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US in crisis - Black Lives Matter Fallout - National and local responses

Thought that we needed a new heading…related to the now week old National crisis over the unprovoked death of George Lloyd, Black Lives Matter movement and the Nation’s response.

Ok…actions needed, Louisville Mayor fires Police Chief

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer on Monday announced that LMPD Chief Steve Conrad has been fired.

Sunday marked the fourth straight night of citywide protests – some of the violent through the weekend. Early Monday morning, LMPD and National Guard officers were called to the area of 26th and Broadway to disperse a large crowd that had gathered near Yaya’s BBQ Shack. LMPD said shots were fired at them, and they returned fire, leaving the popular restaurant owner, David McAtee, dead at age 53.

An emotional Fischer announced Monday that there was no officer body camera video of the shooting.

“That lack of institutional failure will not be tolerated,” Fischer said as he announced Conrad’s termination, effective immediately. Robert Schroeder will serve as interim police chief.

“I am saddened that it took this much calamity in our city to remove the chief of police,” Metro Council President David James said Monday.

The LMPD officers involved in the shooting were identified as Katie Crews and Austin Allen.

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No question Obama’s words are soothing to the black community and others.

With Biden’s bid for the WH and Biden’s natural empathetic nature, it is a given Biden will use this to leverage his candidacy by showing up for others.

Sharp racial divides, huge leadership vacuums…and a nation in need of direction and healing…these are the messages we need right now.

Protests have erupted in dozens of cities over the past week since Floyd, a black man, died after a police officer was seen on video with his knee on Floyd’s neck for minutes on end.

I think the public is getting to a place that it’s never been before in understanding a lot of this," Biden said at the event. "But it’s going to take a whole hell of a lot of hard work. A lot of hard work. But I’m confident it can be done.

Trump Calls Governors Weak, Urging Them To ‘Dominate’ To Quell Violence

Fourteen faith leaders and local lawmakers attended the event at Bethel AME church in Wilmington, Del., as they donned masks and sat seated two to a pew to help maintain social distancing due to the coronavirus.

Biden spent more than half of the event listening to the concerns of community leaders rather than delivering remarks. He could be seen taking notes as each attendee got up and spoke.

Despite being in a room full of supporters, the group offered critical feedback to the former vice president, with some saying the black community didn’t get the economic boost it needed under the Obama administration and that Biden’s role in passing the 1994 crime bill makes some young black voters skeptical of him.

Another Biden statement today

@JoeBiden
(https://twitter.com/JoeBiden)

In this moment, the very soul of America is at stake. We must commit, as a nation, to pursue justice with every ounce of our being. We have to finally make real the American promise: That all men and women are not only equal at creation, but throughout their lives.

2:35 PM · Jun 1, 2020·TweetDec

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Thank you @dragonfly9, this was needed and for the life of me, I could not come up with a title. I’m shook, guys I’m shook by all this.

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Conservative journalist George F. Will asks for Trump’s removal…along with his enablers.

Go time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-one-should-want-four-more-years-of-this-taste-of-ashes/2020/06/01/1a80ecf4-a425-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html

This unraveling presidency began with the Crybaby-in-Chief banging his spoon on his highchair tray to protest a photograph — a photograph — showing that his inauguration crowd the day before had been smaller than the one four years previous. Since then, this weak person’s idea of a strong person, this chest-pounding advertisement of his own gnawing insecurities, this low-rent Lear raging on his Twitter-heath has proven that the phrase malignant buffoon is not an oxymoron.

Presidents, exploiting modern communications technologies and abetted today by journalists preening as the “resistance” — like members of the French Resistance 1940-1944, minus the bravery — can set the tone of American society, which is regrettably soft wax on which presidents leave their marks. The president’s provocations — his coarsening of public discourse that lowers the threshold for acting out by people as mentally crippled as he — do not excuse the violent few. They must be punished. He must be removed.

Social causation is difficult to demonstrate, particularly between one person’s words and other persons’ deeds. However: The person voters hired in 2016 to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” stood on July 28, 2017, in front of uniformed police and urged them “please don’t be too nice” when handling suspected offenders. His hope was fulfilled for 8 minutes and 46 seconds on Minneapolis pavement.

What Daniel Patrick Moynihan termeddefining deviancy down” now defines American politics. In 2016, voters were presented an unprecedentedly unpalatable choice: Never had both major parties offered nominees with higher disapproval than approval numbers. Voters chose what they wagered would be the lesser blight. Now, however, they have watched him govern for 40 months and more than 40 percent — slightly less than the percentage that voted for himapprove of his sordid conduct.

Presidents seeking reelection bask in chants of “Four more years!” This year, however, most Americans — perhaps because they are, as the president predicted, weary from all the winning — might flinch: Four more years of this ? The taste of ashes, metaphorical and now literal, dampens enthusiasm.

The nation’s downward spiral into acrimony and sporadic anarchy has had many causes much larger than the small man who is the great exacerbator of them. Most of the causes predate his presidency, and most will survive its January terminus. The measures necessary for restoration of national equilibrium are many and will be protracted far beyond his removal. One such measure must be the removal of those in Congress who, unlike the sycophantic mediocrities who cosset him in the White House, will not disappear “magically,” as Eric Trump said the coronavirus would. Voters must dispatch his congressional enablers, especially the senators who still gambol around his ankles with a canine hunger for petting.

In life’s unforgiving arithmetic, we are the sum of our choices. Congressional Republicans have made theirs for more than 1,200 days. We cannot know all the measures necessary to restore the nation’s domestic health and international standing, but we know the first step: Senate Republicans must be routed, as condign punishment for their Vichyite collaboration, leaving the Republican remnant to wonder: Was it sensible to sacrifice dignity, such as it ever was, and to shed principles, if convictions so easily jettisoned could be dignified as principles, for . . . what? Praying people should pray, and all others should hope: May I never crave anything as much as these people crave membership in the world’s most risible deliberative body.

A political party’s primary function is to bestow its imprimatur on candidates, thereby proclaiming: This is who we are. In 2016, the Republican Party gave its principal nomination to a vulgarian and then toiled to elect him. And to stock Congress with invertebrates whose unswerving abjectness has enabled his institutional vandalism, who have voiced no serious objections to his Niagara of lies, and whom T.S. Eliot anticipated:

We are the hollow men . . .

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

or rats’ feet over broken glass . . .

Those who think our unhinged president’s recent mania about a murder two decades ago that never happened represents his moral nadir have missed the lesson of his life: There is no such thing as rock bottom. So, assume that the worst is yet to come. Which implicates national security: Abroad, anti-Americanism sleeps lightly when it sleeps at all, and it is wide-awake as decent people judge our nation’s health by the character of those to whom power is entrusted. Watching, too, are indecent people in Beijing and Moscow.

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:eyes: Heads up!

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Watch, if you want…

https://www.c-span.org/video/?472684-1/president-trump-delivers-remarks-protests-civil-unrest&live

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Trump just declared martial law in D.C. via the Insurrection act of 1807, and is posing with military, in violation of Posse Comitatus.

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T wants a belligerent response…appearing like a wooden soldier spouting his speech. So weak.

Posse Comitatus Act - Wikipedia

Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more …

People also ask

What does the Posse Comitatus Act do?

Section 1385, in 1878. Congress has also enacted a number of statutes that authorize the use of land and naval forces to execute their objective. The Posse Comitatus Act outlaws the willful use of any part of the Army or Air Force to execute the law unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress.Nov 6, 2018

What does the phrase Posse Comitatus mean?

A posse comitatus is defined as a group summoned by the local sheriff to keep the peace or enforce an opposed legal precept, but in this case the term refers to an act first passed after the US Civil War that makes it illegal for the armed forces to be used to uphold domestic laws.

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@justinamash

Donald Trump is a threat to our liberty, our Constitution, and the Rule of Law.

4:00 PM · Jun 1, 2020·

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Twitter comes in and marks @MattGaetz tweet
Rep Gaetz - Florida…making incendiary remarks re: Antifa

Matt Gaetz

@mattgaetz

This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible. Learn more

Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?


REPORTERS RESPONSES


@yashar

·

24m

  1. I can’t get over how disgusting this tweet is.

@mattgaetz

knows better but doesn’t care. Suggesting that the USG should engage with US persons like it does with foreign terrorists would be an epic scandal any other time. Resignation worthy.

  1. Ex FBI employee, Law Professor
    @AshaRangappa_

When we designate foreign groups as terrorists, it allows us to, inter alia, 1) criminalize membership and support to those groups; 2) use tools like FISA to electronically surveil them; and 3) in some instances, use military force (including drone strikes) against them 1/

@AshaRangappa_

Make no mistake,

@mattgaetz

is gleefully suggesting that we restrict and criminalize the freedom of association, target for electronic surveillance, and authorize military force (and assassination) against Americans engaged in ordinary crime. It’s truly sick, and dumb.

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image

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Also I would like to co-sign @Pet_Proletariat’s thanks to you @dragonfly9 for starting this thread, I couldn’t think of organizing it either…I’m fuckin shook too.

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Video here:


Apropos of nothing, military officers are feeling the need to note publicly that they won’t violate the law. Just out of the blue, you know, I’m sure no specific incidence of tyranny from Bunker Don just set that off.


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Trump Delivers ‘Law and Order’ Message as Police Disperse Protesters Around White House

The president said he will deploy ‘thousands and thousands’ of military personnel to stop the unrest under the Insurrection Act of 1807.

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2020-06-01/trump-threatens-to-deploy-military-as-police-disperse-protesters-around-white-house?src=usn_tw

Mounted police used flash bangs on peaceful protesters in D.C. at Trump’s directive. https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1267588945497468928?s=20


Protesters reportedly forced out of Lafayette Park so Trump could visit St. John’s Church

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde is on CNN right now denouncing this, stating that neither police nor the White House asked permission to do any of this and they did not support it.

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Wapo writer

The Episcopal bishop of DC – who oversees the DC church Trump just stopped at – tells the @washingtonpost she is “outraged” and that neither she nor the rector was asked or told… “that they would be clearing with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop…" 1/3

…holding a bible, one that declares that God is love and when everything he has said and done is to enflame violence. I am beyond.We need moral leadership and he’s done everything to divide us and has just used one of the most sacred symbols of the Judeo-Christian tradition."2/3

“We so disassociate ourselves from the messages of this president. We hold the teachings of our sacred texts to be so so grounding to our lives and everything we do and it is about love of neighbor and sacrificial love and justice.” @Mebudde Bishop Mariann Budde 3/3

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The White House has admitted that Trump’s photo op was staged so that Trump could be seen outside, to push back against reports of him hiding in his bunker.

The police had unexpectedly fired tear gas and smoke bombs at the demonstrators without warning.

President takes surprise walk from White House to damaged church as protests rage in D.C.

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington was outraged by the staged Trump photo-op: ‘I just can’t believe what my eyes have seen’

Groups condemn detention of journalists covering Atlanta protests

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A man was shot and killed in Louisville, Kentucky, after police said officers and the Kentucky National Guard “returned fire” on a group of people gathered outside a restaurant early Monday morning.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in a statement Monday that the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) and the Kentucky National Guard “were fired upon” while working to disperse a crowd as part of a citywide curfew.

They “returned fire,” which resulted in a man’s death, Beshear said, adding that he has authorized the Kentucky State Police to independently investigate the shooting.

Authorities later said that they “do not know” who shot the man and if it was related to a “separate incident,” or if he was killed due to shots fired by either Louisville officers or National Guard members.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced Monday that he had fired Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad after learning that the body cameras of the officers who had fired their weapons were not active at the time of the shooting.

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Video in tweet confirming Trump photo-op was staged to push back against the bunker story.


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