Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• If you haven't seen police shove down the 75 year old man in Buffalo, you need to. A quick loading video of it is here. Pay attention to both the seeping blood and how his injuries are ignored. And take a look at this video from a different angle from across the street. In that video, the sound of the guy's skull hitting the pavement is enough to stop the rest of the militarized police in the street in their tracks. Then we have one the leaders, acting like he is Maximus in Gladiator, yell at them to "Hold the line!" against a non-existent crowd. Then, to make it all worse, the cops lied about what happened.  
  
• The same location 24 hours earlier:
  
• Trump's grasping for a new message has led him to those of "domination" and "law and order." With all these bad police looks coming out, he might want to pick a different one.  
  
  
• In fact, he's really struggling with his messages. And history.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I was pleased to notice that the White Supremacist sticker on a pole near downtown Decatur that I saw yesterday had mysteriously disappeared by the time I walked by its location after work. (Side note: A very faithful reader, and a history buff, pointed out that the symbol in the sticker was prominent back in Mussolini's socialist Italy.)
  
• This was circulating yesterday. I thought it wasn't real but it is. And it reminds me of how much I loved Reno 911.

  EXCLUSIVE: “These officers are the elite of the elite”.
  A look at @MiamiPD’s Bike Response Team- a specialized unit deployed to handle large crowds and protests. I’m LIVE at 6 on @nbc6 pic.twitter.com/4ejZk1w0iV

  — Jamie Guirola (@jamieNBC6) June 4, 2020

• Speaking of videos, this one really got my attention this week.

  America do you have any idea how insane this looks the outside pic.twitter.com/O0FpVrSN4q

  — James Felton (@JimMFelton) June 3, 2020

• Once Trump is allowed to have packed rallies again, picture this image: Standing in front of a roaring all white crowd as he holds up a Bible as a prop to celebrate the time he walked to the Episcopal Church, he says something like, "They liberals and the media hated me for holding this up this, but you and I will never be ashamed of the Bible!!!"  The crowd will go nuts and it will be the closest thing to a Hitler moment as (hopefully) this country will ever get to. 
• Barr will straight up lie to you without reservation. 
  
• The new Quinnipiac poll has Trump at 44% and Biden at 43% in Texas. No, I don't think that Biden will beat Trump in Texas, but the fact the polls are that close tells you it is a matter of time that Texas turns Blue.  (And if I'm a Tarrant County Republican in a county wide contested election this Fall, I'm extremely nervous.)  
  
• I can't stop looking at this. 
  
• If you're mad at Saints' QB Drew Brees backtracking on his comments, that crowd you are standing with is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. It's time to realize you were . . . 
  
• Coronavirus. Wise County: I was joking yesterday about how we doubled our number of active cases by going from 1 to 2. Uh, this morning the number has gone to 5.  
• Texas: Everyone still so cock sure everything is fine? "The state reported 1,796 COVID-19 hospitalizations Thursday, a one-day increase of 309 and the third-highest Texas total of the outbreak." And the chart:
  
• It's not been a good week for Texas GOP chairs. 
• In Bexar and Nueces counties, the chairs said the death of George Floyd was a "staged event." (Gulp!)  The Bexar County post is here. Nueces here. 
• Then the "GOP chairman-elect in Harris County, Keith Nielsen, posted an image on Facebook earlier this week that showed a Martin Luther King Jr. quote — 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere' — on a background with a banana." 
• Finally, Sue Piner, chair of the Comal County GOP, shared a post on Sunday that included an image of liberal billionaire George Soros and text that said, "I pay white cops to murder black people. And then I pay black people to riot because race wars keep the sheep in line."
• "Dallas Police Chief U. Reneé Hall on Thursday said she would not charge the 674 protesters who were detained on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge after previously defending the mass arrests."  Wouldn't it have been smarter never to arrest them in the first place?  (Very legal and technical question which might interest only a handful of people: How do you you handle that on the Texas CJIS form? The arresting agency has to fill out the top portion after an arrest and there's no place in the form to check a "We changed our mind" box.)
  
• Looking through this week's Messenger, I see they've updated some of the photos of their staff. I think their Wise County history columnist has been "done wrong" for years. 
  
• Messenger: Above the Fold (With pick of Boyd ISD vandalism.)