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"Whenever you’re worried about a major development in 2020, just relax and remember that it will soon be eclipsed by something much, much bigger."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

The Most Revealing Footage On Police Brutality Is These Cops Applauding Its Perpetrators

Among the constant deluge of police brutality footage flooding the internet as America’s armed goon patrol responds to the Black Lives Matter protests across the nation, there is one video which stands out above all the others in illustrating just how pervasively violent police culture is. Curiously enough, this video itself contains no police brutality.

The video clip in question shows the outside of the Buffalo City Courthouse, where members of the police and fire unions awaited the two officers who hospitalized a 75 year-old peace activist named Martin Gugino by shoving him to the ground. When the two officers exited the courthouse, released on their own recognizance, and were met with applause from the crowd.

“Two police officers were charged with felony assault during a protest in Buffalo, and they were applauded by their colleagues as they left the courthouse,” MSNBC reports as its footage shows a large gathering clapping and whistling enthusiastically.

Buffalo police officers applauded by their colleagues as they leave the courthouse pic.twitter.com/t9DGC07ijZ

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) June 6, 2020

This, right here, is a sign of a culture that cannot be redeemed. A police culture which makes no secret of the fact that cops as a collective will consistently support the most self-evidently unjustifiable acts of brutality committed by their own.

This video emerges after 57 Buffalo police resigned from their department’s Emergency Response Team (just the team, not from the department itself) in protest of the suspension of the two officers who’d been recorded assaulting an old man without the slightest provocation. It emerges after the Buffalo Police Department was caught lying that Gugino had “tripped and fell” before footage surfaced showing Gugino being shoved hard and smashing his skull on the pavement. This police department could not possibly have made it more clear to the public that they unconditionally support one another in their viciousness and savagery.

This is far more damning than any of the many, many video clips circulating that demonstrate irrefutably how police and their apologists have already lost the debate on this matter. It makes a lie of the widespread narrative that this is just a minor problem caused by a few bad apples while the “vast majority” (to quote the 44th president) are good people who uphold their duty to protect and serve the community.

Clearly that is not the case. Clearly. The reality is that most police stand by other police, even when they are undeniably in the wrong. That is not what good people do. That is not what people who have any intention whatsoever of ever doing anything about police brutality do. That is what people who intend to perpetuate a violent and increasingly militarized police force forever do.

This isn’t working. Police culture cannot be saved, and has no interest in being saved. In the eyes of the armed goon patrol, it’s the people complaining about police brutality who are the problem. That’s why the response to them has been consistent and copious amounts of police brutality.

This is not a matter of passing a few more pieces of legislation. This is not a matter of giving police more workshops and seminars. This is not a matter of needing more police to take a knee during protests or march with them in solidarity. This is a matter of an entire police force, from sea to shining sea, which insists on the gratuitous use of violence and will defend any cop who uses it.

The problem, as we’ve discussed previously, is that those in power have no intention of ever departing with the violent goon patrol which gives them the ability to brutalize the public if they get out of line. Many of them are providing lip service to solidarity and listening and understanding right now, but make no mistake: the mainstream rank-and-file public awakening to the reality that they live in a militarized authoritarian police state was not in the script, and they are getting very nervous about its implications.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, to say the least.

Fire them all.

Buffalo officers filmed shoving 75-year-old protester charged with assault

Two Buffalo police officers were charged with assault on Saturday, prosecutors said, after a video showed them shoving a 75-year-old protester in recent demonstrations over the death of George Floyd. Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski, who surrendered Saturday morning, pleaded not guilty to second-degree assault. They were released without bail. ...

The officers had been suspended without pay Friday after a TV crew captured the confrontation the night before. If convicted of the felony assault charge, they face up to seven years in prison.

Police officers in Buffalo, however, have stood by their colleagues. On Saturday a crowd of off-duty officers, firefighters and others gathered outside the courthouse in a show of support for the accused officers and cheered when they were released. ... On Friday, 57 officers, comprising the entire Buffalo police department (BDP) emergency response team, resigned from the team in what a union boss described as a show of support. The resigning officers did not leave their jobs altogether.

Top 16 Euphemisms US Headline Writers Used for Police Beating the Shit Out of People

“After Curfew, Detroit Police Act Aggressively to Disperse Protesters Who Refused to Leave” (Detroit Free Press, 5/31/20)

“Minneapolis Officers Use More Aggressive Tactics Against Protesters as Rallies Flare Around US” (NBC News, 5/31/20)

“An Agitated Trump Encourages Governors to Use Aggressive Tactics on Protesters” (CNN, 6/1/20)

“Police Turn More Aggressive Against Protesters and Bystanders Alike, Adding to Disorder” (Washington Post, 5/31/20)

“After Curfew, Protesters Are Again Met With Strong Police Response in New York City” (New York Times, 6/4/20)

“Six Atlanta Police Officers Charged in Forceful Arrests of College Students in Car” (ABC News, 6/2/20)

“Despite Curfews and Heavy Police Presence, Protests Persist Across the Country” (NPR, 6/2/20)

“Low-Flying Helicopters, Heavy Police Presence Used to Disperse Protesters After DC Goes Under Curfew” (Washington Business Journal, 6/2/20)

“While Tensions Between Police and Protesters Boiled Over in Some Cities, Other Officers Joined the Movement” (CNN, 6/1/20)

“’Rush the Crowd’: Protesters Clash With Officers at End of Peaceful Rally” (WDJT, 6/4/20)

“Fiery Clashes Erupt Between Police and Protesters Over George Floyd Death” (New York Times, 5/30/20)

“Clash Between Police and Protesters in Brockton Brings Out Fireworks and Tear Gas” (WBTS, 6/2/20)

“De Blasio Denounced After Police Forcefully Clash With Protesters” (New York Times, 6/4/20)

“Mayor Downplays Rough Police Treatment of NYC Protesters” (AP, 6/5/20)

“Floyd Protests Suppressed in NYC as Police Enforce Curfew” (KIRO, 6/3/20)

“Retreat or Deploy? Nation’s Police Try to Balance Protest Response” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5/30/20)

Unidentified Law Enforcement Officers Are Mysteriously Showing Up at D.C. Protests

As President Trump threatens to use the U.S. military to quell protests, Attorney General William Barr has activated hundreds of DOJ security forces onto the streets of D.C. They come from various federal agencies: DEA, ATF, even the federal Bureau of Prisons. They are federal officers, but in many cases, you might not be able to identify them. Some of them lack insignia identifying their agencies. Many don't display badges.

'Gross Abuse of Authority': AOC, Pressley Join Probe Into Trump Use of Predator Drones to Surveil Protesters

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, are investigating the Trump administration's potentially illegal use of predator drones and unidentified law enforcement officers to surveil nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd, calling both tactics a "gross abuse of authority."

In a letter to Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Friday, the lawmakers demanded that the administration hand over all documents related to Customs and Border Protection's May 29 deployment of a drone commonly known as Predator B to spy on demonstrators in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed by police officers.

"The drone that was flown on May 29, 2020, was reportedly also flown far outside the bounds of CBP's jurisdiction," the letter states. "Federal law authorizes CBP to conduct its missions within a 'reasonable distance,' not to exceed more than 100 air miles inland, from an external boundary of the United States."

House Oversight Committee chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), and Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) joined Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley in launching the probe.

The lawmakers demanded that DHS "provide a full accounting of its activities by June 11, 2020, including a complete list of all jurisdictions where it policed protests, the full cost of those efforts, and the legal authority permitting its intervention."

Jason Paladino of the Project on Government Oversight first highlighted CPB's use of the predator drone in Minneapolis on Twitter late last month. The ACLU called the surveillance tactic "deeply disturbing" and said the Trump administration's use of drones to spy on protesters "should be halted immediately."

NOW: @CBP Predator Drone #CPB104 circling over Minneapolis at 20K feet. Took off from Grand Forks Air Force Base. #Minneapolisprotests #surveillance #planespotting pic.twitter.com/hVYF4GXe1Y

— Jason Paladino (@jason_paladino) May 29, 2020

The House Oversight Committee Democrats also raised alarm at the Trump administration's announcement that it would deploy agents from CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the nation to bolster police efforts to quell mass demonstrations. As Common Dreams reported Saturday, lawmakers, journalists, and activists are growing increasingly concerned about the rapid proliferation of unidentified law enforcement agents in D.C. and elsewhere, with one senator describing them as "American secret police."

Trump Built His Own Green Zone. He Got the Wall He Deserves.

An array of what might be described as the accessories and devices of dictatorship have expanded with infectious ruthlessness in American cities. The police swinging batons wildly, the paramilitary forces refusing to identify themselves, the hysterical president trying to incite war, the vigilantes in league with the police, military helicopters clattering overhead, the general marching in the streets in combat fatigues, the state TV network loosing its tales of sabotage and mayhem — it’s all there, loud and clear.

And Thursday, when 1.7 miles of cement barriers and wire fences were transported to the heart of Washington, D.C. and latched together to form an expanded perimeter around the White House, we even got our own Green Zone. The Green Zone was the diseased heart of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. It was a jittery enclave in the center of Baghdad where American officials worked in once-opulent buildings that were encircled by a fearsome perimeter. The miles and miles of cement barriers that serpentined around the Green Zone were brutalist tombstones mutely announcing the fear and failure of the U.S. invasion. I got to know those blast walls while reporting in Iraq.

The fortification of the White House continues this morning. New fencing and concrete barriers being put up at the Penn/17th street side. This is normally wide open for visitors. @PoPville #DCProtests pic.twitter.com/lVqlOEwDGB

— Chris Sheridan (@ChrisSheridan34) June 4, 2020

Trump’s Green Zone is not nearly as large as the one in Baghdad, and it is not threatened by suicide bombers or mortar shells; it’s a miniature in all respects, as is our president. It is a monument to Trump’s cowardice in the face of peaceful opposition, though perhaps we should call it the White Zone, given his ideology of white nationalism. Trump’s administration — and police forces across the country — have been hapless in everything except their viciousness against protesters who demand little more than to live in a country in which the judicial system does not destroy the lives of innocents, especially African Americans.

Yet there it is, a government executive that has surrounded itself with walls and troops, besieged by forces that in a way are stronger than any insurrection might muster — the collapsing force of its own malignance, incompetence, and cowardice. This Green Zone or White Zone or whatever we should call it is not a projection of strength, not something to cower before. We might even want to celebrate it. While there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty about what will happen next, there is no greater sign of the failure of a political or military enterprise than the fact that it has to seal itself off from the general population in what it hopes and prays is an impenetrable fashion.

More Than 70 Children Killed in Just 10 Airstrikes In Afghanistan, Report Finds

One hundred and fifteen civilians died in just 10 airstrikes in the U.S. war in Afghanistan in the last two years; more than 70 of them were children. That’s the finding of a new investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, or TBIJ, which offers a glimpse into the terrible reality of the conflict in Afghanistan. The strikes that the investigation focused on — conducted by the U.S. military and the U.S.-backed Afghan air force — represent just a handful of the total number of bombings during the period.

TBIJ crowdsourced information on particular strikes, then worked with an Al Jazeera film crew who traveled to Afghanistan to meet some of the survivors, confirming civilian casualties in some instances when the U.S. government had not admitted them. The 10 airstrikes analyzed in their report took place between 2018 and 2019. The fact that over 60 percent of those who died in the bombings were children reflects Afghanistan’s overwhelmingly young population and a culture in which large families tend to live together in big housing compounds.

There is no official explanation for four of the 10 strikes TBIJ investigated. As for the others, according to details provided by the U.S. military or contained in United Nations reports, the U.S. military invoked self-defense. But even in cases where fighting was occurring nearby, victims say the strikes that hit their homes and killed their families were unjustified. Compounding their pain, they have never received any accountability or even an explanation for their loss.

Experts in the law of war told TBIJ that the strikes “raise serious concerns around compliance with the law of armed conflict,” in the words of Daragh Murray, a senior law lecturer at the University of Essex. Patricia Gossman, a senior researcher on Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said that the high number of civilian casualties, and of children killed, meant that “these strikes may have been disproportionate.”

America's Forever Wars Have Come Home: “Light 'Em Up”

From their front porches, regular citizens watched a cordon of cops sweep down their peaceful street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rankled at being filmed, the cops exceeded their authority and demanded that people go inside their houses. When some of them didn’t obey quickly enough, the order -- one heard so many times in the streets of Iraqi cities and in the villages of Afghanistan -- was issued: “Light 'em up.” And so “disobedient” Americans found themselves on the receiving end of non-lethal rounds for the “crime” of watching the police from those porches.

It’s taken years from Ferguson to this moment, but America’s cops have now officially joined the military as "professional" warriors. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder on May 25th, those warrior-cops have taken to the streets across the country wearing combat gear and with attitudes to match. They see protesters, as well as the reporters covering them, as the enemy and themselves as the "thin blue line" of law and order. 

The police take to bashing heads and thrashing bodies, using weaponry so generously funded by the American taxpayer: rubber bullets, pepper spray (as Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio experienced at a protest), tear gas (as Episcopal clergy experienced at a demonstration in Washington, D.C.), paint canisters, and similar “non-lethal” munitions, together with flash-bang grenades, standard-issue batons, and Tasers, even as they drive military-surplus equipment like Humvees and MRAPs. (Note that such munitions blinded an eye of one photo-journalist.) A Predator drone even hovered over at least one protest.

Who needs a military parade, President Trump? Americans are witnessing militarized “parades” across the U.S.A. Their theme: violent force. The result: plenty of wounded and otherwise damaged Americans left in their wake. The detritus of America’s foreign wars has finally well and truly found its place on Main Street, U.S.A. ...

America’s violent overseas wars, thriving for almost two decades despite their emptiness, their lack of meaning, have finally and truly come home. An impoverished empire, in which violence and disease are endemic, is collapsing before our eyes. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” America’s self-styled wartime president promised, channeling a racist Miami police chief from 1967. It was a declaration meant to turn any American who happened to be near a protest into a potential victim. 

As such demonstrations proliferate, Americans now face a grim prospect: the chance to be wounded or killed, then dismissed as “collateral damage.” In these years, that tried-and-false military euphemism has been applied so thoughtlessly to innumerable innocents who have suffered grievously from our unending foreign wars and now it’s coming home.

How does it feel, America?

Defund the military!

House Armed Services Committee, Pentagon clash over Esper and Milley testimony

Capping of a tumultuous week of questions about civil-military affairs and the role of the U.S. military, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have turned down a request to testify in front of the House Armed Services Committee.

A House aide confirmed on background that the two men have “refused” to testify next week, as was requested by HASC Chairman Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., requested Tuesday. In addition, an informal briefing planned for Friday with Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy was cancelled by the DoD.

In a Friday evening statement, Smith and 30 Democratic members of the HASC called the decision not to appear in front of the committee, which has oversight over the military, “unacceptable.”

“The House Armed Services Committee made the request and it has been denied. That is simply unacceptable. It is the constitutional duty of the House Armed Services Committee to perform rigorous oversight, just as it is the constitutional duty of the Administration to be accountable to the American people," the members wrote.

“Apparently, the Trump administration believes they have no obligation to explain their actions to Congress or respect our constitutional system of checks and balances,” Smith and the other continued, while noting that the informal briefing with McCarthy should be rescheduled immediately. "We look forward to receiving a briefing from the department no later than Monday, June 8, and receiving public, on-the-record testimony from Secretary Esper and General Milley shortly thereafter.”

George Floyd protests enter third week as push for change sweeps America

This weekend’s protests, which saw moments of levity and jubilance, appeared to reflect a shifting mood across the country. Thousands of marchers gathered close to the White House on Sunday afternoon, mirroring Saturday’s peaceful demonstration in Washington DC in which more than 10,000 people poured into the streets and coalesced at the feet of Abraham Lincoln at his giant marble memorial. The words Black Lives Matter had been painted in bright yellow letters along a street near the White House.

In the capital late on Sunday afternoon, Utah’s Republican senator Mitt Romney – a critic of Donald Trump – was seen among the roughly 1,000 demonstrators marching in a faith-based protest to the White House.

In New York, an estimated 1,600 protesters stopped outside Trump International Hotel in Manhattan chanting “Throw him out” on their way to Central Park. A day earlier in Harlem demonstrators shouted “Get off our necks” and “Racism is America’s original sin” as they marched uptown from the National Black Theatre.

Elsewhere on Sunday, sizeable protests in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington DC also appeared to be passing off peacefully. In Compton, California, there were protests on horseback and a caravan of cars driving past Los Angeles police headquarters. ...

More cities announced they were dropping or relaxing their curfews on Sunday with Philadelphia and New York, which saw late-night violence earlier in the week, joining Atlanta, Chicago, and Buffalo. ... Others announced restrictions on police tactics that have come under scrutiny. Portland, Oregon, became the latest to ban the use of teargas, joining cities including Denver and Seattle, while California state and municipalities including Minneapolis, where Floyd died, have outlawed chokeholds and neck restraints. ...

Calls for defunding police departments nationwide have increased in volume this week, and Cory Booker, the Democratic senator and former presidential candidate, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that “we are over-policed as a society”. Investing in police, he said, “is not solving problems, but making them worse.”

Minneapolis City Council Vows to Dismantle Police Dept. After Mass Protests & Grassroots Organizing

Minneapolis city council pledges to defund city's police department

A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis city council has announced its intent to dismantle the city’s police department and invest in community-led public safety, a move that would mark the first concrete victory in the mounting nationwide movement to defund law enforcement agencies in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.

Nine of the council’s 12 members announced their pledge to create a new system of public safety before hundreds of demonstrators at a rally at Powderhorn Park in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon.

“This council is going to dismantle this police department,” councilman Jeremiah Ellison said. ...

“This council is going to dismantle this police department,” Jeremiah Ellison (@jeremiah4north) said today of the @MinneapolisPD at a massive community meeting at Powderhorn Park in South Minneapolis. pic.twitter.com/UkhKOU22hO

— emma (@bymyelf) June 7, 2020

When pressed by CNN for details on what a city with a defunded police department might look like, Bender told the network that funding would be shifted to other needs.

“The idea of having no police department is certainly not in the short term,” Bender said.

Defund the Police: Linda Sarsour & Mychal Denzel Smith on What Meaningful Change Would Look Like

This article has a very interesting interview with a community organizer, here's an excerpt to get you started:

“We Don’t Have Time to Wait”: Minneapolis Anti-Police Brutality Organizer Kandace Montgomery on Defunding the Police

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officers, a call to defund police departments has gained traction across the U.S. More people than ever are embracing the idea that the time for police reform has passed.

As an anti-police brutality organizer, Kandace Montgomery has observed the Minneapolis Police Department undergo years of reform efforts. After 24-year-old Jamar Clark was killed by police in 2015, she helped organize a Black Lives Matter chapter in the city. By 2018, it was clear to her and other organizers in the city that only a plan to take money away from police and give it to other community-led safety initiatives would protect black and brown people. The organization she directs, Black Visions Collective, campaigned alongside its counterpart Reclaim the Block to defund the Minneapolis police, yet the mayor still raised the police budget more than $8 million this year.

In the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s murder, the organizers brought their demands back to city council members — that members never increase the police budget again, that they cut the police’s budget by $45 million to help manage Covid-19 shortfalls, expand investment in community-led health and safety strategies, and compel the police to cease violence against community members.

[Interview excerpt follows. - js]

Paint for me a world without police. Where would all that money go instead?

A world without police would look like safety that is controlled and is led by our community, that focuses on transformation and transformative justice. A world without police means that everybody has what they need to survive and what they need to live healthy lives. It means we have the money that we need for education, health care, housing, workers’ rights. It is a total transformation away from a racist and violent system into one that truly fosters our safety and well-being. When we are talking about police reform, what we’re not talking about is the fact that black communities actually need resources to keep ourselves safe. We make the choice to resource punitive systems instead of stabilizing and nourishing ones that make communities safer. ...

What did the anti-police brutality movement in the city look like at the time Jamar Clark was killed by police in Minneapolis in 2015? What’s different now?

In 2015, I think that we were very righteously angry, and we were clear about the problem. Now, we are clear about the solution. I think that’s the distinction. Now in 2020, we know that justice is not just arresting the officers. Justice goes so much further, because we are interested in not having to be out in the streets anymore, grieving and angry, protesting that another life has been lost. We know that we cannot continue to invest in strategies that call for police reform. The only path forward is transitioning completely away from the Minneapolis Police Department and policing across the country and across the globe really.

Cop Reveals White Supremacists Join Police Forces Secretly

Hundreds of Activists and Elected Officials Call on Mayors and Cops to Decrease Police Power

In the wake of unprecedented civil action across the country after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, more than 200 people representing civil rights organizations, community organizers, elected officials, and public defenders sent letters to mayors, police chiefs, and county and sheriffs’ associations on Friday, asking them to take immediate action to decrease police presence and refocus on a good-faith effort to restore public safety.

The letters, sent to associations representing mayors, police chiefs, sheriffs, and county boards, outline policy proposals that mirror the demands protesters have been making in response to the police killings of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Dreasjon Reed, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery (killed by a former cop), and David McAtee. “The solutions we need right now both to protect our safety and to rescue our democracy are ones that meet the scale of the problem,” read the letters, which were sent to the National Sheriffs’ Association, the United States Conference of Mayors, National Association of Counties, and the Major Cities Chiefs Association. To respond to recent police killings, it goes on, “we must replace the questions about how to reform policing with questions about what a broader vision for safety and justice in America should look like and what role policing should play in it.”

Signatories on the letters, which were led by the Justice Collaborative, a policy group that advocates for changes to the criminal justice system, include San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and New York state Sen. Julia Salazar, along with hundreds of academics, faith leaders, and other organizers.

The proposals focus on five areas of efforts to radically reform the police state including defunding police and reprioritizing budgets, ending “no knock” raids, providing funding for non-law enforcement emergency responders, making police union negotiations public, and implementing community-based violence prevention solutions.

The “Left” Is Cheering On Censorship & The Left Always Pays.w/Chris Hedges

Pentagon War Game Includes Scenario for Military Response to Domestic Gen Z Rebellion

In the face of protests composed largely of young people, the presence of America’s military on the streets of major cities has been a controversial development. But this isn’t the first time that Generation Z — those born after 1996 — has popped up on the Pentagon’s radar.

Documents obtained by The Intercept via the Freedom of Information Act reveal that a Pentagon war game, called the 2018 Joint Land, Air and Sea Strategic Special Program, or JLASS, offered a scenario in which members of Generation Z, driven by malaise and discontent, launch a “Zbellion” in America in the mid-2020s.

The Zbellion plot was a small part of JLASS 2018, which also featured scenarios involving Islamist militants in Africa, anti-capitalist extremists, and ISIS successors. The war game was conducted by students and faculty from the U.S. military’s war colleges, the training grounds for prospective generals and admirals. While it is explicitly not a national intelligence estimate, the war game, which covers the future through early 2028, is “intended to reflect a plausible depiction of major trends and influences in the world regions,” according to the more than 200 pages of documents.

According to the scenario, many members of Gen Z — psychologically scarred in their youth by 9/11 and the Great Recession, crushed by college debt, and disenchanted with their employment options — have given up on their hopes for a good life and believe the system is rigged against them.

[Revealing details of the Pentagon's wargamer strategist's planning at link. -js]

Why Are Conservative "Liberty Lovers" Backing Authoritarian Cops?

Rightwing vigilantes on armed patrol after fake rumours of antifa threat

False social media rumors about so-called antifa activists traveling en masse into rural areas of America have led rightwing vigilantes to carry out armed patrols of small cities and towns in the western United States and beyond. In some cases, local activists planning peaceful protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and in protest at the killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer have been inundated with death threats.

Since Donald Trump tweeted recently that antifa would be declared a terrorist group, the term has gained broader currency on the American right and is seen as a dire threat. In fact, it simply means “anti-fascist” and is used to describe a wide spectrum of leftist and anarchist groups and individuals. It has no existence as a separate organization.

The FBI has said there is “no evidence”NBC News has reported of antifa involvement in violence linked to the Floyd protests and one supposed antifa group posting violent rhetoric on the internet was in fact linked to white supremacists.

But in the Idaho city of Coeur d’Alene groups of 30-50 men armed with semi-automatic weapons have occupied downtown streets on successive evenings this week, guarding against supposed busloads of radical leftists rumored to traveling from cities such as Spokane or Seattle, according to local residents and social media materials obtained by the Guardian. Videos posted to social media by supporters of the vigilante groups showed dozens of people walking up and down a downtown shopping strip, with many open-carrying AR-15s and other semi-automatic long guns, and sporting tactical apparel.

Krystal and Saagar REACT: Billionaire Jamie Dimon kneels in front of bank vault in BLM solidarity

The NYPD Crackdown on Protesters Is Creating the Perfect Breeding Ground for Coronavirus

“Do the right thing.” That’s what 30-year-old musician Nikko Sherard shouted at a New York City police officer before he was arrested at a protest Saturday night in Lower Manhattan. The cop was arresting another protester, 26-year-old Hudson Sackrider-De Ricco, when Sherard spoke up. Then he was tackled and surrounded by men in uniform. ...

As terrifying as that was, what happened next was even scarier. Sherard, Sackrider-De Ricco, and more than a dozen other protesters were thrown in a bus and transported a few blocks away to One Police Plaza, the NYPD’s headquarters, where they were subject to long hours of detention in crowded confines that seemed to inevitably expose detainees to the deadly coronavirus.

“People were screaming, ‘Please give us our masks!’” said Sherard. “They just packed us in there like sardines. There was one person who was turning red and throwing up and sweating. Someone was yelling that he had the coronavirus and they have us in here without masks on.” Sherard said he had worn a medical mask to the protest, though by the time he was arrested, it was broken. He’d tied a scarf around his nose and mouth instead, but it was ripped off during the skirmish with police. An EMT later gave the scarf back to Sherard, but when he was taken to a holding cell, the police confiscated it, along with his shoelaces.

Arrested demonstrators, lawyers, and the activists who take care of released protesters told VICE News that protesters have been unable to stay six feet apart from one another in cramped holding pens and cells of police facilities, including One Police Plaza. No one reported being given a mask or any personal protective gear while in custody, and many said the police themselves rarely wore masks. Water was scarce. ...

Legal advocates fear that the police’s attitude toward public health may cause another spike in cases. That could mean that the death toll will start creeping up again, especially in already devastated communities, just as the city begins its phased reopening plan.

Marianne Williamson and Dr. Gerald Horne on Protests, Dems' Failures, and 2020 | Useful Idiots

Colin Powell endorses Joe Biden for US president

Colin Powell endorsed Democratic former US vice-president Joe Biden on Sunday and said Donald Trump’s behaviour endangers democracy, becoming the first major Republican to publicly back Trump’s rival ahead of November’s election. ...

“I cannot in any way support President Trump this year,” Powell, who did not vote for the Republican president in 2016, told CNN. Asked if he would vote for Biden, he added: “I will be voting for him.”

Zaid Jilani: How billionaires have hijacked the will of Republican, Democratic voters

A Powerful Petrochemical Lobbying Group Advanced Anti-Protest Legislation in the Midst of the Pandemic

One day after West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s shelter-in-place orders went into effect, the governor quietly signed into law the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the law created new felony penalties for protest actions targeting oil and gas facilities, as the state continues to confront opposition to two massive natural gas pipelines designed to cut through delicate forests, streams, and farmland.

If construction is completed, the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines would transport gas extracted via fracking in West Virginia to markets in Virginia and North Carolina, passing through the crumbly limestone landscapes known as karst that underly much of the mountainous region. Such projects are key to keeping fracking companies operating at a time when gas prices are at historic lows and allowing a booming petrochemical industry to continue its expansion. Local landowners and residents concerned with environmental issues have attempted to stop construction by locking themselves to equipment and camping out in trees in the pipelines’ paths. Along with more conventional actions such as lawsuits, the protest efforts have cost the projects’ backers billions of dollars in delays.

Now, a person who trespasses on a West Virginia property containing “critical infrastructure” with the intention of defacing or inhibiting operations could face a felony charge carrying up to three years in prison and a $3,000 fine. The law creates another new felony and fines of up to $20,000 for any person or organization that conspires with someone to deface or vandalize such properties. “Critical infrastructure” is defined as an array of oil and gas facilities including petroleum refineries, compressor stations, liquid natural gas terminals, and pipelines.

West Virginia’s critical infrastructure law mimics a model policy promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, a shadowy group that encourages state lawmakers to pass industry-friendly legislation. Records provided to The Intercept by the Energy and Policy Institute reveal the natural gas industry’s hand in advancing the bill. A network of local lobbyists for Dominion Energy, which owns the Atlantic Coast pipeline; the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association; and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an industry group representing the refineries and processing plants that are the final destinations for the natural gas pipelines, spent months working behind the scenes to ensure the bill’s passage.

World Oceans Day: "The number one threat remains overfishing"

As CO2 Levels Build Up Like 'Trash in a Landfill,' Earth Has Hottest May on Record

The Earth just experienced its hottest May on record, scientists said Friday—just a day after it was announced that atmospheric CO2 levels hit a new high.

Scientists at Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced the temperature record Friday. The agency said that globally, last month 0.63°C warmer than the 1981-2020 average for May. That tops the previous warmest May, which occurred in 2016, by 0.05°C.

The last 12-month period, C3S added, was nearly 0.7°C warmer than average.

May #temperature highlights from #Copernicus #C3S:

Globally, it was the warmest May in our record, at 0.63°C above average
Although May was colder than average in Europe, spring 2020 was overall 0.7°C warmer than the norm

More detailhttps://t.co/2gh0WRIv7A pic.twitter.com/tqCOKiceI2

— Copernicus ECMWF (@CopernicusECMWF) June 5, 2020

"The last month has been the warmest May on record globally and this is unquestionably an alarming sign," Freja Vamborg, a scientist at C3S, told CNBC.

"The last month has been the warmest May on record globally and this is unquestionably an alarming sign," Freja Vamborg, a scientist at C3S, told CNBC.

The agency added in its new findings:

Outside Europe, temperatures were most above average over parts of Siberia, where they were up to 10°C above average. They were also much above average over western Alaska, along the Andes bordering Chile and Argentina, and over regions in West and East Antarctica. It was also much warmer than average over western North America, the far north and south of South America, north-western, central and south-western Africa, and south-eastern Asia. 

The "highly anomalous" temperatures in parts of Siberia follow a warmer than ever April for the Arctic and evidence of the emergence of so-called "zombie fires"—reignited fires from last year's Arctic wildfires that continued to survive by smoldering underground.

The new data from European scientists follows NOAA's Thursday announcement that atmospheric CO2 levels also hit new highs last month.

The levels recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory show a seasonal peak of 417.1 parts per million in May, the highest monthly reading ever recorded.

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Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

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A Little Night Music

Little Junior Parker - Wondering

Little Junior’s Blue Flames - Mystery Train

Little Junior Parker - Sitting And Thinking

Junior Parker - Baby Please

Junior Parker - I Feel Alright Again

Little Junior Parker - Driving Wheel

Junior Parker - Ain't Gon' Be No Cutting Loose

Little Junior Parker - Worried Life Blues

Jimmy McGriff & Junior Parker - Drownin' On Dry Land

Junior Parker - Just Like a Fish