As long as we have a White House hell bent on happy talk and bullshit, we just have to keep moving ahead the best we can.
Jun 22, 2020
COVID-19 Update
Very low numbers for today. I want to be smiling and hopeful, but I can only wish that I could ascribe some real confidence to them.
As long as we have a White House hell bent on happy talk and bullshit, we just have to keep moving ahead the best we can.
As long as we have a White House hell bent on happy talk and bullshit, we just have to keep moving ahead the best we can.
Checking
The Daddy State tells us lies as a means of demonstrating its power.
The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.
Lying about everything is a way to condition us - to make us accept the premise that they can do anything they want ...
Who caused the violence at protests?
It wasn’t antifa.
THE CLAIMS:
“The memory of George Floyd is being dishonored by rioters, looters and anarchists. The violence and vandalism is being led by antifa and other radical left-wing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting businesses and burning down buildings.”
— President Trump, in remarks at a SpaceX launch, May 30
“I don't see any indication that there were any white supremest groups mixing in. This is an ANTIFA Organization. It seems that the first time we saw it in a major way was Occupy Wall Street. It's the same mindset.” @kilmeade @foxandfriends TRUE!”
— Trump, in a tweet, June 1
“Our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists. Violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, antifa and others.”
— Trump, in remarks at the White House Rose Garden, June 1
“We have antifa, we have anarchists, we have terrorists, we have looters. We have a lot of bad people in those groups. I mean, you watch and you see.”
— Trump, in an interview, June 3
On May 30 — five days after George Floyd was killed and four after protests erupted across Minneapolis — President Trump first said antifa forces were behind the violence that swept across the country. He has repeated this claim nearly 20 times since. Online activists and prominent right-wing Twitter personalities promoted the theory. And the nation’s top law enforcement officials — including FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Attorney General William P. Barr — appeared to confirm it, echoing Trump’s claim.
The Fact Checker video team spoke to witnesses and reviewed arrest records, federal charges, intelligence reports, online conversations and dozens of videos and photos of violent incidents from the early days of protests in Minneapolis to determine whether a coordinated antifa campaign was responsible for the violence.
The Facts:
Antifa is a moniker, not a single group with a clear organizational structure or leader. It is a decentralized network of activists who don’t coordinate. Their common ground is opposing anything that they think is racist or fascist. In recent years, antifa activists appeared whenever there was a large gathering of white nationalists.
And white nationalists, as counterintuitive as it might seem, have been known to attend Black Lives Matter rallies. That is what could then draw attention from antifa forces, according to Seth G. Jones, director of the transnational threats project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at ADL, emphasized, “It’s a challenge [to identify antifa] because this is not an organized group. You’re essentially looking to try to identify what does somebody believe in.” Antifa has been identified by patches, flags, graffiti and black clothing, Segal explained. And at times, they can be identifiable by moving in “black bloc” formation. But, Segal hedged, looking to identify antifa by these visual cues is “not foolproof.”
Jones reviewed protests in more than 140 cities and spoke with U.S. officials within the joint terrorism task force. Most of the violence, Jones said, was committed by “local hooligans, sometimes gangs, sometimes just individuals that are trying to take advantage of an opportunity.”
“There were reports of some antifa at different protests,” he concluded. “But they stood back, did not engage, certainly not in a violent way.”
Officials have arrested more than 14,000 people across 49 cities nationwide since May 27, according to a Washington Post tally of data provided by police departments and included in media reports. Thousands were arrested for low-level offenses, including curfew violations and failure to disperse.
Roughly 80 federal charges, including murder and throwing molotov cocktails at police vehicles, reveal no evidence of an antifa plot. Four people who identify with the far-right extremist “boogaloo” movement are among those facing the most serious federal charges. Asked whether anyone who identifies as antifa had been charged, Department of Justice spokesman Matt Lloyd said via email, “We do not collect statistics based on potential inspiration but on unlawful acts according to statute.”
An intelligence bulletin issued by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center that was obtained by ABC News warned that “anarchist extremists continue to pose the most significant threat of targeted assaults against police.” The bulletin, which was distributed to police departments nationwide, mentions antifa only in a footnote differentiating those who self-identify with the group from anarchists.
Rather, the bulletin said that “the greatest threat of lethal violence continues to emanate from lone offenders with racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist ideologies and [domestic violent extremists] with personalized ideologies,” specifically pointing to boogaloo-related groups as likely to be “instigating violence” at the protests.
The DHS said in a June 1 internal intelligence report seen by Reuters that “most of the violence appears to have been driven by opportunists.”
The Nation revealed a separate FBI document that said the bureau found “no intel indicating antifa involvement” in the May 31 protests in Washington.
Even though tangible evidence of antifa’s involvement is scant, as protests multiplied, rumors regarding the movement’s alleged role spread across social media. “What we have seen at ADL is that there has been misinformation that has suggested that antifa has been in places where there has not been any proof that they’ve been,” Segal said. This effort, he said, was “more coordinated it seems than antifa has been at actually being on the ground.”
A Twitter account that claimed to be run by antifa activists and called for violence at the protests was later linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa. A viral May 27 tweet, from a popular QAnon account, alleged that the protests were an effort by the “deep state” to “start a race war before the election,” arguing “antifa & BLM are domestic terrorist organizations that need to be STOPPED.” Conservative media outlets and prominent Twitter influencers, including Donald Trump Jr., amplified the theory that antifa was connected to the violence.
By May 29, there were almost 300,000 mentions of antifa on Twitter, according to an analysis by Zignal Labs, a media insights company. The next day, mentions reached nearly 1.5 million. An analysis of the Twitter accounts followed by the president, via Emerson T. Brooking of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, found that about 10 percent of his feed on May 30 suggested in some fashion or other that antifa is a terrorist organization. That day, Trump first blamed antifa for violence at the protests.
“There was a concerted effort by alt-right activists not just to conflate the protest with antifa, but to get antifa declared a terrorist organization by the president of the United States,” Brooking said. “We see that there was a coordinated, essentially, series of petitions, an online lobbying effort.”
By May 31, mentions on Twitter reached almost 3.9 million, search interest in “antifa” spiked and Trump tweeted that he would declare it a terrorist organization — although he has no authority to do so under the law.
“Search interest in antifa was so great, in fact, that it outweighed search interest in Black Lives Matter during these protests,” Brooking said.
The more antifa was discussed online, the more misinformation spread. Speculation that antifa activists planned to bus into small towns in Idaho and Wisconsin prompted the appearance of counterprotesters and armed militias. Trump tweeted the false conspiracy theory that Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old protester in Buffalo who was shoved by police and suffered serious injuries, was connected to antifa.
When the White House was asked for evidence of any antifa involvement, a senior administration official pointed the Fact Checker to statements by officials such as Barr and national security adviser Robert O’Brien that the administration had evidence. So far, however, the administration has not disclosed any such evidence.
The Pinocchio Test:
It is virtually impossible to account for the beliefs and motives of every person at every protest. And, consequently, virtually impossible to say that no one with antifa beliefs was involved in any violence.
But beliefs and orchestrating organized violence are not the same. There has not yet been a single confirmed case in which someone who self-identifies as antifa led violent acts at any of the protests across the country. The president and his administration have placed an outsize burden of blame on antifa, without waiting for arrest data and completed investigations.
This is not the first time Trump has pointed to antifa as a shadowy nemesis. But the misinformation created by his continued insistence of antifa’s involvement has led to more chaos and violence in an already turbulent moment. As always, the burden of proof rests with the speaker — and the administration has provided no evidence, only assertions that it has evidence.
The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.
Lying about everything is a way to condition us - to make us accept the premise that they can do anything they want ...
... so they can dictate reality to us.
Who caused the violence at protests?
It wasn’t antifa.
THE CLAIMS:
“The memory of George Floyd is being dishonored by rioters, looters and anarchists. The violence and vandalism is being led by antifa and other radical left-wing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting businesses and burning down buildings.”
— President Trump, in remarks at a SpaceX launch, May 30
“I don't see any indication that there were any white supremest groups mixing in. This is an ANTIFA Organization. It seems that the first time we saw it in a major way was Occupy Wall Street. It's the same mindset.” @kilmeade @foxandfriends TRUE!”
— Trump, in a tweet, June 1
“Our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists. Violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, antifa and others.”
— Trump, in remarks at the White House Rose Garden, June 1
“We have antifa, we have anarchists, we have terrorists, we have looters. We have a lot of bad people in those groups. I mean, you watch and you see.”
— Trump, in an interview, June 3
On May 30 — five days after George Floyd was killed and four after protests erupted across Minneapolis — President Trump first said antifa forces were behind the violence that swept across the country. He has repeated this claim nearly 20 times since. Online activists and prominent right-wing Twitter personalities promoted the theory. And the nation’s top law enforcement officials — including FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Attorney General William P. Barr — appeared to confirm it, echoing Trump’s claim.
The Fact Checker video team spoke to witnesses and reviewed arrest records, federal charges, intelligence reports, online conversations and dozens of videos and photos of violent incidents from the early days of protests in Minneapolis to determine whether a coordinated antifa campaign was responsible for the violence.
The Facts:
Antifa is a moniker, not a single group with a clear organizational structure or leader. It is a decentralized network of activists who don’t coordinate. Their common ground is opposing anything that they think is racist or fascist. In recent years, antifa activists appeared whenever there was a large gathering of white nationalists.
And white nationalists, as counterintuitive as it might seem, have been known to attend Black Lives Matter rallies. That is what could then draw attention from antifa forces, according to Seth G. Jones, director of the transnational threats project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at ADL, emphasized, “It’s a challenge [to identify antifa] because this is not an organized group. You’re essentially looking to try to identify what does somebody believe in.” Antifa has been identified by patches, flags, graffiti and black clothing, Segal explained. And at times, they can be identifiable by moving in “black bloc” formation. But, Segal hedged, looking to identify antifa by these visual cues is “not foolproof.”
Jones reviewed protests in more than 140 cities and spoke with U.S. officials within the joint terrorism task force. Most of the violence, Jones said, was committed by “local hooligans, sometimes gangs, sometimes just individuals that are trying to take advantage of an opportunity.”
“There were reports of some antifa at different protests,” he concluded. “But they stood back, did not engage, certainly not in a violent way.”
Officials have arrested more than 14,000 people across 49 cities nationwide since May 27, according to a Washington Post tally of data provided by police departments and included in media reports. Thousands were arrested for low-level offenses, including curfew violations and failure to disperse.
Roughly 80 federal charges, including murder and throwing molotov cocktails at police vehicles, reveal no evidence of an antifa plot. Four people who identify with the far-right extremist “boogaloo” movement are among those facing the most serious federal charges. Asked whether anyone who identifies as antifa had been charged, Department of Justice spokesman Matt Lloyd said via email, “We do not collect statistics based on potential inspiration but on unlawful acts according to statute.”
An intelligence bulletin issued by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center that was obtained by ABC News warned that “anarchist extremists continue to pose the most significant threat of targeted assaults against police.” The bulletin, which was distributed to police departments nationwide, mentions antifa only in a footnote differentiating those who self-identify with the group from anarchists.
Rather, the bulletin said that “the greatest threat of lethal violence continues to emanate from lone offenders with racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist ideologies and [domestic violent extremists] with personalized ideologies,” specifically pointing to boogaloo-related groups as likely to be “instigating violence” at the protests.
The DHS said in a June 1 internal intelligence report seen by Reuters that “most of the violence appears to have been driven by opportunists.”
The Nation revealed a separate FBI document that said the bureau found “no intel indicating antifa involvement” in the May 31 protests in Washington.
Even though tangible evidence of antifa’s involvement is scant, as protests multiplied, rumors regarding the movement’s alleged role spread across social media. “What we have seen at ADL is that there has been misinformation that has suggested that antifa has been in places where there has not been any proof that they’ve been,” Segal said. This effort, he said, was “more coordinated it seems than antifa has been at actually being on the ground.”
A Twitter account that claimed to be run by antifa activists and called for violence at the protests was later linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa. A viral May 27 tweet, from a popular QAnon account, alleged that the protests were an effort by the “deep state” to “start a race war before the election,” arguing “antifa & BLM are domestic terrorist organizations that need to be STOPPED.” Conservative media outlets and prominent Twitter influencers, including Donald Trump Jr., amplified the theory that antifa was connected to the violence.
By May 29, there were almost 300,000 mentions of antifa on Twitter, according to an analysis by Zignal Labs, a media insights company. The next day, mentions reached nearly 1.5 million. An analysis of the Twitter accounts followed by the president, via Emerson T. Brooking of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, found that about 10 percent of his feed on May 30 suggested in some fashion or other that antifa is a terrorist organization. That day, Trump first blamed antifa for violence at the protests.
“There was a concerted effort by alt-right activists not just to conflate the protest with antifa, but to get antifa declared a terrorist organization by the president of the United States,” Brooking said. “We see that there was a coordinated, essentially, series of petitions, an online lobbying effort.”
By May 31, mentions on Twitter reached almost 3.9 million, search interest in “antifa” spiked and Trump tweeted that he would declare it a terrorist organization — although he has no authority to do so under the law.
“Search interest in antifa was so great, in fact, that it outweighed search interest in Black Lives Matter during these protests,” Brooking said.
The more antifa was discussed online, the more misinformation spread. Speculation that antifa activists planned to bus into small towns in Idaho and Wisconsin prompted the appearance of counterprotesters and armed militias. Trump tweeted the false conspiracy theory that Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old protester in Buffalo who was shoved by police and suffered serious injuries, was connected to antifa.
When the White House was asked for evidence of any antifa involvement, a senior administration official pointed the Fact Checker to statements by officials such as Barr and national security adviser Robert O’Brien that the administration had evidence. So far, however, the administration has not disclosed any such evidence.
The Pinocchio Test:
It is virtually impossible to account for the beliefs and motives of every person at every protest. And, consequently, virtually impossible to say that no one with antifa beliefs was involved in any violence.
But beliefs and orchestrating organized violence are not the same. There has not yet been a single confirmed case in which someone who self-identifies as antifa led violent acts at any of the protests across the country. The president and his administration have placed an outsize burden of blame on antifa, without waiting for arrest data and completed investigations.
This is not the first time Trump has pointed to antifa as a shadowy nemesis. But the misinformation created by his continued insistence of antifa’s involvement has led to more chaos and violence in an already turbulent moment. As always, the burden of proof rests with the speaker — and the administration has provided no evidence, only assertions that it has evidence.
Trump earns Four Pinocchios.
This Week Last night
The American inmate population (2.2 million of us) comprises a patient cohort with some of the highest health risk in USAmerica Inc.
John Oliver
John Oliver
It's worth asking - "What the fuck are we doing?"
Jun 21, 2020
Today's Tweet
This is not what a man looks like right after making his "triumphant return to the campaign trail."
The walk of shame. pic.twitter.com/u0GRFnnKeY— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) June 21, 2020
That guy's looking for a dog to kick.
COVID-19 Update
Growth Rate for cases in the US is back up - 1.02 - which has meant that the number of deaths will increase pretty soon.
We can assume the medicos have figured out some good tricks (dexamethasone for one), but if the trend continues, then that won't much matter because there won't be enough beds for the sick.
Fizzle Muh-Shizzle
Cult45 loves to crow. "...expecting huge crowd for Tulsa blah blah blah".
oops
Forbes:
While President Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday was pitched as an over-subscribed event, with Trump campaign staffers touting ticket registrations over a million, the final turnout came to a fraction of the venue’s overall capacity, confirming reports of low turnout that dogged what was meant to be Trump’s triumphant return to the campaign trail.
NYT:
President Trump’s campaign promised huge crowds at his rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday, but it failed to deliver. Hundreds of teenage TikTok users and K-pop fans say they’re at least partially responsible.
Brad Parscale, the chairman of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, posted on Twitter on Monday that the campaign had fielded more than a million ticket requests, but reporters at the event noted the attendance was lower than expected. The campaign also canceled planned events outside the rally for an anticipated overflow crowd that did not materialize.
Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said protesters stopped supporters from entering the rally, held at the BOK Center, which has a 19,000-seat capacity. Reporters present said there were few protests.
TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music groups claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Mr. Trump’s campaign rally as a prank. After the Trump campaign’s official account @TeamTrump posted a tweet asking supporters to register for free tickets using their phones on June 11, K-pop fan accounts began sharing the information with followers, encouraging them to register for the rally — and then not show.
Forbes:
While President Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday was pitched as an over-subscribed event, with Trump campaign staffers touting ticket registrations over a million, the final turnout came to a fraction of the venue’s overall capacity, confirming reports of low turnout that dogged what was meant to be Trump’s triumphant return to the campaign trail.
- The Trump campaign set expectations high for the rally, announcing that they had received more than a million ticket requests, despite the venue, the BOK Center, seating just 19,200.
- Anticipating high turnout that would exceed that capacity, the campaign planned a second, outdoor speech to address the crowd in the overflow section.
- But those hopes quickly evaporated on the evening of the rally, with reporters tweeting photos of the rally showing huge swaths of empty seats in the stadium.
- The campaign ended up cancelling the second speech to the overflow section, with Communications Director Tim Murtaugh blaming the low turnout on the media and protesters, who he claimed blocked access to the entrance despite reports that nobody was turned away from the rally.
- Andrew Little, the Public Information Officer for the Tulsa Fire Department, confirmed to Forbes on Sunday that a tally taken by the fire marshal clocked the turnout at just under 6,200 people, far fewer attendees than the campaign expected.
NYT:
President Trump’s campaign promised huge crowds at his rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday, but it failed to deliver. Hundreds of teenage TikTok users and K-pop fans say they’re at least partially responsible.
Brad Parscale, the chairman of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, posted on Twitter on Monday that the campaign had fielded more than a million ticket requests, but reporters at the event noted the attendance was lower than expected. The campaign also canceled planned events outside the rally for an anticipated overflow crowd that did not materialize.
Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said protesters stopped supporters from entering the rally, held at the BOK Center, which has a 19,000-seat capacity. Reporters present said there were few protests.
TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music groups claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Mr. Trump’s campaign rally as a prank. After the Trump campaign’s official account @TeamTrump posted a tweet asking supporters to register for free tickets using their phones on June 11, K-pop fan accounts began sharing the information with followers, encouraging them to register for the rally — and then not show.
Live by the hack. Die by the hack.
But going back to the real point - the venue was less than a third full, and that is not dependent on anybody's efforts to prank 45*. That's all about people just not showing up.
Of course, the Trump Campaign blamed it on the protesters - a repeat of the bullshit they floated in 2016 when a rally in Chicago fizzled and they blamed protesters there.
Just like "conservatives" are always playing the victim when people call them out for the shit they peddle.
Today's Today
More than a hundred years ago, and holy crap how things have not changed:
My father knows the proper way
The nation should be run;
He tells us children every day
Just what should now be done.
He knows the way to fix the trusts,
He has a simple plan;
But if the furnace needs repairs,
We have to hire a man.
My father, in a day or two
Could land big thieves in jail;
There's nothing that he cannot do,
He knows no word like "fail."
"Our confidence" he would restore,
Of that there is no doubt;
But if there is a chair to mend,
We have to send it out.
All public questions that arise,
He settles on the spot;
He waits not till the tumult dies,
But grabs it while it's hot.
In matters of finance he can
Tell Congress what to do;
But, O, he finds it hard to meet
His bills as they fall due.
It almost makes him sick to read
The things law-makers say;
Why, father's just the man they need,
He never goes astray.
All wars he'd very quickly end,
As fast as I can write it;
But when a neighbor starts a fuss,
'Tis mother has to fight it.
In conversation father can
Do many wondrous things;
He's built upon a wiser plan
Than presidents or kings.
He knows the ins and outs of each
And every deep transaction;
We look to him for theories,
But look to ma for action.
Jun 20, 2020
Today's Tweet
If they'd just spend half the time and energy working on stuff that makes it better, that they spend on ignoring and denying the stuff that makes it worse.
Six members of Trump’s Tulsa Advance Team have tested positive for the Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/Ebvnf5poGv— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) June 20, 2020
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