Op Ed: This doesn't mean much because there are damn few real conservatives left in America. Thoughtful conservatives have left the GOP
The contrast between the 44th and 45th presidents in a single day could not have been more dramatic. Barack Obama on Monday published a carefully reasoned article about police violence and mob violence, advising his fellow Americans how to restore peace and justice. Donald Trump, meanwhile, ranted at the nation’s governors by phone. He said most of them were “weak” and urged them to use the military to “dominate” the protesters.
Like other conservatives, I voted for John McCain and Mitt Romney and I criticized President Obama. But if I had to choose between him and his successor, I’d take Obama in a nanosecond.
The two presidencies are not even in the same category. Criticizing Obama was like calling fouls in a basketball game. Criticizing Trump is like calling 911 to report a crime spree.
I did fault Obama for raising expectations that he could not meet. Early in the 2008 campaign, he buttressed his support for campaign reform by pledging to stay within the public financing system for the general election. He then backtracked and instead relied on private contributions. The reversal was mildly embarrassing but totally lawful.
Trump horror show is unfolding now
By contrast, Robert Mueller’s report found that Trump’s 2016 campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.” In preparation for the 2020 campaign, Trump pressured the government of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden — the offense for which the House impeached him.
Related Video: George Floyd's Brother Speaks at Memorial Site
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When Obama took office, his first major initiative was an economic stimulus package that would purportedly support “shovel-ready projects.” After the results fell short, he acknowledged, “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.” He also promised that the Affordable Care Act would enable all Americans to keep the doctors and insurance plans that they liked. It did not work out that way.
On these issues and others, there was plenty of room for legitimate fault-finding. But Obama was hardly the first politician to over-promise and under-deliver. His policies did not amount to a revolution, but they were not a horror show, either.
President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC on Nov. 10, 2016.
The horror show is unfolding before us. Despite repeated warnings from his own administration and outside experts, Trump wasted precious time dismissing the coronavirus pandemic. “And again, when you have 15 people,” he said Feb. 26, "and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done.” He said the next day: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” More than 100,000 deaths later, these false assurances sound ghastly.
Critics like me enjoyed flyspecking Obama’s factual inaccuracies. In 2010, for example, I noted that he had misstated the scope of Social Security coverage in the 1930s. Such an error is a microscopic droplet in comparison with the flood of falsehoods gushing from the White House today. By one count, Trump made more than 19,000 false or misleading statements between his inauguration and late May of this year. For instance, he blamed Obama for “bad” and “broken” tests for COVID-19, even though scientists first discovered the virus nearly three years after Obama had left office.
Friendly call with Russia's Putin
Republicans went after Obama after an open microphone caught him telling a Russian official that he would have more negotiating flexibility after the 2012 election. They also expressed indignation at his acknowledgment that countries other than the United States believe that they are exceptional.
Obama, like Ronald Reagan and other presidents, was stressing that our exceptionalism stemmed from our ideals. In scorning that view, Trump rejected an essential element of our national identity — which is perhaps why Putin wanted him to win in 2016.
On Monday, the same day that he had his contentious call with American governors, Trump had a friendly call with Putin.
From a conservative standpoint, Barack Obama was not an ideal president. But he was decent, honorable and patriotic. Donald Trump is none of these things.
A Republican group of critics of President Donald Trump released a new video on Sunday slamming his supporters’ use of the Confederate flag.
“The men who followed this flag 150 years ago knew what it meant,” a voiceover in the spot from the Lincoln Project states. “Treason against their country. Death of the United States.”
“What does it say that they’re all in for Trump?” the voice in the ad asks:
The Lincoln Project will spend $500,000 running the ad in the battleground states of Florida, Wisconsin and Michigan and in the nation’s capital, CNN reported.
A different video by the group set Trump off last month. That spot, titled “Mourning in America,” claimed Trump’s failures to deal with the coronavirus pandemic had left the nation “weaker and sicker and poorer.”
Another one of the group’s founders, longtime GOP strategist Rick Wilson, mocked Trump for losing “his damn mind” over the “Mourning” video.
“We expected this ad to hit,” Wilson added. “We did not expect him to behave in the completely maniacally way he behaved all day today, but here we are.”
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — An autopsy commissioned for George Floyd’s family found that he died of asphyxiation due to neck and back compression when a Minneapolis police officer held his knee on Floyd's neck for several minutes and ignored his cries of distress, the family’s attorneys said Monday.
The autopsy by a doctor who also examined Eric Garner’s body found the compression cut off blood to Floyd’s brain, and weight on his back made it hard to breathe, attorney Ben Crump said at a news conference.
The family’s autopsy differs from the official autopsy as described in a criminal complaint against the officer. That autopsy included the effects of being restrained, along with underlying health issues and potential intoxicants in Floyd’s system, but also said it found nothing “to support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”
Crump said last week that he was commissioning the family's own autopsy. Floyd’s family, like the families of other black men killed by police, wanted an independent look because they didn’t trust local authorities to produce an unbiased autopsy.
The family's autopsy was conducted by Michael Baden and Allecia Wilson. Baden is the former chief medical examiner of New York City, who was hired to conduct an autopsy of Eric Garner, a black man who died in 2014 after New York police placed him in a chokehold and he pleaded that he could not breathe.
Baden also conducted an independent autopsy of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri. He said Brown's autopsy, requested by the teen's family, didn’t reveal signs of a struggle, casting doubt on a claim by police that a struggle between Brown and the officer led to the shooting.
The officer who held his knee on Floyd's neck, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter and is in custody in a state prison. The other three officers on scene, like Chauvin, were fired the day after the incident but have not been charged.
Crump on Monday called for the remaining three officers to be arrested and for the charge against Chauvin to be upgraded to first-degree murder.
The head of the Minneapolis police union said in a letter to members that the officers were fired without due process and labor attorneys are fighting for their jobs. Lt. Bob Kroll, the union president, also criticized city leadership, saying a lack of support is to blame for the days of sometimes violent protests.
When asked to respond, Mayor Jacob Frey said: “For a man who complains so frequently about a lack of community trust and support for the police department, Bob Kroll remains shockingly indifferent to his role in undermining that trust and support." Frey said Kroll's opposition to reform and lack of empathy for the community has undermined trust in the police.
Gov. Tim Walz announced Sunday that Attorney General Keith Ellison would take the lead in any prosecutions in Floyd's death. Local civil rights activists have said Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman doesn't have the trust of the black community. They have protested outside his house, and pressed him to charge the other three officers.
Social media is full of lies and liars who need their teeth knocked down their throats. While BLM doesn't lie as much as Trump, (Nobody could.) they still are a pack of lying hypocrites who whine, run their ignorant mouths and play the race cards. These liars will not acknowledge the problems in the Black community let alone have come up with a plan to fix things. About all they do is run their ignorant lie holes same as Trump and his MAGAts.
Blacks continue to self sabotage and I think that they do it so they will have an excuse for their colossal failures. Instead of looking at themselves, they project their flaws onto others because their intellectual dishonesty cowardice exceeds their morals.
When those assholes stormed Bernie Sanders' stage, I knew they were assholes. Their BS helped get Trump elected.
The following was sent to me by a Reddit user who was censored by the censors at BLM.
Let's See How Tolerant Blacks Are Of The Truth
Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators of r/BlackLivesMatter.
Moderators remove posts from feeds for a variety of reasons, including keeping communities safe, civil, and true to their purpose.
Fact: Blacks are 13% of the US Population yet they commit more than 50% of the crime.
Fact: Blacks cheered the OJ verdict and they call Whites racists.
Fact: The Rodney King riots were not about racial justice but really about looting and violence.
Fact: Blacks throughout the world have very low IQs. Don't believe me? IQ by country. The fact is, Whites in the US have an average IQ of 100. Asian Americans have an average IQ of 105, African Americans north of the Mason Dixon like have an average IQ of 85. Blacks south of the Mason-Dixon line have an average IQ of 70 which is slightly above the average IQ of Black in Africa.
Fact if you google violet crime by country you will find that white and Asian countries have the leasst crime.
Fact: Most of the killing of Blacks is done by Blacks here in the US and around the world.
Fact: More whites are killed by cops than Blacks.
Fact: 70% of Black kids come from fatherless homes. Blame that on whitey.
Explain this BLM and blame it on try to blame it on racism.
Fact: Obama was 50% White, his Black father abandoned him like a lot of Black fathers do with their kids. Obama was raised by White people.
As you can see, Blacks are more likely to assault non Black victims. Now do you see why so many people are fearful of Blacks and don't trust them? The next time one of you BLM shills cry racism, take a look at yourselves.
I don't like cops either but I understand why cops fear Blacks more than other people. I feel bad for the good Blacks who get wronged by the criminal justice system but what most Blacks fail to see because so many of them are as ignorant as Southern Whites is that poor Whites get screwed by the criminal justice system too.
Based on facts and the the crime data, it seems that Black lives matter more to Whites than they do to Blacks.
Every other ethnic group in America the US has done better with every succeeding generation. The Jews, Asians, Mexicans and Middle Easterners have all done better because they are law abiding, industrious, enlightened and moral. All of them have adapted to American society. The Black who have done well get accused of being Oreos and Uncle Toms simple because they were ambitious and played by the rules.
More facts.
Blame this on whitey!
Blame this on whitey!
Maybe for the Blacks who are literate they would wise to read the book How To Win Friends and influence people.
FACT: Blacks have earned the hate same as the cops.
Now do what you do BLM people do best and play the race card. It's all you have.
These inconvenient facts need to be out for all to see. I understand that the vast majority of Blacks are good citizens and just as White hate groups give the majority of Whites a bad name in the eyes of Blacks, bad behavior among Blacks is giving Blacks a bad name in the eyes of non Black Hispanics, Jews, Asians, Whites and educated Blacks who flee Black communities for the safety of their children. Blacks will never succeed until they get honest and own their shit.
