Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Reality always wins in the end.

Dinky Hocker shoots smack!

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

This is how realignments happen…

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Verified, but limited!

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

We need fewer warriors in public service and more gardeners.

I can’t take this shit today. I just can’t.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Four legs? good! two legs? we’re not so sure…

Nevertheless, she persisted.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Shelter in place is one thing. Shelter in pants is quite another.

The revolution will be supervised.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Yes we did.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Historically it is a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

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Enhanced Protest Techniques

Semi-Respite Open Thread: “Typefaces of Protest”

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With thanks to commentor DMSilev…

The Spousal Unit particularly liked Bayeux Moderne, but my personal favorite is Winsome Light. You know she’s serious, cuz the hearts over her “I”s have been downgraded to mere empty circles!

This was a reply to that thread, and it might actually be of use to some of you for future marches:

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Open Thread: Capital City Under Siege Fights Back

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But seriously: Be careful out there, people…

… Starting at 6 a.m. Saturday, police will close much of downtown to vehicle traffic, creating a pedestrian-only demonstration zone stretching between the southern boundary of the Mall and L Street NW to the north. The western boundary is along 19th Street NW, and the eastern edge is roughly Ninth Street NW through downtown and Third Street NW along the Mall.

A fortified perimeter around the White House, including a tall black fence that was erected late this week after days of volatile confrontations between police and demonstrators, will remain.

Unlike many other large-scale demonstrations that the District hosts, no one person or organization is leading Saturday’s events.

Nearly a dozen different demonstrations run by as many organizations or individuals have been advertised for Saturday, starting at 6 a.m. and running into the night. Many protesters plan to stay out until the early hours of Sunday morning.

There are no leaders to speak to and no agenda to follow…

Even Black Lives Matter DC has repeatedly announced this week that it is not behind all the grass-roots activism that has taken hold and flooded the city with protesters. Online, people from around the Washington region and neighboring states announced their intention to join and encouraged others to do the same.

D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said no arrests have been made during protests since Tuesday. He said he hoped that that streak would continue as he expected on Saturday to see the largest crowd since protests began in the city on May 29…

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Repub Stupidity Open Thread: Blowhard Discovers What ‘Petard’ Means…

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… The statement cites an instance in October 2019 when Gaetz and other Republicans entered the closed-door deposition of Pentagon official Laura Cooper during the impeachment proceedings against Trump. After demanding that Democrats hold open hearings, Gaetz and his colleagues remained in the meeting room for hours, eventually ordering pizza.

Gaetz also attempted to sit in on the deposition of former National Security Council member Fiona Hill in October 2019 but was asked to leave because he did not belong to the committee in charge of receiving Hill’s testimony.

In the complaint, a copy of which was sent to Newsweek by the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, Gaetz’s acts were described as “improper, unprofessional and unethical and were meant only to feed Gaetz’s unjustifiable large ego and penchant for grandstanding.”

“Impeachment proceedings are a legal process leading to a trial, and therefore covered by the Florida bar’s rules of conduct,” wrote Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chair Steve Simeonidis in the statement. “But Republican Attorney General Bill Barr isn’t going to hold a member of his own party responsible. So we must appeal to our state’s institutions to restrain this rogue lawyer who has obstructed the impeachment process twice, and generally treats the powers of his elected office like a personal plaything.”…

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Cold Grey Iowa Caucus Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Proof of Concept

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We are not a joke, people! (Well, not a *deliberate* joke… )

We devout Cynics were told not to badmouth the Bernistas’ proclivity to attack Democrats instead of the greater enemy, Trump. When the voting finally started, we were told, Senator Sanders and his closest aides would quickly pull his supporters into line, for the greater good. Because they were mature adults, not hobbyists nursing their adolescent fantasies of exclusion and revenge.

Yeah, well, Iowa — and the Iowa caucus structure the Sanders campaign fought so hard to preserve — certainly provided some valuable lessons, yes it did!

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Domestic Terrorism Open Thread: Good for Governor Northam

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… A sense of crisis enveloped the capital of Virginia on Thursday, with the police on heightened alert and Richmond bracing for possible violence ahead of a gun rally next week that is expected to draw white supremacists and other anti-government extremists.

Members of numerous armed militias and white power proponents vowed to converge on the city despite the state of emergency declared by Gov. Ralph Northam, who temporarily banned weapons from the grounds of the State Capitol. The potential for an armed confrontation prompted fears of a rerun of the 2017 far-right rally that left one person dead and some two dozen injured in Charlottesville, about an hour’s drive from Monday’s rally.

The unease increased after the F.B.I. announced the arrest on Thursday of three armed men suspected of being members of a neo-Nazi hate group, including a former Canadian Army reservist, who had obtained weapons and discussed participating in the Richmond rally. The men were linked to The Base, a group that aims to create a white ethnostate, according to the F.B.I.

For weeks, discussions about the rally have lit up Facebook pages and chat rooms frequented by militia members and white supremacists. Various extremist organizations or their adherents are calling Monday’s rally the “boogaloo.” In the lexicon of white supremacists, that is an event that will accelerate the race war they have anticipated for decades…

The rally on Monday, the holiday marking the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was initially organized to protest the Virginia Legislature’s proposed restrictions on gun purchases.

The organizer, the Virginia Citizens Defense League, is prominent in the state’s Second Amendment rights movement, donating tens of thousands of dollars to lawmakers over the years. Its president, Philip Van Cleave, refers to himself as an extremist but issued a statement saying the rally was meant to be a peaceful protest about gun rights.

In the past, its lobbying efforts were focused on loosening the state’s gun laws.

But with a new Democratic majority in the Legislature, the group has made it clear that Monday’s event will be focused on opposing sweeping gun control measures that could be enacted next week....

On Thursday, the House of Delegates and the Senate held their regularly scheduled sessions under tighter-than-normal security by the Capitol Police. The Senate approved several gun control measures, including a bill that limits people to buying only one gun each month.

Also Thursday, a circuit court judge upheld the governor’s temporary ban on weapons in the area around the Capitol from Friday until Tuesday…

The F.B.I. has grown increasingly concerned about The Base as it has worked to recruit more people. The group encourages the onset of anarchy, according to the Counter Extremism Project, an organization that tracks far-right extremists. Experts say that its founder, an American, appears to be living in Russia…

Of course not every ‘gun rights activist’ is a racist, nor is every racist an ammosexual — but is it surprising how much the two groups overlap?

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: It Still Matters

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And also:

Furthermore:

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Noisy Futility Open Thread: Friday Night Party Edition

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There’s a subsect of Performatively Woke social media that will never stop resenting the Boomer Generation who (according to some vaguely remembered high school history slideshow) unfairly scored all the really cool public protests. Willowy young people with flowers’n’beads! Wall-to-wall coverage on the three existing tv news channels! LBJ and Kissinger, who were worthy opponents!…

Today’s big public protests are all ‘whinemoms’ in silly hats, cheerily organizing bus drop-offs and handing out water bottles and snack bags. No more transgressive than your average suburban soccer practice, except the under-18s swarming these modern protests have no respect for their expensively-educated elders.

Obviously, this is all Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi’s fault.

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