You will find what I perceive to be controlled-opposition straw men:
"‘A fairly devout group of Neo-Nazis.’ Local white supremacist group has been active in recent weeks" by Danny McDonald Globe Staff, July 14, 2020
Among the dozens of rallies and street protests held across Boston in recent weeks, one at the foot of the State House last month stood out: There was a flag featuring a Nazi symbol, a swastika tattoo on one of the attendees, and a few men with shirts that read “Nationalist Social Club” — an organization that experts say is a New England white supremacist group.
A handful of men affiliated with that group attended the “Restore Sanity” rally on June 27, where they brandished a flag featuring a sonnenrad, which, according to the Anti-Defamation League, was “one of a number of ancient European symbols appropriated by the Nazis in their attempt to invent an idealized ‘Aryan/Norse’ heritage.”
While their presence at that pro-police and antirioting demonstration was the most blatantly public showing, the organization has been active in the region in recent weeks, with members attending a handful of other local demonstrations, according to analysts and a member of the organization.
Experts describe the group as having a virulently racist ideology.
“You’ve got a fairly devout group of Neo-Nazis involved in this group,” said Carla Hill, a research fellow with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center On Extremism. “They like to trigger people, upset people, and troll people.”
Christopher Hood Jr., a 21-year-old who said he grew up in Dorchester, was among the members of the white supremacist group at the rally. Over the phone last week, Hood, who called himself the group’s spokesman, said the Nationalist Social Club formed in December and its members had showed up at five demonstrations in Boston in recent weeks, distributing materials at three.
“We’re asserting ourselves publicly,” Hood said.
His name is Hood, huh?
The more you look at the engine that powers the Globe the more you find complete fiction. This is all staged theater that appears on the front-page for the obvious reasons and push the narrative and agenda for the usual suspects.
At the State House rally, one man in the group had a visible swastika tattoo on his calf. He was identified as Anthony Petruccelli, who has ties to Lynn, by Samson Racioppi, a rally organizer; by Hill, the research fellow; and by Ben Lorber, a research analyst who focuses on white nationalism and anti-Semitism for Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank in Somerville. Lorber said the Nationalist Social Club embraces anti-Black racism and described the group as being deeply anti-Semitic as well.
Of course.
Asked about the terms used to describe his group — racist, white supremacist, and Nazi — Hood said at one point, “If anyone calls me them, I don’t tell them they’re wrong.” At a different point during the interview, he said he does not think white people are inherently superior to anyone else, but when asked if he considered himself to be racist, he answered, “Sure.”
Hood contended his group is “not inclined to commit violence,” but Lorber described the organization’s ideology as combining Neo-Nazism and violent white supremacy with a “commitment to street mobilizations and direct action, including sympathy for ‘accelerationist’ tactics.” Lorber said accelerationist white supremacists seek to commit acts of terror intended to incite a race war they hope would lead to the collapse of the existing social and political order, after which they could establish a “new all-white society.”
Pffft!
Yeah, good luck on that one.
Look, like the Blacks told Lincoln when he told them they gotta get out of here, where they going to go after generations on this soil?
We owe them dignity and an apology, not reparations.
“They hope to capitalize on the resentment, anger, and alienation felt by some white Americans in this moment, to win new recruits to the violent white supremacist cause,” said Lorber, speaking about the Nationalist Social Club.
I'm not going to be sucked into their false and phony baloney on any of this, sorry. More division being driven by a certain cho$en group.
Who has benefited from all this, other than those at the top of the pyramid who are looting us as most cower in fear with a mask on.
Hood rejected the accelerationist label for his group, referring to such an ideology as “stupid” and “mental masturbation.” He acknowledged being previously involved in two white supremacist groups — Patriot Front and The Base — before the Nationalist Social Club.
While Lorber said Hood was the leader of the club’s New England chapter, Hood claimed the group has no formal leadership. Hill said Hood has described himself as a founding member of the group, and she said that a founder “would be a presumed leader.”
Hood was arrested on a weapons charge in East Boston last year after police found a pocket knife in his possession in an incident authorities connected to the posting of fliers promoting white supremacy in that neighborhood; however, in June, a judge disagreed with the premise that the officers had reasonable suspicion to conduct the stop that led to Hood’s arrest and found the justification for pat-frisking Hood and others in his group then was meritless.
The judge’s ruling suppressed evidence seized from the stop, a victory for Hood.
I'm sure it was white privilege, not being enlisted to perform a mission. A handful of agent provocateurs appear on the front page of the Globe before vanishing as quickly as they appeared.
In the recent phone interview, Hood declined to discuss a range of topics.
He did not say why he gravitated toward white supremacist groups and would not disclose the names of other members of the Nationalist Social Club who were at the rally in front of the State House and whether the group was at the violence in the heart of Boston on May 31. Nor did he delve into his Dorchester upbringing. He did not say in which community he currently lives, although he did say he resides in Massachusetts.
Hood wouldn’t get into specific numbers concerning the group’s membership either.
Hill, the researcher with the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said there might be a dozen members in the group’s New England chapter, adding that such an estimate could be generous.
Lorber said the club is also active in Tennessee and Central Florida, “where their messaging includes explicit support for Hitler” and opposition to the removal of Confederate monuments.....
Should have just put a hood over them all rather than tear them down or move them, and obviously the tar brush is out in the effort to censor any dissent at all, even if it comes from the grave. It's almost enough to make you question if the right side won that long ago war, especially since all world governments are in lockstep on the COVID Communist tyranny being erected right in front of our eyes!
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Related:
Asked about Black Americans killed by police, Trump says, ‘So are white people’
He is technically correct; more whites are killed by police, but at a lower rate compared to Blacks. Of course, if much of the dangerous crime is taking place in those areas it would stand to figure that the rate would be higher relative to population, and that is a function of the economic overlords and not police doing their jobs under extremely difficult circumstances.
"Three civil rights lawsuits filed in Philadelphia on Tuesday accuse the city of using military-level force that injured protesters and bystanders alike during peaceful protests against racial inequality and police brutality....."
It's the same in California, which plans to release 8,000 inmates over the summer (to do what, work $oro$'s protests?).
"A security fence will go up around the Kentucky Governor’s Mansion in response to a spring demonstration where armed protesters gathered outside the home and then hanged Governor Andy Beshear in effigy, the governor’s office said Tuesday....."
Would never have gotten away with that in NYC, and where are the cops?
"Sweeping police reform bill that passed state Senate draws swift condemnation from police unions" by John R. Ellement and Gal Tziperman Lotan Globe Staff, July 14, 2020
In a session that stretched to nearly 5 a.m. Tuesday, the state Senate passed a wide-ranging policing bill that would ban chokeholds, create a panel to certify and decertify officers, and clarify a legal doctrine some see as a barrier to change: qualified immunity for individual officers, but the bill, approved following weeks of protests sparked by the killing of a Black man, George Floyd, by a white Minneapolis police officer, drew swift condemnation from police unions, both for its content and the circumstances of its passage.
Well, I'm forced to stand with the police here. We know who is behind transforming our society in so many ways. The thin blue line was never a more appropriate saying, except now they are the thin veneer protecting us from monsters.
Senate President Karen Spilka said in a statement that she was “proud of the Senate for listening to calls for racial justice and beginning the difficult work of reducing institutionalized violence, shifting our focus and resources to communities that have historically been negatively impacted by aggressive policing . . .”
They seized the moment!
The bill would create a Police Officers Standards and Accreditation Committee long sought by advocates and lawmakers and common in other states. Reform advocates, meanwhile, said the proposed overhaul to police procedures did not go far enough.
Daunasia Yancey, an activist and organizer who founded Black Lives Matter Boston, pointed to places that are cutting funding of their police departments and redistributing the money to services and organizations that can support communities. That, she said, would be an example of meaningful change. “This bill seems weak to me, and the piece around qualified immunity – there’s no change there,” Yancey said. “We have to keep pushing, and we can do better than this.”
Shayla Mombeleur, one of four public defenders who organized a June rally in Nubian Square, said the bill was a step in the right direction.....
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That answered my question, yeah.
After that I buried the crass condemnations and stigmas coming from alleged authority.
At least the courts are open:
"Massachusetts courthouses will partially reopen Monday to the public, but judges and clerks are expected to continue most of the judicial operations through virtual means. The Supreme Judicial Court, the administrative leader of the court system, affirmed it limited plans to reopen this week. The plan includes temperature checks at entrances and social distancing inside buildings when someone has to appear in person. “The physical reopening of courthouses to the public on July 13, 2020 shall be undertaken with diligent regard for the health and safety of court users and personnel,” the SJC said in a statement. “All court users and personnel shall be subject to appropriate screening before they are allowed to enter a courthouse for purposes of preventing the spread of COVID-19.” Offices in courthouses that have been closed to the public - clerk’s offices, registers of probate, and others - will reopen on Monday. Managers are urged to create a way to reduce interaction with the public in order to protect workers and people turning to the courts for assistance. “To continue to limit the number of persons entering courthouses, clerks', registers', and recorder’s offices will still endeavor to conduct business virtually to the extent possible,‘' the court said. The public will be allowed to bring cellphones into the courthouse, the SJC said. Judges will decide who they need to have physically present for cases, but will also allow participants to appear remotely and the proceeding will function as if everyone is in the same room, the court said. Judges must also provide space for media inside courtrooms if they can do so safely, the SJC said. The next date for returning courthouses to pre-COVID-19 status is set for August."
Under the covers:
"A former staffer at a veterans hospital in West Virginia pleaded guilty Tuesday to intentionally killing seven patients with fatal doses of insulin, capping a sweeping federal investigation into a series of mysterious deaths at the medical center....."
At least he didn't get blood all over his hands.
Time to hit the beach:
45 years ago, Black protesters tried to desegregate Carson Beach
They couldn't find a flop for the night, and were frisked and searched:
"New development may throw thousands more drug lab cases into question" by Maggie Mulvihill Globe Correspondent, July 14, 2020
A consultant warned the state in 2013 that seven other chemists — in addition to the disgraced Annie Dookhan — should be investigated at the state drug laboratory in Jamaica Plain, e-mails released Monday by a Middlesex Superior Court judge show.
Seven?
The e-mails from Michael J. Wolf, a forensic scientist and former FBI official who advised the state in its probe of the drug lab fiasco, underscore festering questions about how thoroughly the state reviewed the work of other chemists at the lab — which defense lawyers said could affect the legitimacy of the evidence used in thousands more successful drug prosecutions.
What are you saying, they covered up corruption while flushing the stash?
To date, at least 61,000 drug charges in 35,000 cases have been dismissed in Massachusetts due to misconduct by Dookhan at the William A. Hinton lab and former chemist Sonja Farak at the state lab in Amherst.
Any they were involved with are tainted now, so if you are emptying the jails for corona you got let out this whose constitutional rights have been violated -- disproportionately Black, I might add.
Where is BLM when you really need them?
Related:
"Nearly 71,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, a new record that predates the COVID-19 crisis, which the White House and many experts believe will drive such deaths even higher, preliminary numbers released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.... "
Gee, looks like suicides to me.
The inspector general’s office said in a statement Monday that it completed a comprehensive review of testing at the lab, in accordance with Wolf’s advice, but the office declined to say exactly what that review entailed, and it has previously given conflicting statements about the extent to which it examined the work of Hinton chemists other than Dookhan, who was released from prison in 2016 after serving a three-to-five-year sentence.
The office said in March 2014 that Dookhan was the “sole bad actor” at the lab following the agency’s “exhaustive review” that included determining if “chemists, supervisors or managers . . . committed any” misconduct. In a statement Monday, the office seemed to confirm it conducted that kind of scrutiny of other chemists.
They cut her a deal to make it go away and maintain the veneer of state integrity in court, and you know there’s a problem when the guy who is supposed to be in charge has a bag of crack on his desk for no apparent reason.
Working in the patronage $y$tem that is $tate government sure is a BIG PARTY!
“In his e-mail, [Wolf] recommends that we apply the same process to review several other chemists’ work as we used to examine Dookhan’s work,” the statement said. “We followed his recommendation,” but in a court filing last year, the agency acknowledged it had not conducted an “in-depth investigation into Farak or any other individual” at the lab.
Wolf could not be reached for comment.
The inspector general’s conflicting descriptions of its investigation led Supreme Judicial Court Associate Justice Scott L. Kafker to note last year that the agency appeared to be “distancing itself” from its original statements about the scope of its $6.2 million probe.
“Notwithstanding the statements in its March 4, 2014, report, it explains that it did not seek to determine whether anyone (other than Dookhan) engaged in any misconduct or malfeasance in the lab,” Kafker wrote.
The release of Wolf’s e-mails this week led defense attorneys to question the reliability of all Hinton tests.....
You been framed and the truth and ju$tu$ government tried to cover it up!
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Good thing that was the only test they ran because you don't want too be moving backwards in this state:
Everett mayor comes to the rescue on couple’s wedding day on Cape Cod
He's a dead man:
Three people charged, fourth suspect sought in July 4 Lynn shooting spree
Bay State Banner editor says he was stopped by police while taking photos on the job
Says they tried to take him off the air and he is suing:
"Business groups are fighting Senate’s plan for local taxation districts; Measure to be debated on Thursday would allow surcharges on sales and property taxes at the local level to pay for transportation needs" by Jon Chesto Globe Staff, July 14, 2020
Statewide business groups are gearing up for a new tax battle on Beacon Hill over a proposal that would allow cities and towns to impose their own tax surcharges for local transportation projects.
The proposal would also give municipalities the ability to team up with each other to form new regional taxation districts. Tax increases would need voter approval, via a local referendum in one or multiple communities, before they could take effect. Increases could be imposed on property, sales, auto excise, or lodging taxes.
The Senate leadership included the local ballot language in a transportation bond bill scheduled for debate in the Senate on Thursday.
Proponents say the local vote requirement ensures these surcharges only take effect in places where they are wanted, to raise money for specific projects in those communities, but critics say these new taxes would hammer small businesses at a time when many are barely able to survive amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s the last thing these small businesses need at this time,” said Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. “Many of them are hanging on by a thread.”
The retailers group and the state chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business urged members to lobby for an amendment by Senator Diana DiZoglio that would strip the regional ballot initiative from the Senate transportation bill entirely. DiZoglio, a Democrat from Methuen, also filed an amendment supported by the retailers that would simply remove the sales tax as an option.
In a statement, DiZoglio said she’s concerned about how the local surcharges could hurt small businesses in communities along the border of sales-tax-free New Hampshire. She said she understands the need to generate more revenue, but worries about additional financial hardships.
John Regan, chief executive of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, said the local ballot option has the potential to create a “patchwork of tax policy” across the state, and Jim Rooney, chief executive of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, said the ballot language could exacerbate regional inequities between wealthier communities, where passage of these measures might be more likely, and lower-income communities.
Rooney said he prefers statewide approaches, such as the 5-cent gas tax increase and additional fees on Uber and Lyft rides included in a transportation revenue bill that the House passed in March, before the pandemic hit. The House also passed its version of the transportation bond bill around that time. Neither of those two bills included the local taxation option.
Senate leaders, meanwhile, have indicated they have no plans to pursue statewide tax or fee increases to pay for transportation projects this year. Instead, their focus is on getting a transportation bond bill passed.
Senator Eric Lesser, a Democrat from Longmeadow, said he is championing regional ballot initiatives because outlying regions of the state such as his Western Massachusetts district often get neglected in transportation debates on Beacon Hill.
“The MBTA tends to vacuum all of the oxygen out of the state’s transportation conversation,” Lesser said. “The MBTA urgently needs attention and focus, but the overwhelming majority of the state’s residents are being served by other transportation methods or regional services.”
Lesser envisions a number of possible uses for the money that would be raised: Maybe communities in the Berkshires could band together to fund train service to New York City, or cities and towns in the Pioneer Valley could subsidize more passenger trains along the Connecticut River. Closer to Boston, Lesser suggested communities in the western suburbs might join together for bus rapid transit service.
The Senate has previously approved similar language, but it has never been adopted by the House. Transit advocates remain hopeful the outcome will be different this time, despite the resistance from the business groups, but Mark Gallagher, vice president at the Massachusetts High Technology Council, said this recession is different, as so many people are forced to work from home to limit the spread of COVID-19.
“Everything we thought we knew about congestion, transportation infrastructure needs, and transportation priorities has been flipped on its head by COVID-19,” Gallagher said.....
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Related:
"It has been a “tech center.” It has been a warehouse. It has sat unused for more than a decade. Now it could become an “innovation village.” The developer Berkeley Investments on Tuesday filed plans with the city to turn a long-empty warehouse on Lincoln Street in Brighton into a three-building campus of apartments, offices, and laboratory space. The five-acre site, overlooking the Massachusetts Turnpike, has been largely vacant since it was built in the early 2000s to house a telecom company that went bust before it even opened, but it sits in a corridor of Allston-Brighton that is now booming with development....."
The view from the front is that the project strikes some as too car-centric, and project stalled after the runaround but has now crossed the bridge and been salvaged.
"A Tewksbury woman was fatally injured when she was ejected from the Ford Escape she was operating, landing on an active lane on Interstate 93 where she was struck by a Honda CR-V being driven by a man who stayed on the scene, State Police said Wednesday. The woman was identified by State Police as 43-year-old Kristina Lee. Authorities are investigating the circumstances of the crash that took place Tuesday night around 10:30 p.m. in the northbound lanes of I-93 near interchanges in Wilmington. Lee was behind the wheel of the 2002 SUV when, for reasons still under investigation, she lost control of the vehicle and “evidence now suggests that the victim in this crash was ejected from her vehicle after she lost control of it,” State Police wrote in a statement. “The Escape exited the travel lane and hit the guardrail, then was redirected back onto the roadway,” the statement said. “During that sequence of events, evidence suggests the victim was ejected onto the roadway, while the vehicle continued northbound, unoccupied, and exited the roadway to the right and came to rest in the woodline.” At that point, Lee was hit by the 2004 Honda operated by a 24-year-old Methuen man, State Police said. Lee’s SUV was towed from the scene to a tow yard in Wilmington where it caught fire and was fully engulfed by flames, further damaging the vehicle, State Police said. Separately, State Police said they are also investigating a rollover crash early Wednesday on Interstate 195 in Dartmouth that resulted in the death of an East Haven, Conn., man. Troopers responded around 5:18 a.m. to eastbound lanes near Exit 12 where they found a 1996 Toyota Corrolla in the woodline. The operator, identified as 23-year-old Ruben Rivera was pronounced dead on the scene by Dartmouth paramedics. The cause of the crash remains under investigation, but State Police said Rivera was driving “at a speed greater than the posted speed limit in the left travel lane when, for reasons still under investigation, the vehicle swerved to the right and off the roadway into the woodline.” The Corolla ”struck a tree, causing it to roll over, and the victim was ejected.”
Also see:
"Massachusetts joined 14 other states and Washington, D.C., on Tuesday in committing to a huge increase in the number of electric buses and trucks on the roads in the coming decades. The states, which include most of New England, New York, Hawaii, California, Washington, Oregon, and others, set a goal for electric or zero-emission vehicles to account for 100 percent of heavy- and medium-duty vehicle sales in their boundaries by 2050, and 30 percent by 2030. They promised to develop a task force to identify the obstacles to achieve the goal and develop plans to address them, though the signed agreement also states that its objectives are not legally binding. The move comes as many of the East Coast states, including Massachusetts, work on a separate plan to develop a regional cap-and-trade system for fuel emissions, which officials have said could partially help fund electric vehicle adoption. The Baker administration in June also opened its electric vehicle rebate program, previously designated for consumers, to commercial fleets."
Let's hope there are no recalls, and it is time to cruise out of the country if you can:
"Cruise ship operator Carnival Corp. is back in the debt markets this week, adding around $1 billion to the nearly $7 billion it’s borrowed since the coronavirus pandemic devastated the international tourism trade. The world’s largest cruise group is selling bonds to international investors, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public yet. The once mighty international tourism industry is among the worst hit of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cruise operators such as Carnival have been left with the huge overheads that come with operating fleets of ships when revenues have collapsed. The firm said last week that it expects to burn through $650 million of cash every month through to the end of the year."
Maybe you can get a seat on the airplane instead:
"Delta Air Lines lost $5.7 billion during a brutal three-month stretch in which the coronavirus pandemic brought travel to a near standstill, and any hoped-for recovery has been smothered by a resurgence of infected Americans. “Growth has stalled,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said. “It was growing at a pretty nice clip through June. The virus, unfortunately, was also growing.” Bastian said it will take more than two years for the airline to make “sustainable’’ recovery....."
Here is a Blueprint for going forward:
"A small group of demonstrators gathered in the rain Tuesday morning to call on Boston’s largely white technology and biotechnology industries to step up the hiring of Black people and other people of color. Organizers of the rally, led by the group Action for Equity, declared on their website before the rally that “exclusion from good jobs is violence.” Mela Miles, who lives in Nubian Square and is president of Action for Equity, said that underrepresentation in white-collar jobs such as those in tech is taking a toll during the COVID-19 pandemic as job losses pile up elsewhere, and essential workers face the choice of risking their health or losing their jobs. Meanwhile, many people in office jobs are able to work from home in industries that are more stable. “These industries ― tech, biotech, pharmaceuticals, and financial services ― historically have not hired people of color, especially Black people,” Miles added. Rallygoers also called for more inclusion of Indigenous people in those industries. The demonstrators gathered in front of the Seaport offices of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a major employer in the biotech industry. Demonstrators said a representative from Vertex had agreed to arrange a conversation with them, and that they had also secured an exchange with General Electric. A representative of State Street Corp. said that company also intends to reach out to event organizers. The group said they were pushing for a meeting with Liberty Mutual as well....."
It's a $hakedown, and with all due respect, what if the job requirements and educational skills are currently beyond them?
Can't fill quotes with unqualified people. Not unless you want to destroy a society.
Should just let them work in the field (what national treasure, huh?):
"The medical teams from the NFL and NFL Players Association working on the protocols to play football amid the COVID-19 pandemic expected the virus to be present for at least the 2020 season, if not longer, but they didn’t necessarily anticipate the alarming spike of cases across the South and West this summer, with NFL cities such as Miami, Houston and Phoenix becoming some of the worst hot spots after opening up too quickly. The NFL’s mission is to turn stadiums and team facilities into a virus-free bubble, but that could become increasingly difficult if the pandemic continues to rage outside their walls....."
If fans are allowed the capacity will be capped at 20% and all fans will be required to wear masks while watching.
