Photos From The Trip
As promised, today's column is nothing but photos from my Netroots Nation trip, although most of the pictures below are actually from all the stuff we did before we got there. I mention this up front, in case you're not really interested in another travelogue column. For everyone else, let's dive in.
As I mentioned last week, we found a real gem of a place to stay atop the highest point in Arkansas, Magazine Mountain. Here is this fantastic lodge, from the front.
Here's the view from our window.
And here's the spectacular dining room, done up in 1930s W.P.A. style.
From there, we were off to Hot Springs, where after seeing what the national park had to offer, we went across the street to see the Gangster Museum, to hear the more colorful version of the history of Hot Springs.
One story we were told was about Al Capone's car, which he had bulletproofed and painted the same colors as the Chicago police used on their cars. This car was later confiscated by the feds, and eventually got used as a presidential limousine for Franklin D. Roosevelt (makes sense, since they already had a bulletproof car in storage...). But I can't vouch for the truth of the story. Here's a photo of the car.
Much of the history of Hot Springs dealt with illegal alcohol produced during Prohibition. Here is a historic oddity -- a medical prescription for alcohol, which was readily available during Prohibition. If you had the money to see your doctor once a month and he was agreeable, you could buy liquor from the government with such a prescription.
And, as promised, at the end of the tour people were given the opportunity to pose with a real Thompson submachine gun (not in working order), next to a seated Capone figure. And no, that hat isn't mine.
On we went from Hot Springs to Hope, Arkansas. We stopped by for some "Man From Hope" history, and although we were too late to tour the first house Bill Clinton lived in, we were allowed in to the small museum the town has set up in the old Missouri Pacific depot. The woman who let us in was wonderful, and even though we were technically too late, she encouraged us to see all the exhibits. My favorite was one of various campaign doodads -- I'd love to own one of these "Democat" shirts!
Further south, in the northern part of Louisiana, we stumbled across the place where Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and killed by the cops. If you've seen the movie, you'll probably remember the scene. In Gibsland, we toured the little museum they had set up (our second unplanned gangster museum tour of the trip!), which was in the building where Bonnie and Clyde bought their last meal (to go), which consisted of a B.L.T. for Bonnie and a fried bologna sandwich for Clyde.
Seven miles outside of town is where the ambush took place. This is the last road Bonnie and Clyde drove down.
And here are the two markers at the site. I don't know why people put quarters on the modern one....
OK, finally we got to New Orleans, so here are a few shots of the Netroots Nation conference. You bump into all sorts of random lefties at these things, such as Jim Dean (Howard's brother) posing with Kevin De León (who is taking on Dianne Feinstein in California). Dean is on the right.
My wife volunteered to work at the convention, which included a stint at the registration desk. She got the end of the alphabet, which included one notable badge.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the most well-received speaker of the whole conference. That's her way over to the left, but the big screen's image of her is a lot easier to see.
And finally, one amusing selfie. Yes, that's Bowzer from Sha Na Na standing next to me.
He's the president of Social Security Works, a political action committee that (obviously) fights to preserve Social Security from various attacks by Republicans, which is why it makes sense that he'd be at Netroots Nation.
OK, that's it for now. By tomorrow, I'll get back to current politics rather than just Netroots stories and photos, I promise!
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
CW's t-shirt: Can we just admit we may have taken this "anyone can grow up to be President" thing just a bit too far?
Yes, sir... emphatically so. We are living history, though.
Nice photos, CW. I hope you had fun on your trip; it sure looks like you did. Thanks for sharing. :)
CW's t-shirt: Can we just admit we may have taken this "anyone can grow up to be President" thing just a bit too far?
Yes, sir... emphatically so. We are living history, though.
Nice photos, CW. I hope you had fun on your trip; it sure looks like you did. Thanks for sharing. :)
Looks and sounds like a splendid time was had by all. Working vacays have their own flavour. When the work gets on your tits, repair to the bar, neck a few pints, honk a coner...get back to the labour, refreshed.
LL&P
CW's t-shirt: Can we just admit we may have taken this "anyone can grow up to be President" thing just a bit too far?
Best Tee of the summer so far, IMHO.
Nice travelogue. You might have a future as a photojournalist, CW, if the blogging doesn't pan out!
Two gangster museums (Michale might say three, counting the Clinton shrine, heh) and a Netroots conference make for a pretty good vacation!
What about the home leg? Did you have to drive to CA?
Couldn't let the day grow long without mentioning the drubbing the pubbies took last night from the Dems. They're holding onto a seat in Ohio by their fingernails that should have been an easy win for them, and lost the 'Right to Work' referendum in Missouri. Verrrrry good night for Dems!!
Looks like the 'red wave' is just a puddle. Splash!!
At what point do the right-wing scratch their collective dome's and consider it odd that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a villain in Trump's orbit? Seems being a tax-evader, money-launderer, embezzler, Russian gangster, spy or stock market inside-trader is mere camouflage in Trumplandia. Even the most stalwart of Herd Trump can't ignore the fact that Trump is a magnet for scallywags, they are as but moths to his dim bulb.
Drain the swamp...my bollocks...
From my vantage point, Trump brought the swamp with him and tends it like a twee garden. There aren't enough hours in the day to list the disgraced and discarded "best people" Trump shrewdly hand-picked to MAGA (Make America Get Attorneys.) No doubt, there's no way Trump is responsible for the festival of scoundrels he himself hand-picked, he's as pure as driven snow, and we're all insane for seeing the truth of our eyes.
The stupidity has reached full saturation. One would have be morally bankrupt or irredeemably simple to see Trump as anything more than a political adventurer and a chancre on the scrotum of American political life.
In my opinion, the price for any boon Trump may stumble across, inadvertently, and share with the American people, is too high. Some of my dearest friends are American, and I'm not un-fond of the society in general, (minus the gun-slingers, bigots and religiously disabled,) So I'm not taking a poke at the whole kit and caboodle, but folks...WTF? Trump and his Trumpettes have to go, salvage what's left of your sanity and see the clown off the property...post haste.
LL&P
Kick -
Thanks, we did have a lot of fun on the trip! Yeah, good eye -- got that shirt from my Dad this year, and immediately knew it'd be a good convention shirt....
Balthasar [4] -
While I do love a good road trip, it was just too far this time around. We flew in to St. Louis and flew out of Nawlins.
[5] -
See today's column, where I get back to politics (although travelogues are certainly lots of fun, too!).
-CW
Been beyond-busy but wanted to pop in and say I enjoyed the photos!
Balthasar
5
I know, right!? And today didn't get any better for them when Chris Collins... the original Trump MAGA... became the living embodiment of "My Ass Got Arrested." It looks like an airtight case too. He received an email, and they have him on camera... at the White House no less... informing his son the insider's information.
Just when it looked like the "GOP Very Bad Day" was finally at its end, a tape was exposed by Rachel Maddow wherein Ignorant Tool Devin Nunes confirms he is indeed the ignorant tool and useful idiot of Trump and therefore Putin. It was nice of him to admit that it is, in fact, criminal to receive stolen emails. It's also illegal, as you and I have both pointed out repeatedly, to solicit them from foreign adversaries or do anything that aids and abets. Nunes is a lawyer and knows this, and that's why they're impeding the investigation at every turn, which is... in point of fact... obstruction of justice.
That's why the Ignorant Tool and his ilk keep using the power of their positions in Congress to impede the investigation of the president. If the president and his campaign have done nothing wrong, why are the spineless GOP conspiring with the White House to impede an investigation of the Russians interfering in the 2016 election? Add to that, Nunes makes it clear they intend to impeach Rosenstein after the midterms in furtherance of their obstruction.
I wouldn't altogether rule out an indictment in the future for the Ignorant Tool Nunes for his role in working with the Trump administration to impede the investigation of the president: (1) the ignorant "unmasking" BS, (2) the BS "Nunes memo," (3) the ridiculous framing of FBI Agent's personal opinions regarding Trump (opinions shared by many in the GOP) as some kind of nefarious "deep state" plot, (4) etc.
Kick [9] -
OK, of all the MAGA takeoffs I've heard, that's gotta be the best: "My Ass Got Arrested." Heh. That one is going to get used more and more in the upcoming months, that's my guess!
Well done!
:-)
-CW
Paula -
Thanks!
I have to say I'm somewhat disappointed that nobody (not even Michale) has commented on the Tommy gun photo...
I have to say, about an authentic Thompson: those things are HEAVY!
-CW
Oh, forgot in the storyline: the use of Al's car for FDR was the first known use of a bulletproof limo for a president. If the story's true, that is, still haven't checked it...
:-)
-CW
CW
10
OK, of all the MAGA takeoffs I've heard, that's gotta be the best: "My Ass Got Arrested." Heh. That one is going to get used more and more in the upcoming months, that's my guess!
Well done!
Thank you, sir; it would be funny if it wasn't so darn pathetic and factual. Remember that Chris Collins had the great "misfortune" to be a member of the Trump transition team for which Bobby Three Sticks has obtained tens of thousands of emails and going through them with a very fine-toothed comb. Pity that. ;)
CW
11
I have to say I'm somewhat disappointed that nobody (not even Michale) has commented on the Tommy gun photo...
I have to say, about an authentic Thompson: those things are HEAVY!
I'll say it's a pretty little thing. Hard to believe it was merely $200 back in the day... which sounds like a bargain until you consider that around $400 could buy you a nice Ford Touring automobile with the advent of the assembly line. Ford was always Clyde Barrow's favorite car; of course, he didn't exactly pay for them. ;)