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#National Trust Properties
cozy4countrycottages · 3 months
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Greenway House,the home of Dame Agatha Christie,creator of sleuths Hercule Poirot & Miss Marple
Greenway Road, Galmpton,Brixham,Devon,England TQ5 0ES
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cuteofrp · 10 months
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Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon, England
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notanothermikey · 10 months
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Enjoy the sights at Powis Castle, Wales
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pagelaw · 2 months
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Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon, England
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carlos-salgado · 3 months
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Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon, England
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reallytoosublime · 7 months
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A bank trust, often referred to as a trust department or trust division within a bank, is a specialized financial service offered by banks and other financial institutions. It involves the management and administration of trusts on behalf of individuals, families, organizations, and sometimes even corporations.
A trust is a legal arrangement where one party transfers assets such as money, securities, real estate, or other property to another party for the benefit of a third party. The trustee is responsible for managing and safeguarding these assets according to the terms and conditions outlined in a trust document or agreement.
In the context of a bank trust, the bank serves as the trustee. This means that the bank takes on the fiduciary responsibility of managing and administering the trust assets in the best interests of the beneficiaries. The bank's role is to ensure that the trust's objectives and instructions are carried out faithfully and in compliance with legal requirements.
The primary function of a bank trust is to manage and invest the assets held in the trust. This can include making investment decisions, maintaining a diversified portfolio, and maximizing returns while minimizing risk. The trustee must follow any specific investment guidelines set forth in the trust agreement.
Bank trusts are often used in estate planning to facilitate the transfer of assets to heirs and beneficiaries upon the grantor's death. By placing assets in a trust, individuals can often minimize estate taxes, avoid probate, and ensure a smooth and private transfer of wealth.
Some individuals and families use bank trusts to preserve and protect their wealth. Trusts can provide asset protection from creditors, lawsuits, and other potential threats.
Trusts can also be established for charitable purposes, with the bank trustee overseeing the distribution of assets to designated charitable organizations in accordance with the grantor's wishes.
The bank trust department is responsible for all administrative aspects of the trust, including record-keeping, accounting, tax reporting, and ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
If disputes or disagreements arise among beneficiaries or between beneficiaries and the trustee, the bank trust department may play a role in resolving these conflicts in accordance with the terms of the trust.
Bank trust departments typically have a team of professionals, including trust officers, investment advisors, attorneys, and accountants, who work together to manage trusts effectively and provide expert guidance to clients.
Overall, a bank trust is a valuable financial service that helps individuals and organizations manage, protect, and distribute their assets in accordance with their specific objectives and legal requirements. It combines financial expertise with legal oversight to ensure that trusts are managed in a responsible and trustworthy manner
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birdyland · 9 months
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Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon, England
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simonacastricum · 1 year
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Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon, England
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carrscrap · 2 years
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Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon, England
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cozy4countrycottages · 3 months
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Thomas Hardy Birthplace
Higher Bockhampton,Dorchester,Dorset,England,DT2 8QJ
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skyahri · 1 month
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Robes |Zuko X Reader| HC
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Summary: Your relationship with Zuko and how your friends found out.
Warnings: Implied intamacy???? Bed sharing. Kissing.
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You were well acquainted with the Gaang. You'd served as a sort of double agent for them during the war once Zuko had teamed up with them. He knew they'd need some inside information, so he contacted you, knowing full well your ideals did not align with the fire nation.
You're the daughter of the prestigious Admiral Zhou, a ruthless military head who wouldn't hesitate to turn you in if he found out you were leaking information to the enemy.
It was easy to keep them updated. Your father had an ego the size of the moon, always going on and on about his achievements and new findings and whatnot. He was never home for long, leaving you in your mother's care and making it easy to sneak away. You mostly sent messenger Hawks, but once they'd infiltrated the fire nation you met in person.
You mostly met with Zuko, but occasionally, Sokka or Aang would take his place. You didn't mind. It was nice seeing more of the people you were risking your life for.
After the war, once Zuko took over as Fire Lord, he invited you to be a part of his cabinet. You weren't sure why, seeing as how the other members have some sort of military or consulting experience, and you're just a teenager who sent letters.
Strategy meetings were weekly, so you saw Zuko more often than any of the others. They visited when they could, but with the long list of air temple repairs, it was difficult to make time.
Not that you minded. You loved spending time with him, with or without the rest of the entourage.
Zuko was always accommodating to you, even going as far as to offer you a room in the palace 'if you ever need it.' He'd had the room fully furnished and closet stocked with spare outfits.
Occasionally, if meetings ran long, you'd stay in said room. It was a luxury the other members weren't granted, and honestly, it made you feel special.
When all the immediate post-war issues finally calmed down and Zuko had more free time, he always asked you to stick around or come keep him company.
He's the fire lord. He can't easily leave the palace, especially to do regular teenager things like laze around the shops or sneak into theaters, so you were limited to what the palace could offer.
You'd taken to gardening with him, something Zuko found very alluring. You played board games, baked pastries, and anything else you two could come up with.
Before long, you found yourself spending most of your time with him on the property. Occasional sleepovers quickly become several times a week. It wasn't long before you basically lived there, so you bit the bullet and brought the rest of your stuff to the palace.
Within a few months, you shared a kiss near the pond in the garden. Things slowly escalated over the next year or so. That first nervous kiss became the norm. You shared dinners and late night talks, often going so far into the night you'd just crash in his bed.
Before long, your room became obsolete. Your bed was hardly ever touched, your clothes were in his closet, items in his drawers, and toiletries in his restroom.
You'd heard the staff gossip from time to time, which you didn't necessarily mind, but it definitely made you blush. It felt like getting caught despite doing nothing wrong.
For a while, Katara would tease you mercilessly. She didn't know anything, or at least didn't lead you to believe she did. She just liked the idea of everyone finding someone, and you were the only girl Zuko ever talked to.
You went out of your way to cover up the obvious aspects of your relationship when your friends were around. You agreed early on to keep things under wraps, not wanting to harm the groups dynamic if things didn't work out.
But that was almost a year and half ago, and now it felt wrong to say anything. Like you had betrayed their trust somehow. You felt bad for lying to your friends about what was going on, but honestly, neither of you could bring yourself to admit the two of you had been dishonest for so long.
You woke up and patted the bed beside you. It was still warm, but Zuko wasn't there. You got up and picked up a robe off the floor to cover your nightwear. It was unlike him to leave without even waking you, so you'd go see what he was up to.
You exited his quarters and immediately saw the entire Gaang. They just stared at you in shock, having a hard time piecing things together.
"Did you just come out of Zuko's room?" Sokka asked.
"You saw me, didn't you?"
"Are those his clothes?" Katara asked.
You glanced down. They were, in fact, his clothes. You just stared at her, refusing to answer. Of course, Katara would notice they were his specifically and not just standard robes.
Zuko dragged his hand down his face. Of course, this is how they'd find out. Not after a long, thought-out conversation over a planned dinner or outing. They had to see you walk out of his room compromised after an impromptu visit.
They hastled you two for the rest of the day, asking horrifically personal questions and guilt tripping you into answering them. They bothered you for information about your intimate lives and dating preferences.
Late into the night, when the fire and excitement died down, Katara and Toph cornered you about the secrecy. You were huddled up in your room for a girls only sleepover when they decided to attack, giving you no choice but to be completely honest.
"We kept it quiet in case things didn't work out. Then some time passed... and we started feeling guilty about hiding it, and we just never found the right time."
"There didn't have to be a right time. Were your friends, not your subjects."
"I know. There's just a lot of pressure when you're with a friend who also happens to be the Fire Lord."
Luckily, you have amazing friends who understand people make mistakes. They squashed your anxiety about the whole thing, making sure you knew they weren't mad or disappointed.
But that absolutely did not stop them from holding over your heads for the unforeseeable future.
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txttletale · 7 months
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Wtf is Lancer and why is it shit (serious question)
lancer is a tabletop roleplaying game made by the guy who drew kill six billion demons and another guy. i wouldn't call it 'shit', necessarily--it's good in a lot of the ways that matter. it's first and foremost a tactical mech combat game and on that level it's incredible. its ruleset is finely tuned, provides great amounts of GM support to make running what might otherwise be overwhelmingly crunchy combat easier, and has a truly stunning and cool level of character customization available. so as a game, i think it's great fun to play and run, genuinely innovative, and a huge step forward for battlemap tactical wargame type TTRPGs in general.
the lore though, kind of sucks. i think it has two clear and overlapping core problems. problem #1 is that it is a utopia as envisioned by a social democrat. it's a world which the text describes as 'post-capitalist' (but there are still evil megacorporations with private armies who own slaves) and 'post-scarcity' (but only in the developed 'core' systems, so. y'know. there's scarcity). at many points in the text they say that Union (the game's main faction) is utopian, throwing around that exact word a bunch of times as well as 'mutual aid' and 'direct action' and the like. but what they describe is just kind of an imperialist Space Sweden with several distinct forms of slavery that constantly expands and uses its Benevolent Imperial Power to intervene on the Backwards Violent Worlds on its outer border but its good because its just trying to bring them UBI.
to show what i mean, here's one of the game's writers¹ talking about how it would be morally wrong for Union to, say, appropriate the property of a private military corporation that also operates as a fascist nation-state:
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it's 'revolution' as imagined by the limpest of social democrats. and of course this would honestly be fine, whatever, most sci-fi settings are fundamentally achingly liberal, but the game goes so out of its way to signpost how Radical it is and how Hopeful and Liberationist you're meant to see the setting as
the other core problem is closely related--it feels like the lancer guys put every cool sci-fi idea they had into lancer even when it completely clashes with the core ideas behind it. like, AIs in this settings are callled 'NHPs' (non-human persons) and they're eldritch god-like beings from another dimension who have be kept 'shackled' (lancer's words, not mine!) to keep them as pliant and obedient AI assistants instead of hostile eldritch abominations. this is obviously horrifying and dystopian but it rules, it would be sick fucking worldbuilding for something with the tone of 40k or a one-off doctor who or star trek episode--but as a fundamental technology foundational to what we are supposed to believe is a post-revolutionary society founded on mutual aid and solidarity and blah blah blah it's glaringly dissonant.
bear in mind this is all just going off the rulebook. lancer fans have told me that the supplements and campaign modules fix some of this or contextualise it. but on the other hand communists have told me that they make it worse and i trust the communists more. i leave you with this incredible passage from the game's foreword:
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sgtyaraya · 1 month
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Call of Duty OC
Name: Trudy Saidler
Nikename: Jay
Date of birth: June 01, 1992
Age: 24 (at the time of the events in 2016)
Place of birth: Liberec, Czech Republic🇨🇿
Citizenship: Czech🇨🇿
Nationality: English 🇬🇧
Rank: Sergeant
Specialty: Infantryman
Unit: TF - 141
Family/Relationships
Mother: Adele Saidler (Hofmann) 🇬🇧
Father: Philip Saidler 🇬🇧
Brother: Evan Saidler🇬🇧 ✝️
Love Interest: Gary "Roach" Sanderson🇬🇧💕
Reference/appearance
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Trudy on the day she arrived at Credenhill
Parameters
Hair: brown with light strands
Eyes: grey
Pigmentation on the body: freckles
Tattoo: on the left arm
Scars: scratches on the right and left arm, a bullet wound in the left shoulder, suture marks on the right side at the rib level, bullet wounds in the abdomen, cartilage injury of the right ear
Height: 170 cm
Weight: 60 kg
Body type: normal
Equipment
Armored vest: warrior "plates" assault systems
M4A1 assault rifle with a grenade launcher
M14 EBR sniper rifle with silencer for long-range elimination and, if necessary, to cover the group
Pistols: M9 and USP.45
Cold steel: Alpha S D2 knife Tactical Knife and Custom Steel Machete D2 Machete Etsy Knife
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Personality
Trudy is a young girl with sociability and good nature. Her attitude towards people depends on how they treat her: if they show a positive attitude towards her, she is a little stubborn. Even so, Trudy is not so trusting, so she does not immediately open up to the interlocutor. Trudy sometimes experiences moments that can cause irritation. And in such cases, she can flare up, allowing her emotions to come out. However, she tries to control her emotions so as not to show them to other people. But Trudy's weakest side is her worries. Everything that she experiences inside herself, she tries to hide from others.
Fears
🔥Pyrophobia🔥is a phobia consisting in a constant, irrational, obsessive, panic fear of fire, fires; an obsessive fear of burning alive, getting burned, or losing property as a result of a fire. (in one of the missions, she almost burned herself in the room in which she was locked, losing consciousness)
Biography
Trudy's parents live in the Czech Republic for most of their lives, they have successfully established their lives in another country, and we can say they have lived in it for most of their lives, and did not want to return to England. Adele Saidler (Hofmann) has opened her own atelier in Liberec, where they now live. The woman is engaged in custom tailoring, previously she was specialized in sewing military uniforms. Philip Saidler is a former infantryman, retired for health reasons, retired, but he helps his wife in the atelier, delivering sewing materials. He also earns a living on the outskirts of the city, but there is no information about his place of work. Before Trudy, they had a son, Evan Saidler [date of birth unknown, died as a teenager, cause of death unknown]. The couple suffered a hard loss, and were very worried about their daughter, who knows about her late brother.
Trudy's childhood, like that of ordinary children, was no different from them. She also had her own hobbies, which her parents reacted positively to, and supported their daughter in every possible way, most importantly. The girl was actively engaged in dancing from the age of 12, from which she developed flexibility, there were even performances on behalf of the school. She also loved to help her mother in the atelier, more often looked after the counter, and thus engaged in needlework, she could also sew some clothes with jewelry. In addition to dancing, Trudy also had hobbies, which she does not mention.
During her student years, Trudy met a girl who was 1 year younger than her, Linda Kovac (Czech). She was always an inconspicuous gray mouse, but Trudy became friends with her on the first day they met, and spent more and more time together. Thanks to her, Linda began to gain self-confidence and even changed her style in order not to fall into the gray mass and stand out somehow. Saidler never sought to attract attention, preferring to wear comfortable and not too bright clothes, and studied like all ordinary students. She needed Czech to learn, so even at preschool age she learned this language, English is considered the main one.
There have been mistakes in Trudy's life, one of them has undermined people's trust. As a student, a guy was in love with her, and he sought her attention in every possible way. The student's infatuation, yes, did not last long. This guy dated her for a joke, enjoyed her trust. After receiving her education, Trudy left Liberec and went to England. After living there for some time, she went to Credenhill, where the selection for group 141 was held. During the trip, Trudy heard other recruits talking about this group, and who is in it, quite big names sounded from the mouths of the guys, which made her interested. Arriving at their base, Trudy did not expect to see the members of the 141 group live. At the time, Captain McTavish was in charge of the selection, and he took up her training in order to make Saidler an experienced fighter. As a rookie, she was sent for additional training to improve her skills and adapt to work in group 141. During her stay at the base, Trudy met Roach, a young sergeant whom she saw on the day of her arrival. At first, things didn't go very well due to distrust, so we gradually communicated. Jay showed a special interest in Roach as a person and wanted to get to know him better, and thus she awakened trust in him. Roach also showed interest in the girl and communicated with her even from a distance. Trudy was very afraid of attachment to people, and hid her sympathy until the last moment, Roach had the same feelings for her. They gradually showed warm feelings for each other.
Participation
Jay began his service under the command of Captain McTavish, took his first part in the Hunting mission, where the goal was to catch Alejandro Rojas, worked in a group with Roach. In the future, she participated in assaults at certain points, provided cover, engaged in inconspicuous liquidation
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The history of the creation of the OC
In 2011, I played with COD Modern warfare 2 for the first time. This game has left vivid moments in my memory, from joyful to sad, my favorite mission is "Rock Climber". At that moment, the first character appeared in my head. Since I couldn't draw at the age of 9, I was building a plot in my head. There is an important point, this is the date when I started playing and when I came up with Trudy. This is June 1, 2011, and this date is also Trudy's date of birth.
In her first version, there was no first or last name, I just called her "Emersan", this call sign is taken from another game that I also actively played. As for her appearance, Trudy looked different, not like she does now. In 2018, I visually sketched her portrait, hoping for my memory. Based on this, I decided to change her appearance, and also attached my old works. As time went on, I always wanted to add something, it seemed to me that Trudy was too simple. Although yes, she really was like that. Then, during the redrawing, I already gave her a name. Her name was Trudy "Emersan" Sombra. She later became Jay, the new surname is Saidler. Trudy's redesigns didn't last long, so I changed it again by drawing new references. You can see that she has hardly changed since 2019, there are small changes on her face – freckles and hair color have become darker. Next comes the tattoo. It was a difficult choice, I came up with the first tattoo myself, then I made another, more complex one. The final version was drawn in 2023, and received a reference
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Trudy in 2011 to 2022
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kp777 · 3 months
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By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams
Jan. 6, 2024
"Billionaires attempting to influence politics from the shadows should not be rewarded with taxpayer subsidies," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
Legislation introduced Tuesday by a pair of Democratic lawmakers would close a loophole that lets billionaires donate assets to dark money organizations without paying any taxes.
The U.S. tax code allows write-offs when appreciated assets such as shares of stock are donated to a charity, but the tax break doesn't apply when the assets are given to political groups.
However, donations to 501(c)(4) organizations—which are allowed to engage in some political activity as long as it's not their primary purpose—are exempt from capital gains taxes, a loophole that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) are looking to shutter with their End Tax Breaks for Dark Money Act.
Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who has focused extensively on the corrupting effects of dark money, said the need for the bill was made clear by what ProPublica and The Lever described as "the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history."
The investigative outlets reported in 2022 that billionaire manufacturing magnate Barre Seid donated his 100% ownership stake in Tripp Lite, a maker of electrical equipment, to Marble Freedom Trust, a group controlled by Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo.
The donation, completed in 2021, was worth $1.6 billion. According to ProPublica and The Lever, the structure of the gift allowed Seid to avoid up to $400 million in taxes.
"It's a clear sign of a broken tax code when a single donor can transfer assets worth $1.6 billion to a dark money political group without paying a penny in taxes," Whitehouse said in a statement Tuesday. "Billionaires attempting to influence politics from the shadows should not be rewarded with taxpayer subsidies."
"We cannot allow millionaires and billionaires to run roughshod over our democracy and then reward them for it with a tax break."
If passed, the End Tax Breaks for Dark Money Act would ensure that donations of appreciated assets to 501(c)(4) organizations are subjected to the same rules as gifts to political action committees (PACs) and parties.
"Thanks to the far-right Supreme Court, billionaires already have outsized influence to decide our nation's politics; through a loophole in the tax code, they can even secure massive public subsidies for lobbying and campaigning when they secretly donate their wealth to certain nonprofits instead of traditional political organizations," said Chu. "We can decrease the impact the wealthy have on our politics by applying capital gains taxes to donations of appreciated property to nonprofits that engage in lobbying and political activity—the same way they are already treated when made to traditional political organizations like PACs."
The new bill comes amid an election season that is already flooded with outside spending.
The watchdog OpenSecrets reported last month that super PACs and other groups "have already poured nearly $318 million into spending on presidential and congressional races as of January 14—more than six times as much as had been spent at this point in 2020."
Thanks to the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, super PACs can raise and spend unlimited sums on federal elections—often without being fully transparent about their donors.
Morris Pearl, chairman of the Patriotic Millionaires, said Tuesday that "there is no justifiable reason why wealthy people like me should be allowed to dominate our political system by donating an entire $1.6 billion company to a dark money political group."
"But perhaps more egregious is the $400 million tax break that comes from doing so," said Pearl. "It's a perfect example of how this provision in the tax code is used by the ultrawealthy to manipulate the levers of government while simultaneously dodging their obligation to pay taxes. We cannot allow millionaires and billionaires to run roughshod over our democracy and then reward them for it with a tax break."
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femsolid · 9 months
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So the french police killed a teenage boy during a traffic stop. They asked for his identification papers and he refused to give it to them. They shot him in the head and he died on the spot. They later claimed that he was charging at them when they shot him, but someone recorded the scene on their phone and it showed no such thing.
This caused a lot of upset, especially in all the "sensitive" neighbourhoods where they pile the poorest people, typically people of colour, and where the police is known to be harassing and assaulting people a lot. Men and boys manifested their anger by rioting, burning cars and garbage bins or destroying and looting shops all around France. It isn't very smart as they are typically destroying their own neighbourhoods or their neighbours' property, who are just as poor as them. And who comes when that happens? The police.
The french police has built quite the reputation during the yellow vest protests, it's notorious for being the most violent, racist and sexist police in Europe. They typically use rubber bullets against protestors which are still dangerous weapons: they aren't supposed to be used at close range nor to be aimed at the head and obviously shouldn't be used on people who pose no threat. That's not what the police does with it of course, during the yellow vest protests we used to count how many people were loosing their eyes, some had their hands ripped off, and there were countless videos of policemen aiming at random protestors who weren't doing anything, and aiming at close range too. So what happened next should come as no surprise.
During the night of the riots a young man was shot in the thorax and died. Another lost an eye. More than 30 people have registered a complaint to the police of the police (not very efficient, as we've come to understand) for assault and injuries caused by the police during that night. But one specific case shocked the nation, that of a young man who was just passing by and was assaulted by the police, who didn't ask for any sort of identification and left him for dead. They took him to a back alley and beat him senseless, broke his jaw and shot him in the head. He lost a part of his head, literally, it had to be removed. He's now blind from one eye. They did this to a young woman during the yellow vest protests as well. She also was not a protester and was just passing by. In both cases the police is not looking to make an arrest, they are lashing out, like a rogue militia, and leaving the person for dead. It's up to us, the civilians, to help the dying person and call for an ambulance. The person is left with permanent disabilities and trauma. In fact, in recent years a lot of people have developped trauma reactions towards the police, some were first time protesters, peacefully marching on a sunday afternoon and did not expect to be charged by a mob of policemen, to be insulted, gased and shot at. The population's trust in the police has plumeted.
But in this case, one of the policemen involved in the assault was identified and is currently in jail pending investigation. As a result, the police, nationwide, is going on a strike. Yes, apparently when one of them is temporarily jailed for an obvious and extremely violent crime, they get outraged. Their unions called for a strike to show their support to their incarcerated colleague. Policemen support each others as they commit crimes, publicly, with the director of the police saying that a policeman's place is not in jail if he hasn't be trialed yet. Since policemen are not allowed to go on strikes, not legally, they went to the doctor and asked to be put on sick leave. It's not really a strike if you're still getting paid but they aren't used to protesting so we'll excuse them, maybe shoot them in the face to show them how it works? The police unions are asking the government to create a special status for police officers preventing them from being jailed while they are investigated for crimes committed while on duty. I guess they really think the law shouldn't apply to them. They also ask that policemen become anonymous, impossible to identify. Make it more obvious why don't you?
All the french racists are in full support of the police right now, saying that, yes, shooting "thugs" is totally acceptable (thug = arab = french guy with north african parents or grandparents). Someone on twitter counted how many men with arab names had been participating in the riots and thought he was making a point against immigration. But the fact that it's mostly black and brown people who are poor and live in ghettos says more about France than about "arabs".
Anyway that's the state of things in my country.
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