Midnight Meme Of The Day!

 

by Noah

Charlotte, South Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina, Charlottesville, Virginia, Pittsburgh, PA, even Oklahoma City; these are just a few of the recent shootings and killings with assorted ties to white supremacy groups. In the coming months or couple of years, we may get the definitive word on what associations accused Kenosha killer Kyle Rittnehouse had or didn't have. One thing's for sure, if you mention Kyle's name to Trump voters, they cheer him. You can see it on their FB pages right along with other disgusting sentiments. Ten days ago at a Wisconsin GOP rally, Rittenhouse's mom got a frenzied welcome and standing ovation when she was introduced on the stage by conservative commentator and FOX "News" loon Michelle Malkin. Malkin also spoke to Kyle Rittenhouse and thanked him for his "courage."

So the first thing I wondered when I saw President Psychopath at Tuesday's "debate" where he gave aid, comfort, endorsement, and a marketing slogan ("Stand Back, Stand By") to The Proud Boys, was, what will be the next city, the next church, the next synagogue, or maybe a mosque, or urban school or polling place to receive the kind of assault that The Orange Menace To Society is attempting to incite? Who is the next pipe bomber? You know it's coming. It's not a matter of if but when. Someone out there thinks he's gotten Dear Leader's message loud and clear. Someone out there is preparing to act. Do I even have to mention the amount of bad cops out there who think they have permission from the highest levels to murder the next black man they see? That's become as American as apple pie, an apple pie laced with strychnine.

On Tuesday, the whole world saw Trump as the completely out of control, emotionally unstable white supremacist mental case that he is. What a sad night for our country. He might as well have been an old demented, screaming crazy man that showed up off the street in his bathrobe. That was sad enough but even sadder is that we've heard not one peep of condemnation from any republicans anywhere. While The Proud Boys rejoiced, ran with their idol's words, upped their recruitment efforts, and made t-shirts with the new Trump-minted slogan he gave them, no republicans got on national TV and objected to the Dear Leader's words. Why would they? It's been obvious for a long time that they're Proud Boys, too. They'd just rather have others do the shooting.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Maybe the clown in the meme is really President Trump and not John Wayne Gacy. The hands are a little big but that could be the gloves.

Nah, It's John Wayne Gacy but I'm sure Trump would love Gacy if he were alive and said something supportive. Besides, his name is John Wayne. That in itself is enough to appeal to any repug, no?

For those who don't remember, John Wayne Gacy, like our psychopathic president, was a man who liked to paint his face up like a clown and get off on killing people. Both clowns are American serial killers. In the case of Gacy, he specialized in boys and young men. With Trump, any corpse will suffice as long as it's a corpse because of the actions of his tiny little hands or his tiny little damaged little mind. I guess he sees and embraces more options than Gacy did, though. Does that mean he's more psychotic? You decide.

In any event, the clown that lives in the White House decided to take time off from golf to visit Kenosha Tuesday afternoon. Think of that as an arsonist visiting his handiwork. I bet he was hoping the blood hadn't been washed off the street yet. In fact, this arsonist dropped in on Kenosha for far more than that. He wanted to make a point of showing solidarity with those who want to take the law into their own hands. He wants to encourage more and more violence and mayhem. The more shooting the better. Republican bonus points for non-caucasians.

Addendum:

A new entry in the ongoing NAZI clown parade is Wisconsin $enator Ron Johnson. Well, not new but I'm adding this here because I don't think what this pride of Wisconsin had to say about what happened in Kenosha should go unnoticed in the tsunami of Trump-caused chaos. Here's Johnson on Tuesday:

The way you stop the violence, the way you stop the rioting, is you surge manpower and resources, citizen soldiers, National Guard, and you overwhelm the number of rioters.

The term 'citizen soldiers' is frequently used to describe both amateur militias and the National Guard. Johnson's spokecretins, realizing that Johnson had let a cat out of his bag and endorsed the use of nutjob killer militia types in addition to the National Guard, immediately tried to walk back his statement by saying he was only referring to the National Guard. But, there it is. Both 'citizen soldiers' and the National Guard are mentioned as separate entities, right there, back to back. In yet another expression of republican bloodlust, Johnson stood right next to Donnie Psycho and revealed that he, too, approved of how two protesters came to die.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

In Monday's Midnight Meme, I wrote about how accused Kenosha Killer Kyle Rittenhouse had been inspired by the words of overt white nationalists like President Trump and those at FOX "News" like Tucker Tiki Torch Carlson. I mentioned that, not only Mr. Tiki Torch but other Republicans were offering defense and even praise for the murders in the streets of Kenosha. Now, encouraged by the likes of Mr. Tiki Torch and others, that feverish idiocy has all too predictably grown. Anyone who can look into the Republican mind and see the racism that drives the Republican Party would have seen that it would.

Rather than call for justice for Jacob Blake or raise money for his children who watched a cop shoot their father in the back 7 times, a Christian GoFundMe-style funding site, GiveSendGo, had raised over $280,000 for the legal defense of Rittenhouse by Tuesday morning, calling him "unfairly accused of murder." By the time you read this, I expect that the amount of money raised will have passed $300,000, maybe much more. In turn, that will inspire and incentivize more of the Republican Party Taliban to pull the triggers of their own guns or maybe bring back lynchings.

It's not just FOX "News" and an ersatz "Christian" crowdfunding site, Trumpist republicans in social media are also trying to justify the murders as self-defense. They claim Rittenhouse was defending himself from a "relentless, vicious and potentially deadly mob attack." If so, it was an attack Rittenhouse eagerly drove to from out of state. Did he do so while armed to the teeth or did he borrow the AR-15 he carried once he arrived in Wisconsin? The answer to that question may matter to the court or courts in which Rittenhouse is tried as it relates to any gun charges but the murder charges? Not nearly as much. The Daily Show's Trevor Noah assumes the truth of reports that he left home with the gun, but the second and third sentences in his quote below probably have an equal pertinence when it comes to Rittenhouse's motivations.

No one drives to a city with guns because they love someone else's business so much. They do it because they are hoping to shoot someone. That's the only reason people like him join these gangs in the first place.

But the rightwing crowd is pushing the self-defense angle big time. It's Tiki Torch Tucker's #1 theme, now. Self-defense? Really? How is traveling across a state line from Antioch Illinois to Kenosha Wisconsin and killing not one but two people with an AR-15 self-defense? GiveSendGo lies and tells us Rittenhouse had just "bravely tried to defend his community" but the truth is that Rittenhouse's town, aka his community, is 22 miles from Kenosha. Whether he left home with the gun or picked one up in Wisconsin, that sounds a lot more like taking a hunting trip to me. If he picked up the gun when he arrived, he must have known who would lend it to him and someone should investigate them. Regardless of the questions, Rittenhouse appears to be just another Trump Trooper like Florida pipe bomber Cesar Sayoc whose sticker-encrusted van was what amounted to a mobile ad for FOX "News" and other Republican goonery.

Facebook is now awash with Trump supporters who are, like former San Francisco Giant baseball player Aubrey Huff, describing Rittenhouse as a "national treasure" and an American hero. An American hero for what, taking the law into his own hands?

They also point to the legal troubles of the victims as though they actually deserved to be executed in the street by vigilantes. FOX "News," the fellow Rupert Murdoch family-owned New York Post, and other NAZI-friendly propaganda outfits have been touting Rittenhouse's alleged good deeds, even with pictures of him doing things like cleaning graffiti from the walls of schools, as if that would excuse what he is accused of. Charlie Manson used to sing in churches. Should I suppose that makes him a hero, too, especially since his gang killed some "liberal Hollywood types?"

Today's Republicans exist in a self-promulgated vicious circle of brainwashed mass hysteria which no amount of intervention will ever cure. Clearly, the murders of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz in Kenosha mean nothing to the psychopathic very fine people that make up the membership of the Republican Party. An attorney for Rittenhouse named John Pierce calls Rittenhouse "a shining example of the American fighting spirit" and, apparently pushing for more murder and mayhem, also says "More American men should fulfill their duty." Pierce's framing of the story gives us a clear indication of how republicans see this horrid incident and how they want all of us to see it. An alternate reality defense of Rittenhouse, where what he is accused of is righteous, normal, permissible and encouraged is being constructed just like Trump himself constructs alternate realities about COVID-19. In short, the right wing is using the Rittenhouse case as a call to arms for a race war, thus fulfilling the dream Charlie Manson had when he sent his brainwashed goons out to kill Sharon Tate and others over 50 years ago. Creating such an alternative reality is all about creating a reality that grants permission to create more death, destruction and mayhem. Even the phrase "Law and Order" is now a code for permissiveness, incitement, and invitation, at least as it comes from the lips of Republicans.

My additional questions at this moment are:

1) How long before Trump begins maniacally insisting that Wisconsin's Democratic governor should preemptively pardon Rittenhouse? Trump pardoning Rittenhouse himself would require that Rittenhouse be found guilty of a federal crime or facing federal charges. What Rittenhouse is accused of does not appear at this time to violate any federal statutes but that's why we have lawyers and courts (such as they are). Trump is already openly supportive of the accused, thus sanctioning more of the same behavior. And of course he has loudly condemned the shooting of a far right counter protester in Portland, Oregon. With Republicans like Trump, it all depends on which side of the issue you are. Shoot a NAZI = bad. Shoot a BLM protester = good. Expect Trump to become more and more of a cheerleader for such mayhem as the countdown to election day progresses.

2) How many more of the Republican Taliban army will kill how many more protesters? How many will satisfy the Republican Party's bloodlust? Someone please ask Moscow Mitch, Kayleigh McEnany, Steve Scalise and the rest of Washington's good little NAZIS. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the corporate media to do so, though.

3) How long before this devolves even further to the point where we start to see shootings like the aforementioned one in Portland? That is what any psychopath like those we saw at the Republican Con-Vention would welcome, Americans shooting Americans in a Civil War without borders of any kind. The more corpses, the merrier. Divide and conquer so you can be the biggest looters of all! All hail the billionaires in their gated mansions! Where this is going, they'll need moats, just like the good ol' days. Ask yourself, can you see the likes of Don Jr, Rudy, Jamie Dimon, Pence, the McCloskeys, or Kimberly Guilfoyle wanting it any other way?

4) Can we expect an escalation of gunfire from Trump's Troopers if he loses the election? That one is the most rhetorical of all the questions in this list. It is the Republican Party's mad goal; rubber stamped by the $enate vote not to remove Trump from office. If you want to see step one of the Republican Party platform, look no further. What we are already seeing is prelude. 5) Will there be talk of a Medal of Freedom for Kyle Rittenhouse ala career inciter Rush Limbaugh? Among the Republican Taliban twitter crowd, there already is. I've seen the memes and I've seen the tweets. You can google them for yourselves.

This strife and the coming escalation of it all stems from the attitude of President Trump and those he addressed from the White House lawn last Thursday night, He has incited them, encouraged them and emboldened them from the moment he took that tacky ride down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy. His madness has been the proverbial snowball down hill since then. It's not like he didn't tell the world who and what he is and, as I said, when the opportunity presented itself to remove him from office, his party said they like what he is just fine and his $enators voted for more of the same and worse to come; exponentially worse the longer he remains in office, and at this point, long after that. Category 5 storms don't just disappear as soon as they hit resistance. They slowly cut through whatever they can, leaving their path of destruction in their wake. This is the current state of governance, folks.

There is nothing technically in the way of removing President Donald J. Narcissyphilis by the end of this week. Impeachment 2, conviction and removal only the desire and the will of all those who sit in the Capitol Building; the very fine people of both parties. Any and all present and future deaths from shootings of protesters and anti-protesters alike, in the streets are more on Trump and his 53 protective wiseguy $enators than anyone else, just like all of the other Trump-caused chaos of the last 4 years. Trump ordered the arson and Moscow Mitch poured the gas. But those of us who put up with Congress being complicit and say nothing to those in government share some blame as well. Our so-called representatives, the representatives that we the people voted for continue to ignore their oath to the Constitution and abdicate their responsibilities. It's no longer just about the COVID-19. It's about the virus of fascist, racist Republicanism. No one nipped it in the bud so now it's killing this country while the donor class laughs.

A Vote For Trump Is A Vote For Radical Right Terrorism

A new poll by the Military Times of active-duty service members shows Trump job favorability underwater, just 38% saying he's doing a good job. Officers have the most unfavorable view of Trump-- 59.1% disapproving. As for voting... Biden's ahead among all service members by nearly 6 points.

And this was even before it came out that Trump has been knowingly been accepting at least 30 campaign contributions from American Nazi movement leader, Morris Gulett-- and other known Nazis. And before it came out that Trump has been stoking vigilantism and violence in American cities to cause chaos. Washington Post reporters David Nakamura, Matt Viser and Robert Klemko wrote Sunday that Trump spent the weekend fanning the flames of partisan tensions between his supporters and social justice protesters in Portland and Kenosha, underscoring the threat of rising politically motivated violence.

In tweeting a video of the caravan on the move, Trump called the participants “GREAT PATRIOTS!” The reaction marked a sharp contrast to his silence during a large and peaceful civil rights march on Friday in Washington that drew thousands to the Mall, where some speakers denounced his leadership.

In a statement Sunday afternoon, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “unequivocally” condemned the Portland shooting and accused Trump of “fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters.”

“We must not become a country at war with ourselves; a country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you; a country that vows vengeance toward one another,” Biden said. “But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be, the America he believes we are.”

The violence has escalated as Trump has seized on the social justice protests as a campaign wedge, attempting to tie Biden to “radical” elements on the left. Eager to shift the political debate from the rising deaths and economic toll of the pandemic, Trump has relentlessly attacked Democratic mayors and governors for failing to quell protests, and he dispatched federal law enforcement authorities into cities to help arrest demonstrators.

...Trump aides, including White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, asserted recently that the violence and chaos will help his reelection bid.

“The only people to blame for the violence and riots in our streets are liberal politicians and their incompetent policies that have failed to get control of these destructive situations,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. “This President has condemned violence in all its forms. Americans want peace in their streets and for their children to grow up in safe neighborhoods, and only President Trump has shown the courage and leadership to achieve law and order and deliver results.”

Trump’s conservative supporters, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have seized on Rittenhouse as a figure of sympathy, suggesting that he acted legally and in self-defense. The president on Sunday appeared to offer his support by liking a tweet from a self-described former liberal activist who cited Rittenhouse as a reason to vote for Trump.

Conservatives also rallied around the Trump caravan in Portland, where the man who was killed was wearing a hat bearing the words “Patriot Prayer,” the name of a far-right group organized in 2016 to bring pro-Trump rallies to liberal strongholds.

In a tweet, Trump referred to Biden as a “puppet” of “crazed leaders” on the left who envision the Portland chaos as emblematic of “Joe Biden’s America.”

“This is not what our great Country wants,” Trump wrote. “They want Safety & Security, and do NOT want to Defund our Police!”

Biden has stated that he does not support efforts of some liberals to drastically cut funding for local police departments and instead has outlined a proposal that would increase funding for community policing programs by $300 million as long as local departments agree to conditions such as adopting new use-of-force standards and increasing diversity among their ranks.

In recent months, Trump has increasingly used official White House events, along with campaign rallies, to vilify protesters as violent and to fan fears along racial lines.

During his renomination acceptance speech, delivered Thursday on the South Lawn of the White House for the Republican National Convention, Trump attacked Biden for failing to condemn “rioters and criminals spreading mayhem in Democrat-run cities” even though the former vice president had already spoken out against the violence and looting, saying the day before that “violence that endangers lives, violence that guts businesses and shutters businesses that serve the community-- that’s wrong.”

“Trump has been inciting violence for years and with deadly effects,” said author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who studies authoritarian regimes. She pointed to a mass shooting in El Paso last summer by a gunman who cited anti-immigrant views with echoes of Trump’s rhetoric in a manifesto.

In 2018, Cesar Sayoc, a Trump supporter, mailed inoperative pipe bombs to Trump’s critics, a crime for which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. And in 2017, a white nationalist in Charlottesville drove a car into a crowd, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer as she protested the extremist “Unite the Right” march-- a movement the president failed to condemn unequivocally.

“Now he’s trained his aim on Black Lives Matter protesters and antifa,” said Ben-Ghiat, referring to a loosely connected set of left-wing, anti-fascist groups. “So what is happening now with an escalation of violence is something beneficial to Trump. Strongmen leaders incite crises so they can pose themselves as the law-and-order solution.”

...Homeland security experts said the combustible mix of sharply polarized and ideologically minded agitators mixing on the streets in cities where law enforcement authorities are strained and, in some cases, inadequately trained is a recipe for potential violence.

“It’s important for government leaders at all levels to calm everyone and keep political rallies peaceful,” said Tom Warrick, an Atlantic Council expert who left government service last year after serving as a career official at the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.

“The problem is that things can quickly get out of control and the uncertainty and chaos become weapons in the fight,” Warrick said. “Merely the uncertainty that it will take days, or weeks, to sort out something that’s happening in itself becomes a tool for division of the country, rather than the unity.”

Yesterday, another Post team, Joshua Partlow and Isaac Stanley-Becker, reported that some local police departments-- which don't even try to screen out facsists and racists-- are supporting neo-Nazi Trump supporters, militants and vigilantes. Many people think officers in the Kenosha police department should be charged with abetting and encouraging the Kyle Rittenhouse murders in Kenosha.

The trio wrote that "As protesters march against racism and police violence in cities and towns across the nation, they are being confronted by groups of armed civilians who claim to be assisting and showing support for police battered and overwhelmed by the protests. The confrontations have left at least three people dead in recent days: In addition to the two protesters killed Tuesday in Kenosha, a man thought to be associated with a far-right group called Patriot Prayer was fatally shot late Saturday in Portland, Oregon. Both incidents have drawn complaints that local authorities abetted the violence by tolerating the presence of these self-appointed enforcers with no uniforms, varied training and limited accountability. The stated motives of these vigilante actors, who are virtually indistinguishable from one another once massed on the streets, range from protecting storefronts and free speech to furthering White supremacy and fomenting civil war."

Many sheriffs and police chiefs, including in Kenosha, have disavowed these armed civilians, saying police don’t want their help. Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said he responded “hell no” when asked to deputize civilians. And Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian said this week, “I don’t need more guns on the streets in this city when we are trying to keep people safe.”

But elsewhere, local authorities have at times appeared to support people who took up arms against protests that have occasionally turned violent and provided cover for vandals and looters. In Snohomish, Washington, the police chief was ousted in June after welcoming dozens of armed men, including one waving a Confederate flag, who responded to false Internet rumors that “antifa” looters planned to ransack the town, referring to a loosely knit movement of far-left activists.

In Hood County, Texas, a constable in May encouraged the Oath Keepers-- an armed group that claims to have thousands of members of current and former law enforcement and military members-- to defend a Dallas hair salon after rumors of possible looting. And in Salem, Oregon, a police officer was captured on video in June advising armed men to “discreetly” stay inside while police began arresting protesters for violating curfew.

On other occasions, police officers have been photographed smiling or fist-bumping with members of far-right armed groups. Even in Kenosha, individual police officers seemed to welcome the help of armed civilians, including Rittenhouse, a member of police and fire cadet training programs who said on video before the shooting that it was “our job” to help people and protect property.

We were welcomed very warmly,” said Kenosha Guard leader Kevin Mathewson, 36, a former city alderman who summoned men with guns to gather in Kenosha on the night of the shooting. “I was at the entrance to my neighborhood. [Police] rolled down their windows and said, ‘Thanks for being here. We can’t be everywhere.’”

Mathewson has said that he does not know Rittenhouse. The teen, from the nearby town of Antioch, Ill., has been charged with first-degree homicide. His attorneys say he acted in self-defense after being “accosted by multiple rioters.”

In a letter last week to Kenosha officials, Mary B. McCord, legal director at Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, said “the bloodshed . . . throws into sharp relief the danger posed when private and unaccountable militia groups take the law into their own hands.”

McCord has called on police and prosecutors to enforce laws that prohibit private militias from usurping law enforcement functions. In her letter, she noted that “several provisions of Wisconsin law prohibit private paramilitary and unauthorized law enforcement activity.”

Raul Torrez (D), the district attorney in Bernalillo County, N.M., agrees. In June, one person was shot after members of an armed group that calls itself the New Mexico Civil Guard clashed with protesters trying to tear down a monument to Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate in Albuquerque. Torrez filed suit against the militia, seeking to block it from assuming law enforcement duties.

“I don’t think a lot of Americans understand how fragile democracy is,” Torrez said. “One of the early signs of a troubled democracy is when people decide that they’re no longer going to address their political differences at the ballot box-- or in elected legislatures or in Congress-- but they’re going to do it on the street, and they’re going to do it with guns.”

“Police officers, district attorneys, leaders in law enforcement here and across the country have to make it unambiguously clear to anyone that it is not their job-- it is the role of law enforcement-- to” defend property, Torrez said. Militia groups are “not hearing that message from enough leadership in law enforcement. And this takes us down a very, very dangerous path.”

While racial justice protests typically condemn police behavior and include calls for defunding police departments, militia-style groups are predominantly pro-police and often rally behind slogans such as “Blue Lives Matter” and “Back the Badge.” In Portland and other places, law enforcement has been accused of treating far-right groups more leniently than leftist protesters.

“The vigilantes will come out, and their rally will be ‘Back the Blue,’” said Alexander Reid Ross, a doctoral fellow at the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right, a London-based group.

Ross has compiled a database of 497 public appearances of militias and far-right groups in about 300 U.S. counties since May, including 56 that he says suggest collaboration with police.

This summer, for instance, a commissioner in Bonner County, Idaho, called on residents to mobilize against a Black Lives Matter protest planned for Sandpoint, the county seat. His Facebook post asked people to “help counter anything that might get out of hand,” drawing a rebuke from Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad, who called it “grossly irresponsible.”

The commissioner, Dan McDonald, said he stood by his message, despite critics who derided the assemblage as “Dan’s private army.”

“Most of the guys that showed up-- I would bet because I know some of these folks-- are former law enforcement, former military,” he said. “They’re well trained and continue to train just for their own self-defense.”

Elsewhere, local officials have advised civilians to be prepared to use violence to defend themselves. At a June news conference responding to rumors on social media of possible riots, the sheriff in Polk County, Fla., warned would-be lawbreakers that local residents “have guns. I encourage them to own guns. And they’re going to be in their homes tonight, with their guns loaded.”

The sheriff, Grady Judd, also encouraged people to shoot intruders.

“Shoot them so much you can read the Washington Post through them,” he said in an interview last week, adding: “I want people to take matters into their own hands when they’re protecting their homes.”

...“Are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder?” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said last week. “How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

Let me turn to the student newspaper of Louisiana State University, Reveille and writer Gabrielle Martinez, who had a few things to say over the weekend about Tucker's racism and hate-mongering on Fox. "With an average audience of 4.33 million viewers each night," she wrote, "frozen dinner heir and political pundit Tucker Carlson consistently spews hate through misinformation and misdirection as the host of the highest-rated program in U.S. cable news history, Tucker Carlson Tonight. A defining trait of the millionaire’s TV persona is his hatred for the American 'elite.' He repeatedly discusses his distaste for the 'pompous' rich, like Barack Obama, to an almost anti-capitalist degree; ironically, it’s estimated Tucker Carlson Tonight has sold $108.3 million in commercials alone this year, making up 16 percent of Fox’s billion-dollar ad revenue. Yet Carlson still attempts to portray himself as a figurehead of America’s working class. A supposed patriot, he wants the best for the United States-- or at least enough to relentlessly push Fox’s ultra-conservative narrative on their elderly white viewership."

To Carlson, "maintaining order” apparently means murdering two innocent people, a crime even our current president refuses to condemn. This is the result of Carlson’s inability to distance himself from radical far-right rhetoric in turn for higher ratings and publicity.

It’s becoming more and more clear that Carlson is intentionally pushing a narrative that he himself is writing. While it’s humorous to acknowledge as an outsider, it’s dangerous to the people who actually take his word seriously and believe the liberal left wants to destroy the American way of life.

While the left advocates for race equality and climate change, Carlson somehow twists these movements into what he views as socialist corruption. Instead of acknowledging things as they are, Carlson falsely portrays himself as a heroic character trying to save America from ruin. This tactic only heightens dramatics to further divide the country along race and party lines.

Oh, and John Oliver is... on fucking fire! Please do not miss this clip-- and all the way to the end!

It's All About The Racism... And Fear

A new poll for ABC News by Ipsos, isn't indicating that the conventions changed anyone's mind about Trump or Biden. Ipsos concluded that among all all Americans who watched at least some of the GOP convention-- about half of the voters-- responses to the RNC are more negative than the DNC. "Slightly more than one in three Americans (37%) approve of what the Republicans said and did at their convention, compared to 59% who disapprove. After the DNC, 53% approved of the Democrats’ message... Biden’s and Trump’s standings, along with their running mates, remains unchanged from after the DNC. Currently, 31% of Americans feel favorable toward Donald Trump, unchanged from last week (32%) and similar to his standing before both conventions (35%). The same is true for Joe Biden: 46% feel favorable, virtually the same as last week (45%). However, more Americans feel positive toward Biden than negative, an improvement from earlier in August. Just over a third of Americans (35%) approve of how Trump is handling the response to the coronavirus, unchanged from the end of July (34%)."

So what's a Republican operative class gonna do? Fear's worked for them in the past... and it's a natch for Trump. And racism... another Trump forte. NBC News had a cute report up late last week about how Twitter is trying to stop a Trump campaign spam operation that pushes messages from fake accounts about Black people abandoning the Democratic Party.

The fake accounts were purported to be run by Black people whose viral tweets received tens of thousands of shares in the past month. One of the accounts, @WentDemToRep, logged over 11,000 retweets on a single tweet that claimed that the user was a lifelong Democrat who was pushed to vote Republican by the Black Lives Matter movement. The tweet was posted shortly after the account was created Tuesday.

The WentDemToRep account quickly tagged two other accounts in a reply, @PeterGammo and @KRon619, which were suspended at the same time Tuesday. The Twitter spokesperson said all three accounts were suspended for spam and, "specifically, artificially manipulative behavior."

Disinformation experts and national security agencies are gearing up for the election, anticipating that social media platforms will continue to be central to foreign and domestic efforts to mislead voters.

The fake accounts, which used the images of Black men for their profile pictures, had five separate posts with at least 10,000 retweets. Recent attempts to co-opt the identities of African Americans to simulate support for President Donald Trump in the run-up to the election have had success online, researchers say.

The profile picture from WentDemToRep was stolen from the Instagram page of Nelis Joustra, a model who worked to get the fake account deleted.

...Brandi Collins-Dexter, a fellow at Color Of Change, an online racial justice nonprofit, said trolls' simulating the identities of African Americans is a coordinated practice that has been a common trope over the last decade for those trying to delegitimize social justice causes.

"The point is to provide ammunition against Black people for policymakers so they can point to things that are being said, allegedly from a Black person's account, to reinforce the idea that Black Lives Matter is a terrorist threat and put them on equal footing as white nationalists in terms of content moderation," Collins-Dexter said.

There is a decades-long history of non-Black actors posing as African Americans on social media. In 2016, Russia's Internet Research Agency "troll farm" targeted Black voters to depress turnout for Hillary Clinton, according to American intelligence agencies and bipartisan House and Senate reports.

Collins-Dexter also noted a coordinated campaign from the extremist website 4chan in April to pose as African Americans on Twitter who had just received COVID-19 stimulus checks. The fake accounts would thank the president for the checks, then brag about using them on alcohol, in "an effort to perpetuate the 'Welfare Queen' myth," Collins-Dexter said.

With Trump encouraging his KKK-like supporters to bring chaos and violence into the streets, in the hope of causing enough fear and backlash to reelect him, Biden barely understands how to push back at all. He seems torn and uncomfortable and might prefer taking a more rote "law and order" stance himself.

Frank Rich is a pretty perceptive observer of contemporary politics and he's come to the conclusion that Trump and his Republicans have decided their best shot at reelection is to just play the racist card-- heavy... and to the exclusion of anything else. Rich wrote that "During a week of police violence and vigilante murder in Wisconsin, in a year of preventable deaths and growing poverty, the Republican convention emphasized loyalty to Donald Trump, casting aside matters of policy and campaign law in favor of grievance. Was the convention just another concession to his outsize ego, part of the strategy to energize the party’s base in the run-up to November, or an attempt to win over undecided voters?" Like many Americans, Rich is worried that Trump could win and worried that if he loses "he would stop at nothing to take an already teetering country down with him."

The RNC was so boring Wednesday night that Tucker Carlson cut away early on, ditching the nattering Tennessee congresswoman Marsha Blackburn so he could launch into his now notorious defense of Kyle Rittenhouse’s killing spree in Kenosha: “How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?” At that instant, Carlson, implicitly speaking for Trump, the Republican Party, and its media enforcer, Fox News, crystalized what message mattered most about this convention and what message will matter most in Trump’s campaign over the crucial two months to come. As Trump would define it in a rare moment of focus during his endless drone of an acceptance speech, a vote for Joe Biden is a vote to “give free rein to violent anarchists and agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens.” The corollary, stated directly by Carlson and repeatedly embraced by Trump, is that arms-bearing white Americans can’t be faulted for wanting to take the law into their own hands.

For “anarchists and agitators and criminals,” read “Black people.” This racially tinged “law and order” message is nothing new either for Trump or a GOP that has been pursuing a “Southern strategy” since Richard Nixon codified it half a century ago. As many have noted, Trump is at a logical disadvantage in using it since, unlike Nixon, he is the incumbent president and the disorder he keeps decrying is happening on his watch. But what grabbed my attention on the convention’s sleepy third night was how Trump, on the ropes in summer polling, is nonetheless determined to take that message to a new and even more dangerous level by fomenting racial violence if need be. He will not only continue to boost arms-bearing white vigilantes as he has from Charlottesville to Portland, but, when all else fails, unabashedly pin white criminality on Black Lives Matter protesters.

Literally so. While the unrest in Kenosha was referenced repeatedly on Wednesday night, no one mentioned that the violence was all committed by white men: Rittenhouse, and Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back while his three young sons looked on. Then along came Pence to raise the ante in his closing address. While trying to pound in the fear that Biden will coddle and encourage violent thugs, he brought up the ominous example of an officer who had been “shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California.” The implication, of course, was that the officer had been killed by black rioters in that “Democratic-run city” when in fact the victim was murdered by a member of the far-right extremist movement known as “boogaloo” boys.

Next to this incendiary strategy, the other manifest sins of the week, though appalling, seem less consequential as we approach the crucial post–Labor Day campaign. They did keep those of us in the press busy. The news media were unstinting in calling out every lie and alternative fact in every speech as well as every violation of the Hatch Act. Full notice was paid to every shameless rhetorical feint and stunt contrived to create an alternative reality in which the coronavirus and mask-wearing are in the past tense, the decimated economy is about to skyrocket, and Trump is a champion of both immigration (even from what he calls “shithole countries”) and health care covering preexisting conditions. But aside from the 42 percent or so who consistently approve of Trump no matter what he or those around him do, most other Americans will see for themselves whether COVID-19 has evaporated or their economic security has improved this fall. Those are realities that Trump, for all his subterfuge, cannot alter. But racial animus is a less tangible and more enduring factor in America’s political fortunes, and it has been a toxic wild card in every modern election.

...Biden had it exactly right when he characterized this plan on Thursday by calling out Trump for “pouring gasoline on the fire” and “rooting for more violence, not less.” That was true from day one of the convention, when the gun-toting St. Louis couple, the McCloskeys, were given a prominent spot in the festivities. The rifle that Mark McCloskey pointed toward Black Lives Matter protesters in St. Louis, an AR-15, was the same that Kyle Rittenhouse fired at protesters in Kenosha the following night.

But it’s not enough for Biden to identify the strategy that is being unleashed to derail him, and it shouldn’t have taken him most of the week to get to the point. He’s in a fight for his and the country’s life. A Democratic campaign that was pitched most of all on targeting Trump’s criminally negligent response to the pandemic must now pivot to combat the most lethal of all American viruses, racism, in its most weaponized strain.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

He went to school with my little sister and she said that everyone always thought of him to be a future shooter, and so did I when I met him in high school.
- a former schoolmate of Kyle Rittenhouse

All he needed was a little bit of encouragement and he got it. Teenage White Nationalist Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse was already about to be a young man of note in rightwing circles before he allegedly killed two people and wounded another with a hail of rifle fire on a street in Kenosha Wisconsin last week. A reporter from the Daily Caller, a kind of Daily Stormer in disguise co-founded by Tucker Tiki Torch Carlson in 2010, spotted him and interviewed him shortly before the murders. No doubt being chosen for an interview by such a publication filled Rittenhouse with even more confidence, validation, and encouragement to be who he dreamed of being.

But it's a good bet that it was the words of our president and the glorification of people like the front yard gun-waving Patricia and Mark McCloskey and their prime time nationally broadcast Republican Convention appearance on Monday that got him motivated to travel from his Illinois home to Kenosha. Pulling the trigger was only a half step away from what the McCloskeys did. He would be more famous. He undoubtedly longed to be more celebrated. Now, if he's convicted of the six charges he faces, his name can be added to the list that includes those who murdered Emmet Till, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, the students at Kent State, Jackson State, and so many others.

Remember Cesar Sayoc? He's the self-proclaimed Donald Trump superfan with a van covered with Trump and FOX "News" stickers who sent his homemade pipebombs to prominent democrats including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Maxine Waters, CNN, former president Barack Obama, Eric Holder, John Brennan, and others. Fortunately, none of them exploded. Last week's victims of Trumpism weren't so lucky.

These lunatics feel they have permission to act. They feel they are carrying out the wishes of those like Donald Trump who speak their sicko white supremacy language non-stop. This is not at all unlike Ronald Reagan calling for "a bloodbath" on our nation's campuses and Spiro Agnew calling protesters "bad apples" and worse in order to incite similar violence 50 years ago. It's not a matter of the Reagans, Agnews and Trumps learning from such grisly mistakes and toning it down. No, they don't consider what they say to be a mistake at all. They have a goal so they continue, hoping to bring on still more murderous mayhem. It's who they are and it's why their supporters vote for them. "Law and Order" isn't just a campaign slogan. It's code.

After the murders in Kenosha, Fox's Tucker Tiki Torch doubled down on his support for such actions as the Kenosha killing by attempting to cynically and sarcastically defend Kyle Rittenhouse by justifying the actions he's accused of:

How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain law and order when no one else would?

Other Republican types instantly joined in via social media, proudly collecting 'likes' for their support of Rittenhouse and lest you think that all of the sports world is supportive of the protesters, retired San Francisco Giant Aubry Huff proclaimed Rittenhouse "a national treasure" and Hall of Fame NFL linebacker Brian Urlacher joined in on defending the accused shooter.

This is only going to get worse if Donald Trump and his party have anything to say about it. How long before the McCloskeys get a Medal of Freedom just like another agent of mayhem and chaos named Rush Limbaugh did? Would Trump create a new award named after them? Will Trump pardon Rittenhouse and say he was only acting in the best interests of Republicanism? Would you risk money betting that such conversations haven't already taken place in the White House?

Do Police Have The "Right" To Brutalize-- And Execute-- Citizens? Republicans Tend To Think So

If the election is a referendum on Trump, get ready for President Biden. If it's about Trump's handling of the pandemic, expect an landslide that will see Republicans at every level of government losing their offices. The Republicans know that, of course, and they are working make the election about anything else. They've settled on a bogus "law and order" narrative. Bogus because Trump is the most criminal president in history, presiding over the most criminal regime in American history. This may not be that big a deal compared to Trump's major, daily criminality but last February he pardoned the female Darrell Issa, Angela Stanton-King, who had served 2 years of her sentence for running a car theft ring. A few weeks after Trump pardoned her, she launched an election campaign against John Lewis in Atlanta's 5th congressional district, one of the bluest districts in the country (D+34), where Trump only drew 11% of the vote. With Lewis' death Stanton-King is now running in an open seat (against state Senator Nikema Williams). A gay-bashing, anti-Choice Q-Anon nut case with a flare for getting attention, Stanton-King has no chance of being elected to Congress but every TV appearance and every newspaper article or social media mention brings money into her coffers. She's very much like her hero, Señor Trumpanzee.

"Law and order" is not part of today's Republican Party-- except inasmuch as it can be used to oppress poor people. The Republican campaign theme this cycle is all about painting a picture of Democrat-run cities being overrun by angry mobs and looters. Trump in New Hampshire Friday: "Today's Democratic Party is filled with hate. Just look at Joe Biden supporters on the street screaming and shouting at bystanders with unhinged manic rage... They are not protesters. They are anarchists, they are agitators, they are rioters, they are looters." And actual Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse, who murdered two protesters and wounded a third in Kenosha.

The protests in Kenosha were all about the police shooting Jacob Blake in the back-- 7 times-- last Sunday. Blake lived but is now paralyzed from the waist down. The police responded to protesters by gassing them. Some of the protesters, angry and provoked-- possibly by Trumpist agents provocateurs-- burned businesses. There is a legitimate sense that police are not accountable for their criminal activity and the fascist impulses they act out against citizens.

"I support the protestors, so I am against the police. That’s the lie I hear every single day in America," wrote John Pavlovitz yesterday. "It’s a myth perpetuated by this President and his party and by people like them: white people who don’t want to address the systemic racism embedded in law enforcement or the persistent brutality against people of color on display-- and who attempt to push people to the very opposite of poles in order to avoid talking about it: 'Choose Black Lives or Blue Lives.' they say. 'Those are the options.' This choice is not only unnecessary, it is rooted in a fundamental falsehood: the existence of Blue Lives. There is no such thing as a 'Blue Life.'"

Law enforcement officers are not a race and they are not a monolith, either. They come from every disparate part of this nation; out of many families of origin, religious traditions, sexual orientations, and political affiliations, when they choose this work. It is among the most dangerous and stressful and volatile work on the planet-- but they do choose it.

And when they do, they take an oath to protect and serve humanity in its fullness. That is the job description. It is the very heart of the calling. It is the singular purpose they exist: defense of all life under the Law, a Law they represent and embody.

There are expectations we have for those choosing to put on that badge and that uniform:

• They are expected to defuse combustible situations, not exacerbate them.
• They are expected to use wisdom and restraint instead of emotionally exerting force.
• They are expected to withstand provocation without responding in kind.
• They are expected to be beyond prejudice and above biases that would deny another human being’s inherent worth.
• They are expected to uphold the civil rights of every person in their path equally, without caveat or condition or excuse.
• They are paid by American citizens (including citizens of color) to do this chosen work on behalf of the public who they are accountable to.

And when they are off-duty, members of this diverse community can remove the badge and uniform and they can escape the hazards and the threats of their jobs, and live fully into their other “non-Blue identities”-- that is, except for the black and brown police officers.

They like (all people of color) can’t take off their skin to avoid the taunts that come with it, they can’t be undercover or off-duty or take a break from the demands of their difficult reality. They can’t step out of their pigmentation in order to sidestep the violence it brings every moment of every day. They are not black or brown at some portions of the day or some days of the week or when they clock in, which is why the supposed #BlueLivesMatter movement isn’t an equivalent advocacy of life in response to the call for people of color to be treated with dignity, it is an insult. It is a white excuse to avoid confronting discrimination against people of color, to distract from the difficult conversations, to deny the systemic sickness, and to stop all conversation.

This is something far beyond citizen on citizen violence, this is violence initiated by those with both the power of the Law and weaponry in their hands. That means they are subject to even greater scrutiny because the stakes are higher and the impact on communities is profound.

It is not an attack on law enforcement to name and to condemn police brutality, or to demand that those who comprise its ranks are of the highest standard as human beings-- it is a reiteration of its value as an entity.

And it is not anti-American, but the essence of patriotism to responsibly police the police; to ensure that they are living into their oath with regard to all citizens, because every human life literally depends on them doing so: at traffic stops and in city streets and in public parks and in their homes.

And as citizens of this country, we don’t have to apologize for our standards and our expectations of public servants. That’s part of the gig. Law-abiding, tax-paying Americans are not accountable to violent police officers-- violent police officers are accountable to law-abiding, tax-paying Americans. It is not incumbent on us to avoid criticizing them, it is incumbent on them to listen and to respond to valid criticism.

It’s not asking too much to insist that officers not only protect people of color as passionately as they protect white Americans, but that they not actively harm them.

It’s not unreasonable to expect them not to kneel on a man’s neck for over eight minutes until he expires, not to shoot a man seven times in the back, not break into a woman’s bedroom and murder her, not to beat peaceful protestors, not to knock unarmed old men to the ground, not to allow a young white man with an AR-15 to run past them while being alerted to his murderous presence.

Being furious when police officers do these things is not an act of hatred against law enforcement as an entity-- but against the acts of hateful cowardice committed by some that pervert it and cheapen them all.

I am not for Blue Lives, I am for human lives, and the human lives that continually find themselves brutalized by those entrusted to protect them are black and brown-- and Americans need to name and confront and own this because until we do, we will continue to conflate outrage at inequity, with attacks on the perpetrators of this inequity.

The good people of this country fighting against brutality will not be defined by the calculated lie that to be for Black Lives is to be against the police.

We simply demand that the police be for Black Lives without exception-- or we demand they no longer be police.