Happy Father’s Day to all the great dads out there!
I’ll be visiting my dad later with a bag of Checker’s fries — his favorite. We’ve butted heads all my life. But over the years, both of us mellowed, and we developed appreciation and a grudging respect for each other. We’ll talk about fishing and boating and Kids Today. We won’t discuss politics.
***
The No Kings protests gave me a lot of hope.
This probably doesn’t look like a big protest if you’re in a city, but in a very red small town in FL on a Saturday morning? BFD! #NoKings
— Betty Cracker of Florida (@bettycrackerfl.bsky.social) June 14, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Unfortunately, it did not enhance my skills as a cinematographer. (Sorry for the bug guts on the windshield.)
We had a couple of rolling coal assholes who drove by repeatedly. One of them called me and the other white people standing on the sidewalk with me the N-word, but other than that, it was a peaceful and positive experience.
I see in the backroom there are posts queued up to share photos from commenters on their No Kings day activities. I look forward to seeing them!
Open thread.
Matt McIrvin
The Eagle-Tribune article describes Haverhill’s No Kings turnout as “nearly 1,000”, which sounds not far off, but when that happens I wonder if they have an independent estimate or if they’re secretly using stuff I said online as their source.
cmorenc
An(other) unfortunate side-effect of the news story about the assassination of the two Minnesota state legislators, with the perp still on the run, was that it drained the MSM’s focus from the NK rallies as a counterpoint to Trump’s military parade. When I was both on my way both to the huge downtown Raleigh NK rally at the old State Capitol grounds and on the way home 2 hrs later, both MSNBC and CNN were wall-to-wall alternating covering the manhunt in Minnesota, and the upcoming military parade in DC. Every once in awhile, they gave tangential, way back in third place, brief mention of the NK rallies going on, but then quickly back to “don’t answer the door in Minn unless there are at least two policemen present etc”
For the record, the attendance at the Raleigh rally was apx 3-4k people, with most of the busy traffic going by honking and waving thumbs-up in support.
suzanne
Happy Fathers’ Day to all the dads, grandfathers, uncles, stepdads, etc!
I have been deeply enjoying seeing pictures from all of the protests around the country. My cousin-once-removed sent me some photos from the rally she attended in Juneau, Alaska, where they had almost 2000 people! DANG!
Mr. Suzanne and I were discussing….. the protests have layers of value, one big one being that it helps us remember that we are not alone and isolated.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Just saw a report that typifies yesterday:
Turnout in Philly: 80K.
No arrests.
That’s how ya peacefully protest!
After decades of being isolated in red, rurl Misery (in a county of 13K, we always joked that we were 2 of the 10 Dems based on the fact we were always being recruited to work the polling stations as they had a 50/50 D/R requirement and had a helluva time finding Dems), being in the midst of sooooo many people, particularly with a strong Hispanic/Latino element present, has been liberating.
Yesterday’s non-marching stuff which was basically mill about smartly, was defiantly celebratory, another cool component.
Regarding the MSNBC coverage, my normie wife watched coverage and as I said in the other thread, the differences between them an CNN were stark, the latter being Israel, MN Manhunt, Hair Furor Parade…then No Kings whereas MSNBC did a *lot* of No Kings reporting, didn’t mention Israel.
Baud
Happy Father’s Day to all you dads that have taught your kids not to be fascist!
Matt McIrvin
@cmorenc: But it also back-burnered the coverage of the confrontations between Los Angeles protesters and the LAPD as night fell, which probably would have been the way to sour the story if there hadn’t been other things to pay attention to. There was a story about it on MSNBC.
cmorenc
@suzanne:
From a personal standpoint, the sensation of being in a large community of like-minded resistance, rather than being relatively isolated among an indifferent citizenry, was a huge takeaway from attending the rally in downtown Raleigh with several thousand other protesters, augmented by shows of support from most of the passing traffic along the busy adjacent streets.
narya
@Baud: I think about this a lot. If you saw my dad, you might well have leapt to the conclusion that he would be a Republican, but he was about as far from that as you could get (well, other than my maternal grandfather, who was an actual anarchist).
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@narya:
Now that’s a story pitch for a a show about family Thanksgiving dinners and what happens at them.
suzanne
@cmorenc: Agreed. It’s an important thing to feel.
I have been trying to find a good estimate for how many in PGH turned out. There were multiple protests in the city itself — we went to the one downtown — plus a bunch of the suburbs, as well as the smaller outlying towns and counties. The one we went to got a permit to close streets and march, which was great. Everything remained very peaceful.
After the election last year, I had told myself I wasn’t gonna show up to any protests. I have been worried about facial recognition technology. But…. fuck this guy.
There’s been some good IRL mobilization in my neighborhood, too.
Dorothy A. Winsor
There was one guy with a giant MAGA flag at the rally I went to. As soon as he showed up, the guy running the show got on the mic and reminded everyone we were here to protest peacefully. Don’t let yourself be provoked, he said. Meet those people with courtesy and walk away. I saw no trouble at all.
There was also a giant inflated chicken. My camera malfunctioned so I don’t have a pic. Sad!
Baud
@narya:
Anarchists always confused me. Not sure what the end goal is, unlike ideologies like fascism and communism.
Matt McIrvin
@cmorenc: Right-wingers are very, very good at flooding the zone with shit and making themselves look overwhelmingly popular just by tirelessly hammering away at their message. My town votes majority Democratic, but from things like bumper stickers or yard-sign displays around election time, you often wouldn’t know it. If all you read was Facebook or the first 100 comments on any YouTube video, you’d think the US has no blue states.
And when our left *is* vocal, it’s often the old inward-facing firing squad, progressives sniping at each other and treating Republicans as a kind of wild beasts that are beneath critique.
So something like this is a useful reminder.
narya
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: my family history is entertaining AF, to be honest, in a very small way (not in a world-historical way). And Thanksgiving was awesome, because my mom and grandmother did the cooking, and they both are/were great cooks. It took me a very long time to realize that it was unusual that my grandmother, who had a sixth-grade education subscribed to Gourmet and Bon Appetit for the recipes.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: With left anarchists, I always thought of the end state as basically the same as for communists. A world where everyone just does the right thing, cooperates and treats each other well, with no heavy-handed state to enforce it. They just have different ideas about how to get there.
narya
@Baud: I didn’t get a chance to really talk about it with my grandfather, unfortunately. I think they were more anarcho-syndicalists (think of that scene in “Holy Grail” . . .), and I think it had as much to do with anti-fascism as anything else. I would say that Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed might be one possible rendition of what they had in mind, but I do not know that.
ETA: I have pics of this guy, who my grandfather was associated with. A historian friend from grad school practically wept when I told him that my grandmother threw out my grandfather’s letters with him after my grandfather died
ETA 2: when my grandfather died, my parents went to a memorial service and someone gave my parents an inscribed-to-me bio of Emma Goldman. My grandfather had known the guy who gave my parents the book. And the guy was mentioned in the intro, because Goldman got him out of jail at one point, It was sweet, because it was clear my grandfather had talked about me to that guy.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Jesus Christ, that’s anarchy!
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: One of the organizers in my town kept the peace in similar fashion. There were no speeches or megaphones, but he walked up and down the sidewalks where protesters stood reminding us to keep it peaceful.
Another positive thing: a deputy patrol car started tailing the rolling coal creeps who were shouting in our faces, and they fucked off. Our horrible right-wing sheriff was ousted in the last election and replaced by a moderate. The previous sheriff would probably have let the provocateurs operate with impunity.
Spanky
@Baud: Oxford chooses a more common useage for their primary definition:
But fuck Oxford.
Layer8Problem
@Matt McIrvin: Having a cynical attitude toward human nature I always figured the end game of anarchy was organized crime stepping up to the plate and taking on highway maintenance, waterworks, and sewage treatment. Anarchists would probably counter with “No, that would be government.”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Layer8Problem:
“That’s a nice toilet you have there. Shame is something happened to it.”
Baud
@Spanky:
Thanks. My understanding is that communists believe people would learn how to get there through the workings of the state after the revolution. The state would then whither away. As Matt said, the anarchists must have a different theory about how to get there.
sab
I think yesterday took a hell of a lot of fairly quiet but effective organizing all over the country. Sites were, found permits were obtained, people were notified, all very grass roots. Anybody at all who had any interest in going knew of at least three or four sites nearby almost everywhere in the whole country.
I think it was remarkable. We have a long slog ahead of us, but I feel so much more hopeful than I did yesterday morning.
eclare
Memphis had around 4k at a street corner!
Baud
Layer8Problem
@eclare: That’s a big street corner.
WereBear
Myself as well. Mr WereBear could not attend, but he could hear the honking from supportive traffic.
Spanky
@Baud: I would think an examination of human history and human nature would show that we’ll never get to that utopia. There are some people that just naturally prey on other people, and people have always banded together for mutual protection, out of which rises a hierarchy.
Across the ages and across the globe, this is what people do. I happen to be one of those who think we can’t nurture our way past our natural inclination in this basic need.
Tl;dr, people are dicks.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@sab: Someone I was with knew one of the organizers (a state rep) and she talked about how many tasks she had to keep on top of. As you say, the site and the permit and the publicity, but also talking to the police about what kind of presence they planned (I saw none but may have missed it), organizing speakers (too many), making sure there was a mic, etc.
Baud
more signs
Betty Cracker
The local paper says more than 800 were at the protest we attended yesterday. I underestimated it at 500+. An excerpt:
The asshole in the big truck was inspired by our shitty governor, who gave drivers permission to run over protesters — because he’s also an asshole. But you know what? I think the Asshole Age is waning. We’re gonna win.
Baud
@Spanky:
Me too. I think both theories are fanciful, as is libertarianism.
O. Felix Culpa
@sab: Excellent observation. We went to a rally in a smallish town in a red county which was well-attended by those standards and VERY well organized. Good speakers, just the right number and length, and a sound system that worked! I was impressed.
Plus they had arranged for a TACO truck to serve hungry protestors. Double entendre intended.
ETA: They also had a “health table” with water and other supplies in case of medical issues, as well as people with bright yellow vests walking through the crowd to make sure everything was ok. Which it was. No trouble-makers in the crowd at all. The only occasional disruption was a few pickups driving by making derogatory noises, but most passers-by were positive.
Baud
@Spanky:
I’m not saying the Framers created the best governmental system in human history, but they did do what they did with this principle in mind.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
rikyrah
Happy Father’s Day ❤️ 💐 🤗🌞
Layer8Problem
@Spanky: “Tl;dr, people are dicks.”
Ok, that one gets nominated.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@sab:
Bravo to all who organized 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Baud
@Layer8Problem:
Seconded.
RevRick
The Morning Call estimated that there were about 6,600 people attending two of the four Lehigh Valley No Kings rallies yesterday, giving them front page coverage. That’s about 1% of the population, but it was a miserable rainy day here.
Trump’s show was relegated to the second section.
Also, what “small” town has a four-lane highway?
Baud
Looks like someone crawled out of the woodwork to make Cuomo look good by comparison.
suzanne
I should also note that we showed up about an hour early, before the permit to close the roads was in effect, and we had a lot of horn-honking and cheering from drivers and passers-by. Then the road closure went into effect. We had what looked to me to be about 2-3 solid blocks of crowds.
WereBear
Corporate Media. So they are doing different “brands” of news.
Even Fox, stung by the voting machine suit, has a pet liberal on to throw shade at periodic intervals, to give them a whisper of saving money on the next one.
None of this is “news” as journalism understands it. Information is now another product to sell, but the rules are “eh.”
rikyrah
@suzanne:
Not only not isolated where you live, but seeing them all over social media validated that you are not alone across the country
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker: Fortunately, MAGAots stayed away from the several thousand-strong protest yesterday at the old NC State Capitol grounds. There was not so much as a single counter-protestor, not a single MAGA-festooned vehicle passing by, let alone trying to kill the buzz with loud farty noises or coal-rolling exhaust, etc. A strong majority of the busy traffic passing by the capitol grounds honked and waved in support – the capitol grounds is along the major artery street into downtown Raleigh, so it’s not as if the traffic going by was dominated by folks selectively theree along the site to protest from the comfort of car seats rather than standing in a crowd on a hot day.
mappy!
@Layer8Problem:
… sounds like our local Republican grifters (aka town employees).
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I know this is kind of late, but I thought of a poster your loyal partner might carry;
A positive message.
WereBear
@Baud: I find them better to hang with than libertarians, if that helps.
Spanky
@Geminid: No, that would be Betty’s sign. Bill’s sign would be
RevRick
@Baud: Our Founders operated under the maxim “If men (sic) were angels, government would be unnecessary. If men (sic) were devils, government would be impossible.”
Governments are a necessity not only to allow our better angels hold our devils in check, but also because they provide for the common good.
Ohio Mom
Just opened my email, there’s one from my sister, the ultimate tote-bagger above the fray, with a photo of her and a friend at the protest in front of her upscale neighborhood library.
I really wasn’t expecting that. My sister makes mostly appropriate noises and reliably votes Blue but I’ve yet to see her get her hands dirty, so to speak.
Layer8Problem
@WereBear: To begin with their weed is better. And their parties are lit.
Betty Cracker
@RevRick: The bustling metropolis pictured has a population of about 7,500 and not one but TWO four-lane highways (U.S. Hwy 41 and State Road 44.)
cmorenc
@WereBear:
CNN has made their website version of news coverage almost unusable without a paid subscription ($30/year or $4/month)- only a relatively superficial handful of news articles are not behind the paywall. And so I only go there now sometimes to check out what array of headline articles they are promoting as news of the day. Um…CNN, isn’t having to put up with ads intruding into the format of every article already enough? Might this not reduce the audience for your website substantially? Hopefully MSNBC won’t eventually follow CNN down the subscription rat-hole.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
One that he could whisper to BC as they get into bed at night. :D
NotMax
Morning music. Brahms bebopped.
Also too, a libation for when drinkin’ time comes around on Father’s Day.
;)
Baud
@RevRick:
A maxim that the Republican Party proves every day.
Betty Cracker
@Spanky: Haha, he’s the REAL Big Beautiful Bill!
RevRick
@mappy!: We had anarchy essentially after the fall of the western Roman Empire. And what came in its wake was a lot of petty gangster fiefs, who ended up calling themselves nobility.
Another Scott
@cmorenc: This still seems to work:
https://lite.cnn.com/
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
I love these people. Best thing Rudy ever gave us.
WereBear
@O. Felix Culpa: And the more overtly “patriotic” the pickup the more they would not show support.
Spanky
@Baud: Rudy have them such a gift, and I’m glad to see them taking full advantage of it.
scribbler
@cmorenc: Agree about the CNN site-it seems you’re not allowed to read almost any article without a subscription. It’s hard to get out of the habit, because I have used them for years just as a kind of newspaper “front page” to see what the day’s main stories might be, but I’m training myself to find and use other sites for that instead (AP, BBC, Guardian, etc).
ETA: Plus, I don’t want to reward them with clicks anymore.
WereBear
@Baud: When we consider what they had to work with, who refused to work at all.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: My husband ended up holding my sign — he’s much taller!
NotMax
@RevRick
I happen to live in one. Population 8000. Highway separates us from the next town, population 7200.
Spanky
@scribbler: Ditto. CNN has shit their own bed, and I wonder how long it’ll take for them to find out. Or else I guess we’ll find out that they really don’t care.
Scout211
@cmorenc: Agree. The site used to be useable and some articles even link-worthy, unlike the CNN cable news site.
@Another Scott: Thank you! I bookmarked that site.
ETA: I switched to the NBC News site for breaking news and link-worthy articles. I still have to weed through the crap but their breaking news has been good lately.
How long will it be free?
WereBear
@Layer8Problem: And if you need a sensory break, their libraries have better books.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I think they have an idea that most people are inherently good and it’s the actions and propaganda of a minority of greedy bastards that corrupt them.
I’m skeptical of this, personally. And so are conservatives, and they take this realism as a selling point. But where conservatives fall down is that they seem to think there’s a natural elite of supermen who this cynical take somehow doesn’t apply to–or, perhaps, whose bad behavior should be excused.
Spanky
@Another Scott: Thanks for this! And bullet points are so much easier to navigate.
Anyway
Yes I looked up the locations and times on Friday night and was on the fence till the last minute. I went only bcos it was an easy drive and knew where to park. Seeing thousands of people across a wide range of ages made me feel a little better that it wasn’t just disgruntled Jackals that were opposed to this maladministration.
I still get disheartened that November 2026 the first chance to reverse some of the damage is so far away — but yesterday felt good.
WereBear
@Matt McIrvin: It is about incentives, always. Tilting to the right seems an open door to the criminal element, in everyone.
There’s rarely peer relationships, because everything is about scrambling for advantage. So, ya do.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Reminds me a little of that management philosophy that says you should fire the 10% of your employees who are the worst performers every year.
Denali5
I had a great experience yesterday in the suburbs of western New York. People brought lawn chairs and great signs and sat between the sidewalks and the street. Many of the cars and trucks passing by honked and waved in support. The early morning timing meant that people were able to find parking spaces before stores opened.
I really appreciate the work put in that made the events across the country a success. The workers told us that there will be more events. How great that the first one was on flag day! We got to reclaim the flag for all of us!
PST
@Ohio Mom:
I like the term tote-bagger and have to admit that it describes me to a T: around 70 years old, economically comfortable, reliably liberal, but often smug and complacent. Here in Chicago a couple of weeks ago at the “Hands Off” protest as I looked around Daly Plaza I felt like I was seeing too many reflections of myself. Not everyone, of course, but older, whiter, and less economically stressed than the community as a whole. It felt different yesterday, with a better cross section of those with much to fear from the Trump regime (which ought to be everyone).
HinTN
You picked a beautiful part of the world, @Betty Cracker:. So much protected land.
narya
@Baud: @Matt McIrvin: One of the things that is most interesting about LeGuin’s novel is that she doesn’t imagine that the anarchist, property-free society is perfect; she does an excellent job showing how power can and does accrue even when there isn’t property or wealth to facilitate that. Similarly, my dad observed that, at the anarchist picnics, it seemed that the same people did all of the work of organizing everything. The part that still attracts me is the removal of wealth/private property as a means of control, plus the notion that it is the obligation of everyone to work (including the shitwork). I doubt I’ll ever see anything close to it, and the introverted misanthrope in me doesn’t want to join a commune, but I still see the value in the ideal.
NotMax
@Layer8Problem
History tidbit: Granny’s good cutlery an outgrowth of free love Marxists.
:)
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all.
satby
@Baud: both theories rely on deliberately ignoring human nature.
WereBear
@NotMax: The infamous free love colony, a favorite NY experiment.
Another Scott
@NotMax: … “… abandoned his community, fleeing to Canada.”
As one does.
;-)
History – Weirder than you imagine; weirder than you can imagine.
Thanks?
;-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: if Anthony Wiener have been able to keep his own weiner zipped up in his pants, Hillary would have won in 2016. Richard Comey only reopened the emails investigation and made the infamous announcement about it on the eve of the election because the investigation into Wiener’s grossness led to the discovery Clinton Foundation (by way of Huma Abedin) documents on his laptop.
Librettist
@Spanky:
CNN is getting put out on an ice floe with the rest of the Discovery cable TV portfolio.
Targeting John Malone as their audience profile was a really bad idea at Warner.
All the big conglomerate broadcast and cable portfolios are now money pits.
Another Scott
Dominic Gwinn of Wonkette has a good eyewitness story on the DC parade – Trump’s Single Finger Salute to America.
+1
Best wishes,
Scott.
satby
Update on total estimated attendance at the No Kings protests from alt. National Parks and 50501 organizations: 11 million turned out and smaller events still being tallied.