In the disarray in full display — from this afternoon’s Washington Post update on shit just happening so far this particular day was this real shitty note: ‘After video showed law enforcement in Minneapolis slashing the tires of protesters’ cars, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety acknowledged that State Patrol troopers at times “strategically deflated tires to keep vehicles from being used in attacks, and so we could tow the vehicles later for collection of evidence if necessary.”‘

And this good graph from a really-readable interview with Spike Lee yesterday in GQ Magaine:

“After yesterday?” Lee says, referring to Trump’s PR stunt that saw him order the police to clear a path of peaceful protestors with CS gas cannisters and rubber bullets, all for a photo op in which he awkwardly held a bible in front St John’s Episcopal church.
“He was on some General George Patton, John Wayne, bullshit! I mean, it was unbelievable. The whole thing was staged. You know, tear gas a peaceful crowd, give a speech and then walk from the White House to the church!”
He adds, accompanied by another booming laugh: “The man looked very uncomfortable holding the bible. And the Bible looked uncomfortable being held by him!”

Also another great, insightful piece today is by Bruce Barlett, who worked for Reagan and HW Bush, at The New Republic, a spirited essay on the T-Rump being even dumber than we actually first figured. Go read the whole thing, it’s way-worth it and spot-on — some snips:

A Washington Post–ABC News poll taken the last week of May 2020 asked Americans, “Do you think Trump has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president?”
Fifty-two percent of respondents said no, with only 46 percent saying yes.
…
Further evidence that Trump is widely viewed as something shy of the sharpest knife in the drawer comes from another, far-from-leading query pollsters have posed about him.
In September 2017, a Washington Post–ABC News poll asked people an open-ended question: “What one word best describes your impression of Trump? Just the one word that best describes him?”
The first most common term to describe him was “incompetent.”
Other related characterizations in the top 10 descriptors included “idiot,” “ignorant,” and “unqualified.”

Quinnipiac asked a similar question in December 2017: “What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of President Trump?”
By far, the most frequent word that came to mind was “idiot.”
Other common terms included “incompetent,” “moron,” “ignorant,” and “stupid.”
…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was despondent at the 2017 G7 meeting, where Trump showed no awareness of climate change and rejected international cooperation to deal with it.
According to Der Spiegel, “His speech was a break from centuries of Enlightenment and rationality. The president presented his political statement as a nationalist manifesto of the most imbecilic variety. It couldn’t have been any worse. His speech was packed with make-believe numbers from controversial or disproven studies. It was hypocritical and dishonest.”

And finally, another bonus on the break-down of the T-Rump apparatus — the lede from Gabriel Sherman’s piece at Vanity Fair, also today:

In Donald Trump’s West Wing, being a member of the Trump family has historically been the ultimate job security.
But that truism is being stress-tested after a run of polls consistently show Trump losing to Joe Biden at this stage of the race — a CNN poll this morning has him down 14 points.
According to a source close to the White House, Trump has mulled taking oversight of the campaign away from his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
“Trump is malignantly crazy about the bad poll numbers,” a former West Wing official said.
“He’s going to broom Kushner and [Brad] Parscale — the numbers are not getting better,” a Republican close to the campaign said.

Tag on that story, though, looks as if the GOP will go down with the ship with Moscow Mitch warning Republicans to stay with the T-Rump, and fuck America.

Anyway, I also this morning saw the clip below and although I’d seen the sequence a couple of times before, it really resonated for the nowadays — maybe a more right-thing with the times:

Last night, I started re-watching “Boston Legal” — I’ve probably seen the whole series two/three times already, great cast — but I didn’t get very far into the first episode when I grew tired and went to sleep. This morning during down-time from the news I started again and came across the courtroom scene with Al Sharpton.
The legal case was an African-American woman had sued the producers of the show, “Annie,” due to her daughter being black she was not allowed to play ‘Annie’ on stage, though, she was the obvious most-talented. She claimed racial bias.
Enter Sharpton, who gives a most rousing speech on ‘why not?’ a black ‘Annie.’ He receives a round of hearty applause at the end.  A touching moment, fusing ‘tomorrow’ on the equality of blacks and real progress ‘always a day away,’ and why not an “African-American Spiderman…”
Sharpton has lost weight in the 16 years hence — the episode played in October 2004.
However, the clip above doesn’t give the scene the due. I couldn’t find any other; just go watch ‘Boston Legal‘ on Amazon.

Stay safe…

(Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘The Weeping Woman [La Femme qui pleure],’ found here).