So one Montana lawmaker wants to ban yoga pants in public because…I have no clue.
The Republican from Missoula said tight-fitting beige clothing could be considered indecent exposure under his proposal.
“Yoga pants should be illegal in public anyway,” Moore said after the hearing.
Moore said he wouldn’t have a problem with people being arrested for wearing provocative clothing but that he’d trust law enforcement officials to use their discretion. He couldn’t be sure whether police would act on that provision or if Montana residents would challenge it.
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” Moore said.
Can we ban stupid Republicans from making laws?
Open thread (but not too open otherwise you might see naughty bits).
Tenar Darell
No bicycle shorts for him!
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Can we ban scary toupees instead, and arrest Donald Trump?
Carnacki
There’s your small guberment for y’all.
beltane
I too see egregious crimes against fashion whenever I step out the door. Who will stop the madness?
Pogonip
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: I’ll vote for that!
bemused
What a gross creep. He certainly seems to have spent an extraordinary amount of time thinking about “stimulation”. I have a hunch he has a few things to hide.
trollhattan
There’s already a cyclical yoga pants ban in Montana: it’s called “winter.”
With that out of the way I’ll wager there’s not a yoga pant to be found more than ten miles outside of Bozeman. Let the city council handle (heh) the filmy things.
burnspbesq
Sure. Just don’t elect them to legislative office.
Marmot
OMG Sharia law!
burnspbesq
Who says irony is dead? The hand-picked plaintiffs in King v. Burwell may not have standing.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2015/02/standing-in-king-v-burwell.html
trollhattan
@Marmot:
It does put stop-and-frisk in an entirely different light.
gogol's wife
This guy needs to be in the Russian Duma. They specialize in this sort of thing.
Amir Khalid
Granted, there are many people — no doubt including some in Montana — whom others would not care to see in tight-fitting clothes. But even for them, it shouldn’t be illegal. And this State Representative Moore also wants to make it illegal to dress so as to appear naked. To him I say, good luck coming up with a non-laughable definition of that offence.
Marmot
@trollhattan: Give this commenter a rimshot!
Turgidson
@Carnacki:
Beat me to it. These assholes only want a smaller share of their money to be collected in taxes. Their interest in small government begins and ends there. The ones who really believe it are nutjobs like those Paul fellows.
I think the cops would prefer to sit back and admire the view, maybe offer a cat call or two. Then, at the end of the month when arrest and fine quotas are looming, BAM. Come with me, dear. That skirt is too high and that top is too low.
SatanicPanic
@Marmot: sometimes the lack of self-awareness from the right is amazing.
cokane
beige?
opiejeanne
@cokane: Close enough to the color of most white folks that it makes one do a double-take.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
There are actual issues in Montana that require resolution. Actual problems that must be solved. School funding. Job training. Use of public lands.
And this fuckup is taking time out of the legislative session for this shit?
Did someone mention a meteor?
Buddy H
Arresting people for provocative clothing? So he wants sharia law?
My local newspaper website, a story appeared about a habitual criminal; he’s been stealing stuff from cars. In the comments section, someone who always parrots the fox news line made the following comment: “Cut off his hands, then we’ll see how much he steals.”
I was tempted to ask him if he’d be happier living under the taliban, but I’m just too tired nowadays.
Open thread: yesterday I heard a CRASH! I looked outside. A pile of snow slid off my neighbor’s roof and crushed about a ten foot width of my cedar wood fence. I called my insurance company and they said I’m not covered by snow blown by wind “or any other reason” – They suggested I knock on my neighbor’s door and see if they have liability insurance to cover it.
They live on the other side of the country. Nobody living there but some scary renters. I do not want to knock on their door.
Punchy
I think this was just a transcription error, and that what he really said was “…in Publix anyway”. I mean, who can grocery shop with their kids whilst such shapely asscheeks and cameltoe abound? Hell, the “meat section” takes on a whole new meaning. As does the fish market. And certainly the poultry aisle (all those breasts and thighs!)…
rea
The proposed statute would also apparently ban men from going topless:
http://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/montana-lawmaker-seeks-to-outlaw-yoga-pants/article_71538ba2-d529-5ec3-a289-108de20e9398.html#utm_source=billingsgazette&utm_campaign=hot-topics-2&utm_medium=direct
trollhattan
The other really nice Italian loafer drops: Newsom to run for governor in ’18.
Toss in the tussle over DiFi’s seat and the next four years in California politics will be interesting and bloody (or is that bloody interesting). And expensive–holy crap I can’t even imagine.
Alex S.
Yoga – the Falun Gong of Montana.
SatanicPanic
Gavin Newsom just announced he’s running for CA gov. Hmmm, not sure how I feel about him
catclub
@cokane: or a whiter shade of pale
Xantar
@burnspbesq:
Supposing that the plaintiffs actually don’t have standing, what then? Somehow I don’t think the SCOTUS would throw the whole thing out and make Cannon refile again. They would probably find a way around it so that they can figure out if the Moops invaded Spain, right?
Trollhattan
@SatanicPanic:
John Edwards without the populism.
kindness
What about bathing suits? Would they be illegal too?
Burkas, not just the answer for fundamentalist Islam. Someone needs to give this tag to these morans.
NonyNony
@rea:
Just wait until the first cop arrests a woman in Billings for breast feeding. I’m sure Montanans will LOVE the attention they get from that.
And the Discordians who organized the initial naked bike rally are probably laughing their asses off that their little prank has paid off far, far more in making Montanans look ridiculous than they could have thought possible.
(I don’t know that they were Discordians, but if they aren’t then they should be.)
cokane
@SatanicPanic: haha okay that makes sense was wondering why the color mattered
peach flavored shampoo
@burnspbesq: As if that matters to this current SCOTUS. Rules? Precedent? Adherence to tradition and the wording of past cases? Matters not a whit to at least 4 of these clowns.
I’m quite sure they’ll find a way to demonstrate standing. Who’s going to rule against them otherwise?
catclub
@rea: The comments at the paper are surprisingly good.
bemused
This guy has some serious issues. He must have been quite stimulated writing this bill with graphic detail about stimulation or the appearance of stimulation of the nipples, buttocks and pu-bic areas. Gosh, I bet he was tempted to use the vjay word. I would like to have seen the faces of the other legislators when they read this bill.
SatanicPanic
@Trollhattan: yup. smarmy dude for sure. OT but I’ve been hearing good things about Lorena Gonzalez, I hope she moves up from state assembly.
NonyNony
@burnspbesq:
But doesn’t SCOTUS decide the standing question themselves? So if 5 of them say “yup, they’ve got standing despite all of the previous caselaw suggesting they shouldn’t. This is a one-time decision that can’t be used as a precedent a la Bush v. Gore 2000 no backsies” then they’ve got standing, right?
I mean, it might give Roberts a nice “out” if he has decided he doesn’t want to weigh in on it at all and is looking for an exit strategy, but that’s the only endgame I can see for the standing issue. Plus if he punted on it, wouldn’t it just means finding a few more plaintiffs and starting the process over again – this time making damn sure they find some true believers who will keep their standing intact through the process?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
If he’s willing to ban wearing Uggs with short-shorts in the summer, I’m on board. I’m not sure who decided that winter boots+shorts was a good look, but it’s all the rage at our local mall.
scav
Everyone avoiding the right to bare arms jokes? Here, over with, consider the tactful avoidence of obvious over. Life imprisionment currently for three infractions. Land O Da Free. Formerly with no speed limits.
Trollhattan
“Dirty Posing”–No one puts Shiva Rea in the corner!
catclub
@Xantar:
I disagree. I think this is the most face saving way for the court to not have to say: “oops, we should never even have granted cert for this case.” Just direct the 1st (?) circuit to go ahead and rule, and if there is a split between circuits (There won’t be) we will maybe look again.
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): my wife loves hers. I know they sometimes look goofy but man do I envy how comfortable they look
ETA- also, you’ll have to show that they make dudes horny before a ban will get any momentum
D58826
Everytime I think we have hity the bottom of the stupidity pit l then someone goes ahead and digs a bit deeper. From Huffington
Bill E Pilgrim
I’d like to pass a bill banning people from wearing their hair like Gavin Newsom.
At least in California. Unless you’re acting in yet another remake of Wall Street.
Time Travelin'
Banning yoga pants would be the final straw for me. I would get off the couch, purchase a pitchfork and burn the town down. Why any straight man would want to take away one of our great joys of life is beyond me. What next? Banning flowers, puppies, beer and sports?
Keith G
About yoga pants, what some of y’all are missing is that there is a thing going on in conservative internets where righteous women are talking about how they are no longer going to wear yoga pants because the men in their life become lustful due to the inherent indecency of being seen in such outfits.
I can barely make sense of that because there is no way to make sense of it. All you need to do is to check the latest episodes of a podcast called Drunk Ex Pastors. They cover the topic as much as it need to be covered.
If you haven’t checked out their podcast, & I assume most here have not, please do yourself a favor and give them a click. It is an righteously, or maybe not so righteous, podcast.
Eric U.
I think this law was provoked by the world naked bike ride. There is an exception for mothers while breastfeeding. When I saw all of the provisions, I was wondering if it allowed men to go shirtless. Apparently not.
One good thing about the stupid ACA lawsuit — I found out I’m eligible for VA health care.
@D58826: Back before they came up with a chickenpox vaccine, it was common to have chickenpox parties. Makes sense there, because it’s bad to get it when you are old. Measles is a whole different story, since it can be fatal. My dad got it from us, and he was really sick for quite some time. It was a little scary for a 5 year old
SatanicPanic
@D58826: My wife and I were laughing about this yesterday. What’s amazing is that these people accept the concept of immunization. But they’d rather run an experiment on their kids that will, hopefully!, cause them to actually get sick so they… won’t get sick later (?). WTF? That’s better than just accepting a lab-tested version of the same thing that shouldn’t cause their kids to have any symptoms. Amazing
ETA- imagine being a kid and your parents are like “we’re taking you to a party so you can get sick!” “WTF! Nooooooooo!”
buddy h
Since they did the redesign over at Charlie Pierce’s esquire politics page, the balloon-juice link no longer works.
NonyNony
@D58826:
…
I just…
I mean, I know part of this is that we’ve lived the good life for so long when it comes to infectious diseases that people don’t understand just how deadly they actually are. Because of vaccinations we don’t have the outbreaks and deaths we used to have.
But you’d think that actually intentionally exposing your child to a disease that causes blindness, brain damage and death would be a line people wouldn’t cross, wouldn’t you?
vtr
His name is Moore? Moore, Moore. Aren’t they the Muslims who conquered Spain back in the 8th century? I never read about them instituting sharia law regarding immodest attire, though.
boatboy_srq
@Marmot: I’m waiting for some Reichwingnut to propose his (and yes I expect it WILL be “his”) state create a Bureau for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue.
Honestly. You’d think, in this age of Conservatist squealing about burka/hijab usage, and the various other cultural artifacts of modesty related to that, that they’d get it that exhibitionism and tastelessness are hallmarks of Western Freedumb.
boatboy_srq
@Keith G: If they’re so concerned about arousing the lust in the hearts of all the men around them, they could just cover themselves head to toe – oh, wait…
srv
This guy is just trying to save our eyes. Someone go see if there’s a state filter at peopleofwalmart.com
Think of the children, for once.
Tractarian
Precisely.
Next time you hear some deranged right-winger talking about how Muslims are taking over America and Shari’a law is sweeping the land…. just tell them not to elect any more Republicans. Simple enough.
chopper
@vtr:
no, those are the ‘moops’.
srv
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I’ve been waiting 25 years for short-shorts to make a comeback.
There just should be a waist size restriction.
Trollhattan
@D58826:
The only shocking part is they’re just learning about this.
Cacti
RIP to Jerry Tarkanian, a college basketball coach who made no bones about how shady his profession and sport were, as opposed to the high priest of the church “Carolina Way” self-righteousness, Dean Smith.
The Moar You Know
Yoga pants aren’t beige. He’s got them confused with riding pants.
Good luck banning those in Montana. Might as well try to ban horses while you’re at it.
Bob In Portland
Yoga pants. Really? While your country is supporting Nazis in Ukraine? Really. Have you people no shame?
raven
@The Moar You Know: beige yoga pants are beige
willis
Cacti
@SatanicPanic:
Regardless of how one feels about Newsome, the highest ranks elected California Democrats need to rejuvenate.
Jerry Brown is 76, Dianne Feinstein is 81, Barbara Boxer is 74, and Nancy Pelosi is 74.
raven
@Cacti: go fuck youself
Pogonip
@Buddy H: Can you write to the owners?
Belafon
@Cacti: Since I don’t really watch college basketball, I don’t really care much about what people think about the coaches. But I do have to say that the thing I heard about Smith, when he was in High School, convincing his coach to integrate the basketball team is pretty cool. And then there’s the fact that he got 97% of his basketball players to graduate college.
My boot camp instructor in the Navy didn’t really care if we finished as long as we got the best company award.
Pogonip
Please explain to this old lady the difference between yoga pants and leggings. Is it that yoga pants are expensive?
Cacti
@raven:
Stick it up your tarhole.
I’m sure Smith’s top toady Roy Williams never learned anything about the massive academic fraud going under his nose during his discipleship to the old master.
SatanicPanic
@Cacti: this is true
Origuy
@Buddy H: First, take pictures if you haven’t already. Second, push back on your insurance company. Get out your policy and double check. The first response of an insurance agent is usually to deny coverage. If your neighbors are so scary that you don’t want to ask them for the contact info of their landlord, you may be able to get the property owner’s name from the county records.
burnspbesq
@NonyNony:
The great irony of this is that standing is one of Roberts’ pet issues. The Roberts court has done more in the last ten years to restrict standing than all courts of the last century combined. And it appears to be a matter of principle for Roberts.
It also puts plaintiffs and their counsel in a really bad light. The address that they used to determine whether one of the plaintiffs was eligible for subsidies was obviously not her actual residence (it’s a motel with a 28-day maximum stay), so this is tantamount to (if not actually) a knowingly false statement in a pleading. People get sanctioned and suspended from practice for shit like this. It’s going to really piss off several of the justices, including some whose votes the petitioners need in order to win.
Keith G
@Bob In Portland: Well, the Nazis used to wear some really spiffy yoga pants. Most of them were black leather I think. Then there others made from this beige or tan-like color not sure what that material was.
Cacti
@Belafon:
In lieu of recent revelations about more than 3,000 UNC “scholar-athletes” completing bogus classes, that number seems decidedly less impressive.
burnspbesq
@peach flavored shampoo:
Thanks for your thoughtful contribution.
Shana
@Pogonip: I’m not really an expert either, but I think leggings are tight to the leg and go down to the ankle. Yoga pants, I believe, generally go to either below the knee or mid calf so that when you’re doing certain yoga poses you can put the sole of one foot against the calf of the other leg without having your foot slide. They are both made of similar fabrics, stretchy but thinner than sweat pants.
What’s next for this guy? Skinny jeans?
Keith G
@Cacti: Guilt purely by association. My that’s very wingnuttery of you..
Maybe Smith was dirty, maybe he wasn’t. There is no evidence to indicate he was, but it might show up. I’d like to wait for evidence. I’m a liberal.
Cacti
@Keith G:
Yes, given the University’s cooperation and transperancy with the investigations to date, one can surely expect full candor and forthrightness when it concerns the reputation of the coach who had an arena named after him while he was still alive and coaching.
jl
Apologies of this was noted by another commenter.
I have not been sympathetic to commenters who say ‘WTF is wrong with these people!?’ since, I think ‘well what did you expect?’.
But, WTF is wrong with these people!?
Conservatives Dance On Grave Of ISIL Hostage: ‘Jew-Hating, Anti-Israel B**ch
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/conservatives-kayla-mueller-israel
Arclite
Obviously everyone should just wear burkas. Men and women. And wear veils. Anything more than that is indecent.
burnspbesq
@Bob In Portland:
I’m still waiting for you to give me one shread of evidence that supports your hypothesis that the everyday lives of the civilian population of eastern Ukraine would be worse under “Nazi” rule than they currently are under the separatists. Got any? If not, please just STFU and GTFO.
JoyceH
Hmm. Yoga classes are public events – so this proposal would ban yoga pants in yoga class?
boatboy_srq
@Pogonip: They’re associated with The unGodly Yoga, which promotes peace and well-being and freedom from Xtian things like guilt and tension.
waspuppet
1) Oh, that’ll work out well.
2) Yeah right – when his wife or daughter or sister or sister-in-law gets arrested, I’m sure he’ll shrug his shoulders and say “Hey – I trust that the officer made the right decision.”
burnspbesq
@Cacti:
Ol’ Roy was never Dean’s “top toady.” It is almost certainly true that the rason Ol’ Roy left to take the Kansas job is that it was apparent that he wasn’t in line to get the job when Dean retired. It was always going to be Guthridge. But don’t let the facts get in the way of your rant
gelfling545
@Pogonip: Yoga pants. of which I my old lady self have quite a collection, should not fit tight as leggings do but flow and allow for ease of motion. They are god’s gift to womankind. Leggings, not so much.
Keith G
@Cacti: I am one of those people who believes that every time a basketball team from North Carolina loses a game, an angel gets its wings. I have also been around the block enough times to come to the conclusion that dirty coaches running dirty programs eventually get found out because there’s just too much evidence left about, even at institutions that really try to keep things covered up.
There are just too many people who know too many things – and some of them have grudges. That is why it seems to me that if indeed Smith was running a dirty program or even a program that tolerated dirtyness, the evidence is there and will come out.
The Moar You Know
@SatanicPanic: I am. Anyone but him. If that means I have to pull the lever for a Republican, so be it. Of course, were I to pull the lever for him I’d be voting for a Republican anyway.
The man’s a disaster waiting to happen.
Bob In Portland
@Keith G: Today is going to be interesting. It looks like, no matter what Merkel et al decide to do, the US is going to send trainers and weapons to the Ukrainian army.
Being on the verge of Medicare, I remember what has happened the innumerable times the US has sent trainers to places around the world going back to Vietnam.
False flags, the death of an American, another round of propaganda. Then it’s just a small group, maybe to guard our embassy. The American public, BJers included, already have the ring in their noses. It’s just a question of how much tugging is needed to get you behind this war. A good portion of you already are.
I hope for our sake that the EU backs away from this. But to hope for any kind of anti-war sentiment among the yoga pants worriers? No, let us record our nation’s descent into fascism with snark.
Pogonip
@Bob In Portland: Bob, I bit but did not phrase my question correctly. Sorry. What do you want me to do about Ukraine that will help? Talking about it endlessly does not help as you have proven.
Pogonip
@gelfling545: Do they have pockets?
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
Nice stab at revisionist history ACC-goober.
Williams left UNC in 1988 because it was crystal clear that Dean was going hang around Chapel Hill until he got the all-time wins record, which wouldn’t happen for another several years in the best case scenario, and where better to send Roy than Dean’s old alma mater to get his feet wet.
But then, after Roy making multiple Final Fours and a championship game appearance with Kansas, and being only 47 years old, what UNC really wanted was 60-year old career assistant Bill Gutheridge to build their future around?
Ridiculous.
Things got complicated when Roy decided he was happy at Kansas, and eventually UNC sent the godfather himself to pry him out of Lawrence after the sharp decline of the tarheel program under Gutheridge and Doherty.
kindness
@buddy h: Yea Esquire has a different page for Charles now: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/
Another Holocene Human
Railing about indecent clothing is the new black!
Seriously, miniskirts didn’t bring about the nuclear holocaust and those were worn to look sexy. Yoga pants are worn by people who are wearing clothes that say “whatever, I don’t care”, you know, the female equivalent of a retired guy with a sunken chest running around shirtless in the summer. I mean, whatever floats your boat panty-sniffers … I worked in a restaurant … we told sweaty old dude to leave … at least yoga pants are pants.
gelfling545
@Pogonip: Usually not but sometimes a back patch pocket or one set in the side seam.
Bob In Portland
@burnspbesq: Well, to start out we might note that the Novorussians are fighting against the Ukrainian army. For the last year there have been comments by political leaders in Kiev and by people in the punishment battalions talking about exterminating the “terrorists”. But if you haven’t noticed this over the last year then you haven’t bothered to read the other side. Every morning there are articles about the destruction by the Kiev forces’ artillery attacks on citizens. I guess you skipped over those articles too.
Do you actually think that it’s an army of Russian soldiers doing alll the fighting? Probably. Either you don’t want to understand or are incapable of understanding the dynamics of the civil war there.
But I’ll go along with you as an exercise. Here is an article about news coverage of Ukraine by Robert Parry. Parry is an investigative journalist. He did much of the work on the Iran-contra story. His work confirms much of Gary Webb’s work regarding the CIA and drug importation. He’s got a new article today about how the NY Times ignores the presence of Nazis in the Ukrainian army. I’ve posted dozens of stories, but perhaps you didn’t follow the links.
How will Donbass’ citizens’ lives be better not living under the fascists in Kiev? Well, for starters if the fascists lose the war then they will stop killing them. Stop blowing up schools and churches and hospitals. That kind of thing. Try to wrap your lobes around that.
Another Holocene Human
@kindness: I guess they never got the memo about how URI’s shouldn’t change.
Srsly, though, in this day and age? Why? (Unless you had a completely f*cked URI system before. Which, I haven’t seen a really, really good and fucked one in a while. The turn of the millennium was a long time ago.)
kindness
@Another Holocene Human: For what ever reason they added that extra /politics at the end. My bookmark wasn’t working this morning so I sleuthed. Changed mine here at work. have to remember to change the bookmarks at home now.
Another Holocene Human
@Bob In Portland: Sweet BiPpy, I guess you would have had a giant sad had you heard the UN refugee guy on BBC this morning talking about how 2 million Ukrainian civilians have been displaced (and half a million outside the country) and many of them–he did not qualify this at all–have lost everything and have no intention of returning to Eastern Ukraine, as he said, to live under a different regime in that part of the world.
Donbass may have voted for ousted Regions Party leader Yanukovych. They NEVER voted for secession.
It’s like Texas … vote for GOP swine on the regular (I know, insult to swine). Secession? Just talk. Very very few idiots would even try it. Of course, provide those few idiots with serious Russian war materiel and Chechen mercenaries, who knows, right? We already know what a two-man Chechen terror squad did to Boston. (Too soon? I hope not. I cried so hard. I gotta laugh about it now.)
Another Holocene Human
@kindness: What, they don’t even auto-forward you?
Who’s running their web servers, Ethan Czahor?
Another Holocene Human
@waspuppet: It’s the wealthiest people driving this fashion trend.
Maybe this is an American take on the old-fashioned sumptuary law.
“Hey. YOU! You’re wearing leggings in public.”
“So?”
“I see you’ve been walking. Walking a mile? In leggings?”
“Exercise?”
“Are you in college?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s your letter jacket?”
“Huh?”
“Your letter jacket. From your house. If you’re in college you should have a letter jacket.”
“I’m not a member of a sorority.”
“C’mon, you can’t stand on the street like this.”
“What? Why?”
“Indecent clothing. You know that’s a misdemeanor, right? But the problem is I can’t just let you go. Now get in the car and we’re gonna get you in something decent.”
Another Holocene Human
@JoyceH: Yet these assholes pay big buxxxx to go the ballet and watch dudes’ junk jiggle around in satin tights.
Or go to Cirque du Soleil. Same diff.
Another Holocene Human
@jl: They were so crazy yesterday that some of the people I watch on twitter who think that any criticism of Israel or Judaism or ChaBaD or whatever is virulent anti-Semitism were taken aback.
Plus there are the tr00fers talking about her “Syrian boyfriend”.
I think they just fucking hate that she was an aid worker. You know how Saint Ayn felt about people like that.
Pogonip
@Another Holocene Human: I wonder if there are Hooter’s restaurants in this guy’s jurisdiction?
I think he’s chasing a chimera. Men will be horny even if all women are wearing burkas. Otherwise the Taliban would have died out.
Another Holocene Human
@Shana:
Oh no, don’t get started on “skinny jeans tr00f” like the notion that you can’t be raped in skinny jeans, that’s some real jurisprudence from Italy, a place which is begging for another revolution I think (only half kidding–did you see the $$$ they are sinking into yet another North Italy HSR system while Southern Italy hurts for infrastructure investment? American RR pax would kill to have pax rail infrastructure like they have in Northern Italy already).
Villago Delenda Est
@Time Travelin’:
The problem with all of those things is they might bring someone joy.
This is what the puritan types are most concerned with . Someone, somewhere, experiencing joy. Drives them batshit insane, it does.
They have this trait in common with the Wahhabists and ISIS/ISIL.
Bob In Portland
@Pogonip: Well, the first thing to admit is that you have no say in what wars your government wages. Back during Vietnam we thought that by identifying the war’s destruction et al we could convince the citizenry to oppose the war.
But you’re right. You have no power in your government and you admit it. Your government can torture, but you have no say in it. Your government can kill, can destroy countries around the world, and you have no say in it. Admit that you are helpless to actually have any say in our country’s foreign policy, that you don’t understand it, and that it feels safer to be outraged by yoga pants rather than the fellers with the swastikas on the sides of their helmets. I’ve posted an introduction to the 70-year history of our intelligence services’ (and the Republican Party’s) relationship to Ukrainian fascists. You didn’t seem to absorb any of that. I’ve offered a number of book titles, but even though many of them are free and online I guess it demands time to read.
None of you here seem to be able to recognize false flags (at least done during Democratic administrations). There were a couple of other ones in the last twenty-four hours or so. The Azov Battalion, Nazis under the control of oligarch Kolomoisky (and I know that even with your knowledge of Israel’s crimes that you can’t understand the fascist third position), invaded and took control of a suburb of Mariupol where there were no rebel forces. There was shelling in a town far away from the fighting. In the western press it is presumed that it’s either the rebels or “both sides do it.” No rebels don’t blow up their own children.
You probably still believe that Russia and the rebels had something to do with the downing of the MH17 when they had no means or motive to do it. You can’t even recognize that you were manipulated, just like the Republicans were all manipulated into fretting about yellowcake and Katusha rocket strikes on London from Iraq. Just like Americans were shuddering when Reagan warned us that the Sandinistas were only a day’s drive from the Rio Grande. Fear and ignorance. That’s what you’re fed, that’s what you absorb.
Oh, and maybe you can actually ask questions about American foreign policy. How does the US benefit from a larger war in Ukraine, because all the signs are there?
By the way, one of the Chechen terrorist/freedom fighter leaders who were behind the mass murder of schoolchildren and blowing up Russian subways was just killed fighting for the Kiev forces. Maybe you can try to connect the dots.
Pogonip
@Bob In Portland: I never denied I have no say in what wars the government wages. So what would you like me to do about it?
Villago Delenda Est
@Pogonip: Do what BiP does. Contribute recycled Russian propaganda to Balloon Juice and hope someone is persuaded.
So far he’s not doing very well with that, because as Jedi mind tricks go, his are pretty fucking lame.
muddy
Even if people were interested in discussing Ukraine in every unrelated thread (please note my use of the subjunctive for a condition of unreality), the way you go about it is so off-putting. I initially had some interest but now it’s just all tl;dr.
Honestly, it’s like you wantto put people off the subject. If that was your scheme, good job. If that was not your scheme, you may want to consider your delivery. You may want to consider saving it for people who want to discuss it. Force-feeding is really not a civilized behavior.
You are just forcing this on an unwilling audience, causing general annoyance over a prolonged period. Your inability to take no for an answer also makes me fear for people who you interact with in person, for that matter. In my experience, people that won’t hear one kind of No often are bad about hearing a No in general.
Bob In Portland
For Gin, here is an article about one of the alleged assassins of Litvinenko. He worked for a British oil company before the murder. The other suspect was an alcoholic who wanted to be a porn star.
realbtl
Checking in from Montana to say Yup, we do have our home grown jerks, just like everywhere else. For the record I have no objection to yoga pants or the naked bike riders. Anything to liven up eastern Montana.
Denali
I know a couple who lost their 6 year old daughter to chicken pox, before the lethal effects of giving asperin to children with chicken pox were known. I never have understood the rational of exposing children intentionally to an infectious disease.
Helmut Monotreme
At the risk of sounding breathtakingly cynical, I’m going to say, so what? There’s a war in Ukraine, I was against it starting, I’m against it now, I’m against it spreading. And no one seems to have asked me my opinion. Every asshole with a gun is going to at least consider how to enrich himself and settle any outstanding grudges as long as the bullets are flying. Every rich asshole with the means is considering how to turn this to their advantage- just like every other war ever.
Bob, your outrage would be cute if it weren’t so obviously fake. You might as well bust in here every other day and announce how shocked you are that there is gambling in that nightclub from Casablanca. Yes, there are neo nazis in the government and armed forces of Ukraine. And they are probably doing terrible things in addition to shooting at the separtatists. There are neo nazis in the government and armed forces of Russia, and the USA as well, and have been since about mid 1945. Or did you just think the atomic bombs and rockets of the space race of both sides got built by particularly handy boy scouts with instructions in the back of Popular Mechanics and whatever its Soviet equivalent would have been? People who commit violence on command can be pretty nasty people, and people who need to hire a lot of violent people in a hurry often do not have the luxury of being choosy. I assume that when having a bunch of neo nazis running around and scaring the tourists becomes a liability, that they will be swept under the rug again. What are you going to do about it? Complain to the readers of a politcal blog? If you say that you are about to collect medicare you’ve had 6 or so decades to watch how anti war protests work and how they don’t. In that time, how many wars has “calling people on Balloon Juice Nazis if they didn’t share your views” ever stopped? And I’m not saying this because I’m not fucking horrified that another stupid brushfire war and or “ethnic cleansing” (to use that odious euphemism from the 1990’s Balkan shitstorm) could start over which bunch of oligarchs get to use Ukraine as their own personal piggy bank. But if you think that yelling here is going to stop the war or to convince the government of Ukraine to purge the neo nazis and hire a convenient band of heroes who are as mighty as they are pure of heart, I have some bad news for you.
Bob In Portland
@muddy: It’s hard to be “on-putting” when anything posted here is replied to by accusing me of being a Russian agent or by the lesser BJers using homophobic slurs. It’s like the McCarthy days all over.
Like I’ve said, I’m probably older than most people here, and I certainly seem to know more about fascism and the US intelligence services, and it is very frustrating to watch the US start another war, kill more people and destroy the lives of millions more in the search for more profits.
About a year ago a Russian commentator said that the American Left is the most pathetic of all groupings in the West because they should want to stop wars and American aggression but are always six months late to the story. Well, I was hoping that you’d prove them wrong. After all, there used to be debates here about Afghanistan and Iraq. Hardly anymore.
If the general BJer, who doesn’t want to talk about Ukraine, and won’t even ask him or herself why they avoid the subject, then I guess that there is no real Left in the US anymore. So, essentially, I am telling you I-told-you-so as it is unfolding. At least the next time it happens you can more assiduously block the news from the front.
And Russia has already announced that it would use tactical nukes if its territory were threatened. And, of course, what is NATO’s advance other than threatening Russia? So because BJers don’t read the other side of the story they don’t even know the link between their yoga pants, their navels and nuclear war.
The American Left, at least as represented by BJ, are officially divorced from American foreign policy. That, muddy, is pathetic. If we cannot muster outrage against killing people then we are nothing more than “good Germans.” I can’t abide that. Maybe BJers can.
What the US gets away with over there they eventually use here. The NSA is able to know what porn sites you’ve visited but overlook a 70,000 man army in Syria. And the US media ignored ISIS, too, so that they conveniently became the next of our endless enemies, and guess what, you didn’t notice either.
In order to avoid the inherent lack of logic with all this, there are several tactics a person might use. Ignoring things is an easy way, and if there is someone who brings it up then the next strategy is to attack him. If I’ve developed an edge to my posts it’s because coming here and presenting information that does not conform with the West’s construction of reality only seems to get me insults and not even intelligent exchange of opinions.
I’ve followed fascism in the US and abroad post-WWII. If you’d paid attention in 1988 you’d have understood the fascists in the Republican Party’s Ethnic Heritage organizatons, you would have known about Paul Weyrich’s and other noxious NGOs that were dispatched to Eastern Europe, along with many of the same ethnic heritage Republicans, to teach the Eastern Europeans “democracy”. If Weyrich was a dangerous man for his politics in the US, why is harmless in Eastern Europe? If the US has employed Nazis and fascists since WWII why is it a surprise that they are now openly supporting Nazis in Ukraine? It isn’t.
I’ve asked for threads about Ukraine, but apparently none of the people writing here want to discuss it. Good Germans, all of you.
Pogonip
@Bob In Portland: Maybe they don’t want to discuss it with YOU.
Last time: what concrete action do you want me to take to improve the situation in Ukraine? I do not consider “endlessly bitching about it on a randomly selected blog” a concrete action; if you do, I guess you don’t have to waste time replying. A concrete action is one that will result in noticeable improvement in the problem. If you can’t give me one, I will resume Hodoring you.
Bob In Portland
@Helmut Monotreme: Sorry, my outrage isn’t fake. Granted, in a world where reality is bent and twisted it may be hard for you to recognize between real and fake outrage.
So what you are saying is that you, as an American (or whatever country in the West you live) are incapable of doing anything about it so it’s just too bad. You are a Good German. Maybe not a Nazi, just a silent partner in a war that will take us to the edge of nuclear war. Yes, Russia has already announced that it would use tactical nukes if attacked. But the clock has been three minutes to midnight for so long you’ve gotten used to it.
You’re more apt to believe in the New York Times than, say, Russia Today. You won’t read about tactical nukes in eastern Europe. You will read articles by the same people who cowrote the WMD articles with Judith Miller a decade back.
As I’ve said above, the Left used to oppose wars the US started around the world. The American Left no longer exists. It is powerless and it knows it’s powerless to even speak up about it. Thus, yoga pants. Irony and snark are the currency of the kingdom, nothing more.
What would I like? Something that most BJers are incapable of.
mtmofo
The bill has been tabled/killed in committee.
http://flatheadbeacon.com/2015/02/11/bill-ban-provocative-clothing-tabled/
Bob In Portland
@Pogonip: I want you to read the other side. I want you to understand the motives of the people of Donbass. I want you to understand what all our wars over the past thirty years are about.
But you’re probably right. I started posting here (not randomly) when Cole was still supporting the war in Iraq. He changed. I don’t want people to consider themselves Left and can’t muster the courage or intellectual curiosity to do what Left or liberal or progressive people do. So start calling yourselves right-of-center but still left of Republicans. Tsk tsk about the fascism in the streets. If the police in El Salvador can kill the poor underclasses, then why is it a surprise that it’s happening here now? What are you missing from the equation? Or you can use Mnem’s curious defense that America has always been fascist so nothing’s changed and there’s nothing to be done.
But things have changed.
America is a fascist state. I demand another recipe for butternut squash!
Bob In Portland
@Pogonip: But I bet you won’t read the other side. I gave you something you should do and you will walk away from it. You want me to post more links for you to avoid? Then you can ask me what I want you to do.
Concrete: Inform yourself. But you won’t. Hodor to all the gutless, incurious sort of kinda left of the really right-wing bastards.
gelfling545
@mtmofo: Interesting that a bill to ban clothing is a response to nakedness.
RSA
@Turgidson:
Moore doesn’t realize he’s basically trying to institute a ban on cheerleading and most college and high school sports. Not to mention ballet, which I doubt he cares about.
Another Holocene Human
@Denali: toxic Darwinist/Social Darwinist/Lysenkoist stew
it’s always combined with some other woo where their lifestyle choices or accident of birth give them merit above all other people
it’s a form of rationalization (“sunk cost fallacy”) where they double down on choices they have possibly doubts about by telling themselves fables where the “sheeple” who didn’t do as they did will be punished by a just universe (another fallacy); or, it’s a form of rationalization for the privileged by which the universe is just and the disadvantaged deserve their place in the system
Bob In Portland
@Villago Delenda Est: So the that guy who writes articles in the NYTimes about Ukraine and used to cowrite articles in the NYTimes with Judith Miller, not propaganda? How do you recognize propaganda? Who tells you what is or isn’t propaganda?
If you tolerated the death squads in El Salvador and Iraq, you should just keep your mouth shut when it happens here. Of course, here it generally means people of color getting killed in the street, but you can still feign concern about racists, right? If you tolerated the US and House of Saud supplying Osama bin Laden with SAMs then why are you suprised about his posse blowing up things around here?
If you didn’t care about Chechens being backed by the US and the Saudis blowing up subways in Moscow, then what right do you have to care about a subway bombing in London or the World Trade Center going down? Play your video games and then tell me why I’m not connected to reality.
Why do you think ISIS suddenly appeared? Have you organized tens of thousands of men to wage war and cut off heads lately? It takes a lot of work and a lot of money. Guess who’s money? Guess whose work? And guess who wasn’t watching?
Villago Delenda Est
@Bob In Portland: HODOR!
Pogonip
@Bob In Portland: I am already well aware of both sides: both Club Orlov and Unz Review have covered it length. So I have already done what you asked. You’re welcome!
Bob In Portland
@Pogonip: Here’s something that just came over the news.
Poroshenko is supposedly taking fragments of the rebel bombing in Kramatorsk to prove that the rebels are bombing civilians. The West will dutifully report the claims, probably without even considering the alternative. The above link is an article with lots of pictures and diagrams, showing that the rebels were nowhere near where the rockets were launched. Another false flag, sort of like the rebels shooting down an airliner with a weapon that they didn’t have for no purpose other than to bring the West’s anger and hatred on themselves.
Every time there is some kind of peace conference Poroshenko makes it a show and tell, and every time his evidence is either less than he claims, or it’s fraudulent. You wouldn’t bomb your own children, would you? Same with Novorussians.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I have to admit, Bob’s solution to the problem of competing propaganda campaigns is certainly an easy one: simply accept the other side’s propaganda as being the gospel truth and you never have to think about what might actually be going on or why the two sides have competing propaganda campaigns going. It’s like deciding that because Judy Miller was a liar, that means that all of the broadcasts by Saddam’s PR minister were the gospel truth and Saddam really did drive the US out of Iraq. Oh, wait …
Bob In Portland
@Pogonip: Good. Thank you. Keep reading. Really, eventually you will develop the skills to understand why the US media is lying to you.
Pogonip
@Bob In Portland: Honey, I developed those skills 35 years ago.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Is Robert Parry on the other side? Is Patrick Smith on the other side?
Do you think that the US owns the truth?
Here’s a clue I’ve given here before. Every piece of news is propaganda in that it has been chosen to be reported, the information within it has been chosen, the words are chosen.
And not to tire myself by listing all the different wars that the US has been lied into during our lives, perhaps you can point me to what news source you consider to not have any propaganda within it? Do you think that the guy Kramer, who cowrote those yellowcake and WMD articles with Judith Miller a decade back, you think he’s now telling you the truth? Do you think that WaPo is keeping you abreast of what is happening in Novorussia?
You think when Jimmy Kimmel makes a joke about Putin that it’s not propaganda?
For some reason your particular ignorance really is beginning to annoy me. Read it all and sort it out if you are capable of doing so. If not, there’s always another butternut squash recipe.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): So do you read any of the coverage from the other side?
Also, was Robert Parry against the interests of America and its people by investigating Iran-contra, or do you think he was on the other side?
That’s what I mean. You are pathetic. At least admit that you are a pathetic sheep and your intellectual grazing is where your media leads you.
Bob In Portland
@Pogonip:
Test: Why is the US waging war in the Ukraine against Russia? (Yes, it is a proxy war, but it’s still a war.) Why is America backing Nazi punishment battalions? How is this for the good of the Ukrainians? Americans? Cui bono, pogo? Why are the Nazis downplayed or outright denied in the American news?
Perhaps you can flex your thirty-five years of experience in giving me an answer.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Bob In Portland:
Do you think that the US owns the truth?
No. But I don’t think Russia does, either. That’s why I pointed out that BOTH SIDES are engaged in a propaganda campaign. The fact that you think that everything you read on Russia Today and other pro-Russian sites is the 100 percent truth and only the US is engaging in propaganda is the root of the problem here.
And the reason I annoy you is that you know that I’m showing you that your “logical” arguments actually make no sense, and you don’t want to face the fact that Russia is producing just as much propaganda as the US is. You especially don’t want to ask yourself why Russia is producing so much propaganda if, as you claim, they are the completely innocent injured party in this situation.
Also, I was amused by your “death squads” comment above. I guess the KKK weren’t really death squads and we had to wait until the 1980s to invent them in Central America. Or, you know, the US took the knowledge it already had thanks to the KKK and merely applied it for other uses. But that can’t be, because the US was innocent of right-wing terrorism until the Ukrainian Nazis showed up and taught us how to do it.
Pogonip
@Bob In Portland: Most of these “little” wars keep the military-industrial complex going.
Pogonip
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Well, I hate to even partially defend Bob, but the KKK is not exactly analogous to, say, Nicaraguan death squads, because the KKK didn’t have equivalent Federal backing, although in the 1920’s they darn near ran the state of Indiana.
Historical trivia: Al Capone was largely responsible for keeping the KKK out of Chicago. They were against liquor and he thought they’d be bad for business, and so told the Indiana Grand Poobah to keep his troops out of Chicagoland. There were a few incursions but nothing like the control they enjoyed in the rest of Indiana.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I’ve listed sites where Americans write about our war in Ukraine, but I guess by you not answering the question that you believe that Robert Parry and Patrick Smith are Russian, or Russian agents.
I think, certainly for you, Mnem, but for others here as well that American foreign policy is morally ambiguous, but it has been consistent between Republican and Democratic administrations since Clinton, and really, what can you do? So you’d rather just not know. It’s intellectual cowardice, but at least it’s an honest answer, something you can’t seem to come to grips with.
Just say you’re an intellectual coward, and I’ll ignore you. It’s easy to think that all of the US’ problems are because of those pesky Republicans and their oligarch friends. More so, certainly, than liberals, but our foreign policy doesn’t change whoever is in the White House.
If Reagan lied about death squads in El Salvador, why don’t you believe that there are Nazi battalions in eastern Ukraine killing civilians? Because Obama is President? And you’re afraid that if you look at “Russian propaganda” that you’ll somehow be tricked into becoming a foreign agent or at least a dupe? Really? That’s an admission of weakness. Why, you could go and read some of that Russian propaganda and throw it in my face and say, “You see, they’re liars!” You haven’t. You can’t.
The difference between El Salvador and Russia is that Russia is bigger, it will fight back, and it’s already said it would use nukes. But what the hell, so what if the world is burned to a crisp. It’s not your business!
You see, that’s why I see you as an intellectual coward. Ever read Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”? If you had, maybe you can share with the others here what happens in the story.
Bob In Portland
@Pogonip: So you think it’s merely to satisfy the MIC? And we were running out of Middle Eastern countries so we decided, what the hell, Ukraine.
No, there are reasons why we’ve been fighting in places where the black bubbly comes out of the ground. But Afghanistan doesn’t have any. Do you really think that Afghanistan was just about using up armaments? Do you think we continued to search for Osama when everyone in the world knew he was in Pakistan? Saddam, like the Assad family, was our bastard for decades before we decided to take him out. Same with Noriega.
And there isn’t a hell of a lot of oil in Ukraine. The only natural gas in Ukraine is in the pipelines running from Russia.
So think hard.
gwangung
@Bob In Portland: I think such an arrogant, egotistical asshole who ignores convention can’t possibly be right. Your case can’t possilbly speak for itself; you have to lie for it.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
….as Jedi mind tricks go, his are pretty fucking lame.
I know it was intentional that you didn’t mention that to pull off a Jedi mind trick, one actually has to have an operational Jedi mind.
opiejeanne
@SatanicPanic: Loretta Sanchez, Rep. 47th district, has indicated that she might run for Barbara Boxer’s seat. She was our Rep when we lived in Anaheim, and she sent us her infamous Christmas cards a few times. The Republicans would fuss that they were racy and unbecoming. Really racy, in one she posed on a motorcycle with Gretzky, her cat. I think there’s one in a modest bathing suit on a surfboard too.
This is one of the ones we got:
http://latinopoliticsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/2008sanchez-holiday-card.jpg
jw
@Carnacki: Since when have ‘Pubs been against small government? Oh, I know that that’s the line been pushed since before the excretible Norquist, but has it ever been true? Tell me.
jw
Digital Amish
Well, in defense of the Montana legislator in OP, he did state in his candidate survey that he was opposed to greenhouse gas emission regulations. So it’s not like he’s abandoned his small government principles entirely.
opiejeanne
@D58826: And in Washington we now have an outbreak of mumps. My husband and I are pretty sure we never caught the mumps when we were kids, so I think when I get my blood tested on Monday I’ll ask for them to check for antibodies. I’d rather not have mumps at age 64.
opiejeanne
@Eric U.: Getting chickenpox at any age can be dangerous. It’s not necessarily better if you’re a kid when you get it, because you can get the sores in your lungs or on an optic nerve at any age. I knew two kids who had these problems; one nearly died and the other is blind in one eye.