.

“We’re trying to offload them,” she said from behind her merchandise booth.

At the other end of the booth — set up in the air-conditioned hall of the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center — other hats displayed messages including “TRUMP 2024″ and “GOD GUNS AND TRUMP.”

Those hats were selling, Crotty said. They were priced for $15. Some, the ones with rhinestones, were fetching $20.

Hilarious. DeSantis had a shitty afternoon speaking slot at the event, sandwiched between two mortal political enemies, his gubernatorial predecessor Rick Scott and the former statehouse toady Randy Fine, who recently unendorsed DeSantis and endorsed Trump.

When it was time for Bootsie to shuffle forth on tippy-toes and recite lies like “We are the freest state in all of these United States” in a droning, adenoidal voice, he was introduced by Tacky O, who lied that DeSantis is “America’s governor.” I love watching those two circle the drain and look forward to the big flush.

Open thread.

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