Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Biden Confused by Free Speech
Evidence provided by Biden campaign of terrifying protesters flying American flags on a public highway, new Covid-19 restrictions expected in response.
“Rather than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump supporters in Texas today instead decided to put our staff, surrogates, supporters, and others in harm’s way,” Biden campaign Texas communications director Tariq Thowfeek told news outlets, confirming several events would be canceled in the state.
“Our supporters will continue to organize their communities for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Democrats up and down the ballot, and to the Texans who disrupted our events today: We’ll see you on November 3rd,” Thowfeek said. The campaign also told other news outlets that the events were canceled out of an abundance of caution.
In some reports, Biden personnel claim a minor collision between a protester vehicle and a Biden staff vehicle, and an attempt to run the bus off the road. Police wrote no tickets, made no arrests, and no vehicles were run off the road or disabled. It’s not like they were traveling in a lawless wasteland like Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Oakland….
After billions in damage, dozens of murders, hundreds of burned-out city blocks, thousands of shuttered businesses, and millions of jobs destroyed by his astroturf rioters, Joe has finally discovered where he draws the line on free speech. Antifa is just an idea. Texans, though, Texans are obviously extremist terrorists. The man who has tacitly supported the use of frozen bottles, Molotov cocktails, and laser weapons with impunity against America’s police now draws a line.
Don’t forget to vote.
PS: CNN reports that the FBI is investigating this incident as harassment. They are already preparing for the new order.
Published in Elections
Indeed.
It is OK for the left to about down the right. They cannot stand it going the other way.
Why do the Democrats behave with such cowardice, unless they have a thousand screaming supporters around them and are attacking a couple of defenseless old folks at a table trying to eat lunch? I saw the video of this incident in Texas. The Trump supporters were driving legally on the highway in cars, vans, and mostly pickups, with Trump flags and signs. The Biden bus, easily four or five times larger than any of the other vehicles on the road, was not hampered in any way from driving normally in its lane on the highway. Yet here’s Mr. Dark Winter Joe crying about (I guess) being bullied by these bad Trumpists who don’t like him. Boo Who poor little baby.
I just found another video that shows a dust up between two vehicles behind the bus. One of the vehicles appears to be straddling two lanes and gets pushed into a single lane by the other vehicle. That was dangerous and was caused by a vehicle that did not seem to be part of the pro Trump group.
I read some comments lamenting the bad behavior of these Trump supporters. Many claimed they should be arrested. I suggest that a posse of social workers should be sent out to haul these rowdy folks to jail. There aren’t enough police left after the defunding.
They don’t arrest leftists though. Only want to arrest us
This is only a problem if there actually was road rage involved, and the Trump supporters were doing things like suddent stops/slow downs/lane changes on the highway. But if the bus did have a front dash cam, they should be able to get license plate numbers to report to DPS if anything really happened.
If that’s not the case, the DPS isn’t going to ticket the Trump people if they were simply driving at speed on the same highway and making the Biden staff uncomfortable, even if they want to portray the incident as something akin to Dennis Weaver vs. the big truck in “Duel”.
A “friend” of mine from Boston texted me this story this morning – I guess she was in a triggered state and was outraged that “these Republican thugs sideswiped someone and tried to slow the bus and run it off the road”? Really? I said it just looked like a Trump train – they’ve been having hundreds. She then called me a racist, sexist bigot! I kid you not. I told her to get out the Advil – she was losing it, and its not even Tuesday………..gads!
This could be what they fear – ordinary citizens taking up the same tactics they use to sew mayhem.
And we have more guns . . .
And know how to use them.
They should fear it
Ran across Antifa: Rise of the Black Flags, just sampled it so far, raw sound from Antifa rioters is just as genteel and serene and CoC compliant as you would expect of mostly peaceful radical terrorists.
For God, Texas, and Miss Lilly!
Story updated to reflect FBI response to the incident reported by CNN.
Thanks to the Fake news of the Corporate media, Biden supporters can claim to be victims despite instigating the vehicle collision.
The Biden staffers don’t understand spontaneous demonstrations for a candidate. Where are the preprinted signs? Where is the U Haul truck filled with clubs and Molotov cocktails ? What do these amateurs think they are doing? My grandkids were at a spontaneous demonstration in Newport Beach CA a week ago. Thousands showed up to wave at Trump as he drove by from a luncheon. Don’t these amateurs realize they are breaking the rice bowls of paid “volunteers?”
Get Out the Grope – Biden 2020
They’ll get right on this.
They sat on Hunter’s laptop like they thought it was an egg that would hatch.
Good thing the scared people on the bus who called 911
got the whole thing on tapecaught the whole thing on their cell phones which they uploaded to the internet as proof!…oh wait.
In March 2016, a group of protestors blocked traffic seeking to stop people from attending a Trump rally in Fountain Hills, Arizona. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/03/19/protesters-block-road-ahead-donald-trump-rally/82014310/. They were arrested and, if memory serves, the Arizona Legislature increased the penalties for such conduct. It was completely wrong for those protestors to do this, and I am glad that they were arrested and prosecuted. If memory served, no responsible political leader suggested that these criminals were justified in their behavior.
Contrast this with the Biden bus incident. According to CNN article https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/01/politics/fbi-investigating-biden-bus-trump/index.html which is cited in Comment #11,
“The incident took place in Texas on Friday as the campaign bus was traveling from San Antonio to Austin as part of a push to urge Biden supporters to cast their ballots on the state’s last day of early voting. A Biden campaign official described the motorists’ actions as an attempt to slow down the bus and run it off the road.
“People in vehicles that were part of a ‘Trump Train’ began yelling profanities and obscenities and then blockaded the entire Biden entourage, according to a source familiar with the incident.”
I have attended Trump Parades. The folks there are jovial and pleasant. Several older couples commented on my “Republicans for Biden” t-shirt by saying that it was a beautiful day and how lucky we were having First Amendment. I don’t have any problem with those parades, even though it was discomfiting to be stuck in traffic. But let’s return to the Biden Bus in Texas incident:
“At one point they slowed the tour bus to roughly 20 mph on Interstate 35, the campaign official said. The vehicles slowed down to try to stop the bus in the middle of the highway. The source said there were nearly 100 vehicles around the campaign bus. Biden staffers were rattled by the event, the source said, though no one was hurt.”
Can we please agree that it is wholly inappropriate to stop an opposing political vehicle on the interstate? Can we please agree that it is wholly inappropriate for nearly 100 vehicles to swarm a campaign bus?
This gets much, much worse. You would think that Republican Leaders would be encouraging their followers to back off. You would be wrong.
A few days earlier, Donald Trump, Jr. posted a video saying “It’d be great if you guys would get together, head down to McAllen and give Kamala Harris a nice Trump Train welcome. Get out there, have some fun, enjoy it. Don’t forget to vote and bring all of your friends. Let’s show them how strong Texas still is as Trump country. Get out there, guys.” This helped set up this climate.
But worse was the reaction of his father. Again from CNN:
“President Donald Trump tweeted a video of the bus incident with the words ‘I LOVE TEXAS!’ on Saturday, and claimed at a campaign rally on Sunday that his supporters were ‘protecting’ the bus.”
I was born at night, but I wasn’t born last night. While I am mindful of Godwin’s law, this type of behavior reminds me of passages in Eric Larson’s book “In the Garden of the Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin” which is set in Germany in the early thirties where people would be yanked off the streets by brown shirts and beaten up. What happened in Texas is a far cry from that, but candidly I cannot remember such political intimidation in my lifetime of people whose only crime is to drive down the freeway. At a minimum, we are seeing behavior such as that cited David Frum in the November 2020 issue of The Atlantic, “Last Exit From Autocracy.” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/last-exit-trump-autocracy/616466/
I agree with Joe Biden who told reporters in Texas Sunday evening, “We’ve never had anything like this.” “At least we’ve never had a president who thinks it’s a good thing,” Biden said.
I have been criticized for contributing to the Biden campaign. After seeing his behavior of Trump supporters, egged on by Trump and his son, I do not regret a penny of the money I gave to Biden, and I wish that I had given more.
Gary, if a Trump supporter, or a group of them, attempted to block or slow down the Biden bus, that was wrongful. I looked briefly, and did not see video evidence of this. At the moment, my preliminary conclusion is that it is a lie by the Biden campaign and their Fake News allies. I will revise this conclusion if video evidence is presented.
It is quite hypocritical for the Left to complain, as they apparently supported – eagerly – the BLM and Antifa miscreants who blocked roads and highways.
I did see the video of the collision. It appears to have involved a pickup truck that looks like one of the pro-Trump vehicles, which was immediately behind the Biden bus, and a white minivan that moved into the pickup’s lane. The wrongdoer and aggressor appears to be the white minivan, which does not appear to have been on the Trump side.
So this looks like more Fake News lying. The Trump supporter is blamed for the collision, which looks like the result of an anti-Trump miscreant muscling into his traffic lane.
Again, this is a preliminary conclusion, as I don’t know the identity or motivation of the driver of the white van. The van was not displaying any Trump sign or flag, as far as I could see.
If I were the hearing officer and I had any person who had blocked the traffic before me I would set bail as high as possible, and upon sentencing, would hammer them into the ground. If I had an Antifa person before me, I would hammer them also.
Why in the world are Trump supporters blocking the Garden State Parkway, the freeway that runs along the eastern side of New Jersey?
If you were the hearing officer you would have to recuse yourself due to bias.
I do not believe you.
Biden’s not the only one confused by free speech.
What? You don’t believe Gary would set bail as high as possible for a Trump supporter? I sure do. I have to admit, I don’t believe he would hammer someone from from Antifa, though. Although he would probably Biden that situation by claiming Antifa is only an idea and not a real organization. He’d be looking at them with the same peril-sensitive glasses he uses when he looks at Biden’s campaign promises, as well.
I would hammer anyone who blocked traffic, be they a Trump supporter, a Biden supporter, or a member of Antifa. Wouldn’t you?
There is no bias involved in being a hanging judge, only a hanging judge who punishes only one side.
I do not believe you. You have said nothing about the riots and mobs. You can’t even bring yourself to condemn them.
I do not trust you.
I think I saw Gary’s car in this video as he goes to support the guy continuing Reagan’s legacy.
I am sure you actually believe that. Just like Judge Sullivan believes he can impartially judge the Michael Flynn case.
Whether I would or not is irrellevant as to what biases you would carry into a case. On the other hand, I notice you did not state you would judge all cases with equal impartiality, just that you would hammer them. If you hammered the Trump supporter with a 10-pound sledge and the Antifa member with a tack hammer you could argue you had hammered them both.
Is there evidence to support these claims?
Nobody stopped the vehicle, did they? Why would you even ask about this? But wth, I’ll play; it is wrong to stop any vehicle on the interstate. Politics doesn’t enter into it.
Away with you and your Trump-caused climate change.
“I’m not calling Trump a Nazi-nazi, buuuuut….”
You’ve bought the pre-digested narrative despite zero video evidence.
You assume that Trump believes what you believe and blessed it anyway – again, with zero evidence.