Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

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

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

In my day, never was longer.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

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

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / A Couple of Critical Follow Ups

A Couple of Critical Follow Ups

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Adam posted a piece about the TRX training system right around the start of lockdown. I immediately bought one, because he seems to know what he’s talking about, and I wanted to exercise more effectively at home. I’ve had it for ~6 weeks now and it’s remarkably good for something so simple. But, I think Adam is probably a hell of a lot more fit than me, so I wanted to recommend a couple of much easier videos. This intro video, and this beginner/intermediate core video both need a hell of a lot less skill than what Adam posted (though, in fairness, he did say that a lot of those moves were really hard).

Now, to more important business, the Karen cocktail. As some of you may recall, I started with a White Lady (2 parts gin, 1 part orange liqueur, 1 part lemon juice, shaken and served up). My first proposal was 3/4 part lemon juice and 1/4 part Campari. That was one way to have a bitter White Lady, i.e., a Karen. But others recommended Cynar. Well, I tried the Cynar version and it adds a little bitterness, but also some complexity. Worth a shot, I’d say:

Also, apparently NextDoor has a Karen problem. I thought it only had a NIMBY problem. The learning never ends:

I’ll note, too, that the slate of police reforms that Rochester’s mayor supports has an anti-Karen law (specifically, an anti-Central Park Karen law) that would make it a hate crime to falsely call 911 to report a crime in “racially charged circumstances”, whatever that means.

Finally, this takedown of Pinch Sulzberger’s weak-ass justification for the Tom Cotton op-ed is pretty good, but Sulzberger’s response itself is just more evidence that the Times feeds on this kind of controversy and thinks it justifies their actions. It doesn’t matter that what their readers say, what some black reporters who work there say, and it doesn’t matter what smart critics say.

Reader Interactions

149Comments

  1. 1.

    cain

    Fuck these entitled white women.. and I’m glad I still am not on NextDoor.

    ETA:

    I really hate that companies like Amazon are so exploitive on labor and everything else. They’ve really taken over. Looking forward to a competitor.. Sears was unbeatable at one point…

  2. 2.

    cain

    Hmm.. a bitter karen would be a peach cocktail with vodka, bitters + and splash of dog pee.. ok ok, I kid.. maybe a splash of v8.

  3. 3.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    The gym class I went to at the Y in Iowa sometimes had us use TRX. I modified. Extensively! As I understand it, the program was developed to train Navy Seals. No one would mistake me for a Seal.

  4. 4.

    The Moar You Know

    @Nextdoor needs to publicly deal w/ their Karen problem

    On the list of problems with Nextdoor, their “Karen Problem” doesn’t even make the top 10, and they have one hell of a Karen problem. They are the first “social media” firm that, from the get go, just needed to be shut down, servers ground up and burned, and banned by law.

    They make Facebook look responsible and benevolent.

  5. 5.

    HumboldtBlue

    I was never a big sports talkshow watcher primarily because it was all so similar and so silly but Shannon Sharpe has made a career out of it and at times has provided some rather insightful social commentary because this was a concise and succinct black history lesson and it appalls me this isn’t a common theme in our history curriculums.

    Today Shannon Sharpe was brilliant.

    Brews Brees need to shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.

  6. 6.

    Brendan in NC

    Yes, NextDoor has a Karen problem. I joined, as did several of us in our HOA. The number of posts in our neighborhood that are all like…”Suspicious person standing in front of the apartment building…smoking a cigarette”, or “Saw a person driving slowly through neighborhood, appears to be casing houses”, and it’s the guy from DoorDash looking for the address to deliver to, are ridiculous.

  7. 7.

    prostratedragon

    A Bear speaks:

    “We signed Mike Glennon”

    Instead of Colin Kaepernick. The unjust treatment of Kaepernick of course is on the whole NFL, not just the Chicago Bears, but consider that they’ve had an outstanding D and many good O players, none of whom are getting any younger, and have whiled away several years of their careers as chorus boys for a series of incompletely prepared … let me stop here. The management has wronged them.

     

    Edit: That’s “none of whom is.” Yes, I’m persnickety, why do you ask?

  8. 8.

    Barbara

    @HumboldtBlue: In fairness, Drew Brees did apologize.  So I don’t feel like piling on, but I really do wish that those (like Brees) who use military service as a kind of moral escalation point would stop and think about it.  So Drew Brees’ dad served in the military.  So did my three uncles, two in dangerous positions in WWII and Korea.  I have nephews currently serving, and a brother in law who retired.  Their service isn’t my moral trump card when people express sentiments that make me uncomfortable.

  9. 9.

    Roger Moore

    I think it’s a gross understatement to say NextDoor has a Karen problem.  Having a Karen problem implies that it’s a basically sound idea that is being disrupted by a few bad actors, but that’s giving it way too much credit.  It was obvious from the very beginning that it was going to be a platform for the worst kind of people to do their thing, and it should surprise nobody that’s exactly what happened.

  10. 10.

    surfk9

    I at one time belonged to NextDoor. Can’t believe the number of cranks and kooks on that site. When I moved I didn’t sign up again. Oh, I especially like the ones that sit and listen to their police scanner all day and night.

  11. 11.

    FlyingToaster (Tablet)

    The Trumpista neighbor two doors up sent me an invite to Nextdoor, which guaranteed my non-response.  I’m happy to let “Karen” bitch about my non-deadheaded calendula so long as I never have to hear it again.

  12. 12.

    kindness

    The only way to stop the NY Times is to starve the beast.  Give them no money.  Eventually it will work.  And really, there are better papers out there.

  13. 13.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Barbara:

    Sorry, Barbara, his apology was another “sorry if I caused offense” and he even had the temerity to say “you people”.

    As Sharpe points out, the black men on that team know his heart because he said it out loud and clear and isn’t walking this back.

    And yes, playing the military respect card is how some low key racism remains alive.

  14. 14.

    scuffletuffle

    NextDoor exists to sell you shit. Period.  Don’t try to make friends on it…you will live to regret it.

  15. 15.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I first saw the name “Karen” used by retail clerks to describe the type of typically white and female obnoxious customer who just comes into the store to scream at the clerks.  I bet this stuff is resonating with the rest of the population because everyone has had a Karen or Officer Chavin experience, is fed up with it and seeing some basically decent people abused or murdered is the last straw.

  16. 16.

    The Moar You Know

    When we start having massive lynchings in this country, it’s going to be driven by NextDoor.

    Also, anyone notice that Trump’s having a wall built around the White House?  As in “right now”?  God, he’s got to be one of the most cowardly motherfuckers that has ever lived.

  17. 17.

    RSA

    I bought a TRX system last summer because of a $100 discount… and then gave it to my brother because I was a member in a gym with the same equipment.

  19. 19.

    laura

    I had to bail on nextdoor – way too much concern about suspicious men out doors doing men stuff and all manner of cranks. However, I love and highly recommend “best of next door” twitter curated by Bay Area sassy gal Jenn Takahashi. The Karen problem is being covered on BestofNextDoor today in a two screen shots compare and contrast. I am not “on twitter” but I lurk on Jenn’s, Tbogg’s, Emptywheel, Driftglass and Charlie Pierce and that’s enough for me.

    Regarding the Karen Cocktail – I’m telling for the Second Time (!) it needs to include White Claw as a key component. All the Karen’s and Becky’s drink the claw.

  20. 20.

    Barbara

    @HumboldtBlue: I love Shannon Sharpe.  Drew Brees won’t be the first or last person to go down this road, and I think we sometimes miss the larger point when we fixate on a single person, as if Drew Brees is somehow an outlier.  He definitely isn’t.  Sharpe makes the larger point brilliantly.  Drew Brees couldn’t imagine that his granddad (not his dad, as I wrote above) fought alongside African Americans, and that they might not see the flag with quite the same way.

  22. 22.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    I have a Ring doorbell and the app has an incident module, one of my favorites* was a person complaining about a guy taking pictures of houses in the neighborhood(it wasn’t me) and linked to a picture.  One of the comments was “hey, I know that guy(and gave the name), and he’s a real estate appraiser, that’s what they do”.

    *It’s a close tie with the incident where they said someone stole their doorbell cam and were filming porn with it.

  27. 27.

    JMG

    Hate clicks have become integral to the Times’ business model. Cooking videos and crosswords are responsible for probably 90 percent of its reader engagement, hate clicks do the rest.

  28. 28.

    Aleta

    Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, (Erica) Chenoweth (a political scientist at Harvard University) found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.

    …

    Chenoweth’s research builds on the philosophies of many influential figures throughout history. The African-American abolitionist Sojourner Truth, the suffrage campaigner Susan B Anthony, the Indian independence activist Mahatma Gandhi and the US civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King have all convincingly argued for the power of peaceful protest.

    Yet Chenoweth admits that when she first began her research in the mid-2000s, she was initially rather cynical of the idea that nonviolent actions could be more powerful than armed conflict in most situations. As a PhD student at the University of Colorado, she had spent years studying the factors contributing to the rise of terrorism when she was asked to attend an academic workshop organised by the International Center of Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), a non-profit organisation based in Washington DC. The workshop presented many compelling examples of peaceful protests bringing about lasting political change – including, for instance, the People Power protests in the Philippines.

    But Chenoweth was surprised to find that no-one had comprehensively compared the success rates of nonviolent versus violent protests; perhaps the case studies were simply chosen through some kind of confirmation bias. “I was really motivated by some scepticism that nonviolent resistance could be an effective method for achieving major transformations in society,” she says

     

    Working with Maria Stephan, a researcher at the ICNC, Chenoweth performed an extensive review of the literature on civil resistance and social movements from 1900 to 2006 – a data set then corroborated with other experts in the field.

    They primarily considered attempts to bring about regime change. A movement was considered a success if it fully achieved its goals both within a year of its peak engagement and as a direct result of its activities. A regime change resulting from foreign military intervention would not be considered a success, for instance. A campaign was considered violent, meanwhile, if it involved bombings, kidnappings, the destruction of infrastructure – or any other physical harm to people or property.

    “We were trying to apply a pretty hard test to nonviolent resistance as a strategy,” Chenoweth says.

     

    By the end of this process, they had collected data from 323 violent and nonviolent campaigns. And their results – which were published in their book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict – were striking.
    Overall, nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as violent campaigns: they led to political change 53% of the time compared to 26% for the violent protests.

    This was partly the result of strength in numbers. Chenoweth argues that nonviolent campaigns are more likely to succeed because they can recruit many more participants from a much broader demographic, which can cause severe disruption that paralyses normal urban life and the functioning of society.

    In fact, of the 25 largest campaigns that they studied, 20 were nonviolent, and 14 of these were outright successes. Overall, the nonviolent campaigns attracted around four times as many participants (200,000) as the average violent campaign (50,000).

    More :  https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world

  35. 35.

    Robert Sneddon

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: If someone lined the other side of the White House fence with taco trucks maybe Donald would think it IS the Wall.

    And the protestors and police could get tacos.

    Win win.

  37. 37.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Barbara:

    I found his most salient point — primarily because it hits so close to home — was that Brees has been sharing his sporting life with black boys and men since grade school and he still failed to internalize at least some inkling of what they mean when they talk about being black in America.

    Now granted, I come from a rather diverse and progressive family and I’m pretty sure Brees’ clan is straight Trump but at this point in the state of our world the grace of giving a generous benefit of the doubt when influential white people say really stupid and racist things is drying up.

  39. 39.

    Cacti

    Let’s not kid ourselves about the Old Gray Lady.  They had a soft spot for the fascists the first time around too, and soft-pedaled Hitler and Mussolini in the 1920s and 30s.

    Tom Cotton couldn’t have been clearer.  He has no interest in persuading us to the rightness of his thinking.  He wants to smash our heads in with a truncheon if we disagree.

  41. 41.

    hueyplong

    @Baud: Ha ha, hell yeah.

    I’m so getting off on the optics of trump having troops gas and flash bang a last chance for him to take a heavily guarded walk before sealing him up in the White House behind lots of defensive works.

    Will be so cool if Putin promotes him to Field Marshall so as to encourage him not to surrender now that he’s surrounded like the 6th Army at Stalingrad.

    [Putin as Hitler is just too good to resist]

  43. 43.

    low-tech cyclist

    @The Moar You Know: Also, anyone notice that Trump’s having a wall built around the White House?  As in “right now”?  God, he’s got to be one of the most cowardly motherfuckers that has ever lived.

    Yeah, I’ve noticed, and I’m pissed as hell at the Democrats on account of this.

    Trump will keep doing shit like this as long as nobody pushes back.  And if there’s been any pushback from the Dems, it’s been invisible to me.

    In between ridiculing his cowardice, they need to be finding out who put up all this extra fence enclosing a whole bunch of DC streets that, two weeks ago, anyone could take a stroll down (there always has been a fence around the White House grounds; this is enclosing a more distant perimeter), and under what authority. And having him take it all down.

    If they’re doing any of that, I’ve missed it.

  44. 44.

    schrodingers_cat

    Not much that is going on right now is amusing but the fanbois and girls of Mattis falling over themselves for doing the barest minimum after a long silence was kinda amusing.

    Justin Beiber fans are more objective and hard headed in comparison.

    He is on the board of General Dynamics which profits from the zero-tolerance guidelines at the border.

    And don’t forget he let the military be politicized in the run up to 2018 by having them deployed at the border for the “caravan” in the run up to 2018.

    Also, the Theranos debacle, not very monk-like to fall for a pretty face selling snake oil.

  45. 45.

    Cacti

    @Robert Sneddon:  I remember in 2016 when we were being warned about the peril of “taco trucks on every corner”, and thinking to myself…

    That actually sounds great!

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    @Martin:

    There won’t really be a competitor.

    There may not be one big company like Amazon that sells everything, but there seem to be plenty of more specialized retailers that are surviving OK by moving online.  I’m starting to believe the people who say the real opening for Amazon wasn’t that their brick-and-mortar competitors weren’t able to compete but that potential competitors were killed by greedy private equity investors.  It’s amazing the fraction of dying retailers that fall into that category.

  47. 47.

    Charluckles

    The Ahmaud Arbery story just keeps getting worse.  They chased him until he couldn’t run any further then side swiped him with one of the trucks and then when he tried to defend himself they shot him dead. I’m not going to print the racial slurs they used after they shot him.

    I find it absolutely amazing that POC have been as patient, peaceful, and constructive as they have.

  49. 49.

    Kent

    Here in Camas WA, NextDoor was mobilized last year by a very militant anti-tax fringe who used the app to foment opposition to a proposed local community pool and athletic center.  They even drummed out the mayor who had supported the project and got a clueless out-of-town write-in candidate elected based only on his opposition to the pool and no other issue.  It was astonishingly vicious and anyone who stepped up to say that maybe our kids could use an indoor pool and some new soccer fields were viciously attacked by the piranhas.

    But yes, there are plenty of Karen’s too.    One of them managed to get my HS put on lockdown for 2 hours last fall because they saw two “suspicious males” crossing the field before school.  Turned out to be two HS boys cutting across the football field from their subdivision with backpacks and hoodies.  Like 50% of the male HS population.  Apparently what was “suspicious” about them was that they weren’t being delivered to school via personal mom chauffeur in the slow moving line of cars in idling away in a sea of fumes in front of the school like normal suburban kids are supposed to.   Yes Karen, some kids actually DO walk to school.  And being kids, they will take shortcuts.

  53. 53.

    japa21

    These last couple of days have been wild at this blog. I think there have been more posts in the last two days than in a week of normal time (i.e. before November 2016).

    Anyway, I have been meaning to post this and every time I come to the site and read what the current post is, two or more are already up. Would have been better on MM’s earlier post about the FNYT, but also goes well here.

    When people think about Chicago newspapers, they usually think about the Tribune, but there is also the Sun-Times, my favorite.   Yesterday’s editorial is just  one of the reasons. TitledA Thug in the White House sets the Tone for a Divided America it pulls no punches.

    As looters robbed and burned businesses across the Chicago area on Monday, President Donald Trump walked out of the White House — his way cleared by riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful demonstrators — to a battered church to stage a tough-guy photo-op.

    And with that, we had a disturbing thought: A clear through-line connects the actions of the looters to those of the president of the United States.

    The looters and Trump both are taking a national moment of legitimate grief and outrage over the police killing of an African American man in Minneapolis, George Floyd, and hijacking it for terrible, selfish gain…

    We need real presidential leadership to address the civil unrest and violence flaring up across the country — and the reasons behind it — and urge us all to listen to our better angels.

    What we have instead is an instigator-in-chief, a president whose approach is about as constructive as a Molotov cocktail hurled through a shopkeeper’s window.

    How else to explain how Trump emerged from his bunker below the White House on Monday, after two days of no words of healing, and made an outright threat to use the formidable U.S. military to put down disturbances?

    The president said he would mobilize “all available federal resources — civilian and military — to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson, and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your Second Amendment rights.”

    That statement is telling.

    It scares us…

    When Trump rolled out of his White House hiding spot Monday, gave his Second Amendment talk and posed in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, he attempted to appropriate two of America’s most powerful symbols — the gun and the Bible — for entirely selfish political purposes.

    That should give the nation pause, just as it did for an incensed Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of Washington’s Episcopal Diocese.

    “He used violent means to ask to be escorted across the park into the courtyard of the church,” Budde told NPR’s Morning Edition.

    “He held up his Bible after speaking [an] inflammatory militarized approach to the wounds of our nation,” she said. “He did not pray. He did not offer a word of balm or condolence to those who are grieving. He did not seek to unify the country.”

    But Trump didn’t go to church to pray. He went to loot.

  54. 54.

    Roger Moore

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    One of the comments was “hey, I know that guy(and gave the name), and he’s a real estate appraiser, that’s what they do”.

    That’s a really instructive incident.  I wonder how much of the stuff people complain about seeing on their surveillance cameras is stuff that’s always been happening and they just never knew about because they didn’t see it.  I would guess it’s well above 90%.  I’m sure most of the animals people have been seeing have been there all along, and people just never knew about them until they started filming everything.

  56. 56.

    J R in WV

    OK, so I’ve checked out the TPM piece on Times publisher A G Sultzberger’s defense of the FTFNYT piece authored by Serious Nazi senator Tom Cotton. There’s a pretty good portrait of Senior Private Sector Fascist Sultzberger with the TPM article — I was dumbstruck by how similar in appearance Sultzberger is to Senior White House Fascist Stephen Miller. They could be twins!!!

    I have to believe that Sultzberger will never believe that the fascists are coming for him and his family, until he smells the gas coming into the entry shower room. I hope we won’t ever see that happening, and they probably won’t use fake shower rooms if it does — probably put people in a compound without water in TX desert in the summertime. Quick and cheap. German Nazis didn’t have a desert to hide that action in. But Sultzberger is a flaming ass, no question about that !!!

    ETA improve readability etc.

  58. 58.

    Mike in NC

    My experience with the NextDoor app is that it is filled with cranks and busybodies and shitheads who spend most of their waking hours marinating in Fox News. Shouldn’t have been surprised since we live in an area loaded with racist old white people who moved here to escape the snow (and non-white people).

  59. 59.

    Martin

    Protests have made it next to my house. Lots of good energy –  very loud. The police helicopter overflights aren’t helping, though. Thankfully I have a long report running and don’t need  to concentrate for a little bit.

  63. 63.

    J R in WV

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    …everyone has had a Karen…

    My first serious karen was after I hired a really good software developer, Chinese. They heated leftovers up in the break room, like lots of state employees.

    Here comes karen, complaining to me that Qi’s lunch smells disgusting and Qi (not the real name of my good friend) and Qi shouldn’t be allowed to use the break room, since Qi was a contract worker and not an employee and not American.

    I never said a word to Qi, and never spoke with karen again about anything but supporting karen’s use of our software… really a hard day for me. Qi and I still exchange email on a regular basis.

  65. 65.

    Martin

    @HumboldtBlue: Doubt it. A cop when realizing he’s busted would have gone into cop mode, arrested everyone, and seized the phone so it wouldn’t end up on Twitter. They have a very different toolkit for dealing with this kind of stuff than the regular public.

    Just a rich white guy having an existential crisis and taking it out on kids.

  66. 66.

    MisterForkbeard

    @hueyplong:  Awww. They were even under immense pressure from Trump and they STILL wouldn’t/couldn’t manufacture evidence for him. How sad. For Trump.

    ETA: It’s probably a smart move. Even if they were still inclined to help Trump, this would probably have large negative affects on them from the probably Biden Administration. Who wouldn’t have punished them, but would have treated them as a notably corrupt country.

  67. 67.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Robert Sneddon: If they made a Wall WITH taco trucks it would be easily to assemble, tall, and serve as a major tourist attraction.

    It’d be a great move, except that then Trump would probably have to see some brown people.

  69. 69.

    Martin

    @The Moar You Know:

    Also, anyone notice that Trump’s having a wall built around the White House?  As in “right now”?  God, he’s got to be one of the most cowardly motherfuckers that has ever lived.

    Just need to add a roof so Marine One can’t get in/out.

  70. 70.

    NotMax

    the Karen cocktail.

    Purists insist it isn’t a true Karen without first spraying the inside of the glass with Aqua Net in order to impart a distinctive tang.

    //

    @The Moar You Know

    If memory serves, the Protocols of Internet Memetry some time back settled on Kyle.

  74. 74.

    Roger Moore

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I agree with the people who say the NFL had their chance and blew it.  They could have made sure some team hired Colin Kaepernick and backed him against Trump.  Instead, they blackballed him and knuckled under.  They don’t get to wait until now, spout a few platitudes, and act as if they’re great people for doing it.

  76. 76.

    raven

    @Omnes Omnibus: See this?

     

    Buffalo Bills rookie quarterback Jake Fromm apologized Thursday after screenshots emerged of a text conversation in which he said only “elite white people” should be able to purchase guns.

    The conversation, which took place in 2019 and was posted to Twitter early Thursday morning, involved Fromm and a friend discussing guns. Fromm wrote, “But no guns are good. They need to let me get suppressors,” before adding, “Just make them very expensive so only elite white people can get them haha.”

    Fromm went on to say he was not an “elite white person” later in the conversation.

    “I am extremely sorry that I chose to use the words ‘elite white person’ in a text message conversation,” Fromm said in a statement posted to Twitter on Thursday afternoon. “Although I never meant to imply that I am an ‘elite white person,’ as later stated in the conversation, there’s no excuse for that word choice and sentiment.

    It was 2 years ago but even money they cut him loose.

  77. 77.

    Chyron HR

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ✔ @AOC · Jun 3, 2020

    I see a lot of corporations releasing bland statements w a hashtag.

    I see your boss claiming that George Floyd’s murder was an attack on “the working class”.

  78. 78.

    J R in WV

    @Charluckles:

    The Ahmaud Arbery story just keeps getting worse.

    I didn’t think it could get worse… could you share some links? I’m not doubting you at all, just seeking more information.

    I tried to write a ‘graph about all those racist bastards… had to stop.

  80. 80.

    Yutsano

    @Omnes Omnibus: Aaron getting a little grizzly there.

    No call-outs, but if they were to give Kap a look it would help things. I would think the only socialist football team could manage that.

  81. 81.

    Spanky

    @Martin:

    Just a rich white guy having an existential crisis and taking it out on kids.

    And he would have gotten away with it too! If it weren’t for those meddling kids and their dog smart phones.

  82. 82.

    debbie

    @Barbara:

    Apologies don’t mean anything anymore. Too easy. What someone should have said to Brees when he shot his mouth off was, “So what do you think of your President’s humping the American flag every chance he gets?”

  83. 83.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Chyron HR: Her boss?  And, yes, I know who you mean, but AOC has agency and it’s more than a little demeaning to imply that she doesn’t.

  92. 92.

    HumboldtBlue

    At least 34 journalists of color at the Philadelphia Inquirer called out sick on Thursday, in protest of editorial leadership’s decision to run a column in Tuesday’s print edition with the headline “Buildings Matter, Too.”

    As of Thursday morning, at least 43 journalists of color—the majority of those on the staff—at the Philadelphia Inquirer had signed onto a letter to management, condemning the decision to print the article as part of a longer history of silencing and discrediting marginalized voices at the paper. Of those not participating in the sick out, 7 have withheld their bylines today.

  93. 93.

    J R in WV

    @raven:

    Yeah, thanks for the link. Google told me all I needed to know, more than, actually. I don’t understand hate all that well, how people get that way, combine to hate all together now. Sick puppies !

    Evidently they tried to run him to death with their trucks… can’t get much more vile.

  97. 97.

    joel hanes

    @laura:

    I lurk on Jenn’s, Tbogg’s, Emptywheel, Driftglass and Charlie Pierce

    Recommed adding hilzoy, @hilzoy

  98. 98.

    Gin & Tonic

    @NotMax:

    If memory serves, the Protocols of Internet Memetry some time back settled on Kyle.

    I’ll have to hope that’s true, as my SIL’s name is Chad (and he’s *not* a Karen.)

  99. 99.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @low-tech cyclist:

    under what authority.

    I’m pretty sure Trump has the authority to seal off sections of Washington, DC, because of how the city is specifically under the thumb of the federal government.  There’s no point getting mad at Democrats about it.  Mockery is all we’ve got for options.  It’s a fine target for mockery.  Trump is such a monumental coward he’s installing multiple layers of fences between the White House and protestors.  He’s that scared the Brown Hordes will storm the White House and murder him.

    EDIT – @Gin & Tonic:

    Chad can apparently be slang for a bunch of things, including implying a stand up guy (but still of the young white guy type).

  107. 107.

    gwangung

    @debbie: 
    Yeah, the more we hear from this case, the more enraging it is…that the locals hesitated for even a second to arrest those murderous thugs.

  108. 108.

    sgrAstar

    @Chyron HR: your comment about AOC is contemptible. I’m shocked that you think it would be welcome here. Even Black Holes recognize misogyny… and worse.

     

    ?

  110. 110.

    raven

    I have a friend with a pizza joint downtown and someone sent him an alert that Antifa was coming to “burn down Athens” this Saturday.

  113. 113.

    mrmoshpotato

    So what is NextDoor’s Karen problem?  I know people bitch about their neighbors on it, and I’m not even signed up.

  114. 114.

    cain

    @Charluckles: I find it absolutely amazing that POC have been as patient, peaceful, and constructive as they have.

    Anyone with any sense of decency should be appalled because if they are willing to do that – what else are they willing to do? And that cruelty? It will bleed over into anything else they can get away with. This cannot just be a strictly racial thing – they targeted him because institutional racism protects them.. but they’ll plot for others too.

    Fuck these two, I hope they rot in hell.

  118. 118.

    Renie

    FYI

    About The Lincoln Project, if you just followed them on Twitter, a fake account has popped up that claims to be the ‘back up account’.   It looks identical to the original except they are using an upper-case “i” instead of an “L” as the second L in Lincoln.  The original has nothing on it about a back-up and as of right now has 260 following and 588.2k followers.   Make sure you follow the real one and if you see the fake one, report it to Twitter.

  119. 119.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @L85NJGT:

    One could take away that Trump doesn’t trust his security.

    That is exactly my take away.  The man is so paranoid, petty, and egotistical that when the Secret Service and Military said they won’t gun American citizens down just on his order, he retreated to find someone, anyone with weapons he thought were racist and loyal enough to guard the White House from the rampaging Darkies.

  120. 120.

    Cameron

    @HumboldtBlue: “Buildings Matter, Too?”  WTF?  I’ve only been gone from there 3 years and it sounds like the Inky has taken a dive off the deep end in the meantime.  Was this a guest post from Willard “Corporations Are People, Too, My Friend” Romney?

  121. 121.

    prostratedragon

    Did I miss this yesterday? Not only is the President of All the Bunkers having one of his stupid walls built around the White House, but it’s been extended to the perimeter of the park so that St. John Church cannot be accessed.

    White House Security Blocks Washington’s Episcopalian Bishop from Holding a Vigil at Her Church

    Another Episcopalian clergyman wraps it up:

    “This is an awful man, waving a book he hasn’t read, in front of a church he doesn’t attend, invoking laws he doesn’t understand, against fellow Americans he sees as enemies, wielding a military he dodged serving, to protect power he gained via accepting foreign interference, exploiting fear and anger he loves to stoke, after failing to address a pandemic he was warned about, and building it all on a bed of constant lies and childish inanity.”
    — Robert Hendrickson, Rector at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Tucson, Arizona.

    Sounds like a Congregationalist.

  122. 122.

    The Moar You Know

    In fairness, Drew Brees did apologize. 

    @Barbara: Fuck that guy.  We had to deal with his bullshit in San Diego forever.  Quiverfull Christian, evangelical, in your face about it and he displayed an entitled arrogance completely out of place given the contribution that he made to the team (we were losers before him, we were losers the entire time he was here, and thank God the whole wretched operation has gone now).

    He meant every word he said and he can walk it back all he wants…but he meant it.

  124. 124.

    HumboldtBlue

    @The Moar You Know:

    I think you’re confusing him with Philip Rivers who the Chargers picked after they traded Brees to Miami from whence he was traded to the Saints. Brees was only in San Diego for two years I believe and Rivers was there for more than a decade and you describe him to a tee.

    @Baud:

    Huh.

    Good question. It was just a few weeks ago they were demanding to go to church but now that the president has viciously abused clergy in a sleazy photo-op event and then shut down the church due to criticism from said clergy they seem very meek.

    Maybe they are really just shitty people.

    Also, when Gen. McCaffrey says we’re in trouble I tend to believe we may be in trouble. We’ve never seen anything like this from to DC officials.

  127. 127.

    Bill Arnold

    @Robert Sneddon:

    King’s College Chapel’s lawn covered in wildflowers

    That’s beautiful.
    (My “lawn” is whatever survives mowing every several weeks, plus sections not mowed. That means plenty of small wildflowers, some native, some not. Means the groundhogs and rabbits prefer the “lawn”, not the vegetable garden or flower gardens.)

  128. 128.

    Baud

    But after 24 hours of debate and acrimony — during which both the paper’s publisher and editorial page editor strongly defended the need to showcase diverse and controversial viewpoints — the paper late Thursday abruptly announced that Cotton’s op-ed was the result of a “rushed editorial process” and “did not meet our standards.”

    The statement from a Times spokeswoman, Eileen Murphy, did not apologize for the op-ed nor explain if it would be marked with a correction.

     

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/06/03/new-york-times-tom-cotton/

  129. 129.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Drew Brees realized that a whole lot of his O-line could put him in the hospital by falling back off the line for a play or two.

    The irony, hopefully, wasn’t lost on him. It’s about the duty to protect.

  130. 130.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud: I wonder how the NYT Style Guide covers “underbus” as a verb. Does it have a hyphen? “James Bennet was underbussed this afternoon in a statement from…” Or “under-bussed”?

  131. 131.

    Baud

    Several protesters who were forcibly cleared from an area near the White House to make way for a presidential photo-op are suing President Donald Trump and other officials, arguing they violated the protesters’ constitutional rights.

  132. 132.

    Jay C

    @Baud:

    Let this sink in: (from that WaPo piece):

    The Times, in its own news story on the op-ed, reported late Thursday that Bennet said in a meeting with Sulzberger that he had not read Cotton’s essay before publication.

    So: at the New York Times, the nation’s Paper Of Record with 3000 Pulitzer Prizes, the Op-Ed Editorial Director lets the paper publish a flamingly fascistic screed by a wingnut Senator in he middle of an outbreak of civil unrest – and he didn’t even read the thing??

    I hope James Bennet comes into work tomorrow to find his office locked, and his stuff all in a cardboard box in the lobby: this is one of the worst bits of journalistic malpractice I’ve heard of in long time: even for the NYT….

  136. 136.

    Charluckles

    @Jay C:

    That is insanity. I am gobsmacked. Doubly so after the way he initially responded to criticism.

  137. 137.

    Another Scott

    We’ve been sitting here in the dark in NoVA for about 45 min.  One of about 26,000 customers without power after a line of thunderstorms rolled through.  And it’s just barely June.  (sigh).

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  138. 138.

    Martin

    @raven: Yeah, this is a simple story of some good ‘ol boys looking for someone to lynch. Not lost on anyone is that one is a cop.

  144. 144.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jay C: Yeah, that is such flabbergastingly weak sauce…

    Been thinking about writing both my Senators. Different letter to each of course. But I might suggest to Michael Bennet that he have a little chat with his bro James about journalistic responsibility.

    Not that it will do any good but make me feel good, most likely.

  145. 145.

    rikyrah

    Rand Paul tried to lecture Black lawmakers on the definition of lynching. Kamala Harris delivered her response. I was going to take a snippet from the 7 minutes to highlight but I couldn’t. The entire speech is powerful and one that’ll go down in history. pic.twitter.com/qxmCi85jL6— José (@josecanyousee) June 4, 2020

  147. 147.

    Elizabelle

    @HumboldtBlue:   I saw that.  Grimaced but — it’s the Fuck the Fucking New York Times, Jake.

    Trump inner circle has NO people of color.  But let’s agonize about  … Biden’s.

    They are jokes, but dangerous jokes.

  149. 149.

    Miss Bianca

    @HumboldtBlue: at this point, we have to come to the conclusion that it’s deliberate. It’s not obtusity, it’s not contrarianism, it’s not just sheer anti-democratic ratfuckery.

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