Wouldn’t it be nice if this were true?
Every Congressperson screaming outrage over Trump’s indictment tonight…is wondering how much Mark Meadows has flipped and whether they’re next.
To be continued.
— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) June 9, 2023
Hmm, let’s take a look. (screen captures below, so no engagement clicks for them!)
Boebert outrage, check.
Gaetz outrage, check.
Marge outrage, check.
So far so good! I hope he’s right about that!
Any other elected officials lining up with an enthusiastic defense of Trump? Hopefully Jack Smith is making a list and checking it twice.
Speaking of Mark Meadows, first I saw that he had pled guilty to several smaller offenses in return for “limited immunity”. Then we heard the attorney for Meadows say no deal had been made. Where do things start on that now?
Question for all of you. Is it too soon – or too optimistic – to add a category for Congressional indictments related to Jan 6?
Then, of course, there’s this.
Violent Rhetoric from Trump Supporters is Disturbing (gift link NYT)
The former president’s allies have portrayed the indictment as an act of war and called for retribution, which political violence experts say increases the risk of action.
The federal indictment of former President Donald J. Trump has unleashed a wave of calls by his supporters for violence and an uprising to defend him, disturbing observers and raising concerns of a dangerous atmosphere ahead of his court appearance in Miami on Tuesday.
In social media posts and public remarks, close allies of Mr. Trump — including a member of Congress — have portrayed the indictment as an act of war, called for retribution and highlighted the fact that much of his base carries weapons. The allies have painted Mr. Trump as a victim of a weaponized Justice Department controlled by President Biden, his potential opponent in the 2024 election.
The calls to action and threats have been amplified on right-wing media sites and have been met by supportive responses from social media users and cheers from crowds, who have become conditioned over several years by Mr. Trump and his allies to see any efforts to hold him accountable as assaults against him.
Experts on political violence warn that attacks against people or institutions become more likely when elected officials or prominent media figures are able to issue threats or calls for violence with impunity. The pro-Trump mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was drawn to Washington in part by a post on Twitter from Mr. Trump weeks earlier, promising that it would be “wild.”
The former president alerted the public to the indictment on Thursday evening in posts on his social media platform, attacking the Justice Department and calling the case “THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME.”“Eye for an eye,” wrote Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, in a post on Twitter on Friday. His warning came shortly before the special counsel in the case, Jack Smith, spoke to the public for the first time since he took over the investigation of Mr. Trump’s retention of classified documents.
On Instagram, Mr. Trump’s eldest son’s fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, posted a photo of the former president with the words, “Retribution Is Coming,” in all capital letters.
Open thread.
NotMax
When it comes to Meadows, give me Jayne or Audrey any day.
;)
raven
Miss Pitty Pat is strokin out on This Week!
WaterGirl
@raven: I forget who Miss Pitty Pat is.
Mike in NC
When I read about a couple of people working on a biography of lowlife Mark Meadows, all I can think is who would give a shit about that?
raven
@WaterGirl: Lindsay
WaterGirl
@raven: Of course! How could i have forgotten that one?
NotMax
@Mike in NC
Regnery Press: “Are you sh*tting us? Even we have standards.”
//
TheDeadlyShoe
@Mike in NC: Noone reads these tomes of evil, but if you know the right people you get a huge pile of wingnut welfare money… the books themselves get mulched or flogged to conservative ‘book clubs’.
kalakal
@raven:
Quick! Prepare the Fainting Couch!
Scout211
Link
Thank you, Jack Smith. We’ll see if loose Cannon plays nice with this request.
bbleh
From what I read, TFG’s rhetoric is getting into Qanon / Revelations territory, eg talking about a “final battle.” Problem with this kinda eschatological sh!t is, you can’t ratchet it any further, and then when it doesn’t happen, all the air goes out of it. Can’t happen too soon
@kalakal: I figure they’re gonna need a whole fleet of them. Plus, of course, plenty of photographers on hand.
oldgold
I saw Lindsey on This Week. It was a deranged, shouty, pouty, “but her emails” performance. Almost impossibly, Gymmy J’s performance on State of the Nation was worse.
p.a.
So how soon does the FTFNYT etc start pushing the newest “questions are being raised about Joe’s propriety” vomitus from conservaturd cloud-cuckoo-land into the general discussion?
Newest because each and every real corruption on their part elicits a (slightly) different lie about corruption on our side, and generally the same MSM “both sides” response.
Scout211
@raven: Hey, Lindsey is taking a principled stand this morning. And by principled, I mean wish-washy. Link
ETA: or as oldgold commented, “deranged, shouty, pouty”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Edited
Layer8Problem
It’s gone where no one thought they’d go, but they did: they’ve weaponized the use of the word “weaponize.” The living will envy the dead.
gene108
Outside of Sen. Romney, no one on the Republican side accepts reality and/or will tone down the calls to violence.
I “look forward” to the next Republican AG to
persecuteprosecute any Democrat that gets in their way.MattF
I think the performative violence of ‘conservative’ response to TFG’s treason is just astounding. Don’t know where they can go from here, but I guess we’ll find out within the next year or so.
oatler
@raven:
I don’t know why ABC trotted out that fonzaloon to attack Dems. The news orgs are treating TFG like a normal candidate, and Christie is off the panel for now while he “campaigns”.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Here’s Alina Haba proving she didn’t read the indictment. Is she still one of his lawyers?
Carlo Graziani
@bbleh:
“What if they gave an insurrection, and nobody came?”
Bupalos
We shouldn’t be underestimating the way this indictment increases the tension and stakes of the 2024 election and its aftermath. This confrontation needed to happen, but I do hope folks are ready to take the personal risks that may be required of each of us to see it through. We frequently talk about the way this Trumpist movement is a cult. In many ways it is, and I’m not sure that we’re prepared for that reality or thinking about how to counter that effectively.
Another Scott
@Scout211:
By “conduct… Hillary Clinton” they mean “endlessly investigated deranged false charges against Hillary Clinton”, of course.
Both-sidesing is going to be the death of humanity if these idiots get their way.
Grr…,
Scott.
Baud
@Scout211:
I assume no journalist asked why Republicans weren’t responding the same way they did with Hillary Clinton.
JaySinWA
@NotMax: Regnery press standards:
“If some right wing group with enough funds agrees to buy the first run press edition, we’re in.”
kalakal
@TheDeadlyShoe: Even better, the Wingnut Welfare bulk buys push them ( briefly) into the FTNYT bestseller list ( usually in categories such as Political Biographies released between 3:17 and 3:21pm on a Tuesday) so the odious toads then proclaim they’re a bestselling author.
Baud
@Mike in NC:
I hope he titles it “American Patsy.”
Chyron HR
Not a single one of them, not even Trump’s own children, have ever tried to claim that he’s innocent. Wonder why?
Fester Addams
I guess it would be irresponsible to speculate the truck fire-induced bridge collapse closing I-95 near Philadelphia this AM was the work of Trumpist terrorists. There was that coded tweet from Clay Higgins (R – Shithead) the other day.
Alison Rose
Is the identity of the person behind the fake Jack Smith account known? Part of me likes thinking that it is actually Jack Smith pretending to pretend to be Jack Smith.
scav
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Everyone who stuffs valuable, cherished personable mementos into the shower and leaves not-to-be-touched or rummaged objects on stages in large rooms, raise your hands!
extra points if all of the above are in visibly squished and crumbled cardboard containers!
John S.
@Baud:
No way. Asking that question would pop a giant hole in their “both sides” hot air balloon. Although it’s always a fun thought exercise to imagine if the shoe was on the other foot…
I mean, given how the GOP has literally spent decades going after the Clintons, and come up empty, one can only imagine how frothing they would be if you substituted TRUMP with CLINTON in this indictment.
Baud
@oatler:
To attack Dems.
gene108
@Bupalos:
When very powerful entities like the Republican Party, the conservative billionaires propping up right wing media and astroturf groups, etc. are all in on doing what the cult leader wants, we’re going to need a lot more than just “us” to counter it.
It’s going to be a group effort that has to mobilize more than just Democrats. We need Independents and other low-info voters to realize the gravity of the situation. For that to happen, we’ll need the MSM to not bothsides their reporting. They did this a bit in the last couple of years of the Trump administration.
If it comes to violence, and blood in the streets, conservatives win. They’re a lot more primed to engage in violence than liberals, and some of them have been fantasizing and planning it out in their daydreams for years.
Anyway
Who did ABC and CBS have from the Ds of Administration to counter the R crazies?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@scav: She seems to be saying the evidence in the photo was planted by the FBI. If that’s the kind of defense Trump gets, he’s in trouble. Of course, he’s in trouble anyway.
oldgold
The GOP is FUBAR. It needs to be euthanized and replaced by a new party espousing Granddad’s conservative principles. Generally, I do not agree with these principles, but understand how rational people in good faith could espouse them.
Evidence of the party’s complete descent into madness is the response of Trump’s competitors for the presidential nomination. They all trail him badly. They have no chance absent a political earthquake. Yet, when the predicate for this earthquake comes forward, the indictment, rather than embrace it, except for a couple of outliers with no chance under any circumstances, Hutchinson and Christie, Trump’s supposed competitors assail and denounce it.
Why? Because they understand the Republican Party as currently constituted has descended into madness.
Matt McIrvin
Well, they noticed about 8 years too late but I guess that’s something.
Eolirin
@oldgold: When the problem is the Republican base voter, the only way this changes is if the Republican media environment, which includes their churches, is dismantled. And I have no idea how the hell that can be accomplished.
We can make them politically irrelevant by getting all the people who aren’t okay with the crazy to rise up against them, but marginalization is unlikely to change their behaviors, more likely to make them even worse, and while they’ll shrink under those circumstances, see for example Califorina’s Republican party, the risks of violence go up.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I read that as Pansy.
TBonette
@Fester Addams: my first thought also. Not so stochastic …
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: I don’t think we know. Yes, it would be very clever if it were the real Jack Smith. Though I doubt that it is, it’s still fun to think about!
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
What did Maggie say this time?
Bill Hicks
@Fester Adams, I doubt that the Philly incident would be related to Trump (what purpose would it serve?), but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is terrorism. What are the odds a fuel truck ignites under an interstate bridge? I could see if it collided with the bridge or the bridge is low and it ran into it (even then, hopefully they are designed not to burn under those circumstances), but the early photos and info look like it was completely underneath the bridge (also, a short bridge so again what are the odds it burnt in that 100 yard stretch). Also, it is a modern bridge and part of an exit system built in modern times (so should have good clearance unlike some of the old bridges around Philly). Pure speculation, probably a freak accident.
WaterGirl
@Anyway: hahahahaha
kalakal
@bbleh:
Medieval popes had the same problem with excommunication. It was a very powerful threat but the more they used it the less effective it was in practice. By 15th century the response was “Whatevs”.
Ditto Fatwahs, about 30 years ago it was a serious threat eg Salman Rushdie, then suddenly zillions of minor clerics were issuing them and people stopped noticing.
This shit is dangerous but the reality rarely matches the rhetoric
Sister Golden Bear
@gene108:
I don’t know if they win, but they’ve definitely been doing it against minority groups for years, and been longly fantasizing about it.
Case in point, fliers left at a Target in Redding, CA call for mass execution of LGBTQ+ people. Based on the anemic turnout at Trump’s arraignment in NYC, I’m less concerned about Tuesday (seeing the Jan. 6 insurgents getting convicted appears to have had an effect).
However, I’m definitely worried that they’ll take out their frustration through stochastic terrorism attacks. At this point, I’m dreading the likelihood of a mass shooting at a Pride event before the month is out. Still won’t stop me from attending, but yeah.
eclare
@Bill Hicks:
Anything is possible, but something very similar happened in Atlanta in 2017. A truck fire caused part of I-85 to collapse.
Sure Lurkalot
@gene108:
Really? Both the FTFNYT and FTFWAPO had articles about how the indictment of Trump is bad news for Biden. Is there “not a Republican” on the Sunday shows today? I saw mentions of Gingrich, Portman, Graham, Sununu, Jordan. The story being framed is not about Trump’s crimes, it’s the outrageous Biden’s DOJ overstepping its authority. Rejoice all you want about this or that talking head pushing back on the narrative…it’s performative bullshit since it was their employers who booked the clowns in the first place. The MSM is broken beyond repair.
Gvg
So now there is a another logical reason for the long wait to charge trump, the number of big name rioters who have been convicted, has made another actual attack when trump is charged and tried, less likely. He is of course, trying to incite again, so it had to be a consideration and plenty of his supporters have noticed. The most rabid politicians are freely trying to raise more trouble but they won’t be there themselves and the maga know it.
There may still be trouble but i think less and those in command aren’t secretly helping them. Biden is commander in chief and other people are taking the threat seriously.
Frankensteinbeck
Republicans, from voters to congress, have just been told that the rule of law applies to them and they can be punished for breaking the law. That it is not Okay If You Are A Republican. Yes, they’re freaking out and screaming in fury. Their whole movement and worldview has just been punched in the face.
@bbleh:
Christianity has been preaching that Armageddon will happen any day now for two thousand years. Apocalypse cults survive the date being wrong regularly. They’ll move on to the next end of America.
@kalakal:
One of my proud memories is pushing O’Reilly off of the #1 bestseller* slot on Amazon, and he did not get that rank back.
*For children’s books. WTF was an O’Reilly alternate history doing in children’s books? I know, I know, ‘scamming an easier bestseller slot.’
Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Anyway: Democrats? Administration?
BWAHAAHAA.
Sunday shows from the Press Corpse don’t do that.
Fester Addams
@Bill Hicks:
Accident does seem most likely. On street view where the Cottman Rd. exit curves under the highway there’s one of those 25-mph truck tipping over warning signs.
prostratedragon
@Layer8Problem: The probability that one saying the word “weaponize” in any form be immediately swallowed into a void shall be siginificantly greater than zero when I rule the universe.
Tony Jay
Every action, however good, has an evil and opposite reaction.
When have the forces of fuckery ever not reacted to the truth with a barrage of bullshit? Waiting for them to recognise that they’ve been One Cool Tricked into shamed silence simply isn’t going to happen. They’re a business, and their product is chaos. This is literally all that they do.
All you can do ( and by ‘you’ I mean Dems) is recognise them for what they are, treat them accordingly, and jail every last one of them you can make a case against.
Like Jesus would have.
Kelly
“When Prophecy Fails” published 1956
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
Baud
@Tony Jay:
👍
Bill Hicks
@eclare Thanks for the comparison incident. I looked it up and that one involved a storage site under the interstate where PVC pipes (petroleum based) were kept, basically a fuel depot. That is less surprising to me and makes me wonder why someone would store anything like that under an interstate for long periods of time. Again, I do not think the Philly incident will end up being terrorist related, but it wouldn’t surprise me either if it were. I would go for 10 not to 1 is odds if I were a betting man. Which I figure is a much higher chance that it is terrorist related than usual. All just balloon juice from me.
JaySinWA
It was childish?
Bupalos
@gene108: it’s going to take a lot more than “us,” but it starts with us. We are responsible and we need to start thinking about effective ways to respond when and if a rabidly motivated Trump cult really does make a full shambles of the next election, and/or just starts wrecking the physical and political infrastructure of the country. Trump has pushed this to a situation where either he becomes the fuhrer, or goes to jail. That is almost sure to bring out an army of cultists willing to suffer personal costs to hold on to their worldview.
Personally I think it starts with reexamining a kind of baseline assumption around liberal communities: that isolating or running from the cult to blue oases is some kind of effective advocacy. But certainly I think roughly zero percent of the solution is wait for “the media” to do anything other than what they are.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
I checked my FB feed for the first time in months to see how the wingnuts on it are reacting and it’s crickets. Nobody is complaining about weaponized government or Trump being treated unfairly much less that something needs to be done about it. Yes there’s still a rabid fringe out there but I think it’s shrinking by the minute and while I don’t think most of his former supporters want him in prison, they aren’t engaged enough anymore to rally to the cause. I think there’s a non trivial segment of former enthusiasts that are tired of the constant BS outrage du jour and just want him out of their lives and for politics to return to some semblance of normal. The true believers can still perpetrate acts of violence but I don’t think it’ll be a large enough or organized enough movement to have any effect on the wheels of justice continuing to grind Trump up. I could very well be wrong as this far from a statistically valid empirical finding but it seems like his schtick has warn out its welcome with a lot of folks who were with him through 2021.
kalakal
@Frankensteinbeck:
Nice one!
👍👍👍👍👍
Anyway
@Tony Jay:
Thanks for the response yesterday to my question about the Hono(u)rs list. I had no idea that PMs got to release their own list, thought it was the prerogative of the Queen.
System must be outta control with so many short-termers…
kalakal
@Sure Lurkalot:
It’s a transAtlantic thing, so does the Grauniad in the UK
Urza
@bbleh: And yet, even after the Apocalypse doesn’t come, there are still a few true believers hanging on, possibly for centuries.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Bill Hicks: a tanker truck accident and fire in 2004 actually melted an overpass bridge in Bridgeport Connecticut. So this is a type of accident that has happened multiple times before…
JaySinWA
@Tony Jay:
Okay, who are the damned do-gooders that provoked this mess?
And it can’t be left to just Democrats to put down this nonsense, we need to engage as many people as we can that aren’t actively promoting this crap to reject it whenever and wherever it comes up. We need to do it in ways that don’t amplify the crazy, but make it socially unacceptable.
oldgold
Lindsey on This Week:
”…the espionage charges are absolutely ridiculous. Whether you like Trump or not, he did not commit espionage…Whether you like Trump or not, he did not commit espionage. He did not disseminate, leak or provide information to a foreign power or news organizations to damage this country. He is not a spy. He is overcharged.
As CNN’s Daniel Dale points out:
”Trump is not charged with ‘espionage.’ The Espionage Act contains a wide range of charges, from spying to doing what Trump is accused of – willfully retaining national defense information. The willful retention offense (793e) does not require you to be a spy or disseminate to anyone.”
Too bad George Stephanopoulos did not point this out in real time. But, given the volume of misinformation Lindsey was shouting out, it is understandable.
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck: You should feel good about that!
Also, that is bullshit that he was able to categorize his book as children or young adult.
WaterGirl
@Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Surely Jen Psaki had Democrats on?
Layer8Problem
@eclare: And we had a similar incident involving a propane truck on I-287 in White Plains, NY almost 30 years ago. Things like this happen without insurgents and terrorists.
Matt McIrvin
@oldgold: A conservative in the abstract sense of being a skeptic of radical change and of ordering society by top-down diktat–“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”–ought to be more inclined to support the Democrats than the Republicans today.
But that’s not what our “conservatives” are; they’re about turning the clock back to an imaginary past that they may even place long before they were born.
JaySinWA
@Layer8Problem: That what they would like you to believe. //s
Bill Hicks
@FesterAdams and ImbraceYourInnerCore, I agree that it is likely not terrorism. I grew up a few miles from where this occurred and have an unhealthy interest in it. Yes, it is a tight turn, but again that should cause the truck to crash into the side of the bridge not underneath it? The photos do not show truck debris on either side of the bridge, but it could also have melted in that conflagration. I am not a crash expert or a semi driver, so again, speculation. The 2004 incident, was much smaller and did not collapse the highway, I am guessing because the vehicle had less fuel and was not directly under the interstate, just smashed into the side. The other thing I have been thinking about is how easy a few people with local knowledge could cause this. Have someone watching for the regular fuel truck to come through on a SUnday morning, then have compatriots block the far side of the tunnel and stop the truck which would only be going 25 mph at that point and could easily stop for an “accident”. Anyway, just wanted to share some of my paranoia for funsies, after FesterAdams started it.
Another Scott
ICYMI, Official video for Jim Bob’s Billionaires in Space (by HappyToast)
Well done!
Cheers,
Scott.
Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@WaterGirl: I would expect so. I don’t really count her as part of the Press Corpse though.
Ruckus
They are immature little kids, playing life. Their “leader” is just a kid with more blocks than most of them have. There is no thought going into what they say, there is adrenaline and immaturity and nothing else.
bbleh
@Fester Addams: well if it was, they mistimed it, because the ballot-stuffer buses don’t start rolling out of Philly into the nice white suburbs until Election Day.
Layer8Problem
@prostratedragon: Have you met Baud? You both should compare notes. 😁
bbleh
@Tony Jay: “a hit dog gonna holler.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Sure Lurkalot:
This reminds me that we — okay, I — haven’t seen commenter Villago Delenda Est in a very long while. Have they been around and I’ve just not noticed? Hope all is well with them.
Jackie
@oldgold: GQP chairs in the Capitol chambers need to be replaced with swooning settees ASAP!
WaterGirl
@Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: She has a Sunday show, though
Did any watch? Google won’t tell me who Jen had on her show today.
bbleh
@Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Sunday news show audiences skew OLD, ie Republican and/or conservative. They don’t want to hear some youngster (under 55) explain uncomfortable facts to them: they already know the way the world should be and that’s what they want to hear.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
The imitation is very good, a bit freer with the language but still very close. But I doubt it’s the real Jack. He is very professional, very smooth, very focused. It is quite possible he has another side, but professional Jack never, ever shows anything but one complete focused professional lawyer person. He seems like the guy that never just takes risks. He’s the guy who gets every answer before he asks the question. You want to be a great lawyer? He’s your role model.
JWR
ICYMI, From Business Insider:
Kari Lake threatening Democracy, er, doing a PSA. She really knows how close to the line she can get, doesn’t she?
Tony Jay
@Anyway:
No problem. It’s a bonkers and indefensible system, but that’s exactly how they want it. It’s the monarch that ‘grants’ these honours, and I’m sure that they get to put through their own list of names, but basically it’s the Establishment’s way of rewarding the people who have serviced the Establishment.
Baud
@JWR:
Y’all got really mad when Obama said that’s what y’all do.
Redshift
There was a journalist (don’t remember who) who posted yesterday that he’s subscribed to all the congressional Republicans’ newsletters, and only a small number of them responded to the indictment at all. And that the screeching on social media is mostly a high volume from the usual crazies, not a broad response. That could change, but for now it’s somewhat encouraging.
Another Scott
VVP wants more US captives to get Vadim Krasikov (or someone like him) back.
VOANews.com:
People need to get out of there.
Grr…,
Scott.
Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@bbleh: Yup
SiubhanDuinne
@JWR:
That word “most” is throwing its back out what with all the heavy lifting it’s doing. Actual NRA membership is reported at about 4.1 million.
Tony Jay
@JaySinWA:
Well, didn’t someone, somewhere, once suggest that all men were created equal? They couldn’t just stand by and let that go without response, could they?
Dorothy A. Winsor
LOL. Someone on twitter posted that pic of the boxes in Trump’s bathroom and says they’re going to use it as their zoom background.
Tony Jay
@bbleh:
Which is why choosing where to hit it is an art form.
I say volley to the nuts.
ByRookorCrook
The deranged Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) put out a bizarre tweet laced with jargon calling for the faithful Quazies.
I hope the FBI has good tabs on the remaining wackaloons in the militias. And hopefully, this is all some fantasy going through Clay’s mind.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/clay-higgins-trump-indictment-tweet-insurrection-b2354933.html
oldgold
Today on the “shows” the usual suspects repeatedly stated the sensitive information was not disseminated. Often, the moderators responded by reminding these realty benders of the Bedford incident where Trump is on tape disseminating this information, but none of the moderators asked, “How do you know this to be true?”
What is in the indictment is what the government expects to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Because something is not in the indictment is in no way proof it did not occur.
prostratedragon
I think Villagio … is ok. I’ve seen the nym somewhere or other in recent weeks and think it’s the same one.
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Hahaha…
prostratedragon
@Layer8Problem:
I would like to meet Baud one day.
Preferrably in this life.
eclare
@ByRookorCrook:
What does the line about bridges mean? 1/50k?
Never mind, the article answered my question.
JPL
@JWR: How much money does she have? Enough I guess for a lot of lawsuits?
Thanks for getting back to me about McMaster. He was listed on one of the news sites that had the Sunday line-up. He probably chickened out.
Jager
@Sister Golden Bear:
Notice the ads? All selling “Tactical Gear”
JohnC
@WaterGirl: It’s a homophobic mocking of the execrable Senator Graham, but I’ll allow it.
Here, let’s have Christopher Plummer explain the reference:
Laura Hope Crews as Aunt Pittypat (Gone With The Wind special features
“bird-minded flibbertygibbet”
ByRookorCrook
@eclare:
He is weird congress critter. He likes to use law enforcement jargon too. His own way of puffing himself up I guess. I am on the opposite end of the country from him, so I only see the dribbles that make news. So it could be that his tweets are all like this, but still not comforting.
bbleh
@Tony Jay: but … but they’re all nuts. Where do you start?
Bill Hicks
Holy Fucking Shirtballs!! (I learned that one recently). The Philly bridge collapse is the same exit as Four Seasons Landscaping, literally a stones throw away. Perhaps Trump did this afterall.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Four+Seasons+Total+Landscaping/@40.0226817,-75.0286983,15z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x89c6b44c3cd2507b:0xf7a6fd9e9365a3be!8m2!3d40.0263236!4d-75.0302158!16s%2Fg%2F1tcvcvs3?entry=ttu
Tony Jay
@bbleh:
It’s a big target. Everyone pick a side and work into the middle.
bbleh
@Bill Hicks: no no no, it’s merely that the temporary opening of the Hellmouth weakened some of the structural supports (and probably let a Fire Demon or two out).
JPL
OT Foreign Affairs sent me an essay written by Dorothy Thompson in 1940. She had been kicked out of Germany. I found it fascinating espectially the Storm Front and the change in tune. They stated their goals loud and clear, and that is part of what trump has allowed here.
The Problem Child of Europe | Foreign Affairs
James E Powell
@Matt McIrvin:
But American conservatives are not conservative in the abstract sense or in any traditional sense. They are conservative in the ignorant bigot sense.
Geoduck
Yeah, I really wish people would knock it off with the gay slurs toward Graham. He’s an utterly craven toadying bootlicker, go with that instead.
Geoduck
@Bill Hicks: I believe it’s “Forking Shirtballs”.
James E Powell
@ByRookorCrook:
What does all that mean?
bbleh
@James E Powell: all just labels of course, but I would say they are reactionary, which at best is a kind of degenerate form of conservatism (and at worst — as in a substantial part of the Republican Party — approaches nihilism).
JoyceH
@Bill Hicks:
Well, to be completely accurate, it’s Holy Forking Shirtballs. From the sitcom The Good Place. One of the features of the Good Place is that cursing isn’t permitted, so when Eleanor tries to curse, they come out like that.
JaySinWA
@ByRookorCrook: For some reason I thought that was Biggs. OTOH Biggs joined in with his own war call (that some staffer walked back as not being literal).
https://www.thedailybeast.com/republican-reps-andy-biggs-clay-higgins-invoke-war-rhetoric-about-trump-indictment
It’s only a metaphor is going to be a go to defence for every attempt to rile up the potentially violent.
James E Powell
@Geoduck:
Endorsed.
bbleh
@James E Powell: military jargon. 1/50K are military-scale maps, and “know your bridges” is shorthand for “know the terrain.”
Old School
Clay Higgins seems to have tried to walk back that tweet.
Frank Wilhoit
@Matt McIrvin:
43 years.
Chief Oshkosh
@oldgold:
Nope, not willing to giving the little shit the benefit of the doubt. He fucking knows what time it is. Fuck him for letting Lindsay whinge on and lie.
Sister Golden Bear
@Geoduck: Agreed. There’s so many other things to denigrate Graham for instead of using casual homophobia.
JoyceH
@bbleh:
These guys crack me up. In their mind’s eye, they are all geared up, manly smudges on their face, cigarette dangling from their lips, binoculars clutched in their muscular hands, waiting for the signal.
In reality – well, live healthy, folks, and we’ll just outlive them. Over on Fox, during the Wildfire Smoke incursion, they were assuring their audiences that wildfire smoke was perfectly harmless, all these warnings to wear masks or remain indoors were just nanny state alarmism. So hey, by the time Son of COVID comes around, these fervently unvaccinated clowns will already have compromised lungs from all the smoke they inhaled, and they’ll gasp out their few remaining days on a ventilator. And peace will reign throughout the land…
dww44
@oatler:the media continues to be a serious threat to our democracy by their unrelenting focus on process and refusal to be objective about Trump’s candidacy and the lies that he and his supporters spew with impunity. They need to call them out but almost never do.
Chief Oshkosh
@JWR:
Your terms are acceptable.
2liberal
https://twitter.com/charlie_savage/status/1667646636791676928
hueyplong
@James E Powell: We need some kind of shorthand for Graham. I’m OK with Sen. Gimp. It’s a concept I assume to exist in many directional sexualities and there’s no getting around the dom/sub nature of Graham’s relationship with the pig.
Jackie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Michael Cohen on MSNBC said that bathroom is TIFG’s Presidential Library.😁
bbleh
@JoyceH: goes with the gun fetish, the misogyny, the anti-intellectualism, the simplistic authoritarianism, etc. Think hormone-addled 11-year-old boys and I’d say you’re at least 80% of the way there.
raven
@Geoduck: Yea, I’m sure punk ass motherfucking airforce puke is way better.
prostratedragon
JPL@110: Thanks for the article, unsettling as it is. I’m reminded of the pleasant, smiling hospital worker who helped me in a wheelchair get to my sleep test on the night of the “No puppet” debate. Horrifying. In some ways I was glad to leave Ann Arbor, then an island in a red sea, the next summer. (That sea’s a lot less red now, fortunately.)
Tony Jay
@Old School:
This reads best if we imagine it being used by Dennis Hopper as a practice script in between takes of Blue Velvet, with each comma and full stop being punctuated with the hiss of his helium inhaler and his voice getting higher and higher in pitch as the rant goes on.
Tony Jay
@JPL:
I’m halfway through that and already, yeah, all directions point to redo.
raven
@Tony Jay: Or Apocalypse Now.
Citizen Alan
@bbleh:
What is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying to me about all this is that I grew up in an evangelical environment with lots of Rapture talk, and I’ve read The Late Great Planet Earth and all of Hal Lindsey’s other bullshit (the precursor to Tim Lahaye and Left Behind). And damned if it’s not very easy to point to biblical prophecies about the Antichrist that Shitgibbon kind of fulfills. One of which is that the Antichrist will be killed but then return and come back to power even stronger and more terrible than ever, which could a reference to an interregnum in which Trump loses an election but then wins 4 years later. You have to fudge the idea of a “seven year reign” (and also, of course, “death”), but evangelicals have made bigger leaps in End Times theology.
And honestly, it would fit God’s sense of humor for the Antichrist actually be real but also (a) a complete fuck-up of a human being and (b) supported fanatically by evangelical Christians who’ve never tried a day in their lives to actually be “Christ-like.”
JPL
@prostratedragon: The article had so much information that is relevant today, even though written before the Poland invasion. Germany appeared to be doing better, but the Germans had lost their faith. I just hope that’s not the cause of Joe’s low poll numbers.
Then I remember what happened in Michigan and that makes me smile. The republican party in GA is fracturing, and let’s hope it continues to
fyi Thompson was married to Sinclair Lewis for a while. Thank you Wikipedia.
JPL
@Tony Jay: ha I read it four times and each time I became more aware of the similarities. Germany never really had a strong middle class, so hopefully that is what saves the USA from another trump term.
Bill Hicks
Holy shirting fuckballs! Thanks all, for the correction, I think I fixed it.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Four+Seasons+Total+Landscaping/@40.0226817,-75.0286983,15z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x89c6b44c3cd2507b:0xf7a6fd9e9365a3be!8m2!3d40.0263236!4d-75.0302158!16s%2Fg%2F1tcvcvs3?entry=ttu
dnfree
@hueyplong: Isn’t “gimp” a term associated with being physically handicapped? Like making fun of someone who has a limp?
I have to confess that I dislike nicknames or references to physical appearance or characteristics, whether it’s to weight, unstylish attire, hairstyle, hand size, or mannerisms. Yes, even for Trump and Steve Bannon. I realize it’s a losing battle.
Tony Jay
@raven:
That was a great scene.
Tony Jay
@JPL:
Fingers crossed, but haven’t Republicans been chipping away at the American Middle-Class for decades?
I keed, I keed…
JPL
@Tony Jay: Yes and AI will probably make it easier to rid us of the middle class.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@dnfree: It can also refer to a person in a gimp suit, a full body restrictive leather suit.
hueyplong
@dnfree: If you can find a second person who would be similarly confused by a reference to Graham as Senator Gimp, I’ll drop the idea with extreme prejudice.
Jay
@dnfree:
a gimp is a particular kind of bondage slave, male dominated by a male dom.
a gimp suit is a leather, latex or rubber suit from head to toe, usually includes a ball gag and a butt plug, with a leash.
Tony Jay
@Jay:
Just male on male? Sunstone lied to me? 🤐
hueyplong
On reconsideration, I’m probably happiest if I’m not talking about L Graham at all. So, no nickname required/desirable/whatever.
JaySinWA
@hueyplong: Count me as another. The only reference I have for gimp was as slang for physically disabled or the GIMP photo editor. I don’t have much knowledge of it in BDSM terms, if that’s what you are claiming this is. But then my knowledge of BDSM is pretty limited
ETA Are you claiming that most people have never heard the term as slang for disabled?
NotMax
@hueyplong
::raises hand::
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@prostratedragon: I see their comments at Wonkette somewhat frequently.
Ksmiami
@Bupalos: should we all stock up on Koolaid for Trumpers then?
The Lodger
@Tony Jay: Makes me wonder if someone isn’t circumventing the Writers Guild strike.
hueyplong
I guess I thought the world had moved beyond “gimp” in the disabled sense, and will admit that my use of the word was based on the movie Pulp Fiction, which itself is 28 years old. In any event, I am out of the Graham nicknaming business.
ByRookorCrook
@Ksmiami: Grape Flavorade
Jay
@Tony Jay:
well, the dom can be female, with “enhancements”, but it’s pretty rare, because everybody in lit and film get’s the power structure all wrong.
The role of the Dom is to fulfil the sub’s fantasy, and to be aware enough to know when it’s going sideways.
Had a sub come over one day, and our planned evening went completely sideways. She got shit on, by a dude, on the bus. So instead of what we had talked out, instead a hot bubble bath, glasses of wine and cigars in the tub, while I talked her up
Smoke detectors you know,…….
Tony Jay
@Jay:
Oh, yeah, that bit I understood. I’m just surprised to hear that the gimp idea is so extremely male/male, or at least male/‘enhanced’ female. I thought the point of a really good Dom is that the gender is less relevant than the kink the sub is there to explore.
Heh. I just realised I’m actually surprised that the gimp kink is predominantly a sexual submission thing rather than just a total-submission/restriction kink. The things you learn.
prostratedragon
@Tony Jay: Now that’s what I’m talking about.
trnc
@Scout211:
So, if I understand correctly –
– Graham thought Clinton’s email situation was disqualifying
– Graham claims that DT’s and Clinton’s actions were equal, but
– Graham still supports DT
OK, then
Jay
@Tony Jay:
Gimp’s are weird, and sometimes dangerous.
It’s a total submission thing, with the whole “forbidden” aspect. Gimp’s don’t get or want a reach around. There is a big bunch of repression involved.
There are other “total submission” fantasies out there, for basically everyone, that are more “mutual”. Eg. Goreans.
Talking afterwards is a big part of figuring stuff out for a Dom. I mean, you are shaping and enabling a sexual fantasy life for somebody else.
Gimp’s don’t talk, and when they do, it’s usually when they stop being a Gimp and come out just as a usual type of sub. They often accept who they are, and sometimes, they don’t and lash out.
Tony Jay
@Jay:
That makes sense. As I understand it the Dom/Sub relationship is about trust, if you can’t completely trust the other person to stay in the mutual fantasy and respect boundaries… Only now I can’t help but hear it in the voice of John Goodman.
“Gimps! F*** me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of Gorean domination, Dude, at least it’s an ethos”
Tony Jay
@prostratedragon:
Raven’s idea. I just like the playing around with bullshit aspect. 🫠
Chris Johnson
@trnc: I have no idea what Graham is up to, but I like his tie.
That guy has gone balls-out anti-Russia and pro-Ukraine to an amazing degree. I can’t really square it with him supporting Trump, except like this: maybe he thinks Trump has inherited what power Putin gave him? Or to put it another way: it’s less important to serve whatever powers Trump used to serve (before Ukraine and Russia effectively losing) and more important to serve the demographics that were GIVEN to Trump by those powers.
And so Graham will lick Trump’s boots, but openly defy Putin, as if the two are really not connected anymore.
Or, Graham knows so well that Trump is doomed, that it’s purely jockeying for position in a post-Putin, post-Trump world. He’ll make the right noises but he’s playing to the crowd and has no actual respect for Trump at all.
I mean, Trump deserves no respect, but Graham doesn’t either. But it’s interesting to see where he thinks power lies. Graham is a hell of a good weathervane, but he won’t openly tell you who he thinks has power. You have to kind of read it, in who he’s willing to defy and when.
KenK
I do agree with Boebert’s first sentence: “… for a crime’ that no one else would have been tried for.”
Chris T.
@oldgold:
Yes. Those people are currently called “Democrats”. The R party needs to die, and the remaining D party can have a big schism and become the Lib-dems and Conservadems.
Sheldon Vogt
@Geoduck: Strong second.
Sheldon Vogt
@JPL: I’m confused by your timeline. The Foreign Affairs issue is for April 1940, scarcely one month before the Nazis overran France, and a full half year after the invasion of Poland.