#refering to if trump looses people will riot

[cloudberrys-stuff]

Americans are going to have the emergency broadcast tested again, won't they...

[ramen540k]

“Terrorism”: Inequities of Association

Sai Hudspeth

S5126293

Media Production

Level 4 Terrorism has many different yet similar definitions and as such is not wholly defined legally in many areas (Al Jazeera, 2014). Due to the lack of consistent definition, terrorism has often been assosiated with foreign forces, especially post-9/11. A series of attacks were committed by a terrorist organisation known as “Al-Qaeda” on September 11th, 2001 (Bergen, 2020). These attacks went down in history as the single largest act of terrorism in history being live broadcasted all over the world and leaving a lasting fear in the hearts of American Citizens. Since, and to a lesser degree prior to, the attacks of 9/11 the world has experienced a heightened sense of Islamophobia. With heightened fear and a common enemy, an anti muslim rhetoric was adopted in the media and soon after, the “War on Terror” (Bergen, 2020). Even though it has been almost a decade since the the 9/11 attacks, anti muslim sentiments continue to grow while acts of terror committed by white supremacy groups are utterly disregarded, and racial equality organisations are labeled as domestic terrorist organisations (Al Jazeera, 2010).

Post 9/11 showed a 90% increase from 1,171 to 2,227 deployments by federal tactical teams between 2005 and 2014 based on research done by the Congressional Research Service (Grabianowski, 2007). It was SWAT’s initial purpose to be a higher powered response to increases in bank robberies in Philadelphia but later was expanded to cover a range of high risk situations including; hostage situations, search warrants, anti terrorism, and riot control (Grabianowski, 2007). As previously shown in the CRS research, SWAT’s expansion has put in place a large amount of high powered forces across the usa, accounting for around 1,200 teams in total countrywide (Federal Tactical Teams, 2015). It is important to note this as the way the USA and other countries’ media defines terrorism may warrant use of high powered forces on unwarranted situations. By observing race politics, the media’s rhetoric, and the ethics behind the use of the word “terrorism”, we are able to discern when the word “terrorism” should be used.

The war on terror was not confined to the USA, a major defining contributor to islamaphobia were a series of bombings in London that shook the foundation of “British Liberality”. Known as 7/7 these attacks on July 7th, 2005 launched the UK into severe paranoia just as 9/11 had in the USA (Sky News, 2014). Due to two proliferators of this act of terror being under surveillance for two years prior to 7/7, the public was in serious unrest over the lack of decisive action taken by the British Intelligence Service, which many thought could have prevented two of the attacks (Sky News, 2014). In addition to the lack of action, and the fact that the bombers were born and raised in Leeds, UK further instigated anti-immigrant/muslim ideologies of the British public (Al Jazeera, 2014).

As stated in The impact of counter-terrorism measures on Muslim communities, a study done by the research department of Durham University, “There is a danger that Muslims in contemporary Britain may become the new suspect community. Policymakers and operatives are grappling with the old dilemma: it is an inescapable fact that the majority of those suspected of terrorist activities are Muslim, and that counter-terrorism measures are likely to target Muslims.” (Choudhury and Fenwick, 2011) With the rise of hostility the freshness of a home grown attack provided space for people to vocalise and bring physical attacks against both immigrants and muslims alike due to fear. As a caller on LBC said “The population of the third world widens by 5% every year...there are 23000 people among us who are plotting to kill our families” (Ferrari, 2018) referring to people of interest to the British Intelligence Service, representing both the concern for the public's safety and the connotation between people of interest and islamic terrorists. By piggybacking off this fear legislation was pushed by both the USA and UK in an attempt to prevent future acts of terror. This however led to more frequent stop and searches of racial/religious minorities as well as higher levels of police presence in the USA and the UK.

As we move further and further from 911 and 7/7, the definition of terrorism has been used more loosely used and not allocated to some blataint acts of terror. In the USA, there is no “...statute that applies to domestic ideology inspired extremisms...” (Former Acting Assistant Attorney General, Mary Mccord) and as they are not associated with foriegn terrorist organisations they cannot be charged with terrorist crimes (ITV News, 2019). This effectively omits one of the most prolific terrorist ideologies in the USA, white supremacy. A combined disregard for white domestic terrorism combined with hightened conservative media spokes people, tentions have risen contributing further to the race rift as well as provide a normalised culture around white terrorism. Conservative news outlets took up the call to action, during Obama’s presidency, spreading defamatory statements such as “This president I think has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep seeded hatred for white people…” (Fox and Friends) and commentary on the economic depression that was “caused by immigrants” further hightening both conservative and white supremacist ideologies (Al Jazeera, 2010).

With the onslaught of antiterrorism rhetoric, and a widening race gap, the USA would face its biggest turning point yet with the inauguration of Trump in 2016. Following his inauguration, incidents in Charlottesville known as “Unite the Right” in 2017 where the largest white supremacy gathering occured, resulting in an act of terror in which a white supremacist drove their car through an anti fascist protest killing one and injuring 20 others (PBS, 2019). Thus, the birth of media’s buzz word “antifa” would become interchangable with terrorism. After this act of terror, Trump would take to live broadcast and condemn “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence, on many sides…” (PBS, 2019). Following this press conference, the former leader of the KKK tweeted saying he was grateful for Trump to “condemn the leftist terrorists in antifa and Black Lives Matter.” (PBS, 2019) sparing national outrage and further social unrest. Simultaneously with acts of terrorism against minorities, combined with more acts of police brutality caught on video and distributed throgh various media outlets, the single party and democratically fascist government consciously decided to negate any mention of the word “terrorism” in association with white supremacy.

With continued social unrest the ethicality of the use of the word “terrorism” in mass media, is an important conscideration to take. If a country is not willing to define domestic acts of terror as “terrorism” yet uses the word to amplify their own political views as Trump has done by attempting to label antifa (an ideology not an organisation) and BLM as terrorists on national news (France 24 News, 2020). As we take into account the current and past events that led to the condition both the USA and UK are in, associating “terrorism” with minorities and immigrants must be reconscidered when part of the rising threat of terrorism is contributed to by white supremacy as preducated by National Police Chief’s Council lead for counter terrorism policing, Neil Basu in a Channel 4 Interview. In this interview, Basu says 7 of the 22 plots foiled since 2017 have been in association with white supremacy. The only effective way to deal with this and other racial and religious biases, is to elect people into power who provide fair and equal ideas for the betterment of our global society. In doing so, we will be able to provide a clear definition for terrorism and an equal understanding that the treat of terror can not solely be attributed to minorities or immigrants without running into ethical issues as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has stated in her question to the FBI over the double standard that goes into labeling organisations and people as terrorists (Guardian News, 2019). When a topic such as terrorism is spoken about on mass media outlets, we must understand our words have consequences legally, socially, and ethically. Using words such as terrorism in connotation with minorities can have long lasting affects on the legislation of a country, and the ability for the general public to coexist in a multicultural society.

Bibliography

Al Jazeera, 2010. People & Power - White Power USA. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8PsZwlv0Uk> [Accessed 31 September 2020].

Al Jazeera, 2014. War On Terror, War On Muslims?. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkJGd22W55o> [Accessed 21 October 2020].

Bergen, P., 2020. September 11 Attacks. [online] Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: <https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks/The-attacks#ref301276> [Accessed 4 November 2020].

Choudhury, T. and Fenwick, H., 2011. The Impact Of Counter-Terrorism Measures On

Muslim Communities. [ebook] Manchester: Durham University, p.iii. Available at: <https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/research-report-72-the-impact-of-counter-terrorism-measures-on-muslim-communities.pdf> [Accessed 5 October 2020].

2015. Federal Tactical Teams. [ebook] Congressional Research Service, pp.1-3.

Available at: <https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44179> [Accessed 20 October 2020].

Ferrari, N., 2018. Nick Schools Caller Who Said 7/7 Bombers Weren't British Natives.

[video] Available at: <https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/caller-who-said-7-7-bombers-werent-british/> [Accessed 3 November 2020].

France 24 News, 2020. Trump To Designate ‘Antifa’ As Terrorist Organization After

Unrest Over George Floyd's Death. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrGWjMnHBp8> [Accessed 1 October 2020].

Grabianowski, E., 2007. How SWAT Teams Work. [online] HowStuffWorks. Available at: <https://people.howstuffworks.com/swat-team.htm#pt5> [Accessed 10 October 2020].

Guardian News, 2019. 'Is White Supremacy Not A Global Issue?' Ocasio-Cortez

Dissects FBI’S Terrorism Definition. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HeLL6WC8k0> [Accessed 2 October 2020].

ITV News, 2019. Why Does America Struggle To Call White Supremacists Terrorists?.

[video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsKFpJ-cyJY> [Accessed 10 October 2020].

Jenkins, J., 2020. Terrorism. [online] Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: <https://www.britannica.com/topic/terrorism> [Accessed 30 October 2020].

PBS, 2019. Documenting Hate: Charlottesville. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPLvWO_SOgM> [Accessed 30 September 2020].

Sky News, 2014. 7/7 Attacks On London. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFb-gV-6uDo> [Accessed 19 October 2020].

[alexsmitposts]

Conservative Americans Now Labeled “Domestic Terrorists” The long-awaited transition of power finally occurred in the United States on January 20, 2021 when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as president and vice president. Two weeks before on January 6, a large number of Donald Trump’s supporters rallied in Washington DC to protest what they believed to be a stolen election by the Democrats. A small fraction of the demonstrators were let into (or broke into) the Capitol Building and staged a riot which was eventually ended by security forces with a small number of casualties. It is clear that the media and political reactions and the possible long-term effects on freedom of speech are more interesting than the riot itself. Speaking with Geoff Young, a US antiwar activist who ran for the Kentucky House of Representatives in 2012, and several times for the US House of Representatives, and Governor of Kentucky in 2015 and 2019, some additional insight can be added. He hasn’t won any elections yet, but he has discovered in campaigning how corrupt the Democratic and Republican Parties are when it comes to vote rigging. He currently has active lawsuits against both the Kentucky “Democratic” Party (KDP) and the Republican Party of Kentucky (RPK). Mr. Young, what is going on here? One just has to carefully evaluate the media, not only MSM. It’s easy to notice that the framing of the “domestic terrorism” issue is being promoted by public television and radio stations as well as the usual mainstream media corporations, most of which are openly biased in favor of the Democrat Party. As Glenn Greenwald wrote in a January 19, 2021 article called, “The New Domestic War on Terror Is Coming,” “The more honest proponents of this new domestic War on Terror are explicitly admitting that they want to model it on the first one. A New York Times reporter noted on Monday that a “former intelligence official on PBS NewsHour” said “that the US should think about a ‘9/11 Commission’ for domestic extremism and consider applying some of the lessons from the fight against al-Qaeda here at home.” Are they suggesting that the CIA should fire missiles from drones at members of the Proud Boys and Antifa without any kind of legal due process? Greenwald went on to note that “former Facebook security official Alex Stamos” emphasized “the need for social media companies to use the same tactics against US citizens that they used to remove ISIS (banned in Russia) from the internet — in collaboration with law enforcement — and that those tactics should be directly aimed at what he calls extremist ‘conservative influencers’.” Glenn Greenwald: “Meanwhile, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) — not just one of the most dishonest members of Congress but also one of the most militaristic and authoritarian — has had a bill proposed since 2019 to simply amend the existing foreign anti-terrorism bill to allow the US Government to invoke exactly the same powers at home against ‘domestic terrorists’.” In a recent airing of Frontline: American Reckoning – A PBS NewsHour Special Report, the narrator said within the first 30 seconds of the show: “Provoking a mob of his supporters, President Trump upended a long tradition of peacefully transferring power.” That anti-Trump framing continued throughout the entire 57-minute broadcast. Do you buy this narrative? There’s no real evidence that Trump ever incited his supporters to break into the Capitol, however, and quite a bit of evidence that he urged them to remain peaceful, nonviolent and loud. If that is the case, then the Democrats’ second impeachment of Donald Trump was as constitutionally and legally unsound as the first one. Both impeachments were exercises in pure partisan politics designed to benefit the fortunes of the Democrat Establishment and damage Trump and the GOP as much as possible. With social media and government agencies working in tandem to restrict foreign and domestic news, and to label journalists who are not toeing the US line as foreign agents, the First Amendment is under attack. President Biden has not expressed any interest in dropping all charges against Julian Assange. Was this a false flag? It is not at all clear who turned the loud, outdoor demonstration on January 6, 2021 into a riot in the Capitol Building. It could have been the Trump supporters, but it could also have been the Capitol Police, other anti-Trump security forces, international experts in color revolutions such as George Soros, the Trump-hating FBI, the Trump-hating CIA, or the DNC. If anti-Trump organizations were the ones who got the large rally to turn violent, the riot would have been a coup against Donald Trump as an individual, not against the American republic. One is reminded of what happened in 1933 – the burning of the German Reichstag. When the German parliamentary building went up in flames, Hitler harnessed the incident to seize power – and that means gaining control of the media and cracking down with laws “to protect society,” and the Constitutional Order (“Ordnung” in German). For this reason, it is not only appropriate but necessary to revisit history, because whenever citizens and politicians feel threatened by executive overreach, the Reichstag Fire is referred to as a cautionary tale. Young concludes, “It seems likely that the Democrats are using the January 6 riot as an excuse to impose something like martial law on the American people and to stifle all criticism of the incoming Democrat administration (or regime).” Analysis and Commentary It is doubtful that any expected FBI investigation into the causes of the riot will ever incriminate the FBI or crisis actors but the very talk may be used to invoke some kind of crackdown on those who “take exception” with the new government and its policies and methods. It should be noted that the PBS broadcast also examined the impact of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric throughout his presidency and the government’s missed opportunities to manage the spread of misinformation and the rise of domestic terrorism. These are valid issues to be discussed; however, all who supported Trump cannot be labeled as fringe groups, totally disgruntled or domestic terrorists. As Time Magazine so accurately describes, “Rolling back those freedoms has served in other countries as a prelude to authoritarianism, and it is easy enough to imagine a future US President deciding to label his opponents terrorists before stripping them of their fundamental rights.” It is an overreaction to be calling for a domestic war on terrorism. Nonetheless, it is easy to collectively take words and actions of Trump’s supporters, even when they renounce the results of a [supposedly] free and fair election and label such discontents as being against the Constitution or legal order. However, let us not forget the double standard, and how former President Trump attempted “to designate Antifa, a loose band of left-wing radicals, as a terrorist organization, a move that civil liberties groups successfully resisted. The larger purpose, however, appears to paint all those groups in the wake of the storming of the Whitehouse on any group which supported Trump, and label all those who will not recant their support as potential domestic terrorists or conspiracy theorists. Even PBS admits there have been double standards in how such breaches of government building are addressed. It would be nice to believe that freedom of speech will continue to mean that people are free to engage in certain forms of protected speech, including criticizing the government and politicians, without control or reprisal by the government, provided they don’t call for direct violence or overthrow. However, that may be short lived, and now Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, plans to reintroduce the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, which passed the House last fall but went nowhere in the Senate. Its purpose is to authorize dedicated domestic terrorism offices within the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to analyze and monitor domestic terrorist activity and require the Federal Government to take steps to prevent domestic terrorism. Biden is keeping to the script, by stating soon thereafter, “don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, {they were] domestic terrorists: It’s that basic. It’s that simple.” However, it is not that simple, in light of the emotions running high in the US. These words may come back to haunt him and his administration, as a self-fulfilling prophesy. And now Biden is just as guilty as Trump for dividing an already divided people, with his own fiery rhetoric: “No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently from the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” the president-elect said The timing and choice of wording is most inopportune and inappropriate, as much of what the US has accused other nations of doing, controlling media, and its people, is fast becoming a US production. In fact it is as if Biden is borrowing pages from Trump own play book. This does not come at at good time, with social media and government agencies working in tandem in restricting foreign news and domestic news, and labeling journalists who are not toeing-the-US line as foreign agents. There have even been instances of where native born US citizens have been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department simply for writing articles and publishing them on Russian media sites. All the while, the plurality of the US media is at its lowest point ever, controlled, manipulated, bought and paid for. There is no longer a fine line between news and blatant propaganda. Being labeled as part of a group that really believes that the US election result was tainted now may put you on a list for a visit from Homeland Security or some anti-terrorist organization. There was no Trump Era! He was merely a papier-mâché cut out puppet, and who out of his bottomless narcissism reined over the corporate media news and talk shows with his Mad Hatter Tweets, using the same Twitter that mobilized the Arab Spring masses to screw up their countries too, a pre-test before fanning it out on a declining ready for figuratively beheading much of the US domestic population over their political preferences. The post Trump period is being compared on PBS to post Civil War, “incitement of insurrection,” and “how US President Grant realized how the KKK was an essential threat to everything that had been achieved by that bloody war, and various commentators claim that that is what the Federal Government is now facing. Those who stormed the White House are described (43:00) as “white nationalists, and there is a need to aggressively pursue and root out this cancerous menace of white nationalism and the “kind of” white extremist militias that are really a functionally revanchist movement in American Society.” All things considered, and the swing of the pendulum, things will not get better with Biden anytime soon, maybe even worse, because the ruling elite in their “close knit societies,” have it all mapped out in detail. It appears as some of the Capitol guards let the fed agent provocateurs, and if some of the crisis actors just waltz right in … and keep in mind that the Reichtag Fire was not engineered by the guards circling and within the Reichtag. There are too many unanswered questions, just look at the US Congress, most of the powerful have been in office for over 50 years, and never leave office, and the newbies, especially in the Democrat party, are former military or CIA trained or Intel Democrats, young and frisky. It is a threatening time (even more than during Trump), and that era is fading; however, it seems America may be in for some rough times with the crackdown on civil liberties because of COVID and the NEW domestic terrorist label. Protecting the American people from themselves is the NEW doublespeak.

[brockportmmars4]

Protest Songs

Protest Songs

By Madison Marsh

“This is America” by Childish Gambino 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY

“This is America” by Childish Gambino was a song released in 2018 in which he depicts the racism African Americans face everyday in the United States. In the music video, Gambino uses various scenes to depict various struggles African Americans face such as the prison pipeline, police brutality, and racial gun violence. Gambino even depicts the character Jim Crow, a racist depiction of an African American. I chose this song because I feel it correlates to the state our nation is in right now and addresses the problems that must be solved.

“Alright” by Kendrick Lamar 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-48u_uWMHY

“Alright” by Kendrick Lamar is a song that has been used as an anthem for anti-police brutality protests. This song depicts aspects of racism African Americans face everyday. The line “I can see the evil, I can tell it I know when it’s illegal” refers to many tragedies the African American community has faced with many innocent lives being taken due to gun violence and injustice in the legal system. I picked this song as it is shown as almost symbolic for the protests against police brutality.

“Don’t Shoot” by Shea Diamond 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thTQZEOP1-w

“Don’t Shoot” by Shea Diamond is a powerful song that raises awareness about the dangers black trans women face. Shea tells in interviews discussing the song at one point she couldn’t even scroll through Facebook at times as she just saw people who looked like her being killed. This song became a unifying anthem for people of color along with those in the LGBTQ+ community. I chose this song as it raises awareness for the struggles and crimes committed against black trans women.

“We The People” by A Tribe Called Quest 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO2Su3erRIA

“We The People” by A Tribe Called Quest was a song released post the 2016 election in America in protest to Donald Trump who was elected into office. This song spread a message to show how several communities were targeted by his campaign. This group came off at 18-year hiatus to release this single just to express the feelings of all those communities affected by Trump’s election into office. I selected this song as it embodies the feelings of those affected by this recent election.

“Bad Girls” by M.I.A. 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uYs0gJD-LE

“Bad Girls” by M.I.A. was a song released in 2012 and it quickly became an empowering song for Saudi women as at the release of the song were forbidden to drive. In the video, it shows crews of women driving in a desert and doing stunts in decked out cars. The royal decree allowing women to drive was passed in 2018 and this song was an item of female empowerment for them. I chose this song because it constituted such a big change for women in Saudi Arabia and stood as an anthem for female empowerment.

“Freedom” by Beyoncé ft. Kendrick Lamar 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FWF9375hUA

“Freedom” by Beyoncé ft. Kendrick Lamar is an anthem about the oppression African Americans face in the United States. It discusses the topic of freedom which our nation preaches about however, is everyone truly free? There are lines such as “Freedom, cut me loose!” and “I’ma riot, I’ma riot through your borders” discussing how many feel as if they are stuck in place or locked out by borders. I selected this song as it really puts the struggles of those oppressed in the United States to words and shows the real truth about freedom in the United States.

“Americans” by Janelle Monae 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POZNheF-KdY

“Americans” by Janelle Monae shows the racist and sexist issues within America. These lyrics cut very deep as it discusses the struggles women face such as the wage gap. It also discusses the issues of individuals not accepting LGBTQ+ individuals, and racism towards African Americans. I chose this song as it hits the nail on every single issue it addresses. If you listen to the lyrics, many people can find one they relate to in some way and it truly shows the problems within our society.

“The Storm” by Eminem 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LunHybOKIjU

Following the presidential election in 2016, Eminem released a song called “The Storm” in which he protested President Trump’s election. His lyrics discuss the president’s poor choices and his ineffectiveness in aiding Puerto Rico. He points out his racist remarks and his various controversial tweets. I chose this song as it correlates to the upcoming election and many people’s opinions on our current president.

“What About Us” by P!nk 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClU3fctbGls

“What About Us” by P!nk even though seems like a vague song at the surface, there is much more meaning behind it. Many groups has taken on this song as an anthem at times interpreting the lyrics in a way that shows their struggle with oppression. One keynote speaker even used the song at a speech as a cry against all the broken promises made by our administration. I chose this song as even though it is vague, it still packs a powerful message to those who hear it.

“Almost Like Praying” by Lin-Manuel Miranda 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1IBXE2G6zw

“Almost Like Praying” by Lin-Manuel Miranda was released after the tragic events that occurred in Puerto Rico. It was an outcry about the poor efforts made to aid Puerto Rico. Many famous individuals took part in the song and professed their frustrations with the poor efforts made to aid the people in need. I chose this song as I remember these events occurring and I remember listening to this song in Spanish class. This song raised a lot of money to aid Puerto Rico and it brought a lot of needed attention to the crisis at hand.

[nebris]

Ex-prosecutor: Trump 'can hire lawyers that will wear down the government' and get away with 'damage' while low-level crimes are prosecuted 'aggressively'

Ex-prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, a frequent Trump critic, said "ruling class criminals" use their resources to escape accountability.

He told MSNBC that people like Trump escape any serious repercussions while low-level crimes are prosecuted aggressively.

"We seem to only hold folks accountable for those low-level crimes where the damage is discrete as opposed to the ruling class criminals," he said.

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said there are criminals in the "upper echelon" of government who get away with "damage" while low-level crimes are prosecuted aggressively.

Kirschner, a frequent critic of former President Donald Trump, made the remarks in an MSNBC segment that focused on the Republican. In the interview, Kirschner argued that Trump "hasn't had one moment of accountability visit him yet" for inciting the Capitol riot.

"We do a lousy job of holding political criminals accountable," Kirschner said. "That, I think, needs to be a focus of criminal justice reforms."

"When we see how aggressively law enforcement goes after minor drug offenses or somebody who steals a car, somebody who burglarizes a home, or somebody who sells loose cigarettes, if only our Department of Justice, our prosecutors, would go after what I call 'the ruling class criminals' just as aggressively because we have criminals in the upper echelon of government," he said.

Kirschner continued by saying that a group of individuals that he refers to as "ruling class criminals" use their resources to get them out of trouble.

"These people are in a very real sense allowed to buy their way out of being held responsible for their crimes ... by donating money to campaigns and by fighting a war of attrition because they can hire lawyers who will wear down the government," he said.

That group of people, he added, "are the folks who are doing so much more damage, wide-ranging damage than somebody who is breaking into a house, stealing a car, snatching a purse, or shoplifting from a CVS. ... We seem to only hold folks accountable for those low-level crimes where the damage is discrete as opposed to the ruling class criminals."

Earlier in the segment, Kirschner talked about how he feels that Trump's "foot soldiers" are getting punished for their participation in the Capitol riot but he's so far been free of consequences.

Last month, Kirschner said Trump launched "an armed attack on the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power" and predicted he might be indicted for treason.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-prosecutor-trump-hire-lawyers-160741039.html

[extreme-investor-network]

Former Trump aide Steve Bannon guilty in Jan. 6 contempt of Congress case

Former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon was found guilty Friday of two counts of contempt of Congress after a trial in federal court in Washington, D.C. Jurors deliberated for less than three hours before convicting Bannon of willfully failing to comply with subpoenas demanding his testimony and records, which were issued last September by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. He faces a minimum punishment of 30 days in jail and a maximum of one year when he is sentenced on Oct. 21. He also faces a fine in the range of $100 to a maximum of $100,000. “The subpoena to Stephen Bannon was not an invitation that could be rejected or ignored,” said Matthew Graves, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. “Mr. Bannon had an obligation to appear before the House Select Committee to give testimony and provide documents. His refusal to do so was deliberate, and now a jury has found that he must pay the consequences.” “We respect their decision,” Bannon, 68, said outside of the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, referring to the jurors at his trial. “We may have lost a battle here today, but we’re not going to lose this war,” Bannon said. “I stand with Trump and the Constitution, and I will never back off that, ever.” Bannon plans to appeal his conviction, which came a day after the Jan. 6 committee held a public hearing that featured evidence that included his own words. The committee played an audio clip of Bannon, speaking to a group of people on Oct. 31, 2020, days before the presidential election, in which he said that Trump would claim to have won the White House race regardless of the actual results. “What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory. Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner,” Bannon said. “He’s just gonna say he’s a winner. That is exactly what Trump did for weeks after losing both the popular election vote and the Electoral College vote to President Joe Biden. On Jan. 5, 2021, the eve of Congress holding a joint session to confirm Biden’s Electoral College victory, Bannon spoke to Trump on the phone for 11 minutes, and then went on a radio show where he made a dark prediction. “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” Bannon said on that show. “It’s all converging, and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack.” “I’ll tell you this: It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different, and all I can say is strap in.” The next day, thousands of Trump supporters who believed he had won the election besieged the Capitol, with hundreds of them swarming through the halls of Congress, disrupting for hours the session confirming the official results. The leaders of the Jan. 6 committee lauded the jury’s decision Friday. “The conviction of Steve Bannon is a victory for the rule of law and an important affirmation of the Select Committee’s work,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who is chair of the Jan. 6 committee, and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in a joint statement Friday afternoon. “As the prosecutor stated, Steve Bannon ‘chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law.’ Just as there must be accountability for all those responsible for the events of January 6th, anyone who obstructs our investigation into these matters should face consequences. No one is above the law,” Thompson and Cheney said. Bannon had served as chief strategist and counselor to Trump for about a half-year before being ousted in mid-2017. Since then, however, he has been an ardent backer of the ex-president and the so-called MAGA — “Make America Great Again” — movement. Two weeks after the Capitol riot, on his last night as president, Trump issued dozens of pardons, including one to Bannon, who had been criminally charged in federal court in New York with swindling donors in a purported effort to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Prosecutors in that case said Bannon received $1 million in funds from the We Build the Wall group, and diverted that money to a separate nonprofit he had already created, whose ostensible purpose was “promoting economic nationalism and American sovereignty.”  In her closing arguments Friday morning at Bannon’s contempt trial, assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston told jurors he “chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law” by refusing to appear for testimony and give documents to the Jan. 6 committee. “When it really comes down to it, he did not want to recognize Congress’ authority or play by the government’s rules,” Gaston said. “Our government only works if people show up. It only works if people play by the rules. And it only works if people are held accountable when they do not.” Bannon’s lawyers did not present a defense during the trial, which began Monday with jury selection. His attorneys were hamstrung by pretrial rulings by the judge in the case, who severely limited the evidence they could present at trial. During his own closing arguments Friday, Bannon’s lawyer Evan Corcoran tried to suggest that Thompson did not sign a subpoena for Bannon, NBC reported. Corcoran dropped that line of argument after the prosecution objected. Corcoran also asked jurors to set aside memories of Jan. 6 in their deliberations. “None of us will soon forget January 6, 2021,” Corcoran said. “It’s part of our collective memory. But there’s no evidence in this case that Steve Bannon was involved at all. For purposes of this case we have to put out of our thoughts January 6.” Jurors began their deliberations just before 11:40 a.m. ET, after closing arguments concluded. The verdicts were read out in court at around 2:50 p.m. ET. Another former Trump aide, the trade advisor Peter Navarro, was arrested in early June on charges identical to the ones that Bannon was convicted of. Navarro failed to appear to testify on March 2 in response to the subpoena from the House panel and also failed to produce by Feb. 23 the documents sought by that same subpoena, according to the indictment issued by a grand jury in Washington federal court. Original Article Here: Read the full article

[opedguy]

China Forms Alliances with U.S. Foes

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), April 18, 2021.--Plunging U.S.-China relations into pre-President Richard Nixon lows in the early 1970s, 78-year-old President Joe Biden has made a mess of U.S. foreign policy, accusing China at a get-to-know you summit in Anchorage, Alaska of “genocide” of its Uyghur population in China’s Xinjiang province.  Secretary of State Tony Blinken, 58, and 44-year-old National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan got on their high horse accusing China of grotesque human rights abuses.  Chinese senior diplomat Yang Jiechi fired back that Biden admitted to the world the U.S. is a “systemically racist” country and should not lecture other countries on human rights.  Biden was the first president in U.S. history to call his country “systemically racist,” giving every authoritarian nation on earth the perfect excuse to continue human rights abuses.  Instead of listening more to China, Blinken and Sullivan only lectured .   

          China had no clue when Biden took office Jan. 20 that things would deteriorate so quickly from former President Donald Trump.  Listening to Biden attack Trump in the 2020 campaign, you’d think he’d go easy on the Peoples Republic of China. Where Trump kept personal insults on China to a minimum, focusing on trade improving trade relations, Biden chose to attack China out of the gate for alleged human rights abuses.  Accusing Beijing of “genocide” against it Muslim Uyghurs in Western China, Biden kicked China below-the-belt.  Trump confined his criticism to strictly business, something China complained about but lived through his four years in office.  Chinese President hoped that Biden would show a more amicable side, then blindsides China with attacks on his human rights abuses in Hong Kong, Taiwan and, of course, with Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang.  

           Pushed to the breaking point by Biden, China has made overtures to pariah states like Kim Jong-un’s North Korea or the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Iran, both bitter enemies of the United States. It didn’t take long for Kim to start test-firing new ballistic missiles, firing a warning shot over Biden’s bow, daring him to take more aggressive steps toward Pyongyang.  “China has always resolutely opposed the U.S. side engaging in bloc politics along ideological lines, and ganging up to from anti-China cliques,” said the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Biden has joined the European Union in criticizing China’s treatment of Uyghurs, protesters in Hong Kong and normal relations with Taiwan.  “We hope the relevant countries see clearly their own interests . . . and are not reduced to being anti-China tools of the U.S.,” the Foreign Ministry said, pushing back at Biden’s criticisms.   

          China knows it plays a vital manufacturing hub for Europe, U.S. and South America, serving notice to other U.S. allies to stop the anti-China rhetoric. China was especially irked by the Biden’s accusations of “genocide” against Uyghrs when there’s no evidence of systematic murder, only civil rights issues and re-education camps.  Whatever China’s approach to managing terrorism in its Western provinces, it’s far from the U.S. to jump on its high horse when the president himself called his country “systemically racist.”  China and Russia watched nightly TV of race riots all over America, with American cities burned to the ground.  Yang Jiechi held up a mirror to Blinken and Sullivan, pointing out that no country has a right to lecture others about human rights when it has an abysmal history of treatment against African Americans, something the world sees daily.     

        Pushing China into close alliances with America’s enemies is a direct consequence of Biden playing fast-and-loose with the facts about Uyghur genocide, pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and business ties with Taiwan.  China plans a full PR offensive with Pacific Rim countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines and South Korea.  All countries, whether in the U.S., EU and Asia, want a solid working relations with China.  Whatever happens in Western China, China’s business partners must let China deal with its own internal affairs, rather that call Beijing out for “genocide.”  Biden’s recent meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga antagonized Beijing, presented a united front but pushed China into a host of new alliances.  Whatever happens internally in China, hasn’t stooped global manufacturers from relying on China’s cheap labor market.   

              Chinese President Xi Jinping told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he hoped she could get beyond the current negative U.S. propaganda campaign.  Xi hoped “the EU will make a correct judgments on its interdependence,” referring to the long productive relationship with the EU.  Biden and Blinken has so alienated China that they both expect all Europe to follow suit.  But savvy EU countries know that they depend heavily today on Chinese manufacturing, just like the U.S. and other global powers.  Xi knows that while the U.S. slams China on treatment of Uyghurs in Western China, multinational corporations like Nike and Adidas make use of Uyghur manufacturing in Xinjiang.  “China hopes Washington can appreciate that it is in the U.S. interest to have China as a friend rather that a foe,” said Wang Wen, professor at Chongyang Institute of the Renmin Unviversity in China.

 About the Author

 John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.  Reply  Reply All  Forward

[orbemnews]

One America News Network Stays True to Trump Months after the inauguration of President Biden, One America News Network, a right-wing cable news channel available in some 35 million households, has continued to broadcast segments questioning the validity of the 2020 presidential election. “There’s still serious doubts about who’s actually president,” the OAN correspondent Pearson Sharp said in a March 28 report. That segment was one in a spate of similar reports from a channel that has become a kind of Trump TV for the post-Trump age, an outlet whose reporting has aligned with the former president’s grievances at a time when he is barred from major social media platforms. Some of OAN’s coverage has not had the full support of the staff. In interviews with 18 current and former OAN newsroom employees, 16 said the channel had broadcast reports that they considered misleading, inaccurate or untrue. To go by much of OAN’s reporting, it is almost as if a transfer of power had never taken place. The channel did not broadcast live coverage of Mr. Biden’s swearing-in ceremony and Inaugural Address. Into April, news articles on the OAN website consistently referred to Donald J. Trump as “President Trump” and to President Biden as just “Joe Biden” or “Biden.” That practice is not followed by other news organizations, including the OAN competitor Newsmax, a conservative cable channel and news site. OAN has also promoted the debunked theory that the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were left-wing agitators. Toward the end of a March 4 news segment that described the attack as the work of “antifa” and “anti-Trump extremists” — and referred to the president as “Beijing Biden” — Mr. Sharp said, “History will show it was the Democrats, and not the Republicans, who called for this violence.” Investigations have found no evidence that people who identify with antifa, a loose collective of antifascist activists, were involved in the Capitol riot. Charles Herring, the president of Herring Networks, the company that owns OAN, defended the reports casting doubt on the election. “Based on our investigations, voter irregularities clearly took place in the November 2020 election,” he said. “The real question is to what extent.” Herring Networks was founded by Mr. Herring’s father, the tech entrepreneur Robert Herring, who at age 79 runs OAN with Charles and another son, Robert Jr. About 150 employees work for the channel at its headquarters in San Diego. Nielsen does not report viewership statistics for OAN, which is not a Nielsen client. (Charles Herring cited Nielsen’s “heavy fees.”) In a survey last month, Pew Research reported that 7 percent of Americans, including 14 percent of Republicans, had gotten political news from OAN. By contrast, 43 percent of Americans and 62 percent of Republicans had gotten political news from Fox News, the survey found. While OAN appeals to a relatively small audience, its coverage reflects views commonly held by Republicans. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month, about half of Republicans said they believed that the Jan. 6 attack, which left five dead, was largely a nonviolent protest or was the handiwork of left-wing activists. Six in 10 of Republicans surveyed said they also believed Mr. Trump’s claim that the election was “stolen.” OAN, which started in 2013, gained attention when it broadcast Mr. Trump’s campaign speeches in full before the 2016 election. In recent months, it has courted viewers who may have felt abandoned by Fox News, which on election night was the first news outlet to project Mr. Biden as the winner of Arizona, a key swing state. In a mid-November promotional ad, OAN accused Fox News of joining “the mainstream media in censoring factual reporting.” OAN’s stories “appeal to people who want to believe that the election was not legitimate,” said Stephanie L. Edgerly, an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. “These are two mutually reinforcing narratives of people who want to believe it and continue to get that fire stoked by OAN.” Marty Golingan, a producer at the channel since 2016, said OAN had changed in recent years. At the start of his employment, he said, it concentrated more on neutral coverage based on reports from The Associated Press or Reuters. He saw it as a scrappy upstart where he could produce cheeky feature stories, he said. During the Trump presidency, it moved right, Mr. Golingan said. And when he was watching coverage of the pro-Trump mob breaking into the Capitol, he said, he worried that his work might have helped inspire the attack. He added that he and others at OAN disagreed with much of the channel’s coverage. “The majority of people did not believe the voter fraud claims being run on the air,” Mr. Golingan said in an interview, referring to his colleagues. He recalled seeing a photo of someone in the Capitol mob holding a flag emblazoned with the OAN logo. “I was like, OK, that’s not good,” Mr. Golingan said. “That’s what happens when people listen to us.” Charles Herring defended OAN’s coverage. “A review process with multiple checks is in place to ensure that news reporting meets the company’s journalist standards,” he said. “And, yes, we’ve had our fair share of mistakes, but we do our best to keep them to a minimum and learn from our missteps.” Mr. Golingan added that, since Inauguration Day, OAN’s news director, Lindsay Oakley, had reprimanded him for referring to Mr. Biden as “President Biden” in news copy. Ms. Oakley did not reply to requests for comment. “OAN’s staff White House reporters use the term President Biden and then may use Mr. Biden,” Charles Herring said. “The term Biden or Biden administration may also be used.” He declined to reply to a question on the channel’s use of “President Trump” for Mr. Trump. Allysia Britton, a news producer, said she was one of more than a dozen employees who had left OAN in the wake of the Capitol riot. She criticized some of what the channel had reported, saying it was not up to journalistic standards. “Many people have raised concerns,” Ms. Britton said in an interview. “And the thing is, when people speak up about anything, you will get in trouble.” Charles Herring confirmed that about a dozen OAN workers had left in recent months, saying many of them were not high-level employees. Assignments that the elder Mr. Herring takes a special interest in are known among OAN staff as “H stories,” several current and former employees said. The day after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Mr. Herring instructed OAN employees in an email, which The New York Times reviewed, to “report all the things Antifa did yesterday.” Some “H stories” are reported by Kristian Rouz, an OAN correspondent who had written for Sputnik, a site backed by the Russian government. In a report in May on the pandemic, Mr. Rouz said Covid-19 might have started as a “globalist conspiracy to establish sweeping population control,” one that had ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, the billionaires George Soros and Bill Gates, and “the deep state.” Ms. Britton, the former OAN producer, recalled checking a website that Mr. Rouz had cited to back some of his reporting. “It literally took me to this chat room where it’s just conservatives commenting toward each other,” she said. In an email to staff last month, Ms. Oakley, the news director, warned producers against ignoring or playing down Mr. Rouz’s work. “His stories should be considered ‘H stories’ and treated as such,” she wrote in the email, which The Times reviewed. “These stories are often slugged and copy-edited by ME as per Mr. H’s instructions.” OAN’s online audience is significant, with nearly 1.5 million subscribers to its YouTube channel. One of its most popular videos, with about 1.5 million views since it went online Nov. 24, criticized Dominion Voting Systems, the election technology company whose equipment was used in more than two dozen states last year, including several won by Mr. Trump. Hosted by the OAN White House correspondent, Chanel Rion, the video shows a man who said he had infiltrated Dominion and heard company executives say they would “make sure” Mr. Trump lost. Dominion has sued Fox News and two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, accusing them of making or promoting defamatory claims. A lawyer for Dominion, who did not reply to requests for comment, has said the company is considering further legal action. Mr. Golingan, the producer, said some OAN employees had hoped Dominion would sue the channel. “A lot of people said, ‘This is insane, and maybe if they sue us, we’ll stop putting stories like this out,’” he said. Weeks after Dominion filed its first defamation suits, OAN broadcast a two-hour video in which the chief executive of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, made his case that widespread voter fraud had occurred. YouTube removed the video the day it was posted, saying it violated the platform’s election integrity policy. Last month, an OAN report described Dominion’s “voting machines” as “notorious.” Two of the current and former employees interviewed for this article — Dan Ball, a talk-show host, and Neil W. McCabe, a former reporter — described OAN’s coverage as unbiased. Mr. McCabe, who now writes for The Tennessee Star, said the network gave a “voice to people that are just not covered.” Susan Beachy contributed research. Source link Orbem News #America #network #news #stays #True #Trump

[freenewstoday]

New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/04/18/one-america-news-network-stays-true-to-trump/

One America News Network Stays True to Trump

Months after the inauguration of President Biden, One America News Network, a right-wing cable news channel available in some 35 million households, has continued to broadcast segments questioning the validity of the 2020 presidential election.

“There’s still serious doubts about who’s actually president,” the OAN correspondent Pearson Sharp said in a March 28 report.

That segment was one in a spate of similar reports from a channel that has become a kind of Trump TV for the post-Trump age, an outlet whose reporting has aligned with the former president’s grievances at a time when he is barred from major social media platforms.

Some of OAN’s coverage has not had the full support of the staff. In interviews with 18 current and former OAN newsroom employees, 16 said the channel had broadcast reports that they considered misleading, inaccurate or untrue.

To go by much of OAN’s reporting, it is almost as if a transfer of power had never taken place. The channel did not broadcast live coverage of Mr. Biden’s swearing-in ceremony and Inaugural Address. Into April, news articles on the OAN website consistently referred to Donald J. Trump as “President Trump” and to President Biden as just “Joe Biden” or “Biden.” That practice is not followed by other news organizations, including the OAN competitor Newsmax, a conservative cable channel and news site.

OAN has also promoted the debunked theory that the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were left-wing agitators. Toward the end of a March 4 news segment that described the attack as the work of “antifa” and “anti-Trump extremists” — and referred to the president as “Beijing Biden” — Mr. Sharp said, “History will show it was the Democrats, and not the Republicans, who called for this violence.” Investigations have found no evidence that people who identify with antifa, a loose collective of antifascist activists, were involved in the Capitol riot.

Charles Herring, the president of Herring Networks, the company that owns OAN, defended the reports casting doubt on the election. “Based on our investigations, voter irregularities clearly took place in the November 2020 election,” he said. “The real question is to what extent.”

Herring Networks was founded by Mr. Herring’s father, the tech entrepreneur Robert Herring, who at age 79 runs OAN with Charles and another son, Robert Jr. About 150 employees work for the channel at its headquarters in San Diego.

Nielsen does not report viewership statistics for OAN, which is not a Nielsen client. (Charles Herring cited Nielsen’s “heavy fees.”) In a survey last month, Pew Research reported that 7 percent of Americans, including 14 percent of Republicans, had gotten political news from OAN. By contrast, 43 percent of Americans and 62 percent of Republicans had gotten political news from Fox News, the survey found.

While OAN appeals to a relatively small audience, its coverage reflects views commonly held by Republicans. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month, about half of Republicans said they believed that the Jan. 6 attack, which left five dead, was largely a nonviolent protest or was the handiwork of left-wing activists. Six in 10 of Republicans surveyed said they also believed Mr. Trump’s claim that the election was “stolen.”

OAN, which started in 2013, gained attention when it broadcast Mr. Trump’s campaign speeches in full before the 2016 election. In recent months, it has courted viewers who may have felt abandoned by Fox News, which on election night was the first news outlet to project Mr. Biden as the winner of Arizona, a key swing state. In a mid-November promotional ad, OAN accused Fox News of joining “the mainstream media in censoring factual reporting.”

OAN’s stories “appeal to people who want to believe that the election was not legitimate,” said Stephanie L. Edgerly, an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. “These are two mutually reinforcing narratives of people who want to believe it and continue to get that fire stoked by OAN.”

Marty Golingan, a producer at the channel since 2016, said OAN had changed in recent years. At the start of his employment, he said, it concentrated more on neutral coverage based on reports from The Associated Press or Reuters. He saw it as a scrappy upstart where he could produce cheeky feature stories, he said.

During the Trump presidency, it moved right, Mr. Golingan said. And when he was watching coverage of the pro-Trump mob breaking into the Capitol, he said, he worried that his work might have helped inspire the attack.

He added that he and others at OAN disagreed with much of the channel’s coverage. “The majority of people did not believe the voter fraud claims being run on the air,” Mr. Golingan said in an interview, referring to his colleagues.

He recalled seeing a photo of someone in the Capitol mob holding a flag emblazoned with the OAN logo. “I was like, OK, that’s not good,” Mr. Golingan said. “That’s what happens when people listen to us.”

Charles Herring defended OAN’s coverage. “A review process with multiple checks is in place to ensure that news reporting meets the company’s journalist standards,” he said. “And, yes, we’ve had our fair share of mistakes, but we do our best to keep them to a minimum and learn from our missteps.”

Mr. Golingan added that, since Inauguration Day, OAN’s news director, Lindsay Oakley, had reprimanded him for referring to Mr. Biden as “President Biden” in news copy. Ms. Oakley did not reply to requests for comment.

“OAN’s staff White House reporters use the term President Biden and then may use Mr. Biden,” Charles Herring said. “The term Biden or Biden administration may also be used.” He declined to reply to a question on the channel’s use of “President Trump” for Mr. Trump.

Allysia Britton, a news producer, said she was one of more than a dozen employees who had left OAN in the wake of the Capitol riot. She criticized some of what the channel had reported, saying it was not up to journalistic standards.

“Many people have raised concerns,” Ms. Britton said in an interview. “And the thing is, when people speak up about anything, you will get in trouble.”

Charles Herring confirmed that about a dozen OAN workers had left in recent months, saying many of them were not high-level employees.

Assignments that the elder Mr. Herring takes a special interest in are known among OAN staff as “H stories,” several current and former employees said. The day after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Mr. Herring instructed OAN employees in an email, which The New York Times reviewed, to “report all the things Antifa did yesterday.”

Some “H stories” are reported by Kristian Rouz, an OAN correspondent who had written for Sputnik, a site backed by the Russian government. In a report in May on the pandemic, Mr. Rouz said Covid-19 might have started as a “globalist conspiracy to establish sweeping population control,” one that had ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, the billionaires George Soros and Bill Gates, and “the deep state.”

Ms. Britton, the former OAN producer, recalled checking a website that Mr. Rouz had cited to back some of his reporting. “It literally took me to this chat room where it’s just conservatives commenting toward each other,” she said.

In an email to staff last month, Ms. Oakley, the news director, warned producers against ignoring or playing down Mr. Rouz’s work. “His stories should be considered ‘H stories’ and treated as such,” she wrote in the email, which The Times reviewed. “These stories are often slugged and copy-edited by ME as per Mr. H’s instructions.”

OAN’s online audience is significant, with nearly 1.5 million subscribers to its YouTube channel. One of its most popular videos, with about 1.5 million views since it went online Nov. 24, criticized Dominion Voting Systems, the election technology company whose equipment was used in more than two dozen states last year, including several won by Mr. Trump. Hosted by the OAN White House correspondent, Chanel Rion, the video shows a man who said he had infiltrated Dominion and heard company executives say they would “make sure” Mr. Trump lost.

Dominion has sued Fox News and two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, accusing them of making or promoting defamatory claims. A lawyer for Dominion, who did not reply to requests for comment, has said the company is considering further legal action.

Mr. Golingan, the producer, said some OAN employees had hoped Dominion would sue the channel. “A lot of people said, ‘This is insane, and maybe if they sue us, we’ll stop putting stories like this out,’” he said.

Weeks after Dominion filed its first defamation suits, OAN broadcast a two-hour video in which the chief executive of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, made his case that widespread voter fraud had occurred. YouTube removed the video the day it was posted, saying it violated the platform’s election integrity policy. Last month, an OAN report described Dominion’s “voting machines” as “notorious.”

Two of the current and former employees interviewed for this article — Dan Ball, a talk-show host, and Neil W. McCabe, a former reporter — described OAN’s coverage as unbiased. Mr. McCabe, who now writes for The Tennessee Star, said the network gave a “voice to people that are just not covered.”

Susan Beachy contributed research.

Source

[aion-rsa]

Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 12 Review: Guides

https://ift.tt/2MMruLT

This Attack on Titan review contains spoilers.

Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 12

“Of course, it would be nice if this is all just my wild speculation.”

A major tenet of this final season of Attack on Titan is that every episode has played around with where the truth lies, who the heroes truly are, and what the dangers of an unmitigated God complex entail. However, “Guides” allows these ideas to evolve in order to demonstrate the chilling dangers of  propaganda and rebellion from a whole new and terrifying angle. “Guides” explores strong individuals that reach their breaking points, whether that’s expressed through raw anger or terrified obedience. All of Eldia and Marley’s recent actions set in motion a very dangerous chain of events that push certain characters, including Eren, to what might finally be the point of no return.

Attack on Titan’s previous installment, “Counterfeit,” looked at the dangers of propaganda and brainwashing in the form of Gabi and Falco’s reaction to the Eldian family that opened their hearts to them. The two are largely passive, but “Guides” breaks down a much more horrifying example of this idea when a dangerous uprising forms as a result of Eren’s captivity. These past few episodes have introduced several new characters that have been entrenched in Eldia’s inner circle for years, even if they’re still relatively ciphers to the audience. 

Yelena and Floch have been two of the most compelling of these new characters, but they demonstrate their value in a truly chilling fashion. Eren is still a prisoner at the mercy of Dot Pixis and Darius Zackley. “Guides” steadily shows insurgency brewing throughout the episode and the rage that people feel over Eren’s incarceration. This reaches its boiling point when Zackley and several others are murdered through a bombing that’s meant to help facilitate Eren’s escape. 

Read more

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It’s one thing when a character like Eren or Reiner have their morals corrupted, but it’s new and disturbing territory in Attack on Titan to see regular individuals driven to such violent rebellion and treat it like progress. The group that helps Eren escape and form this new counter-organization are all new Survey Corps members and it feels very intentional that the next generation of this prestigious group are impressionable anarchists. It’s hard to not draw parallels between this riot against Zackley and what recently happened at the Capitol. 

It’s obviously an unintentional coincidence and Eren is far from being a Trump-like figure, but this storyline becomes more prescient since this reactionary attitude is unfortunately still alive and well. Eren might still be the hero and maybe his plan will end this war, but there’s no denying that his actions have inspired these conspirators to take innocent lives–almost gleefully–and it’s frightening stuff. “Devote your hearts” is meant to be an optimistic chant, but it rings like a haunting war cry.

It’s also extremely effective to have Mikasa and Armin–Eren’s real friends–lost in doubt over how to help Eren when these renegades just blow stuff up to solve the problem. It doesn’t just place Eren’s future in a volatile place as he aligns with these loose cannons, but it makes Armin and Mikasa feel increasingly irrelevant and detached from Eren. Armin tries to remain optimistic, but it feels more and more like he’s really just trying to convince himself. 

Eren’s cheerleading squad consists of fewer of his old allies with each passing episode and he instead becomes more receptive to the new scouts. Floch, Yelena, and company blindly treat Eren like a God rather than pragmatically examine his actions. Their devotion has already reached a frightening level where any sort of dissenting opinion becomes cause for execution. Their proclamation that Eren is “the only one that can save the Eldian empire” feels more like a threat than a bright disposition. 

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Upcoming Anime 2021: New and Returning Series to Watch

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The scene where Eren graciously accepts his new position of leadership within this rebellion is dripping with pain. It feels like Anakin’s transition to Darth Vader and the sequence very intentionally frames Eren in an idolizing way where he almost looks like a completely different character. Mikasa and Armin’s strained, wavering support for Eren echoes over this moment and makes it even more foreboding. Hiroyuki Sawano and Kohta Yamamoto rarely have a false note when it comes to Attack on Titan’s score, but “Guides” features a different type of ornamented music during its concluding scenes that crescendo in such a triumphant manner. It helps accentuate the line in the sand that’s now been drawn between Eren and his former friends. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Attack on Titan has taken a few episodes to set the table and properly flesh out the major plan that’s in motion, but “Guides” is the aggressive return that fans have been waiting for. The installment is suspenseful and emotional in the best possible ways, especially when Eren’s story is viewed as an extension of the ideas present with Gabi’s rebellion in the previous episode. They’re both set to embark on major endeavors where they’re driven by their ego. They may both function as the eponymous “guides” that are referred to in the episode’s title, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re leading their parties in the right direction. 

The post Attack on Titan Season 4 Episode 12 Review: Guides appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2ZZy8BK

[multipleservicelisting]

Inaugural Security Is Fortified in D.C. as Military and Police Links Are Eyed in Riot

Mr. Sanford’s arrest was unrelated to the death of a Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick, who was said to have been struck in the head by a fire extinguisher, according to two law enforcement officials.

Later in the day, charges were unsealed against a man accused of beating a police officer on the Capitol grounds with a flagpole flying the American flag. According to a criminal complaint, the man, Peter Stager, claimed he thought the victim of the assault was a member of Antifa, the loose collective of leftist activists who have often sparred with far-right protesters, even though the words “Metropolitan Police” were clearly written on the officer’s uniform.

“Everybody in there is a treasonous traitor,” Mr. Stager said, in an apparent reference to the Capitol, according to a video obtained by the F.B.I. “Death is the only remedy for what’s in that building.”

Even as they pursued new leads and suspects, federal investigators also sought to verify an incendiary charge raised this week by several lawmakers: that some members of Congress had helped coordinate the attack.

On Wednesday, Representative Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey Democrat and a former Navy pilot, called for an investigation, with more than 30 of her colleagues, into what they described as “suspicious” visits by outside groups to the Capitol on the day before the riot at a time when most tours were restricted because of the coronavirus pandemic. On Thursday, another lawmaker, Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said she had personally witnessed a tour of the building before the Jan. 6 attack by people who were “Trump supporters.”

A law enforcement official said investigators had yet to discover any evidence that members of Congress were involved in helping plan the attack, and cautioned that the inquiry was vast and that all leads needed to be carefully vetted.

The flurry of arrests and investigations added an air of nervous activity to a city that already seemed to be under siege. The area around the National Mall on Thursday was crammed with military vehicles and cut off from its surroundings by imposing lengths of metal fencing, creating what the Secret Service agent in charge of inaugural security called “a bubble that is safe and secure.”

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“All Hell Broke Loose.”

When Kishon McDonald saw the video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of four officers from the Minneapolis Police Department, he could tell it was going to turn the country upside down.   “I knew it was going to catch fire,” he said.   McDonald, a former sailor in the U.S. Navy, watched over the following days as demonstrations against police brutality spread from Minneapolis to cities and towns across the country, eventually reaching Washington, D.C., where he lived.   On June 1, he heard that people were planning to peacefully gather at Lafayette Square, a small park directly across from the White House, and decided to join them. By then, police had begun to attack and beat demonstrators in Minneapolis, New York, and others in states everywhere, escalating tensions as smaller groups broke into shops and set fire to police cars.   But when McDonald arrived at Lafayette Square, he found a crowd of a few thousand people cheering, chanting slogans, and listening to speeches. Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had imposed a 7 p.m. curfew after clashes the night before, but that was still an hour away.   “Everybody there was like, it’s alright, we’re going to be here until 7 o’clock,” he said. “It was a very good energy.”   It wouldn’t be long before that would change.

Kishon McDonald, 39, originally of Cleveland, Ohio, poses for a portrait in his neighborhood in Washington, D.C., June 13, 2020.

Allison Shelley for the ACLU

In the days following George Floyd’s murder, President Trump had focused his attention on the relatively small number of people who had damaged property, threatening to use the “unlimited power of our military” and tweeting “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” What the protesters gathered in Lafayette Square that day didn’t know was that he was planning to stage a photo opportunity at a nearby church that evening.   Unbeknownst to McDonald, as he and the others chanted “hands up, don’t shoot,” the U.S. Park Police and other law enforcement agencies were just out of sight, donning riot gear and checking the weapons they would shortly use against the crowd to pave the way for the president’s walk to the church.   At 6:30 p.m. — half an hour before Washington D.C.’s curfew — dozens of battle-clad officers rushed the protest, hurling stun grenades and firing tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and pepper balls into the crowd. McDonald says there were no warnings, just an onslaught of violence.   “All hell broke loose,” he said.   As the deafening explosions from the stun grenades gave way to thick clouds of tear gas, terrified protesters began to run from the batons and riot shields that police were using to force them out of the square.   “It was just straight fear. Everybody was scared and running for their lives,” he said.   McDonald tried to plead for instructions from the advancing officers, asking them what they wanted people to do. Instead, one threw a stun grenade at him.   “As it exploded, hot shrapnel hit my leg,” he said. “It felt like somebody put a cast iron skillet on my leg, it was just so hot. I started jumping up and down trying to get away from it, but shrapnel was going everywhere.”   Suffocating tear gas enveloped him and the other protesters, making them gasp and cough as they ran down the street.   “I saw a young boy, he must have been about 15, and he was choking a lot. Somebody put a shirt over his face and kind of ran him out,” he recalled.   McDonald had seen enough. Bruised from being hit with riot shields and with his vision still blurred from the tear gas, he walked home. In a phone interview with the ACLU, he said that the experience had made him more wary of attending protests, but it also illustrated why he’d gone there to begin with.   “It seems like everything is getting to be a military type thing in our society, and we were protesting to calm that down,” he said. “And the message we got is, ‘No, we aren’t calming down.’” “I hope someone gets held accountable,” he added.

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Law enforcement officers clearing protesters from Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., June 1, 2020.

Derek Baker

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, Americans poured into the streets to voice their condemnation of police brutality against Black people. The weeks that followed were a milestone in American history, with protests and displays of solidarity reaching towns as small as Cadillac, Michigan, and cities as large as Atlanta. As months of a painful COVID-19 lockdown gave way to incandescent fury over the killing of Floyd and the violent response of the Minneapolis Police Department towards the initial protests, a few people went as far as burning police precincts or destroying upscale shopping districts.   The vast majority of protests, however, were almost entirely peaceful.   Still, police departments across the country deployed staggering levels of violence against protesters. On social media, the world watched a near-instantaneous live feed of police in dozens of cities firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and other projectiles into protests, using pepper spray against protesters and journalists alike, and beating people with batons.   This widespread and indiscriminate deployment of what are often called “less-lethal” weapons – LLWs – injured countless people, some severely.   In Austin, Texas, 20-year-old college student Justin Howell suffered a skull fracture after being shot in the head with a “beanbag round” filled with lead pellets. Linda Tirado, a journalist and photographer, lost her left eye to a “rubber bullet” fired by police in Minneapolis. In Seattle, 26-year-old Aubreanna Inda nearly died after a stun grenade exploded next to her chest. According to Carl Takei, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality who focuses on police practices, this widespread and violent use of LLWs during the George Floyd uprising was an attack on the protesters’ constitutional right to free speech.   “There’s just no justification under the existing Fourth Amendment framework for the use of these weapons,” he said. “And it’s happening over and over again, with patterns that are so similar across the different cities.”   For years these weapons were referred to as “non-lethal.” But in practice, they have a long history of causing serious injuries and deaths.   A 2016 report by the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations analyzed 25 years of available data on the use of LLWs by law enforcement across the world. It found that between 1990 and 2015, “kinetic impact projectiles” — a category that includes rubber bullets and beanbag rounds — caused at least 1,925 injuries, including 53 deaths and 294 instances of permanent disability.   Tear gas, which is banned for use in warfare under the 1925 Geneva Protocol, injured at least 9,261 people over the same time period, including two deaths and 70 permanent disabilities.   The report also found that LLWs are most commonly used to stamp out political protests and shut down aggressive demands for greater rights.   According to Takei, even the term “less lethal” downplays the damage they can inflict.   “Beating somebody with a baseball bat, as long as you’re not hitting them in the head or other sensitive areas of the body is ‘less lethal,’ but it’s still incredibly violent,” he said. During the civil rights and anti-war demonstrations of the 1960s, police used tear gas and other LLWs extensively to disrupt and disperse protests. But after three federal commissions found that abuse of those weapons provoked aggressive responses by protesters and contributed to a cycle of violence, they fell out of favor with U.S. law enforcement as a method of controlling crowds. According to the Marshall Project, in subsequent decades, some police departments adopted a “negotiated management” approach to protests, working with organizers in advance to establish ground rules meant to prevent violence. But any movement toward de-escalation evaporated in the wake of large anti-globalization protests that took place during a 1999 World Trade Organization meeting, in an event that would come to be called the “Battle for Seattle.” In a prelude to how many police departments would later approach the George Floyd uprising, Seattle police attacked the mostly non-violent protesters with LLWs, provoking a handful to respond aggressively in kind.   “The response of a lot of police departments after that was, well if some people won’t act as predicted, we should have a hyper-aggressive response for everybody,” said Takei. “But when police adopt this type of response to Black-led protests against police violence, they are repeating a pattern of brutality that goes back to the origins of American policing in Southern slave patrols.”   Now, as outcry over the indiscriminate use of LLWs against Black Lives Matter protesters mounts, some municipalities are weighing restrictions on the weapons. After the ACLU sued the Seattle Police Department in early June for its violent response to protests in the city, a judge ordered police there to cease using the weapons against peaceful demonstrators, saying they had “chilled speech.”   Days later, Seattle’s city council voted unanimously to prohibit their use against protesters. Legislators in Atlanta and other cities have also proposed similar bans.   The ACLU spoke to a number of people who were attacked with LLWs by police during demonstrations over George Floyd’s murder in recent weeks. This is how they described their experiences.

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Gabe Schlough at his home in Denver, Colorado.

Jimena Peck for the ACLU

Gabe Schlough wasn’t surprised that the Minneapolis Police Department had killed another one of its Black residents. He lives in Denver now, but he’d gone to college years earlier in Minneapolis. Just before he graduated, he’d been shot in the back with a stun gun by police who entered his home and tried to arrest him in a case of mistaken identity.   Schlough had been invited to a protest at downtown Denver’s Capitol Building that night, but instead he decided to drive his motorcycle up into the mountains with a friend.   “In one of the areas where people were hiking and snowboarding and skiing down I saw three Black people, and I was just fucking happy,” he said. “I was like, thank God not every Black person thinks they need to be at the Capitol right now.”   But when he got back home later that night and saw images of the Denver Police Department’s response to the protest, he felt his blood start to boil.   “We can’t even give doctors and nurses facemasks, but we can give our police access to militarized weapons that are exceedingly more expensive and hard to create than the protective mechanisms we need for health care workers,” he recalled thinking.   Schlough has a degree in public health anthropology, and he’d worked in health care across the world, including a stint in an Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone. He had medical training and had participated in protests before, so he decided to defy the curfew along with a few friends to see if he could offer help in case anyone got hurt. Donning his face mask along with sunglasses to protect his eyes, Schlough set off towards the Capitol Building.   When he arrived, he saw a crowd of two or three hundred people facing down a line of police.   “They were standing just a little bit more than shoulder to shoulder apart with full riot gear, with their face shields and full protective armor on,” he recalled.   Schlough moved up toward the front of the crowd. Behind him, somebody set a pile of garbage on fire. That was all the police needed to begin their advance. As they moved forward, they shot canisters of tear gas into the crowd and tossed stun grenades.   “I was going around and telling people who didn’t have eye coverings to watch their eyes and protect their face,” he said. “Just running up and down the line and getting people educated, like this is happening and this is what you need to know.”   As a canister of tear gas landed next to him, Schlough bent down to try and cover it with a traffic cone so the gas wouldn’t spread. Suddenly, he felt sharp blows to his face and chest.   “A shock hit me and my head popped up,” he said. “I felt like somebody had punched me in the chest.”   Schlough had been shot with rubber bullets, although he didn’t know it yet. As he fell back further into the crowd of protestors, someone told him he was bleeding.   “You need to go to a hospital,” they said. “Your face is falling off.”   Another bystander pulled out his phone and showed Schlough his injury. The bullet had left a gaping wound on his chin, and blood was pouring down onto the front of his shirt. In retrospect, Schlough says he thinks he was specifically targeted, and that police knew exactly where they were aiming when they shot him.   He and a friend left and started walking toward a nearby hospital where he did volunteer shifts. But when they arrived, Denver police were also there.   “There were cop cars there and more pulling up, and I understood that it was not a safe place for me to get treated because of the amount of police presence there,” he said.   Instead, Schlough had to drive outside Denver to be treated at a different facility. Doctors cleaned his wound and gave him 20 stitches. More than a week later, part of his chin is still numb. He worries that he may have suffered nerve damage.   Last Christmas, while visiting his mother in Wisconsin, he says one of her friends asked him what the most dangerous place he’d ever been was.   “I told her that I’m the most scared when I’m in the U.S. and around a police officer,” he said. “Because I know that no matter who I am or what I’ve done in my life, I can be shot and killed, and nothing will matter.”

****

Toni Sanders, 36, poses for a portrait at her home in Washington, D.C., June 13, 2020.

Allison Shelley for the ACLU

Toni Sanders arrived at Lafayette Square along with her wife and 9-year-old stepson in the late afternoon of June 1 – the same day that Kishon McDonald was there. Their son — identified in court papers as J.N.C. — had been watching the news over the preceding days, and the family had been having difficult conversations about George Floyd and why there was unrest rocking the country.   “We spoke about Aiyana Stanley-Jones and Tamir Rice, and people right here in D.C. who had been killed by Metropolitan Police — Raphael Briscoe, Terrence Sterling, Marqueese Alston, and explained to him that was why people were protesting,” Sanders said.   He said that he’d like to accompany Sanders and his mother to Lafayette Square.   “I assured him that it would be safe because it was a peaceful protest and that we would leave before the curfew started,” she said.   At first, she was glad that she’d agreed to bring him to what felt like a “community environment.” People in the square were passing out snacks, chanting, and kneeling in solidarity with George Floyd.   “Everything started out wonderful, it was a great experience,” she recalled. “We even took a picture when we first got down there just to remember the date we all stood together.”   Then, the attack began.   “I just heard the loud bah bah bah bah, and smoke started to fill the area.”   Sanders was immediately terrified for her young stepson.   “I just started screaming to my family, run, run, run,” she said. The three sprinted away from the sound of detonating stun grenades and the shrieks of injured protesters. After making it a few blocks away, they stopped to catch their breath and check in with one another.   “He said, ‘I can’t believe I just survived my first near-death experience.’ And it literally broke my heart because there’s honestly nothing I could say to him. I couldn’t tell him this wasn’t a near-death experience.”   Sanders was furious that police hadn’t warned protesters to disperse before violently clearing the park. If they had, she said, she would have quickly brought her stepson to safety.   “If we had been asked to either move back or leave, we would have. We would not have protested that because we have a child that we must look out for,” she said.   After the attack, Sanders’ son expressed anger and hurt over how police had treated them. Sanders had refused to allow the experience to scare her away from attending protests, but now when she left the house he would ask her to promise that she wouldn’t die.   “I wanted to show him that even though you’re afraid, if someone is trying to take your rights and do you wrong, you have to stand up for who you are and what you believe in,” she said.   The couple decided to put him into therapy to work out how that day affected him. Sanders says he told his therapist that he thinks that it’s the end of the world now, and that the government is at war with Black people.   “Now we have to have uncomfortable conversations with him about systemic racism, overt racism, covert racism,” she said. “And it’s horrible to have to take that innocence from him.”   Along with Kishon McDonald, Sanders is one of two plaintiffs in an ACLU lawsuit over the attack on Lafayette Square protesters that day. Over the phone, she recites the poem ‘If We Must Die’ by Claude McKay.   We’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!   “We’re here to show you that we’re still citizens, and we’re going to exercise our rights, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

****

Alexandra Chen, a law student at Seattle University and a plaintiff in the lawsuit Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County v. City of Seattle, poses for a portrait in Seattle, Washington on June 15, 2020.

David Ryder for the ACLU.

On May 30, first-year law student Alexandra Chen marched to a police precinct in downtown Seattle along with a few hundred other demonstrators. It was the second protest she’d attended, the first being the day before. When they arrived at the precinct, there were police in riot gear out in front, with others standing in the windows and watching the crowd from above.   “People were clearly agitated, but I didn’t see anyone really try to push the ticket,” she said. “Folks were just crowding around and leading chants.”   A few scattered water bottles along with a road flare were thrown at the precinct, but aside from that, Chen said nobody in the crowd was signaling that violence was coming.   “I remember thinking to myself, ‘You know, this would be a great opportunity for someone to come out with a megaphone and make a statement about how you understand why we’re so angry and you want to work with us on how to fix this,’” she said.   Instead, just like in Washington, D.C., Denver, and dozens of other cities, the Seattle Police Department began to throw stun grenades and tear gas into the crowd.   “There was no warning at all,” she said. “It was just absolute chaos.”   When the first stun grenade detonated near her, she felt a “deep percussive feeling” in her chest. People began to scream and run as tear gas filled the street. As she and her friend tried to move away from the precinct, she noticed another young woman desperately trying to find fresh air.   “There was a gap in a wall that was about six to eight inches between buildings, and she was trying to escape the gas. It looked like she was trying to crawl into that space, and you could hear her retching,” she said.   Tear gas is by its nature indiscriminate. It can’t be controlled or targeted to incapacitate specific people. As soon as a canister or grenade is launched, it becomes the property of the wind. Young and old alike are subject to its effects, which Chen says go from “uncomfortable to intolerable in a short amount of time.”   Chen says that when the group first arrived at the precinct, nearly everyone was wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But after the tear gas was fired, people began to rip them off as they choked, coughed, and gasped for air.   “First, you think to yourself, “Okay, I can tolerate this,’” she said. “You don’t really expect that it’s going to get worse, but it does. It moves deeper into your face and once it gets into your sinuses, everything it touches burns.”   All around her, people were calling out for their friends and loved ones through the thick smoke.   “It was hard to tell which direction to run because when they threw the canisters, they rolled down the hills spewing tear gas the whole way. So effectively, you had not just the immediate area in front of the police station gassed, you had the whole block, and when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t tell where it ends,” she recalled.   After Chen and her friend emerged from the cloud, a medic nearby helped flush her eyes out with water, and the two walked back to her apartment. She is now a plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit brought against the Seattle Police Department over its use of tear gas and other LLWs.   “I don’t care what they want to say about how people are violent,” she said. “What I saw was peaceful protesters met with an immediate and overwhelming show of force to get us to disperse.”

****

Jared Goyette stands in front of the remains of the Minnesota Police Department’s Third Precinct.

Brandon Bell for the ACLU

Jared Goyette moved to Minneapolis five years ago to be close to his daughter. As a journalist, he’d covered protests over police brutality before — first at the Mall of America during the Ferguson uprising, and then later after the killing of Philando Castile.   Over the years, he’d developed ties to the city’s activist community, and in the hours after the video of George Floyd’s murder was released, his phone began to buzz.   “I started getting texts from different Black activists in the Twin Cities,” he said. Goyette could tell that Floyd’s killing would lead to unrest, and before long national news outlets began reaching out to ask for his help covering the story.   On May 27th, two days after Floyd’s death, Goyette heard the sound of helicopters buzzing over the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct. The Precinct had already become a flash point for demonstrations, and Goyette decided to head to the area to see what was happening.   “When I started surveying the scene, it was entirely different from anything I’d seen in my previous years of covering protests against police violence in Minnesota,” he said.   Several hundred people had surrounded the precinct, and officers in riot gear were standing on the roof firing tear gas and rubber bullets at them. Goyette had his camera and notepad with him and, along with other journalists there, was visibly covering the standoff in his role as a reporter.   He saw that a young man had been shot in the head with a ballistic projectile, and moved towards him to try and see if he could do anything to help.   “He was just writhing on the ground in clear, severe pain,” he said. “People were screaming, ‘Call 911.’”   Goyette noticed that his ten-year-old daughter had texted him to ask where he was, so he moved off to the side to text a response. Suddenly, he was on the ground.   “There was a searing pain in my eye,” he recalled. “It wasn’t like I was hit and then I fell, it was like I’m standing and then wait, I’m not standing and everything is black.”   Goyette had been shot in the head with a rubber bullet. His nose was bleeding and his eye was swollen and black. People moved towards him to help, but tear gas began to flood the area.

Policing the Press: A Journalist on the Frontlines

Journalists covering protests against police brutality across the country are facing an influx of violence, suppression efforts, and arrests by police…

Listen to this episode

He managed to woozily make his way to safety, and after gathering his composure for a few minutes, found his car and drove home. Initially, he didn’t think he needed medical attention, but his girlfriend told him he had to visit a community clinic. Health workers there said that if he’d waited longer for treatment, he might have lost sight in that eye.   He says he thinks it’s unlikely that officers didn’t know he was a journalist when they shot him.   “I wasn’t running, I wasn’t chanting,” he said. “Protesters aren’t normally dressed in a dress shirt and slacks.”   Goyette wasn’t the only journalist who was targeted by Minneapolis police that week. Many documented being pepper sprayed despite clearly identifying themselves as reporters. Others were arrested, gassed, threatened, or ⁠— like Goyette ⁠— shot with rubber bullets. In a clip that went viral, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television, despite the fact that he was accompanied by a full news crew with cameras and sound equipment.   “I worry that the sort of ‘fake news’ doctrine is leading to journalists being targeted,” said Goyette. “And this is the first time that I think we saw that at a systematic scale.”   On June 3rd, the ACLU filed suit against the City of Minneapolis over the attacks on journalists that were carried out by MPD officers. Goyette is the lead plaintiff in the case.   “I don’t want this to come out wrong, but I feel angry, and a little bit afraid,” he said. “The Police Chief made an apology to journalists who were fired upon, but there wasn’t anything behind that apology. No promise to investigate and hold people accountable, nothing other than a sentimental gesture. And I fear that people are just going to move on.”

Published June 23, 2020 at 11:42PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/3eu2a5Y

[davidpwilson2564]

Bloglet

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Halloween.

Leave apartment at 6:30 a m.  Weather brisk. 35 degrees.  For this first time since last winter I’m wearing  my heavy coat.  There is already a line at the poll.  From a distance the line looks much longer but it’s an optical illusion...I am seeing a row of potted shrubs (called, in some parts of the South, scrubs), set out on the street to divide the passing traffic from the outside diners.  All of the info that I need for voting has been  mailed to me.  The line starts moving at 7:00 and snakes around the corner, seeming much longer than it really is, because of social distancing.  We move by someone sleeping in a doorway, someone covered in a much sleeping bag, perfectly fitted in his (or her) own little alcove, motionless, as if dead. (So many homeless...and now it’s getting cold.)  The wait isn’t a particularly long one and inside the people are quite helpful.  After voting, the sun coming up, feeling more virtuous than I did an hour ago, I go to the grocery store where I have the place pretty much all to myself. 

Some businesses are boarding up their windows in anticipation of a Tuesday night riot.  If all hell breaks loose the Trumpers can call it the work of antifa (a favorite word...referring to the Left).  Should it happen there will be talk among the Republicans of the inability to maintain order in Democrat run states.  (And this was the president who was supposed to bring us together.)

Later: News of a Trump car and truck caravan (called a Trump Train) in Texas, banners flying, surrounding and running a Biden bus off the road.  Trump is much delighted when he hears about it.  Tweets: I Love Texas!  Sort of get the idea the stunt, the elaborate prank, was the brainstorm of Don Jr. 

Note: The other night going through some Youtube interviews.  An Aussie journalist interviews Sarah Huckabee Sanders who says Trump is a wonderful man (Promises Made, Promises Kept and all that b.s.). The interviewer asks  about the grab-’em-by-the-pussy tape.  Ms. Sanders says no one is perfect, except Jesus.  Says if Jesus were on the ballot she would vote for him. 

On the Turner station, watch “In Cold Blood.” Saw it when it came out in ‘67.  A lot of memories jarred loose.  Recall reading Capote’s account of staying in a downscale motel in Kansas while getting material together for the book (the book that would insure his success and later be his ruin).  Robert Blake, as one of the killers (I’d forgotten about this) has a fantasy of going to Mexico to find gold.  He says to his partner in crime, “Like ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Young Bobby Blake is in that movie.  The little Mexican kid selling lottery tickets.

I hope there is not an outbreak of violence next week.  Trump has stirred up a lot of hate.

[orbemnews]

One America News Network Stays True to Trump Months after the inauguration of President Biden, One America News Network, a right-wing cable news channel available in some 35 million households, has continued to broadcast segments questioning the validity of the 2020 presidential election. “There’s still serious doubts about who’s actually president,” the OAN correspondent Pearson Sharp said in a March 28 report. That segment was one in a spate of similar reports from a channel that has become a kind of Trump TV for the post-Trump age, an outlet whose reporting has aligned with the former president’s grievances at a time when he is barred from major social media platforms. Some of OAN’s coverage has not had the full support of the staff. In interviews with 18 current and former OAN newsroom employees, 16 said the channel had broadcast reports that they considered misleading, inaccurate or untrue. To go by much of OAN’s reporting, it is almost as if a transfer of power had never taken place. The channel did not broadcast live coverage of Mr. Biden’s swearing-in ceremony and Inaugural Address. Into April, news articles on the OAN website consistently referred to Donald J. Trump as “President Trump” and to President Biden as just “Joe Biden” or “Biden.” That practice is not followed by other news organizations, including the OAN competitor Newsmax, a conservative cable channel and news site. OAN has also promoted the debunked theory that the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were left-wing agitators. Toward the end of a March 4 news segment that described the attack as the work of “antifa” and “anti-Trump extremists” — and referred to the president as “Beijing Biden” — Mr. Sharp said, “History will show it was the Democrats, and not the Republicans, who called for this violence.” Investigations have found no evidence that people who identify with antifa, a loose collective of antifascist activists, were involved in the Capitol riot. Charles Herring, the president of Herring Networks, the company that owns OAN, defended the reports casting doubt on the election. “Based on our investigations, voter irregularities clearly took place in the November 2020 election,” he said. “The real question is to what extent.” Herring Networks was founded by Mr. Herring’s father, the tech entrepreneur Robert Herring, who at age 79 runs OAN with Charles and another son, Robert Jr. About 150 employees work for the channel at its headquarters in San Diego. Nielsen does not report viewership statistics for OAN, which is not a Nielsen client. (Charles Herring cited Nielsen’s “heavy fees.”) In a survey last month, Pew Research reported that 7 percent of Americans, including 14 percent of Republicans, had gotten political news from OAN. By contrast, 43 percent of Americans and 62 percent of Republicans had gotten political news from Fox News, the survey found. While OAN appeals to a relatively small audience, its coverage reflects views commonly held by Republicans. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month, about half of Republicans said they believed that the Jan. 6 attack, which left five dead, was largely a nonviolent protest or was the handiwork of left-wing activists. Six in 10 of Republicans surveyed said they also believed Mr. Trump’s claim that the election was “stolen.” OAN, which started in 2013, gained attention when it broadcast Mr. Trump’s campaign speeches in full before the 2016 election. In recent months, it has courted viewers who may have felt abandoned by Fox News, which on election night was the first news outlet to project Mr. Biden as the winner of Arizona, a key swing state. In a mid-November promotional ad, OAN accused Fox News of joining “the mainstream media in censoring factual reporting.” OAN’s stories “appeal to people who want to believe that the election was not legitimate,” said Stephanie L. Edgerly, an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. “These are two mutually reinforcing narratives of people who want to believe it and continue to get that fire stoked by OAN.” Marty Golingan, a producer at the channel since 2016, said OAN had changed in recent years. At the start of his employment, he said, it concentrated more on neutral coverage based on reports from The Associated Press or Reuters. He saw it as a scrappy upstart where he could produce cheeky feature stories, he said. During the Trump presidency, it moved right, Mr. Golingan said. And when he was watching coverage of the pro-Trump mob breaking into the Capitol, he said, he worried that his work might have helped inspire the attack. He added that he and others at OAN disagreed with much of the channel’s coverage. “The majority of people did not believe the voter fraud claims being run on the air,” Mr. Golingan said in an interview, referring to his colleagues. He recalled seeing a photo of someone in the Capitol mob holding a flag emblazoned with the OAN logo. “I was like, OK, that’s not good,” Mr. Golingan said. “That’s what happens when people listen to us.” Charles Herring defended OAN’s coverage. “A review process with multiple checks is in place to ensure that news reporting meets the company’s journalist standards,” he said. “And, yes, we’ve had our fair share of mistakes, but we do our best to keep them to a minimum and learn from our missteps.” Mr. Golingan added that, since Inauguration Day, OAN’s news director, Lindsay Oakley, had reprimanded him for referring to Mr. Biden as “President Biden” in news copy. Ms. Oakley did not reply to requests for comment. “OAN’s staff White House reporters use the term President Biden and then may use Mr. Biden,” Charles Herring said. “The term Biden or Biden administration may also be used.” He declined to reply to a question on the channel’s use of “President Trump” for Mr. Trump. Allysia Britton, a news producer, said she was one of more than a dozen employees who had left OAN in the wake of the Capitol riot. She criticized some of what the channel had reported, saying it was not up to journalistic standards. “Many people have raised concerns,” Ms. Britton said in an interview. “And the thing is, when people speak up about anything, you will get in trouble.” Charles Herring confirmed that about a dozen OAN workers had left in recent months, saying many of them were not high-level employees. Assignments that the elder Mr. Herring takes a special interest in are known among OAN staff as “H stories,” several current and former employees said. The day after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Mr. Herring instructed OAN employees in an email, which The New York Times reviewed, to “report all the things Antifa did yesterday.” Some “H stories” are reported by Kristian Rouz, an OAN correspondent who had written for Sputnik, a site backed by the Russian government. In a report in May on the pandemic, Mr. Rouz said Covid-19 might have started as a “globalist conspiracy to establish sweeping population control,” one that had ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, the billionaires George Soros and Bill Gates, and “the deep state.” Ms. Britton, the former OAN producer, recalled checking a website that Mr. Rouz had cited to back some of his reporting. “It literally took me to this chat room where it’s just conservatives commenting toward each other,” she said. In an email to staff last month, Ms. Oakley, the news director, warned producers against ignoring or playing down Mr. Rouz’s work. “His stories should be considered ‘H stories’ and treated as such,” she wrote in the email, which The Times reviewed. “These stories are often slugged and copy-edited by ME as per Mr. H’s instructions.” OAN’s online audience is significant, with nearly 1.5 million subscribers to its YouTube channel. One of its most popular videos, with about 1.5 million views since it went online Nov. 24, criticized Dominion Voting Systems, the election technology company whose equipment was used in more than two dozen states last year, including several won by Mr. Trump. Hosted by the OAN White House correspondent, Chanel Rion, the video shows a man who said he had infiltrated Dominion and heard company executives say they would “make sure” Mr. Trump lost. Dominion has sued Fox News and two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, accusing them of making or promoting defamatory claims. A lawyer for Dominion, who did not reply to requests for comment, has said the company is considering further legal action. Mr. Golingan, the producer, said some OAN employees had hoped Dominion would sue the channel. “A lot of people said, ‘This is insane, and maybe if they sue us, we’ll stop putting stories like this out,’” he said. Weeks after Dominion filed its first defamation suits, OAN broadcast a two-hour video in which the chief executive of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, made his case that widespread voter fraud had occurred. YouTube removed the video the day it was posted, saying it violated the platform’s election integrity policy. Last month, an OAN report described Dominion’s “voting machines” as “notorious.” Two of the current and former employees interviewed for this article — Dan Ball, a talk-show host, and Neil W. McCabe, a former reporter — described OAN’s coverage as unbiased. Mr. McCabe, who now writes for The Tennessee Star, said the network gave a “voice to people that are just not covered.” Susan Beachy contributed research. Source link Orbem News #America #network #news #stays #True #Trump

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/pence-reinvents-trumps-presidency-on-a-disorienting-nightof-crises-cnn/

Pence reinvents Trump's presidency on a disorienting night of crises - CNN

Already, there are doubts whether the President’s big acceptance speech and a fireworks display Thursday at the White House in front of a pandemic-defying crowd of more than 1,000 people will be appropriate given what forecasters say are “unsurvivable” conditions facing those in the path of Hurricane Laura.

The RNC has had some effective moments — especially in highlighting the stories of regular Americans from lobstermen to farmers who say they have benefited from Trump’s economic policies. Democrats may have missed an opportunity in not doing more to highlight such inspiring stories.

But for the third night in a row the convention offered a vision of a far different country than the one currently staggering through a cataclysmic year. It was a tale of a resurgent economy, a deadly virus defeated and a benevolent and wise President who was a champion of Black Americans, an empathetic counselor of professional women and a guardian of constitutional values worthy of mention in the same breath as the Founders.

Yet when it came to it, Pence — the second most senior member of an administration that says it has done more for Black Americans than Democrats such as President Barack Obama, former vice president Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris — didn’t even mention the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, instead tossing Kenosha, Wisconsin, into a list of places ravaged by violence without referencing the tragedies that brought protesters into the street. And there wasn’t even a passing reference to the countless other similar incidents that have left African Americans despairing — encounters with police that on Wednesday triggered an athletes revolt started by NBA players who boycotted playoff games.

Pence didn’t note that a 17-year-old suspected of killing two people and injuring a third in Kenosha overnight was a pro-police supporter of the President who posted video on TikTok from a Trump rally in Des Moines in January. The shootings came a night after the RNC highlighted a St. Louis couple who brandished guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home.

When asked about the link between the suspect and the Trump rally in Des Moines earlier on Wednesday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said the White House is “not responsible for the private conduct of people who go to rallies.”

Trump supporter or not, the suspect will be held accountable by a legal process. But the incident is sure to spark more debate about the extent to which the demagogic approach the President has taken towards racial tension and violence influences the actions of impressionable individuals at a volatile moment.

In another odd twist, shortly after Pence insisted that “we will have law and order on the streets of America,” he recognized the sister of Dave Patrick Underwood, an officer of the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service who he said “was shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California.”

In fact, a US attorney says the suspect in that case is allegedly tied to the extremist Boogaloo movement, a loosely knit group of heavily armed, anti-government extremists.

A platitude on race

Pence, speaking at the Baltimore fort where an 1814 battle with the British inspired “The Star Spangled Banner,” chose to put the blame for unrest on the Democrats, while divorcing the protests from their cause.

“Last week, Joe Biden didn’t say one word about the violence and chaos engulfing cities across this country,” Pence said. “Let me be clear: the violence must stop — whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha.”

“We will always stand with those who stand on the thin blue line and we are not going to defund the police, not now, not ever,” he added, driving home the administration’s hardline law enforcement message.

Pence also offered a platitude but no answers for Black Americans — failing to address the historic discrimination they have faced from law enforcement played out over and over in agonizing cellphone videos, and that helped spark a national reckoning on race earlier this summer after the death of Minnesota man George Floyd who stopped breathing with a police officer’s knee on his neck.

“We don’t have to choose between supporting law enforcement and standing with African American neighbors to improve the quality of life in our cities and towns,” Pence said.

Conventions are about playing to the base. And there is no doubt that many Americans will prefer the Trump-Pence vision of a strong law and order response to unrest to Biden’s support of protesters who see systemic racism in law enforcement.

But that doesn’t mean that what Pence said on Thursday night was a fair representation of the truth. And for all the hagiography directed towards the President, the convention has provided few genuine answers on how either crisis would get better if Trump wins another four years.

It might be argued that the most significant political developments in the country on Wednesday came not at the RNC — but in the room where NBA players met in their bio-secure bubble in Florida and decided to launch a protest that is threatening the league’s season. It already looks like one of the most significant civil rights statements by athletes in many years, following on from Colin Kaepernick’s taking a knee protests.

The boycott drew a sharp new line in the presidential campaign.

Biden made a strong statement of support for NBA players — athletes who the President has said he will not watch because of their activism on racial justice.

“This moment demands moral leadership. And these players answered by standing up, speaking out, and using their platform for good,” Biden tweeted. “Now is not the time for silence.”

Obama, who last week warned in a Democratic National Convention speech that Trump represented an existential threat to American democracy, also offered his support.

“I commend the players on the @Bucks for standing up for what they believe in, coaches like @DocRivers, and the @NBA and @WNBA for setting an example,” Obama tweeted. “It’s going to take all our institutions to stand up for our values.”

Trump has seized on athlete protests as ammunition in his wider culture war arguments that has seen him defend the Confederate flag and statues of southern Civil War generals that warn that American history and heritage are under attack.

A viral whitewash

Pence, who heads the White House’s coronavirus task force, tried to recast the President’s haphazard response to the pandemic as string of heroic feats as he suggested that Biden has shown a defeatist attitude toward the virus.

In a whitewashing of the President’s negligence and cavalier approach to containing the virus in February and early March, Pence argued that Trump’s move to block foreign nationals from China from entering the country in late January saved “untold lives” and “bought us time to launch the greatest national mobilization since World War II.”

In reality Trump wasted precious time in February — when scientists and epidemiologists were calling on the federal government to ramp up a robust testing and tracing program — by insisting that governors should chart the course for each state. His restrictions on travel from China, which Pence exaggerated Wednesday night, came too late to make a major difference in case numbers in the view of many medical experts. Many of the cases that fueled spread of the virus were later traced to Europe before Trump instituted a travel ban in March.

Though governors begged the federal government to help by providing funding for testing and using the Defense Production Act to produce more personal protective equipment, Trump repeatedly delayed those moves and never put forward a coherent national strategy to stop the virus.

But Pence claimed Wednesday night that the federal government has now “coordinated the delivery of billions of pieces of personal protective equipment” and then made a stunning promise that a coronavirus vaccine will come later this year. Most experts believe a vaccine won’t be ready until 2021 at the earliest.

“Last week, Joe Biden said ‘no miracle is coming,'” Pence said Wednesday night at Fort McHenry. “What Joe doesn’t seem to understand is that America is a nation of miracles and we’re on track to have the world’s first safe, effective coronavirus vaccine by the end of this year.”

After three nights when Trump’s allies have cast the President as a heroic figure who would be unrecognizable to many Americans, he will face the voters to make his own case for reelection Thursday night.

[nancydhooper]

“All Hell Broke Loose.”

When Kishon McDonald saw the video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of four officers from the Minneapolis Police Department, he could tell it was going to turn the country upside down.   “I knew it was going to catch fire,” he said.   McDonald, a former sailor in the U.S. Navy, watched over the following days as demonstrations against police brutality spread from Minneapolis to cities and towns across the country, eventually reaching Washington, D.C., where he lived.   On June 1, he heard that people were planning to peacefully gather at Lafayette Square, a small park directly across from the White House, and decided to join them. By then, police had begun to attack and beat demonstrators in Minneapolis, New York, and others in states everywhere, escalating tensions as smaller groups broke into shops and set fire to police cars.   But when McDonald arrived at Lafayette Square, he found a crowd of a few thousand people cheering, chanting slogans, and listening to speeches. Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had imposed a 7 p.m. curfew after clashes the night before, but that was still an hour away.   “Everybody there was like, it’s alright, we’re going to be here until 7 o’clock,” he said. “It was a very good energy.”   It wouldn’t be long before that would change.

Kishon McDonald, 39, originally of Cleveland, Ohio, poses for a portrait in his neighborhood in Washington, D.C., June 13, 2020.

Allison Shelley for the ACLU

In the days following George Floyd’s murder, President Trump had focused his attention on the relatively small number of people who had damaged property, threatening to use the “unlimited power of our military” and tweeting “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” What the protesters gathered in Lafayette Square that day didn’t know was that he was planning to stage a photo opportunity at a nearby church that evening.   Unbeknownst to McDonald, as he and the others chanted “hands up, don’t shoot,” the U.S. Park Police and other law enforcement agencies were just out of sight, donning riot gear and checking the weapons they would shortly use against the crowd to pave the way for the president’s walk to the church.   At 6:30 p.m. — half an hour before Washington D.C.’s curfew — dozens of battle-clad officers rushed the protest, hurling stun grenades and firing tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and pepper balls into the crowd. McDonald says there were no warnings, just an onslaught of violence.   “All hell broke loose,” he said.   As the deafening explosions from the stun grenades gave way to thick clouds of tear gas, terrified protesters began to run from the batons and riot shields that police were using to force them out of the square.   “It was just straight fear. Everybody was scared and running for their lives,” he said.   McDonald tried to plead for instructions from the advancing officers, asking them what they wanted people to do. Instead, one threw a stun grenade at him.   “As it exploded, hot shrapnel hit my leg,” he said. “It felt like somebody put a cast iron skillet on my leg, it was just so hot. I started jumping up and down trying to get away from it, but shrapnel was going everywhere.”   Suffocating tear gas enveloped him and the other protesters, making them gasp and cough as they ran down the street.   “I saw a young boy, he must have been about 15, and he was choking a lot. Somebody put a shirt over his face and kind of ran him out,” he recalled.   McDonald had seen enough. Bruised from being hit with riot shields and with his vision still blurred from the tear gas, he walked home. In a phone interview with the ACLU, he said that the experience had made him more wary of attending protests, but it also illustrated why he’d gone there to begin with.   “It seems like everything is getting to be a military type thing in our society, and we were protesting to calm that down,” he said. “And the message we got is, ‘No, we aren’t calming down.’” “I hope someone gets held accountable,” he added.

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Law enforcement officers clearing protesters from Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., June 1, 2020.

Derek Baker

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, Americans poured into the streets to voice their condemnation of police brutality against Black people. The weeks that followed were a milestone in American history, with protests and displays of solidarity reaching towns as small as Cadillac, Michigan, and cities as large as Atlanta. As months of a painful COVID-19 lockdown gave way to incandescent fury over the killing of Floyd and the violent response of the Minneapolis Police Department towards the initial protests, a few people went as far as burning police precincts or destroying upscale shopping districts.   The vast majority of protests, however, were almost entirely peaceful.   Still, police departments across the country deployed staggering levels of violence against protesters. On social media, the world watched a near-instantaneous live feed of police in dozens of cities firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and other projectiles into protests, using pepper spray against protesters and journalists alike, and beating people with batons.   This widespread and indiscriminate deployment of what are often called “less-lethal” weapons – LLWs – injured countless people, some severely.   In Austin, Texas, 20-year-old college student Justin Howell suffered a skull fracture after being shot in the head with a “beanbag round” filled with lead pellets. Linda Tirado, a journalist and photographer, lost her left eye to a “rubber bullet” fired by police in Minneapolis. In Seattle, 26-year-old Aubreanna Inda nearly died after a stun grenade exploded next to her chest. According to Carl Takei, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality who focuses on police practices, this widespread and violent use of LLWs during the George Floyd uprising was an attack on the protesters’ constitutional right to free speech.   “There’s just no justification under the existing Fourth Amendment framework for the use of these weapons,” he said. “And it’s happening over and over again, with patterns that are so similar across the different cities.”   For years these weapons were referred to as “non-lethal.” But in practice, they have a long history of causing serious injuries and deaths.   A 2016 report by the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations analyzed 25 years of available data on the use of LLWs by law enforcement across the world. It found that between 1990 and 2015, “kinetic impact projectiles” — a category that includes rubber bullets and beanbag rounds — caused at least 1,925 injuries, including 53 deaths and 294 instances of permanent disability.   Tear gas, which is banned for use in warfare under the 1925 Geneva Protocol, injured at least 9,261 people over the same time period, including two deaths and 70 permanent disabilities.   The report also found that LLWs are most commonly used to stamp out political protests and shut down aggressive demands for greater rights.   According to Takei, even the term “less lethal” downplays the damage they can inflict.   “Beating somebody with a baseball bat, as long as you’re not hitting them in the head or other sensitive areas of the body is ‘less lethal,’ but it’s still incredibly violent,” he said. During the civil rights and anti-war demonstrations of the 1960s, police used tear gas and other LLWs extensively to disrupt and disperse protests. But after three federal commissions found that abuse of those weapons provoked aggressive responses by protesters and contributed to a cycle of violence, they fell out of favor with U.S. law enforcement as a method of controlling crowds. According to the Marshall Project, in subsequent decades, some police departments adopted a “negotiated management” approach to protests, working with organizers in advance to establish ground rules meant to prevent violence. But any movement toward de-escalation evaporated in the wake of large anti-globalization protests that took place during a 1999 World Trade Organization meeting, in an event that would come to be called the “Battle for Seattle.” In a prelude to how many police departments would later approach the George Floyd uprising, Seattle police attacked the mostly non-violent protesters with LLWs, provoking a handful to respond aggressively in kind.   “The response of a lot of police departments after that was, well if some people won’t act as predicted, we should have a hyper-aggressive response for everybody,” said Takei. “But when police adopt this type of response to Black-led protests against police violence, they are repeating a pattern of brutality that goes back to the origins of American policing in Southern slave patrols.”   Now, as outcry over the indiscriminate use of LLWs against Black Lives Matter protesters mounts, some municipalities are weighing restrictions on the weapons. After the ACLU sued the Seattle Police Department in early June for its violent response to protests in the city, a judge ordered police there to cease using the weapons against peaceful demonstrators, saying they had “chilled speech.”   Days later, Seattle’s city council voted unanimously to prohibit their use against protesters. Legislators in Atlanta and other cities have also proposed similar bans.   The ACLU spoke to a number of people who were attacked with LLWs by police during demonstrations over George Floyd’s murder in recent weeks. This is how they described their experiences.

****

Gabe Schlough at his home in Denver, Colorado.

Jimena Peck for the ACLU

Gabe Schlough wasn’t surprised that the Minneapolis Police Department had killed another one of its Black residents. He lives in Denver now, but he’d gone to college years earlier in Minneapolis. Just before he graduated, he’d been shot in the back with a stun gun by police who entered his home and tried to arrest him in a case of mistaken identity.   Schlough had been invited to a protest at downtown Denver’s Capitol Building that night, but instead he decided to drive his motorcycle up into the mountains with a friend.   “In one of the areas where people were hiking and snowboarding and skiing down I saw three Black people, and I was just fucking happy,” he said. “I was like, thank God not every Black person thinks they need to be at the Capitol right now.”   But when he got back home later that night and saw images of the Denver Police Department’s response to the protest, he felt his blood start to boil.   “We can’t even give doctors and nurses facemasks, but we can give our police access to militarized weapons that are exceedingly more expensive and hard to create than the protective mechanisms we need for health care workers,” he recalled thinking.   Schlough has a degree in public health anthropology, and he’d worked in health care across the world, including a stint in an Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone. He had medical training and had participated in protests before, so he decided to defy the curfew along with a few friends to see if he could offer help in case anyone got hurt. Donning his face mask along with sunglasses to protect his eyes, Schlough set off towards the Capitol Building.   When he arrived, he saw a crowd of two or three hundred people facing down a line of police.   “They were standing just a little bit more than shoulder to shoulder apart with full riot gear, with their face shields and full protective armor on,” he recalled.   Schlough moved up toward the front of the crowd. Behind him, somebody set a pile of garbage on fire. That was all the police needed to begin their advance. As they moved forward, they shot canisters of tear gas into the crowd and tossed stun grenades.   “I was going around and telling people who didn’t have eye coverings to watch their eyes and protect their face,” he said. “Just running up and down the line and getting people educated, like this is happening and this is what you need to know.”   As a canister of tear gas landed next to him, Schlough bent down to try and cover it with a traffic cone so the gas wouldn’t spread. Suddenly, he felt sharp blows to his face and chest.   “A shock hit me and my head popped up,” he said. “I felt like somebody had punched me in the chest.”   Schlough had been shot with rubber bullets, although he didn’t know it yet. As he fell back further into the crowd of protestors, someone told him he was bleeding.   “You need to go to a hospital,” they said. “Your face is falling off.”   Another bystander pulled out his phone and showed Schlough his injury. The bullet had left a gaping wound on his chin, and blood was pouring down onto the front of his shirt. In retrospect, Schlough says he thinks he was specifically targeted, and that police knew exactly where they were aiming when they shot him.   He and a friend left and started walking toward a nearby hospital where he did volunteer shifts. But when they arrived, Denver police were also there.   “There were cop cars there and more pulling up, and I understood that it was not a safe place for me to get treated because of the amount of police presence there,” he said.   Instead, Schlough had to drive outside Denver to be treated at a different facility. Doctors cleaned his wound and gave him 20 stitches. More than a week later, part of his chin is still numb. He worries that he may have suffered nerve damage.   Last Christmas, while visiting his mother in Wisconsin, he says one of her friends asked him what the most dangerous place he’d ever been was.   “I told her that I’m the most scared when I’m in the U.S. and around a police officer,” he said. “Because I know that no matter who I am or what I’ve done in my life, I can be shot and killed, and nothing will matter.”

****

Toni Sanders, 36, poses for a portrait at her home in Washington, D.C., June 13, 2020.

Allison Shelley for the ACLU

Toni Sanders arrived at Lafayette Square along with her wife and 9-year-old stepson in the late afternoon of June 1 – the same day that Kishon McDonald was there. Their son — identified in court papers as J.N.C. — had been watching the news over the preceding days, and the family had been having difficult conversations about George Floyd and why there was unrest rocking the country.   “We spoke about Aiyana Stanley-Jones and Tamir Rice, and people right here in D.C. who had been killed by Metropolitan Police — Raphael Briscoe, Terrence Sterling, Marqueese Alston, and explained to him that was why people were protesting,” Sanders said.   He said that he’d like to accompany Sanders and his mother to Lafayette Square.   “I assured him that it would be safe because it was a peaceful protest and that we would leave before the curfew started,” she said.   At first, she was glad that she’d agreed to bring him to what felt like a “community environment.” People in the square were passing out snacks, chanting, and kneeling in solidarity with George Floyd.   “Everything started out wonderful, it was a great experience,” she recalled. “We even took a picture when we first got down there just to remember the date we all stood together.”   Then, the attack began.   “I just heard the loud bah bah bah bah, and smoke started to fill the area.”   Sanders was immediately terrified for her young stepson.   “I just started screaming to my family, run, run, run,” she said. The three sprinted away from the sound of detonating stun grenades and the shrieks of injured protesters. After making it a few blocks away, they stopped to catch their breath and check in with one another.   “He said, ‘I can’t believe I just survived my first near-death experience.’ And it literally broke my heart because there’s honestly nothing I could say to him. I couldn’t tell him this wasn’t a near-death experience.”   Sanders was furious that police hadn’t warned protesters to disperse before violently clearing the park. If they had, she said, she would have quickly brought her stepson to safety.   “If we had been asked to either move back or leave, we would have. We would not have protested that because we have a child that we must look out for,” she said.   After the attack, Sanders’ son expressed anger and hurt over how police had treated them. Sanders had refused to allow the experience to scare her away from attending protests, but now when she left the house he would ask her to promise that she wouldn’t die.   “I wanted to show him that even though you’re afraid, if someone is trying to take your rights and do you wrong, you have to stand up for who you are and what you believe in,” she said.   The couple decided to put him into therapy to work out how that day affected him. Sanders says he told his therapist that he thinks that it’s the end of the world now, and that the government is at war with Black people.   “Now we have to have uncomfortable conversations with him about systemic racism, overt racism, covert racism,” she said. “And it’s horrible to have to take that innocence from him.”   Along with Kishon McDonald, Sanders is one of two plaintiffs in an ACLU lawsuit over the attack on Lafayette Square protesters that day. Over the phone, she recites the poem ‘If We Must Die’ by Claude McKay.   We’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!   “We’re here to show you that we’re still citizens, and we’re going to exercise our rights, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

****

Alexandra Chen, a law student at Seattle University and a plaintiff in the lawsuit Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County v. City of Seattle, poses for a portrait in Seattle, Washington on June 15, 2020.

David Ryder for the ACLU.

On May 30, first-year law student Alexandra Chen marched to a police precinct in downtown Seattle along with a few hundred other demonstrators. It was the second protest she’d attended, the first being the day before. When they arrived at the precinct, there were police in riot gear out in front, with others standing in the windows and watching the crowd from above.   “People were clearly agitated, but I didn’t see anyone really try to push the ticket,” she said. “Folks were just crowding around and leading chants.”   A few scattered water bottles along with a road flare were thrown at the precinct, but aside from that, Chen said nobody in the crowd was signaling that violence was coming.   “I remember thinking to myself, ‘You know, this would be a great opportunity for someone to come out with a megaphone and make a statement about how you understand why we’re so angry and you want to work with us on how to fix this,’” she said.   Instead, just like in Washington, D.C., Denver, and dozens of other cities, the Seattle Police Department began to throw stun grenades and tear gas into the crowd.   “There was no warning at all,” she said. “It was just absolute chaos.”   When the first stun grenade detonated near her, she felt a “deep percussive feeling” in her chest. People began to scream and run as tear gas filled the street. As she and her friend tried to move away from the precinct, she noticed another young woman desperately trying to find fresh air.   “There was a gap in a wall that was about six to eight inches between buildings, and she was trying to escape the gas. It looked like she was trying to crawl into that space, and you could hear her retching,” she said.   Tear gas is by its nature indiscriminate. It can’t be controlled or targeted to incapacitate specific people. As soon as a canister or grenade is launched, it becomes the property of the wind. Young and old alike are subject to its effects, which Chen says go from “uncomfortable to intolerable in a short amount of time.”   Chen says that when the group first arrived at the precinct, nearly everyone was wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But after the tear gas was fired, people began to rip them off as they choked, coughed, and gasped for air.   “First, you think to yourself, “Okay, I can tolerate this,’” she said. “You don’t really expect that it’s going to get worse, but it does. It moves deeper into your face and once it gets into your sinuses, everything it touches burns.”   All around her, people were calling out for their friends and loved ones through the thick smoke.   “It was hard to tell which direction to run because when they threw the canisters, they rolled down the hills spewing tear gas the whole way. So effectively, you had not just the immediate area in front of the police station gassed, you had the whole block, and when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t tell where it ends,” she recalled.   After Chen and her friend emerged from the cloud, a medic nearby helped flush her eyes out with water, and the two walked back to her apartment. She is now a plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit brought against the Seattle Police Department over its use of tear gas and other LLWs.   “I don’t care what they want to say about how people are violent,” she said. “What I saw was peaceful protesters met with an immediate and overwhelming show of force to get us to disperse.”

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Jared Goyette stands in front of the remains of the Minnesota Police Department’s Third Precinct.

Brandon Bell for the ACLU

Jared Goyette moved to Minneapolis five years ago to be close to his daughter. As a journalist, he’d covered protests over police brutality before — first at the Mall of America during the Ferguson uprising, and then later after the killing of Philando Castile.   Over the years, he’d developed ties to the city’s activist community, and in the hours after the video of George Floyd’s murder was released, his phone began to buzz.   “I started getting texts from different Black activists in the Twin Cities,” he said. Goyette could tell that Floyd’s killing would lead to unrest, and before long national news outlets began reaching out to ask for his help covering the story.   On May 27th, two days after Floyd’s death, Goyette heard the sound of helicopters buzzing over the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct. The Precinct had already become a flash point for demonstrations, and Goyette decided to head to the area to see what was happening.   “When I started surveying the scene, it was entirely different from anything I’d seen in my previous years of covering protests against police violence in Minnesota,” he said.   Several hundred people had surrounded the precinct, and officers in riot gear were standing on the roof firing tear gas and rubber bullets at them. Goyette had his camera and notepad with him and, along with other journalists there, was visibly covering the standoff in his role as a reporter.   He saw that a young man had been shot in the head with a ballistic projectile, and moved towards him to try and see if he could do anything to help.   “He was just writhing on the ground in clear, severe pain,” he said. “People were screaming, ‘Call 911.’”   Goyette noticed that his ten-year-old daughter had texted him to ask where he was, so he moved off to the side to text a response. Suddenly, he was on the ground.   “There was a searing pain in my eye,” he recalled. “It wasn’t like I was hit and then I fell, it was like I’m standing and then wait, I’m not standing and everything is black.”   Goyette had been shot in the head with a rubber bullet. His nose was bleeding and his eye was swollen and black. People moved towards him to help, but tear gas began to flood the area.

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He managed to woozily make his way to safety, and after gathering his composure for a few minutes, found his car and drove home. Initially, he didn’t think he needed medical attention, but his girlfriend told him he had to visit a community clinic. Health workers there said that if he’d waited longer for treatment, he might have lost sight in that eye.   He says he thinks it’s unlikely that officers didn’t know he was a journalist when they shot him.   “I wasn’t running, I wasn’t chanting,” he said. “Protesters aren’t normally dressed in a dress shirt and slacks.”   Goyette wasn’t the only journalist who was targeted by Minneapolis police that week. Many documented being pepper sprayed despite clearly identifying themselves as reporters. Others were arrested, gassed, threatened, or ⁠— like Goyette ⁠— shot with rubber bullets. In a clip that went viral, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television, despite the fact that he was accompanied by a full news crew with cameras and sound equipment.   “I worry that the sort of ‘fake news’ doctrine is leading to journalists being targeted,” said Goyette. “And this is the first time that I think we saw that at a systematic scale.”   On June 3rd, the ACLU filed suit against the City of Minneapolis over the attacks on journalists that were carried out by MPD officers. Goyette is the lead plaintiff in the case.   “I don’t want this to come out wrong, but I feel angry, and a little bit afraid,” he said. “The Police Chief made an apology to journalists who were fired upon, but there wasn’t anything behind that apology. No promise to investigate and hold people accountable, nothing other than a sentimental gesture. And I fear that people are just going to move on.”

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/all-hell-broke-loose via http://www.rssmix.com/