Pack Up Your Troubles

Rent-a-Thug!

Stinquer Jamie Sommers was outside the President’s VFW speech in Phoenix today, and took some lovely snapshots. See that nice lady to the left, with the blue sign? What on earth could she also be wearing?

Hip-Thugger.

Oh.

Twelve Carry Guns — Including Assault Rifle — Outside Obama Event [TPM]
44 Comments

I guess I’m showing my Canada City roots here, but I’m stupified about folks wearing guns at protests OVER HEALTHCARE?

Judging by the giant ass she’s wearing, she’s probably going to be disappointed with her HMO sooner than she thinks.

It’s her God-given right to be pasty white and overweight.

@Dodgerblue: Is it just me or do about 85% of these protesters have BMIs that would classify them as obese or overweight?

@SanFranLefty: I think you’re being too kind.

Also: as everybody knows, Hopey wears Hart Shaffner Marks (sp? WTF) suits. Stephen Colbert wears Brooks Bros. As do I. But that’s a different conversation.

@Benedick: Isn’t that a reference to the so-called “Brooks Brothers protest” in Florida during the 2000 recount? I seem to recall Rachel Maddow making reference to it the other day, but I might be getting that mixed up with something else. Anyhow, that’s what I was thinking she was referring to when I took the picture.

@nojo: The alt-text on the second picture made my day!

@Jamie Sommers: I’m pretty sure you’re right about that. Rachel’s been getting some wingnut play lately.

@Benedick: Did they do his special camo suit when he went to Iraq? (Historical note: TR’s army uniforms were custom made by Ambercrombie & Fitch before they got all whatever they are now. His uniforms had extra pockets for carrying several spare pairs of glasses.)

Meanwhile, when I first read this WaPo article about “Squeaking by on $300,000” in Westchester, I thought it was from The Onion.

@Benedick: Perhaps Barry’s just a smidge superstitious:

Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed at Ford’s Theatre while watching a play with his wife in eighteen sixty-five. The museum shows objects related to the people who plotted Lincoln’s murder. You can see the gun that John Wilkes Booth used to kill the president. You can also see the clothes President Lincoln wore the night he was killed. He was wearing a special coat made by Brooks Brothers.

Larry O’Donnell, when he’s not shouting town Texas congresscritters, nails it: “Medicare for All.” Put that on the table and sign me up for the phone bank.

@nojo: Oh, but it’s not practical to be talking such trash.

Last time I heard that? Eighteen months ago. About electing a black president. Get real!

Jamie very brave – turns out there were TWELVE patriots carrying guns at the event.

@Benedick: Schaffner. Solid business apparel if you have to wear stuff bought off of a rack.

@FlyingChainSaw: Nice stuff, but as much as I like a nice suit, still can’t pay more than three bills for one and even that only rarely. Tips on wholesale prices, perchance?

@The Nabisco Quiver: Good time now to buy top line brands as they’ve been stalling out in high end retail, even in comparison to last year, not crashing but requiring a good deal of price provocation and advertising to drive the same level of custom. You should be able to get HSM near that now. I dunno about wholesale. I had to replace a couple of utility business suits as their predecessors were looking a little too well-worn and soup to nuts, with a second fitting on one jacket, was well less than $1000. Worth ringing around better places in Pittsburgh to see how they’re discounting. You may be surprised.

@ManchuCandidate: Okay, now I’m just downright ashamed of my stupid American brethren. Thirteen y.o.s are allowed to have sex with anyone up to four years older than them in Pennsyltucky, but we’re not encouraging them to exercise that fucking right, now are we Congressman? Kee-ryst.

ADD: @FlyingChainSaw: Good tip, thanks. Maybe I’ll use my downtime between jobs and refresh the wardrobe. Need a good pair of outdoor pants of the variety that RML described TR using (lots of pockets for my spectacles, a GPS, my decoder ring). Carhart? Anyone?

Ever since Ratso Rizzo and the Midnight Cowboy, ever since the invention of air conditioning, so people could go where its hot and not be hot, every lowlife dysfunctional loser petty and not-so-petty criminal in the US has harbored a dream, no matter where they are from, the northeast, the midwest, whereever Wisconsin is, every bum and grifter and drug addict, somewhere, deep inside, harbors a dream of moving to where its warm. That way, even if they don’t pay the rent and get evicted, they won’t be cold when they are sleeping out. And unfortunately for the sunbelt, for Florida, and California, some of them even have enough drive to buy a Greyhound ticket, to the detriment of those places.

She apparently didn’t have enough money left over from buying holsters for her guns, to buy a holster for those sagging mamms of hers.

@The Nabisco Quiver: Its worth it, I only have a couple that get up towards $400, and you never want to wear a cheap suit again. You can get by with 3 or 4 for years, good ones wear well, and the difference is real, its not marketing. BTW, all my best suits, I got really really lucky in Marshalls, and I know an old Italian tailor, who really knows how to make a suit fit.

I rebel against most forms of conformity, but I like work suits. I don’t wear them now, my office is docker casual at all times, and its actually harder to dress business casual every day for work. A suit is like mechanics coveralls, its work clothes, you never have to worry about anything, just put one of your suits on, all done, no muss, no fuss. Wool is the greatest fabric on earth, and you can wear a suit 5 or even 10 times, if its not hot and sweaty out, between dry-cleanings.

Vis a vis this phenomenon of people going to protests armed, well, its completely insane, of course, and it goes back to what hit me earlier today. These people do not give a shit about health care. They just needed some pretext for their racism and anger and desire to kill something, anything, out of their frustration that the Sherrif is a N(bong)r.

Boy oh boy, what a country we live in.

The message could not bee more clear. These people who wear a gun to an Obama event, they are saying “I want to kill him.” They are not so stupid as they seem, they know that they have plausible deniability this way. “Oh, I am not sending an aggressive, threatening message, I am just exercising my rights.”

This is gonna get worse.

Should I start pricing used cruise ships again?

@Promnight: We will likely see a free fire fight between these guys and the USSS. My fear is that local law enforcement might jump in on the side of the militia.

@FlyingChainSaw: I don’t think so, FCS, the cops will not turn on their fellow cops. No, when it happens, the whackjobs will get mown down in spectacular fashion, it will be the first time any of us has seen the impact of a 50 caliber sniper rifle bullet exploding someone’s skull, and it will be on TV. And it will become their rallying cry for 100 years, their “remember the Maine,” their Haymarket Riot, their new Ruby Ridge and Waco combined, and then the shit will start to unfold.

Is that Brooks Bros. sign adhered to her tank top or less-than-supportive bra with kids’ Band-Aids?

@Promnight: Depends on the state and region. In most any state that voted McCain, outside of the big cities, the cops will see the USSS not as cops but as the agents of an interloper and will respond like the mouth-breathing, blood thirsty psychopaths they are. Then you will see mobilization of the militia, getting out the word and moving on the city where any captive militiamen are detained. Finally, Obama will have to call in air strikes on conveys of heavily armed psychopaths and the country will melt down in a years’ long shriek fest orchestrated by the RNC to bring America to its knees and restore the kleptocracy they enjoyed from 2000-2008.

@The Nabisco Quiver: Wrangler cargo pants, $16 at the newest retailer to leave Glenn Beck (Wal-Mart). Black, khaki and olive. The green ones fly at church with a blue oxford. Their carpenter parts have the same weave as Carharts. I found some ripstop techfiber (poly) khakis at a dept store at an end of season sale for about $30, way better and dressier than an REI/Patagonia thing, and much cheaper. Walmart and sporting good stores also have the vented fly fishing shirts (Wrangler and Columbia) in cotton and poly/tech or brushed nylon that might be just the thing for hot weather armed social work in a dusty environment.

I have two suits (Polo? Ralph Lauren? No clue.) that I never wear because I never have to go to court or anything. My two sport coats cover 90 percent of my bidnizz dress up.

It is weird when Wal-Mart is an agent of moderation for the benefit of a (relatively) liberal administration.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/17/gmac-financial-services-c_n_261148.html

@Promnight: “…to buy a holster for those sagging mamms of hers.”

I think hanging out with the gheyz and girlz at Stinque has heightened your fashion sense.

@ Jamie & Cynica, do you want to liveblog the Project Runway premiere when it airs West Coast time? Everyone else will want to liveblog East Coast time, unfortunately…

@The Nabisco Quiver: Mr. SFL is a big fan of the basic REI zip-off pants whilst in the field.

I am serious now, no amount of gin or xanax can help me deny it any more. Our country is in a crisis state of mass insanity.

The things that are happening, and the reactions, the lack of reactions, the inappropriate reactions, its beyond insane.

The media has abdicated any and all ethics. The media has been, since the election, giving a soapbox to people who are literally, truly, dangerous maniacs, psychopaths, and morons, and allowing them to spout insane nonsense, violence, and revolution. Palin, Joe the not Joe not Plumber, Beck, Limbaugh, Orly Taintz, completely gibbering insane psychopathic morons are being given massive amounts of airtime before the american public as if their shriekings were respectable, sane, opinions, just the other side of the story.

Their is no conventional leadership structure left of the Republican Party, and into this vaccum the crazies have rushed.

But the media just seems to say, “OK, these are the terms of the public debate; Is the president a Kenyan, will his health care plan kill your grandma, will he be coming to round you up for his socialist death camps next week?”

See, its the response to these crazies that has me scared, the response is that the debate has actually been moved to a debate over whether we should assasinate Obama, or rise up in revolution against the entire government. And the media presents this as a legitimate debate between thinking, responsible people.

@Promnight: It’s worse than that. The reporters on the scene should have refused to file as long as USSS allowed these assholes near the events. The story should have been the USSS is tolerating this kind of lunacy around the president. If it were Bush, the whole event would have been scrubbed and the guys with the guns kicked to death. First and only question in NH to USSS: what if there are two tomorrow? Or twenty? First question in Phoenix to USSS: what if there are 200 tomorrow? With AR-15s? Second question: Does USSS think that menacing the president with automatic weapons is a good idea? Does USSS have a problem with a black president, too?

@SanFranLefty: I just went to REI today for some hiking-around pants, on sale. I really don’t like the zip-offs cuz when you zip off the lower parts, you have to take care about where you put them.

@FlyingChainSaw: Yes, when WalMart thinks you’re too crazy, you’re in Charlie Manson territory.

@Promnight: I posted a better pair of mamms just for you. (Check the clubhouse).

@JNOV: It’s safety pinned to her tank top.

@SanFranLefty: Would love to but I’ll be unavailable this Thursday. Don’t forget to check out the all-star competition just before the premiere.

@SanFranLefty: @Jamie Sommers: PR and Mad Men are really making me miss having cable. :-(

@The Nabisco Quiver: We get Carhart at the Wilco Farm store, and usually I can find some Carhart and North Face in good shape at the resale shop and Goodwill.
Seriously, check out resale shops and the Jr League thrift store for suits. A friend bought all of her husband’s Ralph Lauren work suits there.
I once dated a man who owned a high-end clothing store. He sold only Oxxford and Brioni suits for men. Sport coats started at $1500. I was a sample size at the time and he got me women’s suits worth thousands for peanuts. I wore them to my job as a runner for a law firm, where I made $10/hr.

@SanFranLefty: If y’all need an open PR thread, just give me a time and I’ll set it up. Maybe even credit it to HF, lest I lose my cred.

@FlyingChainSaw: Yes, yes, why is that not the story, “how many do you expect tomorrow?”

@Jamie Sommers: Now you’ve got my attention. Somehow I think I may be in for disappointment.

@redmanlaw: Good tip, I’ll check Wally’s one of these days on the ride home. We’ve got a Cabella’s pretty close and I’m a big fan of their enormous remainder section. Bought myself a winter parka ($80 for a $200 North Face) and assorted gloves/wool socks etc. a few years ago that have more than paid for themselves.

@Promnight: We men have it easy when it comes to nice work clothes. Everything I know about men’s suits I learned from Steve Martin in “My Blue Heaven”.

@Jamie Sommers: /ends male fashion threadjack to head over to the clubhouse/

@The Nabisco Quiver: I heart Cabela’s. *sigh* My go-to place for hunting and shooting gear not available locally. Headed over to the mountain shop today to gear up for religious pligrimage above timberline early next week. I need some of those slip on boot chains because my smooth bottomed moccasin boots slid like hell on the hail at 12,000 ft last year. I ended up taking off my boots and walking in to where we were going in my SmartWool ® sox.

@The Nabisco Quiver: I was going to recommend Cabellas too — the Nailhead Trail Hiker pants are what I wear when it’s long-pants weather, and if you can discount the immensely high waist (not quite old-man-up-to-the-nipples high waist, but definitely above the hip bones), they’re quite good. Get the non-Nailhead version if you want fabric that doesn’t look like it came off an 18th century clipper.

@IanJ: non-Nailhead a good choice for dry, desert heat and cold nights in, say, the Hindu Kush? I’ve got a pair of tear-aways, and they’re really not great at being either pants or shorts, but I bow to Mr. SFL’s geo cred.

@The Nabisco Quiver: Can’t really say, I’ve never spent any time in heathen deserts. I’m a fan of the cool and damp places. For me, hot weather is anything above about 70, for which I just put on shorts.

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