James.galbraith

Prosecutors were investigating Friday after a video captured police in Buffalo shoving a 75-year-old man who then fell and cracked his head, a confrontation that resulted in the suspension of two officers.

Video from public radio station WBFO of Thursday night’s encounter, which happened near the conclusion of protests over the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, quickly sparked outrage.

It shows a man identified as Martin Gugino approaching a line of helmeted officers holding batons as they clear demonstrators from Niagara Square around the time of an 8 p.m. curfew. Two officers push Gugino backward, and he hits his head on the pavement. Blood spills as officers walk past. One officer leans down to check on the injured man before he is urged along by another officer. Gugino and the officers all appear to be white, but details of their backgrounds were not released.

“Why? Why was that necessary? Where was the threat?” asked Gov. Andrew Cuomo at his daily briefing Friday. The governor said he spoke to Gugino, who had been hospitalized in serious condition. “It’s just fundamentally offensive and frightening. How did we get to this place?"

A hospital official said the man was “alert and oriented,” according to a Friday morning tweet by Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

“Let’s hope he fully recovers,” Poloncarz said.

The video immediately generated outrage, including among elected officials, in the wake of the death of Floyd — a black man who died after a white police officer pressed a knee on his neck for several minutes.

The police commissioner suspended two police officers without pay, said Mayor Byron Brown. Police officials were expected to provide more information at a news conference on Friday afternoon.

The district attorney's office “continues to investigate the incident," officials said in a news release, but the victim could not talk to investigators Thursday night.

Gugino is a veteran peace activist involved with the Western New York Peace Center and Latin American Solidarity Committee, said Vicki Ross, the center’s executive director. His Twitter timeline includes tweets and retweets supportive of progressive causes and critical of police. One tweet from Wednesday read: “The cops should not have clubs. And should not be in riot gear. The National Guard should arrest the police.”

“I can assure you, Martin is a peaceable person,” Ross said. “There is no way that he was doing anything to accost or hurt. He made a judgment to stay out after the curfew because he feels that our civil liberties are so in danger, which they most certainly are.”

Ross said Gugino has been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.

Buffalo police initially said in a statement that a person “was injured when he tripped & fell,” WIVB-TV reported, but Capt. Jeff Rinaldo later told the TV station an internal investigation was opened.

“When I saw the video, certainly, it was incredibly distressing and very disappointing. You don't want to see anything like that,” Brown, the mayor, told WIVB-TV on Friday.

The office of state Attorney General Letitia James tweeted that officials there were aware of the video. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer called for an investigation, according to a statement reported by WIVB-TV.

“The casual cruelty demonstrated by Buffalo police officers tonight is gut-wrenching and unacceptable,” John Curr, the Buffalo chapter director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement, adding that it should be a “wake-up call” for city leaders to address police violence.

Why journalists publicly revolted against a senator’s op-ed calling on Trump to “send in the troops” — a backlash culminating in the opinion editor’s resignation.

Update, June 7: On Sunday, New York Times opinion editor James Bennet resigned from his post. “Last week, we saw a significant breakdown in our editing processes, not the first we’ve experienced in recent years,” publisher A.G. Sulzberger wrote in an email to the Times’s employees. “James and I agreed that it would take a new team to lead the department through a period of considerable change.” James Dao, the editor under Bennet directly responsible for the Cotton op-ed, is being transferred to a different role.

The following piece, originally published on Friday, explains the context for this resignation. The precipitating event was the opinion section’s publication of an inflammatory op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) calling for the deployment of US military to protest hot spots in the name of quelling “riots” — a piece that touched off a revolt within the Times newsroom. It was later reported that the Times’s opinion section had in fact reached out to Cotton and, to make matters worse, Bennet had not read the piece prior to publication.

But the Cotton saga was just the latest flare-up in a tenure marked by deep tensions between Bennet and Times staff — tensions revealed by Vox interviews with Times staff and explained below.

This week, the New York Times staff revolted against its editors.

The inciting incident was the decision to publish an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) titled “Send In the Troops.” Claiming that “rioters have plunged many American cities into anarchy,” Cotton argued that soldiers should be sent as “backup” for the police to end the violence.

“One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers,” the senator wrote.

Shortly after the column’s publication on Wednesday evening, a number of Times staffers began tweeting a screenshot of the piece’s headline captioned with the same phrase: “Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.” Dozens of Times staff members sent out variants over the course of the evening, with black staffers taking the lead; many non-Times journalists tweeted the same message in solidarity.

James Bennet, the editor of the opinion section, wrote a Twitter thread explaining the decision to run the op-ed, but it wasn’t enough for many Times staffers (Bennet later admitted he hadn’t read the piece pre-publication). The complaints from Times staffers continued to roll in on Thursday; several used a sick day to take the day off in protest, and many staged a virtual walkout.

Late on Thursday, the Times issued a statement apologizing for the decision — blaming a “rushed editorial process” for an op-ed that “did not meet our standards.” The paper vowed to reduce the number of op-eds going forward and step up its fact-checking process. And at a Friday meeting, Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger unequivocally denounced the piece, saying it “should not have been published.”

One narrative of these events, circulated most prominently by staff editor Bari Weiss in a Thursday tweet thread, cast the conflict in ideological terms: an internal war between free speech advocates and young social justice warriors. But Weiss’s characterization was widely rejected by her colleagues; several Times reporters I spoke to, all of whom asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, cited professional concerns as the reason for the public disagreement. (Times representatives did not respond to my request for comment.)

They argued that elements of Bennet’s op-ed page — including Weiss, deputy editor James Dao (who oversaw the Cotton piece), and columnist Bret Stephens — have elevated trolling the Times’s liberal readership into a kind of raison d’être, one that has led to the publication of poor-quality material and damaged the ability of other staffers to do their jobs.

“Does op-ed care at all about how its actions affect the newsroom whose legitimacy and sweat it trades on in order to sling hot takes? It’s not clear that they do,” one Times staffer told me.

This internal staff conflict, insular as it may seem to outsiders, speaks to a fundamental question not only about the Times but all of mainstream journalism.

It’s not a debate about whether the Times should have conservative voices at all. The op-ed page employs Ross Douthat and David Brooks as staff columnists and regularly publishes outside contributions by Republicans and conservative thinkers, mostly without serious controversy.

Rather, it’s a question of how journalists should think about their roles as guardians of mainstream discourse. Does every idea that’s popular in power, no matter how poorly considered, deserve some kind of respectful airing in mainstream publications? Or are there boundaries, both of quality of argument and moral decency, where editors need to draw the line — especially in the Trump era?

Why the Cotton op-ed was such a flashpoint

Broadly speaking, traditional newspapers like the Times draw pretty strict distinctions between their news and opinion sections: separate editors, separate contributors, separate missions. These lines are fuzzy intellectually — sometimes news writers analyze news in a way that reads like opinion, sometimes columnists break previously unreported news — but taken very seriously institutionally. The idea is for reporters to appear unbiased and unattached to the provocative opinions expressed by their opinion colleagues, the editorial board (which writes unsigned opinion articles), and the outside contributors they publish.

After James Bennet was hired to lead the Times opinion section, he made it clear that part of his mission would be challenging the Times’s mostly liberal readership with views they don’t agree with. This is a point he’s been explicit on throughout his tenure.

“We owe our readers an honest struggle over the right paths ahead, not a pretense that we’re in possession of God’s own map,” he wrote in a 2018 memo. “That means being willing to challenge our own assumptions; it means being open to counter-arguments even as we advance our own convictions; it means listening to voices that we may object to and even sometimes find obnoxious, provided they meet the same tests of intellectual honesty, respect for others and openness.”

In practice, however, Bennet’s approach to this goal has frustrated not only Times readers but some Times reporters and editors, who believe he’s pushed out low-quality articles on hot-button issues in the name of listening to “obnoxious” views.

The Cotton op-ed provoked such a strong backlash not only because of the incredibly high stakes of the argument for staffers — especially black ones — but also because it crystallized this internal critique of Bennet’s tenure.

The core thesis of Cotton’s argument is that American streets were beset by an “orgy of violence” that “has nothing to do with George Floyd.” Rather, “nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction” — and must be put down by an overwhelming show of force by the US military, as local police are simply not up to the task.

Cotton provides no hard evidence that the rioting has overwhelmed local police; the best reporting suggests the looting is significantly less devastating than the 1992 LA riots (the last time the military was called in to restore order). Cotton asserts that deploying the military would calm the situation, but he does not make any clear argument as to why this would be the case.

In fact, we have good reason to believe that more militarized displays of force from police tend to turn peaceful protests violent. It’s entirely possible the military would make things worse.

This is the meaning of the protest that “running this op-ed puts black New York Times reporters in danger”: If Trump were to send in the troops, it could lead to harm to Times reporters who are covering protests or merely walking near them while black.

Only one line in the piece acknowledges that the protests are primarily peaceful — “a majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants” — and there is no acknowledgment that governors and mayors don’t actually want the military deployed. It’s not clear, reading Cotton’s argument, how the military could distinguish between “peaceful protesters” and “looters.” It comes across as a call to put down the largely peaceful racial justice demonstrations by force, over the objections of local authorities.

It also contained a significant factual distortion. Cotton argued that “cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa” were “infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.” There’s vanishingly little public evidence to support the idea that this is a large-scale problem. A May 31 FBI report from the Washington field office found “no intelligence indicating Antifa involvement/presence” in looting. The Times itself reported that claims of widescale antifa involvement in the violence are, by one metric, “the biggest piece of protest misinformation” currently spreading in reports on the protests.

The problem with the piece wasn’t just its call for potentially deadly use of force, though that was part of it — it’s that it was bad journalism.

“We are well served by robust and ideologically diverse public discourse that includes radical, liberal, and conservative voices,” tweeted Roxane Gay, a Times writer and public intellectual who writes about social issues. “[Cotton’s piece] is not that. His piece was inflammatory and endorsing military occupation as if the constitution doesn’t exist.”

The bigger context for the Times revolt

Since Donald Trump’s election, there have been running discussions in every mainstream media organization about how to cover a man who openly treats them as the enemy. At the same time, subscribing to a paper like the Times has become a kind of performance of resistance for liberal Americans (who can then threaten to unsubscribe from the paper when it publishes a provocative op-ed in Bennet’s section).

There’s a subtle interplay at work between the need to cover the president fairly despite his anti-media tirades, the generally left-leaning tilt of journalists themselves, and the need to hold onto subscriptions in an era where advertising is an increasingly unstable source of revenue.

All of these factors play into the way the Times in general has approached covering Trump and the Republican party he dominates. In this case, many Times staff members believe that Bennet’s attempts to serve as a counterweight to the anti-Trump and anti-Republican incentives have become too heavy-handed. In their view, the Times op-ed section had elevated the provocation of its liberal readers into a value — that the newspaper has been willing to publish even badly argued pieces so long as they’re sufficiently abrasive to a liberal audience, in ways that actively damage the rest of the paper.

Bennet’s 2017 decision to hire Stephens, then a Wall Street Journal scribe who had once written about “the disease of the Arab mind,” is a paradigmatic case. From Stephens’s very first Times column, widely criticized for distorting climate science, to his March 2020 piece about how Woody Allen was a misunderstood victim of cancel culture, he embodied an ethos of “owning the libs” at any cost that much of the newsroom found galling.

Weiss is a similar recent hire. She has a penchant for writing right-leaning culture war pieces, including popularizing the term “intellectual dark web” to describe a group of online writers who challenge liberal nostrums around race and gender. But her writing has also contained analytic sloppiness and factual errors. For example, in a 2018 column on antifa and the left’s purported hostility to free speech, she cited a fake Twitter account claiming to represent the movement. In another column, she misinterpreted the colloquial meaning of the word “owns” in a tweet by a socialist podcast host to accuse him of anti-Semitism.

If the op-ed section were really as siloed from news in practice as it is in theory, this might be a more containable problem. However, the Times’s reputation is a holistic thing — opinion pieces do affect the way people see the paper, and that affects the ability of reporters and editors to do their jobs. (There is also a fair amount of staff movement between the two sides.)

The fallout from the Cotton piece makes the issue clear. Marc Tracy, a media reporter at the Times, spoke with three reporters who say that sources would not talk to them after the opinion’s publication. Freelance journalist Kara Brown turned down an assignment out of frustration with the Cotton piece:

The fact that a certain element of the opinion section was not only publishing bad work, but bad work that had this kind of adverse consequences for other staffers, crystallized the long-running frustrations with Bennet’s tenure as opinion leader — prompting the public revolt.

“Internal NYT Slack [a workplace messaging app] was burning up overnight with pretty close to universal outrage at the op-ed and a lot of clearly pent-up frustration with the op-ed side more generally,” a Times staffer told me. “But obviously a lot of people on the op-ed site, especially editors who are people of color, [are] also publicly rebuking the decision to publish it.”

This isn’t a purely ideological issue. It’s a question of professional respect and thoughtfulness about how two sections can work together while still following through on their core missions.

What is the Times revolt really about?

If you don’t have all of this context, it’s easy to see this fight as being some kind of ideological proxy war. You could imagine this as a story of overly woke social justice warriors on the Times staff fighting to suppress the publication of views that they find dangerous, opposed by older staff who understand the importance of free expression and hearing competing views.

Indeed, that’s how Weiss cast it in a tweetstorm sent during a meeting of the site’s op-ed staff:

It’s easy to understand where Weiss is coming from here ideologically, especially given the prominence of somewhat oblique complaints about putting black staffers in danger in the public discourse surrounding the op-ed. The interpretation, as she says in the thread, pretty neatly confirms her prior beliefs about the dynamics of public life in the era of “woke” politics.

But that doesn’t make it right.

“I am in the same meeting that Bari appears to be livetweeting. This [is] inaccurate in both characterizations,” Max Strasser, an opinion editor, tweeted. “It’s not a civil war, it’s an editorial conversation; and it’s not breaking down along generational lines.”

After Weiss’s tweetstorm, Twitter exploded with Times reporters and opinion writers accusing her of inaccurately describing the internal conversation surrounding these issues.

My own conversations with Times staffers gave the same perception: Weiss seemed to be ginning up this “controversy” largely out of thin air. In Times discussions on Slack, its main work communication tool, the staff appeared largely unified around opposition to publishing the op-ed.

“I’ve seen way over a hundred people posting comments, into the hundreds if you count people posting supportive Slack response emojis, and not one person pushing back,” said one Times staffer. “The idea of a big divide or internal argument just has no basis that I’m at all aware of.”

The brass seem to have sided with the non-Weiss newsroom. Sulzberger apologized for the piece in Friday’s company meeting, as did Bennet. “I’m very sorry for the pain this piece has caused. ... I’m responsible for this,” Bennet said. “We need to interrogate everything [about the op-ed section].”

That’s certainly a productive first step, from the perspective of the Times’s aggrieved workforce. So, too, were Bennet’s comments rebuking Weiss’s tweet thread, saying he “felt betrayed” by the bad judgment.

But while Weiss may have the narrative wrong, that doesn’t mean there aren’t profound ideological questions surrounding the decision to publish the Cotton op-ed.

The best description of the issue I’ve seen is from Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg. In her Friday piece, Goldberg argues that there might have been some value in publishing the piece — not enough to justify its publication, but still some. Cotton’s argument is so abhorrent, so poorly reasoned, that it sheds real light on who currently wields power in the United States:

When I first saw the Cotton Op-Ed I wasn’t as horrified as perhaps I should have been; I figured he’d helpfully revealed himself as a dangerous authoritarian. But as I’ve seen my colleagues’ anguished reaction, I’ve started to doubt my debating-club approach to the question of when to air proto-fascist opinions...

It’s important to understand what the people around the president are thinking. But if they’re honest about what they’re thinking, it’s usually too disgusting to engage with. This creates a crisis for traditional understandings of how the so-called marketplace of ideas functions. It’s a subsidiary of the crisis that has the country on fire.

It’s not wrong to write about Cotton’s view or engage with it in some way. It’s actually vital that liberal audiences understand the nature of the modern conservative movement, the degree to which reactionary and authoritarian racial politics occupy its center rather than its margins.

But commissioning an op-ed from the loudest proponent of this view — the Times reached out to Cotton, not vice-versa — does not put the views in proper context. It seems to serve more as a way of shocking readers, of trolling them, rather than informing them. It’s the characteristic problem of the Bennet era, emerging at one of the worst possible times.

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All 57 members of the Buffalo Police Emergency Response Team have resigned from the unit, in support of two colleagues who were suspended for assaulting an elderly man during a protest over the murder of George Floyd.

“Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders,” said John Evans, president of the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association. 

WGRZ-TV reports: The announcement comes one day after two members were suspended without pay when a video surfaced, showing them pushing over a 75-year-old protestor, causing injury. … The special response unit was formed in 2016 and is deployed to manage mass protests or riots. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz was unaware of the most recent development of ERT members resigning their posts. He says the New York State Police are bringing in more Troopers to assist Buffalo. 

More from WKBW-TV: The 57 officers have not resigned from the department and will keep their jobs, they have only resigned from their roles on the Emergency Response Team. A Buffalo PBA representative tells 7 Eyewitness News anchor Hannah Buehler “these officers were simply following orders given by DPC Joe Gramaglia to clear the Square.” … In addition to the suspension, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn’s office is also investigating the incident and will determine whether the two suspended officers will be charged.

The Washington Post reports: The 75-year-old man, identified as Martin Gugino by the group People United for Sustainable Housing Buffalo, was taken to a hospital after his fall and was in “stable but serious condition,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said. Buffalo police spokesman Capt. Jeff Rinaldo said he believes the man’s injuries include a laceration and “possible concussion,” while Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said it was a “serious head injury.” Buffalo Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood launched an internal affairs investigation into the officers after seeing the video, Rinaldo said. He declined to identify the officers who were suspended without pay.

The post 57 Buffalo Police Officers Resign From Special Unit in Support of Colleagues Who Assaulted Elderly Man appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Those who choose to hook up during the coronavirus pandemic should wear masks during sexual activity — and avoid kissing, oral-to-anal acts, and anything that involves direct contact with semen or urine, according to a new study.

The study, published recently in the Annals of Internal Medicine, also recommends showering both before and after sex, and cleaning the space used with alcohol wipes or soap.

In recent months, many health experts have advised against having sex with anyone outside your household during the coronavirus pandemic. However, the authors of the study acknowledge that abstinence may not be “an achievable goal” for everyone, including some in the LGBT community.

“Messaging around sex being dangerous may have insidious psychological effects at a time when people are especially susceptible to mental health difficulties,” the researchers write in an abstract. “Some groups, including sexual and gender minority (SGM) communities, may be particularly vulnerable to sexual stigma, given the historical trauma of other pandemics, such as AIDS. Abstinence recommendations may conjure memories of the widespread stigmatization of SGM people during the AIDS crisis. For the population at large, a recommendation of long-term sexual abstinence is unlikely to be effective, given the well-documented failures of abstinence-based public health interventions and their likelihood to promote shame.”

The researchers acknowledge that all forms of in-person sexual contact likely carry a risk for contracting COVID-19, given that the virus is transmitted through respiratory secretions, spreads in aerosolized particles, and can be present on the skin and objects. In addition, research has found that semen, urine and stool are potentially infectious.

The study lists abstinence, masturbation and cybersex as the safest forms of sexual activity during the coronavirus pandemic. Even sex with a co-habitating partner carries some risk, given that they could contract the virus outside the home and/or be asymptomatic.

The researchers suggest that antibody testing may ultimately play a key role in safe-sex practices in the age of COVID-19, just as with the HIV epidemic.

“Though we currently lack data on how long such immunity may last, those who test positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies could have relative immunity to the virus,” they write. “This may allow for the serosorting of individuals for sexual activity, with those testing positive for anti–SARS-CoV-2 antibodies presumed safe to engage in sex together with regard to SARS-CoV-2 transmission, if not for HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. Further research is needed to know if this will be an effective strategy.”

The post Here’s How to Hook Up As Safely As Possible During the Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), an affiliate of Black Lives Matter, spent tens of thousands of dollars producing cloth masks imprinted with "Stop killing Black people" and "Defund police" to provide to protesters around the country, masks that were seized by law enforcement before they even left the post office, HuffPost reports. The Oakland-based organization received a notice from the U.S. Postal Service that its first four shipments of 500 masks each—bound for Washington, St. Louis, New York City, and Minneapolis—had been seized.

"I have shipped a lot of stuff before," Rene Quinonez of Movement Ink, which produced the masks, said. "It's an inside joke that I'm always shipping a ton of stuff, usually next-day or two-day and paying some ridiculous fees. […] These guys [the postal service] know that I ship apparel," Quinonez said. "There was nothing out of the ordinary." So why was this shipment immediately seized? "I just don't understand it. It's just really blowing my mind," he said, wondering if he's under surveillance by law enforcement. He almost undoubtedly is, because BLM has been since the Ferguson protests during the Obama administration.

Support organizations that are fighting for Black lives and racial justice.

The Department of Homeland Security started monitoring the organization in August 2014 after the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the murder of Michael Brown. A freedom of information request revealed that DHS was monitoring social media of BLM and mapped and collected information on planned events and protests by monitoring social media accounts associated with BLM. That included "Google maps and live updates tracking, minute-by-minute, the movements of participants in an April 2015 #BlackLivesMatter protest in Washington, D.C." Documents obtained by The Intercept in 2018 showed that the FBI "tracked the movements of an activist flying in from New York, and appear to have surveilled the homes and cars of individuals somehow tied to the protests." And that was before Donald Trump was in the White House and William Barr took over at the Justice Department.

To be clear, we don't know what law enforcement agency seized M4BL's masks. But you can be damned sure that the BLM-monitoring by law enforcement hasn't been curtailed in the Trump administration. The United States Postal Inspection Service has not yet responded to requests for more information from the press. All that M4BL and Movement Ink know is that the tracking numbers associated with their shipments say "Seized by Law Enforcement."

"Police have rioted coast to coast, beating and gassing protesters who have called for an end to police violence, with the explicit approval of President Trump,” Chelsea Fuller, a spokesperson for the M4BL," said in a statement to HuffPost. "Now, it appears they want to ensure that people who protest are susceptible to the same deadly pandemic that they have failed miserably at stopping. […] The continued surveillance and disruption of social movements under this administration is as chilling as it is dangerous. It should be roundly condemned."

Movement Ink has been in business since 2009, and touts its background in "organizing, violence prevention and youth advocacy work [and] investment in impacting and contributing to our community." Quinonez told HuffPost that he and his family stayed up late producing the masks that were seized. "We’re tired, but we're going to try to rally some support and figure out how to replace these masks and how to support the movement," he said. "This isn't a weapon. It's more about safety. We're trying to figure out how to keep our community safe."

Fuck the police. Black lives matter.

As police rampage across the country (here, here, here, here, here, and this endless thread (at around 300 incidents and counting), the old Vietnam War adage of “winning hearts and minds” comes to mind—and how police are doing the exact opposite. The immediate result is physical pain, emotional hurt, and endless outrage at the gross violations of civil rights, human rights, and just basic common decency. But there is a silver lining: Captured on camera, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for people to ignore the sorry state of American race relations. And as a result, support for Black Lives Matter continues to grow.  

When we first publicly rolled out our Black Lives Matter tracking poll on Wednesday, support stood at 49%, opposition at 24%, and the “meh” response was at 25%. Now opposition remains at around the same level, but more of the “meh” has shifted to support. 

White support has gone from 41% on Wednesday to 44% today, continuing to inch closer to outright majority support. 

At this point, only three in 10 white Americans outright oppose Black Lives Matter—and you can guess who those people are. Among all Americans, only a quarter now oppose it. They’re called “Republicans.”

Then again, the fact that only a little over half of Republicans outright oppose Black Lives Matter is progress, right? 

For completeness, here’s Democrats, clicking in at 85% support, 3% oppose.

And independents, who have driven most of the movement, are now up to 52-23 support from 37-30 before the protests began. 

Police are losing sympathy by the day, support for the movement grows, and of course, the #BunkerBaby is hitching himself to the wrong wagon, desperately looking for a white backlash that just isn’t happening. 

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Also he has way more than the standard 6 ribs per skeleton!

In April 2019, Housing and Urban Development Sec. Ben Carson went in front of legislators to try to debunk reports that the Trump administration had been denying government-insured home loans to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, claiming: “No one was aware of any changes that had been made to the policy whatsoever. I’m sure we have plenty of DACA recipients who have [Federal Housing Administration]-backed loans.”

That—in a long tradition of Trump administration officials appearing under oath before federal lawmakers—was a lie. BuzzFeed News reports that emails obtained by watchdog group Democracy Forward through the Freedom of Information Act show HUD “made a specific internal decision by August 2018” to block DACA recipients from these loans. “That decision was communicated to staff during an internal credit policy conference call on Aug. 30, 2018,” the report said.

BuzzFeed News had reported in late 2018 that DACA recipients and their advocates said they were being denied loans after having been eligible in previous years. “People working with DACA recipients on housing say they have noticed the change in guidance in the year since President Donald Trump unsuccessfully moved to rescind the program, which protects people who were brought to the US illegally as children from deportation,” the report said at the time.

But appearing before Congress in 2019, Carson pushed back on the report, claiming: “I asked around after I read that story,” and BuzzFeed reporting at the time that Carson “added that it would ‘surprise’ him if DACA recipients were being turned down.” 

Well, surprise. “The newly obtained emails show that HUD officials were telling lenders not to approve FHA-backed loans from at least early 2018,” BuzzFeed now reports, “and that they had made a specific decision by that August to use an employment authorization category that only applies to DACA recipients to justify excluding them, though it’s not clear why that category was considered disqualifying.” This isn’t the first time administration officials have made a deliberate decision to single out DACA recipients just to be hateful assholes.

Earlier this year, Education Sec. Betsy DeVos blocked DACA recipients and other undocumented students from billions in emergency funds that the department received to assist students just like them with expenses ranging from child care to housing during the novel coronavirus pandemic. In letters calling on her to reverse the move, legislators said there was nothing in the law that blocked them from relief, writing it in fact “establishes broad flexibility to each institution of higher education to meet the unique needs of their students.”

So far, there appears to be no response from Carson or other HUD officials on this latest report. BuzzFeed News said Democracy Forward is expected to issue a letter on Friday “calling for HUD Inspector General Rae Oliver Davis to open an investigation into whether the agency violated federal law by changing its policy without allowing for a public notice and comment period and by failing to disclose the change to Congress and the public.”

There should also be an investigation into Carson’s claims before Congress. We can be certain nothing will happen to him, like the many other Trump loyalists who have lied under oath to legislators. He’ll keep his job, like he kept it after the Government Accountability Office told lawmakers last year that HUD broke the law when it spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy new furniture and a dishwasher for his office. But it should still be important to demand accountability from liars, because that kind of stuff is still important—at least to some of us.

Three “Boogaloo Bois” had big plans for Saturday in Las Vegas. They stopped off at a gas station en route to an anti-police protest over the death of George Floyd, and filled up a gas can. They had begun making the Molotov cocktails they intended to launch into the crowd of protesters when they suddenly found themselves surrounded and arrested.

The men, all with military backgrounds and a devotion to far-right “Boogaloo” memes, were charged Wednesday by federal authorities with plotting to attack the protest in order to further their hope for a civil/race war, Nevada U.S. Attorney Nicholas Trutanich announced.

“Violent instigators have hijacked peaceful protests and demonstrations across the country, including Nevada, exploiting the real and legitimate outrage over Mr. Floyd’s death for their own radical agendas,” Trutanich said. “Law enforcement is focused on keeping violence and destruction from interfering with free public expression and threatening lives.”

The men—Stephen T. Parshall, 35, a former Navy enlistee; Andrew T. Lynam Jr., 23, an Army reservist; and William L. Loomis, 40, a former Air Force enlistee—are being held on $1 million bond each in the Clark County jail, according to court records. Parshall and Loomis are from Las Vegas while Lynam hails from suburban Henderson.

The arrests are further evidence that far-right extremists are working overtime to heighten racial tensions and encourage a race war by infiltrating and working in the background of the Floyd protests to wreak havoc.

The incident is also the latest in a series of situations in which these Boogaloo Bois have been arrested to prevent them from committing planned acts of mass violence. In Colorado, a white man planning to attend an anti-pandemic-orders protest was found to have built an arsenal of pipe bombs in his home. In Ohio, a white man who wanted to ambush police at a national park and livestream it on Facebook was arrested by the FBI. In Tennessee, a Black man carrying an AR-15 to a planned Chattanooga police protest June 2 was arrested en route to a demonstration; he had posted on Facebook about his enthusiasm for the Boogaloo as an opportunity for Black militants.

The three Las Vegas men appear to have been dedicated white nationalists. A report by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) found that all three had participated in far-right Boogaloo pages; Parshall’s Facebook profile includes “multiple photos associated with white supremacist ideologies, such as a swastika, the Confederate flag, and the flag of ‘kekistan,’” while his profile cover photo features text that states: “Before inspiration, comes the slaughter.”  

According to the complaint filed in the case, federal authorities had become aware of the men’s activities and plans through a confidential informant who had met Lynam and Parshall at a Las Vegas rally in early April calling for the reopening of the state’s economy. They were carrying weapons. Lynam told the informant that the group “was not for joking around and that it was for people who wanted to violently overthrow the United States government.”

The informant met up with all three men on May 27, the complaint says. Parshall and Loomis “discussed causing an incident to incite chaos and possibly a riot” during the Floyd protests. The informant also said that Loomis stated he wanted to firebomb a power substation.

The next day, Lynam urged his cohorts to watch televised reports of the protests and associated violence and use them for momentum to take other actions. These included possibly taking action against a fee station at Lake Mead on federal land north of the Hoover Dam, as well as another U.S. Forest Service ranger station that had earned their ire.

Parshall and Loomis’ “idea behind the explosion was to hopefully create civil unrest and rioting throughout Las Vegas,” according to the informant.

The TTP report noted that it had zeroed in on Facebook’s inaction in a previous report about the shared Boogaloo fantasy. The arrests, the TTP notes in its current report, “illustrate the consequences of Facebook’s repeated failure to remove extremist groups from its platform, even when confronted with concrete evidence they were using it to plan violent acts.”

The TTP found that the Nevada Boogaloo Facebook group in which all three men participated was only the beginning. Its research shows Lynam belongs to two private Boogaloo groups operated by the popular Facebook page Thicc Boog Line. It also found Lynam had used a national-level Boogaloo group to promote his Las Vegas-focused branch three weeks before the arrests, part of an effort to recruit local members; he was an administrative user for the Nevada group named “Battle Born Igloo.”

Facebook, TTP found, took no action against the groups. For the past year the company has claimed that it would strictly enforce the community guidelines that prohibit facilitating, organizing, or promoting “harmful activities targeted at people” and “statements of intent to commit high-severity violence.”

Facebook responded to the earlier TTP report by telling Christopher Mathias at HuffPost that it was working to remove the pages the report had identified, and was “reviewing the content referenced in this report and will enforce against any violations.” However, TTP notes, “none of the groups TTP monitored, including the Nevada group, were removed.”

“The complaint shows that Facebook’s failure to disrupt the Boogaloo groups allowed members to continue planning and developing new tactics, including bomb-making strategies spelled out in a 133-page manifesto still being circulated on Facebook today,” the report observes.

There were moments on Thursday evening worth celebrating. On the day that memorial services for George Floyd began, protesters in Washington D.C. withstood a pounding thunderstorm to stand vigil in the rain. Across the nation, thousands again came out for a seventh day, and a seventh night, of protests in small towns and large cities coast to coast. In Mobile, Alabama, the bronze statue of Confederate Admiral Raphael Semmes that had looked over the 70% Black city for most of a century was removed. And in city after city, protests were peaceful … on the part of protesters.

But what happened most notably on Thursday evening was that in multiple locations police used curfews as an excuse to come after nonviolent protesters with violence of an extraordinary, and in many cases sickening, degree. The images left behind were of genuine riots—police riots—and an incident that may be the very definition of “depraved indifference.”

Warning: For those triggered by violence, there are no safe images, no safe videos, no acceptable moments to be found below. The violence displayed in each of these moments is at a level that would earn an R-rating for any film, and of a nature that would never be broadcast on the many television programs featuring “hero cops.”

In some locations, the police didn’t even wait for curfew to provide an excuse before launching into civilians with a level of violence and brutality that absolutely underlines the need for massive, systematic change in law enforcement.

In Los Angeles, police launched into protesters without apparent cause, but with an obvious and unsupported level of violence that let to broken limbs and worse.

But it wasn’t all violence. There were moments of cooperation … like this moment when a Portland officer takes aside a group of gun-toting white supremacists to warn them before they start gassing everyone else.

And in what may be the most viscerally ugly moment of the evening, there was … this. The moment when an elderly man, part of a small group of protesters in Buffalo, New York, tried to talk with police who had decided to sweep everyone from a public square.

Unbelievably, the police involved originally reported that they had cleared the square without incident, though one man “tripped and fell.” Two of the officers in this video have now been suspended. Every one of them should be fired. The level of casual violence and indifference to suffering caught in this moment doesn’t border on the sociopathic, it defines it. And this video, on top of the official report that someone had “tripped” made clear once again how easily the worst actions can be covered up when a camera is not around.

While police made it absolutely clear why immediate and sweeping reform is absolutely necessary across the nation, there were still moments on Thursday night that will linger for reasons other than fear and disgust.

George Floyd’s death is a catalyst, and his individual tragedy, his individual humanity, is still at the center of this moment. But this has gone far, far, far beyond what happens now with those officers directly involved in Floyd’s death. Nothing less than a fundamental change in the whole of American policing will suffice. On Thursday night, the police made that obvious.

Two-thirds of Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of the response to nationwide protests over George Floyd’s murder, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday.

Meanwhile, nearly three-fourths of respondents said they view Floyd’s murder as a sign of an underlying racial injustice problem — which represents a 30 percent increase since December 2014, four months after the shooting of Michael Brown.

Trump’s approval rating with regard to Floyd’s murder and the ensuing protests, 32 percent, is even lower than for the president’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, which remained at a record-low of 39 percent, the poll found.

ABC News reports: Eclipsing Trump’s underwater approval on the pandemic, however, is his even lower approval rating on his handling of the response to the death of Floyd. Only 32% of Americans approve of Trump’s reaction in the aftermath of Floyd’s death, which has sparked thousands and thousands of protesters in dozens of cities demanding racial justice, while about two-thirds disapprove. A bigger hurdle for the president, however, is the difference in approval among those within his own party on the two crises. While 84% of Republicans approve of the president for his handling of the coronavirus, a far lower 69% of Republicans approve of his response to Floyd’s death.

According to USA Today, polls from CBS News, Emerson College, Reuters/Ipsos  and Monmouth University have also found that most Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of Floyd’s murder. However, only the Emerson College poll, which found that 36 percent approve of Trump’s response, was conducted after peaceful protesters were cleared from around the White House on Monday so Trump could visit a nearby church for a photo op.  

“The move was derided by former military officials, including retired Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s first secretary of defense, who sharply rebuked the president in a statement Wednesday,” USA Today noted.

The post Two-Thirds of Americans Disapprove of Trump’s Handling of George Floyd Protests: ABC News Poll appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Enlarge (credit: Marco Verch Professional Photographer and Speaker)

State-backed hackers from Iran and China recently targeted the presidential campaigns of Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, a Google threat analyst said on Thursday.

The revelation is the latest evidence of foreign governments attempting to gain intelligence on US politicians and potentially disrupt or meddle in their election campaigns. An Iran-backed group targeted the Trump campaign, and China-backed attackers targeted the Biden campaign, said Shane Huntley, the head of Google’s Threat Analysis Group on Twitter. Both groups used phishing emails. There’s no indication that either attack campaign succeeded.

Kittens and Pandas

Huntley identified the Iranian group that targeted Trump’s campaign as APT35, short for Advanced Persistent Threat 35. Also known as Charming Kitten, iKittens, and Phosphorous, the group was caught targeting an unnamed presidential campaign before, Microsoft said last October. In that campaign, Phosphorous members attempted to access email accounts campaign staff received through Microsoft cloud services. Microsoft said that the attackers worked relentlessly to gather information that could be used to activate password resets and other account-recovery services Microsoft provides.

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As cities across the nation participate in protests for justice for George Floyd, people in Portland, Oregon have shown up in an especially moving way. Thousands of peaceful protesters in Portland again laid down on the Burnside Bridge for nine minutes with their hands on their backs, as reported by local outlet KATU 2. Protesters did this on both Monday and Tuesday evening. The Williamette Week reports that protesters chanted Breonna Taylor’s name in addition to Floyd’s. Images and videos from the scene are truly moving. 

And from Monday night’s protest.

Portland healthcare workers also gathered for Floyd.

Of all the Republican senators who don't think the American workforce deserves nice things, you just know who has to be the worst. Yep, Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins. Always fence-sitting, Collins looks for the "just right" position: how to not look like the rest of her mouth-breathing conference, but also not let them think she's going soft on the serves. She says people should be getting some enhanced unemployment, but not enough to make their lives better. Literally.

"We should make people whole, but they should not be better off not working than working," she said. Because, you know, all the lazy bums and welfare queens out there who would rather sponge off of the government than do real honest jobs. In other words: "They should not be better off than living in the poverty they were in before."

Those workers are going to have claw their way out of the massive holes the botched coronavirus response Donald Trump and his enablers like Collins dug for them.

Tired of this schtick from Collins? Let's make sure her time is up. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!

A woman previously detained in Texas is alleging that in the hours immediately preceding her deportation to Mexico in 2018, she and two other women were raped by men working inside the detention center. She is now suing the private prison company that operates the facility, its subcontractors, and the federal agencies involved, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  

In February or March of 2018, Jane Doe was taken into ICE custody and detained at the Houston Processing Center for approximately three months. On the afternoon of June 1, 2018, she says she and two other detained women were transferred to an isolated cell where they were held for hours before three men in plainclothes appeared around midnight with their faces covered. Jane Doe says she was beaten and raped by one of the men, and that the other women in the cell were also assaulted. One of Jane Doe’s attorneys, Jose Sanchez, told Prism that Jane Doe was around 40 years old during the time of the attack. 

After the three women were assaulted, Jane Doe alleges that they were left in the cell until around 5 AM on June 2, 2018, when men arrived and told the women to change their underwear and clothing. Jane Doe says they were then loaded onto a bus with male detainees and detention center guards, transferred to Laredo, Texas, and then deported to Mexico.

Once back in her hometown in rural Mexico, Jane Doe realized she was pregnant as a result of the rape. According to the complaint filed May 27: “She felt so hopeless that she did not want to live.” In early 2019, Jane Doe gave birth in Mexico and “suffered serious medical complications during the birth, leading to a substantial loss of blood and an approximately eight-day hospitalization.”

Along with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE, and the three male assailants, Jane Doe is bringing her civil lawsuit against CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates the Houston Processing Center and its many subcontractors, including Prison Realty Management, TransCor America, and Trinity Services Group, all of which provide transportation, meals, and other services to the detention center.

Sanchez told Prism that none of the federal agencies or private companies involved are going to voluntarily provide information regarding staffing at the time of Jane Doe’s rape, and because there was no criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the lawsuit may be the only way that Jane Doe is able to obtain information about the man who raped her.

“We had to name anybody [in the lawsuit] that could have information about whether the assailants were employees of theirs. We don’t know who it was; it could be employees that work for any of these companies that have access to the facility,” Sanchez said.

ICE purports to have a “zero tolerance policy” for all forms of sexual abuse, but abuse is rampant in the agency’s detention centers nationwide. An analysis of 33,000 complaints of sexual assault and physical abuse filed with the DHS Office of Inspector General between January 2010 and July 2016 found that more abuse complaints were filed against ICE than any other agency within DHS. Even more recently, an April 2018 investigation by The Intercept reviewed 1,224 complaints of sexual and physical abuse filed by detained people between 2010 and 2017. More than half of those accused of abuse worked for ICE.

CoreCivic, the nation’s oldest and largest for-profit private prison corporation, operates more than 70 facilities across the country and is one of ICE’s largest contractors despite decades of documented cases of sexual violence, abuse, medical neglect, and in-custody deaths spanning both the company’s immigrant detention centers and prisons.

Sanchez and co-lead attorney on Jane Doe’s case Michelle Simpson Tuegel acknowledged to Prism that Jane Doe’s case will be an “uphill battle.” All of the agencies and companies involved are notorious for their failure to release information related to the abuse of immigrants in custody⁠—and if it weren’t for a church friend in Texas encouraging Jane Doe to speak out about her abuse and obtain legal counsel, her rape may have been another abuse disappeared by deportation.

“Everyone listed in the complaint has a lot of power and a lot of control and they wield it in ways that protect them while incredible harm is done [to people in custody],” Simpson Tuegel said. “This is a huge scar for our country, and it’s connected to the protests happening right now. This is very connected to criminalization and mass incarceration. The federal criminal justice system and the immigration detention system are profit-led problems. These are private companies contracted to take our tax dollars and when things like this happen, we can’t be okay with letting them get off the hook.”

The lead investigator in the Feb. 23 death of Ahmaud Arbery at the hands of Travis and Gregory McMichael was given some unsurprising but awful information by one of the co-defendants. AJC reports that moments after Arbery was shot and collapsed to the ground, suspect William “Roddie” Bryan heard shooter Travis McMichael say, “Fucking n---—.” Arbery was shot with a shotgun three times while jogging—unarmed—through the coastal community of Satilla Shores, Georgia.

Bryan, who videotaped the confrontation and shooting death of the unarmed Arbery, was arrested at the end of May and charged for his participation in the vigilante attack. Bryan reportedly helped corral Arbery as the McMichaels chased him down, leading to his death. The arrests came after months of inaction on the part of Georgia law enforcement, but calls for justice increased after video tape of the confrontation and killing of Arbery was leaked to the press.

William Bryan has been interviewed by investigators and his statements are damning on a couple of levels. The question that has faced Georgia and the United States for months now is: Why did it take months to even arrest Arbery’s killers? When will Georgia prosecutors, who have dragged their heels and shown their biases and corruption in this case, make a decision on whether or not to pursue a hate crime charge? When people speak about systemic racism, they’re referring to these grotesque gaps in equality. It’s not simply about law enforcement officers with guns and pepper spray on their holsters: It’s the judicial apparatus supporting them that must also be held accountable.

Reporter Sabrina Siddiqui reports that investigator Dial said Gregory McMichaels told him while he had no evidence that Arbery had done anything wrong, his “gut” told him that Arbery had stolen something, which is why he and his son were pursuing him. Dial also says that in looking through shooter Travis McMichael’s social media posts, he used the N-word “several times,” and also had once written, in response to an Instagram post, that something would have been better "if they had blown that fucking n*****s head off.” The McMichaels clan seems very superior to the rest of us.

CNN reports that Arbery was allegedly hit by the McMichael’s truck as he continued to run and try to avoid the three men chasing him in the neighborhood. When Dial was asked about McMichael’s claims of self defense, Dial gave his very different opinion of the facts.

"I believe Mr. Arbery was being pursued, and he ran till he couldn't run anymore, and it was turn his back to a man with a shotgun or fight with his bare hands against the man with the shotgun. He chose to fight. ... I believe Mr. Arbery's decision was to just try to get away, and when he felt like he could not escape he chose to fight."

You can watch lead investigator Richard Dial’s testimony below.

After the North Carolina governor was rude to Typhoid Hitler, suggesting that the Republican National Convention would have to be scaled back somewhat due to the state and nation being in the midst of a deadly international pandemic that makes it dangerous to assemble in large groups, Donald Trump had a fit. He insisted the convention be moved elsewhere, to a state that sincerely does not give a damn if a significant number of the people showing up to praise Trump’s flaccid, fascist glory end up dead weeks afterward, when he doesn't need them anymore.

Finding such a site is proving to be a problem. Axios reports the Republican National Committee plans to tour potential sites for Trump's demanded Nuremberg Rally—thank goodness the pandemic is over, making that safe!—but that the pickings are sparse.

The main problem is that there are few sites large enough for such a convention, next to no time left to prepare for one, and we are in the middle of a deadly worldwide pandemic, in case anyone had forgotten about that.

Axios reports that the sites include "include Jacksonville, Phoenix, Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta and possibly New Orleans and Savannah," and that a top criteria is "a mayor and governor" willing to give "flexibility" on pandemic safety measures. Trump "doesn't want people to be standing six feet apart," reports their source, and wants crowd "enthusiasm." He wants these things to contrast with whatever the Democratic version turns out to be or, as it is now written in the Trump Party manuals, to Own The Libs.

One suggestion I might offer, if Trump isn't willing to tolerate social distancing in the crowd: What if you make them stand tightly together, but provide everyone in the crowd with a Personal Protective Uniform? Seeing the entire crowd cheering wildly for Trump while outfitted in identical uniforms would be quite the television image, would it not?

The other problem, however, that Axios and its sources don't reference, is that the Republican Party—now engaging in an orgy of paramilitary force in the nation's capital and threatening military force elsewhere—is currently as popular in Real America as herpes-flavored ice cream and it’s not likely to improve anytime soon. The convention, wherever it is, will likely be met with protests on such a large scale that it will require another paramilitary occupation to pull off.

So the hosting mayor and governor will have to be happy with a potential repeat of Kent State during a pandemic in order to host a fascist rally that will absolutely certainly end up killing some of its own participants.

K. Well, you do you, remnants of a party who now betrays their country on a daily basis. It would represent only a small drop of the people killed by Republican incompetence and indifference in the last few months.

We estimate nonfarm payrolls declined by 7.25 million in May … Downward revisions to April payrolls are also likely, in our view.
...
We estimate the unemployment rate rose from 14.7% to 21.5%.
…
In interpreting tomorrow’s report, we will again pay special attention to the number and share of workers on furlough or temporary layoff.
emphasis added

Police are looking for an older white male bicyclist who assaulted a young girl on Monday after he saw a group posting signs in support of Black Lives Matter in Bethesda, Maryland.

MyMCMedia.com reports: The incident occurred at approximately 12:45 p.m. Monday near the Dalecarlia Tunnel in Bethesda. According to police, the suspect began arguing with three young adults posting flyers in support of Black Lives Matter before grabbing the flyers from a young girl and pushing a male victim off his bicycle. Police describe the suspect as a white male approximately 6 feet tall with short brown hair, and between the age of 50 and 60 years old. On the day of the incident the suspect was wearing a gray t-shirt, black shorts, aviator glasses and a red helmet, according to police.

A video of the incident posted to Twitter on Thursday afternoon quickly garnered thousands of views. The video shows the man chasing the girls and ripping the fliers out of their hands, before ramming the male victim with his bicycle while fleeing.

A few reactions below.

The post Viral Video Shows White Bicyclist Assaulting Young Girl Over ‘Black Lives Matter’ Fliers: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Enlarge / New research suggests we really can describe black holes as holograms: they have two dimensions, in which gravity disappears, but they reproduce an object in three dimensions. (credit: Gerd Altmann for PIxabay)

Nearly 30 years ago, theoretical physicists introduced the "holographic principle," a mind-bending theory positing that our three-dimensional universe is actually a hologram. Now physicists are applying that same principle to black holes, arguing in a new paper published in Physical Review X that a black hole's information is contained within a two-dimensional surface, which is able to reproduce an image of the black hole in three dimensions—just like the holograms we see in everyday life.

Black holes as described by general relativity are simple objects. All you need to describe them mathematically is their mass and their spin, plus their electric charge. So there would be no noticeable change if you threw something into a black hole—nothing that would provide a clue as to what that object might have been. That information is lost.

But problems arise when quantum gravity enters the picture because the rules of quantum mechanics hold that information can never be destroyed. And in quantum mechanics, black holes are incredibly complex objects and thus should contain a great deal of information. As we reported previously, Jacob Bekenstein realized in 1974 that black holes also have a temperature. Stephen Hawking tried to prove him wrong but wound up proving him right instead, concluding that black holes therefore had to produce some kind of thermal radiation.

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While the past few days have felt unprecedented in almost all respects, they’ve been familiar in at least one way: President Trump has once again done something widely viewed as outrageous. In this case, his administration had law enforcement officials clear a path for Trump to visit a nearby church, leading to protesters being tear gassed outside the White House.

And, as has often been the case when Trump draws criticism, many GOP senators have evaded questions about the violence and Trump’s role in it. “I don’t have any reaction to it. I haven’t seen footage.” “I didn’t follow, I’m sorry.” And even, “He has moments. But I mean, as you know, it lasts generally as long as the next tweet.”

Yet maybe this time is a little different. Even before the protesters were driven away from the White House, we’d begun to hear a number of strong condemnations of both Trump and how he was handling the protests across the country — some from familiar corners and others from more surprising sources, like military leaders.

On the usual suspects list there’s Sens. Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Ben Sasse and Lisa Murkowski (although Murkowski avoided saying much about the protests specifically, she did say she is “struggling” with whether to vote for Trump in 2020). But some current and former members of the president’s inner circle have also criticized him. Most notably, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who resigned in protest in December 2018, issued a scathing rebuke of Trump’s actions on Wednesday night, writing, “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.” (He also said, “The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values — our values as people and our values as a nation.”) Current Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has also objected to using active-duty troops to respond to mostly peaceful protests.

Former President George W. Bush also weighed in on the side of the protesters, writing, “The only way to see ourselves in a true light is to listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and grieving. Those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of America.” Bush didn’t name Trump directly, but it’s still a telling rebuke from a former president of the same political party.

This is one of those rare moments of uncertainty when it’s possible that the wall of Republican support sheltering Trump finally crumbles. It is still unlikely to happen, but as I’ve written before, if it does happen, it will happen suddenly.

Political science helps us understand why this is the case. In my previous article, I cited political scientist Timur Kuran’s classic work, “Private Truth, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification,” to help explain why:

[Kuran] argues that political regimes can persist despite being unpopular, which is why a government overthrow, when it does come, can often seem so sudden.

Consider the Arab Spring, which began with one Tunisian vendor, who protested being mistreated by government officials by setting himself on fire. His death triggered a series of events, and a month later, the long-unpopular authoritarian Tunisian president fled the country after more than 23 years in power. A few weeks later, protesters in Egypt ousted their own long-serving authoritarian leader. What looked like ironclad power collapsed in a matter of weeks. Why?

Kuran argues in his book that protests need a critical mass of supporters in order to force change. The logic is that there’s safety in numbers, so if multiple citizens rise up in protest of a regime, it signals that it’s OK to protest — which can cause decades-old regimes to collapse all at once.

Of course, so far the criticism against Trump has mostly come from retired generals or members of Congress who already had a history of publicly chastising the president. But as conflict escalates over the protests, more and more elected Republicans may start to speak up.

After all, Trump’s continued unpopularity threatens to weigh down Republicans’ chances of holding on to the Senate or taking back the House, and head-to-head polling shows Biden holds a steady lead against Trump in the general election. Is it possible, then, that Republican leaders might privately be wondering if they’d be better off with somebody else on the ticket in November? With unemployment at historic levels, protests spreading and the coronavirus pandemic lingering, Trump faces an increasingly difficult path to reelection.

Most likely, Senate and House Republicans will eventually find a way to defend Trump’s actions, as they have done before (remember the impeachment trial?). Trump may not be perfect, they may say, but the Democrats are much worse. This is the prevailing rationalization of our zero-sum politics.

But in moments like this, when nobody knows exactly what to say or do, a few unlikely public critiques of Trump could have a surprising cascade effect. And if the president continues to transgress widely-shared democratic values — putting congressional Republicans in an increasingly difficult electoral position — we may yet see a consequential crack in the Republican Party.

CDC Director Robert Redfield on Thursday apologized for his agency’s “inadequate” reporting on racial disparities in coronavirus patients, addressing criticism that the lack of data has hampered the public health response in communities of color disproportionately affected by the virus.

“I want to apologize for the inadequacy of our response,” Redfield said during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Thursday, held amid nationwide demonstrations over racial injustices following the death of George Floyd in police custody last week.

Congress in its last relief package in April required the CDC to report data on racial disparities among coronavirus cases, deaths and hospitalizations after it became apparent the disease was killing and sickening members of minority groups at higher rates. A four-page report the agency released last week was ripped by lawmakers who said it included outdated and incomplete information. The CDC has said its information is lacking because some states haven't been reporting such data.

“The CDC and the Trump administration did not complete the assignment at all,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said during the hearing.

HHS on Thursday said it will begin requiring all lab tests reported to the CDC to include information on a patient’s race, ethnicity, age and ZIP code. Redfield cautioned lawmakers that a second congressionally mandated report on coronavirus disparities due later this month may still be missing sought-after information, but he said his agency would submit "whatever data I have."

Lawmakers and Redfield throughout the hearing acknowledged persistent racial disparities in the health care system that are playing out amid the pandemic, underscoring the need for data to address the gaps in care.

On Sunday, Attorney General Bill Barr promised a federal crackdown on any violent and criminal activity occurring during peaceful protests against police brutality. Days later, that crackdown is in full force.

Over the last week, the department has charged more than two dozen people with federal crimes that coincided with protests, including a man who allegedly brandished a gun before a protester tackled him and a right-wing trio who allegedly plotted to incite violence during protests. And the Department of Homeland Security has warned state and local law enforcement officials of domestic extremists’ attempts to co-opt those protests, which erupted after George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed while in custody by a white Minneapolis police officer.

In a press conference Thursday, Barr said extremists from a variety of backgrounds were capitalizing on the protests, noting authorities had made 51 arrests for federal crimes related to violent behavior.

"There are some groups that don’t have a particular ideology other than anarchy, there are some groups that want to bring about a civil war," he said. "So we are dealing with, as I say, a witch’s brew of a lot of different extremist organizations.”

It's an initiative that is in line with Trump's pledge to "dominate" the streets after a week of protests across the nation. And supporters say there is symbolic importance in showing the government's commitment to helping state and local authorities prevent vandalism and looting. But the move has also raised questions among some legal specialists — including former DOJ officials — about whether federal authorities are overcharging behavior that would not typically be treated as a federal crime.

The protests, which have been overwhelmingly peaceful during the daytime, have drawn praise and support from civil rights leaders and elected officials across the political spectrum, including President Donald Trump's first Defense secretary, Gen. James Mattis.

But looting and vandalism have broken out in some cities after dark, including New York and Washington, D.C., where roaming crowds have smashed storefront windows and made off with everything from sunglasses to iPhones.

Over the weekend, Attorney General Bill Barr blamed domestic terrorists for the crimes, singling out antifa — a loose cohort of antifascist activists who sometimes use violent and destructive tactics. And he promised a crackdown on theft and property destruction that has coincided with the protests. That crackdown now appears to be underway, and a Justice Department official said scores of investigations are underway.

The Justice Department has brought charges ranging from possession of destructive devices and unregistered firearms to interstate commerce violations and malicious destruction of property. The individuals charged include a Chicagoan who allegedly lit a police car on fire; an Illinois man who allegedly violated interstate commerce, arson and explosives laws to participate in looting and vandalism in Minnesota; and two Minnesota men who allegedly threw Molotov cocktails into a county government building. Local police put out a fire in the building that coincided with “rioting and looting” during protests, according to the complaint.

Some former federal officials said the Justice Department should leave these cases to state and local authorities for prosecution. Others said the assistance may be welcome at a time when law enforcement resources are stretched, and praised the symbolism of aggressive federal enforcement.

The criminal charges come after Attorney General William Barr delivered harsh condemnation of the loosely affiliated left-wing activist cohort called antifa. Over the weekend, he called the group domestic terrorists and committed to targeting them. He also announced that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces would help coordinate federal, state and local responses to crimes committed during the protests.

Justice Department officials have described their aim as differentiating between peaceful demonstrators and opportunists seeking to cause mayhem or loot stores. By bringing federal charges, said former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, DOJ is “definitely sending a message and trying to create a deterrent effect.”

“Getting charged by DOJ is a much more serious proposition than getting charged by the state,” Honig said.

Federal charges can often come with lengthier prison sentences than charges brought by other authorities.

On a conference call with governors on Monday, Barr described the administration’s approach.

“We need to have people take control of the streets so that we can go out and work with law enforcement, say hello to the law enforcement,” he said. “And identify these people in the crowd, isolate, pull them out, prosecute.”

On the same call, Trump offered some more colorful guidance, telling the governors, “You’ve got to arrest these people and you’ve got to judge them, and you can't do the deal where they get one week in jail. These are terrorists, these are terrorists, they're looking to do bad things to our country. They’re antifa and they’re radical left.”

Trump has also tweeted that he would designate antifa as a terrorist organization. It’s a move he cannot legally make, since, under existing law, the U.S. only designates foreign entities as terrorist groups.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has flagged concerns to state and local law enforcement about extremists’ efforts to infiltrate and co-opt the protests. In an unclassified intelligence note dated May 29, reviewed by POLITICO, officials said militia extremists and white supremacists — who are predominantly far-right — and anarchist extremists — predominantly far-left — had been connected to violent threats during the protests.

In separate DHS intelligence notes obtained by POLITICO dated June 1 and June 2, the department’s intelligence and analysis unit warned that “organized violent opportunists” were becoming more emboldened in targeting law enforcement and critical infrastructure nationwide.

“DHS remains committed to protecting the American public from violence and protests that pose a threat to our country and we continue to work on keeping our nation safe, secure and resilient,” Alexei Woltornist, a DHS spokesperson, said in a statement. “Our intelligence arm remains vigilant in looking for any kind of emerging threat to the homeland and we continue to work closely with our partners, including law enforcement and state and local officials, to hold those responsible for the unrest accountable.”

The June 2 memo cautioned, however, that “some of the observed suspicious behaviors include constitutionally protected activities and should not be reported” unless officials can articulate facts that indicate the activities may become violent.

That distinction is key factor that may complicate federal officials’ work monitoring and charging protesters, said Chuck Rosenberg, a former federal prosecutor and DOJ veteran.

“Federal law enforcement numbers are relatively small in some big cities compared to the number of state and local law enforcement authorities,” he said. “Are they actually supplementing local agencies that are under-resourced, or is it simply a show of federal force directed against citizens exercising their First Amendment rights?”

The ultimate question that needs to be answered, Rosenberg said, is whether federal authorities would be charging these cases in the absence of the protests.

“If an individual was vandalizing a store in their hometown, apart from a protest, would they be charged with a federal crime or state crime?," he asked. "If the answer is that they would be charged with a state crime, why charge them with a federal crime, here? Are they charging individuals federally because they are also participating in a protest? I hope not.”

Meanwhile, David Rivkin — an official at DOJ headquarters during the Reagan administration — said the symbolism is the point.

“Ninety-five percent of what you do as a prosecutor is properly shaped, properly animated by symbolic considerations,” he said. “Why do you crack down on certain crimes? Because they’re viewed as particularly obnoxious, particularly damaging to body politic. Why do you go after some people based on an offense that you wouldn’t have gone after other people for? Because you want to make a point. Making a point is not wrong. Making a point, provided it’s a right point, a righteous point, is at the heart of law enforcement.”

Social media has helped the department identify suspects.

On June 1, the DOJ filed a criminal complaint against Matthew Lee Rupert, an Illinois man who allegedly traveled to Minnesota and participated in looting and violence. The complaint also charged Rupert with possession of unregistered destructive devices. It alleged that he brought and distributed explosives, which he encouraged others to throw at police. It also said he looted businesses and apparently lit a building on fire — and, according to the charging document, he captured it all on Facebook Live.

“At time stamp 1:41:40, RUPERT asked for lighter fluid,” the complaint reads. “RUPERT then enters a Sprint store and, at time stamp 1:45:17, RUPERT stated, ‘I lit it on fire.' RUPERT then goes to a nearby Office Depot and, at time stamp 1:55:54, stated ‘I’m going in to get shit.’ At time stamp 1:54:59, RUPERT videos himself taking items from the store.”

A separate complaint against Wesley Somers — who federal prosecutors in Tennessee charged with malicious destruction of property for allegedly trying to light Nashville City Hall on fire — noted that "numerous pictures and videos of the incident were posted on social media websites, on the websites for news outlets, and on other Internet sites.”

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday scuttled an effort by survivors of the Parkland school shooting to ban semi-automatic rifles, arguing that the group's proposed ballot measure would mislead voters.

In a 4-1 decision, the court ruled that the ballot summary authored by Ban Assault Weapons Now did not accurately explain how the amendment would work if voters approved it.

The court's critique, backed by four Republican-appointed justices, centered on a provision that would require people who already own a semi-automatic rifle to register the weapon if the ban took effect. The gun would become illegal if it were given away, under the proposal.

“While the ballot summary purports to exempt registered assault weapons lawfully possessed prior to the initiative’s effective date, the initiative does not categorically exempt the assault weapon, only the current owner’s possession of that assault weapon," the majority wrote in an unsigned ruling. "The ballot summary is therefore affirmatively misleading.”

Organizers behind the amendment called the ruling politically motivated and vowed to regroup.

“The Supreme Court, now controlled by the NRA in the same way as our Governor and our Legislature, has fundamentally failed the people of Florida,” Ban Assault Weapons Now Chair Gail Schwartz said in a statement. “Not only has the Legislature recently made it harder to pass ballot initiatives, now the people must also face a court of rightwing ideologues who will only approve initiatives they agree with politically.”

"The Supreme Court’s rejection of BAWN’s amendment does not change our commitment to rid Florida of these killing machines," Schwartz said. "After striving for two years for a safer state for our families, we’re just getting started.”

Justice Jorge Labarga dissented from the majority, saying the summary was clear and noting that the court in the past has said ballot summaries don't need to contain all the details of a proposed constitutional amendment.

“The ballot title and summary provide fair notice and equip voters to educate themselves about the details of the initiative,” Labarga wrote. “Consequently, the initiative should be placed on the ballot.”

The decision by the high court is a victory for the National Rifle Association and Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican who opposed the measure.

On Feb. 14, 2018, Nikolas Cruz used a semi-automatic weapon to gun down and kill 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The shooting drew global outrage and prompted Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature to enact modest gun law restrictions in its immediate aftermath. But lawmakers rejected calls for stronger gun laws, including a ban on semi-automatic rifles.

Schwartz, an aunt of Parkland victim Alex Schachter, organized to put the question of a ban to voters.

Citizen groups seeking to put constitutional amendments on the ballot must gather nearly 800,000 voter signatures from around the state. The state Supreme Court must review proposed amendments to ensure they address only a single subject and aren't misleading.

Schwartz's group was unable to gather the nearly 800,000 voter signatures it needed by February to qualify for this year’s ballot. State records show the group has collected nearly 175,000 signatures so far. Organizers had continued to gather signatures and raise money to get the question to voters in 2022.

Florida has suffered several mass shootings in recent years. In 2016, a gunman killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Less than a year later, five people were killed when a man opened fire at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

President Donald Trump on Thursday promised his longtime informal political adviser Roger Stone would not serve time in prison, revealing the convicted Republican provocateur “can sleep well at night” and reprising his fiery criticisms of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

The pledge from the president came on Twitter, after Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative group Turning Point USA, wrote Tuesday that Stone “will serve more time in prison than 99% of these rioters destroying America” — referring to the ongoing nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, by a Minneapolis police officer.

“This isn’t justice,” Kirk added. “RT for a full pardon of Roger Stone!”

Trump went on to share the tweet Thursday morning, writing in his own accompanying message: “No. Roger was a victim of a corrupt and illegal Witch Hunt, one which will go down as the greatest political crime in history. He can sleep well at night!”

The president’s social media post represents his latest intervention in Stone’s case and comes after Trump and Attorney General William Barr were widely rebuked by congressional Democrats and career Justice Department officials for involving themselves in the federal law enforcement matter just a few months ago.

Federal prosecutors had urged in February that Stone be sent to prison for roughly seven to nine years for impeding congressional and FBI investigations into connections between the Russian government and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

But after Trump blasted the prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation in a tweet as a “horrible and very unfair situation,” the Justice Department submitted a revised filing that offered no specific term for Stone’s sentence and stated that the prosecutors’ initial proposal “could be considered excessive and unwarranted.”

The four attorneys who shepherded Stone’s prosecution proceeded either to resign or notify the court that they were stepping off the case.

Last month, about 2,000 former Justice Department officials signed a letter urging Barr to resign over his actions in the federal cases of Stone and Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who was also ensnared by Mueller’s probe.

Although Barr’s Justice Department has moved aggressively to quash the case against Flynn, it is unclear how the attorney general will respond to the president’s interference Thursday. Despite his efforts to lessen Stone’s sentence, Barr described the case in a February interview as a “righteous prosecution” and said, “I was happy that he was convicted.”

Other convicted associates of the president who were targets of the far-reaching investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including former Trump attorney Michael Cohen and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, have been released from prison to home confinement due to concerns about the coronavirus.

Although Trump has so far stayed coy on the subject of a potential pardon for Stone or commutation of his sentence, the president strongly hinted in February that the self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” of GOP politics would not serve his full term behind bars, saying his former aide “has a very good chance of exoneration.”

Stone, for his part, conceded in April that he is “praying for a pardon,” and has been told by the Bureau of Prisons to report to begin serving his 40-month sentence by June 30. His appeal remains pending, and he has not yet made any attempt to have his sentence postponed until after his appeal is resolved.

Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.

In recent weeks, Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to attack mail-in voting as fraudulent and threaten to withhold (unspecified) funding from states taking steps to expand it. Trump’s attacks have come at a crucial time, as voters in around two dozen states cast their ballots for June primary elections, many of them by mail, the safest way to vote amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Among the states that held primaries on Tuesday, for instance, some saw more than 20 times the absentee ballot requests of 2016.

Given the virtual nonexistence of empirical evidence of voter fraud, one might reasonably wonder if Trump has motives that go beyond calling attention to a vast (mythical) racket. To some voting rights advocates and watchdogs, he’s doing nothing more than trying to discourage voting by mail, which many Republicans believe benefits Democrats (the actual data on the partisan advantages are shakier). Trump himself suggested that part of his opposition to casting ballots by mail is about the partisan disadvantage; “MAIL IN VOTING WILL … LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY,” he tweeted last Thursday.

If disrupting the November election is in fact one of Trump’s goals, Twitter threats aren’t the only tool he has. The president and his supporters have a range of mechanisms at their disposal—particularly amid a pandemic—to restrict voting in person, change voting rules, hobble the postal service, or just intimidate or discourage voters, all of which could have an impact on election results. Voter intimidation in particular should be a concern right now, as vigilante groups in some cities have taken to the street in recent days to enforce order amid protests against police brutality. Here are some of the tools Trump has to upset the election in November; voters and watchdogs should be on guard for these moves now.

1. With a second coronavirus wave, Trump could issue a national quarantine that forces voters to stay home on Election Day. If Dr. Anthony Fauci’s prediction becomes reality and we see a second wave of sickness, death and overwhelmed emergency rooms in the fall, Trump can endeavor to order people to stay home under the Public Health Service Act, which gives the executive branch power to enforce quarantines.

Passed in 1944, the statute authorizes executive branch officials to take steps “necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases … from one State … into another State or possession,” and allows the president, upon the recommendation of the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, to “provide for the apprehension, detention, or conditional release of individuals … for the purpose of preventing” the spread of disease.

But what about the states’ authority to manage pandemic outbreaks within their borders?

Well, under the regulations that implement the statute, the federal government can jump in whenever the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “determines that the measures taken by health authorities of any State or possession … are insufficient to prevent the spread of any of the communicable diseases from such State or possession.”

Thus far, Trump has refused to orchestrate any serious federal response to COVID-19, sloughing off the problem to the states. He’d be hard-pressed to change his tune in the fall. A federal order would also stoke widespread anger and lawsuits. But the power is his.

2. Trump and Congress could pull the plug on U.S. postal service (USPS) funding. Without a functioning postal service, states’ efforts to expand access to voting by mail will become futile. Trump has already threatened to veto any Covid-19 legislation that includes bailout funding for the USPS which, according to the Government Accountability Office, is in an “overall financial condition [that] is deteriorating and unsustainable.” In March, the White House killed a bipartisan bill to give the postal service $13 billion, arguing that it must increase its rates and make other changes first. The White House and Republicans in Congress are unlikely to support any loan that does not include changes such as USPS raising its rates or using more outside contractors. Without any compromise between the parties, USPS has said money could run out as early as this summer, and Trump, who has called the agency a “joke,” has been in no rush to find a political solution.

3. Trump could encourage supporters to show up at polling stations to prevent “voter fraud.” In 1981, the Republican National Committee (RNC) came under a consent decree for practices that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) alleged were violations of the Voting Rights Act. Among those allegations, the DNC said the RNC hired off-duty police officers with “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands to patrol majority-minority precincts. The bullying tactics continued through the following decade, requiring two decree modifications in response to other means of voter intimidation. In 1990, for example, a court found that the North Carolina Republican Party sent 150,000 mostly black voters discouraging postcards warning of strict residency requirements and jailtime for voter fraud.

The extended consent decree expired in 2017. Although it only applied to the RNC, this history suggests that as states continue to expand early voting as an additional response to Covid-19, Trump could encourage MAGA supporters to show up at polling sites to chill valid participation. This threat is particularly salient for minority voters who—even if fully documented—might fear Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

4. Trump could pressure officials in his base states to change voting rules to make it harder, not easier, to vote during Covid. With some exceptions, Republican governors of red states that voted for Trump in 2016 were less likely to issue stay-at-home orders—which Trump has publicly disfavored—than their blue-state counterparts. The fewest restrictions were in South Dakota, Idaho, Missouri, Utah and Wisconsin, a perennial swing state. Given this recent history, it’s easy to imagine that if Trump continues to warn of a “rigged election” and call for voting restrictions in response to states’ post-Covid voting changes, Republican governors and secretaries of state would likewise fall in line with what the president suggests.

More specifically, under pressure from or allegiance to Trump, Republican secretaries of states, governors or Republican-dominated state legislatures could take last-minute steps to purge registered voters, close polling places or shorten early voting hours, restrict voting by mail or make other changes that could inch Trump across the finish line irrespective of the legitimate needs and wants of individual voters.

It wouldn’t be the first time that politicians tweaked election rules and affected the results, even in races where they had a clear personal stake in the outcome. In 2000, Florida’s secretary of state and co-chair of George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in Florida, Katherine Harris, certified Bush as the popular vote winner after halting a recount that was prompted by an exceedingly slim, 537-vote margin over his opponent, Al Gore. A lawsuit famously ensued regarding the counting of confusing punch-card ballots marred by “hanging” or “dimpled” chads. Harris’ certification was overturned by the Florida Supreme Court, but ultimately endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court, thus deciding the presidential election.

In 2016, Georgia’s secretary of state Brian Kemp—a self-proclaimed “Trump conservative”—refused to recuse himself from the role of secretary of state and chief election official when he announced his run for the governorship. Under Kemp, over 1.5 million voters—or 10.6 percent of Georgia voters—were removed from the rolls in the two years prior to the election, and 214 polling places were shuttered, mostly in neighborhoods with predominantly minority residents. Just days before the election, Kemp reportedly put 53,000 voter registration applications on hold, reasoning that the names on the applications were not an “exact match” with information in other state databases because of hyphens, accents, typos, and the like. Kemp won the race by approximately 54,000 votes over Democrat Stacey Abrams.

5. Trump’s party will continue to sue states that try to make voting easier in order to tie up ballot measures in court so that, by the time things are resolved, it’s too late. Republicans have reportedly amassed a $20 million war chest for use in challenging state efforts to expand access to the polls due to the coronavirus. So far, multiple suits are already pending across the country over whether Americans should be able to vote by mail or instead risk their health by braving the physical polls during the pandemic. In Texas, the state supreme court recently sided with Republican attorney general Ken Paxton in ruling that “a voter’s lack of immunity to Covid-19, without more, is not a ‘disability’” that justifies voting by mail.

Although the success of such suits under various states’ laws is uncertain, what is certain is that litigation takes time, and as those lawsuits wend way their way through the court system, measures designed to make voting more accessible in the midst of the coronavirus health crisis could be put on hold through Election Day. Tying up expanded voting measures in court through the fall is itself a win if the goal is to minimize the number of people who cast ballots in November—people whom Trump fans believe will most likely vote against him and in favor of his presumptive opponent, Joe Biden.

Voting is the most precious of all rights under the U.S. Constitution because, without it, all other rights become virtually meaningless. Because a government unaccountable to the people is not a government by the people, every American, regardless of politics, should watch what Trump does to make voting more difficult.

Attorney General Bill Barr absurdly claimed Thursday that his decision to forcefully disperse peaceful protesters near the White House on Monday had nothing to do with President Donald Trump’s subsequent walk to a nearby church for a photo op.

“Obviously, my interest was to carry out the law enforcement functions of the federal government and to protect federal facilities and federal personnel, and also to address the rioting that was interfering with the government’s function, and that was what we were doing,” Barr said during a news conference.

“I think the president is the head of the executive branch and the chief executive of the nation and should be able to walk outside the White House and walk across the street to the ‘church of presidents,'” he added. “I don’t necessarily view that as a political act. I think it was entirely appropriate for him to do.

“I did not know that he was going to do that until later in the day after our plans were well underway to move the perimeter,” Barr said. “So, there was no correlation between our tactical plan of moving the perimeter out by one block and the president’s going over to the church. The president asked members of his cabinet to go over there with him … and I think it was appropriate for us to go over with him.”

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Retired four-star Marine General John Allen has seen enough. In a op-ed for Foreign Policy, Allen tore into Donald Trump and his orders to attack American citizens in front of the White House. Allen said he fears we are “witnessing the beginning of the end of American democracy.”

In a three-part breakdown of how Trump has failed this moment and the nation, (Ret.) Gen. Allen specifically called out this administration singling out antifa—a leaderless movement that is, by definition, anti-fascist—as a terrorist group while ignoring the white supremacists who have been proven to be inciting violence at some of these protests. Allen said: “Far more damage to the United States has come from these terrorists—fascists, Klansmen, and neo-Nazis, all feeling newly empowered today—than those who have opposed them.”

For the record, the FBI found "no intelligence linking Antifa to violence at the Black Lives Matter protests."

Allen wasn’t the only former Marine general to come forward. General Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis, who served as Trump’s secretary of defense for a stint, has finally come forward with his own warning: ”We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.” In a statement to CNN, Mattis said: "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”

That, of course, drove Donald Trump to rage because he quickly tweeted saying he had fired Mattis, essentially saying he was a disgruntled employee. That sparked another former general, John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, to immediately correct the record:

“The president did not fire him. He did not ask for his resignation,” Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, said in an interview. “The president has clearly forgotten how it actually happened or is confused. The president tweeted a very positive tweet about Jim until he started to see on Fox News their interpretation of his letter. Then The got nasty. Jim Mattis is a honorable man.”

The aforementioned disagreement was Trump’s still-curious decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. 

On Tuesday, retired U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, who served as the 17th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also took aim at Trump’s brutal policies against American citizens. In an op-ed in The Atlantic, Mullen said he “cannot remain silent” anymore.

It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel—including members of the National Guard—forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president's visit outside St. John's Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump's leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.

In fact, a steady stream of retired senior military officials are using social media to speak out this week. That should alarm every single American. They are trying to tell us all that the president is unfit for duty.

(Ret.) Gen. Tony Thomas, the former commander of the United States Special Operations Command, spoke out on Twitter after hearing Defense Secretary Mark Esper describe American cities as “battle space” during the protests. 

After Donald Trump’s outrageous photo op in which he used federal police to attack peaceful protesters so that he could walk to a church to hold up a Bible, others noted how inappropriate it was for General Mark Milley, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to not only be tailing behind Donald Trump during this publicized stunt but to be wearing his battle fatigues, something extremely inappropriate for the setting. Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden noted as much on Twitter.

America’s retired military commandeers are speaking out and sounding the alarm. The real question is: Where are Republicans? Why do they remain silent while our democracy is being burned to the ground on national television? It’s clear to all Donald Trump is unfit for duty, so why do they continue to enable him? It’s only possible with their consent. When this all ends, they must be held accountable too. 

GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Thursday she’s struggling with whether to support Donald Trump in November, after praising Defense Secretary James Mattis’ blistering critique of the president’s response to the George Floyd protests.

“When I saw General Mattis’ comments yesterday, I felt like perhaps we are getting to a point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up,” Murkowksi said. “I was really thankful. I thought General Mattis’ words were true, and honest and necessary and overdue. …

“I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time I think you know that. I didn’t support the President in the initial election, and I work hard to try to make sure that I’m able to represent my state well that I’m able to work with any administration and any president,” Murkowski added. “He is our duly elected President I will continue to work with him. I will continue to work with this administration but I think right now as we are all struggling to find ways to express the words that need to be expressed appropriately, questions about who I’m going to vote for not going to vote for I think are distracting at the moment.”

A few reactions below.

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