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National Guard Spy Plane Monitored Racial Justice Protest in Sleepy Sacramento Suburb Where Commander Lives: Report

Residents of a Sacramento suburb were left scratching their heads and asking questions on Sunday following a report that a National Guard spy plane was deployed to the largely gated community—where the commander of the California National Guard resides—to monitor racial justice protests earlier this year. 

The Los Angeles Times reports RC-26 reconnaissance planes were deployed to monitor protests in three major cities in early June: Washington, D.C., Phoenix, and Minneapolis, where police killed George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, on May 25.

A fourth RC-26  was dispatched to an unlikely location: the affluent Sacramento suburb of El Dorado Hills, where it—along with an Air National Guard Lakota helicopter—watched protesters below. 

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Moral Outrage Is Self-Serving, Say Psychologists

When people publicly rage about perceived injustices that don’t affect them personally, we tend to assume this expression is rooted in altruism—a “disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.” But new research suggests that professing such third-party concern—what social scientists refer to as “moral outrage”—is often a function of self-interest, wielded to assuage feelings of personal culpability for societal harms or reinforce (to the self and others) one’s own status as a Very Good Person.

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Pentagon estimates cost of new nuclear missiles at $95.8B

The Pentagon has raised to $95.8 billion the estimated cost of fielding a new fleet of land-based nuclear missiles to replace the Minuteman 3 arsenal that has operated continuously for 50 years, officials said Monday.

The estimate is up about $10 billion from four years ago.

The weapons, known as intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, are intended as part of a near-total replacement of the American nuclear force over the next few decades at a total cost of more than $1.2 trillion.

Some, including former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, argue that U.S. national security can be ensured without ICBMs, but the Pentagon says they are vital to deterring war. The Trump administration affirmed its commitment to fielding a new generation of ICBMs in a 2018 review of nuclear policy.

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Struggling Bar Owner In Biden Ad Revealed To Be Wealthy Angel Investor

A Michigan bar owner featured in a Joe Biden campaign ad saying his business may fail because of President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 response is a wealthy tech investor who made it big after receiving a large family inheritance.

Joe Malcoun, the co-owner of The Blind Pig, said in the ad his bar was nothing more than an empty room because of Trump’s inaction against the virus. “This is the reality of Trump’s COVID response,” Malcoun said.

“We don’t know how much longer we can survive not having any revenue. A lot of restaurants and bars that have been mainstays for many years will not make it through this,” the bar owner said. “My only hope for my family, this business and my community is that Joe Biden win this election.”

However, the Washington Free Beacon reported Monday that the odds that Malcoun falls under financial hardship are slim.

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Innocent Woman Didn’t Let Cops See Her Ring Video, So They Raided Her Home, Mocked Her

In January of this year, Monecia Smith was awakened in the middle of the night as a shirtless man pounded on her door seeking help. Moments later the man ran to her neighbor’s house before gunshots ran out. Monecia has a Ring camera system which did not capture the shooting but did capture part of the deadly encounter.

“I could see the muzzle (flash) of gunfire,” Smith, a mother of four, said to the Kansas City Star.

Smith said she showed the video to a family member of the victim, later identified as Derrick Smith, 31 (not related to Monecia), but when police showed up to her home and asked for it, she refused to hand it over — which is her constitutional right. Smith wasn’t committing a crime and explained that her decision to keep the video from police stems from her lack of trust in the department.

As the Star explains, Smith pointed to the questionable shooting deaths of Ryan Stokes, Terrance Bridges, Donnie Sanders and others at the hands of Kansas City police officers, as the reason she does not trust them.

For all Smith knew, it was police who killed Derrick Smith and they could’ve been trying to seek out and destroy any evidence which showed it.

“There have been too many cases where nothing was done,” Monecia Smith said. “My trust for police has gone down the drain.”

Smith is not alone in her lack of trust for police. The Star interviewed 75 residents who share similar distrust.

“If people don’t trust the police, it is because a very severe injustice has occurred,” said Thomas C. O’Brien, a psychologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

And, in Kansas City, severe injustice is seemingly routine.

Last week, TFTP reported on 25-year-old Deja Stallings — a nine-month pregnant woman who was body slammed and then knelt down on by cops for allegedly “hindering and interfering” while filming an arrest.

Before that, Karle Robinson, 61, was held at gunpoint and handcuffed at his home near Kansas City. His “crime”? Moving a TV into his new house — while black.

The list goes on and provides an impetus for today’s distrust that goes back decades. Proving Smith’s reason for distrust is the fact that she was raided by these cops the very next day after refusing to show them the video.

According to the report, Smith showed the video to a member of Derrick Smith’s family and when detectives found out about it, they requested a meeting inside her home. Smith politely declined.

“I didn’t feel safe with him in my house,” she said.

Smith had no idea how profoundly predictive that statement would be. The very next day, a militarized unit of cops in tactical gear kicked in Smith’s door and ransacked her apartment — making sure to denigrate her along the way.

Smith, who was at work during the raid on her home, was alerted by a neighbor and came over immediately. When she showed up, cops were still in her home and she was told she couldn’t enter. But her cameras inside were rolling.

“Go out and make sure these detectives are OK, ‘cause this bitch, (inaudible) she’s getting crazy,” one of the shock troops can be heard saying on the video.

“They did all of that for a DVR?” Smith said. “Why did I deserve that?”

The fact of the matter is that she didn’t deserve that at all. Smith later filed a grievance over the incident which was sustained by the Office of Community Complaints, a civilian agency tasked with holding the police accountable. Unfortunately, however, the agency is largely impotent and have very few tools to actually hold cops accountable.

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Facebook labels 2+2=4 “misinformation”

On the 5th of October, the WHO’s Dr Michale Ryan claimed “about 10%” of the global population had been infected with Sars-Cov-2. With an alleged death toll of roughly 1 million, that puts the infection-fatality ratio at roughly 0.14%.

He said it, we reported it. The maths is not disputable. And yet Facebook has flagged it as “misinformation”…

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