Month: June 2020

June 19, 2020 will not mark a deadly COVID-19 superspreader event sponsored in Tulsa, Okla. That will come tomorrow, sponsored by a very different Republican president than the one whose Emancipation Proclamation was read this day in the streets of Galveston, Texas in 1865.

The Washington Post Editorial Board provides this thumbnail sketch of the original Juneteenth:

AS U.S. troops gradually reasserted Union control over the defeated South in the spring of 1865, units under Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Tex., flying the American flag and bearing news of President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. They marched through town reading General Order No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor.”

As the current (and temporary) occupant of the Oval Office is learning now, simply signing a declaration does not change reality or culture. The promise of Juneteenth remains unrealized 155 years later.

Even as former slaves celebrated, white southerners had set about ensuring that equality between former masters and former slaves would never become reality. The North won the Civil War and lost Reconstruction. One hundred years of Jim Crow followed, memorialized with statues and monuments erected to a Dixie where old times are not forgotten. Those are only recently coming down.

Hundreds of statues erected decades after the war were reminders not just of Confederate heroes, but a declaration of just who is in charge. Much of human behavior among our neighbors is not so much deep strategy as alpha dog behavior, showing who’s boss by barking loudly in the other dog’s face until he rolls over on his back and pees in the air. During the transition after the 2016 election, adviser to the incoming administration Sebastian Gorka declared as much on Fox News: “The alpha males are back.”

It took a Second Reconstruction, the civil rights movement of the 1960s, to begin uprooting the systemic racism knotted into the soil of 400 years of American history. Even 50 years after the King assassination, those we ripped up before remain viable and sprout anew whenever nonwhite Americans assert their Americanness and demand the equality Lincoln’s proclamation promised. Or whenever certain whites feel their cultural and political supremacy challenged.

For all their supposed reverence for the U.S. Constitution, many among our white, self-declared patriots would just as soon rip out the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. All their bluster, froth, and spittle cannot conceal the insecurity behind “White Fragility.” As they see it, for nonwhites to gain full Americanness, whites must surrender their alphaness. Blacks don’t want equal rights. They want “specialty rights.” The “boogaloo bois,” won’t have it. This is their country, by God, and they’ll burn it down before sharing it. For nonwhite Americans to be equal means they must be less. It is not so, but what they believe nonetheless.

Black Americans just want to be treated equally and not to live in fear when their children leave the house or when a police cruiser heaves into view.

So, here we are. Juneteenth again. One America demanding the nation live up to a promise unfulfilled. Another fighting against it while wrapped in the flag and armed to the teeth and itching for a second Civil War.

Update: This chilling short film (h/t Rude Pundit)

Watch an illustration of EJI's new report. While the 12 years after enslavement initially held great hope, the era gave way to devastating violence by white people against Black communities. Our history of racial injustice requires more attention to address the issues of today. pic.twitter.com/789ZeWOhly

— Equal Justice Initiative (@eji_org) June 16, 2020

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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.

Via Mediaite

Let’s take a walk down Twitter Memory Lane and remind ourselves of the senior Trump administration officials who were apparently smart enough for Trump to hire, but once they left the administration, developed the intellectual capacity of a “rock.”

“One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of and anti-science bias that people are — for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable — they just don’t believe science and they don’t believe authority. And that’s unfortunate because, you know, science is truth.” — Dr Anthony Fauci

It's not fading away … https://t.co/xZwn2PW860

— digby (@digby56) June 18, 2020

The positive rate was the highest since late May…

California’s positive rate has been going up although the hospitalization rate is going down. The Governor just issued a new mandate:

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered all Californians to wear face coverings while in public or high-risk settings, including when shopping, taking public transit or seeking medical care, following growing concerns that an increase in coronavirus cases has been caused by residents failing to voluntarily take that precaution.

Newsom’s order came a week after Orange County rescinded a requirement for residents to wear masks and as other counties across California were debating whether to join local jurisdictions that had mandated face coverings. The Newsom administration has not addressed how the new requirement will be enforced or if Californians who violate the order will be subject to citations or other penalties.

“Simply put, we are seeing too many people with faces uncovered — putting at risk the real progress we have made in fighting the disease,” Newsom said in a statement. “California’s strategy to restart the economy and get people back to work will only be successful if people act safely and follow health recommendations. That means wearing a face covering, washing your hands and practicing physical distancing.”

Until now, state public health officials had only recommended that Californians wear face coverings, which, if worn by someone with the virus, have been shown to decrease the chances of spreading COVID-19. The Sacramento Bee on Wednesday first reported that the Newsom administration was considering a statewide face-covering requirement.

I’ve noticed that less than 50% of people have been wearing masks in public although most stores around me require them. And social distancing is just out the window. Last weekend people were congregating at parties all over my neighborhood. If you want to social distance as you go for a walk you’ll need to move out of the way because nobody else will.

So… this.

This piece about the private police message boards from The Huffington Post is just chilling. The culture inside these departments is absolutely toxic.

Around the time news broke on Monday afternoon that the New York City Police Department would disband plainclothes anti-crime units that had been tied to several high-profile police shootings, someone calling themselves “ltdad613” started a thread on Thee Rant, a police message board that purports to host current and former NYPD employees. “I wouldn’t want to be a [Commanding Officer] for the next few compstats,” ltdad613 wrote. “This is right from [New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio]. I feel for anybody still on the job.”

Elsewhere, the posts on Thee Rant were much darker. In one Monday thread, “dominop” wrote that “A Firing squad would be a good cure for ANTIFA!!!” Other users chimed in to say snipers or napalm might be more fitting.

Thee Rant is just one node in a wider web of right-wing police media. On similar message boards, in Facebook groups and on news sites such as Law Enforcement Today — a sort of Breitbart-like outlet written by and for police — there is a fervent narrative that police are under nonstop siege, and that antifa in particular is a constant threat.

This police media ecosystem is not necessarily a broad representation of what most cops believe. But inside this echo chamber, which has thousands of users and readers, extremist views dictate the narrative. Wild misinformation and bigotry are rampant, with people who claim to be current and former officers posting debunked falsehoods and racist stereotypes about protesters.

Intense public focus on police behavior in recent weeks, following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, has led to the termination of several law enforcement officers who posted conspiratorial or racist messages on their personal social media pages. When these posts are singled out for scrutiny and have a real officer’s name attached, opprobrium comes quickly, but most of those posts would be right at home in right-wing police media.

“What I think we have here is a market for this kind of racist and divisive garbage across the internet, and unfortunately police are participating in that wave that is witnessed across various professions,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “It pains me as a former NYPD officer to see this,” he said. “These posts are devastating.”

Levin doesn’t think people should assume that “cops en masse subscribe to this,” but he does see dangerous potential, because online echo chambers tend to “self-accelerate” bigoted beliefs. For “police in particular, who so often have to hold their tongue and try to restrain themselves,” he said, “online it becomes even more [of an] accelerant.”

Most cops may not agree with these extremist views but police culture that mimics military culture which values keeping each others’ secrets and “having each others’ backs” above all else ends up making them a defacto police worldview.

Here’s a little bit more detail:

Law Enforcement Today claims to be the largest law enforcement-owned and -operated media company in America. It has repeatedly promoted far-right conspiracy theorists and authoritarian policies, particularly during the recent mass demonstrations against police violence.

Founded by Robert Greenberg, a Florida police captain who has called his outlet “a platform for the voice of law enforcement,” LET has more than 800,000 followers on Facebook and runs a syndicated radio show. Much of its content is provided by former or current police officers, and it offers paid memberships of $75 a year to gain access to “the patriotic content that the social media giants don’t want you to see.”

The site’s articles often bear only a passing resemblance to reality. Earlier this month, Law Enforcement Today published an article calling for the arrest of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, accusing him of aiding and abetting “antifa” terrorists. The post cited numerous far-right media activists, including anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, and suggested that Democratic officials including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) are antifa sympathizers. It also baselessly attacked Tlaib and Omar, who are Muslim, as “arguably anti-Semites and ISIS supporters (if not in words, in actions).” 

“Law Enforcement Today supports Laura [Loomer]’s demand that Dorsey be arrested and prosecuted for promoting an insurrection against the United States,” the article says. It also suggests that politicians such as Omar who have expressed support for the current protests against police brutality and systemic injustice should be arrested as well. 

The article is published under the pseudonym “Sgt. A. Merica” and claims to be “written by several staff writers, including retired and wounded law enforcement officers.” Law Enforcement Today says it verifies the identity and background of its authors before publishing. 

When it isn’t stirring fear of antifa, much of the site’s coverage focuses on law enforcement officers who have been harmed in the line of duty. It also regularly criticizes elected officials who are seeking to curb police powers, part of what the site calls a “war on law enforcement.” The consistent message is that police are perpetually under attack, and that the government — with the exception of President Donald Trump — does not have their back.

There is more at the link and it’s worth reading.

This is the best argument for massive police reform I’ve read yet.

Ian Millhiser breaks down the DACA ruling:

The legal issue in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, an extraordinarily narrow decision preserving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, is quite small: whether the Trump administration completed the proper paperwork when it decided to wind down the program.

In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that the administration’s paperwork was insufficient, keeping the program alive for now.

While the legal stakes in this case were tiny, the human stakes are enormous. DACA allows nearly 700,000 unauthorized immigrants, who came to the United States as children, to live and work in the United States. The Court’s decision in Regents means that these immigrants will not have their lives disrupted immediately.

And yet, while Regents means that these immigrants are not immediately at risk of deportation, they still must live under a cloud of uncertainty for at least as long as Donald Trump is president. As Chief Justice John Roberts notes in his majority opinion, “the dispute before the Court is not whether DHS may rescind DACA.” Indeed, “all parties agree that it may.”

Rather the dispute in Regents is “primarily about the procedure” the Department of Homeland Security followed when it tried to end DACA. Though Regents concludes that DHS did not follow the proper procedures, nothing prevents the department from trying again.

Millhiser goes on to explain the legal reasoning and policy ramifications. The politics are more complicated, I think. Obviously, this means that Trump will not be able to order ICE to immediately start dragging DACA recipients out of their houses and put them on a boat to countries they’ve never been to which is a big relief.

Trump should be happy about this because it spares him that image going into the election. And it’s possible that he is, so that he can demagogue the issue at this Death Rallies.

But, I’m not so sure. It’s possible that they will just go back and quickly rewrite the rules and then just go for it. Obviously, someone will just as quickly bring suit , so maybe it’s a moot point. But he is very angry and he’s getting desperate so who knows?

These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020

Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020

Update: Someone informed him that this is a good issue for him in the fall now that Roberts and Gorsuch are officially left-wing radicals. His Death Cult will not have even a moment of reflection on the fact that Roberts is a mainstream conservative and Trump himself appointed Gorsuch:

…Religious Liberty, among many other things, are OVER and GONE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020

Apparently, Trump has decided to go full “you can believe me or you can believe your eyes” on the pandemic:

President Trump went on a veritable interview tour on Wednesday — Sinclair, Gray TV, WSJ, Fox News — and was thoroughly dismissive of the coronavirus threat in at least two of the interviews.

Gray TV’s DC bureau chief Jacqueline Policastro said to Trump, “Coronavirus cases are rising in 22 states, including Oklahoma, where you plan to hold a big rally this week. Aren’t you worried about people getting sick?””No,” Trump said, “because if you look, the numbers are very minuscule compared to what it was. It’s dying out. By the way, we’re doing very well in vaccines and therapeutics.” And he went on from there.

Later in the day, in a call with Sean Hannity, Trump delivered “his usual exaggeration about his travel restrictions,” per CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, and said the US will not have to close again. Then he moved on.

Trump’s quotes reaffirmed what CNN’s WH team wrote earlier in the day: “Trump has largely tuned out the persistent coronavirus contagion — which is causing spikes in new cases across 21 states and daily death tolls that reach into the hundreds — to focus instead on reviving both the economy and his own political prospects.”This story quoted an admin official close to the coronavirus task force as saying, “They just don’t want to deal with the reality of it. They’re in denial.”Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s viral tweetstorm informed millions of people on Wednesday. So did his numerous live shots on CNN.

Gupta rebutted Trump’s “it’s dying out” claim in an interview with Don Lemon, saying, “It’s not going away, it’s just sort of moved around the country, which was exactly what was expected. It’s not dying away.”

It’s not dying away. But thousands and thousands of people are. He’s telling his people that they won’t die. As usual, he’s lying.

He told the Wall Street Journal that people are wearing masks because they don’t like him. Also said that some of his rally goers will probably get sick but they know the risks. (Of course, he’s requiring them to sign a waiver so they can’t sue him — he clearly knows the risks.)

He is demented…

“I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous,” Trump told the Journal. “It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.”

Yeah. He’s come a long way:

“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.”

I periodically recommend to our outnumbered state legislators that they consider us activist types as their scouts. Say, at Gettysburg. They are engaged in pitched battle down in the capitol. Their focus is straight ahead, on fending off each successive wave of frontal attacks from political adversaries.

Meanwhile, we scruffy activists are out sniffing around the edges of the battlefield for troop movements outside their field of vision. Where is the next attack coming from? Are reinforcements on the way or not? From what direction and how many? They might want to know that. They’re tied up. We just see it before they do. A few of them actually listen.

Many progressive activists would like to mount all-out, frontal counter-attacks to achieve whatever objective is of foremost importance to them. Whatever the costs. Sure, it might be Pickett’s Charge across three-quarters of a mile of open ground into cannon fire from Cemetery Ridge. But better to go down in a blaze of glory than tolerate another incremental attempt at gaining inches. Right?

So, it was interesting to hear what a veteran of many battles long before I enlisted had to say about the one just ahead. Angela Davis, the legendary 1960s activist now professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has fought more than her share. She now learns from people 50 years younger, and that helps keep her in the fight:

Now 76, she speaks over Zoom from her office in California. Does she feel now that, after so many years, meaningful change is possible? “Well, of course, it could be different,” says Davis. “But that’s not guaranteed.” It’s an understandably cautious tone from Davis, who has seen everything from the Watts riots and Vietnam to Ferguson and Iraq. “After many moments of dramatic awareness and possibilities of change, the kinds of reforms instituted in the aftermath have prevented the radical potential from being realised.”

She is, on the whole, buoyed up by the vast protests triggered by Floyd’s death. Although there have been large-scale protests as recently as 2014 – after the death of Michael Brown, and others including Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and Eric Garner – Davis thinks that this time, something has changed. This time, white people are beginning to understand.

“We’ve never witnessed sustained demonstrations of this size that are so diverse,” says Davis. “So I think that is what is giving people a great deal of hope. Many people previously, in response to the slogan Black Lives Matter, asked: ‘But shouldn’t we really be saying all lives matter?’ They’re now finally getting it. That as long as black people continue to be treated in this way, as long as the violence of racism remains what it is, then no one is safe.”

“I do think we have to participate in the election,” Davis told Democracy Now!, even though neither major party represents the future she wants to see.

“But the election will not be so much about who gets to lead the country to a better future,” Davis explains, “but rather how we can support ourselves and our own ability to continue to organize and place pressure on those in power.” She has no doubt which presidential candidate will allow that process to go forward.

Angela Davis on voting and what’s at stake. She’s voting for Biden. Hopefully, some of you Rose 🌹 twitter folks will get out of your white feelings and do the same pic.twitter.com/MUpXcC5QSs

— Kowboy Kerney (@wondermann5) June 17, 2020

The electoral arena may not be the best place for the expression of radical politics, Davis says, but to move forward we need someone in office who will be amenable to mass pressure. It’s not the current occupant of the White House. That means we have to translate the energy from our street protests into remedying that through our votes.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.

Biden gave a speech today. It was good:

He doesn’t think it’s a good idea to kill voters or allow the virus to run wild and further destroy the economy. Imagine that.

.

Please remember that John Bolton is merely one more fanatical right wing operative with a long history of lunatic remarks. He has no integrity and no credibility. If he did have any credibility, if he really was the patriot he pretends to be, he would have testified in front of Congress during impeachment. Instead, he opted to withhold information the American people desperately needed for no other reason than he knew he could make a buck.

In the fight over the release of his book, please remember that the book itself is nearly completely worthless as an historical document. Bolton has zero incentive and zero obligation to tell the whole truth or only the truth. He is not under threat of perjury. He can make stuff up and mix it in with real stuff and if caught, suffer no consequences except, maybe, a little embarrassment. Please understand that someone with Bolton’s mindset would have no compunction whatsoever about lying to or misleading the “liberal” media if (1) he could see more copies sold and make more bucks and (2) if the lies could advance his extremist agenda.

If the publication of Bolton’s book leads to actual sworn testimony, I will pay close attention to him then. But in my opinion, nothing that man says is worth a hill of beans unless he knows that if he lies, he’s going to the pokey.

So those of you who plan to read his swill, please, please, don’t take any of it at face value. He is not to be trusted.