Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

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

Republicans in disarray!

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

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

In my day, never was longer.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

After roe, women are no longer free.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

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

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

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

You are here: Home / I Got Nothing…

I Got Nothing…

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…I can imagine saying to this:

“There’s necessarily no reason to open carry,” he said. “Rosa Parks didn’t really need to sit where she did.”

That’s the owner of that Beaumont, TX gun shop that sent out a signboard guy wearing a banana suit who happened to be open-carrrying an AK-47.*

Czigány,_Dezső_-_Still-life,_Banana,_Oranges_and_Fishes_(ca_1910)

I get it.

Actually, I don’t.

Wondering around the streets with a high-powered rifle is just like refusing to accept the explicit tyranny of the Jim Crow south….

Uh…

No…

WTF do you do with that?

I got nothing.

*The idea behind the banana costume, by the way, “was so he would look less alarming.”

Ponder that for a moment.

Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life, but if I saw some guy in a bright yellow cone-topped costume out on the street, gesticulating with an assault rifle to hand, I’d find that…

…a tad perturbing.

Just me, I suppose.

Image:  Dezső Czigány, Still-life with Bananas, Oranges and Fishes, c. 1910

Reader Interactions

105Comments

  2. 2.

    Laertes

    I think what he’s saying is “If black people are gonna go rubbing everyone’s noses in the fact that they got rights, I’m gonna do it too.”

    What an asshole.

  5. 5.

    jl

    If I see somebody carrying a big gun down the street, dressed really weird, or otherwise acting a little odd and maybe crazy, “oh, obvs a gun store promotion” is the first thing I think of. Get a grip, people.

  6. 6.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    I have a bit of something. I fired (And carried, occasionally) an AK-47 when I was in the service. The AK’s notorious barrel whip meant that it was more a weapon for laying down fire than for accuracy.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    @Comrade Jake:

    Poe, who owns Golden Triangle Tactical, added that the employee wore the banana suit to make himself look less threatening while carrying an AK-47.

    “And the banana suit was so he would look less alarming,” he said.

    (TPM)

    The chain of “reasoning” involved is fascinating to observe. From a safe distance.

  8. 8.

    Cassidy

    I think this years GOTV campaign should also include applications for people of color to get their CC license. I’m sure some groups can sponsor them with an NRA class, maybe at church on Sunday.

  11. 11.

    Comrade Dread

    Yes, pity the poor white male gun owner. Truly they are the modern slaves.

    I would have solved this by running and screaming to all the other armed citizens of Texas that I just saw the escaped lunatic from the asylum wearing a banana costume and waving an AK-47 around. Let nature take its course.

  13. 13.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    The entire idea is to get the people on the other side to duck and thus be at a disadvantage while returning fire.

    Which is why wanting these obviously offensively oriented tools for “defense” is so fucking stupid.

  14. 14.

    aimai

    @jl: Maybe if he’d dressed as a clown, with those huge floppy feet and John Wayne Gacy style tears? Because I find Bananas kind of scary.

  16. 16.

    boatboy_srq

    @Laertes: More like “nobody (who didn’t deserve it) ever got killed just by being Blah.”

    @efgoldman: If you kill one, you’re a murderer; if you kill one million, you’re a conqueror patriot.

  19. 19.

    Suffern ACE

    Well, I guess. As long as the banana suit inhibited the wearer’s mobility and wasn’t made out of kevlar, I’d be convinced that it wasn’t some fool trying to rob a bank.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    Story doesn’t say if the bright idea to wear the banana suit was the worker’s idea or the boss’. Either way, the suit doesn’t reassure people about either man’s good judgement, or knowledge of guns.

  21. 21.

    Zam

    I know whenever I see photos and videos of a city where multiple people are wandering the streets with big ass weapons I think “damn that looks like a place that’s got its shit together maybe I should vacation there”

  26. 26.

    Suffern ACE

    @Amir Khalid: As a cultural comparison, what would a guy have to wear in Malaysia to be viewed as harmless while carrying a gun while at the same time drawing attention to himself?

  28. 28.

    Matt

    The banana costume: last resort when even the open-carry AK can’t make Johnny Teabagger forget the punchline in his pants.

  29. 29.

    Amir Khalid

    @JustRuss:
    Once, on the BBC, I saw Jeremy Clarkson try to shoot a van with an AK on full auto from a fairly short range, I’d guess 10 metres or so. Clarkson emptied the clip and didn’t even ding the van.

  30. 30.

    Ajabu

    “There’s necessarily no reason to open carry,” he said. “Rosa Parks didn’t really need to sit where she did.”

    Could someone who speaks fluent wingnut parse that into English?
    I have no fucking idea what this moron is even trying to convey.
    He might as well have said, “There’s necessarily no reason to open carry”,
    A) “Grandma drives a Toyota.”
    B)”Things go better with Coke”
    C) My crayon box stepped on my tapioca”
    How does one sentence relate to the other??

    To the dismay of some on the left…

  31. 31.

    Cacti

    Contrary to the prevailing mythology, the “civilized” towns of the old west had much stricter gun laws than would have ever been tolerated among the wannabe Wyatt Earps and Doc Hollidays of today.

    In Dodge City, carrying of firearms was prohibited on Front Street by 1878. You can find historic photos of the prominent sign reading “The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited”. In 1882, concealed or open carry of a firearm or bowie knife was banned in public for the entire city limits, and punishable by a fine of 25 to 100 dollars ($500 – $2,200 today).

    In Tombstone, the city council passed Ordinance no. 9 in 1881, that prohibited the concealed or open carry of firearms, bowie knives, or dirks except upon immediate entry of town, prior to depositing them with law enforcement, or after retrieving them on your way out of town.

  32. 32.

    jl

    @Suffern ACE: Never been to Malaysia, but I think an over ripe durian would be work well.

    No offense to durian intended, I think they taste as good as they smell bad.

  35. 35.

    PurpleGirl

    @Comrade Jake: It wasn’t even a full suit — it was the top portion of a banana costume. Just the hood and torso section, it could have been a new KKK outfit for all anyone knows.

  36. 36.

    Cervantes

    If there can be a saving grace here, it may be that Rosa Parks is not around to be subjected to this nonsense.

    On the other hand, the lady didn’t do subject very well. One wonders what she might have said in response to Mr. Poe’s activism.

  37. 37.

    JPL

    In the early seventies, I lived in Beaumont, TX for awhile. It was during that time that I discovered the Klan was rampant. Jasper, TX is not that far away.

  39. 39.

    jl

    @Cacti: So what? Out in those isolated western communities you could be imprisoned, or even hanged, for supplying adulterated or contaminated food and water too. How would a fine patriotic company like Freedom Industries have survived?

    Those wild west towns were almost as commie as the Founders. Shame on you for even bringing that up and endangering the virtue of the fine innocent youth who read this blog.

  41. 41.

    Cacti

    @Zam:

    I know whenever I see photos and videos of a city where multiple people are wandering the streets with big ass weapons I think “damn that looks like a place that’s got its shit together maybe I should vacation there”

    This fine fellow and his associates enjoyed open carry, as well as giving merchant sailors friendly tours of the horn of Africa.

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    @Suffern ACE:
    Army combat fatigues would not do it. In October 1987, an Arrmy ranger was issued an M-16 and 500 rounds for a marksmanship competition. On his way to the base where the competition was to be held, he stopped off in Kuala Lumpur and went amuk in the Chow Kit bazaar, killing five civilians, before the cops arrested him. People here still remember this incident.

    A police uniform might not do it either. A decade later, the military started phasing out M-16s. The police got them as hand-me-downs, and in a genius move issued them to beat cops on patrol. An M-16 might be okay to carry in the jungle, but not if you’re on foot in a crowded city or riding your police-issue motorcycle (as some cops here do). And the awkward way they carried their rifles was hardly reassuring to the public. This experiment was abandoned after a few months.

  44. 44.

    PurpleGirl

    @Suffern ACE: Nope, it wouldn’t have hurt his ability to move. The banana top had armholes for his arms and must have had eye holes so he could see.

    As I said… new kind of KKK hood.

  45. 45.

    IowaOldLady

    A lot of my neighbors own guns. They lock them up and take them out for hunting season. They feel no need to wave them in my face as I shop.

  46. 46.

    jl

    @Cacti:

    From your link
    “After being in piracy for eight years,” Big Mouth told a press conference (!) in Somalia on Thursday, “I have decided to renounce and quit, and from today on I will not be involved in this gang activity.”

    That man’s decision could be a fine example for some of our Masters of the Universe.

  48. 48.

    eric

    Let me break it down for you libs cause you are too busy jamming your gay cocks down america’s throat. Guns are good because they will allow ordinary americans to stand up to the tyranny of the american military once obama orders martial law and tries taking our rights and forcing us to have health care just like nazi russia!

  49. 49.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @JPL:

    Old joke:

    Boyfriend: Where do you want me to kiss you?
    Girlfriend: Kiss me where it’s nasty!

    So he took her to Beaumont.

  55. 55.

    KG

    @Ajabu: I’m pretty fluent in wingnut, and I’m struggling to figure it out. I think that it has something to do with exercising rights just for the sake of exercising rights. Of course, with his two examples, one isn’t like the other. Either that, or they see their god given rights being trampled by the government and therefore they are just like Rosa Parks or something. I mean, I picked up on the idea of how Monica was really Hillary’s fault and should be used against her in the campaign (Hillary was a bad wife, probably failed to do her wifely duties, thus Bill had to turn to other sources), but this? This I got nothing.

  56. 56.

    Trollhattan

    @chopper:

    I’m afrraid all the local dancing, spinny-sign advertising folks are going to get inspired to swap their signs for assault rifles, if they read this story. That’ll rent a lot of apartments!

  59. 59.

    KG

    @Trollhattan: we told it as San Bernardino or Barstow.

    By the way… how was it that nobody thought to call the cops on the guy in a banana suit carrying an AK?

  60. 60.

    MomSense

    I’m totally channeling Peggy Noonan in my ” methodology” but it feels like the gun nuts have expanded their mission from resisting tyranny and defending their second amendment rights to include using their firearms to reassert dominance in any situation where they even perceive that they are not getting sufficient respect and obedience based on being a white male.
    The more society changes, the more resentful they become. I don’t know if any of you have had run ins with them but my experiences have been really frightening. These are not the same gun nuts of even 5-6 years ago.

  63. 63.

    Amir Khalid

    @KG:
    The banana suit was perfectly legal, of course. And apparently, it’s also perfectly legal there to brandish one’s firearms in public — excuse me, to “open-carry”. The worker’s real offence was soliciting for business by the roadside without a permit.

  64. 64.

    boatboy_srq

    @KG: Can’t you hear the 911 recording? “Um, there’s this guy, acting all weird, wearing some fruit costume… oh, and he’s armed…. Well, no, he hasn’t shot anyone as far as I’ve seen… oh… we-ell, alright then. Thanks.[click]”

  65. 65.

    Cervantes

    So … 221-201.

    Boehner got 28 Republican votes, including himself and Cantor. Ryan said no (cf. the recent hypothesis that he is running towards the middle).

    2 Democrats voted against their party.

  72. 72.

    Mandalay

    @Cervantes: Name and shame:

    Only two Democrats voted against the bill passed in the House Tuesday evening suspending the debt ceiling until next year: Reps. John Barrow of Georgia and Jim Matheson of Utah.

    Both are among the most conservative Democrats in the House who represent Republican-leaning districts. In 2012, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney won 67.6% of the vote in Mr. Matheson’s district and 55.4%% of the vote in Mr. Barrow’s district.

    After narrowly beating Republican candidate Mia Love in 2012, Mr. Matheson announced in December he would retire at the end of this year. Republicans are expected to pick up the seat in this fall’s election.

    Both lawmakers are members of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 15 fiscally-conservative Democrats that has shrunk rapidly in recent years. The coalition’s roster boasted 54 Democrats before the 2010 election.

  73. 73.

    Mandalay

    @Cervantes:

    2 Democrats voted against their party.

    Name and shame:

    Only two Democrats voted against the bill passed in the House Tuesday evening suspending the debt ceiling until next year: Reps. John Barrow of Georgia and Jim Matheson of Utah.

    Both are among the most conservative Democrats in the House who represent Republican-leaning districts. In 2012, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney won 67.6% of the vote in Mr. Matheson’s district and 55.4%% of the vote in Mr. Barrow’s district.

    After narrowly beating Republican candidate Mia Love in 2012, Mr. Matheson announced in December he would retire at the end of this year. Republicans are expected to pick up the seat in this fall’s election.

    Both lawmakers are members of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 15 fiscally-conservative Democrats that has shrunk rapidly in recent years. The coalition’s roster boasted 54 Democrats before the 2010 election.

  75. 75.

    Suffern ACE

    @Mandalay: Is this the one where the shooter was drunk and the kids were shot for grudgingly turning down the volume? I mean they muttered! And were grudging!

  77. 77.

    Bjacques

    Banana Guy looks like a Klansman who pissed the bed and didn’t bother to wash the sheet before putting it on.

  79. 79.

    Mandalay

    @Suffern ACE:

    Is this the one where the shooter was drunk and the kids were shot for grudgingly turning down the volume? I mean they muttered! And were grudging!

    Yep. But we can’t know whether the shooter was drunk since he fled the scene. He claims that one of the kids got out of his SUV and threatened to kill him, but that is contradicted by independent witnesses and evidence which showed that he pumped 10 bullets into a car full of teenagers.

    So I guess he’ll get a $25 fine, and be warned that in future he shouldn’t get caught.

  80. 80.

    danielx

    Guy’s carrying an AK around on a public street.

    But he’s wearing a banana suit.

    Well, I’M certainly reassured about the sanity and common sense of the AK carrier. How not?

    Actually, these open carry guys really don’t understand or believe that the rest of us don’t applaud them for standing up for their rights or that instead we think they’re just a bunch of assholes.

  81. 81.

    Southern Beale

    Texas Open Carry? These are the same people who want us to see a guy wearing an AK-47 and think it’s perfectly normal but piss their pants over a homeless guy with a garden trowel, right? Why yes, it is.

    These people are fucking loons. Can’t take them seriously.

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    They’re going to keep up with these crazy attempts at civil rights era analogies until someone (the media? the Dems? me?) starts a) connecting all of them and pointing out this insane sense of victimization they have, and b) laughing at them hysterically in public.

  83. 83.

    the Conster

    @MomSense:

    Since Obama was democratically elected they’ve let their freak flag fly, which boils down to that they don’t believe in consent, because it wasn’t them that consented to being governed by the ni-clang. They’re “forced” into asserting themselves with their 2nd amendment rights in every situation now, because freedom.

  84. 84.

    Jeffro

    @KG: You’re close…what he’s trying to say, I think, is that both “minorities” were equally oppressed(!) and therefore SOMEbody had to stand up for gun rights(!!)

    Because you know, those poor gun owners, we liberals keep shoving them to the back of the bus every. freakin’. day.

  85. 85.

    jl

    @danielx:

    ” But he’s wearing a banana suit. ”

    He was wearing the upper half of a banana suit.

    I’m tired of people who have no understanding of banana costumes trying to discuss the issue people in banana costumes waking around town brandishing weapons. You’re ignorance of the topic allows me to avoid taking any of your concerns seriously, ever again.

    But, seriously, I did learn something from this post. I did not know banana costumes had separable upper and lower halves. I always imagined that they zipped along a seam in the peel. That info might come in handy someday.

    Like, if we have to fight off an invasion of giant alien fruit flies. You people won’t be laughing at people dressed in banana costumes and carrying AK-47s then, will you?

  87. 87.

    jl

    @Jeffro: If it turns out Sam can play NFL football, Rush will start rambling on about the favoritism shown by liberal media towards gay football players. A few years from now, he’ll be saying he was the first to have the guts to call out the evil plot.

  88. 88.

    Jeffro

    @jl: Rush had a similar problem with Donovan McNabb as well – he was the media’s favorite, held to a different standard because DM’s black.

    Yet, Tony Romo? Jay Cutler? Not a whisper.

    Shoot, even my 8 year old knows that Romo sucks…

  90. 90.

    jl

    @Jeffro: Yeah, I was riffing over the sad and ignorant bigot spectacle Rush threw when he made up the loony idea that the first black NFL quarterbacks were shown favoritism.

    I’ve never hated on Tebow like some others, but the fuss about his playing skills were always mystery to me. But were there any Rushbo rants on Tebow? Seriously, I am curious.

  91. 91.

    burnspbesq

    @eric:

    Guns are good because they will allow ordinary americans to stand up to the tyranny of the american military once obama orders martial law and tries taking our rights and forcing us to have health care just like nazi russia!

    I’m sure the average wingnut gun nut will do extremely well in a fire-fight against a platoon of Marines.

  92. 92.

    burnspbesq

    @Mandalay:

    I am far from the world’s most experienced trial lawyer, but given the state of the evidence at this point in the trial I think I could rip Mr. Dunn a new one on cross-examination.

  94. 94.

    patrick II

    @Cacti:

    If I remember correctly some early proponents of open carry in Tombstone had a serious disagreement with the local marshal and his brothers at the local corral.

  96. 96.

    Ruckus

    I would think that an idiot walking around in a banana suit brandishing an assault rifle might be considered a lunatic, even in TX. But then again I think some one dressed in jeans and tee shirt walking around town with an assault rifle would be considered a lunatic.
    What really gets me is that if everyone is supposed to be armed to protect themselves, wouldn’t this be exactly the sort of person you’d shoot on sight?

  103. 103.

    Sondra

    @jl:
    These people have a curious cognitive disability which defies my understanding. Trying to understand their syntax is beyond me too, but they seem to understand each other.

    It’s a secret language: sort of pig latin + word salad. Sarah Palin has mastered it and they all understand when they speak to each other. I don’t think they intend us to understand.

  104. 104.

    psunami

    @Laertes: ah…so not sitting in the back of the bus is “rubbing their noses” in the face of…whom? All rights are there to be exercised by the citizens, and in no case is exercising ANY of these rights “rubbing your nose” as you put it, in anyone’s face.

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