Senator Tom Cotton wrote an op-ed for the New York Times Wednesday titled “Send In the Troops” and yes, it was as garbage as the title might imply! Once getting over the dismay that the so-called paper of record happily gave a platform to a wild racist, anyone who can stomach Cotton’s George Wallace cosplay will find themselves faced with an argument that uses a handful of anecdotal instances of violence by protestors to justify using military force against United States citizens. Predictably it ignores the violence that the police have used on protestors in the days following the death of George Floyd.
But the strangest part of Cotton’s piece was the examples he used to justify military action against protesters:
For instance, during the 1950s and 1960s, Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson called out the military to disperse mobs that prevented school desegregation or threatened innocent lives and property. This happened in my own state. Gov. Orval Faubus, a racist Democrat, mobilized our National Guard in 1957 to obstruct desegregation at Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower federalized the Guard and called in the 101st Airborne in response. The failure to do so, he said, “would be tantamount to acquiescence in anarchy.”
More recently, President George H.W. Bush ordered the Army’s Seventh Infantry and 1,500 Marines to protect Los Angeles during race riots in 1992. He acknowledged his disgust at Rodney King’s treatment — “what I saw made me sick” — but he knew deadly rioting would only multiply the victims, of all races and from all walks of life.
Hmm, it’s almost as if the military is only called upon when the systematic racism that underpins white supremacy is threatened! Interesting! Very interesting.
Cotton also used his piece of New York Times real estate to throw wild accusations against Antifa, overstate the prevalence of uprisings, characterize those who are sympathetic to protestors as “elites” who condone “orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic.” What a cynical waste of pixels.
Former President Barack Obama offered a lengthy statement Wednesday evening, during a panel discussion about the nationwide protests against police brutality, citing some action items for cities to improve their law enforcement operations. It was largely an accompaniment of a Medium post he wrote two days prior, which calls for meaningful reform and specific demands of the powers that be.
And it was… fine. To Obama’s credit, it was a relief to hear him plainly characterize looting during protests as a relatively limited activity, a fact that may come across as shocking to those who are glued to cable news. But Obama’s push for the nation’s mayors to adopt the Mayor Pledge—which Obama.org describes as “A call for mayors, city councils, and police oversight bodies to address police use of force policies”—fell to me a bit flat. Not because the pledge isn’t valuable: It calls for mayors to review police force policies, seek community input, report findings to the community, and reform police use of force policy in said community. It’s a worthy goal, but one that’s relatively meaningless without explicit pushes to demilitarize the police and reduce department budgets–two things that increase their excessive power.
Obama said that several mayors, including New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio, signed the pledge. The New York Police Department has a $6 billion budget. Hence, my skepticism.
“I want to acknowledge the folks in law enforcement that share the goals of reimagining policing because there are folks out there who took that oath to serve your communities,” Obama said “We’re grateful for the vast majority of you who protect and serve.”
Well, let’s see how much protecting and serving will occur after curfew Wednesday night.
Anyway, nice shelves, dude.
- A disgruntled Trump has to find a new state that will host the Republican National Convention this year after North Carolina reminded him that, uh, there’s a goddamn pandemic afoot. [Politico]
- Trump insists that he wasn’t pissing his pants in a bunker, hiding from protesters.
- Here’s Congressman Jim Clyburn politely shitting on Amy Klobuchar as a potential vice presidential pick for Joe Biden.
- Even the FBI is sick of Trump’s shit: The Washington FBI Field Office has found no Antifa involvement with the violence that occurred during a May 31 protest over the death of George Floyd. [The Nation]
- Welp!
- Nikil Saval, the former editor of n+1, defeated an unseated an incumbent state senator in Philadelphia Tuesday. Saval ran as a democratic socialist and was endorsed by Bernie Sanders. [Philly Voice]
- And in other election news, progressive Teresa Leger Fernandez beat former CIA officer Valerie Plame in a Democratic primary in New Mexico’s 3rd district. [New York Times]
- But speaking of Sanders, he released a statement that was alright until it suggested that making police positions higher pay would attract a pool of prospective cops who… would be less violent? Peepaw, no.
- And in other election news, progressive Teresa Leger Fernandez beat former CIA officer Valerie Plame in a Democratic primary in New Mexico’s 3rd district. [New York Times]
- Did Trump do a voter fraud? [Washington Post]
- Hey, remember that hero who threw the shoe at George W. Bush back in 2008? Well, he stands in solidarity with the anti-police brutality protests in the United States.