The cops sure are working hard to craft a victimhood narrative

If the cops want to argue that a large part of the public mistrusts and actively hates the police, I’d have no problem agreeing. My impression of cops has nose-dived from “well-meaning but flawed civic servants” to “overpaid bullying racist thugs with way too much fondness for violence” in the last decade or two, so I feel it’s true from personal experience, not to mention all the incidents of cops flat-out murdering people.

But when you’re reduced to claiming that the public is also a master of devious sleight-of-hand, trying in numerous sneaky ways to attack the police, my belief is greatly strained. I don’t believe that service workers are trying to poison cops, or intentionally making them wait at McDonalds, or slipping tampons into their frappucino. That’s just silly.

You want to tell me that some protesters have thrown rocks at cops in riot gear at demonstrations, I’ll believe you. You even have video of that sort of thing. But I’ll also tell you that cops have been using tear gas, sometimes firing it nearly point blank into people’s faces, and that if the worst you can say is this dubious claim that a Starbucks barista put a tampon on your drink, I’m not going to be impressed.

We already know your reputation has hit rock bottom, and that you’re still digging.

Is no statue safe anymore?

Nope. Even being a president on Mt Rushmore makes you safe.

The statue of Teddy Roosevelt at the AMNH is coming down.

The New York Times reports that it was the museum’s decision to remove the statue, which has sat at its main entrance for the last 80 years; the city agreed it was time to take it down. Though the statue intends to honor Roosevelt—New York’s former governor, a U.S. President, and a famed naturalist whose father was one of the museum’s founders—it also depicts colonialism, as evidenced by the stereotypical Native American man and African man who flank the horseback-riding white man at its center. In 2017, activists splashed blood-red paint on its base, noting that the statue “is bloody at its very foundation.” And with reignited nationwide conversations about and removals of statues depicting Confederate generals, slaveholders, and genocidal explorers, the museum decided it was time to revisit Roosevelt.

Maybe we should look at every monument and ask exactly what it is commemorating. A monument that celebrates the national park system, yes. A monument that celebrates one guy riding gallantly above exploited peoples, no.

The spectacle of Republican cannibalism is always entertaining

Ah, the country is swirling down the crapper thanks to toxic conservatives, but at least we can savor the desperate clawing of the terrible people responsible at each other. I give you the Illinois Patriarchy Institute, which is mightily enraged at a recent Supreme Court decision that says employers can’t punish people for being gay.

I and others have been shouting from our virtual rooftops for over a decade that there is no greater threat to First Amendment protections than that posed by the subversive “LGBTQ” movement. Can conservatives not yet see the end of the short pier toward which GOP leaders have long been pushing them? Really?

(Im)moderate Republicans, Libertarian-leaning Republicans, Republicans with dollar signs rather than Scripture reflected in their myopic eyes have been pushing conservatives toward the end of the short pier, hoping that either spines will crumble or conservatives will tumble into the dark waters. Supremacist Court Justice/lawmaker Neil-the-Usurper-Gorsuch just gave conservatives a huge shove toward the watery abyss.

Also, there are gays in the Republican party!

Conservatives get all giddy with chills running up their legs when homosexuals like Guy Benson, Dave Rubin, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Brandon Straka express Republican-ish views. “Oh gosh, the cool kids like us, they really like us!”

Meanwhile, those smart, articulate, good-looking homosexuals seek to change the Republican Party from within—like a cancer or a Guinea worm (am I allowed to call it the Guinea worm any longer?). We welcome camels into the tent at our peril.

The author suggests that all these Republicans ought to join the Democratic party. No, thanks, they’re awful people, and we are already full up on them. You keep ’em.

Is there hope for November?

The Preznit had a rally in Tulsa yesterday — no one is questioning why a sitting president is so insecure he needs these pointless mini-Nuremburgs — and beforehand, his managers were touting the YUGE numbers of people who signed up to attend. Then the rally happened.

In the days leading up to Trump’s Saturday rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he and his allies ginned up expectations for a massive crowd with campaign officials telling CNN that more than a million people had registered to attend, and one local official stating they expected 100,000 to show up near the arena.

But those crowds didn’t appear as large as expected Saturday afternoon, leading to an abrupt change of plans by the campaign. A campaign source told CNN that the team was abandoning plans for the President to speak to an “overflow” area outside the arena in Tulsa where only a couple dozen people were standing near the outdoor stage less than two hours before the rally.

The campaign had been leaning toward canceling Trump’s remarks to the overflow crowd for fear of angering the President if there aren’t as many people there as he expected when he lands.

Is there hope? Is his support fading? Maybe. But then there’s this.

He managed to drink a glass of water and is so proud of himself — and the crowd roars! His base might be shrinking, but the ones he has left are zealous morons.

Of course, when I allow myself to consider the possibility he might lose in November, I have to remind myself that his replacement will be Biden.

There ain’t much hope left here.

OK, Mother Iowa, maybe you could tone it down a bit?

This is a Union monument, erected in Iowa after the Civil War.

“IOWA, HER AFFECTIONS, LIKE THE RIVERS OF HER BORDERS, FLOW TO AN INSEPARABLE UNION”

Don’t you dare call it pornographic. It’s a very serious Civil War monument, although it does seem to be lacking in the required plumbing to allow passers-by to be sprayed by her bounty.

Snide and funny!

This guy makes a series of smart points about fascists. I found it amusing.

I am fine with statues being torn down and military bases being renamed. This is not the destruction of history, it is the correction of distortions of history, a process that historians do all the time. Some people seem to think history is fixed and absolute, but then it would be done — and historians are well aware that our understanding of the past requires constant sifting of new evidence and reassessment of past interpretations in the light of new knowledge. US history, in particular, has been the victim of political attacks to change people’s perception of the Civil War, and to erase the struggles of black communities. It’s about time we rose up and rejected these weird ideas that Robert E. Lee was heroic, that the Civil War was about state’s rights, that the American Revolution was led by noble idealists who cared about liberty most of all, that colonialism brought enlightenment to barbarous parts of the world. Every generation lies about its virtues, and it’s the role of subsequent generations to correct the record.

They’re afraid!

The thin blue line is cracking. A few members of the Minneapolis Police Department are realizing that their jobs are in peril, and are ready to throw Derek Chauvin to the media wolves and an angry citizenry, and wrote an open letter disavowing any association with the ‘bad guys’ of the police force.

Members of the Minneapolis Police Department spoke out on Friday out against former police officer Derek Chauvin in an open letter addressed to “everyone — but especially Minneapolis citizens.”

“Derek Chauvin failed as a human and stripped George Floyd of his dignity and life. This is not who we are,” said the letter, signed by fourteen MPD officers. “We’re not the union or the administration,” the letter says.

“We stand ready to listen and embrace the calls for change, reform and rebuilding,” says the letter, which comes as powerful police unions across the country are digging in, preparing for a once-in-a-generation showdown over policing and new polls that indicate that most Americans now acknowledge that African Americans are more likely to be mistreated or even killed by police.

“There were many more willing to sign, but the group opted to showcase people from across the PD as well as male/female, black/white, straight/gay, leader/frontline, etc. Internally, this is sending a message” said Paul Omodt, a spokesperson for the officers who penned the open letter.

Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t believe you, and fuck you. The MPD has had a reputation for brutality for decades, and the minority population of Minneapolis has a rich collection of stories. Where were these police in 2010, 2000, 1990, 1980? Prioritizing loyalty to a corrupt union and fellow gang members, that’s where. Standing in unity with bad cops. Probably getting in a few licks of their own. This is like those cops who now take a knee for a photo op before heading out to bust heads with a baton or shoot bystanders with rubber bullets or hose down crowds with pepper spray. I’m not impressed.

That is who they are.

Don’t be swayed when the bully starts sniveling and begging for mercy. They all do that.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting story about the unintended consequences of technology — I hadn’t thought about it before, had simply taken it for granted, but the ability of popular cell phones to record video is only about 12 years old, and has progressed rapidly to the point where the majority of consumers won’t accept a phone that lacks video recording technology. Better and fancier phone cameras are a major selling point! They are now used all the time to record the viciousness of the police, and are much more reliable than the body cams that somehow magically get turned off just before a cop kills someone.

I might have been much more sympathetic to a subset of cops making a plea for “change, reform and rebuilding” in 2005, before it became apparent that they were going to have problems getting away with brutality, and before all those videos emerged revealing how horrifically cruel and callous the police were. It’s too late for them now.

Lawless police

The police were systematically slashing car tires during the protests. They initially lied and said they didn’t do it, or that it was a few random incidents, but when every car in a lot is slashed in all four tires, you know that’s a big fat lie. Now that there’s video of cops destroying property, they’ve changed the lie.

The Star Tribune has identified the officers puncturing tires as state troopers and deputies from the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. The officers strategically deflated the tires to “stop behaviors such as vehicles driving dangerously and at high speeds in and around protesters and law enforcement,” said Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bruce Gordon. The troopers reportedly targeted cars that “contained items used to cause harm during violent protests” such as rocks and concrete. The Anoka County Sheriff’s Lt. Andy Knotz said deputies were following directions from the state-led Multiagency Command Center.

Yeah, right. Lie, lie, lie.

Also of note: these are Minnesota state troopers, not the Minnesota Police Department. The city is talking about defunding their police, but the staties aren’t being touched. Maybe when they’re hit with all the towing bills and lawsuits, somebody will wake up and realize they’re just as corrupt?

Just look at these pretend-soldiers destroying private property!!!. Shock! Horror!

The gray car in the video above was the rental car of Luke Mogelson, a New Yorker writer who typically covers war zones and is now stationed in Minneapolis to write about the protests. As the protest on Sunday evening turned hairy, with law enforcement tear-gassing peaceful groups soon after curfew, Mogelson went to check on his car, showing his press pass to officers along the way. (Media were exempt from the curfew.) One officer took a picture of his press pass and said he would “radio it up the chain so everyone knew that car belonged to the press,” said Mogelson. When he came back later that evening to retrieve his car, officers informed him that the tires were punctured. “They were laughing,” Mogelson recalled. “They had grins on their faces.”

ACAB. Indisputably.

Gosh. Maybe I should respect the police perspective on all this.