Hua Guofang

@Mercerhow sure are we that this is what happened. Is there any video footage? To your argument, and I'm only going off gut here as I really don't know, it seems that this brutal response to protests over police brutality is the outcome of decades of impunity and militarisation added with constantly being told that the media is the enemy of the people.

That's a good illustration why when things are tense the cops won't let anyone near them and assume that everyone is a threat. You don't know which person is going to be the one with the blade up their sleeve, the pipe bomb that gets lobbed or have the bottle of flammable liquid that gets thrown on you. Surprised that more of this hasn't happened in the US given all the brutality that the cops have brought to the table.

Hands up those that did a double take when seeing the US econ figures out today Me - 🤚 Back onto the Sweden issue: Sweden: Will COVID-19 Economics be Different? June 4, 2020 Sweden’s less restrictive containment strategy may have resulted in a milder economic contraction at the onset of the crisis, but uncertainty remains about its implications for the rest of the year. Other factors, including falling external demand, will heavily weigh on growth. Concerns have also been raised about the country’s death rate which, although lower than in Europe’s worst-affected countries, is a multiple of its Nordic neighbors. TL;DR - it basically reiterates what's been said up the page, that Sweden is on track to be hurt economically, maybe not as much as other similar Euro countries but still bad. They did lose a lot more people to the virus, 50% of which in oldies homes, and there is no evidence to say either way whether they were able to move toward herd immunity because there's not enough known about the virus. Read it all here: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/06/01/na060120-sweden-will-covid-19-economics-be-different .

THis might surprise some but it's looking like this guy was an ex-cop

Anitfa threat being beaten up by online campaign (shocked, shocked....)

Also Buffalo Note the K9 https://twitter.com/secretlaith/status/1268251322467450880

He's been trying to get those who support him out in counter protests for a week now. I'm not convinced he's trying to get them to clash, he most certainly wants a public show of support to counter the current optics. But it's just another example of what Mattis said; he's not doing anything to try and unite the country. In fact, he's doing what he can to divide it even more. I don't think that he's a Russian plant. But by fuck, he's certainly doing a good job of acting like one.

Two officers suspended without pay. He was 75 years old.

I would be surprised if this old guys survives, given the amount of blood coming from his ear. I would say that the cop may also have a date with the magistrate. I can't see this footage not enraging the nation.

Jesus fuck, look at the second video, he looks like he was just trying to get through and out of the way. You can hear his head crack as it hit the ground.

He was an old man. He posed zero physical threat to armed and armoured personnel. I don't think he expected a violent response, and neither should he have. Violence is not the only tool the police have to deal with people, especially those that are not threatening. Careful that you're not blaming the victim for something that he 100% did not deserve. He wasn't rioting, looting, etc. and now he's lying unconscious on the ground with his head cracked open. .

My hands are still shaking. I can't help thinking of my own granpa now.

My fucking Christ, look what they did to this old man. The blood starts pouring out his ear when his head hits the concrete.

Police initiated violence:

Jesus blumpkin shitting Christ. Get a load of these fucking herbs:

Yeah, I'm yet to go back and read what @misteravenwrote about militia, I'll also read some other qualified opinions on what the militia is for, in regards to defending the nation against tyranny. But my gut feels that this is the play that everyone has been talking about and either their missing it or they were all talk and no balls. I could be wrong. Here's what Mattis said. I'm not even American and it inspires me: In Union There Is Strength I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation. When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside. We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them. James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law. Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics. Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children. We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite. Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.

Not rioting, not looting, not attacking the police. Bashed in broad daylight, in front of the camera with complete impunity.

Another 4 Star general speaking out against the president, I Think that's three of them now. There is a strong assumption that Esper went on TV to say that he did not believe that the military should be used because his generals warned him of mass resignations if they ordered the army onto the street I don't believe that this has ever occurred in the history of the US. Imagine what the enemies of the US are thinking when they see a military refusing to follow its commander. I know a lot of us don't have faith in the system, which includes me to a large degree. But little since Nixon has done much damage like Trump has. I was out on the streets against Bush and the war in Iraq, as that has hurt America dearly. But there has been nothing like this before. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/03/trump-military-george-floyd-protests/

Account and pics of peaceful protest last night being dispersed with violence. Maybe nothing will happen this time, but the divide that has now been put between the educated, professional and law abiding middle class and the law is going to ripple for generations. I know that cops in the US have have big problems for a long time and that this is not the first rodeo - we all know about Kent State, Waco, etc. etc. However, this is all on a million cameras, the world is watching and nothing on this scale has occurred before. The rot is deep.

He was in a place where cops were shooting rubber bullets, doesn't matter if he was in the right, a law abiding citizen or a young kid goofing off? Seems a bit harsh. I still don't understand how it's me that gets accused of loving govt power on this forum when other people seem to be pretty big fans of authority. And that's not a shot at you either, DH. I don't agree with your position but I don't hate on you for it. I just don't get why I get called a fluffer on the set of state power porno but you don't.

Sometimes you can just tell the kinds of sluts that do anal prolapse, fist-to-mouth and squirt-bukake, just by looking at them. They are filth bags and radiate whorishness. Those walking sticks don't fool me for a minute.

They're working towards deploying regular army, not just the Guard, who are already deployed. What is there to say? So, what, just let it wash over you now it's crunch time?

That's the point though, I'm not dismissing them (plus, I explicitly referred to a black letter reading rather than interpretations, I don't understand how you would read that as an outright dismissal), I'm saying that they are most relevant right now. They aren't invoking laws for what's happening, they're just acting and denying it's happening. Check out the Australian Channel 7 crew getting bashed. The WH interpretation, "the officers had a right to defend themsleves"..., against people sitting still, that is. Also, the law they're looking to invoke for deployment of regular military is the Insurrection Act, which is from 1807, not recent times.

Published on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. And you thought the comparison with communist China was with Bernie or AOC....

Understandably so. I'm not actually a black letter guy when it comes to law, especially when it come to laws written hundreds of years back, for very different times. However, what you are seeing now, with the potential deployment of the military and the arbitrary, the hobbling of a free press and the arrest of law abiding citizens exercising freedom of speech and assembly is antithetical to liberal democracy and the foundation of the Republic. It's also really fucking bad for personal safety in the short and long-term, even if you don't give a fuck about politics. .