Tag: protests

Tennessee governor signs bill increasing punishments for certain protests

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) quietly signed a bill into law ramping up punishments for certain kinds of protests, including losing the right to vote.

The GOP-controlled state General Assembly passed the measure last week during a three-day special legislative session and was signed without an announcement earlier this week.

Among other things, the new law stipulates that people who illegally camp on state property will face a Class E felony, punishable by up to six years in prison. People found guilty of a felony in Tennessee lose the right to vote. 

The new law also slaps a mandatory 45-day sentence for aggravated rioting, boosts the fine for blocking highway access to emergency vehicles and enhances the punishment for aggravated assault against a first responder to a Class C felony. 

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Two-Year-Old Cancer Patient Misses Birthday Celebration Due To Chicago Looters Targeting Ronald McDonald House

During the mass mayhem and looting in Chicago earlier this week, looters targeted the Ronald McDonald House, a charity that provides a place for families with sick children to stay close to hospitals.

One of the families staying at the Chicago Ronald McDonald House is the family of two-year-old Owen Buell, who is receiving treatment at Lurie Children’s Hospital for Stage 4 neuroblastoma.

The family planned to bring their sick baby to Joliet to celebrate his birthday, but were unable to do so thanks to the violent riot.

“We were going to have cake and ice cream and do some presents at home with his siblings and his grandma,” Owen’s mother, Valerie Mitchell, told local station WBBM.

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We Need a Principled Anti-Lockdown Movement

Shell-shocked is a good way to describe the mood in the U.S. for a good part of the Spring of 2020. Most of us never thought it could happen here. I certainly did not, even though I’ve been writing about pandemic lockdown plans for 15 years. I knew the plans were on the shelf, which is egregious, but I always thought something would stop it from happening. The courts. Public opinion. Bill of Rights. Tradition. The core rowdiness of American culture. Political squeamishness. The availability of information. 

Something would prevent it. So I believed. So most of us believed. 

Still it happened, all in a matter of days, March 12-16, 2020, and boom; it was over! We were locked down. Schools shut. Bars and restaurants closed. No international visitors. Theaters shuttered. Conferences forcibly ended. Sports stopped. We were told to stay home and watch movies…for two weeks to flatten the curve. Then two weeks stretched to five months. How lucky for those who lived in the states that resisted the pressure and stayed open, but even for them, they couldn’t visit relatives in other states due to quarantine restrictions and so on. 

Lockdowns ended American life as we knew it just five months ago, for a virus that 99.4-6% of those who contract it shake off, for which the median age of death is 78-80 with comorbidities, for which there is not a single verified case of reinfection on the planet, for which international successes in managing this relied on herd immunity and openness. 

Still the politicians who had become dictators couldn’t admit such astonishing failure so they kept the restrictions in place as a way of covering up what they had done. 

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7 Ways To Keep Fighting For Breonna Taylor

In the four months after Taylor’s death, both local and national changes inspired by Taylor. As of June 11, an ordinance called “Breonna’s Law,” banning no-knock search warrants and mandating that officers wear body cameras during searches was unanimously passed in Louisville, Kentucky, according to CNN. That same day, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul introduced the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act, a bill prohibiting no-knock warrants entirely in the U.S.

Following the death of David McAtee, a Black restaurant owner who was shot and killed by the Kentucky National Guard during a June 1 protest in Louisville honoring the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Steve Conrad, the Louisville police chief, was fired. On June 23, the city’s new police chief, Robert Schroeder, fired Brett Hankison, an officer-involved with Taylor’s unlawful death.

While these efforts are an important step in combating police brutality and systemic racism, no formal arrests or charges have been made. Here is how to continue to fight for justice for Breonna Taylor.

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Vandalism Is Violence: Destructive Riots Are Not ‘Just Property Damage’

Well, many left-wing journalists, activists, and commentators who are politically sympathetic to the rioters have argued that rampant destruction isn’t really a problem, because it’s “just” destruction of property, not violence against people.

One person who makes this argument is Oakland-based “racial justice organizer” Cat Brooks, who was interviewed by the New York Times.

“I don’t consider property destruction violence,” Brooks said in defense of the rioting and vandalism in her city. “Violence is when you attack a person or another living, breathing creature on this planet. Windows don’t cry and they can’t die.”

Meanwhile, New York Times writer Hannah Nicole-Jones, founder of the controversial “1619 Project,” has also defended the destruction of property and argued that it doesn’t constitute violence.

“Violence is when an agent of the state kneels on a man’s neck until all of the life is leached out of his body,” she said. “Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence. To use the same language to describe those two things is not moral.”

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Missouri AG dropping charges against St. Louis couple who defended their home with guns

Kim Gardner, Circuit Attorney for St. Louis, brought charges against a local couple last month who were caught on video brandishing weapons on the porch of their mansion. Now the Missouri Attorney General is dismissing those charges. 

Mark and Patricia McCloskey’s response to a mob of protesters tearing down the gate to a private driveway and trespassing across their yard went viral.

The McCloskey’s who are both attorneys, were eating dinner on their patio when several hundred Black Lives Matter protesters, tore down a gate to gain access to a private community that was clearly marked as private with “No Trespassing” signs. 

Mark McCloskey claims that the protesters began making threats towards his wife and himself. He went into the home and retrieved a pistol and what appeared to be an AR-15. 

Luckily, no one was injured, and the guns that the McCloskey’s legally owned did the trick by keeping the protesters from causing them harm.  

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Black Lives Matter protesters vandalize Oakland mayor’s home; she accuses them of terrorism

The Democratic mayor of Oakland, California, accused vandals who left Black Lives Matter messages spray painted at her home of trying to “terrorize” her and her family.POLL: Do you think the 2020 presidential debates are still going to happen?

The incident occurred early Tuesday morning outside Mayor Libby Schaaf’s house.

Witnesses say that 30 to 40 protesters dressed in black fired off projectiles and firecrackers during the vandalism. They spray-painted messages on the mayor’s stone wall, sidewalk and garage, including “Defund OPD,” “homes 4 all,” and “blood on your hands.”

A neighbor of the mayor told KGO-TV, “I know there’s a lot of unrest and frustration and I sympathize with that, but this was jarring and felt like to another level.”

A spokesperson for Schaaf released a statement condemning the vandalism.

“This attack designed to intimidate the Mayor and strike fear into her family, will not stop her from advocating for the policies she believes are in the best long-term interests of her beloved hometown,” said Justin Berton.

“Like all Oaklanders, she supports passionate protest but does not support tactics meant to harm and terrorize others,” the statement concluded.

‘A wake up call to Libby’

The Sacramento Bee reported that a post at the San Francisco Independent Media Center’s website contained a message from someone claiming responsibility for the vandalism.

“Last night we sent a wake up call to Libby and a call for action to the whole Bay Area. We left a note on her garage, and treated her to a nice fireworks display and the musical notes of pots and pans and assorted noisemakers,” read the message.

“Our message to Libby and other elected officials is simple: You have the power to take the boot off our necks — so we have the duty to struggle against you until that boot is lifted,” they added. “You can’t hide from your responsibility!”

The message included four demands from the group. They called for the defunding of the Oakland Police Department, cancellation of rent, “Homes for All,” and “Drop the Charges,” without elaborating.

Police are investigating the vandalism.

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