@Starbucks The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything. They were waiting for a friend to show up, who did as they were taken out in handcuffs for doing nothing. All the other white ppl are wondering why it’s never happened to us when we do the same thing. pic.twitter.com/0U4Pzs55Ci— Melissa DePino (@missydepino) April 12, 2018
Ever since I posted this, I’ve had white strangers AND friends say “there must be something more to this story.” That assumption is a big part of the problem. It does happen. All the time. Just not to you and me. Believe it and speak up.— Melissa DePino (@missydepino) April 13, 2018
Hannah Allam and Talal Ansari, "State And Local Republican Officials Have Been Bashing Muslims. We Counted":
The anti-Muslim rhetoric in virtually every state reflects the general coarsening of political speech in the anything-goes era of President Donald Trump, who’s lashed out at Mexicans, Muslims, African Americans, women, and other targets. Still, the jabs at Islam are set apart by their sheer ugliness as well as by companion efforts aimed at restricting Muslim civil liberties and immigration. Muslim groups worry that politicians' unchecked vilification of a religion followed by more than 3.3 million Americans opens the door for even bigger blows than the travel ban.
"It has become an acceptable plank within the Republican Party to demonize Muslims," said Robert McCaw, government affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group.
The following are the start and finish of a very good Twitter thread by Fred Clark that I recommend to you — about how we've changed as a nation and what we're becoming:
When I was a kid, my VERY conservative white fundy church rented a first apartment for the family of "boat people" Vietnamese refugees we had the honor, joy & privilege of sponsoring. ...— Fred Clark (@SlacktivistFred) April 14, 2018
That connection seems broken now. It seems partisan. It seems forgotten. We now turn our backs on the refugees fleeing the countries we bomb the shit out of. We're getting crueler, smaller, uglier.— Fred Clark (@SlacktivistFred) April 14, 2018
James Doubek, "Black Teenager Shot At After Asking For Directions":
A 14-year-old African-American boy stopped to ask for directions to school in a Detroit suburb but was shot at instead, according to prosecutors.
Retired firefighter Jeffery Zeigler, 53, who is white, was arraigned on Friday "on assault with intent to murder and felony firearm" charges, according to the Oakland County Sheriff's Office.
It's 2018, and people of color in America can't sit in coffee shops or ask homeowners for directions or trust that they'll survive when pulled over while driving.
I don't what to say, other than this is a pretty god-awful national reality.
We're badly broken.— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) April 14, 2018
Charles Pierce, "We Are a War-Making People, And we're being led into war by a corrupt president":
We are making war in Syria. We are not "intervening." We are not engaging "pinpricks." We are not "sending a message" or, worse, "holding Assad responsible" for what he has done to his own people. (This latter bit seems to have been the banality of choice for Democratic politicians.) We are making war in Syria and we are killing Syrians, and perhaps Kurds and Russians, too. Not as many as Assad has killed, but we now have a body count in that country, too. This was kicking the hornet's nest. Again. Let us at least be honest about that as subsequent events unfold.
And, of course, there's also the fact that we are being led at the moment by a corrupt and incompetent president* who has law-enforcement coming at him from all sides and who, only a week ago, was saying that he wasn't going to do what he just did. He then announced his intention to attack a day in advance.
So, let me get this straight...
We're bombing Syria, because Syria bombed Syria, to show Syria that Syria shouldn't bomb Syria.
Then, after we've bombed Syria for bombing Syria, we still won't accept Syrian refugees that are seeking refuge from the bombing.
Got it.— Adam Sweeney (@AdamWSweeney) April 14, 2018
CONFIRMED: Trump is deliberately commingling the Syria question with the Russia probe. He asked his attorneys in the Russia investigation what they thought about a military response in Syria. So all the "wag the dog" concerns appear to have been fully justified. https://t.co/YZ03jTo2t4— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) April 14, 2018
112 tomahawk missiles were launched at Syria...
- That costed $224,000,000
- 11% of Puerto Rico is w/out power
- Flint still has lead in it’s water
- There are 40,000 homeless vets
- 15% of our country is in poverty
Talk about priorities, right?— Nate Roy (@natehoIe) April 14, 2018
"A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons." —Hillary— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 29, 2016
Josh Marshall, "Choose Your Caption":
This photo from today captures a lot.
The photo of Michael Cohen by Yana Paskova of Getty Images is featured in Josh Marshall's article linked above.
