#and its for vandalization and destruction of a government owned building

[alkhale]

Hey there, I hope I dont annoyed you with this ask 😅 but in chapter 6 of MEMOS did Hoku saw luffy’s bounty on the newspaper or was it hers? Considering that right after that scene you showed the marine printing petty criminals bounty

If I'm remembering the scene right myself, both were present! It's when Luffy and Zoro see their bounties but Hoku finds out that the marines actually print out wanted posters of "petty criminals" which was the category she had fallen under at the time.

and the ask isn't an annoyance at all, if anything, i hope you're not annoyed it took me five million business years to answer 😭

thank you for reading!

#memos asks #memos #hokus first bounty #and its for vandalization and destruction of a government owned building #there was actually some arguing in some secret rooms about her poster #but a certain someone with some say managed to keep her in petty criminals for now

[criminal-lawyers-leadindia]

Is Destroying Historical Monuments A Criminal Offense?

A monument is a specific type of structure that was created with the intention of honoring someone or something; it may also have gained significance to a social group as a It has contributed to people's collective memory or cultural heritage due to its artistic, historical, political, technological, or architectural significance. Megalithic structures such as dolmens and menhirs, some of the first monuments, were erected for religious or burial purposes.

Among the numerous kinds of monuments are statues, memorials for past conflicts, old buildings, and cultural treasures. If the general public cares about the preservation of a monument, it might be added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Many pieces of legislation have been approved. Each State Party to this Convention acknowledges that it is their responsibility to attend to the identification, protection, conservation, presentation, and transmission of the cultural and natural assets, i.e., those places that may be taken into consideration for inclusion on the World Assets List. India has approved the World Heritage Convention of UNESCO.

India's length and breadth are covered in innumerable historical and cultural landmarks. These are of utmost significance to the wealth and power of our country. The tourism industry is flourishing as a result of these sites. Their preservation and protection from harm and devastation of any kind are the main objectives. An "ancient monument" is described by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as "any construction, erection, monument, tumulus, or place of interment, as well as any cave, rock-sculpture, inscription, or a monolith that has been in place for at least a century and is significant from a historical, archaeological, or artistic standpoint.

Law:             

In accordance with Article 49 of the Indian Constitution, "protection of monuments, sites, and objects of national importance Every monument, location, or item of artistic or historic interest that If something has been determined to be of national importance by or in accordance with a law passed by Parliament, it is protected by the State from spoliation, disfigurement, destruction, removal, disposal, or export as necessary.

The Indian Constitution's Article 51A (g) calls for the preservation and enhancement of the natural environment, including forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife, as well as compassion for all living things.

The Prevention of Damage of Public Property Act of 1984 also protects these monuments. India is well known around the world for the extensive legacy of its forebears. Every legacy conveys a unique, lovely story from the past, giving the nation its own personality. Industries, terrorism, vandalism, pollution, land acquisition, agricultural activities, a lack of civic virtue, and building or sewages in the region are some of the threats to the legacy.

The Indian Parliament passed the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (AMASR Act) in 1958, which establishes rules for safeguarding priceless sculptures, carvings, and other similar artifacts as well as significant historical and archaeological sites and remains. For these offenses, the previous three-month term and fine of Rs 5,000 have been doubled to two years in prison and a maximum fine of Rs one lakh. Those who intentionally damage or deface the monuments will likely be discouraged by this.

The Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, passed in 1972, regulates the export of antiquities and art treasures and outlaws fraud and antiquities smuggling. Values found in India are governed by the 1878 Indian Treasure Trove Act.

India has 40 World Heritage Sites in total, including 32 cultural, 7 natural, and 1 combined site. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is also in charge of 3,691 other monuments that have been classified as monuments of national significance. By fostering local economies, creating jobs and new businesses, and raising tax revenue for the government, India can protect its cultural and historic resources while also preserving them. The heritage resource needs to be made known to the community and to visitors, and they should be urged to support its preservation.

If the case has been filed in Kolkata, a Criminal Lawyer In Kolkata may be appointed. Likewise, if the case has been filed in Delhi then a Criminal Lawyers In Delhi can be appointed.

Lead India offers a range of information, legal services, and free legal advice to solve the issue. ask a legal question for free online and talk to a lawyer  to receive the best advice in this situation.

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#Criminal Lawyers In Delhi #Criminal Lawyer In Kolkata #Criminal Lawyer In Delhi.

[lawrenceop]

HOMILY for Our Lady of Walsingham

Eccl 1:2-11; Ps 89; Luke 9:7-9

In the past few months there has been a worrying upsurge in enthusiasm for the destruction of statues and churches – not merely those statues that offend our current sensibilities about racial justice and equality, but, more upsettingly, there has been an upsurge of Christian iconoclasm and religious vandalism directed at the Church and her properties, her sacred images and objects. Two days ago, for example, the shrine of St Agatha in Sicily was desecrated, an image of Our Lady was destroyed, and the Blessed Sacrament was profaned. And every month, new stories emerge of churches destroyed by arson or by the Communist State in China.

But “what was will be again; what has been done will be done again; and there is nothing new under the sun”, says Qoheleth, the Preacher in today’s first reading. And so, every night, I pray to Our Lady, asking her to protect our church here in London from such terrors. For until 1538, a great Augustinian priory had stood in the centre of the village of Walsingham, a great focus of pilgrimage and Marian devotion, and then, all came to an end. The statue of Our Lady, it is thought, was consigned to the flames. Also destroyed was the replica of the Holy House wherein Our Lady had received the angelic Annunciation of Christ’s incarnation, which Richeldis had built around 1061 following a vision of Mary’s home in Nazareth. Hence, “England’s Nazareth”, as Walsingham was called, became desolate.

“No memory remains of earlier times”, says Qoheleth, but in 1896, Miss Charlotte Person Boyd, a convert from Anglicanism, remembered. And so, the medieval Slipper Chapel, a mile from the ruins of Walsingham Priory, which had fallen into disuse and had in turn become a poor house, a forge, a cowshed, and a barn, was once again return to sacred use as a place of divine worship, and a focus of prayer. At its heart was a little statue, a recreation of the medieval statue of Our Lady enthroned, holding the baby Jesus, and with her foot on a toad, an East Anglian symbol of evil, and they called her ‘Our Lady of Walsingham’. And so, “what was will be again.” Thus, Walsingham was again a centre for Marian devotion, a place sacred to Our Lady.

Indeed, part of the Walsingham story is the endowment of the whole of England by King Richard II to Our Lady as her Dowry. Hence, England belongs to Mary; the whole of England is a place sacred to Our Lady. But all that made England sacred because England was Christian has also been subjected to vandalism and destruction – not merely our buildings and sacred art and relics and shrines, but more importantly, the very notion of what it is to be human, and our relationship to God and the world, and how our society is to be structured and governed and patterned. Much of this has also been torn down, and it continues apace.

England was once transformed for the true good by what had happened at Nazareth. There, in the Holy House, in Mary’s Home, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. And so, by his Incarnation, Christ had transformed the universe, and opened our eyes to the closeness of God to his people. Mary was truly our Mother, and we her Dowry, her treasure, her children. Human beings and life itself was acknowledged to be sacred and inviolable, endowed with a sacred dignity. But we live now among the ruins of this Christian worldview, as a society that rightly stands for black lives and against slavery and against unjust discrimination also incoherently defends the right to kill the unborn child; enslaves and sexualises the young through the acceptance of pornography and the hook-up culture, and we have become addicted to cheaply-produced goods, often produced through modern-day slavery. Without a coherent vision of the human person and his dignity; without the light of the Gospel and the liberating Word of Christ, then, as Qoheleth says: “All is vanity”! Herod the tetrach, mentioned in today’s Gospel, was himself prey to such vanities and practical godlessness. And yet, even he was attracted or at least intrigued by the marvels that Christ did, and the joy that he engendered.

Therefore, as Walsingham is restored as a sacred place of pilgrimage, so now is also the time to restore the sanctuary of human hearts and the sanctity of human persons. Now is the time to renew the joy of the Gospel in our lives.

For this reason, earlier this year, albeit during the lockdown, the Bishops invited us to rededicate ourselves to Our Lady. By divine Providence, the acts of rededication took place not in churches, but in our homes as we livestreamed the ceremonies taking place in Walsingham on the 29th of March. So, in giving our hearts and our lives to Christ through Mary, we were being called to make our hearts and our own homes into England’s Nazareth, into places that resonate with the joy of Christ’s Incarnation. For charity begins at home, and the task of sanctifying our culture and our country begins with the family, with those whom we live with. So, in our actions, in our speech, in our relating with others, our families, our communities, our homes, our priories, our workplaces at home, are all called to witness to this awesome transformative truth: God is with us!

The joy of the Annunciation, the joy of Our Lady at Nazareth and again at Walsingham stems from this truth. And this is a joy that England needs to experience once more. As Pope Francis said, he hoped that England’s rededication as Mary’s Dowry would inspire “all to persevere in the urgent task of sharing the joy of the Gospel to the men and women of our time”, as we strive to “bear witness to the beauty of our Catholic faith.”

So, on this feast day, let us ask Our Lady to share her joy with us. May we know this joy deep in our hearts and in our homes, so that we can share Mary’s joy with others. For the wicked might destroy our statues and burn our churches. But we stand steadfast in faith, with Christ in us; God with us! Thus, over the centuries, as things rise and fall around us, as viruses and economic crises come and go, we Christians can nevertheless say with the psalmist: “O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.”

#walsingham #providence #rededication #Dowry of Mary #joy #Incarnation #salvation #civilisation

[nugicus]

Top 5 Archaeological Sites and Relics that were Irreplaceably Damaged on Account of Human Stupidity

As a major in the humanities, nothing makes me more livid than learning about the loss or irreversible damage of an immensely important example of cultural heritage due to mankind’s massive propensity to royally screw something up. Reasons for such poorly thought-out actions that lead to the impairment of historical artifacts can be the result of either amateur archaeologists who foolishly believed they knew what they were doing to outright malicious acts of vandalism. Whatever the reason the outcome is still painfully the same: the erasure of a cultural site that is incrementally tied to the fabric of ones cultural identity, preventing those who share that same identity from engaging in their own heritage. Here are some examples I found the most serious.

5. A Bunch of Brits Damaged an Important Irish Archaeological Site Because they Believed they were the Descendants of Biblical Hebrews

Ah, the late 1800s. A time when the European industrial powers had begun to implement foreign policies with an overwhelming focus on dominating other countries, especially those in Africa and Asia, as a means of obtaining inexpensive raw materials to feed their growing economies. In terms of amount of land annexed and political dominance, there was no imperialist power more successful in this complex process than Great Britain. In order to justify such vastly one-sided geopolitical influence, social Darwinian theories were frequently espoused by British statesmen which had the habit of arguing that the supposedly “superior” white race had the right and the duty to civilize nonwhite races that were deemed inferior. However, some Englishmen wanted to take it a step further by advocating an even more ridiculous belief, known as British Israelism.

Influenced by writings, such as John Wilson’s 1840 Our Israelitish Origin, adherents of this theory suggest that the modern day inhabitants of the British Isles are, both genetically and linguistically, the direct descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel. Apparently, according to the pseudo-etymology used by British Israelists, the Saxons are the descendants of the ancient Scythians, a nomadic people who resided on the Pontic Steppe. The Scythians are, in turn, the descendants of the biblical “Isaac,” due to the phonetic similarity between what the Persians called the Scythians, the Sacae, and Israel’s patriarch. The name, Saxons, is also further interpreted to mean “Sac’s sons” or “son of Isaac.”

If all this sounds preposterous to you, that’s because it pretty much is. The languages of the British Isles, such as English, Welsh, and Gaelic, and Hebrew belong to two completely separate language families. The former is Indo-European, while the later is Afro-Asiatic. However, these hints that their theory was nothing more that pseudo-linguistic drivel didn’t stop British Israelists from damaging one of Ireland’s most important archaeological sites, the Hill of Tara.

Considered one of the most sacred locales in Ireland and an important symbol of Irish nationhood, the Hill of Tara had been used for three thousand and a half years as a pagan burial site and, during the early Middle Ages, it served as the seat of the High Kings of Ireland. Between 1899 and 1902, British Israelists led by judge Edward Wheeler Bird began to frantically dig up the site, mutilating much of it, in hopes of, get this, discovering the legendary Ark of the Covenant. Because if the Ark of the Covenant would be anywhere it would be in a place ancient Hebrews had no idea even existed. As one could imagine, Irish cultural nationalists, including professional archaeologists and journalists, were furious but ultimately couldn’t do a thing to stop them since the excavators paid off the local landlord and guarded the site with firearms as a means of keeping a group of protesters away from the dig site.

4. A German Amateur Archaeologist uses a very “Unconventional” Method to Excavate Troy

Archaeological fieldwork, especially excavations, are an incredibly meticulous process. The long, painstaking procedure of acquiring grant funds, organizing staff and equipment, mapping out the appropriate dig site, removing earth one layer at a time, and sifting through buckets of dirt looking for artifacts may take months if not years to fully accomplish. There’s a perfectly good reason for such scrupulousness since attempting to excavating a site without the proper know-how is extremely haphazard and can potentially damage the very thing you’re trying to uncover. A perfect case of this are the actions of one Heinrich Schliemann.

Born in 1822 to a relatively poor family in northern Germany, Schliemann had been obsessed ever since he was seven years of age with discovering and excavating the legendary city of Troy. After acquiring a sizeable fortune working as a businessman, Schliemann traveled to western Anatolia where Troy was vaguely believed to have existed. He was then pointed to a to nearby tell (an artificial mound formed by the accumulated debris of generations of people who once resided in a settlement), called Hisarlik, which, according to an Englishman named Frank Calvert who owned the land the mound was located on, as a possible location of Troy. In 1870, Schliemann then gathered a team of about one hundred local laborers and began digging at the site for about three years until he made an astounding discovery: Hisarlik wasn’t just the site of a single, important city, but multiple ones layered on top of one another formed after millennia as the settlement had been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt by inhabitants.

In order to reach the lowest layer, which he believed was Troy from the Iliad, Schliemann relied on a very unorthodox method that other archaeologists wouldn’t even consider using and for good reason: dynamite. Ancient cities and priceless artifacts were literally obliterated into dust due to his recklessness and poor record keeping until eventually Schliemann thought he found what he was looking for. When he finally reach one of the lowest layers, he discovered a cache of golden objects and jewels, which he proclaimed to be the treasure of Priam, the king of Troy in Homer’s poem. However, there was a serious problem. Not only did Schliemann destroy countless finds on his destructive mission to reach what he believed to be Troy, but the treasures he recovered were actually from a city that existed centuries prior. According to dating methods, the Troy from the Illiad was actually located in the strata Schliemann annihilated with dynamite.

3. The Great Pyramid of Giza is Vandalized by Two German Amateur Archaeologists because they Believed they were Built by Aliens

Currently, one of the primary disseminators of pseudoarchaeological and pseudohistorical theories is undoubtedly the New Age movement. Beginning in the 1960s, this philosophy, which suggests that the world has become too materialistic and has turned away from the spiritualism that is the heart of creation and that there is a non-physical reality than underlies our physical world, is largely responsible for much of the spread of evidence-less beliefs that are related to history and archaeology. These assertions include claims regarding lost, technologically advanced civilizations, such as Atlantis, Lemuria, or Mu, or the theory that aliens have visited us in the Earth’s past and influenced our culture. Such fantastical notions have largely exited the fringe and have become more accepted since the late 20th century thanks in part to being picked up and discussed the History Channel.

Generally speaking, these theorists are typically harmless when it comes to their presence at archaeological sites, that changed in 2013 when a couple of German amateur archaeologists decided to vandalized Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza in order to prove that the monuments weren’t built by ancient Egyptians. In April of that year, Dominique Goerlitz and Stefan Erdmann, as well as a filmmaker, were, for some reason, given permission to enter the inner chambers of the pyramid that’s normally closed off to the public and proceeded to take a number of samples from a cartouche, which is a hieroglyphic inscription that normally represents the name and title of an Egyptian monarch, and smuggle them out of the country to Dresden University for further study. Neither men were professional archaeologists, nor were the associated with any institute involved in the field.

Apparently, the purpose of their defacement was to prove their “alternate theory” that the pyramids weren’t built by ancient Egyptians. Rather, they proposed that the Egyptian pyramids were build by a technologically advanced civilization that had existed much earlier than around 2500 BCE, which is when the Great Pyramid of Giza is believed to have been built.

As you can imagine, both German and Egyptian government authorities were absolutely furious over their actions. The three German hobbyists, as well six Egyptian guards and inspectors who let them into pyramid in the first place, are now facing serious charges. Lastly both Goerlitz and Erdmann tried to apologize for their vandalism in a letter directed to Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities but it has been rightfully rejected.

2. Museum Workers use Epoxy Glue to Repair Tutankhamun’s Mask

Without a doubt, archaeological restoration and conservation is a delicate and arduous task that demands a considerable amount of research. Besides it requiring a professionally trained team of conservators and restorers who’re capable of making sure the object matches its original condition as close as possible while using a variety of methods, it is also highly dependent on that team to be aware of the materials used when the object was constructed. Completing such work can take what seems like ages as the restorers meticulously reverse or preserve the appearance of famous works of art, while following a strict code of ethics and scientific guidelines. Interestingly, employees at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo decided to ignore all that nettlesome repair work when they accidently damaged one of Egypt’s most important works of art.

Back in 2014, the famous Mask of Tutankhamen was clumsily damaged when it had it’s beard broken off while employees were busy fixing a light in it’s display case. Instead of following protocol by relying professional restoration methods and acquiring an expert in art restoration, they made the astonishingly poor decision of hastily gluing the beard back on with a quick-dry epoxy, that is normally used for wood or metal, in order to conceal their crime. This was followed a reckless scrapping by using a spatula in order to get some of the excess glue off, which ended up causing a scratch. They then placed the mask back into the display case with the hopes that no one will noticed. Unsurprisingly, however, guests did notice in 2015 when, on closer inspection, the beard appeared off center and that there was clearly a visible layer of glue between the face and the beard.

Despite fears that the damage was completely irreversible, German restoration specialist, Christian Eckmann, along with a team of conservators, archaeologists, and natural scientists successfully removed the glue and reattached the beard in a delicate operation that took nine weeks. First, they took a 3d scan of the mask to document it and then they raised it’s temperature in order to safely remove the epoxy glue with wooden tools. They then proceeded to fasten the beard by recreating the same technique the ancients would have relied on using beeswax. Now, the mask has been put back on display since late 2015 after a lengthy procedure. Meanwhile, eight of the employees who botched the repair job have been referred to trial by the Administrative Prosecution and are accused of negligence and unrefined restoration of the mask.

1. Greenpeace Damages the Nazca Lines due to a Publicity Stunt

Located in the arid Nazca Desert of Southern Peru, the Nazca Lines are an impressive series of large geoglyphs that span an area of about 19 sq mi. Created sometime between 500 BCE and 500 CE, these expansive markings that were etched in a pebble-covered, windless landscape, vary in design, but they the majority normally come in the form of straight lines that, when combined, are eight hundred miles long. They also appear to depict a myriad of plants, animals, and humanoid figures, such as a hummingbird, monkey, and a whale, that are usually composed of a single continuous line. Since they were first intensively studied in the 1940s, the reason for their existence has largely escaped modern scholars, though there have been numerous theories as to their purpose.

In the past few decades, the extremely fragile geoglyphs have come under threat due to changes in global weather patterns brought on by climate change. Disturbances caused by human actions is also a risk, since the ground is notoriously sensitive due to the fact that the ground is made up of nothing more than black rocks atop white sand. So far any damage the Nazca Lines have attained due to either environmental factors and human impact have been regarded as minimal. However, in December 2014, they sustained damage from an unlikely source which managed to infuriate the Peruvian government. As part of a publicity stunt, individuals affiliated with the environmental organization Greenpeace, of all people, entered an area near the geoglyphs that is strictly prohibited due to the fact that a single step can cause permanent damage. Then, as part of a message meant for a highly important, UN-sponsored meeting regarding global warming that was occurring in Lima at the time, they proceeded to lay down big yellow cloth letters near the hummingbird geoglyph that read: “Time for Change, The Future is Renewable.” After observing drone footage taken in the aftermath of the stunt, it was revealed through visual evidence that new lines were formed after the activists hiked to the site and what appears to be an outline of the letter “C.”

In response to such recklessness, Deputy Cultural Minister Luis Jaime Castillo has threatened legal action against the activists for what he rightly referred to as a “slap in the face at everything Peruvians consider sacred.” The Peruvian government was also seeking to prevent the participants from leaving the country and sought to identify the careless activists. Meanwhile, Greenpeace did its best to apologize for their actions in a statement they issued which states they plan to entirely co-operate with any investigation Peru has planned out. Unfortunately for Greenpeace, the apology did go over well with the people of Peru, which prompted Castillo to refer to it as a “joke,” since Greenpeace had initially refuse to identify the vandals or accept responsibility. After mounting pressure, however, Greenpeace decided to release the names of four of the activists involved by giving their names to prosecutors in the hopes that they will drop the charges against two journalists who were also at the event.

#archaeology #vandalism #culture #hill of tara #saxons #troy #Heinrich Schliemann #dynamite #hisarlik #pyramid #giza #ancient aliens #mask #tutankhamun #epoxy #egypt #nazca lines #peru #greenpeace #ireland #turkey

[lemodo]

Trump Responds to Twitter’s Permanent Account Suspension

President Donald Trump walks to board Air Force One prior to departure from Joint Base Andrews in Md., on Dec. 23, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump responded to Twitter’s move to permanently suspend his account from its platform late Friday, condemning the big tech giant and saying that it does not stand for free speech.

The president also said he anticipates a “big announcement” soon and that his team is negotiating with other sites and is also looking at building a separate platform.

“As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me—and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me,” Trump said in a statement.

“Twitter may be a private company, but without the government’s gift of Section 230 they would not exist for long,” he added.

“I predicted this would happen. We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future. We will not be SILENCED!” he said.

“Twitter is not about FREE SPEECH. They are all about promoting a Radical Left platform where some of the most vicious people in the world are allowed to speak freely,” Trump continued. “STAY TUNED!”

The statement came from the account @POTUS but the Twitter posts were gone within a few minutes.

MOST READ

“Using another account to try to evade a suspension is against our rules,” Twitter said in a statement to news outlets. “We have taken steps to enforce this with regard to recent Tweets from the @POTUS account.”

“For government accounts, such as @POTUS and @WhiteHouse, we will not suspend those accounts permanently but will take action to limit their use.”

Epoch Times Photo

President Donald Trump greets the crowd at the “Stop The Steal” Rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Publishers can be held liable for any content they post, but social media platforms and tech companies are protected by the Communications Decency Act‘s Section 230, which provides blanket liability protections from content generated by third-party users.

Twitter late on Friday permanently suspended Trump’s Twitter account @realDonaldTrump, citing violation of its “Glorification of Violence” policy. It cited two of the president’s most recent posts as justification for its action.

The first post read, “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

Subsequently, the president posted, “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.” This was the last Twitter post before Trump’s account was removed from the platform.

Twitter said that the two posts had violated its “Glorification of Violence policy,” which aims to “prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts.”

Its assessment determined that Trump’s last two Twitter posts are “highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.” Twitter said its determination is “based on a number of factors,” including five points it listed in its statement.

The Epoch Times cannot independently verify the claims made by Twitter in its determination. The Epoch Times has reached out to Twitter asking whether it had any evidence that Trump’s statements were directly linked to any violence. Twitter did not immediately respond.

congress capitol

Law enforcement officers point their guns at a door that was vandalized in the House Chamber during a joint session of Congress in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The White House and the president have on Jan. 7 both separately condemned the violence that broke out on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, when lawmakers gathered for a joint session of Congress to count and certify electoral votes from the Nov. 3, 2020, election. The events of the day left at least five dead, three of whom died due to medical reasons, according to DC police.

“America is and must always be a nation of law and order. The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy,” Trump said. “To those who engaged in acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay.”

Earlier in the day, Twitter suspended the accounts of former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and lawyer Sidney Powell, citing “Coordinated Harmful Activity.” Powell told The Epoch Times that there “was no warning at all” about her account being deleted.

The account deletions suggest that Big Tech firms, including Twitter, are moving to suspend or penalize the accounts of people on their platforms who post claims of voter fraud and irregularities about the Nov. 3, 2020, election.

There have also been multiple claims by various Twitter accounts of having lost followers, sometimes in the thousands, within the past 24 hours.

Brandon Straka, the head of the conservative WalkAway movement, told The Epoch Times Friday that Facebook removed the group’s page and banned individual accounts belonging to the team.

Follow Mimi on Twitter: @MimiNguyenLy

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-responds-to-twitter-account-suspension_3649738.html

#lemodo #trump #epoch times #twitterisGod

[creepingsharia]

New York: Lawyers caught fire-bombing NYPD were passing out incendiary devices to rioters

The two attorneys busted for throwing a Molotov cocktail through a police car window during protests in Brooklyn early Saturday were trying to pass out the incendiary devices to demonstrators in the crowd, federal authorities said Monday.

Brooklyn community board member Colinford Mattis, 32, and his alleged accomplice, 31-year-old Urooj Rahman, were driving around in a tan minivan near a clash between police and demonstrators at the 88th Precinct stationhouse in Fort Greene, federal prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York said in a detention memo Monday.

A bystander snapped a photo of the pair in the car while they were allegedly trying to pass out the homemade explosive devices, according to the memo.

“Rahman attempted to distribute Molotov cocktails to the witness and others so that those individuals could likewise use the incendiary devices in furtherance of more destruction and violence,” the witness later told authorities.

The two were busted by cops after Mattis, who was in the driver’s seat, pulled the van over near the precinct, and Rahman allegedly got out and tossed a lit Molotov cocktail into a cop car.

Images from the detention memo purport to show a masked Rahman clutching a Molotov cocktail made from a Bud Light bottle.

Several cops saw the caper and cornered the pair nearby, according to the memo.

“During the arrest, officers observed in plain view several precursor items used to build a Molotov cocktail, including a lighter, a Bud Light beer bottle filled with toilet paper and a liquid suspected to be gasoline in the vicinity of the passenger seat and a gasoline tank in the rear of the vehicle,” prosecutors said.

They each face charges of causing damage by fire and explosives to a police vehicle.

Mattis, a graduate of Princeton University and the New York University School of Law, is an associate at corporate Manhattan firm Pryor Cashman. Brooklyn Community Board 5 in East New York lists Mattis as one of its members.

Rahman is also registered as an attorney in New York state, who was admitted to the bar in June 2019 after graduating from Fordham University School of Law.

Their prestigious backgrounds were mentioned by prosecutors in the detention memo as evidence they knew exactly what they were doing when allegedly carrying out the vandalism.

“They knew their acts endangered the NYPD officers and protesters on the street, as well as their own futures, and the defendants were undeterred,” they wrote.

-------------------------------

More via noted attorney Jonathan Turley:

They are now charged with causing damage by fire and explosives to a police vehicle. If convicted, each of them faces up to 20 years behind bars. There is a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years.

The specific provision charged appears to be 18 U.S.C. 844 (i):

“Whoever maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy, by means of fire or an explosive, any building, vehicle, or other real or personal property used in interstate or foreign commerce or in any activity affecting interstate or foreign commerce shall be imprisoned for not less than 5 years and not more than 20 years, fined under this title, or both;  and if personal injury results to any person, including any public safety officer performing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be imprisoned for not less than 7 years and not more than 40 years, fined under this title, or both;  and if death results to any person, including any public safety officer performing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall also be subject to imprisonment for any term of years, or to the death penalty or to life imprisonment.”

Unlike Samantha Shader’s case discussed yesterday, the vehicle was unoccupied.  However, the device did explode (unlike Shader’s Molotov cocktail). Still, Shader is looking at more serious charges of attempted murder. I would expect that additional charges might be sought now that authorities are saying that they were trying to distribute the Molotov cocktails.   The criminal complaint now includes the allegations that “Rahman attempted to distribute Molotov cocktails to the witness and others so that those individuals could likewise use the incendiary devices in furtherance of more destruction and violence.”  The use of the federal system is also likely to produce a longer sentence in a case of this kind, particularly if they can show a broader conspiracy or interstate movements or communications.

The new allegation reflects premeditation and planning to unleash multiple fire bombings. The FBI is likely looking at the ownership of the van and anyone who may have rendered material support.  The case is framed perfectly as a test case of the Administration treating defendants as domestic terrorists under the definition in subsection 5 of 18 U.S.C. 2331:

The term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

If the Justice Department is looking for a way to reframe cases as domestic terrorism without dealing with the dubious effort to define Antifa as a “foreign terrorist organization” under the State Department regulations, this may be the right case at the right time from their perspective.  For Mattis and Rahman, the consequences of such a reframing would obviously magnify the already serious allegations that they are facing.

Here is the DOJ filing: Criminal Complaint

#Islam #Jihad #Muslim #Sharia #NYPD #Legal #Media #News #Politics #Immigration

[fromgreecetoanarchy]

[Video] Chile: Protester evades 5 riot police bikers chasing him down (Never give up!) [Video recorded in Temuco, Chile, 7 November 2019] Not Falling for It: How the Uprising in #Chile Has Outlasted State Repression And the Questions for Movements to Come  As of today—Friday, November 8, 2019—the government of Chile has spent three full weeks switching back and forth between strategies of brutality, division, and deceit without yet succeeding in stemming the tide of resistance. The events of these weeks offer a useful primer in strategies of state repression and how to outmaneuver, outsmart, and outlast them. On October 6, the Chilean government headed by rapacious billionaire Sebastián Piñera announced a new austerity package that would further impoverish struggling Chileans. Unfortunately for the authorities, it was an inopportune moment to squeeze an already restless population. The next day, in Ecuador, thousands of indigenous people arrived in the capital city to protest an austerity package, occupying the Parliament building and clashing with police forces. On October 14, the Ecuadorian government backed down, repealing the austerity bill.That same day, students swung into action in Chile, organizing a series of mass fare-dodging protests against the hike in public transit costs. These culminated on October 18 in clashes, vandalism, and arsons that damaged 16 buses and 78 metro stations, as well as various banks and several other major buildings, including the headquarters of the Italian energy company Enel. In retaliation, Piñera announced a state of emergency and curfew, hoping to bludgeon the population back into submission. Conspiracy theories have circulated about the arsons. This always happens when ordinary people manage to get the better of the authorities, shocking those who take it for granted that the state is the only protagonist of history. Conspiracy theories about how the government arranged for the destruction of its own public transit infrastructure are disempowering and irrational; they also obscure what was strategic about the arsons. Whether by smashing the turnstiles or burning entire stations, it was precisely by making business as usual impossible that demonstrators made the desperate circumstances of their daily lives a problem for their rulers. Without the vandalism and looting, the movement would never have become the force that it is. The next day, October 19, Piñera suspended the metro price increase. The speed with which he did this shows that he knew he had pushed people too far. If he could have waited to suspend the fare increase, he might have been able to announce it later, in order to give demonstrators a feeling of accomplishment and get them out of the streets; instead, having already pushed his luck, he had to suspend it immediately in hopes of discharging popular resentment before the crisis deepened. It didn’t work. For a government, the goal of making concessions is only to trick enough people into leaving the streets that it will be possible to isolate and defeat those who remain. On October 20, Piñera expanded the state of emergency to most of the country, announcing from the headquarters of the army that his government was “at war against a powerful and implacable enemy.” This gesture, and above all the place from which he spoke, was a not-so-coded declaration that he intended to return Chile to the murderous state violence of the Pinochet dictatorship. Yet once again, the people in the streets did not back down. They continued to demonstrate, even as the military injured and killed people, and they refused to permit the authorities to sow divisions, sticking together with the same cohesion that has given the movement in Hong Kong its long life. This is why, on October 23, Piñera was forced to announce the suspension of the whole austerity package and the introduction of some minor reforms—what Chileans have been calling “table scraps.” Again, Chileans knew better than to settle for this. That same day, Chile’s trade unions declared a general strike. On October 25, the largest demonstration in Chilean history took place, bringing 1.2 million people into the streets of Santiago to show that they supported this movement that had originated in massive public criminal activity and continued in defiance of the express orders of the government. This was a massive defeat for Piñera—it showed that he could neither resolve the situation by brute force nor by petty bribery. This is why, on October 26, he promised to lift the State of Emergency and to swap out some of the ministers in his government—though not to relinquish power himself. He also changed his rhetoric, congratulating Chileans on a “peaceful” demonstration and suggesting a distinction between law-abiding families and criminal hooligans. Let’s review: when Piñera couldn’t suppress the movement by police violence, he played for time by suspending the fare increase—while declaring martial law and mobilizing the army. When didn’t work, he shifted to a new strategy of divide and conquer, flattering the majority of Chileans by suggesting that their concerns were legitimate while demonizing the brave demonstrators who launched the movement. Now that things seem to have plateaued—not to say calmed down—Piñera is trying, yet again, to return to his original strategy of brute force. On November 7, he introduced an array of bills to increase the penalties for militant protest tactics including self-defense against police and concealing one’s identity against state surveillance. Congratulate the movement on its victories, but crack down on the means by which it won them. Over 7000 people have been arrested and many thousands injured; despite their obvious loyalty to the uniformed mercenaries of the state, prosecutors admit to over 800 allegations of police abuse, torture, rape, and battery. Piñera has expressed his “total support” for the conduct of the police and military throughout this sequence of events, but he is saying that all this brutality is not enough—in addition to arresting, beating, shooting, and killing people, he wants the police and military to be able to imprison additional massive numbers of people for long periods of time. Make no mistake, the movement in Chile would not have gotten off the ground if not for the students organizing mass illegal activity. It would not have spread countrywide if not for the vandalism, arson, and acts of self-defense against police attacks. It would not have created a crisis that demanded a response if not for looting and disruption. To make a distinction between the “law-abiding” participants and the “criminals” in the movement is to say that it would be better if the movement had never taken place—it is an attempt to ensure that no such movement will ever take place again.We have seen this many times before. The movement against police and white supremacy that burst into the public consciousness with the riots in Ferguson only got off the ground because the original participants openly attacked police officers, burned down buildings, and refused to divide into “violent” and “nonviolent” factions. Democracy itself, the system via which Chile, the United States, and so many other nations are governed, began in blazing crime; if not for criminal revolutionaries, we would still be living under the heel of hereditary monarchs. Once again, the movement in Chile faces a crucial juncture. If the majority of the participants accept Piñera’s flattery and congratulate themselves on being “peaceful” and “honest” in contrast to those who are “criminals,” this will enable him to push through draconian measures to ensure that it will never be possible for Chileans to defend themselves against austerity measures again. On the contrary, what is needed is for the tactics of the “criminals” to spread to every honest citizen, to every person who sincerely wants peace. Neither Piñera nor anyone else who aims to rule by force will ever create peace; it can only arise when their totalitarian aspirations are thwarted. To understand what Piñera wants, we need only look at what has happened in Egypt. Since regaining control of the country with the military coup in 2013 and introducing new measures like the ones Piñera is proposing, military strongman al-Sisi has [crushed protests] of all kinds. He now aspires to rule until at least the year 2034. Those who make only half a revolution dig their own graves, as the saying goes. So the stakes are high. Demonstrators in Chile must permanently delegitimize the instruments of state power such as the police, the courts, and the army, making it impossible for them to maintain order by any combination of brutality, concessions, and prosecution. This is the only way out of the nightmare of neoliberal austerity. This is how movements win against oppressive governments: by a winning combination of confrontational direction action, solidarity across different demographics and tactics, persistence, and strategic innovation. The movement in Chile has demonstrated this already. (Text published by CrimethInc) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VRQ2A_vCag

#chile #riot #riots #protest #protests #cops #bikes #bikers #chase #escape #like a pro #can't touch this #anarchist

[uk-news-talking-politics]

Colston row: It's about discussing history, not rewriting it

By Jonathan Lis

The most curious aspect of the removal of Edward Colston's statue on Sunday is that it didn't erase history. The figure of the notorious slaver remains buried at the bottom of the Avon and yet here we are, talking about slavery, learning more about it, and in fact having a broader and more productive conversation than we did even during the 200th anniversary of slavery's abolition.

There's a lot to learn from what happened at the weekend. Much of that is what it wasn't about.

It wasn't about rewriting history. Some fear that removing monuments and renaming buildings is a form of hiding, or worse, cleansing the past – that we can somehow fabricate the notion we have always been progressive. In fact the opposite is true: we do not tackle the past with silence.

But there is an even broader point. History, in all its glory and poison, is going nowhere. It exists and carries on into the future. Our cities, buildings, language and socio-economic hierarchies remain, all of them products of our history. It will take more than changing statues or street signs to alter that, and nobody is attempting to. You can no more erase history than undo slavery.

It wasn't about 'cancel culture' either. Nobody demands total moral purity from historic figures and few of them are unproblematic. All societies are palimpsests. This is not about razing everything to the ground and starting from scratch. Somewhere we draw a line. So when do we repair things and when do we remove them? The point is not to give definitive answers but to discuss them – and that requires a national conversation we have so far refused even to begin.

Really, then, this is about understanding who we were and are.

Much of this is about teaching and understanding history. School syllabuses too often decontextualise Britain's past or omit crucial elements altogether. In some ways misremembering is worse than not learning. Slavery, in particular, is often cast not as atrocity but celebration, a story focused on its triumphant - and, for Britain, supposedly trailblazing - abolition.

Indeed, the response is frequently defensive, as though we have nothing to be ashamed of at all. That is dangerous. A statue in a town square is just a symbol, and symbols can be misinterpreted or misappropriated. Something on a pedestal connotes honour, and if we want it to be a badge of shame we must make that explicit. Many things in life demand nuance. Slavery should not.

In schools and museums we encounter history as a neat, if subjective, curation of the past. But it is in fact everything that has ever happened, and it doesn't stop. Although we cannot change the past, we can confront it in new ways – and part of that confrontation is the process of rejecting, challenging and rebuilding. What happened on Sunday, too, is now part of history.

This is also about the teaching and understanding of empire. As the Brexit debate illuminated, the British Empire remains a source not of national disgrace but pride. For 300 years, British commentators have condemned slavery and endorsed imperialism. In 2002 Boris Johnson wrote that "the problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more". In fact, slavery and empire are not only inextricable, but dependent on the same mindset. It is instructive that the statue celebrating Colston was erected almost 90 years after the slave trade ended.

Politicians' response to the statue illustrates the problem. Ministers have fallen over themselves to condemn what happened in Bristol, even though no-one was violent, no-one was injured and no-one was sold. The focus has been on the damage to property rather than the current oppression which motivated it.

Almost no-one in government has thoughtfully examined why the statue was there to begin with, why it had remained so long and why it had proven so hard to remove lawfully. Johnson showed more outrage at Colston's removal than he ever has at the empire which facilitated his crimes. Priti Patel called it a "distraction" and demanded harsh penalties for those responsible – something she would never have said about, for example, swastikas in post-war Germany. Removing those, of course, was not a distraction from tackling the Holocaust, but fundamental to it.

Responses on social and traditional media have also proved instructive. Some have been facetious, asking why we do not burn down the Colosseum, also the scene of slavery and oppression. Others have sought to trivialise Colston's crimes, implying that we should judge people by the standards of their time, which, of course, fails to appreciate the opposition to slavery even then. This is not just a theoretical problem about addressing the past: it is key to what still happens now.

The line from Windrush can be traced back to slavery. It cuts through centuries of normalised racism. If we do not even confront oppression from the 17th century there is little hope of confronting it in the 21st. Time and again politicians and commentators repeat the dismissive line that 'the UK is not a racist country'. We can't begin to solve a problem if we don't accept it exists.

Perhaps it might be useful to learn, for once, from other countries. Former Soviet states have moved their communist statues to outdoor museums and placed them in their historical context. African and Asian countries have changed the names of colonial-era cities and promoted indigenous languages. And Germany has memorialised thousands of streets and monuments. Germany, of course, is not defensive about its past. In Britain we find it easier to accept that country's crimes than our own.

Of course we must preserve the past – but too often that means not learning from it, or preserving only certain bits of it. There are also times when preserving the past means just that: keeping it alive in the present.

Perhaps the most revealing statement about Sunday came from the chancellor. He denounced the "vandals", and declared that "they perpetuate a dangerous lie: that the temporary excitement of destruction is the same thing as change". The problem is that the protesters were not attacking a statue but white supremacy. We can't spend another hundred years tinkering around the edges with it. For some things to change, they must be destroyed.

What happened on Sunday is not going to materially improve anyone's life, but nor is it a distraction or unimportant. Each monument of this kind is a reminder of very recent dehumanisation, and its removal goes some way to heal an open sore. In the end, you cannot rewrite history, but you can attempt to right wrongs and do things better. The only way we can accomplish that is by talking about it. That process has never happened before. It may now.

#black lives matter

[phroyd]

LENDON SCOTT CRAWFORD was a mechanic at General Electric in Schenectady, New York. A tall, slender, middle-aged man with rectangular eyeglasses, he was married with three children. By appearances, he was an unremarkable middle-class American.

But beneath Crawford’s vanilla exterior lurked a white supremacist angry about President Barack Obama’s election and contemptuous of upstate New York’s sizable Muslim community. And he had ambitious plans to transform his hatred into violence.

He wanted to build a “death ray,” a portable, remote-controlled radiological weapon made from medical equipment and off-the-shelf electronics. He’d load the weapon into a van with tinted windows, drive it to a nearby mosque, scurry away to a safe distance, and switch it on remotely using a smartphone. Anyone in its path would be radiated and left to die a slow, mysterious death. He even had a pithy nickname for his weapon: “Hiroshima on a light switch.”

Crawford’s killing machine was never built. He was convicted at trial in August 2015 of attempting to use a radiological dispersal device and a weapon of mass destruction. He is serving 30 years in prison.

His case is remarkable not so much for its absurdity — federal agents admitted that his imagined weapon was likely impossible to make — but for how prosecutors handled it. Crawford’s co-defendant, an engineer named Eric J. Feight who had agreed to build the weapon’s remote control, pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism — the first and only time federal prosecutors have used the material support law against a domestic extremist since 9/11, according to a review of federal prosecutions by The Intercept.

The material support law is prosecutors’ tool of choice for hauling international terrorists into federal court — more than 400 international terrorism defendants have faced material support charges since 9/11. But the Justice Department has been reluctant to use this expansive and powerful law, which allows defendants to be prosecuted for providing minimal, and at times, inconsequential, support to a violent plot, against domestic terrorists.

The rarity of such charges has helped drive a false narrative that domestic terrorism is not punishable under existing anti-terrorism laws. “Why is there no criminal statute for domestic terrorism?” CBS News asked in October 2017. “Americans Are Surprised Domestic Terrorism Isn’t A Federal Crime,” HuffPost declared last April.

In fact, the government has ample room to go after domestic terrorism under existing laws. The material support law has two parts. The first can be applied to anyone who commits or assists with a terrorist attack, including one rooted in a domestic ideology, so long as the crime involves one of about 50 proscribed offenses, including bombing government buildings, murdering government employees, using weapons of mass destruction, and hostage taking. The second and more controversial allows the Justice Department to prosecute anyone supporting or working with a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization, however minor their role in an attack or plot, including even unwitting targetsof FBI undercover stings who never were in contact with actual terrorists. Civil libertarians have for two decades criticized the material support law, but primarily for the abuses possible in the more expansive provision for international terrorists. The more limited provision for domestic terrorism is harder for prosecutors to abuse.

Although the part of the material support law that can be used against domestic extremists is limited in some important ways — mass shootings not involving the death of government employees are notably absent from the list of offenses eligible for material support charges — Feight’s conviction in the “death ray” plot shows that domestic extremists can in many cases be prosecuted using the same aggressive laws that federal prosecutors wield against international terrorists. But the Justice Department has been reluctant to use that authority against white supremacists and followers of other domestic ideologies.

This double standard has little to do with existing laws. Instead, it is a result of decisions within the Justice Department, which since 9/11 has prioritized international terrorism prosecutions at the expense of domestic ones.

“After 9/11, the FBI’s and the Justice Department’s resources were directed to international terrorism. The prosecutions against domestic terrorists suffered,” said Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., a former federal prosecutor who served on the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Task Force in the 1990s. “I follow the domestic terrorism cases, and I sometimes wonder why prosecutors aren’t going after more significant statutes with these guys, using the anti-terrorism laws. On one hand, I suspect the average person thinks of terrorism in the international sense, and to some degree, the Justice Department has come to think of terrorism in that way as well.”

A Domestic Anti-Terrorism Law

Among the first known instances of the material support law being used against domestic extremists came in 1996, when federal prosecutors charged seven men with assembling explosives and plotting to blow up an FBI building. Prosecutors filed material support charges against two of the seven men, Floyd Raymond Looker and James R. Rogers. Looker, the leader of a group known as the West Virginia Mountaineer Militia, and Rogers, a lieutenant in a local fire department who provided blueprints of the FBI building, pleaded guilty.

Five years later, in February 2001, federal prosecutors brought material support charges against Connor Cash, an environmental activist accused of being a leader of the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group that had claimed responsibility for arsons and vandalism throughout the United States. The Justice Department alleged that Cash had assisted in the arson of five homes under construction on Long Island, as well as an unsuccessful plot to burn down a duck farm and release the animals. A jury acquitted Cash of all counts in May 2004.

After the 9/11 attacks, when federal prosecutors began to turn to the material support law as the statute of choice in prosecuting international terrorists, the Justice Department created the National Security Division, which absorbed the counterterrorism and counterespionage sections and created a powerful bureaucratic node responsible for national security prosecutions. Under a policy created at the time, and still in effect today, all terrorism-related charges — including material support and the use of weapons of mass destruction — must be approved by the National Security Division. After the policy took effect, the Justice Department’s tentative experiments with using the material support law against domestic terrorists hit a wall.

In the years immediately following the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department and the FBI reoriented to focus significant resources on international terrorism threats, with the prevention of another terrorist attack from Al Qaeda or other groups as the top priority for both agencies. White supremacists, right-wing extremists, and other domestic terrorists were not a pressing concern. “If you took yourself back to 2006, when the National Security Division was first started, the country was still in the throes of responses to 9/11,” said Mary B. McCord, the Justice Department’s acting assistant attorney general for national security from 2016 to 2017 and a principal deputy assistant attorney general for its National Security Division from 2014 to 2016.

McCord and other former federal prosecutors maintain that the Justice Department has always taken domestic terrorism seriously. But in the years since 9/11, the difference between how domestic and international terrorists are prosecuted and punished has been striking.

The case of William “Bill” Keebler is an example. He came to the FBI’s attention after spending two weeks in Nevada during the 2014 armed standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters. Keebler helped organize Bundy’s supporters by posting on social media and YouTube under the handle “Th3Hunt3r.” After returning home to Utah, Keebler started organizing a militia of his own, recruiting like-minded people on Facebook and at local gun shows. “We are now being taken by a rogue government,” he wrote in a May 2014 Facebook post.

Keebler called his militia the Patriots Defense Force. FBI informants who joined the group told federal agents that members were preparing for future standoffs with the government, operations to rob drug dealers at the U.S.-Mexico border, and violent attacks targeting Muslims. The FBI then inserted two undercover agents into Keebler’s militia. One agent told Keebler that he had experience with explosives.

By June 2016, the Patriots Defense Force had eight members, including two FBI undercover agents and a government informant. Members of the militia had talked about killing Muslims, and Keebler and the undercover agents drove to a mosque to consider it as a target. But Keebler was most interested in an attack on the Bureau of Land Management. He and one of the FBI agents concocted a plot to bomb a cabin in Utah used by the bureau. The FBI built the bomb, which was fake, and Keebler planted it in the cabin. The bomb simply fizzled, as designed, and in July 2016, Keebler was charged with attempting to damage federal property with an explosive device. Despite a federal prosecutor describing Keebler as a “would-be terrorist,” the militia leader did not face terrorism-related charges.

Because Keebler had tried to bomb a government building, the material support law could have applied and with it, a possible 15-year prison sentence. Instead, Keebler spent two years in prison while his case was pending, and after pleading guilty to the lesser charge federal prosecutors had chosen, he was sentenced to time served and three years of probation. Prosecutors did not ask for a “terrorism enhancement” at sentencing — a request that, if approved by the judge, could have resulted in a more significant sentence. Keebler, now on probation in Utah, declined to comment for this article.

By contrast, federal prosecutors charged Nicholas Young, a 36-year-old Muslim police officer in Washington, D.C., with material support when he sent a $245 gift card to a man he believed was with the Islamic State. The gift card recipient was in fact an FBI informant. Young was found guilty at trial and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Last month, an appeals court vacated his convictions on two charges of attempting to obstruct justice, but upheld his conviction for material support. Young will be re-sentenced soon, but his original 15-year term was in line with those of the more than 400 other Muslim terrorism defendants convicted of material support.

Current federal prosecutors, including Thomas E. Brzozowski, the Justice Department’s counsel for domestic terrorism, declined to comment for this article. In an interview with The Intercept, McCord said that in retrospect, she and other prosecutors had underutilized the material support law for prosecuting and punishing domestic terrorists.

“I’ve been a cheerleader for the fact that, hey, this is the same stuff — extremism is extremism,” McCord said. “The white supremacist extremism we’re seeing right now, they’ve taken the playbook from the foreign terrorist organizations in terms of who they’re trying to recruit and who can be easily drawn to feel like they’re working for something bigger than themselves. To me, the parallels are very close.”

Despite the material support law being used predominantly against Muslim extremists during her tenure at the Justice Department, McCord said religion was never a factor in charging decisions. “I think, frankly, because of 9/11 and Al Qaeda and ISIS and Islamic extremism, we have been overly focused on those threats,” McCord said. “But I would be a happy to call a domestic terrorist a domestic terrorist. I will shout it from the rooftops.”

Read More ...

Phroyd

#terrorism #domestic #white supremacy

[bountyofbeads]

China called the Hong Kong protesters who stormed the legislature “extreme radicals.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/world/asia/hong-kong-protestors.html

These young people are literally fighting for their Democratic freedoms that will be taken away from them in about 30 years as China inserts its influence and power over Hong Kong.

China Calls Hong Kong Protesters Who Stormed Legislature ‘Extreme Radicals’

By Javier C. Hernández | Published July 2, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 2, 2019 |

HONG KONG — The Chinese government on Tuesday denounced those protesters in Hong Kong who stormed the city’s legislature as “extreme radicals,” and urged the police and government to hold them responsible.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the demonstrators had carried out “serious and illegal acts” that “trampled on the rule of law” during a daylong protest on Monday.

“We strongly condemn this behavior,” Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the ministry, told reporters at a regular news conference in Beijing.

The remarks were a stern warning to protesters after weeks of demonstrations against a contentious bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China.

Those protests turned chaotic on Monday, when a small group of opponents to the bill stormed the legislature, ramming glass doors, destroying official portraits and spray-painting slogans in the inner chamber.

President Xi Jinping has emphasized the importance of maintaining the integrity of China’s territory and sought to expand Beijing’s influence in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous territory. But the unrest in the former British colony has become an embarrassment for the party, which prides itself on the idea of a unified China.

Even as Mr. Xi’s patience is tested, experts said that the mainland was unlikely to take drastic action in Hong Kong, such as by deploying troops, and it would allow Hong Kong officials to address the tensions.

In a strongly worded statement, Beijing’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said that “some extreme radicals” used the extradition bill to justify attacking the legislative office building’s facilities.

The office called it a “blatant challenge” to the One Country, Two Systems policy under which the Chinese government is obliged to provide Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy.

Several different government agencies, including the foreign ministry, also expressed firm support for the Hong Kong government and the police.

The mainland Chinese news media, which is tightly controlled by the ruling Communist Party, has provided little reporting on the protests that have roiled Hong Kong for the past several weeks and thrown the city’s leadership into a political crisis.

But on Tuesday, Chinese government statements criticizing the protests received blanket coverage across major Chinese state media outlets alongside editorials that blamed the unrest on hostile western forces bent on fomenting a revolution in the territory. The protesters were portrayed as hooligans motivated by mob violence, with state-run outlets omitting details of their broader political demands.

“Out of blind arrogance and rage, protesters showed a complete disregard for law and order,” said an editorial in the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid.

By limiting discussion of the protests, the government was obscuring a potential embarrassment to the party and Mr. Xi. The government also might be eager to prevent outbursts of nationalism, which can be seen as a challenge to party’s primacy, analysts said.

“The Party always wants to stay ahead of Chinese nationalism,” said Dan Lynch, a professor of Asian and international studies at the City University of Hong Kong.

The protests were a test of the Communist Party’s patience with Hong Kong, said Kerry Brown, a professor of Chinese politics at King’s College London.

“They think, ‘we’ve allowed these people all these kinds of privileges and freedoms, and look at the way they behave,’” he said. “It will just reinforce the narrative that this is a spoiled kind of place.”

With other pressing matters like a trade dispute with the United States and a slowing economy, however, Professor Brown said Mr. Xi was likely to take a conservative approach, unless the unrest begins to inflict damage on Hong Kong’s economy.

What to Know About Hong Kong’s Evolving Protest Movement

By Daniel Victor | Published July 2, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 2, 2019 |

HONG KONG — The protests in Hong Kong, leaderless but well coordinated, took a destructive turn on Monday, complicating what had been a mostly cohesive movement.

Scenes of protesters shattering glass to break into the Legislative Council building, followed by demonstrators scrawling graffiti on the walls inside and damaging furniture, caused some residents to question some of the tactics used. But many protesters defended the escalation by saying nothing else has worked, and that they were left with no choice if their demands — including the full withdrawal of a despised extradition bill — were to be met.

The resolution to the growing conflict could affect Hong Kong’s standing as an international business hub and its status as a foothold of democracy in China. Hong Kong is a semiautonomous Chinese territory with its own system of government separate from the mainland, which has mostly watched the unrest at arm’s length.

Here are the main takeaways from the recent protests, and a look at why they took a destructive turn on Monday.

[Need a primer? Read up on the basics of Hong Kong’s extradition bill, which sparked the protests.]

A leaderless, digital movement is called into question

There is no single leader or group deciding on or steering the strategy, tactics and goals of the movement. Instead, protesters have used forums and messaging apps to decide next steps.

Anyone can suggest a course of action, and others then vote on whether they support it. The most popular ideas rise to the top, and then people rally to make them happen.

At its best, this structure has empowered many people to participate and have their voices heard. Protesters say it keeps them all safe by not allowing the government to target specific leaders. Their success in halting the extradition bill, which was shelved by the territory’s chief executive, speaks to the movement’s power.

But that same leaderless structure’s weaknesses were on display on Monday. Such a system makes little distinction between the thousands of people who marched peacefully, the scores who vandalized the Legislative Council building, and the dozens who physically forced a path in. It also does not allow for a forceful leader who can discourage such violence. Though many aided those attacking the legislature by moving supplies through the crowd, other protesters disapproved of the destruction, driving a wedge between residents who broadly share a common ideology.

“Not too many Hong Kong citizens are able to differentiate between the radical protesters who barged into the Legislative Council and the general protesters whose agenda is peaceful and rational,” said Willy Lam, a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Despite the lack of a clear leader, protesters have shown extensive coordination at the demonstrations, having planned the specifics online beforehand. Supply stations are set up to distribute water, snacks, gloves, umbrellas and shields made of cardboard. Volunteer first aid workers wear brightly colored vests. People form assembly lines to pass supplies across long distances, with protesters communicating what they need through a series of predetermined hand signals. Anyone walking in dangerous areas without a helmet or a mask is quickly offered one.

Still, no individual can speak on behalf of the protesters, which makes negotiations difficult, if not impossible. Mr. Lam called the lack of a leader a potential “fatal weakness” of the movement, allowing a small group of destructive protesters to set the tone for the entire group.

One major victory, but additional demands

Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, had plenty of political support in the territory’s pro-Beijing legislature to pass a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China. The legislators were set to begin discussing the bill in early June, and intended to vote on it just weeks later.

Instead, hundreds of thousands of people marched through the city’s streets in protest on June 9, and three days later, protesters blocked the entrance to the council building. As a group of protesters tried to beak into the building, the police responded with batons, pepper spray and tear gas to disperse tens of thousands of people.

After a June 16 protest saw the largest turnout yet, Ms. Lam made a major concession: She postponed the bill, at least temporarily.

It was an undeniable victory for the protesters — but it did little to quell the unrest. Since the bill could later be reintroduced, protesters felt they remained in danger.

The police tactics to break up the demonstrations on June 12, including the use of more than 150 tear gas canisters to push protesters far away from the government office, created a new set of demands from the protesters. Now, instead of just calling for the withdrawal of the bill and Ms. Lam’s resignation, they said they wouldn’t be content unless there was an independent investigation of officers’ conduct. They also wanted the release of protesters arrested on June 12, and for the government to rescind its description of the demonstrations as a “riot,” a designation that carries legal significance.

None of that has happened. Many analysts say Ms. Lam is unlikely to step down, nor would Beijing accept her resignation if she offered it. She has more wiggle room on the other demands, but has not indicated any willingness to budge.

It sets the stage for a protracted conflict.

China is reluctant to get too involved

Just a few minutes’ walk away from the Legislative Council building, the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military, has an outpost with thousands of combat-ready soldiers ready to do Beijing’s bidding. But they have remained on the sidelines, even as the extended protests have turned violent and pose a political threat to President Xi Jinping.

Ivan Choy, a political scientist at Chinese University of Hong Kong, said deploying the army would be a last resort and a worst-case scenario for Mr. Xi. It would be widely seen as China reneging on the autonomy Beijing promised when Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997.

“If the P.L.A. came out last night, it would seriously undermine confidence in ‘one country, two systems’ of the Hong Kong people and also the international community,” Mr. Choy said on Tuesday.

Mr. Xi still prefers to let Hong Kong officials handle the situation, he said. Hong Kong’s successful self-governance is important for China’s international image, and its failure would be a major black eye for the president.

But some in the Chinese government could use Monday’s escalation to justify tightening Hong Kong policies. They could also argue against making the concessions protesters seek, painting them as radicals who won’t be satisfied.

BUSINESSES ARE WATCHING, BUT HAVEN’T FLINCHED

The international business community that has made Hong Kong such a crucial economic center did not bat an eye at Monday’s protests. Hong Kong’s stock market was up on Tuesday, indicating little concern that the protests have crossed a worrisome red line.

A collapse of Hong Kong’s autonomy — or a lack of confidence that law and order could be upheld — would cause businesses to scramble for a new home in Asia. Several business groups spoke out against the extradition bill, while more expressed concern privately.

Most have had little to say about the protests. But the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong condemned the protesters’ behavior in a statement on Tuesday.

“We believe the violent protests of recent days do not reflect how the majority of people in this dynamic and advanced economy would choose to be heard,” it said. “We sincerely hope that Hong Kong will find ways for communication and collaboration between the government and the public in order to bring out the best of what Hong Kong has to offer as a premier business and financial hub.”

#u.s. news #politics #politics and government #president donald trump #white house #international news #us: news #democracy #world news #china news #china #beijing #hong kong protests #hong kong

[jokerfan99]

Dc+Marvel Character Fusions by RobertMacQuarrie1 Part 4

31. Namor + Black Adam= The Black Prince

Centuries ago, Prince Namor ruled the kingdom of Atlantis with a firm yet honorable hand. Renowned for both his skills as a warrior and as a just ruler, it was these qualities that he was chosen by the wizard Shazam to serve as his champion. Imbued with incredible magical energy, Namor's incredible power was magnified a thousand fold. Initially, Namor used his powers wisely and justly. But soon the power began to corrupt Namor, as he soon believed the best way to bring peace to the land was to use his powers to lead the armies of Atlantis to conquer the world. With Namor leading the way, the armies of Atlantis cut a bloody swath across the land, decimating entire nations. Soon, Namor became known as "The Black Prince," and civilizations began to fear his name. Eventually, the wizard Shazam intervened, and punished Namor and his kingdom for abusing his gifts. Shazam used his incredible might to sink Atlantis beneath the waves, while imprisoning Namor in a crystal sarcophagus deep beneath the ocean, hoping to teach the Black Prince humility and to respect the powers at his command. However, Shazam's punishment had the opposite effect, making Namor even more twisted and cruel. And when the Black Prince was accidentally revived by undersea explorers in the modern age, Namor swore to use his incredible might to conquer the world and restore the majesty of Atlantis to it's former glory.

32. Punisher + Deadshot = Deathwish

Floyd Castle was a former mercenary who gave up his former life when he fell in love. Marrying the love of his life, Floyd became a doting husband and eventual loving father. However, Floyd's life was changed forever when he and his family were caught in a crossfire of a political assassination, with only Floyd surviving. Enraged that the killer was to avoid punishment for his crimes due to his political connections, Floyd repurposed his old mercenary gear and became the bounty hunter known as Deathwish in order to hunt down the criminals out of the normal reach of the law. His name has a double meaning, however, as Floyd secretly wishes his time on earth to be over, so he can see his family again, caring little whether he lives or dies. Taking any job, as long as it allows him to eliminate the "right people," Deathwish cuts a bloody swath of destruction across the criminal underworld in any part of the world.

33. Deadpool + Harley Quinn = Jester

Harlene Wilson was a promising- if naive and gullible- scientist, working under the charismatic Dr. Killbrew. Harlene fell in love with Killbrew, never realizing that he didn't reciprocate her interest and was only using her for his own ends. When Harlene contracted an untreatable form of cancer, Killbrew manipulated her into being a guinea pig for his experiments with cellular regeneration, using the cells culled from the mutant Deathclaw. Killbrew had no intention of curing Harlene, but he hoped to learn from the experimentation on her form to further his research. His treatment on Harley ravaged her body and destroyed her mind, causing her to break from reality in order to cope with the pain. Finding out about Killbrew's betrayal of her trust, Harlene broke out of captivity and slew Killbrew in a rage. With her newfound abilities and a powerful healing factor, Harlene took up the identity of the Jester, becoming a merc for hire, figuring that if the world was one big joke, she might as well look the part.

34. The Leader + Hector Hammond = Hector Sterns

Hector Sterns was just an ordinary janitor of slightly low intelligence working at a government lab. Jealous of all the intelligent scientists working above him and secretly believing they were mocking him behind his back, Hector yearned for power to show up all he believed wronged him. He got his wish when he was exposed to a strange meteor that was brought to the lab he worked at for study. Hearing that the meteor had strange mutagenic properties, Hector broke into the storage chamber and exposed himself to the gamma radiation emitting from the stone under the hopes that it would grant him incredible powers. Hector got his wish, in that he developed increased intelligence and amazing telekinetic and telepathic abilities. However, it came at a horrible cost, as it caused him cranium to swell to a massive size, while atrophying his muscles and bones. He was gifted with a genius level intellect and powerful mental abilities, but at the cost of his physical form. But along with his mind, Sterns' ambition also increased. Now, simple revenge would not be enough to satiate him. Sterns wished to rule the world, and turned his incredible intellect towards that task. So far, only the might Orca has been able to halt his plans, pitting his brawn and Sterns' incredible brain.

35. Nova + Firestorm = Sunstorm

Travelling through space, a dying alien from the Nova Corps was searching for a suitable being to inherit his incredible abilities and take up his role of protecting his sector of space. Coming across Earth, the alien was met with a dilemma- he could not find one being who fit the specific requirements needed to inherit and use his abilities. The alien did find two people who had some of the traits he was looking for. Richard Raymond had the spirit to wield the powers of the Nova corp, and was a perfect physical specimen, but he did not have the discipline nor the intelligence. Dr. Martin Rider had the vast intellect and maturity to handle the powers, but was physically weak. Left with no choice, the alien made a desperate gambit, choosing to merge Richard Raymond and Martin Rider into one form, using the strongest elements from both- Richard's body and Martin's mind. Coming to term with their merging, the duo christened themselves Sunstorm, taking up their alien benefactor's mission to protect the solar system, using their newfound abilities of flight, super strength and the ability to alter the molecular makeup of any inorganic object.

36. Hawkeye + Booster Gold = Goldeneye Mockingbird + Blue Beetle = Bluebird

Clint Carter was born in the 25th century to a group of carnival performers. He had honed his natural abilities to become an incredible archer. However, in his time period, the common citizens weren't interested in stuntmen and feats of physical strength anymore, and were more interested in the popular holo-vids. Seeking fame and fortune, Goldeneye decided to head back to the 20th century to wow the audiences with his abilities. However, Clint landed late in the 21st century, where archery skills weren't as highly regarded as they once were. However, Clint decided to stay in this time frame and use his archery skills along with his futuristic technology to become a superhero, taking on the name and identity of Goldeneye. While initially using his abilities for fame and fortune, Clint eventually evolved into a true- albeit flawed- hero.

Bobbi Kord was a genius inventor and agent of SHIELD. When she was passed over for field work, she quit the agency and returned to head Kord Industries. Bobbi combined her combat training along with the resources of Kord Industries to develop a wide arsenal of crime fighting tools, and took up the identity of the Bluebird. She served as a solo adventurer for a while before eventually meeting up with Goldeneye. The two became crimefighting duo and eventually lovers, being partners both on and off the field.

37. Apocalypse + Vandal Savage = Vandal Sa'Vag Nur

The being who would become known as Vandal Sa'Vag Nur began life as an ordinary caveman. Brutal by even the standards of that more savage age, Vandal was cast out from his clan and became a nomad. His entire existence changed the day he investigated the site of what seemed to be a meteorite. In reality, it was the remains of a destroyed Celestial starship. Coming into contact with it, Vandal was exposed to the alien technologies and transformed. Wrapped in a life sustaining coccon, the ship slowly changed Vandal over the course centuries, eventually emerging into Ancient Egypt where he gained his name- Vandal Sa'Vag Nur. Transformed into a being of incredible power, Vandal realized the alien machine transformed him in order to improve the world and make it stronger and better than it was before. However, Vandal interpreted this directive as that the only way the world can improve is through struggle and conquest. By knocking down what came before in order for the world to build a better society in its' place. From that point on, Vandal would use his newfound might to topple civilizations and bring ruin and destruction to the world, under the belief that only the strong could survive, often returning to the same alien cocoon that birthed his new form to slumber for centuries between his conquests. Now, he has awoken in the modern day, and plans to once again destroy civilization as a whole in order for the weak to be weeded out and for the strong to survive. And in this new age of heroes, Vandal believes that with this new breed of humanity, it is the perfect opportunity to wipe the slate clean of humanity and populate the world with living Gods.

38. Arcade + The Riddler = The Gamemaster

Edward R. Cade was a spoiled brat of a wealthy New Gotham couple who grew up loving puzzles and games. The only thing that Edward loved more, however, was murder. After killing his parents to inherit their wealth at a young age, Edward dedicated his fortune in order create the most gruesome and imaginative murders possible. He enjoyed spending his fortune creating elaborate deathtraps to lure his victims into. His puzzles and mazes would be filled with lethal traps and consequences, but he always prided himself on playing "fair."  If his victims solved his puzzles or escaped his mazes with their lives intact, he would let them go, no questions asked. Eventually, Edward- now calling himself the Gamemaster- solicited his services as a master assassin to wealthy clients around the world, under the condition that he is allowed to dispose of his targets his way. With this new source of revenue, the Gamemaster set up "Murderworld" amusement parks all over the world. His actions, however, would eventually draw the attention of many superheroes who would either be caught up or try to stop his insane schemes. The Gamemaster doesn't mind, however, as superheroes are just a new challenge for him to refine his skills and come up with even more creative puzzles and games to eliminate his foes.

39. Ghost Rider + Demon = Demon Rider

In medieval Camelot, Sir Jason Blood was one of the most noble Knights of the Round Table. When his son was stricken ill, however, Sir Jason turned to the dark arts in order to find a way to save him. Summoning a powerful demon, Jason pledged his soul to find a way to save his son. The demon agreed, curing Jason's son of his ailment. However, Jason was later betrayed, in that while his son was cured, the demon arranged it so that he would later die from accident while riding a horse. Calling upon his payment, Jason was bonded with a powerful demon called Zarathigan, transforming him into a mindless, savage monstrosity who then proceeded to ravage the kingdom. Jason's rampage came to a end when the wizard Merlin cast a spell to separate Zarathigan from Jason, transforming Jason back to normal. However, Merlin's spell could not completely sever the tie, only weaken it, as Jason's bloodline would forever be tainted with Demon blood. And some day, a future generation would one day again be bonded to Zarathigan and once again be transformed into a powerful demon. That day came centuries later when Sir Jason's descendant, Jason Blaze, would be transformed on his 18th birthday and once again be bonded with Zarathigan. But having never pledged his soul to the darkness, Jason Blaze still retains some control over Zarathigan's bloodlust.  As such, Jason Blaze uses his newfound powers as the Demon Rider to avenge the innocent and wage war on evil, while struggling to control the demon within.

40. Psylocke + Huntress = Mindhunter

Helena Braddock was the daughter of a notable crime boss in New Gotham. Under siege by other mobsters, Helena's father turned to the mystical sect known as the League of the Hand for help. The League agreed to wipe out his enemies, but for a price- he would turn his daughter over to them. Helena's father agreed, and she was taken by the League and trained to become their greatest assassin. Undergoing a brutal regime to make her into one of the greatest warriors on the planet, the League also tried to transform Helena mystically, to give her even greater power. Their efforts paid off, and Helena's latent mutant abilities were activated, granting her incredible psionic powers. The League trained her to refine her powers, eventually allowing her to focus her telepathic abilities into her Psionic Knife, the focused totality of all her telepathic abilities. However, Helena was never loyal to the League, filled with a burning hatred for both them and her father.  After a decade of training, Helena broke free of her captivity, slaying her captors, and returned to New Gotham to avenge herself on her father and his organization. Now, as Mindhunter, she wages a brutal war against the criminals who take advantage of the innocent, and isn't afraid to use lethal measures to end a threat.

#dc comics #fusion #marvel comics

[mcmansionhell]

Looking Around: Reflections on Preservation

If you, like me, happen to follow architecture rather closely, you may have recently noticed several folks in the community talking about their Johnson. Always fond of puns, it’s the 20th-century American architect Philip Johnson they’re referring to, rather than, well, you know. 

Two weeks ago, it was announced that the Norwegian firm Snøhetta revealed plans to overhaul the front facade of Johnson’s iconic 1984 AT&T building, a Postmodern skyscraper located at 550 Madison Ave in New York City.

Philip Johnson’s 550 Madison Ave (formerly known as the AT&T building). Left Image by David Shankbone, CC BY 2.5. Right Image by Matthew Bisanz, CC BY-SA 3.0. 

Proposed changes by Snøhetta. Via Dezeen. 

While this is not the first renovation to the tower (Charles Gwathmey did a less invasive but, in this writer’s opinion still problematic rehab in the 90s), architects and critics, famous and obscure alike, were quick to decry the changes. Olly Wainwright, architecture critic for The Guardian, in no small words, called the plans “vandalism.” Mega-architect Norman Foster, no friend to Postmodernism, said on Instagram that the building was nevertheless “an important part of our heritage and should be respected as such.” 

Image by Anna Fixsen, Metropolis Magazine. Via Twitter.

A protest was organized, seen above. On the far right, you can see the famous Postmodern architect and former Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, Robert A.M. Stern, holding a model of the building. 

A hashtag, #SaveATT, was created, alongside a Twitter account, @Save_AT_T, and a Change.org petition shortly followed. 

You may be wondering why all of these architects and critics are losing their minds about a renovation of an 80s building that looks relatively sleek and contemporary. It’s not so much that the proposed renovation in and of itself is objectively bad, it’s about the building for which the renovation was proposed.

The Lowdown on Johnson’s Highrise

Before we get into the details, I’ll say it straight-up: the AT&T building, including its lobby, should absolutely be saved. Why? 1) Because it is probably the most famous example of Postmodern architecture, and 2) because it caused the biggest architectural hissy fit since the birth of Modernism. 

Philip Johnson was, until the AT&T building, a high-modernist architect who built a large number of corporate headquarters and a famous glass house. Always a controversial and infuriating character, he decided, seemingly on a whim, to take a Postmodern turn in designing his tower for AT&T. 

The Glass House by Philip Johnson. Photo by Staib (CC BY-SA 3.0)

In 1979, when the AT&T tower was announced, Postmodernism (a movement characterized by the revisiting, distorting, juxtaposing, and recontextualizing of historical architectural forms within a contemporary philosophical and aesthetic context) was a relatively theoretical movement, not yet thrust into the eye of the general populus. 

Postmodernism had a certain critical eye that cast its gaze at (what was seen at the time as) the stifling hegemony of Modernist architecture, which the Postmodernists found cold, technocratic, and corporate. That the style was appropriated by Johnson for a major corporate building, made a few theorists rather angry, as corporatism was one of their key criticisms of Modernist architecture. 

Johnson on the cover of Time Magazine holding a model of the AT&T Building.

To rub more salt in the critical wound, the AT&T building was Postmodernism’s first big media moment, obscuring the smaller, more nuanced works of the movement’s first five years, which added to the hissy fit. Charles Jencks, the eternal gatekeeper of the movement, was so in crisis at the ruining of his nuanced art by a particularly vain starchitect, that he had an existential crisis, asking “Is Postmodernism Dead?” Jencks would continue to see the building as a transition from “real” Postmodernism and “PoMo” aka Postmodernism that Jencks does not like. 

Don’t worry, it’s probably all explained in one of his extremely great charts. 

After AT&T, Postmodernism exploded in popularity and quickly replaced Modernism as the hegemonic architectural style, endlessly replicated, splayed across a landscape of gabled museums and courthouses; shopping malls and parking decks. RIP to theoretical purity, born: 1968, died: 1979. Cause of Death: Philip Johnson.

While it may be startling that a building completed in 1984 is already in existential danger, such danger is becoming more and more common, sooner and sooner after the building is completed. 

Preservation itself is always a difficult topic, one that raises many questions: Why should we save buildings, and what makes a building worth saving in the first place? Why should we save just the exterior of the building? Why not the interior or landscape as well?

Why Should We Save Buildings?

Buildings are worth saving for several reasons. Sometimes, a building has an interesting cultural history - perhaps an important person was born there, or it was the site of a burgeoning subculture, or an important historical event. Sometimes a building is worth preserving because it is a particularly good example of its architectural style, or because it’s the only example of its particular style in the surrounding area. 

Sometimes a building is worth preserving simply because it is beautiful, old, or built by a famous architect. Sometimes, like in the case of Johnson’s AT&T building, the building should be preserved because it had an important role to play in architectural history, theory, or criticism. 

My own story of how I began writing about architecture is one that opens with loss - the kind of needless loss that should never happen again. 

Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center. Via Library of Congress.

When I was little, I was a house fanatic. (As we can clearly see, not much has changed.) Whether it was watching the then-nascent HGTV channel, or dirtying my mother’s station wagon windows with nose-prints watching yard after yard scroll by, I could not get enough of houses. For most of my young life, architecture was defined by houses.

My mother grew up in Goshen, New York, and we would occasionally go up there to visit family and friends. When I was around thirteen or fourteen, we took a wrong turn looking for a Dunkin Donuts, allowing me to stumble upon the building above, Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center, built in 1967.

This building was unlike any building I had ever seen before, and in the few minutes we stopped by, it had transformed my ideas about what a building was, what it could be. It was the building that introduced me to architecture. 

Around 2010, when I finally figured out what building it was, I learned that it had been threatened with demolition. My first ever snippet about architecture I had written was a letter pleading the National Trust for Historic Preservation to intervene. Throughout high school, I wrote at length about the need to save Modernist buildings so that they could have the same effect on future generations as they had on me. 

In 2015, my junior year of college, it was announced that the fight for preservation had been lost, and Paul Rudolph’s masterpiece was mutilated beyond repair. I will never be able to revisit the building that inspired me to begin writing about architecture. If I’d never gotten to see that building, it’s unlikely that McMansion Hell would have ever materialized. I can say with some certainty, at the risk of being melodramatic, that had I not seen that building, I would be a completely different person than the one sitting here writing this. 

Orange County Government Center during its Demolition. Photo by Daniel Case. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Now, others won’t be able to have that experience. What’s left of Rudolph’s work is beyond uninspiring, a shell of what used to be an innovative, form-defying building. What could have inspired many to make deeper inquiries into their built environment has been reduced to a non-place housing the DMV. 

We don’t like to think of buildings as being non-permanent. When a building is constructed, there’s an expectation that it’ll last forever. Buildings seem monolithic, stable, permanent. It’s in a building’s very design to be anchored firmly to the ground, to be able to brave the elements, withstand the years. While natural disasters are responsible for the destruction of a great many buildings, the fickleness of the aesthetic tastes of human beings has felled a great many more. 

After around the 70-year mark of a building’s life, it becomes significantly more at risk of demolition. Several books have been written about lost buildings in many cities, sparing few details about how needless some of these losses were. In Baltimore, as in other cities, many a masterpiece was felled in the mid-20th century to make room for a rather infamous building sniper: parking decks and parking lots. 

Maryland Casualty Building. Demolished in 1984 in order to build a parking lot. 

When it comes to pre-20th century buildings, whose preservation is argued for far more often than buildings like AT&T or Rudolph’s Government Center, the argument isn’t necessarily that these buildings are somehow superior architecturally to others because of their age, but because they are totally irreplaceable. 

Even if you wanted to build a full-scale replica of a demolished building from, say, the 18th century, it’s likely that the materials needed to rebuild it are no longer around. Most of the marble and stone quarries that brought us styles like Richardsonian Romanesque or Gothic Revival, were completely depleted. In addition, the construction methodologies required for pre-industrial building practices are either not likely to get approval because they aren’t up to modern building codes or because some of those trade skills are simply lost. Regardless, the cost of replacement materials, as well as the labor needed to build these historic buildings, are both economically unviable. 

On a more surface level, old buildings are snapshots of how people once lived, and saving them is an important part of charting the history of human development, historically and technologically. 

Mechanics Theater, Baltimore, MD. Demolished in 2013 and replaced with a festering open pit. 

A common fallacy of preservation is that it is reserved solely for the oldest, most ornate buildings, especially those relevant to the heavily sanitized version of American history taught in primary schools. I would argue that preservation is even more important for those buildings we find difficult to like, those that challenge us architecturally, like Rudolph’s Government Center. 

There is always a point in time where a style of architecture is loathed by its successors. Many a Queen Anne Victorian house was razed because people at the beginning of the 20th century found them both dowdy, dusty, and plain unhygienic. Modernism was loathed by Postmodernism. Postmodernism is loathed by today’s architects who grew up in its shadow. 

That which is loathed is not always that which is not worth preserving, but by the time we realize this, it’s often too late. Only after a building is threatened do people come rallying to save it, when these preservation efforts are more successful when they start long before the first threat. This is perhaps why so many houses by Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe skyscrapers remain for people to enjoy. 

Interiors

TV AM building interior by Terry Farrell. Remodeled, mid-1990s. Via Dezeen. 

People go to visit old buildings (especially places like Museum houses) because they want to experience life as it was in a different era. The exterior is one part of this experience, but it’s the interiors which give people the sense that they are not merely looking at history but are instead enveloped in it. 

Though there has been some progress over the last few years, interiors and landscape architecture have not been as high of a priority for preservation as a building’s exterior architecture, and because of this, there have been great losses, like the TV AM building above, in which I’m sure many 80s and 90s children would love to bask nostalgically. 

I’m always delighted when, in my searches for this blog’s house of the week, I come upon a time-capsule house, that is, a house that hasn’t been remodeled since it was built. As the years go by, these houses have become less and less common, and their interiors have been replaced with today’s white furniture, contractor gray walls, and sparkling white trim. 

Interior of a house in Florida built in 1980s from the archives of the author. 

It’s hard to describe the feeling of loss that comes with looking at a house built in 1980 and discovering an interior fresh out of last month’s HGTV Magazine. Do I really think the world needs more overstuffed chintz sofas or shag carpeting? No, but the idea that a world without a single room decorated like it’s fresh out of a Laura Ashley catalog seems like quite an erasure of the pop cultural history of how everyday people decorated their houses. 

I’ve devoted a large bookshelf to old catalogs, renovation books, interior design magazines, and other resources about how people decorated their homes partially out of personal obsession and partially because I’m afraid that someday that history will be lost in the material world and will only exist in the glossy imagery of those pages.

Conclusion

What deserves to be preserved and how that preservation is executed is in the eyes of the people. While that idea sometimes gets abused by ruinous people who use historic preservation designations to protect parking lots or empty spaces to prevent affordable housing from being built, or use preservation as a means of proving the superiority of one group of people over another, these bad eggs should not give us the idea that preserving or documenting our important spaces is somehow politically toxic. 

Cottonwood Mall Demolition by Mike Renlund (CC BY 2.0)

The “our” is key. People experience architectural loss on an individual level. We can see this when the news reports a mall or shopping center is to be demolished - the comments on such stories are almost always people sharing their fond memories of school shopping, birthday parties, comings of age. When someone moves out of their house or apartment, there’s always a lingering sadness that whoever lives there after you will completely alter that place into their own small piece of the world. 

While highly public campaigns like #SaveATT are one method of preservation, they aren’t the only way people like you or me can contribute to saving our collective architectural memory. Documenting and archiving one’s own life is, in itself, a way of preservation. 

Inside Today’s Home, a 1979 decorating book from the collection of the author. 

Got old catalogs or maybe photos of your parents’ house with all of its tacky decorating laying around? Consider scanning them and maintaining an archive or contributing them to one of the many online groups on places like Flickr or Archive.org devoted to maintaining collections of primary sources from certain time periods. 

One of the most remarkable aspects of social media is that people are creating their own ethnographies, their own archives of collective memories through Facebook groups like one I’m in called “Old Baltimore Photos”, where participants get together and tell stories of how they experienced the city and its buildings as it used to be, on a scale past historians could only dream of.

As losses like the Orange County Government Center, barely in its fifth decade of existence, tell us, the time for preservation is not tomorrow or in a few years. The time for preservation is right now. If there’s a building that means something to you, take pictures, visit often, tell people about it! While it might take time and effort to make sure a building is protected for future generations, the first step of the process is always, as cheesy as it sounds, love.

HEY FOLKS! IT’S MY BIRTHDAY THIS FRIDAY!

Here are a few things you can do if you want to celebrate with me! 

Sign the Petition to Save the AT&T Building!!: http://bit.ly/SaveATandT

Make a donation to DoCoMoMo US, the organization leading the fight to preserve important landmarks of Modernist and Postmodernist architecture: https://www.z2systems.com/np/clients/docomomous/donation.jsp

Consider supporting me on Patreon! I’ve started posting a GOOD HOUSE built since 1980 from the area where I picked this week’s McMansion as bonus content!

If you’re feeling particularly nice, you can view my book wishlist here: http://a.co/j5LNE0R

See you tomorrow with our Ohio McMansion of the week! 

Copyright Disclaimer: All photographs are used in this post under fair use for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107. Manipulated photos are considered derivative work and are Copyright © 2017 McMansion Hell. Please email [email protected] before using these images on another site. (am v chill about this)

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Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Canadian beavers chomp down town’s internet (BBC) Beavers have been blamed after a town in the Canadian province of British Columbia lost their internet service for some 12 hours. The provider Telus said that parts of the underground cabling, servicing Tumbler Ridge, had been found in the beavers’ home. Some 900 internet users and 60 TV customers were affected, it said. Telus spokeswoman Liz Sauvé described it as a “very unusual and uniquely Canadian turn of events”.

US marks slowest population growth since the Depression (AP) U.S. population growth has slowed to the lowest rate since the Great Depression, the Census Bureau said Monday, as Americans continued their march to the South and West and one-time engines of growth, New York and California, lost political influence. Altogether, the U.S. population rose to 331,449,281 last year, the Census Bureau said, a 7.4% increase that was the second-slowest ever. Experts say that paltry pace reflects the combination of an aging population, slowing immigration and the scars of the Great Recession more than a decade ago, which led many young adults to delay marriage and families. The new allocation of congressional seats comes in the first release of data from last year’s headcount. The numbers generally chart familiar American migration patterns: Texas and Florida, two Republican Sunbelt giants, added enough population to gain congressional seats as chillier climes like New York and Ohio saw slow growth and lost political muscle. The report also confirms one historic marker: For the first time in 170 years of statehood, California is losing a congressional seat, a result of slowed migration to the nation’s most populous state, which was once a symbol of the country’s expansive frontier.

After Nearly a Year of Unrest, Portland Leaders Pursue a Crackdown (NYT) After the protests have concluded, sometimes in the early morning hours, Margaret Carter finds herself climbing into her gray Toyota Camry and cruising the streets of Portland so she can see the latest damage for herself. Carter, 85, has been downtown to the Oregon Historical Society, where demonstrators have twice smashed out the windows, recently scrawling “No More History” on the side of the building. She has driven past the local headquarters of the Democratic Party, where windows have also been shattered. Last week, she found herself at the Boys & Girls Club in her own neighborhood, nearing tears at the scene of costly window destruction at a place she has worked so hard to support. “Portland was a beautiful city,” said Carter, who was the first Black woman elected to the Oregon Legislative Assembly and is now retired. “Now you walk around and see all the graffiti, buildings being boarded up. I get sick to my stomach. And I get angry.” After almost a year of near-continuous protests since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Portland’s city leaders are signaling that it may be time for a more aggressive crackdown on the most strident street actions. Mayor Ted Wheeler last week put into place a state of emergency that lasted six days and vowed to “unmask” those demonstrators who engaged in repeated acts of vandalism or arson. In his call for the public’s help, Wheeler urged people to report anything they might overhear about property destruction plans or boasts. He also called for residents to report protesters who appeared to be disguising their identity and to document their license plates for the police.

California recall has enough signatures to make ballot (AP) Organizers of the recall effort against California Gov. Gavin Newsom collected enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, state election officials said Monday, likely triggering just the second such election in state history. The recall against Newsom, a first-term Democrat seen as a possible White House hopeful someday, will be among the highest-profile political races in the country this year. An election is likely in the fall and voters would face two questions: Should Newsom be recalled and who should replace him? The votes on the second question will only be counted if more than half say yes to the first. Newsom won election in 2018 with support from more than 60% of the voters. Recalling him will be a tough sell in the heavily Democratic state where just a quarter of the state’s registered voters are Republicans, about the same number as those who identify as “no party preference.”

Under the sea, out of sight (Bloomberg) A 52-foot long, 8-foot wide submersible hauling 2,500 kilograms of cocaine was intercepted by U.S. authorities in the Caribbean about 150 miles north of South America. Since last October, the U.S. Caribbean Corridor Strike Force has seized a total of 17,000 kilograms of cocaine worth more than $510 million off the coast of Puerto Rico. Increased enforcement has pushed cartels to invest significant funds in transporting their wares under the sea.

Turkey announces “full lockdown” from April 29 to curb COVID spread (Reuters) Turks will be required to stay mostly at home under a nationwide “full lockdown” starting on Thursday and lasting until May 17 to curb a surge in coronavirus infections and deaths, President Tayyip Erdogan announced on Monday. Turkey logged 37,312 new COVID-19 infections and 353 deaths in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed, sharply down from mid-April but still the world’s fourth highest number of cases and the worst on a per-capita basis among major nations. Announcing the new measures after a cabinet meeting, Erdogan said all intercity travel would require official approval, all schools would shut and move lessons online, and a strict capacity limit would be imposed for users of public transport. Turks will have to stay indoors except for essential shopping trips and urgent medical treatment.

Iran, US warships in first tense Mideast encounter in a year (AP) American and Iranian warships had a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf earlier this month, the first such incident in about a year amid wider turmoil in the region over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday. Footage released by the Navy showed a ship commanded by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard cut in front of the USCGC Monomoy, causing the Coast Guard vessel to come to an abrupt stop with its engine smoking on April 2. The Guard also did the same with another Coast Guard vessel, the USCGC Wrangell, said Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet. Such close passes risk the ships colliding at sea.

Israel is committing the crime of ‘apartheid,’ new report says (Washington Post) Israeli authorities are “committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution,” according to a major new 213-page report released Tuesday by global advocacy group Human Rights Watch. The organization argued that, in terms framed by existing international law, overarching Israeli policy toward Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem constituted an agenda to both maintain Jewish Israeli domination and systematically oppress Palestinians. Beyond the all-but-dead “peace process” of the past few decades, the organization pointed to the inescapable and unequal reality that defines life for everyone living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. “This is the most stark finding Human Rights Watch has ever reached on the conduct of Israeli authorities,” Omar Shakir, the organization’s Israel and Palestine director and the author of the report, told Today’s WorldView. “For too long, the international community has failed to recognize the reality on the ground for what it is.” Shakir added that HRW is hardly alone in arriving at this conclusion. For years, Palestinians have invoked apartheid in discussing the region’s status quo: where an Israeli military occupation governs over many aspects of their lives, where the security and political imperatives of the Israeli government curtail their own rights, and where the expansion of Jewish settlements inexorably entails further Palestinian dispossession.

Virus surge in crowded Gaza threatens to overwhelm hospitals (AP) More than a year into the coronavirus pandemic, some of the worst fears are coming true in the crowded Gaza Strip: A sudden surge in infections and deaths is threatening to overwhelm hospitals weakened by years of conflict and border closures. Gaza’s main treatment center for COVID-19 patients warns that oxygen supplies are dwindling fast. In another hospital, coronavirus patients are packed three to a room. For months, Gaza’s Hamas rulers seemed to have a handle on containing the pandemic. But their decision to lift most movement restrictions in February—coupled with the spread of a more aggressive virus variant and lack of vaccines—has led to a fierce second surge.

Fighting erupts in Myanmar; junta to ‘consider’ ASEAN plan (Reuters) Karen insurgents attacked a Myanmar army outpost near the Thai border on Tuesday in some of the most intense clashes since a military coup nearly three months ago threw the country into crisis. The Karen National Union (KNU), Myanmar’s oldest rebel force, said it had captured the army camp on the west bank of the Salween river, which forms the border with Thailand. The Myanmar military later hit back against the insurgents with air strikes, the KNU and Thai authorities said. The fighting took place as the junta, in a setback for diplomatic efforts by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said it would “positively” consider the bloc’s suggestions to end the turmoil in Myanmar but only when stability was restored.

‘Red Tourism’ draws Chinese on centennial of Communist Party (AP) On the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, tourists are flocking to historic sites and making pilgrimages to party landmarks. On a street where the Red Army once roamed, a group of retirees in historic pastel-blue army uniforms belt out tunes made famous through countless movies, television shows and other forms of propaganda. Historic locations in Jiangxi and Guizhou provinces—the sites of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong’s early battles, his escape from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces in the Long March and the cementing of his leadership in Zunyi—are experiencing an influx of tourists this year as post-pandemic travel returns to China. In Guizhou, tourism in the first quarter of 2021 has already recovered to 2019 levels, local official Lu Yongzheng said. The province, among China’s top tourist destinations, received millions of tourists who brought in billions of dollars in revenue. The rise in tourism is also spurred by a campaign announced by President Xi Jinping in February to educate the Communist Party’s 91 million-plus members on its history and ideology.

Gunfire rocks Mogadishu (Foreign Policy) Violence erupted in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Sunday as anti-government fighters traded fire with troops loyal to Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed over his decision to remain in power after his term expired. Mohamed, whose four-year term ended in February, extended his presidency for two years on April 14 after an election deadlock, drawing strong condemnation from, among others, the United States and the European Union, who have threatened to impose sanctions on the country.

Shipping Containers Plunge Overboard as Supply Race Raises Risks (Bloomberg) Containers piled high on giant vessels carrying everything from car tires to smartphones are toppling over at an alarming rate, sending millions of dollars of cargo sinking to the bottom of the ocean as pressure to speed deliveries raises the risk of safety errors. The shipping industry is seeing the biggest spike in lost containers in seven years. More than 3,000 boxes dropped into the sea last year, and more than 1,000 have fallen overboard so far in 2021. The accidents are disrupting supply chains for hundreds of U.S. retailers and manufacturers such as Amazon and Tesla. There are a host of reasons for the sudden rise in accidents. Weather is getting more unpredictable, while ships are growing bigger, allowing for containers to be stacked higher than ever before. But greatly exacerbating the situation is a surge in e-commerce after consumer demand exploded during the pandemic, increasing the urgency for shipping lines to deliver products as quickly as possible.

Ungrounding (Skift) Last year saw the mass grounding of commercial aircraft as airlines grappled with an utter collapse in demand for their services, and in the United States, those mothballed planes are getting ready to re-enter service. At American Airline’s Tulsa maintenance base, idled jets are getting revamped ahead of a summer when most of the carrier’s 1,400 jet fleet will re-enter the skies. Reactivating a single 737 takes 1,000 person-hours and costs about $39,340 in labor alone. That is, comparatively, cheap, at least stacked against the $10 million impairment charge taken for each of the 150 aircraft it retired last year.

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