Collection – George Floyd Protests Jun 2 – 5, 2020
June 5, 2020
I looked forward to the tear 2020 as a milestone, and as a
symbolic clear, 2020 view of the rest of my aging life. For several years prior, I had talked about
downsizing and simplifying my life, and finally in 2019, I did all of the
extensive work necessary to fix up for sale, the house that I had lived in for
the past 37 years, and sell off many possessions, including firearms, pickup
truck, computers, books and many other items that I had accumulated. It was daunting task, but I got it done, with
the help of professionals, in mid-2019, put the house up for sale, and moved
into an active senior community about five miles away.
First, we had the “big wind”, in June of 2019, which almost
delayed my move-in date, since it knocked down a tree right at my rear
door. Next was the tornado that hit
Dallas in October, and literally jumped over our complex, and did not damage my
house, about five miles away, but knocked out power for nearly a week.
Rather than selling my house immediately, as I intended, and
as was indicated by the real estate market when I first started the whole
effort in early 2019, it sat there until January of 2020, and I sold it for
substantially less than I originally intended.
I sold to a developer, so I did save the 3% buyer’s commission.
I invested the proceeds of the house sale immediately, in my
existing investment portfolio, which was balanced between safe investments and
equities, but weighted somewhat toward equities. It did quite nicely for a few weeks, along
with the bull stock market. Then nearly
all business shut down as a result of the corona virus pandemic, and at one
point, nearly 30% of the proceeds from the house were gone, on paper. I had saved back enough liquidity to see me
through several months without having to retrieve cash from the deflated
investment, and I had been through a similar downturn in 2008, so I stuck it
out, did not panic, and as of June 5, 2020, with businesses opening back up,
and in spite of the race rioting still
happening in the streets, my investment is only down about 2-3% from its high
in February.
The reason that I’m writing this, is to record a
particularly arduous year. Downsizing,
moving out and selling a house, the “big wind”, a tornado and power outages,
the corona virus and associated sheltering in place, mobs in the streets. All I can say is that Lord willing,
hopefully, the rest of 2020 will bring respite from these life’s vicissitudes.
June 5, 2020
How many people are involved in the racial
protest/demonstrations/riots? Who are
they? Who is organizing and funding
them, if anyone? Not the easiest
questions to answer, but watching the action on TV, reading about it and some
common sense assumptions might help.
USA Today, normally reliable source, estimates that upwards
of 700 American towns and cities have had some form of protest since May 25,
when George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis. Most of this 700 were relatively small towns,
with relatively small protests. Let’s
say that 500 of these smaller cities had protests of 1000 people each. This is probably on the high side, but let’s
be conservative. So that’s 500,000
people in 500 towns. Let’s say the next
100 cities had crowds of 5,000 people.
That’s another 500,000 people.
And finally, let’s say that the largest 100 cities had crowds of
10,000. That’s another 1,000,000, for a
total of 2,000,000 (2 million) people protesting, demonstrating and rioting
over the last 11 days. The real total
figure is probably closer to 1 million people, but let’s go with 2 million to
be on the conservative side.
To put things in context, in the United States,
demonstrations became increasingly common after the women’s suffrage marches in
the early part of the 20th century, and escalated in size and frequency in the
1960s. Thousands of demonstrations occur in Washington, D.C. every year
although most involve fewer than 25 people. A portion—perhaps 50 a year—draw
more than 1,000 participants. Fewer than 30 demonstrations have mobilized more
than 100,000 people since the 1963 civil rights march when more than double
that number heard Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
The current racial demonstrations are all over the country,
so our estimate o 2 million probably covers it pretty well.
June 4, 2020
Some links to more information on Antifa than we probably
need to know. The group was started by
communists in Germany in the 1930’s.
Although the name is a shortening of the German “Antifaschistische
Aktion”, they are in fact, an extreme left-wing, anti-capitalist, anarchist movement.
Their current incarnation in the U.S. has no central
organization, and consists of relatively autonomous cells which make extensive
use of the digital media, web sites and webinars on the dark web, police
tracking and encrypted communications to incite riots, looting, and other civil
violence. Attempts to associate
left-wing, deep pocket, donors such as Soros, Steyer and others to Antifa using
commonly available surveillance techniques have been unsuccessful. Obviously, the U.S. government has more
robust methodology than available to a layman, to find a money trail.
June 4, 2020
Dan Henninger of the Wall Street Journal writes of the waste
of literally trillions of dollars over the past half century in our inner
cities, not to improve the lives of minorities, but to keep so-called liberal
and progressive “knees on their necks”.
(The literary license is mine).
A partial quote – “Since the 1960s, essentially little has
changed in the neighborhoods at the center of those long-ago urban riots. By
current telling, they are about as poor, as crime-ridden, as under-educated and
in poor health as they were when LBJ said he would change them. That means five
decades of stasis and stagnation in America’s most marginalized places,
virtually all of it under Democratic—now “progressive”—political control.
The failure of the liberal model is by now so embarrassing
that the current owners of that model have created an alternative universe of
explanations, such as blaming it on American settlers in the early 17th century
or the nonexistence of “justice.” It
must be working because marchers in Paris and Berlin, of all places, are
lecturing the U.S. on systemic racism. Thanks for the memories.”
June 4, 2020
Conservative memes
June 4, 2020
In the meantime, the corona virus could care less about the
protests, rioting, looting and destruction of our cities. Since May 25, when George Floyd was killed in
Minneapolis. there have been 215,358 more Covad-19 cases in the U.S., and 9,823
more deaths. This is a little better
than the comparable prior period, when these numbers were 221,834 cases, and
11,964 deaths. Apparently, the virus
doesn’t like the outdoor sunlight and warm temperatures, even if the
demonstrators don’t practice social distancing.
June 3, 2020
We are led down the garden path by our so-called “social
justice warriors”, left wing politicians and mainstream media pundits who claim
that “systemic racism” pervades our society and our law enforcement. This is nonsense. Abuses occur in our 325,000,000 population,
such as George Floyd, a black American being killed by white Minneapolis
police, and black men sometimes being hassled without cause, simply because of
the color of their skin. As I’ve said,
bigotry is alive and well, and has not been entirely eradicated, even in modern
America, but systemic racism across the board in 2020? Hardly likely.
These are two links, one by Heather MacDonald, and one by Andrew
McCarthy, that discuss the matter and provide numbers, not just the expedient
rhetoric that we are exposed to in the biased media.
June 3, 2020
Antifa? The
anarchists? Trump or Barr? The Congress?
Are these lives worth any less because they were killed by a
rabid mob, rather than a racist cop? The
cops responsible for George Floyd’s death have been charged and are being
brought to justice. They are not being
lynched. They are being brought to
justice.
It’s time to get real and stop the violence and looting and
killing. It’s time to stop calling it
“seeking justice against racism”, and call it what it is – a seditious
insurrection against society itself.
It can only be stopped by arresting the violent offenders
and processing them through the courts.
Not “catch and release”, - full prosecution under the laws, if that’s
possible at all in our patchwork of sanctuary jurisdictions.
June 3, 2020
On the evening of Monday, June 1, President Trump and some
members of his cabinet, left the White House grounds, walked across Lafayette
Park, past graffitied walls and the protest-littered park, and posed in front
of St John’s Church, which had been set on fire the night before. Many Americans were inspired by the
president’s actions, as was the intent – to show that we still had a president and
a government, and that anarchy did not control the country.
But rather than accept this as the positive symbol that it
was intended to be, the cynical, anti-Trump, pro-demonstrator/rioter reaction
was swift and rife with condemnation. A
false narrative was immediately disseminated by several groups, that the military
had used tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets to disperse peaceful
demonstrators in Lafayette Park to allow President Trump to hold a photo op in
front of St. John’s Church. This story
was distributed and embellished not only by the displaced rioters who had fired
the church, but also by most of the left-wing mainstream media. Even respected clergy, albeit obviously
anti-Trump, subscribed to these outright lies as to what actually happened.
This really happened, although some of the Trump-hating
mainstream media continue their anecdotal diatribes to the contrary --
The U.S. Park Police, who increased the perimeter around the
White House, Lafayette Park and St. John’s Church Monday have officially reported
that no flash grenades, tear gas or rubber bullets were used to clear the park
as some have alleged. There were also
efforts by some protesters, and media reporters from CNN, NBC and other
mainstream media to categorize the protest as “peaceful”. This belies the official statement by the Park
Police as to what actually happened, quoted below.
I can’t express how angry we should all be at yet another
blatant attempt by Trump haters and the militant left, to pervert the
president’s efforts to unite law abiding citizens in face of the anarchy and
violence in our streets, and particularly in such close proximity to the White
House.
“Here is U.S. Park Police Acting Chief Gregory Monahan’s
full statement:
The United States Park Police (USPP) is committed to the
peaceful expression of First Amendment rights. However, this past weekend’s
demonstrations at Lafayette Park and across the National Mall included
activities that were not part of a peaceful protest, which resulted in injuries
to USPP officers in the line of duty, the destruction of public property and
the defacing of memorials and monuments. During four days of demonstrations, 51
members of the USPP were injured; of those, 11 were transported to the hospital
and released and three were admitted.
Multiple agencies assisted the USPP in responding to and
quelling the acts of destruction and violence over the course of the weekend in
order to protect citizens and property.
On Monday, June 1, the USPP worked with the United States
Secret Service to have temporary fencing installed inside Lafayette Park. At
approximately 6:33 pm, violent protestors on H Street NW began throwing
projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids. The
protestors also climbed onto a historic building at the north end of Lafayette
Park that was destroyed by arson days prior. Intelligence had revealed calls
for violence against the police, and officers found caches of glass bottles,
baseball bats and metal poles hidden along the street.
To curtail the violence that was underway, the USPP, following
established policy, issued three warnings over a loudspeaker to alert
demonstrators on H Street to evacuate the area. Horse mounted patrol, Civil
Disturbance Units and additional personnel were used to clear the area. As many
of the protestors became more combative, continued to throw projectiles, and
attempted to grab officers’ weapons, officers then employed the use of smoke
canisters and pepper balls. No tear gas was used by USPP officers or other
assisting law enforcement partners to close the area at Lafayette Park.
Subsequently, the fence was installed.
Throughout the demonstrations, the USPP has not made any
arrests. The USPP will always support peaceful assembly but cannot tolerate
violence to citizens or officers or damage to our nation’s resources that we
are entrusted to protect.”
The administration has called on media outlets to retract
their reporting on the incident, as spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in a statement
that “we now know through U.S. Park Police that neither they, nor any of their law
enforcement partners, used tear gas to quell rising violence. We also know that
police discovered stashes of weapons like glass bottles, baseball bats, and
metal poles hidden nearby, which are indeed strange items to have on hand for a
‘peaceful’ protest. Every news organization which reported the tear gas lie
should immediately correct or retract its erroneous reporting.”
THIS IS A FAR CRY FROM WHAT APPEARED TO BE IMPASSIONED CRYS
OF “INJUSTICE” BY THE MEDIA, CLERGY AND OTHERS!
THIS PERVERSION IS THE INJUSTICE!
June 3, 2020
The U.S. Park Police, who increased the perimeter around the
White House, Lafayette Park and St. John’s Church Monday have officially reported
that no flash grenades, tear gas or rubber bullets were used to clear the park
as some have alleged. There were also
efforts by some protesters, and media reporters from CNN, NBC and other
mainstream media to categorize the protest as “peaceful”. This belies the official statement by the
Park Police as to what really happened, quoted below.
I can’t express how angry we should all be at yet another
blatant attempt by Trump haters and the militant left, to pervert the
president’s efforts to unite law abiding citizens in face of the anarchy and
violence in our streets, and particularly in such close proximity to the White
House.
“Here is U.S. Park Police Acting Chief Gregory Monahan’s
full statement:
The United States Park Police (USPP) is committed to the
peaceful expression of First Amendment rights. However, this past weekend’s
demonstrations at Lafayette Park and across the National Mall included
activities that were not part of a peaceful protest, which resulted in injuries
to USPP officers in the line of duty, the destruction of public property and
the defacing of memorials and monuments. During four days of demonstrations, 51
members of the USPP were injured; of those, 11 were transported to the hospital
and released and three were admitted.
Multiple agencies assisted the USPP in responding to and
quelling the acts of destruction and violence over the course of the weekend in
order to protect citizens and property.
On Monday, June 1, the USPP worked with the United States
Secret Service to have temporary fencing installed inside Lafayette Park. At
approximately 6:33 pm, violent protestors on H Street NW began throwing
projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids. The
protestors also climbed onto a historic building at the north end of Lafayette
Park that was destroyed by arson days prior. Intelligence had revealed calls
for violence against the police, and officers found caches of glass bottles,
baseball bats and metal poles hidden along the street.
To curtail the violence that was underway, the USPP,
following established policy, issued three warnings over a loudspeaker to alert
demonstrators on H Street to evacuate the area. Horse mounted patrol, Civil
Disturbance Units and additional personnel were used to clear the area. As many
of the protestors became more combative, continued to throw projectiles, and
attempted to grab officers’ weapons, officers then employed the use of smoke
canisters and pepper balls. No tear gas was used by USPP officers or other
assisting law enforcement partners to close the area at Lafayette Park.
Subsequently, the fence was installed.
Throughout the demonstrations, the USPP has not made any
arrests. The USPP will always support peaceful assembly but cannot tolerate
violence to citizens or officers or damage to our nation’s resources that we
are entrusted to protect.”
The administration has called on media outlets to retract
their reporting on the incident, as spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in a statement
that “we now know through U.S. Park Police that neither they, nor any of their
law enforcement partners, used tear gas to quell rising violence. We also know
that police discovered stashes of weapons like glass bottles, baseball bats,
and metal poles hidden nearby, which are indeed strange items to have on hand
for a ‘peaceful’ protest. Every news organization which reported the tear gas
lie should immediately correct or retract its erroneous reporting.”
THIS IS A FAR CRY FROM WHAT APPEARED TO BE IMPASSIONED CRYS
OF “INJUSTICE” BY THE MEDIA, CLERGY AND OTHERS!
THIS PERVERSION IS THE INJUSTICE!
June 2, 2020
Enough already!
It should not take eight days of protests, demonstrations,
rioting and civil mayhem to highlight that some police departments, and some
residual pockets in this country are bigoted, and have a racist bias. Because that’s what the issue is. That’s what people are rioting about. But most of our country is not RACIST!, as
some weavers and purveyors of identity politics would have us believe. We are tolerant people, and all of us have
pretty much accepted that skin color and differences in appearance do not
diminish our rights as American citizens.
But there are groups like the four Minneapolis police
officers, who treat black men as if they were criminals, simply because of
their skin color. They are an example of that residual bigotry that needs to be
eradicated from our society. But
how? These racist beliefs are deeply ingrained
in a small segment of our society, and that includes some police. This bigotry cannot be removed with protests
and demonstrations, or with laws, social mores or any other immediate social
niceties. We can ensure that laws are in
place to prevent racial discrimination, but only long-term education can really
wear down and remove these unhealthy beliefs and practices.
Anecdotally, and based on a smartphone video taken by a
teenager, one of these police officers choked George Floyd, a black American,
to death, while the other three apparently stood by and did nothing. The video went viral on social media and set
off protests and demonstrations, first in Minneapolis, then in cities
throughout the country, as if these protests were going to accomplish anything
concerning the particular racism that was a factor in Mr. Floyd’s death.
Soon the legal first amendment protestors were infected by
outside groups of extreme left-wing anarchic, Antifa-style agitators, that not
only escalated tensions, but also introduced a criminal element that led to
breaking and entering retail establishments, looting and other forms of
violence.
I’ve been watching the protest for several days now in
various American cities. During the
afternoon and early evening, most of the protesters are what appear to be
non-violent young men and women that seem to be motivated by outrage at the
killing of George Floyd on May 25. Now
this was eight days ago, so one would have thought that the rage would have
subsided somewhat. But this hasn’t
happened. Perhaps because of many young
people being unemployed due to the virus pandemic, coupled with the continued
incitement by outside agitators that becomes more evident as each day goes on.
In any case, the nature of the crowd changes, with the
advent of nightfall, away from a peaceful, legal, first amendment crowd to what
becomes a pillaging, looting, violent mob.
Obviously subversive external elements have infiltrated the once
peaceful group, and changed it into an anarchic, destructive, tool. This happens across various cities, with
social media directing sometimes plate-less cars to mob flash points. In a short time, cars are burning,
storefronts are smashed and police are overwhelmed by pillagers and looters.
Some of the looters may be the young men and women from the
earlier peaceful demonstrations, but most of the looting and arson and
destruction seems to be by males with backpacks and tools who seem to be well
organized. It is also understood that
these bad actors monitor police radio and use encrypted communications to carry
out their criminal activities. These
criminal looters and arsonists run entirely free if they are not met with
sufficient force to stop and detain them.
The riots across the country are being coordinated by
someone. They may be loose cells of
anarchist, Antifa or other revolutionary groups, but they are financed by
someone, and there has to be a money trail.
If the weak and unwilling liberal democrat city and state governments
will not deploy sufficient police and national guard to stop the riots, the
federal government needs to step in and invoke Article IV of the Constitution,
and the Insurrection Act.
(The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a United States federal law
(10 U.S.C. §§ 251–255; prior to 2016, 10 U.S.C. §§ 331–335) that empowers the
president of the United States to deploy U.S. military and federalized National
Guard troops within the United States in particular circumstances, such as to
suppress civil disorder, insurrection and rebellion).
June 2, 2020
I feel in strong spiritual company with all of you pastors
and men of God. I am not a pastor. I am simply a God-fearing republican congregant
who has lived a long time and seen a lot of things, both in this country, and
in various foreign lands. I feel that it
is empty rhetoric to try to imbue any national or international leader with
superhuman or God-like attributes. Some
may sound great in oratory, but lack in action, or have feet of clay in other
areas.
I also feel that it is an empty exercise to try to impart
any projections of propriety or greatness to our current incumbent. Lord knows that the political establishment
and biased media have made it a cause to strip of any scintilla of reputability
from Donald Trump. Also, it is useless
to continue to try to paint him as the everlasting villain or demon. We’ve all been there and done that.
Trump is not an orator.
He is not professorial or diplomatic.
He is a pragmatic businessman and promoter with a penchant for sometimes
unwanted verbosity via word or tweet. He
sounds horrible when parsed and taken out of context, which he often is. His actions governing often belie his
pronouncements. Silence would suit him,
(and his polls), better, but as we’ve learned, it ain’t going to happen.
We can try to psychoanalyze Trump and rail against what some
consider his cavalier disregard for conventional niceties, his bloviating, and
particularly his undoing of the progressive socialist paradise by winning the
election in 2016. He’s not a “nice guy”,
nor does he try to be. And he
particularly is not motivated by the political correctness that some of us
would like him to adopt.
Because he’s not a nice guy, he’s had everything thrown at
him that the establishment can muster, The Steele dossier, the Mueller
investigation, impeachment, and on and on.
Nothing sticks, because he is a legally elected president, and for all
of his untoward rhetoric and posturing, he has a fundamental love for the
country and is doing what he feels is right for it.
Could he be more Christian and gentle? Of course.
But isn’t it better to be blunt and honest than some others who profess
strong faith verbally, and act opposite and hypocritically in practice?
The country is just emerging (hopefully) from a nearly complete
shutdown due to the corona virus pandemic, and anarchist elements are looting
and destroying our cities. I would not
want to sit where Trump sits, would you?
We can pray, but we also need action.
I think that we should cut the guy some slack.
June 2, 2020
Unfortunately, anarchist agitators seem to have co-opted
much of what began as a peaceful first amendment protest against the police
killing of George Floyd. You say what
next from Trump? We have seen what some
of the anarchist, rioting mobs have done next, to the Lincoln Memorial, St
Patrick’s in New York and the St John’s Church in question. Mobs across the country have committed
unspeakable acts of violence and terrorism against our country. Not against President Donald Trump; against
our country. And yes, we can pray for
these terrorists, and pray for our country, and offer succor and spiritual
guidance to the innocents afflicted, as your ministry apparently has been doing
in D.C.
Although I do not necessarily share your extant political
views, I know of your ministry in Dallas and am an admirer of your work with
the Union Coffee Shop. You are a man of
God. I am truly saddened that you and
your ministry were subjected to the force that you describe when Lafayette Park
and the St. John’s area was cleared so that the president and some of his staff
could make an appearance on a site that was subject to arson the night before. President Trump’s opponents continue to call
it a “photo op”. I think that he meant
it as a moment of strength and leadership in face of terrorist destruction.
I am not a big backer of Donald Trump, but I find myself
defending his actions more than I would like, simply because of the rank bias and
unfairness of his detractors, and 90% of the mainstream media. His presidency is controversial, but it is an
open book, not like the covert, sometimes illegal, administrative state that
preceded him. But, according to Trump’s
opponents, he can never, ever, do anything right. He is always, always wrong, and that’s
ridiculous.
In this case maybe the intelligence was faulty as to the
composition of protesters at Lafayette Park, but the president required access
to a publicly available, Washington icon, St John’s Church. It had been set on fire the night before, and
the Lincoln Memorial, a stone’s throw away was defaced with mob-inspired
graffiti. Also, numerous Secret Service
agents had been injured protecting the White House over the past several days. In that kind of a charged environment, the
Secret Service were most likely expecting Molotov cocktails and other forms of
resistance in Lafayette Park. We may be
lucky that more serious injuries didn’t happen in clearing the park.
I have to say, let us all join you in praying for our
country – for an end to the corona virus pandemic, - for an end to these
protests that have deteriorated into riots, - for justice, under the law, and
not by smartphone images, for George Floyd’s killers.
June 2, 2020
It is truly sad that apparently peaceful demonstrators were
removed from the area by force as described by those who were there. I don’t think that Trump’s intent was just a
“photo op”, as his detractors have surmised.
He is the president of the country, and I believe that his purpose was
to project strength to the country in face of anarchists setting fire to St
John’s church the previous day. Also,
the church should have been accessible to anyone, including the president. Would safe access have been provided to him
and his party by the protesters if requested?
I doubt it.
Ray Gruszecki
June 6, 2020
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