Beyond Privilege

An Atlanta TV station obtained dashcam footage of an officer trying to calm a white driver with these words.

Remember, we only kill black people.

Update (September 1):  D. Watkins dismisses the defense from the officer's attorney.

If this joke of a statement by LoRusso is true, then how would Abbott de-escalate a similar incident with a black person? Oh yeah: shoot them.

Update (September 9):  Kristin Hull reiterates a point all too easy to forget.

We, as well-meaning white people, often take for granted the freedom with which we walk around.

TV Reality?

There are already articles explaining the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, and now we witness another bizarre press conference. Among other peculiar comments,

he even defended his pardon of Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff convicted of contempt of court after refusing an order to stop targeting Latinos for detention. [Von Clownstick] told the press that he thought the announcement would get better ratings during a natural disaster. It's unclear whether he was joking or not.

“I assumed the ratings would be far higher.”

Ok, so let's suppose he is joking and not mentally impaired. In this same press conference, he claimed that the racist Arpaio was "treated unbelievably unfairly" despite widespread condemnation. Is he joking about that, too? Is it all a joke to him?

Update (September 11):  Is it all theater? Do the Republicans need to put on a show to do the things that need to get done yet upset the crazies in their base? Heather Digby Parton recounts the deal von Clownstick cut with Democrats.

Ryan and McConnell — in this telling of the story — were so bowled over by our maverick president’s macho boldness they had no choice but to bring this package to the floor and let the Democrats have their day. Please. 

In the end, the Republican leadership got some much-needed breathing room, the Freedom Caucus got to rail against Ryan as usual without having to do anything about it, Democrats got to smirk and wink and [Fuckface] got his massive ego stroked once again by the mainstream media, upon which he heaps contempt on a daily basis. Win-win.

Update (October 6):  Because matters of life and death deserve a good cliffhanger:

Fuckface: Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.

Reporter: What’s the storm?

Fuckface: You’ll find out.

Update (October 15):  Neal Gabler thinks von Clownstick views the presidency as not just a form of celebrity.

He actually seems to see it as an entertainment — not just a way to be the center of attention, though he clearly loves that — but as a way to tickle the public appetite for excitement. In doing so, he has replaced political values with entertainment values. Politics mean nothing to him. Policy is a bore for him as for most Americans. They want a show. So does he. And he intends to provide it.

Chaos is an awful way to run an administration, but it is a wonderful way to keep people riveted and to distract them from policy discussions.

[H]is “ratings,” as determined by the national preoccupation with him, are through the roof. You can call it a form of rubber-necking, gawking at the disaster and unable to look away. Whatever you call it, [he] is putting on one hell of a show. It’s just that it comes at the expense of everything else, especially governance.

And what if the "ratings" wane? Might an attack be needed to boost them back up?

My fear is that he is calculating precisely what he wants. We have never seen [Fuckface] cornered, never seen what he would do if there was seemingly no way out, never seen what would happen if the show were about to sputter and die.

Broken Rule of Law

Dear Leader has pardoned former sheriff Joe Arpaio. Not only is von Clownstick untroubled by Arpaio's racist policies, by interfering on behalf of a political ally, he signals the intent to do the same for those involved in the Russia investigations.

Former ethics director Walter Shaub called the pardon "vile" and "a harbinger of worse to come".

Senator John McCain said the pardon undermines respect for the rule of law.

No one is above the law and the individuals entrusted with the privilege of being sworn law officers should always seek to be beyond reproach in their commitment to fairly enforcing the laws they swore to uphold. Mr. Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt for continuing to illegally profile Latinos living in Arizona based on their perceived immigration status in violation of a judge’s orders. The President has the authority to make this pardon, but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law as Mr. Arpaio has shown no remorse for his actions.

Even Paul Ryan disagrees with the pardon.

Law-enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States. We should not allow anyone to believe that responsibility is diminished by this pardon.

Update (August 28):  Heather Digby Parton analyzes the reasons for the pardon.

[Von Clownstick] didn’t just pardon Arpaio to signal the base that he’s still the anti-immigrant xenophobe they voted for. He pardoned Arpaio to signal to the police in this country that the “law and order” president thinks it’s fine if cops ignore the courts and the law if they believe those things are inhibiting them from doing their jobs. 

When he says “law and order,” he means that police are the law and they can keep order by any means necessary. That’s the opposite of the rule of law, a concept for which [Fuckface von Clownstick] clearly has no respect.

Update (August 29):  Charles Kaiser sees the beginning of a constitutional crisis.

By pardoning a man convicted of criminal contempt for direct violation of a federal order, [von Clownstick] is now flaunting his eagerness to overturn the rule of law in America.

[W]hat we are now experiencing is exactly what incipient fascism looks like. The combination of [Fuckface's] relentless assaults on the free press, his open encouragement of Nazis — which is the only honest description of his initial refusal to condemn them — and now a pardon without even pretending to go through the normal channels of the Justice Department: These are all the acts of man who is blatantly defying his sacred pledge to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Media Manipulation

A report co-published by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the MIT Center for Civic Media finds that conservatives have scant reason to complain about news coverage.

We document that the majority of mainstream media coverage was negative for both candidates, but largely followed [Fuckface von Clownstick's] agenda: when reporting on Hillary Clinton, coverage primarily focused on the various scandals related to the Clinton Foundation and emails. When focused on [Fuckface], major substantive issues, primarily immigration, were prominent. Indeed, immigration emerged as a central issue in the campaign and served as a defining issue for the [von Clownstick] campaign.

Eric Alterman:

What’s going on here is that conservatives are winning a war that liberals, centrists and, indeed, anyone who believes that politics should be tethered to recognizable reality don’t even know they are fighting. Racism and Islamophobia from outlets like Breitbart and the lunatic ravings of Infowars’ Alex Jones — which somehow make even Breitbart appear relatively reasonable — drove the news coverage of the election even in our most prestigious outlets. Twitter and Facebook were dominated by phony stories designed to discredit Clinton, and cable news, in its ceaseless quest for ratings and the advertising dollars that follow them, reinforced these priorities, allowing [von Clownstick] surrogates to lie with impunity and without correction.

Update (October 30):  While constantly derided as "fake news", Media Matters demonstrates how CNN actually enables von Clownstick's agenda.

[I]f CNN is truly worried about the sort of people who tell you that an apple is really a banana, the network should deal with the stable of pundits it has hired to provide viewers with knee-jerk defenses of the president. Those ... apologists -- some of whom were previously on [Fuckface's] payroll -- actively harm CNN’s journalism, frequently bringing panel discussions to a screeching halt with claims so dishonest they approach parody, at times drawing on-air rebukes from the network’s anchors. The pundits force the network to constantly debate whether the apple is really a banana.

Update (November 4):  Get ready for a surge of propaganda through Sinclair Broadcasting's centralized control of local news.

Update (November 12):  Steven Rosenfeld says social media propaganda is here to stay.

Update (November 24):  Rick Gell argues that cable news doesn't spend enough time on crucial issues. Meanwhile, the FCC is attacking free speech with a proposal to end net neutrality.

Update (November 29):  Pam Vogel has a list of cities Sinclair is expanding into.

Update (December 9):  Jacob Sugarman documents the hostile, right-wing takeover of media outlets.

Update (December 19):  Sinclair requires their stations to broadcast pro-von Clownstick propaganda from former aide Boris Epshteyn.

Why Were They Even Booked in the First Place?

Eighteen charities had seen fit to pay von Clownstick money for their fundraising events.

[S]ince [he] badly bungled the administration’s response to white supremacists who marched on Charlottesville, VA and killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer, charities have been pulling out of hosting their events at his properties in a veritable stampede.

But think about it this way--if they had no problems with leasing from him before Charlottesville even knowing what we already knew about this racist asshole, then Fuckface has made a huge mistake.

Land vs Ocean Temperature Anomalies

Joe Romm explains the difference between warming over land vs ocean.

Part of the reason the ocean warms more slowly is that much of the heating of the ocean goes into evaporation. But the land, particularly the drier parts of the planet, don’t have much moisture to evaporate–so much more of the global warming goes directly into temperature rise.

Chaos

Paul Blumenthal reports on the 16 year trend to de-emphasize the threat of domestic right-wing terrorism.

The president and his aides support gutting efforts to counter violent extremism stemming from white supremacy and other racist ideologies in order to divert funding to anti-jihadist measures.

At the same time, violent incidents, including murders, committed by far-right extremists continued to rise.

While police efforts shouldn't be maligned, there have been troubling incidents.

It’s not just the violence the nation saw in Charlottesville, but also right-wing protests in Berkeley, Sacramento, Portland and Huntington Beach, where police took a hands-off approach.

C. Wright Mills wrote that Marx differed from other social scientists in foreseeing a "qualitative break" in society brought on by revolution. And Chris Harman documents the history of violent class struggle. If the U.S. "alt-right" is pushing for a violent revolution, are they likely to win?

Of course, the Right points to Leftists as the ones doing the plotting. Data scientist Sam Harris argues that civil war most strongly correlates to the number of teens versus the number of people 35 and older in a country. Lacking enough teens, he claims violent revolution won't happen here.

But it seems clear that we have a president who is fostering differences rather than bringing people together. Yet, Jefferson Morley has hopes that two groups can find common ground.

[I]f the resistance and the #Never[Fuckface] movement could rise above their differences and stand together against incipient fascism, they could show the rest of the country how “we the people” can rescue our government. They would show the Congress that the time has come to put country ahead of party and to impeach a disgraceful president.

I know, I know. It’ll never work: Americans are too divided. Which is true. It’ll never work until Americans learn how to put aside lesser differences in service of a greater good. Then it just might work, if it's not too late.

Update (August 22):  Max Pensky and Nadia Rubaii are optimistic that the U.S. is not heading toward genocide.

Update (August 23):  Rick Gell argues against counter-protesting.

Update (August 25):  Roger Stone expects a violent reaction to any attempts to impeach von Clownstick.

Try to impeach him, just try it. You will have a spasm of violence in this country, and insurrection, like you’ve never seen.

Update (August 31):  Even though some fans have been critical, there's a solid base of supporters that like von Clownstick because he's an asshole. I'm guessing a lot of them are armed and Charles Blow fears that Roger Stone may be right.

If these people should come to believe — as [Fuckface] would have them believe — that establishment systems have unfairly and conspiratorially acted to remove from office their last and only champion — another thing [von Clownstick] would have them believe — what will they do?