Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Naturally gregarious and alpha

Usually wrong but never in doubt.

Han shot first.

The Math Demands It!

Wetsuit optional.

This is a big f—–g deal.

Too inconsequential to be sued

Women: They Get Shit Done

Mission Accomplished!

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Lighten up, Francis.

We can agree to disagree, but I’m right.

Almost as fun as hiking the Appalachian Trail.

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

I thought we were promised Infrastructure Week

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Also, too.

We still have time to mess this up!

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

What fresh hell is this?

Yes we did.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

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Semi-Respite Open Thread: “Typefaces of Protest”

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With thanks to commentor DMSilev…

The Spousal Unit particularly liked Bayeux Moderne, but my personal favorite is Winsome Light. You know she’s serious, cuz the hearts over her “I”s have been downgraded to mere empty circles!

This was a reply to that thread, and it might actually be of use to some of you for future marches:

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Long Read: Trump Didn’t ‘Send In The Troops.’ They Were Already There.

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C. J. Chivers has written a great piece on using military troops in civil disorders.

Chivers was a Marine, and participated in one of these exercises many years ago. He shares his own feelings and what he sees now as a reporter. His writing about military issues, particularly the feelings of the troops, is as sensitive as anything I’ve seen anywhere. He’s a great writer.

[Disclosure: I know him a little from having been a source on technical material at various times.]

It is a long read, so there’s no one piece I can pull out to summarize it. Here are a few samples:

How a government prepares for and uses violence — including when, why and against whom — contains on some level a declaration about what kind of government that government is. At Tustin, we passed out ammunition, quickly practiced riot-control formations in front of television-news crews and then headed into Los Angeles and cities nearby. As my company arrived in Compton, I’d like to say we understood the context of the role we were given: that even a limited Marine deployment in a genuinely extreme situation would run inevitably into the ugly history of state force in the United States, and who receives the brunt of it. But domestic crowd control had never been our specialty, and because this was 1992, a time before Google and smartphones, we could not readily call anyone or look anything up.

After the mass demonstrations following a white Minneapolis police officer’s killing of George Floyd while his fellow officers looked on, officials in the United States deliberated once again over whether to send American combat troops into cities. The discussion was driven by threats or calls for military action from both President Trump and Senator Tom Cotton, who urged “no quarter” against “insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters and looters” — a proposal for merciless violence against American citizens, including in ill-defined categories, that sounded both reckless and illegal. Official threats of state violence can be little more than performance, a kind of law-and-order signaling, and it was not clear how seriously Trump considered following through. But it was impossible, upon hearing Trump’s and Cotton’s bellicosity, not to remember how close my Marines came, in the confusion of a job they were not trained to do, to killing a child.

Baku, Azerbaijan, 2005: The degree of control was chilling, reflecting the unstated but perfectly clear logic of a confident, contemptuous power. It was not just that in any contest for the street, the government and its forces enjoyed a lopsided advantage and would use it — a position hardly unique to authoritarian rule. It was that the kleptocracy wanted this crackdown seen and transmitted, so any would-be Azeri activists would know what to expect if they challenged the state’s central tenet, which was that the Aliyevs would never willingly yield what they saw as theirs. Brute force and the ability to command it — not elections — determined who got to hold power and run the national rackets. State violence did more than clear the streets. It served as lesson and show. Almost 15 years later, Ilham Aliyev is still president.

Read the whole thing. And open thread!

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On the Ground at the Custer County Protest

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by Miss Bianca

First, of all, some context: Custer County, CO, where I live, is demographically speaking a ‘frontier’ county: our total population is only about 4500 people, the overwhelming majority (around 90%) white, and the median age is 58, and the sociopolitical culture relentlessly conservative, with a few pockets of liberality centered around cultural institutions like the community radio station and the performing arts center (where I work).

So when I say that I expected to be one of about seven people at the planned Black Lives Matter rally, I was only partly kidding. In the event, over 100 people showed up, and it would likely have been more, but for some confusion – the weather was supposed to be stormy, so the original organizer first called it off, and then cancelled the cancellation once it became apparent that people were ready to go, rain or shine. So here we go:

 

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THE MOUNTIES

This is how I thought of them, tho’ I have no idea whether they were actually part of the mounted posse or not (yes, a “mounted posse” is a thing out here). All I know is that these two ladies on horseback were across the street from the park where we started (with a kneeling demonstration timed for 8 minutes, 46 seconds, in honor of George Floyd), and then they processed up the street in front of us before turning off onto a side street. So, I don’t really know why they were there, but they sure looked cool!

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The Sheriff had advised us to make sure to stay on the sidewalks. We split up and marched on both sides of the street. Observe the social distancing protocol (laxer on the way back, I must admit, but everyone was masked and remained masked throughout the event).

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There were some great signs. This one struck me as the ultimate statement for our times right now.

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The march began and ended at The Bluffs, a park at the end of the street at the edge of town with a stunning view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. One of the coolest things about it for me was meeting people like this young family, who moved to the area a couple years ago.

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Signs, signs, everywhere signs…

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…including the “counter protest” outside the Sentinel office. The Sentinel is a right-wing newsletter (I won’t dignify it with the term “newspaper”) that serves as the fulcrum for white supremacist reaction. They have done a lot of damage socially and politically here, and they got their start from the extreme butt-hurt that the white gun nut crowd here experienced when the former editor of the real paper in town, the Wet Mountain Tribune (full disclosure, as Adam would say: I write for this paper), wrote an editorial poking fun at the open-carry zealots in the 4th of July parade. Boom – all of a sudden we’ve got a full-blown opposition organization, funded by some rabid right-winger from out of town (talk about your “outside agitators”!). Speaking of which, that’s what these folks were expecting – the Sheriff had to talk them down. But as you can see, they’re still out there. They were chanting “USA! USA! USA!” and “ALL LIVES MATTER!”  as we passed. And of course, none of them masked. K-K-K-Keepin’ It K-K-K-Klassy all the way…

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We all bunched up and waded right through the suckers on the way back. What you can’t hear is one of the white supremacist goobers who got in our faces leering “I can’t breathe.” We had been warned not to react to any provocation, but man, that one was particularly hard to ignore.

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RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

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But we all got through it and went on with our pleasant and useful day. I am hopeful that this march – which was organized by a very young man, and featured a multicultural, multi-generational crowd, which overwhelmingly abided by COVID-19 protocols – will represent the future of our county. One of the women who worked for my paper, who has gone over to the Dark Side with the bigots, lamented the other day that “I’ve lived in this valley for 20 years, and I don’t recognize it anymore.” To which I say, “Right on.”

On the Ground at the Custer County Protest
END OF THE MARCH

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Open Thread: Capital City Under Siege Fights Back

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But seriously: Be careful out there, people…

… Starting at 6 a.m. Saturday, police will close much of downtown to vehicle traffic, creating a pedestrian-only demonstration zone stretching between the southern boundary of the Mall and L Street NW to the north. The western boundary is along 19th Street NW, and the eastern edge is roughly Ninth Street NW through downtown and Third Street NW along the Mall.

A fortified perimeter around the White House, including a tall black fence that was erected late this week after days of volatile confrontations between police and demonstrators, will remain.

Unlike many other large-scale demonstrations that the District hosts, no one person or organization is leading Saturday’s events.

Nearly a dozen different demonstrations run by as many organizations or individuals have been advertised for Saturday, starting at 6 a.m. and running into the night. Many protesters plan to stay out until the early hours of Sunday morning.

There are no leaders to speak to and no agenda to follow…

Even Black Lives Matter DC has repeatedly announced this week that it is not behind all the grass-roots activism that has taken hold and flooded the city with protesters. Online, people from around the Washington region and neighboring states announced their intention to join and encouraged others to do the same.

D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said no arrests have been made during protests since Tuesday. He said he hoped that that streak would continue as he expected on Saturday to see the largest crowd since protests began in the city on May 29…

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Crowdsourcing: Good Places to Donate for Bail Funds?

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As David Anderson pointed out in the post right before this:

I am not worried about the outdoor spread.  I am very worried about COVID spread among individuals arrested/detained and forced into tight, indoor space with a bunch of unfamiliar individuals who will then disperse throughout metro areas.

We received a request this morning for crowdsourcing of good places to donate bail funds.  That seems like a good idea!   So if this is of interest to you, and you’d like do what you can to help keep protesters safe, you know what to do.

Here’s the note we received – I haven’t included the jackal’s name because I don’t know that the person wants to be identified.

Hi, I mean this to all of you FPers, because you’re all such great people and -leaders-.

These are horrible times. If you could think about putting up a list of good places we readers might donate, that might be useful. For myself, I have two priorities -right- -now-:(1) bail funds in DC, and (2) bail funds in MPLS. After that, I know what to do for GOTV in Texas and Georgia, and more generally supporting candidates nationwide.

But it’s possible that many of your readers are unaware of where to donate for bail funds. And honestly, I”m a little in the same boat wrt DC. So if you guys have thoughts on this, I’m sure we would welcome them.

Crazy time, crazy time. I must say, reading B-J over the years has been somewhat of preparation. Now’s the moment when we get to find out whether we’re citizens, or free-riders, I guess. Anyway, any advice you had to give us, would be useful.

As always, thank you for B-J, and for ALL your contributions, posts, and guidance.

Update:  Recommendation in the comments, see comment #8 for more details:

DO NOT donate to any fund claiming to be for the benefit of Louisville detainees.

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Weaponizing Bullshit, Chattering Classes Edition

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A couple of weeks ago (a gazillion years in COVID time, I know), former intellectual Niall Ferguson published a piece in the Sunday Times, asserting that the Chinese government had allowed travel from Hubei province for international destinations after banning such trips to destinations within China, adding,

As far as I can tell from the available records, however, regular direct flights from Wuhan continued to run to London, Paris, Rome, New York and San Francisco throughout January and in some cases into February.

I’m not going to bother linking to the column itself–Murdoch clicks, and it’s behind a paywall;  I’ll connect this instead to the blog post from which I got the quote and information above, written by Daniel A. Bell, dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University, and a professor at Tsinghua U. (sometimes called China’s MIT, though I suspect the nicknaming may go the other direction soon).  As in, not a dummy, based in China, and with some expert ability to navigate knowledge in that setting. (H/t James Fallows for the link to the post, btw.)

Bell was, he wrote, “surprised by the allegation,” especially given the speed with which Ferguson’s assertion was picked up in the US and Canada by ready-to-otherize-China folks. So he asked Ferguson if he was sure. Ferguson replied:

 “I can assure you I wouldn’t write a sentence like that if I had not researched it rather thoroughly.” To support his claim, he sent me several pieces of evidence.

Weaponizing Bullshit, Fancy Pants Edition

The evidence was, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn, bullshit–links to articles that did not support the incendiary claim in Ferguson’s article.

Ferguson also sent Bell flight records that the former historian of 19th century British banking believed confirmed that 31 flights had in fact left Wuhan for Europe after the domestic travel ban kicked in on January 23.

Did those records actually show that? Here’s Bell:

 I checked all the flights listed on the spreadsheet Professor Ferguson sent me. It turns out that none of the flights that supposedly left from Wuhan after 11:26 am on Jan. 23rd actually left from Wuhan. The flights listed as red on Ferguson’s spreadsheet were cancelled. The six listed as black left from Guangzhou and in normal times would do a stopover in Wuhan on the way to SFO but the stopover was cancelled. The app shows the actual flight paths of those flights as direct from Guangzhou, bypassing Wuhan.

Bell goes on, with all the receipts that show that Ferguson, most kindly, simply did not understand the records he was using.

Bell sent his results to Ferguson, by the way. With this result:

Ferguson continues to support his allegation even after I pointed out that the evidence he provided does not support it. That’s worrisome. Conspiracy theorizing of this sort deflects attention from what actually went wrong. And it fuels the demonization of the Chinese political system at the same time we need collaboration between China and the rest of the world to deal with an urgent global pandemic.

In this latest effusion, the consequences of those career choices are on display: what is either a lazy mistake or the willingness to trade in too-good-to-check conspiracy theories (leavened with a measure of anti-Chinese bigotry, perhaps) produced a column based on an elementary error in reading a slightly technical source, combined with a willful misreading of a couple of news stories.

This is what passes for the cream of conservative intellectual life these days.

TL:DR Niall Ferguson–and the prominence given to him by credulous editors–is one of the reasons we can’t have nice things. There are others who are more consequential, more harmful in their reckless disregard of evidence, and the obligation not to spew bullshit.

Mistakes are one thing–I’ve made plenty and will make more. It’s the contempt for the idea of even trying to get it right, to allow reality to confound your desired narrative that makes the contemporary radical right such an existential threat.

Fuck it. I’m tired. Whacking those who are wrong on the internet is an endless task–by design: the whole enterprise of illiberal authoritarianism turns on wearing out the opposition, as much as overtly crushing it.  But still–this is the kind of chickenshit up with which no civilized society should have to put.

Open thread.

Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters, 1799.

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Whatever You Do Now, Don’t Turn Around

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I think we know that no matter whether COVID-19 is a massive epidemic, or a nothingburger (in terms of US mortality), the Republicans will politicize it. The trade disruption will, somehow, be Democrats’ fault for opposing TPP, or whatever other stupid reason they cook up. The deaths will be due to Obamacare impinging upon the robust function of the invisible hand.

The reality is that a COVID-19 pandemic will highlight one issue where Democrats can win: our fucked-up healthcare system. Sick people will avoid going to the doctor because they don’t have insurance (or good insurance), and they’ll infect others. Our overcrowded emergency departments, still the first point of contact for the sick working poor who don’t have a family physician, will grind to a standstill under the weight of infection precautions. The for-profit urgent care centers that dot the landscape around here will be relatively useless monuments to the greed of the hospital systems that overbuilt them to capture insurance money.

Every single Democratic candidate has a good healthcare plan that would be better than this. M4A is miles ahead of our common disaster.

And then there’s the incompetence, just the sheer stupidity that would lead the State Department to overrule the CDC. Expect more of this in the days and weeks to come.

We need to stick it to Trump on this one – it’s all on his watch and we need to make him own it before his media machine makes it Obama’s Katrina. We have the plans, and we have the competence. For once, that ought to be appreciated.

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