And the original.
Open thread!
Late Evening Topical Musical Open ThreadPost + Comments (106)
by Adam L Silverman| 106 Comments
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
This post is in: Gun nuts
I used to somewhat respect the notion of the 2nd Amendment, and thought it was pointless to even think about removing guns from the general population. That has changed. I’m fully supportive of an Australian style reaction now.
My attitude is simple- the gun nuts had a good run, but now it’s time for the adults to take away their fucking toys. I know it will cause a lot of sads among the rambo cosplay set, but hey, I was bummed when my cylon raider toy was recalled in 1979 and we’ve done ok since lawn darts were banned in 1987, so life will go on.
You want a bolt action rifle? Fine. You want a revolver? Fine. You want a shotgun, Fine. You can have those whne you are over 18, have had a psych eval, aren’t a felon, aren’t a domestic abuser or sex offender, and have passed specific training.
Assault rifles? Fuck off.
50 round magazines? Fuck off.
Bump stocks? Fuck off.
All of it. Fuck right the fuck off.
Anything else, fuck off. You don’t need it.
And don’t start with your but 3d printers will make guns ubiquitous. We’ll fucking ban them, too. And tax the living fuck out of gunpowder. You can’t get your god damned hands on fertilizer in bulk after McVeigh and the first twin towers bombing, we can do the same with the chemicals to make gunpowder. Fuck off.
Start working on your sword skills, 3 percenters.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 140 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Father of child killed in Sandy Hook shooting:
"We need to do something. And you know who is doing something? These amazing high school students. Oh my god, what a force to be reckoned with." pic.twitter.com/vnHho9Z6aN
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 23, 2018
Oh My God, What a Force to be Reckoned WithPost + Comments (140)
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., IOKIYAR, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Assholes, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell
CPAC ends after giving @DevinNunes the ACU "defender of freedom" award, and the crowd erupts in applause.
Nunes thanks them for the "very kind" honor.
That's a wrap for #CPAC2018.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 24, 2018
Yes, as a matter of fact, this happened *just* as the Schiff memo was being released yesterday…
Michael Steele Confronts Matt Schlapp Over CPAC Official’s Racial Insult: ‘What the Hell?!’ https://t.co/LHVD5moGvd
— Doug Mataconis (@dmataconis) February 24, 2018
…Schlapp brought up how Walters called Steele and implored him not to “take the worst out of what he said” and “have some grace.”
He told Steele “you’ve not been very graceful” to elements of the party…
As they wrapped the segment, Schlapp again said, “Don’t always jump to the conclusion that just because people use inarticulate words that they have it in for you.”
“I didn’t say he had it in for me!” Steele cried. “It was just stupid!”
Superb Old CPAC/New CPAC moment:
A panelist criticizes The Wall on the grounds that it'll require extensive use of eminent domain to seize private property on the border.
People in the crowd: "BOOOO! BUILD THAT WALL! BUILD THAT WALL!"
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 23, 2018
Bloomberg, “Trump Battles Complacency in Victory Among Conservative Faithful”:
… “There’s a different energy here, as opposed to opposition and negativity — less anger,” Dale Bellis, a conservative activist, said in an interview after addressing the conference on Friday. “Anger and fear many times drives us more than does optimism and hope. And so, yeah, we do need to maintain that edge.”…
For many, the desire to protect Trump against his political enemies was top of mind.
“Hanging over everyone’s head is that Nancy Pelosi and everyone is going to try to impeach Donald Trump if Democrats win,” said Sharon Gripshover, a 76-year-old retired physicist from Virginia. “Nobody’s really saying that here, but it’s in the air.”
Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel urged attendees on Friday not to let America “go back to the dark ages” of Democrats, including Californian Pelosi, being in control of Congress.
Lee Harvis, 74, a private educator from Maryland, said conservatives are “more comfortable” this year than they were during the Obama era. “There’s still a lot to be angry about, but we’re not fighting in the Warsaw ghetto anymore,” he said…
long security line to get into #CPAC2018 where, for the record, firearms are strictly prohibited pic.twitter.com/du5VDViTat
— J.D. Durkin (@jiveDurkey) February 22, 2018
I don't know how to untangle who should be denied a permit and who shouldn't, but I'm thinking that no one at CPAC should be anywhere near guns.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) February 23, 2018
James O’Keefe gets irritated when you ask him questions at CPAC https://t.co/kx5I0DiqYC
— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 23, 2018
Democrats (or some liberal group) should team up with sex workers to run a James O’Keefe style sting operation at CPAC. Imagine the video.
— Hesiod Theogeny (@Hesiod2k11) February 21, 2018
"We're going to have – you heard it yesterday – seven years of Trump, okay, seven more years," Sebastian Gorka said. "And then eight years of President Pence, because we need a minimum of 16 years to get back our Republic." https://t.co/L7UlGC5NEm
— Yashar Ali ?? (@yashar) February 24, 2018
Gorka’s not wrong: Trump is who his voters would be if they had a lot of money. He just doesn’t admit what an awful failure of character that represents among so many Americans. https://t.co/ekybPWYTxc
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) February 24, 2018
— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) February 23, 2018
Last CPAC 2018 Open Thread: Farewell to <del>Tarwathie</del> Oxon HillPost + Comments (108)
by $8 blue check mistermix| 150 Comments
This post is in: Our Failed Media Experiment
This “crisis actor” horseshit is a song as old as rhyme:
Sixty-one years before teens at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., would survive a mass shooting only to be labeled “crisis actors,” the nine African American teens who braved racist crowds to enroll in Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas were also accused of being impostors.
False rumors that the Little Rock Nine were paid protesters even forced the NAACP to issue a statement condemning the stories as “pure propaganda.” The students were not, in fact, “imported” from the North, said the NAACP’s Clarence A. Laws, but rather the children of local residents, including veterans.
Trump has been retweeting from a right wing nutjob who blamed Sandy Hook on crisis actors, so don’t tell me this ain’t a big deal. Unless, of course, you’re a New York Times White House correspondent:
For White House reporters, however, the rhetoric isn’t a top everyday concern. “The people who say this has a broad impact on society and the credibility of the media and so forth and so on, I get their point,” said New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker at a Tuesday night event hosted by the White House Correspondents’ Association. “I don’t dispute that. In terms of my job, worried about working as a reporter in the White House, it doesn’t have that much impact. I mean, it’s just theater.” Baker said he would get “more worked up” if the name-calling “leads to specific limitations on access or our ability to do our jobs.”
by DougJ| 93 Comments
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Assholes, The Decadent Left In Its Enclaves On The Coasts
Emotionalism, tribalism, intolerance, lies, cruelty, and extremism surround us (and I have not been immune in this climate to their temptations either). Trump has turned the right into a foul, spit-flecked froth of racist reactionism, and he has evoked a radical response on the left that, while completely understandable, alienates me and many others more profoundly with every passing day.
[….]And so I walk the dogs. And I meditate. And I smoke more weed in the evenings. And I browse the apps. And I find myself searching for figures outside this time and place who were in similar circumstances and yet kept their heads. You can never go wrong reading Orwell.
Given Sully’s obsession with our campus radical overlords (and the second half of his article is devoted to the martyrdom of St. Googlebro), I’ll put this in terms he an understand: smoking out, reading Orwell, and decrying the overall state of the world is how teen-agers deal with break-ups, not how adults deal with encroaching tyranny. Nothing wrong with smoking pot obviously, but it’s not a substitute for picking a side and fighting for it (instead of concern trolling it).
Since people who give a fuck about the country don’t have the luxury of spending all their time browsing apps and meditating, let’s raise some money.
Give here to the Balloon Juice fund that’s split equally among all Democratic eventual nominees in House districts currently held by Republicans:
Give here to Swing Left which is promoting grassroots progressive activity targeting over 70 Republican House districts.
This post is in: Because of wow., Open Threads, Popular Culture, Post-racial America
So, this happened…
Congrats to the entire #blackpanther team! Because of you, young people will finally see superheroes that look like them on the big screen. I loved this movie and I know it will inspire people of all backgrounds to dig deep and find the courage to be heroes of their own stories.
— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) February 19, 2018
… followed by the inevitable butwutabaud from a well-paid wingnut…
Michelle Obama says it's about time black kids have a superhero that reflects who they are. Why didn't we hear this when Halle Berry as Catwoman was released years ago? #BlackPanther pic.twitter.com/roLhfLAZgz
— DC McAllister (@McAllisterDen) February 22, 2018
… which was not well received:
As one of the credited writers of CATWOMAN, I believe I have the authority to say: because it was a shit movie dumped by the studio at the end of a style cycle, and had zero cultural relevance either in front of or behind the camera.
This is a bad take. Feel shame. https://t.co/6sth7w38Xx
— John Rogers (@jonrog1) February 24, 2018
Yeah, John Rogers is the guy responsible for the Crazification Factor (also Leverage, and many other things):
1/ What the hell is going on with this CATWOMAN tweet? There are *articles* on the @EW and a half dozen other sites about me “admitting” the movie was bad. Like it was a secret. Like I hadn’t confessed I was on the grassy knoll before now.
— John Rogers (@jonrog1) February 25, 2018
4/ My name was on an infamous failure, and then a movie that made hundreds of millions of $ and launched a franchise.
And my life did not change a BIT. I was still writing for a living. Still doing good work I cared about.
It was a valuable lesson.
— John Rogers (@jonrog1) February 25, 2018
6/ Sadly, that’s the lesson I wish got 40k RT’s but won’t: do the work. Do your best. Get back up. Move on when it sucks.
Life is short, make something. Make a LOT of somethings. Some of them might actually be what somebody, somewhere, didn’t even know they needed.
— John Rogers (@jonrog1) February 25, 2018
.
Apart from that, what’s on the agenda as we plan for the upcoming week?
***********
Some more Black Panther links, because why not:
'Black Panther' Taps Into 500 Years of History | Hollywood Reporter by @ndbconnolly https://t.co/10wNenu7Ag
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) February 16, 2018
“The Stars of ‘Black Panther’ Waited a Lifetime for This Moment” (NYTimes)
Ishaan Tharoor, “Why Wakanda Matters” [spoilers] (Washington Post)
Jamelle Bouie, “Black Panther Is a Marvel Movie Superpowered by Its Ideas” (Slate)
A note of apology to the people who complained about our #BlackPanther posts, saying "Wakanda isn't real": pic.twitter.com/dmi3bgtCW7
— Hollywood Palms Cinema (@HollywoodPalms) February 16, 2018
Lawrence Ware, “‘Black Panther’ and the Revenge of the Black Nerds” (NYTimes)
I know these are all giant, corporate blockbusters, but when I was a sad white teenaged boy, I saw Spider-Man FIVE TIMES. When people complain about excitement over Black Panther or Wonder Woman, it sounds like they're complaining about other people getting to have those feelings
— Daniel Kibblesmith ?????? (@kibblesmith) February 17, 2018
Carvell Wallace, “Why ‘Black Panther’ Is a Defining Moment for Black America” (NYTimes)
… This is all part of a tradition of unrestrained celebration and joy that we have come to rely on for our spiritual survival. We know that there is no end to the reminders that our lives, our hearts, our personhoods are expendable. Yes, many nonblack people will say differently; they will declare their love for us, they will post Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela quotes one or two days a year. But the actions of our country and its collective society, and our experiences within it, speak unquestionably to the opposite. Love for black people isn’t just saying Oscar Grant should not be dead. Love for black people is Oscar Grant not being dead in the first place…
This is how we do with one another. We hold one another as a family because we must be a family in order to survive. Our individual successes and failures belong, in a perfectly real sense, to all of us. That can be for good or ill. But when it is good, it is very good. It is sunlight and gold on vast African mountains, it is the shining splendor of the Wakandan warriors poised and ready to fight, it is a collective soul as timeless and indestructible as vibranium. And with this love we seek to make the future ours, by making the present ours. We seek to make a place where we belong.
Right after watching #BlackPanther in Bloem ???? #BlackPantherMovie pic.twitter.com/7bPAqztkAe
— Thandeka?? (@Thandi__K) February 16, 2018
Sunday Morning Open Thread: “Life Is Short. Make Something.”Post + Comments (166)