"Amid demands for sweeping police reforms, the chiefs said all the right things. They agreed that their departments needed to take a hard look at themselves and that it was time for genuine self-reflection — and real change. Then they stepped down to let someone else handle it. Several area police chiefs, facing tough new calls for reform brought on by the national Black Lives Matter movement, have announced plans to retire. “This is institutional racism that we’re dealing with. We’re not just asking for one guy to quit. We want the whole system to change. This is a good first step. We’d like to see more from the town,” said Chiuba Obele, a Brookline resident and leading organizer in the movement to shift funds from Brookline police....."
Time to get out of Dodge.
I don't blame any of the chiefs, and here is the agitator the Globe is promoting:
Organizer Chiuba E. Obele of Boston held a bullhorn during a demonstration Sunday morning across the street from the home of Brookline select board Chairman Bernard Greene (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff)
"Protesters call on board chairman to ‘wake up’ Sunday morning" by Gal Tziperman Lotan Globe Staff, July 5, 2020
BROOKLINE — About 50 people gathered outside the home of the Brookline’s select board chairman Sunday morning, chanting “Black lives matter” and making noise to “wake up” Chair Bernard Greene and encourage moving funds from the town’s police department to other areas.
Well, that will put the fear of God into him, won't it?
More and more, we see the mob looking Soviet.
Josué Anselme, a 17-year-old from Brookline who was among the protesters, recounted the experience of being the only Black student in his class through much of elementary school — from hearing another boy call him a racial slur in the second grade to being stopped by police as he got older.
Not over it yet?
We were all bullied on the playground.
“I make my own curfew now, because if you look at the news and you see young Black kids being shot up like it’s a sport,” Anselme said. “You never know if it’s going to be you.”
Yeah, and 95% of the time it's another black person doing the killing.
This "movement" doesn't care about that.
Protesters gathered at 8 a.m. Sunday near Leverett Pond, some with buckets or pans ready to make noise. They broke off into groups and discussed how the town, which the US Census estimates is about 70 percent white, can drive meaningful change.
Chiuba E. Obele, a 29-year-old Boston resident who organized the protest, filed a lawsuit against the town in US District Court in Boston last month alleging that police racially profiled him in 2017, made racist jokes, and wrongfully arrested him.
“We tried to lobby our politicians in Brookline to pass through an amendment that would make very modest budget cuts to the police department, and they would not even allow for that,” Obele said at the protest Sunday morning. “... Our schools need the funding, affordable housing has to be improved, and we need to start hiring social workers to be addressing the social causes of crime.”
Stay out of Bo$ton in the future, for there will be no more 911 service.
Protesters asked for the Brookline Police Department’s $16.9 million budget to be cut by half and for the town to use the money for schools, affordable housing, and various social services.
That shouldn't be a problem in a wealthy community like Brookline, so what we are looking at here is nothing but a damn $hakedown!
A few Brookline police officers stood across the street but did not interact with protesters.
Greene, who did not engage with protesters, said in a phone interview early Sunday afternoon that he has “no interest in addressing Mr. Obele’s demands.”
Damn racist!
“The Globe should focus on what we are doing in our reimagining policing task force, and what we have been doing for years in terms of reimagining policing,” Greene said.
He said he hoped to vote soon to create a task force exploring police reform and alternative models of public safety.
“Brookline has been reimagining policing for years, and we are going to continue,” he said.
Remember when the Globe used to be a friend?
That was before Trump, as they now turn on everyone.
Wake up, fools!
The mob is coming for you, too!
Administrators in Brookline, which like many places is facing sharp revenue cuts because of the coronavirus pandemic, told 360 public schools educators in May that they would lose their jobs. Officials later said they would rescind some of the layoff notices.
Less left-wing brainwashers is probably a good thing at this point.
Brookline’s police department is also in flux. On Friday, Chief Andrew Lipson said leading the department was “untenable” for him and that he would go back into his former role as deputy superintendent. Lipson did not say why he was stepping down, and in 2018, a former Brookline police officer reached a $180,000 settlement to settle allegations that he was racially harassed and targeted on the job.
“This is not violent, this is not a threat, this is not an attack,” said protest organizer Lexi Harriman, 20, who grew up in Brookline and now lives in Roslindale. “We are here because Bernard Greene refuses to listen to us, and so does the select board as a whole.”
If you say so, and I'm sure he hears you now.
--more--"
Just taking it to the streets, right?
"500-foot ‘Black Lives Matter’ street mural painted in Nubian Square" by Lucas Phillips Globe Correspondent, July 5, 2020
With giant yellow letters spanning the road, artists were set to complete a “Black Lives Matter” mural over a 500-foot section of Washington Street in Roxbury on Sunday, according to organizers and Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s office.
The two-day project, which began Saturday morning, stretches from the corner of Palmer Street in Nubian Square to the front door of Black Market, the business organizing the painting.
The business said the street mural by Paul “Mar” Chapman and Lee Beard was the first in a series aimed at “reclaiming Nubian Square as one of the country’s most black historical sites.” The mural includes a Pan-African flag.
“#BlackLivesMatter is not just another hashtag for Black Bostonians,” Black Market said in a statement. “It is a call to action, an attitude, and an axiom that bravely stands on the shoulders of the former Roxbury-based Civil Rights activists, artists, and world thought leaders Malcolm X, Coretta Scott, Martin Luther King, Melnea Cass, and Marcus Garvey to name a few.” King, Scott, and X all spent time in Boston, while Cass was a well-known activist in the city.
The "call to action" is the further destruction of the African-American family, and it would appall those whom they are citing. Just another example of numbskulls who know not their own history.
The series of mural projects, called the Nubian Square Public Art Initiative, will also feature artists Pro-Blak, Chanel Thervil, and Mikey Janey, according to the statement.
The mayor’s office said the section of Washington Street where the mural was being painted would be closed until 8 p.m. Sunday.
--more--"
This is the photograph that came in print:
Artists worked on painting the Pan African flag on Washington Street adjacent to the Black Lives Matter sign painted in Nubian Square outside of Black Market in Boston on Sunday (Nathan Klima for The Boston Globe/The Boston Globe)
Innocuous enough, right?
This one led the web version:
The Black artists and volunteers who painted the Black Lives Matter sign on Washington Street in Nubian Square posed for a portrait with fists raised in front of Black Market in Boston on Sunday (Nathan Klima for The Boston Globe/The Boston Globe)
Uh-huh.
Message received loud and clear, and what's with the lack of distancing and masks for a three-times as vulnerable population?
Speaking of the market:
Suverino Frith, an employee at the Whole Foods Market on River Street in Cambridge, read a statement in front of the store during a protest on Sunday (Nathan Klima for The Boston Globe/The Boston Globe)
"Boycott continues against Cambridge Whole Foods that sent employees home for Black Lives Matter masks" by Abigail Feldman Globe Correspondent, July 5, 2020
Think of what they are protesting.
Which mask to wear.
Not the wars responsible for millions of black and brown lives lost, not the billionaires who are fleecing everybody and altering our way life, not the loss of freedom or against tyranny, not anything of consequence at all. It's over what kind of mask to wear.
More than 10 days after Whole Foods employees were sent home for refusing to take off their Black Lives Matter face masks, Cambridge community members remain frustrated with the company.
On Sunday, more than 40 people held signs in front of the River Street store, where they have gathered nearly every day since June 25. The group erupted into cheers every several minutes, marking each time they persuaded a shopper to buy groceries elsewhere.
What if you were making just a quick trip in this virus-tainted world?
A statement issued by the company said a longstanding dress code forbids employees from wearing slogans and messages that are not company-related.
Many of the protesters, like Jason Slavick — who lives just across the street from the store — used to frequent the market. He and other boycott organizers have contacted local store managers as well as corporate leaders to argue that a company that pitches itself as a values-oriented business should change its policy.
“There should be no place safe for racism, and the only way that happens is if they say it out loud and stop hiding behind neutrality,” he said.
Just don't boycott Israel.
Suverino Frith was one of the original seven employees who was turned away after showing up to work in a Black Lives Matter mask. The 21-year-old spoke before the crowd, urging them to continue fighting.
“These are careful people who want to be loud but not too loud,” he said, speaking about the company. “They don’t want to alienate anyone. They don’t really want to choose a side; they just want to seem like they are. Only that’s too bad, because we’re choosing a side for them.”
Just fire them already. Plenty of people looking for work.
Though Frith, who has worked seasonally with the store for two years, had heard that employees had been turned away at other stores, he was still surprised when he and his colleagues were told to leave. Managers have some leeway about what rules the store enforces, he said.
“With the core values that we have at the company, that we always talk about, it didn’t seem like that would be the response,” he said.
What core values?
Bezos's control of the food supply as he rakes in the billions?
Cambridge City Councilors Alanna Mallon and Quinton Zondervan were present Sunday after sending a strong statement to company leaders.
“This protest shouldn’t be necessary to get Whole Foods to do the right thing,” Zondervan said.
Several protesters held up painted wooden signs or banners that gave contact information for Whole Foods management.
The "protesters" doxxed them, huh?
I hope the mob doesn't show up at 8 a.m. in the morning tomorrow.
The last protesters left around 7:30 p.m. Two Cambridge police officers stood nearby throughout the rally, but kept their distance.
How ironic.
You almost get the feeling that they are in on this, or are being ordered to do what they do.
--more--"
Does BLM not care about these lives?
"One killed, four injured in shooting at Saturday night cookout in Lynn; A 35-year-old man was killed and four people injured in a shooting at a Saturday night cookout in Lynn, officials said" by Andrew Stanton and Lucas Phillips Globe Correspondent, July 5, 2020
A 35-year-old Lynn man was killed and four people injured in a shooting at a Saturday night cookout in Lynn, the Essex district attorney’s office said on Sunday.
Police were called to 134 Fayette St. to investigate a report of shots fired at about 10 p.m., the Essex district attorney’s office said in a statement. A spokeswoman, Carrie Kimball, said the shooting took place on the street in front of the residence.
Why did they call police?
Noe Hernandez, 35, of Lynn was taken to Salem Hospital where he was pronounced dead, Kimball said. No arrests had been made as of Sunday afternoon, she said.
Another man was flown to a Boston hospital with life-threatening injuries, prosecutors said. The three other victims were expected to survive.
The scene was not taped off Sunday as investigators scrutinized the sidewalk and flower bed in front of 134 Fayette St. There was no obvious evidence that a cookout had happened there the night before, but the sidewalk and a toppled signpost appeared stained in a spot that was marked with two white candles.
A neighbor on nearby Orange Court said that gatherings are a regular occurrence on that block.
Since when?
“Almost every Friday, a little party in the street,” said Norma Lazo, 39, in a brief phone interview Sunday. She said she had heard loud music, which often accompanies those gatherings, but had gone to bed before the shooting allegedly took place.
Edward Biswas, 42, of Dorchester said the block has been known for its cookouts over the five years he and his parents have run a laundromat there.
“Every year, that block gets a little crazy: loud music, fighting,” he said on Sunday.
Biswas recalled that the residents of one house “always have a humongous party” in the street to celebrate the Fourth of July or graduations.
He said he has seen as many as 60 people attend such gatherings and so many of them would try to use a parking lot at his family’s laundromat that he had it fenced in, but the parties have been a fact of life for the block, he said, and many residents he has spoken with just try not to be at home when the gatherings happen.
“Most of them on that street, they try to disappear.”
Ah, the stench of freedom!
--more--"
No mention of alcohol being involved.
Next on the pecking order:
"Man arrested in fatal shooting of woman in Dorchester; The incident happened early Sunday morning" by Gal Tziperman Lotan and Lucas Phillips Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, July 5, 2020
A man was arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of a woman in Dorchester early Sunday morning, police said, marking the seventh homicide in a week marked by violence in Boston.
My sense is another gun-grab is being set up.
Kristian Maraj, 22, of Dorchester was arrested near 37 Stonehurst St. after police found a woman dead about 3:10 a.m. Sunday. Police did not release her name.
Maraj is expected to be arraigned in Dorchester District Court but details about his arrest were not available Sunday.
Sunday evening a makeshift shrine could be seen in front of the home as police went through a house down the street. An emotional group that identified themselves as the victim’s family gathered around a poster that said “R.I.P. Felicity,” ringed with lit candles and bottles of champagne.
Members of the group called the victim a good person and innocent before ushering away a reporter.
Yeah, who would want to talk to them?
Six other people were killed in Boston last week including 15-year-old Xhavier Rico, one of three people shot Thursday night on Mount Pleasant Avenue in Roxbury, and 19-year-old Tierece G. Wiley, shot Tuesday near 14 Circuit St. in Roxbury. The other victims are: 22-year-old Justin Cannady; 45-year-old Rashawn Washington-Clark; and two unidentified people killed in Dorchester Friday — one in a fight near 42 Theodore St., the other stabbed near 205 Adams St.
Two people also suffered non-life-threatening injuries in a shooting in Roxbury Saturday night.
Police made an arrest in Cannady’s killing — Rafael Santiago, 35, of Malden — but the other cases remain under investigation.
The woman’s death early Sunday in Dorchester marked Boston’s 26th homicide this year. Last year, 21 people were killed in Boston by July 4. In 2018, 28 people had been killed by July 4, Boston police Officer Stephen McNulty, a spokesman for the department, said Saturday.
On Independence Day weekend in 2019, 17 people were wounded in shootings in Boston — including an 8-year-old girl. In the first week of July 2018, three people were killed and seven injured in shootings, according to Boston Police Department data. In 2017, two people were killed and another 15 were injured in gun violence the first week of July.
Anyone with information about any of the cases is asked to contact police....
Why?
What good are they?
--more--"
Time to worry about the fall semester as college reopening takes a variety of forms in New England. Students are scrambling in Rhode Island so show some compassion.
Related:
Law Enforcement Investigates Fatal Stabbing in Manchester
Siidi Dhurow, 22, of Manchester, was transported to a hospital where he died, but at least he wasn't feel left behind like he would have been in Vermont:
"Trump to hold outdoor rally in N.H. next weekend" by James Pindell Globe Staff, July 5, 2020
President Trump will hold an outdoor campaign rally next Saturday night in New Hampshire, his campaign announced Sunday, marking the third time he will campaign in the state in a year, and the second time he will travel to New England in a little over a month.
Trump’s campaign announced the president will hold a Saturday evening rally at the Portsmouth International Airport. Due to precautions in the coronavirus era, the rally is expected to take place entirely outside. “There will be ample access to hand sanitizer, and all attendees will be provided a face mask that they are strongly encouraged to wear,” the campaign said in a statement.
What if it rains?
Trump is trailing Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden nationally by double digits and by 9 points in the most recent poll of voters in New Hampshire, which has been considered a swing state for the past two decades. Possibly because he is behind, or possibly because he has repeatedly downplayed the risks of COVID-19 by refusing to wear a mask himself and saying last week that the disease will “disappear,” Trump began holding in-person rallies two weeks ago in Tulsa, Okla.
He's delusional if he thinks it is going away, even if it is a fiction for now.
The real deliberately released pathogen (per WHO simulation) is to be released this fall just before the kickoff to school.
This event will mark the first time Trump has been in New Hampshire since a rally in Manchester on the eve of the state’s first-in-the-nation primary. It is also the first time he will be in the state since he waded into Republican primaries for the US Senate and a competitive race for Congress in the district where Trump will be visiting next weekend.
He thinks his presence will help?
PFFFFT!
That is so hollow after he allowed this to happen, or had no choice.
He ain't rebuilding shit with the new regulations and COVID forever!
--more--"
I now double back to my National leads (first on top of second):
Birth control, Trump’s taxes top Supreme Court’s agenda
It's a report from Bloomberg News, and I'll not waste my time. I'll wait for the decisions.
Prince Andrew sought Washington lobbyist to help with Epstein case
The New York Times says lawyers for the Duke of York consulted an adviser with connections in Trump foreign policy circles, but no deal was struck so he turned to the Clintons for help.
2 dead, 8 wounded in shooting at South Carolina nightclub
What was the New York Times doing at the Lavish Lounge, around 2 a.m.?
"One of two people who were seriously injured over the weekend when a car drove into a protest on a closed section of Interstate 5 in Seattle has died, authorities said Sunday. Summer Taylor, 24, of Seattle died Saturday night at Harborview Medical Center, said a UW Medicine spokeswoman. The other injured protester, Diaz Love, 32, of Portland, Ore., was hospitalized in serious condition, the spokeswoman said. Both had livestreamed the protest before they were injured, The Seattle Times reported. During the early hours of Saturday, a small group of protesters gathered on a section of Interstate 5 that had been blocked off by authorities, said Trooper Chase Van Cleave of the Washington State Patrol. It was one of many protests that have been organized in Seattle and across the country since the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis in May. The protesters had been on the highway for a little over an hour when a white car drove southbound through a blockade and toward the protesters at a “high rate of speed,” striking both victims, Van Cleave said. The driver continued southbound for more than a mile before coming to a stop, he added. Van Cleave identified the driver as Dawit Kelete, 27. Kelete, who The Seattle Times reported is from Seattle, was booked into the King County jail Saturday morning on a charge of vehicular assault, according to jail records."
I would be driving away from Seattle as fast as I could and would fly past Portland:
"Twenty-one people were arrested or detained in Portland early Sunday after throwing fireworks and mortars as they clashed with police during the latest rally decrying police brutality. Police used tear gas and crowd-control munitions to stymie protesters who they say broke windows at a federal courthouse and nearby businesses in a protest that lasted until 4:30 a.m. Sunday, according to a news release from Portland police. Police declared the scene a “riot” and called the protesters’ behavior “unacceptable.” Several officers were injured when fireworks and mortars exploded near them, police said. Protesters in this liberal, predominantly white city had stayed mostly peaceful for some five weeks as they joined with thousands of others around the country decrying police brutality, but recent violence by smaller groups is dividing the movement....."
How odd that they come out of the woodwork after BLM came out in favor of Palestinians.
Reminds one of the split in the #MeToo movement that has completely dissolved now.
Speaking of being dissolved:
"Protesters pulled a Christopher Columbus statue off its pedestal in Baltimore’s Little Italy neighborhood and threw it into the nearby Inner Harbor on Saturday night, according to videos posted on social media. Armed with ropes and a crowd numbering more than a hundred, protesters yanked down the Carrara marble statue, then rolled the broken chunks of stone down an embankment and into the water, footage shows. The pieces sent cascades of water skyward before sinking beneath the surface. The group Baltimore Bloc, which had advocated for the statue to come down, tweeted footage of the crowd heaving a chunk of the statue into the harbor, adding: ‘‘Columbus just got deported.’’ For years, city leaders and activists had clashed with Italian American heritage groups in Baltimore over whether to leave the Columbus statue standing in the heart of a neighborhood built by immigrants. Critics wanted it removed because of what they see as Columbus’s association with the genocide of Native Americans....."
Forgive them, Father, for the "Baltimore Bloc" -- stench of antifa -- know not what they do.
Maybe the Bloc should be deported instead. Had that man not risked his life and fortune, they would still be in Africa and wouldn't be here toppling statues.
Not that I;'m saying he is a hero or anything. Those in our history book seldom are.
"Among the combative and unusual way President Trump chose to celebrate Independence Day, some historians were particularly puzzled Saturday by his announcement for a new monument called the ‘‘National Garden of American Heroes’’ populated by a grab bag of historical figures chosen by his administration. The garden, Trump explained in a Friday night speech at Mount Rushmore, was part of his response to the movement to remove Confederate statues and racially charged iconography across the country. ‘‘It’s just so random. It’s like they threw a bunch of stuff on the wall and just went with whatever stuck,’’ said Karen Cox, a history professor at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, after struggling for several minutes to describe the order outlining the proposed monument. ‘‘Nothing about this suggests it’s thoughtful.’’
Then I won't give it another thought.
"A loose network of Facebook groups that took root across the country in April to organize protests over coronavirus stay-at-home orders has become a hub of misinformation and conspiracy theories that have pivoted to a variety of new targets. Their latest: Black Lives Matter and the nationwide protests of racial injustice. These groups, which now boast a collective audience of more than 1 million members, are still thriving after most states started lifting virus restrictions, and many have expanded their focus. One group transformed itself last month from “Reopen California” to “California Patriots Pro Law & Order,” with recent posts mocking Black Lives Matter or changing the slogan to “White Lives Matter.’’ Members have used profane slurs to refer to Black people and protesters, calling them “animals,” “racist,” and “thugs,” a direct violation of Facebook’s hate speech standards. Others have become gathering grounds for promoting conspiracy theories about the protests, suggesting protesters were paid to go to demonstrations and that even the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died in the custody of Minneapolis police, was staged. An Associated Press review of the most recent posts in 40 of these Facebook groups, most of which were launched by conservative groups or pro-gun activists, found the conversations largely shifted last month to attacking the nationwide protests over the killing of Black men and women after the death of Floyd. Facebook said it is aware of the refocused groups, and is using technology, as well as relying on users, to identify problematic posts. The company has vowed in the past to look for material that violates its rules in private groups as well as in public places on its site, but the platform has not always been able to deliver on that promise."
That's who these Communists want to silence, in more ways than one.
I flip page and find this:
"Trump, Biden fight for primacy on social media platforms" by Alexandra Jaffe and Amanda Seitz Associated Press, July 5, 2020
WASHINGTON — On an average day, President Trump sends about 14 posts to the 28 million Facebook followers of his campaign account. His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, delivers about half that many posts to an audience of just 2 million.
The numbers are similarly skewed in other spheres of the social media landscape.
On Twitter, Trump’s 82.4 million followers dwarf Biden’s 6.4 million. The president has spent years cultivating a ragtag digital “army” of meme makers and political influencers who retweet campaign messages hundreds of times daily. Trump is outspending Biden on Google and YouTube advertising by nearly 3 to 1.
Still isn't helping him at the voting booth, huh?
As his reelection bid faces growing obstacles, his primacy in the dizzying digital world is one of his top advantages, giving him a massive platform to connect with supporters and push a message that ignores his vulnerabilities related to the pandemic, unemployment, and race relations. Biden and his allies are now working feverishly to establish a social media force of their own.
Better shut it down like Facebook and Reddit.
For the first time, Biden outspent Trump on Facebook advertising in June, pouring twice as much money into the platform as the president. His campaign is recruiting Instagram supporters to hold virtual fund-raisers, and it’s plotting ways to mobilize the power of hundreds of teens on TikTok who reserved tickets for Trump’s recent Oklahoma campaign rally and took credit for sinking the event by artificially inflating the crowd count before it began, but Trump’s head start may be tough to overcome.
That kind of election interference is okay!
“Vice President Biden and Trump have very different challenges right now,’’ said Tara McGowan, the founder of liberal digital firm Acronym and former digital director for the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA during the 2016 campaign. ‘‘Trump needs to hold his base ... and Vice President Biden needs to define and in a lot of ways introduce himself to you new voters, and potential supporters,” but Trump’s unimpeded access to the digital microphone is facing its limits.
Twitter is beginning to fact-check Trump’s posts, including one that made unfounded claims that mail-in voting would lead to fraud. The company also alerted users when the president posted a manipulated video, and it hid his Twitter threat about shooting looters in Minneapolis.
He never took them on in the four years he has been there, and now he is paying the price.
Under pressure in June as major companies yanked advertising from its site, Facebook promised it would label Trump posts when they break rules around voting or hate speech. The video messaging platform Snapchat last month also said it would keep the president’s account active and searchable but would stop showcasing his profile on the platform, and in a move to clamp down on hate and violent speech, the online comment forum Reddit decided to ban one of the president’s most prolific fan forums, The_Donald.
You can read all about that here.
Trump and Biden have strikingly divergent tactics on social media.
A centerpiece of Trump’s digital efforts is the Team Trump Online! nightly live broadcasts streamed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch, an online streaming platform. The broadcasts feature top Trump surrogates including daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump also tweets with far greater velocity, sending more than 160 Twitter messages during a seven-day period starting June 14, an Associated Press analysis of Trump and Biden’s accounts reveals. More than 50 of Trump’s posts were retweets from an assortment of users that included the Army, far-right meme makers, conservative news outlets, little-known congressional candidates, and anonymous accounts that in some cases promoted conspiracy theories.
I follow this thread on the left.
The president’s steady retweets of everyday users helps fans feel connected to him, said Logan Cook, a Kansas internet meme maker whose work Trump has regularly promoted on his social media accounts.
‘‘President Trump’s team, they’re blending in with social media culture, which is also why they’re getting into so much trouble,’’ said Cook, whose Twitter account @CarpeDonktum was permanently suspended last week for copyright violations. His memes are controversial because he alters videos to mock Trump’s political rivals, including Biden.
Twitter users celebrate being retweeted by the president, or his inner circle, like the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who has more than 5 million followers.
Trump’s followers see producing sardonic memes or videos as a game where the ultimate prize is a retweet from the president, said Misha Leybovich, a tech entrepreneur who produces social media engagement products that support Democratic candidates and causes.
Biden has stuck to a more conventional approach, tweeting nearly 60 messages during that same time, only a handful of which were retweets from verified accounts, like former President Barack Obama, or established news outlets.
--more--"
There are signs that Trump just might pull off reelection despite the censorship:
"With COVID-19 cases still surging, the Dominican Republic on Sunday held presidential elections that had already been delayed by the pandemic, and polls indicated that a businessman with no previous experience in government was favored to oust a party that has ruled for the past 16 years. The spreading coronavirus prompted officials to delay the election, which had originally been scheduled for May....."
"Croatia’s ruling conservatives have a strong lead over their main center-left rivals in a parliamentary election Sunday held amid a spike in the new coronavirus cases, according to an exit poll. If confirmed in the official tally expected later Sunday, the exit poll projections would mean that the ruling conservatives are likely to form a new government with the help of a few votes from some of the smaller parties....."
Well, we all know about exit polls and the official results. Seldom do they meet.
Wasn't a mail-in ballot, was it?
At least we won't look like China anytime soon:
"China dominates medical supplies, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon" by Keith Bradsher, July 5, 2020
BEIJING — Alarmed by China’s stranglehold over supplies of masks, gowns, test kits, and other front-line weapons for batting the coronavirus, countries around the world have set up their own factories to cope with this pandemic and outbreaks of the future.
When the outbreak subsides, those factories may struggle to survive. China has laid the groundwork to dominate the market for protective and medical supplies for years to come.
Factory owners get cheap land, courtesy of the Chinese government. Loans and subsidies are plentiful. Chinese hospitals are often told to buy locally, giving China’s suppliers a vast and captive market.
You mean, like here in America, too?
Businesses and corporation gets tax subsidies and tax breaks, and we are told to buy local all the time.
Once vaccines emerge, demand will plummet. Factories will close, but Chinese companies are likely to have the lowest costs by far and be best positioned for the next global outbreak.
Yeah, a f**king vaccine makes this all go away, right.
“The Chinese have been successful weaving global personal protection equipment dominance with supply-chain command and control,” said Omar Allam, a former Canadian trade official trying to establish production of in-demand N95 medical respirators in his country.
China’s grip on the market is a testament to its drive to dominate important cogs in the global industrial machine.
Who allowed that to happen?
For years, China’s leaders have worried that the country depended too much on foreign sources for things such as medical supplies, microchips and airliners. It has used subsidies, economic targets and other government inducements to emerge as a powerhouse in those important industries and others.
Then where did America go wrong?
Corruption?
When Chinese leaders grew concerned about pollution and dependence on foreign oil, for example, they helped local makers of solar panels, wind turbines and high-speed rail equipment clobber the competition. They have taken similar steps to dominate industries of the future, like the next generation of wireless data transmission, known as 5G.
What a Schlapp in the face!
The state’s heavy involvement in its economy has led to waste and graft that could slow China’s growth, but the policies have often proved effective in building industries that can withstand losses and tough foreign competition. Medical supplies may be similar.
That's America they are describing there; it looks like China went another route.
“There will be massive consolidation after the epidemic,” said Howard Yu, a professor of management and innovation at the Institute for Management Development, a business school in Switzerland. “It will be exactly the same dynamics as in green energy, 5G and high-speed rail.”
Thus will China lead the Great Global Re$et.
We are all f**ked.
Before the pandemic, China already exported more respirators, surgical masks, medical goggles and protective garments than the rest of the world combined, the Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated.
Beijing’s coronavirus response has only added to that dominance. U.S. companies have been reluctant to make big investments in fabric manufacturing because they worry that mask demand will be temporary, but Texas required Thursday that most residents wear masks in public places, part of a broader embrace of face masks in recent days.
It's better spent on the war machine and Israel anyway.
“It is a huge mistake to assume that the market will disappear,” said Bob McIlvaine, who runs a namesake research and consulting firm in Northfield, Illinois.
The MASKS are FOREVER, readers -- or will be if they have their way!
Ma Zhaoxu, vice minister of foreign affairs, said that from March through May, China exported 70.6 billion masks. The entire world produced about 20 billion all of last year, with China accounting for half.
Other countries now want self-reliance. Earlier in the pandemic, China sometimes decided which countries received crucial supplies and demanded profuse and public thanks in exchange.
President Emmanuel Macron of France pledged in March to produce homegrown masks and respirators by the end of this year. Peter Navarro, President Donald Trump’s industrial policy adviser, has begun a push for the federal government to buy U.S.-made pharmaceuticals and medical supplies.
China, however, has a head start. In 2005, after the outbreak of SARS, which killed 350 people in China, the Ministry of Science and Technology announced that it had developed respirators that better fit Chinese faces. In 2010, the government’s five-year economic plan ordered a “focus on developing basic equipment and medical materials that have high demand, wide application and are mainly imported.”
So they were ready!
China also foresaw the importance of nucleic acid test kits, which can detect coronavirus infections. In 2017, the Ministry of Science and Technology identified the kits as a “targeted development” industry.
The ministry’s decision was part of the country’s $300 billion “Made in China 2025” industrial policy to replace imports in many key industries, including medical devices. The ministry called for raising China’s share of the local market by 30 to 40 percentage points in each category of medical supplies.
Chinese makers of medical gear enjoyed generous government subsidies. Shenzhen Mindray, a maker of ventilators and other intensive care equipment, received up to $16.6 million a year over the past three years, according to company documents. Winner Medical, a mask manufacturer, received $3 million to $4 million a year. Guangzhou Improve, a producer of masks and test kits, received $2.5 million to $5 million a year.
America must subsidize the wrong things!
Hospitals began to buy locally. Three years ago, the central government required purchasers to buy from domestic producers that could meet requirements. Local governments followed. Sichuan province, for example, cut in half the number of categories for which medical equipment and supplies could be imported. Only the top hospitals could import anything, the provincial government said, while lower-ranked hospitals had to buy everything in China.
Defies the globalists, but makes a country great again.
At least three other large, populous provinces — Liaoning, Hubei and Shandong — made similar announcements.
Such efforts helped put China firmly at the front of the industry, as Rakesh Tammabattula discovered. An entrepreneur in the Los Angeles suburbs, he shifted his business from making nutrition supplements and moisturizer to the production of medical masks and hand sanitizer in response to the epidemic. To do that, he needed a machine that could compress and cut fabric to make masks.
He discovered that the machines were made only in China. He had to charter a jet to fly the huge device — 36 feet long, 6 feet high and 5 feet wide — from southern China to Los Angeles.
A few economic policy experts in China contend that their country may be going too far. According to Tianyancha, a Chinese data service, more than 67,000 companies have registered in China this year to make or trade masks. Many startups with poor quality control have already run into trouble. The Chinese government has imposed increasingly stringent customs inspections on exports.
That was after they were caught exporting crap.
“Many mask-manufacturing enterprises. . . would have to face closure when they have a surplus of masks and profits begin to plunge,” Cai Enze, a retired deputy mayor and economic planner in central China, wrote in an essay in April. “That marks the start of a crisis.”
In Los Angeles, Tammabattula has found that even producing hand sanitizer is hard. He has been unable to find any U.S. company that still makes plastic bottles with pump handles. He imports them, on expensive chartered aircraft, from China.
Tammabattula has applied for a federal loan for small businesses trying to produce medical supplies, but the paperwork has proved extensive, daunting and slow, he said.
“If we were to compare to the Chinese government,” Tammabattula said, “there’s just no support for domestic manufacturing.”
They still have money left over so hurry!
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Only one thing can stop the healthy rise of China:
"Two US aircraft carriers sailed to the South China Sea on Saturday for what Navy officials described as a freedom-of-navigation operation while China’s military conducts exercises nearby. The carriers — the Ronald Reagan and the Nimitz — deployed “in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” according to a statement by the Navy’s 7th Fleet. Beijing has staked claim to much of the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which one-third of global shipping flows, over the objections of other regional powers and an international tribunal that has rejected China’s assertions. The deployment of a US aircraft carrier and its strike force is often used as a signal to deter foes. Deploying two at once is recognized as a significant show of force; in 2016, then-Defense Secretary Ashton Carter toured two aircraft carriers that were cruising through the South China Sea as a reminder to Beijing of the United States’ commitment to allies in the region. A Navy official described the mission as a routine operation, downplaying the specter of a deliberate show of force to the Chinese military as it conducted its own military exercises in the sea. Lieutenant James Adams, a US Pacific Fleet spokesman, said the operation “is not in response to any political or world events.”
Did he say that with a straight face?
