Rudy Giuliani’s apartment raided by FBI: report
The FBI raided Rudy Giuliani’s apartment Wednesday morning in connection with the ongoing investigation into his dealings in Ukraine, according to a report.
Read the Latest [at New York Daily News]
Will they find his crypt?
Good.
BREAKING NEWS ALERT via Washington Post:
Georgia lawmakers pass sweeping voting bill that would curtail the use of drop boxes and allow challenges to voting eligibility
The measure, which also expands early voting hours and makes it a crime to give voters food and water while they wait in line, now goes to the desk of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who has not yet announced whether he will sign it.
That’s right: this law “makes it a crime to give voters food and water while they wait in line” to exercise their right to vote. It’s still early in the season, but it’s certainly an ambitious entry for this year’s pettiest voter suppression law!
Still, I can’t help but think perhaps these assholes haven’t quite thought this through. For instance, I wonder whether there’s a (pro-business!) loophole wherein it’s not a crime to sell voters food and water while they wait in line to vote. Or whether the state’s police forces are actually on board with assigning hundreds of officers to enforce this statute on election day, especially when relations between Georgia’s police forces and its minority citizens ain’t exactly copacetic.
I also wonder whether they remembered to grant to themselves and the police officers who enforce the law full immunity from criminal prosecution and civil suits, after some diabetic dies in line when their blood sugar crashes and no one can offer them anything sweet to bring it back up. Or when someone requires emergency medical attention due to severe dehydration.
Maybe I’m overthinking this and worrying for nothing. I mean, it’s not like people in Georgia ever have to wait in line for eleven hours to vote! (Oh wait.)
Now before you get to thinking this law is obviously racially motivated because – as we can all predict with a pretty high level of certainty – it will never be enforced in majority white voting districts, rest assured that this is not the case at all! This law, by constitutional standards, is “racially neutral.” You see, it simply cannot be enforced in majority white districts, because those districts don’t have lines. DUH! No racism to see here, people! Nope, none at all.
I wonder who will try to out-petty Georgia with their voter suppression laws next? I have a feeling it won’t be very long before we have another strong contender.
Multiple notifications popped onto my screen yesterday announcing that the Loser-In-Chief had fired his defense secretary Mark Esper. I was working on something else (and also trying and failing miserably to observe a news blackout for personal reasons*) so I didn’t dig any deeper than the headlines.
But my mind kept on poking at me with a big stick and asking “Why?” “Why?” “Why?” For sure, the reason would be sad, funny, fascist, illegal, counterproductive, enraging, ridiculous or some combination of those. However, this morning as I looked over a few of these notifications before deleting them, our Liberal Media™ informed and enlightened me further only with something about Commander Cheetohead bashing Esper on Twitter. Which, okay, ticked A LOT of those boxes if not all of them but did nothing to shut up my shouty, stabby stick. And It’s not like I was going to click on actual links to read actual stories! I got shit to do, people.
Enter The New York Times to save the day! (Not really.) From this morning’s Times email briefing:
[CONTENT NOTE: police violence against peaceful protesters, lying police liars who lie.]
A new report from Human Rights Watch documents the NYPD’s brutal assaults against peaceful George Floyd protesters at a June 4 rally in the Bronx (via New York Daily News):
NYPD trapped over 300 George Floyd protesters in the Bronx and waited until after curfew to ‘assault and arrest’ them: report
The NYPD trapped over 300 protesters in the Bronx marching for George Floyd and waited until the 8 p.m. citywide curfew to arrest them for breaking the law, a human rights group wrote in a scathing report released Wednesday.
Human Rights Watch said Bronx cops surrounded protesters on June 4 in a tactic known as kettling, refused to let them disperse, then began “whaling their batons, beating people from car tops, shoving them down to the ground and firing pepper spray in their faces” as soon as the curfew hit.
The 8 p.m. shutdown was imposed a few days earlier to stem widespread looting amid marches against the death of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody.
“As protesters cried out — some with blood dripping down their faces — the police began to arrest them. They forced people to sit on the street with their hands zip-tied behind their backs, at times so tight that their hands went numb,” said Human Rights Watch in their report.
[Human Rights Watch] said they questioned 81 protesters and reviewed 81 videos and police scanner calls for the report. They also released a 12-minute video filled with diagrams of the Mott Haven clash, interviews with witnesses and protesters, and cellphone videos taken at the scene.
Here is video from Human Rights Watch detailing the sequence of events on June 4.
CONTENT NOTE (from the filmmakers):
“This video contains violent and disturbing images and profanity. Viewer discretion is advised.”
Via New York Daily News:
Bombshell report shows Trump’s years of tax avoidance
President Trump paid just $750 in taxes in 2016 and the same sum in 2017, according to a bombshell New York Times report published Sunday.
He paid a big fat zero in income tax in 10 of the 15 previous years, the publication found.
This is Derrick Ingram.
Derrick Ingram
Black Lives Matter Protester and Organizer
Co-Founder,Warriors in the Garden
(photo via Amnesty International USA)
On August 7, dozens of NYPD officers in riot gear swarmed his apartment’s hallways, his fire escape and surrounding locations. They had no warrant. They did have a helicopter hovering overhead, though. They also brought police dogs right to his door and threatened to break it down. They lied to him about his rights and tried to interrogate him without legal counsel.
This siege lasted FIVE HOURS. It ended only after Derrick started livestreaming the incident: in response, a large group of protesters showed up, along with some media types who started asking questions. That is when the NYPD Stormtrooper Squadron™ finally took their toys U.S. military surplus equipment and went home.
Our good friends at The New York Daily News have just made my day:
Steve Bannon, former Trump advisor, in federal custody on charges of defrauding donors in fundraising scheme: US Attorney SDNY
Stephen Bannon and three others “orchestrated a scheme” that raised more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border according to charges contained in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court.
My “religion” requires me to find joy in every day. It turns out I never need to look very far for it, but some days it gets handed to me on a silver platter.
Of course Mr. “Breitbart” has more claims to infamy than “former Trump advisor. But right now, who even cares? Let’s dance!
Have a joyous day.
Uh-oh! Must be a day that ends in Y! The New York Times is pissing me right off.*
Today’s email briefing starts with a splashy paean to the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. The 19th Amendment, which granted (some) women voting rights, was enacted on this date one hundred years ago.
The email piece naturally links to recent Times articles on women’s suffrage and related topics. As usual, their failure to connect the blazing red dots of our history – history they themselves reported – does a criminal disservice to readers. And as usual, what they don’t deliver is at least as damaging as the disinformation they do.
Here’s what I woke up to today:
BLM Won – Just wait til they win some MORE!
Go read the whole thing – it’s truly fantastic, and well worth celebrating!
Now because I am a cynical bitch realist, I cannot help but reflect on the sheer enormity of human effort and sacrifice it took for Black Lives to Matter in one small U.S. city – and on how much more effort and sacrifice will be required to maintain this progress once the news crews are gone.
But pay no mind to Negative Nellie over here! This is a good and necessary victory, and it deserves aaaaallll the kudos!
Here are a few more previous posts to bring our collection up to date:
Being Uncomfortable (referenced and linked in my earlier post about that lying piece of shit AG Barr)
Brain ipsa loquitur (LOL)
Past the expiration date (saving the fresher batches of tear gas for Chicago and New York?)
Still a step away from Pinkerton’s, but it’s bad. (referencing Marcus Ranum’s excellent How to Riot post at stderr.)
Interview with a YOUNG HOT GAY (❤️🧡💛💚💙💜❗️)
There will be more Crip Dyke posts forthcoming. Although I hoped there would be a much-needed break for rest, rejuvenation, self-care and especially time to process recent intense and traumatic events, Crip Dyke is returning to the protests tonight. Because of course she is. 💜
