Society's Child
As the officer who knelt on Floyd's neck was being tried for the killing in court, another officer shot and killed Daunte Wright.
Scholarly research has begun to document the traumatic consequences of police killings on African Americans. One study finds the effects on Black males meet the "criteria for trauma exposure," based on the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used for psychiatric diagnoses.
Besides police use of force in North America, one of the trajectories of my research focuses on armed insurgency in sub-Saharan Africa. I am beginning to observe in the U.S. some of the social conditions necessary for the maturation and rise of an armed insurgency. The U.S. is at risk of armed insurgencies within the next five years if the current wave of killings of unarmed Black people continues.
A train collided with an unmanned vehicle that had rolled down a hill on Friday in eastern Taiwan, leaving at least 51 people dead and dozens injured in the island's deadliest rail disaster.
Some survivors were forced to climb out of windows and walk along the train's roof to safety.
The crash occurred near the Toroko Gorge scenic area on the first day of a long holiday weekend when many people were using trains on Taiwan's extensive rail system. The train had been carrying more than 400 people.
According to the study, 4 in 1 million people experience cerebral venous thrombosis after getting the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, versus 5 in 1 million people for the AstraZeneca vaccine. The risk of getting CVT is much higher for those who get COVID-19 -- 39 in a million patients -- than it is for those who get vaccinated. AstraZeneca's vaccine use has been halted or limited in many countries on blood clot concerns.
As Law&Crime discussed at length on April 9, a since-deleted video posted at the end of March on the Facebook page of Mr. Bookman's — a used book store in Western Pennsylvania — showed an individual who appeared to be Rachel Powell wearing a mesh mask. The problem was that Powell, as a unique condition of her pretrial release, was ordered by Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell to "wear a mask whenever she leaves her residence."

Tamika Palmer, mother of Breonna Taylor, addresses the media in Louisville, Ky., on Aug. 13, 2020
"'I have never personally dealt with BLM Louisville and personally have found them to be fraud, (state Rep.) Attica Scott another fraud," Tamika Palmer wrote on Facebook.
The post was apparently removed from Facebook early Saturday, though it's unclear why or by whom.
Comment:
- Patrisse Cullors, 'trained Marxist', pulled in $20k a month as chair of prison 'reform group' while building real estate empire on BLM grift
- BLM co-founder attempts defense of growing hoard of fancy homes in mostly-white neighborhoods: 'I see my money as not my own'
- BLM threaten legal action against local black activist who is calling for investigation into its finances

Residents wearing masks sit in downtown Lake Oswego, Ore., on Sunday, April 11, 2021. Tens of thousands of Oregon residents are angry about a proposal to make permanent an emergency rule that requires masks and social distancing in the state's businesses and schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Opponents worry about government overreach and fear that state officials won't remove the mask requirements for businesses even after threat of the virus has receded if the emergency rule becomes permanent.
A top health official is considering indefinitely extending rules requiring masks and social distancing in all businesses in the state.
The proposal would keep the rules in place until they are "no longer necessary to address the effects of the pandemic in the workplace."
Michael Wood, administrator of the state's department of Occupational Safety and Health, said the move is necessary to address a technicality in state law that requires a "permanent" rule to keep current restrictions from expiring.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines speaks during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats
On April 14, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines revealed that after over a year of determined sleuthing, US spying agencies had no concrete answers on basic questions regarding the origins of the 2019 coronavirus.
"It is absolutely accurate the intelligence community does not know exactly where, when, or how Covid-19 virus was transmitted initially," Haines told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Components have coalesced around two alternative theories, these scenarios are it emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, or it was a laboratory accident."
This time last year, Donald Trump alleged he'd seen evidence confirming covid was laboratory-made and, throughout 2020, former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove also claimed the virus was "an engineered escapee" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Haines' public admission that a "laboratory accident" is a possible explanation is significant because intelligence services have thus far been quick to dismiss the suggestion as a conspiracy theory whenever it's been aired in public. In response to Trump's statement for example, the Director of National Intelligence's office firmly refuted the idea Covid-19 was "manmade or genetically modified." Of course, the virus could be neither and still have escaped from a lab.
Comment: See also:
- Forbes caught in blatant censoring act; scrubs article highlighting COVID-19's lab origins
- Nobel-winning scientist who discovered HIV claims SARS-CoV-2 virus 'contains HIV genetic sequence', likely 'leaked from a lab'
- Did COVID-19 escape Fort Detrick vaccine trial? Evidence that virus originated in US bioweapons lab
- Fort Detrick's mind-blowing, murderous history
The saga began on June 26, 2020, when The New York Times announced that unnamed "American intelligence officials" have concluded that "a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops." The paper called it "a significant and provocative escalation" by Russia. Though no evidence was ever presented to support the CIA's claims — neither in that original story nor in any reporting since — most U.S. media outlets blindly believed it and spent weeks if not longer treating it as proven, highly significant truth. Leading politicians from both parties similarly used this emotional storyline to advance multiple agendas.
The story appeared — coincidentally or otherwise — just weeks after President Trump announced his plan to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2020. Pro-war members of Congress from both parties and liberal hawks in corporate media spent weeks weaponizing this story to accuse Trump of appeasing Putin by leaving Afghanistan and being too scared to punish the Kremlin. Cable outlets and the op-ed pages of The New York Times and Washington Post endlessly discussed the grave implications of this Russian treachery and debated which severe retaliation was needed. "This is as bad as it gets," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Then-candidate Joe Biden said Trump's refusal to punish Russia and his casting doubt on the truth of the story was more proof that Trump's "entire presidency has been a gift to Putin," while Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) demanded that, in response, the U.S. put Russians and Afghans "in body bags."

Avery Severson, a sophomore at White Bear Lake High School near St. Paul, was falsely accused of sending racist direct Instagram messages to black classmates
Avery Severson, a sophomore at White Bear Lake High School near St. Paul, was falsely accused of sending the racist direct messages, prompting outrage and a student walkout.
But school officials said that an FBI investigation revealed that the female student who created the hateful messages wanted 'to raise awareness of social and racial injustice' by staging the stunt. They refused to name the true perpetrator.
Comment: So this poor girl has been falsely accused, held up as a pariah, made to feel unsafe in her own school, and possibly had her future destroyed so that some sick peeps could prove a point?! One wonders who the culprit could be and why the school is withholding the identity.
See also:
- Another Smollett hoax? Police find 'no evidence' of brutal racist attack on Wisconsin woman during summer riots, but won't press charges for false report
- Michigan transgender activist on trial for burning down own home in hoax 'hate crime' that killed five pets
- Finley: America's hate crime surge is a hoax
- BLM activist at Texas A&M left racist notes on his own car in viral hate crime hoax
Lawmakers are mulling plans to gradually increase the legal age at which people can buy tobacco products as New Zealand aims to become smoke-free by 2025.
Comment: This makes a mockery of adults, freedom of choice, and law generally; if a person is legally old enough to vote, drive a car, have sex, drink alcohol, surely they can choose whether they wish to smoke?
In a consultation document, the government said: "A smoke-free generation policy would prohibit the sale, and the supply in a public place, of smoked tobacco products to new cohorts from a specified date.
Comment: That didn't work for prohibition in the US, nor has it worked for any country with marijuana. Moreover, it actually tends to make things worse by channeling those profits into organized crime.
Comment: One of the worst aspects of the whole smoking 'debate' is that those pushing for its prohibition are basing their opinions on erroneous data; smoking tobacco isn't harmful, moreover, for some people smoking tobacco can be highly beneficial. However, the corruption of science is nothing new, and we see similar deleterious effects on society with government dietary guidelines that have led to soaring rates of obesity and diabetes:
- A comprehensive review of the many health benefits of smoking Tobacco
- Study on Coronavirus patients in Wuhan suggests non-smokers are more likely to become infected
- Can Smoking be GOOD for SOME People?
Comment: It appears the only vaccines being highlighted in the media for side effects are Johnson & Johnson's and AstraZeneca's, both of which use the (somewhat) more benign DNA as the information delivery systems
How J&J and AstraZeneca differ from the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna