The cognitively challenged Sen. Rand Paul wants truck convoys to disrupt the Superbowl and then head for D.C. He wants the trucks to “clog things up,” he said.
Yeah, Rand, so do I. They should be as obnoxious as they can. I want lots of videos of trucks helching out exhaust and of angry people unable to get to work or school or the hospital. That’s the ticket. Just the thing to make Americans sick to death of right-wing assholes, assuming they aren’t already.
Zack Beauchamp writes at Vox that the Freedom Convoys in Canada aren’t a people’s revolt. It’s just some fringe losers protesting their impotence.
News coverage of the convoy, especially from sympathetic anchors on Fox News, may lead Americans to believe that Canada is in the midst of a far-right popular uprising. In reality, the mainstream consensus in Canada about Covid-19, and the nation’s institutions in general, is holding. The so-called trucker movement is on the fringe, including among Canadian truckers — some 90 percent of whom are vaccinated.
They are angry because they have lost.
However, the convoys are getting lots of money and attention, and they are providing a focal point for far-right organizing. Canada’s relatively weak extreme Right could start being a bigger factor, even if they are unpopular.
And this happened, which really sucks —
Ottawa police said Thursday that a significant amount of calls that “almost jammed” the city’s 911 phone system on Wednesday evening came from U.S. addresses.
“They were coming in from the United States,” Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly said in a news conference Thursday.
“Not exclusively, but significantly from United States addresses.”
How big of a jerk does one have to be to think it’s fun to jam up a city’s 911 system?
Josh Marshall points to a Canadian blog, which reports,
What’s happening in Ottawa, they were clear, is two separate events happening in tandem: there is a broadly non-violent (to date) group of Canadians with assorted COVID-related gripes, ranging from the somewhat justified to totally frickin’ insane. But that larger group, which has knocked Ottawa and too many of our leaders into what my colleague Jen Gerson so perfectly described as “stun-fucked stasis,” is now providing a kind of (mostly) unwitting cover to a cadre of seasoned street brawlers whose primary goal is to further erode the legitimacy of the state — not just the city of Ottawa, or Ontario or Canada, but of democracies generally.
There are reports the Canadian police are clearing trucks away from the Ambassador Bridge into the U.S. right now, but I have no sense of how that’s going. Update: The bridge is still clogged as of late this afternoon. They’re going to have to call out troops, I’m afraid. This is not something police can handle, I don’t think.
One thing that becomes clear reading this is that the important stuff happened before the authorities in Ottawa even knew what was happening. And then it was too late. Once you have an organized, fortified encampment of far-right agitators you can’t just dismantle that without the potential or maybe certainty of a lot of violence. I really hope U.S. authorities are watching this closely to prevent things like this from happening on the U.S. side of the border. At the beginning you can deal with it in a pretty straightforward way. If you let it get out of control, as they did in Ottawa, the options become really bad.
Maybe between this and January 6 they’ve learned a couple of lessons. Like, take threats from right-wing white dudes seriously.
On to Toiletgate. Do see 15 boxes: Inside the long, strange trip of Trump’s classified records at WaPo (subscription firewall should be down). Important takeaways:
One, “Trump was noticeably secretive about the packing process, and top aides and longtime administrative staffers did not see the contents, the people said.” So Trump is the only one who knows what documents were packed.
Two, the National Archives started asking about missing documents in the summer of 2021. “But it was not until the end of the year that the boxes were finally readied for collection, according to two people familiar with the logistics, one of whom described the ordeal as ‘a bit of a process.'” Trump had plenty of time to go through the documents and destroy those he REALLY doesn’t want anyone to know about. So a surprise raid with a search warrant might do no good, although I’d like to see it tried anyway. It’s possible there’s juicy stuff he didn’t try to flush.
Three, understandably, there are all kinds of security protocols that are supposed to be followed when classified documents are moved, but none of those were followed in Trump’s case.
“I’m all for it,” Paul said. “Civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in our country, from slavery to civil rights to you name it. …"
There's a clear distinction between free speech, demonstrating, and civil disobedience. Free speech is expressing yourself in writing or verbally. It's protected. Demonstrating, especially mass demonstrations, are an extension of free speech. Also protected.
Civil disobedience is always breaking the law. Rand Paul is right about the honorable tradition of civil disobedience. But it's NOT protected. You can go to jail – that's why I'm a felon and did four months. So let's be clear. Rand Paul is encouraging people to (peacefully) break the law – fully aware that they are in no way exempt from penalties. (Rand Paul kinda left that part out. – but any activist who has been arrested can tell you there's a risk in civil disobedience.)
Canada is talking about impounding vehicles and imposing severe fines. I don't know if they will. The DOJ destroyed the vehicle I used in my civil disobedience and I did not "clog things up."
As with the previous post, the tactics of a radical un-vaxed minority screwing life up for a vaxed majority will not win hearts and minds. Not in Canada – not in the US. But as I hinted earlier – there's a solution. The truck that's in the demonstration is stopped. The driver is arrested. The vehicle is impounded – as evidence until the trial.
The trucks that haul big trailers go for 125K and up. That's for a USED semi. If you are an independent driver, the loss of the vehicle for a month puts you into bankruptcy and the bank will take the truck – when the government is finished. Your income is gone – you may lose your house. If you used your employer's truck, it's still impounded as evidence. If this costs your employer money to be out a truck, he can file a civil suit for damages – what the loss of the truck has cost him. The prosecutor, as part of an out-of-court settlement, could demand the driver give up his commercial license. Yeah, let's play this game!
Some of the players are in small vehicles and old trucks. However, the cost of traveling to DC for status hearings is itself an expensive penalty. I have not seen any reports of how expensive litigation has been for the J6 protesters who did not fight the cops or steal property. Some are getting light sentences, but how much has legal representation to stay out of the slammer cost them?
Prosecutors and police should be drawing up battle plans right now.
If the truck is used in a demonstration, the truck is contraband and subject to forfeiture under U.S. law.
Hmm…
Let's see what's what with Rand Paul.
Son of an asshole.
Named after a major asshole.
So he probably is an asshole himself, right? Just take a look at his lineage, and who his name is a tribute to: Ayn Rand. How could he be otherwise?
But let us not guess.
Let's take a look at him on the floor of the US Senate, and who his friends and nemeses are.
He has no friends that we can see. Not really even in the Senate. And his next-door neighbor came over to Paul's yard and put a beating on Paul. Ok, we put his neighbor in the nemesis column.
His daily nemeses are the non-corporatist Democrats, Dt. Fauci, and other scientists we've watch him interrogate at Senate hearings.
I also suspect his barber/hair-deconstuctionist hates his guts! Why? Well, would you as a scizzor-wielding professional barber let a client of yours walk out in public looking like that? With THAT "haircut?" No way you'd do that 'cause people would think you were a blind barber! So as his barber, I'd ask around, and find out the man has no friends. So there's no one to tell him that whatever deceased animal it is on his head, it makes him look half-crazy and half-stupid. In other words: He looks like himself! And so, other folks inevitatably figure that you also hate his guts – otherwise you wouldn't let him leave your barbershop until you fixed that thingee on the empty head.
So after all of that, there's an easy conclusion: Rand Paul is a mop-topped major asshole.
Not a tRUMP level asshole. But a level below: A Ted Cruz, MotherTucker Carlson, and/or Bill O'Reilly level asshole.
Wow, a master class in the characteristics and identification of the asshole, as a species!
He wasn't named for Ayn Rand. It's short for "Randal" (sic).
Unfortunately, Rand Paul is the heir apparent as the Libertarian ideology chief talking head if not more. Those who identify as Libertarian, in my experience, are rabidly ideological and incredibly politically naïve. They are naive in that strict adherence to the ideals of Libertarianism are pragmatic, that their ideas would work. Here is another example. This Trucker Tantrum should not be associated with civil disobedience any more so than the tantrums of a two-year-old. No one has the right to be a Typhoid Mary. We had a case locally of a hospital nurse who was intentionally infecting patients with hepatitis. That case was treated criminality and no Libertarian contended that nurse had an individual freedom right to "share" his disease. Sure, the link between his behavior and the harm caused to others was more apparent, but the principle is the same. There are times when the good of the group outweighs the rights of an individual. Sure, individual freedom is a noble political ideal, but rabid adherence to that idea is just silly in the face of a pandemic. Again, Rand Paul sides with silly and naivety. I guess that makes him news-worthy and a hero to some. The fact is, that hero worship to that ilk, is a big mistake.
So the people who vote for and support this childish fool really must believe it's OK to let a loved one die because the road to the hospital was clogged with "protestors." What about his own family and/or staff? Are they immune from all misfortune forever? The sheer arrogance itself is a sign of insanity.
Yup; they're supposedly on their way to D.C. To protest the COVID-19 restrictions, which are … what, exactly?
Seriously. We've given up. There are no restrictions in this country. There are businesses who will tell you to put on a mask. That's it.
As for Trump, don't ever forget that he owes God knows who at least $221 million.