51 responses to “Unrest.”

1. 

   Peter said on May 31, 2020 at 10:29 pm

   My niece’s apartment in Minneapolis is a couple of blocks away from where the incident happened.

   On Friday she and her coworkers were cleaning up their lab when the university told them that they should leave town until further notice, so she’s in Wisconsin for now.

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2. 

   Joe Kobiela said on May 31, 2020 at 11:05 pm

   Well I spent Monday and Tuesday night in Minneapolis, and honestly didn’t notice anything happening by the airport and tonight I flew my piper over downtown Fort Wayne, people were lined up over the MLK bridge with the police standing by on 4th street but it looked peaceful. So what do you do now? How much restraint do you expect from the police and National Guard? As I write this they are starting to move toward the White House lighting fires as they go, no matter who is the president I’m afraid if they try to breach the fence it’s all over and you will see casualties. I really think the ones rioting don’t give a damn about what happened in Minneapolis they were just looking for any excuse to act out, are they right wing or far left? Remains to be seen,no matter who it is they need to be stopped.
   Pilot Joe

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3. 

   LAMary said on May 31, 2020 at 11:23 pm

   Same here with a peaceful demonstration followed by looting, fires, etc. The looters are targeting areas with trendy stuff and they seem to be pretty organized. They come out of the the store they’ve looted and there’s a ride waiting for them. In one case some guys dragged an ATM out of a nail salon and a pickup truck pulled up and loaded it in. No license plates on the pickup. Supposedly looters are communicating on social media about where to go the next day. Not sure if I believe that but if so the cops should be looking at social media.

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4. 

   Sherri said on June 1, 2020 at 12:09 am

   Joe, I expect law enforcement to show enough restraint to not fire projectiles at people who are clearly identified as journalists, or who are not doing anything violent or threatening. I expect them not to spray pepper spray at people helping other people. I expect them not to knock people down who are just standing on a sidewalk.

   I expect them not to do any of the 77 things in this thread: https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1267297607782731777 (scroll upwards)

   I expect them to show the same level of restraint they managed to show when assholes with guns were screaming in their faces.

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5. 

   Kath said on June 1, 2020 at 1:48 am

   Here in South Minneapolis, we are beyond the looting stage. The shots of people walking out of the Lake Street Target clutching TVs and Legos seem almost quaint now.

   Our friends live in one of the 300 units in the former Sears building, which has been a prized target for looters and arsonists. Residents and security guards stood watch for three nights, putting out small fires and fending people off, until the National Guard arrived at 4 a.m. Saturday.

   Friday night, someone burned down the gas station in our neighborhood. It is less than 100 feet from an apartment building with 110 units in it. It’s nowhere near any of the protests or large gatherings. A gas station in my brother’s St. Paul neighborhood was also burned down. Again, no connection to protests.

   The fire department is not responding to fire calls in some areas for their own safety. We got a “you’re on your own” message from the city telling us to get anything out of your yard that could be used as a projectile or started on fire, connect up your garden hose, and if you’ve got a wooden fence you might want to water it down.

   Yesterday, the neighborhood association to the north of us sent out an email asking people to bring firefighting equipment: buckets, shovels, bags of sand, wrenches to open hydrants, and any fire hoses that people could find in parking garages or in burned out buildings. Last night we kept hearing helicopters going over our house, which is strange because we were more than two miles from any of the organized protests. They were National Guard helicopters getting water from Lake Nokomis to drop on fires.

   All day today, we’ve been hearing reports of cars with no plates or out of state plates parked in neighborhoods with cans of gasoline, etc. in them. The neighborhood association tweeted that a truck rolled into the parking lot of our public library with gas cans in the bed, but they sped off when confronted. Are these things really happening? I’m not sure. Since curfew, Nextdoor is filled with reports of suspicious vehicles and suspicious people in the neighborhood. And in a weird twist for Nextdoor, all the suspicious people are white.

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6. 

   lisa said on June 1, 2020 at 4:14 am

   They had big problems in Columbus and Dayton during both of their protests.
   Yesterday in my Ohio city, which is in between those two major cities, we had a peaceful downtown protest too.
   A few hours after the protest ended and the protesters went home, folks from out of town went downtown and began setting dumpsters on fire and busted out multiple windows. Someone called in state highway patrol helicopters and officers plus police from many local areas and they ran those people out of town, from what I’ve heard.

   Very unnerving. Tonight they are having a prayer vigil downtown.

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7. 

   David C said on June 1, 2020 at 6:21 am

   I’m not sure a bunch of snot-nosed future Brett Kavanaughs from Eau Claire going to Minneapolis to loot liquor stores count as outside agitators, but an AIM patrol caught them and had a little chat.

   https://twitter.com/AthenaCloud/status/1266731524679966720

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8. 

   alex said on June 1, 2020 at 7:15 am

   They published the names, cities and genders and races of all arrested in Fort Wayne. Almost no one from outside the area, and if they were, not from very far away. Only one stood out as an outsider, a black man from North Carolina.

   Here, as in many places, the crowd didn’t turn violent until the police started shooting tear gas cannisters. In fact, one young man lost an eye when he was shot in the face with a canister. It happens that he is employed with one of the local news organizations and his colleagues who were at the scene dispute the police, who claim he was injured when he tried to pick up a fired canister and lob it back at the police.

   It’s reported that protests were peaceful in communities where the police joined the protesters rather than antagonizing them. And on the third day of protests in Fort Wayne, the cops held back. And guess what? No violence.

   Well, I’m about to venture into the zone. The ground floor windows of the office building where I work are boarded up. I’m lugging my office equipment back to my office after working from home these last few months. Dreading it. Despising it. If I could afford to retire right this minute I would.

   This little respite was well worth it, though, and it couldn’t have happened at a better time of year. I got to experience for the first time ever what day-to-day life is really like living here. Weeds really do come from nowhere and grow a foot tall in a day. Birds make nests from the most unexpected things — I got to see one pulling matted cat hair out of the outdoor cat hut. And I got to see bluebirds galore. Never knew so many were nesting on this property. And I had a fabulous time demolishing our old garden and planning and executing a new one, and would never have found the luxury of such time to do so otherwise.

   So now it’s back to the tedious treadmill of office life. For another ten years, I suppose, unless ‘Rona comes roaring back because our governor was too eager to please the Despot-in-Chief and his goober militia.

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9. 

   Suzanne said on June 1, 2020 at 8:28 am

   I am not working from home, but I am enjoying the demise of my personal outside activities: social, church, etc. I am liking eating dinner at 7:00 pm which we can do because we have nowhere else to be in the evening. I’ve baked, read, cleaned out some cupboards, marathon watched Mad Men (which is off Netflix in a few weeks), & walked. Retirement is a few years away, but I am not worried about what I will do all day. I am more worried about how I will adjust to what was my normal life.

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10. 

    Heather said on June 1, 2020 at 10:11 am

    There is a social media post going around that is calling for violence on the north side of Chicago today, including my neighborhood, designed to look like it is from black people (an icon of a fist in the Black Power symbol). It’s pretty obviously fake/a manipulation tactic but a lot of people around here are freaked out. A guy in my neighborhood group did a long, amazing post pointing out that it is probably from white supremacists seeking to sow fear and division. I admit it triggered me even as I knew what it was.

    There’s looting all over the city and reports of looting not too far from me that seem to be organized–people with buses, vans, etc. Maybe just opportunists of all stripes–it’s hard to know, which is why I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.

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11. 

    LAMary said on June 1, 2020 at 10:43 am

    The National Guard is here in LA and anyone who is old enough to remember 1992 is reminded of the weeks of those military vehicles on the streets. We felt occupied, or at least I did and I doubt if I was the only one.
    The demonstrations continue here and the looting escalates. Some of the areas where the looters are showing up are not anywhere near demonstrations. Rodeo Drive, for instance. The Gucci store was hit early on. Expensive sneaker stores are getting hit all over the place.
    If you are able to get into the NYT take a look at the video they put together from security videos and cell phone cameras. It’s appropriately horrifying and heartbreaking.

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12. 

    ROGirl said on June 1, 2020 at 10:55 am

    I was watching footage of people breaking windows in Santa Monica yesterday. REI was one of the stores being looted. Shoes, TVs, camping equipment. Whatever.

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13. 

    Jeff Borden said on June 1, 2020 at 10:59 am

    Things were bad in Chicago on Friday and Saturday night. Largely peaceful marches during the day were followed by violent rampages when the sun went down. There definitely is a method to some of this madness. The mayor noted surveillance footage of large rental trucks, mostly U-Hauls, appearing near looted Walmart and Target stores, so thieves are clearly using the distractions to make a big haul. But in the Latinx neighborhood of Pilsen, residents stood guard in front of local businesses, and threw rocks and bottles at cars cruising by looking for a score.

    I have no patience for those who use the murder of a man by police officers as an excuse to grab a 60-inch flat screen. Many of the retailers looted already are in deep trouble because of the economic collapse from the pandemic. But the always reliable Onion made a point about real looting by having a private equity firms exec explain that the proper way to loot a business is to buy it at a severely reduced price and then slowly bleed it to death.

    https://www.theonion.com/protestors-criticized-for-looting-businesses-without-fo-1843735351

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14. 

    nancy said on June 1, 2020 at 11:23 am

    As bad as the National Guard is, recall that in 2005, the Bush administration sent fucking Blackwater into New Orleans to keep the peace post-Katrina. Many horror stories out of those hopped-up steroid junkies.

    In the 50-year coverage of the Detroit ’67 disturbances, there was some discussion about how the turning point wasn’t when the N.G. arrived, but the U.S. Army. Those guys were Vietnam-seasoned, and weren’t as freaked out by an unstable situation as the greenhorns in the Guard. The random gunfire went way down once they arrived.

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15. 

    Heather said on June 1, 2020 at 11:42 am

    Welp, Tom Cotton is calling for the military to attack US citizens. https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton/status/1267473779762094080

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16. 

    LAMary said on June 1, 2020 at 11:50 am

    Blackwater in post Katrina New Orleans. It’s hard to think of a worse combination.

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17. 

    Scout said on June 1, 2020 at 12:41 pm

    Here in Phoenix protesters were not only protesting the brutal murder of George May, but also that of Dion Johnson. This FB post is from Steve May, a former state legislator who was at the Friday night protest.

    “I was at the protest in Phoenix last night. I didn’t riot. Neither did almost anyone else.

    Last night I joined perhaps 2000 others at Eastlake Park in Phoenix to cry, pray and protest the death of Dion Johnson. The Army veteran was shot and killed by the Arizona State Police (DPS) last week on Memorial Day. There is no video. The government refuses to cooperate with the family or answer to the public. His mother would like his personal effects returned to her. She would also like the name of the man who killed her son, an investigation and, if warranted, a prosecution. I listened to her and numerous family members speak about Dion. He was loved. He is dead. His daughter will soon turn 15.

    The crowd was probably 85% not black. The dominant skin color was white with brown people represented roughly according to the demographic of our community. Nearly all came with masks, but there were people passing out disposables for those without. We started at 7pm with room for social distance but that was gone by 8pm as the crowd swelled and the police helicopter buzzed us overhead.

    The microphone was reserved for a couple of well-spoken organizers reminding us that we were assembled for peace and to give the public an opportunity to hear from the family about the dead soldier and mourn with them. His mother wailed and the crowd remained silent. She spoke of her faith in the police shattered just last week when her son was shot, woken while sleeping in his car at the side of the road. “We sleep, we die” the crowd chanted. This was a funeral for a tragic loss of life more than it was a protest of anything.

    An angry cousin interrupted her own crying on stage with a bunch of “Fucks!” in a search for her words and a little blonde girl, who might have been ten years old, yelled during a pregnant pause, “We bring you peace!”

    We turned on the cheap electric candles that were passed out and a woman guided us through a breathing exercise and asked us to visualize peace.

    One of the many family speakers repeated the phrase “black lives matter.” The mother grabbed the microphone and said “All lives matter.” The white people in the crowd groaned and I felt paralyzed. A black lady in the audience provided relief and yelled “Yes, but that ain’t why we are here.” The crowd agreed. Some speakers came back to this idea. Yes, all lives matter. White lives matter. But we know that. We have to be reminded that black lives matter also. And we were at a vigil for a dead man born black.

    The two hour protest/vigil/funeral concluded with a prayer from a preacher with a call for justice and healing. The organizer then said a dance party would begin, because that’s what a modern revolution needs. It wasn’t my kind of music, so I decided to leave. So did most.

    I drove away in my car while others walked down Jefferson Street. I arrived home when the crowd of thousands reached the Phoenix Police Headquarters. I watched a live stream on ABC15 News. An hour or so into the peaceful gathering I watched a handful of people shake the temporary barricade fence between the street and the sidewalk and the police filed out of the building in full riot gear. Loud bang (non-lethal) shots were fired into the air. As more time passed, I watched as people I recognized stood, sat or kneeled, sometimes with their hands in the air. I also saw others I did not recognize agitating the crowd and the media or painting graffiti. And then I saw a water bottle fly through the air and hit a cop trying to get a drink himself. That cop loaded his noise making gun and fired in the air, joined by several others. More time passed as the police repeatedly, perhaps for more than an hour, asked people to “disperse.” Some did. Then the “unlawful assembly” order was announced about 11pm and chemical agents (tear gas and smoke bombs) were used on the crowd. Someone other than the police launched fireworks into the air. The crowd dispersed and a few, seriously just a few out of the thousands, began breaking windows on buildings and police cars which I saw from the camera feed of the news helicopter.

    And this morning I awoke to stories in the media, social and conventional, about riots, vandalism and smashed windows. Yes, that happened. But it isn’t most of what happened. It’s true, but it isn’t the whole truth or even most of it. We don’t know if the people who did it even know or care about Dion Johnson, George Floyd or any of the other things we thousands had gathered to protest.”

    Then on Saturday night a whole bunch of white people were caught on camera smashing the windows at the Apple store at snooty Scottsdale Fashion Square. THAT incident seems to be the one that prompted Gov Douchey to clamp down an 8PM curfew.

    In LA our sons live close by where the Melrose riot raged out of control all Saturday night, with people in the street in front of their house and helicopters and sirens all night. They had a bag packed in case they needed to bail.

    While this is happening from sea to shining sea, Mr Tough Guy Thug cowered and tweeted from the White House basement bunker, blaming all of the violence on ‘antifa’ and ‘the far left’. While I do not discount that some of the violence is from the left, it’s pretty damn obvious that much of this escalation is coming from his ‘good people’ collection of white supremacists, QAnon, MAGAts and rogue cops flashing white power symbols. His own staff has discouraged him from making any public statements because they understand he does not have it in him to say or do anything to help the situation.

    A global pandemic, 105,000 Americans dead, 40M unemployed, black people still being murdered in cold blood, riots and looting. 2020 can please fuck the fuck off.

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18. 

    Sherri said on June 1, 2020 at 1:33 pm

    Were the rioters and looters from out of town or local? Were they left wing or right wing? Were they white or black? The answer to those questions is yes, all of the above.

    It’s scary, sure, but not nearly as scary to me as the way law enforcement attacked journalists in city after city, even when they knew they were being recorded. That is a breakdown of social order on a much higher scale. The police, who are given a badge and the right to administer force in the name of the state, took that right into their own hands, and administered that force wherever they wanted, certain in their lack of accountability. This is what immigrants have been facing with Border Patrol, and it’s finally come home to roost. Trump has made it clear that he thinks police should attack people who are his enemies, and journalists are his enemies.

    This did not begin with Trump, but the scale it has reached is breathtaking. What we saw in our streets was not an overwhelmed police force trying to maintain order, but a pissed off, undisciplined army taking out its frustrations on the easiest targets. The videos from NYC are especially telling, where you see officers in white shirts, which indicate command, losing it and attacking civilians who have done nothing more than shout at them from a distance.

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    • 

      nancy said on June 1, 2020 at 2:44 pm

      You speak the truth.

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19. 

    Deborah said on June 1, 2020 at 1:45 pm

    I usually go to protests because I think they work, they get attention, they show people care about whatever the protest is about, the more people who participate the better they work, IMO. But I have no desire to go to any of the protests at this point in time because of the virus. I think the possibility of violence isn’t what would keep me away because I would leave before dark when things start getting bad. But I’m really worried about the virus flaring up again. I haven’t heard much about other protests in Santa Fe or other places in NM. They’re not very well organized if there are more around here. There was one in Santa Fe that about 200 people showed up for but there was hardly any advanced notice. I think I read that there was at least one in Albuquerque but I’ve not heard much about it. The violence is terribly unfortunate and I hope it stops soon.

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20. 

    Jim said on June 1, 2020 at 2:34 pm

    The Indiana Superintendent of state Police just gave a VERY good short statement in the press conference. He mentioned all the cities they supported Saturday night (Merrillville, Laporte , South Bend, Mishawaka, Elkhart, Fort Wayne, Anderson, Kokomo and more). I’ll repeat what I saw and believe: these are overwhelmingly hurting and angry local citizens. In Fort Wayne, NOTHING would have happened save for the incredibly poor command decision to use tear gas, pepper balls, and mace to disperse the protestors. Each time they had blocked Clinton Street, but each time the police ALREADY had traffic diverted. The vandalism on Friday only occurred after the third round of gas, and police aggressively forcing the crowd to disperse.

    Saturday evening is when the crowd fouht back the most. The police started gassing at 5:30, and things went downhill from there, including a local student losing an eye when he was struck by a canister.

    The thing I appreciated most about the Superintendent’s remarks today was to direct anger and frustration AT HIM.

    Our own Sheriff Gladieux directed the assaults Saturday, his deputies assisted by city SWAT and State Police forces in full riot gear. Four hours of this was documented by a 21 Alive camera operator live streaming from a rooftop.

    I have been watching police command do things like this for 60 years. I don’t think many of them can help themselves, and it makes me sick.

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21. 

    Suzanne said on June 1, 2020 at 3:59 pm

    Ah, Sheriff Gladieux. That explains so much. Maybe he just had to go to the bathroom and got mad when he couldn’t get through.

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22. 

    David C said on June 1, 2020 at 4:04 pm

    One generation removed from qualifying for an Irish passport. I really wish I could get one. I’m so tired of this.

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23. 

    4dbirs said on June 1, 2020 at 4:15 pm

    David G. I too have looked into Irish citizenship as my husband does qualify but Ireland is still a very conservative country. It was only a few years ago that the Irish government allowed a woman to die of sepsis when an abortion would have saved her, even though the child was going to die, even though the mother was going to die.

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24. 

    Mark P said on June 1, 2020 at 4:24 pm

    It’s perfectly OK for Trump to destroy the government, right? No problem there, no outrage there.

    I have been pretty impressed by the mayor and police chief in Atlanta. The chief, a white, gay woman, said that black police officers are exactly like the rest of the black community when they take their uniforms off — frustrated with the never-ending racism of the US. The mayor and chief fired a couple of cops the day after they were videoed manhandling a young man and a young woman. The chief said she knew and worked with them, and that they were good people, but she had to live up to the standards she said she holds the rest of the force to. So they were gone.

    Nevertheless, I have little hope that anything is going to change for the better in this country. I’m afraid we’re heading down a road that ends with the US as a banana republic, more like the USSR than the US we imagined we might live in. All the Trump supporters think they’re going to be the ones in charge; they never see the puppet strings until they get wrapped around their necks.

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25. 

    St Bitch said on June 1, 2020 at 4:27 pm

    Sherri @18 – just ditto!

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26. 

    Dexter Friend said on June 1, 2020 at 4:39 pm

    My grandson, 27, has generally fucked up every aspect of his life from Jump Street. When he finally got his license to be a helicopter rescue medic out in Las Vegas, we all hoped he had turned for the best…so after the first hairy rescue of a hiker from a cliff in Red Rock, he quit, and then made friends with 3 sharp business school grads who , by searching tirelessly via a business model, for location and probable success, they all moved to Portland, leased an empty storefront, and with their remarkable skills built a beautiful, hip CBD store, and opened it smack-dab in the middle of the pandemic. Still, they were making the nut, and were set for success when the pandemic finally loosens thing up a little. Saturday night…yep…smashed, looted, all product stolen, interior of the store was a total loss, simply ruined. And …the future? They are going to do it all over again. His business partners seem really set on this. Last I heard, their Seattle store was spared, so far.

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27. 

    David C said on June 1, 2020 at 5:04 pm

    4dbirds, Ireland looks to me to have shed a lot of its conservatism. They legalized abortion by national referendum, same sex marriage is legal, a tenth the gun murder rate. I’m sure they have the bat-shit crazy conservatives, especially in the North, but they’re not as prevalent or loud as here.

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28. 

    Deborah said on June 1, 2020 at 5:29 pm

    Ireland may be ok now but it was not so long ago they had their own set of troubles. If I could move to another country right now I’d go to France, and we were there in December when the transit strike was going on and they were having unrest. France or Finland. Education is free, health situation much much better than here.

    And what’s up with Tom Cotton? That guy is scary as hell. He wants to send in the real military instead of the pretend militaries, otherwise known as police.

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29. 

    Heather said on June 1, 2020 at 5:29 pm

    Plus if you get an Irish passport you can live and work anywhere in the EU.

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30. 

    David C said on June 1, 2020 at 5:37 pm

    Yeah, Finland would be Nirvana for me. A whole nation on introverts. I relate to each and every one of these.

    https://www.boredpanda.com/finnish-nightmares-introvert-comics-karoliina-korhonen/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

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31. 

    Scout said on June 1, 2020 at 6:11 pm

    This is some sobering, scary shit right here.
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/war-on-the-streets

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32. 

    LAMary said on June 1, 2020 at 6:13 pm

    What’s up with Gretchen Whitmer lifting the lockdown? Did she just figure the hell with it?

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33. 

    Sherri said on June 1, 2020 at 6:26 pm

    Posse comitatus, motherfuckers.

    It’s a whole administration full of Gordon Liddys and Oliver Norths, amoral sociopaths.

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34. 

    LAMary said on June 1, 2020 at 7:09 pm

    Holy shit.

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35. 

    Jakash said on June 1, 2020 at 7:21 pm

    Kathleen Parker, then and now:

    https://twitter.com/Rschooley/status/1266767146488487938

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36. 

    Jakash said on June 1, 2020 at 7:59 pm

    Apropos of nothing, here’s something fun:

    https://twitter.com/engineeringvids/status/1266697644325257216

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37. 

    Peter said on June 1, 2020 at 9:42 pm

    David, that abortion and same sex referendums passed in every county in Ireland except for one. Of course with my luck that’s the county my wife’s from and wants us to relocate to.

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38. 

    Sherri said on June 1, 2020 at 10:06 pm

    If God really worked the way all those fundamentalists believed, there would have been a massive lightning strike in front of St John’s this evening when Trump held up that Bible.

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39. 

    beb said on June 1, 2020 at 10:16 pm

    Towards the bottom of this article is a series of twits about white supremicists being in or around the protests.
    https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/06/01/how-trumps-enablers-are-exploiting-the-mass-protests/
    So between cops waiting for a riot and the Proud Boys willing to give them one, black people can just sit this out for a while.

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40. 

    Sherri said on June 2, 2020 at 12:41 am

    Tom Cotton is a scary fuck. He’s as evil as Trump, but smart. He’s a Harvard law grad, an Army veteran, and as mean as they come. He’s the guy who held up confirmation of an ambassador Obama appointed because he knew she was a friend of Obama’s. She eventually died without ever being confirmed.

    Speaking of Harvard, I saw someone on Twitter say it was time to investigate whether it was a factory for sociopaths or merely attracted them.

    https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/5/29/harvard-anthropology-gender-issues/

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41. 

    Dexter Friend said on June 2, 2020 at 2:10 am

    Trump at St. John’s with The Bible aloft, there for only a photo op, which ensured dozens to be gassed and beaten by cops over in Lafayette Park to clear them out with swift brutal force so the Secret Service could escort Trump to the church grounds. So , every priest and pastor/preacher, every rabbi and probably coven members cringed…Trump’s Crusade revealed: unleash the fucking US Army onto the citizens, capture the looters, minimum sentencing requirement 10 years, then they’ll know Trump meant business, by gawd. And oh yes, Trump said all that.

    As The Big Lebowski said, “The goddamn plane has crashed into the mountain!”

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42. 

    Randy said on June 2, 2020 at 10:17 am

    Teenage daughter is going to the protest here in Winnipeg on Friday night at 6, we always come to these things late in our corner of the woods. Hoping it’s all civil, or that at least she’s surrounded by the civil.

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43. 

    Jakash said on June 2, 2020 at 12:05 pm

    This is extremely dangerous to our democracy, Karen. Holy shit!

    “How America’s largest local TV owner turned its news anchors into soldiers in Trump’s war on the media:”

    https://twitter.com/Deadspin/status/980175772206993409

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44. 

    Sherri said on June 2, 2020 at 2:10 pm

    After watching what Trump did to protestors in DC last night, can anyone deny that DC shouldn’t have statehood? DC has a larger population than either Wyoming or Vermont, and deserves representation. And a governor who can make decisions about law enforcement and national guard are deployed, and whether military troops are brought in.

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45. 

    beb said on June 2, 2020 at 2:32 pm

    Things like Sinclair TV is why we need to return to anti-monopoly enforcement. Which requires turning away from Bork’s principle that as long as prices don’t go up market consolidation is OK. Market consolidation is exactly what’s bad about monopolies.

    And Sherri is so right about Tom Cotton. A True Believer in alll the things that are bad about Republicans.

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46. 

    Julie Robinson said on June 2, 2020 at 4:40 pm

    The Thug in Chief made it clear last night that he will do anything, anything at all to retain power. I woke up with in a panic attack last night, because I now believe he will find a way to circumvent the November election. It’s left me shaken to the core and non-functional today.

    I’ve been reading How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi for an online discussion group that starts tomorrow. What a white lady thing to do, right? When the group was announced 10 days ago the library had every copy available to borrow and now they are all checked out and on hold. No renewals will be possible. I’ll probably end up buying it as an ebook because the print is too small for me in the book.

    I just checked Facebook and our daughter was at a protest giving out water and face masks. It was peaceful, and almost everyone was already wearing a mask. I’m praying it continues to be peaceful.

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47. 

    Deborah said on June 2, 2020 at 5:07 pm

    Me too Julie, I woke up in a cold sweat In the wee hours this morning about the hideous situation Trump is enabling. I really went off the deep end when I reached for my iPhone at about 2am and got a message I have never seen before that cell data was not available. I turned my phone off a couple of times trying to get things back to normal. Meanwhile I was freaking out that we were under cyberattack by either our own military or another adversarial country taking advantage of our weak leadership. I really did think that. I didn’t want to wake up my husband to reach over to look at his phone because his allergies have been so bad it has messed up his sleep for weeks. I agonized worrying my head off that we were in the midst of an even more unbelievable crisis than we already are. Eventually my husband stirred and he checked his phone and everything was working on the internet. I had to take a Benadryl to go back to sleep after that even though my allergies didn’t require that I do so. The whole time I was awake worrying I had a huge lump in my throat that felt like I wanted to cry and finally I was able to and got some relief. I am astounded how stressful this situation is. Trump is making things worse by the minute, my stress levels haven’t been this high for ages, it is taking years off of my life.

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48. 

    Suzanne said on June 2, 2020 at 5:08 pm

    Ms Fiorina’s twitter thread is sensible, coherent, and empathetic. The read the responses.
    https://twitter.com/carlyfiorina/status/1267800448628555778?s=21

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49. 

    JodiP said on June 2, 2020 at 5:41 pm

    Hi everyone, just dropping in to say hi. I too am very worried about Trump and the Republicans and what they will do this fall. There is a lot of community pulling together here in Minneapolis to make sure people are fed and can get basic necessities. We did some running around getting stuff for people on Sunday.

    I have an amazing county commissioner who is at the memorial site twice a day; the murder happened in her district. She and other peaceful protesters were shot at rubber bullets on Friday (?) and today when when she asked the sheriff about it the weekly commissioner meeting, she was met with silence. Then he got praised by other commissioners for doing such a great job.

    At her instigation, there are barriers being put in place to block of the memorial. It is always peacful there, people coming together in community. I think the violence is getting rarer, but there are black activists who are guarding various businesses.

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50. 

    Dexter Friend said on June 2, 2020 at 5:44 pm

    nance…Not sure, but the white-haired speaker today, covered by the Freep live-feed, the guy in the tee shirt, was David Cole or his clone. Dave is a retired UAW committeeman who I met years ago at a political convention in NYC. He is a true lifelong radical and it was great seeing him still fighting the fight…I didn’t catch exactly where the rally was held, except somewhere in Detroit.

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