April 28, 2026 03:21 PM UTC

This Is What Stupid Authoritarianism Looks Like

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• by: Colorado Pols

Comey: Well, they're back. This time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina beach a year ago. And this won't be the end of it.

But nothing has changed with me. I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So let's go.

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— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) April 28, 2026 at 3:50 PM

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NBC News reports on the dumbest grand jury indictment yet obtained by the Department of Justice in its never-ending vendetta against anyone who ever personally crossed President Donald Trump:

A federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging former FBI Director James Comey over an Instagram photo he posted of seashells, which allies of President Donald Trump portrayed as a threat, two sources familiar with the matter tell NBC News.

Justice Department attorneys sought the indictment in the Eastern District of North Carolina, where Comey has a beach house. The Department of Homeland Security investigated Comey, who has long been a Trump target, over the May 2025 Instagram post, even subjecting him to questioning by the Secret Service.

Comey had deleted the post, saying it never occurred to him that it would be interpreted as being violent. “Eighty-six” is a term commonly used in restaurants when an item is sold out, and it’s also informally used to mean “cancel” or “get rid of.”

As the Washington Post reports, it’s not known as of this writing exactly how the “8647” seashells posted by former FBI Director James Comey became federal criminal charges, though presumably that explanation is coming now that federal prosecutors have managed to persuade a grand jury to indict:

The charges were not immediately clear, but the people familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information had not yet been made public, said the case stems from a photo that Comey posted online last year showing seashells on a beach that were arranged to write out “86 47.”

…The Justice Department declined to comment Tuesday afternoon. An attorney for Comey also declined to comment.

We don’t presume to know every conceivable use of every acronym, aphorism or slogan that has come and gone over the generations from the lexicon of speakers of American English. What we can say, and can confirm with everyone we’ve ever had the discussion with, that using the number “86” as a verb has always been in reference to kicking someone out of a place, in every usage we’re familiar with that place being a bar. To be “86ed” means to be kicked out of an establishment, usually with one’s name on a list of people not allowed to return.

It does not now nor has it ever commonly been meant to make any kind of violent threat:

By the 1950s, according to Merriam-Webster, “86” became a verb, commonly referring to tossing drunken customers out of bars.

Dundes points to a biography on actor John Barrymore, published in 1944, as an early example of “86” referring to refusing service. “Barrymore was supposedly known as an eighty-six,” he writes. In other words: “Don’t serve him.”

Although Merriam-Webster notes some equate “86” with “to kill,” it adds this use is infrequent: “We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”

This is the second federal indictment against former Comey after the Trump administration’s first thinly-veiled attempt to retaliate against his former FBI director was dismissed, and Trump’s Colorado-connected fake prosecutor Lindsey Halligan was booted from the prosecutorial post she should never have held. It’s very difficult to imagine the indictment getting much further in the process before a judge puts a stop to this latest gross abuse of prosecutorial power. Even if “8647” could be reasonably construed as a threat, which it objectively cannot, there is still nothing in that statement that comprises an actionable threat sufficient to negate Comey’s First Amendment rights.

The personal humiliation of losing these ridiculous cases apparently means less to Trump than proving that he never forgets. Every time Trump demands these petty reprisals, he makes a mockery of the justice system. For America’s first convicted felon President, debasement of the institution of criminal justice could be an end unto itself–more important than actual success.

Because, to paraphrase Syndrome, when everyone’s a criminal…no one will be.