IF THE POLICE RETREAT INTO PASSIVE POLICING, IT WILL BE LAW-ABIDING AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN HIGH-CRIME NEIGHBORHOODS WHO SUFFER MOST

US protests: liberal elites run risk of creating the racism they claim to hate

 

By Greg Sheridan

 

The Weekend Australian

June 6, 2020

 

If God wills that it (the civil war) continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3000 years ago, so still it must be said: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

— Abraham Lincoln, 1865

God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water but fire next time.

— Mary Don’t You Weep, a negro spiritual

Across the US this week, 29 cities called out the National Guard to help control protests, riots and looting that broke out in response to the gruesome police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The nation seemed set to burn. This time water, fire next time.

Is it fire this time? Probably not. By week’s end, the protests seemed to be moderating, at least in their violence. But the words of Reverend Al Sharpton, at a memorial for Floyd, were ominous nonetheless. Floyd was blameless in the encounter that took his life, and his death was appallingly gruesome, cruel and needless. It understandably aroused great passion and anger.

But Sharpton saw it as the essence of America — the police knee in our neck, he said, is what America has been doing to us for 400 years.

Liberal media voices rang out: America has never atoned for the original sin of slavery. Former president Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden both said the murder of Floyd was “systemic racism”.

But was it really? What do the facts and the long trajectory of US history really show?

Racism in the form of slavery is indeed the country’s original sin. Yet the repudiation of racism, and the positive liberal embrace of humanity which transcends race, is America’s genius.

The Declaration of Independence begins with a magnificent declaration, biblical in its majesty: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.”

Yet the author of these words, Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves. Hypocrisy plain and simple. Jefferson couldn’t see African-Americans as human beings deserving of human rights.

But the US is a creedal nation, a nation built, uniquely, on a creed. As the Christian gospels will shame a believer into better behaviour, so the Declaration of Independence shamed America into justice on race. The power of Jefferson’s words overcame the slave-owning example he set. For as slaves and their supporters, abolitionists of every race, campaigned against slavery, they did so by holding up to the US its own immortal creed.

The US, like most nations in the 18th century, was once institutionally racist. Is it now?

The answer is no, it is not. It has at times struggled bitterly not to be so. It fought a terrible civil war, by far the bloodiest conflict it has known, at first to ensure slavery could not expand into new territories, and then explicitly to end slavery altogether.

There was immense civil-rights work to do after that. Two of the first institutions to integrate were conservative: the military, and professional sports. The churches, though many had led the abolitionist campaign, had a mixed record. Billy Graham insisted from the start of his ministry in the 1950s that his congregations be integrated.

The progress has been spectacular. In 2008, the US elected its first black president. And even before that, back in 1996, the Republican who Democratic candidate Bill Clinton feared the most as a presidential opponent was General Colin Powell.

If European liberals sneer at the US, they might want to remind us of the names of all the black French presidents or black British prime ministers.

Since the great wave of civil-rights reforms in the US in the 1960s, black life expectancy has increased by nearly 12 years, more than white life expectancy has increased, although blacks still die 3½ years earlier than whites. According to a Brookings Institution study in 1964, 18 per cent of whites said they had a black friend. Now it’s nearly 90 per cent. In 1958, 44 per cent of whites said they would move house if a black family moved next door. By the time of the Brookings Study it was 1 per cent.

In 1968, only 50 per cent of African-American adults had graduated high school. Now it’s more than 90 per cent. In 1968, 10 per cent of blacks had college degrees. Now it’s just on a quarter.

More than half of African-Americans are middle class. At the same time, there is still striking inequality. In 2018, the ­median income of a black family was $US41,000, while for a white family it was $US71,000. Even that does not necessarily indicate active systemic racism operating today. Asian-Americans, many of whom are immigrants, have a substantially higher median income than whites. Asian-Americans have not suffered the tragic, historic disadvantages of African-Americans, nor have they been locked out by a racist US society.

The one measure where African-Americans have gone backwards since 1968 is the proportion of the black population in jail. This has risen from 604 per 100,000 in 1968 to 1703 per 100,000 in 2018.

Here we come upon a thorny knot of the most difficult problems. As President Donald Trump and his administration assert, the figures do not support the idea that US police forces are systemically racist, despite the shocking murder of Floyd. On the other hand, US society has organised itself in a way that is ­distinctly but unintentionally disadvantageous to blacks and that makes it difficult for blacks to escape these disadvantages.

I don’t believe this is racism at work. I have lived in the US on four separate occasions, as this paper’s Washington correspondent in 1986 and 1987, and for ­periods of several months each in three different attachments to US think tanks. Every time, I have lived in a racially diverse apartment building. I’ve had friends of every ethnic background. I have spent probably thousands of hours in the company of conservative Republicans and conservative Christians. I have never heard a single one ever make a ­racially derogatory remark.

That experience is surely subjective, but it’s worth something.

What do the figures tell us? Last year, police killed 10 unarmed African-Americans. This is in a nation of 330 million people. It’s difficult for people to remember just how big a number 330 million is. It will always throw up tragic and terrible cases and some abuses. A few terrible incidents, in this media and internet-dominated age, can look like a national pattern when they are nothing of the kind.

In any year of the past half dozen, the 800,000 police across the US’s 18,000 separate police forces will kill about 1000 people. One reason that figure is so high is because of America’s gun culture. Every person a US cop pulls over or talks to could likely be carrying a gun. In the four years from 2000, 250 police were killed in the line of duty. Blue lives matter too.

Generally, about twice as many whites are killed as blacks, and blacks make up about a quarter of those killed. Given that blacks are 13 per cent of the US population, that establishes that they die in disproportionately large numbers. But given that ­African-Americans commit more than half the homicides in the US and an even higher proportion of the robberies, they come into difficult contact with the police much more often than whites do.

If the police retreat into passive policing, it will be law-abiding African-Americans in high-crime neighbourhoods who suffer most.

That’s not to say there is no ­racism. Obviously, white racism survives in the US. Racism, I suspect, is an inherent human evil. It must always be opposed but can never be totally eradicated. There is no part of US law — or respectable US opinion — that sanctions racism. The national convulsion the Floyd killing has provoked ­indicates that very few in the US think it’s OK. When violence against blacks was more routine, as in pre-civil rights parts of the old Confederacy, it did not cause a national outrage.

New York’s Chief of Police Terence Monahan gave a powerful TV interview this week in which he pointed out that his police force is a “majority minority” — that is, white officers are less than half his force. He denied absolutely that he or his officers were racist. He condemned the killing of Floyd and pointed out, pretty convincingly, that his officers didn’t do it. Not only that, they have often died in defence of minority community members. Yet 170 of his officers have been injured, some seriously and often with intent, by rioters acting violently over the past week.

Sometimes Trump talks about race in a way that is unhelpful or stupid or gauche. When he tells congresswomen of African heritage that “they should go back where they came from”, that is ­offensive. And when he told ­protesters that if they breached the White House fence they would be met by “vicious dogs and ominous weapons”, that was needlessly bombastic.

But Trump is assuredly not a systematic racist. And as with many populists, much that he says is common sense. It was foolish of him to suggest this week that he would override states and use the Insurrection Act to deploy regular troops to US cities to quell riots. The military, though generally pro-Republican, absolutely hates the way Trump sometimes tries to politicise them.

Yet the demonisation of Trump is unreasonable and wildly exaggerated, and it makes its own contribution to every problem the US faces. Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, tweeted that Trump “openly incites the murder of his fellow Americans”. That is deeply misleading, grossly irresponsible and can only contribute to a dangerous over-reaction from protesters, which will in turn produce its own counter-reaction. This is the tenor of much of the comment on CNN and in much of the mainstream American media. It is at least as bad as anything Trump says or does and contributes to the prevailing sense of crisis, drama and mutual and inexplicable hatreds.

Some commentators talk of the return of the “riot ideology” of the 1960s. In 1967, liberal magazine The New Republic ran an editorial that said: “Terrifying as the looting, the shooting, the arson are, they could mean a gain for the nation if, as a result, white America were shocked into looking at itself.”

This is liberal foolishness at its most extreme. And it made a big comeback this week.

There is no doubt African-Americans are seriously dis­advantaged, and that this dis­advantage arises from the brutal history their forebears suffered. If the liberal Left tell them there is no hope because of systemic ­racism — that their only recourse is defiance and civil disobedience, that personal agency in work and education mean nothing whereas identity politics is everything — then this will have tragic consequences. Similarly, if the message of liberal ideology is that all white people are complicit in racism and enjoy white privilege, that may work OK as a meaningless affectation for affluent whites living in rich neighbourhoods where they never meet street crime, but it will cause suppurating retaliatory resentment among working-class, unemployed and otherwise disadvantaged whites. It’s a recipe for needless racial polarisation.

Many African-Americans, like many poor people in the US generally, are caught in the intersection of several US policy mistakes. The US ties health insurance to jobs. If you don’t have a job, or don’t have a well-paid job, you cannot afford health insurance. That means you don’t go to the doctor when you’re sick. This is one reason African-Americans have suffered so badly from COVID-19.

Globalisation has contributed to the loss of blue-collar jobs, which are great entry-level jobs. Truck driving is one of the last big employers of non-college graduates that pays a living wage. This dynamic hurts blacks the most.

African-Americans are concentrated in impoverished inner cities. The public schools are wretched and the power of the teachers’ unions makes their reform all but impossible. In wealthier districts, the schools are better.

The legal system, while not formally racial in orientation, punishes minor crimes that blacks typically commit much more heavily than minor crimes that whites typically commit. Which white American will tell you they didn’t smoke pot at college? But this never leads to jail.

And here is the final tragic irony, more bitter than any other. Before COVID-19 struck, Trump was actually delivering for African-Americans. Their unemployment rate, at just over 5 per cent, was the lowest in history.

Black poverty had declined substantially under the Trump administration. Black incarceration also declined under Trump. People with jobs don’t go to jail so much.

Despite his reactionary reputation, Trump sponsored and signed the First Step Act, which got thousands of non-violent black offenders out of prison.

The US is not systemically ­racist. Despite its history, it is systemically anti-racist. If the liberal elites, who more or less hate the US on principle, push the systemic racism line long enough and hysterically enough, they may create the reality they claim to oppose. 

DC MAYOR SHOULD BE ARRESTED FOR DEFACING THE STREET

Washington D.C. mayor has "Black Lives Matter" painted on street leading to White House

 

By Caitlin O'Kane 

 

CBS News

June 5, 2020

 

Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had a message painted on a city street Friday morning: Black Lives Matter. Bowser tweeted a video of the bright yellow letters, which run down 16th Street near the White House.

"There was a dispute this week about whose street this is," Bowser's chief of staff John J. Falcicchio tweeted in response to a local reporter. "Mayor Bowser wanted to make it abundantly clear that this is DC's street and to honor demonstrators who peacefully protesting on Monday evening."

Falcicchio was apparently referring to President Trump, whose handling of Black Lives Matter protests in the city has been criticized as militaristic. On Monday, law enforcement outside the White House deployed tear gas to disperse protesters before Mr. Trump walked to a historic church and posed for photos. This was just after Mr. Trump delivered a speech from the White House, in which he threatened to deploy the U.S. military against protesters in U.S. cities while declaring himself "your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters."

In her tweet, the mayor called out the fact that Friday was the 27th birthday of Breonna Taylor, the Louisville EMT who was shot and killed by police in her own home last month.

"Let us stand with determination," Bowser wrote. "Determination to make America the land it ought to be."

In addition to painting "Black Lives Matter" on the street, Bowser officially named the section of 16th Street in front of the White House "Black Lives Matter Plaza."

Crowds gathered on the street corner on Friday as a city crew member added a sign to the street post.

Protesters in Washington, D.C. have held largely peaceful demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd's death. But there were some clashes late in the evening last weekend, with scattered fires and looting in the capital. The Lincoln and World War II memorials were vandalized, as was St. John's Episcopal Church.

In response, Bowser announced curfews that extended through Thursday morning, and requested National Guard troops to assist D.C. law enforcement.

The new additions to D.C. come one day after Mayor Bowser requested that Mr. Trump withdraw "all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence" from the city.

The mayor has spoken out against against Mr. Trump sending National Guard troops from other states to the District of Columbia and has questioned his legal authority to do so.

Bowser said in her letter to Mr. Trump, which she also posted on Twitter, that she has ended the state of emergency in the city related to the demonstrations, noting that the Metropolitan Police Department did not make a single arrest on Wednesday evening. Bowser said that the city government was "well equipped" to handle peaceful protests without federal assistance.

GET RID OF THE COPS AND SEE WHERE THAT LEAVES MINNEAPOLIS

Minneapolis City Council members aim to 'dismantle' police department, 'rethink' public safety

 

By Tyler Olson

 

Fox Newa

June 5, 2020

 

Several members of the Minneapolis City Council this week have expressed support for radical changes to how the city handles law enforcement, including a move to "dismantle" the police department and replace it with "a transformative new model for public safety."

Jeremiah Ellison, the son of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and a representative of the city's Ward 5, explicitly led calls to "dramatically rethink" how the city keeps its people safe.

"We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department," he tweeted. "And when we’re done, we’re not simply gonna glue it back together. We are going to dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response. It’s really past due."


His call was echoed by Lisa Bender, the president of the city council.
"Yes," she said in response to Ellison. "We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a transformative new model of public safety."

That was not the first time Bender had addressed calls to "dismantle" the city's police force this week, however. On Wednesday she posted a thread about how a "white person" should think about dismantling the police.

"If you are a comfortable white person asking to dismantle the police I invite you to reflect: are you willing to stick with it? Will you be calling in three months to ask about garage break-ins? Are you willing to dismantle white supremacy in all systems, including a new system?" she said. "I mean this quite sincerely & seriously: just look at recent conversations about City-funded neighborhood organizations to understand how explicitly we would have to work to establish alternative systems that do not replicate the same problems. White ppl need to show up for this."

Bender on Tuesday also said "I support continued diversion of funds from law enforcement to other priorities," following calls from many to "defund the police."

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Bender sees the city's potentially revamped public safety force as potentially sending social workers or other civilian personnel into situations that are traditionally handled by police.

Another council member to come out with calls for taking apart the city's police department is Alondra Cano, who tweeted that "[t]he Mpls Police Department is not reformable" and "[c]hange is coming."


Meanwhile, the president of the Minneapolis police union wrote a letter calling the riots in the city a "terrorist movement" and calling elected officials' efforts to find fault in the police department "despicable."

"Our chief requested 400 more officers and was flatly denied any," Bob Kroll said. "This is what led to this record-breaking riot."

He added: "I've worked with the four defense attorneys that are representing each of the four terminated individuals under criminal investigation, in addition with our labor attorneys to fight for their jobs. They were terminated without due process."

Steve Fletcher, also a member of the Minneapolis City Council, condemned Kroll and the police union in a long thread in which he said the city should "declare policing as we know it a thing of the past."

"Bob Kroll’s letter yesterday to the Minneapolis Police Federation membership showed us what rank-and-file officers voted for in their leadership, and it is yet another sign that the department is irredeemably beyond reform," Fletcher said. "After watching MPD officers escalate and provoke anger all week, he asserts that if they’d only been allowed to use more violence, they could have put a stop to demonstrations. This is nonsense. MPD officers chose him as their leader."

Fletcher continued: "I don’t know yet, though several of us on the council are working on finding out, what it would take to disband the MPD and start fresh with a community-oriented, non-violent public safety and outreach capacity."

According to the Star Tribune, the council is expected to vote Friday on a measure stemming from a state investigation into the police department that could make smaller changes in the short term. Bender, however, said the move is "not meant to be anywhere near starting this bigger conversation," according to the paper.

Minneapolis isn't the only city to consider major changes to its police department, either. The Los Angeles Times reported that Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will try and cut between $100 million to $150 million from its police budget alone. But the proposed cuts to the LAPD don't appear to include the kind of structural changes to the law enforcement apparatus proposed in Minneapolis.

Floyd died last week after a Minneapolis police officer used his knee to pin Floyd to the ground by his neck for several minutes in an incident caught on camera. The video sparked outrage nationwide, leading to protests that sometimes turned into riots, particularly at night in large cities.

The officer who knelt on Floyd's neck, Derek Chauvin, currently faces second-degree murder charges and three other officers involved in the response to the Floyd incident are facing charges of being accessories to second-degree murder.
Two separate autopsies have ruled Floyd's death a homicide. 

VIDEO SHOWED HE DID NOT JUST FALL

Every Buffalo Cop in Elite Unit Quits to Back Officers Who Shoved Elderly Man to Ground

 

By Tracy Connor

 

Daily Beast 

June 5, 2020

 

A video of Buffalo police officers shoving an elderly police activist to the ground, then walking by him as a pool of blood collected around his head, shocked the nation.

Their colleagues? Not so much.

All members of the Emergency Response Team resigned from the unit on Friday in support of the officers who were suspended without pay for their aggression toward Martin Gugino, 75.

“Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders,” Buffalo Police Benevolent Association President John Evans told local station WGRZ.

The 57 officers will remain on the police force but are no longer on that team.

The New York State Police said they would be sending additional troopers to the region in response, and Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said “contingency plans are in place” to handle the situation.

“If they resigned, I’m exceptionally disappointed by it because it indicates to me that they did not see anything wrong with the actions last night,” Erie County Executive Marc Poloncarz said at a press conference.

The Buffalo Police Department initially reported that Gugino, a longtime peace activist in Buffalo, was injured during protests on Thursday night when he tripped and fell.

They switched gears after video surfaced showing that he was clearly shoved and fell backward, cracking his head on the ground, causing blood to trickle out of his ear immediately. Officers simply walked past Gugino as he lay motionless.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he got nauseous after seeing the video.

“It was the same feeling I’ve had for 90 of the past nights when I would get the death totals from coronavirus,” he said. “I would physically get sick to my stomach, and when I saw the video I got sick to my stomach.”

Cuomo also said suspension wasn’t enough.

“I think the city should pursue firing, and I think the district attorney should look at the situation for possible criminal charges,” he said.

However, Evans, from the Police Benevolent Association, dug in further on Friday in support of the officers.

“Our position is these officers were simply following orders from Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia to clear the square,” he told The Buffalo News. “It doesn’t specify clear the square of men 50 and under, or 14 to 40. They were simply doing their job. I don’t know how much contact was made. He did slip in my estimation. He fell backwards.”

The incident in Buffalo happened against a backdrop of aggressive behavior by police around the nation—from the tear gassing of peaceful protesters to clear space for President Donald Trump in Washington to footage of NYPD officers, including supervisors, taking batons to demonstrators out past curfew.

Gugino was out after curfew in Buffalo “because he feels that our civil liberties are so in danger, which they most certainly are,” Vicki Ross of the New York Peace Center and Latin American Solidarity Committee told the Associated Press.

She said Gugino was involved with the center and “is a peaceable person.”

“There is no way that he was doing anything to accost or hurt,” she said.

On his Twitter feed, Gugino objected to the curfews for protesters and cops’ efforts to enforce them, writing at one point, “fuck the police.”

“The cops should not have clubs. And should not be in riot gear. The National Guard should arrest the police,” he tweeted earlier this week.

Buffalo Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the mass resignations.

CITY WILL TAKE $150 MILLION FROM LAPD AND GIVE IT TO THE BLACK COMMUNITY

Growing The LAPD Was Gospel At City Hall. George Floyd Changed That

LAPPL News Watch
June 5, 2020

It has been an article of faith in Los Angeles politics for more than a quarter-century: Build the Police Department and its budget, and you will build a stronger, safer city.

Mayors from moderate Republican Richard Riordan to liberal Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa charted that course, with special emphasis on expanding the LAPD to at least 10,000 sworn officers. 

But city leaders now appear ready to slow and perhaps reverse that longtime trend, following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody and a wave of rage, sorrow and demands in Los Angeles that the government provide poor and minority communities with more than a police presence. 

Mayor Eric Garcetti said he will direct $250 million to youth jobs, health initiatives and “peace centers” to heal trauma, and will allow those who have suffered discrimination to collect damages. The money will have to be cut from other city operations; 

Garcetti, backed by City Council President Nury Martinez and his new Police Commission president, said as much as $150 million would come from the Los Angeles Police Department. 

Leaders of the union that represents Los Angeles police officers said they found the shift abrupt and disingenuous. 

“In the private phone call, the politicians praised our officers’ work and professionalism,” said Jerretta Sandoz, vice president of the police union. “During their TV spectacle, they placed the blame of Los Angeles’ social problems squarely on the shoulders of our officers. It was hypocritical and political doublespeak of the highest order, and we refuse to participate in this charade.” 

THE INSTITUTIONAL RACISM' CANARD

It bears no resemblance to reality — not in police forces, and not in America

By Andrew C. McCarthy 

National Review
June 3, 2020


About twice as many white people as black people are killed by police. In fact, in about 75 percent of police shootings, the decedent is not black. Of course, that is not what you would grasp from consuming media.

Take the website statista.com, specifically its breathless focus on “Hate crime in the United States” — counterfactually insinuating that any shooting involving a black victim must be a “hate crime.” Here’s their big headline from Tuesday: “Black Americans 2.5X More Likely Than Whites to Be Killed By Police.”
 
It is fiction. It is sheer demagoguery, peddled as American cities are besieged by rioters in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. The falsity of the claim is demonstrated even by statista.com itself. Just three days ago, the site posted another series of bar graphs, showing that, in fact, whites are nearly twice as likely as blacks to be shot to death by police. Here are the numbers:

Year                White  Black
2017                457      223
2018                399      209
2019                370      235
2020 (so far)   42       31

The rest of the bar graphs break out the numbers of Hispanic decedents (slightly lower than black, significantly lower than white), as well as those whose heritage is described as “other” and unknown.

Right underneath its chart, statista.com writes, “Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems only to be increasing.” In point of fact, it is steady — and if I wanted to play games like statista.com does, by, say, weighting the numbers to account for population growth while ignoring all other relevant factors, I could even pretend that the number was decreasing. The Washington Post acknowledges that fatal shootings by police have run steadily at around 1,000 per year since 2015 — 995 (2015), 963 (2016), 987 (2017), 998 (2018), and 1,004 (2019).

As Heather Mac Donald relates in an insightful Wall Street Journal op-ed, blacks make up only a quarter of the total number of people killed in police shootings annually, a ratio that has held steady since 2015. The reigning canard, however, is that this 25 percent figure proves racism since African Americans make up just 13 percent of the U.S. population.

Ridiculous as this syllogism is (as we’ll see, it conveniently elides more consequential factors), it still puts the lie to the slanderous narrative that police are hunting down black men. Even if we ignore the fact that an increasing number of police officers — obviously including those involved in encounters with black suspects — are themselves African Americans, the percentage of black deaths from police shootings would be much higher if blacks were being targeted.

Police do not go looking for people to shoot. In shooting situations, police are confronting crime suspects, the majority of whom are armed. But given that George Floyd was unarmed, let’s consider unarmed people killed in such encounters. Such unarmed decedents, too, were twice as likely to be white as black in 2019 — i.e., 19 unarmed whites, nine unarmed blacks. As Ms. Mac Donald observes, this ratio is not stable (and there is some looseness in what the media define as “unarmed”): In 2015, it was 38 unarmed blacks to 32 unarmed whites.

The Floyd killing has been injected into the bien pensant narrative of innocent, unarmed black men murdered by cops. But the number of unarmed black men killed by police is vanishingly small. As Mac Donald notes, there were 7,407 black homicide victims in the United States in 2018, the last year for which final numbers are available. Assuming a comparable number in 2019, the nine unarmed men killed in police shootings would represent just 0.1 percent of black homicides.

In stark contrast, she asserts, “a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.”

The media, the bipartisan political class, the academy, and the commentariat concoct their “systemic,” “institutional,” “unconscious” racism fiction by statistical tunnel vision: We must conclude that African Americans — in particular, young black men — are being targeted by police because the percentage of killings of blacks significantly overrepresents the black population. It makes no sense, however, to look only at the percentage of blacks involved in police shootings, as if it were the only attribute that mattered — as if it were the only attribute by which blacks are overrepresented compared to their percentage of the overall population.

While African Americans are involved in two times more police shootings than their percentage of the population would seem to warrant, they commit 53 percent of murders and 60 percent of robberies — well over four times their percentage of the population. The political establishment would have you assume this statistical disparity is caused by institutional racism that myopically beams police attention onto black men. But we know the statistics accurately reflect reality because crimes get reported by victims — a large percentage of whom are black (also outstripping their share of the overall population).

If you just focus on interracial crime, though, Mac Donald (writing this time in the City Journal) has crunched those numbers. “Between 2012 and 2015, blacks committed 85.5 percent of all black-white interracial violent victimizations.” This, she qualifies, excludes interracial homicide. Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff fills in that blank: “Blacks commit around 70 percent of black-white interracial homicides.” For this, he draws on FBI crime statistics for 2016. They show that, of 776 black–white homicides, blacks committed 533 and whites 243. Neither of these numbers, by the way, nor their combined total, comes anywhere close to the number of blacks killed by blacks: a staggering 2,570 — the overwhelming majority male.

The most dangerous threat to the African-American community in America is not cops. It is liberals. The United States is not institutionally racist. The political system, the criminal-justice system, and academe overflow with political progressives. The notion that they would tolerate racism in their institutions would be laughable if sensible people were encouraged to think about it rather than mindlessly accept it. Nor could we conceivably be “unconsciously” racist. Let’s put aside that to discriminate is to choose, and that, where it exists, racial discrimination is a conscious state of mind. The reality is that our institutions of opinion are so obsessively racialist, no one in America has the luxury of being unconscious about racism.

The African-American community is not a monolith. Like other segments of the American population, it is diverse and dynamic. The policies pushed by progressives damage the parts of it that need the most help. And the false narrative of racist police, which pressures law enforcement to back off from the communities most victimized by crime, is now destroying entire cities.

GEORGE FLOYD WAS AN EX-CON, A TWICE-CONVICTED ARMED ROBBER, AND A DOPER

By Howie Katz

George Floyd died when a Minneapolis cop kept his knee on Floyd's neck for seven minutes after he pleaded with the cops to stop because "I can't breathe."  He was under arrest for trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at a grocery store.   

Floyd is being memorialize in Minneapolis, in Raeford, N.C., his birthplace, and in Houston where he grew up.

The Minneapolis service was held Thursday with race-baiting, rabble rouser Al Sharpton as the keynote speaker.  Sharpton excoriated President Trump for using the bible as a prop and called out the name of just about any black person ever killed by the police.   Race-baiting Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey knelt by Floyd's golden casket and sobbed uncontrollably.

The other services will take place in Raeford on Saturday and in Houston next Monday.

In remembering Floyd, the speakers at the services will have you think the cops killed a saint.  Forgotten is the fact that Floyd was an ex-con, a twice-convicted armed robber, and a doper.

May he rest in peace, knowing that his death was not in vain.  It started a nationwide insurrection.   

THE GENERALS MUTINY AGAINST THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF

Chairman of joint chiefs becomes THIRD general to publicly slam Trump in 24hrs as he tells troops to 'uphold Constitution' and says National Guard are under governors' orders - NOT the President's, and Jim Mattis compares him to NAZIS

Daily Mail

June 4, 2020

The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff put himself at odds with Donald Trump Thursday in a memo telling troops to 'defend the Constitution' and saying the National Guard was not under federal control - as retired generals including Jim Mattis denounced the president's handling of the George Floyd protests.

Army General Mark Milley said in a letter to top military leaders that armed forces will continue to protect Americans' right to 'freedom of speech and peaceful assembly,' as the president has called in troops to defend Washington, D.C.

'We all committed our lives to the idea that is America,' Milley hand-wrote in as an addition to the bottom of the letter. 'We will stay true to that and the American people.' 

Former Defense Secretary James Mattis issued his first ever open criticism of his former boss in an opinion piece published in The Atlantic on Wednesday.

'Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people - does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,' Mattis said in a rare quip against the president.

Mattis also likened Trump's actions to the rhetoric used by Nazis – to 'divide and conquer.'

Retired Marine Corp four-star General John Allen lashed out at Trump in an op-ed Wednesday claiming his actions in the midst of violent nationwide riots over the death of George Floyd are 'shameful.'

Allen, who commanded the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan then was an envoy in the international effort against ISIS, insisted Trump's presidency could be the 'beginning of the end of American democracy.'

'The slide of the United States into illiberalism may well have begun on June 1, 2020,' Allen wrote in an op-ed published to ForeginPolicy.com. 'Remember the date. It may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment.'

The retired general is referencing the Monday, June 1 outing when Trump stepped outside the White House with an entourage of Secret Service, administration officials, aides and media, walked across Lafayette Park, which was clear of protesters minutes earlier by use of tear gas and rubber bullets, and arrived at St. John's Episcopal Church for a photo-op with his bible.

Milley asserted in the memo that only the National Guard, a reservist unit of the Army, is responding to the riots at the activation of governors – and not the federal government.

'As members of the Joint Force – comprised of all races, colors, and creeds – you embody the ideals of our Constitution,' Milley wrote in the letter the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, National Guard and Space Force and Commandants of the Marine Corps and Coast Guard, as well as to the Commanders of the Combatant Commands.

'Please remind all of your troops and leaders that we will uphold the values of our nation, and operate consistent with national laws and out own high standards of conduct at all times,' he concluded.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm afraid we're seeing the end of Trump's presidency and Republican control of the senate, no matter the state of the nation's economy.  Not only has Trump fallen on his own sword too many times, but he is also dragging the Republicans down with him.  

God help us if we end up with Biden as president and the Democrats in control of both houses of congress.  

DEFUND THE COPS

by Bob Walsh

Eric Garcetti is the Alcalde de el Pueblo De Los Angeles.  He is, for the nonce at least, proposing a 15% across the board cut in the funding of the LAPD and a shift of this funding to "the black community."  

Other elected officials hither and yon, mostly liberal democrats or self-described progressives or even democratic-socialists, are proposing totally defunding police departments and instead hiring "rapid response social workers" to deal with community issues.

Just what you want if you teenage daughter gets kidnapper by her psycho boyfriend or someone steals your car or beats your head in and steals your wallet.  What could possibly go wrong there.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I've dealt with a lot of social workers ... sissy social workers that is.   Rapid response social workers?  Ha Ha Ha.

IF YOU LIKE MLB YOU MAY BE SHIT OUT OF LUCK

by Bob Walsh

Yes, it looks like Major League Baseball is dead and stinking for this season.  The players and the owners could not get together on compensation.  They players are demanding 70% of their base contract.  The owners are saying there is no way they can do that, and have offered either 50% or a package based on actual team income for the abbreviated season.  The players association said HELL NO.  So it looks like instead of getting a half loaf they are getting an empty bag.  

Too bad, so sad.

KAEPERNICK'S FREEDOM FIGHTERS ACQUIRE 80 CARS FROM CALIFORNIA CAR DEALERSHIP

Looters Drive Off With $90,000 Muscle Cars In San Leandro Over Weekend, Police Say

LAPPL News Watch
June 4, 2020

As protests over the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd turned violent Sunday night, hundreds of looters targeted a car dealership in San Leandro. 

By the time police arrived, scores of cars had filed out of the parking lot: Dodge Chargers, Jeep Wranglers, Jeep Cherokees. 

All told, nearly 80 cars were stolen, with some being driven out right in front of police. Looters even drove off in high-end Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcats, which sell for about $90,000 each, authorities said. 

“Looters [were] vandalizing the store or even burglarizing the store, getting access to the keys, and taking cars,” San Leandro Police Lt. Ted Henderson said. 

So far, about 30 of the stolen vehicles have been located, and some are damaged, police said.

THIS COP APPEARS TO BE IN DEEP DOODOO

Vallejo police officer shoots, kills 22-year-old on his knees after mistaking hammer for gun, chief says

 

By Melanie Woodrow

 

KGO

June 3, 2020

 

VALLEJO, Calif. -- Vallejo police shot and killed a 22-year-old following a night of looting early Tuesday morning. On Wednesday, Chief Shawny Williams said Sean Monterrosa was on his knees and an officer saw what appeared to be a gun in his sweatshirt. It turned out to be a hammer. 

 

Sean Monterrosa was on his knees outside a Walgreens when a Vallejo Police Officer fired at him 5 times through his vehicle's windshield. One of those shots hit and killed the 22-year-old, who police say they believed was armed.

The fatal shooting came after a night of multiple calls for looting including to the Walgreens.

Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams said it appeared Monterrosa was going to get into a getaway vehicle before changing his mind.

"This individual appeared to be running toward the black sedan but suddenly stopped taking a kneeling position and placing his hands above his waist revealing what appeared to be the butt of handgun investigations later revealed that the weapon was a long 15-inch hammer tucked into the pocket of his sweatshirt," said Chief Williams.

Chief Williams says the officer who shot Monterrosa is an 18-year veteran. Chief Williams did not release his name.

Attorney John Burris is representing Monterrosa's family.

"He did not see Mr. Monterrosa put his hands on it in a threatening way. So the question here is what threat if any did he actually present," said Burris.

Of the two getaway vehicles filled with suspected looters that drove off, one rammed a responding police vehicle injuring an officer. Police caught the suspects from one vehicle in Contra Costa County. The suspects in the black sedan got away.

 

Chief Williams said the department has made many changes since he arrived including to its de-escalation policy.
"How was de-escalation used here," asked ABC7 News I-Team reporter Melanie Woodrow.

"Well I'll say this when they responded to the Walgreens the intent was to stop the looting and to arrest the perpetrators if necessary, the officers reacted to a perceived threat," said Chief Williams.

The department has 45 days to release body-worn camera video but Chief Williams says he plans to do so sooner.

"Based on your experience of 27 years was this excessive force," asked I-TEAM reporter Melanie Woodrow.

"Like I said the District Attorney is going to look at this and our internal affairs will look at it," said Chief Williams as people in the crowd began shouting at Williams who would not answer with his opinion.

The officer who fired the fatal shot has been placed on routine paid administrative leave as have the witness officers.

IF THESE COPS WOULD HAVE CALLED IN SICK THEY WOULD NOT BE FACING CHARGES

6 Atlanta police officers charged after video captured arrest of 2 college students

 

By Jordan Freiman

 

CBS News

June 3, 2020

 

Six Atlanta police officers have been charged for assaulting two college students who were attempting to leave a protest Saturday. Two of the officers involved have already been fired from the department.

Messiah Young, 22, and Teniyah Pilgrim, 20, were leaving a George Floyd protest at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park after the city's 9 p.m. curfew went into effect CBS affiliate WGCL reported. Video of the incident shows an officer tell Young, who was driving the car, to keep moving but then the officer opens the door and tries to pull Young out of the car. Young manages to drive off but is stopped down the road by traffic. Officers then swarm the car.

One officer opens the passenger-side door as another attempts to break the driver-side window. The officer on the passenger side then uses his Taser on Pilgrim, who could be heard screaming throughout the encounter. Young can also be seen being tased before officers pull him from the car. Young also said he was punched at least 10 times while he was being subdued on the pavement. The entire incident was filmed live by WGCL.

At one point, officers can be heard saying Young had a gun, but none was ever recovered. Pilgrim was held for several hours but never charged. Young was initially charged with fleeing the scene and driving with an expired license, but the mayor later ordered those charges to be dropped, WGCL reports.

Lonnie Hood faces two counts of aggravated assault for using his Taser and one count of simple battery. Willie Sauls faces one count of aggravated assault for pointing his Taser and one count of criminal damage to property for damaging the car. Ivory Streeter also faces one count of aggravated assault for the user of a Taser and one count of pointing or aiming a gun. Mark Gardner has been charged with aggravated assault for using his Taser as well. Armond Jones has been charged with one count of aggravated battery and one count of pointing or aiming a gun. Roland Claud was the only officer to not be charged with assault or battery but faces one count of criminal damage to property for damaging the car.

The charges were announced Tuesday at a press conference by Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard, Jr. Streeter and Gardner were both fired Sunday.

"These are good guys," Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields said at a Sunday news conference. "I know them as individuals. I've worked with the one for over 20 years. But they made that level of mistake that cannot be rolled back."

Howard said Tuesday this is the third time ever that the DA's office has brought charges for police officers before they were indicted. He also noted that Young and Pilgrim were "extremely innocent."

 

"Unfortunately, we have been here many, many times before, where officers are arrested," said Young's attorney, Mawuli Davis. "And so we are prayerful, hopeful that this will go to its full conclusion. And these officers will not only be arrested, indicted and convicted. Because what they did to our children, and these are our community children, they have to be held accountable for."

Pilgrim on Tuesday said she is "so happy that they're being held accountable for their actions."

"I hope every police officer who thinks it's OK to drag someone, beat someone, do all this stuff because they're cops, I hope they're all going to be held accountable as well," she added.

Young said he feels "a little safer now that these monsters are off of the streets and no longer able to terrorize anyone else from this point on."

He also stressed the need to make sure there "really is change moving forward in the culture of policing."

HE OPTED NOT TO STAND IN THE LONG FOOD HANDOUT LINES

Bay Area man found cannibalizing his grandmother

 

By Andrew Chamings

 

SFGATE

June 3, 2020

 

In a horrifying incident in Richmond, a resident was arrested on suspicion of murdering and cannibalizing his own grandmother, per The Mercury News.

According to police, the suspect, identified as Dwayne Wallick, 37, was caught in the act of eating Ruby Wallick, his 90-year-old grandmother, on Monday.

At around 2 p.m., Richmond officers responded to a 911 call reporting a man standing over a woman’s body on the 1200 block of Club Court, a residential area near the Hilltop Plaza. Upon entering the home, where both Dwayne and Ruby are reported to live, the officers said they found the suspect cannibalizing the woman.

Police said after Wallick failed to stop, they used a stun gun and, after a struggle, he was taken into custody. The police currently have no clear motivation for Wallick's alleged actions. They are reportedly investigating whether drugs played a role in the incident, as the suspect remains in hospital due to unspecified injuries sustained in the course of the arrest.

The case is expected to be turned over to the Contra Costa County district attorney to weight if murder charges will be filed against Wallick.

HOLY SMOKE

Israeli scientists dig up cannabis traces in ancient temple

 

By Ilan Ben Zion 

 

Associated Press

June 1, 2020

 

JERUSALEM -- Israeli archaeologists say they’ve found cannabis residue on artifacts from an ancient temple in southern Israel — providing the first evidence of the use of hallucinogenics in the ancient Jewish religion.

In a research paper, the authors say the discovery from an 8th-century B.C. shrine at Tel Arad offers the first proof for “the use of mind-altering substances as part of cultic rituals in Judah,” including the first Jewish Temple that stood in Jerusalem at the same time.

Archaeological excavations at Tel Arad, located around 35 miles (60 kilometers) south of Jerusalem, in the 1960s discovered a stronghold belonging to the ancient kingdom of Judah, and at its core a small shrine bearing striking similarities to the biblical Temple in Jerusalem.

But for decades, attempts to determine the composition of black deposits found on two limestone altars from the shrine’s inner sanctum — now located at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem — were inconclusive. 

Chemical analysis of the samples conducted at Israel’s Hebrew University and Technion Institute found that one altar contained the psychoactive compounds found in marijuana, and the other had traces of frankincense — one of the ingredients mentioned in the Bible for the incense sacrifice in the ancient Jewish Temples, the authors wrote.

The researchers published their findings Friday in the academic journal, “Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University.”

Eran Arie, curator of Iron Age archaeology at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and lead author of the study, said the discovery was “revolutionary,” as it was the earliest evidence of cannabis use in the ancient Near East and the “first time we see psychoactive substances in Judahite religion.” 

The absence of cannabis pollen or seeds from the ancient Near East indicates the cannabis was likely imported over long distance trade routes, possibly in the form of resin, known colloquially as hashish. The chemical analysis from the Tel Arad altar showed it was burned atop dried animal dung. 

“Here, the official state religion of the kingdom of Judah was using this substance,” Arie said. Because of the site’s clear connection to the monarchy, he suggests it could point to how worship was conducted in the biblical Temple in Jerusalem. 

Yossi Garfinkel, an archaeology professor from Hebrew University who was not involved in the study, said that the ritual use of wine in Judaism, and some indications of opium use elsewhere in the region, suggests that for the ancient Israelites, it was “a desirable thing to get into ecstasy and connect with God.”

TURKEY'S MEDDLING THREATENS MIDDLE EAST PEACE

Turkish leader has vision of new Islamic empire, starting with Jerusalem

By Yochanan Visser

Israel Today
June 4, 2020

Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not giving up on his dream to establish a new ‘Ottoman Empire’ in the Middle East despite a huge economic crisis in the Muslim country.

The plan includes increasing Turkey’s influence over the Arab population of Jerusalem and turn Arabs there into Islamists, while Turkey also tries to infiltrate the Waqf, the Islamic trust that controls daily affairs on the Temple Mount and in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

This week the Erdogan regime opened a new Islamic center near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The center had been renovated by TIKA, a Turkish government aid organization that runs several Islamic projects in Arab Jerusalem.

The Islamic center by the name of Khan Abu Khadija will host Arabs with existing ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and who regard the Erdogan regime favorably.

Khan Abu Khadiija is promoting the Ottoman Empire by airing a film about Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who committed the genocide on the Armenian people at the beginning of the last century.

The Islamic center also screens clips of Erdogan’s speeches in which he refers to Jerusalem as “occupied territory,” and has ties to the now-outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement and its leaders Sheikh Raed Salah and Kamal Khatib.

According to Middle East expert Mordechai Kedar, Khan Abu Khadiija is nothing less than “another foothold of revolutionary Islam” in the center of Jerusalem.

“This is how they buy the public with a big hug from Turkey – through business, tourism, and money,” Kedar toldIsrael Hayom.

Erdogan’s latest hostile move against Israel is now causing reconciliation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as between Jordan and the oil-rich Kingdom.

Israel is reportedly talking to the Saudis over partial participation in the Waqf, while Jordan is also reconcilingwith Saudi Arabia after having the same concerns about Erdogan’s imperialistic moves.

“These are sensitive and secret discussions conducted with ambiguity and low intensity with a small team of diplomats and senior security officials from Israel, the US, and Saudi Arabia as part of negotiations to progress the Deal of the Century,” according to unnamed Saudi officials who made clear that the negotiations are part of the new American approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Jordanians don’t approve the attempt by the Palestinian Authority to allow Turkey to expand its influence over the Temple Mount and Arab Jerusalem, and are now ready to put aside an old conflict that led to the expulsion of the Hashemite family – of which current Jordanian King Abdullah II is a member – from Saudi Arabia.

The Hashemite family descended from the Prophet Mohammed and used to control the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina until the al-Saud family ascended to power in what is now Saudi Arabia.

Apparently, Jordan is afraid that Erdogan’s meddling in Jerusalem will end in a complete take-over of the Waqf and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and decided to change its position on Saudi involvement in the Muslim trustee.

King Abdullah II is, furthermore, coping with a huge economic crisis in Jordan and needs Saudi Arabia’s wealth to stave off internal unrest and growing opposition to his regime.

From its side, the House of Saud fears Erdogan’s ambitions and has changed its approach to Israel under the influence of a growing relationship with the American government of President Donald J. Trump.

It won’t stop the attempts by the Turkish dictator to increase Turkey’s influence over Middle Eastern countries, however.

Turkey is currently trying to consolidate its control over northwestern Syria, and risks a new confrontation with the army of dictator Bashar al-Assad after Erdogan ordered heavy weapons to be transferred to the northern Syrian Idlib Province this week.

The Turkish leader is also upping his involvement in the Libyan civil war and uses Syrian mercenaries to battle opposition forces who were besieging the Libyan capital Tripoli.

Erdogan is also providing weapons and drones to the Libyan National Accord Government, and Turkish military personnel is overseeing battles in Libya while using brutal force against the Russian-backed opposition forces of General Khalifa Belqasim Haftar.

On the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, Erdogan is making provocative moves against Cyprus and Greece by drilling for oil and gas in parts of the sea that nobody recognizes as part of Turkey’s territorial waters.

This, despite warnings by the European Union and an unusual Egyptian move that shows Cairo is extremely worried about the Turkish dictator’s aspirations.

The government of President Abdel Fateh al-Sisi succeeded in cobbling together an international coalition that is supposed to prevent further provocative Turkish moves in the Mediterranean Sea.

The anti-Turkey coalition consists of Egypt, France, Greece, Cyprus, and the United Arab Emirates, but you could add Israel also to the list since it has the same concerns over Erdogan’s illegal moves in the Mediterranean Sea and the other imperialistic Turkish moves.

Pundits in Israel recently thought reconciliation between Israel and Turkey was on the horizon after ten years of tensions that began when the Israeli Navy stopped the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara that wanted to break the sea blockade of Gaza, killing nine Turkish Islamist activists.

The idea of reconciliation between Turkey and Israel originated from news that the Israeli carrier El Al made a cargo flight to Turkey for the first time in ten years.

Erdogan, however, put an end to these speculations when he blasted Israel again over its intention to apply Israeli law in the Jordan Valley.
During an address to American Muslims, Erdogan said the intended Israeli move was a new “occupation and annexation project, which disregards Palestine’s sovereignty and international law,” and vowed “not to allow the Palestinian lands to be offered to anyone else.”

The Turkish tyrant then warned Israel not to cross red lines in issues regarding Jerusalem. The city is “a red line for all Muslims worldwide,” according to Erdogan.

80 YEARS AGO, THE MIRACLE AT DUNKIRK GAVE HOPE TO THE FREE WORLD

In the dark days of WWII, heroic sacrifice, the leadership of Winston Churchill, and good fortune ensured the survival of the Allied resistance to Hitler.

By Joshua Lawson

The Federalist
June 4, 2020

Eighty years ago, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced the successful completion of the largest amphibious military evacuation of all time. Between May 26 and June 4, 1940, more than 338,000 Belgian, British, and French troops fled from Dunkirk, France across the stormy seas of the English Channel to safety, narrowly escaping annihilation at the hand of the Nazis.

Call it chance, destiny, luck, or Providence, the “miracle of the little ships” kept hope alive for the fledging Allied resistance to Adolf Hitler. But it was no sure thing.

At the start of “Operation Dynamo”—the codename for the Dunkirk evacuations—Churchill had been Prime Minister for a mere 16 days. Few Britons wanted the job. Prominent men like Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax were ready to negotiate peace with Hitler.

Yet Churchill never wavered. He assumed the mantle of the British Empire’s protector as if it were made for him. As he went to bed at 3 a.m. on May 11, Churchill later recalled, “I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.”

‘Be Ye Men of Valour’

 

As Harry Jaffa once noted, a true statesman knows how to judge wisely what is within his power to accomplish. No matter the worthiness of the goal, the “perfect” cannot become the enemy of the “good.” The odds of the British Expeditionary Force defending northern France and successfully repulsing the Nazi advance ranged from near-impossible to non-existent. Churchill grasped this reality, and he did not hide it from the British people.

On May 19, in his first public broadcast as Prime Minister, Churchill acknowledged “it would be foolish to disguise the gravity of the hour.” Preparing Britons for the long fight ahead, he recalled that well-equipped armies numbering millions of men could not be overcome in the space of a few weeks, or even months.

Even so, Churchill proclaimed it would be “more foolish to lose heart” and called on Britons to “wage war until victory is won…whatever the cost and the agony may be.”

Churchill concluded his radio address by quoting 1 Maccabees 3:58–60: “Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.”

The tone was set for the trying days to come. Churchill’s words became the vital fuel to stoke the spirit of the British people.

The Withdrawal to Dunkirk

 

Behind the scenes, the unprecedented collapse of the French military frustrated Churchill. Furthermore, isolationist sentiments in America hamstrung FDR’s ability to provide Britain with the full totality of resources she so desperately needed.

Churchill recognized that the best hope for the continued survival of the weakened Allies was a retreat back to the southern coast of England. Foreseeing the eventual need to extricate as many troops as possible before being trapped, on the evening of May 20, Churchill ordered the Admiralty to gather “a large number of small vessels” to be held at the ready to “proceed to ports and inlets on the French coast.”

Britain’s natural advantages as an island were its salvation countless times before—so it would be again. Churchill told his Cabinet that if the army could be safely brought home, Britain could “hold out” and make the Nazis “rue the day they try to invade.”

The best exit ramp for the BEF was the harbor township of Dunkirk. “We cannot leave our army to be surrendered,” Churchill exclaimed to the War Cabinet that evening, “if we lose the men then we lose the war.”

‘The Bit of Grit that Saved Us’

 

The longshot chance to rescue the BEF necessitated a tragic reality. The 30th Brigade and the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment holed up in Calais would not be able to join the escape. The 30th’s commander, Brigadier General Claude Nicholson, was told of his duty: stay behind and delay the Germans as long as possible. Upon the delivery of the fatal orders, Churchill informed Anthony Eden he felt “physically sick.”

Nicholson and his men fought bravely, resisted numerous calls for surrender, and held their defense parameter for three days before ultimately succumbing to the Nazi onslaught. Of the nearly 4,000 men defending Calais, 200 evaded capture, and 300 died in combat. The rest became prisoners of the 10th Panzer Division. Tragically, Nicholson would die in captivity in 1943.

Churchill paid tribute to the steadfast men of Calais in parliament two months later, proclaiming they were “the bit of grit that saved us.”

Unbeknownst to Churchill at the time, Hitler commanded German tank progress to stop while enroute to the Dunkirk region. The führer’s order stood until midway through May 26. It took a full 16 hours for German tanks to get rolling again once the halt was lifted. This colossal misstep by the Nazis gave British commanders just enough time to establish the requisite defense parameter to support the evacuations.

Aiding Churchill’s Hail Mary operation, and compounding the effect of the Nazis’s hesitation, several storms and unprecedented heavy rains slowed down both the formidable airplanes of the German Luftwaffe and Hitler’s relentless tank divisions.

Flying over the beaches of Dunkirk three years later, Churchill remarked that he would never understand why Hitler didn’t finish off the BEF when he had the chance.

Grim Stakes and Impossible Odds

 

The design of Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay, Operation Dynamo began in earnest at 7 p.m. on May 26. That day, British Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Alexander Cadogan wrote in his diary that the position of the BEF was “awful” and that he saw “no hope for more than a tiny fraction of them.” Churchill told parliament the Dunkirk situation was “extremely grave” and to brace for “hard and heavy tidings.”

When there were still doubts as to whether Britain should withdraw to fight another day or sue for peace with the Nazis, Churchill drew upon his deep knowledge of history and outlined the stakes: “Nations which went down fighting rose again, but those which tamely surrendered were finished.”

“If this long island story of ours is to end at last,” Churchill told his War Cabinet, “let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.” That settled the issue. Britain would carry on the fight from her island with however many men could still bear arms.

The Miracle of the Little Ships

 

Privately, Churchill expected no more than 30,000 BEF troops would make it back. Yet against all odds, the dire predictions proved wrong.

Some 25,473 soldiers reached the British coast from May 27-28, followed by 47,310 rescued on May 29, and 53,823 on May 30. An astounding 68,014 embarked on May 31, when at its peak, 4,000 men left France each hour.

The last daylight evacuations took place on June 1 after increasing Nazi aerial bombardment rendered them too dangerous. That day, 64,429 Allied soldiers departed safely. In the final three days of Operation Dynamo, an additional 79,177 British and French troops were carefully ferried across the Channel at night.

In an echo of ancient Spartan battlefield tradition, the last Brit to leave the Dunkirk beachhead was the officer in charge of completing the withdrawal. General Harold Alexander boarded the final Royal Navy destroyer only after he was certain all available British troops evacuated safely.

220 military ships and more than 860 total vessels took part in the evacuation. The hodge-podge armada comprised boats of all shapes and sizes. Tugboats, fishing trawlers, minesweepers, motorized lifeboats, and even pleasure craft scrambled from coastal resorts played their part alongside Royal Navy corvettes and destroyers. It was, as Churchill would tell the House of Commons, a miracle of deliverance.

Providing Hope to the Free World

 

Back on May 28, Churchill’s made it known he would address parliament on June 4 to provide an update on the situation. At the time, Churchill feared it would fall to him to announce the greatest military disaster in British history. Instead, he was able to report the remarkable salvation of more than 330,000 brave men.

Yet amidst the jubilation caused by the Dunkirk miracle, Churchill reminded the Commons that “wars are not won by evacuations.” And there were severe losses. More than 200 British and Allied ships were sunk, including six valuable destroyers. The Royal Air Force lost 116 pilots protecting the evacuation convoys. To prevent valuable war materiel falling into the hands of the enemy, the British abandoned or destroyed several hundred tanks, 400 antiaircraft guns, 2,000 field guns, 60,000 vehicles, 90,000 rifles, and 600,000 tons of fuel. In the final tally, more than 40,000 men of the BEF were captured, wounded, or killed during the nine days of Operation Dynamo.

Perilous times lay ahead for Britain and her Empire. Though codebreakers at Bletchley Park had discovered a direct assault on Britain was not imminent, there was little doubt in British High Command that the full weight of Hitler’s might and fury would soon assault their island home.

Into this daunting challenge, Churchill responded with one of the greatest moments of his storied career. The peroration of Churchill’s June 4 speech ranks amongst the finest oratory ever recorded. Churchill proclaimed:

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…
 

Labour MP Josiah Wedgwood wrote that Churchill’s words were “worth 1,000 guns.” Harold Nicolson told his wife, “This afternoon Winston made the finest speech that I have ever heard. The House was deeply moved.”

Following the brief moments of reprieve after Dunkirk, it fell on Churchill and the British Empire to fight the Nazi menace alone. Yet in the harsh months to come, Britain held steadfast and resolute, until, as Churchill had predicted, the New World, with all of its power and might, stepped forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old, and ensured the sacrifice of Dunkirk was not in vain.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Hitler made three serious strategic mistakes.   He failed to stop the evacuation of British and French troops from Dunkirk, He did not invade England after Dunkirk, and he invaded the Soviet Union.