Today's Must-Read: But Don't Call It "Terrorism"

From Digby, this is something that Trump deserves to be branded with -- these are his supporters, who he has encouraged and parised as "patriots":

What would you say if you saw this in another country?

There is new and disturbing information in the alleged militia plot against the governor of Michigan.

The 14 men charged had far more violent plans than just a kidnapping, according to federal and state authorities.

New filings claim there was a Plan B the militiamen had drawn up, that involved a takeover of the Michigan capitol building by 200 combatants who would stage a week-long series of televised executions of public officials.

Actually, we've seen this before, on live television from the Middle East.

Read the whole thing, and hope that the Biden administration comes down hard on these "patriots" and others like them. (Can we repoen Alcatraz? Or maybe some coral atoll in the Pacific that's about to go under water.)

Freedom from Consequences

That seems to be what Supreme Court Jusice Samuel Alito is demanding here; this came under the broad heading of "religious freedom":

During his half-hour-long speech, Alito warned that not only is freedom of belief increasingly under threat, but freedom of expression is as well.

"One of the great challenges for the Supreme Court going forward will be to protect freedom of speech. Although that freedom is falling out of favor in some circles, we need to do whatever we can to prevent it from becoming a second-tier constitutional right,” he said.

The fallacy here is that somehow -- if, or course, you're the "right people", you should be able to say or do whatever you want without consequences. If you indluge in, for example, anti-gay bigotry, then expect to be labeled a bigot. Cloaking it in a belief in "traditional" marriage (one man and -- how many wives was that, King Solomon?) doesn't quite disguise the meaning: you can believe what you want. Where that freedom ends is when you claim the right to force others to cater to your beliefs.

And that's the second fallacy, which too many people seem ready to accept: forcing others to cater to your personal beliefs is somehow an inherent part of "religious freedom". Unfortunately for that argument, it's a given that all rights have limits. As for being called a bigot -- snowflake!

It's a fairlly revealing article, in one respect, at least: in the age of Trump, the masks are coming off.

Via Joe.My.God.

It's No Secret

That Trump will do anything to retain power, and it's no secret that Roger Stone is nuts, but this is over the top even for him

Roger Stone is making baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and is urging Donald Trump to consider several draconian measures to stay in power, including having federal authorities seize ballots in Nevada, having FBI agents and Republican state officials “physically” block voting under the pretext of preventing voter fraud, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. While I would expect Trump and his minions to be a little more subtle -- although subtlety is not one of Trump's defining characteristics -- I can actually envision something like this happening, although I would expect Trump and the Republicans to try to tie the election up in the courts, since stacking the courts is the only thing Moscow Mitch and his pet Senators have done in the past three-and-a-half years -- aside from giving the richest a free ride. (On second thought, Stone's "recommendations" are really just what Trump's been threatening without the pretty wrappings.)

Read the whole article, but do keep in mind that it's Roger Stone speaking to Alex Jones, another certifiable loon.

Via Balloon Juice.

Today in Trump's America: A Quick Survey (Update)

There's just so much.

First, from the top attorney for Trump's re-election campaign, the Gospel according to your favorite theocrat (pick one -- they'ar all over the place in this regime):

The notion that the United States observes a separation of church and state is a lie, according to President Donald Trump’s senior campaign legal adviser.

“The left is going to tell you there’s this separation of church and state, and that’s just nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere in American law,” Jenna Ellis declared Monday evening during a Zoom event hosted by Asian Pacific Americans for Trump. “That’s nothing that our founding principles ever, uh, derived whatsoever.”

There's more at the link. Via Joe.My.God., who also has some of Ellis' past statements about gay people, just in case you were wondering.

Next up, Trump's Pentagon, which claims that American citizens are the "adversaries":

A new mandatory Pentagon training course aimed at preventing leaks refers to protesters and journalists as "adversaries" in a fictional scenario designed toteach Defense Department personnel how to better protect sensitive information.

The new course was recently launched as part of Defense Secretary Mark Esper's effort to improve "operational security," or OPSEC, and clamp down on leaks. The training materials are public and include a video message from Esper, as well as a July 20 memo outlining his concerns about operational security and directing all DoD personnel — military, civilian and on-site contractors — to take the course within the next 60 days.

The DoD spokesman gives a nice rationale for use of the term, but it still reveals a mindset that's pretty dismal.

Again, vie Joe.My.God.

And from Glorious Leader himself, a little racism to wash it down:

...Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020

There's more. I may update this one.

Update: Trump doesn't think he has to abide by Supreme Court decisions:

President Donald Trump though acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf (photo) will sidestep a Supreme Court ruling and move to drastically limit access to and limit the protections of the Obama-era program known as DACA.

The administration believes DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is still illegal, NBC News reports. Acting Secretary Wolf on Tuesday announced he will not accept any new applicants to the program that protects undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children.

Nice elections you have there -- be a shame if anything happened to them:

The Trump administration is planning to keep federal agents in Portland, Oregon, through at least mid-October, according to an internal email obtained by CNN.

Portland has been the site of ongoing protests for more than 50 days that have turned violent, sparking outrage among local officials who have faulted the federal presence for aggravating the situation on the ground.
But as protests persist, Customs and Border Protection -- part of the Department of Homeland Security -- is laying the groundwork for continued presence in the city on a rotational basis to relieve those agents who have been in Portland and who may be deployed in the near future.

At least mid-October? Like, into early November? And if it looks like it's working in Portland ("working" being a matter of viewpoint), why not try it in other cities?

About Those "Violent, Left-Wing Extremists"

Can you say "bullshit"?

A man seen breaking windows in a viral video of Minneapolis protests is suspected to be a known member of a white supremacist group, cops have alleged in a search warrant affidavit. The man in question, Mitchell Carlson, has not been charged with a crime.

The video, filmed on May 27, showed a man dressed in all black methodically smashing windows of an AutoZone in Minneapolis during racial justice protests over the police killing of George Floyd. The man also spray painted “free shit for everyone zone” on the building’s doors. The man appeared to be dressed as an anti-fascist, but was eyed as a possible infiltrator or “outside agitator” when protesters tried to question him over his activities. He became known as “Umbrella Man” on social media alongside debunked theories that he was a police officer attempting to discredit the protests.

Now, in a search warrant affidavit first reported by The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, police say they have received a tip that the man is Mitchell Carlson, “a full‐fledged member of the Hell’s Angels” and “a known associate of the Aryan Cowboys. The Aryan Cowboys are a known prison gang out of Minnesota and Kentucky.”

Via Joe.My.God.

And as for who started the violence, note this via Digby:

The New York Times reports today on how these troops were the instigators of the violence:

After flooding the streets around the federal courthouse in Portland with tear gas during Friday’s early morning hours, dozens of federal officers in camouflage and tactical gear stood in formation around the front of the building.

Then, as one protester blared a soundtrack of “The Imperial March,” the officers started advancing. Through the acrid haze, they continued to fire flash grenades and welt-inducing marble-size balls filled with caustic chemicals. They moved down Main Street and continued up the hill, where one of the agents announced over a loudspeaker: “This is an unlawful assembly.”

By the time the security forces halted their advance, the federal courthouse they had been sent to protect was out of sight — two blocks behind them. Eight weeks after the death of George Floyd, here’s a look at why longstanding protests in the city have recently intensified.

The aggressive incursion of federal officers into Portland has been stretching the legal limits of federal law enforcement, as agents with batons and riot gear range deep into the streets of a city whose leadership has made it clear they are not welcome…

Digby concludes with this warning:

I think we all knew on some level the moment they named the agency the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security, that we were building an internal police force. And if you build it, they will use it. They’re using it.

Remember, these troops were sent in by the man who had peaceful protesters teargassed so he could have a photo op holding a Bible upside-down in front of a church he doesn't attend.

Footnote: I saw a statement by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot that there is evidence that the looting on the South Side and in the suburbs during the first demonstrations was planned. You can bet it wasn't planned by BLM.

Trump's War on America Continues (Updated)

But received a setback this week:

Federal police are now under a court order not to arrest or assault journalists and legal observers for doing their jobs, after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday that the government said it would appeal.

“An open government has been a hallmark of our democracy since our nation’s founding,” U.S. District Judge Michael Simon wrote Thursday, citing precedent from the Ninth Circuit case Leigh v. Salazar. “When wrongdoing is underway, officials have great incentive to blindfold the watchful eyes of the fourth estate. The free press is the guardian of the public’s interests and the independent judiciary is the guardian of the free press.”

To that hallmark, he added: “This lawsuit tests whether these principles are merely hollow words.”

The government is claiming that "the chaotic atmosphere of Portland’s protests is too “volatile and dangerous” for federal police to differentiate between journalists and protesters accused of breaking the law." Somehow, that argument rings hollow:

Attorney Matthew Borden told Judge Simon at Thursday’s hearing that federal police had mounted “incredible and despicable attacks” against journalists and legal observers. “A 70-year-old man marked ‘press’ from head to toe. Multiple attacks on a 17-year-old girl who stood far from the front. They shot Jungho Kim right in the press pass [with less lethal munitions] and Lewis Rolland a dozen times in the back when he was standing under a streetlight so police could see the big block letters saying he was press.

“These are not accidents,” Borden continued. “These are not inadvertent shots. These are trained marksmen and these are the actions of a tyrant. They do not have a place in Portland, Oregon and they do not have a place under the First Amendment. If you do not have the press reporting on events first-hand, then you only have the version put forth by the government. And that’s what you have under a totalitarian state.”

A number of commentators are characterizing this as an attack on the free press. Well, yes -- but it's also a direct attack on the First Amendment and the Constitution as a whole.

This is Trump all the way: he doesn't like democracy. He likes strongmen and dictators -- look who among world leaders he considers admirable: Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, Kim Jong-Un, Jair Bolsdonaro. He wants to be just like them.

We'll see if this order holds -- Trump's minions will appeal, and Moscow Mitch has been concentrating on stacking the courts rather than actually legislating. One can only hope that there will be something to salvage come January.

Via Joe.My.God.

Update:

Digby has a post on the plans to deploy brown shirts to other major cities, with reports of what's been happening most recently in Portland. Trump's comments are revealing.

Hypocrite du Jour

This gem is from the acting head of DHS:

Our men and women in uniform are patriots. We will never surrender to violent extremists on my watch. pic.twitter.com/kG8w8kyw9E

— Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) July 17, 2020

He's referring to the BLM protesters in Portland, OR, where Bill Barr's gestapo is picking people off the streets without identifying themselves, and mostly without cause.

He goes on:

Here is what I saw in Portland yesterday. pic.twitter.com/B0xvTTYvIj

— Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) July 17, 2020

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country:

More than a dozen members of the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Movement (NSM), many of them armed, marched on Williamsport, Pennsylvania on Saturday and held a rally in the city’s Brandon Park.

Because these are very fine people.

Can you say "Heil,Trump!"?

Suhnap! of the Day

Betsy de Vos, who, like so many -- most -- of Trump's appointees, was intended to dismantle the department she was put in charge of, has pretty much stayed under the radar. Then she made the mistake of giving an interview. Ayana Pressley's reaction sort of sums up the general feeling:

.@BetsyDeVosED you have no plan. Teachers, kids and parents are fearing for their lives. You point to a private sector that has put profits over people and claimed the lives of thousands of essential workers. I wouldn’t trust you to care for a house plant let alone my child. https://t.co/Qs0Z7gCnMo

— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) July 12, 2020

Via Digby.

Today's Must-Read: Are We Great Yet?

I fan across this article by Robin Wright late yesterday. It's rather sobering. Wright starts off with a history of the Statue of Liberty -- not what you may have learned in school. Farther along, this struck me:

On the eve of America’s anniversary—our two hundred and forty-fourth—much of the world believes that the country is racist, battered and bruised. “Europe has long been suspicious—even jealous—of the way America has been able to pursue national wealth and power despite its deep social inequities,” Robin Niblett, the director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House, in London, told me. “When you take the Acela and pass through the poorest areas of Baltimore, you can’t believe you’re looking at part of the United States. There’s always been this sense of an underlying flaw in the U.S. system that it was getting away with—that somehow America was keeping just one step ahead of the grim reaper.”

The flaw, he said, is reflected in the American obsession with the stock market as the barometer of national health—economically, politically, socially. The reaction to Floyd’s murder exposed the deep injustices in the American economic model, as well as in the police and judicial systems, Niblett said. Europeans, he added, are no longer so envious.

The Trump Administration’s ineptitude in handling the covid-19 crisis, as well as the President’s disdain for longstanding allies and international treaties, have compounded the damage to America’s image. A second poll, released last week by the European Council on Foreign Relations, reported that public perceptions of the United States are increasingly negative in virtually all of the European nations surveyed. In France, the country that backed the American Revolution and later donated the Statue of Liberty, forty-six per cent of the people polled said that their opinion of the U.S. has “worsened a lot.” The proportion of respondents who still view America as a key ally is “vanishingly small”—as low as six per cent in Italy.

As I was reading this I kept hearing echoes of Trump's slogan, "Make America Great Again". It occurred to me that greatness is not a quality one assumes for oneself -- it is a quality that is recognized by others. In that context, Trump and his enablers have taken what was once America's greatness and flushed it down the toilet. It will take a massive, sustained effort to regain that -- if we can.

Read the whole thing. Wright also notes the role of capitalism in the current state of affairs, which is itself an eye-opener.

Via Digby.

Are We Great Yet?

Based on this, I'd say no:

European Union countries rushing to revive their economies and reopen their borders after months of coronavirus restrictions are prepared to block Americans from entering because the United States has failed to control the scourge, according to draft lists of acceptable travelers reviewed by The New York Times.

That prospect, which would lump American visitors in with Russians and Brazilians as unwelcome, is a stinging blow to American prestige in the world and a repudiation of President Trump’s handling of the virus in the United States, which has more than 2.3 million cases and upward of 120,000 deaths, more than any other country.

This is interesting:

President Trump, as well as his Russian and Brazilian counterparts, Vladimir V. Putin and Jair Bolsonaro, has followed what critics call a comparable path in their pandemic response that leaves all three countries in a similarly bad spot: they were dismissive at the outset of the crisis, slow to respond to scientific advice and saw a boom of domestic cases as other parts of the world, notably in Europe and Asia, were slowly managing to get their outbreaks under control.

Congratulations, Trump -- you've managed to turn the US into, to use your own words, a "shithole country".

Via Joe.My.God.

Police Culture

This story has been unfolding for the past few days.

During protests in Buffalo, NY, 75-year-old Martin Gugino approached a group of police officers. He was pushed to the ground. Here's a video of the encounter:

New Tonight: Disturbing video from @WBFO in Buffalo, NY shows an elderly man walk up to police in riot gear. An officer shoves the man...he falls backwards, hits his head...starts bleeding immediately...motionless.
Why did this happen @BPDAlerts ?
pic.twitter.com/qbTvXAAPLH

— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) June 5, 2020

As you can see, one of the officers started to help Mr. Gugino, or at least check his condition, and was pulled away by another officer. From reports, the National Guard finally got medical help to the scene. The two officers involved have been suspended without pay.

Now, the entire emergency response team has resigned from the team in support of the two officers who were suspended.

News 4 has learned the entire Buffalo Police Department Emergency Response Team has resigned from the team.

That’s a total of 57 officers.

We’re told this is a show of support for the officers who are suspended without pay after shoving 75-year-old Martin Gugino.

They are still employed, but no longer on the team.

The statements by the police chief and mayor are so much wishy-washy bullshit. Here's the key quote:

“If they resigned, I’m exceptionally disappointed by it because it indicates to me that they did not see anything wrong with the actions last night,” [County Executive] Poloncarz said after being asked about the ERT Team[.]

And there's the problem: these officers who are supporting the two who attacked a 75-year-old-man and refused to call for medical aid don't see anything wrong with this. (I can't help but wonder how many of them voted for Trump -- it's the same attitude.)

There's been a lot of talk over the years about "police culture", which can be summarized in too many cases as "us versus them", where "them" is the people they are supposed to be protecting. You know, the citizens who are paying their salaries. In Chicago, one of the biggest obstacles to reform has been the police union; I'm sure that holds true for other localities, as well.

In this case, these 57 sympathizers with police lawlessness (not to mention complete lack of moral foundation) should also be suspended without pay. Maybe at least some of them will think about it.

Coming Soon To Your Home Town

Bill Barr's Secret Police:

Attorney General Bill Barr is defending his use of an unmarked, unidentified, black-clad heavily-armed paramilitary federal secret police force brandishing riot gear, on the streets of the nation’s capital. Apparently they have been deployed to, as he put it Sunday, “reestablish law and order.”

Many across DC have taken to social media, posting photos and video of these mysterious “soldiers” seemingly charged not with protecting the citizenry, but with protecting the federal government from the citizenry.

They wear no identifying labels: No one can see their name or rank, what agency they work for, what their job is, why they are there. They wear no badges. They just showed up and the Attorney General did not even ask the Mayor of Washington DC or anyone else if it was OK.

They are heavily armed, wear different uniforms, have most of their face covered, and refuse to say who they are.

When asked, they say they work for the Dept. of Justice.

I suppose this is the next step, after gassing peaceful demonstrators (engaged in a lawful assembly, as guaranteed by the First Amendment) so the "president" can have a photo op.

This is choice:

“Barr and Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal said at a Thursday press conference that the officers were from the Bureau of Prisons Special Operations Response Team (SORT),” Yahoo News reports.

“We normally operate within the confines of our institution and we don’t need to identify ourselves. Most of our identification is institution specific and probably wouldn’t mean a whole lot to people in D.C.,” Carvajal said.

“I probably should have done a better job of marking them nationally as the agency. Point is well taken. But I assure you that no one was specifically told in my knowledge not to identify themselves.”

Horsepucky. When asked, they all give the same response, that they work for the DOJ. Tell me there's been no coaching. Of course, it's not inconceivable that Carvajal doesn't know what they were told -- this is a regime where no one knows what's going on.

Oh, and if you don't know what a Republican means by "law and order", you've been asleep for the last forty years.

"Far Left Agitators"? Sure, Jan

This is a surprise exactly how?

Three Nevada men with ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to spark violence during recent protests in Las Vegas.

Federal prosecutors say the three white men with U.S. military experience are accused of conspiring to carry out a plan that began in April in conjunction with protests to reopen businesses closed because of the coronavirus.

More recently, they sought to capitalize on protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air, prosecutors said.

The three men were arrested Saturday on the way to a protest in downtown Las Vegas after filling gas cans at a parking lot and making Molotov cocktails in glass bottles, according to a copy of the criminal complaint obtained by The Associated Press.

It's worth reading the whole article. Trump and Barr's rhetoric notwithstanding, these are right-wingers. And they're terrorists, pure and simple.

Via Joe.My.God.

The Next Step

So, Trump is going to declare Antifa a terrorist organization:

Donald Trump has claimed that left-wing activists are responsible for the violent protests in Minneapolis and other cities, and declared his administration will move to designate the loose association of militant left-wing, anti-fascist demonstrators commonly known as “Antifa” as a terrorist organisation.

“The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organisation,” he said in a series of tweets on Sunday blaming violent outbursts and rioting at police brutality protests across America over the weekend on the group and other “Radical Left” elements.​

As usual, our acting president is right on target -- Antifa (which he mispronounced) is not an organization; it's a loose association of groups and individuals opposed to fascism. Such groups and individuals have included the U.S., the UK, France, the USSR, Frankllin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and, in the present day, Angela Merkel, the Democratic Party -- well, you get my drift.

There's also a matter of U.S. law, which only allows for designating foreign groups as terrorists.

And his butt boy, Bill Barr, is chiming right in:

“In many places it appears the violence is planned, organised, and driven by far left extremist groups and anarchic groups using Antifa-like tactics,” the attorney general said.

In Chicago, the mayor says there's no doubt that the riots, looting, and arson were organized. we just don't know who organized the mess -- but based on recent history, my guess is that it wasn't leftist groups. (If what they've discovered in Minnesota is any indication, look to Trump supporters and other right-wing and neo-fascist groups. Irony note: the spelling the "Boogaloo Bois" use for "boys" is old gay slang for a gay man.)

This is a key point (with thanks to commenter BeccaM at Joe.My.God.)

It is extremely common for authoritarian states to broadly expand the definition of an activist group so that anyone they oppose can be accused of being a member, and thus be arrested and surveiled according to their invented pretext. That is what they will try to do with antifa.

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) May 31, 2020

The comments at Joe.My.God. are worth reading -- a lot of information there.

We're Now Officially A Global Pariah

Thanks, Trump. It only took three years:

Global leaders have pledged to accelerate cooperation on a coronavirus vaccine and to share research, treatment and medicines across the globe. But the United States did not take part in the World Health Organization initiative, in a sign of Donald Trump’s increasing isolation on the global stage.

The cooperation pledge, made at a virtual meeting, was designed to show that wealthy countries will not keep the results of research from developing countries.

The meeting also represented a symbolic endorsement of the United Nations body in the face of Trump’s decision to suspend US payments and condemn its leaders as subordinates of the Chinese Communist party. China and the US have accused each other of bullying and disinformation over the coronavirus outbreak, damaging efforts to secure cooperation at the G20, the natural international institution to handle global health outside the UN.

Read the whole thing -- it's not very long, but it points up the fact that we've got a problem.

Via Digby, who coments:

This is what it’s come to. We are not only no longer leading the world (which is fine…) we aren’t even participants in efforts to save people in a global pandemic. We are now officially a pariah state.

Not that I blame other countries for moving on without us. Why would you want miscreants like Pompeo and Trump interfering in important decisions?

Today's Must-Read: Bad Publicity Helps

I'm sure you're aware that the small-business loan fund under the CARES Act ran out of money very quickly. Why? Because too much of it was going to companies that in no way could be considered "small busnesses".

The Treasury Department issued new guidance on Thursday encouraging publicly-traded companies to return their coronavirus stimulus loans by May 7 as Shake Shack and other public companies have faced backlash for receiving funds meant for small businesses.

While small business owners struggled to secure loans under the Paycheck Protection Program in the two weeks before the $350 billion fund ran dry, dozens of publicly traded companies secured hundreds of millions of dollars in funds, drawing criticism from watchdog groups and lawmakers.

How could these loans have gone to publicly traded companies to begin with? Well, for starters, Trump fired the inspector general who was supposed to be overseeing these programs -- probably to be sure his own companies (which are not publicly traded) could get their hands in the pot.

And then there's this:

Designed for businesses with 500 employees or less, the initiative also included exceptions for big restaurant and hotel chains, along with franchises, with less than 500 employees per location.

That opening allowed some publicly-traded restaurant and hospitality companies to seek and secure millions of low-interest loans from the government.

(Emphasis added.)

Gee, I wonder who wrote that into the bill? Hint: It wasn't Nancy Pelosi.

Via Joe.My.God. The comments on Joe's post are worth reading, particularly this article from NYT, courtesy of commenter corram nobis.

Another WTF? Moment

The right, and especially the members of the Trump regime, are expert at turning reality on its head:

The largely white protesters who oppose social distancing measures to protect the public from COVID-19 are like Rosa Parks, who waged a historic battle for racial equality, right-wing economic commentator and White House adviser Stephen Moore repeatedly insisted Friday.

“I call these people modern-day Rosa Parks. They are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties,” Moore told The Washington Post, in one of at least three instances of this astonishing comparison.

He also told CBS News: “It’s interesting to me that the right has become more the Rosa Parks of the world than the left is.” He said in a YouTube video quoted by The New York Times: “We need to be the Rosa Parks here, and protest against these government injustices.”

So, let me see if I've got this right: the government doing its job and trying to save people's lives is "government injustice". I would have thought it came under the heading of providing for the common welfare.

And lawless vigilantes (who, incidentally, showed up at the Michigan state capitol armed to the teeth with their AR-15 penis substitutes) are freedom fighters.

As for Moore -- well, this seems to be representative of his take on things:

He once quipped that Trump’s first act as president would be to kick a Black family (the Obamas) out of public housing (the White House), according to The Atlantic.

Only the best and the brightest.

Via Joe.My.God.

Today in Disgusting People

I know, I know, but they've been crawling out from under their rocks for the last three years. This one is choice:

In times of national crisis and fast-spreading tragedy like the novel coronavirus pandemic, you can always count on the people who promote sociopathic political worldviews to reveal their awful, deeply inhuman natures for all the world to see—and they don’t come much more sociopathic than immigrant-hating Nativists.

Sure enough, the leaders and spokesmen of key Nativist hate groups—notably the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), both designated hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center—have taken the lead in opposing any release of immigrants currently held in detention centers around the United States despite the spread of COVID-19 in these facilities, as Michael Edison Hayden reports at Hatewatch.

Some of the statement coming from these racist groups sound reasonable, until you stop to think about them. This is just one example:

Another writer at CIS’s website, Andrew Arthur, argued: “Releasing ICE detainees takes them out of a facility where sanitary protections are readily available, testing is accessible, quarantine can be accomplished, and treatment is guaranteed. If that is not joining forces with the current pestilence, I am not sure what is. Detention is the best resistance to pestilence.”

This is pure horsepucky. It's well documented that the conditions at these facilities are appalling -- overcrowded, unsanitary, inadequate food, and practically non-existent medical care.

If these "nativists" want America reserved for the real Americans, they should all go back to Europe.

Read the whole thing, and also the article linked to at Hatewatch.

Footnote: I can't help but wonder how many of these people consider themselves good Christians. How many times does their Bible tell them to welcome the stranger?

Read It and Weep

A new poll from Pew on where people believe the CoVID-19 virus originated:

While a plurality of Americans (43%) say the new coronavirus most likely came about naturally, nearly three-in-ten (29%) say it most likely was created in a lab, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted from March 10 to 16, 2020, as part of the Center’s nearly yearlong Election News Pathways project.

Around a quarter of adults (23%) say it is most likely that the current strain of coronavirus was developed intentionally in a lab; another 6% say it was most likely made accidentally in a lab. A quarter say they aren’t sure where the virus originated.

Note that it's already been determined that CoVID-19 is a mutation of the SARS virus. But, thanks to Fox News and Glorious Leader, that bit of information got buried.

Here's the breakdown:

 

What's appalling about this is that less than half the people in this country believe the virus is a natural mutation. (And let's face it, viruses mutate like crazy -- that's why there are so many varieties of flu.) And even worse, look at the age breakdown: the 19-29 year-olds are the group with the largest number of -- what shall I call them? How about "paranoid fantasists"?

I fear for the future.

Via Joe.My.God.

Today in Petty Vindictiveness: Two Firings

Trump likes to fire people. We knew that when he first made his mark (such as it was) as a reality TV star. This one was a long time coming:

U.S. President Donald Trump notified Congress on Friday that he is firing the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community who was involved in triggering an impeachment probe of the president last year.

In a letter to key lawmakers, Trump said he planned to remove the official, Michael Atkinson, in 30 days, saying, “it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general.”

“This is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general,” he said.

"Fullest confidence", of course, means a reliable sycophant. Atkinson's big sin, of course, was that he did his job and reported the Ukraine whistleblower's complaint to Congress. Besides, Trump doesn't like the intelligence community anyway.

For the second firing, he used a surrogate:

[Capt. Brett] was removed from duty after a letter he wrote pleading for help for those onboard his ship who are infected with the coronavirus leaked to the media.

The Navy announced his removal on Thursday. According to acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, whether Crozier intentionally leaked the letter or not, he "did not take care" to ensure it was not leaked.

As of Thursday, 114 sailors on board the Roosevelt had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Crozier's letter to Navy officials, which leaked on Tuesday, warned that the tight quarters onboard the ship did not allow for the safety of the crew. He asked leadership to offload most of the sailors on the ship in order to allow for social distancing and sanitizing the ship.

So, try to take care of the service members under your care and you get fired.

And the surrogate is madly trying to cover his ass:

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Friday that his firing of the captain who raised the alarm about a coronavirus outbreak onboard a U.S. aircraft carrier was the "hardest thing that I've ever had to do."

But he did it anyway, because:

"I know that he loves this crew. I know that the crew loves and respects him. But that's not an excuse for exercising the judgment that he did," Modly said.

If anyone displayed poor judgment in this, it's the" Acting" Secretary of the Navy.

All via Joe.My.God.