Donald J. Trump has had a big hand in this. He enabled all racists and encouraged them.

This falls squarely on his shoulders. He empowered them and he allowed circumstances to deteriorate.

We will have to really fight and turn out the vote to fix it, to put things right, to make a place at the table for everyone who wants to sit with us and make for better times. We need to make our margin of victory undeniable.

We need to be sure he gets his whirlwind

This is the presidency George Wallace never had

By
Max Boot
Columnist
May 29, 2020 at 3:14 p.m. CDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/29/george-wallace-was-too-extreme-gop-now-trump-channels-him




<snip>

A few minutes later, shedding his jacket and clenching his fist, Wallace shouted: “We don’t have riots in Alabama. They start a riot down there, first one of ‘em to pick up a brick gets a bullet in the brain, that’s all. And then you walk over to the next one and say, ‘All right, pick up a brick. We just want to see you pick up one of them bricks, now!’ ”

As historian Dan T. Carter notes in his history of the modern conservative movement, “The crowd went berserk.” It was obvious to both supporters and detractors what Wallace was saying. An African American protester held up a poster proclaiming “Law and Order — Wallace Style.” “Underneath the slogan,” Carter writes, “was the outline of a Ku Klux Klansman holding a noose.”

In 1968, most Republicans did not support Wallace, who spent most of his career in the Democratic Party. He was considered too much of an extremist even by conservatives such as William F. Buckley Jr., and in those days, there was still a substantial number of more liberal “Rockefeller Republicans.”

But now, in Donald Trump, we have the closest thing we have ever had to having George Wallace in the White House — and Republicans are nearly unanimous in their approbation. The president is pouring gasoline on the flames of racial division, and the Republican Party is holding the jerrycan for him. This is where the Southern Strategy has led after half a century.

How the Supreme Court Lets Cops Get Away With Murder

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/opinion/Minneapolis-police-George-Floyd.html

The courts protected police abuses for years before George Floyd’s death. It’s time to rethink “qualified immunity.”

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

May 29, 2020

<snip>

Police officers don’t face justice more often for a variety of reasons — from powerful police unions to the blue wall of silence to cowardly prosecutors to reluctant juries. But it is the Supreme Court that has enabled a culture of violence and abuse by eviscerating a vital civil rights law to provide police officers what, in practice, is nearly limitless immunity from prosecution for actions taken while on the job. The badge has become a get-out-of-jail-free card in far too many instances.

In 1967, the same year the police chief of Miami coined the phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” to threaten civil rights demonstrators, the Supreme Court first articulated a notion of “qualified immunity.” In the case of police violence against a group of civil rights demonstrators in Mississippi, the court decided that police officers should not face legal liability for enforcing the law “in good faith and with probable cause.”

<snip>

In the five decades since the doctrine’s invention, qualified immunity has expanded in practice to excuse all manner of police misconduct, from assault to homicide. As the legal bar for victims to challenge police misconduct has been raised higher and higher by the Supreme Court, the lower courts have followed. A major investigation by Reuters earlier this year found that “since 2005, the courts have shown an increasing tendency to grant immunity in excessive force cases — rulings that the district courts below them must follow. The trend has accelerated in recent years.” What was intended to prevent frivolous lawsuits against agents of the government, the investigation concluded, “has become a highly effective shield in thousands of lawsuits seeking to hold cops accountable when they are accused of using excessive force.”

<snip>

As the militarization of police tactics and technology has accelerated in the past two decades, pleas from liberals and conservatives to narrow the doctrine of qualified immunity, and to make it easier to hold police and other officials accountable for obvious civil rights violations, have grown to a crescendo. The Supreme Court is considering more than a dozen cases to hear next term that could do just that. One case involves a police officer in Georgia who, while pursuing a suspect, held a group of young children at gunpoint, fired two bullets at the family dog, missed and hit a 10-year-old boy in the arm. Another involves officers who used tear gas grenades to enter a home when they’d been given a key to the front door.

<snip>

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

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Fearing For His Life


https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18253848/eric-garner-footage-ramsey-orta-police-brutality-killing-safety

<snip>

In New York state, a grand jury returns a true bill of indictment if a bare majority — 12 of the 23 sitting jurors — believes there’s enough evidence to proceed to a criminal trial. Daniel Pantaleo’s grand jury sat for nine weeks. Ramsey Orta was the first of 50 witnesses to testify. His video, along with the medical examiner’s report, provided clear evidence that Pantaleo had used an illegal chokehold on Garner. A “chokehold” is defined in the NYPD patrol guide as “any pressure to the throat or windpipe,” which hinders breathing. Orta’s video showed that Pantaleo had continued to apply pressure to Garner’s windpipe after Garner was on the ground, subdued, and had repeatedly said that he couldn’t breathe. Still, the Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo.

The ruling further reinforced the reality of the tremendous authority police officers have to determine a necessary use of force. Barely a week prior, a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, in Ferguson, Missouri. A year later, a grand jury would come to the same decision in regard to Timothy Loehmann, the officer who — after only two seconds on the scene — shot and killed an unarmed black child, Tamir Rice. No charges were brought against the officers involved in Alton Sterling’s death in Baton Rouge. Officer Jeronimo Yanez was charged with second-degree manslaughter for the death of Philando Castile, only to be acquitted. The trials for the Baltimore police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray ended in a mistrial and more acquittals.

<snip>

In 2015, Officer Ray Tensing shot and killed Samuel DuBose, an unarmed black man, during a traffic stop. Tensing claimed that he “feared for his life” after DuBose started his car and began to drive away with Tensing’s arm caught through the driver’s window. His bodycam footage directly contradicted this account. He was indicted, but the charges were dismissed. In 2017, Betty Jo Shelby was acquitted in the shooting death of an unarmed black man, Terence Crutcher, despite police video showing Crutcher with his hands up in compliance. When asked why she fired her weapon, Shelby said, “I feared for my life.”
"For police, this near-total authority is protected by our judicial system"

In 2016, jurors were shown bodycam footage that clearly depicted Milwaukee resident Sylville K. Smith running from police. Cornered, Smith gave up the chase, threw his gun over a fence, and put his hands up in surrender. Then police officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown shot Smith, killing him. The defense attorney told the jury Heaggan-Brown acted out of fear for his life. The jury found the officer not guilty.

<snip>



And so it becomes easy — for jurors and the public alike — to trust authority and leave the dead confined to the margins of our imagination. The victims are gone. They can’t testify. They can’t tell us of their fear for their lives.

Four Minneapolis officers are fired after video shows one kneeling on neck of black man who later died, mayor says

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/26/minneapolis-police-death-custody-fbi/



By
Timothy Bella and
Brittany Shammas
May 26, 2020 at 3:17 p.m. CDT


<snip>

The incident began when two officers arrived at the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue South around 8 p.m. Monday, police said. Officers located the man, whom they believed to be under the influence of an intoxicant, inside his car. After he got out, police said, the man “physically resisted officers.”

“Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and realized that the suspect was suffering a medical distress,” a Minneapolis police spokesman said in a news briefing early Tuesday. “Officers called for an ambulance. He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he died a short time later.”

Police said that no weapons were used at any time by the man or the officers during the encounter.

<snip>

“The police killed him, bro, right in front of everybody,” Frazier said on Facebook. “He was crying, telling them like, ‘I can’t breathe,’ and everything. They killed this man.”

<snip>

Forensic scientists caught a deer munching on a human carcass for the first time ever

It’s gruesome, but could help investigations
Sarah Fecht
By Sarah Fecht
May 5, 2017

https://www.popsci.com/deer-eating-human-remains/

Warning: the photos at site may be disturbing for some people.

<snip>

In July 2014, researchers left a body in a wooded part of FARF. They wanted to learn about how different scavengers leave their marks on human remains, so they set up a motion-sensitive camera to see who would stop by. In this part of Texas, it's not unusual to see foxes, turkey vultures, raccoons, coyotes, and other carrion-gobblers picking at a corpse. But after a few months, someone new came to the table.

On January 5, 2015, the camera caught a glimpse of a young white-tailed deer standing near the skeleton with a human rib bone in its mouth. Then it happened again on January 13—the camera caught a deer with another rib sticking out of its mouth like a cigar. It’s not clear whether it was the same deer in both cases, but it's certainly possible first one came back for seconds.

It is not, however, the first time we've seen deer violating their vegetarian diets. In fact, they're known to have a taste for blood. Previously they've been spotted eating fish, bats, and dead rabbits. Scientists think deer and other herbivores may occasionally seek out flesh to get minerals—such as phosphorus, salt, and calcium—that may be missing from their regular diets, especially in wintertime.

<snip>


Although it’s likely rare for deer to munch on human remains, being able to recognize the signs of ungulate gnawing may help investigators pinpoint where a body came from and how long it’s been dead—which could help turn a mysteriously mangled crime scene into a solved case.

By Lisa Lerer, Jim Rutenberg and Stephanie Saul

May 21, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/us/politics/tara-reade-credentials.html?algo=top_conversion&fellback=false&imp_id=69717971

<snip>

The lawyer, Douglas H. Wigdor, has been a leading plaintiff’s attorney of the #MeToo era. His firm is best known for bringing discrimination cases against Fox News — and its former star host Bill O’Reilly — and Harvey Weinstein, and his presence at Ms. Reade’s side gave her claims added legal heft.

His announced departure came a day after defense lawyers in California said they were reviewing criminal cases in which Ms. Reade served as an expert witness on domestic violence, concerned that she had misrepresented her educational credentials in court.

<snip>

“Much of what has been written about Ms. Reade is not probative of whether then-Senator Biden sexually assaulted her, but rather is intended to victim-shame and attack her credibility on unrelated and irrelevant matters,” he said. “We have and will continue to represent survivors regardless of their alleged predator’s status or politics.”

<snip>

Then known as Alexandra McCabe, Ms. Reade testified as a government witness in Monterey County courts for nearly a decade, describing herself as an expert in the dynamics of domestic violence who had counseled hundreds of victims.

<snip>

As aircraft carrier heads back to sea after coronavirus outbreak, no guarantees the virus is gone

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=691

The USS Theodore Roosevelt departs Apra Harbor at Naval Base Guam on Thursday, following an extended visit in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic. (Staff Sgt. Jordan E. Gilbert/U.S. Marine Corps/AP)
By
Dan Lamothe
May 21, 2020 at 11:16 a.m. CDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/05/21/aircraft-carrier-heads-back-sea-after-coronavirus-outbreak-no-guarantees-virus-is-gone/


<snip>

The USS Theodore Roosevelt departed Naval Base Guam on Thursday, in anticipation of needed qualifying landings for pilots on the 1,093-foot ship. The Navy’s top officer, Adm. Mike Gilday, asked how he could be confident there will not be an additional outbreak aboard, asked for a different perspective.

The carrier, with a crew of about 4,900 sailors, is returning to sea after the virus first appeared on the ship in March and rapidly spread through the crew. The ship pulled into port in Guam at the end of the month, and more than 1,100 sailors eventually tested positive, including one who died.

Gilday acknowledged 14 sailors who previously tested negative for the virus developed flu-like symptoms after returning to the ship and have been placed in quarantine again. The Navy, he said, is still understanding the incubation period for the virus and is preparing for the possibility of dealing with the coronavirus beyond 2020.

<snip>

Gilday said a few hundred sailors from the Theodore Roosevelt’s crew are still in Guam recovering from the virus, and Navy officials are working to understand when those individuals are no longer contagious. Some of those sailors will rejoin the ship after the aircraft qualifications are complete in a few days, he said.

<snip>



Why hasn't Admiral Crozier been given back his command?

Trump's Secret New Watchlist Lets His Administration Track Americans Without Needing a Warrant

By E.D. Cauchi AND William M. Arkin On 5/18/20 at 9:26 AM EDT
Current Time 1:29

https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-secret-new-watchlist-lets-his-administration-track-americans-without-needing-warrant-1504772


<snip>

NSPM-7 defined the individuals, organizations, groups and networks "assessed to be a threat to the safety, security, or national interests of the United States" to include "cyber threat actors, foreign intelligence threat actors, military threat actors, transnational criminal actors, and weapons proliferators." However, the administration stated that it envisioned "an expansion ... to also include additional threat actor categories, as appropriate."

<snip>

"Insider threats" make up yet another category: leakers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, or corporate scientists and university professors researching sensitive areas like weapons or biotechnology. In February, FBI Director Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that the bureau had recently expanded initiatives "to focus on insider threats partnering with TCO [transnational criminal organization] actors."

By early 2020, the new watchlist was TOC in name only.

"It's an intelligence analyst's nightmare," says Nate Snyder, a former Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism official, about this loosening of definitions and conflation of terrorist and criminal threats. You wouldn't "treat this pandemic like you would a flood or a hurricane. The same thing could be said if you're taking a gang and you're now affiliating them with a terrorist organization. One is not like the other."

<snip>

"Once you're on the watchlist, the government has the ability to collect tremendous amounts of information," says retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeff Danik, who spent most of his 28-year career tracking terrorist activity, including several years inside the classified watchlisting hub. "This data is a bomb," he says. "You should have great respect for the damage that it can do."

<snip>

"Compiling lists of national security enemies strikes me as what Hitler did in Germany in the 1930s or what Stalin did in Russia in the '30s, '40s and '50s," says General Taylor, the former head of intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security, referring to American citizens. "That is nothing more than trying to take a sledgehammer when you need a stiletto."