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solarbird- Trump repeats vow to defeat 'radical left' in July Fourth speech
- Militias flock to Gettysburg to foil supposed flag burning
- All _people_ being created equal, _specifically_ as opposed to _only men_, is "radical left socialism" now according to the RNC.
- Marchers say hit-and-run that killed protester on I-5 isn’t the only time they’ve been targeted by drivers
- ICE just told students here on student visas that if their school is going online-only this fall, the students must depart the United States and cannot remain through the fall semester.
- Katie Miller, press secretary for Mike Pence, quoted in Jacob Soboroff's new book, Separated: "DHS sent me to the border to see the separations for myself -- to try to make me more compassionate -- but it didn't work."
- Right-Wing Media Outlets Duped by a Middle East Propaganda Campaign
- Tucker Carlson suggests Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs in Iraq, hates America
- PHOENIX: Protests broke out in Phoenix after police were captured on video fatally shooting a man in a parked car.
- PORTLAND: Last night was one of the worst nights yet.
- Seattle City Council member seeks to create first-responder alternative to police
- Driver accused of hitting protesters, killing one, held on $1.2 million bail
SEATTLE: Driver accused of hitting protesters, killing one, held on $1.2 million bail [EDITOR: Included because it includes police officers cheering on the driver on social media.] - AUSTIN, TEXAS: White Officer of Austin Police Department gropes the breasts of a woman as she continously demands a female officer
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Trump repeats vow to defeat 'radical left' in July Fourth speech
Jeff Mason, Katanga Johnson, Julia Harte
4 July 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-julyfourth-trump-idUSKBN2450N2
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday vowed to defeat the “radical left,” in an Independence Day speech at the White House that condemned recent protests against monuments to historical figures as attempts to destroy the United States.
Trump claimed without evidence that 99% of coronavirus cases in the United States were “totally harmless.” In fact, many states marked a record number of new COVID-19 cases. In Texas alone, 7,890 patients were hospitalized after 238 new admissions over the past 24 hours.
Trump, who has faced criticism over his handling of the pandemic, said China must be “held accountable” for failing to contain the disease.
The administration held a fireworks display over the National Mall as night fell after Trump’s speech, despite Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s warnings that the mass spectator event would defy health officials’ guidance during the pandemic.
Just steps from where Trump spoke, peaceful protesters marched down blocked-off streets around the White House, Black Lives Matter Plaza and the Lincoln Memorial. They were confronted by counter-protesters chanting, “USA! USA!” but there were no reports of violence.
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Militias flock to Gettysburg to foil supposed flag burning
By DALTON BENNETT and Shawn Boburg
July 4, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/militias-flock-to-gettysburg-to-foil-supposed-flag-burning/
GETTYSBURG NATIONAL MILITARY PARK, PA. – For weeks, a mysterious figure on social media talked up plans for antifa protesters to converge on this historical site on Independence Day to burn American flags, an event that seemed at times to border on the farcical.
“Let’s get together and burn flags in protest of thugs and animals in blue,” the anonymous person behind a Facebook page called Left Behind USA wrote in mid-June. There would be antifa face paint, the person wrote, and organizers would “be giving away free small flags to children to safely throw into the fire.”
As word spread, self-proclaimed militias, bikers, skinheads and far-right groups from outside the state issued a call to action, pledging in online videos and posts to come to Gettysburg to protect the Civil War monuments and the nation’s flag from desecration. Some said they would bring firearms and use force if necessary.
On Saturday afternoon, in the hours before the flag burning was to start, they flooded in by the hundreds – heavily armed and unaware, it seemed, that the mysterious Internet poster was not who the person claimed to be.
Biographical details – some from the person’s Facebook page and others provided to The Washington Post in a series of messages – did not match official records. An image the person once posted on a profile page was a picture of a man taken by a German photographer for a stock photo service.
The episode at Gettysburg is a stark illustration of how shadowy figures on social media have stoked fears about the protests against racial injustice and excessive police force that have swept across the nation since the death of George Floyd in police custody on May 25.
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All _people_ being created equal, _specifically_ as opposed to _only men_, is "radical left socialism" now according to the RNC.
6 July 2020
DNC War Room
twitter.com/DNCWarRoom
6 June 2020
https://twitter.com/DNCWarRoom/status/1280148636979118080
The RNC comes out hard against [checks notes] all people being created equal.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
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Marchers say hit-and-run that killed protester on I-5 isn’t the only time they’ve been targeted by drivers
By Katherine Khashimova Long
and Michelle Baruchman
July 5, 2020 at 7:42 pm
Updated July 6, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/marchers-say-hit-and-run-that-killed-protester-on-i-5-isnt-the-only-time-theyve-been-targeted-by-drivers/
Demonstrators protesting racial injustice and police brutality had marched on Interstate 5 in Seattle for 19 consecutive nights without incident before a driver bypassed Washington State Patrol barricades early Saturday morning to careen into a group of marchers, killing one and seriously injuring another.
The fatal hit-and-run drew national attention, with lawmakers expressing shock and horror over the death of Summer Taylor, 24. The driver also hit Diaz Love, 32, who remains in serious condition at Harborview Medical Center but is improving, a hospital spokesperson said Sunday evening.
But the collision — which demonstrators say seemed intentional — isn’t the first time cars have sped into the ongoing protests in Seattle sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, by a white police officer.
“Everyone wants to use the excuse of us being on the freeway,” said a protest organizer, who gave their name as Nicole, in a video statement broadcast on Facebook. “This happens to us on a daily basis. Cars try to run through us on a daily basis, no matter where we are.”
Earlier on the same night of the fatal collision, an off-duty Seattle Police Department officer drove her personal vehicle through the demonstration, police confirmed.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick
6 July 2020
https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1280207487573069827
[THREAD]
This is bad. ICE just told students here on student visas that if their school is going online-only this fall, the students must depart the United States and cannot remain through the fall semester. https://ice.gov/news/releases/sevp-modifies-temporary-exemptions-nonimmigrant-students-taking-online-courses-during
[EMBEDDED IMAGE WITH RELEVANT TEXT HIGHLIGHTED]
[NEXT]
Some important context for this. ICE actually runs a major portion of the student visa program, what's called the "Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP)." So oddly enough it's ICE, not US Citizenship and Immigration Services, that sets rules for students.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT UPPER LINK]
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Maddow Blog
twitter.com/MaddowBlog
6 July 2020
https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1280333431067611136
Katie Miller, press secretary for Mike Pence, quoted in Jacob Soboroff's new book, Separated: "DHS sent me to the border to see the separations for myself -- to try to make me more compassionate -- but it didn't work."
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT TWEET. Video also includes a "No, but" in response to "Are you a White Nationalist?"]
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Right-Wing Media Outlets Duped by a Middle East Propaganda Campaign
Conservative sites like Newsmax and Washington Examiner have published Middle East hot takes from “experts” who are actually fake personas pushing propaganda.
Adam Rawnsley
Updated Jul. 07, 2020
https://www.thedailybeast.com/right-wing-media-outlets-duped-by-a-middle-east-propaganda-campaign
If you want a hot take about the Middle East, Raphael Badani is your man.
As a Newsmax “Insider” columnist, he has thoughts about how Iraq needs to rid itself of Iranian influence to attract investment and why Dubai is an oasis of stability in a turbulent region. His career as a “geopolitical risk consultant and interactive simulation designer” and an “international relations senior analyst” for the Department of Labor have given him plenty of insights about the Middle East. He’s printed those insights at a range of conservative outlets like the Washington Examiner, RealClear Markets, American Thinker, and The National Interest.
Unfortunately for the outlets who published his articles and the readers who believed them, Raphael Badani does not exist.
His profile photos are stolen from the blog of an unwitting San Diego startup founder. His LinkedIn profile, which described him as a graduate of George Washington and Georgetown, is equally fictitious.
Badani is part of a network of at least 19 fake personas that has spent the past year placing more than 90 opinion pieces in 46 different publications. The articles heaped praise on the United Arab Emirates and advocated for a tougher approach to Qatar, Turkey, Iran and its proxy groups in Iraq and Lebanon.
Following this article’s publication, the Washington Examiner removed its article written by “Badani,” leaving only an editor’s note: “This op-ed has been removed after an investigation into its provenance and authorship.” Spiked, a British libertarian site, added a note atop both its articles by a fake persona, saying the outlet “takes seriously any claim of questionable authorship.” The National Interest, The Post Millennial, and The Jerusalem Post, meanwhile, all deleted their articles without any note.
On Monday, Twitter suspended Badani’s account along with 15 others after The Daily Beast shared the results of its investigation into the network for violating the company’s “policies on platform manipulation and spam.”
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Tucker Carlson suggests Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs in Iraq, hates America
By Tim Elfrink
July 7, 2020 at 1:19 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/07/tucker-carlson-tammy-duckworth-patriotism/
Before launching a broadside against Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Fox News host Tucker Carlson acknowledged that it’s not easy to go after a Purple Heart recipient who lost both her legs while serving her country in Iraq.
“You’re not supposed to criticize Tammy Duckworth in any way because she once served in the military,” Carlson said Monday night.
That didn’t stop him from calling Duckworth, a contender to be presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, “a deeply silly and unimpressive person” and suggesting that she and other Democratic leaders “actually hate America.”
Duckworth quickly jabbed back on Twitter, writing, “Does
tuckercarlson want to walk a mile in my legs and then tell me whether or not I love America?”----- 9 -----
Jeffrey Wright
twitter.com/jfreewright
6 July 2020
https://twitter.com/jfreewright/status/1280191988176793600
Need some answers here. This video - again - is got damn insanely brutal & barbaric. Why the primitive response from Phoenix cops?
[QUOTED TWEET]
NYT National News
twitter.com/NYTNational
6 July 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/phoenix-arizona-police-shooting-garcia.html
Protests broke out in Phoenix after police were captured on video fatally shooting a man in a parked car. https://nyti.ms/2ZGuH2e
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Jessica Noelle
5 July 2020
https://www.facebook.com/JesykaNoelle/posts/3621593544535169
Last night was one of the worst nights yet. I'm so fucked up and trying to process the hours of abuse and medical responses I had to provide to protestors from officers. Including a mom with 2 kids the same age as mine that came just to watch the fireworks and support the movement, and they were gassed with us, given ABSOLUTELY NO, FUCKING, WARNING. Her youngest is traumatized and oldest they just created a fucking enemy in the coming years. He'll never trust them again. As well as the psychological effects, especially when they even allowed me to treat a protestor safely on the front line without charging or touching me, but was in their hands an hour later being held for arrest until media and protestors came back to the charge line where my bag broke and I got snatched up. They gassed us so bad. Shot at us with peppers, rubber bullets, straight brutalized us and police broke their fucking restraining order against press as well. They actually went full auto on the pepper ball shots, I'm not joking, FULL FUCKING AUTO and then charged us. This shit is just so next level and people are fed up. This was how my 4th started and ended. Fuck your 4th of July.
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Seattle City Council member seeks to create first-responder alternative to police
By Scott Greenstone
Seattle Times staff reporter
July 6, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattle-city-council-member-seeks-to-create-first-responder-alternative-to-police/
Seattle City Councilmember Andrew Lewis is introducing legislation to divert police funding into creating a new mental health and substance addiction first-responder program, where unarmed medics and crisis workers would respond to reports of people in mental health crisis.
In the middle of continuing protests in Seattle and around the country where protesters have called for defunding police, Lewis sees this new response replacing police in these situations and lowering police caseloads.
“We need a new leg of the stool,” Lewis said. “When there’s a building on fire, we don’t send the police, we send the fire department… when someone has a stroke, we send an ambulance.”
Lewis wants the council to consider cutting SPD’s funding to pay for such a program this summer.
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Driver accused of hitting protesters, killing one, held on $1.2 million bail
By Elise Takahama
Seattle Times staff reporter
July 6, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/driver-accused-of-hitting-protesters-killing-one-held-on-1-2-million-bail/
Bail was set Monday for the driver suspected of hitting two protesters, killing one, on Interstate 5 in Seattle over the weekend, while a King County sheriff’s deputy was put on leave over a social media post that mocked the demonstrators’ death and injuries.
The driver, who the Washington State Patrol identified as 27-year-old Dawit Kelete, is being held on $1.2 million bail, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
At an initial hearing Saturday for Kelete, who is Black, a judge found probable cause for vehicular assault against two victims. Charges are expected to be filed Wednesday afternoon.
The victims of the hit-and-run, who both use they/them pronouns, were part of a daily march led by Black women, protesters outside the King County Courthouse said Monday.
...
Meanwhile, a King County Sheriff’s Office deputy was placed on administrative leave after making what the Sheriff’s Office described as “concerning posts” on social media over the weekend.
Screenshots shared on social media showed a post under the name Mike Brown; the Sheriff’s Office confirmed Brown is a detective. The screenshots captured a Facebook post with an image that read “All lives splatter” — accompanied by a graphic of a vehicle running people over. “Keep your (expletive) off the road,” the graphic continued.
“We value all members of our community and are committed to serving everyone equally, with dignity and respect,” Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht wrote in a statement Monday. “I will take swift action to thoroughly investigate when the conduct of Sheriff’s Office members fails to reflect our core values and violates Sheriff’s Office policy.”
The office is also investigating other employees who “may have participated via reactions or comments on the post,” the statement said.
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StanceGrounded
twitter.com/_SJPeace_
6 July 2020
https://twitter.com/_SJPeace_/status/1280374462542745605
[THREAD]
White Officer of Austin Police Department gropes the breasts of a woman as she continously demands a female officer!
THIS IS SEXUAL ASSAULT PLAIN AND SIMPLE!
DEMAND JUSTICE FOR THIS WOMAN!!!
This is OUTRAGEOUS!!!!
[EMBEDDED VIDEO of basically this. Frankly, to me, it seems like the second time, it's retaliatory.]
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
