What A Dweeb

Words Matter

Violence erupted in Minneapolis-St. Paul as protestors continued demonstrations following the death of George Floyd as a result of a police officer subduing him with his knee pressed against the neck of Floyd as the man begged for air

President Trump, who previously called the video of Mr. Floyd’s death “shocking,” later called the protesters “thugs” on Twitter and said that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” prompting the social media network to attach a warning to the tweet, saying that it violated the company’s rules about “glorifying violence.”

The company prevented users from viewing Mr. Trump’s message without first reading a brief notice describing the rule violation. Twitter also blocked users from liking or replying to Mr. Trump’s post. But Twitter did not take the message down, saying it was in the public interest for the president’s words remain accessible.

This morning, the official White House Twitter account posted a tweet that copied the words of Mr. Trump’s earlier post. The White House post was also flagged by Twitter for violating its policies.

Haha Trump.  You cannot side-step around your call for violence.

The death of Mr. Floyd is no laughing matter. For police trainers and criminologists, the episode is a textbook case of why many police departments across the country have sought to outright ban or limit the use of chokeholds or other neck restraints in recent years: The practices have too often turned fatal. Department records indicate, however, that the Minneapolis police have not entirely abandoned the use of neck restraints, even if the method used by the police officer is no longer part of police training. The Minneapolis Police Department’s manual states that neck restraints and chokeholds are basically reserved only for when an officer is caught in a life-or-death situation. There was no such apparent threat during Mr. Floyd’s detention.

A Petulant Child

Ahead of President Donald Trump's trip to a Ford Motor plant in Ypsilanti on May 21, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel wrote him a letter outlining the rules for visiting her state: Masks are required.

Trump, who has consistently flouted his own government's recommendation that face coverings be worn in public settings, wore a mask for the private portion of his Ford tour but took it off for the public event in front of cameras, despite the Ford facility's own mask requirement.

Frustrated, Nessel did something that caught the president's attention: She compared him to "a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules" on CNN.

Trump responded by trashing her in a pair of tweets, calling her the "Wacky Do Nothing Attorney General of Michigan, Dana Nessel" — to which she responded, in part, that she was "impressed" he knew her name, a nod to Trump's habit of bashing Governor Whitmer as "that woman from Michigan" and his attack on Michigan's elections chief, Jocelyn Benson, as an unnamed "rogue Secretary of State."

"I was infuriated and exasperated, because I know that for every person who goes into a place of business where they're told to wear a mask, and they see the president not wearing one, their reaction is going to be, 'The president of the United States doesn't have to wear one. Why should I?'" she said Friday of Trump's Ford visit. "This isn't funny, these are people's lives."

In an interview, she listed all the ways he's made it more difficult for her and her colleagues to battle the COVID-19 outbreak, such as encouraging protesters who opposed the governor's lockdown to take to the streets and threatening to withhold funding over the state's efforts to expand vote-by-mail.

"I'm tired of having to pretend that something isn't very wrong with the man that is our president," she said. "I never thought I'd be in a Twitter war with the president of the United States, but I never thought we'd have a president of the United States quite like Donald Trump."

--  NBC News

Inspector General

The News-Gazette     05/21/2020

Pompeo has continued to refuse to provide any specific explanation for why he wanted Linick fired, other than to say he wasn’t acting the way the State Department wanted him to. Inspectors general by law are supposed to be independent watchdogs of the agencies they monitor.

Yard Sign

Prairie Meadow Drive

Obamagate

Trump accused the former president of committing the “biggest political crime in American history.”

So what exact crime is Trump accusing Obama of committing?

The president himself does not seem to know. “Obamagate,” he ruminated in the White House rose garden on Monday. “It’s been going on for a long time. It’s been going on from before I even got elected. And it’s a disgrace that it happened.”

Asked by a Washington Post reporter for the second time to name Obama’s exact offence, Trump replied cryptically: “You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.”

Clear as mud, then.

Over the weekend, Obama said “It has been an absolute chaotic disaster” when asked how Trump has handled the pandemic crisis.