Name: Anonymous 2020-02-18 17:33
I'm so sad right now.
Array.from (document.getElementsByClassName ("trip")).forEach (e => { e.parentNode.parentNode.children [1].innerHTML = "I am a child seeking attention."; }) https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#1_October_2020_(Right_wing_extremists_infiltrating_thugs) -- An FBI report from 2006 warned that right wing extremists would try to infiltrate US thug departments. We know that a large fraction of thugs are right-wing extremists. Whether this is the result of active infiltration, I don't know, but I don't think it matters much. -- https://theintercept.com/2020/09/29/police-white-supremacist-infiltration-fbi/ -- Unredacted FBI Document Sheds New Light on White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement -- September 29 2020 -- A 2006 intelligence assessment reveals that officials had concerns about the infiltration of police departments for years but failed to warn the public. >>314
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#2_October_2020_(Cars_driven_into_Black_Lives_Matter_protesters) -- 104 drivers have driven cars into Black Lives Matter protesters since May 25. Some of them were terrorist attacks, and 39 drivers face criminal charges. Some right-wing fanatics escaped prosecution by claiming they were afraid of the protesters they had driven into the middle of. -- https://eu.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/08/vehicle-ramming-attacks-66-us-since-may-27/5397700002/ -- Cars have hit demonstrators 104 times since George Floyd protests began -- updatedate="2020-09-27T22:55:35Z"
Dozens of people had gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a third night of protests demanding justice for Breonna Taylor when a car barreled through the crowd, hitting several protesters. "It just went straight into the middle of the crowd and veered off toward the left," said Samantha Colombo, 25, an Albuquerque resident who said they've been protesting with dozens of other people for three nights at the same intersection. No one appeared to be injured, Colombo said. Video of the incident began to circulate on Twitter on Friday. "For the first two nights, the police blocked off the streets. Today they did not, so we had a couple cars blocking the streets for us and people lining up their bikes," Colombo said. "There was this one car that for a few minutes was just beeping for a minute or so straight, so a few people went up to the car to get them to move, and they eventually just started going." Amid thousands of protests nationwide this summer against police brutality, dozens of drivers have plowed into crowds of protesters marching in roadways, raising questions about the drivers' motivations.
Witnesses, law enforcement and terrorism experts said some of the vehicle incidents appear to be targeted and politically motivated; others appear to be situations in which the driver became frightened or enraged by protesters surrounding their vehicle. "There are groups that do want people to take their cars and drive them into Black Lives Matters protesters so that they won’t protest anymore. There’s an element of terrorism there. Is it all of them? No," said J.J. MacNab, a fellow at George Washington University's Program on Extremism. "I look at it as an anti-protester group of acts, some of which are white supremacists, some not." There have been at least 104 incidents of people driving vehicles into protests from May 27 through Sept. 5, including 96 by civilians and eight by police, according to Ari Weil, a terrorism researcher at the University of Chicago's Project on Security and Threats who spoke with USA TODAY this summer. Weil began tracking the incidents as protests sprung up in the wake of George Floyd's death in police custody. There have been at least two fatalities, in Seattle and in Bakersfield, California.
Weil said that by analyzing news coverage, court documents and patterns of behavior – such as when people allegedly yelled slurs at protesters or turned around for a second hit – he determined that at least 43 of the incidents were malicious, and 39 drivers have been charged. Most of the incidents happened in June, in the weeks following Floyd's May 25 killing, Weil said, and half of the incidents happened by June 7. While incidents continue to happen, they've trended downward since then, he said "While these incidents were clustered in the beginning of the protest period, they continue to occur," Weil said on Twitter on Thursday. "As violent rhetoric intensifies in the lead up to the election, I worry about an uptick in these incidents."
To date, I've tracked motorists driving into protests from 5/27 to 9/5. There have been 104 incidents of drivers going into protests, with 96 by civilians and 8 by police. 39 drivers have been charged. In 43 cases, I have coded the driver as having malicious intent. pic.twitter.com/6uhZ3O0mSg — Ari Weil (@AriWeil) September 24, 2020
New York, California, Oregon and Florida have seen the greatest number of incidents, according to Weil's data. Just this past week, drivers struck protesters in Denver, in Laramie, Wyoming, and in Los Angeles, where one person was hospitalized, according to local news reports. On Saturday, in Yorba Linda, California, south of Los Angeles, a woman believed to be supporting Black Lives Matter with the group Caravan4Justice drove through a crowd of protesters and counterprotesters, injuring two people who were transported by ambulance, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Department. A man had possible broken legs, and a woman had "multiple injuries all over her body," according to Carrie Braun, director of public affairs for the department. The department released a statement late Friday saying the driver would be booked for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and that the investigation is ongoing.
Many of the incidents have been captured in photos or videos shared on social media: Earlier this summer, two New York police vehicles plowed into demonstrators as the crowd pushed a barricade against one of them; a woman in a black SUV drove through a crowd in Denver; a Detroit police vehicle accelerated away with a man flailing on the hood. One of the more "clear-cut" cases of malice, MacNab said, was in early June in Lakeside, Virginia. An "avowed Klansman" drove up to protesters on a roadway, revved his engine, then drove through the crowd, wounding one person, Henrico County Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor said in a statement. The 36-year-old man was "a propagandist of Confederate ideology," Taylor said. He was charged with four counts of assault with hate crimes, two counts of felonious attempted malicious wounding and one count of felony hit and run. "We lived through this in Virginia in Charlottesville in 2017," Taylor said, referring to when a neo-Nazi plowed his car through a crowd of counterprotesters at a Unite the Right rally, killing Heather Heyer. The driver was sentenced to life in prison on hate crime charges.
In June in Visalia, California, occupants of a Jeep displaying a "Keep America Great" flag hit two protesters in the road, causing minor injuries, according to Visalia police. Witnesses said those inside the car mocked protesters by cupping their ears as if they couldn't hear their chants. The protesters started chanting profanities and throwing items before they approached the Jeep, which accelerated, hitting the protesters before driving off. County prosecutors didn't charge the driver, saying the protesters involved weren't "seriously injured" and the driver and his passengers felt threatened. Other civilians and police officers have similarly claimed that they drove through protesters because they were afraid of them and wanted to escape the situation. MacNab noted that "some of that fear is going to come from racism and bigotry." Officials in Minnesota said in June that a 35-year-old semitruck driver who drove through a crowd of thousands of protesters on a bridge did not deliberately target the group.
A lawyer for a man who hit two protesters in Seattle, killing one, said the crash was a "horrible, horrible accident." Prosecutors filed three felony charges against the man. Video of many of the vehicle rammings has circulated on social media, including white supremacist websites, according to MacNab, who said she has seen "revolting" commentary on videos shared to white supremacist accounts on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. "This has become something of a meme in white supremacy circles. There’ll be a picture of a car driving into a crowd, and then there will be a humorous remark about it. It’s definitely part of the discourse," said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at Brookings who researches counterterrorism and Middle East security. "They’re doing a lot of kidding-not-kidding sort of humor ... which is the modern white supremacist world." Byman said earlier this summer that he's seen a meme shared by the Charlottesville killer circulating in white supremacist circles. Right-wing extremists turned the man into "a bit of a saint" after the killing, MacNab said.
Since the grand jury indictment in the Breonna Taylor case Wednesday, and the protests that have erupted in the ensuing days, the use of particular Twitter hashtags referencing such memes has more than doubled, according to Weil. "These 'Run Them Over' memes continue to circulate. Twitter said they were going to block the hashtag All Lives Splatter, but it still remains in use," he said. Vehicles have been used as tools of terror for decades, but it's become more common in the past 10 years, experts said. The Islamic State disseminated information about how to use the tactic, said Lorenzo Vidino, director of George Washington University's Program on Extremism. "Between 2014 and 2017, we saw several attacks, and ISIS was very meticulous in a variety of languages that gave clear instructions about what trucks to use, how to rent a truck and how to hit a group," Vidino said. "ISIS made it a science."
Most of those attacks were in Europe and the Middle East, Vidino said. Terrorists influenced by the Islamic State used vehicles to kill people in Nice, France, in 2016 and on London Bridge in 2017. That year, a man influenced by the Islamic State killed eight people when he drove a pickup about 1 mile in Lower Manhattan. Other extremist groups borrowed the tactic, Vidino said. In 2018, a member of a misogynist online subculture drove a van into downtown Toronto, killing 10 people. The vehicular attacks have been "the trademark of the affiliated wannabes that are at times extremely deadly," he said. The tactic is cheap and doesn't take much coordination or organizational support. It's also "camera-friendly," Vidino said.
"The Charlottesville attack, it killed one person, but it stuck in everybody’s mind because you have the spectacle of bodies flying. It’s catchy. And that’s what a lot of extremists pursue. It terrorized people," he said. In the U.S., the tactic was introduced by the far-right around 2016 to attack Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline, Weil said in a Twitter thread. That's when "the right began creating memes to celebrate" the attacks, he said. "I would be very careful in the middle of the street," MacNab said. "There's a significant amount of people who think that any protester hit in the street has it coming, and that’s a dangerous mindset."
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jan-apr.html#12_February_2020_(Fighting_voter_suppression) -- How Advocates Are Fighting Voter Suppression. -- https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/02/07/how-advocates-are-fighting-voter-suppression -- Friday, February 07, 2020 -- As the 2020 election season gets under way, activists are beginning to push back against voter disenfranchisement across the country. >>320
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/end-child-marriage-u-s-you-might-be-surprised-who-n1050471 -- End child marriage in the U.S.? You might be surprised at who's opposed -- Sept. 8, 2019 -- Conservatives have found some surprising allies as they fight efforts to raise the marriage age.
A bill that would have ended child marriage in Idaho — which has no minimum age for couples who want to wed — died in the Statehouse this year. Republican lawmakers, who control the Legislature, opposed it, including state Rep. Bryan Zollinger, who said it "went too far." "Obviously, I'm against child marriage," the GOP lawmaker told NBC News. "But basically marriage is a contract between people that shouldn't require government permission."
Even as more states take action to end child marriage, concerns about government overreach, along with scant data about the extent of the problem, have driven skepticism to reform across the country. The divide has sometimes created unlikely alliances between conservative politicians and liberal-leaning groups, including the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. In California and Louisiana, opponents of change have argued that raising the minimum marriage age is an ineffective solution since other child welfare laws already can prevent young girls from being exploited.And other states, such as Massachusetts, have raised doubts about the extent of the problem, even as experts note that survivors are often reluctant to come forward. Idaho has the highest rate of child marriages in the U.S., according to a national report from Unchained at Last, an organization dedicated to ending the practice in the U.S. The Democratic sponsor of the Idaho legislation, which would have set the marriage age at 16, said that she thought her bill was "a modest compromise."
However, Idaho state Rep. Christy Zito, who voted alongside Zollinger against the measure, said she was concerned about protecting the "sanctity of family." She added that there are sufficient safeguards in state law — such as a judicial review of underage marriages — to prevent older men from exploiting young girls, an issue she said she has not seen evidence of in Idaho. In California, a bill to set the minimum marriage age at 18 — the state's age of consent — failed in 2017 after objections from lawmakers and liberal groups such as the state's American Civil Liberties Union. The state currently has no minimum marriage age and collects little to no data on child marriages. The ACLU argued that the bill "unnecessarily and unduly intrudes on the fundamental rights of marriage without sufficient cause," adding that "largely banning marriage under 18, before we have evidence regarding the nature and severity of the problem, however, puts the cart before the horse."
Other groups, like Planned Parenthood and The National Center for Youth Law, a youth advocacy organization, agreed. In New Hampshire, it took Cassandra Levesque and other advocates several tries to raise the minimum marriage age to 16. After Levesque learned that the state's minimum marriage age was 14 for boys and 13 for girls, she made the issue a focus of a Girl Scout project, compiling research, contacting her state representatives and reaching out to advocacy groups. In 2017, a bill was introduced in the state House to raise the marriage age to 16 — the state’s statutory age of consent.
“I was just trying to get as many people behind this as possible,” Levesque, now 20, told NBC News. But a legislative maneuver killed the bill indefinitely after state GOP Rep. David Bates and others raised concerns about whether teens could marry while one was deployed for military service. Bates lambasted Levesque and scolded his colleagues in a speech on the state House floor at the time. “We’re asking the Legislature to repeal a law that’s been on the books for over a century, that’s been working without difficulty, on the basis of a request from a minor doing a Girl Scout project,” he said.
Despite the opposition Levesque faced, she was able to work with representatives to draft a new bill setting the age limit at 16, which later passed. And last year, at age 19, she decided more needed to be done on the issue and ran for a House seat in the state. She won and is now working to raise the minimum marriage age to 18. “This time, I had all my bases covered,” Levesque said. “It’s definitely a big issue I’m trying to fight.” Idaho and California are not alone in not having a minimum marriage age. A majority of states, which issue marriage licenses, allow 16- and 17-year-olds to marry, a few allow 14-year-olds, and 13 states have no minimum marriage age as of September. Before 2016 — when Virginia became the first state to put its marriage age into law — more than half of the states had no minimum marriage age fixed by statute.
Fraidy Reiss, a survivor of forced marriage and the founder of Unchained at Last, told NBC News that she finds some of the rationales against raising the minimum marriage age in all states to 18 baffling because the federal government considers marriage under 18 in foreign countries a human rights abuse. According to the group, nearly a quarter of a million children were married in the U.S. from 2000 to 2010 — the majority of whom were young girls marrying older men. "This is happening, and it's happening at an alarming rate," she said.
In Louisiana, a heated debate erupted in the Legislature this year as lawmakers haggled over whether to set a minimum marriage age in the state. Republicans — and a handful of Democrats — argued that teens should be allowed to marry in certain instances, such as pregnancy or military service. “If they’re both 16 years old, and they both consent to sexual relations, and they’re about to have a baby, why wouldn’t we want them to be married?” state Rep. Nancy Landry, a Republican, said at the time. Kathleen Benfield, the legislative director for the Louisiana Family Forum, an influential conservative nonprofit in the state, said that her organization was also concerned about forcing a teen mother to give birth out of wedlock if the age was set at 18 with no exceptions.
“We would oppose any exploitation of young girls by older men — that's the bottom line,” Benfield said. “But we just wanted to make sure that the value of marriage as a cherished institution was supported.” In the end, the group gave the bill lukewarm support thanks to provisions such as requiring that the age difference between a minor and an adult be no more than three years, placing stringent guidelines for judges to review each case and mandating the collection of marriage data in the state to study the extent of child marriage. The bill passed in June, setting the minimum marriage age at 16, and the law was set to take effect in August.
Reiss, who lobbies lawmakers as part of her group's advocacy work against child and forced marriage, said she has seen some success in direct outreach. "Where we have less luck is legislators who say: 'I don't care. I don't care. A girl gets pregnant, she's got to get married,'" she added. "Or the ones who look at me and say — I've had this in multiple states — 'Well, Joseph married Mary when she was 8. If it was good enough for God, why shouldn't it be good enough for us?'" She believes lawmakers often conflate the maturity of some teens with the legal capacity to enter a marriage, which is considered a legal contract that many laws specify only adults can enter into or annul. "For someone to say if you're 17 and you're mature and in love that it's somehow OK for you to marry. No, it's not because you're still not an adult," she said. “You cannot be allowed to marry before you were allowed to file for divorce. That's just so obvious."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection -- Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.[1] For example, a bully may project their own feelings of vulnerability onto the target. It incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping.[2] Projection has been described as an early phase of introjection.[3]
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#1_October_2020_(Right_wing_extremists_infiltrating_thugs) -- An FBI report from 2006 warned that right wing extremists would try to infiltrate US thug departments. We know that a large fraction of thugs are right-wing extremists. Whether this is the result of active infiltration, I don't know, but I don't think it matters much. -- https://theintercept.com/2020/09/29/police-white-supremacist-infiltration-fbi/ -- Unredacted FBI Document Sheds New Light on White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement -- September 29 2020 -- A 2006 intelligence assessment reveals that officials had concerns about the infiltration of police departments for years but failed to warn the public. >>314
We are too lazy to manufacture a fake source for our bullshit, unlike Faux News.https://dis.tinychan.net/read/anarchy/1587122567#reply_107
On Saturday, Fox apologized in an editor’s note posted to stories about CHAZ on its website, sayings its home-page photos “did not clearly delineate” the splicing together of multiple images from different locations. The editor’s note also acknowledged the erroneous use of the Minnesota rioting photo to illustrate Seattle news. “Fox News regrets these errors,” the note stated. -- https://primepatriot.com/2020/06/13/fox-news-runs-digitally-altered-images-in-coverage-of-seattles-protests-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone/ -- Fox News runs digitally altered images in coverage of Seattle’s protests, Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/end-child-marriage-u-s-you-might-be-surprised-who-n1050471 -- End child marriage in the U.S.? You might be surprised at who's opposed -- Sept. 8, 2019 -- Conservatives have found some surprising allies as they fight efforts to raise the marriage age. -- A bill that would have ended child marriage in Idaho — which has no minimum age for couples who want to wed — died in the Statehouse this year. Republican lawmakers, who control the Legislature, opposed it, including state Rep. Bryan Zollinger, who said it "went too far." -- >>328
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#30_September_2020_(Armed_fascist_demonstrators) -- Armed fascist demonstrators invade Portland every day and confront antifascist and BLM protesters, occasionally committing violence against them, against reporters, and against bystanders. The thugs tend to let them do it. -- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/28/portland-violence-far-right-protests-police -- Portland suffers serious street violence as far right return 'prepared to fight' -- Fri 28 Aug 2020 -- Armed rightwingers have attacked leftwing protesters and reporters, supplanting the nightly standoffs with police
Over the last three months in Portland, mass protests against police violence and racism gradually gave way to nightly often violent standoffs between a core of pro-Black Lives Matter and anti-fascist protesters and law enforcement. But in the past week the city has fallen back into a pattern of more politically polarized street violence which has marked the city throughout the Trump era, with broadly leftwing and anti-fascist activists sometimes facing off against far-right groups. Last weekend a rightwing “Say no to Marxism in America” rally saw serious, widespread violence. Much of it came from rally attendees – who included members of far-right groups like the Proud Boys – and was directed not only at leftist counter-protesters, but also reporters.
One rightwing protester drew a firearm on opposing protesters. Earlier, he had fired a paintball gun into the crowd, and a local journalist was caught in the crossfire. Others appeared to be armed with firearms and knives. Some carried wooden shields with nails driven through them. One pro-Trump protester took to a snack van with a baseball bat. Others joined in and destroyed the vehicle. Near the peak of Saturday’s violence, a reporter’s hand was broken by a rightwing protester with a baton, and video of the incident went viral on social media. That reporter, Robert Evans, has been covering the protests since they began, for Bellingcat and other outlets.
That assailant was identified by Bellingcat on Tuesday as Travis Taylor, a Portland-based Proud Boy who has been previously observed attending violent street demonstrations in the city. In a telephone conversation, Evans told the Guardian that the rightwing demonstrators “absolutely came prepared to fight”, were “very aggressive from the jump” and were equipped with “knives, guns, paintball guns with frozen pellets, batons”. Neither the Portland police bureau (PPB) nor the Multnomah county district attorney (MCDA) responded to questions about whether Taylor would be charged or prosecuted over the incident.
It was the worst violence of its kind in the city since an infamous afternoon in 2018, also involving Proud Boys, who came from all over the country to attend a rally that culminated in another vicious street brawl. But as that precedent indicates, the polarized violence was not so much a new development linked to the massive anti-racism protests that have continued around the US, as a return to the dynamic that has afflicted Portland since the election of Donald Trump. From 2017 to 2019, the city was a magnet for street protesters and street fighters from groups like Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys, who were regularly met by antifascist counter-protesters.
At rallies in 2018 and 2019 hundreds of rightwingers from all around the country descended on Portland, and rightwing media and e-celebrities worked hard to identify the city with “antifa”, a movement that conservatives from Trump down have sought to demonize. Throughout this period, PPB were regularly accused by protesters and media outlets of heavy-handed, one-sided enforcement. This year, however, as the Black Lives Matter protests sprang up in Portland, members of far-right groups had not been a significant factor during an unbroken 85-night streak of protests. Instead the focus of many protesters was the presence of federal agents in the city – which became a national scandal as local elected officials sought to force the Trump administration to withdraw them.
Mainstream media attention was then diverted after the apparent resolution of the conflict over the unwanted presence of federal agents. But now the renewed presence of rightwing groups in the city has some fearing the fresh violence will continue, especially because activists say the PBB has a record of not intervening to prevent rightwing violence. Amy Herzfeld-Copple, the deputy director of Portland-based progressive non-profit, the Western States Center, wrote in an email that: “Portland police allowed alt-right and paramilitary groups to sow chaos and deploy violence against the community with apparent impunity.” She added: “There’s a real risk that protests for racial justice and police reform will be subsumed by alt-right mayhem if city leadership doesn’t change its approach.”
The office of Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, did not directly respond on Monday to questions on last weekend’s violent events. Not all locals blame PPB for the violence. James Buchal, chair of the Multnomah county Republican party, wrote in an email that “as Republicans, we condemn the cowardly and totalitarian attacks on the pro-police demonstrators” by leftist demonstrators.
And not all locals consider the confrontation with far-right groups to be a distraction from the cause of protesting against police brutality against Black communities. A spokesperson for Rose City Antifa, a long-established local anti-fascist network which has supported the protests downtown, wrote in an email: “Police brutality and white nationalist organizing are two sides of the same coin, and they should be addressed as such.”
left-wing riotsSo what you are saying is that you support the Republicans, who are fighting against >>328 ending child marriage in the US, and bring up such arguments as "Well, Joseph married Mary when she was 8. If it was good enough for God, why shouldn't it be good enough for us?".
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/end-child-marriage-u-s-you-might-be-surprised-who-n1050471 -- End child marriage in the U.S.? You might be surprised at who's opposed -- Sept. 8, 2019 -- Conservatives have found some surprising allies as they fight efforts to raise the marriage age. -- A bill that would have ended child marriage in Idaho — which has no minimum age for couples who want to wed — died in the Statehouse this year. Republican lawmakers, who control the Legislature, opposed it, including state Rep. Bryan Zollinger, who said it "went too far." -- >>328
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#1_October_2020_(Right_wing_extremists_infiltrating_thugs) -- An FBI report from 2006 warned that right wing extremists would try to infiltrate US thug departments. We know that a large fraction of thugs are right-wing extremists. Whether this is the result of active infiltration, I don't know, but I don't think it matters much. -- https://theintercept.com/2020/09/29/police-white-supremacist-infiltration-fbi/ -- Unredacted FBI Document Sheds New Light on White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement -- September 29 2020 -- A 2006 intelligence assessment reveals that officials had concerns about the infiltration of police departments for years but failed to warn the public. -- >>314
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#24_September_2020_(Plotting_violence_ahead_of_rallies) -- *Revealed: pro-Trump activists plotted violence ahead of Portland rallies.* *Patriots Coalition members suggested political assassinations and said ‘laws will be broken, people will get hurt’, leaked chats show.* We all suspected this, but we could not be sure. Now we know that the bully's supporters are a criminal gang. -- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/23/oregon-portland-pro-trump-protests-violence-texts -- Wed 23 Sep 2020 -- “I’m waiting for the presidential go to start open firing” -- >>285
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/end-child-marriage-u-s-you-might-be-surprised-who-n1050471 -- End child marriage in the U.S.? You might be surprised at who's opposed -- Sept. 8, 2019 -- Conservatives have found some surprising allies as they fight efforts to raise the marriage age. -- A bill that would have ended child marriage in Idaho — which has no minimum age for couples who want to wed — died in the Statehouse this year. Republican lawmakers, who control the Legislature, opposed it, including state Rep. Bryan Zollinger, who said it "went too far." -- >>328
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#1_October_2020_(Right_wing_extremists_infiltrating_thugs) -- An FBI report from 2006 warned that right wing extremists would try to infiltrate US thug departments. We know that a large fraction of thugs are right-wing extremists. Whether this is the result of active infiltration, I don't know, but I don't think it matters much. -- https://theintercept.com/2020/09/29/police-white-supremacist-infiltration-fbi/ -- Unredacted FBI Document Sheds New Light on White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement -- September 29 2020 -- A 2006 intelligence assessment reveals that officials had concerns about the infiltration of police departments for years but failed to warn the public. -- >>314
[1/2] https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#2_October_2020_(Human_Rights_Watch_Details_NYPD_Attack_on_Peaceful_Protesters) -- *Human Rights Watch Details NYPD Attack on Peaceful Protesters.* It was a Black Lives Matter protest on June 4. The thugs encircled the protesters to force them to remain till after the curfew, at which point the thugs attacked them systematically. -- https://theintercept.com/2020/09/30/nypd-nyc-protests-police-report/ -- A Human Rights Watch investigation found that police deliberately trapped and assaulted medics, legal observers, and peaceful protesters. -- September 30 2020
New York police deliberately assaulted dozens of peaceful protesters, medics, and legal observers in one of this summer’s most violently repressed protests, trapping people in the streets past a city-imposed curfew before beating and arresting them in what Police Commissioner Dermot Shea described as “a plan which was executed nearly flawlessly.” At least 236 people were arrested at the June 4 protest in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx, and at least 61 were injured by police, with some left with broken noses and fingers, lost teeth, and potential nerve damage, according to a detailed report [ https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/09/30/kettling-protesters-bronx/systemic-police-brutality-and-its-costs-united-states ] released on Wednesday by Human Rights Watch. “The police response to the peaceful Mott Haven protest was intentional, planned, and unjustified,” the report concluded. “The protest was peaceful until the police responded with violence.” More than 100 protesters have filed notice of their intent to sue the city over police actions that day, which are likely to cost the city millions in misconduct settlements and legal fees. The protest, one of hundreds that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, came after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared an 8 p.m. curfew following looting in other parts of the city. Most people arrested in the Bronx were charged with curfew violations or unlawful assembly. Many were held overnight with no food, including several who were injured and received no medical attention. The majority of the charges have since been dismissed. Human Rights Watch’s reconstruction of the events, based on about 100 interviews and the review of 155 videos by participants and bystanders, reveals that about 10 minutes before curfew, police deliberately corralled protesters using a controversial law enforcement tactic known as “kettling,” preventing people from dispersing. When the curfew kicked in, police moved into the trapped crowd, shoving people to the ground, pepper-spraying them, beating them with batons from the top of parked cars, and violently arresting dozens of them.
“When the police began moving through the kettle, they started pushing us from the front and the back so we ended up essentially trampling over each other, trying to escape the violence of the police.”
Police also detained several medics and legal observers, despite them having been declared exempt from the curfew by the mayor’s office. Police on the scene were supervised by two-dozen senior officers in white shirts, including the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the department, Chief of Police Terence Monahan, who can be seen in one video confronting one of the protest’s organizers. Monahan also played a key role in the police repression of a 2004 protest at the Republican National Convention, during which police similarly kettled and assaulted protesters, ultimately costing the city $36 million in misconduct settlements. “This was just a completely unjustified, unnecessary, excessive use of force and brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters,” Ida Sawyer, acting crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch and a co-author of the report, told The Intercept. Monahan’s presence, she said, “really showed how the violence and abuse is encouraged and condoned by the NYPD and how the system really fuels impunity.” “If the top brass is leading this, then what message does that send to all of the officers below him?” she added. “It really just epitomizes how police officers are rewarded for abuse.” “They were basically doing collective punishment on us,” Andom Ghebreghiorgis, a protester and former congressional candidate, told The Intercept. “And they were doing it in a way that really didn’t give anyone the opportunity to escape it even if they happened to not be part of the protest.”
“We were kettled before 8 p.m. and they intentionally held us so that we were outside after curfew,” added Ghebreghiorgis, who was detained for nearly 24 hours following the protest. “When the police began moving through the kettle, they started pushing us from the front and the back so we ended up essentially trampling over each other, trying to escape the violence of the police on the front line and on the back line. … It was really scary; you just heard screaming and crying throughout the entire ordeal.” The mayor’s office did not respond to a list of questions from The Intercept. The NYPD did not answer questions but referred The Intercept to previously released statements by senior department officials in which Shea and de Blasio defended the police’s conduct in a press conference the day after the protest. “This is something that the NYPD saw coming,” the mayor said, arguing that police were responding to “an organization that literally was encouraging violence.” The NYPD did not address Human Rights Watch’s questions about violence by officers or its use of kettling to force protesters to violate the curfew, but claimed that the detention of nonessential workers was “lawful.” In a letter to Human Rights Watch, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for legal matters, Ernest F. Hart, argued that the protest’s intent was to “direct violence at a class of individuals based on their profession.” The protest was promoted on social media by an abolitionist coalition known as the “FTP Formation” — an acronym for “Fuck the Police” but also “Free the People” — and some fliers advertising the protest depicted a police car burning, though organizers specifically denounced “irresponsible adventurism” and called on participants not to bring weapons. In a review of video evidence, Human Rights Watch counted dozens of incidents of police beating protesters with batons, punching, kicking, tackling, or dragging protesters, and firing pepper spray directly at people’s faces. The group documented four instances of officers throwing bikes against protesters and two incidents in which police restrained participants with a knee to the face or neck. No officers were injured, and the department did not discipline any of the officers involved in the crackdown. The police response to the Mott Haven and other protests is currently under investigation by the New York State Attorney General’s Office.
The Mott Haven protest was one of several that took place in New York City that day. About 300 people had gathered in the neighborhood, which is home to mostly Black and Latino New Yorkers, including many who are without housing, and is one of the poorest and most heavily policed in the city, as well as one of the most devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The neighborhood is a perfect symbol for protesters’ demands for police divestment and reinvestment in services. “You have this neighborhood where the city has very intentionally concentrated poverty, homeless shelters, public housing, drug treatment centers,” a protester told Human Rights Watch. “And then there’s a hyper police presence on top of that. Literally stepping out of the subway in the area — you can see what the protesters are pushing for, investing in communities and the root causes so the police aren’t needed, and people are safer and healthier.” Shea later described the protest as an attempt by “outside agitators” to “cause mayhem,” “tear down society,” and “injure cops.” After the protest, police shared images of items they claimed to have confiscated that day during a car stop, including a sledgehammer, a wrench, and a bottle of lighter fluid. But they provided no evidence that those items had been confiscated from protesters. They also did not provide evidence that a gun they claimed to have recovered from an alleged gang member prior to the rally was connected to the protest. Human Rights Watch found no evidence of violent conduct by protesters and argued instead that police acted with particular impunity that day because of the demographics of the neighborhood and the protesters. “There seemed to be a real deliberate attempt by the NYPD to target this particular group of protesters in this particular neighborhood, in Mott Haven, in the South Bronx, a protest that was led by outspoken community activists who have been demanding police accountability and speaking out about police abuses,” Sawyer told The Intercept. “The fact that this operation was so well planned, it seems that they really wanted to send a message to them and send a message to the broader community there.” The FTP coalition, in particular, had been behind a number of protests and direct actions in the city, including in opposition to a recent spike in the number of officers assigned to patrol the subway. “FTP directly challenges policing and the authority that policing has throughout the city, which many of us see as a direct threat to our communities,” said Ghebreghiorgis. “So [police] had a preconceived notion about what FTP is, who the protesters were, and that’s why they had this plan.”
[2/2] >>342 “Anyone who experienced it knows that the only thing that was executed flawlessly was police brutality and abuse of peaceful protesters,” he added, referring to Shea’s comment. “We came there to protest police brutality, and we all became victims of police brutality.” Gideon Oliver, a former president of the National Lawyers Guild’s New York chapter, whose legal observers have monitored protests for decades, called police actions in the Bronx “incredibly heavy-handed and disproportionate.” “People are allowed to say, ’Fuck the police,’ that’s constitutionally protected,” he said. “Although that’s the police department’s m.o. in terms of responding to protests, to be heavy-handed, this was on a different order,” Oliver added. “After they kettled people, they could have said, ’You’re all under arrest, now we’re just processing you one by one so please, comply.’ Nobody ever did that. They just started going in and wailing on people.”
A video reconstruction of the protest released along Human Rights Watch’s report shows an energetic but peaceful march moving through the Bronx and crossing a public housing complex, where residents are seen cheering on the crowd from their windows. As marchers walk down a main thoroughfare, they are blocked by about 50 officers in riot gear and on bikes, the video shows. The march then redirects through a different street, but just a few minutes before the curfew, officers on bikes move to block that exit as well, before pushing into the crowd using their bikes as shields. As tension and panic rise, the crowd starts yelling, “Let us through,” while a different group of officers prevents people from turning around, effectively sealing off all available exits. “Police got us trapped,” a protester narrates in the video. “They fucking out here right now on the bullhorn telling us we can’t be here after 8. And we ain’t do nothing wrong. At about 7:45, they intentionally started cornering us. They have us pushed in, in a pen. … Whatever narrative is spun to you later, do not believe it.” “Where do we go?” kettled protesters can be heard asking officers later on. “Where are we going to go, we’re corralled?” “You are getting locked up,” an officer responds. “To jail.”
Police’s response to the Mott Haven protest violated both the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law, as well as the NYPD’s own Patrol Guide, Human Rights Watch charged. The Patrol Guide, in particular, explicitly permits clearly identified legal observers “free access through police lines at the scene of any demonstration … subject only to restrictions necessitated by personal factors.” But at least 13 legal observers, posing no threat to police, were detained in Mott Haven. In the video reconstruction, an officer wearing an “NYPD LEGAL” jacket is seen directing other officers to arrest legal observers clearly identified by their NLG neon green hats. “Legal observers can be arrested, they are good go,” the officer is heard saying, before other officers shove a woman to the ground who was showing them documentation proving her role as a legal observer. In his letter to Human Rights Watch, Hart, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for legal matters, argued that “legal observers did not enjoy an exemption as essential workers,” that they should be working “remotely,” and that “there cannot be a legal observer of a protest that itself is illegal.” But that claim contradicted both the Patrol Guide and instructions by the mayor’s office. “I checked with the Mayor’s counsel who confirmed: yes, those lawyers are essential and can show up in person if they can’t do their work remotely,” Persephone Tan, a senior legislative representative in the mayor’s office wrote in an email to the National Lawyers’ Guild. “Protecting one’s liberty is about as essential as it gets.”
“Several people from the mayor’s office gave confirmation to city and state lawmakers that legal observers and jail support and medical support for protesters were exempt from the curfew,” said Oliver. “What you see in those emails is the opposite of what the police department says.” Oliver noted that De Blasio’s executive order indicates that once the curfew is in place police have to give a dispersal order and that people who refuse to comply with that order can be subject to arrest. But in Mott Haven, protesters were physically prevented — by police themselves — from complying with the order. “People didn’t have any opportunities to comply,” he said, arguing that the police actions raise questions about the validity of all of the arrests made that day. In fact, legal observers weren’t the only essentially targeted by police that day. In the video, officers can be seen arresting medics in scrubs and with Red Cross insignia, while protesters yell, “These are essential workers.” “As they came towards us, I told them, ’Hey, we’re health care workers acting as medics, you guys trapped us in here, and if you let us go, we’ll go on the outside of this and continue acting as medics,” Mike Pappas, a medic interviewed by Human Rights Watch, said he told police. Pappas was arrested anyway, along with at least five other medics. And medics who were not arrested were prevented by officers from tending to injured protesters, despite several people crying out for help. In one incident, officers blocked a medic from assisting a protester who was lying in the street, bleeding from the head and struggling to breathe, after an officer had hit him with a baton. A different report [ https://phr.org/our-work/resources/a-targeted-attack-on-the-bronx/ ] on the protest, published by Physicians for Human Rights, concluded that “police violated the principle of noninterference with medical services.”
Conrad Blackburn, a legal observer at the protests, described officers’ conduct as “vigilante justice.” “Once the medical professionals and the legal observers are out of the way, the police really, really just started cracking down on the protesters with impunity,” he said. “It was a very, very tragic thing to witness.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/end-child-marriage-u-s-you-might-be-surprised-who-n1050471 -- End child marriage in the U.S.? You might be surprised at who's opposed -- Sept. 8, 2019 -- Conservatives have found some surprising allies as they fight efforts to raise the marriage age. -- A bill that would have ended child marriage in Idaho — which has no minimum age for couples who want to wed — died in the Statehouse this year. Republican lawmakers, who control the Legislature, opposed it, including state Rep. Bryan Zollinger, who said it "went too far." -- >>328
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection -- Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.[1] For example, a bully may project their own feelings of vulnerability onto the target. It incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping.[2] Projection has been described as an early phase of introjection.[3]
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#6_September_2020_(Republican_congresscritter_who_fanatically_defends_the_right_to_carry_guns) -- A Republican congresscritter who fanatically defends the right to carry guns says he would shoot any blacks that carry guns at a protest. Does this mean he advocates the right to carry guns only for whites? Does he now believe that guns should be prohibited at demonstrations? I'm in favor of that, as long as it applies to everyone. -- https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/03/id-drop-any-10-you-gop-rep-clay-higgins-threatens-shoot-armed-black-protesters -- 'I'd Drop Any 10 of You': GOP Rep. Clay Higgins Threatens to Shoot Armed Black Protesters -- Thursday, September 03, 2020 -- The Louisiana lawmaker is a staunch gun rights advocate in an open carry state. -- >>236
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#29_September_2020_(The_corrupter's_loans) -- The corrupter will have to pay $400 million in loans within the next few years, and he may not have that much. No wonder his palm is always open for gifts. -- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/27/new-york-times-trump-tax-returns-key-findings -- Six key findings from the New York Times' Trump taxes bombshell -- Mon 28 Sep 2020 -- The president pays little, faces hefty audit costs as well as loans coming due soon, and Ivanka is not in the clear
The publication of Donald Trump’s tax records by the New York Times [ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html ] is one of the biggest bombshells to hit a 2020 election campaign already buffeted by a litany of scandals, a bitter fight over a supreme court nomination and a pandemic in which 7m Americans have been infected and more than 200,000 have died. The president’s taxes have long been the great white whale of political reporters in America as well as prosecutors keen to find evidence of wrongdoing. Democrats too were eager to seize on them as a potentially game-changing stick with which to beat the Trump campaign. The Times, with its shock report published on Sunday evening, appears to have won the race. Its publication of details from the documents could send shock waves through the campaign as the key first debate between Trump and challenger Joe Biden looms, in Ohio on Tuesday night. Here are its key findings:
Trump pays little tax 💰🐘💰 The Times reported that Trump paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years the newspaper looked at. In 2017, after he became president, his tax bill was only $750. This is despite Trump often railing against taxes in America and ushering through a series of tax cuts that critics say mostly helps the rich and big business. The Times said of Trump’s immediate predecessors: “Barack Obama and George W Bush each regularly paid more than $100,000 a year.”
A long audit – with potentially hefty costs 💰🐘💰 Trump is involved in a decade-long audit with the Internal Revenue Service over a $72.9m tax refund he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. A ruling against him could cost him more than $100m, the Times reported. It added: “In 2011, the IRS began an audit reviewing the legitimacy of the refund. Almost a decade later, the case remains unresolved, for unknown reasons, and could ultimately end up in federal court, where it could become a matter of public record.”
Ivanka helps reduce Trump’s tax burden 💰🐘💰 The president’s oldest daughter, while working as an employee of the Trump Organization, appears to have received “consulting fees” that helped reduce the family’s tax bill, the Times said. Such a revelation might further tarnish the reputation of Ivanka, a senior White House adviser married to another, Jared Kushner, who often tries to distance herself from some of the biggest scandals of her father’s administration. She is widely believed to harbor political ambitions of her own after Trump leaves office. The Times reported: “Trump’s private records show that his company once paid $747,622 in fees to an unnamed consultant for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia. Ivanka Trump’s public disclosure forms – which she filed when joining the White House staff in 2017 – show that she had received an identical amount through a consulting company she co-owned.”
Trump businesses lose money 💰🐘💰 The Times was brutal in its assessment of Trump’s businesses, about which he often boasts and on the back of which he sought to promote a carefully curated image as a master businessman. “Trump’s core enterprises – from his constellation of golf courses to his conservative-magnet hotel in Washington – report losing millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars year after year,” the newspaper said. It detailed how since 2000, Trump has reported losing more than $315m at his golf courses, with much of that coming from Trump National Doral in Florida. His Washington hotel, which opened in 2016 and has been the subject of much speculation regarding federal ethics laws, has lost more than $55m.
Trump has a big bill to pay 💰🐘💰 The newspaper also reported that Trump is facing a major financial bill, as within the next four years, hundreds of millions of dollars in loans will come due. The paper said Trump is personally responsible for many of those obligations. The paper reported: “In the 1990s, Mr Trump nearly ruined himself by personally guaranteeing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, and he has since said that he regretted doing so. But he has taken the same step again, his tax records show. He appears to be responsible for loans totaling $421m, most of which is coming due within four years.” In a blunt summary of the problem, the Times speculated: “Should he win re-election, his lenders could be placed in the unprecedented position of weighing whether to foreclose on a sitting president.”
Trump businesses profit from his presidency 💰🐘💰 The issue of whether Trump’s businesses benefit from his position in the White House has been one of the long-running themes of reporting on the Trump presidency. The global nature of the Trump Organization and its portfolio of hotels, resorts and other interests has left Trump open to speculation that lobbyists, business leaders and foreign powers could spend money in them to try and peddle influence in the US. The Times report on his tax returns is clear that Trump’s businesses have indeed benefited from his political career. “Since he became a leading presidential candidate, he has received large amounts of money from lobbyists, politicians and foreign officials who pay to stay at his properties or join his clubs,” the newspaper reported, before detailing monies paid at his Mar-a-Largo resort in Florida, his Washington hotel and other locations.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/end-child-marriage-u-s-you-might-be-surprised-who-n1050471 ✞🐘✞ End child marriage in the U.S.? You might be surprised at who's opposed ✞🐘✞ Sept. 8, 2019 ✞🐘✞ Conservatives have found some surprising allies as they fight efforts to raise the marriage age. ✞🐘✞ A bill that would have ended child marriage in Idaho — which has no minimum age for couples who want to wed — died in the Statehouse this year. Republican lawmakers, who control the Legislature, opposed it, including state Rep. Bryan Zollinger, who said it "went too far." ✞🐘✞ >>328
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#10_September_2020_(Justice_Department_taking_up_liability_for_damages) -- The wrecker has told the "Justice Department" to make the US take up the liability for damages, as well as defense costs in E Jean Carroll's lawsuit accusing him of raping her. -- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/08/trump-defamation-justice-department-e-jean-carroll-rape-accusation -- US justice department seeks to defend Trump in lawsuit tied to rape allegation -- Wed 9 Sep 2020 -- Attorneys seek to substitute US for Trump as defendant in E Jean Carroll case, meaning tax dollars could cover any payout -- Carroll is trying to get a DNA sample from Trump to see whether it matches as-yet-unidentified male genetic material found on a dress that she says she was wearing during the alleged attack -- >>259
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/facebook-bans-qanon-entirely-says-previous-crackdown-wasnt-enough/ Facebook bans QAnon entirely, says previous crackdown wasn’t enough -- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-qanon-idUSKBN26R3JQ Facebook bans all QAnon groups as dangerous amid surging misinformation -- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54443878 Facebook bans QAnon conspiracy theory accounts across all platforms -- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-bans-qanon-platforms-pages-groups-instagram-accounts/ Facebook bans QAnon pages, groups and Instagram accounts -- https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-bans-qanon-across-its-platforms-n1242339 Facebook bans QAnon across its platforms -- >>351
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/end-child-marriage-u-s-you-might-be-surprised-who-n1050471 ✞🐘✞ End child marriage in the U.S.? You might be surprised at who's opposed ✞🐘✞ Sept. 8, 2019 ✞🐘✞ Conservatives have found some surprising allies as they fight efforts to raise the marriage age. ✞🐘✞ A bill that would have ended child marriage in Idaho — which has no minimum age for couples who want to wed — died in the Statehouse this year. Republican lawmakers, who control the Legislature, opposed it, including state Rep. Bryan Zollinger, who said it "went too far." ✞🐘✞ >>328