Trump retweets video of black conservative Candace Owens attacking George Floyd
By Jon Levine
New York Post
June 6, 2020
President Trump retweeted a video Friday of right-wing commentators Glenn Beck and Candace Owens attacking the reputation of George Floyd.
“The fact that he has been held up as a martyr sickens me,” Owens told Beck in the footage. “George Floyd was not a good person.”
As mass protests rocked the nation for yet another day, the Trump retweet amplified the message to a worldwide audience and his 81.8 million Twitter followers.
Beck and Owens then delved into Floyd’s lengthy criminal record, which included time behind bars. Floyd’s autopsy report revealed he had both fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death.
“Is this really the guy that Black America … is this the symbol of Black America today?” Beck wondered, though adding that Floyd’s treatment by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin had been wrong.
“I don’t care WHAT George Floyd did. The officer should have never treated him like that and killed him!” Beck wrote in a tweet sharing the video.
Sunday, June 07, 2020
MAYBE I AM A BAD PERSON, OR PERHAPS I AM JUST SHALLOW
But I Am Getting Really Tired Of Hearing About George Floyd
by Bob Walsh
George
Floyd wasn't Mother Theresa. He wasn't really a good person. He was a
thief and a doper and a robber who was almost certainly killed by a
Minneapolis cop without any sort of reasonable justification. It looks
like there is at least a fair chance that "the system" is going to deal
appropriately with those involved. Maybe we should let it.
I
am tired of two weeks of "demonstrations." I am tired of two weeks of
fucking riots and thievery. I am tied of listening to self-serving
whores (aka politicians) talk about how we need to defund the police or
end systematic racism or White privilege or sleeping in church or
farting in the subway or whatever the hell is putting a bee under
someone's bonnet. If you have any actual fucking ideas I wouldn't mind
listening to those.
Is
America perfect? No. But we try to get better all the time. Mostly
we succeed. People still risk their lives to come here, many of them in
violation of our laws, so somebody must like it here.
How
does breaking into somebody's store and burning it down or stealing a
car or shooting some poor bastard down in the street make it better for
people like George Floyd? Maybe one of these "protesters" can answer
that for me.
PLAGUE / RIOT REPORT UPDATE FROM STOCKTON
by Bob Walsh
Went
by a gun store / range I do some business with but haven't been to
since the plague hit. Got there about 15 minutes after opening time and
couldn't even get into the parking lot. I THINK they were maybe doing a
CCW class as well as normal business but I am not sure.
Went
by another gun store / range I do a lot of business with. Range has
been closed for weeks but the store has been open on a minimal customer
load basis. All the windows were boarded up and the security door was
down and padlocked. I suspect it was in reaction to a crash and grab
burglary at a Hayward gun store last weekend but I don't know that for a
fact. Could have been something closer to home.
By
the time you read this I will be out with my IDPA group for the first
time in months blasting away at things and getting in some quality
trigger time. I am too old and slow so I am no longer competitive, but I
have fun and keep my skill level up so that is good. They are limiting
each squad to ten so I will have to get my ass up and do more taping
and brass than I usually do. If there are 15+ nobody bothers me about
it because I am so slow I am almost in the way. When there only 10 I
feel bad if I can't do my bit, which is definitely not going to do my
knee any good. As long as I get a lot of good hits, very few poor hits
and misses and don't shoot any good guys I am reasonably happy.
They
had some major interruptions and demonstrations in Sacramento two days
ago and a little bit in downtown Stockton. They seemed to be semi-legit
protests, no violence, though the deliberate interference with traffic
is IMHO unfair to people who just want to get on with their lives.
I
did note the Walgreen's stores in my area are now closing up well
before dark. I wouldn't be surprised if other similar retailers are
doing the same thing. Just in case.
With
luck these "protesters" will now go away and wait for the trials to
produce some results. I am, however, not betting on it.
HUGE FAKE NEWS STORY
by Bob Walsh
There
is a huge fake news story out of Valhermoso Springs, Alabama.
Allegedly the cops responded to a house on fire early Friday and found
seven people and one dog shot to death in the burning building.
The
cops had responded to the house on numerous occasions, mostly for drug
related issues as well as robbery, trespassing and disturbing the peace
beefs.
Since
we all know that drugs crimes are victimless and druggies just want to
use drugs and be mellow obviously this story is false. I think the dog
shot the seven people in the house and then committed suicide. Case
closed. Nothing to see here. Move along.
VAMPIRES ARE DANGEROUS
by Bob Walsh
Joshua
Rudiger, 42, is a guest of the people of the formerly great state of
California. He lives at the California Health Care Facility (state
prison hospital) outside of Stockton. He believes he is an ancient
vampire and has the bad habit of slashing people's throats and drinking
their blood. Even in California that is sort-of illegal.
He
is believed to have murdered Aaron Coderre, 40, in a shower room at the
facility on Sunday afternoon a week ago. Corderre was doing life for
an attempted murder out of Butte County. Rudiger is doing life for
killing one homeless woman and attempting to kill three other homeless
people in the People's Republic of San Francisco in 1998 so he could
drink their blood. When questioned about it, he responded, "Prey is
prey."
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PREVENTED?
McAllen police: Man wielding chainsaw at protestors in custody; charges pending
NY COPS IN PERI IF THEY CONTROL PROTESTERS
NYPD suspends two cops over misconduct caught on camera during protests
By Vincent Barone
New York Post
June 5, 2020
The NYPD has suspended two officers who were caught on bystander video shoving and pepper-spraying protesters at separate George Floyd demonstrations over the past week.
Both videos had gone viral as examples of apparently unprovoked violence against peaceful protesters; the two officers, who were not identified by NYPD officials, have been suspended without pay.
In the first incident, from Friday, May 29, the offending officer was caught on camera shoving Dounya Zayer to the ground as she peacefully protested in Brooklyn.
The officer can be heard calling Zayer a “stupid bitch” before pushing her to the pavement. She suffered a seizure and concussion, she has said.
The second cop was filmed the next day pulling down a protester’s mask and pepper-spraying him in the face.
The NYPD’s investigation into the two incidents is ongoing, Commissioner Dermot Shea announced Friday.
“These incidents mentioned below are disturbing and run counter to the principles of NYPD training, as well as our mission of public safety,” Shea said. “The actions by these officers stand apart from the restrained work of the thousands of other officers who have worked tirelessly to protect those who are peacefully protesting and keep all New Yorkers safe.”
Shea added that “there are other matters that we are actively investigating and we will be transparent as the process continues.”
Zayer chided the officer who shoved her from her hospital bed after the incident.
“Them acting the way they acted isn’t helping the cause,” she tweeted shortly after the attack. “It isn’t proving to us that they care about us.”
KAEPERNICK'S FREEDOM FIGHTERS USE ROLLS-ROYCE TO LOOT
Looters flee in luxury SUVs, including a $300k Rolls-Royce, after ransacking NYC stores
By Natalie O'Neill
New York Post
June 3, 2020
New York City looters were caught on camera pulling up in luxury SUVs — including what was claimed to be a pricey Rolls-Royce — before apparently looting an upscale retail store in Manhattan, according to footage shared on social media.
The video, filmed by Justine Miller and Keith Feldman, shows a group of men in masks hopping out of two cars and charging through a smashed door in Soho before running back outside carrying boxes of goods on Monday night.
“Looters are literally pulling up in nice cars and cleaning out stores in #Soho. What #Curfew?” Feldman wrote on Twitter.
One of the men can be heard shouting, “Come on, come on!” before the apparent thieves jump back in their luxury rides and drive away.
“That’s a $500,000 Rolls Royce on the right, incredible,” one observer wrote on Twitter.
Another identified the car as a Rolls-Royce Cullinan, which they claim “starts north of $300k.”
The retail raid came amid an 11 p.m. citywide curfew enacted Monday night, implemented after protesters furious over the death of George Floyd turned violent in Manhattan. The curfew start time was then moved to 8 p.m. by Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday and extended through Sunday night.
The name and location of the shop in the footage were not immediately clear — nor was it clear if police were called.
NYC'S BLACK PUBLIC ADVOCATE RIPS INTO DE BLASIO
Jumaane Williams to de Blasio: ‘You can no longer hide behind your black wife and children’
By Julia Marsh
New York Post
June 5, 2020
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams just made his criticism of Bill de Blasio’s handling of Big Apple protests personal — accusing the mayor of using his biracial family as a political shield.
“This is me talking, like, you can no longer hide behind your black wife and children, not anymore,” Williams said during a press conference live-streamed on Facebook Friday.
“You’re exposed now. We are at a time when we need your leadership. It is not there,” Williams said.
A spokeswoman for the mayor did not immediately return a request for comment.
De Blasio’s wife, first lady Chirlane McCray, is black, and they share two biracial children, Dante, 23 and Chiara, 25.
In 2013, then 15-year-old Dante, sporting a puffed-out afro, starred in a campaign ad for his father’s mayoral race that some pundits say helped de Blasio clinch the primary race.
A year later, thousands of cops turned their backs on the mayor at the funerals for a pair of officers who were shot just weeks after an interview in which de Blasio said he and McCray had taught Dante about the “dangers” posed by the police to young black men.
Williams’ rebuke comes a day after de Blasio was booed off the stage at a George Floyd memorial in Brooklyn.
When the mayor attempted to tell the crowd, “Black lives matter in New York,” one heckler shouted, “Not to you!” even as McCray stood by de Blasio’s side.
And in an echo of the 2014 police funeral, much of the crowd turned their backs on the mayor before he finished speaking.
On Friday, Williams said the NYPD should take a hands-off approach to protestors who are demonstrating past the city’s 8 p.m. curfew, instead of aggressively shutting them down.
“Don’t put additional tension spots and say you got to be home by this time,” he said, before faulting the mayor for failing to assure protests remain peaceful.
“It’s like you’re not even trying. I don’t know how much you care at his point to put forth a plan. I guess it’s good to show up at a George Floyd memorial, but where’s your plan?” Williams asked.
Pressed on his Facebook comment, Williams later said, “This time we’re in is not about the mayor’s family or any one family, but the thousands of families and people across the city who are looking for leadership and action but aren’t receiving it.”
PUSH COPS CHARGED
Two Buffalo cops are charged with assault for shoving peace activist, 75, during protests and hide from cameras in court - while hundreds of colleagues gather outside in solidarity over their 'disgusting' treatment
Daily Mail
June 6, 2020
Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe were each charged with one count of assault in the second degree over the shocking incident that left peaceful protester Martin Gugino in a 'serious condition' in hospital.
The cops were arraigned Saturday morning in a virtual court hearing where they both pleaded not guilty to the charges. They each face up to seven years in prison if convicted of the class D felony. They will appear in court on July 20.
The announcement came as hundreds of non-uniformed cops gathered outside the city court in the latest show of support of their colleagues, one day after the entire 57-strong Buffalo Police Department's Emergency Response Team resigned in outrage at their suspension without pay.
Shocking footage showed the two cops pushing 75-year-old Gugino to the ground, causing him to crack his head on the ground. The two cops were suspended without pay immediately and calls mounted for them to be fired.
__________
Buffalo mayor says 75-year-old man who was shoved to the ground by police was an 'agitator trying to spark up crowd of protesters' and won't fire two cops amid the ongoing investigation because it's 'very important they get due process'
Daily Mail
June 5, 2020
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has said the
75-year-old man who was shoved to the ground by two cops on Thursday was
an 'agitator' who tried to work up the crowd and had been asked to
leave the area 'numerous' times.
Brown
addressed the incident in a press conference on Friday after 57
officers on the Emergency Response Team resigned from their positions in
support of their two colleagues who were suspended without pay after
video showed them pushing protester Martin Gugino and causing him to
fall and hit his head.
Gugino, a
longtime peace activist from Amherst, had been at a protest at Niagara
Square near Buffalo City Hall when he approached a line of officers in
riot gear after the city's 8pm curfew went into effect.
'What
we were informed of is that that individual was an agitator. He was
trying to spark up the crowd of people. Those people were there into the
darkness. Our concern is when it gets dark, there is a potential for
violence,' Brown said.
'There has been vandalism, there have been fires set, there have been stores broken into and looted. According to what was reported to me, that individual was a key major instigator of people engaging in those activities.'
The mayor said he will not call for the two officers to be fired amid the ongoing investigation, adding it was 'very important they get due process.'
MAYOR WOODARDS, SHUT THE FUCK UP
Police unions criticize ‘theatrics’ in Tacoma mayor’s order to fire officers in Ellis case
By Stacia Glenn
The News Tribune
June 5, 2020
Two Tacoma police unions are pushing back against Mayor Victoria Woodards’ demand that four officers involved in the death of Manuel Ellis be fired.
Tensions have risen this week around the case of Ellis, a black man who died March 3 while being restrained by police in South Tacoma.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the 33-year-old’s death a homicide, which legally means he was killed by another person. Fatal police shootings, for instance, are generally determined to be homicides. It is up to prosecutors to decide if police acted lawfully and if the homicide was justifiable or a criminal act was committed.
Ellis died from oxygen deprivation due to physical restraint, with methamphetamine intoxication and heart disease as contributing factors, according to the Medical Examiner.
Those findings prompted his family to call for an independent investigation, separate from the one being conducted by the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
On Thursday, a video surfaced showing a portion of Ellis’ encounter with police.
Woodards then addressed the public in a press conference aired live on Tacoma TV and Facebook.
“The officers who committed this crime should be fired and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” she said. “I am demanding tonight that the Pierce County Sheriff review and confirm every action taken by each officer.”
The four officers involved in restraining Ellis have been identified as Christopher Burbank, 34; Matthew Collins, 37; Masyih Ford, 28; and Timothy Rankine, 31.
They were placed on administrative leave after the autopsy findings became public Wednesday.
Within hours of Woodards’ statement, Tacoma police union representatives released a statement accusing the mayor of “theatrics” and claiming the investigation will show the officers “did no wrong.”
“This is not a time to sacrifice dedicated public servants at the altar of public sentiment, especially when that sentiment is almost wholly fueled by the uninformed anger of a theatrical politician,” they wrote.
On Friday, the Tacoma Police Management Association, which represents lieutenants and captains, voiced their concerns.
“Mayor Woodards’ inflammatory language calling the Officers criminals and calling for their prosecution before the incident is reviewed by the Prosecutor’s Office does not suit the office of the Mayor,” representatives said in the statement. “We expect more from our Mayor than an angry theatrical reaction to a short partial video of our Officers attempting to take Mr. Ellis into custody.”
Representatives of both unions said they were appalled by the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died May 25 in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes, but said the Ellis and Floyd cases are not the same.
Both unions said they’re eager to see the completed investigation, which is expected to be forwarded to the Prosecutor’s Office by next week.
Prosecutors then will determine whether the officers’ actions warrant criminal charges or if Ellis’ death was a justifiable homicide.
The Management Association asked Woodards to retract her statement until the investigation is over. Efforts by The News Tribune to reach Woodards on Friday morning were unsuccessful.
“Mayor Woodards’ reckless, inflammatory language only escalates anger instead of unifying our city and awaiting a full report of facts. Mayor Woodards’ blatant and concerted disregard for the rule of law serves only one purpose, which is to undermine the constitutional rights of all citizens,” union representatives said in their statement. “The officers involved in this tragedy must be afforded the same rights as all citizens.”
Police Chief Don Ramsdell has not yet commented on the mayor’s demands.
Investigators have said Ellis was trying to open doors of occupied vehicles and attacked two officers who encountered him at the intersection of South 96th Street and Ainsworth Avenue.
His family said they do not believe Ellis would have behaved that way and believe the officers killed Ellis without cause.
In the video, Ellis can be seen on the ground struggling with two officers while a passerby screams for police to stop hitting him.
It is unclear where the other two officers were at the time or what role they played in Ellis’ death.
The Police Department identified the four officers as all having been a part of restraining Ellis at one point during the encounter.
Ellis said, “Can’t breathe,” during the encounter, at which time sheriff’s detectives say the Tacoma officers rolled him on his side.
Police called for medical aid at 11:26 p.m., four minutes after the encounter began.
Within a minute of firefighters arriving on scene, Ellis stopped breathing and lost consciousness.
Paramedics performed CPR for nearly 90 minutes, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
RALPH IS IN THE IC UNIT AT THE HOSPITAL
Ralph gets home late one night and Linda, his wife says, 'Where in the hell have you been?'
Ralph replies, 'I was out getting a tattoo.'
'A tattoo?' she frowned. 'What kind of tattoo did you get?'
'I got a hundred dollar bill on my dick,' he said proudly.
'What the hell were you thinking? She said; shaking her head in disgust... 'Why on earth would an accountant get a hundred dollar bill tattooed on his dick?'
Well, one, I like to watch my money grow.
Two, once in a while I like to play with my money.
Three, I like how money feels in my hand.
And, lastly, instead of you going out shopping, you can stay right here at home and blow a hundred bucks anytime you want.
Ralph is recovering in the IC unit at the hospital!
Ralph replies, 'I was out getting a tattoo.'
'A tattoo?' she frowned. 'What kind of tattoo did you get?'
'I got a hundred dollar bill on my dick,' he said proudly.
'What the hell were you thinking? She said; shaking her head in disgust... 'Why on earth would an accountant get a hundred dollar bill tattooed on his dick?'
Well, one, I like to watch my money grow.
Two, once in a while I like to play with my money.
Three, I like how money feels in my hand.
And, lastly, instead of you going out shopping, you can stay right here at home and blow a hundred bucks anytime you want.
Ralph is recovering in the IC unit at the hospital!
Saturday, June 06, 2020
KAEPERNICK'S FREEDOM FIGHTERS LIBERATE AN OAKLAND MERCEDES DEALERSHIP
They suffered no casualties in their sortie against the white enemy and they destroyed a bunch of the enemy's spanking new luxury cars
And they met no resistance from the enemy's troops, the cops, who were nowhere in sight.
And they met no resistance from the enemy's troops, the cops, who were nowhere in sight.
SAINTS QUARTERBACK GETS SINGED FOR CALLING FOR RSPECT OF FLAG AND COUNTRY
Drew Brees catches heat from Malcolm Jenkins and other star athletes for 'disrespecting the flag' remark
Drees couldn't stand the heat, so he apologized
His response came Wednesday in an interview with Yahoo Finance, when asked his opinion about players kneeling to protest police brutality once the NFL season begins this fall.
Brees
said respecting the National Anthem is not just about showing respect
to the military, but also to anyone who sacrificed for this country,
including those in the civil rights movement.
"And
is everything right with our country right now? No, it's not," Brees
said in the interview. "We still have a long way to go. But I think what
you do by standing there and showing respect to the flag with your hand
over your heart, is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this
together, we can all do better, and that we are all part of the
solution."
"You
literally still don't understand why Kap was kneeling on one knee??"
James said in a tweet, referencing Colin Kaepernick. "Has absolute
nothing to do with the disrespect of (the flag of United States) and our
soldiers."
James went on to
discuss his own father-in-law who was in the Army, saying that he never
found Kaepernick -- who famously knelt during the national anthem to
protest police brutality -- disrespectful, "because he and I both know
what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong!"
Michael Thomas, a wide receiver on the Saints, didn't call out Brees specifically -- but he did retweet a comment from a journalist,
reading "How can anyone watch George Floyd get murdered and their first
response when asked about it is ResPEcC tHe fLAg." Thomas added a
puking emoji.
Malcolm Jenkins, a safety for the Saints, had stronger words. In a tear-filled four-minute video posted to Instagram, Jenkins expressed his hurt and disappointment in Brees, saying that he is part of the problem.
"When
I step off the field and I take my helmet off, I'm a black man walking
around in America and I'm telling you I'm dealing with these things, I'm
telling you my communities are dealing with these things, and your
response to me is don't talk about that here ... where is the place,
Drew?"
"When the world tells you
that you're not worthy, that your life doesn't matter, the last place
you want to hear it from are the guys that you go to war with and the
guys you consider to be your allies and your friends," Jenkins said.
"Even though we're teammates, I cant let this slide."
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers also spoke up -- though he didn't reference Brees or his comments specifically.
"A few years ago we were criticized for locking arms in solidarity before the game," Rodgers said in an Instagram post.
"It has NEVER been about an anthem or a flag. Not then. Not now. Listen
with an open heart, let's educate ourselves, and then turn word and
thought into action."
Black players
make up about 70% of the NFL. In 2018, the NFL passed a policy to fine
players for kneeling during the anthem, which was done to protest police
brutality and racial injustice in the US. The punishment associated
with the policy was later nixed, though the policy itself still
remained.
__________
Drees couldn't stand the heat, so he apologized
Here is his sniveling apology:
EDITOR'S NOTE: Drees didn't owe anyone an apology. Instead of having "completely missed the mark," he was spot on! It is sad to see a man who stood up for respect of flag and country completely cave in to a bunch of ungrateful, unpatriotic assholes..
DID SENILE JOE JUST HAVE HIS "BASKET OF DEPLORABLES" MOMENT ?
by Bob Walsh
Good
old Senile Joe The Hairsniffer make a comment, that may or may not have
been off the cuff, when talking to a couple of Black liberal talking
heads yesterday. He asserted that about 10-15% of the population of
America were "just not very good people."
So,
what did he mean, or more precisely who did he mean? Trump
supporters? White Trump supporters? Black Trump supporters? Gun
owners? People who disapprove of looting? Black people who don't
support democratic-socialism? Anybody who doesn't hate cops? Anybody
who doesn't suck ass on BLM or AntiFa? Anybody who has an IQ above 85?
Anybody capable of critical, independent thought? Anybody who
disapproves of pigeon-holing people to ensure their victimhood is
categorized properly? Anybody who thinks that Barbara Streisand is full
of shit and Nancy Pelosi is deranged?
The possibilities are almost endless.
Now
if he had said that 10-15% of Americans were not very smart I would
have agreed. 48% of the voters voted for Hillary (46% voted for Trump).
YES, THINGS ARE LOOKING UP
And Experts Are Often Full Of Shit
by Bob Walsh
The
April job numbers came out yesterday. The "experts" predicted about
7.5 million or more new jobless claims. In fact there were 2.5 million
NEW jobs in April. So they were only off 10 million. By the way, that
is the biggest one-month number since they have been keeping track.
On
that news (among others) the DJIA bounced up over 800 points, closing
above 27,000 for the first time in 90 days. A lot of big names in
leisure and transportation took huge jumps yesterday.
Things are definitely looking up.
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.
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.
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.
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