WTF Friday, Part ?

I would give almost anything for a day not completely Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole mad.  When was the last one?

After three nights of demonstrations that left one man dead (possibly shot by a shopkeeper) and a police station and library burned, former officer Derek Chauvin, last seen with his knee on George Floyd's neck, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.  It sounds like the Hennepin County attorney is already lining up lesser and lesser-still charges to give the jury a choice.  Earlier today he insisted it was too soon for an arrest because of "other evidence that doesn't support a criminal charge."  I guess he changed his mind.  Now his problem will be finding twelve people who haven't seen the appalling video.  The preliminary autopsy report contains the intriguing phrase "no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation," so the Floyd family has arranged for a private autopsy.  It's pretty certain he didn't die of covid.

The death of Breonna Taylor on March 13 got little attention because of the pandemic.  That ended last night, when demonstrators in Louisville memorialized her along with George Floyd.  This one is even worse, because she was killed in her own home by police who broke in with a "no-knock" warrant at the wrong address.  They shot the EMT eight times.  No police arrested or charged.  In Louisville*, seven people were shot.  Demonstrations in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Houston and other cities were angry but nobody died.

There is, of course, no crisis that Trump can't aggravate and inflame.  Last night he was issuing threats to Minneapolis's "Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey" about how he would "assume control" (whatever that means) if the city was not brought "under control," and concluding with a quote from a long-ago Miami police chief:  "When the looting starts, the shooting starts."  This caused Twitter to flag him for violating policy regarding "the glorification of violence."  By now there must be complaints of censorship from Herr Twitler, but I'm not motivated to go looking for them.   Trump hates censorship.  So why did his campaign try to get Nick Anderson's cartoon pulled from the online retailer Redbubble?  Definitely not because it compared him to Jim Jones and his Trumpanzees to the cult People's Temple.  Definitely not.  Copyright issue.  It seems you can't draw a MAGA hat without the express written consent of the hypocrite-in-chief.  After some prompting from First Amendment types, Redbubble told them to schtup mud.

There were no buses promising jillions of dollars in savings when America threw off the shackles of the World Health Organization, as with Boris's Brexit Lie, but mark your calendars, we're free at last.  And what better time than the middle of a hundred-year pandemic?  Watch out, UNESCO, you're next.

Laura Ingraham is having a Pulitzer week.  On Wednesday she devoted her hour to an in-depth investigation of whether Joe Biden farted during an interview.  (Conclusion:  yes.)  Last night she assured her black viewers, if any, that Trump can feel the pain of police brutality because he has suffered so much at the hands of Robert Mueller and the FBI.  Once again the name of Rosa Parks emerged from her mouth because nobody was there to slap her silly.  So when Trump called the Minneapolis protesters "thugs" it was a gesture of brotherhood and not a signal to his cult.

Don't get mad, get elected:  Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, is running for the Miami-Dade County Commission.  Hillary Clinton is raising money for her.  Don't worry, Trump will get around to it.  He's busy tweeting abuse of China, Minneapolis, Joe Scarborough and Twitter.

Mitch McConnell doesn't see much of a future for himself or his party:  He's pressuring federal judges to retire this year so he, uh, so Trump can appoint younger, worse ones.  Glass half full?




*I didn't know which Louis was the Louisville Louis, but apparently it was the unlucky one.  A protester broke off the right hand of the giant statue of Louis XVI last night.  Evidently the head wouldn't come loose.  Maybe next time.