One only need look at the front page of a major city new$paper for confirmation:
Retailers hit by thefts and damage are supporting protests against racism, violence
The damaged businesses are choosing to amplify the Black Lives Matter movement, and my first reaction upon seeing the headline was, well, fu*k you then. If you don't care about your bu$ine$$ and livelihood, why should I? All around me, people don't care that their freedoms and fun have been restricted over a damnable lie.
Of course, in the Globe, it is literally all about Black and white (and brown, surprisingly).
(flipping to below the fold)
Three more officers charged in killing of George Floyd
The New York Times pos comes with a photo of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Joe Biden already was under pressure to pick a Black woman running mate
The outrage over George Floyd’s death adds to it, and why is Jazmine Ulloa of the Globe Staff not capitalizing Woman, ladies?
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/bostonglobe/CH3FJXXFTAHTIZXXRDUEUUQE64.jpg)
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden meets with clergy members and community activists during a visit to Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware on Monday. (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images) (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images).
Okay, photo by Jim Watson, got it, and why did Dukakis in the tank just spring to mind?
Btw, I'm not getting on my knees and apologizing for something I have nothing to do with, and the masks of submission are really starting to annoy me.
Meanwhile, Brocktonians remain proud of their city in the aftermath of riots and arrests -- and despite its diverse population, the city’s leadership remains mostly white.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Rosenstein says he regrets approving surveillance of Trump campaign adviser
That was the Globe's Nation/World page lead, and the comment came at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing chaired by Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, to examine the Russia probe, and it's a big nothingburger.
5 takeaways on the CDC’s coronavirus response
The vaccine promoter known as the CDC ‘let us down,’ according to the New York Times.
Going to be tough times for Trump going forward:
"Pandemic, protests, and police: an election like no other" by Reid J. Epstein and Nick Corasaniti New York Times, June 3, 2020
WASHINGTON — On the biggest day of voting since the coronavirus disrupted public life, Americans cast ballots in extraordinary circumstances Tuesday, heading to the polls during a national health and economic crisis and amid the widespread protests and police deployments that have disrupted communities across the nation.
(Blog editor throws hand up. Who knew votes were being held?)
The most high-profile race of the day produced a surprising result when Representative Steve King, the Iowa Republican who was ostracized by his party after questioning why white nationalism was offensive, lost his primary to Randy Feenstra, a state senator who had the tacit support of much of the state’s GOP establishment.
King is only the second congressional incumbent from either party to lose a bid for renomination in the 2020 primaries. The other was Representative Dan Lipinski of Illinois, a Democrat who lost a March primary to a more liberal challenger, but unlike Lipinski, King was defeated not because of his ideology but because his defense of white identity politics finally proved too toxic for his Republican colleagues to abide.
Voters had no say?
The election has already been rigged, folks, and it is looking like it while be a Democrat disaster!
In his campaign, Feenstra did not make an issue of King’s litany of racist remarks, but instead argued that his removal from House committees by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made King an ineffective congressman for Iowa.
Feenstra will face J.D. Scholten, a Democrat and former minor-league baseball player who lost the 2018 general election to King by just 10,000 votes. Democrats believe Scholten could beat King, but would have far tougher odds against Feenstra.
On the Democratic side in Iowa, voters Tuesday chose Theresa Greenfield, a businesswoman who has proved to be an able fund-raiser, to face Republican Senator Joni Ernst. The race is expected to be among the most expensive Senate contests in the country, with outside groups already reserving $35 million in TV advertisements this summer and fall.
All that money being spent on politics when the economy has been destroyed and Americans are in need of aid and work -- with the result not really mattering much with this two-headed war party that serves corporations and Israel before the people.
In Indiana, Republicans in the state’s 5th Congressional District, which includes the northern swath of Indianapolis and counties to the north, picked Victoria Spartz, a self-funding Ukrainian-born state senator. She was one of 15 candidates battling to replace Representative Susan Brooks, a Republican who is retiring. Democrats nominated Christina Hale, a state House member, for a race they believe will be competitive in November.
Teresa Leger Fernandez, a progressive candidate who played up her deep roots in New Mexico, defeated former CIA officer Valerie Plame early Wednesday in the Democratic primary election for the state’s 3rd Congressional District.
A real devil's choice there.
Plame, who rose to fame after her identity was leaked during George W. Bush’s administration, ran a well-funded campaign in what is widely regarded as a safe Democratic district. Her debut television advertisement, in which she drove a Chevy Camaro backward through the desert, attracted national attention for its James Bond-style flash, but it may have helped contribute to her defeat, as she faced persistent criticism that she was an outsider.
Isn't that what we want, and what does it matter?
We are AWASH in DEEP $TATE CANDIDATES!
The problem with Plame is she actually supports the narrative despite what happened to her.
By contrast, Leger Fernandez emphasized her long history in the district throughout her campaign. She received endorsements from high-profile national Democrats, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Representative Greg Gianforte, a Montana Republican who lost the 2016 governor’s race to Steve Bullock, defeated Tim Fox, the Montana attorney general, in a second bid to be governor. Gianforte made national headlines in 2017 when he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for attacking a reporter. Gianforte will face Lieutenant Governor Mike Cooney.
Bullock, a Democrat, cannot seek reelection and won his party’s nomination to challenge for the Senate seat currently held by Republican Steve Daines, and in Ferguson, Mo., voters elected the first Black and first woman as mayor of the city that was roiled by protests and civil unrest after police fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.
That as SIX YEARS AGO, and Obummer improved not a damn thing!
Voters in eight states and Washington, D.C., chose nominees for congressional and local offices while casting perfunctory primary ballots in the presidential contest, which has long been set between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
The pandemic that had put a hold on the election season produced a new dynamic on the primaries being held Tuesday: All locales had seen an exponential surge in absentee voting because of the virus, with some states receiving more than 20 times the absentee requests of four years ago. The increase meant that some jurisdictions, overburdened by the amount of mail ballots, took longer than usual to report returns.
Might as well cancel the damn thing and leave Trump in office then.
I mean, I am literally mailing it in if they do that.
The voting also came amid a sustained assault on the electoral system by Trump, who has falsely attacked mail voting as biased toward Democrats, threatened to withhold federal resources from states that mailed ballots to voters, and suggested in general, with no evidence, the Democrats are looking to rig the election.
Just because the NYT claims there is no evidence doesn't mean there isn't any; after all, they claimed Iraq had non-existent WMD!
In the nation’s capital, polling places were open until 8 p.m., while the citywide curfew in place began at 7 p.m. Some voters remained in line for hours after the polls closed.
The effect of current events was also evident in Philadelphia, where voters were confronted with the dual realities of going to the polls in a city shaken by confrontations between police and protesters. Seventy percent of polling places there were closed while the authorities banned vehicle traffic and shut down public transportation in Center City, the downtown area, because of the unrest, meaning the only ways to get to polling sites were by foot or by bicycle.....
Hey, I give the Democrats and Obama credit. They really turned the electoral fraud around after W. Bush stole two elections.
--more--"
Related:
"Democrats from Acton and Taunton prevailed in a pair of House special elections Tuesday, flipping one seat blue and holding another to give the party a slight boost to the supermajority it enjoys. In a district that stretches across the towns of Acton, Ayer, Boxborough, Harvard, Lunenburg and Shirley, Dan Sena beat Lunenburg Republican Cathy Clark with 4,226 votes to her 1,471, according to unofficial tallies from town clerks. The win, according to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, makes Sena “the nation’s first Brazilian immigrant elected to a state legislature.”Carol Doherty, a Taunton School Committee member, claimed a seat last held by Republican Shaunna O’Connell, now the mayor of Taunton. Doherty bested Republican candidate Kelly Dooner, 2,069 to 1,551 in Taunton and 123 to 95 in the district’s one Easton precinct.In Taunton, about 37 percent of the 3,629 votes were cast via absentee ballot, numbers from the city clerk’s office show."
Why aren't they doing anything to counter Dictator Baker?
Time to take a look at the electoral map:
"Trump Campaign Looks at Electoral Map and Doesn’t Like What It Sees" by Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman New York Times, June 3, 2020
President Trump is facing the bleakest outlook for his reelection bid so far, with his polling numbers plunging in both public and private surveys and his campaign beginning to worry about his standing in states like Ohio and Iowa that he carried by wide margins four years ago.
Of course, this is the same pre$$ that had him losing both states to Clinton four years ago.
The Trump campaign has recently undertaken a multimillion-dollar advertising effort in those two states as well as in Arizona in hopes of improving his standing while also shaking up his political operation and turning new attention to states like Georgia that were once considered reliably Republican. In private, Trump has expressed concern that his campaign is not battle-ready for the general election, while Republicans are concerned about whether the president can emerge in a strong position from the national crises battering the country.
Consider the demented alternative.
Trump has been consistently unpopular as president with a majority of Americans; his advisers have long seen his effort to win a new term as depending on the loyalty of his conservative base and the Republican-friendly tilt of the Electoral College — factors that could allow the president to capture another thin victory despite the strong possibility of losing the popular vote again, but amid the human and economic devastation of the coronavirus pandemic and now a wave of demonstrations and social unrest in US cities, Trump has fallen significantly behind his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.
You think the riots are bad now?
You ain't seen nothing yet if he wins the electoral college while losing the popular vote again.
The Deep $tate Democrats and Georgie $oro$'s agents will tear this country apart!
In private polling conducted by Trump’s campaign, the president is well behind Biden, according to people briefed on the most recent round of results. Several public surveys this week have found Trump trailing Biden, the former vice president, by double-digit margins, including a Monmouth University poll published Wednesday that showed Biden ahead by 11 percentage points.
The presidential election is still five months away, and Trump, despite his political vulnerability, retains some important assets as a candidate. While Biden’s fund-raising efforts have picked up momentum, Trump is sitting on a considerably larger war chest and is resuming in-person fund-raising next week. There is almost no open dissent within the Republican Party, giving Trump a solid political foundation on the right from which he can attempt to rebuild his strength before the fall campaign.
Rebuild his strength with who?
It's his name on the checks. He's the one re$pon$ible for our mi$ery.
Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, said in a statement that the race remained highly competitive.
“Our internal data consistently shows the president running strong against a defined Joe Biden in all of our key states,” Murtaugh said, using a term that typically refers to polling that tests positive and negative messages about both candidates, but Trump’s belligerent response to protests after the killing of George Floyd appears to have worsened his political position even further, officials in both parties said. On an almost daily basis, he has issued a combination of wild threats and complaints about news media coverage and other personal grievances.
Actually, that is helping him out in the hustings where the Globe won't go.
“There is no obvious strategy in terms of message,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist based in California. “The president defaults to base messages regardless of strategy, thus the campaign becomes a base-driven campaign.”
Signs of anxiety inside the Trump team are evident across the electoral map. Over the past few weeks, the president’s operation has spent about $1.7 million on advertising in just three states he carried in 2016 — Ohio, Iowa, and Arizona — that it had hoped would not be competitive this year. Much of that sum went to a concentrated two-week barrage in Ohio, according to the media-tracking firm Advertising Analytics. The spending in Ohio startled many Republicans, given that four years ago Trump defeated Hillary Clinton there by 8 percentage points.
No Republican wins the presidency without winning Ohio.
Polls released Wednesday show another troubling sign for Trump: His numbers have flagged recently among white voters, driven by a continued erosion of support from those with college degrees. The latest Monmouth survey found Trump with the support of just 52 percent of white voters nationwide — 5 percentage points lower than his share in 2016, according to exit polls.
He might as well be Black.
There are also at least faint signs of renewed discomfort with Trump among a sliver of suburban Republican primary voters who could doom him altogether if they were to shift to Biden in November.
Or not.
In many of the states that voted Tuesday, however, including Pennsylvania and Montana, there were only scant signs of protest voting, underscoring the extent of Trump’s dominance within his party even in a period of extraordinary political adversity, and his advisers point to the relatively high turnout on the Republican side in some states, like New Mexico, as a sign that Trump’s base is still intensely engaged.
It's fear of the Communists, 'er, Democrats that is driving people to call on the Zioni$ts, 'er, Republicans, to save us even though either one will be the death of us.
It is not clear how fully Trump grasps the depths of his political peril; when he was asked Wednesday about trailing Biden in the polls, he replied, “I have other polls where I’m winning,” although he did not cite one.
I'm sure he has other matters he needs to focus on right now, jerk!
--more--"
Related:
"California is sending every registered voter a mail-in ballot for the November election, but the state will also establish hundreds of locations for people who want — or need — to vote in-person. The decision to send every voter a mail-in ballot was prompted last month by health concerns tied to the coronavirus. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom says the state will also have a range of options for in-person voting. Counties must open a minimum of one in-person voting location for every 10,000 voters beginning the Saturday before Election Day. Republicans have been critical of the state’s November plans."
Who cares?
We all know that $hit state is turning blue on election night.
If only Trump had something that would inoculate and immunize him:
"The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine did not prevent COVID-19 in a rigorous study of 821 people who had been exposed to patients infected with the virus, researchers from the University of Minnesota and Canada reported Wednesday. The study was the first controlled clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that President Trump has repeatedly promoted and recently taken himself. Conducted in the United States and Canada, this trial was the first to test whether the drug could prevent illness in people who have been exposed to the coronavirus. “The take-home message for the general public is that if you’re exposed to someone with COVID-19, hydroxychloroquine is not an effective post-exposure, preventive therapy,” the lead author of the study, Dr. David R. Boulware, from the University of Minnesota, said. The results are being published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The president’s promotion of the drug, and the backlash against it, have politicized medical questions that would normally have been left to researchers to answer objectively. Trump supporters and opponents have accused one another of twisting facts about the drug to make the president look either right or wrong....."
You are either with him or against him, and where have I seen that before?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Better bury yourself in a bunker, Mr. President:
"Trump denies, then admits, going to White House bunker during protest" by Carol D. Leonnig Washington Post, June 3, 2020
WASHINGTON — President Trump was rushed to a secure bunker in the White House on Friday evening after a group of protesters hopped over temporary barricades set up near the Treasury Department grounds, according to arrest records and people familiar with the incident.
The president was UNDER THREAT?
Secret Service officers detained at least four protesters, who were charged with unlawful entry at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, according to arrest records. The incident took place near the border between the White House lawn and Treasury Department, about 350 feet from the East Wing, and close to a Treasury fence line that has been at the center of past security failures.
Related:
Obama Assassination PsyOp Jumps the Fence
Obama Assassination PsyOp Stuck on the Fence
Along with other selective stunts over the years.
The breach occurred around the time that the Secret Service alert level on the White House complex was elevated from ‘‘yellow’’ to ‘‘red,’’ according to a law enforcement official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal safety maneuvers. Officials familiar with the incident told colleagues that the president, the first lady, and their son Barron were rushed to the bunker because of the episode, according to two people familiar with their accounts.
Good.
They are doing their jobs, and I don't want to see anything happen to the President.
The events contradict the president’s claim Wednesday that he went to the bunker simply to inspect the secure location. The White House and Secret Service declined to comment on what precipitated Trump’s move to the bunker, part of a classified security system for safeguarding the president.
At least he didn't lie us into Iraq with a collaborative media cheering him on.
‘‘The White House does not comment on security protocols and decisions,’’ spokesman Judd Deere said in an e-mailed statement.
‘‘For operational security reasons, the US Secret Service does not discuss our protectees or our protective means and methods relative to all US Secret Service protected facilities inclusive of the White House,’’ an agency spokesperson said.
Trump, who has been angered by reports that he was moved to the secure underground facility and the impression that he was in hiding, on Wednesday disputed that he was rushed to safety.
‘‘It was a false report. I wasn’t down,’’ Trump told Fox Radio host Brian Kilmeade. ‘‘I went down during the day, and I was there for a tiny, little short period of time, and it was much more for an inspection. There was no problem during the day.’’
Pressed by Kilmeade on whether Trump was ‘‘inspecting’’ the bunker because the Secret Service expressed concern for his safety, the president insisted that wasn’t the case.
‘‘Nope, they didn’t tell me that at all,’’ Trump said. ‘‘They said it would be a good time to go down, take a look, because maybe sometime you’re going to need it.’’
Like Dick Cheney did directing war games on the morning of 9/11 -- war games that mimicked what we saw(?) on TV.
Former Secret Service agents said Trump’s explanation did not make sense, noting that all presidents and their families are routinely given a security briefing in their first days in office. They are briefed on steps the Secret Service will take in an emergency and also shown secure locations where they will be taken in case of danger.
Everybody knows Trump doesn't listen to briefings, so what the deal?
Relocation to the underground bunker is part of various security steps the Secret Service may use in the case of potential threats to the president’s safety.
The incursion by protesters near the White House complex Friday came as swelling demonstrations filled the streets of downtown Washington in response to the killing of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police, with many people rushing barricades and throwing bottles. It was the first night of protests in the city, and the large crowd swarming so close to the White House took Secret Service officers aback, officials said.
So much for COVID (which hasn't come up much, has it?).
Lone protesters sometimes have tried to make a statement by jumping the fence, but not since the civil unrest of the 1960s have groups come directly at the White House grounds in such numbers.
Are there not other ways to "make a statement?"
Trump’s frustration with the impression that he was in hiding amid the tumult contributed to his decision Monday to walk from the White House to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church.
Yeah, the heat is on over that.
Less than 30 minutes before his walk, federal agents rushed at protesters in Lafayette Square and an adjoining street with shields and batons, tossing gas canisters and pepper spray pellets into the crowd, causing a chaotic scurry.
The arrests Friday took place near a Treasury Department fence line that borders the White House grounds and has figured in key security failures in the past, including a March 2017 incident when Trump was at home and was also rushed to the bunker for a short period.
In that incident, Jonathan Tuan-Anh Tran, a California man carrying two cans of Mace and a letter to Trump about ‘‘Russian hackers,’’ hopped the Treasury fence line.
The entire White House fence line was recommended for replacement after a 2014 fence-jumper incident, but the portion around Treasury had been delayed by Secret Service budget constraints.
Yeah, right.
Two of the people who were arrested said they were stunned by the idea that their actions prompted the abrupt relocation of the president.
‘‘I didn’t even realize what I did was illegal,’’ said one of the protesters, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the pending charges. ‘‘I stepped over a barricade. I never got onto the Treasury grounds or White House grounds.’’
He just confirmed they are ignorant idiots!
--more--"
It was the next series of articles that convinced me that we are looking at a COLOR REVOLUTION and REGIME CHANGE COUP ATTEMPT HERE AT HOME:
"CIA veterans who monitored crackdowns abroad see troubling parallels in Trump handling of protests" by Greg Miller Washington Post, June 3, 2020
So says the CIA mouthpiece (cloud contract and all without a whiff of COVID)!
WASHINGTON — The scenes have been disturbingly familiar to CIA analysts accustomed to monitoring scenes of societal unraveling abroad — the massing of protesters, the ensuing crackdowns, and the awkwardly staged displays of strength by a leader determined to project authority.
Yeah, monitoring them because they fomented them!
This is going to be one of the rankest self-projections you will ever read!
In interviews and posts on social media in recent days, current and former US intelligence officials have expressed dismay at the similarity between events at home and the signs of decline or democratic regression they were trained to detect in other countries.
Me, too!
‘‘I’ve seen this kind of violence,’’ said Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst responsible for tracking developments in China and Southeast Asia. ‘‘This is what autocrats do. This is what happens in countries before a collapse. It really does unnerve me.’’
Helt, now a professor at King University in Tennessee, said the images of unrest in US cities, combined with President Trump’s incendiary statements, echo clashes she covered over a dozen years at the CIA tracking developments in China, Malaysia, and elsewhere.
Once CIA, always CIA.
Other former CIA analysts and national security officials rendered similarly troubled verdicts.
Marc Polymeropoulos, who formerly ran CIA operations in Europe and Asia, was among several former agency officials who recoiled at images of Trump hoisting a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church after authorities fired rubber bullets and tear gas to clear the president’s path of protesters.
‘‘It reminded me of what I reported on for years in the third world,’’ Polymeropoulos said on Twitter. Referring to the despotic leaders of Iraq, Syria, and Libya, he said: ‘‘Saddam. Bashar. Qaddafi. They all did this.’’
I told you, readers.
This stuff is f**king rank!
The impression Trump created was only reinforced by others in the administration. Defense Secretary Mark Esper urged governors to ‘‘dominate the battlespace’’ surrounding protesters as if describing US cities as a foreign war zone. Later, as military helicopters hovered menacingly over protesters, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, toured the streets of the nation’s capital in his battle fatigue uniform.
Sure looks like a WAR ZONE -- complete with MARTIAL LAW and everything!
‘‘As a former CIA officer, I know this playbook,’’ Representative Abigail Spanberger, Democrat of Virginia, said in a tweet. Before her election to Congress last year, she worked at the agency on issues including terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
Like Plame.
Why was she not outed?
Former intelligence officials said the unrest and the administration’s militaristic response are among many measures of decay they would flag if writing assessments about the United States for another country’s intelligence service.
They cited the country’s struggle to contain the coronavirus, the president’s attempt to pressure Ukraine for political favors, his attacks on the news media, and the increasingly polarized political climate as other signs of dysfunction.
Rioting and smashing store windows is going to fix that how?
Trump supporters have defended his handling of the unrest and his trip across Lafayette Square as a display of the strength needed to restore order in dozens of cities where protests have led to looting, fires, and violence.
Former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, a Republican, said it was ‘‘hard to imagine’’ any other president ‘‘having the guts to walk out of the White House like this,’’ but there were also indications that senior members of the administration were uncomfortable with the president’s outing and eager to minimize their role in it.
Like rats deserting a sinking ship.
A senior Pentagon official said Tuesday that neither Esper nor Milley knew when they set out to accompany Trump that police were about to charge through seemingly docile protesters or that they would find themselves playing supporting roles in a photo op.
Even away from the cameras, Trump has assiduously cultivated the aura of a strongman. Earlier Monday, he had chided governors as ‘‘weak’’ for failing to employ adequate force in the face of mounting protests.
The CIA would know all about them seeing as they have installed so many!
“If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time,” Trump said. He offered no words on how to ease tensions in crowds that have massed largely in anger over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed while being pinned to the ground, a knee against his neck, by police in Minneapolis.
After a while, you no longer want to socialize with a$$holes who hate you and are trying to destroy you.
In recent years, US officials have urged restraint or denounced crackdowns against protesters or vulnerable groups in Russia, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, Syria, and other countries.
Just as they do when Israel goes on a murder spree against Palestinians!
Even this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lectured China about its efforts to prevent citizens of Hong Kong from holding a vigil to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests.
‘‘If there is any doubt about Beijing’s intent, it is to deny Hong Kongers a voice and a choice,’’ Pompeo said in a statement that was met with derision on Twitter because it coincided with Trump-urged crackdowns in the United States.
The Cold War with China is a separate matter, bu the hypocrisy coming out of U.S. holes is noticeable.
--more--"
IMPEACH NOW, right?
"Three more officers charged in killing of George Floyd" by the New York Times, June 3, 2020
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Wednesday that he does not think the current state of unrest in US cities warrants the deployment of active-duty troops to confront protesters, just days after President Trump said he was considering use of the Insurrection Act to do exactly that.
In a Pentagon news conference, Esper said ordering active-duty troops to police cities should be a “last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations.” He said that, for now, it was not warranted.
Trump’s statements — and the use of force to clear protesters from a park across the street from the White House this week so he could stage a photo opportunity — have drawn sharp criticism.
Criticism from who?
Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense during the first two years of the Trump administration, became the latest former military official to condemn Trump’s use of the military against peaceful protesters:
“Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside,’’ Mattis said in a statement.
Mattis is taking the side of the rioters?
It's that sort of insubordination that got him fired!
Btw, he is a liar. He had to have known of the Pentagon's 2030 document that described what is happening now.
Cities continued to impose curfews Wednesday and took steps to respond to protesters’ concerns.
That is MARTIAL LAW STUFF!
In Philadelphia, the city took down a statue of former mayor Frank Rizzo, a champion of conservatives who aggressively policed Black people and gay people in the 1960s and ’70s, and whose likeness has long been criticized as a symbol of racism and oppression.
The statue of Rizzo, his hand aloft in a wave, had sat on the steps of a municipal services building facing City Hall since its unveiling in 1999. It was often vandalized, and protesters in recent days have tried to take it down and light it on fire.
They want to erase history!
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is expected to announce plans Thursday for the removal of an iconic statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from Richmond’s prominent Monument Avenue, a senior administration official told the Associated Press.
The Democratic governor will direct the statue to be moved off its massive pedestal and put into storage while his administration seeks input on a new location, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“That is a symbol for so many people, Black and otherwise, of a time gone by of hate and oppression and being made to feel less than,’’ said Jay Jones, a black lawmaker from Norfolk.
What is NORTHAM still doing there?
The BLACK FACE WASHED OFF, huh?
As for the fellow lawmaker, I guess when the Black Lt. Gov. rapes and harasses women it's okay.
All forgotten and down the memory hole?
The city of Louisville, Ky., will hire an outside consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of its police department, after the recent fatal shootings of two black residents — Breonna Taylor in March and David McAtee early Monday.
See: Bo$ton Globe Knock-Knock Jokes
Not funny at all!
Former President Barack Obama, at a virtual town hall event with young people, called for turning the protests over Floyd’s death into policy change to ensure safer policing and increased trust between communities and law enforcement. He urged “every mayor in the country to review your use of force policies.” Obama also spoke directly to young Black people, telling them, ‘‘I want you to know that you matter. I want you to know that your lives matter, that your dreams matter.’’
He did nothing for you other than help the banks kick you out of your homes back in 2009-10.
In Washington on Wednesday, military police and law enforcement officers from a variety of federal agencies were out in force during protests.
The law enforcement officers formed a ring around the perimeter of Lafayette Park across from the White House. Military vehicles were parked on nearby streets, also blocking access.
Washington’s mayor set an 11 p.m. curfew after earlier restrictions the previous two nights.
D.C.'s martial law curfew is dealt with in an article just below this one, and edited out of the one I'm currently reading was the 50 Philadelphia ATMs blown up with dynamite since Saturday (with bombings also reported in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis).
Nationwide, more than 9,000 have been arrested in connection with unrest. At least 12 deaths have been reported.
Got to be an UNDERCOUNT, and the rest is web version stuff:
In New York City, officials were hopeful that an earlier curfew and refined police tactics were bringing the city closer to restoring order after days of unrest.
Demonstrators marched throughout the city in largely peaceful events Wednesday, and like the previous night, were still on the streets when the 8 p.m. curfew time arrived. Rain made for a barrier to remaining on the streets Wednesday night, with downpours arriving.
God rained on their riot, huh?
In another development, Floyd’s official autopsy, released for the first time, revealed that he was known to have had the coronavirus in early April, though he was believed to be asymptomatic at the time of his death. Demonstrators have regularly pointed out that police violence and COVID-19 are disproportionately affecting Blacks.....
Oh, yeah, COVID!
That EVIL PLAN still CONTINUES APACE while you are sweeping up the glass of your burned out property!
--more--"
Now about that curfew in D.C. (does the damn thing extend to the grandstanding politicians, too?):
"Mayor relaxes D.C. curfew but tensions rise between city’s leaders, White House" by Susan Svrluga, Joe Heim, Peter Hermann and Ann E. Marimow Washington Post, June 3, 2020
WASHINGTON — A sixth day of protests in Washington began Wednesday with a demonstration at the Capitol, followed by others north of Lafayette Square, near the White House, and outside Trump International Hotel.
Several hundred demonstrators had descended on Washington Tuesday, a day of mostly peaceful protests in the city.
Earlier in the day on Wednesday, demonstrators lay face down near ornate fountains on the East Front of the Capitol, hands held behind their backs as though cuffed. Meanwhile, hundreds gathered in the heat at 16th and I streets north of the White House.
After two nights with a curfew that began at 7 p.m., Mayor Muriel E. Bowser announced Wednesday that a curfew will go into effect at 11 p.m. and extend through 6 a.m. Thursday.
Call it what it is, martial law.
Bowser raised concerns Wednesday about the expanding footprint of outside law enforcement in the District amid days of large demonstrations, saying, “we should all be concerned about who is giving the orders.” Over the past few days, numerous federal police agencies and National Guard members from several states have been deployed across the city, but even as local leaders eased the curfew to 11 p.m., there were signs of tightening restrictions by federal authorities as their forces expanded street closures and tall black fencing was erected near the White House. The response increased the tension between city officials and the Trump administration.
Bowser criticized the expanded presence of federal law enforcement in the city and some of their tactics. City officials are evaluating whether the deployment in certain parts of the city is legal.
They might catch the cops and other criminal elements creati9ng the conditions for chaos, like in Boston and Minneapolis (bricks and fires).
In contrast to previous nights marred by vandalism, fires and looting, District officials said, protesters largely kept one another in check to tamp down violence Tuesday night into the morning. While the authorities appeared tense and confrontational earlier in the week, officers were far more relaxed and avoided making large-scale arrests even though hundreds of people, and perhaps as many as 5,000, were on the streets well past the 7 p.m. curfew, officials said.
‘‘We have allowed peaceful demonstrations every night,’’ the mayor said. ‘‘What we are concerned about are people who are not peaceful and destroying our city.’’
The sixth day of protest in Washington brought a more relaxed yet still passionate and family-friend vibe.
(Blog editor's chin sinks to chest. This whole thing has become a f**king FARCE)
After the cops took a knee (WTF?) this happened:
Suddenly everyone was dancing to Michael Jackson’s ‘‘Make a Change,’’ with the protest leaders grooving on a fountain silhouetted against the Capitol dome. Volunteers handed out water, snacks, and sunscreen, medics walked through the crowd, and others collected trash. Officers stood behind fences a few feet apart from one another, watching the crowd but looking relatively relaxed.
Abby Belai, whose parents moved to the United States from Ethiopia before she was born, said she felt compelled to be at the protest to show support for the generations of Black Americans who had suffered and battled for their constitutional rights.
If you are white you get no credit for that, and we don't even have any of that anymore anyway.
Good Christ!
‘‘I worry for the children that see this stuff on TV and see their parents get racially profiled,’’ said Belai, 26, of Falls Church, Va. ‘‘This shouldn’t continue for future generations, and we won’t stop until we are heard and seen and understood and accepted just like every person in this country and in the world.’’
There is a lot worse waiting for the kids in my next post.
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Meanwhile, back up in Minnesota:
ACLU files suit against Minnesota police for ‘targeting’ of journalists
The Washington Compost means Deep $tate propagandists like themselves.
The Globe then says don’t let labor agreements thwart police accountability because union agreements too often prevent police departments from firing officers who act violently or inappropriately, and lawmakers of both parties need to take police discipline out of labor negotiations so that accountability can no longer be used as a bargaining chip.
It's pretty clear which side of the line the Globe is on, while some are happy that Governor Baker is finally taking on President Trump and making some noise.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Here is a quick check around Bo$ton and beyond:
"A Florida man was arrested following the alleged theft of music amplifiers from a car in Dorchester Wednesday morning that led to a wild chase in town, police said. At 4:43 a.m , police received a report from a man who said his gray Acura had been stolen on Oakland Road Extension. He told police that he had watched as a number of people stole music amplifiers from his car parked on Norwell Street in Dorchester. The suspects drove away in a blue van, and the man got into the Acura and followed them into Brookline. On Oakland Road Extension, the van intentionally slammed into the car, police said. After the driver gout out of the Acura to confront the suspects, one of them jumped into the car and drove away, police said. The Acura was traveling south on High Street when it hit an unoccupied parked vehicle, said Lieutenant Jennifer Paster , a police spokeswoman. Officers then spotted the Acura speeding on Route 9 west and chased after it, police said. Officers lost sight of the vehicle near Chestnut Hill Avenue until it slammed into a parked car at 775 Boylston St., police said. The person who stole the Acura fled the scene of the crash on foot. Two police cruisers sustained minor damage during the chase when one accidentally rear ended the other, she said. One officer was taken to a hospital with minor injuries. Police located the van and arrested its driver, Jonathan Hernandez, 24, of Boynton Beach. Hernandez was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (vehicle) and receiving stolen property over $250."
Been a lot of those lately -- and this, too:
"An 18-year-old Worcester man who told police he was an anarchist faces federal charges for allegedly possessing a Molotov cocktail and obstructing police during a protest in the city Monday night, according to the US attorney’s office for Massachusetts. Vincent Eovacious is due to appear in federal court Thursday on a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm — the Molotov cocktail, the attorney’s office said. Eovacious was also charged with civil disorder for allegedly trying “to obstruct or interfere with law enforcement officers engaged in responding to the violent demonstration ” over the deaths of George Floyd and other Black people killed by police, the statement said. Worcester police said an officer spotted a man later identified as Eovacious standing on the roof of 848 Main St. about 10 p.m., wearing a trench coat, pacing, and shouting to protesters facing off with police in the street below that they should kill officers, according to documents filed in federal court."
Who hired ya', kid, or are you just a dupe?
Why don't you go the beach and cool off instead?
"As the town prepares for summer, town officials want to hear from residents and business owners about how best to balance public health and the economy. A community forum will be held Thursday, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. via Zoom, officials said. “Before we make decisions that will have a significant impact for the Town, we wanted to give stakeholders a chance to voice their thoughts, ideas or concerns about how we balance public health with the re-opening of business during the summer season,” said Town Manager Neil Harrington. The forum will be moderated by Brad Schiff, president of Pierce-Cote/Regan Communications. Topics to be discussed include handling traffic and people headed to Salisbury Beach, guidelines for summer rental properties, and whether or not public events that draw large crowds should be held, the statement said. The forum will be broadcast live on the town’s public access channel, Salisbury Community TV, Channel 12 and 18 as well as SCTVMC’s Facebook page."
Actually, this past weekend at the beach was probably your last.
Because of this:
Thousands of people — Black, brown, white, young and old — rallied on Boston Common Wednesday in the latest mass demonstration against police brutality since last week’s killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Now Black is superior to all others, according to the Globe.
I have to quit buying this paper.
Keeping their distance nearby on Tremont Street were scores of National Guard members carrying assault rifles and Boston police officers bearing large sticks and riot gear, but the protest, called “Justice for George Floyd," was peaceful.
You know, this all comes after the "COVID-19 operation was fraying badly: Protests against the lockdowns were expanding. The public-health measures (distancing, isolation, masks) were being attacked from all sides, as unnecessary, useless, overbearing, and unscientific. Many mainstream researchers, doctors, and even public health officials were exposing the fact that the pandemic was no pandemic at all. The adjusted case and death numbers didn’t warrant excessive concern. It was becoming obvious that the players setting the COVID agenda were there simply because they had been appointed to high posts; not because they were perceptive or honest scientists. In other words, COVID was political. On top of all this, economies were beginning to re-open; for the public, that was the main focus, not the threat of catching a disease. There was a great need for an operational shift. How and why didn’t particularly matter, as long as the populace was riveted by some new catastrophe. This shift would also stall the economic engine (again). After all, stripping away the mountain of lies about COVID, the core at the center of it WAS an economic attack, and now it’s been done. All across America. Riots, burning, looting, violence, race conflict, curfews. A new reason for a different form of lockdown. The daily protests in the streets overtake and replace the former protests against the COVID lockdown. One operation covers another....."
Sarah Thomas, 49, sang Sam Cooke’s civil rights anthem, “A Change Is Gonna Come,” while clutching the leash to her elderly basset hound, who wore a Black Lives Matter T-shirt and a homemade protest sign. She had walked to the protest from Cambridge with her two children, 17 and 13, and called for immediate reform.
“The change has to happen from within the cities. Local politicians need to check their own police departments. You know you have cops who are harassing Black people. Do your job,” she said.
Umm, the dog needs to be on a leash so they will have to cite you, and that means the campaign loot dries up.
At a news conference earlier in the day, Governor Charlie Baker praised the protesters and law enforcement for the general restraint they’ve shown at rallies in Boston and elsewhere. He also said looters and people who engaged in violence after protests in Boston on Sunday, and in Brockton two days later, “will have your day in court and be held accountable.”
On Boston Common Wednesday, as the afternoon wore on, protesters briefly shut down surrounding streets, bringing traffic to a halt.
You do NOT win ANY FRIENDS doing THAT!
Officers and members of the National Guard stood by as protesters looped downtown before returning to the Common for a die-in. At one point, a skirmish broke out among some of the people in the crowd, but it ended as the crowd chanted “No violence,” and the die-in continued.
Among those who braved the coronavirus to join the protest was Jaclyn Giay, 29, of South Boston. “I came because I’m sick to my stomach of all these killings of innocent people by police,” she said. “We need more justice.”
Aw, drop dead!
Hundreds of protesters staged a die in and held a moment of silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the same amount of time George Floyd was held down for, during a peaceful protest to honor the life of George Floyd on the Boston Common (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff).
Oh, look at the rent-a-mob crisis actors!
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Now they are ready for a shot in the arm:
"Trump administration selects five coronavirus vaccine candidates as finalists" by Noah Weiland and David E. Sanger New York Times, June 3, 2020
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has selected five companies as the most likely candidates to produce a vaccine for the coronavirus, senior officials said, a critical step in the White House’s effort to deliver on its promise of being able to start widespread inoculation of Americans by the end of the year.
Over my dead body.
By winnowing the field in a matter of weeks from a pool of around a dozen companies, the federal government is betting that it can identify the most promising vaccine projects at an early stage, speed along the process of determining which will work and ensure that the winner or winners can be quickly manufactured in huge quantities and distributed across the country.
Or at least get a lot of loot into favored hands, and is it just me or are they ACTING like it is one of his GODDAMN APPRENTICE SHOWS!
The announcement of the decision will be made at the White House in the next few weeks, government officials said. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top epidemiologist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, hinted at the coming action Tuesday when he told a medical seminar that “by the beginning of 2021 we hope to have a couple of hundred million doses.”
Why don't you take two for yourself, you evil f**k?
You can have mine.
The five companies are Moderna, a Cambridge-based biotechnology firm, which Fauci said he expected would enter into the final phase of clinical trials next month; the combination of Oxford University and AstraZeneca, on a similar schedule; and three large pharmaceutical companies: Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Pfizer. Each is taking a somewhat different approach.
Fauci and Trump's vaccine czar have conflicts of intere$ts where Moderna is concerned, and did COVID ever save them!
President Trump has been eager to show rapid progress as the nation slowly emerges from lockdown and as he faces the growing challenge of winning reelection in the midst of national upheaval: more than 106,000 Americans dead from the virus, unemployment at record levels, and now discord and violence in the streets.
Despite promising early results and the administration’s strong interest in nurturing a government-industry partnership, substantial hurdles remain, and many scientists consider Trump’s goal of having a vaccine widely available by early next year to be optimistic, if not unrealistic. Vaccine development is notoriously difficult and time-consuming; the record is four years, and a decade is not unusual.
Until then, living with COVID, right?
Alleged hot spots will lead to testing!
Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and the Oxford-AstraZeneca group have already received a total of $2.2 billion in federal funding to support their vaccine programs. Their selection as finalists, along with Merck and Pfizer, will give all five companies access to additional government money, help in running clinical trials, and financial and logistical support for a manufacturing base that is being built even before it is clear which, if any, of the vaccines in development will work.
More funding is likely to be announced soon, officials said. Earlier this week, the Department of Health and Human Services added $628 million to a contract with Emergent BioSolutions, a Maryland firm, to expand development of vaccine manufacturing capacity.
Why can't the American people and the mom-and-pop shops get some of that?
The project — called Operation Warp Speed — amounts to a sprawling, on-the-fly experiment in industrial policy by a Republican administration that has been dedicated to giving private industry a free hand.
How do YOU FEEL about being a GUINEA PIG for an EXPERIMENT, American?
That means you NEED MY CONSENT, right?
Democrats in Congress are already seeking details about the contracts with the companies, many of which are still wrapped in secrecy. They are asking how much Americans will have to pay to be vaccinated and whether the firms, or American taxpayers, will retain the profits and intellectual property.
I want NONE of my TAX MONEY being used for that, and I think we know where the profits are going!
Other countries, including China, are also rushing their own efforts to produce a vaccine, raising concerns that nationalism rather than need could drive decisions about who first gets inoculated.
This slop called journali$m is making me sicker than COVID or the vaccine.
Two of the vaccine candidates selected by the Trump administration — developed by Moderna and scientists at Oxford — are already in phase two trials, meaning their effectiveness is being tested on scores of human subjects.
They will likely shift to large-scale human trials, called phase three, as early as July, two senior administration officials said.
While Johnson & Johnson has said it would begin phase one trials by September at the latest, that now appears likely to be sped up considerably, officials said. Phase one focuses on testing for safety, a particularly important factor for vaccines since they are administered widely to healthy people.
I would just like to remind you women out there that J&J is the company that lied about talc powder giving you uterine cancer and such, so..... yeah, tru$t them.
Several of the companies said that they did not want to speak before any announcement by the White House, and the others did not respond to requests for comment. Moderna, Merck, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are based in the United States. AstraZeneca is based in Britain.
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Also see:
Snap says it will no longer promote Trump’s account
Nor will I.
Dump Trump!
Bring on President Pence!
