Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

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

Celebrate the fucking wins.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

People are weird.

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

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

An almost top 10,000 blog!

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Open Thread: At the Pointy End of ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’

Open Thread: At the Pointy End of ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’

by | 106 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

At the Pointy End of 'Legitimate Political Discourse' - Stockpile

(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)

 

Plenty of media attention for Saint Ashli, but what about the other woman who died during the insurrection? Well, she wasn’t a ‘good’, photogenic victim. From Vanity Fair, “Rosanne Boyland Was Outside the U.S. Capitol Last January 6. How—And Why—Did She Die?”

… Rosanne Boyland came from my hometown of Kennesaw, Georgia. Unmarried, she was regarded by family members as a great and devoted aunt, often pitching in to babysit her friends’ kids, or pick up her nieces from school. Intimates describe her as compassionate, empathetic, and close to her parents and siblings. She also had a history of battles with opiates and heroin addiction, frequently attending meetings to help her with substance abuse issues. She had worked occasional odd jobs over the years (such as wrapping gifts at a local kiosk during the Christmas season), but found it hard to secure steady work because she had had an arrest record, including a felony conviction for a drug-related offense. For the most part, she was unemployed and living with her parents.

Rosanne was not normally a political diehard or right-wing fanatic. In fact, as Justin Cave told me in his initial message, everything she would come to believe and espouse in her social media posts—her ardent support for Donald Trump and her convictions about secretive child-trafficking conspiracies—she would absorb and adopt over the course of a scant six months or so…

As one reads her texts and online messages, one senses that QAnon helped provide some elemental meaning, a sense of community—and a kind of clarity amid the darkness. In fact, in one of Rosanne’s final posts on Parler, a social-networking platform popular among those who went to the Capitol on January 6, she wrote about feeling like she finally belonged: “I want to say thank you to everyone involved in this movement. My family thinks I’m crazy, but I’m heading up from ATL to be shoulder to shoulder with my true brothers and sisters.” She signed off the message with the #WWG1WGAWW, shorthand for “Where we go one, we go all,” a telling sign that Rosanne was deeply into Q…

How will she be remembered? To some, she’s become a martyr, especially among those who believe, without definitive evidence, that she was killed by the police. To her family, she is a loving, caring person who, only near the end of her life, got sucked into a conspiracist abyss. And yet, it still seems as if most people don’t really know who she was: a young woman from Kennesaw, Georgia, who had suffered tremendous hardships in her life, including abuse and addiction; a victim of disinformation being peddled by extremists and exploited by a demagogue who utilized countless people with vulnerable mindsets or warped agendas or unlawful impulses to heed his calls of keeping him in power. It’s hard to know where or when—if at all—her tragic outcome could have been averted. It is something that haunts her family.

But there is another reason to remember Rosanne Boyland. In the end, as her own actions and words reveal, she believed in what she was doing by driving up to Washington, D.C. And those who descended on the Capitol on January 6 did so with a single purpose: to derail the constitutional process. Failing to understand this fundamental reality means that American democracy remains just as vulnerable today as it was a year ago on that cold winter day.


At the Pointy End of 'Legitimate Political Discourse' - Stockpile 1

(John Deering via GoComics.com)

The GOP Death Cult stalwarts, of course, have a different viewpoint:

Very fine people, no doubt. Back the Blue! — unless those hirelings interfere with our agenda.

Reader Interactions

106Comments

  3. 3.

    zhena gogolia

    The federal agents stirred up Jan. 6 just as Biden is stirring up Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, I guess.

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’ve heard that the podcast about that woman, also by Mohyeldin, is really good, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

    Plenty of media attention for Saint Ashli,

    not enough, IMHO. How many people know she was a screaming nutcase with a history of violent stalking

    Babbitt was charged with reckless endangerment, dangerous driving and malicious property damage for the crash — but was later acquitted, according to court papers.

    But she also allegedly called in false police reports against Norris and harassed her with late-night phone calls, Norris later said in a restraining order, according to the outlet.

    another dangerous criminal let loose to do more violent cramming

  7. 7.

    Damien

    I know that Trump just opened up the sewer mains that were inside these people all along, but it just feels like we are so wildly on a precipice now that even MOC are jumping on this insanity. They’re playing with fire AFTER getting burned, and I fear we’re going to see some really dark and violent times ahead when the arsonists lose control again.

    This is deeply, wildly dangerous, especially recognizing so many signs from the books Adam recommended to me, as well as the failure of the State to properly administer the nation in the face of insurrection. Guaranteed disaster

  10. 10.

    zhena gogolia

    Of course I do think of Roseanne Boyland every time I see a “Don’t Tread on Me” bumper sticker.

  14. 14.

    Anne Laurie

    @zhena gogolia: So I guess Chip’s post isn’t coming back tonight?

    I checked the dashboard; Chip’s post has been rescheduled to *next* Saturday at 3pm.

    TaMara’s got a cookie post scheduled for 7pm, which is why I put this up now… give y’all a place to vent!

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    And yet, it still seems as if most people don’t really know who she was: a young woman from Kennesaw, Georgia, who had suffered tremendous hardships in her life, including abuse and addiction; a victim of disinformation being peddled by extremists and exploited by a demagogue…

    She was 34 years old. Is that young?

    She felt like she “belonged.” I have encountered people who believe crazy stuff, including conspiracies that they unshakably believe. You can usually ignore them.

    But I don’t know what to do about people who join domestic terror organizations in order to belong. She and others like her may have had a hard life, but they are a threat to democracy and to stable society.

  17. 17.

    Mary G

    Is it bad if I opened up a Door Dash or Postmates account and ordered the chocolate milkshade I am so craving? It’s almost the second anniversary of my confinement.

  20. 20.

    James E Powell

    I saw a little CNN today because I was in a place where somebody else had it on.

    They are giving missing-airplane coverage to the events in Canada. They are quite clearly eager to see the same happen in the States. When they discuss it, they are literally shaking with anticipation.

    24 hour news shows were a terrible idea.

  25. 25.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mary G: If it weren’t for GrubHub, the Spousal Unit & I would never have made it this far through the pandemic.

    We’re in a well-served delivery area — one of our criteria for buying a house, all those years ago, was easy access to reasonably-priced restaurants & takeaways.   I know lots of people decided to use the pandemic to improve their kitchen skills, but we both have ADD.

    Our excuse is that we’re fortunate to be able to afford to provide modest support to local food joints during this time when they *really* need the business…

  26. 26.

    Anne Laurie

    @CROAKER: Why does this blog roll this stuff over like your hiding Jimmie Hoffa?

    So that readers using phones or tablets don’t have to scroll endlessly to see more than one post on their ‘front page.’

  27. 27.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    This will come as no surprise to Rochester dwellers.  I drove to Swain and back for skiing today.  I saw the most drumph flags I’ve yet seen in a short amount of time through Nunda.  At least 5.  Plus a couple Fuck Joe Biden flags, a few confederate flags, and a big Don’t blame me I voted for drumph banner.  All displayed proudly on  properties of run down, falling apart farm houses.  Sigh.

  29. 29.

    germy

    Trump has been complaining loudly to people that SCOOTER LIBBY, who he pardoned, is attended a fundraiser for Liz Cheney. He has indicated he sees it as somehow disloyal, per people familiar with the discussions.— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 12, 2022

    One betrayal after another

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy: trying to remember who re-tweeted that with the addition that trump has asked out loud if he can rescind a pardon. “I do hereby and wherefore declare bigly a takesie-backsie!”

  35. 35.

    Kay

    @Brachiator

    Boyland was an addict who encountered Q/Trumpism at an AA meeting she attended frequently. Within 3 months she was completely obsessed. She had a felony conviction so had to jump thru a lot of hoops to qualify to vote in 2020, which she did.
    DC law enforcement did an autopsy and reported that she had died not of injuries sustained in the riot, but of heart and respiratory failure brought on by taking amphetamines- they did the standard drug screen and that’s what came up- I assume perhaps aggravated by joining a riot and storming a building. Her family disputes this claim- they insist she remained sober even after the descent into Trumpism.

  37. 37.

    CarolPW

    At least one person with family, friends and/or colleagues in Ukraine find the pique expressed by many commenters on the rescheduling of an Artists post disturbing.

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    Her family disputes this claim- they insist she remained sober even after the descent into Trumpism.

    Trumpism itself is like a kind of drug.

  40. 40.

    Jay

    @Kay:

    she was taking amphetamines,  they were proscribed, not meth.

    the family disputes that they were the cause of her death, not that they contributed to her death.

    they don’t think that the Coroner dug deep enough, just called it after a tox screen.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @Brachiator:

    Her father and sister don’t say this outright, but my sense was they believe DC law enforcement were trying to make her look bad by attributing the death to amphetamine use, particularly the father who is also a Trumpist. I think if they had wanted to make Trump people look bad they could have just reported cause of death as “Trumpists trampled her to death” and not done a drug screen at all, so I think this is just more paranoid conspiracy stuff.

  44. 44.

    J R in WV

    Just to let folks know, I brought Wife home from hospital last night. She got good marks on a heart cath the day before also too!

    So mostly good news.

  46. 46.

    Kay

    @Jay:

    Right. I know amphetamines are not meth. If I had meant meth I would have said it. I don’t think the family understand the coroners report. They exclude. So she didn’t die from a fractured skull and she didn’t die by asphyxiation but she was not in good health and in an extraordinarily stressful situation and taking either a prescribed dose or more than that.

    I get it- she was proud of being sober and they don’t want that taken away from her but the truth is they don’t know if she was. The three month period they describe where her behavior got more and more bizarre could also be a relapse. It happens. A lot.

  47. 47.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    Her father and sister don’t say this outright, but my sense was they believe DC law enforcement were trying to make her look bad by attributing the death to amphetamine use, particularly the father who is also a Trumpist.

    I am not going to make political hay over this woman’s death.

    But I note that often when a nonwhite person dies as a result of some interaction with the authorities or supposedly hostile political event, there are white people who fall all over themselves to try to demonize the person who died, to show that somehow they got what was coming to them, or that somehow they just were not the right kind of people, and certainly not someone deserving sympathy.

    It’s sad that some people never learn or expect respect when they never offer respect to others.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    @Brachiator:

    What I got from it is this is how they are- they just don’t accept explanations. So she’s the extreme end of that but they all have a leaning toward “this is what they SAID, but we don’t believe it”.

  51. 51.

    Jay

    @Kay:

    the Coroner attributed her death to amphetamines, not being crushed to death under a crowd. The report doesn’t even mention her being crushed under a pile.

    I would say that probably “the family” feels that her death was just “dismissed”. In tragedy, we look for answers and meaning.

    My cousin Miles, a talented musician, a joyful man, was attempting to deal with a tragic breakup, returned home to The Pass, alone, was playing in his Uncles and Dad’s band again, part time driving a crew bus for the Coal Mine,

    died of carbon monoxide poisoning one winter night in his campervan, parked in his parents driveway.

    We don’t know if it was an accident, ( exhaust leak) or suicide because the Coroner stopped looking after carbon monoxide.

  58. 58.

    trollhattan

    @Baud: ​
    It’s possible. I recall from the early-early covid days the husband of who may have been the first California victim arranged an autopsy, which found her heart had burst (non-medical term on my part). Her “comorbidity” was being a middle age marathoner.

    That scared the snot out of me.

  60. 60.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    So she’s the extreme end of that but they all have a leaning toward “this is what they SAID, but we don’t believe it”.

    Good luck to them.

    Otherwise, I would like to find ways to prevent people from becoming domestic terrorists. And I want to see those who have been apprehended punished.

    I also want to see Trump and the GOP punished as well.

  62. 62.

    Jay

    @Baud:

    yeah, they can, not cheap. Probably would have had to preserve the death scene, fly a Coroner in from Edmonton along with a Vehicle Accident Investigator, which, being The Pass and weather, could be a couple weeks, or over a month.

    Miles fired up his engine to run the heater, fell asleep, never woke up. Carbon Monoxide poisoning.

    Suicide or accident. Once carbon monoxide was “called”, they stopped looking. Nobody checked for exhaust leaks and holes in the floorboards, or melted rubber trace on the exhaust suggesting a hose.

  65. 65.

    WaterGirl

    @J R in WV: Oh, yay!  So she can have the surgery, but she has to be super super careful in the meantime?

    edit: Or did she already have the surgery?  That would seem like a really fast discharge, if so.

  73. 73.

    SFAW

    @Jay:

    Insufferable Pedant Alert/Trigger Warning!

     they were proscribed, not meth.

    “Proscribed” and “prescribed” mean (approximately) opposite things.

  80. 80.

    RaflW

    @Damien: This Matt Gurney thread (from about a week ago, but very relevant) about the situation in Ottawa is sobering. I only recently became aware of him, and maybe he’s a crank or has agendas I don’t know, but it’s quite an analysis.

    And the g.d. Republicans want this to unfold here as well. Because they are fundamentally disloyal to even the bare idea of America (many, many warts and all) much less the Constitution.

  83. 83.

    Mary G

    Thank you, everyone who validated my longings for unhealthy food already made and delivered.  The sticker shock for a home eater’s pretty bad, though.

    It’s not to say I can never get it without a service – my housemates are very helpful and not judgmental, but housemate mom is working a 3-day live in job and the teen is tiling a house in Sedona AZ.

  86. 86.

    J R in WV

    @WaterGirl:

    Or did she already have the surgery? That would seem like a really fast discharge, if so.

    No, you’re right. She needs to see a pulmonary guy before being cleared for the surgery, which is probably a week or two away yet. I’ll be burning up the phone come Monday.

    In the meantime, the well pump is le mort… we have plenty of drinking water, and flushing water, but showers and dish washing are out of the picture… Paper plates and sandwiches, etc.

    Travails never stop!

    Arghh~!!~

  88. 88.

    cliosfanboy

    And The capitol police officer who testified before Congress has since been ostracized by his fellow cops….

  89. 89.

    CarolPW

    @zhena gogolia: I think both should have been posted, because people can walk and chew gum at the same time. I did not crap on the artists post, and do not understand why the people upset about the delay of the artists post felt it necessary to crap on the Ukraine posts.

  91. 91.

    sdhays

    @SFAW: LOL. A running gag with my dad is to insult him (or him me) and then immediately follow that with, “Oh, no offense!”

  93. 93.

    CaseyL

    @J R in WV: Very good news!  How active is she allowed to be?  More importantly, how does she feel?

    ETA: I just read that Mrs. J R in WV hasn’t actually had the surgery yet, so… never mind my question.

  96. 96.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us

    @trollhattan:  running marathons is not good for your health. It’s certainly not the worst thing you could do but it does shorten life expectancy some. Those extreme distance events put a lot of strain on the cardiovascular system. Some stress is good because it leads to strength but like everything else if you overdo it too much or too often it can do damage.

  97. 97.

    Mary G

    @sab:  The driver was wonderful, so amazing that as I arrived at the door I saw two hairy legs wearing bright purple socks being loved on by two different cats. Shiloh the Scardy Cat NEVER greets anyone at the door, not even me. The driver was very gracious untangling himself and the bag.
    They weren’t wrong, the fish in the fish n chips was delicious.

  101. 101.

    JoyceH

    @Anne Laurie:

    Famously, the runner of the first ‘Marathon‘ is supposed to have dropped dead at the finish line.

    Yeah, but Pheidippides didn’t just run a Marathon. First he ran from Athens to Sparta, with the message, “Some help, guys?”, then BACK from Sparta to Athens with the message, “They’re not coming,” THEN from Athens to Marathon, where he fought in the battle all day, and THEN the famous ‘marathon’, from Marathon to Athens with the news that they won the battle. No wonder he dropped dead!

  102. 102.

    Anne Laurie

    @JoyceH: A very definite ‘proceed at your own risk’ warning, though.

    Humans, like wolves / dogs, are theoretically ‘born to run’.   Running brings many people joy.  But marathons are a  grueling form of running, by design, and sometimes the HEALTHY! label misleads individuals into pushing their bodies too hard.

  103. 103.

    Geminid

    @JoyceH: Pheidippides also wanted to warn the Athenians that the Persians had reembarked and their ships were headed towards Athens.

  104. 104.

    Nancy

    @Old Dan and Little Ann:

    I wish it were surprising. Taking the “scenic route” has been educational for me more than once. Expressways are fast and convenient but one misses the view you described when zooming along on the limited access routes.

    Seeing the flags and banners is scarey infuriating.

  105. 105.

    zhena gogolia

    @CarolPW: I NEVER insisted that the Ukraine posts go away. I was commenting in the Ukraine posts. I didn’t see why another post had to be eliminated so that people could talk about Ukraine in the Ukraine posts. Can you explain why that would be?

Comments are closed.