Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

The math demands it!

Han shot first.

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

… makes me wish i had hoarded more linguine

Consistently wrong since 2002

Mission Accomplished!

Fuck if i know. i just get yelled at when i try it.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

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

Good luck with your asparagus.

I swear, each month of 2020 will have its own history degree.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Wetsuit optional.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

I’m going back to the respite thread.

This is all too absurd to be reality, right?

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Yes. They Really Are Assholes.

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Did what amounts to a symbolic bit of electioneering today–a lit drop in Salem, NH. I haven’t been nearly as active-on-the-streets as I usually am, for a variety of reasons; it’s been money and a bit of post-carding for me.

So this was my first real on-the-ground experience outside the Brookline, MA bubble–which really is a bubble. Our politics basically runs from tote-bag liberal to unreconstructed lefty, and that’s fine by me. (Like a lot of town-governed-towns, actual local politics is run by a small, deeply embedded cabal and it’s just as tricky as you might imagine, but that’s for a different post.)

New Hampshire, though it’s been pretty blue for a while now still has plenty of the Hamshirtucky that made it a rock-ribbed/crazy right wing state for a long time. So when we showed up at the local HQ in Salem NH, we were met by a wall of Trump signs and some very loud MAGATs, using a bullhorn to taunt Democrats for all kinds of things.

Yes. They Really Are Assholes. 4

One of the weirder moments in that monologue, by the way, was a sudden diversion into California mandating all-electric cars by 2035, as the highly informed and judicious asshole with the bullhorn complained about the quality of CA’s current grid. He then asserted CA is a shithole of state, and as a scion of the place, I wondered what it was that so upset him: the weather? The food? The quality of higher ed in the state? Etc.  Take it from me folks:  New Hamster has its virtues–but it’s not going to win most competitions with the Golden State.

But I digress.

What struck me was the purity of the demonstration: this was simply an expression of assholery.  This guy, at least, had some stamina, and he was a blessedly silent performer:

Yes. They Really Are Assholes.

He was doing his Trump dance for at least three hours that I could check, so give the man some points for persistence.

But this captures the tone of what was being bullhorn across the street:

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The good news is that all this involved a fair amount of local resources: ten or dozen people (none masked, of course), lots of signs, lots of energy. The D’s had three or four folks at the HQ–and all the volunteers (and there were a bunch) were out canvassing and dropping literature.  The Trumpanzees went for what really amounts to political masturbation.

So yeah, it was uncomfortable, and it was intended to be so: these scumbags wanted to make some other folks lives miserable, and between the horns (some truckers driving big rigs really enjoyed leaning on theirs) and the blather, they did a pretty good job.

Except for the fact that the Democratic GOTV effort was completely undisturbed.

But besides being forced to come to some conclusions about how these losers were raised, it was a reminder that these are not people with whom one can respectfully disagree. From the top down, they are performative jerks–on their best days.

Oh–and they cheat all the time, large and small.  One more photo (ETA: actually loaded the photo this time):

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What you’re seeing is a Trump flyer, placed in a mailbox. As everyone here likely knows (at least everyone who has canvassed in the last many decades) that’s a big no-no. Just last night in our volunteer training Zoom, they told us at least three times that it is a federal crime to do that. We saw Trump leaflets in each of the open mailboxes we passed.

Admittedly, when the tally of Trump-era crimes are totted up, this won’t rank high. But to me that’s what’s telling: there is simply no rule, no matter how minor, that they won’t break.

Fuck ’em. Let’s roll their sorry asses through Tuesday. Even my cup of coffee agrees:

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This thread.

It is open for anything.

Image: Jan Pietersz. Saenredam, The Fool, between 1590 and 1600.

 

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“Outside Agitators”: It Was Right-Wing Boogaloo Bois That Burned That Minneapolis Police Station

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The Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

… A sworn affidavit by the FBI underlying the complaint reveals new details about a far-right anti-government group’s coordinated role in the violence that roiled through civil unrest over Floyd’s death while in police custody.

Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old from Boerne, Texas, is charged with one count of interstate travel to incite a riot for his alleged role in ramping up violence during the protests in Minneapolis on May 27 and 28. According to charges, Hunter, wearing a skull mask and tactical gear, shot 13 rounds at the south Minneapolis police headquarters while people were inside. He also looted and helped set the building ablaze, according to the complaint, which was filed Monday under seal.

Unrest flared throughout Minneapolis following Floyd’s death, which was captured on a bystander’s cellphone video, causing Gov. Tim Walz to activate the Minnesota National Guard. As police clashed with protesters, Hunter and other members of the Boogaloo Bois discussed in private Facebook messages their plans to travel to Minneapolis and rally at the Cub Foods across from the third precinct, according to federal court documents. One of the people Hunter coordinated with posted publicly to social media: “Lock and load boys. Boog flags are in the air, and the national network is going off,” the complaint states.

Two hours after the police precinct was set on fire, Hunter texted with another Boogaloo member in California, a man named Steven Carrillo.

“Go for police buildings,” Hunter told Carrillo, according to charging documents.

“I did better lol,” he replied. A few hours earlier, Carrillo had killed a Federal Protective Services Officer in Oakland, Calif., according to criminal charges filed against him in California…

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Womens March(es), This Weekend?

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I saw a story in the Washington Post about this some time ago, but there hasn’t been anything on the twitter feeds I read, and there is so much news every day these days! Anybody planning on attending one of these events, virtually or IRL?

The Washington Post, yesterday — “Women’s March will bring thousands of marchers to D.C. and cities nationwide this weekend”:

The Women’s March will return to the nation’s capital and to hundreds of cities across the country on Saturday, drawing thousands of people to the streets in the middle of a pandemic to protest the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett and to urge Americans to vote President Trump out of office.

In Washington, D.C., organizers expect between 6,000 and 10,000 people to gather on Freedom Plaza for a midday rally focused on voting rights and calling on Congress to suspend the Supreme Court confirmation process, according to a permit issued by the National Park Service on Wednesday. After the rally, participants will march to the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Capitol…

Saturday’s Women’s March in D.C. is expected to be one of at least 415 marches and events taking place in person and virtually in cities across the country, O’Leary Carmona said. That’s significantly fewer marches than the first Women’s March in 2017, when millions of people flooded the streets in about 700 marches across the country in a historic demonstration protesting Trump’s inauguration.

But O’Leary Carmona said organizers aim to reach the same number of marches as they did in 2018, when about 500 events were planned nationwide. Among the events planned for Saturday are golf-cart processions, car caravans and a march that will begin at Ginsburg’s college dorm at Cornell University.

Unlike during past years’ marches in the nation’s capital, Women’s March leaders are hoping for a relatively smaller crowd in the District because of social distancing concerns. They are discouraging participants from traveling to D.C. from states that are on the self-quarantine list and are not involved in organizing any buses from other cities. Instead, they encourage supporters to attend local marches or to get involved with its “text-a-thon” efforts, O’Leary Carmona said…

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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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Long Read: Trump Didn’t ‘Send In The Troops.’ They Were Already There.

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C. J. Chivers has written a great piece on using military troops in civil disorders.

Chivers was a Marine, and participated in one of these exercises many years ago. He shares his own feelings and what he sees now as a reporter. His writing about military issues, particularly the feelings of the troops, is as sensitive as anything I’ve seen anywhere. He’s a great writer.

[Disclosure: I know him a little from having been a source on technical material at various times.]

It is a long read, so there’s no one piece I can pull out to summarize it. Here are a few samples:

How a government prepares for and uses violence — including when, why and against whom — contains on some level a declaration about what kind of government that government is. At Tustin, we passed out ammunition, quickly practiced riot-control formations in front of television-news crews and then headed into Los Angeles and cities nearby. As my company arrived in Compton, I’d like to say we understood the context of the role we were given: that even a limited Marine deployment in a genuinely extreme situation would run inevitably into the ugly history of state force in the United States, and who receives the brunt of it. But domestic crowd control had never been our specialty, and because this was 1992, a time before Google and smartphones, we could not readily call anyone or look anything up.

After the mass demonstrations following a white Minneapolis police officer’s killing of George Floyd while his fellow officers looked on, officials in the United States deliberated once again over whether to send American combat troops into cities. The discussion was driven by threats or calls for military action from both President Trump and Senator Tom Cotton, who urged “no quarter” against “insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters and looters” — a proposal for merciless violence against American citizens, including in ill-defined categories, that sounded both reckless and illegal. Official threats of state violence can be little more than performance, a kind of law-and-order signaling, and it was not clear how seriously Trump considered following through. But it was impossible, upon hearing Trump’s and Cotton’s bellicosity, not to remember how close my Marines came, in the confusion of a job they were not trained to do, to killing a child.

Baku, Azerbaijan, 2005: The degree of control was chilling, reflecting the unstated but perfectly clear logic of a confident, contemptuous power. It was not just that in any contest for the street, the government and its forces enjoyed a lopsided advantage and would use it — a position hardly unique to authoritarian rule. It was that the kleptocracy wanted this crackdown seen and transmitted, so any would-be Azeri activists would know what to expect if they challenged the state’s central tenet, which was that the Aliyevs would never willingly yield what they saw as theirs. Brute force and the ability to command it — not elections — determined who got to hold power and run the national rackets. State violence did more than clear the streets. It served as lesson and show. Almost 15 years later, Ilham Aliyev is still president.

Read the whole thing. And open thread!

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On the Ground at the Custer County Protest

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by Miss Bianca

First, of all, some context: Custer County, CO, where I live, is demographically speaking a ‘frontier’ county: our total population is only about 4500 people, the overwhelming majority (around 90%) white, and the median age is 58, and the sociopolitical culture relentlessly conservative, with a few pockets of liberality centered around cultural institutions like the community radio station and the performing arts center (where I work).

So when I say that I expected to be one of about seven people at the planned Black Lives Matter rally, I was only partly kidding. In the event, over 100 people showed up, and it would likely have been more, but for some confusion – the weather was supposed to be stormy, so the original organizer first called it off, and then cancelled the cancellation once it became apparent that people were ready to go, rain or shine. So here we go:

 

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THE MOUNTIES

This is how I thought of them, tho’ I have no idea whether they were actually part of the mounted posse or not (yes, a “mounted posse” is a thing out here). All I know is that these two ladies on horseback were across the street from the park where we started (with a kneeling demonstration timed for 8 minutes, 46 seconds, in honor of George Floyd), and then they processed up the street in front of us before turning off onto a side street. So, I don’t really know why they were there, but they sure looked cool!

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The Sheriff had advised us to make sure to stay on the sidewalks. We split up and marched on both sides of the street. Observe the social distancing protocol (laxer on the way back, I must admit, but everyone was masked and remained masked throughout the event).

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There were some great signs. This one struck me as the ultimate statement for our times right now.

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The march began and ended at The Bluffs, a park at the end of the street at the edge of town with a stunning view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. One of the coolest things about it for me was meeting people like this young family, who moved to the area a couple years ago.

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Signs, signs, everywhere signs…

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…including the “counter protest” outside the Sentinel office. The Sentinel is a right-wing newsletter (I won’t dignify it with the term “newspaper”) that serves as the fulcrum for white supremacist reaction. They have done a lot of damage socially and politically here, and they got their start from the extreme butt-hurt that the white gun nut crowd here experienced when the former editor of the real paper in town, the Wet Mountain Tribune (full disclosure, as Adam would say: I write for this paper), wrote an editorial poking fun at the open-carry zealots in the 4th of July parade. Boom – all of a sudden we’ve got a full-blown opposition organization, funded by some rabid right-winger from out of town (talk about your “outside agitators”!). Speaking of which, that’s what these folks were expecting – the Sheriff had to talk them down. But as you can see, they’re still out there. They were chanting “USA! USA! USA!” and “ALL LIVES MATTER!”  as we passed. And of course, none of them masked. K-K-K-Keepin’ It K-K-K-Klassy all the way…

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We all bunched up and waded right through the suckers on the way back. What you can’t hear is one of the white supremacist goobers who got in our faces leering “I can’t breathe.” We had been warned not to react to any provocation, but man, that one was particularly hard to ignore.

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RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

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But we all got through it and went on with our pleasant and useful day. I am hopeful that this march – which was organized by a very young man, and featured a multicultural, multi-generational crowd, which overwhelmingly abided by COVID-19 protocols – will represent the future of our county. One of the women who worked for my paper, who has gone over to the Dark Side with the bigots, lamented the other day that “I’ve lived in this valley for 20 years, and I don’t recognize it anymore.” To which I say, “Right on.”

On the Ground at the Custer County Protest
END OF THE MARCH

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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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