Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

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

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

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

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

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

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

We still have time to mess this up!

You cannot shame the shameless.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / We Need to See All the Videos Before Drawing Conclusions: Covington Catholic High School Students Yell at Young Women Edition

We Need to See All the Videos Before Drawing Conclusions: Covington Catholic High School Students Yell at Young Women Edition

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Since we have to see all the videos of the fine young men from Covington Catholic High School, we definitely should make sure this is on the front page with the context provided by the person who both took the video and was in the group of young women being accosted and yelled at.

https://twitter.com/roflinds/status/1087507522259423232

Beware of the 21st century technological Panopticon. It sees all!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  1. 1.

    PsiFighter37

    This country is probably too broke to fix in its current state. I’m not sure how it gets fixed in the long run. Really disheartening.

  4. 4.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Fair Economist:
    “Boys will be boys. Women should submit to men.”

    Not even joking that’s what their response would boil down to.

    Reposting my comment from below:

    That’s horrible. These morons don’t even know how to interact with girls apparently. They’re perfect strangers. Whoever said they were looking to provoke a fight were right.

    Patriot Prayer, the Proud Boys, and these Covington assholes are all the same. They’re violent thugs would love to harm and kill their enemies so they provoke.

    Also, the girl recording said “baka” at the end, I’m pretty sure.

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    open thread, so…. Rudi Giuliani talks to The New Yorker, this is specifically about the Buzzfeed story

    But I can tell you, from the moment I read the story, I knew the story was false.
    Because?
    Because I have been through all the tapes, I have been through all the texts, I have been through all the e-mails, and I knew none existed. And then, basically, when the special counsel said that, just in case there are any others I might not know about, they probably went through others and found the same thing.
    Wait, what tapes have you gone through?
    I shouldn’t have said tapes. They alleged there were texts and e-mails that corroborated that Cohen was saying the President told him to lie. There were no texts, there were no e-mails, and the President never told him to lie.
    So, there were no tapes you listened to, though?
    No tapes. Well, I have listened to tapes, but none of them concern this.

    Cohen is the one who made tapes. There was a story going around a few months or centuries ago, that at one point trump used to start meetings with a pantomime of starting a hidden tape-recorder. Maybe it was during interviews so he could pretend to be taping the interview so the reporter would be on guard? As somebody said, he’s too cheap buy a quality recording system, and wouldn’t be able to operate one.

  9. 9.

    Jeffro

    Not sure how we shame those who are shameless, young or old, other than talking endlessly about having high standards for behavior and accepting nothing less. Plus also video recordings used as public examples of “WHAT. NOT. TO. DO.”

    Stay focused on reaching the youngs. They won’t pull this kind of shit if they see this kind of shit held up as the kind of thing that only scumbags and totes uncool people do.

  10. 10.

    Chetan Murthy

    Jesus H. Christ, I feel like I must say: you should all watch Maddow’s show tonight. The story about that Belarusian escort, Anastasia Vasukevich and Deripasks et al. Turns my stomach. Turns my stomach.

  12. 12.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Okay, I’m going to say it. I’ve been holding back because it may be something that a white person shouldn’t say, but for me it removes all question of who’s in the wrong.

    A drummer is one of the most respected Native Americans. A drummer singing is someone you should listen to. That was why Nathan Phillips decided to drum and sing to end the conflict between the two groups. Drumming and singing is for peace for all people. The proper response of Nick Sandmann and his friends would have been to shut up and bow their heads.

    It can be argued, I guess, that they were unfamiliar with that culture. But an additional video that has surfaced shows clear mocking, if you needed anything besides Sandmann’s smirk to convince you of their bad faith.

    Or maybe I’ve just lived in New Mexico too long.

  13. 13.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: from the same interview

    Saying things for Trump, not always being truthful about it—do you ever worry that this will be your legacy? Does that ever worry you in any way?
    Absolutely. I am afraid it will be on my gravestone: “Rudy Giuliani: He lied for Trump.” Somehow, I don’t think that will be it. But if it is, so what do I care? I’ll be dead. I figure I can explain it to St. Peter. He will be on my side, because I am, so far . . . I don’t think, as a lawyer, I ever said anything that’s untruthful. I have a sense of ethics that is as high as anybody you can imagine.

    Lordy, I hope we get to see the very ethical books of various Giuliani outfits. I wonder how the divorce is going…..

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    @PsiFighter37: It doesn’t really get “fixed”…we’re going to have to create a new thing, with new standards, and new enforcement. Also perhaps a few drops of the blade, ifyaknowwhatImsaying

  19. 19.

    clay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That whole interview is something else, but the capper is *chef’s kiss*

    I would be remiss if I didn’t let you say something for M.L.K. Day.

    Oh, my goodness, yes, he was a great hero of mine. I believe he taught me, like he did all of us, how bad segregation was. Those of us in the North wouldn’t have known that without him.

  20. 20.

    jl

    Sorry, busy tonight so I don’t have time to watch everything. But, apparently we have some evidence that not slam dunk that this Black Israelite group was 100 percent responsible for starting something at the demo. Though Josh Marshall and other reliable people on the intertubes say they are habitually aggressive.

    All I want to say is that this Phillips fellow is very impressive. He tried to do a good deed, and from what I have seen and heard, has been the most honest and forthright person about what happened and what he did. Three cheers for Phillips.

  21. 21.

    scott (the other one)

    @Cheryl Rofer: If that’s the video I just watched—and I suspect it is—this middle-aged straight white guy could FEEL the energy pouring off those teenaged boys through the damn computer screen. It’s been a long time since I was in high school, but not so long that I can’t remember being in the middle of that kind of scrum, before a game…or maybe after a party, right before a fight. That was the kind of situation that could turn violent in a heartbeat, and you can’t tell me most of my fellow straight white guys don’t know exactly what I’m talking about.

  23. 23.

    Bort

    I think the worst thing about this whole story is that this is not really news. Yes, they are belligerent dickheads, but it’s not national news.

  27. 27.

    Raoul

    Watching the part of the longer video where the one Covington kid takes off his shirt and all the other kids are doing some team chant really loud and fast, they were way overpumped. That they didn’t have chaperones, teachers and (given the context) clergy there tamping them down shows just how reckless and stupid all the adults that should have been caring for them were.

    I doubt the adults will be held accountable. They’re a trumpy, unexamined privileged bunch of yobbos (to borrow a term from our linguistic cousins).

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Chetan Murthy: Also, the failure of the US to intervene when there is potential evidence pertinent to several on going Federal investigations because the political appointees running the State Department don’t want to for political reasons is called normalization. Specifically it is normalization of the Russian active measures campaign against the US.

  29. 29.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Cheryl Rofer: A drummer is one of the most respected Native Americans. A drummer singing is someone you should listen to. That was why Nathan Phillips decided to drum and sing to end the conflict between the two groups. Drumming and singing is for peace for all people. The proper response of Nick Sandmann and his friends would have been to shut up and bow their heads.

    as I said below, during the Bush years and after, the Right made “faith” a sort of magic word that in the eyes of Russert and his ilk made any questioning of a conservative’s motivations or opinions invalid, if not a gross violation of decency. These little brats were supposedly in DC to act on their deep “faith”, and they are so clearly mocking Nathan Phillips song, and even if they didn’t know the sacred nature of it, it was clearly ceremonial and solemn to the people gathered there. And they were falling all over themselves laughing.

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    The Me generation is not gone. They reproduced and this is the result. More EVERYTHING IN THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD IS ABOUT ME, ME, ME…… And how special they think they are. American exceptionalism is an off shoot of this, “American white people are the most exceptional people in the world, just ask us.” They can’t be inclusive or recognize the supposedly founding principles of this country because that would destroy their entire concept of self. They hate people who don’t look like them, think like them, talk like them or have their same economic standing. All of that, in their minds, justifies all the hate, the disrespect, the shear bullshit of it all.

  32. 32.

    jl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: From what I have seen on reliable twitter feeds, Rudy spun even more out of control today and shot the Trump affair into even weirder and shadier territory. Was your extract from the New Yorker story what it’s all about? Or is there more? It’s too many for me, I’ve lost the Rudes thread. Sorry. I apologize.

    I’m sadly over busy next day or so, and I don’t have time to figure the new Rudes episode out either. Maybe BJ, a full service blog, should have regular Rubes Explainer’ posts. I hope I can catch up in a couple of days.

  33. 33.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman: I have a long list of links about shutdown stories like this. On the one hand, I feel like I should be keeping my fellow Jackals informed; on the other hand, as someone with SAD, I don’t wanna drive anyone over the edge!

    (P.S. Since the Jackaltariat skews old, I’m sure I’m not the only one here who immediately thought ‘been there, had that’ — in my case, measles, chicken pox, mumps, scarlatina, and ‘German measles.’ Plus vaccination for smallpox, although after 50 years there’s debate whether that would still protect me during an actual pandemic.)

  34. 34.

    Raoul

    @Cheryl Rofer: “That was why Nathan Phillips decided to drum and sing to end the conflict between the two groups. Drumming and singing is for peace for all people.”

    Yes. But one gets a strong sense that, despite the school being officially a Catholic school, they seem to have a culture that has ZERO to do with “the prince of peace.” I dunno who the school’s religious leaders are, but I’d hazard a guess that all the way up to the Covington bishop, this is a diocese with problems.

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    I love all of the people on that woman’s Twitter feed insisting that random street harassment of women doesn’t exist and she needs to prove that she didn’t start it. ?

    It turns out that my BFF’s older sister went to this stupid march. I didn’t realize that was why she went to DC, because she didn’t mention the March at all on Facebook. Almost like she knew she would get pushback if she bragged about it like she did last year. ?

  36. 36.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Chetan Murthy:

    The waning of the American sphere of influence.

    This is all the GOP and their voters’ faults. It didn’t have to come to this.

  37. 37.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Adam L Silverman: “Don’t get me started.”

    Adam, you’ve done an excellent job of educating us about this very thing. So too late *grin*. You’ve …. infected the entire commentariat here.

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @jl: I’ve lost the Rudes thread/

    so has he. To me it looks like he’s just trying to muddy the waters, to preset the response to anything Mueller (or Schiff, or…) come up with by saying, “that’s old news, we said that months ago”. But I think his ramblings, as in this case with the “tapes”, or giving the NYT quotes from trump that are actually incriminating, are a sign* that, like Lindsey and Mitch, Rudi doesn’t actually know what crimes he’s trying to cover up. He has a liar for a client, and he goes on TV and pretends to believe the lies.

    * also a sign of a man who, like trump, seems to be going through some kind of cognitive decline.

  40. 40.

    jl

    @Mnemosyne: ” she needs to prove that she didn’t start it. ”
    In my experience, it is extremely rare that random young women do ever anything that would ‘start’ or justify such an aggressive response. In fact, as a guy, I’ve never witnessed it outside nightclubs where everyone involved is way too drunk. That does not seem to be the situation here.

    Edit: shorter version: I am snarking that idea she has to prove anything is nonsense.

  41. 41.

    Mnemosyne

    @Raoul:

    There definitely seems to be a backlash forming against the chaperones with people wondering why they were letting these kids run rampant. Lots of in my day kinds of comments.

    I’ll repeat a prediction I made down below: the only way these kids end up facing any kind of meaningful punishment is if the backlash against the chaperones grows too loud and the adults need to throw a few kids under the bus to take the heat off themselves.

  42. 42.

    Anne Laurie

    @Cheryl Rofer: You’re not alone, thinking that. There’s a twitter thread from someone who does de-escalation training:

  43. 43.

    jl

    @Mnemosyne: From what I’ve seen looks like lousy chaperoning played a part in the confrontation and bad behavior.

    Leaving aside other issues of what kind of examples and instructions these kids had (MAGA hats and all, etc.), kids will act stupid in a group if left alone. I don’t know how big a role that played here, but from what I’ve seen and heard, it played some role.

  46. 46.

    Mike in NC

    We have neighbors with children and friends living in Australia and New Zealand. Is there a difference between the versions of football that they play there?

  47. 47.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Mnemosyne:

    kind of meaningful punishment

    Well, they could get blocked from major universities. Is there a catholic Liberty U?

  48. 48.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’ll repeat a prediction I made down below: the only way these kids end up facing any kind of meaningful punishment is if the backlash against the chaperones grows too loud and the adults need to throw a few kids under the bus to take the heat off themselves.

    I want the adults named & shamed & forced to defend their indefensible positions. It won’t discourage the most aggressive MAGA Monkey Men-in-Training, but that kind of blowback *does* influence the other (chronological) adults and the less-noisy teenage witnesses.

  50. 50.

    Chetan Murthy

    I got so angry, so outraged, watchng the Maddow segment, that I did something rash. I emailed those three Trumpist ex-friends that I un-friended after the Apocalypse. Started the note with “She warned you; but you didn’t listen”, ended with “you moral imbeciles” and in-between pasted a link to the Maddow episode on youtube, and

    And just to be clear, “she” was Hillary Clinton, the rightful 45th President of the United States of America.

    Somebody needs to make a t-shirt along those lines.

    P.S. I saw that “rightful 45th President” over at Delong’s place. Really lresonated with me.

  51. 51.

    jl

    @Anne Laurie: Thanks for info. I’ve chaperoned HS, undergrad and professional school students on field trips and charity work-study trips. It’s a hard job, and often thankless job. I didn’t see any evidence of any chaperoning at all, and your comment gives more evidence that the chaperones were asleep at the switch.

  52. 52.

    West of the Rockies

    Have any of the BHI people been identified yet? Were they adults (not dumb-ass, arrogant high schoolers)?

  53. 53.

    jl

    @West of the Rockies: I never heard of that group before, and am curious about what it is. From what I have read, they are a known group in big East Coast cities, and they were doing their usual public harassment act. That doesn’t mean what they do is acceptable, though. I imagine locals know who they are. I’ll look for something on them, for my own curiosity, when I have time later. Wiki, I guess, to start.

  54. 54.

    Jay

    @jl:

    The school has a proven track history of:

    – allowing sexual abuse of children,
    – rape tolerance,
    – racism,
    – mysogeny,
    – homophobia,
    – fraud,
    – victim claiming,
    – white male privledge,
    – Nazism,
    – anti-semitism,
    – forced birherism,

    Basically your “Middle American” value system.

    On Saturday the concencus was don’t doxx the kids, let the adults disipline them,

    Now that the Adults have deployed the White Male Privledge Waaambulance,

    The concensus is doxx them all, kids and adults, ruin their lives and drag them forever.

  55. 55.

    CatFacts

    Hello and a hearty fuck you to all jackals from a longtime lurker!
    If you’re thinking of ways to hold the adults to account, it’s worth mentioning that the mother who sent the “fake news” and “black Muslims” email to all those news outlets is apparently Julie Sandmann. Who is apparently a VP of Relationship Management at the Cincinnati branch of Fidelity. Fidelity customers may want to let them know what kind of brand ambassador you think she’s being…

  56. 56.

    Ruckus

    @Anne Laurie:
    You and I are around the same age and of course had all the diseases that were going around then. I went to my 50th reunion in 2017 and everyone there talked a bit about all the “childhood” illnesses we all had. And you left out polio, a really fun disease. The girl I went to school with it didn’t show up to the reunion so I have no idea how life has treated her. I do know that not everyone had all the same results to the illnesses. I was diagnosed with encephalitis from the measles. That was fun.

  57. 57.

    jl

    @Jay: They are HS kids, which has to be taken into account, especially if they have been given poor guidance. I’d start with the adults and ask them what the hell is going on, what kind of example they set, and what they are telling their students, are the adults doing their jobs in a responsible way.

  59. 59.

    Aleta

    Some say that abuse, along with insisting it didn’t happen or was no big deal, and blaming the wrong people, and allowing an environment that encourages it, can go on for generations in an institution. It might be relevant that in 2009 the Covington diocese paid out one of the largest settlements in the US to date for priest abuse, with 100s of boy victims.

  60. 60.

    smike

    @jl:
    “… I’d start with the adults and ask them what the hell is going on,…”

    Who do you think bought them all the MAGA gear? And taught them all about white privilege and scary brown people ?

  61. 61.

    Mr. Kite

    @Mike in NC:
    All* English-speaking countries have a national sport called football but they are all different.

    *some poetic license may need to be taken

  62. 62.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: Ave Maria (in Florida) and Franciscan University of Steubenville to name two off the top of my head. Basically any Catholic college or university that allows Opus Dei to operate freely on their campus. Notre Dame would be far too liberal for many of them, although my spouse did have a roommate who would have fit right in with the Spanish Inquisition

  63. 63.

    Camassia

    From what I have read about “CovCath” (hurl) there are a lot of stories out there about minority kids that went to that school were bullied. Black face at games. They students refer to an all girls C school as ‘the whores on the hill’. Classy. Faculty is all white. They let a rapist walk in graduation. So yeah, racist, sexist, the students are clearly not being taught any kind of ethics. I thought if “CovCath” insists on dragging their thuglets to controversial events in DC they ought to be taught about de-escalating situations and conflict resolution. Ditto for chaperones. The chaperones on this trip clearly couldn’t be bothered to watch or teach the out of control students.

  65. 65.

    Mnemosyne

    @cain:

    If you’re not joking, please for the love of God QUARANTINE YOURSELF. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases out there, and trying to “tough it out” at work will mean that you’re spreading it widely.

    Go to urgent care or call your primary care doctor. Oregon is experiencing a nasty outbreak with 20+ victims right now.

  67. 67.

    opiejeanne

    @cain: And what Mnemosyne said: stay home, please. Not only is measles terribly contagious, it can also be very dangerous for “just a childhood disease”.

  68. 68.

    ExpatDanBKK

    @Adam L Silverman: Living in Thailand, as a retired DoD contractor and analyst, I have a very good idea, but I can’t say because Thailand. Let’s just say that what you are thinking is probably correct.

  70. 70.

    low-tech cyclist

    Am I the only one weirded out that this ‘Christian’ school has corporate sponsors?

    That business about how you can’t serve both God and Mammon isn’t just noise.

  71. 71.

    Elizabelle

    I don’t think this is going to be a 3-day story.

    And now that ridiculous kid, Nick Sandmann, is locked into a bought and paid for PR firm drafted statement claiming he was trying to “diffuse” the situation. What a liar.

    PR firm that released that statement (and does not know how to spell “defuse”) is tied to Mitch McConnell. RunSwitch.

    Louisville Courier-Journal: Louisville PR firm played a key role in Covington Catholic controversy

    … Asked about its role, RunSwitch released a statement saying that the firm “has been retained by the Sandmann family to offer professional counsel with what has become a national media story. We are working with the family to ensure an accurate recounting of events which occurred this past weekend.”

    RunSwitch partners Steve Bryant and Gary Gerdemann said that Sandmann family asked people they knew over the weekend about getting help with handling the media.

    “They reached out to our firm, and we responded,” said Bryant, adding that the business specializes in crisis management “all over the country.”

    Scott Jennings, a conservative political commentator and a columnist for the Courier Journal, is the third partner in RunSwitch.

  73. 73.

    Miss Bianca

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Or maybe I’ve just lived in New Mexico too long.

    For sure, I think a bunch of white kids from New Mexico might have enough cultural awareness to do what you’re talking about. These snot-nosed Midwesterners, not so much.

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