Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

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

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

In after Baud. Damn.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

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Reader Interactions

211Comments

  5. 5.

    zhena gogolia

    Greatest. I never thought I’d say it, having seen “Headless Body in Topless Bar” when it appeared.

  14. 14.

    Alison Rose

    As a former editor who spent many many hours trying to craft perfect headlines, I doff my cap to whomever came up with this gem. Give that fucker a Pulitzer.

  17. 17.

    Mary G

    I’ve been out all day for the first time since March 5. Not doing anything unnecessary, but going up to Irvine to have my monoclonal antibody infusion, not the one for covid, but the one that has helped me so much with my RA. Then I had to go to the bank and the pharmacy to straighten out special situations, then get takeout for a reward. I wore googles and my Biden/Harris mask and washed my hands and used sanitizer, but it was still kind of scary because so many people were out and about. Nobody got close, though, the medical building had a sign that only two people could be in the elevator at once, and there was a nice orderly well-spaced line that everyone obeyed, except an older couple and their daughter, which they explained loudly to all.

    Everyone I saw anywhere had a mask on, nobody was eating outside the restaurants we passed, the weather was too good for January – 75 and sunny, and I saw no Trump stickers or flags or people frowning at my mask. Felt almost normal. Want more.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    Yowza. Career civil servants to the rescue.

    The U.S. Census Bureau has halted all work on President Trump’s directive to produce a state-by-state count of unauthorized immigrants that would have been used to alter a key set of census numbers, NPR has learned.

    Senior career officials at the bureau instructed the internal team assigned to carry out Trump’s presidential memo to stand down and cease their work immediately on Tuesday night, according to a bureau employee who spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation in the workplace for speaking out.

    The move by civil servants effectively ends the bureau’s participation in Trump’s bid to make an unprecedented change to who is counted in the 2020 census numbers that will be used to reallocate each state’s share of congressional seats and Electoral College votes for the next decade. According to the 14th Amendment, those counts must include the “whole number of persons in each state.” Source

  20. 20.

    Ken

    @HumboldtBlue: Great headline, the asshole is from Delaware.

    Huh. When I took American history in high school, we were told the Confederacy had only 11 states.  They keep finding new ones.

  22. 22.

    Ken

    @NotMax: I think it’s better than 50/50 that the Biden administration will find the Census was so screwed up that it has to be completely redone. It would provide some much-needed employment opportunities.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    Hoping any leases signed are short-term.

    The U.S. Air Force announced Wednesday that the new U.S. Space Command headquarters will be in Huntsville, Alabama, after the state was selected over five others competing for the project, including Colorado, where Space Command is provisionally located.
    [snip]
    Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett, an appointee of President Donald Trump, announced the decision days before leaving office.
    [snip]
    The Department of the Air Force said the decision to move to Huntsville will become final pending the results from the required environmental impact analysis. That is expected in the spring of 2023. The headquarters will remain in Colorado until then. Source

  25. 25.

    LAO

    @Mary G: Hey Mary G! Glad you had a good day — it’s similar here in NYC.  Lots of people out, almost complete compliance with mask rules (except for the NYPD, of course) and everyone respecting the elevator rules (my building only allows 1 person at a time).  Personally, I was finally able to get my parents appointments for the vaccine.  Which is such a goddamn relief.

  26. 26.

    West of the Rockies

    I’ve been wanting this Confederate turd ID’d and nailed to the wall from day one.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    In other news, blowback’s a bee-yotch.

    Delta Air Lines won’t allow travelers flying to the airports serving the Washington metropolitan area to check firearms on flights ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC on Thursday.
    [snip]
    The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday it will take a zero tolerance policy for travelers who are unruly or interfere with flight crew duties, fining them up to $35,000. Source

  31. 31.

    MoCA Ace

    @Ken:

    When I took American history in high school, we were told the Confederacy had only 11 states.  They keep finding new ones.

    Lots of transplants I guess?  You would be surprised how many residents of NE Wisconsin celebrate their “southren heritage”.

  33. 33.

    Mike in NC

    My favorite version of the Confederate battle flag is the one with a skull and crossbones on it. Like they’re both fucking rebels and pirates! Sad.

  35. 35.

    Ken

    @Baud: Has Congress even budgeted for the Space Force, or is this another case where Trump just moves money around however he wants?

  37. 37.

    Barbara

    @Ken: Delaware wasn’t part of the Confederacy but it was legal to own slaves.  There were very few, and Maryland had more, though concentrated in a few counties.  R.E. Lee tried to find support in Maryland under the assumption that it would be sympathetic to Southern slaveholders.  Antietam Creek/Sharpsburg, however, is just on the other side of Harpers Ferry, WV and was not the part of Maryland where people would have been keen to help the Confederate Army.  The Eastern Shore — the so-called Delmarva Peninsula — is culturally southern in many respects.

  38. 38.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @HumboldtBlue:

    More evidence that the Dixie Diaper is a symbol of white supremacy; rednecks up North, in the Midwest, and West fly these things. Lately, it’s been the “Thin Blue Line” American Flags. My local Fire/Police Departments fly this flag

    It’s half thin blue line and half thin red line. They’re sometimes referred to locally as our “Safety Services” which sounds Orwellian, but whatever

    Saw a fire engine flying one on my way out of work. Is this a problem?

  39. 39.

    Starboard Tack

    @Ken:

    The Space Force has been around for years. They mostly track satellites and space junk. I think Trump? or someone wanted it to be a separate command but it’s still a part of the Air Force. So they got a new name and a patch.

  41. 41.

    Mike in NC

    @Ken: In the Civil War, Ohio and Indiana and Pennsylvania contributed many regiments to the Union cause. Today maybe not so much.

  42. 42.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @dmsilev:

    @Baud:

    This reminds me: Since the House is allowing earmarks (aka pork barrel spending”) back, is it likely this will make Republicans more amendable to Democratic legislation? Or is polarization too much at this point? Will the Trumpy Republicans denounce it as “swamp barrel”?

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    @Barbara:The Eastern Shore — the so-called Delmarva Peninsula — is culturally southern in many respects.

    The entirety of Delaware below the C&D Canal, save for the beaches, is quite southern.  It’s really remarkable.

    Also: Delaware is the only state east of the Mason-Dixon line.

  46. 46.

    danielx

    @zhena gogolia:

    That post the other evening did lead to some great gift ideas, one being a rock and roll tour-type tshirts, promoting (!!!)

    General Sherman and the Union Scorchers

    ::illustration of Sherman on a horse above a field of flames::

    Georgia Tour 1864

    Hard to believe, but they were harder on South Carolina.

    “Here is where treason began, and by God this is where it will end.”

  47. 47.

    LAO

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  l live on a block with a NYPD precinct. For years, a piece twisted iron girder from the twin towers has been on display as part of a 9/11 memorial outside the precinct. I actively prevented my dog from peeing on any part of the memorial because I remember that day like it was yesterday.  This summer, in response to the BLM protests, they replaced the ring of American flags that surrounded the memorial with Blue Lives Matter American Flags.  As you can imagine Maggie is now free to pee, wherever she pleases.  Which she does.

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    Here’s a runner-up headline for the ages: Donald trumpov is Going Home a Loser

    …however and whenever the US Senate acts on Trump’s historic second impeachment, this much we know: He will leave office within a week, not as an honored former president but as the disgraced and selfish provocateur of a seditious uprising. The violent insurrection against the US Capitol and our democracy will be his epitaph.
    The threat of legal action and disbarment from public office in the future still looms. But the President already has suffered the most painful penalty of all: Fred Trump’s boy will go home a loser.

  50. 50.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Starboard Tack: Space Command in the Air Force has been around for a long time, but The Space Force is supposed to be a separate branch of the military with its own uniforms and all.  Given that the Air Force secretary was announcing this, I wonder if The Space Force will be more like the Marines(part of another branch).

  51. 51.

    Mary G

    Hoist upon your own petard! (Sorry if covered in earlier threads I missed.)

    The DC USAO announces charges against John Sullivan. Sullivan recorded Ashli Babbitt’s shooting and shared the footage with WaPo; the video’s soundtrack puts Sullivan in the Capitol trying to talk officers into abandoning the door to the speakers lobby. https://t.co/rNWwe45F8a— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) January 14, 2021

  53. 53.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Ken:

    I grew up steeped in Civil War and Revolutionary War history and I get incensed whenever I see the traitor’s flag but red-hot incensed when I see it north of the Mason-Dixon line.

  54. 54.

    Kent

    @Ken:@NotMax: I think it’s better than 50/50 that the Biden administration will find the Census was so screwed up that it has to be completely redone. It would provide some much-needed employment opportunities.

    Declare it epically fucked and use statistical analysis to make all the appropriate adjustments to fill in the missing numbers.  When the GOP predictably squeals, say fine.  We can use our best estimate numbers, or we can do a new census.  Take your pick.

  56. 56.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Mike in NC:

    In the Civil War, Ohio and Indiana and Pennsylvania contributed many regiments to the Union cause. Today maybe not so much.

    Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap was born and raised in Indiana. It’s bewildering to realize how much the country has changed politically and culturally over the last 30-40 years to realize that somebody like Sam wouldn’t come out of small town rural Indiana anymore. Same with Superman and Kansas; imagine a Trumpist Superman *shudder* . Not that these places were always wonderful (Indiana had a huge Klan presence in the 1920s IIRC, for example)

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    @Jeffro

    The threat of legal action and disbarment from public office in the future still looms

    Cue the gnashing of teeth and wails of “Hasn’t he suffered enough?”

  60. 60.

    Kent

    @HumboldtBlue:I grew up steeped in Civil War and Revolutionary War history and I get incensed whenever I see the traitor’s flag but red-hot incensed when I see it north of the Mason-Dixon line.

    No shit.  I spent three years driving by a big Confederate Flag monument here in Washington State on my daily commutee.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis_Park

    ANTIFA keeps trying to burn it down, but the do a shitty job of it which makes me question their level of talent and follow-through.

    Rural Oregon and rural Washington are seeing a growing number of them.  They were out in force a few years ago when Obama came to Roseburg Oregon after the mass school shooting there.

  61. 61.

    Jeffro

    @NotMax:Cue the gnashing of teeth and wails of “Hasn’t he suffered enough?”

    Unless he can die of Covid 400K times and incite an insurrection against…himself…no.

    These people, I swear.  Demand better representation next time, white supremacists!  On second thought, don’t!!  >(

  63. 63.

    NotMax

    @Kent

    In hope these career civil servants are the first pebbles of an avalanche to reclaim both “civil” and “service.”

    Slogan: It’s norming in America.

  64. 64.

    HumboldtBlue

    @raven:

    I’ve watched enough footage at this point to know that as well.

    I gotta tell ya, Raven, it took me, a guy who as a kid nurtured a serious interest in military history, a long time to focus on Vietnam. It was too close, too real, the WW2 Vets were uncles and grandads but the Vietnam guys were guys I watched play high school football.

  65. 65.

    Anotherlurker

    @LAO: I did something similar while walking past the rectory of my old parish.  Said parish boasted not 1 but 2 notorious Pedophiles back when I was in high school.

    Did you know that a dog can learn to shit on command?

  66. 66.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:

    I still don’t see the significance of this, he’s been a fucking loser his entire life. He’s never had the kind of money he claims, he’s never been the sharpest rock in the box, his taste for any thing is in his ass, he lies more than he breathes and it sure appears like he’s a traitor to his country, the place that’s allowed him to live the high life even as he deserves to be living under a bridge without a fucking curtain rod to warm his dinner, which he’d have to steal to have.

  72. 72.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kent:

    Oh, absolutely! It’s just I almost have a hard time now suspending my disbelief when rewatching a show like Quantum Leap or reading Superman comics/movies/tv shows; Ma and Pa Kent these days would likely be evangelical reactionaries. Last century, places like small-town Kansas were well-regarded (“All-American”). I suppose I like that image and wish the current political situation didn’t exist to ruin that (along with not fucking over poor and marginalized people obvs) with GOP policies

  73. 73.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @LAO:

    This summer, in response to the BLM protests, they replaced the ring of American flags that surrounded the memorial with Blue Lives Matter American Flags.

    Absolutely disgusting misappropriating of a national symbol and a national tragedy

  76. 76.

    Patricia Kayden

    “I stormed the Capitol wearing a Camp Auschwitz t-shirt and carrying zip ties to take hostages, peed on the floor of the House while calling for the Vice President to be hung and killed a Capitol police officer and now I’m being fired. Cancel culture is out of control.”— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) January 14, 2021

  77. 77.

    Calouste

    @Kent: Oregon was more or less founded as a whites-only state. It’s not like the klan had to work hard to succeed there.

  80. 80.

    cain

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I think the problem is that they are all ideologues and so they don’t really know how to do that kind of negotiations because that requires being flexible. The GOP hasn’t been a flexible party for awhile now and I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.

    Can you imagine Boebart trying to negotiate – she’ll be talking about #2A shit but won’t give two shits about what possibly her district might want.

  81. 81.

    Nutmeg again

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Alas, Worcester MA had a significant Klan presence in the ’20s. Maybe not Indiana-level, but a lot.  [edit: “Both secret and public Klan meetings were held in Worcester County towns, including Berlin, Holden, Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Upton, Paxton, Charlton, West Brookfield, and Spencer.” Link   Those are the towns, more or less, that remain red and Trump-favorable today.]

  82. 82.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @HumboldtBlue: I don’t know that I have ever eaten succotash, but I quite like lima beans if they’re cooked right, something I have experienced in restaurants and achieved exactly once on my own.

  83. 83.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    I find it a problem. The distorted flags seem to separated police (and now fire) from other Americans.

    @JaySinWA:

    That’s a really good point, actually, one I hadn’t thought of. I usually dislike those flags because it signals an unthinking, reactionary, and racist support of law enforcement; that essentially LEOs are above accountability because the flag flyer is a racist, chickenshit, authoritarian follower

    There’s other versions for other professions

    I don’t know. I think it’s weird

  84. 84.

    Ken

    @HumboldtBlue: Does anyone eat succotash anymore? I hate lima beans.

    I feel as if I should reply “The moon is lovely tonight, see the geese flying,” and then you’ll slip me a microfilm with the stolen plans.

  85. 85.

    Starboard Tack

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Hmmm. The spacers are down the Front Range from me so I paid attention to a local article when it was renamed. The gist of it, I thought, was that it was not going to be a separate branch, but still part of the Air Force. Their immediate duties are still going to be NEO traffic control. Seems like Trumpian PR. I wouldn’t be surprised in a few years to find it filed alongside the SDI.

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Via Dan Drezner’s trump as toddler series :

    Trump has been consumed by the unraveling of his presidency during his last days in office, according to people around him, which included a casual discussion among advisers recently about a possible resignation.
    Trump shut the idea down almost immediately. And he has made clear to aides in separate conversations that mere mention of President Richard Nixon, the last president to resign, were banned.
    He told one adviser during an expletive-laden conversation recently never to bring up the ex-president ever again. During the passing mention of resigning this week, Trump told people he couldn’t count on Vice President Mike Pence to pardon him like Gerald Ford did Nixon, anyway.

    Drezner didn’t include the reference to Nixon in his tweet, and I was really hoping the ex-president who set trump off was Obama.
    and from the same story:

    Eager for a final taste of the pomp of being president, Trump has asked for a major send-off on Inauguration Day next week, according to people familiar with the matter, before one last presidential flight to Palm Beach.

    Kayleigh McInane, Dan Scavino and Tiffany are gonna drive golf carts around the driveway and call it a parade? Maybe Tiff will sing!

  89. 89.

    Nutmeg again

    @HumboldtBlue: Iconfess: I love lima beans. I love succotash, although I make it with just the limas & corn, so… I also love brown bread (with raisins!) and beans for supper, and it doesn’t even have to be Saturday.  My German son-out-law  thinks that particular food practice is insane. I’ve never tried succotash on him. Yet.  Of course, they drink beer with sauerkraut juice in it, so who’s crazy?

  90. 90.

    Scout211

    https://www.kmov.com/news/qanon-shaman-hires-st-louis-attorney-al-watkins-seeks-pardon-for-following-trumps-invitation/article_2008074e-56b7-11eb-91d3-6f9c640ddaf4.html

    I had to laugh at this one. The Qanon Shaman guy (who uses several different names and demanded organic jail food) has a very clever attorney.

    My client had heard the oft-repeated words of President Trump,” Mr. Watkins continued. “The words and invitation of a president are supposed to mean something. Given the peaceful and compliant fashion in which Mr. Chansley comported himself, it would be appropriate and honorable for the president to pardon Mr. Chansley and other like-minded, peaceful individuals who accepted the president’s invitation with honorable intentions.”

  91. 91.

    TriassicSands

    @Misterpuff:

    They just pretended to surrender. They’re still fighting for the ability to treat a person of color like 3/5 of a human being. Which is ironic since they only seem to have 3/5 of a brain (at most) and don’t recognize their own inferiority.

  98. 98.

    dmsilev

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: From that story,

    Debbie Meadows, the wife of the chief of staff, was spotted carrying out a stuffed pheasant from her husband’s office and loading it into her car.

    I initially read that as ‘stuffed peasant’, but I think that would be more of a Stephen Miller sort of kink.

  99. 99.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Nutmeg again:

    Huh. Didn’t know the Klan was that far-up north. Then again, the KKK was in NJ in the 20s, if Boardwalk Empire is to be believed

  100. 100.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Scout211: Dump’s pardon power might be up in smoke like the ability to bring back the coal industry.

    NEW VIDEO: As evidence mounts that the Capitol Coup was an inside job, Trump’s impeachment means he has just been neutered.He has just lost that on which he and his co-conspirators most depended: his ability to pardon anybody connected to this treason. pic.twitter.com/bdn0Blpq3S— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) January 15, 2021

  111. 111.

    Nutmeg again

    @Chetan Murthy: It’s awful to say, but there’s no such thing as too far north to be racist (and anti-immigration, virulently nationalist, et cet.).

    Worcester was an industrial town, with an immigrant workforce.  It had (and has) all the group vs. group tensions that ethnic enclaves and religious divisions can produce. And the ownership class skimmed the cream off all that labor, while the folks underneath hated on each other.  I think Marx (Uncle Karl) got it sort of wrong: Religion isn’t the (only) opiate of the masses–hatred is a mighty potent drug, too.

  113. 113.

    geg6

    @Mike in NC:

    My highly Trumpy county here in Western PA has at least five or six Underground Railroad sites and prominent citizens’ homes of prominent abolitionists are also here. All with historical site designations.  It’s a puzzle what happened.  I think it was the rise of unions (here it was the steelworkers) that turned these people on the side of the angels toward the forces of darkness.  That’s my theory anyway.

  115. 115.

    jonas

    @LAO: “A lot of first responders lost their lives on 9/11. Ergo, we should be able to kill black people with impunity.”

    Airtight logic.

  117. 117.

    Drdavechemist

    @HumboldtBlue: Trader Joe’s sells something they call “soycutash” with edamame (soy beans), corn, and a little red bell pepper in their frozen food section, which can always be found in my freezer. Lima beans ruin good corn in traditional succotash.

  118. 118.

    Chetan Murthy

    @geg6: I remember reading that in the North before/during/after the Civil War, it wasn’t that whites were really open to Black people, but rather that they simply didn’t want them enslaved.  And then there were a few who were really open to Black people and wanted them to be full Americans.  In short, there was a lot of latent racism, even among Northerners — just not enough to want to enslave Black people.  After all, the Asian Exclusion Acts were (IIRc) widely popular.

    I doubt that unions were the *cause* of the turn toward racism: they were just a -vector- for the racism to manifest itself.  This is one thing that I see that’s really changing: a large part of the country really is anti-racist, really is anti-misogynist, anti-homophobic.  It’s new, and wonderful.

  119. 119.

    Aleta

    (NBC)  A Pennsylvania man accused of hurling a fire extinguisher at a group of police officers during last week’s Capitol has been arrested, authorities said.  Robert Sanford, 55, a retired firefighter from the Chester Fire Department, has been charged with four federal counts, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in Washington said.

    The fire extinguisher struck an officer who was wearing a helmet in the head, then ricocheted and hit two other officers, one of whom was not wearing a helmet, in the head, prosecutors said.  The charges against Sanford are not related to the death of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.

    Sanford got caught up in the moment and made a “split-second decision” that he deeply regrets, his attorney, Enrique Latoison, said Thursday. “Everyone was in a mob mentality,” he said.

    …

    https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/retired-pennsylvania-fire-fighter-arrested-and-criminally-charged-actions-us-capitol#:~:text=Robert%20Sanford%2C%2055%2C%20of%20Boothwyn,officers%20while%20engaged%20in%20the

  121. 121.

    Kattails

    @HumboldtBlue: I freeze corn in the summer to use in a nice corn chowder in the winter, with leeks and potatoes; lima beans go well in it, actually.  And instead of the usual thyme, try caraway.

  125. 125.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: He’s got no problem with people mentioning Jimmy Carter, I guess. Gee, isn’t it great that Jimmy Carter lived to see his state go Democratic again? I don’t imagine Trump’s post-presidency will be as impressive as Jimmy Carter’s. That Jimmy Carter, he had some problems in office, Jimmy Carter did.

  129. 129.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chetan Murthy: Many whites who were opposed to slavery wanted the option to be colonization–sending all the African-Americans to Africa, probably Liberia (where some did settle). They didn’t want them around. Lincoln himself favored this option for a while.

  133. 133.

    mrmoshpotato

    spotted carrying out a stuffed pheasant

    @dmsilev:

    @Mike in NC: I know where these looting shitbags can stuff that pheasant.  Shouldn’t the DC police be beating and teargassing the looters?  (Yes, I know…)

  135. 135.

    jonas

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think I read somewhere that the only state never to have recorded a lynching in the 19th or 20th century was New Hampshire or Vermont. So everywhere else, there were Klan, or Klan-like groups active at some point.

    IIRC, one of the most recent hotbeds of Klan activity in recent decades was Fontana, CA.

  136. 136.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NotMax: I’ll your Will Rogers, ’23, and raise you Fred trump, ’27

    On Memorial Day 1927, brawls erupted in New York led by sympathizers of the Italian fascist movement and the Ku Klux Klan. In the fascist brawl, which took place in the Bronx, two Italian men were killed by anti-fascists. In Queens, 1,000 white-robed Klansmen marched through the Jamaica neighborhood, eventually spurring an all-out brawl in which seven men were arrested.

    One of those arrested was Fred Trump of 175-24 Devonshire Rd. in Jamaica.

    When Mary Trump was asked about it, she said she’d never heard of it but it only surprised her because she couldn’t imagine how her grandfather could have turned a buck out of it. Sorry to say I can easily imagine it was a networking opportunity for the likes of Fred back then.

  139. 139.

    Jay

    *28 police officers from around the US are discovered to have been among those who entered the Capitol to do mayhem, so far*

    a depressing number of people: cant wait til the proper authorities take care of all this— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) January 15, 2021

  140. 140.

    Chetan Murthy

    @jonas: A few years ago, Kevin Drum had a little piece he wrote about a Confederate memorial in Orange County, and how it was connected to Confederate activity at the time of the Civil War, and lots of dead-enders who lived in the OC.

  141. 141.

    TriassicSands

    @NotMax:

    It doesn’t make sense to put any new federal departments or agencies in Red States. After all, they’ll be seceding from the Union soon. The New Confederacy won’t need a Space Force, since it will be a “Third World” country.

  142. 142.

    Kattails

    @HumboldtBlue: ok, does anyone remember the 200- year old man schtick that Mel Brooks used to do?  “Beans, beans, they’re musical fruits, the more you eats, the more you toots. The more you toots, the better you feel, so eat your beans with every meal.”

    Don’t ask me what memory file drawer that one got pulled out of.

  146. 146.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Daniel Dale @ddale8 · 1h
    The usual public schedule for Trump tomorrow: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.”

    Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom 1h
    I am Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht

  148. 148.

    jonas

    @Chetan Murthy: I think that’s right. There were a few — very few — white folks who actually believed in racial equality in the 19th century. Some believed that blacks were certainly inferior, but it was cruel to enslave them. Most who fought for the north were far more interested in the question of saving the Union than they were the question of racial justice. Blacks faced insane prejudice in the North during the Great Migration, which explains why they were corralled into ghettos — later “redlined” neighborhoods — when they settled in cities like Chicago or Buffalo or Philadelphia. That history is still very much with us today.

  151. 151.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @geg6:

    …Not surprising now that I think about it. It’s sad to think some of the people you live around are racist POS. I’m still mad Trump won my county by 2% and Hillary won it by 3. I don’t know how that happened

  153. 153.

    Martin

    The more I’m reading about all this, the more I’m convinced we were saved because the primarily over 30 insurrectionist group don’t know how the internet works. They all seem to think that because they deleted their photos on 1/7, that somehow the FBI are 1337 h4x0rs.

    I don’t think it’s dawned on most of them, that half the plant found their Facebook accounts within hours and screencapped everything to Twitter, or that social media sites basically never hard delete content. They usually soft-delete, mainly so that law enforcement can come in and see what you  didn’t want them to see, and when you decided you didn’t want them to see it.

  158. 158.

    Ken

    @Jay: Psst.  Everyone who adopted Bitcoin thinking it would keep their transactions secret.  It’s a public ledger that every Bitcoin participant can read, in fact must read to make transactions. You only get secrecy if you don’t put your real name on your bitcoin wallet.

    And even then, I suspect more than a few governments are watching the sites where people convert bitcoins to actual usable currency.

  159. 159.

    Karen in SoCal

    @Mary G: Hi Mary, I’m in OC too. My experience is like yours. Just stay away from Newport and Huntington; that’s where all the maskless idiots are.

  162. 162.

    Martin

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: An Atomwaffen member murdered someone walking distance from my house. Actually pretty close to where Kobe used to live – so not exactly the kid of place you would think you were far removed from this stuff.

    And I used to go into work early on Mondays so I could pull down all of the white supremacy recruiting literature that showed up over the weekend before the students showed up.

    I won’t say that it never happened before Trump was elected, but not with such frequency that I could count on there being multiple things posted every Monday.

  164. 164.

    Richard

    @Ken: that might be true. I think it was  screwed up. They did count me twice, but i am a white male living in a red state. I did it online, got the confirmation number, thank you for your participation. Then in August they knocked on my door and did it again. Not to be paranoid, but i think it was conducted in a sloppy way.

  165. 165.

    Martin

    @VeniceRiley: Oh, yeah, I have some of it. Also pretty cool that these assholes got owned that badly by a transgender girl named donk enby. And I think she actually got closer to 80TB.

  169. 169.

    Kattails

    @Starboard Tack: 2000, typo. The cat was pestering me for bedtime treats, hit “post” without proofreading.  Yes, Carl Reiner was the perfect pairing. Mel Brooks is still going; Carl tweeting for everyone to vote out Trump, on his last day on earth.

  171. 171.

    Martin

    @Karen in SoCal: Newport has gotten a bit better over time. HB has gotten a lot worse. There were a surprising number of BLM supporters in NB last summer and that never would have happened 15 years ago.

  175. 175.

    Starboard Tack

    @Ken:

    Thanks. I know blockchain. I was channeling the Bitcoin bozos who don’t. Waste of energy? Massive. Mining’s an absurd hamster wheel.

  179. 179.

    HumboldtBlue

    Not only did these insurrectionist chucklefucks capture the undying attention of the Feds, they were also playing in front of a learned and connected audience.

    #seditionhunters

  180. 180.

    Jay

    5th District Republican Chair, Melvin Adams, in an email, confirms he and his wife, Sandra Adam’s, a member of Bob Good’s staff, attended the riot in DC on January 6th. Also claims that “antifa members were embedded in the crowd.” pic.twitter.com/Yzq60SUlSD— Carter Elliott, IV (@CarterElliottIV) January 14, 2021

  181. 181.

    catclub

    @Ken: I think it’s better than 50/50 that the Biden administration will find the Census was so screwed up that it has to be completely redone

     

    There was a time when the Legislature helped screw it up. They forbid the Census bureau from using statistical methods to determine the actual population – based on resampling techniques.  I read about that probably 25 years ago,  but things are often hard to change. Pretty sure it was a GOP legislature at the time.

  183. 183.

    FlyingToaster

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Given the Baghdad-style “Green Zone” in Foggy Bottom, Trump’s not going to get the sendoff he wants.  There won’t be an audience, either in-person or televised (maybe he’ll get one intern pool videographer like he did for the wall a coupla days ago).

  184. 184.

    Jay

    Lmfao,

    A very talented friend of mine, who interned w/ @GOPLeader, and at 20 was one of the highest ranked staffers in the Trump campaign, was just fired from his new job when client found out he worked for Trump. He now can’t afford rent. Still think cancel culture isn’t that serious?— Mark (@MarkFooterman) January 12, 2021

  187. 187.

    Ken

    @FlyingToaster: If he leaves while still President, he’ll get a bunch of people who are angling for pardons.  If afterward, he’ll be lucky if his whole family shows up.

  189. 189.

    smedley the uncertain

    @Kattails: Got the same filing system…  Don’t remember where it came from but gems like that pop up often enough..  As Jimmy Durante said  ” I got a million of ’em.”

  190. 190.

    Ken

    @Jay: If the guy didn’t include “worked for Trump” on his resume, many employers would consider that an issue. And if he made up something else, all employers would definitely consider that a firable offense.

    (As in the joke, “That four-year gap? No, I wasn’t working for Trump. Heavy drug user, completely unemployable.”)

  191. 191.

    catclub

    @Jay:

    He wasn’t part of the Capitol riots, nor did he support or defend them, nor was he outspoken with his new company about politics. The client, an NHL team, found his LinkedIn and threatened to cancel their contract with his company if they didn’t remove him- so they did.

    This is when Republicans think the invisible hand of the capitalist economy  shouldn’t  fuck them.  That is not liberals running that NHL team. Tell em about at will employment versus unions.

  196. 196.

    The Pale Scot

    @danielx:

    General Sherman and the Union Scorchers

    I’ve thought of a similar T-shirt, with a list of tour dates cities/towns torched on the back with little fire icons

  198. 198.

    ballerat

    @Kent: This is so true.

    I must try to temper my anger and remind myself that even among the worst there are some of the best.

    I must remember the example of some white people I know who risked everything, including the lives of their children, trying to do the right thing in rural South Georgia.

    Death by fire is a terrifying thing, and that is what these people risked for daring to treat their black neighbors with equality and dignity.

    The fire bomb burst just a few feet short of their farmhouse porch. A house built of fatwood goes up real fast once it catches fire.

    They didn’t move out. Nor stop being friends with the black family next door. And thankfully, miraculously, for whatever reason, there were no further attacks.

    One family’s courage redeemed the entire South, in my opinion.

  200. 200.

    Mary G

    @Karen in SoCal: I call Huntington Beach the Alabama of Orange County, although they have plenty of cool people, they attract every MAGAt who wants to go to the beach.

  202. 202.

    ballerat

    @Aleta: Does anybody black get to say this? That they were “caught up in the moment” and made a “split-second decision”. As their statement to the public?

    If the person were black it would fry them. Right there. Done.

    But the perp being white this is calculated to be an exonerative and an exculpatory statement. Else the lawyer wouldn’t’ve released it.

  205. 205.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @HumboldtBlue: [T]he Vietnam guys were guys I watched play high school football.

    Summer nights after HS graduation, when one of the gang had cards, I drank with one of them as we hid out in one of the local graveyards.

    Two years later I accompanied his coffin to the cemetery as an honorary pallbearer. (The Marines did the heavy lifting.)

    My largely blue-collar (and ~20% African-American) HS pumped out ~300 draft-age males a year, but AFAIK we only lost two to that dirty little war – my drinking buddy and a Naval corpsman from the class before with whom I’d shared a math class. RIP.

  206. 206.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Frosty Fred:

    The western shore–the southern Maryland peninsula–is culturally southern in every respect.

    Used to be.  But the more it becomes exurbs where people live who work for or with the Federal government (like yours truly), the less true that is.

    Trump won Calvert County, where I live, by nearly 20 points in 2016 (haven’t bothered to look up the 2020 numbers), but OTOH everyone wears their masks around here, at least in the northern and central parts of the county.  (Haven’t been south of Prince Frederick since the pandemic hit.)

  207. 207.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Nutmeg again: Religion isn’t the (only) opiate of the masses–hatred is a mighty potent drug, too.

    Religion is the opiate of the masses. Hatred is their meth.

  208. 208.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Kattails: You’re off by an order of magnitude – it was Brooks’s 2,000-year-old-man shtick. (ETA-2: Starboard Tack got thar foist @ #145 supra, dammitol.)

    (ETA-1: I heard “beans, beans, the magical fruit” from Mom when I was very young – & I highly doubt my cento-per-cento italoamericani Appalacian-raised parents sourced it from Mel, peas be unto him. Probably widely distributed through American what-passes-for-kulchur ca. mid-1950s.)

  210. 210.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @ballerat: But the perp being white this is calculated to be an exonerative and an exculpatory statement. Else the lawyer wouldn’t’ve released it.

    Almost but not quite, IMO. Given the evidence against his client, it’s as close to an “exonerative and exculpatory statement” as counsel could cobble up without risking disbarment. There’s nothing else left in the legal toolbox but client’s abject confession & throwing himself on the mercy of the court.

  211. 211.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @lowtechcyclist: Hotbed of the MD KKK is reputed to have been (& still may be) Cecil County, neither Southern MD nor Eastern Shore but the upper right-hand corner of the state, bordering both DE and PA. The Amtrak rail line runs right through there – a major reason I got slightly hysterical over Uncle Joe’s sweet but ill-advised concept (happily now abandoned) of taking rail from Wilmington to DC for his inauguration.

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