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solarbirdThis is a bit of a mix, heavy on individual fascists and responses to fascism, since the out-and-out bald-face organised fascism as stepped back a little bit for the moment.
Don't be fooled, it's a strategic retreat at best.
----- 1 -----
House Democrat moves to cut Attorney General Barr's budget by $50 million
by Mark Hosenball
2 June 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-justice-barr/house-democrat-moves-to-cut-attorney-general-barrs-budget-by-50-million-idUSKBN2392Z4
(Reuters) - The Democrat who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary committee said on Tuesday he will introduce legislation this week to cut $50 million in funding from Attorney General William Barr’s personal office.
New York Representative Jerrold Nadler said he would move to reduce funding for Barr’s personal office as a response to what he called “continued defiance of Congress and improper politicization of the Department of Justice.”
Nadler said he was making this move and others in the wake of Barr’s refusal to appear before his committee.
Passing such a cut would require approval of both the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate.
----- 2 -----
Barr seeks to dissociate himself from move on demonstrators outside Lafayette Square
By Matt Zapotosky
June 5, 2020 at 7:34 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/barr-seeks-to-dissociate-himself-from-move-on-demonstrators-outside-lafayette-park/2020/06/05/47cb96b6-a78e-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html
Attorney General William P. Barr sought to dissociate himself Friday from police’s move earlier this week to push back a crowd of largely peaceful demonstrators using horses and gas, claiming that he did not give the “tactical” order for law enforcement on the scene to move in.
The Associated Press reported that Barr told the news organization that the move against the protesters — which has been widely condemned — was already in process when he was spotted at the scene near the White House early Monday evening conferring with law enforcement on the ground.
“I’m not involved in giving tactical commands like that,” Barr told the Associated Press. “I was frustrated and I was also worried that as the crowd grew, it was going to be harder and harder to do. So my attitude was get it done, but I didn’t say, ‘Go do it.’ ”
----- 3 -----
Aaron Rupar
twitter.com/atrupar
7 June 2020
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1269649093392990208
"Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant. It's not chemical" -- AG Barr uses painstaking distinctions to defend the use of force against protesters near the White House last Monday
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 4 -----
Man shot on Capitol Hill in Seattle after gunman drives car into George Floyd protest
June 7, 2020 at 11:10 pm Updated June 8, 2020 at 12:55 am
By Seattle Times staff
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/man-shot-after-gunman-drives-car-into-capitol-hill-protesters/
Just as Seattle’s mayor and police chief were wrapping up a Sunday night news conference about ongoing protests against police brutality, a 27-year-old man at a demonstration on Capitol Hill was shot by a gunman who drove into the crowd.
The victim was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition, and the gunman was detained.
The shooting occurred shortly before 8:30 p.m., near the intersection of Eleventh Avenue and Pine Street where demonstrators have gathered repeatedly in the past week to protest police killings of Black people, including George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.
The shooting apparently happened while the gunman was still in the car. Dressed in blue jeans, a black sweatshirt and a black baseball cap, he then got out of his car, gun in hand, and made his way through demonstrators toward a line of police before he was taken into custody.
B.J. Hayes was standing nearby when the black car barreled down Eleventh Avenue from Pike Street toward hundreds of protesters. As the vehicle approached Pine Street, some demonstrators shouted, ran alongside and tried to slow it down by blocking its path with a metal panel taken from a police barricade.
“I thought he was plowing right into the crowd,” said Hayes, who has been attending several of the recent protests. “I totally thought I was going to see a bunch of bodies flying through the air.”
The man who was shot appeared to be hit as he reached into the driver’s window. He fell away backward as the driver exited the car.
----- 5 -----
Pittsburgh paper accused of barring black reporters from covering protests, censoring stories
By Miriam Berger
June 6, 2020 at 5:26 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/06/06/pittsburgh-post-gazette/
Photojournalist Michael Santiago was part of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette team that in 2019 won the paper a Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s highest accolade, for its breaking news coverage of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre. The Pulitzer judges praised the staff’s reporting as “immersive, compassionate coverage … that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief.”
Only now, Santiago says the paper has barred him and at least one other reporter from covering anti-racism protests in Pittsburgh because they are seen as biased for being black. Journalists are also accusing the newspaper of removing and censoring at least two articles published online Friday that reported on protests over George Floyd’s death and police abuses, as well as of penalizing reporters who supported their black colleagues.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “has chosen to silence two of it most prominent Black journalist during one of the most important civil rights stories that is happening across our country!” Santiago tweeted Saturday. He referred The Washington Post to the head of Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh for comment.
----- 6 -----
Virginia man who plowed his truck into Black Lives Matter crowd is the head of the state’s Ku Klux Klan
June 8, 2020
By Sarah K. Burris
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/virginia-man-who-plowed-his-truck-into-black-lives-matter-crowd-is-the-head-of-the-states-ku-klux-klan/
Over the weekend, a Virginia man was arrested for driving his truck into a crowd of protesters. It has now been revealed that the accused, Harry H. Rogers, is also the head of the Virginia chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
WTVR News reported Monday that Rogers was charged by police with attempted malicious wounding (a felony), destruction of property (also a felony), and assault and battery (a misdemeanor) after the incident. When he was arrested, Rogers confessed to officers he is the president of the Ku Klux Klan in the state and claimed to be the highest-ranking member of the Klan that is not in prison.
“The accused, by his own admission and by a cursory glance at social media, is an admitted leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a propagandist for Confederate ideology,” said Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor in a statement. “We are investigating whether hate crimes charges are appropriate.”
“While I am grateful that the victim’s injuries do not appear to be serious, an attack on peaceful protesters is heinous and despicable and we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law,” she also said. “We lived through this in Virginia in Charlottesville in 2017. I promise Henricoans that this egregious criminal act will not go unpunished. Hate has no place here under my watch.”
Don't be fooled, it's a strategic retreat at best.
- House Democrat moves to cut Attorney General Barr's budget by $50 million
- Barr seeks to dissociate himself from move on demonstrators outside Lafayette Square
- AG Barr uses painstaking distinctions to defend the use of force against protesters near the White House last Monday
- Man shot on Capitol Hill in Seattle after gunman drives car into George Floyd protest
- Pittsburgh paper accused of barring black reporters from covering protests, censoring stories
- Virginia man who plowed his truck into Black Lives Matter crowd is the head of the state’s Ku Klux Klan
----- 1 -----
House Democrat moves to cut Attorney General Barr's budget by $50 million
by Mark Hosenball
2 June 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-justice-barr/house-democrat-moves-to-cut-attorney-general-barrs-budget-by-50-million-idUSKBN2392Z4
(Reuters) - The Democrat who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary committee said on Tuesday he will introduce legislation this week to cut $50 million in funding from Attorney General William Barr’s personal office.
New York Representative Jerrold Nadler said he would move to reduce funding for Barr’s personal office as a response to what he called “continued defiance of Congress and improper politicization of the Department of Justice.”
Nadler said he was making this move and others in the wake of Barr’s refusal to appear before his committee.
Passing such a cut would require approval of both the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate.
----- 2 -----
Barr seeks to dissociate himself from move on demonstrators outside Lafayette Square
By Matt Zapotosky
June 5, 2020 at 7:34 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/barr-seeks-to-dissociate-himself-from-move-on-demonstrators-outside-lafayette-park/2020/06/05/47cb96b6-a78e-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html
Attorney General William P. Barr sought to dissociate himself Friday from police’s move earlier this week to push back a crowd of largely peaceful demonstrators using horses and gas, claiming that he did not give the “tactical” order for law enforcement on the scene to move in.
The Associated Press reported that Barr told the news organization that the move against the protesters — which has been widely condemned — was already in process when he was spotted at the scene near the White House early Monday evening conferring with law enforcement on the ground.
“I’m not involved in giving tactical commands like that,” Barr told the Associated Press. “I was frustrated and I was also worried that as the crowd grew, it was going to be harder and harder to do. So my attitude was get it done, but I didn’t say, ‘Go do it.’ ”
----- 3 -----
Aaron Rupar
twitter.com/atrupar
7 June 2020
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1269649093392990208
"Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant. It's not chemical" -- AG Barr uses painstaking distinctions to defend the use of force against protesters near the White House last Monday
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 4 -----
Man shot on Capitol Hill in Seattle after gunman drives car into George Floyd protest
June 7, 2020 at 11:10 pm Updated June 8, 2020 at 12:55 am
By Seattle Times staff
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/man-shot-after-gunman-drives-car-into-capitol-hill-protesters/
Just as Seattle’s mayor and police chief were wrapping up a Sunday night news conference about ongoing protests against police brutality, a 27-year-old man at a demonstration on Capitol Hill was shot by a gunman who drove into the crowd.
The victim was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition, and the gunman was detained.
The shooting occurred shortly before 8:30 p.m., near the intersection of Eleventh Avenue and Pine Street where demonstrators have gathered repeatedly in the past week to protest police killings of Black people, including George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.
The shooting apparently happened while the gunman was still in the car. Dressed in blue jeans, a black sweatshirt and a black baseball cap, he then got out of his car, gun in hand, and made his way through demonstrators toward a line of police before he was taken into custody.
B.J. Hayes was standing nearby when the black car barreled down Eleventh Avenue from Pike Street toward hundreds of protesters. As the vehicle approached Pine Street, some demonstrators shouted, ran alongside and tried to slow it down by blocking its path with a metal panel taken from a police barricade.
“I thought he was plowing right into the crowd,” said Hayes, who has been attending several of the recent protests. “I totally thought I was going to see a bunch of bodies flying through the air.”
The man who was shot appeared to be hit as he reached into the driver’s window. He fell away backward as the driver exited the car.
----- 5 -----
Pittsburgh paper accused of barring black reporters from covering protests, censoring stories
By Miriam Berger
June 6, 2020 at 5:26 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/06/06/pittsburgh-post-gazette/
Photojournalist Michael Santiago was part of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette team that in 2019 won the paper a Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s highest accolade, for its breaking news coverage of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre. The Pulitzer judges praised the staff’s reporting as “immersive, compassionate coverage … that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief.”
Only now, Santiago says the paper has barred him and at least one other reporter from covering anti-racism protests in Pittsburgh because they are seen as biased for being black. Journalists are also accusing the newspaper of removing and censoring at least two articles published online Friday that reported on protests over George Floyd’s death and police abuses, as well as of penalizing reporters who supported their black colleagues.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “has chosen to silence two of it most prominent Black journalist during one of the most important civil rights stories that is happening across our country!” Santiago tweeted Saturday. He referred The Washington Post to the head of Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh for comment.
----- 6 -----
Virginia man who plowed his truck into Black Lives Matter crowd is the head of the state’s Ku Klux Klan
June 8, 2020
By Sarah K. Burris
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/virginia-man-who-plowed-his-truck-into-black-lives-matter-crowd-is-the-head-of-the-states-ku-klux-klan/
Over the weekend, a Virginia man was arrested for driving his truck into a crowd of protesters. It has now been revealed that the accused, Harry H. Rogers, is also the head of the Virginia chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
WTVR News reported Monday that Rogers was charged by police with attempted malicious wounding (a felony), destruction of property (also a felony), and assault and battery (a misdemeanor) after the incident. When he was arrested, Rogers confessed to officers he is the president of the Ku Klux Klan in the state and claimed to be the highest-ranking member of the Klan that is not in prison.
“The accused, by his own admission and by a cursory glance at social media, is an admitted leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a propagandist for Confederate ideology,” said Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor in a statement. “We are investigating whether hate crimes charges are appropriate.”
“While I am grateful that the victim’s injuries do not appear to be serious, an attack on peaceful protesters is heinous and despicable and we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law,” she also said. “We lived through this in Virginia in Charlottesville in 2017. I promise Henricoans that this egregious criminal act will not go unpunished. Hate has no place here under my watch.”
