(h/t commentor LAMH)
Ferguson elected its first Black mayor tonight, meet Mayor-elect, Mrs. Ella Jones. pic.twitter.com/UglVpk3tad
— Marquis Govan (@kpsmg1) June 3, 2020
Elsewhere:
in case you wondered if the biden speech was good and effective. yeah it was. https://t.co/YlmleHdbNw
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) June 2, 2020
“It’s going to take the work of a generation”
Joe Biden says US Congress should act this month “starting with real police reform” and adds “bad cops should be dealt with severely and swiftly”
Latest: https://t.co/nGrniTHVdQ pic.twitter.com/Jaai5rqba4
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 2, 2020
And the backup squad…
Just interviewed @ewarren who came down to see the protest outside the White House- she’s getting cheers. She told me she came here because she had an obligation to bear witness to this moment pic.twitter.com/nkWenYJy8b
— Elizabeth Landers (@ElizLanders) June 2, 2020
that would be about the same time yesterday that the teargas was deployed.
Look who doesn't need a volley of flashbangs for a walk in the park. https://t.co/khW8vx1hNx
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) June 2, 2020
When we impeached this president, we warned that he was a dictator in waiting.
I believe now what I believed then: this president is a threat to our democracy, our families, and to us.
— Rep. Val Demings (@RepValDemings) June 2, 2020
We just demanded the Senate uphold Americans’ rights and condemn President Trump’s unconstitutional order to have federal officers use gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters.
But Senator Mitch McConnell objected.
We will not stop pushing for and demanding action!
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) June 2, 2020
“We need Republicans and all decent Americans to join us in our outrage and our disgust for this injustice." —@SenDuckworth pic.twitter.com/cqGZrHhhJx
— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) June 2, 2020
I’m Proud to Be A Democrat!
Baud
satby
So am I.
Baud
Putin thinks Biden will win.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Baud
A tale of two headlines.
NYT
WaPo
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Baud
He’s no Putin.
satby
@Baud: Bet some of the military advisors pointed out they weren’t keen on the idea of going to states over the objection of the governors.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?
Jeffro
@Baud: He’ll say that his threats were enough to get the protestors ‘in line’…no wait, that he ‘dominated’ them.
When really we all know that his paid white supremacist instigators were starting to get caught, so they had to back off.
I wanna hear more about these non-uniformed possible Blackwater types who showed up armed to the teeth without a badge between them. Let’s go, Congress, let’s go!
NotMax
Admit to being of two minds about forseeable ramifications of expansion of the technique: K-pop stans are flooding right-wing hashtags like #BlueLivesMatter and #MAGA.
But no qualms whatsoever about this: Roku removes dedicated QAnon channel that launched last month.
@satby
FYI, the new-ish documentary about South Bend, Big Enough, Small Enough is available on Prime. A review.
Haven’t viewed it yet here.
oldster
I am so glad that DC was relatively calm last night. The protesters came back in greater numbers after Monday’s debacle, and Trump stayed in his bunker.
I was worried — and am still worried — that Barr and Miller will be satisfied by nothing less than their own Tiananmen on the Potomac.
So my first desire is to demilitarize DC. Send the troops back home.
But after that: when can the protesters declare a victory? They cannot stay out there until racism disappears — that’s going to take a few more years.
So what’s an achievable goal?
Getting the three accomplices of Chauvin charged and indicted is a good achievable goal.
What’s after that? When can our side declare that we won this round?
debbie
These thugs should be mindful that they’re beating the people who pay their salaries and pensions.
PenAndKey
Even with the Insurrection Act BS, without the states requesting aid does he even have the authority to send troops? I know, I know, with this Supreme Court and their “it’s a political question” side-stepping and McConnell being McConnell who would stop him, but still. My guess is, like when he threatened to quarantine New York, he finally found out that he’s not actually a dictator yet
And if an event happens like that you’re looking at an actual insurrection starting, because there’s simply too much anger to expect people to meekly accept a protest in the nation’s capital being gunned down. That’s a nightmare scenario, and even Barr and Miller have to understand that the most likely outcome isn’t good for their continued health.
Baud
The photo op was such a disaster even for an administration known for disasters.
debbie
Columbus was surprisingly peaceful last night. Larger crowds, less police brutality. The next problem will be the FOP who are outraged they aren’t being actively consulted. As if.
JPL
Yesterday local high school student organized a peaceful protest and it was well received. It’s nice to think that maybe the next generation will adapt real change.
NotMax
@Baud
One thing as sure as sunrise: there is no bottom.
debbie
@Baud:
Yeah, that was a pretty strong reaction from the Church!
Baud
Sweden lovers on the right are sad.
Baud
Despite everything, I’m reading that turnout in our primaries yesterday was high.
So of course, I’m seeing a spate of “is Biden inspiring” stories in the media. I suspect it’ll be a regular meme until the election.
Baud
GOP ratfucking stops for nothing.
satby
@NotMax: You find the most amazing things! Thanks, just watched 10 minutes of it and bookmarked it for later. Looks good.
Baud
Barbara
@Baud: The latest seems to blame Ivanka for the idea, but what is interesting to me is that it did not occur to anyone to contact the church, which had people on-site, who ended up being tear gassed as well. They tear gassed the ministers in order to commandeer the physical space.
debbie
@Barbara:
Trump’s gut seems to be failing him more and more. Bigly, even.
satby
@Baud: The constant attempt to distract is all they have. With more than 106,000 people dead and tons of videos showing police brutality against peaceful demonstrators of all races, I’m skeptical they’ll get much traction. Plus, it just highlights how out of touch the Republicans are to focus on that while even their own voters are freaked out about other stuff now. QAnon is not a big enough base to focus on.
hells littlest angel
Yes, they are two distinct and different groups.
Barbara
@debbie: Indeed. Using tear gas at Lafayette Park knocked a lot of the coverage of looting and unrest to the backseat.
Jinchi
And more importantly, Denmark, Norway and Finland have crushed their outbreak – new cases are about one-tenth of what they were at their peak.
Sweden has recorded about 500 new cases per day since April and there is no sign of it tapering off.
The countries that took the problem seriously are recovering and getting life back to normal. Those that didn’t are on track to continue suffering for months.
Barbara
@Jinchi: They can’t recover the time or the loss of life, but admitting they were wrong hopefully signals improvement going forward.
satby
@Barbara: It didn’t occur to the trumpists because they didn’t think there would be “people” there, only “protesters”, and they thought no one would pay attention to protesters anyway.
JPL
@Baud: What does the fox say? The orange ones only know what they are told by right wing news idealogues.
Baud
@JPL:
Don’t know or care.
Jinchi
@Barbara: Agreed. Admitting error is the best way forward, but
He talks like the crisis is over. They’re still in the first wave. What is he planning on doing differently now?
Central Planning
Mayor-elect Jones looks like the kind of person who is not going to take ANY of your shit.
Kay
@Jeffro:
I do too. The uniform is really important. It’s notice to the public that they’re legitimate state actors authorized to use force. They have to identify themselves, too. Saying “we’re with the DOJ” (as they reportedly did) is not nearly enough. I don’t know who they are. I have no obligation to follow orders from them and they have no apparent authority to give them. This is an extraordinary privilege we give police- they are the only people who can commit lawful violent acts. They have to be identified and we need to know from where they derive their authority. Barr is enough of a petty little strutting wanna be tough guy that I want to know if he hired a private security force and put himself in charge of it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Alex, what is “ignorance or apathy”?
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Don’t know or care.
Baud
Jeffro
@Jinchi:
We’re still limping along at over 1,000 dying of Covid-19 per. day.
By Election Day, that means a quarter million Americans, minimum, will have died from this thing.
Baud
satby
I follow Michael Tallon on Twitter and he wrote a beautifully moving essay on Medium about all this that I wanted to share.
For all the negatives of the online world, the positives of access to great writers and eloquent photojournalists outweigh them.
Baud
Jeffro
Great piece in That Paper today by (don’t hate me) Juan Williams of Fox News: Black Voters Are Coming For trumpov
Baud
@satby:
And the animal videos!
Kay
The operation. Their ridiculous photo op that required 15 senior administration people. This stupid bullshit is the only work they perform. Massive protests, the economy is tanking, 40 million people are unemployed, and there will almost definitely be a second pandemic wave in the fall, and this is what they spend whole days working on.
Jeffro
@Jinchi: Is there a reason why we couldn’t have done what New Zealand or South Korea did? Give me a break.
Jeffro
@Kay: “Ok people, here’s our priority for the day: take a walk and a couple of pictures”
Unbelievable. If the crowded park was going to provide ‘bad optics’..maybe the blessed walk could have taken place the following day? Ask them about that, snooze media: what was it that just couldn’t wait?
Answer, of course: trumpov’s shattered ego after those reports of him hiding in the bunker.
germy
@Kay:
Old news, but:
New York Times headline:
Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups
sanjeevs
Someone here mentioned yesterday that some of Orange’s fundie support may be splitting hence the mad dashes to various churches.
FWIW Joel Osteen was at one of the protests
https://mobile.twitter.com/GuthrieGF/status/1267977937300516865
Baud
Readership capture.
germy
Conservative friends: Stop playing. Don’t write in Romney-Mattis. Vote for Biden.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
There are a lot of sweet wingnut tears in the replies, tho. Methinks they do protest too much.
Betty Cracker
Mag Habs says the tear-gas photo op was Ivanka’s brainchild. Ivanka carried the bible Trump held up like he was conducting a QVC product demo in a $5K handbag.
What a disaster.
I don’t think the Trumps will get what they deserve (a matching set of orange jumpsuits), but there is a chance Jarvanka will experience a painful social death — exiled from the company of the only type of celebrities and rich/stylish muckety-mucks they would deign to cultivate and forced to make do with Dallas Junior League types.
Immanentize
@satby: That was really good. Thank you.
Amir Khalid
@Kay:
I don’t understand the White House thinking here: how would clearing peaceful protestors out of Lafayette Park with tear gas have been, or have looked, any less bad if it were done earlier?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud:
The economy is crashing, there’s a pandemic, there’s rioting in the streets. And the GOP wants to do show hearings about the Russia investigation? The public will not be impressed.
I notice more and more officials are acting as if they’re not afraid of Trump. They must believe he’s going to lose.
ETA: Or what Satby said at #27
germy
@zhena gogolia:
Yes, there’s a panicky tone to their replies. “Dems in disarray!” they scream as the quicksand covers their chins.
joel hanes
@oldster:
Getting the three accomplices of Chauvin charged and indicted is a good achievable goal.
What’s after that?
Minneapolis Police Department disbanded prior to re-establishment. Like Camden did.
A group of the Minneapolis city council members, finally realizing that the mayor and city government currently have no effective check rein on their municipal police, are investigating exactly that.
Same thing needs to happen to NYPD.
Kay
@Amir Khalid:
The thinking was there would have been fewer people in the park earlier. Also, keep in mind Ivanka doesn’t know how anything works. “Clear the park for the royal family” is as far as she gets. She doesn’t know or care how that might be accomplished.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: I commented when I first saw this yesterday – just like Putin’s “little green men” in Crimea in 2014. Armed men with no identifying markings.
Trump has listened to his master well.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay:
The idea that the administration can hire a private army to “dominate” the American people is terrifying.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
zhena gogolia
@satby:
Wow, that is superb. I’m going to send it to my minister.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
This is all giving me flashbacks, and not in a good way.
debbie
@Baud:
Great counterpoint to Lindsey’s kangaroo court!
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Yep. And clearing the park moments before the Waddle made it extra-obvious that the violence was linked to the photo op.
eric
Trump is that guy at the poker game that is bluffing from the jump. The other guy knows this and stays in. the only thing that trump can do is raise the stakes so high that the other guy becomes scared that if he loses, then he loses everything and chickens out. Trump is just going to keep raising the stakes with no end in sight. His bluff was called, he has nothing, and that is the only course left to him (in his mind).
Immanentize
@Kay: Early morning would have been ideal. No protesters. Really, the church would be quiet, and morning light is good for photos. But Trump and his lay-a-bed team can’t be bothered to think 12 hours ahead.
The protesters were never given a moment’s thought — just the goal of the Bible picture.
Kay
@joel hanes:
They want them out of public schools too, which they just achieved in Minneapolis. There is now overwhelming evidence that black children are punished more harshly in schools than white children are, and “zero tolerance” (which came directly out of policing, to the extent that they regularly used the phrase ‘broken windows’ ) contributed to that. That’s the long arc change. It has to start with 6 year olds.
Sloane Ranger
@Kay: I think Adam identified them last night as being Bureau of Prisons Riot Squad…or was that a different group of armed paramilitaries?
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: I thought Mag and Jarvanka were best buds? At least Mags has to have some idea what a clusterfuck this was, why’d she be throwing her best source under the bus like this?
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I don’t think they’ll get away with it. I think there are still lines they won’t cross and that’s one of them. Nip that right in the bud.
germy
Immanentize
@Sloane Ranger: Adam said they were border patrol. That makes sense.
ETA. The very fact that no one actually knows who they are means they are utterly unaccountable. No insignia, no names — might as well be Russians.
Dorothy A. Winsor
One of that things making that photo op strange (as well as horrifying) is that Trump clearly has no idea what one might do at a church.
Barbara
@germy: There is no doubt in my mind that Trump wanted looting and violence and unrest to continue and even escalate so that he could unleash violence.
Immanentize
@Immanentize: ok, went back and checked and Adam moved from Border Patrol to BoP tactical:
(I shut down the old ‘puter too early, I guess during that discussion)
Kay
@Gin & Tonic:
Speaking of the NYTimes political team. Haberman covered and covers Trump. The reporter who covered Clinton is Amy Chozick. That’s where we got 16 months of nonstop Clinton Cash material pumped into the national veins.
She has a Netflix show coming out based on her work in 2016. Yes, incredibly enough she believes people will pay not once but twice to watch that shitshow. Try not to watch it:
These people aren’t “reporters” in the traditional sense. They’re integrated “brands”. That’s fine but it would also be fine if we made an effort not to buy their allied product.
zzyzx
Reading Twitter last night, I noticed that just about all of the people in Seattle who were most adamant about turning this into a fight instead of an issue related protest had one thing in common. Can you guess it?
I posted an image of my “favorite” two tweets here.
https://twitter.com/zzyzx/status/1268161335818252288
Sloane Ranger
@Amir Khalid: Would have put some time between the assault on peaceful protesters and the photo op. Use of force would still have been a bad look, but White House would argue that the two things were completely unrelated. Media pundits would argue about this, the media would two sides it.
Dupe1970
@Baud: It’s almost as if police can de-escalate these protests especially when are vastly outnumbered.
Baud
You can’t fire your daughter, so that’s what that’s all about.
Barbara
@Amir Khalid: Keeping in mind that all reports coming out now are self-interested ass covering, I think what they are trying to say is that the park was supposed to have been off limits by some earlier time, and that the police could have accomplished that in a much more leisurely manner.
But it’s complete nonsense because even with that lame explanation, they only “had” to clear it quickly because the president couldn’t get to the other side of the park with a bunch of protesters in the way.
ETA: I just want to emphasize how small this area is and how close that church actually is to the White House grounds. It is the equivalent of crossing a single city block.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize:
How?
Dupe1970
@oldster: Have congress pass removal or significant changes to Qualified Immunity.
joel hanes
@Immanentize:
Early morning would have been ideal.
You’re attributing to laziness that which was imagined in malice.
Trump told the governors that they must dominate. The violent clearing of a path for him to tread as he willed was conceived as an example of exactly the kind of domination that, in what passes for Trump’s mind, is the only road to “winning”.
The assault on the protestors was the intended introit, just as the Bible was an intentional prop, and the church used as scenery.
Barbara
@Baud: Sure you can fire her. You can tell her to find some other way to occupy her time.
joel hanes
@Dupe1970:
Have congress pass removal or significant changes to Qualified Immunity.
Will not happen as long as McConnell leads the majority, so not in the next seven or eight months.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: Because if there is one federal law enforcement agency that seems to have been captured not only by Trump but also by Trumpism, from the administration down to the line officer, it is Border Patrol (and ICE). They have the dangerous firepower and the dangerous attitude to be a core force of violence for the Trump administration. And they have a presence throughout the country, in every city certainly.
joel hanes
@Barbara:
You can tell her to find some other way to occupy her time.
I believe that Ivanka’s talents might best be employed in making license plates. Or perhaps working in a prison laundry.
The Pale Scot
Too true too often
Insecure, Frustrated Bully With Something To Prove Considering Career In Law Enforcement
Baud
@Barbara:
She’ll still be around because she’s his daughter. Unlike Bill Barr, for example, who, if fired, would probably not be in the inner circle.
oldster
@joel hanes:
@Dupe1970:
I like both of these ideas a lot, and they do seem like they are relatively short-term and achievable.
No qualified immunity; no murder with impunity. There’s your chant for you.
And the removal of qualified immunity even has bipartisan support, if you include Justin Amash as a non-Democrat!
Betty Cracker
Here’s how a person with integrity responds to an authoritarian power grab: James N. Miller resigned from the Defense Science Board yesterday:
Bravo.
Barbara
@zzyzx: “I wanted to start some shit.” Whenever I meet people whose need for drama crowds out every reasonable thought about what it means for those around them I feel a high level of internal fury. Go travel or do some stupid physically dangerous stunt you can post on YouTube but leave other people out of it. Can’t they see that the people who are legitimately protesting already have way too much of that kind of drama in their lives?
Marcopolo
Good morning folks.
Haven’t posted much since the Trump pandemic began but dropping in to say good for Ferguson. It’s about time. A decade ago I spent a big chunk of my life there over the course of three years (‘09-‘11).
I had no idea Heather, the candidate who lost, was also on the ballot for Ferguson mayor. I got to know her (and her husband) back then. They lived a few blocks away from where I was working. She (and he as well) was an amazing force for community good back then & the residents of Ferguson were blessed to have two great people on the ballot. I wish all elections offered a choice of two great options.
Wishing everyone a great day & rest of week.
Immanentize
@Dupe1970: changing qualified immunity is certainly a great goal. I have an acquaintance at CATO and that is his grail (this guy litigated Heller in SCOTUS). Justin Amash just proposed a bill eliminating qualified imunity. It is a libertarian dream goal. I would love to see the Dems in Congress — but unlikely
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Damn.
Immanentize
@oldster: Here is my suggested chant:
“Where’s you badge? What’s your name?”
Dorothy A. Winsor
The Obama bros interviewed someone on Monday who talked about research on what changed police behavior. He said you have to separate changing behavior from changing attitude because some things change attitude but not behavior. What’s most likely to change behavior is consequences.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay: The Trump admin things governance is like Big Time Wrestling.
Jinchi
@Jeffro: And not just New Zealand and South Korea. Even states that bungled at the start and were overwhelmed, like Italy and Spain, managed to get control of the outbreak and crush the number of new cases over time.
It’s only the states with leaders in denial, like the US and Brazil (and to a lesser amount, Sweden) that have this persistant contagion. If a second peak comes, it will be on top of the current high numbers.
MattF
It’s notable that the only thing the mis-administration has done for the past several days is a couple of photo-ops, accompanied by futile threats and fist-shaking. Management? Policy? Actions? WTF??
Frankensteinbeck
@joel hanes:
The intended result was that Trump would be praised on Twitter and cable news for his strength and bravery and manliness. He was also hoping the protestors would be scared and stop protesting outside the White House, because that’s scaring the shit out of him.
What he got was “Wow, what a petty, asshole coward.” Pretty much exactly like the Suleimani thing. Trump is already getting burned for this stunt in the only way that matters to him, his ego. That’s why backtracking and name calling are underway.
Cheryl Rofer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: One of my favorite sayings, from a psychologist friend:
Attitude follows behavior.
Jinchi
I haven’t heard anything about this. Where is this from?
charluckles
I don’t buy any of these explanations from the Trump regime. From the rhetoric we had been hearing before the occurrence I think they knew exactly what they were doing, or thought they were doing. Trump and/or his advisors really thought that busting some heads and having Trump strut out there for a “Law and Order” photo-op was going to be a big win for them. Being in a cult, I think you tend to lose track of what the rest of the world really believes. Now they are covering.
Gin & Tonic
@MattF: Did you miss it? It’s Infrastructure Week.
Gin & Tonic
@Jinchi: It was reported on Twitter yesterday around the time these guys showed up. First comment in Cheryl’s thread yesterday may be a good place to start.
Marcopolo
@Kay: I agree wholeheartedly with you except for this:
Assumes facts not in evidence. I’m thinking they only came up with this hours ahead of trying to do it. The fact that the Trump cabal is so awful at planning & implementing is to me just about their only good quality.
MattF
@Gin & Tonic: Apparently.
rikyrah
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: Bingo. It’s going to be interesting in a clinical sense to observe the downward spiral over the next few months.
Uncle Cosmo
So, nolnaH’s rozaR, kindasorta?
PenAndKey
@Betty Cracker: We are certainly finding out who in government falls on which side of Kennedy’s old “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” quote. I’m equally heartened by seeing people do the right thing and disheartened at how many appear to prefer going along with clear wrongs. It just reinforces exactly how much work we, as a society, have to do going forward.
Betty Cracker
What a scared, small man:
Betty Cracker
Those #BunkerBitch, #BunkerBoy, etc., hashtags must really sting. Good. Fucking coward.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: Is he saying Mexico will pay for it?
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker:
“KEEP EXPANDING THE PERIMETER UNTIL I CAN’T HEAR THE PROTESTORS!!! I DON’T WANNA HEAR ANY MORE PROTESTORS!! I CAN STILL HEAR THE PROTESTORS!!”
“But sir…the protestors went home hours ago…”
Frankensteinbeck
@Cheryl Rofer:
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what Cognitive Dissonance actually means.
@Betty Cracker:
My two biggest worries right now are:
Jinchi
Ah Ha! Hillary Clinton’s 11-dimensional chess move finally pays off. She’s got the worst people in America confined and under prison guard. All that’s left now is to is lock the gates.
Check and Mate!
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: I think he was in there doing the ‘second half’ of his physical, LOL
Jeffro
@Jinchi: If she would only tweet that at him, he would stroke out and we’d be done with the worst of this mess.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: And liar.
cmorenc
@Jeffro:
Overheard a MAGA-type guy in Myrtle Beach, SC discussing the violent elements mixed in with the protesters – his alleged info was that the violent elements were being paid by George Soros. That tells you all you need to know about how warped the RW information bubble is.
different-church-lady
@Immanentize:
Is Trump in the prison, or is the rest of the country?
different-church-lady
@cmorenc: It’s amazing Soros has any money left at this point.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: Lot of white faces in that group. Which is NOT generally true across BoP guards. My bet is that those with complete face covering (masks and at least one face shield) are POC
ETA:
Ethnicity
# of Staff
% of Staff
African American
7,862
21.3%
Asian
832
2.3%
Hispanic
4,667
12.7%
Native American
469
1.3%
White (Non-Hispanic)
23,016
62.5%
Other
0
—
O. Felix Culpa
Good morning! I was up too late last night watching the election returns in the NM primary. Not all the results are final yet due to the large number of absentee ballots to be processed, but perhaps the most interesting result so far: a number of long-term Conservadems in the state house have been unseated, mostly by women pissed off at their votes against repealing an old law on the books that criminalizes abortion. Eight Dems joined the Republicans in 2019 to vote the repeal down; numbers aren’t final yet, but it looks like four of those eight have lost or are in danger of losing and a fifth died of a heart attack last year. We’ll have a different state senate in the next legislative session.
At the presidential level, Biden has 73.46% of the vote and Sanders remains just below the 15% threshold, with 14.74% of the vote.
FelonyGovt
@Betty Cracker: He was in there for ”a tiny, short little period of time.” Such a transparent liar, stringing those three words for “small” together.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: So the locals are doing (or not) Trump’s job on keeping the cops reined in, just as they’re doing (or not) his job by managing the pandemic, acquiring supplies, setting up testing, etc. Sounds about right. I worry about the 10% too. He’s burned and humiliated. Who knows what kind of crazy will come of that?
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Nothing more Christ-like than gassing the populace. //
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: Who is this “Sanders” of which you speak? ?
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
He’s terrified and flailing around trying to find what he thinks of as troops loyal to him. He has gone through a lot of “We don’t take orders from you”, “That’s not our job”, and “You can order us to go there, but if you order us to open fire we won’t do it” in the last week. Also bear in mind it’s not about reality, it’s about the perceptions of a cowardly, senile narcissist and his incompetent asshole advisers.
debbie
@Baud:
That sure didn’t work out for King Lear.
Jeffro
@FelonyGovt: I’d like to hear more about this “inspection” he was supposedly doing. Did he have a ‘bunker checklist’ to work through as he was doing this, or is he just sort of an intuitive expert about bunker outfitting and upkeep?
Immanentize
@FelonyGovt: I suspect that there was at least one “tiny, little, short” thing in the bunker. Perhaps even shrinked and shrivelled.
Frankensteinbeck
@Immanentize:
The dumbass who actually tweeted about the riots that police violence against blacks is a subset of economic violence against everyone. Yes, he economically AllLivesMatter’d it. And his followers think it’s a brilliant statement of support for the protestors.
Immanentize
@different-church-lady: This has always been the security flaw in gated communities.
Immanentize
@debbie: Yeah, but Lear had the excuse of insanity … Oh, I see.
PenAndKey
People joke about how he’s a narcissist and make comments on his behavior not being normal, but this behavior is a direct result of his narcissism. The only difference between him and Joffrey Lanister is that one’s fictional. Both are incompetent, obsessed with their glory, malicious because they enjoy it, and ultimately cowards. The only reason he will ever deescalate a situation is because he’s either credibly threatened by a person with more power, or because he’s sufficiently shamed and doesn’t have anyone in his close circle supporting him. If he thought he could get away with carpet bombing the National Mall he’d already be shouting the order.
I, quite literally, can’t think of a more dangerous personality defect for someone in the role of president to have than the suite of behaviors Trump exhibits on a daily basis.
Jinchi
@Immanentize: Looking at that picture more closely, none of those guys really look like policemen. They’re all a bit scruffy, with mismatched gear, and most have beards and mustaches. It doesn’t really fit the typical clean shaven, uniform look I’m used to seeing with the police. Even the unidentified “DOJ” guys from twitter looked like actual soldiers.
Maybe Trump’s MAGA crew did show up.
hueyplong
@FelonyGovt: Pretty sure Trump has heard the phrase “tiny, short, little” before.
Immanentize
@Jeffro: Bunker checklist given to him by a Proper from somewhere in Upstate New York….
We really should create a BunkerTrump checklist. TVs? Three. Toilets. Six
Immanentize
@Frankensteinbeck: You are shitting me!! No way! Do you have a link because I wanna torch that. With fire. ???
ETA The Immp is learning to drive finally. We passed the Medford VFW — they have a sign up: All Lives Matter. Amirite?
Frankensteinbeck
@PenAndKey:
I agree with almost all of your statement, but not quite on this one detail. It leaves out what an extreme, absurd level of cowardice Trump has demonstrated. He doesn’t need just one person supporting him. He needs to feel like he’s being widely praised, and to not face any threats even as minor as the possibility someone will yell at him in person. That’s why he spent days hiding rather than actively trying to make things worse. Then his pride got stung enough for him to lash out. Now that that’s bitten him in the ass, hopefully he’ll go back to hiding and deflecting.
Immanentize
@PenAndKey: Poor Sean Bean.
Frankensteinbeck
@Immanentize:
No. I saw the tweet myself, so I know it’s real. If he was getting dragged, it was drowned out by his supporters exclaiming his genius and compassion. I saw it a day or two ago and frankly, I don’t want to go to the effort of searching it out and subjecting myself to that dipshittery again.
Immanentize
@Jinchi: If those are straight up BoP guards — not from the special tactical or “cell extraction” teams as they are lovingly called — that is what BoP guards look like. It’s a rough job emotionally, but still a good middle class professional position. All races, types, shaped and sizes welcome. Sadly, all ranges of sadism as well (although I will say in the guard and staff groups, the BoP weed out true bad apples relatively fast because having them work with you can be dangerous to you.)
Immanentize
@Frankensteinbeck: I totally understand and appreciate that. I am actually hoping one of his hangers on wrote that because it is so tone deaf stupid. Thank Dog we dodged that heat seeking nuclear tipped missile.
Frankensteinbeck
@Immanentize:
It’s harder to search also because he did it with a graphic listing all the things that count in his mind as state violence.
J R in WV
@Baud:
The FNYT sure loves obvious open fascism from their chosen leader, don’t they?
They’re flaunting it now!
WereBear
In my experience it’s the only thing that does.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Boy, teach him to drive in metro Boston, and he’ll be ready to mow down pedestrians anywhere he moves to later.
PenAndKey
@Frankensteinbeck: You’re right. With an extreme narcissist it’s always a coin toss whether they’ll lash out or cower when they’re called out for their conduct. At their root they’re cowards. While they’ll do just about anything to sate their impulses they also tend to have a pathological aversion to anything that disrupts their worldview that they’re King Of The Universe. Ken White (WhateverHisNymIsTodayPopeHat) has been calling out Trump’s pathologies and need for “shame avoidance” tactics since he first put his name in the running.
J R in WV
@Jeffro:
Is there a reason???
Hell, yes, there is a reason — it’s name is Trump… he’s the reason!
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: LOL. An old white shouty guy, if I recall correctly. But let me check Wikipedia to make sure. Or not.
Chris Johnson
Depends who you mean. What I think is, the Trump people are full-on traitors collaborating with Russia (this includes McConnell and an assortment of Fox News people, etc. who are much more active and trustworthy conspirators, contrast to Trump’s personal retinue who are more useless wrecking balls there to bluster and do damage)
The specifically Trump people, certain that the (Russian-propagandized, Putin-led) rabble will back them and overthrow the whole country with Hoverrounds and red hats wielded in anger… will cross any line, attempt any stunt. They are absolute bozos and Putin is their model, but Putin is not nearly as dumb as them: Putin is not really their friend, either. The Trump people absolutely mean to wield private mercs or even Russian troops against American citizens, anything you could name, they don’t care. They want that. They will cross that line (are crossing it).
This puts the US military, and a lot of would-be Republican conservatives, in an untenable position. Given plausible deniability, those people would like to pretend Trump isn’t so bad: got them some Supreme Court Justices, got them a win, talks big for the cameras: they would like to believe they can carry on with their subdued racism and sexism and old school belief system and it’d be basically okay if you’re not a criminal and not a whiner.
But Trump doesn’t understand duty, or honor, or any of the things our institutions normally rest on, so they have to FAKE that Trump is not really a damn Caligula or outright traitor. And increasingly, it is impossible to deny.
As far as lines not being crossed, all this is in the full view of the world (which, granted, has its own problems on its hands, but will always keep an eye on us regardless). The US Military knows that. Trump is prepared to lower the military to no more than a gang of ‘green-shirts’ and no better than hired mercs out of Blackwater, is prepared to have them be interchangeable with Russian troops: whoever has the biggest weapons and will obey only Trump.
This, shall we say, violates the military’s code of justice, which isn’t there by accident. Trump’s problem is that he is too crazy to maintain the kayfabe of being a legitimate President… and he is not, and he will not be acting like a legitimate President.
I think if anybody mows down the entire Trump cabal in a bloody insurrection, it will not be antifa, it will not be protesters… it’ll be our own military. And it will be at the point when they are left absolutely no choice but to do so, and then we’ll have to put the pieces back together again (with scattered Russian-backed insurrection from tribes of rightwingers left loose out there).
Our military will snap and take out the Trump cabal before they are reduced to being no better than Blackwater. And more likely, they will white mutiny and refuse to follow unlawful orders, in hopes the problem will be solved without them having to take an openly domestic-political stance. (I think that is more important to the military than the actual justice involved)
Right now, the Trump cabal absolutely needs to make the military become their own private political army, and doesn’t understand that it doesn’t work that way, and that’s the breaking point.
Another Scott
@joel hanes: +1
“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” – Herbert Stein.
Too many PDs think they are independent actors. They cannot and must not be in a civilized society. They must be under control of elected officials. PDs are not essential – they can be disbanded and replaced by something else that better addresses the needs of communities and society.
It’s clear that that needs to happen in many, many places.
Cheers,
Scott.
Warblewarble
They have no honor.Esper and Milely were either led by the nose or they were all in with the stunt. They and all other confederates must go.
Warblewarble
When can we make tRUMP guarded by prison officers permanent
LongHairedWeirdo
Oooh, harsh. “We need all decent Americans; and, we need Republicans”.
And if called on it, she could say “I’m sorry if anyone was offended.” (Which, if you never noticed, is not an expression of remorse, but a statement that you feel sorrow if a person is offended, but not so much that you regret saying it).
LongHairedWeirdo
@Baud: the worst part about the Times headline is, there’s *NO* way Trump has done any such thing. It would require work, and we now know he only does work to try to grab the spotlight, and claim credit for the actions of others.
A better headline is “Trump throws a hissy fit, and demands ACTION and DOMINANCE.”