Jesus Harold Hughes Christ, what a shit-tastic weekend here in the D.
First, Turning Point Action came to town, to hold a three-day convention at Huntington Place, formerly the TCF Center, formerly Cobo Center, aka the vote-counting venue that all these morons believe was the site of “the steal,” as in Stop The, etc. No, I don’t know why they came to a blue city in a purple state, but I suspect it was to rub the Dems’ noses in their recent alleged gains with young people and black people. Anyway, that’s how it turned out. They picked up endorsements from ex-mayor and federal prisoner Kwame Kilpatrick (given clemency by Trump in the final hours of his presidency), as well as a couple of rappers. They also held a “roundtable discussion” in a black church, although from the photos, there sure are a lot of very light-skinned black people in that church, if you know what I mean.
I’m watching Twitter reports from the final day now. Jack Posobiec brought out a special guest — Alex Jones. I know I may be offending a few of you when I describe Republicans as across-the-board bad people, but when a suppurating infection like Jones gets a big welcome anywhere, there is simply no other way to describe the people cheering. A man that every decent person, of any party, of any political persuasion, should want to see standing on a corner wearing a barrel and holding a sign reading WILL CLEAN TOILETS WITH MY TONGUE FOR FOOD getting a standing O? There’s no other word for people who would clap for him.
Poso brings out his special guest: Alex Jones! pic.twitter.com/nczKB3z3EM
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) June 16, 2024
But it wasn’t all sweetness and unity downtown. Nick Fuentes, the racist antisemite and blah-blah-blah, tried to hold his own convention, at the Russell Industrial Center in the city’s North End. It…didn’t go well:
The leader of a controversial rightwing group canceled their conference in Detroit, alleging they were kicked out of the Russell Industrial Center in Detroit, where he said they had plans to hold events. The move comes after Detroit police had responded to a dispute involving the group on Friday.
Nicholas Fuentes of the America First Political Action Conference said Saturday on social media that, on Friday, the group was setting up the stage at the industrial center when people with the center told them they would not be allowed to proceed. Fuentes says they had a contract for the venue.
The story has no details on what might have happened, but my guess would be the venue realized too late who had booked their facility and pulled the plug. It’s not a convention center like Huntington/TCF/Cobo — more of a raw post-industrial factory-type vibe — but it is in Detroit, its main users are artists, etc., and if I were one of the paying tenants, I’d be dropping Molotov cocktails into that den of racists. Although it might have been fun to see it play out; a history blogger recently surfaced a quote from a long-dead but not forgotten Detroit city councilman, Ken Cockrel:
On this day in 1980:
Detroit City Councilmember Ken Cockrel urges his colleagues to approve a parade permit for the Ku Klux Klan. “Let them march and then let’s get a group of neighborhood people out there and kick their ass.” pic.twitter.com/3Ka51f0Gzs— Ken Coleman (@HistoryLivesDet) June 5, 2024
Now that would have made the weekend worth saving.
Fuentes went over to the other rats’ nest and did this before he was kicked out:
On Saturday evening, Fuentes was seen on a livestream with a megaphone addressing a crowd below him outside Huntington Place. Fuentes said “this is not a free country any more.” He railed against what he called the “Jewish mafia” and heaped praise on Henry Ford, calling him a visionary who was attacked for his antisemitic views. He again slammed Israel as the crowd chanted “Christ is King” and “Down with Israel.”
OK, then. What could make this worse? Well, Trump showed up, but for once didn’t make much news, because then we had…a mass shooting. At a fucking splash pad.
Nine people were hit. One 8-year-old boy, shot in the face, is fighting for his life, and his mother, 29 weeks pregnant at the time, was hit in the abdomen. The fetus died. Another couple was there with their two children, 2 and 7 months, and both parents were hit. It was a terrible, terrible scene in Rochester Hills, an Oakland County suburb, where people move to get away from the violence in the city. No chance in these United States, sorry about that.
The gunman? Dead, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the trailer where he lived with his mother, who was not home at the time. Paywalled, but the gist:
Shelby Township — The semiautomatic rifle found on the kitchen table of the alleged gunman who shot nine people at a Rochester Hills splash pad Saturday was weighing on the minds of residents in the Dequindre Estates mobile home park as they wondered Sunday if they could have been potentially his next victims.
The gunman was Michael William Nash, 42, Oakland County Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Huber said Sunday.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said at a late Saturday night press conference that the gunman was a Shelby Township resident who lived in a mobile home park and had a history of mental health issues, but he didn’t identify the suspect. The gunman was found dead by law enforcement with a self-inflicted gunshot less than two miles away from the splash pad, Bouchard said, and had an “AR platform” semiautomatic rifle on the table.
You know this story: “Mental-health challenges,” etc.:
“His mom was super friendly and nice and talkative and kind to everyone she saw,” Roser said. “We never really saw him. He never came out of the house. And when he did, he didn’t even say hi back to us when we would acknowledge him. … We’re a very friendly community. He was just to himself. He was very quiet and didn’t want to be a part of our community.”
But it’s OK. The head of the state GOP said he was praying for everyone involved. I’m sure that will help.
Now we’re looking at a solid week of above-90-degree temperatures. It’s just gonna get better!
Jenny said on June 16, 2024 at 3:23 pm
What a shit weekend in the Detroit area. And concerning J. Harold Hughes C, I always considered the H to stand for Horacio. I never got the memo about Harold Hughes, but it has a nice ring to it.
195 chars
Jeff Borden said on June 16, 2024 at 4:25 pm
Fuck tRump. Fuck his supporters. It’s a mantra that always works.
You could throw a bag of king cobras into a crowd of MAGAts and the snakes would not stand a chance. Anyone they bit would be filled with more poison than the cobras. Hateful, ugly, twisted shitheels…all of them.
281 chars
Will said on June 16, 2024 at 4:46 pm
It’s tempting to think I shouldn’t say that support for Alex Jones will age about as well as support for slavery has, but then I see the Supreme Court allowing bump stocks and I think they’ve pretty directly got blood on their hands. It feels more and more like open terrorism. They want people to be scared. They want people to feel lucky not to get shot in a given day. Truly appalling. How many years has it been since someone first noted they’d become a death cult? Because that’s exactly what it is.
514 chars
Suzanne said on June 16, 2024 at 5:44 pm
Second Amendment freaks tell us that the amendment is needed so citizens can defend themselves against a tyrannical government. I would never have guessed that so many kids were really tyrannical government operatives in disguise. But those gun owners know so they keep picking them off.
287 chars
Mark P said on June 16, 2024 at 6:47 pm
Alex Jones may just end up naked in a barrel. They are liquidating his personal assets to try to meet his civil suit judgements. And he is still saying the same things that got him sued.
I honestly don’t see how this country can recover without some kind of major catastrophic event like losing a war that leaves the US looking like post-war Germany or Japan with maybe Canadians occupying and a new constitution without all the stupid parts.
448 chars
Dexter Friend said on June 16, 2024 at 6:57 pm
Could it be possible that Jones invested a fortune in off-shore banks which can’t be touched? I ask because a friend swears he did that, and I need fodder to contradict him, and I don’t know shit about finances. His cry-fest was sickening that rotten fuck.
I was away with family in Findlay with the news off and just now reading of the splash pad shooting makes me mad as hell.
382 chars
Deborah said on June 16, 2024 at 7:15 pm
I had to google what a splash pad is, it makes sense what google said it is, and I kinda thought that was what it was but it’s not a term I’m familiar with.
the bump stock decision and now a new mass shooting, what else is new?
230 chars
nancy said on June 16, 2024 at 7:30 pm
It’s a kiddie pool with zero depth, so you don’t need lifeguards. Just water to play in. I guess now they need armed guards.
128 chars
Julie Robinson said on June 16, 2024 at 7:53 pm
Any day that includes a burial is inherently a bad one, even if just for a pet. We did our best, with Dennis as the gravedigger, Sarah speaking words of committal, and yours truly contributing music. What to sing for a cat funeral? All Things Bright and Beautiful, with its line about “all creatures great and small” seemed a natural and as we spoke of the rainbow bridge, I pulled up the text for Rainbow Connection, and sang that one too.
441 chars
basset said on June 16, 2024 at 10:13 pm
Dave, that was indeed me about the Subaru yesterday… wasn’t a radio problem, it was a whole LED control panel problem, including occasionally going to black when I was driving. Pretty scary, lucky it was only in a parking lot.
229 chars
Sherri said on June 17, 2024 at 2:22 am
Spent the weekend in Richland, WA doing what so many here have done: cleaning out parents’ home. Not mine, but a friend’s; four of us drove over to help her and her sister empty out their packed childhood home. Then we split up so we could drive her dad’s Subaru over to the west side of the state for the new buyer.
322 chars
Jeff Gill said on June 17, 2024 at 7:42 am
Sherri, bless you for helping with that. It’s the kind of project that after three rounds in the bucket I don’t know I could offer to help someone else with on theirs. Maybe in a few years . . . maybe.
201 chars
Dexter Friend said on June 17, 2024 at 10:40 am
Carla Lee and family great friend Rosie G cleaned out the rat’s nest of my brother-in-law’s 16 years ago. It was a large upstairs apartment. Back then we had a monthly trash pickup of Big Stuff unlimited. The hoarder’s yield was a mountain of crap , lining the better portion of the curb, giant Hefty heavy-duty bags. They moved him to a tiny apartment with the toilet mere feet away from his recliner, hence, no more need for piss jugs…yeah, gross, he was too lazy to flush them…there were many, full. Sorry to gross you out.
Midnight came with a desperate phone call…68 year old brother down, needed help, wanted me to come help him gather his wallet and eyeglasses and things before the ambulance came. I hi-balled it there and called EMS. Horrible, wretched pain, he was screaming. EMS got him to the hospital, broken hip, surgery in 24 hours.
861 chars
Jeff Gill said on June 17, 2024 at 2:19 pm
Regarding the late Mr. Cockrel’s plan, 100 years ago last month in South Bend, Indiana:
https://www.nd.edu/stories/a-clash-over-catholicism/
The Klan tried to muster a second rally to really show those Catholics a thing or two in October, but the message was sent so effectively it never came about. But Notre Dame got a nickname and mascot out of the deal . . .
368 chars
Sherri said on June 17, 2024 at 5:55 pm
Is it just here, or has door to door solicitation gotten more aggressive? I have a No Soliciting sign on my door, because I don’t like interrupting what I’m doing to tell pest/tree/window companies that I’m not interested in their services. Lately, they ring the doorbell anyway, and when I cut them off and say “not interested”, they keep coming back with “why not?” Dude, I didn’t want to talk to you to begin with, so go away when I tell you no! I just repeat “not interested” and shut the door, but it’s still annoying.
545 chars
David C said on June 17, 2024 at 6:07 pm
Nobody ever came to our door that we wanted to see so we took out our doorbell. If they knock, I ignore them, Mary shouts “go away”. Cheaper than a Nest doorbell.
162 chars
Dorothy said on June 17, 2024 at 8:19 pm
You are not imagining things, Sherri. They are terrible here. We get pest control guys; guys who want to talk to you about security systems (forget the fact that almost every home here in this new community already have one). Last week in our Facebook page people were sharing that the pest control guys were asking for a bottle of water even after being told that the potential customer was not interested. Are they trying to get into the house to see what we have? Who among us would allow a stranger into their house these days?! My husband chased away the most recent guy, but if I had answered the door I would have said to them “You know, with the Internet now if there is a service we need all we have to do is Google that and we get immediate responses. Why are you annoying people by going door-to-door? I am sure they’d have an answer to that but it would make me feel better to say it.
And yes despite having “No Soliciting” signs the idiots still knock or ring a doorbell. In our town you can register with the police that you want a ‘no knock’ designation for your address. And solicitors are supposed to get a permit from the police and ask for the no knock addresses. But no one does.
One more thing: just this weekend I said to my husband “If anyone in the world deserves to be drawn and quartered it’s Alex Jones.”
1351 chars
Heather said on June 17, 2024 at 8:22 pm
I haven’t noticed an increase in solicitations, but I’m in a condo building. We do sometimes get people claiming they are from the gas or electric company and they’re actually trying to get people to switch to a new supplier or whatnot. The problem is sometimes someone buzzes them in and they just knock on everyone’s doors. Now I tell them nicely if they don’t have appointment they have to leave. I get that they’re just doing a job but we can’t have random people inside the building.
488 chars
Deborah said on June 17, 2024 at 8:59 pm
I would be wary of opening my door to a door to door salesman. We don’t get that in Santa Fe. I don’t know if it’s because our building is at the dead end of a lane that’s more like an alley and it’s not visible from the surrounding streets, it’s very hidden. Occasionally someone ventures up the lane, the mailboxes have been pilfered and one of the neighbor residents had her unlocked car gotten into.
A long time ago LB had a guy follow her home when she was walking back from doing errands, he ended up looking in her window and she called the police, but nothing happened since then, thankfully.
Hopefully I didn’t just jinx it.
654 chars
Julie Robinson said on June 17, 2024 at 9:08 pm
Here’s my theory: companies have done the cost analysis and decided that actually providing customer assistance is too expensive. Much better to let the problem customers go and get new ones. Doorbell ringers can be hired practically off the street with half an hour of training, and paid minimum wage plus commissions. Voila! Quarterly profits are up!
352 chars
Jeff Gill said on June 18, 2024 at 7:02 am
Asking for water keeps the conversation going; anything that keeps the mark talking is good. If they get you water, they’re kind hearted and compassionate, which means they can be turned.
187 chars
alex said on June 18, 2024 at 7:48 am
I live in an area that’s less densely populated so the cold-call salesmen don’t usually bother with it, but we seem to get more than our share of Jehovahs and Irish travelers. So far this summer I’ve had three driveway blacktop salesman tell me that their crews have a surplus of material that they need to unload immediately and I could be the beneficiary of this happenstance but I have to let them do it right then and there. I decline but take their business cards (some riddled with typos) and google them and they’ve all been ID’d as scammers.
The last one had alcohol on his breath and he talked endlessly about how he had criss-crossed the state all day drumming up business and his own name was misspelled on his card. Drove a schmancy new truck though.
766 chars
Jeff Borden said on June 18, 2024 at 9:50 am
Did anyone else see the astonishing interview with Sen. J.D. Vance discussing his plans for lowering housing prices? It’s genius! Deport 20 million of “those people” and imagine the bonanza of new units on the market. Now that is some bold thinking! No mention of the economic hit, but I’m sure J.D. has it all planned out.
I’ve been thinking tRump will choose the obsequious groveler Tim Scott as veep to blunt accusations of his racism, but now I’m guessing Vance is on the right track. He’s tRumpism in concentrate form. Thanks a lot, Ohio. You have much to atone for.
574 chars
Suzanne said on June 18, 2024 at 9:58 am
This quote from a book written by an Auschwitz survivor – Imre Kertész ‘Kaddish for a Child Not Born’ – sums up well what we are watching roll out with half the country. Vance embodies this.
“…when a criminal madman ends up not in an insane asylum or maximum security prison but in the Chancery or some other substantial domicile, you immediately start to search for the original, the extraordinary, the – you don’t dare say it aloud but say it in secret – for the greatness in him so that you won’t be forced to see yourselves as dwarfs and world history as incomprehensible.”
589 chars
Dorothy said on June 18, 2024 at 10:26 am
I get your point, Jeff, but I defy that expectation every time. Also having a barking 70 lb. four legged beast next to me when I talk to people has a tendency to move the conversation along kinda quickly.
204 chars
Jeff Borden said on June 18, 2024 at 10:55 am
Guess I need to teach Cosmo to bark. He’s always a chill dog…especially at age 14.
84 chars
alex said on June 18, 2024 at 11:07 am
I think it’s a safe bet that Trump won’t choose anyone who upstages him telegenically or intellectually, and he’s dumb enough to think that Blacks will vote for anything Black, so I’m betting on Tim Scott getting the nod, and he’s probably going to get himself a “beard” as well.
And what kind of housing units does J.D. Vance think will be freed up by deporting people who work for slave wages and cram 20 people into apartments built for two?
448 chars
Jeff Borden said on June 18, 2024 at 11:35 am
This is cool. Head lice farmer Steve Bannon isn’t going to a Club Fed, but another federal prison in Connecticut that’s not so cushy. That’s not exactly where a traitor belongs, but it’s better than nothing.
207 chars