Giant Twit Wants To Tweet Again

After the January 6 insurrection by Trumpist domestic terrorists, incited by the seditionist, reckless sociopath Donald "Loser" Trump, Twitter banned his account for violation of their terms and conditions of service on January 8. Trump had used Twitter on December 19 to urge his cult to come to Washington, DC, on January 6 and stop the ceremonial counting of electoral votes, saying "Be there. It will be wild." Stripping that means of communication from the malignant former guy meant the loss of his favorite platform for spreading lies and attacks on his enemies, and to continue the "Big Lie."

Trump is now suing Twitter in Federal court to reinstate his account, so that he can continue to incite his radical cult followers as elections in 2022 and 2024 approach. Arguing that Twitter is "censoring" him, Trump wants a preliminary injunction from the court to reinstate his account while the case is being considered. Twitter, as a private company, has no obligation to Trump or anyone else to provide its platform for his use after numerous violations of its terms and conditions. They also recognize their legal vulnerability if they allow a demagogue to use their platform to incite violence. We're hopeful that this will be another loss in the courts for the Loser.

(photo: The Hill)

School Daze

 

Saturday Night Live is back (for better or worse), and last night they took aim at the crazies and Koch- funded astro- turfers showing up at local school board meetings to rant about Covid, Critical Race Theory (not being taught in K-12), "Barack Hussein Obama," and various other brain spiders:

Sunday Reflection: "Owning Your Truth"

 

"I've failed so many times in my life that my recovery time has improved. I'm better at redirecting my attention. I've trained in Radical Aliveness and Core Energetics over the past couple of years and that has allowed me to see how much we project our failures onto others. It has taught me to accept myself. There is real power in owning your truth." -- Damon Runyon,  from “Short Takes: Readers' Choice of the Best Columns of America's Favorite Newspaperman, Damon Runyon”, 1946. Runyon was the great chronicler of life among the tough guys and girls in New York in the pre-World War II period. As a New York newspaperman, he was also known for his short stories, like "Little Miss Marker", and one -- "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" --  that was the inspiration for the musical "Guys and Dolls." 

(photo: Granger Historical Pictures)

Tweets Of The Day

 

Women's March today  --

 

The view from Freedom Plaza at the #RallyForAbortionJustice. pic.twitter.com/FtLN71dPns

— Brittany Gaddy (@BrittanyNGaddy) October 2, 2021

 

Marching to save Roe

pic.twitter.com/yphrK1JcjE

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) October 2, 2021

 

How about "conservative" or "obstructionist" --

 

I know you know this, but "moderate" and "centrist" are two of the most ideology-soaked terms in common use in political newswriting.

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) October 2, 2021

 

A for- real, pea-brained false flagger --

 

Far-Right Boogaloo Boi Admits Posing As BLM Activist While Shooting At Police Station During Floyd Protest - https://t.co/cUyZ0mY4nj pic.twitter.com/wG0oV0SZDy

— JoeMyGod (@JoeMyGod) October 1, 2021

 

Bad cops, bad cops, whatcha gonna do when they "defund" you --

 

“The Defunding.” Despite what the police want you to believe, they werent defunded anywhere. Their obscene budgets *increased.* Got raises for their widespread violence. And they continue to get funded at higher rates than any other society in the history of the world. Copaganda. https://t.co/7qO9zKyboz

— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) October 2, 2021

 

He had one?!? --

 

So that's what happened. pic.twitter.com/IpdIvQSNG5

— Schooley (@Rschooley) October 2, 2021

 

They also heard there were "hot" dogs there --

 

Two puppuccinos please, sir. pic.twitter.com/zakNSdzmci

— Natalie Johnson (@nataliejohnsonn) October 2, 2021

 

 

Pics Of The Day: Flags

 

 (click to enlarge)

The over 700,000 deaths from COVID-19 are represented by small white flags on the National Mall in Washington. Many of the family and friends of the deceased have written on a flag to express their loss. 

COVID remains a pandemic among the unvaccinated, a monument to misinformation, MAGA nuttery, and fear.

(photos, from top: Craig Hudson, Washington Post; John Gonzalez, WJLA; EPA-EFE)

Cover Of The Week -- Reaching Vax-Hesitant Bros

 

Satire from The Weekly Humorist and writers Kit Lively and Paul Lander (click on image to enlarge):

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Steve Greenberg, steve@greenberg-art.com)

(Monte Wolverton, caglecartoons.com)

(Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune)

(Marc Murphy, Louisville Courier-Journal, KY)

(Ann Telnaes, Washington Post)

(Joe Heller, hellertoon.com)

(Oliver Schopf, Der Standard, Vienna)

(Richard Graham Jolley, The Spectator, London)

Cracking The Beltway Corporate Media Code

 

This Axios tweet and accompanying beat sweetener by former NBC News Pentagon remora and now Axios fluffer Hans Nichols has received some attention as another example of the "savvy" inside- the- Beltway- bubble "take" that's killing journalism and, by extension, democracy:

Kyrsten Sinema’s allies have some free advice for anyone trying to bully the wine-drinking triathlete into supporting Biden's $3.5 trillion budget bill: She doesn’t play by Washington’s rules — and she's prepared to walk away. https://t.co/7LLrQUhcIy

— Axios (@axios) October 1, 2021

 

Scott Lemieux summarizes the Axios poop sheet:

Yes, see the problem is that Social Justice Warrior Joe Biden decided that the BBBA should include mandatory daily diversity training and a copy of White Fragility to be sent to every American. If it had included something that addressed the material interests of ordinary people — say, funding for childcare and free community college — things would be different!

Of course, the free ride when you’ve already paid is that Axios is treating one of the most banal figures in American politics — a obstructionist conservative Democrat beholden to wealthy special interests — as something new under the sun because she’s bisexual and dresses unconventionally for a member of Congress. 

He goes on to "crack the code" that explains why so many in this bubble seem to root for the villains and not for the common interest:  they're corporatist shills looking out for their corporate interests! As the poop sheet reports, she's "reluctant to support any increase in the corporate tax rate," she's "raised red flags about increasing the rate on corporations' international profits," and "she's opposed to Biden's headline 39.6% rate" on capital gains.  Sounds like policies Axios, funded by venture capitalists and sustained by Koch Industries and Exxon ad dollars, can get behind!

BONUS: 

I genuinely do not understand framing the fate of legislation that will affect millions of people as the subplot of a story about an individual senator’s self-actualization. https://t.co/AzD45JzZhu

— Adam Serwer 🍝 (@AdamSerwer) October 1, 2021

 

See Lemieux above for explanation.

 

Anniversary Of A Murder

 

Three years ago today, journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Ankara, Turkey by a Saudi hit squad that was dispatched by the brutal Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to silence his criticism of the corruption and authoritarianism of the Saudi regime.  Khashoggi's body was dismembered with a bone saw and has never been recovered. 

Earlier this year, the Biden Administration released a report prepared by the Office of the Direector of National Intelligence, which stated that bin Salman approved the operation to capture or kill Khashoggi, using his protective detail and security officials to carry out the killing. Bin Salman has skirted accountability for the crime, aided by the corrupt former guy who covered and made excuses for him, going against his own intelligence community once again. Early in his Administration, President Biden informed the Saudi king that he would be dealing with him directly, rather than bin Salman given his role in the murder. Biden's National Security Advisor was recently in Saudi Arabia to discuss the Saudi's continuing role in the conflict in Yemen, and it's hoped that he asked bin Salman for an honest accounting of the Khashoggi murder, however unlikely that is. 

Trump, P.T. Barnum, And Suckers

In one descriptive paragraph from her book "I'll Take Your Questions Now," Stephanie Grisham, former press secretary to First Lady Third Lady Melania "Melanie" Trump describes life in the White (Supremacist) House:

"Working as Trump’s spokesperson was like sitting in a beautiful office while a sprinkler system pours water down on you every second and ruins everything on your desk — except in this case the water took the form of tweets and words and statements. I can give you endless metaphors to describe the Trump White House from a press person’s perspective — living in a house that was always on fire or in an insane asylum where you couldn’t tell the difference between the patients and the attendants or on a roller coaster that never stopped — but trust me, it was a hot mess 24/7. How people did the job without going crazy was a question in itself. Maybe none of us did. Trump, by the way, never understood that he usually was the one screwing up the messaging. Instead, he would complain to me, 'I need a P. T. Barnum!' as his spokesman, just as he would always say, 'I need a James Baker!' whenever he was complaining about his current chief of staff. By P. T. Barnum, I think he meant a communications whiz who could somehow charm reporters into writing whatever he wanted them to write. But maybe he just meant he wanted some expert con man. After all, P. T. Barnum’s most famous line was 'There’s a sucker born every minute.'” (our emphasis)

The malignant former guy is a consummate con man, first in his real estate / branding / Trump University hustle, then, sadly for America, as a politician, forever on the lookout for suckers to sell his latest "deal" to. As a gigantic narcissist, he would never accept that he was the source of the vast majority of screw ups in his disastrous reign, and that he was fundamentally a loser. But he managed to find 74 million suckers in November, 2020, and most, if not all of them, remain loyal to their P.T. Barnum.

You'll find many examples of the Trump shit storm in the above-linked story, including examples of the incompetence and self-entitlement of dilettantes Jared and Ivanka ("the interns" as both Trump's staff and Melania would mockingly refer to them), whose interference in policy matters always left messes for others to have to clean up.

(illustration: Wikimedia/Library Of Congress/AP/John Locher/Salon)

Tweets Of The Day

 

Incalculable --

 

What's 7 times incalculable?
The number of lost American lives from Covid passed 700,000 tonight pic.twitter.com/060U9J9C75

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) October 1, 2021

 

Trump country "kill boxes" --

 

🚨 Rural Americans are dying of covid at more than twice the rate of their urban counterparts — a divide that is likely to widen.

"We’ve turned many rural communities into kill boxes," @Amorganrural @NRHA_Advocacy said

My latest for @KHNews @NBCNews https://t.co/KL6vXm7XdM pic.twitter.com/6tXNAqTvAK

— Lauren Weber (@LaurenWeberHP) September 30, 2021

 

Bad faith is their brand --

 

After fiercely criticizing the Biden administration for abandoning Afghan partners, all 50 Republican senators vote to curtail aid to Afghan evacuees who are granted parole to quickly enter the United States. https://t.co/TYK3w4RSbP

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) October 1, 2021

 

Bad, Republican-wired  journalism is their brand --

 

They really do have this almost comically wrong. Regaining some momentum for BBB is by definition not a setback for the Biden agenda. It literally is the Biden agenda. It's far from a great situation by the events of last night were the first positive news in days for WH. https://t.co/aSRfNMOqrC

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 1, 2021

Happy birthday --

 

Happy birthday to former President Jimmy Carter, 97 years young today

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2021

Our choice, Garbage, was already taken --

 

Oreo Speedwagon. https://t.co/81uBxRNkHF

— Tim Williams (@timwilliamsart) October 1, 2021

 

 

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Dave Granlund, politicalcartoons.com)

(Walt Handelsman, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)

(Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press)

(Nick Anderson, Reform Austin News, TX)

(Stuart Carlson, gocomics.com)

(Rob Rogers, Counterpoint)

(Lee Judge, comicskingdom.com)

(John Cole, Scranton Times-Tribune, PA)

 

(Ben Jennings, @BJennings90)

 

Weekend Don't Talk Just Dance Music

 

Oxfordshire, UK, band Glass Animals released an infectious (in the good way) new single last month, "I Don't Wanna Talk (I Just Wanna Dance)."  The video was shot in Winston-Salem, NC.  Hope you enjoy.

Study: Deaths From Police Violence Undercounted

 

Researchers from the University of Washington have determined that over half of the deaths due to police violence were wrongly attributed to other causes from 1980 to 2019. Their findings were peer reviewed and published yesterday by the medical journal Lancet. The undercounting means that of the roughly 31,000 deaths due to police violence in that span, roughly 17,000 were attributed to another cause of death in reporting to Federal data bases. The study also found that black men were killed by police at a disproportionately high level, as was the mislabeling of their cause of death as something other than police violence:

"The study underscores a grim reality: Despite years of scrutiny, criticism, protests and calls for reform, no government agency tracks how often law enforcement officers in America kill people. Since 2015, The Washington Post has been counting how often on-duty police shoot and kill people. But there is no comprehensive federal attempt to keep track of these deaths or other uses of force by law enforcement, including chokeholds and nonfatal shootings. One of the study’s authors called the deaths poorly catalogued and preventable, and an expert said the lack of meaningful tracking of these deaths underscores the deep-rootedness of systemic racism."  (our emphasis)

The most famous recent example of this regards the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by former police officer Derek Chauvin. The initial police report and medical examiner's finding were that Floyd died of drug use and complications, until video evidence emerged showing Chauvin choking Floyd by kneeling on his neck for an extended period. 

The researchers noted that often the misidentification is done by medical examiners embedded in police departments and subject to pressure. They called for greater independence of medical examiners and coroners from police departments, and for whistleblower protection for them.

QOTD -- Goodbye

 

"This is for those of you who’ve chosen to quit your jobs rather than submit to a vaccine mandate.

"No telling how many of you there actually are, but lately, you’re all over the news. Just last week, a nearly-30-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department surrendered his badge rather than comply with the city’s requirement that all employees be inoculated against COVID-19. He joins an Army lieutenant colonel, some airline employees, a Major League Baseball executive, the choral director of the San Francisco Symphony, workers at the tax collector’s office in Orange County, Florida, and, incredibly, dozens of healthcare professionals. 

"Well, on behalf of the rest of us, the ones who miss concerts, restaurants and other people’s faces, the ones who are sick and tired of living in pandemic times, here’s a word of response to you quitters: Goodbye." -- the always- readable Leonard Pitts, Jr., in the Miami Herald, precisely expressing our thoughts and the thoughts of millions upon millions of Americans.  (See also this piece of satire from yesterday.)