Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s finish the job.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

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

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

Republicans in disarray!

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

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

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Bark louder, little dog.

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

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / When I’m Finished, Bring The Yellow Tape

When I’m Finished, Bring The Yellow Tape

by | 182 Comments

This post is in: 

Melissa, @LiteraryMouse on Twitter, has tracked Trumpers online for a while and attended the “march” on January 6 to document the riot as it happened. Her account…well just read the whole thing. I wish I had the skills to re-post the entire thread as a blog post but I don’t (I think you need a WP plugin called Jetpack). So click through and read it. The accounting for January 6 has to go deep and spare no one.

Reader Interactions

182Comments

  3. 3.

    Jerzy Russian

    Also, it would be nice to have a way that is not Twitter to get information like this out.  Perhaps someone can hire a bunch of people like Melissa, collect their reports, and put them in a form that can be distributed on a daily basis.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    this is really disturbing. House tours canceled even by members because of covid, so she was shocked to see groups of people walking around with Republican members and staff on Jan. 5, day before capitol attack. so shocked her chief of staff called sergeant at arms jan.5 https://t.co/uyUliyP9C2— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) January 14, 2021

  6. 6.

    trnc

    Believing in conspiracy theories forces you to accept logic gaps, which likely led to the coup plotters not being able to spot the gaping holes in their plans to get Trump certified as the winner.

    The gaping holes in logic clearly ain’t limited to the coup planning.

    I appreciate that she did this, but I don’t see any indication she notified the FBI of what she was seeing online. Maybe the Folger letter should have done it, but that seems like the kind of thing they could see from crackpots every day. Side note: knock a day or two off the prison sentences for their desire to spare the Folger Library.

  8. 8.

    rikyrah

    Big media failed to warn the nation about Boebert because she was running in a sleepy mountain district. Colorado media failed to unearth public records about her husband’s past. More coverage means more people might have paid more intention to this red race in a blue state.— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) January 14, 2021

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    Is it any surprise that someone who broke the law in Colorado would break the law in DC? That someone charged with resisting arrest is fighting with Capitol police over screening? That someone who espoused support for QAnon would support – and maybe even abet – the Capitol riot?— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) January 14, 2021

  12. 12.

    Woodrow/asim

    [EDITED] Just saw Chuck noted Thread Reader. I am a Premium user and am creating a PDF, if you want it I can provide once it’s done (no idea on timeline)

  13. 13.

    Another Scott

    Thanks for the pointer.  Her reporting makes sense to me.

    There have to be thorough investigations, truthful reporting, and consequences.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  15. 15.

    Urza

    We need laws to hold stochastic terrorists liable.  It would have a nice side effect of nearly shutting down Fox and hate radio.

  18. 18.

    Woodrow/asim

    @Tim F: I didn’t see the first one until I posted, and just edited my comment to say this: I am a Premium user and can provide the PDF once it’s done — no idea when.

    Let me know if interested.

  19. 19.

    Just Chuck

    @Tim F: I figured there were limitations.  Link in a comment works fine I guess.  And actually this kind of blow-by-blow commentary isn’t too bad in twitter format: it’s those long-form essays with “1/762” in reverse  order and interspersed replies that drive me nuts I don’t bother to read.

  22. 22.

    Kattails

    @rikyrah: I’d seen this image last night but couldn’t find it again to post until now.  It was linked to an interview with Mikie Sherrill about her army training and the red flags of seeing tours being given of the Capitol on the 5th.  Sorry, editing this right now, Shannon Watts said the image in question was in front of the Colorado state house in 2019; however, some of the photos are people who have been identified as being in the Capitol on the 6th.

    People are discounting her–I’m not going to. Not because she’s smart, but because she’s dumb enough and has this “I’m an outlaw, so cool!” Which makes her ripe for being a useful tool of others.

  23. 23.

    trnc

    @rikyrah: This piece is about Boebert’s radical behavior and agenda – particularly as it pertains to guns. Her history casts doubt on her claims of being a responsible, law abiding gun owner.

    Including the ancient history of showing off how she flouted DC gun laws as soon as she got to DC a couple of weeks ago (before trying to unring that bell after realizing she could be prosecuted).

  24. 24.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Just Chuck:  What she describes is how I understand the Al Queda groups operated in the 90’s and early aughts – no communication between cells, and cells ready to go with weapons and people when “the sign” was given.

    Once again underscoring how fortunate we are that these are tea-bag idiots with a few true believers thrown in; if they had been properly trained and organized, we’d be in a world of hurt right now.

    And like the rubes who first tried to sink a Navy ship with skiff full of ordinance, and their aligned rubes who tried to blow up a World Trade Center tower with a van full of ordinance, I’ll wager the true believers are taking these lessons learned to heart to plan for whatever they dream up next.

  26. 26.

    trnc

    @Urza: We need laws to hold stochastic terrorists liable.

    Yup. Free speech is tricky, but I would consider violence carried out after someone with a big microphone urges it to be prima facie evidence of that person’s intent, especially if someone says, “He’s literally telling us to come and take over the Capitol.”

  27. 27.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Just Chuck: Over 25 years since the invention of HTTP/HTML and people are “publishing” long-form articles 280 characters at a time. This is absurd.

  30. 30.

    BruceFromOhio

    @different-church-lady: In my dreams, the twatter executes new rules on content: no politics or political speech of any kind, no swearing or slurs of any kind, not even “just repeating what someone else said,” ruthless policing of hate speech of any kind, and all automated so it runs immediately and without favor. Think of an artificially intelligent editor nun.

    It would boil down to cat gifs, snarky critiques of fashion and movies and sports, and just ordinary chit chat. Fun for some, boring for everyone else. Probably not profitable because it doesn’t “drive the clicks.”

  31. 31.

    patrick II

    Cigarette companies had avoided responsibility in court by knowing generally people were going to die, but not particularly who was going to die.  A stochastic mass murder. They were eventually found guilty and lost millions.  Is there some common principle in that case that may be brought to bear in this one?  When Trump knows for a certainty that something bad is going as a result of his encouragement, but are not sure of the particulars?

  32. 32.

    Ohio Mom

    Obviously there is a core group of insurrectionists, many/most/all ? of whom have military/police training. They did the plotting and planning, and they started a long ways back.

    I don’t think we know all the damage they did because they are cagey enough to let the hanger-ons steal all the attention.

    By hanger-one I mean people like what’s-her-name from Nashville who was not expecting to be maced. And Viking-man, nobody who is serious dresses in such an easily-identifiable way. I suspect up until now, life has been one big lark for him.

    I’m all for the hanger-ons getting arrested and everything that goes along with that — standing in front of a judge, paying a lawyer big bucks to stand next to you, serving time, or placed on some sort of probation, the whole sheebang.

    I think these high-profile cases will serve as a deterrent to other would-be “revolutionaries.”

    But that core group? They are scarier and are the ones that really need to be tracked down. They will not be deterred by seeing Viking man beg for organic food (they probably find that as entertaining as I do).

  33. 33.

    trnc

    @Gin & Tonic: Over 25 years since the invention of HTTP/HTML and people are “publishing” long-form articles 280 characters at a time.

    Yeah, it chaps my ass that they don’t just put a blurb in the tweet and a link to a web page or pdf on a server.

  34. 34.

    gwangung

    @Ohio Mom: I think they takeaway from the tweet stream is that there wasn’t ONE group of plotters, but that there were MULTIPLE groups of plotter, sometimes working at cross purposes. And I think that fits the chaotic data well.

  35. 35.

    trnc

    @BruceFromOhio: Make social media platforms responsible for policing their content and require them to be bonded with amounts related to the number of subscribers. Bonus of getting them to clean up fake accounts pretty fast.

  36. 36.

    patrick II

    From the article’s twitter stream:

    Ahnwar
    So march and protest to stop the chicks and there (sic) traitor friends from stealing the country. But Don’t break the law?
    Thank God George Washington wasn’t this fucking stupid

    Two things,
    1. Ahnwar knew perfectly well they were there to break the law.
    2. The chicks were the new power in government and he didn’t want chicks telling him what to do.

  37. 37.

    Leto

    @Just Chuck: I was coming to link this; also, jfc people: anything longer than about 3-4 tweets, write a goddamned blog post or something

    Edit: the threadreader app gives you an approx read time. This one? 28 mins. oooooooof

  38. 38.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Just Chuck: Yes, for future reference to anyone reading this who use Twitter, anytime you see a long thread that you want to compile them all together, just type “@threadreaderapp unroll” as a reply to any of the tweets and you will get something like this.  Very useful tool.

  39. 39.

    RaflW

    Interesting. Based on things Adam has said over the years, I wondered if this could be considered a stochastic coup. Melissa clearly thinks of it as such.

  40. 40.

    patrick II

    I that Liz Cheney’s phrasing was helpful in attacking the stochastic problem:

    The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President.

    She did not say he told them to do it. She said it would not have happened without him. The general consequences of his specific actions were inevitable but the specific actions by individuals were not.

  41. 41.

    Feathers

    Facebook has been running ads for military gear alongside insurrection posts.

    We need to face that the major driver of all of this Facebook. The attitudes are on Fox, yes, but the in person protests and violence are very much a Facebook thing. They did end gun ads, but are allowing ads for body armor, etc. and these ads are allowed to have pictures of guns in them.

    There needs to be a whole specific set of hearings on Facebook’s role in all of this. They get on TV, say they will stop doing something and then turn around and keep doing it.

    Major problem for the Biden administration.

  42. 42.

    Feathers

    @Leto: That’s because of all the text in the screen caps. My condolences to anyone actually reads that rather than skimming.

    ETA: When the history of all this is written, Google’s killing of the Reader blog app will be seen as a major contributor. It really did end the blogosphere, because there was no way to easily follow all the blogs you wanted to read anymore. It happened right as social media was taking off. People needed a social media presence. Keeping up a blog and a Twitter feed was too much work for most, so without Reader, Twitter won.

  44. 44.

    trnc

    @patrick II: The chicks were the new power in government and he didn’t want chicks telling him what to do.

    He’s probably surprised they’re even allowed to drive.

  46. 46.

    trnc

    @patrick II: She did not say he told them to do it.

    Of course, he did numerous times, but there’s also ample evidence that they thought he was telling them to do it. They cited specific tweets and “Stand back and stand by.” If that isn’t enough, when he was informed numerous times that his rhetoric was having this effect, he did nothing to ease up on it and he didn’t make any appeal for people to remain peaceful. Until after the attack, that is.

  47. 47.

    Subsole

    @Ohio Mom: From what I have seen of their message boards (all secondhand, mind) they were joking about how pretty soon he’d be getting organic sausage for breakfast…

    So, no. These brainburned sociopaths don’t feel much empathy for their cannon fodder. They’re pretty much just bipedal flak vests.

  49. 49.

    lee

    @rikyrah: I’m not buying the ‘media failed’ about that nutcase.

    I had heard about her prior to the election and I’m in a different state. IIRC, she had a Dem opponent that dropped out of the race because he was getting death threats from her supporters and the local LEOs didn’t do shit about it.

    This is 100% on her district, they wanted the nutcase in office.

  52. 52.

    Leto

    @Feathers:  the screen caps are there for a reason. If you’re skimming, you’re missing. Which goes back to the original intent: make a fucking blog post. Twitter is not the medium for a Russian nesting doll of 60+ posts. You’ve got a limited amount of time to convey info and that attention span drops off at an exponential rate. If you (the author) has enough patience/time to compile that many 240 character subtweets, then you have time to properly lay this out in a more readable/understandable format.

    People are confusing the need to keep up two different platforms with not understanding what each platform IS.

  53. 53.

    Shalimar

    @trnc:  She said in a later tweet that she filled out a tip for the FBI 9 days before. So plenty of time for them to start tracking what she was and raise alarms.

  54. 54.

    MisterForkbeard

    @zhena gogolia: I’m actually pretty sympathetic to the “I don’t want armed agents in the same house as my young kids” argument.

    What’s sad is that they wouldn’t do anything else, and that the rich people in this neighborhood wouldn’t just let them arrange something that didn’t charge thousands of dollars. If the SS was camped on my block for 4 years and they needed to use the restroom, I’d tell them it was fine so long as they kept it clean.

    Pre-covid, of course. Now I’d be a bit more wary.

  55. 55.

    Subsole

    @Leto: It is kind of hilarious to watch the like/retweet count fall off from like 5k to sub 300 as you roll down the thread.

    Like, people read twitter the way they read newspapers: the headline gets all the attention, the lede gets a third as much.

  56. 56.

    patrick II

    Seth Abramson
    @SethAbramson
    He’s insane.

    NYT: “Advisers said that Mr. Trump had to be dissuaded from going to the House floor to try to defend himself during Wednesday’s impeachment proceeding.”
    10:04 PM · Jan 13, 2021·Twitter for Android

    I am not sure why they are still protecting him from himself. Sense of duty? I wish they had let him come and “clear things up”.

  58. 58.

    Wapiti

    @patrick II: That framing also leaves the individuals responsible for their own actions. Not all rally-goers crossed the line to rioters, so those that did, chose to do so.

  59. 59.

    Peale

    @lee: Yep. She was handed that seat by nutters to represent them as a nutter will. Probably put in place by a bunch of nuts who were convinced this summer that Antifa is a large organization renting busses to come to their specific small towns to steal their TVs.

  60. 60.

    trnc

    Bwahahahaha! I would think that one of the prerequisites for coming up with a coherent plan would be understanding how shit works. This plan depended on scaring the Arizona electors into switching to DT and hoping the electors for Georgia, PA, etc would see that and follow suit without any argument.

    Hey, dumbass. The electors already did their work back in their states. 1/6 was just vote count day. This information was as easy to find as your spare clips.

  62. 62.

    MisterForkbeard

    @patrick II: They absolutely should have let him do it.

    That said, he’ll probably be called as a witness for his Senate Impeachment.

    @SiubhanDuinne: He’s a good pick. Charismatic, blunt, has a good way of turning a phrase and isn’t going to run for anything else in SC soon. Also a minority, which is a good thing to encourage in our upper ranks. Had a well organized campaign, etc.

    Guy has a bright future and will do a good job.

  63. 63.

    Leto

    @Subsole: *insert “ain’t nobody got time for that” gif*

    It’s good information delivered in a horrible way. Maybe in a non-insane timeline we still have investigative journalists who are paid well, published in highly read journals/newspapers, and a citizenry that’s both not crazy and possess the cognitive skills to understand the information that’s being presented.

  64. 64.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @zhena gogolia:

    My favorite part:

    The Obamas did not use the garage, so the extra traffic to and from the command post caused no problem. Yet this solution, too, was short-lived after a Secret Service supervisor from the Trump/Kushner detail left an unpleasant mess in the Obama bathroom at some point before the fall of 2017, according to a person briefed on the event. That prompted the leaders of the Obama detail to ban the agents up the street from ever returning.

    I never want to hear another complaint at home about the bathroom….

  66. 66.

    Sloane Ranger

    @MisterForkbeard: You need to be careful with law enforcement. At one point, when I worked for the Metropolitan Police I was posted to an office in Soho and my boss agreed to a request from the local station to use it as an observation post on the porn shop opposite over a weekend.

    When we came in on the Monday, we discovered that they had used up all our tea and coffee, drank all our milk and eaten all our biscuits!

  71. 71.

    Kent

    @rikyrah:Big media failed to warn the nation about Boebert because she was running in a sleepy mountain district. Colorado media failed to unearth public records about her husband’s past. More coverage means more people might have paid more intention to this red race in a blue state.— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) January 14, 2021

    I’m not sure that was the media’s fault so much as incompetent opposition research by her opponent.  Politics is not a debating club.  It’s for all the marbles.  You think the GOP would leave those stones unturned?

  72. 72.

    sdhays

    @MisterForkbeard: Their residence isn’t a 2-bedroom apartment. In a house that size, surely there’s somewhere they could go without running into the young kids. You just have consider it part of being a decent human being and work something out. They’re just royal-wannabe assholes.

    And you don’t get to even attempt that argument when you’re a 2nd Amendment worshipper, sincere or otherwise.

  73. 73.

    trnc

    @patrick II: I am not sure why they are still protecting him from himself. Sense of duty? I wish they had let him come and “clear things up”.

    No, it’s good for us that he didn’t go. He would not have actually tried to clear things up. He would be there strictly to disrupt and cause a circus, which he would get immediately. Fluffing from Gym Jordan would probably cause the place to spontaneously combust.

  74. 74.

    AliceBlue

    @lee: I think you’re getting Boebert mixed up with Marjorie Taylor Green.  Green’s Democratic opponent in GA-14 was getting death threats and had a wife and young daughter.  Their marriage was on shaky ground before this, and after the threats started, she filed for divorce and kicked him out of the house.  He withdrew from the race and left the state.

    GA-14 is super red and super Trumpy.  It’s going to be next to impossible to kick Green out of that seat.

  77. 77.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Woodrow/asim: In Firefox, you can bring up the page and use the tab (three bars at the upper right) to use “Print …”.

    Print to a file in PDF format.

  78. 78.

    Redshift

    I’ve been to a lot of protests in DC, including some at the Capitol, and I want to amplify what @LiteraryMouse said — it’s absolutely true, as many have said, that Black and Brown protesters would have been treated much worse, but we should not lose sight of the fact that the cops don’t treat any other protests like this.

    If you’re not an anti-police protester, DC cops mostly won’t harass you as long as you stay where you’re permitted to be and don’t try to damage anything. But if you try to get to a restricted area or smash anything, they will be on you.

    This was not just white privilege, this was right-wing privilege and blue line flag privilege. Anyone who still talks about “a few bad apples” needs to be reminded that proverb isn’t “a few bad apples won’t cause any problems as long as you find them and get rid of them.”

  80. 80.

    Steeplejack

    “We’re going to open a PDF. Who’s next?” (0:20)

    I don’t have a Twitter account, but it is possible to navigate Twitter threads even just with your browser. I can’t believe that the dedicated Twitter app would make it harder than that. A few notes:

    Tweets are posted in a person’s account in chronological order, with the latest at the top. That is where you are likely to see long threads in reverse order, if you just read down the person’s page. But if you click on one of the tweets, it takes you into the thread, so to speak—to another page where the tweets are in proper order and not interspersed with other people’s comments.

    Tim F linked to the first tweet in @LiteraryMouse’s thread, so it is easy to follow the thread. If someone links to a tweet in mid-thread (as Anne Laurie often does), you can use your browser’s “top of page” function (or Twitter’s, I presume) to go up to the start of the thread. If it’s an extremely long thread, you may have to do that several times, as Twitter buffers the number of tweets displayed at one time.

    In similar fashion, at some point in a thread you may see a “Show replies” message, followed by other people’s comments (on the thread so far). If you click “Show replies” you will see the continuation of the original thread. On my computer with Firefox this happens at the tweet that starts with “Here’s four minutes into the storming of the Capitol.” It is followed by a tweet from Teresa Snyder, but if I click “Show replies” I get @LiteraryMouse’s next tweet in the thread, “Any plans for a siege have gone out the window.” And so on.

    I very rarely use a “thread reader” app. For most threads they’re more trouble than they’re worth, although for a long, dense one like this it can be useful. @Just Chuck posted a link to that above. I do have some vague uneasiness about misuse of intellectual property with people rolling up threads and posting them entire elsewhere, but I haven’t thought about it at length. Some quotes or excerpts and a link to the original seems like the right way to go.

    And I urge Tim F not to “repost the entire thread as a blog post.” The thread contains a large number of videos and external graphics, which I suspect would bring FYWP to its knees, especially on this blog’s front page (since people seem to have gotten out of the habit of using the “below the fold” convention).

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    @zhena gogolia: 
    Ivanka is our Marie Antoinette, just without the sophistication.

    You know damn well with six to choose from there are bathrooms they never used themselves, once. But a cop’s ass touching one of those six toilets? “No way, maaaaan!” #BackTheBlue

  83. 83.

    Kent

    After four years, the insurrectionists were carefully attuned to Trump’s messaging. Every tweet and statement of his was treated as marching orders and carefully dissected for meaning. It’s why shutting down Trump’s Twitter account was so important. pic.twitter.com/xk9d2NibYy— Melissa (she/her) (@LiteraryMouse) January 9, 2021

    This is an absolutely KEY point that I don’t think is fully understood by many on the left. The Trump world populated by evangelicals and those familiar with the evangelical world who are entirely used to studying and parsing texts to find hidden messages. That’s what they do every time they selectively parse the bible to find support for their prejudices against gay marriage, LGBT students, women in position of authority, etc. etc.  The word for it is “proof texting” and it is what biblical literalists do. Every time some fundie preacher cites a bible verse in support of their position on abortion or gay marriage or any other culture war issue they are proof texting.

    So it was a very easy and short step for MAGA world to start doin the same thing with Trump tweets. Just like they study the bible to find vague “proofs” for their anti-LGBT bigotry, they parse Trump Tweets for hidden messages supporting their own bigotry and pre-conceived notions.

    Because most liberals aren’t really familiar with this sort of fundamentalist proof texting, they don’t do it or really understand that it is how the MAGA faithful are reading Trump’s tweets. No one on the left parses Sanders, Warren, or Biden’s communications for hidden messages, for example. So we don’t really understand what he happening. We read his texts as unhinged and incoherent because we aren’t looking for hidden messages. It is code in plain sight that we just miss.

  86. 86.

    different-church-lady

    @Leto: if your goal is to give people information, Twitter sucks.

    If your goal is to kep people on your platform as long as possible, and to generate high “engagement” numbers (even if every one of those engagements is as shallow as condensation on a mirror) the Twitter is ideally designed.

  87. 87.

    trollhattan

    Can I give a shoutout to the ZOMG antifa! video with the ’90’s font titles? Dude starts it with an appeal to folks who lost their jerb on account of COVID, to vacuum their 401ks and give it all to him to invest in GOLD! The grift is strong, with this one. And oh, he’ll be boldly outside the perimeter, handling comms.

  88. 88.

    lee

    @MisterForkbeard: That is also why the SS is not putting any of the Trump agents with Biden. I heard they are bringing many of his old agents back for the detail.

    When the Secret Service has a problem you know the rot goes deep.

    Another little tidbit: 23 years ago we decided with Clinton that Secret Service agents can testify in regards to the President.

  90. 90.

    trollhattan

    @Kent:

    It’s too bad we don’t “happen to have Marshall McLuhan right here” because this is very much in his wheelhouse WRT how the medium molds the message.

  91. 91.

    Subsole

    @Kent: That’s actually a really good connection. I’ve seen that mechanism in action many a time, so it makes perfect sense. Used to drive me up tge wall. I’d make some headway with friends/acquaintances, then they’d go to bible study and it was right back to square one.

    Eh. Taught me some Bible, at least.

  92. 92.

    lee

    @AliceBlue: Dang it! Sorry I got the nutters mixed up.

    Edit: I hope there is enough fortitude in The House to expel the worst of the offenders. Both of these nutters would fall into that category

  95. 95.

    Punchy

    OT:  the crazy Trump doc that looked like the ill-fated scientist from Independence Day just kicked.  Good sign, perhaps?

  99. 99.

    trollhattan

    @lee:

    They have the capacity to put agents on the polygraph and I wonder whether that’s happening. If I were Biden I would certainly want vetting for agents to be considered for assignment to his detail. I read the stories about weeding through Trump’s detail but would be surprised if it eliminates all of them.

  101. 101.

    Immanentize

    @lee: Hell, White House counsel has no privilege vis a vis the President.  I will be interested in McGahn’s testimony.

  102. 102.

    trollhattan

    @Steeplejack:

    Otta be a special law covering display of the treason flag, especially in the halls of government. But he calls himself a “Patriot” while being the exact opposite.

  105. 105.

    Just Chuck

    @Steeplejack:

     The thread contains a large number of videos and external graphics, which I suspect would bring FYWP to its knees

    Naw, WP can handle them just fine, it’s just HTML like everything else.  Your browser OTOH might not, but it’s not like any of them are autoplay.  Agreed that one should put most of it below the fold though.

  108. 108.

    trnc

    @Keithly: “Mr TRNC, you are hereby sentenced to a full day at the nearest gun range. We’ll supply the target. Hint: you may want to wear a bulletproof vest.”

  110. 110.

    patrick II

    @Kent:

    Thanks for the new (to me) term “proof texting”.  I’ll know what to call it the next time I see it at the Supreme Court.

  115. 115.

    Baud

    @Steeplejack:

    FBI Baltimore: Man carrying Confederate flag in Capitol last week turned himself in today in Wilmington. Name is Kevin Seefried. Son Hunter also arrested.

     
    I can’t wait to see the contents of his laptop.

  118. 118.

    Kelly

    @different-church-lady: @MisterForkbeard: I’d tell them, “Oh you’re here to take a bullet for me? PISS AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE!”

    Oh Yeah. Also doesn’t the house have a garage that could be converted into a SS office with bathroom. Javenka are likely driven everywhere in armored limos so wouldn’t need a place to park.

  120. 120.

    Redshift

    @Kent: Very useful terminology, thanks. I was certainly aware of their propensity for interpreting the Bible and the Constitution to mean whatever they want to believe, I didn’t know that much context.

    I’m also reminded of a story I read about a “creation scientist” showing his kids dinosaur fossils, and his educational question was “kids, explain how this is evidence of the Creation.” Never saw a better layman’s illustration of how creationism isn’t science.

  121. 121.

    patrick II

    @Kent:

    Proof texting the ACA

    I read a story by a game developer a couple of weeks ago that talked about how people created stories based upon small clues he left in the game. He helps them create their own reality, but sometimes some small random visual happenstance lets them create something completely different and he loses control. Reality has weight to it. But people can create their own version balanced on the head of a pin.

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    @patrick II:

    When Trump knows for a certainty that something bad is going as a result of his encouragement, but are not sure of the particulars?

    How can you prove what he knows? OK yes, he knows so little that the provable things may not be outside of single digits but still, wants so much, knows so little. Also he seems so certain of so much, almost all of which ends up being BS. Once again, maybe if you count the failures, now you’ve got a list.

  124. 124.

    germy

    NEW YORK – New York State Attorney General Letitia James is suing the New York City Police Department in an effort to install a federal monitor to oversee them.

    The lawsuit comes after the AG’s office found widespread civil rights abuses by police against Black Lives Matter protesters over the summer.

  125. 125.

    Redshift

    @Steeplejack: For longer pieces, I do like writers on Twitter who post a link to a full article in the first tweet (for people who want to read at length) followed by a thread of several tweets with the high points so that the many people on social media who won’t click through will still get more context.

  126. 126.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Kelly: Oh, I agree. Though I don’t say I think it’s especially heinous.

    But especially if I found out this was a problem for the SS, I’d let them in the house. No problem there at all.

  128. 128.

    Kent

    @patrick II: Exactly.  It’s why Trump’s twitter was so dangerous.  Not only do the MAGA faithful parse and proof-text his tweets.  They openly and energetically collaborate on the project in their online ecosystem, and then propagate the ‘meanings’ within their circles.   The white supremacists find messages directly to them.  The fundies find messages directly to them.  And so forth.

    Democrats and the media get caught in the trap of: “Well, Trump didn’t REALLY say that in so many words”  because they are treating it as a legal question.  Which completely misses the point.  Jesus didn’t prohibit, much less ever mention gay marriage or abortion anywhere in the bible either, but fundie bigots manage to find both direct messages in the bible.  And so we are forced to expend enormous amounts of time and energy to push back.

  129. 129.

    patrick II

    @Ruckus:

    I get ripped a lot for saying this here, but Trump is smart about what he does and the manner in which he speaks. Just nothing outside of that.  He just has no sense of things outside of how they affect him directly.

    He was desperate to do something because he cannot stop being president and not go to jail.  There are cases just waiting for him to be out of office — more than we know has been building up against him, but he knows it.

    What he did Jan 6 is looked on as stupid: I look at it as desperate (and vindictive — if Pense had been killed he would have been fine with that). Trump didn’t know exactly what would happen, but chaos was better than the determined future he is looking at.

  131. 131.

    Redshift

    OT: In a mostly-unrelated outrage, Comey, who started starting publicity on January 6th for a new book arguing that Trump shouldn’t be prosecuted, is not only continuing with his book tour like nothing has changed, but suggesting that Biden pardoning Trump would help “heal the country.”

    I wonder whether the people booking him for interviews are deliberately trolling people to hate-watch, or if it’s just the usual white-daddy-figure-privilege/PR calls from the big-name publisher.

    He does seem determined to be the poster child for unwarranted confidence in one’s own righteousness and infallibility.

  132. 132.

    Kelly

    I’m not surprised Biden wants to pick his SS team. Even without the possibility of Trumpists a 24/7 security team is a very close relationship. I’d want familiar faces just because it’d be more comfortable and I’d want those familiar folks to vouch for any new team members.

  133. 133.

    Ruckus

    @Ohio Mom:

    I’d bet that a lot of the loud, noticeable, in for a lark or are sold on BS hangers on will give names/email addresses/information that leads to a lot of the planners, the more “professional” participants. The information is out there, and I’d bet that 99% of them are traceable rather simply. Sure it takes making the effort but the connections are there for the finding.

  134. 134.

    Kent

    @Geoduck:@Kent: ..The modern GOP? Maybe. It’s not like they are choosing people for competence.

    Watching the Lincoln Project work on our side for a change has been an eye-opening and clarifying experience. I’m not talking about the MAGA idiots.  But the masterminds who get them elected.

  135. 135.

    Leto

    Hakeem [email protected]_jeffries

    Donald Trump Jr. is now under criminal investigation in the District of Columbia.

    Keep the pressure on every single person who incited the violent attack on the Capitol.
    4:53 PM · Jan 12, 2021

     
    Edit: see this is two days old but I don’t remember seeing it here, but if it was already covered never mind!

  136. 136.

    Redshift

    @patrick II: Yeah, Preet Bharara was pointing out in a recent podcast that people often interpret Trump’s narcissism and believing his own bullshit to mean that you wouldn’t be able to prove intent. However, if you look at the times he’s been put under oath, he’s been very careful. That says that even if he’s able to convince himself fully enough to pull off the con artist’s trick of seeming more believable because he does believe it in the moment, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t know right from wrong, incriminating from not.

    (Which is a bit tangential, since you were talking about non-legal standards, but it’s related.)

  137. 137.

    patrick II

    @Kent:

    That’s why I was impressed with Liz Cheney’s response.  She didn’t get caught up in legalism or did he or didn’t he.  She simply said it wouldn’t have happened without him.  With that frame, she doesn’t have to parse words or motivation.

  138. 138.

    Ruckus

    @MisterForkbeard:

    It can’t be that all of them are so childish, like their cherished leader, that – OK I can’t finish this, they are all rather childish, like their leader. They have no real idea about growing up, being at all grown up, understanding that fairy tails and holding their breath till they turn blue really isn’t a way to go through life.

  141. 141.

    gvg

    @MisterForkbeard: They bought that house knowing they were going to have secret service agents in the house. They should have bought a house with a mother in law suite of maids quarters or just had the house altered so their were facilities that fit the situation.

  144. 144.

    Chetan Murthy

    Re: the LiteraryMouse thread, I was able to do the following:

    (1) mark it in the browser

    (2) copy via the menu (control-C didn’t seem to work, but I could be mistaken)

    (3) paste it into a Google Doc

    (4) All images came thru, and apparently not cropped.  When I did “print to PDF” in my browser, the images were borked.

    (5) this reporter did yeoman’s work [odd that there’s no gendered version of this for women, ugh] — it’s 70+ pages!

    I don’t have a public place to store this, and am loath to share it from my Google Docs.

  145. 145.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @germy: IIRC, David Dinkins, New York’s only black mayor, tried to similarly reform the police. They hated him for it, and he ultimately failed.

  146. 146.

    Another Scott

    JuanitaJean:

    Congressvarmint Dan Crenshaw of Texas may be the winner of the Grand Prize of Illegal Campaign Contributions. The FEC just issued ten freekin’ pages of illegal contributions.

    And this is the same Dan who voted against impeachment using proxy voting, a practice he called cowardly …. before he used it.

    […]

    (Crenshaw’s the guy with the eye patch.)

    This is my shocked, shocked face.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  148. 148.

    Amir Khalid

    @Redshift:

    I would be okay with Trump seeking a pardon if he can meet the DoJ’s usual criteria for evaluating pardon requests. (I.e. the criteria he habitually ignored when handing out his pardons.) These criteria, as I understand, may include genuine contrition, restitution where appropriate, and some period of time after any jail sentence has been completed.

    Of course, since it’s der Scheißgibbon we’re talking about, I wouldn’t fancy his chances of persuading Biden or any other future POTUS to pardon him.

  150. 150.

    JMG

    @Kelly: The original story about changes to Biden’s Secret Service detail stressed that very point. It’s easier for all concerned, including the agents themselves, if Biden (or any President) has had them in their protective detail before, either on the campaign trail or as Biden did, as Vice-President.

    I wonder who’s gonna volunteer to be Jared and Ivanka’s detail after 1/20.

  151. 151.

    Another Scott

    @Chetan Murthy: It’s astounding to me — still!! — how badly web pages get mangled when one tries to print them to a PDF.  Every browser that I’ve tried has managed to make a huge mess of some page somewhere.  Either only the first page gets created, or the thing is scaled down to microscopic text, or the graphics elements mess up all the text, or …, or all of the above.

    I’m not upset with @LiteraryMouse for not making a pretty blog post for us.  I’m grateful for her posting what she did.

    And pissed off that print-to-PDF is much less useful than it should be, considering they’ve been working on it for going on 25 years now…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  152. 152.

    gvg

    @trollhattan: Polygraphing is hoax science. It measures how calm someone is not actually if they are lying. Relying on it is a mistake and the only reason the police and employers do it is to scare amateur liars away.

  153. 153.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Leto:

    Twitter is not the medium for a Russian nesting doll of 60+ posts.

    Leto, I don’t use Twitter (except when I click-thru on tweets I see elsewhere).  The last (third!) time my Twitter account got blocked for language (I told a GrOPer pol I hoped he suffered all the obvious consequence of his libertarian beliefs: food poisoning, cancer, pollution, etc) I just left it blocked.  I don’t visit the twitter homepage to see  “what’s trending”.  And I think Jack’s a Nazi.  B/c he wants the money that allowing Nazis on his platform gets him, and as A.R. Moxon taught me, nobody cares about motivations.  He’s a Nazi.

    But I kind of must demur.  I think that lots of journalists want to have a way to publish their work, that results in instant pull-quotes, instant quotability.  And Twitter is that thing.  Being able to publish in bite-sized chunks, means that when other quote/cite you, they can do so in a way that directly leads back to your own work.  And that’s bread on the table for journalists.

    In a better world, there’d be a way to do this with long-form blog posts.  But today there isn’t.  It’s a pity.

  156. 156.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Mike in NC: I was going to add “or like refried beans” but then I would be literally deluged with information about what refried beans are

  157. 157.

    Steeplejack

    @Subsole:

    You don’t like/retweet every tweet in the thread! You do the top  one or whichever one you first hit, so, yes, later tweets are going to have fewer likes/​retweets than those at the top of the thread.

  158. 158.

    karen marie

    The Javanka Rehabilitation Scheme is going great!

    “Instructed not to use any of the half-dozen bathrooms inside the couple’s house, the Secret Service detail assigned to Individual-1’s daughter and son-in-law spent months searching for a reliable restroom to use on the job,” the paper reported, citing neighbors and law enforcement official.

  159. 159.

    Leto

    @Chetan Murthy: I agree, I recognize that part of the rise of Twitter is the death of local journalism. People are able to live Tweet events (pressers, protests, insurrections) which allows for greater visibility, but at the same time some of these mammoth works should be moved off just for a better experience. Like you said, in a better world we’d have that.

    Again, this is just a quibble I have with the platform. It doesn’t exactly pop up all the time, but following the coup attempt I’m seeing more of these as an attempt to put all the information out there. I don’t know how effective it is but it’s always welcome.

  160. 160.

    The Moar You Know

    I wonder who’s gonna volunteer to be Jared and Ivanka’s detail after 1/20.

    @JMG: They should not have one now and they sure won’t after the 20th.

  162. 162.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Redshift:

    unwarranted confidence in one’s own righteousness and infallibility.

    Could he be any *more* of a poster-child for the Dunning-Kruger Syndrome?  I think not.  *grin*

  163. 163.

    Captain C

    @zhena gogolia: “Thought they were too good to let their own Secret Service protectors use one of their six bathrooms costing taxpayers $3000 a month” sounds like a great negative ad for when Ivanka runs for something.

    ETA the bolded part.

  164. 164.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: A thing to keep in mind about police unions, most politicians have term limits, police union chiefs do not.  So say you run for mayor of a city and promise police reform, the first day the union guy shows up at your office and say’s “I’ll be here long after you’re gone…”

  167. 167.

    Calouste

    @Gin & Tonic: I think children of former Presidents get a Secret Service detail until the age of 18 or 21. After that they’re on their own. Other relevant tidbit, divorced spouses of former Presidents don’t get a detail either. At one point (1990s) even the former President was only going to get a detail for 10 years, but that was later reversed to be lifelong again.

  168. 168.

    JanieM

    @germy: These people are so far beyond despicable it can’t even be measured. If you click and go to the tweet you find that it was Obama’s Secret Service detail who banned the Jarvanka fucks from coming back. They create a newer, filthier soap opera every time they get up in the morning

    ETA: But even weirder: Jarvanka’s SS are using Obama’s bathroom because Jarvanka won’t let the hoi polloi into theirs. So the boss goes and trashes Obama’s………why? I guess it’s great to be despised by people you recognize as your betters, but you have to despise the . . . dark-skinned . . . even when they’re being nice to you. Maybe especially when they’re being nice to you. .

  169. 169.

    Starboard Tack

    @rikyrah:

    She’s not from my district, but I, and many others, knew she was a chucklefuck. I supported Diane Mitsch Bush but, not quite. Next time.

  171. 171.

    JaySinWA

    @WaterGirl: Okay, I don’t know who all needs reminding but given all the comments about grabbing a Twitter thread in its entirety, without explicit permission this is copyright violation. Not fair use.

    Stonekettle blocks the unroll apps because people were stealing and reposting his work without permission.

    Fair use has limits.

  173. 173.

    Miss Bianca

    @rikyrah: As a resident in her district and a journalist that wrote about her and her campaign, I resent this. We TOLD people about her and her skanky husband and shady business practices and numerous arrests; just like we told people about the trangressions and tendencies of the nutty pistol-packin’ mamas and papas running in our district for everything from state rep to DA – NO ONE CARED. As long as there is (R) by the name, rural Colorado will vote for it.

  174. 174.

    Another Scott

    @Baud:

    Feds say confederate flag guy’s son:

    1) Took a selfie in the building.

    2) Bragged about being in the Capitol with his father.

    Then his dad told the feds that that his son entered into a criminal conspiracy by clearing glass from a Capitol window that was smashed by a 2 x 4. pic.twitter.com/uKLMbnxx5f

    — Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) January 14, 2021

    And they got this information without waterboarding either of them, even. Hmmm…

    (via Popehat)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  176. 176.

    Captain C

    @Redshift: Or possibly the publisher equivalent of an A & R type looking at a potential bath on the Comey pulp and saying “okay, if you want [X ratings-desirable person] on your show you gotta put Jim on first. I’m already getting calls from [nearest ratings competitor].”

  178. 178.

    cope

    @Miss Bianca: We’ve lived in Flori-fucking-DUH for more than 30 years now having moved from Colorado because reasons but all my kin still live in Mesa County and you are so right about voting habits.  Of course, being my kin they are all rabidly progressive but they manage to grin and bear it.

  179. 179.

    Starboard Tack

    @Kent:

    If you shake hands with the Lincoln Project, count your fingers after. They may have mind fucked Trump some but I don’t see they had all that much effect on the last election. Bunch of white guys who got pushed out of the Republican party and weren’t getting the attention they were used to. Stacey Adams registers people. These schmucks just register outrage. I’ll trust them, a little, when they go for broke in 2022.

  180. 180.

    Geminid

    @Miss Bianca: I visited Alamosa, in the CO 3rd,  couple times recently and did not find the area or the people at all sleepy. And from 1700 miles away I learned about Boebert’s history because I was interested enough to follow the race through local and state media that is at anyone’s fingertips. Shannon Watts would do better to assign the word “sleepy” to the large number of folks who care deeply about politics but aren’t interested enough to look beyond their national news sources, and favorite blogs and podcasts. Good politicians like Maisie Hirono and Val Demings were unknowns before one “starred” at the Kavanaugh hearing and the other impressed people at the first impeachment trial. But they were the same solid representatives before as they were after. One would have had to be curious enough to look beyond national news stories to know that, though.

  181. 181.

    louc

    Something I found funny/sad about @LiteraryMouse’s thread: The apology letter to the Folger Library. It’s closed for renovations. All the valuable artifacts and documents are in a super-secret hiding spot in Virginia right now and staff are working from home.

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