Political Correctness Run Amuck

HBO is doing a reboot of the Warner Brothers' Looney Toons cartoon, and they are 'taking Elmer Fudd's gun away.

I get that guns are a problem in today's society, but we are talking about guns in the context of hunting, and it's ELMER F%$#ING FUDD!!!!!

It boggles the mind what some people will do to create the APPEARANCE of doing something about a problem while not actually doing anything.

We Now Know Where Microsoft® Bob® Works

Microsoft's MSN network is attempting to replace human editors with artificial "Intelligence".

Much fail ensues:

Microsoft’s decision to replace human journalists with robots has backfired, after the tech company’s artificial intelligence software illustrated a news story about racism with a photo of the wrong mixed-race member of the band Little Mix.

A week after the Guardian revealed plans to fire the human editors who run MSN.com and replace them with Microsoft’s artificial intelligence code, an early rollout of the software resulted in a story about the singer Jade Thirlwall’s personal reflections on racism being illustrated with a picture of her fellow band member Leigh-Anne Pinnock.

………

Microsoft does not carry out original reporting but employs human editors to select, edit and repurpose articles from news outlets, including the Guardian. Articles are then hosted on Microsoft’s website and the tech company shares advertising revenue with the original publishers. At the end of last month, Microsoft decided to fire hundreds of journalists in the middle of a pandemic and fully replace them with the artificial intelligence software.

………

In advance of the publication of this article, staff at MSN were told to expect a negative article in the Guardian about alleged racist bias in the artificial intelligence software that will soon take their jobs.

Because they are unable to stop the new robot editor selecting stories from external news sites such as the Guardian, the remaining human staff have been told to stay alert and delete a version of this article if the robot decides it is of interest and automatically publishes it on MSN.com. They have also been warned that even if they delete it, the robot editor may overrule them and attempt to publish it again.

Staff have already had to delete coverage criticising MSN for running the story about Little Mix with the wrong image after the AI software decided stories about the incident would interest MSN readers.

Epic fail.

A Good Start

Fresh off his statement that he saw no police hitting people with nightsticks, Andrew Cuomo as said that he will sign legislation speeding through the New York State legislature enacting major police reform:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday urged Americans to stay the course in the massive protests which have been held in cities and towns across the U.S. for the past two weeks, pointing to New York State lawmakers passing long-awaited legislation to classify chokeholds as a felony as evidence the pressure is working.

The Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act passed in the New York State Assembly with a vote of 140-3. The bill now heads to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is expected to sign it into law.

"Stay in the streets," tweeted Ocasio-Cortez. "It's working."

Stay in the streets. It’s working ⬇️ https://t.co/XoDiQ0dLJK

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 8, 2020

The bill was passed two weeks into a nationwide uprising over police brutality and racial injustice sparked by the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless other black Americans.

Additionally, the state legislature has passed a bill repealing New York Civil Rights Law section 50-A, which made police disciplinary records secret, makes the state Attorney General a special prosecutor in the event of possible police misconduct, require police departments to report statistics on the ethnicity of people arrested, requiring officers to immediately report when they have discharged their weapons in the line of duty, repealing the requirement that police disciplinary proceedings be run by police, and other reforms.

As I noted in the hed, it's a good start.

Round Up the Usual Suspects

What a surprise. The Trump administration official running the bailout is directing aid to his family's business:

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have become the public faces of the $3 trillion federal coronavirus bailout. Behind the scenes, however, the Treasury’s responsibilities have fallen largely to the 42-year-old deputy secretary, Justin Muzinich.

A major beneficiary of that bailout so far: Muzinich & Co., the asset manager founded by his father where Justin served as president before joining the administration. He reported owning a stake worth at least $60 million when he entered government in 2017.

Today, Muzinich retains financial ties to the firm through an opaque transaction in which he transferred his shares in the privately held company to his father. Ethics experts say the arrangement is troubling because his father received the shares for no money up front, and it appears possible that Muzinich can simply get his stake back after leaving government.

Corruption in the Treasury Department is nothing new.

Timothy Geithner got a VERY comfortable sinecure (I use this word a lot) as a back-end payoff for his "foaming the runway" for banks on the backs of homeowners.

Still, this does seem to be a bit brazen.

Snark of the Day

US Wins Second Place in Afghan War

—Duffel Blog

In snark, veritas.

One Word Makes a Big Difference

The head of Fidelity International, Anne Richards, is predicting a global insolvency crisis.

The important thing here is that she says that there will be a SOLVENCY crisis, and not a LIQUIDITY crisis.

This is important.

If you are illiquid, you lack the necessary cash to make payments right now, but if you are insolvent, you owe more than your assets.

If you are insolvent, you are broke, bankrupt, or busted.

Absent a bailout or buyout (usually at a discount) an insolvent operation is done.

It is much worse than a liquidity crisis, and it's what happens when corporations burn through their assets buying up their own stock instead of investing in the business.

If she is right, and I'm inclined to believe that she is, his is going to get ugly, with zombie companies holding back the econom for years.

Those Buffalo Police ERT Members Who Quit Were Driven out by Their Own Union

The officers who quit the unit (they are still employed by the Buffalo PD) quit because Buffalo Police Benevolent Association notified them that they would be on their own if they needed a lawyer.

You will recall that the BPBA claimed that they had quit in solidarity with their fellow officers, who have been charged with assault.

Once again, the police lied:

………

Two officers of the Buffalo Police Department’s Emergency Response Team spoke with 7 Eyewitness News under the condition their names not be used.

The officers are part of the 57-person volunteer assignment team that resigned Friday, following an incident involving two of their members Thursday night in Niagara Square. They did not resign from the police department, only from their roles on the team.

The officers we spoke with said the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association’s statement asserting all 57 officers resigned from ERT in a "show of support” with the two officers that were suspended without pay is not true.

“I don’t understand why the union said it’s a thing of solidarity. I think it sends the wrong message that ‘we’re backing our own’ and that’s not the case,” said one officer with whom we spoke.

“We quit because our union said [they] aren’t legally backing us anymore. So why would we stand on a line for the City with no legal backing if something [were to] happen? Has nothing to do with us supporting,” said another.

A representative from the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association told 7 Eyewitness News Reporter Hannah Buehler the officers resigned in “disgust” with how the two officers were treated.

………

7 Eyewitness News was not able to reach PBA president John Evans to confirm this information or get a response to several officers shooting down his assertions, but we did obtain an email sent to PBA members by Evans.

It states, in part:

In light of this, in order to maintain the sound financial structure of the PBA it will be my opinion the PBA NOT to pay for any ERT or SWAT members legal defense related to these protests going forward. This Admin in conjunction with DA John Flynn and or JP Kennedy could put a serious dent in the PBA's funds.

If you get a quote from a police spokesman, fact check it.

If it comes from the PBA, you need to confirm every word, including the "and" and the "the".

It's Official, We are in Recession

What's more, it began in February, before the lock-downs started:

The U.S. officially entered a recession in February, marking the end of the 128-month expansion that was the longest in records reaching back to 1854.

While Monday’s announcement by the National Bureau of Economic Research didn’t come as a surprise to economists, the group typically waits until a recession is well under way before declaring it has started.

………

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last week the U.S. economy could take the better part of a decade to fully recover. Gross domestic product will likely be 5.6% smaller in the fourth quarter of 2020 than a year earlier, despite an expected pickup in economic activity in the coming months, and the unemployment rate could still be in double digits by the end of the year, the CBO said.

………

The NBER’s recession-dating committee looks at gauges of employment and production, as well as incomes minus government benefits, to determine when a recession has begun. It doesn’t use the rule of thumb common elsewhere in the world: two or more quarters of declining real gross domestic product.

The NBER considers February the peak of the business cycle, when the expansion ends and the recession begins. The month in which the economy reaches its trough and activity stops contracting marks both the end of the recession and the start of a new expansion. The committee doesn’t comment on how long the recession may last.

Even if this is a strong recovery, it's going to take years, because the average consumer is going to need years to recover.

This is Both Heartening and Worrying

The US Army has grounded the helicopter flight crew involved in "buzzing" protesters on June 1 pending an investigation.

This is significant because the maneuvers were ordered either by,  "The highest echelons of the District of Columbia National Guard," (NY Times) or directly ordered by Donald Trump. (AP)

So, the military has ordered an investigation, and the implication is that the crew, and people above them in the chain of command, may be facing jeopardy as a result of following orders.

Clearly, this is a push-back against Donald Trump and Evil Minions^™, which can be taken two ways:

• It is reassuring because it means that the military has remained largely unaffected by the politicization of the government under Trump.
• It is concerning because it indicates a level of push-back to civilian authority that might presage a coup.

Actually, both could be correct:

The National Guard helicopter crew that flew low over protesters in the nation's capital this week has been grounded, the Army secretary told reporters Friday.

The Army initiated an administrative investigation, called a 15-6, after a UH-72 Lakota was seen making low maneuvers in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said. The crew was grounded immediately after the investigation began, he added.

………

Videos showed Lakota and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters kicking up debris as officials tried to force demonstrators who'd broken the city's 7 p.m. curfew off the streets. The Black Hawks were reportedly operated by the FBI.

McCarthy declined to say who ordered the helicopter crews to fly low over the protesters in Washington, citing concerns that he's in the chain of command and the investigation remains ongoing.

There Are Thugs at the Black Lives Matter Protests, Unfortunately, They are the Cops

Despicable

Videos have emerged showing police slashing tires on cars.

Their excuse, that someone might drive the cars in a dangerous manner, is bullsh%$.

It is thuggish retaliation and vandalism, and, dare I say it, swinish.

Clearly this will convince people that there is no need to reform the police:

Update, 6/8/20: The Star Tribune has identified the officers puncturing tires as state troopers and deputies from the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. The officers strategically deflated the tires to “stop behaviors such as vehicles driving dangerously and at high speeds in and around protesters and law enforcement,” said Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bruce Gordon. The troopers reportedly targeted cars that “contained items used to cause harm during violent protests” such as rocks and concrete. The Anoka County Sheriff’s Lt. Andy Knotz said deputies were following directions from the state-led Multiagency Command Center.

After long nights of tear gas and rubber bullets, some protesters, news crews, and medics in Minneapolis last weekend found themselves stranded: The tires of their cars had been slashed.

………

The officers appear to be state troopers or county police, though it’s not clear from the videos. Neither the Minnesota State Patrol nor the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office responded to requests from Mother Jones. The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota National Guard denied involvement.



Update, 6/8/20: The Star Tribune has identified the officers puncturing tires as state troopers and deputies from the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. The officers strategically deflated the tires to “stop behaviors such as vehicles driving dangerously and at high speeds in and around protesters and law enforcement,” said Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bruce Gordon. The troopers reportedly targeted cars that “contained items used to cause harm during violent protests” such as rocks and concrete. The Anoka County Sheriff’s Lt. Andy Knotz said deputies were following directions from the state-led Multiagency Command Center.

After long nights of tear gas and rubber bullets, some protesters, news crews, and medics in Minneapolis last weekend found themselves stranded: The tires of their cars had been slashed.

In a city upended by protests about police brutality after the death of George Floyd, many assumed protesters were to blame. But videos reveal a different culprit: the police.

In the videos, officers puncture tires in a K-Mart parking lot on May 30 and a highway overpass on May 31. Both areas briefly turned into police staging grounds near protest hot spots.

The officers appear to be state troopers or county police, though it’s not clear from the videos. Neither the Minnesota State Patrol nor the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office responded to requests from Mother Jones. The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota National Guard denied involvement.

The gray car in the video above was the rental car of Luke Mogelson, a New Yorker writer who typically covers war zones and is now stationed in Minneapolis to write about the protests. As the protest on Sunday evening turned hairy, with law enforcement tear-gassing peaceful groups soon after curfew, Mogelson went to check on his car, showing his press pass to officers along the way. (Media were exempt from the curfew.) One officer took a picture of his press pass and said he would “radio it up the chain so everyone knew that car belonged to the press,” said Mogelson. When he came back later that evening to retrieve his car, officers informed him that the tires were punctured. “They were laughing,” Mogelson recalled. “They had grins on their faces.”

With every violent, criminal, and petty act, police are making the case for dismantling the entire rotten edifice of law enforcement in the United States.

Linkage

• Someone taped Steve Carell’s picture over Space Force’s top officer at the USAF museum (Military Times) America's real heroes.
• Full article: ‘Keeping seeds in our hands’: the rise of seed activism  (Taylor & Francis Online) About efforts to keep seeds open, available, and genetically diverse
• The Secret Language of Cairo's Goldsmiths (Atlas Obscura) The patois of Cairo goldsmiths is largely Hebrew from the days when Egypt has a vibrant Jewish community.
• Black deaths at the hands of law enforcement are linked to historical lynchings: U.S. counties where lynchings were more prevalent from 1877 to 1950 have more officer-involved killings (Economic Policy Institute) Not really a surprise.
• Police Overwhelming Responsible for Attacking Journalists (The Intercept) Even less of a surprise.
• Freedom Rider: Black Misleaders Seek to End Protest (Black Agenda Report) They have sold themselves to moneyed interests, and the moneyed interest want the poor kept in line.
• Judge in Epstein case has ties to those with stake in outcome (Miami Herald) Even after his death, the coverup continues.

This making a pasta bowl video is the most lock-down thing ever:

Live by the Troll, Die by the Troll

Following the backlash soliciting and publishing an opinion piece from Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) where he called for the use of the active military to use lethal force against protesters, James Bennet has been fired as Opinion Editor.

They claim that this is a "resignation" but make no mistake, it was a firing.

Bennet thought that his role as editor was to publish cartoonish trolls for click-throughs, typified by his hiring of Bret "Bedbug" Stephens and Bari "Shanda fur die Goyim" Weiss.

He finally went a troll too far:

James Bennet resigned on Sunday from his job as the editorial page editor of The New York Times, days after the newspaper’s opinion section, which he oversaw, published a much-criticized Op-Ed by a United States senator calling for a military response to civic unrest in American cities.

“Last week we saw a significant breakdown in our editing processes, not the first we’ve experienced in recent years,” said A. G. Sulzberger, the publisher, in a note to the staff on Sunday announcing Mr. Bennet’s departure.

In a brief interview, Mr. Sulzberger added: “Both of us concluded that James would not be able to lead the team through the next leg of change that is required.”

This is not what one calls a conciliatory statement.  Sulzberger basically called him out as incompetent when explaining why he was fired.

Ouch.

Here's hoping that Stephens and Weiss head out the door as well, particularly the former, as Stephens has made it a practice to harry and intimidate anyone who criticizes him.  (Bedbug story here.)

This entire affair does appear to imply that the New York Times is a tremendously toxic place to work.

I Hope that this Happens, but I Fear that It Won't

After decades of abusive policing, and decades of cowardly supervision its political leaders, a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council have promised to abolish the Minneapolis Police Department.

I do not thing that this will happen, there is too much in the way of entrenched opposition, and there is little to no consensus as to what it actually means to, "Disband the city’s police department and replace it with a new system of public safety."

The devil will be in the details, because the details will determine whether the force has people like Bob Kroll and Derek Chauvin have a place in the organization.

The Minneapolis city council has pledged to disband the city’s police department and replace it with a new system of public safety, a historic move that comes as calls to defund law enforcement are sweeping the US.

Speaking at a community rally on Sunday, a veto-proof majority of councilmembers declared their intent to “dismantle” and “abolish” the embattled police agency responsible for George Floyd’s death – and build an alternative model of community-led safety. The decision is a direct response to the massive protests that have taken over American cities in the last two weeks, and is a major victory for abolitionist activists who have long fought to disband police and prisons.

America is over-policed, over-criminalized, and over-imprisoned.

It should change, but I do not think that it will change.

The More Good from the Black Lives Matter Protests

BLM protests have resulted in the statue of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston being tossed into the harbor, and in Philadelphia, after removing the statue to Frank Rizzo, they have painted over a mural of Frank Rizzo at the city's Italian Market.

Even if nothing else comes from the protests, and I fear that nothing else will come from this, this puts the protests on the plus side karma-wise.

Best comment about the Philly erasure, "It was a horrible mural; he was a horrible person, my eyes feel at peace now."

Headline of the Day

Protests about Police Brutality Are Met with Wave of Police Brutality across US

—The Guardian

This is patently obvious to anyone watching, but it needs to be said.

The New York Times has Turned Into a Complete Sh%$ Show

The New York Times published an OP/ED by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) that called for the activity military to come in to put down the anti-police brutality protests with guns blazing.

Needless to say, the Times staffers, prticularly those of color,  have completely lost their sh%$ over this, stating (correctly IMHO) that this put staffers, particularly staffers of color:

The internal fallout from the New York Times' decision to run an op-ed by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, which called for the U.S. military to be deployed to American cities to crack down on protests against police killings of Black people, continued apace on Friday during a company all-hands meeting.

Publisher A.G. Sulzberger, Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Chief Operating Officer Meredith Levien all offered opening statements. But as always, the most informative parts of the meeting came from the lengthy question-and-answer portion. Staffers asked for an autopsy of the piece and how it was published; if company leaders were planning to address James Bennet’s leadership of the opinion section, which has had “several misfires”; whether Opinion staff editor and writer Bari Weiss would be fired for “openly bad mouth[ing] younger news colleagues on a platform where they, because of strict company policy, could not defend themselves”; whether the opinion section had suggested the topic of the op-ed to Cotton; and what the Times would do to help retain and support Black employees.

The newsroom first revolted Wednesday, shortly after the op-ed was published. Dozens of staffers tweeted a variation of the phrase "Running this puts Black @nytimes staff in danger," along with a screenshot of the op-ed's headline. The paper's union put out a statement about the column as well.

In a development that can only be described as mind boggling, Bennet said that, "He had not read Mr. Cotton’s essay before it was published," even though it is clear from the Times own account that there was extensive review and editing from inside the editorial division.

Fire Editor-in-Chief Dean Banquet and Opinion Editor James Bennet, and for good measure, have them take Bret "Bedbug" Stevens, whose hobby appears to be threatening reporters on the news side of the paper, with them.

This is the Most 2020 Story of the Year (So Far)

A Spanish porn actor has been arrested in connection with the death of a photographer as the result of a bizarre ritual involving toad venom.

I don't think that this will remain at the top of the pile, 2020 has a lot more sh%$ to toss our way, but right now, this story encapsulates the year almost perfectly:

Spanish police have arrested three people, including a well known pornographic actor, in connection with the death of a photographer who is thought to have died after inhaling toad venom during a shamanic ceremony.

The Guardia Civil did not name those detained, but the fatal ceremony, which took place in the Valencian town of Enguera in July 2019, allegedly involved the Spanish porn actor Nacho Vidal, and resulted in the death of a fashion photographer, José Luis Abad.

………

“Officers began the investigation after the death of a person during a mystical ritual involving the inhalation of vapours from the venom of the bufo alvarius toad,” the statement said.

………

It also warned that the alleged ritual was considerably more dangerous than people might think.

Yes, the dead photographer would indicate that there was an element of risk in snorting toad venom.

Some People Only Live to Hate

Case in point, the Liberty Counsel, a right wing Christo-Fascist group who is trying to get all references to the LGBTQ from the anti-lynching bill in the Senate, because without their hate, they would have nothing.

Congress is finally close to passing a bill that makes lynching a hate crime — but an evangelical group is trying to remove any reference to LGBTQ communities from the legislation.

When the Senate unanimously passed the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act in December, it marked an important step in a roughly century-long effort to outlaw the practice at the federal level. But before the House begins considering its version of the legislation, the Liberty Counsel, an evangelical litigation group, is calling for the bill to be stripped of language that refers to gender identity or sexual orientation.

It's no wonder that the SPLC has labeled the group a hate group some time back.

That's pretty much their entire reason for existence.

Why do We Not See an Agressive Police Presence at Right Wing Protests?

For the same reason that you never saw Miley Stewart and Hanna Montana together in the eponymous show:

POLICE OFFICER TELLS PROUD BOYS TO HIDE INSIDE BUILDING BECAUSE THEY'RE ABOUT TO TEAR GAS PROTESTERS. THE OFFICER SAID HE WAS WARNING THEM "DISCREETLY" BECAUSE HE DIDN'T WANT PROTESTERS TO SEE POLICE "PLAY FAVORITES." iTs JuSt a FeW BaD ApPlEs #GeorgeFloyd #babygate pic.twitter.com/sbcpbH2iVu

— Taylor (@sprtneo) June 5, 2020

I'm not surprised that this happened in Oregon.

Oregon used to have a provision in its state constitution prohibiting black people, and in the 1920s, it was arguably the most Klan dominated state in the nation.

Still it raises a broader question, how do you keep white supremacists out of the police force, or as in the case of the Minneapolis Police, keep them from becoming the head of the police union.

Hell Has Frozen Over. Now Give Colin Kaepernick a Job

Roger Go0dell, NFL President and poster child for white privilege, has now apologized for shutting down "Black Lives Matters" type protests in the league.

The whitest guy in sports has decided that it was no longer in his best interest to suck up to Donald Trump.

Still, no mention of Kaepernick though:

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league made mistakes in not listening to players in a video on Friday denouncing racism in the United States amid widespread protests over police brutality against black people.

“We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest,” said Goodell. “We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter.”

Goodell, who offered his condolences to the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and all families who have endured police brutality, said he would be in touch with individual players who had voiced concerns about the league.

No mention was made of Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback whose decision to kneel during the national anthem during a preseason game in August 2016 kick-started the protest movement.

I'm not going to hold my breath about this actually resulting in meaningful changes, particularly since Goodell's real bosses, the team owners, have about as much interest promoting justice and tackling inequality, as I would in reading the complete works of Ayn Rand.

I Did Not See This Coming

The Scariest Job Chart Ever

The unemployment rate for May unexpectedly fell to 13.3% in May.

This surprised pretty much everyone, with the consensus being an increase to nearly 20%:

The U.S. labor market snapped back to life in May, restoring a chunk of the jobs it lost in the first two months of the coronavirus pandemic while facing big obstacles in the months ahead.

After two months of carnage, employers added 2.5 million jobs last month, the most jobs added in a single month on records dating from 1948. The jobless rate fell to 13.3% from April’s 14.7%, a post-World War II high.

Employment remained down by nearly 20 million jobs, or 13%, since February, the month before the pandemic prompted states to shut down huge segments of their economies. By comparison, the U.S. shed about 9 million jobs between December 2007 and February 2010, a period that covered the recession caused by the financial crisis.

It should be noted that the unemployment rate would have risen to over 16% but for a statistical artifact:

When the U.S. government’s official jobs report for May came out on Friday, it included a note at the bottom saying there had been a major “error” indicating that the unemployment rate likely should be higher than the widely reported 13.3 percent rate.

The special note said that if this “misclassification error” had not occurred, the “overall unemployment rate would have been about 3 percentage points higher than reported,” meaning the unemployment rate would be about 16.3 percent for May.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that puts out the monthly jobs reports, said it was working to fix the problem.

………

Some took this as a sign that President Trump or one of his staffers may have tinkered with the data to make it look better, especially since most forecasters predicted the unemployment rate would be close to 20 percent in May, up from 14.7 percent in April. But economists and former BLS leaders from across the political spectrum strongly dismissed that idea.

………

Economists say the BLS was trying to be as transparent as possible about how hard it is to collect real-time data during a pandemic. The BLS admitted that some people who should have been classified as “temporarily unemployed” during the shutdown were instead misclassified as employed but “absent” from work for “other reasons.”

………

The “other reason” category is normally used for people on vacation, serving jury duty or taking leave to care for a child or relative. These are typically situations where the worker decides to take leave. But in this unusual pandemic circumstance, the “other reason” category was applied to some people staying at home and waiting to be called back.

This problem started in March when there was a big jump in people claiming they were temporarily “absent” from work for “other reasons.” The BLS noticed this and flagged it right away. In March, the BLS said the unemployment rate likely should have been 5.4 percent, instead of the official 4.4 percent rate. In April, the BLS said the real unemployment rate was likely about 19.7 percent, not 14.7 percent.

The situation is still dire, and one hopes that this issue will lead to better statistics on employment in the futurer.

This is a Strong Argument for Abolishing the Police

After 2 officers were suspended for throwing an elderly man to the ground and leaving him there with blood pouring out of his ears, the the entire Buffalo, NY resigned from the team.

I can think of no better example to show how the entire police force is bad apples, either directly, or as a result of peer pressure:

Fifty-seven officers in the Buffalo Police Department's Emergency Response Team resigned Friday from their positions on the unit in support of two of their colleagues who were suspended for shoving an elderly man onto the ground during a protest Thursday, putting him in the hospital.

"The cops who are resigning over this are proving they shouldn't have been on the force in the first place," tweeted CounterPunch editor Jeffrey St. Clair. "I hope many more of them resign. And soon."

To be clear, these guys have not left the force, just the Buffalo ERT.

The Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, the department's AFL-CIO-affiliated union, claimed in a statement announcing the mass resignation that the two officers caught on camera shoving 75-year-old Martin Gugino to the ground with no provocation were only following orders.

It's unclear what orders led to the unprovoked assault, after which Gugino lay motionless on the ground, blood pouring out of his ear.

"This is an example of officers doing exactly what they're supposed to," union president John Evans told the Investigative Post Friday.

I wonder what percentage of police forces are broken this way.

My guess is that over 90% are infected with the "Thin Blue Line" disease.

Tweet of the Day

The problem with relying on your gut is that your gut generally produces only puke and shit.

— (((haroldfeld))) (@haroldfeld) June 5, 2020

This is Matt Taibbi level snark.

This Sounds Like Prophecy

My husband asked a Secret Service Agent guarding the Treasury whether he ever thought he’d see this. He said: “I’m surprised it took this long. I think I’m gonna see the whole building burned down. 40% unemployment.” pic.twitter.com/wxrZX4EWZv

— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) June 4, 2020

The guard at the now graffiti covered Treasury building might a prophet, but I am not sure if that is a good thing, or a bad thing.

The Power of Egyptology

I find this Twitter thread by an Egyptologist on how to pull down an obelisk to be very important, particularly in the case, as she notes, where the "Obelisk might be masquerading as a racist monument.

This is beautiful, man.

Another 1.9 Million New Jobless Claims

While this is better than the 6 million claims at the peak of the pandemic this week's jobless report of 1.9 million claims is still almost three times worst than any weekly claims report before this year.

Tomorrow's unemployment number is going to be grim:

Another 1.9 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the total number of claims passed 42 million since the coronavirus pandemic hit the US.

The pace of layoffs has slowed dramatically from its peak of 6.6m at the start of April as states start to relax quarantine orders and last week was the ninth consecutive week of declines. But the scale of layoffs remains staggeringly high. In the worst week of the last recession “just” 665,000 people filed for unemployment.

Jason Reed, professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, said the numbers may be coming down, but “this is unprecedented. The figures are so high that it’s hard to grasp the reality.”

On Friday the labor department will release May’s monthly jobs report. Economists are predicting unemployment will rise to close to 20% from 14.7% in April and some 8m more jobs will have been lost after a combined drop of 21.4m in March and April.

Tomorrow is going to be very grim.

Similar Political Dynamics, Let's Hope for a Similar Results

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed Jamaal Bowman in his primary challenge to Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

All things considered, Engle is a prime candidate for "termination with extreme prejudice" by his constituents.

His district, one of the hardest hit by Covid-19 in the district, is right next to AOC's, and Engel has been almost completely absent from it for decades, so it's no surprise that he is vulnerable.

Here is hoping that this challenge gets another old party hack out:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), in her latest break with party leaders, has endorsed a Democratic primary challenger to Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), a long-serving committee chairman who represents a district adjacent to hers.

In a series of tweets, Ocasio-Cortez announced her support for Engel’s leading challenger, middle-school principal Jamaal Bowman, whose message of generational change has echoed that of Ocasio-Cortez ahead of her 2018 upset of a long-serving Democratic incumbent.

………

Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is serving his 16th term in the House.

He has reported raising more than $1.6 million through March — about three times as much as Bowman — but is facing a spirited June 23 primary amid criticism that he has not spent enough time in the district.

On Tuesday, Engel generated headlines after he repeatedly asked to speak at a Bronx news conference on protests over the killing by Minneapolis police of George Floyd, then said near a live microphone, “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care.”

………

Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed two other challengers to House Democrats in this year’s elections. Business executive and activist Marie Newman defeated Rep. Daniel Lipinski in an Illinois district south of Chicago, while Rep. Henry Cuellar defeated Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney backed by Ocasio-Cortez.

Here is hoping that Engel gets a well deserved retirement.

The geriatric leadership of the House Democrats need to go.

Tweet of the Day

Does anyone know who took this photo because it deserves an award pic.twitter.com/D6mThWdzFA

— Diego Lopez (@thisdiegolopez) June 4, 2020

Pulitzer time.

Snark of the Day

Antifa Seeks CIA Funding after Being Labelled Terrorist Group

—The Chaser

I'd say that The Onion has significant competition as "America's Finest News Source," but the folks at The Chaser are from Australia.

We now know that the quality of snark is unaffected by the coriolis effect?

We Are F%$#ed

The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together mass hysteria!

The Atlanta Fed's real time estimate of GDP just came out, and while there are plenty of caveats, they are estimating a decline in GDP of -52.8%.

Even the more mainstream estimates shown in the figure are end of the world stuff, but their estimate is a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man moment:

Ok, this is now getting a little scary:

The real time GDP running estimate of US economic activity is half of what it was 3 months ago. As of June 1, the Atlanta Fed is nowcasting that economic activity in the United States, as measured in GDP, is minus 52.8%.

Given the extent of the collapse in demand that has accompanied quarantines and shelter-in-place orders, this is not a surprise. Still, when you see the number in print, it still has the capacity to shock.

Yeah, it has the capacity to shock.

Good

They just tore down the statue of corrupt mayor and police chief Frank Rizzo in Philadelphia.

That man was one of the worst plagues on law enforcement in the 20^th century.

In the predawn hours Wednesday, the city unceremoniously removed the controversial statue of former Mayor and Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo, who was known for his aggressive tactics policing the black and gay communities of Philadelphia.

Some TV news stations were on the scene to capture the massive artwork being rigged with straps and then wobbled back and forth before being yanked from its base in front of the Municipal Services Building across the street from City Hall.

“The statue is a deplorable monument to racism, bigotry, and police brutality for members of the Black community, the LGBTQ community, and many others. The treatment of these communities under Mr. Rizzo’s leadership was among the worst periods in Philadelphia’s history,” Mayor Jim Kenney said in a written statement.

Speaking of plagues on law enforcement, when are they getting J. Edgar Hoover's name off of the FBI headquarters?

Antifa, My Ass

A bunch of Alt-Right loone in Las Vegas were just arrested attempting to infiltrate and disrupt the local Black Lives Matter protests: by fomenting violence and vandalism:

Three Nevada men with ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to spark violence during recent protests in Las Vegas.

Federal prosecutors say the three white men with U.S. military experience are accused of conspiring to carry out a plan that began in April in conjunction with protests to reopen businesses closed because of the coronavirus.

More recently, they sought to capitalize on protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air, prosecutors said.

The three men were arrested Saturday on the way to a protest in downtown Las Vegas after filling gas cans at a parking lot and making Molotov cocktails in glass bottles, according to a copy of the criminal complaint obtained by The Associated Press.

Clearly, the problem is Antifa.  They are the terrorists.  ……… NOT

Keith Ellison Does His F%$#ing Job

Which is remarkable, when he is a prosecutor investigating killer cops.

So now, the man who Barack Obama attacked in order to prevent him from becoming head of the DNC, has has upped the charge against former MPD officer Dereck Chauvin to 2nd degree murrder, and charged the other 3 officers who helped kill George Floyd:

Attorney General Keith Ellison's office on Wednesday upgraded charges against the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck and charged the other three officers at the scene with aiding and abetting murder.

The decision came just two days after Ellison took over the prosecution from Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman and followed more than a week of sometimes-violent protests calling for tougher charges against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who had pinned Floyd to the ground and held him there for nearly nine minutes. Protesters also demanded the arrests of the three other former officers who were present but failed to intervene. All four were booked into the Hennepin County jail on Wednesday.

………

However, he said, he doesn't believe that "one successful prosecution can rectify the hurt and loss that so many people feel. The solution to that pain will be in the slow and difficult work of constructing justice and fairness in our society."

Chauvin, who was recorded on video kneeling on Floyd's neck as he begged for air on Memorial Day, now faces the more serious charge of second-degree murder, in addition to the original charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter with culpable negligence.

………

The other officers at the scene — Tou Thao, J Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane — were each charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder while committing a felony, and with aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter with culpable negligence. Both charges are categorized as "unintentional" felonies.

I hope that he nails these bastards to the wall.

It's a Primary Night

There was a general election in Ferguson, Missouri, and they have elected their first black, and first woman, as mayor.

Maybe now, they will stop preying on their poor black citizens for revenue.

Also, in a development that leaves me with mixed emotions, racist dirtbag Steve King lost his Congressional primary in Iowa. I'm glad that he's gone, but it will make it harder to flip the seat to the Democrats in November.

Finally, in the "I'm so glad that I no longer live in Baltimore City," news, fresh from a probation stint for corruption plea, Sheila Dixon has apparently been elected again as Mayor of Baltimore.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the case, was caught using gift cards that were intended to be used for poor children's Christmas gifts.

Putting the "Petty" in petty corruption, I guess.

I Credit Smart Phones

Protests against inequality and police brutality that were once limited to the slums and their immediate neighbors are now moving to wealthier neighborhoods, as technology, particularly smart phones allow organizers to organize more distant locales.

This is a good thing. Protests SHOULD afflict the comfortable:

In the years since American cities erupted in anger in the 1960s, many of the conditions that fueled that unrest — even with the ideas drafted to address them — have changed little. Most deeply poor urban neighborhoods have remained that way. Schools that for a time grew more integrated have resegregated. Aggressive policing has continued as a defining feature of urban life for young black men.

………

In Chicago, protesters have converged on Michigan Avenue, the city’s famous strip of high-end retail. In Atlanta, it has been affluent Buckhead. In Philadelphia, Center City. In New York, SoHo. In Los Angeles, protest leaders have deliberately steered toward upscale neighborhoods, including downtown and Beverly Hills.

………

There is limited symbolism in a store hit by opportunistic looting. But historians have noted the shifting geography of protest. In 1964 in Philadelphia, black neighborhoods along Columbia Avenue and North Broad Street were damaged, Thomas Sugrue, a historian at N.Y.U., pointed out. This time, high-end Chestnut and Walnut Streets around Rittenhouse Square downtown were hit over the weekend, before unrest spread through much of the city. In Los Angeles, where Watts was a site of unrest in 1960s, now Rodeo Drive is one instead.

This is good.

Logan Paul???? Logan F%$#ing Paul?!?!?! Seriously?!?!?!

✊🏼✊✊🏾✊🏽✊🏿 pic.twitter.com/dl14Xz5X5y

— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) June 2, 2020

Beyond Surreal

This is Logan Paul, who is known for having a YouTube following in the 8 figures, taking pictures of himself (and a corpse) in a Japanese suicide forest, and many other feats of stupid entitled white boi tricks, just unleashed a tirade against racism and white privilege, which considering his audience, is pretty amazing.

To quote my son, "If the situation that we're in is enough to make Logan F%$#ing Paul start to speak rationally and responsibly, we're in some deep sh%$."

This is as a profound a statement against his own interest as I have seen in a very long time.

Nothing of Value was Lost

The morning after in Richmond, Virginia - where they burned the Daughters of the Confederacy building and hung a noose around Jefferson Davis’ neck. pic.twitter.com/BdYWGAf6re

— Mallory Noe-Payne (@MalloryNoePayne) May 31, 2020

Not sure how I feel about the noose

During protests over the police murder of George Floyd, protestors set fire to the United Daughters of the Confederacy headquarters.

Given the reality of the situation in the United States, perhaps they should share a building with the Benedict Arnold memorial.

What, there is no Benedict Arnold memorial building?

Well, there shouldn't be a United Daughters of the Confederacy building either.

You and your treasonous ancestors can go f%$# themselves.

Corrupt Violent Thugs

I am referring to, of course, of the Sergeant's Benevolent Association of New York City, who just published the arrest report of mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter's arrest for participating in a protest with a tweet.

This is blatantly illegal, and there is a whole chain of command that was behind this.

And still de Blasio is shilling for the NYPD, even though he was elected on promises of reforming that department, and even though he cannot run again for mayor because of term limits.

I guess that cringing becomes becomes second nature with enough practice:

Among the hundreds of protesters arrested over the four days of demonstrations in New York City over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, only one was highlighted by name by a police union known for its hostility toward Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The name of that protester? Chiara de Blasio, the mayor’s daughter.

The union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, used Twitter to post a police report documenting the arrest on Saturday night of Ms. de Blasio, 25.

The Police Department does not normally release internal police reports, and Ms. de Blasio’s contained personal details, including her height, weight, address, date of birth and driver’s license information.

The post was removed for violation of Twitter rules, and the union’s account was suspended Monday morning.

“The account is temporarily locked for violating our private information policy,” a Twitter spokesman confirmed.

Citing safety concerns, Twitter prohibits users from posting other people’s “private information” without their consent, a practice known as “doxxing.”

This a deeply corrupt, and deeply corrupting, action made by principals in the Sergeants Benevolent Association, and it needs to be treated as the crime (felony) that it is.

This is an active conspiracy against civilian oversight of the police force, so it is not just a matter of petty corruption, it is an act reminiscent of a secret police.

They Intended to Break the Law

Louisville police came upon a gathering, a restauranteur serving food to the neighborhood during curfew, and turned off their body cameras and opened fire on the crowd.

The mayor of Louisville fired the police chief, so he knew what was going on.

The cops were "On Safari", looking for some black heads to bust, and so they went out with their body cameras off, and something went pear shaped, and they murdered a pillar of the community.

The FBI and the state police are investigating:

A city reeling from four straight nights of violent protests woke Monday to learn that the owner of a beloved West End eatery had been shot by police and National Guards troops responding to gunfire.

David McAtee, known in the Russell neighborhood for his popular barbeque stand outside of Dino's Food Mart, was killed early Monday morning as Louisville Metro Police and National Guard were trying to break up a "large crowd" in the parking lot of the mart at West Broadway and 26th Street. He was 53.

Gov. Andy Beshear ordered Kentucky State Police to investigate the shooting, which will be a joint effort between the FBI Louisville Field Office and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District, federal officials said.

Hours after the governor publicly asked Louisville officials to release a "significant" amount of body camera footage from the incident "as soon as possible," the city announced there wasn't any.

Two LMPD officers involved in the shooting either had failed to activate or were not wearing body cameras during the incident, Mayor Greg Fischer told the public Monday night.

The mayor also said Monday he fired LMPD Chief Steven Conrad, who announced he would retire at the end of June amid mounting public pressure following the police killing of 26-year-old ER technician Breonna Taylor.

………

Surveillance footage and police radio transmissions released by LMPD Monday evening offered no clear-cut answers.

However, "dozens" of officers were at the scene, according to the recordings. Several protesters and Russell residents there Monday afternoon questioned why so many officers and troops were present in the first place before the shooting.

The most significant protest Sunday night was roughly 20 blocks away downtown.

………

McAtee's body was at the scene until at least Monday afternoon. A group of LMPD officers in face shields formed a line just behind the crime scene tape, facing neighbors and protesters who came out throughout the day.

This stinks to high heaven, and these officers need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Well, Now We Know What Ends Both-Siderism Among Journalists

All you have to do to make them look at the actual facts is to put them in the line of fire.

Then, suddenly the press sees that out of control cops are out of control cops.

It really sucks that the only way to get the press to stop it's lazy equivalencies is to actually physically harm them.

This is not indicative of people who are good at their job:

The targeting, harassment, shooting and arrest of working journalists by police over the last several days is having a significant — maybe even profound — effect on the coverage of the mass demonstrations over the death of George Floyd.

It’s a shift from watching the protests through the eyes of the police to watching the police through the eyes of the protesters.

It’s a shift from seeing the police primarily as sources and protectors to seeing them as subjects and aggressors.

Exhibit A is the lead story in the New York Times print edition on Monday morning, which, instead of dutifully reporting on the official version of clashes around the nation, boldly addressed the reality that police around the country have been responding to protests against their aggression with yet more of the same, and have themselves been inciting more violence.

………

The authors also wrote that shows of force by highly-militarized police weren’t bringing calm. “Instead, some people said, it was escalating tensions and serving as a reminder of the regular use of military equipment and tactics by local police forces.”

………

This sentence struck me as both incredibly naïve and – at the same time – nothing short of revolutionary:

Now, some are questioning whether tough police tactics against demonstrators are actually making the violence worse rather than quelling it.

………

Slate collected a number of social media clips and very effectively aggregated them under the headline: “Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide.”

So, it's clear how you get journalists to start reporting, and stop cultivating sources:  You just need to make sure that someone beats the crap out of them.

It's a hell of a state of affairs.