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solarbirdThis is basically the 'everything else' post.
But given Facebook's hard algorithmic promotion of fascist and ultra-rightist causes - literally the top ten articles on their site yesterday were Fox News and harder-right sources - I have a recommendation.
If, for whatever reason, you have some need to stay on Facebook? Then I strongly recommend the Facebook Container plug-in for Firefox, as well as never going to Facebook without an adblocker.
This combination basically eliminates most or all of their revenue stream from you.
----- 1 -----
Facebook employees stage virtual walkout to protest Trump posts
By Mike Isaac, Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel
June 1, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/facebook-employees-stage-virtual-walkout-to-protest-trump-posts/
[EDITOR: SEE COUNTERPOINT IN FASCISM EDITION
Everyone at Facebook is qwhite complicit
Violet Blue
2 June 2020
https://www.patreon.com/posts/cybersecurity-2-37800670
]
OAKLAND, Calif. — Dozens of Facebook employees, in rare public criticism Monday of their own company, protested executives’ decision not to do anything about inflammatory posts President Donald Trump had placed on the giant social media platform over the past week.
The employees, who said they refused to work in order to show their support for demonstrators across the country, added an automated message to their digital profiles and email responses saying they were out of the office in a show of protest.
The protest group — conducting a virtual “walkout” of sorts because most Facebook employees are working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic — was one of a number of clusters of employees pressing Facebook executives to take a tougher stand on Trump’s posts.
Inside the company, staff members have circulated petitions and threatened to resign, and a number of employees wrote publicly about their unhappiness on Twitter and elsewhere. More than a dozen current and former employees have described the unrest as the most serious challenge to the leadership of Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, since the company was founded 15 years ago.
“The hateful rhetoric advocating violence against black demonstrators by the US President does not warrant defense under the guise of freedom of expression,” one Facebook employee wrote in an internal message board, according to a copy of the text viewed by The New York Times.
----- 2 -----
Alexandra Erin
twitter.com/AlexandraErin
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1267888050216017923
[STARTS THREAD]
So I posted this on Sunday, and since then LMPD (Louisville Metro Police Department) have released a video of David McAtee's death that they say shows he shot first.
Not present at any in the video: a gun or a gun shot (aside from the effects of cops' shots).
[EMBEDDED TWEET]
Alexandra Erin
twitter.com/AlexandraErin
May 31, 2020
https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1267296455842201603
The thing about Andy Ngo's job as a right-wing propagandist is, it's *easy*. His audience believes literally anything he says. You can show them a video of people making milkshakes and say "Here you can see them adding cement." and people will swear they actually saw that.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT TOP LINK]
----- 3 -----
ABC News
twitter.com/ABC
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1267871756573913090
'I CAN'T BREATHE': Philadelphia police toss canisters toward crowd trying to flee up highway embankment. https://abcn.ws/2zKGzY8
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 4 -----
Charlotte Clymer
twitter.com/cmclymer
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/cmclymer/status/1267874291774824450
Not only is that a military helicopter, but it's a medical helo. This is surreal and a clear abuse of power.
[EMBEDDED TWEET]
Katie Hill
twitter.com/KatieHill4CA
1 June 2020
Helicopter isn’t moving and neither is the crowd. The show of military force on US streets is like nothing I would have believed if I weren’t here
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 5 -----
Judd Legum
twitter.com/JuddLegum
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1267794631682592772
1. Major corporations publicly embracing Black Lives Matter — including twitter.com/citi, twitter.com/Google, and twitter.com/amazon — have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to members of Congress rated "F" by the NAACP over the last two years
[THREAD]
----- 6 -----
Bridget Todd
twitter.com/BridgetMarie
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/BridgetMarie/status/1267605962401120257
[THREAD]
one of my clearest memories from my time contracting on the social media team twitter.com/MSNBC was the gymnastics they required of their editors (me) to avoid placing any kind of blame on police when they killed Black people.
[QUOTED TWEET]
MSNBC
twitter.com/MSNBC
1 June 2020
NEW: George Floyd’s death is ruled a homicide that occurred while he was being restrained by police, authorities say.
https://on.msnbc.com/2yYRVY4
[THREAD CONTINUES AT UPPER LINK]
----- 7 -----
Steve Fletcher - Minneapolis Ward 3
twitter.com/MplsWard3
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/MplsWard3/status/1267891869691850754
[THREAD - LONG, READ IT]
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.
[NEXT]
I don’t want to focus too much on Bob Kroll because he’s a symptom of a much deeper problem in the Minneapolis Police Department, but it’s worth saying that he’s a malignant presence in our city and should resign.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 8 -----
Six officers charged after cops tase Georgia students in video
The Saturday night incident gained attention from a viral video in which the young couple can be heard screaming.
2 June 2020
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/officers-charged-cops-tase-georgia-students-video-200602200310226.html
Six police officers from Atlanta, Georgia have been charged after a dramatic video showed authorities pulling two young people from a car and shooting them with stun guns while they were stuck in traffic caused by protests over George Floyd's death, a prosecutor said on Tuesday.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced the charges during a news conference. Atlanta police did not immediately have a comment Tuesday.
"I feel a little safer now that these monsters are off of the street and no longer able to terrorise anyone else," said 22-year-old Messiah Young, who was dragged from the vehicle along with his girlfriend, 20-year-old Taniyah Pilgrim.
A director of the police union, however, said the move to bring charges without a thorough investigation was unfair to the officers, none of whom have been interviewed.
"We believe that this is premature," said Vince Champion, southeast regional director for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, adding that he believed officials were trying to score political points rather than uncover all the facts. "Why were the students stopped? We don't know the answer to that."
----- 9 -----
J+
twitter.com/ajplus
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/1267914632573775873
A truck driver who drove into Minneapolis protesters has been released from jail without criminal charges.
The governor said the driver was "frustrated" when he drove onto the highway, just before it was closed to traffic. No protesters were injured.
----- 10 -----
Teagan Wall, PhD
twitter.com/TeagWall
1 June 2020
https://twitter.com/TeagWall/status/1267631338921717760
[THREAD]
Because of my work schedule, and the curfew in LA tonight, I decided to get the groceries we needed during lunch today. I will have nightmares tonight from what I witnessed. 1/
[THREAD CONTINUES AT URL]
----- 11 -----
When police think they’re ‘punishers,’ they cease to be police
June 2, 2020 by Fred Clark
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2020/06/02/when-police-think-theyre-punishers-they-cease-to-be-police/
Here’s a USAToday write-up on that video of LARPing Minneapolis police officers disgracing themselves by abusing their authority: “‘Light ’em up’: Minneapolis officers seen firing paint rounds at people on their porch.”
The article notes that these folks had every right to be on their porch, even during curfew, but not — officials claim — to be on your porch if a passing parade of armored loons on your otherwise quiet street screams at you to go inside. “If a law enforcement officer or other public safety official asks you to go inside, or take any other action, you must follow the instruction,” says a statement from the Minneapolis Department of Public Safety.
Umm, “any other action”? No. Nope. Uh-uh.
Law enforcement officers and public safety officials have legitimate authority to give instructions in service of law enforcement and public safety. They have no legitimate authority to give absurd or capricious instructions, to give nonsensical or Kafkaesque instructions. And they have no authority to enforce their instructions by breaking the law themselves or by undermining and violating public safety.
And police never, ever have the authority to punish those who fail to comply with their instructions. Not with paint guns and tear gas, or nightsticks, fists, boots, or knees. Punishment is not their job. Their badge doesn’t cover that. Never has, never will.
That distinction is essential and definitional for police. And it’s one that police increasingly do not understand — as explicitly demonstrated by police bros’ increasing fondness for putting the comic-book Punisher logo on everything.
This is not some fuzzy gray area of subtlety and nuance. It’s a bright, bold line between freedom and fascism. When police act like its their job to punish, the rule of law can no longer be in effect. It gets replaced by the rule of cops.
----- 12 -----
“It’s Spiraling Out of Control”: Confronting a Failed Presidency, Trump Plays Politics With the Protests
Teargassing protestors for a photo op, afraid to say anything that will make him look weak, Trump once again feels victimized. “He feels the blue-state governors are letting it burn because it hurts him.”
By Gabriel Sherman
June 2, 2020
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/trump-plays-politics-with-the-protests
Confronting a failed presidency after 100,000-plus COVID deaths and the protests that are still convulsing the nation this week, Donald Trump is venting to West Wing officials that Democratic governors are allowing civil unrest to rage in American cities to damage his reelection campaign. “He feels the blue-state governors are letting it burn because it hurts him. It’s a lot like how he sees coronavirus,” an outside White House adviser told me yesterday, shortly after audio leaked of Trump berating governors on a conference call about quelling the riots.
Trump’s sense of victimhood, and his view that the crisis ignited by George Floyd’s gruesome death is largely a political problem, have resulted in a shambolic White House response, veering from Trump’s retreat to the bunker as the protests neared the White House to the culmination of police using teargas on peaceful protestors so that he could walk through a park to stage a photo op in front of St. John’s Church. “He’s paralyzed,” a former West Wing official told me.
In private, Trump has told people the street violence would subside if the other three Minnesota police officers were charged with murder, a person who spoke with Trump told me. But, always worried about seeming weak, he made no mention of the officers or police brutality during yesterday’s Rose Garden speech. “When things get dicey and hairy, it usually means he relies on his instincts,” a former West Wing official said. “And he’s decided law and order is going to win the day.”
(The White House declined to comment.)
----- 13 -----
Fear of destruction brings curfews, closures and police
Peaceful protests in Snohomish County have been followed by roadblocks and armed citizens standing guard.
by Stephanie Davey and Ben Watanabe
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/people-descend-upon-snohomish-reportedly-over-rumor-sunday/
Like much of America, protests, curfews and fear of looting have gripped Snohomish County as crowds decry racism a week after George Floyd died while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Barricades were erected and storefronts shuttered from the Tulalip Indian Reservation to malls in Everett and Lynnwood to the historic downtown business district in Snohomish, where local residents are openly carrying assault rifles. By Monday, curfews were being ordered in some communities as leaders and law enforcement assessed the threats and hoped to prevent violence and vandalism.
...
Pictures and video on social media showed people standing along First Street with large guns. Some displayed clothing and hand signals that indicated they were part of the Proud Boys, a far-right organization that has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The leader of the Washington National Guard on Monday discouraged such citizen action.
“Everyone needs to take it easy,” said Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty, at a news conference with Gov. Jay Inslee. People need to “remain calm and please don’t run around with weapons.
----- 14 -----
shadow clone wesly!*++
twitter.com/weslyinfinity
31 May 2020
https://twitter.com/weslyinfinity/status/1267321172309544960
What twitter.com/kcpolice did today was UNFORGIVABLE and UNFORGETTABLE
[EMBEDDED VIDEO. Black man telling off police about use of excessive force from three traffic lanes away, filming, clearly unarmed. Cops charge him, spraying mace into faces of those around him, haul him off across the street, throw him onto the ground and beat him.]
----- 15 -----
Minneapolis Police Union President: “I’ve Been Involved in Three Shootings Myself, and Not a One of Them Has Bothered Me”
Ryan Grim, Aída Chávez
June 2 2020
https://theintercept.com/2020/06/02/minneapolis-police-union-bob-kroll-shootings/
In an interview in April, Lt. Bob Kroll, head of Minneapolis’s police union, said that he and a majority of the Minneapolis Police Officers’ Federation’s board have been involved in police shootings. Kroll said that he and the officers on the union’s board were not bothered by the shootings, comparing themselves favorably to other officers.
“There’s been a big influx of PTSD,” Kroll said. “But I’ve been involved in three shootings myself, and not one of them has bothered me. Maybe I’m different.”
His comments underscore the rampant nature of police violence in the United States. The number of times police officers fire their weapons swamps the level of violence in most other countries, where authorities rely on nonlethal methods of coercion, persuasion, or control. Many police officers live with post-traumatic stress disorder induced by the violence associated with policing.
But not Kroll’s crew, he said. “Out of the 10 board members, over half of them have been involved in armed encounters, and several of us multiple. We don’t seem to have problems,” he said. “Certainly getting shot at and shooting people takes a different toll, but if you’re in this job and you’ve seen too much blood and gore and dead people then you’ve signed up for the wrong job.”
Kroll has been a central figure in the unfolding protests and riots following the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin. In a letter to union members on Monday, Kroll called Floyd a “violent criminal” and described the ongoing protests as a “terrorist movement” that was years in the making, starting with a minimized police force. He railed against the city’s politicians, namely Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and state Gov. Tim Waltz, for not authorizing greater force to stop the uprising. “The politicians are to blame and you are the scapegoats,” he wrote.
----- 16 -----
Brandy Zadrozny
twitter.com/BrandyZadrozny
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/BrandyZadrozny/status/1267956067192975361
[THREAD]
I used to work at Fox News so I understand the ethical gymnastics that go on there but this is going to give me a heart attack.
One source. Unnamed. With literally zero evidence. To claim antifa is "coming to the suburbs." This is beyond.
[EMBEDDED IMAGES OF FOX NEWS STORY]
[NEXT]
This article is a chain letter. It's a disinfo campaign from white nationalists. Fox News wants to scare white people into believing that black, brown, and radical people are coming for them. It's ludicrous. It's dangerous. They should be ashamed.
----- 17 -----
Weijia Jiang
twitter.com/weijia
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1267891204022288395
North Carolina’s Governor to RNC officials:
“As much as want the conditions surround COVID-19 to be favorable enough for you to hold the Convention you describe in late August, it is very unlikely.”
Today, twitter.com/KellyannePolls said no decision has been made about a location.
[EMBEDDED LETTER IN FORM OF IMAGES]
But given Facebook's hard algorithmic promotion of fascist and ultra-rightist causes - literally the top ten articles on their site yesterday were Fox News and harder-right sources - I have a recommendation.
If, for whatever reason, you have some need to stay on Facebook? Then I strongly recommend the Facebook Container plug-in for Firefox, as well as never going to Facebook without an adblocker.
This combination basically eliminates most or all of their revenue stream from you.
- Facebook employees stage virtual walkout to protest Trump posts
- Louisville PD release video of David McAtee's death that they say shows he shot first; the problem? David had no gun, or was gunshot visible from David.
- Philadelphia police toss canisters toward crowd trying to flee up highway embankment.
- Police violence, the show of military force on US streets is like nothing I would have believed if I weren’t here
- Major corporations publicly embracing Black Lives Matter donate to companies rated "F" by NAACP
- Former MSNBC Social Media editor on MSNBC's insistence that police could never be blamed for killings of African Americans
- Police violence, Minneapolis PD union chief: everything would be fine if we could use even more violence
- Police violence, six officers charged after cops tase Georgia students in video
- Truck driver who drove semi truck into Minneapolis protesters released from jail without charges
- Story from LA: My occupied neighbourhood
- When police think they’re ‘punishers,’ they cease to be police
- “It’s Spiraling Out of Control”: Confronting a Failed Presidency, Trump Plays Politics With the Protests
- Fear of destruction brings curfews, closures and police
- Police violence, Kansas City PD makes an example out of someone
- Minneapolis Police Union President: “I’ve Been Involved in Three Shootings Myself, and Not a One of Them Has Bothered Me”
- Fox News reports Identity Evrupa (white nationalist) chain letter as real story
- NC: "very unlikely" to hold RNC in late August as Trump desires
----- 1 -----
Facebook employees stage virtual walkout to protest Trump posts
By Mike Isaac, Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel
June 1, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/facebook-employees-stage-virtual-walkout-to-protest-trump-posts/
[EDITOR: SEE COUNTERPOINT IN FASCISM EDITION
Everyone at Facebook is qwhite complicit
Violet Blue
2 June 2020
https://www.patreon.com/posts/cybersecurity-2-37800670
]
OAKLAND, Calif. — Dozens of Facebook employees, in rare public criticism Monday of their own company, protested executives’ decision not to do anything about inflammatory posts President Donald Trump had placed on the giant social media platform over the past week.
The employees, who said they refused to work in order to show their support for demonstrators across the country, added an automated message to their digital profiles and email responses saying they were out of the office in a show of protest.
The protest group — conducting a virtual “walkout” of sorts because most Facebook employees are working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic — was one of a number of clusters of employees pressing Facebook executives to take a tougher stand on Trump’s posts.
Inside the company, staff members have circulated petitions and threatened to resign, and a number of employees wrote publicly about their unhappiness on Twitter and elsewhere. More than a dozen current and former employees have described the unrest as the most serious challenge to the leadership of Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, since the company was founded 15 years ago.
“The hateful rhetoric advocating violence against black demonstrators by the US President does not warrant defense under the guise of freedom of expression,” one Facebook employee wrote in an internal message board, according to a copy of the text viewed by The New York Times.
----- 2 -----
Alexandra Erin
twitter.com/AlexandraErin
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1267888050216017923
[STARTS THREAD]
So I posted this on Sunday, and since then LMPD (Louisville Metro Police Department) have released a video of David McAtee's death that they say shows he shot first.
Not present at any in the video: a gun or a gun shot (aside from the effects of cops' shots).
[EMBEDDED TWEET]
Alexandra Erin
twitter.com/AlexandraErin
May 31, 2020
https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1267296455842201603
The thing about Andy Ngo's job as a right-wing propagandist is, it's *easy*. His audience believes literally anything he says. You can show them a video of people making milkshakes and say "Here you can see them adding cement." and people will swear they actually saw that.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT TOP LINK]
----- 3 -----
ABC News
twitter.com/ABC
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1267871756573913090
'I CAN'T BREATHE': Philadelphia police toss canisters toward crowd trying to flee up highway embankment. https://abcn.ws/2zKGzY8
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 4 -----
Charlotte Clymer
twitter.com/cmclymer
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/cmclymer/status/1267874291774824450
Not only is that a military helicopter, but it's a medical helo. This is surreal and a clear abuse of power.
[EMBEDDED TWEET]
Katie Hill
twitter.com/KatieHill4CA
1 June 2020
Helicopter isn’t moving and neither is the crowd. The show of military force on US streets is like nothing I would have believed if I weren’t here
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 5 -----
Judd Legum
twitter.com/JuddLegum
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1267794631682592772
1. Major corporations publicly embracing Black Lives Matter — including twitter.com/citi, twitter.com/Google, and twitter.com/amazon — have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to members of Congress rated "F" by the NAACP over the last two years
[THREAD]
----- 6 -----
Bridget Todd
twitter.com/BridgetMarie
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/BridgetMarie/status/1267605962401120257
[THREAD]
one of my clearest memories from my time contracting on the social media team twitter.com/MSNBC was the gymnastics they required of their editors (me) to avoid placing any kind of blame on police when they killed Black people.
[QUOTED TWEET]
MSNBC
twitter.com/MSNBC
1 June 2020
NEW: George Floyd’s death is ruled a homicide that occurred while he was being restrained by police, authorities say.
https://on.msnbc.com/2yYRVY4
[THREAD CONTINUES AT UPPER LINK]
----- 7 -----
Steve Fletcher - Minneapolis Ward 3
twitter.com/MplsWard3
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/MplsWard3/status/1267891869691850754
[THREAD - LONG, READ IT]
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.
[NEXT]
I don’t want to focus too much on Bob Kroll because he’s a symptom of a much deeper problem in the Minneapolis Police Department, but it’s worth saying that he’s a malignant presence in our city and should resign.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 8 -----
Six officers charged after cops tase Georgia students in video
The Saturday night incident gained attention from a viral video in which the young couple can be heard screaming.
2 June 2020
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/officers-charged-cops-tase-georgia-students-video-200602200310226.html
Six police officers from Atlanta, Georgia have been charged after a dramatic video showed authorities pulling two young people from a car and shooting them with stun guns while they were stuck in traffic caused by protests over George Floyd's death, a prosecutor said on Tuesday.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced the charges during a news conference. Atlanta police did not immediately have a comment Tuesday.
"I feel a little safer now that these monsters are off of the street and no longer able to terrorise anyone else," said 22-year-old Messiah Young, who was dragged from the vehicle along with his girlfriend, 20-year-old Taniyah Pilgrim.
A director of the police union, however, said the move to bring charges without a thorough investigation was unfair to the officers, none of whom have been interviewed.
"We believe that this is premature," said Vince Champion, southeast regional director for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, adding that he believed officials were trying to score political points rather than uncover all the facts. "Why were the students stopped? We don't know the answer to that."
----- 9 -----
J+
twitter.com/ajplus
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/1267914632573775873
A truck driver who drove into Minneapolis protesters has been released from jail without criminal charges.
The governor said the driver was "frustrated" when he drove onto the highway, just before it was closed to traffic. No protesters were injured.
----- 10 -----
Teagan Wall, PhD
twitter.com/TeagWall
1 June 2020
https://twitter.com/TeagWall/status/1267631338921717760
[THREAD]
Because of my work schedule, and the curfew in LA tonight, I decided to get the groceries we needed during lunch today. I will have nightmares tonight from what I witnessed. 1/
[THREAD CONTINUES AT URL]
----- 11 -----
When police think they’re ‘punishers,’ they cease to be police
June 2, 2020 by Fred Clark
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2020/06/02/when-police-think-theyre-punishers-they-cease-to-be-police/
Here’s a USAToday write-up on that video of LARPing Minneapolis police officers disgracing themselves by abusing their authority: “‘Light ’em up’: Minneapolis officers seen firing paint rounds at people on their porch.”
The article notes that these folks had every right to be on their porch, even during curfew, but not — officials claim — to be on your porch if a passing parade of armored loons on your otherwise quiet street screams at you to go inside. “If a law enforcement officer or other public safety official asks you to go inside, or take any other action, you must follow the instruction,” says a statement from the Minneapolis Department of Public Safety.
Umm, “any other action”? No. Nope. Uh-uh.
Law enforcement officers and public safety officials have legitimate authority to give instructions in service of law enforcement and public safety. They have no legitimate authority to give absurd or capricious instructions, to give nonsensical or Kafkaesque instructions. And they have no authority to enforce their instructions by breaking the law themselves or by undermining and violating public safety.
And police never, ever have the authority to punish those who fail to comply with their instructions. Not with paint guns and tear gas, or nightsticks, fists, boots, or knees. Punishment is not their job. Their badge doesn’t cover that. Never has, never will.
That distinction is essential and definitional for police. And it’s one that police increasingly do not understand — as explicitly demonstrated by police bros’ increasing fondness for putting the comic-book Punisher logo on everything.
This is not some fuzzy gray area of subtlety and nuance. It’s a bright, bold line between freedom and fascism. When police act like its their job to punish, the rule of law can no longer be in effect. It gets replaced by the rule of cops.
----- 12 -----
“It’s Spiraling Out of Control”: Confronting a Failed Presidency, Trump Plays Politics With the Protests
Teargassing protestors for a photo op, afraid to say anything that will make him look weak, Trump once again feels victimized. “He feels the blue-state governors are letting it burn because it hurts him.”
By Gabriel Sherman
June 2, 2020
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/trump-plays-politics-with-the-protests
Confronting a failed presidency after 100,000-plus COVID deaths and the protests that are still convulsing the nation this week, Donald Trump is venting to West Wing officials that Democratic governors are allowing civil unrest to rage in American cities to damage his reelection campaign. “He feels the blue-state governors are letting it burn because it hurts him. It’s a lot like how he sees coronavirus,” an outside White House adviser told me yesterday, shortly after audio leaked of Trump berating governors on a conference call about quelling the riots.
Trump’s sense of victimhood, and his view that the crisis ignited by George Floyd’s gruesome death is largely a political problem, have resulted in a shambolic White House response, veering from Trump’s retreat to the bunker as the protests neared the White House to the culmination of police using teargas on peaceful protestors so that he could walk through a park to stage a photo op in front of St. John’s Church. “He’s paralyzed,” a former West Wing official told me.
In private, Trump has told people the street violence would subside if the other three Minnesota police officers were charged with murder, a person who spoke with Trump told me. But, always worried about seeming weak, he made no mention of the officers or police brutality during yesterday’s Rose Garden speech. “When things get dicey and hairy, it usually means he relies on his instincts,” a former West Wing official said. “And he’s decided law and order is going to win the day.”
(The White House declined to comment.)
----- 13 -----
Fear of destruction brings curfews, closures and police
Peaceful protests in Snohomish County have been followed by roadblocks and armed citizens standing guard.
by Stephanie Davey and Ben Watanabe
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/people-descend-upon-snohomish-reportedly-over-rumor-sunday/
Like much of America, protests, curfews and fear of looting have gripped Snohomish County as crowds decry racism a week after George Floyd died while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Barricades were erected and storefronts shuttered from the Tulalip Indian Reservation to malls in Everett and Lynnwood to the historic downtown business district in Snohomish, where local residents are openly carrying assault rifles. By Monday, curfews were being ordered in some communities as leaders and law enforcement assessed the threats and hoped to prevent violence and vandalism.
...
Pictures and video on social media showed people standing along First Street with large guns. Some displayed clothing and hand signals that indicated they were part of the Proud Boys, a far-right organization that has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The leader of the Washington National Guard on Monday discouraged such citizen action.
“Everyone needs to take it easy,” said Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty, at a news conference with Gov. Jay Inslee. People need to “remain calm and please don’t run around with weapons.
----- 14 -----
shadow clone wesly!*++
twitter.com/weslyinfinity
31 May 2020
https://twitter.com/weslyinfinity/status/1267321172309544960
What twitter.com/kcpolice did today was UNFORGIVABLE and UNFORGETTABLE
[EMBEDDED VIDEO. Black man telling off police about use of excessive force from three traffic lanes away, filming, clearly unarmed. Cops charge him, spraying mace into faces of those around him, haul him off across the street, throw him onto the ground and beat him.]
----- 15 -----
Minneapolis Police Union President: “I’ve Been Involved in Three Shootings Myself, and Not a One of Them Has Bothered Me”
Ryan Grim, Aída Chávez
June 2 2020
https://theintercept.com/2020/06/02/minneapolis-police-union-bob-kroll-shootings/
In an interview in April, Lt. Bob Kroll, head of Minneapolis’s police union, said that he and a majority of the Minneapolis Police Officers’ Federation’s board have been involved in police shootings. Kroll said that he and the officers on the union’s board were not bothered by the shootings, comparing themselves favorably to other officers.
“There’s been a big influx of PTSD,” Kroll said. “But I’ve been involved in three shootings myself, and not one of them has bothered me. Maybe I’m different.”
His comments underscore the rampant nature of police violence in the United States. The number of times police officers fire their weapons swamps the level of violence in most other countries, where authorities rely on nonlethal methods of coercion, persuasion, or control. Many police officers live with post-traumatic stress disorder induced by the violence associated with policing.
But not Kroll’s crew, he said. “Out of the 10 board members, over half of them have been involved in armed encounters, and several of us multiple. We don’t seem to have problems,” he said. “Certainly getting shot at and shooting people takes a different toll, but if you’re in this job and you’ve seen too much blood and gore and dead people then you’ve signed up for the wrong job.”
Kroll has been a central figure in the unfolding protests and riots following the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin. In a letter to union members on Monday, Kroll called Floyd a “violent criminal” and described the ongoing protests as a “terrorist movement” that was years in the making, starting with a minimized police force. He railed against the city’s politicians, namely Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and state Gov. Tim Waltz, for not authorizing greater force to stop the uprising. “The politicians are to blame and you are the scapegoats,” he wrote.
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Brandy Zadrozny
twitter.com/BrandyZadrozny
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/BrandyZadrozny/status/1267956067192975361
[THREAD]
I used to work at Fox News so I understand the ethical gymnastics that go on there but this is going to give me a heart attack.
One source. Unnamed. With literally zero evidence. To claim antifa is "coming to the suburbs." This is beyond.
[EMBEDDED IMAGES OF FOX NEWS STORY]
[NEXT]
This article is a chain letter. It's a disinfo campaign from white nationalists. Fox News wants to scare white people into believing that black, brown, and radical people are coming for them. It's ludicrous. It's dangerous. They should be ashamed.
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Weijia Jiang
twitter.com/weijia
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1267891204022288395
North Carolina’s Governor to RNC officials:
“As much as want the conditions surround COVID-19 to be favorable enough for you to hold the Convention you describe in late August, it is very unlikely.”
Today, twitter.com/KellyannePolls said no decision has been made about a location.
[EMBEDDED LETTER IN FORM OF IMAGES]
