Worse yet, the violence has spread from Minneapolis to other cities.
Los Angeles
Atlanta
Political Protests Can Influence Elections
Minneapolis
Minneapolis was the trigger for these events.
Riots that have been underway for four days now following the death of George Floyd.
Floyd was pinned down by a Minneapolis police officer with a knee in his neck.
Trump sent in the national guard and chimed in with a pair of Tweets.
When the Looting Starts the Shooting Starts
Twitter cited Trump for glorifying violence.
The “When the Looting Starts the Shooting Starts” quote dates to 1967.
When 20-year Miami Police Chief Walter Headley used the phrase, he was addressing his department’s “crackdown on Negro slum hoodlums.”
“This is war. We don’t mind being accused of police brutality. They haven’t seen anything yet,” said Headley.
Trump claims to be stating facts.
Horribly Irresponsible
Facts aside, it was a horribly irresponsible thing for Trump to say. And it will backfire on Trump.
For details including a video of the incident, and a discussion of the Tweet, please see Twitter Cites Trump for Glorifying Violence
Mish
Cops Kill Because We Gave Them The Legal Framework to Do It
Rather than burning and looting, protesters should turn their ire on lawmakers and judges who facilitate police immunity.
“Rather than burning and looting, protesters should turn their ire on lawmakers and judges who facilitate police immunity.”
They have been. And have then been out voted. And out-”deemed.” And out-”found.” And out-”judged.”……. Such is life in an unrestrained, no limits at all on government, lynchmobocracy. If 51% of other voters vote to keep you peacefully picking cotton: To “turn your ire”, without actually doing anything more consequential than standing there like a perennial dupe begging Massa for mercy, isn’t exactly a positive expectation activity, now is it?
While, to the contrary, chances are that the probability of a conviction of the tax-feeding thug who started all this, as well as the probability of less soft penalty for him, has increased dramatically as a result of this lighting of a few fires. Without the bonfires and other assorted fireworks to draw TV attention to the case, the ape would likely go free, as regime-payroll apes are wont to in totalitarian dystopias.
The LA riots had a similar effect: Kick up a bit of a fuzz, and you increase the pressure on cops to behave, while increasing the expected severity of the penalty they receive when they don’t.
Repeat a few times, and people learn what works. Like Pavlov’s dogs……
It’s hardly an efficient way of dealing with a few bad cops. But then again, this is America in the Fed era. We don’t do efficient anymore. If we did, our companies would still be able to compete with ones ran by communist five year planners. And George Floyd would be part of a properly armed militia, making the whole thing moot, as those guys aren’t so hopelessly defenseless against tax-feeding regime thugs wanting to strangle them for kicks.
I genuinely fear the direction in which this country is headed. The disparity between the “haves” and the “have nots” has never been larger and this pandemic will almost certainly exacerbate the problem. It is high time this country addressed both the racial inequality and the wealth gap in this country. This latest round of bail outs for Wall Street tells me that it won’t be happening any time soon.
I live in Mpls within a good golf shot of downtown and am a retired military officer. One correction: Trump did NOT send in the Nat’l Guard, they were activated by the governor as they must be for contingencies like this. The governor is also a retired military NCO as well as high school teacher and was a 1st congressional district representative before being elected Gov – he’s a democrat and that district is very conservative now with a Republican. He has generally been doing a good job with the pandemic and is pretty popular overall. To his credit, he took the blame for not getting the guard in here earlier even although it was really the mayor who failed; he was totally unprepared the size of the crowds and the violence as was the chief of police who, again had been doing a good job. As is usually the case, the looting and damage has been led by a relatively small but extremely well organized group of out of town thugs. In that Trump was correct. Other than that the prez, as usual, made things worse with his ignorant tweets.
Watching live feeds last night, it is clear that there are significant groups that are intent on causing as much damage as possible. Lots of white people in those groups–watched groups of them setting fire after fire on live feeds. And it’s not like they were looting, they were pulling doors off of businesses and walking away–an incitement for others to loot.
I think there is a race war being fomented here, and it is quite possibly pushed by both ends of the spectrum
The authorities are relatively pinned in their locations and actions, whereas the mobility of the rioters and looters allows them to strike at will. There have been incidents all over the metro area that are not quickly responded to. It’s a tank-bound force responding to a guerrilla force.
It’ll be interesting tonight.
It can’t be allowed to go on.
Meanwhile, in regular people’s lives…
“I think there is a race war being fomented here”
Sure looks that way.
Trump is simply stating fact. It does not matter who is in power, no government can allow chaos to happen without reacting to put it down. That is the main purpose of government… to stay in control. I am not saying this is right, I am simply stating fact, that is the way it is…
I call BS on the “capitalism caused this”.
It didn’t.
Capitalism creates inequality.
Socialism also creates inequality.
What capitalism created was the opportunity for evil people – specifically, socialists – to fan the flames of envy and hate to create exactly this situation. The left has no answers, and thus can only rely on constructing bogeymen and conspiracies. What’s clever about that is that since they have established moral superiority for themselves, they can talk about love and tolerance, but show absolutely no love nor tolerance for anybody that disagrees with them.
Here in the U.K. it is the same. The Tory party is accused of “murdering” tens of thousands of sick people (who it shut down the economy to protect) and suddenly everybody is a “key worker” and claiming a share of the righteousness. Yet even though people on higher salaries have had little help, we are told that their time is now coming, and they’ve crapped on the little people for too long. Astonishing. I don’t know a single wealthy person who sneers at the poor, but the poor are convinced this is so. And the 40% of working families who are net takers from the state are convinced that the rich aren’t paying their share, even though they pay not a net penny themselves.
The left has created this tinderbox.
Of course in the US it’s worse because of guns. None of us in the U.K. can understand this weird US obsession with Amendments and gun ownership. In 1987, a man called Michael Ryan went on a shooting spree with his automatic weapons. They were banned. Number of people killed by automatic weapons since then: zero. In 1996, a man named Thomas Hamilton went nuts with his handguns. They too were banned. Number of people killed in mass shootings featuring handguns since then: zero. In the enduring 24 years, there has been just one other mass shooting (with shotguns – harder to police).
Our police don’t carry guns routinely. Getting shot by an armed policeman is pretty tough to achieve. About two people a year normally. They will talk you to death rather than shoot you. To put this into context: firearm use is authorised by police commanders more than 12,000 times each year.
We Brits just don’t get it. Take guns off the streets. Stop teaching police officers that they are in some war. And learn how to react proportionally. Here is a video of some British police facing off to a very angry guy with a machete.
RE: Guns
Successfully getting the guns of the street in the U.S. would require empowering the police here to a level that would make the drug war look like a picnic. And, like the drug war, minorities and residents of inner-cities will take the brunt of the “enforcement” and suffer even more consequences from our boys in blue. Johnny in North Dakota driving his pickup with a shotgun will get a pass from the local sheriff; but I guarantee you every young black kid that’s nabbed for a minor drug crime who also happened to have a firearm would get the full effect of that extra 10 years in jail (or whatever extra punitive penalties they would come up with). So, by all means, if you want to see more young male minorities in jail in the U.S. (for longer terms) and see racial tension in this country even further exacerbated, we could go ahead and “take guns of the streets”. From my perspective as a U.S. citizen, I’m thankful we’re not going down that road as we’ve got enough on our hands as you can see.
Also, FWIW, the last I checked (and I admit I haven’t just now to see if it’s changed) I believe that if you were born after the 1960s in the U.S. you are literally safer from violent crime than you have ever been. We do have specific problem areas, obviously, but taken as a whole the violent crime rate has trended downward drastically over the last 30 years. In that context, it’s pretty hard to justify the massive expansion of policing powers or sweeping constitutional changes required to accomplish what you’re suggesting.
I believe there’s something like 300 million civilian guns in America and 320 some odd million people. You gotta admit we are a pretty responsible society. If things were as bad as some on the left would have you believe there would be hundreds of thousands of gun deaths every. single. year.
That guy in that video chasing people in the street with a machete should have been shot.
Finger pointing and whining. Nothing gets fixed this way. Take responsibility for SOMETHING, ffs.
Antifa have been waiting for this I think. I remember Hamburg a few years ago. Similar rioting. Any pretext suffices.
yep its all those uppity nigs in democrat cities cant have them in OUR city Terrifying moments for a young Black man and his family in Texas, as numerous cops point guns on him and then assault his 90-year-old grandmother.
His alleged offense: rolling through a stop sign.
This is a good example of what NOT to do when dealing with the police.
Back in the late 90’s I accepted a position with LAPD I think it was 46k while in academy and 61k upon graduation. After talking with some people about it I stayed working in the trades, who in their right mind would want to deal with this every day.
This guy is in front of his house. I’m assuming he didn’t pull over for the small traffic infraction, continued driving with the police pursuing and created this whole bs situation by acting like a jerk/criminal and even got his family and grandmother involved!
The police deserve some credit on this one.
The Amish in Minneapolis protest See the sign? “Thou shall not kill anymore”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qud7ptrxOVg&feature=emb_logo
Where are the Roof Koreans when you need them?
Hindsight is always 20-20.
The consequence of rioting will be people moving away from these cities, leaving them poorer, and in far worse condition.
No truer words ever spoken in this twisted, upside down, bizarro world..where the disconnect from reality to the stock market is dream like.
My 22 year old daughter went to the protest in Atlanta yesterday afternoon. She lives in the eastern part of the “downtown” area so the CNN building is about 5 miles from her apartment.
She said that in the beginning, it was peaceful – thousands of people mostly standing around and chanting and singing or whatever. However, as the afternoon wore on, individuals began to arrive who were clearly not there to be peaceful.
She said many of them were dressed alike and all had gas masks and backpacks. She didn’t see it directly, but was told these were the individuals who began setting off fireworks and throwing things at the cops – which started the initial conflict. Once the cops fired the first tear gas canister, the conflict naturally escalated and many of the peaceful protesters were caught in the middle.
She and her friends left right after the crowd set fire to the first police car, but they had trouble getting out of the area and it ended up taking them several hours to get back to her apartment. She said she will not be going back.
I have personally lived in this area for most of my life – although now I am in the suburbs – and I have seen and been a part of many protests over many different matters. And I can tell you that what happened last night was not just an outlier, it was unprecedented. It wasn’t a protest of anything at all. It was nothing more than a mob bent on destruction for the sake of destruction – and self-enrichment through looting.
However, consider the fact that most major media outlets continue to refer to these actions as “protests”… Some MSNBC hack is on video standing in front of a burning building in Minneapolis with dozens of rioters behind him claiming with a straight face that what you’re seeing is mostly peaceful demonstration… Baghdad Bob anyone? Is this where we are in society now? Afraid, or politically-motivated, to the point where we can’t actually call something like this what it clearly is? Is that how far we’ve fallen?
Furthermore, how many black-owned businesses in all of these cities did the rioters destroy and loot? How many lives and livelihoods of black business owners and their employees will be forever altered or destroyed because of their actions? Did anyone think about that? Did they consider what they were doing? Clearly the answer was no. They don’t think about these things because they are just a mob – and a mob is nothing more than a pack of animals.
I hope last night was the end of it for every city – but especially Atlanta.
These guys?
I wasn’t there and she didn’t take pics of video but for everything except the umbrella, that looks like the kind of person she was talking about.
I wonder what these four police officers in Minnesota would do when they know there are no cameras around? These four police officers knew they were being recorded and still did this.
Murders by cops need to stop. Ex cops in Atlanta or on duty in Minneapolis, or wherever, it does not matter. But it always seems to happen in a local jurisdiction run by Democrats. Seems like the worst poverty, police forces and schools are in the cities that have been controlled by Democrats for decades. Don’t blame the Trump administration or any part of the Federal government under any administration. These are local government issues. Democrats, clean up your own mess.
Democrats ate my baby!
Put yourself in the position of a relatively conscious black person in America just since this past March. Black people have seen a pandemic disproportionately rip through their communities while the media continually runs live press conferences of a racist president lying about the disease. We’ve seen layoffs and unemployment ravage our communities while Congress funnels billions of dollars to white-owned businesses. We’ve seen white people absolutely lose their minds, waving guns and Confederate flags at police officers, pushing them into lakes and gathering in large groups without consequence while we’ve seen police literally sit on black people for allegedly violating social distancing orders.
And then the stories of the killings started. In the past three weeks: Ahmaud Arbery was lynched, on video. Breonna Taylor was killed by police in her own bed. And George Floyd was choked out on the street in broad daylight by police while strangers literally begged for his life. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/minneapolis-rebellion-floyd/
Many are discovering the 2nd Amendment
Nothing justifies riots. Nothing. Destroying the property of innocent people who are in no way responsible for the problem solves nothing. Proving to others you are uncivilized solves nothing. What it does do is take the attention off the problem and place it on the riots.
If you want to solve the problem, you must directly address the problem.
Rioting, like most else, if done competently, like the US founders did after they started rioting in Boston, can indeed solve an awful lot….
Of course that was then. Back when competence at at least something, was considered, of all quaint things, a virtue.
I suppose it would be a stretch to assume anything at all, including rioting, will be performed even remotely competently these days. In what’s left of the waste of a country those rioting founders once had such great plans for.
To call the Boston tea party a riot is stretching the truth even for liberals who have no regard for the truth to begin with. Face it rioters / looters are criminals who use any excuse to enrichen themselves by breaking the law. There is nothing honorable about what they do and anyone who excuses it is as guilty as the uncivilized criminals who commit the act.
“Facts aside, it was a horribly irresponsible thing for Trump to say. And it will backfire on Trump.”
Really Mish?! How many other times has that been said about a Trump quote? 10, 100, 1000? And how many times has it actually backfired on him? The guy really is a teflon President.
He’s bumbled his way out of a second term, so there’s that.
Mish, the Alex Jones related PrisonPlanet twitter link is beneath you. They are conspiracy theory crackpots.
Why not link directly to Brian Stelter?
I see now the US Army is “on a 4 hour alert” to quell the riots. Think about martial law with Trump in charge!
He is.
Does anyone here have links to any source that has asked participants why they are there?
Seems pretty clear. Some are pissed about the cops murdering another person, and want to send a message to those in power that keep sweeping such murders under the rug. Some want to smash and burn. Some want to loot. Some want a combination of those 3.
Sure, like you, I know the standard media reasons. They even seem credible. And, I even remember days of youth and “Hey, guys, let’s go to the riot tomorrow!” But those reasons are in our imaginations.
Such imaginations we have! Look around these comments. You’ll find at least one relatively rational person somehow convolving these riots with 2nd amendment folks! And, a lot of commenters who, in other guises have learned that selected videos on the Internet are not to be trusted, pronounce, “String the cop up. He murdered Floyd in cold blood. I saw it myself. It must be true!”
This all tells us the level of imagination surrounding this stuff.
Richard J Daley, April 8, 1968. At the 8:16 mark, footage of Daley giving “shoot to kill” order and footage of the Democratic convention.
All of this is happening because people have too much time on their hands.
Idle hands are the devils work. Its always been this way. Public land usage in the UK was eliminated. . . to get people to work. Ahhh, capitalism. Perhaps that is an oversimplification. Alternatively, social engineering just lead to very productive use of the land, but those that can not understand that may not like where they land in the peking order. Right now we have a lot of people that are outside of the pecking order due to this virus, they need something useful to do. The virus is a bit in the way though.
“My guns are loaded. Dont mess with me, my house, or my family. Otherwise, I’ll be in jail and that is fine by me. I’m ready. Also, I will never hire anyone that I think has been remotely involved with a value system that would encourage riots.” -SAKMAN
The value system that promotes these riots is ‘free-market’ neo-capitalism. A value system that fosters inequality is one that creates an environment ripe for unrest.
Certainly, a value system that promotes inequality creates and environment for unrest.
Down below I state it. African Americans MUST be elevated. No questions about that.
Yet the animals that are rioting will take far too long to elevate for me to spend any time helping them. I’m only human, and expecting any more from people is expecting too much, my brain can only handle about 150-200 relationships.
I have to say no to your generalizations about value system. My white trash friends from Pittsburgh have been jailed and beaten, not killed though. . . They would never riot. Its not part of their value system.
1992 all over again.
You think this is bad … wait until Chauvin is acquitted!
He won’t be acquitted, he just won’t be convicted of murder unless the autopsy shows the knee to his neck is what killed him.
That’s why the Prosecutor threw in the lesser “manslaughter” charge.
If the ME finds that George Floyd died of anything other than asphyxiation as a result of the knee on the back his neck, then the officer did not commit murder.
However, his unnecessary force (read: brutality) could have caused the death if there were mitigating factors – heart condition, hypertension…etc. In this case, he will be convicted of manslaughter and go to prison.
At this point, he has to go to prison because if he doesn’t, the mobs will exact their revenge on both the officer and those they believe are “protecting” him.
Twixt the cup and the lip there’s many a slip.
You are way too certain the DA will win.
Perhaps. But my guess is that the jury will also feel pressured to convict of something. Manslaughter is an easy fallback.
Then again, he may cop to involuntary man so as not to risk the murder charge.
Chauvin will never take a plea deal. He’ll go the distance and count on that one crypto-racist juror to not vote to convict.
I do not say this lightly. The Freddie Gray case is the modern template.
The jury is under no pressure to convict. The pressure will be on the State to control the inevitable rioting when the not guilty verdicts are announced. God help them all.
You may be right.
I hope not.
But it’s definitely possible.
One crypto-racist juror will result in a mistrial, not an acquittal. Chauvin will be tried a second time under the circumstances, which may open the door to a plea at that point if there is a mistrial. With the video I think it will be nearly impossible to get 12 jurors to agree on an acquittal, but we’ll see.
Granted, but how many mistrials will there be?
Look, what Freeman did in the Noor case was nothing short of unprecedented. But that was a black cop and a white woman. Different kettle of fish in this case.
My main point stands — will MN be prepared for the reading of the verdicts?
MN has no excuse for not being ready after what’s happened this week. They should have the National Guard deployed before the reading of the verdict. That said, I have no idea if they’ll actually be prepared.
Im afraid this Floyd thing was just the match. The young people of this country, fed up with college loans, non-job jobs, and having their future stolen by a small bunch of baby boomers who own America and dont want to share, have gotten their green light to create “content” for their Instagram accounts. Good news is, if the Bernie fizzle is any indication, they soon will be back to drinking, smoking and partying in a few days.
Wait till the Trump supporters mount their own “Rosa Parks” protest. This country is just waiting for a match to be lit.
Can’t remember if I said it before, but the Coronavirus isn’t a black swan. The REAL Black Swan is America imploding before everyone else.
When that happens, even Mish’s Got Gold wouldn’t save anyone. I am just waiting for the lockdown to pass and after a couple of months I should be able to leave the States for a while.
I’m voting for Trump after I thought to sit this election out. The senile one is not one I want representing my country either, but after viewing the anarchy by the Antifa protesters, I have no choice. I see no effort by the left to stop the violence and mayhem. They are encouraging it. So, Trump will get my vote again. Better him than Antifa and a Civil War.
LOL, OK Boomer. I’m not a boomer. Anyone that uses such a comment should be disregarded with the same grace and elegance with which the comment was used.
I’m going to go with.
“Shut up kid”?
Or would “Get off my lawn” be more appropriate?
Trump is just a trouble rouser who incites and makes bad things even worse. The governor (a democrat) is who called in the national guard (Mish BTW is incorrect in his post).
It’s the media and leftists who have coddled the rioters and arsonists. The rioter and looters ought to be shot down in the streets to restore order, not respected.
Gripped by disease, unemployment and outrage at the police, America plunges into crisis
“The threads of our civic life could start unraveling, because everybody’s living in a tinderbox,” said historian and Rice University professor Douglas Brinkley.
Also around 150 officers die in the line of duty every year. They learn to control situations completely, else suffer the consequences of their laxity. They are afraid too.
African america MUST be elevated in this country. Riots will only make that harder.
So if I’m hearing you right , an officer putting his knee on the carotid artery , for 9 minutes … a man already in cuffs is just good police work that cops got to do to keep themselves safe ? I worked in law enforcement and corrections for over 30 years. What those cups did wasn’t about officer safety or legitimate law enforcement. I detest rioting , but having worked the street I understand … do not condone the pent up rage. Most cops by far are good and fair public servants… but when one or more stand by and watch a fellow officer committ murder , we get chaos.
That officer should have also known that there were body cameras, and cameras everywhere, but continued anyway. Whats a carotid?
I dont know what was going on in his head. He is very likely just another 95 IQ officer.
I’m suggesting that there is fear, stupidty, lack of education, and value systems on all sides that lead to a fractionated society that are in play. Those are a deadly combination.
My guns are loaded. Dont mess with me, my house, or my family. Otherwise, I’ll be in jail and that is fine by me. I’m ready. Also, I will never hire anyone that I think has been remotely involved with a value system that would encourage riots.
Mob mentality shows us that we are animals. I build. Animals feed on anything they can find.
Does social media bear the responsibility of the planning of these events?
At what point should they ban the spread of information of this to stop this?
Trump explained by Ann Coulter:
“It is perfectly apparent to me and anyone else who has observed this president, he’s impulsive, um, he says things off the top of his head, he bears the impression, um, like a couch bears the impression of the last person who sat on him…whoever gave him the last piece of advice he goes out and says it”
Stephen Miller probably had his hand up the sock puppets ass for that tweet. Unfortunately the sock puppet doesn’t have the intellect to appropriately handle this situation any more than he was able to handle the virus situation.
CNN headline: “Protests in Multiple Cities Over George Floyd’s Death”
I suspect this headline is misleading and something else is going on. For the record, police also periodically kill white guys when they should not. Some of those killings are also pretty grim. All it takes is one person in uniform using extremely bad judgement in a critical situation.
EDIT: That sounded more critical of the police than I meant it to be. As@JohnB99 mentions on this thread, the police sometimes have to deal with factors that make good judgement impossible.
The police kill plenty of people. This was a murder. On camera. That wasn’t prosecuted at all until the riots started.
Right after a bunch of heavily armed porkers hunted down and killed a guy, and weren’t charged for weeks.
If we keep taking it, they’ll keep doing it.
I want to make it clear I am not defending what the police did here. If they kill someone when they should not then there needs to be arrest and charges against the officers responsible, riots or not.
It should also be clear that multiple wrongs do not make something right. Rioting and burning down innocent people’s property is another big wrong. The worst part about all this is it will likely be used as an excuse to move even further toward a police state. That would be a bad outcome.
It’s an impossible position. The enforcers are always hated. Well always until you need them.
In other news some children were murdered in Chicago by gang members. Crickets.
Stock market will open up BIG this Monday for sure. Thank God there’s some certainty in this world eh. I mean what are we going to do without the stock market? Face reality?
Since this is my old stomping grounds, i will say I’m not shocked.
I owned a restaurant on Griggs ave. (not far from the fires last night), ran businesses in uptown, lived in robbinsdale before we got out to the burbs.
This has been brewing for quite a while. In 2010, a great officer, Scott Patrick, was gunned down in cold blood. The switch was flipped and the police changed their tactics and attitudes.
There’s been other officers that have been gunned down, usually tied back to Chicago based gangs.
Watching this unfold on TV, with Nat. Guard on the streets and a curfew in place…thousands ignoring it, this needs to move quick with good convictions, for the sake of the cities.
These comments are just pouring gasoline on the fire. Threatening to send in the national guard when governor Walz had already called them up, stupid. Threatening looters, stupid. This area still has high quality surveillance from the RNC convention years ago. These people are already being found & arrested in the suburbs.
I smell George Soros money.
I smell crazy.
I smell idol hands.
An off duty St. Paul police officer was the first person to smash windows at AutoZone off of Hiawatha the first night. That’s when S#!+ got crazy.
Think Soros paid him?