Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Reality always wins in the end.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

It’s been a really long fucking year.

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

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Infrastructure week. at last.

Everybody saw this coming.

Just a few bad apples.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Let there be snark.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

It might be fine, or it might be a clusterfuck.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

We can agree to disagree, but i’m right.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

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

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Open Thread: Adam Schiff, Midnight In Washington, and Balloon Juice

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Adam Schiff will be joining our Midnight In Washington book club for at least part of one meeting!

Interest in a Weekly Book Club to Read & Discuss Adam Schiff's Book Midnight In Washington?

I wrote this comment on the calendar thread last night:

In other good news, spoke with Adam Schiff’s chief of staff today, and I need to let him know when our Midnight in Washington book club will be meeting and Adam Schiff will drop in on one of our meetings for 15-30 minutes or so.

Possibly unannounced, and possibly announced beforehand.

He is more likely to drop in if we have a zoom than a post – easier for him to participate.

i am to get back to him when we have a plan.

I seem to be getting all the credit for this, but it all started with a tweet by one of our BJ peeps about the Jan 6 hearings. Here’s the story of how it happened.

BJ peep Betty replied to Laura Rozen re: the Jan 6 hearings.

Betty was excited because Adam Schiff “liked” that tweet, and immediately jumped on BJ to tell us about it.  I saw Betty’s BJ comment in real time and immediately replied that she should tweet back, telling him about our Midnight in Washington book club (starting in January) and inviting him to join us for a Q&A.

And she did!  Go Betty!

Long story short, I am to get back to the chief of staff when we have a firm plan with dates & times for the book club.

So you can expect another book club post soon.  If you haven’t signed up for the book club but you would like to join us, chime in below and let us know!

If you would like to participate but money for the book is an issue at the moment, several people have offered to buy the book for others.  Two people have the book in their hands already – the receivers are thrilled to have their books and the givers are really happy to be helping someone else get the book.  Win-win!

Send me an email if you want to join the club but this isn’t a good time for your to purchase the book. Let me know whether you want a paper book or a Kindle, etc.

Totally open thread.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: NRA Parents of the Year Apprehended

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: NRA Parents of the Year Apprehended

(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)

Now the media circus really gets into gear. Per the AP:

… James and Jennifer Crumbley were captured in a commercial building in Detroit that housed artwork, Detroit Police Chief James E. White told a news conference. White said the couple “were aided in getting into the building,” and that a person who helped them may also face charges.

A Detroit business owner spotted a car tied to the Crumbleys in his parking lot late Friday, Oakland County Undersheriff Michael McCabe said in a statement. A woman seen near the vehicle ran away when the business owner called 911, McCabe said. The couple was later located and arrested by Detroit police…

Authorities had been looking for the couple since Friday afternoon. Late Friday, U.S. Marshals announced a reward of up to $10,000 each for information leading to their arrests.

The Crumbley’s attorney, Shannon Smith, said the pair had left town earlier in the week “for their own safety.” Smith told The Associated Press they would be returning to Oxford to be arraigned.

However, White said the Crumbleys “appeared to be hiding” in the building where they were found. He added that the parents appeared to be “distressed” when they were captured…

In a video message to the community Thursday, the head of Oxford Community Schools said the high school looks like a “war zone” and won’t be ready for weeks. Superintendent Tim Throne repeatedly complimented students and staff for how they responded to the violence.

He also acknowledged the meeting of Crumbley, the parents and school officials. Throne offered no details but summed it up by saying, “No discipline was warranted.”

McDonald was asked about the decision to keep Crumbley in school.

“Of course, he shouldn’t have gone back to that classroom. … I believe that is a universal position. I’m not going to chastise or attack, but yeah,” she said.

Asked if school officials may potentially be charged, McDonald said: “The investigation’s ongoing.”

If the Crumbleys hadn’t been white, and ‘privileged’, neither they nor their son would’ve left that school conference unescorted by armed security, I’m guessing.

IMO, the Crumbleys were ‘trying to escape to Canada’ the same way OJ Simpson was ‘trying to escape to Mexico’ — except that OJ probably had a passport, and a whole lot more cash on hand. In other words, they had a vague cinematic Butch-Cassidy-and-the-Sundance-Kid fantasy about disappearing into the sunset and never being seen again. Not very reality-based, but they don’t seem to have been a couple much into reality-based planning.

… Charging parents is unusual in a school shooting. A Washington Post review of 145 school shootings committed by children in the two decades after the Columbine High massacre in 1999 found that the weapon’s source had been publicly identified in 105 cases. In total, the guns those children used were taken from their own homes or those of relatives or friends 80 percent of the time.

However, in just four instances did the adult owners of the weapons face any criminal punishment for not having locked them up — and none of those prosecutions stemmed from negligent-storage laws…

A Post analysis found that such measures could have a profound impact, since more than half of the country’s school shootings since 1999 could have been prevented if the children who killed their classmates did not have access to firearms. And an academic study found that the number of gun-related accidental deaths and suicides among children and teenagers would drop by as much as a third.

One reason for the dramatic drop is that in gun-owning households with children, about 2 in 10 gun owners store at least one firearm in the least safe manner — loaded and unlocked. That would represent 5 million minors living in a house with an unsecured gun…

Saturday Morning Open Thread: NRA Parents of the Year Apprehended 1

(Lalo Alcaraz via GoComics.com)

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Wee Hours Open Thread

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I’ve been wide awake since 4 AM for some reason, so I caught the first news accounts when the cops nabbed America’s Worst MAGA Trash ParentsTM overnight. From the coverage, it sounds like the two really had gone on the lam. They were hiding out in an “industrial building” (possibly with the help of a third party) after withdrawing thousands of dollars from an ATM. JFC.

The TV talking heads discussing the case gave the impression that gunowners are alarmed that parents might be held liable when their kids go on a murder rampage. That’s another sign of how our sick gun culture has warped perspectives. Valued commenter Leto pointed to a comment by Biden’s first ATF nominee, David Chipman:

“If a parent provided their car to an unlicensed teen for a night of drunken joy riding, no one would be shocked if a prosecutor sought to hold the adults accountable.”

Exactly. It should be no different with The Precious.

Here’s a story out of India about a mother who doesn’t suck at her parenting job:

A boy snatched by a leopard is lucky to be alive after the animal let go of him when his mother gave chase.

The unnamed child, believed to be around 5 years old, was sitting in his hut with his mother and siblings when the big cat approached, according to local authorities.

The woman, who has been named locally as Kiran Baiga, jumped up and chased the animal while screaming, according to Y P Singh, field director of the Sanjay-Dubri National Park and Tiger Reserve in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

Recounting the episode, which took place on November 30, Singh told CNN: “The lady was sitting in her hut with her children when the leopard came. It took the child and started to run away when the lady chased him, screaming, and more people showed up, so the leopard let go of the child and ran away.”

The boy suffered minor injuries but is now fully recovered, according to Singh.

And she didn’t even need a gun to protect her child. Way to go, mom!

Open thread!

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Late Night Open Thread: The GOP Is No Longer A Political Party…

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… It’s a death cult with an outsized media platform. It’s monsters, and morons, and moronic monsters.

Some commentor recently took objection to the phrase ‘rooting for injuries’, but really — what else can we say?

Hoping there are no fatalities among innocent bystanders when the inevitable shootout starts?

Reminder: Kevin McCarthy publicly ‘joked’ about hitting Speaker Pelosi with her own gavel:

show full post on front page

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2022 Pet Calendars Are Ready to Order!

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The 2022 Pets of Balloon Juice Calendars are ready to order!

Calendar A

Preview of 2022 Pets of Balloon Juice: Calendar A!

Calendar B

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

Calendar proceeds  go directly to the pet rescue.

You can click this link to order or you can order by clicking Link to Order 2022 Calendars in the sidebar.

If you have pets in the calendars and have not yet reviewed the calendars, please do so before placing your order – spreadsheets that tell you which calendar your guys are in and previews of each month are in the sidebar.

If you find a problem, corrections can still be made.  But the calendar has to be changed BEFORE you place your order with Cafe Press.  The calendars are printed on demand by Cafe Press, and there’s no way to stop an order once you place it.

If you find an issue:

  1. Notify us in this post
  2. Wait for us to let you know that it has been fixed and that the calendar page has been updated
  3. Review the calendar again to verify all is good
  4. Then place your order.

Calendars are $25 each.  Cafe Press raised the base cost of calendars this year, and you guys swore a blood oath that raising the price by $2 would not affect your purchase, so we are counting on that.  Well, it looked like they were raising their prices, but they didn’t.  So we didn’t.

John Cole says: “Check the god-damn previews before you order.”  (Or he would say that if he knew we were this close to being able to order.)

2022 Pets Calendars!

2022 Pet Calendar A (Nyms A-K)
2022 Pet Calendar A (Nyms L-Z)
2022 Pet Calendar B (Nyms A-K)
2022 Pet Calendar B (Nyms L-Z)

Pet Calendar B Preview Pics & Layout
Pet Calendar A Preview Pics & Layout

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Friday Evening Open Thread: TGIF, Truly

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President Biden has a cold, so you can safely ignore all the frantic/gleeful health rumors over the weekend:

Hope he’ll feel well enough to show up for the Kennedy Honors on Sunday:

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Pandemic Politics

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Those two words should never be in the same phrase, but here we are. And soon, we may find out if the Omicron variant scrambles current pandemic politics. It’s too soon to tell, but new evidence coming out of South Africa seems to suggest that the latest variant is better at evading immunity acquired from previous infections, and that may have political implications. Via CNN:

Researchers in South Africa reported Thursday they have found some evidence that people who had been infected once with coronavirus were more likely to be reinfected with the Omicron variant than with the Beta or Delta variants.

Josh Marshall discusses the potential implications in a subscriber-only article at TPM, but my takeaway is that things could get interesting fast in the U.S. if it turns out that vaccination provides substantially better immunity against Omicron that natural immunity from prior infections. That seems to be a distinct possibility since there’s evidence vaccines provide better protection against prior variants than previous infection alone, which is why people who’ve recovered from COVID should still get vaccinated.

Wingnuts who have used opposition to Biden admin vaccination mandates to appeal to the Trump cult pretend the antibodies produced by an infection are the equivalent of a vaccine. It’s a point Florida Governor Ron DeSantis brings up repeatedly. (He is also asking the legislature for money to assemble as state militia that reports to him, and his administration just got busted again for manipulating CDC data and lying to the public about transmission rates in the state, but I digress…)

The point is, we may be at an inflection point where people who are unvaccinated are exposed to an even more highly transmissible strain than the previous waves with even less protection if they’ve recovered. It’s too early to tell. But at some point, please dog before the Omega variant, the cynical fuckers like DeSantis and Abbott who brought us to this dangerous place need to be held accountable for their recklessness. They’re the Crumbley parents of governors.

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