Tag: Bigotry

Official Misconduct in the Breonna Taylor Affair Gets Even More Sordid

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First, it appears that the grand jurors completely freaked out when they realized that they wouldn’t be presented any possibility of indicting the cops who killed Brionna Taylor.

Even with the power that the Attorney General had over the proceedings, they knew that this was an egregiously corrupt turn of events:

Two grand jurors who heard the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office presentation of the Breonna Taylor case say prosecutors were dismissive of their questions and that there was an “uproar” when jurors realized Louisville police officers wouldn’t be charged with Taylor’s death.

The grand jurors — who are choosing to remain anonymous, citing security concerns — spoke to journalists by phone Wednesday evening along with their attorney, Kevin Glogower, and community activist Christopher 2X. They spoke about how their service on the Taylor case was unlike dozens of other cases they heard throughout their month of service.

………

Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Annie O’Connell earlier this month allowed grand jurors to speak about their service after Grand Juror 1 filed court documents suggesting public comments by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron about the proceedings were misleading.

Six possible homicide charges under Kentucky law weren’t considered against the Louisville Metro Police Department officers who fired their weapons in Taylor’s apartment because “they were justified in the return of deadly fire” after being shot at once by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, Cameron said in a news conference last month. The “grand jury agreed” with that decision, he said in his first public comments about the grand jury proceedings.

Grand Juror 1 described Cameron’s comments as “inaccurate” and said the first time he heard there were six possible homicide charges that the jurists could have reviewed was in Cameron’s news conference.
“Even though we asked for other charges to be brought, we were never told of any additional charges. We were just told that they didn’t feel that they can make any charges stick” and that LMPD officers were justified in returning fire,” the juror said.
“They didn’t go into the details of the self-defense statutes, they didn’t go into the details of any of the six possible murder statutes,” he said, explaining Cameron’s news conference was the catalyst for filing the petition with the court.
………

A third anonymous grand juror who also has come forward “firmly supports the fact that no additional charges were allowed at the conclusion of their service,” according a statement released late Friday afternoon by Glogower, who now represents all three grand jurors.

………

“When they finally did present the charges to us … almost of all of the people at once said, ‘Isn’t there anything else?'” The reply from the attorney general’s office was there were no other charges that they could make stick, Grand Juror 1 recalled.

“There were a lot of questions,” he said. “We didn’t go right into deliberation on charges because we wanted to know what else was missing. … There was an uproar at the end, and it suggested to me that there were several other people who wanted to know more information.”

According to Kentucky law, prosecutors “shall attend the grand jurors when requested by them” and “when requested by them, draft indictments.”

And in addition to all of that, we have one of the killer cops is suing Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend for causing him, “severe trauma, mental anguish and emotional distress.”

These cops break down the door with no notice in response to a bogus warrant, fire indiscriminately, refuse to provide any aid to Taylor after she is shot, and now one of these murderous bastards is suing for “mental anguish and emotional distress”.

The entire institution of law enforcement in the United States needs to be dismantled brick by brick.

So Not a Surprise

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It turns out that the bloke who fired shots into a police station during the George Floyd protests was a white supremacist trying to gin up conflict for a race war.

He was a part of the “Boogaloo” crowd.

I’m not sure if I would call this a false flag operation, but if it isn’t it’s false flag, it certainly is false flag’s next door neighbor.

In the wake of protests following the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a member of the Boogaloo Bois opened fire on the Minneapolis Police Third Precinct with an AK-47-style gun and screamed “Justice for Floyd” as he ran away, according to a federal complaint made public Friday.

A sworn affidavit by the FBI underlying the complaint reveals new details about a far-right anti-government group’s coordinated role in the violence that roiled through civil unrest over Floyd’s death while in police custody.

Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old from Boerne, Texas, is charged with one count of interstate travel to incite a riot for his alleged role in ramping up violence during the protests in Minneapolis on May 27 and 28. According to charges, Hunter, wearing a skull mask and tactical gear, shot 13 rounds at the south Minneapolis police headquarters while people were inside. He also looted and helped set the building ablaze, according to the complaint, which was filed Monday under seal.

It does seem that a disproportionate number of these interstate terrorist types come from Texas, huh?

Unrest flared throughout Minneapolis following Floyd’s death, which was captured on a bystander’s cellphone video, causing Gov. Tim Walz to activate the Minnesota National Guard. As police clashed with protesters, Hunter and other members of the Boogaloo Bois discussed in private Facebook messages their plans to travel to Minneapolis and rally at the Cub Foods near the Third Precinct building, according to federal court documents. One of the people Hunter coordinated with posted publicly to social media: “Lock and load boys. Boog flags are in the air, and the national network is going off,” the complaint states.

Two hours after the police precinct was set on fire, Hunter texted with another Boogaloo member in California, a man named Steven Carrillo.

“Go for police buildings,” Hunter told Carrillo, according to charging documents.

And Carrillo has a bit of a story as well:

Five days later, Carrillo shot and killed a sheriff’s deputy in Santa Cruz when authorities tried to arrest him, according to charges filed in California. Authorities say he then stole a car and wrote “Boog” on the hood “in what appeared to be his own blood.”

A couple of days later, during police protests in Austin, Texas, police pulled over a truck after seeing three men in tactical gear and carrying guns drive away in it. Hunter, in the front passenger seat, wore six loaded banana magazines for an AK-47-style assault rifle on his tactical vest, according federal authorities. The two other men had AR-15 magazines affixed to their vests. The officers found an AK-47-style rifle and two AR-15 rifles on the rear seat of the vehicle, a pistol next to the driver’s seat and another pistol in the center console.

Hunter denied he owned any of the weapons found in the vehicle. He did, according to the complaint, volunteer that he was the leader of the Boogaloo Bois in South Texas and that he was present in Minneapolis when the Third Precinct was set on fire. Police seized the guns and let Hunter and the others go.

Once again, we see the cops sghowing favoritism to white supremacist terrorists, even though these same terrorists are the ones who are disproportionately likely to kill cops.

Thin blue line, my ass.

Hunter is the third member of the Boogaloo Bois, a loose-knit group intent on igniting a second American civil war, to be charged in Minneapolis as a result of the unrest that followed Floyd’s death.

Michael Robert Solomon and Benjamin Ryan Teeter were indicted in September with conspiracy to provide material support to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

The Central Park “Karen” Story Gets Even Worse

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In addition to calling 911, and trying to convince police that a Black bird-watcher was a threat, Amy Cooper made a second call to the cops stating that he had assaulted her.

If the DA has any stones, he should charge her with attempted murder:

Amy Cooper, the white woman who called the police on a Black bird-watcher in Central Park, made a second, previously unreported call to 911 in which she falsely claimed that the man tried to assault her, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.

“The defendant twice reported that an African-American man was putting her in danger, first by stating that he was threatening her and her dog, then making a second call indicating that he tried to assault her in the Ramble area of the park,” Joan Illuzzi, a senior prosecutor, said.

The second call was disclosed as Ms. Cooper appeared remotely in Manhattan Criminal Court to answer a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report, which carries a maximum sentence of a year in jail.

Not enough.

Ms. Cooper had been charged in July, and no additional charges were announced on Wednesday. Ms. Illuzzi said the Manhattan district attorney’s office was negotiating a possible plea deal with Ms. Cooper that would allow her to avoid jail.

No.  She tried to get police to kill this man, same as if she unleashed a shark into his swimming pool.

………

But prosecutors said Ms. Cooper made a later call to 911, which was not shown in the video. In that call, Ms. Cooper told the dispatcher that Mr. Cooper had tried to assault her, according to a criminal complaint.

When the police arrived, however, Ms. Cooper told an officer that her reports were untrue, and that Mr. Cooper had not touched or assaulted her, the complaint said.

………

Still, the prosecutor said the district attorney’s office was exploring a resolution to the case that would require Ms. Cooper to take responsibility for her actions in court and attend a program to educate her on how harmful they were.

No.  This is more white privelege bullsh%$.  If she were Muslim, she would still be in Rikers with no bail.

She needs some incarcerated time, because otherwise, we will see another Karen doing the same Karen thing.

Clearly, We Are in a Post-Racial Society

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While walking down the street in Beverly Hills, a Black senior Versace executive was stopped and searched by police:

This is the rule, not an exception.

A black Versace executive says he was racially profiled close to the Beverly Hills branch of the Italian luxury fashion brand.

Salehe Bembury, the vice-president of sneakers and men’s footwear at Versace, was stopped and searched for jaywalking in Rodeo Drive, near Camden Drive and Wilshire Boulevard.

“What’s unfortunate is I literally designed the shoes that are in the bag and I’m f%$#ing being searched for them,” Bembury appears telling police officers in a video of the incident.

(%$# mine)

First, “VP of sneakers?”  That’s just kind of weird. 

Second, if you think that there is no more racism in the United States, you are either an egregious racist, or you are brain dead.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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A militia group in Michigan has just been arrested while planning to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

As Anna Russel would say, “I’m not making this up, you know.”

This is a logical extension of the whole militia/White Supremacist/Proud Boys/Oath Keepers sh%$ that Donald Trump has bee cultivating for years.

The federal government has charged six people with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in an alleged domestic terrorist plot, according to newly unsealed court records.

Seven others face state charges, brought by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. All 13 are in custody, officials said.

Members of a militia group purchased weapons, conducted surveillance, and held training and planning meetings, but were foiled in part because the FBI was able to infiltrate the group with informants, according to charges officials planned to detail Thursday.

Plans included kidnapping Whitmer and putting her on trial for treason, officials allege.

They were planning on killing her.  Treason is a capital offense, particularly for the right wing militia crowd.

………

Whitmer also lashed out at President Donald Trump and accused him of “stoking distrust,” “fomenting anger” and emboldening groups who “spread fear and hatred and division.”

Absolutely true.

Trump is losing his sh%$ over her comments, to which I say, “You are such a delicate snowflake.”

A Most Fabulous Meme

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We’re Proud and we’re Boys and Nazi cowards can fuck right the fuck off. #ProudBoys pic.twitter.com/pOTpcJe7WZ

— Sam J. Miller (@sentencebender) October 4, 2020

Here is me and my husband on our wedding day …. and a pic of our two adopted sons #ProudBoys pic.twitter.com/mloFIhcvwF

— Ants (@helloitsants) October 4, 2020

🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈 #ProudBoys pic.twitter.com/rEFL7xIqXu

— Canadian Forces in 🇺🇸 (@CAFinUS) October 4, 2020

Fabulous!!!

The right-wing terrorists gang known as the “Proud Boys” are being mercilessly memed by LGBTQ people all over the internet.

This is f%#$ing beautiful, and even an official Canadian military Twitter account joined in:

If you search for “Proud Boys” on Twitter, you won’t get what you’re expecting, and you will absolutely be delighted.

After Donald Trump’s reference to the extremist group at the first presidential debate, people have taken over the #ProudBoys hashtag with photos of gay men celebrating their lives and their love.

The goal of the movement is to take back the hashtag from the Proud Boys, a far-right men’s organization with a history of violence. Founded by Gavin McInnes, the group describes itself as “western chauvinists,” and the FBI considers the group to be an extremist organization with ties to white supremacy.

When asked to condemn white supremacists during the first presidential debate, Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” The statement appears to have galvanized the group and bolstered their following.

Given the group’s penchant for a certain brand of white masculinity, the move to use the tag with images of gay men is not just a reclamation, but a cheeky provocation.

The exact source of this meme is unclear, but it may have started with a George Takei tweet.

Oh, My!!!!!!

Breonna Taylor Tape is Out

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Two very different accounts emerged on Friday from either side of an apartment door in Louisville, the one that police officers knocked off its hinges in March as they delivered a search warrant at the home of Breonna Taylor.

In newly released audio from closed-door grand jury proceedings, there was conflicting testimony over what happened in the seconds before the police shot and killed Ms. Taylor, a Black emergency room technician whose death pulled people to the streets in protests across the country.

………

The grand jury concluded its work by bringing an indictment against one former officer for endangering Ms. Taylor’s neighbors; it brought no charges against the two officers who shot her.

Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general, released the recordings on Friday after a judge ordered him to do so, but the recordings did not include the instructions that prosecutors gave to the 12 jurors. One juror said Mr. Cameron was deflecting blame by saying it was jurors who had opted not to indict the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor.

………

The grand jurors met in person over three days and reviewed police interviews of officers and witnesses at the scene, 911 calls and body camera videos from after Ms. Taylor was shot. They also met directly with detectives who had investigated the killing.

At times the jurors sound inquisitive or skeptical on the recordings, peppering the detectives with questions and pointing out inconsistencies in some of the officers’ accounts. Below are highlights of the evidence presented in the new recordings.
The audio does not include prosecutors’ instructions, which came into question after a grand juror spoke out.

The audio files do not include statements or recommendations from prosecutors about which charges they think should be brought against the officers who took part in the raid. Mr. Cameron has said that jurors were told that the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor — Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Cosgrove, both of whom are white — were justified in their actions.

Mr. Cameron said prosecutors’ statements and jurors’ deliberations “were not recorded, as they are not evidence.” He has insisted that the jurors were given “all of the evidence” and were free to pursue additional charges.

This is complete crap.

The redacted tapes are clearly a coverup.


His release of the audiotapes came after a grand juror asked for the proceedings to be made public and accused Mr. Cameron of using the jurors to deflect blame over the decision. Grand jurors are given broad powers, but prosecutors often closely guide the jurors and inform them about their role. The process almost always remains secret.

………

After grand jurors heard a recording of the interview that Detective Cosgrove gave to investigators, one juror asked, “Does he have a history of panic attacks?” An investigator with the attorney general’s office said he did not know.

The grand jurors knew that the fix was in, but they were not told that they had sweeping powers to request information and issue subpoenas, even if the prosecutors did not want to.

………

Ms. Taylor’s next-door neighbors said they were awakened by banging but did not hear anyone announce that they were the police, according to interviews they gave to investigators. Once the shooting subsided, the neighbors said, they heard Ms. Taylor’s boyfriend sobbing and screaming for help.

………

In previous interviews with The New York Times, 11 of 12 witnesses on the scene that night said they never heard the police identify themselves. One of them said he heard the group say “police” just once.

Cops lie with impunity in court.  The current state Attorney General is fine with that.

………

The dozen grand jurors appeared inquisitive throughout the proceedings, asking witnesses about the evidence and sometimes sounding skeptical about what was provided to them.

………

The grand jurors asked a detective from the attorney general’s office several questions on the third and final day that they met, just hours before indicting Mr. Hankison.

They asked if the police had recovered drugs or money from the apartment; the detective said no, and that the police had not searched the apartment for drugs or paraphernalia after shooting Ms. Taylor. They asked whether he had diagrams of the scene (no) and why the officers’ body cameras were not activated (the detective said he did not know).

So, when the grand jurors asked for what they considered to be critical information, the response of the authorities was, “¯_(ツ)_/¯,” and they refused to tell those jurors that they have real and significant authority to investigate.

This is deeply corrupt.

It’s clear that the AG decided that they value the support of the cop unions over the over fair administration of justice.

American Exceptionalism , Huh?

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Minnesota has had to Stop Corona Virus surveys in Mennesota because of the racism and violence of the “Real Americans” in the state’s agricultural heartland.

This is not a surprise, but it has gotten MUCH worse over the past few years.

It’s almost as if people were deeply and pervasively bigoted, and they were only waiting for permission.

So, now they are letting their bigotry put their lives, and the lives of their loved ones, to promulgate their racist fantasies:

A door-to-door COVID-19 testing survey has been halted due to multiple incidents in greater Minnesota of residents intimidating and shouting racial and ethnic slurs at state and federal public health survey teams.

The CDC pulled its federal surveyors out of Minnesota this week following reports of verbal abuse and intimidation, including an incident in the Iowa border town of Eitzen, Minn., in which a survey team walking to a house was blocked by two cars and threatened by three men, according to state health officials. One man had his hand on a holstered gun.

………

Surveyors had been fanning out to 180 neighborhoods this month — offering free diagnostic testing for active COVID-19 infections and blood antibody testing to identify prior infections — to understand the true prevalence of the coronavirus causing the pandemic.

………

The surveyors trapped in the Eitzen incident were permitted to leave and did not file a police report about the gun-toting man or the two others who approached them.

………

The frequency of problems became clear last weekend when surveyors discussed their experiences, Yendell said. A Hispanic surveyor was called one slur “more in the last week than in her entire life,” she said.

………

The forced end to the study is an amalgam of 2020’s overriding tensions — the anger over prolonged business restrictions to limit COVID-19 and the racial tensions following police killings of Black people that resulted in protests and riots, and some predominantly white counterprotests.

………

Incidents occurred mostly in central and southern Minnesota, rural areas where there has been pent-up resentment over the spring statewide shutdown, the indoor mask mandate and the bar and restaurant restrictions. Such measures were seen as overkill in small towns where virus transmission has been less prevalent.

If, as the Republicans insist, these sorts of rural communities are the “Real America,” then the “Real America” is a profoundly nasty place.

H/T Stephen Saroff      o o  The Bear who Swims      
                        (_)_____o      
                     ~~~~(______)~~~~~~~~~~
                         oo    oo

Better off Ted is Reality, Zoom Edition

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Algorithms are a Dystopian future

A professor teaching Zoom classes, and he discovered that his head was being removed by the program. 

He called tech support, who trouble shot the problem, and (with said professor’s permission) related the account on Twitter. 

It turned out that he Zoom algorithm was choosing a globe for his head, and removing his actual head when it was doing that background trick thing.

One fact that will surprise anyone who has seen THAT episode of Better off Ted, is that the professor with the problem was Black. (See clip below)

It appears that much like Racist Republicans, Zoom cannot see color.

It cannot see it at all, and so the person is erased, which is one f%$# of a metaphor.

The optimists among us say that computer algorithms will eventually do away with racism.

The pessimists among us say that the computer algorithms will reinforce and extend racism.

The police, of course, are pulling out their wallets, because this gives them a excuse to discriminate, as is evidenced by the false arrest of a black man based on racist facial recognition.

Color me cynical.

The Hysterectomy Doc Story Gets Worse

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It turns out that the butcher who was routinely sterilizing ICE detainees was not a board certified OB/Gyn.

My conclusion at this point is that either Dr. Mahendra Amin was getting all of the sterilization jobs because he was paying kickbacks, or someone at the facility wanted mass sterilizations at the facility, and he was a willing conspirator, or both:

The doctor at the center of a scandal over unwanted hysterectomies at an immigrant detention facility in Georgia is not a board certified OB-GYN, The Daily Beast has learned.

Dr. Mahendra Amin came under scrutiny after immigrant rights groups issued a report accusing him of conducting unnecessary or unwanted gynecological procedures on women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia.

………

ICE declined to comment on the record about Amin’s certification or policies concerning board-certified physicians. The agency has previously said it “vehemently disputes the implication that detainees are used for experimental medical procedures,” and cautioned that “anonymous, unproven allegations” should be treated with skepticism.

Reached by text message, Amin declined to comment on his board certification and deferred all questions to his lawyer, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the issue.

Amin has practiced in Douglas, Georgia for at least two decades, both in his own private practice and as the medical director for the labor and delivery department at Irwin County Hospital. Business records reviewed by The Daily Beast show he also incorporated a new “Amin Surgery Center for Women” in September 2019, and sought state approvals to build the facility two months afterward. Gayle Evans, a consultant for the project, said the surgical center is still under construction and has not started seeing patients.

………

Since then, lawyers representing 17 detainees have claimed their clients received unnecessary medical gynecological procedures from Amin, according to the office of Rep. Pramila Jayapal. The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has launched an investigation into the allegations, and the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee said his panel would also look into them.

………

Board certification is a voluntary process meant to enhance a specialist’s expertise beyond state licensure. (Georgia state law requires only one year of education after medical school to obtain a license.) Physicians seeking ABOG certification must pass a written and oral exam and demonstrate experience in treating women’s health care. They are also required to participate in a program to keep them abreast of the latest evidence-based treatments.

………

Court records show Amin has previously settled lawsuits with at least two patients or their family members outside the detention center. In one case, Amin was accused of discharging a pregnant patient despite “life threatening abnormal lab values.” According to the suit, the woman returned to the hospital 48 hours later with contractions, blurred vision, high blood pressure and vaginal bleeding. She received an emergency cesarean section and died shortly thereafter. In a court filing, Amin denied any negligence and any knowledge of the abnormal lab values.

………

Amin and eight other doctors at the Irwin County Hospital also agreed to pay $520,000 to the federal government in 2015, after the Department of Justice accused them of fraudulently billing Medicare and Medicaid for services they did not provide. The complaint named Amin as the owner of MGA Health Management, which was contracted to run the hospital, and also identified him as a part owner of the institution.

………

The complaint further identifies a kickback scheme whereby Amin and other physicians directed patients to ICH instead of other institutions. Because of Amin’s ownership stake in ICH, he allegedly profited off every such referral.

………

Shahshahani said her organization is still working on discerning the total number of women who received surgery against their will. While she described the attention given to the hysterectomies as “well-deserved,” she cautioned against putting all the blame on an individual doctor.

“At the end of the day, it was the doctor that was performing these procedures but the buck really stops with ICE,” she said. “The U.S. government had the responsibility for the welfare and protection of these women.”

So, we know that he’s corrupt, and we know that ICE is deeply and pervasively racist.

You do the math.

Support Your Local Police

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This is f%$#ed Up and Sh%$

Remember when I wrote about a Clackamas County, Oregon Deputy spreading lies about Antifa starting fires?

It gets, worse.  A LOT worse.

The Deputy, who we now know is one Mark Nikolai, did more than spread lies about the fires.

He gave specific instructions on how white supremacist militia could kill people and get away with it.

Please also note, as had been demonstrated time, and time, and time, and time again, this guy is the rule not the exception. 

Most of the cops out there are clearly pro-white supremacist.

It’s why the entire institution of law enforcement in America needs to be torn down brick by brick and replaced with something that is not this corrupt and dysfunctional:

For many of us, September 11 has become a day of remembrance and a time to band together and take care of other people in any small way we can.

But for one sheriff’s deputy in Oregon, it was apparently an opportunity to share some dark advice amidst the wildfires that have spread in the Pacific Northwest.

A video was circulated online after an individual presumably wearing a body camera caught the deputy giving a group of armed White nationalist militia members tips on how to use force and kill civilians without getting caught or being charged.

The sheriff’s deputy has been identified as Deputy Mark Nikolai, who was placed on administrative leave.

………

Nikolai can be heard saying in the video:

“Don’t get yourself in a situation where you lose your rights because you pushed the limit.”

“You all mean to do good, your heart’s in the right place, but the courts nowadays don’t give a s**t where your heart is.”

………

“Now, if you throw a f**king knife in their hand after you shoot them, that’s on you.”

Officials from the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Department have denied any affiliation with Nikolai’s statements or point of view.

They can deny it all they want, but we know what this guy was, and we know that he flourished for years in the department, and good cops don’t tell civilians, or other cops, to carry weapons to plant on their victims.

Any cop who has worked with this guy had to know what he was, and they let it slide, which meant that they were bad cops too.

Very Fine People Doing Their Job

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I am referring, of course, to the construction workers and engineers who have just removed a Confederate memorial statue from in front of the Albemarle County Courthouse.

They are doing God’s work:

Engineers in Charlottesville, Virginia worked to remove a 900lb Confederate statue on Saturday, a moment of symbolic reckoning in the university town that was rocked by a white supremacist march in August 2017.

The statue taken down was not that of Robert E Lee, which extremists said they were defending in clashes which led to the murder of a counter-protester. Instead, Charlottesville removed a bronze figure of a Confederate soldier, known as “At Ready”, that has stood for 111 years outside the Albemarle county courthouse.

Around 100 people cheered from behind barricades as bronze plaques were taken off the sides of the monument and a cannon was removed, the Washington Post reported. Police stood by.

………

Donald Trump provoked outrage in 2017 when he said there were “very fine people” on both sides of clashes in which Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when an extremist drove his car into a crowd.

………

Albemarle is the first locality to use a process for removing statues that was approved by the state’s general assembly. But activists have said they are disappointed that “At the Ready” will be re-erected elsewhere.

“We feel like it’s just basically toxic waste disposal in another community,” Jalane Schmidt, an associate professor at the University of Virginia, told the Post.

(emphasis mine)

Rats Turn on Each Other

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The police officers charged in the Georgy Floyd murder are beginning to turn on one another.

What can I say but, “Pass the Popcorn.”

The four former Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd’s killing appear to be turning on one another, with each offering significantly different versions of the infamous arrest that acknowledge Floyd should not have been allowed to die that day but also deflect the blame to others.

The four men have said in court documents that they all thought someone else was in charge of the scene on May 25 — with rookie officers arguing they were deferring to a veteran, and the veteran saying he was simply assisting in an arrest that was in progress. All have said in court documents that the relationship between the veteran officer — Derek Chauvin — and the others is at the heart of the issue, as each officer perceived their role, and who was in charge, quite differently. Chauvin was the officer shown with his knee on Floyd’s neck as he struggled to breathe in videos of the ill-fated arrest.

“There are very likely going to be antagonistic defenses presented at the trial,” Earl Gray, a lawyer for Thomas K. Lane, wrote in a legal motion filed here this week. “It is plausible that all officers have a different version of what happened and officers place blame on one another.”

It’s nice when people who are ordinarily beneficiaries of the corrupt “Thin Blue Line” start turning against each other.

Here’s hoping that they all screw each other into a jail cell.

Finest Journalist in the United States is a Brit

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I am referring, of course, to John Oliver.

He masterfully juxtaposes the lie fest at the RNC with the events in Kenosha.

It’s sad that a comedian is pretty much the only person in the main-stream-media providing good context and analysis.

As an aside, I think that John Oliver is much better than Jon Stewart ever was.

Stewart subscribed to the “View from nowhere”, and Oliver does not hide his opinions.

Signs of the Apocalypse

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I cannot believe that I am writing this, but Delta Airlines has done the right thing.


John Mulaney on Delta

Delta took the side of a Black passenger after a Karen in the seat next to her picked a fight with her, and Delta upgraded her seat on the return flight.

Delta did the right thing, and I still cannot believe that I wrote that:

A Black woman harassed by a white passenger on her Delta flight to Washington, D.C., last week is singing the airline’s praises after it upgraded her flight in response.

Demetria Poe, 25, was flying from Minneapolis to D.C. on Thursday to attend the Commitment March, held last Friday on the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. Poe, who spoke to USA Today after her Facebook post detailing the experience went viral, says she was already seated when a white passenger, who realized her seat assignment was next to Poe, swapped out the American flag face mask she had been wearing for a Blue Lives Matter one.

“That woman was trying to entice me into an argument because there was no need for her to flip that mask in my presence,” Poe told the news outlet. “She didn’t do it for anyone else. It was as if she was making a statement and wanted me to know.”

Poe did not react to the mask, but after takeoff, the white woman began to goad Poe into conversation, telling her, “I support blue lives because I support our officers.”

………

Poe noted to USA Today that she remained “very calm” throughout the conversation because she suspected her seat mate wanted to provoke her. White passengers around her also intervened and “snapped on this lady” in Poe’s defense. Delta flight attendants also checked on her and offered to move Blue Lives Karen. Once the plane landed in D.C., Delta attendants relayed to her that the white woman would no longer be flying with the airline because they do not “personally or as a company stand for racism and discrimination,” Poe wrote on her Facebook.

“I felt the genuine and sincere concern the flight attendants had for me and the people around me,” Poe told USA Today. “I was shocked. I was happy, but I was still fearful. Living in Minnesota, I have seen how things get blown up. I just really wanted to get off the flight.”

But the story didn’t end there for Poe. On her return flight to Minneapolis, her seat was upgraded, and she received a small bag full of gifts, including a “Black Lives Matter” Delta pin. Poe was moved to tears by the gift and was heartened by the airline choosing to stand in solidarity with her.

“This is a major corporation saying that Black lives matter,” Poe said, adding that she “will only fly Delta” from now on.

After Poe’s Facebook post detailing the incident went viral, the airline dropped a response to her: “When we say Black lives matter, we mean it. You matter to us, Demetria.”

We are living in strange times.

Quote of the Day

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Because I’ve lived most of my life either on the near periphery or within academia, I’ve had nearly four decades of experience with the creepy essentialist language of “racial authenticity” that lives and thrives in more than one corner of putatively liberal academia. As a result, I learned a long time ago that some white liberals expect black and brown people to “perform” in ways that comport with their well-meaning, usually underclass-informed, and fundamentally racist expectations of black people.

—Touré F. Reed in Jacobin on the spectacle of Professor Jessica Krug masquerading as a Black Hispanic woman throughout her career

The entire sordid affair is raises an important question, one which will be studiously ignored in the halls of academe, “What are the (probably racist) preconceptions that allowed for this fraud to be perpetrated?”

Tweet of the Day

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If modern Democrats were around in the 1800s their solution to slavery would be Black slave owners.

— Albert Lee for the People 🌹 (@AlbertLee2020) August 10, 2020

The reality of the situation is that much of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is allergic to any sort of move toward social justice, and so try to do nothing about the carceral state, predatory finance, and inequality.

Instead, they rely on Republican Party racism to define themselves as a party.

Implicit Bias Training Does Not Work

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Yet another study shows that implicit bias training of police does not work.

This is not a surprise. The training was never intended to work, it was intended to do 3 things:

  1. It gives the illusion that the powers that they give a damn, and are actually address the problem.
  2. It provides a bullsh%$ job to a member of the Professional Managerial Class (PMC) who would otherwise be forced to do something productive.
  3. It comforts the comfortable, and assuages their guilt over their privileged lives without actually addressing the fact that they are beneficiaries of a corrupt system..

The late Dave Graeber had this whole phenomenon nailed.

If you want to stop cops from being brutal racists, you have to make sure that when they step out of line, they are punished.