Joe Biden isn't Bill Clinton. Not really the Sister Soulja moment some have urged.

More like praising with faint damns, as Wilde put it.

Statement by Vice President Joe Biden on the deadly violence in Portland

He blames Trump for inciting hatred and fear, not MSNBC, CNN, BBC, the NYT, and the Democratic propagandists and commentariat, generally.

He condemns violence "of left and right".

He focuses on killings.

And the rioting in general, the destruction of property, the economic and social damage, and the people hurt but not killed?

More than three months of riots by antifa, anarchists, BLM, racist radicals, and others of the idiot left in numerous cities across the country.

And it's been a long time since Charlottesville.

Biden Emerges From Basement, Sees Violence, and Makes This Unbelievable Statement

Snark? Scorn? This, too, is propaganda.

All the same.

It appears a Trump supporter was murdered by a leftist in Portland last night, but details are still emerging. 

Regardless of what happened, the shooting has finally prompted Joe Biden to denounce the violence in Portland that's been occurring on a nightly basis for three months now. 

"The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by any one, whether on the left or the right," Biden said in a statement. 

. . . .

Oh yes, I remember now. It was President Trump who encouraged chaos in the streets when he accused cops of being murderous racists, or when he said America was founded on white supremacy, or when he endorsed the vandalism of historic statues, or when he referred to looters and thugs as "peaceful" protesters as a violent mob raged out of control for months. 

That was all "fanning the flames of hate and division" all, right? But President Trump wasn't the one doing it. 

That was Joe Biden, the media, and the far-left radicals who will be running the government if Trojan horse Biden fools the American people into electing him president. 

Gaslighting: Blaming Left-Wing Violence and Rioting on Trump Is Brazenly Ludicrous

Once the violence spilled over into a small city in a swing state and public opinion started to shift, the Biden campaign finally rolled Biden out to condemn non-peaceful actions, which he's occasionally done with perfunctory statements. 

But his party ignored the issue in their four-night infomercial, elected officials have been bullied by the hard Left into deleting social media posts disavowing violence, and top Biden surrogates have contorted themselves to avoid saying anything too harshly negative about the rioters.

. . . .

As I wrote on Twitter, "there has been violence from the radical right in some cases, which is egregious, appalling and indefensible. Still, bothsidesing the violence & unrest is a form of gaslighting. The mayhem/rioting/looting/assaults has been profoundly asymmetric, and driven by the hard left." 

That's a fact.

Not a lot of social distancing at riots, either. Super-spreaders?

How far will this hurt Joe B in crucial swing states?

Will it even cost him Wisconsin?

538 says the polls there still look good for Joe B.

They think he has a 69% shot at an EC victory, with Trump trailing at 31%.

Maybe the "ride it out" strategy will work.

But nobody knows how to factor in the expected big increase in mail in and absentee voting 

A national pissing contest

Crazies of the left have caused no end of chaos and destruction in cities all over America, every day and every night, for more than three months.

And the crazy right?

What, a day and a night at Charlottesville?

Who is the grave threat to the republic, to democracy, to the rule of law, to domestic tranquility and ordered liberty?

Trump, too stupid, ignorant, and incompetent for the the role, and anyway with no institutional support to speak of, awaits his cue to step forward as . . . Pinochet? Fujimori? Franco?

What would that be like?

The second time as farce?

Or the third?

Whatever.

Could be a long time if the delay so far is a clue

Rev. Jesse Jackson calls for officers to be charged in Jacob Blake shooting

"We're going to march, were going to protest, nonviolent and disciplined and in big numbers, until these men are in jail," Jackson said of the police officers involved in the incident in which Blake, 29, was shot.

I could be wrong, but it looks like it won't go down that way.

Responding to a 17-year-old white suspect arrested in a shooting at a protest in Kenosha on Tuesday night that left two men dead and one wounded, Jackson said, "White citizens should not provide sanctuary for this kind of killing."

Ballocks.

Canada?

Statue of Canada's first prime minister toppled by protesters demanding police defunding

Andrew Sullivan seems to be back to blogging. About how democracies perish.

He just misses telling the horrible truth that the anti-democratic right are the legitimate offspring of their elders and legitimators in spite of themselves, the anti-democratic left.

It happened in Spain.

It happened in Weimar.

The Trap The Democrats Walked Right Into

But here’s one thing I have absolutely no conflict about. 

Rioting and lawlessness is evil. And any civil authority that permits, condones or dismisses violence, looting and mayhem in the streets disqualifies itself from any legitimacy. 

This comes first. 

If one party supports everything I believe in but doesn’t believe in maintaining law and order all the time and everywhere, I’ll back a party that does. 

In that sense, I’m a one-issue voter, because without order, there is no room for any other issue. 

Disorder always and everywhere begets more disorder; the minute the authorities appear to permit such violence, it is destined to grow. 

And if liberals do not defend order, fascists will.

I don't live where the rioters are running free, and I doubt AS does.

And my one issue is that I will never vote for a party sworn to kill me, but will instead vote for the party sworn to keep me alive.

I crucially need both Social Security and Medicare to avoid ending my life sleeping in an alley, fighting stray dogs for pizza out of a dumpster.

The GOP is profoundly devoted to destroying both of those, called "entitlements", by the way, because having paid to support both all our working lives we who now depend on them are entitled to count on them.

And so far the Dems are committed to coming through for us.

And as I’ve watched protests devolve over the summer into a series of riots, arson expeditions, and lawless occupations of city blocks, along with disgusting and often racist profanity, I’ve begun to feel similarly. 

And when I watched the Democratic Convention and heard close to nothing about ending this lawlessness, I noted the silence. 

. . . .

When a political party finds itself so wedded to a new and potent ideology it cannot call out violence when it sees it, then it is walking straight into a trap. 

When the discourse on the left has become one in which scholars and editors and Tweeters vie with one another to up the ante on how inherently evil America has always been, redescribe it as a slaveocracy, and endorse racist books that foment the most egregious stereotypes about “whiteness”, most ordinary people, who love their country and are mostly proud of its past, will rightly balk. 

One of the most devastating lines in president Trump’s convention speech last night was this: 

“Tonight, I ask you a very simple question: How can the Democrat Party ask to lead our country when it spends so much time tearing down our country?” 

A cheap shot, yes. 

But in the current context, a political bullseye.

. . . .

And look at the icons Trump invoked: Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley, Davy Crockett, and Buffalo Bill. You can mock. 

But in the midst of a culture being redescribed by the left as a form of foul and relentless “white supremacy”, and in a moment of arson and rioting, it felt like a kind of balm. 

All this reassurance played out against a backdrop of Kenosha, which was burning, and Minneapolis, where a suicide led to a bout of opportunistic looting, and Washington DC, where mobs of wokesters went through the city chanting obscenities, invading others’ spaces, demanding bystanders raise fists in solidarity, with occasional spasms of violence. 

These despicable fanatics, like it or not, are now in part the face of the Democrats: a snarling bunch of self-righteous, entitled bigots, chanting slogans rooted in pseudo-Marxist claptrap, erecting guillotines — guillotines! — in the streets as emblems of their agenda. 

They are not arguing; they are attempting to coerce. 

And liberals, from the Biden campaign to the New York Times, are too cowardly and intimidated to call out these bullies and expel them from the ranks. 

. . . .

It was a sign that the establishment left were willing to tolerate disorder and chaos if they were directed toward the ideologically correct ends — which is how Democratic establishments in Minneapolis and Seattle and Portland responded. 

The NYT, CNN and the rest tried to ignore the inexcusable, and find increasingly pathetic ways to dismiss it. 

This week, their staggering bias was exposed as absurd.

. . . .

And let’s be frank about this and call this by its name: this is very Weimar. 

The center has collapsed. 

Armed street gangs of far right and far left are at war on the streets. 

Tribalism is intensifying in every nook and cranny of the culture. 

The establishment right and mainstream left tolerate their respective extremes because they hate each other so much.

And so on.

He pretty much predicts the worst, even if Biden wins.

Trump lies all the time, except when the truth makes him look good.

Trump: Protesters Your Ass, They Are Not Protesters; They Are Anarchists, Agitators, Rioters & Looters

And assholes, but he left that out.

President Donald Trump criticized the protests and riots that ensued in the streets of Washington, D.C. following his acceptance of the Republican nominee for president at the White House. 

Trump said Friday at a campaign event in Manchester, NH that they are anarchists, agitators, rioters, looters who do not get denounced by Democratic politicians.

"Today's Democrat party is filled with hate," Trump said Friday. 

That's a lie, but the Democrats sure are walking right into it.

Antifa and anarchists have no love for Democrats and may even hope their violence gets a win for Trump.

Maybe some of the BLM or other radical racial left, too.

"Just look at Joe Biden's supporters on the streets screaming and shouting at bystanders with unhinged, manic rage. Right? You see it. It's crazy. You ought to see last night in Washington, it was a disgrace. It was a disgrace that these people are representing the United States of America. It was a disgrace."

"Protesters. You know what I say? Protesters, your ass. I don't talk about my ass. They're not protesters. Those aren't protesters. Those are anarchists, they're agitators, they're rioters, they're looters. You say that and some of the people, not all of the people, back there how dare you? These are friendly protesters, right?" Trump said.

Do Trump's work for him

Wheeler just spent about five seconds deploring the shooting last night and the riots in Portland and then at least five minutes blaming Trump for it all and complaining about Trumpist counter-demonstrators.

He made it clear neither Trump nor counter-demonstrators are welcome, but he continued to defend the right and duty to speak out against racism by tying up the city and making a path for violence every single day for as long as it can be kept up as absolutely constitutionally guaranteed.

95 days so far.

A parade of public officials is endorsing the official Democratic view that defends and sides with the demonstrations and demonstrators.

Trump is right. These slugs will never stop this.

Wheeler is back telling everyone proudly he and local officials will do pretty much everything BLM and the others have demanded.

Everything that looks like "attacking systemic racism", that is.

Probably a lot of that in Portland, too, where the Dems have been running everything for about forever.

Guess the terrorists have won, eh?

But even Fox and Kelly Anne Conway are wearing yellow stripes down their backs.

Portland shooting leaves 1 dead as pro-Trump group clashes with BLM

The victim was pro-Trump and the Dems are blaming him for the violence.

What would they be saying if the victim had been a BLM or antifa type?

Trump rails against 'incompetent' Portland mayor, says 'backlash' involving supporters not 'unexpected'

A propos de reparations

Has anyone mentioned that blackmailers always come back for more?

The fearless troll in the White House, maybe?

Did George Floyd kill himself?

George Floyd died of a drug overdose

Prosecutors knew that by June 1.

The prosecution of Derek Chauvin for a murder that didn't happen, for the fake murder of George Floyd, has not been dropped even now.

Why not?

I [John Hinderacker] can answer the last question. 

If charges against Derek Chauvin and the other officers were dropped, rioting would break out not just in Minneapolis, but across the country. 

Broad swaths of the City of Minneapolis have already been burned to the ground, and that is probably nothing compared to what Black Lives Matter would do if the criminal justice system followed normal procedures. 

Derek Chauvin, at this point, is a man without a country, a man who probably cannot receive a fair trial anywhere in the United States. 

Certainly not in Hennepin County, where he has been charged.

Derek Chauvin, former officer accused in George Floyd's death, wants murder charges dismissed

Floyd's killing, captured on video, sparked worldwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality.

Defense attorneys sought to put the blame on Floyd for his death, arguing that his alleged drug use was the critical factor.  

"Put simply, Mr. Floyd could not breathe because he had ingested a lethal dose of fentanyl and, possibly, a speedball," Chauvin's attorney said in the court documents. 

"Combined with sickle cell trait, his pre-existing heart conditions, Mr. Floyd’s use of fentanyl and methamphetamine most likely killed him."

They argued that without knowledge of Floyd's alleged drug use or symptoms of overdose, Chauvin "was unaware of the potential dangerous of using MRT (Maximal Restraint Technique)," a reference to the officer's knee on the victim's neck.

"Instead, he (Chauvin) relied on his training and the information available to him to try and assist his fellow officers and to prevent Mr. Floyd from harming himself," the defense attorneys argued. 

"Derek Chauvin did not cause George Floyd’s death." 

Some of the "good people" on the left extreme

Protesters in Name Only

Another story about the mob that harassed Rand Paul and his wife.

But about different people attacked by them.

Interesting how many photos show the rioters to be overwhelmingly white.

I watched none of either convention. I would not have liked this choice for his major speech.

I opposed busing when Joe did and I oppose it now, by the way.

Biden’s Intended Race on Race

Biden’s speech told America all we needed to know about why Biden chose Harris — despite their acrimonious past — and where Biden intends to take his campaign over the next two months. 

If Joe has his way, this will be a race on race.

His acceptance speech’s first words, after “good evening,” were “Ella Baker, a giant of the civil rights movement, left us with this wisdom: Give people light and they will find a way. Give people light, those are words for our time.”

Having connected his campaign message with “light,” he would use “light” repeatedly throughout his 25-minute address. 

Although lacking specifics, his subliminal racial message was clear: I am the anti-racist; if you are not with me, you are a racist or condone racism.

For those on whom such subtlety might be lost, he was explicit too. He called out “communities who have known the injustice of the ‘knee on the neck.’” 

Biden also listed “the most compelling call for racial justice since the ’60s” as one of the “four historic crises” he enumerated. 

When mentioning coronavirus’s economic impact, he singled out minority communities as “bearing the brunt of it.” 

Race was everywhere.

The speech’s fulcrum was the implication that Biden was doing far more than just running for president. 

Biden laid claim to leading a movement to complete the work of the 1960s civil rights movement. 

“History has thrust one more urgent task on us. Will we be the generation that finally wipes the stain of racism from our national character?” 

Biden even cited the Charlottesville protests of three years earlier as the motivation behind his campaign (despite not announcing for another two years): “For me, a call for action. At that moment, I knew I’d have to run.”

Biden has changed. Will the changeless Church change faster?

Will the Catholic Bishops Call Out Joe?

During the South Carolina primary, Fr. Robert Morey of Florence denied Biden communion on the grounds he had excommunicated himself by taking the stand he has taken on the killing of the unborn.

“Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other, and the Church,” said Morey. “Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself out of Church teaching.”

But subversion is rife in the Church as everywhere else.

Had moral truth changed? Did Catholic teaching change? No, Biden changed. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church still declares “homosexual acts” to be “intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law” and describes “homosexual tendencies” as “objectively disordered.”

Biden once believed this, or said he did for most of his life, for that is the way he campaigned in Delaware and voted in D.C.

What has changed is the Democratic Party Biden now heads. 

The precepts of LGBT now dictate “moral truth” in the party and platform of Joe Biden who now calls transgender rights “the civil rights issue of our time.”

. . . .

On right-to-life, the declared position of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is clear: “Taxpayer dollars should never fund abortion.”

This unequivocal moral stance is being publicly repudiated and will be rejected, should he win the presidency on Nov. 3, by the professed believing and practicing Catholic, Joe Biden.

What, if anything, are the U.S. Catholic bishops going to say about this grave moral issue in the fall election? Or will they remain silent?

The face of the urban Democratic Party

'Stay away, please': Mayor Wheeler writes open letter to President Trump

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler does not want federal law enforcement to return to Portland. He sent an open letter to President Trump via email on Friday, declining the president's recurring offer to send federal aid to the city.

"Dear President Trump," he wrote in the letter. "Yet again, you said you offered to aid Portland by sending in federal law enforcement to our city. On behalf of the City of Portland: No thanks."

Why That Letter Portland's Mayor Sent to Trump Just Blew Up in His Face

BREAKING: Activists occupy Portland mayor Ted Wheeler’s apartment and aren’t leaving until he: resigns, abolishes the police by 2022 with no tech or private replacement, and allots saved resources to BIPOC communities and city services.

BIPOC looks like an leftist racist/racial hate group to me.

Children of Zinn.

Rising Tide NA

Reportedly they left without seeing the mayor.

Looting goes mainstream on NPR

Is Steven Hayward right?

The whole thing is a window into the mental perversion of today’s left. 

A lot of people are attacking NPR for featuring such an obvious nut job, but I think we should thank NPR for giving such extended exposure to a view that is widespread in the Democratic Party right now.

If ever there was an opportunity for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to have a “Sister Souljah moment,” it would be right now. Anyone making book that they can do it?

The not terribly perceptive ultra-left at The Guardian is getting a bad feeling.

With Donald Trump and this election, it feels ominously like 2016 all over again

We could so easily step into another Electoral College victory for a populist authoritarian clown who loses the popular vote.

This writer is full of foreboding and doubts about Biden's stay-mum strategy, but had Biden spoken up much earlier and attacked the rioters from the start and equally hammered the leftism this writer so loves, where would the support of the Bernie Bros and racist/racial leftists have gone?

He doesn't see that it isn't Trump's entirely fictitious political genius that has made a second term increasingly likely.

Nor some lack of political wit on Biden's part.

He doesn't know to ask himself these questions.

Are the Democrats going to be sunk because their party so heavily depends on ultras whom they cannot get to the polls without embracing or appearing to embrace positions feared and loathed even by most Democrats, let alone the rest of America?

Or is that dependence merely a self-destructive delusion or poor strategic choice from which Democrats may yet hope to recover?

Though not before this election has run its course.

Perhaps losing twice in a row to a naked emperor with nothing at all to commend him but the deplorable talents of a clown might teach them that lesson.

A Democratic turf war is raging — even as progressives try to elect Biden

Is Biden Ceding the Law-and-Order Issue?

Fox goes on offense for Rittenhouse

Accused Kenosha shooter's lawyer claims self-defense amid new video

A 17-year-old charged in two shooting deaths amid a chaotic demonstration in Kenosha, Wis., earlier this week feared for his life after being attacked by rioters who chased and beat him, his attorney said Friday.

In a lengthy statement, the lawyer for Kyle Rittenhouse, John Pierce, said prosecutors rushed to judgment in charging his client to appease "divisive" and "destructive" forces without analyzing Tuesday's events.

"This was not a serious investigation," Pierce said. 

"Rather, after learning Kyle may have had conservative political viewpoints, they immediately saw him as a convenient target who they could use as a scapegoat to distract from the Jacob Blake shooting and the government’s abject failure to ensure basic law and order to citizens."

Just to clarify

Kneeling on the neck of an habitual criminal for seven or eight minutes until he dies is murder.

Shooting a fleeing habitual criminal to death as he flees when much less force would have worked is murder, even if some cop manual permits or even recommends it.

But I am not on board for the absurd mythology of overwhelming and overwhelmingly powerful racism, systemic or otherwise, exploited and spread every election season by the depraved propaganda of Democrats without concern for its destructive consequences.

And I am even further from on board with condoning or tolerating riots for three f-ing months.

Update 8/30.

George Floyd wasn't killed by Dereck Chauvin. He od'd on recreational drugs. The kneeling had nothing to do with it and was apparently by the book.

Jacob Blake's shooting might have been by the book. Seems he was a fleeing felon resisting arrest and had or was reaching for a weapon.

Where is Biden? Where are the Democrats?

This Is How Biden Loses

Increasing numbers of Americans are seeing Democrats as complicit in or at best tolerant and indulgent toward the mad rioters who are trashing so many cities.

This article and the alarm of so many Democrats are so many confessions.

George Packer at The Atlantic joins Don Lemon and others calling for Biden and Democrats to hammer away at the riots and rioters.

Every day of silence makes credible the Duce's charges Biden is weak, putty in the hands of radicals and a party taken over by revolutionaries and America haters, a Trojan horse for friends of antifa, the worst of the BLM crazies, and the Red Guards and Culture Warriors smashing and burning American cities.

Every day the Republicans turn up the volume on exactly these accusations and attacks.

But it may already be too late for the late conversion at the top Packer is calling for.

And too little.

The whole party is stained.

In the crude terms of a presidential campaign, voters know that the Democrat means it when he denounces police brutality, but less so when he denounces riots. 

To reach the public and convince it otherwise, Biden has to go beyond boilerplate and make it personal, memorable.

Harris, a Black former prosecutor and now an advocate for police reform, seems uniquely positioned to speak to the crisis. 

But she has said little all week, which suggests that there might be things she doesn’t want to say. 

On Thursday, Harris directly addressed the events in Kenosha, affirming that Americans “must always defend peaceful protest and peaceful protesters. We should not confuse them with those looting and committing acts of violence.” 

She quickly moved on. 

Democratic leaders, from the nearly invisible mayor of Kenosha up to those on the presidential ticket, are reluctant to tarnish a just cause, amplify Republican attacks, or draw the wrath of their own progressive base (Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut deleted a tweet saying that both the Blake shooting and the riots were wrong after commenters accused him of equating the two). 

So Democrats continue to mute their response to the violence and hope it will subside, even though it has persisted straight through the summer.

. . . .

On Tuesday night, the CNN host Don Lemon warned his colleague Chris Cuomo that riots were hurting Biden and the Democrats: “Chris, as you know and I know, it’s showing up in the polls, it’s showing up in focus groups. It’s the only thing right now that’s sticking.” 

Lemon urged Biden to speak out about both police reform and violence. 

With Kenosha and the political conventions, the coverage seems to be changing. On Thursday, the Times ran a piece headlined “How Chaos in Kenosha Is Already Swaying Some Voters in Wisconsin.” 

Half a dozen Kenosha residents, reckoning with damaged buildings and businesses, expressed displeasure with the uncertain response of Democratic officials. 

Ellen Ferwerda, an antique store owner, “said that she was desperate for Trump to lose in November but that she had ‘huge concern’ the unrest in her town could help him win. She added that local Democratic leaders seemed hesitant to condemn the mayhem.”

Ignorant armies clash by night

Rand Paul calls for FBI arrests, investigation into 'mob' he believes 'would have killed us,' if not for police

He called them idiots in the long video.

Paul was trying to get to his hotel across the street from the White House, but it was blocked by protesters, so he said the Secret Service instructed him, his wife, Kelley, and two female friends to get on a bus, which took 45 minutes to get through all the mobs, and then he planned to get an Uber to get dropped off at the hotel, but the streets were blocked and no one would let them through.

"They were shouting threats to us, to kill us, to hurt us, but also threats saying shout, shouting 'say her name,' Breonna Taylor, and it's like you couldn't reason with this mob, but I'm actually the author of the Breonna Taylor law to end no-knock raids, so the irony is lost on these idiots that they're trying to kill the person who's actually trying to get rid of no-knock raids," he said.

Paul said he's authored 22 criminal justice reforms with President Trump and former President Barack Obama, but the demonstrators were still yelling: "We're not going to let you go alive unless you'll say you're for criminal justice reform."

He spun the whole thing into an anti-Democratic tirade and a blast at Biden and Harris.

He invented a conspiracy theory on the spot.

I requested a mail in ballot on line just now. The promised email confirmation has not shown up.

Oops. Now I've got it.

Jason Whitlock on the current craziness

BLM 101: career politicians who created systemic unfairness are playing LeBron and his disciples for suckers

Read it yourself.

A bit more on the McCloskeys

Protesters are clearing a path for Trump

If there is a couple who have come to epitomize this fork in reality it is Mark and Patricia McCloskey. 

They are the couple from St Louis who made headlines in June when a BLM protest broke on to private property. 

Fearing for their lives, and their notably elegant home, the McCloskeys came out on to their terrace with their guns and stayed there until the protesters left. 

This week they made a five-minute appearance at the Republican convention.

. . . .

They are two law-abiding home-owners. 

A protest broke on to private property and they asserted their right as American citizens to defend their home. 

No shots were fired, yet thanks to the activist local circuit attorney Kim Gardner, the McCloskeys are now charged with ‘unlawful use of a weapon’, which is a felony. 

None of the people who broke on to the property have suffered any harm.

. . . .

But you know, a couple of months ago Mrs McCloskey was sitting in the home she and her husband had worked their lives to create. 

The mob started by shouting: ‘Racist!’ 

Audio of the event shows that at least one member of the crowd shouted: ‘We gonna kill you, bitch.’ Soon a man in the mob was screaming: ‘I’mma rape you, bitch.’

‘You can’t stop the revolution,’ the group’s Marxist ring-leader bellowed at the couple through a bullhorn as the mob milled. 

That ring-leader has since been given the Democratic nomination to enter the US House of Representatives as congresswoman for the area. 

Harris on Trump: His plan to kill the payroll tax will kill Social Security in less than two years, and his Justice Department is in court right now trying to kill every bit of Obamacare, including the only protection for people with preexisting conditions

On the wrong side of the Blake affair and the Floyd/BLM riots.

But right on the rest.

Trump plan to scrap payroll tax would reduce benefits by 2021, top Social Security actuary says

A different view of the Blake shooting

Brandon Tatum: Jacob Blake Police Shooting Was Justified

Blake was a criminal who was committing crimes, was told to stop, was told he was under arrest, and before trying to flee in his car he had fought with police and been arrested for that.

He and the cops had been rolling on the ground fighting on the other side of the car when he got up and starts walking around the car as we see him doing in the famous video.

There was a warrant outstanding on him, anyway.

He has quite a criminal history.

Now we know why they didn't want to just let him drive away.

We also know why that cop looks so angry.

So, does this make it OK to shoot him seven times in the back?

Is that the law?

Tatum is police and he says yes, at that point under those circumstances the police didn't have to wait to see what he was reaching for, if anything, in that car.

It is interesting none of the major media are reporting all this about who Blake is.

This is Brandon Tatum.

A firm Trumpist Republican.

91 days of "lawful protest" and riots in Portland

Do they expect us to think local officials have no legal right to call a halt to their city being trashed after three months of people "exercising their constitutional rights"?

Details on the Rittenhouse shootings

Breaking Down The Videos Of The Two Shooting Incidents In Kenosha — Self-Defense?

Great detail.

Does look like self-defense.

The post does not address the question whether it was illegal in Wisconsin for a 17 year old to go armed.

The people KR shot are so far of unidentified race, I think.

Would that be so if they were black?

Tucker Carlson attacked for un-PC Crimespeak

Why the Left Is Trying to Get Tucker Carlson Off the Air...Again

“Kenosha has devolved into anarchy because the authorities in charge of the city abandoned it. 

People in charge in Wisconsin from the governor on down refused to enforce the law,” Carlson said during Wednesday's program. 

“They stood back and watched Kenosha burn.”

The Left's objection, however, came when the host asked, “How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

Carlson was referring to Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man arrested and charged with murder for allegedly shooting two Antifa rioters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after being attacked (my colleagues at RedState evaluate whether the incident was self-defense). 

According to police, he traveled approximately 20 miles from his home in Antioch, Ill., to join others in 'protecting' Kenosha.

“So what does that amount to? We’re unsure,” Carlson said. 

“A court will decide if what you just saw qualifies as self-defense.”

Pelosi to Joe B.: Don't debate Trump

Speaker Pelosi says Biden shouldn't debate President Trump because he will 'belittle' the purpose

"I myself -- just don't tell anybody who told you this, especially don't tell Joe Biden: I don't think that there should be any debates," Pelosi, D-Calif., volunteered during a news conference with reporters at the Capitol Thursday morning. 

"I do not think that the president of the United States has comported himself in a way that anybody should [and] has any association with truth, evidence, data and facts."

Biden insists he will debate Trump after Pelosi remarks

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Thursday said that he would debate President Trump shortly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested that Biden shouldn’t “legitimize” the incumbent president by participating in debates.

“No. As long as the commission continues down the straight now as they have, I’m going to debate him,” Biden told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell when asked whether he would consider not debating Trump following Pelosi’s comments.

“I am going to be the fact checker on the stage while I’m debating him,” Biden continued.

Fox shows video and the Times reports

Rittenhouse was being chased by rioters when he fired shots.

Stories now show he was a fan of police and Trump

One story says that at 17 he was not legally allowed to walk around carrying loaded firearms.

Trevor Noah asks why police shot Jacob Blake but not Kyle Rittenhouse

He should be asking why the kid was immediately charged with a first degree murder when reports suggest self-defense and the cop who shot the unarmed Jacob Blake seven times in the back is still free and not charged at all.

Democrats and left leaners are enraged that people have been showing up armed in Kenosha to protect property.

These are people who have spent every day since George Floyd was killed demanding racial justice and defending protesters, spending not one moment on complaints about the armed and violent rioters who have torn cities apart pretty much every night over all that time.

Local authorities and even some police have bought into that same biased narrative.

Some are particularly outraged that these "vigilantes" are in many cases out of towners there to defend property that isn't even theirs.

Not much outrage for the violent rioters who have been there every night to destroy property that isn't even theirs.

Pence, GOP overshoot the mark, shoot selves in foot.

NPR plays a clip of Pence last night telling America the riots everywhere must stop, Americans must stop hurting and killing Americans, Biden is complicit with the rioters and will not make Americans safe, but he and Trump will not tolerate rioting and violence and destruction, Trump will put an end to it and make Americans safe!

Vote for Trump and he'll put a stop to it!

NPR interviewer to GOP spokesperson:

Really? Why wait? 

Trump is in the White House now and has been for nearly four years, over all the time the rioting has been happening. 

It's all happening on his watch. Why wait?

GOP talking points urge Joe B was silent on rioting from the outset until just the other night, demanding why he didn't once condemn it all that time.

They are very boldly hanging the riots on the Democrats and Biden in particular.

Blake's lawyer on CNN just minutes ago was angrily complaining Rittenhouse wasn't shot by Illinois police when they arrested him.

My guess he didn't resist arrest.

He's on video trying to surrender to police that night in Kenosha.

Democratic media are absolutely lambasting this kid.

You would think he'd gone into a black church and sprayed the worshippers with gunfire, killing dozens.

Nobody is telling the audience what actually happened, how the shootings occurred.

Not once.

Rabbi Spero's invocation was a very strong campaign speech for Trump and against the BLM riots.

This is the guy.

Here's a disparity, if you want one

Took them ten seconds to decide to arrest that 17 year old kid, Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch, Illinois, and charge him with first degree murder.

They shamelessly threw the book at him.

They have still not arrested Rusten Sheskey, a 7-year-veteran of the Kenosha Police Department who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times.

Blake admitted to police interrogators he had a knife and police say they recovered a knife from under the front seat of his car.

That kid didn't fire at anyone until he, fleeing rioters, fell in the street and the rioters kept on coming at him.

Van Jones on CNN at about 8:15 pm is calling the kid a "lawless vigilante" and no one is criticizing that.

He's called the kid that four times in three minutes.

Rick Santorum is calling the kid a vigilante, too!

If that was self-defense, and the news reports indicate it was, then it doesn't matter why he was there.

He was there legally and he was armed legally.

But even a second Republican is calling his shooting at rioters who were reportedly charging at him a despicable act that must be condemned.

Strange bedfellows, indeed.

Bundy arrested at Idaho Statehouse for second time in 2 days

[Ammon] Bundy, who led the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, was arrested Tuesday in a committee room and charged with trespassing and resisting and obstructing officers. 

. . . .

Lawmakers on Tuesday had to abandon a committee room when a crowd shouted down lawmakers and forced them out. 

Bundy was later arrested in that room when he refused to leave. 

Bundy and his supporters are opposed to proposed legislation the committee was considering that would shield businesses, schools and government entities from liability if someone caught COVID-19.

. . . .

Bundy, 44, is a supporter of Black Lives Matter, and he supports defunding police to limit what he said has become a police state.

Laura now Cat 4

Hurricane Laura live updates: Storm now Category 4 with 'unsurvivable storm surge' expected

Laura is a Category 4 hurricane with "unsurvivable storm surge" expected in some areas, according to the National Hurricane Center.

"Unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves will cause catastrophic damage from Sea Rim State Park, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, including Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes," the NHC said in a statement. 

"This surge could penetrate up to 30 miles inland from the immediate coastline. Only a few hours remain to protect life and property and all actions should be rushed to completion."

Parts of eastern Texas and western Louisiana are forecast to see "catastrophic wind damage," especially in places where the storm's eyewall makes landfall, the NHC said. 

Residents are urged to brace for "widespread damaging wind gusts" that will spread well inland across parts of those areas early Thursday morning.

Angry Hillary and her advice for Joe B.

Hillary Clinton urges Biden not to concede in close election

"Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances because I think this is going to drag out and, eventually, I do believe he will win if we don't give an inch and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side," Clinton said in an interview with Showtime's "The Circus."

Clinton, who won almost three million more votes than Trump overall in 2016 but lost to him in the state-by-state electoral college count, suggested that the Republicans are hoping to get the result they want through in-person voting on the day -- and not necessarily wait for any delayed mail-in ballots to be counted.

Her comments follow warnings from both sides that the result of the election may not be known on the evening of November 3.

Republicans "have a couple of scenarios that they are looking toward. One is messing up absentee balloting," she said.

"They believe that helps them so that they then get maybe a narrow advantage in the electoral college on election day," Clinton said.

She called for Democrats to mount a "massive legal operation."

"We have to have our own teams of people to counter the force of intimidation that the Republicans and Trump are going to put outside polling places," she said.

Republicans have reacted by saying the Dems are undermining an eventual Trump win in advance and will reject a Trump win as crooked.

They say the same about Dem complaints about the Post Office and Trump's refusal to give it money.

"White silence is violence!" chant the BLM Red Guards.

More alternative facts from Fox.

Black Lives Matter protesters in DC seen berating diners, demanding they raise their fists, in viral videos

Videos of Black Lives Matter protesters screaming at people as they dine outside in the nation’s capital have gone viral this week, as protests picked up steam nationwide following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wis., on Sunday.

Frederick Kunkle, a Washington Post staff writer, posted a video Tuesday on Twitter that showed a crowd of protesters gathering closely around a woman, identified as Lauren Victor, as she sat outside on a sidewalk. 

The group demanded she raise her fist in solidarity as they chanted at her, “White silence is violence,” and, “No justice, no peace!”

The "protesters" were largely white.

And does Kunkle still work at the Post?

Yes or No?

Trump says he will send federal law enforcement, National Guard to Kenosha after Jacob Blake shooting

Meadows claims Wisconsin Gov. Evers rejected offer of federal help to quell Kenosha rioting

A Fair and Balanced story at Fox News

So, the Democrats are running these riots to destroy the American middle class?

Tucker Carlson: Kenosha riots prove urban unrest is 'class war masquerading as a race conflict'

Carlson pointed out that Kenosha is home to a large Hispanic immigrant population whose members were not seen rioting because working people are meant to work, he said, not start riots.

“As if we needed more evidence that this is actually a class war masquerading as a race conflict,” he said. 

“That's exactly what it is designed to [do]: crush America's middle class. And it's working.”

Kenosha storeowners woke up Tuesday morning to their livelihoods destroyed, with one owner saying how “wrong” it is since her business services everyone, regardless of race.

“You can hear the confusion in her voice [asking] 'Why did they do this to me?'” Carlson said. 

“And the short answer is because they could. Nobody stopped them from burning down her business or burning down the city. 

"The Kenosha County Democratic Party didn't stop them. The Democratic Party of Kenosha decided to embrace the mob.”

Is there rioting in any city controlled by local Republicans?

Are there any cities controlled by local Republicans?

Kenosha shooter identified and arrested

Illinois teen charged with homicide in killings of two people during Kenosha protests

If it happened as described in the story he has a pretty good self-defense plea to the seemingly ridiculous charge of first degree murder.

This event adds to the case that several states really need to revisit their carry laws.

They very quickly charged this kid who seemingly fired in self-defense but still have done nothing about the cop who shot Mr. Blake, seemingly out of nothing but rage.

And said nothing.

Silence as strategy?

Why no ads for Pam Iovino or Conor Lamb?

I've seen plenty for their opponents.

Laura a Cat 3 may be Cat 4 when it hits someplace between Houston and New Orleans

15 to 20 foot "unsurvivable" storm surge in Louisiana could reach as far inland as Interstate 10.

Laura

CDC caves to Trump again

‘This change in policy will kill’: Experts troubled by CDC changes to COVID-19 testing guidelines

CDC refuses to explain the changes, Brett Giroir at HHS, a Trump stooge who has already publicly downplayed the need for testing, says it's all cool.

Before changes were made Monday, the CDC website said testing was recommended “for all close contacts of persons with SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

The website now says someone who was in close contact (within 6 feet) of a person with COVID-19 for at least 15 minutes but doesn’t have symptoms does not “necessarily need a test.”

. . . .

The CDC estimates in its COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios that 40% of infections are asymptomatic and 50% of transmissions occur before symptoms appear. Experts worry that failing to test asymptomatic carriers could not only result in more infections but also hinder contact tracing efforts.

Larry Kudlow: Covid-19 is pretty much behind us, thanks to Trump.

'It was awful': Top Trump adviser Larry Kudlow referred to the pandemic in the past tense on a day the US recorded 1,147 COVID-19 deaths

One of President Donald Trump's top advisers referred to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in the past tense Tuesday during the second night of the Republican National Convention, appearing to suggest that the worst was behind the US on a day it recorded more than 1,100 deaths from COVID-19.

Larry Kudlow, the director of the White House National Economic Council, touted the strong economy during the first three years of the Trump presidency before describing the recession caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

"Then came a once-in-100-year pandemic," he said. 

"It was awful. Health and economic impacts were tragic. Hardship and heartbreak were everywhere. But presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the COVID virus."

Kenosha as elsewhere

Daytime mostly just protests, nighttime riots.

Thank the unemployment and school closings and cancellation of sports caused by the virus for making thousands of people available with not a thing in the world else to do.

2 Dead, 1 Injured During Protests Over Shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha

CNN's Don Lemon says Kenosha violence hurts Democrats: 'The rioting has to stop'

It's not just Kenosha.

Trump and the GOP have successfully pinned the rioting in cities all over the country since George Floyd was killed on Biden, local Democrats in authority, the Democrats in general, constant agitation by BLM and violent leftist radicals, and egregiously biased coverage in Democratic media.

The police have still said not a word about the shooting.

Alternative facts

Democratic facts:

Trump's response to the virus has been undermined from the beginning by denial, lies, underfunding, delay, inaction, and shirking of responsibility. These have caused tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths so far, deaths that could and should have been prevented, and will cause perhaps hundreds of thousands before this is over.

Republican facts:

The response is agreed by medical authorities to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives so far and will save many more before this is over, compared with what would have happened if nothing had been done at all.

Jacob Blake's family and attorneys talk to the press

Not a word to them or anyone from the authorities about events leading up to the shooting.

Friends don't let friends do horrible things that can't be undone.

Partners don't, either, you would think.

Why do the cops so often just stand by and watch absolute horrors enacted by cops?

Cops they can see are utterly out of control?

Other cops needed to stop that guy and tell him to have a seat on the ground, give up his weapon, and take a time out to cool off.

And that's true even if Blake had recently done something criminal or provocative.

Would you let your brother, out of control with rage, commit a murder?

Medical update seems to indicate Mr. Blake's spine was severed by a bullet.

Doesn't sound like you come back from that.

Blake was reportedly there to stop a fight between two women.

Still no hint how it went from that to a cop blinded by rage trying to kill him in front of three children, shooting him seven times in the back.

What do you know? He's not dead.

Pat Buchanan.

Today's column is a celebration of the Buchananite takeover of the GOP in the person of the Duce, Donald Trump.

For him, in utter delirium, Buchanan even abandons his decades of anti-Israeli sentiment and propaganda and celebrates Trump's Zionism.

Not entirely happy with the Duce's current hostility toward China regarding Hong Kong, however.

He doesn't see it part of the virus-connected shift for the election year.

He's very please with all the stuff about NATO and Putin and trade and Iran and global warming and and and.

And race.

A Most Consequential Presidency

A reminder of Pat's preference for authoritarian populism over rule of law republicanism and popular government.

A preference that emerged only when the rise of the Duce emboldened Buchanan.

Andrea Mitchell is being slapped around by Peter Navarro on plasma and a rushed vaccine

He's brushing off all worries about proper testing as mere Democrat talking points, bragging they will have a vaccine in a third the time it has taken in the past.

Hurray for Trump!

He has no clue how terrifying he and his idiot boss are.

I may just hunker down until March.

Parody? I fear not.

Matt Getz at the GOP convention on its first night.

"Settle for Biden, that's the hashtag promoted by AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and the socialists," Gaetz said. 

"The woketopians will settle for Biden because they will make him an extra in a movie written, produced and directed by others. It's a horror film, really."

"They'll disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home and invite MS-13 to live next door," added Gaetz. 

"And the police aren't coming when you call. In Democrat-run cities, they're already being defunded and disbanded."

The Pandemic today in the US

5.7 million known infected so far in the US, and 178,000 dead.

Attempted murder and others

Surely that.

How the cop who shot Jacob Blake should be charged.

Why does nobody ever stop the enraged cop?

Not even other cops?

Fear.

Laura now expected to hit the coast a cat 3 hurricane, near Houston or even to its west.

Blake paralyzed from the waist down.

Daytime demonstrations and nighttime riots in Kenosha.

Not a word about the shooting, the cop shooter, the other cops who did not restrain him, or what the hell happened.

Why do we so rarely talk about a rage shooting as this appears to be showing we need unarmed policing to be the norm?

Blake's kids reported to have been in the back seat of that car when he was shot.

What are we looking at?

What it looks like is an enraged cop follows closely until he loses it and pumps seven shots into the guy.

You be the judge.

Protests in Wisconsin after video appears to show police shooting Black man in the back

A black man, Jacob Blake, in white tee and shorts with empty hands walks around the front of a car and gets in, followed all the way by a uniformed white cop, not identified in this story, two or three feet behind him, seemingly holding a gun with both hands at arms' length pointed at Mr. Blake's back.

Maybe it's me but I think the cop looks furious, determined, and grim.

There are a few bystanders shouting a bit.

As Blake gets closer to the driver's seat door the cop gets closer to him.

The picture cuts out for three or four seconds just after Blake opens the door and gets into the driver's seat of the car, with the cop now so close he seems to be pushing Blake inside.

The cop has his left hand on the frame of the open car door.

In some other videos I have seen it looks like the cop has grabbed the white tee at the moment when the videoed action stops.

And then in the Guardian's video with no picture you hear gunfire. Seven shots.

You don't see anyone firing at anyone.

The picture comes back and the door is still open, though not as wide, and the cop still has his left hand on it.

You hear the car horn start blaring and people screaming.

Somebody's voice goes "Wow".

There is no hint why the video stops just before the shooting and starts up again immediately after.

You absolutely infer from what you see that the cop shot Blake in the car seven times, just after he got into the car.

We at no time see inside the car.

In the instant after the video stops and before the first shot Blake could have pulled a weapon from under the seat, from the glove box, or from elsewhere.

Or not.

There does not seem to be a lot of time for that.

The shooting starts almost immediately once Blake gets into the car.

Other stories on line say the cops were not wearing body cams.

What's the backstory?

All the Guardian has is this.

Kenosha police said officers responded to a reported domestic incident at 5.11pm in the city before the shooting occurred.

I have seen other versions of the video on line but all of them miss the actual shooting.

All stop where this one does and some do not resume after the shots are fired.

Blake is hospitalized, seven shots were fired as reported in several accounts.

Now that's a really big tent

This is not Joe Biden running to his left.

Nuh un.

Democratic campaign launches 'Republicans for Biden' as Flake, former GOP lawmakers endorse him

On the first day of the GOP convention Monday, Democratic nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris picked up support from 27 former GOP members of Congress, including former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump before and after retiring in 2018 -- in the latest act of defiance from Republicans against the sitting president who represents their party.

. . . .

Along with the endorsements, the Biden campaign is launching "Republicans for Biden," which they say will be a "national effort to engage Republicans who are supporting Biden this fall," and will "encourage Republicans to organize their communities for Biden using the Vote Joe app and other relational organizing tools."

It comes a few days after more than 70 former Republican national security officials, including some former members of the Trump administration, came out in support of Biden's bid for president last week, releasing an open letter that offered a scathing rebuke of Trump's first term.

. . . .

Republicans endorsing Biden include:

Senator Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
Senator Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H.
Senator John Warner, R-Va.
Congressman Steve Bartlett, R-Texas
Congressman Bill Clinger, R-Pa.
Congressman Tom Coleman, R-Mo.
Congressman Charlie Dent, R-Pa.
Congressman Charles Djou, R-Hawaii
Congressman Mickey Edwards, R-Okla.
Congressman Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md.
Congressman Jim Greenwood, R-Penn.
Congressman Bob Inglis, R-S.C.
Congressman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz.
Congressman Steve Kuykendall, R-Calif.
Congressman Ray LaHood, R-Illinois
Congressman Jim Leach, R-Iowa
Congresswoman Susan Molinari, R-N.Y.
Congresswoman Connie Morella, R-Md.
Congressman Mike Parker, R-Miss.
Congressman Jack Quinn, R-N.Y.
Congresswoman Claudine Schneider, R-R.I.
Congressman Christopher Shays, R-Conn.
Congressman Peter Smith, R-Vt.
Congressman Alan Steelman, R-Texas
Congressman Jim Walsh, R-N.Y.
Congressman Bill Whitehurst, R-Va.
Congressman Dick Zimmer, R-N.J.

Twelve more years?

Trump speaking after renomination was greeted with chants of "Four more years!"

He replied, "Four more years! Four more years! But you really want to get them? Say 'Twelve more years!'"

And when they laugh it off remember this.

Trump says 'I don't kid' after aides argue he was joking about slowing coronavirus testing

Flag on the play. Liar tweets about ballot drop boxes.

Not secure, not virus safe, vulnerable to multiple ballots from same person, blah, blah.

No party platform for GOP this year.

Instead a resolution of unanimous support for the Duce.

Fake virus news from Fat Orange Liar

Plasma bullshit. And rushing the vaccine so they can claim it before the election. FDA totally bullied.

White House fuckers just can't keep their corrupt gangster idiot hands off.

CNN this morning.

2 storms head for gulf coast.

They're expected to be category one hurricanes when they hit.

Update. Laura might be cat 2 or 3, Marco might not be a hurricane but instead a tropical storm.

Kushner on FZ

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain next to normalize with Israel?

Maybe.

How to make the endlessly uncooperative Palestinians irrelevant.

Kushner not bad in front of the camera.

Totally loyal to Trump, of course.

Bit of a stone face, but smart.

Had more than one good point about a massive switch to mail in voting.

He cited friends in New Jersey, reporting a ballot came in the mail for a dead relative and another friend got two ballots in the mail.

That's not anecdotal evidence of fraud or vulnerability to it but anecdotal evidence of the messy state of voter rolls.

I myself got 2 ballots for the primaries, though I only voted once.

Do I know it was properly counted?

If I had voted both ballots would they both have been counted?

FZ irrelevantly objected K was citing mere anecdotes in support of the idea of widespread fraud in mail in voting rather than analysis of aggregate data.

We are not talking about some quack cure for a virus.

He should have objected K was providing evidence of impending mess.

K knew this, anyway, and pointed out a national transition to reliance on mail ins could be properly carried out only by a planned and organized program over at least 5 years.

Even off the top of the head that's persuasive.

It means we're in for mess.

Fareed lauds Biden for big tent approach

He reminds us the New Deal and the Great Society were made possible by the biggest of tents in the history of the party.

Trump to speak at 10 every night for the 4 nights

Say Jake and the Mooch right now about the GOP convention.

4 nights of the Trump show with none of the party leaders in attendance.

Velshi sums up Trump

Quick, devastating, cutting, accurate, and without exaggeration, except for the charge of racism that he has overdone only less than the worst at MSNBC.

Advice from the greatest liar in White House history. Or maybe all of American history.

His advice on California wildfires, handling or preventing, has the same value as his advice on the virus.

Lysol, bleach, and quack cures.

Wait for the warm weather, it will just go away.

That's the standard for measuring his advice on anything.

And his endless denunciations of the virus as a hoax and fake news reveal the quality of all his claims that other things are hoaxes or fake news.

Think climate change.

Think Russiagate.

Think the Deep State.

Think anything you like.

All of his denunciations of fake news and hoaxes are hoaxes and fake news.

As is all his advice about anything.

Mail in voting, for instance.

The real danger isn't fraud.

It's chaos and delay and contested counts all over the country.

The law and the constitution make no provision for a do over, which the stable genius has warned could be needed.

He doesn't get that if there is no identifiable winner he is out and done January 19th and somebody else gets the job on the 20th.

He doesn't get to stay on until someone is elected.

A sad story of overhunting, mismanagement, and disease

A conservation success story, Pennsylvania elk are now threatened by wasting disease

Pennsylvania elk were all killed off.

These are descended from repeated imports from Wyoming and elsewhere.

So, an actual nutcase arrested for civil disorder

Police arrest activist after tense 2-hour standoff near Mayor Peduto's home

Not just bipolar disorder, I'd say.

A tense two-hour standoff between police and a prominent activist at the center of recent protests outside Mayor Bill Peduto’s Point Breeze house ended peacefully near there Friday night when officers, a fellow activist and a lawyer were able to persuade Lorenzo Rulli to cease barricading in his car and surrender.

Mr. Rulli, 24, whose legal name is Shawn Lateff Green, was awaiting arraignment Saturday morning on three misdemeanors, including disorderly conduct and using a megaphone as an instrument of a crime, and three summary charges. 

Police said he committed the crimes both during the standoff and over two previous hours -- all of which played out live on social media as the defendant streamed from his vehicle, even while driving.

. . . .

The affidavit said that for two hours officers and citizens had observed Mr. Rulli driving around the neighborhood “shouting vulgarities and racial slurs into his megaphone at the neighbors, the mayor and police” all the while broadcasting on social media. 

“[Rulli] was exhibiting dangerous, unstable and schizophrenic behavior,” police said.

After being pulled over on a traffic stop — and despite being told he was under arrest — Mr. Rulli refused to leave his vehicle for nearly two hours. 

Eventually, officers aided by attorney Paul Jubas and activist Brandi Fisher, who heads the Alliance for Police Accountability, were able to persuade him to surrender to police. 

At Mr. Rulli’s request and with police permission, Mr. Jubas and Ms. Fisher accompanied him to the Allegheny County Jail for processing and arraignment.

. . . .

According to Detective Rosato’s three-page affidavit, the following occurred:

For the fourth consecutive day, Mr. Rulli showed up again in the 400 block of Hastings Street “and once again was driving up and down the street yelling profanities towards Mayor Peduto's home, as well as any and all neighbors that were within his view.”

At 6:07 p.m., Officer Alexa Siweckyj spotted Mr. Rulli who, using a megaphone, began shouting at her and pedestrians, including children, at one point going into a 20-minute expletive-filled tirade and “causing alarm, fear, annoyance and numerous calls into 911 for police action.” 

Officer Siweckyj was relieved by Officer Shaun Freiss as Rulli drove off to the Point Brugge Cafe at 401 Hastings St. “apparently causing a young girl to begin crying and upsetting dinner patrons outside eating.”

Shortly thereafter, Rulli returned and parked behind Officer Freiss’ marked patrol vehicle and began blaring his horn continuously while shouting additional vulgarities and racial slurs through his megaphone. 

“Several neighbors yelled at Officer Freiss to ‘Arrest him already!’”

Rulli blocked the roadway for a time and then continuously drove around the block simultaneously "live streaming" his actions via a phone mounted on the car’s dashboard, shouting through the megaphone and driving erratically and recklessly. 

Officers eventually conducted a traffic stop.

During the the traffic stop, during which Mr. Rulli would only give his driver’s license and other paperwork to a supervisor, a large crowd began to gather as he continued to live stream the event, encouraging others to come to the scene and intervene.

Mr. Rulli was advised he was being placed under arrest for persistent disorderly conduct and other charges and was ordered multiple times to exit his vehicle, but he refused. 

“Mr. [Rulli] continued to shout…’Get the [expletive] out of here,’ ‘[Expletive] you Cops!,’ and ‘You're here to kill mel’ He also shouted both to officers and into his live feed that ‘Police kill [n-word] and brown skinned people!’ and that he was going to die tonight.”

Detective Rosato said he and Officer Mescan “observed dangerous and possible bi-polar behavior from [Rulli], as he alternately shouted ‘[expletive] you cops, y'all gonna have to kill me before I get outta this car!’ followed by inconsolable sobbing and weeping.”

. . . .

“Most — if not all — actions described above were caught on either social media, city cameras, body-worn cameras, or in-dash police cameras, as every attempt will be made to preserve such evidence for court proceedings,” Detective Rosato concluded his affidavit.

Peduto implements police oversight in wake of recent protests

The Mayor has been a boob about all this for weeks.

He seems like a Democratic Trump for his prominent self-concern.

Those guidelines will include a prohibition of “jump-out arrests” by plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles, the statement said. 

All police units will also be barred from wearing military-style camouflage uniforms at protests and related events.

The “jump-out” arrest of protester Matthew Cartier, 25, during a protest in Oakland last weekend prompted two nights of protests outside Mr. Peduto’s house in Point Breeze. 

The second night of protests ended with clashes between protesters and police.

Mr. Peduto condemned the tactics police used to arrest Mr. Cartier, saying in a statement on Monday that he was “livid” after seeing videos of the arrest.

Before the protest on Wednesday night, however, Mr. Peduto criticized actions taken by some protesters who had spent the previous night outside his home, saying that he cannot defend a “peaceful protest devolving into unacceptable conduct in which residents are being harassed and threatened.” 

On Friday night a 24-year-old man was arrested following a two-hour confrontation with police near the mayor's home. 

He was charged with disorderly conduct and harassment after police received multiple complaints from residents.

The Chaos King spreads alarm among the hoople-heads

Not without help from his opponents, of course.

If this were needed, wouldn't local authorities have realized it long ago?

All my decades of voting, I never even noticed if any police were around.

I would not have been surprised, though, or offended.

Police are often around at public events to maintain order, generally by their very, and very limited, presence.

Maybe now to enforce distancing and mask rules?

Trump says he wants police at polling sites. Experts say that's unlawful.

And yet, despite the headline, the story contains this sentence.

The law enforcement officers dispatched on Election Day to help maintain order typically aren't checking IDs.