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CrossFit CEO resigns after George Floyd tweet raised eyebrows and Zoom call full of conspiracy theories gets leaked

Matt Ott
Chicago Tribune
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 18:57 UTC
Greg Glassman
© Eduardo Contreras/San Diego Union-TribuneFormer CrossFit CEO and founder Greg Glassman, speaks at Fathom CrossFit in Southern California. He resigned June 9, 2020, after audio leaked of a call with CrossFit affiliate gyms in which he cast doubt on the legitimacy of George Floyd protests and advanced conspiracy theories about Floyd's death and COVID-19.
The CEO of CrossFit is stepping down after comments about George Floyd sparked a social media backlash and led to affiliated gyms and Reebok cutting ties with the exercise brand famous for its devoted followers.

Greg Glassman said in a statement posted on CrossFit's website late Tuesday that he decided to retire. Glassman had apologized earlier for tweets that sparked online outrage by connecting Floyd, a black man who died at the hands of Minneapolis police, and the coronavirus pandemic. He said he had made a mistake and should have been more sensitive, but denied being racist.

"On Saturday I created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its members," he said. "I cannot let my behavior stand in the way of HQ's or affiliates' missions."

Glassman had angered many with his glib response to a tweet by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research group, which said, "Racism is a public health issue."

"It's FLOYD-19," he replied on Saturday, and in a second tweet criticized the group's "failed" quarantine model and accused it of attempting to "model a solution to racism."

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Car Black

Car plows into pedestrians in Munich injuring 3, police hunt underway


RT
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 18:54 UTC
German police, polizei
© REUTERS/Andreas GebertFile photo
Police have cordoned off part of the German city of Munich after a car drove into a group of people. The occupants then jumped out and attacked the group before fleeing the scene in their vehicle.

Three people were injured in the incident and have been taken to hospital, according to investigators.

In a series of tweets, Munich Police said that they have blocked off a large area around the scene in the Ungererstrasse and Domagkstrasse areas of the city. It's not believed there is any further risk to the public, they added.

"According to current investigations, a car drove into a smaller group of people, the occupants got out and hit the group. They then fled by car. We are now looking for the vehicle," the force said.
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Arrow Down

Guardian writer Jones derided after promoting website seeking to topple Earl Grey statue, UK PM responsible for ending slavery


RT
Tue, 09 Jun 2020 17:30 UTC
Owen Jones, Earl Grey Monument
© (L) Global look Press / Andres Pantoja (R) wikipedia(L) Guardian journalist Owen Jones (R) Grey's Monument, Newcastle
UK journalist Owen Jones has been mercilessly mocked after enthusiastically promoting a website that marks out statues around the UK that should be toppled...including that of a former PM who oversaw the abolition of slavery.

Jones - who writes for the Guardian and is also a prominent left-wing activist - took to Twitter on Tuesday to share a link to "Topple the Racists." It's a website run by the "Stop Trump Coalition" with support from the "Black Lives Matter" campaign, who say the objective is to "take down statues and monuments in the UK that celebrate slavery and racism."
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Evil Rays

'Violence provokes violence', Mandela Foundation says in support of U.S. protests


Reuters
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:51 UTC
Nelson Mandela
© REUTERS/Mike Hutchings/FILE PHOTO: Former South African President Nelson Mandela attends the Sixth Annual Nelson Mandela lecture in Kliptown, near Johannesburg, South Africa July 12, 2008.
South Africa's Nelson Mandela Foundation said on Thursday violence can be a rational response to racism and for some communities is the only way to elicit change, as protests raged across the United States over the death of George Floyd.

Floyd died after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, video footage showed, sparking outrage across the United States and beyond. Protests in the country have turned violent.

The foundation, set up to guard the legacy of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first democratically-elected president, said that violence is often too readily dismissed as the work of extremists or criminals, when it can be the result of careful calculation by communities who "see that only such action elicits the desired response from the state".

"When communities are confronted by both resilient structural violence and attacks on their bodies, violent responses will occur... The use of violence can be rational and carefully targeted," its statement continued.

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Dominoes

Stock market will hit new highs if Trump wins 2020 presidential election, chief strategist tells Boom Bust


RT
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:29 UTC
trump
© Reuters / Kevin Lamarque
The National Bureau of Economic Research said this week that the US economy entered a recession in February as the coronavirus struck the nation, ending its longest expansion on record.

RT's Boom Bust is joined by Todd Horwitz of Bubba Trading to talk about the state of the US economy and what direction it might take.

"Nobody really knows the answer to that," he points out, adding that there's more action in the market and people are starting to go to work. "So, again, if the virus stays away and we can continue to open and get the country fully open, then the recession will be over... Overall, we are still very strong."
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Arrow Down

Remember how public health COLLAPSED after Soviet Union fell? I fear West will see same due to post-lockdown economic CATASTROPHE

Malcolm Kendrick
RT
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 06:55 UTC
stay safe sign
© Getty Images/In PIctures/Mike Kemp
The self-inflicted damage we've done to our economies in the name of combating Covid-19 will kill far more people than the virus itself. The economic collapse that followed the communist bloc's break-up caused millions of deaths.

There has never been a situation to compare with what we have been living through these past weeks and months. Never in the history of the world have entire countries been locked down. Never have entire countries inflicted such enormous damage to their own economies and distorted their health systems away from all other activities, to deal with a virus.

I felt, right from the start, that the potential harms from lockdown could well exceed any - speculative - reduction in Covid deaths. I began by arguing against lockdown from an economic perspective, which many people hated. They felt it was impossible to put a value on a human life, even to attempt to balance money versus health.

Comment: Many are now anticipating the horrible fallout of the useless and economically detrimental lockdowns:

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Bullseye

Best of the Web: 'Community policing' is a trick - new enforcers for the same oppressors, not a dismantling of tyranny

Helen Buyniski
RT
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:23 UTC
protesters
© AFP / Stephen Maturen
As the massive anti-police-brutality protests sweeping the US are diverted into calls to "defund the police" and to replace them with community-based enforcers, Americans would be wise to keep an eye on "who benefits."

There's no question US police departments have become too militarized, too much like occupying armies, when the cities they patrol truly need engagement and accountability. Police in some areas pose more of a threat to residents than criminals, seizing a bigger chunk of Americans' assets via civil asset forfeiture in 2014 than were stolen by burglars that same year. Certainly outfitting cops with military surplus equipment, sending them to Israel to learn chokeholds like the one that killed George Floyd, and then deploying them in American schools to keep the kids safe is not a workable model.

Most people concerned with the police brutality problem would support demilitarizing the cops, retraining them, even holding them accountable to the many laws already on the books. Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed George Floyd, had already racked up a number of brutality complaints and been involved in several shootings. In a functioning system, he would not have been on the street on Memorial Day.
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Sheriff

NY police union head rails against legislators, media for 'vilifying' law enforcement

J. Edward Moreno
The Hill
Tue, 09 Jun 2020 16:18 UTC
nypd
The New York Police Benevolent Association (PBA) railed Tuesday against state legislators and the press for "vilifying" law enforcement officers amid the nationwide demonstrations over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.

The New York PBA's president, Mike O'Meara, said at a press conference that officers have 375 million interactions with individuals each year and that most of them are "overwhelmingly positive."

"But what we read in the papers all week is that in the black community, mothers are worried about their children getting home from school without being killed by a cop. What world are we living in? That doesn't happen," O'Meara said.

"Our legislators are failing us. Our press is vilifying us," he added. "Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect. That's what we're here today to say. We've been vilified. It's disgusting."
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Chess

Senate confirms Gen. Charles Brown Jr. as first black service chief in unanimous vote


NBC News
Tue, 09 Jun 2020 16:12 UTC
General Charles Brown Jr.
© Kevin Dietsch- / Getty ImagesGeneral Charles Brown Jr.
The Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Gen. Charles Brown Jr. as chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, making him the first black officer to lead one of the nation's military services.

Vice President Mike Pence took the unusual step of presiding over the vote, something he usually does to break ties. But Brown's confirmation, 98-0, was not close. Pence called the moment "historic."

The vote came as the Trump administration and the mostly white Senate Republican conference grapple with the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Protests have convulsed the nation alongside the coronavirus pandemic, with racial discrimination being the common thread between them. The vote in Washington overlapped with Floyd's funeral in Houston.

Brown most recently served as the commander of U.S. Pacific Air Forces. He is a fighter pilot, with more than 2,900 flying hours, including 130 in combat.

Comment: This appointment should fly in the face of claims from the political Left that Trump is a racist president. He did something that Obama never did - appoint a black man as chief of staff in the military.

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Pirates

Iraqi PMF destroys ISIS stronghold allegedly used by group's leader


Sputnik
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:04 UTC
iraqi pmf
© AFP 2020 / AHMAD AL-RUBAYE
Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an umbrella grouping of Shia armed militias also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, in cooperation with the country's security service, have liquidated a large Daesh stronghold in the country's north allegedly used by the group's leader in Iraq, PMF spokesman Ali Hashem al-Husseini said on Tuesday.

"[The PMF and security forces destroyed] a large headquarters of ISIS, which contains rooms, supplies and equipment, as well as secret documents that cannot be disclosed in Al-Zarka sector, indicating that the headquarters belongs to the new ISIS leader in Iraq or a regional leader of the terrorist organization," Al-Husseini said, as quoted by the state Shafaq news agency.

Eastern areas of the Salah ad-Din province, as well as districts of the neighbouring province of Kirkuk, have almost been fully liberated from the Daesh formations, except for some Daesh separated groups moving between the country's regions in an attempt to escape from the state's security forces, the spokesman added.
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