Society of the Spectacle, people!!!
And I hope we all can understand that we can help shape the new world… as difficult as it will be.
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If the shit hits the fan, you can always post articles here and I & many others will read them! You write beautifully. There might even be a way to turn that into bread on your table.
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May 30, 2020 (Saturday)
It is too early to know what is actually happening inside the protests and riots happening in cities across the country, especially Minneapolis, after the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin there on Monday. That is, we know there are protests and looting and violence, but who is doing what remains unclear, and will stay unclear for a while. There are plenty of videos and tweets, but they can only give us windows into events, not a full picture.
That being said, there do seem to be some patterns emerging.
The protests began as Black Americans and allies protested Floyd’s murder, coming, as it did, after a number of similar murders—such as Breonna Taylor’s, shot in her own home during a botched police raid—that illuminated police brutality against Black Americans. Quickly, though, the protests appeared to turn into something else, as more people—possibly (and I would guess probably) from outside the cities—rushed in to create chaos.
It is not clear who these people are. This morning, Trump tweeted that the protesters at the White House were “professionally organized,” and midday, Attorney General Barr gave a hasty press conference in which he claimed that “outside radicals and agitators are exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate and violent agenda.” He said, “in many places, it appears the violence is planned, organized and driven by anarchic and left extremist groups, far-left extremist groups, using antifa-like tactics, many of whom travel from outside the state to promote the violence.”
There is currently no evidence that what Barr said is true.
He went on to say “It is a federal crime to cross state lines or to use interstate facilities to incite or participate in violent rioting, and we will enforce those laws.” After Barr spoke, Trump tweeted: “80% of the RIOTERS in Minneapolis last night were from OUT OF STATE. They are harming businesses (especially African American small businesses), homes, and the community of good, hardworking Minneapolis residents who want peace, equality, and to provide for their families.” He added: “It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don’t lay the blame on others!”
About the same time Barr was speaking, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter told reporters that “Every single person we arrested last night, I’m told, was from out of state,” and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz estimated that 80% of those destroying property were from out of state. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey added: “We are now confronting white supremacists, members of organized crime, out-of-state instigators, and possibly even foreign actors to destroy and destabilize our city and our region.” The Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said they had begun tracing those they arrested to see if they were part of larger networks.
A preliminary study today by local network KARE found that, in fact, 86% of those arrested were from Minnesota. Of the others, at least one was associated with a white supremacist group.
While we cannot know yet what’s going on now, it is of note that the president has encouraged violence lately in his tweets, retweeting a video in which a supporter says “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat,” and a famous line from segregationist politician George Wallace “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
In some places, police are deescalating protests and things are calming. In others, they seem to be deliberately escalating riots and violence.
In the places the police are escalating the riots, they seem to be targeting journalists and photographers, as well as people of color—there are harrowing videos of young men dragged from cars or from the street and mobbed by officers. Multiple stories tonight tell of journalists arrested or shot with rubber bullets, even after identifying themselves as press. One has lost an eye.
This recalls the president’s constant attacks on the press. He has tweeted the phrases “Fake News” and “Enemy of the People” 796 times, and suggested in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that he, Trump, should “Get rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn’t it? You don’t have this problem in Russia [where Putin has journalists killed], but we do.”
If we cannot yet fully know the dynamics of the protests, there are a few things we do know.
First, the protests have wiped from public discussion all the major stories that were distressing Trump: the deadly toll of the coronavirus and his administration’s abysmal response to the pandemic, the skyrocketing unemployment as the economy falters, and Friday’s revelations about his 2016 campaign team’s collaboration with Russian spies.
Second, the president has gone missing in the midst of this crisis. While presidents traditionally speak to the nation to try to reassure Americans in such times, neither he nor Republican leaders are trying to calm the nation.
Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden late tonight stepped into the breach, issuing a statement. “Protesting such brutality is right and necessary. It’s an utterly American response. But burning down communities and needless destruction is not. Violence that endangers lives is not. Violence that guts and shutters businesses that serve the community is not. The act of protesting should never be allowed to overshadow the reason we protest. It should not drive people away from the just cause that protest is meant to advance."
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I think she’s referring to Linda Tirado, who actually had her eye severely injured, and is already reporting on these events again.
I’ve read Tirado’s book, and highly recommend it, and recommend also supporting her further great work by buying it:
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Yeah, but, as I’m sure you already know by now, but maybe not everyone does, she’s apparently definitely lost the use of it.
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May 31, 2020 (Sunday)
Protests continue across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis last Monday.
Black Americans and their allies have had enough of unequal justice in America.
After that observation, the field gets very confusing, very fast. It appears that the protests have been infiltrated by white people bent on causing destruction, but to what end? Are they anarchists eager to destroy the state; white supremacists seeking to discredit black protesters; or bored young people thinking rioting is cool? Or all of the above?
Arrests might give us some leads. Tonight, Nashville police arrested a 25-year-old white man for setting fire to Nashville’s Historic Courthouse last night. He was one of three caught on video attacking the building; the other two were African Americans, one man and one woman. Police have also arrested the man who drove a tanker truck into protesters in Minneapolis.
Also notable is that some police officers are attacking protesters and journalists, while others are honoring their badges and listening to the protesters. In some cities, police are escalating the tensions while in others, they are kneeling in a sign of solidarity with the protesters and joining them as they march.
In Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz has appointed Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to lead the case against Chauvin, whose murder of Floyd was captured in a widely circulated video. The Hennepin County Attorney, Mike Freeman, had charged Chauvin with third-degree murder, but has not yet charged the other three officers present. Floyd’s family had asked that Attorney General Keith Ellison take over the case.
In all this confusion, it feels like the lines are becoming clearer between those determined to reclaim fairness and equality before the law in America, and those determined to destroy civil society altogether.
For all the uncertainty, there was one very clear story today. Although he tweeted angrily, Trump stayed out of sight, and from the safety of the White House continued to feed the flames burning America. “The Lamestream Media is doing everything within their power to foment hatred and anarchy,” he tweeted this morning, apparently unmoved by the videos of journalists arrested and shot with rubber bullets last night. “As long as everybody understands what they are doing, that they are FAKE NEWS and truly bad people with a sick agenda, we can easily work through them to GREATNESS.”
He announced “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization,” although there is actually no organized group of radicals identified as Antifa (a term drawn from “anti-fascist”), and U.S. law does not permit the government to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations anyway. “FAKE NEWS!” he tweeted, and “LAW & ORDER!”
Trump’s attempt to project strength took on quite a different cast when a New York Times story this evening revealed that he had spent an hour Friday night in the White House underground bunker, where Secret Service had taken him. The Associated Press reported that Trump has told advisors he is worried for his safety, and that he and his family “have been shaken by the size and venom of the crowds,” according to “a Republican close to the White House.”
An A. P. story then offered a doozy of a paragraph: “As cities burned night after night and images of violence dominated television coverage, Trump’s advisers discussed the prospect of an Oval Office address in an attempt to ease tensions. The notion was quickly scrapped for lack of policy proposals and the president’s own seeming disinterest in delivering a message of unity.”
That Trump hid in the White House while he was urging others to violence captures his personality, but it undercuts his carefully crafted image as a man of courage. The leak of this story is itself astonishing: we should not know how a president is being protected, and that Trump is bullying to project an image of being a tough guy while he is actually hiding is a big story, especially since presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was out in the streets talking to protesters today. And to admit that Trump has no policy proposals and has no interest in delivering a message of unity…. Wow.
A curfew goes into effect at 11:00 tonight in Washington, D.C. For the past several days, trouble has begun as peaceful protesters go home, leaving the streets to those spoiling for a fight. As 11:00 hits, crowds around the White House are setting fires and attempting to break into the White House grounds.
Just before the curfew, the lights that usually illuminate the outside of the White House were turned off.
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She makes the case for how close the hatred is to Trump. No, not the obvious protests outside the white house. Instead, the fact that someone leaked that he is freaked out and hiding in the bunker, and refuses to address the nation. The people who despise him are right nearby.
That portrait of Kennedy and a few other artifacts inside that great big white house would be a terrible loss if there were ever a fire. But nothing in comparison to George Floyd’s life, or Breonna Taylor’s, or Ahmaud Arbery’s, or Trayvon’s or Eric Garner’s, or Philando Castille’s life… and this god damn list is way too long. It should have nobody’s name on it.
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Could you explain what you mean here? I’m having trouble parsing it.
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In order for that information to escape the White House, someone had to leak it. I am taking it a leap further and saying that the people who hate Trump are right next to him, so he better watch out:
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I see. Yes, his effort to hire only servile lackeys can’t have a 100% success rate.
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Also, I imagine that as you learn to know Trump better, you start to loathe him more and more.
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This is such a microcosm of the macrocosm! The whole country/whole world is rising up in revulsion at this complete, utter TOAD of a man. And that’s being horrible to toads.
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June 1, 2020 (Monday)
Trump began the day with a call to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Shortly after, he called American state governors. In the 55-minute call, he told them, “You have to dominate, if you don’t dominate you’re wasting your time. They’re going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate.” He told the governors, “You’ve got to arrest people, you have to track people, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you’ll never see this stuff again.” “You know when other country’s watch this, they’re watching this, the next day wow, they’re really a push over. And we can’t be a push over. And we have all the resources—it’s not like we don’t have the resources. So, I don’t know what you’re doing.” “It’s a movement, if you don’t put it down it will get worse and worse…. The only time its successful is when you’re weak and most of you are weak.”
He said: “We will activate Bill Barr and activate him very strongly.” He said: “Washington [D.C.] was under very good control, but we’re going to have it under much more control. We’re going to pull in thousands of people.” Barr later directed the FBI to send riot teams to Miami and Washington.
Also on the call were Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Esper echoed Trump, telling the governors in a discussion of American protesters in American cities: “we need to dominate the battle space.”
On the call, Trump said he had put Milley in charge of managing the protests. Since by law Milley is an advisor, rather than part of the military chain of command, the Pentagon clarified that he could not lead any military response to the crisis. White House Press Secretary later said he would lead a “central command center in conjunction with the state and local governments.”
This call was recorded and leaked to the press almost immediately.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a former Army captain who now sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was on board with the sentiments in it. He called for Trump to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, which permits the president to override the restriction against using the military in domestic situations in extreme situations. Cotton tweeted: “Anarchy, rioting, and looting needs to end tonight. If local law enforcement is overwhelmed and needs backup, let’s see how tough these Antifa terrorists are when they’re facing off with the 101st Airborne Division. We need to have zero tolerance for this destruction…. And, if necessary, the 10th Mountain, 82nd Airborne, 1st Cav, 3rd Infantry—whatever it takes to restore order. No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters.”
Readers pointed out that the concept of “no quarter,” that is, killing those who surrender in a battle, is a war crime. Trump tweeted that Cotton was “100% correct.” Cotton later tried to walk back the comments by resorting to a dictionary definition, but David A. French, a lawyer, military officer, Iraq veteran, and journalist, pointed out that Cotton graduated from Harvard Law School, and certainly knew that military ops defines “no quarter” very clearly, and prohibits it.
Florida Representative Matt Gaetz—the man who wore a gas mask on the floor of Congress to downplay the dangers of coronavirus—tweeted “Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do in the Middle East?” Twitter hid the tweet—a tweet from a sitting congressman—as glorifying violence.
A reminder: we do not yet know who is behind the looting and violence, although a number of videos have shown white instigators. The political affiliation of those rioters is not clear, despite the statements of Trump and Attorney General Barr that they are “radical leftists.”
When a journalist today asked a senior White House official what Trump was doing, the official responded: “He’s not handling anything, just typing a bunch of shit on Twitter.” But things took an ominous turn later in the day.
Twenty-nine states have activated about 70,000 National Guard troops but have not deployed more than a few hundred of them, and no state governor has asked for federal intervention. Nonethless, Trump, who refused to help the states respond to the coronavirus pandemic, now wants federal troops in those same states. In the Rose Garden this afternoon, he said that if mayors and governors didn’t increase their troop presence, he would send in federal troops. He announced he was deploying “thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers” to stop the protests in Washington, D.C. and “to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your Second Amendment rights.”
While he was talking, a massive police presence, including officers from the Customs and Border Protection, were clearing peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square with tear gas and flash-bang explosions.
The president concluded his remarks by saying “Now, I’m going to pay my respects to a very, very special place.” He walked out of the White House to the north side of it, into Lafayette Square, where the protests have been, along with Esper, Attorney General William Barr, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and other White House officials, including Hope Hicks, who apparently hatched the plan to calm Trump’s anger at being made fun of for his stay in the White House bunker. They crossed the park to St. John’s Episcopal Church, a historic site that had briefly been set on fire last night. There, Trump held up a Bible and said: “We have a great country, that’s my thoughts, the greatest country in the world. We will make it even greater, it won’t take long. It’s coming back strong and it will be greater than ever before.”
Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania tweeted: “I want to be super clear about what happened tonight in Washington: The President of the United States deployed tear-gas, rubber bullets and military personnel on peaceful protesters so that he could cross the street for a photo op. There is no excuse.” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon straight up said “the fascist speech Donald Trump just delivered verged on a declaration of war against American citizens. I fear for our country tonight and will not stop defending America against Trump’s assault.”
Esquire writer Charles Pierce notes that since 9-11, the federal government has equipped local police with $4.3 billion in military gear and prepared them for an all-out war on terrorists. In 2014, President Barack Obama tried to stop the transfer of military weapons and equipment to civilian police departments with an executive order, but Trump reversed it. This militarization of the police has created in America’s streets what a government commission in 1968 defined as a “police riot,” in which officers themselves instigate, escalate, or sustain violent confrontations. In addition to attacking protesters, today’s police are singling out journalists for attack. This development is significant because it is a key sign of authoritarian regimes, which try to silence journalists to silence information about their actions.
Tonight General Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, talked to reporters from the streets of Washington. National security specialist Tom Nichols noted: “There is absolutely no reason for the Chairman to be walking the streets right now. This is not even remotely in the tradition of U.S. civil-military relations.”
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June 2, 2020 (Tuesday)
Last evening, the White House ordered Lafayette Square cleared of protesters so Trump could walk from the building to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church and back, to try to override images of him hiding in the White House bunker with pictures of him walking outside. To clear the square, National Guard units attacked the peaceful protesters there with teargas, rubber bullets, and flash-bang explosives. Once the protesters had fled, the president strode across the square to the church and back, accompanied by Attorney General William Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley in battle fatigues, and various advisors.
The stunt has drawn a significant backlash. Former CIA officials called out the behavior as that of a budding dictator. Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst who is now a professor of political science, told Washington Post reporter Greg Miller, “I’ve seen this kind of violence…. This is what autocrats do. This is what happens in countries before a collapse. It really does unnerve me.”
White House officials tried to escape blame for the attack on peaceful protesters by saying that the park should have been cleared hours before. Advisor Kellyanne Conway told reporters that the president did not know how law enforcement would clear the area for him to proceed.
James N. Miller, former undersecretary of defense for policy from 2012 to 2014, accused Esper of betraying his oath of office as Miller resigned from the Defense Science Board today. “Law-abiding protesters just outside the White House were dispersed using tear gas and rubber bullets — not for the sake of safety, but to clear a path for a presidential photo op,” Miller wrote. “You then accompanied President Trump in walking from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for that photo…. You may not have been able to stop President Trump from directing this appalling use of force, but you could have chosen to oppose it. Instead, you visibly supported it.” He urged Esper to think about where he would draw the line.
Esper apparently already wishes he had drawn it further back than he did. He told a reporter, ““I didn’t know where I was going … I thought I was going to do two things: to see some damage and to talk to the troops.” Pentagon officials told reporters that neither Esper nor the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley knew they were going to be part of a photo-op, and did not intend to participate.
Notably, although former presidents try to stay out of the business of criticizing their successors, former President George W. Bush made a statement saying that he and Mrs. Bush “are anguished by the brutal suffocation of George Floyd and disturbed by the injustice and fear that suffocate our country.” He called for ending “systemic racism in our society,” and called out “the doctrine and habits of racial superiority.” Without explicitly criticizing Trump, he called for “empathy, and shared commitment, and bold action, and a peace rooted in justice.”
Even televangelist Pat Robertson told Trump that his response to the protests “isn’t cool.”
Some Republican leaders also objected. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican Senator, said “If your question is, ‘Should you use tear gas to clear a path so the president can go have a photo op,’ the answer is no.” Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska said: “There is no right to riot, no right to destroy others’ property, and no right to throw rocks at police. But there is a fundamental — a Constitutional — right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop."
They were lone voices. Other Republican leaders in Congress tried to pretend they were largely unaware of an event that has roiled the nation. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said “I didn’t watch it closely enough to know.” Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said he “didn’t really see it.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said “I’m not going to critique other people’s performances.” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said he’d seen “conflicting reports” about what happened.
Still others cheered Trump on. When asked if he believed there was an abuse of power yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said: “By the protesters, yes.” Today McConnell blocked a resolution that would have condemned the event.
Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden gave his first formal public speech since the pandemic forced a halt to his campaigning in mid-March. Speaking in front of American flags at Philadelphia’s City Hall, he said “Donald Trump has turned this country into a battlefield riven by old resentments and fresh fears…. Is this who we are? Is this who we want to be? Is this what we want to pass on to our children and our grandchildren? Fear, anger, finger pointing, rather than the pursuit of happiness? Incompetence and anxiety, self-absorption, selfishness?”
“We are in a battle for the soul of this nation,” Biden said. “Who we are. What we believe. And maybe most important — who we want to be.”
Martha Raddatz of ABC News illustrated that question tonight in a photograph of soldiers standing on the steps of Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial.
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This speech.
It’s a good speech and Biden does an uncharacteristically good job delivering it. It’s a speech that reminded me of what a president should look and sound like in a time of crisis and I was surprised how much that comforted me. It’s also a speech that reminded me how much I would have preferred a different candidate, someone who would find the gravity in the words and then keep reaching to grasp the power behind them, someone who wouldn’t just look and sound like a president, someone who would lead and create change.
But this election isn’t a Hobson’s choice — it isn’t Biden or nothing, it’s Biden or the end of America as we know it. If Donald Trump gets a second term, he will continue to fan the flames currently roiling the country and he will use the inferno to suspend due process and remove his opposition. What he and his supporters will build out of the ashes will not be a freer, better place, it will be Gilead in full force. I will support Biden despite the many ways he is inadequate or unsuitable because for the first time in months, listening to him speak, I felt something other than despair and because I believe that absolutely everything is at stake.
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June 3, 2020 (Wednesday)
Social media roiled all day as users tried to figure out who were the soldiers in Washington, D.C. wearing no identification and saying they reported to the Department of Justice. Tonight the answer came: they were riot teams from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice that oversees incarcerated people.
This is problematic for a number of reasons. First, according to Holocaust scholar Waitman Wade Beorn, who studies ethical decision making in the military, it’s a problem because soldiers are trained to defend civilians while prison guards are used to seeing civilians as their enemies, and are accustomed to using force, rather than de-escalation, to subdue them. The U.S. military, Beorn points out, does not like to be employed against Americans, and has a long tradition of that reluctance.
Their lack of name tags and insignia was also problematic. It hampers accountability-- how can you complain about the actions of an officer if you cannot identify him?-- and it blurs the lines between actual officers of the law and the men on the streets toting guns and demanding protesters answer to them. The use of unidentifiable police is common among authoritarian leaders.
And indeed, backed by Attorney General William Barr, Trump appears to be launching a bid to become an authoritarian leader himself. Law enforcement officers operating under his orders are attacking peaceful protesters and journalists, while the president is framing himself as a powerful leader in front of important Christian symbols: on Monday St. John’s Episcopal Church, the famous “Church of Presidents” where his predecessors back to Madison worshipped, Tuesday at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C.
He has supporters in his quest. Today, the New York Times published an op-ed by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican, calling for “an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.” With no evidence, he claimed that “cadres of left-wing radicals like Antifa” are “infiltrating protest marches… for their own anarchic purposes.”
On Monday, Trump announced he would call in active-duty troops to “dominate” the streets, and about 1,300 troops were brought to Washington, D.C. early this week.
But his announcement sparked a widespread and concerted push back by American military leaders today, with the Pentagon saying it has no intent to use active-duty troops in any law enforcement roles.
General Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Mark T. Esper, Secretary of Defense, were both caught in Trump’s photo-op walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church Monday after National Guard officers had cleared peaceful protesters from the square in front of it with tear gas and rubber bullets. Today, they distanced themselves from the president.
Milley issued a memo to all branches of the U.S. military reminding them to honor their oaths to the Constitution, a document “founded on the essential principle that all men and women are born free and equal, and should be treated with respect and dignity. It also gives Americans the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.” Milley’s wording reflects that forty percent of the nation’s active-duty and reserve troops are people of color who aren’t keen on seeing the president empowering white supremacists.
For his part, Esper told reporters that he did not believe active-duty military should be sent to American cities, contradicting the president, who later chewed him out for it.
But Milley and Esper were not alone. Eager to distance themselves from Trump and the imposition of martial law, a wave of military leaders from the Air Force, Army, Navy spoke up today to call for justice for Black Americans and to reiterate their loyalty to the Constitution.
John Allen, a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, called out June 1, 2020 as the day that might well “signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment.”
“There is no precedent in modern U.S. history for a president to wield federal troops in a state or municipality over the objections of the respective governor. Right now, the last thing the country needs—and, frankly, the U.S. military needs—is the appearance of U.S. soldiers carrying out the president’s intent by descending on American citizens,” he wrote.
Allen pointed out that the dangers of “Antifa,” a loose designation for those opposing fascism, pale in comparison to “violent white supremacist groups,” who have “murdered, lynched, tortured, terrorized, oppressed, and discriminated against black Americans from the beginning of the idea of America.”
James Stavridis, the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, expressed dismay at the use of the military against peaceful protesters. Soldiers ”are not meant to be turned against their fellow citizens,” he wrote. “Our founding fathers feared the use of a standing army that could be used to further the aims of a dictator…. The idea of “boots on the ground” and “dominating the battlespace” in our American cities is anathema to America.” He invoked Tiananmen Square, where the Chinese government brutally suppressed protesters exactly 31 years ago, killing and wounding thousands, as a warning for what could happen if the military gets dragged into domestic politics.
General James Mattis, Trump’s former Secretary of Defense, wrote a scathing public condemnation of Donald Trump himself. “Angry and appalled,” by this week’s events, Mattis said Trump had ordered troops “to violate the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens,” and warned that we should use uniformed military “only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors.” “We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.”
Remembering that in World War Two the Nazi slogan was “Divide and Conquer,” Mattis noted that Trump “tries to divide us.” “We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must,” he wrote, “reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.” He concluded: “Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.”
It is not just military leaders who have spoken out against Trump. As of today, all four living presidents-- Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama-- have all called for racial justice and a better government.
Today, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison charged all four of the Minneapolis police officers at the scene of George Floyd’s murder. Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on Floyd’s neck, has been charged with second-degree murder. The other three officers, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng, are charged with felony aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. They face maximum sentences of forty years in prison.
Trump’s reelection campaign is faltering as his poll numbers drop, and his supporters are trying desperately to turn the nation’s focus back to the idea of “Obamagate.” Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee opened hearings on the origins of the Russia investigation, interviewing Rod Rosenstein, the former Deputy Attorney General who oversaw the investigation after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself. The committee focused on the applications to the court to allow wiretapping on former Trump aide Carter Page, and while Rosenstein defended those applications, Republicans pounced on his admission that they were poorly prepared. They also attacked presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Obama for what they said were abuses of power that rivaled those of Richard Nixon.
Trump supporters on Fox News media expressed frustration that no one seemed to be paying attention to the hearings.
Meanwhile, across the nation, protesters and city mayors are pulling down Confederate statues, a physical political ritual that is a universal herald for regime change.
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Trump: Things painted with gold paint are just as valuable and twice as beautiful as things made out of real gold.
Republicans: Manufactured and imagined crises are just as important and twice as urgent as real crises.
Everybody else: Go fuck yourselves and get out of the way unless you want to wear this statue of Robert E. Lee as a hat.
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If Trump could read, or if someone reads this to him, Milley’s career is probably over. This is as close as you will probably ever see to a military commander telling his troops to disregard the orders of their CinC. It might be too little too late, but I think some of the brass are waking up to the fact that this ain’t normal.
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June 4, 2020 (Thursday)
The large picture today is of a president increasingly isolated as protests increase and establishment figures turn against him and the politics he represents.
That large picture is made up of many individual moments.
Protests continued for a tenth day today in the face of ongoing police brutality. That statement is going to anger some readers, but hoo, boy, the images of the police attacking peaceful protesters and journalists are going to be in textbooks in a few years, and our great grandchildren are going to ask how on earth this happened.
Confusion over who the troops in Washington, D.C. actually are turned into anger today. The mayor of the city, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, rejected the White House push to take control of D.C. police, and did not request any help from outside the city. Nonetheless, the streets have been full of men in unidentifiable uniforms without name tags. Identification is customary on military personnel.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi demanded from Trump “a full list of the agencies involved and clarifications of the roles and responsibilities of the troops and federal law enforcement resources operating in the city. Congress and the American people need to know who is in charge, what is the chain of command, what is the mission, and by what authority is the National Guard from other states operating in the capital.”
Contrary to reports from those present, Attorney General William Barr said today that the protesters in Lafayette Square on Monday whom police cleared out with tear gas and rubber bullets were violent, and that officials “could not continue to protect” federal property. Barr was, perhaps, responding to a tweet from Richard W. Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. On Tuesday, Painter tweeted “Attorney General Barr personally ordered an attack on peaceful people in the courtyard of a church. He should be impeached and removed from office immediately for that and everything else he has done to destroy the rule of law in America.”
There are also small—very small-- cracks in Trump’s Republican support in Congress. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) praised General James Mattis’s statement opposing Trump and said she is not sure she’ll vote for the president’s reelection in the fall. “I think there are… important conversations that we need to have as an American people amongst ourselves about where we are right now," she said. Trump immediately vowed he would work to unseat her when her term is up in 2022.
The Senate Intelligence Committee approved a measure that would require presidential campaigns to report to federal authorities any offers made by foreign individuals to influence elections, including campaign donations or coordination with a campaign. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is following Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) in his deep concern over foreign attacks on our elections. The bill passed thanks to Democrats and the crossover vote of Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), but Senate Republicans plan to defeat this provision when it comes to the floor of the Senate.
And Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), has said he will block two of Trump’s appointees from nomination until the president adequately addresses his removal of the inspectors general of the Intelligence Community and the State Department. The White House has refused to account for those firings, instead reiterating that the president has the authority to fire the men. Notably, though, the stalled nominations were for the undersecretary for arms control and international security at the State Department and the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, important positions both, but probably nothing that will badly hamper the president. If Grassley had wanted the threat to have teeth, he could have put a hold on judicial appointments, which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued to push through at a cracking pace even during this crisis week in American history.
Trump is literally behind a wall, now, as officials have ordered the White House compound barricaded behind fences, and metal enclosures as if it were a military base.
The Washington Post wrote: "The White House is now so heavily fortified that it resembles the monarchical palaces or authoritarian compounds of regimes in faraway lands — strikingly incongruous with the historic role of the executive mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, which since its cornerstone was laid in 1792 has been known as the People’s House and celebrated as an accessible symbol of American democracy.”
The Secret Service says the changes are in effect only until June 10.
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5 bucks says that they are still up on June 11th.
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