Truck Protests Here in America

[LFC]

I'm starting a new thread for this because, after the "success" of the Canadian truckers (at least for a while), we can expect our own MAGAts with trucks to pull the same stunt and likely more than once. Just for a bit of background this wouldn't be America's first truck rodeo. This is from October, 2013.

A group billing itself as the “Independent Truckers of America” has vowed to flood the nation’s roadways this weekend with a “Ride For The Constitution” in order to “save our nation” from “domestic enemies such as Barack Obama, John Kerry, Lindsay Graham and John McCain.”

According to the Ride For The Constitution website, this “Truckers Shutdown” will feature “potentially hundreds of thousands of truckers and millions of citizens” converging Friday through Sunday on the nation’s capital. There will also be affiliated rallies at rest areas and displays on highway overpasses. The faces of this event are a right wing radio host, outspoken gun activist and “libtard” hater Mark Kessler, as well as a former trucker who believes President Barack Obama is “a radical Islamist.”

The Ride For The Constitution site describes the event as having started based on a Facebook group that was created by a “former trucker” named Zeeda Andrews and her friend Benjamin. Andrews has an active personal Facebook page where she has posted a slew of political statements including; that “Obama’s Birth Certificate is a fraud,” the Muslim Brotherhood controls the White House, and a graphic encouraging her Facebook friends to say “FUCK ALLAH.”

Unlike the BLM protests which were highly targeted at police and politicians the goals are much the same as those of the Canadian truckers. They wished to inflict maximum pain on EVERYBODY who doesn't bow to their demands as they throw their temper tantrum.

In a post written Sept. 16, Andrews described her goals for the “Truckers Shutdown.”

“No commerce on those days stock up on items that you will need,” Andrews wrote. “No banking no shopping no money transactions. It does not matter If a million or 50 roll through DC in this effort. Congress will listen to We The People. Which is, remove Obama from office for crimes of treason and misdemeanors. We want Congressional hearing on Benghazi and Seal Team 6. Louis Learner (sic) put in jail. No amnesty, remove all Muslims in our government that do not uphold the Constitution.”

[LFC]

Capitol Police are preparing for this.

Capitol Police said they are planning for “extra security” ahead of the State of the Union on March 1 in light of potential protests by anti-vax trucker protests that began in Canada and may spread to the U.S.

In a statement on Friday, the Capitol Police (USCP) said that law enforcement agencies are “aware of plans for a series of truck convoys” arriving in Washington, D.C. around the time of the joint session of Congress for President Biden’s State of the Union (SOTU) address on March 1.

“As with any demonstration, the USCP will facilitate lawful First Amendment activity,” USCP said. “The USCP is closely coordinating with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, the United States Park Police, the United States Secret Service and other allied agencies to include the DC National Guard.”

The USCP added that it is working with the Secret Service to plan for the upcoming SOTU.

[LFC]

The National Guard is being readied.

The Defense Department on Tuesday approved the use of 700 National Guard members and 50 large tactical vehicles ahead of possible trucker convoy protests descending on the Washington area in the coming days, according to the DC National Guard.

The guard members, activated on two separate missions, will provide command and control and support at traffic points, but they will not be armed and they will not be authorized to conduct law-enforcement or domestic-surveillance activities. The DC Guard also is not approved to use helicopters or other aircraft, according to the statement.

The Defense Department had received two separate requests for guard support. The first request, last Wednesday, came from the District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved 400 members of the DC National Guard and 50 large tactical vehicles for that mission. The vehicles will be placed at designated traffic posts around the clock starting no later than 1 p.m. on Saturday or as soon as possible. This mission is approved to continue until March 8.

The second request came from US Capitol Police on Sunday. Austin approved 300 members from National Guard units outside DC to enter the city and assist with traffic control, as well as manning certain entrances to the Capitol. That mission is to start no later than 7 a.m. on Saturday. The statement did not say which states would provide guard members to support the mission.

Area law enforcement, including the Maryland State Police, Metropolitan Police Department in DC and the US Capitol Police, are closely monitoring the situation and in some cases ramping up security to deal with the possibility of major disruptions in the days leading up to and around President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on March 1.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser's office said Tuesday that Bowser is being briefed by public safety officials as her office continues "to monitor the situation closely."

But it may not be D.C. or just D.C. Just like back in 2013 it's not about bringing their issues to politicians or some other official body (such as officers in a private company). It's about DEMANDING a stage and a captive audience.

It's unclear if any of the trucker convoys will materialize. One group says they are planning to head from Pennsylvania to the District of Columbia on Wednesday morning, arriving in the afternoon after a stop in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, according to Bob Bolus, a trucker from Scranton, Pennsylvania. They are hoping to disrupt the highways around DC and put a "stranglehold" on the DC economy, Bolus said.

Another group says it plans to convene in Adelanto, California, starting on Tuesday with a sendoff on Wednesday. "The People's Convoy," which has more than 140,000 Facebook followers, says participants will then head to Arizona before making their way to Washington, DC.

Mike Landis, one of the trucker organizers, said it will be a peaceful protest but added: "If they get ignored, you never know what could happen from there."

Bonus Asshole Points go to Rand Paul who said he hopes they "clog cities." Gawd I loathe that man idiot man-child.

[andydp]

The aftermath of the heroic struggle for "freedom".  The tweets are worth viewing 

Wasting Gas: How Right-Wing ‘Convoy’ Fell Apart In Beltway Traffic

Day one of the great Washington, D.C., trucker convoy went great … for everyone but the truckers (some of whom are actually SUV or minivan drivers). For them, it was kind of embarrassing. After a day of confusion on Saturday, the plan for Sunday was to circle the Beltway twice at 40 miles per hour, making a show of strength that would be a “huge pain” for regular traffic. At most, they managed to be a minor irritation, slowing traffic in some places in a region accustomed to traffic jams.

The convoy was unable to stay together basically as soon as it encountered normal Beltway traffic. Normal Sunday Beltway traffic. Some bailed after a single lap. And the whole group got so stretched out and broken up that, “We’re not even sure we can call it a convoy anymore because it’s so dispersed among routine traffic at this point,” Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said.

www.nationalmemo.com/convoy

[indy]

Mar 8, 2022 14:25:07 GMT andydp said:

The aftermath of the heroic struggle for "freedom".  The tweets are worth viewing 

Wasting Gas: How Right-Wing ‘Convoy’ Fell Apart In Beltway Traffic

Day one of the great Washington, D.C., trucker convoy went great … for everyone but the truckers (some of whom are actually SUV or minivan drivers). For them, it was kind of embarrassing. After a day of confusion on Saturday, the plan for Sunday was to circle the Beltway twice at 40 miles per hour, making a show of strength that would be a “huge pain” for regular traffic. At most, they managed to be a minor irritation, slowing traffic in some places in a region accustomed to traffic jams.

The convoy was unable to stay together basically as soon as it encountered normal Beltway traffic. Normal Sunday Beltway traffic. Some bailed after a single lap. And the whole group got so stretched out and broken up that, “We’re not even sure we can call it a convoy anymore because it’s so dispersed among routine traffic at this point,” Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said.

www.nationalmemo.com/convoy

Pretty sure you'll soon hear a conspiracy theory that Biden is intentionally raising gas prices to interfere with these folks constitutional right to waste their gas.

[LFC]

That sign is pure gold.

[LFC]

Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson met with the pathetic little whiners showing off their big penises trucks.

Three days into a handful of truckers’ effort to circle the Capital Beltway to protest COVID-19 mandates, leaders of the so-called “People’s Convoy” met with Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) to vow that truckers won’t back down until vaccine mandates in the country end.

“We’re going to keep looping the Beltway until we’re heard,” Brian Brase, a truck driver from northwest Ohio who is leading the trucker convoy, told reporters following the group’s meeting with Johnson and Cruz, according to the Washington Post. “We’re not going anywhere.”

The meeting took place as a convoy of trucks, SUVs and cars entered its third day of sitting in Beltway traffic, an interesting approach to protest that started last weekend. In its most successful moments, the group slowed down traffic near the Capital. The convoy has periodically lost steam as trucks became interspersed with normal traffic.

Cruz and Johnson reportedly praised the convoy members during the meeting.

“God bless all of you,” Johnson said, according to the Post. “I think your stories are so powerful.”

[goldenvalley]

Mar 9, 2022 1:42:45 GMT LFC said:

Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson met with the pathetic little whiners showing off their big penises trucks.

Three days into a handful of truckers’ effort to circle the Capital Beltway to protest COVID-19 mandates, leaders of the so-called “People’s Convoy” met with Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) to vow that truckers won’t back down until vaccine mandates in the country end.

“We’re going to keep looping the Beltway until we’re heard,” Brian Brase, a truck driver from northwest Ohio who is leading the trucker convoy, told reporters following the group’s meeting with Johnson and Cruz, according to the Washington Post. “We’re not going anywhere.”

The meeting took place as a convoy of trucks, SUVs and cars entered its third day of sitting in Beltway traffic, an interesting approach to protest that started last weekend. In its most successful moments, the group slowed down traffic near the Capital. The convoy has periodically lost steam as trucks became interspersed with normal traffic.

Cruz and Johnson reportedly praised the convoy members during the meeting.

“God bless all of you,” Johnson said, according to the Post. “I think your stories are so powerful.”

What story is so powerful Senator?   These guys were probably independent truckers who decided it was more important to go to Washington DC than it was to take on paying work during the last week or so. I guess that part is powerful, not many would do that for any reason.  

[LFC]

The truckers in it have no idea what they're trying to accomplish and the supporters sending money have no idea where it's going. Sounds like a typical right-wing cluster-f*** to me.

Two weeks after departing Victorville, California—with the humble goal of completing a few laps around the D.C. Beltway—the only real commerce that the right-wing People’s Convoy trucker protest seems to have interrupted is the business of some of its participants.

But despite some initial confusion and a handful of bloopers, the protest is still going, if not strong then at least steady.

Thousands of truckers and anti-mandate cheerleaders—bivouacked since Friday night about 90 miles from D.C. at a dirt-track speedway in Hagerstown, Maryland—appear to have locked their jaws on a mission. Some mission. Any mission. Whatever it may be.

First, the convoy purported to be about opposing national vaccine mandates. But then, people kept pointing out that the Supreme Court had already struck down President Joe Biden’s proposed vaccine mandate. Then, it seemed to be about drawing attention to a general, anti-COVID restrictions, anti-Biden, Let’s-Go-Brandon road trip, culminating in a traffic jam on the Beltway.

But just like that circular highway itself, there seems to be no terminus.

Show us the money!

The ad hoc, figure-it-out-as-we-go mentality has raised all sorts of questions about whether the organizers have hewed to the law—or if the People’s Convoy has been, intentionally or not, a scam.

And according to fundraising totals, that’s looking like a $2 million question.

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Natalie Adams, now a partner at Bradley LLP, told The Daily Beast that the convoy and its sponsor, the AFCLF (American Foundation for Civil Liberties and Freedom) might have some explaining to do.

“The federal standard to prove wire fraud has two elements: That somebody intended to defraud somebody else; and that they used wire communications to do it. So here the question is whether they intended to defraud,” Adams explained.

She pointed to the convoy’s website, which says explicitly that “100% OF THE DONATIONS GO TO SUPPORTING THE CONVOY!”

“A prosecutor would look at what’s communicated on that site to see what someone would reasonably believe that money would be spent on,” Adams said, noting that if they do not intend that all funds are really going to be used “on a road trip to straighten out our problems,” that would be misrepresenting.

But convoy organizers haven’t exactly been clear about what “supporting the convoy” really means—or what the convoy’s mission even was to begin with.

[LFC]

Not content to harm ordinary individuals rather than confronting authority the truckers want the Maryland State Police to arrest people flipping them off. I guess only they get free speech. They've gone as far as threatening the 911 system if they don't get their way. Fascism much?

The lead organizer of the People’s Convoy on Thursday evening suggested to frustrated truckers that they “flood 911” with calls amid increasing tensions with Beltway commuters. “The point is, as I understand, that it can get difficult; you’re talking about a lot of people. You’re talking about a big convoy,” organizer Brian Brase said. “And you’re talking about areas that simply do not like us.” He continued: “Remember if you got a bad actor, you got somebody acting dumb... #77 with the mile marker and report the vehicle!” The crowd then shouted back at the convoy leader, claiming Maryland State Police weren’t answering their calls. “Didn’t answer,” a trucker yelled. “If they don’t take care of it, then we’ll just flood 911,” Brase responded to a cheer from the crowd. “So they can answer the phone tomorrow or enjoy 911 calls. How about that!” Reached for comment by The Daily Beast, a Maryland State Police communications official said: “They certainly do not go unanswered. That is for sure.” The official added that the 911 number “should be reserved for emergency use only.” (The official confirmed that a driver flipping a trucker off is not an emergency.)

On Thursday, a trucker said of their daily Beltway laps that metro commuters continue to flip them off. “We go around the Beltway—birds are flying,” the driver said. “Birds are flying everywhere.”

Shorter Truckers: "WAAAAHHHH! We're f***ing with these people and they're being mean to us!" They really are a bunch of whining, crybaby, but dangerous children.

Bonus Stupid Points: You're gumming up traffic on the highway so nobody can move effectively. But you want the MD State Police to magically zip out into the middle of the mess you made and pull the driver over that hurt your feelings? GAWD these people are SO stupid. How do they even survive?

[goldenvalley]

Anybody driving on a congested urban area roadway is going to get flipped off.

[LFC]

And yet nothing happened to the Trump Train that literally ran a Biden campaign bus off the road. Those people should have had their licenses revoked, should be in prison for threatening lives, should be in prison again for interfering with a federal election, and should have had their vehicles impounded. Of course it's Texass who refused to touch 3 of the 4 charges they had control over. Welcome to fascism.

[pnwguy]

How do they even survive?

Fertility does not depend on intelligence, sadly

[LFC]

These clowns are such LOSERS. And oooohhhh so entitled. They're nothing but a ball of assorted grievances, most of which I suspect are stupid, selfish, thoughtless, or some combination of the three.

The disorganized group of disgruntled truckers posted up in Hagerstown, Maryland, as part of the so-called “People’s Convoy” just ran into another roadblock as the National Park Service partially denied their application for a permit to turn the National Mall in the heart of Washington, D.C. into a trucker encampment.

In a letter obtained by The Daily Beast on Tuesday night, the agency wrote to lead organizer Brian Brase, whose application made a series of outlandish demands and claims, that they had “partially denie[d]” the request, citing a series of other requests to use the Mall.

Brase wrote that “10,000 to 100,000” supporters would show up for the National Mall encampment. However, when The Daily Beast reported from their Hagerstown encampment at a local speedway two weeks ago, at its peak, no more than 2,000 convoy-goers were present. Since then, the convoy has thinned to about 500 participants sticking it out in the small town nearly two hours north of D.C. proper.

In response to the Park Service’s question—“Do you have any reason to believe or any information indicating that any individual, group, or organization might seek to disrupt the activity for which this application is submitted?”—Brase wrote “Antifa.”

[andydp]

Mar 16, 2022 17:37:26 GMT LFC said:

These clowns are such LOSERS. And oooohhhh so entitled. They're nothing but a ball of assorted grievances, most of which I suspect are stupid, selfish, thoughtless, or some combination of the three.

In response to the Park Service’s question—“Do you have any reason to believe or any information indicating that any individual, group, or organization might seek to disrupt the activity for which this application is submitted?”—Brase wrote “Antifa.”

He should have added "BLM vigilantes" and covered all the bases.

[pnwguy]

Mar 16, 2022 20:27:23 GMT andydp said:

Mar 16, 2022 17:37:26 GMT LFC said:

These clowns are such LOSERS. And oooohhhh so entitled. They're nothing but a ball of assorted grievances, most of which I suspect are stupid, selfish, thoughtless, or some combination of the three.

He should have added "BLM vigilantes" and covered all the bases.

You left out Democrats, liberals, Marxists, Jews, pedophiles, and now perhaps Ukrainian thugs!

[LFC]

Mar 16, 2022 20:27:23 GMT andydp said:

He should have added "BLM vigilantes" and covered all the bases.

Mar 16, 2022 22:26:39 GMT pnwguy said:

You left out Democrats, liberals, Marxists, Jews, pedophiles, and now perhaps Ukrainian thugs!

But that's what he said, guys. "Antifa." It's a magic amulet that encompasses everybody you're suspicious of, doesn't agree with you, or you just don't like because ... well, BECAUSE! Think "critical race theory" which to a MAGAt means every subject that threatens their white fragility.

[pnwguy]

Mar 16, 2022 22:55:17 GMT LFC said:

Think "critical race theory" which to a MAGAt means every subject that threatens their white fragility.

You mean like the NBA? 

[LFC]

Mar 16, 2022 23:00:49 GMT pnwguy said:

Mar 16, 2022 22:55:17 GMT LFC said:

Think "critical race theory" which to a MAGAt means every subject that threatens their white fragility.

You mean like the NBA? 

Undercover Brother: "So the conspiracies we believed for all these years are really true? The NBA really instituted the 3-point shot to give white boys a chance?"

Smart Brother: "Absolutely."

[LFC]

A big boy in the big boys' convoy hit an older woman with his car. I bet he feels manly, or he will at least until his arrest. Fascism breeds violence and we're seeing it regularly now.

Metropolitan police are investigating an incident in which a driver participating in the so-called “People Convoy” allegedly struck a pedestrian in D.C. as the right-wing convoy drove through the city on Sunday afternoon.

According to an incident report obtained and reviewed by The Daily Beast on Monday, Dupont Circle resident Kerry Lynn Bedard told D.C. police she was on the west side of the 1600 block of Connecticut Ave NW “when [the convoy member] struck her with his vehicle and drove on top of her right ankle.”

For his part, the convoy member, Donald Bryan Thomas II of Butler, Ohio, who was driving a silver BMW 550i plastered with stickers like “TRUCKERS RULE!!! MSM LIES,” claimed to police that he was merely “driving forward slowly when [Bedard] walked into the street and in front of his vehicle while yelling and then laid down in the roadway.” Thomas couldn’t be reached for comment on Monday evening.

One eyewitness to the incident—a local DJ in the area—told The Daily Beast that “the lady [Bedard] went between the cars as her own form of protest yelling at them and said the driver of the BMW was at a full stop and then hit the gas (low speed but enough to knock into her).”

“She was much older and had trouble standing up,” added the witness, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I went over to see if she needed help or water or something, and he [Thomas] was yelling at her to ‘get the fuck up.’”

The witness recalled that Bedard was “laying on the street” and that a gathering crowd worried the driver might attempt to further move “his car towards her again.” The tensions only worsened, he said, as the driver allegedly laid on his horn while the woman stayed on the ground.

“I was assaulted with a deadly weapon,” Bedard, an outspoken member of the community, told The Daily Beast late Monday. “It was a car that was in that convoy of truckers,” she continued, adding that the incident occured after her lunch outing at Zorba’s Café nearby.

While the convoy driver essentially claimed Bedard walked into his car, the D.C. resident claimed to The Daily Beast that she was struck “intentionally” and now has “two broken bones” in her leg.

“I have two witnesses that saw that he [Thomas] was at a standstill for quite a while, and the convoy was not moving,” she said, “while trying to get his attention to open the window,” all in an attempt to broker a conversation about not disrupting a “peaceful neighborhood.”

[LFC]

A lone cyclist slowed the trucks to a crawl. This is pretty funny.

[LFC]

Fizzle, fizzle. These are not serious people.

In the end, the People's Convoy ended how it began: Pointlessly.

Daily Beast reporter and Salon alum Zachary Petrizzo reports that, after three weeks of trolling the residents of Washington D.C. by driving around aimlessly, the truckers are finally going home. With great drama Sunday night, organizer Mike Landis declared that, while the truckers were packing up and going home, they would, at some vague future time, "come back to finish this job."

"I am not running away," said Landis' co-organizer Brian Brase before he ran away.

All this insecure masculine preening about coming back and not running away is all the more comical because it continues to be obscure what, exactly, the truckers think they were fighting for.

The author ties the frothing insanity of these truckers to the frothing insanity of Ginni Thomas. They're all sucked into the same vortex of crazy.

Ultimately, what Thomas and the truckers are coming up against is a problem that's plagued the GOP for so long that I wrote an entire book about it: Their actual beliefs are indefensible by any reasonable or evidence-based standard. So, instead of making their arguments directly, they swaddle them in lies and conspiracy theories. They rail against vaccine mandates that don't exist. They rave about election theft that didn't happen. All to justify that which cannot be justified on its own: Their belief that they are entitled to rule no matter what. And the more unjustifiable their actual beliefs become, the deeper they dive down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, rather than face the truth of what they've become.

[LFC]

Gawd, these people are sooooo stupid.

A new kind of convoy just dropped, this one calling itself the “Patriot Convoy.” It managed to block traffic to the entrance of one of Disney World’s exterior shopping areas in Florida for a few hours over the weekend in support for a bill that has already been signed into law.

They should probably be careful however, as blocking traffic as an act of protest is a felony in Florida.

In classic Convoy fashion, the people peacocking on social media and claiming victory thought they’d shut down the whole park by blocking the back entrance to a shopping area called Disney Springs, which is mainly used by locals.

“Just did a blockade,” is definitely getting folded into my lexicon. As folks pointed out on social media, this blockade didn’t really put a snag in anyone’s day nor in the Magic Kingdom’s epic money grab, except maybe for folks who were visiting Disney for the first time. In which case, congrats on caring for the kids so much you ruined a few of their once-in-a-lifetime vacations.

[goldenvalley]

My husband was driving to his office in Sacramento and yup, the "convoy" is here clogging up traffic.  Those of us who work downtown just blocks from the Capitol Building are used to some congestion when various events happen on the grounds.  

[pnwguy]

Apr 18, 2022 18:21:46 GMT goldenvalley said:

My husband was driving to his office in Sacramento and yup, the "convoy" is here clogging up traffic.  Those of us who work downtown just blocks from the Capitol Building are used to some congestion when various events happen on the grounds.  

What an honor to get to participate in a Freedumb Convoy protest, even if you weren't signed up to attend!