Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Books are my comfort food!

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Not all heroes wear capes.

So many bastards, so little time.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Late Night Open Thread: Choose Your Side

Late Night Open Thread: Choose Your Side

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… The country is almost three months into a bewildering and totally unprecedented nationwide public lockdown. Thirty or forty million people have lost their jobs. More than (probably many more than) one hundred thousand people have lost their lives. And – critically – this great civic storm has been borne disproportionately in the nation’s great cities and among its black and hispanic working classes. Meanwhile much of May has been taken up with public discussion and protest about people’s demands for haircuts and freedom from cloth masks. I’m not saying this is because of the pandemic. But it’s certainly the context outside of which none of this can be truly understood…

We are still in the midst of this historical moment in which rising and growing public demands for a more equitable and just society are colliding with a consolidating backlash against them. This is the confrontation that gave us Trumpism and his presidency – inextricably bound up with his brazen and indifferently predatory personality – is only intensifying the conflict. Trump first tried to inflame the violence in his favor. In the last 24 hours, much as he did with COVID, he seems to have gotten tired of the civil conflict and wanted to move onto something more fun – to space launches, judicial nominations, anything. Shortly enough, he’ll return to incitement. It is hard not to look at all of this and not see an escalating gyre of public crises and catastrophes, many of which are not entirely the fault of the President, but all of which are deepened, accentuated and inflamed by his disastrous and cataclysmic presidency.

Living in history is about not knowing the future. As observers and participants all we can do – what we must do – is align our values and the future we would like to live with the reality of the moment and our actions within it and push forward to whatever that future will be.


The NYTimes, still insisting ‘we’ should all gobble down that… Shinola:

… The scene on Friday night, described by a person with firsthand knowledge, added to the sense of unease at the White House as demonstrations spread after the brutal death of a black man in police custody under a white officer’s knee. While in the end officials said they were never really in danger, Mr. Trump and his family have been rattled by protests that turned violent three nights in a row near the Executive Mansion.

After days in which the empathy he expressed for George Floyd, the man killed, was overshadowed by his combative threats to ramp up violence against looters and rioters, Mr. Trump spent Sunday out of sight, even as some of his campaign advisers were recommending that he deliver a nationally televised address before another night of possible violence. The building was even emptier than usual as some White House officials planning to work were told not to come in case of renewed unrest.

By nightfall on Sunday, protesters had returned to vicinity of the White House in force, and sirens wailed through much of the downtown Washington as the police rushed to the scene to reinforce the Secret Service and National Guard. The mayor imposed an 11 p.m. curfew in hopes of avoiding late-night clashes.

Mr. Trump remained cloistered inside, periodically sending out Twitter messages like “LAW & ORDER!” While some aides urged him to keep off Twitter, Mr. Trump could not resist blasting out a string of messages through the day berating Democrats for not being tough enough and attributing the turmoil to radical leftists…

Reader Interactions

157Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    Not giving the FTFNYT a click, and I’m not even sure I buy your summary clip. And I honestly don’t care. He gotta go. The method at this point I’m almost indifferent to.

  2. 2.

    Chetan Murthy

    Noah puts it so cogently and yet eloquently.  ISTR an op-ed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar that was also very eloquent.  Sigh.

  3. 3.

    Gravenstone

    After days in which the empathy he expressed for George Floyd

    Empathy? That stupid fuck couldn’t fake empathy if someone held a gun to his head. He mouthed words written by others and totally devoid of meaning to him. Fuck the fucking NYT for constantly trying to humanize this ambulatory waste of protoplasm.

  4. 4.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    NYTimes via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    Mr. Trump remained cloistered inside, periodically sending out Twitter messages like “LAW & ORDER!” While some aides urged him to keep off Twitter, Mr. Trump could not resist blasting out a string of messages through the day berating Democrats for not being tough enough …

    This coward is hiding and cowering in his underground bunker like a naked mole-rat, and he’s calling Democrats not tough?

    Projection, thy name is Trump.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    As cities burned, Trump stayed silent — other than tweeting fuel on the fire

    Never in the 1,227 days of Trump’s presidency has the nation seemed to cry out for leadership as it did Sunday, yet Trump made no attempt to provide it.

    That was by design. Trump and some of his advisers calculated that he should not speak to the nation because he had nothing to say, according to a senior administration official. He had no tangible policy or action to announce, nor did he feel an urgent motivation to try to bring people together. So he stayed silent.

    The sad thing is that Senior Administration Official is correct: the absolute best thing Trump can do right now is nothing. Any actual action he took, any thing he says, would literally be worse than nothing.

  11. 11.

    ziggy

    I really hope it did rattle him. I hope he got a taste of what it might be like if he tries to pull a fast one with our voting system. I hope he understands now what it might be like if he doesn’t leave the WH quietly.

  12. 12.

    Yutsano

    @WaterGirl: We need to pitch in and buy a full page ad in the FTFNYT that tells them to stop treating him like a normal President. He is not now. He hasn’t been since he descended his stupid gold escalator in 2015. He won’t be for the remainder of his (hopefully) short term. They need to get their mouths off his toadstool just for their sweet sweet book deals. But yet they insist upon it. It’s greed and hubris at this point. That’s the only reasons I can think of.

  13. 13.

    ballerat

    Meanwhile much of May has been taken up with public discussion and protest about white people’s demands for haircuts and freedom from cloth masks.

    FTFY, Josh Marshall. Specifically Trumper confederate flag-waving white people.

  18. 18.

    Rob

    In my close-in DC suburb: I woke up after being asleep for maybe half an hour. I can hear a copter off in the distance. No, it’s not related to the subway. Metro/WMATA is not burning. But St. John’s Episcopal Church across from Lafayette Park near the White House is on fire. Except that it isn’t, I just read. Some chaos downtown right now.

  22. 22.

    Yutsano

    @WaterGirl:

     

    On average, we observe estimate rates of around $150,000 USD for a full page ad in the New York Times. Still, this number is not set in stone and varies depending on your options of color as well as the section and even the context of your advertisement. On occasion, we also see the price being negotiated.

    That would be…quite the fundraiser. Anyone know Jeff Bezos by chance?

  24. 24.

    ballerat

    @Yutsano: It’s not simply greed and hubris. The Sulzbergers are right wing authoritarian sympathizers. They’ve always boosted nazis.

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Hiding in the bunker, waiting for the antifa army to take the fountain on the south lawn and Steiner, damn him, failed to follow orders.

  27. 27.

    Luciamia

    Bunker? I’d stay out of there if I were ye, Mr. Prez. In every horror movie, you don’t go in the basement. Cause they’re coming for you. Oh, yes. Ha-ha-ha!

  30. 30.

    Origuy

    The City of San Jose ordered an 8:30 curfew an hour or so ago. It’s 8:18 now. There was a protest at City Hall Friday night that ended up blocking US 101, several miles away. There was some damage and a woman was arrested for driving an SUV at the protesters, but nothing like what has happened elsewhere. I didn’t hear about any thing major last night. The curfew is supposed to last a week.

  32. 32.

    Salty Sam

    Was talking to my son in Chicago this afternoon. He went to the BLM protest yesterday, but left before the rioting started, and said he’s been hearing police sirens all day. While we were talking, he said, “Hold on… HOLY SHIT, just a block away from me there’s a crowd surrounding a cop car and throwing bricks!”  And a few minutes later, he said an older man wearing some sort of fascist insignia was standing in Logan Square shouting “Heil Hitler!”

    I don’t think this genie’s gonna go back in the bottle for some time…

  34. 34.

    SFAW

    First of all, re: “the empathy he expressed for George Floyd”: it’s “sympathy,” not “empathy.” [Unless he was somehow saying he understands how George Floyd felt as he was being killed.] It would be great if the FTFTFNYT had editors. [Yes, I realize it’s now common/accepted to use them interchangeably.] But I don’t for a minute believe he was sympathetic nor empathetic.

    Mr. Trump remained cloistered inside

    So, let’s assess for a moment:

    Since 1/20/17, the Oval Office Occupant has been the:

    Racist-in-Chief

    Liar-in-Chief

    Traitor-in-Chief

    Moron-in-Chief

    Murderer-in-Chief

    And now the Coward-in-Chief [or “Pu$$y-in-Chief,” if one is feeling crude]

    If I live long enough to have grandchildren, they’ll think I’m lying when I tell them about him.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    Good to see the Trevor Noah piece get noted. His manifest pain and distress over what is happening leads him to dig deep, and to make some brilliant observations about the nature of social contracts.

  37. 37.

    MisterForkbeard

    @dmsilev: Oh, maybe he could say something like “Having reviewed my actions over the past decades and realized I contributed to the problem of systemic racism and particularly encouraged it since I began to run for President, I am withdrawing my candidacy for 2020 and resigning effective immediately.” This would be positive.

    And also not possible.

  38. 38.

    HumboldtBlue

    I ummm … I uhhh … I am, ahem, The …

    That’s Billy Honsal on the loudspeaker and standing next to him is Steve Watson (EPD) and I can’t fucking tell you how utterly mind-bending that scene is. I mean, holy fuckballs, that … what the fuck is going on?

    There is definitely a cosmetic nature to it but it has to mean something when men steeped in law enforcement from birth have recognized a new digital world. If that’s what keeps folks from burning shit Billy Honsal can dance in the street all night long.

  40. 40.

    Brachiator

    @Salty Sam:

    And a few minutes later, he said an older man wearing some sort of fascist insignia was standing in Logan Square shouting “Heil Hitler!”

    I don’t think this genie’s gonna go back in the bottle for some time…

    This has got to make it harder for Trump. He won’t know whether to condemn or applaud the protesters.

    He fed this beast, encouraged it. And now that it may have broken loose, he doesn’t have the slightest clue about what to do next.

  41. 41.

    SFAW

    @ballerat:

    The Sulzbergers are right wing authoritarian sympathizers. They’ve always boosted nazis.

    I was unaware that “Punch” was that way. “Pinch” and “Pinche,” sure. Are you including Punch (who was publisher from 1963 to 1992) in that

    ETA: Pinch (whose Clinton hatred was obvious) was publisher from 1992 to 2017/2018, and Pinche since then.

  42. 42.

    August West

    I second Jay Rosen and would like to see more police officers follow this example:

    Jay Rosen

    Cable news should be all over this. Different model of policing. County Sheriff says he will put down the baton and join protestors as they march. The chant comes up, “Walk with us! Walk with us!” And he does. https://nbc25news.com/news/local/justice-for-george-floyd-protest-in-flint-twp via @BobfromtheBoro

    h/t https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/1267107938361098241

     

     

  43. 43.

    CaseyL

    $150,000?? For, it seems, the minimal ad: B&W text, last page of the least-read section, and nothing more.

    We might get a better deal on printing off ten thousand flyers with that message and hiring a helicopter to drop them over the NYT building.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    @Brachiator

    He won’t know whether to condemn or applaud the protesters.

    “Looting? What the hell did they do with all those checks I signed? Tell Jared to stop payment on those NOW!”

    //

  45. 45.

    Aleta

    The media could stop using the words that Tulsa, OK chose to name “the Tulsa Race Riot” or the “Tulsa Race Massacre”  (99 years ago today).  Why isn’t it called the Tulsa White Riot or the Tulsa White Looting, Arson and Massacre.

    (Post) The massacre … began on May 31, 1921, when a white mob descended on Greenwood… Over the next 48 hours, historians believe as many as 300 black people were killed and more than 10,000 were left homeless, after businesses and homes were burned to the ground. There were reports of airplanes flying above Greenwood and dropping kerosene bombs. Witnesses recounted seeing white mobs looting the homes of black people and setting the houses on fire. “They tried to kill all the black folks they could see,” a survivor, George Monroe, recalled.

    On June 1, 1921, martial law was declared. Troops rounded up black survivors and detained them in camps throughout the city.

     

    In 2001, the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, which was charged by the state with finding out what happened during the massacre, recommended reparations for massacre survivors and descendants, but city officials ignored the commission’s recommendations. The city also did not act on the commission’s recommendation to excavate for possible mass graves.

    … In October, scientists and forensic anthropologists armed with ground-penetrating radar began scanning the grounds of Tulsa’s Oaklawn Cemetery [for mass graves]. In December, a team of forensic anthropologists and archaeologists, led by the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey at the University of Oklahoma, announced that they found “possible common graves” at two sites in Tulsa.

    The city was scheduled to begin digging at Oaklawn Cemetery in April, but the excavation was postponed by the covid-19 pandemic. Officials said they will reschedule the dig when it is safe for scientists to travel.

     

    … “(W)e have compensated other parts of this state for mass terror — the Oklahoma City bombing. Yet Greenwood, the first site of an aerial bombing terrorism in this country, has not received a dime.”  [Rev. Robert Turner, pastor of the historic Vernon AME Church where black people hid during the massacre]

    In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed without comment a lawsuit against Tulsa, its police department and the state of Oklahoma, demanding reparations. Survivors — many of them in their 90s — stood on the steps of the Supreme Court utterly crestfallen, having hoped for justice before they died.

    Otis G. Clark, who was 18 when the mob burned down his home during the massacre, explained his loss. “Family and friends missing. Jobs gone,” Clark said in an interview before he died in 2012. “The city took my grandmother’s land and didn’t give us nothing in return. We suffered. But Tulsa has given us nothing … even to this day — “

  47. 47.

    debbie

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    The mayor of Columbus, after reviewing photos, etc. from the Saturday protests (which included pepper-spraying a U.S. Rep), said he met with the police chief and told him things needed to change, and the police chief is making changes. Not sure what, but hopefully something.

  48. 48.

    Kelly

    @Aleta:Why isn’t it called the Tulsa White Riot or the Tulsa White Looting, Arson and Massacre.

    Tulsa Pogrom?

  49. 49.

    Brachiator

    After days in which the empathy he expressed for George Floyd, the man killed, was overshadowed by his combative threats to ramp up violence against looters and rioters, Mr. Trump spent Sunday out of sight

    Now we have a problem. The NYT appears to be referring to some weak formal Trump utterance, but deliberately softening Trump’s spectacular failure to offer any consolation to the victim’s family. From the Guardian and many other reports.

    But according to Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, the conversation did not go well, as he said Trump gave him little chance to express his views and appeared to have no interest in what he was trying to say.

    “He didn’t give me an opportunity to even speak,” Floyd told MSNBC on Saturday. “It was hard. I was trying to talk to him, but he just kept, like, pushing me off, like ‘I don’t want to hear what you’re talking about.’

    “And I just told him, I want justice. I said that I couldn’t believe that they committed a modern-day lynching in broad daylight.”

    The NYT are unofficial apologists for the Trump regime.

  53. 53.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Top Italian Doctor says Coronavirus Losing It’s Potency

    ROME (Reuters) – The new coronavirus is losing its potency and has become much less lethal, a senior Italian doctor said on Sunday.

    “In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” said Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan in the northern region of Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of Italy’s coronavirus contagion.

    “The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago,” he told RAI television.

    Italy has the third highest death toll in the world from COVID-19, with 33,415 people dying since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21. It has the sixth highest global tally of cases at 233,019.

    However new infections and fatalities have fallen steadily in May and the country is unwinding some of the most rigid lockdown restrictions introduced anywhere on the continent.

    Zangrillo said some experts were too alarmist about the prospect of a second wave of infections and politicians needed to take into account the new reality.

    “We’ve got to get back to being a normal country,” he said. “Someone has to take responsibility for terrorizing the country.”

    The government urged caution, saying it was far too soon to claim victory.

    “Pending scientific evidence to support the thesis that the virus has disappeared … I would invite those who say they are sure of it not to confuse Italians,” Sandra Zampa, an undersecretary at the health ministry, said in a statement.

    “We should instead invite Italians to maintain the maximum caution, maintain physical distancing, avoid large groups, to frequently wash their hands and to wear masks.”

    A second doctor from northern Italy told the national ANSA news agency that he was also seeing the coronavirus weaken.

    “The strength the virus had two months ago is not the same strength it has today,” said Matteo Bassetti, head of the infectious diseases clinic at the San Martino hospital in the city of Genoa.

    “It is clear that today the COVID-19 disease is different.”

    Thoughts? Zangrillo’s “alarmist” and “somebody’s got to answer for terrorizing the country” make him highly suspect to me. Sounds like he has some agenda and the rhetoric is a lot like those employed here in the US by the right wing

  54. 54.

    Subsole

    @SFAW:

    Yeah. What blows my mind is a thousand years from now historians are gonna look back on this guy as the American Drusus, his flaws exaggerated by political opponents. “It must be polemic. There is simply no way anyone could possibly be that worthless,” they’ll say. The poor, naive bastards.

  56. 56.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m thinking that one of two things is true:

    (1) this guy’s a genius, and is gonna get a Nobel Prize for discovering a case of viral evolution that completely breaks ALL the accepted theories of how that works.  All of them, Katie.

    (2) He’s a crank or a knave.

  58. 58.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    berating Democrats for not being tough enough and attributing the turmoil to radical leftists

    If Trump’s going to attribute the violence solely to “radical leftists”, I’m not going to play right into his hands and blame groups like Antifa, many of whom have done good work when it comes to opposing white supremacists during Charlottesville and all the Proud Boys/Patriot Prayer riots in Portland for the past few years

  60. 60.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I’d like to think he’s just a crank too, but the article quotes a second infectious disease doctor in Italy who’s saying he’s seeing the same thing. They could both be wrong, just like how it was previously thought the virus was spreading on the West Coast since mid January and it turned out to only be spreading since early February

  61. 61.

    Subsole

    @NotMax:

    I… could almost see that happening.

     

    Vile.

    Not nasty.

    Vile.

    The tiniest fucking tyrant imaginable. And always, horribly, shrinking.

  62. 62.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Two more thoughts:

    (1) It’s interesting, isn’t it, that nobody else, anywhere else, has remarked on this?  Is this something specific about the virus in Italy?  In which case, no effect on what we do?  B/c shit, Sweden is still a charnel house, the UK is vying to join them, etc.

    (2) Wait for replication, my friend.  Wait for replication.  And like Cheryl says, wait for publication in reputable venues.  And support from other well-regarded scientists.  Remember Pons & Fleischman, and how they were supposedly well-regarded electrochemists before their “cold fusion” article.  But nobody could replicate, and pretty soon that overwhelmed whatever credibility they brought with them.

  64. 64.

    randy khan

    Since it’s an open thread:

    Christo is dead at 84, from natural causes.  He and Jeanne-Claude (they go together; they always belong together) were the reason that I first paid attention to contemporary art as a teenager, and seeing The Gates in person was a highlight of my life.  They were visionaries who worked like crazy to make their visions come to pass.  R.I.P.

  65. 65.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    While it should go without saying that few people want looting and rioting, I’m tired of the focus on it.  How much property is worth a life, let alone hundreds of years of oppression?

     

    If we had millions of peaceful protesters and a single person broke a single window, that window would be all our anointed mainstream media would talk about.

  66. 66.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I think that’s becoming the reaction and of course, it makes absolute sense which means America tried everything else it could until they found a (maybe) solution.

  68. 68.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I’m thinking that one of two things is true:

    (1) this guy’s a genius, and is gonna get a Nobel Prize for discovering a case of viral evolution that completely breaks ALL the accepted theories of how that works.  All of them, Katie.

    (2) He’s a crank or a knave.

    Well, if the first is true, he must have judged it’s worth the professional risk to make the statement.

    If the second is true, there’s a lot of money to be made from fools.

  69. 69.

    Fair Economist

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’ f***** nonsense to claim COVID is “weaker”. It’s still killing a hundred Italians every DAY. The virus is under control because, and only because, Italy is still following strong public hygiene measures only marginally less strict than US “lockdowns”.

  70. 70.

    different-church-lady

    While he was bunkered… uh, hunkered down, I wonder if Trump put any thought into the consequences of his constantly trying to whip an entire country into an angry frenzy.

  72. 72.

    Martin

    @Rob: There’s a small outbuilding across the street from the church in Lafayette park that was definitely on fire.  I doubt it has an address so any fire response would have referenced the church.

    There was a fire on the other side of 16th street from the church last night.

  74. 74.

    Brachiator

    @different-church-lady:

    While he was bunkered… uh, hunkered down, I wonder if Trump put any thought into the consequences of his constantly trying to whip an entire country into an angry frenzy.

    No. He was probably trying to think of a new way to whip the entire country into an angry frenzy.

  75. 75.

    Martin

    So, this is expanding out in a different way.

    Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US
    America’s occupation by militarized police is in full view
    Over the past 72 hours, people across the US have captured what may be the most comprehensive live picture of police brutality ever. Any one of the videos we’ve seen could have sparked a national discussion, with people picking apart their elements, searching for context to argue about, and digging through the pasts of everyone involved. But it’s not just one act of violence. It’s everywhere.

    Tech site. This is moving out of politics and the focus is on the police action, not the looters.

  76. 76.

    Martin

    A car enthusiast site

    Demonstrators Across America Are Being Attacked In Car Rammings, Including By Police

    As rage over the police killing of an unarmed black man named George Floyd earlier this week in Minneapolis, Minnesota, morphed into demonstrations and protests the country over against police brutality, numerous incidents of cars being used as ramming weapons against demonstrators have occurred, including by police in marked vehicles.

  78. 78.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Brachiator: I’m sure he knows that it’s the only way he’s keepin’ his freedom, short of flight to a non-extradition country.

  79. 79.

    tokyokie

    @Aleta:

    The media could stop using the words that Tulsa, OK chose to name “the Tulsa Race Riot” or the “Tulsa Race Massacre”  (99 years ago today).  Why isn’t it called the Tulsa White Riot or the Tulsa White Looting, Arson and Massacre.

     

    I’m a native of Tulsa, and I have started referring to it as the Greenwood Pogrom. All my grandparents lived in Tulsa at that time, and none of them ever talked about it. I doubt that my paternal grandfather, a Republican school district superintendent participated, but I’m not so sure about my other grandfather, whose mother was named for a Confederate general, and who, if he didn’t participate, would have certainly been sympathetic with the Klan.

  81. 81.

    ballerat

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yep but nevertheless the NYT historically has historically shown a lot of love for fascists.

    Then came Hitler’s Holocaust. “I never thought the leopards would eat our faces”, sobbed the dumbasses who supported the Leopard Eating Peoples’ Faces Party.

    People like that never learn their lesson.

    Trump has nazi stink all over him. I don’t think money and hubris explains all of it. The owners of the NYT have bad judgement. They haven’t learned. They’re still boosting fascists.

  82. 82.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Good advice.

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Yeah, it is funny how nobody else is seeing this elsewhere huh?

    @Subsole:

    That’s an interesting tidbit about Bannon. Who knows?

    @Fair Economist:

    Yeah. I don’t get what this guy’s angle is, unless it’s to try to delegitimize the lockdowns in Italy as others in this thread have suggested

  87. 87.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): IIRC there is massive disinfo coming out of Russia (and China?) downplaying Covid.  The Russian regime has obvious reasons to want covid to run like wildfire in the West, right?  And we know they have lots of useful idiots and agents all over Europe, just as they do here.

  90. 90.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    Tech site. This is moving out of politics and the focus is on the police action, not the looters.

    I’ve noticed this even on local news. The framing is always that the protests are largely peaceful and that rioters/looters are outsiders. It is very encouraging

  91. 91.

    Brachiator

    Mr. Trump remained cloistered inside, periodically sending out Twitter messages like “LAW & ORDER!” While some aides urged him to keep off Twitter, Mr. Trump could not resist blasting out a string of messages through the day berating Democrats for not being tough enough and attributing the turmoil to radical leftists…

    Trump’s Twitter blasts are stupid, but they are more like the kind of crap that private citizen Trump might spew.

    But he is showing once again that he is unfit to be president. He ran away from leading efforts to deal with the pandemic. He is utterly and uselessly absent as these protests turn ugly and some police forces become part of the problem.

    Trump is looking like what he is, a fool, a bumbling amateur, a loser.

    His advisors have got to be looking for something that Trump can use to disguise his incompetence. It’s gotta be something flashy and highly distracting.

  93. 93.

    Mary G

    The exterior lights on the White House are normally only turned off when the President has died.— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) June 1, 2020

    Well his career has.— Speculawyer ??-American (@speculawyer) June 1, 2020

  95. 95.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    No, it’s an independently-owned station affiliated with NBC. It can sometimes fall victim to both-sides Republican wisdom BS too, but it’s normally not too bad

  97. 97.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    “We’ve got to get back to being a normal country,” he said. “Someone has to take responsibility for terrorizing the country.”

    This guy’s credentials appear to be solid, but this statement is just political nonsense and irrelevant to his claims about the virus.  And those claims will be investigated by researchers all over the world.

  99. 99.

    JWR

    @Martin:

    Demonstrators Across America Are Being Attacked In Car Rammings, Including By Police

    It’s almost like, nowadays, Soylent Green is protesters.

  100. 100.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    But the thing is, viruses don’t care about national borders. They’re microscopic self-replicating robots. They’ll infect anybody they can. So, really, all these efforts by these regimes are counterproductive. Putin fundamentally lacks vision and doesn’t give a flying fuck about humanity’s future.

    I wish I could force Putin to watch every single Star Trek series. Surely Gene’s Vision would get him to see the error of his ways?, I say somewhat facetiously

  102. 102.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    We will no longer tolerate the assassination of people of color in this country.

    We will no longer accept the abuse of the power from law enforcement.

    We will no longer accept ineffective government leaders who are tone-deaf, lack compassion or respect for communities of color.

    We will no longer shut up and dribble.

    Washington Wizards @WashWizards

  103. 103.

    ballerat

    First show me where Punch was this paragon of liberality that broke with family tradition.

    Ah, I see another commenter below has noted how Punch didn’t fall too far from the family tree.

    [thanks to David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch, I dimly recollected there was something re Punch’s NYT tenure.]

  106. 106.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @SFAW: Punch had to be dragged kicking and screaming to publish the Pentagon Papers and even then he issued a last second edict slashing the coverage arbitrarily in half.  He also installed the notorious right wing Abe Rosenthal as editor

  107. 107.

    minachica

    I’m watching breathless breaking news in Madison about literal dumpster fires. I can’t help but giggle a little bit

    ETA: Of course realize that this makes me a bad person.

  108. 108.

    aliasofwestgate

    Some rioting was going on in Kenosha, WI earlier. It’s moved more to a suburb area or else they managed to get it calmed down. Pretty sure that group was outsiders from gods know where. We’re between both Chicago and Milwaukee, so its iffy. I live within walking distance of downtown, so i heard the protests going on from about noon onwards. Those went just fine. It’s after 4pm the assholes showed up.

    Hoping i can get to sleep. This is crazy on so many levels. Not just the minor riots here. They even called a small detatchment of the National Guard. That’s when things quieted down almost immediately nearby us.

  110. 110.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Shorter Rick Wilson:  “Sell the House.  Sell the Car.  Sell the Kids.  Find Someone Else.  Forget It I’m Never Coming Back.”

     

    Some say Wilson will return to the republicans after Dump is deposed.  After watching the blow torch ads he’s been posting, I don’t see how – he’s never going back.

  111. 111.

    LeftCoastYankee

    Better night in Portland (so far).  The standard police MO is herd the protestors from downtown (the commercial district) over the bridges to the east side industrial district and “disperse” them there.  The downtown starting point is also an easily identified target place for various bad actors to converge.

    Tonight, there was a “main protest” downtown, where police ran around setting off flash grenades and bullying this group around the curfew hour.  Meanwhile at least 2 larger protests started at police stations much further into the residential areas on the east-side, and both groups marched east to west, and converged over the bridges into downtown.  From the twitter feeds covering it, they are extremely peaceful and well-organized, and everyone is downtown now.

    This guys twitter feed has some short videos of the non-violent tactics https://twitter.com/MrOlmose

    Fingers crossed it stays peaceful.

  114. 114.

    West of the Rockies

    I hope we’re just about at the point where Major Strasser is conducting his little chorus of The Fatherland and Victor Lazlo (PBO and Joe) strike up La Marseillaise.

  116. 116.

    SectionH

    @Yutsano: Fucking OH YEAH! I’m in! with several !!!s to spare. $… 0.1%… sigh.
    Sadly, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t get past the Ad ppl at the FNYT (because ADs are what’s Important…) but damn, it would be sweet…

  117. 117.

    Kent

    Bunker?

    Are we already at the “downfall” part of the GOP’s 1000 year reich?

    What’s left?   Donald and Melania chewing on the cyanide capsules?

  118. 118.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @ballerat: I just remembered, the worse thing he ever did, perhaps the worse thing the paper ever did, was firing Sydney Schanberg only months after “The Killing Fields” won Oscars, giving the paper prestige, because Schanberg criticized a lousy, corrupt real estate deal, that was eventual canceled.    Schanberg had won the Pulitzer and risked his life covering SIX wars for the Times and he was cashiered over hurt fat cat fee fees.

  119. 119.

    JWR

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Hey, something’s gotta keep the lights on. But wow, the person just took the freeway, going in the wrong direction, really really fast! But thankfully, made a U-Turn.

    Back to our new normal news.

  120. 120.

    Brachiator

    The members of the Nutty Authoritarian Club reinforce each other. Brazil leader Bolsonaro is sounding more like Trump.

    Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro joined a rally on Sunday on horseback as supporters urged the closing of the Supreme Court for investigating the right-wing leader, as one of its justices compared the risks to Brazil’s democracy with Hitler’s Germany.

    Deepening a political crisis during one of the world’s worst novel coronavirus outbreaks, Bolsonaro has slammed the top court for investigating his interference in police affairs and opening an inquiry into his supporters’ alleged libel and intimidation campaigns on social media….

    Bolsonaro flew in a military helicopter over the rally in Brasilia where protesters held banners calling for shutting down Brazil’s Congress and top court, known as the STF. One said: “Military Intervention – close Congress and the STF now.”…

    After his helicopter ride, the president walked to the rally and shook hands with supporters, wearing no face mask despite its use being mandatory in the capital to fight the coronavirus outbreak. He then mounted a police horse and trotted past the crowd.

    I wonder if Trump likes horses.

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    @Yutsano:

    I wonder what the WaPo would charge……

    Hell, they might run it for free.

    Yes I doubt that and my doubt level is about 99.2% but still it might be that they would be interested.

  123. 123.

    SectionH

    @West of the Rockies:  Now There’s a nice thing to apply to the current mess. I think I’m going to go watch that lovely scene again in  a few minutes. I only “own” about 17 movies, but that’s one of them.

  125. 125.

    JWR

    @Brachiator: “I wonder if Trump likes horses.”

    No matter. He doesn’t have a Supreme Court threatening to go all Godwin on his ass. And good for that member of Brazil’s SC. Would that we could be so lucky.

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    @different-church-lady:

    Just like shitforbrains can’t think of anyone but himself, he can’t actually plan anything, nor think ahead or behind.

    His entire world is, ME, NOW.

    He gets very pissed when ME, NOW doesn’t compute for others because it’s all that computes for him.

  127. 127.

    ballerat

    @Brachiator: His advisors have got to be looking for something that Trump can use to disguise his incompetence. It’s gotta be something flashy and highly distracting.

    Something like war?

    Not entirely snark, unfortunately. A war with a foreign power like, say, China would entail no small personal risk to that fat fuck coward. But they have nukes too and they know how to target them. A bunker under DC will offer no protection. He’s a coward. So, not that.

    But a war in blue states, or especially swing states…let battleground states become actual battlegrounds and he has a twofer, a distraction powerful and compelling enough to overtop the news cycle and yet stoke his base to fever pitch by giving them license for the boogaloo pogrom of Those People that they have been fantasizing about since he was elected. Hell, since Johnson signed the CVA.

    This is exactly what trumpers elected Trump for. What did you think MAGA really meant?

    He does this, and MAGAts will name their children and their children’s children after him. The survivors, anyways.

    And bonus, no retaliatory nukes, so his orange ass is safe in his bunker. Because Minnesota or Michigan is never gonna drop even a JDAM on his ass.

    Of course what happens the week after is worse for him, even if worse for the country, but he doesn’t think that way.

    So war it is.

    I was pretty sure he would start a war during his administration. I just never thought it would be coming from inside the United States.

    Then again, Trump has managed to destroy the united part of the United States of America.

    Which means, if you are honest about it, he has actually managed to destroy the United States as a nation.

    We are nothing without unity. E Pluribus none, house divided, all that. We can be beaten piecemeal. We are being beaten piecemeal. Divide and conquer is the oldest strategy and the most effective. The Trumper War will only decide who gets to do what with which scraps. The rest will be ungovernable.

  128. 128.

    hitchhiker

    I usually turn to history for solace. Current read is Erik Larson’s new book about Churchill’s 1st year as Prime Minister, May 10, 1940 to May 10, 1941.

    He was the right person for that moment, or at least he was one of the people alive at the time who had it in them to see what needed to happen and deliver that. It’s sort of a miracle that he was the one in charge.

    Churchill’s ability to know what needed to be said in order for British people to keep their nerve and trust that they could somehow keep going really was something. It’s hard to look up from the book and witness our current situation, with bunkerboy hiding in the White House while he shouts about law and order on twitter.

    The luftwaffe dropped many tons of bombs during that year, mostly at night. They put those whistle things on them to make them more terrifying, and Londoners were fucking terrified — just not cowed, thanks to Churchill. I’d like to not feel cowed. I’d like to know that there were a few people with integrity and brains and humility in our leadership.

    Soon.

  129. 129.

    James E Powell

    @randy khan:

    Christo & Jeanne-Claude. Grand vision. And always delight. Christo said he did his huge projects because he enjoyed seeing them. Here’s a link to a brief video about Gates for anyone not familiar. Not like I ever needed a reason to go to NYC but it was worth the trip. RIP.

  131. 131.

    Kent

    @ballerat: I have no idea what you are imagining.  TX invading CA?  He’s been culture-warring up a shitstorm since day 1 of his administration and it hasn’t gotten him anywhere.

    If they start a war it will be with Iran.  That would be my guess.  Perhaps instigate some incident in which the Navy is given the green light to blow up some Iranian Navy ships and bomb some Iranian Navy installations.    Then declare victory when Iranian Navy bases on the Persian Gulf are a smoking ruin.

    Iran won’t have much ability to strike back at the US so they will blow up some Saudi facilities and that will raise the price of oil which will make Trump’s oil-patch supporters happy.   As well as his Russian handlers.

  134. 134.

    ballerat

    @ballerat: A couple things. One, CRA dammit, not CRA. As in the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

    Second, regarding Trump’s incompetence, and more broadly, the stupidity of trumper voters:

    Why do we always think it is incompetence? Or stupidity?

    Why do we think of that manifestation of counter-productiveness and destructiveness is necessarily simply incompetence and/or stupidity?

    Imbecility and utter incompetence absolves trump voters and Trump himself from having agency. If true they are no more responsible for what they do than a toddler is for sticking a fork in an electrical outlet.

    But they surely do have agency. Even if the choice they make is to do nothing and let things fall apart.

    I refuse to deny Trump agency. He knows what the consequences of his choices. He’s not so much a moron bumblefuck as he is evil.

    His supporters aren’t any less intelligent than any other cross section of America. Yet they act as if they are in a storm-tossed lifeboat and they are drilling holes in the bottom to let the water out.

    They know what it means to drill holes in the boat. They know people will drown. They are not stupid. They may or may not be incompetent but even if they drill a hole in their own foot because they don’t know how to hold the drill, they still intended to drill a hole in the bottom of the boat.

    We say, “How fucking dumb is that?”. But it is nothing more than Davis X. Machina’s observation on pigeons on curtain rods, extended. They are OK if they sink the lifeboat, as long as Those People in the back don’t have a life preserver and can’t swim.

    And if most of the trumpers believe they do have a life preserver or can swim? That’s not stupid. That’s evil.

  135. 135.

    JWR

    @Kent: I like your take on Trump’s aversion to war. His inner coward shines through in his tweets, like it did Friday night. I mean, all those strapping young men with their ginormous weapons and great big dogs protecting him. As for me, I’m happy he’s all askeered of a smallish group of people who hate him.

  137. 137.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @randy khan:

    They were visionaries who worked like crazy to make their visions come to pass.

    I was told that several visions Christo / Jeanne-Claude visions remain in the pipeline, and their team are committed to fulfilling them.

  139. 139.

    ballerat

    @Kent: I was being (mostly) facetious.

    I say mostly because we already have seen some instances of conflict and hostility. Did you not notice a pattern in his attacks and denying supplies in the last two months?  The pandemic isn’t really a concern for him especially since he knows who is doing most of the dying, and where.

    Trump is trying to exploit and reopen old never-fully healed (or perhaps reconciled is a better word) faults in this nation. He also needs a new bigger better distraction. I was just musing on what would give him what he needs today, damn the consequences for tomorrow. Which is his style.

    I am however dead serious about how Trump has struck at what makes this nation viable. It is the old stratagem of divide and conquer. Unfortunately his base would rather be ruled by Russians than be governed by Democrats. As long as they get to put the right kinds of people in their proper places, of course.

  140. 140.

    Mohagan

    @randy khan: I remember seeing his “Running Fence” in Marin and Sonoma driving north from San Francisco.  I had heard it was going to be installed and had not been impressed by the idea, but it was surprisingly effective and evocative to see it in person, even driving by at freeway speed. RIP indeed.

  141. 141.

    Mohagan

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: The “Treason” ad embedded in this post is fabulously incendiary (as well as being true). The Lincoln Project is doing incredible work. I personally don’t trust Rick Wilson at all (see his ad work against Dems), but he produces excellent effective ads, and he’s been right about Trump from the beginning and isn’t afraid to say so. Everything Trump Touches Dies.

  143. 143.

    JWR

    @Mohagan: My only gripe about the latest Lincoln Project ad is that the word “Jews” is almost inaudible during the march of the American Nazi’s.

  148. 148.

    Brachiator

    @ballerat:

    I refuse to deny Trump agency. He knows what the consequences of his choices. He’s not so much a moron bumblefuck as he is evil.

    Some Americans have a weird fetish with the idea of agency. Years ago, there was a similar fetish for autonomy. I don’t think that ascribing agency to Trump explains much, but ok.

    Of course, Trump is evil. But he is also stupid and incompetent. He thought that being president would be easy because a black guy had been president, and Trump believed that he obviously was superior to a black guy.

    Hint: he’s not.

    Trump doesn’t have a school child’s understanding of science and he was utterly incapable of taking the lead in the fight against the virus. Every decision he personally made with respect to the pandemic was objectively wrong. If the governor’s had not acted, the country would have been completely fucked. Now you can add to this the evil of Trump demanding credit anyway, in his refusal to learn a goddam thing, and the absolute evil of his infantile belief that he can bullshit his way out of any dilemma without regard to who might be hurt, but the hard fact is that Trump was elected to provide national leadership for something exactly like a pandemic, and he proved that he was spectacularly unqualified to be that leader. And people have died as a result of his incompetence.

    Trump has also claimed to be a tough, smart law and order president. And yet, when faced with widespread protests, he ran to hide in a bunker. He is not hatching any evil schemes. He is wetting himself.

    Trump only gets away with this shit only because the GOP leadership has his back. He is useful to them. They don’t care whether the government fails, as long as their plutocrat masters get their tax cuts. This also works for Trump, since he sees the presidency as a racket for enriching his family.

    But in the end, Trump is a thuggish, dim witted fool deeply out of his depth. A good chunk of being president is ceremonial. If times are good, and if competent people are in place, the president can throw parties and give speeches. But Trump has bungled every serious crisis that he has faced. And he will keep failing until we vote his ass out of office.

    ETA. As for Trump starting a war. Unlikely. He is a coward. And one thing that he is most afraid of is real responsibility. He has wet dreams of America having the biggest military with super duper weapons that could overwhelm any foe. But the prospect of men and women actually suffering or dying because of a decision he made to put military forces in the field? This scares him shitless.

  149. 149.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Aleta:

    Newspaper issue that incited whites to go after black man who supposedly ‘indulted’ white woman elevator operator—that issue amazing disappeared, never found

    White developers wanted to buy up Greenwood land at the low rate after the area destroyed. Some more powerful whites blocked that. Many blacks spent the winter in tents

    The famous historian John Hope Franklin left Tulsa withe his family —his dad wanted OUT after the Massacre.

    Daniel Boorstein,another famous historian, moved to Tulsa with his family about same time. His dad wanted family OUT of city in south east US. where Jewish man had been lynched on claim he’d killed a white girl—some undercurrent of ‘blood libel’

  150. 150.

    Bruce K

    @Mohagan:  Churchill and Roosevelt undoubtedly didn’t trust Stalin any further than they could throw him, but like Churchill said, if Hitler invaded hell…

  151. 151.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @tokyokie:

    My dad’s g-parents and parents came to Tulsa in 1906. His g-father fought with the Union from IA. My gg-prents, g-parents, parents are buried in Oaklawn. 8 burials from 1906 to 2005. Freaks me out that Massacre bodies may have been ‘dumped’  there

  152. 152.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @tokyokie:

    My dad’s g-parents and parents came to Tulsa in 1906. His g-father fought with the Union from IA. My gg-prents, g-parents, parents are buried in Oaklawn. 8 burials from 1906 to 2005. Freaks me out that Massacre bodies may have been ‘dumped’  there

  153. 153.

    SFAW

    @JWR:

    No matter. He doesn’t have a Supreme Court threatening to go all Godwin on his ass. And good for that member of Brazil’s SC. Would that we could be so lucky.

    I half-expect to hear that the Brazil SC justice died from throwing himself out a window. After drinking a “special” cocktail, plus shooting and stabbing himself 15 times.

  155. 155.

    Miss Bianca

    @randy khan: Christo and Jeanne-Claude were going to do a big installation over the Arkansas River. Got wild resistance from some locals, dragged out for years. Then Jeanne-Claude died and I think Christo lost heart.

    Been thinking about writing about Over the River. It certainly aroused some mighty passions around here, which of course was part of Christo’s MO.

  157. 157.

    J R in WV

     

    My biggest problem with putting a full page ad in the FNYT is that we would be giving them money, with which they will continue to fuck with us forever. I’m way against giving fascists money. How about pricing an ad in the Wa Post?

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