Today's News (2020/5/28): The Shooting Starts Edition

[solarbird]

Order's a little random, but you get the idea.

Many years ago, the baby boom generation made their real cultural impact with the so-called "Summer of Love." That was the beginning of cultural dominance. It looks very much like end of that cultural dominance - or at least, the beginning of the end - will be a Summer of Hate.

And to be very fucking clear: I don't mean the people pushing back against police murdering them at will. I mean the whole fascist Trump movement that'll let a "President" tweet that he's just going to order troops to start shooting people.

Summer of Love, Summer of Hate. At least there is a kind of symmetry.

And now, the headlines.

1. Govt officials deny Trump’s claim of talk with Modi on LAC situation
2. Trump threatens to order the national guard to shoot in Minneapolis, twitter flags and conceals tweet by default
3. Police officer in Minneapolis drive-by sprays bystanders with pepper spray without apparent provocation
4. Alleged video of an undercover cop in Minneapolis smashing windows
5. ‘They want their civil war’: Far-right ‘boogaloo’ militants are embedded in the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis
6. Washington state wrestling coach mocks George Floyd’s death
7. Trump signs order that could punish social media companies for how they police content, drawing criticism and doubts of legality
8. Snohomish County deputies reinstated by new sheriff to stay on prosecutor’s list of officers with credibility problems
9. Breaking precedent, White House won’t release formal economic projections this summer that would forecast extent of downturn
10. At least 7 shot at Louisville protest for Breonna Taylor, a black woman fatally shot by police [EDITOR: ALSO HAPPENED OVERNIGHT]

----- 1 -----
Govt officials deny Trump’s claim of talk with Modi on LAC situation
They say they were taken by surprise by the U.S. President’s remarks
Suhasini Haidar
NEW DELHI, May 29, 2020

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-officials-deny-trumps-claim-of-talk-with-modi-on-lac-situation/article31700766.ece

The government on Friday forcefully rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that he had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the situation on the Line of Actual Control with China, or that the two leaders spoke at all.

“There has been no recent contact between PM Modi and President Trump. The last conversation between them was on 4 April 2020 on the subject of Hydroxychloroquine,” said government sources, who did not wish to be identified.

Government officials told The Hindu they were taken by surprise by the U.S. President’s comments, particularly his reference to PM Modi’s “mood” when Mr. Trump claimed to have spoken to him.

“I can tell you, I did speak to Prime Minister Modi. He's not – he's not in a good mood about what's going on with China,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday (Friday morning India time).

The sources also dismissed Mr. Trump’s repeated offer of mediation, saying that India and China were in touch directly. Earlier on Thursday, Mr. Trump said on Twitter that he was willing to “mediate or arbitrate” over what he called the “raging border dispute” between India and China.


----- 2 -----
Donald J. Trump
twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
28 May 2020

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1266231100780744704

....These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!


----- 3 -----
jordan
twitter.com/JordanUhl
28 May 2020

https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1266193926316228609

piece of shit cop in Minneapolis just sprays bystanders with pepper spray as they drive by

[EMBEDDED VIDEO]


----- 4 -----
Dylan
twitter.com/dyllyp
28 May 2020

https://twitter.com/dyllyp/status/1266107862918377472

[EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS IS NOT CONFIRMED.]

Here’s video of an undercover cop in Minneapolis smashing windows while a member of the community tries to stop him

[EMBEDDED VIDEO and THREAD]


----- 5 -----
‘They want their civil war’: Far-right ‘boogaloo’ militants are embedded in the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis
By Jordan Green, Special to Raw Story
28 May 2020

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/they-want-their-civil-war-far-right-boogaloo-militants-embedded-themselves-in-the-george-floyd-protests-in-minneapolis/

Young, white men dressed in Hawaiian-style print shirts and body armor, and carrying high-powered rifles have been a notable feature at state capitols, lending an edgy and even sometimes insurrectionary tone to gatherings of conservatives angered by restrictions on businesses and church gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic.

Just as many states are reopening their economies — and taking the wind out of the conservative protests — the boogaloo movement found a new galvanizing cause: the protests in Minneapolis against the police killing of George Floyd.

A new iteration of the militia movement, boogaloo was born out of internet forums for gun enthusiasts that repurposed the 1984 movie Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo as a code for a second civil war, and then modified it into phrases like “big luau” to create an insular community for those in on the joke, with Hawaiian-style shirts functioning as an in-real-life identifier. Boogaloo gained currency as an internet meme over the summer of 2019, when it was adopted by white supremacists in the accelerationist tendency. In January, the movement made the leap from the internet to the streets when a group boogaloo-ers showed up at the Second Amendment rally in Richmond, Va.


----- 6 -----
Washington state wrestling coach mocks George Floyd’s death
By Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
May 28, 2020

https://nypost.com/2020/05/28/washington-state-wrestling-coach-mocks-george-floyds-death/

A Washington state high school wrestling coach is under fire for mocking the Minneapolis death of George Floyd on Twitter, according to a report.

Bethel High School first-year coach Dave Hollenbeck posted a photo of himself on the floor, smiling, with a knee to the back of his neck — similar to images caught on viral video of Floyd pinned down by a white Minneapolis cop on Monday before he died.

“Not dead yet I’m doing this for Are police officers the media is a race baiting machine and I’m tired of it,” Hollenbeck wrote in a typo-laden post, KIRO-TV reported Wednesday. “I’m going to speak out every time if you don’t like that I’m sorry but I love All people.. Wake up America.”

In a second post, Hollenbeck writes, “This is for all the race baiters and people that don’t What they’re talking about when they’re saying this could kill you.”

The original posts appear to have been deleted.

In a statement to NBC affiliate KING-TV, Bethel School District spokesman Doug Boyles said it is investigating the incident.

“We are investigating the post,” Boyles said. “Dave Hollenbeck is not a teacher. This was his first year as a wrestling coach at Bethel High School. As wrestling season is over, he is not working for us right now.”


----- 7 -----
Trump signs order that could punish social media companies for how they police content, drawing criticism and doubts of legality
By Tony Romm and Elizabeth Dwoskin
May 28, 2020 at 4:25 p.m. PDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/28/trump-social-media-executive-order/

President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order that could open the door for the U.S. government to assume oversight of political speech on the Internet, a broadside against Silicon Valley that a wide array of critics derided as a threat to free speech.

The new directive seeks to change a federal law that has spared tech companies from being sued or held liable for most posts, photos and videos shared by users on their sites. Tech giants herald these protections, known as Section 230, as the bedrock of the Internet. But Trump repeatedly has argued they allow Facebook, Google and Twitter to censor conservatives with impunity — charges these companies deny.

“We’re here today to defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers,” Trump said before signing the document.

The order signed Thursday encourages the Federal Communications Commission to rethink the scope of Section 230 and when its liability protections apply. The order also seeks to channel complaints about political bias to the Federal Trade Commission, an agency that the White House has asked to probe whether tech companies’ content-moderation policies are in keeping with their pledges of neutrality.

The order additionally created a council in cooperation with state attorneys general to probe allegations of censorship based on political views. And it tasked federal agencies with reviewing their spending on social media advertising.

While Trump has threatened to penalize tech companies for years, his signing of the order Thursday came in response to a decision by Twitter earlier in the week to mark two of his erroneous tweets with fact-checking labels. The small move set off a firestorm of tweets by the president threatening social media companies with regulations and other punishments.


----- 8 -----
Snohomish County deputies reinstated by new sheriff to stay on prosecutor’s list of officers with credibility problems
May 17, 2020 at 6:00 am
By Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/snohomish-county-deputies-reinstated-by-new-sheriff-to-stay-on-prosecutors-list-of-officers-with-credibility-problems/

Two Snohomish County deputies fired by the previous sheriff for dishonesty but reinstated by newly elected Sheriff Adam Fortney will remain on a county prosecutor’s list of law enforcement officers with credibility problems.

Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Adam Cornell earlier this year had placed deputies Evan Twedt and Mathew Boice on his office’s “Potential Impeachment Disclosure” (PID) list after they were fired, and said they will stay there in an email sent to Fortney earlier this month.

“Over the course of the last few weeks I have heard from more than a couple of people that deputies Boice and Twedt may have been representing to others that they are no longer on my office’s PID list,” Cornell wrote to the sheriff in a May 5 email obtained by The Seattle Times through a public-disclosure request. “That is incorrect. As you are aware, this issue was addressed in January of this year. … It is not appropriate for either deputy to be misrepresenting their status on the PID list.”


----- 9 -----
Breaking precedent, White House won’t release formal economic projections this summer that would forecast extent of downturn
The president’s aides will not publish updated economic forecasts, citing volatility in U.S. economy
By Jeff Stein and Josh Dawsey
May 28, 2020 at 7:05 a.m. PDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/28/white-house-coronavirus-economic-projections/

White House officials have decided not to release updated economic projections this summer, opting against publishing forecasts that would almost certainly codify an administration assessment that the coronavirus pandemic has led to a severe economic downturn, according to three people with knowledge of the decision.

The White House is supposed to unveil a federal budget proposal every February and then typically provides a “mid-session review” in July or August with updated projections on economic trends such as unemployment, inflation and economic growth.

Budget experts said they were not aware of any previous White House opting against providing forecasts in this “mid-session review” document in any other year since at least the 1970s.

Two White House officials confirmed the decision had been made not to include the economic projections as part of the mid-session release. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said that the novel coronavirus is causing extreme volatility in the U.S. economy, making it difficult to model economic trends.


----- 10 -----
At least 7 shot at Louisville protest for Breonna Taylor, a black woman fatally shot by police
Associated Press
May 29, 2020

https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-breonna-taylor-protest-louisville-shooting-20200529-olawjxshqbb6rgfj4u7ktaxhde-story.html

At least seven people were shot in Louisville as protesters turned out to demand justice for Breonna Taylor, a black woman fatally shot by police in her home in March.

Louisville Metro Police confirmed in a statement early Friday that there were at least seven shooting victims, at least one of whom is in critical condition. The statement said there were “some arrests,” but police didn't provide a number.

“No officers discharged their service weapons,” police spokesman Sgt. Lamont Washington wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Washington said that all seven were civilians.

Around 500 to 600 demonstrators marched through the Kentucky city's downtown streets on Thursday night, the Courier Journal reported. The protests stretched for more than six hours, ending in the early hours of Friday as rain poured down.

“Understandably, emotions are high,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer tweeted just before midnight, sharing a Facebook post asking for peace that he said was written on behalf of Taylor's mother. “As Breonna's mother says let's be peaceful as we work toward truth and justice.”

Comments

[heron61]

Here's a deeply disturbing article about one branch of the boogaloo scumbags - it sounds like a fair number of them aren't even white supremacists, they are simply deeply scary people who want a civil war so they'll have an excuse to kill lots of people. It's like the Joker from Batman has RL followers.

[solarbird]

I've seen all this before; it will go uniformly hard-right. Every previous iteration did, this one will too.

[gorgeousgary]

Reading the Post article this morning, my first thought was that it was time to find where I put the blue ribbon pins my friends and I were wearing to protest the Communications Decency Act back in 1996.

It's been almost 25 years, but I seem to recall the liability protection for ISP's was important as there was concern they would otherwise start blocking or removing content that was not explicitly pornographic but still bawdy, off-color, or otherwise objectionable to Bible-thumping types. I'd have to check with folks like osewalrus, but it seems like removing Section 230 protections might be a HUGE problem for the SF/F/H community as well as the LGBTQ+ community.

[solarbird]

Yeah, it would be. It'd basically make them impossible to run.