Amy Klobuchar Inserts Herself Into the George Floyd Case Without Saying 'George Floyd,' 'Police' or 'Murder'
NewsPolitics
Four Minnesota police officers have been fired after video footage from the arrest of George Floyd, who died as a result of injuries he sustained during the arrest, appears to show Floyd pleading for his life as an officer cuts off Floyd’s air supply with his knee while fellow officers watch and do nothing. And as the story unfolded, Minnesota Senator and vice-presidential hopeful Amy Klobuchar wasted no time releasing a statement that said absolutely nothing, including George Floyd’s name.
On the morning of May 26, Klobuchar tweeted, “Justice must be served for this man, justice must be served for our community, and justice must be served for our country.” However, nowhere in the tweet is Floyd mentioned, nor is the plague of police violence and lack of response that has meant an unconscionable number of deaths in the African American community.
Instead of “police violence,” Klobuchar instead uses the term “this loss of life” or “an African American man dying,” allowing the passive voice to pin the death on no one or anyone. This will probably make her bigger hit with law enforcement organizations while she’s on the stump for Biden, but here simply gives her the pretense of having an opinion on the George Floyd case without actually ever referencing it.
Just as the universal “we” in Klobuchar’s post hopes “those involved in this incident” are “held accountable,” we, in turn, hope that those responsible for such a callously vague tweet are bitten somewhere about the region of buttocks by their own passive-voiced salad of words. [Twitter]
Meanwhile, Twitter is refusing to remove very specific tweets from President Donald Trump insinuating that TV host Joe Scarborough killed an intern. The widower of Lori Klausutis, a former Scarborough intern who died of a heart condition after collapsing at work, has written an open letter begging Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to remove Trump’s unfounded conspiracy-theory tweets, which he says sensationalize his wife’s death for Trump’s personal gain:
“I’m asking you to intervene in this instance because the president of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him — the memory of my dead wife — and perverted it for perceived political gain,” Mr. Klausutis wrote in his letter. “My wife deserves better.”
In a typical Twitter response, the answer was no, as the platform’s first priority is generally maintaining its commitment to making the world worse a few characters at a time. And in accordance with his primary priority of making the world worse with each second of his life, President Trump then used the letter to encourage his followers to “keep digging,” ostensibly because a man mourning the loss of his wife is an impulse so foreign to Trump he assumes it must be a cover for a crime. Likewise, obfuscating blowout Kayleigh McEnany held a press conference where she misinterpreted an old interview with Don Imus to provide proof of Scarborough’s possible guilt.
However, transcripts of the interview reveal nothing more than the fact that Don Imus was a colossal fucking creep, which we all knew already. And let the record state that I am not standing up for Joe Scarborough, just maintaining that I believe coroners are better equipped to determine cause of death than the misleading blurb of a National Enquirer, which is almost certainly where Trump got this theory. [New York Times]
- Trump celebrated Memorial Day the same way he celebrates any Monday: by insulting women, lying, ignoring the deaths of nearly 100,000 Americans, and puttering around with teeny little balls. [Washington Post]
- Kayleigh seems to have suggested that Donald would wear a mask should he ever get within cootie-spewing distance of Melania but not outside the White House, just like the experts suggest. [Twitter]
- Coronavirus is disproportionately affecting black business owners, in addition to disproportionately killing black people. [Washington Post]
- It goes without saying that the Coronabeach capital of America will also take on the plague that is the Republican National Convention if North Carolina doesn’t want it, but Florida went ahead and said it anyway. [Miami Herald]
- Here is some good Florida news to make up for that easy Florida joke. [Politico]
- Mitch McConnell has finally condemned lynching, but only in cases of effigy involving photographs of white men. [NBC News]
- Rahm Emanuel admits to cozy little late-night chats with Joe Biden, but remains coy on the exact nature of their pillow talk. [Chicago Tribune]