Congresswoman Jackie Speier, who knows something about deadly cults, is introducing a resolution (cosponsored by several other Dems) to censure Rep. Paul Gosar, the raving kook who recently tweeted a cartoon meme depicting himself killing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking the POTUS. Here’s an excerpt from the announcement:
“For a Member of Congress to post a manipulated video on his social media accounts depicting himself killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden is a clear cut case for censure. For that Member to post such a video on his official Instagram account and use his official congressional resources in the House of Representatives to further violence against elected officials goes beyond the pale, ” the Members said. “As the events of January 6th have shown, such vicious and vulgar messaging can and does foment actual violence. Violence against women in politics is a global phenomenon meant to silence women and discourage them from seeking positions of authority and participating in public life, with women of color disproportionately impacted. Minority Leader McCarthy’s silence is tacit approval and just as dangerous.”
Good, and I’m especially pleased they called out Minority “Leader” Kevin McCarthy, whose gutless toadying makes a mockery of his title. But I wonder what else can be done? I think it takes a 2/3rds majority to expel a member, and there aren’t that many (or maybe any) decent Republicans in the House. Perhaps it’s worth getting reps on the record with a vote to expel their squinty lunatic colleague anyway; I don’t know.
I’ve heard Congress is exempt from regulations that compel businesses to ensure a safe work environment for employees. That’s a pity.
Charlie Pierce wrote something the other day that rang true for me: “The level of violence humming barely below the surface of our politics is intensifying.” Do y’all feel it too?
Open thread.
Tom Levenson
Yes.
RaflW
As Republicans keep ratcheting up the stochastic (and sometimes overt) threats, of course the bigger risks are for Democrats. But one wonders how much the GOP are now frightened of their own uncontrollable base. It sounds like most or all of the 13 R House members who voted for infrastructure have received death threats.
I’ve been wondering when the worm is gonna turn against McConnell. He and I believe 29 other gop Senators voted yes. Is there tension between the McCs? There should be.
And let’s not forget that an R candidate for Congress claimed this past summer to have access to a Ukrainian hit squad. Seriously f*ked up stuff here (Politico, so I’ll skip linking, thank you Tiger Beat on the Potomac)
trollhattan
Jackie Speier is the perfect representative to be bringing this to the floor. Lady has nothing to prove.
Nothing but backroom attaboys for Gosar, of course. Pierce ain’t wrong.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’d say the odds of this kid speaking at the 2024 Republican Convention are about 50/50
germy
Roger Moore
My gut feeling is that 1/6 should have changed everything in this regard. Before then, people posting violent content like this could sensibly claim it was just figurative; they were just playing around and using “killing” to mean a political defeat. The attack on 1/6 showed there are plenty of people who take this 100% literally and are more than happy to turn this kind of thing into a very literal call to murder. There’s absolutely no excuse for this stuff.
Parfigliano
Fuck censure. Expulsion. Vote. Put everbody on record.
Scout211
His siblings continue to speak out about him as they have in the past. His sister recently spoke out about this.
SpaceUnit
Censure Gosar and all the other republicans are gonna want censures too.
RaflW
To be completely clear, I do not want political violence in the US. But in my lifetime, assassination was not that uncommon (and I don’t mean FSB style ‘accidental’ defenestrations). I’d imagine the Secret Service and the FBI have become more skilled at intercepting such attempts in recent decades, but one wonders how much the receding of the memories of how socially and politically disruptive such murders were is making this new wave of threats more likely to eventually metastasize into fatalities.
Reagan getting shot and recovering was enough to get a consensus gun control bill passed and (if I recall accurately) renewed at least once.
I get that an MOC is different than a POTUS, but one of the recent-ish tests the GOP utterly failed was when one of their own was shot at that baseball game, they (including he!) were just “eh, no need to upset the NRA, guns are our future” which was another sick milepost in the spiral down.
Old Man Shadow
A censure, huh? That’ll learn ‘im.
Geminid
@Tom Levenson: I am not sure I “feel” anything, If I had a broader perspective I might. I have been worried for a couple of years, though, about guys building bombs in their barns or shops.
RaflW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: When does he hit the age to run for Congress? He’s gonna be a star. And I say that with all the revulsion that notion deserves. This country is in an incredibly bizarre, bifurcated place.
It all feels very unstable and unsustainable.
germy
https://lawandcrime.com/live-trials/live-trials-current/kyle-rittenhouse/woman-seen-comforting-kyle-rittenhouses-mom-in-court-is-actually-a-consultant-who-selected-perfect-juror-for-o-j-simpson-trial/
Woman Seen Comforting Kyle Rittenhouse’s Mom in Court Is Actually a Consultant Who Selected ‘Perfect Juror’ for O.J. Simpson Trial
Amir Khalid
@Parfigliano:
I seem to recall that expulsion requires a 2/3 majority House vote and that too many House Republicans are so nihilistically partisan that they can’t be shamed.
CaseyL
Yes, the violent undercurrent is there and getting worse.
It’s an excellent example of what happens when there is no resilience in the culture. Our country has been under siege for a very long time: 9/11, the Great Recession of 2008-2009, the Plague, the Greater Recession of 2020, not to mention the decades-long hollowing out of the economy that has left about half the population one paycheck or one illness away from dire straits.
As a country, we’ve never really addressed this, even rhetorically, much less making the systemic corrections needed to ameliorate it. Biden is trying, but Manchin and Sinema are making sure that even BBB (assuming it passes at all) will only be a tiny corrective.
And the stress is worse in exactly the most radicalized, polarized states, where the social constraints against violence are very weak to start with. The Deep South, the Great Plains… they’ve been in horrible shape longer than the rest of the country. Their economies suck, their schools suck, their healthcare systems suck, their crime and poverty rates are through the roof, they have very little social infrastructure. Too many of the people there are not only angry, but figure they have nothing to lose by setting fire to everything.
RaflW
I know Mike Pence doesn’t want the photos to be released because it will doom whatever thin sliver of chances he has to be a GOP leader in the future (thinking he’ll look small and shaken and not the man of stiff-spine adoration of Trump that he grotesquely perfected across four years prior to Jan 6).
But we need to get those images out. Mikey’s claim that the loading dock is somehow a national security risk to have exposed is just risible.
If we had a press that gave a shit about democracy, they’d be regularly re-running the clips from just after the insurrection by visibly mind-blown Republicans seeing that their secure-seeming Capitol could be breached by their own ‘fans’. Their cowardice in retreat from their own base should be the tool of their political retirements. But I have few hopes in that regard.
Sebastian
What you do is start holding the collective accountable for the actions of the individual. And you become petty while doing it, like take away their parking spots, lock their offices, cancel all meetings, etc
Gretchen
It’s not even below the surface. J.D. Vance did a long angry twitter thread complete with video, and Rod Dreher reprinted it with his own view that Kyle Rittenhouse should be honored for “defending his community”. Dreher writes at American Conservative, and goes on Tucker Carlson, and he’s getting to the point where he realizes his side won’t win fairly at the ballot box and sympathizes with the folks with guns that want to enforce his point of view. He’s fine with threats to school boards, election and public health officials who disagree with him, or doesn’t believe the threats.. It’s just “parents” who want to have a say in their kids’ education. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/free-kyle-rittenhouse/
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I get the impression OCT herself thinks this Gosar is a poser.
Drawling violent anime cartoons sounds like this dude is still living his parent’s basement. Does he have a Deviant Art page too?
Mr. Longform
“The level of violence humming barely below the surface of our politics is intensifying.”
I have, since Jan. 6, been having a growing sense that things are eventually going to go very bad (I mean in the actual physical-harm-to-my-home-and-family sense; things going bad socially and politically obviously has been happening for longer.). And it might not be violence in the street and civil war (at least initially) but more the collapse of basic services once cops go full-on fascist and the nut jobs take over things like municipal government and other hard jobs they have no skills to handle. I always thought we would end up more Brave New World than 1984, but I’m changing my mind.
kindness
Bumping up the threat of violence isn’t a bug for Republicans. It’s now a feature.
They are parroting Nazis in Germany all the way down.
satby
Yes. And the media, so shocked by Jan. 6th, ignores the now explicit threats to focus on undercutting the Democrats and Biden.
Personal note: Thanks to you, Betty, and to Anne Laurie for continuing to post current events & news posts. There’s so much going on and this blog used to be more plugged into the outside world.
West of the Rockies
Ooooh, censure! Sick burn!
germy
RaflW
@Gretchen: Rod Dreher, dreadful merchant of dreck that he is, figured out that his homosexual panic isn’t enough to garner eyeballs to his blog any more.
So he’s hitched himself to the Viktor Orbán bandwagon of white supremacy. Early this year I noticed that relatively sane (and dull) foreign policy blogger Daniel Larison jumped ship from American Conservative. One can easily suspect that he saw the grossly nativist bent of AmCon and wanted out.
(I still think Rod’s abject fear of teh ghey is a tell. Ewww as that may be.)
H.E.Wolf
My own answer to Betty’s question is “Yes, and.”
Yes, and we’ve seen violent times before, often though not exclusively directed against people of color (see: the Civil Rights movement and the century before it; the Labor movement; the AIDS epidemic; etc.)
Yes, and there are many people working towards the opposite of violent rupture (see: current President; GOTV efforts by Fair Fight Action, Four Directions, and others; successful vaccination drives; passage of infrastructure bill; etc etc etc).
There will always be little Toad Kings, and little toadies. The rest of us outnumber them, and it doesn’t take violence against violence to neuter them… it takes solidarity and persistence. Which we have. :)
germy
sab
@Gretchen: Yuck. “Defending his community..” He drove across state lines with a gun and killed multiple people in other peoples’ community.
Baud
These discussions always devolve into complaints about how our side is weak because other people aren’t doing something or other. AOC can tweet an anime video of her killing Gosar. Why aren’t the tough talkers people getting on her for being weak and spineless? Fight fire with fire, right?
RaflW
@Mr. Longform: Seeing the Minneapolis police department abandon their work because citizens were pissed that cops openly murder, yeah that’s a warning sign.
They’ll take a paycheck from us lousy liberals (or sponge off our generous disability benefit), but if they can’t mace us at will, crack skulls, and occasional snuff out a life, well they’ll show those ungrateful jerks by just melting into the background.
mrmoshpotato
Yes. And it’s massively fucked up – from the implicit threats (ie. walking around dressed up like G.I. Joe) to the explicit threats (those who say they’re going to have to start shooting people).
One of our two major parties has gone from loving cruel economic policies over the decades to something much much worse. It’s great (destressing as hell) that we basically are now running against Nazis.
I envy people who don’t give a shit about politics.
Kalakal
@RaflW:
A wingnut ex coworker FB at the time was full of “this is why we need MOAR! guns to protect ourselves from the evil libs who are trying to murder us all. Look they’re trying to kill GOP politicians!”
burnspbesq
One thing that will hopefully come out of the work of the 1/6 committee is a proposal for legislation that will provide a streamlined method of applying Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
mrmoshpotato
@sab: He also lived(s) 30 miles southwest of Kenosha. His mom didn’t drive him just over the state line.
sab
@Kalakal: And the shot guy was okay with having been shot because he survived, and he was shot by a lefty, so that proved some sort of point to him. Some people have rocks where we have brains.
O. Felix Culpa
That’s astonishing, in that Congress should be a model for workplace safety. If not in our premier legislative body, then where?
Quicksand
I’m not sure it’s below the surface anymore.
RaflW
@germy: I’d really like for us to just not give that Russian asset any oxygen.
She can say her shit, but is anyone really benefitting by having her nonsense amplified by Patriot Takes? She’s a nobody. My plea is that we leave her alone.
sab
@mrmoshpotato: I dunno. Pre-Covid I commuted farther everyday to get to work.
mrmoshpotato
@H.E.Wolf: Thanks for the reassuring take – seriously. :)
RaflW
@Kalakal: I lived in Texas at the time of the Luby’s mass shooting (eghad, that was 1991).
The response was very widely this. I pointed out (to an audience very different than that, but that’s my reach) that moar guns would have just meant bullets flying in every direction. But the gun nut crowd has never, ever believed that would be the outcome.
Maybe mutually assured destruction worked for US-USSR at one time. But that was a two-person strategy. It’s insane in an open society.
mrmoshpotato
@sab: I don’t think he and his mom just happened to be passing through Kenosha that night. She had to drive him about 35 miles to get there.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Tom Levenson:
The thrumming background buzz of daily official violence and cruelty is generally a feature of societies governed to accommodate right wing populist factions. It’s not usually a feature of stable leftish governments.
Now, when the populace snaps? You get the Place de la Concorde during the Terror or St Petersburg in November 1917 or Phnom Penh in the late 1970s.
sab
@mrmoshpotato: I agree.
RaflW
Your calm words are helpful @H.E.Wolf, and, I think there’s genuine concern that things like the Tree of Life killing will get worse before the solidarity and revulsion rise to neutralize it.
I am confident you’re not saying it has to get worse before it gets better. I’d love for us to just turn the corner politically and not as a response to rising violence.
But I worry. Quite a bit. Part of that worry relates to being in an identifiable minority that many right-wingers hate.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Because our side sincerely believes in Going High, (while endlessly complaining Why Won’t They Go Low?!!) Our elected officials don’t Go Low, because we won’t let them. We actually (mostly) stick to principles of respect and decency. And that’s a good thing.
Kelly
Mother of a 17 year old dropped him off at a protest with a rifle?
“Have a fun day out dear. Don’t shoot any good guys. Call when you’re need a ride home”
O. Felix Culpa
@H.E.Wolf: To which I also say, yes, and…we shouldn’t underestimate the dangers, while continuing to organize. We must remember:
I’m not saying our organizing doesn’t matter — it matters a lot. But we should be aware of the potential cost and peculiar dangers of our times.
mrmoshpotato
Big Bird isn’t taking Shithead Ted’s crap.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@RaflW:
Every time I read a statement uttered by Steve Scalise, I’m reminded of the value of practice at the range and it’s contribution to following through on the target.
Ksmiami
@trollhattan: we need to make them afraid of us in response.
sab
@Kelly: Not just a rifle. An AR-15. What kind of parent lets a 17 year old loose with an AR-15? What kind of parent lets a 17 year old anywhere near an AR-15?
WaterGirl
@burnspbesq: Yes!
The Thin Black Duke
Here’s my two cents on that shitweasel Paul Gosar: https://link.medium.com/rzd7tp335kb
trollhattan
@germy:
Those “don’t call them victims” clearly faked their deaths/wounds. Only Tulsi can see through the veil of lies.
Wait, she’s still around?
sab
@sab: If she were Black she’d be up on negligent parenting charges and they would want to take that little monster away from her.
BobinPDX
What really grinds my gears is that if the shoe was on the other foot, Fox News would be howling 24/7 for the offending Democrat to be immediately thrown out of Congress.
trollhattan
@Kelly:
@sab:
MOTY material right there, and that’s before taking him out drinking, at the tender age of seventeen. “You’ve killed, now you are a man, son. Here, have a beer and a bump.”
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: If Gabby Giffords didn’t change anything for the GQP, it’s unreasonable to expect that 1/6 would.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
O. Felix Culpa
@The Thin Black Duke: Upvoted. Well said.
RaflW
@trollhattan: Exactly. Ignoring her seems like the best response. She’s close to vanishing, so why notice now?!
Kelly
@sab: Yes. Also I am not a lawyer but it seems some sort accomplice charges ought to apply.
Seth
Well it sure would be nice if it were possible to actually see the damn video to form my own opinion.
Searcher
There aren’t 70 Republican votes in the House to expel a Republican who murdered a colleague on the floor.
O. Felix Culpa
In somewhat related news, “Chicago police leader resigned over ‘inability’ of department brass ‘to even feign interest’ in reform.” (Chicago Tribune)
Our society has a lot of work to do.
There’s more at the link, which is paywalled after x number of clicks per month.
geg6
Yes. And that’s why we pulled our guns out of the attic and moved them to where they are more handy, if needed.
sab
@O. Felix Culpa: Cleveland cops are the same.
Lapassionara
@sab: I’m wondering when the victim’s families will file the civil law suits against her, for wrongful death.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Thin Black Duke:
Good column. One of your best, in fact.
trollhattan
To this I will only chime in “just one?”
sab
@Lapassionara: I hope they do, to protect the rest of us.
janesays
@Parfigliano: This.
Censure doesn’t actually carry any meaningful consequences except having it on record that Paul Gosar did a bad thing. He’ll wear it as a badge of honor and raise millions off of it.
They’re not going to have the votes to expel him (would need almost 100 GOPers to be able to do it), but I agree they should still hold the vote just to see where everyone stands.
James E Powell
@Roger Moore:
My feeling was that 1/6 should have changed how the press/media report on right-wingers. But that’s me, Mr. Wrong About Everything.
VeniceRiley
Please tell me AOC tweeted ” I ain’t afraid of no Gos.”
Betty Cracker
@Seth: You can. Twitter left it up with a warning label. All you gotta do is click through.
Old School
@Seth: Sorry you missed it. Darn Twitter standards.
@Betty Cracker: Gosar’s original tweet was finally deleted rather than given a warning label.
Cacti
The Republicans have taken a full turn towards fascism.
When was a fascist movement ever defeated with non-violence?
Martin
Yeah, I fear Dems are bringing censure to a gunfight here. They don’t need the votes to expel, they need the votes to refer to the FBI for investigation. Making threats to a member of Congress is still a felony. You wouldn’t think so after the last year, but it is.
Kay
Another great day for professionalism in this judge’s courtroom. Whatever you think of the verdict the decision to turn the proceedings into a clown show was the judges. It didn’t have to be this bad.
I think he’s auditioning for his appearance on Fox. Just loving the limelight now.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: Wow. Aaron Rupar has an incredible thread of this guy. He’s a total nutjob.
Kay
Whatever the strength of the state’s case against Rittenhouse, the victims didn’t deserve this judge turning his courtroom and the proceedings into a joke. There’s no excuse for it. He sets the demeanor and tone and behavior. He could have behaved better. The verdict is the verdict and it would be the same- this behavior of his is voluntary. It’s a choice.
eversor
RE: Rod Dreher
I’ve read him and other Christian intellectuals for a while now and vile as Rod is his views are bog standard for all of them. On TAC with Rod Declan Leary gave a robust defense of dead children in mass graves behind Catholic Schools because they were baptized as part of the process and taken to Christianity. Sorhab Ahmari writes frequent articles about the need for Christians to seize power and then use the state to wipe out all the cultural stuff they don’t want and wield power over non Christians.
The thing is, they aren’t really wrong from an actual Christian perspective. That’s what Christians have historically done, and that’s why it spread so far and so fast. So driving women out of the work force and putting them back in their natural law roles (barefoot raped and pregnant), bringing back slavery, removing the rights of non Christians from the state and banning them from government or business roles, killing off LGBTQ folk, mass killings are all very Christian by how things historically went down.
We are in a religious civil war, we have been for a while now. The moment Christianity lost control over the culture was the moment it was going to turn hot. I think a lot of people just point to Obama and say “racism” but that’s not really all of it. They were promised a permanent majority under Bush and it all went away. All of these people care as much for biblical values where it comes to sex and gender roles so there is not going to be any compromise there. But many people don’t want to believe that the war is with Christianity full stop. And while there once were Christians who made good arguments for the religion those groups cratered first.
We can call out the issue of Whiteness, Conservatism, Republicanism, but until we are willing to look square at Christianity and do the same it’s all wasted time.
sab
@Martin: Yes.
Betty Cracker
@Old School: Thanks, my bad. It sucked anyway.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
How do we know that for sure, given the judge’s behavior?
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: I never felt any need to see it. The description was clear enough.
sab
@Martin: So under House rules you cannot speak disrespectfully of a member, but you can threaten to chop their head off on new social media. Seems out of date and not actually useful. But I am just a dinosaur chewing shrubbery here.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia: Same. I don’t need to watch RW violence porn (especially against women) to know that it’s bad.
zhena gogolia
@sab: Yeah, it is totally ridiculous. They’ll stand up and scream if somebody says something “personal” on the floor, but on twitter all bets are off.
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
You may and should separate your opinions of the eventual verdict from the judge’s demeanor and behavior in the courtroom. This lack of professionalism is an issue all by itself.
The victims are dead. They can’t speak for themselves. They deserved to have a serious, dignified proceeding – win or lose- instead of a Fox news audition.
The Thin Black Duke
Shit’s been real for a while now. People better start paying attention. And I ain’t even talking about picking up Molotov cocktails. Just fucking vote for fuck’s sake.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: I’m thinking he left his phone on intentionally.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
With Giffords, you could plausibly claim the guy who shot her was one disturbed guy who did something crazy. The same with the guy who shot the Republicans at the Congressional softball game. It’s pretty easy to dismiss a single person as a lone wolf who would have been violent even without cues. It’s much harder to do the same with a mob. The insurrectionists on 1/6 didn’t all get the same idea to attack Congress at the same time independently.
zhena gogolia
@The Thin Black Duke:
Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvqJ1mTkEuY
Baud
@Kay:
Somewhere, Judge Ito is very happy.
Gravenstone
@Amir Khalid: Any Republican inclined to vote for expulsion is basically sealing their fates. Whether that be limited to politically, or given the hardening rhetoric, physically will remain to be seen. Thus, not going to happen.
Nelle
@The Thin Black Duke: Thank you for this. I especially appreciated the image of taking the alarms out if the smoke detectors and going back to sleep.
Cacti
I’d like to say that US County and Municipal Courts aren’t filled with decrepit hacks like the Judge in this case. But that would be a lie.
sab
@Kay: Yes. There are people killed here.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
Exactly. That’s why it’s bad. For me, it’s bad for another reason too. This is serious. People died. Can he not practice some self discipline? He just blurts out whatever idiotic comment occurs to him? He can’t even silence his cell phone? Or refrain from appearing to be putting on some kind of show with the defense witness? Or lower his voice so he isn’t screaming at people?
Chris Johnson
@kindness: Third Reich lasted 12 years with TOTAL control of their country.
What they are trying to do has no exit strategy and is doomed to destruction. Every time, every single time. The interesting question is not ‘if they get this, will we ever be free again?’. The interesting question is damage minimization. I’m guardedly optimistic about our political system’s being able to cope with even this.
There have always been nutjobs if you dig deep enough. The ‘surface’ is how much encouragement they get, and that IS different, but these are also the polarizing sort of people who make enemies out of their own allies.
I know people in Vermont and New Hampshire who, if you threatened them with Russian and Ukranian hit squads, would go ‘bring it. Come on over, we’ll greet as many of you as want to play’. Keeping those people on the right wing nutjob side means NOT bullying them and coddling them and their fucked-up beliefs. Trouble is the Trump people are a cult and don’t have beliefs, and that’s a weakness. I also know people who’ve stepped away from hard wingnuttery for various personal or political reasons but who’re still up to speed on all the gun-nuttery.
sab
@Baud: Ito wasn’t trying to run a biased trial. He was just overwhelmed by the publicity. This judge is trying to run a biased trial.He knows how he wants it to come out.
Gravenstone
Um, his community was an hour to the south and the next state down. Fuck Dreher and his bullshit “argument’.
FelonyGovt
@The Thin Black Duke: Agree 100%. One of your best. Unfortunately, you have a steady supply of outrages to write about these days.
germy
@Gravenstone:
Dreher meant his White Community.
Cacti
@sab: I’d agree with this take.
When you’re a Judge in Los Angeles County, you’re in too visible a position to put your thumb on the scale for a particular party whenever you feel like it.
This is a small town Judge, used to playing favorites, who isn’t used to having TV cameras around to record it.
senyordave
From Yahoo news: Rittenhouse defense incorrectly claims iPad pinch-to-zoom modifies footage
And the judge gave the prosecution 15 whole minutes to show that the video was not manipulated (the defense did not even have to prove any manipulation of the video). Why even waste the money on the rest of the trial? Just end it and ask the jury to applaud Rittenhouse on their way out.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kyle-rittenhouse-ipad-pinch-to-zoom-lawyers-claim-142110207.html
Betty Cracker
@sab: I don’t know that it would meet the legal definition of a threat (not a lawyer), but it was a gross and insane thing to tweet. Apparently someone on Gosar’s staff crudely photoshopped faces onto an existing anime clip. If you worked at Dollar General and did that to a coworker, you’d get fired.
I wonder what Gosar’s district is like? They knew they were electing a deranged person — he’s been loopy for years. I’ve got no room to cast stones at other districts, though. Notorious wingnut troll Laura Loomer is trying to unseat my shitty and corrupt Republican rep, and if she wins the GOP primary, she’ll almost certainly win the seat.
Omnes Omnibus
@H.E.Wolf: I, to no one’s surprise, agree with you. If all we concentrate on is the bad, it will grind us down. No one denies that the bad things, but let’s try to see everything that is happening.
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
This is about Alito but it fits:
Yiu can’t demand that people respect institutions if the insititutions don’t earn it. It’s not a gift they get, no matter their behavior. They have to earn it. That’s the deal the public makes with them- we’ll defer to your authority, but you have to earn it. Each of them has to earn it, over and over and over.
Barbara
@eversor: I would make a more subtle argument. European Christianity cratered on modernity and the trend intensified with two ruinous wars. American observance endured but I would argue that it has been hollowing out for quite a while as a result of a much more gradual but similar weakening and has become not much more than a tribal identity for many. They have internalized their identity as Christian because church is often central to their social life. How tenuous it is as religious belief becomes most apparent as it exerts less hold on the next generation. This isn’t universal but the trends are obvious.
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus: Counselor, can you name a single time that a fascist movement was defeated with non-violence?
RaflW
@Martin: Is the rule of law eroding from lack of enforcement, or are we just seeing Frank Wilhoit’s observation in more stark relief. “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
McCarthy is doing his damndest to make the case that the GOP is still the in-group in society.
I agree with others here that censure is insufficient to the greater need, but as the only functional tool, do we set it aside or at least make use of it as a stop-gap.
Chris Johnson
@Cacti: Trump doesn’t own the military. (Nor does Biden but Biden is not mindlessly trying to use the military as a weapon against his political enemies…)
sab
@Cacti: Alternatively, Northern Ireland didn’t go all that well with violence on all sides. No change and many people dead, most of whom were not even participants. Just citizen bystanders.
Backing up. Dr King and various (there were many) civil rights groups. They stayed non-violent. He died, but most of his followers and none of his family did.
Bravery beats bluster.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
We’re having a sea change in attitudes toward the judiciary here – the bar is just plain pissed off at laziness, vindictiveness, mercurial temperaments, mental sloth and arbitrary schedule demands from a bench which is steadily growing worse. I reminded one of the state Supreme Court justices a couple of weeks ago that lawyer suicides are way up and that stress is up in large part because of the routine conduct of the judiciary. That they’re just lawyers who happened to win an election, and that nobody from the bar or the administrative office of the courts was doing anything about it outside of encouraging people to do pro bono work for douchebags and offering up a yoga class.
America, take a real hard look at this asshole – this is the kind of judge that infests most courtrooms today.
The Thin Black Duke
@Cacti: When non-violence isn’t a viable option anymore, every single one of us is fucked. Once this country turns into Rwanda, we’re dead. I’m not going to pretend that I’m going to turn into a revolutionary when America goes bad. I’ll be collateral damage, and I think most of the people here would say the same thing.
Baud
@Cacti:
How broadly are you defining fascism and violence? Franco’s Spain, Pinochet’s Chile, and South African apartheid ended relatively peacefully, compared to the end of Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. Same with the Jim Crow South.
Of course, if you’re defining violence very broadly, we have already seen violence in the U.S. as a result of the current fascist movement, so it is impossible for it to end non-violently in that sense.
eversor
@Barbara:
I agree partly, that’s also part of the reason for “no vax no mask”. Go over to The American Conservative and see what they actually say. The say they will not believe any medical doctor or scientist who thinks there are more than two binary genders, they will not take any vaccines from people who do not believe in the natural order of gender roles, that men marry men, or who support the killing of the unborn.
It goes on and on but the basic gist of it is “I’m not going to be told what to do by someone who doesn’t agree with me about culture or sex, but they are going to do what I want or we will kill them”. That is essential to their identity and their religion.
Christianity is toxic, now wether or not that toxin is because bad people are attracted to it like Confederates nor Nazis to spread toxin. Or that toxin towards women, advocation of slavery, advocation of patriarchy, and sexual domination is baked into the religion doesn’t matter. We can’t just shut down Nazi’s and Confederates here and call it a day. We are going to have to go after the Churches full stop. And if that’s not going to happen than voting and all the rest is just can kicking.
I see a lot of people admitting the Dreher’s exist but not realizing he’s not the most extreme of the lot. It’s another problem this country won’t admit exists. Partially because admitting the issue we have leads to admitting we are gearing up for a sectarian war and all this “VOTE!” stuff is head in sand about that.
Kay
The anti-woke mob has released another scolding lecture. None of them actually DO anything but sit on their ass and lecture people about “the poor” and look for promising business opportunities in the burgeoning sector of anti-wokism, but they’d like you to know YOU are responsible for Rittenhouse.
This is rich:
Is there a single member of this pundit group who do any of this? They believe politics is beneath them.
Dan B
Gosar issued an “apology”. He said the modified anime he posted was just symbolic. And to frost that s#@t cake he said he “didn’t know if he would rape AOC.”
Can his siblings organize an intervention?
Chris Johnson
Bottom line is we as Democrats at this time and place in history are about resisting fascism and terrorism and maintaining something that looks and acts like democracy and rule of law and freedom.
I don’t think the insurrectionists are actually good at pretending they want any of those things, and as such they’re up against some very deep-seated reservations on the part of Americans.
They can scream for years about how scary black people and liberals are going to come burn down your house, and have done, but every time THEY do that sort of thing or murder people or worse, do it and then have accomplices in law enforcement and the judiciary back ’em, it (a) sends a message to intimidate and (b) sends a message to INFLAME.
We’re about fed up with that stuff as a society. They MUST turn us into the demons they need us to be, to escalate any farther. And we’re not, we simply are not.
eversor
@The Thin Black Duke:
The violence is already baked in. We are in a cold sectarian civil war that’s going to go hot the moment the right realizes that even preventing people from voting and gerrymandering won’t secure it’s power. The only way to stop it is to roll over and give them what they want.
We won’t really be Rwanda. We are probably gearing up for a Lebanon situation.
Baud
@Kay: These people always scold but they don’t do. If they think there’s a better path to success, why haven’t they demonstrated it yet?
On one of the lefty subreddits, someone put up a post advocating for a general strike because they said elections don’t change anything. But why draw the contrast? If you think a general strike will be helpful, go organize one. Why put down elections and discourage that additional tool for enhancing your power?
I encourage people to vote in every election, but I don’t say “Vote, but don’t do anything else.” It makes no sense to me, some of the rhetoric I see out there.
RaflW
Are there no codes of conduct for judges? Any sort of way for his peers to say STFU or retire? Because that sort of naked racism is prejudicial as heck, isn’t it?
Can any Asian defendant file for a change of venue after this diatribe? It’s bananas.
Tehanu
Murderers. I’ve come to the conclusion that every Republican officeholder is now guilty of mass murder.
Kay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’m actually lucky right now. I have three professionals I’m with most frequently. As you know it isn’t ideology or even the merits of the case. It’s how they choose to run their courtrooms. You can do that respecfully and seriously and professionally or you can not.
I try to remember that it’s a black box for most people. They’re not in there all the time. But THEIR case, to them, is the most important- the only. They only know what they see. If they see this behavior that’s what they’ll take away. For me, too, it becomes an issue of the victims. In these shooter cases the other side isn’t there, because they are dead. It becomes that much more important for it to be conducted properly.
Just Chuck
@eversor: Speaking as an atheist, go fuck yourself and your morally simplistic one-note crusade.
Betty Cracker
@Dan B: Those poor siblings are constantly on MSNBC and cutting attack ads to try to get their shithead brother out. And Rep. Gosar is a fucking DENTIST! Can you imagine that babbling lunatic’s hands in your MOUTH? OMG.
Obdurodon
I’m just hoping we get through *today* without any acts of right-wing terrorism. As I do every holiday, and every other day with any kind of significance to that crowd.
Ruviana
@Dan B: I don’t think they like him enough to do an intervention. They might organize a hit.
Betty Cracker
scav
Maybe that judge could very well be auditioning for a more lucrative second career as an Fox Opinionator/ Influencer. Lucks out with a high visibility case and plans his dance moves (it’s a courtship, not a court, no?). Sees himself as Arpaio in robes.
sab
@Ruviana: They won’t organize a hit. They are decent. He is the only one in the family who would contemplate such a thing. He has multiple screws loose. They all know it. Life is not fun with nutso relatives.
Roger Moore
@eversor:
I think you’re being unfair to Christianity by equating it to the worst of its adherents. There are plenty of Christians out there who do their best to live their lives according to the principles Jesus laid down. They just aren’t as conspicuous as the assholes who want to use Christianity as an excuse to rape and murder.
Kay
@Baud:
I have spent a lot of time with actual labor people over the years, because they are the majority of Democrats here- not a majority of people (I wish) but a majority of people who do things and not a one of them spends any time at all on Leftist theory. They would laugh.
They work. They pass petitions and speak at county meetings and go to the fair and set up a booth and pass out stickers. They canvass. A lot. Like a shocking amount. They show up for phone canvassing.
These people are poseurs. They’re theorists. It’s just not the same world.
eclare
@O. Felix Culpa: Same. I just read about it, I trust descriptions. Some things, once seen, you cannot unsee.
tony in san diego
@CaseyL: they used to mock (still do) PBS, but what they want is to live in Prairie Home Companion world.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I love the sister who keeps calling him a psycho. Just her sheer frustration that he isn’t on a locked ward yet connects with me.
Baud
@Kay: Right. I know the theoreticians are a very small minority, but they seem to show up a lot in my info bubble (even the much smaller one I have these days) compared to their actual numbers. I feel like they are a distraction, but on the other hand, I worry about ignoring it altogether.
Chris Johnson
@Kay: That’s Freddie. I like Freddie but I wish he was a little bit smarter: he seems to think everything ‘on the Left’ is organic and genuine, rather than astroturf fed by Russians specifically to inflame the Right and anyone else paying attention.
I’d like to ask Freddie if he thinks Jimmy Dore is a real lefty. For that matter, I’d like to ask him if he thinks Tim Pool is a real lefty. It seems to be Freddie is able to observe many things, but takes stuff at face value.
These days that is really deadly, the worst thing you can do. It’s almost impossible to get a realistic sense of what’s going on if you’re relying on social media… or traditional media. That’s worrying. I can’t blame Freddie for going insane, trying to make sense of it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: Counselor, you better get your gun then.
eversor
@Roger Moore:
Now say that about Republicans and see how it sounds!
Baud
@Chris Johnson:
Agreed.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
Um, it is full of Republican psychos, old people and dead-enders. It is the worst part of the state. Mostly rural areas northwest of Phoenix stretching toward Vegas.
This is part of why I think y’all are overestimating Arizona’s purpleness.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
There is a small but loud subset of the left wing who are every bit as authoritarian and anti-democratic as the fascists on the right. They can’t get what they want by elections, so they want elections to fail to give them an excuse to resort to violence.
Baud
@Roger Moore: The post I saw was advocating for a general strike, not violence. Perhaps violence was a subtext, but it wasn’t explicit.
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: Did he ingest too much mercury back in the days of the old fillings?
sab
@Kay: I got a aRWNJ brother. I can relate.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore:
Yes, the shooter was nuts. But the environment created by the toxic rhetoric hasn’t changed.
Wikipedia:
Nobody could have predicted that someone would shoot her!!11ONE
:-/
The GQP seemingly doesn’t even feel the need to go through the motions of condemning violent political rhetoric and imagry now…
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Scout211:
Combine this with Upton’s voicemail message, and I think something needs to be done very soon before things get seriously beyond anyone’s control.
piratedan
@Suzanne: yup, this is the Wild West part of the state, big on mining, big ass ranches and ex-conservative Californians who are retired on a budget. Living on the river, playing golf and eating buffet food in Laughlin. The psuedo-riche FYIGM crowd who feel perpetually persecuted because they’ve adopted “asshole” as the default life setting.
The Thin Black Duke
@tony in san diego: No. They think they do. What they hate is that wherever we are, we’re having more fun than they are, and it drives them bugfuck crazy.
sab
@Kay: Yes. Me too. Every time I have gone canvassng for the last 25 years these guys were out there. Other people come and go, but these guys were always out there
These people aren’t the poseurs. Tuese people are the actual labor people.
debbie
@Gretchen:
Vance is going nowhere, seeing as this is how “real” conservatives see him. He’s backpedaling and hoping to worm his way back into their good graces. It’ll never work.
debbie
@germy:
Did his trip to Hungary get him anywhere? I haven’t heard a thing.
debbie
@burnspbesq:
Why isn’t Section 3 of the 14th Amendment sufficient to boot their asses right now?
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: We have a couple of them here on Balloon Juice.
Mike in NC
Washington Post reporting a federal appeals court is blocking the release of Trump’s papers. What bullshit.
Baud
@Mike in NC: It was expected even if we drew a good panel, and we drew a bad panel.
Citizen Alan
@Roger Moore: 4 out of 5 Evangelicals voted for Trump. Can you really say it’s the worst of the worst when you’re talking about well over half?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Franco.
debbie
@Kay:
Jesus, he makes Lance Ito look magisterial.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
Evangelicals are a subset of all Christians.
ETA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism_in_the_United_States
ETA2:
A better site with stats.
https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
Montanareddog
@Gravenstone:
I think you are misunderstanding Dreher’s argument. Rittenhouse’s community is not Kenosha – it’s white people. Rittenhouse was defending white people from the feral, colored hordes, and the white people he killed were race traitors.
ETA: germy Apologies as you made the same point almost immediately
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: When did all Christians become Evangelicals?
Tony Jay
OT – Britstuff Interlude
We can tell that the fallout from last week’s Paterson Affair has seriously discombobulated the Tory Party, because an awful lot of damaging stories are all coming out at once as competing PR operations wage information war on a battlefield littered with the rat-eaten corpses of reputations long gone by.
You might recall that Prime Minister Flobalob Johnson recently committed a wholly egregious act of overreach by ordering his Party’s MPs to vote Yes on an Amendment that would have spared the aforementioned Owen Paterson MP from suffering the clearly disproportionate punishment of a whole 30 days paid leave from the House of Commons (I know, merciless doesn’t begin to cover it – eyeroll) after the Independent Standards Committee released a report castigating him for lobbying the Government on behalf of two companies which had paid him somewhere in the region of £100,000 for his services. Not only that, the Amendment would have also side-lined the current Standards Committee in favour of a ‘fairer’ system, by which they meant a Government controlled body stuffed with a loyal Tory majority.
The Tories voted it through, because of course they did, but within hours it was clear that it was a massive, huge, potentially disastrous own goal. Tory MPs were left in no doubt that their constituents were outraged at the obvious embrace of Fuck-You-Fools corruption and even the pro-Tory Media (which is another way of saying almost all of the Media) were talking about widespread anger and growing disgust and using terms like “back to the Sleaze Era” and “into the sewer”. Such was the level of blowback that the Government immediately executed a screeching handbrake turn on both the Paterson pardon and the castration of the Standards Committee, but the damage was done. You can’t strongarm your MPs into voting for a reputation torching pile of crap (quite literally, with mucho butcho threats made to withhold funds from the constituencies of recalcitrant MPs) and then pull a panicked U-turn without making the people you bullied very, very, very angry. Tory MPs are a universally awful bunch of mouthfuls Mummy should have swallowed, but deep down they still have some human qualities, in this case rage, resentment and a perfectly understandable urge to choke their Glorious Leader with fistfuls of potentially lost Tory votes.
Since then, Flobalob and Co have tried desperately to make the story go away with a series of dead-cats chucked on the table, but it hasn’t worked, instead shit has snowballed as the various factions manoeuvring behind the scenes to either protect, remove or just survive Johnson’s reign of error have fed stories to their media chums and, in the process, constructed one of those Overarching Narratives that can bring down the most glittering of careers. Every day, seemingly by the hour, more Tory MPs are being exposed as corrupt hirelings selling out their constituents and the country itself to private companies only too happy to put them on hundreds of pounds an hour retainers as ‘advisors’ or ‘consultants’, which translated into commonplace English means being bribed to represent the interests of those companies behind closed doors and ensure that their snouts get preferential access to the trough of public money that Government contracts guarantee. It’s all stuff that the UK’s journalistic courtier class has known about forever and not given a single, solitary toss about, but so spectacular was the detonation of Paterson’s cause célèbre that the afterglow has thrown a whole new light on the theme of second and third ‘jobs’ and whether there might be a question or ten of to be asked about the ethical probity of the whole filthy practice.
You know things are going badly (or very well, depending on your viewpoint) when everything Flobalob does to try and wriggle out a mess of his own making results in the kind of blowback he’s successfully dodged throughout his career.
1) Rather than attend a special Parliamentary session called to offer a re-do of the Paterson fuck-up he ran away to do a photo-op visit to a hospital at the other end of the country, virtually as far away from London as he could get without risking kidnap by Border Reivers. So far so normal. Whenever things get rough he always takes the coward’s way out, and there are few ‘political’ duties he loves more than forcing overworked public servants to act as living backdrops to his cosplaying. This time, however, the Press finally did their jobs (sort of, under a lot of pressure from Twitter) and latched onto the fact that Flobalob’s pictures had him gurning, unmasked, amidst all the masked-up NHS staff. This forced Number 10’s Comms drones to ‘request’ that the Hospital Trust confirm that Codename: Plague Rat had adhered to their guidelines (“Nice hospital funding you got there, be a pity if something happened to it”), which they did, but a modicum of digging revealed that this was a load of disingenuous faff, because the guidelines clearly said Flobs should have been wearing a mask at all times, his staff was told this in advance and upon arrival, but he’d taken it off for the photo-ops and refused point blank to put it back on. It’s not much, but this is the first time in living memory that – anyone – in the media has actually followed up on a Johnsonian lie and pushed back. It might be a one off, but you know what they say about losing your cherry…
2) Still looking for anything he could do to avoid being asked difficult questions about how sickeningly corrupt his entire Party is, Flobs then simply had to return to COP26 to play at World Leader, but when the only thing anyone wants to talk about from your press conference is the bit where you felt the Nixonian need to declaim “I genuinely believe that the UK is not remotely a corrupt country, nor do I believe that our institutions are corrupt.” (cue much laughter and disbelief) you really should start looking for a better bolthole. I have no idea why Tubby Fecker felt the need to stick his pecker in the peppergrinder with that easily refutable nonsense, or why he thought it was a good idea to follow this up with the equally cringeworthy “On the issue of MPs and second jobs and all that, I just want to say that the most important thing is that those who break the rules must be investigated and should be punished.” when forcing your Party to do the exact opposite is what sparked the whole firestorm in the first place is beyond me. He’s just flapping about now like a MAGA Insurrectionist with their own taser stuck up their arse. Maybe he thought it was still like the good old days of just last week, when he could stamp one plump hoof, stick out his jaw, and count on the collective intercession of the UK’s Editors-in-Chief to ensure that when he said “The matter is closed” those doors were slammed shut rapido, but it’s not looking like that’s the case anymore.
3) It’s been reported that another genius move to get the spotlight off Johnson was the leaking of a story about the former Tory Attorney General (top legal advisor to the Government of Theresa May) Lord Cox and his scandalous 2nd job ‘earning’ millions of pounds advising the Government of the British Virgin Islands (amongst others) on how to dodge corruption allegations by the British Foreign Office (amongst other things). Oh, that’s turned out to be a brilliant move. Whoever came up with the idea of throwing Cox to the wolves as a distraction is either dumber than a sack of plastic hammers or a truly magnificent ratfucker. The Paterson Affair was basically a domestic scandal about one MP, but the Cox scandal is about millions of pounds and all it’s done is open the floodgates, because now everyone wants to get in on the act with scoops about outrageous Tory corruption. The best things is that Cox has responded by stating he asked and received permission from Johnson’s Chief-Whip to do exactly this, which just underlines how ‘normal’ this level of corruption is amongst Tory MPs, plus he’s now on the hook for lobbying Parliament to drop anti-money laundering legislation aimed at the Cayman Islands without revealing they were paying him for his services, which is the same as but much, much worse than Paterson’s crime. Tick fucking tock, melonfarmers.
It’s all just delightfully awful to watch every single senior Tory get splashed head to toe with shit as the Hot-Rod of Consequences does wheel-spins around them. None of them get out of this clean because every single one of them voted to spare Paterson last week, so when you get the likes of Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, solemnly telling his media pals that the Tory Party “simply must do better than last week” where their defence of ethical standards is concerned, all he’s doing is inviting the obvious question “Why was it okay last week but not now?”, and he hasn’t got an answer that doesn’t revolve around “Well, we were getting away with it then.”
When the best the Tory shitstirrers can throw in response is easily debunked squirrel droppings about Labour MPs getting drunk on planes (guess what the BBC’s ‘top political story of the day’ has been) or counter-intuitive claims that the Opposition need to stop attacking the Government over corruption because they “could erode trust in politicians generally”, you know they’re in a world of hurt and somebody, maybe even somebody way up there at the top of the greasy pole, needs to be made to take the fall for it.
Good times.
Betty Cracker
Maybe even ex-presidents are kings after all:
All of the judges who signed the order were appointed by Democrats, according to The Post, including Judge Jackson, who is talked about as a possible Biden SCOTUS pick and seems like a great judge from what I’ve read. If that court rejects the appeal, what then — appeal to SCOTUS? I wonder how long that will take.
germy
@Mike in NC:
I still think the former guy’s goose is cooked, one way or another.
germy
@debbie:
Some delicious meals and appreciative back slapping.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Citizen Alan: Evangelicals aren’t even the majority of American Christians. And the main reason they voted for Trump was Trump was because their pastors knows a fellow grifter when they see one.
Another Scott
@Mike in NC: TheHill says that the US didn’t file any motions to argue against it. The expectation is that the higher court will hear the case, so they want to get on with it.
Oral arguments will be on November 30.
tl;dr – this was expected.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Bingo. They love guillotines and Stalin. We have a commenter here advocating violence.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Oh, I had read Trump got a GOP panel. In any event, this was expected. Unfortunately, with documents, it’s hard to unring the bell once they are turned over, so you end up with these sorts of delays.
Suzanne
@piratedan: Remember this Borat incident in Kingman? That’s Gosar’s district.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC: Procedural. To be expected. Not a cause for concern.
sab
Ponyo the pitbull with big sweet eyes. I can deal with her as she is . Hard to deal with her as the internet projects this sweety onto a cat killing monster. She lives with and loves six cats.
p
debbie
@Another Scott:
Well, there’s a dog whistle this Jew certainly hears. //
Steeplejack (phone)
@Seth:
Gosar’s video is at the top of this story.
Explainer video here.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JNcNTW-RvnU
RaflW
@Roger Moore: If I had to guess, I’d say the left:right nutso/authoritarian/lets have a war factions are about 1:2.7.
Put another way, the country could in theory organize itself as
10% crazed left
20% progressive-liberal
25% cautious-incrementalist Dem
5% swing (don’t know what they are but want the shouting to stop so lets try it this way this time. Oops, repeat.)
10% business Republican
30% foaming right wing jagoffs and fascists (crazification factor rounded to the nearest 5)
eta: 10% seems a bit high on crazed left, but for this throwaway glance, it’ll do.
debbie
@Steeplejack (phone):
It’s a still photo now, not a video.
UncleEbeneezer
Unsurprising but still frustrating:
JUST IN: A federal appeals court has granted Trump’s request to postpone the release of records to the January 6th Select Committee.
sab
@Tony Jay: Have you read Fiona Hill.? Do you care? Third time I have asked. After this with no answer You could say no I haven’t Or yes I have I will think you are just another foreign poseur who gets a lot of attention forr no reason.
We willl still love you although I don’t.
J R in WV
I hope they don’t acquit the little monster, that would take a unanimous jury, just like a conviction. A mistrial after a hung jury would be lots better than turning that murderous little punk loose with a pat on the back.
For just one thing, a second trial with an actual judge instead of this RWNJ clown would probably convict the murderous punk. I have trouble seeing all the jurors buying the defense. But, of course, O J was acquitted…
The more I learn about this trial, the more doubt I have that the judge is of the necessary judicial attitude for anything more serious than a property dispute over the location of a hedge between neighbors. IANAL, but I have been on several juries, two for murder cases.
O. Felix Culpa
@Citizen Alan: Evangelicals do not represent all Christians.
Or what Baud said at #165.
Betty Cracker
@Tony Jay: Truly delightful news!
ETA: Our Beltway press is terrible in a different way but similarly uninterested in corruption. It must be thrilling to watch them break that pattern. Off to read YOUR papers…
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Maybe I should say “by direct action” rather than “by violence” but I think the basic point is the same. When faced with a choice between democracy and getting what they want, they’ll happily chuck democracy.
Tony Jay
@sab:
Oh, I do love a Poirot moment.
“Excuse me, Madam, but I must draw your attention to this..”
“You may now confess. The Constable will take your statement.”
Satisfied twirl of the moustache.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris Johnson: Freddie is a fake-leftist catspaw for the far right, along with Greenwald, Taibbi, Dore, etc. He needs to be aggressively ignored.
Roger Moore
@Citizen Alan:
There are more kinds of Christians than Evangelicals. Treating Evangelicals as if they are the only kind of Christian is exactly what I was talking about.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: They love the Great General Strike because it’s never going to happen, so they can never either be proved wrong or have to do anything–they can remain superior to the idiots running things for all time.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Steeplejack (phone):
A note on that “explainer” video: The narration is some kind of weird AI auto-translation sounding thing, but it was what I could find on short notice. And the visuals get across the gist of Gosar’s video, which are actually hard to see in his video because they go by so fast. Anyway, you can look at the explainer video and get the basics without having to watch Gosar’s video.
Old School
@debbie: Still here.
Geminid
@Baud: The “General Strike” is just another lefty fantasy. That wierd man-bunned techbro who ran against Speaker Pelosi talked about a general strike like it was some weapon they had in reserve. I’ve heard it since. But I don’t think the people advocating this have real jobs that they could actually strike.
Tony Jay
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve missed loads out (brevity, that’s my thing) but yeah, they’re on the Sandpaper Slide without no pants.
Where the whole thing ends up… we’ll see. Chubby Whitetits has called an emergency Fuhrer-Retreat at his official country pile to thrash out a big announcement about Levelling-Up funds (meaning massive bribes to MPs who have a timely Come to Cheesecloth Jeebus moment regarding loyalty to the Grime Throne, but it’s a toss up if that will work, and if it does for how long.
Loving it. The pricks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Hell, there are a number of practicing Christians who comment on this blog, a number of whom are seemingly better people than I am.*
*This admittedly isn’t really a stretch.
Steeplejack (phone)
@debbie:
If you refresh the page it activates the video. (At least for me on Android and Brave browser.)
debbie
@Old School:
Thanks. Pretty low quality, for sure.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Also Mussoline, AKA the original fascist before it was cool. He was quite popular up until he got Italy stuck in the WW2 meat grinder. After the Allied landing in Southern Italy the King forced Mussolini to resign and placed him under house arrest, then the Nazis came and made a mess of it because that’s what Nazis do.
So there was Franco, and one could argue Pinochet.
Baud
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’m happy to volunteer as king it it’ll help arrest fascists.
gwangung
@Geminid: If they feel a general strike is a good tactic, then they can organize it. This is NOT a “somebody can do it” type of thing.
Baud
@Geminid: It has happened in other countries. But I’m not even sure what they would be striking against. Inflation? That’s the biggest economic issue right now. The stock and labor markets are both doing pretty well but U.S. standards.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: Do you have a smashing uniform picket out Baud?
Roger Moore
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
There have also been plenty of fascist movements that never took power because they couldn’t win elections. Just about every Western country had its local fascist movement, meaning they were defeated peacefully in every place they never succeeded in taking over. That’s the approach we should be focusing on before moving on to figuring out how to get fascists out of power.
Baud
@Baud: but = by
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Goes the same with the “Another Civil War!” talk. People going to take to the streets or grab a gun over what in the local elementary school’s library?
Tony Jay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
You know the Ice-Cream Shop sailor-boy outfits from the last season of Stranger Things?
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Not achieving the worker’s paradise, of course. I don’t think the plans for a general strike have anything to do with the reality you and I inhabit. It’s about the alternative reality where all the left wing’s favorite hobby horses are wildly popular but are kept from being realized by the entrenched interests who would lose out.
Baud
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Probably something like this.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Roger Moore: The point to consider is 20’s Italy and Germany and ’70s Chile were broken countries. The only thing brain broke in the US is the GOP and the one thing I am taking away from the 2020 president, CA Recall and VA Gov is carpet chewing conservative fruit loops aren’t viable candidates but moderate conservatives are. With any luck boring old lizard people skinwalkers will take the GOP back.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: Going for the Big Hair look then.
Another Scott
@Kay:
Cheers,
Scott.
Dan B
@sab: I have old style conservative in laws with heavy doses of superiority and sadistic sense of humor. We had company for dinner on Tuesday and I brought up the in laws screaming at us at T-day 2016 that our concern about Trump was without a shred of merit because Gay Marriage was settled law. Reconstruction was settled law but my sister in law is from Georgia and Koch roots so – noo history. So my partner’s brother invites us to T-day. I say no and I’m going to my brother’s and get to see my gay nephew and his Persian husband. So partner’s brother says, “How about the day after?” My partner is very disappointed and realizes I never want to see them. This war of the bigoted and willfully ignorant is awful.
Geminid
@gwangung: I think they know a general strike is bullshit. But they want to pretend that a few college educated, mostly white twitter-warriors actually understand and represent the Working Class.
Jerkobin Magazine just published a long social-sciencey article on the political views of the working class. @Mangy Jay, who has a good knowledge base in the social sciences as well as in elementary school education, was not impressed:
Ms. Jay reviewed the author’s methodology and was appalled:
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Funny, I always imagined you going for something more like this.
Baud
@Roger Moore: Well, sure, when I’m inspecting the troops in the Independence Day parade.
eclare
@sab: I have had three pit type dogs: an 80 pound American Staffordshire terrier, a 70 pound pit mix, and a 45 pound Staffordshire Bull terrier. All of them desperately wanted my kitties to love them. The kitties, as expected, did not.
But all lived together peacefully. Paws and fingers still crossed for your Ponyo.
Another Scott
@Tony Jay:
(sigh)
Hang in there!
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
Of course not! Everyone knows you get them in K-town!
frosty
@sab: Lucky you. I’ve never seen labor canvassing in South PA, it’s just the usual idiots like me. However … when hanging door flyers last election I saw one from the unions that listed all the D candidates for all the offices. First time I’ve seen that.
I was out canvassing for either Biden or the Congress candidate, but there was no coordination at all. I’m told labor used to do a lot of the work in PA but not any more, so every campaign has to reinvent the GOTV every election.
Tony Jay
@Another Scott:
I know. Utter shite, aren’t they?
But at least we avoided electing an environmentally conscious peacenik who wanted to raise taxes on the rich by a few quid to pay for rebuilding the country. That would have been so much worse (ubersnark)
eclare
@Roger Moore: There is a 7-11 type market here in Memphis that reportedly has excellent bibimbap. FedEx is here, no prob getting it to WI.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
Very droll.
Totally agree.
Dan B
@sab: Reading Ms.Hill right now because of your
hasslingenticing. I love that she learned the power of storytelling in her time in the academy. Most academicslearndon’t learn this.Brachiator
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Who, by the way, is still dead.
SteveinPHX
@Tony Jay:
“Tory MPs are a universally awful bunch of mouthfuls Mummy should have swallowed,”
The most gloriously obscene phrase I’ve come across in a long time!
Tony Jay
@SteveinPHX:
I am quite fond of that one.
frosty
@SteveinPHX: I agree! This was great too –
… a battlefield littered with the rat-eaten corpses of reputations long gone by.
@Tony Jay: I don’t know how you do it, all I can say is I want some of whatever it is you’re having.
Tony Jay
@frosty:
I’m having a diet of seemingly endless Tory misrule aided and abetted by an ‘Opposition’ led by feckless arseholes who willingly helped put them there. You really don’t want that, it’s bad for the digestion.
But you are very kind, nevertheless.
Kalakal
@Cacti: Portugal 1974
topclimber
@Baud:
May I suggest a strike over the Raw Deal? Which is what workers of all colors and collars get more of every day since about 1976.
Consumers could follow up with a Raw Deal strike of their own.
Suburban Moms, too–those pretty sure the patriarchy is still socking it to them big-time, two generations removed from Women’s Lib.
topclimber
@Geminid:
See what some perspicacious soul just told Baud.
tsquared2001
@SteveinPHX: It was perfect.
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: But if there had been no commitment to armed self defense, the non-violent movement would have been murdered in its cradle by white supremacist night-riders.
Many are the stories of men staying up all night with a gun across their laps, keeping watch over their families, and over those people who joined in the non-violent struggle.
Geminid
@topclimber: Perspicacious Soul speak truth.
Geminid
@Professor Bigfoot: One night (I think in the 1990’s) I heard a talk on the radio, part of a visiting lecturer series at Washington and Lee University.The speaker was James Farmer, who helped start the Freedom Rides in 1961 and continued organizing for civil rights in the most dangerous parts of the South.
Farmer described the night in 1963 when state police came looking for him in a small Louisiana town. He was holed up with people in a funeral parlor. “We want Farmer!” The troopers shouted. It was obvious that the troopers and the mob with them were not planning on taking him to a jail.
Farmer was put in a coffin and smuggled out in a hearse. Five armed Korean War vets rode along. When they got to a safe place and Farmer was helped out of the coffin, he was a little surprised to see weapons. One of the vets explained, “we know you believe in nonviolence, but this was the only way to get you out alive. The troopers knew about us and that’s why they let us through.”
Urban Suburbanite
I really doubt Gosar actually created the meme in question. But he’s very close with Nick Fuentes (an ambulatory explanation for why people beat Nazis) and his weird angry virginal followers in America First.
https://youtu.be/kWaTqobDVXY
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: The thing is, plain old regular strikes are starting to actually work, in considerable numbers, and that has people mightily freaked out. You need specific grievances–“everything sucks, break capitalism now!!” is not it.