It’s really amusing watching the MSM twist their panties in a wad trying to connect Trump to Russia. They’ve gotten the smallest amount of traction and the chants for Trump’s head have started. Besides the fact that the original Trump to Russia connection is based on innuendo and suggestion, the witch hunt has broadened out into a general search for any connection between Trump and the entire nation of Russia. Like a brain damaged chihuahua, the media chants “Russia! Russia! Russia!” hoping beyond hope that they will scare the GOP and Trump into submission. “We can finally control the renegade!” they think, as they piss away the last of their credibility.
Although people joke about “alternative facts,” it’s not a joke. There are two prevailing agendas across the country: 1) Trump is LITERALLY HITLER and A RUSSIAN MOLE AT THE SAME TIME!!! 2) Trump is DADDY and GOD-KING OF KEKISTAN, VANQUISHER OF THE SJWs and CUCKS!!! The left has their educational and media empire churning out outrage by the gallon. The right has their independent media matching the outrage of the left.
Antifa is smashing windows and folks like Based Stickman (who the fuck is Based Stickman and why is he called that??) are bashing Antifa heads in. People are primed to believe that the violence will do nothing but escalate.
I tend to be quite skeptical of claims that the next civil war is about to start. Like the Rapture, many people have predicted a civil war, only to be laughably wrong.
However, let’s travel through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of derp. A journey into a scandalous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Derplight Zone!
This is Donald. Donald is a normal man, somewhat spoiled, somewhat outspoken. Donald has been a real estate mogul for the last few decades, accumulating a vast amount of wealth and notoriety. Recently, Donald was chosen to be the sacrificial lamb of the GOP to allow Hillary Clinton to ascend to her rightful place as Grand Master of the Lizard People The First Female President of the United States. However, something went wrong. Horribly wrong. Donald had an energy that transfixed the public, and nobody could explain it. Donald became President.
Okay, I can’t keep the Twilight Zone schtick up, but let’s continue to investigate why this latest push to impeach could lead to a civil war. There is one big reason why: Trump’s election was an unexpected boon to a class of people that have felt trod over by the political elites for decades. People most fiercely defend unexpected gains, especially when it is threatened by their enemy. The Alt-Right has ascended and has labeled Trump as their knight in shining armor, here to wipe out the scourge of establishment politics and social justice. The Fascist Left has also ascended, using Hitlerian tactics while decrying Trump as literally Hitler. While an escalation of rhetoric isn’t a sure sign of war, it is a prerequisite.
The desperation seen on both sides is significantly more concerning. Antifa Nazis have normalized mob violence and intimidation as protest tactics, and Alt-Righters have responded in kind. This powder keg is gonna blow at some point, and we’re gonna get another Kent State. The question then becomes what happens in response to the deaths of 5 or 10 rioters (of either side). Everything in my mind and heart tells me that a crisis like that would boil up for a few weeks and slowly subside. However, what if it didn’t? What if it boiled up into a tempest?
I think it’s unlikely but possible that this could happen. Either Antifa is gonna beat some people to death, or the Alt-Righters are going to start shooting when Antifa gets violent in the wrong town. This could escalate to people seeking out the melee to contribute, which could escalate to large-scale violence between groups of people. . . also known as a battle. From there, things could snowball into nationwide insurrection.
Obviously, I find this quite improbable, but the increasing violence and radical rhetoric inspire some unlikely thoughts.
Comments
348 responses to “Civil War II: A Trump Impeachment?”
This is interesting: Former Bush AG On Comey’s 2007 Brush With Scandal: ‘Jim’s Loyalty Was More To Chuck Schumer.’
Couple that with this threat from Schumer:
That sounds like a solid argument for gutting the intelligence community.
Which is why they are trying to sabotage Trump.
Jesus Christ, is this America or East Germany?
Sounds like someone wants onto a list.
OT: Chipwooder had his sports alternative history timeline in the morning thread. Here is mine, also from 1990:
Ball State gets the final shot off, makes it and beats #1 UNLV in the sweet 16. Loyola Marymount defeats them in the regional final to meet up with Georgia Tech in the final 4.
Instead of a heartbreaking loss to UNLV, Georgia Tech wins one of the most memorable games of all times, as Dennis Scott posts triple digits on something like 30 for 50 shooting from behind the line. Kenny Anderson has approximately 40 assists.
Final score is something like 180-140. GT goes on to defeat Duke to win their only basketball national title.
Post your alternative sports history.
January 2002. Instead of the referrees creating a rule on the fly so they could reverse an obvious fumble and turnover; Tom Brady has his femur shattered, the shards of which sever his femoral artery. His leg swells with blood like a giant water balloon as he lies dying on the frozen field in Foxboro. The blood leg balloon bursts splattering the Patriots sideline in a pink mist. Bill Bellichek barfs all over his hoodie and faints. Rich Gannon takes a knee and runs the clock out. He spits a big hocker into the pink snow where Brady’s lifeless body wad just minutes before. Raiders win the AFC! The Raiders go on to win the Super Bowl. And every Super Bowl ever after. Just win, baby!!
SugarFree? Is that you?
NFL Rule 3, Section 22, Article 2, Note 2.
It wasn’t exactly a made up rule. A poorly written rule isn’t made up.
Just let me have this, man.
I was right with you until you talked about the Raiders winning another Super Bowel, and then quoted Satan at the end.
A super bowel is a terrifying thing.
The only good outcome from a hypothetical Raider’s superbowl win is that Raiders fans, as they are wont to do, would likely burn down the entire city of Oakland in celebration.
1906: The American football rules committee meets before cement is poured for Harvard’s Soldiers Field. Instead of legalizing the forward pass, they widen the field. The game assumes different dimensions, literally. The NCAA never gets formed, or if it does, it doesn’t gain much influence with the colleges. Instead of colleges cutting down their football schedules, they expand them until the spring season’s as long as the fall season. Eventually eligibility rules go out the window, and the game becomes professional at the major colleges. Pro football takes off much earlier than in our history, but as intercollegiate varsity football in name. Amateur intercollegiate football becomes a club sport.
Arinze Onuaku isn’t injured against Georgetown in the first game of the 2010 Big East Tournament. Syracuse goes into the NCAA Tournament healthy. They score a comfortable victory against Butler, which nobody expected to go very far anyways, before going through Kansas State, Michigan State and Duke to win their second title.
Butler never becomes the media darling that they became as a result of that run, and they’re not catapulted to a similar run the next year. Brad Stevens never becomes coach of the Boston Celtics.
London, 1948. Instead of acting like a typical pommie douche, Norman Yardley tells Eric Hollies to bowl long hops until Bradman gets four runs and THEN get him out. Hollies does what he’s told, Bradman smacks the second ball for 4 and retires with a 100 average.
[Translation available on request]
I love curling.
Could you translate robc’s post, too?
Where would someone be that they neither understood cricket nor basketball?
Check your sports privilege.
Letting someone get 4 runs sounds like the douche move to me.
September 11, 2001 never happens. Therefore, the Cal-Rutgers football game the following Saturday is not postponed. Cal plays, and loses. Badly. Their final season record ends up being 0-11 instead of 1-10, and they end up the winless assholes that they truly are.
Kyle Boller fucking sucks.
Asshole fucking ruined the Ravens.
OK. I’ll play.
2010:
Cam Newton is suspended for the obvious impermissible benefits received by him and his father.
TCU wins the national championship over Oregon.
After this, TCU is invited into the Big 10 (probably along with Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas) instead of Rutgers and Maryland. The Big 12 collapses instead of the Big East. Baylor gets dumped into Conference USA, and never hires Art Briles, so Baylor never turns into the Baptist Church’s evil cousin.
The Big 12 was very, very, very close to collapsing. There was a rumored verbal agreement for Kansas, K-State, Missouri and one other school (Iowa State I think) to join the Big East had the Big 12 collapsed (with Texas/Oklahoma going to the Pac 10). Baylor definitely wouldn’t have had a home at that point.
Five years ago today.
Best part:
If you’re not in the Big Four, you’re not big time. That means you, Miami and Florida State, who suddenly have a huge decision to make. Remain outside the Big Four with the ACC making $17 million per year in a league that can’t compete for a national championship, or take your valuable brands and petition for entry into the Big 12.
Funnier part of that:Clemson winning the title this year and almost winning it last year, or that it mentioned Miami?
Miami, absolutely.
Miami was the first football board I was ever banned (well, suspended, I guess, technically) from.
Cam Newton is suspended for the obvious impermissible benefits received by him and his father.
So far, so good.
TCU wins the national championship over Oregon.
I think Oregon wins, but it is a possibility, so I will let you have it. It is no more unlikely than Scott scoring 100 pts.
After this, TCU is invited into the Big 10 (probably along with Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas) instead of Rutgers and Maryland.
Nope, but nice try. Winning the MNC doesn’t change that. They took Rutgers. Rutgers. Think about it, Rutgers.
For the NYC TV market, not for anything actually football-related.
Exactly, and that is why his fantasy of TCU getting it instead makes no sense.
February 3, 2008. David Tyree gets broken in half by Rodney Harrison. Patriots complete the perfect season, causing the remaining living members of the 1972 Dolphins to have a collective heart attack and die, then spontaneously burst into flames.
I’ll do another one – Patrick Division finals, 1992. Rangers-Penguins. Messier’s first season with the team. He wins MVP, Leetch wins the Norris, Rangers storm to the best record in hockey. They’re on the road in game 4, up 2-1 in the series and 3-1 in the game, just over 20 minutes from taking a 3-1 series lead into a potential series-ending game 5 at home. With mere seconds left in the second period, Ron Francis fires a harmless-looking shot from center ice. It takes a goofy bounce and hops over Mike Richter’s shoulder. That goal totally changed the series. The Penguins ended up winning game 4 in OT and the next two to take the series. If that puck goes over the net, or is stopped by Richter, the Rangers win that series and probably cruise to a cup, since the teams they would have faced in the conference and cup finals were the mediocre Bruins and Blackhawks.
Winning in 1994 took some of the sting out of that loss, but not all of it. Goddamn, I hate the Penguins.
and shit, why stop now – Dave Robert’s ass gets thrown out at second in game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, Yanks sweep the Sawx and go on to win another WS.
The Cleveland Indians win a god damned world series in 1995 1997, or 2016. Details, irrelevant.
My inner cynic says this will eventually blow over, but given how high emotions are and how the majority of figureheads and people in power right now tend to be controlled by them, who knows. I don’t think a nationwide insurgency is likely though.
I think it will continue until something unrelated happens. Right now the country is pretty stable. We aren’t in any new conflicts overseas, the economy hasn’t taken a nosedive, no major terrorist attacks. There isn’t anything that would demand the press, or anyone else, focus on it instead of TRUMP for more than five minutes. Something else well happen, something always goes wrong, and the attention will shift to that instead. The “resistance” won’t go away, it didn’t under any other Republican President, but eventually something more pressing will come up.
It will continue until they get something to nail him with. It’s already shifting from ‘Russian stooge!’ to now ‘Turkish stooge!’ with Mike Flynn.
I don’t know. The commies are pretty pissed.
Considering the two sides in this hypothetical civil war, it would last, what, two weeks?
The side that owns guns and knows how to use them vs SJWs?
Obama purged most of the non-PC generals and admirals from the services in order to install his toadies into the command, and I wouldn’t put it past the Demodrats to try to usurp the chain of commend in the vent of an “insurrection”. It might be a lot messier than you think.
So we might get a mutiny on top of our civil war? Because I don’t care how many woke brass have been elevated in the armed forces, the trigger-pullers ain’t woke and come overwhelmingly from the Trump-supporting regions and demographics.
Getting a majority of service members to take up arms against US citizens would be problematic.
Most Army leadership would point at the constitution and say NO.
Militarized police forces might be a greater issue.
Militarized police forces don’t have the kind of heavy weaponry that would allow them to overmatch the armed citizenry in open conflict.
Laughable. The armed forces has never had a problem about using force or the threat of force against their fellow citizens. It’s all about framing it so that their targets are illegitimate, whether it’s whisky rebels, secessionists, bonus marchers, segregationists, or hippies. Once that is lost, expect the rank and file to follow their leadership chain as they always have.
Unfortunately, you’re right.
To be fair, hippies deserve it.
Damn, hard to argue with that precedent.
Except for the precedent on the secessionists…in the only actual civil war the US has endured, the soldiers (and generals) from the seceding areas did refuse to take up arms against their fellow citizens (citizens of their own states) – in fact, they resigned to take up arms against the US. Which is why it turned into an actual war, instead of merely an insurrection or public disturbance – the military was divided, so there were soldiers and equipment on both sides.
I think you’re missing a key point. A woke military leadership demanding action against Trump and his supporters would be a move against the Constitutional order. While it may be possible to persuade the military rank-and-file to take arms against fellow citizens, it would be a lot harder to get them to take up arms against the Constitution they’ve sworn to protect and defend.
If it’s a straight up coup, then maybe. But I doubt it would be that clear.
As I said, it’s about framing. It would have the veneer of legitimacy, at least the first time it happened. It wouldn’t be against the Constitution, it would be cloaked as being Constitutional and following existing law.
‘Trump was removed from office under the proper procedures for his traitorous wrongdoing and he’s refusing to comply with the law’. Once that narrative is established (which side would the media support again?), it’s over.
Once that narrative is established (which side would the media support again?), it’s over.
The question will be, who buys the Official Narrative? We are getting to the point, I believe, where the Official Narrative is being disregarded by more and more people.
Except we’re not exactly talking about the most receptive audience for PMSNBC and the NY Times. The military vote went for Trump by a pretty wide margin. And, really, given GOP majorities, it’s highly unlikely they’re going to have the means to project even the pretense of legitimacy.
Here’s a more recent one:
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/10/army_reviews_shows_troop_use_i.html
Almost two dozen happily went along with breaking the Posse Comitatus Act, along with an unknown number who ordered/approved/overlooked the violation.
The fuck is “woke”?
Properly? A verb, the past tense of wake.
In today’s Twitter parlance? An adjective, chosen for the connotation of being “awake”, that signifies sympathy with liberal grievance mongers. Anyone not “woke” is a “fascist”.
You can also throw strikers, rioters, and Texas goat herders onto that list.
Are Texas goats bigger than regular goats?
Ask Esequiel Hernández. I’m no expert on goats.
I know of an attorney who would likely know.
Note also that in each of those instances, although it was violence at the behest of the Federal government, the troops were not volunteer professional soldiers. I think that in itself would make a difference.
Police are the biggest Trump supporters of all.
This is purely anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt, but I know several vets who are now contractors, a few active duty military, and a few federal law enforcement guys. To a man they are conservatives, some with libertarian tendencies. Plus, even with folks in the military who are full on in support of whoever’s running the show, it’s a huge departure to order the military to engage their own countrymen. My guess is that you’d have a large number of people simply ignoring orders, and possibly a full on mutiny.
it’s a huge departure to order the military to engage their own countrymen.
This has always been my thought. The men and women in the military are ready to trade their life for their fellow countryman’s. For them to change on a dime and take the life of a fellow countryman seems near impossible. It would take gas-lighting on a masive scale to accomplish.
I want to believe this, and I think for many you would be right, but I’ll offer my anecdotal evidence. When I was going to school I got partnered with a young girl who was in the air force ROTC. One day we were working on a project and she happened to pull up her facebook. On her facebook were pictures of her and her fellow ROTC members, some dressed in BDUs, some dressed in black hoodies. I asked about the pictures. She said they were part of a recent training exercise. What was the basis of the training exercise, you ask? A simulated domestic insurrection. I asked here “Would you actually fight against your fellow countrymen?” To which she replied with a straight face “Of course, that’s part of my job.”
Yikes. Well, maybe my view of the armed forces is a little Pollyana-ish… I hope not, but that story makes me wonder.
Find the incident in American history where the soldiers stayed home against the citizens. They haven’t been used much outside the Civil War, but they never stayed in their barracks en masse.
They never stay home, but in the instances of the Civil War (and Revolutionary War) you have trained soldiers deserting to the cause of the rebels en masse. If the country is ever truly divided to the point that citizens revolt, the military will be divided as well.
And how is the Air Force going to do that, exactly?
JDAMS?
Daisy cutters and cluster bombs.
There’s a huge, huge culture gap between some broad in Air Force ROTC playing military and actual soldiers and Marines.
As a recovering Air Force type myself (including ROTC), I to agree with that with the addition that culture gap exists in most of the Air Force as well. Keep in mind, people like this broad don’t fuel planes, don’t load bombs on planes, don’t repair planes or are even realistically qualified to handle firearms.
Generals and Admirals don’t much matter in a civil war, it is which side the Captains, Majors, and Chief Master Sergeants back that matters.
Yeah soldiers, sailors, and airmen are pretty responsive to the chain of command but when the chain of command is split and they are getting conflicting orders from each side it is those ranks who are going to have to decide which side is the legitimate authority
A surprising number of the captains and majors are at least liberalish, but the senior NCO ranks are pretty hard right.
I recall reading some survey data that something like 1/3d of enlisted and career NCO identify as libretarianish. This ratio increases after combat tours.
This – What some fucking lib REMF General in DC orders won’t matter a bit.
Combat Arms Marines and Soldiers aren’t going to follow orders to attack American civilians to push a leftist coup.
But what if it is to combat a Leftist one?
The SJWs have a shitload of money, and lockstep control of the media and academic fields. In short, they control the battlespace.
The SJWs can learn to shoot. I doubt that the alt-right can learn to manipulate the media.
The alt right has their own media, and, in the event of an out-and-out civil war, no particularly good reason not to just shoot enemy propagandists that are playing for the middle, especially when their response to Charlie Hebdo shows what cowards journalists are for the most part.
The SJWs don’t manipulate the media, the SJWs ARE the media.
Would it turn nuclear?
I think the prospect of removing Trump on the basis of the 25th amendment would catapult the odds of some sort of massive civil unrest from extremely unlikely all the way to unsurprising. Even an impeachment, barring absolutely unassailable evidence against Trump and/or his own confession, would push that into the realm of at least as likely as not. I would put that in a separate framework than the antifa vs. alt-right conflicts. That feels a lot like run-of-the-mill hooliganism. It’s surprising to us because we’ve been free of that sort of thing for a while now, but it’s not uncommon in American history, never mind the rest of the world.
Trump being removed by the establishment would feed straight into the drive behind his election and the source of his popularity among a certain segment of the population. I could see that being the moment where enough people become convinced that the system is broken beyond repair. Once a government loses legitimacy, it opens up the possibility of widespread violent uprising.
If Congress tries to railroad Trump out of office, I predict a Million Gun March on DC.
One of those guns will be mine.
And mine. That shit would finally push me right over the line.
and my axe.
My gun will also march to Washington.
Same here RC
I will buy a gun and join. Haven’t had one for years, since I lived in the desert, actually. Be a good excuse to buy a gun/take a vacation. Hey, this sounds fun. We can BBQ and drink beer. Let’s do it in the fall, I hear DC is hot in the summer.
Seriously, this will start a Civil War:
http://www.barstoolsports.com/boston/wake-up-with-rachel-dillon/
Model or…..
http://www.barstoolsports.com/boston/barstool-local-smokeshow-of-the-day-talia-from-uri/
……college girl. You guys better pick right this time. You were all wrong yesterday. The correct answer was ‘college girl’.
Yesterday the correct answer was ‘model’. Today the correct answer is ‘college girl’.
Incorrect
I go with the model ass over college girl who looks like 4 different girls depending on the photo.
model all the way
For the second day in row (obviously) the correct answer is College Girl
Correct
Can the college girl borrow the model’s ass? Or maybe lend her her penchant for boozing? That would make the decision much easier for me.
That fat ass and the wierd, broken-backed posture are distinct negatives for the model, though if she stood up straight, the rear end might not look as bad.
The which what? You, sir…I can’t even.
Look at the way that spine is constantly bent.
Compare to the normal posture of the college girl in the beach photo.
Model needs to see an orthopedic specialist to get that addressed.
I concur. This is a case of fake glutes. It’s her weird posture that is creating that booty
Today the answer is ‘college girl’. Yesterday the answer was yes, please, either or both in any combination at any time.
Model or college girl?
I invite you fine gentlemen to embrace the unifying power of “AND.”
Does Chapman University online count?
WTF is with the gangrenous puncture wounds on the side of college girl?
Kidney got stolen, I’d imagine.
Trump had 18 “contacts” with RUSSIANS!
How is this different than any other conspiracy theory? They tend to do the same thing. Connect a bunch of dots, and let the imagination draw conclusions. It’s getting pretty sad.
Oh noes, I bought teacups from Russia – I’ve had ‘Contact’ with Russians!
If you look closely, you can see that a triangle is formed. It’s becoming Illuminati hunter level of nuttiness. It’s like these guys have never played 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.
They sat next to each other. I bet this is where they subtly hatched their plan to undermine democracy in 30 years or so. Hard hitting journalism, WaPo.
ah ha! The beginning of America’s downfall started from this very meeting. *adjusts tin foil hat*
bwahahaha
I like their breathlessly reported “latest update”, where Kevin McCarthy obviously joking about Trump and Dana Rorhrbacher being paid by Putin is reported as a serious suggestion.
And they wonder why no one likes or believes them anymore.
That was just ridiculous. I saw that and thought it was the Onion at first. And now the Washington Post has a headline saying essentially that McCarthy backtracked after being shown a transcript of the event and now claims it was a ‘joke’. The scare quotes are included in the headline.
Oh noes!!111!!!! The newly-elected administration made multiple contacts to establish contacts with a foreign power?!
This is just jaw-dropping idiocy. I also love the reliance on anonymous “sources”.
If you’re involved with energy trading or exploration, you’re gonna have contact with the Russians. Lots. They can ONLY find 18 contacts in all of Trumps circles? WTF?
How many Russian contacts did the Clintons and their
money laundering operationfoundation have?This. If you do any business in the energy world you are going to be talking to and doing business with Russians. Especially if it is oil. Hell, even I have worked for and with them.
I had an MLP years ago, and I even had some dealings.
I’ve reported both of you to the FBI, and leaked this convo to the WaPo.
It seems my get home bag article came at just the right time. I should have part 2 out shortly.
I can’t see wide-scale unrest happening regardless of the scenario in which he’s removed from office. The vast majority of the right would bitch and moan for a while and then realize they’re happier with Pence in office anyways. The vast majority of the left would start talking about how much better it was with Trump in office and how horrible Pence is. The anti-fa and the idiots on the right might get into a few skirmishes, but that’s happening anwyays.
The vast majority of the right would bitch and moan for a while and then realize they’re happier with Pence in office anyways..
I dunno. If he really was railroaded out of office on some pretext, the Establishment Repubs would probably be (secretly) delighted, but the rank and file might be pretty pissed off. I could see some pretty widespread unrest, although likely not an actual shooting war. But, we are looking at a society which is increasingly divided, angry, and the usual norms have been and are being eroded.
That’s the trick, see – societies rot from the inside. The façade looks fine, right up until it collapses “unexpectedly”.
Yeah, it’s only obvious in hindsight that something was about to boil over.
I don’t know about that. I think the ‘very favourable’ towards Trump would end up the vanguard for a more broad and general populist surge against the powers that be that could become violent. And it’s not so much because of Trump, but because he’s an outsider held to an insane double standard that the likes of the actual political class is not. It plants a simple question in people’s heads: If this sinks the Trump administration, then why did they permit Clinton to run or Obama to continue on for eight years? If you’re even moderately politically informed (which is probably the biggest weakness in this, but again, the Clinton insanity was only a year ago) you can easily see the utter falsehood that is the system at this point. The establishment is openly admitting that your vote doesn’t matter. That is massively delegitimizing to the system and has all sorts of long term effects.
The majority of the Republican establishment? Sure. The people that actually voted for Trump are going to be superfly TNT pissed. Remember, these are people who already largely believe that the elites of both parties are conspiring against them.
Based Stickman obtained a small amount of fame in the weirdest way possible so props i guess? Anyway that stick was not very impressive I don’t know why hes so based Then again if he had a real stick he could have gotten in trouble. But i think its more about meme magik than trump support
I mean I am not sure a lot of kekistanis support trumpy poo as much as like to troll on twitter.
I am kinda biased though cause I find the cult of Kek amusing. Also TRUMP IS NOT MY PRESIDENT
Oh right, you’re foreign.
Did you snarl or tent your fingers after you wrote that?
No, but I did sneer while I was typing, does that count?
Sure. That’ll get you a job at WaPo if you’re not careful.
I thought they were pro-foreign.
Russians are foreign. Pie is Romanian(?), though. I’m at a loss.
That sounds like a threat.
I much prefer Kekistan over Canklestan.
Oh, well played.
Until this thread, I had not heard of kek or base stickman.
Until the past year, I hadn’t heard ‘kek’ in a long time. I had heard it when I played World of Warcraft, and didn’t think anything of it until it resurfaced.
As for stickboy, I only heard the moniker in relation to Berkeley brawls and then only as a tangential reference.
thing is that kek started as a version of lol from Koreans, it was co-opted by the memers and shitposters and then they discovered it was one of the several spellings of the name of an ancient Egyptian got of chaos and primordial darkness, which resonated well with the meme crowd. Because chaos is what they fancy themselves doing. And thus a meme to rule all memes was born. Also the whole Pepe the frog was gaining steam, and ancient Egyptian representations of ek were a frog so you know …
“We did it! Meme Magik worked! We actually got a meme elected President!”
“It’s really amusing watching the MSM twist their panties in a wad trying to connect Trump to Russia.” — It’s like all of American media has become Glenn Beck.
Meanwhile Glenn Beck has started becoming halfway normal.
Did he change, or did the rest of the world change making him less odd in context?
Bit of both. He’s been trending towards pseudo-libertarianism lately, even said that Obama’s second term made him a better person. I guess he’s sort of the right’s Bill Maher now instead of… Chris Cuomo?
I’m sure he and his minions are still annoying as shit. I can’t listen to 5 minutes of them even when I agree. The dripping wet sarcasm and sanctimony is barf inducing.
O’Reilly just got a gig once a week with Beck
It’d be amusing except it’s working. They started this whole Muh Russians! hoping that it would pin him down a bit. They got people talking impeachment now. They’ve stretched a bunt into a double and now they’re hoping Trump will make another error.
The whole Russians! thing was a deliberate distraction to deflect attention from the fact that the Obama administration used the national security apparatus for spying on the Trump campaign. They didn’t bother covering their tracks because they assumed Hillary would win, so when Trump won and evidence of their antics came to light, RUSSIANS! was thrown out there. With the collusion of the media and idiot Republicans, it has worked better than they could have imagined.
Well, that, and it provided an alternate storyline to “DNC bigwigs screw Socialist in primary using underhanded tactics, DNC staffer leaks proof to Wikileaks, DNC staffer ends up dead.” What leaks? It was Russia what done it. The private security firm with anti-Russian ties that we hired said so!
I don’t remember the exact timeline and you can’t blame me. They’ve been all over the map. Kind of genius if you have no problem poo flinging.
It’s not even a distraction for that, it’s been a distraction from square one of the Trump victory solely to prevent the Democrats from taking any kind of responsibility for the outcome and self-reflecting in any way. It’s mass denial/delusion as party policy, and the media just enforces it.
No, it started as an excuse for Shrillary losing, but has become a till for completing paralyzing the administration. I think the special investigator is probably good for Trump, especially if the mandate for the investigation includes the actions of the Obama administration and Hillary’s campaign.
Depends on who is the investigator, of course. Comey should definitely not be asked to do it.
I think a better analogy is the catcher dropped the ball on a swinging strike three and they somehow beat the throw to first.
Car plows into crowd in Times Square.
Looking currently like DUI and not terrorism. Just to head that off.
Here’s the guy they arrested. Probably a far-right terrorist.
He seems a little swarthy, you sure he’s not a terrorist?
I hope he ran over Spider-Man and Elmo. I hate those disgusting hustlers.
Disgustlers, please.
Something like this would never happen in civilized Europe with decent car control … is something that I would be tempted to say in such situations but somehow it seems in poor taste considering people are suffering. So I will not say it. I will exercise restraint.
I’m glad you didn’t say that, because that would have been wrong.
No needs more than 6 cylinders. Or the spoiler in the back that goes up.
Is he being tested for Jihadahol?
With twice the Allahu Akbar!
There isn’t going to be any civil war. Most people are apothetic. If anything they’re sick and tired of the politicization of everything. You may see some violence at some rally but that isn’t going to spill over into anything major even locally. Your much more likely to see LA riot race type scenario which could potentially spill over into something more, but still not a civil war. Everyone has too much to lose.
This is what I’m thinking. Large-scale, riot, sure. Especially if an impeachment actually does happen. All-out war? Nah.
Of course, if they try removing him using the 25th amendment instead of an impeachment, and he refuses to go, then there’s a crisis of legitimacy. Since it’s basically a coup with a figleaf of law, he may well use the military to purge those involved, or his enemies may try to use federal paramilitary forces to remove him (or both) and then you get a for-real shooting civil war.
One thinks of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis
Yeah, but with enough civil unrest the distinction between massive, widespread, endemic rioting and an honest-to-god civil war becomes academic. The big thing is the loss of legitimacy. When people stop seeing the federal government as legitimate–which is to say not just corrupt, but totally decoupled from just authority–a few things happen. People start seeing the fed as alien, an occupying force rather than fellow Americans running the country, and have an easier time justifying stuff like not paying taxes, ignoring federal regulations, things like that. Federal employees, who live among these people, start losing morale, possibly aiding people who are working against the government, or at least turning a blind eye. Maybe most significantly, it creates a power vacuum.
When people stop seeing the federal government as legitimate–which is to say not just corrupt, but totally decoupled from just authority–a few things happen. People start seeing the fed as alien, an occupying force rather than fellow Americans running the country, and have an easier time justifying stuff like not paying taxes, ignoring federal regulations, things like that.
*raises hand*
Not quite there yet, but I am really close. The more it becomes apparent this is a hit job by un-elected forces, the closer I get. Why should I pay taxes to support a government where a good part of it wants to overturn an election? Who is running this show? Throw in the fact the last administration was given free reign for illegality with little to no consequences and it looks more and more like a pig pile of shit and not a functioning constitutional republic.
Our overlords are playing with fire in room stocked with gun powder. If there were leadership or organization to overthrow the government I think it would happen, as of now there’s only divisiveness without a direction to aim. If they attempt to oust Trump on a Russian conspiracy fantasy he could probably polarize enough to create an actual resistance. Once such a resistance is formed there would be no turning back.
I think the left is overestimating how many people want to play make believe with them.
Theyre playing chicken. No doubt.
Has anyone seen any evidence of these “antifa” people outside of liberal enclaves like Berkley (sp – fuck them) or Portland or Union Square… you get the idea.
I don’t see them ever making a stink somewhere where the average citizen wants to see them rounded up and locked away. They rely on the political support of proggy locals.
Antifa may be dangerous, they have training camps learning to bash the fash, and Robbie S approves
You mean Like this one?
With that battle formation, they might actually be preparing for a civil war. 200 years ago.
Common sense Bike Lock Laws!
They did show up in either alabama or arkansas and the police required them to unmask to enter the perimeter.
Without their masks on, they were quite meek and non-confrontational.
Those racist cops in Alabama and Arkansas, not letting potentially-violent people wear masks in public!
Where did they get this weird idea that mask-wearing fanatics might get violent?!?!?
really? I would love to see their attempts at rioting there. The cops haven’t gotten to use the firehose in *ages*
You’d think they would have let them leave the black masks on. Then it would feel more like the “good old days” when they turned the hoses on.
…and the antifas haven’t had a shower in ages, either, so it’s a win/win.
They did, and the campus police at Auburn easily handled them.
It was Auburn University. Carrot man taunting them, dancing around like a fool, etc. was pretty fucking funny.
Carrot! Carrot! Carrot! Carrot! Carrot! Carrot!
There are few things as amusing as a bunch of impotent proggies screeching like idiots as they get taunted. Without their masks, ridicule is absolutely the best treatment.
Riot Grrrl is annoying but those ta-tas are on-point.
I thought I heard about one self-defense shooting at an antifa riot. She (I think it was a she) got off.
it was at a Milo event. The husband and the wife were both later charged after it was initially considered a good-shoot. SPLC has a very rational an unbiased view here
We have quite a few in Phoenix, and they apparently scrounged up enough shekels to raid the gun show cause they carry them around at protests.
ok. I can see that satisfying the worst-case scenario. My impression of Arizona is that pretty much everyone is armed, all the time. If there’s ever a place where the Atify people get shot up, its there.
“Antify” = i suppose thats the adjective version of Antifa
Your impression of Arizona is pretty spot on. It’s Peshawar with better roads.
And more old people.
Scottsdale is so, so not effing Peshawar.
No, but I hope they get bombed like ISIS anyway.
I know I get bombed like ISIS when I’m in Scottsdale .
I remember being surprised to see little lockers for guns at the front desk of the public library in Yuma when I moved there.
Peshawar? Dude… We’re at least on par with Bagdhad.
Peshawar is well known for their guns though… so I like them better.
Trufact. When filming “the Kingdom” they shot the freeway scenes and some of the urban gunfights in Arizona.
I remember them shutting down a section of the 101 for that.
Yea, a buddy of mine was brown enough to be an extra, gave him a fake AK and everything.
I think that people besides the alt-right received “unexpected gains” from Trump being elected. People who heard a candidate say stuff they thought themselves but were always assured were nonsense positions. Then the “nonsensical” guy gets elected. People who used to be uber-cynical got a shot of hope. If Trump sells out or gets thrown out, either these people go back to being uber-cynical or they get *really* mad.
“I think that people besides the alt-right received “unexpected gains” from Trump being elected.”
Coal miners, for one.
My Deferred Comp account for another.
Communists are busting fascist (fascist meaning anyone who doesn’t agree with them) heads in the streets and the supposed fascists are now busting up the communists. War fury with and irrational hatred for Russia, a major nuclear power, has risen among a segment of the population to a level that’s indicative of literal mass hysteria.
These ain’t normal times and Trump’s removal on bullshit grounds would lead to god only knows what. I don’t care for the Trump but I loathe the establishment of both parties with a white hot passion and I want to see them crushed. They cannot be allowed to claim Trump’s scalp on these nonsense grounds-it would be an enormous win for them. Mass civil unrest and, yes, civil war would be a distinct possibility in my view, particularly if that 25th Amendment nonsense was used.
My main problem with this is that I cant figure out a way to make a lot of money from the situation
Long guns and ammo, short the rest of the economy.
I wish I could easily buy a gun to be honest
If I had a couple hundred bucks to spare, I’d buy a new one in your honor.
Also consider diversifying into combat boots and camouflage.
If the Repubs continue to be utterly useless and aligned against Trump, I could easily see them losing the House and possibly the Senate. That’s when impeachment or removal becomes a live possibility.
In fact, if the Dems take the House next year (and I think they likely will), I will be shocked if they don’t bring impeachment proceedings. After whipping up this frenzy, they almost have to.
The Dems won’t take the House if they overplay their hand and they get blamed for all the chaos and idiocy that’s going on right now. Whether that will happen or not, who knows. I used to have faith in the American people’s ability to ultimately see through bullshit like this but my faith has been shaken.
Yeah, I think the Dem base (alive, dead, fictional, illegal, etc.) will turn out. The election will depend on whether the rest of the country is more disgusted with the useless Repubs or the lunatic Dems.
I used to have faith in the American people’s ability to ultimately see through bullshit like this but my faith has been shaken.
As recently as November, they saw through the bullshit, so there’s that. There is a silent majority out there that is sick and tired of politics-as-usual who don’t have any huge affinity for Trump but will back him up if push comes to shove due to the chaos stoked and fed by the Democrats and the media.
Yeah, but if you’re a Rep at risk all you have to do is say, “Hey, you want to see Trump impeached? No? Better reelect me then or else we’ll lose numbers in Congress.” In a way, Trump’s the ultimate gift to the establishment. He’s the perfect bogeyman for the Dems and the threat of impeachment gives Reps some electoral insurance.
Antifa vs Alt Right is a meaningless sideshow, both combined don’t make up 1/100th of a percent of the population.
That said a second civil war of some sort is probably likely in the near future albeit probably not within Trump’s term of office.
The problem is the 2 party duopoly has complete control of the political process with no chance of any other party to break in and challenge them at the same time both parties have abandoned any pretense of principle or forwarding their voters goals and they have come to stand for nothing save opposition to each other. In the process of doing this the both care more about “winning” than governing and the gloves have come off when it comes to battles with each other.
Just look at the history of attempts to pull down sitting Presidents and the attacks each side has used, they have gotten progressively more pervasive and insidious to the point where now both parties are actively making up fake stories about each other and selling them to their voters to ensure they see the other party not as fellow Americans with a difference of opinion but as actively evil and almost sub human. Even in here half of us talk about progressives as if they are alien invaders, and while that might not be an entirely invalid sentiment it absolutely sets the stage for violent conflict with them in the future.
I don’t see ANYTHING that is going to pull either parties head out of their asses and I don’t see any to reconcile progressivism with conservative American culture and as such I see a violent civil war as being inevitable within most of our lifetimes.
You sure you can’t qualify that a little bit more?
“at some point in the future”
I like it. It’s usually good practice to leave yourself an out when making a hypothetical assertion.
that’s more than an “out”. The assertion itself is so vague that any ‘sort of’-civil unrest between now and the end of time would satisfy.
Actually I did say NEAR future, and any old civil unrest would not qualify as a civil war otherwise you’d be able to claim that we were already involved in one that started around 8 years ago with the Tea Party Protests.
You want more specificity…
within the next 2 decades you will see at a minimum actual multi factional battles with guns and death tolls in the hundreds to thousands at a minimum which may or may not involve government agents on one side (it could be tea party vs coffee party or it could be either of those against the national guard) will occur, assasination of political figures will become somewhat common place and as a result large sections of the constitution will either explicitly or defacto altered.
I see.
what evidence can you think of that would convince you otherwise?
Still waiting.
Um, how about for starters an election which isn’t the most important election of our lifetimes because the opponent is a special monster ready to kill puppies and eat children if not stopped? Hell I’ll take an election where either side was that rational.
When every election is the greatest threat humanity has ever seen it requires you to continue to ratchet up how evil the opponent is, and if the opponent makes Vlad Tepes look tame than anyone who supports him must be a monster as well.
Eventually someone is going to act on the dehumanization of the political opposition and start shooting, and the other side having been given the same message will respond in kind.
Maybe we get lucky and it serves as a wake up call and after a few months of violence and bloodshed people pull back and start pulling together, maybe it causes a complete political reorganization into more stable coalitions that lets the pressure off and allows order to be gradually restored, but maybe it doesn’t. Nations don’t last forever and when they break up it happens rapidly.
You’re saying a single election where no one is called “Hitler” will convince you otherwise?
“That said a second civil war of some sort is probably likely in the near future albeit probably not within Trump’s term of office.”
Much of the reaction we see from the press and the left is because they thought eternal social justice warrioring was the new normal–after only eight years of Obama. They were wrong about that. The American people don’t hate themselves for being white, heterosexual, blue collar, middle class, or Christian. The left was living in a bubble. Hell, Obama wasn’t even elected to be a social justice warrior. He was elected because average, middle class people were sick of the Iraq War and the War on Terror. Trump was elected because the American people were sick of the progressives social justice warriroring.
We might see a civil war if people were genuinely split on important issues to average people.
Trans-bathrooms are not an important issue to average people. It seems like SJW issues are important to average people because the SJWs dominate the media, but it’s an illusion. Don’t believe the hype.
Social Security, Taxes, Medicare, Immigration, First Amendment, Second Amendment, and so on.
The people ARE split on the important issues and the size of that split is growing all the time.
People aren’t as split on those issues as you imagine–certainly not on Social Security, taxes, and Medicare. I wish there was more opposition to the status quo on those things, but they’re the status quo for a reason–’cause people like ’em the way they are.
I don’t think people are split on the First Amendment either. That’s mostly just headlines and social justice warriors and college student activists.
People might be happy with the Status Quo on entitlements but the fact of the matter is that sometime in the next 2 decades that status quo is going to collapse no matter what people feel about it and when that happens people are absolutely split on what to do. Just as importantly when that collapse happens somebody is going to take a major haircut either in the form of a massive tax increase or significant benefit cuts (or both)
If there’s an impeachment, Trump will survive the vote–and come out stronger on the other end.
If there’s an impeachment, it’ll be because of what the Special Counsel writes in his report, whom he indicts, etc.
That Special Counsel has just been given a blank check to go after anyone he wants for any reason he wants–and an unlimited budget . He’ll need to indict someone to justify the expense, and he’ll use his ability to indict people to go after as high a prize as he can to justify himself.
Meanwhile, the Special Counsel is an FBI insider, with all the background, personal relationships, and motives of the FBI itself. The chances of the former FBI finding his former subordinates to be in the wrong are highly unlikely. Meanwhile, Trump has a tremendous number of Republican enemies–especially in the Senate–who would love to see him twist in the wind for the next four years, and maybe even challenge him for the election come 2020.
Healthcare reforms chances in the Senate don’t look good right now, what with Trump needing every bit of pressure he can muster to keep himself in the game.
I think Trump will probably be impeached.
I think he’ll survive the impeachment.
I think the hope of healthcare reform, tax cuts, deregulation, the wall, etc. all just took a shot to the solar plexus. Whatever we get on those things is likely to be watered down so badly, they won’t amount to much–and second term presidents generally don’t accomplish much.
“I think the hope of healthcare reform, tax cuts, deregulation, the wall, etc. all just took a shot to the solar plexus. Whatever we get on those things is likely to be watered down so badly, they won’t amount to much”
Media and Democrats (redundant) have accomplished there mission then.
It isn’t just the media and democrats who wanted to sink those issues.
The Republicans have to be dragged kicking and screaming on those issues, too.
And the opposition to Trump working with Putin on ISIS in Syria is mostly opposed by neocon interests–like John McCain.
Who’s Trump going to look to for support in the Senate? Cruz and Rubio or a bunch of other Republicans who want him to stumble so they can challenge him?
When the Ides of March comes, they’ll gather all around him with their steely knives, and they’ll put their fingers in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. Right now, I bet it’ll be blowing in a direction that keeps Trump in power, but we’ll see.
If the Republicans feed him to the sharks, they’ll find a way to blame it all on the Democrats.
Yes – John McCain and Paul Ryan are just as much a part of the opposition as the Democrats.
Leave poor Paul Ryan alone. The Republican caucus is impossible to manage. But, I concur on the sentiment. The will of most Republicans is to not enact these reforms too.
I don’t understand why Trump doesn’t go on offense campaign-style and hold “tax-reform rallies” etc. Go to the people directly and have them put pressure on Congress to act. I can envision a series of Tweeted videos that have simple messaging around reforming the tax code. (just looking at the physical size of the code should get the average person agitated.)
I think the hope of healthcare reform, tax cuts, deregulation, the wall, etc. all just took a shot to the solar plexus.
Those have been dead or comatose since Trump took office. It takes the Republicans in Congress to make those happens, and the Reps are useless.
The Republicans in the House passed a bill to get rid of the individual mandate and the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion–and those are good things.
That was a good sign. He was making progress.
Trump is facing more opposition from Congress and the media than maybe any president since Reagan. Reagan didn’t get the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 on his desk to sign until halfway through the middle of August in his first year. Congressional Republicans started rallying around him later.
The more the party rallies around the President, the more he gets done. That process has been slowed for Trump by the Special Counsel. Winning contentious negotiations is all about leverage, and now the Senate has more leverage–because Trump may need their help in the future to stay in power. That will slow his agenda down considerably.
I should add at some point . . .
The House bill they passed–as I understand–eliminated the ObamaCare employer mandate, which is a great for a couple of reasons.
1) It means employers are more likely to hire unemployed people because they don’t necessarily need to worry about the cost of providing them with health insurance.
2) It kills the, what, 29, hour rule, where if you work more than 29 hours, you have to offer employees health insurance?
That made a lot of employers cut the working poor’s hours from 40 to 29 a week, which just absolutely sucked.
That’s not everything I’m talking about when I talk about deregulation, but it is, in fact, deregulation.
If I were to draw up a scenario for how to get to civil war it would be: Trump impeached for Russian conspiracy. People march on Washington. A democratic senator gets assassinated or attacked by lunatic. In response police are brought in to crack skulls of protestors and homeland security starts rounding up perceived right wing extremists. In response to that people start shooting at federal agents trying to arrest them. A Governor says no more federal agents to stop violence. Feds try to over power governor and military on military war begins.
That’s the key. There has to be a link between the disenfranchisement at the federal level and the immediate interests of voters at the local level. It’s not enough for federal authority to be shaken, there has to be a local guy to line up behind, and the prospect of state vs. fed does that neatly. Mind you, the counterexample would be the Alabama National Guard during segregation.
To get there, you need Pence to sign off on rounding up “right wing extremists”. I don’t think you get there from your scenario.
Really? I think he’d do so in a heartbeat. The Deep State would demand it, and he would do their bidding.
You keep using that word overdetermined, Shikha. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
That may be the dumbest article she has ever written – which is really saying something.
I nominate the one claiming that deporting illegal aliens is like enforcing the fugitive slave act.
I’ve seen her suggest that Congress’ enumerated power to set the rules of naturalization is unconstitutional, too.
. . . I mean, not in those words, exactly, but that was the drift of it. Come to think of it, that may have been in the same article.
I liked it when she said immigration was good because the US army could have more cannon fodder. Responding to the fake Trump tweet was pretty fucking cool, too. Then there was the “Honest condemnation” tweet about Berkeley violence.
Shikha Dalmia: The gift that keeps on derping
Gillespie wrote an amazing and excellent article yesterday, “All This Impeachment Talk Is Pure Trump Derangement Syndrome”
http://reason.com/blog/2017/05/17/all-this-impeachment-talk-is-pure-trump
He should have written that article (with those sentiments) six months ago.
It’s gotten so bad with Shikha, I hardly even bother. Just straight to comments.
Not a big Gillespie fan, but that was a good piece. He earned ‘The Jacket’ yesterday
I don’t feel that good about it.
It feels like potty training my kids. I’m just relieved that the shit is finally in the toilet for once.
^^^^^
Yep. I’m of the opinion that if Gillespie really cares about libertarianism in the long run he should just retire, because his yearly idiotic proclamations of “LIBERTARIANISM IS WINNING!!!” and his equally dumb attempts to claim some kind of knowledge of youth ‘cool’ culture or anything outside of his DC bubble is just embarrassing. His childish rant about anti-Johnson people is the perfect example of how damaging he is.
I think Gillespie and Welch’s observations about how libertarian ideas are winning is a good one–I just think it’s oversold a bit.
Ideas that were almost exclusively libertarian in the past (like gay marriage and recreational marijuana legalization) are pretty mainstream now.
Somebody should point this stuff out.
We’re all old enough to have met or known people who were drafted in Vietnam. How many people in the mainstream support the idea of a draft anymore?
The mainstream used to have, seriously, ideas about prayer in public schools, teaching creationism, etc. We’re all old enough to know people who lived with segregation, too, and know people who fled the cities when it became alright for black people to live wherever they could afford.
Those attitudes have changed over recent years–even over the last ten years in the case of cannabis and gay marriage. And that’s an important story.
Our job as libertarians isn’t to force our way into the hall of power through elections and shove libertarian solutions down everyone’s throat at gunpoint. Our power and achievements are through persuasion and winning people’s hearts and minds. Someone should be there to gauge that progress as well.
Sometimes, Gillespie oversells it.
Sometimes, I go hyper in my diaper over the Capitals or torture.
Sometimes, Gillespie oversells it.
Gillespie always oversells it. Smaller movements towards vaguely liberty-oriented solutions is certain fields, while ignoring the vast amount of other issues going on (free speech debate on campus, expansions of Civil Rights legislation, massive surveillance state, military operations worldwide, etc.) and declaring it a ‘libertarian moment’ or that ‘libertarianism is winning’ is extremely irresponsible. And it completely ignores that these ‘solutions’ are not coming as libertarian ones, but statist ones (i.e. pot becomes a taxed vice, gay marriage is a licensing scheme by the government, not a contract). These are not examples of a ‘libertarian moment’ and Gillespie is either delusional or lying to enforce that point.
He’s the libertarian equivalent of the batshit preachers who claim the end of the world, except he’s a major member of the movement. Would it not be embarrassing for Christians if the Pope kept declaring Armageddon every two years?
That, and at the same time he drones on about ‘libertarian moments’, he has the balls to criticize people who recognized that Johnson completely rejected libertarian positions on numerous issues. That’s his ‘libertarian moment’, when a half-stoned former Republican governor dribbles out some moderate positions and has an anti-gun, pro-Clinton running mate. Not to mention the recent inferral that libertarianism attracts anti-Semites for some bizarre reason. He’s utterly shameless and is the perfect example of everything wrong with Reason, and just because a broken clock is right twice a day doesn’t mean it isn’t bloody busted.
Am I wrong to think it weird that 90% of their commentariat split and they didnt say shit?
Reason doesn’t give a fuck about the comments, it is known, and it was known before the split. Welch seemed to be the only one who really enjoyed our lunacy with ENB being borderline.
John, I think ENB would have engaged much more with the commentariat if it weren’t for a few bad apples. It can’t be fun to be called a slut and a whore all the time.
Same with Shackford. He took a lot of shit that he didn’t deserve.
for a few bad apples.
I can think of one ‘bad apple’ that I wouldn’t want to deal with as ENB or Shackford.
Bailey still engaged with the commentariat quite a bit and didn’t seem to have a problem with us. Robbie used to when he first started but that stopped when he started taking shit for refusing to name Jackie or come right out and admit she lied.
That said it does not surprise me one bit that they didn’t say anything about the exodus and no they probably did not care much if anything about the comments either way but they did care about the clicks and engagement stats because of the impact they have on the rates they can charge for advertising and those are in the toilet according to Alexia and the timing of the decline can be directly tied to the exodus. If I had to guess off the top of my head they lost somewhere between a 3rd and half of their daily readership
It will also be interesting to see how it impacts their donations in their next Webathon
Bullshit. Libertarians have am evil plan to take over the world, and then leave everybody the hell alone.
where was that? one of his podcasts?
just curious.
It was just after the election when he was doing a ‘postmortem’ article of the Johnson campaign and addressed his critics by telling them to go screw themselves and then pretended that 4.5 million useless votes compared to a million useless votes was some kind of indicator of Johnson’s ability and not because he was a third party candidate in the most anti-establishment election in recent history where plenty of people didn’t like either candidate. It’s rife with Gillespie’s typical ignorant platitudes.
As opposed to being in the writers’ pants? I cannot imagine how awful the Reason offices smelled after refugee ban. From what I understand, to save money Shikha buys her pants pre-shat
No, Dalmia does it in public for everyone to see, and then accuses anyone who criticizes her rich cultural practice as being an alt-right Nazi who is also pro-slavery law.
Yeah, if your expectations are in the gutter anything not in the gutter is gravy.
The “Trump” strategy.
I was shocked to see such a sensible article from Nick. It’s been a while. Good on him.
argh – the comments! The comments!!!
Shreek makes a guest appearance, says a whole bunch of dumb shit he can’t backup, and then disappears. The usual.
And DanO has got to be Stack / or KK.
Is John still there?
Yes, because he thinks he needs to be formally invited to post here. Something done with quill and ink in fine calligraphy on tastefully thick stationary, I imagine.
Of course, I’m sure there are plenty of people here who are perfectly happy that he believes this.
You mean John has invented a narrative and is now swearing by its veracity regardless of actual facts? Inconceivable!
LOL
For reasons that I’ll never understand I clicked on the link. I read the article. What was I thinking? It was just a bad article all the way around. I don’t get why Shikha is still there when she writes crap like that. I’m not a Trump fan and I really, really wish he would shut the hell up and do his job but you don’t go around impeaching a duly elected president because he’s a jackass. Is she really suggesting that Trump should be impeached because of his cabinet picks? Is writing nonsensical tweets at three o’clock in the morning an impeachable offense?
I don’t get why Shikha is still there when she writes crap like that.
If Reason had any kind of editorial standards she would have been fired after reporting on the fake Trump tweet, and that would based on her pre-existing behaviour of failing to research for articles (or actively linking to research that actually indicated the opposite of what she suggested, which I always thought was a rather hilarious example of her incompetence).
But the clickbait ‘journalism’ market has no need for standards.
My aggravation levels dropped after I stopped reading Shikha articles. And I stopped a long time ago. She’s the poster girl for motivated reasoning and rationalization.
Basically, I dropped her when I recognized that she was doing something that Tulpa did and started people turning against him:
1) Have an emotional reaction on some issue or question, such as “Should immigrants working as fashion models be expected to provide their facebook passwords to prospective employers if the latter should make it a condition of employment?
2) Come up with some off the wall rationalization to justify the emotional position.
3) Get angry when confronted by someone who reasoned their way into a different position. Attack them as unlibertarian/evil.
4) When confronted by questions, facts and/or arguments exposing holes in the logical train 2, go full retard.
There’s really nothing to be learned from such people.
Let me repeat a point of mine:
If the House thinks Trump obstructed the execution of the law, it should first get a ruling from the Senate as to whether obstructing the law is actually impeachable.
To get this ruling, the House should impeach those federal judges who obstruct the prolife laws in this country.
If the Senate convicts the judges, that will provide the needed precedent, and the House can go on and impeach Trump.
If the Senate acquits the judges, then that means that obstructing the law isn’t really a big deal, and it wouldn’t be fair to impeach Trump for it.
The House doesn’t care about whether it was legal or impeachable. They care about whether it will impact their ability to get re-elected.
Sure, but if they impeach the abortifascists, I’ll vote to re-elect them.
I keep voting against ‘Taxin’ Tonko, but he doesn’t go away… 🙁
I can almost predict who will win based on who I vote for – someone else will win.
I have that same power. Funny that.
I think it’s all political, and it’s meant to be that way.
The President can be removed through impeachment for any reason–the only questions are 1) whether the votes are there to do so and 2) whether the American people throw the bums out for impeaching someone for a reason they consider to be insufficient.
Cute fantasy, but it has a whiff of monomania.
Obstruction of justice is a crime defined by statute. There is no way a judge striking down laws as unconstitutional is violating the statute.
I congratulate you on turning an article about Trump into an abortion thread. Unexpected, to say the least
Your Future Reptilian Overlords would be most pleased to watch some mass mammal mahem. It is great for ratings.
Also don’t be a meat waster. Make sure you drop off your dead at one of our mobile freezer truck. Or call for pickup on our new mobile app.
“when Antifa gets violent in the wrong town…” But that is the thing-Antifa doesn’t get violent in the wrong town. They pull their crap in Berkley or Portland not Lexington or Tampa or Lincoln. They go where they know they won’t be confronted, by police or otherwise.
It’s true. The antifa in phoenix March around with rifles and talk big but they have been rather polite overall.
Were they even real rifles? I remember seeing pictures with some of those clowns posing with what were obviously airsoft or bb guns, but I don’t remember where that was.
Some may have been fake but at least a few of them were real.
This is why Trump won.
I especially like the sign that says:
‘BAN DRUDGE”
‘information equality now’
I haven’t decided whether these people are stupid, or they think everyone else is stupid, or they are just giving people like us a big FYTW.
You’re correct on all three. Good job.
Anyone should be free to agree with us!
Speaking of kek youtuber sargon of akad meets the SPLC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtXwkD-KgLg
The follow-up where he reports the article to the SPLC was amusing.
What happens when the Special Counsel discovers all the dirt on Clinton and Obama’s DOJ?
WaPo: *crickets*
Fake scandals, nothing to see. Move along now.
He follows the FBI/DOJ manual and buries it?
So, Mrs. Clinton, about that uranium deal….
He goes scuba diving in the Potomac with concrete shoes.
RIP.
Democratic Presidential nominee Johnson has the answer to that.
Bubba Ray Dudley was a shameful slur on the differently abled.
And Mankind was discrimination against those with mental disabilities.
And D-Von Dudley was a racist caricature.
Don’t even get me started on the horribly racist sterotypes perpetuated by the Godfather and the oppressively sexist patriarchy he represented!
Take a modern-day social justice warrior and have them watch late 1980s-early 1990s WWF. Especially a Kamala or Papa Shango match. Just to see their reaction.
Vince McMahon can’t hear you as he swims in his vault of money.
Wrestling is truly shameless…until you kill your family and commit suicide, and then they’re really shameless and memoryhole you.
Benoit was memory-holed more efficiently than I thought possible. He just disappeared in an instant. From everything.
Pure Pro Wrasslin skill set: Benoit might have been the best I’ve ever seen
Who??? I don’t remember any such person.
/Vince
That is my only hope in this. They have to go over an investigation that has been going on for how long now? Nine months? Longer? Who knows what that could uncover or where this could go. And how many investigations are going on in congress? Seems every subcommittee there, including the ones concerning tree frogs have a Russia investigation going.
More and more it seems like the Democrats just want this to happen to Trump, but expect nothing but absolute deference to any turd Team Blue props up.
In other news….some “temporary assistant professor” from a university in Hawaii I’ve never heard of has some things to say to you people. You really have to read it in full (and the comments as well) to get the full derposity, but to whet your appetite….
Does transperson mean they’re part goat or something?
I don’t know, I really feel like she’s leaving some -isms out. Very problematic.
You didn’t build that!
In the comments, the derp gets even richer and more succulent:
Love the “earning” scare quotes.
Really, you need to just do everyone else a favor and just kill yourself already.
Like, say, working your ass off and excelling in a difficult discipline?
I mean, at least they’re honest?
I wonder why people are being attracted to other ideologies and posting about free helicopter rides when the left is demanding “unquestioned dominance”.
No shit. I actually had a pro helicopter ride comment typed out before I caught myself and I’m not that radical. People like that are pure cancer.
When do they start depopulating the cities to work in agriculture?
How did that “unquestioned dominance” work out for Zimbabwe?
“We just want to enslave cis-het-white men for a few centuries and then revisit the issue. Maybe.”
The…. uh…. American Mathematical Society?
Does math know about this?
I’m not sure, but after that article I don’t think they know math.
Reminds me of this, also when you’re anecdote starts “a lot of people don’t like my comedy…” maybe you should reconsider your field
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M
The minute or so I watched was painful. The forced laughs of agreement by woke audience members really added to the cringe.
Yeah, I watched it all, barely. The thing is, it’s not comedy, it’s virtue signaling with a laugh track. Carlin, Pryor, er al are rolling in their coked out graves
It’s a good example of the semantics people like him use to enforce their vapid opinions. Racism itself means that you assume characteristics or attributes based on race (i.e. his whole comedy sketch), and most likely in a negative fashion. So instead he goes off on something called ‘reverse racism’ (i.e. a thing that doesn’t exist unless you accept his idiotic premises) and tries to use redefine the term to relate it to power (the typical redirection that shows that people like him don’t actually listen or address the arguments people make against him, and just make up their own), and then goes on a typical moronic rant about colonialism in an attempt to guilt his opponents into accepting his premise. It’s sophistry 101 pretending to be comedy.
And the comments are hilarious because they’re rife with “I’m insecure about my skin colour and it’s your fault.” Ah, no, your insecurities are your own you spoiled children.
I have been so tempted to throw those points at some acquaintances on derpbook but I know it’s not gonna help. It sucks too because some of the people who post shit like this are cool people outside of their political views.
yikes. Just in case you thought STEM was free of derp, this person (female? I think?) got her PhD from Princeton and teaches MATH at Univ Hawaii (UH Manoa, is just the designation of their main campus). This person actually got employed to teach kids math. So does she grade on a curve with white boys at the bottom? Because that’s the impression I get from that article.
I used to be a math professor. Most of the other professors were pretty left wing. There was even a marxist. He and I used to have the loveliest discussions. It was in the era of Bush the younger, so my antiwar stance made me a misguided fellow traveler rather than the most evil human alive.
USED to be? So you appropriately quit your job to make way for a minority transperson? SO WOKE!!!
Holy title IX violation, Batman!
… who am I kidding, a white kid in Hawaii trying to get his civil rights recognized? Ha!
And this is why I really wish my wife would abandon her plans to retire to Hawaii.
You could always pick up an abandoned off-shore oil rig and declare it your own country. Stick a flagpole with a grungy t-shirt flapping in the wind on the top deck,
“I hearby proclaim this ‘Miller Lite Hat/Big Knife Guy…Land!’”
Sealand is already a thing.
Well, maybe I just want to buy an offshore oil rig.
Would be a good place to run a bunch of Dash/Waves master nodes… Live like the Enclave.
Man, I need a hat that says “my other hat is a knife”
I had someone write on Facebook that she was glad that a special prosecutor had been named because “we can get the whole thing settled and everybody can move on”. You’ve got to be kidding me. Let’s say Trump did commit an impeachable offense, he gets impeached and Pence becomes president. Is the Left just going to move on? They will certainly move on to their next target but I don’t think that is exactly what she meant. Let’s say the special prosecutor comes back and says Trump didn’t commit an impeachable offense. Anybody think the Left will just say, “Our bad” and move on? Oh. Hell. No. If Trump did commit some impeachable crime I have no problem throwing his ass out of office. I am fine with throwing him into the nearest jail if the circumstances warrant it. But I’m not silly enough to think that Left will move on.
The left will immediately move on to Pence (as the WaPo is already doing) and either start trying to find some collusion between Pence and whatever nonsense they’d kick Trump out over. Probably major freakouts and protests about him being a sexist and homophobe non-stop as well.
Your friend is an example of the power of The Big Lie, i.e. keep repeating the big lie and it becomes true. There has been absolutely zero evidence of some dramatic conspiracy between the Russians and Trump, but repeating it over and over again makes people believe that something is there. You wear down a person’s mental defense until they’re at least willing to accept the premise.
So if they go on with the investigation and, like many here are saying, finds very little if anything impeachable against Trump, what happens next?
Does the left seek other initiatives?
Does CA finally pull the trigger and secede?
Does popular vote president become the symbol of opposition?
Will Rachel Maddow commit seppuku on the air in protest?
Seriously, if this comes up with nothing, what do they have?
If we’re really, really lucky, decades of political irrelevance.
Do…do we get to vote on these? I vote for D.
Why limit ourselves to just one of these awesome outcomes.
I want CA to secede so that we can let them go without protest, wait a few years until they are the new Venezuela, then invade and take all of our shit back by force.
I’d rather they learn the hard way. Post-Soviet Russia style.
After the breadlines, the mafia taking over, prostitution boom (and bust)…maybe we can talk invasion.
Water smuggling cartel after the border states shut down the colorado? Where do I sign up?
Seriously, if this comes up with nothing, what do they have?
Exactly what they have now – a big steaming pile of lies, anonymous hearsay, and innuendo. More than enough to fuel the DemOp Media character assassination machine indefinitely.