Four For the Fourth: Friction In the Air

(Here's the second article in this 2025 Four For the Fourth)

You say you want a revolution?

You want to stand up against the growing fascism of the trumpian regime?

You might want to watch Star Wars Andor series to get in the proper mindset then (via Derek Pharr at Nerdist):

Andor doesn’t just sideline the Jedi, it reframes the entire rebellion without them. There’s no Force and no Midichlorians. No elegant solutions from a more civilized age. Just people. Flawed, desperate, courageous people, who decide that enough is enough. The result is the most grounded, morally complex, and weirdly hopeful take on resistance the franchise has ever given us. Andor isn’t just “what if Star Wars was prestige TV?” It’s a reevaluation of who actually fought the Empire and a reminder that revolutions are won by the people who show up, not the ones meditating about it...

Let’s start with an uncomfortable truth: the Jedi failed. Not metaphorically. Not in a “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” way. They were spectacularly bad at their jobs. While Palpatine engineered a fascist takeover in broad daylight, the Jedi were too busy pontificating about balance to notice the galaxy was slipping into totalitarianism. Their detachment wasn’t just a quirk of their order. It was their fatal flaw.

Andor doesn’t waste time pointing fingers at them. It simply moves on. The Jedi aren’t mentioned, and frankly they aren’t missed. What replaces them isn’t another elite class of heroes. Instead, it’s working-class people, loners, bureaucrats, and ex-cons who decide to resist in whatever way they can. There’s no talk of prophecy or destiny in Andor. No one’s “the chosen one.” They’re just the ones who showed up.

Through two seasons, the show set up the path of Cassian Andor from youthful dispossessed jungle child into one of the Rebel Alliance fighters who uncover the secret plans that reveal the (engineered) weak spot of the dreaded superweapon Death Star. While the movie Rogue One already spelled out Cassian's fate, the show takes the time to show how and why he stood up against a massive Empire in spite of the overwhelming odds.

Cassian evolves from regular thief stealing Imperial ship parts in a way the government's intelligence agency - the ISB - couldn't identify with any pattern, into a minor participant of a bank robbery to fund the fledging Alliance that sparks an ISB crackdown on galactic civil liberties that underscores the banal cruelty of that regime. Cassian gets imprisoned and forced into a labor facility understaffed and overtly brutal, making it clear how evil and sadistic the Empire is (the side story of Cassian's friends getting tortured and killed adds to that sadism). Aiding in a mass breakout of the prison, Cassian makes his way back to his Alliance handlers and - after listening to an earnest and meaningful manifesto from an early Rebel intellectual (one who died in that bank robbery and ironically so minor a figure in the Alliance even the ISB can't identify him) - actively signs on to the fight.

Interwoven into Andor's narrative are the characters many Star Wars know will be major players in the Rebellion - Senator Mom Mothma for example, destined to denounce the Emperor's cruelty on the Senate Floor and the pure leader around which the Alliance will form - underscoring how the tides of history against oppression are inevitable. Intermixed are incredibly moving monologue's - Nemik's Manifesto is just the first - from others drawn into the fight - like Kino Loy's call to fight to break open the Imperial prisons and Luthen Rael's speech about his emotional sacrifices "I fight to make a sunrise I know I will never see" - that could stir any soul into rebellion.

Towards the end of Season Two, another major Star Wars player gets a monologue of his own, when Saw Guerra - a resistance fighter from the Clone Wars turned violent insurrectionist - explains his motivations to a new recruit (Cassian's young friend from Season One Wilmon). It's one of the most stirring and unsettling calls to fight in television history.

Saw Gerrera: There it is.

(Approaches rhydonium fumes and inhales)

Wilmon: (horrified) What are you doing?

Gerrera: (to the fumes) I have always loved you.

Wilmon: How can you do that?

Gerrera: (turns to face Wilmon) Because I understand it. Because she's my sister, rhydo, and she loves me. That itch... that burn... You feel how badly she wants to explode? (taps Wilmon's shoulders) Remember this. Remember this moment! This... perfect night. 

(Pauses, sees Wilmon's terror)

Gerrera: You think I'm crazy. (smiles) Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the sane. Look at us: Unloved, hunted, cannon fodder. We'll all be dead before the Republic is back and yet... here we are. 

(Pauses again, grabs Wilmon's shoulders harder) 

Gerrera: Where are you, boy? You're here. You're not with Luthen, you're here! You're RIGHT HERE and you're READY to fight!

(Wilmon's eyes go from fear to understanding. He willingly removes his mask to inhale the fumes, breathes deeply, coughing)

Gerrera: We're the ryhdo, kid. We're the fuel. We're the thing that explodes when there's too much friction in the air. 

(Wilmon's gasps and chokes as he accepts his fate with the Rebellion)

Gerrera: Let it in, boy. That's freedom calling! (laughing mad) Let it in! Let it RUN! Let it run WILD!

If you've watched the whole Star Wars storyline from the prequels to the Clone Wars animated series to here, you'll know Gerrera's backstory and how he lost his sanity: fighting first the Separatists that enslaved him and killed his sister, and then the Empire when the Republic fell. And yes if you're wondering, Saw Gerrera talks and acts a lot like his real-world model Che Guevara because the series storyrunners wanted a more violent yet charismatic rebel leader to highlight the more nobler goals of the main Alliance the fans already recognized. 

In that speech, Gerrera speaks to the revolutionary as an unloved fighter, romanticized as Margaret Killjoy puts it in her blog: 

I think a lot about the romanticization of suffering. When I lived in a van, it wasn’t because I wanted hashtag vanlife, it was because I had almost no money and I wanted somewhere dry to sleep and a way to get from place to place to keep doing activist work. I hated the romanticization of van life, the pristine photos of perfect beaches and fifty thousand dollar vans...

Eventually, after years, I moved into an off-grid barn, and slowly saved up the money to build a 12x12’ A-frame off-grid cabin on my friend’s property. From vanlife to tiny house. All the things you’re supposed to romanticize.

A tiny house is only an improvement if you’re coming from no-house, if you ask me. Most people are not happier living off grid. Most people are not happier living in their vehicles.

But if it’s what you have, it’s useful to find beauty in it. It’s useful to romanticize it. Some nights in the van, with the wind whipping through the trees, I was happy. Some summer days in the hammock in front of my cabin, I was happy.

When two revolutionaries, caught up in the ethical imperative to overthrow the galactic empire, start huffing fumes and waxing poetic about their perfect night of crime, they are making the right decision. If you’re going to die before you see your revolution succeed, might as well make the most of it. Might as well fill your brief life with as much meaning as you can possibly cram into it...

There’s this old book, Catechism of a Revolutionary, from 1869. It’s by this Russian nihilist named Sergey Nechayev. People get pretty hooked on this book sometimes. It’s intoxicating. The revolutionary is a doomed man, it says, right in its first sentence... 

According to the catechism, essentially anything is justifiable in the name of revolution. It was written in a time of tsars, less than a decade after the end of serfdom, and during a period where a lot of people were trying awfully hard to find a way to turn the tsar from one full-size person into a bunch of tiny little pieces of person, generally through the application of explosives. Which is, of course, a reasonable thing to do to autocrats.

But it’s worth understanding that the guy who wrote this book, Nechayev, was a piece of shit. That’s the technical term for it I think. Not just “he was so devoted to revolution that he was callous with people,” but just aggressively a bad person who, by my read, was rather detrimental to the movement he claimed to love...

I don’t have a high opinion of Catechism of a Revolutionary, nor of its author. It seems written to excuse a man doing whatever he wants (including imprisoning the woman who turned him down).

Yet when Saw Gerrera talks about “this perfect night,” I think about the pure beauty that can be found in an anti-police riot, when you and others make it clear that you will not accept to be ruled by unaccountable men with guns. Sometimes, you need to shout “fuck you” at the bastards and mean it. You need to shout “you are my enemies” and mean it. Sometimes you need to say “what are you going to do, kill me?” and know that they might, well, kill you, but that it needed to be said anyway.

You don't have to be as violent or terrible as the likes of Saw, or Che, or Nechayev. As much as they speak to the spirit of revolution, the power of pure resistance is more attainable. 

Be that fuel, that friction in the air. Just keep the struggle going. Be the signal, the call to action. Be free in the perfect moments.

Try.

The Second Civil War Will NOT Start Over Karen's Potato Salad

So fringe conspiracy nutcase Alex Jones - who sadly has far too many people paying attention to him - went out and tweeted a godawful plot twist for the ongoing Far Right Pity-Party Self-Oppression Narrative (via Adam L Silverman at Balloon Juice):

BREAKING: Democrats Plan To Launch Civil War On July 4th (I will not provide a direct link to anything by Jones if I can avoid it)

Yes, that's correct: Even with all the "Democrats In Disarray!" story lines floating around the screwed up Beltway Media, nothing can stop the wingnuts from convincing themselves those socialist libtards are one step away from violent global domination.

I haven't dived into Jones' full rant - mostly because I want to spare my brain cells from damage - but I can guess a lot of it revolves around getting minorities to riot in the streets and feminists kicking every white male in the groin until we white boys all surrender due to sympathetic pain-sharing.

I doubt it has anything logical to it, such as getting the U.S. military to the tune of 1,150,000 active servicepeople and 800,000 reservists to turn against their trumpian masters. I mean, that's a lot of Democratic libtards in all five branches of the military. I doubt most Republicans would believe there's that many Democraps among the ranks. Without enough military support, any civil war uprising is doomed to fail.

If the civil war planning has anything clever to it, the primary rule of seizing all means of communication would mean shutting down the likes of Fox Not-News, the entire Sinclair chain of local TV and radio stations, and also cutting off or crimping Internet across all 50 states. The logistics of such a move may seem simple in a movie (such as the Fire Sale of Die Hard 4.0), but in practice there's a lot of moving parts there and no guarantee of success. If anything, cutting the power on Fox would go a long way to disrupting trump's own methods of staying informed so... on this point alone it might be worth a go.

Look, here's the simplest reason why Alex Jones is just making noise about a goddamn civil war started by the Progressive(Libtard) Left on the 4th of July: There is no goddamn way it would work. Just consider that the 4th is a big holiday for people to go out and get drunk, meaning that every State Highway Patrol car is out on the major roads alongside County and City police just itching to pull suspicious drivers over. Would any librul risk the likelihood of getting pulled over by the cops? NO. End of argument.

If any group in this nation has shown the desire to make attempts to start any insurrection, it's been the gun-toting, Sovereignty-obsessed, white supremacist, wingnut Far Right. The real risk here is Jones stirring up that group into a fear-based froth, terrifying them into turning any public gathering on the 4th of July into a firearm-freakout bloodbath.

I have to admit I've been blogging here that we're already in a Second Civil War, but it's not a war in a conventional sense of battle lines and cities under siege. This has been a war fought over control of the political and media outlets running this nation. The fighting has less been open gunfights and more along the lines of street protests and attempts at voter turnout for this year's midterms. So far...

Jones is tweeting about Civil War for several reasons. Above all, it gets him attention and media traffic and mo' money. It keeps his audience terrified and ready for the worst if he ever finds the need to call an uprising of his own. And if a war in the streets finally does erupt, he's trying to position himself as the messenger/messiah leader driving his side of wingnuttia towards cultural purification and victory.

In the meanwhile, the Democratic Party of the United States is not planning a Civil War to be fought on the 4th of July.

They're trying to stop Karen from bringing her potato salad to the cookout. Raisins? AH HELL NAW...

We're Over the Cliff. This Is Now a Matter of How Steep the Fall Will Be

So this thought has popped up again:

I think I've argued before about the unlikely scenario of the United States splitting into civil war, especially the disastrous economic implications of such an event. Very few states can stand on their own, and too many Red states - the likely culprits in a secession movement - are too dependent on federal aid to pull it off. Back in 2009, this kind of argument didn't make any sense to me.

But the thought is still out there, we ARE as a nation in the middle of an Honest-to-God Constitutional Crisis, and as the signs of irrevocable differences among Americans are growing this is getting too serious to ignore.

Just yesterday, Balloon Juice had two different articles about this issue, and as I take the commentary there serious then these arguments need to be considered. First, to Anne Laurie marking the Twitter war between Megan McArdle and Reality:

I tweeted McArdle back directly after that "twee cosmopolitan" putdown:

As Sam Houston and William Sherman tried to warn the hard Conservative wingnuts that were pressing for a regressive and racially-motivated war in 1860, the more Liberal left-wingers that made up the Union side of things had the numbers and the willpower to save the nation, give it a month or give it five years. Those same Liberal-leaning types - urban surely, educated most likely - may look weak or indecisive but in truth they have conviction and patriotic devotion (they're just trying to remain polite about it).

Ahem. Back to BJ:

Megan's thinking of "letting go" would be easy to understand except for the facts that 1) our cultural divisions are not geographic ones (even Texas and Florida and Alabama and yes South Carolina will be split internally by Right and Left factions), 2) such "letting go" will not resolve half the arguments we have, and 3) The side spoiling for a fight (hint: it's the pro-gun anti-gay racist trumpshirts) won't let it go and will turn violent no matter what.

And now Adam L. Silverman's piece, with analysis and insight (aptly titled Megan McArdle Knows Absolutely Nothing About Any Form Of War And Wouldn’t Even If A Member Of The Military Bit Her!):

What McArdle doesn’t understand, because she knows nothing about war – theoretically, conceptually, and/or experientially (sic) – is that there has been a low level insurgency in the US going back decades. We sometimes call this the Culture War. Sometimes it’s referred to as the Southern Strategy, but it involves one of the two major political parties and its supporting movements, including religious movements, in the US refusing to accept the legitimacy of any other ones. It includes frequent use of dehumanizing language and threats of violence ranging from legislatively and regulatorily (sic) directing the power of the state, utilizing lawfare, and actually threatening and sometimes undertaking violence against their opponents or the objects of their dehumanization campaigns when the insurgents don’t get their way. And these people – elected, appointed, voters, supporters, pundits, etc – are McArdle’s fellow travelers! They are part of the larger political, ideological, dogmatic religious, and sub-cultural groups and movements that McArdle has been marinating in since she was an undergraduate.

They also make the mistake that they are the only ones that get to define patriotism and to actually care about the US and its ideals. They have convinced themselves that they are the only ones who can properly interpret the Constitution when in fact they are the poorest of linguistic and political historians of the late 18th Century, which leads to constantly misunderstanding and misapplying the Constitution. And they have deluded themselves into thinking that because their opponents believe in civility that their opponents are also unwilling to actually defend themselves in the political, ideological, social, religious, economic, and/or legal arenas. And those delusions include the mistaken belief that they don’t have the means to do so.

Right now the US is experiencing one of its periodic bouts of growing pains. As was the case in the 1780s and 1790s, the 1830s and 1840s, the 1860s, the late 1870s through the 1890s, during WW I, in the mid to late 1930s, and in the middle 1960s through the early 1970s, a period of imperfect progress is being met with a backlash against it. It is ugly. It is unpleasant. It is damaging. People who do not deserve to be hurt are being hurt. The real question that McArdle should have asked, yet is incapable because she is as the one who does not know how to ask, is what does it really mean to form a more perfect union? And what are the best ways to go about perfecting the union? Those are the real questions of American civic life. Not whether Democrats in urban areas know how to use guns...

With all that as my background, what's MY take on the current downward spiral?

This all depends on the response to the most likely trigger to cause the "civil war": Mueller's investigation into trump's criminal ties to Russia and to Russia's interference with the 2016 elections.

The Far Right (pro-trump) have clearly marked out their line in the sand that Mueller's work is "illegal" and part of a "spygate" conspiracy hatched by the Obama-Hillary Left to steal the election (which, logically, meant Obama-Hillary should have done a better job of actually stealing it back when they needed to). If Mueller completes his Special Counsel investigations finding serious charges - serious enough to warrant directly arresting trump (which would mean breaking a gentleman's agreement to not arrest sitting Presidents Losers of the Popular Vote) - this side will freak out and rage against the "Deep State" that makes up the federal government.

The other side - made up of Never-trumpers, "Rule of Law" conservatives and moderates, progressives, essentially the 65 million who voted Hillary and believe Russia stole enough states to fuck with the Electoral College - have marked out their line: Anything trump does to shut down Mueller's work is full-on Obstruction and that the entire Republican Party will be guilty of selling the nation out to Putin.

From where we're at right now, Mueller and other investigators have found so much criminal misdeeds before, during AND after the 2016 campaigns that trump is going to shut it down as best he can: However, he's noticeably run out of legal means of doing so and he's bound to simply break existing laws to complete his journey to complete Obstruction and dismantling of the Rule of Law.

This all depends entirely on how the Federal agencies and how the U.S. Military responds.

Right now, most of the agencies - getting shredded by trump's corruption and mismanagement - are likely going to oppose trump right out of the gate. The Intel communities in particular - fully aware of how badly Russia hacked us and hurt us - will refuse to back any attempt by trump to shut down Mueller or the Justice Department.

The military is the big wild card here. Granted, most soldiers and officers are personally conservative: However, they are trained and expected to abide by the Constitution and Rule of Law (that is, they answer to their oaths to defend the nation, they do not take loyalty oaths to any one man the way trump expects). The military is also one of our more diverse institutions, with a lot of soldiers and officers made of the minorities - Black, Latino, women, and now LGBT - that would suffer under a trump rule that's unbound by Constitutional limits. If trump does go full Authoritarian by shutting down Mueller and violating the Rule of Law, there is a good chance the military will refuse to obey any further orders from that White House. At which point shit gets really real.

This is where the wingnut fantasies of their pro-gun militias taking out Army units come into play. This is also where those fantasies will get taken out pretty quickly because 1) those Far Right militias do not have the numbers, 2) those Far Right militias do not have air support, 3) we've seen these Far Right militias in action before, and they are so disorganized it's laughable. They only lasted as long as they did during their hissy fits because the Feds wanted to avoid another Waco tragedy.

Still, the military is expected to answer to the presidency as Commander-in-Chief. They could just as easily side with him as the "lesser of two evils" and just wait him out for "saner" leadership to replace trump (he's NOT going to live forever). If the military sides with trump and the Far Right, any resistance by the Progressive/Center Left will not last long either.

Congress, being what it is - owned by cowardly Republicans who refuse to rein in trump's worst behaviors - will likely collapse into factions when trump acts against Mueller. There are signs of rifts in the House already especially over immigration (and the dawning realization that the replacement Speaker following Ryan will be too wingnut even for them). If trump tries to play dictator, there's a chance enough Republicans will flip to Independent/Democrat to give Dems control of the House (and even the Senate): At that point, trump will be the one in serious trouble. If the GOP remains united, then trump remains unchallenged and key Democratic figures - Pelosi, Schumer, Harris, Warren - will find themselves targets of arrests.

If things do break down into civil war, the dividing lines are going to be messy, mixed-up, and all over the map. Where the first civil war was easier to map out with clear North-South boundaries, this coming fight isn't as geographically fixed. Yes, there may be solid Red (conservative) states and solid Blue (liberal) states, but within each state there are splits between the urban, suburban, and rural areas. Big states like Texas and Florida may be dominated politically by Far Right Republicans, but they've only achieved that thanks to rigged gerrymandering that ignored actual demographics. Any attempt to secede (if trump fails to stop Mueller) or to enforce their rule (if trump succeeds) will cause mass protests and chaos across every major city and then some. On the same argument, any attempt by California or Illinois or New York to secede (if trump wins) or enforce (if trump fails) will get rioting from the Red parts of their states in the rural and suburban regions (such as New York's Long Island or California's southern coastal Far Right communities).

There are very few regions that are decidedly in favor of one side over the other. If I had to say it, the only solid Red states that would ally with trump if he goes Full Dictator would be West Virginia, Idaho, Oklahoma, and maybe one of the Dakotas. The rest would have serious internal strife issues (yes, even South Carolina and Utah and Alaska). If there were any solid Blue states that would oppose trump, I'd go with Hawaii, Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont.

There will be no true safe havens. We will find that out right quick.

Actual civil war will be messy at the street level. Pro-trump forces - being gun-nuts evangelicals - will target what they hate most: Minorities, women, health clinics, gays, schools and colleges. They won't hit military sites - in some respects they won't even really fight to protect trump - because they'll know that's suicide: Instead they'll hit civilians the same way all terrorists would. THIS is why they don't want to give up the military-grade firepower they currently have to wipe out entire unarmed gatherings.

Pro-Constitutional forces - being legal-minded - will target the ones backing trump: Every Far Right media talking head and deep-pocket SuperPAC funder. Given how much of trump's support is based on lying and media manipulation, shutting down the likes of Fox Not-News, Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Drudge, Jones, Coulter, and others would be a necessity. After that, targeting every goddamned coal-roller truck in the nation. Eliminating trump's base of support because honestly there are few places trump can truly hide.

Changes to our nation's habits will be immediate. The electrical grid is vulnerable, our communication network is vulnerable, our transportation systems - highway, trains, airports - are vulnerable. Either side will disrupt each of these things to their advantages. Our schools will close, most places of business may close due to supply cutoffs, most of our common resources available through utilities will be shut down. Not every location will be hit hard - some states and cities obviously will be hurt more than others - but everyone will feel some kind of pinch.

Even the rich will be affected. Our financial systems and markets would have early days of downturn as chaos makes things unpredictable. Foreign trade and business deals will suffer at first, maybe prolonged by any drawn-out fighting. Breakdown of intrastate trade definitely will hurt local and regional business.

If the U.S. divides into civil war, our foreign allies - and enemies - will get disrupted themselves. Without trump to hold them back, Western European nations may reform NATO into a more aggressive front against Putin's meddling into Eastern Europe. Asia will likely slide further under China's influence. Israel may suddenly find that a distracted and divided United States leaves them alone with few allies just as their war against Gaza Palestinians and Iran/Syria gets serious.

All of the problems that led to this moment - immigration, trade, global terrorism - will remain unresolved or actually worsen.

If there's any good news in a trump-fueled civil war, it's that his overseas properties will fall completely to shit and file for bankruptcy.

Everything else will be a bloody mess, and none of us will be able to avoid it.

I thought once we could, that we were going to evolve past the cultural divisions pushed by an increasingly angry Far Right, that we were going to listen to the better angels of our nature.

But the goddamn Far Right doubled down on their madness, dug deeper into their re-enforced Narrative, and rallied around a person in trump who brought them a fake victory, ignoring all the signs that trump is NOT someone you want leading your war effort.

I have been saying for the past few years this was not going to end well. We're at Phase Two of the madness right now, and from what I see - what too many other people are starting to see - the end is more and more looking to be bloody and crazy and terrifying.

This is already out of control. And we will be lucky to live through this. But not all of us are that lucky...

And 2016 Continues Its Campaign for Most Insane Year Ever: White Boy Militia Update

Remember how this year opened with a crazy Republican primary and then pretty much escalated with those Bundy Boys throwing a Militia Hangover Roundup in a federal park? You know, the one where they didn't even plan ahead to have enough socks in the middle of Oregon IN WINTER? And then ended up arrested after a brief shootout?

Well, the trial came up right real quick, which itself is a bit odd because usually these things pad out for months if not a full year with court fights and delays and stuff. I figured the prosecutors must have had enough of a case with the evidence on hand - these Bundy Boys videotaped themselves doing this! The whole world saw this... - that they just wanted it done-and-done.

Annnnnnnnnd... The jury in Oregon just acquitted them on all charges.

The verdicts finding Ammon Bundy, older brother Ryan Bundy and five others not guilty of a federal conspiracy drew elation from defense attorneys who spent five weeks arguing that the armed takeover amounted to a time-honored tradition of First Amendment protest and civil disobedience.

Despite overwhelming evidence these clowns occupied a federal building on federal land... with guns... with the intent to disrupt federal employees... essentially an open attempt at insurrection...

And this jury in Oregon looked at all that and said "Huh. Guess they were just showing off their camping skills."

The jury apparently bought the defense's argument that this was an honorable protest, a legitimate uprising against unlawful authority. The jury must have ignored the vandalism that took place at the wildlife preserve. The jury must have thought... well, crap, I can't comprehend what the hell this jury was thinking.

The jury must have figured this trial wasn't all that big of a deal.

This trial - and there's been a lot of them over the years - brings up the biggest vulnerability of any jury system: The jurors themselves.

We're talking about a group of people who may not necessarily be "peers" of those on trial. We get jurors who are, despite all the court instructions and seriousness of the matters at hand, are going to bring their own personal biases and perspectives. This Oregon jury had to be made up of people who at some level sympathize with the Bundy movement's arguments against federal land use laws.

White juries freeing violent White radicals. Gee, who'd a thunk it.

Worst of all: These juries are made up of people who are not experts on law, being asked for that trial to become experts. And many of them are just not up for it.

The outrage is going to spill over into this day and week. I'm sure the political landscape will get affected, because a lot of the "Alt-Right" crowd are going to be crowing about this victory over the hated Feds while everybody is going to go WTF.

Meanwhile, there's a protest going on in North Dakota over a pipeline going through a tribe's water source. I guarantee you a lot of those peaceful and unarmed protesters - most of them Natives - are going to see jail time, 'cause you know, Not White. Meanwhile, there's been protests in a lot of cities across America over this Black Lives Matter thing, with a lot of peaceful and unarmed residents - most of them Black - getting jailed half the time simply because that was their neighborhood they lived in. I figure most of them are going to see jail time, 'cause you know, Not White.

I'd argue for more protests in the streets about the inequalities of the jury system, but I figure only White Boys like me should show up for it. And not a lot of White Boys will, will we, since this is a system that benefits us, right?

This year can't end fast enough.

I hope to God this ends well.

(Update) just to add this from Vox.com:

The verdict is completely absurd.

Eight months after the nation watched an armed militia take over a wildlife refuge in Oregon to protest federal land ownership, a jury has come back and said that the militia members are “not guilty.” This includes not guilty of a charge that describes what everyone knows these militants did, considering that they live-streamed themselves doing it: conspiracy to prevent Bureau of Land Management and US Fish and Wildlife employees from doing their jobs at the wildlife refuge.

Again, this is literally what they did. They armed themselves and took over a wildlife refuge, preventing federal workers from going into the facility and doing their jobs. Ammon Bundy, the militants’ leader, even participated in interviews in which he called for more people to join him in his cause...

...The defense argued there was no intent to keep federal employees off the refuge. But come on. An armed group occupied a federal building. Your imagination doesn’t have to stretch very far to realize what was happening.

Yet a jury found them not guilty.

It is impossible to ignore race here. This was a group of armed white people, mostly men, taking over a facility. Just imagine: What would happen if a group of armed black men, protesting police brutality, tried to take over a police facility and hold it hostage for more than a month? Would they even come out alive and get to trial? Would a jury find them and their cause relatable, making it easier to send them back home with no prison time?...

At some point, the reality that juries are going to be habitually biased is going to sink in.

At some point, the Angry White Guy movement is going to cross a line nobody can excuse or defend, even the damned NRA (who sells White Fear to make profits off of guns). And of course, when that happens a whole lot of innocent people are going to pay for it.

Some Trumps Just Want to Watch the Party Burn

So I go to sleep to Trump giving a really bad speech in Milwaukee and wake up to Trump's campaign in full meltdown mode.

Trump shuffled his campaign office - AGAIN - this time demoting the likes of Manafort - whose growing scandalous ties to corrupt Ukrainians was proving to be a legitimate foreign policy/national security matter - and bringing in this Steve Bannon to take charge. Via the Atlantic:

Donald Trump has hired a senior executive from Breitbart News and promoted a campaign adviser to a top position in an effort to jump-start his presidential campaign, which has been foundering in recent days.

Under the changes announced Wednesday, Stephen Bannon, Breitbart’s executive chairman, will become chief executive of the GOP presidential nominee’s campaign, and Kellyanne Conway, the Republican strategist and pollster, who currently is a senior adviser on the campaign, will become the campaign manager. Paul Manafort, who has come under scrutiny for his reported ties to Ukraine’s former Moscow-backed leader, will retain his title as campaign chairman, though it’s unclear whether he will continue to wield the same kind of influence in the new regime.

I actually wasn't aware of who Bannon was... but then the Internet - like the Atlantic article above - kindly let me know that he's essentially the guy who took over Breitbart's slime machine and kept it going as a conspiracy-hawking, librul-bashing, RINO-hunting monstrosity.

Bloomberg had this back in 2015 (article by Joshua Green):

As befits someone with his peripatetic background, Bannon is a kind of Jekyll-and-Hyde figure in the complicated ecosystem of the right—he's two things at once. And he’s devised a method to influence politics that marries the old-style attack journalism of Breitbart.com, which helped drive out Boehner, with a more sophisticated approach, conducted through the nonprofit Government Accountability Institute, that builds rigorous, fact-based indictments against major politicians, then partners with mainstream media outlets conservatives typically despise to disseminate those findings to the broadest audience.

He's basically an attack dog for the Far Right: shredding political opponents without a care for consequences or facts (despite Green's claims, this is a guy in charge of one of the most fact-free media outlets out there), and pushing a purity purge among the Republican ranks to enforce message discipline.

Putting a guy like Bannon in charge of Trump's campaign is a clear signal that Trump wants to increase the attacks not only on Hillary and Democrats but also on fellow Republicans who are failing to support the Trump brand.

It's still a risky move on three points:

• Bannon's never run a political campaign before, if I've read the articles about him right. Trump's campaign is still a disorganized mess that barely had no ground game and no ad spending (something that eagle-eyed observers are watching)
• Going even more negative than the previous year, at this stage of the general election, can just as easily backfire on Trump. Being negative during the primaries work because that's what your voting base feeds off of. Being super-negative with the mudslinging during the general election will only depress voter turnout among the moderate/independent voters who hate that negativity... and Trump - whose own party support is the lowest any Republican candidate ever had - needs the moderate votes more than Hillary does.
• It still doesn't resolve the internal scandals involving Manafort - whose still on the campaign - and other lackeys with serious (almost criminal) baggage.

This is less Schadenfreude than Oh Crap. Not that Bannon is suddenly going to turn Trump into a winning campaigner, but that Bannon is going to nuke everything from orbit... just to make sure the Narrative stays pure.

At What Point Does Trump Become a Clear And Present Danger to EVERYONE'S Lives? (w/ Updates)

Did he just say what I think he just said?

Per Esme Cribb at Talking Points Memo:

Donald Trump suggested at a Tuesday rally that "the Second Amendment people" might be the only ones who can take action against a Clinton presidency.

In a speech at the University of North Carolina, Trump suggested gun owners could take Clinton out in order to prevent her appointing judges to the Supreme Court.

"If she gets to pick her judges," Trump said, "nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is."

This is essentially Trump calling out for that "Second Amendment Remedy," a phrase that's been floating out there among the Far Right every time they get angry or antsy about something Obama or the Democrats are about to win. The shorthand - the not-so-hidden message - is that the gun-nuts who believe the Second Amendment is "their" right to arm themselves against the government will rise up and "solve" the problem.

And this shit is NOT FUNNY. Trump and his cronies may try to pass this off as a joke, but violence in the real world with serious consequences is NOT a GODDAMN JOKE.

And this isn't imaginary or fake or a pipe dream. We've seen these Second Amendment fetishists commit these acts of gun violence again and again. Remember Oregon earlier this year? Remember the Planned Parenthood shooting?

There are genuine crazy people out there with easy access to firearms who only need the incentive to go and make themselves into "heroes" by shooting the hell out of everybody else.

And Trump right now just egged them on.

It doesn't matter if Trump was suggesting an act of violence towards Hillary, or if Trump was suggesting acts of violence towards any Justices Hillary would nominate. The key thing here is TRUMP WAS SUGGESTING AN ACT OF VIOLENCE, PERIOD.

He called on a group of people who have been pumped up with anger and outrage for DECADES to take to "their" Second Amendment and create a solution. One that speaks of gun violence and death.

At what point does verbal threats like what Trump just did cross a legal threshold? Nobody has the right to go around making death threats, this is not protected speech here. HE IS CALLING ON ACTS OF VIOLENCE.

Someone better fucking arrest him.

Note: follow here to Tom Levenson and Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice, and Charlie Pierce at Esquire, just to get a sense of how maddening this whole thing has become.

Update: I should include Comrade Misfit here. This is someone who, although I agree with a sizable amount of her policy views, is still someone pro-gun ownership and pro-2nd Amendment and I would probably argue over the merits of "well-regulated" vs. "shall not be infringed" with her well into Judgment Day. And even she knows Trump just went Full Batshit Cray-Cray here.

Further: Emily L. Hauser on Twitter is remembering her years in Israel listening to all the violent rhetoric towards Rabin.

And don't forget what happened to Gabby Giffords.

This shit is NOT a joke.

The Deep Breath Before the Plunge, February 2016 Edition (Updated)

Just keeping up with a few tidbits to tidy up and report on:

The long national nightmare folly of having goddamn wingnuts seize a federal wildlife refuge in the middle of winter has ended at long last. The four remaining occupiers - with the last one flipping his lid on a live feed going into the tall grass of conspiracy-mongering - surrendered themselves to federal agents during today.

These were the insurrectionist terrorist jokers who started a revolution and forgot to bring enough snacks and warm socks for the duration.

In hindsight, the way the FBI handled the situation turned out to be the correct one: rather than go in guns blazing, or set up a massive perimeter grid in a grand show of force, the feds allowed the would-be militia "heroes" set themselves up for glory and trip over their own ineptitude. Knowing these guys wanted to be turned into martyrs, the government agents went the other way and stood back to avoid direct conflicts.

In a way, it worked. The occupiers kept staging weird press conferences and went out of their way to bully/frighten the locals, eliminating any good-will and nationwide support for themselves. Meanwhile, the FBI kept close enough surveillance on them, and when the time and location was right - on a deserted mountain road - they moved in to arrest most of the leadership, leading to only one death of the insurrectionists. From then on it was a matter of time before the remaining wingnuts surrendered.

As a bonus, insurgent-daddy Cliven Bundy - he of the unpaid grazing bills and racist outrage - got pinched at the airport flying in to support his kids Ammon and Prince John Ryan. Now he has to answer for those millions in unpaid fees and for threatening to shoot people over his "god-given right" to be a jerk to his neighbors and the citizenry at large.

I was one of those shouting about the double-standard that law enforcement was setting: whenever it's Blacks or minorities protesting in the streets - even peacefully - the cops show up in force and make confrontations inevitable, leading to dozens wounded and communities broken. Here's the thing, law enforcement: you have a model example now of how to handle protests, through surveillance and arms-length distance to keep the peace while any potential anger fizzles out. It's a model that reduces violence and calms the public mood, and it should be used in the cities as much as it's been used in the remote mountains.

Speaking of law enforcement needing to learn better policing from this, this week the Department of Justice brought the hammer down on the city government of Ferguson MO filing civil rights charges in order to enforce policing reforms there.

There had been ongoing negotiations between the DoJ and the city council up until this week, when the council voted to get certain previously agreed provisions changed to the city's favor:

Ferguson’s city council members voted unanimously on Tuesday night to accept the Justice Department’s proposed reforms only if federal officials agreed to seven changes, which included: changing the deadlines in the agreement, not mandating any salary increases for police officers and altering certain fees.

The Justice Department quickly disparaged the city council’s actions as an unfair development after extensive negotiations. Gupta, who heads the department’s Civil Rights Division, vowed that the federal government “will take the necessary legal actions” to reform the city’s courts and policing practices.

I've written before about how damaging bad policing is on communities, and we as a nation are well overdue for law enforcement reforms that would practice Soft Power policing that they used in Oregon.

A place that might need Soft Power policing is within the ranks of the Democratic voters. The consequences of the New Hampshire primary have been a growing squabble between Hillary's backers and BernieBros over endorsements, which is making both sides look like inconsiderate jerks to those of us outside of the party. What the hell, kids, try to remember the real threat here is Rush Limbaugh Bill O'Reilly Sean Hannity the majority of Fox Not-News staffers the Koch brothers Donald Trump Ted Cruz Marco Rubio Jeb Bush John Kasich and/or All Of the Above. I'm with John Cole on this, people. Stay focused on what matters: keeping the Republicans out of the White House and with any luck kick them out of Congress.

In state news, the Florida Legislature is bringing out competing budgets from the Senate and House, with neither budget fulfilling Rick "No Ethics" Scott's desires for even more tax cuts and handouts to businesses, which is a nice touch but is bound to rub each chamber the wrong way. We may yet see another state government shutdown of embarrassment and uncounted costs.

And in other news, Marco Rubio reportedly broke a tooth when he bit into a frozen Twix bar.

...A frozen Twix bar.

Dammit, Rubio, even here in Florida, we put the candy bars in the FRIDGE part of the refrigerator and NOT the FREEZER part. Okay?! OKAY?!?! Jebus, you earned that broken tooth being a damn moran like that. You couldn't even tell how cold and frozen that Twix bar would be?

And he wants us to trust his judgment to serve as President?!?!

Okay, that's me ranting for the night. Good luck, America.

Update 2/12/2016: Just because I have nowhere else to put this and it'd be a waste of a new post, but Jim Gilmore just didn't want to be kicked around anymore. The number of other political commentators weeping in the passing of his campaign is around 2 and 3/5ths. I'm finding out from David A. Graham here that Gilmore did indeed get just 12 votes in all of Iowa (I just usually joke about that, who knew), wow that actually is impressive. Anyway, we're down to five official victims - Jeb, Rubio, Cruz, Kasich, Carson - of the Trump Will Kill Us All Tour, seeing how South Carolina will shred the likes of Kasich and Rubio...

When Last We Left Our Heroic Wingnuts, They Were Going Batsh-t Crazy

On a couple of fronts, just to note these two ongoing situations:

Those Y'allQaeda militia martyr wannabes seizing federal buildings up in Oregon - you know, the ones who DIDN'T PLAN AHEAD - finally found themselves confronted by the federales and state police, and had themselves a brief shootout during the arrest attempt that left one of the militia guys dead and the rest in jail for the charges of "Conspiracy to Impede Officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats" under US Code 18 s372.

It's telling to note these yaybos haven't been charged under a more serious Seditious Conspiracy law (the Impede Officers carries a max of 6 years, Sedition a max of 20), although such charges can be brought later depending if the federal system wants to open up a grand jury investigation after things wind down.

There's still about ten of the Oregon militia terrorists housed at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which the law enforcement finally have surrounded to prevent more would-be wingnuts to add themselves to the standoff. The leader of the group, Ammon Bundy (one of those arrested last night), is calling on the remaining gunmen to "stand down" and leave the park, mostly because he's already got what he and his Far Right buddies wanted: he forced a confrontation with the federal government, and he's got his martyrdom. But the standoff is still happening, and it's not over yet.

This isn't a good situation for the people of that Oregon county or the surrounding communities, and it isn't a good situation for the state and federal authorities. These anti-government militia types - with their skewed interpretation of the Constitution and "sovereignty" that doesn't fit how the U.S. really works - are at the point where they want these confrontations to win their arguments, bully their way out of them, or make themselves "heroes" to their cause to ensure a violent reaction from their allies still at large.

When Bundy and Buddies started their takeover of the park earlier in the month, the local and federal authorities were stuck in a lose-lose situation. On the one hand, those militia jokers were breaking a sh-tload of laws and there needed to be a hard response to that. But on the other hand, that was exactly what Bundy and his ilk wanted, hoping for a gory battle akin to the Waco and Ruby Ridge tragedies.

It didn't help that the immediate response for a lot of Americans - granted, most on Twitter - was disdain over how those gunmen who were most (if not all) White men were getting the kid glove treatment for days while unarmed minorities pulling even non-violent protests would have been tear-gassed, arrested, and beat up within hours. While the feds' actual response was reasonable - don't give them the fight they want - it was bad optics. That they've finally made arrests is a good move... but there's still the damned-if-you-do reality that this is not going to calm things down.

Those Sovereignty / Militia types are going to react to this with more threats, more posturing, more likelihood of violence if not directed at law enforcement then definitely at the cultural scapegoats - immigrants, Blacks, women - they despise.

That said, the second thing of note among the wingnuts is how their Primaries standard-bearer Donald Trump finally blew a fuse and is refusing to show up for next Thursday (already?) FOX-led debate all because Megyn Kelly was going to show up as a moderator and be mean to him.

The first reaction I had hearing the news was "what a p-ssy." Pardon my Swedish.

Seriously. This guy wants to be Leader of the Free World and he's publicly upset about someone hurting his feels. You never see Obama wimping out like this. Even Dubya showed up for press conferences once in awhile.

But on the other hand, Trump's entire campaign style is all about "dissing" others: it's been the ultimate Politically Incorrect campaign since George Wallace in 1968. He's expressed this disdain for the media - even as he phones them for interviews and preens for photo ops - to where he needs to keep up his anti-Establishment persona to keep his fanbase cheering.

Kicking Fox Not-News over something as soul-sucking as a political debate - which have been spectacles of bad behavior and boring cliches - actually won't cost Trump anything among the people who count: his Primary supporters that make up 35 percent of the Republican party's likely voters. Boycotting what will be yet another clown show debate is actually a shrewd move at his point of campaigning: it's a massive middle-finger to the RNC and to the Conservative Establishment media like National Review that's been growing in outrage towards him, and it can draw away interest from the entire show to the detriment of the Republican Party.

This would be interesting, not in terms of watching the debate, but in terms of watching the ratings: Would people tune in to watch a Trump-Free GOP debate between the likes of Cruz, Christie, Rubio, Jeb, Kasich and some of the other carny acts?

Worse: Just how crazy will the other candidates get to pose and bluster for the Far Right voter base so they can steal some of Trump's Primary mojo?

Peak wingnut has yet to happen.

The Revolution of 2016 Will Not Be Organized

Who planned this thing?

Reports are coming out now that the armed thugs seizing control of a national park building in Eastern Oregon are sending out Facebook and Twitter requests to fellow "militias" to ship them snacks and cold weather supplies like socks.

Ignoring the irony of having anti-government gunmen call on their allies to use the US postal service to ship them supplies, the sheer ineptitude of mismanagement is on full display here.

It's like, "Hey Blaine, it's cold where's the socks?" "Uhhhhhh, back at the hotel?" "DAMMIT BLAINE YOU HAD ONE JOB."

This is the one thing you never wanna do to a revolution: You NEVER set yourself up for immediate mockery on social media.

I didn't make this: I need to cite the person who did

What was it Eisenhower said about how the military operates? "In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable." That means the plan you have to attack can fall apart when the operation goes live - your enemies respond in ways you didn't expect, or external forces and accidents interrupt key steps - but if you think ahead on your supplies and support and contingencies (the planning) you can survive the confusing fog of war and win the battle.

There's a reason why the best armies throughout history are the best-supplied ones.

When the US armed forces go out into war, you're damn well certain we are going with enough socks to last the winter.

Bill Mauldin

If you revolutionary wannabes were serious about this "protest" to seize a federal building in a seditious act, you'd have planned it out better. For starters, NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER WHEN IT'S FREAKING COLD IN THE MOUNTAINS FOR GOD'S SAKE.

It's like they'll want to blitz the Russian steppes next February for sh-ts and giggles.

Here's the deal, you militia morans, you Y'allQaeda insurgents, next time someone offers to organize an armed uprising somewhere, you should ask that person three things:

1) Will there be drinks and Doritos?
2) Will there be pleasant distractions such as a month's supply of DVDs of our favorite shows?
3) Do we need to pack extra underwear and wool socks for, oh I dunno, FREAKING WINTER WEATHER?
4) Will you actually plan this sh-t out? Wait, this is four. FOUR Questions you need to be asking, plus if there's working bathroom facilities on the premises and... FIVE... FIVE QUESTIONS that needs be asked, plus whether or not we need to bring our own trash bags to pick up after ourselves and... ah dammit.

Woodstock 1969 was better organized than this. I'm not saying that in a good way.