Patrick's Notebook

by Duncan Campbell

Inquiry finds for 121 survivors of Tulsa rampage by white mob, but governor fears it may open door to wider claims

Mr Monroe, now 85 and a slim, dignified war veteran, said: “Everything was burning outside and you could hear gunshots. She told us kids – I was five – to get under the bed and hide.”

He can still remember peering from under the bed at the men’s boots as they stomped in and set fire to the curtains.

False rumours that a black shoe-shiner called Dick Rowland had molested a white lift operator called Sarah Page had swept Tulsa that week and on May 31 1921 – as the local newspaper, the Tulsa Tribune, ran the headline “To Lynch Negro Tonight” – a white mob, including the Ku Klux Klan, rampaged through the middle-class Greenwood area, known at the time as the “black Wall Street”.

Rowland escaped. It is not known what happened to him later, but one rumour is that he eloped to Kansas with Page.

Many of the people of Greenwood were not so fortunate. At the end of the night’s mayhem at least 40 members of the thriving black community had been killed in one of the worst race riots the US has seen. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Robert Mackeyrobert

As he read aloud a description that the frigates would be the “fastest, most advanced, and most maneuverable combat ships anywhere on the ocean,” Trump looked up and ad-libbed: “I hear the maneuverability is one of the big factors that you were chosen for the contract. The other is your location in Wisconsin, if you want to know the truth.”

The president then boasted that the “massive deal” would boost employment in the state, which he won by less than 23,000 votes in 2016, by allowing the firm to keep “your 1,500 full-time employees” on staff and hire another 1,000 people “all across the shipyards in Wisconsin.” (The shipbuilding firm actually employs 2,500 people in Wisconsin right now, not 1,500.)

Trump also claimed that “an estimated 15,000 additional new jobs will be created through the Wisconsin supply chain,” as a result of the contract. Moments later, Trump changed that estimate to 9,000 new jobs, without explaining why.

Both estimates seem to be vastly inflated. Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said in April that the contract could create “more than 5,000 direct and indirect jobs” over the course of its 10-year duration. The projection seemed to come from Fincantieri, the shipbuilding firm, which told reporters that the contract could create 1,000 new jobs at the shipyard and 4,000 more at the company’s suppliers. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Nic Robertson

The United States is in uncharted territory, on an exponential path to becoming a Covid-19 pariah and an unreliable ally to its friends.

America’s fall in global esteem is turning into an international horror show as the world watches the superpower struggle to match the efforts of many poorer nations to get the coronavirus pandemic under control.

Three-and-a-half years of President Donald Trump in office has changed America’s international reputation and perhaps its future role in a way that seemed unimaginable when he took the oath of office on the steps of the US Capitol on January 20, 2017.

He set the tone in the drizzle that day: “We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs.”
Trump’s early decisions were deliberate, turbulent and at times seemed giddy.

Three days after his inauguration, he abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potentially lucrative 12-nation Pacific trade deal. Executive Order 13769 swiftly followed, banning citizens of seven Muslim nations from travel to the US. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Baxter Dmitry

Modern liberal American society has deemed racism acceptable in 2020, according to Candace Owens, who says “so long as it’s directed to white people.”

hi this is a list of some of my favorite white people “slurs” knock yourself out https://twitter.com/hollywoodmadde

Describing this state of affairs as “crazy“, Owens referred to modern racism as “Black Privilege” and commented on a post by a racist black woman on Twitter that listed dozens of racial slurs against white people.

“Just imagine what would happen if a white male posted a similar list of their favorite slurs to Black people,” said Owens.

Isn’t it crazy to consider how racism is accepted in our society, so long as it’s being directed to white people?

Just imagine what would happen if a white male posted a similar list of their favorite slurs to Black people. #BlackPrivilege https://twitter.com/hollywoodmadden/status/1274917353843838978 …

The American Truth said the original tweet was deleted, but provided screenshots.

Candace Owens has turned heads in the past with her comments supporting conservative causes and stating that African Americans have a “victim mentality,.” She released a video about George Floyd’s death on June 3 in which she criticized the media and black America for turning him into a “martyr” for the black community. » Read the rest of this entry «

By Larry Elder

Militant wing of BLM ignores some pretty important facts

Black lives matter. Black businesses, not so much. Four Minneapolis cops were summarily fired, with one of the four arrested and charged with the murder of a black suspect named George Floyd, who died in police custody.

In cellphone video apparently taken by one of the many witnesses, a cop later identified as Derek Chauvin placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes as Floyd laid face-down and handcuffed on a city street. The cops ignored Floyd’s repeated plea, “I can’t breathe.” By the time paramedics arrived, Floyd was unresponsive and apparently lifeless. After about an hour of attempted resuscitation by EMTs and emergency room staff, he was pronounced dead.

As of this writing, there have been eight consecutive days of protests in the streets of Minneapolis, with many businesses attacked, looted, and set on fire. The local district attorney is continuing the investigation and may file additional charges against the officers. But this has not stopped the protests, many violent, that broke out in other cities across the country, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.

Ostensibly, the protests are about the alleged “epidemic” of “widespread” and “race-based” police brutality against blacks and the lack of confidence, in the case of Floyd, that justice will be done. The problem with these assertions is that they are false, not supported by the data. » Read the rest of this entry «

By Isabel Van Brugen

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks to the press near a polling station during the New York primaries Election Day in New York City on June 23, 2020

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), on Tuesday night won her Democratic primary in New York’s 14th District, defeating challenger Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former anchor for CNBC.

Progressive freshman lawmaker Ocasio-Cortez, who became the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress in the United States in 2018, brought a huge campaign war chest and a national profile to her bid for a second term in her diverse district encompassing parts of the Bronx and Queens in New York City. She won some 70 percent of the vote.

Democratic challenger Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC television anchor, had the backing of the conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which usually supports Republicans.

“When I won in 2018, many dismissed our victory as a ‘fluke.’ Our win was treated as an aberration, or because my opponent ‘didn’t try.’ So from the start, tonight’s race was important to me,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter Tuesday night. “Tonight we are proving that the people’s movement in NY isn’t an accident. It’s a mandate.”

When I won in 2018, many dismissed our victory as a “fluke.”

Our win was treated as an aberration, or bc my opponent “didn’t try.”

So from the start, tonight’s race was important to me.

Tonight we are proving that the people’s movement in NY isn’t an accident. It‘s a mandate.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 24, 2020

» Read the rest of this entry «

by Darmi Msarko

The Sahara Desert, the Caribbean, and Texas may be several thousand miles apart, but a massive cloud of dust connected these places in late June 2018.

On June 18, satellites began to detect thick plumes of Saharan dust passing over Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau before moving out over the Atlantic Ocean. For the next ten days, the skies over West Africa and across the tropical Atlantic were stained a distinctive shade of yellow as winds pushed pulse after pulse of Saharan dust to the west. According to one preliminary analysis, this brought the tropical Atlantic one of its dustiest weeks in 15 years.

The map above shows dust crossing the Atlantic on June 28, 2018, as represented by the Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5). A simulation from GEOS-5 shows plumes of dust from as far away as Iraq and Saudi Arabia blowing across North Africa in mid-June. However, much of the dust that crossed the Atlantic Ocean appeared to be coming from the Bodele depression, a dried lake bed in northeastern Chad. » Read the rest of this entry «