[remus]

Long overdue.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/26/trump-twitter-fact-check-warning-label

An in response, he signs an executive order targeting social media companies https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52843986

Remarkable that he can get away with such a flagrant abuse of his position.

[TobyD]

As I understand it he won't be able to actually do anything about this,  as a) it would have to pass Congress b) he'd be challenged on breaching the first amendment by restricting freedom of speech

[Wil]

A step further for Twitter in enforcing their own rules:



Note also no replies allowed.

[petejh]

Protesters under fire 
https://www.theonion.com/protestors-criticized-for-looting-businesses-without-fo-1843735351?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=theonion_twitter

MINNEAPOLIS—Calling for a more measured way to express opposition to police brutality, critics slammed demonstrators Thursday for recklessly looting businesses without forming a private equity firm first. “Look, we all have the right to protest, but that doesn’t mean you can just rush in and destroy any business without gathering a group of clandestine investors to purchase it at a severely reduced price and slowly bleed it to death,” said Facebook commenter Amy Mulrain, echoing the sentiments of detractors nationwide who blasted the demonstrators for not hiring a consultant group to take stock of a struggling company’s assets before plundering. “I understand that people are angry, but they shouldn’t just endanger businesses without even a thought to enriching themselves through leveraged buyouts and across-the-board terminations. It’s disgusting to put workers at risk by looting. You do it by chipping away at their health benefits and eventually laying them off. There’s a right way and wrong way to do this.” At press time, critics recommended that protestors hold law enforcement accountable by simply purchasing the Minneapolis police department from taxpayers.

[mrjonathanr]

I have just seen his tweet on Twitter saying

.. when the looting starts, the shooting starts

Wow. POTUS glorifying /inciting violence 

[Fiend]

Disgusted but not in the slightly bit surprised one presumes. That's the one that twitter hid with a warning, right?

[remus]

Disgusted but not in the slightly bit surprised one presumes. That's the one that twitter hid with a warning, right?

Yes

[TobyD]

So today, just to add to threatening protesters with being shot at (perhaps he should look at some history here and see how well that went for China in 1989); Donald pulls out of the WHO. Quite a day for the shit thick giant infant who somehow became president. Long may he not last.

[tomtom]

Watching the protests - and riots across the US - I’d wager that while racism is clearly the trigger there’s a whole load of other obvious stuff bundled up in there coming out...  Trump stuff, Lockdown fatigue/anger, economic hardship (pre and especially post lockdown) and more....

I really really fear that Trump will see this as another opportunity to openly ‘divide and rule’....

[andy popp]

It's race. Black Americans are tired and angry. They feel hunted, literally. In the last couple of weeks we've been treated to videos of a young black jogger being hunted down by vigilantes and of another black man being slowly publicly murdered (yes, sure, it still has to go to trial) by a cop while he called for his dead mum and bystanders pleaded for mercy. In 2016 Minnesota police shot and killed Philando Castile as he sat compliant in his car. Yesterday a friend, an older black woman active in the church, had the cops called on her as she tried to shelter from a rainstorm. Someone thought she didn't belong where she was and rang the cops. Black parents are scared when their children go out. Routine encounters with cop can easily turn deadly, as it did for George Floyd. White anti-shutdown protestors armed with assault rifles are treated with kid gloves; unarmed black (and white) protestors against police killings are met with rubber with rubber bullets and tear gas (there is also a huge amount police provocation going on, as well as deliberate agent provocateur actions). White pupils at private Christian schools are staging mocking recreations of Floyds death and posting them to social media.

Definitely there are other factors, but they are almost all also heavily inflected by race. Of course there are poor white Americans, but poor blacks are much poorer, on average, than poor whites. There are massive disparities in access to education, healthcare, decent housing, and other things most of would consider basic essentials. Lockdown has made little or any difference to any of that, beyond exposing the reality even more starkly. Many black Americans understandably see Trump as nothing different, just another racist.

He will undoubtedly do nothing but sow division. His entire world view is Hobbesian us vs. them. He is the President of white America. Who knows how it will play out. We'll have to see what the rest of the summer brings and exactly how white America splits.

[TobyD]

Thanks Andy. From the nearly a year I've spent in the states on three long trips,  one of the things which shocked me was that I hadn't realised just how different from European countries it is on the race issue.  Segregation and repression exists in both, sure, but it seemed so much more normalised and institutionalised in the US.

Just read this morning that Trumps looting/shooting phrase is a direct quote from a 60s Miami police chief  threatening black civil rights activists.  He really isn't just any old racist is he?

[mrjonathanr]

Just read this morning that Trumps looting/shooting phrase is a direct quote from a 60s Miami police chief  threatening black civil rights activists.  He really isn't just any old racist is he?

Here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/05/29/when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts-trump-walter-headley/

[tomtom]

I spent 6 months living in Minneapolis in 2003. I luu I bed just up the road from where many of the riots were. Back then - the Twin cities and Minnesota in general were considered pretty laid back - with the city pretty cosmopolitan.

Bizarrely - while I was there, there were riots too - but due to the university Hockey team winning the nationals... I was out having a look as cars and dumpsters were being torched - and then the plastic bullets started whizzing by. Quite surreal. I recognised the big store in the corner that was torched and in many pics. Back then it was pissed up students but the police didn’t piss about.

It’s sad to see - still have friends and contacts over in the Twin Cities.

[andy popp]

A young man has been killed in Detroit after someone in an SUV fired multiple shots into a crowd of protesters. This has the potential to become incredibly ugly.

[Oldmanmatt]

A young man has been killed in Detroit after someone in an SUV fired multiple shots into a crowd of protesters. This has the potential to become incredibly ugly.

It has been a long time brewing.

I lived in San Jose (Bay area)for nearly two years as a 14/15 year old (‘83/84) then I was stationed for a year in Roosevelt Roads and Port Canaveral (so Puerto Rico and Florida) for most of ‘94 and some of ‘95. Then went to work in Universal Shipyard, Thunderbolt, Savannah (Georgia) for eight months in ‘99/2000, before relocating with the vessel into New England/ Maine the following autumn.

I listed all that, because, every single one of those places was entirely different to each of the others. As different as here and Romania, more different than here and France.
The people, the culture, everything.

By far the most uncomfortable (and dangerous) was Savannah. I don’t know anything about the regions currently on fire, but if Georgia is anything to go by, this is hardly a surprise. Keeping my mouth shut there, was hard. The blatant segregation and racism, really tough to witness.
I was the project manager for a Mega yacht refit and weekends were all about barbecue with the, say, Fabrication manager etc. White, middle class, college educated.
Southern Gentlemen, to be sarcastic.

[Oldmanmatt]

For anyone interested in the empirical data on the actual extent of racially-motivated police brutality in the US and various similar topics, I strongly recommend (black) academic Wilfred Reilly's book "Taboo: 10 Facts You Can't Talk About".

Jeezus! Of course it’s a small minority. I think we’re all aware that there are ~300M people in the US and, as I said, immense variations in culture between states and regions.
Statistically, you’d need hundreds of thousands of similar events, in a relatively short time frame (less than a decade, to suit human memories) for them to even begin to be significant in a per capita / time scale.

Do you imagine, then, that because the several recent incidents (high profile) are statistically insignificant, that no problems exist?

Or, even, that the “problem” is simply confined to a few bad Cops?

If so, try “being black and having the wrong type of barbecue in the park” or “being black and picking up litter in your own front yard” or “ being black and using the gym in your office block” or “ being black and asking a dog walker to put their dog on a lead” or....

 I could probably go on all day, just on the few incidents that make an international impact and then manage to lodge a headline in my memory.

I used to think it was a bit overblown, that this was just what happens when every Cop carries a fire arm. Enough Cops, big fuck ups, infinite monkeys and all that.

For sure, that’s true, to an extent and exacerbated by the prevalence of fire arms amongst the general public.

But, as my dad once pointed out ( somehow, even 15 years retired, he cannot stop being a Cop) Police forces across Europe are routinely armed; Britain is an exception.
Yet, even if we take the EU, rather than individual countries, where the population is comparable to the US, we don’t find anything like the number of incidents. Police involved or even general public (high profile) racism is much less common (definitely not zero, though).

Yet, Mr Farage and his ilk, inform me that we are overwhelmed with “other than white people” and “the wrong kind of white people” right across Europe and even worse, they’re all recent arrivals who can’t cope with our “culture” (drinking six pints in a hour, with four packets of pork scratchings and getting into a fight with the bouncers because they won’t let you into the club with pork skin vomit down your trousers).

Possibly, of course, it’s just social media unduly affecting public opinion. Inflating the profile of what would have been locally contained news, once.

Good job Twitter doesn’t work here...

https://www.statista.com/chart/21857/people-killed-in-police-shootings-in-the-us/?utm_source=Statista+Global&utm_campaign=53874c11b7-All_InfographTicker_daily_COM_AM_KW22_2020_Fr&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_afecd219f5-53874c11b7-301088997

[Oldmanmatt]

Obviously, it might be Semantic Memory, leading to false pattern recognition, but I only just got up on a Sunday morning and glanced at Twitter.

I think I’m seeing a pattern here.

I’ll put a couple of quid on another, similar, incident of “White person attacks protestors for protesting or simply walking past” before today is over.

https://twitter.com/jordanuhl/status/1266895208115044354?s=21

[Oldmanmatt]

Anyway, on a related note but, up an octave...
Good piece in the New Yorker on how violent protest (and law and order issues in general) migh (and have historically) influence the middle ground “swing” voters.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-violent-protests-change-politics?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_053020&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd6781724c17c104801b016&cndid=40001507&hasha=8d38aa627d08a32cbd5ffbd788687d96&hashb=672b2a5b30cfe731b9fa938876429bc4baab5d96&hashc=d092b1886d508311326be0fc6a49d3ce0ce2c544618b76899ad36d9216c64809&esrc=right_rail_cartoons&utm_term=TNY_Daily

[mrjonathanr]

Statistical significance would be measurable. Small numbers of black people being murdered by the police officers tasked with protecting them seems measurable in a context where we should expect n=0.

Given theEuropean Union has ~1.5 times US population, statistically we should expect a correlation with police violence.

Do we?

[Ged]

For anyone interested in the empirical data on the actual extent of racially-motivated police brutality in the US and various similar topics, I strongly recommend (black) academic Wilfred Reilly's book "Taboo: 10 Facts You Can't Talk About".

There's a really good Radiolab podcast on the subject from a few years back.  It's called "Shots Fired", and is two parter.  Pretty shocking.

[Oldmanmatt]

While everyone is watching the riot/pandemic/Qannon-a-crap show, the real power grab  is attempting to sneak in a side entrance:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/doj-suspend-constitutional-rights-coronavirus-970935/

Oh yeah, if you’re superstitious and into prophecy type twaddle:

https://biblehub.com/revelation/13-5.htm

[seankenny]

Interesting graph mapping various political parties by their commitment to liberal democratic ideals and minority rights.
The Republicans keep some unsavoury company.

https://twitter.com/PippaN15/status/1267935819047854080

(Disclaimer: not read the original report so unsure if the methodology is wonky.)

[Oldmanmatt]

He’s not getting it all his way.

Esper’s statement earlier was significant, this, even more so:

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/06/03/active-duty-troops-deployed-to-dc-region-start-to-leave/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL&utm_medium=social


Edit:

Sorry, assuming again, Esper’s statement:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/03/mark-esper-military-deployment-protests-298314

[Oldmanmatt]

Following on from the above.

I think the military have significant issues with complying too closely to Trump’s rhetoric, or the narrative of the right.
Their senior staff know what they’re sitting on and are willing to fly close to outright opposition to Trump:

https://www.militarytimes.com/2020/06/03/army-navy-leaders-latest-to-speak-out-about-racism-in-wake-of-george-floyds-death-in-police-custody/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL

Because, some 30% or so of the personnel in their commands, are “other than white” and there seems a high probability of tension within the ranks:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/214869/share-of-active-duty-enlisted-women-and-men-in-the-us-military/

[Oldmanmatt]

Apparently, a few Republicans are suddenly not wanting to appear racist.

Just ordinary, petty, corrupt:

https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/06/03/historic-nomination-of-first-black-service-chief-to-move-forward-after-lawmaker-lifts-secret-hold/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL