Every Picture Tells a Story – Justice Prevails Special Edition

April 20. 2021

In this image (above) from video, former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, center, is taken into custody as his attorney, Eric Nelson, left, looks on, after the verdicts were read at Chauvin’s trial for the 2020 death of George Floyd, Tuesday, April 20, 2021, at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis, Minn. (Court TV via AP, Pool).

A mural of George Floyd is shown in the intersection of 38th St & Chicago Ave on March 31, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Community members waited during  the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted April 20, 2021 on multiple counts of murder in the death of George Floyd in May 2020. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

A first in Germany. The Greens will have a candidate for Chancellor in the race.

National elections will be held this Fall in Germany. The Green Party which has a sizable contingent in the German Bundestag will be fielding a very competitive candidate in the race to succeed Angela Merkel.

While a victory to the chancellorship is a long shot a heavy vote for the Green Party  would send political shock waves throughout Germany and all of Europe.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 4.19.2021

Annalena Baerbock has been named the Green party’s first-ever chancellor candidate, emphasizing at a press conference on Monday the unanimity with which she and co-leader Robert Habeck had made the decision, and the clarity of their purpose, first formulated at a party conference three years ago: To become a new big tent party for Germany.

“Of course we didn’t know then that we’d be standing here today,” she said. “But what we knew was that we wanted to open our party up, that we wanted to make policies for a broad society: Inviting, and with clear objectives. And so today begins a new chapter for our party.”

“Here, today, I want to make an offer, for the whole of society, as an invitation to lead our diverse, strong, rich country into a good future,” she added, warming to the theme.

Baerbock has seen a precipitous rise to power.

The 40-year-old stepped into the limelight at a party conference early in 2018. Wearing a black leather jacket, the still little-known regional politician — a resident of the eastern state of Brandenburg — stepped to the fore and wowed the delegates who had just made her one of the party’s two co-leaders.

That was and is remarkable. After all, the environmentalists already had one shooting star: the relatively young and to many charismatic Robert Habeck was soon whispered about as “chancellor material.”

But since her rise to the party’s co-chair post, Baerbock has not slowed down. The 40-year-old has sharpened her political profile and projected herself as an expert on how to tackle climate change.

Nor has she shied away from thorny foreign policy issues.

She’s spoken out on the threats posed by far-right populism and xenophobia. So, when in the winter of 2019 the party again convened, Baerbock got a massive 97% backing from the delegates, beating the “man at her side,” who got an impressive 90%.

In a recent interview with DW, Annalena Baerbock welcomed President Joe Biden’s decision to bring the US back into the Paris Climate Agreement. But the Green Party co-leader also mapped out some clear and concrete climate goals of her own.

“We Europeans, including the German government, need to take advantage of the current situation to realize the proposals that the US administration has put forward concerning climate-neutral cooperation. We need to get moving and point the way towards a European and transatlantic Green Deal.”

In their recently published election manifesto, the Greens have not — as has so often been the case in the past — flagged a preference for a governing coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). In any case, that alliance would still require the participation of a third party to reach a majority, with the most likely candidate being the socialist Left Party. A coalition between the Greens and the conservatives would likely not need a third partner to govern.

The city of Potsdam, where Baerbock lives with her husband and two children, will see a high-profile duel in the run-up to the September election. The Brandenburg state capital will provide the backdrop for a head-to-head clash between Annalena Baerbock in the Green corner and Social Democrat (SPD) Finance Minister Olaf Scholz in the red: One chancellor candidate against the other.

https://www.dw.com/en/could-green-party-leader-annalena-baerbock-become-germanys-next-angela-merkel/a-57092415

Following is a Wikipedia link to Green Party Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annalena_Baerbock

Liz and I cycled along the Car Free Great Highway to participate in a rally supporting the Asian American community and to protest the violence being directed against Asian Americans.

A number of speakers spoke out on behalf of the large Asian American Pacific Islander Community (AAPI). The large crowd then marched along the Car Free Great Highway from Sloat Boulevard to Judah Street.  Following is a photo montage of the event.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOx50knSqzBE6Q5BZdRfbizcHE2q0i-fNKH1dLU

Link to Rapper – Son of Paper

Photos – Lee Heidhues

The right to assemble and protests is being crushed in Russia.  Now, even student journalists face jail time for their reporting of the situation involving jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

This blatant eradication of any opposition media befits a totalitarian leader such as Vladimir Putin who rose through the ranks of the KGB to become the Dictator of Russia.

Photo above – DOXA magazine editors from left, Armen Aramyan, Natalya Tyshkevich and Alla Gutnikova wait for a court session.

Moscow Times 4.14.2021

“Today at 6 a.m. [security officers] carried out searches at the DOXA office and the homes of editors Armen Aramyan, Vladimir Metelkin, Alla Gutnikova and Natasha Tyshkevich,” the outlet said on its website.

The four editors were then charged after being taken in for questioning by investigators.

According to human rights lawyer Pavel Chikov, their charges fall under the same case opened against top Navalny aide Leonid Volkov, who was charged in absentia as he is based in Lithuania.

On Wednesday afternoon, dozens of supporters, mostly young people, gathered outside Moscow’s Basmanny District Court, where the editors were due to be sentenced to pre-trial restraints.

“I came here to support Natasha [Tyshkevich],” Anna, 26, told The Moscow Times. “I believe the whole case has been fabricated and politically motivated. I also believe that journalistic activities should not succumb to political repressions.”

Leonid, 22, chief editor of the city of Kazan’s first independent student-run outlet, said he came to show his support and solidarity with DOXA, who he said set an example for university students nationwide.

“Unfortunately in Russia, everything is arranged so that there are five or six truly independent student publications. There are many of them in general, but very few are willing to criticize the academic community,” he said.

A Moscow court late Wednesday ordered the four journalists to follow restrictions including a ban on phone and internet communications and leaving their homes from 00:00 to 23:59, the Mediazona news website reported. Metelkin called the measures “essentially house arrest.”

DOXA said in a statement that it will “continue to cover things that are important for young people, and we will continue to stand up for their rights.”

“The pressure that the journalistic community has faced lately is unprecedented, but we will not stop our activities,” the statement said.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/04/14/russian-student-journalists-face-jail-over-navalny-protest-video-a73585

The 2004 film Layer Cake is one of Daniel Craig’s first and best roles. It is a fast moving crime story with a message. I am watching it, again, on Amazon Prime.

The scene featured below near the movie’s end is one of the best.

San Francisco Chronicle – Mick LaSalle – Updated Review 1.21.2012

“Layer Cake” is the first film from director Matthew Vaughn, who produced the Guy Ritchie crime pictures “Snatch” and “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” “Layer Cake” shares with the Ritchie films a somewhat convoluted plot and a view of criminal life as an absurd existential condition. But unlike Ritchie, Vaughn doesn’t use that as a license to make his film into an absurd experience. There are colorful characters and moments of humor, but Vaughn maintains a straight tone. His narrative innovations are subtle, there for the sake of putting over the story, not the director.

A characteristically clever but smooth touch comes in the first moments. As the unnamed coke dealer (Craig), identified as XXXX in the credits, delineates the rules by which he conducts his business, we see on screen various people and activities that exemplify what not to do. He says, for example, “Avoid attention-seeking gangsters,” while we see exactly such a character talking into a cell phone, making a flashy display of himself on a crowded street. At first, these seem like mere examples, but gradually we realize that we’re in fact seeing the dangerous lowlifes with whom our hero will soon be involved. He won’t want to be, but circumstances will take over.

In his opening voiceover, the protagonist talks about how he has finally socked away enough money to quit crime and become a man of leisure. Uh-oh. Look out. The audience’s expectation, of course, is that something will go wrong, but “Layer Cake” exceeds expectations. It sets in motion three separate plot strands, each compelling in its own right, each involving risk and promising a big reward. These strands play out, intertwine and eventually tie themselves into a big knot around the hero’s neck, making it almost unimaginable how he might extricate himself. His trouble is our fun at the movies.

The fun begins when XXXX’s supplier — Kenneth Cranham, exuding menace as a cockney slob — hands him two difficult assignments, one of which involves the purchase of a million tablets of Ecstasy from a band of violent, mentally unbalanced wackos. XXXX is just a businessman, who doesn’t even own a gun. He’s going to need one. He further complicates his life by going to a nightclub and letting himself be seduced by the girlfriend (Sienna Miller) of one of his associates. Resistance is futile.

The special appeal of “Layer Cake” derives from its efficient, gripping story and from the personality of the unnamed protagonist, who is not a criminal hotshot, just an intelligent amateur, improvising. Rooting for him is easy. He’s also a compelling character, in that he seems to have a moral nature and at the same time indicates no discomfort or disapproval in his association with murderers — such as his boss’ hatchet man (Colm Meaney). Likewise, he keeps crossing major moral boundaries without indicating that he’s noticed. He is of our world and of that world at the same time.

The title, “Layer Cake,” refers to some philosophical patter that a king boss imparts to XXXX, something about how things are different at different levels of the hierarchy. It’s not a good analogy, since a layer cake is just as good in the middle as it is on top, but the king boss is played by Michael Gambon, and, in an English movie, nobody tells Gambon to fix his metaphor. He’s too high up in the layer cake.

Layer Cake: Drama. Starring Daniel Craig, Colm Meaney and Michael Gambon. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. (R. 105 minutes.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layer_Cake_(film)

Tenants worldwide have suffered during the Pandemic.

Berlin has some of the steepest rents in the World. The Berlin government has attempted to bring some equity to this situation.  Now, Germany’s constitutional Court has ruled the rental caps put in place by the Berlin government are illegal.

Tenants will suffer. Landlords stand to make a windfall profit.  This ruling has ramifications throughout Europe. It is an issue which Americans need to pay close attention as Federal moratoriums on evictions during the Pandemic are due to expire later this year.

Fortunately there are some cities in America with decent rent control measures and the occasional State law which provide tenants with a measure of protection.

It is obvious that legislators and the Courts are all too accommodating to property owners.  Landlords have the money. Tenants pay the price.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 4.15.2021

Germany’s constitutional court has decided that the Berlin rent cap violates Germany’s constitution. The cap was one of the most-debated laws in the country.

Germany’s constitutional court in Karlsruhe has ruled that the Berlin state government had no right to impose a rent cap in the German capital.

Berlin’s rent cap meant that rents for 90% of Berlin’s apartments were frozen for five years at their June 2019 level. New rents could not go above that level, and as of November 2020, any existing rents that were still above that level had to be reduced.

International campaigners saw the Berlin rent cap as one of the most radical rent control measures worldwide, because though other European countries and cities have introduced rent freezes, the Berlin law allowed tenants to actually sue their landlords to reduce their rents. 

Barbara Steenbergen, EU liaison head of the International Union of Tenants (IUT), said she was shocked by the German court decision, not least because other state-level in Berlin laws did in fact regulate regulate private property rights: There is a law that bans landlords from keeping property empty as a speculation, for instance.

Steenbergen said that the Berlin state government had been forced to act because the federal government’s rent control measures, the rent brake, had not slowed the capital’s spiraling rents.

The court ruling found that since the federal government had already made a law regulating rents, a state government could not impose its own law that infringed upon that, and said the Berlin rent cap law was therefore null and void.

Today was a “heavy day for renters in Berlin,” said Sebastian Scheel, Berlin’s minister for urban development and housing, of the socialist Left party. “We took this path for good reasons,” he told the taz newspaper. “We knew that we were treading new ground, and wanted to sound out this issue of jurisdiction.”

He also promised that the government would step in to help tenants who would now potentially be hit by sudden rent hikes. A demonstration calling for major property-owning companies to be expropriated was called on Thursday evening.

The Berlin Tenants’ Association called Thursday’s ruling a “slap in the face” for all tenants. “To declare the law unconstitutional from the beginning is irresponsible social policy,” the association’s director Reiner Wild said in a statement, before noting that it contradicted several other court rulings.

The constitutional complaint had been brought in May 2020 by Bundestag parliamentarians from the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), who both welcomed the decision on Thursday.

Kai Wegner, a spokesman for the CDU federal parliamentary group, called the decision a “sensitive defeat” for the Berlin government, who he blamed for making “a false rent cap promise” to the city’s renters.

“The damage is great,” he said in a statement. “Ideology solves no problems, not in the housing market either. In the long-term, only a sufficient supply of housing can secure affordable rents.”

But the Berlin government had called the rent cap a “breathing space” for tenants while new housing could be built.

https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-rent-cap-overturned-by-germanys-top-court/a-57209268

I could start an entire Blog site just chronicling the dangerous and stupid behavior exhibited on a daily basis by cops in America.

All this dangerous and stupid behavior exhibited by cops has been going on since the inception of America.

Only now is law enforcement misbehavior getting the full airing it so richly deserves.

For those who get caught up in the swamp of police misdeeds it is no laughing matter as the Brother chronicled in the following story graphically illustrates.

The good news is, if you want to call it that, this time the cops didn’t murder anyone.

Photo – Michael Markham Jr. (in black and red jacket) is suing the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, claiming he was arrested and jailed for two days after being mistaken for his brother, Marlon Markham (in gray jacket). (Shown above) Courtesy of Sanjay Schmidt /

San Francisco Chronicle 4.14.2021

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office is being sued by a man who said he was arrested and jailed for two days after being mistaken for his brother, who had a warrant for his arrest.

Lawyers for Michael Markham Jr. said he was mistaken by Alameda County deputies for his brother, Marlon Markham — despite the fact that Michael Markham is two years older, 5 inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter than his brother, who had a warrant for his arrest on a grand theft charge out of Shasta County.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Man-was-arrested-jailed-by-Alameda-deputies-16101383.php

It is incomprehensible that a 26 year law enforcement veteran can come up with a lame excuse that she thought her service weapon was a Taser when she murdered 20 year old Duante Wright during a traffice stop.

The reason she resigned has little, if anything, to do with “best interest of the community.” Kim Potter wants to protect her pension. Disgusting is the only word which comes to mind.

Excerpted from Washington Post 4.13.2021

The 26-year veteran police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minn., who fatally shot Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old unarmed Black man, (pictured above) has resigned “in the best interest of the community.”

Kim Potter, 48, tendered her resignation Tuesday in a brief letter to Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott and Police Chief Tim Gannon. Gannon followed suit, announcing his own resignation later Tuesday.

Potter is a veteran and has served as her police union’s president, the Star Tribune reported. At an earlier news conference, where authorities played a nearly one-minute dash-cam recording of the fatal incident, Gannon said it appears that Potter intended to fire her Taser but instead made an “accidental discharge” from her gun.

Potter had been suspended pending the results of a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigation, the agency said. On Monday, Brooklyn Center leaders dismissed the city manager, potentially giving Mayor Mike Elliot the ability to fire the chief or officers in the department.

Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said he expects to complete a “thorough yet expedited” review of potential criminal charges in the case by no later than Wednesday, he told the Star Tribune.

“I’m hoping Wednesday, but I want to have the opportunity to give my condolences to his family and explain to them my decision,” Orput said.

The suburban city of about 30,000 residents has been rocked by Wright’s killing as the Minneapolis area watches the ongoing trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer charged with murder after kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes.

 

According to local media, Potter has retained attorney Earl Gray. Gray is also representing former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane, who has also been charged in Floyd’s death. Neither Potter nor Gray immediately responded to messages from The Washington Post as of early Tuesday.

Potter joined the Brooklyn Center Police Department in 1995, according to her LinkedIn page. She was first licensed as a police officer in Minnesota at age 22 that same year, the Star Tribune reported. In 2019, she was elected president of the Brooklyn Center Police Officer’s Association, according to the group’s Facebook page. She was also a longtime member of the Minnesota Law Enforcement Memorial Association, where she served on its “casket team.”

Potter, who is married to a former police officer and has two adult sons, most recently worked on the Brooklyn Center police’s negotiation team, the Star Tribune reported.

She has been involved in one fatal police shooting in the past.

In 2019, Potter was among the first to arrive at a home in the Minneapolis suburb after two officers fatally shot a mentally ill man six times after he allegedly lunged at them with a knife, according to a report released by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office last year.

Once paramedics arrived, Potter ordered both of the officers to leave the house, sit in separate squad cars and deactivate their body cameras. As the union president at the time, she escorted one of the officers from the scene back to the police station and was later present when BCA investigators interviewed both officers, the report states.

The officers were not charged in the fatal shooting after prosecutors found they acted with “reasonable fear” after first firing their Tasers.

Potter’s actions in Wright’s death are shown in the video released by police on Monday.

A little before 2 p.m. on Sunday, two other unnamed officers and Potter pulled over Wright because of allegedly expired registration tags. Potter was acting as a field training officer and was training a new officer Sunday, Brian Peters, head of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, told the Star Tribune.

When the officers asked Wright for his identification, Gannon said at a Monday news conference, they found Wright had an outstanding warrant for a misdemeanor and attempted to take him into custody.

The video clip shows Wright slipping from an officer’s grip and returning to his car. That’s when Potter pulls out her gun and yells, “I’ll Tase you!” and then “Taser! Taser! Taser!” before firing.

Seconds later, Potter yells, “Holy s—, I shot him,” apparently realizing that she had fired her pistol instead of her Taser.

Wright drove a couple of blocks before crashing into another vehicle, police said, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Peters defended Potter’s prior record as an officer on the force.

“She’s just a very dedicated, passionate, good person. It’s completely devastating,” he told the Star Tribune. “She [is] just a good person, always willing to help out.”

On Monday, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner said Wright died of a gunshot wound to his chest and ruled his death a homicide.

• [https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/13/kim-potter-daunte-wright-shooting/

Nothing changes in America as Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention creatively reminded us after the 1965 Watts Riots with their classic song, “Trouble Everyday.” A link is attached.

The non stop wanton brutality by out of control cops defies the imagination.  

No matter how many riots, protests, calls for calm and hand wringing American law enforcement first response is to shoot first. There is no such thing as “progressive law enforcement” in America in 2021.

The terrible irony of the latest State sanctioned killing by a cop is that it took place in the very same City where Derek Chauvin is on trial for murdering George Floyd last year.

One would think that law enforcement would have learned some lessons. Obviously not.

The Nation – Dave Zirin 4.12.2021

Following the police killing of Daunte Wright just outside of Minneapolis, three major league games have been called off.

The question that looms is what impact canceling these games will actually have. It’s understandable that some would be cynical. But by taking this step, teams are at the very least doing something that I would describe as “puncturing privilege.” The white fans of these teams may have the luxury of not caring about Daunte Wright, of not even learning his name. But there is no turning away from this when SportsCenter is leading with this story and your game tickets are, at least for one night, worthless.

The police killing of Daunte Wright just outside of Minneapolis is creating reverberations throughout the sports world. First the Minnesota Twins, then the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves, and then the National Hockey League’s Minnesota Wild all canceled their games. And they didn’t do it out of fear of riots, as some sportswriters erroneously (and inexcusably) tweeted.

Here is the statement that the Twins issued regarding the decision to postpone Monday’s contest against the Boston Red Sox.

Out of respect for the tragic events that occurred yesterday in Brooklyn Center, and following the additional details in this evolving situation, the Minnesota Twins have decided it is in the best interests of our fans, staff, players and community to not play today’s game. The decision was made by the Minnesota Twins after consultation with Major League Baseball, and local and state officials. Information regarding the rescheduling of today’s game, and corresponding ticket details, will be released in the near future. The Minnesota Twins organization extends its sympathies to the family of Daunte Wright.

Statements that followed from the other teams were similarly vague, but still significant. These statements are a critical sign of the times. Sports teams are realizing that performative gestures just aren’t going to cut it anymore—not with players and not with the young fans every league is desperate to attract. By canceling the games, the executives and owners of these franchises are acknowledging that reality.

Today’s cancellations happened for several reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that Minneapolis is in a profound state of crisis, with the killing of Daunte Wright taking place during the trial of George Floyd’s killer Derek Chauvin. The Twin Cities and surrounding areas are already on edge. This latest outrage could push things right over, especially if it looks like nobody gives a damn. It has fallen to major league sports to send the message that this problem is so significant that the games simply cannot go on as usual.

The other reason teams took this step, I would argue, is the influence of NBA, WNBA, NHL, MLS, and MLB players who refused to take the field following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. They laid down a marker, withdrawing their labor in the face of injustice. In Minnesota, teams are getting ahead of that possibility. As difficult as these times are, the move shows just how much has changed in less than a year. And even if the leagues’ statements aren’t as strong as everyone wants, it’s striking that these owners are even aware of the world outside their arenas. Compare that to 1992 during the LA rebellion against police brutality, when the sports world barely blinked. It’s blinking now.

But sports can and should do so much more than cancel games. The next step is for these politically connected franchise owners to agitate for some kind of police reform. Few, if any, of them, however, want to step in front of the cameras and confront the police. But that’s next. Many players and fans, as this crisis continues, are going to demand nothing less.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/daunte-wright-minnesota-twins/