Minnesota AG Keith Ellison May Have Just Screwed Up Case Against George Floyd Cops

Article by Victoria Taft for "PJMedia":

I’m no legal expert, but I wondered to myself if Keith Ellison hadn’t overcharged the cop who killed George Floyd. Now there’s someone much smarter than I who agrees.

Andy McCarthy, who writes for National Review, is a former federal prosecutor and has been a trusted guest on my radio show for the better part of 20 years. He believes Ellison might have just colossally screwed up his case against the cops. My words, not his. McCarthy called Ellison’s amended charges “dangerously flawed.”

Overcharging is tantamount to over-promising. It’s perceived as overly punitive and less thoughtful in some cases. Sure, everyone’s angry. Sure, Floyd’s death appears to be criminal. But you’ve got to be able to prove what you charge.

Ellison may have just Peter Principled himself out of this prosecution.

Police officer Derek Chauvin took a knee on the neck of George Floyd for nearly nine minutes. The hold on his neck, not part of any police training, killed Floyd. Floyd, who had drugs in his system and a heart condition, panicked and couldn’t breathe. 

John Cardillo ✔ @johncardillo

We now know #GeorgeFloyd had COVID-19, Fentanyl in his system, and the knee on neck restraint was department approved.

Yet Keith Ellison is still pursuing a murder conviction.

Statutorily, it's simply not murder.

Initially, the local district attorney took a long look at the evidence and charged Chauvin with third-degree murder, alleging Chauvin had depraved indifference to human life, but didn’t conspire to kill Floyd.

Then the case was kicked upstairs to virulently political Leftist Keith Ellison, part of the George Soros-funded attorney general project.

Paul Sperry @paulsperry_

The real thug. Not only does he champion the thugs behind the destruction of out cities, he also champions Sharia law over the US Constitution. & now he's trumping up charges against cops as Minnesota's AG(!) This man is a direct threat to our democracy...https://www.



Ellison added a second-degree felony murder charge to the other less severe charges that McCarthy believes he won’t be able to prove. He’s ladled on aiding and abetting charges against the other officers on the second-degree murder charge and manslaughter.

The harsher charges were met with cheers from those on the far Left, such as Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC.

Lawrence O'Donnell ✔ @Lawrence

America is so lucky that @keithellison is the Attorney General of Minnesota today.

McCarthy points out that the new charges don’t quite add up.

Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder (the new charge against Chauvin) and manslaughter. Weirdly, under the circumstances, the three are not charged with the “depraved indifference” murder count; nor are they accused of committing manslaughter as principals — they are charged only as aiders and abettors, a theory that does not jibe with a negligence charge such as second-degree manslaughter (which is negligent homicide under Minnesota law).

He explains that defense attorneys will poke big holes in Ellison’s case:

By definition, a bad outcome caused by negligence does not happen intentionally; it happens because of carelessness that created a risk the actor did not foresee but should have.
See the problem? Aiding and abetting requires proof that the accomplice understood the principal’s conscious criminal objective. In a negligence case, the bad thing that happens is unintentional — i.e., it is nobody’s conscious objective. That’s why the prosecutors’ theory is, to my mind, a non sequitur.
Do not misunderstand. I think it would make sense to charge the accomplices with manslaughter as principals, rather than as aiders and abettors.

But here’s what might be the most diabolical part of Ellison’s move and maybe the one he wanted all along.

 By contrast, the new “felony murder” count, spearheaded by Keith Ellison, the radical leftist state attorney general, puts police on notice that they can be charged with a crime — felony assault — for doing their job, which routinely involves physically restraining suspects who resist lawful commands.

McCarthy talked about it in his podcast and in a piece in NRO. 

Do you doubt that Keith Ellison would want to criminalize police work? Neither do I. Here’s a man who believes national borders are an “injustice.” 

The unanswered question, however, is what would be the point of prosecuting charges that may not hold up?

Here’s the Minnesota attorney general in a podcast discussing President Trump’s response. It’s all his fault, of course.



https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2020/06/06/minnesota-ag-keith-ellison-may-have-just-screwed-up-case-against-george-floyd-cops-n503071

Americans, Speak up! stand Up..

Townhall

Americans, 

Speak Up! 

Stand Up 

For Your Country!

Marina Medvin

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

Source: AP Photo/Kevin Hagen

This land is my land; this land is your land. This land is not Commie land.

But you wouldn't know it if you looked at us this past week. It sure looks like we've been kneeling to mobs, kneeling to communist demands, glorifying looters and felons and their audacious claims of entitlement. We have allowed a leftist political movement to change history and force-feed the lie of "racist policing." Canceling police and investing in lawlessness is all the rage these days.

Yet, as flames of hate for America engulf our cities, Americans appear to have hit their own mute buttons. Crickets, crickets everywhere. 

Why so quiet? 

Americans are silent because they are afraid. Afraid of social and employment repercussions for having a divergent opinion from the mob. Some who disagree with the mob even end up joining the mob because they are afraid to lose their place in society. How many zombies out there are faking it? 

"I'm afraid to say anything," one American said to me. "I don't want to lose my job," said another. "I have some different opinions than the narrative being forced on society right now. If spoken, I will instantly be called [racist]," said a third. "It's designed to shut down the conversation and intimidate. And it is working," this man concluded. And so on and so forth, these Americans are keeping their opinions to themselves, terrified of social justice warriors looting their lives if they dare dissent. "What's the point? No one is interested in listening or having a discussion. You either 100% agree, or you are a monster," a woman exclaimed. 

These publicly-silent American men and women are all employed and afraid. And they're not wrong to fear repercussion for thought disparity. Many people have already lost their jobs when there was even a hint of disagreement with the Black victimization social narrative. The social stigma applies to dissenters of all creeds and colors. More than anyone, conservative Black friends fear the wrath of their communities when they disagree with any part of the protests or narrative. Discussions in U.S. society have come to a tragic halt because of the cancel culture that swallowed us whole: Americans have stopped speaking and started kneeling. 

This week alone: A basketball broadcaster was fired for tweeting "ALL LIVES MATTER." A soccer player issued an apology on behalf of his wife and vowed to silence her dissenting opinions moving forward. A football player was bullied into issuing a boiler-plate apology for defending the American flag that represents the freedoms the American people fought to protect. For reference, he beautifully said, "I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America," and described thinking about all that has been sacrificed to make this country what it is today. These were just the newsworthy silences. How many Americans were left unemployed that you will never read about? 

Silence became a sign of complacency with "white supremacy." Companiesstarted feeling pressure to support BLM. It became a "you're with us or against us" scenario. Even Nickelodeon decided to tell kids that they need to fight for BLM. Yet none of them have called out the looting that has been taking place in their businesses for over a week straight. But while larger companies can bear the losses, smaller mom and pop shops cannot. It appears not many are standing up on their behalf, in fear of being labeled a "white supremacist" or "racist" by the BML movement and society that has accepted them unquestioningly.

The BLM movement has been emboldened by the death of George Floyd. Irrespective of the veracity of BLM claims, all Americans were horrified to watch Floyd die. The emotions from viewing the video have yielded blind credence to the assertion that this happens nonstop. In reality, this is a false narrative born of politics. 

Central BLM politics are socialist in nature, which brings us to Antifa. 

Let's be clear: Antifa is an organized and funded group of anti-American socialist radicals. Don't buy into the anti-Fascist marketing ploy; you're too smart for bait and switch tactics. Fascists were socialists. Nazis were socialists. (Everyone your grandparents fought - were socialists.) It is because the BLM movement is organized and driven by socialists that the joinder of the two groups was so smooth. The flames that raged through 30 American cities weren't sparked by George Floyd; they were burning long before. Floyd's death created an opportunity and an excuse - a cover for malicious destruction devised long before.

BLM support, nevertheless, has become a social requirement, just as The 1619 Project became an educational requirement. Why? Because Americans are cowering, not questioning. When the slightest hint of opposition yields a loss of income and social stature, why speak up?

The result has been police officers apologizing on their knees for things they did not do, soldiers kneeling for mobs, and Americans from all sides mourning the death of a convicted felon who served time for robbing a woman in her home at gunpoint. Multiple police officers have been killed, injured, and threatened. Meanwhile, thin blue line stickers are disappearing from cars, leftist politicians are calling to "defund the police," and BLM is threatening an armed "war on police."

Americans, listen up: It's okay to dislike both Floyd and the arresting officers. It's okay to be open to the possibility that the officers might be absolved of criminal wrongdoing. It's okay to question BLM's narratives. It's okay to disagree with socialism. It's okay to like police officers. It's okay not to kneel. 

Americans! You're giving in to political peer pressure! Stop!

Look in the mirror. You're an American. A free man, a free woman. You are living in a country that was built on ideas of freedom of speech and freedom from oppression. Stop letting political movements impose oppression and speech restrictions on you. Get up and speak up! Stand up for yourself and for your country. Stop feeling displaced guilt. Stop acting pusillanimously. Stop letting your cities burn.  

You live in a country that is the least racist country in the world (just travel and you'll agree). If you want to make it better, do that, but do it right. 

If you continue to cower, you will lose your country. Remember those socialists, Antifa? Their goal is to overtake our government and replace it. It's a felony, but I haven't seen any charges.

You are not as alone as you think. 71% of Americans agree with using the National Guard to assist police in managing these "protests." Do you think these Americans feel the need for National Guard because they believe the protests are peaceful, or because the converse is true? 58% even support using the U.S. Military to supplement local police. It is clear that in reality, these "protests" do not have unyielding support, and many are seeing them as excuses for violent attacks and a new form of race riots. Indeed, Americans are standing up for themselves, just less vociferously than the leftists screaming at them. 

So get off your knees. You didn't do anything. You're not a "white supremacist" just because you are an American. You are not a "white supremacist" just because you are a police officer (especially when you're a Black police officer). These are all scare tactics used to control good people. You can speak your mind and ask questions, and not only is it okay to do so but it's your American entitlement to do so. 

Don't kneel. Stand proud. You're an American. 

Americans Don’t Want to #Defund Police, Instead..

Cato.org

Americans Don’t Want to #Defund Police, 

Instead 

They Agree on Reform

Connor Friedersdor writes in the Atlantic that police reform is popular, while rioting is not. He’s right. While only 16% of Americans favor cutting funding for police departments, the Cato Criminal Justice National Surveyfound that Americans across racial and political backgrounds support a variety of policy changes that reformers say would help mend fences between police and the communities they serve.

It’s true that Americans of different racial backgrounds have vastly different perceptions of police. Strong majorities of African Americans believe police are too quick to resort to deadly force (73%) and aren’t held accountable for misconduct if it happens (64%). On the other hand, whites believe police use deadly force only when necessary (65%) and generally are held accountable for bad behavior (57%). But the racial divide in perceptions largely vanishes when it comes to policy reforms. The Cato survey found:

• 79% of Americans support having outside law enforcement agencies investigate police misconduct, rather than leave it to the department to handle. It may surprise some readers to learn that most jurisdictions in the U.S. allow police departments to investigate and discipline their own officers. Instead, most Americans think having some outside oversight could enhance accountability. Majorities across racial groups support this: 81% of whites, 82% of blacks, and 66% of Latinos support outside investigations of misconduct.

• 65% of Americans believe racial profiling is commonly used, but nearly the same share oppose it. 63% oppose the practice of police stopping motorists or pedestrians of certain racial or ethnic groups if police believe that these groups are more likely than others to commit certain types of crimes. 62% of whites, 77% of blacks, and 62% of Hispanics all oppose racial profiling.

• 68% support de‐​escalation training for police to aid police officers during confrontations with citizens. 62% of whites, 81% of blacks, and 70% of Hispanics support providing this additional training to officers.

• 53% think local police departments using military weapons and armored vehicles “goes too far” and aren’t necessary for law enforcement purposes. Presumably, these same Americans think police ought not to use such equipment. 53% of whites, 58% of blacks, and 51% of Hispanics think local police using military weapons goes too far.

• 89% support the police wearing body cameras. Americans don’t think this is just for civilians’ benefit—but for police officers too. Nearly three‐​fourths (74%) think body cameras equally protect police officers who wear them and citizens who interact with them. 90% of whites, 89% of blacks, and 87% of Hispanics support police wearing body cameras.

• 73% support a law requiring police officers to notify citizens when a stop is voluntary and they are free to decline a search, including 74% of whites, 63% of blacks, and 74% of Latinos.

• 54% favor treating drug offenses like minor traffic violations with small fines rather than as felonies. Some scholars believe cooling the drug war could reduce the number of high stakes encounters between police and communities thereby helping to rebuild trust. 54% of whites, 59% of blacks, and 52% of Hispanics support re‐​categorizing drug offenses from felonies to civil offenses.

• 84% support ending a practice called civil asset forfeiture in which police may take money or property of a person they suspect may have been involved in a crime before the person is convicted. 84% of whites, 86% of blacks, and 80% of Hispanics think police should only be allowed to seize property after a conviction.

• 67% support banning neck restraints as a police tactic, including 67% of whites, 74% of blacks, and 59% of Latinos. (According to a Yahoo/​YouGov May 2020 survey)

• 80% support implementing an early warning system to identify problematic officers, including 81% of whites 88% of blacks, and 74% of Latinos. (According to a Yahoo/​YouGov May 2020 survey)
• 
  

Americans across racial lines also support a number of changes to the criminal justice system.

• Majorities of Americans support eliminating mandatory minimum prison sentences for both violent offenders (58%) and non‐​violent offenders (75%) so that “judges have the ability to make sentencing decisions on a case‐​by‐​case basis.” Majorities of whites (59%), blacks (63%), and Hispanics (54%) agree with eliminating mandatory minimum prison sentences for violent offenders as well as non‐​violent offenders (76%, 75%, and 67% respectively).

• 73% of all Americans support a plan that would cut the length of prison sentences for non‐​violent drug offenders: 74% of whites, 77% of blacks, and 67% of Hispanics agree.

• 73% of all Americans support allowing non‐​violent drug offenders who have served their sentences to vote: 75% of whites, 81% of blacks, and 66% of Latinos agree.
• 
  

It’s also useful to keep in mind that few Americans of any racial group support some of the more radical changes demanded by some activists. For instance, few people support calls to abolish or defund the police: 9 in 10 black, white and Hispanic Americans oppose reducing the number of police officers in their community—and a third say their community needs more officers the Cato survey found. And a Yahoo/​Yougov survey found that only 16% of Americans favor cutting funding for police departments, including 12% of whites, 33% of blacks, and 17% of Hispanics.

While Americans support (57%) the general purpose behind the protests in response to the death of George Floyd. They do not like protests that turn violent and lead to rioting. And the Yahoo/​YouGov poll found that 51% felt the Minneapolis protests were mostly violent riots, not peaceful. This may be why a Morning Consult poll found that 71% of Americans support sending in the national guard to address the protests.

Especially as tensions and emotions are high, these data demonstrate that Americans don’t have to reach consensus about every policing problem. Instead, we should remember that Americans across racial lines agree a great deal about how police should do their jobs and support policies intended to help achieve that goal. 

Read the full Cato 2016 Criminal Justice National Survey results here.

Is China Aiding and Abetting the Rioters in the US?

 
Article by Elizabeth Vaughn in "RedState":

Ah, schadenfreude.

The Chinese Communist Party is reveling in the violence and destruction that has swept the U.S. since the death of George Floyd. The riots have handed the CCP an unexpected opportunity to hit back at America for our support of the anti-Chinese riots in Hong Kong and our criticism of their handling of the pandemic.

The country’s state-run media has gone into overdrive highlighting the looting and rioting and Chinese commentators have “blasted the U.S. government for failing to address America’s racial inequality.” Fancy that!

One Chinese media host told his viewers, “American politicians must ask themselves on what grounds do they spew their sanctimonious nonsense? Shouldn’t they ask the American people for forgiveness?”

Director of the Asia Society’s Center for U.S.-China Relations, Orville Schell, spoke to NPR and said, “I think the Chinese Communist propaganda apparatus is very grateful to have some burning cities in the United States right now, having had to suffer and feel deeply humiliated by the specter of Hong Kong being in a state of chaos.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who originated the theory that U.S. soldiers had brought the coronavirus to Wuhan in October 2019 and was briefly silenced by Chinese ambassador Cui Tiankai, came out of exile to call out America’s “double standard.” He told reporters, “Many people may want to ask this question: Why does the U.S. refer to those ‘Hong Kong independence’ and black-clad rioters as ‘heroes’ and ‘fighters’ but label its people protesting against racial discrimination as ‘thugs’? Why did the U.S. have so many problems with the restrained and civilized way of law enforcement by the Hong Kong police but have no problem at all with threatening to shoot at and mobilizing the National Guard against its domestic protesters?”

Hua Chunying is the Director of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Information Department. She is at least as venomous as her colleague, if not more so. Hua responded to a tweet from State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, in which she expressed support for the people of Hong Kong, with the message, “I can’t breathe.”

Does China’s interest in the U.S. riots go deeper than simply jeering us over our current troubles? In addition to their propaganda, has their involvement become a little more hands on?

On Thursday, Attorney General William Barr addressed the riots at a DOJ press conference. He said:

While many have peacefully expressed their anger and grief, others have hijacked protests to engage in lawlessness, violent rioting, arson, looting of businesses, and public property assaults on law enforcement officers and innocent people, and even the murder of a federal agent. We have evidence that antifa and other similar extremist groups, as well as actors of a variety of different political persuasions have been involved in instigating and participating in the violent activity.
We are also seeing foreign actors playing all sides to exacerbate the violence.

To be clear, the only group or “movement” Barr singled out was antifa. He did not identify which specific country was involved, nor did he define what the nature of their participation might be.

However, considering that China is currently our biggest geopolitical foe, the CCP has a strong interest in intensifying the riots. The Chinese have infiltrated our universities, many of our corporations, as well as the American media.

Clearly, life would be easier for the CCP if Joe Biden were running the U.S. rather than President Trump. Given that, it isn’t too much of a stretch to believe the Chinese government is doing whatever it can to influence and escalate the riots.

Gregory R. Copley, the editor of the “Defense and Foreign Special Analysis” (this organization has provided research to policy-level officials in governments, armed forces, and intelligence services worldwide since 1972) makes the case for China’s involvement in a paper released on Friday. It was provided to me by a contact in Australia.

I’ve printed excerpts from Copley’s report below. There’s nothing radical here. Just a plausible (to me) foreigner’s perspective on how China might be involved in the current riots that have rocked America in the last couple of weeks. Copley writes:

Beijing, at the end of May 2020, fired the initial salvos of its now-open war with the US on the streets of the West, and mainly the US. It had been an increasingly implausible covert war until that point.
The war’s principal weapons and doctrines were, by the end of May 2020, in the information dominance (ID) realm, and the ID performance art of agitprop — agitation propaganda — crystalized the fight on many US and Western streets. It was a very pointed reinforcement, or refreshment, of the fear pandemic which was triggered by the COVID-19 crisis.
The deliberate use of agitprop to spur a continuation of the lockdown of the US and Western economies, and a continuation of unrest which this had caused against governments, meant that the May-June 2020 ID campaign was a critical part of Beijing’s strategic war to win the People’s Republic of China (PRC) some relief.
Many US domestic groups, but particularly local communist parties and well-funded ultra-left groups such as the “antifa” were already in search of a new cause with which to attack the Government of Pres. Donald Trump in the run-up to the November 3, 2020, elections.
What was significant was that many of these groups had already been penetrated by the Communist Party of China’s (CPC’s) Ministry of State Security [China’s intelligence, security and secret police agency], with which they were in open sympathy, and were ready to take their “performance art” onto the streets.
Defense & Foreign Affairs has seen credible evidence as well as strong secondary evidence of linkages between the MSS and other CPC assets in the commission of the eruption of street violence which was then, in turn, seized upon by other anti-Trump bodies in local and state governments to further their agenda.
For Beijing, this was a logical and vital step in its war to ensure that Trump did not get re-elected and that the US could not prevail against the PRC’s strategic rise.
The CPC was fighting for its life.
The CPC has given greater primacy to psychological warfare and agitprop for domestic and international power projection than have the US intelligence and information agencies. The CPC has been steeped in the professional use of psyops in strategic and tacitcal forms since the 1920s.
…
The CPC which is now profoundly reliant on the art. Information Dominance is the primary warfighting strategic weapon of aspirant powers. It should also be of equal importance to extant powers. But strategically-dominant powers tend to ignore the reality that they must utilize all the tools of amorphous warfare to retain their advantage.
…
Agitprop is the “performance art” of psychological strategy, and terrorism is an aspect of it…But it does not neglect the reality that it, like all warfare, requires its own version of “boots on the ground” or ships at the straits: physical action against targets.
Extracts from Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis 3 June 5, 2020 GIS Confidential © 2020 Global Information System, ISSA: Windows must still be smashed; graffiti still must be applied (now, more easily with spray-can paints), looting must still occur: fear and momentum must be built. Think globally; act locally.
Electronic media, including social media, can now mobilize widespread action at a scale and speed unthinkable even a decade earlier.
…
Today’s MSS is less discreet. Numerous mainland Chinese students and academics in the US have had visible and recorded contacts with some of the groups which sent out mobile strike teams to capitalize on the peaceful protests over the unlawful killing of George Floyd.

What was significant, too, apart from the intent of these roving gangs to organize violence on a rolling basis, was that Democratic-Party-controlled cities and states in the US facilitated the demonstrations which gave the opening to violence. Were they, as Lenin would have said, “willing idiots”? Or were they witting that they had teamed with an organized foreign attempt to continue the US political warfare?

That there were linked protests in Europe and Australia against US police violence confirms the presence of a more coherent organizing hand.

 Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis: Founded in 1972. Formerly Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily Volume XXXVIII, No. 39 Friday, June 5, 2020
© 2020 Global Information System/ISSA.

https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/06/06/850662/

French cheesemaker accidentally creates new 'lockdown' cheese

Lockdown has been difficult for many of France's artisan cheesemakers as sales collapsed when markets, restaurants and workplace canteen throughout the country closed down.
One cheesemaker in the Vosges area was left with many unsold munster cheeses on his hands, so he stored some in the cellar and forgot about them.
But when Lionel Vaxelaire, who owns 25 cows and converts all their milk into the strong-smelling, soft white munster cheese, rediscovered his cheeses, he found something interesting.
They had developed a greenish-grey flowery rind and a completely new flavour.

He told local French news: "We left about 60 munsters at the bottom of the cellar. We even forgot about them a bit. After a month of maturing, we tasted one that had new flavours!

"It lies between our Munster and a Camembert type. It's chalky inside, with a greyish, mottled flowery rind. It took all the flora of our whole raw milk and the flora of the cellar.

 

"This cheese matured on its own for four weeks, unlike Munster, which needs to be washed every day."

 

The new cheese has proved a hit on local markets in the Vosges region, so much so that Vaxelaire has put a new batch into the cellar to mature.

 

It's name is to be le confiné - the locked down.

 

Le confiné joins a rich tradition as one of France's best-known cheeses was apparently also invented by accident. Legend has it that Roquefort cheese was created after a medieval shepherd boy left his lunch of bread and sheep's milk cheese in a cave when he went off to attempt to romance a local girl.

 

When he came back, his cheese was covered in blue mould but tasted delicious. History does not recall whether he got the girl.

https://www.thelocal.fr/20200605/french-cheesemaker-accidentally-creates-new-lockdown-cheese 

 

I’m The Rapid Response Social Worker Who...

The Federalist

I’m The Rapid Response Social Worker Who Replaced The Police

It's not an easy job. In fact, it's impossible, but it's for social justice!

David Marcus

I’m not gonna lie, this isn’t exactly what I expected — lying here in the hospital. I mean, it’s only a few broken bones, a punctured lung, and some stitches to the head, but I almost feel betrayed. Three weeks ago when I took the five-hour online course to become an unarmed rapid response social worker, I thought I was helping mankind. After all, with the police abolished, somebody had to be there to mitigate when people had inevitable disagreements.

My first mitigation didn’t go great. I was called to the scene of a bank robbery — which, there weren’t supposed to be any bank robberies once the capitalist-driven oppression of the police no longer created crime, but this guy apparently didn’t get the memo, I guess. He was a Latinx male-presenting person about 5’6” holding a shotgun.

Thinking back on my extensive training, I tried to calm things down with a breathing exercise. But he just kept yelling and pointing the gun at me, which again, not supposed to happen. I told him that as a white cis man, I could never know the trauma the Spanish-speaking people suffered under white genocidal maniacs like Cortez, and while his desire to rob the bank was understandable, even laudable, we have collectively decided not to support such actions, and resources were available to him.

That’s when he hit me in the head with the butt of his gun; I think it was the butt of his gun, anyway. When I woke up, I realized this job was not going to be as easy as I thought it would be. That was just one person, though — one person who is really rich now. But to assume he represented the entire criminal class would have been the height of privilege, right? And after all, it’s only money, and a slight concussion.

The next day went remarkably better. I was called to a gang fight that was about to get very heated. No guns this time, just knives and brass knuckles. I suggested we all sit in a circle and use a feelings chart to determine what had brought us all to that place. I did not, of course, suggest that why I was there was for some inherently better or more virtuous purpose, and I think they really got it! They stopped fighting each other and stole my wallet, instead. Progress.

It was yesterday, my third day on the job, when things really got dicey. There were reports of revolutionary redistribution of corporate assets, which used to go by the patently racist name “looting.” I consulted my Rapid Response Social Worker app, and it advised me to start gently chanting, “Hope is the thing with feathers.” Dickinson. It’s a technique that was developed in Denmark to deescalate harmful situations with poetry.

The rest is a blur. There were a few baseball bats to the legs. A large glass bottle of something sticky, organic maple syrup maybe, was smashed on my head. People were kicking me in the ribs, and I saw a few people fighting over a Ralph Lauren down comforter they were steali… I mean redistributing. The comforter ripped, there was chaos everywhere, and when I woke up in the ambulance, well, I was the thing with feathers.

This morning when I woke up, my supervisor was right there next to my bed. I thought maybe xir had brought flowers or one of those shiny balloons from the hospital gift shop. But actually xir had a long complaint form, detailing the ways in which I had failed in my job and failed the collective community. I was still kind of groggy. I didn’t catch it all, but something about failure to recognize and ameliorate systems of oppression. Which, I mean, yeah probably.

I’m not giving up though. Nobody said this would be easy. They also didn’t say it would put me in the ICU, but that’s beside the point. We are creating a better world — one where police, the real criminals, no longer exist, and more equitable forms of community support for need-based compelled law suggestion can thrive. Are we there yet? No, but once I’m out of the hospital and off suspension, I’ll be right back to work making America a better place.

$250K raised for Captain Dorn memorial fund

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 7:20 PM PT — Friday, June 5, 2020

The city of St. Louis suffered a major tragedy when multiple officers were shot and a retired captain was killed in a single night amid continued unrest. Now, a crowdfunded memorial for his family has raised a quarter of a million dollars. The fund was started by One America’s Jack Posobiec, who has more from Washington.

D-Day anniversary: New images of Normandy memorial released

World War II veterans whose D-Day anniversary trip to the new British Normandy Memorial was cancelled are being brought new footage of the site to mark the day.

More than 70 veterans, many in their mid-90s, were meant to make the trip for the 76th anniversary on Saturday.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Normandy Memorial Trust is showing them the latest construction work instead.
The memorial was meant to be officially opened on 4 September.
That ceremony will now take place in spring or early summer 2021 instead.
Lord Peter Ricketts, chairman of trustees at the Normandy Memorial Trust, said: "We at the trust know how much the veterans and their families were looking forward to visiting the site around the time of the D-Day anniversary to see the memorial taking shape.

"We share their frustration that the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic have made that impossible. But the good news is that we are pressing on with real determination to complete the construction, despite all the obstacles.
"I pay tribute to the dedication of everyone involved in this."

The new content showing the construction work is being released on the trust's website on Saturday.
"You will get a sense from these new pictures of how moving and impressive the memorial will be once it is finished in the autumn," added Lord Ricketts.
In the footage, people can watch letter carvers inscribing the words of Winston Churchill's speech, including the famous words "we shall fight on the beaches".

The stone columns of the memorial are engraved with the names of 22,442 men and women under British command who lost their lives in the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy.
There was a two-month pause in construction of the memorial due to the pandemic, but it has now restarted. Work has included the planting of hundreds of young trees, as well as 12 semi-mature oak trees at the memorial entrance.
The French memorial - recognising the sacrifice of Normandy's civilian population - has had its foundations installed and the first stone laid.
As the UK government is not providing funding for the maintenance of the memorial. the trust is also launching a support programme. The Normandy Memorial Guardian programme will see supporters recruited to look after the site in the years ahead.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52939504