Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

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

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

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

So many bastards, so little time.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Republicans in disarray!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / So It Begins

So It Begins

by | 188 Comments

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Founding member of Oath Keepers enters first guilty plea in Jan. 6 Capitol breach:

The plea comes exactly 100 days after Jon Ryan Schaffer and hundreds of other supporters of former president Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, allegedly in an effort to prevent Joe Biden from being confirmed as the next president. Prosecutors hope Schaffer’s plea spurs others to provide additional evidence in hopes of avoiding long prison sentences. […]

The agreement spells out that Schaffer is cooperating, which means his sentence could be cut further if he proves valuable to the ongoing investigation of any other rioters or conspirators. Prosecutors offered to recommend leniency for his full and substantial cooperation, but also made clear Schaffer could be charged with other crimes of violence if they learn of them.

It’s telling, at least to me, that they were able to get what appears to be the guy at the top to flip. I guess the Gravy Seals in Y’all Qaeda lack a bit of loyalty to each other. Color me unsurprised.

Reader Interactions

188Comments

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    “Gravy Seals”   I had not heard that one before.

    I presume he can still keep his oaths in prison?

  4. 4.

    West of the Rockies

    Huh…  you’d think the chief Oath Keeper would be better at  loyalty, fealty, and keeping oaths.

    Maybe they should be called Oaf Weepers.

  5. 5.

    smith

    Hope this guy really was highly-enough placed to out the conspirators within the government.

  6. 6.

    Old School

    He pleaded guilty to two charges — obstructing an official proceeding and entering restricted grounds with a dangerous weapon.

    He looking at a sentence of 3 1/2 years.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    exactly 100 days

    Of what possible relevance or import is that snatch of padding? Would it be any less newsworthy if it happened to fall on day 97? Or 132?

    /inner editor, curmudgeon class

  9. 9.

    Old School

    @Martin: Yes, the two charges carry of maximum sentence of 20 and 10 years.  With a plea, it should be 3 1/2 to 4 years.

  11. 11.

    RaflW

    For whatever reason, my mind went first to the noise punk band Flipper. Thirty years later, I can’t actually remember if I ever saw them live. But there was a lot of booze back then, and 100s of nights in clubs in Austin.

  14. 14.

    germy

    Danny “DJ" Rodriguez was arrested two weeks ago for electroshocking Officer Fanone. He was identified by online sleuths in January and in a HuffPost story in February. https://t.co/WX9H4nrGAd

    — Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) April 16, 2021

    Guys with his particular skin tone always wear the most MAGA merch to these events. I think deep down inside they know they’ll get stomped if they don’t.

  15. 15.

    RandomMonster

    I guess the Gravy Seals in Y’all Qaeda lack a bit of loyalty to each other.

    It’s a libertarian article of faith, endorsed by Ayn Rand, that selfishness is the greatest good.

  16. 16.

    Parfigliano

    Color my shocked that a top Oath Keeper has the loyalty to group of a starving rat

  20. 20.

    Old School

    @RaflW: Did you ever see the heavy metal band Iced Earth?  Because that’s the band this Oath Keeper is a member of.

  21. 21.

    RandomMonster

    @RaflW: Flipper was pretty awful. So awful, in fact, that I think I had at least three albums.

    “Talk is Cheap” was funny.

  23. 23.

    RandomMonster

    @Old School:Did you ever see the heavy metal band Iced Earth?

    I hate to say it, but I think one of their songs made it into a videogame I produced some years ago.

  24. 24.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    OT, but related:

    I was doing research for the background of two characters who break into a museum to steal priceless artifacts worth hundreds of thousands to millions but are caught with the goods by police. They do not resist arrest.

    I was wondering, lawyers of Balloon Juice, what exactly somebody could be charged and convicted with in this scenario and how much time they would serve

    I know that depends on many things, such as the laws of the jurisdiction where the crimes were committed, factors such as resisting arrest, violence, etc, the monetary value of the objects stolen, etc

    I understand the charges would be burglary (breaking and entering in most US states falls under burglary) and grand theft/larceny to my knowledge. Given the amount of money, it would likely be a felony in the first degree for grand theft (in NY). Probably in the first degree for burglary as well. Would any other charges apply that I’m missing

  32. 32.

    Barbara

    @NotMax: No parole in the federal system.  Your sentence is your sentence,  although you can get credits for various things like going through drug counseling.

  33. 33.

    cain

    Looks like nobody at Fox News is going to cover that since that would not support the big lie. I”m curious to see what right wingers will do with this information – I mean they are oath keepers and so you can’t say they were antifa.

    I wish they had caught up Andy Ng there too.. I want to see that fucker in jail.

  34. 34.

    cain

    @Ksmiami: Yeah, but their loyalty is to the constitution in their heads and we know that is a living document that is always changing and thus so do their oaths.

  35. 35.

    KrackenJack

    This Flipper episode turns into “Day of the Dolphin” where he blows some stuff up…

  36. 36.

    Martin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Not a lawyer, but I know there are cultural artifact laws in the US. They’re normally focused toward preventing defacement of static artifacts (petroglyphs, etc.) but I think they can also apply to museum pieces. So if they were stealing a piece of cultural art, those might apply.

  37. 37.

    JWR

    O/T: but here’s what’s up with the shooting in Indiana:

    Police ID killer in FedEx shooting as 19-year-old man
    … Police Chief Randal Taylor noted that a “significant” number of employees at the facility are members of the Sikh community, and the Sikh Coalition later confirmed that members of the community were among the wounded and killed. …​

    ETA: Just to be clear, they’re still looking for a motive.

  41. 41.

    Martin

    @JWR: I cannot fathom why you would want to hurt someone who is Sikh. They are hands down the kindest people you will ever meet in your life.

  42. 42.

    smith

    @Martin:  They wear turbans, and to the little minds among us that makes them Ay-rabs. A number of Sikhs were murdered in the aftermath of 9/11 for this reason.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    @Martin

    Also not a lawyer but would posit that criminal trespass and, if display cases and the like were broken, willful destruction of property might apply.

  45. 45.

    kmeyerthelurker

    Huh.  I figured they would go straight for nullification.  Worked for Ammon Bundy.

  48. 48.

    JWR

    @JPL: “Has anyone mentioned the possibility that he was mentally ill? just curious”

    Not in the AP story, they’ve released his name, but not much else. As the saying goes, developing…

  49. 49.

    Doc Sardonic

    So they flipped him, flipped him

    faster than lightning, his prospects were frightening

    so he copped a plea

  50. 50.

    laura

    @RaflW: Criminy, you couldn’t go to a punk show and not see Flipper for years! They played a show at a grotty bunker called the Blue Lamp here in Sacramento a few years ago. Lots of aging fans getting their scrap on down front. Good times…

  51. 51.

    germy

    And so it goes…

    Ex-Trump admin official and ex-Devin Nunes staffer Kash Patel is now facing a Justice Department investigation for possible improper disclosure of classified information, according to two knowledgeable sources. https://t.co/pJcKYPPqEO

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 16, 2021

  55. 55.

    CaseyL

    I look forward to “the wheels of Justice may grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine” grinding the insurrectionists to dust, along with any Trumpies, Senators, and Reps that enabled them.

  63. 63.

    randy khan

    A nugget in that story is that they’re arresting an *average* of four people a day.  They weren’t kidding when they said they were going to be serious about this.

  65. 65.

    Martin

    So I have perhaps unpopular thoughts on Bidens immigration decision today. It’s being spun as an appeal to moderates, but I have a different view.

    The hard part of making good policy isn’t actually the making of the policy – it’s the implementation follow-through, which is WAY harder. The ACA could look as good on paper as you might want but when healtcare.gov doesn’t work, you not only have an understandable backlash to the policy, but you are failing to meet the goals you set. So now you have an unpopular, and ineffective policy.

    The biggest problem with immigration, IMO, is not who we accept or reject, it’s our inability to achieve steady-state. You might want to allow a million people a year in, but if you can only process 10,000, then it doesn’t matter what your stated policy is, that’s your actual policy. Making matters worse, if you can only process 10,000 and you try to allow a million, that 10,000 will become 1,000 as you spend all of your resources just managing the 990,000 you couldn’t possibly have processed in the first place.

    Now, this is of course a GOP trap. Dems set a policy, and then the GOP defunds implementation effectively vetoing the policy. But Biden has 3 ½ years to get immigration implementation back on its feet, get us back somewhat to steady-state, and then open up from there. It’s better for the immigrants as well because they don’t get stuck in limbo for a decade, paying attorneys that entire time. But I think the calculus here is that a functional immigration system will prove more popular than a generous one, at least in the near term.

  66. 66.

    Doc Sardonic

    @mrmoshpotato: And the man in the back was ready to crack as he watched it all on tv….the girl twerking the corner was everyone’s one…Snort a key in the blink of an eye

  67. 67.

    KrackenJack

    @mrmoshpotato:

    <a href=”#comment-8144225″>@Doc Sardonic</a>:

    &nbsp;

    I was trying mentally force fit those lyrics into “Kung fu fighting” and it wasn’t working at all.

  69. 69.

    Martin

    @JPL: To be fair, I appreciate their honesty. They’ll have to fight over who gets to call their memoir ‘My Struggle’, though.

  70. 70.

    Doc Sardonic

    @geg6: Thank you…..That’s where I recognize her from…..her face was familiar and I was wracking my brain trying to figure out why.

  71. 71.

    Mike in NC

    @geg6: Available on Netflix, “Peaky Blinders” is a show about rival criminal gangs in Birmingham, England after WW1.

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    An Oath Keeper couple who live not too far from me got busted for participating in the insurrection. The husband is allegedly the boss of the Florida chapter and is still in jail awaiting trial. The wife recently got released under house arrest, I think. Church-going small business owners! I bet they’re both surprised as shit to find out that acting out their militant yahoo bullshit has serious consequences.

  75. 75.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker:I bet they’re both surprised as shit to find out that acting out their militant yahoo bullshit has serious consequences.

    I hope Biden, Garland, and Co keep the indictments rolling for years.

  77. 77.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Martin: This reasoning rings hollow to me when combined with the fact that they’re cancelling the prearranged flights for hundreds (thousands?) of pre-vetted refugees. Is there an issue of administrative capacity going forward? Wouldn’t surprise me. But that doesn’t explain the flights. These people have already been processed.

  78. 78.

    Frederick Stibbert

    @NotMax: There’s really no “time off for good behavior” in the federal prisons, according to what I’ve read in lawtwitter. But his plea agreement indicates that he could earn a reduction in his sentence through cooperation.

  79. 79.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Betty Cracker: ​
     
    Uh-huh, they thought white privilege was gonna save them. I absolutely love the fact that these assholes are steaming mad cuz Trump is free and clear and getting millions in donations and they’re facing serious Federal charges.

    Couldn’t happen to a shittier group of people.

  83. 83.

    Roger Moore

    @Martin: 

    I’d make my new hobby making sure customers of that small business know who they are.

    I’m not sure that’s a good idea. It’s quite possible it would improve their business.

  84. 84.

    bbleh

    @Major Major Major Major:  Indeed!  Per CNN:

    Many of the Capitol riot defendants have expressed interest in pleading guilty and attempting to move on with their lives.

    Apparently this was the first to be approved at high DOJ levels, perhaps because he’s (allegedly) highly placed in a group they’re trying to build a conspiracy case against.

    IIRC he’s being released from custody.  I hope he has somewhere safe to hide …

  86. 86.

    Roger Moore

    @HumboldtBlue:

    I absolutely love the fact that these assholes are steaming mad cuz Trump is free and clear and getting millions in donations and they’re facing serious Federal charges.

    Maybe someone who feels that way and has the goods should rat Trump out.

  87. 87.

    Betty Cracker

    @Martin: I don’t have a clue what the rationale is — maybe you’re right. On Twitter, Nate Silver says it’s a self-own for Biden politically, but Armando (from Kos) says he thinks he thinks Biden will benefit. Not that the politics of this is the most important issue, obviously, but I think Armando might be right.

  88. 88.

    bbleh

    @Betty Cracker: I keep coming back to (comfortably middle-class) teenagers.  Their ODD-like behavior.  Their genuine surprise at facing responsibility for their actions.

    IIRC adult domesticated dogs have behaviors similar to those of wolf pups.  They never progress further because they don’t need to.  I can’t help but wonder whether these people are like that…

  89. 89.

    trollhattan

    Root for injuries.

    “Liberty University has sued Jerry Falwell Jr. for $10 million, exacerbating the messy divorce between the Christian university and its former president whose family name has been synonymous with the university since its founding,” the New York Times reports.

    “The new suit, which alleges breach of contract and fiduciary duty, claims that Mr. Falwell withheld scandalous and potentially damaging information from Liberty’s board of trustees, while negotiating a generous new contract for himself in 2019 under false pretenses.”

    “Mr. Falwell also failed to disclose and address ‘his personal impairment by alcohol,’ the suit alleges.”

    https://politicalwire.com/2021/04/16/liberty-university-sues-jerry-falwell-jr-for-10-million/

    When worldsgrifts collide.

  90. 90.

    Betty Cracker

    @HumboldtBlue: Yep. The stupid chuckle-fucks lied to the judge about taking “combat” training and got busted for that, and their phone records prove they coordinated a violent attack and door breach with others in their group, so they’re looking a many years in jail for a conspiracy charge. These are grown-ass people in their 50s!

  91. 91.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    The number of voters who care about refugees is a rounding error, sadly.  Especially if Biden eventually raises the limit at some point down the line.

  92. 92.

    Martin

    @Major Major Major Major: I’d give that a bit of time to get sorted. My understanding was that the cancellations occurred by administrators while Trumps policy was still in effect. I would expect that there will be a cleanup here on anyone that was pre-vetted. Let’s see if Jen addresses it.

  93. 93.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I’m sure that’s true, but the point Armando made is that anything that separates Biden from the left on the larger issue of immigration is a political benefit for Biden. He (Armando) said he used to think liberal immigration policy was politically smart for Democrats but no longer believes that, especially since we lost ground with Hispanic voters in 2020.

    My initial reaction is that he’s right. I don’t like it, and neither does he. But it might be a new reality we have to deal with. I don’t know. It’s a depressing thought.

  94. 94.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Betty Cracker:

    I bet they’re both surprised as shit to find out that acting out their militant yahoo bullshit has serious consequences.

    Fuck ’em.

  95. 95.

    Hoodie

    @Betty Cracker:  I suspect he’s correct. The plan may be to fix the intake process as Martin suggests and to time the increase to coincide with the anticipated arrival of a lot of refugees from Afghanistan when we pull out later this year. That should be a more sympathetic group and the Trumpers are kind of boxed in there seeing that Trump made the initial commitment to leave.

  96. 96.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    I agree that we can’t get much more political mileage out of immigration.  I think the “separating from the left” argument is overdone. I think Biden gets (minimal) mileage out of this is because he appears to be superficially (and maybe actually) responding to the current situation on the border, rather than distinguishing himself ideologically from the left.

  97. 97.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Roger Moore:

     

    Maybe someone who feels that way and has the goods should rat Trump out.

    There are a lot of cutouts. Need to climb all the rungs in the ladder first.

  99. 99.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @cain:  I mean they are oath keepers and so you can’t say they were antifa.

    Oh they will claim these guys are AntiFa.  Like the Flat Earthers, any information that doesn’t support their internal narrative is simply ignored.

  101. 101.

    jonas

    @germy: Every accusation a confession. Kinda like Gaetz being guilty of everything they were saying about Hunter Biden.

  102. 102.

    Doc Sardonic

    Unless Nate Silver is talking about SABRmetrics, I tend to heavily discount his opinion. I tend to use a variation of one of my grandmother’s rules of logic. Opinions are like assholes and I am one, so I disagree.

  103. 103.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    have we done this yet:

    Punchbowl News @PunchbowlNews · 3h
    NEW In @PunchbowlNews Midday A new America First Caucus — led by @mtgreenee and @RepGosar — is recruiting people to join based on “Anglo-Saxon political traditions” architectural style that “befits the progeny of European architecture” Some of the most nativist stuff we’ve seen

    so… we’re going with daub-and-waddle and werhgelds, I gues

    ETA: and just to tie this to an earlier discussion: I believe Paul Gosar is a dentist.

  104. 104.

    Cameron

    @Betty Cracker: Wonder how long it will take for the Bullshit Engine to start blasting the idea that this policy change is “FURTHER PROOF OF JOE BIDEN’S DEMENTIA.”

  105. 105.

    cckids

    @Betty Cracker:

    These are grown-ass people in their 50s!

    Being a person of similar age, I sit here at one of my two jobs and wonder where they find the time and energy for this bullshit?? Don’t they have kids/grandkids/pets/hobbies??
    Damn, I’d deep-clean my pantry before I’d find time for insurrection.

  107. 107.

    Barbara

    @cckids: ​I feel this way all the time, especially when I read the Dear Prudence questions about polyamory. I’m exhausted by the time I read to the end of the letter.

  108. 108.

    Cameron

    Interesting choice of name.  FDR didn’t have anything very nice to say about the original America First.

  110. 110.

    JoyceH

    What’s interesting about the flipping news is that if these guys, especially the ones who haven’t been arrested yet, start wondering which of their buddies is going to flip on them, well, they all have easy access to high powered weaponry… Just sayin’.

    Are we ever going to find out which Congresspeople or staffers were behind those pre-insurrection Capitol tours?

  111. 111.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:so… we’re going with daub-and-waddle and werhgelds, I gues

    So a Mead Halls in every town square,educational grants for Bards, the right to carry swords and these militias will have join the Fyrd?

  113. 113.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Martin:

    My understanding was that the cancellations occurred by administrators while Trumps policy was still in effect.

    If only they had some sort of boss who could’ve directed them to do otherwise. I’m willing to be a little patient here, but I’m not buying all the excuses they’re throwing out.

  114. 114.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Far as I’m concerned, this “America First Caucus” is the Ku Klux Klan Kaukus trying to pretend it’s something less evil.

  115. 115.

    Ken

    From a tweet:

    Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert were the lone two members to vote against a bill that would reauthorize the National Marrow Donor Program, which matches bone marrow donors and cord blood units with patients who have leukemia and other diseases

    Based on the the Gaetz example with the human trafficking bill, I now expect that we’ll soon learn that Greene and Boebert are kidnapping children to extract and sell their bone marrow. It would also explain some of the more peculiar parts of the pizza-parlor story, under the “every accusation a confession” principle.

  117. 117.

    Shalimar

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Criminal codes are state laws, and they vary by jurisdiction.  Which means whatever you want to be illegal for your story is the law for your world.  If you want to make walking poodles through a crosswalk on Tuesdays a felony (which just means potentially punishable by more than a year in prison), then that’s what it is.

  120. 120.

    Ken

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: we’re going with daub-and-waddle and werhgelds,

    Can we bring back the original concept of “outlaw”?  There’s something… clean about the idea that if a person’s actions show they think themselves outside the law, they lose all protection of that law.

  121. 121.

    Old School

    Claiming the President’s directive on refugee allocations “has been the subject of some confusion,” Psaki said Friday afternoon that Biden will “set a final, increased refugee cap for the remainder of this fiscal year by May 15.”

    “Given the decimated refugee admissions program we inherited, and burdens on the Office of Refugee Resettlement, his initial goal of 62,500 seems unlikely,” she added.

  123. 123.

    smith

    Could Biden’s slowdown on immigration be due to the fact that his administration has not yet gotten rebellious Trumpy DHS employees in line?

  125. 125.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken:

    Based on the the Gaetz example with the human trafficking bill, I now expect that we’ll soon learn that Greene and Boebert are kidnapping children to extract and sell their bone marrow. It would also explain some of the more peculiar parts of the pizza-parlor story, under the “every accusation a confession” principle. 

    They’re probably also eating the children.

  126. 126.

    Old School

    @Baud: Perhaps I’m reading the article wrong, but it seems to me that they left the limits at 15,000, but left themselves the option to raise them if a higher number seemed likely.

    Now it looks like they’ll raise the goal but not promising that it’s possible.

  136. 136.

    catclub

    @Barbara: ​
    &nbsp

    ;They do realize, don’t they, that Anglo-Saxons were defeated in the Norman conquest?

    Deep down rejection of Normans because they are French?

  137. 137.

    New Deal democrat

    A little OT, but I would like to see a process in place now for refugees from Hong Kong, and (alas) Taiwan.

  141. 141.

    bluefoot

    @JWR: If true about the victims, it’s going to have huge impact.  Sikh communities tend to be really close knit. No matter what the motive (if any) of the shooter.

    Somewhat related: I attended a talk by Pardeep Singh Kaleka and Arno Michaelis.  Pardeep’s father was murdered in the Oak Creek mass shooting, and Arno Michaelis is a former white supremacist.  They are close friends and work together doing outreach.  It was a very interesting and enlightening talk.

    I also enjoyed their book, “The Gift of Our Wounds.”

  143. 143.

    Baud

    @Old School:

    I’m coming to this story late and second hand.  I just don’t like ever discounting the possibility that the media is spinning something to be worse than it was.

    Thanks.

  144. 144.

    HumboldtBlue

    @JPL: ​
     
    The French are notoriously Catholic, so I wouldn’t imagine much love from the Klan.

  148. 148.

    Barry

    @JoyceH: “What’s interesting about the flipping news is that if these guys, especially the ones who haven’t been arrested yet, start wondering which of their buddies is going to flip on them, well, they all have easy access to high powered weaponry… Just sayin’. ”

     

    They also have access to lawyers, who will know the FBI ‘Squeal and go Free’ hotline number.

  151. 151.

    billcinsd

    @Betty Cracker: especially since we lost ground with Hispanic voters in 2020.

    The numbers I have seen don’t indicate much if any loss of Hispanic support for Democrats between 2016 and 2020. A 1% exit poll decrease with many more voting isn’t necessarily a decrease at all. Trump was maybe up a little (like 4%), but that A. may not be significant either, and B. is partially explainable by the dearth of 3rd Party Candidates

  153. 153.

    karen marie

    @Betty Cracker: Nate Silver can shut the fuck up.  Until he rose to prominence for correctly predicting Obama’s first win he was a sports statistics analyst.

  154. 154.

    zhena gogolia

    @geg6:

    If you want to see her in a good role, watch the recent PBS show Roadkill. She plays the prime minister, quite brilliantly.

  155. 155.

    Another Scott

    Good, good. Roll ’em all up.

    In other good news:

    WE LOVE THIS NEWS. ???

    Find out why finding this fish in the Potomac is "like catching a unicorn" and what it means about the health of our waters.@wusa9 @CoveFletchers @scottbroom https://t.co/XHoBlAkvCE

    — Potomac Conservancy (@TheNationsRiver) April 16, 2021

    I recall reading somewhere long ago that a something like 15-foot sturgeon was caught in the Potomac in the 1700s. The return of such fishies, even if they’re babies compared to grandpa, is a very good sign.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  157. 157.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Kind of. Mostly just coming up with concepts for fanart and comic pages etc that I have other people draw

    I wanted perhaps do a “rap sheet” with the character’s mugshot with a list of their convictions or maybe a list of their crimes as a background to the mugshot. I’ve always really liked attention to detail and like to be somewhat realistic

    @Martin:

    Thanks! I’ll have to look those up

    @NotMax:

    Point taken, but something valued in the millions of dollars (maybe even hundreds of millions) is something I’d consider colloquially priceless ; )

    @NotMax:

    This is good, I’ll also keep this in mind

  158. 158.

    Jinchi

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: ​

    Far as I’m concerned, this “America First Caucus” is the Ku Klux Klan Kaukus trying to pretend it’s something less evil.

    Louie Gohmert’s spokesman on “America First”:

    He compared it to putting on one’s mask on an airplane before helping others: “If we let our country go without taking care of America and making sure we’re viable for the future, then we’re not going to be in a position to help the other countries.”

    Louie Gohmert on actual masks:

    Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Texas who tested positive for COVID-19 Wednesday, suggested that he may have contracted the virus because he was wearing a mask​​

  160. 160.

    Lyrebird

    @Sister Golden Bear: Totally OT, and totally respect if the answer is “no” here…  I’m working on a manuscript for a kid’s book that is trying to push back on these heinous and invasive state laws re: sports participation.  Am writing on a kid level, trying to capture multiple perspectives, bc I think those laws are heinous for a whole bunch of reasons and for all the kids, just worst and most dangerous for the scapegoated ones.

    I’m cis.  Likely obvious.

    Do you know someone who might be willing to be a sounding board about this?  If yes, pls give the front pager the okay to share contact information.

     

    Either way, be well!

  161. 161.

    Another Scott

    @JPL:

    Classic "Anglo-Saxon political traditions" include:

    Unwritten oral law codes

    Scattered tribes with fealty to a King in Bernicia

    Conquering Britain

    Being conquered by Normans

    Respecting the Danelaw

    The Witenaġemot.

    Obviously, this is what unites America.

    — Will Rosecrans (@forkazoo) April 16, 2021

    Obviously.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  163. 163.

    schrodingers_cat

    On the issue of immigration our media is full of shit. I am so old that I remember they were bashing Biden administration for being too nice to the asylum seekers just a few weeks ago and now they are bashing the Biden administration for being not nice enough to the refugees.
    The man has been in office for less than 100 days. And the immigration system, every fucking aspect of it was broken on purpose by the clown show that was in charge before Jan 20th.
    Biden has earned my confidence. If these policies continue 6 months after Biden has been in office then I will get on the bandwagon to criticize Biden.

  165. 165.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: Sturgeon are showing up in the James River, too. The Richmond paper had an article last year about a Virginia Game and Fisheries scientist who tags and monitors them. His co-workers call him “the Sturgeon Whisperer.”

  166. 166.

    NotMax

    @Barbara

    “Normans, co-ordinate!”

    :)

    @geg6

    Nor mine. Tried it on recommendation of a friend when first it appeared. Very quickly dropped it like the proverbial toasty tater.

  172. 172.

    JPL

    @Another Scott: Local politics is non partisan and I supported a few candidates.   The reason I’m no longer involved is that one I helped win, likes Marjorie.    The republican party knew that McBath would beat her handily so encouraged her to run in the 14th.    It’s a safe white supremacy seat.

  175. 175.

    Crai

    @HumboldtBlue: Super bummed. She was brilliant. She’s also wicked in the Gothic Horror weirdo show Penny Dreadful with Eva Green, Timothy Dalton and Josh Hartnett. Show really shouldn’t work, but…magic happens.

  176. 176.

    NotMax

    @zhena gogolia

    Smoked sturgeon available (for a hefty price) at any Jewish deli worth its salt.

    Same holds for smoked sable, a cosmically ascendant eating pleasure.

  178. 178.

    lowtechcyclist

    @JWR: ​

    … Police Chief Randal Taylor noted that a “significant” number of employees at the facility are members of the Sikh community, and the Sikh Coalition later confirmed that members of the community were among the wounded and killed. …​

    ETA: Just to be clear, they’re still looking for a motive.

    @smith: ​

    @Martin: They wear turbans, and to the little minds among us that makes them Ay-rabs. A number of Sikhs were murdered in the aftermath of 9/11 for this reason.

    There have been a number of attacks on Sikhs in the past decade, and it’s the same thing even long after 9/11: some dimwit wingnut jacked up on anti-Muslim hatred goes after Sikhs, because he can’t tell the difference.
    Not that it would make it the least bit less horrible if they killed Muslims rather than Sikhs, but the combination of hatred and ignorance is pretty mindboggling.​
     
    ETA: I was wondering if nested blockquotes would work. Apparently they do.

  179. 179.

    karen marie

    @Baud:  Or, Biden’s got so many other irons in the fire, he’s willing to wait on doing anything on immigration until there’s a clear push by the general public?

  180. 180.

    Amir Khalid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
    Whatever you do as a writer, I beseech you: please don’t go treating TV Tropes as a parts bin for assembling your characters and your story. That never works. The reader will too easily recognise the tropes you used, and start playing Spot The Trope instead of engaging with the characters and story.

    Rather, build your characters out of what you know/learn about people. Don’t force the plot to fit a trope, but let it play out realistically, or at least plausibly.

  181. 181.

    Kathleen

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m with you. When I first heard the original plan/numbers I thought the administration was more ambitious than the reality warranted so I’m giving him benefit of the doubt. And I definitely don’t trust anything the media have to say.

  183. 183.

    Another Scott

    @schrodingers_cat: People should know Biden’s administration well enough now not to trust “anonymous staffer not authorized to speak on the record” reports.

    (IIRC) Before the American Jobs Plan was announced, there was some anonymous report that it was going to be $3T and the usual suspects were pre-outraged and pre-disappointed.  Now this anonymous report that Biden’s worse than TFG on refugees.

    It’s tiresome.

    Of course, as Charlie Pierce said, he’s going to make some mistakes and blunders.  But Biden’s shown that he’s thoughtful and not a monster.  Maybe the sensible press should wait until something is announced before criticizing it.

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  184. 184.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia:

    Brandeis.edu – Nancy Lanston:

    “A remarkably ugly fish,” “remarkably cool,” “really amazing,” “basically dinosaurs” and “sort of like zombies” — these were the terms that environmental historian Nancy Langston used to describe the sturgeon.

    Her talk on March 13, part of this year’s Mandel Lectures in the Humanities, traced the history of the animal in North America from the Triassic period 250 million years ago to present-day conservation efforts in the Great Lakes region.

    Along the way, she showed how deeply intertwined the whisker-snouted fish is with the history of the planet and the development of human society.

    Not bad for a fish mostly known for producing the eggs eaten as caviar.

    “They have some serious history,” said Langston, the Distinguished Professor of Environmental History at Michigan Technological University. “This is not just human history. This is like, really serious history.”

    Sturgeon evolved long before the dinosaurs. Their direct ancestors survived the Great Permian Extinction that killed nine out of every 10 species and soon became the dominant, big fish in every major river system in North America and Eurasia.

    Roughly 150 million years ago, they settled into their current size, shape and physiology and haven’t changed their form much since. Lake sturgeon typically grow seven to eight feet, weigh as much as 300 pounds and live up to 150 years.

    They have sucker-like mouths with fleshy lips — “little Dyson vacuum cleaners that have evolved to go sucking up the crustaceans and mollusks and crabs, and then they just kind of swallow them,” Langston said.

    Lake sturgeon migrate back to their birthplace to spawn. The Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Great Lakes region moved around with the fish, which were a major food source.

    According to Langston, sturgeon were so plentiful that the Potawatomi and Ojibwe tribes’ legends “tell of rivers so full of sturgeon that a person could walk across the water on the backs of the fish.”

    […]

    (Emphasis added.)

    It’s great they’re trying to come back. Efforts to clean up the local rivers and the bay are having obvious beneficial effects.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  185. 185.

    laura

    @thruppence: and suffer we did – the long wait on the concrete sidewalk only to enter the concrete floored venue! And yet… I miss a live show to the very core of my being – the band, the crowd, the city or community, the shared experience – I want to be back in the company of others.

  186. 186.

    RaflW

    @laura: Oh, I think it’s likely I saw them. I just find that 25-30 year old memories of those days are more fuzzy. I definitely remember other shows like The Melvins or Fugazi, Flipper was sort of tier-two for me, a band I knew my friends liked but wasn’t differentiated enough that I bought any albums or thought ahead of time about going. A lot of times, I just went to see whoever was at Emos any random night.

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