Tweets Of The Day -- Ha Ha FU!

News item:  All-Republican Texas Supreme Court says fear of contracting coronavirus does not qualify a voter for mail- in ballot.

Breaking: Texas Supreme Court says lack of immunity to the coronavirus does not qualify a voter to apply for a mail in ballot #txlege

— Alexa Ura (@alexazura) May 27, 2020

Texas Voters: As you stand in line to vote hopefully wearing a mask and not knowing whether the person next to you has COVID, remember why you are there and not at your kitchen table filling out your ballot.

— bigroboski22 (@bigroboski22) May 27, 2020

It's like they didn't see what happened when they tried to steal an election in Wisconsin.

Texas is going to be really close.

The turnout machines in Houston and Dallas will be on full bore, regardless of pandemic fears.

— Fred Harding (@OPCGhost) May 28, 2020

The fun thing about developments like this is that in more recent years, conservatives would mount some effort to pretend to believe there was some neutral principle underlying their nationwide efforts to steal elections, but now the line is basically "haha, fuck you. https://t.co/ZAAV0fIxcG

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) May 28, 2020

This won't stop here. There's a similar pending case in the Republican- dominated 5th Circuit Court of Appeals which will likely end up in the Republican Supreme Court, which will weigh in on the side of Republicans just as they did with the Wisconsin election in April.  Which, hopefully, will have the same backlash effect it did in Wisconsin come November. 

Images From A Suffering Minneapolis

Following the suffocation death of George Floyd on Monday at the hands of Minneapolis police, demonstrations demanding justice and prosecution of the police involved broke out in Minneapolis for a second night last night. What started out as a peaceful gathering turned violent as police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called upon the district attorney to press criminal charges against the police officer videoed kneeling on Floyd's neck, after Floyd repeatedly told him he couldn't breath. The officer, Derek Chauvin, appears to have a history of complaints about his behavior.

Carlos Gonzales, Star-Tribune

Sean Patrick Greene/Wordpress

European Press Assn.

S. Maturen/Getty

We don't know where Minneapolis recruits their police from, or whether their police are screened for racist and violent tendencies. But there needs to be a thorough and cold-eyed housecleaning of their force.

BONUS:  The University of Minnesota is cutting off some of its security arrangements with the Minneapolis police in light of the killing of Mr. Floyd.  Smart.

Unemployment Claims Rise By Another 2.1 Million

The "American carnage" brought on by moron vector Donald" I Don't Take Responsibility At All" Trump's catastrophic bungling of the response to the coronavirus pandemic continues:

Another 2.123 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending May 23, exceeding economists’ expectations for 2.1 million initial jobless claims. The prior week’s figure was revised higher to 2.446 million from 2.438 million jobless claims. Over the past 10 weeks, more than 40 million Americans have filed for unemployment insurance. (our emphasis)

As with the tens of thousands of needless deaths, tens of millions of jobs have been needlessly lost because we have a vicious fool in the Oval Office.

Biden Statement On 100,000 Lives Lost To Coronavirus

There are moments in our history so grim, so heart-rending, that they're forever fixed in each of our hearts as shared grief. Today is one of those moments. 100,000 lives have now been lost to this virus.

To those hurting, I'm so sorry for your loss. The nation grieves with you. pic.twitter.com/SBBRKV4mPZ

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 27, 2020

Statement from Donald "I Don't Take Responsibility At All" Trump:

=crickets=

100,000 Fellow Americans

As we surpass the unconscionable 100,000 (at a minimum) death toll in America from coronavirus, the Lincoln Project has a reminder:



The magnitude of that growing number often numbs us to the fact that these were individual human beings who were caught up in a pandemic that could have been mitigated early on, had the United States not had a malignant moron in the Oval Office.  Don't ever forget that.

Today's Cartoons

(click on images to enlarge)


(Rick McKee, Counterpoint)


(Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press)


(Kevin Kallaugher, Counterpoint)


(Jeff Stahler, gocomics.com)


(John Darkow, Columbia Missourian)


(Jeff Danziger, The Rutland Herald, VT)


(Kevin Siers, Charlotte Observer)


(Signe Wilkinson, Philadelphia Inquirer/ Daily News)


(Tom Toles, Washington Post)
 
(Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe)


(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Covidiots All

Jimmy Kimmel roasts the covidiots from the Covidiot in Chief, down past his "willfully ignorant" Barbie doll Press Secretary, to a pool in the Ozarks and a beach in Alabammy jammed with self- absorbed covidiots.  Wait for the "Unintentional Joke of the Day."

Tweets Of The Day -- Compare And Contrast

Last night, after one of their own killed an unarmed African American man while three others watched and did nothing, this is how Minneapolis' finest handled themselves:

The scene at the Minneapolis 3rd Police Precinct. pic.twitter.com/ykxsfPn8PD

— Carlos Gonzalez (@CarlosGphoto) May 27, 2020

Protests outside the Governor's mansion to get a haircut: crowded together, heavily armed, Nazi imagery.

The protest in South Minneapolis against murder and police violence: peaceful, community based, masked, socially distanced.

Yet the second one was the one with tear gas. https://t.co/yCRfQxAWUc

— Sydney Jordan (@SydneyJordanMN) May 27, 2020

Remember how police treated armed white protestors who threatened actual violence a few weeks ago.

Compare to how they're treating peaceful protestors in Minnesota right now.

Two very different United States pic.twitter.com/bG0B6tiRwG

— Taryn Jay 🚩🌹 (@TarynJay5) May 27, 2020

demanding the state be reopened amidst a pandemic
vs
demanding justice for #GeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/jZKLjUUsbc

— Franchesca Ramsey (@chescaleigh) May 27, 2020

White male guntoting protest = freedom fighters.    Black male or female protesting for their lives =a riot. Smh.

— Ok For Now (@granolaJC) May 27, 2020

appears that if you’re protesting “tyranny” — a state order to close  schools and certain businesses in the midst of a pandemic — the police will keep cool, but if you protest actual tyranny — an agent of the state murdering someone in the street — then here comes the tear gas.

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) May 27, 2020

Heads -- many heads -- must roll for this.  Starting with the police chief and the commander responsible for this continuing outrage.  How did so many goons end up with a shield in Minneapolis?

Mid-Week Song

One of America's best indie bands, Bon Iver, released a new single last week entitled "PDLIF" (Please Don't Live In Fear), which displays their rock and folk sensibilities with an overlay of jazz. The band is donating all proceeds from this song to Direct Relief, a nonprofit organization which provides resources to people in need during the pandemic crisis. Enjoy.

Twitter's Half Measure To Fact Check Trump

You already know the story: using Twitter, malignant sociopath and mentally unstable con man Donald "Unhinged" Trump savagely and falsely smeared the memory of a former Joe Scarborough office worker, Lori Klausutis, implying she was Scarborough's mistress and was murdered by him 19 years ago. Trump's main target was MSNBC host Scarborough, who has become a harsh critic and who can take care of himself. But the collateral damage done by Trump to Ms. Klausutis' memory and to her family and husband has been truly depraved and malicious.

After a heart wrenching appeal by her widower (pdf) to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to delete Trump's cruel tweets about his wife's death, Twitter responded minimally, not by deleting those offensive tweets, but putting a "fact check" box on Trump's dishonest tweets about voting by mail. It gets worse, because Twitter claimed that Trump hadn't violated its terms of service over the Klausutis tweets.

Anyone else leveling false and defamatory accusations against someone on Twitter would have been, at a minimum, suspended for a period of time, if not banned outright. Apparently Dorsey believes that protecting his hindquarters from a vindictive and lawless Trump is more important than following his own rules and common human decency.

BONUS I:  Karen Tumulty responds to the Twitter argument that it's in the "public interest" for the views of "world leaders" to be shown:

Perhaps you could argue that there is a “public interest” in knowing that a deranged man sits in the Oval Office. But Trump has provided plenty of evidence of that already. Whatever the demons that drive him, they have gained even more control of his mind and his itchy fingers amid the coronavirus pandemic that has thrown the country he leads into the greatest crisis in memory.  [snip]

... Trump is going to get even worse between now and the November election. We have not seen the bottom, because there is no bottom. Twitter should also remove those tweets that soil the memory of Lori Klausutis — and show that its supposed standards actually mean something.

We won't be holding our breath.

BONUS II: A professor of psychiatry says Trump's obsession with this smear indicates dementia:

#Presidementia #TrumpDementiaSyndrome — Bizarre, deranged Trump tweets promote baseless conspiracy theory. Normal, sane adults do not behave or think this way. Dementia impairs judgment as well as impulse control & reality testing in senile individuals. https://t.co/nktZSsZmiz

— John M. Talmadge, MD (@JohnMTalmadgeMD) May 26, 2020

BONUS III:  Right- wing Wall Street Journal and Washington Examiner blast Trump.

Trump's America In Three Clips

Here are just three examples (not even touching the toxic twit's sick twitter rages of late) of how Trumpanzee acting- out by depraved and base Americans is becoming a pandemic itself.

The covidiots are out everywhere, taking their ignorant and racist cues from white supremacist moron vector Donald "Disinfectant Donnie" Trump:



Also taking his cue from Donald "Grab 'em By The Pussy" Trump is this sub- moron (named Eric Farina) who attacked an African- American reporter, yelling "fuck her right in the pussy" on camera:



Then there's yesterday's disturbing video of a white Minneapolis cop kneeling on the neck of an African American man until he passed out and subsequently died.  The kneeling cop and three others who stood by and didn't stop the depraved attack were fired today;  charges next!

BREAKING: A video shows a Minneapolis police officer pinning down a black man by the neck with his knee for several minutes as the man screams: "I can't breathe."pic.twitter.com/V9K3IU36ap

— Mukhtar M. Ibrahim (@mukhtaryare) May 26, 2020

The assault went on for much longer than this clip indicates.  The original clip went for at least 8 minutes, with the man pleading that he was unable to breathe while the cop continued to apply his knee to the neck.  Unfortunately, it's not available for viewing right now, hopefully being in the possession of the district attorney's office.

Today's Cartoons

(click on images to enlarge)


(Michael de Adder, Halifax Herald, Canada)


(Ken Catalino, gocomics.com)


(Lalo Alcaraz, LA Weekly)


(Chris Britt, gocomics.com)


(David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Daily Star)


(Monte Wolverton, caglecartoons.com)
 
(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)


(Nick Anderson, Washington Post Writers Group)
 
(Ed Wexler, caglecartoons.com)


(Matt Davies, Newsday)

Trump's Economic/ Eugenics Advisor Says Quiet Part Loud

Kevin Hassett, the allegedly humanoid economic advisor to the sociopath Donald "I Don't Take Responsibility At All" Trump, had this surprising not surprising thing to say Sunday about reopening the economy:

“Our capital stock hasn’t been destroyed, our human capital stock is ready to get back to work, so there are lots of reasons to believe that we can get going way faster than we have in previous crises.”

This smug melon head is fine with people  human beings "human capital stock" heading back into work spaces coronavirus petri dishes to get the economy heading in the right direction for Trump.  What's a few hundred thousand more unnecessary infections and thousands more deaths if you can get the cogs back working and making profits for the Republican donor class?!  And it's actually a lie that "our human capital stock is ready to get back to work";  millions of workers are concerned about being forced back into unsafe working conditions at the same time, tellingly, Trump and the Republican Senate are trying to immunize employers from lawsuits.  Consumers are also hesitant about going into places of business when they feel the "re- opening" has come too soon. But the allegedly humanoid economic advisor wouldn't care about those inconvenient details.

And about that term he used:

The term “human stock” has long been associated with eugenics, a discredited pseudoscience that enjoyed some mainstream credibility in the early 20th century. Many of its adherents, who believed that selective breeding was a self-evident way to better the human race, argued for limiting or cutting off the reproductive capacity of those showing “undesirable” traits.

A reasonable observation:

When you don’t think of them as “people,” you’re probably also doing the economics wrong. https://t.co/wmAlCV6rxj

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) May 26, 2020

  
Speaking of eugenics,

Trump praised Henry Ford, who had a documented history of anti-Semitism, for having 'good bloodlines' pic.twitter.com/UzXysP9gwa

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) May 23, 2020

This "thinking" is a feature, not a bug, with these people human capital stock.

Brazil's Trump Plays Blame Game, Too

By far the most Trumpian leader in the Western Hemisphere is Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, and it appears that pointing fingers at others to deflect blame is something he's shameless about, too. From the Associated Press:

"With Brazil emerging as one of the world’s most infected countries, President Jair Bolsonaro is deflecting all responsibility for the coronavirus crisis, casting blame on mayors, governors, an outgoing health minister and the media.

By contrast, he portrays himself as a clear-eyed crusader willing to defend an unpopular idea — that shutting down the economy to control COVID-19 will ultimately cause more suffering than allowing the disease to run its course. The refusal of governors to fall into line with his decree allowing gyms to open, he said, verged on authoritarianism." (our emphasis)

Bolsonaro gets even more Trumpian in his refusal to endorse Brazil's governors' stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures:

"Since the outbreak started, the Brazilian leader has avoided acknowledging the potential effects of his actions, particularly in undermining local leaders’ stay-at-home recommendations. A rare exception came in mid-April, as Bolsonaro appointed a new health minister tasked with sparing the economy from the coronavirus.

'Reopening commerce is a risk I run because, if it (the virus) gets worse, then it lands in my lap,' he said.

Less than two weeks later, as Brazil’s death toll blew past 5,000, he told reporters, 'You’re not going to put on my lap this count that isn’t mine.'"  (our emphasis)

Brazil is not an insignificant nation: population of 211 million, South America's biggest economy, and a major exporter. As with the U.S., their leader is a stone cold sociopath who will never take responsibility like a man, and who will always find better people to blame for his shortcomings.

(photo: Mass graves near Sao Paulo. Rex Features) 

Twit Tweet, Thwap: Bloodhound Brit Edition

Twit tweet:

This might help explain why Trump doesn’t like to wear a mask in public. Biden today. pic.twitter.com/9l1gw1ljBE

— Brit Hume (@brithume) May 25, 2020

Thwap: 

This is a perfect and perfectly revealing tweet. Thank you!

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) May 25, 2020

It’s not about looking good, it’s about setting a good example which used to be something presidents did

— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) May 25, 2020

@realDonaldTrump doesn’t wear a mask in public- or probably ever- because he is completely incapable of admitting he was wrong. Not even at the expense of 100k human lives. His supporters share that inability. They are impervious to facts, science, and reason.

— Diogenes Wept (@juliacmicheltx1) May 26, 2020

Yeah Britt, because Trump doesn't look ridiculous enough in public with the raccoon look with orange face paint and a rat on his head, teetering over like an overweight penguin with a red tie hanging over his man boobs to below his massive waistline, all while wearing diapers.

— Bruno Amato (@BrunoAmato_1) May 26, 2020

I think it’s the fact that you and Trump are both sociopaths.

— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) May 25, 2020

Could be worse, he could look like this! pic.twitter.com/PkvZK9fwY8

— Unmanned Drone (@deathstarFPO) May 26, 2020

Apparently the only masks right wing Trumpers like are those made of white sheets.

— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) May 26, 2020

Is this not an attractive enough look for you Brit? Would a ventilator be better?

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) May 25, 2020

BONUS:  Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog explains where Trump and his cheering section at Fox "News" and elsewhere are trying to go with this.