Month: June 2020

Nothing of Value was Lost

The morning after in Richmond, Virginia – where they burned the Daughters of the Confederacy building and hung a noose around Jefferson Davis’ neck. pic.twitter.com/BdYWGAf6re

— Mallory Noe-Payne (@MalloryNoePayne) May 31, 2020

Not sure how I feel about the noose

During protests over the police murder of George Floyd, protestors set fire to the United Daughters of the Confederacy headquarters.

Given the reality of the situation in the United States, perhaps they should share a building with the Benedict Arnold memorial.

What, there is no Benedict Arnold memorial building?

Well, there shouldn’t be a United Daughters of the Confederacy building either.

You and your treasonous ancestors can go f%$# themselves.

Corrupt Violent Thugs

I am referring to, of course, of the Sergeant’s Benevolent Association of New York City, who just published the arrest report of mayor Bill de Blasio’s daughter’s arrest for participating in a protest with a tweet.

This is blatantly illegal, and there is a whole chain of command that was behind this.

And still de Blasio is shilling for the NYPD, even though he was elected on promises of reforming that department, and even though he cannot run again for mayor because of term limits.

I guess that cringing becomes becomes second nature with enough practice:

Among the hundreds of protesters arrested over the four days of demonstrations in New York City over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, only one was highlighted by name by a police union known for its hostility toward Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The name of that protester? Chiara de Blasio, the mayor’s daughter.

The union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, used Twitter to post a police report documenting the arrest on Saturday night of Ms. de Blasio, 25.

The Police Department does not normally release internal police reports, and Ms. de Blasio’s contained personal details, including her height, weight, address, date of birth and driver’s license information.

The post was removed for violation of Twitter rules, and the union’s account was suspended Monday morning.

“The account is temporarily locked for violating our private information policy,” a Twitter spokesman confirmed.

Citing safety concerns, Twitter prohibits users from posting other people’s “private information” without their consent, a practice known as “doxxing.”

This a deeply corrupt, and deeply corrupting, action made by principals in the Sergeants Benevolent Association, and it needs to be treated as the crime (felony) that it is.

This is an active conspiracy against civilian oversight of the police force, so it is not just a matter of petty corruption, it is an act reminiscent of a secret police.

They Intended to Break the Law

Louisville police came upon a gathering, a restauranteur serving food to the neighborhood during curfew, and turned off their body cameras and opened fire on the crowd.

The mayor of Louisville fired the police chief, so he knew what was going on.

The cops were “On Safari”, looking for some black heads to bust, and so they went out with their body cameras off, and something went pear shaped, and they murdered a pillar of the community.

The FBI and the state police are investigating:

A city reeling from four straight nights of violent protests woke Monday to learn that the owner of a beloved West End eatery had been shot by police and National Guards troops responding to gunfire.

David McAtee, known in the Russell neighborhood for his popular barbeque stand outside of Dino’s Food Mart, was killed early Monday morning as Louisville Metro Police and National Guard were trying to break up a “large crowd” in the parking lot of the mart at West Broadway and 26th Street. He was 53.

Gov. Andy Beshear ordered Kentucky State Police to investigate the shooting, which will be a joint effort between the FBI Louisville Field Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District, federal officials said.

Hours after the governor publicly asked Louisville officials to release a “significant” amount of body camera footage from the incident “as soon as possible,” the city announced there wasn’t any.

Two LMPD officers involved in the shooting either had failed to activate or were not wearing body cameras during the incident, Mayor Greg Fischer told the public Monday night.

The mayor also said Monday he fired LMPD Chief Steven Conrad, who announced he would retire at the end of June amid mounting public pressure following the police killing of 26-year-old ER technician Breonna Taylor.

………

Surveillance footage and police radio transmissions released by LMPD Monday evening offered no clear-cut answers.

However, “dozens” of officers were at the scene, according to the recordings. Several protesters and Russell residents there Monday afternoon questioned why so many officers and troops were present in the first place before the shooting.

The most significant protest Sunday night was roughly 20 blocks away downtown.

………

McAtee’s body was at the scene until at least Monday afternoon. A group of LMPD officers in face shields formed a line just behind the crime scene tape, facing neighbors and protesters who came out throughout the day.

This stinks to high heaven, and these officers need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Well, Now We Know What Ends Both-Siderism Among Journalists

All you have to do to make them look at the actual facts is to put them in the line of fire.

Then, suddenly the press sees that out of control cops are out of control cops.

It really sucks that the only way to get the press to stop it’s lazy equivalencies is to actually physically harm them.

This is not indicative of people who are good at their job:

The targeting, harassment, shooting and arrest of working journalists by police over the last several days is having a significant — maybe even profound — effect on the coverage of the mass demonstrations over the death of George Floyd.

It’s a shift from watching the protests through the eyes of the police to watching the police through the eyes of the protesters.

It’s a shift from seeing the police primarily as sources and protectors to seeing them as subjects and aggressors.

Exhibit A is the lead story in the New York Times print edition on Monday morning, which, instead of dutifully reporting on the official version of clashes around the nation, boldly addressed the reality that police around the country have been responding to protests against their aggression with yet more of the same, and have themselves been inciting more violence.

………

The authors also wrote that shows of force by highly-militarized police weren’t bringing calm. “Instead, some people said, it was escalating tensions and serving as a reminder of the regular use of military equipment and tactics by local police forces.”

………

This sentence struck me as both incredibly naïve and – at the same time – nothing short of revolutionary:

Now, some are questioning whether tough police tactics against demonstrators are actually making the violence worse rather than quelling it.

………

Slate collected a number of social media clips and very effectively aggregated them under the headline: “Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide.”

So, it’s clear how you get journalists to start reporting, and stop cultivating sources:  You just need to make sure that someone beats the crap out of them.

It’s a hell of a state of affairs.