Two police officers shot in Louisville
Today the grand jury handed down a ruling in the Breonna Taylor case that the mob didn’t like. What has followed are the sort of riots we’ve grown used to, and tonight that included the shooting of two police officers. Fortunately, the officers are expected to survive.
The facts of the Taylor killing, which occurred last March, have been hard to ascertain. I haven’t written about it before because I’ve read so many contradictory things – for example, did the police enter the apartment on a no-knock warrant, as many have alleged? Apparently not; the police announced themselves, although witnesses differ. They were met with gunfire and returned gunfire, which is how Taylor was killed.
A grand jury hears testimony for the prosecution, not the defense, and decides whether there’s enough to bring charges. The mob would prefer to be the ones to make that decision, on the “evidence” produced by demagogues and the MSM. That would be the mob veto:
When a state court acquitted the white officers charged in the post-arrest beating of Rodney King, widespread riots successfully prompted a second trial at the federal level and determined its outcome. The jury at that second trial were fully aware of the new rules: “no justice, no peace.” “The outcome,” I wrote in 1995, “was a foregone conclusion. What juror would want to be responsible for provoking a new round of deadly riots?” The officers were duly convicted of violating the civil rights of Rodney King under a federal statute…
Maxine Waters, Congresswoman from Los Angeles and now a prominent supporter of BLM and Antifa, referred to the Rodney King riots at the time as a “rebellion,” implying that they were a justified reaction of the black community against the endemic injustice of white supremacy that dominates American society…
Even before the Rodney King riots, a prominent law professor had made elaborate arguments that rioting is a form of expression protected by the First Amendment—a simple matter of “matching one’s rhetoric to his outrage.” Think of it—one of the most advanced and respected legal minds arguing that rioting is rhetoric!
And yet that is exactly what today’s progressive rioters believe…
…Riots are not only being justified: they are being made into a staple of our judicial system and our public life, the threat of them used to install routine fear and racial supremacy in our homes and cities.
The Rodney King riots occurred in 1992, nearly thirty years ago.
Sadly, it only takes one to tangle.
Ask yourself, after reading about Louisville, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis, …, if you were in this St Pete restaurant … and you were carrying … and they came to your table … what would happen?
Josh Fiallo on Twitter: “Protestors are now going restaurant by restaurant to chant at diners on Beach Dr. in St. Pete. A lot of diners yelled back, starting multiple confrontations. This one was the most significant. Protestors took over a couple’..
https://twitter.com/ByJoshFiallo/status/1308927845687799812
This is a comment from a blog, I don’t have independent confirmation but the description of home invasions sounds pretty bad.
Don’t wait.
Arm yourself.
Learn how to use your weapon.
Don’t be the weakest target, don’t be the weakest link in a given situation.
“Multiple cops shot, home invasions with MULTIPLE armed guys all dressed in black, folks getting shot in their own homes- a friend in Louisville.”
Minneapolis, Atlanta, Kenosha, Louisville cops = Innocent.
Thugs, BLM, Antifa, MSM, Dems = Guilty
It’s crystal clear who is on the side of justice and who is not.
So how many are going to the polls to vote? Whe nthe consequences are being murdered or attacked or prosecuted?
See how the Left’s voter fraud works? Not so unimportant now, is it.
Thirty businesses were vandalized in Durham, NC, last night. Meanwhile, the (Dem) Attorney General of NC misled the State Board of Elections into approving a “settlement” on absentee ballots. The two R members have resigned in protest.
Riots are not justified and are, I hope, counterproductive for Democrats in the election.
As of this morning, the MSM outlets are standing four-square with the Louisville rioters.
It’s crystal clear that the American left is morally and ethically degenerate.
BLM is a terrorist organization – more effective than ISIS in sowing destruction and chaos in the USA.
Following Taylor’s death, Louisville has changed its procedures to avoid “no knock” raids, which is an appropriate reaction to the tragedy (although police appear to have knocked and announced themselves). Other people around the country, many of them not black, have been injured or killed in such arrest attempts. A discussion about what force is called for in enforcing drug laws is a valid discussion for us to have. Riots in which peoples’ lives and livelihoods are destroyed don’t help anyone.
It appears the left can’t help itself any more than the mob in Paris during the revolution. There is a circuit in mammals that I have observed where once totally engaged in a fight, the combatants become oblivious. I first noticed this phenomenon when two tom cats had been fighting off and on for several days and I went over to them and wiggled my foot under them. No reaction. So I slung them in the air – a yowling ball of fur and fury – well over my head. They didn’t notice and fought all the way up and all the way down until -THUMP – they hit the ground. At which point they both concluded that the other cat had delivered them a mighty blow and ran off in opposite directions. End of fight. In the thick of a fight everyone feels their side is right – that’s not what I’m talking about – I’m talking about people whose violence has gone unchecked and have become oblivious to the effect they are having. They might be minting votes for Biden in their basements, but on the street they are minting votes for Trump.
Serious question relating to the video JimNorCal linked, and is almost an exact duplicate of the similar situation in Pittsburgh last week: The tactic is to target older couples at the restaurants for intimidation; they don’t go after the 40-50 yr olds. Now I know that in Pittsburgh several people have been charged, who knows what will happen in St. Pete. So what would you do in a similar situation? I’m 68, so would be a target. My instinct learned from way back in 7th grade is that bullies need to be confronted. Just this spring while walking our dogs on the town green a 20 something woman and her basement boyfriend got in our faces for going the “wrong direction” around the green for covid purposes. I got right in their face back at them and they backed down with curses, but they moved on. At that restaurant I would have stood and told the asshole to move on, if not I would have taken it a step further and more than likely ended up in ICU.
Where and when do ordinary people make a stand? Can we always depend on the police to follow through with charges? Does the concern for personal safety give these people carte blanche? With the SCOTUS fracas about to heat up, and things generally deteriorating across the country, what do us ordinary people do?
I don’t watch Fox news on TV, but occasionally catch Carlson or Gutfield on YouTube.
I think that to gain an appreciation for the situation we Americans who wish to maintain our heritage of liberties and rights now find ourselves in, it would be useful to go to Gutfield’s latest on the mainstream left’s announced urge to burn it all down. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=flHBp1G7iLc
Now, as amusing as the hypocrisy and lunatic frustration of Don Lemon is, the most profound point is made, or better, revealed, by Juan Williams, at 6:45.
No need now to infer that the left is acting this way because they thought they were on an unstoppable, no limits, roll to fundamentally transform America. ( a former “need to infer” that is, if you ever assumed Obama was just spouting rhetoric)
What Williams reveals in no uncertain terms as he describes and justifies progressives’ frustrations with the way Republicans have managed to tap the brakes on the speed of the progressive transformations, is that the entire system of historic checks and balances and limitatons has been rendered illigitimate in progressive eyes, by a transformation in the make-up of the population dwelling within the polity. And law, your law, and by implication your existence should you bitterly cling to your heritage of rights and lifeways, be damned.
When studying the prelude to the Civil War in college, I recall one historian who wrote his essay in the 1950s or 60s commenting that when it eventually came to a sufficient number of people wanting a social transformation, then questions of who had established law and legality on their side, came to count for nothing.
If someone decides that they want you for dinner, your house for their own, and your children for their sexual amusement, and are bold enough to shout it in the streets, no talk of law and settled practices dating from time immemorial, is going to do any good.
Note that Williams refers to the Democrat population majority of, he says, 40 millions as dispositive. How they got here, or what their legal status now is or once might have been, or what conventions and fundamental institutions and norms they were supposedly committed to respecting once they got here, is of no necessary interest to them, nor to their enablers, and certainly carries no binding moral force now.
This so-called “nation” has been committing slow motion suicide by altruism and de-moralization for many years. Its death throes, if we are the generation privileged to witness it, should provide many answers to the once mysterious process of civilizational collapse which we pondered as youth. Whether a “rump state” will emerge that can sustain itself, or whether it too will be overwhelmed and subverted itself by the refugees who the schoolmarms demand their husbands let in, is something only history can decide.
But then maybe Trump will win, and everything will turn out fine, and we all will forget for a time at least, how we trod so close along the razor’s edge.
The reason that the riots are allowed to continue is the lack of will by the political class. This is the “broken windows” version of riots. Look at all the entitled rich kids participating on a bandwagoning impulse. They are bored and looking for a thrill. If criminal penalties are imposed you will see many riots dissipating. It will be an interesting experiment with the proposed Florida laws with the RICO implications for enablers.
There was a short book by Eric Hopper called “The True Believer” written in 1951 about mass movements. One of his arguments is that revolutionary fervor can only be released in a society that have enough affluence to allow this. Also a mass of under employed young men is needed. This gem is one of the reasons that I love prowling through used book stores.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer
Another article from Zero Hedge about this phenomenon. So how do we fix it? Vote for the right political leadership and if you feel impelled run for office.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/whats-rich-kid-revolutionaries
Not too great a leap from burning an American flag (protected free speech) to throwing a Molotov cocktail at the police in Portland last night (protected by Wheeler free speech). Speech is violence after all.
Attached are some words of un-wisdom from a dribbling idiot multi-millionaire:
https://www.outkick.com/lebron-james-responds-to-breonna-taylor-grand-jury-decision-still-has-zero-comment-for-l-a-sheriff/
James claims “the most disrespected people in America are black women.”
James is an avid consumer of hip-hop (the “entertainment” form that most disrespects black women).
physicsguy: “Where and when do ordinary people make a stand?”
For anyone receiving a jury summons: please do your utmost to show up and serve. “We” need to be there to protect each other if we are hauled into court for the crime of defending ourselves and our family members.
The riots are stupid and wrong.
That said, the cops murdered an innocent person and got away with it.
Grand Jury don’t just hear from “the prosecution” as if “the prosecution” is always for a conviction. If the DA wants a no-bill result they can easily steer the jury there too. Grand juries are rubber stamps on the DA’s wishes.
We need meaningful police reform. Instead we have riots, which have bugger all to do with the police and everything to due with anti-Americanism and a desire to destroy America.
physicsguy,
with “things generally deteriorating across the country, what do us ordinary people do?”
There are two facets to this issue; personal safety and societal survival. Of the two, personal safety is the more difficult issue.
Normally, personal safety is held within reasonable bounds, in that we can rely on the justice system to act within its legal obligations. Cops arrest, D.A.’s prosecute, juries try and judges sentence, all according to the law.
Given the current state of affairs, especially in democrat ruled cities, citizens cannot rely upon the justice system. This is an entirely intentional tactic by the left. Soros emplacing leftist D.A.s who refuse to enforce the law and funding the rioters is not accidental. It’s part of a planned strategy to sow division and anxiety, such that confidence is lost in our societal institutions.
Defending oneself starts with not placing oneself in a foreseeably vulnerable position. So eating at a downtown open air restaurant is now unwise. Forearmed is forewarned, so carrying non-lethal defensive weaponry is now advisable. After checking with state laws and if legal; pepper gel and loud whistles is the minimum. Non-lethal but decidedly more aggressive are weapons like the Kubotan Self-Defense Rod and the Fast Strike Self-Defense weapon.
Finally and decidedly lethal is a concealed carry pistol.
Just showing one is a deterrent but you risk prosecution in using one.
So, avoid situations that are inherently problematic.
Retreat if possible.
Be prepared to act aggressively with the degree of force you’ve already considered.
momo:
Facts don’t fit your narrative. Look up the words “murder, innocent.” See “OfficerTatum” web site among many others. Or not, whatever.
“It’s crystal clear that the American left is morally and ethically degenerate. BLM is a terrorist organization – more effective than ISIS in sowing destruction and chaos in the USA.” LeClerc
Indeed. The most effective and least destructive strategy is to reelect Pres. Trump.
Once reelected he can; invoke the Insurrection Act.
10 U.S. Code Chapter 13 – INSURRECTION
Charge rioters with insurrection and seditious conspiracy;
18 U.S. Code §?2384.Seditious conspiracy
Invoking and enforcing the Insurrection Act is sure to increase rioting, in response Trump can declare Martial Law. He can then take off the kid gloves and bring the hammer down on the left.
Under 10 U.S. Code § 253 – Interference with State and Federal law Trump can arrest and try those funding the Insurrection and those mayors, governors and Congressional representatives who are interfering with State and Federal law.
When House democrats move to impeach Trump he can charge them with 10 U.S. Code § 253 – Interference with State and Federal law…
It’s this or Civil War. This or 1984.
My husband has a couple of nice solid canes. Guess he’ll have to take one with him when we go to dinner (outside, for the time being).
There are too many things that can go wrong in the next few months. 1. The Nov 3 election looks like a tornado-a-comin. Unbelievable turmoil. 2. Someone is going to get fed up with urban rioting and start a militia. 3. The DNC is not going to stand by and be loyal to Biden if he makes a laughing fool out of himself in the debates. Are there any ways to change candidates this late? 4. Civic rioting is going to encroach on residential areas and the guns are coming out…more than you would ever imagine.
momo:
Do you really think that just because you state something like “the cops murdered an innocent person,” that makes it so? It does not. You are apparently one of those people who, as Andrew McCarthy writes, are not interested in the facts of the case:
Read the whole article, which explains the situation in great detail. I doubt you will, because I doubt you want to know the facts. You’d rather scream “murder.”
In criminal cases the DA is in charge of the prosecution. During grand jury testimony, only the prosecution presents its case. The defense is not heard. That doesn’t mean that the prosecution presents the case you want them to present – you know, the murder case that has no evidence of murder.
momo, I’m not fully in agreement with your assessment of grand juries’ role in such things. Have you ever served on one? I have. I thought it was great and would gladly do it again.
I don’t know if the grand jury law operates materially differently in KY, but in NY, supposing that a DA actually wants a no-bill, the first impediment would be that the prosecutor has to in some sense go out of his or her way to present a weak set of evidence. (Bear in mind that the point of a grand jury is only to check that there is enough of a case to go to trial with – it is not an actual trial. The prosecution still has to win in court later on even if the grand jury is acting as a ‘rubber stamp’.)
Now if the DA purposely puts forth a weak collection of evidence for the indictment, at least in NY, grand juries do have power to call additional witnesses in many scenarios, should they choose to use it. The grand jury on which I sat didn’t usually feel that motivated, I have to admit, in spite of some efforts on my part to move the needle, but the option does exist. (Another potential issue is that sometimes when you have a particularly, shall we say, ‘strong personality’ in the foreman’s position, who can get a little bit too obsessive about efficiency as the primary consideration, it is possible for certain questions in the deliberations to get shorter shrift than they may deserve, especially if a critical mass of the jurors are just along for the ride mentally.) But a lot of these types of difficulties are of such a nature that one can always say “well, it’ll all get sorted out at trial.”
I think, though, that if you get grand jurors who take that civic responsibility seriously, you can see good outcomes not necessarily in alignment with the DA’s desires on a particular case. So it can be a useful citizen-based check on the DA, though I would agree with you that a grand jury’s power to galvanize a lethargic prosecutor is more limited than its ability to tamp down the ardor of an overzealous one.
Background of The Bail Project, which is helping to drive the chaos in Louisville.
https://andmagazine.com/talk/2020/09/24/the-rich-people-who-rent-u-hauls-for-riots-in-louisville-where-cops-get-killed/
More moronics re Breonna from the world of sports:
https://www.outkick.com/mark-jones-jalen-rose-blm-cult-and-why-you-should-kick-your-espn-habit/
JimNorCal:
In a similar insurrection (?) the effective strategy was to target the “engineers” and higher ups in the organization not just the street level terrorists (suicide bombers), here and now Antifa/BLM. The rich funders and enablers seem to think they are immune from consequences.