ACLU will no longer spend its finite resources defending racist hate groups protesting with firearms https://t.co/T3UiLnMar5
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) August 17, 2017
… Following clashes over the weekend in Charlottesville, Va., the civil-rights group also will screen clients more closely for the potential of violence at their rallies, said Anthony Romero, who has been the ACLU’s executive director since 2001.
The ACLU’s Virginia branch defended the right of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other groups under the banner “Unite the Right” to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a Charlottesville park.
The revised policy marries the 97-year-old civil-rights group’s First Amendment work with the organization’s stance on firearms, which aligns with many municipalities and states that bar protesters from carrying weapons…
.
Apart from the ongoing #Resistance, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up another exhausting week?
***********
Meanwhile, the Boston news stations are treating Saturday’s proposed Boston Common rally as they would a potentially dangerous weather event — which seems about right for a cascade of dirty snowflakes. Jersey barriers have been lifted into place, the Swan Boats and Frog Pond will be shut down, protestors on both sides will be kept well apart, and both food and clothing vendors are banned (no snacks for looky-loos, and no giant displays of offensive ‘memorabilia’). And kudos to the goog people doing ‘protest training’, and to WCBV/Ch5 for covering them:
NorthLeft12
I think that is a good compromise for the ACLU. They were caught in a bind, and really had to support the RWNJs’ right to assemble and protest. But if they have a history of violence and it appears likely that their protest would end in violence that was instigated by them, this gives the ACLU a good out to not get involved. Thanks NAZIs!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@NorthLeft12:
Actually, no, they don’t. Plenty of goofy money exists to support the Nazis – ACLU can just decline to help.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@NorthLeft12:
Actually, no, they don’t. Plenty of goofy money exists to support the Nazis – ACLU can just decline to help.
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
Quinerly
@rikyrah:
Good morning from Poco’s tribe! So glad you and your sister are getting good news each day. Hoping for a nice weekend for both of you. On the Poco tribe front, our week-long, very difficult houseguest leaves today. Poco goes in shortly for minor surgery. His second mouth tumor in 18 months. The first was benign. Sure hoping this second one is too. It popped up in less than 3 weeks. Sending healing thoughts to your sister. Meows from Poco’s kitty advisers. Baud/Poco2020?
Kay
Well, that’s a very lawyerly distinction! *with firearms :)
I’m kidding. I love them for doing this:
They’re good lawyers. They don’t do dumb stuff with voting rights – they;re effective. There are two groups who are reliably either behind or backing winning voting rights court cases in Ohio – The Coalition for the Homeless and the ACLU. Compare with the Greens, who somehow manage to discredit the whole cause and reliably, too- every one of their lawsuits is either dumb or counterproductive or fails. Usually both. I’ll never forget the Greens in 2012. There was this elaborate planned volunteer army in place in Ohio for election day and the Greens decided to file a lawsuit to hold up the election based on some ridiculous conspiracy theory that Mitt Romney’s son had a part ownership in a voting machine company. The worst thing that could have happened for “voting rights” was chaos, and they were doing their absolute best to create it. It didn’t matter because they lost – they always lose- but you just want to beg them to pick another issue. Please. Stop helping us. No more helping.
eclare
@Quinerly: Hoping for the best for you and Poco. When will you know?
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
In full on eclipse mode now. 2 days with the skid loader and I accomplished 90% of what I intended to (the last 10% would have taken about 25% of the allotted time available due to the clay/dolomite matrix I live on). Plenty more to do before Sunday when I expect folks to show up.
Baud
@Quinerly: Best wishes. As a reminder, BaudCare! covers pets. It should be a litmus test for Democrats.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I miss Obama with the eclipse. He would have some big nerdy committee and “Americans love science!” day. He and Michelle would have donned the glasses because they are good sports :)
We don’t, really, ‘love science’, but he’s clearly a believer in fake it ’till you make it. We COULD love science, if we were better people. I miss the aspirational aspect of Obama. Trump is so goddamned exhausting and grim. Make America Mean Again is right.
Quinerly
@eclare:
I’ll pick him up at 3:30. She called last time after the surgery with initial thoughts. They send it off to be tested at the vet school…so that part we’ll know next week. Supposedly, these types of mouth/gum tumors are common in labs, goldens…and dogs who had poor nutrition early on (Poco was a street dog). The part that is somewhat troubling is it came back in the same spot. Poco is short on teeth because of his rough life up to 3 1/2 years ago. Hoping we don’t lose anymore back teeth. Thanks for your interest. Fingers crossed.
Quinerly
@Baud:
❤??
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sounds great. How big of a crowd is descending on you?
eclare
@Quinerly: Fingers and paws crossed here too.
Baud
@Kay: I’m gonna be contrarian and say I don’t miss Obama. I watched for eight years while people took what we had for granted, particularly during the most important first two years. I’m not interested in having that back until lessons have been learned.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Madame wanted me to print out a passport application, my printer died(it said the printhead wasn’t not connected). I have a new printer.
JGabriel
Anne Laurie @ Top:
Doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose of protest if the people being protested can’t see or hear you?
Don’t get me wrong, I understand wanting to prevent violence. I just don’t think it’s going to work. The point of protesting Nazis is not to peaceably agree to disagree from a distance; the point is to confront them.
Phylllis
Dave Barry answers your eclipse questions.
Sherparick
@Kay: I suspect the Green Party is a grift. Over the years, I have read stories of dark money from RW ? going to Greens to make sure that they were on state ballots. They certainly never try to increase turnout by non-voters or attack Republicans.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Phylllis: Seems like sound advice, stay indoors.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Yeah he would have, because science is cool. Won’t surprise me in the least if he twitters a pic of all 4 of them wearing the glasses.
@Quinerly: I don’t have a final tally yet but I expect just short of 2 dozen. The biggest challenge is going to be where to put them all.12.5 acres sounds like a lot but if it’s all sloped and rocky there just aren’t that many flat spots to put people. I’m thinking I may want my brother to bring his trailer too.
On Poco’s tumor issues, I wouldn’t worry too much just yet. I have a genetic trait that causes tumors. Over the years I’ve had over a dozen removed. Several of them have come back (I assume it is hard to get every last bit of one and any left behind is a seed for a new one). When they first started showing up I worried like anybody else, but once a doc told me what was causing them I stopped worrying. I only get them cut out now if they begin to bother me. They always get tested, and they always come back benign. Chances are real good that if the first one was benign, the 2nd one will be too.
hellslittlestangel
@Kay: Has anyone informed The Orange Better One that if he stares directly into the total eclipse he will become endowed with superpowers?
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning!☕
@Quinerly: poor Poco! Hoping for the best for him.
@Sherparick: Republicans help fund the Greens in almost every election. Divide and conquer.
OzarkHillbilly
I got nuthin’.
Matt McIrvin
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Given the ACLU’s past positions, any notion whatsoever of triaging the political content of the protests would make them look like biased hypocrites, and jeopardize all their other work. But something about the manner of protesting and the potential for violence is another matter.
satby
@Baud: I miss the quiet competence and the attempt to get us to a better place as a nation, of course; but Obama did his time and earned his rest. What I miss now is that the competent government could have continued, but no.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Good morning, hoping for continued improvement for rikysis today.
@Quinerly:
Pobre Poco. Paws and fingers crossed.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
My Father’s house has many sides. — John 14:2.
satby
@Baud: Camp up the hill – Tom 8:21
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks for the sweet words. The vet said some cells probably got left since in the same spot. Concerns over how fast they grew once started and the length time between the new one showing up. Think I’m explaining that right. It is my understand that any growth in the face, mouth, eye, nose, ears can be very dangerous in dogs if left unattended. I lost the world’s greatest dog (don’t tell Poco) to a very rare cancer of the tear duct a few years back. Very fast growing. I was told that a vet could practice his entire life and never see that kind of cancer. Bad luck of the draw for my Buddy (Akita/Chow…absolutely gorgeous)It went to his brain pretty quickly.
Quinerly
@MomSense: @satby: @eclare:
Thanks.
Phylllis
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think that’s my husband’s plan. We’ve been informed traffic is expected to be cray-cray even here in Tinytown, since we’re getting close to two minutes of totality.
Quinerly
Alabama is a state like no other. I have personal experience with the state. I know: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/gop-establishment-has-uphill-battle-to-keep-firebrand-roy-moore-from-senate
Kay
@Sherparick:
I more than “suspect”. I believe they are. I have no proof though and I don’t plan on spending any time or energy on it because I don’t care that much.
I think they are what I call “list people”. They want a list. What they especially want is a list of liberal Democrats because they’re the targeted area of growth for the Greens. Names and addresses are a kind of currency for organizers. They’re collected, bartered, and leveraged– used to raise money, not just from the names but the list is used to persuade donors that there are a lot of them. That’s why the merit of the action doesn’t matter- the thing is to DO something- doesn’t matter what it is. They did the same thing in Ohio in 2004- spread conspiracy theories about voting. The pitch is “we ACT and Democrats aren’t protecting your interests”.
Voting process is boring and voter suppression efforts are also boring because we’re fighting over nit-picky rules. Republicans aren’t dramatically stealing elections. They’re quietly and relentlessly turning every rule in their favor. It’s inches, not leaps and bounds.
The Florida ACLU action is a big easy- to- understand leap, though. If you are a voting access person restoring felon voting tights is easy- “yes”- because there’s no reason to bar them from voting other than you think they are bad people. If they win that will be a big win. I always love people who advocate for felons too just because they’re not a popular group. “Children” is easy. “I love children” is an easy position to take. Felons are not loved.
JGabriel
@Kay:
Also, to be fair, Barack and Michelle would look cool in eclipse glasses – as opposed to Trump, who would look like someone who got kicked out of a 1950’s 3D movie matinee for talking in the theater.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: I lost my first dog, Hoss, (a long haired german shepherd given to me by my oldest sis) to bone cancer. Just a month from first symptoms to putting him down because of the pain he was in. It’s hard.
Baud
@Quinerly: I can’t imagine what it’s like being the Democratic candidate in that race. Kudos to him.
debbie
@NorthLeft12:
They had the out all along.
Kay
@JGabriel:
My last shred of respect for “conservatives” died with Obama because he really personally embodies what they (supposedly) hold dear. I mean if you are looking for a father figure it doesn’t get much better than him. His whole thing is modeling good behavior and setting high expectations. Trump has such low standards. He expects nothing from his supporters. He feels like he can’t even ask them to stop marching with Nazis. They don’t even have to do anything! Just STOP doing that! They went from quietly supporting white supremicists to loud and proud. I mean, goddamn. They’re getting worse.
MomSense
@debbie:
Yup. The call to bring weapons to the protest was there from the beginning with those organizing groups.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
NPR reported on this this morning. They’ve proven themselves to be nothing more than Pharisees.
Zach
I predict CNBC types are going to start publicly running away from Trump ASAP. Usually the President has little direct effect on global investment markets, but Trump is proving to be the exception… global economic news is mostly fantastic but stocks are slumping with Trump threatening nuclear war, race wars, and religious wars… and American equities are doing worse than the rest now that Trump’s giving up on his economic agenda to focus on trade wars that mostly don’t require him to go through Congress.
The craziest thing about all of this is that if Trump had just ignored his Obamacare promises, golfed every day, never tweeted anything meaningful, and let the GOP pass tax cuts and deregulation equities markets would probably be up >10% and he’d be pretty popular.
Betty Cracker
@Quinerly: My boxer dogs tend to be lumpy, and we have the tumors removed and tested at great expense. Benign in every case so far. Hoping for the same outcome for Poco.
JGabriel
@Kay:
From Nixon to Reagan to Bush II to Trump. It’s hard to envision how that limbo stick can sink any lower.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: As long as they show up at his rallies and cheer, he’s happy.
Anne Laurie
@JGabriel:
Oh, everybody will get to ‘see and hear’ — the Common just ain’t that large, and neither is downtown Boston! Not to mention there will be almost as many media people, professional & amateur, as there will ‘free speech advocates’, if there’s only gonna be 100 of them, which is what their permit says. But (goddess willing) nobody will be allowed to physically confront / shove / beat on the other side.
We had a smaller version of this, back in May, on the same turf. Everybody got to say / proclaim / scream their words, and there was just enough shoving & posturing to give the cops an idea of what to look for this weekend.
And that’s assuming tonight’s predicted heavy rain doesn’t hang around into Saturday, and spoil all the signs :)
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Exhausting and grim is right. Commenter nonynony said something the other day that stuck with me because it’s so damn true:
Trump even turns the space-time continuum to shit.
JGabriel
@Betty Cracker:
Okay, now I’ve got a mental image of Trump turning a space-time wormhole into a giant turd, pointing at it gleefully, and shouting, “Look, see what I did there!”
Quinerly
@Betty Cracker:
EVERYTHING. HE. TOUCHES. I’m beginning to believe in pure evil. Trump couldn’t have made it in the real world. Dimes to donuts he would have been a murderer if he hadn’t been rich. We are pretty sure he’s a rapist. Not a stretch.
Zach
@Zach: To put some numbers on this, since the inauguration, total global equities, ex-USA are up 12.4% (Vanguard VXUS), total American equities are up 6.8% (Vanguard VTI). There’s many other factors than Trump, but you can’t say anything other than that he’s been a disaster for American equities relative to the rest of the world.
Kay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
This doesn’t apply to the white supremicist organizers because they didn’t look like low income white people to me- they looked like nasty, spoiled young men with a chip on their shoulder, but Trump is doing poor white people a real disservice with his low standards.
Affirmative action points at elite colleges are the least of their problems. It’s not true that black people are keeping them out of the University of Michigan. We have to text them here to get them to show up for 6th grade. There are a lot of reasons we have to do that and I’m certainly sympathetic to the reasons that are tied to just general poverty, but “affirmative action”? That just has nothing to do with anything. Telling them this doesn’t help them. It hurts them. It’s kind of doubly damaging because on some level I think they know it’s not true. They so resented Michelle Obama’s childhood obesity issue here- I know they did because they were fucking furious- but the county health department just launched a childhood obesity program because, guess what, hating Michelle Obama didn’t cure the FACT that 40% of our lower income white kids are obese. I mean, my God, this is the cause they want to die for? Because it is “die”- they will die if they don’t eat better and exercise.
Quinerly
@Betty Cracker:
Thank you, sweet lady.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
?
Karen S.
Off topic: I live in Chicago, and I’d forgotten that the annual air & water show is this weekend. So when military jets started doing loops around the city, my first thought was, “Sh*t! Is Trump bombing the city now?” Strange days.
Quinerly
@JGabriel:
Or jacking off in the theater while talking.?
Baud
@Kay: Maybe Michelle Obama should have visited Wisconsin.
Quinerly
Probably posted last night. Text of James Murdoch’s email criticizing Trump’s Charlottesville response: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/us/politics/james-murdoch-email-trump-charlottesville.html?referer=
satby
@Quinerly: I read that, but I’ll believe he means it when Fox isn’t pumping out rightwing propaganda 24/7/365. I ain’t holding my breath.
Quinerly
Indiana Repug Rep running for the Senate has 8 pages of instructions for his chauffeur: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/18/todd-rokita-boss-aides-staff-instructions-241709
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I’ve collected signatures for the ballot initiative to automatically restore felons’ voting rights at some events this past year and will be doing so again this weekend. You’re right — it can be a tough sell.
The arguments in favor I use are that Florida is one of only three states that permanently disenfranchise everyone with a felony conviction, the law would not apply to murderers and sex offenders, and it’s in the community’s interest to reintegrate people who have served their time/completed parole into civic life.
I have a decent success rate, but petitions to protect manatees are an easier sell! :)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Quinerly: A man of the people.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s almost awkward for me here now because I feel like I have to take both the conservative role and the liberal role. OMFG ask something of them! It’s become ludicrous. For a long time it was somewhat manageable- they could pretend they were harmed by the estate tax when they aren’t – they could keep that. But now it’s out of control. “I can’t go to the University of Michigan because of affirmative action”. That’s not why! No sir! The University of Michigan probably requires you to show up for 6th grade! They say outlandish things- “regulations are a burden on my small business”. Or, would be, if you had one, which you don’t. That was Joe the Plumber. His list of grievances were entirely prospective. “IF I paid federal income taxes I would be pretty mad”.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Intriguing – you can’t call Roy Moore an asshole on Twitter.
Peale
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: normally, that’s just crude language. But in Moores case, it’s an accurate, objective, measureable description.
Baud
@Kay: I’m still mad at the lottery, which is obviously rigged against me.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Because he’s not on it or because he blocked you?
Kay
He’s just so great with “people”, our President. They speak with him and they’re immediately inspired to strongly denounce him.
Quinerly
@?BillinGlendaleCA
: The economically anxious love him, I hear.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
But they’re not.
Maybe I see things differently because I grew up a nonconformist in South Carolina and Kentucky. commenters here are shocked and dispirited by stuff like this Nazi march. I’m not. They were already there. Conservatives already agreed with them. Evangelicals already embraced corrupt, disgustingly immoral assholes as long as they provided the hardest racism fix. Conservatives were already committing politically driven murder. Nothing has changed, nothing, except they’re abandoning the mask and the rest of you are getting to see what I already knew was there. This doesn’t depress me as much because it was always part of how I viewed the situation.
I wonder if blacks feel like this.
@Quinerly:
Pure evil exists. Not just selfishness or head-up-their-ass blindness or people who hurt others because of their own pain.
I have met pure evil, in the form of a woman who calculatedly wormed her way into people’s trust solely so she could use it to hurt them as much as possible. I have seen a lot of anger, but I have never seen teeth-bared, face-twisted hate except on her face when I defied her in an argument she’d rigged by bringing in a heavily biased arbitrator. She was evil.
She is also, thankfully, dead. She can hurt people no more.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Try anus.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: If that doesn’t work try “a feces spewing orifice”.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: Ms. Bro should feel no obligation to meet with Trump or even speak with him. He has shown his true colors and polite society needs to shun his company. Let him hobnob with the racists that he is so passionate about defending.
droog
You win today’s internet-shaped cake.
Kay
@Baud:
I love the midwestern confederates. Really? They had no identity so they decided to adopt that one? Of all the possible things to pretend to be they decided to be southern slavery-backers? They couldn’t pick California gold rushers or something? Okies, maybe. That’s a better fit.
Bruce K
My parents just left for the airport to fly back to New York, and I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to share with them the latest bit from K-Thug:
Trump Makes Caligula Look Pretty Good
I don’t know whether to smoke a (metaphorical) cigarette or weep for the future.
Patricia Kayden
@Quinerly: Priorities, man. Priorities. Got to keep the little people in their place.
HinTN
@OzarkHillbilly: Us, too. Headed to BNA on the way to Riverton by Sunday. Maybe a BJ meet up over s cappuccino there, too.
Baud
@Kay:
Or the Oneidas.
danielx
@rikyrah:
And a very good morning to you.
In the news: the Ayatollah of Alabama says parts of Indiana are subject to Shariah law.
Who knew? I am certainly glad Roy Moore is around to keep me informed of these issues.
OzarkHillbilly
@HinTN: Tell Wyoming I said “Hi.”
different-church-lady
@JGabriel:
Oh don’t worry, they’ll hear us.
oldgold
General John Kelly’s failure as Chief of Staff is entering into General George Armstrong Custer/ Captain Edward J. Smith territory.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, I refer to this as reverse presidential aging.
Baud
@danielx: I blame Mike Pence.
MomSense
@oldgold:
I am glad he’s failing. Given the horror he was as Sec. of Homeland Security, I don’t want him to succeed.
Patricia Kayden
Ms. Bro has decided never to speak with Trump based on his tweets equating protesters like her daughter to the KKK/White Supremacists.
nonynony
@danielx:
Indiana? Yeesh. Moore has always had a screw loose, but if he thinks that anywhere in Indiana is under Sharia law he’s moved to having an entire hardware store loose.
Matt McIrvin
@Zach: Are people even inclined to make those comparisons to the rest of the world? Until just the past few days, stocks were going up faster than they had been under Obama.
Karen S.
@Frankensteinbeck:
My family was the second black family to move to the Chicago suburb where my parents still live. You’re right. These types of conservatives and Nazis were always there. They tried to hide it better, but we were harassed. I was bullied, sometimes by teachers. In some cases, the adults were worse than their children about racial matters. Sometimes their kids were little shits, too. I’m sure they’re Trump voters and were nodding their heads in agreement when Trump talked about the “beautiful” statues dedicated to Confederate treason. I’m not surprised at all by what’s happening now because it’s always been here. Always.
different-church-lady
@Patricia Kayden: Finally, a Bro I can agree with.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: They’re less absurd than the suburban Massachusetts Confederates.
nonynony
@MomSense:
Good term. And I’m worried that it might be exponential. I feel like I’ve aged 50 years in the last 5 days…
nonynony
@Zach:
You realize that what you’re saying here is that if Trump wasn’t Donald Trump he’d be pretty popular, right?
Tenar Arha
The modern, post-VRA, GOP has always played up the dog whistle politics. If you were so inclined & unaffected you could easily fool yourself into thinking that the party wasn’t fundamentally flawed by the systemic racism embedded in all their policies. It’s like Orange Julius turns that subtext into text with whatever he touches. Healthcare insurance, immigration, racism, sexism, even anti-semitism…all the rocks he’s flipping over are revealing what was squirming underneath all along. His inability to control himself means he will continue to say the quiet parts out loud, & if it wasn’t hurting us as a country it would be fascinating to see how the GOP reacts to the demons they invited in over the past 50 years. (Now I just want tell the interesting times to go away, so the vulnerable can be safe).
MomSense
@nonynony:
Unfortunately I also think time is passing in double or triple dog years so there is a multiplier that is not working in our favor.
Gelfling 545
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The ACLU exists to defend the civil rights of everyone, no matter how repulsive. They have to be cautious about rejecting cases without good reason.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
I drew a twitter timeout. Happens two or three times a week. There’s a method to my madness – I’m eliminating the totem of respectful language regarding the authorities they’ve installed. It is, in part, payback, but it is also a certain lingua franca that penetrates their lizard brains about the difficulties they will face in bringing people like me to heel. It makes the installation of their polity appear to be very costly.
Laura
@Quinerly: Besitos e abrazos to Poco. Fingers crossed for his surgery and the briefest of times in the cone of shame.
bystander
@Quinerly:
Why, yes. Yes, he is. And proud of it, I might add. I also think the so-called evangelicals are worshiping their anti-Christ.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Tenar Arha:
Hell, I thought my late 50s were going to consist of comfort and pleasant amusements. I didn’t realize that society was going to lurch into existential crisis while the government is on a jeremiad to install a polity consisting of the desires of America’s worst people.
But her emails!!!
@Kay:
This is one of the things that has Democrats involved in sort of an identity crisis. Republicans have essentially been reduced to spewing BS and passing legislation based on that BS all in the pursuit of gutting taxes and regulations. That leaves Democrats trying to preserve what is good, moderate progress to limits systemic shocks and at the same time being drivers of change. For example, we have to defend the traditional US capitalist model while at the same time pushing for necessary changes to it so that it works for a broader swath of the population while at the same time limiting the pace of those changes so as not to disrupt the economy abruptly. The reward is that Republicans call us socialist communazis while the left calls us neoliberal sellouts. It’s reactionaries to the right of us and revolutionaries to the left.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: If trump is impeached and removed from office next year, the history of his admin will be titled, “The Lost Century- trump and America”.
BretH
@BillinGlendaleCA Let me take a wild guesses: Canon printer. Mine worked perfectly for five years then up and died in the same way. Nothing to do about it – and Canon is no help. Planned obsolescence, and a decent case could be made for a class-action suit.
NotMax
AL, wanna contact you about working on a NYC meet-up. Contact page on BJ doesn’t work for me.
SFBayAreaGal
@Karen S.: Thank you Karen for saying this.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: I am not surprised either, in India I am in your position, upper caste and privileged. The most passionate supporters of right wing hate are not poor, they are middle class to wealthy. They think that because you share their background you agree with their bigotry so they don’t mind revealing their true feelings.
nonynony
@bystander:
Oh yeah – this is exactly how I look at it.
If I were still a believer the easy explanation would be that Satan has infiltrated certain churches and has corrupted them into believing the exact opposite of what they are supposed to be believing. I mean – they have a reading of Revelations where the anti-Christ will bring peace to all the nations under his rule, so of course they oppose anyone trying to bring peace. That’s literally what some of these churches believe in. It’s a caricature of an anti-Christ centered religion – a Hollywood screenwriter would throw out that as “too obvious and hacky” if he was doing a story about a church corrupted by Satan.
Since I’m not – and since I’ve studied history – I know exactly how it happened. Churches are institutions of men, and a majority of what we know now as American Evangelical churches were built on the back of justifying America’s “founding sin” – slavery. And then after the Civil War to justifying white supremacy and segregation. Those churches have turned into institutions built to justify hate. And so of course they look like Anti-Christ Worshiping Churches to those raised on the idea that Christianity is all about Love.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: She might be in bed now.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Sherparick: Stien was certainly quite cozy with Putin.
The Greens I know were quite smug about taking RW money and thought it was some kind of brilliant move on their part, which is bullshit; they are calling for moral purity while at the same time committing graft themselves.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@OzarkHillbilly: The Evangelical movement and racism have gone hand in hand for a long time now. Remember the good Nazis Trump was talking about? Tis a pitty they don’t speak up more so they can be called on their godbothering BS.
Zach
@nonynony: yeah pretty much. The day after the election I was like “well maybe he’ll just be too lazy to be president and let other people do the work and we’ll more or less survive.” Turns out the only area he did that for was turning over civilian control so there’s fewer checks on civilian casualties and he’s not responsible if things go wrong.
Benjamin Mays
@Quinerly: In my youth, I regularly drove candidates around. While very detailed, it is not an unreasonable procedural list. Keeping to schedule with naturally garrulous folks is difficult, as my wife often reminds me.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
Ha! Well played, OH.
Zach
@Matt McIrvin: No, but they should. Holders of US equities (aka most American investors) are short trillions at least partially because of Trump.
Note this is a little unfair: lots of the underperformance since the inauguration is because the markets priced in deregulation and tax cuts between the election and Inauguration Day… and US markets have underperformed as it’s looked less and less likely that that part of Trump’s agenda will become law before the GOP loses seats in 2018.
Edit: also, global markets are up mostly because Europe are pears to be turning a corner.
FlyingToaster
@JGabriel:
As AL said, the Common ain’t that large. If Saturday’s mishegas overflows across Charles into the Public Garden (Swan Boats, Make Way for Ducklings, etc.), it still ain’t that big. I’m sending HerrDoktor down, since it cheeses the MRA types off when they see big, burly, bearded dudes on the other side, making fun of them.
The point is to embarass the MRA motherfuckers who are running it by having the news copters overhead, showing how many more counterprotestors are in attendance. Bonus if they show the January Women’s March with 175,000 filling the Common.
The mockery of the Westboro Baptist numbskulls is what works — Counterprotesters bring signs reading “God Hates Shrimp” and rainbow flags — they’re treated by the media as a hate group and it’s always trumpeted (well, on 4, 5, 7, 10 and NECN*) how few they are and how quickly they leave (scheduled 45 minutes at Brandeis, lasted 12).
*The local Fox station, 25, sometimes covers Westboro Baptist, sometimes ignores them. It’s not predictable how much they’ll follow the parent corp line. They tried to ignore the Women’s March but it got too big, so their helicopter joined the parade circling over the Common.
Brachiator
@Kay:
He expects them to shower him with love, affection and adoration whenever he shows up at one of his political rallies.
They are a means to his ends. Convenient props. Nothing more.
dm
@Betty Cracker: People hear “felon” and they think grand theft. Find out what the low bar is for felony in Florida. In some states it’s stealing $200 — like maybe being young and stupid and stealing a bike.
There are also felonies people can relate to: how many joints did it take to commit felonious drug possession? In 1975, say, or 1985.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Peale: I believe you are being unfair to the anal sphincter and its associated anatomy. These serve a useful purpose, and we would suffer without them. I don’t know that the same case can be made for Judge Moore.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
We leave Sunday for Owensboro KY where we have reservations for a river view King room at a Hilton. I plan to drive south deep into the path of totality, haven’t decided whether to go for a small town I visited years ago or just drive on a tiny rural road till we find a wide spot.
We have extra pairs of eclipse sun glasses and will plan to take a big cooler full of fizzy water beverages and cold water to pour on our heads. May take a bottle of Champagne or two to share around… don’t know the public drinking rules in KY countryside, probably varies by county a lot, many counties are dry, dry!
The weather forecast, which was worrying me some early in this week, so that I looked at driving south to Knoxville TN, has improved to “Clear” all day long Monday, which sounds like the NUTS to me! So excited.
I took a picture of the sun the other day, I need to recall how to set time exposures while camera is mounted on my little tripod. It did well on full sun on automatic, and has a good night-time automatic setting, which I will also try out.
I’m really gonna see this thing!!! WWOWW.
J R in WV
@nonynony:
” Moore has always had a screw loose, but if he thinks that anywhere in Indiana is under Sharia law he’s moved to having an entire hardware store loose.”
Ol’ Roy obviously ain’t ever been to Indjiana, ever. It’s a nice place, very level on the northern parts, a little hilly and pretty in the south end, and ever so white. The people, I’m meanin’. Not the ground, which is green this time o’ year.
Elizabelle
@J R in WV: Excited for you. Sounds like marvelous plans!