| A group of D.C. protesters now has a list of demands Posted: 03 Jun 2020 12:49 PM PDT  As protests continue to erupt around the country, a group of three young African-American activists is attempting to link the demonstrations to a list of demands.
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| Cities remove racist monuments before protesters can topple them Posted: 03 Jun 2020 02:11 PM PDT  As the protests following the death of George Floyd in some cities have turned to targeting racist iconography, officials are trying to preempt them.
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| Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore apologizes after saying George Floyd's death is on the 'hands' of looters Posted: 02 Jun 2020 07:41 PM PDT  LAPD Chief Michel Moore is facing calls to resign after saying George Floyd's death is on the 'hands' of looters. He apologized the same day.
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| At least 39 injured in knife attack at China kindergarten Posted: 03 Jun 2020 10:31 PM PDT |
| China de-escalates airline spat with US Posted: 04 Jun 2020 02:17 AM PDT  China said Thursday foreign airlines blocked from operating in the country over virus fears would be allowed to resume limited flights, apparently de-escalating a row with Washington following US plans to ban Chinese carriers. Beijing's announcement comes as tensions between the world's two superpowers are sent soaring by a series of issues including Donald Trump's accusations over China's handling of the pandemic, Hong Kong and Huawei. The latest spat was rooted in the Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC) deciding to impose a limit on foreign airlines based on their activity as of March 12.
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| The 2020 hurricane season already broke a record, and it's only day 3 Posted: 03 Jun 2020 03:50 PM PDT  Tropical Storm Cristobal, the earliest-ever third named storm in the Atlantic, has made landfall in Mexico and is turning toward the US Gulf Coast.
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| Cars Most Likely to Need a Transmission Replacement Posted: 04 Jun 2020 07:33 AM PDT  Drivers naturally become concerned about reliability as a car ages, since the risk of inconvenience and unexpected expenses rises while the miles rack up. Most modern cars can make it to 200,000 ...
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| As protests rock cities, Rand Paul holds up passage of anti-lynching bill Posted: 03 Jun 2020 02:31 PM PDT  Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is holding up passage of an anti-lynching bill with broad bipartisan support — the latest delay in an effort to pass a federal law against lynching that goes back over a century.
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| Counties in Florida, Iowa worry CDC as emerging coronavirus 'areas of concern' Posted: 03 Jun 2020 10:54 AM PDT  A document created by the CDC and reviewed by Yahoo News lists nine counties and one city with rising infection levels, many in states that have eased lockdown restrictions.
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| 10 Years Ago Today, SpaceX's Falcon 9 Blasted Off for the First Time Posted: 04 Jun 2020 07:36 AM PDT |
| Airlines to drop service to 75 domestic airports Posted: 04 Jun 2020 09:00 AM PDT  Fifteen U.S. airlines were granted final government approval on Wednesday to temporarily halt service to 75 domestic airports as travel demand has been crushed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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| New York police take seconds to restore reputation for brutality Posted: 04 Jun 2020 02:00 AM PDT  Driving vehicles into protesters demanding justice for George Floyd earned the backing of the mayor, but of few others * George Floyd killing – latest US updates * See all our George Floyd coverageIt doesn't take long to blow up a reputation. In the case of the New York police department, an institution with an already troubled history, the clip lasted all of 27 seconds.It showed an NYPD vehicle in Brooklyn lined up against a metal barricade behind which protesters were chanting during Saturday's demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd. Projectiles were thrown on to the roof of the car, then suddenly a second police SUV drew up alongside and instead of stopping continued to plough straight into the crowd.Seconds later the first vehicle lurched forward, knocking the barrier over and with it propelling several protesters to the ground amid a harrowing chorus of shrieking.A 27-second video, now viewed more than 30m times, had quickly shredded years of effort to repair the deeply tarnished image of the NYPD. New York's "finest" were firmly cast in a role normally reserved for the security corps of petty dictators.The shocking video was compounded hours later when the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, spoke about the incident. A politician who won election in 2013 largely on a promise to reform the NYPD and scrap its racially discriminatory stop-and-frisk policy, astounded even his closest supporters when he defended the police.De Blasio said: "I do believe the NYPD has acted appropriately."Social media lit up. Was it appropriate to drive those two SUVs into the crowd? Was it appropriate for an NYPD officer forcibly to remove the coronavirus mask of a black protester whose arms were raised in the air, then pepper-spray his face?Was it appropriate for another officer to tell a protester to get off the street, then physically shove her several feet towards the curb where she landed on her head? Or that the police officers involved in the pepper spray incident had covered their badge numbers, presumably to avoid having to answer for their actions. Or to beat a nurse walking home from a shift at a hospital?The clashes between New York's police and its protesters have reverberated around the city. The largest police force in the US, with its $5.6bn annual budget and 36,000 uniformed officers under the leadership of one of the most progressive mayors in the country, has responded to demonstrations about police brutality with more police brutality.The Black, Latino and Asian Caucus of the city council, which makes up more than half of the legislative body, was swift and devastating in its criticism. In a statement, it said that the NYPD had acted "with aggression towards New Yorkers who vigorously and vociferously but nonetheless peacefully advocated for justice".Adrienne Adams, co-chair of the caucus, told the Guardian the NYPD had tried to suppress legitimate anger felt by African American and other minority communities following years of police abuse. "We cannot allow people who have kept people of color down for decades to say now that we don't have the right to display our outrage," she said.Though that sentiment applies nationwide, Adams believes New York stands out as having a "horrible history of police brutality". It was the NYPD that set the tone, she said, when Daniel Pantaleo, the officer implicated in the 2014 death by chokehold of Eric Garner in Staten Island, avoided prosecution."When nothing happened to the police officers who were responsible for the death of Eric Garner, New York set the blueprint for what happened to George Floyd," she said. "There's no penalty, no consequence, so it's OK."Adams's framing of the Garner killing could equally be applied to a long string of notorious episodes of police misconduct that preceded it. In 1997, Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was handcuffed by an NYPD officer and sexually assaulted with a broken broomstick.Two years later, Amadou Diallo was shot near his home in a hail of 41 bullets after officers mistook his wallet for a gun. In an echo of that event, an unarmed Sean Bell was shot 50 times in Queens on the morning of his wedding in 2006 – it took six years for the NYPD detective who opened the fusillade to be chucked off the force while nobody has ever been convicted of any crime.In the policing of protest, the NYPD also has a contentious track record. In 2004 it rounded up more than 1,800 peaceful protesters rallying outside the Republican National Convention during the re-election bid of George W Bush and herded them into overcrowded pens on Pier 57 in Manhattan. In 2011 it was similarly criticized for heavy-handed tactics during the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.Cutting across all this, the force has consistently targeted its efforts on neighborhoods of the city with majority black or Latino populations, straying at times into overt racial profiling. Though stop and frisk has been reined back in recent years, the NYPD continues to heavily and disproportionately police those communities despite a historically low homicide rate.Despite this long legacy of overreach, the force continues to be systemically resistant to public oversight. Under Section 50-A of New York state law, the disciplinary files of police officers are largely held in secret, making the task of holding them accountable almost impossible.Jennvine Wong, a staff attorney at the Cop Accountability Project (CAP) within the Legal Aid Society, told the Guardian that there were currently more than 200 police officers still being employed by the NYPD on full pay who should have been considered for termination following reports of misconduct.Data collected by CAP shows that where cases of misconduct arise they often involve escalation of low-level encounters into aggressive confrontations – something officers are supposed to be trained not to do. The project is currently litigating the case of Tomas Medina who was put in a chokehold and Tasered in 2018 after police were called to a complaint about loud music being played.Eric Garner's fatal arrest was triggered by him allegedly selling single cigarettes.Although the use of chokeholds has been banned in New York, the project has found that between 2015 and 2018 the city settled 30 lawsuits involving NYPD use of the potentially lethal maneuver.Wong believes such endemic deployment of excessive force has spilled over into the NYPD's handling of the George Floyd protests. She was present at a peaceful protest in Brooklyn that suddenly turned volatile not because of the behavior of protesters but by a sudden change of tack on the part of the police."In a split second, the NYPD snapped and engaged in over-aggressive enforcement. They escalated it from 0 to 10 out of nowhere, arresting people and wielding their batons."If there has been unrestrained use of batons in the city, it would be with the full approval of Ed Mullins, the provocative president of one of the main police unions, the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA). He wrote to members urging "each and every one of you to report for duty with your helmet and baton and do not hesitate to utilize that equipment in securing your personal safety".The sister Police Benevolent Association of New York City has also spoken to its members in inflammatory terms about them being "under attack by violent, organized terrorists while New York City council and other politicians sit at home demanding we 'de-escalate'".There is no denying that the NYPD faces difficult challenges in the policing of mass protests, especially late at night when violent outbreaks have erupted as they did on Monday in Manhattan and the Bronx. Fires were started in the street and stores looted.For Eugene O'Donnell, a former NYPD officer and prosecutor in Brooklyn and Queens who is now a professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Monday night's spectacle of looting along Fifth Avenue amounted to a collapse of policing in the city."This weekend, the job of police officer in New York became officially impossible when the police abolitionists won. They have created a model of zero tolerance towards force being used and any injuries being inflicted, and that's absurd."O'Donnell said the same pattern is repeating itself across America. "In city after city, the police were abolished this weekend. They stood back and watched as damage was inflicted that was irreversible."
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| US says Alaska man laundered nearly $1B for Iran through UAE Posted: 04 Jun 2020 03:09 AM PDT |
| Ukraine may grant visa-free access to citizens of China, Australia, Arab states to boost tourism Posted: 04 Jun 2020 07:41 AM PDT |
| Boris Johnson told Italy's prime minister the UK had been aiming for coronavirus herd immunity, new documentary reveals Posted: 03 Jun 2020 03:10 AM PDT  Italian health minister Pierpaolo Sileri said Johnson's early COVID-19 plan was pursuing herd immunity in an interview with Channel 4's Dispatches.
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| Powerful video from 1986 resurfaces showing Biden’s passionate speech against apartheid Posted: 03 Jun 2020 09:54 AM PDT  A powerful video of then-Senator Joe Biden speaking about apartheid South Africa has resurfaced.The clip, taken from C-Span coverage of a Senate committee in 1986, shows Mr Biden passionately speaking out in support of the majority black population of South Africa, and against the oppressive apartheid regime.
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| Fox News Corners White House Spokesman: How Does Trump Unite Anyone by Attacking Mattis? Posted: 04 Jun 2020 09:52 AM PDT  Fox News anchor Ed Henry cornered White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley into a trap of his own making on Thursday when the veteran host repeatedly grilled the flack on President Donald Trump's attacks on his former Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis.Mattis, who resigned in late 2018 over Trump's Syria policy, issued a strong rebuke on Wednesday of the president's "bizarre photo op" at St. John's Episcopal Church, calling it "an abuse of executive authority" and an example of Trump's "deliberate effort" to divide Americans. The president, meanwhile, responded by falsely claiming he fired Mattis, calling him "the most overrated general."During an interview on America's Newsroom, Gidley was asked to weigh in on the "war of words" between Trump and his former cabinet official. The Trump flack claimed the former U.S. Central Command leader had his "head in the sand" over the massive protests amid George Floyd's death.And after Gidley declared that Mattis has a "fundamental misunderstanding" of the moment, Henry pushed back."When General Mattis says he's not even pretending to try to unite people, aren't you making his point?" Henry wondered aloud. "When he says that, rather than inviting him and saying, 'What do you mean? Let's bring people together,' you are attacking this retired general. Isn't that making the point that you are not uniting people?""No, the division is on the other side," Gidley retorted before reading off some lines from a recent Trump speech. "But the president is calling him the most overrated general," the Fox anchor interjected. "He's the former defense secretary for this president. That's uniting people, calling him the 'most overrated'?"The deputy press secretary, meanwhile, continued to take the Trumpian tack of insulting the president's ex-official."It's obvious that the general doesn't have a clue what's going on in the American cities out there, or actually worse, has turned a blind eye to it," Gidley exclaimed. "The president is solely focused on uniting this country and bringing back safety and security in our American cities.""This country is the greatest country, the greatest idea ever realized and the president wants to protect that at every cost," he continued. "He's doing that. But he also works as the healer-in-chief. He's done that time and time again, bringing people together."LeBron James Calls Out Fox News Host Laura Ingraham Over Drew Brees HypocrisyRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Protests in Minneapolis turned violent: Officials first blamed outsiders, but that’s not what arrests show Posted: 04 Jun 2020 12:39 PM PDT  Minnesota officials originally said outside agitators, not local residents, were responsible for the violence and riots. Arrest data shows otherwise.
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| Robert E Lee statue: Virginia governor announces removal of monument Posted: 04 Jun 2020 11:27 AM PDT  Virginia's governor says the monument to the Confederate general will be taken down in Richmond.
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| Minneapolis Police union president said he has been involved in three shootings, 'and not one of them has bothered' him Posted: 02 Jun 2020 11:07 PM PDT  Lt. Bob Kroll said in an April interview that he and the majority of Minneapolis Police Officers' Federation's board have been involved in police shootings.
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| California officials praise more peaceful protesting Posted: 03 Jun 2020 10:34 PM PDT  California authorities have praised the thousands of peaceful protesters who thronged streets around the state while announcing criminal charges against more than 100 people accused of looting and violence. Police in the San Francisco Bay Area said a break-in suspect was killed when officers mistook his hammer for a gun. The shooting of 22-year-old Sean Monterrosa in the city of Vallejo on Tuesday was the only confirmed California death at the hands of law enforcement following days of massive demonstrations accompanied, at times, by attacks on police and wholesale looting of stores.
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| U.S. to revise Chinese passenger airline ban after Beijing move Posted: 04 Jun 2020 10:50 AM PDT  The U.S. Transportation Department plans to issue a revised order in the coming days that is likely to allow some Chinese passenger airline flights to continue, government and airline officials said. On Thursday, China said it would ease coronavirus restrictions to allow in more foreign carriers, shortly after Washington said it planned to bar Chinese passenger airlines from flying to the United States by June 16 due to Beijing's curbs on U.S. carriers. The change should allow U.S. carriers to resume once-a-week flights into a city of their choice starting on June 8, but that would be still significantly fewer than what the U.S. government says its aviation agreement with China allows.
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| U.K. PM tells China that Britain will admit 3 Million from Hong Kong Posted: 03 Jun 2020 08:58 AM PDT  "Many people in Hong Kong fear that their way of life — which China pledged to uphold — is under threat," Johnson said.
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| Libya's government claims to have retaken Tripoli as Russian-backed rebel retreats Posted: 04 Jun 2020 03:05 AM PDT  Libya's internationally recognised government has claimed victory in the battle for control of the country's capital after more than a year of fighting. Turkish-backed forces fighting for the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord said on Thursday morning that they had retaken control of all of the Tripoli city administrative area as forces loyal to Gen Khalifa Haftar withdrew from the suburbs. Separately Reuters cited a source in Gen Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) saying that it would complete its withdrawal from the Tripoli districts of Ain Zara, Abu Salim and Qasr Ben Gashir on Thursday. The announcements came as both sides prepared to resume UN-brokered ceasefire talks in Geneva. Fayez-al Serraj, the prime minister of the GNA, was due to meet Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday to discuss how to consolidate their gains. Gen Haftar, who rules eastern and southern Libya in tandem with a parliament that split with the GNA in 2016, launched an assault on Tripoli in April 2019. The LNA, with backing from several foreign countries including the UAE, Egypt and Russia, succeeded in seizing the city's southern suburbs but became bogged in a war of attrition before it could reach the city centre. The tide of the war began to turn after Turkey intervened on the side of the GNA at the beginning of this year, deploying drones, air-defence systems, and thousands of Syrian fighters in support of Tripoli. GNA troops on Thursday recaptured the city's derelict international airport, a focal point of fighting over the past year. LNA troops are believed to be consolidating around the town of Tarhuna, southeast of Tripoli. Hundreds of Russian fighters, believed to be with the Kremlin-linked Wagner private military company, have been seen accompanying the LNA pull back. Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday that large numbers of Russian and Soviet made anti-personnel mines not previously recorded in Libya had been found planted in civilian areas abandoned by the LNA. "Any use of internationally banned landmines is unconscionable," said Steve Goose, arms division director at Human Rights Watch and chair of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. "Those fighting in Tripoli should halt using landmines and start clearing them to avoid further harm to life and limb."
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| Esper orders hundreds of troops from 82nd Airborne home from D.C. area Posted: 04 Jun 2020 12:44 PM PDT  This is the second time this week Esper has ordered the troops to head home.
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| In aftermath of George Floyd's death, San Diego police will 'immediately' end use of carotid restraint Posted: 03 Jun 2020 10:19 AM PDT  The San Diego Police Department, spurred by the outrage after George Floyd's death, has immediately banned a controversial neck restraint.
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| Fox News host alludes to baseless conspiracy theory and calls George Floyd death 'a premeditated hit' that 'was executed extremely poorly' Posted: 03 Jun 2020 11:48 PM PDT  Fox News host Jesse Watters outlined a baseless QAnon-backed theory that George Floyd was part of "a hit that was executed extremely poorly."
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| Peaceful protest as calls for resignation grow for Montgomery County commissioner Posted: 03 Jun 2020 09:21 PM PDT  A peaceful protest was held in Montgomery County on Wednesday as calls grow for the resignation of Commissioner Joseph Gale.
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| George Floyd death: Three former Minneapolis police officers charged in killing due in court Posted: 04 Jun 2020 09:51 AM PDT  Three former Minneapolis police officers charged as accomplices to the killing of George Floyd are set to make their first court appearance on Thursday after Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that they face charges of abetting and aiding second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.J Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are each charged with one count, considered "unintentional" felonies. They are currently in custody in Hennepin County Jail.
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| Magnitude 5.5 quake hits shaky California desert region Posted: 03 Jun 2020 06:54 PM PDT |
| Britain says nearly 30,000 COVID-19 tests sent to U.S. lab came back void Posted: 04 Jun 2020 06:33 AM PDT  Nearly 30,000 COVID-19 tests which Britain sent to a U.S. lab for processing came back void, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman said on Thursday, adding to a mounting pile of questions over the UK's testing regime. Johnson's spokesman said that "operational issues in our lab network" had meant that 67,000 tests were sent to the United States for processing.
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| George Washington University Law School Faculty Tried To Get Bill Barr’s Honorary Degree Revoked Posted: 04 Jun 2020 01:37 PM PDT  Faculty members at George Washington University Law School pushed this week for the school to rescind the honorary degree it had bestowed upon alumnus Bill Barr following the Attorney General's efforts to clamp down on protests in the nation's capital, sources tell The Daily Beast. The push, which one source described as "serious," was met by opposition from other members who argued that Barr's actions—while aggressive and controversial—did not merit such a punishment from the university. For now, it appears Barr will keep his degree, amid warnings that it could send the university down a slippery slope of politically motivated degree-rescinding.Nevertheless, the angst among the law school's faculty is yet another data point underscoring how much of a pariah Barr has become in establishment circles and how appalled those circles, and others well beyond it, have been with the Trump administration's handling of the protests. A spokesperson for the law school confirmed the conversations around Barr's degree. The office of the law school's interim dean, Christopher A. Bracey, declined to comment. However, in a letter to students, Bracey wrote, "We cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening within our country, its impact upon our community members, or its connection to the multi-generational arc of justice that shaped our nation's history. We must take this moment to engage–if not in protest, then in solidarity with the notion that we must preserve and protect the right to protest as an essential constitutional right that dates back to the founding of our nation."Barr took credit for the decision on Monday night to have a variety of law enforcement officials forcibly move protesters who had gathered near the White House to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and systemic racism in the criminal justice system writ large. The result was a chaotic scene, in which chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades were launched into the crowd and police used bicycles and horses to push back protesters. Later in the night, military helicopters were flown low over the remaining protesters as another means of dispersing them. Bill Barr Takes Charge of Trump's Crackdown as the Military Tries to Back AwayBarr, who stood outside the White House surveying the scene right before police moved in on the crowd, has defended his order. On Thursday, he told reporters that he had wanted to extend the security perimeter one more block around the White House and that the protesters had grown "unruly" and had been asked "three times" to move back. But the preponderance of evidence—from real time video, to on-the-ground-reporting, to contemporaneous recollections from the protesters themselves—shows a peaceful crowd, there before the city-wide curfew began, being subjected to physical harm for the purposes of clearing a path for President Donald Trump to have a photo op at a nearby church. Since that photo op, several prominent political figures and retired military officials have condemned the administration for resorting to a proto-military state posture in order to trample on constitutionally-protected rights to assemble. Among some members of the faculty at George Washington Law School, the anger was particularly acute owing to Barr's ties to the institution. Barr received his JD from the school in 1977 and was awarded an honorary degree in Doctor of Laws in 1992, during his first stint as Attorney General. Additionally, there is a "William P. Barr Dean's Suite" at the school that, according to the alumni magazine, "welcomes students and visitors into" one of its buildings on 20th street in Northwest Washington, D.C.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Bill Gates said it's hard to deny vaccine conspiracy theories involving him because they're 'so stupid' Posted: 04 Jun 2020 08:30 AM PDT  Gates said that while it was "concerning" that some Americans believe the misinformation, that hasn't "held up" global funding for a COVID-19 vaccine.
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| A Florida 'Karen' called the police on a solo Black Lives Matter protester standing completely alone on a street corner Posted: 03 Jun 2020 04:02 PM PDT  "Shout to this guy for somehow getting the cops called on him for his one man protest," tweeted user @jonny_is_good in response to the clip.
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| They wanted to protest peacefully. Police responded with force. On the ground in Minneapolis. Posted: 03 Jun 2020 10:58 AM PDT  "We cannot back down now. We have come way too far. We are literally in the midst of history."
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| Cop in Floyd case got medals for valor and drew complaints Posted: 03 Jun 2020 09:45 AM PDT  The Minneapolis police officer who used his knee to pin down George Floyd's neck before his death was the most experienced of the four officers involved in the arrest, with a record that included medals for bravery and 17 complaints against him, including one for pulling a woman out of her car during a speeding stop. New details about Derek Chauvin and the other now-fired officers emerged Wednesday after prosecutors upgraded Chauvin's charge to second-degree murder and charged the others with aiding and abetting in a case that has convulsed the nation with protests over race and police brutality. Heavily redacted personnel files show that Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the force, was initially trained as a cook and served in the Army as a military police officer.
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| Italians on the move again as lockdown restrictions ease Posted: 03 Jun 2020 03:07 AM PDT  Italians were allowed to travel to other regions of the country on Wednesday for the first time in nearly three months, in a further relaxation of lockdown restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the new coronavirus. Travellers boarding trains in Milan, capital of Lombardy in northern Italy, were excited at the prospect of finally being able to visit family and friends elsewhere in the country. "I work here in Milan and up until now I couldn't move between regions," said Anna Falcone, who was getting ready to board a train to Calabria, southwest Italy, to see her parents.
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| Trump says national guard ‘cut through’ protests ‘like butter’ Posted: 04 Jun 2020 06:16 AM PDT 
Peaceful protesters marched through the streets of Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, continuing to demonstrate against police brutality toward people of color. They did so in the face of a threat from the White House to send the military to quell unrest after some demonstrations devolved into looting. And similar scenes nationwide: In Oakland, protesters drummed and burned the Republican president in effigy. Marchers in Boston chanted "no justice, no peace." Their message echoed in the streets of Detroit, Portland, Oregon, Fort Worth and Memphis. Even the sandy beaches of Encinitas saw surfers riding the waves for the cause. "This is what it's about, Black Lives Matter. No justice, no peace. And they're demonstrating peacefully. Very peacefully." On Wednesday, prosecutors elevated the charges Derek Chauvin, the now-fired police officer whose involvement with George Floyd's death galvanized the protests. He is now charged with second-degree murder. Three other former officers are also accused of abetting the murder. Meanwhile, criticisms that President Donald Trump is exacerbating tensions are mounting. "Right now I think the nation needs law and order." In an interview with the conservative television channel Newsmax, conducted by Trump's one-time press secretary on Wednesday, the president said his support for using the National Guard in Minneapolis worked to tamp down looting in that city, and that it could be done elsewhere. "Once they came in it was like a knife cutting butter. It was so easy. But we have other cities, they like to hold out. New York, is a disaster what's going on in New York. [FLASH] If they don't get it straightened out soon, I'll take care of it." As night fell in New York, a day of peaceful protests turned ugly. Protesters in Brooklyn defying a curfew said they were rushed by cops. Activists similarly defied curfews in Detroit, Washington and Oakland Wednesday night.
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| ‘Uncomfortable Mission’: Pentagon Tries to Retreat From Trump’s Call to ‘Dominate’ Protests Posted: 02 Jun 2020 05:27 PM PDT  Less than 24 hours after President Trump said he was prepared to send troops into cities across America, senior officials in the Pentagon began to try to distance themselves from those words and from the idea itself, underscoring that not one governor had requested additional military assistance from Defense Secretary Mark Esper.Trump has for days pushed state leaders to take a tougher stance against "antifa" protesters, saying on a call with governors Monday that if they did not mass arrest protesters they would end up looking like "a bunch of jerks." Then, Monday evening, the president took it a step further.Police surrounding Lafayette Park in D.C. cleared protesters with tear gas as the president walked through to St. John's Episcopal Church to pose for a photo op, with the Bible. He declared himself the "president of law and order" and said he would take all the necessary steps to suppress the unrest sweeping the country. "I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the national guard in sufficient numbers. If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem," he added.Protesters Tear-Gassed for Trump 'Law and Order' Photo OpEsper, along with other cabinet secretaries, stood next to the president during the remarks in the park after participating in an hour-long call with governors in which he said they needed to "dominate the battlespace" to quell the protests. But three senior Pentagon officials who spoke with The Daily Beast said they viewed the secretary's comments on the call as a way to publicly show support for the president. They did not expect the department to actually implement a plan that would reflect the president's rhetoric and force additional troops upon the states. (More than 20,000 national guard troops already have been deployed to assist local law enforcement during protests.) These Pentagon officials added that it was the White House, not the Defense Department, that was pushing for active military might in the streets. A senior DOD official said it was the White House that requested military helicopters fly low over protesters in D.C. and that it was part of a broader request from the Trump team that the national guard ramp up its presence in the city. The Associated Press was the first to report about the military flyover being connected to a request from President Trump.Additionally, the president has pressed aides and Pentagon officials for graphic details on the kind of armored vehicles, military units, aircraft, and even "tanks" that they could potentially send to maintain order in U.S. areas rocked by protests and rioting, according to two people familiar with recent discussions.One of the sources, a senior administration official, insisted that the president wasn't ordering tanks to roll down the streets, but was inquiring about "the kind of hardware" that could be used in military shows of force, and at one point Trump threw out the word "tanks.""I think that is just one of the military words he knows," this official said.The Pentagon did not comment on the record for this story. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.The discomfort from inside the Pentagon shows the extent to which Trump's own Defense Department is trying to actively avoid direct involvement in the administration's plans to force local authorities to accept active military personnel for increased protest control. It also raises questions about how Trump plans to carry out his promises of coercing states to accept military assistance when officials inside the Pentagon are rebuking the idea, claiming it circumvents the normal process for governors formally requesting assistance. (Normally, one senior Department of Defense official said, a governor files a formal request with the Pentagon asking for active-duty troops to assist. The Defense Secretary evaluates the request and either chooses to accept it, modify it, or reject it.) "That would not be something the [Defense] Secretary would be in a position to do," one senior official said, referring to Trump's desire for the Pentagon to pressure states to accept active military troops for help in controlling their streets."This would go against the norms of how we normally handle requests for assistance during civil unrest," another senior official said. However, if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, he could unilaterally make the decision to send troops to states. The act empowers the president, in cases of "unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States," to direct the military "to suppress the rebellion."The idea of the president using the Insurrection Act was first proposed publicly by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who seemed to introduce it on a whim on social media. Members of his team on Monday said he had not discussed it with the administration. Another defense official said the Defense Secretary's team was unaware that the president would be announcing new measures to try to convince local and state officials to accept military deployments. "There was no communication within the department that this was something we were going to be working on," the second defense official said. But less than eight hours later, Trump took to the podium in Lafayette Park, seemingly promising to invoke it if he felt it was necessary.As of Tuesday afternoon, Trump had not invoked the Insurrection Act. And no states had formally requested assistance from the Defense Department. But the threat of Trump enacting the Insurrection Act has some state officials on edge. Two officials with knowledge of the situation told The Daily Beast that at least three governors of states experiencing large-scale protests contacted the Trump administration requesting that it not push them to accept active military personnel, claiming it would only inflame tensions on the ground. In some instances, states have seen clashes between protesters and police slow. In Tennessee, for example, police put down their riot shields at the request of protesters as the group moved slowly toward them.On Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he had pushed back on the president's request that he take the step to deploy the national guard, saying there was no need for more forces on the ground when the New York City Police Department had enough officers to control the situation. And New York Attorney General Letitia James said the state was prepared to go to court to stop the administration from sending military forces to the state. "In rare occurrences in this country has civil unrest resulted in the deployment of active duty military personnel. It has caused huge challenges because those individuals aren't trained and equipped to deal with quelling civil disorder. And it can cause operational confusion," said John Cohen, the former deputy under secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. "The military also operates under very different rules of engagement than police. Their job is basically to identify an enemy, engage that enemy and potentially kill that enemy. That's not necessarily that philosophy you want individuals operating under when they are in the situation we're in today."Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) on Tuesday said he would offer an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would bar the federal government from using the military against peaceful protests."The President is trying to turn the American military against American citizens who are peacefully protesting on domestic soil, which they have every right to do. I'm not going to stand for it," Kaine said. "I never thought we would have to use the NDAA to make clear that the U.S. military shouldn't be used as an agent of force against American citizens who are lawfully assembling. I thought that would seem obvious to everyone."Even without an amendment, the Pentagon on Tuesday insisted that it does not want active-duty troops out on American streets.Trump has described Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as "in charge" of the administration's response to the protests, but a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday that Milley merely "remains an adviser to the president." The official downplayed Esper's jarring description of American cities as a "battlespace"—one that earned Esper a rebuke from a former Joint Special Operations Command chief—as reflecting no more than his tendency to use military terminology. Pentagon officials also suggested that Milley and Esper were "not aware that park police and law enforcement had made a decision to clear the square" of protesters, as one put it to reporters. Esper later reiterated that in an interview with NBC News late Tuesday: "I didn't know where I was going," he said. He said he believed they were going to "see some damage" caused by the protests and "talk to the troops." In their telling of what happened at Lafayette Park, both men arrived at the White House on Monday afternoon after a meeting of a response task force hosted by the FBI that included Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Trump made the decision to inspect the National Guardsmen deployed to the park, a senior Pentagon official said, and "once they began to walk off the White House grounds, [Milley and Esper] continued with him."Both Milley and Esper have been slammed for taking part in the photo op. Milley was accused of acting as a "prop." And a former defense official accused Esper of violating his oath to defend the Constitution by going along with Trump's photo-op. James N. Miller, the U.S. undersecretary of Defense for policy from 2012 to 2014, announced in an op-ed Tuesday that he was resigning from the Pentagon's science board and urged the defense secretary to "consider closely" his actions in the Trump administration."All of us would like to stay in a National Guard capacity," a senior defense official said. But Pentagon officials cautioned that active-duty forces—a mix of military police and engineering units from Forts Bragg and Drum—are on "shortened alert status" outside the Washington, D.C. area, though not in any states. Late on Tuesday, the Pentagon said those forces include an infantry battalion designated Task Force 504, bringing the troop total to 1,600. Chief spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said the placement of Task Force 504 was "a prudent planning measure," as the task force is "not participating in defense support to civil authority operations."More than 1,200 Guardsmen, mostly from D.C., are currently deployed in the district. Pentagon officials anticipated another 1,500 arriving on Tuesday, with more to come. Additional states contributing Guardsmen to the D.C. protest response include New Jersey, Utah, South Carolina, Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Pentagon officials called the National Guard support to the police-led protest crackdown an "uncomfortable mission."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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