The governor opened the pools, but it’s looking as though our own won’t be opening. Although who knows, maybe it will. The problem will be finding lifeguards at this late date, but again – no one knows anything. The summer will be long and hot because it always is, but it’ll also be uncharted territory due to…well, you know. Everything. Murder hornets. Whatever.
We got a tip this week that arrestees after one of the demonstrations — and there have been demos nightly, all week — were taken to Little Caesars Arena for processing. I typed up a brief story, and added a paragraph at the end about the symbolism of nonviolent protesters (these were curfew violators) being taken to a sports stadium, invoking Augusto Pinochet and his use of the national stadium as a prison camp. I thought it was at least worthy of a mention, but my editor cut it. Honestly, I had to laugh; I don’t generally get too attached to my work for Deadline. But today, the arena’s social-media staff posted this, and the comments are…not good:
And now, dunno about you, but at week’s end, I am whipped. There’s this, though, which I leave you with in hopes it will break over the weekend and at least offer some comic relief:
The gay internet is exploding over #LindseyGraham today.
An Army of gay escorts are claiming, Lindsay has used their services for years and are trying to figure out how to get around the NDA he has them all sign.
It is rumored that DC male escorts now Senator Graham as "Lady G"— Tom D'Angora (@TomDangora) June 5, 2020
If you like, you can read my story about how the dailies are killing it with live-streaming of the protests.
Have a great weekend, all.
Dexter Friend said on June 5, 2020 at 4:10 pm
In NYC three nights ago protesters were curbed, strap-cuffed, and were then herded into city buses and any other cop-van or trailer they could roll into midtown. This kindled a memory from 40 years ago, when my friend Ken and his buddy went to the Kentucky Derby, and partied, but back then we all drove after drinking. At
the state line,the Indiana State Police were stopping like every 10th car and testing via blow-machine for drunken driving. Ken was stopped and hit the mark, just over the line. The cops shoved all the drunks into a school bus, and the buses lined the roadway, a couple dozen of them. When they filled them up with drunks, they hauled them all away. They then ceased the op and drove the buses to all the jails in several counties where the drunks were detained one night, and then allowed to post bail.
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LAMary said on June 5, 2020 at 4:24 pm
The 1971 May Day demonstrations. I was there but didn’t get arrested, but 7000 people were and they were hauled off to a practice field at RFK stadium. Most of them just walked away, I heard.
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Jakash said on June 5, 2020 at 4:38 pm
This country is so screwed. Along with everything else going on, we’re balancing on the knife edge of having to rely on John Roberts to occasionally be reasonable, rather than a partisan enabler.
“So why did the court’s order, issued as midnight approached on Friday night, fill me with dread rather than relief? It was because in a ruling that should have been unanimous, the vote was 5 to 4.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/supreme-court-religion-coronavirus.html?
If there were really such a thing as effective “checks and balances,” Chief Justice Roberts, in 2016, would have let it be known that the Supreme Court would not hear a case again until a justice appointed by Barack Obama was seated. And he would have followed through on that threat, if necessary. Now, *that* would have been a constitutional crisis, but no less of one than what transpired, courtesy of Moscow Mitch. The Supreme Court, as currently constituted, is spurious and will likely remain so for a generation.
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Jeff Borden said on June 5, 2020 at 5:11 pm
Jakash,
Sad. Moscow Mitch and Leningrad Lindsey are helping to ensure millennials and Gen Zers will be unable to enact the changes they seek as they age by packing the lower federal courts with hardcore righties. Bastards.
I wonder what might’ve happened if Roberts had shown some courage as you suggest. But he’s just a blander version of old Clarence and Beer Bong Brett. . .groomed since the Reagan years for this post. His job is to protect the status quo and he has committed his life to it.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 5, 2020 at 5:41 pm
“Eventually people will gravitate to the best stuff,” said Kiska.
From his lips to God’s ear.
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Heather said on June 5, 2020 at 5:55 pm
Does an NDA hold up in court when you’re paying for sex? Thought that was illegal.
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Sherri said on June 5, 2020 at 5:57 pm
So, every member of the Buffalo Police Department’s Emergency Responce Team resigned from that role (but not from the force) after two members of the team were suspended because they knocked down a 75 year old man, injuring him, again, as we’ve seen so often, without provocation.
They resigned because the officers were suspended, not because of the injured man.
But right, just a few bad apples.
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Sherri said on June 5, 2020 at 6:14 pm
I’m seeing the new fencing around the White House being referred to on Twitter as #babygate.
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Sherri said on June 5, 2020 at 6:23 pm
This is…beyond words.
https://twitter.com/natalieweiner/status/1268987091419049984
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beb said on June 5, 2020 at 7:37 pm
Perhaps JCBurns could explain why I see a large blank section in Nancy’s post where she is (apparently) linking to something. I’m seeing this on a number of other sites – a post 6-8 lines without nothing visible. I know I’m missing something but I don’t know what or how to fix it.
I’ve been blogs since 2003 and even then there were rumors about Lindsay Graham being gay. In fact I think the reason he became such a total sycophant to Trump was because Trump has proofs of Graham’s homosexuality.
I had vaguely heard about Buffalo cops resigning in protest of the cop suspension and thought “don’t let the door hit you on the backside.” Now Sherri says they only quit their elite squad, which considering that they did not bother to stop and aid the man they knocked down, is a good thing.
We should remember that the adage is “One bad apple spoils the barrel.” It’s not that there is one bad apple in the police but they have been there so long that the whole barrel is rotten.
I read once the unconventional opinion that policing in large cities, which began around 1830 or so) was more to suppress mobs than to prevent crime. And things like loitering laws were passed to keep people from gathering in the streets to air their disagreements. The elites could afford to rent a hall to conspire but the poor couldn’t afford halls so had to meet on the street. By keeping for meeting on the streets the elites kept them from plotting together.
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Jakash said on June 5, 2020 at 7:42 pm
Once again, beyond parody, Sherri @ 9. Cognitive dissonance, indeed. “As Sons of Confederate Veterans, we are sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Really? If their “fathers” had done that, there wouldn’t have been any Confederate veterans. “Anti-American agenda.” Hmmm…. I think Robert E. Lee had one of them there!
Talk about putting lipstick on a pig. They evidently think calling it the “War Between the States” makes treason sound a lot more palatable than I do.
Yeah, you’re right, Jeff B. Imagining that Roberts might have acted to preserve the integrity of the Court presumes a fact not in evidence. That he cares more about fairness and justice than he does about Republican power.
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LAMary said on June 5, 2020 at 7:45 pm
I’ve seen a lot online over the last few years about Miss Lindsay being gay. It’s too bad he’s had to hide it all these years and too bad he can be blackmailed. Trump would be just the type of shit to do that. But then again, maybe it’s not true. It shouldn’t make a difference.
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Dexter Friend said on June 6, 2020 at 1:07 am
I have been out of the war for 49 years but people still say “thanks for your service”, so to LA Mary, I reckon by gawd I can still say “thank you for going out to try to get us the fuck out of that goddam quagmire rathole shitty war.” So thank you, and anyone else who said their piece to the government to end that war. My friend in NYC , back in the Iraq war demonstrations, told me that by then the NYC police had perfected the herding technique, orchestrated with many vans, to capture demonstrators by penning them in to pre-set temporary fencing, and anyone who uttered a word of protest to any cop was strap-cuffed and hauled to Rikers.
Yeah, nobody said much about Graham being gay, but I guessed most knew it and let it be. Now with a tattle-tale escort service blabbing, true or not, what’s next? I predict it will blow over quickly.
I am just happy because English Premier League Football starts in just 11 days, with empty seats and piped in crowd noise, perhaps.
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alex said on June 6, 2020 at 9:06 am
Lady G’s finally getting her karmic comeuppance. If the escorts’ stories are even half as good as the ones they told on John Travolta, it should be a rollicking good time.
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Jakash said on June 6, 2020 at 1:16 pm
Ah, The Lincoln Project takes a look at Moscow Mitch, or RichMitch, as they call him.
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1265962113765384193
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Deborah said on June 6, 2020 at 1:44 pm
I’ve donated to the Lincoln Project. I love how they’re dealing with Trump and it really gets under his skin. I think they’re having an impact on Trump’s numbers. George Conway, Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, Tom Nichols have really come through, there are more but those are the ones I read on Twitter. I hope they don’t turn back into assholes after Trump loses, that’s a possibility of course.
We’re having a lovely rainy day in Santa Fe, and our neighbor out in Abiquiu says it’s been raining a lot there too, which is very good news.
The thirsty plants are loving it. We water a lot but rain is magical. We went to the farmer’s market assuming because of the rain there would be fewer people there and it would be more comfortable walking around with more social distancing. But no, there were still a lot of people there, all wearing masks but distancing was difficult. NM is having a spike in cases, so going out and about is anxiety producing again.
Yesterday I dug out old caulk around our bathtub and this morning we re-caulked that and the floor around the toilet. And holy cow, we’re never doing that again, super messy. Next time we’re hiring someone. When we were renting this place we made a lot of improvements which we paid for and did the labor ourselves because obviously it wasn’t ours. Now that we own, we’re rethinking improvements with an eye to having it all done properly instead of seat of our pants DIY. This re-caulking job confirmed that we need to get someone in to do it properly next time and saves us a lot of grief. We are never caulking again, what a messy pain.
My husband arrived in Northern IL yesterday and his uncle thought he was his own brother (uncle J’s brother, the one who died a few months ago, but we decided not to tell uncle J when it happened that his brother had died, as his Dr said it’s very bad for him to receive bad news like that at this point in his disease). At least he knew my husband was family. My husband said the road trip was miserable with temps near 100. He’s going to drive back to NM the northern route over to Montana and down through Wyoming and Colorado, much more scenic too even though it will add lots of milage.
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LAMary said on June 6, 2020 at 1:55 pm
That’s going to be a haul, Deborah. You’re right, though. Very pretty places once you get through to Montana.
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Suzanne said on June 6, 2020 at 3:29 pm
The Lincoln Project is putting out some great stuff! Nichols & Wilson have some biting quips on Twitter and I enjoyed their books.
I don’t trust Conway as far as I could throw him. I don’t know what his relationship is with his wife, but the fact that she’s got her old hag face out there lying for the Supreme Leader every week tells me George isn’t on the up & up, but is padding his family income on both sides.
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Deborah said on June 6, 2020 at 4:42 pm
I hear you Suzanne, it is bizarre when you compare the things Conway says about Trump and yet his wife works for him and lies for him wantonly. What kind of a marriage must they have? But I sure do find it interesting reading What George Has to say about Trump, especially his comments about Trump’s malignant, sociopathic narcissism.
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Deborah said on June 6, 2020 at 5:07 pm
Have you all seen the videos of the number of people marching in Philadelphia? Mind boggling. Masses and masses of people. I hope they’re all going to stay healthy. Wow, what a moment in history.
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David C said on June 6, 2020 at 5:13 pm
I think the Conways are just playing both ends for profit after tRump loses. It’s the James Carville/Mary Matalin playbook. After the election they’ll pop up on smug, asshole Maher’s show and all the other shows and they’ll all have a good fine laugh over what fun the tRump administration was while the rest of us are going to have our lives messed up for a very long time.
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LAMary said on June 6, 2020 at 8:48 pm
Agreed, David C. I don’t think either one of them is invested in what they say. They’re just playing both sides and that’s pretty disgusting.
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LAMary said on June 6, 2020 at 11:23 pm
Rubber bullets.
https://tinyurl.com/y8o8lvhj
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beb said on June 7, 2020 at 12:12 am
LAMary thanks for the link about “rubber” bullets. I’d never seen an actual “rubber” bullet before. It’s bad enough that they are much harder than what we expect something made of rubber to be, but we are clearly seeing police using them improperly by aiming directly at protesters. Cops seem determined to prove the tag line ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) to be true.
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Sherri said on June 7, 2020 at 1:22 am
As we’ve seen, there’s policy, and there’s what police officers actually do. Policy may say that the rubber bullets are supposed to be directed to the ground, but obviously that’s not what’s been happening.
The Seattle PD announced a 30 day hold on using tear gas, but said they would continue to use pepper spray, because they had a policy on that. I’ve read the entire policy on pepper spray, and I’ve also watched lots of video from the demonstrations in Seattle, and what happened bears little resemblance to what’s in the policy.
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Dexter Friend said on June 7, 2020 at 1:54 am
Social distancing is history it appears, in the cities anyway. I went to DG today and I and the 2 clerks were masked…nobody else was. Our town added 2 or 3 more Covid 19 positives in the past couple days. Nobody said to quit social distancing, no one said to throw our masks away.
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Jakash said on June 7, 2020 at 10:58 am
Seems to me that people sticking with the pandemic program around here in Chicago is like anything else. Sure, there are some who have been aching to get a haircut or were the first to quaff a brew at an outdoor table. There are plenty of photos of bros and gals at places in Wrigleyville, e.g, that are too close together. But I think the majority are sticking with the distancing and masks. Still, between the protests, the folks “opening up” irresponsibly and the fact that we’re surrounded by states with less stringent measures, a step backwards for overall containment seems inevitable to me.
There’s certainly a lot more traffic than there was. The major impact of that for me is that it makes running in the street, which I’ve been doing a fair amount of, a dicier proposition than it was in April.
We miss eating out pretty much, but we won’t be doing it at this point, nor for quite a while, I imagine.
I spent a couple minutes puzzling over “DG” in Dexter’s comment. Couldn’t think of a city that would pertain to, didn’t know what store — DQ, I’d have gotten! — but the ole search engine came through pronto. Dollar General popped right up…
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