"Some historians who follow the presidency say Biden has always shown flashes of anger when he feels underestimated."

"While they are far more fleeting than Trump’s brandishing of grievances, they have at times been unmistakable. 'There has always been this issue of resentment with Biden. He resented [former president Barack] Obama and crew for supplanting him in 2008 and for telling him not to run in [2016], and he has many other resentments,' said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian who recently published a book on the relationship between presidents and CEOs. 'But can you imagine how resentful he is of the shifting narratives and the way he’s been pushed aside and manipulated and not treated fairly. So yeah, I can see him being resentful.'"

From "Biden touts his legacy, but frustration seeps through/The president is observing the traditions of a peaceful transfer of power, but his regrets and misgivings are evident" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Lots to talk about there, but I want to focus on "brandishing" — Trump’s brandishing of grievances. This is an article about Biden, his resentfulness, but Trump must be inserted, and he must be worse. Biden has  fleeting flashes of well-founded anger, but Trump has grievances, and he brandishes them. So Biden briefly displays resentment but Trump waves his resentment around like a weapon. 

Just yesterday, I was talking about the journalistic deployment of the word "brandish." Discussing a NYT article — "In Display of Fealty, Tech Industry Curries Favor With Trump/It was a week of frenzied activity as Silicon Valley billionaires and their companies brandished checks and compliments for President-elect Trump"  — I wrote:

"My first reaction was, 'My God. This is' — look, there’s so much violence now and the way we talk about it."

"I mean, the whole notion that there is this — there’s — there’s no place at all for violence in politics in America. None. Zero. And — we’ve reached a point where it’s — it’s become too commonplace, not assassinations, but to talk about it. For example, you know, the January 6th — you know, the attack on the Capitol, the — I — I — Lester, I got in this race early on in 2020 — for the 2020 race. I wasn’t gonna run again because I’d lost my son. I didn’t — you know? And — until I watched what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia. Those folks coming out of the woods with torches, carrying swastikas, singing the same Nazi bile that was accompanied by this Ku Klux Klan and a young woman was killed. And — and it was a bystander. And — the president — then president was asked, 'What do you think?' He said, 'The very fine people on both sides.' Not fine people on both sides. No excuse. Zero."

That's our President, Joe Biden, asked by Lester Holt to describe his first reaction to the assassination attempt. Biden stumbled and bumbled his way back to his happy place, the Charlottesville hoax!

Quoted in "Transcript: Read the full Biden interview with Lester Holt on NBC News /President Joe Biden sat down for an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt" (NBC News).

Holt goes on to question Biden about his saying, just before the assassination attempt, "It’s time to put Trump in the bull’s-eye." Biden responded: "I didn’t say cross-hairs." Yeah, we know. You said "bull's eye." Corrected, Biden justifies himself. He meant focus on Trump. Holt asks if Biden has "done a little soul searching on things that you may have said that could incite — people who are not balanced?" Biden's answer is all about the problem of Trump's rhetoric. And he doesn't want to have to worry about inciting violence: "Do you just not say anything ’cause it may incite somebody?"

His administration is prosecuting Trump for saying things on January 6th that are said to have incited people. Before you cry out for your freedom to say things that might incite somebody, pardon Trump. 

Holt reminds Biden that he's said that everyone needs to turn done the heat. Biden responds:

Oh, no, no, no, no. Look, what I’m turning down — we have to stop the whole notion that there are certain things that are contrary to our — our democracy that we’re for. The idea of saying that you — “I didn’t win the election” when every court in the land — every court in the land, 120 appeals said — and including this conservative Supreme Court said we won, the idea about having — a loyalty pledge from all the folks who are in the Republican MAGA — not all Republicans, the MAGA Republicans saying that, “No, we lost the election,” inflaming the people to say — I — you — I mean —

Holt cuts off the babbling to prompt him to return to the question: "What will you do... to lower down the temperature, the rhetoric out there?" Biden's answer is a reference to one of the "inflammatory" things Trump has said: "talking about people as being vermin and all."

Later, there's colloquy about investigating the inadequacy of the Secret Service protection given to Donald Trump:

LESTER HOLT: Is it acceptable that you have still not heard, at least publicly, from the Secret Service director?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Oh, I’ve heard from him. I — I’ve —

Apparently, he isn't even aware that the director of the Secret Service is a woman. 

LESTER HOLT: But have you heard from her publicly?

A little subtle help with the pronouns from Lester Holt. 

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Publicly. I’ve sat down in the Situation Room downstairs. The Secret Service, the FBI, the national security agencies, the Homeland Security, all the major elements. And there’s two pieces to this, too. And it’s — it’s not an excuse. It’s just an ordinary explanation. There’s a major piece of this related to domestic and local law enforcement. They play a large role. And so there’s a different comp — I’m not saying they weren’t competent either. I’m just saying it’s a complicated process. And what has changed, by the way, Lester, is (CLEARS THROAT) you me, I’m — I like to meet people. I like to walk out, shake hands, move, look at people in the eye, see what they’re thinking. It’s really curtailed that ability on my part and on everybody’s part. And so because there’s a heightened notion that when you say there’s nothing wrong with going to the Capitol, breaking in, threatening people, a couple cops dying, hanging — put — putting up a noose, a gallows for — done for the vice — the former vice president, and you — and some — somehow you — and then you say you’re gonna forgive people for that, you’re gonna pardon ’em, that that was just a normal response, that is not — I have my entire career voted against and railed against and moved against the idea of violence is never appropriate. Never, never, never, never, never in politics.

Did you follow that? Again, I see stumbling and bumbling back to a happy place — January 6th.

I don't know if I can bear to go on, but the next part is about Judge Cannon's dismissal of the documents case. He observes that the dismissal was based on a defect in the appointment of the independent prosecutor, but he proceeds to talk about the merits of the documents case against him:

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I had an independent prosecutor look at me.... And they looked at me and concluded I didn’t do a damn thing wrong....

That's not what they concluded! 

There follows a lot of talk about the 2024 race. Holt brings up Biden's bad performance at the debate and asks if Biden will do another one. Holt asks: "Is there a sense of wanting to get back on the horse?"

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I’m on the horse. Where have you been? I’ve done 22 major events, met thousands of people, overwhelming crowds. A lot’s happening. I’m on the horse....

ADDED: I've rewatched this interview, and I can't get over how inappropriately belligerent he is toward Lester Holt. Holt is so mature and dignified that it is unwise and ineffective to treat him as though he's doing something wrong. There are 2 or 3 times when Biden leans forward oddly, his eyes wild, and levels some strange challenge. 

"It’s true that the format did Biden no favors. CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash avoided fact-checking..."

"... like it was the plague, which allowed Trump to steamroll an unsteady Biden with his usual stream of lies. Trump served up whoppers about abortion, his bungled covid response, Charlottesville, January 6, and more.... CNN finally ran an on-air fact-check of Trump more than an hour after the debate ended. But considering the relatively minuscule size of the audience at that late hour and the fact Trump was allowed to lie with impunity on the same network at length earlier in the evening, CNN’s belated attempt at basic journalistic accountability was worth very little."

Writes Aaron Rupar, in "Not great, Joe/Biden's debate showing stunk up the joint. But don't give up hope" (PublicNotice).

The format did Biden no favors? The format was engineered to favor Biden! Trump stepped up and did it the way Biden's people wanted. If the format chosen imposed disadvantages on Biden, it's only because his people thought other formats were more disadvantageous... unless the fix was in and the idea was to expose Biden's weaknesses.

Rupar, of course, is ridiculous. The "whopper about... Charlottesville" came from Biden. Who is still bitterly clinging to the notion that Trump said Nazis were fine people? Maybe Biden is so far gone that he actually believes it, but I don't believe Rupar believes it. I'm crediting him with rank cynicism. If the CNN moderators had been fact-checking in real time, they would have had to correct Biden on the "fine people" hoax... and on numerous other things, such as the claim that Trump told people to inject bleach into their arm. But Rupar is free to imagine that the moderators would have fact-checked in a biased way, a la Candy Crowley, and to pine about the debate that might have been.

CORRECTION: When first published, this post had a few stray sentences of Rupar's — at the bottom, after a big space — and I hope no one mistook that as mine! 

"The days when Democrats could get away with thinking of Hispanics as one of 'their' minority groups are, or should be, over."

Writes Ruy Teixeira, in "Postcard from the Hispanic Working Class/Education polarization comes to America’s Latinos"  (The Liberal Patriot).

In terms of voting intentions, Biden leads by just one point among working-class Hispanics but by 39 points among their college-educated counterparts. Interestingly, this 38-point reverse class gap is actually larger than the class gap in this poll among whites (30 points).... And here’s something that should concentrate their mind when considering the working-class Hispanics problem and how seriously to take it. The simple fact of the matter is that there are far, far more working-class than college-educated Hispanics. According to States of Change data, Hispanic eligible voters nationwide are 78 percent working class. And working-class levels among Latinos are even higher in critical states like Arizona (82 percent) and Nevada (85 percent).

I'm giving this post my "Biden's racial nightmare" tag, though I can't remember what made me invent that tag and will need to publish this post and click on it to find out. 

UPDATE, right after posting: I now see why I created the tag. It's a pretty different topic, but I want to go back into it. It was August 13, 2020:

"Last Saturday in a small foundry, a man in heat-resistant attire pulled down his gold-plated visor, turned on his plasma torch and sliced into the face of Robert E. Lee."

"The hollow bronze head glowed green and purple as the flame burned through layers of patina and wax. Drops of molten red metal cascaded to the ground."

I'm reading the New York Times version of the story of the melting down of the Charlottesville Robert E. Lee statue.

The Washington Post had its piece up first, with similar ornate prose — "dissolving into a sludge of glowing bronze.... a flash of bluish white light and orange sparks... seven long gashes into Lee’s severed head" — and I blogged it yesterday here. 

I avoid re-blogging something I've already blogged, but that precept doesn't save me from blogging the NYT piece, "The Most Controversial Statue in America Surrenders to the Furnace."  The WaPo article was written by reporters who observed the cutting and melting. The NYT's writer, Erin L. Thompson, also a first-hand witness, is a professor of art crime who has written a relevant book — "Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments" (Amazon link/commission earned).

So, though I am loath to read any more prose featuring deep gashes and glowing globs, I'm interested in Thompson's take on the ethical problem of destroying a work of art. We're talking about a statue that was already removed from its original position of honor in a public space, that could be moved somewhere else, perhaps to private grounds, to a museum, or into storage. In this case, a choice was made to melt the statue — Robert E. Lee and his horse — with some idea of using the bronze to cast a new sculpture, conveying the anti-Robert E. Lee point of view.

"SOMEWHERE IN THE U.S. SOUTH — It was a choice to melt down Robert E. Lee. But it would have been a choice to keep him intact, too."

"So the statue of the Confederate general that once stood in Charlottesville — the one that prompted the deadly 'Unite the Right' rally in 2017 — was now being cut into fragments and dropped into a furnace, dissolving into a sludge of glowing bronze.... With a flash of bluish white light and orange sparks, a trio of foundry workers carved seven long gashes into Lee’s severed head. 'It’s a better sculpture right now than it’s ever been,' one of the metal-casters said. 'We’re taking away what it meant for some people and transforming it.'"

Flowery prose in The Washington Post celebrating the destruction of a work of art — "Charlottesville’s Lee statue meets its end, in a 2,250-degree furnace Melted down in secret, the divisive Confederate monument will be turned into a new piece of public art."

"[O]n Saturday the museum went ahead with its plan in secret at this small Southern foundry, in a town and state The Washington Post agreed not to name because of participants’ fears of violence... They made arrangements for Lee to be melted down while they started collecting ideas from city residents for that new sculpture.... Some [of the witnesses to the melting] said the statue was being destroyed. Others called it a restoration. Depending on who you asked, the bronze was being reclaimed, disrupted, or redeemed to a higher purpose. It was a grim act of justice and a celebration all in one...."

"The college kids in America went full Trump and said there's very fine people on both sides."

The good news was that the far-left and the far-right in this country have found common ground. The bad news is it’s that they both hate the Jews. pic.twitter.com/7mgVXS6JmN

— Bill Maher (@billmaher) October 14, 2023

"There are those who demonize and pit people against one another. And there are those who will do anything and everything, no matter how desperate or immoral..."

"... to hold onto power. That’s never going to be an easy battle. But I know this — the oldest, most sinister forces may believe they’ll determine America’s future. But they are wrong. We will determine America’s future. You will determine America’s future."

Said Joe Biden, quoted in "Biden Warns of 'Sinister Forces' Trying to Reverse Racial Progress/The president’s commencement address at Howard University, a historically Black institution, came as Democratic strategists have expressed concerns about muted enthusiasm for Mr. Biden among Black voters" (NYT).

That quote is creepily generic. Who's he talking about? The article presents this as the context:

"Jurors on Tuesday found the main organizers of the deadly right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 liable under state law for injuries to counterprotesters..."

"... awarding more than $25 million in damages. But the jury deadlocked on federal conspiracy charges. The case in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville was brought by nine plaintiffs, four men and five women, including four people injured in the same car attack that killed one counterprotester, 32-year-old Heather Heyer.... They said... they hoped to deter hate groups from mounting similar toxic spectacles in the future."

The NYT reports.

The Lincoln Project inserts itself into the Virginia gubernatorial race by sending 5 demonstrators with tiki torches to a Glenn Youngkin rally.

1. Here's how the Washington Post puts it: "A group of people carrying tiki torches outside Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s tour bus in Charlottesville on Friday, which caused a stir on social media and led both political parties to blame the other for the stunt, turned out to be organized by the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican group."

2. Is the Lincoln Project really/still a Republican group?

3. Did the Lincoln Project hope to keep its role secret until after the election and, if so, did it assume that the finger-pointing would hurt Youngkin more than McAuliffe? 

4. The candidates and their supporters immediately started blaming each other, and that could be inconclusive — just chaos. I think chaos — with racists in the center of the controversy — would at least shake things up and benefit McAuliffe, who's been failing lately and seeming desperate as polls have shifted toward Youngkin. But that's also a reason to implicate McAuliffe in what would be understood as a false-flag dirty trick.

5. But the Lincoln Project stepped forward and rescued McAuliffe by announcing that it was their dirty trick. And now we have to talk about them. They'd come into disrepute lately, and who knows who they really are now? But how mind-bending for them to take the spotlight in the last weekend before this crucial election! Did they decide on their own that this would be appropriate — a really strained decision — to forefront virulent racism? Or did they consult with McAuliffe? Does campaign finance law forbid them from engaging in that level of coordination?

6. Now that the Lincoln Project has taken responsibility, does that let the candidate they intended to help off the hook? You can't control what your supporters do, and this question parallels whether Trump should be responsible for the openly expressed racism of the original tiki-torch marchers in Charlottesville. But I see that Philip Klein at The National Review is saying "McAuliffe Should Be Held Responsible for Tiki Torch Stunt, Because His Campaign Thinks Candidates Are Responsible for Supporters."

7. Klein raises a very basic question that had occurred to me: Is the Lincoln project telling the truth now? The stunt itself was deceptive, so how do we know this isn't a new form of deception — "taking the heat off of somebody else given the stunt epically backfired"? I would note that there are 5 human beings who are easily identifiable, the demonstrators. Why did they do it? How much were they paid? What were they told? Is anyone talking to them?

8. Klein contends that McAuliffe is responsible even if the Lincoln Project did the whole thing independently because "the McAuliffe campaign pounced":

One McAuliffe spokesperson, Christina Freundlich, referenced the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, and said, "this is who Glenn Youngkin’s supporters are."Another McAuliffe spokesperson, Jen Goodman, claimed the image of the fake Youngkin supporters was “disgusting and disqualifying.”

9.  It becomes very easy to take that "disgusting and disqualifying" and aim it back at McAuliffe, and that is how Philip Klein ends his piece. It is "disgusting and disqualifying" to snap up whatever's available to make everything about race, and the McAuliffe campaign showed that instinct. Everybody uses everything that can be used these days, and they often have to work pretty hard to show that things are really about race — that's the Critical Race Theory method. But this thing was blatantly racial. 

10. I mean those 5 demonstrators were blatantly racial. The leap was to say "this is who Glenn Youngkin’s supporters are." Those 5 people are (posing as) racists and what it means — in the view of at least one McAuliffe spokesperson — is that all of Youngkin supporters are racists. That readiness to besmirch the entire group — that's the problem. Ironically, it's the methodology of racists.

These men approached @GlennYoungkin’s bus as it pulled up saying what sounded like, “We’re all in for Glenn.” Here they are standing in front of the bus as his campaign event at Guadalajara started.@NBC29 pic.twitter.com/l681ejyBjc

— Elizabeth Holmes (@holmes_reports) October 29, 2021

There goes Robert E. Lee...

A friend was sitting on his porch in Charlottesville this morning and got to witness one final retreat pic.twitter.com/0y6HlaB8Oa

— Clyde McGrady (@CAMcGrady) July 10, 2021

Was there any discussion of "systemic racism" during the debate?

I need to read the transcript, in part because I want to do a word search, but in part because I, like so many of you, became distracted when a fly landed on Mike Pence's hair and stayed there for quite a long while. I thought it would never leave. Pence has helmet hair, so zero chance of feeling the weight or movement of the fly, and the fly barely moved. We talked about whether the fly was stuck or dead and whether it symbolized racism, being a discordant black dot on highly structured white hair. 

Here's the transcript. I see, searching it, that Kamala Harris never said "racist" or "racism," let alone "systemic" or "systemically." But Mike Pence said "systemically racist," and it is in this portion of the debate, where I was distracted by the fly in Mike Pence's hair. Let's work through this carefully, beginning with the question framed by the moderator, Susan Page. I've made some corrections to the transcript, which I'll note with boldface.

In March, Breonna Taylor, a 26 year old emergency room technician in Louisville was shot and killed after police officers executing a search warrant in a narcotics investigation, broke into her apartment. The police said they identified themselves. Taylor’s boyfriend said he didn’t hear them do that. He used a gun registered to him to fire a shot, which wounded an officer. The officers then fired more than 20 rounds into the apartment. They say they were acting in self-defense. None of them have been indicted in connection with her death. Senator Harris, in the case of Breonna Taylor was justice done?...

Notice that Page did not mention race at all. Taylor was identified by her age, her occupation, and her city. The question relating to indictment should be right in the zone where former prosecutor Kamala Harris can display the most expertise. Will she show respect for the process? Will she accuse the grand jury of racism and perhaps explain that white people carry racism into their decision-making whether they realize it or not? That is, will she demonstrate a belief in systemic racism or "implicit bias" and invite us to understand and share the belief in an enlightened new way (which is, I think, what the Black Lives Matter movement would like us to do)?

Harris answers:

I live-blog my first reading of Joe Biden's convention speech.

Transcript (with punctuation improved in spots based on the video):

Good evening, Ella Baker, a giant of the civil rights movement left us with this wisdom: give people light and they will find the way. Give people light.

I give this post my "light and shade" tag (one of my favorites).  I don't remember ever hearing about Ella Baker, but it's a good quote, and it sets up a theme, and gives us something we can use to test the success of this speech. He must give light. He cannot simply claim to be the light. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world," but Biden is not Jesus.

Those are words for our time. The current president has cloaked American darkness for much too long, too much anger, too much fear, too much division here.

I don't yet know if Biden is going to claim to be the light, but he has asserted that Trump is the dark. The dark is defined as anger, fear, and division, but I don't know how the Democrats can say they are not part of that darkness. The speech is already marked with divisiveness: The other side is the darkness and we bring the light.

And now I give you my word. If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us. Not the worst. I’ll be an ally of the light, not the darkness.

So he's not the light, but an ally of the light.

It’s time for us, for We, the People to come together and make no mistake. United, we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.

"We can... overcome." Not: We shall overcome. He didn't Lyndon Johnson it! If he'd said "We shall overcome" it would have tied to the Civil Rights Movement, and he did begin the speech with a quote from "a giant of the civil rights movement," but he's not talking about racial justice specifically here. He's talking in the most generic way about light and darkness. There's nothing about any specific people, just all the people, the ethereal entity "We, the People," which needs to "come together."

We’ll choose hope over fear, facts, over fiction, fairness, over privilege....

Pretty much everyone chooses those things in the abstract, but he's telling us what we will do. What's the evidence of that? It seems to me that We, the People have been, in reality, choosing the negative side of each of those binaries, but if Donald Trump can be made to embody fear, fiction, and privilege, then it's correct to say we'll choose hope, facts, and fairness if only we vote him out of office.

Biden accepts the Democratic Party nomination for President, but if he is elected, he'll be "an American President," working for everyone, "not just our base or our party":

This is not a partisan moment. This must be an American moment. Someone with a cause for hope and light and love — hope for our future, light to see our way forward, and love for one another. 

I've been wondering where's the love. He's offering love — love and hope and light. That's all very abstract, of course.

No, nearly a century ago, Franklin Roosevelt pledged a new deal in a time of massive unemployment, uncertainty, and fear. Stricken by a disease — stricken by a virus — FDR insisted that he would recover and prevail, and he believed America could as well. And he did. And we can as well. This campaign isn’t just about winning votes. It’s about winning the heart and yes, the soul of America — winning it for the generous among us, not the selfish when needed for workers who keep this country going, not just the privileged few at the top, winning for those communities who have known the injustice of a knee on the neck, for all the young people [who] have known only America being  rising inequity and shrinking opportunity....

The metaphorical "knee on the neck" has affected whole communities... but weren't these communities in cities run by the Democratic Party?

And now history has delivered us to one of the most difficult moments America has ever faced: four historic crises.

The 4 crises are: the pandemic, the economy, the "call for racial justice," and climate change.

As many have said America is at an inflection point...

Inflection point! (I blogged about the term "inflection point" twice yesterday — 1, 2 — after Kamala Harris used it in her speech.)

We can choose a path to becoming angrier, less hopeful, more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion or, or we can choose a different path and together take this chance to heal, to reform, to unite, a path of hope and light.

As if the idea of light could meet 4 crises. By the way — only 4? Why not 6?



Back to Joe:

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris deploy the Charlottesville hoax to stir up racial pain and anger.

Here's the "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Speech Transcript August 12: First Campaign Event as Running Mates." I watched a small part of it because the TV was on in the room I happened to be in. I myself never turn on the TV news. In fact, I often get up and leave the room when it's on. I keep my distance from the virulent news and stick to reading on line (with small doses of video occasionally). In the bit of Joe Biden's speech that I saw, I found him hard to listen to. I wondered how anyone who had English as a second language could understand him, the way he drops consonants — for example, saying "whe'er not" for "whether or not." He sounded angry but disconnected from the text he was reading.

But I'm reading the text this morning because I saw in a tweet that he was forefronting the Charlottesville "fine people" hoax. On his first day of campaigning with his running mate, he led with that. I say "he," but I don't really believe it's him. I think it's more likely that he's a foggy-minded figurehead, and other people have decided to frame the message like that. I consider these people — whoever they are — despicable. They have chosen quite deliberately to commit to a lie that is intended to make black people feel hated and they are doing it for political gain.

As my earlier post about the tweet says, I blogged in April 2019, "If Biden does not come forward and retract [a video relying on the Charlottesville hoax] and apologize and commit himself to making amends, I consider him disqualified. He does not have the character or brain power to be President." Now, more than a year later, Biden has done the opposite. He's doubled down on the lie and he's making it the centerpiece of his campaign!

Biden put up that tweet last night after the speech. This post is to look at the transcript of the speeches that Biden and Harris gave at their event yesterday and to pull out the Charlottesville quotes:

Biden once again tweets the lie that he put in his announcement video — the lie that caused me to say "If Biden does not come forward and retract this video and apologize and commit himself to making amends, I consider him disqualified."

I’m not a Trump fan but this is a flat out lie... https://t.co/Y1Lha9XzAR

— Ethan Nicolle (@AXECOP) August 13, 2020

Here is the post I wrote on April 19, 2020, "Biden's announcement video is anchored in a demonstrable lie":

I'm blogging this morning in a public place, so although I've put up 2 posts about Biden's announcement video, I had not yet listened to it. I finally got out my headphones out so I could  listen, but I could not get through to the end, because I became so angry at the LIE and the continued music and montage became torture to me.

In the part that I did see, we were shown images from the Charlottesville march — replete with the "Jews will not replace us" chant and swastikas — and then Biden's blandly earnest face asserted that Trump said some of them "are fine people." But Trump did not say that! It's absolutely established that Trump excluded those people explicitly before saying that there were some fine people on both sides of the question of keeping Confederate statues. (At the time of the fine people remark, Trump said, "I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.")

How dare Biden rest his campaign on a blatant lie — a lie that has been used to stir up fear and racial discord?! The hypocrisy of offering to bring us together and embrace lofty values when he is either repulsively ignorant or just plain lying!

I could not finish watching that video. I tried, but I couldn't force myself. It's utterly toxic bilge.

If Biden does not come forward and retract this video and apologize and commit himself to making amends, I consider him disqualified. He does not have the character or brain power to be President.

Trump's Mount Rushmore speech came on too late for me, but...

... I've got the transcript, and I'm going to live-blog my reading of it. I'm fixing punctuation as I go and adding boldface:

There could be no better place to celebrate America’s independence than beneath this magnificent, incredible, majestic mountain and monument to the greatest Americans who have ever lived.

Somebody went heavy on the alliteration, but "incredible" sneaked in there. He's on the side of the monuments, not the destroyers of monuments.

The superlative — "the greatest Americans who have ever lived" — is a provocation. Not only is he defending these 4 men against the recent attacks, he's saying they are greater than every other American in history — greater than Frederick Douglass, greater than Harriet Tubman, greater than all of them. He didn't have to say the greatest. He could have said "among the greatest."

It would mean something just to call them "great" at all and not to qualify it with something like, though they did not escape the moral failings characteristic of their time. But he went big. He put the 4 above everyone else, which is the message of the mountain.

Today we pay tribute to the exceptional lives and extraordinary legacies of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt.

He's got the great men on his side, not like those people who want to tear down statues of all of them.

I am here as your president to proclaim before the country and before the world, this monument will never be desecrated, these heroes will never be defamed, their legacy will never ever be destroyed, their achievements will never be forgotten, and Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our freedom.

That's big! Very grand. Very much a stand against the protesters and rioters... without mentioning them.  This is hyperbole, because Trump cannot protect the monument forever, and indeed, an understanding of geology would tell you that it's impossible for the monument to stand forever as an eternal tribute.

But he's not promising. He's proclaiming. I think of the proclamation on the plinth of Ozymandias. You can proclaim it is eternal, but that doesn't make it eternal. I'm going to live forever! I'm going to learn how to fly! Sing it joyously, but you're still going to die some day.

"It’s clear that Northam is praying for violence."

Wrote Glenn Reynolds, expressing the cynical view that I had but felt I should refrain from saying.

My post, from 5 days ago, quotes NBC12 — "Fearing a repeat of the deadly violence that engulfed Charlottesville more than two years ago, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam declared a temporary emergency Wednesday banning all weapons, including guns, from Capitol Square ahead of a massive rally planned next week over gun rights" — and says:

That phrase — "Fearing a repeat of the deadly violence that engulfed Charlottesville more than two years ago" — caused me to have a thought so cynical that I will refrain from writing it down.

With Glenn's companionship, I will disclose that when I read the headline out loud 5 days ago, I stopped after "Fearing a repeat of the deadly violence that engulfed Charlottesville" and said "Hoping for a repeat of the deadly violence that engulfed Charlottesville."

Today's the day. The rally is under way. The New York Times is doing live, minute-by-minute updates under the heading "Virginia Gun Rally Live Updates: Crowds and Lines, but Calm So Far." Sample text:

White supremacists, members of antigovernment militias and other extremists have said they planned to be in Richmond for the rally as well, stoking fears of the sort of violence that left one person dead and some two dozen others injured during a far-right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.

Hoping to head off trouble, the state has set up a security perimeter around the Capitol grounds and has banned weapons — including firearms — from the area inside. Police officers guarded the area with the help of bomb-sniffing dogs, and people entering the perimeter through the single entrance were being screened with metal detectors....

"A sense of crisis enveloped the capital of Virginia on Thursday, with the police on heightened alert and Richmond bracing for possible violence ahead of a gun rally next week..."

"... that is expected to draw white supremacists and other anti-government extremists. Members of numerous armed militias and white power proponents vowed to converge on the city despite the state of emergency declared by Gov. Ralph Northam, who temporarily banned weapons from the grounds of the State Capitol. The potential for an armed confrontation prompted fears of a rerun of the 2017 far-right rally that left one person dead and some two dozen injured in Charlottesville, about an hour’s drive from Monday’s rally. The unease increased after the F.B.I. announced the arrest on Thursday of three armed men suspected of being members of a neo-Nazi hate group, including a former Canadian Army reservist, who had obtained weapons and discussed participating in the Richmond rally. The men were linked to the Base, a group that aims to create a white ethnostate, according to the F.B.I. For weeks, discussions about the rally have lit up Facebook pages and chat rooms frequented by militia members and white supremacists. Various extremist organizations or their adherents are calling Monday’s rally the 'boogaloo.' In the lexicon of white supremacists, that is an event that will accelerate the race war they have anticipated for decades."

From "Virginia Capital on Edge as F.B.I. Arrests Suspected Neo-Nazis Before Gun Rally/The three men had obtained guns and discussed traveling to Virginia for protests against new gun control measures, officials said" (NYT).

From a week ago, at NPR, "'Boogaloo' Is The New Far-Right Slang For Civil War" (audio & transcript). "Boogaloo" was originally a song and dance, then a reference to a famously bad movie ("Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo"), and then slang for "any unwanted sequel." Then it got attached to the idea of another civil war — "Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo." The NPR reporter, Hannah Allam says the word is used by "anarchists and others on the far left" as well as "right-wing militias and self-described patriot groups." We hear an audio montage of unidentified persons:

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: So many people are saying that the boogaloo is about to kick off in Virginia.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: When the boogaloo happens, these are the people that you're going to have to watch out for.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: Do not think for one second that there aren't people that would love to see this thing to get started, that would love to see this boogaloo start rolling. Personally, I do not want to see that. I don't want it to come to that....

Interesting that all 3 of those persons were talking about those other people over there.

Next we hear from Oren Segal of the Anti-Defamation League, who tells us that pop culture references are "weaponized" to spread an extremist message. Then the NPR reporter, Hannah Allam wraps it up:

ALLAM: For a subset of the far-right, the fringe of the fringe, civil war isn't enough. They're spoiling for a race war. Decades later, boogaloo is no longer about music, but about menace - a word coined by black and brown people now used by some who envision a country without them.

Here's the Urban Dictionary page for the word. There's a graph showing a big spike in May 2019:

Here's the Ringo song from 1971, "Back Off Boogaloo" — "Back off boogaloo/What do you think I'm going to do?/I got a flash right from the start/Wake up, meat head/Don't pretend that you are dead." Get it? The walrus was Paul, and "Boogaloo" was Paul. No. Wait. That's the rumor...

Several commentators have interpreted the lyrics as an attack on Paul McCartney, reflecting Starr's disdain.... Ringo Starr identified his initial inspiration for "Back Off Boogaloo" as having come from Marc Bolan... Over dinner one evening at Starr's home... Bolan had used the word "boogaloo"...  "[Bolan] was an energised guy. He used to speak: 'Back off, boogaloo ... ooh you, boogaloo.' 'Do you want some potatoes?' 'Ooh you, boogaloo!'"

ADDED: It's funny that Ringo's story has Marc Bolan saying "Ooh you, boogaloo." I'd say that reinforces the theory that the Boogaloo was Paul, because one year before that pass-the-potatoes conversation between Ringo and Marc Bolan, Paul put out a song, "Oo, You":



ALSO: There are also Antifa plans to attend that Richmond rally, and not to oppose the conservative gun-rights people, Vice reports:

Biden touts himself as the embodiment of honesty while spreading a well-known lie. That's an exquisite form of lying.

Here it is pic.twitter.com/VnBfLecBMe

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 2, 2020

"The Reverend Bill Owens Stands Behind Trump."

Isaac Chotiner interviews Bill Owens (in The New Yorker).

Owens said that Trump has talked with him and other "inner city pastors" about "ways the President could help the African-American community with their challenges and their problems." Trump was, according to Owens "very receptive" and had (to use Chotiner's words) "a pretty deep understanding of the problems affecting the black community."

Owens justified Trump's criticism of Elijah Cummings on the ground that Cummings attacked Trump and Trump "felt he should respond."

Chotiner prodded Owens to say that Trump's recent attacks on "the four Democratic congresswomen" had "a racial basis," and Owens said:

I don’t see that. This country is based on race now. Everybody tries to make a race issue out of everything, because they are trying to say the President doesn’t like black people. I don’t see that. They are using that because it is popular to do it now, and it polarizes black people against the President. I think it is very unfortunate.

Owens said that black pastors are often "reluctant to be interviewed by the press":

They ask, “Where is the trap? What are you trying to get me to say that I don’t want to say?” That happens every day to me. But I am bold enough to take my shot and try to be as honest as I can, regardless to where it takes me.

Chotiner asks about same-sex marriage, which Owens has opposed. He still opposes it:

It’s terrible! It has terrified children! Look at what they have done. Look at the men playing women in kindergarten. I forget what they call it, where they call it a civil right. These big men pretending they are women, playing with little children. And it sends the wrong message to little children. They think it is O.K., and it is not O.K.

Well, then, how does Owens feel about Trump's "romances and sleeping with porn stars," Chotiner asks. Owens answers like a preacher: "If you are a sinner, and repent your sins, your sins are forgiven."

Asked about the separating of families at the border, Owens prioritizes "the black children in America who have lost their parents":

For years, they put the black father out of the home. The federal government hired a hundred thousand social workers to put the black father out of the home and put the mother on welfare. What did that do to children? It was done by our government on purpose.... Can we just take children from all over the world and do better with them than we have with our citizens? Black people died for this country. We fought for this country for hundreds of years. And we are still being neglected, and no one is talking about it.