Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[faberryman]

Yes I like lamb chops.  We buy them from New Zealand. Not gamey.  Very tasty. I've bought Uggs slippers too.  Also comes from sheep.  Australian.  They weren't as tasty.

Lamb chops from New Zealand? I thought the government stole all your money.

[faberryman]

I think I mentioned that L. Lin Wood, the other Krakette, was having a psychotic breakdown. More evidence has appeared. Now he wants Pence arrested for treason and executed by firing squad.

Pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood insists he is not insane after tweeting that Mike Pence should face execution by firing squad

https://www.businessinsider.com/pro-trump-lawyer-l-lin-wood-tweets-that-pence-executed-2021-1

[faberryman]

And I guess all the other Trump supports were cheering her on from the peanut gallery.

'Have a good day, n****r': MAGA-hat wearing women force entire plane to deboard after refusing to wear masks during their Frontier Airlines flight

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9104837/MAGA-hat-wearing-women-force-entire-plane-deboard-refusing-wear-masks-flight.html

[Robert Roaldi]

And I guess all the other Trump supports were cheering her on from the peanut gallery.

'Have a good day, n****r': MAGA-hat wearing women force entire plane to deboard after refusing to wear masks during their Frontier Airlines flight

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9104837/MAGA-hat-wearing-women-force-entire-plane-deboard-refusing-wear-masks-flight.html

Freedom's important, didn't you read the placards at the demonstrations?

Which brings to something I've often wondered about. How do those demonstrators get so many placards so quickly with not much notice? Are they stocked in a warehouse, words to be added later? Kept in some just-in-time inventory supply chain, maybe.

I wonder if you could use Home Depot sales data on 2x2s to determine where the next demonstration is going to be held?

[Robert Roaldi]

These poor folks started their new year badly, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/celebratory-new-years-eve-gunfire_n_5fef3c2dc5b61817a536632a.

Firing off guns during a new year's celebration seems like a waste of ammo.

[Robert Roaldi]

I think I mentioned that L. Lin Wood, the other Krakette, was having a psychotic breakdown. More evidence has appeared. Now he wants Pence arrested for treason and executed by firing squad.

Pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood insists he is not insane after tweeting that Mike Pence should face execution by firing squad

https://www.businessinsider.com/pro-trump-lawyer-l-lin-wood-tweets-that-pence-executed-2021-1

Well, it's all context. In a world where many people think (or pretend to think) that the election was stolen from Trump, then Lin Wood's outbursts seem par for the course. Maybe he owns a piece of a Home Depot and is trying to unload a few pallets of 2x2s.

Maybe he has an undiagnosed brain tumour.

Maybe he's just stupid as a tree stump.

[LesPalenik]

On Netflix there is British dmockumentary about the events in 2020, called  "Death to 2020".  Narrated by Hugh Grant and Samuel Jackson, quite funny.
Here is the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veUqfcyZ_Bo

[TechTalk]

Wednesday is going to be a wild one. Trump even advertised it as a "wild" day when asking his "stop the steal" supporters to come to Washington D.C. on January 6th as the Senate is counting the electoral votes.

"Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/Big Protest-Be there, will be wild!

[faberryman]

Trump tweeted he would hold a big rally in Georgia Monday night at 9:00 pm, the night before the run-off election. Really? Who can stay up that late for a rally? On a Monday no less. Maybe they are doing it later so it will be colder. You don’t want your supporters to miss the experience of having to wait a couple of hours in the cold because someone forgot to book the buses back to the parking lot.

[TechTalk]

Trump Plans to Fight the Election Even After ‘Stop the Steal’ Rally Ends

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-plans-to-fight-the-election-even-after-stop-the-steal-rally-ends

“Must block Dem and [Republicans in Name Only],” one planning graphic posted on pro-Trump forum “The Donald” read, showing a map of key streets around Congress that protesters want to obstruct. “There’s 535 politicians and ~3500 guards.”

Trump diehards from across the country have organized their travel to Washington on “The Donald” forum. One of the hottest topics on the site is how protesters can bring guns to D.C., which would count as a local crime in nearly all circumstances under Washington’s strict gun laws. Others have talked about breaking into federal buildings or committing violence against law enforcement officers who try to stop them from storming Congress.

“I’m thinking it will be literal war on that day,” one popular comment posted last Wednesday read. “Where we’ll storm offices and physically remove and even kill all the D.C. traitors and reclaim the country.”

Both the November and December rallies in Washington saw violence, especially after nightfall. And that seems likely to be the case this coming rally too. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio claimed in a post on conservative social media network Parler that some Proud Boys would dress in black to disguise themselves as left-wing “antifa” protesters.

“Watch out, January 6 — you ain’t gonna know who the fuck it is standing beside you,” prominent Proud Boy Joe Biggs said in a video posted to Parler.

Rally supporters did, however, suffer a setback on Monday when the Hotel Harrington, a budget hotel in the nation’s capital, revealed that it would be closed during the protest. The hotel and its bar, Harry’s, have become hubs for MAGA activity in the city, even after the bar was fined for violating COVID-19 restrictions after being packed with Trump supporters. But both the hotel and the bar announced plans to close around the rally, a few weeks after four people were stabbed near the bar after a Dec. 12 pro-Trump event.

“May God have his vengeance on the Hotel Harrington,” Ali Alexander, a lead organizer of Wednesday’s rally, said in a Twitter video Monday.

[TechTalk]

And inside the Capitol on Wednesday...

At least 12 GOP senators to challenge Biden's win

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/02/ted-cruz-electoral-college-challenge

Nearly a quarter of Senate Republicans are officially preparing to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win on Jan. 6, a stunning development that demonstrates just how far some in the GOP will go to align themselves with President Donald Trump’s flailing claims that the election was stolen from him.

Eleven more Republican senators announced Saturday they will challenge Biden’s election victory next week when Congress gathers to certify the Electoral College vote. The movement is led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who circulated the idea among Senate Republicans of voting against certification of the election unless there’s an election audit.

"We intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified,'" the senators said. "Unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed."

The move is opposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), though the GOP leadership is not whipping against the effort to prevent the certification of Biden as president. In the House, as many as 140 Republicans have indicated they may vote against certifying Biden's Electoral College win.

[faberryman]

Another Trump Administration official takes the Fox News Express to Looney Tune Land.

Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Lies That Biden’s Inauguration Can Be Postponed

https://www.thedailybeast.com/peter-navarro-lies-that-bidens-inauguration-can-be-postponed

[Robert Roaldi]

If this keeps up, the USA is going to lose its top billing as the world's greatest democracy. 

[Robert Roaldi]

So I am just sitting here minding my own business and my computer dings to alert me I have a new email message, and it is from L.L. Bean announcing its new line of clothing called "Athleisure" which appears to be sweatpants and a top. So the first thing that pops into my mind is that I thought the rule was “I before E, except after C or when sounded as A, as in neighbor and weigh" and now we have a a new word Athleisure which doesn't sound like neighbor or way, so now I'm starting to question some of the other things my first grade teacher told me.

I earned my living as a copy-editor on scientific publications before my retirement, which makes me no authority at all on grammar or spelling, but the one thing I learned was that English is complicated and that most of the things that we learned in school were not rules but conventions, and that there are more exceptions than rules to begin with. Your confusion is normal, it's a sign that you're ok.

[faberryman]

I earned my living as a copy-editor on scientific publications before my retirement, which makes me no authority at all on grammar or spelling, but the one thing I learned was that English is complicated and that most of the things that we learned in school were not rules but conventions, and that there are more exceptions than rules to begin with. Your confusion is normal, it's a sign that you're ok.

You are quick on the draw because I deleted my post because after reading it I thought maybe I wasn’t ok. But “Athleisure” is the best the could come up with for sweatpants and a t-shirt? I would have voted for “Zoomwear”.

So it seems as if the US is on two tracts: on the one hand, you have L.L. Bean going about its business thinking up a new name for sweat pants and a t-shirt, which seems like a perfectly normal activity, and on the other hand, in an alternate universe, you have about half the country angling to burn down democracy and install their Lord and Savior Donald Trump as king.

[kers]

If this keeps up, the USA is going to lose its top billing as the world's greatest democracy. 

+1 ; only greatest in the sense of large.
As it seems many republican politicians and citizen seem to like more a kind of Trump-Autocracy governed by yeah-sayers than a democracy.
They don't respect the wish of the voters nor they respect decisions of the independent courts of law.
They live in a world of alternative facts that they choose for their liking and force that opinion onto others.
The USA has sunk deep. Hopefully the US democratic institutions are strong enough to neutralise this attack.

[Alan Klein]

+1 ; only greatest in the sense of large.
As it seems many republican politicians and citizen seem to like more a kind of Trump-Autocracy governed by yeah-sayers than a democracy.
They don't respect the wish of the voters nor they respect decisions of the independent courts of law.
They live in a world of alternative facts that they choose for their liking and force that opinion onto others.
The USA has sunk deep. Hopefully the US democratic institutions are strong enough to neutralise this attack.
 

Democracy is about complaining.  Only in dictatorships can't you complain.

[LesPalenik]

Democracy is about complaining.  Only in dictatorships can't you complain.

Well, depends on. For example, when you live in China or Russia you can complain all day long about Trump or  Biden. Even about Angela Merkel.

[digitaldog]

Democracy is about complaining.  Only in dictatorships can't you complain.

"I have a great distaste for people who always find something to complain about, because life is too short. If they took that same energy they use for complaining and finding fault, and instead put it toward something constructive, they could rebuild the world." -Sandy Kaplan

[faberryman]

Democracy is about complaining.  Only in dictatorships can't you complain.

Speaking of complaining, I have gotten interested in complaining since it has become such a popular pastime lately, and so I looked up why old people complain. Honest to God, the first cause listed for old people complaining is a urinary tract infection (UTI).  Seems in addition to that burning sensation, it alters moods and behaviors. You start complaining about everything. If you don't believe me, google "old people complaining". Maybe the problem is that we have not one, but two pandemics going at the same time: COVID and UTI. Maybe the U.S. is ninth worst in the world for UTI too. So I'm thinking maybe we ought to add some antibiotics to those COVID vaccines, and then move Trump supporters to the front of the line. Otherwise, maybe historians in the future are going to write that America's great experiment in democracy failed because of urinary tract infections. That wouldn't be a good look. I wonder if masks can prevent the spread of urinary tract infections? Maybe if we could get everyone to wear underwear that would do the trick. I guess there would always be a few rugged individualists who would refuse to wear underwear. Maybe as long as they wore pants that would be okay. Of course then you are going to have to deal with rugged individualists who won't wear pants either. So they would just wear their camo shirts and carry guns. That wouldn't be a good look either. And where would they put their wallet and keys?