…how’s that eye of the beholder holding up?

Mr. Trump has portrayed his legal jeopardy as a threat to America itself, and he has suggested that the country would not put up with it. But the streets around the courthouse on Monday were chaos-free — well-patrolled and relatively quiet. As his motorcade made its way to the courthouse, the few Trump supporters gathered in the park were outnumbered by Trump detractors, who waved signs about his alleged liaison with a porn star.

Mr. Trump had tried to gin up something noisier. Shortly after 7 a.m., he posted on his social media website that “America Loving Protesters should be allowed to protest at the front steps of Courthouses” and he followed this lament with a call for his supporters to “GO OUT AND PEACEFULLY PROTEST. RALLY BEHIND MAGA. SAVE OUR COUNTRY!”

…not to say the rats have fled the sinking ship…but…the cudgel’s not looking like it did

Asked to comment on Mr. Trump’s frustrations about the lack of protest activity, a spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, tried to connect it to the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, and President Biden and insisted people were being prevented from being in Lower Manhattan because of the barricades.

Later in the morning, Mr. Trump sought to cast the poor turnout as more evidence of a plot against him. In a post at 8:50 a.m., he implied that would-be MAGA protesters were being discriminated against for political reasons.

…&…frankly…playing the implication game seems…less than smart of the former guy

“Unlike at Columbia University where the Radical Left Palestinian Protesters sat on the Front Lawn, practically took over the School, and screamed, ‘Death to the Jews, Death to Israel, Death to America,’ and nothing happened to them, Lower Manhattan surrounding the Courthouse, where I am heading now, is completely CLOSED DOWN,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social. “SO UNFAIR!!!”

The area was not, in fact, completely closed down. The courthouse has remained open to the public, including spectators who want to attend the trial, pool cameras in the hallway — and even the sidewalk in front of the courthouse has remained open to pedestrian traffic. Twenty minutes later, Mr. Trump compared the courthouse to “an armed camp.”

…but…at the risk of it being inappropriate…what with the nature of the underlying acts in relation to which the cash was applied to mute the…well…implications…that part brings to mind some stuff about bedfellows

Mr. Trump had made no secret of the fact that he wanted a circus to accompany his trial. He had told advisers he wanted as much media as possible to cover his daily jeremiads against the prosecutors and judge who — he claims without evidence — are conspiring against him at the direction of Mr. Biden himself. Mr. Trump publicly encouraged protests and several allies, including the New York Young Republican Club, tried to round up a crowd.

…& how’s that going?

Over the last week, demonstrators visibly identifying as supporting Mr. Trump — with red hats or clothing, or banners and flags — have never totaled more than a dozen. On most days, the number of people total in the portion of the park designated for protesters for or against Mr. Trump has never been more than two or three dozen. They have included tourists, locals coming to gawk, more than a few supporters of Mr. Biden, and proponents of conspiracy theories — including Max Azzarello, the man who, struggling with mental health issues, self-immolated on Friday.

…it’s…well it just about qualifies as comforting to watch him scrape the bottom of the barrel for what resemble diminished returns

“Republicans want the right to protest in front of the Courthouse, like everyone else!” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social.

The Circus Trump Wanted Outside His Trial Hasn’t Arrived [NYT]

…they never were troops…but they ain’t even rallying around these days…&…xitter may be getting xittier while tesla threatens to circle the drain in ways that make me day-dream about musk beating him out for the first one to have a “wealth” of leveraged debt collapse like so much hot air escaping a burst balloon…but…truth social ain’t no substitute for the twitter that was…that, incidentally, was widely understood not to be worth what musk paid for it despite that being potentially less than supposedly truth social is at this point in proceedings

Former President Donald Trump is poised to receive an additional 36 million shares of Trump Media Tuesday — an “earnout” bonus worth more than $1.25 billion, at Monday’s price.

…all “perfectly legal”…but…somewhat of a textbook example of how “the markets” are a funhouse mirror more than an accurate reflection of underlying value or “the fundamentals” of a particular “going concern”

Trump Media, which owns the Truth Social app, was trading at around $35 per share mid-day Monday.

But that price is twice the $17.50 benchmark minimum share price, which the DJT ticker has to hit by the close of trading Tuesday, for Trump to become eligible for the extra so-called earnout shares.

That earnout is contingent on the benchmark being hit for 20 trading days within a 30-trading day period, beginning March 25. Tuesday is the 20th day and it is very unlikely that DJT will fall below the benchmark price by the end of that day.

…&…ok…full disclosure…I’m pissed about this…to a degree that is perhaps neither fair nor particularly realistic since it’s possible the price has never been depressed from its over-valued nonsense of a price to a point anywhere near what I’d think of as baseline reality

Trump Media has the power to issue a total of 40 million earnout shares, as part of the merger deal that combined it with a publicly traded shell company, Digital World Acquisition Corp.

“Assuming the full issuance of the Earnout Shares, President Donald J. Trump will receive 36,000,000 Earnout Shares,” the company said in a securities filing. The filing suggests that some, if not all, of the remaining shares will be issued to Trump Media’s executive officers as part of an incentive plan.

…but if I had unspeakable wealth…or just the reins of a market moving fund or two of capital to venture forth a-twitching…in all seriousness I think it would be an act of political bravery & quite possibly a different sort of textbook example…of a public service variety…if a campaign were waged to depress that price…precipitously…with the quickness…before they can take advantage of whatever duplicity-buttressed mechanism is ostensibly letting them siphon out billions of actual dollars from…no place the reality suggests they should reside

The merged company, whose full name is Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., began public trading under the DJT ticker on March 26, at an opening price of $70.90 per share.

That price rose to a high of nearly $80 that day, briefly giving the company a market capitalization of more than $9 billion. This was despite having reported a 2023 net loss

…but…surely it’s not a particularly quiet “quiet part” when your bar for an earnout reward mechanism is barely over 25% of the valuation you “arrived at” for your IPO…I mean…I’m not fluent in the language of the financial grey area…but…when the “value” of the enterprise is almost exclusively a combination of intangible benefits (like having a mob-incitement vehicle to substitute for the one that got taken away from you for inciting mobs with it) &…not to put too fine a point on it…gobs of filthy lucre that were stacked up to be grafted in behind the fig leaf…in a way that directly contravenes the express requirements of the instrument used for the grafting…saying “& we get to cash out the fully-inflated stake even if 3/4 of the air’s gone out of the thing”…as statements of intent & what in other contexts gets called things like “mens rea” goes…well…I know what the fuck it says to me…&…since they tell me it’s not illegal…yes…yes I am daydreaming about having access to cash on a scale that would let me set fire to the combined fortune of millions of “average” lifetimes in order to…pick your metaphor…put a hole in his bucket, dear liza…pull his rug clean out…make him take a bath he never gets out of…give him a haircut from the barber blackadder’s previous rotten voter used

…fanta-cuss fantasticus does favor the comb-over…just sayin’

CNBC asked a company spokeswoman about the expected triggering of Trump’s earnout shares.

She replied, “With more than $200 million in the bank and zero debt, Trump Media is fulfilling all its obligations related to the merger and rapidly moving forward with its business plan.”

Donald Trump set to receive $1.25 billion worth of Trump Media stock in DJT earnout bonus [NBC]

…we have a thing that’s shittier than the enshittified version of the thing that wasn’t worth what the other asshole paid for it before he set about hanging his ass out to shit all over it…having first removed it from the place where that sort of thing gets reflected in your market cap taking a nosedive…which this whole display of predestination & prestidigitation to enable the preordination of the peregrination of such prodigious promissory promiscuity of the pecuniary variety explicitly doesn’t get to do…but thanks to having enough cash on hand to have covered the reduced bond for our boy’s one appeal…we’re totally worth him being considered to be worth a couple billion bucks more than he looked like being the other day…gee willikers…don’t you just want to vote him into the office he claims he should have got to hang on to after he lost it & anyway had once so you can never punish him for anything because he didn’t do it & if he did which he’s not saying he did but the facts are fucking screaming you’re biased if you don’t think he’s innocent & that’s against the law because you can’t find him guilty until you can find dozens of people who think he’s innocent to ask because you can’t ask anyone who already thinks he’s guilty or it wouldn’t survive an appeal to the highest court of the land where the judges…uhhh…already made up their minds about every question before they made up their minds if they’d deign to pretend to consider it

…there ain’t no law against it

…no wonder I’m fucking grouchy

His following is diminished, but his posting has accelerated. He has traded combative tweets for even more belligerent screeds. Diatribes against his perceived enemies have drawn gag orders from judges in multiple cases. His media diet has become almost exclusively right-wing. And above all, he persists in spreading lies about his 2020 election loss, deep into his campaign for another term.
[…]
Few Americans hang out in this corner of the internet. Truth Social’s most popular account, Trump’s, has a fraction of the following he boasts on Twitter.

…just like few americans hang out on the courthouse steps playing the role of electoral lynch mob

But it’s here that Trump — who reshaped campaigning and the presidency with his use of social media — offers an intimate view of what his second term could look like: isolated, vitriolic and vengeful.

The Washington Post analyzed all of Trump’s online posts from the official launches of his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2024 to show how his social media use has changed from his first presidential run.

…& there may be lies, damned lies & statistics…but some numbers are…illuminating?

He’s prolific. He posts 29 times a day on average, far more than he tweeted during his first campaign and most of his presidency:
[…]
He also is now more likely to write in all caps:

…the tune of…760 times between mid-nov ’22 & mid-march ’24…or…around 550-odd days…so…upwards of once a day the stable genius stabilizes his mood by mainlining the caps lock function

And when he’s not self-promoting, he’s often on the warpath, lashing out at his perceived enemies in hundreds of aggressive, insult-filled screeds. At least 570 posts since he announced his presidential bid in November 2022 have contained insulting language directed at someone.

…anyone else seeing a pattern?

He frequently targets the judges and prosecutors in his court cases and has used his account to publicly attack the credibility of potential witnesses, including former allies such as Mike Pence and Mark Meadows. He also regularly goes after members of Congress who investigated his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks and, of course, President Biden — Trump recently shared a video that featured an image of the president with his hands and feet tied together.

…& one would imagine mike pence could…go hang?

…that plays in most of the suggested destinations, after all

Which helps fuel a feedback loop of false conspiracy theories and misinformation — particularly around the 2020 presidential election.

…he’s dunked in that well about 500 times, too…compared to which 40-odd dog-whistles about the “great replacement” is…barely noticeable?

In between all that, Trump reposts bizarre AI-generated art and crudely doctored images. And the site abounds with fringe companies peddling diet supplements, political-themed knickknacks and gold bars.

…it’s just so…un-presidented

How Trump has become angrier and more isolated on Truth Social [WaPo]

…so…yeah…the press is an imperfect vehicle

Twelve media organizations are clamoring for another set of debates between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In their naive call for debates, they claim that because the stakes on this election are so high, “there is simply no substitute” for the candidates “debating” each other, presenting, “their visions for the future of our nation.”

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/04/16/media-organizations-omit-mention-of-trumps-allegedly-criminal-exploitation-of-2020-debates/

…but…well…here’s the thing about what sort of feathers there might be sticking out of the caps of some folks flocking together in…ironically…bad faith

On Friday, DC Chief Judge James Boasberg released a redacted version of a March 29 opinion on another attempt by Xitter to refuse compliance with legal process based on a complaint about a gag order (formally, a non-disclosure order, referred to as an NDO below). Kyle Cheney, who first posted on it and who tends to have a good read on these things, noted that it seems important.

As you recall, Xitter successfully delayed Jack Smith’s access to Trump’s Xitter account for 23 days in January and February of last year (from when then-Chief Judge Beryl Howell approved the warrant on January 17 until when Xitter finally complied on February 9), then spent several more months arguing that it should be able to inform Trump they had provided the information and should not have to pay fines for being in contempt.

This time around, Xitter delayed DOJ’s access to the mere subscriber records — that is, records showing who owns the accounts in question — for two Xitter accounts for over two months (January 25 through March 29 of this year) based on a similar complaint: that before it complied, it should be able to tell the subjects of the criminal investigation about the request.

While (as Cheney noted) there’s no clear tie to Trump, this investigation is focused on public figures of some sort. We know that because Xitter argued that notifying the targets would not harm the investigation, and then claimed there was nothing publicly known about the targets to suggest informing them would lead to witness intimidation or any of the other bases DOJ provided for delaying notice for a year.

…no…that’s all fascinating but it’s not the thing I meant

Judge Boasberg debunked Xitter’s claim. There was information in the affidavit, he said, even just “based on what is publicly known about the investigation’s targets,” to show that disclosure might result in witness intimidation. Xitter also complained that the government offered more information to justify its gag after Xitter challenged it, but Boasberg declined to “infer” from that the initial basis was lacking.

And while there’s no reason to believe that those public people have a tie to Trump, Boasberg cited last year’s legal dispute in three places to justify denying Xitter’s demand.

He invoked Yogi Berra (and the government’s filings) to explain why Xitter’s “imagined categorical prohibition on omnibus NDOs” was little different than the arguments it made last year.

…sure…it mentions a yogi…& the bad faith components of musk-enomics may be prodigious…but…back away from the emptywheel, now

Notably, last year Xitter at least relied on a purported interest in preserving Executive Privilege. Here, there’s no such claim; just a specious argument that DOJ should have to get individualized NDOs for every subpoena it submits in this investigation, even if all of them ask for no more than basic social media account information. So this is not some protected class, like a member of Congress or staffer.

Perhaps Boasberg’s most interesting invocation of Xitter’s earlier attempt to tamper in the Trump investigation is where, in almost entirely redacted language, he compares the urgency of this investigation with that of Jack Smith’s investigation into, “activity intended to alter the outcome of a valid national election for the leadership of the Executive Branch of the federal government.”

He spends three (redacted) paragraphs describing the import of the investigation.
[…]
Whether or not this has a direct tie to Trump, it’s worth noting that Musk met with Trump (on March 2) during the pendency of this fight; last year, Musk met with Jim Jordan twice during Xitter’s challenge to the Trump warrant.

Whatever that three paragraph description was, Boasberg described the type of investigation using a short word — four or maybe five characters. This could be a FARA investigation or a leak investigation, for example, or perhaps he cited code to describe it.

Update: I guess I should explain why I used Musk’s Council of Nicea tweets as my featured image? In this post (linked above), I noted that on the day Xitter started complying with the Trump warrant, Musk posted this tweet:

So I went to Musk’s tweets from the day after Boasberg’s order and noted that he tweeted obliquely about “trac[ing] to source documents.”

If this is a leak investigation, it could be a reference to an attempt to source a leak.

TIMELINE
December 11, 2023: Application for omnibus NDO

January 5, 2024: DOJ serves Xitter with subpoena for subscriber information

January 24: Xitter moves to vacate the NDO, review the affidavit, and stay compliance

January 25: Initial deadline for compliance

March 2: Musk meets with Trump in Florida

March 29: Boasberg orders Xitter to comply

April 12: Boasberg released redacted opinion

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/04/17/elmos-xitter-stalls-a-criminal-investigation-again/

…sure…it’s fascinating & all…but…it’s not the keeping faith I was trying to haul my way around to…overlapping contexts, sure…& platforms & on-campus/off-campus distinctions might make for all sorts of parallels…not to mention the part about who being on their knees is a matter of whose piety

Columbia holds classes remotely after pro-Palestinian protesters arrested [Guardian]

…call it a placeholder…but if you go looking you can find similar stuff related to a number of institutions…& in just about all of them you’ll find some equivalent of that oh-so-busy twitter account out there running the MAGA intimidation playbook cover-to-cover from the cover of “confronting religious persecution” with…err…persecution…propagated on a faith vs. faith basis…in…in some headline cases…explicitly bad faith…in spite…&/or because of…the legitimate strands of the extruded tissue of lies being hard to deny…the way decrying a “campaign against antisemitism” plays russian roulette with nominative determinism…& that has the proverbial chilling effect…which can send a shiver right through your body politic if you line your hot air up with the right wind tunnel

Welcome to Scam World [NYT]

…quit trying to distract me

Climate Doom Is Out. ‘Apocalyptic Optimism’ Is In. [NYT]

…yeah…whatever, mate…if it floats your boat I’m happy for you…maybe less so for the people you’d be floating over by that point…but that wouldn’t be very optimistic of me…& I must be optimistic…because by this point I thought I’d have gotten around to the point that turned out to be the way it sounded to me when an awful lot of people were making it sound like I’d need to be quite wrong & possibly a right wrong ‘un to boot

…so…I’ll get to that…but for now…cometh the hour & such…I’ll get this up as is…which is starting to become a somewhat unbecoming habit, I’m afraid

[…ok…so I’m going to preface this with the caveat that I don’t flatter myself my figurative footwork is so slick that I can dance my way through the rocky rhetorical terrain in which one gets to take advantage of a perspective from which there is clear daylight to be seen between the gestalt entity being criticized & persons of the jewish faith…& thereby come out smelling of roses rather than some variety of latent antisemitism that lets me fall flat on my face while having both feet in my mouth & thus roll like the rock chasing indy in raiders clear down the slippery slope into the realm of godwin…but…for the record…that daylight looks broader than the minds denying it & deeper than their faith from where I find myself…so…all due respect…but I’m going to at least try…because I’m not at home to the “it’s a secret jewish cabal that’s running the world” school of tinfoil millinery…but…I’m not talking about a secret…& calling it a cabal would be to romanticize the thing like some hollywood trope…& any pretense that it’s predicated by the primacy of a particular faith is more correlative than causative…so…even if it turns out this is sparta…go easy on the messenger…I have to live here too…& on balance I’d still prefer that to the alternative so I’m not looking to get lynched…that said…here goes]

…so…different strokes for different folks & all…but…if…in the broad strokes…this is approximately how it works

…&…broadly speaking…about half of voters wouldn’t recognize their current representative by the name that showed on the ballot last time they checked a box…but just about all of them can’t avoid exposure to the prodigious crop of any number of poisonous trees cultivated by interests with some properties & propensities in common…then…miserably but logically…the bullshit matters…although…how it lands on who is somewhere between relative & contextual

…but…when you…to be blunt…follow the money…the nuances are…I’d argue…pretty illustrative…for example…at the academic end of the spectrum of authorities on who gets to say what under their auspices…& who gets the cops called on them

Louisiana’s flagship university lets oil firms influence research – for a price [Guardian]

…&…we all know I love me a block-quote…& the way some of the clips from his fifth-column-ness seem to get me conveniently efficient mileage often enough to be arguably too many trips to the same well to claim I don’t think I implicitly endorse everything he ever said including the bits even he says he shouldn’t have said along with everything he’ll ever say in perpetuity…which according to online rules of engagement is a 101 vector…but…I have a lot of ground to cover one way or another…in the words of the song we got a long way to go & a short time to get there…& depending on your degree of patience or the pace of your personal day today…I’m aware that might have expired before anyone made it this far…much less further

…so…maybe you’d rather look elsewhere…what with all that’s going on & all

…ok…so…I’m going to skip through the part where I don’t think I need to provide a full list of examples of all the ways that fossil fuel funds & the far right are found in lock step…or how many faiths’ worth of “fundamentalists” find common ground stepping on the downtrodden masses whose mass votes & macroeconomic malapropisms are in many cases most of their firmest footing…so forgive the micro aspect of picking a singular ideological clutch of convictions for illustrative purposes

Civil conflicts are sustained by different groups’ belief that their “position and status in society” have been downgraded, Walter writes. Whether that erosion is real can be less relevant than the feelings of oppression and loss, and the chance to blame and punish someone for it. Once the door has opened just a crack, high school slights and condescending bosses become good excuses — precisely because they’re so petty — for violence.

Give Me Liberty or Give Me … What? [NYT]

…but

The Great American Labor Trap (Published 2023) [NYT]

…well

Global defence budget jumps to record high of $2440bn [Guardian]

…when it comes to that money we’re all following…as it trickles down in what they tell us is rain…& which some denizens of some deserts do surely love

Most difficult global outlook since 1930s heralds end of US-led world order [Guardian]

…even given a competitive field

Women run 80% of US elections – but are targets of misogyny-laced threats [Guardian]

…& among all manner of calamitous distractions

The Far Right Wants to Take Over Europe, and She’s Leading the Way [NYT]

…& that shit is distracting…if rishi had cut bait on baiting the electorate by chumming the waters of the boats-across-the-channel immigration “debate” by debasing himself over the performative pisstake of punting a few hundred punters to a place not-so-long-ago synonymous with “genocide” & pulled a meloni…he too could have made a gitmo-style deal to lease nominally-national real estate in a third nation in which to lose those potential asylum applicants for as long as a truly italian bureaucracy can contrive…& that has every appearance of having legs…but I won’t get into comparing her pins with the set that recently cratered the cred of a set of sambas…because that’d be below the belt…& I don’t want to throw the bout before I land on the guy I admit I kinda did imagine it might be nice to punch in the mealy mouth…so…to keep slogging my way around to the tale of that little slugger & his attempt to smuggle a smothering…by way of silk purses & sow’s ears

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Donald Trump’s arguments that he is immune from prosecution for his efforts to steal the 2020 presidential election. It is likely that all — or nearly all — of the justices will agree that a former president who attempted to seize power and remain in office illegally can be prosecuted. I suspect that some justices may also wish to clarify whether doctrines of presidential immunity might apply in other contexts — for example, to a president’s actions as commander in chief during a time of war. But the justices should also recognize the profoundly negative impact they may have if the court does not resolve these issues quickly and decisively.

If delay prevents this Trump case from being tried this year, the public may never hear critical and historic evidence developed before the grand jury, and our system may never hold the man most responsible for Jan. 6 to account.

The Jan. 6 House select committee’s hearings and final report in 2022 relied on testimony given by dozens of Republicans — including many who worked closely with Mr. Trump in the White House, in his Justice Department and on his 2020 presidential campaign. The special counsel Jack Smith’s election-related indictment of Mr. Trump relies on many of the same firsthand witnesses. Although the special counsel reached a number of the same conclusions as the select committee, the indictment is predicated on a separate and independent investigation. Evidence was developed and presented to a grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/opinion/trump-immunity-supreme-court.html

…& that’s liz cheney of the take-a-shotgun-to-an-attorney-in-the-woods cheneys talking…how much & that’ll buy you a cup of coffee…& on whose dime?

Pro-Israel US groups plan $100m effort to unseat progressives over Gaza [Guardian]

*cough*

Carbon Dioxide Levels Have Passed a New Milestone [NYT]

…deep breath

Israel has yet to provide evidence of Unrwa staff terrorist links, Colonna report says

[shocked-not-shocked-futurama.gif]

…what the hell has this

Iran seems like it’s in escalation mode – but all-out war with Israel is the last thing it wants [Guardian]

…much less this

Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank – visualized [Guardian]

…got to do with something like this?

A progressive congresswoman made history in 2022. Can a billionaire stop her re-election? [Guardian]

…well…to take a self-selecting example

Aipac: the pro-Israel group planning to spend millions in US elections [Guardian]

…you can try to develop a taxonomy

The Varieties Of Activist Judges [emptywheel – but actually a guy called ed walker not the wheeling dr herself]

…but…well…what about you pretextual provocative pump-priming proxies
?

Trump fangirl Liz Truss channels Maga menace at US conservative thinktank [Guardian]

…seriously…fuck off already…I’m trying to finally get to the fucking point for fuck’s sake…which could be made any number of ways

Here’s What Is Happening on Some Other Campuses Across the Country [NYT]

…but

Jurors Begin to Understand the ‘Trump Tower Conspiracy’ [NYT]

U.S. cites a litany of rights violations in Israel, Gaza and West Bank [WaPo]

Modi Calls Muslims ‘Infiltrators’ Who Would Take India’s Wealth [NYT]

Trump’s transparent attempt to play the victim on ‘election interference’ [WaPo]

The Freedom Caucus Started Believing in the Myth of Its Own Power [NYT]

Poll: Election interest hits new low in tight Biden-Trump race [NBC]

As Meta flees politics, campaigns rely on new tricks to reach voters [WaPo]

…there was a particular example of “earned media” that was…demonstrative

https://www.timesofisrael.com/meet-gideon-falter-the-man-fighting-on-the-frontline-against-antisemitism-in-the-uk/

…in fact…between the several days of coruscatingly crusading coverage condemning the constabulary & demanding (…among a great many other things apparently causing the children of abraham to fear to tread the streets of london for fear of their lives…not…I can’t help but note…the hundreds of debatably devout proponents of that proselytism who form part of all those protest marches…but certainly this fellow’s fellow travellers…like the ones travelling with him that time…who furnished the video that furnished his soapbox from which to do stuff like call for) …the firing of the head of the met…&…the way that actually went down if you should happen upon the unexpurgated footage & its rather illuminating contextual bookends

The commissioner of the Metropolitan police has praised the “professional” conduct of the sergeant who stopped an antisemitism campaigner at a pro-Palestinian march and warned that officers at other protests had been “set up” by activists using “fakery” to undermine the force.

In an interview with the Guardian, Mark Rowley said the sergeant involved in the incident with Gideon Falter would not be disciplined and vigorously defended the Met’s handling of the six months of protests since the 7 October attacks on Israel.

Defying calls for his resignation, Rowley faced a series of crisis meetings on Monday with the two people who could oust him – the home secretary, James Cleverly, and the London mayor, Sadiq Khan – as well as British Jewish groups.

It followed footage emerging of a Met officer telling Falter, of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, that because he was “openly Jewish” he would not be allowed to walk across a pro-Palestinian protest march through central London on 13 April.

…sounds damning, right? …openly jewish…in proximity to a pro-palestinian demostration…potentially to the point of arrest & hands put upon your put-upon person…the stuff that headlines are made of that make heads roll, no?

…depends on which tape you roll with

What does a longer video of the exchange between Met officer and antisemitism campaigner tell us? [Guardian]

…&…for a wonder…it might have been a murdoch establishment that turned out to have it covered

An initial account of an exchange between a police officer and an antisemitism campaigner that sparked heavy criticism of Scotland Yard did not show the full picture, a former senior officer has said.

Footage released by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) last Friday showed its chief executive, Gideon Falter, being told by a police officer that his “openly Jewish” appearance risked antagonising pro-Palestinian marchers. This precipitated claims Falter was prevented from going about his business simply because he was a Jewish man in the vicinity of a pro-Palestinian demonstration.

But a longer version of the same exchange has since emerged on Sky News, showing the officer explaining that his concern was that he had seen Falter acting in a way that led him to believe he was trying to provoke a confrontation with marchers.

That fuller account showed “a totally different encounter to the one that Mr Falter has reported”, said the former Scotland Yard chief superintendent Dal Babu on Monday.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/22/initial-story-about-openly-jewish-incident-not-full-picture-says-ex-senior-met-officer

…hands up who’s shocked

Rowley said: “The public would be horrified if we said: well, it’s obvious if those two groups come together, there’s going to be a massive fight. We’ll stand back and wait till it happens and we’ll pick up the pieces afterwards.”

Rowley said the officer would not be sanctioned and would be allowed to police protests again. The crisis worsened for the Met after a statement from an assistant commissioner, Matt Twist, had to be withdrawn after the force was accused of victim-blaming by Falter and his supporters.

Rowley described as illogical claims it was too dangerous for Jewish people to walk the streets when pro-Palestinian marches were taking place.

He dismissed much of the criticism faced by the Met over the handling of protests as ill-informed and said no one – by implication in government – had pointed to laws they could use more vigorously.

Rishi Sunak said he was “appalled” by Falter’s treatment and on Monday, asked if Rowley had his backing, said: “I do have confidence in him, but that’s on the basis that he works to rebuild the confidence and trust of not just the Jewish community, but the wider public.”

Rowley, who manifestly is less than impressed with politicians’ comments on the protest issues, said: “The prime minister can choose his own words.”
[…]
He added: “We’ve had intelligence about pro-Palestinian supporters wanting to drive vehicle convoys, waving flags, through Jewish areas in north London.

“Now, there’s nothing illegal about them doing that.

There’s nothing that’s not peaceful about those Jewish communities. But it’s clearly likely to spark some sort of conflict and we prevented them doing it.

“It is the opposite of what we were preventing Gideon Falter and his friends doing the other day.”

Rowley criticised activists who he believed were going to protests to entrap officers by taking a photo or video which then is placed out of context on social media, triggering a storm of criticism. This has often then been bolstered by politicians on the right.

The Met commissioner stressed he was not talking about the latest incident with Falter. He said: “I’m not going to answer that in relation to the Gideon Falter incident … just to be crystal clear.

“But there are very clearly some situations where officers are being set up with an absolute intention to intimidate officers and create a sort of fakery to try and prove police are not operating neutrally without fear or favour.”

The most glaring example for Rowley was an Asian officer who had a pro-Palestinian sticker glued on his arm for a short time, which was photographed. That photo was then placed on social media.

Rowley said the officer and his wife had faced death threats. “What’s disappointing is that credible and significant commentators leap on top of that and magnify it, while we’re doing factchecking,” he added.
[…]
He added: “We don’t allow protest; protest happens. There are very, very, very narrow sets of circumstances where we can make an argument to ban it and then that’s signed off by the home secretary. You have to fear serious disorder. And we’re nowhere near that.

“We’ve used conditions more often on these protests than ever before in terms of their duration, their start time, their end time.

“The wider principle on ‘should the law be more restrictive of protest?’ That’s not for policing to decide, that’s for parliament to decide on. We’re never going to say parliament should be more or less permissive on protest. That’s for them to work out.”

Asked about politicians joining in criticism that the Met is too soft on protesters, Rowley said: “There’s too many commentators cavalier with the facts and the law in suggesting that we should be doing X, Y, Z, where there’s no basis to that whatsoever.”
[…]
Away from policing, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said Britain’s biggest education union, the National Education Union, had become “a hostile environment” for Jewish people, especially since the Hamas attacks of 7 October.
[…]
Before becoming commissioner [Rowley] was the head of counter-terrorism and co-authored a report calling for tougher laws on extremism to protect groups including Jews, which the government has not acted on.

…& ACAB can @ me & all…but…bottom dollar? …if you ask me it’s not that you don’t want bastards on the beat…it’s that you need the exact right kind of bastards…fictional examples in the work of terry pratchett including but not limited to carrot, vimes & vetinari…&…based on form to date…mr met, there…might be one of those…whereas your modern day gideon

The angel greeted Gideon: “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

Judges 6:12

Falter told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “It’s not, for me, about these frontline officers. It’s about the decisions that have been made for six months now by Sir Mark Rowley, who has failed abjectly to stand up for Jewish Londoners and he seems to have thrown our rights, he’s curtailed our rights and our ability to walk around the street, in favour of letting these huge groups of protesters do what they want to do.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/22/met-police-chief-praises-professional-conduct-officer-antisemitism-row

…AKA the CEO of “campaign against antisemitism” which, though they admit they don’t actually “verify the information filed” companies house will attest to needing to refer you on to the charity commission if you want the public deets on…where you can find out…not heaps

https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/5062067/charity-overview

…but for a bunch whose gross income crossed the million-quid-a-year mark sometime in ’22…who do you suppose between the unlisted trustees, un-named investors & officers & such…out of a putative 17,000 volunteers & some 7 employees…who do you suppose the solitary entry might be that clears the “paid over 60K/yr” bar by a solid 50K or so to land in the 100K-110K salary range?

…I’ll give you a clue…I reckon there’s a solid chance he earns his crust by picking choreographed arguments with the police in an effort to manipulate everything from opinion to legislation & the employment of the long arm of the law…&…in the wider context

The Black Tax: why have African Americans been cheated by the system for so long? [Guardian]

Unpacking the alleged crime that made Trump’s alleged crime a felony [WaPo]

…if you want to call me an antisemite for saying that’s how I see that…then you’re a damned liar…& I don’t give a fuck what you say your god says about it…go catch a thermal, icarus

[… @luigi-vuoto has a point about how it’s all too much…& among the unequal struggles I’m offcially giving up on I now number picking some tunes…my efforts to narrow the field just keep throwing up more options & I’m cutting my losses…there’s damn near three dozen of the things in what I believe might be the first playlist I’ve ever knowingly created on youtube…which should be what you find if you click through on the below…if it helps at all…it’s called “too much; make it stop” & kicks off with…well…the obvious?]