We Want Justice/We Want Barabbas

I am a Milwaukee Bucks fan. They assert they want justice, so tonight they scuppered their scheduled game with the Orlando Magic:

The Milwaukee Bucks appear to have boycotted Game 5 of their playoff series against the Orlando Magic due to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, according to social media reports.

TMJ4's Lance Allan reported that neither team was on the floor as the pregame countdown clock hit zero.

So what does justice mean to you? Does it mean cops should stand down in a domestic dispute, with a guy who has a felony warrant out for his arrest? 

Jacob Blake had a long history of entanglement with law enforcement when he lived in Lake County.  

Blake's shooting by police in Kenosha on Sunday sparked destructive riots in the Wisconsin city not far from the state border. 

Records reveal Blake was arrested in 2013 in Round Lake Beach and criminal trespass to a vehicle and arrested in 2012 in Zion, Ill. for domestic battery, endangering the life and health of a child and driving under the influence. 

Blake is currently facing a rape charge in Kenosha.

A warrant was issued for Blake’s arrest on July 7 on felony 3rd degree sexual assault, disorderly conduct and criminal trespass, all related to domestic abuse.

Well, he was unarmed, we're told. Or was he? I've seen this image multiple times:

I don't know what he's holding there. It could be a weapon. But we don't know.

We have reason to be skeptical of cops, all of us. Every profession has its bad apples, but most people's jobs do not include the use of deadly force. But do we romanticize bad guys? In this moment, I think we do. There's a reason we learn of Barabbas in all four Gospels. 

Res ipsa loquitur

As seen on Facebook:

And he's sincere about it

New York conversations

So what is a New York conversation? Around the time it came out, I remember reading an old Robert Christgau review of Lou Reed's album, "New York," from 1989:

Protesting, elegizing, carping, waxing sarcastic, forcing jokes, stating facts, garbling what he just read in the Times, free-associating to doomsday, Lou carries on a New York conversation--all that's missing is a disquisition on real estate. 

If you substitute "Trump" for "Lou," that's a perfect description of Trump's speaking style. And because he's into free-associating, he gets himself in trouble. But is it really trouble? Let's consider the latest outrage that was all over the ol' social media feed this weekend, the incident in Sweden that didn't happen:

Here’s the bottom line. We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening. We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this. Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what’s happening in Brussels. You look at what’s happening all over the world.

Did anything specific happen in Sweden the other night? No. But that's not what Trump was saying. At the link, John Hinderaker does a good job of Trumpsplaining:

Yes. Or, in other words, “having problems like they never thought possible.” Liberals pretended not to understand Trump’s point, and made believe that Trump was talking about a phantom terrorist attack on Friday night. The Swedish government even joined in the faux mirth. The linked AP story is deeply dishonest. It joins in the absurd misinterpretation of Trump’s remarks, and never even mentions what he actually said about Sweden: “Sweden, who would believe this. Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.” But dishonesty has become a daily occurrence at the Associated Press.

And the story? This is what the Associated Press had to say:

On Sunday, Trump took to Twitter to explain: "My statement as to what's happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden." A White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, says that Trump was talking about rising crime and recent incidents in general, not referring to a specific issue.

The president may be referring to a segment aired Friday night on the Fox News Channel show "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that reported Sweden had accepted more than 160,000 asylum-seekers last year but that only 500 of the migrants had found jobs in Sweden. The report, which was illustrated with video of broken windows and fires, went on to say that a surge in gun violence and rape had followed the influx of immigrants.

Are the assertions made on Carlson's show accurate? The AP doesn't tell us. But the New York Times reported as much last year:

Sweden, once one of the most welcoming countries for refugees, on Tuesday introduced tough new restrictions on asylum seekers, including rules that would limit the number of people granted permanent residency and make it more difficult for parents to reunite with their children.

The government said the legislation, proposed by the Social Democrat minority government and enacted by a vote of 240 to 45, was necessary to prevent the country from becoming overstretched by the surge of migration to Europe that began last year.

The country, which has a population of 9.5 million, took in 160,000 asylum seekers last year.

To be clear, the "last year" in the linked piece refers to 2015, but from what we know most of those refugees are still in Sweden. How about the 500 jobs? Here's a report from the Independent from about six months ago:

Sweden used to be one of Europe’s most popular destinations for migrants, with the number of asylum applications doubling between 2014 and 2015 to more than 160,000.

A high success rate – 55 per cent of claims were accepted in 2015 – combined with generous welfare benefits for asylum seekers, and a comparatively welcoming population, made the country extremely popular with people fleeing war and persecution, and left the Scandinavian nation with the second highest number of refugees per capita in Europe.

But for many asylum seekers who arrived during the influx last year, Sweden has proved less of a utopia than they hoped. Many faced a long, cold winter in political limbo, camped out in makeshift accomodation while the state struggled to cope with the large number of new claims. Less than 500 of the 160,000 arrivals have managed to secure jobs.

Maybe, pace Christgau, Trump was free associating to doomsday and garbled what he read in the Times. That might be an overly charitable assessment of what Trump said the other day, but it's closer to true than asserting Trump had claimed a terror attack had occurred in Sweden. Back to Hinderaker:

As happens so often, liberals think they are scoring points against Trump when in fact they are making fools of themselves. As Trump said, Sweden has imported too many refugees, and the results aren’t pretty. Most are living off the government, and some are committing crimes, especially sex crimes. 

Hinderaker even produces a chart that documents the significant uptake in sex crime activity, which you can see at the link.

As always, I go back to the valuable observation of Salena Zito:

When he makes claims like this, the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.

If you watch a Trump rally, that's the response of the people who support him. The challenge for those of us who aren't on the Trump train, but who recognize the mendacity of those who would destroy Trump, is how to suss all this out.

One practical advantage of being #NeverTrump

You don't have to defend stuff like this:

Bonehead appétit!

Actually, this cleared one thing up for me -- it turns out the Trump Tower Grill Taco Bowl is not a game that the Gophers are likely to play in next fall. So that's good news.

Also, I can't wait to find out what the Trump Tower Grill has on the menu for Juneteenth. I'm sure it will be the best.

Submitted without further comment

“[He started] asking people one by one what their religion was. ‘Are you a Christian?’ he would ask them, and if you’re a Christian stand up. And they would stand up and he said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you are going to see God in just about one second.’ And then he shot and killed them,” Stacy Boylen, whose daughter was wounded at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., told CNN.

And:

An anonymous user wrote in an ominous post on the online bulletin board 4chan Wednesday night: “Some of you guys are alright. Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest. happening thread will be posted tomorrow morning. so long space robots,” the post concluded.

Shifts and shiftlessness

A caveat at the outset -- I do not want Jeb Bush to be president. In fact, the entire Bush family really ought to go away from national politics and stay away. Okay, we've cleared that up. Now, let's get to the mendacity built into the reaction he's getting for something he said earlier this week:

During an interview that was live-streamed on the app Periscope, Bush made the comments to New Hampshire’s The Union Leader answering a question about his plans for tax reform.

“My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours” and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That's the only way we're going to get out of this rut that we're in.”

The reaction I've seen to this statement is ridiculous. A sample, from my social media feed:

The obscenely wealthy have a robust history of believing that everybody who isn’t obscenely wealthy is not so simply by virtue of being shiftless. If they weren’t already dead inside, I guess that would make it easier for them to sleep at night and look themselves in the mirror.

What makes someone "obscenely wealthy" is a discussion for another day. So, did you sense that ol' Jeb is saying people are shiftless? I didn't. Bush is talking about the workforce participation rate, which is at a lower point than it has been in generations. A lot of people aren't working full time hours at present. For some, it's a conscious decision. For some others, it's because full time work isn't readily available. For some people, the job search has been so fruitless that they've given up.

In my job, I manage 7 people. Five of the seven are full time employees; the other two are contractors. One of the two contractors works 3 days a week; the other works the full week. I have enough work to hire these people and probably one more, but the cost of adding a new employee is so high that it's simply easier to have them work as contractors. We pay our contractors very well, but we don't have to take on any of the other associated costs of employing someone, especially benefits.

I'm not particularly crazy about the arrangement, but we make it work. Employers everywhere do similar things. Would my 3 day-a week contractor have a better life if she worked all five days? Maybe, but not necessarily. Her current schedule allows her time for her family, which is important to her. Mrs. D works part-time as well; she could increase her hours by taking another job, but at this point in our lives it doesn't make sense for her to do so.

I do think a lot of people would like more hours. I know a lot of full time workers would like to work less hours than they currently do. Getting there is difficult and will require a lot of people to change how they operate. Making it easier for people who are unemployed, or underemployed, to find full time work is the challenge. How do you do it? The election hinges on how we answer that question.