I Am an Idiot: Zina Bash’s OK Sign Was Completely Innocent After All
There’s no sugar-coating this. I was wrong about this. Badly, badly wrong. Laughably wrong. Zina Bash, the former clerk of Kavanaugh’s who made the OK sign did it for an innocent reason. [UPDATE: To be clear, I never claimed she was an alt righter. I thought she was trolling people on Day Two. That’s what I was wrong about.]
I finally found an explanation for the OK sign and it makes sense to me. It took an updated version of a story from the #FAKENEWSBEZOSPOST together with a longer clip to put it all in context. First, here’s the Washington Post:
But Taylor Foy, a spokesperson for the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, said there was an innocuous explanation for this second “Okay” hand sign as well: the signal was aimed at a judiciary staffer who fulfilled a request for the judge.
Bash texted a staffer during the hearing “to request a water glass for the judge,” Foy said. “Once it arrived, she was simply communicating her thanks.”
In CSPAN’s archive of the hearings, Kavanaugh turns around and speaks to Bash at one point. There’s a coffee cup, but not water glass, on the desk. Bash and the man sitting next to her appear to discuss whatever the judge said as Bash texts on her phone. About a minute later, Bash looks straight ahead and appears to mouth the word “glass.” Then, she gives the OK hand sign.
Shortly after that, a water glass is brought the Kavanaugh’s desk.
Now look at the full video in context. Don’t be misled: she is not mouthing the word “glass” immediately as she is making the sign. She’s saying it at 2:01, to a staffer, and then says the “O” in “OK” when the communication with the staffer is over.
I thought it was weird that she was making the symbol while looking straight forward, towards the Senators, but it’s clear in context (with the explanation) that she was making the symbol to a staffer.
The same Washington Post story does get something wrong, though, by explaining the linkage between the OK sign and the alt right as purely a function of a 2017 4chan thread:
The idea that the hand sign is a secret symbol for white power owes its mainstream spread to a viral troll campaign aimed at making liberals and the media look gullible. In February 2017, 4chan’s /pol/ board discussed ongoing tactics to try to get the idea to go viral. “To any who haven’t seen the original thread, our goal is to convince people on twitter that the ‘ok’ hand sign has been co-opted by neo-nazis,” the original poster of the thread wrote.
As BuzzFeed has reported, /pol/ was gleeful when the okay hand sign started to get mainstream traction. As the campaign spread, however, the symbol was simultaneously adopted by the alt-right — an umbrella term for those on the far right who embrace white nationalist views — and the pro-Trump Internet, both of whom seem to primarily use the gesture to “trigger” liberals who believed the hand sign was a decoder ring to detect secret Nazis.
That’s … not quite accurate. The notion that the alt right started using the symbol after the 2017 4chan thread is not correct. Here’s Richard Spencer election night 2016:
Tonight's the night. pic.twitter.com/grvpHKVAn6
— Richard 🐻 Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) November 8, 2016
The Post’s and ADL’s “let’s all be the adults in the room” rejection of the symbol as connected to the alt right cites a 4chan thread from 2017.
Pop quiz: which came first: Spencer’s November 8, 2016 tweet? Or a 2017 4chan thread?
So maybe it’s not as obviously just trolling as you thought.
But ultimately, those of you who argued that Zina Bash’s particular use of the sign was purely an innocent and reflexive gesture were obviously right, and I was wrong. For example, Leviticus, who said this:
I have no idea who she was signaling, but it seems very clear to me from her eyes and body language that she is signaling somebody in the room in response to a text she just received on her phone.
And this:
I agree, but might the benefit of the doubt, taking all these things into consideration, indicate that this was just an automatic mindless gesture, the product of an ingrained and reflexive habit?
People have such gestures in their repertoires.
And in response to my question “why respond with a gesture rather than a text?” said this:
Because it’s faster? Because it’s more emphatic? I’ve done the same thing in very similar circumstances (not at a Supreme Court nomination hearing, but in a legislative hearing).
In context, that’s exactly what happened.
I understand why I thought this was implausible: she was looking in the direction of the camera and holding up her hand high. If she was responding to a text, why not text? But now that I know more facts, it’s obvious why. You could say she should have been more aware of making the gesture given the kerfuffle the day before. But honestly, under these circumstances, I don’t blame her. At all.
I utterly screwed the pooch on this one. I’m leaving the post up with a prominent update and a link to this post. You guys were right and I was wrong.
I think it’s important to publish this because I think very few people have seen this explanation and/or the video I linked here. In all the people calling me an idiot over this, not one person supplied the information — which doesn’t make you ill-informed, but just tells me that the real explanation has not gotten enough publicity. Here’s hoping that this post can do just a little bit to fix that.
My sincere apologies to Zina Bash and her husband for contributing to the silly noise over this issue. I feel sick about it. I think (other than my usual Sunday morning post) that I’ll take the rest of the weekend off.
UPDATE: A lot of people are claiming that a single photo of Richard Spencer from November 2016 does not disprove the oft-repeated claim that the meme originated as a 4chan troll from February 2017. With all due respect, folks, you’re wrong. The 4chan post is here and was made on February 27, 2017. Hoft and Wintrich were throwing the sign in the White House briefing room on February 13, 2017. Note the Pepe frog in the tweet:
Jim Hoft and Lucian Wintrich at White House Press Room #Pepe @gatewaypundit @lucianwintrich 🐸 pic.twitter.com/2dOGcVnbyC
— Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit) February 13, 2017
In case you’re in doubt about the frog being Pepe:
“Meme it and it will come.”
It’s not just Richard Spencer. And all of this pre-dated the 4chan thread.
It’s an alt right symbol.
UPDATE x2: And of course many people use it just to mean “OK.” Duh. You’d think from some of the comments that I’m denying that. Good Lord. Of course I’m not.
I told a story in the previous thread about a gang that uses the thumbs up as a gang sign. Observing that this happens does not make it a gang sign for everyone. I use the OK sign and the thumbs up sign. But if I were a black male in his 20s in Rollin’ 20s territory, I would be very careful about flashing the Insanes gang sign.
I’m not denying that an OK sign generally just means OK. Calm the heck down. But when Richard Spencer used it in connection with Trump’s victory, or Jim Hoft tweeted it with a picture of Pepe making the same symbol before 4chan ever suggested making it a troll, or Milo tweeted it in connection with Trump’s victory and suggested people make it a “meme,” those people at that time were using it as an alt right symbol. Whether you like it or not, that’s a fact.
If that makes you mad, blame them for doing it — not me for pointing it out.
[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]
Ding.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:54 amwhy didn’t she do thumb’s up instead of the racism one
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:55 amAlthough it’s embarrassing, I hope this post is spread far and wide, because I want to make up for my contribution to this $#!(storm in some small way.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:08 pmYour actions speak well of your honor, Patterico. Long may you wave.
felipe (023cc9) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:08 pmhttps://youtu.be/yGHgd1RDvOE
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:09 pmRegardless, there still may be enough here to justify a special counsel.
Munroe (c80181) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:15 pmROFLMAO have Kavanaugh’s medical records been reviewed for kidney issues for this gig?
A full screen video of Kavanaugh seated at the desk shows a few bottles of water are on the desk to his right and he opens one and fills a glass as cameras clicked– a scene which caught my eye.
Don’t buy it, kids.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:16 pmIt’s rarely a good idea to join the liberal outrage mob.
Also, requiring evidence of innocence to overcome the presumption of guilt is not a good look.
Having said that, owning up to ones mistakes is good and virtuous. Kudos.
lee (5789d5) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:21 pmThank you for the update Patrick. I was hoping a more complete video would appear.
BuDuh (f6f63b) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:28 pmThis is Washington Swamp Creature 101. An aide needs an aide to step-and-fetch?!?!
Seriously?! Was somebody going to steal her seat? If it truly is ‘innocent’ – just get up off your ass and go get a bottle of water for the guy, for Christ’s Sake.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:30 pm‘In CSPAN’s archive of the hearings, Kavanaugh turns around and speaks to Bash at one point. There’s a coffee cup, but not water glass, on the desk. Bash and the man sitting next to her appear to discuss whatever the judge said as Bash texts on her phone. About a minute later, Bash looks straight ahead and appears to mouth the word “glass.” Then, she gives the OK hand sign.’
Oh BTW, ‘fake news,’ WaPo.
Kavanaugh had bottles of water on his desk and when seated, moved them to he front and right as camera clicked away a him– opened one and poured it into a glass at the start of his hearing. The scenwas curious because it was clear Kavanaugh moved the bottles for his convenience and for the photogs clicking away.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:36 pmi drink water a lot when i do the congress hearings number one your throat gets really dry number two taking a sip of water can give you time to think about your answer plus it can help you suppress a smile or a smirl when that stupid hot-to-trot cougar lady from california starts talking
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:39 pmFor this site, a post about someone making a mistake is remarkably free of insults and snide remarks.
harkin (47ad2b) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:39 pmoops not a *smirl* i retract that word
i meant to say *smirk*
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:40 pm@12.i drink water a lot when i do the congress hearings number one your throat gets really dry number two taking a sip of water can give you time to think about your answer plus it can help you suppress a smile or a smirl when that stupid hot-to-trot cougar lady from california starts talking
That shouldn’t be an issue here, Mr. Feet; Kavanaugh didn’t say much.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:41 pmi watched a few clicks he seems like he could maybe go to a cosmetic dermatologist and really get his money’s worth
blotchy little man
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:44 pm@16. May have kidney issues, Mr. Feet, w/all that H20 he’s downing. Guess he won’t outlaw kidney transplants and animal neutering by overturning Schmoe vs. Spade.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:47 pmspeaking of the corrupt incompetent jeffy sessions justice department
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:50 pmYour passion comes through again, Patterico.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:51 pmThanks for the update.
@18. There’s NRA fingerprints all over her, Mr. Feet. Literally.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:53 pmOne should drink half your body weight in ounces of water every day. he looks like a 60-70 ounce a day guy, doncha think?
mg (8cbc69) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:53 pmHer asking for the glass to be delivered was just part of the troll.
kaf (0ff60d) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:57 pm@21. He seems to hold it well- unless there’s a ‘Motorman’s Friend’ strapped to his leg. Or does Zina have an innocent signal to get that emptied as well? 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:57 pmits funny reading how everyone is an idiot at the recent column section.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/8/2018 @ 12:58 pmHuh.
Glad I waited before posting on the subject.
You are a good person who made a mistake- not an idiot. Temporarily lost your way maybe.
In the future and when it is my turn on the self abasement turntable, let it be known that I prefer to be called baboso which Mexicans translate as “drooler” or “slobberer”.
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:01 pmThey seemed to get plenty of breaks for lavatory time. Must be a union thing.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:01 pm@21. Gee, maybe SCOTUS noms wear them there government issued astro-diapers. Leahy, Grassley and Hatch ‘swear’-in by’em.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:02 pm26.They seemed to get plenty of breaks for lavatory time. Must be a union thing.
Beats voting.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:02 pmKudos
Skorcher (7af39f) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:04 pmInnocent or not, it is Washingtom Swamp Creature peculiar that in a place where everybody talks – nobody just gets up and goes for it or asks out loud for something- instead there’s a chain of hand signals, phone texts and mouthed stage whispers. And we pay for this kabuki crap.
Taxpayers should demand everybody BYOB and pack a lunch.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:09 pmTo the person who wondered why Bash didn’t switch to a thumbs up- why should she cave and let a harmless symbol become totally co-opted by the alt-right?
I might be wrong, but if my memory serves, US Troops used this handsign a lot in WWII
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:09 pmIt was always obvious Kennedy and Dodd were BYOB from dawn onward
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:11 pmjohn huntsman free trade mole in trump administration spokesman’s non senile senile that he is nyt free trader mole.
lany (7f33e7) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:24 pmSaletan’s case against Huntsman is intriguing.
Patterico (9aff24) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:32 pmYour first (worst?) mistake was to imply that the rest of us can’t use a benign hand signal just because the alt right hijacked it for their own purposes. That’s complete and utter surrender. THEY don’t get to decide what we can or cannot do.
Ryan (95e5ab) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:37 pmPatterico demonstrates (again) that he is a bigger man than Donald J. Trump.
Radegunda (fee704) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:46 pmGood for you Patterico. I have had a lot of respect for you for many years, long before Trump. Thank you for doing the right thing.
Anne (607fc8) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:47 pmfree trade republicans trying to bring down trump. desperate democrats join in though they are supposed to be for working class. jeff bezo’s money buys demorats except for bernie sanders.
lany (7f33e7) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:48 pm@33. Huntsman currently U.S. Ambassador to Russia, was not “in the Cabinet” ‘early on’ when the 25th was being bantered about, either.
Wouldn’t over-think this too much.
Like Nixon’s boys, these guys really aren’t very bright about this stuff and don’t excel at palace intrigue. Somebody inked this after the disrespect for McCain week peaked w/flags up and down and it was the final straw. Pence was the administration’s face man that week and took the heat. Coats is a good guess but my money is still on Mike Pence. He is an elected official after all and safe in so far as it goes, can’t be fired but can be iced out and dumped in 2020 – ‘however it ends.’ What’s Trump gonna do if it turns out to be him– demand he resign? Nero or Spiro is his fate.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:49 pm“Pop quiz: which came first: Spencer’s November 8, 2016 tweet? ”
If that’s your criteria, I can show you pictures of black guys flashing this sign in the 70s that’ll blow your mind
Max Stewart (80459c) — 9/8/2018 @ 1:57 pmDon’t fault Patterico at all on this given the climate of the times.
But really, all kidding aside, just boil off the fat: all this over a guy wanting a glass and some water? The layers of hand signals, texts, nods and stage whispers for aides to aides to aid for something so simple is classic entitlement Swamp Creature crap. All she had to do was get up and go get it– who’d steal her seat? It’s this sense of ‘entitlement’ which was part of the reason why Trump was elected to begin with.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:00 pmhttps://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2018/09/08/props-writer-admits-i-am-an-idiot-apologizes-to-zina-bash-and-husband-over-white-power-sign/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:03 pmMaybe Trump will send out a tweet congratulating you on being a man of integrity.
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:06 pmAlways appreciate your honesty, Pat.
10SCgal (e71fcf) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:12 pmSince all of you looked at what Zina did, she now gets to punch you. I hope she puts in on her forehead next time.
D B (2f86e8) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:21 pmSpeaking of water, it really all breaks down to this:
https://mobile.twitter.com/trollasaurusrx/status/1038484584369979393/photo/1
You can add ‘and anyone else suffering from TDS’ to the graphic.
harkin (47ad2b) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:21 pmYou had to know someone would pitch a fit and insist it’s still her fault.
“All she had to do was get up and go get those strawberries from the mess crew, who’d steal her seat? It’s this sense of ‘entitlement’ and lack of geometric precision which was part of the reason why Trump was elected to begin with.
FYP
harkin (47ad2b) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:25 pmSadly, there are a lot of people who believe (or desperately want to believe), even among Kavanaugh & Trump supporters, that it was intentional trolling on her part. I’ve been slammed elsewhere for expressing the opinion that, if she really was trolling, it was childish, unprofessional and a disservice to Kavanaugh. So I hope, Patrick, that you are absolutely correct in your assessment, with which I agree.
Daiwa (2a0965) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:28 pmNo Pat, you are not an idiot. Anyone can make a mistake. An honorable person admits, apologizes and moves on.
Stu707 (e2fb68) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:28 pmI appreciate the apology and respect the integrity required in doing so.
But please consider the mind-set it takes to leap to the conclusions that you originally did and how quickly you made that leap. What other assumptions are you making Patterico?
Why is it that the OK symbol by one hand has now become a symbol of racism?
If I confront anyone with an L symbol, will that now become racist?
How about if I extend a middle finger towards anyone of a protected class? Will that now be deemed racist?
And Patterico, what I would like you to document all of the ‘hate crimes’ charged in your district, and let us know how many are committed by white (non-hispanic) men. I bet the numbers themselves might encourage some self reflection.
Jack (e5af45) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:30 pmYes, and among my emoticons on my IPad this “racist” ok sign comes in several colors.
Black supremacy. White supremacy. Yellow supremacy. Who knew? But how cool! Right? /s
El Hombre (3cc90b) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:33 pmNot the first time you’ve been horribly wring..
macleod (182c44) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:33 pmOMG, Lefties are a hoot!
Diggs (9c5f1e) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:34 pmP: “I was wrong. It wasn’t a neo-Nazi sign. She just wanted someone to get waterfor Kavanaugh.”
Leftie: “He’s got kidney problems!” “We don’t beltbelieve you, this Jewish Hispanic woman is a neo-Nazi, you’re being fooled!”
O/T but I’m going on the record early: if the Dems nominate Biden, and our Captain survives Typhoon Mueller, I’m voting for Trump. Again.
He’s no spring chicken either, but in ’86 my old jeep was new and Biden already had about 14 Senate years on him. Today the ol’ carbureted smoker sans airbags is cranking w/147,000 miles more on it; so is Biden. Both these parties are overdue for fresh thinking and new blood for the 21st Century.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:34 pm@53. Diggiedoo- have your girl get to my girl by nod, wink, hand signal, text, telegraph, telegram or semaphore to ask for a glass of water. Know it’s too much trouble for her to get up off her young ass and just go get it herself.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:38 pmGreeeaaatttt, Kavanaugh might get swayed by way of clandestine dialysis treatments alongside Sotomayor.
urbanleftbehind (2eb14d) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:38 pmI like Kevin Williamson’s take: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/alt-right-ok-gesture-urban-legend-longing-for-identity/
Daiwa (2a0965) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:44 pmYou are even dumber for thinking Hillary was preferable to Trump. So don’t worry, no one takes you seriously anymore anyway.
Yousuck (bf3de7) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:44 pm@58. Hall of Mirrors broke for lunch, eh. Time for reflection.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:49 pmYou are an idiot.
donald j tingle (477e71) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:50 pmOf course the hand symbol in question means “OK.” What you failed to learn is that the word “OK” has itself been co-opted, and if you write or say it now, you’re a racist.
DWPittelli (7d543e) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:51 pmUPDATE: A lot of people are claiming that a single photo of Richard Spencer from November 2016 does not disprove the oft-repeated claim that the meme originated as a 4chan troll from February 2017. With all due respect, folks, you’re wrong. The 4chan post is here and was made on February 27, 2017. Hoft and Wintrich were throwing the sign in the White House briefing room on February 13, 2017. Note the Pepe frog in the tweet:
In case you’re in doubt about the frog being Pepe:
It’s not just Richard Spencer. And all of this pre-dated the 4chan thread.
It’s an alt right symbol.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:55 pmGood Lord, look at the trash on this thread.
Thank you to each and every post by people who stuck to the point, and thanked Patterico for having the basic honesty and decency to admit when he was wrong. It’s rare, and needs to be valued.
There are lots of folks here posting who, to my certain knowledge, have never shown that level of self-introspection and honesty. And they just post to be jackwagons. Business as usual.
I salute you, Patterico.
One of the things that everyone needs to guard against is letting narrative conquer reason. This is another example; folks on various sides were SO ready to believe the worst. We don’t like it when it done to us, and yet we seem to be perfectly okay doing it to others.
Narrative is bumper sticker thinking. Vacuous, and without context or nuance. All cheerleading and sloganeering.
We need to be better than that, and every one of us needs to struggle against it. Everyone.
Heck, I remember when I was in graduate school, and my PhD advisor got a Presidential Young Investigator fellowship when Reagan was POTUS. Got to dine at the White House. My advisor was a progressive Leftist, and it was tough for her/him. One of my lab mates sneered that Reagan was going to “cut the program” because “he hated science.” But it was the first year it was offered.
I just laughed at my lab mate. “I swear,” I told him, “if Reagan gave you a hundred bucks, you would be mad it wasn’t 200.”
Narrative turns off the brain. And I consider it to be the source of tribalism.
Thanks again, Patterico, for showing how a mistake is handled with honesty and directness.
Simon Jester (b90f94) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:56 pmBy the way….
When I was in college at UCLA a long time ago, something happened that stuck with me.
In those closeted times, gay folk wanted more awareness. Fair enough.
So a group of gay students put up posters all over campus: “GAY BLUE JEANS DAY.” That is, wearing blue jeans meant you supported gay rights.
It’s fine to be gay. Fine to promote gay rights. I really don’t care what people do in private, and never have.
But the event backfired, because it was trying to co-opt people all over campus (since most people at least owned blue jeans). A lot of folks got angry, and then they were called bigots (even all those years ago). Ugh.
So I am always irritable when any group tries to co-opt a method of dress or hand signal to promote their own agenda—because what they are really trying to do is get people to agree with them. And I would rather be reasoned with, rather than propagandized.
The “OK” symbol seems much the same.
Simon Jester (b90f94) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:04 pmOf course, you made that up.
I never said any such thing.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:05 pmThe post has been linked by Instapundit, which probably explains the uptick in hostile comments.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:09 pmYou do, of course, know that in parts of Latin America – Mrs. Bash is Latina, right? – the O.K. sign has its own meaning? A distinctly vulgar one, which varies slightly from region to region. And I bet she is well aware of that meaning.
The vulgar meaning would perfectly fit the circumstance of her use of it of the end of the second day of the hearing.
So, are you really sure about her?
ThOR (885b65) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:14 pmI hope you are doing well.
ThOR (885b65) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:17 pmReformulating an entrenched position based on new data is a sign of integrity, particularly these days. Ignore the haters.
Leviticus (c4c70e) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:22 pmSometimes a cigar is just a cigar. In fact, a cigar is nearly ALWAYS just a cigar.
The OK sign is an okay sign. No matter who decides to use it. It means okay. Even if people use it that you don’t like. It’s still just an okay sign.
Eventually someone despicable is going to blink. And then all of us will be despicable because we blink.
stan Brown (c70340) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:23 pmSometimes an “okay” sign is just an “okay” sign. It’s meant “okay” since my father was a kid, and probably before. Because it’s used by an alt-right person in one photo doesn’t change that, or imply that the sign used by him meant anything but “okay.”
There are multiple examples of progressives flashing the sign, including Barack Obama. It means “okay.”
The Left is approaching clinical insanity.
MartynW (4dfaaf) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:27 pm“I never said any such thing.”
I will vouch for this. You said there is no difference between them. Which of course is also…
not right.
Ha! You thought I was going to say dumb, huh? That’s because you’re…
Jumping to wrong conclusions.
Did I get you again?
Careful! As the Doobies warn, what were once vices are now habits.
lee (5789d5) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:27 pmThe comments there are delightful.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:28 pmNo, the reason Trump won is because people like you and Patterico slander people and call them racists and Nazis to pander to your Democrat friends, and then when you have that completely blow up in your face, you blame the people you slander for “provoking” you by being “entitled”.
She’s not to blame. You are. And that’s why this fake “apology” from Patterico is a laughable farce, because he and his fellow lynch mob members like you who are still mad your Hillary lost are screaming and spinning and trying to blame her instead of acknowledging that your bigotry and hatred of Trump voters and staffers makes you irrational.
North Dallas Thirty (298513) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:29 pmIt’s a thing… https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRuiV-JpB5bE_oor1TKRmtPo6iU6YCmSS9kMW_4rPSJEwFnQfI
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:34 pmIn this comment section, I’m seeing a lot of people slapping the host on the back for his “honorable and honest” act of owning up to his error. This is similar to the police showing you a surveillance video of yourself shoplifting a bottle of hootch from the local Booze Boutique and then “bravely” admitting that you did indeed shove that bottle down your pants.
Then Patterico STILL keeps insisting that “the OK sign is a secret Russian Nazi Skinhead signal” so all the KKK members watching at home will know that it’s time to pour the Kingsford charcoal fluid on the cross in the backyard and strike the Zippo.
Do you dopes want more Trump? Because silly jazz like this along with the “protestors” getting the vapors whilst running around in their hand-make Handmaid costumes will bring out the Trumpists in droves.
Please keep it up.
Mumblix Grumph (5b0180) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:34 pmI am here for one reason only: This story popped up in “Memeorandum,” a news aggregator that I use. I followed the link and read it, and saw this comment.
I was a reporter in Washington from 1985 to 1990. I covered scores of hearings; in fact, maybe a few hundred. In a crowded hearing room, you really don’t get up if you can help it. There isn’t a lot of room, and if people shuffled in and out it would be a big problem.
Not only that, but there aren’t vending machines all over the place, or at least there weren’t in the 1980s. There are cafeterias, but they’re generally pretty far from hearing rooms. In context, it was almost certainly a lot easier for a staffer to go fetch the water. My comment is strictly logistical, and not partisan in any way.
CP (49e778) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:35 pmI was fooled by all the Bach connection.
william elbel (fd5d32) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:38 pmBut, making a big deal about that hand composition means it’s time to drop Pat from my opinions list
How dare I notice something the alt right did.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:46 pmI need to pretend that alt righters didn’t adopt the OK symbol in order to be welcomed back into the fold.
Oh well.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:48 pmMhm.
Aren’t you a prosecutor? Because you declared Zina Bash to be a white supremacist, then went looking for evidence to “prove” your accusation.
And my favorite: you and your fellow lynch mob members are now claiming that Zina Bash “provoked” you into acting like idiots.
That’s backward of the way that it usually works, but we have to remember that at this point, you NeverTrump imbeciles are so desperate that you’re indistinguishable from your fellow leftists in Handmaids costumes in terms of being either intelligent or rational.
But it’s that endorphin rush of having all those liberals and your fellow lynch mob members give you kudos, isn’t it? You don’t really care if she’s a racist or not; you’re just desperate to smear and attack Trump and you’ll just accuse anyone of being a racist if, in your irrational state, you think it will hurt Trump.
North Dallas Thirty (298513) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:51 pmWow. Such narrative over reason.
Patterico, what the hell is wrong with these people?
Simon Jester (b90f94) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:56 pmThe Never Trumpers seem like a man standing on one leg. He then kicks upward with the other leg. He is shocked when he falls flat on his you know what.
DN (e91bf6) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:57 pmMr. Strzok could have learned from that.
Paul Montagu (a42fad) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:57 pmhttps://m.imgur.com/gallery/UAVCvT6
LOL.
That’s like screaming that anyone who watches “A Handmaid’s Tale” is a nutjob liberal abortionist because nutjob liberal abortionists have adopted it as their symbol.
No, what you’re ACTUALLY saying is that anyone who uses the OK symbol is a white supremacist and a Nazi.
That’s why you slandered Zina Bash. That’s why you and your fellow lynch mob members slandered her as a Nazi and a racist. That’s why you sided with your fellow Democrats in slandering her as a racist and a Nazi and endangering her life.
And now you’re desperately looking for evidence after your slander to prove it’s right and make excuses for why she’s to blame for YOUR idiotic behavior.
Here’s the problem: you and your fellow imbeciles are so unhinged over Donald Trump that you’re slandering and harming innocent people because you, in your disordered mind, somehow believe that this is hurting Trump.
You are completely nuts. Worse, you’re well into psychopathy if you’re willing to harm innocent people to attack Donald Trump.
You lost. Get over it. Or you’re going to force us to recognize that you and your fellow Democrats are going to make it impossible to have a peaceful transfer of power in this country while you shriek and call for assassinations and coups because your Hillary lost and someone you hated won.
North Dallas Thirty (298513) — 9/8/2018 @ 3:58 pmWho keeps up with this crap? Until this story started running I never heard of this as a white supremacist thing. It’s a friggin’ OK sign!!! Quit hijacking innocent stuff for something evil. There are probably a handful of people who use that signal for this purpose and the default should be that it’s the more innocent one. This country is going down the tubes and it ain’t because of Trump. It’s because of f&&)))*king insane people who see evil in everything.
Ken James (d0ddba) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:00 pmShow me where I did that. You can’t, because I didn’t.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:00 pmYou have Trump-level reading comprehension.
1. I did not call her an alt righter.
2. I do NOT blame her. For anything.
3. My sin was thinking she was trolling people on Day Two. A lot of righties thought that and applauded. I thought it and decried it. We were all wrong.
4. Now dipshits like you make stuff up about what I said and go insane while totally unable to read what I wrote.
You’re too stupid to post here. Goodbye.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:02 pmMost of the names you don’t recognize are coming here from Instapundit.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:04 pmHa!
Paul Montagu (a42fad) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:04 pmI made no such claim anywhere. You pulled that straight out of your hind quarters.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:05 pmBlame the alt righters. As the update shows, they appropriated the sign for themselves.
BEFORE 4chan.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:06 pmNo, I am not. God, you’re stupid.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:10 pmMr. Huntsman’s denial was just as categorical as Ms. Haley’s, and they both have good character.
Paul Montagu (a42fad) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:16 pmWell done. Let’s move forward.
NJRob (b00189) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:21 pmWhat you are ACTUALLY saying is:
1. Some OKs are just OKs.
2.Some OKs are alt right / white power secret handshakes
3. Some OKs are trolling / owning the lefties.
you thought it as 3 but it turned out to be 1.
kaf (0ff60d) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:30 pmand you acknowledged that.
And on that note: https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2018/09/08/props-writer-admits-i-am-an-idiot-apologizes-to-zina-bash-and-husband-over-white-power-sign/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
10SCgal (e71fcf) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:31 pmSuch are the hazards of online media and trying to be rapid with hot-take responses. I’ve had problems with Trump since he bulldozed the Bonwit-Teller building ahead of it being landmarked back in 1979 to make way for Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. But when you get to the point where your mindset thinks Brett Kavanaugh — who would likely have been Jeb’s first choice for the Supreme Court, if he had actually won the White House — is going to have one of his former law clerks sitting behind him giving some goofy white power signal, you’ve gotten to the point where Donald Trump owns your ideology, in that people and things you would have had no problem with three years ago suddenly take on nefarious connotations, because Trump’s come in contact with them.
Better to be in the Jonah Goldberg-Kevin Williamson zone — where they have no love of Trump but don’t let it affect their core beliefs — than to trot over the Jennifer Rubinland, where opposing Trump and anything he does becomes a reflexive response that causes you to say and support things you never would have before, simply because being on the other side of the issue from Donald Trump and making sure everything he does fails has become the most important thing in the world.
John (0c6f4f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:34 pm“all of this pre-dated the 4chan thread.
It’s an alt right symbol.”
Pure insanity. EVERYONE uses the OK sign. It is a universal Americanism and has been for a long time, meaning “clear for takeoff,” “got your signal,” “passed the test,” “no need to call the police,” “yeah, go ahead,” “nice going,” “everything’s copacetic.”
Pranksters, whether of the fictional “Alt-right” or not, CANNOT CHANGE THE MEANING of this universal American symbol, and that anyone would EVER concede otherwise is not just to be a ridiculous dupe it is to abet malicious perversion.
Jim Hoft did a #pepe? So what? This is a meme that at one point went around having nothing whatsoever to do with racism. Did some racists participate in it? And that becomes a basis for slandering a much larger number of non racists? And Patterico thinks that is OK?
Hoft is NOT a racist. That tweet (assuming it is real) should clearly disprove to Patterico that there was anything the least bit racist about the pepe meme, until some idiots succeeded in planting this perverted idea in some people’s minds. Now the same thing is being done to the OK sign?? And Patterico is OK with that???
This is monstrous. Stop it!
Alec Rawls (6dcadc) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:35 pmWell, I would hold short of “well done” myself. He’s still maintaining the OK hand gesture is a white supremacist dog whistle, and so using it is highly suspicious unless it’s innocence is provable. Kinda like yelling at your dog “here boy!” In the vicinity of a black person.
A “reasonable man” might take offense. Guard well your “free speech” accordingly comrade.
lee (5789d5) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:37 pmThis mea culpa is a good thing and posting it speaks well of the host.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:37 pmIt’s almost like someone understands!
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:38 pmI suppose we might ask why the hurried interest in believing something so silly. A predisposition?
Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:38 pmComment 100 directed at #95.
lee (5789d5) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:38 pm“It ain’t easy being green.”
—- Kermit teh Frog
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:39 pmThere are way way way more SJW and NT hysterics than there are alt-righters. So they are much more troubling to me and are causing way more harm than their enemies. They are inventing problems precisely because they can’t find enough actual real problems to justify their hysteria and moral preening. This event was not about a massive and rising threat from the alt-right. It was about a constant attempt to create panic that Patterico is either a victim of or an advocate of. He seems deeply committed to creating as much hysteria and division as he can. He is now spending his time researching time stamps on scattered, obscure and meaningless internet evidence of a handful of cranks and trolls in order to justify being not at all different from the people he is afraid of. He seems prone to moral panics and that is concerning given his profession.
He is also clearly using abject and preening apologies over minor errors to help bolster his continued adherence to major errors. So much of the NT and SJW and alt-right behavior is driven by this kind of narcissism. They all deserve each other. I am OK with Patterico and Spencer and the people in hand maids outfits being lumped together as all some vile concoction of paranoia, self-righteousness and identification hysteria. Ok? I reall am OK with that. I’m Ok and I hope you are Ok too.
Aaron Weingrad (8dd629) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:40 pmLee I understand, but owning up to a mistake is a big thing for most people, myself included. It deserves to be well done.
I think the bigger issue is that too many think that the alt-right is the same as the alt-white group within it. There’s overlap, but in reality very few people are white supremacists. Claiming Hoft or Milo are is silly.
It’s why that moron who tried to have another rally didn’t have anyone show up. Racism is dead. Let’s not resurrect it like the left is trying to do.
NJRob (b00189) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:43 pmI’m okay. You’re so-so.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:45 pmUPDATE x2: And of course many people use it just to mean “OK.” Duh. You’d think from some of the comments that I’m denying that. Good Lord. Of course I’m not.
I told a story in the previous thread about a gang that uses the thumbs up as a gang sign. Observing that this happens does not make it a gang sign for everyone. I use the OK sign and the thumbs up sign. But if I were a black male in his 20s in Rollin’ 20s territory, I would be very careful about flashing the Insanes gang sign.
I’m not denying that an OK sign generally just means OK. Calm the heck down. But when Richard Spencer used it in connection with Trump’s victory, or Jim Hoft tweeted it with a picture of Pepe making the same symbol before 4chan ever suggested making it a troll, or Milo tweeted it in connection with Trump’s victory and suggested people make it a “meme,” those people at that time were using it as an alt right symbol. Whether you like it or not, that’s a fact.
If that makes you mad, blame them for doing it — not me for pointing it out.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:45 pmDid the Insanes “change the meaning” of the thumbs up when they chose it as one of their gang signs?
Regardless of your answer, if you use it in Rollin’ 20s territory, you risk getting shot no matter what you THINK it means.
Context is a bitch.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:49 pmBye Aaron. You’re banned.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:50 pmIt boils down to Democrats and neverTrumpers looking for anything they can use against Trump, no matter how ridiculous. That they hurt innocent people in the process means nothing to them
William Maron (5c4117) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:52 pm“too many think that the alt-right is the same as the alt-white group within it.”
This is a great point, and I wish more people would recognize it. Unfortunately, too many have an agenda that wouldn’t let them. It’s no different than when David Duke endorses a Republican; leftists and their sympathizers (*cough*nevertrumpers*cough*) claim that republican endorses David Duke’s ideology.
It’s cynical and dishonest, and needs to be called out as such.
lee (5789d5) — 9/8/2018 @ 4:54 pmThe comments from people I haven’t seen before are, uh, interesting. It smells like a lot of Instapundit folks came over.
Paul Montagu (3108b4) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:07 pmI get it, Patrick. I said something wrong last night and I apologized. You did so on a larger stage. It happens. We learn from the experience and are the better for it.
Ayup. That’s the size of it.
And they’re PISSED that I still maintain — because it’s true — that alt righters used the OK symbol shortly after Trump’s election as an alt right symbol.
Too bad. Truth is truth. Deal with it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:14 pm#109
Are you saying Bash should have known better than to use the “A-OK” anywhere TV shows DC activities because of the place and context
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:16 pmNot really, no. I am saying that when Hoft and Wintrich and Spencer and Milo used it, they were identifying with the alt right. And the theory that it was a 4chan hoax is just wrong, because they were doing it before the 4chan poster ever suggested it.
That doesn’t mean anyone who uses it is an alt righter. But if you use it in a context where you know people might reasonably take it that way, it’s risky. Again: flashing the thumbs up in Rollin’ 20s territory might get you shot, regardless of what you meant. If you were warned beforehand, it doesn’t mean it’s your fault you were shot, but you’ll still be shot whether you were to blame or not.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:20 pmI didn’t say it was a white supremacist sign. I said it was an alt right sign.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:23 pmWhat I did say was “the sign, like Pepe the frog, has become a symbol of the alt right, and thus at least flirts with white nationalism.”
And that is true.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:24 pmWhen used by alt righters like Spencer and Milo and Hoft and Wintrich.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:24 pm@113- I find it interesting that some of the comments here, and some from the post that this post addresses, have taken an adversarial view to instapundit. Like this one. Sorta revealing in retrospect. Where is that commenter in this thread by the way? Pretty prominent in the earlier thread…
Considering again, perhaps “appalling” would be a better word than interesting.
lee (5789d5) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:25 pmI find it interesting that my comment section swarms with cretins when he links a post of mine.
Interesting, and sad. Nobody promoted me in my formative years as a blogger than Instapundit. Nobody.
I don’t have anything against him as a person, but his commenters are something else.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:28 pm@74. No, the reason Trump won is because people like you and Patterico slander people and call them racists and Nazis to pander to your Democrat friends, and then when you have that completely blow up in your face, you blame the people you slander for “provoking” you by being “entitled”.
@NorthDallasForty: flag on the play; voted for Trump, you dummy.
Hit the showers, rookie.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:28 pmIf a man is standing on one leg, and then kicks with the other leg, he is kicking with the leg he is not standing on. So why should he then fall?
Perhaps you need to rewatch the climax of The Karate Kid?
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:29 pm“If that makes you mad, blame them for doing it — not me for pointing it out.”
But Milo and Hoft and others who may have been using pepe or the OK sign as a meme were not intending anything racist by it.
Ditto for “alt-right” itself. The first time 99% of America heard the term Alt-right was when Hillary Rotten Clinton used it to label “half of Trump supporters.” The obvious suggestion was that it was a term for the half of Trump supporters who saw themselves, like Trump, as battling not just the Democrats but the so-called GOPe, the “establishment GOP,” then coming out as NeverTrumpers.
OK, there’s a term that makes sense. Then came the bait-and-switch. Wait, what? The term was actually invented by an old-timey KKK-DEMOCRAT/ Jew-hating leftist named Richard Spencer? How does a black-hating Jew-hating KKK-leftist get to define ANYTHING about the right?
Spencer is the twin that other leftist KKK leader of about 200 followers, that Kessler moron, who is a recent alumni of Occupy Wall Street and of Obama’s Organizing for America. Using Alt-right to refer interchangeably to racist-leftist National Socialists and to the electoral majority that support President Trump is a sweeping slander akin to the fraudulent association of the OK sign with “white power.”
There is no Alt-right. It was a fraudulent term from the beginning and in every use. The radical leftist Spencer lied when he made it up and Hillary lied when she used it as a general term for Trump supporters, so don’t use it.
Any actual conservative who ever used it was, however briefly, duped by the lies, thinking it meant anti-GOPe or whatever. Bannon, when he briefly invoked the term, obviously meant it only as an anti-Republican-establishment reference, an alternative right. He is not at all racist and he is not at all anti-Jewish.
Now that “alt right” has been exposed as nothing but a fraud and an instrument for slander it shouldn’t be used, and it certainly should not be used to bolster an identification between the OK sign and Nazis.
Spencer and Kessler have maybe a few thousand supporters between them, all old timey KKK Democrat leftists. Stop pretending that any of this stink rightly belongs on anyone on the right. It is ALL leftism.
Alec Rawls (6dcadc) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:31 pm@94 huntsman non denial denial came from his spokesman not him.
lany (bfbe56) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:31 pm@60.You are an idiot.
donald j tingle (477e71) — 9/8/2018 @ 2:50 pm
Have you read your own handle?
Thanks for playing.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:32 pm“What I did say was “the sign, like Pepe the frog, has become a symbol of the alt right, and thus at least flirts with white nationalism.””
The problem with that, of course, is that inasmuch “racism” means not agreeing with Obama, “white nationalism” means not being apologetic about being white.
But hey, if you want to be apologetic, nothing better than being careful about using the OK hand gesture.
Take a knee sir. Or raise a fist. No one will condemn you for that.
At least no one not deplorable. And really, isn’t that what really matters…
lee (5789d5) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:34 pmOh Good Lord. This conversation has become unbearable. Have a nice evening.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:38 pmYou made your apology. Let it stand. And let it serve as a lesson to you to about a) getting too close to the flame, e.g. the Washington dumpster fire, and b) being too quick to draw.
It speaks well of you to apologize; there aren’t enough apologies on the Internet. But the rubber hits the road in the future: What did you learn, and how will you apply the lesson?
CP (49e778) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:38 pmNo sugar-coating this: Your intent was to do as much damage as you possibly could, and you succeeded. Few people will see your ridiculous “apology,” compared with the huge number of people who will be aware of your blatant LIES! You are scum!
Joe (ec5301) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:43 pmNot even close. Multiple times the number of people saw this post than saw the other. I DID NOT ORIGINATE THE THEORY nor did I accuse her of being an alt righter.
And I’m glad people are seeing this. I think it helps undo the damage. But I’m not happy about ignorant aggressive people like you.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:46 pmWow… let me check… no, next full moon isn’t until 9/24, so what’s the source of the foam-at-teh-mouth distemper?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:50 pm“I think (other than my usual Sunday morning post) that I’ll take the rest of the weekend off.“
Should have quit with the crow breakfast.
CP’s response sums it up nicely.
harkin (47ad2b) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:54 pmHow about you take the NEXT step. Yer a phukin liberal with the left coast infestation of moronic disease of the brain. You are so inundated with leftist pukes filling your brain with nonsense that your common sense has been deleted from your memory bank. I mean, I KNOW you were wrong. It was obvious within seconds of reading your tripe that you were wrong. The question you need to ask yourself is WHY. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY were you so willing to slurp up that leftist tripe? Ask yourself. No, really.
John Doe (582d1c) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:56 pm@77. I was a reporter in Washington from 1985 to 1990. I covered scores of hearings; in fact, maybe a few hundred. In a crowded hearing room, you really don’t get up if you can help it. There isn’t a lot of room, and if people shuffled in and out it would be a big problem.
Please. That’s more of an excuse than anything; those bottles of ‘capitol water’- per the little labels on them- are all over the place in that room; they ain’t popping out of vending machines.
Somebody had to go and get it and people are moving in and out of those hearing rooms all the time. And if you yell in protest, the Capitol Police move you out w/an “escort.” She felt entitled to signal an aide to aid an aide– for a glass and some wateriinstead of just moving her lazy ass and getting it herself.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:56 pmYou’ve been an idiot since at least 2012…no,wait at least 2008 but seriously, who’s keeping count?
Good thing you’re not a member of Salons Hot #25 or maybe you would have slid a few notches, but you’re not even in the top #200 so no big deal.
You should totally stick to your day job, getting smarter lawyers than you coffee.
Han Yolo (1d26a9) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:57 pmCol.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/8/2018 @ 5:57 pmsome people can’t accept apologies, as Patterico has accepted many, including from me.
125. huntsman non denial denial came from his spokesman not him.
He wasn’t around in the Cabinet for the 25th chatter.
My money is on Pence. He’s got the safest gig w/t most to gain.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:01 pmthis 60 day b.s. of no info to be released because of the midterms is nauseating.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:05 pmMcCabe/popcorn/2018
The examples of a few alt-righters using the OK sign doesn’t prove that it’s an alt-right symbol. In these examples, the alt-righters may have been using the sign in its normal meaning of “OK”.
David in Cal (0d5a1d) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:05 pm@130. Hey, Joe, ever wonder why they use turkeys to test jet engines? Stay away from airports, fella.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:06 pm@140. It demonstrates she’s unaware, self-absorbed and felt entitled.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:08 pmOk, it looks like now we’re getting the Milo Yiannopoulos wing of Instapundit’s commenters — in-between them playing video games and fondling themselves in their moms’ basements while daydreaming of giving blowjobs to college boys.
nk (dbc370) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:08 pmBut you got to ZINGGGGG all those “trumfoons!” Tho right and that’s all that matters. Hypocritical douche
Hi (72bfde) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:11 pmMight have been “all over the place in that room,” but they weren’t close enough to Kavanaugh. Therefore, someone had to get one to him. The woman who wound up flashing the “o.k.” sign was in no position to do that, the podium where the members sit being strictly off-limits.
Yes, the Capitol Police toss the protesters. You are now suggesting that the okay lady should have been a protestor to insure egress? If so, please tell us how she would have re-entered. People move in and out of the hearing rooms all the time, you say. Please tell us how you know this.
People who move in and out, apart from protesters, will station themselves in the back of the room to facilitate exit and re-entry. If it’s a really crowded hearing, i.e. televised by all the networks, with a long line in the hallway, people tend not to leave unless they really have to, because they might not get back in.
I was there, and it doesn’t sound like you were. Some details might have changed, but I doubt anything material, having observed how the Capitol did things.
CP (49e778) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:17 pm@143. Meh. Flushing out the outrage of any alt-right nesters is a good thing.
“…unless these queens are located and destroyed before they’ve established thriving colonies and can produce, heaven alone knows, how many more queen ants, man, as the dominant species of life on earth, will probably be extinct…” – Dr. Harold Medford [Edmund Gwenn] ‘Them!’ 1954
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:19 pmnk, you don’t like Trump because he’s vulgar, right?
I mean, cant be about his accomplishments as president…
lee (5789d5) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:19 pmStanding O, nk.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:21 pmThe 4chan hoax made it out to be a white supremacist sign. The leftist media is making it out to be a white supremacist sign.
You also said this in the last thread:
You seem to be equating alt-right with alt-white. I think it’s absurd and no different than how the left says conservatives are all just a bunch of white racists. There are more members of racist La Raza, as seen by their rallies, than the alt-white nonsense.
NJRob (b00189) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:22 pmDude, don’t waste your time withDSASPCA. He’s always here trolling away. 24/7. Don’t buy his bull that he voted for Trump either. Used car salesmen are more believable.
JSkorcher (7af39f) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:23 pm#150 addressed to CP, of course
JSkorcher (7af39f) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:26 pmTotally! It’s probably what Pepe the frog meant when he posed for the picture in the Hoft tweet in the update!
Patterico (9aff24) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:31 pmI was wondering where DRJ went so I checked The Jury:
Sounds upset, but I could be mistaken.
BuDuh (b54dee) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:32 pm@145. Might have been “all over the place in that room,” but they weren’t close enough to Kavanaugh.
Except they were– on his desk. Is he a self-entitled, lazy-ass, too? And by your own post, you weren’t there; haven’t been since 1990: ‘I was a reporter in Washington from 1985 to 1990.’
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:32 pmPlease tell us how you know this. TeeVee. Watch what we time; CSPAN, not Fox. You may have been there 28 years ago but you didn’t see much. Just have your girl get to my girl by nod, wink, hand signal, text, telegraph, telegram or semaphore to ask for a glass of water. Know it’s too much trouble for her to get up off her young ass and just go get it herself. Sheesh.
Lol
Patterico (9aff24) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:32 pm@150. Pfft. You’ve been flamed several threads ago by regulars. If you wanna be tagged and bagged again, have it.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:36 pmCol.
some people can’t accept apologies, as Patterico has accepted many, including from me.
Yes, mg… I suspect a lot of that has to do with how they were raised and their dissatisfaction with how their lives have progressed.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:37 pmDude, you know as much about congressional hearings as you know about launching rockets. That is next to nothing. The real world is a much deeper and broader place than what you pick up in pop culture and on the tee bee.
JSkorcher (7af39f) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:42 pmAnd mg and I finally found something we agree on!
It’s truly a special day.
🙂
Dave (445e97) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:42 pm@147. ROFLMAO. Start w/somethng easy: It’s been narly two years… where’s that wall and has Mexico made a payment yet?
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:45 pmI know what I’m talking about. You are an ex-grinder with an opinion sans facts or personal observation, which makes you perfect for the Internet. Say hi to mom and/or the pizza delivery guy.
CP (49e778) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:47 pmThe teevee doesn’t show what I laid out. Unlike you, I attended plenty of hearings that were heavily covered by the teevee. You have never been there, which makes you a perfect empty Internet yammerer.
CP (49e778) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:49 pm@158. Dude? ROFLMAO, yes, that’s executive-level vocabulary. Step away from the bong and prance off to that time consuming ‘job’ of yours that distracts from the world around you. And yes, we’ll have fries with that.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:49 pmNo, CP. That was addressed to DSCPALGBLT. He fancies himself a rocket scientist based on the documentaries he watched on pbs. You are much more believable.
JSkorcher (7af39f) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:50 pmPatterico: “Yiu lie! I don’t support Hillary and the Dems. I just wanted to help torpedo the confirmation of a standard conservative to the supreme court by accusing someone I saw on tv of being a white nationalist.” Trying to save face after your idiotic smear job falls apart is not the same thing as contrition.
Yousuck (bf3de7) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:52 pm@162. The teevee doesn’t show what I laid out.
Except it does. But I’ll pass your non-observations to some old colleagues at CBS. They need a chuckle these days what w/The Big Bang Theory closing down production.
I attended plenty of hearings that were heavily covered by the teevee
28 YEARS AGO. But good for you. We have HDTV now.
Thanks for playing.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:55 pmNot a word of this is truthful.
Patterico never supported Hillary.
Patterico has supported Kavanaugh’s nomination from Day One.
Patterico never accused Bash of being a white nationalist.
Dave (445e97) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:55 pmYou know nothing. Thanks for so clearly demonstrating that.
CP (49e778) — 9/8/2018 @ 6:57 pm@168. Pfft. Uh-huh. Clearly you don’t and ‘you were there.’ 28 years ago.
Sad.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:01 pm@159. Chum w/t ‘alt-right’ bait and they bite. Don’t they. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:03 pmOne, it wasn’t a “non denial denial”. When a person says, “Anything sent out by me would have carried my name,” that’s a direct denial that he was the author, not a “non denial denial”. Two, spokespeople speak for their bosses, that’s their job, and the Ambassador was quoted directly, without contradiction. Link:
Emphases mine, to hammer home a point when the nail was already in as far as it could go.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:07 pmSmh, I never even heard the term alt right until 2016. I never heard anyone say “I’m alt right”.
It’s a slur used by leftists
Hi (72bfde) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:10 pmbuduh, drj doesn’t need you to put words in her mouth or interpret what she says. She’s quite able to explain her perspective directly, which she did.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:11 pm“nor did I accuse her of being an alt righter.”
I think this is disingenuous.
Headline of your post:
Former Kavanaugh Clerk Zina Bash Flashes Alt Right Symbol, Twice, to Own the Libs or Something
She flashed an OK sign, which could only be construed as an “Alt Right” symbol if you think she’s an alt righter.
Just as a thumbs up can only be construed as a gang symbol if you think the person is a gang member. Yes, context is everything.
There may be a fine distinction you can conjure up, but I think it would be lost on Ms. Bash, as it would on anyone who has a falsely implied association (even obliquely) with a racist group. And, it would be lost on anyone reading that headline. Racial innuendo is a nasty business, and you had better have all your ducks in a row. You didn’t.
“Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?” — Raymond Donovan
Munroe (c87974) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:11 pmPatterico did favor by flushing out these alt-right cultist wackjobs as a reminder. Whatever point of the compass you come from it’s worth remembering these pests are forever busy brewing crazy juice.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:12 pm#116
Got it
Thought you needed to clarify even though I assumed you meant it that way.
I guess you are getting the traffic from instapundit, but Twitchy linked you as well.
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:20 pmTwitchy’s commenters tend to be a little fast on the trigger.
@171. Paul, see #39.
My money is on Pence. After a few days my gut feels stronger about it, too. He was there for the 25th chatter and took the McCain heat for the administration; which was likely the final straw for him. As an elected official, he has the safest gig, the most to gain w/a ‘reassuring’ op-ed [regardless of it being read as cowardly or not unsigned] and he’s an ex-talk radio broadcaster; knows the media landscape.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:21 pmI dunno, I see a lot of overlap between the two, especially the alt right and white nationalists.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:22 pmYou have never been outside of your mother’s basement, poor thing.
CP (49e778) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:28 pm“Bash and the man sitting next to her appear to discuss whatever the judge said…”
Ed Brooks (f40c5d) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:32 pmThe man is White House Counsel Don McGahn — Learn the players
I initially thought it was Kelly, but then, Pence is the only guy that Trump cannot fire, which is intriguing. But bottom line, I’m going to stop guessing who the culprit is because I’m certain I’ll get it wrong if I tried. What I do know is that literally dozens denied writing the op-ed and one of them is a liar. I just don’t see people with actual character, i.e., Haley and Huntsman, being that liar.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:41 pmThe man is White House Counsel Don McGahn — Learn the players
Tell it to the Washington Post which Patterico is quoting verbatim. Learn how to tell which is the author’s and which is a source he’s quoting in a post. Hint: An indented paragraph preceded by “First, here’s the Washington Post:” is a dead giveaway.
nk (dbc370) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:41 pmThe obvious solution to this madness is to require all female visitors to wear hand burkas.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:42 pmSpartacus – Fauxcahontas 2020
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:47 pmColonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:42 pm
Heh! Good one Colonel. Happy Saturday, man.
felipe (023cc9) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:49 pmHey felipe! Same to you!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:51 pmOf all places, I think Salon nailed it: Huntsman. Obviously, we’ll never know unless the author comes forward.
CP (49e778) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:52 pmStanley Kubrick was having trouble filming a scene in Spartacus that depicted a Roman road lined with crucified gladiators. Aside from not having enough extras to populate the many crosses in the scene, which had to be outfitted with straw-men, the extras were not writhing enough for the director.
Stanley yelled “Cut” and called the key grip over and directed him to yell at the extra on “cross #24” saying “you tell that sonofab1tch to writhe, or he is history!” The key grip did as he was told, and upon returning, Kubrick asked, “what did he say?” The answer was, “It’s a dummy!”
felipe (023cc9) — 9/8/2018 @ 7:59 pm@181. Right. And as we’ve seen, he’s very good a denying on camera. People forget he’s media savvy from his talk radio days. The McCain mess bothered him, too- believe he got Cindy to allow Jared and Ivanka to attend some of the memorial events and was by her side as well. It just seems to fit give his strong moral streak – and as the final straw for motivation. We’ll find out eventually.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:00 pmIt’s amusing to see fervent Trumpistas pretending to be morally outraged that an innocent person’s motives would be questioned on a minor blog – while they applaud their hero’s very public habit of flinging around insults and accusations in the most self-serving and unreflective way, with all the powers of the presidency in his hands.
It’s also funny how they accuse others of straining to find reasons to dislike Donald Trump, as though it could not possibly result from anything that Trump has done; as though it’s completely arbitrary, with excuses for it invented after the fact. They (like Trump himself) like to imagine that dislike of Trump is entirely a moral failure of those who dislike him, while dislike of, say, Hillary Clinton reflects the evil of Hillary Clinton.
One would search in vain for ethical consistency in Trumpworld.
Radegunda (fee704) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:01 pmI think Salon nailed it: Huntsman.
Nope. It’s fake, written by James Bennet, the editorial page editor of the New York Times, to create suspicion and mistrust among Trump’s people.
I state this affirmatively with the same confidence that it is true that the New York Times has when it publishes something. If I receive information to the contrary, I will immediately issue a retraction.
nk (dbc370) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:04 pmBravo! Honestly admitting mistake, some adult behavior, how refreshing. Make lemonade from lemons, learn some lessons (I would suggest to become less berserc and use Occam razor more often.
Dmitry (9c8c61) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:05 pm@radegunda
“Minor blog”
In 2006-2008 this place was a minor blog. Now it’s obscure, a backwater of balloon juice refugees.
Han Yolo (1d26a9) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:07 pmHe said without a trace of self awareness.
felipe (023cc9) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:23 pm@190. Meh. The country only knows of him from that TeeVee show.
New Yorkers have known his act for 35 years. Back in the day it was Donald Trump, Leona Helmsley and George Steinbrenner who ran Steady Eddie Koch’s NYC to the tabloid pleasure of strap-hanging commuters w/assists from Reggie, Yogi and Billy. There was AC, TrumpAir, the USFL and family soap opera. The Ivana/Marla split went on for months; front page ‘daily nooz.’ He’s an ‘acquired taste’– and a little can go a long way. But for those familiar w/his shtick from the 80’s it’s obvious his mental skills have declined.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:23 pmSpanky cries “Uncle” in the court, declines to enforce Stormy’s NDA.
Dave (445e97) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:27 pm@196. LOL and David Dennison was unavailable for comment?!?!
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:32 pmWait a minute. The guy had a talk show on SiriusXM for one hour per week, starting in 2013. How savvy could a guy get from that little airtime?
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:33 pmI know there’re a lot of conservatives who don’t like Huntsman, but it’s more than a little baffling. Based on record and issues, Huntsman was the more conservative Mormon ex-governor in 2012. The problem is that he said things that hurt Tea Party feelings.
“One would search in vain for ethical consistency in Trumpworld.”
I think Trump’s high profile targets (Mueller, Sessions, McCain, McCabe, etc.) can make do. What do you think?
If you think causing “alt right” to show up together with your previously unknown name is somehow equivalent to Trump’s barbs, then your perspective is skewed a bit.
Munroe (a19a62) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:34 pmHe
said without a trace of self awareness.typed with Cheetos-stained fingers.Fixed that for you, felipe.
nk (dbc370) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:37 pmWrong. If you thought she was trolling — which is what the headline suggested (“to own the libs”) and which many righties thought — it could be construed that way.
Patterico (9aff24) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:43 pm@198. Paul, Pence had a little more ‘air time’ than that; Presenting, “Radioactive’ Mike Pence:
‘Shortly after his first congressional campaign in 1988, radio station WRCR-FM in Rushville, Indiana hired Pence to host a weekly half-hour radio show, Washington Update with Mike Pence. In 1992, Pence began hosting a daily talk show on WRCR, The Mike Pence Show, in addition to a Saturday show on WNDE in Indianapolis. Pence called himself “Rush Limbaugh on decaf” since he considered himself politically conservative while not as outspoken as Limbaugh. Beginning on April 11, 1994, Network Indiana syndicated The Mike Pence Show statewide. With a 9 a.m. to noon (ET) time slot, the program reached as many as 18 radio stations in Indiana, including WIBC in Indianapolis. Pence ended his radio show in September 1999 to focus on his 2000 campaign for Congress, which he eventually won. From 1995 to 1999, Pence hosted a weekend public affairs TV show also titled The Mike Pence Show on Indianapolis TV station WNDY.’- source, wikirapsheet
He knows media.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:43 pmAdam Baldwin and Ben Shapiro both thought she had been trolling. But nobody gets mad at them because they approved of the trolling.
Patterico (9aff24) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:44 pm@198. If you’ve never been to Indiana, it’s flat w/cornfields, basketball and football. Radio-especially regional and syndicated talk radio- is everything there as salesmen zip across the interstates and farmers are perched for hours on tractors going back and forth w/headphones on listing to callers and talkers like Pence and Limbaugh and Hannity and so on.
Pence fits.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 8:54 pmYou know, Patterico, they don’t televise SCOTUS sessions when cases are heard- they just release audio. Maybe hearings for all SCOTUS noms should follow suit – so folks stop playing for the cameras – or picking through the visuals – and just get on w/t hearings.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 9:00 pmDCSCA, you’re right about Pence. I thought you were just talking about Huntsman.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/8/2018 @ 9:03 pmPence was very smooth during his debate with what’s his name, Kaine, and you could easily see how his time on talk radio paid off.
124@ Alan Rawls
TomM (d5f11d) — 9/8/2018 @ 9:04 pmYou are one crazy SOB.
Honestly. Get out of here. Go back to storefront.
Those are my 14 words.
Damn!
TomM (d5f11d) — 9/8/2018 @ 9:05 pmThat’s stormfront!
Kinda kills the invective. Oh well!
I couldn’t help but notice that Reynolds identified Patterico just as “Writer”, which is odd considering the more friendly references and links from Reynolds before Trump went down his golden escalator. It tells you where that blog and it commenters have gone, and not in a good direction.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/8/2018 @ 9:43 pmThis is the strangest example of “just going to take my lumps” and taking “the rest of the weekend off” I’ve ever seen.
harkin (47ad2b) — 9/8/2018 @ 9:58 pmThis is beyond stupid. Some asshats decide to take an international hand-signal, or a cartoon frog, or some digits or initials or clothing or color or brand of toothpaste, and make it “theirs” and everyone else who uses the things they used to use normally is now a fellow asshat?
Are we THAT far gone? Do the political correctness police have that much power over us now? The Saudi religious police need to step up their game.
Kevin M (5d3e49) — 9/8/2018 @ 10:04 pmHe is refusing to let people lie about him and deliberately misconstrue his words. As for taking lumps, he’s taken all of those that were fair play, as far as I have seen.
I’m confused. Are you criticizing a man for fighting back? If so, when will you extend that to Trump?
Demosthenes (7fae81) — 9/8/2018 @ 10:17 pm“The post has been linked by Instapundit, which probably explains the uptick in hostile comments.”
“I find it interesting that my comment section swarms with cretins when he links a post of mine.
Interesting, and sad. Nobody promoted me in my formative years as a blogger than Instapundit. Nobody.
I don’t have anything against him as a person, but his commenters are something else.“
I’ll omit copying the one about Instapundit commenters fellating college boys, which you really seem to like.
Am I wrong – I don’t see where Instapundit linked to your mea culpa. I only see where he linked to Twitchy talking about your post. And Twitchy was the one who called you ‘writer’, Instapundit was just quoting them.
Am I missing something, does Instapundit run Twitchy?
harkin (47ad2b) — 9/8/2018 @ 10:33 pm@211. All because the aide texted another aide for aid and gave oofy hand signals becase she was was too into herself to simply get off her duff and get the guy a glass and some water. Christ, they play for the cameras- did it ever cross their minds a guy politely asking for a glass of water in the midst of the grilling might actually humanize him to the TeeVee audience and work to his favor?! Such idiots.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/8/2018 @ 10:37 pmMaybe he didn’t link it. I just saw the headline and assumed he had.
Patterico (a048af) — 9/8/2018 @ 10:45 pmThe idiots are coming from somewhere.
Patterico (a048af) — 9/8/2018 @ 10:46 pmI didn’t see anything from Twitchy. Law Professor’s link was titled:
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:07 pmIs everyone who wears Nike shoes now an anti-American cop-hater?
Kevin M (5d3e49) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:26 pmI don’t have anything against him as a person, but his commenters are something else.
Glenn never opposed Trump during the primaries, and this caused some changes in his commenters. It’s gotten to the point where his comment section on that subject is tiresome. Happyfeet is over there, for example, although he’s lukewarm as to Trump compared to many.
Insty’s comment section is a sewer on political issues, but on other topics that don’t interest the Deplorables it’s still
Kevin M (5d3e49) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:32 pmOKfine.harkin,
Glenn links here to a Twitchy article here which focuses on Patterico’s mea culpa.
It’s pretty clear how they got here.
Kevin M (5d3e49) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:37 pmBoy, they do hate Patterico some over in that Insty comment section.
Apostate!
Kevin M (5d3e49) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:41 pmProbably the worst thing about Trump is the viciousness of his biggest supporters. Marginal personalities down in Mom’s basement complaining that they’d have jobs if all the good ones didn’t go to Mexican immigrants.
If the Blue Wave crashes over Trump and the GOP, he’ll have no friends in Congress when they impeach him for whatever they find handy.
Kevin M (5d3e49) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:47 pmWow, the thing so nice they linked it twice. What I had seen was Ed Driscoll linking it at Instapundit here:
PATTERICO: I AM AN IDIOT: ZINA BASH’S OK SIGN WAS COMPLETELY INNOCENT AFTER ALL.
That actually was a link to my post.
Now I see that Glenn later linked the Twitchy post and insinuated that I am indeed an idiot, with the post that Paul described in 217.
Lovely.
Everybody now thinks I created the idea that Bash is an alt-righter. Which I didn’t even accuse her of.
Serves me right. I accused her of trolling and she didn’t. Now I get to experience what it’s like to have people accusing me of something I didn’t say. Feels like karma enough that it’s hard to complain much.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:49 pmYes they do! At least in the Ed Driscoll one I read some of. I assume it’s the same in the one where Glenn linked Twitchy, but I think I’ll pass on reading that one.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:50 pmAll men make mistakes. Not all men are man enough to admit it. Well done. And for what it’s worth, in three months everyone will have forgotten it anyway.
Stephen J. (c5f80e) — 9/8/2018 @ 11:52 pmWasn’t that the one where Pence pretended Trump hadn’t said a bunch of stuff that Trump had clearly said?
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:01 amHey, Patterico was vigilant- ‘if you see something, say something.’ So it was off this time; next time it might not be. Such are the times we live in.
But IMO, Patterico deserves a nod for inadvertently drawing out these ferociously idiotic alt-right wackjobs as a vivid reminder of just how monumentally brain-damaged they all are.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:03 am@226. Yeah- he’s slick at it, too. Don’t rule him out.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:05 amSo Patrick, I was looking back at your links from Instapundit, and Ed Driscoll appears to be in your corner, but to Law Professor, you’re “Writer”, so the hypocrisy speaks for itself, because Law Professor sure loved it when you nailed the LA Times and other liberal nitwits for their nitwittery. Just an observation, and a disappointing one.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:43 amWasn’t that the one where Pence pretended Trump hadn’t said a bunch of stuff that Trump had clearly said?
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:49 amYes! But Pence was smooth about it, and he handled Kaine quite masterfully by dint of his talk radio experience. I listened to Rush (and others) pretty solidly from 1990 ’til I got sick of him by the mid-aughts. You gotta be careful with those talk-radio folks. It’s an emotional medium, maybe less emotional than TV, but a lot more than print, and this GOP has become the Emotional Party, and I blame talk radio for it.
I expect nothing less than the integrity Patterico showed, admitting he was wrong, knowing he’ll be criticized harshly and his mistake broadcast everywhere. And he stuck around and answered the pitchfork crowd.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:55 am“I couldn’t help but notice that Reynolds identified Patterico just as “Writer””,
You also should have noticed that he’s directly quoting the title to Twitchy’s piece:
Props: Writer admits “I am an idiot,” apologizes to Zina Bash and husband over “white power sign”
which he links to, NOT to Patterico’s piece.
When Driscoll posted a direct link, he is called Patterico.
harkin (fb7ea4) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:14 amI’m with nk on the nyt being the inventor of the hack editorial. And Trump should have accused them of it continuously from the day it was published.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:23 amBtw – when Reynolds posted his piece, the words he added to the title were
Give Him Credit For Honesty
__ _
241 “he stuck around and answered the pitchfork crowd.“
Well, after a day of joining the ‘pitchfork crowd’ for Zina Bash…….
OK – now back to the name-calling of Instapundit readers and Trump supporters.
harkin (fb7ea4) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:30 amAfter my first cup of coffee, I think waterboarding everyone at the nytimes would result in a very quick admission.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:30 amshapiro is a media prostitute
mg (8cbc69) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:05 amWasn’t that the one where Pence pretended Trump hadn’t said a bunch of stuff that Trump had clearly said?
Trump has an excuse (a) he’s Trump, or (b) Alzheimer’s, or (c) 9-D chess), but Pence is merely a toady.
Kevin M (5d3e49) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:07 amMan, you used to be sensible. What happened?
Chester White (863148) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:08 am“No matter how many outraged opinion pieces or news articles (but I repeat myself) the New York Times produces, no matter how many smarter-than-thou analysts with non-prescription eyeglasses mope about sadly on CNN, no matter how many Obama fan boys and girls left in the White House press corps shriek at the president whenever in earshot, it just doesn’t matter anymore.
The economy hums. Trump keeps us out of foreign entanglements. Wages increase. America’s traditional meritocracy replaces the Democrats’ grievance-based society. Life happens.
And while the New York Times op-ed was a nice try by the media, they must on some level, deep down, grasp the new reality: no one hears their screams.”
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-trumps-record-trumps-medias-spin-30757
harkin (fb7ea4) — 9/9/2018 @ 5:12 amI’m hard pressed to understand why there are so many comments to this post. Patterico made a mistake. He admitted his mistake and apologized for it, like a decent person would have. End of story.
Chuck Bartowski (211c17) — 9/9/2018 @ 5:42 amzina gazed at the banana wistfully
“i can’t take this banana to the hearings. Not less i wanna be “that banana girl” the rest of my life. But i love bananas i love bananas they’re so tasty and full of potassiums and they feel so good in my hand”
she imagined herself behind Mr. Kavanaugh
peeling that banana
biting off a morsel of banana goodness
luxuriating in the flavor and the empowerment
ultimately she would bow to convention
but damn
she’d never stop fighting for a better world
a world where a girl and her banana could navigate the swampy halls of power with self-assured élan
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/9/2018 @ 5:48 amI still say she was making the sign language symbol towards the Dem senators
William Teach (b1539d) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:07 amFailed to embed photo. Check the first photo.
https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/1038015978632663041
William Teach (b1539d) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:10 amThere was a double entendre, in that the “honesty” could have referred to describing himself an idiot.
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:17 amNow that all of Frey’s fanbois are finished wiping their chins…
…you wanted it to be true, you slandered an innocent person and you’ll always be an idiot.
But do keep up the good work showing us what triggered idiots NeverTrumpers really are.
furious_a (0c46fb) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:18 amPat,
Do you have any evidence that the alt-righters you cite said explicitly that this sign should be adopted by the alt-right, or that it is / would be a good sign to use, given WP = white power? Occam’s Razor applies here. Alt-Righters using the “OK” sign in reference to Trump’s election – as in yay trump won – would just as easily explain the instances of these pics without some grand conspiracy to adopt “white power” as the symbol of their movement through use of the OK sign. With Spencer – why wouldn’t he be explicit? He is a self-identified white nationalist. You would think if he wanted this to be adopted as such – he would say so. With Milo – does he say why he wants it to be a meme? Because if it is as you say, then Milo is adopting a white power symbol after having spent a lot of time repudiating white nationalism and disclaiming it as alt-Right. Same for the others. See, the 4-Chan troll made the OK = WP = White Power connection explicit. You haven’t cited any evidence that predates it which is. To me, the fact those pics predate the 4-chan troll make it less likely it was a dog whistle – since it was not an explicit thing yet. It would be like posting pics of football players kneeling that predate Colin Kaepernick taking a knee at the game during the national anthem, and claiming that CK didn’t start this, because those players must have been protesting on BLM themes, since that’s what kneeling means. That would be wrong, because it didn’t mean that then. And in fact, generally means something else entirely (praying – showing reverence). So yes – context matters. Where is the context that demonstrates that there was context that compels your interpretation? It can’t just be that it was contemporaneous to the 2016 election – that’s pretty weak sauce for a risible claim. D.GOOCH
GOOCH (59ab0b) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:05 amGooch, explain Pepe making the sign. Pepe is a drawing. Someone had to draw him making that gesture. And he is a symbol of the alt right (I said alt right not white supremacy). That’s the most powerful evidence.
Patterico (52fb4a) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:08 amPeople ask what I mean when I use the term “Trumpalo” with contempt.
I mean people like this. Nasty, ugly people who love Ttump because he is nasty and ugly.
Patterico (52fb4a) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:13 amYou decided you loved you some Donald Trump and changed your mind about what is sensible.
Patterico (52fb4a) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:14 amYes, harkin. That is the mistake that I tried to atone for by writing this post.
But let’s be clear.
I did not accuse her of being an alt righter. I said it seemed to me she was trolling on Day Two. I said it raised the question whether she was trolling on Day One, but I didn’t know.
A ton of conservatives believed she was trolling on Day Two. Ben Shapiro and Adam Baldwin, for example. But they thought it was awesome. I didn’t.
So my mistake, in your eyes, was NOT mistakenly believing she was trolling. Otherwise you’d be all over those guys too.
My mistake was in disapproving of the very thing that many conservatives thought she was doing, thus showing I was not on “the team.” My mistake, as it always is in your eyes, is not being sufficiently worshipful of the Trumpist mindset.
The people who jumped to a bad conclusion and applauded her for trolling, you have zero problem with, because at least they’re being Trumpy.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:22 amYes, I took it as a deliberate insult, frankly. Which was disappointing. But Glenn doesn’t link me any more anyway. It figures that in the rare instance that he does, it’s to a post where I say I was an idiot, so he can agree with me and say I was being honest.
I really think his whole crowd thinks I started the ball rolling on the whole “Zina Bash is an alt righter” thing even though I never said it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:24 amHere is a typical passage from a typical post:
He goes on to praise the apology.
I do feel stupid that I thought she might have been trolling even on Day One, but that possibility seemed so odd that I never pushed it. I did say her behavior did seem odd, and that making the gesture looked deliberate, so maybe she was “trolling” on Day One too. I couldn’t reach a conclusion, but this possibility was suggested to me by the seeming fact that she was trolling on Day Two. Which she wasn’t.
But anyone who reads my original post can see my focus was on the Day Two trolling I thought she had done.
Which she hadn’t.
The world has oversimplified this to “he said she was a white supremacist but now he sees that it’s all a 4chan hoax and the OK symbol is nothing so hey at least he apologized but what a dipshit!” The fewer who see that I still say it is an alt right symbol used by alt righters think I have actually retracted nothing.
Maybe one person in 100 actually understands what happened.
Ironically, about the same with Zina Bash.
Patterico (52fb4a) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:49 am“Those people at that time were using it as an alt right symbol.”
Those people at the time were also SMILING. They were also BREATHING. Therefore, smiling and breathing is sometimes an alt-right symbol.
That’s how this works, right?
Frank Ch. Eigler (d4a54d) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:55 amSometimes you just pick yourself up, brush yourself off and climb back up on that pony.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:59 amPeople ask what I mean when I use the term “Trumpalo” with contempt.
I mean people like this. Nasty, ugly people who love Ttump because he is nasty and ugly.
Patterico (52fb4a) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:13 am
You are a nasty ugly person. You just have a different target for your hate. There is zero difference
Hi (72bfde) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:06 amNo good deed goes unpunished, Patterico.
felipe (023cc9) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:16 am“Patterico made a mistake. He admitted his mistake and apologized for it, like a decent person would have. End of story.”
Chuck Bartowski (211c17) — 9/9/2018 @ 5:42 am
Had you heard the name Zina Bash before this? Can you think of her name now without associating it with Alt Right? Is it “End of Story” for her good name?
Apology made. Move on. Eff that. Take your “End of Story” BS mindset and shove it.
Munroe (ec7ddb) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:38 amTherefore, smiling and breathing is sometimes an alt-right symbol.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 10:01 amRight, just like what Pepe was doing!
what we learned is if Zina wanted to flash alt-right ok signs all up in it (white supremer signs)
she wouldn’t have just gotten away with it
nope
she’d have been called out and held to account
and she would have had to pay the price
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/9/2018 @ 10:07 amHow about not taking it as a deliberate insult?
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/9/2018 @ 10:27 amBenefit of the doubt.
Kinda of like when you thought the lady was trolling.
I know that in your mind right now the preponderance leads you to “insult” but that line of thought is cancerous. Just be the man you are and ignore it, let it pass. Its Sunday, forgive it… meaning give your feelings of insult to God to sort out. Trust me. The result will be better
You decided you loved you some Donald Trump and changed your mind about what is sensible.
That’s something I noticed way back in the primaries: any principle or belief will be scrapped or revised in order to maintain the position that Donald Trump is always right and every bit as awesome as Donald Trump believes himself to be. For one thing, it means that the narcissism so derided in Obama is not only accepted but applauded when it appears in the more overt and absurd Trumpian form.
Trump declared that he expects his fans to put personal loyalty to himself above the most basic moral rules (“Thou shalt not murder”). His fans were not morally offended, because they have made the person of Donald Trump into their own measure of virtue.
They might mouth platitudes about “We knew we were voting for a flawed man,” but they’re enraged when anyone else points to actual flaws in their hero.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 10:49 amExactly. This is the acid test for Trumpistas, as for Trump himself: Does this glorify Donald Trump? It’s obvious why Trump uses this test. His fans use it because after they attached their unconditional hero-worship to him and reflexively excoriated anyone who criticized him, they need to keep telling themselves that they were morally correct in doing so, and that those who say critical things about Trump are ipso facto bad people. It’s the moral world they’ve chosen to construct for themselves.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 10:59 am#262
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:24 amThats quite a construct you’ve got there
So – I did some research – Pepe was definitely used by Trump supporters in the lead-up to the 2016 election. It was also being used by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, etc. – dressing Pepe up as Hitler and the like. This isn’t really surprising – Pepe was a hugely popular meme. Everyone was using it. There are numerous versions of Pepe, one of which was “Sarcastic Pepe” which showed him either with his finger on his lip, or alternatively, showing the OK sign. Trump supporters liked this version – because Trump’s most famous hand gesture is holding his hand up in the OK sign.
So the meme emerges organically among Trump supporters – both the OK symbol and the use of the Pepe with the OK symbol specifically to indicate Trump support. Around this time, the media begins to connect the use of Pepe by Trump supporters and the use of Pepe by White Nationalists / neo-Nazis and the like. The ADL labeled Pepe a hate symbol after Donald Trump Jr. retweeted the version of it with blond hair in an Expendables pic labeled “The Deplorables.” So it is important to see this through the prism of the 2016 election – the articles are not a whole lot more than guilt by association. Trump supporters are using Pepe, racist / neo-Nazi / white Nationalist types are also using Pepe, so it’s the same thing of course, and wholly intentional. They conflate both usages, and smear Trump and Trump supporters as dog whistling to these hate groups, if not stealth member of the hate groups themselves. When the more reasonable interpretation is that the White Nationalists used these because Trump supporters were using them – either appropriating them for their own purposes or using them to express Trump support.
NONE of these articles, however, mention the OK symbol in terms of WP = White Power. The OK symbol used by Trump supporters was a riff off of Trump’s most famous hand gesture. It was only later, in 2017, does anyone make the OK = WP = White Power connection.
I want to be clear – just because White Nationalists / neo-Nazis / racists / etc. express support for Trump – or anyone – does not mean that Trump, Trump supporters, etc. must be stealth versions of the same, or inviting their support, or supportive of their beliefs in some way. Anymore than a serial killer supporting Hillary, or the Communist Party of America, would induce some responsibility on her part.
Where does that leave us? I don’t think there is any question that the pics of Jim Hoft, Milo, and even Spencer were intending to express Trump support with their use of the OK symbol, not the traditional “OK” usage. But the OK symbol was a gesture of Trump support – not White Power.
The impression one gets from your take, Pat, is that they all understood that this symbol was alt-right/white nationalism/neo-Nazi stuff and they used it intentionally to express solidarity with that movement. And indeed, how could they not – if the OK symbol was being used as a gang-like sign spelling out “WP” for “White Power.” But that’s not what the facts bear out. The symbol originates with Trump himself, and his well known speaking mannerism of the same.
The examples of flashing the “OK” sign were all instances of expressing Trump support. Even Spencer- So Spencer is a white nationalist expressing Trump support with a Trump-associated symbol – NOT giving a White Power symbol. The fact a white nationalist uses a symbol associated with support of a presidential candidate to expresses support for that presidential candidate does not mean that the presidential candidate, or his supporters, are in favor of white nationalism, are dog whistling white nationalism, or are using white nationalist symbols to invite that support. I’m sure, given the chance, they would all disavow Spencer and his support.
It isn’t until the 4-chan troll that we get the association of the OK with “White Power” – and of course, that effort now has additional context. Undoubtedly a part of the motivation for that trolling was to appropriate a symbol used by Trumpists and give it an explicitly racist overlay. Certainly it appeals to the Left. But we shouldn’t impose ex post facto meanings on the usage of a symbol in order to associate those usages with the current meaning, when that wasn’t the contemporaneous intent – that’s wrong. D.GOOCH
GOOCH (f0689a) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:35 amRight, I am “storefront” for pointing out that Hoft and Wintrich and Milo and Bannon have not a whit of racism betwixt the lot of them. Any alert person, on seeing the Hoft-Wintrich-OK-pepe tweet should realize that at that time these were not being seen as racist symbols except perhaps by some fringe racists and/or pranksters who were trying to co-opt them.
The Insanes analogy is apt. It is wise to avoid those murder-for-nothing street gangs, but leftist twitter trolls? We should bend our long established nation symbols to THEM? And not just on one block but across the whole nation?
“Alt-right” is a fraudulent label invented by a radical leftist KKK Democrat to apply to his tiny band of KKK Democrats and popularized by Hillary Rotten Clinton who applied it to the Trump alternative to the establishment GOP who turned out to be the electoral majority of the country. Anyone who uses it is using an utterly fraudulent term of slander. THAT is the term to abandon.
There is an on-line sliver who have tried to develop the term in a sincere way, renaming the Democrat-KKK people “alt white” to distinguish an Alt-right that that is not actually racist-Democrat left, but it seems futile to me. This is where the Insanes analogy is more fitting. Why try to “rehabilitate” a term that was just fraudulently invented by you enemies to slander you? “Alt Right” is not some longstanding and infinitely useful Americanism like the OK sign.
Alec Rawls (6dcadc) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:36 am#262, It’s actually something I’ve been observing for the past three years. From the start, Trump fans were unusually hostile to ANY criticism of Trump at all. And today, no matter how well-founded the criticism is, Trumpistas will leap up to say that the critics are motivated by some irrational “hate” or derangement. The reflexive anxiety to defend Trump at all costs is bizarre.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:40 amYuh huh.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:44 am@257. Had you heard the name Zina Bash before this? Can you think of her name now without associating it with Alt Right? Is it “End of Story” for her good name? Apology made. Move on. Eff that. Take your “End of Story” BS mindset and shove it.
Yeah, ‘shove it,’ goosestepper:
‘The swastika (as a character 卐 or 卍) is a geometrical figure and an ancient religious icon from the cultures of Eurasia, where it has been and remains a symbol of divinity and spirituality in Indian religions and East Asian religions. In the Western world, it was a symbol of auspiciousness and good luck, but in the 1930s, it became a feature of Nazi symbolism as an emblem of Aryan race identity, and as a result, became stigmatized in the West by association with ideas of racism and antisemitism.’ -source, wikievil
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:45 am#266 was actually a reply to #263.
Case in point: on other website, someone replied to a short piece about the U.S. Open by drawing a ridiculous comparison between Naomi Osaka and Donald Trump, claiming that the ONLY reason why anyone criticizes him (like her) is because he won. That’s idiotic. Trump is more like Serena Williams, in the way he complains whenever someone or something doesn’t serve to put him on top or acknowledge his greatness.
But the telling point is: Why would someone feel such a need to defend that poor victim Donald Trump in a context having nothing whatsoever do with him? That’s the bizarre reflex on display.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:48 amRight, that’s why Milo sang “America the Beautiful” in front of a bunch of nazi’s giving Hitler salutes, and gave them Hitler salutes back, and why they chanted “Trump! Trump!” together while being thrown out of the bar.
Just like all those “good, decent people” marching with torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville too…
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:51 am235.After my first cup of coffee, I think waterboarding everyone at the nytimes would result in a very quick admission.
After my second, arrived at a final solution: take every alt-righter out to Mojave, hand ’em a bottle of Zina water, a Swiss Army knife and a Zippo lighter; then harness ’em up to weather balloons for the ride of their lives. Hydrogen can set you free.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:56 amIf all you hear, and see, are “dog whistle’s”, you’re a dog.
askeptic (8d10f9) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:07 pmGooch, I like you. You have spent some time looking at the facts and you seem reasonable. So let’s have a discussion. I’m going to ignore the rude jerks and focus on an interchange with you.
Very good. It’s nice to see someone acknowledge this. Now, before we get to the rest of your analysis, I am going to quote myself, from my original post on Zina Bash, which I get the sense you have not read yet. The fact that I said this may surprise you and show us to be more in agreement than you may have realized. I said:
Let’s move back to your comment and find our points of agreement and disagreement:
There is something to what you say. Big Media has indeed been lazy in conflating the alt right and white nationalism as wholly identical. What they are, in my view, is concentric circles. Imagine a large circle and call it “Trump supporters.” Inside that circle is another called “alt right.” Inside that is another called “white nationalists.” We could argue over the relative size of the circles, but the logical point here is clear: with few exceptions, all white nationalists are alt righters and are Trump supporters, but not all Trump supporters are alt right or white nationalist, and not even all alt righters are white nationalist. Online, at least, in the run-up to the election, I would argue that the circle of white nationalists was way more than half the size of the alt right circle. But the fact remains that some, like Bannon, were alt righters without being white nationalists — yet the media has consistently treated the two as equivalent.
This is not entirely unfair because a lot of alt righters, even if they were not strictly white nationalists, certainly flirted with white nationalists, pointedly refused to condemn white nationalists, and generally pushed a lot of the same arguments that white nationalists did.
And many, since the activities of Spencer and Charlottesville, have slowly backed away from alt righters because of the embarrassing reputation these people were bringing to the alt right. Many, like John Rawls in this thread, pretend that alt righters never existed. But they are either wrong or lying.
Back to you:
Hopefully the quote I gave above shows that my belief is more nuanced than you have portrayed it.
Could be — but to be clear, it was a gesture that was being used, not by normal people who supported Trump as the least worst choice over Hillary, but the very extreme Trump superfans like the ones you have cited. Now I understand that Hoft and Wintrich are not necessarily neo-Nazis, but they push an awful lot of similar narratives and hype, at a minumum, a racialist agenda of the sort that, say, lee from this thread would approve of. This is the mindset of people who constantly obsess on Obama’s race and like to tell you repeatedly how they don’t have to apologize for being white. I find such people creepy.
And I appreciate your not trying to dance around the fact that Richard Spencer was one of the people who used the OK symbol as a symbol of support for Trump. And I assume you agree that he is a straight Nazi and racist.
So here’s where it gets messy for you:
Trump was given a clear opportunity on nationwide television to disavow David Duke and very pointedly — and dishonestly — did not do so. Now you seem like a guy who is willing to do the research and go where the facts lead you, so if you got taken in by Trump’s “I had a bad earpiece” lie, we can discuss that, but I can prove to any fair-minded person that it was a lie. Watch this video where Trump says: “I don’t know anything about David Duke” (a lie), repeats that lie later in the clip, and pointedly refuses to condemn Duke:
I discussed this in this post, and acknowledged that he had grudgingly (“OK, alright. I disavow, OK?”) disavowed Duke on other occasions (and, if memory serves, later grudgingly did so again), but his refusal to do so on national TV here was striking and very pointed — and his claim that he didn’t know anything about Duke was a flat lie. Trump quit the Reform Party in 2000 and cited David Duke as one of the people he didn’t want to keep company with: “I leave the Reform Party to David Duke, Pat Buchanan and Lenora Fulani. That is not company I wish to keep.”
So you have to wonder, when Tapper is asking him to denounce Duke, and he is refusing and lying that he knows nothing about Duke — why? And the answer, to me, is clear. He did not want to alienate his alt right base, including the large crop of white nationalists within it.
His comments after Charlottesville were similar.
So I think there is more flirtation between Trump and the alt right and the OK symbol and white nationalism than you have acknowledged.
I say, without reservation, that it is NOT an ex post facto imposition of meaning to say that this was an alt right symbol in late 2016 and early 2017, when used by Hoft, Cernovich, Posobiec, Wintrich, Spencer, and their ilk. Your objection to its being a pure “white power” symbol is noted, and you will see that I agree with that, while perhaps believing that there is a closer relationship between Trump, the alt right, and white nationalism than you have been willing to admit.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:18 pmNote well that Gooch does not appear to be a NeverTrumper and clearly disagrees with some of my ideas. However, he is conducting himself in the best traditions of classical liberalism, offering actual arguments and logic in support of his case, and showing a willingness to concede facts that don’t support his position. I would take 10 Trump supporters like him (assuming he is one) over any NeverTrumper who is hysterical and ignores facts (although that is relatively rare among NeverTrumpers, who tend to be NeverTrumpers precisely because they are rational and logical and non-hysterical).
I hope you stick around, Gooch, and bring more like you.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:22 pmOf course it was impossible that this could be a “secret” alt-right/white supremacist hand signal. And it was exceedingly unlikely she was trolling. Few people are like that, and why would she want to mess things up?
It makes a great deal of sense that this was a hand signal to somebody in the room, rather tahn someone watching on television, as I speculated. After all, how could she even know she was on camera that was being broadcast? (someone tricking her into it, could know, and also tell her that she would be broadcast)
But is this still the complete full explanation? Was it truly an accident?
My questions are:
1) How quickly was this spotted?
2) Did anyone suggest to her she should signal OK? (probably meaning that what was done is the message she intended to send.)
3) If so, was the person who told her to signal OK a Democrat with ties to the strong opposition to the nomination?
Also:
4) Is the link to 4chan part of a coverup to disguise where the racist interpretation of that signal originated and
4a) Is Richard Spencer a double agent? I mean that “Heil Trump” that he did can’t possibly be sincere.
Some people suspected that (although they could be that very thing themselves (but it’s not the “government” who could have hired Richard Spencer as a troll, but some Democratic partisans)
http://atavisionary.com/is-richard-spencer-controlled-opposition/
I also think there’s no reason to assume Zita Bash was aware of the controversy on the second day.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:23 pmI just clicked Gooch’s link to see more about him. A Texan. Another point in his favor!
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:24 pmI’m not going to address most of your rantings, Sammy, but this statement I just can’t let pass.
Her husband had let loose with three angry tweets about this the night before.
Do you think husbands and wives don’t talk?
I do not say this to indict her; as I have said, in my mind, having seen the full video, she is innocent of any trolling. But your statement is just so ridiculous that I had to address it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:26 pmThat I should be less opinionated about matters as to which I don’t know all the facts. It’s also a good reminder to be humble about what one knows and what one thinks one knows. Russ Roberts makes that point all the time, and it’s one of the hardest lessons to learn.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:38 pmIt’s a safe bet that the people who suddenly showed up here to express their outrage are motivated more by hatred of Trump-skeptics than by any concern for the good name of Zina Bash. How many of them had even heard the name before? They wouldn’t care much about defending her if it didn’t involve simultaneously excoriating someone who doesn’t admire Trump.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:39 pmYou’ll not see another post from me this weekend. The Sunday post was the only one I did after this one.
I frankly didn’t expect a swarm of people to come in and accuse me of flat-out accusing this woman of being an alt righter, though, and acting as if I started this controversy. It’s awkward to defend myself against accusation x when I’m guilty of y — especially when (as I admit) my hands are not 100% clean on accusation x (specifically, I said she might have been trolling on Day One as well). But I am hardly Eugene Gu or Amy Siskind in this scenario; I’m more like the Weekly Standard’s Jim Smith, who agreed with me that she was trolling and was wrong and immature to do so.
So I have defended myself against an unfair onslaught.
It seems there are two camps:
1. People who say an OK sign is always an OK sign and any other interpretation is a total 4chan hoax and anyone who buys it is an idiot, therefore Zina Bash just did an OK sign and did nothing wrong.
2. People who say an OK sign is always an OK sign and any other interpretation is a total 4chan hoax and anyone who buys it is an idiot, therefore Zina Bash was awesome when she deliberately did it on Day Two to troll the lefties.
Both views are wrong in different ways. The alt right DID appropriate the use of the OK sign. And yet Zina Bash just did an OK sign and did nothing wrong (except perhaps refuse to consciously avoid it given the controversy the day before, which I can’t really term as “wrong”).
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:48 pmYup.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:48 pmI miss Beldar.
🙁
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:49 pmPresident Trump’s our salvation
but that doesn’t mean someone can’t be skeptical of particular decisions or appointments
it’s a fruitless endeavor though since he’s doing such a good job
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:50 pmJust looked at the comments at Twitchy. They are as lovely as the comments at Insty. Here’s North Dallas 30, whom I banned here:
That’s a straight lie. I never said any such thing.
But Trump superfans think it’s cool to lie about people as long as they are not Trump supporters.
There is one very cool guy there called “Towering Barbarian” who is actually paying attention and refuting the liars.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 12:55 pmIt brings them closer to their cult leader when they ape his behavior.
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:00 pmLes we forget; bye-bye Moonves.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:01 pmBreaking” CBS CEO Les Moonves set to resign
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:02 pmThere is a certain irony in a throng of people screaming that I should not have jumped to incorrect conclusions about Zina Bash, as they jump to incorrect conclusions about what I said.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:16 pm#283: IOW, there’s never any reason to criticize Trump, because he’s super-awesome and omnicompetent and beyond reproach. In fact, he told us that he has never done anything requiring forgiveness (but he often accuses others of terrible sins). He says that the only mistake he has made in the presidency is that other people aren’t praising him enough. And every true Trumpista (i.e. every “real American”) knows that Donald Trump has never said anything to the American people that turns out to be false. He’s just the super-special!
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:20 pmI am disappointed in myself for originally commenting on this story, because there is no upside to expecting today’s Republicans to care about how they are perceived. I am also disappointed in myself because, even though I think my comments have been accurate, I have been unkind.
I am disappointed in Patterico for calling himself an idiot instead of simply saying he was wrong. It is not idiotic to ask questions and state opinions about topics of public interest. You can pretend like this was just a person making an ok sign, but she is no average person and this is no average event. This is a hotly contested SCOTUS nomination and she was chosen by the Administration as an important advocate for the nominee. Expecting her to act more carefully on the second day of the hearings is not idiotic.
I am also disappointed in Reynolds, although his childish sarcasm is not surprising. He should help people try to make amends when they are sincerely remorseful, not use it to mock someone and further antagonize and alienate people who disagree with his views.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:22 pmWhen I watched the video, something snapped in me and I got angry at myself. I wrote the post with the same level of derision for my previous post that I would have used on someone else. It’s actually not good to use that level of derision, at one’s self or at others, though, so I take your point. I was disappointed in myself for not looking into it further at the beginning and waiting to hear her side.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:26 pmThat might be the logical corollary of the Trumpista notion that Trump is an honest man and a righteous swamp-drainer. The craving for a superhero to beat up one’s enemies has thoroughly scrambled any sense of how to judge truthfulness or decency. It all comes down to: Trump must always be on the side of goodness, and anyone who criticizes him must be an agent of evil. And that rule has been apparent among Trump fans for the past three years.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:30 pmMy understanding is that did look into what was available, and you also took the extra step of trying to get a response from her husband. I sympathize with her and with you, but she did not help Kavanaugh with her gesture on the second day and that is a valid point for people who want to see him nominated. But I understand we disagree about this. At this point, what I think obviously doesn’t matter.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:33 pmOf course what you think matters.
I think I have said that it is not irrational for people to maintain that she should have been more careful given the controversy from the day before.
That was my view at first, but I had a change of heart after watching the video.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:38 pmTrump never apologized for floating the conspiratorial nonsense about Ted Cruz that his Pecker pal planted in a tabloid at crucial points in the primaries. On the contrary, Trump justified his cynical ploy by noting that he, Trump, subsequently won the election.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:41 pmThat is a distillation of Trump’s ethics: Anything that puts him on top is morally good. And Trump fans agree.
Eerily similar to the justification Trump’s buddy Harry Reid used for lying about Romney’s income taxes in 2012.
I think Harry Reid is probably the contemporary politician most like Donald Trump, although of course Reid is far more intelligent.
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:47 pmNot you, Patrick, but opinions clearly don’t matter to most people anymore. Debate doesn’t matter. The process doesn’t matter.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:50 pmAs Dave notes, all that matters is winning and losing.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 1:51 pmMy opinion was that if a more complete video was available the process of a genuine honest debate would be rewarded.
And it was.
BuDuh (32f6ad) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:10 pm#269
I think you are over generalizing
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:11 pmIt’s entertaining how much time Patterico and his resident scolds like DRJ, Dave, and the like spend their time first claiming someone was a white supremacist because TV told them she was, then tut-tutting that Republicans must always be perfectly well-behaved and sit just so and it’s THEIR fault that all the scolds were wrong.
Meanwhile, their Democrat friends openly conspire to let in over TWO HUNDRED violent “activists”, many of whom are known racists and anti-Semitic bigots like Linda Sarsour, with the express goal of causing damage and disruption to the headings and the people in them, to the point where they have to be arrested and physically removed.
But no siree, that doesn’t bother the scolds, who kno they are our intellectual betters and that we should just shut up and listen to their obsessions that the TV tells them to have about how a Republican is flashing the OK sign and that proves she’s a white supremacist.
So there’s the lesson, kids: Democrats can riot and be violent at will at the direction and connivance of their Senators, and the only thing the NeverTrump scolds care about is calling YOU a white supremacist. There’s no post here calling out the rioters. There’s no post here condemning the Democrats for their malignant behavior. These NeverTrump scolds spend all their time screaming at Republicans based on ludicrous accusations pushed to them by their TVs and doing the bidding of their Democrat masters.
Once again the people who scream that Trump is icky and nasty prove how much worse they are.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:23 pmSome people have a need to over-analyze things. It’s over. The host F’d up, he admitted it and then made things right. That’s admirable.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:26 pm#300, I am speaking of a pattern of behavior that has been very, very common among vocal Trump fans, and from the beginning it was strikingly different from the behavior of other candidates’ supporters. It was Trump fans who said things like “There’s nothing he could do that would make me stop supporting him,” and who reacted with the most hostility to any criticism of their candidate.
Trump supporters, overwhelmingly, were not morally offended when he boasted that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters. That speaks volumes about Trump, and about his fans. And it doesn’t say anything good.
I have seen “intellectual” Trump-boosters deploy glaring double-standards to exempt Trump from the moral measures on which they judge others, and to give him exclusive credit for policies that people they bash were promoting long before Trump was.
It’s one thing to say Trump (or someone in his administration) took one or another action that’s been beneficial. But I’m repulsed by intellectual dishonesty and uncritical cult-worship in the service of the most oversized ego on the stage. Trump’s own self-worship is a religion unto itself, even without all the fawning idolators.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:29 pmNope, can’t say that I had.
Yes, especially because I had never associated her name with the Alt-Right in the first place.
Her good name is apparently intact. Since she was an unknown before this, and once this story runs its course will go back to that status, I’m not seeing how her good name is harmed. Maybe you like to take offense for people by proxy?
Exactly the classiness I’ve come to expect from the rabid Trump supporters.
Chuck Bartowski (211c17) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:31 pmLiar. I never claimed she was a white supremacist. Anywhere.
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:47 pmIt’s really funny to watch the scolds here scream how bad Trump is and how that justifies them calling an innocent person a white supremacist.
Meanwhile, not a whiff of condemnation for their fellow NeverTrump Democrats who allowed over 200 violent racists and bigots in to disrupt and harm people at a Congressional hearing.
There really isn’t any action NeverTrump scolds won’t justify if they can convince themselves it hurts Trump, right? No lie to big, no slander too gross, and if it harms an innocent woman’s reputation, well that’s HER fault.
Too funny. They’re once again showing why we got Trump — because he is better than they are AND doesn’t hate the guts of us “normals”.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:47 pmSure you didn’t, Dave.
Here’s a hint: why don’t you state, “Wow, I was a real idiot for obsessing over a Republican signaling for a glass of water while the Democrats were sending in violent racist bigots to disrupt a Congressional hearing. Maybe I should reconsider how much my hatred of Trump is warping my perspective.”
That would be an intelligent mea culpa.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:52 pm@290. Don’t be, DRJ. Don’t apologize for exercising vigilance. ‘If you see something, say something’ is the line of the times we live in. So it was off this time; next time it may not be. IMO, the upside has been to inadvertently flush these wackos out as the spit venom w/furious indignation.
It’s been a fresh reminder: these are very bad people.
They’ve co-opted the swastika, the thumbs up, ok’s, various mundane salutes and more. The ultimate prize will be the basic handshake.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 2:57 pmYou are a lying pile of fecal matter.
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:07 pm@307. Wow, she was a real swamp creature idiot; an aide signaling/texting/stage-whispering to another aide for ‘aid’-acting entitled- for a simple glass and/or bottle water for the guy rather than just moving her lazy ass to get up and get it herself. Never occurred to ’em that even pausing, and asking for it out loud might actually humanize ’em for the TeeVee audience- which they’re all playing to anyway. If that had been done, she’d have remain in obscurity and none of this would even matter. Swamp Creatures all.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:09 pmOh, believe us, we’re impressed by your vigilance.
You saved the world from a Republican signaling for a glass of water.
That’s DEFINITELY more important than the Democrats letting in over 200 violent agitators like Linda Sarsour, who actually DOES hold racist and Nazi views, which you and your Junior Detective Squad missed completely.
In short, you do a bang-up job at slandering innocent people as Nazis while completely missing the ones that are obvious, blatant and out in the open.
Or maybe you’re just figuring that Nazis can’t be all bad if they want to get rid of Trump and Republicans too.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:10 pmYou are regurgitating again, DCSCA. Bad look.
Leviticus (c4c70e) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:11 pmYes, it’s her fault for dressing provocatively. That short skirt MADE you rape her.
Again, it’s hilarious to see the NeverTrump scolds scream that Trump always blames other people — and then turn around and practice this itself.
Just curious: do you scolds ever wonder if we voters looked at Trump ‘s behavior and your behavior, decided they were no different, and decided to go with the one that didn’t hate our guts like you do?
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:15 pmDon’t worry, he’s a celebrity. Donald Trump said that makes it OK.
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:17 pmPat,
Thanks for the detailed response. Thanks further for the clarification on your stance on the OK symbol – you’re right, we are closer than I had thought.
I think your concentric circles model of core Trump supporters is sound – of course the rub is how big that White Nationalist circle is – because if it isn’t that big, it doesn’t make much sense for national politicians to pander / dog whistle to them. I think it is probably quite small in today’s society, but it looks bigger than it is given the over-sized media and Left attention given to it. Much like we on the Right have a tendency to talk about the Nation of Islam and Black Panthers, when in reality those groups are small and politically insignificant – but the dominance of the media by the Left really amplifies their boogeymen. And as Brett Weinstein warns, in so doing, the Left does increase the chance of it growing and becoming stronger. Particularly when they use those labels to smear everyone on the Right.
As for the alt-right circle, well to put it in statistical terms, the confidence bounds on the curve seem really high to me – so high that I’m not sure what it means to be alt-Right or how to identify those who belong to it. There are those like Vox Day, who claim it and have defined what the label means to them, but I’m not sure how much of what gets called “alt-Right” is how he and his other self-professed alt-Righters see it (I am no fan of VD – he tries to walk too fine a line, and the commenters at his site creep me out). But I do agree that whatever it is, it mostly supported Trump in the 2016 election.
I think the Trump interview with Tapper you link to was the low point of that campaign. But I will say this – Trump is not careful with his words. We saw this here with Tapper, and we saw it with his comments at Charlottesville. So, given that, hostile (to Trump) interpretations of both his Tapper interview and the comments at Charlottesville are reasonable – he has provided the fuel to that fire himself. If you think those were dog whistles (or at least efforts to mollify the extremists), I can’t disprove it. Those conclusions are consistent with the facts. But they do rest on assumptions about Trump’s beliefs, character, and motivations. And, I think, alot of the work is done by the assumptions.
So, a charitable reading of the Tapper interview, also consistent with his words, might be that he was sparring with a hostile interviewer and didn’t want to concede ground from his already defensive position. Or that he thought saying “I don’t know the guy” is all he should have to say. He says things like “I don’t know David Duke” – which is very Trump, right? How often have we seen him personalize his criticisms – it almost always starts with how much he has personally interacted with X person, whether he is praising them or criticizing them. So, and again, this is the charitable reading, perhaps he is trying to dodge what he sees as Tapper’s attempt to associate him with Duke – Trump’s response is “I don’t know the guy.” Not, I think, that he doesn’t know of David Duke – he even talks about him in the interview at one point like he does know who Tapper is talking about. Trump’s goal may simply have been to defend his supporters who he believes are being *wrongly* smeared as racists, white supremacists, and Duke-adjacent, and he simply did a crappy job of it. I’ve always thought that was what he was trying to do with his Charlottesville comments.
Or he could have been lying (if he was, it was a monumentally stupid lie). And of course, we know his answer should obviously be “I know of David Duke and, from what I know, I can absolutely disavow his support.” That’s the answer Trump should have given, but didn’t. Bad. The question is why he didn’t. One reasonable interpretation is he doesn’t want to offend what he sees as part of his constituency. Another, though, is that Trump is an impulsive rambler when he answers questions, and simply didn’t think through his response, beyond that he didn’t want to concede ground to Tapper (or allow Tapper to make the interview all about Trump talking about Duke and white supremacists). Note, Tapper goes into the ADL list and asks Trump if he’ll disavow those groups – and there Trump is on stronger ground – he tells Tapper to send him the list, and he’ll look at those groups, and disavow accordingly. I think his point that the ADL may have put “groups” on there that don’t belong with the KKK and the white supremacists, and so he wants to see for himself, is reasonable. He should know enough about Duke to say it explicitly. The reason he didn’t, from our perspective as folks who don’t actually know his mind, comes down to whether or not we believe Trump saw Duke and Duke-adjacent groups as those he needed to pander to, and thus intentionally avoided an explicit disavowal. I tend to err on the side of assuming national politicians, even ones as undisciplined as Trump, aren’t looking to court white supremacists and the KKK, so I’m more willing to give it the charitable interpretation – a dumb and bad answer, but not a malicious one.
Which I think also brings us back to the murky definitions of alt-Right, and what kinds of symbols are alt-Right, or what it means to use an alt-Right symbol. If we tend to think alt-Right is white supremacist-adjacent, then distancing oneself from that label, and any associated symbols, should be obvious, and those who don’t invite folks to conclude that they are fine with that association. But if we want to draw a hard and thick line there, and then another around Trump supporters, it isn’t quite so clear. And thus it isn’t clear what people are really saying when they are offering up symbols and memes that have been associated with these groups. The Swastika, the white hooded cloak, the flat hand and the raised arm – these are unambiguous symbols. I immediately know what box to put those who truck in them. Much less so with things like Pepe and the OK sign.
Cleaning up with the rest: for the record – Richard Spencer is neo-Nazi and a racist and should be shunned accordingly (just like David Duke should be). I was IPreferOthersToTrump until he won the primary. But I was always NeverHillary, so that became an easy voting decision for me. Also – I’m a longtime, occasional lurker here. Added this blog to my links in the days of Rathergate, and I still read here from time to time – and generally enjoy your take on things, even when I disagree strongly. D.GOOCH
GOOCH (f0689a) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:19 pmIt’s not even newsworthy. Expectations are baked in that left-wingers would pull a stunt like that. Condemnation is implied.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:22 pm@312. Reiterating, Leviticus.
It needs to be. There’s nothing wrong w/outing these people for who they are. As often as possible. I’m certainly not an ideological conservative by any means but wouldn’t wish these wackos on any side- left, center or right.
If Bill Buckley was alive he’d be running these wackjobs out of the conservative movement posthaste.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:22 pmDCSCA: the Senate may have protocol rules for the folks sitting directly behind the witnesses. Signaling someone to bring in a glass from off stage may be what she was supposed to do.
kaf (8a536b) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:25 pm@313. Didn’t notice. Apparently, you did. Did it trigger a Trump Tingle? Besides, as Dave rightly noted, the Celebrity In Chief says they like eyed and getting grabbed– don’t they.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:26 pm@318. Pffft.C’mon… and everybody pees on the floor, too.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:29 pmWhich means what, Dave?
It certainly hasn’t sent you out into the streets scolding your fellow NeverTrump Democrats like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, NeverTrump here Eric Scheiderman, and so forth.
Why don’t you ask well-known mattress pad Kamala Harris how many times she slept with Democrats like Willie Brown for power, especially since last time I checked, he wasn’t married to her.
That’s why we voters sit there and laugh at you NeverTrump scolds. We’re well aware of what Trump has done; we’re also well aware of what you and yours have done, and frankly, Trump has the virtue of not hating our guts.
You tell me why I should care about personal immorality when rape enabler and NeverTrump leader Hillary Clinton points it out while simultaneously screaming that we’re all racists and Nazis and you and yours clap right along.
I repeat myself. You and your fellow NeverTrump scolds went completely batshit crazy trying to smear an innocent woman as a white supremacist over hand signals while you said NOTHING about the Democrats sending over 200 violent protesters into the room, many of whom ENDORSE Nazi views like Linda Sarsour, into the room to disrupt, attack and harm people.
At this point, you and your fellow NeverTrump scolds do not care about law, order, government or anything else. You only care about getting and regaining power by any means, including dragging an innocent woman through the mud over hand signals. You have shown that you and your fellow Democrats are moral and intellectual inferiors who are trapped in a two-year tantrum.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:29 pmSo it’s okay for Democrats to send in over 200 violent protesters with racist and Nazi views, but god forbid a Republican woman signal for a glass of water.
What makes it newsworthy, when they kill someone?
Even better, given how you all are screaming it’s Zina Bash’s fault for being “entitled” and not following your arbitrary rules for how Republicans should hold their hands during a hearing, you’ll blame the victim for getting in the way of the violent leftist’s weapon.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:35 pmHave you ever noticed that Donald Trump’s sole criterion for judging anyone appears to be whether they are complimentary and flattering toward him?
Have you noticed the exact same behavior in relation to other unsavory types like Vladimir Putin and (since they became bosom buddies overnight) Kim Jong Un? He has made excuses horrific crimes committed by both, and tried to claim that they are no worse than our country. Trump has also attempted to cover up the 2016 Russian military attack on our country ordered by Putin, because it was intended to help him.
The man is morally blind and incapable of criticizing anyone he perceives as well-disposed toward him.
Conversely, he cannot conceive of good-faith disagreement, and in his view, anyone who criticizes him can only do so unjustly, out of sheer malice.
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:37 pmSo it’s okay for Democrats to send in over 200 violent protesters with racist and Nazi views, but god forbid a Republican woman signal for a glass of water.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:40 pmI think you’re arguing with yourself, bub. No one here said such a thing.
#306: Trump has spent has life telling everyone how much greater and richer and smarter he is than all the “normals.” He has a history of ridiculing “losers” and “stupid people.” But he decided that he could turn losers and “the poorly educated” into a fan base / voting block if he told them he would beat up their enemies, and then he could get back at the smart set whose admiration he always craved.
Along the way, he has demonstrated that what he cares about most is how much you adore him. He tells you that he is your favorite president of all time. And he thinks so little of you, the “normals,” that he expects you to abandon a minimum ethical standard in order to remain loyal to him personally.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:50 pmHave you ever noticed how Dave is so obsessed with racists and Nazis that he makes up things about how a woman signaling for a glass of water is one, but ignores actual racists and Nazis sitting with and being embraced by NeverTrump leaders and his fellow Trump-haters?
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/17/us/farrakhan-again-describes-hitler-as-a-very-great-man.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/09/04/what-was-louis-farrakhan-doing-at-aretha-franklins-funeral/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/womens-march/555122/
By the way, at least one of these women, who endorse violent racist and Nazi views, was sent into the committee room by NeverTrump Senators like Kamala Harris and Cory Booker with the express purpose of disrupting the hearings and doing damage.
Meanwhile, Dave rants about secret hand signals and how evil Donald Trump is.
What this keeps showing us is that Dave and his fellow NeverTrump scolds have pretty much reached the point where allying with racists and Nazis is fine as long as it attacks Trump.
And that’s why we laugh when they try to bash Trump for allegedly doing so.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:52 pmYeah, except you did.
It’s funny how 200 violent leftists being let into a room by NeverTrump Senators with the express purpose of disrupting hearings and intimidating people, including Kavanaugh’s family, isn’t “newsworthy” or a concern on this website, but we get War and Peace-length diatribes about how a Republican staffer’s hand signals prove that all Tepublicans are white supremacists or something.
Do you start to get a clue about why we’re not taking you NeverTrump scolds seriously? You’re busy replaying video to lip read and analyze hand signals while completely ignoring a couple hundred screaming, violent ACTUAL racists and Nazis.
Why? Because they’re NeverTrump and the person you’re analyzing to death isn’t.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:57 pmNo one has ever noticed that, because it’s not true.
Find one example of me calling Nina Bash a racist or a nazi, and I’ll donate $100 to Donald Trump.
Save your time looking, liar, because I never did.
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 3:58 pm*Zina Bash
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:00 pmTrumps brand of nazism needs some fine tuning as the Israel people love him.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:01 pmSome nazi Trump is… lmmfao at the never trumper nazi bomb pukers.
What’s most striking is how openly and unabashedly Trump has expressed that standard. He was proud to tell everyone that he wanted to keep someone on the public payroll who was negligent in her job and nasty toward everyone else, because she “said GREAT things” about him. In Trump’s mind, that’s what really matters.
What’s most shocking is how Trump fans, far from being offended by that moral standard, have instead largely adopted it as their own.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:04 pmUm, no, I never said it was okay for protesters to get violent. You’re making s**t up.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:05 pmDCSCA: why didn’t Kavanaugh just get up and get himself a glass? He should have moved his lazy ass and gotten it himself.
kaf (8a536b) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:07 pmThe scariest part of all is that, almost daily, he openly demands that the criminal justice system operate on the same basis.
He is also on record as saying that any negative press coverage of him is, by definition, “fake”.
The two terms are synonymous, as far as he’s concerned.
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:16 pmYep, some “very fine people” carrying torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville…
David Duke was appropriately grateful.
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:19 pmThen why are we here on Patterico’s “Sorry/Not Sorry Apology Non-Apology World Tour”, Dave?
We all read the original post and all of the comments. Granted, you weren’t as nasty as the other NeverTrumpers who were within inches of calling her the second coming of Eva Braun, but you got your licks in nicely at her expense.
And, when you were forced into a hilarious attempt at a face-saving retreat and, like your buddy DCSCA, trying to justify it by claiming your motives were pure in fighting Nazis and racists….I simply pointed out that, for all your Zapruder-esque video analysis and lip reading, you ended up having to admit you’d been chasing an imaginary threat while ignoring the 200-plus ACTUAL Nazis and racists in the room that your fellow NeverTrump leaders let in to disrupt the hearing and intimidate people with violence and screaming.
This is why you and your fellow NeverTrump scolds are a joke, Dave. You spent hours trying to decipher hand signals and lip read to “prove” Zina Bash was a racist and a Nazi, while ignoring your fellow NeverTrunp Senators mobilizing a Brownshirt army worthy of Hitler.
If you want to pretend you oppose racism and Nazis, it would help if you actually called it out when it was happening instead of making the ludicrous argument that an OK sign is the proof that Trump is Hitler reincarnated.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:20 pmAnd yet, when they did, what were you doing?
Oh right, analyzing video frames and engaging lip readers to “prove” that the person you’d already accused of being a white supremacist actually was one.
Again, Paul, take a hint: you and your fellow NeverTrump scolds’ crusade against racism and Nazism would be more credible if you actually went after racists and Nazis.
Right now it’s pretty obvious you’re just going after Trump and his supporters, so the fiction just isn’t holding up — unless, of course, you and Patterico want to just drop the mask and state that all Trump supporters are racists and Nazis.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:25 pm#333 — and those who don’t accept the solipsistic Trumpian ethic as a great presidential virtue are said to suffer a “derangement.”
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:28 pmCall us when David Duke is sitting front row center and getting the endorsements of two former Presidents and a Presidential candidate.
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/17/us/farrakhan-again-describes-hitler-as-a-very-great-man.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/09/04/what-was-louis-farrakhan-doing-at-aretha-franklins-funeral/
Meanwhile, it’s funny that you don’t care about thousands of NeverTrump scolds in pink pussy hats marching and chanting in support of leaders who have openly called for and actually support total genocide of Jews.
I think we’ve noticed a pattern, Dave: racists and Nazis are fine, no matter how many of them there are, when they’re NeverTrump.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/womens-march/555122/
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:30 pmJeeeeez. Are these folks really coming over from Glenn Reynold’s site? They seem really willing to put labels on other people and insist those labels are real—-even when evidence states otherwise.
Patterico, just dump people like that, please. There is no genuine interest in free speech from people who post to fight.
Simon Jester (b90f94) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:31 pmYep.
Here’s why.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/12/jennifer-rubin-trump-obsession-mindless-opponent/
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:37 pm@332. Because a smarter move would have been to say, ‘excuse me, might I ask the committee for a moment to have some fresh water- my mouth’s a bit dry from responding to your questions.’ It would have been a humanizing moment for him on the TeeVee rather than doing a stage whisper which dovetailing w/his dodging. That’s why.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:51 pm#340, so you think it’s rational to accept Trump’s own principle that whatever serves him and glorifies him is true and good, and whatever does not serve him or flatter him is fake and evil. And therefore it’s irrational, i.e. deranged, to hold the belief that the person of Donald Trump is not the final measure of morality.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:53 pmYou can’t blame them, Simon. He egged them on.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:58 pm@335. Trigger, there’s a bottle of water, a pocket knife, a lighter and a harness w/a weather balloon attached awaiting you in the Mojave. Hydrogen shall set you free.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:58 pmTrigger, I take it you’re one of the people who would be happy to excuse and even applaud Trump if he publicly gunned down someone in cold blood, just to prove that he was correct when he said you would do exactly that.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 4:58 pmYou’re still making s**t up. I did no such thing. WTF is wrong with you?
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 5:03 pm“GIVE HIM CREDIT FOR HONESTY” is now considered “egging on?”
I am glad Glenn Reynolds wasn’t sitting behind Kavanaugh. Think of the spectacle he might have caused.
BuDuh (fc15db) — 9/9/2018 @ 5:40 pmShe kept her madd rap skilz on teh downlow in 2016, we can be grateful for that. Otherwise… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-COxCrLVjfE
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/9/2018 @ 5:57 pmYou understand he was giving P credit for being honest for saying “I’m an idiot,” right?
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:27 pm@ Paul Montagu, #356:
Perhaps I can bring some clarity to the situation.
Trigger256tx is upset about two things: first, that you and others here don’t hold his same worldview; and second, that you and others have the temerity to voice your disagreements. He is upset about the first thing because he considers himself so obviously right that his positions need no defense, and therefore anyone who disagrees with him must be stupid or evil or both. He is upset about the second thing because you are bringing your disagreement with him to his attention, thus publicly flaunting what he sees as your stupidity or immorality.
He is, therefore, going to pursue the favorite tactic of the alt-right — namely, pursuing the tactics of the left while accusing you of being a leftist (or tantamount to a leftist) yourself. Alt-righters, like many progressives, have developed a peculiar obsession with the moral virtue of fairness. Make no mistake, fairness is a virtue, but it is only one of many. By stripping it out of its proper place in what C.S. Lewis dubbed the Tao, and setting it up as the summum bonum, they cannot but pursue a warped morality that will fall upon the virtuous and the vicious alike, mistaking more proper iterations of the Tao for evil.
My educated guess is that they have developed this obsession because they see themselves, not without some justification, as the victims of double standards. How many times do progressives get away with murder…in some cases, literally…while non-progressives are ruined publicly for far less heinous acts? Yet he chooses to use this as a justification for attacking YOU for not attacking his enemies to whatever degree he perceives sufficient. After all, if you aren’t with him, you’re with them. You are almost the same in his eyes as, say, Bernie Sanders.
Note I said almost. The idea that someone could be more publicly condemning of a minor sinner than a major one, on the theory that the minor sinner can be corrected with a mere rebuke whereas the major sinner needs more serious measures and talk is not sufficient, might seem to be beyond him at first glance. It is not, though. Notice that he himself condemns the progressives only in passing. Instead he directs his ire and contempt at YOU, the person who is following their despicable example. But the mere fact that he is talking to you might imply that he thinks you could be redeemed, if only you forsook your Tao and followed his.
To that end, he is pursuing a set of tactics readily identifiable to anyone familiar with Saul Alinsky — though probably not consciously borrowed for him:
“Never go outside the expertise of your people.”
Note that he keeps coming back to the same incident or two. They’re what he has spent his time reading about, and he is intimately familiar with their details and how to exploit them for maximum rhetorical effect. He will continue to use them as a bludgeon against you…
“Whenever possible go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
…and he also seems to be placing a bet that you aren’t as familiar with these incidents as he is. Any slip-up on your part will be used as another reason to condemn you for your moral or intellectual failings.
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
This is evident every time he accuses you and others of failing to condemn his opponents while going after someone on “his side” (though he probably didn’t even know her name 48 hours ago) for a reason that is a) without factual basis, and b) trivial even if it were based in fact. You must condemn all major sins before all minor sins; else, you are a hypocrite, because you are either stupid or evil or both. You must condemn his enemies before his friends, because he is obviously right and his friends share in that veracity; to go after those who are in the right (or at least more in the right) before those who are obviously in the wrong marks you as definitely on the side of evil, and probably quite stupid as well.
Note well that he will never live up to this rule himself, although he will make it his mission to see that you do, or are properly punished for failing to do so. Among the evils that Trigger has failed to condemn on this thread: the myriad human rights crises around the world, the millions of unborn children aborted each year, the Holocaust, the totalitarian governments of China and Russia, the scandal within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, our mismanagement of our national debt, the general breakdown of civil discourse in our society, and last season’s NBC fall schedule. Were I playing by his rulebook, he would now stand condemned of approving of all of those things, because he has not sufficiently condemned them. Fortunately for him, I am a more charitable person, so I will assume he did not condemn any of those things because they were not germane to the discussion at hand — and also, maybe he’s a closet “This Is Us” fan.
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
I don’t think I need to explain how this applies.
“A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
He’s clearly enjoying himself…
“Keep the pressure on.”
…by making repeated comments…
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
…against specific commenters here, not just against the whole commentariat.
Unfortunately, with his tedious repetition, he’s also on the verge of violating another of Alinsky’s precepts: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” In fact, I may be getting there myself, so I’ll trust that my point has been made, and stop here.
I hope this comment is specific enough to answer your question, but also broad enough to be of more general use.
Demosthenes (7fae81) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:28 pmCorrection: your perception of Trump’s own principle.
And since you and your fellow NeverTrump scolds believe that everything Trump does is wrong and evil, you project that level of irrationality onto others.
Hence why you and your fellow NeverTrump scolds have devoted countless hours and electrons to proving that Zina Bash is a white supremacist because she signaled for a glass of water.
And then when that blew up in your face, you started shrieking you were right to do so because Trump and his supporters are all evil.
Meanwhile, out here in the real world, normal people are wondering why you’re lip reading and freeze-framing how someone is holding their hands while elsewhere in the room, acknowledged and known racists and supporters of Nazi philosophy are shrieking at the top of their lungs and threatening violence to the point where Kavanaugh’s family needs to be escorted out under heavy guard.
Of course, that’s because you are cultists who believe that there is nothing immoral or wrong with any action, including violence and intimidation, taken by opponents of Trump because Trump and his supporters are all evil.
In short, you’re projecting. And the laughable attempt by you and the other scolds to spin why you have not word one of condemnation for the NeverTrump leaders like Kamala Harris and Cory Booker who knowingly and deliberately let violent racists and Nazi sympathizers into the hearing room for the purpose of violence, intimidation and rioting.
That’s why your shrieking about Trump’s morals fall on deaf ears. We know you have no morals, and that you will never apply your moral scolding to your fellow NeverTrump scolds. You are hypocrites, and worse, you are malicious hypocrites who are doing this because you are desperate to rule over us.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:28 pmAnd now he seems to be blocking the link. What a guy.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:29 pmShorter Demosthenes: how dare this deplorable point out that his betters were attacking a nonexistent sin and scourging an innocent while ignoring actual ones that were clear examples of what they were accusing the innocent of doing.
Understandable. Were Demosthenes to acknowledge that a deplorable was right and that he, one of the pure NeverTrump cult, was wrong, his value and worth would be completely shattered.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:34 pmI understood that P said:
[emphasis mine]
P’s wish for publicity started with a complementary Twitchy post that Reynolds linked. Reynolds then re-emphasized the praise that the Twitchy writers extolled on P.
You don’t have to read everything in the worst light, DRJ. That is how this whole kerfuffle began. Sometimes gestures are just gestures. Sometimes words are just words.
BuDuh (fc15db) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:36 pmComplimentary.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:38 pmActually, DRJ, you posted an incorrect link.
http://https//pjmedia.com/instapundit/307029/ does not work.
It should have been https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/307029/
Just a simple mistake. It happens.
BuDuh (fc15db) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:38 pmAnother simple mistake… But something to focus on, I guess.
BuDuh (fc15db) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:40 pmActually, that’s a lie.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/307029/
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/307000/
They seem to be working quite nicely. Perhaps you should explain why you chose to say otherwise.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:40 pmThat may be true, Demosthenes, and I like most of what you’ve said, but a central theme of this particular post is about making assumptions and rendering judgments before having enough facts. Patterico owned up to it, so it’s beyond ironic that a number of Trumpalistas coming over from Instapundit are committing the exact same transgression, including Trigger about me.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:49 pmI have seen a lot of similarities in commenting styles between hardcore liberals and hardcore Trumpalistas. Many Trump loyalists argue like liberals, and I’ve seen it at RedState (before I was tribally cleansed) and I’m living it at Instapundit. Their tactics usually involve mindreading, baseless charges, unfounded assumptions, all sprinkled with a lot of emotion and anger. Another trait I’ve seen in liberals is the infantile “well, how you didn’t write about or say something about that“, with “that” being whatever hobbyhorse the liberal feels isn’t getting enough attention. It’s a stupid, juvenile approach, worthy of full-throated mockery. From what I’ve seen from Trigger, he’s checking at least a couple of those boxes.
Who? I don’t understand.
Patterico (52fb4a) — 9/9/2018 @ 6:50 pmTrigger is on a roll, now making s**t up about “not word one of condemnation for the NeverTrump leaders like Kamala Harris and Cory Booker” when there really were condemnations of Harris and Booker. But hey, the guy’s rolling, sorta like Bluto on how Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:01 pmThere is a difference between abridging a text and castrating it. What you have done here is not an abridgment.
But I did acknowledge you were right on the issue in my post — though my main point, which I spent much more time on, was that you are wrong about how you’re defending yourself and attacking others.
And I do not consider you a deplorable. You can malign yourself with that label if you like. I consider you a being made in the image of God, with a soul that Christ considered valuable enough to die for. There is nothing deplorable about that. You are my brother (or possibly sister, I don’t know), and no disgust of mine with your conduct could ever change that.
I have been wrong before, long before Trump was president. I most assuredly will be again, log after someone else holds the office. My being a NeverTrumper (which I am) has nothing to do with my mistakes and sins.
My value and worth are given to me by God, and are not subject to any admissions of mine…or any vetoes of yours.
Demosthenes (7fae81) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:04 pmDRJ posted a link at 4:58pm. There was an error with how the link was transcribed. This led her to believe that Glenn Reynolds decided to block the link for some nefarious reason.
An innocent mistake.
I posted the correct link for DRJ.
BuDuh (fc15db) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:07 pmWhen you highlight my link it is correct, but it does not go there.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:11 pmMy mistake. Thank you for catching it.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:13 pmNo problem, DRJ.
BuDuh (a5b4c6) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:15 pmWhy does the link at my comment 343 look correct when I highlight it, but it doesn’t go to the highlighted address?
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:23 pmOf course.
For one simple answer: they work.
Look at this commenting board, where liberals made a “mindreading, baseless charges, unfounded assumptions, all sprinkled with a lot of emotion and anger” that Zina Bash was making white suoremacistvhand signals and was a white supremacist.
Did you mock them?
Did you say they were idiots?
Did you dismiss their charges as hooey?
Not at all. You and your buddies like Patterico set out to prove that these charges were true.
And in the process completely ignoring the violent, racist and bigoted NeverTrump protesters in the room who were committing crimes and putting people in actual danger because it wasn’t “newsworthy”.
And then your buddy Demosthenes comes up with the howler that your pursuit of an utterly imaginary sin that wasn’t even a sin and that you have admitted was a total mistake on your part led by bias and jumping to conclusions was just as important and required as pointing out people causing actual physical and governmental harm.
What it boils down to is this: you and Demosthenes are trying long-winded rationalizations of why your obsession to get Donald Trump by attacking an innocent woman who happens to be affiliated with him for being a white supremacist is more important than the actual physical violence and disruption being carried out by your fellow NeverTrumpers.
Meanwhile, you and your fellow commenters here are shrieking that I have to disavow Trump’s statements about shooting people while you and yours scream and kick that you can’t be held to the same standards.
Let’s get real here. I talked about actual, physical, dangerous events that happened with the full connivance of Democrats.
You and your buddies here spent the past few days crapping yourself about hand signals.
And now you’re sitting here screaming and crying that your fruitless and idiotic crapping yourself about hand signals that you even admitted was stupid and ignorant is somehow morally more important than dealing with incitement to riot.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:24 pmIt has one to many “http”s in it DRJ.
BuDuh (fc15db) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:28 pmI fixed the link at 343. When you generate a link, “http://” shows up automatically. If you paste a full link without removing that, you’ll get two instances of “http://” –,as BuDuh points out happened here.
Patterico (52fb4a) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:29 pmTrigger256tv seems triggered.
Patterico (52fb4a) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:31 pmYou missed something, Paul. Here, I’ll highlight it for you.
That’s the difference. Even NeverTrumpers like you and Patterico realized that these two were doing incredible damage to your “resistance” by virtue of being outright idiots and proving the fact by opening their mouths. They made it obvious just what kind of goofy and ludicrous minds are behind NeverTrump.
But the latter highlighted portion is the real concern. People don’t just walk into hearing rooms. They needed a pass from a Senator, and it strains credibility to believ that these Senators did not know how disruptive and violent these people were going to be, not when over 200 of them were arrested and it was admitted that they had meetings to coordinate the whole thing.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/04/kavanaugh-remarks-neutral-umpire-806306
I expect Kamala Harris and Cory Booker to say stupid things and posture; they’re both for more ambitious and impulsive than they are bright. But to deliberately and with malicious intent let people into a Congressional hearing KNOWING that these people were going to be disruptive and violent is a criminal act.
And any comments on those? Not a whisper.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:35 pmNoted, your continuing to make s**t up, with the implication that I don’t work. Well done!
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:35 pmIf there’s a criteria for mocking or not mocking someone, I’d say it depends on the person’s credibility. Patterico has been generally credible over the years, and your credibility is already pretty well shot in just one thread, so you can guess who’s going to get mocked here.
This is not what I said. This is, however, almost exactly how I said you would characterize your opponents…
This is not what I was trying to do. I was trying to explain your offensive behavior to Paul.
You can mischaracterize my words all you like, but there are three things you need to know. First, my actual words are still there to refute you. Second, I can post new refutations when I want.
And third, I will pray for you to become able to release your anger and find some peace.
Demosthenes (7fae81) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:36 pmI understand that mistake, but why does it only show the actual link when I right-click it? Same for Buduh’s examples at 356, e ven though one is right and one is wrong. Why does that happen?
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:37 pmIt’s clear to me that the alt.lederhosen-und-grits driving by here (I’m looking at you Trigger 256x) are not upset at Patterico for mistaking Zina Bash’s use of the ok gesture as deplorable trolling.
No, the reason they are cross with him is because he 1) disparaged it and then 2) emphasized the disparagement by apologizing for his mistake.
They wanted it to be the alt.puppies-cute symbol. They wanted Zina Bash to be using it to troll the committee. And they want people to approve of such an attempt at trolling.
nk (dbc370) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:37 pmI apologize for saying he broke the link, but not for pointing out his sarcasm.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:39 pmWhich is why Trigger256x keeps harping on the anti-Kavanaugh protesters that were let into the hearing room. He wants Zina Bash’s gesture to be interpreted as “fighting back”.
nk (dbc370) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:42 pmNo, Paul, that is referring to tactics. Reread the sentence I quoted. I don’t have any reason to believ you don’t work, and besides, that’s not relevant to this conversation anyway whether you do or not.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:45 pmPaul and nk…yes, and Patterico too…please lay off Trigger. All you’re doing is fueling him.
Regardless of what you say, he’s going to leave believing that he’s factually in the right. But if you continue the way you are, with all due respect, he’ll also leave with every negative stereotype he holds about NeverTrumpers confirmed and reinforced. (And no, it doesn’t even matter whether you are one or consider yourself one. He considers you one…and that will be enough for him.)
If we preach civility, we must model it. If we preach compassion and love, we must practice it.
And before anyone goes digging into my comment history, yes, I’ve said many terrible and shameful things on this blog and others. I will be the first to admit that I haven’t held to this rule in the past. I’ve been a pretty terrible person for most of the last, oh, fifteen or twenty years.
But maybe that means this comment will be worth more coming from me. I hope so.
Demosthenes (7fae81) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:47 pmI don’t see the sarcasm. He posted the entire Twitchy headline.
If he cut it short and only posted the “i am an idiot” part, I would be inclined to see it as you do.
BuDuh (fc15db) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:48 pmNope.
The reason is that it is dangerous to be allowing racist and bigoted violent people into a Congressional hearing and telling them to be disruptive, as Democrats bragged they did, regardless of what you think Zina Bash was doing with her hands.
But hey, the TV told you what to do, and you obediently went off to find a reason to burn the Trump witch, instead of asking why NeverTrump decided it was important to endanger peoples’ lives.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:48 pmCome, now, Trigger. You can’t believe this. You may be indulging in some overblown rhetoric because it feels righteous (I’ve certainly done that myself in the past). If that’s what you’re doing, then so be it.
But reflect on what you’re saying. NeverTrump, a political position, is not some unified movement. It certainly doesn’t have some singular mass-mind agency that can “decide” anything. And as low as your opinion may be of anyone who considers Donald Trump unfit for the office of president, you can’t seriously believe those people are willingly endangering lives.
Just take me as an example, since I’ve admitted to being a NeverTrumper. Do you believe that of me? Am I so terrible in your eyes?
Demosthenes (7fae81) — 9/9/2018 @ 7:59 pmNot really.
It’s silly to stereotype people who, for whatever reason, decided they didn’t want to vote for or support Trump. It’s a free country. Their priorities are different than mine. That doesn’t make them necessarily wrong or right.
The ones I respect, though, are the ones that can clearly elucidate their points, instead of ranting on about pussy and porn stars and whatnot. Trump is neither Satan or Jesus. He is a man, a flawed man, who for whatever reason is the vessel through which God chooses to work at this point. I voted for him reluctantly, but given my choices, it was ultimately the only decision I could support.
Has he been perfect? No, of course not. Has he been better than I expected? Yes.
The problem here is very simple: for whatever reason, y’all decided to chase a piece of leftist craziness down the rabbit hole, and were dead wrong about it. Fine, it happens. But what I’m not seeing here is any introspection as to why or any perspective about what else was going on in that hearing room that was far more dangerous. Blowhard Senators have been a thing since there were Senators, but deliberately inviting violent mobs in to disrupt proceedings and intimidate people is beyond contempt. The Democrats and the worst of their NeverTrump allies are making it clear that they will stop at nothing, including physical violence to get their way.
So given that, I have no interest in what the anti-Trump media tells me a Republican is supposedly doing with her hands. I am much more concerned about when at the next hearing one of their nutjobs sets off a bomb or stabs or shoots someone in the name of “stopping Nazis”. And that has been my whole point — do your mea culpa, fine, but stop blaming her, stop claiming she deserved it, and start focusing on the real problem, which is Democrats endorsing physical violence to get their way.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:05 pmI agree. But I have a hard time reconciling that with sentences of yours like…
These all either are, or imply, stereotypes. And I didn’t have to search very hard to find them. Am I to conclude, then, that you’re just being silly? Because I don’t think you are. It sounds very much like you believe these things.
If you took the time to read things that Patterico has written, both recently and from years past, you would find he is usually very clear about his points. Even when I disagree with him, that’s one of his virtues.
If you go back and look at the comments I have made, you will find that I, at least, am not guilty of the particular sin of which I now stand accused. But let me own it for the moment. Suppose I had been? Suppose, like Patterico, I was trying to admit my mistake and explain why I’d made it? How helpful would your comments have been? I suspect that based on my self-knowledge, I might have doubled down, said “Screw you,” and walked away. It is to Patterico’s credit that he hasn’t done that. In fact, it is to Patterico’s credit that you haven’t been banned here already. (If I have one complaint about his proprietorship, it is that he tolerates far more incivility from his commenters than he should.)
Seriously, hasn’t that been your experience? Whenever Trump says or does something outlandish and people attack you for supporting him, do you always respond in the fashion you just did? “He’s a flawed man, but I thought he was the better option?” Or after that got mocked enough, did you just start owning it and doubling down? I know what I did, when people right here attacked me for being NeverTrump. But maybe you’re better than I am.
Most people aren’t inclined to be introspective when you start out by castigating them.
I would love to continue this conversation, but at this point, I’m afraid I have to sign off. I have to be up early for work. I meant what I said about praying for you. And I hope that, whether you come back here or not, you find some peace. I sincerely mean that.
Demosthenes (7fae81) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:24 pmAnd that has been my whole point — do your mea culpa, fine, but stop blaming her, stop claiming she deserved it, and start focusing on the real problem, which is Democrats endorsing physical violence to get their way.
Who done dat? Blamed her? Claimed she deserved it? This post by Patterico says the opposite in the most opposite way it can be said.
You’ve got problems, buddy. Problems with recognizing reality.
nk (dbc370) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:26 pmhope I get the links right.
Trump has had problems with the alt-right, including seeming to waver between tolerance and condemnation. He’s been known to do a 180 on several issues, which can make it hard to immediately defend his positions when controversial things happen.
My recollection is that Patterico did not post or comment on the Bash OK Sign story on Day One. I don’t even recall people here discussing it, but there may have been some comments. It was not an issue here until she repeated the gesture on Day Two. That was the concern, because it gave legs to a story that was not helpful to Kavanaugh’s hearing and that Trump has exposure on.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:29 pmOh, and one more thing.
The vast majority of Trump supporters have been being called racists and white supremacists ever since Hurrican Katrina.
Originally, we thought that it was worth some self-introspection, because certainly Democrats wouldn’t be saying it if it didn’t have at least some kernel of truth.
But by 2008, when we saw liberals savage their precious darling John McCain as one, we started to figure out that hey, maybe these people aren’t telling the truth.
And then in 2012, when we not only saw the most milquetoast Republican possible, Mitt Romney, get savaged for being a racist, Nazi and white supremacist, but then attack him as one for having a black granddaughter, we kind of figured out the game.
Which is why, when Trump ran, we were in no mood to listen — because we knew the people who were calling us racists and white supremacists were nothing but malicious and abusive liars who were trying to manipulate and hurt us.
And then when NeverTrump jumped on that bandwagon and started shrieking that Trump supporters were racists, we realized that they were just as bad as the Democrats.
Hence why we haven’t any patience for these types of jagoff fests over hand signals — first because we know we’re going to be called racists and white supremacists regardless, and second, because experience has taught us that the people screaming racist and white supremacist are most likely trying to harm and manipulate us.
Pro tip: if you want Trump voters to take you seriously, start by making it clear that Democrats are malicious, abominable liars who deliberately slander people as racists for political power.
Then start seriously questioning whether you should be jumping every time the Democrat media screams racist — or if you should just point and laugh at them.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:31 pmHere you go, nk.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:37 pmAs for blaming her, doing it a second time was surprising but the point to me was that she was no longer an effective advocate for Kavanaugh. And, yes, I do care about that because it is important to get the SCOTUS justices confirmed.
IMO Democratic protests protesters are churning their base but are not hurting the Kavanaugh nomination. Nevertheless, I wish the protests weren’t happening because they are disruptive and dangerous.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:41 pmThat’s a lie. But being untruthful seems to be required in order to keep defending Trump from criticism that’s based on quoting Trump himself.
Throughout the primaries, I got the most irrational retorts to the slightest criticism of Trump – that I had to be a leftist Hillary fan or Bernie-lover, etc. There’s still plenty of weirdness in how the superfans fly off the handle and fling epithets if someone dares suggest that their hero did something not admirable, and how they will stretch any standard to accommodate the worst behavior of Trump.
When someone feels the need to defend poor, victimized Donald Trump in response to a post about tennis, that’s an irrational level of cultlike devotion.
Those who wanted Trump to “blow the whole thing up” and “burn the place to the ground” have no moral right to demand that everyone else be as uncritically worshipful of Trump as they themselves are.
Radegunda (07ace3) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:42 pmOk. You and DCSCA go at it.
nk (dbc370) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:44 pmWow, the Democrat media created a slanderous lie and tried to push it using every means possible.
But of course, it’s the Trump staffer’s fault for making the media lie about her.
Meanwhile, it would have been good for Kavanaugh’s hearing to emphasize that Democrats were letting in violent mobs to disrupt and intimidate people, but that’s not helpful to the narrative they’re trying to push and which with you’re eagerly cooperating that everything is Trump’s fault.
Seriously. You act like an idiot and make idiotic conclusions and then you try to blame the staffer and Trump for it.
What’s funny is that you keep whining about how Republicans should care how they look. What difference does it make, when you and yours will just flat make up crap regardless of what they do and then scream that it’s the Republican’s fault for how you chose to interpret it?
This is Trump’s genius. He knows you’re going to lie about him and blame him, and he’s stopped trying to please you. Instead he does what he wants and then points out how your position changes every fifteen seconds in order to assert that he’s always wrong. Eventually he knows he’s going to maneuver you into publicly making a fool out of yourself, as has NeverTrump hero Jennifer Rubin.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:46 pm” ‘We’re the platform for the alt-right,’ Bannon told me proudly when I interviewed him at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July.”
Bannon was obviously using the Alt-Right term to refer to anti-establishment conservatism, not to Democrat KKK racism.
The OK sign “was an alt right symbol in late 2016 and early 2017, when used by Hoft, Cernovich, Posobiec, Wintrich, Spencer, and their ilk.”
Holy cow Patterico, look who you just lumped together: four non-racist conservatives and one flaming racist KKK Democrat. None of the conservatives you list made any connection between the alt right label to the extent they embraced it and anything racist.
The edgiest was Cernovich who had a perfectly legitimate non-racist sympathy for whites who said, “hey, with every other racial group banding together to form racial interest groups we have to do the same, so we don’t just get run over.”
I don’t agree with that sentiment but I do see it as every bit as legitimate as the racial interest lobbies formed by other races. It’s all a perversion, but if all but one group are going to pursue this perversion it can well make sense, certainly as a negitiating tactic, to threaten the same, like the way Trump is using tariffs to force more even trading terms.
Cernovich naively tried to offer that partial support before he knew who he was dealing with and almost went down with what turned out to be a small group of KKK Democrat morons. That doesn’t make him a racist. He’s an activist conservative trying to deal with the disgusting racial identity politics mess that the Democrats have very aggressively built.
The alt-right term resonated with a lot of people because we needed a term to refer to the thorough rejection of the establishment Republican party that was going on. It gained currency that had nothing to do with leftist KKK morons Spencer and Kessler.
Alec Rawls (ec3b6b) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:46 pmYou WISH?
Here’s a thought; why don’t you put the level of effort you put into screaming at Republicans about how they should try to please the media that lies about them constantly into telling Democrats to stop their dangerous and disruptive behavior NOW.
Otherwise, it just makes it obvious that you’re way more concerned about scolding Republicans for hand signals than you are about Democrats endangering lives.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:49 pmNow THAT is funny.
Because it involves you screeching about a “standard” in which Republicans are supposed to never make hand signals because it forces you to denounce them as racist Nazis while the Democrats can incite actual racist Nazis to come into a hearing and start a dangerous and disruptive riot.
That’s not a standard. That’s you playing Calvinball.
Here’s a standard: Zina Bash did not deserve to be called a white supremacist and a racist by you and your fellow NeverTrump idiots. You and your media allies effed up and did exactly that, and, given that we’re aware of just how brutal your standards are when it comes to Trump’s behavior, we’re challenging you to apply them tobyourself.
Which you can’t do, because you’re still a bunch of BAMN rejects.
So apply them to yourself.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:56 pmI don’t see how talking about Democrats at Patterico.com will stop the protests since I don’t think there are many Democrats here and there are no protesters.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 8:57 pmAre you North Dallas Thirty?
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:01 pmWow, you take a couple days off for the football, and an invasion happens. The comments here have been following the Andrew Anglin posting guide, which was a reinterpretation of Saul Alinsky.
It works because intellectually honest people want to have a conversation, mediate a point, and come to synthesis; while the neu-right only cares about scoring points and absorbing your time, trolling to pwn. They’re quite funny, are those points redeemable for Trump merch, all made in China of course?
Colonel Klink (51d08b) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:13 pmExactly. That’s what this moron seems unable to comprehend.
The original Patterico post arose because some people who claim to want Kavanaugh confirmed were cheering what they described as trolling the left with a white power symbol.
Patterico pointed out that it would not be helpful to Kavanaugh’s confirmation to do juvenile crap like that, and that nobody who wanted Kavanaugh confirmed should applaud or encourage it.
As someone who wants Kavanaugh confirmed, he was addressing others who claim to want Kavanaugh confirmed, and pointing out that what they were applauding and encouraging would not help Kavanaugh’s chances. Since both Patterico and the people he was addressing claim to share the same goal, they have a common interest that (should) motivate them to consider what the other says.
The leftist protestors, on the other hand, have the exact opposite goals. Someone who supports Kavanaugh railing at them not to protest Kavanaugh has no purpose other than the emotional release of yelling at people you disagree with. If anything, giving attention to leftist anti-Kavanaugh protestors would encourage them to believe that they are indeed having some effect and that people who want Kavanaugh confirmed are worried that they might be hurting his prospects (i.e. it would encourage more of the same type of protests).
Dave (445e97) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:16 pmTrue. Discussion isn’t the goal anymore, is it?
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:18 pm@392. He’s got a balloon to catch, nk. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:19 pmThat was for Colonel Klink but it works for Dave’s comment, too.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:20 pmThe alt-right term resonated with a lot of people because we needed a term to refer to the thorough rejection of the establishment Republican party that was going on.
“We?!?” Your balloon awaits, wacko. Hydrogen will set you free.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:25 pmI don’t see how your slandering Zina Bash did much either, but at least if you were attacking protesters who were creating a dangerous situation, at least you’d be venting your spleen on an appropriate target.
And as to your second question: no, why?
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:46 pmBut somehow, playing along with, endorsing, and spreading a Democrat malicious lie that Kavanaugh’s former clerk is a white supremacist and making “alt right” hand signals is helping.
Explain, please, how amplifying and giving credence to a malicious lie and slur pushed by Democrats and the media to stop Kavanaugh’s confirmation is helping it.
Even better, explain why repeating and amplifying the Democrats’ malicious lies that are meant to stop Kavanaugh’s confirmation while simultaneously burying and refusing to point out their abysmal and violent behavior also designed to stop Kavanaugh is a good thing.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:54 pm“As someone who wants Kavanaugh confirmed, he was addressing others who claim to want Kavanaugh confirmed, and pointing out that what they were applauding and encouraging would not help.”
Because falsely claiming that Bash “deliberately flashes a hand sign symbolic of the alt right with overtones of white supremacy” helps Kavanaugh some way, somehow. Even if the claim were true, I have a difficult time believing the motivation was really to help Kavanaugh, as opposed to seizing on a gotcha moment to call out members of a rival tribe.
Munroe (1d0605) — 9/9/2018 @ 9:55 pmYou’re the only one repeating the lie Kavanaugh’s former clerk is a white supremacist.
Patterico never said it, and neither did I.
Quit lying about what was written – it’s all a matter of record.
Dave (226325) — 9/9/2018 @ 10:03 pmYeah, Dave, I think Munroe already put it nicely.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/9/2018 @ 10:45 pmTrigger,
You are boring.
Why can’t we get a bouncy Tigger256tx in here instead, instead of this deadeningly dull Trumpist scold repeating the same thing 30 times?
Patterico (52fb4a) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:54 pmJust to check on what Trigger is having kittens about, i.e, the protesters at the Kavanaugh hearings, I finally decided to read a full account of what occurred, and this whole protesting affair seems like small beer, hardly even newsworthy. You have a group of cultural Marxists trying to do like what they do at college campuses, attempting to shout down, disrupt and delay a peaceful assembly. Only in the case of last week, Capitol Police were there to arrest the disrupters. It was kabuki theater, organized to help these leftists get media attention, with protesters and police knowing their roles and dancing them out.
Personally, I think their tactics are obnoxious and are more likely to backfire than not, sort of like when SJWs feel their cause is So Important that they must block a freeway and piss off thousands of commuters who don’t give a rip about their agenda.
And, importantly, these protesters have no power. All they’ve got is hand-waving and screaming, because the GOP controls the process. The Judiciary Committee is going to ignore the smears and politicizing by the Left and they’re going to send Kavanaugh to the full Senate in a party-line vote, and then they’re going to confirm him in a party-line vote, with the protests during the hearing process being but a faded memory.
And since Trigger felt that the bolded part of his comment was Really Important, and that Trump critics were Really Missing Something, I thought I’d try to unpack his comment. So, his words:
For one, it’s not in Booker’s or Harris’s power to let in or not let in protesters. There are a certain number of seats available in the hearing room, and they arrived at the proper time to get in, so Trigger was fact-checked on that one (link).
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/9/2018 @ 11:54 pmAs for “violent”, there is no evidence that the protesters were violent, and Trigger didn’t back up his comment. Maybe one idiot resisted arrest, but that was about it. They were loud and obnoxious, but not violent. Fact-checked again.
As for them being “racists and Nazi sympathizers”, unproven. Louis Farrakhan wasn’t there, although several members of one of the groups, Womens’ March, had ties to Farrakhan and did not disassociate from him. In my judgment, it’s a stretch to broad-brush the entire group as such, based on guilt-by-association, but I’d say it’s pretty certain that Ms. Sarsour has some serious bias against Jews.
As for “intimidation”, that’s a matter of opinion. Maybe some pearl-clutchers might be intimidated by a gaggle of noisy activists, most of whom were women, but I’m guessing most folks just rolled their eyes.
As for “rioting”, words mean things, and there was no violence, hence no rioting. Fact-checked.
Bottom line, it’s clear to me that Trigger cherry-picked a few things and made an alarmist conclusion that hardly squares with any facts, and he’s taking this stupid conclusion and telling Trump critics that they’re missing something important and should be addressing. They’re missing anything. Trigger is missing basic common sense. Worse, he shows a frightfully limited political understanding of left-wing protests and left-wing activists in general, as well as their effect on an advise-and-consent process that is basically a foregone conclusion.
You’re right. I read that wrong. Nevertheless, I disagree that your commenting tactics actually work. Rather, the opposite. They’re uninformed and boring, serving more to irritate than persuade.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:04 amI just read your comment. I’ll take it under advisement, though I reserve the right to defend myself if smeared.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:07 amPeople have a right to protest but I still think it can be disruptive and dangerous, even when my side does it. I wish they would find a better way to deal with their anger than protesting or yelling at people on blogs.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:07 amAlso, note that munroe and trigger agree they are “members of a rival tribe.”
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:14 amWell, it could have been worse – Drudge could have linked to your retraction…
🙂
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:55 amVersus spending time obsessing over supposed hand signals showing that “prove” someone affiliated with Trump is alt right and a white supremaciat.
On my side: 200-plus arrests, pictures of screaming red faced people, and Capitol police having to waste time and effort and their personal safety in arresting tantrum-throwing children.
On your side: having to admit after two days of beclowning yourself that there is no there there and you did nothing other than repeat and amplify a malicious Democrat smear.
My advice: you were doing a helluva lot better when you actually had your wits about you and recognized this for what it was instead of trying to fit in with and now defend the stampeding NeverTrumpers here.
https://patterico.com/2018/09/05/resistance-kavanaugh-snubbed-a-parkland-dad111/#comment-2147893
Trigger256tx (b5d04e) — 9/10/2018 @ 3:45 amAyup.
You and yours have made it emphatically clear how you feel about us.
https://patterico.com/2018/09/05/resistance-kavanaugh-snubbed-a-parkland-dad111/#comment-2148007
Not to put too fine of a point on it, but this is why you were so easily duped into believing Zina Bash was a white supremacist and “alt right”.
And, since you’ve decided to conduct a blood purge a la Jennifer Rubin, yes, you’ve made it quite clear that you are a “rival tribe”.
My thinking is that the reason that suddenly has become a problem is because you are coming to the realization how batshit crazy you’re behaving. But of course, rather than admitting your literally-Hitler shrieking was a tad overdone, you’re now blaming us deplorables for being “divisive”.
Whatevs.
Trigger256tx (940033) — 9/10/2018 @ 4:02 amThe me tour is back and obama had 700 nitwits show up.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/10/2018 @ 4:12 amI thought ocrap for brains said he didn’t build that!
mg (8cbc69) — 9/10/2018 @ 4:17 amobama – the absolute most disgusting liar in the world.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/10/2018 @ 4:19 amhttps://www.weeklystandard.com/matt-labash/meet-sabo-americas-preeminent-right-wing-guerrilla-street-artist
mg (8cbc69) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:29 amThat’s interesting, your making assumptions about me “trying to fit in with and now defend the stampeding NeverTrumpers here”. The only thing I’ve been defending here since Saturday are against all the mischaracterizations you and others have made. Meanwhile, your characterizations of the protesters remain outright laughable.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:57 amBottom line I take from the last two threads. Our host is a man of honor. And he’s opposed to “owning the libs” by trolling them with alt-right/white nationalist hand signals at a hearing which is supposed to be a serious consideration of an upstanding conservative jurist for the Supreme Court.
It’s clear he didn’t want to disseminate inaccurate info, and he went out of his way to ensure that, unlike with most corrections, the correction would get more notice than the mistake.
He also had a point that had little to do with Ms. Bash, and had everything to do with a glorification of trolling as an appropriate response in what is supposed to be a serious consideration of a serious man. That’s a worthwhile debating point that did not generate much in the way of worthwhile responses. Unfortunately. But, given the garbage that’s often dumped here by various randoms, in the middle of some serious attempts at conversations, our host will have the opportunity to take up the topic again.
As to his serious point — I was conflicted. I don’t think much of trolling. But the pompous bogosity of the Democrats in that hearing, and the pompous bogosity of the Democratic commentary coming out of the hearing, had already destroyed the hearing as being anything other than a tawdry farce. Given that, there is a place for mockery. What Ms. Bash didn’t do, but was celebrated by a number of conservatives for doing, struck me as out of line, but not as out of line as our host believed.
Appalled (96665e) — 9/10/2018 @ 6:00 amIMO Trump supporters are tired of what they believe is PC labels and discussion by Democrats and establishment Republicans. They want everyone to stop telling them what to think and feel, and they are so irritated by this that they don’t care about how they are perceived. In fact, maybe the more “not-PC” and confrontational they are, the better.
As a conservative lawyer, I understand this feeling. Conservatives have been treated like the GOP’s stepchildren for most of its existence and lawyers are everyone’s favorite targets. It probably seems like conservative lawyers are being PC when they talk about this aspect of the Kavanaugh hearing, but I see this as something that matters to lawyers and Patterico’s response as pragmatic, not PC.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:04 amGood comment, Appalled. In your last sentence, are you saying it was conservatives who thought Bash was trolling and that liked it? If so, I disagree with that. Trolling by using alt-right gestures is not conservative.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:07 am#426 — Patterico, I think, cited Ben Shapiro as one of the ones celebrating the “trolling”. Hence, I used Conservative rather than Alt-Right.
Appalled (96665e) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:18 amShocker: North Korea is still building nuclear warheads (and hiding them)
Spanky, played for a sucker by Little Rocket Man:
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:18 amOK but I don’t think Shapiro ever said he thought she was trolling. I’m interested if Patterico knows otherwise. Maybe he can show me.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:37 am#429 — I got Shapiro’s name from Patterico’s comments at #203 and #250. I did not independently check.
Appalled (96665e) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:53 amAlso, note that munroe and trigger agree they are “members of a rival tribe.”
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:14 am
Only here does observing tribalist thinking make one a member of a tribe.
I did not hold the position that it was trolling. Those that did, and thought it was good/bad are free to duke it out. Go at it, DRJ.
Munroe (ae75bf) — 9/10/2018 @ 8:02 amThat was because, Paul, you had it right the first time.
That was an eminently sensible assessment.
So why did you and your fellow NeverTrump scolds here have to spend the next three days doing your darndest to prove that this “ridiculous” accusation was correct — only to have to admit at the end of it that doing so was a harebrained and idiotic idea?
Then you spent even more time trying to rationalize that Democrats coordinating sending a bunch of violent racists into a hearing with the express purpose of disrupting it wasn’t important, but your fruitless witch hunt against Zina Bash was?
No one of any substance cares what Zina Bash was doing with her hands. The leftist media pushed it forward because their goal is to lie and slander — and they hid the disruptive protesters because that makes the NeverTrump scolds look like the total idiots they are.
And you played right along.
Trigger256tx (385aa5) — 9/10/2018 @ 8:16 amWe did discuss it, Munroe, after Bash made the gesture a second time (on Day Two). My opinion was that she is too experienced and smart to troll, but I couldn’t rule it out because a smart person would have avoided that gesture after Day One.
Now I know she did not troll and it was a spontaneous gesture she made without thinking, but I had hoped for a smarter team supporting Kavanaugh’s nomination. It was an unfortunate and unnecessary distraction.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 8:27 amYou are the one describing this as a dispute involving members of a “rival tribe.” That implies you believe there are two tribes that are rivals — the Trump tribe and the NeverTrump tribe.
Where do I fit in, Munroe, since I voted for Trump and credit him with good actions when I see them and criticize him when I disagree with him?
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 8:33 amThank you, Appalled. Perhaps I should no longer call myself a conservative. I don’t have much in common with them now. One of us changed and I don’t think it was me.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 8:38 ammg, WTF are you doing reading the Weekly Standard?
Kevin M (5d3e49) — 9/10/2018 @ 8:41 amUm, because I didn’t? I see you’ve gone back to making s**t up again. Yawn.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/10/2018 @ 8:46 amIn related news, cat blames laser pointer for making it chase it and run headfirst into a wall.
People are rightly tired of scolds like you who are attacking Republicans for making the media smear and slander them while doing your best to ignore people deliberately acting out and taking violent action because they also hate Donald Trump.
You’re the one who changed.
Trigger256tx (19ea07) — 9/10/2018 @ 8:52 amThen for what, pray tell, is this whole post apologizing?
Trigger256tx (19ea07) — 9/10/2018 @ 8:53 amIt’s unfortunate that this trigger fella is screaming at DRJ, one of the most polite people here. That frustration comes from a carefully managed manipulation. Trust me, trigger, the honest correction and effort to be fair isn’t something you should be angry about. Many people profit from that anger. Our president, many pundits, Facebook, Putin. We’ve got to be better as a country. Patriotism means being above the cynical efforts to divide us.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/10/2018 @ 8:57 amFine.
Why don’t you and Patterico start yourselves of spending two days pushing a manipulation by the Democrats that someone making a gesture with their hands is Satan incarnate?
You and yours are amazingly in favor of forgiveness when you eff up. But everyone else is well aware that you and yours are now screaming at a Republican woman and calling her stupid because she didn’t control her every gesture.
Trigger256tx (654d0b) — 9/10/2018 @ 9:02 amYou DO know that Paul Montagu did not make this post, right? Because it seems that you don’t.
Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71) — 9/10/2018 @ 9:12 amTrigger(ed):
The French have some words for you. It seems to apply to your postings:
Ils n’ont rien appris, ni rien oublié
Google can look it up for you, like it did for me.
Appalled (96665e) — 9/10/2018 @ 9:18 amI think she is smart but made a mistake on Day Two of the hearings, Trigger. I am not screaming or calling her stupid. We all make mistakes but I know I try not to when I’m doing something important and these hearings are important.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 9:22 amAre you North Dallas Thirty, Trigger?
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 9:23 amAlso, Trigger and Munroe, did you come here from Instapundit?
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 9:31 amA smarter team? In what way? To let the left dictate acceptable behavior? To allow leftist lies to go unchallenged? To not show the left is unhinged and takes innocent acts and tries to smear someone using them?
Remember Romney and his dog? The rock on his property? Senator Allen? On and on
NJRob (f61f34) — 9/10/2018 @ 9:39 amYou are so angry that you’re incoherent. I can’t understand you.
I had not spoken of this woman ever, and didn’t care about this story. Your apparent hatred of me because of my ‘pushing’ this story is a delusion. You came up with this untrue characterization of me because you’ve been manipulated. Your anger was fomented and used to divide our country. It’s interesting that thing you’re mad at me for, I did not do, and in fact, you’re the one doing it (pushing a falsehood). Much like you’re screaming at DRJ… about screaming she never did (she’s so nice to people that it’s really funny that you’re mad about that fiction).
Trigger, are you North Dallas Thirty? And are you happy? I’ve kinda gotten over politics after being so interested in it, and I’m much happier now. I still vote, and I’m still informed, but I’m not a member of a team or tribe. I just love my country and recognize that all the people telling me what to think are trying to manipulate me. They are willing to make you and me miserable during our precious short time on Earth and just for a little power. I think you should do the right thing and apologize to the people you’ve said untrue things about.
Learn a lesson about integrity from Patterico. I bet he slept like a baby regardless of all the ugly stuff so many people have been saying about him, and the way instapundit exploited this correction. Slept like a baby.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/10/2018 @ 9:42 amArt is in the eye of the beholder, Kevin M.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/10/2018 @ 9:51 amI Like Sabo.
mg, it’s awesome to read stuff you don’t necessarily agree with. There’s this natural inclination to only read stuff that support your point of view, and it’s ultimately boring and leads to hyperpartisanship.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/10/2018 @ 9:55 amIt also lets you know what the enemies thinking, Dustin.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/10/2018 @ 10:12 amIt must be nice, having enemies who think.
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 10:39 amLots of die hard communists, happy democrats, Trump supporting nationalists, all of whom have thought out their political views. The interesting thing is that a lot of these groups agree on a whole lot of goals, and just disagree on how to get there. And of course these sweeping remarks lead to anger from each side, particularly because they usually hate eachother.
Trump fans are convinced the case against them is a lie (that they are white supremacists for example). This kind of personalization is a distraction, but it’s so much easier to take offense at an attack, and respond with an attack, and then the other side is doing the same, and suddenly we aren’t all agreeing that we want a peaceful society, with lots of job opportunities, a balanced budget, law enforcement and executive leaders that don’t break the laws themselves. We all actually want a lot of the same stuff, and it’s awfully convenient to the people who don’t want to deliver that if we keep getting mad at mere citizens who disagree about Trump or whatever.
I really wonder if we can recover some kind of common national identity at this point.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:00 am446.Also, Trigger and Munroe, did you come here from Instapundit?
=snap= Bait w/Skippy catches rats in a jiffy, DRJ.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:11 amDRJ @445/446, Trigger246tx’s commenting style is very close to Cassandra’s (plus several other aliases), but Patterico says we shouldn’t inquire too closely into those things.
nk (dbc370) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:18 amDustin: Patriotism means being above the cynical efforts to divide us.
I think that right there is the divide between Trump supporters and nevertrumpers, and between conservatives and the alt-right.
The former believe patriotism means fighting the cynical efforts to divide (or more accurately, to destroy) us. The conservative conceit of seeing themselves “above” such vulgar efforts are why we have been steadily losing our society, culture and country for 50 years.
I really wonder if we can recover some kind of common national identity at this point.
Tucker Carlson has been asking the questions that answer yours I think. The pursuit of diversity has doomed the country from ever achieving common identity.
By design. This whole flap over the appropriateness of using the OK sign is proof of the hopelessness.
And DRJ, I do believe it is you that has changed, due to the relentless propaganda assault we have been subject to. Can you imagine yourself taking the position you have here under the same circumstances had they occurred during Alito’s confirmation hearings?
Be honest now…
lee (5789d5) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:28 amI have known Glenn Reynolds for nearly twenty years, and I am not happy with these flying monkeys. Glenn used to not have commenters, for the reasons we see here. And sooner or later, Patterico will decide its not worth the nonsense.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:29 amSimon, be careful what you wish for. Do you really want this to be an echo chamber were only like-minded commenters agree Trump is the devil with nary a contrary word?
I think y’all would becomes bored out of your minds in a week, and find yourself at instapundit looking for some mental stimulation.
lee (5789d5) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:42 am*where*, not were…
lee (5789d5) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:44 amLee,
Simon did not say anything remotely resembling the argument you put in his mouth about an echo chamber. He said that trolls make it hard to manage a blog, and the effort can lead to getting rid of the forum altogether.
BS. You simply define your tribe as everything good, with absurd versions of everyone you disagree with. You really think Trump and his supporters are not a cynical effort to divide us? No you don’t.
Learn a lesson on integrity from Patterico, and apologize to Simon for present a false narrative about his views, as well as about the larger misconception you offered. You will be a happier person if you give yourself the self-respect of integrity.
Ever wonder why a guy like Trump is always so miserable? Rich, powerful, lots of attractive women, and he’s so angry and miserable all night long on twitter? Because his lack of integrity means he cannot accept himself. There are burger flippers who are bigger winners in life.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:46 amBetween January 2009 and January 2015, before Donald Trump crawled out of his sewer, Republicans won over 1000 seats in congress, state houses and governors’ mansions.
The idea that we can only win by being vulgar, immoral bigots like Donald Trump and using the same dishonest, divisive tactics as the left, is another “alternative fact” manufactured and parroted endlessly by his cultists, which lacks even a hint of correspondence with the real world.
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:48 amJust read aceofspades (which I rarely do). Crammed full of ‘can’t wait for the nevertrumpers to explain why they support [extremely horrible position no sane person supports]’ Over and over and over. It’s a crude effort to manipulate people into reflexively hating any criticism of Trump, and associating Trump criticism with weakness and ugliness.
And it’s hilarious. Trump is in the White House, his people in power. His results generally terrible so far. Just look at the deficit if you don’t believe me. Check the news on Russia, China, and North Korea if you don’t believe me. Hell, look at how our allies are behaving. Terrible performance, on virtually all measures aside from a few appointments (and not all of them). Guilty pleas from investigations were were told would bear no fruit, over and over.
If this is ‘what it takes to win’ I have to wonder what in the world ‘winning’ means to aceofspades or Lee. Our nation is bitterly divided, and yes it’s fair to hold our president responsible for failing to try to bring us together.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:53 amDustin, thank you for understanding my point. I don’t hold Lee’s opinions against him.
There are people who post just to argue, or to be offensive. To some of them, it is a game.
The people with whom I disagree teach me a great deal. I have come to see many commenters as people, though I have never met them in real life. And they will post about positive and good things in their lives. So when their views differ from mine, I look carefully at why…because they are good people.
That is where we need to be.
But I suspect our culture loves being reactive, argumentative, reflexive. It makes more clicks, keeps our eyes directed at each other in suspicion, emphasizes our differences.
And it starts, as you kindly stating, by misrepresenting what others say or believe.
Best wishes.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:57 amYeah, Simon. Bitterness is profitable for the media, and exploitable by politicians. Obviously there are blogs and politicians who don’t try to use division and reaction… we just don’t see them succeed.
To me, the people still getting angry in this post are trying to kick a guy when he’s down, because they completely misunderstand his intentions or the dignity of just saying ‘I was mistaken’.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:01 pmTrump caught lying about the economy (again):
The lie: “The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years!”
The truth: In the last seventy years, it’s happened in 60 quarters, most recently in 2006.
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:14 pmUm, Dustin, I asked a question, I didn’t put words in Simons mouth. Talk about mischaractorization.
“BS. You simply define your tribe as everything good, with absurd versions of everyone you disagree with.”
OK (if I may use the term), the projection is getting laughable.
“Between January 2009 and January 2015, before Donald Trump crawled out of his sewer, Republicans won over 1000 seats in congress, state houses and governors’ mansions.”
Sure, and their utter failure at accomplishing Republican goals is why you got Trump. NOW republican goals are being accomplished, but of course any accomplishments aren’t due to Trump, aren’t fast enough, and aren’t done with the proper etiquette. I mean, staffers can’t even learn to bow down to the PC police when it comes to common hand gestures. The humanity!
“Our nation is bitterly divided, and yes it’s fair to hold our president responsible for failing to try to bring us together.”
Uh-huh. All he has to do to stop you from being bitterly divided is resign already. It’s his fault!
It seems to me Dustin, you lack a certain amount of self awareness.
lee (5789d5) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:18 pm> The former believe patriotism means fighting the cynical efforts to divide (or more accurately, to destroy) us.
Odd. Most of the Trump supporters I talk to seem to believe that patriotism means deepening the divide so as to defeat and destroy the other side —> that is, to replace coexistence with war.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:19 pm@465. Meh. Are you not entertained?!
When he tells a truth– now that would be news.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:20 pm> Sure, and their utter failure at accomplishing Republican goals is why you got Trump.
Scott Walker and Sam Brownback failed at accomplishing Republican goals?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:20 pmRodney Dangerfield Gets One of These 👌 (1982, the year Zina Bash was born)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YYnz2-bsJo
Neo (d1c681) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:21 pm“Odd. Most of the Trump supporters I talk to seem to believe that patriotism means deepening the divide so as to defeat and destroy the other side”
Really, that’s how they believe?
Well, this Trump supporter believes (American) patriotism means having pride in our nation, the constitution that’s makes it exceptional (not diversity) and our heritage that gave them to us.
As a result of that patriotism, I do want to defeat the opposition that wants to fundamentally transform our nation, this is true.
lee (5789d5) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:33 pmDave —
I have a feeling someone wrote “10”, and that got changed into “100”, either by typo, or our excitable President’s small inaccurate tweeting hands.
Appalled (96665e) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:34 pmDustin @ 450
mg (8cbc69) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:36 pmYou are correct as I have just finished reading about glaucoma in babies. My newly born granddaughter was just diagnosed with it. Which could lead to much greater issues. I must be dilligent in my reading and want to thank you for always being kind to me, I don’t deserve it.
I’ll also add, Trump (or for that matter Obama) are not to blame for the divide, they are the standard bearers of it.
lee (5789d5) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:39 pmYeah, if “Republican goals” are higher spending, bigger deficits and more debt, Trump is definitely getting the job done.
By FY2016, the GOP Congress had reduced Obama’s record deficits to an almost-tolerable 3.2% of GDP.
Under Trump, it’s already back up to 4.4%, with a trillion dollars more being tacked onto the debt every year for the foreseeable future. #MAGA
Dave (226325) — 9/10/2018 @ 12:55 pm‘Well, this Trump supporter believes (American) patriotism means having pride in our nation, the constitution that’s makes it exceptional (not diversity) and our heritage that gave them to us. As a result of that patriotism, I do want to defeat the opposition that wants to fundamentally transform our nation, this is true.’
You confuse ‘patriotism’ with puss.
“Fortunately, our country always manages to survive patriots like you.” – Senator Bob Munson [Walter Pidgeon] ‘Advise & Consent’ 1962
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/10/2018 @ 1:08 pm> Really, that’s how they believe?
I was very careful to say ‘seem to believe’; i don’t know what they actually believe, just what they say.
> Trump (or for that matter Obama) are not to blame for the divide
I generally agree that Trump and Trumpism are *symptoms*, not causes. That said, Trump’s behavior has the natural effect of inflaming the divide, and many of his supporters *relish* that inflammation, so while i think he is a symptom, I also think he’s a symptom that’s making the underlying problem worse.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 1:13 pmblue collar job numbers exploding to the shock and horror of free traders trying to destroy american workers. koch brothers and other free trade traitors now funding democrats!
lany (9175de) — 9/10/2018 @ 1:14 pmBack. Read all the comments since last night.
Well, I tried…
Demosthenes (7fae81) — 9/10/2018 @ 1:26 pmThe only things exploding are the budget deficit and Trump’s bogus propaganda narratives.
Newsflash: unemployment has been falling for 8+ years.
Labor force participation is lower than it was the day Trump took office.
Millions of jobs all across the country have been thrown into jeopardy by his moronic tariffs put in place for the benefit of a tiny handful of special interests.
Dave (226325) — 9/10/2018 @ 1:49 pmLabor force participation is lower than it was the day Trump took office.
Single income households are good.
nk (dbc370) — 9/10/2018 @ 1:54 pmTechnically correct, but doesn’t tell the whole story. It was 62.9 in January, 2017, and stands at 62.7 right now. The LFPR has stabilized in recent years, and has been between 62.7 and 63.0 since December, 2015. Any fluctuation in that range is likely measurement error.
Labor Force Participation Rate
Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71) — 9/10/2018 @ 1:55 pmnk, at 481: i grew up in an abusive environment, and my marriage had elements which became borderline abusive.
there is *no way* i would ever consent to being in a single income household. the risk of abuse is simply too great.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:01 pmMG, prayers to your grandchild, and obviously you deserve respect. Everybody here has gotten bent out of shape from time to time. Myself definitely included.
Lee, you say “OK (if I may use the term), the projection is getting laughable.”
Trump and Bannon haven’t made any secret about their love of dividing our nation, so your laughter and dismissive attitude seem nervous and defensive more than they seem triumphant.
Yeah, we hear this a lot. ‘whatever’ you dislike is ‘this is how you get more Trump!!!!’ but most of us never wanted Trump. Most voters, most Republicans. We just didn’t want that guy. Our processes failed to represent our values. This so-called mandate of Trump really ignores that millions more Americans voted against him than for him.
Granted, the GOP before Trump was not very good at getting things done. But on an objective level, they were doing better than the GOP is today with Trump. Deficit, jobs, foreign policy. There is no question Trump has not succeeded even if we ignore the crimes and sleaze, which we shouldn’t.
I’m still waiting for you to learn a lesson from Patterico and apologize for your mistaken characterization of the arguments others have made. The very thing so many have come here to express anger over. It doesn’t make you a lesser man to admit a mistake, but I suppose I shouldn’t hold my breath.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:03 pmDRJ, respectfully: Trumpist elements were *always* present in the conservative coalition.
A lot of us on the left made the mistake (I think I did this less than many, but I’m still guilty of having done it) of treating the *entire* conservative coalition as if it consisted merely of these elements — but the elements were always there.
They’re just more prominent, now.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:07 pm> start by making it clear that Democrats are malicious, abominable liars who deliberately slander people as racists for political power.
some are, for sure.
but you’ve just called 90% of my friends and family “malicious, abominable liars”, and are telling me that in order to persuade Trump voters, I have to *begin* by throwing almost everyone I love under the bus. that’s not a place that we can find common ground from.
The assertion that “Democrats are [x]” or “Republicans are [x]” is ALWAYS an overly broad exaggerated simplification that takes the behavior of *some* individuals and attributes that behavior to the entire coalition.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:13 pmOr statistical noise. I agree.
Still, if TrumpWorld wants to thump their chests over statistically insignificant changes they like, they should be prepared to answer for the statistically insignificant changes they don’t like, too.
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:27 pmAfghanistan has been a quagmire for over the last decade and the current dishonesty is not helping. The one thing that can’t happen is for the Taliban to return to power, but regrettably they’re closer to it now than since the war started.
Obama pretended to have a strategy for Afghanistan while campaigning, but all he really had were some empty slogans. Trump doesn’t even have slogans, and is instead basically saying, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
The important thing is that Trump doesn’t change his mind and end up doing what Obama did in Iraq, which was to cut and run, but whatever secret strategy Trump has approved (actually, it’s really just more status quo) isn’t working, and he probably shouldn’t be soliciting advice from his 27-year old body man.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:27 pmWhile Trump has put out feelers for direct talks between the Taliban and the current regime, it contradicts basic US policy that we don’t negotiate with terrorists. This should mean that the Taliban would have to agree to renounce terrorism, al Qaeda and Islamic State in order to proceed, which I doubt will happen.
“Some are, for sure”
Color of Change, a radical leftist group campaigning to censor conservatives and right-leaning groups, exploited the 2015 Charleston church shooting to go after the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The Freedom Center’s investigations had exposed Color of Change, but the leftist group’s campaign to silence the Center briefly succeeded last month.
“Bloodmoney,” Color of Change’s smear campaign, seeks to shut down the fundraising abilities of conservative organizations by pressuring credit card companies and payment processors to deny access to conservative groups blacklisted by the Southern Poverty Law Center.Color of Change falsely accuses all of these groups of promoting violence and white supremacy.Two weeks ago, the group’s pressure campaign successfully misled Mastercard into refusing to process donations for the Freedom Center, until an outcry forced the company to change course. Though the battle may have been won, Color of Change’s censorship campaign continues.
Color of Change’s “Bloodmoney” campaign is a blood libel. The effort falsely links conservative organizations targeted by the SPLC—including some run by African-Americans and Jews—to the Charleston church shooting and the violence in Charlottesville. The leftist group founded by CNN’s Van Jones and funded by George Soros is out to censor conservative organizations by choking off their fundraising.”
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/09/a-new-color-of-censorship-from-the-splc/
Colonel Haiku (7f045b) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:35 pmSpanky’s job approval and personal favorability ratings hit new lows:
CNN Poll: Trump approval down 6 points in a month, hits low among independents
Among independents, his approval rating fell from 46% a month ago to 31% now.
60%(!) of all respondents say he does not respect the rule of law.
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:42 pmAnd in Trump’s favor, the president was right to threaten the ICC with sanctions and to close the DC office of the PLO. The ICC has no jurisdiction over us as we’re not a signatory; they can pound sand. And the PLO hasn’t been a credible partner since the 20th century.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:46 pmI agree, aphrael, but “more prominent” makes a big difference.
MG, I am so sorry about your grandbaby. I know you are strong and determined, so I am glad you are helping them. It makes a huge difference when you have a sick child. Often the family is so overwhelmed that trying to deal with problems and trying to understand the disease seems like too much to manage. My experience is you will have a better outcome if you try to understand the disease, because being with the child lets you observe things that might be important that the health care providers may never see.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:49 pmColonel Haiku: your point in bringing up a group that I’ve never heard of, and which I would be astonished if more than one or two of my left-leaning friends had heard of, is what?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:58 pmAlso, mg, our youngest son had blocked tear ducts as an infant, which I think is related to childhood glaucoma. He had several infections and then had meningitis at 4 months, followed by eye surgery. I think I know how you feel.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/10/2018 @ 2:58 pmThis is an interesting perspective. Dependency can have those accidental features. I do think nk has a great point though. If we really did see such a change in income levels that Americans could return to a single income household, we would see many improvements to our culture. One parent staying home means a home with more parenting, better education, and hopefully a more wholesome culture. These may be naive thoughts, but it’s irrelevant anyway. We definitely are not seeing this income change in Trump’s America at all. People are dependent on government rather than the abusive breadwinner, and dependency has other accidental features.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/10/2018 @ 3:12 pmHeh! I think there’s a federal statute which authorizes the military invasion (by the United States) of The Hague if the ICC attempts to prosecute Americans.
nk (dbc370) — 9/10/2018 @ 3:16 pmDavid Horowitz and his “Freedom Center” are hardly free from (deserved) controversy. About 15% of the “charitable organization”‘s budget goes to paying the six-figure salaries of Horowitz (a 60’s-era communist radical who later turned ultra-conservative) and the organization’s co-founder.
Horowitz has a long history of blurring the boundary between anti-jihadism and anti-Islamicism, and it is on this basis that his organization has been labeled a hate group.
The Freedom Center co-sponsored a 2015 exhibition of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed that was intended to offend Muslims, and succeeded in provoking a violent reaction that led to the deaths of two attackers.
Donald Trump(!), appearing on Fox & Friends the day after the shooting criticized the event and its organizers:
Bill O’Reilly agreed whole-heartedly with Trump’s criticism.
He has also gone after organizations he considers left-leaning and/or jihadist and attempted to deprive them of funding. So portraying him as an innocent victim of unprovoked lawfare is a bit disingenuous. Horowitz has been playing the same game as his opponents have, for years.
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 3:26 pmThat would be the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, signed into law by George W. Bush on August 2, 2002. The act is also sometimes referred to as “The Hague Invasion Act”.
It authorizes the U.S. president to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.”
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 3:37 pmThis is a few days old but still good for a chuckle:
Jonah Goldberg: None of You Idiots is Spartacus
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 4:23 pmThis is particularly funny.
So how did the GOP Congress manage to reduce spending under one President but not another?
Congress controls spending. Why do you think the NeverTrump Republicans who reduced spending under Obama’s the accelerated it under Trump?
This is why Dustin’s bit about “manipulation” is a hilarious piece of projection. He and his fellow NeverTrump scolds know that their dupes like Dave are so unhinged at the thought of Trump that they’re not thinking clearly. That’s why all the commenters here so quickly swallowed Patterico’s smear of Zina Bash; all he had to do was link her to Trump, and his dupes lost their minds.
Trigger256tx (63ea7d) — 9/10/2018 @ 4:30 pmOMG, this is the best example of NeverTrump “logic” I’ve seen yet.
I will accept this logic if you state that Muslims are morally and mentally inferior to Christians or Jews and thus should never be offended because they cannot control their reactions.
And if you refuse to do that, then the answer to any and all of your criticisms of Trump will be that he was provoked and thus it’s the other person’s fault.
Trigger256tx (63ea7d) — 9/10/2018 @ 4:44 pmSounds like George Soros, Van Jones and the SPLC are above reproach per ConDave…
Colonel Haiku (7f045b) — 9/10/2018 @ 4:53 pmThanks for confirming that Trump’s cultists react to criticism of him in the same way Jihadi’s would respond to any perceived disrespect for their prophet.
You’ve really driven the point home with no room for further argument!
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:02 pmHere, aphrael, let me help. Just because you and your friends haven’t heard of them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist…
“Founded in 2005, Color of Change (COC) is a nonprofit corporation and an Internet-based grassroots activist group. Van Jones and James Rucker (former director of MoveOn.org Political Action and co-founder of the Secretary of State Project) created COC to combat what they viewed as the systemic racism pervading America generally and conservatism in particular. COC’s mission is to “strengthen Black America’s political voice”; “make government more responsive to the concerns of Black Americans”; and “bring about positive political and social change for everyone.” Toward these ends, the organization supports race- and gender-based preferences in government contracting, college admissions, and hiring/promotion policies. Further, COC favors the expansion of the welfare state and thus seeks to discredit initiatives that would restore limited government and rein in public expenditures.
From its inception, COC has aimed its criticisms chiefly at prominent conservative and Republican figures. In 2005, for instance, the organization attacked political theorist William Bennett for uttering “racist lies” and pushed to have him dismissed from his broadcasting positions with the Salem Radio Network and CNN.
That same year, COC depicted the federal government’s allegedly sluggish mobilization of post-Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts as symptomatic of America’s low regard for black people. “With no one to speak for them,” COC lamented, “hundreds of thousands of people—largely Black, poor, and elderly—were left behind to die.” To drive this point home, COC collaborated with MoveOn.org Civic Action to screen the Spike Lee film When the Levees Broke, which alleged that the federal government had dynamited Gulf-area levees in an effort to flood the black neighborhoods of New Orleans—a view popularized most famously by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Rap singer Kanye West, who cited the government’s inept response to Katrina as evidence that President “Bush does not care about black people,” had a connection to COC at that time: A now defunct website entitled “KayneWasRight.org” was linked back to ColorOfChange.org.
In January 2006, COC initiated a Senate letter-writing campaign to galvanize opposition to President Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alito “has consistently demonstrated his hostility towards laws that ensure racial equality and protect the civil rights of Americans,” COC claimed. “If history is a guide, Alito’s presence on the Supreme Court will put some of our most basic civil rights protections in jeopardy.”
During the 2008 presidential campaigns, COC was part of the progressive effort to associate the Republican ticket of McCain-Palin with racism. In an open letter which it disseminated widely, COC complained that the “hateful language” and “rhetoric” allegedly on display at Republican campaign events was taking on “an increasingly dangerous tone that seems to ignore the precarious state of our progress when it comes to race and ethnicity.” The organization charged, for instance, that attendees at such events had called for “violence against Sen. Obama, yelling ‘kill him!,’ ‘off with his head!,’ and ‘bomb Obama.’” Subsequent investigations, however, showed no evidence that these racial slurs and threats had ever been uttered…”
https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/organizations/color-of-change-coc/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:04 pmExcept that I said nothing even remotely similar to that.
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:05 pmSurely I can say that it’s wrong for someone who believes [x] will result in other people doing harmful bthing [y] to themselves do [x] in order to create [y] without myself believing it.
More broadly, of you believe doing something will cause other people to harm each other, why would you choose to do that thing?
aphrael (9e5f20) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:05 pmTrigger, my intention wasn’t to inspire even more anger. Think on what I’ve said and also on Patrick’s example of integrity. Best,
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:06 pmThanks so much for the words of understanding, Saint DRJ.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:16 pmYou are special.
“Except that I said nothing even remotely similar to that.”
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:05 pm
Do you find the tactics of CoC to be above board and true to the spirit of the 1st Amendment, ConDave? Yes or no.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:23 pm“The Freedom Center previously had exposed Color of Change’s malicious dishonesty. Its list of “white nationalist groups” appears to be based on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s thoroughly discredited list of hate groups, while excluding black racist groups, such as Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, from the list. Even so, the list of “white supremacists” that Color of Change had tried to force credit card companies to stop doing business with included a black church, organizations run by Jews, Arabs, and former Muslims, not to mention the American College of Pediatricians.
James Rucker, the executive director and co-founder of Color of Change, is a board member of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Color of Change’s list is just the SPLC wearing political blackface.
Some companies were smart enough not to fall for Color of Change’s censorship scam.
Bloodmoney lists Amazon, Stripe and Discover as not “engaged,” which means those companies aren’t taking orders from an organization founded by Van Jones, who called the 2016 election a “whitelash,” and tarred 62 million Trump voters as racists.
But American Express and Visa are “engaged.” That means Color of Change has an open door to them. And Mastercard, PayPal, Apple Pay are listed as “proactive.” And that proactive censorship is why MasterCard made the mistake of blocking payments to the David Horowitz Freedom Center.”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:31 pmDave defends the left in their jihad against conservatives once again.
NJRob (f61f34) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:53 pmAin’t he somethin’ ?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2018 @ 5:56 pmI think it’s plain to see that the Left has become increasingly radical in what they are willing to do to regain political power.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2018 @ 6:01 pmMy best to you, mg, hope and a prayer that it works out for your granddaughter. Grandkids are the absolute best!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2018 @ 6:11 pmI can, DRJ. At Shapiro’s Daily Waire, Hank Berrien wrote a post titled Leftists Attacked Woman Behind Kavanaugh For ‘White Power’ Hand Signal. She Just Trolled Them Like A Boss.
The post cited Caleb Hull as calling her second-day OK as a magnificent troll, citing an Adam Baldwin tweet and saying: “get this woman a trophy for greatest troll of all time”:
Adam Baldwin often deletes his tweets after a short time, but as you can see from the Daily Wire post, Baldwin wrote: “OH NO NOT AGAIN!!!” while linking to video of Bash making the OK sign.
Then Ben Shapiro retweeted the Caleb Hull tweet and wrote: “Not all heroes wear capes”:
Shapiro, Hull, and Baldwin all saw the OK sign on the second day the way I initially did: as a troll. But they approved. I did not.
I have not seen an apology from any of them.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/10/2018 @ 6:14 pmTomorrow will commence “beating a dead horse” day on this thread.
steveg (a9dcab) — 9/10/2018 @ 6:31 pmThe Daily Wire should apologize for saying “The very idea of Bash being a white supremacist is patently absurd”. … I guess.
Munroe (728bdd) — 9/10/2018 @ 6:31 pmTypically disingenuous. They thought she was trolling just like I did.
If you’re not going to argue honestly, go away.
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/10/2018 @ 6:46 pm> Just because you and your friends haven’t heard of them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist…
while true, do you think it is fair or reasonable to claim that they are representative of democrats who haven’t heard of them and don’t know about them?
isn’t that EXACTLY the kind of guilt by association you resent when leftists assert that all republicans are white supremacists because of the antics of some small groups of white supremacist activists?
should i hold you accountable for not behaving in ways you criticize others for not behaving in?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:00 pm> I think it’s plain to see that the Left has become increasingly radical in what they are willing to do to regain political power.
some elements have. others haven’t. the same is true on the Right.
there’s an active push on the left to add two new supreme court justices, to balance Gorsuch (whom almost everyone on the left believes is only on the court because of an illegitimate act on the part of McConnell) and Kavanaugh (who the left hates because Trump).
some of us are fighting against that because we think it’s a terrible idea.
failing to see the difference between different groups on the left is just as offensive and bad as failing to distinguish between the people who love Trump because he angers liberals and the people who love Trump because they think he’ll bring about a working class revolution against the globalist elites. They’re different groups within the same coalition, and lumping the different groups together simply inflames your allies *against* the people in the other coalition that they could work together with, to defeat the extremists.
Maybe not enough people care to prevent the extremists from taking over both parties and bringing about the next civil war. I currently think that civil war is more likely than not, because both sides seem to be viewing the other side as *only* their extremists, and because both sides seem to be fleeing into the arms of the extremists in their coalition, and that cannot end well.
But that doesn’t keep me from being pissed off when people I’ve talked to for more than a decade lump me and mine in with the extremists they are denouncing. *You*, in particular, should know better. And I feel like five years ago you did.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:05 pmWell said, aphrael.
felipe (023cc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:26 pmSince the First Amendment only constrains the government’s actions, I don’t see much relevance to a situation where a private organization tries to get a private company to stop providing service to another private organization.
I think you would agree that citizens have the freedom to boycott companies whose practices they disapprove of, or to threaten boycotts to encourage companies to change their policies. That we acknowledge peoples’ freedom to do that does not mean (obviously) that we approve of every instance where it is done.
While I don’t endorse attempts to silence Horowitz’s organization, I would say it is “above board” to the extent no laws are broken. And the same is true of Horowitz’s similar attempts to silence organizations whose goals he opposes.
Horowitz has written some things I agreed with. He has also, as I said, blurred the line between anti-jihadism and anti-Islamicism. I don’t think it’s surprising or outrageous that some law-abiding Muslims believe his more extreme positions incite hatred and animus toward them and their religion.
When you are actively trying to rally public opinion against certain groups, I don’t think you should be surprised when they try to do the same to you. As long as everybody operates within the law, nobody has a real cause for complaint. It is just a particularly ugly PR battle (and as such doesn’t reflect particularly well on either side).
Dave (445e97) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:33 pmI’m particularly amused at the fact that you criticize CoC in part because they are “an organization founded by Van Jones, who called the 2016 election a “whitelash,” and tarred 62 million Trump voters as racists”, but when I object to someone characterizing “Democrats as ” malicious, abominable liars who deliberately slander people as racists for political power” your response is to throw CoC in my face.
I mean, come on, man. If it’s wrong for CoC to tar all Trump supporters as racist — and it *is* wrong for them to do so — it’s also wrong for Trigger to tar all Democrats as malicious, abominable liars.
It’s the same act — finding the worst behavior of some small subset of your political opponents and attributing it to all of them so as to discredit them.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/10/2018 @ 7:50 pmIndeed.
Which is entertaining, because you endorsed and supported the jihadis’ reasoning that provocation justifies violence.
Trigger256tx (7378e8) — 9/10/2018 @ 10:09 pmAnd yet you and your fellow Democrats still do it, so who cares?
Trigger256tx (7378e8) — 9/10/2018 @ 11:33 pm> And yet you and your fellow Democrats still do it, so who cares?
I go out of my way to *avoid* doing it. I fail, sometimes, because I’m human, just like everyone. But when I fail, I acknowledge and apologize.
That said, it’s becoming clear to me that increasing percentages of our people, in both major tribes, are perfectly fine with guilt by association, and with presuming that those in other tribes are fairly represented by their extremist minority, while insisting that their own tribe is not.
It’s a big part of why so much of what i feel politically these days is despair.
aphrael (3f0569) — 9/11/2018 @ 12:46 amI stopped reading and listening to Horowitz years ago, however, I’m not sure what Islamicism is. If it’s this…
noun
…then the two interpretations are conflicting, because an Islamist is not a “specialist in the study of Islam”. Rather, an Islamist adheres to a political ideology where sharia is the rule of law and where political governance is subject to the tenets of Islam. If you’re meaning that Horowitz blurs anti-jihadism and anti-Islamism, then I would say it depends on whether the Islamist is the militant kind or not. If the militant variety, then there’s really nothing to blur, and it’s why I call it War Against Militant Islamism, not the War of Terror, for example. If the non-militant variety, say the ruling party in Tunisia, then I’m not really against it, and it’s unclear to me whether Horowitz would be for or against such a thing.
Paul Montagu (9dcfd2) — 9/11/2018 @ 9:24 amIf you’re meaning that Horowitz blurs anti-jihadism with being anti-Islam, where it has to mean that he’s condemning an entire religion, then there might be a point. But even so, as a Christian, I am anti-Islam by default because Muslims reject the Trinity and they demoted Jesus to a minor prophet. To me, Mohamed is a false prophet which means that Islam is a false religion to the extent that it departs from the Old and New Testaments. But still, I can be anti-Islam yet tolerant of those who practice this third-rate faith.
If you’re saying that Horowitz is intolerant of Islam or bigoted against it, then that sounds more valid, but I haven’t read of Horowitz of late, nor do I really want to.
Yes, I was trying to distinguish between attacking those who commit violence in the name of Islam (anti-jihadism) and attacking Islam or Islamic culture less discriminately (anti-Islamicism).
It might have been more clear to spell the words antijihad-ism and antiIslam-ism.
Dave (445e97) — 9/11/2018 @ 9:59 amMuslim and Islamist are quite different and distinct, but Islamist suggests the very extremism and political movement of imposing religious rule and sharia law.
Like Paul, I want to live in a society were we’re all free to practice our own faith. This means both tolerance of Islam but rejection of the kind of Islam that wants to impost theocratic law (removing the very freedom we want).
I agree with Paul that Islamist isn’t a ‘specialize’ but is a person who supposed the political movement of Sharia law. Perhaps the terms have changed somewhat as I haven’t been keeping up with this controversy for a few years.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 9/11/2018 @ 10:10 amaphrael:
Very interesting. Someday I’d like to talk about this.
DRJ (15874d) — 9/11/2018 @ 11:08 amit’s ok to love President Trump for any reason at all
I love him cause he’s moving the ball down the field and he’s not getting our hapless tatters greased in Iraq for warm poopies like how George W. did (stupid filthy amoral bush)
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/11/2018 @ 11:36 amDRJ: patrick knows my email address, or if he’s forgotten it, he can get it from me via FB. I don’t want to post it here, but if you ask him for it, I hereby authorize him to give it to you, and i’d love to have the conversation. 🙂
I’ve come over time to see the Trump coalition as a coalition of different groups who support Trump for different reasons and have different desires and goals, like pretty much any successful national campaign must be. These are just two of them that i’ve seen.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/11/2018 @ 11:50 amspeaking of amoral this is the one-year anniversary of Ted Cruz doing twitter-love all up on a porn link
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/11/2018 @ 11:51 amMeantime, four Pinocchios to Kamala Harris for her comments on Kavanaugh relating to abortion, dog whistles and whatnot.
Paul Montagu (cef528) — 9/11/2018 @ 5:22 pmThe Republicans, Never Trumpers included, have to learn to defend themselves from these attacks by the left. Instead of piling on, why not defend her?
Any half way objective person should have seen the assault on Zina Bash was nothing but an attempt to derail the Kavanaugh nomination.
DN (e91bf6) — 9/12/2018 @ 12:27 pmPatterico’s original post was a reaction to views expressed by others “on the right” who praised Bash for intentionally flashing the symbol on Day 2 to “troll the left”. This idea did not originate with Patrick, but he was too quick to accept it, as he admits, and he criticized those who applauded Bash for her allegedly masterful trolling.
If those people who Patterico criticized had been correct, it would have been Bash who was creating a distraction from the Kavanaugh hearings, and she would not be worthy of defense.
Dave (445e97) — 9/12/2018 @ 2:13 pmAnd if those Doomsday 2012 nuts had been correct, none of this would’ve ever happened.
Munroe (c94699) — 9/12/2018 @ 3:33 pmWhen Trump talks and makes hand gestures, he uses the OK symbol, but with the twist of the pinched thumb and forefinger — most people put the thumb over the forefinger’s fingernail to make the “O” in the OK symbol more round. Trump does it with the pinch, because he’s not saying “okay”, but rather is just gesturing with the thumb and forefinger without regard to his middle, ring, and pinky fingers.
FFS, PAY ATTENTION
School Marm (d283f7) — 9/13/2018 @ 1:37 amThat’s not the ok gesture, then, that Trump does. It’s the gesture for emphasis or exactitude. There’s also the classic Italian gesture with the palm facing upward and the wrist bending. And who woulda thunk that yoga practitioners were all alt.right?* Om mani padne Trump, Trump padne mani om, ….
*I just remembered that. That’s how I meditated when I meditated 45 years ago. With the hands resting palm upward and the thumb and forefinger together.
nk (dbc370) — 9/13/2018 @ 5:18 am*I just remembered that. That’s how I meditated when I meditated 45 years ago. With the hands resting palm upward and the thumb and forefinger together.
Well exactly. Just like aryan supremacists.
Skorcher (5b282a) — 9/13/2018 @ 6:52 amhttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Buddha_statue_at_Fo_Guang_Shan_in_Kaohsiung%2C_Taiwan.jpg/400px-Buddha_statue_at_Fo_Guang_Shan_in_Kaohsiung%2C_Taiwan.jpg
“School Marm” left a comment that ended: “Jesus, you’re stupid.” “School Marm” is now banned. We won’t tolerate personal attacks like that any more.
It’s a sliding scale. “Jesus, you’re stupid” might get a warning if someone hasn’t been an annoying jerk during their entire time here. If they have? Buh-bye!
Patterico (115b1f) — 9/14/2018 @ 12:10 pm