Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

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

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

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

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

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

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Not all heroes wear capes.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it’s a trap.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

This really is a full service blog.

Bark louder, little dog.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / You Can’t Explain It, You Can’t Predict It

You Can’t Explain It, You Can’t Predict It

by | 58 Comments

This post is in: 

Be safe today. Look out for each other.  Hug a kid. I don’t think any of us could have ever predicted what we are witnessing, on any level.

Reader Interactions

58Comments

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    Also, too: what does “it” in the title refer to? It can’t be tides since those are understandable and predictable. Must be something else…

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jerzy Russian:
    It’s a quote from Bill O’Reilly, who is in fact unaware that tides are well-understood and predictable, or that high-tide times are published in newspapers every day.

  10. 10.

    Steeplejack

    Okay, 4:00-5:00 a.m. Eastern time is clearly the dead zone. I am about to go to bed, and immediately afterwards Anne Laurie will post an early morning thread and the insomnia/​early risers crowd will show up.

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    All right! I’m passing the baton to Subaru Diane. Carry on, everyone.

  12. 12.

    Steeplejack

    Just checked the weather forecast: 51° and sunny in D.C. today, no chance of rain. Should be perfect for the parade.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    During a tweetstorm, Elon Musk has removed both of his companies’ Facebook pages after being challenged to do so by a few of his followers. The pages of both SpaceX and Tesla are now inactive. Each had around 2.6 million followers. Source

  17. 17.

    raven

    The redneck, bluedog loony ex-governot/senator Zigg Zag Zell Miller died and Georgia is in full throated memorializing about him. He created the “Hope Scholarship” here that is basically a “tax on the stupid” that provides educational subsidies for privileged kids. You should see the beemers and sun’s these fuckers drive here!

    https://www.redandblack.com/uganews/low-income-students-miss-out-on-benefits-of-hope-scholarship/article_f6642492-77de-11e6-b335-57d4d4cb8bf0.html

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Don’t know much about him but the “too bad dueling with a sword is outlawed” tirade was more than enough to form an opinion.

  20. 20.

    Cermet

    At least in DC, nutcase, small handed gun worshipers (i’m redundant) can’t come and intimidate the kids/people with open carry.

  22. 22.

    Schlemazel

    @raven:
    Hell is a little more crowded this morning.

    The march here will kickoff at 9:00, 30 degrees and cloudy but none of the rain-snow mix that had been forecast earlier in the week. We will be there in support. There was a joy I felt a hundred years ago protesting the war. Now I just feel old and tired and sick of having to fight for common sense and decency. When we went to bed last night Mrs S admitted she is worried about violence directed against the kids today. I stopped worrying about that the first time I got gassed and people panicked and trampled others. We’ll stick to the edges, partly because this is the kids march but also to try to keep an eye outward.

  23. 23.

    raven

    @NotMax: He was fucking weird, fought to get rid of the Confederate Flag symbol on the state flag, started this lottery and scholarship that most people love, supported Max Cleland and the Saxby Chambliss. When he was governor I was asked to give a a GED “success story” speech to a convention of state literacy teachers at the annual convention. I was nervous as shit, worked on it for weeks and went to great lengths to connect the scholarship to the GI Bill as far as providing educational opportunities. They asked for 15 minutes and right before the speech the state director came up to me and said “cut it to about 2 minutes, he’s in a hurry! Now I know that’s not reason to think he was a fucking asshole but I’m only human!

  29. 29.

    raven

    They even built a big building and named it after him

    “The Miller Learning Center, also popularly known as the Student Learning Center, is an innovative, technologically advanced learning environment. It features a unique combination of library and instructional space, modern classrooms, the best in campus computing, and comprehensive instructional support for faculty.”

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Somewhere along the way he morphed into the old man screaming at clouds.

    Or maybe his true nature came out.

  33. 33.

    raven

    The Remarkable, Maddening Career of Zell Miller

    “For a while there, Miller was like fellow arch-Appalachian Andrew Johnson reincarnated, turning on former friends and embracing former enemies with equal passion. It seemed there was no GOP candidate he wasn’t willing to support, the nadir probably being his establishment of a group called Democrats for Santorum, just as the right-wing senator was going down the tubes in the 2006 elections in Pennsylvania.

    But in the last few years, as his health declined and he became more distant from politics, the fiery mountaineer seemed to mellow. He mended fences with old Democratic friends and advisers James Carville and Paul Begala (whom he first introduced to Bill Clinton). And in his last major political endorsement, in 2014, he supported Democrat Michelle Nunn’s Senate campaign.”

  34. 34.

    JPL

    @raven: He was a complicated person for sure. He worked for Lester Maddox, and as governor he appointed the first black to the supreme court. Maybe he wanted to appear balanced. lol

  35. 35.

    raven

    @JPL: Governors wives often have pet areas they give time to. Shirley MIller’s was adult literacy and I worked with here a bit in those days. She was a nice lady, pretty shy and you could see that public speaking was difficult for her. She did it anyway and helped moved our effort forward. I sometimes wonder if they really knew how skewed the Hope Scholarship was?

  37. 37.

    Aleta

    “Congress is [in Washington], and it will hit home if all of us showed up where these politicians are, and protested even in the cold,” said Ariel Lopez, an 18-year-old senior from Jacksonville, Fla. Mr. Lopez worked overtime at his job at a local Starbucks on Wednesday and found friends to cover his weekend shifts so he could attend the rally.

    His group of six, all from Englewood High School in Jacksonville, were unsuccessful in raising money from a GoFundMe campaign, so they bought the cheapest tickets they could find—with a layover in Charlotte, N.C. To get home, they are taking a bus from Washington to New York and then flying to Jacksonville, via Atlanta.

    “It is intense, but it is worth it for us because it is a great cause,” Mr. Lopez said.

    -from WSJ

  39. 39.

    Aleta

    “The American people have been very clear for years now,” said the Rev. Nancy Nord Bence, executive director of Protect Minnesota, a gun violence prevention group that has chartered a bus to transport a group of kids from North Minneapolis to Washington, D.C.

    In all, more than 200 kids from several schools around the metro area are traveling to Washington, D.C. “We want background checks, we want to be able to remove guns from those who are dangerous, and yet our politicians haven’t chosen to pay attention to that. [Now] they have to pay attention to these kids. These kids, they’re not going away.”

    Protect Minnesota and two other local organizations — #MNeverAgain and the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) — have raised $23,000 to send students from North High and Patrick Henry High in Minneapolis, along with Sibley High School in Mendota Heights.

    As they prepared to depart earlier this week, organizers worked quickly to secure permission slips from parents, book hotels and transportation, pay travel insurance costs for all students, and order background checks for adults chaperoning.

    Parents said goodbye to students who gathered at the Northside Achievement Zone and board a bus for Washington on Wednesday to attend the March for Our Lives demonstration.

    During their visit to D.C., the students planned to tour Howard University and the new Smithsonian Museum on Friday to learn about African-American history, culture and the civil rights movement. Putting kids on a bus for 20 hours for just a march, Bence said, would not have been a complete teachable moment. “We really wanted them to have an opportunity to benefit from this as well,” she said.

    NAZ scholars Andre Broadnax, 16, and Antiqua Flint, 15, who are among those marching in Washington, D.C., said gun violence has been a widespread issue in their neighborhood and they feel that their plea for help has long been ignored.

    Broadnax and Flint said they are marching to find justice for gun violence victims and to find a solution.

    “We need a compromise and there should be some type of impact that shows they [lawmakers] are actually taking care of us,” said Flint, a Minneapolis South High sophomore.

    Added Broadnax: “I take it very personal that something needs to happen. I’m marching to the streets from the streets.”

    Niema Broadnax, the mother of Andre Broadnax, said it has been a challenge to talk about guns with her son who has gained appreciation for the Second Amendment and wants to join the military after he graduates. The march, she said, will give Andre an opportunity to gain compassion for victims of gun violence.

    “I want him to have a well-rounded perspective on this subject,” said Niema Broadnax, who writes about guns and domestic violence for Camden News, a neighborhood newspaper. “Yes, you can be pro guns, but you need to understand the damage that guns cause.”

    In a show of support and to denounce gun violence, about 80 kids from different Jewish denominations left Thursday from Beth Jacob Synagogue in St. Paul to join the march.

    A GoFundMe group raised nearly $13,000 to send students from the University of Minnesota to the march. Another group has raised money to send eight students from Roosevelt High School to D.C.

    -from the Star Tribune

  40. 40.

    Raven

    @Aleta: 47 years ago in April a group of us Vietnam Vets took off from Champaign Urbana to attend Operation Dewey Canton 3. We really didn’t know what to expect and, when we got there, there were a thousand other vets from all over the country there to protest the war. We weren’t kids (I was 21 by then) but it was an incredible event. I hope this is the same.

  41. 41.

    donnah

    The march here in Dayton, Ohio starts at 11 am and it will be a chilly, but not snowy day. My husband, his sister, and I are going and I expect my oldest son will be there. I missed the Women’s March and would like to represent the young people who have the guts to make a stand.

    Even though the lawmakers and representatives are home for the break, I hope they see people once again take center stage to speak out and speak up for ourselves. We’ve been protesting this terrible administration since it first started and we’ll continue to protest until we are heard.

  42. 42.

    Aleta

    By Nara Schoenberg at the Chicago Tribune

    Like many of the young people who are heading to Washington, D.C., for Saturday’s protest against gun violence, Dantrell Blake and Deshon Hannah are concerned about deadly school shootings. But Blake, 21, and Hannah, 20, also have very personal reasons for attending.

    Both were shot as teens on the streets of Chicago; Blake still has a bullet lodged in his left leg because doctors determined that removing it would damage bone. His cousin Hannah was hit with 30 buckshot pellets, 24 of which remain in his body.

    “I want to be a part of a change in history,” said Blake, a Back of the Yards resident who works as a peer counselor at the hospital-based violence prevention program Healing Hurt People Chicago. “What I’ve gone through is traumatizing, but it makes you want to be part of something more.”

    Hannah, also a peer counselor at Healing Hurt People, is particularly concerned about assault rifles: “They shouldn’t be on the streets, because it’s messing up, like, generations,” he said. …

    Blake and Hannah, who were both treated at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, will be attending the march along with Stroger trauma surgeon Dr. Faran Bokhari, who sees 1,000 gunshot wounds a year, and Andy Wheeler and Carol Reese, trauma social workers at Stroger.

    During a recent interview at the oldest firehouse in Chicago, where both men blow glass and do peer counseling, Blake and Hannah were open and upbeat about the progress they’ve made. At the times they were shot, Blake at 18, Hannah at 16, both were involved in the small neighborhood gangs that are almost obligatory in Chicago’s toughest neighborhoods, they said.

    Healing Hurt People, a partnership between Stroger and the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital, offers intensive case management for young people injured by violence. … The program connected Blake and Hannah with Project FIRE, an art development program for violence victims where they’ve learned glass-blowing techniques.

    Both men said they’re looking forward to Saturday’s march.
    “I’ve never been to a big march, so I want to get that feeling: to see what it is to be with a whole bunch of people marching on some positive stuff,” Blake said.
    “And then I just want to meet people, meet new people and network with them and let them know what’s going on in my city and what good I want to come out of this: a new bill or something like that. Something big.”

  43. 43.

    Peter H Desmond

    Valentine gunshots
    a student fleeing campus
    holds a balloon heart

    — Peter H. Desmond

  45. 45.

    zhena gogolia

    @Peter H Desmond:

    Nice.

    I’ll be sending good wishes to all the marchers today. I’ll say again, why don’t we have one big powerful anti-NRA organization we can contribute to instead of 15 (good, but) puny ones? It’s exhausting. I wish they’d all merge into one.

  46. 46.

    Aleta

    @Raven: I recently watched a video made by D . Now. It interviewed Vietnam Vets who on return as soldiers to their US bases organized major protests and cranked out underground newspapers, distributing them on their base (in secret of course). I learned a lot I didn’t know. There were a LOT of those underground publications produced and distributed at bases in and outside the US. Over 300, I think it said.

    I knew vets were active — protests, Congress, demonstrations–but I didn’t know the scale of their leadership. (Maybe because others took more credit and wrote/told tales that got the most publicity, and also because I was just ignorant and scattered in the way I learned.) Still learning.

    These vets mentioned that it was the actions by vets (many still on base and some who organized and printed stories other vets wrote, through opening coffee shops in military towns) that had a major effect in stopping the war, which Ken Burns didn’t properly recognize.

    (The D. Now video was related to a trip by some of these Vietnam vets to meet with villagers and a few survivors on the recent anniversary of My Lai.)

  47. 47.

    MattF

    No one’s said ‘Yay’ to Alison Krauss, so I’ll do it. YAY.

    And I’ll add– I’ve gotten tired of many of the Americana genre artists. Glad they’re there and I’ve got fond memories, but I’ve lost the desire to listen. Ms. Krauss, however, is the genuine article.

  48. 48.

    Caphilldcne

    Look forward to seeing everyone at the march. Good luck to all. Nice to meet you last night mistermix.

  51. 51.

    stonekittens

    Maybe while they’re out, the kids could get over themselves for a moment and give a shout out to the people of Puerto Rico. Or maybe for disarming the police that kill 1000+ a year. Or for our dying planet (you’d think that one would get their attention, being that the leaders live in a state soon to change it’s name from the ‘sunshine state’ to the ‘low tide state”). Or maybe they could have a word or two about the 239 lb orange tinted illiterate inarticulate nitwit who will soon have them practicing active missile shooter drills by hiding under their desks.

  52. 52.

    d58826

    @raven: I would expand that to include so many of the non-vet boomer generation that marched in the streets in the 60’s for a better world. They have totally betrayed what they claimed they were marching for in the 60’s. As I watch the young people marching today I hope that 40 years from now they can maintain the idealism they they show today.
    A 72 year old boomer ashamed of my generation.

    I have hope for the future as I watch these bright articulate smart young people on AM Joy.

    Then I see on twitter that the piece of protoplasm occupying the white house wants to limit the rights of trans-patriots from serving their country. He doesn’t even qualify as a POS.

  53. 53.

    Ohio Mom

    It is snowing furiously and sticking,
    as I had feared here in the Cincinnati northern suburbs. It will all melt tomorrow but that doesn’t help right now.

    Well, if there is one place that has to have bad weather today, it should be The Queen City (I agree, it’s a ridiculous nickname).

    I understand the match in Washington has good weather, and that is more important.

  54. 54.

    stonekittens

    Dear moderator, what did I do wrong now? Maybe protest triage should be a thing. You have my email address, give civil discourse a try.

  55. 55.

    1stgengirl

    These kids are incredible! So articulate! So mature! So determined!
    Listening to the speakers in DC and watching the marches in all the other cities. NRA – they are coming for you and all the Congresscritters you have purchased through the years.

  56. 56.

    Steeplejack

    @stonekittens:

    FYI, on the off chance that you return: Anybody’s first comment on this blog is put into moderation until a front-pager vets it (mainly to block spam like “I make $1,600 a week sitting at home in my bathrobe!”). After that it is released, which yours has been, and all of your subsequent comments will go through fine. But props for assuming the worst. Your contribution to the civil discourse is off to a great start.

  57. 57.

    stonekittens

    @Steeplejack: And somehow you managed to avoid calling me troll! Good for you! I’ve been visiting here to read pretty much once a day since 2007, so I suspect I’ll return to read the remaining useful front-pagers. On the rare occasion I comment, I often get moderated, as people around here seem only interested in agreement, and not real discourse. But thanks for your awesomely civil input!

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    @stonekittens:

    Perhaps you get moderated because you change your nym. New nym, new vetting. A quick search on the Google shows one comment from “stonekitten” (singular) on March 9 of this year, nothing else.

Comments are closed.