The motly collection of MAGA nitwits who’ve been trying to duplicate the so-called Trucker Protest in Canada have been unlucky and unwise. Canada’s version wasn’t exactly a smashing success since the perps ended up being arrested and dragged on their asses across snowy parking lots while their vehicles were impounded. But it got lots of attention, and the MAGA-dopes want some of that.
The U.S. version hasn’t gone well. The pandemic mitigation measures the so-called People’s Convoy was ostensibly organized to protest got lifted before it really got underway, so now the cause is a hodge-podge of right-wing issues. Participation was spotty and media coverage lacking as the malcontents aimlessly circled Washington, D.C., getting flipped off by hostile motorists.
I was under the impression the People’s Convoy disbanded until they did something really dumb this weekend: they went to San Francisco and Oakland.
The spontaneous egg-tossing was understandably disjointed at first, but the counterprotest quickly professionalized as the crowd got larger and the convoy passed near a grocery store. People bought large quantities of eggs and brought them to the sidewalk, and the eggers were soon nailing the trucks in unison and with greater precision. At least one convoy dolt made the mistake of opening his window to remonstrate, and eggs flew into the cab until he hastily rolled the window up.
It’s heartening how people of many ages, races and walks of life came together to egg the convoy. In one YouTube clip of the San Fran egging, a woman who appears to be a passerby puts down her packages, helps herself to some eggs from a sidewalk carton, hurls a few at the whiny baby “truckers,” then picks up her stuff and resumes her day. Great job, everyone!
Open thread!
debbie
I look forward to the trucker whining about car damage later on Twitter!
Van Buren
@debbie: I’m sure more than one FOX idiot will be complaining about violent leftists today.
Elizabelle
Kay was having a field day with this item yesterday.
I am glad to see people fighting back.
Spanky
Damn! Eggs are like four bucks a dozen or more.
Rocks are cheaper.
MattF
Seems notable that the police didn’t see any reason to interfere.
Nicole
That video was a glorious way to start off a Monday. Thanks, Betty Cracker!
Elizabelle
That fool from the white pickup truck yelled back at the counterprotesters that “my mom died of the shot.”
I call bull on that one.
Scout211
The quote from one of the truckers just boggles my mind. That they really believe they have all of the citizens of the US behind them in this crazy protest is just beyond ridiculous.
Whoever is funding them must be stroking their egos to get them to keep doing this. Well, and funding them while stroking their egos.
Geminid
.
@Van Buren: “First they egged the truckers. But I was not a trucker and I did nothing.”
Scout211
@MattF:
They did show up to protect the Assemblymember’s home. Source.
Nicole
@Elizabelle: The woman he shrieked at also called bull on it. That was enormously satisfying.
mrmoshpotato
Fixed. :)
lowtechcyclist
I could watch that video all day, if I didn’t have to get to work.
lowtechcyclist
Indeed! I keep thinking their true role model is Dennis the Peasant: “Help, help, I’m being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Apparently they are based out of Sacramento, so the drove 80 miles to Berkley to protest something and gas is pretty pricey in Cal. These guys are just a pack of rich twats posing as truckers and/or complete idiots
Ken
I’ve been half-wondering if whoever’s funding the truckers is looking for a replacement brownshirt squad, since the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers* didn’t work out so well. If that’s the goal, it’s good to see that the anonymous funders still can’t find anyone halfway competent at anything, other than whining that life isn’t fair.
* Brilliantly characterized in the Zeddy tweet quoted in this BJ post: “It’s always been weird that 1/6 was basically a joint op between Oathkeepers (middle-aged, antisocial Facebook addicts pretending to be SEALs) and Proud Boys (stunted 4chan dorks pretending to be their high school bullies.)”
mrmoshpotato
Hahaha, excellent.
germy
“So much for the tolerant left”
Betsy
As a detester of unnecessary noise in neighborhoods, I just wonder how many people with migraines, new moms who had just gotten the baby to sleep, or other folks were napping or just trying to enjoy a nice spring day in those homes.
mrmoshpotato
@Spanky:
Damn. I hope the eggs I have in my fridge haven’t spoiled, because I didn’t pay 4 bucks for them whenever I bought them. ?
I always thought crack was for smoking, not throwing. Learn something new everyday.
OzarkHillbilly
@lowtechcyclist: Unlike these dipshits, Dennis at least believed in democracy.
hueyplong
@germy: The required FoxNews description for those rare moments when they acknowledge that they’re taking it instead of dishing it out.
sab
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: In Ohio they would be peacefully hanging out in diners eating their $20 breakfast, like working class people everywhere.
mrmoshpotato
@Scout211:
HONK! HONK! I’m fighting!
Alce_e_ardillo
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: If you have a chance, check out Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, who did a segment on truckers. Turns out their lot is surprisingly precarious, and they are being preyed upon by many of the corporate trucking firms. Why they choose to whine about imaginary problems instead of banding together ala Teamsters, to deal with it is beyond me.
OzarkHillbilly
“The egg is mightier than the gun toting trucker.” Doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as smoothly, but I like it.
WaterGirl
Is it too much to hope for that all those truckers develop hearing issues as the result of the incessant blaring of their own horns?
Kay
Just wanted to mention that despite what we were told in 10,000 sympathetic editorials, that they simply objected to masks and vaccine mandates, THIS trucker protest was about how they oppose abortion.
That’s why they went to the lawmakers street and blocked it and blew their horns. She lives there and she supports choice.
But you knew it wasn’t about the CDC or their lack of “faith in institutions” or hwo these simple, kindly folks have been lied to by Anthony Fauci. They’re standard issue Republican activists who support everything Republicans support and oppose everything Democrats support. But that doesn’t merit 5000 words in a think piece.
Gin & Tonic
Weird question, maybe raise the Mayhew bat signal. I’m visiting my daughter n MD. Friday I had a minor accident resulting in a wound that needed suturing, so I went to a nearby “urgent care.” After an interminable registration process with at least two non-HIPAA-compliant questions, they told me they “do not accept out-of-state Medicare.” I explained that although I am not an MD resident, Medicare is a Federal program required to be accepted in all 50 states. They did not budge and refused to treat me. Since I was still bleeding, I decided not to stay and argue but go elsewhere to be treated. Ended up getting four stitches at a different urgent care center, and I’m fine, but today begins my war. I believe that first center was violating Federal law. Yes?
Skepticat
I’m having a seriously bad couple of weeks and haven’t been online much, but I must tell you this made me much happier.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: I think it depends on which Medicare supplemental insurance you have. IIRC mine does not travel well.
lowtechcyclist
@Gin & Tonic: I can’t answer your question, but I hope you dripped some blood on their rugs or upholstery.
OzarkHillbilly
Being an open thread and all that:
source.
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic: As a Maryland resident, I would like you to name names. And yes, that’s a bullshit registration procedure in this state.
Helena Montana
Also, too, their own dogs are peeing on their food.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-peoples-convoy-cant-stop-their-own-dogs-from-peeing-on-their-food
Scout211
@Gin & Tonic:
Do you have regular Medicare? Then yes, they should have treated you.
If you have a Medicare Advantage plan, then it gets more complicated and you need to study what your plan pays for if you are out of state.. There are all kinds of different Advantage plans but most are state specific or even regionally specific and are HMOs with specific catchment areas. Some do not pay unless you see a provider who is on your plan. It could be that this provider was not on your plan. There may have been another facility that would see you under your plan but Advantage plans are HMOs so you would have to look that up before seeking treatment. You may even have to get prior approval first. Advantage plans usually have providers that will accept your plan if you are out of your HMO area but they may be few and far between. Check your plan information.
Updated for clarity.
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: I’d never heard of the Bear League until today, and now I think they should have their own movie series.
Soprano2
I don’t know if this has been mentioned here, but a man in California was arrested for making threats against the people who defined “female” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary! I wish the press would notice who the real “snowflakes” are – the people who are threatened by a definition in the dictionary!
narya
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, technically, an anarcho-syndicalist collective. (I used the script for that scene as the intro to a paper in grad school.)
Elizabelle
Anne put up a morning thread.
OzarkHillbilly
@narya: Power is derived thru a mandate of the people! Not some farcical aquatic ceremony!
Gin & Tonic
@Scout211: I have old-fashioned, standard Federal Medicare Parts A and B. Which I told them several times. I am aware of the issue with alternative “Medicare” plans, which is why I was very clear.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Alce_e_ardillo: Oh, I get that, my sister’s mother in law is married to a trucker. Which is one the reasons I call bullshit in this, because working class folks got to work. Maybe at first it was actual truckers in a panic they lose their jobs over the vax mandate but I think by now the grifters have taken over.
Gin & Tonic
@Spanky: It might rhyme with “ancient wurst”
...now I try to be amused
@Alce_e_ardillo:
I’m guessing the protest truckers are owner-operators. They’re in the same gilet jaune class as the small business owners and real estate agents that were a large part of the 1/6 insurrectionists.
narya
@OzarkHillbilly: Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for for a system of government!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ken: Something else that vanished along with the Proud Bois was the guys in mask who claimed to be antifa and always showed up to fight them. It’s almost like that was a false flag (to be clear, I am not saying I think Antifa was a false flag, just the violent counter protestors, it was almost like the two groups viewed it a combat sport and had rules)
Scout211
@Gin & Tonic:
Okay, good. You most definitely have reason to protest. I would recommend contacting Medicare and also the billing department of the provider who refused to see you. There are serious consequences if providers refuse to see a patient who is covered under traditional Medicare. They could lose their ability to take any patient with Medicare and most insurance panels require their providers be certified as Medicare providers to be a plan provider. Someone definitely messed up. But was it incompetence or a directive from administration? Time will tell.
I would definitely push this (if you have the energy to do so). Most Medicare patients don’t know how to protest this or who to contact. Plus, it is frustrating and time-consuming. Good luck.
...now I try to be amused
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Antifa have shown up where protesters needed protection from right-wing mobs (and the police won’t protect them), like Charlottesville and the BLM protests. They don’t show up at protests where only right-wingers are present (i.e., where they are not needed), like 1/6 and the truckers’ protests. I like to think Antifa have political savvy and discipline.
Ella in New Mexico
@Gin & Tonic: Part B is national, and Medicare advantage plans should always have coverage that can apply out-of-state for emergent care, which should include ED’s and UC’s.
It’s possible the urgent care center doesn’t file claims for out-of-state providers but you could submit the bill for coverage with your plan later.
BC in Illinois
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
This is the same “Hagerstown to D.C.” model.
It’s like protesting in St. Louis, but having your home base in Rolla.
Gin & Tonic
@Scout211: I have time, and I am both annoying and persistent.
Cameron
Another antifa plot to raise food prices for hard-working Merkins. NYT needs to send an investigative team to a diner in the heartland, stat.
artem1s
@Scout211:
Yea, I’ve pretty much been having this argument with my conspiracy addled uncle since the 1980’s. Even if I believed the government was out to get me, why on earth do they think we’d turn to them during an apocalypse or collapse of the US when they tell us daily that they wish we’d all leave or die? They all want to think they’d be The Postman in the case of an apocalypse but demonstrate daily they’d act like the cannibals in The Road.
Calouste
@Ken: The brown shirts were effective as an organization because just about every male in Germany between 17 and 45 had been in the army in WWI. They were trained and organized and disciplined. Most of the Oathkeepers and Proud Boys are cosplayers, or at best infantry grunts who think they should have been Seals.
Feckless
Egg these treasonous motherfuckers every time they show their faces.
These people on the sidewalk should be in congress instead of the useless fossils cashing paychecks while our country dies.
NotMax
Relevant to some of the above.
“Could” is doing yeoman’s work in that sentence.
Chris T.
Hah, the Safeway (at the funky intersection at College and Claremont) during the 2nd half of the video is my old Safeway from my Oakland years. There used to be a really good bakery, La Ferrine, a block or two down from there towards Berkeley, and the Oakland Zachary’s is a few blocks further into Oakland. (Alas, La Ferrine apparently closed due to lack of traffic during peak COVID.)
kindness
Makes me proud to live in the glorious People’s Republic of California.
Go Team!
Whereaway
@Gin & Tonic: For what it’s worth, I was able to find a Medicare Advantage plan that’s a PPO, rather than an HMO. And – it specifically states that any doctor or facility in the US that’s in-network for any of the carrier’s Medicare Advantage plans is in-network for me. This comes without any additional cost to me. The carrier is one of the largest in the US, which probably helps that.
I was astounded when looking for plans to discover that there were any PPO plans available for Medicare Advantage.
I have better healthcare coverage now than I did when working for the carrier referenced above…
Now, the plan itself is specific to Colorado, I have no idea what’s available elsewhere
Whereaway
@Chris T.: I lived in Berkeley for 14 years when younger, and these truckers were idiots. Berkeley/North Oakland is one of the most liberal areas in the already liberal Bay Area, and their apparent expectation that they’d be welcomed tells me they’re incapable of any research, or any understanding that -lots- of people think they’re full of shit.
Ruckus ??
@Alce_e_ardillo:
There aren’t many London School of Economics graduates among them. Those semi tractors cost a lot, both to run and to purchase. Diesel here in SoCal is over $6/gal and they likely get maybe 8mpg without a trailer. Those full sized pickups don’t do a lot better. Someone is paying them to be the assholes they are because they have just spent a month or two driving around without a load. (Well other than a load of bullshit – that they have in abundance)
Ruckus ??
@WaterGirl:
They already have serious mental health issues, how’s a little hearing loss going to make that worse?
brendancalling
Late to this party, but as someone who used to love going out on Mischief Night, I’d like to point out that eggs can do a real number on your car’s paint job.
Betsy
Finally had a chance to watch the whole video with sound on away from other people. Dang, that was cathartic
Fuckwit Trumpers always be coming to to nice, central places where public discourse means something. They live out in the sticks when there’s no public squares or places to demonstrate so they have to come to places like San Francisco and DC (where there is civic infrastructure and public life) to “express themselves”
Hungry Joe
@Chris T.: Ha! I think that’s my old Safeway, too, from my Berkeley days. (Long before yours, I suspect.)
I found the video frustrating: Although I’m 71, I’ve still got a pretty good arm. Was aching to fire a few eggs through an open window. “STRIKE! RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE!”
Kay
@Betsy:
During Trump’s 2020 campaign they “slow rolled” on a two lane state highway here, completely blocking anyone who wanted to pass. One of the citizen-hostages stuck behind them called 911 to get a sheriff’s deputy out to clear the highway so he could get to work. I spoke to him. He was absolutely furious that they were able to do this with no police interference, for mile after mile. He doesn’t know if the police ever responded.
divF
@brendancalling: When a friend of mine was bullied for being gay during high school in the early 90’s, a bunch of his friends got together to write anti-bullying graffiti on the bullies’ car hoods in bottled ranch dressing. Turns out that stuff eats through the finish as well.
Chris T.
@Hungry Joe: They completely rebuilt that Safeway some time between 2002 and 2014 (a period when I didn’t live in the area). Before that I was in El Cerrito/North Berkeley (so hardly ever went to that particular Safeway), and after that I was in Oakland (and did go there).
Jay
Watching the video, I noticed that these were people who had trucks, maybe not truckers.
two stood out big time, the former firetruck, and the white extended cab with a flat deck not a hitch. That’s a Penis RV, not a working semi.
Ruckus ??
@Jay:
Yes they weren’t all semi trucks. But several of them were. And almost all of them get super good mileage, likely in single digits or low double digits. Gas here in SoCal is $5.50 and up and diesel easily over $6 at the station next door. And that white truck is likely a motorhome that can tow a large trailer and diesel powered. And it’s possible that several of the pickups could be diesel. So other than all the noise, congestion and stupidity, the whole thing cost a lot in money and air pollution, not to mention the water to wash off all the eggs. I’m laughing my ass off at the extreme stupidity of this entire stunt. Although it does show the incredible intelligence of the right side of the aisle. OK that was hard to type laughing.
cain
@Alce_e_ardillo:
It’s likely that they see themselves as libertarian free spirits. The demographics have probably changed. It’s okay to be preyed upon if everyone are all in on the same politics I guess.
Ol Froth
Why was a fire truck, presumembly a government vehicle, participating?
Mendo
@Chris T.: I used to live nearby as well. You’ll be happy to know that La Farine is actually still open. They had a branch in North Berkeley that closed a few years ago, but the College Ave store is still open (at least it was last time I was in the neighborhood).
Ol Froth
OK, it appears it was an ex-firetruck, but by using emergency lights and siren, I’m pretty sure a couple of laws were broken.
Chris T.
@Mendo: If La Farine is still running, that’s good, but doesn’t do me any good any more. Unless they expand to Washington state anyway. ?
opiejeanne
@Ol Froth: Oh yeah, people who are not authorized to use those things can get in some trouble, and they should all be cited for violating noise ordinances.
sab
@Whereaway: Probably they are showing on their own angry media all those plump angry older ladies with no makeup throwing eggs.
What we see isn’t what they see. But I still think we won, and didn’t our guys get those tractors out of their (our/ not them) actual own residential streets? Ottawa had them around for days and days.