The Wake-up Call

 

A disturbing picture of a man in a lot of pain has emerged regarding the driver of the car that burst into flames in front of a Trump property in Las Vegas, Matthew Livelsberger--but the part I found very concerning is the messages left behind recovered from his electronics.

He describes his explosive journey as "terrorist attack" but a "wake-up call". Maybe in his opinion, but his pyrotechnics injured several bystanders, and the message urges potential violence:

Military and vets move on DC starting now. Militias facilitate and augment this activity.

Occupy every major road along fed buildings and the campus of fed buildings by the hundreds of thousands.

Lock the highways around down with semis right after everybody gets in. Hold until the purge is complete.

Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary. They all must go and a hard reset must occur for our country to avoid collapse.

This is suggesting militias be involved in an ideological purge. Pretty much the Trumpist program of firing the current federal workforce and replace them with loyalists? But the use of semis ringing the streets?  

A convoy?

TWGB: Occupied America

 

Trump seems to be closing in on the finish line by wallowing in increasingly "blood and soil" fascist, anti-immigrant rhetoric, so I want to point out that there is a kind of irony that he wants to pretend there is an "occupied America." This depends upon a Pizzagate-level bit of idiocy--that a whole town could be occupied by a gang and it wouldn't be front-page news. Just like there could supposedly be a rash of pet-murders and it wouldn't be a major thing if it were actually true. And just like the mayor of Springfield had to come out and debunk Trump/Vance lies, the mayor of Aurora had to do the same. 

"Occupation" is an interesting term. I can think of, for example, the Bundy ranch militia occupation, which had checkpoints and everything. But you know what I really think about? MAGA occupation of the public sphere in terroristic ways. Like way FEMA operations in North Carolina were recently disrupted by a local RW militia. One man has since been arrested. 

You want to know who has also been threatened? Meteorologists. That's insane. But they are getting threats for talking about climate change. As opposed to, I guess, talking about weather machines in the possession of Zionist Communist multi billionaires, or whatever the stupid conspiracy theory is today. 

You could well ask, as former President Obama thoughtfully asked--"When did this become okay?" This is certainly not how it used to be. We didn't, for example, think of a riot at the Capitol as Speaker Mike Johnson recently stupidly put it, part of the election process. Maybe we could have once counted on responsible adults calling out Italian satellites, Venezuelan voting machines, German servers, Chinese thermostats and the like as being deadass stupid. 

Ammon Bundy arrested on contempt charge

Ammon Bundy defamed a hospital and made it close down temporarily due to targeted harassment. He lost a suit and now has to pay millions of dollars. And he is fooling around with his assets to avoid paying them. I became aware of him because of the Bunkerville standoff. Because his family's ranch were a bunch of deadbeats over grazing fees and decided it was WAR! And then later, there was the Malheur occupation. The family is, you might say, an environmental issue. 

He's not exactly a folk hero. Right-wing people do love their myths, though. I remember when they wanted to make LaVoy Finicum into a martyr, I guess the way they want to with Ashli Babbitt or Craig Robertson. 

The history of right-wing extremist militia-affiliated people just walking away after making a threat of themselves doesn't seem to set a good example. It's an example that they can use to try to accelerate their antisocial behavior. 

Anyway, the usual characters will be out defending him saying The Man is only on his case for "being a conservative." And some people will buy that because deep down, they like the idea of some people getting to be outlaws, when what they are is armed pests. Ammon Bundy threatened the judge in this past case, just like he has in other cases:

In a July 9th open letter posted online, Bundy directly addressed Baskin, alluding to potential violence should she rule in favor of St. Luke’s.  

“Please do not sanction a war that may end in innocent blood and require others to bring justice upon those who are responsible for shedding it,” he wrote.  

Bundy has also complained about other judges in his previous cases, always calling them out by name and sometimes encouraging his followers to go to their homes. 

 Bundy ran for governor of Idaho, once. He lost, but there are people in this country who could really see a man like that being president. It really does make you think.

The Supremacist Who Worked for FL GOP (UPDATED)

 

In a story I want to highlight for obvious reasons--Lil Marco Rubio took a break from posting on Twitter as a Vacation Bible Camp fortune cookie and told us that one of his campaign canvassers was put into the hospital for just being a Republican, which is a horrific thing to be happening in Hiahleah, Florida, 

It quickly turned out that the young man in question had a long history of being associated with hate groups and had been paid by the GOP in FL for a while, apparently without them noticing or caring he was a part of the Unite the Right Rally or had been arrested previously for jabbing a Confederate flag at people.  

The first assailant who had been caught is probably not even political. A second man has been arrested, but nothing there reinforces Rubio's Republican persecution story, either. 

So, I guess what I want to know is, did Rubio point out that a person associated with Charlottesville and was a known right-wing provocateur in all innocence of who he actually was in the hope that people would honestly consider Republicans to be martyrs facing an underdog battle in (consults notes) Hiahleah, Fl, against militant liberal antifa hordes just roughing up innocent canvassers left and right, or was he trying to get in front of the story that RW/Proud Boys, etc. type guys were now a regular part of the GOP political scene by spraying the sanctity of a martyrdom beatdown all over him? 

With Liberty and Justice?

 

"Strong Families Make Strong Nations." "Reclaim America."

If you don't see the connection between the assault on reproductive rights and ethno-nationalism, you're not paying attention. pic.twitter.com/SUZrAfj5Nz

— Melissa Murray (@ProfMMurray) July 3, 2022

I have no doubt that the Patriot Front fools who made an appearance in Boston may very well appear here in Philadelphia--after all, they like to travel and U-Hauls and Penske trucks are affordable and they were ever so warmly welcomed here last year.  Whether they are received as a threat or have their asses kicked in, the point of these shows of "presence" of the business casual klan variety are about letting you know they exist. They might cover their faces because some employers might balk at the fascism, but by appearing, they intend to normalize this kind of display of street corner thuggery. 

This year, uterus-having people lost a basic right of bodily self-autonomy. This is one way of saying AFAB people were informed by unelected ivory tower assholes that the state can decide whether they can terminate a pregnancy or not, for whatever reason. The Supreme Court did, by way of ontological terrorism, what doctor-murderers and clinic bombers could not, without a single mind of the US populace being changed to think the less of the medical procedure. They assumed a right that a fetus has over an already-born person, an absurdity and a societal disaster. 

They did more damage, in smaller numbers, and made their presence more intrusively felt, than street thugs ever could. 

Dressing For Your Salad Bar?

 

Because this actually is kind of wild, COVID-19 disinformation-spreader (among other weird pursuits) Mike Flynn saw a thing about how the weirdos were going to spike the salad dressing with vaccines because that's obviously how capitalism is doing these days. The salad dressing industry is definitely in the pocket of Big Vaccine, controlled by the Harris/Biden syndicate. They're out there making innocent condiments into tools of statist control over your precious bodily fluids. Next thing you know they will be regulating your testicle size via ketchup, see if they don't!

Ok, so he got what he saw entirely wrong in every respect--there is a thing where mRNA can be bred into plants so that can be a more useful way to produce and store vaccine supplies. but no one is trying to Caesar Surprise folks into swallowing a vaccine without knowing what's up. 

But because someone like Flynn, for whatever reason, is listened to, he might make people a little nervous (more nervous, actually) about getting the vaccine. Because why would people be so sneaky about it if it was totally fine and safe--sounds hinky, right? That's what the disinfo game is about--sure it sounds wild and weird to normies. But if you are already clued into that frequency, you want to believe, and totally weird shit stops sounding all that weird to you because you are hearing at least that level of weird like, all the time. 

So we get guys like this one: Lt Col. Doug Hague, who ain't gonna get a COVID-19 vaccine, because FREEDOM! He got all the other shots, but this time, it's a whole thing. He didn't even realize it was about freedom until like, just now. I wonder why he never saw all the anthrax shots and all that before as a problem, huh? (And is he thinking he will have songs sung to his honor in Wingnut Valhalla, because of course he very well might.) 

It reminds me a little bit of Lt. Col. Terry Lakin. The dude lost everything over birtherism, and it remains the dumbest thing I can imagine. The actual Commander in Chief at the time was obviously born in Honolulu. There was ample proof. But this dope preferred court-martial and the loss of benefits he accrued during his long service. He served five months at Leavenworth and lost his medical license. 

The Oath Keepers Reminded Me of Something

Three members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, told Sharyn Alfonsi that they don’t support the actions of those who stormed the Capitol on January 6: “It’s stupid. We don’t do that. That's not Oath Keepers.” https://t.co/3QPl4dErim pic.twitter.com/HBYRta5ZZm

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 18, 2021

That line of argument: We don't do that. That's not us.

It reminds me of those "a few bad apples" arguments we hear about police brutality and the slaying of unarmed people. Don't judge the whole organization for doing what, to be clear, we admit we're basically being trained to do. What I do pay attention to is that they explain they work hand in glove with police forces and it is pretty disturbing that members of a far-right militia are being treated like they are--what? Authority-adjacent?

Listening carefully, I also heard a kind of shoddy reasoning that they love the Constitution, but that it means pretty much what they'd like it to mean. As in, the Constitution might say "no", but she really means "yes" about some things. (Yes, pronoun deliberately selected there.)

It didn't remind me of anything good. And 60 Minutes aired that quite frankly. It felt a bit like a laundering operation. But those sheets are still dirty as hell.

About Those Calls For Unity

More: "FBI received information about an identified armed group intending to travel to Washington, DC on 16 January. They have warned that if Congress attempts to remove POTUS via the 25th Amendment a huge uprising will occur." #CapitolRiots #Capitol #capitolbreach @AaronKatersky https://t.co/Pz9kbEZc4N

— Josh Margolin (@JoshMargolin) January 11, 2021

You know, if the insurrection isn't over yet, it's probably a little too soon. Also, re: whether VP Pence is keen on the idea, frankly, the number of lynch mobs I need sent after my own personal ass before I decide someone is unstable is not even one.

Trump Revealed Himself at the Debate

This. This is Donald Trump's America. https://t.co/wld2mmGTwe

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 30, 2020

When given an opportunity to condemn white supremacy, Trump told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" because something needed to be done about antifa. I think he may genuinely see them as his Black Shirts, and that is horrific.

Trump supporters and Trump himself have tried to gaslight us a bit about whether he said there were "very fine people on both sides". At this debate, it's clear to me who he sees as "his people."

The debate was a shitshow. Trump was belligerent and interrupted frequently and lied about as much as one might suspect. He blathered about the dirty California forests being the reason for the yearly wildfires and threatened about the potential deprivations of the Green New Deal. But the most important thing he demonstrated is that he is not now and will never be a president for the whole of America. There are, in fact, whole swathes of it, people in Democratic cities, in particular, that he despises.

What I hear, and what the Proud Boys themselves are hearing, is Trump telling them they'll have their time. And, just like Trump saying he'll accept the results of a "free and fair election"--he's not giving us too many illusions that that means anything other than whether he says it's time, or whether he considers something fair. He's been hinting at Civil War for a long time, appearing at times heedless to the violence that his language could cause, but maybe he is not actually altogether unaware of the potential for violence, just unbothered.

In the way he is unbothered by 205,000 Americans dead by COVID-19, bothered only when the blame threatens to settle on him?

We can not be disheartened by this rhetoric. How can he say he loves this country when he would see it burn? When he would see it's people hurt, divided, weakened? He doesn't. I can't think that he does, when he speaks like this.

The Undue and Unauthorized Militia

The Border Patrol appeared unconcerned when a border militia carrying AR-15s decorated with Punisher skulls captured hundreds of immigrants. https://t.co/VgAxhAr6Ja

— The Intercept (@theintercept) April 23, 2019

Recently, hundreds of foreign migrants were basically kidnapped on American soil by an armed militia and they basically maintained that they were helping out Border Patrol. They were not authorized or deputized in any official way to engage in detention activity, and it's a bit charitable to call what they did "detention" rather than "kidnapping" for that reason--the shift in meaning between legal and illegal activity, in rather the way being on this side of the border might be seen as unauthorized and illegal and take on a different status. Definitions can be strange things, creating a reality by means of words alone.

But this isn't a philosophical post, but rather a blog post about the tacit and unofficial authority that flows from unstable situations--the kind that seems to have unofficially deputized an armed group of racists and gun-lovers and right-wing conspiracy theorists to handle an already distressed population. Because it appears that this militia, like several others that have situated themselves along the border, have sort of contracted themselves to Border Patrol to catch actual human beings. This should actually strike us as really radical that armed vigilantes are patrolling for illegal border crossing, which in legal terms is a misdemeanor, but there's a long history of this, but the existence of militias has skyrocketed of late and seems more open to working with open White Supremacists. I've noted recently that President Trump's open grouse about what US troops stationed at the border (because of the intermittently-appearing national crisis or caravans and all that) might or might not be able to do, might be implicitly taken as a solicitation to civilian freelancers. Rather than creating a secure structure that empowers CPB and defines the roles of DHS and any border-stationed military personnel so that their roles and engagement with border crossers are clearer--confusion seems to have been sown, rather than "law and order".

It would be one thing if there was an kind of rote "community-policing" aspect to this engagement, of the Town Watch variety, where unarmed citizens reported without engaging, leaving the actual work of enforcement to professionals. I'm not great fan of DHS' history with respects to migrant detention policy--but it definitely is a grade better than "kidnapped by the sort of weirdo that maintains they have trained to kill Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros, because those are really not sane things."

Yep. Training to kill Barack "Jade Helm" Obama, Hillary "Benghazi" Clinton, and George "basically all the things because (((billionaire)))" Soros, all of whom were also recently targeted by big old major Trump fan Cesar Sayoc? Wow--however do such insanities happen (other than the insanities pushed by Trump and RW media)?

But it also happens that hardcore conservative politicians even do gather in these weird corners to build their support base, like administering a kind of fake deputation to III%'s. They try to legitimize the crazy, instead of trying to exorcize it.

This is a horrible thing. It is lawlessness, and makes everyone less safe. It is the activity of people whose definition of safe is not normal--it is a definition of safe where bullies surround everything, and call the situation safe. Things stand to go horrifically wrong.

Trump's support of this scenario is not Constitutional, nor is much of what he is about.

Cheeto Benito Issues Calls For Veto, Dings Beto, Encourages Hate-Oh?

It was a busy day in TrumpWorld, what with the vote in the House to resolve that the Mueller report should be made public (Which is blocked in the Senate by Lindsey Graham for some reason--will someone tell this dramatic SOB we do not have time to mourn the fucking reputation of Carter Page? We could just go back to not knowing who this guy even is. Also Whitewater was bullshit and Libyan terrorists were responsible for what happened at Benghazi, so sit your Chick-Fil-A eating selectively pearl-clutching ass down ) and with the Senate forcing Trump to issue a VETO! regarding the resolution against his emergency declaration at the border, which was a mockery unto some pretend real ones who wanted to be constitutional conservatives until someone threatened their seats/ asses. If you add the drama that was the Manafort sentencing of yesterday, and the Stone hearing that was about a minute of not much, maybe there's a reason Trump felt pressed to do a semi-fascism about whether his stans would go wilding in the event of liberal viciousness. (Knowing this could very well be the week he had ahead, the datestamp being Monday--and who doesn't hate Mondays?)

He felt sad, you guys. Who doesn't think their own personal brownshirts who almost certainly do have some kinds of skills would freak out if their main dude had a professional setback when they are sad? (I mostly just drink brandy and eat junk food when I am sad because I do not have such stans.) Bikers and police and the military--oh my! I don't know why Trump is so certain that he has these great friends in these groups that will make a civil war over his ass specifically, but, okay. He thinks Oath Keepers and 3 percenters are his gang. 

So, seriously, is Trump saying he wants half ass Nazi police-trained fuck-ups to act as his personal militia in case Democracy or the DOJ decides to fail his ass because he is hopelessly incompetent or hopelessly criminal? (Or both--both is also accurate.) This seems like a thing a person who gave an actual oath to uphold the Constitution would not want, but is definitely in line with Trump's rhetoric, because he has warned Hillary Clinton about the "second amendment people" who could be charged with stopping her, and has used this trope of a combo of state/private actors being his militia previously while actually being president.  Which is really very abusive, wrong, and fascist.  

Now, to snark on the Bikers for Trump, I might not be able to afford a Harley, but I am a young enough Gen X-er to be entirely grossed out by sell-out rebels without a clue who decided their cause was racist, anti LGBT, anti-feminism, and pro-corporate tax cuts and giveaways. These comfortable-assed MF-ers ain't going to war for Trump. They have bone spurs! 

Also, I just want to give a minute to Trump having to have his minion, John Hogan Gidley, respond to the entrance of Beto O'Rourke to the 2020 Goat Rodeo, with a bit of silliness.: Yes, this is Robert Francis O'Rourke--Robert Francis! Just like Robert Francis Kennedy! Thanks for reminding us of who Beto reminds us of, a little! You are so good at this, John Hogan!  Clearly responding to a person using the first and middle names of a person is the entirely normal thing! Please tell Donald John we think you are doing a job of some kind while looking like a badly-aging small boy!

The NRA is About "Gun Safety" You Guys

Someone sent me this image of the latest copy of NRA's magazine, featuring a story with the words "Target Practice" next to a photo of Nancy Pelosi with Gabby Giffords. Maybe don't do this @NRA. pic.twitter.com/u9fQhxwEyk

— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) February 22, 2019

When I saw this Tweet I was reminded of Thomas Ten Bears' comment on my last post about Sarah Palin's crosshairs and the damage done. The potential provocation of that ad campaign was not ever really directly connected to the gun rampage made by Jared Loughner, but to my mind, the idea that the language and imagery could be taken literally and not figuratively has always loomed large not because her particular symbolism was especially egregious or different from far-right discourse, but because of how much it was part of the same militant and culture war (heavy on the war, maybe not so heavy on the culture) and gun-specific references that feature in right wing media altogether. When Sarah Palin sued The New York Times (recently called "an enemy of the people" by Donald Trump) the court dismissed her continued "blood libel" whinge. Apparently, a failure to be treated as a free speech martyr is the worst consequence she will face, and that's fair enough. But an examination of inflammatory discourse seems pretty timely in light of the current environment--the rise in far right wing terrorism and hate crime.

I don't think it's wrong to say that the NRA has evolved from gun safety and education and being a general proponent of second amendment rights, to being a political monster that supports the Republican party (or is just very necessarily supported by Republican candidates because you can't be a real Republican if you aren't NRA cleared, so...) and that NRA rhetoric has gotten very...extra in the digital age. But the connection between the group that explicitly supports the second amendment seems to thrive on its connection to the folks that think they have reasons to stockpile weapons, and that's really concerning. Call it the "Chekhov's gun" of politics--you show people being really concerned about using weapons and buying loads of them in the first act, and you should be expecting them to use them, eventually.

The reason this is exceptionally egregious right now, though, is that the same weapons-stockpiling formerly anti-government violence-oriented types are gravitating to pro-government so long as it's their sort of folks--and the violence they want to bring isn't really good for democracy or peace. I mentioned in my post on Christopher Hasson that Fox News has been talking about civil war, but it's strange to really consider how long they've been at it--years, and how they try to underplay the activities of violent groups even now. (Sooooo not new, though, their acceptance of violence, as they for a bit--I don't think all that recently, though--had G. Gordon Liddy as a Fox News panelist, even though he advocated for the smart use of firearms against G-men, of which he once was one, although to be explicitly honest, not a very good one.)

But to bring this all back around to Trump and his associates, one of the not terribly funny things about the Roger Stone circus is that the guys he has in his circle? Are the alt-right fashy Proud Boys. Your basic Brownshirts reimagined in polos and chinos. I don't rightly know if that flatters PBs or insults them. Meh.

Anyway, the NRA probably laundered Russian money to who knows how many Republican candidates, but somehow are a proto-nationalist front and all they really seem to want is to arm bunches of folks to...fuck some shit up so badly that more guns are always needed. Which is a pretty amazing deviation from the bunch of hunting enthusiasts we used to think the NRA was about back in the day, right?

Also right-wing oriented media is a vector for brain worms and leads to just ridiculous Q-Anon and other assorted bullshit. Lara Logan and other people who say shit like "read Breitbart" should know that lefties do, but only enough to be sick, not enough to get literal brain damage.

Musket a Better Idea About How Civics Works

So there is a possibility that "grabbing his musket" is Joe's euphemism for slapping the captain or bopping the bishop, but I think that maybe Walsh--who was voted out of his office because he is really only good for being a bad example--might have a point.  Why wouldn't the results of the election hew to what Joe Walsh has personally observed? Why would his own personal sampling of the potential electorate seem so radically different from the one touted by the "lamestream media"?

It's a question that I think is pretty interesting: take me, personally, as your specifically "not Joe Walsh" example. I live in Philadelphia, work in Trenton, am personally culturally Catholic but confessedly agnostic, and queer in theory if not very lately in practice.  My individual sampling is going to represent a more dense population and a more diverse demographics than the people Joe Walsh is meeting. My personal reflections based on my in-group skews very highly Clinton. There is little Trump-support in my in-person or work-related or broader familial/Facebook-y cohort--and to the extent that there was one relative who just posted some slop from conspiracy sites regarding why the Trump accusers were specifically and aggregately BS, I just needed to not have that in my face for all the reasons. (Sorry cuz!)

My sample has more diversity and my media choices are somewhat more reality-centered. I think former Rep,. Walsh probably is relying on FOX, having whittled down his notion of what acceptable journalism looks like. So a Clinton win to him, might conceivably look very wrong. Maybe even musket grabbingly so. While I am relatively certain the deal with Clinton is down, and we are just negotiating how awesome her WH sauce will be, I wonder.

But "grabbing the musket"? That is not how we settle our scores in a free and fair democracy.

All That and A Bag of Dicks

I'm not sure why Jon Ritzheimer feels like the receipt of bags and boxes of simulated penises instead of throw rugs and vanilla coffee creamer is somehow hateful. Why, in the right hands, dildos are downright friendly and engaging. It is possible that he is disappointed that none of the edible variety of dick received thus far has been "salted dicks", which is considered to be the gold standard of phallic dining, but clearly, from images we have seen of the Malheureux Militia, high blood pressure is undoubtedly a concern and a reduction of sodium is specifically indicated by the medical community.

The senders clearly have their best interests in mind, n'est-ce pas?

Speaking of "best interests", it seems the local community doesn't really think the occupiers of the federal wildlife sanctuary are acting in anyone's best interest. They might be talking freedom, but they are resulting in the opposite of that.

So, if the militia folks are even the least bit curious about how a mess of wags decided that various sex toys was the appropriate way to express their disapproval of what the armed and under-provisioned masses were trying to do, might I suggest that they determined that the general areas of insertion of a dildo coincided with where, anatomically, the popular imagination determined the individual brains of Bundy militants to be? And, following that metaphor, the militants might be being invited to cudgel their brains, so to speak, to see exactly how they have gotten the pulse of this thing all wrong.

Confused Gunowners Seize Wildlife Refuge, Say Things

It looks like a couple of the Bundy family and 140-something of their buddies are "occupying" the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and double-dog-daring the federal government to shoot at them. They would also like "patriots" who also hate the federal government to come join them.

This is after, of course, they got turned down for offering "help" to Dwight and Steven Hammond who are facing prison sentences for arson on public land. And after local folks didn't seem too eager to protest with them. But they are acting, in their own belief, as "the tip of the spear" against government tyranny.

That's nice. The government has not cracked down on them as yet for the same reason they didn't rain hell on them back at the Bundy ranch.

It would give them too much satisfaction.

They've also said some stuff about how they will hold this headquarters for years. I guess if the power is cut and they can do something about the water supply, given they are as well-provisioned with food as a moderately-big college kegger, we'll have to see about that.

While it doesn't seem fair that these yahoos can wave around guns and pretend they are putting on a rebellion when unarmed people protest in urban areas and get hit with tear gas and rubber bullets and the like, frankly, I'm old enough to remember Ruby Ridge and Waco, and if these guys get promoted to glory courtesy the USG,  right-wing militia types will be martyrbating over it forever.

Not Understanding Boko Haram

One can't help but notice a discrepancy between the attention paid to the attacks in Paris that have led to the deaths of 17, to the blaze of terror that has led to the slaying of up to 2000 people in Nigeria at the hands of Boko Haram. I'm guilty enough of failing to address the attacks that have levelled Baga and caused havoc in several other towns over the weekend.

The problem is complexity. The Paris story regarding the murder of the staff of Charlie Hebdo magazine and others has a familiarity and scale that I can grasp. The issues regarding deciding what to print and publish versus the reality that there are people who would very much like to curtail that freedom absolutely and remove that ability to choose how one uses ones voice is something I can find a fast position with. The scale of the tragedy is not dissimilar to mass shootings that have occurred here in the States, or in Canada or Australia recently. France, as with the US, is a majority Christian and white nation, where the Enlightenment traditions regarding freedom of speech, religion, and the press, have coincided with a history of colonialism that I feel competent to address in the microcosm.

The enormity of the scale of the Boko Haram attacks, (about which no true numbers can be found, because the people on scene have simply despaired of counting all the bodies, and because the government of Nigeria does not seem interested in the real numbers), is orders of magnitude greater, and coexistent with a more profound history of colonialism and without our little Western era of Enlightenment. In fact, Boko Haram, in name, is saying that Western Education--our Enlightenment concepts of science, liberalism, freedom, are forbidden.

Why, Whip-a-dee-doo-dah!

At the risk of sounding terribly judgmental, let's start with a reasonable question:

How in the hell does one participate in a talk for a group headed by David Duke and not know it is a white nationalist front? Because if House Whip Scalise knew Duke was involved, it seems impossible not to know that Duke was a former Klansman and still a big-time racist.  It's kind of on the unavoidable side. As of 2002, when this gathering took place, Duke had already participated in two presidential primaries (the first as a Democrat, the second as a Republican--and he got no love from either party, basically) and a run for US Senate, at which junctures, the fact of his racist associations had definitely come up.

Let's call this the Erick Erickson Rule--where if Erick Erickson and I agree on a thing, that thing is probably pretty solid because we don't agree on nearly anything. (This supplants the "Andrew Sullivan Rule", since as time has worn on, I've actually found he and I do have a few deep-seated shared values.) It just isn't possible to not know what Duke or his affiliations were.

It seems like he and Duke were in accord, though.

It's quite possible that he was looking to cast a very wide net for support at the time--questionable as some of the support may have been. (It brings to mind Tony Perkins' purchasing of a Duke mailing list for use in a US Senate campaign against Mary Landrieu. What exactly is in the water down in LA?)

It's tempting to play "Six Degrees of Separation", and note that Duke himself was influenced by William Luther Pierce, who wrote The Turner Diaries under a pseudonym, which is a book considered to have been influential in the radicalization of Timothy McVeigh. 

But I'm just going to leave that there, you know, after bringing it up and all. Just because dots can be connected doesn't mean they make a given picture. Does it?

Anyhow, it was a thing that will invite speculation about where he really stands.

The Pakistani Taliban Are Full of It.

I'm not the only person to realize this, but making a statement that killing over 100 schoolchildren is because of revenge over the Pakistan military's assistance to the west is, not to put to fine a point on this--bullshit. The apparent statement by a Taliban spokesperson:

Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani said that the Taliban had targeted the army's school "because the government is targeting our families and females," and that "we want them to feel the pain."

is particularly galling when the Taliban are being targeted, to the extent they are, because among their hobbies is attacking schools and targeting women and children. It is especially hard for us not to take note that these are the bastards that killed Benazir Bhutto (having killed 140 people in the Karachi bombing attempt to kill her before the attack that succeeded) and tried to kill Malala Yousafsai--an assault by anti-intellectual cowards who shot a young girl in the head. That's what they've got. And it would be ever so much easier to spare a moment of sympathy for their poor families--were it not that they've indicated these are, in their considered opinion and actual practice,  quite legitimate targets. And considering that they have intended to make people hurt--no surprise, they do. If there was little sympathy for the Taliban among western-looking Pakistanis before, though--what should there be for them now?

What they have done was revolting. The families of those slain in this assault have my sympathy.

Not Sure How Phineas Priesthood Escaped My Attention

The 1990's were weird times to develop ones political persona. I was left-leaning since becoming thoroughly disillusioned when the Iran-Contra clusterfuck came to light, which was only driven home by a 1988 election that turned into a referendum on whether ACLU-card-carrying l-words could ever quite love Mom, the flag, and apple pie, enough for the estimation of real he-man Uncle Sam types who supported an "out of the loop" "wimp".

But I think my opinion got hardened by my understanding of the existence of right-wing militias and my ever-lowering opinion of the Christian right. See, I started noticing that the right-wing religious freaks like Falwell and Swaggart and Robertson always supported Republicans. But the PTL scandals that erupted in 1987 made it pretty clear to me that these types of people were basically carnies making a dime off of people's thirst for gnosis. So why wouldn't they superciliously shill on behalf of the team of law and order and no fun with your fun parts? I watched Footloose, and if I couldn't dance, I didn't want to be any part of their revolution.

So I took note of things like the OKC bombing by Christian Identity white supremacist Timothy McVeigh.  I noticed that Ruby Ridge and Waco had a strong religious/anti-government paranoia aspect. I tracked with interest the long story of the capture of Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph, who had more than a little help from his friends.

You Say You Want a Revolution? Well. You know.

When Jerad and Amanda Miller cried "Revolution!" and let slip the dogs of something less than war, they had a plan, of sorts.

Kelley Fielder lived next door to the Millers and called them her “best friends.” She said she didn’t know they were “that crazy.”

She was holding documents for the couple that included detailed plans to take over a courthouse and execute public officials. The file box full of documents, along with three empty rifle cases and an empty box for handcuffs, were confiscated by investigators during a search of Fielder’s apartment.

The reported plans by the killers to take over a courthouse prompted officials at the Regional Justice Center to adopt “a heightened state of security,” with added personnel and “other measures,” according to Court Information Officer Mary Ann Price. She declined to say how many additional marshals were added to the courthouse detail or give any information about extra steps that had been taken, saying “part of our preparedness is not giving out a lot of details.”

These were definitely some very busy jackasses. They apparently went all in for Cliven Bundy, but the militia rejected Jerad because he was a convicted felon. He pointed out, sensibly enough, that by threatening BLM officers with guns, they all were kind of felonious, really. Jerad Miller also posted at Infowars, and interestingly enough, Alex Jones is now maintaining that the couple is definitely a false flag. Well if that's the case, then Jones must realize he was infiltrated years ago, and everybody just better take anything they read there, of all places, with a grain of salt, huh?