This is a billboard on the Wyoming/Colorado state line. It’s (probably) paid for by some rich billionaire asshole named Mellon who has a place in Saratoga, WY, which is a beautiful spot on the western slopes of the Snowy Range, 80 miles west of Laramie. The town is known for its hot springs and the private jets parked at the airport.
Mellon didn’t have the cojones to pay for the billboard directly, so he did it via a cutout LLC, but Kyle Clark and his team at News 9 in Denver pretty much tracked it to him. Of course these assholes don’t want to have any consequences for their actions, even though they’re trying to turn Aurora, CO into the next Springfield, OH.
The backstory on this is that Denver had a big influx of Venezuelan refugees. The city, including many churches, worked hard to accommodate them. Like any immigrant population, there are issues. The biggest “issue” I saw when driving around Denver last year and early this year is that Venezuelan kids tried to raise money washing windows at street corners, which is pretty dangerous since some people in Denver drive like they’re driving an ambulance full of pregnant women in the final moments of labor.
Anyway, a slumlord in Aurora who is tired of being blamed for running roach hotels housing rats along with people decided to make noise about the presence of an Venzuelan gang called Tren de Aragua in his buildings (here’s a Denverite background piece on that). This, of course, is bullshit, as Kyle reports:
On Tuesday, Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said the gang’s presence is “small,” echoing the publicly provided assessments of law enforcement and city leaders in Aurora and Denver. Ten suspected Tren de Aragua gang members have been identified by Aurora Police and nine have been arrested, per APD.
As for whether Mellon did it, this seems pretty clear, if you know how Wyoming works:
Wyoming’s Republican Secretary of State Chuck Gray claimed, without providing evidence, that the liberal media is demanding government action against Mellon.
“It is disturbing, but not surprising, that leftwing media outlets are demanding that government action should be taken against Tim Mellon for taking a stand and bringing awareness to the devastating effects of illegal immigration,” Gray said in a statement to 9NEWS.
Gray repeatedly declined to provide evidence of his claim that media outlets are demanding government action against Mellon.
A megadonor with a penchant for privacy placing his name on a high-profile billboard would appear an odd choice, but a representative for Lamar, the outdoor advertising company that owns the billboard, said the paid-for disclosure is their own requirement.
Mellon’s LLC is represented by the former speaker of the Wyoming House. Wyoming is a Republican state with pretty much complete regulatory capture by folks with money, so of course the Wyoming SoS is going to shill for Mellon.
In closing, tax the rich.
Be Careful What You Wish For
Baud
I demand that government action should be taken against Tim Mellon.
You’re welcome, Mr. Gray.
Citizen Alan
Wyoming should have never become a state. Did it join the Union the same way the Dakotas did? As a power play by 19th century Republicans?
Urza
I miss when the ultra wealthy kept their heads down and separate from the rest of society (visibly at least) and did some nice donations to hospitals and libraries and such. Instead of using their idle time to control the lives of everyone else like now.
terry chay
Would this be a Scion of the Mellon Banking family of Pittsburgh?
zhena gogolia
@terry chay: Yes. There’s a big article in Vanity Fair that I haven’t read yet. His extended family isn’t happy.
HumboldtBlue
dmsilev
@Urza: As already noted, Mellon is the descendant of Andrew Mellon, who (a) was an asshole but (b) at least used some of his money to endow worthy causes.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: Baud Comments are a part of Baud Media Network and therefore a liberal media outlet.
Almost Retired
Demonizing Venezuelans seems like a stupid strategy for the Republicans. Arguably, their anti-socialism could make them the Cubans of Miami or the Vietnamese of Orange County as potential Republican voters. But… yeah, please proceed with the Aurora narrative, which is right up there with the Bowling Green Massacre as a blotch on American history.
Urza
@dmsilev: At least when they bought the government back then it was in smoke filled rooms we couldn’t know about.
SatanicPanic
@HumboldtBlue: Oh for crying out loud. Has there been an evaluation of these protests for effectiveness?
I feel like these are the work of a group of people who aren’t including some critical voices.
TF79
There was also an Aurora republican city council woman, Jurinsky, that basically served as the mouthpiece for the out of town landlord. She was the “source” for the Fox News “journalism” that kicked off a lot of the freak out.
The goalpost moving has also been pretty incredible, from “violent gangs have taken over entire city blocks and commandeered apartment buildings” to “well, some of these guys may be affiliated with these gangs and there’s some crime”
Chief Oshkosh
Tax the rich?
I see we’ve toned it down from “Eat the rich,” which I never thought was a good idea. Too fatty and high in cholesterol.
Steve LaBonne
lowtechcyclist
@HumboldtBlue:
If it weren’t for their willingness to be imprisoned on account of their actions, I’d suspect they were a false-flag operation intended to discredit activism on behalf of the climate.
They can go fuck themselves in prison.
Steve LaBonne
@Chief Oshkosh: Actually some of the worst are lean and stringy. The meat would need 2 or 3 days in the sous vide.
Betty Cracker
@Almost Retired: Agree — Venezuelans in FL tend to be distressingly right leaning and therefore susceptible to Rick Scott’s simple-minded socialism scare-mongering. Not all, of course, but too many.
PatD
As good as Pres. Biden has been on domestic affairs and Ukraine his record in the Middle East is verging on disaster. The US has effectively lost control of Bibi/Israel and is at risk of being dragged into a much bigger mess.
Steve LaBonne
@TF79: When it’s a choice between smart strategy and doing a racism, they’ll choose the latter every time.
SatanicPanic
@Steve LaBonne: Same thing, really. I mean, you get a group of young, idealistic people with no one around to say “uhhhh, can you explain to me how that would work?” and they’ll do some crazy shit.
Steve LaBonne
@SatanicPanic: It’s the political analog of thinking with the wrong head.
BR
Harris will be speaking in a bit in Arizona:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYYOUm3imMc
BR
From New Deal Democrat:
https://bonddad.blogspot.com/2024/09/personal-income-and-spending-hits.html
A Ghost to Most
I don’t need no stinkin’ sign to tell me to stay the fuck out of Wyoming.
Chet Murthy
@SatanicPanic: @Steve LaBonne: Is that really fair? From what I’ve read, they are scrupulous in not causing permanent damage. The paintings are all protected by plastic barriers, so the soup just gets on the barrier.
And given that the emergency they’re trying to raise awareness of is civilization-ending, and literally nobody is doing jack-shit about it, it doesn’t seem an unreasonable course of action. I mean, yeah they’re breaking laws, but so did the Civil Rights protestors.
Anoniminous
Holy shit, he actually said it.
Sister Golden Bear
@SatanicPanic: The protests cannot fail, they can only be failed.
Steve LaBonne
@Chet Murthy: Generating NEGATIVE “awareness” is a really dumb tactic no matter how you slice it. There is no imaginable pathway by which this kind of thing leads to faster action on climate change. It’s just performative acting out by extremely callow people.
WaterGirl
@PatD: I don’t see how that can be blamed on Biden.
It seems to me that Bibi is trying to disrupt things before our election in the hopes that Trump will be elected, and we all know that Trump will let Bibi get away with murder.
billcoop4
Fuck those activists.
BC
Other MJS
@Chet Murthy: Okay, but what’s VanGogh got to do with it? The sunflowers represent nature and the tomato soup represents oil blood money? Seems like performative obscurantism to me. Or maybe the idea is get attention from the WTF factor.
Anoniminous
@HumboldtBlue:
Went through this kind of stupid stuff back in the sixties with SDS. People so far up their own asses they see daylight when they open their mouths.
WaterGirl
@Anoniminous: But he said it in 2018!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I hate how the internet recycles stuff. But if it works…
Chet Murthy
@Steve LaBonne: You could make the same arguments for protests against police brutality, eh?
Chet Murthy
@Other MJS: Yes, the latter. Remember Do The Right Thing? The -point- of starting the riot was to make sure that the po-po couldn’t hush up Radio Raheem’s murder-by-cop. Lee is on record saying that.
Steve LaBonne
@Chet Murthy: No, you couldn’t. Unless the smashing windows etc was done by the actual protestors and not, as was actually the case, largely by provocateurs. The latter being the same kind of assholes who throw soup at paintings.
Anoniminous
@WaterGirl:
YOU MEAN FOR 6 YEARS WOMEN HAVE BEEN GIVING BIRTH IN THE 9TH MONTH AND NOBODY HAS TRIED TO STOP IT?!?!?!
Oh the shame, the shame, the shame. What would Jesus say?
twbrandt
@HumboldtBlue: there is protest and then there is counterproductive performative assholery and this is definitely the latter.
Chet Murthy
@Steve LaBonne: The analogy is -not- between smashing windows and throwing soup at paintings. The analogy is between mass protests that hold up traffic and bring cities to a standstill, and throwing soup at paintings (and people glueing themselves to the tarmac of busy intersections).
Look: you may not think it’s effective. I will put to you that the -evidence- is that NOBODY IS DOING JACK SHIT. I mean, how many of you have cars? How many of you have flown for pleasure in the last decade? All of you? And there’s the economics of it: the simple truth is that if you make renewables cheaper, people will just consume more of it. You wanna change things? You need an eye-watering carbon tax. And even -liberals- are unwilling to do that. Hell, they’re unwilling to even stop with the fossil fuel subsidies.
Faced with that, these kids are if anything -restrained-.
wjca
The civil rights protesters were breaking laws where there was some obvious relevance to the cause.
These infantile crazies are doing things with no discernable relation to their supposed cause. (I say “supposed”, not because there isn’t a real problem, but because I have some doubt whether the cause is nearly as important to them as acting out and getting attention. To themselves, not to the cause.)
scav
Don’t worry, it’s nearly guaranteed that everyone here’s mocked for their efforts as much as these here mock others. Everyone possesses the one and only true equitable method while everyone else is an unbalanced idiot.
BR
@wjca:
This is one of those situations where I have no sympathy for either side of the argument. The extinction rebellion protestors are for climate like code pink is for the anti-war movement. Noisy, ineffective, mistargeted, but mostly innocuous and irrelevant.
There are better climate orgs and protests.
Sister Golden Bear
@Chet Murthy: They’ve thrown soup at paintings several times now. Doesn’t seem to be a particularly effective tactic at changing things….
I’m going with performative ego-driven bullshit by folks high on their own supply. They ain’t no ACT UP! who did disruptive things in ways that got results.
wjca
I disagree. I think those who dispute my pearls of wisdom [if any] are balanced idiots.
Ryan
Soak the rich.
BR
@WaterGirl:
Exactly. We need to keep the focus on that — Netanyahu is trying to create an October surprise to elect Trump. Do we want to let Netanyahu pick our president?
Captain C
@HumboldtBlue:
I regard them as dipshits who make those of us who actually are on the right of history look bad for the sake of getting personal attention.
Gloria DryGarden
Those Van Goghs are an international treasure. Alice Walker has written a poem about them.
First line is “if there were any justice” if you’re in the mood for a poem, it’s worth googling.
I live a mile from the aurora border. I have tons of local friends on Facebook. If there were anything much going on, I’d have heard. I have not heard a thing. Some guy got arrested today, but the article had a pay wall. There is nothing special or particularly heinous going on except for bs being spewed by candidates. Nothing local of any note. Some folks need to stfu.
Yes, the apartments across the street are full of immigrants, and sure there are “ issues”, but it’s small stuff, not crime, for the most part.
scav
@wjca: But still, we get it. Everyone’s a legend. And necessarily on the right side of history.
Sister Golden Bear
Admittedly, I’m in a grouchy mood thanks to seeing young online queers lecture about their wildly mistaken takes on history that I fucking lived through.
Kelly
Bad floods across the path of Helene. I remembered this kinda sparse version of “When the Levy Breaks”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh9pMvOovuo&ab_channel=CandiceIvory-Topic
Captain C
@Anoniminous: FTFNYT headline: “Trump shows strong support for C-Sections”
Prescott Cactus
@Ryan:
In a petroleum based product.
Jager
Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, spoke at a local, rich folks environmental gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a few years ago. After his little talk, he did a Q and A. He was asked how do we protect Jackson Hole?
Chouinard said, “Close the Airport.”
Gloria DryGarden
@Sister Golden Bear: remember when someone took a power tool to la pieta in the Vatican?
it’s an exquisite piece of art by mr Michelangelo.
how could they?
Thanks for making an exception for jack smith, btw. We’re all rooting for him.
BR
@Sister Golden Bear:
If I may be so nosy, are they romanticizing public perception of queer rights back in the day as a way to argue that both parties are the same, etc.? Or is it something else this time?
Gloria DryGarden
@Captain C: he’s such a jerk
KatKapCC
If I ever became massively wealthy, one of the best things about it would be getting to help other people. It’s sad that most rich people don’t seem to care about that possibility.
Jay
@Chet Murthy:
Stop Oil held a major protest here in the spring, they used sailboats, kayaks, SUP’s to block both the Refineries, (end of the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion that beings Tar Sands to the West Coast for export) and roadblocks on access roads. The protests lasted three days and slightly delayed the reopening of one of the refineries that was undergoing a $2billion dollar upgrade to handle the tar.
There was one report on the protests on one local news station.
Throw a can of soup on something in a museum and it goes International and even makes it to a top 10,000 blog.
Gloria DryGarden
@Gloria DryGarden: by national candidates
(expletive adjective choices)
Gloria DryGarden
@KatKapCC: bless you
Prescott Cactus
If it’s Boeing, I ain’t going !
From their “special webpage” about the contract.
How do IAM 751/W24 employees cross the picket line?
How can I avoid fines from the union if I decide to cross the picket line?
Although my feelings are rather strong on this issue, I refuse to answer those questions.
Proceed Governor’s.
Melancholy Jaques
@PatD:
Can’t lose what you never had.
Jay
@Ryan:
Marinate or Brine?
Gloria DryGarden
@Kelly: the map shows the storm path circling around over to Memphis. I hope eclare is ok.
those floods, holy cow
SatanicPanic
@scav: There is no one true method, but there are vary degrees of effectiveness and it should be ok to talk about them. Suggesting these things are unknowable and we’re all just patting our own backs has a small grain of truth to it, but what would you have us do? Decide everything is equally useful? Or do nothing because someone might mock us?
cmorenc
@Chet Murthy: um, no. If they were throwing soup on gas-guzzling behemoths like Cadillac Escalades , it might be a sensible form of no-real- harm protest, because everyone knows without need of more info that soup is immedistely washable off cars. But attacking priceless works of art that pay no part in the climate crisis provokes an immediate visceral reaction, even by otherwise solidly progressive folks on the climate issue that the perps are grossly irresponsible asshole vandals who ought to be locked up to punish and prevent further mayhem – and in no mood to hear explanations about plastic coverson the paintings precisely to guard against insane destructive vandalism.
By contrast, the protesters who sat-in at segregated lunch countets and buses did not deface or damage anything.
Harrison Wesley
Climate-change activists throw soup on van Gogh paintings.
Your Favorite President throws hamberders at the walls of Mar-a-Lago.
Both sides do it.
SatanicPanic
@Jay: What MIGHT be effective is to coordinate. Instead of chucking soup at a painting and saying “No more drilling ever!” Plan ahead and link it to something concrete. Like “we’re doing this because X pipeline is being built and perfidious politician X approved it”. Give people something to do and some action that might matter. “Awareness” is overrated.
Prescott Cactus
@KatKapCC:
Would you hand out $20’s to homeless folks ?
Bulk grants to organizations ?
I’d like to do this too.
BR
I’m annoyed by a lot of social media nonsense I’m seeing but instead of ranting about it, here are some positive videos I’ve found lately (hope folks can share them if they like them).
Doug Emhoff and Beto visiting Willie Nelson:
https://www.tiktok.com/@douglasemhoff/video/7419337256386956590
A video KamalaHQ made mocking Trump about his supporters leaving:
https://www.tiktok.com/@kamalahq/video/7419437548457659694
And one random Tim Walz video:
https://www.tiktok.com/@vidsoftim/video/7419363664060222766
BR
Oh and this video of Walz talking about his rescue kitty:
https://www.tiktok.com/@vidsoftim/video/7419004575253810474
Sister Golden Bear
@BR: People were pushing back against Chappell Roan’s “both sides bad,” by noting that there’s only one party that’s bent on eliminating LGBTQ+ people.
Some Youngs then pointed to the Clinton era, claiming Dems had “failed” queer people with Clinton’s AIDS policies, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and DOMA. Old Queers pointed out that while Clinton’s actions didn’t go nearly as fair as needed, 1) Reagan’s AIDS policy was “let the fags die,” 2) DADT shut down the miltary’s investigative offices dedicated to kicking LGBTQ+ folks out with dishonorable discharges, 3) DOMA headed off Republican plans for Constitutional amendment that would’ve banned same sex marriage (and likely would’ve passed). So no, it wasn’t both sides suck.
Young Queers reply that they won’t take a history lesson from anyone who thinks DADT was good for queer people.
BR
@Sister Golden Bear:
Thanks for explaining. Yeah, I guess it was like I guessed. It’s easy to compress time when it’s in the past, and that combined with a false notion of what was politically possible in each era it feeds the “both sides bad” narrative.
I’ve seen similarly stupid arguments saying “Dems are bad on abortion rights because they didn’t pass a national law under Obama when they had the chance” as if Joe Lieberman and Bart Stupak and all those assholes would have allowed anything remotely like that to pass. Obamacare barely passed after Obama and Pelosi spent all their political capital to do it as is.
Hard for some to comprehend how much further left the median Dem is today than in the 1990s or early 2000s.
Jay
@SatanicPanic:
Guess you never heard of Coastal Gaslink or Trans Mountain protests, where the RCMP formed a Special Military SWAT Team* to arrest and jail peaceful protestors, reporters, violate Indigenous Rights, Lands and Title and rape local women.
That’s okay, it’s not “news”, soup on sunflowers is global newsworthy.
*MRAPS, Body armour, camo, night vision, drones, machine guns, assault rifles, illegal warrantless spy gear and it is the largest single division in the RCMP.
scav
@SatanicPanic: A little humility mixed in with action and efforts goes a solid way, no more. The funk of smug just pissed me off. Because what I saw was not an discussion of the benefits, drawbacks and evaluation of tactics, it was the writing off of people.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
The world is full of free riders.
Fiona
This is Andrew Mellon, Tim Mellon’s grandfather, telling Hoover what to do about the Great Depression.
“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. … It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”
As you can see, the entire family’s rotten to the core.
Melancholy Jaques
@Sister Golden Bear:
Some Youngs are pointing at things Democrats did when they were children or before they were born to justify not supporting the current Democratic candidate against the current Republican candidate. This makes sense to them?
BR
@Melancholy Jaques:
The only thing that gives me a modicum of hope is that cynicism is slowly going out of fashion as a stance. It used to be that being cynical about everything and everyone was the way to be cool and thus you’re always safe in an argument saying “they’re all corrupt” “they’re both the same” or whatever. There’s a cultural theme of sort of a revival of hope, but a different kind than before, that is less cynical.
JoyceH
@BR: Well, that’s adorable! I’m trying to hold off on getting a kitten until my pup is older and calmer. This week I had to authorize the Pink Shot for Abby (who’s been on a downward slide for a year) so now Liam is an only cat. Makes me feel bad because I’m going to Italy in November and the dogs go to boarding and the cats have a sitter come in to feed and scope, so he’s going to be in the house all alone!
Sister Golden Bear
@BR: @Baud:
It’s part of broader annoying tendency among Gen Z queer activists to be oblivious to how different things were only a few years ago — which OK is part of being a callow youth — and then lecturing older queer/trans folks on how We’re Not Doing Queer/Trans Right. E.g. late-life transitioners like myself should have transitioned back in high school (in my case the 1970s) because it’s no big thing to come out. Nevermind that there was a popular playground game literally called “smear the queer” when I was growing up. (A game of “tag you’re it” where the designated “queer” was gang tackled and then dogpiled.)
It’s the latter part that pisses me off to no end, especially when they don’t want to hear about how what things were really like, because us Olds are well… old.
Baud
@BR:
Agree. Hope the transition happens quickly.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
Take solace in the fact that the following generation will treat these kids with equal contempt.
Sister Golden Bear
@Melancholy Jaques: It’s the equivalent of “Kamala is a cop.” I.e. they hate Dems and will go searching for reasons to justify shitting on them.
JoyceH
Today’s entry in the annals of Republicans Being Weird, I submit Derrick Anderson. Republican candidate for VA 7th Congressional District, his campaign literature features a photo of Anderson with a generic suburb background posing with his “wife and children”, who also appear in a campaign commercial sitting at the dining table having a conversation. But wait! That’s not his wife and those aren’t his kids! Anderson is single (claims to be engaged) and those people are the family of a friend, borrowed for the campaign. The campaign claims there was no intent to deceive. Uh-huh….
apocalipstick
@scav:
Barbara O’Brien holds to the Greater Asshole theory of protest: whoever looks like the bigger asshole is the loser. Civil rights protests succeeded because Bull Conner looked like the bigger asshole. Pipeline protests were effective because, well, oil companies are the bigger assholes. The George Floyd protests had the same effect. These protests seem ineffective because they make the protesters look like the bigger assholes.
BR
@Sister Golden Bear:
Some people still called the playground game that when I was growing up in an extremely progressive area of California in the 1990s. This stuff is definitely not ancient history. (Fortunately (sort of) the more common name of that game was “kill the carrier” among those I played it with.)
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: no, it didn’t make a big headline here. US is rotten on international news. very incomplete.
That’s quite horrid, peaceful protests, swat teams violating indigenous lands and, authorized to rape women.
WTAF?
Did you say when this was?
BR
@Baud:
I see the Harris campaign as being able to shape that mood — they can pump up the hopium and joy and such through the events and messaging they put out there. They were doing it in August. It’s disappeared of late. I hope they bring it back — it’s what will get a lot of dispirited Dems over the finish line.
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
It’s still happening.
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: And, in addition, I remember gay activists saying Marriage Equality was a terrible strategy when what was important was the Equality Act. Marriage Equality changed the perception of LGBTQ, especially gay men, as sex crazed to people who fell in love. How you get the Equality Act while believing that gays only wanted sex because you couldn’t get pregnant. And after the AIDS crisis it was important to show how most LGBTQ people wanted the same opportunities and responsibilities.
Gloria DryGarden
@cmorenc: great points.
throw soup on someone’s cars, not on treasured art.
Eric S.
@Chet Murthy: I’m with you on this one. This is civil disobedience. Some people get their day disrupted and some janitors get OT. Is it effective? I don’t know.
Kelly
@Gloria DryGarden: The good news is it seems the dams folks were worried about are going to hold.
WaterGirl
@JoyceH: Wow.
Jackie
O/T but jaw droppingly funny/mind-boggling…
Then there’s this!
Baud
It’s not even soup weather yet.
apocalipstick
BR
@Sister Golden Bear:
There are folks making good videos that both rebut that stance but also lay out the consequences of Trump. Here are a few:
https://www.tiktok.com/@bookersquared/video/7418614148671655214
https://www.tiktok.com/@bookersquared/video/7419472752349973806
https://www.tiktok.com/@abeetheartist1/video/7419035272383335723
Dan B
@Gloria DryGarden: We saw reports about the protests because they were right next door, even though the Trans Mountain Pipeline (or one of them) was very far away, terminating in Prince Rupert.
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
I’m sorry Stop Oil’s protest didn’t garner more attention.
Sure, the soup-throwers got a million times more attention, but did it advance or set back their alleged cause? I would say the latter, which was why I compared it upthread with a false-flag operation.
Do you think people who don’t think much either way about climate change are going to be more inclined to support efforts to do something about it as a result of these bozos? Or do these protesters just give people an even easier excuse to disregard the whole thing?
I would say the latter.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: this is a current event, and we’ve heard nothing?
yikes.
it’s almost difficult to get news about other places, without seeking it out. I’m reminded of when I went to Uruguay, for a year, on the heels of a military takeover. There was one news article in the Denver post. Then nothing. We looked for days. This is in 76, before internet. ( My poor mother)
I’ll make a point of looking this up when I get home later. Can you suggest search terms? Just “trans mountain pipeline, Canada?”
Jay
@apocalipstick:
In the past decade in North America, only 2 “pipeline protests”, were “successful”, sort of, Keystone XL and Dakota. By sort of, the reality is that the protests attracted political attention to the point that neither pipeline was needed or economic.
27 other pipelines were built in the same time frame with 4 more still under construction despite constant protests and cop riots against the protestors, none of which are needed or economic.
It’s like CopLand, it’s being built no matter how many protestor’s they have to murder and stick in prison.
None of that is news, none of it makes it outside some local media and activist media, let alone get mentioned on a top 10,000 blog, even if half the comments, like BLM or Occupy are versions of the whine, “but, they are protesting wrong”,
But one can of soup goes global.
Sure Lurkalot
@JoyceH:
HE’S BORROWING THE WIFE. HE’S BORROWING THE KIDS. HE’S BORROWING THE FAMILY FROM THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dan B: Yep, that’s important point too. But nuance was something that these folks seemingly weren’t interested in.
@BR: Thanks for sharing. FWIW, there were other Gen Z folks who were dragging these particular activists about their willful ignorance.
BR
@Sister Golden Bear:
Glad that Gen Z folks are on it. Videos like this (which I posted last week) really hit home that Harris and Walz really can bring out the best in Gen Z if their message gets out there:
https://www.tiktok.com/@timwalz/video/7415365782412021035
Jay
@Kelly:
Well, it made the news, Globally. President Joe Biden’s Climate Action Plan did not.
apocalipstick
@Jay:
Difference made?
SatanicPanic
@Jay: I don’t understand your point
frog
@WaterGirl:
It seems to me that Bibi is trying to disrupt things before our election in the hopes that Trump will be elected
I don’t see how a President Trump will generate a favorable outcome for Israel. For sure, the USA will become wildly distracted for quite a while and may not be there if the Israeli army glitches. We might be able to evacuate a few hundred thousand refugees, I guess
ETA: Maybe Bibi thinks he can outbid Putin for Trump’s attention and favor.
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: Since I was very involved with Gay Liberation from 1969 to 1975 I definitely lived through it and was somewhat involved with AIDS and then Marriage Equality. It’s been decades of effort and there’s more to be done. And it’s been very discouraging at times, like the past few years.
Jay
@Dan B:
Coastal Gas link.
The Feds, the Province, the Oil industry believes that “Asia” will buy millions of tons of high sulfur LNG from the Peace River Basins* despite “Asia’s” recent discoveries of massive and local gas fields offshore. The refinery for the Coastal Gas Link terminus doesn’t even exist.
*In addition to hundreds of rigs and pumping stations, the Peace River country is littered with gas alarms, (think air raid sirens), because if there is a leak, and there have been many, if you don’t get to high ground or have the right gas mask, the hydrogen sulfide gas will kill you. The Peace River country was BC’s prime farm country, grain, forage crops, beef and it’s largest and would have been the last viable farmland in BC under Climate Change.
And then, there is Site C.
cain
@Almost Retired:
Oh they should definitely do it. The Venezuelans think they are white adjacent. But to the GOP you are just a dirty immigrant.
wjca
The far right doesn’t have a monopoly of rejecting real history in favor of their favorite illusions.
cain
@Betty Cracker:
This will wake them up and make them realize that they are an out group.
Melancholy Jaques
@Sister Golden Bear:
For some, yes. But also people who are not engaged in self-government will go searching for reasons to justify their disengagement. They especially search for reasons that will give them the language to feel morally superior to those of us who soil our souls by being involved in the Great American Experiment.
West of the Rockies
Harris is doing well in her immigration speech in AZ.
BR
@Dan B:
If there is a ray of hope in progress, it seems to be that it’s always 2 steps forward 1 step back. The cultural progress made in the 1990s was real, even if it was incremental. From Magic Johnson showing people that HIV wasn’t to be feared the way it was before to many TV shows featuring gay characters to even DADT as an incremental step. But then the Bush era was the reaction, with all the anti-marriage equality stuff. And then another two steps forward under Obama, and then the reaction under Trump.
BR
@West of the Rockies:
I have her speech on in the background but can’t bring myself to watch because I really don’t care about border issues at all in this election. It’s such an enormous distraction. But I think her message that Trump stopped the bill in congress is a winning message generally.
Baud
@cain:
Eh, not necessarily. I don’t think working class whites have a monopoly on pretending they have a higher status among Republicans than they do.
Theron Ware
I’m ok with bringing back the Eisenhower tax rates.
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
That’s a start, the wiki is good, Trans Mountain Pipeline is completed. Tar Sands are not going to China as planned, because China’s not interested in burning petcoke instead of coal and is trying to get off coal, so the product is heading to the US West Coast, where like the Great Lakes and East Coast regions, mountains of petcoke can be piled up next to low income port areas to forever await a buyer.
Coastal Gas link is another search, The Tyee is a good local source,
here’s one on the RCMP
https://www.aptnnews.ca/ourstories/cirg/
Sister Golden Bear
@Dan B: I wasn’t as intimately involved in activism, but I was in the Bay Area during the early ’80s, and saw the devastation it caused. There were gay men who went to funerals every week for months, sometimes years. Later in life I got to know a number of survivors, and saw how the plague years also devastated those who survived. So yeah, it’s personal for me when willfully ignorant kids pop off.
As a trans woman, the past few years have been incredibly discouraging. In less than a decade we went from seeming like trans people were actually gaining widespread acceptance to Republicans trying to eradicate us, and becoming their designated whipping girls (Repubs rarely attack trans men). But I remember what out LGBTQ+ elders endured and fought to get us this far, so that keeps me fighting.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
I beg to differ. My wife made a big pot of Spanish bean soup last night, and we feasted off it both last night and tonight, along with some Cuban bread. Perfect counter to a couple of dark, rainy, depressing days.
Sister Golden Bear
@wjca: Nope. And these folks were definitely on the horseshoe left.
Kirk
@Jay: To me, the axiom underlaying your argument is that all news is good news. And I disagree with that, saying instead that I cannot hear what is being said over my reaction to what is done. I try not to support assholes.
Jay
@apocalipstick:
@SatanicPanic:
“Climate Change” got mentioned in the news, even if only in passing, just like Hurricane Helene got climate change mentioned briefly when it went from a Cat 1 to a Cat 4 in just a day.
wjca
I doubt they made their own soup. Probably used canned soup. Philistines!
Kirk
@Kirk: A clarification. I am not calling Jay an asshole. I’m calling this set of protestors who are trying to destroy irrelevant works of art assholes, on par with the taliban who destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
Citizen Alan
@HumboldtBlue: Stories like this literally make me want to go out and burn oil just for the hell of it. Fucking spoiled children.
Jay
@frog:
Bibi’s not interested in Israel.
Under Dolt45, Bibi can clear Gaza, the West Bank, South Lebanon and exist on a forever war footing,
and Bibi doesn’t go to jail.
Citizen Alan
@PatD: When did we ever have control of Bibi Netanyahu? When did we ever have any meaningful control over Israel that people seem to think we possess but are not using out of sheer weakness or spite?
Harrison Wesley
@Jay: Bibi will find it easier to snooker Trump into attacking Iran, too, which is what I believe he really wants from the USA. In addition to weapons, of course.
wjca
With the caveat that the brackets need to be adjusted for inflation. (In the 1950s, $8,000 a year was a solid middle class wage. You could, and my parents did, raise 4 kids on it. Today? Not so much)
PatD
@WaterGirl: I think Biden decided he was going to offer unconditional military and financial support to Israel and wasn’t willing to take any political risks by standing up to Bibi. And Bibi has taken full advantage of that. I agree that Bibi is trying to help Trump win the election.
Citizen Alan
@Anoniminous: i will do shitgibbon the enormous courtesy of assuming that he meant to say torn from a woman’s womb, and it was just a slip of the tongue of the sort that we would ignore if biden said something similar. Of course, the rest of the sentence is a repulsive lie, which should not get lost in our bemusement over the sentence’s grammatical or logical failings.
PatD
@Citizen Alan: We’ve always had leverage but politics has kept Dems from using it. No elected Dem wants to be painted as anti-Israel. On the other hand, I can easily see Trump turning on Bibi because he’s a snake, first and foremost, and he’s not afraid of any political backlash.
Citizen Alan
@Chet Murthy: While I am relieved to know that they are not wantonly destroying priceless works of art, the fact that they are careful not to damage priceless works of art only makes the protests seem even more pointless and imbecilic. It is the very definition of performative bullshit that could have no possible positive benefit for their cause that outweighs the contempt that their actions instill in people. Actual and effective environmental activism is undermined and set back by bullshit like this. It’s like how every single ad i’ve ever seen from PETA has maybe want to go out and eat a steak.
TS
Didn’t realise the depth of RFK attempting to win for trump until I read he is trying to get on the ballot in blue states while wanting to be off the ballot in the battlegrounds – so he knows full well he is seen as a trump alternative to some of the never trumpers. (takes me awhile to see the full picture)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/27/2024-election-campaign-updates-harris-trump/#link-W3RZSLYMO5DV5JE3NB6U4DXWKM
PatD
@Melancholy Jaques: Sure, they have some control. I actually think Trump would easily sell Israel out for some back room deal with the Iranians or Saudis.
Splitting Image
@Citizen Alan:
P.E.T.A. = “Pork Every Tuesday, Always!”
Jay
@Kirk:
The artworks are behind alarmed, fully protective acrylic shields. The reason for this is because tourists would’nt stop touching the artworks and human skin oils degrade oil paintings.
So the only damage is that a janitor has to mop the floor and windex off the acrylic.
This year, forest fires in just BC alone, were 52% of Canada’s Carbon Emissions. In a CBC report, on a scientific report stating that over the next 5 years, BC will experience year round forest fires all across BC including the Rainforest*, and Climate Change made it into one single sentence.
*until 15 years ago, except for one incident related to logging practices in the 1920’s, the Rainforest never burned, too wet.
Baud
@Jay:
Just saw this on reddit
Captain C
@Jackie:
Are we sure Ginni isn’t an Iranian agent? It would be irresponsible not to speculate…
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
See the Children of Kali in “The Ministry for the Future”.
Jay
@Harrison Wesley:
Dolt45 won’t be “snookered” into attacking Iran,
He just won’t care what Bibi does, one way or another.
I doubt that ShitMandius would have even bothered to have create a coelition to take down Iranian drones and missiles fired at Israel. He will just let the region burn unless somebody pays him, like Jarvanka, for not doing anything.
Harrison Wesley
@Jay: I dunno. He seems to have ordered the assassination of Soleimani just for the hell of it, and I think Bibi has a pretty good idea of which buttons to push – he wouldn’t even have to call him “Sir” or have tears in his eyes.
Jay
@Baud:
Yup, the “Liberal Party” here, (no affiliation to the Canadian Liberal Party) was an alliance of ex-Socreds and Wingnuts. When they lost the last election, they split into two parties, the “Conservatives” (wingnuts) and “United” (almost sane). They floated the idea of uniting to take on the NDP, but hate each others guts more than the NDP.
Kent
You know what? A fundamental principle of civil disobedience is that you are willing to serve the time for the disobedience you engage in. The Civil Rights movement wanted to pack the jails.
People who engage in random vandalism of public art and public places and want to escape responsibility for their acts are just vandals.
10-1 these are the same kind of nitwits who would be voting for Jill Stein if they were Americans.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
There will be thinkpieces about how the unusually-warm Gulf waters, made warmer by global heating, increased the moisture->flood content of Hurricane Helene, and about Helene’s huge size.
Then there will be be discussions about global heating and hurricanes triggered by the large disaster relief requests, that the rest of the USA will pay for, so attention will be paid.
There will also be increases in insurance rates, but not before the USA election.
Jay
@Harrison Wesley:
Obama got Bin Laden, so Dolt45 thought he would get the same kudo’s or bigger for murdering Soleimani.
TBone
If only people could get as incensed about the destruction wrought by the fueligarchs as they do about the performative “destruction” by the protesters.
Elizabelle
@TS: RFK. Now stands for RatFucKer
Easier way to say that: you cannot have ratfucker without RFK.
(He dishonors the name.)
Jay
@Kent:
The Civil Rights Movement wanted to get footage, photos and stories of their brutal beatings, murders and imprisonment attracting media attention and flooding the homes of “middle class white Americans”,
That’s why they took on violent racists Bull Connor, and not the other quiet racist Sheriffs.
Kent
@Sister Golden Bear: All social change in this country is incremental and always has been. That is how democracies work.
The only real exception was the Civil War. And a heck of a lot of people died in that effort.
Jay
@Bill Arnold:
only if you look for them. In a week, the media and American minds will be on the next distraction.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: 🤭❤️
BR
This TikToker is also always on point and hilarious:
https://www.tiktok.com/@theempresscjj/video/7419475708264598827
Kent
Yes, but even when they did things like sit-ins in restaurants. They expected to be arrested. They didn’t expect the authorities to pat them on the head and tell them what good little boys and girls they were.
Jay
@Kent:
And the Climate Change protestors got arrested, on the same day that the previous protestors that they copy catted got sentenced to 2 years in jail.
Your point was?
divF
@Sister Golden Bear: I was in my 30’s during the 80’s. We must remember those years, despite the pain. Now we are seeing another wave of deaths among GenX and Millenial queers, either directly or indirectly (heart attacks, aneurysms), from drug overdoses, the cumulative effect of self-hatred and despair.
Jay
@TBone:
BP twitted out, “what will you pledge to do to tackle climate change?”
The first reply in the ratio was “I promise not to spill 45 billion gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.”
There was a recent report that a mere 100 Corporations are responsible for over 90% of carbon and methane emissions, most are subsidized.
Nelle
@Theron Ware: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Kent
My point was they knowingly and flagrantly broke a law, filmed themselves doing it, and got themselves convicted for it. I have a hard time mustering the slightest bit of sympathy. And I doubt they will serve 2 full years.
A whole bunch of 1-6 protestors made the same basic argument about why they should have gotten off scott-free for just wandering into the Capital. And a whole bunch of people agreed with them for the same reasons that people are calling this case a travesty of justice.
Suzanne
@Baud: I’m making lentil soup on Sunday. It better be soup weather.
Kent
I agree to a point. But is it BP that is solely responsible? Or the millions of Americans who buy big SUVs and pickups and live in far-flung suburbs also collectively responsible as well?
BP would have no effect on the climate if no one was buying their products and voting for politicians and policies that double down on fossil fuels.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: 💜
“The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is; and this we can contrive with an Elstir, with a Vinteuil; with men like these we do really fly from star to star.”
https://clearingcustoms.net/2013/12/17/what-marcel-proust-really-said-about-seeing-with-new-eyes/
Of course we adore art! Art for art’s sake! If we don’t have a habitable planet, who will appreciate it? Who could be an artist?
Jay
@Kent:
You are confusing events. 2 years ago, Climate protestors souped a Van Gough. They claimed “higher justice/greater good” as their defense at trial, lost the trial, and were sentenced to two years in jail today.
You are right, they will not spend two years in jail, because they have already spent a year in jail.
Today, 2 more Climate protestors souped a Van Gough, to bring attention to both Climate Change and the sentencing of the previous protestors, and got arrested, and will probably be charged. Their defense will be the same.
Geminid
@Harrison Wesley: Trump liked to talk tough but he was wary of actual military confrontation. The Soleimeini assasjnation seemed uncharacteristic of Trump, and I figured Pompeo drove that decision. Bolton was in on it too.
TF79
@Jay: I suppose from the perspective of climate change, spilling it is better than burning it, though. I’m surprised some clever BP attorney didn’t try to claim some carbon offsets for the avoided emissions – think how many tons of CO2 weren’t released!
Sister Golden Bear
@Kent: Exactly. I get being young, full of piss and vinegar and self-righteous certitude, but… we’re not living in gumdrop sugar plum fairyland.
@divF: We definitely need to remember and learn from those painful years. Though one issue is that there’s comparatively few queer/trans elders. Some of it is because, thankfully, so many Millennial and Gen Z LGBTQ+ can be themselves. But another huge reason is there’s so few of us, is that we’re the only ones who survived.
Sadly as you point out, we’re still losing people—pretty much any LGBTQ+ person, especially elders, suffers from some level of CPTSD from living in a hostile society. (Obviously that’s also true for other minority groups as well.)
Jay
@Kent:
I have a former friend* who now makes 7 figures a year writing subsidized op eds and articles pointing out that if all of us 8.2 billion “rats” all did our part, AGW would not be a problem,
of course, he ignores the lag effect,
but don’t worry, AGW will ensure that there won’t be even close to 8.2 billion of us “rats” on the planet in less than a century.
He also makes a couple 6 figures a year “greenwashing”.
*once upon a time, he was a famous “environmentalist” and we worked together on a bunch of projects, but there is little money in “environmentalism”.
TF79
Looks like residents of other apartments managed by the same out-of-state slumlord are calling on the city to hold them accountable: https://kdvr.com/news/local/aurora-apartment-complex-residents-call-for-citys-help-with-poor-living-conditions/
It’s like a tailor-made phd dissertation for a sociologist on how capital will whip up racism and xenophobia to make a buck
Jackie
@TS: Yes, it’s patently obvious RFK jr hopes to pull votes from Harris in Blue states, but doesn’t want to take from TCFG in battleground states.
He’s fooling nobody.
Kent
@Jay: And splashing soup on a painting in a museum will have exactly as much effect as making a “protest vote” for Jill Stein.
If this new bunch gets themselves convicted I’m not going to care one way or the other
TS
@Jackie: He’s fooled a few in my part of the world. We don’t talk much politics but when someone told me he was a democrat from the great democratic family – I explained they did not have a clue in the right direction
Jay
@Kent:
Well, like I keep pointing out, it got “Climate Change” into the news globally for the first time in a month, even made the two words appear in a top 10,000 blog.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Kent:
And they expected that they would be brutalized while being arrested. Part of their strategy was to compare and contrast the innocuous nature of their protest – going into a segregated diner and sitting down at the counter – with the response of Jim Crow enforcement – cracking skulls and breaking bones and unleashing vicious dogs and firehoses.
Also, too, they were directly protesting unjust laws, not vandalizing something completely unrelated and expecting to be let off for it because their cause was righteous.
Jay
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Nice slander,……….
BTW, in your neck of the woods,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/27/mountain-valley-pipeline-protest
Which of course, you won’t read, because some how, “they are protesting wrong”.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Jay: I am not responsible for the attitudes and actions of a fictional version of myself that exists only in someone else’s imagination.
Jay
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
You seem to be more than willing to fictionalize the actions of other people.
Ramalama
@Sister Golden Bear: yes yes and, at least in Boston, when ACT UP members interrupted some Masses, protesting, it was directly related, considering the stranglehold the Catholic Church had in the state, and not charitable towards the gays. Also turned out the protests were well targeted for another dire reason against the Church (and Phil Saviano of Spotlight fame was right and not a loon).
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
And of the millions of people who’ve heard of this incident, how many will (a) pick up this fact and (b) think positively of the protesters as a result?
I expect (a) will be a fairly small fraction, and (b) will be even smaller. I mean, even here, most of us think they’re a bunch of performative jackasses, even knowing (a).
This protest, like its predecessor, does more to discredit climate activism than promote awareness of the problem. They’re treating a headache by hitting themselves in the head.
Cheryl from Maryland
I am late to the party, but as an art historian, I deplore the necessity of glazing oil paintings, even with the fabulous Optimum acrylic. Glazed oil paintings do not allow observers to see the impasto of the paint and the subtleties of the surface. The glazing removes part of the experience. Besides that, the frames themselves are often of the time, designed or selected by the artist, generally made of plaster, wood, and a coating of either gilding, varnish, lacquer, or paint. The frames are valuable and vulnerable to soup.
Cheryl from Maryland
I am late to the party, but as an art historian, I deplore the necessity of glazing oil paintings, even with the fabulous Optimum acrylic. Glazed oil paintings do not allow observers to see the impasto of the paint and the subtleties of the surface. The glazing removes part of the experience. Besides that, the frames themselves are often of the time, designed or selected by the artist, generally made of plaster, wood, and a coating of either gilding, varnish, lacquer, or paint. The frames are valuable and vulnerable to soup.
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
The WaPo coverage of Hurricane Helene mentions climate change repeatedly. And a search of the site for ‘climate change’ comes up with two articles about climate change in the ten days previous to coverage of Helene or the Van Gogh soup-throwers.
WaterGirl
@PatD:
Totally disagree with that.
But agree that all the bad actors want Trump to win.
AWOL
@Chet Murthy: The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s newly renovated European wing is both incredible and has 95 percent of the art shown is displayed naturally, not behind glass or plastic.
If one of these pathetic motherfuckers besmirching both beauty and an essential cause. . .