New from @BrandyZadrozny + me:
Armed residents in small towns all across America, warned by social media and local police, have been gathering to fight off "busloads of antifa," coming to loot their towns.
They never show up.
So what happens next?https://t.co/lybZJCDbd6
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) June 6, 2020
We don’t even need aliens these days, just social media. Straight out of the Twilight Zone…
About 200 protesters came to Sugarman’s Corner, the local hotspot in downtown Klamath Falls, Oregon, last Sunday night to protest the killing of George Floyd.
Like in many of the protests that have recently sprung up in cities across the United States, the group was made up of white, black and Latino people, members of the Native American Klamath Tribes, and the LGBTQ community; a diverse coalition in a county of 68,000 where 9 out of every ten residents are white, according to Census estimates. They held signs, many of which have become common during recent protests: “Black Lives Matter” and “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Just across the street, hundreds of their mostly white neighbors were there for decidedly different reasons. They leaned in front of local businesses The Daily Bagel and Rick’s Smoke Shop wearing military fatigues and bulletproof vests, with blue bands tied around their arms. Most everyone seemed to be carrying something: flags, baseball bats, hammers and axes. But mostly, they carried guns.
They said they came with shotguns, rifles and pistols to protect their downtown businesses from outsiders. They had heard that antifa, paid by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, were being bused in from neighboring cities, hellbent on razing their idyllic town…
While large rallies in major cities have been the most visible part of recent social efforts to change how police treat black people, hundreds more have popped up in small, rural towns, where residents have marched and kneeled to protest police brutality.
Those protests — and some of the violence and looting that have accompanied them — have become the source of growing skepticism and paranoia in conservative circles. The most persistent rumors center on groups of antifa members being put on buses and sent to small towns to wreak havoc.
The rumors are unfounded. But that hasn’t stopped people in some communities, like Klamath Falls, from preparing for the worst. Towns from Washington state to Indiana have seen armed groups begin patrolling the streets after receiving warnings about an antifa invasion, often spurred by social media or passed along from friends. Those actions have yet to erupt in major violence but often bring heavily armed people in close contact with protestors, as it did in Klamath Falls…
Since nationwide protests began, President Donald Trump and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr have without evidence blamed the antifa movement — a loose network of groups made up of radicals who rely on direct action, and sometimes violence, to fight the far right and fascism — for the looting and property damage seen during some of the otherwise peaceful rallies. Last week, Trump announced that he planned to designate antifa as a terrorist organization.
That unsubstantiated finger pointing has coincided with viral rumors on social media — posts on Facebook and Nextdoor that buses filled with thousands of antifa and anarchists were on their way to loot suburban neighborhoods. Some seen by NBC News featured a screenshot of a tweet by a fake antifa Twitter account that Twitter said was created by a white nationalist group…
Police and 9-1-1 dispatchers in South Bend, Indiana, were inundated with calls warning of “busloads of people coming in from the Toll Road.” One tweet, posted by several different, brand new accounts using identical language, warned South Bend residents to “be in by 9 and lock all of your doors.”
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot decried a “concerted effort out there to misinform” after the city’s police scanner repeatedly warned of antifa buses on their way into town amidst protests Saturday night.
NBC News reviewed similar warnings and posts of panic in local apps like Nextdoor and Facebook groups from all throughout the country this week. “Friends in the NYPD” warned of antifa “being sent to the suburbs” in one post. A post in a Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Facebook group implored residents to “protect yourselves, your family and your businesses” from a “serious rumor” about a group “organizing to riot and loot.”
Similar warnings were posted in Nextdoor groups everywhere from Jacksonville, Florida, to Danville, California. Some local police departments and sheriff’s offices in Idaho and South Dakota posted to social media to assuage residents of the false antifa bus rumors that had gripped local social media…
A senior Trump campaign advisor used her Twitter account Saturday to amplify an encouraging tweet of a video of a Texas man yelling about “fucking n———“ as he wielded a chainsaw to chase away anti-racism demonstratorshttps://t.co/5LKTOyvkYf
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) June 6, 2020
In an apology, @mercedesschlapp writes she has deleted the RTs:
“deeply apologize and I retweeted without watching the full video. I deleted the tweet. I would never knowingly promote the use of that word. This is time for healing the nation and not division”
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) June 6, 2020
You own a powder compact I presume? Flip it open.
— Amanda Crumley (@AmandaCrumleyLA) June 7, 2020
She wouldn’t be able to see her reflection.
— Robin (@RobinCook) June 7, 2020
Villago Delenda Est
These MAGAt idiots are so damn gullible.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I’m sure these galaxy brains think they scared them off
encephalopath
The general hysteria about antifa among the common folk on the right is almost sure to be at least partially driven misinformation from IP addresses in Macedonia and the like. It’s so easy to drive them into a tizzy over imaginary antifa hiding the the shrubbery. How could Russia resist?
The constant drum beat of about antifa by Republican leadership is mostly distraction. They desperately want to tie BLM and antifa to protest related acts of violence so they just keep repeating it in front of the cameras.
But I think there is also a Nixonian obsession with antifa among Republicans similar to the way that Nixon was certain that the antiwar left was being directed and controlled by international communism. He sent the CIA chasing after proof and even after they didn’t find any he still insisted that it was true.
When antifa showed up at the Proud Boy rallies to show their disapproval of fascist wankery, law enforcement was right there scraping the airwaves, collecting information. And ever since, you can be damn sure they have been conducting illegal surveillance of people they have identified as being anfita related.
So when all these protests happen and the phones belonging to antifa people are there in the protest, law enforcement, just like Nixon, is sure that antifa is responsible for something nefarious. They have to be… I’m mean they are out there, in public, assembling, saying stuff, petitioning the government for the redress of grievances.
Part of this has to do simply with the seductive nature of secret information. Law enforcement has access to this information that no one else does, so they start thinking that it MUST mean something or why would they have it.
You and I can look out the window and rightly assume that people who were protesting fascism are also in the protest against police violence against black people. The police with their secret information look at their covertly collected data and start seeing patterns where none exist.
Pattern recognition helpfully stopped cave dwelling humans from getting eaten by the bear, but it also caused humans believe that witches made their crops fail. Without careful controls on data analysis, people will start seeing things in the data that aren’t there.
The same thing will happen to you if you point a telescope at your neighbor’s house across the street. In a short time you will conclude that your neighbor is up to something. What’s he building in there?
Probable cause as the standard for search warrants exists for a reason.
Benw
I am antifa!
Punchy
These chuckleheads claimed victory when Auntie Fa didn’t arrive. It’s like me with arsenic claiming victory when the rats failed to take possession of the nearby IKEA.
Baud
Someone should remake this but with “ANTIFA!”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
But I guess some maniac threatening people with a chainsaw is ok
Raoul Paste
My neighbour across the street blames George Soros for outside agitators at the protests
Of course he has no evidence for that . George Soros is the go-to bogeyman
A Ghost to Most
@Benw: Boy, are you in the wrong place. A certain FPer here churned out the anti-antifa propaganda.
Antifa is willing to put their asses on the line. Here, not so much.
JMG
I was covering the 2004 NLCS playoffs between the Cardinals and the Astros. At the old Busch Stadium you could not see behind you in the press box. In the middle of a game, loud explosions rang out. One reporter asked, “is this terrorism?”. Another, a home towner, responded, “in St. Louis?” It was a fireworks display from a riverboat casino. Amazing that not one of these morons thought “Why us?”
John Revolta
@encephalopath: out there, in public, assembling, saying stuff, petitioning the government for the redress of grievances
Commie scum! Terrists! There oughta be a law!
joel hanes
@encephalopath:
QFT.
Benw
@A Ghost to Most: they bused me into this blog to cause havoc
Baud
@Benw:
How would you know if you were successful?
Ksmiami
@Benw: those hillbilly fucks look exactly like what I expected- fat, ugly incels- what a good example of “white supremacy”…
Martin
Just a reminder that given that antifa isn’t an organization but a statement of values, being anti-antifa makes you objectively pro-fascist. That you are willing to occupy a peaceful street with an AR-15 identifies you as a fascist LARPer.
WestTexan
As someone who was raised in rural Texas, I have come across this kind of lunacy for most of my six decades on the planet. The first thing I ask them is why they think any of the Commies, antifa, liberals, etc. would come out here in the first place. I‘ve never gotten a logical answer.
Not ever expecting one either. But they truly are narcissistic enough to believe that these boogie men are intent on destroying them. Hell, I grew up with them and I hardly ever give them a second thought.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Poor
MercedesKaren, she had no idea the freak threatening civil rights marchers with an actual chainsaw was racist.I mean, hoooooooocooooooooonode ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Baud
@WestTexan:
Did you not see Wolverines?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
True, but these people are somehow able to support an authoritarian leader yet claim they’re the true freedom fighters. Critical thinking isn’t their strong suit and they desperately want to believe they’re tyranny-opposing, freedom-lover
Also, I wish the article quoted in the post had pointed out that Trump doesn’t have any formal power to designate “Antifa” a domestic terrorist organization (I believe), not that it’s organized to begin with
WestTexan
@Baud: I lived it ?
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
the picture above: Why do Rednecks were such terrible trucker hats?
Seriously. In this day and age, you can get really nice hats/caps at decent prices.
debbie
@Ksmiami:
Feels like “Deliverance” to me.
they should go back to drinking bleach or pool cleaner.
Mike in NC
I read an article about how right-wing talk radio hosts like Limbaugh and Hannity are treating the protests: why yes, killing an unarmed man is bad, but it’s the work of rogue cops and the mobs are stirred up by liberal elitists trying to start a civil war. That’s just the same bullshit they’ve been spewing to their idiot listeners for 20+ years.
Zelma
You can’t cure stupidity!
A friend of mine was out walking in our increasingly crowded shore community. (Masks optional apparently) and met a friendly acquaintance.. Asked if she had company, my friend replied no. Acquaintances response? “Oh now that the epidemic is over, we have a houseful.” Polite friend replied, “I hope your right” rather than “Are you an idiot?”
Sally
IMHO, these people are stupid and ignorant, but not quite stupid and ignorant enough to believe that antifa are really coming for their town. There is no way they’d be out there, even with a surfeit of semi automatic weapons, if they really thought they’d have to fight a violent, armed invasion. Most of them look like they couldn’t run out of sight on a dark night.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Raoul Paste:
George Soros is also Jewish. Antisemitism is rife on the right now
Percysowner
White House thinking of having Trump do a national address on ‘race’ after church photo-op fails: CNN
What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Beautiful offical MLB hats; most around $20 dollars. (link)
Immanentize
@Percysowner: please God no.
zhena gogolia
@Percysowner:
Hahaha, I hope they have Bruno Ganz on speed-dial.
Immanentize
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: ya gotta pay preemyum for winners.
Baud
@Percysowner:
“I say again to the blacks, ‘What do you have to lose?'”
Burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
Gullible, armed, and undisciplined. Not a good combination.
LaenCleardale
It’s a self supporting delusion though. They’ll never believe Antifa weren’t actually coming. They’ll just believe because they “stood up” to defend their town the Antifa were scared off. It isn’t that Antifa aren’t a threat, it’s just that the only way to defeat them is for people to go out with guns and stop them. Therefore they should do it more.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Damn, I want that Pittsburgh Pirates hat, but it’s $40. Still, the hats look really nice
The Thin Black Duke
@Immanentize: Oh God please yes. When your enemy is drowning, throw him an anchor.
Burnspbesq
@Baud:
He doesn’t care. Soros pays up front, in cash, with no 1099.
Kay
I love that the BLM’s organizers made Trump’s White House fence a really handy bulletin board for memorials to those killed by police. His ugly spite fence is covered with messages.
Martin
@Percysowner: So, he’s either going to make things worse or lie, and make things worse. That’s a hell of a strategy.
Some of this weeks polls:
Texas: Trump +1
Georgia: Biden +1
Utah: Trump +3.
And yet, Trumps approval rating isn’t at its all time low.
Baud
@Kay:
Trump doesn’t really know how to wall very well.
James E Powell
With respect to Clinton & deplorable Trump supporters. Has anyone of the press/media who headed for the fainting couch or took great umbrage back in 2016 ever acknowledged that she was correct or maybe a bit low in her estimate of half?
Robert Sneddon
Why buses? Don’t antifa people have their own transport?
“Six thousand antifa people are coming to our town!” — that’s over a hundred buses packed full of people, no space for banners, food, water etc. and nowhere to put any loot they might take when they leave. Who’s providing that many buses at short notice? Co-ordination, routing, timing, it’s not going to happen.
My own suggestion is that the folks circulating these rumours should say that the antifa are coming to [insert name of small white flight suburb here] in oversized rusty pickups flying big Confederate flags in the back as a disguise.
NotMax
Jade Helm!
Bowling Green Massacre!
Bus caravans!
Kay
When he’s gone we can take that whole fence section and preserve it.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Here it is on Ebay for $32 (link) YOLO.
I’m getting the retro maroon Phillies (aka Mike Schmidt) hat and a classic Expos (AKA Rusty Staub) rig for my collection. Also, the Cleveland white hat is tempting.
Baud
@Robert Sneddon:
What part of “George Soros” was unclear?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
I’m not sure why his approval ratings don’t reflect these state poll results. Trump being +1 in Texas sounds catastrophic. They’re measuring different things, I guess?
Subsole
@A Ghost to Most:
We can’t all be Liam Neeson, bro.
Kelly
Really Col. Edwards? I don’t know how the guard is organized but if Gov Brown can relieve him I think she should. He’s too dumb.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Subsole: Most of us are Leslie Nielsen.
Kay
@Robert Sneddon:
It’s always “white vans” with the mythical fraudulent voters.
NotMax
@Robert Sneddon
Gayhound. All part of the insidious agenda.
//
Kelly
By the way K Falls is really, really far from any Oregon population center. The racism there is directed at Native Americans and Hispanics. The white farmers stole all the water generations ago and are upset the stolen goods are being reclaimed.
BBA
I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I for one am against the paramilitary wing of the prewar German Communist Party.
Ruckus
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
I’m going to hit you with no taste, no knowledge, no style, no how.
Llelldorin
I have a rock that protects me from tigers. I know it works, because no tiger has ever attacked me in my suburban California home.
It’s the same logic, except that my rock is vanishingly unlikely to kill anyone if I’m careless or stupid with it.
Subsole
@WestTexan:
This person speaks wisdom.
God, the number of people who were certain alQaeda were coming to invade Moody, Texas post 9/11…
For that matter, remember Jade Helm? I knew folks in the State Guard (not the national guard. TOTALLY differen). That was an entire scene, lemme tell you.
Calouste
Eisenhower was antifa, really high up in the organization as well. George H. W. Bush was also antifa.
Anne Laurie
Bah Gawd, their forefathers circulated rumors about buses full of colored agitators & other comminists starting in approximately 1947, and they are NOT gonna stop using that trope now. Have you no respect for tradition, suh?!?
Ruckus
@Sally:
It doesn’t matter what they can or can’t do, what matters is what they think they can do.
JaneE
@Baud: That time-travelling Obama went back a couple of months to order them up.
Kelly
Antifa are protecting the environment by using the minimum carbon transport. It’s 300 miles from Portland to K Falls. It’d take a several days to bike.
NotMax
“Hey maw, is great-grandpop’s Black Legion outfit still up in the attic?”
//
WaterGirl
@Kay: I would love to see that. Do you have a link?
phdesmond
@LaenCleardale: there’s a classic of sociology that speaks to this situation.
from wikipedia:
When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World is a classic work of social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter published in 1956, which studied a small UFO religion in Chicago called the Seekers that believed in an imminent apocalypse and its coping mechanisms after the event did not occur. Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance can account for the psychological consequences of disconfirmed expectations. One of the first published cases of dissonance was reported in this book.
Subsole
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
These aren’t conspiracy theories. They are excuses.
So if you are expecting them to explode in a puff of logic when it turns out they are wrong? Nah.
The theory is not there to explain. It is there to excuse. Always remember that.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): There’s a phenomenon in statistics called Simpsons Paradox where the trend of data subsets can run the opposite of the trend in the aggregate. My point being, statistics is tricky.
It’s entirely possible that the more racist Trump gets, the more support he garners out of his base, raising his approval, but those supporters are not evenly distributed. And when he backs off of that, his supporters turn on him and put themselves in the undecided camp.
But I will say this, Biden polling at 50% means all of the uncertainty is on Trumps side. The opposite was true in 2016, the uncertainty was on Clinton’s side, and neither candidate was close to 50%.
FWIW, Kamala is now overwhelming favorite for VP pick on betting sites.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Incredibly tempting, but still a lot. I remember going to see Pirates home games on Free Hat/T-shirt days with my family and it was always a good time. I can never get into sports unless I’m there in person.
Anne Laurie
Remember the fuss over the design for the Vietnam Memorial, which was “deeply disrespectful” of Our Sainted Dead? And then, as soon as The Wall went up, people started leaving mementos at it, and the Very Serious Conservatives couldn’t decide whether or not such mementos were also “disrespectful”?
At the height of that pearl-clutching display, I saw a commercial cross-stitch pattern of a rose scotch-taped to The Wall. That’s when I knew for sure the ‘but REVERENCE’ party had lost the battle (as well as the plot).
Handmade signs, candles & stuffed toys are how “we” memorialize events, now. Sections from BunkerBaby’s Chickensh*t Coop, complete with artwork, will be carefully preserved for future generations in the National Museum.
HumboldtBlue
@Kelly:
I’m not going to explain the Klamath Dam Removal Porject and you’re not going to make me!
phdesmond
@Anne Laurie: and well it should be preserved — our taxpayer dollars paid for that fence!
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
Repeated from downstairs, Bunker Boy.
;)
Mike in NC
@Anne Laurie: Recall that many conservatives felt that a memorial designed by an Asian-American was somehow a problem.
MisterForkbeard
@Percysowner: I wonder if they realize that the ONLY reason anyone took Obama seriously when he did this is because he showed he cared about it.
And not, you know, has decades of documented racists statements and had already threatened to sic the military on demonstrating citizens, supported the police wholeheartedly, etc.
ETA: I just realized that these are the people that shat on the Palestinians for years, didn’t invite them to even review their ‘new’ peace plans and then were incredibly surprised when no one took them seriously and the thing was rejected wholesale.
They think they deserve respect for some reason, but they haven’t earned it. In fact, they’re pissing away what they inherited.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Anne Laurie:
Christ, imagine being such an out of touch asshole that one could think the flowers/mementos being left by loved ones at a veterans memorial are “disrespectful” just because you don’t like the memorial’s design
Subsole
@Baud: When the cancer party first proposed WALL, I remembered the words of a departed acquaintance concerning a big pile of railroad ties:
“This is good wood. We need to come back tonight before someone steals it.”
Benw
@Baud: I’ve heard that if you cause havoc they give you some pie, so I’m hoping for lots of pie
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Thanks for the explanation! Hopefully, Biden maintains those margins through November. If he does, not only does it increase the odds of him winning the presidency, but will help down ballot candidates
dmsilev
@Martin:
Not much of a surprise there. Of course, the ‘She’s a KOP’ loons will flip out, but fuckem.
Subsole
@Kay:
Shades of the Berlin Wall.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MisterForkbeard:
Conservatives and right-wingers in a nutshell, basically
Geminid
A friend who is very susceptible to narratives put out by people like Glenn Beck was really disturbed by the ominous Antifa, especially after a couple “deplatforming” events at U. Call. Berkeley were punctuated by the black bloc throwing bike racks through windows and setting off molotov cocktails. I told him about the statement that Nancy Pelosi released calling for California law enforcement to, basically, “lock ’em up!”. He was surprised. He was believed that the black bloc was antifa, and that liberals like Pelosi were leftists. There are plenty of gullible people out there. There is always the potential for bloodshed when people show up up carrying firearms at political events. Bad as it was, the unite the right rally in Charlottesville would have been a bloodbath if the one shot fired had started a firefight. But what really worries me me is a guy, or several guys, in a barn somewhere making backpack bombs or a truck bomb. That’s one reason I will have my fingers crossed election day.
dmsilev
@Anne Laurie:
‘Black gash of shame’ or something like that. The jury for that contest deserves a lot of credit for recognizing the power of Lin’s design and then sticking with it through all the wailing.
Subsole
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Look, when I see a bunch of maniacs in togas stabbing a man to death, I don’t ask questions. I shoot the bastards.
Kelly
Video of White House fence
https://twitter.com/hannah_natanson/status/1269678326538534914
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
Kinda tough to get hold of him these days.
Benw
@Burnspbesq: what year are you living in, 1982? I get my Soros antifa $ straight through Venmo on my Obamaphone
NotMax
@Mister Forkbeard
Would have thought it not possible to piss from every pore but as it turns out would have been wrong.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Subsole:
Eh, they’re both, really.
Oh, yeah I don’t expect that to happen for most of them. This isn’t an episode of Star Trek where the crew convince the weekly bad guy(s) how wrong they are and how superior Federation values are.
MisterForkbeard
@Kelly: I’d also like to note that Fallout 2 made in the 90s displayed a post-apocalyptic Klamath as a real shithole full of superstitious and ignorant people.
Guess they nailed it.
Kay
@Anne Laurie:
I do remember the controversy over The Wall.
It was such an ugly-ass fence before they improved it. Isn’t he supposed to be in the hotel business? How do you manage to make that nice old house into an eyesore?
debbie
@Kay:
I wish they use Solo cups jammed into the fence links to spell “Fuck Off.”
Mike in NC
When I think about deplorable scum, for some reason Matt & Mercedes Schlapp pop into my head.
MisterForkbeard
@dmsilev: I’m actually a little worried about this. If the Left and the Right both decide to tar her as “just like the racist police and Biden must secretly hate black people” then that could damage Biden.
God knows they already collaborated on this during the primary.
Subsole
@MisterForkbeard:
Is it bad that that’s the first thing I thought of when I read the article?
Man, I need to fire that game up again sometime. A true classic.
Brachiator
@Mike in NC:
The main objection was that the Viet Nam memorial was not a traditional statue of soldiers, and that it did not have some obvious text message spelling out what it meant.
The critics wanted something glorifying the war.
SFAW
@Baud:
Your comments would start making sense?
Sorry, it was too good a setup line to ignore. I’m probably going to Hell for not resisting the temptation. Well, in fairness, for other things, too.
Another Scott
(via https://twitter.com/dick_nixon)
Cheers,
Scott.
Percysowner
@Geminid: Yeah, most of the loonies are not going to blow off their own hands while bomb making, unlike this dude.Angry at ‘hot cheerleaders,’ Virginia man blows off his hand in bomb mishap, feds say
Capri
Those notices were sent to my neighborhood – Folks were told that buses of antifatas were at the interstate exit and they were coming to look for “white houses” to ransack. My next door neighbor is a policeman, and his wife sent a message saying that nobody was at any exit. Her husband was coming home because nothing was going on.
So there’s a valid role for the local police – to assure the locals. One wonders why they didn’t call the police rather than decide to take up arms themselves. Don’t they feel like they’re on the same side?
Chyron HR
@Geminid:
It really hurts you inside to know that Trump has destroyed your “liberals are just as bad as republicans” narrative in 3 short years, doesn’t it?
Suzanne
Attention, small-town right-wing douchebags: NO ONE, ANTIFA OR OTHERWISE, gives even a sparrow fart, never mind a tangible shit, about your crappy town.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Here you go.
Ruckus
You guys.
They were complaining because the names were all together. They couldn’t tell who they were glad were dead (the black names) and who they wanted to honor for having died (the white names).
The Moar You Know
Not just conservative. My sane set of parents, who were pretty psyched on Biden, are “reconsidering some things because of the protests”.
Yesterday, they asked for their pistol back (I took it to clean it, it’s pretty old, and never got around to returning it).
These are not stupid people and they are not conservatives. But damn, race-baiting really works very well on a lot of white folks. I’m fucking freaked that this may hand Trump another four years.
Also, goddamn, anyone still want to defend being on Facebook?
SFAW
On one of the NextDoor communities in Central MA, the local RWNJs are screaming about Black Lives Matters; the “ALL Lives Matter!” bullshit is prevalent. Bout what made one or more of the threads stand out was a RW moron telling us first that BLM either supports, or works closely with, or approves of the ANTIFA terrists. Later on, that bullshit transmogrified to “BLM advocated for police to be killed.” Curiously, that person would not — or was unable to — provide a non-RWMF cite for that “fact.” Another one talked about the “Leftist Agenda.” Another snowflake talked about NextDoor censoring RWMF views.
Because the rules for NextDoor commenting are different from your typical Top 10,000 political blog, those morons were not dealt with in a more “direct” fashion. Plus, we didn’t want to hurt their fee-fees.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@NotMax: Brink’s Trucks Full of Cash!!
Wapiti
@Percysowner: Speaking of the Orange Timeshare Salesman of Lies… did his Orangeness make to some church service today? It’s Sunday, right?
zhena gogolia
@SFAW:
I mean virtual Bruno Ganz.
SFAW
@Suzanne:
Your meanness will cause the RWMF snowflakes to melt. I hope you’re proud of yourself, hurting their fee-fees like that.
MisterForkbeard
@Subsole: It is not a bad thing. It really is excellent.
I actually started a new playthrough of the original about two weeks ago.
And if you haven’t played Wasteland 2 yet, it’s pretty much a modern Fallout without the faux 50’s cultural stylings. But then, those didn’t really come into the foreground until Bethesda took over the series in Fallout 3.
Sally
@Ruckus: Yes, I get that. But what I’m saying is I don’t think they really believe, it’s just cosplay to impress, who knows whom? If they thought a group of armed thugs were coming for them, they’d be cowering in their babybunkers. But I guess there’s always a fraction of them who do believe. As many have noted, the last major antifa invasion was in Europe nearly eighty years ago. And none of these guys look like they could either fight against them or with them.
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
Got it.
Kay
@debbie:
One of the signs says simply, “Fuck Trump”. For the sake of historical accuracy, we’ll have to preserve it.
We have no choice.
MisterForkbeard
@SFAW: Oh, now Suzanne has FORCED them to vote Republican. Oh no.
Mike in NC
@Kay: Shit, this is like a reverse Berlin Wall. As Trump liked to brag, “Only I” could do it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: Sort of like they’ve done with portions of the Berlin Wall.
Kelly
The rumor was being spread by the commander of the local Air National Guard base. The Colonel is probably an important, credible guy in a small, isolated town
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Still waiting on my Soros checks.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@dmsilev:
You were right about it being called the “black gash of shame”:
Speaking of Webb, I had completely forgotten that he had tried to run in the 2016 Dem primaries. He decided not to because he disagreed with many of the party’s positions (good riddance)
From a 2015 Time Mag article:
Sure, bud. If we had just nuked North Vietnam, I’m sure we would have won the Vietnam War ?
I guess the Wall being a “nihilistic slab of stone” didn’t stop him from giving his little speech. And he refused to vote for Clinton and didn’t rule out voting for Trump in 2016. What a POS
WaterGirl
@debbie: thank you
I’m sure Donnie is fit to be tied. Unless they don’t let him go near the windows.
Bill Arnold
@Robert Sneddon:
You know that it’s not hard to start such rumors. (Just don’t get caught; that takes some opsec discipline (at least to gov-proof it). Also, remember that rumors can live for decades.)
SFAW
@MisterForkbeard:
I hope that doesn’t mean we have to kick her out of the club.
Bill Arnold
Excellent history thread on anti-fascist groups.
Butter Emails
@Bill Arnold:
Conservatives get caught on their BS all the time. Doesn’t seem to have an impact.
Ksmiami
@debbie: blowtorch and a pair of pliers- you hear me hillbilly boy- I ain’t done with you, not for a damn sight
Geminid
@Chyron HR: Not my narrative.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
@debbie:
@Kay:
I’m sort of surprised the Secret Service or the Park Police haven’t tried removing them yet. The fencing should definitely be preserved for a museum in the DC area. Like the Berlin Wall
MoCA Ace
On Wednesday there was a protest in support of BLM on the bridge between WI and MI and my son texted me that he had never seen as much pants-wetting hysteria on the local FB Community page leading up to it… people boarding up stores and calling out the local militia to protect the towns from the ravening hoards.
At 3:00 pm (the scheduled end of the protest) I went for a drive across the bridge and there were maybe a 100 protesters, mostly women and children, having a good time. I honked my support then drove through town to find the heavy and armed local militia had a large presence outside may of the local local taverns… no doubt reveling in their success in their first battle for white supremacy!
The Moar You Know
@Capri: The police were probably the ones who issued the warning to the locals. I get a lot of law enforcement bulletins as part of my job and some of them are, put nicely, without any foundation in fact.
Honus
@Geminid: I understand you’re in Greene. Did you see the reports on the BLM protest march in Orange? I couldn’t believe it. Led by the police chief snd toughly 50-50 black and white. In Orange. Unbelievable.
apocalipstick
@Baud: I believe you mean Red Dawn.
Your lack of familiarity with this foundational American document obviously marks you as an elitist libtard and Soros-worshipper. /s
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Moar You Know:
That, and the gun nuts probably wanted to shoot Antifa
MoCA Ace
@Mike in N
Funny how these supreme examples of whiteness actually want their civil war… until they see the other side is fed up with the shit, then its ohhhh nooooo’s we need to bar the doors and protect ourselves from the anti facists.
Amir Khalid
Off-topic, kind of, but has Senator Tom Cotton had anything to say about his opinions being considered unfit for decent people to read?
Patricia Kayden
@Percysowner: Trump has already given a national address on race. It happened after a White Supremacist ran over protesters and killed Heather Heyer. He called those White Supremacists “good people”.
Nuff said.
Feathers
One thing about people who believe conspiracy theories. You may be able to persuade them that some part of what they believe is not actually true. What you will never be able to convince them is that they are safe because nobody gives a shit about them.
@NotMax: Thanks for the link! Very funny. And a Biden ad ran beforehand, with one in the upper left corner while it was running. Somebody’s got the right idea about where to place ads.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Be careful, he killed a man.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Usual backpeddling that he didn’t mean to send the active duty military against the protesters to “dominate” them.
Why his platoon didn’t Niedermayer him in Iraq I’ll never know.
Feathers
@Amir Khalid: We are all weak and immoral snowflakes unwilling to face the truth that only The New York Times was brave enough to tell America.
Basically, they are howling at having gotten one over on the Libs. But the awful editor is gone, complaining about he didn’t deserve to get fired over the piece. Completely gliding over the fact that he admitted he published it without reading it. Which is the basic fucken minimum for an editor.
Geminid
@Honus: I saw the post someone made about the march in Orange on this forum. Very heartening. I was also interested to see that Orange was Randolph Scott’s birthplace. He used to say, “I can’t act and I’ve got 35 movies to prove it!”
JoyceH
@Percysowner: “Yeah, most of the loonies are not going to blow off their own hands while bomb making, unlike this dude.Angry at ‘hot cheerleaders,’ Virginia man blows off his hand in bomb mishap, feds say “
I said on Twitter what a shame it was that the guy killed his only steady date.
L85NJGT
For those still keeping count, Joe Biden won the USVI and Guam caucuses Saturday. Next up are the Georgia and WV primaries Tuesday.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m sure he did. TBF, he did speak out against Trump killing that Iranian general on Iraqi soil
Miss Bianca
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, but this is exactly what the sheriff in our county helped prevent. I figure our march may have literally as well as figuratively dodged a bullet by his coming out and saying, “this isn’t happening, people. We’re not getting busloads of antifa. These are your neighbors and your family and your coworkers, whether you like it or not, and they deserve respect for their beliefs.”
So, I may not agree with our sheriff about everything, but I’m damned glad he had our backs on this one.
The Moar You Know
@Feathers: I’ll go to my grave never believing that. Of course he read it. The problematic thing, of course, is that he didn’t see the problem (and I’m sure still doesn’t).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): In the one debate he was in during the 2016 campaign in his closing statement he talked about killing a VC or NVA fighter.
ETA: I’m thankful to Webb for updating the GI Bill, helped get the kid though nursing school after her Air Force days.
Anne Laurie
If’n that ‘Maya Lin’ kid weren’t actually Vietcong, prolly some of her relatives were, I was told.
Miss Bianca
@MisterForkbeard: Maybe these Wokier-Than-Thous should review KH’s speech reaming Rand Paul a new one over the anti-lynching bill.
joel hanes
@Ksmiami:
Some of us fat ugly people are pretty nice, even some of us who live in rural environs.
Kattails
@SFAW: Yes but she made me LOL so I’m probably going to hell. My gun-loving neighbors, the ones who had Trump signs out, have taken lately to bouts of making a lot of gun noise on weekend afternoons. Not interminably, thank God, but it’s still really jarring out of the blue on an otherwise peaceful, quiet afternoon. I don’t like to guess why this is suddenly a thing.
Taking notes here on how to get my Soros money when the unemployment runs out.
An earlier comment mentioned the “6,000” coming by bus; somewhere, here or??– it was mentioned that the 6,000 is a bit of a code as the RWRNJ’s believe the earth is only 6,000 years old.
Feathers
There was also much astonishment on twitter that there had been a peaceful BLM protest in Vidor, TX, a former sundown town, and current Klan town. Turns out they had a peaceful (mostly) turnout of 150-200. Great article in Texas Monthly about it: Black Lives Matter Comes to Vidor—Yes, Vidor, which contained the following astonishing quote:
Just wow.
I then went on Tumblr and found a rather hysterical post on my timeline saying that not to go to a rally in Vidor, that it was a Klan town and a trap and you would be in serious danger. Reblogged several times with pleas for people to stay away. Glad to know that this was an unfounded fear as well. (The article talks about people claiming that Maddy, the 23 year old organizer, wasn’t a real person. Read it.) This goes both ways.
Miss Bianca
@The Moar You Know: So, your parents are looking at what Trump hath wrought and that’s making them see *Biden* unfavorably?
Jesus wept.
Subsole
@MisterForkbeard: Thanks for the recommend. Is this a reboot of the original 80’s wasteland?
I loved how merciless the old Fallouts could be.
Like, one major NPC would send you to kill people in exchange for citizenship papers, then NOT give you the papers and pretend to be horrified at your murdering presence in her office. I mean, the game straight up PLAYED my teenage ass on that one.
Also, the sound design was just the best. Still hasn’t been equalled in the series.
Anne Laurie
‘Set a cop to break the corrupt police unions’ is a statement I’ve seen on twitter. And not just from people who are pro-Kamala; some of the less rabid ‘progressives’ want their imagined nut-crushing mean Black ladywoman to stomp her stiletto heels through Buffalo like Godzilla through a Tokyo movie set.
If it makes them happy, this is a fantasy I’m willing to let them cherish.
Feathers
@Anne Laurie: You are undoubtedly correct. However, there was enough heat that he thought that claiming he didn’t might save him.
ETA: correct reply link.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Webb was a complicated man, more than I gave him credit for
joel hanes
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
such terrible trucker hats
Some of those hats will be “gimme” caps, given away free by various merchants, tire companies, seed corn dealers, etc.
Some of them will be about average for what’s sold for $5 at the Kwikstop out on the highway.
Some of them will have various stupid/defiant slogans or sigils or other symbolic value, and will not be worn so much for appearance as for imagined message.
And some of them will simply be old, having started out in one of the other categories and having been worn for years while doing actual work.
Anne Laurie
Kinda feel like Mayor Bowser beat them to it!
Feathers
@Anne Laurie: A standard feature of Roseland is an absolute inability to understand that people who have been a part of a corrupt institution could want to see in torn down; also that people can learn from their mistakes. Time seems to all be a constant now.
Amir Khalid
It’s Sir Tom Jones’ 80th birthday.
Villago Delenda Est
@Miss Bianca: Your county sheriff has a head on his shoulders. It should stay there. Where it can continue to do the right thing.
Anne Laurie
@Percysowner: One cruel twitter wit responded “He’s gonna miss that hand… “
Subsole
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I recall reading that we considered nukes. The brass ultimately decided against because anything worth nuking was already getting flattened by conventional means or under American occupation.
Just like dropping that MOAB on Afghanistan. What would be the point? “Behold, the dick of our tribe,” ain’t gonna make the bad guys fall over dead of fright.
Miss Bianca
@Villago Delenda Est: Coming from you, that’s high praise. So he need not be delenda’d after all? Good to know.//
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: May he continue to croon for many years to come. He’s been “Sir Tom” since 2005, which I did not know before.
Subsole
@Amir Khalid:
Last I saw he was crowing about it on twitter. All a Kulturkampf stunt, and the NYT walked right into it.
MisterForkbeard
@Amir Khalid: He smugly informed the media that his own standards “far exceed” those of the New York Times and that his op-ed was flawless.
I’m not kidding.
joel hanes
@dmsilev:
Black gash of shame
The Viet Nam war shame belongs to JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Kissinger, McNamara, Westmoreland, and their ilk, who wasted all those lives in service of a lie.
Anne Laurie
I’ve actually got a post-in-progess about this… One of the most important reasons for having a police force is that, when it’s left to ‘the community’, all too often the answer to every problem is Kill the Witch / Jew / Immigrant / Outsider.
You need to have some trusted people, within the community, who can stop the lynch mob before it’s too late. For one thing, it never stops with one ‘witch’ — but being mutually responsible for a murder binds the whole mob into a gang that will afterwards be torn between repressed guilt & gleeful savagery.
The GOP, unfortunately, have since at least Nixon’s day been encouraging lynch mobs, for exactly those unsavory reasons.
Patricia Kayden
Geminid
@L85NJGT: Georgia dems will be picking a candidate to run against David Perdue also. He or she will have a real shot at that Senate seat. And on Saturday the Va. 5th Republicans will have a “drive in convention” to choose between Rep. Denver Riggleman and Liberty Baptist’s Bob Good to stand for congressman this November. Good has the home field advantage: the convention will be held in the parking lot of his megachurch. I think the dems will flip this one.
MisterForkbeard
@Miss Bianca: Don’t you understand? They think she’s ‘performing’ and ‘pandering’.
Performative leftists think Kamala’s time in the Senate is a smokescreen. It’s… sad. Really sad. They say the same thing about Biden and said the same thing about Hillary – that even though they might grudgingly admit they approve of the actual proposed policies, they know in their hearts that Democrats don’t actually MEAN them.
Sigh.
Ksmiami
@joel hanes: Their ugliness is more a manifestation of their spite filled hearts… their internal ugliness shows …
MisterForkbeard
@Subsole: It’s a direct sequel to the 1980s Wasteland, takes place about 15 years afterwards. Came out a few years ago and has been improved immensely since.
There’s another sequel coming out later this year.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: So Sir Tom is a month older than Sir Ringo.
Geminid
@Honus: Did you post about the march in Orange? If so thank you.
Miss Bianca
@MisterForkbeard: Man, he’s starting to sound like Trump.
J R in WV
Tom Cotton is a despicable piece of shit. So are the people at the FNYT who decided to ask him to write a piece, then after he submitted that vile screed, to go ahead and actually run it~!!!~
I was and am amazed that they actually fired the idiot who ran that vile tripe without even reading it, and then was stupid enough to admit that he ran it without reading it the first time.
Amazing stupidity…
Miss Bianca
@dmsilev: Does anyone but me find the term “black gash of shame” kind of a…suggestive…term of abuse?
Miss Bianca
@MisterForkbeard: Kind of says something about them, doesn’t it, that everyone *else* is always ‘performing’, by their lights?
Projection: It’s not just for *right*-wing assholes anymore!
joel hanes
@Ksmiami:
internal ugliness
This is absolutely my reaction to Megyn Kelly, Mercedes Schlapp, Tomi Lahren, Dana Perino, Dana Loesch, and their ilk
Subsole
@MisterForkbeard: Awesome. What’s your favorite Fallout?
Anathema Device
@Robert Sneddon:
It’s always buses – bringing outside agitators, antifa, and illegal voters. I suspect a non-too-subtle dog whistle about ‘those’ people always needing to be ‘bused’ and too poor for cars / too ‘urban’ for ‘real’ cars.
Matt McIrvin
@The Moar You Know: Except, you look at national and state polling–recent polling, after the unrest started, after most of the looting–and that’s just not happening. Trump is losing support, nationally and in the swing states. It’s not a huge motion, but that’s the motion.
debbie
@Kay:
It’ll be put right next to the filing cabinet of his tweets.
Steeplejack (phone)
It gets crazier:
Kelly
More accurate than “militia”. I’m damn tired of military cosplay yahoos being called militia.
MisterForkbeard
@Subsole: Probably New Vegas or Fallout 2. NV is a lot more accessible, but FO2 nailed the atmosphere much better. They took lore seriously, had a great antagonist and I liked how they handled the aftermath of Fallout 1 – especially with the Super Mutants.
Also, I could make a martial artist character who literally beat the last boss by critting him with a crane kick to the nuts and then just repeatedly smacking him for 2-3 points of damage for about 100 turns while he curled up in a feral position.
bluehill
@Steeplejack (phone): Orson Welles was ahead of his time.
Omnes Omnibus
Purity of Essence. Just sayin’, you prevert.
Miss Bianca
@Steeplejack (phone): Isn’t Forks, WA where Twilight is set?
Jesus Christ, how do know these things?
@bluehill: War of the Wingnuts?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (phone): My parents almost moved to Sequim when I was a teen, I don’t find this surprising.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Raoul Paste: Tell him Emanuel Goldstien is behind the protests because Soros is over worked with the Virus.
Calouste
@Patricia Kayden: What, not even Rex Tillerson, or whatever his name is, is going to vote for the shitgibbon?
Suzy
@Percysowner: Mainstream media better not fawn over a speech written by others , a speech that Trump will read without conviction because it won’t represent his real views.
Bruuuuce
@Anathema Device: It’s not new, either. Robert Moses, the brilliant, racist AF designer of so much public space in New York, including highways, deliberately included low overpasses apparently intended to prevent buses from using those highways to get to the beaches on Long Island where the new suburbs filled with white folks were. Here’s a slightly more nuanced look at the story.
Suzy
@The Moar You Know: I’m concerned too about the backlash. Days and days and days of seeing thousands of people on tv that demand drastic change.
Your parents are freaking out ? I’m not surprised at all that some people among the “soft” support for Mr. Biden are reconsidering. The spectacular movement they are witnessing on tv is so big it creates anxiety. We’ll see the polls in a few days. I’m concerned.
Still confident that Mr. Biden can win this, but it could be close.
Bill Arnold
@MisterForkbeard:
I never even considered trying that, nice. :-)
Was fond of the Bozar(?) that one could pickpocket from the guards at one town.
Prometheus Shrugged
@The Moar You Know: On the flip side, here’s my anecdote from this evening. We like to walk our dogs in an extremely wealthy neighborhood in La Jolla that’s near our house. We like it, because the ocean views are spectacular; there aren’t many other dogs out (we have a beagle/daschund mix that morphs into Cujo on the street); and, most importantly my 11 yr old son likes to take census of the fancy cars in the driveways. By his reckoning we saw $10,000,000 worth of car this evening. Anyway, we got to one house that had a brand new, fully loaded McClaren parked in the driveway. Lo and behold, it had a “Black Trans Lives Matter” sign in the back of the cockpit window. My initial thought was “hey, this guy must have been at the same car rally as we were yesterday.” Meanwhile my African American wife became uncharacteristically emotional. I quickly realized that not only are we pretty lucky to be living in a place where, of course the $500,000 McClaren had a “Black Trans Lives Matter” placard in it, but, also, that the tide is definitely turning.
This is not to say that San Diego doesn’t have its full share of police problems and pockets of virulent racism. Just that I am now hopeful that they will be eradicated sooner, rather than later, by social distancing.
Subsole
@MisterForkbeard: LOL. Agree. 2 is my fave, not ar all impressed w/the Bethesda offerings.
I friggin’ lost it during the martial arts tourney when the guy pulled a gun mid ass-whoopin’…he killed me with it, too. I wasn’t even mad.
Subsole
@Bill Arnold: I loved that you could make any build and, with enough bloody-minded tenacity, it would work.
Also, if y’all never played a low Int. game, you owe it to yourself to try it. Sulik’s intro dialogue alone critted my sides.
Jay
M
Jay
Sloane Ranger
Trump’s speech could go one of to two ways.
One – he comes out and mechanically reads some anodyne words supporting the principle of racial equality and an end to police violence, all of which he will contradict on Twitter within 24 hours.
Two – he comes out surrounded by Police Union officials and boasts about his bigly job numbers, great for our African Americans, George would so approve, then moves to claiming that his plan to dominate the battlespace was a total success, there’s been no looting or violence since has there? Finally, he’ll raise white fears about all the liberals and anarchists who want to defund the police. Who is going to protect you in when the scary hoards come to your suburb to steal your stuff and rape your wife and daughter? There might also be a side offering that the size of the protests are fake news. Numbers of attendees are being inflated by lamestream media using CGI techniques.
Biff Baxter
@Raoul Paste: Doesn’t he know that Soros owns The Bagel Shop too. I’s all part of his devious scheme. :)
A Ghost to Most
@Benw: I should have come back sooner to read your response. That was an excellent impersonation of Mistermix.
evodevo
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): A “very liberal, anti-war Congress” cut off funding to the South Vietnamese shortly before Saigon fell to the Vietcong, Webb argued. “If our political leaders had done a better job with their duty, we may have seen a different situation in Vietnam.”
Yes…and the hippie antiwar protests and they spit on returning vets….I hear that crap from my career Army BIL all the time. Still crap after all these years.
evodevo
@Sloane Ranger: Or both ways !!!
dopey-o
What most moved me by the Viet Nam Memorial was how it invoked classic Greek tragedy. The sunken black marble states: Here the lives lost rest in the endless night of Hades.
That their surviving friends and family walk right up to the face of the memorial, and copy the names with paper and crayons / pencils, makes me think they are straining to touch their lost ones thru the veil that separates earth and hell.
Always makes me weep for all the innocent dead on both sides of that cowardly misbegotten war. The color of the marble states: This is not a gleaming monument to the glory of war.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
I recognized that the Vietnam Memorial was a powerfully moving monument long before I visited it, and in fact I resisted visiting it for a long time. Then I took a DBA class in Tysons Corner with a co-worker and good friend. Mostly after class we went out for great food, but one December night S dragged me downtown to see it.
As I expected, I cried a lot, for about an hour and a half. So moving, so emotional. After a little while I found the notebooks with alphabetical lists, and looked up my family name. There was one guy, Mark, whom I did not know at all, but it is an unusual name, so we may have been related. Tore me up, found him on the wall.
It was a cold snowy night, getting dark before we got there, but there were several other people there. No one bothered anyone else, and my friend and I did our own visit. We were both vets, we never went overseas to the war, but wow, so emotional. I recommend cold snowy nights to visit, feels so private!
The architect was, is a genius. The reflections of DC monuments are riveting as well. Design AND construction nigh on perfect!
Holy ground.