Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

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

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

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

You know he’s going to shit a cat.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

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Archives for August 2019

Late Night Sad Trombone Open Thread: The Boston ‘Straight Pride’ Parade

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You know the ‘straight pride’ luzers have themselves an image problem when they choose a parade marshal whose profession is being gay, but right-wing. Sam Bishop’s twitter feed includes shots from the whole sad performance. Per the Boston Globe:

Outdone by numbers and noise from thousands of protesters, a few hundred marchers in a controversial Straight Pride Parade were jeered and heckled Saturday afternoon during a mile-long procession from Copley Square to City Hall Plaza.

“Shame on you!” many of the protesters yelled as the parade, flanked by hundreds of police officers, passed block after block of security barricades on normally busy downtown streets, which had been closed for the event.

After the rally ended at 4 p.m., some of the protesters turned their anger toward the mayor and police, whom they assailed for allowing the parade and then protecting the marchers…

Boston police reported 36 arrests, but spokesman Sergeant John Boyle gave no details. Four police officers suffered non-life-threatening injuries, he said.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh, who was attending a Jump Into Peace event in Roxbury, said the march “is not any representation of who we are as a city.”

About 600 protesters outnumbered an estimated 200 marchers after the parade reached City Hall Plaza, where police kept protesters behind barricades about 200 feet from a concert stage where the Straight Pride rally was held…

Parade organizer Mark Sahady is part of Resist Marxism, a group founded by an alt-right leader that has a history of violence. That group had helped organize a “free speech” rally in Boston in 2017 that critics said attracted white nationalists.

The grand marshal was Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart editor who has been banned from Facebook and Twitter for hate speech, was among several speakers at the rally…

So Sahady and his little buddies succeeded in wasting a ton of the city’s money protecting them from the abuse they were demanding, and ramping up the tension another notch between the cops and the ‘counter-culture’. Which was what they were hoping for, after all, so at least they have *that* consolation.

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The Second Amendment is Again Waging War On The First: Alabama and Texas editions

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Bouncing off of Adam’s post about the Odessa murders…

Last night a bunch of folks gathered together for some fun, a high school football game in Mobile, Alabama.  A teenager showed up with a gun and shot ten other kids.  By some astonishing good luck, no victims died.  Nine of them had to go to the hospital and six have been released from care already.  The shooter left the scene and turned himself in this morning.

So there you have it:  two cities, two crowds just going about their business, trying to have some good times on a weekend, and two assholes who demonstrate as brutally as possible the the right to free assembly can’t be fully trusted in these United States.

Second Amendment absolutism is at war with the right to assemble, to express our ideas freely, to pray if and as we choose.

Practically or actually unregulated guns directly threaten civil society.

Gun violence does more than just murder individuals.  It threatens the ability of Americans to express the consent of the governed.

The citizens of Mobile, of Odessa and Midland, of everywhere in the US,  no longer have the full enjoyment of their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of an afternoon’s entertainment.

I know that mass shootings produce a relatively small fraction of the death toll from firearms; suicide takes two thirds of that total.  But terror is not about the absolute destruction terrorists are able to inflict; what counts is the impact on the terrorized society, the change in our behavior, our expectations, and our ability to make free and unfettered choices about whatever it is the terrorists care about.

That’s what mass shootings do: make it harder for all of us to live the way we want.

The fight against the NRA, #MoscowMitch’s GOP and the rest of the gun cabal is a campaign against those who are, right now, using the tools or terrorism against the United States of America.

Georges Seurat, The Circus, 1891

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Breaking News: Another Weekend, Another Mass Shooting in Texas

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As of now there are at least 5 dead and 21 wounded and/or otherwise injured in a mass shooting spree in Odessa, Texas. The shooter was killed by the responding law enforcement officers and was a white male in his mid 30s. According to police reports to the news media, he attacked the cop who pulled him over for a traffic stop and after shooting the officer he hijacked a mail truck, took off, and went on a spree shooting.

As always, this will be a fast moving story and details are likely to change as today moves into tomorrow.

Open thread!

 

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Saturday Afternoon Open Thread

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Gerald’s mother has been in an out of the hospital for the past week, and she was readmitted Thursday night and had a major cardiac event and has been there ever since. To help take the load off him and his wife, the kids have been staying with me so he can stay at the hospital. It’s been fine, but they can be a touch exhausting at the time. I think what I notice the most is the constant incessant chatter. It’s just nonstop. It’s not that it is irritating, it’s just that I am not used to it. No opportunity to vocalize is left unused. If they were dogs, they would be Thurston.

Also, I have had more discussions about farts in the last 48 hours than in the previous ten years.

At any rate, last night we had burgers, beans and franks, and fries with milkshakes for dessert, and this morning we got up and took care of their dogs and mine, and then drove up to the seasonal opening of the apple orchard. They had never been, and I was excited about getting some apples, so it was a fun time. We even got to do a fun rendition of “he’s touching me he won’t stop touching me DOMINIC GOD DAMNIT STOP TOUCHING HER OR I WILL TIE YOU TO THE ROOF LIKE AUNT EDNA.” Picked up apples for my parents, my brother, and me- they had ginger gold, zestar, and one other whose name I forget.

Tonight for dinner we are doing fajitas, rice and beans, and street corn with grilled peaches and ice cream for dessert. I’m afraid to even think about what godawful movie they are going to make me watch.

***

I have seen a couple questions about the new website in the comments of other posts. It is still underway, just currently working on the database to deal with the 85 billion comments and images that need to be recombobulated or whatever the technical term is. It won’t be long. Watergirl will update some time soon.

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Not The President’s Right

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Referring to President Trump’s “rights,” as in “He has a right to declassify information,” repeats his childish and ignorant thinking and expression.

The presidency is a privilege conferred on a person by the citizens. It carries no additional rights beyond the rights of all citizens.

The President swears an oath of office.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

By doing that, he takes on obligations to the people and Constitution of the United States. No additional rights.

All a President’s actions should be guided by those obligations.

In the latest case in which the “rights” terminology has shown up, there are certain regulations that apply. The classification regulations give the President certain authorities, not rights. Under the oath of office, these authorities are to be exercised responsibly. And the authorities are exercised under the rule of law more generally.

In particular, the President is the ultimate classification authority. The regulations specify procedures through which that authority is to be exercised. Documents are to be signed, and classification markings are to be properly canceled.

It’s hard to believe that Trump followed any of those procedures in releasing yesterday’s photo. He is very possibly violating his oath of office in releasing national security information impulsively through a tweet. He has no “right” to do that.

 

Cross-posted at Nuclear Diner

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Dorian, big and slow

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He is getting big and strong. Florida looks to be facing better odds of a brush instead of a head on collision compared to Thursday.

Now, does North Carolina need to worry?

Open thread

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