Reprehensible and Dumb

Breathing Lessons: Yesterday was mostly about George Floyd, the man he was, the friends and family members who will miss him, and what he represents as one of the far too many Black people who have lost their lives to racially motivated police brutality.  That last point was brought home when Reverend Al Sharpton, who delivered another forceful eulogy at Floyd’s funeral, asked members of the families of other victims whose names and stories we’ve heard over the years to stand up. That so many other Black men and women have been killed in tragically similar circumstances and that but for the now viral video that documented his killing Floyd would have been just another name, with his death too easily “justified” and covered up is what now is all about.  VP Biden who’d spent time with the family on Monday wasn’t present but did deliver another one of his compassionate speeches via video.  Trump of course was nowhere near Houston, but still he managed to grab some of the day’s spotlight, he didn’t mention Floyd, instead he tweet attacked Martin Gugino, the hospitalized 75 year old Catholic charity social worker who gushed blood from his ears after he was knocked to the pavement in Buffalo during one of the many recent demonstrations, another example of bad police behavior that we only know about because it was caught on camera.  Trump falsely claimed that Gugino faked his fall, that he was an antifa extremist and that his cell phone was really some kind of police tracker being used to call up his antifa friends.  That bizarre conspiracy theory originated with a reporter from OANN, the media outlet that makes Fox News seem mainstream. The OANN reporter responsible for the story also works for the Russian owned Sputnik news service and has a history of spreading absurd conspiracies, he previously claimed that the coronavirus was caused by George Soros in cahoots with Hilary Clinton, part of their attempt to thin the population.  Of course none of that concerned Trump, if anything it added appeal to the baseless story. The response to Trump’s tweet was swift and brutal, Governor Cuomo ripped into him during his daily news conference, calling the tweet reprehensible and dumb.  A number of former intelligence officials pointed out that the story was just more of the type of disinformation that Russia pushed out in 2016, a tip of an iceberg that is likely to consume us in the run up to November.  On the Republican side, the responses were as expected.  When asked a conga line of red state Senators either ignored questions or claimed total ignorance.  Only the usual suspects, Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski, responded with any disgust.  As to police reform, Trump son in law Kushner, and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows are now on the case, working with South Carolina’s Tim Scott, the Republican’s one and only Black Senator, on a legislative solution, one that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who also refused to comment on Trump’s despicable conspiracy tweet insists will be far better than anything the Democrats come up with because “his” Tim Scott is the only Black person whose views are worth any consideration.

Not so Peachy:  The other big story of the day concerned the total disaster also known as the Georgia primary.  Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the state’s primary had been rescheduled twice so you would have thought that officials would have had enough time to do it the right way, and by right way think quickly mailed out absentee ballots, an adequate number of fully staffed polling places in high population areas and functioning machines.  Sadly, that’s not the way things roll in the Peach Tree State.  Many of the new fancy electronic machines didn’t work at all, there were fewer polling places than normal in high density, i.e. minority districts, and many voters who had requested absentee ballots never received them.  Voters in and around the state’s cities waited in line for up to 8 hours in a heat wave, determined but wet as it started pouring.  Stacey Abrams, the voting rights activist/former gubernatorial candidate/VP aspirant who never conceded her loss to Georgia’s new governor Brian Kemp because of her likely accurate belief that he suppressed the vote during their 2018 election back when he was in charge of the election, had to go to a polling place and wait on one of those long lines because her absentee ballot, which did show up, was glued shut, rendering it useless. The new Republican Secretary of State who replaced Kemp when he became governor announced that he plans to do an “investigation.”  And Trump, blamed the whole mess on absentee voting because he blames everything on absentee voting.  This primary aside, Democrats fear for good reason that the Georgia experience is likely to be repeated in November, in Georgia where two Senate seats are up for grabs, and around the country because voter suppression is something that the Republicans are all in on, especially when that suppression involves making it hard for Democrats, especially minority ones in and near cities, to vote.

COVID 19:  The virus is still here.  Hospitalizations are on the rise in Texas, North and South Carolina, California, Oregon, Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah and Arizona.  In addition, it’s reported that a number of those unmasked National Guards troops who “protected” Washington DC during the demonstrations have tested positive for the virus.  Data on the protestors is still not available. Virus or no virus, Trump is itching to get out on the campaign trail so his staff is making plans for him to start traveling soon because what rational person doesn’t want to hold base killing rallies?  And remember last week’s rumors that Defense Secretary Esper’s days were numbered because he had pushed back at Trump’s demand to call out active military troops to “defend” DC, apparently those rumors were true or at least the Wall Street Journal reports that they were; Trump had to be persuaded not to fire Esper on the spot and Esper was so sure he was out that he actually typed up a letter of resignation.  On the persuasion front, a number of Republican members of Congress, who like German officials and the National Security team were surprised by Trump’s announcement that he plans to withdraw around 10,000 troops from Germany are trying to get him to change his plans.  Led by Representative Mac Thornberry of Texas, the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, twenty two of them have sent Trump a letter arguing that reducing and capping troop levels in Europe would undermine the NATO alliance and spur aggression by Russia.  Of course, that’s likely why Trump made the announcement, right after his last call from Putin.