Oy vey!
Chris Cantwell, the Crying NAZI, had his first court appearance today. It was a doozy!
Cantwell’s attorney is Elmer Woodard, who appeared in court wearing an early-1800s-style red waistcoat with gold buttons, bowtie, white muttonchop whiskers, black velcro shoes, and a a 1910s-style straw boater hat. Cantwell said Woodard was his fourth choice for legal counsel after three other lawyers declined to take his case. (Woodard previously attempted to defend a client accused of sexual assault by a 15-year-old girl by claiming that the man’s sleepwalking caused him to rape her.)
This is the good barrister as he appeared in court today:
Thank you, internet. This appears to be a photo of Crying Nazi's attorney (who dressed similarly in court) https://t.co/caPlQieSKd pic.twitter.com/umarMarG9w
— David Nir (@DavidNir) September 1, 2017
How he was dressed that day pic.twitter.com/20UedSw7kE
— connor (@ConnorPilman) September 1, 2017
So what did Woodard put forward as a defense of Cantwell?
Christopher Cantwell’s lawyer says his client’s comments disparaging blacks and Jews is just a comedic act of a “shock jock,” comparing him to the Jewish comedian Jackie Mason.
The claim was made during a four-hour bail hearing for Cantwell on Thursday night. Cantwell faces three felony charges stemming from an incident at the University of Virginia on Aug. 11, in which he pepper-sprayed at least two people during a torchlight procession of hundreds of white supremacists who chanted Nazi slogans. The conflict was captured on camera and broadcast in a now-famous Vice News documentary.
Woodard said it was all a “shock jock” act.
But when Tracci asked Cantwell to describe what he does for a living, he answered: “I do a racist podcast.”
When Tracci quoted Cantwell’s statement praising the murder of Heyer, Woodard objected to the use of the word “murder.”
Much more at the link.
You’ll be happy to know that Cantwell has been denied bail. His next court appearance is scheduled for 9 November. There is no word if Mr. Woodard is back in custodial care, resting comfortably, and enjoying a pudding cup.
I have been researching, first scholarly and then applied, extremists, insurgents, terrorists, and revolutionaries – domestic and foreign, ideological, religious, ethno-national – since I was 24 years old. I started presenting my research at the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in 1995. My first panel presentation was comparing Israeli and Palestinian religious extremists with domestic American ones. The individuals and groups, domestic and foreign, I was studying back then would have eaten Cantwell for lunch.
We can be thankful that they don’t make fascists like they used to.
Mike J
If you keep telling people you’re a nazi, eventually they’ll believe you.
MomSense
OMFG
TenguPhule
But would they have done so with mustard or ketchup?
debbie
Does the Virginia Bar have no standards?
TenguPhule
@Mike J:
*Does not apply to Trump supporters.
TenguPhule
@debbie:
As long as he doesn’t dress like a woman, its just boys being boys. //
mai naem mobile
With all of Manaforts financial problems maybe he can get Woodard to represent him for dirt cheap on the Russia case.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Barbecue sauce. Some of the Middle Eastern ones probably used labneh/tzatziki. The Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front folks probably had something organic with kale in it.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Shirt, shoes, service. Pants optional.
HinTN
@TenguPhule: Catsup is a sacrilege as a condiment. Only mustard will do.
ETA: Upon further review, i would put the subordinate clause before the verb. So it goes
Adam L Silverman
It is possible that he is actually KellyAnne Conway’s father:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and the shoes tie it all together
The Revolutionary War outfit… what was Jonathan Winters’ character? Maude Fricket?
HinTN
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah you right
Adam L Silverman
@HinTN: Did that email link up I tried to do for you work?
Booger
That’s quite the Facebook page Mr. Woodard has himself there.
lahke
It’s symbolic of something or other that I’m reading this while listening to the Carolina Chocolate Drops sing in Gaelic.
https://youtu.be/kohl8qms0EU
Maybe it’s also a poke in the eye for people who want to discuss cultural appropriation, I’m not sure.
Now let the catsup/ketchup wars begin!
Smiling Mortician
How . . . optimistic?
Hell, these days, I’ll take it.
Schlemazel
celticdragonchick
The guy is a farby* cosplay wingnut. His FB page is chock full of teabagger goodness….
https://www.facebook.com/elmer.woodard.1
*farb or farby is a re-enacting insult directed against people who use inaccurate clothing, implements, etc while in character in front of the public. Also see: polyester patriots
celticdragonchick
@Booger: Why yes, yes it is…
Adam L Silverman
@Smiling Mortician: The Order guys wouldn’t have given Richard Spencer the time of day. Or Cantwell.
The real concern should be the III%ers and the Oathkeepers. They are, predominantly, not – and I repeat: NOT – white supremacists. Also of concern are the sovereign citizens, many of whom are, though some are also Black nationalists, are the real folks to be worried about.
HinTN
@Adam L Silverman: No, sir. But if that bunch had as magnificent an experience in Riverton as we did then they done just fine. Thanks for trying.
debbie
@celticdragonchick:
Is it the velcro shoes?
HinTN
@Adam L Silverman: There’s more than that down in these here parts. But you’re right, they’re scary.
Schlemazel
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m having trouble translating that comment. I get that the III and Oafkeepers are a real concern but the rest of it does not compute, sorry
celticdragonchick
The III% guys are laughably wrong about their rev war statistic fantasies and one hour of internet research and elementary level math is enough to debunk them.
I challenged a III% guy on twitter and he basically admitted their premise was full of shit.
celticdragonchick
@debbie:
LOL
BTW…my period accurate shoes where about 120 cash and another 35 for the brass buckles.
efgoldman
@celticdragonchick:
The members of the trial bar among us can confirm whether some judges, if not this one, would toss Woodard out of court after threatening him with contempt.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
To be fair, ELF and ALF have never killed anyone so far.
Adam L Silverman
@HinTN: There are some others. Remnants of the hard core movements from the 80s and 90s. Those folks should also be of concern. Some of the League of the South chapters, like the ones in Florida who are organized by a Green Beret who was dishonorably discharged after serving time in the Army Corrections Command system and then did more time on the civilian side. But the bulk of the “alt-right” guys – the kids dressing like the President when he golfs, and knuckleheads like Cantwell aren’t those guys.
Adam L Silverman
@HinTN: Sorry.
Adam L Silverman
@Schlemazel: Sorry. It should read like this, I let my fingers get ahead of my brain:
I’ve fixed it in the comment. Thanks for pointing it out.
TenguPhule
@HinTN:
Can’t stand mustard, sorry. Only Tomato Glutamates make everything taste better.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
There are more than a few black sovereign citizens around here. I can’t link because of a paywall, but two were caught last year building bombs in a house a couple of miles from here. One of them blew off both of his hands and ended up being sentenced to prison for 14 years.
burnspbesq
Guy looks like an ineffective-assistance claim waiting to happen.
Adam L Silverman
@celticdragonchick: No doubt. Unfortunately being bad at American history doesn’t make them any less dangerous.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Amen to that. Those fuckers are fucking worse then roaches.
(((CassandraLeo)))
I just want to thank you for your work on exposing these people, Adam. You’re performing valuable work with your analysis on stochastic terrorism and it deserves to be much more widely read.
Schlemazel
@Adam L Silverman:
That is interesting & I am glad you fixed it. I have never run into sov cit idiots that are black, I always assumed it was a white privilege thing
SiubhanDuinne
I know it’s a cliché, but I Just Can’t Even.
p.a.
The writers of The Incredibles predicted Trump and Trumpism in 2004 when they introduced The Underminer character: “I’m beneath you, but nothing is beneath me!”
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: I never suggested they had. Just a lot of property damage. The hard core offshoot, The Justice Department, was into hardcore beatings of their targets. Can’t recall off the top of my head whether they ever beat anyone to death.
TenguPhule
@Schlemazel:
Spend some time in the IRS tax case files. They come in all colors and are endlessly inventive as to why they don’t need to pay their taxes.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Muttonchops are a Civil War-era fashion, non? So I count at least three different eras in that one sentence (four with the shoes). If he’s cosplaying, what is he trying to be?
Or is this less going for a deliberate effect and more “dressing in the dark in the local community theater costume shop”?
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Wait, there’s a hardcore version of ELF that calls itself the Justice Dept?
Seriously?!
Adam L Silverman
@Schlemazel: It was originally. Then the scam, because that’s what it is, made the jump from white folks to the African American community.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
I think there’s something to the notion that the Internet has made it easy and fun for casually racist assholes to cosplay at being white supremacists at very little cost to themselves. I think Charlottesville scared the heck out of a lot of the poseurs when they realized that other people actually took that shit seriously. Plus they found out that the vast number of people oppose them and are willing to turn out in droves to say so.
But there’s always those few scattered within those groups who are genuinely dangerous, and there doesn’t seem to be a good way to identify them until it’s too late. I’m thinking of the couple who left the Bundy Ranch once they figured out that Cliven is mostly talk and went out to kill themselves some cops like they’d always wanted to do.
Adam L Silverman
@(((CassandraLeo))): Thanks for the kind words. My professional write ups are read by the people that need to read them.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
*Statement only valid until 1/20/17
schrodingers_cat
Did you study the Tamil Tigers, for a while in the 90s and the early aughts they were the scariest terrorist group around.
Gelfling 545
I’m beginning to get some idea of why these characters need to make skin color their criterion for their alleged superiority. By any actual measure they’re hopeless.
Mnemosyne
Also, this may be a good spot for this: a commenter (I think it was Another Scott?) posted this link to an essay by a free speech advocate who’s rethinking his stance in light of Charlottesville. He says a lot of what I’ve been thinking but haven’t been articulate enough to say.
Schlemazel
@Adam L Silverman:
In an odd way it is comforting to know that this sort of moronism is color blind
There are some hilarious videos on youtube of sov cidiots talking to cops and judges. I admire the restraint displayed because I think a good beat down would be useful for many of them
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Not really an offshoot, more like a more hard core group of fellow travelers. It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at these groups – at one time I built a data set of just eco-extremist activities, so I can’t recall whether there was cross pollination of membership across the groups. One of their most violent actions was showing up at some executives house and beating him within an inch or so of his life. Here’s a basic rundown:
https://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/justice-department-animal-rights
frosty
@efgoldman: Did he get the clothes at the same shop that Vinny Gambini used?
Judge: “Are you making fun of me son?”
Walker
@Adam L Silverman:
Why does the military allow III%ers to remain in active service?
opiejeanne
@Mike J: He certainly wasn’t helping himself there when he explained what he does for a living.
randy khan
A four hour bail hearing? That’s crazy. It may be a record for the sovereign Commonwealth of Virginia.
Mike in NC
What are the odds that Trump will try to get Elmer a job at DOJ?
opiejeanne
@debbie: If I were the judge the first thing I’d do is tell the lawyer to take off his hat in my courtroom.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Unfortunately yes. Though in most cases you’ll find those kinds of folks are usually on someone’s radar. Or had been and dropped off either because of too many people to track or because they found a way to go offline/off the radar.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: That is not the case.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I did.
Mike in NC
Today’s mail brought an appeal for contributions from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), with a map showing the locations of assorted American hate groups by state. There were almost 1000 of them, which has got to be off by a figure of magnitude — maybe there are closer to 10,000? There’s never been a recruiter like Trump.
Adam L Silverman
@Schlemazel: Equal opportunity stupidity is as old as the Republic.
Adam L Silverman
@Walker: I think you mean Oathkeepers. I do not have a good answer to that question. I also do not really have a good handle on how many folks who are still serving – active, reserve, and/or National Guard component – who consider themselves members.
HinTN
@Adam L Silverman: No worries. And wrt #30, yeah you right again. It’s a crazy world but there are amateurs and then there are professionals.
Miss Bianca
Would it be inappropriate to say, “Thank you, sweet little baby Jesus!” here? It would, wouldn’t it? Never mind.
Ruckus
@randy khan:
It can take time to make it all the way through the crazy. And that’s not counting on the crazy lawyer showing up to “defend” his crazy client. Besides spending 4 hrs to hear the guy say “I do a racist podcast.” seems to have been worth it.
efgoldman
@Mike in NC:
I got multiple email solicitations every day leading up to the GA special congressional election, then… not even crickets. Very odd.
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
There’s a lot of haters, but groups, not all that many, all things considered. And the SPLC does a very good job of finding them.
HinTN
@Adam L Silverman: PT(FSM) for that, I hope. I’m not much of a believer in the system…
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: Your “terrorist” may be someone else’s “freedom fighter.”
Schlemazel
@Adam L Silverman:
True but certain psychosis seem to appear in specific groups.
HinTN
@Ruckus: Yep!!!
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: As old as mankind, really.
Scott P.
I found another image of the lawyer in question: https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/en.futurama/images/c/cf/Hyper-Chicken.jpg/revision/latest
HinTN
@Schlemazel: Psychoses are everywhere. It’s normative behavior that’s malleable, and therefore difficult to define.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Seriously? What do you know about Prabhakaran and the LTTE? Their cause was sympathetic, but not their tactics were not and now they have set it back by decades. I do happen to know quite a few Sri Lankans both Tamil and Sinhalese and this was their collective opinion not something I pulled out of my hat.
ETA: They were lethal and effective, that’s all I was trying to say. Let’s call them insurgents if you don’t like the T word.
Adam L Silverman
@HinTN: Unfortunately.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Gin & Tonic: OT: I hope you got a good(ish) report from the high end specialist this week,
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Knock yourself out!
Cheap Jim
It isn’t Labor Day yet. No reason to not wear a straw hat.
But yeah, he does seem to have drawn his attorney from the bottom of the barrel, and he’s lucky to get that.
Millard Filmore
There is another fire at a Russian diplomatic compound. This one at the embassy in Washington DC.
“Exclusive: Fire Spotted at Russian Diplomatic Building in DC” … I have read too many David Drake and SM Stirling books to think this is normal. They are getting ready for something BIG.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141858360
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/01/fire-spotted-at-russian-diplomatic-building-in-dc/
(oops, not the embassy, some other building they control)
Adam L Silverman
@HinTN: My jobs for/with the military have always involved providing decision makers with what they needed to know. Not what they wanted to know. And not what they wanted to hear. The decisions were up to the decision makers.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: And the Rajapaksa family were saints among men, am I right?
All conflicts have more than one side.
chris
@Mnemosyne: @Mnemosyne: “essay by a free speech advocate”
TL;DR the whole thing. Most civilised countries have hate speech laws. I think I see the problem.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Funny how that works.
lahke
@Mnemosyne:
Thank you, that was excellent, especially this bit:
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: If the smoke turns white it means they’ve elected Mike Pence President of the United States.
karen marie
I really wish I was a transcriptionist for whatever jurisdiction this is. I may have to make some phone calls to get in on that cray-cray action.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I’ve contributed to the SPLC before and would stay on the email list for some time. But then just fall off the edge of the planet as far as they are concerned. Which really isn’t all that bad, considering how much email I get from the numerous dem sources and candidates, some/most of whom I can’t vote for, like Sherrod Brown.
Cheap Jim
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, very good, sir. Very good.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t have a dog in this fight. The Tigers were scary, lethal and effective, as fighters but ultimately unsuccessful in achieving their political ends and now the Tamil minority is worse off than before.
karen marie
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I am screaming with laughter. Surprised my neighbors haven’t called the cops because it’s usually so quiet here.
Adam L Silverman
I wrote about this type of thing back at the beginning of the summer.
ETA: What you’ve got in the images below is one of the”alt-right” notables pretending to be antifa to cause problems.
Guy really gets around…
Jeffro
Sometimes it’s just this simple: here’s the deal Trumpov was looking for from Russia
I still think half of his unhappiness is that he just wanted to grift a bit…this whole winning the nom and then winning* the presidency thing is beyond his ken as much as it is ours…
Gin & Tonic
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: I did, thanks. More upbeat than I had expected. I wrote up a summary in one of the Wednesday evening threads. There’s hope for the 2017-18 ski season (although my dear wife may need some convincing.)
Miss Bianca
So, I do the occasional article for Colorado Central Magazine (shameless plug), and the latest issue just came in to my mailbox this evening. The undercurrent of a whole lot of the articles this month is how we are coping in this region as the Age of Trump manifests itself. My friend Mike wrote an editorial about the German exchange students bound for Salida who were detained by immigration and sent back. . And Peter Anderson, one of the regular columnists, (who lives in the San Luis Valley, the other side of the mountain range from the Wet Mountain Valley, where I live) wrote a little piece that starts out being about bears breaking into houses out here – and how we are all familiar here with the notion of that sort of threat, and ends up seguing to his neighbor, an African-American woman who moved into his community, the (predominantly) white woo-woo community of Crestone:
It’s chilling.
What is Trump doing to this country? What is this festering boil of white racism doing to our body politic?
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic:
Woo, as they say, hoo.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheap Jim: Can’t say it was original. I’ve seen about a 1/2 dozen other people make similar comments today.
Millard Filmore
@Adam L Silverman: These buildings are the ones that were ordered closed, yes? In that case I can calm down. When the main embassy starts mass burnings, protect yourself as best you can.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Talk about inside baseball.
Adam L Silverman
This is hysterical, he’s not done, but you’ve got to read the whole thing:
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, I understood approximately fuck-all.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: She should get a bear. As a self defense system.
To be serious: this is sad and unfortunate. Hopefully law enforcement has taken it seriously and her neighbors are looking out for her.
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: The San Francisco building is the consulate in SF. The one in DC is, I think the Russian Trade Representative building, which was also ordered closed.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I think it was in code, I didn’t get it either. I also think their white power sign is moronic.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: @Omnes Omnibus: @schrodingers_cat: To a certain extent. The larger issue is what you’re seeing is alt-right folks pretending to be antifa to cause trouble. If I recall there was a shooting at that event at UW. One of Dim Jim Hoft’s correspondents decided to mouth off to a bunch of students that weren’t interested in his racist crap, and when they wouldn’t just go away, he turned around, drew what appeared to be a GLOCK based on the video and stills I’ve seen (distinctive grip angle), and shot into the crowd. He’s going to be going away for a while and when he gets out he won’t be allowed to own guns anymore.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: This may have been the fourth or fifth orthopedic surgeon who’s looked at my pictures and said, in more genteel and professional terms, “holy shit.”
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Omnes Omnibus: @Gin & Tonic:
Clearly I’ve become a junkie again, because I got a lot of the gist. Don’t tell Adam, please, I worry that he’ll fret.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Fine, fine, I’ll go back and add some clarifying context.
Chet Murthy
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, that was … uh …. (a) lovely, (b) terrifying, (c) hilarious, (d) *simultaneously* all of the above. I won’t spoil it, but sheeite, yeah, a great find!
Adam L Silverman
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: You know I can see your comments, right?
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: I forget, and if you’d rather not answer you needn’t, but: what happened to you? How in the world did your arm end up so shattered?
LesGS
@Millard Filmore: Seeing those images of the smoke coming from the Russian Consulate in SF makes me think of an episode in my Dad’s career as an FSO. In the early/mid 1960s he was Vice Consul of the Consulate in Adana, Turkey. One of his jobs at the end of the day was to go down into the basement where there was a paper shredder and shred certain documents, which would be ejected directly into a furnace and burned.
One evening, he and his secretary were down there shredding and burning, and he leaned in too close to the shredder and his tie swung forward and got caught up in the shredder’s works. They immediately shut down the shredder and he managed to haul his tie back out. He’s looking down at the mangled length of cloth, and his secretary says, “Well. Just be glad your fly wasn’t open.”
Mike J
@TenguPhule:
How about KLF?
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
I don’t think he just wanted a bit of attention. I think he wanted to show President Obama that he was as good, that he could get elected as well. But he squeaked in by the barest of margins. And of course in his mind he is one of the leading barons of business, a great business man, the best business man, a great white business man. Meanwhile we all know him as that white bread failure, son of an asshole tenement owner, lying, racist sack of shit named drumpf.
Adam L Silverman
@Chet Murthy: I think he just finished it. 22 tweets in total.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman:
It’s engineering and planning, and not quite as critical as national defense, but I was having a conversation with a co-worker today about this. Clients (for us state/local govt) ask for a proposal for what they want and we get hired to do that. Partway through the job we find out that what they need isn’t what they want (scoped). And then it’s a dance of explanation, rewriting scope, hopefully not budget, and getting them where they need to be.
In my line of watershed studies, the proposal scope pretty much went out the window after the first public meeting when we found out what the residents were really concerned about. I really wanted to do a proposal meeting that went like this:
Scope: One watershed plan. TBD.
Fee: How much you got?
Gin & Tonic
@Miss Bianca: A guy I’ve taken a seminar with elsewhere also runs one in the Wet Mountain Valley.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Adam L Silverman: Shit. Busted.
Gin & Tonic
@Miss Bianca: I had a skiing accident back in March.
Ruckus
@LesGS:
Now that’s a good secretary. Always looking out for land mines and shredders.
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: That sounds about right.
If you’d be so kind, please send me an email offline. I’ve got a question for you.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: OMG.
Seriously, where the hell *are* all the Downfall/Drumpf parodies? Or is it all a little too close to reality for satirists’ comfort?
Adam L Silverman
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Better than shit busted.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I’ve seen a couple. They’re hit or miss.
Mike J
@Miss Bianca:
But that joke isn’t funny anymore
It’s too close to home
And it’s too near the bone
It’s too close to home
And it’s too near the bone
More than you’ll ever know ..
efgoldman
@Miss Bianca:
The line is very, very difficult to define.
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: Golly! You’re not coming out to that one, are you?
Chet Murthy
@Adam L Silverman: Daayyum. Did. Not. See. That Coming. I mean, tweet #21, that is. I figured it ended at #20.
NoraLenderbee
Hey, it’s only 95 degrees now.
Amaranthine RBG
Do they not have public defenders in VA?
Gin & Tonic
@Miss Bianca: Unlikely.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
That is a piece of art. At least for a tweet storm.
Adam L Silverman
@Chet Murthy: 17 and 18 are excellent. But the whole thing is well done.
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: and, see, this is why I’ll stick to cross-country.
Adam L Silverman
@NoraLenderbee: Bienvinidos a Miami!
Miss Bianca
Well, you lovely people, I wish you all good night. Off to watch the second episode of “Treme”, which a friend of mine had recommended to me. Have to say, loving the music connection so far, and feeling very chilled about watching a show set during the aftermath of Katrina, in the aftermath of Harvey…particularly as some of the main characters keep mentioning Houston as a destination some of their relatives took to flee the flood…
chris
@Adam L Silverman: I have mixed feelings about Wilson, he is Republican operator, but that’s funny.
Underneath it I found this very long rant from Eric Garland. Plausible.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman: The whole thing was great. Worth navigating to the link. And two great put-downs of trolls:
“Run along son, this is a cocktail party for your betters.”
“It’s not that you “didn’t have to read” because let’s be honest…if it’s not simply pictograms, you’re lost.”
japa21
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, well done. I enjoyed 11 and 12.
Adam L Silverman
@chris: As plausible as anything else. I think a major driver for Putin was the need to get out from under the sanctions. They are crushing Russia economically and hampering his ability to siphon money off and move it around. And once the price of oil dropped off things were already on the downward spiral.
? Martin
Dear America: Your first clue was that Pence appeared to be the smartest guy in the room.
Tehanu
@Mike in NC:
I’ve been an SPLC supporter for 42 years, and I read their magazine. The number of hate groups has gone up since Dump got in — even more than when Obama got in — but by a factor of about 1/3, i.e., from around 750 to the current about 1,000. The one comfort I have is that (a) they’re mostly incompetent losers anyway and (b) there are a lot of circular firing squads on their end of things. It reminds me, a little, of the militant atheists I know — who aren’t incompetent or hateful, let me hasten to add — but who argue all the time with each other since most of them aren’t very good at arguing with the religious.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: I saw KLF and expected this. That’ll larn me.
Iron City
@Amaranthine RBG:
Yes, the have public defenders, not usually worth much. What they don’t have is parole. If your convicted and sentenced to x time you do the time. Though since it has been that way a good few years now I think it figures out to 80 some % of the time sentenced to. Don’t know where the Charlottesville neo Nazi alleged criminal would be serving but if it’s murder it will be in the state system which will make the Albemarle County ADC look like a country club
Omnes Omnibus
@Amaranthine RBG: Of course they do. And they also have income limits on who qualifies, but then you know that.
HinTN
@frosty: Requirements are hard; solutions are a dime a dozen.
HinTN
@frosty: Also, too,
The engineer in me likes that sort of truth.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: omg, i love them.
Millard Filmore
@Iron City:
I believe this particular Nazi was not driving the car, he is accused of pepper-spraying into a crowd.
HinTN
@Major Major Major Major: Hey, how was your meet up?
mattH
OMG, it’s fat Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys in cosplay.
frosty
@HinTN: Especially since I’ve done watershed plans from $50K to $1.5MM. We can come up with something that meets the needs within the budget. But please don’t ask for a water quality plan when flooding is the problem. Or a flooding plan if the only funding you can get is for water quality improvements.
Or either if the residents are mostly concerned about the sediment filling up their creeks so they can’t get their boats out to the Bay.
Adam L Silverman
@Iron City: @Millard Filmore: Correct. This is the knucklehead from New Hampshire who was featured in the Vice reporting. Before that he was featured on the Colbert Report when he was just a libertarian trying to take over the town he lives in in New Hampshire. He pepper sprayed some folks. Also made terroristic threats.
Major Major Major Major
@HinTN: didn’t go, long story.
Omnes Omnibus
@Iron City:
That is unfair. Most public defenders are overworked and underpaid. They do the job because they believe that everyone deserves a defense. The PD’s office isn’t where people land because they couldn’t get another job; it is where a lot of liberal idealists go to try to do good.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Turns out that if you go in front of TV cameras to make terroristic threats and mock a murder victim, the courts just may take that as an indication that you were deliberately trying to cause trouble. Who knew? ?
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Eez a puzzlement.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
Radio Rwanda, American-style. I can see some of them attempting something like that
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
Was Rick Wilson watching Downfall?
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Calm down.
Major Major Major Major
So now that Paul Ryan and a bunch of other establishment goopers are pro-DACA, that means Trump’s definitely going to can it, right?
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I do not know.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: If only Paul Ryan knew someone in Congress that could do something about this on short notice…
efgoldman
@Major Major Major Major:
Nothing to do with Granny Starver; it was an Obama initiative/policy, so it must be reversed out of pure ornery spite.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I dunno, to get a veto-proof majority they’d have to get Democrat cooties all over it.
@efgoldman: Right, but Ryan liking it is added incentive.
frosty
@Major Major Major Major: He can try to can DACA, but now that Ryan’s against it, a united Congress will stand up to the President, and say in unison “No, this is a line you cannot cross!”
I slay myself.
Tip your waiter, try the veal, thanks, you’ve been a great audience.
Mnemosyne
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
The big thing in our favor is that it’s very easy to say all of this shit online, or even to march around with a tiki torch when you outnumber the counterprotesters, but it’s a very, very different thing to actually bring yourself to kill people. There’s a reason that every armed force in the entire world has months upon months of training to try and break down people’s resistance to killing other people. Unless it’s something you see every day — as in war-torn or gang-ridden areas — most people have a lot of mental blocks to killing other people.
Of the thousand or so Nazis who went to Charlottesville, only one (1) of them took murderous action, and thankfully he didn’t have access to a gun or the death count would have been much higher.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
I am calm. I just said I could see some trying that, not that they for sure would or would succeed
Mnemosyne
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Also, it tends to be glossed over that the Rwandan genocide was planned and perpetrated by the government in retaliation for an ongoing civil war.
It wasn’t a bunch of ordinary Rwandans getting inflamed by the radio and going out to kill their neighbors. It was planned and organized by the government and the army.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: After WWII, a study showed that only 10% (IIRC) of infantry soldiers fired their weapons at the enemy. I spent weeks thinking about whether or not I could do it or order others to do so before I signed the final paper work to join the army. It is a thing.
lgerard
Cantwell needs to learn that when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade
You could spend his jail time writing a book
Perhaps he could call it My Struggle (with tears)
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Sorry, like S-C, I see you as a overly concerned about a break down of society. She sees you as fantasizing about it. I think you are terrified of it and that you are projecting that fear onto your analysis of every situation.
Omnes Omnibus
@lgerard: Ha.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wow. It really is amazing to think that the instinct of not killing others is that ingrained in the majority of people.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
If you read the essay, I think the guy makes some really good points about how thin these guys have made the line between threats and free speech and how they have succeeded in passing threats off as free speech.
He also makes a point that had occurred to me as well, which is that free speech as we currently practice it places a burden on minority groups that some free speech advocates have been in denial about. “More speech” doesn’t solve the problem when the problem is that someone is getting death threats that get shrugged off as “free speech.”
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
That’s true. It is easier to bullshit online than actually kill another person. I imagine fear of the consequences is the biggest deterrent for them.
Repatriated
@Mike J:
@Omnes Omnibus
Based on your research, it’s unlikely.
A brief dossier:
– Justified
– Ancient
– Drive ice cream van
– Known associates of Tammy Wynette
– Have pledged to “rock” people, but this statement does not appear to refer to literal stone-throwing.
Chet Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: maybe a suggestion: I don’t know (or remember) where you live. I live in a place surrounded by LGBTQ and people of color. Like: every day, I can perform my version of prayer: counting the different nationalities and gender orientations in my train car. It’s a way for me to feel safe. Maybe you ought to think of moving to a part of the country where you’re surrounded by people of color? It’s -remarkably- calming, knowing that, if the apocalypse comes, you won’t be alone.
Living here, I know that, if the apocalypse comes, I won’t be thinking of stocking up on firearms. Instead, I’ll be thinking of what the Governor and Senate/Assembly in Sacramento are doing and planning. That’s a great relief, as a civilized modern person.
Think about it. And yeah, not all right-thinking people can or should move out of the red states — b/c that’d be the same as consigning the ones who cannot move, to their fate. But if you feel/fear/worry this strongly, consider moving.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I read the essay. I also have been aware of the the legal issue since the ’90s. I edited a law review article by Owen Fiss about this very subject.
Just off-hand why are you making a 1st Amendment argument at me as a reply to a comment in which I am supporting your argument that most people find killing hard to do?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
I would call “every analysis” an exaggeration. Although, yeah, civil breakdown/the radical restructuring of society ala Nazi Germany does terrify me.
@Chet Murthy:
I was planning of moving to SoCal in a few years after I graduate and get a job. Preferably near LA. I went on vacation there last August and loved it there. Lots of cool diverse people, nice weather.
Chet Murthy
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: ISTR that the work that Omnes references, caused a -giant- change in training. I remember reading that modern American soldiers are taught not to aim at a -man-, but rather at a -target-, at a -body- -part-. Specifically to breach that moral boundary against killing humans. And that such “operant conditioning” was very effective in Vietnam and after. Don’t know (remember/pretend-to-know) much more than that. But yeah, people who haven’t been carefully trained to kill, are pretty terrible at it, unless they’re outliers.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: @Repatriated: There was the incident with Extreme Noise Terror and the tommy gun.
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: No, the act of killing someone is the obstacle. People tend to have a problem with it.
Adam L Silverman
@Chet Murthy: Move to Miami. Then you can both be surrounded by people of color and stock up on firearms.//
efgoldman
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
If you ever took basic training, you’d know that they spend 8-10 weeks trying to ingrain it in the grunts.
But in fact, historically, only a small percentage of armed forces are actually combat soldiers.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sorry, it wasn’t clear you had read the essay. I liked it so much because he was able to articulate all of the thoughts about free speech that have been blurting around in my head since Obama was elected.
Sab
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: LA is phucking expensive. And the commuting time is terrible. Spend your whole life commuting in stop and go traffic. I spent 5 years in CA. Loved it, it was gorgeous, but I spent most of my life there in traffic. Thrilled to get back to Ohio, with green plants, reasonable commute, and affordable housing options.
Adam L Silverman
@lgerard: If he takes the upholstering class in prison he can call it My Comfy Chair.
What?
Mnemosyne
@Sab:
G and I both have pretty reasonable commutes, but we will probably never be homeowners unless we hit the lottery or we move very far away.
I can’t handle winter at all, so it would be very tough for me to move back to the Midwest. I might be able to handle Washington or Oregon, where they get more reasonable amounts of snow and cold.
ETA: The trick is to find a job and then find housing close to it. If you pick the housing first, you’re screwed with your commute.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I still don’t understand why that was a reply to my particular comment.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
I liked that article too. “More speech” worked better in the past when guns weren’t as dangerous and internet didn’t exist
Repatriated
@Major Major Major Major:
I was not aware of this. Will have to evaluate the evidence at a later time.
(Thanks!)
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
I know how exhilarating downhill skiing can be, have done it a little bit as a youngster in @ 1960 or so. But having nearly lost the use of your arm, you need to find another way to get your adrenaline fixes.
Seriously.
Fancy girls, ballroom dancing, something that isn’t a threat to harm yourself. Online VR gaming? Something. Colorado is a 420 state, maybe just, ya know, get high and do VR gaming?
I like to build houses. Having built several major things, and having helped others with their projects, I’ve had both shoulders replaced, They work fine. But I dare not start another building project, do ya see? Because I don’t want someone to have to go in an repair the repair. And then the rehab. The post-op pain-killers. etc. etc.
Think about it, at least. Water Skiing, or those Jetskis? Or diving in the tropics? I like that too, and it’s much safer than those XX downhill routes.
Maybe too much bourbon? Sorry….
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
I know how exhilarating downhill skiing can be, have done it a little bit as a youngster in @ 1960 or so. But having nearly lost the use of your arm, you need to find another way to get your adrenaline fixes.
Seriously.
Fancy girls, ballroom dancing, something that isn’t a threat to harm yourself. Online VR gaming? Something. Colorado is a 420 state, maybe just, ya know, get high and do VR gaming?
I like to build houses. Having built several major things, and having helped others with their projects, I’ve had both shoulders replaced, They work fine. But I dare not start another building project, do ya see? Because I don’t want someone to have to go in an repair the repair. And then the rehab. The post-op pain-killers. etc. etc.
Think about it, at least. Water Skiing, or those Jetskis? Or diving in the tropics? I like that too, and it’s much safer than those XX downhill routes.
Maybe too much bourbon? Sorry…. never mind. I’ll go to bed now.
NotMax
Pleasant time at NYC meet-up. Good people, good food.
No wait staff working the downstairs rooms near the pub bar so they seated us upstairs in the fancier dining room. Crystal chandelier overhead and a death mask of Shakespeare keeping watch on us from the wall.
Thanks to those who showed up.
frosty
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Except for the current >100 degrees that all of our SoCal commenters are commiserating about. It was 111 the other day in Upland, where I used to live. I don’t think it got over 105 when I was there. Maybe it’s because there’s no smog any more (Damn you EPA!!!!)
But don’t worry, it’s a dry heat! … but be ready for the rains all winter. And if you live at the beach it will be foggy every morning. But OTOH no snow shoveling or ice storms so that’s a good thing.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was trying to figure out if you’d read the essay and what you thought of it. It was perpendicular to your actual comment.
efgoldman
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Firearms have always been dangerous, but they used to be less pervasive and not so easily available.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Sab: Second option would be Pittsburgh. It’s a nice enough city. I’ve been there to watch a few Pirates home games. Don’t know how expensive it is.
But honestly? Expensive it might be and traffic terrible, but I think the pros outweigh the cons
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: So, where would you draw the line? What can you and can you not say? Do you not think that the best legal and philosophical minds have been working on this for 200+ years? It isn’t easy.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: You all misplaced M4!
Mnemosyne
@frosty:
Well, there’s this thing going on called global climate change … ?
ETA: Hopefully everyone can see the goofy wink emoji so I don’t look like a total jerk.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
The certainty of the young, Omnes. An affliction we all shared… and got over. He will, too.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax:
?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@efgoldman:
I don’t know. I’d consider an AR-15 more dangerous than an ARW-era musket. No argument on the pervasiveness and availability front
NotMax
@Adam L Silverman: Was expecting him but no show. Had made a point of telling the people at the reservation station to respond to the name Balloon Juice.
frosty
@J R in WV: Good advice. And having just returned from the Kentucky Bourbon Trail is there such a thing as too much?
Well maybe at one sitting, which I seem to be approaching.
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV: I know someone who took a bad step just outside her apartment and broke her ankle to an extent that orthopods said “Holy shit.” This was in February; she is just starting to walk without a cane.
Adam L Silverman
They are going to make a ton on the pay per view for this:
She’s got the crazy eyes!!!!
Sab
@Mnemosyne: You’re from Chicago aren’t you? Winter there is intense. Not so much in Ohio, especially since global warming.
Goku should probably move west to get it out of his (her?) system, but I bet he/she won’t last if not involved in something not available back midwest. California is wonderful, but not for the creative or financial faint of heart.
I have owned my house for twenty years. All I have to do to hang on to it is pay property tax. That security is hugely important to me.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: @Major Major Major Major: was there. He couldn’t find you all. He posted several comments earlier in case anyone there was monitoring here.
FlyingToaster
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
This.
When I was in grad school, I booked out of Uni every Spring Break (as opposed to going home and working like I did in undergrad) and tried out different parts of the country – SF, Chicago. Came to Boston for a conference (technically, Woburn; technically a gamers’ con) and Cambridge was like stepping into a warm bath. I didn’t feel like I needed to buy guns and kill every one of my neighbors anymore. Attended again the next year, found people who were looking for a replacement roommate in Somerville, finished up and came here and started hunting for work while temping. It would take a fuckton of money to get me to leave.
frosty
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: One of my sons moved to Pittsburgh, and it looks like a pretty nice place to be. I’m looking forward to visiting him there.
For me, I went to school in SoCal and after a few years decided I belonged where I grew up on the East Coast. Flirted with the idea of Atlanta and Boston and ended up in Baltimore. Similar in size and ambiance to Pittsburgh. Winters a little better, summers a little worse.
ETA: Politically, Maryland’s pretty reliably D, unless you get to what Schaeffer called “that shithouse of an Eastern Shore”. PA’s on the bubble. PGH like Philly is D though.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: It’s fine, I was late, and then I got too anxious to ask, I’m actually really disappointed in myself.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t have an answer for that. I generally agree that people should be allowed to say whatever they want, short of death threats because I don’t have a better answer
NotMax
@Adam L Silverman: Aw, that’s a shame. Apologies, MMMM.
One person called the place and asked for Balloon Juice in order to say they couldn’t make it; reservation staffer brought the phone into the dining room so they did recognize the name.
Major Major Major Major
@FlyingToaster: @frosty: I’ve always felt very at home on the east coast, mostly NY and Boston. I’ve realized only relatively recently that I’d be happier out here. It should have dawned on me sooner since I spend so damn much time grumbling about how hard it is to find a squash court, good pizza, and good bagels.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major: Group broke up a little past 9:30.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I knew a Marine sargent who was in Vietnam and ended up unable to do his duty, because he ended up sending men up hills to die in machine gun cross fire. His description of the attempted taking of his last hill was as near as makes no difference, the script for the movie, Hamburger Hill. Years before it was made and written by someone else, who was in the Army. A very rational human being he just had an impossible job, playing the henchman in someone else’s horror movie and sending his friends to die. He didn’t know how to kill people, and he’d been extensively trained to do just that. Of course we met in a situation where most of the people had similar problems, they were trained to kill, had in fact done that and were having an extreme time living with that guilt.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: She is a wimp about weather. OHOH The Midwest changes at Chicago. And changes again at the Madison-Milwaukee line. Colder and more snow.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@frosty:
Someone never heard of the monsoonal flow.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: I’m working a genuine, authentic Jewish American guilt trip here… So work with me.
frosty
@Mnemosyne: Climate Change? What’s that? Is that when the Chinese aim their heat rayguns at California?
Semi-seriously, heat brings drier forests, which brings forest fires, which pumps CO2 in the air, which brings more heat, etc etc. And FSM help us if the methane hydrates melt.
This has been your Doom’n’Gloom Environmental Porn for the evening. Back to whatever bourbon is left from our Road Trip to Kentucky.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: War is corrosive. Every war.
Adam L Silverman
I put a fresh, musical open thread up.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: Is this one just for guilt trips now?
Ruckus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Hard to survive if everyone is trying to kill each other. And has weapons. Learning not to do that increases your own chance of survival. Less risk in someone getting both stupid and lucky if everyone’s idea is to survive.
Lyrebird
@Mnemosyne: The people beating a young man with metal pipes could have murdered him. Your point stands, just wanted to add this.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: There is no working with you people!//
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
Trump the triggered snowflake cuck and John Kelly his White Night!
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Really, I don’t need to be reminded. I still have very strong pictures in my head of the people I’ve met who were corroded beyond reasonable repair. I avoided the VA for a long time because of those memories. That was a good decision for me, till life forced me to reconsider. I still see that look on some faces that I meet. I’d bet you know that look.
FlyingToaster
@Major Major Major Major:
???
Dude, you do seem to be living on the wrong coast. I can think of 3 squash courts nearby (as in under 15 minutes to get there). Plus Harvard and MIT’s facilities.
?BillinGlendaleCA
This has all been burnt to a crisp.
ETA: I could see where the glow in the night sky of the fire, and that’s where the glow is right now.
frosty
@FlyingToaster: That was a great plan! My version was Road Trips in a clapped-out Triumph. It came down to I liked Maryland where my parents had moved to. Without the would I have gone somewhere else? Maybe, maybe not, my brother and sister ended up in NY and Philly.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@FlyingToaster: @Major Major Major Major:
Went to NYC too for a few days. I realized I like being in crowds, rather than driving around all the time on near-empty roads. I felt more alive riding on a subway
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Reference?
seaboogie
It seems that 8 years of having a competent black president and the backlash against that has resulted in this country turning into absurdist theater. All norms are erased.
In a week’s time, we won’t even remember this little bit of ridiculousness.
Kinda glad that “Crying Nazi” sticks, though.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Damn it: I meant Knight instead
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
No reference except typical RW troll talk online. I see a lot of that at MRA/alt-right places. Youtube too.
frosty
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s a pretty good description of the human condition, except for those who aren’t paying attention. Bummer that the meetup didn’t work out for you. I’d be feeling at least a little blue. Do you have enough time in town to try again later?
Omnes Omnibus
Does this help?
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Based on NY Times reporting today the President is not happy with Kelly – the new regimen is already wearing thin. And he went up one side of Kelly and down the other last week after the Arizona rally. Based on the reporting Kelly was both very surprised that this happened and is deeply offended as he’s never been treated that way in his 35 years of service and has made it known to friends, who apparently were given the quiet okay to tell the Times about it, that he will not tolerate being treated that way again. As I predicted when he was announced, I do not expect him to last long. The only wild card here is that Kelly doesn’t need the President, nor this job. He’s doing this because he feels it is part of the service to the nation that he’s done for over three decades. The President, however, desperately needs Kelly. My guess is that this reality will further inflame the President’s attitudes towards the Chief of Staff.
Major Major Major Major
@FlyingToaster: My dad’s from Brooklyn, I grew up in Denver which has just enough east coasty stuff (for some reason) that I was raised with east coasty stuff. But since it was Denver, I assumed they had all that everywhere.
California was happenstance mostly and I’ve been coasting there, so it’s time for my first really conscious move.
@frosty: Life is suffering, unless you believe the ads for veganism chalked up around Union Square.
I’m here until Wednesday, happy to grab coffee or whatever.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: That wasn’t specifically meant as directed at you. I know you, Raven, Cole, O2, Villagio, Grunt, and a number of others here know this truism all too well.
And I’ve seen the look a few times. One of my former students, among others I’ve seen, had it. He hid it pretty well. It eventually caught up with him after retirement with tragic results.
Ruckus
@frosty:
My vehicle outside temp gauge yesterday on the commute home read 117 at one point. Of course I was stopped at a light and in the sun so it may have been having a bad day. And it was reading 111 most of the time. And it rained Tuesday night in Pasadena. Not long 5-10 minutes but it was rain.
Mnemosyne
@Lyrebird:
Right, but it’s not totally clear that they intended to kill him, and people often do things in groups or pairs that they wouldn’t have the courage to do alone.
frosty
@Major Major Major Major: What did it for me (and I’ve probably said this before) was driving past the bean fields* on the way to work in March and smelling Spring. I got homesick for seasons.**
*long gone and subdivisions now, I expect.
** well, Winter. Hmm. We’ve been bailing south for the month of February lately.
seaboogie
@Adam L Silverman: I think it’s going to come down to just T and Ivanka in the Oval, and KellyAnne banging on the door with Miller by her side.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I put my digital thermometer out in the sun and got 120.9 late yesterday afternoon.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Cernovich wrote an article for Breitbart yesterday about this. That Kelly has trapped the President in the White House making him a virtual prisoner. That Kelly is now referred to as the Church Lady for his moral, upright behavior. The Mandrill Mentality’s article is full with quotes from Stone and others of similar ilk.
Major Major Major Major
@frosty: My husband’s never lived outside the bay area for longer than two months so he’s in for a real treat when we move out here, weather-wise.
seaboogie
@Ruckus: Makes our 104 in Sonoma seem temperate. 110 tomorrow. Blech!
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: You don’t beat someone around the head and shoulder with weighted pipes if you’re not intending to kill them.
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: If that is where you choose to wade, you will find ugliness.
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: Kelly has already cut of Javanka’s access as well. Anything that isn’t solely family related has to go through him before they get to go in to see the President.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
East Coast should work out better than when a married couple that G and I knew who moved to downstate Illinois (around Peoria). The wife was Southern California born and bred and she COULD NOT handle having the door freeze shut and snowdrifts blocking the driveway so they couldn’t go anywhere. It didn’t help that they moved there in late October so she really never got to see the weather as anything but horribly cold and icy for, like, the first six months. And then she was having trouble getting her nursing license to transfer over, so she couldn’t find a job and was sitting alone in the frozen-over house all. day. long. with only her husband or his family for company because she didn’t have any way to make friends.
They ended up divorcing and she moved back to So Cal.
Shorter me: move to the East Coast in springtime so you have plenty of time to get settled in before the bad weather starts.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not so much as wade but looking at the sun through eclipse glasses. I usually encounter that stuff in blogs like this one quoting and reporting on them, like wehuntedthemammoth.com monitoring the Manosphere in general.
frosty
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: If you like NYC, crowds, and subways, but can’t afford it — Philly, Chicago. DC and Boston (OK, not affordable). Smaller, cheaper, but still commutable on transit are all over, you just have to pick your neighborhood and employer so it wors. Even LA these days! Metrolink (commuter train) looks great.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
Why did they divorce?
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
People can be remarkably stupid about that, or at least self-delusional.
Also, not to be too morbid, but IIRC it takes quite a bit of effort to beat someone to death even if you have a group to do it.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh I know that. It’s almost just a reflexive response. Almost.
As I’ve stated on BJ many times, I didn’t see combat. But I did live for a short time with the results that can happen with some. And I find myself spending a fair amount of time at the VA, with a lot of people who did see combat. Some as recent as this decade. I don’t think anyone is unaffected, just differing levels of affected. Personally it has affected me in ways I never would or could have imagined.
And that’s why I respond.
frosty
@Ruckus: OTOH in South PA this morning my guage read 56 degrees. Damn you! It’s NOT Fall, it’s only September 1. I refuse to put on fleece or a jacket until October.
Mnemosyne
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
They had some existing problems, but a lot of it was the weather. She had never had to live in snow, and suddenly she was trapped in the house by 10-foot snowdrifts, with no place to go except to visit her in-laws. And moving from urban Southern California to someplace where the nearest “big city” was Peoria was a culture shock, to say the least.
ETA: And he refused to move back to So Cal because they had moved there to be closer to his aging parents. So, divorce. Luckily, they didn’t have any kids to complicate things even further.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
I was going to say that.
But yeah, they can say all they want about their motives, but you can’t think several people beating someone with pipes is anything but an intended killing.
Sab
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Good luck with your choices. I’ve been back in the Midwest for twenty years so I may out of date. My nephews all went to the west coast, but they are half Chinese, so not so comfortable in the Midwest. In California they are normal. Here they are slightly exotic, in spite having been born here.
Mike in NC
@Adam L Silverman: Screw Trump. I have a “Certificate of Appreciation for Service in the Armed Forces of the United States of America” proudly hanging on a wall that was signed by some guy named Obama. Wouldn’t want one from Ivanka’s bloated draft dodger dad.
Ivanka
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
Why is it that WW2 vets have never been seen culturally in the same light as Vietnam and later? IOW, WW2 gets are manly men and Vietnam ones with PTSD are whining crybabies?
frosty
@Mnemosyne: Funny, sort of. When I was dating in SoCal it eventually dawned on me that I’d never be able to move a California girl east. So nothing ever got serious, since I had a foot in both coasts.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: I think my husband would suggest separate residences if for whatever reason I had to move to the snowy middle of nowhere countryside, at least in middle America.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I moved to OH in December. On my first day driving to work it snowed. The absolute worst drivers had shitty rusted cars. I couldn’t believe how little they remembered of snow driving from the year before. It had been years since I’d driven on ice or in snow, and I remembered. I think it was a trick they played on themselves to keep them from moving, that forgetting what winter was like.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@frosty:
I just saw that Pittsburgh has a light rail system that functions as a subway downtown. Cleveland does too, I think, but then I’d still be in Ohellno
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I may not be expressing this right, but I think that they had a collective fantasy of killing someone (thus the weighted pipes), but the reality is that, fortunately for their victim, it’s a lot harder to actually do than they thought it would be.
But I think this is starting to sound like a weird excuse for them when I’m trying to do the opposite, so I think I’m going to drop it now.
Mnemosyne
@frosty:
I married a boy from Chicagoland who also has no intention of ever returning, so it worked out.
There are some few circumstances where I might be willing to move back, but they would probably involve living in a very urban part of the area. None of this living out in the suburbs with a huge driveway that has to be fuckin’ shoveled for me.
Ruckus
@frosty:
It is pretty good. However.
As soon as you have to commute more that a few minutes away from the rails it can easily turn out to be far less useful. A lot of buses only run every 1/2 hr. I’ve gotten off the train only to see the back of the bus drive off and have to walk 2 miles in the sun. And still beat the next bus to where I’m going.
Sab
I love America, in spite of our extremely damaged polity. Here we are, a bunch of Olds and not so Olds, counseling Goku on whether to move to LA, Pittsburgh, NYC, or stay in Warren (?) OH. And he/she can consider them all without any concern about language or national borders. He/she can go anywhere in a third of a continent and still be at home.
Not wanting to stick my nose in where it isn’t wanted, Goku always sounded male to me. I do the this/that in case I am wrong. No need to correct me, because everyone has similar issues moving forward in life.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Peoria could be a culture shock to anyone who’d lived in a big city.
Having worked in a job that I had to travel for and ended up in a lot of places like Peoria really opened my eyes as to what people will call home. Turns out I’m not a country bumpkin.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Sab:
I live in a suburb south of Youngstown and that’s all the specific I’ll get ?. I am male btw. BJ and places like it are pretty special where people can get together from all sorts of walks of life and talk about anything and everything. I’m glad I discovered it and started commenting.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I shoveled my driveway exactly once. Two fellas that worked for me shoveled it once, when they stayed at my house for a couple of days. They couldn’t stand to see it not shoveled. I’m no fool, I let them. That’s in 11 yrs. What i did do was buy 4 wheel drive vehicles so that I didn’t need to shovel it. Which worked OK because the city only cleared the main streets and not all the side streets.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
That’s why you fork out money for a snow blower. Much easier that way. ?
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Sell your car, move to a city with good transportation and don’t look back.
Don’t, however, sell your friends who have cars.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve never been in a situation where I had to make the decision but I’ve been armed on duty and had orders to kill if necessary. I thought about it and figured I’d have to just wait till it was necessary and see if I could. Thinking that killing someone with a piece of pipe would be a lark, that takes some very sick fucks to go there.
Ruckus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Ha! While I didn’t shovel my own driveway I did have to clear the one to our warehouse a couple of times, using a snow blower. But the snow was higher than the blower so all it would do was stall. Had to pick the damn thing up (had a nice handle on the top) and work off the top layer, then the ground layer and so on. A 20 ft long 20 ft wide driveway. Screw that, I’ll take 115 deg and traffic over that any day.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I grew up watching my 4 older brothers make very, very bad decisions that somehow ended up being non-fatal (that I know of), so I recognize the mentality, especially the need to do it as a group because none of them have the guts to pick a fair fight.
And drugs and/or alcohol beforehand were almost certainly involved. I read somewhere that in the majority of gang killings, the perps got drunk and/or high together first, which lowers one’s natural inhibitions about killing.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Problem is they aren’t actually natural. They are learned slowly over a lot of time. Not everyone learns those inhibitions and we as a species start wars every so often which slows the learning curve even more. We are pack animals and we will do things in packs that we wouldn’t do alone. Most of us anyway. What we do naturally is survive. Breathe, eat, defecate, reproduce, those are things we do naturally. What we’ve learned to do is work together to be stronger than animals that don’t mind eating us unless we eat them first. Or at least finding their weaknesses and using those to our advantage. And it’s the same for humans we don’t see as like us. They are, like we are, animals, that want to survive. If they think we will cause their downfall, or vise versa, that’s the ball game. Racists don’t see people that don’t look like them as real humans. We’ve created the entire concept of race to help that separation along. It’s bullshit of course but the reality is that it is still a very effective message to our brain. We have to make that connection that it isn’t real. Some of us do that very early in life, some never will. Nationality is another separation message, usually along the lines of race. It’s only slightly less bullshit. Look at Europe. They relatively recently formed a union, and it isn’t perfect for sure but how much better is it now than decades ago, at least for member states. We formed a union as well and for the most part it’s worked better than the alternative. With the level of communication and trade that we now have, nation, state and cultural differences are being sort of cleansed out of our systems. But there will always be people who fight change. Even if it actually benefits them, they will fight it. They may even see the benefits but not want to lose whatever it was that made them seem different in the first place, be it race, color, money, origin, gender……. As our numbers grow we either have to learn the lesson of all being in this together and work towards solutions to problems or we have to have wars to deplete the numbers. The earth can only support so many of us, just like a small settlement or farm could only support a few people not all that long ago. We don’t have enough land to all be self sufficient, we have to work together. Or a lot of us are going to have to die off.
woodrowfan
@TenguPhule: ins’t Wesley Snipes a tax denier, related to Sov Cits
HeartlandLiberal
According to one source I read earlier this morning, this Crying Nazi’s lawyer took an even more direct approach (emphasis added):
Barry
@Adam L Silverman: “The real concern should be the III%ers and the Oathkeepers. They are, predominantly, not – and I repeat: NOT – white supremacists. Also of concern are the sovereign citizens, many of whom are, though some are also Black nationalists, are the real folks to be worried about.”
Since when? Where is this mythical right-wing fascist group which is not white supremacists.
GeorgeHayduke
@debbie:
Correct.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Ruckus and Raven can chime in if they like, but my take is it is because we won World War II and we lost in Vietnam. And according to the way we popularly understand the history, we won it single handedly saving our allies who were losing badly until we became involved. A great deal of the original vilification of Vietnam Veterans was from World War II veterans who felt that the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines serving in Vietnam were making other veterans look bad because they wouldn’t (do what was necessary) to win. For whatever reason, largely I think because a significant chunk of younger WW II veterans still fought in Korea, Korean veterans were left out of this intergenerational spat within the veteran community. When you combine that with some other historical American reality oddities Korea becomes the forgotten war.
Adam L Silverman
@Barry: There has been a generational change reported within what we refer to as the militia/patriot movement. This has included an attempt to move away from white supremacist/white nationalist ideals within the movement. It isn’t a perfect break, but it is there.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/15/sovereign-citizens-rightwing-terrorism-hate-us-government