• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

The willow is too close to the house.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

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

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

This really is a full service blog.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

He really is that stupid.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Consistently wrong since 2002

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable VA House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Sorting Out the Rioters Open Thread: … the Insurrectionists!

Sorting Out the Rioters Open Thread: … the Insurrectionists!

by Anne Laurie|  July 17, 20218:47 pm| 140 Comments

This post is in: domestic terrorists, Open Threads, Violent Insurrection at the Capitol

FacebookTweetEmail

Prosecutions of the hundreds charged in the Capitol riot are just getting started. Defendants could spend years behind bars for ransacking the building – and harsher penalties loom for those who assaulted police and destroyed property. https://t.co/9rpGnElyly

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) July 15, 2021

Like ‘… the Aristocrats!’ joke, only infinitely dumber and more awful.

Relentlessly grim stuff here. https://t.co/wp8oQhnwPy

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 16, 2021

Sure, the bulk of the rioters didn’t mean any harm, exactly… any more than the superspreaders at the Sturgis bike rally last summer intended to kill themselves & their loved ones. They were just, like, deeply involved in fun group events with a few thousand of their closest friends!

… They were mostly older White men and women who lived paycheck to paycheck with plenty of time on their hands — retired or close to it, estranged from their families or otherwise without children — and Trump had, in a surprising way, made their lives richer. The president himself almost always spent the night in his own bed and kept few close friends. But his rallies gave the [Front Row] Joes a reason to travel the country, staying at one another’s homes, sharing hotel rooms and carpooling. Two had married — and later divorced — by Trump’s second year in office.

In Trump, they’d found someone whose endless thirst for a fight encouraged them to speak up for themselves, not just in politics but also in relationships and at work. His rallies turned arenas into modern-day tent revivals, where the preacher and the parishioners engaged in an adrenaline-fueled psychic cleansing brought on by chanting and cheering with 15,000 other like-minded loyalists. Saundra Kiczenski, a 56-year-old from Michigan, compared the energy at a Trump rally to the feelings she had as a teenager in 1980 watching the “Miracle on Ice” — when the U.S. Olympic hockey team unexpectedly beat the Soviet Union…

Kiczenski met people like Ben Hirschmann, a Michigan legislative intern who posted on Facebook anytime he had an open seat in his car on the way to a rally. She bonded with Brendan Gutenschwager and flew with him to Hong Kong, where they spent 24 hours waving their red, white and blue Trump flags during protests over China’s extradition laws. She occasionally overnighted about an hour outside Detroit with Judy Chiodo, a fellow Trump rally-trotter, rather than drive all the way home to Sault Ste. Marie.

But 2020 proved grueling for the Joes. In March, Hirschmann was among the first Americans to die of covid-19. His death, at 24, shook his Trump friends. “I talked to him more than my own daughter,” Cindy Hoffman, a 60-year-old Iowa woman who ran a tool-sharpening business, said on a Zoom call that the Joes held to grieve…

When Randal Thom, a 60-year-old ex-Marine with a long gray mustache, fell severely ill with a high fever and debilitating congestion, he refused to go to the hospital. He was a heavy smoker who was significantly overweight and knew he faced an increased risk of severe effects from covid-19. Still, he refused to take a coronavirus test and potentially increase the caseload on Trump’s watch: “I’m not going to add to the numbers,” he told me. Thom survived the scare, but died months later in a car accident while returning home to Minnesota from a Trump boat parade in Florida…

Kiczenski was in Washington with friends for the Jan. 6 rally. She was convinced beyond a doubt that Trump had been reelected on Nov. 3, only to have his victory stolen in what she described as “a takeover by the communist devils.” She said she believed that, in part, because she had crossed paths with Corey Lewandowski, a well-known and ubiquitous Trump adviser, in the Trump International Hotel the previous summer. Lewandowski told her, she said, that the only way Trump could lose was if there was massive election fraud…

On Jan. 6, she and her friends made their way to the west side of the Capitol, where a mob pushed through police barricades and turned steel bike racks on their sides, leaning them against stone walls like ladders. Some men helped her climb up the rungs. People were everywhere, and it was difficult to move. Kiczenski and her friends scaled one more wall and were within about 100 yards of the Capitol. But it had become so crowded — they didn’t want to lose one another — that they decided to stop on the west terrace, take pictures and soak up the atmosphere…

Kiczenski was inspired by a vista of Trumpian strength and patriotism: the Washington Monument in the distance, the majestic Capitol in the foreground, and freedom-loving patriots fighting like hell to stop a stolen and fraudulent election, liberate their country and save their president. She snapped pictures and recorded videos.

“It just looked so neat,” she said. “We weren’t there to steal things. We weren’t there to do damage. We were just there to overthrow the government.”

But when Trump posted a video to social media asking supporters to go home (and saying he loved them) after the riot raged for hours, Kiczenski felt confused and depressed. “We were supposed to be fighting until the end,” she said.

She reminded herself that the president hadn’t technically conceded, and as soon as she arrived home in Michigan, she packed for the next Trump trip. Kiczenski trusted that something was coming and wanted a go-bag ready if she needed to leave for a rally at a moment’s notice.

“We’re all on the edge of our seats waiting to hear about the next event,” she said. “Now we’re like an army, and it’s like boots on the ground. Tell us where we need to go!… “

As innocent, and as deadly, as a cloud of coronavirus particles.

If I haven’t mentioned it before (I keep starting posts about the riot, but there’s just TOO MUCH), HuffPost reporter Ryan J. Reilly’s twitter feed is a great way to keep track of day-to-day developments:

“Here comes the riot police, Mom… This is our house! Wow, Mom. I wish you were here with me. It’s really exciting in here. It’s joyful and it’s sad at the same time. We can’t let Biden… to be our president.” https://t.co/GtBNh85bg1

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) July 15, 2021

In video #3, someone is smashing in a window to the Capitol as people in the crowd sing the Star Spangled Banner pic.twitter.com/y4HeHSKnHo

— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) July 15, 2021

Protip: being a real-world shitposter will get your bail revoked. https://t.co/NKaxEIHLJf

— HatIsNotIntoCoups (@Popehat) July 15, 2021

/2 Some people are responding to this with “wait, isn’t it permissible — even healthy and good — to have contempt for the government?” Yes, it is. But you have to pay attention to context.

The context here is the judge’s determination under the Bail Reform Act:….

/3 “Will any combination of conditions reasonably assure” that this person will show up for court and not be a danger to the community?

Here the judge didn’t find this doofus was a danger, though I suspect some judges might have (the judge is right, IMO, on this record).

/4 The judge did find, however, that the defendant’s erratic behavior, including harassment of the court officials supervising him and their families, suggested that he would not comply with court orders regarding showing up in court.

/5 From the judge’s perspective, this is the dialogue:
Judge: “If the court orders to you appear for trial, will you obey, or do I need to detain you to make sure you show up?”
Defendant: “The court can kiss my ass.”
Judge: “Well okay then.”

/6 You can disagree with the judge’s conclusion and think that piling on more conditions would have reasonably assured his return to court — some judges would — but the logic that “this completely defiant person clearly won’t follow orders” is typical detention logic.

/7 From a legal realist perspective, being a gratuitous douche to the court staff (because Pretrial and Probation are arms of the court), and doing creepy threatening things to their families, will make the judge not disposed to give you the benefit of the doubt.

/8 In short, your legal fortunes are best protected expressing contempt for government in traditional American ways, like in the same fundraising appeal in which you also celebrate the unimpeachable divinity of law enforcement and the military.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Bonkers
Next Post: COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday / Sunday, July 17-18 »

Reader Interactions

140Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 8:53 pm

    The video of the fucking nut job Ashli Babbit’s rant needs to be plastered all over,

  2. 2.

    sanjeevs

    July 17, 2021 at 8:57 pm

    Tell us where we need to go!…

    Gladly.

  3. 3.

    hells littlest angel

    July 17, 2021 at 9:02 pm

    I feel so sorry for Cindy Hoffman. I hope she gets only ten years in prison.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    July 17, 2021 at 9:03 pm

    I guess it’s important to provide information about the people who were part of the insurrection, but I also can’t help but see it as a version of a Cletus safari.

  5. 5.

    A Ghost to Most

    July 17, 2021 at 9:04 pm

    I was told there would be no sedition, insurrection, or coup attempts. Huh.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 17, 2021 at 9:07 pm

    Still, he refused to take a coronavirus test and potentially increase the caseload on Trump’s watch: “I’m not going to add to the numbers,” he told me

    To think all this time I actually haven’t been elitist enough….

    “We were just there to overthrow the government.”

    : blinking into the middle distance :

  7. 7.

    debbie

    July 17, 2021 at 9:07 pm

    “We weren’t there to steal things. We weren’t there to do damage. We were just there to overthrow the government.”

    Jesus. Can she hear herself? Fuck them all.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    July 17, 2021 at 9:08 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    We were just there to overthrow the government.”

    Comment stolen from Reddit

    “Coup, there it is.”

  9. 9.

    Citizen Alan

    July 17, 2021 at 9:10 pm

    I feel like I just read an article trying to get me to feel sympathy for the 9/11 hijackers. Or perhaps members of the Manson family.

  10. 10.

    debbie

    July 17, 2021 at 9:12 pm

    @raven:

    Someone that angry shouldn’t be driving. But if she is, she should keep her fucking eyes on the road.

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 17, 2021 at 9:12 pm

    @raven: I’m not a psychiatrist, but that woman was nuts.

    and why were they always making those videos while driving?

  12. 12.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    July 17, 2021 at 9:12 pm

    That lady is cray.

    Or what Jim, Foolish Literalist said

  13. 13.

    debbie

    July 17, 2021 at 9:17 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Remember this guy? I think this is where those car confessions/rants originated.

  14. 14.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 17, 2021 at 9:17 pm

    since the topic is addle-pated trumpers, this is trending on twitter

     ⓘ Qpublican f*ckery detected@adelpreore5h
    #LaurenBoebertIsSoDumb she went to the dentist to get her Bluetooth fixed.

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    July 17, 2021 at 9:18 pm

    We were just there to overthrow the government.

    Is there some other meaning of ‘just’ that would make this a vaguely sane statement?

  16. 16.

    Martin

    July 17, 2021 at 9:21 pm

    Look, that was terrible, but lessons have been learned. Just yesterday we arrested a black member of Congress for <checks notes> singing to protect voting rights.

    Let that serve as a lesson that we won’t be putting up with this nonsense any longer.

  17. 17.

    zhena gogolia

    July 17, 2021 at 9:22 pm

    @A Ghost to Most:

    Who told you that?

  18. 18.

    Martin

    July 17, 2021 at 9:23 pm

    @dmsilev: Look, they earned that cultural dominance through the fair and square process of slavery and lynching, and Democrats can’t just take that from them after all of that work.

  19. 19.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 9:23 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Was, she got her dumb ass killed climbing through a window in the assault.

  20. 20.

    Martin

    July 17, 2021 at 9:24 pm

    @A Ghost to Most: That’s what you get for taking Trump figuratively instead of literally.

  21. 21.

    zhena gogolia

    July 17, 2021 at 9:24 pm

    @raven:

    We never hear about the one who got trampled while carrying a “Don’t tread on me” sign.

  22. 22.

    zhena gogolia

    July 17, 2021 at 9:25 pm

    @Martin:

    Oh, he’s talking about all the pollyannas around here who never worried a bit about there being a coup attempt. He lives in an alternate BJ reality.

  23. 23.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 9:25 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Poetic justice

  24. 24.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    July 17, 2021 at 9:26 pm

    @raven: I heard she was a martyr for freedom. /

    Honestly, I can’t even stand to joke about her. These people are horrifying. They’ve lost touch with reality and are a danger to the rest of us

  25. 25.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 17, 2021 at 9:26 pm

    @Martin:

    Just yesterday we arrested a black member of Congress for <checks notes> singing to protect voting rights.

    Meanwhile, at a Proud Boys rally in Los Angeles…

    Sasha Says Vote Shontel Brown for OH-11 @SashaBeauloux

    Don’t ever tell me WYT privilege doesn’t exist.

  26. 26.

    Chetan Murthy

    July 17, 2021 at 9:26 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Uh, I thought he was making a joke.

  27. 27.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 9:27 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You can’t run with the big dogs stay on the porch.

  28. 28.

    JoyceH

    July 17, 2021 at 9:27 pm

    Just today I was talking to a friend about how depressing it is to realize that there are millions of our fellow citizens who couldn’t seem to listen to Trump and realize within five minutes that he’s mean, stupid, corrupt, and crazy. And they ADORE him! I thought the veneration of Saint Ronny was over the top, but nobody put big ol’ honkin’ REAGAN flags on their boats and pickup trucks.

    I’d always thought that to be a successful demagogue, you’d have to be at least somewhat attractive, as well as smart or clever, and have a strategy and a goal. Which made Hitler a baffling anomaly, but now with Trump added to the equation, maybe they’re all like that.

  29. 29.

    Geminid

    July 17, 2021 at 9:28 pm

    There are a lot of people out there with empty lives. I can understand how these particular ones might need a cause, but they sure picked a bad one. Many of them will get what they deserve.

    I just hope that the authors of this insurrection can be punished. If their culpability can be proven, a charge of felony murder would not be excessive in the case of Roger Stone, Donald Trump, and others.

  30. 30.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 17, 2021 at 9:28 pm

    More evidence these are dangerously stupid people.

    What is the difference between masses of people starving to death because they were watering their crops with a sports drink because “it has electrolytes” and masses of people dying because of COVID because the vaccine might have a tracking device?

  31. 31.

    Mike G

    July 17, 2021 at 9:29 pm

    flew with him to Hong Kong, where they spent 24 hours waving their red, white and blue Trump flags during protests over China’s extradition laws.

    Strange, since Trump essentially shrugged at China’s repression of that city and told Xi they should “build more camps” for the Uighur genocide in Xinjiang.

  32. 32.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 9:31 pm

    @JoyceH:

     

    Randy Newman

    Rednecks

    Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show
    With some smart a** New York Jew
    And the Jew laughed at Lester Maddox
    And the audience laughed at Lester Maddox too
    Well he may be a fool but he’s our fool
    If they think they’re better than him they’re wrong
    So I went to the park and I took some paper along
    And that’s where I made this song

  33. 33.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 17, 2021 at 9:33 pm

    I am enjoying The Cook of Castamar on Netflix.

    The lead character is very good. It’s a Spanish production that feels a bit like an Iberian Downton Abbey with lots of intrigue, interesting staff characters and the usual aristocratic jerks and jerkettes.

    The lead character, a woman, is an excellent cook who suffers from anxiety and agoraphobia but who cooks as if it’s art and who catches the taste buds and the eye of the kindly Duke who has lost his pregnant wife. There’s a mad King, a swimming castrato, a black adopted brother, the stiff domineering housekeeper who has a soft spot and lots of personal liaisons.

    I do wonder at some of the translation, however, and yes, I’m watching with subtitles.

  34. 34.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 17, 2021 at 9:37 pm

    Someone who flies to Hong Kong for 24 hours on a whim is not living paycheck to paycheck.

  35. 35.

    Starfish

    July 17, 2021 at 9:40 pm

    @raven: If only more states had decriminalized weed, she would not be so worked up.

  36. 36.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 17, 2021 at 9:40 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I thought the same thing.

    Meanwhile, here’s Gritty.

    Joe McCarthy

    Richard Nixon

    Studebaker

    Television

    GRITTY STARTED THE FIRE

  37. 37.

    JoyceH

    July 17, 2021 at 9:42 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Someone who flies to Hong Kong for 24 hours on a whim is not living paycheck to paycheck.

    Exactly what I was thinking! People with genuine ‘economic anxiety’ aren’t going to Trump rally after Trump rally or taking part in those asinine boat parades – they can’t afford it!

  38. 38.

    Achrachno

    July 17, 2021 at 9:43 pm

    At one point in there, when reading about them carpooling from rally to rally and couch surfing, they reminded me of deadheads, but just not as benign, amusing or admirable (regardless of how little or much one may admire deadheads).

  39. 39.

    geg6

    July 17, 2021 at 9:43 pm

    I read that completely insane Cletus safari article earlier today.  Jesus Fucking Christ, this country is so fucked.

  40. 40.

    The Thin Black Duke

    July 17, 2021 at 9:44 pm

    Let’s not forget that AOL or Pelosi would be dead if they were caught by these assclowns. They ain’t no joke.

  41. 41.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 9:44 pm

    @Starfish:  Well she lived in San Diego so it wouldn’t be hard to score.

  42. 42.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 9:45 pm

    @The Thin Black Duke: Some of them were certainly dangerous but a whole bunch couldn’t pour piss out of a boot.

  43. 43.

    feebog

    July 17, 2021 at 9:46 pm

    Most of these folks are too stupid to pull on a pair of pants and have the zipper facing in the right direction.  Pissing off the judge is not a smart legal move.  I’m hoping all of them get maximum time to stew in their own fetid juices.

  44. 44.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 9:46 pm

    Keep choppin Bucks.

  45. 45.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 17, 2021 at 9:47 pm

    @The Thin Black Duke: I can’t imagine they were big Mitt Romney fans either…

    One of the new trump books, I think the Carol Leonnig/Phil Rucker one, says that Ann Romney didn’t want him to go to the Capitol that day because she was afraid there was going to be violence. But the authorities provided about as much security that days as if the Boy Scouts were going to have a jamboree nearby

  46. 46.

    Starfish

    July 17, 2021 at 9:48 pm

    @raven: The California Republicans seem like the worst.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    July 17, 2021 at 9:49 pm

    “It just looked so neat,” she said. “We weren’t there to steal things. We weren’t there to do damage. We were just there to overthrow the government.”

    I thought I had maximized my contempt for these people, but, wow, damn, I think it just escalated.

  48. 48.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 9:51 pm

    @Achrachno: easy with that

  49. 49.

    Aussie sheila

    July 17, 2021 at 9:53 pm

    @Geminid:

    My feelings exactly. These people appear to be a combination of outright nutters, angry anti-social a*holes and delusional.

    The real test of US law enforcement isn’t whether the violent trespassers get their punishment in the next year or so, but whether the reactionary elites that manufactured this human lethal device are found and punished even more harshly.

    I am confident that there will be jail sentences for all who are found guilty on the day, but my confidence in the FBI’s willingness and ability to properly source the events of the day, is not so robust.

    I hold some hope that an ambitious and industrious investigative journalist will be able to shed some light on the background to this farcical horror, but I hold no hope for the ordinary processes of the law.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 17, 2021 at 9:54 pm

    Excerpt from the Leonnig/Rucker book. Looks from this excerpt like they somehow got Ivanka trump to try to clean up her reputation

    McConnell and most of his colleagues did not know about the mayhem building outside. But Sen. Mitt Romney had been more attentive than others. On Jan. 2, the senator from Utah received a call from Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, warning him about unsettling personal and specific threats. Milley had shared with King online chatter he had discovered through an app on his phone called Dataminr.

    Pro-Trump rhetoric was interlaced with calls for violence and references to smuggling guns and other weapons into Washington to “stop the steal.” One message said something along the lines of, “Let’s burn Senator McConnell’s house down while he’s in it.” …

    Romney told his wife, Ann, about King’s call.

    “Mitt, you can’t go back,” Ann Romney told her husband. She called his Senate staff and said she feared for his safety

    Milley called King who called Romney…. anybody call the head of the CP or DC police chief or the press to talk about Dataminr? 

  51. 51.

    japa21

    July 17, 2021 at 9:56 pm

    @raven: Just went back to the game. Last I saw they were down 16. Coming back just like the Brewers.

  52. 52.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 9:56 pm

    @japa21: Yup, Suns are gassed.

  53. 53.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 17, 2021 at 9:58 pm

    @The Thin Black Duke: Let’s not forget that AOL or Pelosi would be dead if they were caught by these assclowns.

    Probably more accurate to say anyone who these assclowns convinced themselves was AOL or Pelois would be dead if they had got their hands on them.

  54. 54.

    debbie

    July 17, 2021 at 10:01 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Remember the clip of Mitt being stopped by the Capitol cop, turning, and running? I would bet Ann’s voice was rattling around in his head.

  55. 55.

    Achrachno

    July 17, 2021 at 10:02 pm

    @raven: Your point has eluded me.  Easy?

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    July 17, 2021 at 10:05 pm

    WATB ain’t just a religious radio station in Tennessee.

  57. 57.

    raven

    July 17, 2021 at 10:05 pm

    @Achrachno: Don’t be dissin deadheads.

  58. 58.

    mali muso

    July 17, 2021 at 10:06 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: been on vacation for the past week and mainlined the whole season. Historical costume dramas are my catnip. It was really good!

  59. 59.

    They Call Me Blue

    July 17, 2021 at 10:07 pm

    1. @Jim, Foolish Literalist: can’t speak to the videos, but pre-pandemic I tried to convince my son that we could make a comedy podcast of our rants while we commuted to/from work. (Yes we work together, but as he likes to say “it’s not weird!”)
  60. 60.

    NotMax

    July 17, 2021 at 10:10 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor

    Front row seat at the Crapture.

  61. 61.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 17, 2021 at 10:21 pm

    @mali muso: ​ 
    It’s better than I expected, although I’m not sure what I expected and it’s miles more interesting and entertaining than Reign which is some soapy, silly, frothy stuff despite having a basis for a great series.

  62. 62.

    CaseyL

    July 17, 2021 at 10:21 pm

    Listening to what these pissants say, it seems to me they’re as stupid as their idol.  Not just ignorant (which they are as well), but stupid.

  63. 63.

    NotMax

    July 17, 2021 at 10:22 pm

    @raven

    Thought this might be of some slight measure of interest to you.

    Because of COVID, the best friends from Virginia sat out their freshmen year in college to take a fishing trip of epic proportions.

    “We thought, ‘How can we make this unique?’ We thought of the state fish idea. No one has ever done that,” Konson said.

    The idea grew into a personal challenge to catch the state fish of every state. Last August, the two 19-year-olds packed their fishing gear into a minivan and hit the road.
    [snip]
    They call their campaign Fish All Fifty. The only rule is that both have to catch a state’s fish, so it can take hours, days, even weeks. Source

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 17, 2021 at 10:24 pm

    @They Call Me Blue: Heh, thanks to Bluetooth, I no longer have to occasionally wonder what I look like to the cars at the stoplight next to me as I rant at… other drivers, the radio, podcast hosts….
    as long as the windows are rolled up

  65. 65.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 17, 2021 at 10:31 pm

    Apparently Graetz was encouraged to have his rally in Riverside by Southern California officials to keep Graetz out of Disneyland. At lest someone is thinking of the children.

  66. 66.

    mali muso

    July 17, 2021 at 10:33 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: Yes, it got progressively more complex and interesting the farther the story went. The upstairs and downstairs characters interactions and dramas did remind me on Downton Abbey but with more gravitas. Hope to see more series like it show up.

  67. 67.

    brendancalling

    July 17, 2021 at 10:33 pm

    Dispatch the lot of them, on Super Bowl Sunday halftime

  68. 68.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 17, 2021 at 10:42 pm

    @mali muso:

    So far, they don’t waste a lot of time on ancillary plot lines like Downton where the saga involving Bates and Anna was such a lingering distraction along with other side tracks and silly plot shifts.

    I really like Clara’s character.

  69. 69.

    Ohio Mom

    July 17, 2021 at 10:45 pm

    brendancalling:

    Did I see somewhere that Canada is opening its borders soon? I skimmed right over it because it makes no difference to me, but seeing your nym just now reminds me it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for.

  70. 70.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 17, 2021 at 10:45 pm

    @HumboldtBlue:  Reign is full of eye candy, but it is sooooo bad.

  71. 71.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 17, 2021 at 10:48 pm

    @japa21: God, the Deer need to just fucking put this away.  I am tired of exciting games.

  72. 72.

    Brachiator

    July 17, 2021 at 10:48 pm

    … They were mostly older White men and women who lived paycheck to paycheck with plenty of time on their hands — retired or close to it, estranged from their families or otherwise without children — and Trump had, in a surprising way, made their lives richer. The president himself almost always spent the night in his own bed and kept few close friends. But his rallies gave the [Front Row] Joes a reason to travel the country, staying at one another’s homes, sharing hotel rooms and carpooling. Two had married — and later divorced — by Trump’s second year in office.

    I really get annoyed with this kind of nonsense. It makes these jerks seem to be almost innocent. Like Tie-Dye Deadheads getting together and following the Grateful Dead around, digging the groovy vibes.

    But white Americans are often depicted as innocents who never intend harm, and never know what they are doing. Unlike, of course, nonwhites who are thugs who are born to kill. White people are misunderstood, misguided, little lambs led astray.

    A historian wrote about the banality of evil, and maybe the actions of the January 6 mob suggests an addendum, that sometimes people can get swept up into and foment a descent into autocracy.

    But even though these fools didn’t think everything through to the worst possible outcome, they knew exactly what they wanted and who was their Dear Leader.

  73. 73.

    O. Felix Culpa

    July 17, 2021 at 10:52 pm

    @Brachiator:

    But white Americans are often depicted as innocents who never intend harm, and never know what they are doing. Unlike, of course, nonwhites who are thugs who are born to kill. White people are misunderstood, misguided, little lambs led astray.

    QFT.

  74. 74.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 17, 2021 at 10:54 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​ 

    Indeed, the beauty is there, but it is a trifling mess.

    Castamara is worth a watch.

  75. 75.

    NorthLeft12

    July 17, 2021 at 10:55 pm

    @Ohio Mom: Mid -August…..if you are fully vaccinated and have verifiable documentation to prove it.

    That last item probably means nobody from red states will be allowed in.

  76. 76.

    gwangung

    July 17, 2021 at 10:59 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Right by the John Lewis vigil?

    GHahhh.

  77. 77.

    Gvg

    July 17, 2021 at 11:00 pm

    @Brachiator: I actually noted that it said most didn’t talk to their families much and spoke to each other more, to be revealing, pathetic but also encouraging as in break the cycle.

    although several interviewed families have shown the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

  78. 78.

    Jay

    July 17, 2021 at 11:01 pm

    @Ohio Mom:

    @brendancalling:

    Maybe Mid August, the border will open up for the fully vaxxed.

    We will see.

    It’s conditional.

    https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6105110

  79. 79.

    japa21

    July 17, 2021 at 11:07 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​
      They will. Brewers need to come back again.

  80. 80.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 17, 2021 at 11:09 pm

    Speaking of John Lewis, the USNS John Lewis was christened today in San Diego

  81. 81.

    japa21

    July 17, 2021 at 11:15 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: But they won’t make it easy.

  82. 82.

    TriassicSands

    July 17, 2021 at 11:17 pm

    Prosecutions of the hundreds charged in the Capitol riot are just getting started. Defendants could spend years behind bars for ransacking the building – and harsher penalties loom for those who assaulted police and destroyed property.

    I won’t be surprised if we see wildly disparate jury verdicts, with some egregious hung juries. All it takes is a single Trumpist or right wing NRA supporting “Constitution expert” to prevent justice from being done. It will be interesting to see how the trials play out, assuming I live long enough to see some verdicts.

  83. 83.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 17, 2021 at 11:31 pm

    @japa21: Holy fuck!

  84. 84.

    japa21

    July 17, 2021 at 11:37 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Unbelievable. Now if the Brewers can win in extras will be a great night.  BTW, Bucks will win the next game.

  85. 85.

    different-church-lady

    July 17, 2021 at 11:51 pm

    Spilled my damn drink…

  86. 86.

    karen marie

    July 17, 2021 at 11:55 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:   Now that’s a good one.  Nothing I saw on the twitters came close.  Mostly just dopes.

  87. 87.

    Brachiator

    July 17, 2021 at 11:55 pm

    @Gvg:

    I actually noted that it said most didn’t talk to their families much and spoke to each other more, to be revealing, pathetic but also encouraging as in break the cycle.

    Some of the description here reminds me of the stereotype of the crazed shooter who is revealed to have been a loner who didn’t talk much to his family. “We had no idea!”

    On the other hand, that these dopes talked more to each other reminds me of how terrorists are supposedly radicalized. But again, any bad intent or self-awareness seems to be de-emphasized. Little Mary just happened to fall in with a crowd who decided to try to overthrow the government for shits and giggles.

  88. 88.

    StringOnAStick

    July 17, 2021 at 11:59 pm

    I was at my local small organic grocery yesterday and I saw two guys that instantly made me nervous; heavy set, in workmanship clothes and walking that manly, pissed off walk and obviously disgusted to be there as they put things in their cart.  I flashed on the idea that this was about to turn into something ugly, hurried to the front, paid and got the hell out of there.  Then I saw them in the parking lot carrying a ladder and tools, obviously getting on with the job they’d been hired to do in another store in the strip mall.  They’d just been buying their daily work food and stumbled into an organic grocery that wasn’t to their liking so they were acting pissed off and annoyed about it all, but in these times it seemed like it could have turned into a mass shooting; that’s where we are now thanks to these assholes.  Pisses me off.

  89. 89.

    Gravenstone

    July 18, 2021 at 12:06 am

    @JoyceH: Reagan didn’t come with his own marketing department.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 18, 2021 at 12:28 am

    Josh Marshall on the Gaetz-MTG Rolling Cancellation Tour

    Josh Marshall @joshtpm
    this new look is wild. Vibe of one of those aging UK only pop stars you’ve never heard of who gets busted on a sex charge in Thailand.

  91. 91.

    Mousebumples

    July 18, 2021 at 12:35 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @japa21:

    This was a crazy game of swings. After Khris got the FT to put them up 4, I just started pacing and repeating *no fouls, no fouls* to myself.

    #BucksIn6 #FearTheDeer

  92. 92.

    MagdaInBlack

    July 18, 2021 at 12:41 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: He’s such a creepbag.  Just makes my skin crawl.

  93. 93.

    cckids

    July 18, 2021 at 12:43 am

    @Gin & Tonic: This!

    I’m just barely ahead of paycheck-to-paycheck, and no fucking way would I have the time these people have for this nonsense. Jesus, they have empty lives.

  94. 94.

    The Pale Scot

    July 18, 2021 at 12:46 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    WYT??

  95. 95.

    MagdaInBlack

    July 18, 2021 at 12:47 am

    @cckids: Im in the paycheck to paycheck group too. I have neither the time nor the money for all the swag and weaponry and travel. They are NOT paycheck to paycheck people.

  96. 96.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 18, 2021 at 12:48 am

    Last week, all three were patients on 2 West, an overflow ward that is now largely devoted to treating Covid-19 at Baxter Regional Medical Center, the largest hospital in north-central Arkansas. Mrs. Billigmeier said the scariest part was that “you can’t breathe.” For 10 days, Ms. Johnson had relied on supplemental oxygen being fed to her lungs through nasal tubes.
    Ms. Marion said that at one point, she felt so sick and frightened that she wanted to give up. “It was just terrible,” she said. “I felt like I couldn’t take it.”
    Yet despite their ordeals, none of them changed their minds about getting vaccinated. “It’s just too new,” Mrs. Billigmeier said. “It is like an experiment.”

    I can just imagine their discharges:
    Thank you so much, Doctor! you saved my life! Where would I be without you

    You’re welcome, ma’am. And please, I can’t stress this enough: Get vaccinated

    Oh, no! It’s too new

  97. 97.

    Morzer

    July 18, 2021 at 12:49 am

    @Geminid: Freedumb’s just another word for no braincells left to lose…

  98. 98.

    Morzer

    July 18, 2021 at 12:53 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Isn’t that the look Ted Nugent has been deploying for the past 20 years?

  99. 99.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 18, 2021 at 12:54 am

    The editor-in-chief of the Lancet is preaching to the choir here, but worth a listen,​ 

    It’s not a fucking experiment.

  100. 100.

    sdhays

    July 18, 2021 at 1:03 am

    @MagdaInBlack: I took it to mean people who make a lot of money and spend it all every paycheck by choice. Frivolous, irresponsible people. But it’s still a bizarre way to describe them.

  101. 101.

    MagdaInBlack

    July 18, 2021 at 1:15 am

    @sdhays: “Economically comfortable people who piss away their money on foolishness” probably doesn’t garner as much sympathy ?

    Eta: See also: deplorables.

  102. 102.

    L85NJGT

    July 18, 2021 at 1:25 am

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Watch Downton with the assumption that everyone born to it is garbage, and all who fall into their orbit are corrupted. That informs the subtext of the soapy plot lines.

    Bates killed those people, understanding that his liege would use his wealth and power to get him off the hook. Edith exploits a delusional soldier in an attempt to wrest the estate away from her sister. Tom was working for the Black & Tans in Ireland.

  103. 103.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 18, 2021 at 1:33 am

    @Mousebumples: And the Brewers won as well.

  104. 104.

    oatler.

    July 18, 2021 at 1:43 am

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/18/dozens-arrested-in-los-angeles-as-anti-trans-protest-outside-spa-turns-violent

  105. 105.

    r€nato

    July 18, 2021 at 3:08 am

    These are the folks who spent eight straight years hysterically accusing Obama voters of “worshipping their messiah”. More #projection than a 24 screen theater.

  106. 106.

    r€nato

    July 18, 2021 at 3:10 am

    estranged from their families

    Huh, it’s almost like being a Trump cultist is a leading indicator for being a shitty excuse for a human being that even those closest to them can no longer stand to be around.

    (currently estranged from two of my three parental units for that precise reason)

  107. 107.

    JWR

    July 18, 2021 at 3:24 am

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:
    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Local TV has been covering the Gaetz-MTG trainwreck. Here’s a short video:

    After 3 Cancellations Of America First Rally, Supporters Held Impromptu Rally At Riverside City Hall

    At the 1:30 mark, an attendee says “We’re never going to stop fighting for America. We’re not going to Socialism”. That last bit made me LoL, because where the hell is this place she calls Socialism, and once we get there, how do we do it?

    Slightly longer video, with talk of the loony-toon goon squad threatening legal action against the venue, and if that don’t work, to the streets!:

    Impromptu Rally Held Outside Riverside City Hall After 3 Southland Venues Cancel on ‘America First’ Rally Organizers

  108. 108.

    sab

    July 18, 2021 at 3:45 am

    @raven: Wow! Yes, we all need to see that. Hate-filled nut job. Not the sweet, loving, kind soul her family has been teling us about.

  109. 109.

    James E Powell

    July 18, 2021 at 4:01 am

    I don’t really have a dog in the NBA Finals fight, but I being from Cleveland I lean toward the unfairly disparaged Great Lakes city.

  110. 110.

    James E Powell

    July 18, 2021 at 4:14 am

    @sab:

    From the two videos I saw, Babbitt is pretty aggressive. There is pathos because she is quite small and we know how it turns out, but she is on fire, shouting at the police who were standing in front of the glass doors. She pushes her way forward to be the first through the window.

  111. 111.

    Tony Jay

    July 18, 2021 at 6:01 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Oh yeah, the creepy is strong in that one.

    “I stand here today and you know what I see? I see Proud Americans who know what this country needs and what to do about it.”

    “Hell Yeah! Say it Matt!”

    “I look at you and I see wisdom. I look at this crowd and I see Faith. I see brave veterans and manual workers. I see citizens who know their Constitution, bitches who know how to keep their mouths shut, and patriots who understand that Revolution doesn’t come easy.”

    “Woooh. Yeah! We hear… wait, what did he…?”

    “Standing here surrounded by all this Red, White and Blue Power I gotta tell ya, I feel energised. We’re not just a movement, or a political Party, we’re a family! We’re the American Family. We’re hard working fathers and mothers, obedient sons and sweet supple daughters. We’re the Right kind of Family!”

    “U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.Ahhhhh….hang on just one….”

    “And though they’ll try to Cancel us. We won’t let ’em. They want to Cancel our Police, but we won’t let ’em! They want to Cancel our Religion, but we won’t let ’em! They want to cancel our consentual relationships with girls we thought were of legal age, but we won’t let ’em! They want to Cancel our Country, but we won’t let ’em! Not this Country. No, Sir. This Country where a man can be free, and there’s nothing the Woke Zombies or the BLM Thugs or the FBI’s Human Trafficking Taskforce can do about it! Can I get a Hell No?!?”

    “……………”

    “Let’s hear it for Our President!”

    “Trump! Trump! Trumpetty-Trump!! Trump! Trump!! Trump!!!”

    “Well, there’s the sirens. Time for me to move on and keep spreading the word about why America is First. Please donate like your country depends on it, and if you’re young and know how to keep a secret contact my office to discuss exciting new ways you can explore the limits of Freedom!”

    Excerpts from ‘White House or Big House – The Matt Gaetz Story’ – Regenery Press (2022)

  112. 112.

    Geminid

    July 18, 2021 at 6:37 am

    @James E Powell: I take no joy in Babbitt’s death, but under the circumstances, her shooting was justified. That was a fraught moment. Video shows police reinforcements with riot gear on the stairs outside, poised to secure the doors from the outside. But the people defending members of Congress inside the doors could not know this. If there had been some officers similarly equipped inside the doors as a first line of defense, Babbitt would have been clubbed, not shot, when she tried to crawl through the window. But there weren’t, and the officer who shot her did what he had to do

    I probably would be happy if that shot had killed Roger Stone, or one of the other organizers. But the shrewd  Stone was catching a plane out of town, and I think the others were a mile away when Babbitt was shot. It appears some mid-level organizers have been  charged, and some may cooperate. I think prosecutors will work their way as high as they can go. If they can get to Stone, or those meeting the night before at the Trump hotel, we won’t know this for some time.

  113. 113.

    Procopius

    July 18, 2021 at 7:45 am

    @zhena gogolia: I’ll tell you what, I live in a country where we actually have coups. Used to be every four years, just like elections are elsewhere. We’ve had a few of elections, too, but mostly coups. Because of this I have some preconceived ideas about what a coup is. What happened on January 6 was certainly a riot. I can even accept the word insurrection (“We were just here to overthrow the government”), but if they don’t have a plan to take the leaders of the government into custody or kill them AND take control of the means of communication AND the military AND the police, then it’s not really a coup. Sure, in the heat of the moment a lot of them got the idea of kidnapping and/or killing the Vice President and Speaker of the House and I guess any random unlucky congressperson or senator they could get their hands on, but that gallows was not a real thing. It was much too flimsy to support a hanging body. There was no coordination. Most of the people just got caught up in the madness of the crowd. Now, some of those people could become threats. Many of them are too delusional to ever be dangerous except to the people in their immediate vicinity (mass shooting, driving a car into a crowd, attacking people with a machete). Apparently there was a primitive attempt at coordination between some members of the armed gangs (they are NOT  militias), but they don’t really know how to do it, even those with military training and experience.

  114. 114.

    Uncle Cosmo

    July 18, 2021 at 8:24 am

    @NotMax:

    @Dorothy A. Winsor

    Front row seat at the Crapture –

    During which the chosen faithful are lifted bodily into the sky –

    and dropped into the nearest open sewer. Shee-yit!

  115. 115.

    SFAW

    July 18, 2021 at 8:29 am

    Thom survived the scare, but died months later in a car accident while returning home to Minnesota from a Trump boat parade in Florida…

    I know doing so doesn’t make me a bad person — I crossed over that line a long time ago — but I chuckled when I read this.

  116. 116.

    evodevo

    July 18, 2021 at 8:30 am

    @JoyceH: ​
      They all think he looks like those McNaughton paintings…or that obscene trumpy flag with his face pasted over a Rambo cutout…

  117. 117.

    smith

    July 18, 2021 at 8:48 am

    @Procopius: It was certainly a slapdash affair, and probably had no chance of actually overthrowing the government, especially in light of what we’ve heard recently about the refusal of the military to cooperate. However, the intention was there, and involved the collusion of people at very high levels of government, including TFG himself. As many have pointed out, if these had been intelligent people with a better idea of how to carry out a coup, it could have been very different. The alarming thing is, this crossed a  line that’s never been crossed before in this country, and one of our major political parties is unwilling to dissociate itself from either this attempt or potential future ones.

  118. 118.

    evodevo

    July 18, 2021 at 9:01 am

    @Geminid: ​
      I’ve watched videos of that moment from several different angles and sources…the cops that WERE in front of the doors, moved out (???), allowing the rioters free rein to begin battering the doors again….WHAT WAS UP WITH THAT? I saw nothing about what was going on in that corridor at that time explained during the hearings. Is there any info on who was in charge there? Or what orders were being executed at that moment? ‘Cause it sure looked to me like they were just standing aside and letting the rioters go about the business of breaking down the doors at will…

  119. 119.

    Brachiator

    July 18, 2021 at 9:03 am

    @Procopius:

    What happened on January 6 was certainly a riot. I can even accept the word insurrection (“We were just here to overthrow the government”), but if they don’t have a plan to take the leaders of the government into custody or kill them AND take control of the means of communication AND the military AND the police, then it’s not really a coup.

    Very true. But Americans lack practice with home grown domestic insurrections and have to start somewhere. There are mainly white people who have long flirted with the fantasy of taking on a despotic federal government in a glorious Second Amendment Shootout. This has now degenerated into a new fantasy that angry white people have a right to nullify the results of an election if they don’t agree with the outcome.

    Of course, this has been done before in the post Reconstruction South. So there is some precedent. And so now the groundwork has been laid for future mischief if people do not step back from the abyss.

  120. 120.

    Salt Creek

    July 18, 2021 at 9:07 am

    @TriassicSands: You won’t see any acquittals, the gov’t will keep trying them until they get a verdict.

  121. 121.

    JWR

    July 18, 2021 at 9:09 am

    @Tony Jay: ​Bravo! (Or, as Kurt Vonnegut used to say, Excelsior!)

  122. 122.

    Procopius

    July 18, 2021 at 9:27 am

    @Brachiator: You’re quite right, but the future is not fixed.

  123. 123.

    Tony Jay

    July 18, 2021 at 9:41 am

    @JWR:

    I aimed for verisimilitude. 8-)

  124. 124.

    different-church-lady

    July 18, 2021 at 9:41 am

    Today’s GOP: government of sociopaths, by sociopaths, for sociopaths.

  125. 125.

    Geminid

    July 18, 2021 at 9:42 am

    @evodevo: I have not watched the videos closely, and am going by still photos. I saw a file of what I believe were DC police in riot gear, the point man at the top of the steps. It looked like they were poised to rush the rioters at the doors at the time Babbitt was shot.

    The Select Commitee of the House most certainly has experienced investigators who will examine this as well as other incidents of the insurrection, and  determine as much as possible as to decision making on the part of law enforcement. What facts they develop will be in the Commitee report, if not brought out in open hearings.

    This may take months, but I can wait. I keep in mind the hot takes the night of the January 6, when people were outraged by the apparent acquiescence of law enforcement. We only learned in the days following about the determined resistance of many Capitol and D.C. policemen.

  126. 126.

    different-church-lady

    July 18, 2021 at 9:45 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Vibe of one of those aging UK only pop stars you’ve never heard of who gets busted on a sex charge in Thailand.

    If you’ve already got the sex charges, why not go just go with the look?

  127. 127.

    Geminid

    July 18, 2021 at 10:18 am

    @smith: There certainly was higher level coordination of the insurrectionists, and I think it went up to the president and some people  around him. It’s easy to see trump as a lazy, churlish buffoon, and he surely is. But trump has a lizard brain cunning that took him a long way. So when he tweeted in December that his January 6 would “be big,” he and his closest henchmen probably had a plan, or an idea of a plan. trump himself is a weak and disorganized man, but there were people close him who were better organized and just as powerhungry.

    trump was a desperate man. George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter before him, lost their reelections, but they had good lives to go back to. Not so trump.

  128. 128.

    lowtechcyclist

    July 18, 2021 at 10:30 am

    @raven:

    The video of the fucking nut job Ashli Babbit’s rant needs to be plastered all over,

    Pure heroine.

    (Apologies to Lorde.)

  129. 129.

    J R in WV

    July 18, 2021 at 10:35 am

    @CaseyL: ​
     

    CaseyL

    Listening to what these pissants say, it seems to me they’re as stupid as their idol. Not just ignorant (which they are as well), but stupid.

    As my grandma used to say, “You can fix ignorant with education, But you can’t fix stupid at all.”

  130. 130.

    Uncle Cosmo

    July 18, 2021 at 10:41 am

    @Geminid: George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter before him, lost their reelections, but they had good law-abiding lives to go back to. Not so trump, who needed the Presidency to shield him from prosecution for numerous personal and financial crimes, including possible asset forfeiture, until the statues of limitation ran out.

    FTFY, not that it’s news to anyone here, but for completeness’ sake.

  131. 131.

    J R in WV

    July 18, 2021 at 10:44 am

    @lowtechcyclist:

    So I listened / watched a few seconds of that, she actually was driving along while she videoed herself yelling in her car. I had at first thought she must have been parked to do it.

    Wasn’t interested in any more than about 8 seconds of that crazed bullshit, though. Stupid can’t be fixed, and she’s got it bad, obviously. Or had it bad. Nut job!

  132. 132.

    germy

    July 18, 2021 at 10:46 am

    @J R in WV:

    Like most Trumpers, she had a history:

    Ashli Babbitt had been charged with reckless endangerment, malicious property damage & dangerous driving while stalking & terrorizing her husband’s ex-girlfriend. Ashli had 3 restraining orders against her. #CapitolRiot #MAGATerrorist pic.twitter.com/XPXOYatyj4

    — Alexander Galant (@alexandergalant) January 11, 2021

  133. 133.

    lowtechcyclist

    July 18, 2021 at 10:54 am

    @Procopius: ​
     

    I live in a country where we actually have coups. Used to be every four years, just like elections are elsewhere. We’ve had a few of elections, too, but mostly coups. Because of this I have some preconceived ideas about what a coup is. What happened on January 6 was certainly a riot. I can even accept the word insurrection (“We were just here to overthrow the government”), but if they don’t have a plan to take the leaders of the government into custody or kill them AND take control of the means of communication AND the military AND the police, then it’s not really a coup.

    If you’re trying to change the head of government by force, it’s a coup attempt. (AFAIAC, you only drop the ‘attempt’ if it succeeds.) That’s what they were doing, so what happened on January 6th was a coup attempt.

    You can argue over how sophisticated a coup attempt it was (not very), or what its likelihood of success might’ve been, but it was an attempt to overthrow the government by force. IOW, a coup attempt.

  134. 134.

    opiejeanne

    July 18, 2021 at 10:58 am

    @The Pale Scot: White.

  135. 135.

    lowtechcyclist

    July 18, 2021 at 11:11 am

    @germy: ​
     

    Good Lord, that happened twenty minutes away from where I live. Been through that intersection hundreds of times.

    I thought she was from California, and I gather she was for the most part, but this BBC story from January adds this:

    Before moving to California, where she ran a pool supply company with family members, Ms Babbitt had worked security for a nuclear plant near Washington DC.

    In 2016, while living in Maryland, she was charged with reckless endangerment after hitting another woman’s car repeatedly in an incident described by authorities as “road rage”. She was eventually acquitted.

    Yeesh. I feel lucky that her path never crossed mine when she was living around here. Or when she was living, period.

  136. 136.

    lowtechcyclist

    July 18, 2021 at 11:19 am

    @J R in WV: ​
     

    Wasn’t interested in any more than about 8 seconds of that crazed bullshit, though.

    Can’t blame you. If you’re of a certain age, you may remember Napoleon XIV’s “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” and may even remember the flip side, “!aaaH-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er’yehT” which was the A side played backwards.

    Her rant makes about as much sense as that flip side.

  137. 137.

    Kattails

    July 18, 2021 at 11:22 am

    @J R in WV: as Jim Wright likes to say, you CAN fix stupid, but you need a strong tarp, some duct tape and a trusted accomplice friend.

  138. 138.

    Mike in NC

    July 18, 2021 at 11:36 am

    I downloaded an excerpt from Michael Bender’s book yesterday. It was fucking terrifying to read about these lunatics who worship a Fat Orange Clown in a baggy blue suit.

  139. 139.

    Just Chuck

    July 18, 2021 at 5:13 pm

    “Beer Belly Putsch” is my preferred term for it.

  140. 140.

    Just Chuck

    July 18, 2021 at 5:14 pm

    @Mike in NC: L. Ron Hubbard was a fat orange malevolent clown too.  So there’s some precedent.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

VA Purple House Delegates

Donate

Political Action

Postcard Writing Information

Recent Comments

  • Ruckus on Wednesday Morning Open Thread: In *Other* News… (Oct 4, 2023 @ 12:47pm)
  • Bruce K in ATH-GR on The Fractal Damage of Minoritarian Rule (Oct 4, 2023 @ 12:46pm)
  • Betty Cracker on The Fractal Damage of Minoritarian Rule (Oct 4, 2023 @ 12:46pm)
  • eversor on Wednesday Morning Open Thread: In *Other* News… (Oct 4, 2023 @ 12:45pm)
  • Steeplejack on The Fractal Damage of Minoritarian Rule (Oct 4, 2023 @ 12:45pm)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
What Has Biden Done for You Lately?

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Talk of Meetups – Meetup Planning

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Cole & Friends Learn Español

Introductory Post
Cole & Friends Learn Español

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!