On Nicolle Wallace’s MSNBC program yesterday, Frank Figliuzzi, former Assistant Director of the FBI, shared his thoughts on the missed signals documented in The Washington Post’s blockbuster report on the January 6th coup attempt:
"Plans to kill cops, repeated discussions about how to do it, how to breach security, how to travel there… That's not aspirational anymore. There's too many people saying it with too much specificity" – @FrankFigliuzzi1 w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/cBqLtYVHpt
— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) November 1, 2021
We talked about the report a bit yesterday. Figliuzzi’s take is interesting because he knows the FBI. He says there’s a “willful blindness” in federal agencies about domestic terrorism, particularly seeing “white folks” as a threat. He’s right about that.
He says FBI Director Wray’s excuses for the missed signals have been 1) the FBI doesn’t investigate ideology but rather violence, and 2) it’s hard to tell real threats from “aspirational” babbling from online blowhards. Figliuzzi says the report makes those excuses look weak because all over the country, agency outposts were picking up operational plans from specific people — angry Trump supporters — and details on travel, weapons, how to breach security, etc. He’s right about that too.
Figliuzzi also points out that Republicans like Condoleezza Rice are full of shit when they urge us to “move on.” He notes that after 9/11, Congress turned all the agencies upside down in an attempt to make sure something like that couldn’t happen again. I think many of us would argue Congress overcorrected on 9/11 and caused more problems than it solved, but Figliuzzi is right again.
This Congress is trying to get to the bottom of what happened and make sure it never happens again. They’ll need help, and time is running out:
Holding Steve Bannon in criminal contempt was an early test of our democracy’s recovery.
Now, it is in the hands of the Department of Justice.
To do justice. pic.twitter.com/isp9KkW121
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) October 22, 2021
Open thread.
Pet Calendar Extension – I Missed My Own Deadline! (and 3 Stray Pets)
different-church-lady
Well, you know, it might be a little easier if you did something like… I dunno… some of the thing the initial I stands for in the department’s name?
different-church-lady
Only slightly more than half of it. The other half is trying to ensure that it does.
Joe Falco
Just like the one Republican who wrote that he was a ranking member of the 1/6 committee, other Republicans in 2022 will loudly lie that the committee is not supposed to investigate past the end of 2021. I hope the committee and the Justice Department get it right here and now because the seditious shit-weasels will make part of their 2022 campaign message that the Democrats are being vindictive, corrupt and power-hungry, everything that the Republican Party has been guilty of.
Anyway
Time to roll back some of the security theater at airports – especially the shoe removal. So pointless.
Wvng
I was really stunned by the before 1/6 reporting. That homeland security across the nation was “flashing red” and the FBI did nothing is just appalling.
The Moar You Know
Just like you can’t joke to anyone about committing an act of violence against the president or say word one about bombs anywhere near an airport, we need to start treating online speech the same as any other form of speech. Let the courts sort out “aspirational babbling from online blowhards” from legit threats, because in truth there really is no difference. They’re all legit threats.
Cleaning up the online discourse would be a HUGE indirect benefit from such treatment.
Cameron
@Anyway: …..and make visitors take off their shoes before entering the Capitol.
Betty
Adam Schiff is so good at laying out the stakes. I wish he had the ability to get through to everyone in the country.
Lyrebird
Yes yes yes.
Quoted for truth or for frustration.
I hope that the more white people acknowledge this, the greater the chance we can make changes. Plenty of people have pointed this out over the decades, but maybe not so many mayo people like myself.
Betty
@Anyway: Indeed. I also think not allowing a drink is stupid. That so-called plot was pure fantasy.
MattF
Oh, they were just tourists. And false-flag Antifa. And aliens. And JFK Jr., who is about to reappear in Dallas.
ETtheLibrarian
The FBI was founded by someone who would have felt right at home in the fever swamps of the right and the agency doesn’t seem to have reckoned with that history and how it impacts the culture of the agency.
Also, many of us here are old enough to remember the right’s/GOP’s reaction to Waco but more particularly to Ruby Ridge and Oklahoma City. Those guys are the GOP base and any time the FBI goes after them the GOP freaks out about jack booted thugs wearing black and freedom with a wink and a nudge about how the later two are the “real” Americans!!! The FBI reads the papers and the wind so they hear this and understand the message. They have conditioned themselves to soft-pedal this shit. And that plays right into the institutional culture. They likely don’t even see it. Wray sure doesn’t.
The FBI like the media in the US is gun shy. They are the abused child to the GOPs asshole father. Both need to get their heads out of their collective asses.
Ohio Mom
@Betty: The no drink rule has certainly been a bonanza for the airport shops. I don’t fly much but every time I am gobsmacked at the price of a bottle of water.
geg6
@ETtheLibrarian:
No lies told there.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: I read something about the Qnut gathering at the grassy knoll earlier. They were waiting on JFK Jr. (dead since 1999) to come out and announce he’s running with Trump in 2024. They had t-shirts and everything!
The article also said some attendees expected JFK Sr. to make an appearance, even though he would be 104 years old now, had he not been shot dead in 1963. I couldn’t tell from the photos how many of these raving lunatics showed up. But the recent PRRI survey says 1 in 4 Republicans are Qanon believers.
Scary if true.
Belafon
Kind of makes you think that a Gore administration would have missed the 9/11 attack planning as well.
...now I try to be amused
@Ohio Mom:
You can bring an empty bottle through security and fill it later (unless there’s a Covid-related rule against it; I haven’t flown since the pandemic began). But yeah, I hear ya.
Roger Moore
@Ohio Mom:
You may not be allowed to bring drinks through security, but you can bring an empty bottle and refill once you’re through. Every airport where I’ve checked has bottle refilling stations.
Betty
@Ohio Mom: Exactly. It’s extortion. On a long flight, I need extra hydration.
Soprano2
@Anyway: I agree. I cannot believe no one has invented a scanner that can scan shoes as people move through the detector. If they insist on scanning shoes, by now they should have figured out how to do it with our feet still in them.
NotMax
@ETtheLibrarian
That would be Attorney General Bonaparte (yes, same family), who was decidedly not a right winger.
Betty
@Belafon: As I recall the story there was an agent who tried to warn higher ups who was fired by Louis Fresh for some stupid stuff. He later died at the WTC where he was working security. So who knows.
Betty
@Roger Moore: Not every one I use. I travel outside the US but the same rules apply.
Anoniminous
Horseshit
gvg
I think laying it all on the FBI is too somebody else’s problem. Not that they weren’t partially to blame.
I think it goes back to society and local police too. The sheer volume of personal threatening statements in society and especially on line means that even one big agency like the FBI can’t process the data, and actually do something. have been seeing more and more threats for anything and everything for years now. Police don’t act when people make threats to ex girlfriends, and I don’t know that the courts would convict on an arrest, so some people make more threats to more people for more “reasons”. The courts don’t feel comfortable at understanding proof of origins of threats, and judge people by their own standards where they must not really mean what they said. Politicians even at low level nearly volunteer get used to threats and pretending like open carry and brandishing guns is not an explicit threat to everyone(super bullying). Judges and Congresspeople get shot but gun carrying doesn’t get limited because they are already afraid. The amount of threats coming from more and more sources acts as a crowd that cannot be monitored well. On line platforms mostly lost control long ago. Most of them ONLY have unpleasant people left so their is no incentive to civilize these spaces.
The FBI ought to have done more but so should local law enforcement and so should local courts for years before. These people got this bold because courts and cops rolled over for them YEARS ago.
Everytime someone makes a threat to someone else, should bring consequences. Maybe even just little consequences like tickets, but then their would be tracking and points. Insurance could go up, fines could increase for frequent abusers. Then they could get jail. Employers would turn them away. Rentals could refuse them. People could prove they had a history.
I don’t think it is just Jan 6th, I think the FBI isn’t dealing well with this modern internet linking world.
There needs to be records of people who threaten. They wouldn’t make so many empty threats if even those got consequences. Citizens also should be able to report them to some known agency instead of thinking their is no point in saying anything. I don’t think these treasonweasles are first time offenders. The post story mentions some who didn’t have prior records, but from my view the kinds of records of bullying, picking fights and making threats doesn’t get recorded most of the time. the police and the courts don’t have time for this in their view.
The other factor I have to admit, is that Trump was the executive and had a chilling factor on top law enforcement thinking they could do anything. Like order the National Guard to do what he wanted, if it was in the area. So many of the authorities made choices not to have troops or guards on hand.
Cacti
Maybe Merrick Garland will get around to filing charges against someone.
After he organizes his sock drawer.
Soprano2
@Wvng: But they don’t think threats from white people are serious. You can be sure if it were any group of liberals or black people the response would have been completely different. In fact, I’m sure there’s a number of FBI agents who are sympathetic to the “stolen election” crap. They sure wouldn’t want to investigate any of these people.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty: my memories of the post-9/11 era have gotten very foggy, but I remember thinking that Louie Freeh was a bad (faith) character who should have gotten much more negative attention. As I recall, he got a lot of praise for his righteous off-the-record comments about L’affaire Clénis (he disapproved).
JoyceH
@Betty Cracker: I was just reading about that! Apparently, JFK and Jnr will return, JFK will announce that Trump is president again, Trump will appoint Jnr to be his VP, and then Ascend or something, becoming god or one of a group of gods, and Jnr (now president) will appoint Michael Flynn as VP. Just… wow.
delk
@Betty Cracker: JFK Sr? I hope someone brought a shitload of hydrocortisone. 58 years of untreated Addison’s is going to be pretty rough.
Baud
@JoyceH: Great. Something else for us to worry about.
JoyceH
@JoyceH:
Oh, and the Kennedys are descended from Jesus, which is apparently where they get all these Powers.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Soprano2: I’ve looked for and can’t find a picture that was going around in January of the security put up for a protest of the Coney Barrett nomination. As I recall, it was much bigger than anything planned for 1/6
Betty
@Soprano2: That supposition certainly has held true for anti-war activists and environmentalists.
JoyceH
Hey, if the Kennedys have all these Powers, why don’t they just make the pandemic go away?
Old School
@JoyceH:
Ted Cruz’ father will be surprised!
JoyceH
@Old School:
Gob-smacked, no doubt.
I’m turning into a Jim Acosta fan, BTW – the other day, he said, “The problem with Ted Cruz isn’t that he went to Cancun. It’s that he came back.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JoyceH: RFK Jr and the ghost of Sargent Shriver are wrestling for control of the anti-Covid button in the secret basement laboratory of Hyannis Port (or is it one word?), while Ethel and Jean try to wake up Rose in the Cerebro.
burnspbesq
@The Moar You Know:
It won’t be the courts, and I’m sure you know that. It will be the AUSAs who have to dispose of the cases, in most instances by bargaining them away. DOJ and the district courts don’t have the resources to try even a fraction of these cases, and the lawyers defending these goons are fully aware of how much leverage they have.
hueyplong
Steven Monacelli (on the scene in Dealy Plaza) tweeted that the crowd recited the Pledge of Allegiance at 12:29 pm but hasn’t reported on any other events there.
I regret to inform you that JFK Sr, like Jesus, may still be waiting for a later time in which to start judging the quick and the dead in red states.
Not sure of the possible effect on VA voting or Joe Manchin’s state of mind.
MattF
@JoyceH: They did! It’s gone!
taumaturgo
Can anyone get a copy of this article to SinMan?
https://ritholtz.com/2021/09/deficit-bullshit/
Anoniminous
And it is still going on
Discredit, disrupt, and destroy ….
Note it’s not the actual on-going flagrant murders of American Americans that is the problem. The problem is the “perceptions of police brutality.” You have to be a bigot to draw that conclusion
Brant
@NotMax: He’s speaking of the whackjob who directed it for so long, J Edgar Hoover.
JoyceH
I find this obsession with the Kennedys interesting, because these guys aren’t exactly flaming liberals, but they’re yearning after Camelot?
And something just occurred to me. I recall a time, and it wasn’t that long ago, that the name to conjure with in GOP circles was Reagan. There was a push on to have some memorial or street name or building name after Reagan in every county in the nation. And now — geez, it’s like he never existed; when was the last time you heard a Republican mention Reagan?
UncleEbeneezer
“1) the FBI doesn’t investigate ideology but rather violence”
Ahem, BlackLivesMatter would like a word…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jesus Christ
I don’t think this is one that’s gonna become less bad with context. Sounds like he threw something at the volunteers, and someone says there’s no reason to call the cops? Warning: raw footage, unbleeped
ETA: this happened almost an hour ago, I’m looking for some blue check political reporter who wants to tell people what’s happening, on the ground, in Virginia
wenchacha
@hueyplong: I think you need to say the Pledge three times, then whistle the national anthem, backwards, while hopping on one foot.
Do that, and the Kennedy First Family, minus Caroline, will appear on a chariot in Dealy Plaza.
Ps. Autocorrect wanted me to say “Deadly Plaza.” Coincidence? Or PROOF!
Ben Cisco
@Soprano2:
Either don’t believe the threats are serious, or agree with the viewpoint of the person making the threat.
Either way, same result.
Hildebrand
Yep, the FBI won’t act on domestic white terrorists until they pull another Timothy McVeigh – until then, it’s all just ‘they are exercising their right to free speech’.
I’m really hoping that even more law enforcement types decide to stand by their newfound anti-vax principles and retire – because you know the Venn diagram of anti-vax and white supremacist leos is a circle.
hueyplong
@wenchacha: I guess Caroline was running a child sex ring under a Chucky Cheese in Opelika, AL.
Omnes Omnibus
@wenchacha: Which foot?
Raven
@Hildebrand: fuck retire, I hope the motherfuckers die
zhena gogolia
I asked this yesterday and got no reply, so I’ll ask again. Does anyone here have specific information on what AG Garland has and has not done in response to this threat, or with respect to holding people accountable for 1/6? I hear a lot of complaining, and on twitter a lot of yearning for Sally Yates. I’d like to know specifically what he has failed to do that Sally Yates would have done in his place.
Ben Cisco
@zhena gogolia: I do not; I’m not remotely qualified in this area, but it is my understanding professionals wouldn’t comment on ongoing investigations, so absent any indictments, there would be nothing to report.
Perhaps the complaining is precisely BECAUSE there’s been no statements?
Ruviana
@Hildebrand: I have begun thinking that if someone official in the Capitol building were killed or seriously injured law enforcement and the govt would be taking this much more seriously. I’m glad it didn’t happen, I don’t endorse it in any way, but it was very serious and it’s being ignored for the most part.
Baud
@Ben Cisco:
The third, more nuanced possibility is that they don’t believe they will have organizational support if they pursue these threats, and may well believe that it will harm their career.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He seems nice.
Ben Cisco
@Baud: Agreed, and perhaps more plausible than the other two.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: What Ben Cisco said.
hueyplong
It appears that neither Kennedy showed up.
The only footage I’ve seen post 12:30 pm is, predictably, a shot of members of the crowd being annoyed with local media on the scene.
So now we wait for [checks notes] Lindell’s BOMBSHELL submittal to SCOTUS the day before Thanksgiving.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ben Cisco:
IANAL, a certified dumb guy on the internet in fact, but I heard someone on my TeeVee, maybe it was Schiff himself?, say that if anyone had been notified they were under indictment (maybe investigation?), especially someone in office or directly connected to the trump outfit, their defense lawyers would be making defensive leaks, which sounds to me like plausible but inconclusive speculation.
and, again speaking as a dumb guy, I do think lay-folk underestimate the effect of a failed prosecution, politically and legally.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
600 arrests and counting. Actionable evidence still forthcoming from select committee testimony (and other sources). Much as some crave microwave (as in nearly instantaneous) indictments, that’s putting the cart before the horse.
germy
https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2021/10/28
“It’s the Great Storm, Charlie Brown”
MattF
@Baud: Yes, and reasoning from ‘how will this affect my career’ is a big factor in journalism as well. Politics is a relevant factor in these cases, but (IMO) not as directly as you see argued on Twitter or here.
Baud
@MattF: Yes, no one is going to get hired by the NYT by going to diners to interview Biden, Hillary, or Obama voters.
Mallard Filmore
@Omnes Omnibus:
The left. The left foot does the work and the right gets a free ride.
germy
@NotMax:
Garland was asked by Sen. Whitehouse about the investigation, and Garland said he couldn’t comment on it specifically. But Garland admitted they are actively following every lead, right up the food chain. I think a lot of the Republicans are nervous about this.
BC in Illinois
Donald Trump – –
The Once and Future President
NotMax
@NotMax
Let me amend that for clarity.
Much as some crave microwave (as in nearly instantaneous) indictments of Big Names
Miss Bianca
@Betty: Yeah, but now you have to buy water or other drinks from the airport rather than being able to carry on your own, so…win, I guess? For the airport vendors, that is.
@Ohio Mom: Or, you know, what you said.
NotMax
@germy
Yup. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are cases solid enough to go to trial.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: I guess none of them have seen Bubba Hotep.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: I think it’s the “trial” part people forget
along with judges. And juries. And defense attorneys. And appeals courts. And the respective resources on both sides.
BC in Illinois
@BC in Illinois:
Miss Kuntz, my high school Latin teacher, would be displeased.
It’s – – Praeses Quondam, Praesesque Futurus
Mea culpa.
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
In partial defense of the vendors, their clientele is no longer anyone who happens to be in the airport, only those ticket holders who make it through TSA points. Highly doubt the airports have proportionately decreased the rent charged for the vendor spaces.
Miss Bianca
@JoyceH: The part that baffles me is why they think Zombie JFKs Sr and Jr would endorse…Trump. Being as they were both, y’know, Democrats.
lowtechcyclist
@Cacti:
Legal eagles, if the DoJ has to get its ducks in a row on this, what are the ducks? The House has found him in contempt of Congress, what does the DoJ have to do, if anything, before it acts on it?
Because us non-legal types really can’t imagine that they have to do anything more than sign a piece of paper and then find out where Bannon is, arrest him, and bring him back to Washington to sit in jail until he’s in a mood to testify.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist: Someone with more knowledge can correct me, but it’s a criminal referral, so I believe that they need to obtain a grand jury indictment.
Miss Bianca
@hueyplong: @Betty Cracker: Wait, wait – you all are talking about *an actual rally at Dealey Plaza*?! I thought this was a joke. Q-Anoners were *actually expecting* the resurrected JFK father and son to appear as holy ghosts?
Mind officially blown.
Cameron
@Mallard Filmore: Nonono! You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out….
cain
@different-church-lady:
This is really white supremacy right there – the system is on the side of the Trumpers. There is no other explanation – there must be a number of them inside the FBI.
leeleeFL
@JoyceH: FFS, can no one stop these delusional assholes and give them some f’ing Thorazine! I am scared enough of the ppl I interact with who are worried about the vaccines affecting fertility. Doctors and other medical professionals! Seriously, the BS factory is running full tilt. I had a Doctor tell me the vaccines aren’t sterile!? WTAF?
p.a.
Praesesque Makes that 2 1/3 years of
helllatin completely worthwhile! ???ahhh, 2nd again…
hueyplong
@Miss Bianca: Yes, an actual rally.
The romantic in me thinks one of the QAnon incels threw this one out just to see who’d bite.
leeleeFL
@JoyceH: Love that!
Ben Cisco
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Makes sense to me. Just because the last bunch acted like a bunch of shitbirds doesn’t mean we have to (or get to) do the same thing.
I think some people miss that in their anger.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@NotMax: Thank you. Much as I admire Adam Schiff, his sniping at Garland on this is counterproductive, IMO.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: Rep. Adam Schiff has expressed concern about how Garland is handling the 1/6 investigation, so it’s not just a Twitter rando histrionics. I took the speech above to be at least partly a plea for DOJ action. As he said, if Congress can’t enforce subpoenas, it’s not a co-equal branch of government.
Cameron
How about some good news for a change? On this day in 1920 Eugene Debs received nearly 1M votes for President while locked up in a Federal prison. Trump ’24!
mrmoshpotato
@Anyway:
I agree, but do you think that’ll make Baud keep his pants on in the world’s airports?
I seriously doubt it!
Miss Bianca
@hueyplong: That’s one hell of a way to try to get yourself a date. Not to mention actively trolling for a partner who is demonstrably even more deluded than yourself is no way to go through life.
On the other hand, if your theory is correct, maybe the only way an incel *can* get a date is to actively troll for someone even more deluded than themselves.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@JoyceH: I have a theory on that…JFK Sr. is considered a legendary style icon and charismatic ladies man on the order of James Bond (fictional) and certain other international playboys of world renown whose names don’t spring to mind because most of them are Italian or French. I guess maybe Serge Gainsbourg may be one of them.
Plus his wife, Jackie, was a style icon and legend on her own. The next presidential couple that even came close to that level of glamour and charisma were the Obamas and he can’t come in second to them.
I’m guessing Trump very much wants other people to see him as a charismatic JFK style ladies man. Plus Melania was trying her damndest to be Jackie 2.0 (albeit failing miserably). So they weave the Kennedys into the Q legend so he can lay some claim to legendary glamour once removed. It makes no political/ideological sense whatsoever but it soothes TFG’s ego and that’s all that matters. TFG has always wanted to be part of the East Coast old money elite (like the Kennedys) and never been accepted. This is just a clumsy way to claim he’s made it.
NotMax
@hueyplong
The Kennedys would have shown up but for the shipments of baby blood being delayed offshore.
//
The Moar You Know
@zhena gogolia: I cannot comment for Garland but I can tell you an issue that has come up and it’s going to be a real problem: video evidence.
There are thousands and thousands of terabytes of it. Capitol security cams, every officers body cam, and all the footage shot by the coup participants. Millions of total hours of video.
And the defendants lawyers are insisting, quite rightly, that it all be reviewed for evidence that is exculpatory to their clients, AND that it be done within a time frame that meets the “right to a speedy trial” standard.
Quite frankly, that can’t be done. A lot of these guys are going to walk because the government only has so much in the way of resources (they have an incredible amount, actually, but it’s not enough). They seem to be going after the worst offenders and the known terrorists with priors, but there’s only so much they can do.
So as I said, I can’t speak to Garland, but there’s a real issue that is going to slow or stop most of the prosecutions we’d like to see.
Such review of digital forensic evidence used to be my occupation, but it was always against a person or small group of people. 30,000 plus staggers the mind.
Anyway
@NotMax:
I’ve often thought that the new Heathrow terminal is a shopping mall attached to some gates … they must expect a lot of people to be trapped there with nowhere to go. So many upscale-ish restaurants have airport outposts as well. I can never resist Wagamama when I pass through Heathrow…
catclub
@UncleEbeneezer: I was going to say: Tell it to your muslim friends when they discuss jihad.
Miss Bianca
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: The funny thing about *that* is that the very WASPy old money elite of the time looked down on the Kennedys as Irish parvenues. To say nothing of the Catholic panic. How quickly people forget that Kennedy had to go on record saying that as POTUS he would not be taking marching orders from the Pope.
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: I saw a live feed of the attendees in my Twitter feed earlier. It didn’t look like that many people — maybe a couple of hundred or so? About that number showed up for a Q rally in Tampa last year. I occasionally see Q and WWG1WGA bumper stickers in my Trumpy little town, but not daily. This makes me question that survey that says 1 in 4 Republicans are Qanuts. Maybe I just don’t want to believe it.
hueyplong
@NotMax: Between the offshore thing and Dealy Plaza, it’s no wonder the Kennedys took a hard pass today.
Hope the QAnoners are a little more sensitive to the feelings of the next people they attempt to resurrect from the dead to annoint Trump King For Life.
This whole thing of leaving the annointing to dead people seems like a flaw in their plans. But it explains why the first try was with Pence.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Moar You Know: Speedy trial is a relative thing. Also, any actions by the defense that delay a trial don’t count against the right to a speedy trial.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Huh. I know that when a judge finds someone to be in contempt of court, there’s no indictment needed. The police handcuff the offender (if in the room) or go fetch him otherwise, bring him back, and jail him.
I’m confused as to why this is different. The body with the authority to find Bannon in contempt of Congress has done so.
NotMax
@hueyplong
“Zombie George Wallace, come on down!”
//
prostratedragon
@JoyceH: Maybe Putin wouldn’t like it.
Edmund Dantes
@JoyceH: Wyman from Washington state that Biden is appointing to head election security committee or department (forget which). She still called herself a Reagan Republican.
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: Shortish answer: Contempt of court and contempt of Congress are different.
Longer answer: While Congress has inherent contempt powers like a court, it has not used them since the 1930s. It uses statutory powers which require a referral to the US Attorney for DC. I understand that has been done and it is in process.
JoyceH
Biden in Glasgow just now: “Two world leaders came up to me and said ‘thank you for your leadership’.” I immediately thought, big strong leaders, with tears in their eyes…
UncleEbeneezer
@catclub: Or even when they just gather peacefully at mosques.
“WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to look at a decade-long class-action case involving the FBI’s use of an informant to spy on several LA and Orange County mosques, the Courthouse News reportedTuesday.
For more than a year, the FBI planted an informant in the mosques and instructed him to coerce and gather information from mosque-goers and community members. The FBI informant posed as a mosque attendee, encouraged people to join him in expressing extremist views, attempted to gather compromising information on members to recruit more informants and much more.
The class-action lawsuit was originally brought up by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Council on American-Islam Relations in Los Angeles (CAIR-LA) and is one of several cases that explores how the FBI began profiling Muslim communities after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The lawsuit sprang multiple court actions regarding the government’s infringement of constitutional protections, up till its current status in the Supreme Court.
In 2006, undercover informant Craig Monteilh, a convicted con man who posed as a Muslim named Farouk al-Aziz, was instructed by the FBI, under the domestic espionage program Operation Flex, to gather compromising information to coerce future informants. Monteilh’s undercover work ended in 2007 when a mosque called the police on him, as he had begun to express violent ideas in order to entrap mosque-goers.”
https://www.arabamericannews.com/2021/06/11/u-s-supreme-court-to-hear-case-involving-fbis-spying-on-california-mosques/
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: I wonder if Schiff will push to get Wray to testify?
geg6
@JoyceH:
How do these fundigelicals square all this with the fact that both Jr. and Sr. were Roman Catholics? Surely a Catholic cannot possibly be the Savior of fundies?!?!?
Baud
@JoyceH:
More presidential.
Jeffro
OT but Henry Olsen has a piece up in the WaPo (nope not gonna link to it) about how, after their appearances at some sort of national conservative conference, “Rubio and Cruz represent two paths in a post-trumpov GOP”
(can you imagine if those were your two choices for your party’s leadership, ladies and gents? Fucking Marco Rubio and Ted Fucking Cruz?)
Anyway, according to Olsen, Cruz’s path is sheer blazing culture war all the time, while Rubio’s is uber-capitalism, albeit capitalism (somehow) ‘made to serve American workers’. Good luck with that, Lil’ Marco!
Here’s Olsen’s last line
I almost feel compelled to let ‘national conservatism’ know that no, it most certainly does not have too choose between these two. Ye. Freaking. Gods.
Baud
Warning: Politico link
Baud
@Jeffro: Rubio vs. DeSantis vs. Trump: The Race to Be the Ultimate Florida Man.
Lum’s Better Half
It is important that justice is done.
But it is equally important that justice be seen to be done.
Jeffro
Also of interest:
I would be thrilled if the rest of the media could give these two topics and their ramifications for the GQP even 5 minutes of airtime, but I’m afraid they are too busy asking Republicans (in midwestern diners and at Loudoun County school board meetings) which books they want banned next.
CaseyL
@geg6:
Maybe the Q-tips believe the Kennedys have seen the error of their ways and are now howling fundies.
You can make any kind of claims you want to about what dead people believe.
(Mormons do this when they retroactively baptize the dead; in some instances, even against the wishes of the living relatives.)
Barbara
It’s amazing he was able to say this without self-immolating. I am not going to say how or when or in what context but I was put in the position some years ago of helping someone challenge a subpoena for her research materials because they included interview notes with someone who identified as a radical (not of the white supremacist variety). I mean, seriously, there was no discussion of plans or preparation, just point of view, and specifically how this person had ended up holding such radical views. JFC.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro:
1) Hungry Leopards! I have a new face for you to eat! (bon appetit)
2) I’m tempted to say Mike Pence is making sense, and almost makes me think he’s grokked that he’s done in elected office. Then I remembered he’s Mike Pence. So I don’t know.
ETA: I briefly forgot about VA and accidentally turned on MSNBC. The obsessive reading the Tea Leaves and polling lines has begun. Run away! Run away!
Sister Golden Bear
@hueyplong: So you’re saying JFK Jr., like Franco, is still dead? //
@Miss Bianca: That time when you say to yourself “these edibles aren’t doing shit” and wind up at Deals Plaza….
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I will! Off to don the orange apron and the accompanying news blackout.
Ruckus
@Baud:
That is like the worst game of Name the Greatest Idiot for $12 I’ve ever seen. I mean $36 in one sentence?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Sister Golden Bear: But Elvis is alive and well, having retired a few years ago from that Burger King in Traverse City, Michigan.
WaterGirl
Biden had an interesting press conference an hor or so ago and answered questions about climate, BBB, Virginia, etc.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: I read somewhere that on his Patriot Purge show that was deemed too extreme for Fox News prime time, Carlson threw Trump under the bus for not supporting the 1/6 defendants. I guess Trump raised a bunch of money off the insurrection and kept it? Who could have seen THAT coming?
Anyhoo, I’m now convinced Carlson is posting up for the 2024 season of America’s Next Deranged Republican Demagogue. He might have a shot too — like Trump, he can run for the highest political office in the land as a loud-mouthed rank amateur with no political experience and a long history of bigotry.
RaflW
@Jeffro: Heather Cox Richardson pointed out that Rubio wrote some execrable screed for the American Conservative in which, I gather, he called most of corporate America in thrall to cultural Marxists.
Besides being utter nonsense (I guess a candy bar having a youTube fantasy wherein a quasi-witch defends a boy who likes to play with drag has made Marco extra sweaty this week), it should serve as a warning to the business community that they are donating to the Party that wants to regulate their every advertorial decision. Authoritarians are not actually good for business.
laura
No way those thousands of Lone Wolf’s all flooding DC on the 6th after planning in plain sight and on the tubes and webs and all the braying by the Republicans about “stopping the steal” while simultaneously tut tutting about tfg refusing to concede like a loser who lost and just needing a bit more time to come to grips with his electoral ass kicking couldn’t possibly raise concerns at FBI HQ because everybody knows white men abide the law and social norms while environmentalists, or people of color or animal rights groups or marginalized groups do all the criming.
Even after Tim McVeigh and even after Janet Napolitano’s report about white nationalist extremism had to be shelved because of extreme butt hurt by white nationalists and the NRA and the Republican party (see Venn diagram perfect overlapping circle), our so called public protectors would not see what was clear to even a casual observer as myself And what the over 300 fusion centers were reporting. It’s the Larry Nasser is a serial child sex abuser, but not really worth opening an investigation or anything. Or at least that’s how it appears to me.
Urban Suburbanite
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
The Q cult is a grab bag of old conspiracies ranging from NESARA to barely hidden anti-Semitism and lot of grifting. You can’t view it as something coherent or possessing an internal logic.
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Pence is such a smooth, skilled liar and corrupt soul that I’m sure he thinks he can finesse this however far he pleases.
Can’t you just picture him bemoaning the fact that trumpov ‘may have committed a few crimes…crimes he wasn’t even aware were crimes…and yet led this country to heights it has never seen before…and we owe it to our children to take up his mantle of leadership…’ yada yada lying yada. TOtally.
As for VA and the results coming in, I’m not even turning on the tv tonight. No way, no how. I’m going to read a good book ’til 9pm; check the Post website, which will almost surely tell me that the race is “too close to call”, and then I’m hitting the sack. I’m fine with finding out on Thursday or Friday that McAuliffe squeaked it out. =)
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I thought it was Kalamazoo, MI. ?♀️
bluegirlfromwyo
@Jeffro:
Yeah, I don’t think even national conservatism’s that desperate for a date.
trollhattan
@JoyceH:
We have an asshole developer who has been at war with a “known liberal” neighborhood association for twenty years as he purchased then did environmental cleanup of a railyard in the city, to turn it into mixed housing and retail.
The entire process has been bait-and-switch, first on proposing cleanup shortcuts (the State was not amused) then the mix of retail, and finally, demanding to amend the planned Safeway by adding a 16-pump mega gas station.
They fought him every step of the way, called him on his numerous lies, and pissed him off royally. So imagine my surprise to cycle through the empty streets and find shiny new signs for Ronald Reagan Street, which intersects with Veterans First Ave and Omaha Beach Ave. There’s a Bronze Star Way for good measure, plus he renamed the whole development from Curtis Village after the existing neighborhood to Crocker Village, after the railroad dude. The whole exercise has been one of “Oh yeah, well FUCK YOU!” to the extent that when they were trying to “take away my precious Safeway” he submitted drawings of a completely different development anchored by a discount grocery surrounded by payday lenders and auto parts stores. Like that petty.
Safeway were jerks too, declaring they couldn’t build new stores that did not have gas stations attached, because reasons. Never mind the two closest Safeways lack gas stations. Anyway, despite this lie today the Shiny New Safeway has no gas station but adjacent to it is a fenced off chunk of land covered with gravel. Nobody says why that would be so.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: you might be right, I’ll have to go to my archives and loot that up in the Weekly World News from I believe March 15, 1987
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“Bigfoot Stole My Wife”* god I miss catching up with WWN headlines in the checkout line.
*Not making that up.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: yeah maybe. Tucker doesn’t have 5 decades of name recognition/the illusion of being incredibly rich/a hit (gag) TV show. He’s only equivalent to trumpov in terms of being willing to be America’s Most Horrible Person.
I think half the reason he keeps trying to normalize the insurrection is because of his son, who’s on one of the insurrection-enabling Congressman’s staffs and is probably worried about a knock at the door from the FBI. The other half is Tuck’s burning need for white nationalism to express itself violently before he and they are all ‘replaced’ of course.
Jeffro
@RaflW: Yup. Rubio – and the rest of the GQP pols – sure don’t like it when corporate America flexes a bit or starts to think about who’s really buying the majority of their goods and services.
Somewhere in there, there’s leverage, if we Dems can figure it out.
Cameron
@Jeffro: Scooter and the Lee Harvey Oswald Legacy Hire? Damn – not much of a selection there.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
“Dead today, dead tomorrow, dead forever!”
Jeffro
@bluegirlfromwyo: LOL exactly.
Clearly a bad case of ‘availability bias’ there…
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I only know that because my sister and BIL live in Kalamazoo and Elvis at the Burger King was the source of many chuckles.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: I put myself through college working at a grocery store.
My all-time favorite:
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I think this means there are people who will tell a pollster they’re believers in Q but who won’t go so far as to advertise this with a bumper sticker. That doesn’t seem too hard to believe.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
My god, that’s a beaut. Credit where credit’s due, that’s damn fine writing.
“Butt-kicking aliens beat me up” is another gem from the past.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Lum’s Better Half:
Note: The blog software does not like apostrophes in nyms. Every comment you post goes into moderation and will have to be manually approved by a front-pager. Change your nym to get rid of the apostrophe, and all of your comments will go through automatically (after the first one is approved).
Chris Johnson
I think the reason Twitter and internet randos are frothing to attack Merrick Garland is because they want public pressure to stampede the guy into making hasty errors that’ll screw up his case(s).
Enemy action, plain and simple. Insisting loudly that since we don’t have heads on pikes, since we are Rule Of Law and don’t do that, it means Garland is actually a traitor working for Trump or whatever. It’s always, always the same gameplan. It’s run out of Russia and is always ALWAYS the same tactic.
It’s used against the Republicans, too. We just do not notice or care when they double down and attack their own and work themselves up into an unsustainable, voter-alienating hysteria. It’s not an accident. If they were capable of moderating a coalition that looked after both the nutcases and the plain old conservatives and peeling off some conserva-Dems, they would be ruling us right now. They’re subject to the same attacks and undergoing them as much as we are.
It’s not about having them rule, it’s about weakening ALL of us in any way that’ll work, and circular firing squads orchestrated by social media has been the weapon of the 2010s, going into 2021. Nobody’s meant to win, and this is important, because part of the promise (to either side) is always ‘obliterate the enemy and the enemy within and we will have peace for a thousand years!’
Don’t work like that. For anybody, even for us (and we’re a bit more community-minded). Our goal is ‘good enough’ and a foothold for moving forward, being the reality-based crowd.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Many of them really might not know what Q is. A lot of them are raving mad over CRT, but don’t have a clue what that is.
Subsole
@Ben Cisco: I think a lot of people have been choking on these assholes’ abuse for damn near half a century or more. And told by everyone from the church to the press that they deserve it.
They’re allowed to be exasperated at this point.
I sure am. And I got it pretty easy, all told.
Subsole
@mrmoshpotato:
I sure hope not!
Um. I mean –
The Moar You Know
@trollhattan: if I were on your council I would be petty enough to seize that lot through eminent domain, leave it exactly as it is, and call it “Ronald Reagan Memorial Park”
trollhattan
@The Moar You Know:
Love that idea soooo much. “16 years of bad road” are how I’d sum up St. Ronny’s time in office.
The Moar You Know
@Roger Moore: I’d be ashamed, but it’s precisely that capability of shame that prevents me from being a Qanon, or for that matter, a Republican.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Urban Suburbanite: Yes I’m aware of that aspect, I’m just trying to explain why the Kennedys rather than, say, Nixon or the ghost of Andrew Jackson. None of it makes any sense though.
Betty Cracker
@Chris Johnson: Wow, your Twitter bubble is way different from mine! I haven’t seen anything like what you’re describing, though I don’t doubt it exists. That’s part of the beauty of Twitter, IMO; you can mute or block the crazies.
trollhattan
@trollhattan:
Need to correct myself, actual headline was “Butt-kicking aliens beat up my husband.”
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: That is better. :-) Or at least more like their headlines.
Ben Cisco
@Subsole: I don’t disagree with the anger; my people are target #1 for these jackasses. My entire damn near 60 years on this rock have been spent in the crosshairs. I’m pissed too.
burnspbesq
@zhena gogolia:
No, and you won’t ever know unless and until a grand jury returns indictments. Do we have to explain Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure again?
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Twitter is a bunch of worlds with diverse ecosystems. I bounce around in one that I accessed through @Ragnarok Lobster, and then through Sasha Beauloux, Mangy Jay, Xeni Jardin etc. Then I’ll bump into parallel ones, or Cheryl Rofer and a liberal national security ecosystem. I know there must be scores more at least just in public affairs. Twitter did me a favor when they tightened up for non participants, and I could no longer run down rabbit holes at will. I get little enough done in the real world as it is.
But I learn a lot from those folks. Beats reading op-eds by Important People any day of the week.
Roger Moore
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Because JFK Sr. and Jr. were already the topic of lots of speculation and conspiracy theories, so they were a more natural target. I think part of the way Q has grown is to suck up existing conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists, so it makes sense they would target people already thinking about the Kennedys. Not to mention that RFK Jr. is a big anti-vaxer.
Another Scott
@gvg:
(I haven’t read the latest WaPo story.) I think you’re right that many people were worried about what TFG would do if he had control over law enforcement and the military.
Another factor was that the police/military went nuts at earlier BLM protests and the Mayor wanted them to have a light footprint going forward. I haven’t checked the timeline of her last statements along those lines, and obviously she didn’t control the National Guard or Capitol Police.
WTOP (from June 2020):
Bowser’s January 3, 2021 statements on the preparations seemed to be sensible, based on what she knew…
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Golden Bear: LOL!
LiminalOwl
@WaterGirl: My own favorite (of those I have actually seen) was “[something or other] evidence proves Abraham Lincoln was a woman! John Wilkes Booth was spurned lover!”
Urban Suburbanite
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
A podcast I listen to has described Qanon as a Boomer death cult, and that’s an apt description for much of it. And in that sense, the Kennedy fantasies make sense for a conspiracy skewing heavily towards older folk (and that’s the part that people don’t examine enough). People still adore Kennedy, but Nixon was a sweaty paranoid drunk who hated Jews and few care about Jackson beyond historians arguing just how terrible a president he was.
Geminid
@Urban Suburbanite: Well, “The Storm” definitely has apocalyptic overtones. It’s a moneymaker too. I hear ads promising to send people freeze dried food so they can ride out the Storm. In unmarked boxes so their neighbors won’t know.
debbie
@LiminalOwl:
I was unfortunate enough to see the tweets about Michelle being a woman.
J R in WV
@Jeffro:
I cannot think of another RWNJ more in need of replacement than Cucker Farlson, er Tucker Carlson… pardon me for mistaking Good Ol’ Tucker for Fucker Tarlson. Er, uh, well — whoever.
J R in WV
@debbie:
Don’t you mean the quotes about MIchelle NOT being a woman? Being a man who could not have possibly fathered those two girls Ms Obama birthed? That’s the obscenity I saw running around without a father!
DFH
@Soprano2:
“I’m sure there’s a number of FBI agents who are sympathetic to the “stolen election” crap.”
This is what’s bothered me through the shitgibbon years until now. From small-town cops on up to the military and our huge LE and intelligence agencies including FBI, CIA, NSA, etc., plus the actual leadership. Who are the sympathizers?
Not that I want another Red Scare, but these people need to be ID’d and interviewed, preferably on TV. Can the Select Committee get it done? Not sure at all, notwithstanding the correct words from Mr. Schiff, who is great, along with Sheldon Whitehouse.
Time for action, not just words.
DFH
@Geminid:
Those ads also play on local radio. Heard ’em again last week on a far downstate rural IL station. Winger radio, of course. Could have been a Faux network ROS placement, but it’s the target audience. 54+, white, above average poverty, inequality, surrounded by crop fields.
leeleeFL
@NotMax: . Thanks to you, I looked up AG Bonaparte and therefore knew a Jeopardy answer tonight that Iwould otherwise not have known. So thanks!
Elizabelle
@laura: I like your idea of reminding the FBI and all of us of how they failed badly with Larry Nasser and women’s gymnastics.
Among other cases.