Good morning! The last few days have been quite the whirlwind, huh? Let’s get right to it and pick apart some of the stories that stood out the most to us.
George Floyd was murdered and it was caught on camera: as a Minneapolis police officer put his knee on Floyd’s neck while Floyd continued to say he couldn’t breathe. The fallout has been pretty significant.
Twitter started fact-checking Trump and he’s super pissed about it: going so far as to say he’s going to issue a social media executive order. Aw, poor baby’s upset.
The House is going to cast its first proxy vote: and people are pretty split about whether that’s okay or not, with there being a clear partisan divide.
If I were a government creating a virus in a lab, I’d make it way more dope and scary. Blood from the eyes and stuff. Just a thought.
BLACK LIVES MATTER
George Floyd’s Murder in Minneapolis Has Sparked Unrest
George Floyd. If you’ve seen the clip of the events that led to his death, you already know that he was murdered. In it, a police officer places his knee on Floyd’s neck while Floyd says he can’t breathe and later, Floyd goes unconscious and eventually dies. It’s about as clear cut as you can get and clearly shows a police officer committing murder, so what’s happened since the video went viral?
The Aftermath
The Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, has made his statement, saying, “what I can say with certainty, based on what I saw, is that … the officer who had his knee on the neck of George Floyd should be charged.” He’s right but more heavy-handed action needs to be taken.
Since then, hundreds have begun protesting in the streets of Minneapolis. They’ve destroyed cop cars, which rules, but unfortunately, they’ve also been subject to police crackdowns, including firing rubber bullets at protestors and using tear gas on them.
Four of the officers at the scene have been fired but no one has been charged as of yet.
This has happened right after the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery, another high profile case of an innocent black man getting murdered. After all these years and all these bodies, for many, it feels as though nothing has changed.
A Deeper Dive
The officer at the center of Floyd’s murder had a long history of conduct complaints. He’s worked for Minneapolis police since 2001 and was never disciplined over those conduct complaints.
Amy Klobuchar, who is a contender for Joe Biden’s VP pick, may be wrapped up in this too. Klobuchar served as Minnesota’s chief prosecutor for 8 years and declined to bring charges against more than two dozen police officers who killed citizens on duty, including the cop responsible for Floyd’s death.
This has contributed to protests elsewhere, too, including a Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles where a police officer sped away while protestors were on the hood of his car.
Of course, this has also drawn anger when compared to other recent demonstrations. White dudes with assault rifles show up to their state’s capital and egg on a civil war? No problem! Black men are upset about police officers getting away with murder? Fire up the riot gear!
Bottom line: clearly nothing or very little has changed, from Rodney King, to Trayvon Martin, to now. We must demand more from those in power.
TRUMPOCALYPSE
Twitter is Fact-Checking Trump, Trump is Issuing an Executive Order
Twitter has gotten a lot of flak from folks over their content moderation and for not taking action against misinformation on the site. Trump has been at the center of this, with Kamala Harris even calling on Twitter to ban Trump from the platform (which is, let’s be honest, a stupid hill to die on). However, Twitter took things in a different direction by fact-checking Trump’s tweets, which has pissed him off quite a bit and spurred him into wanting to issue an executive order related to social media.
He’s Sooo Mad
The content of the order isn’t clear yet. That said, there are reports of Trump’s allies saying it will strip Twitter of its special speech liability immunity.
Essentially, he wants to push the platform around into not flagging his tweets.
This ties into a larger narrative where Republicans accuse social media sites of silencing conservatives. That’s not really true (after all, they only get silenced when they say things that are demonstrably false and dangerous to say), but they’ve insisted enough that people actually think Twitter and Facebook have a LIBRUL bias.
Stephen Colbert might be a bit of a neolib with bad politics, but this does make us think of that one quote of his: “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
Bottom line: this is actually a pretty smart move on Twitter’s part. It moves the needle, it drives conversation, and it forces Trump to angrily react. Banning a sitting president from one of the largest social media platforms would likely set a bad precedent, but it’s dangerous in another way, too: what if it drives Trump (and his followers) to hop ship and head off to another platform like Gab, where his kind-of-nuts supporters would be more likely to be inundated by actual extremism?
CONGRESS
The House May Soon Have its First Proxy Vote
The House. Despite everything going on with coronavirus, they still need to vote on new legislation. That’s why they’ve implemented historic new rules that allow proxy voting, which more than 70 Democrats have indicated they’re going to take advantage of by allowing a colleague to vote on their behalf.
New Rules, New Controversy
Politicians are rightly worried about traveling right now, which is why the House is now allowing members to vote on behalf of up to ten of their colleagues that are unable to travel to the Capitol during the pandemic.
Some in favor of this rule argue that this is something Congress needed anyway, especially during national emergencies.
Republicans are arguing against this though and say it sets a dangerous precedent. They’ve gone so far as to file a federal lawsuit, claiming that this is unconstitutional.
The House has already had virtual sessions that had some technical issues. Is that a problem? Sure. Does that mean the House really needs to meet in person? Hell no!
Bottom line: as with most non-issues, Republicans are real pissed off.
END OF THE LINE...
That’s it for today.
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Have a good one,
The Bread Line
we’re listening to:
Tony Molina’s old band, Ovens, has all of their music up on Bandcamp at a pay-what-you-can rate right now. The funds are being used to help Tony’s friend pay for cancer treatments. Ovens is a great band, check it out and put some money towards a good cause if you can.
(Yes, most of his songs are that short.)
George Floyd’s murder & subsequent protests, Trump vs. Twitter, and Congress voting remotely