Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• I don't even know where to start. Who would have thought we would be living in the likes of the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, and the 1968 riots all at the same time. 
• It's been a flood of emotions.
  
  
• Regarding the riots over the last few days, I can't help but think about my oft-invoked Butterfly Effect.  The nation is on fire because a 17 year old girl just happened to be standing in a particular place at a particular moment in time with a charged cell phone in her hand. Without it, we never hear about George Floyd, and the police officers' false reports of the incident are taken at face value. 
  
• Regarding the Dallas arrests, who was this? The story doesn't list a name.  I want the name. 
  
• Looters obviously acted a fools, but police acted like fools as well. I've preached for years about the militarization of the police. When they show up looking like they intend to go to war, a war normally breaks out.  Here's a good compilation of outrageous police conduct over the weekend. From pulling and tasing a black couple as they were yanked out of a car, to tramping over a lady with a horse in Houston, to trying to kill protesters with a vehicle, or this vehicle, shooting canisters at homeowners as they stood on their porch, kicking a sitting protester in the head, or NYPD shoving a young girl into a curb.

  

  Right before the black couple are pulled out of the car and tazed.

• The NFL issued a statement this weekend. The modern day plantation probably needs to sit this one out. 
  
• And now to Trump - The Absentee President. Here's a timeline after his outrageous "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" tweet on Friday morning.
• On Friday morning he announced there would be a press conference on Friday afternoon. He then walked out, announced we were withdrawing from the World Health Organization, never mentioned the country being on fire, and turned and walked away without taking a single question.  Not a single word was uttered about the protesting across the nation.
  
• After protesters gathered outside the White House on Friday night, the next morning Trump tweeted about how "the most vicious dogs" were ready if protesters made it onto White House grounds. Sound familiar?
  
  
• He also wanted there to be "MAGA night" at the White House on Saturday night which is basically inciting a riot. They didn't show up, by the way. 
  
• On Saturday he confirmed what we all suspected that he believed: MAGA is a group that doesn't include black people. This really was shocking and got buried in all the news. Watch. 
  
• On Sunday, he just whined about fake news. There's not a president in the modern era that wouldn't have addressed the nation from the Oval Office by then. That's what leaders do.
  
• We learned yesterday that he was actually hunkered down in the secure basement of the White House on Friday. 
  
• And last night, as he refused to do his job and as a fire raged in Lafayette Park across from the White House, the lights at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue were turned off. How poignant. 
  
  
• The number of press people who were fired upon with rubber bullets was sickening. See what happens when the leader of the free world calls them "enemy of the people" for four years? Yep, here's one where a cop pulled the trigger on this lady. Watch it. 
  
  
• America 2020. "Let me finish this mimosa, and I'll think about joining your little protest."
  
• And this from Fort Worth.
  
• Dude, you walked out of a 49ers-Colts game when you witnessed a peaceful protest. And your boss demanded an apology from the cast of Hamilton when they peacefully protested while you attended. 
  
• And what's up with this weird bit to just blame Antifa for the rioting?   There's no doubt that there is a small group of infiltrators (just watch this or this), but it's just as likely that it is proactive Proud Boy types as it is Antifa which has no organization.  And what's up with this stupid tweet below (which was retweeted by Ted Cruz)? Hey, I believe it was an organized event. Organized in a matter of days by a nation pissed off about an injustice which was caught on video and all that has come before.  The more you invoke Antifa, the more proof you provide that you just don't get it. 
  
• Oh, yeah. The Board is here. Texas is here. Wise County has 48 total cases and only 5 active cases (but the number hasn't been updated since Friday.)
• One random gripe: Closing Lake Bridgeport on an absolutely beautiful Saturday was stupid. (The lake dropped less than a third of a foot between Saturday and Sunday.) And if you want to know how this was all about a show of authority, you just need to know they finally opened it up at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday. Not dawn. At 9:00 a.m. That's a power trip.