Friday, May 29, 2020

Amy must have had staff rewrite over and over until they came up with something tepid and dumpling-soft enough that Amy would tweet it about George Floyd's murder by a rouge cop with three other cops letting it happen, as "bystanders" in control of other bystanders who wanted the murder in progress to stop. She has been said to have staff live up to her own standards, which some say is demanding and hard on staff, but she and staff came up this time, however long it took, with insultingly tepid output, for certain. [UPDATED: Klobuchar ticket hopes dimming; Strib even sticking a fork in it after touting in the past via local content, using AP now, as part of the sorry-Charlie message.]

click to enlarge and read - source link

Thomas Neuburger at the DWT blog wrote such an excellent analysis that readers should access the original; to read, and think:

https://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2020/05/how-long-will-real-progressives-actual.html

Neuburger's post spanned a range of thinking, with only a part of a segment excerpted:

2. From George Floyd to Derek Chauvin to Amy Klobuchar

On May 25, this happened (account courtesy of the Minneapolis Police Department):

On Monday evening, shortly after 8:00 pm, officers from the Minneapolis Police Department responded to the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue South on a report of a forgery in progress. Officers were advised that the suspect was sitting on top of a blue car and appeared to be under the influence.

Two officers arrived and located the suspect, a male believed to be in his 40s, in his car. He was ordered to step from his car. After he got out, he physically resisted officers. Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress. Officers called for an ambulance. He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center by ambulance where he died a short time later.

At no time were weapons of any type used by anyone involved in this incident.

That’s copspeak for “we murdered a guy and it’s not our fault.” Here’s what really happened (emphasis added):

The latest example of America’s racist police brutality problem was caught on camera in Minneapolis Monday, as Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on 46-year-old African-American George Floyd’s neck for over seven minutes until he passed out and died. In its headline on its website, Minneapolis police described the event as “man dies after medical incident during police interaction,” [... ]

Amy Klobuchar is directly connected to this “officer-involved death” via her history with Officer Derek Chauvin:

[A]s the state’s chief prosecutor between 1999 and 2007 … [Klobuchar] declined to bring charges against more than two dozen officers who had killed citizens while on duty – including against Chauvin himself, who shot and killed Wayne Reyes in 2006 and would later go on to shoot more civilians while in uniform.

[...] If you’ve heard stories of how brutal Klobuchar is to staff, consider this a deadly extension of that conscienceless pattern. Definitely not the “Minnesota-nice,” unobjectionable candidate her image-makers in the press would have believe she is.

[bolding and links in original] Over a year ago WaPo published about Klobuchar's record as prosecutor, Neuburger linked to it, here.

She and Minnesota's junior Senator, Tina Smith, have backed an amendment to other legislation (to a defense policy bill!) favorable to foreign owned mining interests against the will and hope of Minnesota environmentalists wanting the threat and history of sulfide mining disaster to have no place in Minnesota (while at least one Minnesota DFL politician got it right in a legislative proposal dead set against the interests the Smith Amendment served). So, bad on wilderness future risk, she and Tina are both "Schumer Democrats." "Bloomberg Democrats," being a comparable characterization viewed at Crabgrass as appropriate. (Counter-progressive - anti-environment - overwhelmed by hubris and chutzpah being the message.)

Unfit for a presidential ticket being the conclusion. Opinions can differ. One wonders if Rep. Clyburn of South Carolina would favorably view a Klobuchar VP choice by Biden. I have been told her father was a good sports writer for a statewide newspaper, giving the Senator name recognition from day one of her choosing to become a career politician. Wow! Gee! And all.

Not leaving it there. Because Neuburger's DWT post covered so much more in a thoughtful way, closing before linking there again would be remiss.

____________UPDATE____________
Try this link to get a single source/item on the story of mining threatening a Wilderness unique in our nation - aptly titled:

http://left.mn/ebooks/polymet-14-years-of-bullshit/

______STRIB RELATED UPDATE______
------------4:46 PM 5/29/2020--------------

Strib link:

Biden ally sees Klobuchar as less likely Biden running mate
By ALAN FRAM Associated Press
May 29, 2020 — 6:08pm


WASHINGTON — Sen. Amy Klobuchar seems a less likely choice to become Joe Biden's running mate on his presidential ticket following this week's death of a black man in police custody in Minneapolis, a key ally of the former vice president said Friday.

Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., told reporters that while he believes Klobuchar is “absolutely” qualified to be vice president, “This is very tough timing for her.”

Klobuchar, D-Minn., was a prosecutor years ago in the county that includes Minneapolis. As she was leaving the post to join the Senate, an officer involved in this week’s death of George Floyd was involved in the death of another man. The officer ultimately was not prosecuted.

Clyburn, who said his view was his “gut feeling,” played a pivotal role in helping Biden become the party’s all-but-certain presidential nominee. Clyburn is the No. 3 House Democratic leader and Congress’ highest-ranking black lawmaker.

“So often in politics, timing really dictates things, Barack Obama I don’t think could have gotten elected four years before he got elected," Clyburn said of the former president during a conference call. “And I don’t know whether he could get elected today.”

[...] Clyburn helped revive Biden’s badly flagging presidential campaign earlier this year, lifting him to a decisive triumph in a South Carolina primary in which large numbers of voters were black. That fueled a Biden run to a string of victories in other state contests that resulted in his becoming the party’s presumptive nominee.

Before being elected to the Senate in 2006, Klobuchar, who is white, was prosecutor of Minnesota's largest county, which includes Minneapolis.

While Klobuchar was in that job, more than two dozen citizens died during encounters with police but none of the officers involved were criminally charged. Most victims were people of color, according to data compiled by Communities United Against Police Brutality and news articles reviewed by the AP.

An officer involved in one of the past fatal incidents was Derek Chauvin, who was arrested and charged Friday in this week's death of Floyd.

Even a single failure to prosecute Chauvin a few years ago was one two many. Amy, meet Derek. He's your opposite Angel to Dan White for Diane Feinstein.

Marley.

__________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Three others. At the federal level a RICO count should be filed, Bob Kroll subpoenaed to testify under oath about union-endorsed ongoing patterns of protecting and shading reports to aid miscreants, if any such pattern exists. Perhaps a force wide legacy? Every rock should be turned, any toxic critters suitably handled when found beneath any rock. Federal prosecutors have stretched RICO count usage to where such a count here and in this instance should survive a dismissal motion.

Floyd's family deserves at least as pecuniary a settlement as when the white Aussie woman was cop-gunned down - without intent to injure in that instance, and with a force newbie shooter then, not a two decade veteran with a record, as now.

_______FURTHER UPDATE________
People get angry. Because Black Lives Do Matter. People loot and it's wrong, but look how billionaires and hedge fund operators take and take; there is a scale to everything. Proportionately, looting vs rigging the oil market, where is the bigger thievery, the greater public harm?

______FURTHER UPDATE_________
In a civilized way France faced the yellow-vest anniversary with little bloodshed [as a bet deathfree].Watch Twin Cities development and think. Remember Kent State and Jackson State and think.

Yet the yellow-vest demonstrations continue, those people having a cohesion that was perhaps unanticipated by the Macron folks, who in turn have a nasty tenacity which civilized people had not foreseen. A badge is not a license to kill.

_________FURTHER UPDATE__________
6:43 AM 5/30/2020 -------------
RICO count: Bob Kroll and the ultra-meanness of MPD - civilian confrontation, via the officially banned "warrior" training organized defiance of the government set rules, by the union - Kroll having at relevant times having headed that union - all that is and should be getting attention.

Training assassination methods to those trusted to carry a badge is a perversion. Starting from there, what is the pervasiveness of the Kroll attitude, how did it lead to what was done to George Floyd; and mainly, what is the liability? Can Kroll be an accessory? With criminal liability? Can a civil suit seek to gain a seven figure civil liability judgment against Kroll for that so-called "training" which seems to be creation and perpetration of barbaric "policing" practices against official civilian control of those paid well and allowed the carrying of a badge?

Websearch. First returned item, MoJo.

To the extent such Gestapo-like "training" exists among MPD factions, which it appears to, four perps were fired, but fire Kroll too. MoJo, May 28, 2020, headlining plus, following an image of the perp, the MoJo reporting:

Crime and Justice - May 28, 2020
Minneapolis Banned Warrior-Style Police Training. Its Police Union Kept Offering It Anyway.
The union’s resistance to reform is coming under renewed scrutiny after the killing of George Floyd.


George Floyd’s killing on Monday at the hands of a white police officer is sparking intense scrutiny of the Minneapolis Police Department—an institution long plagued by allegations of misconduct and racist abuse—and the controversial restraint tactic that led to Floyd being suffocated to death while pinned to the ground, as he repeatedly told officers he could no longer breathe.

While an investigation is underway over the use of the chokehold in Floyd’s death, it’s worth taking a look at the “warrior-style” police training that for years had been popular with the city’s top police union. For the unfamiliar, the training, as we reported in 2017, generally espouses a “killology” vision of law enforcement that’s frequently likened to “fear porn.” Experts say the training, which has been linked to high profile police-related killings around the country, including Philando Castille’s 2016 shooting death, also in Minnesota, often runs the risk of the use of unnecessary, and sometimes, fatal force:

This approach to policing is outdated and ineffective, says Stoughton, and, “some of it is dangerously wrong.” Samuel Walker, a criminal-justice professor and expert on police accountability, says the “Bulletproof Warrior” approach is “okay for Green Berets but unacceptable for domestic policing. The best police chiefs in the country don’t want anything to do with this.”


Citing the “killology” mentality, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey ultimately banned the training last year but the move infuriated Minneapolis Police Union President Lt. Bob Kroll. Shortly after the decision was announced, Kroll called the ban illegal and said that the union would continue to make the training available to any interested officers. “It’s not about killing, it’s about surviving,” Kroll said at the time.

[...]

[linking in original, italics added] "Fear porn?" "Killology?" Only a sicko would go there, Kroll has, and George Floyd is dead.

Connect the dots. Kroll needs to be fired, as a start to actual reform, not as a final page.

When Kroll defied orders back when told to can the crap, he should have been fired then. He's overdue to be fired. The man is a clear and present danger, where he and that ilk within the department need attention. And dismissal. Each. Every. Muck the entire stable. The question at the margin - accessorial liability for Kroll, a need to be imprisoned for George Floyd's death, or would that be overreaching? (A consideration is or would be personal safety of a "fear porn" cop incarcerated within a violent population, disproportionately black; Kroll not deserving a death sentence, at least not via that indirect way.)

MoJo reporting continued beyond the quoted beginning; and again other reporting was returned via the websearch. MoJo cites its reporting was there in 2017, met by officialdom's inattention. CBSlocal covered the question in the spring of 2019. With no reform [Kroll still on payroll]. Now?

In the vernacular, Kroll and minions of "super badge heavy" cops. Head of the snake, all that.

FINALLY: An FBI inquiry into sicko permeation within the MPD - into a pervasive culture of excessive force as a denial of citizen civil rights - might start with members of Wardlow's cadre: