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Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Fight them, without becoming them!

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

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

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

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

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

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

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Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Late Night Strictly Local News Interlude Open Thread

Late Night Strictly Local News Interlude Open Thread

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My neck of the woods, but I wouldn’t have bothered putting this together, if it hadn’t made the comments here via the Grauniad. Dull story, short: Two SUVs of ‘Moorish’ (i.e., Black) sovereign citizens ran out of gas on their way from Rhode Island to spend the long weekend doing militia training in the Maine woods. Massachusetts state police patrolling for drunks & other holiday mishaps were understandably suspicious of heavily armed guys in camo standing around in the rain in the middle of the night, leading to an all-day standoff.

Things could’ve been much worse, given a busy freeway on a holiday weekend, if the weather hadn’t been so dismal. There would probably have been no real media attention, if not for the dearth of content over a holiday weekend…

Reader Interactions

82Comments

  1. 1.

    Patricia Kayden

    So they were on their way to do “militia training” but were so inept that they ran out of gas before they reached their destination? Alrighty then.

  2. 2.

    HumboldtBlue

    Ask any question about what’s most important thing in military operations and the answer is always the same — logisitics.

    Gotta have the food, the guns, the ammo and if you’re driving, the fuel. Poor planning by the staff.

  4. 4.

    Jerzy Russian

    I went and bought a face shield from Home Depot.  I am happy to report it does not fog up when I wear an N95 mask while working on wood in the garage. All of my other safety glasses fog up when wearing a mask, so this is an improvement.

  7. 7.

    Anne Laurie

    @Patricia Kayden: To be honest, my first thought was that these ‘Moorish’ sov-cits tend to be living on the ragged edge, and SUVs expensively suck fuel.  The dumb bastids might just’ve miscalculated whether they could nurse what was in the tank until they made it out of Massachusetts, where gas is (relatively) expensive.   Especially since they seem to have had an ’emergency’ can of gas in the other vehicle.

  9. 9.

    Tom Levenson

    @Patricia Kayden: From Pawtucket! That’s ~80 miles from where they stopped. I’d say someone needs to have a word with whoever was in charge of logistics.

    ETA: Should read the thread before commenting. I see many of us have had the same thought.

  11. 11.

    Juju

    Is this group part of the same group that tried to claim ownership of a house in NJ by squatting and changing the locks?  I thought there was Moors somewhere in the name of that group. I think it was a tic toc.

  12. 12.

    Brachiator

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Gotta have the food, the guns, the ammo and if you’re driving, the fuel. Poor planning by the staff.

    When I was a kid, I had relatives who owned a mortuary. There was a gas pump in the back, which I thought was cool. Free gasoline!

    Only much later did it dawn on me that you never wanted the hearse or the vehicles carrying the main family to run out of gas on the way to the cemetery.

  14. 14.

    hoosierspud

    It reminded me of Ignatius J. Reilly’s “Crusade for Moorish Dignity” in “A Confederacy of Dunces”.

  16. 16.

    Juju

    @Jerzy Russian: I ran out of gas once, actually a few times, when I drove my VW bug as my main car and the gas gauge stopped working. I knew that I got roughly 250 miles for a full tank of gas, and I would write the mileage that I was at plus 250 on the interior windshield. I learned the hard way that a permanent marker and alcohol wipes was better than a water based marker for the mileage estimate, but I wasn’t  heading to militia training. So not really the same thing.

     

    stupid autocomplete

  19. 19.

    CaseyL

    It’s discriminatory of me, and my attitude may be affected by the Nation of Islam who (whatever else you might say about them) seem to be highly intelligent and competent, but I would have assumed black militant/separatist/sov-cits would be better at planning this sort of thing than their white redneck counterparts.

    Not least because they’d be, quite rationally, more worried about encountering cops.

  21. 21.

    Steeplejack

    This whole situation was crazy. Someone on Twitter said the Moors probably ran out of gas because they didn’t want to stop at gas stations on the interstate for fear of “attracting attention.” Hey, guys, pro tip: maybe stash the tactical gear and weapons until you get to the militia camp. I don’t know what the black guy equivalent of Madras shirts and cargo pants is, but wear that! (Also good for when you do run out of gas and have to refuel on the side of the interstate.)

  22. 22.

    JoyceH

    On the bright side, I’ve been thinking for a while that the one thing that could make the right wing begin to appreciate the danger of civilians stockpiling high-powered weaponry would be if black people started doing it. The fact that they were also going in for the ‘military maneuvers in the woods’ is just icing on the cake, IMO.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anne Laurie: From the reporting I saw this morning, the guy leading the group indicated they didn’t want to make a scene at a gas station and thought doing the fill up this way would be less confrontational.

  24. 24.

    Juju

    @Cheryl Rofer: that was an interesting read. I had never heard of this group before. I think I saw the story of the home owner in NJ who had to deal with them squatting in her house on Wonkette, and now the interstate thing. It’s interesting that they seem to have more of a presence recently. I hope it’s just an odd coincidence.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    I don’t mean to be insensitive, but the Moors were not sub-Saharan Africans. Originally the term was used for the indigenous Berbers and then to the Arabs of the Maghreb and the Arabs that conquered the Iberian peninsula.

    While I’m at it, while the historic Jesus was most certainly unlikely to be strawberry blonde, he was Judean from the Galilee, which makes him a Semite. Semites are not sub-Saharan Africans either.

  27. 27.

    Steeplejack

    I am striving to resist the temptation to start on my Sunday crosswords—New York Times and three from the Washington Post. Four big beauties that all dropped within the last hour or so. But if I do them now I won’t have anything for coffee and rugelach in the morning. ?

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JoyceH: The history of 2nd Amendment restrictions in the US, outside of restrictions in the post Civil War 19th century (wild) west, is the history of finding ways to restrict African American access to firearms. This was a hallmark of the post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow periods and the limited amount of firearm restrictions that the NAZIs imposed in the mid-1930s, which were restrictions on Jewish Germans’ ability to purchase and possess firearms, were modeled on the American Jim Crow laws. What we think of as modern 2nd Amendment restrictions began in California when Reagan was governor after the Black Panthers correctly identified a loophole in California state law allowing them to carry unloaded long guns everywhere. When they happened to show up at the state capitol all armed up on the same day as a number of public schools class trip day to see the capitol and meet with state legislators, everyone white and conservative, including Reagan and Ed Meese, freaked out. And, as a result, California’s 2nd Amendment restrictions were quickly passed into law and signed.

    To a certain extent, the National Firearms Act passed in 1934 was also a result of casual racism against Italian Americans and the other ethnic American communities involved in organized crime. It was passed in the wake of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, which was a mob hit by one group of Italian American mobsters on another. And it zeroed in on types of firearms or modifications to them that were popularly associated with Italian American and other ethnic American gangsters.

    I am not suggesting that reasonable regulations involving firearms are, themselves, necessarily racist. Nor that they shouldn’t be considered. Rather, the history of firearms regulations in the US has deep roots in racism.

  30. 30.

    Juju

    @Steeplejack: You know you don’t need to do all the crossword puzzles one right after the next. You could just do one now and save the rest for later.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    @CaseyL: There is some informed speculation that Wallace D. Fard, who founded the Nation of Islam, was the same person, going by the name Wallace D. Ford or Wallace D. Fard depending on the reporting, who was run out of leadership of the original Moorish separatist group in the 1930s. He attempted to claim leadership of the latter after the original founder died, eventually got run out, and suddenly someone with the same name and description turns up in Detroit and founds NOI. He then disappears again with the decade and is never seen or heard from again.

  32. 32.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Patricia Kayden:

    So they were on their way to do “militia training” but were so inept that they ran out of gas before they reached their destination? Alrighty then. 

    Yup.  Slapdicks, every last one of them.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    @Juju:

    Moderation? What are you, nuts?!

    I am watching Vacation House Rules and awaiting Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries at the hour. Possibly Yashahime on Adult Swim.

  40. 40.

    Juju

    @Steeplejack:  I’m watching “Vacation House Rules” as well.  The host sounds like a Canadian Kermit the Frog.  I tried to type vacation, autocomplete wanted to fill in vaccination.  When I was a child my parents always rented something that looked like the before cabin, but I’m one of five and we were a pack of holy terror.
    Do what makes you happy with your puzzles.

  43. 43.

    eclare

    Can’t sleep, but at least fireworks have stopped here in Memphis.  Reruns of Great British Baking Show it is!

  44. 44.

    Steeplejack

    @Juju:

    Ah, Vera has come on PBS. A rerun, but still . . .

    I’m not sure about Vacation House Rules. The host kind of rubs me the wrong way, but he mostly does good work. And I keep watching it. The place tonight was a gorgeous location—“south-facing lake view.” And there didn’t seem to be a tightly packed row of houses across the lake. And he did a good reno.

    Will hold off on the crosswords until the morning. The fever has passed.

  48. 48.

    mrmoshpotato

    @eclare:

    Can’t sleep, but at least fireworks have stopped here in Memphis. 

    Earlier in Chicago, it sounded like there was a bombing raid a few blocks south of me.  Distant booms still here.

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @VeniceRiley:

    I’ll check it out. Those shows can go either way for me. I hate it when they get me thinking “Why did you ever sign up for this, you idiot?!”

  50. 50.

    CaseyL

    @Adam L Silverman:  That sounds more like a typo than an alias.

    Probably the same guy, and if he was a  black revolutionary in the 1930s… well, hopefully he switched to an entirely different name and made a new life elsewhere.  Otherwise he likely came to a bad end.

  51. 51.

    Mai Naem mobile

    When I heard it was a  heavily armed bunch of people going from Mass to RI, my first thought was that it involved Curt Schilling.

  52. 52.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    One of the best (IMHO) of that general type was Manor House, which appears to be still available on Prime (might be listed as The Edwardian Country House, they keep going back and forth on the title).

    Fellow who, by lottery, was assigned to be butler slid into the role as if born to it. And pity the poor guy who ended up as hallboy. Six episodes only, so no extended commitment of time.

  53. 53.

    tokyokie

    @Adam L Silverman: Excuse me, but a minor point: Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang was largely Irish-American, while Al Capone’s South Side Gang was Italian-American. But both Roman Catholic and held in similar contempt by the Protestant majority.

  54. 54.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax:

    I may have seen some or all of that. But it’s been a while.

    There were a couple of good Monk episodes in the same vein: one where Monk went undercover as the head butler at a millionaire’s mansion and one where he was infiltrated into a department store and became an all-star employee.

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    Totally unrelated programming – while choppy in quality (and internal logic), slick enough that you might enjoy the movie Steel Rain on Netflix as escapist fare.

    Popular enough in Korea to merit a sequel, which has not yet hit the U.S. streaming services as a free offering, AFAIK.

  59. 59.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman: From the reporting I saw this morning, the guy leading the group indicated they didn’t want to make a scene at a gas station and thought doing the fill up this way would be less confrontational.

    If they didn’t expect a heavy police presence on I95 during a holiday weekend… well, we *all* make mistakes sometimes…

    Seriously, if they’d left their guns in the vehicles, I doubt anybody at the 24-hour rest stops would’ve noticed their presence.  But I guess an excessive attachment to one’s weapons is a color-blind psychological problem!

  62. 62.

    opiejeanne

    @tokyokie: And Bugs Moran survived the massacre by not being there.

    He took a train to the west coast and laid low.

    About that time a man rented a house for several months from a neighbor of my grandparents. When the tenant decamped in the middle of the night, the owner found a printing press in the living room, and the cops figured out that the renter was Mr Moran. .

  63. 63.

    NotMax

    @opiejeanne

    Kind of a shame that both Bugs and Bugsy have gone out of style.

    Maybe I’ll start referring to the TV dinner heir as Bugs Carlson.

    ;)

  66. 66.

    sab

    Since it is an open thread: new pet report. Pitbull has settled in fine. She loves all her new cat friends and they like her. Dobby the demon kitty is doing okay with most of the cats, but he doesn’t understand the girl cats with their ” No means no! We are not friends.”

    Dobby and I are doing fine. He comes up to me, I scritch his head. A couple of times he has spent over an hour in my lap.

    Dobby and husband not so good.  Husband has cat charisma, but Dobby is terrified of men. And husband, although cat friendly, is very loud.

    Dobby jumped up on back of husband’s recliner last night. Husband was terrified but hopeful. But watching sports. Husband got loud, Dobby clawed his ear and took off.

  72. 72.

    JWR

    Has this been talked about today? (If so, I missed it.)

    LOS ANGELES — Demonstrators clashed outside a Koreatown spa on Saturday after a transgender woman apparently disrobed in an area reserved for women.

    A few far-right protesters appeared to be outnumbered by those favoring transgender rights. Police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly in the afternoon, said Officer Frank Lopez of the Los Angeles Police Department.

    Officers spread out at the scene, and an LAPD helicopter whirled overhead as demonstrators shouted at each other and, in a few cases, exchanged blows, according to social media video from the scene.

    And here’s video of a White or Hispanic creepazoid, shirtless and covered with tattoos, swinging a chain, busting one of the (possibly) Antifa peeps up-side the head, immediately getting knocked on his ass. (Ha ha.) Police cuffed and led chain guy away, but no word on any arrests.

    NBC News
    Protest turns violent in Los Angeles over trans woman disrobing at spa

  74. 74.

    Steeplejack

    @sab:

    Good news about the recent adoptees—better than I expected from your initial reports. Dobby especially has come a long way.

    Is there any chance that your husband can mute himself a bit when Dobby makes an overture?

  76. 76.

    Wvng

    My sister in law just sat on a jury where one of these dudes was the defendant. He claimed the court had no authority over him and that he had diplomatic immunity. Also he had changed his name so past felonies didn’t count. It didn’t go well for him.

  77. 77.

    Central Planning

    Over one spring break we drove south to visit my dad. The minivan was maxed out with kids and luggage, and we were flying in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I estimated we were getting around 25MPG.

    On the way home, using that 25MPG estimate, I figured how long I could go before getting gas. The low gas light went on and I figured I could make it a few more exits on I-95. As you may suspect, the minivan ran out of gas. Fortunately there was an upcoming exit. I put the transmission in neutral and was able to coast to the exit, up the ramp, and there was just enough momentum to make a right turn out of the way. Thankfully, there was a gas station on the other side of I-95. I had to buy their over-priced 1-gallon gas can but it was well worth it. We refueled and went home.

    At the time, my kids were young and being dropped off at school. It was my turn to deliver them on Monday. We got to school and the first thing out of their mouths to the teachers was “Daddy ran out of gas!”

    Morals of the story: Don’t trust your own math for MPG, believe the low fuel warning light, and always have AAA.

  79. 79.

    artem1s

    @Anne Laurie:

    the guy leading the group indicated they didn’t want to make a scene at a gas station and thought doing the fill up this way would be less confrontational.

    obsession with keeping the members of the group under your thumb too.  they only needed to have one car stop to refuel.  yet they ‘needed’ to do everything in a caravan.  that mentality speaks volumes about how these paramilitary and militia groups recruit, indoctrinate and operate. keep the weaker members isolated until they are fully ‘trained’.  Hopefully the newish recruits who were being taken on this weekend training learned a valuable lesson about their new friends.  some of them will unfortunately double down and see the standoff as proof positive the group has actual legal standing and the establishment is terrified of them. they are opting to use fake legal documents as proof of their legitimacy for now.  But they are also collecting heavy arms and training with them.  Relying on your cult unity, delusions of granduer, and firearms to prop up your self-image is no way to go thru life son.

  80. 80.

    Chris T.

    @Adam L Silverman:

    While I’m at it, while the historic Jesus was most certainly unlikely to be strawberry blonde, he was Judean from the Galilee, which makes him a Semite. Semites are not sub-Saharan Africans either.

    That assumes there was a single person who was the historic Jesus.  But: easily fixed, because if the Jesus that the illiterate Greek fishermen ? wrote about was actually a composite of 4 or so separate people, as some suspect, they were probably all Semites anyway.

  81. 81.

    Chris T.

    @Juju:

    You know you don’t need to do all the crossword puzzles one right after the next.

    Sacrilege!

    (Seemed the best word, given my immediate previous comment)

  82. 82.

    Uncle Omar

    @Adam L Silverman: #31 There might be a chance that The Honorable Elijah Muhammed helped him along in the disappearance, perhaps more subtly than how he had Malcolm disappeared.

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