I'm reading "A Trump Rally, a Right-Wing Cause and the Enduring Legacy of Waco/Thirty years ago, a fiery federal raid on a doomsday sect turned the city into a symbol of government overreach. Donald Trump will speak there on Saturday, and some supporters — and critics — say it’s no accident" by Charles Homans (NYT).
[Waco] has remained a cause for contemporary far-right groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.... Alex Jones, the conspiracy-theorist broadcaster who helped draw crowds of Trump loyalists to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, rose to prominence promoting wild claims about the Waco standoff. The longtime Trump associate and former campaign adviser Roger Stone dedicated his 2015 book, “The Clintons’ War on Women,” to the Branch Davidians who died at Mount Carmel.
By the way, that book title contains the only appearance of the name Clinton in the entire long article. (There's also one muted reference to Clinton: "the administration of a Democratic president.")
“Waco is a touchstone for the far right,” said Stuart Wright, a professor of sociology at Lamar University in Beaumont, Tex., and an authority on the standoff. He said Mr. Trump’s decision to begin his campaign there, if intentional in its nod to the siege, would echo Ronald Reagan’s August 1980 speech affirming his support of “states’ rights” at a county fair near Philadelphia, Miss., a town known for the murder of three civil rights activists 16 years earlier.
“There’s some deep symbolism,” Mr. Wright said....
Interesting to compare Waco — a federal government attack responsible for killing 76 private citizens, including 25 children — with an incident in which private citizens killed private citizens. Does the "deep symbolism" argue in favor of strong federal power or against it? Wright's examples are at cross purposes.
Another idea is that Waco is synonymous with the concept of a "siege," and Trump wants to express that he himself is under siege:
When F.B.I. agents searched his Mar-a-Lago resort in August looking for classified documents, he issued a statement declaring himself “currently under siege.” In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Coalition conference this month, he described the 2024 presidential election as “the final battle” and vowed “retribution.”
As word circulated this month of a possible indictment from a New York grand jury... he posted a message to supporters in all-caps to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” Early Friday, still awaiting the grand jury’s action, Mr. Trump posted that the “potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country.”...
About the politics of the actual human beings who were attacked in Waco 30 years ago:
David Thibodeau, a survivor of the siege who came from a “very Democratic liberal family” [said]... “David and the people at Mount Carmel weren’t political at all”... But he said he appreciated the attention of the right-wing groups when the survivors were struggling to make sense of their experience and were treated as pariahs in other political circles.
“Nobody wanted to hear what I had to say except for people on the right,” Mr. Thibodeau said. Funds for the construction of the chapel at Mount Carmel were raised by [Alex] Jones, whose obsession with Waco conspiracy theories led to his firing in 1999 from the Austin radio station KJFK and the start of his own media empire, Infowars....
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When it comes to the federal government, it's important to remember that when making a choice between you owning machine guns and kids dying, the government prefers dead kids.
"Better horrific sorrow than full auto", the ATF is fond of saying.
The Waco siege was pretty disgusting. The FBI used loud or frightening sounds (such as airplanes taking off or the sounds of slaughtered rabbits) to deprive the Branch Davidians of sleep and to invade their aural space. There were also tanks involved (and dead babies).
Side note -- sleep deprivation and music torture was especially popular during Bush II's war on terror/anarchy in the Middle East. George Bush Senior also used heavy metal to "break" Manuel Noriega. I wonder if this sort of stuff is dinner table talk among our leaders?
He’s hoping to get the endorsement of Chip and Joanna Gaines.
The deep meaning? Is that not clear: The federal government is a corrupt, lawless, immoral organization that will literally burn you and your kids to death at a church if you cross them.
You can vote for that if you want to. Or not.
I choose to believe America can do better than that. Or else it gets Tim McVeigh some more.
One of the most sickening things I have seen is the assembled press applauding Bill Clinton after his administration had killed off the goofball Branch Davidians. What a bunch of psychopaths.
Did Trump say he was there because of the raid on Brach Dividians or was it just a professor in Beaumont TX (one of two Texas towns that Hillary visited in her 2016 campaign, and then just for an hour).
Waco is also right next to Crawford Texas. I suspect Trump is sending a message to W. The Bush family has been doing its best to position Texas to go against Trump. W.’s nephew ran for state AG against a highly affective Ken Paxton (who also has had bogus allegations of federal crimes made against him that have gone nowhere).
Waco didn't happen in a vacuum. Just about 7 months earlier there was the incident at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in which Randy Weaver and his family were surrounded, surveilled, and then attacked by Federal agents. Weaver's son and wife were killed in the incident (his son shot in the back while running away, his wife shot by a sniper standing in their home, holding their baby). I offer this up not to say anything other than Waco is not a stand-alone incident from that time showing the overstepping of Government force on people they find disagree with them. In both cases, they just simply killed them.
What kind of culture produces a legacy media that would insinuate that the slaughter of women and children by Federal authorities could only be a contemptible cause for deplorable people?
Compare and contrast: the death of George Floyd under police restraint vs a group of children who get burned alive while under police siege. Protest against the one becomes a holy cause. Protest against the other becomes a conspiracy theory.
Althouse said...
Interesting to compare Waco — a federal government attack responsible for killing 76 private citizens, including 25 children — with an incident in which private citizens killed private citizens.
Indeed, wouldn't the more apt parallel be to the other Philadelphia? But that would confuse the racial narrative, wouldn't it?
Philadelphia holds day of remembrance for 1985 Move bombing that left 11 dead
Philadelphia on Thursday marks the city’s first official day of remembrance for the [government] 1985 bombing of a Black liberation group in which 11 people, including five children, were killed and an entire African American neighborhood burned to ashes.
The commemoration of the city’s aerial bombing of the Move organization is being billed as a day of “reflection, observation and recommitment to the principle that all people are created equal”. It follows last year’s formal apology by Philadelphia city council for having committed one of the worst atrocities in America’s long history of racial violence...
Apart from the 11 who died, some 61 houses were razed to the ground and 250 people left homeless.
No Philadelphia official ever faced criminal consequences for the atrocity. The only person held criminally liable was Ramona Africa, one of only two Move members who managed to escape the attack – she was charged with riot and conspiracy, and served seven years in prison.
Jamie Gauthier, who represents the Osage Avenue area on the city council and who was instrumental in initiating Thursday’s day of remembrance, told the Guardian that the event would be a chance to reflect on the ways that Black people in Philadelphia and across the US have suffered at the hands of the state.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/13/philadelphia-day-of-remembrance-1985-move-bombing
"I offer this up not to say anything other than Waco is not a stand-alone incident from that time showing the overstepping of Government force on people they find disagree with them. In both cases, they just simply killed them."
I guess the January 6th political prisoners should be happy they weren't shot dead, or beaten to death by the Capitol police.
No deep meaning, just Trump being plugged into the real America, not the phony coastal bubbles.
Biden was the Dem’s ringleader in the investigations into WACO.
He insisted that the Branch Davidians committed suicide.
They were, in fact, pinned down inside their compound by FBI snipers.
Biden is an evil SOB.
I bet I'm one of a very small minority of Americans who knows that at one time the Rev. Jim Jones was feted by all the leading California liberals. He preached conspiracy theories. He thought the CIA was out to get him. Back then the left believed that most of the world's troubles were caused by the CIA so who could blame him. Anyway, all those dead people at Jonestown died as the result of an exaggerated reaction to a left wing conspiracy theory. I can't recall any of the reports at the time then or since claiming that the madness of Jones was the result of his left wing beliefs.
A real insurrectionist would have chosen Oklahoma City.
'...the administration of a Democratic president.")'
...the administration of a failed painter.
: )
Reagan spoke at an event that Mississippi politicians had been speaking at for years. It wasn't where he kicked off his campaign. Reagan started his (post-convention) campaign in New York City.
Reagan did say "I believe in state's rights." It was part of the message of smaller federal government that he delivered in every speech in every venue. The Wikipedia article on Reagan's 1980 campaign attributes inflammatory phrases to him that weren't in that speech. It could be a matter of sentence ambiguity or confused research or flawed sources, but it does indicate how much mythology has grown up around the speech.
Probably Waco isn't the right place to start a campaign, but it is quite an example of the things that the federal government does to its citizens. And ... hasn't the campaign already started a while ago?
Temujin said...
Waco didn't happen in a vacuum. Just about 7 months earlier there was the incident at Ruby Ridge, Idaho
===========
Bill Barr was never asked about whitewashing Federal Ruby Ridge murderers
so essentially it was SCREAM a la Munch
MAGAts are in a deranged cult, just like those crazy basteds that burned in Waco.
The low hanging fruit here, is the correct take.
Hope Trump holds a rally in Cuba.
Invite Elian Gonzalez up to the stage.
I've been rewatching the miniseries of the same name, with Ruby Ridge in the first episode.
The federal government hasn't learned a damn thing.
"Some people say..."
Well as long as you have concrete evidence....
I presume this was labeled an editorial. /sarc
Waco and Ruby Ridge happened in an era where conservatives were largely patriotic and happily joined the non-Woke military, and when D.C. Republicans were often condescending toward rural conservatives/religious people/guns. G. H. W. Bush is known for resigning from the NRA after receiving an anti-government "jackbooted thugs" fundraising flyer. Globalism ruled the day, per the combination of a redistributive/green left and a capitalistic right that wanted to outsource jobs to India and China to save costs. "Hello, my name is Sanjiv. What seems to be the problem with your cable TV service?"
Neither Ruby Ridge nor Waco needed to happen and reflect bumbling government at its worst, plus they led to the Oklahoma City McVeigh bombing. The left would have done much more in response to government failings than the right...as they did in the post George Floyd era... But...the the D.C. Republicans were equally responsible as the Democrats back then.
Pat Buchanan was a lonely politician in seeking to protect US workers against globalism, and Rush Limbaugh became the voice of the right. They foreshadowed Trump by 20 years. Trump ran with the theme plus his celebrity to win. But today, the Republicans are far more supportive of guns and independence and protectionism than G. H. W. Bush and everyone in D.C. back then. Republicans still lean toward isolation, avoidance, and "just leave me alone" -- and will continue to be eaten alive by D.C. until they fully engage and stay engaged with their political enemies.
Biden is rotten to the core...
With Trump - we get more Biden.
Not saying anyone else can win - but with Trump, it's a sure thing.
Ironically they went over forbes burham guyana who replaced cheddi gayan in a cia coup
'I bet I'm one of a very small minority of Americans who knows that at one time the Rev. Jim Jones was feted by all the leading California liberals.'
Born and raised in the Bay Area.
Jones had strong ties to liberal politicians...
Temujin said...
Waco didn't happen in a vacuum.
Truth. Also remember that in the mix was hysteria over 'day care center child sexual abuse' that had only recently subsided. AG Reno rose to prominence prosecuting those kind of cases in Florida. There were suggestions that the FBI used likely false claims that the Branch Davidian kids were being abused to get Reno to green-light an assault in which 28 of the kids she was so concerned about died.
"Reagan spoke at an event that Mississippi politicians had been speaking at for years. It wasn't where he kicked off his campaign. Reagan started his (post-convention) campaign in New York City."
I looked into the facts as I was writing the post and encountered "A novelist’s provocative analysis of the decline of American politics" (WaPo):
"Conservatives’ enduring idol, Ronald Reagan, helped make the GOP the party of the white South, Fountain reminds us. He recalls the dark story of how Reagan began his 1980 presidential campaign with a speech at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, just a few miles from where a Ku Klux Klan posse supported by local officials and police murdered three young civil rights workers in June 1964. No one was charged with the crimes for more than 40 years. Reagan picked this symbolic venue to announce, “I believe in states’ rights” — the rallying cry of segregationists for decades. The federal government was too powerful, he declared — also a favorite theme of white Southerners. As president, Reagan promised“to restore to the states and local communities those functions which properly belong there.” This speech was “a remarkable moment in American history,” Fountain writes, “one of the true masterpieces of the Southern Strategy, a dog whistle that blew out the eardrums of every racist reactionary within three thousand miles.""
For what it's worth.
Thanks for reminding me the hatred of Reagan rivalled that of Trump.
Is it a conspiracy theory to think that at best it was an incredible screw-up that killed 25 kids? Just wondering.
Althouse said...
Interesting to compare Waco — a federal government attack responsible for killing 76 private citizens, including 25 children — with an incident in which private citizens killed private citizens.
Indeed, wouldn't the more apt parallel be to the other Philadelphia? But that would confuse the racial narrative, wouldn't it?
Philadelphia holds day of remembrance for 1985 Move bombing that left 11 dead
Philadelphia on Thursday marks the city’s first official day of remembrance for the [government] 1985 bombing of a Black liberation group in which 11 people, including five children, were killed and an entire African American neighborhood burned to ashes.
The commemoration of the city’s aerial bombing of the Move organization is being billed as a day of “reflection, observation and recommitment to the principle that all people are created equal”. It follows last year’s formal apology by Philadelphia city council for having committed one of the worst atrocities in America’s long history of racial violence...
Apart from the 11 who died, some 61 houses were razed to the ground and 250 people left homeless.
No Philadelphia official ever faced criminal consequences for the atrocity. The only person held criminally liable was Ramona Africa, one of only two Move members who managed to escape the attack – she was charged with riot and conspiracy, and served seven years in prison.
Jamie Gauthier, who represents the Osage Avenue area on the city council and who was instrumental in initiating Thursday’s day of remembrance, told the Guardian that the event would be a chance to reflect on the ways that Black people in Philadelphia and across the US have suffered at the hands of the state.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/13/philadelphia-day-of-remembrance-1985-move-bombing
Big Mike said...
He’s hoping to get the endorsement of Chip and Joanna Gaines.
Hehe- bad strategy if he is. The real kingmakers are Erin and Ben Napier in Laurel, MS…
"Anyone afraid of FBI agents murdering children with tanks is a right wing nut job."
That is one hell of a take.
Janet Reno "took full responsibility" for the attack and absolutely nothing happened to her. The Waco County Sheriff knew David Koresh and said he could have picked him up on his daily jog. The media was so committed to the nascent Clinton administration that there were no real consequences.
Um no he did it as a favor to trent lott, state rights is what allows wisconsin to be a dumpsterfire of dysnfunction
"Weaver's son and wife were murdered in the incident"
FIFY
Murdered by FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi. Say his name.
John Henry
What an article. Many paragraphs, but no mention of Janet Reno. No mention that not a single official overseeing the siege suffered even a smidgen of damage to their career. Remember that Reno 'took responsibility" for it but did not resign or otherwise show any real remorse? She continued to be an icon in the Democratic Party, who considered her worst misdeed to have been the appoointment of a special counsel to look into Clinton. The article repeatedly mentions that the rightwing in the US continues to hearken back to Waco, but shows no curiosity as to why the left or center appears to never have given a damn about the incineration of children and their parents at Waco.
There is a massive book by Yuri Slezkine called the House of Government, which is an exhaustive look at the Stalin show trials and the fate of the Old Bolsheviks, many of whom lived in one massive apartment building in Moscow built to house government officials. Slezkine goes into detail about the methods of the KGB, and how the KGB got false confessions and also got the officials to turn in their wives, friends, and other family members. In the midst of this, he describes a case Janet Reno brough against a husband and wife who had immigrated from Latin America and ran a small child care business. This was when Reno was a DA in Florida. She elicited confessions of child abuse from both, and got the wife to implicate her husband, using threats of deportation, and the prospect of their children being deprived of both parents. The case was ludicrous, and was one of many during that period arising out a craze about child molestation. The wife confessed in open court, just as happened in the 1930s show trials in Moscow. She sat between Reno and the charlaton psychologist, and when she could not remember the details of the abuse, the court would take a break, and Reno and the psychologist would repair to a conference room with the wife, and then she would come out and give more details. The husband was sentenced to six life terms. Slezkine's point was that Janet Reno would have been right at home as a prosecutor in Moscow in the 1930's. I believe the husband is still immured in some Florida prison.
Tanks at Waco? Pshaw.
See Biden last year
Those who say the blood of lib- — “the blood of patriots,” you know, and all the stuff about how we’re going to have to move against the government. Well, the tree of liberty is not watered with the blood of patriots. What’s happened is that there have never been — if you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.
Military tacticians and strategists might argue that this is not true. But it is pretty horrifying and stupid that he would say it.
John Henry
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States
Opening sentence of the Wikipedia article on the FBI.
It was founded, by Napoleon (TRs AG) specifically for political surveillance over the opposition of Congress.
It publicizes its law enforecment activity but it is still, as it has been for 115 years, primarily a political agency to stifle opposition.
John Henry
Always bears keeping in mind.
The NYT mediaswine may hope their readers will, by inference, compare Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Trump Deplorables to Branch Davidian nutbags rather than focus on federal overreaching.
Meanwhile Democrat prosecutors in Manhattan, Georgia, Florida and DC channel Lavrevtiy Beria.
For one thing, every place in the deep south is probably a few miles from a historical KKK atrocity, for another, why should a Republican stay clear of such sites? The KKK were almost entirely made up of Democrats. To avoid these places would be reinforcing the myth that somehow Republicans are the inheritors of Democratic misdeeds.
Cult leader who embraces martyrism, pays tribute to cult leader martyr.
MAGAts fantasize about that ultimate level of victimhood.
“If you lock up Donald Trump, you’re locking up 80,000,0000 votes.”
Whomp, whomp……
I just watched the first part of the WACO Netflix documentary last night. Tragic on both sides. Koresh was insane. No doubt. And even as a second amendment advocate, that was a HUGE arsenal Koresh was stockpiling.
But the ATF and the gov't could have arrested Koresh at a local tavern or on a bike ride, rather than storm the compound. Those people wouldn't have put up any resistance without Koresh inside.
That was the stupid government decision that led to ATF and Branch Davidian deaths. Seems the feds wanted to use their toys.
They also played right into Koresh's doomsday prophecies that the gov't would attack and the Davidians would fight and die in a fiery end. I'm not sure the gov't knew about or calculated that dynamic.
The point to WACO on "the far right" is not a defense of David Koresh.
WACO represents the STUPID things those in power do out of arrogance and hubris. When they want to make a show of it, they do. (Shock & Awe).
30 years later, from the same arrogance and hubris, they locked us down, cheated on the 2020 election, caused J6, put us through the Russian collusion bullshit, $100 billion to Ukraine...
Alex Jones,...rose to prominence promoting wild claims about the Waco standoff.
Wild claims? Such as?
I'm aware of Alex Jones' wild claims about Sandy Hook, but it's hard to imagine anything about Waco that's wilder than the truth.
Temujin said...
Waco didn't happen in a vacuum. Just about 7 months earlier there was the incident at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in which Randy Weaver and his family were surrounded, surveilled, and then attacked by Federal agents.
Don't forget Elian Gonzalez, which was about the same time. Nobody died, but the government's willingness to loose military tactics upon inconvenient civilians was on clear display.
As far as I’m concerned Waco was 76 George Floyds.
Bureaucratic terrorism. It's not a coincidence that three world wars (I, II, and Springs) and most wars without borders started with Democrat administrations. Lose your ethical religion, your class-disordered ideologies, your politically congruent constructs, your singe/central/monopolistic forcings.
I guess the January 6th political prisoners should be happy they weren't shot dead, or beaten to death by the Capitol police
Not more than one or two, anyway.
As far as I’m concerned Waco was 76 George Floyds.
Floyd suffered from a fentanyl-induced progressive (i.e. terminal) condition that preceded the officer's restraint, further exacerbated by an assembled mob that delayed access by authorized medical personnel.
Ruby Ridge is the prototype of all the govt stings run against Trump,
The govt setting up private citizens, because they can't find a crime.
In this case, the govt failed to deliver a notice to appearon a weapons charge. Then when he did not appear, they sent out a team to arrest him. One law officer got shot and killed on the Weaver Property, all dressed in black with no law enforcement markings, carrying a gun. The son shot and killed an armed intruder.
Then to top things off, later, a govt sniper shot and killed the mother as she held her infant daughter.
No govt agents were charged with crimes.
anks at Waco? Pshaw.
See Biden last year
Those who say the blood of lib- — “the blood of patriots,” you know, and all the stuff about how we’re going to have to move against the government. Well, the tree of liberty is not watered with the blood of patriots. What’s happened is that there have never been — if you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.
Military tacticians and strategists might argue that this is not true. But it is pretty horrifying and stupid that he would say it.
Like a blind squirrel finding a nut, Biden was right this time.
Which is precisely the reason why the Second Amendment was written. Under the original intent and meaning of the Second Amendment, by both the writers and the voters, private individuals would be permitted to own operational F-15s and nuclear weapons. (I would support a constitutional amendment to ban private ownership of weapons of mass destruction)
What if Musk could have spent that $44 billion buying Ford class aircraft carriers and armored brigades instead of Twitter? That is what our Founders intended.
"[Waco] has remained a cause for contemporary far-right groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.... "
And, as we see here on this comments page, groups like the Althouse Blog commentariat.
'...the administration of a Democratic president.")'
So passive.
There is a huge museum in Tokyo that tells the story of Japan going waaaay back in time.
One exhibit has a timeline about WWII.
When you get to December of 1941, there is a note that 'WWII happened.'
I almost laughed out loud.
I think I have a photo of it somewhere.
yes alex jones was lazy, sandy hook and parkland was employed to disarm the people, the latter was an act of criminal negligence,
He recalls the dark story of how Reagan began his 1980 presidential campaign with a speech at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, just a few miles from where a Ku Klux Klan posse supported by local officials and police murdered three young civil rights workers in June 1964.
Funny how the word "Democrat" doesn't appear here. As in "... supported by local Democratic officials and police enforcing racist laws written and passed by Democrats and protecting a Ku Klux Klan posse as was common in the South for 100 years."
Why aren't we cancelling the Democratic Party for its racist past?
@rehajm, I’ll concede that Ben has an edge on Chip, especially when the latter is doing “goofy.” But Erin isn’t within light years of Joanna.
At least you didn’t bring up Christina Hall or Tarek El Moussa or Michael and Ashley Cordray down in Galveston.
IIRC the three civil rights activists in Mississippi were arrested by the sheriff (deputy?) so it was really private citizens suffered death at the hands of the govt.
Jim Jones didn't just receive support from prominent Democrats: he colluded with Harvey Milk to transfer to him the benefits checks of elderly people, mostly black, whom he had lured to his cult. Milk is deeply implicated in those 900 deaths, but the gay activist elite and Hollywood wormholes this story.
Jimmy Carter's sister and wife met, praised, and lobbied Jimmah on behalf of Jim Jones when family of cult members asked the federal government to investigate reports of abuse and kidnapping in Jonestown. The sainted Jimmah didn't act. Walter Mondale actually met with Jim Jones in Jonestown and praised him.
Willie Brown, Dianne Feinstein, and Jane Fonda also praised him. And Fidel Castro. Jerry Brown was a close friend and spoke at Jones' temple.
Jones was able to deliver bloc votes to Democrat politicians. The Carters had a strong affiliation with him, even though he was an avowed communist who despised the United States.
It took Congressman Leo Ryan, a Democrat but a courageous nutter, to take it upon himself to investigate his constituents' claims that relatives were being held hostage in Jonestown. He was murdered when he flew there to personally rescue them. Dan Flynn wrote a great book about all of this.
Now (white) members of Jim Jones' sex entourage and inner circle who somehow avoided the massacre have their own 'lil Academic Department at San Diego State University, where they use taxpayer money and academic radicalism to bury the bodies all over again. I investigated that story and also Waco, and much as I supported Trump and will vote for him again if he's the candidate, Koresh is responsible for the deaths of his followers, and Trump shouldn't play with that fire.
randy weaver, wanted to be left alone, but that is not possible,
'Milk is deeply implicated in those 900 deaths, but the gay activist elite and Hollywood wormholes this story.'
Just as it is conveniently committed that 33-year old Milk was shtupping his 16-year old boyfriend.
And for that he gets an airline terminal at SFO (among other things) named after him...
" David Thibodeau, a survivor of the siege who came from a “very Democratic liberal family” [said]... “David and the people at Mount Carmel weren’t political at all”... But he said he appreciated the attention of the right-wing groups when the survivors were struggling to make sense of their experience and were treated as pariahs in other political circles.
“Nobody wanted to hear what I had to say except for people on the right,”"
--
Note how reluctant journos are to frame folks as Left or far left but have no issue with "Right" labels.
I suppose kicking off campaign in DC would be a more contemporary juxtaposition, but that risks everyone being round up for parading.
Waco is an example of what happens when you have incompetent people in the all powerful federal bureaucracies.
Waco could have been solved peacefully, but the boys with their toys wanted to show them off.
The deep state showed Trump in Chuck Schumers words "how they can get you 6 ways to sunday" with their toys (dossiers and illegal spying).
On a more practical level it puts Trump to the right of DeSantis. Ron isn't going to Waco, he's going to New Hampshire.
Murdered by FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi. Say his name.
John Henry
Yes. The jury that acquitted Weaver wanted to indict Horiuchi. He was well advised to stay out of Idaho.
Weaver, by the way, was entrapped in an FBI operation aimed at a "white nation" group in Hayden Lake, an old resort. They asked him to make a sawed off shotgun when he refused to cooperate with a plan to surveil the Hayden Lake people. He needed money so he did it. Then they accused him and set a hearing date, which he never learned of. The notice was conveniently "lost" in transit. Weaver, of course, was living "off the grid" and got no mail. That was the pretext of the attack on his family.
WACO was similar as the ATF budget was being considered by Congress, back in the days when we had a government budget. Koresh could have been arrested when he went out of the compound, which he did every day.
If Trump is appearing there, it is probably a message that we are all at risk from an out of control Democrat government. Just like Waco. And Maralago.
What's the world coming to when people remember when hundreds of FBI agents and other federal agents, intentionally burned women and children alive because they were becoming a political liability? And that was like 10 years before the FBI went full Democratic Party para-military arm.
"@rehajm, I’ll concede that Ben has an edge on Chip, especially when the latter is doing “goofy.” But Erin isn’t within light years of Joanna."
Let me know when those two inbreds (this is a joke) in Bumblefuck, Mississippi (this is also a joke) have their own TV network.
I'd love a home reno show where the couple is real and has fights, etc. to counterbalance all of the saccharine bullshit we get.
“The Clintons’ War on Women,”
Misogyny. Also, women targeted by the politically congruent ("=") in locker rooms, in competition, as womb banks for personal affirmation, in clinics of the Planned and Levine kind, etc.
randy weaver, wanted to be left alone, but that is not possible,
Tolerance is a conservative principle that is intolerable in DIE culture.
Reminder it was tear gas, then incendiaries. First they gassed them, then they cremated them. Never a good look when a government does that to its own citizens. Just ask anybody in Berlin.
Like a blind squirrel finding a nut, Biden was right this time.
And that is why we so easily pacified Afghanistan and occupy it to this day.
You can't hold land with aircraft, you have to have boots on the ground. That's basic military doctrine. And the US government is going to nuke its own territory? That will certainly inspire loyalty.
Anyone remember that the media stated JFK was assassinated by a rIght wing kook because Dallas was a Republican city then?
Maynard: "Anyone remember that the media stated JFK was assassinated by a rIght wing kook because Dallas was a Republican city then?"
It was much worse than that. Much, much worse.
The left/dems literally blamed the entire City of Dallas for the death of JFK, even though it indeed was a commie asset, likely CIA controlled, that pulled the trigger.
Anyone remember that the media stated JFK was assassinated by a rIght wing kook because Dallas was a Republican city then?
And when that didn't take, they blamed it on a climate of hate.
Kevin said...
"A real insurrectionist would have chosen Oklahoma City"
You never want to be on the side that has to say "yeah, we killed kids, but it was for a good cause . . ."
Every time they showed the Waco compound on the news, I noticed two things: The wind was constant and brisk, and every building was made of wood.
Firing flammable devices (tear gas) into buildings, which were being kept warm by space heaters, which the Feds knew about, since the Feds were using IR devices, showed criminal disregard for the lives of the Davidians.
Tim Maguire.
Watched the hearings.
Agreed. Could hardly believe what the feds stipulated to, just to get it out of the way before getting to the really bad part. Can't make this stuff up.
Only things worse, kept me up nights swearing, was the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA issues.
@Known Unknown, my wife loves HGTV so we see them all. Try Bryan and Sarah Baeumler, formerly of “Renovation Island.”
Others, correct me if I'm wrong but some bonehead at the ATF recently sent out a tweet of congratulations regarding Lon Horiuchi, the agent responsible for Mrs. Weaver's death. The tweet got absolutely ratioed with angry responses but also a large number of sarcastic replies and memes. Not sure if it's still up. Tone-deaf doesn't even come close. It's just in your face taunting.
I know Alex Jones gets a lot of flak here (mostly deserved) for his Sandy Hook antics, but the anons on the Chans went way down the rabbit hole on this one, and let's just say, there's a lot there that doesn't add up.
The fbi murdered women and children. To think they will not do the same to you and yours if you are not a democrat is naive.
The text of Reagan's speech is available online. He shouldn't have delivered the speech where he did and shouldn't have said "state's rights" there, but I didn't see anything else that was truly objectionable in it. As it was, Carter almost carried Mississippi that year and did better in the South than in other regions, so maybe the "dog whistle" wasn't heard by that many people.
Ben Fountain sounds like another guilt-ridden White Southerner. According to Robert Kaiser, "Fountain writes about President Trump’s most ardent supporters as a population unmoored from traditional American optimism," yet Fountain sees racism everywhere and in everything. He sees revolution as a real possibility. His book apparently came from columns for the Guardian, and attracted plaudits from the usual suspects, who also blame Reagan, Trump, and everything else they don't like on racism. All of the 2016 post-mortems read strangely now, given what we're going through today. The "normal" we've returned to is as weird as anything Fountain saw following Trump's campaign.
Two points about Reagan's 1980 speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi: First, see the comment here from Steven Hayward, a biographer of Reagan:
"The inside story of this whole episode has never been told. (I didn’t hear most of it until after I’d finished my book.) That venue was Trent Lott’s idea (!). When Reagan was reminded of the checkered history of the place, Dick Wirthlin told me it was one of only three or four times he ever saw Reagan angry. But he didn’t want to cancel the appearance, as it would make him look weak, etc. And it did prompt Jimmy Carter into making a string of blunders that helped Reagan. By the way, the same day Reagan appeared there, Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt (a Democrat) wrote in the New York Times that “states rights” was a concept that didn’t deserve its bad reputation. How come Babbitt could get away with saying that, but not Reagan?"
https://www.aei.org/articles/100-years-of-ronald-reagan-author-steven-hayward-on-his-legacy/
Second, I have been reading the Washington Post for most of the last 45 years, and have learned never to trust its reporting about Republican politicians. A combination of ideology and ignorance makes most of its writers incapable of getting those stories correct. So, citing the Post as a source of information on this episode, as Althouse does, is a bad sign.
"Floyd suffered from a fentanyl-induced progressive (i.e. terminal) condition that preceded the officer's restraint, further exacerbated by an assembled mob that delayed access by authorized medical personnel."
You forgot to mention the precipitate cause, an asshole cop with a long history of complaints filed against him for his use of excessive force who kept his knee pressed on the neck of the restrained and supine George Floyd for nine minutes, (ignoring Floyd's repeated plaints that he was having trouble breathing).
As for Ruby Ridge and Waco, these were both instances of innocents murdered by ambitious, incompetent and too-aggressive (are there any other kind?) law enforcement agencies (FBI and ATF), abetted or directed at least in the case of Waco by an incompetent and heedless administration in the White House.
Ruby Ridge was murder. Koresh made hostages (and sex slaves) of women and children at Waco. He fired first. The government isn't faultless, but Koresh's imprisonment of and refusal to let innocents leave, while firing on agents, is what caused bloodshed, after weeks of negotiators trying to rescue Koresh's prisoners.
The agents have cleaner hands in that case than the apocalyptic nutcase rapist Koresh.
More of a Jim Jones story than a Ruby Ridge story. Sorry if this doesn't fit your narrative. Trump is playing on feelings; DeSantis is playing with Club for Growth. I'll still vote for either of them over the DEI fascists and dumb-bunny AOC Maoists who have taken over the DNC.
Gusty,
"that was a HUGE arsenal Koresh was stockpiling"
Divided by the total number of adult residence at Mount Carmel, it actually really wasn't that big.
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