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Minneapolis City Council to Disband the Police; De Blasio Vows to Defund NYPD; President Trump RIPS Democrats’ Attacks on Law Enforcement

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By Townhall. A veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members have announced their intention to disband the city’s police department. Nine members are set to vote for defunding and dismantling the police force following the death of George Floyd.

“We recognize that we don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does,” the council members admitted in their statement.

“We’ll be taking intermediate steps towards ending the [Minneapolis Police Department] through the budget process and other policy and budget decisions over the coming weeks and months.” . . .

On Saturday, a mob of protesters called Mayor Jacob Frey out of his home to ask whether he supports defunding the police department. The angry crowd screamed obscenities and told the community-organizing mayor to “go home” after he said no to defunding the police. A spokesperson for Jacob Frey says the mayor remains committed “to working with Chief Arradondo toward deep structural reforms and uprooting systemic racism.”

(Read more from “Minneapolis City Council to Disband the Police” HERE)

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Bill de Blasio Flips, Now Vows to Defund New York Police

By Washington Times. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio knuckled under to protesters Sunday and promised to cut funding to “New York’s Finest.”

Just two days after speaking skeptically of demands by Black Lives Matter and other protesters to defund the police, Mr. de Blasio agreed to start doing so, though he gave few specifics.

“We’re committed to seeing a shift of funding to youth services, to social services, that will happen literally in the course of the next three weeks, but I’m not going to go into detail because it is subject to negotiation and we want to figure out what makes sense,” the mayor said, the New York Times reported Sunday. (Read more from “Bill de Blasio Flips, Now Vows to Defund New York Police” HERE)

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Trump Rips Democrats’ Calls to Defund Police

By AP. Protesters are pushing to “defund the police” over the death of George Floyd and other black Americans killed by law enforcement. Their chant has become rallying cry — and a stick for President Donald Trump to use on Democrats as he portrays them as soft on crime. . .

“They’re saying defund the police,” [Trump] said. “Defund. Think of it. When I saw it, I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘We don’t want to have any police,’ they say. You don’t want police?”

Trump’s 2016 campaign was built on a promise of ensuring law and order — often in contrast to protests against his rhetoric that followed him across the country. As he seeks reelection, Trump is preparing to deploy the same argument again — and seems to believe the “defund the police” call has made the campaign applause line all the more real for his supporters. (Read more from “Trump Rips Democrats’ Calls to Defund Police” HERE)

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White House: Trump’s National Guard ‘Surge’ Allowed George Floyd Protesters to ‘Demonstrate Safely’

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Trump administration officials told the Daily Caller that President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. ensured that the protests in the nation’s capital over the weekend of June 6 and 7 were dramatically more peaceful than those that took place the weekend prior.

Senior White House officials told the Daily Caller that the protests, in both the District and cities across the country, didn’t “spontaneously” turn peaceful overnight and attributed the “decisive” deescalation to coordination between local law enforcement and National Guard troops.

“Juxtapose Washington, D.C. two weekends ago, when there was widespread vandalism, property damage, and arson with this past weekend,” White House director of strategic communications Alyssa Farrah told the Daily Caller. “It was night and day.”

“The streets of America didn’t spontaneously become peaceful last week,” she continued. “It was a direct result of President Trump calling on Governors and Mayors to surge the National Guard in their states and restore law and order on America’s streets so that peaceful protestors could demonstrate safely. That is precisely because President Trump took decisive action to secure the streets of our Nation’s Capital and restore law and order.” (Read more from “White House: Trump’s National Guard ‘Surge’ Allowed George Floyd Protesters to ‘Demonstrate Safely’” HERE)

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Police Chief Praised Armed Citizens Keeping out Looters. Then He Was Forced to Resign.

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Lowell, Michigan Police Chief Steve Bukala was forced to resign after using the department’s official Facebook page to praise four armed citizens who protected businesses from being looted.

“We at the Lowell Police Department support the legally armed citizen and the Second Amendment,” the chief said in the now-deleted Facebook post. . .

According to WOOD-TV, City Manager Michael Burns said Bukala committed “conduct unbecoming of a police officer,” and violated policy that “Personnel shall not allow personal feelings to influence their professional conduct.”

Burns felt the Facebook post “inserted political and debatable issues into a departmental notice which causes unneeded concern by some city residents. Your actions created an unnecessary negative portrayal of the city in some citizens’ view.”

The city manager said Bukala overstepped his bounds by providing “unneeded personal commentary and inserted political and debatable issues into a department notice and caused unneeded concern by some city residents,” MLive reported. (Read more from “Police Chief Praised Armed Citizens Keeping out Looters. Then He Was Forced to Resign.” HERE)

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Recent Poll: 80 Percent of Americans Say Country Is ‘out of Control’

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An overwhelming majority of American voters believe that things are “out of control” in the country, according to a new poll.

The newest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll posed the question “When it comes to the country these days, do you generally feel that things in the country are…,” to which 80 percent of respondents chose “out of control” versus 15 percent who chose “under control.”

The final year of President Trump’s first term has been incredibly challenging, calling on him to handle the response to the global coronavirus pandemic as well as national protests following the death of George Floyd in police custody. As such, the poll covered several topics, including approval ratings over Trump’s handling of the current crises and election preferences between Trump and Joe Biden. (Read more from “Recent Poll: 80 Percent of Americans Say Country Is ‘out of Control'” HERE)

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Reebok Ends Crossfit Partnership After CEO Mocks ‘Racism Is a Public Health Issue’ Tweet

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Reebok, an apparel brand owned by Adidas, ended its business partnership with CrossFit following the fitness company’s CEO mocking a declaration of “racism” as “a public health issue.”

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an organization located at the University of Washington and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, tweeted on Saturday that “racism is a public health issue.”

Greg Glassman, CrossFit’s CEO, responded via Twitter, “It’s FLOYD-19.” . . .

Business Insider obtained a response from Reebok via a statement: “Recently, we have been in discussions regarding a new agreement, however, in light of recent events, we have made the decision to end our partnership with CrossFit HQ. We will fulfill our remaining contractual obligations in 2020. We owe this to the CrossFit Games competitors, fans and the community.” (Read more from “Reebok Ends Crossfit Partnership After CEO Mocks ‘Racism Is a Public Health Issue’ Tweet” HERE)

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LA Mayor Calls His Police Force ‘Killers’

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Mayors and governors across the land have run to the cameras and microphones to be among the first to kneel in supplication to the riotous mobs in the streets. . .

Naturally, these “leaders” assume the officers in their departments are equally capable of committing these acts. They promise to do better! Unsaid is their plaintive appeal, “Don’t hurt me. Pretty please?”

. . .Garcetti discussed his “defunding the police” plan of reducing the police funding by $150 million and moving another $100 million from other city budgetary priorities to hand over to the mobs for special placative programs.

Toward the end of a short speech, Garcetti outlined eight ways LA has already changed up the way cops operate. He lobbed bombs against President Trump, calling him a “political pyromaniac.” He repeated provable lies about how the Park Police used tear gas to clear a path so that Trump could get a photo op with a Bible – a shot that was met with nods of approval, Garcetti said:

I’ve gotten calls from all over the country from mayors who say I’m so excited to others saying what the hell did you do, now I’ve gotta shift money. That’s exactly the point. It starts someplace and we say we are going to be who we want to be or we are going to continue to be the killers that we are. (Read more from “LA Mayor Calls His Police Force ‘Killers'” HERE)

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Expert Advice: It Looks Like the 180-Degree Turn on COVID Lockdowns Just Became a Huge In-Kind Contribution to Trump’s Re-Election

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Is this the end of the “expert”? If not, we’re on that trajectory with the medical community’s transparent shift regarding the lockdowns over the coronavirus outbreak. Businesses couldn’t reopen because we needed to control the spread, flatten the curve, and ensure the hospitals were not overrun. Venturing out made you a selfish bastard. And then, a couple of weeks prior, though some of you were already poking holes through the narrative, there was a great reversal. Some were grounded in good news. . .

You have to admit, this lockdown narrative was a well-executed strategy. The liberal media keeps up the doom and gloom news, which tanks the markets. The political class seeing this chooses the “better safe than sorry” approach and enacts stay-at-home orders, and then the pinch on businesses begins. The hope was to keep fear alive and let this eat into Trump’s re-election chances. Those who deviate are shamed. Rinse and repeat until the data starts to show this was an overreaction. And now, with a new issue that can be used to attack Trump, get on out and riot.

Liberal reporter Michael Tracey, who has gone after other Lefties for their insanity over Trump-Russia collusion, has been on a tear. First, he rightfully slammed the left-wing activist-media complex for being coddled babies who are totally insane. Now, he’s set his sights on the medical folks who now say put COVID on pause, as if this is a video game, and smash racism. . .

[Warning: Tweets contain explicit language.]

And this is how you morph a colossal event that possibly could have hurt Trump in 2020 into a massive in-kind contribution to his re-election effort. Why? Because liberals are stupid. Yes, their allies in the media did a swell job selling panic and trashing the market. And then thinking this reversal after everything that’s been said—it’s just…you cannot make it up. The liberal bias is explicitly clear, and be prepared to defend every suggestion you make from here on out because the default position should be to look on these clowns with contempt and skepticism. (Read more from “Expert Advice: It Looks Like the 180-Degree Turn on COVID Lockdowns Just Became a Huge In-Kind Contribution to Trump’s Re-Election” HERE)

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America Is Better Than This

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The orchestrated violence roiling an increasing number of American cities is cause for considerable concern. There are myriad explanations being offered by the media and pundits.

But the voices that are largely silent during this time of chaos are the very people who are a central factor in the lawlessness and violence that is spreading.

Our societal problems are being exponentially magnified by the decline in the quality of personnel who advance to commanding, decision-making roles in police departments and mayoral offices. This impotence and incompetence is also on full display among the elected officials serving in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The profound lack of effectiveness of these self-important leaders in federal, state, and municipal governments is now on display. This disappointing reality is the result of decades of decline in the abilities of people who are elected to serve the public but seem to spend far more time preening for cameras and promoting themselves to ever-higher levels in terms of title, compensation, and power.

There is almost total silence from the elected leadership in Washington of late. Few state and municipal figures, with the exception of Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Bottom, have dared to venture before a microphone during the past several months of the pandemic. (Read more from “America Is Better Than This” HERE)

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Career Criminal, Back on the Street After Murder and Three More Convictions, Arrested for Looting in Chicago

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Republicans seeking to weaken our anti-crime deterrent rather than strengthen it in the face of mass rioting are learning the wrong lesson from the creeping anarchy in this country.

The case of Antonio Harris, one of the many looters arrested in Chicago, should serve as a stark reminder that our criminal justice system is actually way too lax against the most violent career criminals, not too tough.

One of the major points being obscured in this debate is that crime has been increasing in many major cities over the past few years, after two decades of steady declines. It coincides with the near-universal movement toward leniency at every stage of the justice system being pushed by the bipartisan Soros-Koch alliance under what is known as “criminal justice reform.”

Hundreds of thousands of criminals have been released in recent years, 67,000 just under the pretext of avoiding coronavirus in jail and prison. A relatively small number of career criminals commit most of the violent crime in the country. President Reagan understood this, which is why he led a successful generational effort to take those people off the streets.

Well, those people are now back on the streets. That is the only logical explanation for how this degree of violence could spontaneously erupt in so many cities. It would be useful to study the criminal histories of those being charged with rioting crimes, but unfortunately, most of them are being released. However, the case of Antonio Harris provides us with a glimpse into the problem with our justice system, which is completely opposite of the problems alleged by the mindless Republicans who, out of fear or ignorance, parrot the talking points of the Left about the need for weaker deterrent.

As CWB Chicago reports, Antonio Harris, 46, and Caprise Stevenson were arrested in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago for stealing shoes from a New Balance store. Who is Antonio Harris?

Harris was convicted of first-degree murder in 1999. It’s not easy for prosecutors to get a conviction on murder-one charges, so it must have been really bad. He was locked up for life, right? Nope. He received a 25-year sentence but was let out after serving just half of it. He has been sent back to prison for three felony drug convictions since being paroled in the murder case, according to prosecutors. He also has a pending felony case of criminal damage to government property.

Yet he was out, free to commit more crime. As I noted yesterday, in the case of another murder suspect who was released despite violating the terms of his bond three times, this is the rule in the system, not the exception. There are thousands upon thousands of people like this. Proponents of jailbreak claim that the system is too tough on nebulous crimes and that people deserve second chances. The reality is that, with few exceptions, even the most violent murderers are given way more than two chances and continue cycling out of the revolving jail door only to commit more crimes.

With that in mind, now you can understand the degree of mortal danger we are in with these riots as compared to 10-15 years ago. There are thousands upon thousands of career violent criminals on the streets. There is simply no deterrent against crime in general – the riots merely lit that pre-existing fuse set up by the bipartisan leniency push over the past few years.

This jailbreak movement began with a claim that we need to grant more grace to “first-time, nonviolent, low-level” offenders. But the truth is that these people were nearly always given grace – by a mile. Our prisons were only filled with career criminals. Now we are seeing this every day, as they brazenly release the worst violent offenders, including murderers.

The lesson to take away from this calamity is that we need to restore deterrent in the justice system. The cops in the George Floyd case have been swiftly charged. There certainly is deterrent now against police brutality, especially in the case of an African-American. However, there is almost zero justice, and therefore no deterrent, against all of the attacks on citizens both during the riots and during the everyday street crime incidents the media chooses to ignore. A number of black cops have been killed or injured over the past week. Where is the outrage or calls for “systemic” discussions and legislative solutions?

Indeed, the cries of injustice today represent the ultimate case of projection. (For more from the author of “Career Criminal, Back on the Street After Murder and Three More Convictions, Arrested for Looting in Chicago” please click HERE)

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Going All-In: Minneapolis City Council Considers Disbanding Entire Police Force

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Once you understand the larger objectives, everything becomes a sequence of predictable events. The term “community policing” has been used for several years by groups advocating for radical changes to law enforcement; however, behind the innocuous phrase is really a much more serious agenda.

If each community can determine the enforcement of law, then essentially all communities can eliminate the underlying law itself. Remove local enforcement of law and the local community can independently assemble a social structure separate from all other binding contracts that frame a larger societal compact. [Brian Fallon Tweet Link]

This “community policing” process is already taking place in many European communities the results create what are known as “no go zones.” Neighborhoods, and entire parts of cities, where local Sharia compliance enforcement officers have replaced the police force; and the rules, regulations and enforcement are detached from the larger social compact. Considering that Minneapolis has a large concentration of Somali Muslims within the local population, it makes sense this approach is now discussed for their city.

Minneapolis – […] Now the council members are listening to a city that is wounded, angry, fed up with decades of violence disproportionately visited upon black and brown residents. Various private and public bodies – from First Avenue to Minneapolis Public Schools – have essentially cut ties with the police department. Council members are trying to figure out what their next move is.

Their discussion is starting to sound a little more like what groups like Reclaim the Block and the Black Visions Collective have been saying for years. On Tuesday, Fletcher published a lengthy Twitter thread saying the police department was “irredeemably beyond reform,” and a “protection racket” that slows down responses as political payback.

“Several of us on the council are working on finding out what it would take to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and start fresh with a community-oriented, nonviolent public safety and outreach capacity,” he wrote. (read more)

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the man now in charge of the prosecution of Derek Chauvin and the Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s death, is a very well known Muslim activist and supporter of the sharia doctrine.

There is no better confluence of timing, location, and sentiment to achieve the agenda of the far-left than right now – with the opportunity George Floyd represents. (For more from the author of “Going All-In: Minneapolis City Council Considers Disbanding Entire Police Force” please click HERE)

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