[Skydiver]

Trump needs someone to faun over him. He doesn't realize that Putin fauning over him is equivalent to a human patting a dog on its head and saying "Good dog! Thanks for bringing me the ball. Now go fetch the neighbors newspaper."

[jon.kiparsky]

From the Times' article on the Demented Don's G7 plans, I noticed this quote, just at the end:

Quote

The people of Crimea, from what I've heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were

So, he's making excuses for Russia's invasion of one of our allies, and still his apologists insist that he's "tough on Russia".

[NeoTifa]

This whole George Floyd thing has had me sick to my stomach since Thursday. I am against rioting and looting and violence since I am a hippie pacifist, plus I am of the impression that 90% of the time those looting and being violent are due to opportunists and NOT people who actually care about the cause and the protests. I was, of course, implied to be racist due to this opinion, so I kept my mouth shut. Literally the next day it came out that most of the violent protesters were from out of town, white, and tied to white supremacy groups that expressed interest in starting a new civil war. Most of the pictures I've seen of the looters and violent protesters were noticeably lacking in melanin. Not to mention the pics of undercover police officers involved in inciting the riots, as you can see their cop boots and bulletproof vests under their shirts. Neatly stacked bricks on the sidewalk nowhere near a construction site outside of a courthouse in I want to say Dallas? The umbrella man? The guy in Pitt who blatantly started smashing windows and walking away? All this violence was started by white people, and I know they're gonna try to say something like "Look at these thugs, Trump was right. Let's get to shootin cuz they be lootin." Just like every other protest that gets violent. Even the ones that don't, nothing but hate directed at them, called for them to get run over by cars or shot. But fully armed white guys can march city halls and be perfectly fine and get called "fine people". KKK rally got all kinds of police protection to make sure those people aren't bothered, but when it's a peaceful protest for POC, they're met with force. It's just disgusting. "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." "... with dogs and ominous weapons." "THUGS" "MAGA night at the White House". Go hide in your bunker you freaking spineless coward, and admit you fanned the dying embers of hate until they turned into this forest fire. Might want to put the can of gasoline down first.

[modi123_1]

72hour curfew in my area from the protests turning ugly over the weekend. Bleh.

[NeoTifa]

Columbus has had curfews in place for 2 days, and now you apparently need papers and proof of reason to be in the city to get in. They're not letting people in the city. WTF? We've had huge protests here, you can hear them from my apartment. You can smell the smoke from the fires too. The police have been brutal af here. Pushing people around, beating with batons, shooting with rubber bullets, pepper spraying. This is just the peaceful protesters too. They took stores of water jugs and water bottles that were out of the way for protesters to stay hydrated and busted the jugs and confiscated the water bottles. They shot someone walking around offering snacks and water EVEN TO THE POLICE with rubber bullets. Someone got shot with rubber bullets for asking a cop for directions to avoid the protests, as they weren't even protesting. They even pepper sprayed our US Rep, City Council President, and other state officials who were out peacefully protesting simply because they were black. Disgusting. https://www.theatlan...-beatty/612436/

[ArtificialSoldier]

We've got ourselves a curfew here also. The entire thing is a mess. I understand the anger and the frustration, if a cop can't detain a person without killing him, then they have no reason being a cop in the first place. And it seems like it's only black people who have been on the receiving end of that. And for some reason cops decided that it was more important that they trust and protect each other than it is to have the community they work in trust them. No one will trust them if people think that any cop who gets out of line is just going to be protected by other cops and shielded from punishment. If they want anyone to trust them then they need to enforce their own ranks. There are too many double standards here regarding police treatment and protester treatment. The saying about bad apples doesn't talk about how they're annoying or a nuisance, the saying is that it ruins the whole bunch. That's what's going on, police need to make sure that there are zero bad apples. Not one or two, but zero.

It's not just here any more either, in Brazil they're also protesting against police treatment, and using Floyd's name in their chants and marches. They also have a far right-wing nationalist president like we do here, and there were people protesting against the police and against the president, who's been under investigation, and they were met by groups waving some kind of Brazilian neo-nazi flag who were demonstrating in favor of the president and chanting that they wanted to abolish the supreme court.

It's a crazy thing to be going on during the middle of a pandemic.

[DarenR]

from my area-- 80% of the people arrested werent from my area or even state.
most of the people arrested were alt right people with ties to neo nazi and kkk
1 was a 20 year old kid from my area who seemingly has zero ties to anything

[modi123_1]

There was a killing in the protest saturday night. Social media is swelling with the press conference here in five minutes that the shooter will be released as self defense. The entire downtown is being locked down, people were sent home, and the vibe is things are going to get bad fast if that is the case.

[modi123_1]

Follow up - a smaller protest happened yesterday, but that turned to throwing shit and running past curfew so a large number of folk were locked up. Police were investigating the rumors flying around, and ultimately I would like to believe folk listened to the Scurlock family and various community leaders to not totally flip the shit out.

On the flip side, Petey Ricketts threw a "my problem with you people" at the black leadership he had assembled earlier. Woooah boy.

https://www.facebook...385122301673152

For me the lesson learned is I am woefully under armed for this world if comparing the various texts from family and friends. I best go gun up or something when ammo and prices dip. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Is that allowed in my Secret Satan gift list? Ha!

[NeoTifa]

I'm just so disgusted with how many people on my fb timeline are totally okay with, and advocating excitedly for, shooting and mowing down protesters. So many gun pics like "I can't wait to see a protester" and posting pics of large vehicles or corn harvesters calling them "protester mowers" and joking and talking about how they want to hit them with their car. Okay, even if they ARE on the highway, and they ARE NOT supposed to be there legally, you're not allowed to just hit them, unless you'd cause an accident to swerve. You'd have known ahead of time they were there, since traffic would already be backed up. It's not like they're just gonna jump into formation in front of your car out of nowhere, it'd be a slow push out I'm imagining. Traffic would already be slowed down. If you hit one as they're trying to start, then you should be slowing down if there are people in the berm anyways in case it's an emergency, but it could be bad but accidental as they really shouldn't be on the highway unless it's an emergency. If it's already established, then you're just deliberately hitting someone with your car when you would not be putting anybody in danger by NOT hitting them, as you'd be stopped anyways, which would be wrong and illegal. Same with a road. You're not allowed to just blatantly mow down jaywaylkers when you see them. If it's 1 person, wearing black or dark clothing at night, maybe you'd get off, but most likely not. A large crowd? That's deliberate, and completely illegal and despicable. Shooting looters at a store I'm pretty sure would be illegal. If they're breaking into your house? Maybe, depending on state, but afaik I have not seen too many people breaking into people's houses. You've no reason to be this excited. I'm not even exaggerating. They're EXCITED! They're WISHING for it.

[ArtificialSoldier]

The weird photo op they pulled at the church was strange to see. Using tear gas and rubber bullets to clear everyone out so Trump could walk across Lafayette square and take a picture with a bible in front of a church. That's kind of a metaphor for his entire presidency. It sounds like it pissed off the Episcopal bishops, one of them called it "blasphemy in real time."

https://www.cnn.com/...o-op/index.html
https://www.christia...protesters.html

And then Gregg Popovich, holy shit:

https://www.thenatio...floyd-protests/

Quote

It’s unbelievable. If Trump had a brain, even if it was 99 percent cynical, he would come out and say something to unify people. But he doesn’t care about bringing people together. Even now. That’s how deranged he is. It’s all about him. It’s all about what benefits him personally. It’s never about the greater good. And that’s all he’s ever been.

and:

Quote

It’s like what Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz used to say when they had the courage to say it: He’s unfit. But they have chosen instead to be invisible and obsequious in the face of this carnage. In the end, what we have is a fool in place of a president, while the person who really runs the country, Senator Mitch McConnell, destroys the United States for generations to come. McConnell has destroyed and degraded our judicial system. He has tried to destroy health care. He’s destroyed the environment. He’s the master, and Trump’s the stooge, and what’s funny is that Trump doesn’t even know it. Trump’s always wanted to be part of the in-group, but McConnell is an in-group of one, and Trump plays the fool.

then:

Quote

He’s not just divisive. He’s a destroyer. To be in his presence makes you die. He will eat you alive for his own purposes. I’m appalled that we have a leader who can’t say, ‘Black lives matter.’ That’s why he hides in the White House basement. He is a coward. He creates a situation and runs away like a grade-schooler. Actually, I think it’s best to ignore him. There is nothing he can do to make this better because of who he is: a deranged idiot.

See, I like Gregg Popovich, even though his Spurs kicked my Suns' asses up and down the court for years. Popovich just seems like a straight talker. He "tells it like it is," he's not worried about being politically correct like so many politicians. I think... yeah, I think he's a guy I feel like I could have a beer with.

Quote

I'm not even exaggerating. They're EXCITED! They're WISHING for it.

They might be the type of people who are going around passing out bricks.

[ArtificialSoldier]

Not to say that there aren't people looking to just get free stuff or cause damage, but this is going on also:

https://www.nbcnews....havior-n1221456

While I don't have a presence on Twitter and haven't been looking at Facebook, the message the account posted seems a little too obvious:

Quote

“Tonight’s the night, Comrades,” with a brown raised fist emoji and “Tonight we say 'F--- The City' and we move into the residential areas... the white hoods.... and we take what's ours …”

Are people really saying "take what's ours?" That seems like something that a right-winger would imagine protesters are saying. With bonus points for capital "Comrades." It sounds like a parody of what a right-wing hate group imagines people are saying instead of what they're actually saying, but like I said, I'm out of the loop on the social media chatter. While I know that any time there's a lot of unrest there will be a certain number of people just trying to get free stuff that doesn't belong to them, these protests are obviously about police behavior and everything that enables it, not just outright destruction and theft.

I appreciate this guy's comment:

Quote

A second narrative boosted by bots and hacked accounts claimed that #DCBlackout is a misinformation campaign. The same message was tweeted verbatim by multiple accounts.

"Yeah...... as someone seeing #dcblackout trending, who lives and works in the DC metro area, and who has friends telecommuting into DC rn..... This hashtag looks like misinformation," read the tweet, which was posted hundreds of times.

Some accounts had few to no followers, while other tweets were posted by users who claim to have been hacked.

One verified Twitter user, Jason Elia, said his account was hacked to tweet the message. Elia lives in Oklahoma City and said he wouldn't go to Washington "unless they build an In-N-Out there."

[DarenR]

our state had primaries last night.
#1 gripe was that people had to vote on paper ballots and said our state was taking away voting rights-- like wtf
what did these people do before 1990?

they forget their is is the right to vote -- it says nothing about the means

[h4nnib4l]

Interesting article from the Washington Post. Not that any (most) of us are surprised that Drumpf's behavior reflects that of the autocrats he so admires...

Article

This post has been edited by h4nnib4l: 03 June 2020 - 07:09 AM

[ArtificialSoldier]

Steve King lost in Iowa. It's not much, but it's one less white supremacist in government I guess.