So Far, Trump-Stoked Chaos And Anomie Are Not Helping Him With Voters

Rev. John Pavlovitz was frustrated when he woke up yesterday-- very frustrated. He wrote that he felt "done being represented by a needy, belligerent, barely literate mobster, done with unrepentant racists and anti-science religious zealots, done with confederate flags and Fox News and MAGA cultism, done with a grotesque Frankenstein Christianity wildly stumbling around without Jesus’ tender heart, done living in a nation, nearly half of which wants it to be more white, less diverse, and less kind." On second thought, he noted that dwelling on that frustration isn't what he needed to do as much as the fact that America is "he place we’re going to shout down the bigots, the place we’re going to outnumber the close-minded, the place we’re going to demand equity, the place we’re going to tear down the flags and the statues and mindsets that perpetuate white supremacy, the place we’re going to expand so that every hungry, exhausted, hurting soul finds rest, and the place we’re going to lock arms and dig in our heels and push back the terrified bullies trying to drag us backward."

Pavlovitz concluded that "The racists are growing desperate. I think their violence is going to get worse. I think they feel the head winds of History blowing fiercely against them and they are going to make one more frantic, brutal, ugly assault on diversity and decency-- and we’ll have to be here to be the line that will not be moved." He's ready "to be here to be the line that will not be moved... We have to make a stand."

Trump made a deranged and extremely worrisome appearance on Fox News with one of his worst media enablers, Laura Ingraham. You should watch this and see if you can count the lies (hint-- more than one every 20 seconds). Try to remember that almost a third of Americans-- many of them armed to the teeth-- believe whatever this sociopath says:





That was Monday. On Tuesday, on his way to stir up trouble in Kenosha, he was still carrying on about how "an entire plane" was "filled with looters, the anarchists, rioters, people looking for trouble. When reporters, trying not to laugh in his orange face, asked him to speak to a witness who TRump claimed was made to feel "uncomfortable" on the plane filled with looters and rioters and thugs, he told the reporters he will try to put them in touch with the person. "Maybe," he said, "they will speak to you, maybe they won’t."

Has Trump lost his mind-- or is he just gaslighting and feeding his low-IQ base the red meat they thrive on? Even Ingraham noted that some of this crazy off-the-top-of-his-head nonsense she was getting out of him was conspiracy theory stuff.

NBC News reporter Ben Collins explained where Trump got it. He wrote that the conspiracy theory that Señor Trumpanzee was pushing Monday about the plane almost completely loaded with thugs in "dark uniforms, black uniforms" ready to disrupt the Republican National Convention "was almost identical to a rumor that went viral on Facebook three months ago... There is no evidence of any such flight. When Ingraham asked for more information about the flight, the president said, 'I'll tell you sometime.' He then alleged the people had been headed to Washington to disrupt the RNC. Before mentioning the uniformed men who allegedly boarded the plane, Trump claimed that there are 'people that are in the dark shadows' and 'people that you haven’t heard of' controlling Democratic nominee Joe Biden." He also claimed "they control the streets" and are being paid by rich people and corporations.

Ingraham pressed the president for more details and said it sounded like he was alleging a conspiracy.

“They’re people that are on the streets. They’re people that are controlling the streets,” Trump said.

The claim about the flight matches a viral Facebook post from June 1 that falsely claimed, “At least a dozen males got off the plane in Boise from Seattle, dressed head to toe in black.” The post, by an Emmett, Idaho, man, warned residents to “Be ready for attacks downtown and residential areas,” and claimed one passenger had “a tattoo that said Antifa America on his arm.”

That post was shared over 3,000 times on Facebook, and other pages from Idaho quickly added their own spin to it, like the Idaho branch of the far-right militia group 3 Percenters.

One post claimed that “Antifa has sent a plane load of their people” and that the Payette County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it. Within days, that version of the rumor picked up enough steam in Idaho Facebook groups that the Payette County Sheriff’s Office had to release a statement insisting that the viral rumor was “false information.”

Rumors of marauding bands of Antifa supporters have plagued local Facebook groups, chain emails and forwarded text messages since mid-May. One of the most viral rumors on an Antifa invasion into the suburbs was taken down after Twitter said it was created by a troll account with ties to white nationalists.

Some armed Americans took to town squares in several towns to fight off fictitious busloads of Antifa in June, spurred by false rumors on Facebook pages. Seven days after the original Idaho rumor went viral on Facebook, armed men stood guard over protests in Missoula, Montana, worried about the planeloads of Antifa supporters.

In his Washington Post column about Trump's flawed election strategy August 20th, David Byler pointed out that not only is "Trump's suburban pitch... off-key in an election dominated by the coronavirus," but that "Playing the race card is more likely to backfire now than in any time in a generation. In 2019, the libertarian Cato Institute found that 52% of Americans who live in the suburbs favor 'building more houses, condos and apartments' in their community while 46% oppose the idea. According to YouGov, 50% of suburbanites think Biden would be better at handling race relations than Trump, and only 28% prefer Trump to Biden... These communities are no longer all-White bastions where fathers work and mothers stay home with the children. These neighborhoods are racially diverse: According to a 2018 study, only 68% of suburbanites were White, 14% were Hispanic and 11% were Black. And no matter where they live, Pew Research Center found that the share of mothers who stay home with children declined from 49% in 1967 to 27% in 2016. The audience Trump believes he’s targeting-- White stay-at-home suburban moms-- may be smaller than he thinks.

Trump's bullshit about "saving Kenosha" is not being bought by voters, who are finally recognizing how Trump lies and manipulates to push his personal agenda. Even with support for Black Lives Matter sliding in Wisconsin, voters are still backing Biden, not Trump.

Yesterday, Chuck Todd's team at NBC News speculated that playing the race card "is-- at best-- break-even for Trump. And at worst, it’s another liability for him. According to our August NBC News/WSJ poll (conducted before the violence in Kenosha), Trump held a 4-point advantage over Biden when it comes to which candidate better handles crime, with 43 percent picking Trump and 39 percent Biden. But on uniting the country, Biden’s edge over Trump was 23 points, 49 percent to 26 percent. And on race relations, Biden’s lead over Trump is 24 points, 53 percent to 29 percent. So despite the conventional wisdom, it’s not clear at all this issue is a winner for Trump.

The new poll from Morning Consult that was released yesterday-- so post-conventions-- shows Biden ahead 51 to 43% nationally. 55% of voters view Trump negatively while just 46% view Biden negatively. But it's the swing states where the campaigns are in full gear that are most interesting. According to this set of polling, Trump is losing every swing state but Ohio and Texas. But what about that normal convention bounce? Well, there was some. Biden increased his support after the 2 conventions in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin-- stayed the same in North Carolina, Ohio, Minnesota and Colorado-- and lost one point each in Pennsylvania and Florida, each of which he is still leading in. Trump, on the other hand, had a bounce down in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona, stayed the same in Wisconsin and Colorado, and increased his positions slightly in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Minnesota-- in each of which he's still losing-- and in Ohio and Texas.

Is Trump's Latest Twitter Rage Proof That He's Insane Or Proof That He Thinks His Base Is? Or Both?

By 6 AM on Sunday, Trump was up and doing what he enjoys most-- raging at his political enemies on Twitter, screaming about cracking down on "agitators and thugs" (for him a synonym for protesters, people of color and Democrats) and fanning the flames of civil unrest. In all, he entertained his followers with nearly 100 tweets and retweets about his great poll numbers-- from a GOP firm that allows their clients to practically pick their own results-- and both defending violent right-wing terrorists and savaging Democratic politicians trying to cope with the Trump-inspired chaos in their cities and states. His armed supporters drove into Portland to do one thing: wreak havoc on Trump's behalf-- a real caravan this time.

I believe someone may have since talked Trump out of going to Kenosha (still not sure), but on State of the Union yesterday Karen Bass (D-CA) explained that Trump’s trip there was "to agitate things and to make things worse... He is campaigning. It is clear his campaign is all about law and order. It is a throwback to the past. And he's going to do everything to disrupt law and order in this time period."

The NY Times' Peter Baker wrote the story everyone else is quoting: Trump Embraces Fringe Theories On Protests And The Coronavirus, although "embraces" is such a Times kind of description for what Trump is actually up to. Baker noted that President Sociopath was claiming on Sunday morning that the "street protests are actually an organized coup d’état against him."

One of the Trumpists was killed in Portland precisely what the country's chief agent provocateur was hoping for. In his weekend diarrhea of hate messaging to his Twitter followers, Trump "embraced a call to imprison Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, threatened to send federal forces against demonstrators outside the White House, attacked CNN and NPR, embraced a supporter charged with murder, mocked his challenger, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and repeatedly assailed the mayor of Portland, even posting the mayor’s office telephone number so that supporters could call demanding his resignation."

One of the most incendiary messages was a retweet of a program from the One America News Network, a pro-Trump channel that advances extreme theories and that the president has turned to when he feels that Fox News has not been supportive enough. The message he retweeted Saturday night promoted a segment accusing demonstrators of secretly plotting Mr. Trump’s downfall.

“According to the mainstream media, the riots & extreme violence are completely unorganized,” the tweet said. “However, it appears this coup attempt is led by a well funded network of anarchists trying to take down the President.” Accompanying it was an image of a promo for a segment titled: “America Under Siege: The Attempt to Overthrow President Trump.”

Mr. Trump likewise reposted messages asserting that the real death toll from the coronavirus is only around 9,000-- not 182,000-- because the others who died also had other health issues and most were of an advanced age.

“So get this straight-- based on the recommendation of doctors Fauci and Birx the US shut down the entire economy based on 9,000 American deaths to the China coronavirus,” said the summary of a story by the hard-line conservative website Gateway Pundit that was retweeted by the president, denigrating his own health advisers, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Dr. Deborah L. Birx.

Over the weekend (Saturday + Sunday), there were 1,325 new COVID-deaths reported. The actual U.S. death total is 187,224, despite the denialism from Trumpist conspiracy theorists encouraged by Trump himself. The half dozen states with the most new deaths this past weekend:

• Florida 163
• Texas 188
• Georgia 133
• California 102
• Alabama 55
• South Carolina 54




Maybe Trump wants to tell their families that they didn't die of COVID and that's it's all a hoax and all about him. It is likely that by election day, something like a quarter million Americans will have been majority of American voters agree that Trump is an unreliable source of information about the pandemic and that, in general, he is untrustworthy and untruthful. Poor thing... must be frustrating for him.

But Mr. Trump also retweeted a message calling for Mr. Cuomo to be locked up because of the high death toll from the coronavirus in New York nursing homes earlier in the pandemic. “#KillerCuomo should be in jail,” said the message by the actor James Woods, a strong supporter of the president’s.

And the president even “liked” a tweet that offered support for Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Trump supporter who has been charged with homicide after two demonstrators were shot to death in Kenosha, Wis. “Kyle Rittenhouse is a good example of why I decided to vote for Trump,” the tweet said.

Mr. Cuomo responded on his own Twitter feed a few hours later, pointing to the Trump administration’s failure to contain the pandemic. “The White House has learned nothing from COVID,” Mr. Cuomo wrote. “National threats require national leadership. It’s been 6 months without a national strategy on testing or mask mandate. Only the federal government has the power to go to war with COVID. They are failing and the nation suffers.”

For his part, Mr. Biden issued a statement condemning the violence in Portland as “unacceptable” regardless of one’s political views and criticizing Mr. Trump for trying to raise the temperature rather than lower it.

“What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters?” Mr. Biden asked. “He is recklessly encouraging violence. He may believe tweeting about law and order makes him strong-- but his failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict shows just how weak he is.”

...Trump repeatedly assailed Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland for resisting federal help and delighted in showcasing a peaceful protest held at the mayor’s own home on Friday, even retweeting a post accusing the Mr. Wheeler of “committing war crimes.” Rather than calling for calm, Mr. Trump seemed to justify aggressive action against demonstrators by his supporters.

“The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing,” Mr. Trump wrote, as he retweeted a journalist’s post reporting that Trump supporters were firing paintballs and pepper spray, including at the reporter. “The people of Portland won’t put up with no safety any longer. The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard!”

Mr. Trump plans to travel on Tuesday to Kenosha, where emotions have been raw since the police shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back seven times, leaving him paralyzed. The president’s trip has caused concern that he could inflame the situation. He made no comment on the shooting for days until he was asked about it on Friday in an interview with WMUR of New Hampshire during a visit to the state.

“It was not a good sight,” he said. “I didn’t like the sight of it, certainly. I think most people would agree with that. But we’ll be getting reports in very soon, and we’ll report back.”

His Twitter comments on Kenosha, however, have focused on restoring order in the streets. The president’s string of Twitter messages trailed off on Sunday morning before he got into his motorcade and headed to his golf club in Virginia, where he was greeted by a handful of protesters, including one dressed as a grim reaper holding a sign that said “183K,” referring to the number of people in the United States who have died from the coronavirus.

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian told NPR that Trump shouldn't come to his city tomorrow. "Realistically, from our perspective, our preference would have been for him not to be coming at this point in time... All presidents are always welcome and campaign issues are always going on. But it would have been, I think, better had he waited to have for another time to come... Peaceful protests are not a problem. Our biggest problem really did come from people coming from outside the area and causing a great deal of damage and destruction."

Meanwhile Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes was more explicit. He told John King on Inside Politics that "You look at the incendiary remarks that the President has made, they centered an entire convention around creating more animosity and creating more division around what is going on in Kenosha. So, I don't know how given any of the previous statements that the President made that he intends to come here to be helpful. And we absolutely don't need that right now." 

Josh Paul is Wisconsin's Attorney General. He made some good points yesterday about why Trump should not show up in Kenosha tomorrow. He end his Twitter stream by reminding people that "While Donald Trump has spoken about law and order, he has pardoned his allies, flouted the law, and spewed hate and division, day after day, from our highest office. He is a catalyst for chaos and a threat to the rule of law."

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.

How Far Will The Unpopular And Desperate Queens-Born Casino Operator Go To Hold Onto His Power?

I'm going to start with some polling from yesterday. Gallup first. They show Trump sinking below 40%-- 4 points down since the end of February. Republicans like him; everyone else hates him. Now a less known poll from Navigator Research, "a project designed to better understand the American public’s views on issues of the day and help advocates, elected officials, and other interested parties understand the language, imagery and messaging needed to make and win key policy arguments." This particular poll is mostly about Climate Change but they also have some Trump findings: "This month, just 38% believe the president generally does what’s best for the country, a new low and a 6-point decline from December. 62% now tend to say the president puts himself first. Perception of Trump as self-interested has grown more rapidly than overall disapproval. As Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia’s possible involvement winds down, support for the probe has reached an all-time high of 58%."

And that leads right to yesterday's House vote on Jerry Nadler's Resolution 24-- "Expressing the sense of Congress that the report of Special Counsel Mueller should be made available to the public and to Congress." Nadler is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and is cosponsors included the chairs of 5 other top committees: Maxine Waters (Financial Services), Adam Schiff (Intelligence), Elijah Cummings (Oversight), Eliot Engel (Foreign Affairs), Richard Neil (Way and Means). It passed with 420 votes. Florida Republican Matt Gaetz pulled his head out of Trump's ass long enough to vote "present." He was joined by 3 other Republicans refusing to go on-record favoring the public release of the report.

It also leads to yesterday's Senate vote that Trump lost badly when a large bipartisan majority of senators approved HJ 46, the resolution of disapproval for his phony state of emergency declaration. A dozen Republicans voted with every single Democrat (including right-wingers Sinema and Manchin) against Trump. The Republicans include Lamar Alexander (TN), Roy Blunt (MO), Susan Collins (ME), Mike Lee (UT), Jerry Moran (KS), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Randy Paul (KY), Rob Portman (OH), Mitt Romney (UT), Marco Rubio (FL), Pat Toomey (PA) and Roger Wicker (MS). Publicly Trump says he'll veto it; there are reports that privately, he's furious and looking for revenge.

Thursday morning, rejecting Trump's insistence that he can't be sued in state court, a New York appellate court ruled that Summer Zervos, a former Apprentice contestant, who Trump sexually harassed, can move forward with her defamation suit against Trump now, while he's still "president." In their statement, the justices explained that they "reject defendant President Trump's argument that the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution prevents a New York State court-- and every other state court in the country-- from exercising its authority under its state constitution. Instead, we find that the Supremacy Clause was never intended to deprive a state court of its authority to decide cases and controversies under the state's constitution."

Looking bad for what Spy Magazine editor Graydon Carter long, long ago referred to as a "short fingered vulgarian?" He struck back with a veiled threat that it's unimaginable any legitimate president would have ever uttered, "armed pushback," reported Daniel Dale, "against his political opponents." Breitbart News was interviewing Trump when he stopped attacking Paul Ryan long enough to mention "it would be very bad, very bad" if his supporters in the military, police and a motorcycle group were provoked into getting "tough." Trump was arguing that "the left" plays politics in a "tougher" and more "vicious" manner than the pro-Trump right even though "the tough people" are on Trump’s side.

“I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump-- I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough-- until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,” Trump said.

...The quote prompted criticism and alarm when The Star tweeted it.

“This is how an authoritarian talks. Happening right in front of us,” Brendan Nyhan, a University of Michigan public policy professor who co-founded an initiative monitoring the state of U.S. democracy, said on Twitter.

“We can’t sugar-coat this. The President of the United States is encouraging the military, police, and bikers to violently attack his critics on the left,” liberal journalist Judd Legum tweeted.

“In which the president of the United States threatens street violence against his political opponents,” the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen tweeted. “What happens if Trump loses in 2020? Is that the ‘certain point?’”

Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who has been convicted of several crimes, testified to Congress in February: “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”

Trump made another veiled suggestion of retribution from the military, police and Bikers for Trump at a midterm campaign rally in Georgia in November. After mocking Antifa protesters as weaklings-- “you see these little arms,” he joked-- he said, “And then you see the clubs in their hands. You know, they’re tough guys, right. Where are the Bikers for Trump? Where are the police? Where are the military? Where are the ICE? Where are the Border Patrol? No. No. We’ve taken a lot. We’ve taken a lot, folks.”

Bikers for Trump, which has more than 300,000 followers on Facebook, is not a criminal biker gang.

Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox, a chainsaw artist described in one 2017 newspaper profile as “exceedingly polite,” offered in advance of Trump’s inauguration in 2017 to form a “wall of meat” between the president and protesters. He said, though, that he expected a peaceful gathering. While group members have had verbal confrontations with anti-Trump protesters, there have not been reports of major violence.

Trump met with some of the Bikers for Trump at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey in August. In November, Cox travelled to Florida and made unfounded allegations of election fraud. In December, Cox and his German shepherd stood outside the courthouse where former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn was to be sentenced for lying to the FBI, with Cox telling Mother Jones Magazine he was “here to make sure [Flynn’s] family is not assaulted or intimidated.”

Trump also endorsed violence against protesters at some of his rallies in 2016. At one rally in Iowa, he urged his supporters to beat up anyone getting ready to “throw a tomato,” saying, “Knock the crap out of them…I promise you I will pay for the legal fees.”

Trump Brings Civil Discord And Violence

There' been a lot of news recently about some deranged guy, 63-year old Carlos Bayon, of Grand Island, NY was arrested for leaving menacing voicemails on the office phones of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and House Republican Conference chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). He used his home phone to make the threats so-- not all that hard for Capitol Hill police and FBI to trace him. One message to Scalise: "Hey listen, this message is for you and the people that sent you there. You are taking ours, we are taking yours. Anytime, anywhere. We know where they are. We are not going to feed them sandwiches, we are going to feed them lead. Make no mistake, you will pay."

Police found various kinds of ammunition and instructions on how to build bombs when they searched Bayon's home, although no guns-- just 150 rounds of 7.62-millimeter rifle ammunition, 50 rounds of shotgun ammunition, a 2004 receipt for an SKS assault rifle, and a 1987 receipt for a .38-caliber revolver.

This week, I spoke to the chief of staff of a prominent Democratic House member, who is frequently on television. and social media. He told me that the office gets barraged with calls from right-wing lunatics constantly, including very serious threats-- even threats to the congressman's young children and pictures of the schools they go to.

"Any time the Member is on television,"the chief told me, "the office receives calls from angry conspiracy theorists-- most from outside the congressional district. These callers harass the interns and junior staff who answer the phones. These days for the right it’s all about 'owning the libs'-- so they don’t even feel the need to make sense, as long as they are annoying a Democrat they consider it a successful call."

The really aggressive callers make their way up to the Chief. Most are harmless and he has no problem putting them in their place, but a few are downright scary and include very specific threats. These calls are referred to Capitol Police to investigate.

The office also receives a regular stream of racist and sometimes threatening emails. And social media is even worse. People are truly nasty when they can be completely anonymous. "There is often a palpable racial element to the calls and social media posts," he continued, "which are often vulgar and abusive. Most calls or posts cannot be referred to the Capitol Police if they don’t contain a specific threat... Is there any surprise that we are where we are given how the President behaves on a daily basis?" This is definitely from a crazed Trumpist:



Apple made a smart decision to ban Alex Jones' unhinged podcasts, which are filled with insane conspiracy theories-- like child slaves on Mars and the PizzaGate hoax-- and hate speech galore. An Apple spokesperson:

Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users. Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.

Spotify and YouTube have also been removing some of Jones' most inflammatory material. Facebook banned him, but just for a month.

Meanwhile, The Hill reported yesterday that another top source of deranged hatred and baseless, dangerous conspiracy theories on the far right front, Q-Anon, may be in for some... embarrassment, especially if they're working for the GOP, as some people predict-- or as a leftist prank group, making fun of brain-dead Trump supporters. The anarchist hacking collective, Anonymous, has set about working to expose the people behind 'QAnon,' referring to it "as potentially dangerous and driven by a 'brainless political agenda.'... We will not sit idly by while you take advantage of the misinformed and poorly educated." Watch the video they posted Sunday. It's a hoot:

The Incivility Of The Trumpist Regime

Monday night, Maxine Waters was Chris Hayes' guest on All In to explain how Señor Trumpanzee had misinterpreted-- purposefully-- her call for Americans to confront Trumpist Cabinet members into a call for violence against GOP Voters. What she had said had zero to do with violence and zero to do with GOP voters... it was simply about legitimate, constitutionally-protected protest about usually cloistered and unavailable government officials... very healthy. She then read a list of times Señor T had publicly called for violence against Americans. A few we should all easily remember:

• "Maybe he should be roughed up"
• "I’d like to knock the crap out of them"
• "Try not to hurt him but if you do, I’ll defend you in court. Don’t worry about it."
• "I’d like to punch him in the face."

Real civil, right? Speaking of which... Early Tuesday morning Mark Sumner posted an important essay at Daily Kos about the media's "civility debate." "The media demands for “civility”over the last three days," he wrote, "are not just being unfairly applied in a wholly one-sided manner-- dirty hippies aren’t allowed to comment on their betters-- they are themselves a dangerous and unreasonable demand that is threatening the nation."

It’s not just that major media sources have settled into a routine where when Donald Trump insults someone, their first instinct is to repeat that insult. Or that they are constantly in search for a comment from the left which, no matter how it is phrased, can be turned into the focus of some serious nose-lifted high dudgeon. It’s not simply that while the right punches, the press plays stenographer, and when the left fights back, they declare fighting out of bounds. It’s not even about the incredible spectacle of journalists who have personally been on the receiving end of both spit and thrown bottles while Trump rants about ending “political correctness,” suddenly chiding the left for refusing to be good little frogs while the water boils.

It’s that the demand being made for “civility” isn’t about language at all. It’s about throwing a ring of protection around the powerful. It’s about pretending that people whose actions wreck millions of lives on a whim, are cocooned from the consequences of their actions, not just because they have money, and connections, and resources, but because their power puts them on a different plane.

The idea that “politics” represents some kind of insulating blanket, that someone should be able to take any action in the service of a political office, then stroll out into the street and be treated with cheery “civility,” giving no consequence to what they’ve done in their day job, is not just foolish. It’s dangerous. That’s not civility. That’s royalty.

This isn’t some theoretical thing. The arguments here are not about angels on pins or the health of unseen cats. There are children being taken away at the border who may never see their parents again. And there are parents out there who will absolutely never again see their child again because he was gunned down for simply being black. And there are people out there whose lives are purposely being made worse, simply because those people-- those people who feel like they deserve to rule from inside Washington, and still go out to demand a good meal from the peasantry-- find them handy objects of ridicule.

The idea that political statements take place in some privileged space, and that pushing back outside the beltway is wrong isn’t just sickening, it’s surrender.

For many of the journalists engaged in this latest round of finger-waving, A large part of the argument is about who they value. They value those people they see, they meet, they talk with every day. Those people that they interview and quote are real people, worthy of nice things, even when they don’t say nice things. And the people who don’t have power, the people whose only appearance on television is as a literal face in the crowd, … are not. Not valued. Not worthy. Not real.

It’s why Sarah Sanders can lie directly to their faces every day, and threat them like a class of unruly third graders, and they’ll still moan in sympathy when Sanders is featured in a punch line. Because jokes hurt … not like the policies that Sanders is promoting that only take food and medicine from those who need it, and pump pollution into the air and water to the tune of 80,000 American lives lost. That tendency to place more import on those around you is only human. But the media’s tendency to demand it, is part of protecting the power structure.

When senators and congressmen wax lyrical over the magic age of civility past, even that is just another way of saying “when we once went to our country clubs together, free of our lessers, and the press coddled us even more.”

The press would be happier if Americans storming the castle would limit their efforts to the occasional neatly proscribed march. With colorful signs! And a permit!

The press is going to continue to be disappointed in us. If we’re lucky.

Democracy is messy-- and establishment media has always been worried about "civility"

A biproduct of reactionary Trumpism: A new poll released this morning found that half of us think the country is in "real danger of becoming a nondemocratic, authoritarian country." But maybe still civil? 55% see democracy as "weak" and 68% believe it is "getting weaker." About eight in 10 Americans say they are either very or somewhat concerned about the condition of democracy here. What an historical mistake we made... as a people! I hope it's not too late. We'll all counting on November! 

Now, please, go back up top and watch that lovely video of New Oder's "Age of Consent"-- and don't worry about all that civility in the beginning... it ends well. And you can sing to it, dance to it, dream to it.

Won't you please let me go
These words lie inside they hurt me so
And I'm not the kind that likes to tell you
Just what I want to do
I'm not the kind that needs to tell you
Just what you, want me to

Physical Cowards Like Señor Trumpanzee Often Promote Violence And Fascism

Hillary couldn't have picked a more sycophantic interviewer than Joy Reid for a taped, edited appearance of MSNBC Saturday morning. Nonetheless, there was something the two of them got to that even Hillary's detractors would whole-heartedly agree with: Trump is worse than she, or almost any of us, imaged he would be as president. Although, who really even imagined he would be president until Putin's agents managed to flip a few precincts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan?

In the midst of discussing her "it's all about me, me, me, me, me" book, Reid asked her if Clinton thought the Trump era was even worse than she expected it to be. "I really had such deep doubts about his preparation, his temperament, his character, his experience, but he's been even worse than I thought he would be," said the woman who beat him 65,853,516 (48.2%) to 62,984,825 (46.1%). "I thought, and I tried in my concession speech to make clear that we should all give him the space to be president for every American. That's what we want from our presidents, regardless of our partisan differences, we want to feel like the person in the oval office really cares about and is looking after everybody. And that just hasn't turned out to be the case, starting with our inauguration, which is how I opened the book talking about how excruciating it was to go and what a missed opportunity for him because all he did was reinforce the dark, divisive image of America that he'd been feeding to his supporters."

That said, DWT contributor, nom de guerre is and has always been, Valley Girl decided to take a look at this age of Trump Joy Reid decided to ask Hillary about:


Trump Loves Violence In All Forms
-by Valley Girl

Nope, I’m not in any way a fan of football. I don’t like the inherent violence of the game. The only team game I like, though less so now, is baseball. At one point recently I resorted for a few days to watching the great Sandy Koufax on youtube. Yeah, total escapist behavior on my part, to save my sanity. I needed some kind of distraction from our totally bat-shit crazy President, to soothe my nerves, so that I didn’t end up becoming  bat-shit crazy myself.

I watched every Sandy Koufax video available on youtube. I grew up in LA. I used to listen to the Dodger games on radio, with my father. Here is the great Sandy Koufax, after highlights of the game, being interviewed by the poet of baseball, Vin Scully, after the Dodgers 1965 World Series win. Sure, this will appeal only to true baseball fans. And, by the way, Sandy Koufax was born and raised in Brooklyn. Jewish. Hi, Howie.



[Since my name was invoked, I'll add that my dad used to take me to Ebbets Field on Bedford Avenue near our house way before the Dodgers won the 1965 World Series. I saw Koufax pitch a few games before the Dodgers moved.]

And, notice how incredibly articulate Sandy is in the post game interview. And, kind. He doesn’t make the interview “about himself.” He gives gracious credit to his team members. And for you other girl fans, take a look at those dimples.

Why was I prompted to write this post? Because of something I happened to read this morning.  

On the same day the media was filled with stories about a 27-year-old former NFL player who committed suicide and was found to have severe degenerative brain damage-- likely much or all of it from football-- the president decried how big hits have been taken out of the game.

…Regarding anthem protests, Trump said: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s FIRED!’ You know, some owner is gonna do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy disrespects our flag; he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it. They don’t know it. They’re friends of mine, many of them. They don’t know it. They’ll be the most popular person, for a week. They’ll be the most popular person in this country.”

Regarding his nostalgia for the dangerous hits that college and pro football have been trying to take out of the game, Trump said: “Today if you hit too hard-- 15 yards! Throw him out of the game! They had that last week. I watched for a couple of minutes. Two guys, just really, beautiful tackle. Boom, 15 yards! The referee gets on television-- his wife is sitting at home, she’s so proud of him. They’re ruining the game! They’re ruining the game. That’s what they want to do. They want to hit. They want to hit! It is hurting the game.

“But do you know what’s hurting the game more than that? When people like yourselves turn on the television and you see those players taking the knee when they’re playing our great national anthem. The only thing you could do better is if you see it, even if it’s one player, leave the stadium. I guarantee things will stop. Things will stop. Just pick up and leave. Pick up and leave. Not the same game anymore, anyway.”

Reaction was swift on Twitter. “Where was this passion in response to Charlottesville?” Broncos guard Max Garcia wrote, referring to Trump’s equivocating remarks after the white supremacist rallies in Virginia in August.

…Now about the new rules and penalties in recent years for the big hits both pro and college football are trying to take out of the game. Trump, apparently, is the only person in America who wants to see a more dangerous game of football.

…The New York Times has reported extensively on the number of deceased former players diagnosed with CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a disease experts believe is caused by repetitive head trauma. On Thursday the paper reported that former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who last played at age 23 and committed suicide in prison this year after being convicted of murder, had “severe” CTE at the time of his death.

Trump’s remarks come at a time of intense examination of the violence of the game, at a time when its long-term future is being questioned because of the effects of head trauma. It’s not the first time he’s questioned the softening of the game. It was a particularly tone-deaf instance, however, given the news of the week.

There’s no other way to put it: On Friday night, again, Donald Trump was America’s divider-in-chief.

And, more, which will ask you to watch to videos.

This youtube captures important parts of Trump’s remarks atthe Huntsville Rally, November 22, 2017. And, there’s no other way to summarize his remarks, than to conclude that Trump loves violence.



Of course this shouldn’t be news, that Trump loves violence,  to anyone who’s been paying attention.

Here’s Trump speaking to police in Suffolk County on Long Island, giving them permission to abuse their authority as police officers:



The full text of that speech is here but below are some of the highlights:

On Friday, President Trump traveled to Long Island to address a group of law enforcement officials and speak about the administration’s efforts to eradicate the gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. His speech stuck largely to that theme, though he also made note of Thursday night’s failed health-care vote.

Trump’s speech was noteworthy, though, for its embrace of aggressive tactics by police officers. He insisted that his team was “rough” and encouraged police officers not to be concerned about preventing physical harm to people being taken into custody. The laws, he said, were “stacked against” the police.

“Please don’t be too nice,” Trump told the officers, to applause. Below, his comments, as provided by the White House, with our highlights and annotations. To see an annotation, click on the yellow, highlighted text.

Well, thank you very much. This is certainly being home for me. I spent a lot of time right here. I was in Queens, so I’d come here, and this was like the luxury location for me. And I love it. I love the people here. Even coming in from the airport, I sat with Nikki Haley, who’s here someplace. Where’s our Nikki? Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is so incredible. (Applause.) And she’s seen crowds in her life, and she said, boy, those are really big crowds. Crowds of people all lining the streets, all the way over to here. And it’s really a special place. And so when I heard about this, I said, I want to do that one.

But I really wanted to do it not because of location, but because, as you know, I am the big, big believer and admirer of the people in law enforcement, okay? From day one. (Applause.) From day one. We love our police. We love our sheriffs. And we love our ICE officers. And they have been working hard. (Applause.) Thank you. They have been working hard.

Together, we’re going to restore safety to our streets and peace to our communities, and we’re going to destroy the vile criminal cartel, MS-13, and many other gangs. But MS-13 is particularly violent. They don’t like shooting people because it’s too quick, it’s too fast. I was reading-- one of these animals was caught-- in explaining, they like to knife them and cut them, and let them die slowly because that way it’s more painful, and they enjoy watching that much more. These are animals.

We’re joined today by police and sheriffs from Suffolk, Nassau, Dutchess and Ulster counties; state police from New York and New Jersey-- many of you I know, great friends; Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers; and law enforcement personnel from a number of federal agencies. So we’re loaded up with great people-- that’s what I call it.

And I want to just tell you all together, right now, the reason I came-- this is the most important sentence to me: On behalf of the American people, I want to say, thank you. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you.

And I don’t think you know how much the public respects and admires you. You’re saving American lives every day, and we have your backs-- believe me-- we have your backs 100 percent. Not like the old days. Not like the old days. (Applause.)

You know, when you wanted to take over and you used military equipment-- and they were saying you couldn’t do it-- you know what I said? That was my first day: You can do it. (Laughter.) In fact, that stuff is disappearing so fast we have none left. (Laughter.) You guys know-- you really knew how to get that. But that’s my honor. And I tell you what-- it’s being put to good use.

I especially want to thank ICE Director Tom Homan, who has done an incredible job in just a short period of time. Tom, get up here. I know you just-- (applause)-- Tom is determined to rid our nation of cartels and criminals who are preying on our citizens. And I can only say to Tom: Keep up the great work. He’s a tough guy. He’s a tough cookie. Somebody said the other day, they saw him on television, and somebody-- they were interviewed after that; they said, he looks very nasty, he looks very mean. I said, that’s what I’m looking for. (Laughter.) That’s exactly what I was looking for.

And for that, I want to congratulate John Kelly, who has done an incredible job of Secretary of Homeland Security. Incredible. (Applause.) One of our real stars. Truly, one of our stars. John Kelly is one of our great stars. You know, the border is down 78 percent. Under past administrations, the border didn’t go down-- it went up. But if it went down 1 percent, it was like this was a great thing. Down 78 percent. And, in fact, the southern border of Mexico, we did them a big favor-- believe me. They get very little traffic in there anymore, because they know they’re not going to get through the border to the United States.

So that whole group has been incredible, led by General Kelly.

…And, of course, a legend, somebody that we all know very well, sort of my neighbor-- because I consider him a neighbor-- but he’s really a great and highly respected man in Washington, Congressman Peter King. (Applause.) Very respected guy. He is a respected man that people like to ask opinions of. I do.

Congressman King and his colleagues know the terrible pain and violence MS-13 has inflicted upon this community-- and this country. And if you remember just a little more than two years ago, when I came down the escalator with Melania, and I made the speech-- people coming into this country. Everyone said, what does he know? What’s he talking about?

...But from now on, we’re going to enforce our laws, protect our borders, and support our police like our police have never been supported before. We’re going to support you like you’ve never been supported before. (Applause.)

...And I can tell you, I saw some photos where Tom’s guys-- rough guys. They’re rough. I don’t want to be-- say it because they’ll say that’s not politically correct. You’re not allowed to have rough people doing this kind of work. We have to get-- just like they don’t want to have rich people at the head of Treasury, okay? (Laughter.) Like, I want a rich guy at the head of Treasury, right? Right? (Applause.)

…ICE officers recently conducted the largest crackdown on criminal gangs in the history of our country. In just six weeks, ICE and our law enforcement partners arrested nearly 1,400 suspects and seized more than 200 illegal firearms and some beauties, and nearly 600 pounds of narcotics.

The men and women of ICE are turning the tide in the battle against MS-13. But we need more resources from Congress-- and we’re getting them. Congress is actually opening up and really doing a job. They should have approved healthcare last night, but you can’t have everything. Boy, oh, boy. They’ve been working on that one for seven years. Can you believe that? The swamp. But we’ll get it done. We’re going to get it done.

…Right now, we have less than 6,000 Enforcement and Removal Officers in ICE. This is not enough to protect a nation of more than 320 million people. It’s essential that Congress fund another 10,000 ICE officers-- and we’re asking for that-- so that we can eliminate MS-13 and root out the criminal cartels from our country.

Now, we’re getting them out anyway, but we’d like to get them out a lot faster. And when you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon-- you just see them thrown in, rough-- I said, please don’t be too nice. (Laughter.) Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody-- don’t hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay? (Laughter and applause.)

…It’s essential that Congress fund hundreds more federal immigration judges and prosecutors-- and we need them quickly, quickly-- if we’re going to dismantle these deadly networks. And I have to tell you, you know, the laws are so horrendously stacked against us, because for years and years they’ve been made to protect the criminal. Totally made to protect the criminal, not the officers.

…So we’re going to secure our borders against illegal entry, and we will build the wall. That I can tell you. (Applause.)

In fact, last night-- you don’t read about this too much, but it was approved-- $1.6 billion for the phase one of the wall, which is not only design but the start of construction over a period of about two years, but the start of construction for a great border wall. And we’re going to build it. The Wall is a vital, and vital as a tool, for ending the humanitarian disaster brought-- and really brought on by drug smugglers and new words that we haven’t heard too much of-- human traffickers.

We will defend our country, protect our communities, and put the safety of the American people first. And I’m doing that with law enforcement, and we’re doing that with trade, and we’re doing that with so much else. It’s called America First. It’s called an expression I’m sure you’ve never heard of: Make America Great Again. Has anybody heard that expression? (Applause.)

That is my promise to each of you. That is the oath I took as President, and that is my sacred pledge to the American people.

Thank you everyone here today. You are really special, special Americans. And thank you in particular to the great police, sheriffs, and ICE officers. You do a spectacular job. The country loves you. The country respects you. You don’t hear it, but believe me, they respect you as much as they respect anything. There is the respect about our country. You are spectacular people. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

And, this: Trump gives supporters permission to be violent with protesters
Published on Mar 4, 2016



Donald Trump-- 'Knock the Crap Out Of Them, I Will Pay For The Legal Fees'
Published on Mar 23, 2016



Donald Trump Inciting Violence at Rally in St. Louis: March 11, 2016
Published on Mar 12, 2016



This is a long video, annotated and interpreted by the person who published it on youtube.  And, if, you had any doubts before, that Trump does indeed love violence, watch it. Or even if you knew that already.

The above youtubes are just a few of those available.

But, it wasn’t until I thought about writing this post that the idea crystallized in my mind, as a simple phrase:

Trump Loves Violence.

... Because it’s so much fun. See the first video in the series above.