The Fed's $10 Trillion Defends The Assets Of The Rich - You Other M'Fers Are On Your Own!!!

 theanalysis |  The Federal Reserve is directly buying stocks, bonds, junk bonds, mortgages, junk mortgages, all to prop up the value of assets owned by the top 5%. This does not spur much new production or create jobs. Michael Hudson joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast

Welcome To Blackness: The Social Contract Between Government And The People Has Unraveled

consentfactory |  Things couldn’t be going better for the Resistance if they had scripted it themselves.

Actually, they did kind of script it themselves. Not the murder of poor George Floyd, of course. Racist police have been murdering Black people for as long as there have been racist police. No, the Resistance didn’t manufacture racism. They just spent the majority of the last four years creating and promoting an official narrative which casts most Americans as “white supremacists” who literally elected Hitler president, and who want to turn the country into a racist dictatorship.

According to this official narrative, which has been relentlessly disseminated by the corporate media, the neoliberal intelligentsia, the culture industry, and countless hysterical, Trump-hating loonies, the Russians put Donald Trump in office with those DNC emails they never hacked and some division-sowing Facebook ads that supposedly hypnotized Black Americans into refusing to come out and vote for Clinton. Putin purportedly ordered this personally, as part of his plot to “destroy democracy.” The plan was always for President Hitler to embolden his white-supremacist followers into launching the “RaHoWa,” or the “Boogaloo,” after which Trump would declare martial law, dissolve the legislature, and pronounce himself Führer. Then they would start rounding up and murdering the Jews, and the Blacks, and Mexicans, and other minorities, according to this twisted liberal fantasy.

I’ve been covering the roll-out and dissemination of this official narrative since 2016, and have documented much of it in my essays, so I won’t reiterate all that here. Let’s just say, I’m not exaggerating, much. After four years of more or less constant conditioning, millions of Americans believe this fairy tale, despite the fact that there is absolutely zero evidence whatsoever to support it. Which is not exactly a mystery or anything. It would be rather surprising if they didn’t believe it. We’re talking about the most formidable official propaganda machine in the history of official propaganda machines.

And now the propaganda is paying off. The protesting and rioting that typically follows the murder of an unarmed Black person by the cops has mushroomed into “an international uprising” cheered on by the corporate media, corporations, and the liberal establishment, who don’t normally tend to support such uprisings, but they’ve all had a sudden change of heart, or spiritual or political awakening, and are down for some serious property damage, and looting, and preventative self-defense, if that’s what it takes to bring about justice, and to restore America to the peaceful, prosperous, non-white-supremacist paradise it was until the Russians put Donald Trump in office.

In any event, the Resistance media have now dropped their breathless coverage of the non-existent Corona-Holocaust to breathlessly cover the “revolution.” The American police, who just last week were national heroes for risking their lives to beat up, arrest, and generally intimidate mask-less “lockdown violators” are now the fascist foot soldiers of the Trumpian Reich. The Nike corporation produced a commercial urging people to smash the windows of their Nike stores and steal their sneakers. Liberal journalists took to Twitter, calling on rioters to “burn that shit down!” … until the rioters reached their gated community and started burning down their local Starbucks. Hollywood celebrities are masking up and going full-black bloc, and doing legal support. Chelsea Clinton is teaching children about David and the Racist Goliath. John Cusack’s bicycle was attacked by the pigs. I haven’t checked on Rob Reiner yet, but I assume he is assembling Molotov cocktails in the basement of a Resistance safe house somewhere in Hollywood Hills.

Look, I’m not saying the neoliberal Resistance orchestrated or staged these riots, or “denying the agency” of the folks in the streets. Whatever else is happening out there, a lot of very angry Black people are taking their frustration out on the cops, and on anyone and anything else that represents racism and injustice to them.

This happens in America from time to time. America is still a racist society. Most African-Americans are descended from slaves. Legal racial discrimination was not abolished until the 1960s, which isn’t that long ago in historical terms. I was born in the segregated American South, with the segregated schools, and all the rest of it. I don’t remember it — I was born in 1961 — but I do remember the years right after it. The South didn’t magically change overnight in July of 1964. Nor did the North’s variety of racism, which, yes, is subtler, but no less racist.

So I have no illusions about racism in America. But I’m not really talking about racism in America. I’m talking about how racism in America has been cynically instrumentalized, not by the Russians, but by the so-called Resistance, in order to delegitimize Trump and, more importantly, everyone who voted for him, as a bunch of white supremacists and racists.

Fomenting racial division has been the Resistance’s strategy from the beginning. A quote attributed to Joseph Goebbels, “accuse the other side of that which you are guilty,” is particularly apropos in this case. From the moment Trump won the Republican nomination, the corporate media and the rest of the Resistance have been telling us the man is literally Hitler, and that his plan is to foment racial hatred among his “white supremacist base,” and eventually stage some “Reichstag” event, declare martial law and pronounce himself dictator. They’ve been telling us this story over and over, on television, in the liberal press, on social media, in books, movies, and everywhere else they could possibly tell it.

So, before you go out and join the “uprising,” take a look at the headlines today, turn on CNN or MSNBC, and think about that for just a minute. I don’t mean to spoil the party, but they’ve preparing you for this for the last four years.

The National Security State Is Going To Flex At Home Like Never Before

libertyblitzkrieg |  The pressure cooker situation that erupted over the weekend has been building for five decades, but really accelerated over the past twenty years. After every crisis of the 21st century there’s been this “do whatever it takes mentality,” which resulted in more wealth and power for the national security state and oligarchy, and less resources, opportunities and civil liberties for the many. If anything, it’s surprising it took so long to get here, partly a testament to how skilled a salesman for the power structure Obama was.

The covid-19 pandemic, related societal lockdown and another round of in your face economic looting by Congress and the Federal Reserve merely served as an accelerant, and the only thing missing was some sort of catalyst combined with warmer weather. Now that the eruption has occurred, I hope cooler heads can prevail on all sides. 

I don't think people understand the significance of the President declaring "Antifa" a "terrorist organization". The Patriot Act and provisions of the NDAA of 2012 make this frightening. Because Antifa is informal it puts all protestors in danger--like declaring them un-citizens.

— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) June 1, 2020

On the one hand, you can’t pillage the public so blatantly and consistently for decades while telling them voting will change things and not expect violence once people realize it doesn’t. On the other hand, street violence plays perfectly into the hands of those who would take the current moment and use it to advocate for a further loss of civil liberties, more internal militarization, and the emergence of an overt domestic police state that’s been itching to fully manifest since 9/11.

It’s my view we need to take the current moment and admit the unrest is a symptom of a deeply entrenched and corrupt bipartisan imperial oligarchy that cares only about its own wealth and power. If people of goodwill across the ideological spectrum don’t take a step back and point out who the real looters are, nothing’s going to improve and we’ll put another bandaid on a systemic cancer as we continue our longstanding march toward less freedom and more authoritarianism.

While we aren’t going to solve everything at once, something should be done as soon as possible to at least partially address current anger and frustration.

Clearly there’s a major problem when it comes to policing in America, particularly in poor inner-city communities. Let’s start by ending qualified immunity.

Did "Officer Chauvin" And George Floyd Know One Another?

CTH |  El Nuevo Rodeo (hereafter ENR) is a front business. Nothing is as it seems.

The background ownership of ENR takes you to a shady network of LLC’s and the name Omar Investments Inc. (est. 1996).  Dig a little deeper and something else becomes evident… The ownership might connect to one or more U.S. three letter agencies.

The ownership network has previous interactions with FBI operations in/around Minneapolis. This is not surprising because Minneapolis Minnesota has more national security operations ongoing than any other community in the country. Various Somali groups are being watched, and anyone can do a google search to see when those security operations surface in the media.

Omar Investments Inc. owns El Nuevo Rodeo Cantina and night club since 1996.  The principle of Omar Investments Inc. is Muna Sabri. In 2001 a close relative, Basim Sabri, was captured by the FBI in a sting operation.

…”In 2001, FBI agents recorded Sabri giving Herron $5,000, cash intended to curry the lawmaker’s support for his development. Sabri was later convicted on three bribery counts and fined $75,000.” (link)….

FBI intercept in 2001, there’s the capture.  That’s the asset creation point for U.S. security to find a way to embed within Minneapolis, and assist the Sabri’s along the way.

The presented “former club owner”, Maya Santamaria, seen on television, appears to be a purposeful ‘front’ (a face useful in deflecting attention from the primary owner and operations). With that in mind, the scale of false information in/around the visible event, horrible as it was/is, creates layers and layers of purposeful misinformation and a need to control what the public sees in the media.

As I said before, I prefer to sit this one out; however, it is interesting.  If you consider that El Nuevo Rodeo might likely be a front for a three letter national security agency; or at the very least a valuable inside source for domestic intelligence and surveillance, things start reconciling rather quickly.

ENR also looks like a money laundering operation.  Part of that laundry operation appears to involve counterfeit currency.  This enterprise, writ large, looks like the answer to ‘how’ a U.S. agency infiltrated the background criminal network in Minnesota to watch and monitor for domestic threats.  So there are layers to what is visible and a myriad of interests involved.

Officer Derek Chauvin is a 19-year veteran of the Mineapolis police dept.  Derek Chauvin also worked at ENR for 17 years.  That timeline puts Derek Chauvin showing up to work security at El Neuvo Rodeo cantina and club right after the FBI busts Basim Sabri (everyone remembers what intel agencies were doing right after 9-11-01).

Susan Rice Say "Russia Behind These Occupy Main Street Riots And Whatnot"...,

foxnews |  Rice made the claim after top Democrats insisted for years that the White House had conspired with Russia, although Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence to support any conspiracy with Russia by any U.S. actor to influence the 2016 election. Her remarks also came amid efforts by Democrats to pin the blame on outside white supremacist agitators, even though data suggests the vast majority of arrested protesters in recent days are local.

"To designate Antifa a terrorist organization, fine, but let's also focus on the right-wing terrorist organizations," Rice told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, referring to President Trump's decision earlier in the day to brand the left-wing militant group as a terrorist organization. "The white supremacists that he's called, in the past, very fine people."

Rice's claim that Trump praised white supremacists has been debunked. Like Rice, Trump specifically made a distinction between peaceful political protesters and white supremacists, whom Trump said he condemned "totally." ("Very fine people" were protesting the censorship and removal of a Civil War statue, Trump said.)

Rice continued: "We have peaceful protesters focused on the very real pain and disparities that we're all wrestling with that have to be addressed, and then we have extremists who've come to try to hijack those protests and turn them into something very different. And they're probably also, I would bet based on my experience, I'm not reading the intelligence these days, but based on my experience this is right out of the Russian playbook as well."

"I would not be surprised to learn that they have fomented some of these extremists on both sides using social media," Rice said. "I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they are funding it in some way, shape, or form."

Even left-of-center commentators were bewildered by Rice's claim, which was not supported by any evidence. Although Mueller concluded that Russian-linked actors sought to use social media to influence the 2016 election, no evidence surfaced to show that their effort was successful in any measurable way. Earlier this year, the DOJ abruptly dropped Mueller's once-heralded prosecution of a Russian troll farm, just days before trial.

Who's REALLY Doing The LOOTING In The "Occupy Main Street" Reorganization?

jacobin |  Headlines this morning are all about looting — specifically, looting in Minneapolis, after the police killing of an unarmed African-American man was caught on video. In the modern vernacular, that word “looting” is loaded — it comes with all sorts of race and class connotations. And we have to understand that terms like “looting” are an example of the way our media often imperceptibly trains us to think about economics, crime, and punishment in specific and skewed ways.

Working-class people pilfering convenience-store goods is deemed “looting.” By contrast, rich folk and corporations stealing billions of dollars during their class war is considered good and necessary “public policy” — aided and abetted by arsonist politicians in Washington lighting the crime scene on fire to try to cover everything up.

To really understand the deep programming at work here, consider how the word “looting” is almost never used to describe the plundering that has become the routine policy of our government at a grand scale that is far larger than a vandalized Target store.

Indeed, if looting is defined in the dictionary as “to rob especially on a large scale” using corruption, then these are ten examples of looting that we rarely ever call “looting”:

1. “The Fed Bailed Out the Investor Class“: “Thanks to this massive government subsidy, large companies like Boeing and Carnival Cruises were able to avoid taking money directly — and sidestep requirements to keep employees on.”
2. “Millionaires To Reap 80% of Benefit From Tax Change In Coronavirus Stimulus“: “The change — which alters what certain business owners are allowed to deduct from their taxes — will allow some of the nation’s wealthiest to avoid nearly $82 billion of tax liability in 2020.”
3. “Stealth Bailout’ Shovels Millions of Dollars to Oil Companies“: “A provision of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law gives [companies] more latitude to deduct recent losses. . . . The change wasn’t aimed only at the oil industry. However, its structure uniquely benefits energy companies that were raking in record profits.”
4. “The Tax-Break Bonanza Inside the Economic Rescue Package“: “As part of the economic rescue package that became law last month, the federal government is giving away $174 billion in temporary tax breaks overwhelmingly to rich individuals and large companies.”
5. “Wealthiest Hospitals Got Billions in Bailout for Struggling Health Providers“: “Twenty large chains received more than $5 billion in federal grants even while sitting on more than $100 billion in cash.”
6. “Airlines Got the Sweetest Coronavirus Bailout Around“: “The $50 billion the government is using to prop up the industry is a huge taxpayer gift to shareholders.”
7. “Large, Troubled Companies Got Bailout Money in Small-Business Loan Program“: “The so-called Paycheck Protection Program was supposed to help prevent small companies from capsizing as the economy sinks into what looks like a severe recession. . . . But dozens of large but lower-profile companies with financial or legal problems have also received large payouts under the program.”
8. “Public Companies Received $1 Billion Meant For Small Businesses“: “Recipients include 43 companies with more than 500 workers, the maximum typically allowed by the program. Several other recipients were prosperous enough to pay executives $2 million or more.”
9. “Firms That Left U.S. to Cut Taxes Could Qualify for Fed Aid“: “Companies that engaged in so-called corporate inversion transactions while maintaining meaningful U.S. operations appear to be eligible for two new programs.”
10. “The K Street Bailout“: “Lobbyists already got bailed out, in effect, when corporations got bailed out. This is kind of the ultimate in double dipping; corporations are nursed back to health by the sheer force of Federal Reserve commitments, this allows them to keep their lobbying expenses up, and then lobbyists lobby for free money for themselves.”

This looting is having a real-world effect: as half a billion people across the globe could be thrown into poverty and as 43 million Americans are projected to lose their health care coverage, CNBC reports that “America’s billionaires saw their fortunes soar by $434 billion during the U.S. lockdown between mid-March and mid-May.”

Smart Cities? REALLY?!?! Mr. Greene And SPECTRE Are Coming For Your Water Peasants!!!

truthout |  Is Chester, Pennsylvania, the proverbial canary in the coal mine? Sure does look like it.

The Philadelphia suburb is trying to sell its drinking water system. “The city’s fiscal issues have been greatly exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis,” Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland wrote in an April letter to residents. “It is our hope that the fiscal problems will be of a limited duration, however, as there is a path to financial stability on the horizon.”

That “path to financial stability” is to hand over the Octoraro Reservoir and the surrounding 1,358 acres of public land to a private corporation. Water bills would almost certainly go up, because, on average, private water utilities charge 59 percent more than public utilities. The system’s public workers would be outsourced (and almost certainly paid less). And all that land could be fenced off from public use.

For what? Somewhere around $200 million. A nice chunk of change, given Chester’s longtime budget issues. But add up the headaches and rate increases that often come with privatization, plus the loss of public control and land access, and it wouldn’t be worth it.

“A lot of people around here take ownership of [the reservoir],” a nearby resident told Lancaster Online. “We’re proud of it. It would be a crime.”

Why should anyone care outside of Chester? Because vulture capitalists might be coming your way soon.

Like during the Great Recession, state and local revenues are cratering. State governments are looking at a $765 billion budget shortfall over the next three years. Rainy day funds are woefully inadequate. States can raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy — and they should. But the federal government has to send aid to states and localities rather than continue to overwhelmingly help large corporations.

Until then, companies like Aqua America — the front-runner in Chester — and the entire infrastructure privatization industry will be licking their lips. Global Water Intelligence, an industry insider rag, writes, “The inability to raise water rates … [and] an instant reduction in tax revenues for many municipalities on the back of job losses brought about by COVID-19 could accelerate acquisition opportunities for investor-owned [i.e., private] water utilities.”

How Will Cities And States Dig Themselves Out Of Their Deepening Financial Holes?

turcopelier |  The governments of the really big cities of the US were in fiscal trouble BEFORE the COVID crisis.  The Democratic Party has long governed these places and throughout that period they made promises with regard to disbursements that far exceeded expected revenues.  As an example, pensions for city employees were inflated to incredible levels.  The NY City Police Department has 40,000 employees, etc., etc.  With the rise in these obligations came massive growth in state and local taxes in these big city localities.

The near elimination of deductions for State and Local Taxes (SALT) in the Federal Income tax after 2017 was a mighty blow to rich people resident in the big cities.  The loss of the SALT deduction in federal income taxes has greatly increased the departure of the moneyed class from these places. Where are they going?  Since the US is a federal republic in which each state has its own law code and tax system, the rich can flee to states where there are much lower taxes.  Texas,  and Florida are examples.

As these people and their money depart, the tax base shrinks proportionately but the expenditures have not shrunk thus far.  The governments of these cities have not been able to face the needed abandonment of the welfare and big government models that they have built.

And now, pilgrims we have the phenomenon of COVID-19 and the devastation wrought by government forced closures upon the many thousands of small businesses that lined the streets of these cities ante-COVID.

People are being trained by "staying home" to understand that they really do not need a lot of these businesses.  They are also being made to understand that working from home is not a bad way to live.  Their employers are being taught that perhaps they do not need to carry the burden of massive rented space in towering office buildings at the city's center.

Mayor Lucas Still Tryna Secure Funding From A Central Authoritay That Has Abandoned Him...,

indymedia |  Being a god on Earth is a natural human desire, and saving someone else is the closest we’ll ever come to achieving it. All Greek mythology and every major religion that followed has really been devoted to that single premise: the hero who leads the way is half god and half human, fueled as much by pity as by power.

When the Greeks created the heroic ideal, they didn’t choose a word that meant ‘Dies Trying’ or ‘Massacres Bad Guys.’ They went with ‘heros’---"protector." Heroes aren’t perfect; with a god as one parent and a mortal as the other, they’re perpetually teetering between two destinies. What tips them toward greatness is a sidekick, a human connection who helps turn the spigot on the power of compassion. Empathy, the Greeks believed, was a source of strength, not softness; the more you recognized yourself in others and connected with their distress, the more endurance, wisdom, cunning, and determination you could tap into.

Conservatives frequently say that socialists want to have everything handed to them---that instead of complaining, they should be buckling up, showing up to work every day, and achieving something the "hard way." This seems a bit odd, considering that, all in all, achieving a complete and revolutionary overhaul of long-standing economic and social structures against the wishes of all the world’s centers of power is probably harder than, say, becoming a reasonably successful middle manager with two cars.

Our idea of what a revolution is like, how it is carried out, and who it is carried out by has been warped by our own cultural propaganda, and by the romantic Marxist propaganda of the twentieth century. We have this idea that revolutions are led by rational-minded, tea-sipping men in three-pointed hats who discuss the rights of man while burning the candle at both ends. Or we’re warped by the Marxist ideal of revolution: a rational, inevitable historical process in which the most enlightened, most sympathetic, least overdressed human beings team up with the Historical Trend itself to effect a glorious, clean revolution. In fact, revolutions are messy, ugly, gory affairs. Nowhere in our popular notion of revolutions are such factors as stupidity, bad luck, unintended comedy, and revolting madness allowed in. Yet most of the time revolutions are ‘led,’ by people we would call nutcases and who indeed were considered nutcases during their time---and in all likelihood were nutcases. While time and distance provide a romantic view of revolutions, at the time when they actually occur, they usually seem bizarre, uncalled-for, frightening, and evil to their contemporaries, which is why they almost always seem snuffed out at their inception.

Our lives and our movements today are as shaped by the political prisoners who still sit behind concrete walls as the prisons themselves invisibly shape the landscape of the world we seek to make more just. Many have had their lives either ended by the state or have been tried, convicted, and jailed for nothing more than the crime of loving their people enough to attempt a revolution in the United States.

They remain behind walls, often isolated, and at times tortured for their political beliefs. To accept this fact is to ask what ideas can be so dangerous that those who hold it in their heads must be hidden from us? To understand that these people and their circumstance do indeed exist is a necessary first step for a country whose cloak of democracy keeps us in denial. Americans believe political prisoners are a fact in countries like China, Iran, and Cuba but live the lie of the US government’s denial of the existence of US political prisoners within its borders.

We could live in a sustainable, just, free, and peaceful world. And yet we are descending into a world of perpetual wars; slavery; ignorance; overwork side by side with unemployment; vacant homes side by side with homelessness; specialization; crass materialism; contaminated food, water, and air; destitution; despair.

Since the men in the shadows are not about to change, the only hope is their removal from power---by any means necessary. Unfortunately, given these men’s cohesiveness and organizational skills, given their power over our minds, given their ability to convince the vast majority to act against its convictions and interests, given their success in establishing cross-generational dynasties, such removal presents humanity with a herculean task.

When Yippity-Yap Goes Wrong: Salt Lake City Priceless Comedy Gold....,

A Little Taste Of Martial Law In Minneapolis: Nothing To See, Get Inside, Light'Em Up!!!

Left-Wing, Non-Violent Protesters: Why Is No One Ready....?

Is This "Change the Subject" Diversion Wall St.-DC's Occupy Main Street?

Police have been recorded doing this kind of stuff for a long time and qualified immunity from prosecution has kept them out of trouble - always protected. This one happened right in the middle of the pandemic, after years of escalating economic pain culminating in the "flatten the curve" lockdown. 

You have a set of cops in Minneapolis murder a black man in broad daylight with lots of people with camera phones around. Why kill a man in broad daylight, including allowing ‘beauty pics’ of the cops? Of course they knew they were being recorded. 

The predictable outrage erupts across cities. You have news network camera crews arrested or shot at by cops. You have what sure looks like cops acting as provacateurs, breaking window, etc. It all seems very highly coordinated.  

A lot of noise about the looting of Main Street by Wall St. in the so-called pandemic bailouts has started to get traction. A lot of people are going to be unemployed and probably evicted soon. A lot of people will lose their homes in mortgage foreclosure - again. A lot of people are going to be very, very angry at DC and Wall St, if they aren’t already.

Was this all set up to get people mad and in the streets to protest in order to beat them down and take the fight out of them before the greater economic pain that’s coming starts to hit Main Street in full force? Is this Wall St./DC’s “Occupy Main Street” ?  Or is this a “change the subject” in the media moment, change the subject away from the economic crimes of the bailouts to something different and more visibly dramatic? It would be the height of naivete to pretend that this situation has simply taken on 'a life of its own’. There is DEFINITELY some orchestrating going on.  

theamericanconservative |   Darrin Manning’s unprovoked “stop and frisk” encounter with the Philadelphia police left him hospitalized with a ruptured testicle. Neykeyia Parker was violently dragged out of her car and aggressively arrested in front of her young child for “trespassing” at her own apartment complex in Houston. A Georgia toddler was burned when police threw a flash grenade into his playpen during a raid, and the manager of a Chicago tanning salon was confronted by a raiding police officer bellowing that he would kill her and her family, captured on the salon’s surveillance. An elderly man in Ohio was left in need of facial reconstructive surgery after police entered his home without a warrant to sort out a dispute about a trailer.

These stories are a small selection of recent police brutality reports, as police misconduct has become a fixture of the news cycle.

But the plural of anecdote is not data, and the media is inevitably drawn toward tales of conflict. Despite the increasing frequency with which we hear of misbehaving cops, many Americans maintain a default respect for the man in uniform. As an NYPD assistant chief put it, “We don’t want a few bad apples or a few rogue cops damaging” the police’s good name.

This is an attractive proposal, certainly, but unfortunately it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Here are seven reasons why police misconduct is a systemic problem, not “a few bad apples”:

Unexpected Consequences: Bus Drivers Refusing Co-option Into Rioter Mass Arrest

payday |  Friday evening, bus drivers in New York City and members of TWU Local 100 refused to cooperate with police in transporting arrested Justice for George Floyd protestors. 

The action comes a day after bus drivers in Minneapolis also refused to assist the police in transporting arrested protestors; shutting down the Twin Cities’ transit system. 

“I told MTA our ops won’t be used to drive cops around. It is in solidarity  [with Minneapolis’ bus drivers],” JP Patafio, vice president of TWU Local 100 told Motherboard. 

(Watch a video of one bus driver walking off the job to cheers from a crowd in Brooklyn)

Payday Report has learned that transit union leaders nationwide are instructing members not to cooperate with police in arresting protestors. 

Many union leaders have instructed their members that their union contracts protect them against being forced to work in dangerous conditions. They have informed their union members that their unions would use organizational legal resources to protect bus drivers who refuse to cooperate with the police. 

“It’s safe to say that bus drivers in a lot of places are going to be refusing work,” said one top labor leader, who wished to remain anonymous. 

For decades, transit unions, which are heavily African-American, have sought to build community alliances around environmental racism and expanding public transit communities. These community-labor alliances have helped communities to expand transit services in many areas. 

As a result of this organizing, many transit union leaders are vehemently opposed to helping with police crackdowns in communities of color.

Are The Prevailing Mainstream Narratives Shaped By Demography?

fivethirtyeight |  Trying to pin 2014 as the start of a new era is a subjective exercise, perhaps a fool’s errand. But if politics is driven by emotion and memory, so in this case is its hindsight analysis. 2014 was in my book an annus horribilis, a blur of mortality. Perhaps if Gallup had called me, I’d have told them I’d lost trust.

In June 2014, someone I knew well was murdered. In July, Eric Garner died on Staten Island, in the city where I’d just moved. In August, I remember sitting on a fluorescent-lit subway car and reading about the beheading of a journalist named James Foley by some group called ISIS. A year later, I’d have to watch his beheading video and speak with his family for a magazine story I fact-checked about the vain attempts to save him and other Americans. Michael Brown was killed in August, too. September brought another ISIS beheading video. In October, a doctor in New York City was diagnosed with Ebola — a global terror of its own kind — and I found myself thinking uncontrollable thoughts about biohazards let loose on the subway. In November, Tamir Rice was killed in my hometown, and the midterm election gave the Republicans control of the U.S. Senate — though that’s only a blip in my memory. The emotions stirred by 2014 lingered longer with me than its discrete politics.

Perhaps that’s why the themes of fear and mortality that hovered over the 2016 election made some sense to me with 2014 in the rearview mirror. It’s hard to tell how long it takes for emotional responses like mine to get into the political bloodstream of a country, but when pricked by the right needle, America’s primal worry and righteous anger bled out over an election.

Is Rioting Being Exploited As Cover For The Economic Devastation Of Controlavirus Lockdowns?

trtworld |  US President Donald Trump has been frustrated by state-level lockdown orders that have turned a humming economy into a constellation of ghost towns. The jobless rate, set to hit 30 percent within months, is an existential threat to Trump’s presidency, if elections go forward in November. It also might be an existential threat to the US as it occupies the borders it has now. Trump has declared his authority is ‘’total’’ to lift lockdowns in states, a claim that reeked of ignorance and panic. But ignorance and panic can be contagious. 

“He’s encouraging his followers to break state laws, and targeting Democratic governors and other politicians,’’ said Oregon-based journalist Jason Wilson, who has been covering the shape of radical right-wing movements in the United States. He’s referring to armed groups of Americans gathering at statehouses to protest stay-at-home orders. 

“It certainly raises the prospect of civil disorder. I would say that the country is entering its greatest period of instability and civil strife since at least the 1960s; more realistically, since the Depression and World World II. The conflict between states and the federal government raises the possibility of constitutional crisis. It’s a dark and uncertain time in this country.” 

It is easy to dismiss the lockdown protestors as clownish villains, willfully spreading the virus to each other and countless others. But the virus makes villains of us all, and a few of us are inclined to react to social distancing measures by panicking or retreating to vile racist, conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus. Even as they deny the humanity of others, saying that they themselves or strangers are worth sacrificing to the virus, they are expressing their own humanity, in particular the fragility of human reasoning skills in a crisis. Every deadly stampede starts with its first fearful footfall. 

Although they do not represent a majority of Americans, armed protestors are more convincing than unarmed protestors. In Michigan on Thursday, armed citizens rallied inside the capitol building in Lansing. That same night, the legislature voted not to renew the governor's state-of-emergency order. The state's Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who imposed one of the most comprehensive social distancing schemes, had been a target of Trump's rage online and in coronavirus briefings, where he called her that "woman from Michigan." Trump has endorsed the protests there, thinking ending lockdowns will revive the economy. The billionaire family of Trump's education secretary, Betsy Devos, sister to infamous Blackwater mercenary Erik Prince, bankrolled the lobbying group encouraging the demonstrations.

What, If Anything, Will The Riots Be Allowed To Accomplish?

theconversation |  A teenager held her phone steady enough to capture the final moments of George Perry Floyd’s life as he apparently suffocated under the weight of a Minneapolis police officer’s knee on his neck. The video went viral.

What happened next has played out time and again in American cities after high-profile cases of alleged police brutality.

Vigils and protests were organized in Minneapolis and around the United States to demand police accountability. But while investigators and officials called for patience, unrest boiled over. News reports soon carried images of property destruction and police in riot gear.

The general public’s opinions about protests and the social movements behind them are formed in large part by what they read or see in the media. This gives journalists a lot of power when it comes to driving the narrative of a demonstration.

They can emphasize the disruption protests cause or echo the dog whistles of politicians that label protesters as “thugs.” But they can also remind the public that at the heart of the protests is the unjust killing of another black person. This would take the emphasis away from the destruction of the protests and toward the issues of police impunity and the effects of racism in its many forms.

The role journalists play can be indispensable if movements are to gain legitimacy and make progress. And that puts a lot of pressure on journalists to get things right. 

My research has found that some protest movements have more trouble than others getting legitimacy. My co-author Summer Harlow and I have studied how local and metropolitan newspapers cover protests. We found that narratives about the Women’s March and anti-Trump protests gave voice to protesters and significantly explored their grievances. On the other end of the spectrum, protests about anti-black racism and indigenous people’s rights received the least legitimizing coverage, with them more often seen as threatening and violent.

OOOOO-EUX..., Don And Van - Look What Y'all Done Did!!! (CNN HQ Wrecked In ATL)

OH LAWD!!!! Who Gave Van Jones A Red Pill Live On CNN?!?!?!?!

Your People's Time Is Up If Don Lemon Is All You've Got Speaking On Your Behalf...,

mediaite |  CNN host Don Lemon hit network colleague Chris Cuomo with a monologue on Wednesday evening as riots took place in Minneapolis over the police brutality against and subsequent death of George Floyd.

As Cuomo spoke about the coronavirus pandemic, Lemon changed the subject.

“So, in that same vein, because we are talking about these viruses that are infecting America,” said Lemon. “Imagine if that was me on the ground, how you would feel as a friend, as someone I spend a lot of time with. Imagine how people around this country feel when their friends, like you, both of us are of a different background, when their friends say nothing. When they do nothing. except send out a tweet or say, ‘Oh, man, that’s terrible. I can’t believe that happens.'”

“Then when they see everyday racism, they don’t stand up for it. Imagine how that feels to people of color in this country. It feels terrible. Is that really being a friend?” he questioned, adding, “I’m not saying you specifically, you understand what I’m saying. You know what I’m saying.”

Cuomo responded, “I totally understand and, you know, the only word I can use is just hurt, it all hurts.”

“I’ve heard from so many people that I love that they’re so afraid that it’s going to be them, it’s going to be their kid, and white people roll their eyes like, ‘Come on, man. This only happens like once in a while,'” he continued. “It doesn’t have to happen that often if every time it happens in your mind it seems to go unanswered in terms of why it’s okay.”

Lemon shot back, “But that’s the problem Chris… It happens a lot. We just don’t see it. We’re just seeing from the video. This is the reason that Colin Kaepernick was taking a knee, and then people were upset. The president of the United States having the nerve to call him, and then others standing up for this sort of injustice, to call them ‘sons of bitches.’ This is why people are standing up, so that it doesn’t lead to this.”