Tag: george floyd
Tucker Carlson Utters Racist 'Joke' About Tyre Nichols Killing

Tucker Carlson Utters Racist 'Joke' About Tyre Nichols Killing

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson managed to incorporate a racist “joke” into a recent segment of his show covering the murder of Tyre Nichols, Huffpost reports.

The host began his rant by targeting President Joe Biden’s recent decision to end the COVID-19 emergency, and claimed the White House’s decision means he’s forced to turn his attention to 29-year-old Nichols' murder last month.

Carlson then proceeded to take aim at Democrats, complaining that the party “needed an emergency, so they found one,” and that’s “white racism.”

"White racism is getting harder to find," Carlson lamented. "Very few unarmed Black men are killed by white cops these days. Where’s George Floyd when you need him?”

Contrary to Carlson's statement, Rolling Stone found that in 2023, police have already killed at least seven unarmed black people.

Watch the segment below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

#EndorseThis: Kimmel On Trump's 'Unfathomable' Order To Shoot Protesters

#EndorseThis: Kimmel On Trump's 'Unfathomable' Order To Shoot Protesters

Recovered from COVID, Jimmy Kimmel immediately weighed in on the latest weird revelations moment about the orange clown's presidency. Mark Esper, Trump’s former defense secretary, appeared on 60 Minutes last weekend to share what Kimmel called an “almost impossible-to-believe anecdote about Trump’s plan to handle Americans protesting outside the White House after the killing of George Floyd."

Esper said Trump wondered aloud, "Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” and that the president suggested bringing in troops to shoot the protesters.

“Well, in fairness, he said the same thing about Eric,” Kimmel deadpanned.

Of course Trump fired back at Esper's criticism, saying, “Mark Esper was weak and totally ineffective, and because of it, I had to run the military.”

“Right," retorted Kimmel. "Captain Bone Spurs had to run the military for Mark Esper...And we know that’s a lie because unlike everything else he ran, the military didn’t go bankrupt."

Watch The Entire Segment Below:

Black Lives Matter protest

Busted: Seattle Police Spread Disinformation During Anti-Racist Protests

The latest police scandal in Seattle provides a crystalline example of how local law enforcement authorities have become toxic entities in modern urban areas—largely because it demonstrates, once again, that the city’s ranks have become populated with right-wing extremists who share an abiding contempt for the citizens they’re supposed to “serve and protect.”

An investigation by Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA) reported this week that city police, during George Floyd-inspired June 2020 protests against police brutality, engaged in a campaign of disinformation over police radio intended to convince leftist activists who had created an “autonomous zone” in the Capitol Hill neighborhood that a phalanx of far-right Proud Boys were marching around the city. The radio chatter heightened tensions within the encampment that eventually erupted in real-world gun violence.

The investigation, spurred by social media reports from leftist activists, found that on the night of June 8, 2020—just after police had abandoned its East Precinct Station on Capitol Hill and as activists were creating what they called autonomous zone they later renamed the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP)—deliberately broadcast false verbal reports of a gang of Proud Boys marching around the downtown area.

The participating officers traded the false reports over the radio, saying: “It looks like a few of them might be open carrying,” and: “Hearing from the Proud Boys group. … They may be looking for somewhere else for confrontation.”

Activists monitoring police radio raised the alarm on social media, leading some of the CHOP participants to arm themselves. OPA Director Andrew Myerberg noted that while some of them may have brought guns regardless of the warnings, the disinformation “improperly added fuel to the fire.”

Moreover, key police leaders were aware of the disinformation campaign, even though it violated department policy. However, Myerberg also concluded that the four officers who participated may have used “poor judgment,” but were following guidance from their supervisors, who the report blames for spreading the false story.

The two supervisors it identifies as organizing and overseeing the disinformation network, as it happens, have both left the department in the intervening months. Chief Adrian Diaz will review the activities of the remaining employees.

Prior to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, many police departments—including Seattle’s—had generally amicable relationships with the Proud Boys, leading many of them to conclude that they could behave with impunity in those jurisdictions. This was notably the case in Seattle, which had been the scene of a number of Proud Boys protests before 2020, resulting (as in Portland) mostly in the arrests of leftist counterprotesters and relatively few far-right street provocateurs.

Seattle activist Matt Watson (who uses the nom de plume Spek on social media) first reported the police-radio hoax shortly after it happened, and was able to document the fake reports. His reportage went largely unnoticed until early 2021, when activist Omari Salisbury began digging into the matter. Salisbury’s requests for body-camera footage of the purported Proud Boys sightings led OPA to open its investigation.

Even after the police hoax in early June, real Proud Boys (led by Portland agitator Tusitala “Tiny” Toese) showed up at the CHOP and engaged in harassment of the activists there, as well as of residents in the surrounding neighborhood. Toese and a gang of his Proud Boy and white-nationalist associates entered the zone on June 15 and attempted to start fights and were largely prevented from doing so; they later were videotaped assaulting a man and destroying his cell phone on a neighborhood side street near the zone.

By the end of the month, there had been multiple incidents of gunfire within the zone and in its vicinity, resulting in two deaths. CHOP was shut down on July 1.

Seattle citizens’ fraught relationship with the city’s police department goes back decades, but has intensified since 2011, when the Justice Department opened an investigation into complaints by community leaders about its excessive use of force and its biased behavior while policing minorities, resulting in a federal consent decree under which the department has been operating since 2012. City officials moved in early 2020 to lift portions of that decree, but pulled back on those efforts after the June riots on Capitol Hill.

The presence of right-wing extremists on the force became an acute matter of public concern after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol—largely because six Seattle officers were identified as participants in that day’s “Stop the Steal” protests. Two of them were fired after an investigation found they had entered the Capitol that day.

“Misinformation, especially of this inflammatory nature, is totally unacceptable from our Seattle police officers,” newly elected Mayor Bruce Harrell said in a statement lamenting the “immeasurable” harm caused by the scandal. “This kind of tactic never should have been considered.”

“This misinformation from SPD led to a fortification of the East Precinct and weeks of violence against the people of Seattle,” Seattle City Council member Tammy Morales wrote on Twitter. “As @Omarisal says, it was a ‘strategy planned by the higher ups.’ We need an investigation outside City process and we need real accountability.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

George Floyd protestors at the White House in June 2020.

General Refused Trump Demand To 'Shoot' Racial Justice Protesters

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Former President Donald Trump wanted the military to take aggressive action against protesters following the disturbing death of George Floyd. A new book documents the former president's disturbing demands to quell the protests.

In the new book, Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost, Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender details the series of events that led to Trump's downfall.At one point in the book, he also discusses the nationwide protests that erupted following Floyd's death. According to Bender, Trump allegedly wanted physical harm to be brought against protesters and even suggested that they be shot.

Although the vast majority of protests were non-violent and peaceful, Trump still demanded to see law enforcement take physical action. "That's how you're supposed to handle these people," Trump told his administrative officials, according to Bender's reporting. "Crack their skulls!"

"Well, shoot them in the leg — or maybe the foot," Trump reportedly said. "But be hard on them!"

In addition to the verbal remarks, the former president is also said to have used a number of videos as examples of the pushback he wanted to see. CNN also offered details about Trump's conversations behind closed doors at the White House. He reportedly told members of his administration that he wanted the military to "beat the f--- out" of protesters.

Although General Mark A. Milley and former U.S. Attorney General Barr William reportedly made attempts to push back against the president's dangerous rhetoric, he would only back down temporarily.

Another incident reported in the book centered on one of Milley's exchanges with Trump's former senior policy adviser Stephen Miller. When Miller reportedly referred to some of the states as "war zones," Milley reportedly told him to "shut the fuck up."