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Qualified Immunity Is a Disgrace, No Matter Where You Live
Whether police officers are granted qualified immunity—the legal doctrine that makes it considerably more difficult to sue civil servants who violate your rights—largely depends on where the offense occurred, and thus where it's litigated in court, according to a recent Reuters investigation.
But even in the courts that try to hold public servants to a higher standard, officers routinely receive qualified immunity for conduct that shocks the conscience.
Judges in the Fifth Circuit—which covers Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana—"are more likely to prioritize police power over citizens' rights and liberties," Reuters reports. That deference to the state doesn't stop at the police. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently granted qualified immunity to a group of prison guards who forced a naked inmate, Trent Taylor, to stay in two squalid cells, one with "massive amounts of human feces" and the other with raw sewage overflowing on the floor. Though the judges on that panel acknowledged that Taylor's Eighth Amendment rights had been violated, they granted the group qualified immunity on the basis that the precise amount of time the inmate spent in those cells—six days—had not been spelled out in pre-existing case law.
Alternatively, the Ninth Circuit, which covers California, Washington state, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Oregon, "has set a higher bar for police," granting qualified immunity in 42 percent of excessive force complaints. But even that appeals court has awarded qualified immunity in some head-scratching cases.
In 2019, for instance, the Ninth Circuit gave qualified immunity to Los Angeles police officer Michael Gutierrez who, without warning, shot a 15-year-old boy as he was preparing to make his way to school. The teen's friend was holding a plastic Airsoft gun replica. "Under the circumstances, a rational finder of fact could find that Gutierrez's use of deadly force shocked the conscience and was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment," the Ninth Circuit wrote. But that wasn't enough. "Because no analogous case existed at the time of the shooting, we hold that the district court erred in denying Gutierrez qualified immunity for this claim."
https://reason.com/2020/08/28/qualified-immunity-is-a-disgrace-no-matter-where-you-live-reuters/
"Shoot me, nigga!!"
Antifa Is Mostly Made Up Of Privileged White Dudes
https://spectator.us/antifa-white-privilege-race-minneapolis/
Antifa’s white privilege
Even in a riot, the races aren’t equalThere is no right to burn down your neighborhood, but it’s always an option. Freedom means choice, and real freedom must include the choice of self-destruction — but not destroying someone else’s neighborhood. Especially not when the neighborhood is mostly black and poor. That is what the privileged whites of antifa are doing by instigating disorder and destruction in Minneapolis’s 3rd precinct and elsewhere. Cost-free kicks at black people’s expense: the height of white privilege.
Race is the American sickness, and though everyone is sick of it, no one has the cure. The murder of George Floyd and the fact that it took riots before his killer was charged, confirms, should anyone still need confirmation, that Americans are still not equal before the law. Don military fatigues and storm the Michigan statehouse, and the police will recognize you as a fellow patriot. Pass a counterfeit bill while black, however, and no law can protect you from the law.
The laws that antifa learn to despise in their four-year colleges guarantee their racial privilege. If you’re black and angry enough to burn down banks and stores in your black neighborhood, tomorrow you’ll have to live in the ruins. If you’re white and you burn down banks and stores in someone else’s neighborhood, tomorrow you’ll be back in white world: fixing bikes or brewing espresso, waiting for The Man to cancel your student loans, living in a historic urban neighborhood whose historic black population you and your white friends have gentrified out of sight.
This isn’t the first time masked gangs of property-holding whites have stormed into black neighborhoods and smashed the place up to show they are above the law. They used to do it to preserve their racial privilege, to exclude blacks from exercising their rights of participation. Now they do it in the name of the racially underprivileged. Either way, they never asked for an invitation. They don’t have to, do they? They’re white and they know their rights.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/01/antifa-is-mostly-privileged-white-dudes/
Antifa Is Mostly Made Up Of Privileged White Dudes
Many in the media treat Antifa as a diverse group of warriors against fascism and racism. This is an absolute fabrication.
JULY 1, 2019 By David Marcus
At Occupy Wall Street, there were two very distinct groups. On one side of the park were the peaceful intellectuals. They ran the library and the general assembly, and organized services in the park. On the other side was the black bloc, a collection of black-clad punks, often with bandanas ready to serve as masks, who mostly engaged in drug use and drum circles. The latter group is directly related to the movement we now know as Antifa.One thing that both of these groups had—and continue to have—in common is that they are mostly young white people. This is not surprising; poll after poll shows us that the vast majority of far-left progressives are white. The intellectuals at Occupy understood and tried to address this, giving special treatment to the speech and ideas of their small cadre of non-white participants. The Black Bloc and Antifa take a different approach; they just cover their faces.
But when members of Antifa are arrested, the masks come off. And, as recent mugshots of Portland Antifa members show, these people are about as diverse as the Washington Generals.
At a time when many on the left are rightfully concerned about far-right white violence, why do so many seemed so nonplussed by far-left white violence, in most cases even refusing to acknowledge that that’s exactly what Antifa is?
One sociologist writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz attempts to prove fanciful claims that Antifa is a rainbow coalition of the oppressed desperately fighting in their own immediate self defense. Stanislav Vustotsky writes:
“Many militant anti-fascists become involved in this form of activism because aspects of their identity are directly targeted by fascist violence; they are queer, transgender, gender non-conforming, people of color, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and certainly identified in ways that intersected across these categories.
For them, anti-fascism was a means of ensuring their safety from a movement that threatens their very existence and venerates violence as the highest form of action. Even the Antifa activists who identify as cis heterosexual white males are the targets of fascist violence as ‘race’ and ‘gender’ traitors.”
Vusotsky claims to have formally studied Antifa—interviewing them, attending meetings, and “engaging in the culture of anti fascism.” Needless to say he doesn’t exactly come off as a neutral party to all this. But what is stunning is what is not in his piece. He claims to have conducted “ethnographic research,” on the group. If so, where are the numbers that back up his assertion that Antifa is wildly diverse?
Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Antifa has seen videos of their violent antics and can see for himself or herself that almost all of them are white dudes. Anyone who has ever been in their presence knows this too. I would be very interested to see this ethnographic research, and I am curious if Haaretz looked at it before publishing the author’s bizarre claim. It strains credulity to believe that if Vusotsky had hard numbers to back up his assertion he would have simply left them out of his article.
The reason this point is so important is that it betrays a double standard that many in our media use regarding violent white activists. On the right, their whiteness is front and center; part of the toxic brew that stews their hate. But this is equally true of Antifa, which has its roots in the far left of the English punk scene in the 1980s.
Antifa’s goals are not those of most non-white Americans. Most non-white Americans don’t want to destroy the systems of government, abolish the police, end capitalism, or cripple corporations. The group is absolutely trying to impose a style of anarchy that is steeped in (and almost unique to) whiteness.
When cowards wear masks to engage in violence, we must remove the masks to see who we are actually dealing with—not the fairy tale of diversity version. When Andy Ngo, a minority gay man, is mercilessly beaten up by white activists, the fact that the activists are white is a big part of the story in today’s landscape. Don’t believe the progressive narrative: Antifa is mostly a bunch of privileged white dudes.
A tribute to first responders
Detroit Firefighter Dies Trying to Save Girls From Drowning
Sgt. Sivad Johnson, 49, a 26-year veteran of the Detroit Fire Department, dived in to rescue the girls, who were later safely brought ashore.The body of a Detroit firefighter was recovered from the Detroit River on Saturday, a day after he dived into the water to save three young girls from drowning, the authorities said.
Sgt. Sivad Johnson, 49, a 26-year veteran of the Detroit Fire Department, was visiting Belle Isle, a 982-acre island park in the Detroit River, with his 10-year-old daughter, Hayden, on Friday evening when he heard witnesses say three young girls were drowning, said Eric Jones, the Detroit fire commissioner.
Sergeant Johnson gave his phone and keys to his daughter, and he and a civilian dived into the river to save the girls, Commissioner Jones said. After the girls were safely brought to shore, Sergeant Johnson’s daughter realized she could not find her father and called 911 around 9 p.m., according to the Michigan State Police.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/us/sivad-johnson-detroit-firefighter-dead.html
Sgt. Johnson epitomizes emergency personnel everywhere. People who care about other people, and will jump in where others fear to go. But, it's good to remember that Sgt. Johnson isn't alone. Firefighters, EMTs, police, and medical personnel, all around the world rush in when there is an emergency - often at the risk of their own lives.
Give this man a moment of silence, if you will. And, the next time you have reason to speak to a first responder, you might take time out for another moment of silence. Most first responders never have to sacrifice much more than a little blood, sweat and tears throughout their careers, but, they are there, ready to do whatever is required.
Lori Lightfoot contemplates invasion of Mississippi
https://yallpolitics.com/2020/08/19/chicago-mayor-blames-mississippi-in-part-for-its-gun-violence-tate-reeves-fires-back/
Chicago Mayor blames Mississippi, in part, for its gun violence – Tate Reeves fires back
“Sixty percent of the illegal guns that come into Chicago every year are from out of state, from Indiana, from Mississippi, from other states that have lax gun laws,” she stated.
Yep, Mississippi, with all their crooked letters. You can't trust them!
Y’all Politics asked Governor Tate Reeves (R) for his response to Chicago Mayor Lightfoot’s comments.
“This ridiculous conspiracy theory from the Chicago mayor—that Mississippians are to blame for the violence in her own city—is bizarre and pathetic,” Governor Reeves said. “No serious person could think that murders are out of control and people are burning police cars in Chicago because of Mississippi’s commitment to the constitution.”
Come on, Governor Reeves, you know there is a vast right wing conspiracy, don't you?
another worthless poll
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
A new CNN poll has found that Joe Biden’s lead over President Trump has shrunk by 10 points after over two months of unrest and rioting in major American cities.
CNN’s last survey, conducted in early June when riots had largely been confined to Minneapolis, had Biden ahead by 14 points. Now he leads by just 4.
“Biden leads President Donald Trump by just four points nationally — 50 percent to 46 percent — and by even less across 15 battleground states that will determine who wins the electoral college,” reports Breitbart.
“In those 15 states — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin — the new CNN poll has Biden leading by just one percent, with Biden at 49 and Trump at 48.”
The poll indicates that the riots have not only convinced many independents and moderates to vote for Trump, but that the unrest has also hardened support amongst Trump’s base.
Indeed, the numbers show that the President’s backing among conservatives has been boosted from 76% to 85%. Those between the ages of 35 and 64 now lean towards Trump having favored Biden back in June.
The survey was also conducted after the announcement of Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate, suggesting her selection has done nothing to help Biden or even harmed his chances.
[ZH: Notably, only 27% of the poll respondents self-identified as Republicans]
I'm waiting for the poll in November. We all know that useless polls are useless.
KAMALA HARRIS HAS BEEN TOUGH ON BLACK PEOPLE, NOT CRIME
https://afropunk.com/2019/01/kamala-harris-has-been-tough-on-black-people-not-crime/
A couple months ago, I was chillin’ at my potna house watching football. During a commercial break, we started talking about Kamala Harris — and my potna’s older cousin shouted, “Kamala Harris! She been lockin’ niggas up at Renee (referring to the Oakland courthouse) since way back in the day and was doin’ it with a smile on her face.” He wasn’t wrong. Kamala Harris has spent her career as the district attorney of Alameda County, San Francisco, and as the Attorney General aka The Top Cop of California.
As someone from the Bay Area and living in Oakland, I am constantly reminded of her history of locking up Black people in the Bay Area. Her track record consists of terrorizing Black communities through the prison industrial complex and she has consistently shown herself to be an enemy to the masses of Black people.
While I admit the symbol of having a Black woman as president sounds nice, it doesn’t exclude Kamala from being critiqued. I operate under the political belief that there are no good presidents. Presidents are just figureheads for the white supremacist settler colonial state. I aim to have a principled critique of her record that advances Black political thought, yet Twitter has been full of misogynist critiques of Kamala. It is important we critique her while avoiding misogynoir, as there is no place for misogynoir in the Black liberation movement.
Whether it was declining to advocate for legalization of marijuana in California, in which Black people are arrested at the highest rate. Or her failure to support body cameras for the police while simultaneously opposing legislation that would require her office to independently investigate police shootings. Kamala is not for the people. She even defended the 3 strikes law, in which Black people are incarcerated at a rate 12 times higher than whites. Kamala Harris has demonstrated through her actions that she does not value Black lives, but rather supports our death via the carceral state.
Kamala’s support of the death penalty, which is a modern day form of lynching that has executed hundreds of innocent people, and also disproportionately affects Black people proves that she doesn’t value Black lives. Kamala even advocated that an innocent Black man named Kevin Cooper, who was a death row inmate and had a trial that was rooted in overt racism and corruption, be executed. She advocated for this even though Kevin had DNA evidence that proved his innocence yet Kamala Harris opposed it until the New York Times exposed the case.
Furthermore, America has no moral ability to be able to decide who lives and who dies. The death penalty is fundamentally racist, yet Kamala supports it — furthering her record as a tough on crime politician.
Not only has she failed to support policies that might improve the lives of Black people, she has defended the need for prison slavery. What’s dangerous about Kamala is that she weaponizes “civil rights” language however her actions prove otherwise. For instance, she said “the idea that we incarcerate people to have indentured servitude is one of the worst possible perceptions…I feel very strongly about that. It evokes images of chain gangs.” Despite making the connection between prison labor and chain gangs —she “pushed back against a federal order to expand an early parole program, arguing that it would deplete their stock of prison labor, especially inmates who fight wildfires”. These inmates make a dollar an hour, which is a form of slavery. Kamala is not only a super cop, but an adamant defender of the institution of policing that is rooted in slave patrols.
Kamala Harris evokes the language of being a civil rights leader for Black people. In her video announcement for president, she weaponized words like “truth, justice, and equality” and her campaign slogan is “for the people”. This is propaganda, and this campaign strategy isn’t something new, rather it follows what I refer to as the Obama Plan. The Obama Plan is a campaign strategy that will center a civil rights type narrative such as “hope” and will also use all the elements of Blackness we like in order to get a Black person elected. This campaign uses the popular aesthetics of Blackness despite the actions of Harris being fundamentally anti-Black.
Kamala used this plan by announcing her run for presidency on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day that celebrates the radical legacy of a Black man who stood for the liberation of Black lives with both an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist politic. Kamala Harris announcing her run for presidency on MLK Day is disrespectful to King’s legacy and is a spit in the face to the Black radical tradition. Her announcing on MLK day is propaganda. It’s meant to fool Black people that she’s actually for us, despite her actions terrorizing the Black community through her role as a prosecutor. It shows us how Black liberals will weaponize the aesthetics of a freedom fighter in order to strengthen the united states colonial empire.
It is important that we understand that the “criminal justice system” is built upon the legacy of chattel slavery, and that it’s primary role is to lock up Black, Brown, and poor people to maintain a workforce (re: slaves) that supplies America an endless amount of free labor. This being said, Kamala has been the slave auctioneer and sending Black people to prison in order to maintain this endless supply of free labor. Yet some claim that she was a “progressive prosecutor”. How can there be a progressive prosecutor if the foundation of the criminal justice system is rooted in slavery and the genocide of the indigenous? If she truly was a “progressive prosecutor or a good prosecutor,” she would make sure that prosecutors do not exist. There were no good slave owners, or slave auctioneers, just as there are no good prosecutors.
Kamala Harris is what the Black radical tradition calls a neo-colonialist. Neo-colonialism is the integration of a colonized person into the colonized system in order to enact the policies of the colonizer. That being said, Kamala is a Black face doing the job of a white supremacist system. Neo-colonialism is white supremacist colonial propaganda, and it is meant to fool the masses of oppressed people that becoming the oppressor leads to freedom. Don’t be fooled by symbolism. As Obama’s presidency showed us, symbolism does not mean progress for the masses of Black people.
It is clear that Kamala Harris is not for the people. She is for the American empire. Don’t let her identity as a Black woman, or her identity as an AKA, or her status as an alumna from Howard University fool you into thinking she is actually for us: Kamala don’t give a fuck about you niggas.
Blake is the co-host of Hella Black Podcast. He also is the co founder of People’s Breakfast Oakland. You can also follow him on Twitter @BlakeDontCrack.
Duncan v Becerra goes against California
PDF of 9th circuit appeal, Duncan v Becerra
https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/DuncanvBecerraOpinion.pdf
https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/brownells-cali.jpg
From Brownells:
In the wake of a ruling by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Brownells has resumed selling its full lineup of rifle, pistol and shotgun magazines to California customers.
Known as Duncan vs Becerra, the case against California’s ban on standard-capacity magazines was brought by the California Rifle & Pistol Association.
The Ninth Circuit applied strict scrutiny in its decision and ruled firearm magazines, including those of 30-rounds capacity or more, are “protected arms under the Second Amendment.”
The entire ruling can be read at the United States Court of Appeals For the Ninth Circuit site.
Effective immediately, Brownells will once again ship magazines to California customers.
To see Brownells full lineup for popular magazines for AR-15 style, AK-47 style and other commonly-owned semi-automatic rifles and pistols, visit the magazine section of the Brownells website.
About Brownells
Serious About Firearms Since 1939™, Brownells is the world’s leading source for guns, gun parts and accessories, ammunition, gunsmithing tools and survival gear. With a large selection of both common and hard-to-find items, and an extensive collection of videos, articles, and gun schematics, Brownells is the expert for everything shooting-related. Committed to maintaining our great traditions, Brownells has more, does more and knows more – and guarantees it all, Forever. For more information or to place an order, call 800-741-0015 or visit Brownells.com. Stay up-to-date with Brownells on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
For the second time, California's restrictive laws over firearm magazines has been shot down. It is expected that a request for an en banc hearing will be filed soon, but that won't happen before firearms companies have sold a few boatloads of magazines to Californians.
I really think the tide has turned against gun control hoplophobes.
The appointment of federal judges is the single best reason to reelect Trump, IMHO. It's time to get rid of the fascists who want to leave all Americans defenseless against criminals and government. Ooops - sorry for the redundancy there.
Gun porn warning:
https://www.brownells.com/magazines/index.htm
The Shoe Finally Drops on the NRA
So yes, the lawsuits and their timing — heading into the fall election for which the NRA had just pledged to spend “tens of millions” in the Trump reelection effort — were transparent political attacks aimed at both Trump and the nation’s most prominent supporter of gun rights.
But that doesn’t mean that what’s being alleged by James (or Racine) in her lawsuit isn’t true. She’s alleging wrongdoing by LaPierre, NRA corporate counsel and secretary John Frazer, retired CFO Wilson Phillips, and the NRA’s embattled former COO, Josh Powell. James’s suit asks for the four to be fined and reimburse millions they allegedly wrongfully received.
So for all of our readers who reacted by dismissing this as another prominent Democrat using her office to attack the NRA and, by extension, gun owners and gun rights, we would only remind you that both things can be true. The lawsuit(s) can be both a conveniently timed political hit job and justifiable on the merits based on actual, verifiable wrongdoing.
That pretty much sums everything up, I believe. Many of us have been watching the NRA trainwreck unfold. Just like watching a real life train wreck, you can see it, but you can do NOTHING to help. Here it comes, rolling along, helter skelter all over the landscape. The best you can do, is to get the hell out of the way before it rolls over you.
RCP Coronavirus Tracker
A lot of numbers get thrown around, in regards to Covid-19. This country has the most cases, that country has the most deaths, etc ad nauseum.
What is the PER CAPITA disease rate, and death rate? I found several hits on that, most of them old. RealClearPolitics has a page that appears to be updated. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/
The columns are sortable. For my immediate purposes, I'm only interested in the "Deaths/1 m pop" column.
Belgium 861.9
UK 694.9
Peru 613.1
Spain 608.8
Italy 581.7
Sweden 564.1
Chile 513.0
US 484.1
At the far end of the spectrum
Burundi 0.1
Caymans 15.2
Curacao 6.3
Benin 3.1
Congo 0.6
Taiwan 0.3
Alright - table doesn't seem to sort itself quite properly. As I work upward from the bottom, I find the Channel Islands hav 12,692.4/million? But they only have 47 deaths total, looks like bad math somewhere.
Are there better charts and graphs somewhere?
Click the column "Confirmed Cases / 1 m pop" and everthing changes.
Qatar 40,197
French Gulana 27,028
Bahrain 26,465
Chile 19,207
Kuwait 16,508
Oman 16,390
Panama 16,149
United States 14,719
Drop down to the bottom and read up,
Burundi 36.1
Cayman Islands 3,084
Liechtenstein 2,347
Curacao 182
Brit. Virgin Isle 266
Turks and Calcos 3,272
The graph is definitely not behaving properly. Maybe I should try a different browser . .. no, other browsers all seem to display the same errors.
Click the column labeled "Tests", and China tops the list with 90,410,000 tests administered. US in second, 60,000,000 and Russia in third with 29,000.000. That blows a lot of headlines away, claiming the US is far behind in testing.
Does anyone know of more useful charts and graphs? It would be really nice to get some kind of handle on all the numbers being thrown around.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
Seems to have very similar numbers to the above, but only displays 50 entries max at a time.
