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The George Floyd trial has finally started in Minneapolis as if we needed any more drama in this country and the other channels are covering it like a championship game, which makes sense. If your job is to make Americans hate each other, if your job is to divide the country (and thats how they see their job), the opportunity to talk about George Floyd all day islike your Super Bowl.

On Monday morning, CNN spent hours airing footage of prosecutors questioning one of the emergency dispatchers who happened to be on duty the day that George Floyd died. It wasnt very interesting and had no inherent news value.Is that your voice on the 911 recording? the prosecutor asked at one point. Yes, the dispatcher replied,and so it went interminably. Thensuddenly, at one point, the feedstopped without warning. Apparently there were technical difficulties. It wasnt a conspiracy, it was just live TV programing.

But CNNs control room cut to a legal analyst who assured viewers the pause was only temporary. This isnt Law &Order,' the analyst explained. It wont all be wrapped up in fifty-five minutes. This could go on a while. In other words, stay in your seats. Dont turn away. The trial may be boring, but its important.

Its not about George Floyd, obviously; it never was. No one on CNN cared about George Floyd while he was alive. He was unemployed and on drugs. Like a lot of people in this country, they paid him no attention. For that matter, no one on CNN actually cares about George Floyd now. What they care about is you and your role in the systemic racism that supposedly killed George Floyd.

If the Floyd trial ends in acquittal, there could be riots. We accept that as a fact of life in this country. No civilized country should, but suddenly we do. If there are riots, innocent people may die, as they did in large numbers this summer. CNN will downplay those deaths or justify them as they did this summer andas they have so many times before when those deaths are politically convenient. The point isnt to save people from dying. The point is to punish you and to change America. So from that perspective, its worth it.

Thats why theyre replaying that video of George Floyd dying in the sidewalk, to remind you of your culpability in his death. Thats why, even as they rub the countrys face in the death of George Floyd, there are many other tragic deaths some on video they ignore completely.

BOTCHED CARJACKING VICTIM FLUNG TO HIS DEATH FROM CARE; TEENS CHARGED WITH MURDER: POLICE

Heres one:A 66-year-old Pakistani immigrant called Mohammad Anwar died in Washington recently. As in George Floyds case, Anwarsdeath was on video. Unlike George Floyd, Mohammad Anwar was not a violent career criminal with a drug habit. He worked at the very bottom of the so-called gig economy and made his living driving for Uber Eats. Its a tough gig. On Tuesday, he was driving near Nationals Park in southeast Washington when two girls assaulted him with a Taser. The girls were 13 and 15 years old. Mohammad Anwar resisted. It was his car,the key to his living, and he didnt want to lose it.Abystander recorded what happened next.

Anwars last words were, This is my car, and it was.Bystanders watchedall of this happen,but no one stepped forward to help Mohammad Anwar. The two girls hit the gas, flipping the carover. Anwarflew out of the vehicle andlanded face down on the sidewalk, dead. The girls who killed him didnt seem bothered by this.

My phone is in there!My phone! one of them screamed. She cared more about her phone than the life of the man she just killed. This raises all kinds of questions, not only about them, but about us. What kind of society produced children like this? Who raised them? What does it say about our country that no one jumped in to help this poor man before he was killed?

Those are real questions, but CNN wasnt interested in asking any of them. In fact, the network refused even to call it a killing, since didnt help their politics. So in their account, the girls assaulted an Uber driver with a Taser while carjacking him, which led to an accident in which he was fatally injured.

CNN SLAMMED FOR QUESTIONABLE TWEET THAT REFERS TO MURDER AS ACCIDENT

Which led to an accident.It wasnt a killing. It just kind of happened. It was an act of God, like a tsunami or a hailstorm. Unfortunately, he died. In fact, as the mayor of Washington, D.C., explained the next day, it may have been Mohammad Anwars fault. Mayor Muriel Bowser sent a tweet reminding her subjects to pay attention to their surroundings the next time they go outside.

Auto theft is a crime of opportunity, Bowser wrote. Follow these steps to reduce the risk of your vehicle becoming a target. Those tips included locking your car and not walking away as the engine is running.

Got that, D.C. residents? Staying safe is your job. Its not the job of the mayor you hired to protect you and who sits barricaded in her home, surrounded by a massive security detail you pay for as the city shes supposed to protect descends into chaos. No, its up to you. Youre on your own. Follow these steps to reduce the risk. Not surprisingly, carjackings are up all over the city, and if you know people who live there, they will tell you that. Neighborhoods that were safe last year, arent anymore. There are carjackings going on in residential neighborhoods, a 300% rise over one year, in fact.Shootings,robberies and theft are rising, too. Of course they are. Washington is becoming a scary place again. The capital of our country was also its murder capital in the 1980s. Thats not acceptable for a civilized country, but its becoming that way again.

Why is this happening? We dont have to guess. Its very simple. Last summer, the D.C. City Council voted to cut $15 millionfrom the police budget. It devastated the police department. Theyre basically not recruiting cops right now. There is but one class left at the police academy and massive retirements from the police department. If it continues at this rate, there wont be police in Washington in a few years.

DC MAYOR TAKES HEAT FOR SHARING PREVENTING AUTO THEFTS VIDEO AMID SILENCE ON MOHAMMAD ANWARS DEATH

So what happens when you do something like this? Like clockwork, six months after they defunded the police department, Washington, D.C., recorded its highest murder rate in 15 years. When you defund the police, people die. That happens every single time. And thats why Mayor Muriel Bowsermust surround herself with cops. She doesnt want to get hurt, though she doesnt care if you do.

Its a very simple lesson, and everyone knows its true. Thats why we have cops in the first place. Theyve never really gotten credit for the gravest policy screw-up maybe in living memory. They defunded the police across the country, and our leaders are ignoring the consequences. Some places are doubling down. In Baltimore, for example, acity that does not need more tragedy, officials have announced they will no longer prosecute what they call low-level offenses,including drug possession and prostitution.

Whats low-level, exactly?That kind of depends on where you live and how much police protection you have. Prostitution and drugs arent a big deal if theyre not near you. However,when your kids cant go outside because prostitution and drug possessionare taking place right outside your house, theyre not low-level crimes. They wreck your life. The people who run Baltimore dont care about this. They have no interest whatsoever in what is happening outside your house. So the mayor of Baltimore andthe local prosecutor, recently sent a press release describing this policy as a success because it reduced systemic inequity. By the way, it also led to lower arrests. Imagine that?

So Baltimore has equity now. What a relief. Many of us are hoping Baltimore will have more equity. What does that look like? Last week, Baltimore recorded seven murders in six days. Thats a killing every day of the week, plustwo on Saturday. Thats deeply equitable and its happening in cities across the country. Once again, no ones noticing this, but if you live in one, you well know whats happening.

BALTIMORE GROCERY STORE SHOOTING LEAVES TWO DEAD, ONE HURT

In Chicago, for example, the George Soros-funded states attorney, a hard-left ideologue named Kim Foxxstopped prosecuting what she called low-level crimes. Last year, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfootmayor called for an $80 millionreduction in the police budget. What happened next? Can you guess? Have you read thisstory before? Oh, yeah. By January, Chicagos carjacking problem looked like (wait for it)Washington D.C.s.

Through mid-March, more than 370 carjackings had been reported in Chicago, the most the city has seen in a three-month period in at least 20 years, maybe much longer.

But its not just Chicago. This is happening everywhere is we advance toward a full year of mourningthe death of a single man on the sidewalk in Minneapolis. Thousands of Americans have been murdered thanks to the policy changes justified by the death of that man. Ponder that for a minute. Has there ever been a more perverse moment in this country?

Its not clear what we can do about it, but you can start by telling the truth out loud. According to The Washington Examiner, the murder rate in virtually every city in the United States is at its highest levels in more than two decades. Last year, there were more homicides in the United States than in any year since 1998. How did that happen? Oh, BLM. Thanks, BLM. BLM did this to us whilethe people who are funding them were posturing about how great they are and how this is going to make America more equitable. Poor people were paying the price with their lives. No one has admitted this, no one is accepting responsibility for it,and no one has been punished for it.

Irony of ironies, few places are more dangerous than the actual physical place where George Floyd died in Minneapolis.

None of this is getting better, by the way. Its getting worse. Still, no one has asked the most basic question: Why is this happening? Its not all political. The 13 and 15-year-old girls who killed the Pakistani Uber Eats driver werent acting out of political solidarity with anybody. What is that exactly? Why do people do that?

Jordan Peterson sent a very interesting tweet out the other day,just a simple graph ofthe out-of-wedlock birth rate. Among African-Americans, it was 70%. So if you took the out of wedlock birthrate, broke it down by demographic group, and put it next to the crime rate, one thing you notice they track exactly or close enough to suggest a profound connection.

Why is no one interested in pursuing that? No one even asks why this is happening. Youre not supposed tosee how Mohammad Anwar died. Instead, youre supposed to watch endless loops of video of the death of GeorgeFloyd so you can tell yourself its all one bad cop or its all systemic racism.

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But if you look away from the propaganda and you look toward the reality of whats happening to your country on the streets ofWashington or Chicago orMinneapolis, you might have a few questionsfor the people in power. Theyre the ones who created this society. Theyre the ones responsible, and thats exactly the conversation they dont want to have.

So they tell you much more about George Floyd. Watch the 911 dispatcher testify some more. Just dont change the channel.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlsons opening commentary on the March 29, 2020 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight

Read the original here:
Tucker Carlson: Unsafe cities, divisive mainstream media the real legacy of George Floyd's death - Home - WSFX

Photo: Handout/VIA REUTERS

After Georgia Republicans experienced the shocking setback of losing the states presidential election, the party descended into bitter internal recriminations. President Trump blamed Republican officials for allowing massive voter fraud to steal the state; many state Republicans blamed Trumps rhetoric for losing a winnable race.

But both Republican factions heartily agree on the proper corrective steps: a sweeping bill curtailing voting rights and handing new powers to Republican legislators to prevent the unfortunate events of 202021 from happening again. After the states governor, Brian Kemp, a target of Trumps rage, signed the measure, the former president offered his hearty congratulations. They learned from the travesty of the 2020 Presidential Election, which can never be allowed to happen again, the former President wrote in an official statement. Too bad these changes could not have been done sooner!

If you want to understand why this is happening, a timely new paper by University of Washington political scientist Jacob Grumbach helps explain. Grumbach surveys the performance of every state government across a broad array of measures of democratic health, such as indices of voting access like wait times and same-day and automatic voter-registration policies, felon disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and civil rights. His paper finds that the states that backslid on democratization over the past 16 years were shared a single characteristic: Republicans gained full control of their state government.

In other words, states that are rolling back democratic protections are not responding to demographic change nor to any change internal to their state. They are following the agenda of the national Republican Party. That agenda is spreading throughout the states, which are imposing voter restrictions almost everywhere their party has the power to do so. Restricting the franchise has become perhaps the partys core policy objective.

Some Republicans frame that agenda in explicitly Trumpist terms: They are acting to stop the next stolen election, having failed to prevent the last one. Those GOP officials who are too embarrassed to openly endorse Trumps election lies instead offer superficially plausible rationales.

First, they insist they are acting to protect states rights to run their own elections. Overlooking the awkward historical resonance of using the exact same justification once put forward to justify Jim Crowera restrictions, they insist states rights are all about preserving local variation. Elections should be run by those closest to the people, elected by the people, most responsive to the people, argues one leading Republican. State legislators are the closest to those we represent, insists another. States have long experience running elections, and different states have taken different approaches suited to their own locales and populations, pleads National Review.

And yet this mania for geographic proximity in election administration evaporates completely when they move from the state to the local level. Indeed, the most damaging provision in Georgias vote-suppression law removes power from local election boards and concentrates it in the hands of the states. If anybody actually does have local knowledge of election administration, it is the nice librarian who has been volunteering to organize the polls for many years.

But that form of localism has been crushed because, of course, the whole point is that the state government is run by Republicans. Democrats control the federal government. They also control many local governments where Democrats live and vote. They dont control many state governments, though, which are beholden to legislatures whose district maps give Republicans an insurmountable advantage. And so the right-wing intelligentsia has discovered a principle: The state is the only level of government neither too big nor too small to administer elections.

Second, they claim they seek merely to restore confidence in election integrity. And it is true that many Republicans voters lack confidence in the fairness of elections. What is the reason for their lack of confidence? Its that Democrats won a fair, clean, high-turnout election. (Indeed, they won it in spite of an electoral college system that forced them to beat Trump by four percentage points in order to gain a narrow majority.) It follows that restoring confidence means eliminating the conditions that gave rise to this concern: Democrats winning a clean election.

What gives the game away is that Republican vote-suppression maneuvers include a purge of Republican officials who worked in states Trump lost. The Michigan Republican Party removed Republican Aaron Van Langeveldefrom the Board of State Canvassers after he infuriated Trump and his fans by certifying the states electoral votes, thwarting Trumps attempt to override the election and secure an unelected second term.

In Georgia, Republicans stripped Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of his authority over state elections. Sterlings chief operating officer, a Republican, told CNN the move was retribution for Raffenspergers refusal to submit to Trumps demand to disregard the election results and hand the states electoral votes to him.

The next time a Republican attempts to subvert an election result, there wont be any inconvenient law-bound officials standing in the way. The power to act on Trumps farrago of lies will rest in the hands of elected officials accountable to the partys constituents. Rather than arresting the Republican partys long slide into authoritarianism, Trumps departure has accelerated it.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

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Why the Republican War on Democracy Is Moving to the States - New York Magazine

The hallmark of a healthy democracy is civil debate, protest, civic engagement, and an unwavering right to voice ones beliefs even when there is disagreement especially when there is disagreement. Free speech and assembly are fundamental to a functioning democracy. Their placement in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution implies their importance. It comes as a surprise then to see that the Missouri House is poised to pass a bill that would silence the voices of those rising in defense of Black lives by enacting criminal penalties on the right to protest.

Not only that, but it is particularly targeted at protests that we led in St. Louis this past summer as leaders of the protest group #ExpectUS.

We serve in the General Assembly and the United States House of Representatives. Yet, we have been called terrorists, thugs, and monsters for affirming what should be clear: Black lives matter. Theyve always mattered, but time and time again, generation after generation, Black folks have had to take to acts of protest to affirm our humanity and civil rights. Like our ancestors before us, we are both products of mass protests, taking to the streets demanding that our communities be heard and our lives protected. Our protest has always been an act of love.

We have organized together in a protest group that begins each protest with a giant circle of love, people dancing and clapping. A protest group that cares for one another and brings snacks and water for one another. One that is rooted in the Ferguson Uprising and one that continues to grow. In our ranks are public officials, clergy, local leaders, business owners, students, parents, and people of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds. Our protest is an act of love, but it is also a demand that elected leaders do more to ensure we no longer need to take to the streets. To absolve us of the fear that our loved ones will leave home and will not make it safely back. Both of us ran for office because the policies coming out of Jefferson City and Washington, D.C., not only fell short but failed to center the reality on the ground faced by so many people in our community so many people who look like us and share our pain.

SB 26 is a continuation of policies that fail to protect Black and brown communities. It must not pass the Missouri House of Representatives or be signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson. Rather than take up this bill, lawmakers should play a critical role in supporting and encouraging robust speech and protest. Ultimately, what gets lost in the consideration of this anti-democratic, anti-protest legislation is why we protest in the first place.

We protest because the St. Louis Police Department leads the nation in police killings per capita, disproportionately killing Black people. Year after year after year. Weve seen none of our demands met by our government.

We protest because Black lives are not safe in Missouri. They werent safe in 2014 when an officer in Ferguson murdered Mike Brown, Jr. They werent safe in 2015 in Mississippi County when Tory Sanders got lost, ran out of gas, and was effectively tortured to death in a jail cell hours later. They werent safe in 2018 when Black people were 91 percent more likely to be pulled over by the police across the state a number that has increased over the years. They werent safe in 2020 when police killed Donnie Sanders in Kansas City. They have never been safe under the violence of starvation wages that we disproportionately receive wages that must be increased to at least $15.

Some proponents of this legislation have said that it would keep protesters and the general public safe. But silencing dissent cements the status quo. And for Black people in Missouri, there is nothing more dangerous to our livelihoods than the status quo. If public safety is truly at the heart of this legislation, then the Missouri State Legislature must waste no time addressing the series of initiatives protesters and activists have proposed to remedy the cycles of violence that are so rampant in our state and in our communities.

We invite members of the state legislature to engage with us and our communities in a good faith effort to build a better Missouri. We appeal to the fundamental constitutional values of free speech and free assembly as we implore our leaders and Missourians everywhere to reject SB 26 and, instead, focus on building a more robust and inclusive democracy that meets the needs of Black Missourians who are ready and eager for a chance to build strong communities and enact policies that will truly keep our families safe. The right to assemble is the bedrock of any healthy democracy, and it must be protected at all costs, not rolled back.

Rep. Rasheen Aldridge represents HD 78 in the Missouri House; Congresswoman Cori Bush serves Missouris 1st congressional district.

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Opinion: The right to assemble is the bedrock of our democracy Vote NO on SB 26 - The Missouri Times

Different groups unite

Belew divided the people who forced their way into the Capitol on January 6 into three broad groups:

First, there were what she called the garden variety President Trump faithful the MAGA stop the steal ralliers. A lot of those people, she said, were there simply to demonstrate their support for Donald Trump to exercise their right of assembly and free speech and to peaceably demonstrate.

Second, there were the far-right conspiracy theorists who follow the QAnon movement. These people have been recently radicalized, said Belew, most of them being only one or two years into radical activity. QAnon, as a whole, represents a somewhat new phenomenon in many ways.

The third strand of this crowd, she said, is one that poses a substantial threat to democratic institutions and to the nation as a whole, and that is the organized white power movement, which comprises several different groups. We know that many of these groups preplanned their attack. We also know that they made a deliberate plan to work together. There was communication about setting aside group differences and banding together to deliberately attack the workings of democracy.

Belew stressed that the behavior witnessed on January 6 is not new. Its part of a movement thats been in our public life since the late 1970s. It's a movement that is well organized, includes people in every region of the country, and in all ways but race is quite diverse and opportunistic, willing to incorporate a broad array of people and beliefs, bringing them together through this shared sense of emergency.

Its also a movement that has already carried out mass casualty attacks, most notably the 1995 attack on a federal building in Oklahama City that killed 168 people, including nineteen children. The attack was perpetrated by extremists Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran, but Belew said its wrong to attribute the atrocity to a few bad apples or lone wolves. The attack was the culmination of decades of organizing. The movement that carried it out, the white power movement, brought together a bunch of different currents of activity. It united Klansmen, neo Nazis, radical tax resistors, and later on skinheads and parts of the militia movement. Worryingly, said Belew, this kind of collaboration within the white power movement could also be seen on January 6.

The next event in the Conversations on Democracy series will be on April 13, when US Senator Susan Collins (R) will talk about The State of Our Democracy and Political System.

Continue reading here:
Conversations on Democracy: White Power and the Capitol Riots - Bowdoin News

Some EU member states have bolstered their existing authoritarian tendencies, as leaders strengthened their grip on power under the cover of Covid-19 curbs, according to the EU-focused human rights watchdog organisation, Civil Liberties Union for Europe.

Their report this month singles out Hungary, Poland and Slovenia as the member states most prone to take advantage of Covid-19 responses in order to thwart democracy and weaken the rule of law.

If Hungary's government used the country's Covid-19 regulations to cloak abuses, hinder oversight and access to vaccine documentation for medical professionals, Poland limited freedom of information and assembly to impact protests against the controversial abortion law.

Following the report, the European Commission's top rule-of-law official, Vera Jourova, came out in a parliamentary debate to warn against sliding media freedoms, in addition to other democratic principles.

Most recently, Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orban took an opposition radio station off air. In Poland the government decided a new media tax that threatens the industry's independence.

And Slovenia's prime minister is waging an online and offline battle against critical journalists in his country, accusing them of lying and spreading fake news.

The report, co-sponsored by 14 human rights groups, warns that media freedoms are at risk, and limitations to public information present, even in developed democracies such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The report mentions the limited access of Spanish media during early government safety briefings in March 2020, but also how activists and artists in Spain have been prosecuted for publishing satirical cartoons, burning a flag or making a provocative use of religious symbols during a protest.

Pressure on media companies has also been observed in Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Croatia.

The accelerated law-making process enabled by Covid-19 restrictions also makes it difficult for citizens to take part in democratic public debate.

Such speeding-up, which lacks transparency and does not allow for consultations with the public or NGOs, has also occurred in well-established democracies such as Ireland, Germany and Sweden, the report says.

Fast-tracking bills through parliament, together with limits on free speech, judicial transparency, limits to media reporting, disproportionate restrictions on the right to protest happened in established democracies too.

Yet it is the youngest of democracies, the ex-communist states in central and eastern Europe that are at peril.

The report highlights that in addition to the governments with authoritarian tendencies in Budapest and Warsaw which are systematically weakening the judiciary and civil society, Bulgaria and Romania, with long standing issues regarding rule of law and independence of the judicial system, have been shaken further.

New rules on court fees in Bulgaria and poor legal aid systems in Romania make it difficult to access justice and get a fair trial.

Even though some EU member states have used the pandemic as a pretext to erode democratic standards, the process is not irreversible.

"There's a thin line between protecting our democracies and protecting public health. Both national and EU institutions need to make sure that all member states respect the law and that our democracies come out stronger not weaker after the Covid-19 pandemic ends", Radu Mihail, member of Romanian Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, told EUobserver.

Civil Liberties Union for Europe recommends that continuing reforms as well as digitalising judicial proceedings are solutions to improve the situation in countries where judicial systems have long been subjected to pressure.

The report concludes that the EU needs to play a crucial role in protecting the rule of law and democracy in all member states. The EU needs to make sure that clear recommendations are made to each member state and that those breaking the rule of law are sanctioned.

Read more here:
Covid-19: Democracy and rule of law under pressure in EU - EUobserver