Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Let there be snark.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Bark louder, little dog.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Good lord, these people are nuts.

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread

Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread

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Dayum!

As we know, for Republicans, rock bottom, like peak wingnut, doesn’t exist. But I’m glad she called the Trump movement what it is: a cult. Open thread.

Reader Interactions

207Comments

  2. 2.

    Sure Lurkalot

    It’s too bad if the truth hurts.

    The Republican party is inviting truckers to “convoy” D.C. Tucker Carlson thinks it’s a good idea for truckers to boycott “cities” like a siege from the Trojan War. Tucker lives in D.C. Just like Tucker is vaxxed and goes to a workplace with mandates and howls on the TV about tyranny.

    It’s a fucking cult, all right. Nancy does not lie.

  4. 4.

    trollhattan

    Tell it, Madame Speaker. Direct. To the point. Needs saying. And in case the party is looking for a unifying message, begin right here.

    [Also, how dare she run again, I mean, right?]

  5. 5.

    mrmoshpotato

    Nancy SMASH!, and the rest of us, have had enough of the Dump-humping, fascist bullshit!

    Throw yourselves into the Sun, or….well, just fucking throw yourselves into the Sun!

  9. 9.

    Mike R

    The key part of her statement that republicans seem to have hit bottom is a little bit off, there is no bottom for the evil that the republican party has become.  They are a black of hole evil and greed.

  10. 10.

    Leto

    OT? Christian revival at school prompts student walkout in W.Va.

    HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — Between calculus and European history classes at a West Virginia public high school, 16-year-old Cameron Mays and his classmates were told by their teacher to go to an evangelical Christian revival assembly.

    When students arrived at the event in the school’s auditorium, they were instructed to close their eyes and raise their arms in prayer, Mays said. The teens were asked to give their lives over to Jesus to find purpose and salvation. Those who did not follow the Bible would go to hell when they died, they were told.

    The Huntington High School junior sent a text to his father.

    “Is this legal?” he asked.

    The answer, according to the U.S. Constitution, is no. In fact, the separation of church and state is one of the country’s founding basic tenets, noted Huntington High School senior Max Nibert.

    “Just to see that defamed and ignored in such a blatant way, it’s disheartening,” he said.

    Apparently this was organized by students, somehow none of the administration was involved, or saw a problem with it? Fuck if I know. Can’t wait for the illegitimate 6 to say it’s totes good.

  11. 11.

    Fair Economist

    Is she trying to break the nuttiness or is she trying to tie the Republicans to the boat anchor? Maybe a little of both.

  13. 13.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    They decide to convoy block DC, they’re not gonna like the result. It ain’t Ottawa, filled with nonviolent Canadians and timid cops.

    I want to see clubbed and tear-gassed drawling wingnuts crying, busted up F-250s, hauled off semis and a bunch of CDL holders finding themselves jobless because their licenses are pulled.

    Examples need to be made. So be it.

  15. 15.

    Ocotillo

    Since it is an open thread, Ms. O will be working the primary elections soon here in Texas and the new election laws are in effect.  One interesting thing is should a voter ask an election worker a question while they are at their booth, a poll watcher has the right to come over and observe the interaction and after the voter has completed and printed their ballot, they can ask to look at the ballot.  The ballot is a printed record of whom the voter selected and is inserted in a machine that serves to count the ballot and store them to be transported to the election office.

    I asked if the voter can refuse and she tells me they did not say.  I told her I would like to come down to try and provoke such an action and refuse to show the poll watcher my ballot.

    Poll watchers are designated by candidates and come to poll and do just that, watch what is going on but the new law is giving them more leeway to be shall we say intimidating.

    Another new part of the law, election judges now may pack heat.  Hooray.

  16. 16.

    Old School

    According to CNN:

    One early draft, which denounced the two lawmakers for taking part in a House select committee investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack described the inquiry as “a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in nonviolent and legal political discourse.”

    So someone intentionally changed it to “legitimate political discourse.”  We’ll see if it is determined who that was.

  18. 18.

    Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan

    Since this is an Open Thread…

    Today marks six years since Mrs. Cisco’s passing, and nearly five since my dad’s/his mom’s.

    I wanted to make sure I got the chance to thank this community for what it did during those times.

    I’m a firm believer in telling people things while they are still around, mostly because I’ve had the misfortune of not always taking advantage of the opportunity. This way is better.

    This place, this crazy amalgam of snark, humor, and fury that is an almost-top 10,000 blog has been an oasis for me, and I am very much appreciative.

    So thanks again.

    Ben

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    @Mike R:

    The key part of her statement that republicans seem to have hit bottom is a little bit off

    The only way the Republicans have hit bottom is when creeps like Eric Greitens do it in the bedroom sex dungeon.

  26. 26.

    WaterGirl

    Wowser!  Best speech I have ever heard her give.  Go Nancy SMASH!

    The only thing that could have made this better is if she had walked out of the building in her red coat and sunglasses.

  28. 28.

    Old Man Shadow

    In 100 years, our descendants will be fighting over whether they should remove the Ashli Babbett and Buffalo Shaman statues the GOP will probably erect from the town parks.

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    Sounds completely nondenominational. /Alito

    Well, other denominations would be free to do the same thing if they could get up the gumption.  It’s not the Supreme Court’s fault that the can’t.

  33. 33.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    Way back when my kids were in our exurban high school, I gave them carte blanche to walk out of any overtly religious assembly (which was starting to become a real threat at the time – it invariably involved that smarmy and insipid evangelical praise music). The rationale I told them to give was. “this trash is not within our family’s Christian tradition of at least the past 1500 years, and the Constitution says I don’t have to listen to it. Call my father for an explanation.”

    The school officials were generally afraid of me. I wouldn’t have needed a court case, even.

  35. 35.

    The Dangerman

    Ohhhhhhhh, *drool* pie.

    /homer

    ETA: I wonder if there is a correlation between Republicans doing monstrously stupid things (“legitimate political discourse”) and troll activity. Is there a batshit crazy signal?

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    “They seemed to have reached rock bottom with their statement that what happened on January 6th was normal political discourse…legitimate political discourse…Take back your party from this cult.”

    Definitely on point.

    Thing is, the GOP did not have to say this. I don’t know where they think they are going with this. It’s not rock bottom. It’s moving further away from democracy.

    A cult that has gone off the deep end. There ain’t no bottom for these dopes.

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    Baseball has a long tradition in Canada.  They’ve had pro teams for basically as long as the professional game has existed.  Besides, baseball bats have made an inroads as a weapon with a superficially legitimate sporting purpose even in countries where baseball isn’t much played.

  41. 41.

    germy

    https://townhall.com/columnists/ronnamcdaniel/2022/02/08/the-media-is-distorting-republican-censure-of-cheney-kinzinger-n2603021

    If corporate news media wants to know why Americans don’t trust it anymore, they should look no further than the shameful, outrageous, and patently false coverage of the resolution adopted by the RNC to censure Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

    Let me be abundantly clear: as Chairman of the RNC, I have repeatedly condemned the violence that occurred at the Capitol on January 6th and do so again today. On January 6, 2021 , the members of the RNC released a statement that read, “These violent scenes we have witnessed do not represent acts of patriotism, but an attack on our country and its founding principles.” I tweeted that the violence was “shameful” and condemned it in the strongest possible terms.

    The events of that day are deeply personal to me and our team as the FBI found a bomb outside of RNC headquarters that afternoon, and I will never forget what it felt like to know that my staff was in immediate danger. Violence has no place in our political discourse, period, and those who engaged in violence on January 6th and committed crimes should be held accountable with due process by the appropriate law enforcement authorities and prosecutors.

    But the awful events of that day do not justify Cheney or Kinzinger enabling a partisan committee whose real purpose seems to be helping Democrats’ electoral prospects at the cost of potentially ruining innocent people’s lives.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @germy:

    I have repeatedly condemned the violence that occurred at the Capitol on January 6th and do so again today.

    now she’s definitely going to be fired.

  44. 44.

    Gravenstone

    @Leto: We didn’t have quite that level of gawd fuckery in HS back in the dark ages, but we did have a two-faced “evangelist” preacher brought in to an assembly by the wife of the school board president. During our assembly, he was relatively anodyne in his laments about youth lead astray by the evils of rock and roll!! Although I did take direct issue with essentially being called satanic because I liked the Beatles. Perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of that assembly was watching the woman responsible for foisting him off on us sitting in the front row center, genuflecting every few seconds all throughout his diatribes.

    Later that evening, he gave another presentation at her family’s church. That presentation, he apparently went full fire and brimstone (a couple of my classmates attended out of curiosity – I didn’t trust myself to remain civil so I chose not to). He railed against many of our classes and how they were corrupting the youth. Foremost among those classes were several elective English courses that focused on specific genres or topics (sci fi/fantasy, horror/supernatural, mass media – I had or was taking all of the above). The following year, each and every one of those electives were gone. I was pissed that this charlatan and his willing conspirators were able to have this much sway because they happened to hold positions of relative power relative to the school district.

    While that was my first time seeing religion twisted into a authoritarian cult, it would hardly be the last.

  47. 47.

    Gravenstone

    @Old School: legal political discourse

    Breaking and entering, assault, attempted kidnapping… none of these are legal, let alone political discourse.

  49. 49.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    I can see it now:

    “It ain’t fair”, sobbed Cletus Holcomb, a 35 year old twice divorced father of three from Eastern Tennessee in a stained camo shirt, grimy baseball cap and broken sunglasses that barely concealed facial wounds and tears. “Ah was just here to show my love for my country and protest by parkin’ my truck across K Street, and the next thing I know some goddamn colored cop is tellin’ me to move mah rig before he cites me and tows it off. He didn’t even give me a chance to make my case more’n a minute afore he sprayed me, yanked me out an’ clubbed me a couple o’ times fer callin’ him a n***er afore he arrested me. Ah’m ‘n owner-operator, an’ don’t even know where they hauled mah truck to or if it ever gets back to me! Thanks fer listening’ to mah story, Mr Baker. Hope Tucker puts me on air…”

  51. 51.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Baud: 

    D.C. will never let the trucks in. It’s a security hazard if nothing else.

    The trucks only have to park on the 14th street bridge (over the Potomac, between DC and Virginia) to make a mess.

  52. 52.

    Gravenstone

    @Ocotillo: If you want to be stealthy, just wander through pulling the valve stems from a few tires. That’s a pretty cheap tool to get, and readily concealed in a pocket.

  53. 53.

    dmsilev

    @germy: “…and to prove my point, here are a list of people persecuted by this Committee who only attended the rally and came nowhere near the Capitol.”

    (for some completely mysterious reason, that seems to have been lost in editing. Odd. I blame Obama, because why not.)

  57. 57.

    BC in Illinois

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    “Call my father for an explanation.”

    The school officials were generally afraid of me. I wouldn’t have needed a court case, even.

    I was in elementary school [suburbs of Washington DC] and brought home a form for my parents asking for information about (if I remember correctly) race, occupation, income level, or that kind of thing. My father wrote in NOYDB. I asked him what that meant. He told me what it meant. I said, “Dad! You can’t do that!” He said just to try it.

    Looking back, I think he was giving a message to me as well as to the Montgomery County schools

    ETA – – This was during the Eisenhower administration.

  60. 60.

    RandomMonster

    @Old Man Shadow: In 100 years, our descendants will be fighting over whether they should remove the Ashli Babbett and Buffalo Shaman statues the GOP will probably erect from the town parks Capitol Rotunda.

  61. 61.

    mrmoshpotato

    @germy: What the actual fuck?

    There really is no bottom with these shitstains.

    As for the meth (I can’t believe I’m typing this), isn’t that more of a poor, white, rural problem?

  64. 64.

    Cermet

    Whether this white man’s democracy falls in 2024 or not, it can’t stand thanks to AGW. All through the world as nation States crumble in forty to fifty years when wet bulb temperatures exceed human tolerance for sufficiently long enough times, fascism will rise. This isn’t maybe but what will be. Most of India/Pakistan/Iran, South East Asia, equatorial regions of South America/Africa and the Middle East will all become places that humans will not be able to live for weeks at a time (i.e. without AC you die.) Billions will be displaced – borders will be over run – famine will occur on a scale never before seen. These are facts and frankly, nearly everyone is ignoring this coming disaster – much of this is already ‘baked’ in.

  65. 65.

    trollhattan

    @Gravenstone:

    Middle school friend of my kid went to the fancy Catholic all-girls school instead of the public HS. A guess speaker in one of her classes lectured the rosy-cheeked young things on the HORRORS OF THE ABORTIONS from the perspective of a former client, at a time she had been led astray. And also, too, did you know abortion clinics sell fetus tissues to the highest bidder? They totally do!

    During the disquisition, the girl began face-timing mom with the presentation. Mom, a noted OB-Gyn was NOT pleased and the girl transferred out, back to the local HS where, so traumatized was she from the experience she only made it into Princeton.

    The end.

  69. 69.

    Almost Retired

    @germy:  That explains the Biden crack pipe meme I noticed on my Facebook feed this morning.  It made no sense (they rarely do), so I just shrugged it off.  But now I see the source.

    Lil’ Marco has lost his ever-loving mind.  And those ears!   They’ve grown!  Pinnochi-ears.  He could fall out of an airplane mid-flight and glide safely to earth.  Yeah, making fun of someone’s physical appearance is not sophisticated political commentary, but fuck it.

  70. 70.

    RaflW

    Oh, look. Glem G. has a new neighbor!

    JTA | Jewish news @JTAnews
    A far-right German extremist who has been convicted of denying the Holocaust is hiding in Brazil.

    From the article:

    @jh_swanson
    “Jewish groups have been raising the alarm about close ties between Brazilian neo-Nazi groups and the government of President Jair Bolsonaro. Last year he extended a warm welcome to a lawmaker from Germany’s far-right AfD party who is the great-granddaughter of a prominent Nazi.”

  71. 71.

    Captain C

    @Baud:

    Sounds completely nondenominational.  /Alito

    I’ll believe that when they allow the Church of Satan to hold in-school rallies with mandatory attendance and participation.  Preferably with Slayer blasting over the PA.

  74. 74.

    Betty Cracker

    @germy: I clicked on McDaniel’s petulant screed from a media aggregator without realizing it would whisk me to the Clown Hall site. But since I’d already sullied my IP by visiting that wretched hive of scum and villainy, I read Ronna’s rant and a sampling of the comments under it.

    Most commenters were abusing McDaniel for condemning the violence and railing against the treatment of the great patriotic Capitol attackers. My guess is that’s how the controversy is playing out across Wingnuttia, and it really is a conundrum for elected Republicans and apparatchiks like McDaniel, who are trying to have it both ways. Good!

  77. 77.

    Captain C

    @Brachiator:

    Thing is, the GOP did not have to say this. I don’t know where they think they are going with this.

    Many of them seem to think they’re going to the one-party white supremacist dictatorship of their dreams.

  78. 78.

    Captain C

    @germy:

    Let me be abundantly clear: as Chairman of the RNC, I have repeatedly condemned fapped myself silly over the violence that occurred at the Capitol on January 6th and do so again today

    FTFY, Ronna Romney

  79. 79.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: 

    Yeah, strategic error on her part. The condemnation should have been on a mainstream media outlet, while the cheering of Jan. 6 seditionists as patriots should have been on Town Hall.

  81. 81.

    RaflW

    @germy: So Massie wants them to not just die of Covid, but also to leave their families destitute and being chased by hospital collection agencies?
    Very harsh, but perfectly on brand for the party that has done all it could (but thankfully, pretty incompetently) to end the ACA.

  83. 83.

    The Dangerman

    Oh, goody. The stupid domestic mother truckers are threatening to shut down LA for Super Bowl Sunday. I suggest blocking the 405 near the airport because Angelenos have NEVER dealt with that previously…

    …and they do know about LA Road Rage, right? Born and raised LA (since evacuated, but I am there a lot) and I can just about guarantee that anyone intentionally blocking a freeway with a big truck is gonna get their ass beat down. We aren’t Canadien nice here.

  84. 84.

    Captain C

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I want to see clubbed and tear-gassed drawling wingnuts crying, busted up F-250s, hauled off semis and a bunch of CDL holders finding themselves jobless because their licenses are pulled.

    Is it wrong that I wish some disgruntled locals had access to a steady supply of panzerfausts if these idiots invade D.C.?

  85. 85.

    RaflW

    @Almost Retired: Marco has seemed very, very sweaty about the Jan 6 Committee lately. I dunno what’s lurking there that has him spooked, but it’s horrifacinating to watch him loosing what few shreds of composure he once had.

  89. 89.

    Dan B

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Word is that the government of Ontario does not want to do anything about the convoy blockade*.  I believe Trudeau would have to declare Martial Law in order to supersede Ontario.

    Also, most of the rigs are owned by the company so the drivers are out of jobs but not under financial liability.

    *Insert euphemism here.

  90. 90.

    Captain C

    @Dan B:

    Also, most of the rigs are owned by the company so the drivers are out of jobs but not under financial liability.

    If that’s the case, I’m sure those owners are loving the lack of revenue that those trucks, probably financed, are bringing in.

  94. 94.

    danielx

    @Gravenstone:

    Badly, that being one of several reasons he was going to get his ass handed to him in his gubernatorial re-election effort. And how he ended up as VP – If I recall correctly Trump claimed he was responsible for reviving Pence’s political career, and he wasn’t wrong.

  96. 96.

    danielx

    @Dan B: ​
     
    I’d wondered about that. If those are company-owned rigs, I’m sure the owners are thrilled about having six-figure pieces of equipment a) not being used to produce revenue and b) used as stage scenery,

  97. 97.

    RaflW

    @Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan: Trying to talk about harm reduction and addiction is difficult even when all the parties discussing it are making good faith efforts to understand it.

    But of course morally vacuous people like Rubio will gladly run with the most absurd deductive (un)reasoning about giving addicts safe housing and call it ‘giving them crack pipes.’

    I am an annual donor to a housing nonprofit that gets HIV+ people off the streets and into efficiency apartments. In addition to being good humanitarian outreach, It’s a quite effective method of reducing HIV transmission as people in supportive housing tend to take their HIV-suppressing meds, and are more open to messages and supplies for safer sex, needle exchange, etc.

    Not once have I felt like I’m buying anyone a ‘crack pipe’. (I’m a long-sober drunk, so I think I have some views into harm reduction & addiction, too.)

  99. 99.

    sdhays

    Well, add this to the signals that we just may have the GQP civil war that we’ve been praying for coming sooner rather than later:

    Those familiar with Pence’s thinking say the outpouring of support that he’s seen since taking on Trump by name — both in gushing op-eds by conservative media outlets and in private conversations with GOP donors and fellow Republicans — has emboldened him as he looks to chart a future in politics that could include a White House bid against his former boss in 2024.

    Let’s you and him fight!

  101. 101.

    Almost Retired

    @The Dangerman:  Exactly.  Sure, wingnuts, bring your trucks to Los Angeles and tie up traffic on the 405 on Super Bowl Sunday.  Like we’d even notice.  When they’re done bringing snarled traffic to LA, they can take coals to Newcastle next.

  103. 103.

    RaflW

    @Captain C: Well we can see why Ken Paxton is so upset about that GoFundMe for the poor, beleaguered truckers getting cancelled.

    On that topic, can we even imagine how the TX A.G. would react if, say, Canadians shipped a million bucks across the border (electronically) to fund Prius Parades around his state to rag on Abbott and his crappy electric grid?! Insta-lawsuit. Like, neck-snappingly fast.

  105. 105.

    Dan B

    @Gravenstone: Truckers in Ottowa are reportedly deflating their tires and abandoning the rigs, presumably the trailers not the actual rig.  Don’t quote me.

  107. 107.

    The Dangerman

    @mrmoshpotato: They should definitely remember their Confederate and Trump flags. That shit will play so well here. I suggest Signal Hill. Maybe all these assholes know about LA is watching Baywatch.

    I was too extreme in my first post. I said everyone would get beat down. No. But random violence is guaranteed.

  108. 108.

    JMG

    @The Dangerman: Since 9/11, the Super Bowl has been a designated national security event. Lots of Feds, lots and lots of cops. You don’t want to mess with that. Plus I wouldn’t be surprised if members of the US “trucker” groups are either informants or undercover feds.

  113. 113.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Durst one check to see if Do Something! Twitter is pleased with the Gerontocracy now?

    Or does this not count because it’s too late or it wasn’t in prime time or she didn’t drop and F bomb or….

  114. 114.

    Dan B

    @Captain C: I keep thinking of the big trucking CEO’s donating the max to the GOP.  The Leopards will surprise their faces.  Oh, they already are!  The GOP wants their revolution but doesn’t want to get caught in the chaos.  Oopsie….  Forgot to read history.

  115. 115.

    HumboldtBlue

    This Leeds v Aston Villa match is just non-stop up and down action.

    And now Villa have a defender sent off!

  116. 116.

    Dan B

    @Baud: I’m sure the CEO’S are SHOCKED!!  SHOCKED, I tell you!  They wring every last penny out of their contractors and then donate to RWNJ Pols who want to keep the peons down and then find the stresses don’t stay safely at a distance.  They don’t see the chaos coming back at them.

  117. 117.

    topclimber

    If companies own the trucks maybe they have the keys? That would seem to negate what I had read was a problem with a shortage of towing trucks that can handle the big rigs (and perhaps of MAGA-friendly operators who do the towing).

  118. 118.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’m gonna have to start writing down my political donations cause stuff like this makes pull the trigger on my credit card in moments of white-hot fantod enthusiasm

    Val Demings @valdemings
    27 years of putting on a bulletproof vest to go to work as a law enforcement officer is not a “sudden interest” in combating violent crime. I reduced violent crime by 40% as Orlando’s Chief of Police while Marco Rubio was home asleep in his bed.

    Team Marco TeamMarco · 3h
    .@MarcoRubio on Val Demings’ sudden interest in combating the rise in violent crime: “Ever since arriving in Washington, Val Demings has made it harder for police to do their jobs while enabling violent criminals…

  120. 120.

    Dan B

    @danielx: I’d like verification on this from some Canadians or people with good sources.  This came second hand from Thom Hartman who is usually reliable.

  124. 124.

    Brachiator

    @The Dangerman:

    Oh, goody. The stupid domestic mother truckers are threatening to shut down LA for Super Bowl Sunday.

    Oh, these poor little misguided fools. They believe that the public is on their side and that law enforcement will look the other way. But if they try to fuck with the Super Bowl, even organically holistic vegan hipsters will come out and kick their ass.

    There is a lot of money invested in the Super Bowl. It is also a preview of the 2028 Olympics. They ain’t gonna let no bubba truckers mess with this.

    Consider the annual Rose Parade. Nationally televised. There is a massive amount of security on display and in the background, there to make sure that everyone has a good time. You have rarely, if ever, seen anyone misbehave. And you have rarely read stories about any negative incidents.

  127. 127.

    Baud

    @Brachiator:

    But if they try to fuck with the Super Bowl, even organically holistic vegan hipsters will come out and kick their ass.

    Not to mention the entire city of Cincinnati.  They have been waiting a long time for this.

  130. 130.

    Steeplejack

    I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.Hugo Lowell:

    New: House Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene is railing against Pelosi’s “gazpacho police”—intending to refer to the Nazi Gestapo, itself a nonsense comparison, but instead referring to a cold tomato soup.

    And, if you think someone is joking or misunderstanding a joke—video!​

    @HumboldtBlue: Damn it.

  132. 132.

    Brachiator

    @RaflW:

    JTA | Jewish news @JTAnews
    A far-right German extremist who has been convicted of denying the Holocaust is hiding in Brazil.

    Hmm. How ironically circular. Dude probably used one of the escape routes formerly used by Nazis escaping to South America.

  135. 135.

    Martin

    BTW, the game is up. McConnell and Graham throwing Trump under the bus, in the face of the RNC actions tells us that Trump and his crew are in a fuckton of legal trouble that McConnell won’t be able to get them out of. Their focus now is saving as many republicans as they can from going down with Trumps ship. My guess is that the 1/6 committee got enough out of Pence’s people that the insiders all see the writing on the wall – Pence didn’t suddenly get brave and principled – he’s publicly making it known that he doesn’t want to go to prison with the rest of them. The rift in the GOP is too glaring to be anything else. The folks hooked into Congress are very loudly backing away while the folks not hooked into Congress keep backing Trump. I don’t know how quickly this will go, but I’m guessing they have Trump dead to rights, and probably a lot of other people in his circle as well, including members of Congress. I mean, just look at McCarthy today. Even he knows it’s over.

  139. 139.

    CarolPW

    @Martin: I usually take your opinions/thoughts/analyses/conclusions to be almost as inerrant as the word of the God. Please let this be so!

  140. 140.

    Betty Cracker

    @Martin: I really, really, really, really want to believe this but have been burned too many times. That said, it does explain the phenomena you listed. Please FSM, let it be so…

  141. 141.

    Dan B

    @danielx: Companies are starting to wake up that some drivers are using their trucks in the blockades unauthorized.  There’s a site convoytraitors.ca that is naming and shaming the companies.  An Ottowa based IT guy debuted it on Feb. 6th.

  144. 144.

    Martin

    @The Dangerman: Are these idiots aware off what happened to a truck driver in that neighborhood back in the 90s? And that guy was actively trying to not antagonize things.

  147. 147.

    Baud

    Rolling Stone, via Reddit

    Gary Chambers Jr.’s first campaign ad was short and simple: The Louisiana Senate Candidate alone, in a park in New Orleans, sitting in a leather armchair, smoking a massive blunt. The ad landed him a wave of press, all of which, he told Rolling Stone, were part of an attempt to prove that the race to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. John Kennedy was “winnable.”

    Now, Chambers is back with more fuel for the viral-marketing fire. In a new ad titled “Scars and Bars,” a first look at which was provided exclusively to Rolling Stone, he douses a Confederate battle flag in gasoline before lighting it on fire. The gesture makes for a striking image on its own, but like the first ad’s stark shots of Chambers smoking in New Orleans City Park, it’s accompanied by a voiceover monologue that pulls no punches.

    “Here in Louisiana and all over the South, Jim Crow never really left,” Chambers says, before rattling off statistics about the inequities Black Americans face in his state and across the country. “Our system isn’t broken — it’s designed to do what it’s doing: produce measurable inequity.”

  151. 151.

    Dan B

    @Martin: It dawned on me that the Trucker Convoys and Trumpsters have no clear goals or clear end result except damage.  With no clear end game there is no possibility of victory.  They’ve gotten way out over their skies and could both crash and burn with great rapidity.  Pence and the trucking companies’ owners are the fulcrums that allow small efforts to produce massive results.

  153. 153.

    Kathleen

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You’ve created a new meme for the Right Wing! You should on Twitter and strategically plant references to the latest horrors from the Gazpacho Gestapo and its latest nightmare iteration – Vegan Gazpacho Gestapo.

  154. 154.

    Brachiator

    @Martin:

    BTW, the game is up. McConnell and Graham throwing Trump under the bus, in the face of the RNC actions tells us that Trump and his crew are in a fuckton of legal trouble that McConnell won’t be able to get them out of. Their focus now is saving as many republicans as they can from going down with Trumps ship.

    People are always prematurely predicting Trump’s demise, and the GOP becoming more rational.

    The vampire ain’t dead until you have staked it through the heart, sprinkled the body with holy water and set fire to the monster while it is in the coffin.

    So until I see the bus actually run over Trump, and he is convicted, fined and/or imprisoned, I will not pay much attention to what McConnell or other Republicans say.

     

    ETA. And this goes double for Boris Johnson and the Tories in the UK.

  157. 157.

    trollhattan

    @Dan B:

    They probably didn’t realize it would have any…what’s a not-trucking synonym for traction? and were surprised when it got all that sweet attention.

    We have had various truck and farm equipment processions around the CA State Capitol (“because new laws are gonna put me outta bidnez”) and they always are 1. permitted ahead of time through the CHP and 2. have start and end times.

    I think they know better than to screw with the CHP, but then this is 2022.

  158. 158.

    HumboldtBlue

    @WaterGirl:

    Yup, and she’s not the only one.

    Also, for the peanut gallery as a whole, when is the start of televised hearings? That’s getting close, isn’t it?

  159. 159.

    BRyan

    @Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan: six years?  i still remember tearing up at — and still tear up remembering — your “she will only have to wait for me to come home one more time.”  A lovely sentiment for your parting.  But don’t hurry.  While she waits for you, time has no measure or meaning, so she won’t mind, and we’d miss you.

  160. 160.

    Abnormal Hiker

    @Roger Moore: The first documented baseball game in Canada was on 4 June 1838 in Beachville Ontario. This is prior to Abner Doubleday’s supposed invention.

  161. 161.

    The Dangerman

    @Martin: Reginald Denny. I remember it well.

    I was in Santa Maria on my way to Long Beach when that shit started. I was damn close to being in the middle of it.

  163. 163.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Brachiator:

    The vampire ain’t dead until you have staked it through the heart, sprinkled the body with holy water and set fire to the monster while it is in the coffin. 

    Excuse me.  Related question here.

    Can we roast garlic over the flames?

  165. 165.

    Martin

    @Dan B: Culture wars tend to look like that. Same with Tucker Carlson’s war on M&M Mars making the green one less fuckable. They need an ongoing persecution story, no matter how stupid and inconsequential it might be.

  166. 166.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Martin:

    Same with Tucker Carlson’s war on M&M Mars making the green one less fuckable.

    That’s gonna be on Fucker Carlson’s gravestone.

    Who the hell thought that complaining about M&M’s fuckability was a good idea?  No one at FOX went, “Let’s reconsider that one.”?

  169. 169.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @JMG: I’m studying for my remote pilot exam and have a sectional chart website pinned to my browser.  There’s a 30 mile temporary flight restriction around SoFi(the President only get’s about 10 miles when he’s in town).

  170. 170.

    Martin

    @Brachiator: No, I agree. You can’t be too cynical about what a Democratic Congress might fail to do, but some GOP Senators aren’t willing to take the risk.

    I just think we should calibrate our cynicism by this new evidence.

    I’m not suggesting that Trump will get an orange jumpsuit selfie, but it should at least be enough to make him not be a 2024 candidate. And if that happens, there’s not a hell of a lot of point being on his bandwagon. It’ll just soak up donor money and set it on fire.

  177. 177.

    Bill Arnold

    @Gravenstone:

    If you want to be stealthy, just wander through pulling the valve stems from a few tires. That’s a pretty cheap tool to get, and readily concealed in a pocket.

    A small cordless drill can make it super quick, but it is not easily concealed.

  179. 179.

    topclimber

    @Bill Arnold: I understand the sentiment, but, sadly, it makes no sense.

    Why do you want to incapacitate trucks you are trying to move out of the way? Why do you want to give a holes and excuse not to budge?

  183. 183.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    @trollhattan: California-based people would likely realize that, but how about out-of-state people? I suspect too many of them hear CHIP and think of Erik Estrada.
    These aren’t people who strike me as especially knowledgeable or aware that bad things can happen to them, too. Just think of some of the whining we’re hearing from 1/6 arrestees in court.

  184. 184.

    JustRuss

    @Abnormal Hiker:

    The first documented baseball game in Canada was on 4 June 1838 in Beachville Ontario. This is prior to Abner Doubleday’s supposed invention.

    Just proves what I’ve been saying all along: the politeness is just a facade, Canadians are actually very sneaky, and they have a time machine.

  185. 185.

    Brachiator

    @Martin:

    No, I agree. You can’t be too cynical about what a Democratic Congress might fail to do, but some GOP Senators aren’t willing to take the risk.

    I do not blame Democrats for any of this. Trump continues to have a viable political career only because of the aid and comfort of the GOP.

    I just think we should calibrate our cynicism by this new evidence.

    I am not cynical. I am a very hard-headed realist when it comes to Trump. Many Balloon Juice commenters, and the public at large, have consistently misjudged the success of Trump’s rise and his continued success, from the earliest days of the Republican primary until the present day.

    Trump is not smart. But he has a desperate, infantile and fear-fueled survival instinct. He will do anything, except abandon Ivanka, to get ahead.

    And the GOP leadership will always fold and capitulate to Trump if he rises again. This is what they have always done.

    BTW, in the UK, the Tories had a couple of opportunities to dump Boris Johnson. But like the GOP here, they have instead decided to hitch their future to the whims of an intellectually and morally empty charlatan.

    The prospects are not good.

  186. 186.

    Ruckus

    @danielx:

    Wouldn’t a company truck that is parked for reasons other than loading/unloading or waiting for a load/unload time because the driver decided to use the company truck for a blockade be a company truck that is out of service – costing them money rather than earning any? If I was the owner of said truck, I’d likely be rather pissed off, and rather likely to be looking for a replacement driver. IOW I’m finding it difficult to believe that everyone of these trucks is owner operated and loan free.

  187. 187.

    Bill Arnold

    @Betty Cracker:

    But since I’d already sullied my IP by visiting that wretched hive of scum and villainy, I read Ronna’s rant and a sampling of the comments under it.

    FWIW, Brave (browser) has a usable Tor mode. I don’t particularly trust it, but have confirmed that one shows as being on a (shared) Tor exit node when using a Tor window.

  188. 188.

    Bill Arnold

    @Martin:
    This caught my eye back then. Grassley’s staffers later “clarified”. Recall that Pence’s secret service detail wanted to drive him away for safekeeping, but Pence refused. Maybe nothing…

    NEW: Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the Senate president pro tempore, says he and not Vice President Mike Pence will preside over the certification of Electoral College votes, since “we don’t expect him to be there.”
    — Roll Call (@rollcall) January 5, 2021

  191. 191.

    kindness

    Love me some Nancy Smash.  Why is it when I see these videos I harken back to a year ago and remember ‘good’ (rose twitter) liberals who proudly proclaimed how terrible Nancy Smash is and how they could never support her.

    We are blessed to have idiots as opposition (Trumpers) and as fellow libs (Jill Stein liberals).

  192. 192.

    evodevo

    @Leto: ​
     Nope…not legal…using school property during school hrs…interfering with classes. They need to call Americans United, FFRF or the ACLU and file a complaint.

  195. 195.

    Bill Arnold

    @debbie:
    The plot (obligatory “if there was at least one plot”) was breathtakingly, stupidly fragile.
    And if it had succeeded, there would have been civil war. Low grade, maybe, but it would not have ended well for the Republican officials involved, and with a lot of collateral damage.

  196. 196.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl:

    i’m gonna have to write another post about the last hour-and-a-half, too. It’s like being John Cole for a day. 

    Didn’t know you had a Subaru.  Can someone lend you a car until you can get yours out of the field?

  197. 197.

    WaterGirl

    @mrmoshpotato: I assume so, at least that was my takeaway from her scrambled Gazpacho video today.  When I told a friend about Gazpacho Girl’s stupid video today, she told me that they have video of Greene taking people through the capital shortly before Jan 6.  I have not read that but I hope it’s true!

  206. 206.

    SFAW

    @Martin:

    but I’m guessing they have Trump dead to rights,

    You may be right — I’m hoping you are — but that fascist traitor will never serve time. Unfortunately.

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