Trump does his part

Riot control is the job of State and  Local authorities but some Federal action is possible

On Sunday, after days of rioting, looting, and arson in cities across America following protests over the horrific death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers, President Donald Trump announced that his administration would formally declare the loosely-organized radical leftist agitator group known as “antifa” a terrorist organization.

“The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization,” Trump tweeted.

As PJ Media contributor Victoria Taft noted two years back, the Department of Homeland Security already considers antifa a form of domestic terrorism. In 2017, Politico reported that “the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as ‘domestic terrorist violence,’ according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.”

Even so, a formal declaration is arguably warranted following the devastation in recent days. Lamenting the riots, looting, and arson should not be a partisan or racial issue, as black citizens and business owners have broken into tears after witnessing the devastation in their communities and the destruction of their livelihoods.

As of Sunday morning, police had arrested nearly 1,400 people in 17 U.S. cities since Thursday. Governors in at least nine states have activated their states’ National Guards to respond to riots: Minnesota, Ohio, Georgia, Colorado, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Texas, Utah, and Washington State. In another five more, governors have said they planned to activate the National Guard.

As the United States was leaving lockdowns imposed to fight the coronavirus, cities across the country have enforced a new limited kind of lockdown to prevent the destruction. Cities across the country set curfews to stem the violence, including: Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Denver, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Cleveland, Columbus, Portland, Miami, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, and Rochester.

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DeBlasio gets one thing right

On Saturday, two NYPD vehicles drove into a crowd of rioters who were violently attacking the vehicles.

When a reporter asked him about the video during a press conference, de Blasio said “it’s inappropriate for protesters to surround a police vehicle and threaten police officers. It’s wrong on its face.” He argued that “a different element has come into play here who are trying to hurt police officers and trying to damage their vehicles. And if a police officer’s in that situation, they have to get out of that situation.”

“The video was upsetting, and I wish the officers hadn’t done that. But I also understood that they didn’t start the situation,” he said. “In a situation like that … I’m not gonna blame officers who were trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation.”

He later said on NY1, “If those protesters had just gotten out of the way, and not created an attempt to surround that vehicle we would not be talking about this situation.”

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The Chauvin-Floyd Affair: What the media left out

Michael P. Tremoglie

“(Officer) Lane asked, “should we roll him on his side?” and the defendant (Officer Chauvin) said, “No, staying put where we got him.” ... Officer Lane said, “I am worried about excited delirium or whatever.” Officer Derek Chauvin replied, “That’s why we have him on his stomach.”

These quotes - exculpatory evidence - are taken directly from the criminal complaint filed against Officer Derek Chauvin, which was either all or in part, taken from the unedited body-cam videos of the officers during the arrest of George Floyd.

As stated, Officer Lane was “worried” meaning he was thinking about unpleasant things that might happen because of excited delirium. Officer Chauvin replied “That’s why” meaning this was the reason he was trying to keep George Floyd in the position he was. But this has not been publicized, at least as of this writing.

There are some interesting facts about Excited Delirium that are pertinent to this case. Indeed, they are an integral part of this incident.

According to a study of Excited Delirium ( EXD) conducted by Drs. Takeuchi and Henderson of the USC Keck School of Medicine and Terry Ahern of UCSD Medical School, which was published in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, EXD is

“ ...characterized by agitation, aggression, acute distress and sudden death, often in the pre-hospital care setting. It is typically associated with the use of drugs that alter dopamine processing, hyperthermia, and, most notably, sometimes with death of the affected person in the custody of law enforcement. Subjects *typically die* from cardiopulmonary arrest, although the cause is debated. Unfortunately, an adequate treatment plan has yet to be established, in part due to the fact that most patients die before hospital arrival.

This scientific research also notes, “As mentioned before, people experiencing EXD are highly agitated, violent, and show signs of unexpected strength so it is not surprising that most require physical restraint. The prone maximal restraint position... where the person’s ankles and wrists are bound together behind their back, has been used extensively by field personnel. In far fewer cases, persons have been tied to a hospital gurney or manually held prone with *knee pressure on the back or neck.”*

Therefore, Officer Chauvin was not committing an act of murder but implementing a restraining technique. Indeed, he may have been trying to prevent Floyd from hurting himself.

The criminal complaint reveals more facts about this incident than the strategically edited, very damning to the police, video touted by the media. That video played endlessly, shows George Floyd walking handcuffed one moment and then suddenly on the ground the next with Officer Chauvin placing his knee against Floyd’s neck. But there is a huge gap in the video indicating the events preceding the interaction between Chauvin in Floyd.

Given the recent history of mainstream media doctoring videos this is very disconcerting. One must wonder why a profession that claims to tell the truth would do this.

There are other very important facts contained in the body-cam videos that are omitted by the media reportage. For example, Floyd, a man with a prior arrest for a violent felony - a home invasion and armed robbery - resisted arrest and threw himself down on the ground to avoid being placed in the police car for transport.

Another fact omitted by the media; Floyd was complaining about *not being able to breathe while he was standing*. [suggesting that he was having a heart attack]  Does this not indicate that Chauvin’s actions did nothing to suffocate him?

Still another fact obscured by the media is the preliminary report by the Medical Examiner which stated, “The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.”

Knowing these facts, not just supposition and half-truths, does it still seem that Officer Derek Chauvin, committed a cold-blooded racist murder as the elite media have implied?

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Masks

My friend Mark Green, Republican representative for Tennessee, pointed me to a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine

The NEJM report in question is "Universal Masking in Hospitals in the Covid-19 Era, which regards the efficacy of requiring all medical staff in hospitals to wear protective masks. I will leave that debate to the medical professionals, though suffice it to say, every physician and nurse among our family and friends believes that masking in hospitals is an important safety measure.

But what in this report should be of interest to everyone regarding the use of masks outside of hospitals is the second paragraph, where the authors note: "We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic."

Feel free to read that again, and then forward it to Virginia Governor Ralph "Blackface" Northam, who has mandated, effective today, that every citizen of his state wear a mask when outside their home. And The Washington Post insists that those refusing to wear masks outside their homes are scoundrels. (Notably, in that WaPo article, there are seven advertisements for grossly overpriced and ineffective masks — one more reason The Patriot Post is certified "ad-free"!)

Task Force expert Dr. Anthony Fauci declared in March, "There is no reason to be walking around wearing a mask. When you are in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel better and might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection people think it is, and often there are unintended consequences."

In April, the CDC clarified its position on using cloth masks. Despite the fact the masks being worn by almost all people outside of hospitals are not surgical standard N-95 respirators, which the more recent NEJM report notes "offers little, if any, protection from infection," the CDC "recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain."

Bottom line: Feel free to wear a mask, especially if your governor is going to throw you in jail if you don't. But regardless, if you are symptomatic, have the common decency and courtesy to stay home — to stay away from other people in accordance with the basic CDC guidelines. I learned those guidelines from my first-grade elementary school teacher, Mrs. Howell. Apparently some of Ralph Northam's constituents did not get that far...

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IN BRIEF

Twitter censors Trump's Minneapolis tweet for "glorifying violence"; the tweet simply stated, "Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts." (Fox News)

Twitter slaps misinformation label on Chinese spox's tweets claiming U.S. Army started COVID-19 (The Daily Caller)

"Tantamount to monopoly": Trump signs executive order to curb "unchecked power" of social-media giants (Washington Examiner)

In 417-1 vote, House passes bill to grant flexibility for small business aid program (The Hill)

House again cancels vote on FISA reauthorization due to a dearth of GOP support (The Hill)

Corporate profits drop by 13.9% in first quarter, the most since the 2008 Great Recession (MarketWatch)

U.S. economy shrank at a revised 5% annual rate in the first quarter (previous estimate was 4.8%) (CNBC)

Possible vendetta? George Floyd, fired officer overlapped security shifts at south Minneapolis club (KSTP.com)

For the record: A supposed photo of Officer Derek Chauvin wearing a "Make Whites Great Again" hat is of another individual altogether (The Dispatch)

Armed civilians save local businesses during Minneapolis riots (The Washington Free Beacon)

The more asymptomatic coronavirus cases, the better (Washington Examiner)

Policy: Florida has proven that a measured, evidence-based response to reopening works (City Journal)

Policy: How to reform unemployment insurance for a reopened economy (E21)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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