Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff apologized for joining Trump in the Lafayette Square photo op: “I should not have been there. My presence in that moment, and in that environment, created the perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”
The New York Times got a hold of interviews and other documents about the use of the National Guard to suppress protests in D.C.: “Senior Army leaders — in an effort to prevent what they feared would be a calamitous outcome if President Trump ordered combat troops from the 82nd Airborne Division holding just outside city limits to the streets — leaned heavily on the Guard to carry out aggressive tactics to prove it could do the job without active-duty forces.
Along with the troops, National Guard units from other states brought weapons and ammunition. Tens of thousands of rifle and pistol rounds were stored in the D.C. Armory and partitioned in pallets, labeled by their state of origin, to be used on American citizens in case of emergency.”
Kara Swisher in the New York Times has one of the clearest descriptions of recent events: “Readers may miss a critical frame of reference when there are so many frames to choose from. And some public figure may take advantage of that, slipping in and out of frames like the portraits at Hogwarts, without being tagged for revolting behavior in one when moving to the next.
Consider the master at this: President Trump. He has perfected a sick performative art form of playing the worst troll in Twitter’s history, even as he struts on the world stage with a flag backdrop and a White House podium playing a great leader.
While sometimes he crosses the streams — like in the recent bizarre Bible-prop photo op — he is expert at obscuring the links between extremely offensive and pure crazy. Thus, the dirty work is done on Twitter, and the modestly cleaned-up version is presented elsewhere by him and in talking points of his many minions.
Mr. Trump did it Tuesday with a truly hideous tweet aimed at the 75-year-old Buffalo protester who was knocked to the ground by the police. We all saw the video, but rather than deplore the over-the-top behavior, Mr. Trump shared a tin-foil-hat conspiracy theory that included Antifa, jamming police radios and I don’t even know what other cockamamie ideas.”
On Wednesday “A retired federal judge accused the Justice Department on Wednesday of a “gross abuse of prosecutorial power” and urged a court to reject its attempt to drop the criminal case against Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser.”
Trump will resume his rallies next week: The sign-up page for tickets to President Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa next week includes something that hasn’t appeared ahead of previous rallies: a disclaimer noting that attendees “voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19” and agree not to hold the campaign or venue liable should they get sick.
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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.1%
COVID cases / death: 2,038,344 / 114,625