This monster MURDERED George Floyd over an alleged counterfeit $20 bill while he and his spouse under-reported $464,433 in joint income and owe $21,853 in taxes.
DEFUND THE POLICE!!!!!!!!
Fired Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin and his wife are charged with tax crimes allegedly dating back to 2014. https://t.co/maLJ3KbQFI
The $464,433 is the income he has not even filed tax forms for, the $22k is what they cheated the state on with the registration for their $100k car plus other unpaid taxes.
I'd also add it's not a crime to use a counterfeit $20. It's only a crime to KNOWINGLY use a counterfeit $20.
Seeing as how George Floyd wasn't even questioned, there's no way to even know he committed *any* crime at all.
And btw, the penalty for counterfeit $20 is a fine.
— Socialist Banana 🇺🇸🇵🇭 (@ExpatBanana) July 23, 2020
At my old job, I had *the bank itself* give us a counterfeit $20 bill once for our change drawers. Fake money is being circulated without a lot of people knowing about it. Some of them can be really hard to catch.
Especially if you’re a normal ass person who doesn’t know how to tell a fake from a real
— tai BLM defundthepolice (@gryffindamn_) July 23, 2020
Ahh so THIS explains the wife’s sudden filing for divorce once Chauvin was arrested for George Floyd. She knew what skeletons would fall out of that closet of theirs and wanted to protect their assets and distance herself. Cats out of the bag, Mr. and Mrs. Chauvin!
Folks, I sat down with my friend President @BarackObama to discuss the significant moment we're in, who we are as a nation, and how we can build back better. Watch our full conversation: https://t.co/n2P71Le1oH
Hey @kyoag. Today would be good day to bring justice to #BreonnaTaylor. Yesterday would have been better. But today will do. Arrest Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove. Thanks.
“We need justice for Breonna Taylor,” will be Alex Caruso’s response to any basketball questions today, he says. He says players have collectively decided that’s a way that they can make an impact from inside the bubble.
Tobias Harris’ media availability today lasted 59 seconds.
He had one message.
“We want to make sure that Daniel Cameron (Kentucky Attorney General) will arrest the cops & the officers involved with Breonna Taylor’s death and that’s all I got to say.” pic.twitter.com/AxKUDGlcIA
The thing that truly messes with me about these murderers is how easily they got back to their jobs and regular lives while the families of the victims are left with the pain and trauma. The fact that there is usually no justice makes them comfortable and it’s enraging. https://t.co/cXEGFGzpmG
Why do these ppl think that on one hand they can practice voter suppression to high heavens and then pretend to be all caring about civil rights leaders?
Who does he think he is fooling?
I sat down with @JoeBiden to talk about the most pressing issues of our time. He's exactly the leader we need right now––with the vision, the plans, and character to move America forward.
My aunt, Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, then @SpelmanCollege student, spent nearly 3 months in jail in Jackson, Miss as a Freedom Rider. She was one of the founders of SNCC and died at 26, before I was born. @repjohnlewis cried each time he spoke of her bravery to me. #GoodTroublepic.twitter.com/hXxg57ayzJ
— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) July 20, 2020
That scenario literally keeps us up at night! Check out our Twitter lists for Dem candidates and orgs working hard to flip Repub TX House seats, and visit our site for info on those running in the 17 R districts lost by <10 points in 2018! https://t.co/2kk1qfD6OJ
HAPPENING NOW: Funeral services for the late civil rights hero #CTVivian are underway at Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Southwest Atlanta. I'm trying to see if I recognize any of the guests, and I think I just saw Fulton County DA Paul Howard.
BREAKING: Judge Hellerstein finds that the purpose of the first clause of Michael Cohen's agreement was to interfere with his First Amendment rights. @CourthouseNews
Neil Katyal:
“Actions like Trump’s only reveal 2 things:
They show cowardice, and they show a lack of principle. Because leaders like this can’t lead. They cannot persuade people, so they resort to beating people up. And that only leads the crowds to grow. And the disrespect for Trump is only going to grow because actions like this show he disrespects himself. And Americans see it.
And he can’t trust himself to win on the up and up. And so he has to resort to these thug tactics.”
Barack Obama had to be a double Ivy League graduate, President of the Harvard Law Review, a constitutional law professor, a bestselling author, and a United States Senator.
For more than 20 minutes after Breonna Taylor was fatally shot by Louisville officers, she lay where she fell in her hallway, receiving no medical attention.https://t.co/EsL5Ex59eR
This pandemic has exacerbated the caregiving and child care crisis in our country. Today at 4:30pm ET I’m hosting a virtual roundtable discussion on @JoeBiden’s #BuildBackBetter plan to close this gap for millions of families across our country. https://t.co/7zyWAMx5tl
There’s no ignoring this: we’re on the brink of mass evictions if we don’t take immediate action. Passing my RELIEF Act is critical to helping stop evictions, foreclosures, and utility shutoffs. https://t.co/iLFNRFainw
NEW: The President talked to Putin today. This official White House read-out does not mention an investigation into Russian bounties on U.S. troops. pic.twitter.com/n7auw7LPgz
my husband had to take the cognitive test after a major stroke and a sub dermal hematoma.He had a perfect score. He also didn’t know my name, recognize his children, or speak about things that made sense. He was not okay. Neither is this man.
Let me get this straight… we sanctioned and condemned Hong Kong on how they treated their citizens protesting, but we are doing the same thing to our citizens???
Carl Lewis won a staggering 10 Olympic medals – nine of them gold – in track and field events while competing in four Olympic Games from 1984 to 1996. #GameChangerspic.twitter.com/yzGh8NLrew
Before Carl, there was Edwin Moses! Next time we TODers meet, Dudette, I have a fun story about my accidental meeting w/ him. Long time ago! He was a magnificent hurdler!
Yes, he was magnificent! Huge fan of both of them right here! I’ve watched Olympic and World Championship track and field events religiously since I was 6 years old! Why you wanna hold out on me like that? Spill the beans, Girl!
At the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Rafer Johnson became the first African American to light the Olympic cauldron. He later reflected, “it was one of the proudest moments of my life.” Johnson was captain of the American Olympic team at the 1960 Games. #GameChangerspic.twitter.com/GJwsEg5jTP
One of Congressman John Lewis' greatest victories on Capitol Hill was passing the bill that established the @Smithsonian@NMAAHC in Washington, D.C., after fighting for its creation for decades.
Chip Reid shows us how Lewis' legacy & advocacy is intertwined with its success. pic.twitter.com/QhNXQcbnhS
Smithsonian @NMAAHC’s Interim Director Dr. Spencer Crew reflects on Congressman John Lewis’ impact on the museum and the legacy he leaves behind. pic.twitter.com/1neFZMjc5V
It bears repeating: ONE-THIRD of Tennessee public school teachers are retirement eligible. We cannot afford a teacher crisis on top of a health crisis. https://t.co/UU9jl80NTG
Rachel Maddow:
“Attorney General William Barr at one point suggested that the officers weren’t wearing identifying insignias or name badges just because they ‘didn’t have them handy’ when they deployed.”
Maddow:
“The pushback wasn’t enough to stop them from trying again somewhere else, sometime soon.
And so now its not D.C. Now we’ve got these mystery, unidentified, militarized federal officers of some kind – maybe – this time on the streets of Portland Oregon for the past week. Federal officers have been responding to protests in Portland including with tear gas and batons and less-than-lethal munitions. Videos posted on line show mystery officers in military fatigues driving around the city in unmarked vans, abruptly grabbing and detaining protestors without identifying themselves. Multiple protestors have said they’ve been picked up without any explanation for why they’ve were being arrested or by whom. They were simply plucked off the street and then thrown into unmarked vans. And even as we’ve begun to piece together the origins of these officers from various parts of the Department of Homeland Security, their presence clearly has inflamed tensions in Portland, Oregon. Protests following the death of George Floyd have been going on in Portland for weeks. But they have intensified since the federal officers have been there using these violent tactics.”
Maddow: “Portland’s Mayor along with mayors of 12 other U.S. cities sent a letter to DOJ and Homeland Security Department calling for an immediate removal of those federal forces from states and cities that don’t want them. They are calling for the WH to back down from stated plans to send more federal agents to more American cities. The president openly saying that the places he wants to send these officers are to cities that are controlled by democratic leadership.”
Jeh Johnson,
Former Secretary of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, and General Counsel of the Defense Department speaks with Maddow:
Maddow: “Let me just ask your top line response and understanding about this controversy.
Having been in charge of the Homeland Security Department and knowing a lot about its capabilities, its responsibilities and the things that it’s asked to do, do you think that people are overreacting in their response, their concern, and now ultimately in these lawsuits trying to stop the department from deploying these officers in the way that we’ve seen play out in the streets of Portland?”
Johnson:
“The short answer, No. I don’t believe people are overreacting to what is going on in Portland.
So the object of all of this so far as I’ve been able to figure ou, is the Hatfield Federal Courthouse in downtown Portland and an adjacent federal building. Forces of DHS that have been deployed to the scene are first the Federal Protective Services which is a component of the DHS that reports directly to the Secretary. And its core mission is the protection of civilian federal buildings across the country. Interestingly, most members of the Federal Protective Services are actually private contractors. And then in addition to that, what the Acting Secretary has done is to also deploy components of Immigration Customs Enforcement, and Customs Border Protection that are specially trained or special operations. They do wear camouflage. But they’re supposed to wear emblems, patches, that indicate they are federal law enforcement.
Now the problems of doing this:
Problem # 1: I do not understand how a federal law enforcement officer can arrest someone, put them in a government vehicle, take them away without probable cause. I do not understand that.
Problem # 2: If the Mayor and the Governor and the entire congressional delegation of the state are saying “Don’t come here!” I’d have to stop and ask exactly what I am doing.
Problem # 3: You made reference to this. Would deploying such a force, heavily armed, in camouflaged gear like what you see right now on the screen. If you deploy them is it going to inflame tensions, is it going to be unduly provocative and make the situation worse not better?
And problem # 4: And I used to talk DHS component leadership all the time. Let’s not engage in controversial one-ops, that will have the ability to undermine and compromise our core missions across the Homeland Security Department. And so I see a number of problems with this and I think people should be upset. It does Rachel, smack of a political tone to it in an election year. The Richard Nixon 1968 law and order playbook on steroids. “
Maddow: “There’s been a lot of interpretation for what the president’s political motivations might be for doing this. The president has fed this by discussing this in explicitly partisan terms, talking about needing to or wanting to deploy federal officers to places where democrats are in control. If this is improper and irregular and unwise for all the reasons that you just laid out, what is the right way to stop it? I spoke with the Oregon Attorney General last night about her lawsuit to try to get a court to basically enjoin the federal government from doing this. We’ve seen interest from the federally appointed Attorney in Oregon looking at these arrests as essentially kidnappings off the streets of Portland. Is this the sort of thing there should be a legal barrier to, or is the only correction to these actions by the president essentially political backlash?”
Johnson:
“Rachel to be sure, the federal government should protect federal property is federal property is under threat from vandalism or destruction. But in my experience in public life, things are rarely black and white. There’s very often a nuanced, balanced, approach to how you go about mission without being unduly provocative. Very clearly during times of heightened national tension during heightened threat environments, you recall the terrorist attacks we had across the homeland in 2015, I directed the Federal Protective Services to deploy a heightened presence at various federal buildings across the country. But there’s a way to do that without being unduly provocative, without being unnecessarily provocative of the civilian population that we are first and foremost sworn to protect and supposed to be protecting.”
“Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum
talks with Rachel Maddow about the state’s lawsuit against four federal agencies,
asking a judge for a restraining order against those agencies, as well as an expanding criminal investigation into the conduct of federal troops acting as police in the city of Portland.”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ATYJx1gW0)
—-The Oregon AG has sued the federal government calling the arrests ‘kidnapping’.
Remember how quickly Donald Trump spoke out & defended military bases named after Confederate traitors who took up arms against the Union? It's been 27 days and he still hasn't done anything publicly about Putin reportedly putting bounties on the heads of our troops.
"Welcome to the world of performative authoritarianism, a form of politics that reached new heights of sophistication in Russia over the past decade and has now arrived in the United States," @AnneApplebaum writes.#GestapoTrumphttps://t.co/F2Kug6fsTF
— Democratic Coalition (@TheDemCoalition) July 23, 2020
Here is my full response regarding Mr. Yoho and the culture of misogyny that inspired his actions.
I am deeply appreciative of my colleagues and everyone speaking up and out against the rampant mistreatment of women both in Congress and across the country. ⬇️ https://t.co/nFfxy5UdmP
BREAKING: In BIG victory for transparency, Court rejects Trump Administration’s effort to end probe into Secretary Wilbur Ross’ use of private email for government business.
President Trump kicked off this WH briefing by cancelling the GOP convention because of the virus surging. In almost the same breath, he argued that kids should be returning to schools across the United States.
Breaking via CNBC: A federal judge has ordered Michael Cohen released from prison by Friday afternoon.
The judge found that Cohen was sent back to prison in retaliation for not agreeing to not to publish a book about Trump while on furlough from prison.https://t.co/AwxhBLJiOR
Inbox: The Fairfax County School Board voted to rename Robert E. Lee High School after the late U.S. Congressman John R. Lewis at its business meeting on July 23. The new name will be effective for the 2020-21 school year.
All the evil inside of Virus45 is seeping outta his face, body, etc. Am just waiting for him to do a whole meltdown as the witch in Oz. Am ok w/ flushing him straight down to Gehenna. If that place doesn’t exist, I’ll have my popcorn ready, as I watch on my teevee, while guys in white jackets, don (pun intended) him into a straightjacket, locks & all, & carry him outta our lives. And on our collective teevee screens there will be, in bright colors of our world, the words: THE END! Ha! VOTE! 💞
Message: "You belong" Y'all betta get into this whole SERMON from the always regal and on point Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. 🙌🏾🙌🏾pic.twitter.com/5ncbCgIYH0
— BlackWomenViews Media (@blackwomenviews) July 23, 2020
So Andy Harris noticed his tweet about his soon doing the test blew up. Since he didn’t have a product to hawk, he shared a hilarious thread of him doing Trump quotes as the evil Emperor Palpatine from the Stars Wars movies… Emperor Trumpatine, if you will. Here’s the first couple. Enjoy!😁
Am having random thoughts moments. Trying to figure out what’s up w/ Mayor Lightfoot (Chicago) & agreeing to have these unidentified heavy boots into her city. Did l miss something?
On my most deep level of having lived in authoritarian regimes, that’s a seriously bad move. And every damn state, city, person should strongly reject this now. Exhosize any semblance now, with strict urgency. This never ends well.
Here’s what I learned making this video: Fox News HATES Donald Trump. They could’ve edited this (heavily) and made him not sound so *lost old man* but they didn’t, they kept all the repetitive nonsense intact. Because they actually hate him. Thank you for coming to my ted talk
Now: Oregon judge issues TRO against federal agents on the ground in Portland /// 14-day order restricts 'arresting, threatening to arrest, or using physical force' against journalists and legal observers https://t.co/ojv83d44iupic.twitter.com/dna9osMOZW
"The stated need to protect federal property and the safety of federal officers is not directly affected by allowing journalists and legal observers to stay, observe, and record events," US District Judge Michael Simon writes https://t.co/ojv83d44iu#PortlandProtests
A fair housing rule called "one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation this country has produced” was just terminated. The Trump admin's whole-hearted embrace of segregation is reprehensible. We'll fight as a city to ensure fair housing for all Chicagoans. https://t.co/Z5jLM6yBB3
— Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) July 23, 2020
I’m guest hosting again guys. Join the space for the intellectually curious. Can you appreciate one who can recall nuance in legislation, name every Senator & Member of the Tri-caucus, and also easily recite every word of Knuck if You Buck? If so, join us for some #CrossTalk🙌🏾 😉 pic.twitter.com/ma7t7ibLXk
Saturday: Lewis' body will lay in repose in Troy (his birthplace) on Troy University's campus from 11 am to 2 p.m. and in Selma's Brown Chapel AME Church (where the marchers on Bloody Sunday started from) from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.
So they needed an actual judge to tell them not to arrest journalists and observers who committed no crime. In America!
BREAKING: Federal judge grants temporary restraining order prohibiting federal officers from arresting journalists or legal observers during Portland protests, unless crime has been committed.
Okay, so I’m clearly taking a break from politics tonight. If anyone else is still up perhaps you’ll enjoy this bit of music history that I ran across tonight.
So Michael Jackson’s Human Nature is one of my all-time favorite songs. It was produced by the legendary Quincy Jones for the Thriller album, released in 1982. [Man, that was a long-time ago. Blink of an eye to me though.] Anyway, I knew it was written by Steve Porcaro from the band Toto, they collaborated with Quincy on but I didn’t know the song’s origin story
Turns out, it was a total accident that song ended up being recorded by MJ. Check this out…
The first version of “Human Nature” was written and composed by Steve Porcaro of Toto.[8] He had written the song after his first-grade daughter came home crying because a boy pushed her off the slide. He blurted out three reasons for the incident to comfort her: one, the boy liked her, two, people can be strange and three, it’s “human nature”.[9] He recorded a rough demo of the song in their studio while the Toto song “Africa” was being mixed.[6]
Fellow Toto band member David Paich had prepared some demo tracks for producer Quincy Jones to listen to as possible songs for Thriller and asked Porcaro to make Jones a tape with the songs.[8] Running low on cassette tapes, Porcaro used the tape on which he had already recorded his “Human Nature” demo, putting Paich’s songs on the reverse side and marking that on the label as the side that Jones should listen to.[6] Jones listened to Paich’s songs but did not think they were right for Thriller. However, he did not stop the tape when the songs finished playing, and the cassette deck playing the tape had “auto-reverse” capability, meaning that it started playing the other side as soon as the first side was finished.[6] As Jones described it, “All of a sudden, at the end, there was all this silence, there was: ‘why, why, dah dah da-dum dah dah, why, why’. Just a dummy lyric and a very skeletal thing—I get goosebumps talking about it. I said, ‘This is where we wanna go, because it’s got such a wonderful flavor'”.[10] However, Jones was dissatisfied with the original lyrics for the verses and asked John Bettis, who had written lyrics for hits by the Carpenters and the Pointer Sisters, among others, to write new lyrics for the song. He completed the song in two days.[11] Jones asked if the song could be included on Jackson’s album, to which Porcaro and Bettis agreed.[8] “Human Nature” was the last song selected for Thriller…”
Glee was so novel and interesting and fun in its time. The music was woven into the story in such an interesting way and it usually really popped. I think you’ll enjoy it, Dudette. Sad to see so much tragedy befall the stars…..
Yeah, it’s really crazy. I was going to suggest you maybe not follow up on all that until after you see the show……..But it’s still worth the watch for the fun music.
I liked GLEE as well. But then I was a FAME fan as well. Although I do not possess that level of talent, I often imagined going to a performing arts type school where students could break out into song and dance on a whim. It always fascinated me that people could spontaneously come together like that and be in perfect sync.
My new favorite artist Jacob Collier, the insanely talented musical savant people are calling a modern-day Mozart, blew Quincy Jones away with his YouTube rendition of Stevie Wonder’s Don’t You Worry in 2013
In 2014, Quincy took Jacob under his wing, signing him to his management company.
In 2016, Collier released his debut album, In My Room, which was self-recorded, -arranged, -performed and -produced in the small back room of his family home in London.
That same year, Quincy was invited to perform at the prestigious BBC Proms at The Royal Albert Hall in London. Jacob was asked to arrange & perform a tribute to Quincy to open the event. Here’s what he came up with…
Politics is so much a part of our lives these days that sometimes you have to make a conscious effort to take a break…come out of the darkness and rejuvenate. Music is great therapy. Thanks.
How incredibly dumb is @realDonaldTrump. Y’all, he doesn’t even come close to LBJ or FDR. Hell, Nixon did more for Black folks than @realDonaldTrump. He is truly an idiot. And he’s is scared to do interviews with Black-owned media. https://t.co/PeFCmFwbdQ
One more thing:
You’re probably gonna get tired of me posting Jacob’s music. I cannot get enough of him. He is amazing! I’m buying every bit of his music I can get my hands on. He’s like a real life August Rush (the prodigy part, not the orphan looking for his parents part). Look at what he did to my pretend-husband Sting’s song. Sprinkled star dust on a masterpiece it and made it divine; that’s what he did. Just listen to all the interesting musical twists & turns and nooks & crannies he pulls out in this “reimagined” version. 25 years old.
I dunno maybe wait and play this in the morning when you can turn the volume on full blast, so you can hear every instrument and note.
Goodnight & Good Morning! Love you Family!
Jacob Collier w/ Metropole Orkest (conducted by Jules Buckley) ~ Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic ✨https://t.co/jfeIeoAytp
The Obama Diary 
This monster MURDERED George Floyd over an alleged counterfeit $20 bill while he and his spouse under-reported $464,433 in joint income and owe $21,853 in taxes.
DEFUND THE POLICE!!!!!!!!
Lock him up. What a pig. Defund the police poster child, right here
JHC, what an absolute scumbag CRIMINAL.
Just released:
Just close your eyes and let the uplifting words and ideas wash over you…. and that voice…..
Yes!
Brilliant Thread & Post…NW.
Thank you.
Justice for Breonna Taylor.
Pictures and story of yesterday’s viewing…
Why is D*ckhead at the podium?
Why do these ppl think that on one hand they can practice voter suppression to high heavens and then pretend to be all caring about civil rights leaders?
Who does he think he is fooling?
Rev CT Vivian’s funeral in Atlanta
https://www.wsbtv.com/video/live-stream/
Thread…
Want David Perdue gone? Vote instead for @ossoff
Georgia is voting to fill 2 senate seats this November.
Yes, his link is in the thread.
Neil Katyal:
“Actions like Trump’s only reveal 2 things:
They show cowardice, and they show a lack of principle. Because leaders like this can’t lead. They cannot persuade people, so they resort to beating people up. And that only leads the crowds to grow. And the disrespect for Trump is only going to grow because actions like this show he disrespects himself. And Americans see it.
And he can’t trust himself to win on the up and up. And so he has to resort to these thug tactics.”
Neil Katyal former U.S. Solicitor General speaks to Lawrence O’Donnell:
Donald Trump is ‘Fighting the American People’.
See: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Ciqu95jwg)
Is my girl booked & busy or what? 😁
Am liking her busy! 😂😇
I’m loving it!
Before Carl, there was Edwin Moses! Next time we TODers meet, Dudette, I have a fun story about my accidental meeting w/ him. Long time ago! He was a magnificent hurdler!
https://www.olympic.org/videos/edwin-moses-the-unbeatable-hurdler
Yes, he was magnificent! Huge fan of both of them right here! I’ve watched Olympic and World Championship track and field events religiously since I was 6 years old! Why you wanna hold out on me like that? Spill the beans, Girl!
Chip surprised me this morning. This was a good segment. May The Honorable John Lewis rest forever in power & peace!
Rachel Maddow:
“Attorney General William Barr at one point suggested that the officers weren’t wearing identifying insignias or name badges just because they ‘didn’t have them handy’ when they deployed.”
Maddow:
“The pushback wasn’t enough to stop them from trying again somewhere else, sometime soon.
And so now its not D.C. Now we’ve got these mystery, unidentified, militarized federal officers of some kind – maybe – this time on the streets of Portland Oregon for the past week. Federal officers have been responding to protests in Portland including with tear gas and batons and less-than-lethal munitions. Videos posted on line show mystery officers in military fatigues driving around the city in unmarked vans, abruptly grabbing and detaining protestors without identifying themselves. Multiple protestors have said they’ve been picked up without any explanation for why they’ve were being arrested or by whom. They were simply plucked off the street and then thrown into unmarked vans. And even as we’ve begun to piece together the origins of these officers from various parts of the Department of Homeland Security, their presence clearly has inflamed tensions in Portland, Oregon. Protests following the death of George Floyd have been going on in Portland for weeks. But they have intensified since the federal officers have been there using these violent tactics.”
Maddow: “Portland’s Mayor along with mayors of 12 other U.S. cities sent a letter to DOJ and Homeland Security Department calling for an immediate removal of those federal forces from states and cities that don’t want them. They are calling for the WH to back down from stated plans to send more federal agents to more American cities. The president openly saying that the places he wants to send these officers are to cities that are controlled by democratic leadership.”
Jeh Johnson,
Former Secretary of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, and General Counsel of the Defense Department speaks with Maddow:
Maddow: “Let me just ask your top line response and understanding about this controversy.
Having been in charge of the Homeland Security Department and knowing a lot about its capabilities, its responsibilities and the things that it’s asked to do, do you think that people are overreacting in their response, their concern, and now ultimately in these lawsuits trying to stop the department from deploying these officers in the way that we’ve seen play out in the streets of Portland?”
Johnson:
“The short answer, No. I don’t believe people are overreacting to what is going on in Portland.
So the object of all of this so far as I’ve been able to figure ou, is the Hatfield Federal Courthouse in downtown Portland and an adjacent federal building. Forces of DHS that have been deployed to the scene are first the Federal Protective Services which is a component of the DHS that reports directly to the Secretary. And its core mission is the protection of civilian federal buildings across the country. Interestingly, most members of the Federal Protective Services are actually private contractors. And then in addition to that, what the Acting Secretary has done is to also deploy components of Immigration Customs Enforcement, and Customs Border Protection that are specially trained or special operations. They do wear camouflage. But they’re supposed to wear emblems, patches, that indicate they are federal law enforcement.
Now the problems of doing this:
Problem # 1: I do not understand how a federal law enforcement officer can arrest someone, put them in a government vehicle, take them away without probable cause. I do not understand that.
Problem # 2: If the Mayor and the Governor and the entire congressional delegation of the state are saying “Don’t come here!” I’d have to stop and ask exactly what I am doing.
Problem # 3: You made reference to this. Would deploying such a force, heavily armed, in camouflaged gear like what you see right now on the screen. If you deploy them is it going to inflame tensions, is it going to be unduly provocative and make the situation worse not better?
And problem # 4: And I used to talk DHS component leadership all the time. Let’s not engage in controversial one-ops, that will have the ability to undermine and compromise our core missions across the Homeland Security Department. And so I see a number of problems with this and I think people should be upset. It does Rachel, smack of a political tone to it in an election year. The Richard Nixon 1968 law and order playbook on steroids. “
Maddow: “There’s been a lot of interpretation for what the president’s political motivations might be for doing this. The president has fed this by discussing this in explicitly partisan terms, talking about needing to or wanting to deploy federal officers to places where democrats are in control. If this is improper and irregular and unwise for all the reasons that you just laid out, what is the right way to stop it? I spoke with the Oregon Attorney General last night about her lawsuit to try to get a court to basically enjoin the federal government from doing this. We’ve seen interest from the federally appointed Attorney in Oregon looking at these arrests as essentially kidnappings off the streets of Portland. Is this the sort of thing there should be a legal barrier to, or is the only correction to these actions by the president essentially political backlash?”
Johnson:
“Rachel to be sure, the federal government should protect federal property is federal property is under threat from vandalism or destruction. But in my experience in public life, things are rarely black and white. There’s very often a nuanced, balanced, approach to how you go about mission without being unduly provocative. Very clearly during times of heightened national tension during heightened threat environments, you recall the terrorist attacks we had across the homeland in 2015, I directed the Federal Protective Services to deploy a heightened presence at various federal buildings across the country. But there’s a way to do that without being unduly provocative, without being unnecessarily provocative of the civilian population that we are first and foremost sworn to protect and supposed to be protecting.”
“Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum
talks with Rachel Maddow about the state’s lawsuit against four federal agencies,
asking a judge for a restraining order against those agencies, as well as an expanding criminal investigation into the conduct of federal troops acting as police in the city of Portland.”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ATYJx1gW0)
—-The Oregon AG has sued the federal government calling the arrests ‘kidnapping’.
He said Putin was our friend. Moron needs to be in prison already
Lol
Indeed! 💞
Is this jackass up for re election this year?
That’s wonderful! ♥️
WOWIE, the chemistry between these two is OFF THE CHARTS. I hope you had a chance to watch their convo!
Throwback Thursday! How adorable is this? 😍
🎶Those Were The Days, My Friend.🎶 💞
🎶… We thought they’d never end. We’s sing and dance forever and a day. 🎵
I knew my Dudette would be right there w/ me! 🎶💞😂
😁🙌🏾
That “Fox Sports” had to cover it is a moment of special karma ….
The Pitcher’s mound is painted BLM.
And, yes ….
All the evil inside of Virus45 is seeping outta his face, body, etc. Am just waiting for him to do a whole meltdown as the witch in Oz. Am ok w/ flushing him straight down to Gehenna. If that place doesn’t exist, I’ll have my popcorn ready, as I watch on my teevee, while guys in white jackets, don (pun intended) him into a straightjacket, locks & all, & carry him outta our lives. And on our collective teevee screens there will be, in bright colors of our world, the words: THE END! Ha! VOTE! 💞
A Word! 👏🏾
Yes!!! 💞
Our dear John Lewis.
Wow!
So Andy Harris noticed his tweet about his soon doing the test blew up. Since he didn’t have a product to hawk, he shared a hilarious thread of him doing Trump quotes as the evil Emperor Palpatine from the Stars Wars movies… Emperor Trumpatine, if you will. Here’s the first couple. Enjoy!😁
Okay, three! 😆
Worth repeating ….
Why does the cable network continue to show Trump every evening? It’s a waste of time and I refuse to watch the racist pathological lying crook.
Apparently, he started those awful dailies back up again a couple days ago. I find HGTV very handy as a go-to.
Trump will never allow 3 Nov 2020 to be a peaceful election.
Am having random thoughts moments. Trying to figure out what’s up w/ Mayor Lightfoot (Chicago) & agreeing to have these unidentified heavy boots into her city. Did l miss something?
On my most deep level of having lived in authoritarian regimes, that’s a seriously bad move. And every damn state, city, person should strongly reject this now. Exhosize any semblance now, with strict urgency. This never ends well.
I really don’t understand. She needs to explain this, because it makes no sense. Did they threat her family or something? What the hell?
Hope. I hear hope.
Yes Honey! Hope! 🙌🏾
My dream positions! Please, Joe, please…
Girl, I’m so with you! Fingers and toes crossed!
Give me Preet, Vanita Gupta,or Adam Schiff or Glen Kirschner at AG! Then put Julian Castro and Loretta Lynch on the Supreme Court.
Chile, my heart would burst!
Love Loretta, however, I hope he’ll put a forty year old BW on the Court.
I’d be fine with that!
And it was a strike too, dammit. Fight me!
Hahahaaaa! Looks like something I’d do!
I should have known that you guys would have posted this already:)
So they needed an actual judge to tell them not to arrest journalists and observers who committed no crime. In America!
I needed a gut-busting laugh today. Michael Rapaport delivered! My cheeks and stomach hurt! 😆
I’m always impressed by gymnasts doing balance beam. Even though this isn’t up at regular beam height, the skill here just amazes me.
Okay, so I’m clearly taking a break from politics tonight. If anyone else is still up perhaps you’ll enjoy this bit of music history that I ran across tonight.
So Michael Jackson’s Human Nature is one of my all-time favorite songs. It was produced by the legendary Quincy Jones for the Thriller album, released in 1982. [Man, that was a long-time ago. Blink of an eye to me though.] Anyway, I knew it was written by Steve Porcaro from the band Toto, they collaborated with Quincy on but I didn’t know the song’s origin story
Turns out, it was a total accident that song ended up being recorded by MJ. Check this out…
From Wikipedia
The first version of “Human Nature” was written and composed by Steve Porcaro of Toto.[8] He had written the song after his first-grade daughter came home crying because a boy pushed her off the slide. He blurted out three reasons for the incident to comfort her: one, the boy liked her, two, people can be strange and three, it’s “human nature”.[9] He recorded a rough demo of the song in their studio while the Toto song “Africa” was being mixed.[6]
Fellow Toto band member David Paich had prepared some demo tracks for producer Quincy Jones to listen to as possible songs for Thriller and asked Porcaro to make Jones a tape with the songs.[8] Running low on cassette tapes, Porcaro used the tape on which he had already recorded his “Human Nature” demo, putting Paich’s songs on the reverse side and marking that on the label as the side that Jones should listen to.[6] Jones listened to Paich’s songs but did not think they were right for Thriller. However, he did not stop the tape when the songs finished playing, and the cassette deck playing the tape had “auto-reverse” capability, meaning that it started playing the other side as soon as the first side was finished.[6] As Jones described it, “All of a sudden, at the end, there was all this silence, there was: ‘why, why, dah dah da-dum dah dah, why, why’. Just a dummy lyric and a very skeletal thing—I get goosebumps talking about it. I said, ‘This is where we wanna go, because it’s got such a wonderful flavor'”.[10] However, Jones was dissatisfied with the original lyrics for the verses and asked John Bettis, who had written lyrics for hits by the Carpenters and the Pointer Sisters, among others, to write new lyrics for the song. He completed the song in two days.[11] Jones asked if the song could be included on Jackson’s album, to which Porcaro and Bettis agreed.[8] “Human Nature” was the last song selected for Thriller…”
Here’s Mike performing it during the Bad tour in 1987
I was in Okinawa during this tour. The Tokyo concerts were shown live on TV; a year later, I was in the audience at the Cap Center in Maryland.
I would have given anything to see him live back then. I got to see The Jackson 5 in concert when I was 12. Not quite the same vibe though. 😁
In 1993, SWV sampled Human Nature in a remix of their song Right Here. That version outsold the original by a wide margin.
Some say MJ’s rehearsal of the song in prep for the This Is It tour, just weeks before his death in 2009, is one of his finest. I agree.
John Mayer’s performance at Mj’s Memorial Service was such a perfect tribute. Those are Mike’s background singers from the This Is It. 😭
Here’s a sweet version from Glee. [I really must find some time to watch this show. Can’t you believe I’ve never seen one episode?]
I loved this version, too.
Glee was so novel and interesting and fun in its time. The music was woven into the story in such an interesting way and it usually really popped. I think you’ll enjoy it, Dudette. Sad to see so much tragedy befall the stars…..
Looks fantastic from the few clips I’ve seen. I knew about Naya Rivera and Cory Monteith, but had no idea about some of the other tragedies mentioned in this article. My goodness!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cast-glee-haunted-by-tragedy-103416563.html
Yeah, it’s really crazy. I was going to suggest you maybe not follow up on all that until after you see the show……..But it’s still worth the watch for the fun music.
I liked GLEE as well. But then I was a FAME fan as well. Although I do not possess that level of talent, I often imagined going to a performing arts type school where students could break out into song and dance on a whim. It always fascinated me that people could spontaneously come together like that and be in perfect sync.
I hear ya.
My new favorite artist Jacob Collier, the insanely talented musical savant people are calling a modern-day Mozart, blew Quincy Jones away with his YouTube rendition of Stevie Wonder’s Don’t You Worry in 2013
In 2014, Quincy took Jacob under his wing, signing him to his management company.
In 2016, Collier released his debut album, In My Room, which was self-recorded, -arranged, -performed and -produced in the small back room of his family home in London.
That same year, Quincy was invited to perform at the prestigious BBC Proms at The Royal Albert Hall in London. Jacob was asked to arrange & perform a tribute to Quincy to open the event. Here’s what he came up with…
WOW, loved both of these. He’s really something. And to be mentored by Quincy, what a joy!!
Wow…just Wow!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Ikr
Dudette, I love this song, too. Thx so much for your research!
👍🏾
Politics is so much a part of our lives these days that sometimes you have to make a conscious effort to take a break…come out of the darkness and rejuvenate. Music is great therapy. Thanks.
My pleasure and privilege.
Fact.
Goodnight TOD
One more thing:
You’re probably gonna get tired of me posting Jacob’s music. I cannot get enough of him. He is amazing! I’m buying every bit of his music I can get my hands on. He’s like a real life August Rush (the prodigy part, not the orphan looking for his parents part). Look at what he did to my pretend-husband Sting’s song. Sprinkled star dust on a masterpiece it and made it divine; that’s what he did. Just listen to all the interesting musical twists & turns and nooks & crannies he pulls out in this “reimagined” version. 25 years old.
I dunno maybe wait and play this in the morning when you can turn the volume on full blast, so you can hear every instrument and note.
Goodnight & Good Morning! Love you Family!
Take a minute to watch the chemistry between these two, which reeks of joy and respect!! It’s a real treat to witness.
Morning everyone. What’s this??
WOOOOOT!!!!
Are we family, or what:)
Hanging out with Michelle:)
New post.
https://obamadiary.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/we-ready/
Get ready!