In the Morning News, Eli explained how the Seattle Times editorial board completely missed the point of the Ferguson protests. This should not come as a surprise to anyone; the whole point of the Seattle Times editorial board is that the Seattle Times editorial board always misses the point. You know who else is missing the point of what protesters are protesting about? Republicans. (I almost wrote "white Republicans" there, but that would be a tautology.)

Here's video of Republican New York congressman Steve King saying that Eric Garner's death had nothing to do with the police. Garner died, King says, because he "had asthma, and a heart condition, and was so obese.” It certainly had nothing to do with the chokehold that NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo put on Garner.

King also rolls out an argument I've been seeing a lot from concern trolls in comment sections around the internet: "People are saying that [Garner] said 11 times or seven times, 'I can't breathe.' Well, the fact is, if you can't breathe, you can't talk." Which, I guess, is technically true, and maybe King should earn a shiny internet point for accuracy. But the fact that Garner stopped breathing immediately after saying "I can't breathe" is damning evidence that he was having breathing trouble, isn't it? What, exactly, is this argument supposed to prove?

And then we have Senator Rand Paul, who likes to frame himself as the one Republican who's willing to reach out to minorities. Surely, as a libertarian, Paul would be wiling to place the blame on aggressive policing techniques that target black people? Maybe he'd like to admit that the response to the deaths of Garner and Brown have been incredibly racist? Libertarians love that kind of truth-to-power stuff, right? And it would go a long way to actually building bridges with the communities Paul claims to care about, to provide more than just lip service by using Paul's privilege to shine a spotlight on a system that's rigged to punish Americans for the color of their skin.

But that would be asking too much. As Politico's Lucy McCalmont notes, Paul went on MSNBC yesterday and put the blame on cigarette taxes. Here's what Paul actually said: “Obviously, the individual circumstances are important, but I think it’s also important to know that some politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes, so they’ve driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive."

It's not just politicians and the unbelievable fuckwits at the Seattle Times: Jeb Lund at the Guardian wrote an excellent column in which he describes his experience watching six hours of Fox News coverage of the Garner protests last night. It's a nightmarish description of how a mouthpiece of society struggles in real time to dehumanize a dead person in order to maintain the status quo.

And while it's important to keep tabs on what conservative politicians and conservative media are saying, it's much more important right now to listen to African Americans tell their own stories. Even if you don't use Twitter, I'd encourage you to read some of the tweets in the #AliveWhileBlack hashtag. It's a heartbreaking collection of first-person experiences.