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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

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

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

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Proud to Be A Democrat / Don’t Stop Bludgeoning Them

Don’t Stop Bludgeoning Them

by John Cole|  February 23, 20171:30 pm| 137 Comments

This post is in: Proud to Be A Democrat

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Well, no shit, really:

Former House Speaker John Boehner predicted on Thursday that a full repeal and replace of Obamacare is “not going to happen.”

Boehner, who resigned in 2015 amid unrest among conservatives, said at an Orlando health care conference that the idea that a repeal-and-replace plan would blitz through Congress is just “happy talk.”

Instead, he said changes to former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement would likely be relatively modest.

***

On Thursday, Boehner said the talk in November about lightning-fast passage of a new health care framework was wildly optimistic.

“I started laughing,” he said. “Republicans never ever agree on health care.”

“Most of the framework of the Affordable Care Act … that’s going to be there,” Boehner concluded.

I don’t care if he and I think it isn’t going to happen, it could, and that is what matters. Keep beating them up. Keep showing up at town halls and jeering them. Keep talking to cardboard cutouts when they are too chickenshit to show up to town halls. Keep organizing, keep yelling, keep beating them about the head and neck. They need to pay an even higher political price for trying to take away your health care than the Democrats did trying to help you gain access to health insurance and health care.

Fuck these people. They’re running scared, and instead of letting up, keep the pressure on and keep nipping at their heels as they try to escape. Sherman didn’t say “well, we’re close to Atlanta, that’s good enough. I think they know we’re serious.” He knew the only thing the confederates would understand was brute force. And these descendants of those assholes are the same god damned way. Keep throwing molotov cocktails and burn the shit down. No one ever told me in basic training it was a bad thing to shoot the people who are trying to kill you in the back as they run. Fuck ’em. Let’s take back the House, the Senate, and the statehouses.

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Reader Interactions

137Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeffro

    February 23, 2017 at 1:33 pm

    Sherman didn’t say “well, we’re close to Atlanta, that’s good enough. I think they know we’re serious.” He knew the only thing the confederates would understand was brute force.

    Oh hell yes…LET’S RAMP UP!

  2. 2.

    germy

    February 23, 2017 at 1:33 pm

    On Wednesday the Arizona Senate passed SB 1142. The bill would allow the state to seize the assets of demonstrators who attend protests that turn violent.

    What’s to stop the state or someone else from hiring agents provocateurs to damage property, thereby giving the state an excuse to strip peaceful protestors of their homes and assets?

    http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2017/02/22/arizona-senate-crackdown-on-protests/

  3. 3.

    germy

    February 23, 2017 at 1:37 pm

    Stefanik a no-show at citizen-led town hall meeting
    Congresswoman won’t meet in forum format

    As a land surveyor for the state Department of Environmental Conservation who loves the outdoors, Bob Bradley had a question for his congresswoman.

    One of more than 200 of U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik’s constituents who packed into a room at the Crandall Public Library on Wednesday, Bradley asked how she would vote on a bill that would eliminate the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

    “When this comes up for a vote, will you vote yay or nay?” he asked.

    She wasn’t there to answer him.

    Bradley directed his question to a camera at the town hall meeting, which took place without Stefanik because, according to her staff, she had a conflict. But Sara Carpenter, a Queensbury resident who helped organize the event, said Stefanik is unwilling to address constituents in the “time-honored tradition of the American town hall” meeting.

    Stefanik, R-Willsboro, represents the 21st District, which stretches from Ballston Spa northward to the Canadian border. She won re-election to her second term in November. She was the youngest woman elected to Congress when, at 30, she won the seat in 2014.

    “A number of people have been asking Elise Stefanik when she’s going to be holding a town hall meeting, and we recently received word that she doesn’t plan to hold any, so we decided we would plan a town hall meeting for her and invite her to come,” said Carpenter. “She has, unfortunately, declined to come, and our view is we’re going to hold it anyway.”

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 23, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    Boner is taunting the teabagger “Freedom Caucus” and laughing his orange ass off.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    February 23, 2017 at 1:39 pm

    “I started laughing,” he said. “Republicans never ever agree on health care.”

    “Most of the framework of the Affordable Care Act … that’s going to be there,” Boehner concluded.

    He said in between his morning scotches

  6. 6.

    TenguPhule

    February 23, 2017 at 1:39 pm

    He knew the only thing the confederates would understand was brute force. And these descendants of those assholes are the same god damned way.

    Actually they’re worse. This time,they’ve gone all in and embraced their inner Pol Pots. The republic can’t survive when 42% of the people in it are bugshit insane facists.

  7. 7.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 23, 2017 at 1:39 pm

    @Jeffro: “War is all hell”, said Sherman. And he proceeded to deliver.

  8. 8.

    ranchandsyrup

    February 23, 2017 at 1:39 pm

    Yeah but Sherman did stop after ATL when he should have frogmarched confeds right into the Atlantic

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    February 23, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    . Sherman didn’t say “well, we’re close to Atlanta, that’s good enough. I think they know we’re serious.” He knew the only thing the confederates would understand was brute force.

    He burned that shyt TO.THE.GROUND.

    One of the best moments of the war.

  10. 10.

    JMS

    February 23, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    Sherman: Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?

    Grant: Yes. Lick ’em tomorrow though.

  11. 11.

    Jeffro

    February 23, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    @germy:

    What’s to stop the state or someone else from hiring agents provocateurs to damage property, thereby giving the state an excuse to strip peaceful protestors of their homes and assets?

    That’ll never stand up in court…

    Plus as a practical matter, protestors would just go to great pains to indicate they’re the peaceful ones, so that police can identify the few violent ones and arrest them. For most large rallies and protests (certainly those in DC, and I’m sure this is the case in other cities as well), the organizers meet with the cops in advance to discuss routes, times, and what to do if there’s trouble (including outside agitators)

    If the arrested folks turn out to be paid (or even ‘volunteer’) provocateurs, well, not only would they be the ones charged, but if they were paid or the violence was otherwise organized by an outside party, that party is in BIG trouble.

    Repubs can dream about this kind of shit all they want; it won’t pass, it won’t stand, and there are plenty of ways for protestors to work with the police to make sure the actual perpetrators are identified and held accountable.

  12. 12.

    raven

    February 23, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    @ranchandsyrup: Yea, that’s why it’s called “The March to the Sea”.

  13. 13.

    Mike in DC

    February 23, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    @germy:

    Pretty sure that courts frown on collective punishment.

  14. 14.

    Rand Careaga

    February 23, 2017 at 1:43 pm

    O/T, but has anyone been able to reach “Lawyers, Guns and Money” this morning? The URL returns a 404.

  15. 15.

    germy

    February 23, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    @Jeffro:

    it won’t pass, it won’t stand,

    Well, the Arizona senate passed it. I hope somebody strikes it down.

  16. 16.

    germy

    February 23, 2017 at 1:45 pm

    @Rand Careaga: I got the same error message. I know they’ve been hacked before, I wonder if it’s happened again.

  17. 17.

    hovercraft

    February 23, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    The Wa Post afternoon blast of their most read stories, here’s a selection:

    ‘This is not Trump’s America!’: Passengers rejoice when man accused of racism is kicked off flight
    The heated incident unfolded Saturday on a flight bound for Houston.

    By Peter Holley

    Things got VERY ugly on CNN last night
    Asked whether the president is prejudiced against Jews, Anne Frank Center Executive Director Steven Goldstein replied, “You bet.”

    By Callum Borchers

    A majority of Americans are embarrassed by President Trump
    They see him as dishonest, hot-tempered, divisive and lacking leadership skills.

    By Philip Bump

    President Trump is losing his war with the media
    It seems Americans think Trump spews more “fake news” than the media does.

    By Aaron Blake

    ‘Greatest threat to democracy’: Commander of bin Laden raid slams Trump’s anti-media sentiment
    William H. McRaven, a retired Navy admiral, is the chancellor of the University of Texas System. He made his comment while addressing UT-Austin’s college of communication.

    By Kristine Guerra

    These types of headlines are giving them agita, lets keep the pressure on.

  18. 18.

    patroclus

    February 23, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    The only thing Republicans ever agreed on with respect to health insurance was a slogan and the desire to kill 20 million people. The likelihood that they’re all going to agree on a positive plan that will cover everyone is practically nil. They will have a bill though; the question is what it will contain, who will be hurt by it and can they jam it through via reconciliation. We can’t stop pressuring them.

  19. 19.

    Oatler.

    February 23, 2017 at 1:47 pm

    @germy: And I moved to Arizona last week. Like living in Bavaria 1940.

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 23, 2017 at 1:49 pm

    @Oatler.: Without the benefit of drinkable beer?

  21. 21.

    germy

    February 23, 2017 at 1:50 pm

    @Oatler.: I’ve never lived in a place that wasn’t full of RWNJs. Some of them lived right next to me.

  22. 22.

    hovercraft

    February 23, 2017 at 1:51 pm

    @germy:

    On Wednesday the Arizona Senate passed SB 1142. The bill would allow the state to seize the assets of demonstrators who attend protests that turn violent.

    Can one of our resident lawyers, chime in, how s this constitutional? The right to assemble is my first amendment right, so how can you legislate that I’m responsible for the behavior of someone else exercising their rights? This is just a scare tactic to make people think twice about voicing their opposition to the bullshit republicans are doing. I hope the ACLU is licking their chops over this one.

  23. 23.

    ruemara

    February 23, 2017 at 1:51 pm

    @TenguPhule: 27%. I don’t think we’re fully dealing with 42%. They only think they’re nearly half of the country.

    can I say how delighted I am that in the pursuit of all the fucking evil Trump voters said was just talk or believed would somehow pass over them, they’re being affected nearly in line with the populations they decided to hate most this past election? I have tremendous empathy for all those town hall folks who’re showing up to their electeds, who’ve been staunchly R their whole lives and for their family’s lives. Truly, I feel for you. But I have zero sympathy for anyone who isn’t a Dem. What does the Bible say, they laid the snare and stepped in it? Ah, here it is: Psalm 7:15,16 He made a pit, and dig it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made…

    Enjoy that pit. You’ll get some help when you stop being the labor for these GOP sociopaths.

    @hovercraft: I think these legislators are secretly ACLU and public defender orgs fundraisers. Also, not to cut into their donations, but public defender orgs could use that cash infusion love.

  24. 24.

    Tom

    February 23, 2017 at 1:52 pm

    @JMS: Shiloh quote! Very nice.

  25. 25.

    geg6

    February 23, 2017 at 1:52 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    They aren’t 42% of the public. They are 42% of the people who voted in the last election. The election in which at least 40% of the actual public didn’t bother to vote.

  26. 26.

    geg6

    February 23, 2017 at 1:53 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    He should have burned the entire fucking region down and killed every goddam white person in it.

  27. 27.

    trollhattan

    February 23, 2017 at 1:54 pm

    Trump-China relationship keeps getting weirder. First, he magically is granted the trademark to use of his beautiful, beautiful name there, now his spawn’s brand is being set lose. I’m guessing this goes deeper than him saying, “One China, two Chinas, whatever you guys want.”

    Companies in the US are grappling with how to handle Ivanka Trump’s fashion brand, which has become heavily politicized and faces ongoing boycotts over the policies of Trump’s father, US president Donald Trump. But among Chinese firms, a race is on to cash in on the US first daughter’s rising profile.

    The South China Morning Post reports that dozens of companies have collectively submitted at least 65 applications to the country’s trademark office to claim the “Ivanka” trademark for products such as makeup, booze, wallpaper, nutritional supplements, and other items. A week after the US election, for instance, Fujian Yingjie Commodity Company filed “to use Ivanka for its brand of sanitary napkins,” it says.

    Right now the “Ivanka” name is an irresistible target for Chinese companies. Trump is, after all, a stylish figure on the global stage, and her popularity in China has only grown since the election. She and her daughter, Arabella, recently drew notice for their surprise visit to Beijing’s embassy in Washington to celebrate China’s lunar new year, and her video of Arabella singing in Mandarin and playing with a traditional Chinese puppet circulated widely on the internet in China. A previous video of Arabella reciting a Chinese poem in November had already been a hit.
    Chinese law, meanwhile, offers enough leeway regarding use of foreign brands’ and celebrities’ names that companies routinely try to cash in—whether those whose names are used like it or not.

  28. 28.

    AnotherBruce

    February 23, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    Hmmm, delicious red meat, I like it raw.

  29. 29.

    debit

    February 23, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    Kill you in the back?

    (Sorry)

  30. 30.

    germy

    February 23, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    @geg6: This would be a better country today. They’re the reason we can’t have nice things.

  31. 31.

    Bill Arnold

    February 23, 2017 at 1:56 pm

    Fuck these people. They’re running scared, and instead of letting up, keep the pressure on and keep nipping at their heels as they try to escape.

    Have these anti-healthcare-for-all Representatives gamed out what it would mean to sentence a fair number of their constituents to death in trade for reduced taxes on the wealthy (aka “Freedom” in Republican newspeak)?
    Some fraction of those being sentenced to slow death also being gun owners, to be blunt. I really don’t want the US to go there, speaking as a committed non-violence person.

  32. 32.

    Lurking Canadian

    February 23, 2017 at 1:56 pm

    @ranchandsyrup: That’s not how the story is usually told. I mean, he did leave some of them alive, which was probably a mistake, and he left a few houses and farms unburnt, which was definitely a mistake, but he didn’t stop until he was about to run up and stomp Robert E Lee from behind, after marching his men a hell of a long way from Atlanta.

  33. 33.

    Paula

    February 23, 2017 at 1:57 pm

    Yes, yes, yes!

  34. 34.

    germy

    February 23, 2017 at 1:58 pm

    Guardian UK: New Jersey congressman grilled at town hall amid ‘resistance recess’ protests – Leonard Lance faces questions over healthcare, Russia and pushing back against Donald Trump from mostly hostile crowd

    It was one of many overflowing town halls this week, as constituents angry that members of Congress haven’t pushed back against President Trump have organized across the US to exert direct pressure, and have besieged the typically sedate constituent meetings with protest signs and shouts.

  35. 35.

    Lurking Canadian

    February 23, 2017 at 1:59 pm

    @Bill Arnold: There is no gaming to be done. What are those constituents going to do if they lose their healthcare, after all? Vote for a Democrat?

  36. 36.

    geg6

    February 23, 2017 at 2:00 pm

    @germy:

    I agree. I feel for the Dems who live in those hellholes, but I’d be happier if the earth had been salted and made uninhabitable for the foreseeable future and all the white inhabitants killed in battle and those left over then driven into the sea and not let back onto the continent. We are where we are today because we (the North) were too damn easy on them back then.

  37. 37.

    Oatler.

    February 23, 2017 at 2:02 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Without benefit of legal pot, which I needed in my old state Oregon to cut my cold. THIS MEANS achoo! WAR

  38. 38.

    Citizen_X

    February 23, 2017 at 2:03 pm

    Yr. friends at the erstwhile Wonkette have an article up about how Rep. Louie Gohmert, of legendary stupidity, is avoiding townhalls, on account of how he doesn’t want to get Gabby Gifforded. Yes, he was actually stupid/venal enough to say that.

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    February 23, 2017 at 2:03 pm

    Notorious RBG in a rare interview.

    …Justice Ginsburg said she was encouraged by the Women’s March, which saw millions in the US and around the world take part in anti-Trump protests.

    “I’ve never seen such a demonstration – both the numbers and the rapport of the people in that crowd. There was no violence, it was orderly. So yes, we are not experiencing the best times but there is there is reason to hope that that we will see a better day.”

    Justice Ginsburg has been on the Supreme Court since 1993 and – at 83 years-old – is the oldest serving member. Asked how much longer she would stay in post, she said: “At my age you have to take it year by year. I know I’m OK. What will be next year?” She added: “I’m hopeful however, because my most senior colleague the one who most recently retired, Justice John Paul Stevens, stepped down at age 90. So I have a way to go.”

    Eat well and get plenty of sleep, madam justice.

  40. 40.

    low-tech cyclist

    February 23, 2017 at 2:04 pm

    Fuck ’em. Let’s take back the House, the Senate, and the statehouses.

    Yeah, this is my week to lean on my county government. While I’m in a liberal state (Maryland), I’m in a conservative county (Calvert). And the guy who got elected chair of the Board of County Commissioners is a tax-cuts-uber-alles sort of guy, and he’s got enough of the rest of the council in his corner. We’ve got great schools here (which is why my wife and I moved here nearly 20 years ago), and part of the reason is we used to pay the teachers well, but they haven’t gotten promised pay increases the past few years, and other counties nearby are paying a lot better. We’re losing teachers as a result.

    So they want to deny the teachers their promised pay increases yet again, but they want to build a new $34 million county services building, and a new building (not sure of the price tag) with an auditorium big enough for the high school graduations. (We’ve got just 4 high schools in the county, so WTF? Build a building for 4 events a year?!) And of course, being wingnuts, they want to blame the tax increase on the teachers’ union that would be needed to do all of these things, because teachers’ unions are EEEEVIIIIL.

    Well, this isn’t some remote combine. This is our county. We know the teachers. We run into them at the grocery store, at the hardware store. And not to mention, we see how they interact with our kids, we see how great a job they do. We don’t want to lose them.

    Fortunately, the Board of Ed supports the teachers on this, but it’s the County Commissioners who hold the purse strings. So a bunch of us who were at the Calvert County Dems meeting on Tuesday night (where we had quite a crowd) are going to show up at a joint meeting of the Board of Ed with the County Commissioners tonight. We won’t be able to ask questions and stuff, but apparently we will be allowed to bring signs that say ‘Agree’ and ‘Disagree’ to indicate our feelings. I’ll be there tonight with my signs.

  41. 41.

    AliceBlue

    February 23, 2017 at 2:07 pm

    @TenguPhule:
    A gentle reminder:

    – A few of us descendants of confederate soldiers are quite liberal.

    – I’m willing to bet some of Trump’s voters are descendants of Union army solders.

  42. 42.

    Trinity

    February 23, 2017 at 2:07 pm

    Woo!! A thousand times…THIS.

  43. 43.

    LAO

    February 23, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    @hovercraft: From what I’ve read, the Arizona RICO expansion should not survive judicial review should the Senate bill become a law. However, I haven’t read the text of the legislation so, it’s difficult to say that it is definitely unconstitutional. (And of course — whether you or I think it’s unconstitutional matters little. What matters is whether a Judge agrees us).

  44. 44.

    JMG

    February 23, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    I wonder if Boehner is drinking less now because he doesn’t have to lead House Republicans anymore, or drinking more because why the hell not?

  45. 45.

    dedc79

    February 23, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    I continue to think that the most damage will be done at the administrative level, rather than through legislation.

  46. 46.

    Chris

    February 23, 2017 at 2:11 pm

    @AliceBlue:

    Yes, unfortunately, the bad pathologies that are at first associated with the South tend to spread elsewhere. The Ku Klux Klan and the Confederate flag are both examples. Southern and separatist originally, which eventually became generic white nationalist things everywhere in America.

    I always want to stop people with Confederate flags and ask them if they could just have at least some basic regional pride. Especially when they’re West Virginian.

  47. 47.

    randy khan

    February 23, 2017 at 2:11 pm

    @germy:

    I’ve been there and posted there, including looking at it as recently as 5 minutes ago.

  48. 48.

    Nashville_fan

    February 23, 2017 at 2:11 pm

    @geg6: geg6
    says:

    “February 23, 2017 at 1:53 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    He should have burned the entire fucking region down and killed every goddam white person in it.”

    ——–
    Um . . . no.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    February 23, 2017 at 2:13 pm

    @AliceBlue: There’s actually no reason to post this as a reminder, gentle or otherwise.

  50. 50.

    Ridnik Chrome

    February 23, 2017 at 2:14 pm

    OT, and apologies if anyone else has already posted this, but apparently CBP is now randomly checking IDs of people on domestic flights.

    Customs and Border Protection agents met a domestic flight at John F. Kennedy Airport on Wednesday night and checked the IDs of every passenger on board, according to one traveler who documented the scene.

    The incident, which took place on Delta Flight 1583 from San Francisco, was atypical for both domestic flights—on which no identification is needed to exit the airport—and international flights, where identification is checked during a customs screening after deplaning.

    […]

    Ward Oliver, supervising attorney for the Immigration Law Unit at the Legal Aid Society, stressed that the incident seemed highly unusual, and consistent with the regime laid out in the new DHS memos.

    “I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of this happening at Kennedy Airport before,” he said. “To me it seems pretty clear to me what they are doing, in light of the order.”

    He added that there has historically been legal precedent for agents to question individuals at checkpoints within 100 miles of the US border.

    “But it seems like an abuse [of that right] of it’s in the airport on a domestic flight,” Oliver said.

  51. 51.

    bemused

    February 23, 2017 at 2:14 pm

    @germy:

    Some of them are close relatives. Sigh.

  52. 52.

    trollhattan

    February 23, 2017 at 2:14 pm

    @Ridnik Chrome: Uh, what?!?

  53. 53.

    patroclus

    February 23, 2017 at 2:16 pm

    @Tom: Shiloh, when I was young. I used to call your name. When no one else would come. Shiloh you always came.

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    February 23, 2017 at 2:16 pm

    @AliceBlue:

    West Virginia broke away from Virginia so they wouldn’t have to join the Confederacy.

    Now look at them.

  55. 55.

    Captain C

    February 23, 2017 at 2:16 pm

    No one ever told me in basic training it was a bad thing to shoot the people who are trying to kill you in the back as they run.

    Perhaps slightly OT:

    Remember that we’re up against people who thought John Kerry shooting an armed VC in the back was a bad thing*, but shooting unarmed black kids in the back is OK.

    *Probably the only case of someone shooting a VC fighter that they don’t approve of.

  56. 56.

    Corner Stone

    February 23, 2017 at 2:17 pm

    @Ridnik Chrome: I would, uh, have a problem with this.

  57. 57.

    AliceBlue

    February 23, 2017 at 2:17 pm

    @Corner Stone:
    Sorry I offended you.

  58. 58.

    Betty Cracker

    February 23, 2017 at 2:18 pm

    @Chris: If you’re suggesting white supremacy was ever just a Southern thing, I’m gonna have to disagree strenuously. Southern racism has its own awful character and history, but putting white supremacy off on the South is letting America off the hook in a way it definitely does not deserve.

  59. 59.

    Ridnik Chrome

    February 23, 2017 at 2:18 pm

    @trollhattan: Note that the flight was from San Francisco to New York. Both are sanctuary cities. I believe the relevant phrase is “sending a message”.

  60. 60.

    Roger Moore

    February 23, 2017 at 2:19 pm

    @patroclus:

    The only thing Republicans ever agreed on with respect to health insurance was a slogan and the desire to kill 20 million people.

    The only thing they agreed about was the need to obstruct. Funny thing, it turns out that designing and creating something new is much harder that trying to prevent somebody else from doing the same.

  61. 61.

    Captain C

    February 23, 2017 at 2:19 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Strangely enough, though, WVA is now a Republican-dominated state and Virginia increasingly a Democratic-majority state, just like it would have been in the 1860s.

    (Yes, I know that’s because of realignment.)

  62. 62.

    hovercraft

    February 23, 2017 at 2:21 pm

    @Ridnik Chrome:

    Customs and Border Protection agents

    Nothing to see here, there is no deportation force.
    No it’s not possible for the US to become a police state
    Americans would never stand for it.

  63. 63.

    Roger Moore

    February 23, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    @germy:
    You left out the most ridiculous part:

    Republican state senators voted Wednesday to give police new power to arrest anyone who is involved in a peaceful demonstration that may turn bad — even before anything actually happened.

    So they want to arrest people for planning peaceful protests that they suspect might possibly turn into riots. It’s hard to see how that meets 1st Amendment muster.

  64. 64.

    Jay S

    February 23, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    @LAO

    the Arizona RICO expansion should not survive judicial review should the Senate bill become a law.

    The fact that it probably isn’t constitutional doesn’t mean it will have no effect. The litigation involved in proving that it is will be an expensive deterrent. This is Strategic Legislation against Protest.

  65. 65.

    Corner Stone

    February 23, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    @AliceBlue: There’s no offense at all. I just don’t see it as relevant to where we are now. When Indiana or Idaho are white supremacist breeding grounds right now there’s no reason to reach back to white heritage from the Civil War era. Just IMO.

  66. 66.

    Ridnik Chrome

    February 23, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    @Corner Stone: Me, too. Gonna be taking that very flight in another month and a half…

  67. 67.

    raven

    February 23, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    @Lurking Canadian: OK all you self–righteous assholes.

    On December 8, 1864, the Union XIV Corps, under Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis, reached the western bank of Ebenezer Creek. While Davis’ engineers began assembling a pontoon bridge for the crossing, Wheeler’s cavalry approached close enough to conduct sporadic shelling of the Union lines.[3] By midnight the bridge was ready, and Davis’s 14,000 men began their crossing. Over 600 freed slaves were anxious to cross with them, but Davis ordered his provost marshal to prevent this. The freedmen were told that they would be able to cross after a Confederate force in front had been dispersed. In reality, no such force existed. As the last Union soldiers reached the eastern bank on the morning of December 9, Davis’s engineers abruptly cut the bridge loose and drew it up onto the shore.[4]

    On realizing their plight, a panic set in amongst the freedmen, who knew that Confederate cavalry were nearby. They “hesitated briefly, impacted by a surge of pressure from the rear, then stampeded with a rush into the icy water, old and young alike, men and women and children, swimmers and non-swimmers, determined not to be left behind.”[5] In the uncontrolled, terrified crush, many quickly drowned. On the eastern bank, some of Davis’s soldiers made an effort to help those that they could reach, wading into the water as far as they dared.[6] Others felled trees into the water. Several of the freedmen lashed logs together into a crude raft, which they used to rescue those they could and then to ferry others across the stream. [7]

    While these efforts were under way, scouts from Wheeler’s cavalry arrived, fired briefly at the soldiers on the far bank, and left to summon Wheeler’s full force. Officers from the XIV Corps ordered their men to leave the scene, and the march was resumed. The freedmen continued their frantic efforts to ferry as many as possible across the stream on the makeshift raft, but when Wheeler’s cavalry arrived in force, those refugees who had not made it to the eastern bank, or drowned in the attempt, were enslaved once more.[8]

  68. 68.

    LAO

    February 23, 2017 at 2:23 pm

    @Corner Stone: Would you refuse to show your ID? I’ve been thinking about this since reading the story.

  69. 69.

    raven

    February 23, 2017 at 2:24 pm

    @Betty Cracker: This has to get hashed over every couple of weeks.

  70. 70.

    Ian G.

    February 23, 2017 at 2:24 pm

    I like the Sherman analogy. These people’s ancestors, despite Sherman and Sheridan’s best efforts, were never made to realize they had lost, that it was over (the way Germany and Japan did learn their lesson in 1945), and that’s why we still have to deal with them today. Fight back against them, because they will never learn. Somewhere, Thaddeus Stevens will be smiling upon you.

  71. 71.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    February 23, 2017 at 2:25 pm

    “I hope the ACLU is licking their chops over this one.”

    The ACLU should ask for asset forfeiture of the entire AZ government in their response.

  72. 72.

    LAO

    February 23, 2017 at 2:25 pm

    @Jay S: I agree with you 100%, as a defense attorney I understand that there is a cost to be arrested — even if the charges are ultimately dismissed. Also, that the flexing of the power of the state — whether reasonable or not — is an effective means of intimidation.

  73. 73.

    Hal

    February 23, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    Wonder what Boner would have said before the election if someone asked him if a health care replacement would blitz through congress?

  74. 74.

    Captain C

    February 23, 2017 at 2:27 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Untrue. 4 Peaks Brewery makes excellent beer.

  75. 75.

    TaMara (HFG)

    February 23, 2017 at 2:27 pm

    @ruemara: I could not agree with this comment more. Reap/sow.

  76. 76.

    LAO

    February 23, 2017 at 2:28 pm

    @Roger Moore: How scared are these Republicans? Pretty frightened, it appears.

  77. 77.

    Aleta

    February 23, 2017 at 2:28 pm

    Expose every one of them, defeat every one of them, investigate every one, prosecute everyone prosecutable, diminish every one of them, keep trailing every one, commit every one of them to oblivion.
    But they are not stupid, they are not going to give up or change, and they have a lot of power and manipulative wiliness.

  78. 78.

    Tokyokie

    February 23, 2017 at 2:29 pm

    @geg6: Seeing as my great-grandmother was named after a Confederate general (as were her four sisters, but they all had traditional women’s first names and Confederate middle names; my ancestor was merely “Wade Hampton”), I’m glad that didn’t happen. Although that part of my family was in Arkansas, so I guess Sherman would have missed them.

  79. 79.

    Captain C

    February 23, 2017 at 2:29 pm

    @geg6: The War Nerd has a couple excellent articles on why Sherman was right, and who should have been hanged after the war.

  80. 80.

    AliceBlue

    February 23, 2017 at 2:32 pm

    @Corner Stone: @Corner Stone:
    Christ on a saltine cracker. All I was doing was replying to a commenter who was of the opinion that all southern whites should have been killed at the end of the Civil War. I simply said that not all southerners are RWNJs.

  81. 81.

    Ridnik Chrome

    February 23, 2017 at 2:32 pm

    @LAO: That’s the way I like to see ’em…

  82. 82.

    trollhattan

    February 23, 2017 at 2:32 pm

    @Ridnik Chrome:
    Here’s hoping the rich people and bidnezmen in premiere class send a message via a (well-crafted) boot to the administration’s ass for adding yet another unnecessary annoyance to their flights.

  83. 83.

    billcoop4

    February 23, 2017 at 2:33 pm

    @AliceBlue:

    – I’m willing to bet some of Trump’s voters are descendants of Union army solders.

    Given the appalling number* of Confederate Battle-flags visible in upstate NY, Vermont, and other parts of Yankeedom, that’s a winning bet.

    * While even 1 is appalling in that part of the country, the number is much higher than 1.

    WMC

  84. 84.

    Jay S

    February 23, 2017 at 2:33 pm

    @LAO:Not much of a stretch to conspiracy once you criminalize protest.

  85. 85.

    Corner Stone

    February 23, 2017 at 2:34 pm

    @LAO: I don’t know anymore. I have been risk averse for a number of years now for reasons. I have recently been pondering where that ends.

  86. 86.

    trollhattan

    February 23, 2017 at 2:35 pm

    @Ian G.: Reconstruction would have been administered quite differently without the efforts of Mr. Booth. We’ll never know.

  87. 87.

    LAO

    February 23, 2017 at 2:35 pm

    @Ridnik Chrome: But scaredy-cat Republicans make terrible law — some of which actually passes court review. (see PATRIOT ACT).

  88. 88.

    hovercraft

    February 23, 2017 at 2:35 pm

    Remember that the pressure is coming from all fronts.

    The travails of being Donald Trump’s Secretary of State

    By Steve Benen

    Rex Tillerson, Trump’s Secretary of State, is in Mexico today, trying to clean up the mess the president created by antagonizing our neighbor. There’s been a lot of that happening lately, with Tillerson in “perpetual cleanup mode,” trying to reassure countries rattled by the president’s antics.

    Making matters worse, the Washington Post reports that the State Department itself has been sidelined by the White House.

    The Trump administration in its first month has largely benched the State Department from its long-standing role as the pre­eminent voice of U.S. foreign policy, curtailing public engagement and official travel and relegating Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to a mostly offstage role.

    Decisions on hiring, policy and scheduling are being driven by a White House often wary of the foreign policy establishment and struggling to set priorities and write policy on the fly.

    For weeks, it seems the president has largely ignored Tillerson, not bothering to even alert him to developments that would affect his duties. When the White House unveiled its Muslim ban, for example, no one provided Tillerson with any details about the policy in advance, and Tillerson was forced to tell West Wing officials “that he was baffled over not being consulted.”

    When Trump balked at a two-state solution in the Middle East, the Secretary of State learned about it by watching the comments live on television, and no one from the State Department was welcome at the meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When the White House put Iran “on notice” a week earlier, no one checked in with State about this, either.

    There are 116 positions at the State Department that require Senate approval, and as of this morning, 111 don’t yet have nominees. By some accounts, these slots are vacant because of a standoff between Tillerson and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus over who would take the lead in choosing personnel.

    Tillerson, you’ll recall, wanted Elliott Abrams as his deputy – a choice Trump vetoed because of Abrams’ pre-election criticism of his candidacy.

    Politico reports today, meanwhile, that Tillerson is struggling with the perception that he’s “out of the loop on major foreign policy decisions,” and “just three weeks after Tillerson took office, it’s clear that his tenure is already in trouble.”

    I’d love to know what Trump told Tillerson before he was offered the job, and whether the former ExxonMobil CEO had any idea what he was getting himself into.

    SAD ! So SAD !

  89. 89.

    MCA1

    February 23, 2017 at 2:36 pm

    @AliceBlue: There’d be a lot less of the revanchist in our body politic if we’d not allowed the klan to rise and Jim Crow to replace formal slavery and the glorious South mythology to gain acceptance, and we’d instead made the confederate states grovel and admit to their sins and hanged a lot more of them. I totally get Grant’s decisionmaking process as President, and I understand Lincoln calling off the dogs and not having Sherman just bust the hell out of the whole South. I revere those guys and their morality is a shining star. But strategically, over the long haul, it probably would have been the better move to just completely decimate the South, as showing it mercy did not exactly bring about contrition. Maybe that wouldn’t have eliminated racism in America, but it would have set back institutionalized racism so far society would be able to outrun it, and we wouldn’t be where we are now, where the entire southeastern corner of the country is run on anti-intellectualism and proud ignorance, resentment and sophomoric stick-in-the-eye guerilla warfare, all tinged with bigotry and cultural backwardness. Regardless whether some liberals live in Chapel Hill and Charlottesville.

  90. 90.

    LAO

    February 23, 2017 at 2:36 pm

    @Jay S: especially under RICO statutes (I understand that Arizona’s does not require a “overt act” — ie that a personal actually does something to contribute to the conspiracy)

  91. 91.

    LAO

    February 23, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    @Corner Stone: you’re not alone on that.

  92. 92.

    Tokyokie

    February 23, 2017 at 2:40 pm

    @LAO: Prior restraints of free speech are usually barred by the courts, so this legislation is of dubious legality, but as others have pointed out, somebody has to have the standing and finances to challenge the law.

  93. 93.

    hovercraft

    February 23, 2017 at 2:45 pm

    Suspect In Kansas Triple Shooting Allegedly Yelled ‘Get Out Of My Country’

    A suspect arrested on Thursday in connection with a triple shooting in Olathe, Kansas, allegedly shouted “get out of my country” before opening fire and later told a bartender that he had killed two Middle Eastern men, according to a report by the Kansas City Star.

    The Olathe Police Department responded to reports of shots fired at Austin’s Bar and Grill in Olathe on Wednesday night. Three men with gunshot wounds were transported to area hospitals, where one victim later died.

    According to a Wednesday report by the Kansas City Star, the suspect fled on foot. The suspect was arrested at approximately 12:40 a.m. and the case remains under investigation, according to police.

    Adam Purinton, a 51-year-old resident of Olathe identified by the Kansas City Star as the suspect arrested early Thursday morning, reportedly told a bartender at an Applebee’s in Clinton that he had killed two Middle Eastern men and needed somewhere to hide.

    Garmin officials identified two of the victims, who worked at the company’s Aviation Systems Engineering team in Olathe, as Alok Madasani and Srinivas Kuchibhotla. In an email to employees, officials wrote that Kuchibhotla was the deceased victim, according to the Kansas City Star’s report on Thursday.

    The Kansas City Star identified the third victim as Ian Grillot.

    Both Madasani and Kuchibhotla have Indian universities listed on their Linkedin pages.

    The Henry County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to TPM that Purinton is being held at the county jail but did not immediately confirm whether he has been charged.

    Purinton was booked for first-degree murder but has not officially been charged yet, according to a report by local CBS affiliate KCTV.

    A clerk at the Henry County Courthouse did not immediately respond to TPM’s attempt to confirm if Purinton has been charged.

    He felt comfortable enough to brag about killing “middle eastern” men and ask for somewhere to hide.
    Seriously WTF Kansas.

  94. 94.

    The Moar You Know

    February 23, 2017 at 2:47 pm

    Read Sherman’s autobiography. It is a GREAT book.

    FWIW: he thought the South should have been stripped of statehood, redistricted into military districts, never allowed to vote or re-arm in any way, including personal arms. My family’s from there. Think he had it right.

    Also, the “burn ’em all” thing was a little more complex than that. You will probably laugh. He made a deal with every town he marched through: you give us no trouble, we leave you alone. ONE of my men gets shot and we steal everything you have that can be taken and burn the rest to the ground.

    He ended up burning every town he marched through. Those people just couldn’t help themselves, even at the cost of everything including their lives.

  95. 95.

    Jay S

    February 23, 2017 at 2:49 pm

    @LAO: We are headed towards a “papers please” environment (without the “please”), but I find it hard to see fighting that particular battle as a winner. Public support for refusal is likely to be nil. I assume courts will be very deferential without strong evidence of bad faith.

  96. 96.

    Chet Murthy

    February 23, 2017 at 2:53 pm

    @Ian G.: I don’t disagree with the sentiment. If I thought it was completely safe (as in: “I won’t get beaten up, even here in SF”), I’d wear one of those “Heat a Peach (Sherman Georgia 1864 Tour” shirts). But ….

    Martin van Creveld pointed out (learned this from LG&M, then read his book) that no modern conqueror has vanquished an insurgency. Specifically, that no conqueror in modern times has imposed a political settlement on an uncooperative population. Basically, short of genocide, they can and will resist and bleed the conquering army white. The lesson one can draw about the South is, that the failure of Reconstruction (and the re-immiseration of black Americans) was baked into the cake. Not fun to contemplate, but I buy the argument. There was no way Lincoln was going to sign up for genocide of the entire white Southern population, even if it were feasible.

    The only way it’ll change, is if we outbreed them. I look to my Latino brothers and sisters to do their part. Down with white supremacy! Up with the Latino birth rate!

  97. 97.

    LAO

    February 23, 2017 at 2:54 pm

    @Jay S: I “hear” you. Doesn’t mean that it’s not a battle worth fighting. My query was meant as a personal question, I’m thinking about it.

  98. 98.

    Gelfling 545

    February 23, 2017 at 2:55 pm

    Yep. Keep showing up. At very least it will annoy them which can only be a good thing. I want them sleepless from worry..

  99. 99.

    Corner Stone

    February 23, 2017 at 2:56 pm

    @AliceBlue: #NotAllWhiteSoutherners

  100. 100.

    Chet Murthy

    February 23, 2017 at 2:56 pm

    @LAO: Something I wonder about (I live in CA, so it doesn’t affect me): how does “asset forfeiture” work? If my assets aren’t in the state of AZ, how can the state go after them? Doe sit come down to “either give ’em up or rot in jail”?

    I get that for federal crimes, the USG can go after anything in the US. But this isn’t a federal crime.

  101. 101.

    Barbara

    February 23, 2017 at 2:59 pm

    @Jay S: What papers? The only identification I routinely carry is a driver’s license which does not provide any information about immigration status. Most Americans don’t have passports and do not routinely carry around a birth certificate. Most Americans would have difficulty proving their legal status within this country on the fly. I am not an idiot, I realize that the plan is to single out people who look, dress or talk like “foreigners,” but upon what pretense? In the past a national identity card has been met with something close to hysteria bordering on maniacal panic, as a conspiracy of a one world government to track people — but I don’t see how you can insist on making people prove their identity and/or legal status for an increasing number of reasons without moving to a system that provides people with valid government issued identification at the federal level.

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    February 23, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    @Chris:

    Yes, unfortunately, the bad pathologies that are at first associated with the South tend to spread elsewhere. The Ku Klux Klan and the Confederate flag are both examples. Southern and separatist originally, which eventually became generic white nationalist things everywhere in America.

    I have no idea why some folk want to pretend that American Apartheid was some special evil of the South that spilled over into other states. The United States was and is, unfortunately, built upon racism and bigotry.

  103. 103.

    Corner Stone

    February 23, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    He ended up burning every town he marched through. Those people just couldn’t help themselves, even at the cost of everything including their lives.

    I agree that I laugh at the idea he made the offer and then somehow “had” to burn every town he marched through.
    Allowing a guerrilla insurgency a place to re-establish supply lines and communications on his flank does not sound like a very smart idea for a brilliant military commander.
    In short, he was always going to burn everything down. No fig leaves needed.

  104. 104.

    Gelfling 545

    February 23, 2017 at 3:03 pm

    @Oatler.: My sister’s ex sister in law, whom she rather likes, moved here from AZ where she lived most of her life. She is spending a lot of time deprogramming her. Looks promising now that she’s out of that environment.

  105. 105.

    Chris

    February 23, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m not suggesting that it was ever a Southern thing. I’m suggesting that expressions of it specific to the South have a tendency to spread to the entire country, precisely because it’s not just a Southern thing.

  106. 106.

    Gelfling 545

    February 23, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    @trollhattan: I remember that he planned to show China who was boss. It appears to be China.

  107. 107.

    LAO

    February 23, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    @Chet Murthy: I’m not sure. If a state obtains a judgment against an individual or his/her property and that property is located in a different state — I assume that the “Full Faith and Credit” Clause would apply, requiring the state where the property is located to enforce the judgment.

  108. 108.

    Roger Moore

    February 23, 2017 at 3:07 pm

    @MCA1:

    But strategically, over the long haul, it probably would have been the better move to just completely decimate the South, as showing it mercy did not exactly bring about contrition.

    That assumes there was any stomach to do that in the North. The plain and brutal truth is that the North was never unified in the decision to fight the war in the first place, and even supporters had very different ideas about how the South should be treated after the war. There were a lot of people who were willing to fight only to preserve the Union and who didn’t care about slavery, and many of the people who wanted abolition didn’t give a damn about blacks as human beings.

  109. 109.

    Brachiator

    February 23, 2017 at 3:09 pm

    @Barbara:

    What papers? The only identification I routinely carry is a driver’s license which does not provide any information about immigration status. Most Americans don’t have passports and do not routinely carry around a birth certificate. Most Americans would have difficulty proving their legal status within this country on the fly.

    Yep. Well said. Half the time, I don’t even carry a driver’s license or other state ID with me. I have my smartphone, but I don’t think anything in it constitutes a legal ID (yet).

    In the past a national identity card has been met with something close to hysteria bordering on maniacal panic, as a conspiracy of a one world government to track people

    Yes! In the past, these dopes would claim that the Social Security Card was the first step toward an evil form of mandatory federal ID. Now, these simpletons are eager to give government power over them, even though they think they can stop anything once Mexicans and Muslims are taken care of.

  110. 110.

    Mnemosyne

    February 23, 2017 at 3:11 pm

    @LAO:

    I’m going to be traveling domestically in a few weeks, and meeting my two nieces (11 and 16) on the other end. Sadly, I would feel forced to show my ID because I can’t leave two kids stranded in a strange city.

    All bets are off on the return flight, though.

  111. 111.

    Chris

    February 23, 2017 at 3:12 pm

    @Brachiator:

    See above @ 105. “The bad pathologies” referred specifically to things like the flag or the Klan rather than the entire phenomenon of white supremacism, though I can see that was terribly phrased on my part. Mea culpa.

  112. 112.

    Jay S

    February 23, 2017 at 3:14 pm

    @Barbara: Real ID was supposed to be the cure. The federal government is slowly ratcheting down on non conforming states.

  113. 113.

    Chris

    February 23, 2017 at 3:15 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Yeah. I can think of a lot of things that could’ve been done better. They all run into the problem that the people of the North in general didn’t care enough about black people to put the necessary energy into rebuilding the South as a more democratic and egalitarian society; and that the robber-baron elites that were taking over the country at that time were very much not interested in seeing the South (or any part of the country) becoming more democratic and egalitarian.

  114. 114.

    LAO

    February 23, 2017 at 3:20 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I used to joke that as a middle aged Jewish woman in Manhattan, I was in a demographic that was invisible to the police — I would have to literally be on fire, in the middle of the street, to attract the attention of the NYPD. But now I’m thinking — I may finally get the opportunity to get myself arrested.

  115. 115.

    tybee

    February 23, 2017 at 3:21 pm

    @AliceBlue:

    ’tis indeed amusing to see the “pure” amongst us advocating genocide, no?

  116. 116.

    Miss Bianca

    February 23, 2017 at 3:21 pm

    @germy: Nothing. There’s nothing to stop them from trying it. Just like routine violation of the 4th Amendment over drug busts and seizures. if a corrupt authority wants to take your stuff away, they will try it.

    ETA: Note, the accent should be on the “try”. Whether they succeed is another matter. But anything that makes Liberal Jesus cry is reason enough for Jesus Cleeks to try it.

  117. 117.

    Corner Stone

    February 23, 2017 at 3:21 pm

    @Chris:

    that the people of the North in general didn’t care enough about black people to put the necessary energy into rebuilding the South as a more democratic and egalitarian society

    Man, talk about a genius of understatement. I thought you were French, not British?

  118. 118.

    Corner Stone

    February 23, 2017 at 3:23 pm

    @tybee: You have no idea where you are right now, do you?

  119. 119.

    Brachiator

    February 23, 2017 at 3:24 pm

    @Chris:

    See above @ 105. “The bad pathologies” referred specifically to things like the flag or the Klan rather than the entire phenomenon of white supremacism, though I can see that was terribly phrased on my part. Mea culpa.

    OK. I see your point.

  120. 120.

    Hurling Dervish

    February 23, 2017 at 3:25 pm

    Sherman was a family cousin and used to spend the summer with our family after the war. When my gr gr uncles were boys, they saw Sherman coming up the walk and ran and hid under the table clothed table. There, they saw shiny boots clack across the floor and stop at the table.

    “You come out from there,” he bellowed. “Or I’ll send the big gums in and blow you out!”

    And out they came and stood at attention.

  121. 121.

    Suzanne

    February 23, 2017 at 3:26 pm

    @germy:

    Well, the Arizona senate passed it. I hope somebody strikes it down.

    That’s because they’re all crazy and/or evil and/or stupid. (My state senator, the most excellent Sean Bowie, excepted). Did you see the fresh hell they wrought today about using all medical skill to keep dying fetuses alive?

    I’m with John. Keep the pressure on. Kick ass, and chew bubblegum.

  122. 122.

    tybee

    February 23, 2017 at 3:27 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    you’re just another loudmouth from tex-ass.

    perhaps you and yours should have been exterminated as well.

  123. 123.

    Roger Moore

    February 23, 2017 at 3:31 pm

    @Barbara:

    In the past a national identity card has been met with something close to hysteria bordering on maniacal panic, as a conspiracy of a one world government to track people — but I don’t see how you can insist on making people prove their identity and/or legal status for an increasing number of reasons without moving to a system that provides people with valid government issued identification at the federal level.

    I think you’re missing the point. The goal is to require people to be able to prove their citizenship but not provide them the means. That makes it easy to harass or deport anyone who looks suspiciously foreign, i.e. not white.

  124. 124.

    laura

    February 23, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    @LAO: I would politely ask to see the warrant.
    Absent a warrant, I would decline, and make a strong effort to not suggest they go fuck themselves.

  125. 125.

    Corner Stone

    February 23, 2017 at 3:57 pm

    @tybee: Get some help, old timer.

  126. 126.

    Jim Parene

    February 23, 2017 at 4:05 pm

    @geg6: Amen!

  127. 127.

    Lurking Canadian

    February 23, 2017 at 4:11 pm

    @Roger Moore: I have heard (though I didn’t read the source material) that the new instructions provided to ICE this week give agents the power to deport people they “suspect” of being illegal aliens. There’s no way that’s legal, but Trump doesn’t worry about technicalities like that.

  128. 128.

    ruemara

    February 23, 2017 at 4:13 pm

    s.@The Moar You Know: lol, whether decended from those fools or not, they are certainly their children.

  129. 129.

    The Dudeist

    February 23, 2017 at 4:17 pm

    @Jeffro: If I go to a protest and I had peaceful intentions but some nuts decide to loot the Starbucks, how am I or any peaceful protestor responsible for nutjobs? If a friend of mine is a murderer and he is arrested do I get convicted by being a friend when it’s clear I had no idea he was evil? Guilty by association is not going to hold up legally.

  130. 130.

    MCA1

    February 23, 2017 at 4:26 pm

    @Roger Moore: All fair points. There were also family ties. And, we didn’t have the benefit of having seen the divergent responses by Germany in regards to their treatment after the two separate world wars they started, which colors our view today (structural dynamic, political and economic circumstance differences noted, of course, but I think there’s some consensus that they weren’t made to “own” WWI enough, and that Germany’s been a model world citizen post-1945).

    I nonetheless regret the dog’s nose not being more thoroughly rubbed in the dump they left on the living room carpet in the immediate post-bellum South. Even if it didn’t revolve around renouncing racism (obviously, the North was not in some enlightened enough place on the matter to ask for that), a broader recognition of the treason involved, and forced apologies for inflicting the unnecessary costs of that war on everyone, not limited to just dead Union soldiers, would likely have helped. And probably would have been supported by a broad majority of Northern constituencies. [As an aside, I think it also would probably have been helpful if the North hadn’t eventually mythologized its own role in the Civil War as though every last Unioner at the time was an unblemished abolitionist true believer from Boston or something. My personal opinion is that while claims the war wasn’t primarily about the preservation of chattel slavery for the South is a lie that should never go unchallenged, it’s also a bit of a lie to say it follows that it was mostly about slavery for the North, too. It’s probably more true to say we’ve got it backwards: the war actually was in large part about states’ rights, only for the North, in support of crushing said rights.]

    I submit that we’d have had a different dynamic than one where the lies about states’ rights and Northern aggression started spreading almost immediately, and Gone with The Wind wasn’t laughed at as self-serving apologia, and millions of crackers today honestly don’t see what the big deal with the Confederate battle flag is, and Lee’s primary place in history is as a brilliant tactician and not someone for whom (in the absolute friendliest interpretation) state meant more than country, and athletic teams at the flagship university of the state of Mississippi unapologetically carry the name of secessionists and no one bats an eye. I find it difficult to believe that allowing the mythologization (word?) of the Civil War in the South hasn’t led to some of the “f you you can’t tell me what to do you condescending big city asshole global warming’s a hoax take back our country!” attitude that informs a lot of Republicanism in the South, and by extension elsewhere, today (and, yes, Democratic attitudes, mostly in the South, before LBJ willingly cut the Dixiecrats loose). They’re still rebelling, and the Civil War never ended, in part because they weren’t sufficiently shamed and forced to admit defeat publicly enough.

    Woulda helped if the northern robber barons hadn’t shown up and plucked everything they could off the carcass, of course, too. But that may not have happened the way it did if there’d been enough reconciliation immediately post-war to allow the North to take pity and actually rebuild the South instead of pretend to do so begrudgingly.

  131. 131.

    Seanly

    February 23, 2017 at 4:41 pm

    @Ridnik Chrome:

    I would tell a muthafugger off. How does that not violate the 4th Amendment? I am aware there is a border exception, but applying that to domesticate flights terminating at an international airport seems a willful violation.

    Back on topic, JC calls it right. Total & complete war with these jerks. We can’t just take back a few House seats in 2018. We need to win at the states and national level.

  132. 132.

    sunny raines

    February 23, 2017 at 5:00 pm

    “he said changes to former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement would likely be relatively modest.”

    and yet beohner was the republican leader during much of his party’s travesty of lies and dissembling against ACA. One of these days someone is going to discover the truth of how today’s republicans live with themselves.

  133. 133.

    TenguPhule

    February 23, 2017 at 5:32 pm

    @AliceBlue: Apologies to the exceptions to the rule.

  134. 134.

    J R in WV

    February 23, 2017 at 6:44 pm

    @germy:

    LG&M just now came up for me OK using a saved link. Individual stories/threads too.

  135. 135.

    tybee

    February 23, 2017 at 7:42 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    did you ever figure out which of your parents was the whore?

    you seemed to be confused about which one was.

    you’re the one advocating genocide. you should seek help but loud mouth tex-ass folks like you are incapable of realizing what a sick sack of shit you are and won’t figure out that you REALLY need help.

    you should really work on your parental issues. you’ll never be free until you decide which one was….

  136. 136.

    J R in WV

    February 23, 2017 at 10:07 pm

    @Chris:

    This!! We here in WVa seceded from Virginia to remain loyal members of the Union, in opposition to the Confederacy, which seceded from the Union in order to keep human beings in bondage slavery forever. They talk about state’s rights, but the only sentence different in the two constitutions was to enshrine slavery forever, the only state’s right of interest to the Confederacy was slavery.

    Just as now, Republicans bray about state’s rights when they approve of that right, like abortion restrictions, and cut off talk of state’s rights when it is a right they disapprove of, like legalized marijuana. Lot of money in illegal drugs, wonder who’s paying for those state’s rights?

    Anyway, how exactly did WV, which was never a Jim Crow state, wind up a redneck confederate flag flying bunch of bigots? Mysterious to me.

  137. 137.

    mohagan

    February 23, 2017 at 10:36 pm

    @JMS: My two favorite Civil War generals (after the first day of the battle of Shiloh). One of my favorite quotes, along with “Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other always”.

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