US Politics: On Tear and Blood shed. A beautiful picture of a man with a Bible.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I like Rice, but she has more cons than pros. And she withdrew consideration from running for Senate. 

I think Rice would be a fine choice.  I don't know about on the stump, yeah that's a weakness, but she'll be fine with the media.  In fact, her blunt style might be exactly what is needed right now.  Altogether, she's a much better candidate than Demings, at least.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

I think Rice would be a fine choice.  I don't know about on the stump, yeah that's a weakness, but she'll be fine with the media.  In fact, her blunt style might be exactly what is needed right now.  Altogether, she's a much better candidate than Demings, at least.

Can't say I agree. Demings doesn't have any major cons. Rice brings back the whole Benghazi nonsense. Both would be excellent in the role though.

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Demings doesn't have any major cons. Rice brings back the whole Benghazi nonsense.

Demings is...not a good politician.  Rice probably isn't either, but she's much less likely to be a negative than Demings will be.  And by all means, bring up Benghazi again.  Rice can handle that load of horseshit just fine, and the voters don't care anymore.  Hell, if they want to make Benghazi an issue you could with Biden himself.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Demings is...not a good politician.  Rice probably isn't either, but she's much less likely to be a negative than Demings will be.  And by all means, bring up Benghazi again.  Rice can handle that load of horseshit just fine, and the voters don't care anymore.  Hell, if they want to make Benghazi an issue you could with Biden himself.

Why are you so down on Demings? 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Why are you so down on Demings? 

Well, generally speaking she has very little experience and does not have well-honed communication skills like the other candidates being bandied about.  Personally speaking, I lived in Orlando during her tenure as police chief and it was..not good.  At all.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

18 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well, generally speaking she has very little experience and does not have well-honed communication skills like the other candidates being bandied about.  Personally speaking, I lived in Orlando during her tenure as police chief and it was..not good.  At all.

Well I'll have to take your word on the latter, but she seemed pretty strong during her chances to speak during committee hearings from what I could tell. 

[Guest]

Small victory, and please excuse the vulgarity, as it's intended in an entirely different way than it was originally said, but Oklahoma protesters moved on Trump like a bitch and got him to postpone his Juneteenth rally until the next day.

Lankford was on some program practically begging Trump not to come that day.

[ThinkerX]

23 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Small victory, and please excuse the vulgarity, as it's intended in an entirely different way than it was originally said, but Oklahoma protesters moved on Trump like a bitch and got him to postpone his Juneteenth rally until the next day.

Lankford was on some program practically begging Trump not to come that day.

but will that do more than postpone yet another giant demonstration slash riot from one day to the next?

and before much longer, the moratorium's on evictions will start ending before much longer, something that purportedly affects minorities far more than whites - which translates to even more ticked off, out of work, and newly homeless folks flooding the streets.  Wonder if some version of 'squatters rights' might make a comeback? 

 

 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

but will that do more than postpone yet another giant demonstration slash riot from one day to the next?

and before much longer, the moratorium's on evictions will start ending before much longer, something that purportedly affects minorities far more than whites - which translates to even more ticked off, out of work, and newly homeless folks flooding the streets.  Wonder if some version of 'squatters rights' might make a comeback? 

 

 

This might sound silly, but since the administration has been hyping this race relations speech from Stephen Miller, and chose to give it in Tulsa on Juneteenth, a small part of me was wondering if this was going to be Trump's "Execute Order 66" moment.

As to whether this will forestall any violence - I doubt it, but that's because I don't trust the Tulsa police as far as I can throw them. The mayor of Tulsa isn't a full-blown MAGidiot, but I'm sure the cops won't need much pretext to start cracking skulls. But I'm guessing the protests will still be very well attended. People are driving up from Dallas and down from Kansas City and Wichita.

People are still angry here, and I don't know if this will placate them. Plus, maybe this will help explain the volatile nature of this speech: I have family that will be attending the rally, and other family (besides me), who are going to the protest (at this point each side has cut off communication with the other).

Since you asked about evictions, we started serving them again back before Memorial Day, so that ship has already sailed.

[kiko]

So, I really don't get why he moved the date. Is he saying he moves it because it is the wrong date for a racist event? Can't really see a decent and positive reason for the reschedule. 

If he really meant it, wouldn't it be better to embrace the occasion and give a nod to BLM?

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, kiko said:

So, I really don't get why he moved the date. Is he saying he moves it because it is the wrong date for a racist event? Can't really see a decent and positive reason for the reschedule. 

If he really meant it, wouldn't it be better to embrace the occasion and give a nod to BLM?

He's already burned his bridges. Whether he means it or not (he doesn't), it's never going to be okay for him to embrace Juneteenth.

[Fragile Bird]

As far as I can tell, someone on his staff scheduled the rally for the 19th, in all likelihood knowing it’s meaning. Someone like Miller. Then when the outrage happened, 24 hours later the WH came out with a statement that the date had meaning for Trump and he was going to make some profound statement. See my post about ‘this I gotta see’.

But lo and behold, Trump goes off and does an interview (on ABC?) saying he didn’t know that the 19th had any meaning at all. So now the WH has rescheduled the rally day out of respect for the reaction. I guess that means Trump isn’t going to make any profound statement after all.

eta: I understand a foreigner like me forgetting what Juneteenth meant, but Trump is an American. As far as we know.

[Ormond]

6 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

As far as I can tell, someone on his staff scheduled the rally for the 19th, in all likelihood knowing it’s meaning. Someone like Miller. Then when the outrage happened, 24 hours later the WH came out with a statement that the date had meaning for Trump and he was going to make some profound statement. See my post about ‘this I gotta see’.

But lo and behold, Trump goes off and does an interview (on ABC?) saying he didn’t know that the 19th had any meaning at all. So now the WH has rescheduled the rally day out of respect for the reaction. I guess that means Trump isn’t going to make any profound statement after all.

eta: I understand a foreigner like me forgetting what Juneteenth meant, but Trump is an American. As far as we know.

Well, the celebration of Juneteenth outside of Texas is a relatively new phenomenon, gradually spreading since around 1970, and there would be many people who don't know about it. I am not sure that I knew about it before about a decade ago. 

Trump's narcissism means he really does believe his own rhetoric about being the best president for African-Americans ever. (Of course he thinks he's the best president for everyone, ever.) I would bet to get him to change this rally they really had to tell him that fewer people would show up to his rally on June 19 than otherwise might because they'd be at Juneteenth celebrations. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Well, the celebration of Juneteenth outside of Texas is a relatively new phenomenon, gradually spreading since around 1970, and there would be many people who don't know about it. I am not sure that I knew about it before about a decade ago. 

Trump's narcissism means he really does believe his own rhetoric about being the best president for African-Americans ever. (Of course he thinks he's the best president for everyone, ever.) I would bet to get him to change this rally they really had to tell him that fewer people would show up to his rally on June 19 than otherwise might because they'd be at Juneteenth celebrations. 

This, and just to be clear, even I don't think that Trump not knowing about Juneteenth is automatically disqualifying.

But even if it wasn't intentionally done, I don't think it would ever be possible for his administration to get people to believe that it wasn't deliberate.

[Fragile Bird]

I was just reading the comments to a NYT story about the 19th and many people are saying they only recently found out about it. 

I watch PBS and my local station does a lot of Black History month stories, and I suspect I heard the term somewhere along the way, but I didn’t remember it other than vaguely.

[Fury Resurrected]

Juneteenth is a thing a lot of white Americans don’t know about, especially the rural or right wing. I’m sure the Trump administration knew and picked that time and place because they are tone deaf and stupid. They’re like hey we’re gonna do a bigly speech about race, it’s gonna be the best thing ever. This is a guy who has said he’s done more for black people than any president except maybe Lincoln and he probably believes that. So if you are that disconnected from reality and you have no idea how much POC hate you, you would think “I will come down to Tulsa on Juneteenth and give THE speech about race then and there and BLM will be over because I fixed it by telling them how great America is” 

I do think the administration does contain the people rubbing their hands together archly hoping that violence is sparked and they can get to skull cracking. But I think we must remember that this administration is a union between the evil and the stupid.

[Martell Spy]

The date was chosen deliberately by someone in the Trump administration. It is part of the Southern Strategy. Much like Reagan's Neshoba County Fair speech on states rights. Perhaps internal polling told them it was a bad idea and caused them to move the date. 

Devin Nunes’ Lawyer: We Still Have No Clue Who’s Behind Twitter Cow

https://www.thedailybeast.com/devin-nunes-lawyer-says-they-still-have-no-clue-whos-behind-twitter-cow?ref=home

Quote

A lawyer for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) told a Virginia judge on Friday that they’ve reached a “dead end” in their quest to identify the authors of popular parody accounts poking fun at the GOP congressman. The attorney, Steven Biss, made the admission while insisting that Twitter should be forced to release the identities of the people behind the accounts—“Devin Nunes’ Cow” and “Devin Nunes’ Mom”—so he could serve them with lawsuits and push his defamation case forward.

 

[Fragile Bird]

I saw a story the other day that I keep meaning to mention and keep forgetting. Remember when Melania stayed behind in NYC because her son needed to finish school? Apparently she stayed behind because she was renegotiating her pre-nup, after all the stories aboutTrump’s infidelities came out. This is being reported in a new book. Also, that campaign team members and family members were begging her to come to Washington because she has a calming influence on Trump.

[DMC]

44 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Juneteenth is a thing a lot of white Americans don’t know about, especially the rural or right wing.

I'm not sure that's true anymore.  Over the last few years Juneteenth has been popularized for much of white America from blackish to the Daily Show.  I can't remember exactly, but a couple years or so ago when I visited my parents they actually asked me if it was really a thing.  They're, like, the definition of old white liberals.

In terms of rural right wingers aware if it.  Of course most of them aren't, but the ones that are likely were informed in an effort to sabotage it.  Lessen its meaning.  Make it not what it was originally intended for.  Which is exactly why Trump chose that date.  And exactly why people told him it was a bad idea.  I don't think this is a case of bad staff work.  It's another case of Trump wanting to deify himself, his staff telling him no, then him backing down.  That's a fairly common occurrence.

[Zorral]

Some of our African American friends with Texas backgrounds combine Juneteenth with their annual family reunion then, and travel 'home'. (Many other African Americans living all over the US travel with family backgrounds in the Low Country do their traditional family reunions over Memorial Day weekend.) 

Juneteenth is a landmark in the study of the history of the War of the Rebellion too. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation and after Appomattox,  the Texas slaveocracy concealed the information to their best abilities from the labor force.  Many continued in outright slave conditions for years afterwards. Juneteenth is partly and observance of that too. But it shure as heck hasn't been, or wasn't, part of the curriculum for teaching American History at any stage of education, particularly not in the South, Texas or the CSA Southwest.  Concealment of history, just like concealment of rights and justice, is part and parcel of how They roll.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

deathcultchief had his West Point moment today -- raison d'être:

Quote

The cheering cadets in full military dress will serve as a backdrop for a re-election campaign in which Mr. Trump, who is faltering in the polls, seeks to project strength as commander in chief. The president is certain to mention that he has increased funding for the military, but he is not likely to mention his disputes with the defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/us/politics/trump-west-point.html?

I'm told he was even more hashed incoherence than usual, and at one point he tried to drink a glass of water, and had to hold it in both his leetle hands to get it to his big face.