Joe Flood

  • The Sad Parade: The Trump Spectacular was Idiocracy, not Triumph of the Will

    The Sad Parade: The Trump Spectacular was Idiocracy, not Triumph of the Will

    June 16, 2025

    It’s Monday morning in Washington, DC, and the cleanup from Trump’s parade continues, as workers take down security fences and empty overflowing trash cans.

    I almost left town for this event, expecting a visual scene comparable to Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, with soldiers saluting the Dear Leader to the deafening cheers of red-hatted MAGA hordes.

    But instead, we got something out of Idiocracy – a confused and disjointed “perade” featuring soldiers casually strolling down the avenue as a sparse crowd wilted in the heat.

    The signs were there ahead of time. A couple days before the parade, I went to the National Mall to check out how they were destroying my beloved city. It was a maze of anti-scale fences that stretched from the Air and Space Museum to the Lincoln Memorial. More than 18 miles of them.

    Once inside the secure zone, I couldn’t figure how to get out – and I live here! After ending up trapped by the FDR Memorial, I biked across the Potomac River rather than go back across the Mall, only to discover fences on the Virginia side as well.

    The Sad Parade

    Saturday afternoon at the Trump Parade. Where is everyone?

    Fortunately, not many people attended. That was evident when I rolled down to check out the scene on Saturday afternoon.

    During big events on the Mall, the police close 15th Street by the White House. During the Women’s March in 2017, this was an unbroken sea of people that extended for more than a mile.

    But on Saturday, hardly anyone was there, despite this spot being just a few blocks from the entrance to the parade and within walking distance of several Metro stops.

    The crowds might have been stuck elsewhere. There’s an excellent thread by Doug Landry, a communications expert and event planner, that highlights how poorly this event was organized, in terms of crowd management and logistics. I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t navigate the vast security theater; thousands were forced to walk miles in utter confusion.

    Maybe they shouldn’t have fired all the experts and replaced them with talentless Trump cronies! Read Amanda Moore’s piece in Mother Jones about how MAGA took over America250, the organization behind the Sad Parade.

    The Refuse Fascism march on 14th St in Washington, DC

    Where I did find a crowd was Logan Circle. The No Kings movement had planned demonstrations around the country (which were historic and massive) but had excluded DC, not wanting a confrontation.

    Refuse Fascism led a march anyway. Hundreds of people marched down 14th Street to the White House for a demonstration. They chanted, “Trump must go now!”

    Among them was Patricia Eguino, last seen heckling Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio. Refuse Fascism told her to turn down her trademark death metal screams – she was scaring people!

    Meanwhile, parade-goers were disappointed. Several of my favorite chud livestreamers from Freedom Corner attended after grifting money to go, promising their viewers live coverage of the MAGA celebration.

    Instead, they got buffertifa, as demand crashed the network on Constitution Avenue. It was the worst possible result for livestreamers. No streaming, no viewers, no donations.

    Those watching on TV got a good idea of the pathetic nature of the spectacle – disjointed collections of military equipment drifted by while Trump and his employees (including Melania) tried not to appear bored.

    The soldier holding the drone has, rightfully, become a meme. It’s the perfect illustration of the end of our superpower status. Trump likes to boast about our unbeatable military but after seeing the Sad Parade, is anyone convinced?

    The indignities continued after dark. The poor management of this event meant that everyone had to exit at a chokepoint lined by concrete barriers.

    Awaiting them was a gauntlet of Antifa, marchers from Refuse Fascism and local anti-Trump demonstrators who heckled the red hat-wearing crowd with chants of “Trump sucks!” as they tried to find their way home.

    Filming the fiasco was Anarchy Princess, who captured some priceless moments of MAGA hypocrisy and dysfunction, such as J6er Chris Quaglin arguing with the crowd, white power fanboy Jake Lang running away and the “Proud Boy den mother” Suzzanne Monk bumming a cigarette off Antifa, a group that she claims are terrorists.

    The theme of the Trump administration is incompetence.

    The people who crashed the economy with tariffs, instigated riots with immigrant sweeps and failed to stop wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran, could not manage to put on a successful parade despite having $45 million and the entire US Army behind them.

    They say that weakness is provocative. So is incompetence.

    That’s the real message of the Sad Parade. America does not have its shit together.

  • Patricia Eguino Crashes the Proud Boys Press Conference

    Patricia Eguino Crashes the Proud Boys Press Conference

    June 9, 2025

    The Proud Boys are suing the US government for $100 million, claiming that their civil rights were violated when they were prosecuted for attacking the Capitol on January 6th.

    To announce their lawsuit, they scheduled a press conference that was billed as occurring “outside the White House.” 

    In reality, it was in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

    They couldn’t get anyone from the Trump Administration to meet with them. This was despite the presence of J6 supporter Suzzanne Monk, who claims that Trump followed her plan to pardon J6 supporters. It’s almost as if he doesn’t know her at all ;)

    Before they could even begin, they were kicked out of the park, along with hundreds of tourists, so that Trump could helicopter off to play golf.

    The cultists, not wanting to think that Dear Leader had forsaken them, blamed their booting on Susie Wiles, Trump’s Chief of Staff.

    The motley crew reassembled on H Street and clustered around Tarrio, a dozen or so people, most of whom were right-wing media or elderly female groupies.

    The “press conference”

    Tarrio spoke to the tiny crowd, accompanied by his straw hat wearing attorney, who looked like he just stepped out of a Tennessee Williams play.

    And that’s when Patricia Eguino crashed the traitor party with her trademark death metal screams.

    WARNING: LOUD!

    This isn’t the first time that she’s used her First Amendment rights to disrupt treasonous plots. Eguino was one of the very few counterprotestors at January 6th. She has also stood in the way of Proud Boy marches, ridiculed George Santos and made fun of the chuds of Freedom Corner (which is how I met her).

    A former local official, Eguino uses her caustic wit and Pyle megaphone to defend democracy.

    After their press conference was blown up, Tarrio and his gang retreated.

    Eguino wasn’t done. Following them down the street, she tore into Ivan Raiklin. The self-described “Secretary of Retribution” has a list of liberals targeted for court martial and execution. An associate of Michael Flynn, he even appeared on CNN to talk about it.

    Despite being full of threats, he’s a little man.

    Eguino mocked him, yelling, “KEEBLER ELF!”

    This combination of hilarity and disrespect is a winner. She’s been retweeted by the Meidas Network and other media outlets. Eguino is going viral like Anarchy Princess and that Red Bike Guy. And deservedly so.

    Follow @patriciaeguino for more death metal screaming and insults in defense of democracy.

  • Should J6ers Talk to Antifa?

    We need to talk if we’re going to save our democracy.

    May 31, 2025

    Is it better to talk to your enemies or shun them?

    That question roils the J6 community, the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and those that support and take advantage of them.

    For some J6 advocates, like Suzzanne Monk, talking to antifa is verboten. If you’re seen talking to antifa, even if it’s just a harmless online interaction, then she’ll cut you off from access to her fundraising network. 

    Why? Because it’s dangerous. Antifa wants you dead, according to Monk. Or in jail, and this vast shadowy network has the means to make that happen. 

    Who is Antifa?

    Everyone is antifa, according to the J6ers, a label that is used so widely that it effectively becomes meaningless. If you think that January 6th was a crime, then you’re antifa, too.

    The chud fear of antifa is so pervasive that it’s hilarious. I first saw this during the days of the 1776 Restoration Movement (1776RM), the trucker convoy spin-off that briefly camped out on the National Mall in 2022. Every time something went wrong, they blamed antifa, even when it was their own incompetence or bad luck.

    The suffix -tifa was soon attached to everything by the online audience watching their never-ending fuckups. 

    1776RM was spectacularly pranked again and again. An online benefactor promised the “patriots” that he was sending them 100 Subway sandwiches. When none arrived, the chuds blamed antifa, and the term Subtifa was born. And then came Voodootifa and Witchtifa after other pranksters left voodoo dolls outside the 1776RM encampment. When chalk messages mocking the group appeared, antifa was again blamed and online wags coined the term Chalktifa.

    Even I was called antifa. I went to take photos of their demonstration. They blew an airhorn in my face and called me antifa. That’s my antifa origin story. That and January 6th.

    J6ers Talk to Antifa

    Despite the paranoid fear of antifa, J6ers talk to them. Why?

    Most of America doesn’t want to hear anything about January 6th. They want it to go away, since the idea of a mob storming the Capitol doesn’t fit into the myths that we tell about ourselves. We’re not supposed to be that kind of country.

    And most Americans opposed pardons for J6ers, rightfully appalled by the idea that the supposed “back the blue” Donald Trump just opened the jail doors of Arkham Asylum and let violent convicted criminals out into the country.

    “Normies” don’t want to hear J6 stories.

    But you know who does? Antifa. J6ers and antifa are both interested in the events of that day.

    There’s been a number of online Spaces on X, hosted by J6ers, where so-called antifa members have been invited to speak, much to the consternation of J6 gatekeepers like Suzzanne Monk.

    One on the topic “Should We Speak to the Enemy” lasted 12 hours!

    This issue is one of the key points of contention in the J6 Civil War, as J6ers and their advocates fight over money, leadership and clout.

    But conversations are taking place. Mostly polite ones, with people sharing their views, while agreeing to disagree.

    The so-called antifa, who want to murder and entrap people, turn out to be really good listeners. Empathetic and interested in a way that normie Americans never would be. People like Anarchy Princess, Corey Cullington and Laurie.

    And they’ve even found things to agree upon, such as:

    1. Prison Reform. Going to prison convinced many J6ers that the American penal system is harsh and counterproductive. Danean MacAndrews was sentenced to the infamous “Rape Club” aka FCI Dublin and since then has become a passionate advocate for reform. She spoke in a Space about the women she met and how they were overcharged and discarded.
    2. Economic Populism. Both sides realize that the American Dream has been rigged by the rich for their benefit. The election of Donald Trump was, in many ways, a desperate attempt to change that. If the left and the right ever come together on a message of economic populism, the result will be a new revolution.
    3. Fear of the Deep State. J6ers believe that they’re being monitored by the FBI and three-letter agencies. So do many on the left, especially in the Trump era. Our government has surveillance capabilities that the Stasi could only dream of. Limiting the reach of these agencies is something that should concern all of us. 

    The J6 community is not a monolith. You don’t have to listen to their Spaces long before you hear some weird stuff, like how the FBI used 5G to cause a car crash or that there are 100 antifa members embedded in the J6 community. Antifa members so dedicated to the cause that they went to jail rather than disclose their secret identities. (I love “The Americans” style of this conspiracy theory.)

    And the usual minimizing of their crimes. “Sure, he swung a bat at the police but lots of people had bats!”

    So, I’m not going to kumbaya it and say that everything is going to work out fine. This is still a very dark time. 

    But it’s better to talk than not to talk. It’s hard to “other” your enemy if you discover that they’re real people with hopes and interests just like you.

  • J6 News Roundup: Racism and Real Estate

    May 30, 2025

    If you thought that January 6th rioters would wisely use Trump’s pardon to become quiet, productive members of society, you don’t know J6ers.

    Instead, they have used their new-found freedom to commit new crimes, abuse drugs and fight over money and clout.

    And this is according to J6ers!

    Can’t Stop Criming

    Within days of being pardoned by President Trump, January 6th rioters began committing new crimes. A shortlist includes:

    Zachary Alam – arrested for burglary.

    Brent Holdridge – stealing copper wire.

    Bryan Betancur – sentenced for stalking Anarchy Princess (again).

    Matthew Huttle – killed by police.

    Enrique Tarrio – assault at the Capitol.

    They just can’t stop criming, almost as if it’s in their blood.

    Grifts from Top to Bottom

    The MAGA movement is a grift from top to bottom. Trump operates memecoin rug pulls , stock manipulation and bribery on a global scale.

    Low-level chuds have their own, more desperate scams, such as the one described by Suzzanne Monk, a J6 advocate. She uncovered alleged fraud by Joshua Macias, in which J6ers would receive free rent at a Richmond housing complex. It was to be a kind of J6 Halfway House. Instead, it sounds like modern-day slavery.

    Of course, Monk has her own grift going. “Captain J6” as she styles herself claims credit for getting the J6ers pardoned, after she put together a kind of traitor yearbook, with profiles of the “good men” who were arrested. Trump pardoned the J6ers after receiving a copy of her book, according to her, a claim that she repeats almost daily on Twitter.

    Suzanne Monk in her Captain J6 outfit.

    Not all are willing to give her credit nor to acknowledge her leadership of the J6 movement.

    For many, she is an orange-haired joke who disgustingly picked her teeth with a knitting needle in a Congressional hearing.

    According to J6er Brian Mock:

    Her policing of the J6 movement, and trying to dictate who they can talk to, has raised the ire of Mock and others.

    She also tried to gatekeep donations, threatening to put together a list of “approved” J6ers eligible for relief. According to Monk, some of the “good men” are drug addicts:

    Loathsome, Even by J6 Standards

    Florida Man Jake Lang is loathsome even by J6 standards. He’s a racist who inserted himself into the Austin Metcalf tragedy and was caught on tape using the n-word again and again. He wants to kill black people, saying that this what the Trump pardon was for.

    This is too much for most (but not all) January 6ers. They’re fine with violence and treason but not overt racism.

    With Lang, there’s also the usual accusations of grifting that are associated with every character in the J6 movement. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps even millions, were raised to “free” the J6ers. Little of this money made it into the hands of the rioters. Most of it ended up in the hands of J6 advocates.

    The J6 Civil War

    Instead of becoming productive members of society, J6ers feud over stolen GriftSendGo monies, real estate scams, racism, who leads the J6 community and, the greatest sin of all, talking to antifa.

    All of these fights are occurring in public. Twitter flame wars. Hours-long arguments on Spaces. YouTube videos and rebuttals. Substack screeds of insanity.

    Follow antifa interloper Anarchy Princess for daily updates on the J6 Civil War. Be warned: it’s like watching the worst people you know feuding over the dumbest things imaginable.

    Like all civil wars, what makes it so brutal is that it’s so personal. They know and hate each other with a passion that outmatches anything antifa can bring to the game.

    I absolutely love it!

    Trump gave J6ers their freedom. And now they’re destroying each other. 

  • Conflict is Content: The MAGA Livestreamer Business Model

    May Day rally in DC
    May Day rally in DC

    May 3, 2025

    MAGA is a grift all the way down. At the top, you have crypto scams, stock manipulation and influence peddling. It’s not a moment, it’s a movement which is all about looting the country before it all comes to a crashing end.

    For the suckers at the bottom, there’s not a lot of ways to earn wealth. Being shut out of the higher-level conspiracies, they have to generate cash by taking advantage of the people beneath them. A classic pyramid scheme.

    One of the few opportunities to make money is to be a YouTube Livestreamer.

    It seems so easy. Anyone with an iPhone can do it, right? Trigger the libs for fun and profit, as you livestream events on YouTube. Garner enough subscribers and YouTube will share revenue with you or, even better, solicit donations directly from your audience through Superchats and other online tools.

    Howard Lutnick thinks that Americans want to screw in tiny screws, like Chinese factory workers. But we don’t want those jobs. Everyone wants to be Media, as predicted in Super Sad True Love Story, a novel that I think about often because it captures our decline better than any dry article in the Economist.

    The problem is that the MAGA livestreamer market is saturated with chuds who also think this is an easy way to riches. It’s one of those markets, like much of American capitalism, where all the benefits accrue to a tiny portion at the top while 99% make little or nothing.

    I’ve watched it happen in DC, as livestreamers infested my town in the wake of the trucker convoy, the 1776 Restoration Movement and the jail side vigil known as Freedom Corner. These were tiny MAGA groups where nearly every participant was also a livestreamer, providing coverage of what little happened as donations rolled in from elderly shut-ins watching at home.

    It was a good grift, with a constant sense of outrage that fueled the granny squad to open their purses and send those Social Security dollars to the chuds of Freedom Corner.

    Trump pardoning the J6 rioters was the worst thing that could’ve ever happened to them.

    With the scam over, most went home. Some remained in the area and have sought to recapture the golden age of the grift by triggering the libs for fun and profit. It’s the MAGA Livestreamer Business Model.

    One of them, whom we’ll call Big Dummy, showed up late (chuds are never on time) to the May Day demonstration at Freedom Plaza. As people packed up and started to leave, Dummy tried to provoke them with questions like, “Why don’t you love yer President Donald Trump?”

    The idea was to get people mad. Or, even better, to attack him.

    A month earlier, at another protest, he got under the skin of folks to the point that one of them sprayed him with blue spray paint.

    The guy who assaulted him was arrested. Dummy caught it all on camera, leading to appearances on several right-wing podcasts and a few moments of viral fame. More views and more exposure, which meant donations from an audience desperate to show that the left was violent, too.

    Conflict is content. If you want views and donations, you want to provoke a situation where you’re the victim.

    Most of the people at the May Day protest wisely ignored this limping man with a long beard and MAGA hat asking dumb questions.

    A few tried to block his camera by holding up signs. But that is giving him content; don’t do that.

    One man sang Woody Guthrie to him, edging ever closer to Dummy. It really freaked him out. The young man sang:

    I’m gonna tell you fascists
    You may be surprised
    The people in this world
    Are getting organized
    You’re bound to lose
    You fascists bound to lose

    This turned the tables on Dummy, by using his platform for an antifascist message that drove his right-wing audience nuts.

    But it’s best to just ignore them. Any engagement is content, which means more views for them.

    So, if you’re at a protest, and you’re approached by a character with an iPhone on a gimbal with some provocative questions, just ignore them. Don’t take the bait. Don’t give them what they want, which is conflict, viral moments that they can clip and share to drive donations.

    Focus on your message. What you’re there for. As Winston Churchill said, “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” 

    Starve the beast. Wreck the MAGA Livestreamer Business Model.

  • MisinfoNation: Extreme America

    This is CNN. Anarchy Princess (left) vs a MAGA mob.

    April 14, 2025

    “MisinfoNation: Extreme America,” on CNN opened with a familiar scene – a swarm of chuds around Anarchy Princess.

    It’s a tactic that they’ve been using for years, since the days of the 1776 Restoration Movement, a failed offshoot of the trucker convoy, and Freedom Corner, the dismal J6 cult outside the DC Jail.

    If someone with an alternative view shows up, or is just someone they find suspicious (they think antifa is everywhere), they surround the person and start shouting and bumping them until they leave.

    It was the night of the Inauguration. Trump had promised to free the January 6th rioters on “Day 1” and a motley crew of J6 simps, conspiracy theorists and YouTube livestreamers had gathered outside the DC Jail, expecting to see the people who attacked the Capitol walk free.

    But would Trump pardon all of them? Certainly not the ones who attacked police officers, right? This was the party that “backed the blue.”

    Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t think that the ones convicted of violent crimes should go free. Vice President JD Vance thought that they should be evaluated on a “case-by-case basis.”

    The night before, I talked to a local official, who was concerned about the prospect of so many violent criminals being released into the city. I was consulted because I had written about the nightly Freedom Corner vigil.

    He didn’t think that Trump would pardon all the J6ers. That would undermine the rule of law.

    Sweet summer child…

    This is what I hate about the Democrats, who think that they’re in an episode of The West Wing instead of a desperate fight for democracy. Unlike on TV, the best speech isn’t going to win.

    The local official said that he would draft a letter. It would come out after the J6 prisoners had been released. This is the kind of weakness and naivete that allowed Trump to take over four years after his coup attempt.

    “MisinfoNation: Extreme America” attempts to conflate the MAGA mobs, thousands strong and heavily armed, with one man, Luigi Mangione, who killed a health insurance CEO.

    There’s no comparison because the left still believes in the rule of law, something the violent right left behind years ago. As affirmed by the Supreme Court, the law is whatever Trump says it is.

    Donie O’Sullivan picked out a good villain for his documentary: Ivan Raiklin, the self-described Secretary of Retribution. A loathsome, Gollum-like creature, he believes that J6 was a setup, engineered by Nancy Pelosi.

    In a crazy even by J6 standards video, he threatened Pelosi while standing by a pool, his hairless body clad only in a Speedo. Raiklin has demanded military tribunals and executions for the people on his enemies list.

    And he vowed to ruin Donie.

    Experienced chud watchers like myself (I wrote the Chud Glossary) know all these characters. I recognized at least a dozen of them in “MisinfoNation: Extreme America.”

    It’s funny to watch “normies” endure their first encounters with these Trump-worshipping fanatics. Donie’s eyes went wide as the chuds surrounded Anarchy Princess outside the jail while shouting obscenities and trying to provoke her (she’s a cool customer). You can see on his face a rapid slideshow of emotions: shock, fear, disgust, WTF.

    “MisinfoNation: Extreme America” was a chance for millions of people around the country to see the strange world of MAGA cultists that the media has so desperately tried to normalize.

    Hasan the Hun did a hilarious job roasting the chuds on YouTube, commenting that it looks like Ivan Raiklin was wearing a skin mask and that he’s a goblin that loves climbing walls.

    And he came up with a great new concept: Dark Woke.

    Dark Woke means going into chud spaces and not backing down.

    Trump didn’t even get 50% of the vote. He can’t win on the issues (like tariffs and disappearing immigrants) so he and his flunkies try to intimidate people.

    There are good reasons to fear this government, with its vast surveillance power and military force.

    But there’s no reason to fear the kinds of weirdos that show up outside a jail to shout at CNN.

    Stay Dark Woke.

  • Eckington’s Nazi Nest: The End of an Era

    Nazi Nest
    The former Nazi Nest in Eckington. With the chuds gone, the neighbors added a MLK sign to the front lawn.

    March 4, 2025

    Our long local nightmare is over: the Nazi Nest has left Eckington. This was a house of January 6th supporters paid for by the Overstock guy, Patrick Byrne. Their mission was to advocate for a pardon of January 6th rioters through their nightly Freedom Corner vigil outside the DC Jail and by making a nuisance of themselves at court houses, hearing rooms and bars around town.

    Calling it the Nazi Nest was not hyperbole. They named the house the Eagle’s Nest, after Hitler’s mountaintop retreat, one of the housemates was married to a prisoner covered in swastikas (we called her Nazi Barbie) and one of their supporters posted videos of how Hitler was right about the Jews. And this was before Elon Musk and other MAGA types began greeting crowds with Nazi salutes.

    But with the release of J6 rioters, the grift has ended. You can’t raise money on behalf of prisoners after the jail doors have swung open.

    The release of the January 6th prisoners was the worst thing that could’ve ever happened to Freedom Corner.

    If the rioters were still locked up, the chuds of Freedom Corner could continue their grifting lifestyle, with their expenses (including the rent on the Nazi Nest in Eckington) paid for by donors. But since Trump pardoned them, their mission disappeared. And with it, their donos.

    Even worse, they’ve lost their mission, the thing that gave their cult meaning. Before the pardon, they were key players in a great cause. Now, they’re nobodies headed home to deal with all the mundane aspects of life that they’ve put off for years.

    Including getting jobs. The defining feature of Freedom Corner was their unwillingness to work. Despite living in DC for two years, they refused employment, claiming that their two-hour long nightly vigil prevented them from holding down jobs.

    Instead, they grifted, garnering donations from big donors like Patrick Byrne and small ones like the “granny squad” who forked over their Social Security checks to Freedom Corner.

    Despite the end of the corner, they’re still grifting. The recently released J6 prisoners all have Gift Send Go pages for donations. They also demand reparations. That’s right, the violent men who stormed the Capitol believe that they’re owed a check from the government.

    Another J6 prisoner wants money so that he can tour the country in search of a 25-year-old wife. While he’s 39, he will accept a 35-year-old if he has to.

    Another J6 advocate, in between her rapid-fire Twitter rants demanding an apology from all you bitches who doubted her, put out the call for $2500 for a three-day water park vacation. Seems a little steep for slip n slide.

    So much begging. It’s their defining feature.

    All these fierce advocates of freedom now demand free money from the public. They’re not going to get it.

    Welcome to the real world, chuds. It’s a helluva hangover for you.

    On November 6th, we all lost. Kamala Harris voters realized it that night.

    For Trump supporters, the realization will come more slowly, if it comes at all.

    And the chuds of Freedom Corner? Their story is rapidly fading away, overwhelmed by the manic pace of news and the country being driven into a deep, catastrophic recession.

    They will always have the memories of Freedom Corner, thousands of hours on YouTube, unwatched and forgotten.

  • Fences, protests and the Botanic Garden: A bike ride around DC

    February 23, 2025

    A bike ride around Washington, DC, illustrates the state of the city, and the nation, in our dystopian year of 2025.

    People who bike are close observers. Since we’re not encased in a rolling living room, we notice things that driverists miss.

    This is what I saw on a cold Saturday bike ride around DC.

    The GW Fence

    On my way to get a bagel, I saw that the University Yard at George Washington University now has a black mesh fence around it.

    fence around the University Yard at GW

    This was the site of protests against the war on Gaza last year. Students occupied the Yard for weeks, sleeping in tents, holding rallies and conducting teach-ins on the conflict.

    Until they were expelled by the Metropolitan Police Department in an early-morning action. A temporary fence was put up around the Yard.

    Now, there is a very sturdy permanent one with gates that can be locked, to prevent future First Amendment activities by university students.

    It is part of a fortification of the city, as access to public spaces gets restricted by the authorities to keep troublesome citizenry away. Anyone who has been around the Capitol or White House recently can register the parks, sidewalks and green spaces taken from us.

    Rally for Ukraine

    After seeing that, I biked to the Lincoln Memorial, where several thousand people gathered to support Ukraine.

    Russia can stop the war anytime by leaving Ukranian territories

    True Americans support our friends in the face of Russian aggression. Never did I imagine that the Republicans would bow before a KGB agent, but that is what has happened as they rush to surrender Ukraine to Putin.

    For decades, the GOP warned about the dangers of appeasement, of repeating another Munich, and now they intend to do their own version of the Munich deal, hoping that giving Ukraine to Putin will satisfy him.

    And they are operating not out of naïveté, but of deliberate betrayal.

    Stabbing our allies in the back, cutting off food aid to starving orphans in Africa, firing government employees devoted to protecting consumers – the cruelty is the point for the MAGA party.

    The Chuds are Unhappy

    Yet, they are still angry.

    A few miles away, Anarchy Princess was at CPAC, the fascist (they’re doing Hitler salutes now) conference in National Harbor. It’s not DC, not matter what they claim, but far down the river in Maryland next to a freeway.

    Anarchy Princess was there just to observe, not to protest, yet this still earned the ire of the chuds of Freedom Corner. A pair of them tried to get her thrown out of the hotel bar, claiming that she was antifa, one of them with a beer in her hand, cross around her neck and a mouth full of obscenities. Doesn’t get more MAGA than that.

    This toxic stew of hate and cruelty can be overwhelming.

    The US Botanic Garden

    Thank god for the Botanic Garden. Located across from the Capitol, this living plant museum was filled with an exhibit of orchids in every color and variation imaginable.

    US Botanic Garden

    But I like the Tropics. Located under a 93-foot dome, this is a steamy tropical forest that is green and warm year-around. It even rains in there, with misters spraying water every few minutes. The heat and humidity make it a great place to defrost after biking in the cold.

    Things are going to get worse. With layoffs, tariffs and cuts in federal aid for the states, we are heading into a recession. And there’s no guarantee that it will get better – unless we act.

    We’re not alone. We outnumber them – Trump didn’t even get 50% of the popular vote. There is no mandate.

    Speak Your Fucking Mind

    The resistance continues, with new heroes emerging all the time. I lived with Colin Pearsall in college. I’m sure neither one of us imagined that we would one day do anything political, but the times call for it.

    Or, as he put it, “What are you bowing down to, speak your fucking mind.”

     

  • Freedom Corner: This is the End

    January 25, 2025

    What a long, strange grift it has been.

    After more than 900 days on a dead-end street next to a cemetery, the so-called Freedom Corner vigil came to an end. This nightly insurrectionist meetup had provided thousands of hours of entertainment to trolls and fans  alike.

    With the Trump pardons of J6 rioters, Freedom Corner is no longer necessary. They won.

    The doors of Arkham Asylum have been flung open and now these violent men are back home in their communities – or wandering the halls of the Capitol – to terrorize people on behalf of Dear Leader.

    Amanda Moore in The Nation wrote about the horror as prisoners celebrated with the J6 insurrectionist fan club, including Nazis and white supremacists. These people are your government now.

    Freedom Corner vowed to leave no man behind. In fact, they left several men behind. A handful of these “good men” are being held on other charges like child sexual abuse.

    This didn’t matter to Freedom Corner. They were ready to declare victory, have one final dance party and go home. Rioters gyrated on the corner outside the jail, grooving with the “old ladies” (their words) that had advocated for their freedom.

    And it wouldn’t be Freedom Corner with one last blast of misinformation, as they claimed that Mayor Bowser delayed the release of prisoners (wrong), that their vigil was the second-longest in history (wrong) and that the corner was on Google Maps (hilariously wrong).

    And if you ever wondered which side the police were on, MPD Sgt. Jackson got chummy as he posed for photos with Micki Witthoeft. She’s the mother of Ashli Babbitt and wants to see Nancy Pelosi and Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd swing from the neck until dead.

     

  • America walks onto thin ice

    broken ice in the Reflecting Pool

    January 15, 2025

    The ice had holes in it where people had fallen through. Big cracks were visible. Even a couple sections of open water.

    Despite this, Americans walked on it anyway.

    This isn’t a very subtle metaphor, I thought to myself, as I watched families step on the thin ice of the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. They gleefully danced around and posed for selfies, heedless the danger.

    Americans made another dangerous choice last November when they elected Donald Trump as President.

    It wasn’t a landslide; Trump didn’t even crack 50% of the popular vote. But in our skewed electoral system (designed by slaveholders to protect their rights) it was enough to claim a mandate.

    DC is now a landscape of fences, from the Washington Monument to the Capitol and up past the White House, even stretching out one rude finger to encompass the Convention Center. It’s a maze, with black fences, vehicle barriers and police officers from numerous jurisdictions all to ensure that the Inauguration happens peacefully.

    Washington Monument behind a fence

    With the election of a man who sent a mob to sack the Capitol, political violence has been normalized.

    What would Martin Luther King, Jr, think? This inauguration occurs on his holiday. He devoted his life both to nonviolence and the better angels of our character, both of which seem like very quaint notions right now.

    I grew up in America where the side that used violence lost. It was condemned by Republicans and Democrats who were committed to the peaceful transfer of power.

    But, if I was coming of age today, what would I think? America has elected a convicted felon, rapist and mob leader as its President. I’d conclude that if you’re rich and powerful, you can get away with anything in this country.

    After watching people walk on the ice, I needed a drink.

    Navigating my way past the fences and checkpoints, I went to Lost and Found, a bar in Shaw which is fortunate to be just outside the security perimeter.

    They have Snowpants, an oatmeal stout and a winter tradition for me.

    I talked to the bartender about all the fencing, both of us careful not to spell out our political affiliation. Those are the times we live in. She didn’t want to offend me if I was a MAGA chud; the reason that DC needs to be an armed camp now. This city has not forgotten January 6th.

    “Blagden Alley is its own destination,” she said, in response to my question about whether the inauguration would impact business.

    Lost and Found backs up to Blagden Alley, a historic alley complex that is very photogenic. Once filled with car repair shops and, for a brief moment, art galleries, it is now decidedly upscale.

    Blagden Alley at night

    The people going to the alley for a coffee at La Colombe or ceviche at Amazonia will not be going to the inauguration. They are DC people, who want to avoid all mention of Trump.

    The inaugural crowd is not likely to stray from their hotel lobbies, believing Trump’s absurd lies that you’ll be raped if you cross the street for a loaf of bread. They would not dare walk down a dark DC alley, no matter the rumored delights.

    America has made its choice. We’re all on the ice with them. In a few days, we’ll find out if it cracks.