Campaignin’ on Tulsa Time

When I read about President Trump’s misadventure in Tulsa, I couldn’t help myself: I borrowed the tune from Danny Flowers’s classic, Tulsa Time, and wrote lyrics describing the Donald’s debacle.

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“Defund” is a gift to Trump

“Defund the Police” — a lazy, bumpersticker, battle cry that
only sometimes actually means cutting off all funding

Self-defeat awaits activists who reduce complex policy proposals to simplistic slogans. Witness “Defund the Police.” Soul satisfying for people angry at police brutality? You bet. Misleading? That, too. The different people chanting it define it differently. That generates confusion and backlash that may imperil reform.

Let’s start with the black letter meaning of "defund." According to Merriam-Webster, the word, a transitive verb meaning to "withdraw funding from," appeared first in 1948. But it wasn't used much until approximately 1980, when conservative Republican Ronald Reagan won the presidency. Thereafter the word became increasingly popular. This from Google in response to the search term "defund definition:"

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Is life getting back to normal? It may seem so,
but there are pre and post coronavirus differences

Shopping every two weeks, one does not experience gradual day-to-day change. Instead, differences in the availability of merchandise and the behavior of homo sapiens over a two-week interval become strikingly clear.

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Note to readers

Missoula’s counter-protesters were wrong
to bring firearms to their demonstration

For several days, Missoulians have gathered outside the Missoula County Courthouse to protest the homicide of George Floyd. Yesterday, counter-protesters arrived, which is fine, except that some of the counter-protesters carried long guns.

Firearms have no place at political events in a democracy. We must settle our differences through debate, through the application of fact and reason, through peaceful assembly, or we degenerate into a failed state. The armed counter-protesters may argue that they were simply exercising their right to openly carry weapons, but given the circumstances that argument would be specious. They were packin’ to intimidate those protesting the death of Floyd — and their packin’ tells me they had no confidence in the power of their arguments.

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Preliminary election notes

Turnout. Yesterday’s primary turnout was a record for a Montana presidential election. I doubt that holding the election by mail ballot caused the the record turnout. Most likely, the issues and importance of the election accounted for the record turnout.

The following embed from my Twitter account is based on the status of the ballots as of 2245 MDT on 1 June. Note that the number of ballots sent was smaller than the number of registered voters.

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Nixon exploited the 1968 race riots to win the presidency —
Donald Trump could do the same with today’s riots

James Earl Ray assassinated civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April 1968 in Memphis, TN, inciting race riots across the nation. At least 40 persons were killed, sections of cities were set ablaze, and stores were looted. The extent of the rioting is displayed in this map from Clay Risen’s A Nation on Fire:

Double size

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