Overcast and mostly quiet this early-evening Monday here in California’s Central Valley. Seemingly, with every day an acceleration of a shitty ride further into calamity. And today no exception:

Don Lemon: “Open your eyes, America. Open your eyes! We are teetering on a dictatorship.” pic.twitter.com/s59BFXGY55

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 1, 2020

Hysteria over this is natural, but the T-Rump is only playing the only way he knows, with cruelty. This afternoon he staged a photo-op to showcase, “I am your president of law and order,” or whatever. And the deep hypocrisy in the scenario was a visit to a place he way-rarely ever visits — a church,
And just to prove he’s got the power (ABC News):

Shortly after, Trump came to the White House Rose Garden to call himself the “law and order” president, saying “domestic terrorism” was to blame for the unrest.

“As we speak, I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults, and the wanton destruction of property,” he said. “We will end it now.”
…
He said he may invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, which permits a president to deploy military inside the U.S. to deal with civil disorder.

Before Trump spoke, what appeared to be gas was used to disperse protesters in Lafayette Park near St. John’s Church, which protesters set fire to briefly Sunday night.

Trump and aides then walked across Pennsylvania Avenue to pose before cameras at the church, holding a Bible.

There’s an actual picture at the link showing nasty-faced T-Rump holding up a Bible, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. The asshole is way-unhinged. Just think about that shit, tear gas used on peaceful protesters just so T-Rump could walk across the street to a church, on a Monday, and then appear with a Bible — we be fucked.
Bad moon…

One extra shitty bedsore was buried down in the ABC story, a gut-horrible reminder on difficulty in wedging the T-Rump out of office, or least get him to STFU. Republicans are way-enablers of the shit head, and the rising anxiety of our current predicament:

Few Republicans have spoken out aside from the Senate’s lone black Republican, Tim Scott, of South Carolina, who called Trump’s tweets “not constructive.”

“I do think some of his tweets have not been helpful,” Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., said Monday.
“It would be helpful if he changed the tone of his message.”

WTF! Maybe low-key it one time — ‘not‘ constructive/helpful? The lowest mark for outrage anywhere.

Protesters around the White House for nearly a week has supposedly ‘rattled’ the T-Rump. He cowered in the White House bunker Friday night, on Saturday Melania nixed taking the flight with the asshole to Florida for the rocket launch, and so last night was this:

Trump turning off the lights at The White House describes the current situation in America perfectly. Nobody's home.#BunkerBoy pic.twitter.com/3vULVniqXh

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) June 1, 2020

A good rendition of that lights-out spectacle is from Olivia Nuzzi at New York Magazine this morning — go read the whole thing which chronicles the situation. However, opening graphs:

As Washington’s 11 p.m. curfew neared, the crowd of protesters in front of the White House was reaching a breaking point.
The barricade sliced Lafayette Square in two: a line of police officers, dressed in riot gear, on the side closest to the White House, and the demonstrators, dressed in face masks, spilling out onto H St., stationing themselves in the grass or in trees, or on the steps of St. John’s church.

As the crowd grew, so did the chaos.
Water bottles soared overhead, landing with thwacks on the ground or bangs against the shields of police officers.
They responded with tear gas, which traveled across the park in wispy chemical clouds that sting the eyes and the throat, making it hard to breathe.

Just outside the White House, fires burned and plumes of tear gas filled the air.
The president gave his final statement of the day at 8 p.m. on Twitter: “FAKE NEWS!”

And after way-more detail seemingly first-hand on the explosive situation, she ends: ‘At the White House, they shut off the lights.‘
Frighteningly freaky.

Then this morning, bully T-Rump recoiled like a snake:

Aides to governors say the president continues to talk. One describes it as a "rant." Says he keeps talking about the need to "dominate" the protests.

— Robert Costa (@costareports) June 1, 2020

A few details via Raw Story this morning:

President Donald Trump scolded the nation’s mayors and governors for the unrest in the wake of several deaths of unarmed Black people by police and “wannabe police.”

Speaking on a conference call, Trump told the group, “the only time it’s successful is when you’re weak and most of you are weak.”

He went on to tell the group that they must start arresting people or protesters will “run over you.”

“You have to dominate, if you don’t dominate you’re wasting your time. They’re going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate,” Trump said.

He reportedly went on to call them “fools.”

It prompted one governor’s aide to describe it as a “rant.”

He then issued a warning for what might happen in Washington, D.C.

“We’re doing it in Washington, DC. We’re going to do something that people haven’t seen before,” Trump vowed.

This afternoon he acted.
Despite all that, remember there’s a virus killing people yet this from Dr. Anthony Fauci: “We used to have task force meetings every single day, including Saturday and Sunday, and about 75 percent of the time after the task force meeting, we’d meet with the president. So, I was meeting with him four times a week back, a month or so ago…But as you probably noticed, that the task force meetings have not occurred as often lately. And certainly, my meetings with the president have been dramatically decreased.”

‘Hope you got your things together
Hope you are quite prepared to die
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather
One eye is taken for an eye‘

(Illustration: Edvard Munch‘s ‘The Scream,’ lithograph version, found here).