BEWARE...SOME DAYS ARE NOT VERY PRETTY. I GET CRABBY LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE DO. AND I DO SPEAK MY MIND.
DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO TRUE, REAL, EVERYDAY FEELINGS LIKE MINE.(But I think you would enjoy it)
DON'T FORGET...FREEDOM OF SPEECH !
Black gun-rights groups have started open-carry marches at anti-racism protests
Peter Weber
More than 300 heavily armed Black protesters marched in formation through Louisville, Kentucky, on Saturday, demanding progress on the slow investigation of the police killing of Breonna Taylor. The same group, the Not F---ing Around Coalition (NFAC), had recently marched
in Stone Mountain, Georgia, wearing black and carrying their
semi-automatic rifles, protesting the Atlanta suburb's namesake monument
depicting Confederate generals, and a separate armed Black group
marched in Oklahoma City in June to mark President Trump's Tulsa rally.
They have gotten mixed reactions from Black Lives Matter protesters, who do not carry firearms to demonstrations.
In Louisville, about 50 heavy armed white members of the far-right Three Percenter militia watched the NFAC march,
purportedly there to support local police. Three Percenters came in
from Indiana, Tennessee, and other states for the rally, according to
leader Tara Brandau. Fellow militia member Nick Alsager told the Louisville Courier Journal
the NFAC marchers had a constitutional right to speak up, but they've
"got no business being here. It ain't your state." Three people were
wounded when someone's gun accidentally discharged, but otherwise the
rally was tense but peaceful.
Black
Americans, like white Americans, have been buying firearms in unusually
large numbers since the COVID-19 pandemic started, and Black gun
ownership picked up more after the police killing of George Floyd, Politico reports, citing a sharp uptick in new memberships in Black gun owner organizations.
The
general chaos of the pandemic was one factor in the surge in
memberships, but the Floyd killing and subsequent protests were a "line
in the sand" for many many new members, Phillip Smith, president of the
National African American Gun Owners' Association, told Politico.
"The days are over of African Americans sitting around singing
'Kumbaya' and hoping and praying that somebody will come and save them.
We're gonna save ourselves." Armed Black Panther demonstrations convinced the NRA and California Gov. Ronald Reagan, the future president, to support gun control in the late 1960s.
Anti-racism proponent Ibram X. Kendi argued recently on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast
that the glut of white gun ownership is one of the ways that racism has
harmed white Americans, pointing to the white male gun suicide rate.
White men make up 79 percent of America's 24,000 gun suicides each year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, and people in rural areas are especially at risk. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. gun deaths are suicides. More stories from theweek.com North Korea may be 'reaching out to the world for help' after finally announcing a suspected coronavirus case 5 scathing cartoons about Trump's use of federal force Trump's old tricks aren't working
Dramatic
video shows a nurse being attacked on the Chicago Transit Authority Red
Line by a man whom witnesses say was ranting about the coronavirus
pandemic.
Ohio man in custody after kneeling on White toddler's neck
Isaiah
Jackson, 20, has been put in jail after being out on parole and awaits
new felony charges after a photo circulated on social media showing him
posing with his knee to the neck of a crying, White 2-year-old boy
alongside a message referencing Black Lives Matter.
A Black Lives Matter organizer is facing felony charges for allegedly stealing flags during a pro-Trump caravan, reports say
insider@insider.com (Taylor Ardrey)
Jonathan
Gartrelle (L), participating in a protest against police brutality,
confronts a demonstrator taking part in a counter demonstration
advertised as a Law and Order Rally that was also supporting President
Donald Trump on June 14, 2020 in Miami, Florida. Protests continue in
cities throughout the country over the death of George Floyd, who died
while in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25th.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A
Miami Black Lives Matter protest organizer is facing felony charges
after he was accused of stealing flags from a car during a "Cubans for
Trump" caravan.
Jonathan Gartrelle is being charged with
two felonies; strong-arm robbery and escape, as well as misdemeanor
counts of resisting an officer without violence and obstructing a public
street, according to the Miami Herald.
Gartelle
told the Miami Herald that the charges were "overblown," adding, "Their
goal is to have me in jail for two weeks, get beaten up by some
officers, and distract from the movement."
A
Miami protester is accused of stealing flags from a car during a
pro-Trump caravan event that occurred last Saturday, according to The Miami Herald.
According
to a police report obtained by Insider, Jonathan Gartrelle, a Black
Lives Matter organizer in Miami, is charged with two felonies:
strong-arm robbery and escape. He is also charged with resisting an
officer, obstructing a public street, and criminal mischief.
At a "Cubans for Trump" caravan, an event planned to "support police and law and order,"
an officer observed Gartrelle preventing traffic on the road, the
report from the Miami Police Department said. The officer also saw
Gartrelle "removing flags fixed to passing vehicles, damaging them and
discarding them in the roadway," the report said.
The
officer then tried to arrest Gartrelle, but he was able to escape,
according to the police. The officer said Gartelle removed his garments
to disguise himself in the crowd of protestors.
According to the
police report, a witness who was in the passenger seat of a white
vehicle was able to identify Gartrelle to the police and said a flag was
"ripped" from their hand as it was waved out of the passenger side
window. The witness stated that Gartelle "attacked them for no reason,"
the report said.
Gartrelle was arrested on Monday after he was identified due to his posts on Instagram, where he provided commentary on the incidents. Gartrelle also posted about organizing a rally in front of the Miami Police Department to demand an investigation into a "possibly fatal hit-and-run."
At
the event on Saturday, Gartrelle had told an officer on scene that he
had been hit by a vehicle during the caravan event after he walked in
front of it. But according to the police report, Gartrelle didn't "want
to do anything" after disclosing the incident.
Gartrelle did not want to press charges, a spokeswoman for the Miami police, Kiara Delva, told the Miami Herald.
However, since the incident, he has been demanding justice.
On Monday, Gartrelle was spotted and arrested before the rally, according to a petition
demanding the police "investigate the assailants who attempted to harm
him immediately." The petition is also demanding the officers involved
to be held accountable for his "unlawful targeting and arrest."
According
to the police report, officers who attempted to arrest Gartrelle had
previously come in contact with him "since the first protests began on
May 30, 2020 and multiple protests the defendant attended thereafter."
According to the Miami Herald, Gartrelle was released on bond Tuesday.
Gartrelle
told the newspaper that the charges against him were "overblown,"
saying he took two flags from parked cars and threw them on the ground,
but did not steal them.
"Their goal is to have me in jail for two
weeks, get beaten up by some officers, and distract from the movement,"
Gartrelle said, according to the outlet.
Jonathan Gartrelle did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Read the original article on Insider
'I Can't Do That, Boss': Texas FedEx Driver Refuses to Help Fallen 89-Year-Old
Scroll back up to restore default view.
A
FedEx delivery driver refused to assist an 89-year-old man asking for
help after he had fallen on a porch in Freeport, Texas, on July 18.Maria
Kouches, the daughter of the elderly man, owns the Ring camera that
captured the footage. Kouches’s father can be heard saying, “Hello,
help, please. Give me a hand. I need to get up.”From a distance the
driver can be heard responding, “I can’t do that, boss.”Kouches told
media outlets her father had fallen about 15 minutes before the delivery
was made. She explained he has fallen before and he has dementia and
trouble with his legs. She told ABC 30 that her father moves around with
his walker, and was “maybe trying to go back inside and his leg gave
out.”Kouches wrote in a Facebook post that the driver didn’t even “ring
the doorbell or call 911!”Kouches told Storyful her father is “doing
fine” and wanted to “thank everyone for their concern.”FedEx issued the
following response to Storyful: “We extend our thoughts and concerns for
the well-being of the person depicted in this video. The safety of our
team members and customers in the communities that we serve is our
highest priority. We are reviewing the circumstances behind this
incident and will take the appropriate action.” Credit: Maria Kouches
via Storyful
ViacomCBS drops Nick Cannon, cites 'anti-Semitic' comments
LYNN ELBER
FILE
- In this Dec. 10, 2018, file photo Nick Cannon poses for a portrait in
New York. Cannon's “hateful speech” and anti-Semitic conspiracy
theories led ViacomCBS to cut ties with the performer, the media giant
said. “ViacomCBS condemns bigotry of any kind and we categorically
denounce all forms of anti-Semitism," the company said in a statement
Tuesday, July 14, 2020. It is terminating its relationship with Cannon,
ViacomCBS said. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision/AP, File)
LOS
ANGELES (AP) — Nick Cannon's “hateful speech” and anti-Semitic theories
led ViacomCBS to cut ties with the TV host and producer, the media
giant said. “ViacomCBS condemns bigotry of any kind and we
categorically denounce all forms of anti-Semitism," the company said in a
statement Tuesday. It is terminating its relationship with Cannon,
ViacomCBS said.
The company's move was in response to remarks made
by Cannon on a podcast in which he and Richard “Professor Griff”
Griffith, the former Public Enemy member, discussed racial bias. The
podcast reportedly was filmed last year and aired two weeks ago.
“We
have spoken with Nick Cannon about an episode of his podcast ‘Cannon’s
Class’ on YouTube, which promoted hateful speech and spread anti-Semitic
conspiracy theories,” ViacomCBS said. “While
we support ongoing education and dialogue in the fight against bigotry,
we are deeply troubled that Nick has failed to acknowledge or apologize
for perpetuating anti-Semitism, and we are terminating our relationship
with him,” the company said.
Cannon produced “Wild ’n Out,” a
comedy improv series for VH1, a ViacomCBS-owned cable channel. He's been
a regular part of TV shows unconnected to the company, including as the
former host of NBC's “America's Got Talent” and host of Fox's “The
Masked Singer.” There was no immediate response to requests for
comment made to a representative for Cannon and to him through his
website. Fox also didn't immediately respond to a request for commen
In
Cannon's hour-plus podcast, he and Griffin contend that Black people
are the true Hebrews and that Jews have usurped their identity.
Cannon
then segues into a discussion of skin color — “And I’m going to say
this carefully,” he begins — to allege that people who lack sufficient
melanin are “a little less.” Those without dark skin have a
“deficiency” that historically forced them to act out of fear and commit
acts of violence to survive, he said. “They had to be savages,” Cannon said, adding that he was referring to “Jewish people, white people, Europeans,” among others.
ViacomCBS’
action came as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the basketball great and writer,
condemned several sports and entertainment celebrities for anti-Semitic
tweets and posts and what he called a “shocking lack of indignation” in
response. Abdul-Jabbar made his comments in a column for The Hollywood Reporter that didn’t refer to Cannon. As controversy over his remarks began to bubble up Monday, Cannon replied in a Facebook post. “I
do not condone hate speech nor the spread of hateful rhetoric ... The
Black and Jewish communities have both faced enormous hatred, oppression
persecution and prejudice for thousands of years and in many ways have
and will continue to work together to overcome these obstacles," he
wrote. In the lengthy post, Cannon also said he welcomed being
held accountable for his statement and that held himself accountable
“for this moment and take full responsibility."
Gun violence kills 160 as holiday weekend exposes tale of 'two Americas'
Joanna Walters in New York and agencies
Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPAA
six-year-old in Philadelphia, a seven-year-old in Chicago, an
eight-year-old in Atlanta, a 15-year-old in New York, all shot.
Community cries of “enough is enough”.
Neighborhoods in some of
the largest US cities erupted in gun violence over the Fourth of July
weekend, killing an estimated 160 people and leaving more than 500
wounded from Friday night to Sunday.
Georgia’s governor, Brian
Kemp, declared a state of emergency on Monday after 31 people were shot
and five killed over the weekend in Atlanta. He authorized 1,000
national guard troops to “protect state property and patrol our
streets”. Related: 'There are two pandemics': Chicago's gun violence persists amid lockdown
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But Chicago saw the worst
violence in one of the bloodiest holiday weekends in recent memory,
ending with 17 people fatally shot including a seven-year-old girl and a
14-year-old boy and 63 more wounded, an increase of five shootings on
the high figures that had marred the holiday weekend the previous year.
Chicago
police investigate the scene where a seven-year-old girl was fatally
shot in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago on Friday.Photograph: Tyler LaRiviere/APDespite
an effort that included an additional 1,200 officers on the streets and
pleas from the city’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, for residents not to
reverse limited progress that had been made against the epidemic of gun violence, Lightfoot lamented the children whose “hopes and dreams were ended by the barrel of a gun”.
The
city’s south and west sides have seen worse weekends this year,
however, and a one-year-old and a three-year-old were killed during
recent shootings. The rising violence prompted Donald Trump to write
to Lightfoot and the Illinois governor, JB Priztker, both Democrats,
accusing them of receiving more than $1bn in special federal funding for
anti-crime measures and coronavirus relief that was “not being turned
into results”.
“Your lack of leadership … continues to fail the people you have sworn to protect,” the letter said.
Lightfoot dismissed Trump’s letter as “all talk, little action”.
Secoriea Turner, eight, was killed near a Wendy’s in Atlanta.Photograph: Atlanta Police Department Handout/EPAThe
shooting death of an eight-year-old girl, Secoriea Turner, in Atlanta,
prompted the mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, to call for justice while
noting the shadow such street violence casts over the huge and largely
peaceful Black Lives Matter protests against racism and police
brutality.
“Enough is enough,” Bottoms said. “If you want people
to take us seriously and you don’t want us to lose this movement, we
can’t lose each other.”
The shooting happened near the Wendy’s
restaurant where a Black man, Rayshard Brooks, was killed by a white
police officer in June.
“She was only eight years old,” Charmaine
Turner said of her daughter Secoriea. “Right now, she would have been on
TikTok, dancing on her phone.”
Atlanta police said two other people were killed and more than 20 injured in gunfire during the holiday weekend.
In
New York, a series of shootings on Saturday and Sunday claimed at least
nine lives and wounded 41 others in a rise in incidents in some
neighborhoods. A 15-year-old boy was wounded in the Bronx.
And in Philadelphia, a six-year-old boy died of a gunshot wound amid five fatal shootings in about five hours on Sunday afternoon, police said.
The Trace, a non-profit news website covering gun violence in the US, which tallied the weekend toll of shootings in the US, reported
that preliminary research from the University of California, Davis, has
found a potential link between the rise in violence and a surge in
gun-buying during the coronavirus pandemic, of more than 2.1 million
more guns than usual between March and May.
Chicago is, woefully, a tale of two cities and across the country it’s a tale of two Americas
Rev Gregory Livingston
The Rev Gregory Livingston, a pastor and civil rights leader who moved to New York last summer after many years running an anti-violence community organization in his native Chicago, spoke of Chicago “going through absolute madness”.
But
he warned that nationwide systemic racism that is not being addressed,
and the “violent history” of America that has not been reckoned with
were dividing people and causing some communities to break down.
“Chicago
is, woefully, a tale of two cities, and across the country it’s a tale
of two Americas. Chicago is a very segregated city, and that legacy is
part of what’s fueling this horrific violence,” Livingston told the
Guardian.
He condemned “corruption and racism” and said the
pandemic and economic fallout had exacerbated inequality. The pandemic
has been disproportionately hard on Black Americans already suffering
economic and healthcare deprivations.
Livingston campaigned
strongly to vote out the previous Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel. Lightfoot
has been in the position since May 2019, and has just appointed a new
police chief.
The
Rev Gregory Livingston: ‘Chicago is a very segregated city and that
legacy is part of what’s fueling this horrific violence.’Photograph: Joshua Lott/The GuardianLightfoot
agreed with Livingston’s point that a long history of segregation in
Chicago and under-investment were “at the root” of the “explosion” of
violence.
“You have to give a sense of hope. You have to reach out
to those young men on the corners who are the shooters, but it can’t
just be on the police and the city government. It’s all hands on deck,”
Lightfoot said.
She said of Trump: “We are leading. He needs to take our lead and follow it.”
Livingston called on Lightfoot to tackle racism and policing problems “head on”.
“There
is an individual responsibility [among those shooting], but there are
also conditions that create a climate of violence,” he said.
He
accused the New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, of being “scared” of
confronting racism in the New York police department. “There is no
courage in city hall,” he said.
And he warned mayors across the US
that Chicago was the “control” for what would happen elsewhere this
summer if inequality and the demands of protesters coast to coast since
George Floyd, an African American, was killed in Minneapolis by a white
police officer did not spur change.
The White House press
secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, declared herself dismayed that she was not
asked about the weekend shootings at her briefing on Monday, despite
citing “a doubling of shootings in New York City for the third straight
week”.
Multiple shootings in multiple Democrat-run cities such as New York and Chicago. Tragic loss of life.
Journalists at the briefing responded that she had ended the 22-minute briefing and departed while many were still waiting, hands raised, to ask questions.
Scared whites will pick up a gun, but are too scared to pick up a book | Opinion
Leonard Pitts Jr.
1 / 2
Scared whites will pick up a gun, but are too scared to pick up a book | Opinion
So now, Karen’s got a gun.
To
be clear, her name wasn’t actually Karen — it was Jillian Wuestenberg.
But Wuestenberg’s behavior — she and her husband, Eric Wuestenberg, drew
guns on a black woman and her daughter in a parking lot near Detroit
last week after she and the girl inadvertently collided — is certainly
Karen-like. As in the social-media meme of white women weaponizing their
entitlement and privilege against people of color.
Karens call
police on black people for barbecuing in a public park, swimming in a
public pool, selling bottled water on a public street. Amy Cooper, a New
York City Karen, notoriously called 911 claiming she was being attacked
in a public park by an African-American man after he asked her to put
her dog on a leash. Karens have become ubiquitous.
But they aren’t usually armed.
One
is wary of falling into the journalistic trope of labeling any three
similar incidents a “trend.” Yet, this sort of thing does seem to be
happening a lot lately. Days before the Michigan confrontation, one
Patricia McCloskey came out of her home in St. Louis awkwardly holding a
handgun as a group of Black Lives Matter protesters marched down the
street toward the mayor’s house. Her husband had a long gun.
Two
weeks before that, Joseph Max Fucheck, a male Karen — a Kevin? — in
Miami-Dade County pulled a gun on a black man, Dwayne Wynn. Wynn had
been standing across the street from his house talking to a neighbor
when Fucheck drove by and left a business card in his mailbox. When Wynn
retrieved it, Fucheck circled back, produced a handgun and, in a tirade
punctuated by racial slurs and other profanity, accused Wynn of
stealing “my property.” This, he said, is “why you have people like you
getting shot.”
Taken together, these incidents, all caught on
video, paint a grim picture of how many white Americans are responding
in this summer of racial justice uprising. Namely, with the desperate
panic of people who think the race war has come to their doorsteps.
They’re breaking out guns and circling the wagons in defense of
privilege and prerogative.
It’s a dangerous, combustible mindset,
egged on by the arsonist in the White House. Which makes one all the
more thankful for those white people who have not lost their damn minds.
If
the police murder of George Floyd was, for many African Americans,
superfluous confirmation of things we already knew, it was, for many
white Americans, a jolting revelation of things they never guessed. It
cannot be easy to learn that much of what you’ve been taught is a lie,
that you are the product of a system designed to inculcate and maintain
racism in you, to ensure there are voices you never hear, people you
never see, stories you never know.
Such a discovery can upend
one’s understanding of one’s country and oneself. So Karen got a gun.
But we’ll be a better country when Karen gets a book, when she emulates
morally courageous white people seeking to know things that have been
withheld. They’re the ones now reading Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robin DiAngelo,
Michelle Alexander and Douglas A. Blackmon, the ones now watching
“13th,” “I Am Not Your Negro,” “Do The Right Thing” and “Eyes On The
Prize,” the ones chanting “Black lives matter!” — even in lily-white
places where no black lives are lived.
In so doing, they bring
hope to a difficult crossroads of our national existence. Hard truths
are being told at last and so many white people are running away from
them.
We are redeemed by the ones rushing toward them instead.
It has turned from protesting something that YOU REALLY FEEL STRONG about.... to just walking the streets yelling and screaming about what pi_sses you off TODAY. Grow the hell up!
A new song is reportedly coming to NFL pregame ceremonies. (AP Photo/Roger Steinman)
Approaches to national anthem amid pandemic have varied
As
leagues slowly return to action amid the coronavirus pandemic, the
NFL’s addition of “Lift Ev'ry Voice And Sing” to their season openers is
one of a few ways leagues are handling the national anthem differently
in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and subsequent protests.
After
the vast majority of its players knelt while the national anthem was
played for an empty stadium, the National Women’s Soccer League changed
its policy to allow players to remain in the locker room while the song is played.
Major League Soccer has said it will take a different route by simply not playing the anthem, citing the lack of fans in the stands.
MLB and the NBA have not yet announced if they will do anything differently with the anthem when they return to action.
'You’ve been warned': Florida sheriff says he may deputize gun owners against protesters
Andrew Pantazi, The (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union
Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels in October, 2018.JACKSONVILLE,
Fla. – Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels, no stranger to making viral
videos appealing to tough-on-crime politics, released a video Tuesday
that said he will make “special deputies of every lawful gun owner in this county” if he feels the county is overwhelmed by protesters.
The
three-minute video shows Daniels standing in front of 18 deputies as he
derides civil rights protesters as godless disruptors and tells them to
stay out of Clay County, a suburb of Jacksonville.
"If we can’t
handle you, I’ll exercise the power and authority as the sheriff, and
I’ll make special deputies of every lawful gun owner in this county and
I’ll deputize them for this one purpose to stand in the gap between
lawlessness and civility," he said.
"That’s what we’re sworn to do. That’s what we’re going to do. You’ve been warned."
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Daniels,
the county’s first Black sheriff, is himself under investigation by the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement related to an affair he had with a
fellow officer when he was at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and a
subsequent false arrest of that officer. Watch: Black teens reflect on what it’s like to grow up in Tamir Rice's America Qualified immunity: Why police are protected from civil lawsuits, trials
Daniels
is a first-term sheriff up for reelection who has said he wants to one
day be a congressman. He is being challenged by six opponents, including
former Atlantic Beach Police Chief Michelle Cook, former Clay County
Sheriff’s Office Emergency Management Director Ben Carroll and Mike
Taylor, a former FDLE agent and state attorney’s investigator who has
earned the endorsement of former Gov. Jeb Bush. Post by ccsofl.
His challengers accused him of inviting chaos to Clay County and insulting the training necessary to become a sheriff’s deputy.
“We
train under intense situations to control the adrenaline dump,” Taylor
said, “and we don’t do a perfect job at it, but we train to be prepared
to make decisions under pressure. That’s necessary to be effective. To
think we can put anyone in that role and it’ll be OK, we’re asking for a
much bigger problem and inviting chaos and anarchy in the streets. The
citizens of Clay County deserve better than that.”
Taylor added
that deputizing private citizens could make the county liable to pay out
lawsuits if the newly deputized citizens don’t act appropriately. “I
don’t believe it was intended to be a pro-police message. I believe it
was intended to be a propaganda message. Real police professionalism
actually acknowledges that professionally trained police officers cannot
be replaced by a swearing-in ceremony.”
Cook said the video was a
sign Daniels wasn’t capable of leading. “What Daniels said yesterday
may sound tough and macho. But, instead, it is a call for vigilantism
and another signal that he is incapable of leading the sheriff’s
department and keeping Clay County safe.”
She added: “Instead of
dealing with real issues in a meaningful way, he is behaving like a
reality show sheriff and calling attention to himself. To make matters
worse, he pulled 18 officers off the streets to be used as props for his
taxpayer-funded campaign stunt. It’s no wonder morale is so low among
our fine officers.”
Carroll, who spent 14 years at the Sheriff’s
Office, said he runs a nonprofit that trains churches and private
schools, and he believes it’s foolish to think private citizens could
replace deputies.
“I’m sure that was a political production for
the sheriff. I doubt seriously that there will ever be the need in Clay
County to deputize all the citizens to stand in the gap. I believe the
sheriff’s department is totally capable of standing in the pike.”
Carroll
said he supports citizens owning and training to use firearms to
protect themselves, but he believes the Sherrif’s Office must be capable
of handling protesters on its own.
