Point:
Dana Loesch, the St. Louis, MO based conservative commentator, made the following membership drive (I think it’s to promote joining, but it’s hard to tell) video for the National Rifle Association back in April. For some reason it floated below the surface until it got noticed on social media this week.
I think Josh Marshall’s analysis is pretty accurate:
That NRA vid is highly reminiscent of the nazi propaganda videos interspersing video of rats and filth with hook nosed Jews.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 29, 2017
Counterpoint:
(Image 1: Ryan Payne from a 2014 Missoula Independent cover/profile)
This past week Federal prosecutors in Oregon made sentencing request for some of the people that followed Ammon Bundy in occupying the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. The Oregonian reports:
The government will recommend Ryan Payne receive three years and five months in custody, the longest sentence of those who entered guilty pleas to conspiracy, Gabriel said.
Payne is still facing Federal charges in Nevada related to his actions in the Bunkerville standoff. As The Missoula Independent reports, was:
On April 7, Ryan Payne, a 30-year-old Iraq War veteran, packed his ’93 Jeep Cherokee with two sleeping bags, two cots, the rucksack he’d more or less lived out of during his five years in the military and a Rock River Arms Operator LAR-15. He was on his way to the southern Nevada desert to defend the oppressed from the tyrannical force of the federal government, and he knew he might have to fight.
As people came, Payne emerged—reluctantly, he says—as the militia’s de facto leader.
“I’m an advisor and coordinator for OMA,” Payne says, “and I was Mr. Bundy’s militia liaison. He would tell me what he had planned, and then I would advise him as to what the militia could accomplish in support of that.”
He organized the militia into units and pursued the objectives he and Bundy had agreed upon. As he set about planning a strategy for accomplishing those goals, Payne drew heavily on his Army experience.
Stay frosty!
Adam L Silverman
Before anyone asks, here’s what the Armed Intelligentsia had to say:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2017/06/daniel-zimmerman/vedder-holsters-daily-digest-59/
LAO
I’m still pissed off about the acquittals. Harrumph!
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: I know. It’s why I sent you that mixed caliber of ammunition gift basket from Militias R Us to cheer you up. I also enrolled you in their weapon of the month club!
Cris (without an H)
Sadly, the Missoula Independent was recently acquired by Lee Enterprises, the corporate media entity that owns the big daily papers in pretty much every population center in Montana. https://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/you-know-that-lee-bought-the-indy-do-you-know-why/Content?oid=3887004
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: I can’t wait. In honor of July 4th — I’m expecting a beautiful, new AR-15 (with stars and stripes, natch).
Adam L Silverman
@LAO:
https://overpassesforamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/stars-and-stripes-ar-15.jpg
Alain the site fixer
@Cris (without an H): I’m shocked that Lee could buy a thing! They were worth fractions of pennies on the dollars in the early 2010s and were expected to sell to Gannett or someone else with lots of money to underwrite their losses.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: Yesssss! That’s what I’m talking about!
MomSense
@LAO:
Same here! I’m still fuming about it.
pvmike
So am I a arugula-eating special snowflake or a rabid left-wing monster that you need to take up arms against and join the NRA so you have a safe space to hang with other Rambo cosplayers?
I am also still not happy about the acquittals.
GregB
These weak, effeminate, surrendering, romper wearing, arugula eating, latte drinking, Volvo driving, metrosexual liberals terrify me.
Where is my 50 caliber Desert Eagle to help put me in my safe space.
Alain the site fixer
Hey I just figured out why my mobile site edits aren’t showing – I’m not looking at my test server. See y’all later!
Betty Cracker
That Loesch video is absolutely unhinged. According to her, the reason it bobbed to the surface this week is that the NRA started a Facebook page and posted it. I don’t know if that’s true or not, since Loesch is a habitual liar. Unfortunately, though she is a crackpot, she’s not a fringe figure with a podcast and an all-militia goon following. I’ve seen her on CNN and mainstream network programs.
The Moar You Know
@Adam L Silverman: With Green Tip ammo to boot. It’s a little overkill but I wouldn’t toss it out of the safe.
TenguPhule
Has anyone commented yet on the FBI getting knocked for apparently lying about part of the Oregon standoff shooting?
FFS, they really didn’t need that kind of shit to give ammunition (pardon the pun) to the Fascist scum.
TenguPhule
@LAO:
Everyone knows the real patriots will have an image of Barechested Putin on a charging warbear on their rifles.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: you’re such a good friend!
TenguPhule
Tell me again how we’re supposed to peacefully coexist with these people.
LAO
@TenguPhule: The agent was charged in a 5 count indictment. He should be convicted for his sheer stupidity in giving these nut jobs ammunition.
EBT
@TenguPhule: reading what the actual charge is, it has nothing to do with Noted Child Abuser “LaVoy” Finnicum being rightfully gunned down. It has t do with an overzealous agent shooting at the car while it was moving and then lying about it.
SFAW
Juden und Muslime ‘raus, Tod macht frei, baby!
— Big fucking tapestry (a gift to him from Shitgibbon) in Oberst Bannon’s office
Yarrow
That video is unhinged. It’s just “they,” “they,” “they” who are trying to hurt you. Over and over. Propaganda designed to create fear. Does a good job of that.
Somewhat off topic, but it is an open thread, found this very interesting:
So…even Republicans think Trump is too crazy to have unlimited access to using military force?
EBT
@TenguPhule: As I get older, it starts to become clear that far right conservatives reject the inherent idea of peaceful coexistence. I feel no need to apply it to those that reject it. Bigotry for the bigots, intolerance for the intolerant.
LAO
The Moar You Know
@TenguPhule: They’re why I still own guns. I’m deeply afraid that they will not be willing to peacefully co-exist with us for much longer.
Frankensteinbeck
@pvmike: and @GregB:
It’s about whether you’re black. White liberals are weak and effeminate. Blacks are raging man-apes with the minds of spoiled toddlers. Those are the tropes conservatives think about. They do allow rare exceptions, but that’s the idea.
Karen
I grew up in family that hunted and 22 for killing vermin; we used to get a lot of rabid small animals, but there were rules. All weapons were adult only and no clue where Dad kept the bolt to his hunting rifle; we had to pass a safety course taught by Marine in family before allowed to even touch family weapon.
I have a “friend” who bought her twin 6 year old twin girls pink rifles; they live in suburbs and feel the need to keep themselves safe from anyone not white or straight.
Repatriated
@Yarrow:
First thought: Yep
Second thought: There’s a more open-ended replacement already written and waiting for a precipitating event.
Third thought: Declaring victory and going home.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: I first saw it referenced in regard to that Facebook page. But I also follow/read/track the firearms sites and there was no mention on the largest one, which I linked to in comment 1, until this week. I think it simply got lost in the shuffle of the NRA’s youtube page. Apparently it’s part of a NRA video series entitled Freedom’s Safest Place:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyaSPxNidLLuxQRIGMUUFi_6s8xLoBYxO
Villago Delenda Est
The NRA is a terrorist organization. Full stop.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Yep, saw the reporting on that.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
You know, what struck me was how angry she is. She’s really seething there. I swear, conservatives pretty much have free rein now. They can do anything they want. All liberals can do right now is speak, and yet it seems like conservatives are in a worse mood today than they were a year ago, or even eight years ago. What exactly are these people so pissed off about? I really don’t understand this.
TenguPhule
@EBT:
Which is a problem. A bad one. Their credibility does not need this. Especially now.
Adam L Silverman
@The Moar You Know: I’m not a big fan of the fancy paint jobs. Some of the art and artistry is excellent, but if I’m looking for color, then dark earth or coyote or burnt bronze is about as far as I’m willing to go.
Amir Khalid
@Cris (without an H):
This is news to me. I wasn’t aware that Montana had population centres.
EBT
@Karen: that family needs to have both its children and it’s guns removed now.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: That’s me: Mr. Thoughtful…
EBT
@TenguPhule: it sure is a problem, but Finicum got what he needed more than anything else in the world. And he is already forgotten, just like his Idol george lincoln rockwell.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: “…with half a dozen magazines for you!”
TenguPhule
@Karen:
How does she think that is even going to work? Somebody is going to wear a black hat at a distance and stand still to be shot like in a video game? The children I’ll feel sorry for when the inevitable happens, the mother, sorry but fuck her.
Adam L Silverman
@EBT: Yep. And the quick release of the actual overhead surveillance video went a long way to keeping the conspiracies from spreading very far in this case. There are some dead enders that believe he was forced on his knees and executed with a shot from behind, but even most of his supporters didn’t buy into the conspiracy theories once they saw the video.
efgoldman
@Frankensteinbeck:
And as we’ve noted before, the worst racists live where there aren’t any black people!
TenguPhule
@EBT:
You haven’t been keeping an ear to the militia gunnuts then. They’re making him a (figuratively) fucking patron saint murdered by “evil liberal conspiracy controlling the government”. This is only going to feed that mythos.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman:
Feature, not a bug.
Amir Khalid
@Yarrow:
Trump is too crazy to have access to his own Twitter account, let alone to the military might of the Yew Ess Aay.
efgoldman
@Repatriated:
Fourth thought: Shitgibbon, like most recent presidents, will send troops where and when he wants, AUMF or no.
The only power congress has is the actual power of the purse. Absent that, it’s “nyah, nyah stop me!” time.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
The first time I was at all aware of her was several years ago, when she endorsed (on national television, CNN I think) news reports that Marines in Afghanistan had killed several Taliban and then peed on their corpses. Loesch’s response was basically “I’d drop trou and pee on them too.” Hadn’t heard her name before that, and had forgotten all about her until this thread. Now I would like to return to that state of ignorance.
TenguPhule
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
The answer is there in your own question.
They want compliance. Or us dead. They’re just not picky over which one it is.
lgerard
Dana Loesch should stick with her day job, spokesmodel for the supplement scam SuperBeets
Shalimar
@TenguPhule: The vast majority of them are even more terrified than they are angry. They aren’t going out to participate in any military cosplay, though they will cheer it on. How many assorted crazies actually attended Malheur compared to the number who talked about it? They want a war, but they aren’t going to fight in it.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman:
“They have passed their budget, now let them come and try to enforce it!”
/Yeah, I know Trump isn’t able to say that because the words are too big for him, but that’s what its going to come down to in the end.
LAO
@Karen:
I learned to shoot at a very young age (around 7 or so) and the thought of “pink” weapons enrages me. Guns aren’t toys and gun manufactures shouldn’t be striving to make them more toy like! I really hate people right now. Harrumph (2d this thread).
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: I was running down some of the data underlying Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s recent book Everybody Lies, and one of his supporting datasets was an analysis of Nielsen DMA’s (TV markets) sorted by prevalence of racist Google searches. Tops on the list, IIRC, was Morgantown, WV. Second – Utica, NY. Utica!
Westyny
@Betty Cracker: Betty, I may be your most ardent anonymous admirer, but I have to respectfully disagree: she is a crackpot. The fact that she is occasionally seen on CNN says more about the network and the news media than it does about her claim to sanity or, at least, probity.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker:
Pretty much anyone can be seen on CNN since they have no filter or standards but I get your point. Ms. Loesch is a typical Rightwing extremist. I’m surprised that Trump hasn’t picked her for a plump position.
Shalimar
@lgerard: That SuperBeets scam doctor looks super skeevy. I wouldn’t buy a used car from him. What I wonder: Is that the look they were casting for, or was he the best they could get?
TenguPhule
@Shalimar:
They will, as long as they can hide in the dark and assume they will never get caught.
Quinerly
OT: Bloody Bill Kristol has just tweeted back at the POTUS, “You are a pig. Sincerely, Bill Kristol.”
Shalimar
@Patricia Kayden: Loesch famously sued Breitbart to get out of her contract and basically accused them of indentured servitude with their employees. She still has an audience and does very well because there are myriad funding sources in wingnut land, but I doubt she is highly thought of by the Bannons and Priebuses who do the Trump administration hiring.
TenguPhule
@Quinerly:
Pigs across the nation promptly filed a libel suit against Bill Kristol.
sherparick
@Betty Cracker: A grifter gotta grift.@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Resentment and anger are a kind of drug physiologically, firing up the body with endorphin. As in so much, George Orwell captured the purpose of group exercise in hate.
…The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.[1] ”
….Within the book (1984), the purpose of the Two Minutes Hate is said to satisfy the citizens’ subdued feelings of angst and hatred from leading such a wretched, controlled existence. By re-directing these subconscious feelings away from the Oceanian government and toward external enemies (which may not even exist), the Party minimises subversive thought and behavior….”
Karen
@EBT: they are “good church going christians” most of the men even conceal carry to church services to keep their families “safe”
when I commented to her about poor choice of gift for spoiled 6 year olds, she unfriended me on facebook and blocked me there and email
personally I believe that gun makers should not be making child sized weapons in colors and pushing them as christmas gifts; these are the people who vote for idiots and are proud members of NRA
jimmiraybob
Given how much of their frothing vocal effluent comes directly from their gut via their asses, I would think that a more accurate fighting anthem would be, The Clenched Sphincter of Abdominal Distress. But that’s just me.
Mart
My town seems so nice yet it produces nasty pieces of work like the Gateway Pundit, Phyllis Schlafly, and Dana Loesch. Must be something in the air.
Bobby Thomson
What a bunch of pu5513s.
Karen
@LAO: I learned to shoot at young age, no clue how young, but that was only with an adult supervising and wasn’t allowed to handle rifle without supervision until I could prove I knew it was for killing not for “fun and games”
Bill
I had no idea the actress from Law & Order SVU had such fucked up ideas.
LAO
@Karen: Me, too. Strict supervision and definitely taught not a toy.
Bobby Thomson
@Mart: and Darren Wilson.
trnc
Ah, yes, the threat of liberals who oppress poor and middle class gun owners by lowering their taxes and trying to make it more difficult for actual crazy people to get guns.
Quinerly
@TenguPhule:
I still find it amazing that 4 MSNBC shows have covered the tweet without repeating what Trump said. BTW McCain is “embarrassed” by the tweet. Another Repug Rep needs “context.”
Betty Cracker
@Westyny: She’s definitely a crackpot, but she’s not as fringe as she deserves to be, was what I was attempting to convey. I can remember a time when an unhinged video like that would get someone blacklisted by so-called MSM outlets. Now I’m afraid it might make her even more a staple of news shows.
Roger Moore
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
They’re angry because they haven’t been able to stop history and make it turn around and run backward. Whites continue to shrink as a percentage of the population. LGBTQ rights continue to advance, both in the courts and in public opinion. Liberals are fighting back instead of rolling over and doing everything they demand. They may have “won” the election, but “winning” just highlights how little power the government has to do what they really want.
TenguPhule
@Quinerly:
Baby steps, first the tweets, then the actual white house press releases.
The sooner we can do a congo line on Mr. MavericyMcMaverick’s grave, the better.
Betty Cracker
@Shalimar: That’s why I find all this talk about imminent civil war a bit silly, tbh. I live among NRA nitwits. Most of them are chickenshits whom I could easily vanquish with my broom if they ever invaded my porch to declare war.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
It has the power, but not the “will” to do what must be done, in their eyes.
And we all know what inevitably comes from that line of thinking.
Quinerly
@Mart: Moved from NC to St. Louis for law school in 1982. Love the city and live a couple of blocks from A-B. (Poco gets to see Clydesdales almost everyday on our walks). With all that said, I was appalled by the racism here in 1982. Much more than the part of the South I grew up in. Still a very divided city/county.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
That’s because you’re looking at them face to face.
In the dark, from behind, with masks to obscure their face3s, that’s an entirely different story.
The NRA are fucking goblins, in every sense of the word.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker:
Ah, Betty, little as I would like to think of your privacy being invaded so rudely, I have to admit that the image of you thwacking these maroons with your broom hollering, “Git! Git!” is utterly priceless and delicious.
LAO
LAO
Amir Khalid
@Karen:
I submitted a reply to your earlier comment but FYWP eated it.
It was just to say that one of these guns-for-kids manufacturers, Crickett Arms, used to have on its website a photo gallery of happy kids (all of them white, as I recall from my one quite upsetting look at the photos) and their rifles.
Quinerly
@LAO:
Sorta like those leopards and those faces.?
Quinerly
@LAO:
Looks like someone got there first. Thanks for my badly needed smile.
Citizen_X
@Betty Cracker: Still, fuck the NRA for (among myriad other things) associating with that chunk of lunacy. I know, I know, “You post one deranged eliminationist video to your armed members, and everyone goes nuts!”
Tuna
That ad and the Muslim ban are the beginning of the end of tourism this summer. Trump is walling us in.
LAO
@Quinerly: Chris Kluwe is a national treasure (especially on twitter).
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Surprise July arrival: a 5-pound canned ham. Thunk!
trollhattan
@Quinerly:
Bloody Bill always-wrong Kristol? I am tres conflicted.
Karen
@TenguPhule: I have no idea, but both she and husband conceal carry to work (she is dental hygienist). Before she blocked me she bragged about her girls getting their guns when a black man ran through the neighborhood
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s her. Those Marines were disciplined. I think there was at least one court martial.
Citizen_X
@LAO:
How do you solve a problem like The Donnnaaaallddd…
Adam L Silverman
@lgerard: It worked for Gilligan!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbijKSwfC2U
trollhattan
@LAO:
This Chris Kluwe? I keep this rant bookmarked for times I’m feeling low.
Karen
@Betty Cracker: I figured they would do civil war about the way they do deer hunting, get drunk and throw lead everywhere; I stopped deer hunting when almost got shot by drunk road hunters.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN99jshaQbY
LAO
@trollhattan: Yes! Follow him on twitter @ChrisWarcraft. You will not regret it.
ETA: Thanks for the link — I actually missed it when he posted.
Karen
@Amir Khalid: yes, and places like walmart still carry pink in small size
TenguPhule
@Tuna:
At this point I’m grateful that the crazy white people are a really really tiny minority in our state. And that we have some of the strictest firearm laws in the country.
Maybe Japan can still take us in.
StringOnAStick
@Karen: I’m a dental hygienist, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out how I’d be able to get my gloves off, run to where my purse is in a locker, and get a gun out if I managed to even notice a threat while I was concentrating on my job. Granted, I’ve had a few patients in my time where I would have loved to have threatened them with something other than my magnified but withering stare. Pro tip: don’t be an asshole to someone who is working inside your mouth with a selection of very sharp instruments. Just a hint.
I’ve said it before here but I will say it again: dentists as a group tend be to right wing assholes. If you find a liberal DDS (like the lovely man I work for), send your friends to them too.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: I can’t believe it took two harrumphs, before someone posted that link.
TenguPhule
@trollhattan:
Still wrong. He’s libeling pigs.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan:
https://llwproductions.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/karl-rove-totally-looks-like-canned-ham.jpg
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: I almost did it for the first one, but wanted to see if anyone else did first.
Patricia Kayden
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I’ve noticed the same thing. Conservatives aren’t enjoying Trump’s domination of Washington as much as our side enjoyed President Obama’s 8 years. I loved the Obama years!! My pets and hubby probably thought I was crazy because I would be doing cheer routines every time President Obama accomplished something big. I remember many good times such as when my girlfriend and I were on the phone for the ACA’s passage and we were screaming and jumping around with joy.
I just don’t see that at all on the other side. I guess they understand that there is nothing to celebrate with such a buffoon in the White House and a Republican-controlled Congress which cannot shoot straight. Hence the seething rage. Poor dears. It can only get worse for them (and unfortunately, us).
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman: Ham Rove!
Have hazy memories of when Rove and Co. were among America’s worst problems. Those times seem so naive today.
ly-Ballou
@Frankensteinbeck: Don’t forget the devious, all-powerful (((JOOOOOS))) who somehow control everything by manipulating the former into giving the latter free reign.
Major Major Major Major
The Closed Fist of Truth would be a good superhero name.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: OK, that was a LOL. Thanks, Adam!
catclub
@TenguPhule: I certainly noticed that the only case where a police officer faces any consequences for wrongful shooting
seems to be when there are (armed) white conservatives in the line of fire.
TenguPhule
@catclub: You too? When a black man is shot in the back running away and the whole fucking thing is caught on camera and even then you still get a mistrial, that’s when you know things have gone to hell.
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule:
No, no, not peacefully co-exist: we’re supposed to empathize with them, or they will VOTE FOR TRUMP FOREVAH, YOU NARCISSISTIC FOOLS!
Roger Moore
@LAO:
The Republican party’s problem is complicity. They can’t do anything about Trump without exposing their own wrongdoing, so they wind up being complicit in even more. Their only hope at this point is that they can keep his wrongdoing from ever getting out, because they know they’re going to be tarred with it.
LAO
@catclub: The reason the Agent faces consequences is because he is a Federal Agent of the FBI, and not because of the status of the so-called victim. FBI agents rarely fire their weapons. The Feds take these situations much more seriously than local law enforcement.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
When they lost in 2008, they got madder. When they won in 2016, they got madder still.
Karen
@Adam L Silverman: a friend’s dad used to do detail carvings on prized hunting rifles; back in the day when people owned wood stocks and people had one or two rifles
Karen
@TenguPhule: not sure you can, cause everything to them is “us” or “them”
rikyrah
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
1. They are mad that we don’t defer to Dolt45.
2. Not only do we not defer to him and ‘ know our place’, large swaths of us have made it plain and simple that we will NEVER defer to him.
3. We also tell them not only do we not respect Dolt45, but we don’t respect THEM for voting for them. That voting for him showed THEIR lack of character.
4. We are telling #3- to their faces.
5. We are coming with receipts everytime they try and pull some bullshyt. Receipts on things their side did during the time of 44 and receipts of how 44 did something better when compared side by side to Dolt45.
6. They thought that we would ‘ know our place’, and we are telling them – PHUCK YOU AND YOUR MAMA to that.
7. Their vessel for White Supremacy -Dolt45- is not just a national farce, but an INTERNATIONAL disgrace.
8. Dolt45 is a joke, and they know it, but they have to contort in order to justify their vote for him.
9. 44 is out there, traveling the world, being greeted like a rock star. And, he looks like he’s de-aging.
10. The more that comes out, makes them realize that their Vessel For White Supremacy was put in via FRAUD, which adds to that they were conned, and what they wanted was not legitimate.
This is a list of why they’re mad.
Patricia Kayden
@Chris: I don’t know how they’re going to survive Trump then because they’ll have plenty of reasons to become even more enraged (if that is possible) for the next 4 years as they will be on the defensive all the dang time. I don’t recall ever having to defend President Obama to anyone, to be honest. Trump supporters have to defend him to anyone sensible.
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady:
We should also really think about amplifying the voices of party members who think women don’t deserve full access to healthcare, or that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to teach or buy pastries.
lollipopguild
@Adam L Silverman: Little did we know that Mel Brooks was predicting the trump administration.
Baud
@rikyrah:
11. They know Baud! 2020! is just around the corner.
@Major Major Major Major:
Is that croissant really worth losing America over?
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: If Japan takes in Hawaii, where will their tourists go to shoot guns?!
@Baud: What is this, 1995?
Jim Parene
@TenguPhule: I have always found that the biggest loud mouths are the biggest cowards, when comfronted with any kind of push back.
Aleta
Remembering this from last March, by Tim Mak. (NRA concerned about being investigated?)
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Don’t I wish? I miss Friends.
Chris
@Baud:
I don’t know. A properly baked croissant is worth quite a lot.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
America is already lost. Ask for extra butter.
FlipYrWhig
@Major Major Major Major: But, see, those precious bigots are with us on “class,” meaning… something, I’ve never quite figured it out. I think it’s that banks are bad? :P
Chris
@Aleta:
The hilarious thing is that, if my Facebook Wingnut Barometer is to be trusted, in the last couple of days their voters have done a 180 from “there is nothing to see here, Russia didn’t interfere, the entire intelligence community is part of a liberal plot to trip up our beloved president!” to “Russia interfered in our election! Why didn’t President Obama stop it? Why did President Obama’s weakness allow the Russians to think they could get away with this? What did Obama know and when did he know it?” Etc.
Even though the common denominator is “nothing is Trump’s fault,”* the speed with which the backstory went from “we have never been at war with Eurasia” to “we have ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia!” is whiplash-inducing.
[ * Doubly hilarious because these are #NeverTrump conservatives, who promised that real conservatives would hold him accountable if he were in the White House]
different-church-lady
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
They are anger junkies. They’re not angry about things. They just enjoy anger. That’s why Trump is so attractive to them: he makes anger fun, tells them it’s good.
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig:
And must be destroyed, by means either ineffective or unspecified!
different-church-lady
@Chris: That’s where Orwell got it wrong — you don’t need the Ministry of Truth, you only need the Two Minute Hate.
Karen
@StringOnAStick: I know I wouldn’t think of threatening someone with sharp pointy objects in my mouth, my last dentist was okay but told terrible jokes. so twice a year I got to hear a bad joke; that was livable.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Amen to all that. I think point #3 is what is so hurtful to them. Hannity recently had a breakdown because Tindr users refuse to date Trump supporters. LOL.
Chris
@different-church-lady:
Well, we’ve got a Ministry of Truth too. It’s just not a ministry. It’s the For-Profit Broadcast Corporation of Truth. Or just the Blogger In His Parents’ Basement of Truth.
Shalimar
@TenguPhule: You massively overestimate how often they go out in the dark. They’re more scared of you than you are of them, which is saying something.
Shalimar
@Chris: Even more hilarious, they still can’t get from “Obama should have stopped it” to “maybe Trump should do something to make sure it doesn’t happen again next time.”
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Splitter! It’s melted cheese and bacon only!
TenguPhule
@Shalimar:
The year is still young. They’ve got plenty of time to get used to it.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
Which is doubly pathetic, because really, which one of them would want to date one of those people in the first place? Even assuming those users aren’t black or atheist or whatever, the simple fact that they’re not Trump-worshipers would drive these people insane enough to break up within a week. So, really, they should be thanking them. That “will not date a Trump supporter” sign is really a big flashing light that says “UNWORTHY! UNWORTHY! DO NOT DATE!”
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule: IT’S A CROISSANT, NOT A GODDAMNED ENGLISH MUFFIN!!!
Sorry, I’ve been a bit on-edge lately…
gene108
@Roger Moore:
I think it is more than just not being able to turn back time.
It’s the fact the actual conservative agenda, both economic and social, will hurt them economically and physically. The conservative agenda is mean nasty piece of work for everyone not in the top 0.1% of incomes.
The bottom rung of the 1% isn’t that far from middle class. An extended period of unemployment for a family earning $250,000 is going to hurt their pocket books and drop them down a notch on the socio-economic ladder. There’s not a big step from, “I am doing pretty well for myself”, to “oh shit, I have a health problem, can’t work, will lose employer sponsored coverage and will be totally fucked without health insurance” for folks at the bottom part of the 1%.
Republicans are trying to sell their conservative vision on healthcare reform and it is awful. It will literally kill thousands of people a year.
Their policies on other things are just as bad for most people.
There’s just enough good government grease left in the gears of government for most people to not feel the impact. But if they enact their agenda at full speed, it’ll break what we consider to be the governmental machine and people will notice.
You can’t have an agenda that total fucks people over all the time and expect people to love you for it.
Hell, one reason Trump was so popular is he basically said the rest of the Republican field’s policies would hurt ordinary folks and he’ll do something amazing to make all the welfare programs they love better, while fucking over “those people”.
TenguPhule
@Jim Parene:
Like I said, goblins. Its not when they’re in front of you that you need to worry.
Aleta
@Chris: I’m wondering if next they’ll suggest the Russians aided Hilary (and never forget the secret meetings on Lynch’s plane!). Removing Trump would mean the Russians win, kind of thing.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
English muffins are sausage and cheese.
Croissant melty bacon cheese sandwiches are heaven. It will take the edge off you.
J R in WV
@Karen:
I stopped when a deer hunter emptied his big auto deer rifle over my head at a flock of low flying turkeys trying to make is across the low gap of the ridge, where I planned to wait for deer trying the same thing. (It’s illegal to hunt anything but deer while deer are open season!)
I got the hell down off the ridge to camp, enjoyed camp cookin’ and hangin’ out in teh woods til it was time to go home. Have never gone into the woods during hunting season that aren’t my owned paid for woods, and careful there too.
Aleta
@different-church-lady: Not at all! Keep asking the hard questions!
Karen
I had no idea that Thanatos subcontracted; but he must
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/my-name-is-mitch-mcconnell-and-i-owe-thanatos-the-god-of-death-22-million-human-souls
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Canada?
Alain the site fixer
Back end update postponed until tomorrow. Mobile site enhancements going very well.
Aleta
@J R in WV: My mom had to stop walking her own fields and woods after hunters she encountered got aggressive with her. 77 years old, always polite.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: Too far!
@Karen: Heh.
@different-church-lady: Trump’s America will do that to you, and at random times too.
Chris
@gene108:
Most Americans don’t realize the extent to which the entire country has spent the last few decades coasting on the work done by seventy years of people who took the business of government seriously. Progressive Era, New Deal, Great Society, and all the times in between where people weren’t passing great reforms, but were still passing plenty of smaller updates, plus just keeping the machinery running. Heck, even the Gilded Age, as fucked up as it was, was arguably a step up in that direction from the previous Jacksonian cesspool – we got civil service reform, antitrust legislation, even some early consumer protection stuff.
People have taken all that shit for granted for so long that they don’t even realize it’s what made the lifestyle they’re accustomed to possible, and have been empowering people to hack away at it for decades now.
Chris
@Aleta:
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised. McCain’s entire big brain fart the other week seemed to be “you investigated Trump for his ties to Russia, but you didn’t investigate Hillary for her ties to Russia! Clearly, there’s a double standard there!” Given how used they are to rewriting their politicians’ brain-farts into something deep and meaningful, AND the way they’ve gone all out on the “whatever Trump is doing is just what Obama/Hillary were doing too!” excuses, I would really not be surprised if we started hearing more and more calls to investigate Hillary’s Russian ties.
Frankensteinbeck
@Patricia Kayden:
While @rikyrah has a good list for you, I must add to it, or perhaps sum it up. They thought electing a white supremacist would work. Trump was supposed to show that an angry, dumbass white bigot is a thousand times more effective than an intelligent black man. The deranged, asshole, dimwit tantrums that we laugh at were supposed to fix everything and prove that conservatives who act like that are the REAL good guys. Reality is spitting on them, proving to them that they are not the superior beings they believe. They were already pissed and rejecting reality because it hinted that. Now reality is slapping them with proof. Yes, they’re seething with bile.
catclub
@gene108: I just read that the 3.8% investment surtax only adds up to about $145B(?) of the total tax cuts included in the Senate bill. Does anyone know of a more complete breakdown of the taxes cut in that bill?
I think there are medicare taxes, and durable medical instrument taxes, but I do not know if there are others, and how big each piece is.
Aleta
(comments not posting)
d58826
@LAO: And to add insult to injury the government is filing perjury charges against the FBI agent who killed the one guy trying to escape.
Now maybe the charges are deserved, didn’t follow it in that level of detail, but would be maddening if one of the few people convicted and sent to jail is one of the ‘good’ guys. ,
ThresherK
@Bill: I know you keed.
Tangential reality, Jayne Mansfield died 50 years ago today, when the car she was in rear-ended a tractor-trailer. Her daughter is Mariksa Hargitay.
bemused
@Chris:
You’d think they’d be grateful they wouldn’t be unpleasantly surprised by making dates with libtards! Maybe they’re just ticked off because their dating pool has shrunk alarmingly.
rikyrah
A historically black college just opened a campus at Google headquarters — here’s what it’s like inside
Chris Weller
Howard University, one of the nation’s largest historically black colleges, is granting 25 to 30 students the chance to spend their summer as Googlers.
For three months starting this summer, rising juniors and seniors will take classes at the new Howard West campus in Mountain View, California.
Students at Howard West will learn from Google employees and Howard faculty with the goal of establishing themselves in an industry where black engineers are largely absent.
In 2016, just 1% of Google’s technical engineering staff identified as black. Meanwhile, 37% identified as Asian and 57% identified as white.
Howard West was designed by Kurani, a design firm specializing in learning spaces. The firm’s founder, Danish Kurani, gave Business Insider a virtual tour of the new space.
bemused
@Frankensteinbeck:
Bitter winners.
rikyrah
The NRA finds new ways to stoke the fires of the culture war
06/29/17 11:42 AM
By Steve Benen
The National Rifle Association has a challenge: the far-right organization has allies running the federal government. In practical terms, that leaves NRA members with very little to fear, at least in political terms. The chances of a far-right Congress approving gun reforms that will be signed into law by Donald Trump are zero.
To be sure, the NRA still has to contend with public opinion. A new Quinnipiac poll, for example, released yesterday, found that 94% of Americans – including 93% of Republicans and 92% of voters in gun-owning households – support requiring background checks for all gun purchases.
But the fact remains that the NRA’s Republican allies will simply ignore public attitudes on the subject – a fact the NRA’s members are no doubt aware of.
How, then, will the group keep its supporters engaged? By pointing to a different enemy: Democratic officials may not be in position to approve any national policies, but there are still liberals out there who, the NRA says in a new video, need to be defeated in a culture war:
d58826
@Chris: Saw a comment that the interstate highway system would not pass today – it contained a tax hike. But even then they had to disguise it as the National defense highway act or some such wording. My little 8 year old mind could not figure out why we were going to build all of those highways just for tanks to drive on.
d58826
@Frankensteinbeck: And if f that isn’t enough the ‘voter fraud’ commission is asking the states for complete voter rolls, back to 2006, with full name, party and last 4 digits of ssn. All of this will be made public. Now besides being a road map to voter suppression,
I’m sure every con artist, Nigerian prince and hacker will just love getting their hands on those lists.
https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/880483686289817600
LAO
@d58826: I get what you’re typing but I’m a defense attorney. If that Agent lied and sought to obstruct justice — he absolutely should be prosecuted.
sphex
@Alain the site fixer: The little grey arrow buttons work on mobile now! Yay!!! (Thank you.)
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Gee, I wonder how they plan on winning it. //
ruemara
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): You still don’t agree with them. That’s it. They don’t want to control just government. They want control of your hearts and minds. They wish to destroy any opposing views or ideas or even emotions. That’s what they want and the dumbasses of America handed them enough power to really make a violent, destructive stab at it. At least you aren’t alone. Russia has been helping coordinate conservatives abroad too.
Aleta
-Vox
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/29/15893492/activist-protest-trumpcare-resistance
TenguPhule
@d58826:
Any NRA fucker who ever complained about a gun registery database and stays silent on this is a confirmed brownshirt.
If that isn’t a setup for a purge by the numbers, I’ll eat Baud’s hat.
Major Major Major Major
@sphex: and some jackass put a rotating tag line on the top of the mobile site too.
@TenguPhule: with the closed fist of truth, obviously.
Yoda Dog
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I don’t understand it either. The right has gone Ringo. Its almost like Invasion of the Body Snatchers sometimes with these people.. That video and Trumps tweet today are both just beyond the pale… Is there even a ‘pale’ anymore?
I think Im sufficiently grossed out for the day and its time to get off the intertubes and play with my kids.
Hungry Joe
How could she mention the Clenched Fist of Truth without so much as a nod to the Jackboot of Justice? And why no shout-out to the Billy Club of Freedom?
TenguPhule
@Chris:
And as I’ve kept pointing out, when the wheels do come off its going to be ugly. Most of our major national population centers could not even feed themselves for more then a few weeks if the transportation network seriously breaks down.
pamelabrown53
@Quinerly: @71.
How is it even possible to cover the tweets without showing them? Are you sure that none of the 4 programs on MSNBC showed the actual tweets?
P.S. O/T: City Museum in St. Louis is beyond awesome. Plus, it’s so quirky that that it’s hard to believe that it’s a St. Louis venue. On my last trip to visit son and d-i-l in St. Louis I got to meet you, attend the March for Science, plus do my 2 “musts”: the City Museum and the Botanical Gardens.
What a great trip; thanks for being a part of the gestalt.
Alain the site fixer
I hope to launch the improved comment controls too, just figuring out where it’s going wrong with our @reply button. That will be for both desktop and mobile sites.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m more concerned about what it will be closed around.
TenguPhule
@Hungry Joe:
Baton of Freedom. This isn’t the 1920s any more.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: More truth! ETA: Or possibly reconciliation.
@TenguPhule: I prefer ‘truncheon’.
TenguPhule
@Yoda Dog:
Almost? Sometimes?
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t think we could get 51 BJ commenters here to agree on that.
d58826
@LAO: Oh I don’t object to him standing trial for what he did but just seems like what ordinarily would be the good guys get punished while the people that caused it all get off scott free. And I’m sure the militia types on the jury will vote to convict and then join their friends laughing their butts off.
Would really make me consider forcing a hung jury if I was on that panel. I know it isn’t right but……
d58826
@TenguPhule: 21st century – electric cattle prod. a twofer
rikyrah
KAY,
Did you see this?
The letter @KrisKobach1787 is sending to states confirms: Pence and Kobach are laying the groundwork for voter suppression, plain & simple. pic.twitter.com/22Ub1TxRS1
— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) June 29, 2017
Aleta
Charles Blow:
A few days ago, an internet piece from around 2010 was found, that gave instructions and template for making a Time mag cover of yourself. The template was a 2009 cover of Obama. The bar code and red line width on the template were the same as the bar code on the fake cover of Trmp. Literally had to insert himself into the place where a photo of O had been.
Yutsano
@rikyrah:
Speaking of aging…
I keep seeing pictures of the Hairy Yam and oh man he looks terrible. Not even the fake tan is keeping the rheumy puffy eyes and slouching jowls at bay.
Iowa Old Lady
@d58826: As I understand it, the FBI guy didn’t kill the one trying to escape. I think state cops did. The FBI guy fired at a moving vehicle, which violates SOPs, and then lied about having done it and got his buddies to back him up. Once an agent lies, he’s useless in court forever after, so they take it seriously. I suspect he’d have been ok with just the non-standard shooting. Disciplined maybe but not charged.
Chris
@d58826:
It’s even worse than that. Pick any of the big government projects of the mid-century – the electrification of the Tennessee Valley, World War Two, the Marshall Plan, the interstate highway system, the Space Race. If you proposed any of these things today, not only would it not pass, but conventional wisdom, from both the right wing and most of the mainstream media, would be that it literally could not be done – that big government is incapable of handling that kind of project, and that it was economic madness to suggest it. (And then, the arguments would start about how it would be unconstitutional, anyway).
Yeah, we’ve fallen a long way. And basically blacked out large parts of our own history.
Miss Bianca
@Aleta: Wow
d58826
@rikyrah: see comment 165 and a link. They want ssn, full name, and party affiliation all the way back to 2006. And will make all of the lists public. Now it may or may not uncover voter fraud but the info will be a gold mine for every Nigerian price with a stock pile of gold he wants to sell.
Karen
@J R in WV: same in WI where I was, I was in blaze orange from head to foot; they shot at movement. you could hear them laughing and hooting; also can’t shoot certain distance from road I was just at edge of that distance since the deer had a nice highway and lots of buck rubs
d58826
@Iowa Old Lady: As I say I don’t object to him being accountable, it’s the mob that started this is getting off scot-free.
TenguPhule
@d58826:
Credit card & SSN fraud, and a perfect check off list for rightwinger violence.
TenguPhule
@Chris:
Worse, we’re picking up speed and nowhere near the bottom yet.
Major Major Major Major
@d58826: can’t the (blue) states just tell them to go fuck themselves?
gene108
@Chris:
I think what’s just as surprising is that in a representative democracy politicians will take up the wishes of a few billionaires to roll back those reforms, in order to make the billionaires richer.
That’s not how democracy is supposed to work.
Fear of being voted out of office should quell the impulses to fuck people over for the sake of making the rich richer.
d58826
@Chris: Build a railroad line to connect the east coast with the west coast – communism. And if you want to send a letter from the east coast to the west coast in 21 days why go out and buy your own horse and deliver it yourself. Freedom.
The list does go on. Freight lines were subsidized to haul supplies to the Calvary outposts, Air mail stamps to help the startup airlines. Building that canal that Der Fuhrer is so proud of.
Iowa Old Lady
@d58826: I was appalled at the acquittals in those cases. But then Bill Cosby was acquitted too, so I guess justice isn’t always served.
TenguPhule
@gene108:
But when people stop voting and stop caring….well, here we are.
Back to the bad old days of fear of being lynched.
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: IMHO it’s because the context of the Cold War (and the Nonaligned Movement) meant that a lot of American institutions felt like they had to prove that they were serving the people better than Communism would. When the Cold War went away, a lot of the ideological justification for public service–America looking not just strong but good on the world stage–started to crumble. 30 years on, cross-pollinated with Reaganite “the government is the problem” folderol, we have contemporary conservatism. *Shudder*
TenguPhule
@Iowa Old Lady:
TBF, Rape cases are bastards to win for prosecutors unless everything lines up perfectly. Over a decade old? Million to one odds there.
But there was no excuse for not convicting those militia fuckers. None.
Iowa Old Lady
@Chris: Mr IOL used to do research on diesel emissions and fuel economy and some of that was funded by the DoD. He once commented that in the US we need defense as an excuse to do some research whereas other countries use other reasons. We are not rational on the subject of the military. Sorry for preaching to the choir.
ETA: Or what FlipYrWhig said at 201.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Nice!! I’m an Howard alumni so good to see them doing something so innovative.
d58826
@Iowa Old Lady: Cosby was a mistrial. they have already set a new trial date. It seemed that one of the jurors objected to the victims hair style (I kid you not) so voted for acquittal. . There is some talk that the judge will allow testimony from other victims. That way it will go from he said she said to he said sheX60 said.
Iowa Old Lady
@TenguPhule: I sure couldn’t see one.
TenguPhule
@Iowa Old Lady:
Edited for accuracy. The military is but one of many things our country is fuggered about.
J R in WV
@Karen:
One of my best friends’ father did gunsmith level work like that. He worked the machine of the action, created a sport hunting rifle from his Army-issue Garand, it was a work of art. So after he died, my buddy gave the gun to his nephew, the old guy’s only grandson.
The twit had traded it away for a piece of shit before a year had passed. My buddy got the name of the guy twit nephew traded it to, but it had been months already, and it had floated away into a sea of meth-heads. Nephew didn’t even apololgize. Buddy would have paid him anything for the gun, thought that nephew would want something to remember his grandpa with forever, sadly mistaken.
I have a pistol that he worked on, won’t be letting it go just for the sake of my friend. Wish I had my Grandma’s pistol, would pay good money for just the same model – alas they’re collectibles now – over a grand for a 1903 Colt Pocket .32 designed by John Browning. No idea what they cost back in the 1920s, but my grandparents wouldn’t have paid big money even for a really good pistol like that one is. Over a hundred, still shoots well.
Karen
@TenguPhule: I think with the “just in time” isn’t weeks it is days, most people barely keep a weeks worth of food in house. Some don’t even do that, a couple of days is all
JPL
Greta Van Sustern was let go at MSNBC.. Any idea why?
Amir Khalid
@ThresherK:
Addendum to your fun fact:
Mariska and her brother and sister (all very young at the time) were in the car with their mother, and survived the crash.
JPL
@pamelabrown53: Nicolle Wallace showed the tweets
TenguPhule
@Karen:
I’m not just counting what’s in the fridge, but every source of food available. Including all the eating places, stores, warehouses etc. Distribution aside, there would still physically be food present in some form.
What I’m talking about is when there would literally be no food for love, guns or money unless you like the taste of long pork (or feral strays/vermin).
FlipYrWhig
@JPL: I’ll go out on a limb and say… being horrible at everything remotely related to her job, maybe?
d58826
@Iowa Old Lady: Most of the internet revolution was based on technology developed at gov’t labs or funded at places like Bell Labs.
The internet itself started life as something called ARAPNET
. It was designed to link defense orientated academia and provide DOD with a robust back up communication system in the event of nuclear war. No Al Gore didn’t invent it. He just pushed the legislation that opened it up to the people and the private sector. But before long it will be one more privately only/publicly funded rip off once that pesky net neutrality is thrown under the bus.
El Caganer
@TenguPhule: I remember when DC introduced Closed Fist of Truth – he was one of the original superheroes of Reacharound For America.
TenguPhule
@FlipYrWhig:
Wouldn’t that result in a promotion?
JPL
Please someone put up an open thread. I just can’t look at the picture of Dana anymore. She oozes hate.
d58826
@JPL: Not conservative enough?
@JPL: I like her show. She isn’t perfect and her GOP background shows through at times but she plays it pretty straight down the line. Of course for a Bush family supporter I guess its easy to dump on Trump. She might have more problems if Jeb was in the WH. Then again she might be in there on his communication staff.
rikyrah
@d58826:
I saw that after I posted it…
Uh huh
Uh huh
Lips pursed.
Major Major Major Major
@d58826: the internet and the web have a thousand fathers, most of them socialist in one way or another. It drives me nuts when all these libertarian script kiddies who can write an app think they built their empire from scratch.
Karen
@J R in WV: back then things went for cents; I remember commenting about dinning room table that was round and seated 6 nicely when closed add the 20 leaves and you could seat all the adults in family. great grandma said she paid 50 cents for table and 1 dollar for all the leaves and the special “box” that kept the leaves from warping. and Wells Fargo delivered for another 10 cents. So they might have paid only 10 cents for pistol
bemused
@JPL:
She sure didn’t last long. Ari Melber replacing her.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: It is for data micro-targeting of voters in line with what the Trump campaign did in the 2016 election. And others did on his behalf.
d58826
@rikyrah: I start at the bottom and work up the thread to comment #1 all the time.
bemused
@rikyrah:
What could possibly go wrong!!! I hate these cretins. They’re not even human.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
The problem is who’s gonna be holding that data and what they’re going to be targeting with.
I suspect the answers to both are not designed to allow a good night’s sleep.
Karen
@TenguPhule: am living in small town, under 2000; the blizzards last winter kept the trucks from getting in for a couple of days. the stores were empty and the few eateries didn’t get their supplies either. I also noticed that I have one of the few vegetable gardens, this is mill town and people just don’t think.
d58826
@Major Major Major Major: I remember hearing about ARPANET or something similar back when I worked for the Ford aerospace division back in the late 60’s
JPL
@bemused: I like him and will probably stream his show occasionally. Not that it matters, but I never streamed her.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Voting records are public records, but this seems to be one step further than I am comfortable with.
Now please put up a new post, so we don’t have to have the person who oozes hate, at the top.
FlipYrWhig
@TenguPhule: Touche!
Gin & Tonic
@JPL: Because she’s an asshole and nobody watched her show?
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Do not ask questions Tovarisch!
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I assumed it was for caging.
@d58826: I was but an itch in my father’s testicle back then, as I once heard a professor say.
Gin & Tonic
@Karen:
Prairie Home Companion used to have a yearly contest, of sorts, called “Talent from Towns Under Two Thousand.”
trollhattan
@d58826:
The judge didn’t allow most of the potential witnesses to testify, weakening the prosecution’s case. Hopefully next go it will be different, but since it’s the same judge, maybe not.
d58826
@bemused: IF he is a permanent replacement then her severance package would be worth it if they paid her twice what she got. I think they expected all of the little fauxlets to troop over to MSNBC at 6pm. Guess it is harder to get those fauxlets out of their concrete buckets (meant to spell .bunkers’ but I like this wording better) with one channel only tvs then MSNBC thought. a
d58826
@trollhattan: I’m not sure a final decision has been made on the witness list. The speculation is a couple of days old. But multiple witness will make it harder to claim bitter spurned lover. I think, but am not sure, that she came out sometime after the original civil trial so that might have influenced a few jurors. I did see her photo and the hair style does leave a bit to be desired but a piss poor reason to vote for an acquittal. Unless, of course, you were suing the beauty saloon for malpractice.
EBT
@TenguPhule: then they can die by federal bullets too. Unless they want to go the Rockwell route and be gunned down at a laundromat.
EriktheRed
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): No mystery here: they know that ultimately they’re a minority nationally so they need to keep the anger going to keep their rube base getting tho the polls.
Miss Bianca
@FlipYrWhig: Methinks you have hit the nail on the head, here.
trollhattan
@d58826:
Here’s hoping things change. The magazine cover is so utterly damning, each had to overcome considerable fear and regret to agree and one can only imagine how many more remain silent even today. They deserve justice.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I don’t buy a Civil Wars, maybe more lone gunmen but considering the sheer fear and terror from these people I am predicating mass suicides by the new years. The conservative media sells fear to them, they elected Trump to stop their fear and instead Trump only strokes it because Trump is just another right wing media hack. This all reminds me of the character in Illuminates who killed himself because he was convinced every man around him was secretly gay and out to rape him.
TenguPhule
@El Caganer:
And Lube boy was beaten to death by El Douche.
Karen
@Gin & Tonic: I was basically raised by great grandmother, when I left after divorce I took all my canning equipment as well as wine making equipment, took all my books that have information from soap making to beer brewing. But I am rare in this day, very few people could survive with the way I was taught to live.
jacy
@bemused:
Is Ari Melber the hot one? I can’t remember — been too long since I gave up cable. It was only a few months ago, but those are Trump months, which seem way longer.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I wish I had your confidence.
I think they’re going to taste innocent blood sooner or later and develop an addiction for it.
d58826
@FlipYrWhig: IIRC my history correctly a big reason for the start of the European social welfare state, starting with Bismark in Germany, was to make sure the peasants used their pitchforks for pitching hay and not pitching the nobility onto bonfires. And Europe has had a lot more experience with pitchforks and tar and feathers then we have.
Major Major Major Major
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: yeah, on a population level these people are fucking cowards.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s the problem. Cowards are at their worst when they have any advantage.
trollhattan
Trump evidently has been twitter-twating at Mika and Joe; here’s her response. {golf clap}
Amaranthine RBG
I don’t have my speakers connected so I watched that video without sound.
Try doing that and esp. the part starting around 50 seconds. Watch her mouth. It’s like she is a grasshopper that has bitten into an especially bitter bit of vegetation. Creepy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The retweeted story I saw said her ratings “never caught fire”, which made me laugh. I managed to avoid her show except for a few minutes here and there flipping through the presets on my car radio (Sir/XM). On MSNBC promos she would bray brodeorist– “stop with all the politics and get something done!”– all but a quote from the dead Dean
d58826
@FlipYrWhig: I had posted this earlier but I think it fits in with what you are describing. I thinks it’s more than just the end of the cold war. THis crowd has been trying to do this since FDR was elected.
Frankensteinbeck
@gene108:
It gets a lot more complicated when the elected officials are sadistic assholes, elected by sadistic assholes, to be sadistic assholes.
Mike in DC
@bemused:
Shoulda put Joy Reid in there. I really want them to “encourage” Tweety to retire.
d58826
@Frankensteinbeck:
and are working diligently to ensure that one person one vote means only GOP votes.
randy khan
@Iowa Old Lady:
Cosby was a hung jury, and the prosecutor said he plans to retry the case.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
I’m not actually sure I buy this. The trend that started things going really wrong was Thatcher/Reagan circa 1980. The Cold War was still going strong back then and, according to the conventional wisdom of the time, was actually getting worse – the economic problems and various embarrassments in the West combined with the loss of Iran, the loss of Nicaragua, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the feeling was very much that the commies were getting the upper hand.
Aleta
New request to investigate Sessions, from House judiciary and oversight committees and signed by 35 House Dems:
-from Mother Jones article
TenguPhule
Gorsuch, DIAF!!! Immediately if not sooner!
Gorsuch is not a judge, he’s a fucking cult priest.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mike in DC: I just read an interview with Rachel Maddow in Rolling Stone. The interviewer asked her who she admired as an interviewer and she said Tweety. Well, she said Chris Matthews. She said he interrupts because he’s listening so hard to his guest. I’m still not sure I get it .
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Doesn’t it seem like she has a permanent sort of sneering expression? She is scary looking.
MomSense
@TenguPhule:
I’m still not over his mother and her corrupt tenure at EPA.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Will speculate the stem-cell personality implant experiment was a failure.
I wish these networks would cease with their grab-Fox-viewers experiments. Not worth squandering your “reputations” to gain shouty old man viewership.
trollhattan
@MomSense:
Yup, mama Gorsuch and James Watt were a hellofa pairing for Team Scorched Earth.
TenguPhule
@MomSense: I need a freakin drink. That bottle of yuzu sake in the fridge is calling my name. 6 hours till I can answer it.
Frankensteinbeck
@TenguPhule:
No, cowards are at their worst when they have an overwhelming advantage. I cannot sufficiently stress how this movement is defined by chickenhawks. There is not going to be any kind of general violence. They are extreme cowards, they are totally disorganized, and they are incapable of becoming organized because they also hate each other. The wildlife refuge takeover is the perfect example. The absolute bravest squatted on land they were sure the government wouldn’t run them off of, did a little preening about what warriors they are, committed petty vandalism on-site, announced that this was the spark that should set off the revolution and race war, and then argued with each other until they all left and were arrested.
Trump is seriously validating and stoking the anger of these bullies, so there will be, and I believe has been, an increase in small-scale hate crimes. The kind of mass violence you imply? No. It’s out of the question, not going to happen.
To put it another way, these people are their leader. Trump isn’t Hitler. Trump is a whiny, incompetent loser too busy throwing tantrums to implement his agenda, and whose idea of confrontation is to get up at 3am and rage-tweet.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@sherparick: What always got me about the society in 1984 is how unsustainable it is. The technology is permanently stuck in the 1940s. That industrial tech was incredibly dirty and inefficient. What was the Party going to do when the environment was too polluted for human life? Or when resources would inevitably run out?
It’s a shame Orwell didn’t explore that
Mary G
@Major Major Major Major: Connecticut’s SoS has already objected. Hopefully the ACLU will chime in, too. I thought I had set up a donation to them, but apparently not. I did today.
MomSense
@trollhattan: @TenguPhule:
These assholes never go away.
Mike in DC
@Iowa Old Lady:
He does one thing well, pressing pols fo for answers to relatively tough or direct questions. But his insights into contemporary politics seem incredibly dated. Also, the worship of working class white guys can grate quite a bit. Instead of saying “racism” he refers to “the ethnic stuff”.
Chris
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
Me, too, but in a different sense. What seemed unrealistic to me was that you’d be able to maintain a society at that level of hysteria permanently. I mean, yeah, there was Stalin’s purges and Mao’s Cultural Revolution and Pol Pot’s killing fields, but all of those things only lasted so long before they were put down – too many people want some kind of stability.
Of course, the Kims seem to have maintained North Korea in a state of controlled insanity for ages, so what do I know. And while they haven’t been at it for nearly as long, the Fox News viewing community seems to be an experiment in seeing just how that can work…
But the other thing that I couldn’t wrap my head around was having that kind of hysteria without Big Brother (it’s never stated outright, but strongly implied, that he’s just a construct made up for the masses). I mean, in all the cases mentioned above, there actually was someone at the top who benefited from the regime of terror. In the case of 1984… all the members of the inner and outer party live in constant fear, but not because of Big Brother – Big Brother is something they manufacture themselves in order to create that fear. Why? At some point, wouldn’t enough of them decide “okay, I’m tired of this” and trade in the Stalin-style terror for Brezhnev-style corruption behind closed doors that everyone can benefit from?
Aleta
@TenguPhule: 3 Dem Senators voted for Goresuch. Every Repub voted for him except for 1 who abstained. Every Repub voted for racist Sessions (plus 1 Dem).
I’m mentioning this every time I call Collins or the Senate about Medicaid and health care. (I called again today and I’m also calling King to ask him to speak out more.)
ksmiami
@rikyrah: I would add that generally they are fat, ugly (in and out), deeply stupid, confused by religion, and have no real hobbies except hatred but ppl here might think I’m mean.
Ab_Normal
@Karen:
What… I mean… what… (brain segfaults)
Hey, at least this story has a happy ending!
ThresherK
@Amir Khalid: Good addendum. I know that there are mandated bars (now) as a result of this crash to prevent cars submarining under trailers. Can’t imagine what it’s like to watch a parent go thru that.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Frankensteinbeck: IOW, because of their various personality dysfunctions, they are unable to create effective organizations like the SA in Hitler’s Germany. However, there’s still the LEOs and military and there are lot of wingnuts there. They’re highly organized. A more competent Trump-like figure is what I fear for the future; someone who truly could become the next Hitler
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
It was unthinkable before. But that was when we had norms, rules, codes of behavior. All of that has been shredded by not only Trump, but the entire GOP going back decades. The foundations of our civil society have been methodically sabotaged by the rightwingers and I do not think they will hold barring some serious miracle working.
Chris
@Ab_Normal:
Christ.
I used to carry a pocket knife everywhere as a kid, and even then I’d always leave it in the car before walking into church. Not even something my parents had to say to me – I understood on a basic level that God’s house was not the place to be bringing a weapon into, even a pathetic one that I never actually used as a weapon.
Chris
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
Also remember that the original Nazis, themselves, came with plenty of divisions and personality disorders too. They overcame some, and were able to function without others. Their original footsoldiers, the SA a.k.a. Brownshirts, were probably the closest thing they had to the most visible Trump voters of today. In time they were purged and replaced by a less populist and more disciplined force (the SS). Mirroring the way that Nazism’s base itself changed, starting out with a center of gravity that was very lower middle class but, as it took and cemented power, shifted upwards to pay more attention to the elites and the more “respectable” middle class.
Frankensteinbeck
@TenguPhule:
It has nothing to do with norms, rules, or codes of behavior. It has to do with the culture involved, the motivations and emotions of the movement. Decency is not stopping them. Being idiot cowards whose universal spite makes them unable to hold together groups stops them. There is not going to be mass violence.
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
The idea of a top-down problem, or civil war, is at least possible. They are not highly organized to support a government takeover, however. If anything, their organization tends to make it harder. When the courts ruled against the travel ban, a few people in the system refused to comply, but there weren’t enough of them to be more than a blip. It IS important to remember that we DO outnumber them. That’s why they’re freaking out, honestly. When they couldn’t kick Obama out of office, it hit home.
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
Actually, no. Those were just the stupidest ones. The smart ones are the ones that worry the actual anti-terrorist people. And unfortunately they have a lot to be worried about.
Frankensteinbeck
@TenguPhule:
The actual anti-terrorist people are not worried about the smart ones. They’re worried about the lone wolves who are hard to see through the sheer mass of data available. Those, smart or not, are completely unrelated to the widespread violence you anticipate. An increase in stochastic violence, as Adam puts it? Yeah. But voter lists used as a hit list to suppress Democrats? No. It’s not going to happen.
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
Which is what those same rules, norms and codes of behavior would normally safely bleed off before it becomes a major problem, that’s the whole point of having them in the first place. When that safety valve gets scrapped, lizard brain motivations begin to reign freely and people start getting hurt. You’re doubting their competence at getting the job done.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Chris:
Decades of propaganda, brainwashing, seemingly all-knowing secret police, as well as bread and circuses seem to have done the trick. The very concept of stability may have changed for humanity, considering like 90% of it is ruled by 3 identical massive regimes.
An aside: Big Brother may have once been a real individual who was the leader of Oceania for many years and eventually died. The Party decided to keep his image as a popular figurehead to control the population.
As far as in-universe example, I’m not sure why they didn’t just change. They may have brainwashed themselves. I think O’Brien said as much to Winston. The real answer is that Orwell wanted to make an allegory for Stalinism and how terrifying it could be. That a world where an omniscience and omnipotent government could know your every thought and could make you believe that 2 + 2 = 5
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
I hope you’re right about this.
Major Major Major Major
@Frankensteinbeck: why not? That’s what they’re already used for.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Frankensteinbeck: They may not be able to NOW. A few more decades unchecked…? Who knows. I hope it never happens. If it does, I’m out. I’ve said in the past I’d fight if it came to that, but I’m not sure what there will be to fight for at that point
d58826
@Mike in DC:
A lot of his hands on experience goes back to the days of Tip O’Neill. Lot a water under the damn since then. Either way I wish he would let the people on the panel ANSWER the bloody questions. Now if he has a guest who is try to BS or filibuster the answer then yes interrupt. But a lot of his guests are trying to give an honest answer from their point of view. which may not always be tweeties. So let them finish. We all might learn something. Probing questions are great but so are complete answers from guests trying to respond in an honest way.
You know what your going to get when you have Matt Schlapp on as a guest. He doesn’t provide balance just noise. So you know going in that he will BS/filibusterer GOP talking points. Don’t schedule him as he is a waste of time. Having him on to see who can shout the loudest wastes my time and insults my intelligence.
Karen
@Ab_Normal: I strongly the suspect the keep them safe is due to church they belonged to was scene of mass killing and she lost friends. The guy who did the killing was a few bricks short load (brother was friends with him) and he had mental health problems, some of the drugs the doctors gave him made it worse. And this man was able to buy weapons without any problem, WI did criminal checks but no one thought to check with his doctors
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Chris: I’ve recently read about Hitler’s rise. Essentially nothing really changed in Germany class-wise. The word “Socialism” in the party name was just to lure in rubes; Hitler and the other Nazis enjoyed lots of support among the traditional conservative right and big business. They feared evil communism after all. And because of their irrationality and callousness, 6 million Jews (and other “undesirables”) were shot, starved, gassed, and baked to death. Not to mention the tens of millions that died in the war proper
Chris
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
I understand the basic concept. I just never found it entirely plausible. The standard arc for regimes like this is that they have their “1984” phase, but they eventually lose steam and fossilize into something that’s more about corruption than whatever the revolution started out as. Soviet Russia, Red China, Francoist Spain, islamist Iran. They all eventually fossilize into the kind of decadence they overthrew in the first place. Which really makes sense – the whole point of revolution for a lot of people is to get to be the one on top, and as time goes by you get more and more people from the new generation who never knew the original struggles in the first place and just want to enjoy the perks and privileges they got from their parents. There’s no point in being one of the big shots if the big shots are living the life of the terrorized.
As I say, the one place that seems to’ve been able to maintain the “1984” stage over the long term is North Korea. (Though how much of that is true, and how much of it is North Korean state propaganda, we won’t really know until the place comes down). So it’s not impossible… but it does seem to be by far the less likely outcome.
Chris
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
Yep. Also, IIRC from Paxton’s “An Anatomy of Fascism,” the term had limited appeal even in getting the rubes on board – the Nazis did less well in the working class than they did among their wealthier counterparts. It’s a nice way to project a hardy blue collar image, though.
The other thing I remember reading, elsewhere, was that “National Socialist German Workers’ Party,” in 1920s/30s Germany, was basically the equivalent of calling yourself the “Democratic Republican Liberal Conservative Party” in today’s United States. Two cliched words from the left and two cliched words from the right. End result being that you maximize appeal throughout the population, and draw at least some low-information rubes from all over the place. (Goldberg and rest of the shit-for-brains are just picking out one of the four words, ignoring the other three, and pretending that this is meaningful).
d58826
Seems the CBO just can’t stop putting out fake news
https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/880519826552365057
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/reports/52859-medicaid.pdf
john fremont
@Aleta:
I’very been calling in to Gardner’s Washington office over the past week. I like to think my calls helped flip Mike Coffman, I hope Gardner caves to the voters not to the donors.
d58826
And the video of Nicolle Wallace talking about Der Fuhrer. She doesn’t shout. She doesn’t resort to name calling but you can see the anger in her body language and hear it in the very controlled tone of her voice
https://twitter.com/NicolleDWallace/status/880520656713994241
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Chris: When you brought up North Korea, I should have mentioned: Ever heard of the “Oceania is really just the British Isles” theory?
Chris
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
Yes.
The more I think about it, the more plausible that one is, actually.
I think I’ve also heard a similar theory about “V for Vendetta,” that the whole story wherein the rest of the world is a nuked-out wasteland is just a lie that Norsefire tells the people to keep Britain isolated. Works there, too.
Seth Owen
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: As far as sustainability goes one need look no further than North Korea. We are into our third generation of Kims with no end in sight.
J R in WV
@Aleta:
I’m sorry to hear that, people should have better manners when they’re trespassing.
My Grandma carried a F’in gun for people who got aggressive with her, and they would rue the day because she would have used it in an instant.
She held a would-be burglar at gunpoint standing at her back door to wait on the sheriff one afternoon, her car was in the basement garage and it was quite a surprise for him when she yanked the tightly locked door open with an automatic pistol in her other hand.
She was born in the late 1800s, in a riverboat town in Kentucky, back when a lady carried a gun and was taught to use it first at a young age. No BS to her, not a bit.
Aleta
@J R in WV: Thanks for this story. (If you ever write about her and your other relatives, I’d like to pay for a copy/download.)
I found an 1867 diary (only one year) of my great-grandmother’s and an earlier diary by her cousin.
Hers was mostly about a guy she was in love with. She also kept track of how many shirts she made and sold every week, which is how she made her living. Also the quilting and sleighride parties. (No mention of the Civil War, though she attended something called donations that might have been a political meeting group. And there was an old photo of Pres. Lincoln and family.) In the last few pages, her heartthrob jilted her for another girl.
Her cousin apparently made his living in the woods, trapping and berrying. His diary was a tally of everything he trapped or picked and how much he sold it for. Also recipes for gunpowder uses and for snakebite. (The snakebite recipe used gunpowder too.) My gr-grmother mentions him showing up a few times flush with money, taking them to the seashore, buying her a hat or a new parasol.
jharp
“I think it’s to promote joining”
I think it’s to incite violence and I think it’ll work.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck:
This is without a recession, or really any sort of crisis that affects us directly. So far, every disaster that’s happened is of Trump and the Republicans’ own making. There’s a terrible heat wave going on, but no major natural disasters beyond that. The economic recovery is still chugging along pretty well on the whole, though the deep endemic inequities are still there.
Imagine how things are going to go when a real problem comes up. The kinds of things that sank the Bush administration.
The sad thing is that if it’s a war, it probably will help Trump in the short run and give him pseudo-legitimacy just like it did Bush. Those things take years to go really sour.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: One difference between North Korea and most of those other places is that North Korea is a hereditary monarchy in all but name. Maybe that’s part of what you need to keep it going–a god-king who is an actual person with status ratified by inheritance. Though obviously that’s not sufficient, given historical monarchies.
Villago Delenda Est
The fucking COMPUTER was developed by the government, to calculate artillery firing tables. Hollerith cards? Developed by the Bureau of the Census.
Everything involved in computing was developed with government R&D.