Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Let’s finish the job.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

T R E 4 5 O N

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Late Night Open Thread: Another Sad, Deluded, Self-Selected Trump Victim

Late Night Open Thread: Another Sad, Deluded, Self-Selected Trump Victim

by | 106 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Robertson’s already being turned into a martyr on MAGAt media, which would no doubt make him happy.

… Special agents were attempting to serve arrest and search warrants at a home in Provo when they shot and killed Craig Deleeuw Robertson, according to court documents.

Robertson allegedly made threats against Biden on social media, specifically saying that he was preparing a particular gun and camouflaging attire ahead of the president’s visit to the state on Wednesday.

In March, Robertson also made threats against Bragg, saying he was going to New York and described in detail how he wanted to lie in wait and kill Bragg in a parking garage.

FBI agents conducting surveillance on Robertson’s home on March 19 approached him to talk about his posts, according to the complaint. Robertson responded, “I said it was a dream,” and told them to return with a warrant…



Suicide by Federal agent.

… What’s notable about the complaint is how many of Robertson’s threats and complaints mirror standard GOP talking points from Capitol Hill. He refers to the FBI visits in response to his threats to murder Alvin Bragg and President Biden as an example of “the WEAPONIZED FBI coming after a 75 year old conservative,” and he makes general complaints about the FBI monitoring conservative social media. He also criticizes Facebook for censoring his assassination threats..

Reader Interactions

106Comments

  1. 1.

    piratedan

    just another dude who drank the cool aid that Unka Rupe had available.  I have to admit that the agents that had to end his life aren’t going to sleep well knowing that they had to kill an old dude who was armed with intent to kill and with murder on his mind.

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    We have a domestic terrorism problem.  Ted Kaczynski could only dream of having an entire nationwide media apparatus cheering him on.

  4. 4.

    JWR

    He also criticizes Facebook for censoring his assassination threats..

    Wah! FBook won’t let me threaten death and destruction on public figures! Almost too funny.

    And did anyone else notice that his grass suit makes him look a lot like a Morlock from the 1960 film The Time Machine?

  5. 5.

    Citizen Alan

    Imagine if the Manson Family had 70 million people all eager to kill whoever Charlie told them to. That’s the Republican Party of 2023.

  7. 7.

    HumboldtBlue

    That Bundy ranch standoff was a touchstone for some of this. And of course the touchstone for Bundy ranch was Randy Weaver and Ruby Ridge.

  8. 8.

    piratedan

    @piratedan: and the people who turned this old dude into a deluded tool of hate will feel nary a nudge of remorse… they’ll just turn him into a martyr and not even blink.  There’s plenty more in the pipeline. What worries me the most are the ones that don’t bother outing themselves on social media.

  10. 10.

    HumboldtBlue

    Donald Trump may be in trouble in Fulton County, Georgia. But unlike the recent indictment of him in a federal court in Washington, DC, he may not be alone.

    Three sources who have spoken with prosecutors tell Rolling Stone that they believe that Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis is likely to indict not just Trump, but a number of his associates involved in attempting to overturn the election, as well.

    I wonder who the three sources are.

  12. 12.

    Mai Naem mobileI

    Well? I don’t mean to sound flip about this but if the family is able to keep his guns they can probably sell them off and afford to pay for his funeral. I read a couple of interviews with his neighbors. Apparently he was frail and there was no way he was going to be able to go to SLC and shoot Biden. Well, he should have opened his door to the secret service then.

  13. 13.

    Ken_L

    Thoughts and prayers to his family, who will draw comfort from the fact he died doing what he loved

    Being an arsehole.

  14. 14.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    This dead asshole, like the other radicalized terrorists from the right, was extensively groomed by the right, led by the Republican party. Fed a steady diet of hate and lies, he was groomed into hating his fellow American citizens to the point that he was ready to kill their leader. The right taught him how to arm himself and how to turn those arms against his nation.

    The Republican party has groomed their followers into hating most of the rest of the country. Their followers have been groomed into not trusting doctors, scientists, government, the courts, medicine and so much more. They have been groomed to hate change, even when it directly benefits them. Just trust the people who are telling you to not trust anyone else, send them money, elect them and they will make it all better.

    The Republican party needs to be crushed or they will kill us and destroy our nation.

  15. 15.

    Ksmiami

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: yes. Finally. And the faster and louder we all admit this, the faster we can prepare to defend ourselves and our nation from these threats. We did not start this, they did.

  20. 20.

    Leto

    His mission: Fucking Around
    His objective: Finding Out

    Mission: Accomplished

    @Villago Delenda Est: we do, and we’ve had it since 1865. I don’t know how we turn off the direct injection of poison coming from broadcast and social media. Hopefully David Hoagg’s org can make a difference in statehouses and congress.

  21. 21.

    Betty Cracker

    Heavily armed Trump cultists like the recently deceased are a huge problem for obvious reasons, but the attitude of his neighbors is too. From Deseret News:

    “I’m sorry, I just think he was an old kook shooting his mouth off. He would occasionally tell us an off-color political joke from time to time. But there was nothing he ever did that would have made me think that he was either mentally or physically capable of doing anything. And anybody who knew him knew that. I just can’t believe that this man warranted that kind of response.”

    The dude publicly bragged about his gun collection and how he came close to murdering two FBI agents who had investigated earlier violent threats. A SWAT team approach doesn’t get more warranted than that, FFS.

    “So a man that sits at home all day, doesn’t have much to do, if he’s on his phone and is involved in politics and has strong political opinions, I’m not surprised that he would make posts like that to try to receive attention. I’m just hoping that the FBI has some more evidence besides Facebook posts to want to raid his house like they did.”

    Again, the cops didn’t need any further evidence! WTF is wrong with these people? The cultists who publicly air their lurid, violent fantasies and threaten to act on them in meat space are a problem, but so are the people who excuse that behavior.

  22. 22.

    Damien

    Honestly, @Betty Cracker, you don’t get to be this way without a sprawling network of people who sympathize with your views letting you spout off in increasingly insane rants, normalizing your bullshit for yourself.

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see more than a few of his neighbors’ names on the list of profiles that liked all his posts.

  23. 23.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Just how ‘frail’ was this guy?  Because he’s not threatening to knife fight his way through the Secret Service to duel Biden.  Literally all he needs to be capable of is carrying a gun to a spot he can see Biden, even if his odds of hitting are remote and firing once breaks every bone in his body.

    99.999% of the guys talking like this are cosplayers fantasizing.  There are a HELL of a lot of them, so many they are almost all ignored.  Something about this guy made the FBI think there was a possibility he would go through with it and worth investigating.

    @Betty Cracker:

    Sounds like ‘He was a quiet type.  Kept himself to himself.’ to me.  The neighbors having trouble believing it is a mass murderer classic.

  24. 24.

    TriassicSands

    @Betty Cracker:

    But, Betty, the threats were protected by the First Amendment. After all, they were just “aspirational.”

    Trump has not only soiled this country and its government, but he’s helped to create a mob of lawyers who come up with some of the most absurd defenses ever uttered by people who actually went to law school. Admittedly, the lawyers in question seem to be fertile ground for Trump to use to grow rancid, increasingly poisonous weeds. Many, if not all, of those lawyers may someday wish they had never heard of Donald Trump.

  25. 25.

    Betty Cracker

    @Damien: That’s a great point. Sympathetic responses to unhinged, violent and threatening rants create a kind of permission structure. I think silence does too.

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    @Mai Naem mobileI:

    Apparently he was frail and there was no way he was going to be able to go to SLC and shoot Biden. Well, he should have opened his door to the secret service then.

    Robertson was 75 years old. I’m not sure how frail he was. But maybe just as some people give up their car keys at a certain age, this guy should have given up his weapons and his sick fantasies.

    The sad thing is that Trump, some GOP fools and Fox News will continue to stir up and encourage violence against Democrats.

    The weird thing is that, so far, Trump simply operates as an amoral agent of chaos. Trump cannot, so far, generate support within the military to attempt a coup. Trump is not smart enough, nor has he been able to convince the military leadership to back him.

    But he can light a fire under enough dumb ass militia wannabees to potentially cause serious harm and endanger lives.

    Trump probably enjoys the feeling he gets from persuading loser saps to throw their lives away for him. The GOP and Fox News stupidly believe that they can prosper from chaos and uncertainty. They are wrong. Toppling democracy will not usher in a stable, right wing authoritarian state.

    And Trump is cracking up. His assertions that he had won the election were always bullshit. But he cannot give up this delusion even as the criminal justice system starts to close in on him. His fantasies are all stacked up in boxes in a bathroom in the Mar a Lago of his mind.

  27. 27.

    Betty Cracker

    @TriassicSands: I believe in due process, and if that raid wasn’t carried out by the book and the cops weren’t justified in killing the guy who made the threats, they should be prosecuted. But the idea that publicly making very specific and violent threats and demonstrating possession of the equipment to carry them out doesn’t warrant a raid baffles me.

  30. 30.

    Baud

    @mrmoshpotato:

    It’s Provo, Utah.  The town motto is probably Let’s Go Brandon.

    ETA: A little googling indicates that Provo has been turning more blue lately.

  31. 31.

    TriassicSands

    @Betty Cracker:

    I agree about due process and prosecution.

    One seemingly common attribute of mass murderers in the U.S. is that up until the moment when they shoot and kill innocent people, they are almost all considered “law-abiding citizens.” But publicly threatening to kill public officials crosses a line that ought to be obvious to everyone.

  33. 33.

    Noskilz

    It’s the downplaying of the threats that bothers me the most – here is this withered old fool cosplaying a violent revolutionary/assassin and this kind of behavior has become so normalized that people are pretending it isn’t a problem, when that kind of nonsense is a giant red flag of a problem.

  34. 34.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Betty Cracker:

    But the idea that publicly making very specific and violent threats and demonstrating possession of the equipment to carry them out doesn’t warrant a raid baffles me. 

    More specifically, this too!

  35. 35.

    Sebastian

    Trump will call for armed insurrection and a civil war before he goes down. He has nothing to lose and everything to win (in his mind). The question is how many in law enforcement and in the military are going to listen to him.

  37. 37.

    JWR

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Fani Willis is likely to indict not just Trump, but a number of his associates involved in attempting to overturn the election, as well.

    Well, we can hope. We can also hope she’s got all her ducks in a row on this one. Q: Could she be doing a sort of tag team with Jack Smith, or would that be wrong, not to mention illegal?

    But “the once obscure lawyer Kenneth Chesebro”? We knew about cheesehead from this here great blog, didn’t we, kids? And Maggie Haberman wrote about him just yesterday, (Yahoo link), so what gives? Does this portend something big’s about to poop? Pop? (Pippity poop pop?)

  40. 40.

    Baud

    I actually think no one would have cared if it was a public official other than the president.  Threats against the president are in a whole different class.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    @Sebastian: I think that’s likely too, as the walls close in. If Trump does call for armed insurrection, I don’t think he’ll get the response he expects. There could be sporadic violence, and because we’re ass-deep in battlefield weapons, those incidents might be deadly. But I doubt there would be a mass defection of cops or servicemembers, and most of the civilian MAGA trash are all talk.

  43. 43.

    matt

    well, this should provide a fascinating test of conservative legal theories about the 2nd Amendment. Wasn’t this terrorist just exercising his ‘right to overthrow the government’?

  44. 44.

    Betty Cracker

    More trans-panic stupidity from Florida:

    Central Florida’s public school students head back to campuses Thursday, and if any of them go by a nickname or a name that isn’t in their official school records, parents must give permission for teachers to use those monikers.

    Orange County Public Schools said the new rule applies if parents want a boy named Robert to be called Rob or want a transgender girl with the name Robert on the birth certificate to be called Roberta instead.

    The notification from Seminole County Public Schools about the new rule tells parents, “without the signed consent form from parent/guardian, staff are required to use only the legal name of the student.”

    I’ve noticed an uptick in exasperated parents saying school officials should just ignore the idiocy out of Tallahassee and go about their business. It doesn’t work that way. The only way to stop the tidal wave of stupidity out of Tallahassee is to vote the goddamn Repubs out.

  53. 53.

    satby

    @eclare: She did. And in spite of a lot of the hateful behaviour directed against her, she always believed in the basic desire to be kind in most people. A far better woman than me.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    In the course of the history of the United States four Presidents have been assassinated, within less than 100 years, beginning with Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Attempts were also made on the lives of two other Presidents, one President-elect, and one ex-President. Still other Presidents were the objects of plots that were never carried out. The actual attempts occurred as follows:
    Andrew Jackson, Jan. 30, 1835.
    Abraham Lincoln, Apr. 14, 1865. Died Apr. 15, 1865.
    James A. Garfield, July 2, 1881. Died Sept. 19, 1881.
    William McKinley, Sept. 6, 1901. Died Sept. 14, 1901.
    Theodore Roosevelt, Oct. 14, 1912. Wounded; recovered.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt, Feb. 15, 1933.
    Harry S. Truman, Nov. 1, 1950.
    John F. Kennedy, Nov. 22, 1963. Died that day.
    Attempts have thus been made on the lives of one of every five American Presidents. One of every nine Presidents has been killed. Since 1865, there have been attempts on the lives of one of every four Presidents and the successful assassination of one of every five.

  56. 56.

    satby

    @Kay: They didn’t include Reagan, who was wounded along with 2 (3?) others.*

    * unless they cut it off after Kennedy to stay in the 100 years span.

  57. 57.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @TriassicSands:

    The “we’re going to extensively coddle rhetorical extremism, religious exclusionism, lies and explicit threats from angry old white people” aspect of First Amendment jurisprudence is going to kill us all.

    I’m inclined to get rid of it. It hasn’t done shit for me.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @satby:

    They cut it off. They go on to do Reagan and then the plots. There were a LOT of plots. This is not actually a rare thing in the US. It’s a real threat.

  59. 59.

    Sebastian

    @Betty Cracker:

    I agree. His best shot was Jan6 when he had some sort of legal cover, as flimsy and absurd as it was, had his cronies in key positions, and was still the CiC.

    But he is definitely going to call for it and we don’t know what the various GOP states are preparing and if those politicians will be forced to choose between aiding Trump or losing their voters.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Well, they didn’t know him all that well if none of them knew about his incredibly violent messages, now did they? The FBI went in with different – more – information than the neighbors had. It’s fine if they didn’t know their neighbor was a violent psychopath but them not knowing that doesn’t matter at all and doesn’t mean anything. I love the woodworking ancedote, too. “OH, he was a woodworker!” What does that matter in this context?

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @satby

    All fine at the homestead. Well away from any current danger areas. On Wednesday took my monthly trek into town, and that tuckered me out. Did take note that Costco is limiting sales of cases of bottled water to two per membership holder.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    They take anti government extremist threats seriously even at the local level. Our probate judge, a woman, has had to have police protection at her home on two separate occasions due to threats from “sovereign citizens”. They object to her making decisions on allocating property. Far Right terrorists. There are only 30k people in this county and she’s been seriously threatened 2x with ten years on the bench. I think people would be suprised if they knew how many threats are made and what the response is.

  63. 63.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Margie three toes was only agreeing with an audience member that her opposition should be executed for treason YESTERDAY! There is no reason to be nice to these people NONE!

  64. 64.

    eversor

    @Kay:

    One plot was funny.  Some idiot tried to shoot Jackson.  The gun failed to go off and then Jackson promptly beat the idiot to a bloody pulp.  Then there was Teddy who got shot in the chest and kept on giving his speech.

    The thing is most of these people aren’t that competent.  Because it takes some grade A lunacy to try and take out a president.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    Aaron Rupar
    @atrupar
    21h
    Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose went on Fox & Friends to talk about his Issue 1 failing and said, “the all out assault is coming from the radical left … the war continues. I’ve just begun to fight.”

    They’re “at war” with 57% of Ohio voters now. They’ve been absolutely poisoned by the fringe media and online Right wing celebrities they all promote. This sort of dumb, ordinary public official is walking around thinking the majority of the people he supposedly serves are his mortal enemies.

  68. 68.

    satby

    @Kay: a Tweeper uncovered that the neighbor meeping about the feds killing the “fragile old man” is a sympathizer and both were white supremacist followers of the Deserat Nationalist movement.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Not to be a jerk but Mormons really need to get a handle on the far Right anti government extremists in their ranks. Excusing this behavior and circling the wagons is not good.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    Pro publica doing more of the ethics reporting that Clarence Thomas failed to do. 

    Perhaps even more significant, the pattern exposes consistent violations of judicial norms, experts, including seven current and former federal judges appointed by both parties, told ProPublica. “In my career I don’t remember ever seeing this degree of largesse given to anybody,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who served for years on the judicial committee that reviews judges’ financial disclosures. “I think it’s unprecedented.”

  73. 73.

    Chris Johnson

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Actually I’d rather call them Russians at this point. I’d rather call the Lincoln Party folks ‘Republicans’. I’d rather call old school Red Dawn russia hawks ‘Republicans’. I’m old enough to remember how that was. I used to really frown on that sort of thing.

    I’d rather call these civil war, race war, terminally online, typically stupid, terroristically stochastic people ‘Russians’.

    They are soldiers, not from our country. I don’t think they deserve the title Republican.

  75. 75.

    BellyCat

    @yellowdog: I disagree. I believe there is a serious likelihood that half the cops and quarter of the military will be traitorous.

    Only half the cops?

  76. 76.

    NorthLeft

    @Kay: I hope that is the case regarding specific threats of violence, but that does not seem to be the case IMO.

    Providing protection is important, but I doubt that most of these psychopaths are actually visited by LEOs of any kind. And yeah, they should show up with a warrant most of the time and toss the place. That does not mean ransack their living space, but just walk into every room and check it out. Then drag them down to the station and interrogate them too.
    These morans need to understand that violent threats are effing serious and result in negative consequences for them.

    The assholes making the threats probably are proud and happy if their threats result in police protection for their targets.

  79. 79.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Sebastian:

    Trump will call for armed insurrection and a civil war before he goes down.

    Sure.  This is a given.  He calls for mob violence all the time.  He clearly fantasizes he’s Hitler with an army of Brownshirts.

    how many in law enforcement and in the military are going to listen to him.

    In their official capacity?  None.  Zero.  Not even one.  This isn’t a guess.  I’ve been hearing this question for years now, the biggest test was when he lost the election, and the answer has always been none.  Zero.

    In their roles as private citizens… probably also zero.  J6 was his peak, and a perfect storm for him.  They now know that they can actually go to jail for this shit, and they are utter cowards making up excuses every time he orders them to fight.  That one is only a ‘probably’, I admit.

  80. 80.

    Trivia Man

    @Kay: on the bright side, Mormon membership is cratering. They are shrinking in numbers while increasing their dragon-sized hoard of wealth. They still have a large political influence many places but thankfully they aren’t increasing in numbers.

  81. 81.

    mrmoshpotato

     

    @matt: well, this should provide a fascinating test of conservative legal theories about the 2nd Amendment. Wasn’t this terrorist just exercising his ‘right to overthrow the government’?

    Wasn’t the FBI just exercising their right to shoot this terrorist Trump trash in his fat, orange, fascist, Dump-humping, fascist face?

    Oh wait, no.  The FBI had a warrant.

  82. 82.

    eversor

    @Trivia Man:

    Mormons aren’t also a problem on the same level as other branches of Christianity.   Their senators are odd ducks with Romney being a rich asshole but otherwise decent human being how obviously hates Trump and Mike Lee being a fuckwit.  Utah is always going to go red cause Mormons but they don’t like Trump.  I think Mittens was the only R senator to participate in BLM march and he caught hell for it.

    This relates to their own long history of persecution by other branches of Christianity but Mormons are the sort of boring ass, wealthy, white bread, charity loving, military/cia serving, patriotic Christians the GOP pretends their Christian base actually is.

    Also they have a temple here in the DC area you can see from the beltway.  When it comes into view from one side there is a foot bridge over the beltway and people keep climbing the bridge fencing and hanging over the damn highway and spray painting “surrender Dorthy” onto the bridge.  Keeps getting painted over, keeps being spray painted again.  The local Mormons have always taken it in stride and admitted it is rather funny.

    If Utah canned Mike Lee who’s a fucking asshole, and a fat ugly asshole at that, to elect McMullen the world would be a better place and we could quit worrying about Sienma/Manchin and their desires of the day.  He might be a Republican, but as a former CIA operative he’s been outright brutal of his party.  He’s also smart and while most of us wouldn’t agree with him on much he’s not in for imposing his views on others or destroying social security.

  84. 84.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: I’m sure some schools would be safe to ignore it, while others wouldn’t, because this is the definition of a law that can be selectively enforced.

  85. 85.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: It’s funny when I hear that, I barely know most of my neighbors because many of them are renters. The only ones I know something about are across the side street. They bought the house for their son to live there while he went to college, then they fixed it up and retired from St. Louis. He was a brewmaster for Anheuser Busch; I’m not sure what she does. One of my neighbors could be a serial killer and I would know nothing about it.

  88. 88.

    Maxim

    If that is actually him in the photos he posted of a man in camo holding a rifle and down on the ground, then the guy wasn’t “frail” at all. He was solidly built, and apparently in good enough shape to get himself down to a prone position and back up.

    I would like to see the family of someone like this sue Fox and Trump and whoever for contributing to his death. Probably not legally tenable, but I wish there were consequences for putting this poison into millions of minds. I also would like Congress to pass a law requiring any show, or channel, with “news” in its title to tell the truth during its broadcasts, or else they have to issue a disclaimer accompanying each broadcast that the content is for “entertainment” purposes only and not to be taken as factual.

  95. 95.

    Trivia Man

    @yellowdog: when I lived in Los Angeles I heard some cab drivers pointed out that enormous temple on the 405 and identified it as Sinatra’s enter home. I’ve always wondered how many Japanese photo albums have that included.

  96. 96.

    Mike in NC

    @eversor:  On the DC Beltway I drove past the Mormon temple about a million times but never once had any interest in actually going to visit it. Too much of an agnostic to care about places of worship.

  97. 97.

    Trivia Man

    @eversor: a valid point that the official LDS positions are not at the level of nuttery found in other Xtian sects. In many ways their official positions are admirable and compassionate.
    BUT

    There is a HUGE portion in the Amon Bundy segment. Idaho specifically but also any place with a rural setting and high % of Mormons. My relatives admired the Birchers but thought they were too soft on communism. (Really!)

    Current leadership is VERY conservative and VERY sympathetic to Bundy and that ilk.

  98. 98.

    Cacti

    @eversor: Mormon Patricians like Romney and Huntsman and Marriott have something of a pass to march to their own drum because of the large tithes and other largesse they shower on the church.

    The rank and file are given no such latitude and tend to be a lot more right wing authoritarian.

  100. 100.

    Trivia Man

    @Cacti: In order to enter the temple you must pass an interview and prove worthiness. Until about 10 years ago, working at a casino was an immediate FAIL. Dealer, waitress, janitor… didn’t matter. UNLESS… you were special. At one time the VP of marketing (!) at a major casino was in a position of high church authority.

  101. 101.

    VOR

    @Rob in CT: It’s the No True Scotsman fallacy. I’ve seen MAGAts argue that the rioters on J6 must have been antifa because all Trump supporters are kind, gentle, well behaved souls. They say this while wearing shirts with violent slogans and chanting FJB. This heavily armed guy couldn’t have been serious about his death threats because he was one of us, therefore he must have just been blowing off steam. Next step is to claim he is just a lone wolf, the fact tons of other MAGAts use identical rhetoric is just a coincidence.

  102. 102.

    Miss Bianca

    @satby: And Gerald Ford, the subject of not just one but TWO assassination attempts within, like, a week. Both women, Squeaky Fromme being the first.*

     

    *I think you’re right about the 100-year span.

  103. 103.

    Roberto el oso

    2 thoughts:

    I’ve been in some ratty parking garages in my time but I have yet to see a big pile of grass sitting in a corner ….

    No fool like an old fool ….

  104. 104.

    LiminalOwl

    @eversor: 

    [Mormon] senators are odd ducks with Romney being a rich asshole but otherwise decent human being how obviously hates Trump.

    Romney told happy little anecdotes about torturing his dog, and he wanted MassHealth to cut off all payment for psychiatric meds. I appreciate his anti-Trumpism but would never mistake him for a decent human being.

  105. 105.

    Ruckus

    @Leto:

    As an old fart who has been around and invested in politics because of the republican party and wanting none of it, I have to say, it is worse today than 60 yrs ago, by far.

    And the reason is not that they are a lot worse in their desires to control everything so that they world looks like their imagined paradise of repression and control, which they are, it’s that the world has changed and they don’t like that one bit. They lost and lost badly. Because they deserved to lose, because it’s not a political party any longer, it is a repressive desire to control what they see as the worst of everything – progress.

    This nation has progressed to be fairer, more open, have equality, remove racism, raise all the fucking boats. We of course aren’t there yet and may never get all the way, but we have progressed far in my lifetime. Very far. The rabid clowns of the rethuglican party DO NOT WANT PROGRESS, FREEDOM, EQUALITY FOR ALL They want control, they want racism, they want what they think they had over 200 yrs ago because they have lost control. They thought that they got it back with ShitForBrains. But this country has progressed, it is far better than even when I was born. But while it is a change for the betterment of all, even them, they can’t see it that way because they want the past, and not a past that even existed when many alive today existed. They are the people that want what they think they had. But they didn’t have anything. Other than a political hate which allowed the world to not change for the far better. But they are conservatives, they hate change. That is their holly grail – hate and control. And they have lost that. SFB gave them the perfect example of getting their hate and control back. He is who they want and they had him in control. And most of us saw what that meant. Everything turning back to shit.

  106. 106.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    “OH, he was a woodworker!” What does that matter in this context?

    It’s a before line of work. Not mass produced. Not built in China.

    It doesn’t have to make sense to you but they think it should. Because all they can see is the past they think they had – and they very likely didn’t. They don’t want the future, they don’t want equality. The want hierarchy, with as a culture, them or those that look like them at the top. This country since it’s current inception took that away from them, that concept of them not being equal, not of them being better and they hate that. It has taken most of 200 yrs to get this country to recognize what it should be, and almost another century to even get close. I wonder it I will ever in my lifetime see real success. I hope so. I’m not holding my breath.

Comments are closed.