Forum: World Events
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24 Oct 20 9:45 pm
+ Far-right extremist shot at Minneapolis' police precinct to spark violence during Floyd protests, FBI says
Kathryn Krawczyk
Fri, October 23, 2020, 1:43 PM CDT
A far-right extremist has been accused of opening fire on Minneapolis' third police precinct and sparking violence during May's George Floyd protests.
Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old from Texas, was charged Friday with one count of interstate travel to participate in a riot. An admitted member of the "Boogaloo Bois," Hunter opened fire on the precinct and later looted it and helped set it on fire, the FBI said in a sworn affidavit released Friday.
The Minneapolis police's third precinct was just a block from where Floyd was killed, and became the center of protests against police violence that devolved into the destruction of the precinct and buildings around it. Hunter is one of several far-right extremists accused of intentionally ramping up that violence. Armed with a mask and tactical gear, Hunter fired 13 rounds at the precinct while officers were inside and ran away shouting "Justice for Floyd," the FBI alleges. He later bragged about "help[ing] the community burn down that police station" on Facebook.
Forum: World Events
Posts: 526 |
Account Type: Free
24 Oct 20 8:04 pm
+ How Texas could be the linchpin in finally dismantling the Electoral College
Peter Weber
Fri, October 23, 2020, 8:46 AM CDT
The framers of the Constitution set up the Electoral College because they had to invent a way to "pick the leader of a self-governing republic" and were worried "most people wouldn't know national political candidates," he explained. But they never even discussed today's winner-takes-all system, "and when they saw it start to be adopted in the states in the early 1800s, they were horrified. James Madison, the man we think of as the father of the Constitution, tried to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting the use of winner-take-all rule because he saw how corrosive it was to erase up to half of voters in the state."
Madison failed, but Sen. Birch Bayh (D-Ind.) almost got a constitutional amendment enacted in 1969 — President Richard Nixon was on board, it had broad national support, the House approved the amendment, and nearly three-quarters of states were set to approve it, Wegman said. Sadly, "three Southern segregationist senators" filibustered it to death in 1970, killing "the best effort we've ever had in American history to abolish the Electoral College."
This only became a partisan issue after George W. Bush then Donald Trump won the Electoral College while losing the popular vote, but it's a double-edged sword, Wegman said. "Right now what we're seeing is some really big and important Republican-majority states are shifting demographically." Texas, with its 38 electoral votes, "is going to turn blue" as soon as 2024, he predicted, and "if Republicans can't win Texas, I think their paths to an Electoral College victory are basically eliminated."
In the next eight years, "when both parties have suffered enough in a short enough time period that they realize that it doesn't help anybody," Wegman said, "I think we have the opening to switch to a system in which everybody counts equally, and everybody's vote matters."
Forum: World Events
Posts: 526 |
Account Type: Free
24 Oct 20 11:20 am
+ Why is QAnon more obsessed with an imaginary sex-trafficking ring than with Jeffrey Epstein’s real one?
Caitlin Dickson
Fri, October 23, 2020, 8:31 PM CDT
On Wednesday evening, the anonymous figure known as “Q” took to the fringe message board 8kun to issue one of his signature prophecies: “BOOMS EN_ROUTE TOMORROW. This is not a drill. Q.”
Such vague and ominous forecasts have become a regular feature of the ever-evolving online scripture on which the cult-like conspiracy movement known as QAnon is based. For the past three years, Q — whom disciples believe to be a high-ranking military or intelligence officer or group of officials with access to classified information — has posted thousands of these cryptic messages, known as “Q drops,” for followers to try to decipher.
Very few, if any, of Q’s predictions, starting with the first Q drop posted to 4chan on Oct. 28, 2017, which warned of Hillary Clinton’s imminent arrest and a violent nationwide uprising, have come true. A scan through some of the responses to Q’s latest promise of forthcoming “Booms” indicate a mix of excitement and skepticism from followers who’ve clearly been disappointed in the past.
