Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

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

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

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

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

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

I really should read my own blog.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

People are complicated. Love is not.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

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

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

American history and black history cannot be separated.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

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Reader Interactions

67Comments

  1. 1.

    WereBear

    I was shocked at the protester who was left to suffer for 18 hours before getting medical help. Another vet, too, I hear? Which makes me feel all the better about what I can do to support the movement, however small it is.

    To cheer some up, here is 14 month old Tristan. I showed off plenty of pictures when he was just a kitten… and he’s still charming.

    Kiss mah belly.

  6. 6.

    harlana

    I have never watched Conan but that is fricking hilarious!

    Also, men with bald spots and thinning hair should not wear dreads. I’m just saying.

  9. 9.

    harlana

    @WereBear: That is a horrible story! Waiting to hear about it on the teevee, nothing so far.

    Also, too, I seed that belleh last nite (or was it the nite before?) and it needs numerous furberts.

  11. 11.

    someguy

    @DecidedFenceSitter:

    Apparently a bunch of DC protesters got hit/run over.

    Yeah, they were outside the white supremacist conservative AFP conference at the time and a 1 percenter gunned the engine and hit at least three of them near an intersection. No word on the extent of the injuries. They haven’t said anything about any arrests so it may have been hit and run. The TV coverage in D.C. is making it sound like it’s the protestors fault.

  12. 12.

    harlana

    @Phylllis: Thanks Phyllis! I was born and raised here in SC, and

    “We’re the first in the South primary and when those national TV cameras get here, I think we’re fooling ourselves if we don’t think more people will be there,” he said of the Occupy presence.

    Hardee-fuckin-har! This is a good point. This is a really good, balanced article for The State, which leans republican most of the time.

    And keep your fucking greedy paws off Assembly Street!

  13. 13.

    harlana

    I do think we need a post on that vet who got his spleen slashed, a gruesome, bloody, horrible story, hopefully from Mr. Cole. If that doesn’t engender more sympathy for the movement, I really don’t know what can.

    And, to my mind, the treatment of this guy and the unnecessary, extended delay in getting him to the hospital basically constitutes torture. It’s almost as if the intent was to let him die in the streets but then somebody thought better of it. That’s what I came away with.

  17. 17.

    Phylllis

    @harlana: I was impressed as well, since they usually give Ricky quite a tongue bath. The comments are mostly pro-occupiers as well (so far, anyway) which gives me some hope.

  18. 18.

    harlana

    @Phylllis: that is awesome, I have a couple of the local activists on my FB and have been trying to follow, I’m signed up for a Common Ground event (not protest) on Nov. 19 in Columbia. Anyway, I may have to drive into town while I’m there cuz I’d love to see a nice gathering of protesters on the State House lawn, would be inspiring

  19. 19.

    soonergrunt

    @Cat Lady: They were apparently centered about 30-40 miles northwest of the OKC metro. I live in south OKC, and slept right through them. The strongest one was 4.4 Richter scale.

    Also, WTF with Oakland PD? Are they going after Vets specifically, is it only Vets we’re hearing about, or what?

  21. 21.

    cathyx

    The video was funny, haha, but I get frustrated that every time the OWS movement is shown on TV, it’s always the hippy, freaky people with brightly colored hair and costumes who they show. Even the comedy shows do this who you would think would support the movement. There are way more people at these movements who are normal looking but that doesn’t make good TV, but this is also the way most people get an idea of what’s going on and it will only minimize the impact of the movement overall.

  22. 22.

    cathyx

    @Cat Lady: I always figured that with all the tornado dangers that the midwest faces, it’s at least spared the dangers of earthquakes, but it isn’t.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    @WereBear:
    Tristan’s a handsome fellow. How are his relatives doing? Glad to hear you managed to find homes for them all, especially the sensitive orange boy.

  24. 24.

    soonergrunt

    @beltane: Oh, My Holy God.
    The number of things this says about these people…
    1–they wouldn’t recognize a US military uniform (or what ISN’T a US military uniform)–the party that’s always claimed to be strong on defense doesn’t know what a US Servicemember looks like.
    2–they are utterly incapable of using google.

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    @cathyx:
    Sad fact of life: A media business, e.g. newspaper/TV station/website, lives or dies by the attention it gets. After all, it is your attention (page hits, circulation, ratings) that it sells to advertisers. Journalistic values take a back seat to attention-seeking as a matter of course, even — or rather especially — when reporting the news. Pictures of the freakishly dressed get more attention than do pictures of regular people.

  27. 27.

    WereBear

    @Amir Khalid: Thanks! All doing well so far & settling in. Appreciate the good wishes from Balloon Juicers, especially the efforts of schrodinger’s cat, which led to 2 kittens getting a great home.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @beltane: That is absolutely hilarious. OTOH it may be a recognition of the role the Soviets played in WWII…. Aw, who am I kidding, they’re idiots.

  31. 31.

    harlana

    @cathyx: I thought it definitely has a satirical element of poking fun at the media’s portrayal of OWS, along with some buffoonery thrown in for good measure.

  32. 32.

    Amir Khalid

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    You have to wonder how creative the “I meant to do that” excuses will get.
    ETA: You’re right. If it wasn’t for them Russky dudes the Allies wouldn’t have won double-you double-you eye eye, so in fact America does owe them a debt of gratitude.

  37. 37.

    handsmile

    @someguy: (#11)

    The TV coverage in D.C. is making it sound like it’s the protestors fault.

    As does this morning’s report from Kaplan Test Prep Daily (this link includes the Kaplan story at the end of the post):

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/04/1033366/-Car-Hits-Line-of-OccupyDC-Protesters-Blocking-Exits-to-Koch-Brothers-Event,-Driver-in-Custody

    The driver of the car, which even the Fox News DC affiliate described as having “plowed” into the protesters, was not cited by the DC police “because he had a green light when his vehicle struck three people.”

    Several protesters have been issued police citations, however: “The protesters were apparently trying to block the roadway…The protesters were in violation by being in the roadway.” (Above quotes from Kaplan)

    Do keep this in mind when visiting DC: evidently one can be run down on the streets of the nation’s capital with impunity depending on the traffic signal.

    There’s yet been no article on this incident at the Guardian (whose coverage of the Occupy movement has been essential), and other mainstream media accounts all seem to be based on the Kaplan piece.

    With the incidents this week alone in Oakland, Tulsa, and now DC, violence against Occupy protesters has begun to escalate disturbingly. At the same time, corporate media coverage of police aggression has begun to decline since Iraq veteran Scott Olsen was critically injured two weeks ago in Oakland.

  39. 39.

    Mark B.

    Well, the fact that Triumph joined the drum circle at the end showed pretty clearly which side he’s on, even for the slow people watching the show.

  45. 45.

    Brian R.

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    So, per Pravda on the Potomac, it is now legal to run over jaywalkers?

    Interesting.

    On a totally unrelated question, do the editors of the WaPo walk to work?

    I mean, now that Robert Novak is no longer driving around clipping pedestrians in his Galtian sportscar, maybe they’ve decided to walk around with us plebes again.

  46. 46.

    Linda Featheringill

    Veterans in Oakland:

    I have no knowledge about what’s happening but I wonder if vets, having faced real danger, are harder to scare and harder to dominate. This might infuriate bullies.

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cleek: One can be cited for things like unsafe driving. Also, I think it is possible that criminal battery charges could be considered. OTOH, if the bits about the protesters throwing themselves in front of the car are true, it becomes a question of whether he tried to stop or had time to do so. But “he had a green light” is the the beginning and end of the query.

  48. 48.

    Phyllis

    @harlana: I’m meeting a friend for lunch at a place on Main Street. Might wander over & chat a few of them up afterwards.

  49. 49.

    cleek

    @handsmile:
    when it comes to road rules, yeah. the mass and velocity differences between pedestrian and vehicles, make it kindof imperative that all people know and follow the rules. otherwise, you get situations where vehicles or people are in unexpected places doing unexpected things, which leads to people getting hurt.

    i am not claiming to know anything about the specifics of what happened in DC, of course. but road rules are important, for everybody’s sake.

  51. 51.

    bemused

    @beltane:

    Too funny. I wonder if any rabid anti socialist/commie republican voters getting the mailer even noticed or cared if they did.

  52. 52.

    cleek

    @cleek:
    also, if you’re going to break the rules (which we all do from time to time), you really have to be damned careful when you do it. otherwise…

  53. 53.

    Mark B.

    Hmm, I’m hoping there is video of the event. Some accounts were saying that the protesters jumped in front of the car and the driver was possibly unable to stop in time. Even if that were the case, leaving the scene of the accident would be a serious crime, unless the driver somehow felt they were in danger by staying, which to me seems unlikely.

  55. 55.

    Mark B.

    I kind of wonder what was keeping the people who were at the event from walking out, going a few blocks past the protestors and taking a taxi home. Sure, it would be an inconvenience, and you’d have to take the taxi back later to pick up your car, but it’s a nonviolent resolution to a bad situation. Oh, wait.

  56. 56.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Given the negative feedback of the serfs supporing the 1% that we saw over the Oakland vet incident…

    Yeah, they’re idiots. If anyone spit on returning Vietnam vets, it was assholes who thought they were “losers”. Vietnam vets got a chillier reception at the VFW and American Legion halls than they ever did at an airport from DFHs.

  59. 59.

    handsmile

    @cleek: (#49/51)

    “Road rules are important” is an anodyne statement which with I would concur. But they are not the only rules applicable in such situations. For example, civil/criminal cases filed by individuals struck by automobiles while jaywalking are not routinely dismissed.

    The application and enforcement of laws to maintain public order is contingent upon circumstance and interpretation. Arresting individuals for walking off a sidewalk into a roadway during a protest march is another relevant example. While related to the “mass and velocity differences between pedestrian and vehicles,” it is a common violation the enforcement of which is ignored at all other times.

    In the case of last night’s incident in DC, there is one report that the driver was stopped by police to check for intoxication. That would suggest that the location of the struck protesters within the sidewalk or not or the issue of “right of way” was not the principal concern.

  60. 60.

    Xenos

    @handsmile: RE: car incidents – We do not need an Anonymous movement so much as an Eumenides movement. Locate these people who do this sort of thing, and occupy their neighborhoods, place of work, and so on. Needs to be non-violent and non-threatening, but find a way to shame these people in the course of their daily life. Make it creative, and make it personal.

  61. 61.

    Chris

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Yeah, I’ve heard that too. The assholes from the World War Two generation who were all “duude, we won our war, why couldn’t you? You suck!” Odd that no one ever brings them up. Or perhaps not so odd given how Vietnam veterans get treated by the “patriotic” crowd whenever they run for office and have thoughts of their own.

  62. 62.

    El Cid

    @OzoneR:

    You act like this isn’t something many Americans would support.

    What’s this un-American “walking” thing, anyway? What, they’re too lazy to drive a car?

  63. 63.

    Occupy Jon Corzine's Gazebo

    Bad form to shit on cop cars, organize chants of FUCK THE POLICE, and then when your dudes get rolled, whine to the cops about them not being arrested. But then, self-awareness is not a Fleabagger’s long suit.

  64. 64.

    Judas Escargot

    @Xenos:

    Locate these people who do this sort of thing, and occupy their neighborhoods, place of work, and so on. Needs to be non-violent and non-threatening, but find a way to shame these people in the course of their daily life. Make it creative, and make it personal.

    Did anybody get the plate numbers on these cars?

  66. 66.

    Zagloba

    @Judas Escargot: Did anybody get the plate numbers on these cars?

    The driver was taken into the station and then reports start to differ; either released without charge (original story) or still being held.

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