Last Call For Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Our law enforcement agencies and military are full of hateful racists who literally cannot wait for the day when they can start butchering black and brown bodies in the streets. It's why they signed up, to serve and protect not the country, but white supremacy.

Three members of a North Carolina police department have been fired after a department audit of a video recording captured one of the officers saying a civil war was necessary to wipe Black people off the map and that he was ready. 

The Wilmington Police Department took the action on Tuesday against Cpl. Jessie Moore, and officers Kevin Piner and Brian Gilmore. Each was accused of violating standards of conduct, criticism and use of inappropriate jokes and slurs. After conferring with the city council, Wilmington City Manager Sterling Cheatham cleared Police Chief Donny Williams to release the details. 

“When I first learned of these conversations, I was shocked, saddened and disgusted,” Williams said at a news conference on Wednesday. “There is no place for this behavior in our agency or our city and it will not be tolerated.” 

According to documents released by the police department, a sergeant was conducting a video audit as part of a monthly inspection and was reviewing footage from Piner’s car that had been classified as “accidental activation.” After the sergeant listened to the conversation and determined comments made by Piner and Moore were “extremely racist,” she contacted the department administrator for the camera system. 

At the 46-minute mark of the video, Piner and Gilmore began talking from their respective cars, at which time Piner criticized the department, saying its only concern was “kneeling down with the black folks.” About 30 minutes later, Piner received a phone call from Moore, according to the investigation, a segment in which Moore referred to a Black female as a “negro.” He also referred to the woman by using a racial slur. He repeated the use of the slur in describing a Black magistrate, and Moore used a gay slur to describe the magistrate as well. 

Later, according to the investigation, Piner told Moore that he feels a civil war is coming and that he is ready. Piner said he was going to buy a new assault rifle, and soon “we are just going to go out and start slaughtering them (expletive)” Blacks. “I can’t wait. God, I can’t wait.” Moore responded that he wouldn’t do that. 

Piner then told Moore that he felt a civil war was needed to “wipe them off the (expletive) map. That’ll put them back about four or five generations.” Moore told Piner he was “crazy,” and the recording stopped a short time later. 

According to police, the officers admitted it was their voices on the video and didn’t deny any of the content. While the officers denied that they were racists, they blamed their comments on the stress on law enforcement in light of the protests over the death of George Floyd. Floyd, a Black man, died last month after a Minneapolis police officer put his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes. 

In addition to being fired, cases involving the Wilmington officers will be reviewed by the district attorney’s office to determine if they committed any crimes or showed bias toward criminal defendants. Williams said he will recommend the three officers not be rehired by notifying the N.C. Criminal Justice Training and Standards Commission about their behavior.

Understand that this exactly what these assholes and thousands, if not millions like them want: open season to kill us, to unleash their fever dreams of slaughter on targets they see as less that human and deserving of only of death.

We are vermin to them. I am vermin to them.  To be exterminated.  Being black in America means every possible interaction with a cop means you could come in contact with someone like any of these three assholes, but especially with someone like Kevin Piner, who obviously became a cop in order to live out his power fantasies of white supremacy and to make them a reality.

Is every cop like Piner?  No.  But is every cop protecting another cop who believes what Piner does, or enabling other cops to protect a cop like Piner from facing the consequences for their hatred of black people? Nearly all of them are.

My life matters. I matter. I use my voice to write and document the atrocities daily, and I'd do so even if nobody read this blog, just for my own sanity. Somebody has to say "this is wrong" because it is wrong.

We need more people to say that.

Particularly in law enforcement and the military. Stop covering for these assholes.

This is wrong.

Black Lives Matter.

West Virginia Goes Viral

Florida and Arizona got caught fudging their COVID-19 numbers earlier this month until they could no longer hide the thousands of new daily cases exploding in their states, and Ohio's public health director was run out of town by hateful anti-Semitic bigots who threatened her family, so it should come as no surprise that West Virginia's GOP Gov Jim Justice has outright fired his state's top public health official and accused her of lying about the virus.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice forced out the commissioner of his public health bureau on Wednesday, hours after he publicly questioned the accuracy of the state’s coronavirus data and detailed growing outbreaks in about a dozen counties.

The abrupt resignation of Cathy Slemp, who was also a state health officer, came after the Republican governor vented during a news conference that West Virginia’s active virus caseload may have been overstated.

“If we were on our game here, in DHHR (Department of Health and Human Resources) and Dr. Slemp’s office, if we’re on our game and you’re listening to the governor say that there’s six active cases at Huttonsville and you’re looking at the reports that you’re putting together and sending them to me on active cases and your looking at Randolph County and they’re reporting a hundred-and-some-odd cases then you’re not doing your job,” Justice told reporters, without additional explanation.

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, the governor’s office said Justice had expressed his “lack of confidence” in Slemp to Bill Crouch, secretary of the state health department, who then asked for Slemp’s resignation. She resigned immediately, the statement said. In a separate statement, a spokeswoman for the health department said there were discrepancies related to virus caseload data at the Huttonsville Correctional Center in Randolph County.

Slemp, who was a regular feature of the governor’s daily virus news conferences, has decades of public health experience. She was previously the acting state health officer and was the founding director of the state’s public health emergency preparedness and response programs, according to a biography on the state health department website. Slemp is also on the board of scientific counselors at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Justice, a billionaire coal businessman without previous political experience, had showered Slemp with praise as he hosted press conferences about the virus during the outbreak, often stressing that his aggressive plan to lift virus restrictions was guided by his health experts. Slemp did not appear at Wednesday’s news briefing.

Meanwhile, at least 72 cases in 11 counties have been linked to tourism travel to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and about 70 cases have been linked to church services in three counties, the governor said.

So a red state public health official with decades of experience was eliminated for being politically inconvenient, something playing out in dozens of red states across the country as COVID-19 explodes, infecting tens of thousands daily.

It will not end well for these states or the people in them.  A whole lot of people are going to die, deaths that people will realize were avoidable, and they will want answers from these red state governors.

It will be tragic.

Biden, His Time, Con't

With yet another poll showing Joe Biden with a commanding double-digit lead, the pundits have to invent "But Trump will win!" narratives to keep people paying attention and clicking on horse-race stories. 

Joseph R. Biden Jr. has taken a commanding lead over President Trump in the 2020 race, building a wide advantage among women and nonwhite voters and making deep inroads with some traditionally Republican-leaning groups that have shifted away from Mr. Trump following his ineffective response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new national poll of registered voters by The New York Times and Siena College.

Mr. Biden is currently ahead of Mr. Trump by 14 percentage points, garnering 50 percent of the vote compared with 36 percent for Mr. Trump. That is among the most dismal showings of Mr. Trump’s presidency, and a sign that he is the clear underdog right now in his fight for a second term.

Enter the anecdotal bullshit story, courtesy of Politico's Tim Alberta, as Joshua Holland reports.

In a “letter to Washington” published on Wenesday, Politico’s Chief Political Correspondent, Tim Alberta, provides a master-class on this genre. Alberta visited a cookout in an affluent suburb of Detroit, where he was “dazed” to find a predominantly African-American crowd “who spent Sunday afternoons sipping Mimosas and playing spades.” Patronizingly, he writes that “these were Black people who were going to vote.” (The title of the piece is ‘I’m Tired of Being the Help,’ which is less offensive than the right-wing rhetoric about African -American voters being stuck on a “Democrat plantation,” but not by much.)

After describing the spread–“eggs, chicken wings, potatoes, shrimp and grits, a fine assortment of cookies and cocktails”–Alberta spoke to a number of Black attendees who conveniently gave him just the counterintuitive storyline that he sought, and one that’s guaranteed to cause some hand-wringing among Democrats.

Fifty-five year-old Tonya Griffith told Alberta that she isn’t enthusiastic about voting this fall and, “truth be told, she doesn’t know anyone who is.” Griffith says the African-American community may be fired up over the Movement for Black Lives now, but she doesn’t see that energy lasting.

“I bet our numbers come up, because nobody liked Hillary Clinton, but I don’t think they come up much. And I know they don’t get back to those record numbers from Obama,” Griffith said of Black voter turnout. “We look at Joe Biden and see more of the same. It’s about the era he came up. It’s about his identity—he’s a rich, old white man. What are his credentials to us, other than Obama picking him?

Oddly, every person Alberta spoke to at the cookout shared this sentiment, and all of them predicted Trump would win a second term. “I’m going to vote,” said 53-year-old Ursura Moore. “But Trump’s getting back in office either way.” Alberta writes that this was a “recurring theme of my conversations: a fatalism about defeating Trump this fall. Not a single person I spoke with at the cookout told me they believed Biden would win.” I say that’s odd because as of this writing, Biden leads Trump by double-digits nationally in RealClearPolitics’ average, by 6 points in Florida and an average of 6.2 points in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Given the numbers, one would think that someone at that cookout would expect him to win.

It’s a repetitive piece, running over 4,000 words in length and all of it with the same theme. “None of what I will relay to you in this letter should be considered predictive,” Alberta writes at the top of the piece to cover his ass. “But make no mistake: If what I heard Sunday in southeast Michigan is at all representative of the Black community across America, Democrats should be disturbed and afraid. Not because they risk losing an election, but because they risk losing the loyalty of an entire class of voters.”

Again, this kind of reportage must never cite any public opinion surveys, and Alberta’s unfortunately landed on the same day as a New York Times/Siena College poll found that a whopping 83 percent of African-Americans say they are “almost certain” (50 percent) or “very likely” (33 percent) to vote this fall. And only 5 percent of them support Donald Trump, three points below the 8 percent of the Black vote that he won in 2016, according to the exit polls.

It is also striking that Politico’s chief political correspondent appears to be unaware of the power of negative partisanship in American elections. Many Democrats, regardless of race, may not be enthusiastic about Joe Biden, but they’re fearful of a second Trump term and virtually every indicator over the past three years suggests they’re going to enthusiastically vote against him. (A Morning Consult poll released early last month found that voters who dislike both candidates breaking for Biden 46-14 in a head-to-head matchup.)

And while Tonya Griffith has every right to her opinion that African-American turnout won’t be much higher for Biden than it was for Clinton, the off-year elections since Trump took office tell a different story. Fifty-one percent of Black voters turned out for the 2018 midterms, according to University of Florida political scientist Michael P. McDonald. That was an all-time high in McDonald’s data set, which goes back to 1986. To put that number into perspective, it was ten percentage points higher than Black turnout for the 2010 midterms and a whopping 15-point improvement over 2014.

Yes, it's important to note that the NY Times poll does have Biden only getting 79% of the black vote, but Trump only gets 5%.  There are undecided black voters, in fact this poll shows a number of undecided voters across the spectrum.  Every voter demographic right now shows at least 10% of voters are looking for someone other than Biden or Trump right now.  Yes, that should worry Biden.

But it also shows Biden already at 50% without the undecideds.  Unless all of them break for Trump, he's toast. And if Biden should be worried, Trump should be absolutely terrified.

StupidiNews!

• The latest University of Washington model predicts nearly 180,000 COVID-19 deaths in the US by October 1 unless the vast majority of Americans begin wearing masks in public.
• Tuscon Police Chief Chris Magnus is resigning after video surfaced of a 24-year-old Hispanic man dying in police custody in April after being restrained by choke hold for over 12 minutes.
• New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are ordering visitors from nine states to self-quarantine for 14 days of face a $1,000 fine as the Northeast has largely brought new cases under control.
• A Senate Republican police overhaul bill has stalled after Democrats blocked the measure for being nearly worthless in reducing police militarization or brutality based on race.
• Indiana's Supreme Court has ruled that police forcing a suspect to unlock their phone is a violation of the Fifth Amendment's self-incrimination clause.

Last Call For Yankees Go Home, Con't

The European Union is considering a travel ban on Russia, Brazil, and the US, all countries that have failed to contain COVID-19. But Henry Farrell at the Monkey Cage reminds us that fractious and messy EU politics almost certainly means the travel bans will never happen, especially for Americans.

The reason the E.U. might want to coordinate is that its current border policy is a mess. When coronavirus hit, the E.U. effectively stood aside as its member states introduced individual policies, including bans on travel from other E.U. countries. Now it wants to have some kind of common policy on borders within the E.U., which perhaps implies a shared policy on travelers from outside the bloc, to prevent people from entering a European country that has laxer controls and then being able to travel wherever they wanted.

However, the problem is that the E.U. doesn’t have much power to coordinate over health emergencies. A key proviso toward the end of the Times article says that “[t]he E.U. can’t force members to adopt it, but European officials warn that failure of any of the 27 members to stick to it could lead to the reintroduction of borders within the bloc.” What that means is that the list is a political set of recommendations rather than a legally binding decision that E.U. member states have to implement. Such recommendations can be politically important, since they set a standard that states can then be assessed by. But they can’t make states do anything that they don’t want to do.

Some U.S. commentators will read the U.S. exclusion from the list as a specific and deliberate political snub. That is almost certainly not true. While the negotiating officials are surely aware of how outside countries might respond, they appear to be more worried about creating unity among Europe’s member states.

As the Times describes the negotiations, they are focused on two lists of countries from which travel might be allowed. One list has countries that have a lower or the same rate of infection as the E.U. The other includes countries with slightly worse infection rates. This implies that the E.U. is basing the list on reasonably objective measures of the risks associated with allowing travelers to enter from different countries. The upside for U.S. travelers, again, is that the list is not binding. The downside is that the United States is in a bad position to press for an exception, as long as its rate of coronavirus infection is high.

Even apart from the problems described above, the list is unlikely to shape European border control policy. Member states such as Spain want to reopen their borders to international tourism as quickly as possible, for economic reasons. Spain recently opened its borders to tourists from most of Europe, including Britain, where the coronavirus is still quite widespread, and is unlikely to want to be constrained by a nonbinding E.U. document. The Spanish government appears to be pinning its hopes on temperature testing and contact tracing to prevent the virus from becoming reestablished. Spain and other tourism-dependent economies may press for more openness.

There are bigger disagreements about travel within the E.U. The reason for continued border controls is that different countries have different rates of infection. In particular, Sweden has a much higher rate of infection than its neighbors, including another E.U. member state, Denmark. That is why Denmark has kept its border with Sweden closed while opening up its border with Norway, which is not a member of the E.U. This may mean that Sweden would like a list that could allow the reopening of borders but that its neighbors, which have been skeptical about Sweden’s unorthodox policy approach to the epidemic (it has placed only minimal controls on public interaction) will want to push back.

Finally, there might interesting politics in the relationship with Britain, which is still negotiating its departure from the E.U. The United Kingdom has relatively high rates of infection, and much closer ties to other member states than the United States does. It shares a border with one member state, the Republic of Ireland. British politicians might react badly if their country is blacklisted, leading to greater frictions in the negotiations over common border areas. In addition, the Republic of Ireland wants continued travel arrangements with Britain, because of political sensitivities over the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Closing that border could hurt peace in Northern Ireland.

So no, not only will the US not be put on the EU travel ban list, the travel ban list won't happen at all, most likely.  Much like the fight playing out in US states, getting the entire EU to agree on openings and travel bans is impossible.  (Well, it would be if we had an executive branch that actually gave a damn.)

The EU doesn't have that at all, so while individual countries may want Americans, Brazilians, and Russians to go away, the rest of the EU will take them in for summer holiday.
 

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Yesterday I told you about our old white supremacist domestic terrorist friends the Bundy clan and their latest armed protest against the government, this time in Idaho.

Under the Idaho Constitution, only the governor can call a special session of the Legislature — but the Idaho Freedom Foundation and an unregistered political action committee are calling one for Tuesday morning aimed at overturning the governor’s executive orders on the coronavirus pandemic, and roughly a dozen far-right House Republicans reportedly plan to participate.

Ammon Bundy says a group of his armed supporters will provide “crowd control” for the event, set to kick off at 9 a.m. at the state Capitol.

“We’re going to make sure that legislators don’t have any trouble and everybody is good and peaceful,” he said, adding that Idaho State Police likely will be there as well. Asked why additional security is needed if ISP will be present, he said, “What if they put their knee on someone’s neck? Who’s going to stop them?”

It turns out that Idaho Republicans don't have much use for Bundy's idiocy when it comes to attacking other Republicans, like GOP Gov. Brad Little.

Legal analyses from the libertarian group Idaho Freedom Foundation the Bundy-affiliated Freedom Man PAC had asserted that the legislators didn’t need the governor’s permission to call a special legislative session if the state was under “enemy attack.” The groups urged legislators to view the COVID-19 pandemic as such under state law, and exercise their authority to call a legislative session and limit the governor’s power.

But the attorney general’s office and a team of lawyers representing the legislature disagreed, and numerous legislators present Tuesday said they’d felt pressure from leadership not to attend.

So, from the start of Tuesday’s proceedings, passing any kind of legislation was off the menu. “This is not a session of the Legislature,” said Rep. Judy Boyle. “We do not have a quorum.”
The right-wing representatives would have needed half of the members of the 70-person state house to show up to reach a quorum. The number who did was far fewer.

So, instead of taking legislative action, the group of 15 Republicans sat in the well of the chamber and traded statements about the state of the state.

“We are an equal branch, we shouldn’t have to beg the executive branch to do our business,” said Rep. Judy Boyle.

“We have become, um, almost non-essential in this particular thing,” chuckled Rep. Tim Remington, who sported an American flag tie. “It’s scary when you feel non-essential.”

Eventually, the talk grew more heated.

Contact tracing “is the most unconstitutional thing I’ve ever seen or heard of in my life,” asserted Rep. Christy Zito, speculating that the state would separate parents from their children if they’d been exposed to COVID-19.

“I truly believe a Civil War is coming if we do not put an end to what we’re seeing,” said Rep. Heather Scott, known as a fringe character even in crimson red Idaho, a few minutes later.
Toward the end of the event, Rep. Priscilla Giddings compared Idaho under the governor’s COVID-19 orders to Afghanistan, where she served as an Air Force fighter pilot.

“The absence of freedom is fear, and that’s terrorism,” she said. “We’re being terrorized in our own country.”

If the speechifying made the event feel like a typical day at the Capitol, Bundy’s crew — doing “crowd control” outside — made clear that it wasn’t

On the building’s steps, Bundy said the state was risking violence if it continued with its emergency orders, reported Heath Druzin of Boise State Public Radio News.
The communications director for the state’s Democratic Party, Lindsey Johnson, told TPM that the intra-GOP divide was “just a mess.”

“It should make Idahoans really question their leadership,” she added.

Idaho Republicans went too far even for Idaho Republicans.  And these guys, sitting, elected officials mind you, are slavering whackjobs who openly despise the entire concept of government to the point of being fundamentally hostile towards it, despite being employed by voters to run it.

And yet Bundy and his friends aren't done.  Not by a long shot.  Idaho Republicans will continue to support his terrorist insurgency in order to score points with voters.

Not much has changed since 1865, huh?

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Senate Democrats see right through GOP Sen. Tim Scott's "police reform" bill and will block it, giving Mitch McConnell exactly what he wants, a roll call vote against the lone black Republican senator's legislation being used as a cudgel to discredit Black Lives Matter.

The Senate's police reform debate is on a trajectory to crash and burn this week.

Top Democratic senators told Mitch McConnell on Tuesday that the Republicans’ policing overhaul is “not salvageable” — the latest sign that Democrats will filibuster the GOP bill on Wednesday and that the Senate is headed for deadlock on the issue.

In a letter to the majority leader, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) demanded that McConnell bring “meaningful legislation” to the floor and argued the GOP plan is not enough as even a starting point for negotiations. Republicans were immediately incredulous that after demanding a debate for days, Democrats were now ready to shut it down before it truly started.

McConnell says if Democrats want to amend his proposal, they need to cough up the seven votes needed to get to 60 and break a filibuster. Yet Harris, Booker and Schumer said they need a bipartisan negotiation at the outset rather than simply taking up a partisan police bill — and that even amendments can’t save the legislation written by GOP Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.). Schumer said there is "overwhelming opposition" to the legislation among Democrats.

“We will not meet this moment by holding a floor vote on the JUSTICE Act, nor can we simply amend this bill, which is so threadbare and lacking in substance that it does not even provide a proper baseline for negotiations,” the three senators wrote to McConnell.

The debate comes amid a national reckoning on race and police violence after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and nationwide protests.

Republicans’ proposal creates incentives for local police departments to reform their policies to stop misconduct; Democrats want to establish stiffer federal standards against the use of force and ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants.

Scott's bill currently has no Democratic supporters in the Senate and was brought directly to the floor rather than through the Judiciary Committee, where it could have been amended and negotiated by committee leaders. Republicans had not planned to hold a vote in June, but scrambled to restructure their agenda after the wave of protests as well as statements by Scott that the party needed to seize the moment now.
The note from the Democratic leader as well as its two Black members demonstrates that most other Senate Democrats are ready to block the GOP proposal absent new negotiations. Schumer said that "Leader McConnell is leading the Senate into a cul-de-sac: A process designed to fail."

It's designed to fail and always was, but a lot of voters aren't going to see it that way.

They're going to see the two Black senators, especially Kamala Harris, in the running for Biden's VP slot, voting against "police reform" and it's going to hurt, if not wreck, Harris's chances.

Which is precisely what Mitch McConnell wants and will get.  I'm upset that Senate Democrats fell for the trap again, but it's Kamala Harris who will pay dearly for this. The other half of the trap is already in play.

BET founder Robert Johnson is calling on the Black Lives Matter movement to form an independent political party. “I think it’s time that African Americans form an independent party, not be an appendage of one party or ignored by the other party.” pic.twitter.com/WBIyfbxAVx

— CNBC (@CNBC) June 23, 2020

This was always how Black Lives Matter was going to be destroyed, by using it as an excuse to convince Black voters to leave the Democratic party.

I'm angry as hell that the Dems are walking right into this "Blexit" bullcrap.

Meanwhile in Alabama, the FBI is saying that the noose found in Bubba Wallace's garage stall had been there since October of last year and there was no hate crime involved against NASCAR's only black driver.

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace was not the target of a hate crime, the FBI has concluded after completing its investigation at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, NASCAR announced in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

“The FBI report concludes, and photographic evidence confirms, that the garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose had been positioned there since as early as last fall,” NASCAR’s statement read. “This was obviously well before the 43 team’s arrival and garage assignment.”

NASCAR President Steve Phelps is expected to address the development Tuesday evening in a conference call with reporters.

Wallace, 26, who is NASCAR’s only African American driver on its elite Cup series, had called for the sport to ban the displays of the Confederate flag at its tracks earlier this month, and the sport did so June 10, triggering outrage among a subset of fans.

In other words the FBI's story is that it wasn't a noose, and it was pure coincidence that Wallace had been assigned the stall with the rope pull in the garage that happened to look kind of like a noose.

Sure. I guess.

Good job, NASCAR and the FBI.

StupidiNews!

• Major League Baseball has finally worked out a 60-game season with players and teams that will start on July 23, but fans will have to settle for watching on TV as stadiums will be empty.
• Donald Trump doubled down on his "Kung Flu" slur at his rally in Phoenix, while the state of Arizona is suffering from a massive spike in new COVID-19 cases.
• Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee is requiring all resident to wear masks in public as positive COVID-19 tests in the state rose 35% last week.
• The Louisville police officer who killed Breonna Taylor has been officially fired by the city, Brett Hankinson showed "extreme indifference to human life" as he fired 10 rounds.
• Claiming its website infects visitors, Twitter has permanently terminated the account of DDoSecrets, which last week posted thousands of police documents in a massive "BlueLeaks" file.

Last Call For The Bites Of Columbus

Columbus, Ohio needs a new favorite son after the city agreed to take the statue of Christopher Columbus down, and who's a better choice than the Mayor of Flavortown?

The city of Columbus, Ohio, has already vowed to bring down its statue of Christopher Columbus. But thousands are hoping to erase the city's connection to Columbus' legacy even further by renaming it Flavortown in honor of Columbus native Guy Fieri. 

As the widespread conversation around police brutality and racial inequality continues into another week, statues of Columbus are being brought down across the nation to bring awareness to the cruelty he brought upon Indigenous people. 

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther announced earlier this week that the statue outside City Hall would be removed and placed in storage. 

"For many people in our community, the statue represents patriarchy, oppression and divisiveness. That does not represent our great city, and we will no longer live in the shadow of our ugly past," Ginther said in a statement, according to CNN affiliate WTTE.
But for Tyler Woodbridge, who spent over seven years of his life in Columbus, the statue's removal wasn't enough. 

"Even though it's my favorite city, I was always a bit ashamed of the name," Woodbridge told CNN. 

So the 32-year-old started a petition to rename the city to Flavortown in honor of Fieri, the celebrity restaurateur who was born in Columbus. Fieri's use of the expression on his various shows on The Food Network has become his signature catchphrase. 

Woodbridge described Fieri as a very "charitable man," pointing to the fact that the famous restaurateur has helped raise more than $20 million for restaurant workers during the pandemic and that he's officiated more than 100 LGBTQ weddings. 

"That kind of optimism and charitable work embodies more of what Columbus, Ohio, is about rather than the tarnished legacy of Christopher Columbus," Woodbridge said. 

But the fact that Flavortown came from Fieri is a bonus and not the main reason why he's pushing for the name, Woodbridge said. Describing the city as a "melting pot" of different cultures and nationalities, Woodbridge said the name would honor the city's "proud heritage as a culinary crossroads and one of the nation's largest test markets for the food industry," according to the petition. 

As of Sunday afternoon, more than 17,400 have signed the petition and it grabbed the attention of Budweiser, which offered to give out free Bud Light Seltzer to all the city's residents if the name is officially changed to Flavortown.

Now I don't expect Columbus to actually rename itself to Flavortown anytime soon, but a "Welcome to Flavortown, USA" official nickname would certainly be a hell of a marketing opportunity, a way to honor Fieri, and a way to acknowledge the city's growing culinary scene.

Mr. Woodbridge should bring his petition before the Columbus Chamber of Commerce. I'm sure they'd be happy to accommodate him.

We'll Fry The Science Guys

The Trump regime has decided that the sacrificial lambs for the regime's now completely failed response to the nation's COVID-19 epidemic will be the sacrificial lab coats that the regime refused to listen to in the first place.

White House officials are putting a target on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, positioning the agency as a coronavirus scapegoat as cases surge in many states and the U.S. falls behind other nations that are taming the pandemic. 

Trump administration aides in recent weeks have seriously discussed launching an in-depth evaluation of the agency to chart what they view as its missteps in responding to the pandemic including an early failure to deploy working test kits, according to four senior administration officials. Part of that audit would include examining more closely the state-by-state death toll to tally only the Americans who died directly of Covid-19 rather than other factors. About 120,000 people in the U.S. have died of the coronavirus so far, according to the CDC’s official count. 

Aides have also discussed narrowing the mission of the agency or trying to embed more political appointees within it, according to interviews with 10 current and former senior administration officials and Republicans close to the White House. One official said the overall goal would be to make the CDC nimble and more responsive.
Politically, Trump aides have also been looking for a person or entity outside of China to blame for the coronavirus response and have grown furious with the CDC, its public health guidance and its actions on testing, making it a prime target. But some wonder whether the wonky-sounding CDC, which the administration directly oversees, could be an effective fall guy on top of Trump’s efforts to blame the World Health Organization. 

“WHO is an easy one,” said one former administration official. “It is foreign body in Switzerland. CDC will be tough to create a bogeyman around for the average voter.” 

The moves are among the White House’s efforts to deflect attacks on President Donald Trump and place them elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy. Protecting the president is seen as increasingly important by political aides as the general election approaches in just over four months and criticism mounts from former Vice President Joe Biden, other Democrats and even former national security adviser John Bolton who say the blame rests squarely on Trump himself. 

The efforts risk backfiring if they blame career health experts at the CDC whose warnings early in the crisis were dismissed by Trump and his top aides as fearmongering.

Juliette Kayyem, a former Obama-era Homeland Security official who aided the 2009 H1N1 pandemic response, said it can be valuable for agencies to revisit their performance following a crisis — but that there’s no reason to single out the CDC. 

“When the history books are written about this crisis, is anyone actually going to believe that America’s abysmal performance and its high death rate was because of some bureaucratic impediment at the CDC?" Kayyem said. “The core of America's problem is a White House that clearly was not pressed into action in January. And every flaw — from CDC and testing to FEMA and the stockpiles to the supply chain and the states — every systemic problem is rooted in White House malfeasance."

The discussion is ongoing about the best way to revamp an agency White House aides view as distant from the West Wing — and filled with government career officials who do not respect or follow the Trump agenda.

It's a trifecta for the regime: they get a scapegoat, they clear out the experts and civil servants from yet another federal agency and replace everyone with yes men, and they can then cast doubt on the CDC's virus statistics and say the numbers of deaths and cases are wrong and that really everything's fine (and future numbers would be guaranteed to be "fine".)

I'm honestly surprised the CDC hasn't been wiped clean to begin with.  I guess with Senate Republicans facing the very real possibility of losing control of the chamber in January, suddenly stopping Trump from putting people in the CDC who will make tens of thousands of COVID-19 deaths go away seems like a bad idea.

Oh, and Trump's declaration at his Tulsa rally over the weekend that he wanted COVID-19 testing slowed down in order to "stop the numbers from going up" wasn't a joke, like the White House is trying to pass off.  It's real, as the regime is ending federal testing in Texas and 12 other states this month.

The Trump administration is ending funding and support for local COVID-19 testing sites around the country this month, as cases and hospitalizations are skyrocketing in many states.

The federal government will stop providing money and support for 13 sites across five states which were originally set up in the first months of the pandemic to speed up testing at the local level.
Local officials and public health experts expressed a mixture of frustration, resignation, and horror at the decision to let federal support lapse.

Texas will be particularly hard hit by the decision. The federal government gives much-needed testing kits and laboratory access to seven testing sites around Texas. But in the state, which is seeing new peaks in cases, people still face long lines for testing that continues to fail to meet overwhelming demand.

In Dallas County, Texas, the federal government will end support on June 30 for two testing sites it has been been supporting since March, Rocky Vaz, the director of emergency management for the city of Dallas, confirmed to TPM.
“Cases are continuing to rise in Dallas County, and we want to continue with the testing,” Vaz said.

The city of Dallas asked the federal government for an extension beyond June 30, but was refused, Vaz said.

“They told us very clearly that they are not going to extend it,” Vaz said. “We are not expecting it to continue beyond June 30, but things change.”

And on the circus goes.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

The main problem with the armed terrorists that continue to use the threat of violence to disenfranchise black and brown voters and to terrorize local and state lawmakers in order to get their way is the fact that Republicans keep openly siding with the terrorists.

Under the Idaho Constitution, only the governor can call a special session of the Legislature — but the Idaho Freedom Foundation and an unregistered political action committee are calling one for Tuesday morning aimed at overturning the governor’s executive orders on the coronavirus pandemic, and roughly a dozen far-right House Republicans reportedly plan to participate.

Ammon Bundy says a group of his armed supporters will provide “crowd control” for the event, set to kick off at 9 a.m. at the state Capitol.

“We’re going to make sure that legislators don’t have any trouble and everybody is good and peaceful,” he said, adding that Idaho State Police likely will be there as well. Asked why additional security is needed if ISP will be present, he said, “What if they put their knee on someone’s neck? Who’s going to stop them?”

ISP Chief Kedrick Wills didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Asked if an armed takeover of the state Capitol was possible, Bundy, who led the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016 but was acquitted of all charges related to the 41-day occupation, said, “I sure hope it doesn’t have to go to that level.”
No senators are planning to participate, and the Senate GOP leadership sent a memo out to all Republican senators dated June 6, signed by all four of its leadership members, saying the proposed “special session” is both illegal and unconstitutional.

The Idaho Freedom Foundation, whose president, Wayne Hoffman, didn’t respond to a reporter’s inquiries on Monday, commissioned a legal opinion by two Arizona attorneys that was issued June 11, theorizing that a combination of Cold War-era state laws about the continuity of Idaho’s state government after a nuclear attack and viewing the COVID-19 pandemic as an “enemy attack” on Idaho by China justify legislators calling themselves into a special session — and ignoring the Idaho Constitution’s requirements for a quorum and other rules for legislative sessions.
Bruce Skaug, former Nampa City Council president and a personal injury attorney, was the Idaho attorney who consulted with the two Arizona lawyers. He’s also currently running for the Legislature.

Skaug said he found the legal arguments “plausible,” and he supports the idea of a special session. “But we do not need armed people showing up at the Capitol,” he said. “I had not heard anything about that happening.”

In a Facebook video, Bundy called for crowds to turn out at the Capitol starting at 8 a.m. “You need to take the day off,” he told supporters in the video. “We’re going to try to get in the building and get the legislators in there so they can hold their session in the building.”

“We want 500, 600, 1,000, 2,000, we want that many people there,” Bundy said. “This is something that will affect Idaho and will transpire all throughout the country.”

Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, has been touting the self-called special session idea in legislative newsletters, and has even espoused using such a session to impeach the governor.

Never mind the fact that Gov. Brad Little is also a Republican.

But these guys are out of their minds.  Justifying a fake special session of the legislature because COVID-19 was an "enemy attack" and then showing up with rifles? This is exactly the type of idiocy I've been warning about for years now, and this could get ugly fast if the Bundy clan decides examples need to be made of insufficiently loyal Republicans.

We'll find out how this goes, but I don't expect things to be pretty this morning.

StupidiNews!

• China is sending naval ships to a group of disputed islands as Japan considers them part of Okinawa, Tokyo has been administering the uninhabited islands since 1972.
• Rumors are circulating about the resignation of Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale after last weekend's disastrous Trump rally in Tulsa left two-thirds of the arena empty.
• With the US Supreme Court refusing to take up a case against Trump's use of tariffs on Monday, the White House is moving ahead with aluminum tariffs on Canada this week.
• The Trump regime is freezing nearly all foreign work visa programs in order to "save American jobs", corporate lobbyists are calling the move "short-sighted" and warn it will slow recovery.
• Hackers have posted millions of federal, state, and local law enforcement documents related to police brutality, military surplus equipment, and intelligence gathering on leftist groups called "BlueLeaks".

Last Call For Another Supreme Day, Con't

The US Supreme Court sided with the SEC that it can punish corporations for fraud by making them forfeit ill-gotten gains, but the 8-1 decision by Justice Sotomayor does impose some limits.

The Supreme Court on Monday affirmed the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ability to force defendants to forfeit money acquired through investor fraud but placed new limits on the practice.

In an 8-to-1 decision written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court said the money must be for the benefit of investors and cannot exceed the actual profits that came from the wrongdoing. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying the law does not give authority to the SEC for the practice, which is called disgorgement.

The commission typically wins more than a billion dollars a year in disgorgement orders from federal courts. They are distinct from fines, which the SEC uses to punish wrongdoing.

After blockbuster decisions last week regarding federal protection for LGBTQ workers and the program shielding undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, Liu v. SEC was the only decision announced by the justices Monday, and it is unclear whether more will be released later this week.

It was an indication that the Supreme Court’s term may run longer than its usual conclusion at the end of June.

An extension would be the result of the coronavirus pandemic that disrupted the court’s schedule and the difficulty of resolving the controversial cases that the court accepted this term.

The social distancing required by the pandemic led the court to cancel oral arguments in its grand courtroom in March and April, which typically is the last month for oral arguments. Instead, the justices held arguments via telephone in May. None of the 10 cases heard that month have been decided.

There are still 14 major decisions to be released, and Monday the 29th is the only scheduled day for opinions.  It's very possible that the Court will slide into July in order to get everything released, with major cases on Trump's tax returns and state restrictions on abortion yet to be issued.

As far as new orders for next term, the Court once again refused to take up any new cases, effectively giving the Trump regime a win on tariffs.

The Supreme Court on Monday decided not to hear a case brought by U.S. steel importers against tariffs that President Donald Trump imposed on steel imports in 2018, effectively ending the legal challenge and leaving the steep duties in place on imports from Europe, China and many other countries.
The decision could embolden Trump to take further tariff actions without worrying that the Supreme Court will strike them down. It puts the onus on Congress to decide whether it wants to rein in Trump's tariff powers. So far, neither the Republican-led Senate nor the Democratic-led House has shown much interest in that.

Although the U.S. Constitution gives Congress jurisdiction over trade, Trump imposed the tariffs under the Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, which gives the president broad powers to restrict imports to protect national security.

The American Institute for International Steel, which represents importers of foreign-made steel, argued the law is unconstitutional because it imposes no limits on the president’s discretion to take action. As a result, the law is an improper delegation of legislative authority and a violation of the separation of powers, AIIS said.

The import group did not have an immediate comment on the Supreme Court's decision to not to hear its complaint, thus ending a nearly two-year legal battle. Both the U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals also sided with the Trump administration in previous rulings on the case.

The Supreme Court's decision is no surprise, except perhaps to the steel import group's lawyers, said Bill Reinsch, a former Commerce Department official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This issue came before the court some years ago in a different case, and the court upheld what Congress did. That is basically what the court did this time — it honored its own precedent," Reinsch said.

More pain ahead for American consumers in the era of the Trump Depression.

Drive Fast, Turn Racist

In the wake of NASCAR banning the Confederate flag earlier this month, the crew of league's only top black driver, Bubba Wallace, found a noose hanging in his garage at Talledega over the weekend.

"Late this afternoon, NASCAR was made aware that a noose was found in the garage stall of the 43 team. We are angry and outraged, and cannot state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act," NASCAR said in a statement. "We have launched an immediate investigation, and will do everything we can to identify the person(s) responsible and eliminate them from the sport.

"As we have stated unequivocally, there is no place for racism in NASCAR, and this act only strengthens our resolve to make the sport open and welcoming to all."

Wallace never saw the noose, ESPN's Marty Smith reported. It was first seen by a member of Wallace's team, who immediately brought it to the attention of NASCAR, Smith reported. NASCAR told Fox Sports that it will work with law enforcement.

Wallace, an Alabama native who drives the No. 43 Chevrolet for racing icon Richard Petty, said in a statement that he was "incredibly saddened" by the act.

"Today's despicable act of racism and hatred leaves me incredibly saddened and serves as a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society and how persistent we must be in the fight against racism," Wallace wrote on Twitter. "Over the last several weeks, I have been overwhelmed by the support from people across the NASCAR industry, including other drivers and team members in the garage. Together, our sport has made a commitment to driving real change and championing a community that is accepting and welcoming of everyone.

"Nothing is more important and we will not be deterred by the reprehensible actions of those who seek to spread hate. As my mother told me today, "They are just trying to scare you." This will not break me, I will not give in nor will I back down. I will continue to proudly stand for what I believe in."

NASCAR has spent years trying to distance itself from the Confederate flag, long a part of its moonshine-running roots from its founding more than 70 years ago. Five years ago, former chairman Brian France tried to ban flying the flags at tracks, a proposal that was not enforced and largely ignored.

This year was different, and it was Wallace who led the charge, calling for the sanctioning body to prohibit the flag.

But outside the track on Sunday, vehicles waving and flying Confederate flags lined the boulevard running past the massive speedway, and a plane flew above the track towing a banner of the Confederate flag that read, "Defund NASCAR."

Here's the thing though: given the tight security and COVID-19 protocols at races right now, especially at a facility the size of Talledega Superspeedway, it had to be an inside job, as Deadspin's Eric Barrow surmises.

As to the question of who did it, NASCAR likely won’t need to go very far, as the noose was found in a secure area where access is only made available to race team members, NASCAR officials, track workers, as well as, security, medical and safety personnel, according to a source. Garage stalls are off limits to the public.

“We’re not working under any assumptions just yet,” said the source.

Cameras are stationed throughout the garage, though not in every stall. The source confirmed NASCAR officials are reviewing all videos.

According to the source, NASCAR is working with law enforcement as the placing of a noose would likely be considered a criminal hate crime in Alabama. 

We'll see soon, I suspect.  The suspect, that is. The DoJ is looking into the case as well.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Saturday's Trump Hate Rally in Tulsa was a disaster for the Trump campaign, and they know it.

By the time President Donald Trump was gliding in his helicopter toward Joint Base Andrews on Saturday, destined for what he'd once hoped would be a triumphant packed-to-the-rafters return to the campaign trail, things were already looking bad. 

Scanning cable news coverage earlier in the day, Trump was disappointed to see pictures not of massive lines forming outside the Bank of Oklahoma Center in Tulsa but of Geoffrey Berman, the federal prosecutor Trump's attorney general had attempted unsuccessfully to dismiss the night before, a person familiar with his response said. 

Hours later, the President was informed six campaign staffers in Tulsa had tested positive for coronavirus ahead of his scheduled arrival -- an unfortunate reminder of an ongoing pandemic Trump's critics say he is ignoring. After initially dismissing the revelation, a source familiar with his reaction said Trump erupted when it was subsequently reported in the media -- overtaking coverage of the rally itself. 

Still, a determined Trump was intent on breathing new life into his staggering campaign. He took off for Tulsa, convinced large swaths of his supporters would be waiting for him there. 

Things did not improve once Air Force One lifted off. The President received a report that only about 25 people were assembled in the overflow space the campaign had reserved for a crowd Trump claimed five days earlier would top 40,000. 

Two hours before the rally was set to begin, people who had signed up for tickets received an urgent text message from the Trump campaign: "The Great American Comeback Celebration's almost here!" it read. "There's still space!" 

When the President landed in Tulsa at 5:51 p.m. local time, the crowds his aides had promised him had failed to materialize. Air Force One flew over the arena, where Trump had been told thousands of supporters would be waiting to hear from him before he went inside, but saw nothing resembling the sea of people he'd been expecting. 

While he was in the air, the campaign had canceled the outside appearance given the apparent lack of enthusiasm. 

Once viewed inside the White House and Trump's campaign as a reset button for a presidency beset by crises and self-inflicted wounds, Saturday evening's campaign rally in Tulsa instead became plagued with pitfalls, a disappointing microcosm of the blindspots, denial and wishful thinking that have come to guide the President as he enters one of the most precarious moments of his first term. 

By the time he strode out to the strains of Lee Greenwood on Saturday evening into a partially-full Bank of Oklahoma Center, the event had devolved from a triumphant return to the campaign trail after a 110-day pandemic-forced absence into something else altogether. The launch of a new assault on former Vice President Joe Biden fizzled, replaced by recycled grievances and race-baiting. The sparse crowd was a reminder that many Americans, even Trump's supporters, remain cautious of a pandemic that continues to rage in places like Oklahoma, where cases are spiking, even if Trump is ready to move on. 

Reports are that fewer than 6,700 people showed up in the 19,200 capacity arena.

If there was ever a sign that the Trump hold on his cult may be starting to break, it's failure to fill seats in deep red Oklahoma at his first rally in months. Things actually seem to be different this time. Impeachment wasn't enough, a pandemic wasn't enough, a Bresurgent Black Lives Matter wasn't enough...

...but the incompetence of Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale to account for the social media generation may finally be the keystone that collapses the Trump circus.

As CNN's Harry Enten points out, there are no "hidden" Trump voters this time around like there were in 2016, people embarrassed to tell polsters that they preferred Trump.  That was a big problem for the Democrats in 2016. There's no evidence that the same thing is happening this time.

A new national Ipsos/Reuters poll finds that former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump 48% to 35%.

While Biden has led Trump in almost every Ipsos poll this year, his advantage this week is the largest in 2020. 

What's the point: Even though the national polls were accurate in 2016, one of the complaints I hear most often about the polls is that Trump's supporters are either lying or won't talk to pollsters. Polls like Ipsos get around that argument because they use machines (e.g. they're done online) to conduct the interviews. There's no reason to lie to a machine. If Trump was doing significantly better in these non-live interview polls, then these critics of the polls may have a point.

The evidence indicates these detractors are, at least in this moment, wrong. There's no sign of shy Trump voters. Trump doesn't do any better in polls without a live interviewer.  

The average of national surveys (accounting for the fact that some pollsters survey more often) this week from pollsters who didn't have a live interviewer put Biden up over Trump 50% to 39% (10 points unrounded). That's a huge advantage and very similar to the latest live interview poll average that has Biden up 51% to 41%.

So Biden still has not just a small lead, but a double-digit lead unless every single pollster is wrong.  The cracks are showing.