Day: June 5, 2020

The Day The Presidency Was Lost

Closing Thought–05Jun20

We all have seen, by now, that horrible photo op of the president in front of a boarded up church holding a Bible….it was sickening and the push back by the religious community has been hard on Donald…..

The American Conservative has called that day as the “Day the presidency was lost”…..

I believe that yesterday was the day that Donald Trump lost the presidency.

After days of urban rioting, the likes of which America hasn’t seen in over fifty years, the President of the United States finally deigned to show himself and address the nation. He gave a pro forma address in the White House, then, law enforcement personnel having gassed peaceful protesters to clear the way for the president to walk across the park to St. John’s Church, Trump strolled over, stood in front of the church holding a Bible, for a photo op.

The Day Trump Lost The Presidency

I agree under normal circumstance….but these days there is NOTHING normal and there will be die hard Trump supporters that will always find something positive…..I wish I could see it….to me he looked awkward and like his diaper needed changing….it was staged photo op…….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Stop Pretending Reform Will Help

Politicians have lined up, especially Dems, to call for reform….to include former president Obama….

Barack Obama has told young people of colour “your lives matter” in public remarks that supporters welcomed as an antidote to Donald Trump’s racially charged and divisive threats to crack down on civil dissent.

America’s first black president on Wednesday expressed faith in young people in the US and said he remained “optimistic” about the future despite the police killing of George Floyd and mounting crises that Trump’s critics say leave the country crying out for leadership.

Obama spoke at an event by the My Brother’s Keeper alliance, a program of the Obama Foundation, that was called “Reimagining Policing in the Wake of Continued Police Violence.” It was the first public appearance by the 44th president since Floyd was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on his neck, sparking nine days of nationwide protests that have been mostly peaceful but marred by some incidents of violence.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/03/obama-george-floyd-remarks-protests-trump

Nice words….but he had 8 years in White House to accomplish something…..and here we are.

Then there is the new ad from candidate Biden….

Again he was in the White House for 8 years and yet…here we are again.

Then there are all the pundits that have the answers to the problems….they are paid to have these…so take most of them with a grain of salt.

Let’s be honest….the police have immunity from prosecution in some cases and it was given by the Supreme Court….

Qualified immunity, created by the Supreme Court in the 1970s, shields police and other government officials from liability in civil rights lawsuits when the illegality of their actions was not “clearly established” at the time of the offense.

The Supreme Court Has a Chance To End Qualified Immunity and Prevent Cases Like George Floyd’s

Learn more about ‘Qualified Immunity’…..https://www.vox.com/2020/6/3/21277104/qualified-immunity-cops-constitution-shaniz-west-supreme-court

Not to worry there will be a mass of bills to change things when it involves the police and each one will be just to pad a resume for their next election…..or it it makes it to the Senate it will die a slow death for the Senate is where great bills go to die.

What I am saying is that ‘reforms’ will not change a damn thing….why?  They are easily swept aside but another administration.

The first thing we need to do is….stop blaming those ‘bad apples’….why?

There is a long long legacy of brutality by the police…https://www.salon.com/2020/06/03/bad-apples-are-not-the-problem-americas-police-have-a-long-legacy-of-brutal-misconduct/

Let us not forget those state legislatures……they were slow if not slower than the national leaders in ceasing the brutality……

 
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FILE – In this March 5, 2019 file photo Ohio House minority leader Emilia Sykes delivers the Democrat’s response to the Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s Ohio State of the State address at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. Only about a third of U.S. states have enacted laws addressing police use-of-force in the six years since a national protest movement emerged over the killings of black men by white police officers. Sykes criticized GOP lawmakers this week for failing to enact laws recommended by former Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s task force that hold police accountable. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) —

A wave of police killings of young black men in 2014 prompted 24 states to quickly pass some type of law enforcement reform, but many declined to address the most glaring issue: police use of force. Six years later, only about a third of states have passed laws on the question.

The issue is at the heart of nationwide protests set off by the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer in Minneapolis pressed a knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes while he pleaded for air.

Now, some lawmakers and governors are hoping to harness the renewed wave of anger to push through changes on the use of force they couldn’t manage after 2014, a year that included the deaths at the hands of police of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Garner in New York and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland.

“We’re absolutely at a point in time where we have to do more,” said Maryland state Del. Vanessa Atterbeary, a Democrat who will chair a working group announced this week that will take up use-of-force standards for that state.

Pushback from politically influential law enforcement unions prompted some states’ use-of-force proposals to stall, while others have opted for voluntary programs to change policing practices. In some states, lawmakers have even broadened the powers of police, such as increasing penalties for those who attack officers or, as in Tennessee and Utah, limiting the power of independent review boards that investigate police conduct.

https://apnews.com/bd27ce94833a6c021329086973112eaf

I do not have all the answers but a start would be to recall all the military equipment and let the police use the law as the weapon not the arms made for war.

Training in law enforcement and community not tactics for going to war.

One attempt to do something (to illustrate my point)…..

H.R.1232 — 114th Congress (2015-2016)All Information (Except Text)

Bill History – Congressional Record References

 
And it ended with a thud of non-action.

Another attempt from the same timeline….

The Demilitarization of Police Act requires law enforcement agencies to disclose and justify the need and cost of any military equipment they own (e.g. machine guns, armored vehicles, night-vision scopes, camouflage fatigues and flash-bang grenades). Law enforcement agencies must provide the [legislature/council/commission] at least 90 days notice before any future acquisition of military equipment.

Based on New Jersey SB 2364 and SB 2365 (2014)

Read the Act….https://publicleadershipinstitute.org/model-bills/public-safety/demilitarization-police-act/

A Case for de-militarization…..

https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1280&context=mjrl

Time to end for good the 1033 Program which is the way police gets their weapons of war to use on the civilian population.

Just a few reasons why I do not trust the politicians and pundits and their calls for reform…..

This country needs CHANGE…..not reform.

The call for reforms is what you do when you want nothing to be done.

Enough talk!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Another Brick In The Wall

All the protests over deaths has yet another victim to add to the list of black people killed in police custody.

This time it is Tacoma with the bad cops….

The Mayor of Tacoma, Washington, Victoria Woodards, has called for the firing of police officers involved in the death of Manuel Ellis. Ellis, a 33-year-old black man, died on March 3 in handcuffs while being restrained on the ground by police. His death has been ruled a homicide.

“I am demanding tonight that the Pierce County Sheriff review and confirm every action taken by each officer. I demand that the sheriff provide details of the actions of each officer on the scene and I am directing the city manager to fire each officer involved,” Woodards said at a news conference late Thursday night, adding: “The officer who committed this crime should be fired and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that Ellis died of respiratory arrest due to hypoxia due to physical restraint, The News Tribune reported. Contributing factors included methamphetamine intoxication and dilated cardiomyopathy, commonly known as an enlarged heart. The Medical Examiner ruled Ellis’ death a homicide.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/manuel-ellis-death-black-man-tacoma-police-homicide-mayor-woodards-says-fire-prosecute-officer/

It was murder…..call it what is is….homicide in the first degree…..

Protesters need to go to Tacoma and make a stink.

More than 10,000 people have been arrested in the US during the protests against police violence as of Thursday, the tenth day of demonstrations in a row since George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police on Memorial Day.

In a tally taken of recorded arrests across the country, the Associated Press reported that the number of protesters arrested has grown by the hundreds each day. The news agency reported that one quarter of the arrests have been made in Los Angeles followed by New York City, which has 2,000 arrests, Dallas, and Philadelphia.

The AP analysis also showed that the majority of the arrests are for “low-level offenses such as curfew violations and failure to disperse.” Exposing as false the claims by President Donald Trump and Democratic politicians such as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz that the majority of the protesters are outside agitators, AP reported that, during a 24-hour period over the weekend in Minneapolis, “41 of the 52 people cited with protest-related arrests had Minnesota driver’s licenses.”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/05/demo-j05.html

Time to make a stand!

Be Well…..Be Safe…..Be Heard…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That Economy That We Were Promised

Trump has been promising that the US economy will make a comeback as soon as we remove ourselves from virus lockdown.

But let’s look at the economy…..(a subject that most Americans will glaze over at the mention of the issue)….

The unemployment continues…..42.6 million unemployed workers….

Continuing claims, which provide a clearer picture of how many Americans remain unemployed, totaled 21.5 million, a gain of 649,000 over the past week, also worse than Wall Street expected.

The insured unemployment rate, which is a simple measure of those collecting benefits compared with the total labor force, rose 0.5 percentage points to 14.8%.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/weekly-jobless-claims.html

GDP is down……

Consumption is way down…..

Why has the media not reported this story….it is an important one…

A Bloomberg analysis released Tuesday estimates that nearly a third of the unemployment benefits owed to jobless Americans have not yet been paid out, a finding critics described as a “scandal” deserving of more media attention as millions of people struggle to afford basic expenses due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The Treasury disbursed $146 billion in unemployment benefits in the three months through May,” Bloomberg reported. “But even that historic figure falls short of a total bill that should have reached about $214 billion for the period, according to Bloomberg calculations based on weekly unemployment filings and the average size of those claims.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/03/should-be-bigger-news-analysis-finds-nearly-one-third-owed-unemployment-benefits

The media refuses to report anything that would turn the people from believing in the system we have….

The hunger will continue because of the unemployment status…..

A poll released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week revealed that at least nine million American households that include children are unsure whether they’ll be able to access enough food in the next four weeks and millions more are experiencing housing insecurity during the coronavirus pandemic.

The bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey, taken between May 14 and 19, asked respondents about their loss of employment, food security, overall health, and other issues they are facing during the pandemic.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/over-9-million-us-families-fear-they-cant-afford-food-next-month-census-survey

There is so much fiction being passed as news these especially when it involves the economy…..some of the “news” is pure fiction and has been for many years….

One of the favorite myths they perpetrate is that ‘wages are sticky downwards’. That means that in conditions of recession or worse, because workers won’t accept lower wages the recession tends to continue. If only workers would allow wage reductions it would mean business would have more disposable income (from wage cost savings) on hand. Business would then reinvest the extra income. Investment would rise. Workers would be rehired. Wage income would then recover and the economy would grow from more investment and consumption

Two Fictions of Mainstream Economics

Sadly the ignorance around the economy for most Americans will keep the so-called “Dream” out of reach…..

Just one in five American voters want to expand government control over the economy after coronavirus, according to a new the Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen.

The results come as Congress and the White House negotiate over how to continue to respond to the economic crisis around the coronavirus, amid rising unemployment and shuttering businesses.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/only-1-5-american-voters-want-expand-government-control-over-economy

Pure fantasy that the media and the government continue to push….and as usual YOU will be screwed by believing the LIES.

So when can we expect the recovery that Trump has said would be immediate once the country re-opened…..

……..how soon can we expect a recovery? There’s a range of predictions — from one year to 10 — but forecasters agree it will be slow going.

As promised!  Another lie to add to the expanding codex of lies.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Why Not Try Non-Violence?

There is lots of calls for more non-violent protests these days….I just point out some historical context to the argument. chuq

Gulf South Free Press

We all have well aware of the protests and the riots and violence that keeps breaking out.

30 years ago I presented a paper at a scholars conference at the Univ. of Louisville on the “Shortcomings In The Theory Of Non-Violence”…..I apologize but the original paper was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina…I lost a large portion of my pre-pc papers in that storm.

This is the confirmation of my paper being accepted….

Let me say before I begin…I am not saying the a non-violent campaign has no place in protesting for change…only that it is not always a win even when it is declared to be one.

I have read many op-eds that call for these protesters to return to the days of Gandhi and MLK,Jr and their use of non-violence to achieve their goals.

Now I ask what did these movements achieve?

I actually wrote about this back in 2017…

View original post 378 more words

As The GOP Convention Draws Near

Believe it or not…the pandemic is still ravaging our country and at the same time the political conventions grows close……and the big story is Donald the Orange has lost to say about it because he does not want to miss that opportunity to get up in front of admiring morons…..

First he threatens to pull the convention from North Carolina because of its policies around the pandemic…..

President Trump is threatening to pull the Republican National Convention out of North Carolina unless the governor can “immediately” guarantee that delegates will be allowed to fill the arena in Charlotte. Trump complained in a series of tweets Monday that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is still in “shutdown mode” and the party could be spending “millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space,” CBS reports. He said that without the guarantee, “we will be reluctantly forced to find, with all of the jobs and economic development it brings, another Republican National Convention site.

The threat “completely blindsided” GOP officials, who had promised that health concerns would come first in planning for the Aug. 24-27 convention at the 20,000-capacity Spectrum Center, CNN reports. Cooper says that as with any other large event, the state will make decisions about the convention based on science, not politics. “This is not political. This is not emotional. This is based on health experts, data, and science and that’s it for everybody to see,” he says. “No one is being favored or disfavored over the other.” Vice President Mike Pence said Monday that Trump’s position was “very reasonable.” He suggested that Florida, Texas, or Georgia could be alternative locations.

Plus he wants a packed convention center to be mask free…..that is orders…..

Donald Trump is demanding a packed Republican national convention with “no face coverings and no social distancing”, North Carolina’s governor’s office has said.

The US president spoke with Democrat governor Roy Cooper by phone, the office revealed, where they discussed the scheduled August convention in Charlotte.

Mr Trump insisted on the lack of Covid-19 measures because he does not want to see signs of the pandemic in his renomination audience, a spokesperson for Mr Cooper said.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-republican-national-convention-north-carolina-coronavirus-masks-social-distancing-roy-cooper-a9540051.html

The Petty Dictator has spoken….and the GOP will bow and do as they are instructed…..exposing the participants to possible health problems…..

And now he has more to say…..

President Trump threatened to pull the Republican National Convention out of North Carolina if the thousands of expected attendees weren’t allowed to gather in one facility, and now he’s following through, NBC reports. In a series of tweets Tuesday night, Trump said he’s making the move because the state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, will not guarantee that NC’s coronavirus restrictions will have no impact on the event. An RNC official later confirmed that the celebratory portion of the event, at least, will be held elsewhere. The full statement from Trump:

“Had long planned to have the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, a place I love. Now, @NC_Governor Roy Cooper and his representatives refuse to guarantee that we can have use of the Spectrum Arena – Spend millions of dollars, have everybody arrive, and then tell them they will not be able to gain entry. Governor Cooper is still in Shelter-In-Place Mode, and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised. Would have showcased beautiful North Carolina to the World, and brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, and jobs, for the State. Because of @NC_Governor, we are now forced to seek another State to host the 2020 Republican National Convention.”

Cooper told the RNC earlier Tuesday that since no one knows “what the status of COVID-19 will be in August,” when the convention is to be held, “planning for a scaled-down convention with fewer people, social distancing, and face coverings is a necessity.” Politico reports that Trump wanted a 50,000-person convention with no social distancing or masks required, and no restrictions on capacity at restaurants and bars. But the RNC official noted that, “Should the governor allow more than 10 people in a room, we still hope to conduct the official business of the convention in Charlotte,” with Trump simply making his acceptance speech elsewhere. Cooper’s response to Trump’s announcement: “We have been committed to a safe RNC convention in North Carolina and it’s unfortunate they never agreed to scale down and make changes to keep people safe. Protecting public health and safety during this pandemic is a priority.” Sources say possible alternate locations include Nashville, Las Vegas, Orlando, Jacksonville, or somewhere in Georgia or Arizona.

This fool just does not know when to STFU.

It is official…Trump has taken the RNC out of North Carolina and no one told the governor….

The Republican National Convention will no longer be held in Charlotte, President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Tuesday, although no one seems to have informed the city of Charlotte.

Trump announced the decision in a series of angry tweets on Tuesday, blaming the move on North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Cooper has refused to sign off on the full-capacity convention that Trump and the Republican National Committee have demanded.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkypg9/trump-pulled-the-rnc-out-of-charlotte-but-no-one-told-charlotte-about-it

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”