Google Blocking Conservatives Cartoons

Mayor of small Northern California town to resign for dismissing police reform

The mayor of a small town in Northern California announced her resignation Tuesday following a backlash over comments she made dismissing the need for police reform in the town.
“I fully support the Black Lives Matter movement and am eager to consider and adopt policies that advance its goals,” Healdsburg's Mayor Leah Gold wrote in a statement posted on the city’s Facebook page announcing her resignation.
"Although I feel positively about my contributions and have many loyal supporters, I’m certain there are also many BIPOC [black, indigenous, people of color] members of our community who could serve our city well. As I’ve considered how I can help Healdsburg advance in racial justice during this critical juncture, I believe that one of the ways I can contribute is by creating a space for a person of color to join the City Council," she wrote.
Calls for Gold’s resignation first started earlier this month after she said scheduling a City Council meeting to discuss police reform in Healdsburg would be a “solution looking for a problem.” She said the town has  “a very good police chief who is on top of these issues and trains his staff in appropriate conflict-resolution methods," SF Gate reported.
Afterward, a woman named Elena Halvorsen wrote an email to Gold saying the town deserves more than a “complete denial of an issue that many in our town encounter on a daily basis.” She also accused the mayor of putting her “white privilege on full display.”
Gold responded by saying, “I really don’t know how to respond to your misplaced outrage and the hyperbolic tone of your letter. Perhaps after you have cooled down a bit we can arrange a civil phone conversation." Halvorsen posted her email and Gold's response on her Facebook page.
Halvorsen added in the post that they eventually spoke on the phone but didn’t come to a “resolution” and she left the conversation “frustrated.”
A Change.org petition calling for Gold's resignation received nearly 2,000 signatures.
Gold acknowledged in a post on June 6 that her initial response was “inappropriate” and said she was “speaking off the cuff and within a narrow band at the Council meeting, on the question of whether excessive use of force is an issue in the Healdsburg Police Department. But clearly, the public is engaged in a much broader conversation.”
On Monday, a letter was read in a city council meeting, arguing the mayor should resign for "silencing of the underrepresented community in Healdsburg," "urging the city to refrain from public demonstration taking place across the country," and "initially silencing an important agenda item on use of force," SF Gate reported.
Gold said she would resign on June 30.

Ted Cruz blasts Google over The Federalist treatment

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, ask a question during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on police use of force and community relations on on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, June 16, 2020 in Washington. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Pool via AP)

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Google's recent actions involving The Federalist, a conservative publication, raises serious concerns that the tech giant is abusing its power to censor political speech it disagrees with.
NBC News reported Tuesday that Google "banned" The Federalist and ZeroHedge, another right-leaning website, from Google Ads for "pushing unsubstantiated claims" about the Black Lives Matter movement.
“To be clear, The Federalist is not currently demonetized," Google later clarified in a statement. "We do have strict publisher policies that govern the content ads can run on, which includes comments on the site. This is a longstanding policy.”
Cruz plans to send Google CEO Sundar Pichai a letter on Wednesday and called its alleged action part of a bigger problem involving the culture of free speech being attack in the U.S, adding that the company was helping to lead that charge.
Cruz wrote that Americans at one time understood the best response to free speech, "was more free speech." He claimed that some Americans, with the assistance of powerful companies, are now pressing to silence and punish people who express their views that don't "align with the prevailing and ever-shifting progressive orthodoxy."

"These individuals demand that people with different views lose their livelihoods if they step out of line." he wrote. "Companies like Google must -- to use a most Orwellian term -- 'demonetize' them."
He added: "As evidence by its actions yesterday, Google seems more than happy to play this censorship role by trying to break the financial back of a media publication it disagrees with."
The tech giant also clarified on Twitter that “The Federalist was never demonetized," and added, "We worked with them to address issues on their site related to the comments section."
NBC reported that Google took action after they were notified by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a British nonprofit, that 10 U.S-based websites projected to make millions of dollars through Google Ads published what the Center says are racist articles about protests following the death of George Floyd. It appears to have been NBC News' inquiry into the matter that prompted Google's actions in the first place.
While Cruz admitted he didn't know what comments were posted by individual users on The Federalist, he alleged that YouTube, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company has "thousands of profane, racist, and indefensible comments posted" on a given day.
"Google has defended Section 230's [of the Communications Decency Act] grant of immunity to Big Tech by arguing that 'the best way to protect online speech -- and indeed the internet itself -- is to allow platforms to set and enforce standards for appropriate speech on their services, and to do so generally free from ... the threat of private litigation," he wrote.
He said within seven days, Google is requested to provide the Senate Judiciary Committee communication involving the company and various parties over the past year, as well as answer various questions into the matter.
In an interview on FOX Business' "The Evening Edit with Liz MacDonald," Christopher Bedford, The Federalist Senior Editor, responded to the allegations.
"What I can say for certain is that NBC News changed their story and Google was very, very quick to shut it down," he said. "The question is whether or not Google is actually on the side of truth in this the matter or whether Google is just in retreat after a very clumsy attack."
Fox News' Victor Garcia, Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Fox Business's Audrey Conklin contributed to this report

Ahmaud Arbery's mother says Trump was 'very compassionate' during White House meeting

Wanda Cooper-Jones, the mother Ahmaud Arbery, said President Trump was "very compassionate" when he met with various families behind closed doors on Tuesday, prior to signing an executive order geared toward reforming the country's policing tactics.

Fox News host and anchor Bret Baier played a sound bite of Cooper-Jones on "Special Report" of her describing the experience of meeting with the commander in chief.
"I was very, very emotional throughout the whole conference," she said. "[Trump] was very compassionate. He showed major concern for all families. Not just one family, but for all families."
Cooper-Jones added: "I can say that President Trump was very receiving. He listened and he addressed each and every family accordingly."
Trump tweeted later Tuesday night that Cooper-Jones is "A GREAT woman. Her son is looking down from heaven & is very proud of his wonderful & loving mom!!!"
Arbery was a black man who was shot dead on Feb. 23 while out jogging in Brunswick, Ga. Trump met with families of other victims of racially-charged violence, as well.
Fox News congressional reporter Chad Pergram was on Capitol Hill and tweeted about Cooper-Jones' meeting with Trump, and a separate meeting she had with Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., citing a pool report.

"Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, after mtg w/GOP SC Sen Scott: 'It was very very emotional. We have mothers we have sisters we have grandmothers that were in the room and we're in so much pain and we need some change,'" he tweeted.
He wrote that she also said, "I think the president was very receiving, he was very compassionate, he did assure every family that we will, we would and should expect change."
After meeting with the families, Trump signed an executive order on law enforcement reform and said "chokeholds will be banned except if an officer’s life is at risk," as the nation reels from the death of George Floyd in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department and the ensuing unrest -- which has sparked calls for changes in policing nationwide as drastic as dismantling entire departments.
Cooper-Jones wished Trump's order had gone further, but she considered the reforms to be a promising start, CBS News reported.
"When Ahmaud Arbery’s mom, Wanda Cooper-Jones, was asked about the executive order that @realdonaldtrump signed today she said she didn’t think that it was enough 'but I do think that it's a start,'" CBS News producer Fin Gomez tweeted.

The executive order also addressed the best practices for use of force, instituted information sharing to track officers who have repeated complaints against them and included federal incentives for police departments to deploy non-police personnel for issues related to mental health, homelessness and addiction.
Fox News' Tyler Olson contributed to this report.

Seattle police chief says no part of city is 'cop-free' after business owner's complaint

What a frigging Idiot.

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said Monday there is no “cop-free” zone in the city after to a local business owner said he called 911 more than a dozen times when protesters vandalized his business but police never showed up.
“There is no cop-free zone in the city of Seattle,” Best said. “I think that the picture has been painted in many areas that shows the city is under siege. That is not the case.”
Best was referring to the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), previously called the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), a six-block area near downtown Seattle where police abandoned a precinct amid escalating tensions with George Floyd protesters.
John McDermott, who owns an auto shop just outside of the CHOP, told KIRO-TV protesters broke into his shop and he detained a suspect who stole money from his cash register and tried to set fire to the building.
“I chased him down and as soon as I came face to face, he came at me so I put him on the ground,” McDermott’s son Mason McDermott told the station. He said the suspect also tried to cut him with a box cutter.
John McDermott said he called the police a total of 19 times to no avail.
“They alluded they were sending someone…finally said they weren’t going to send somebody,” McDermott said. “I don’t know what to expect next. If you can’t call the police department, you can’t call the fire department to respond, what do you have?” He said he's "Heartbroken. I mean, they are the cavalry."
He said he finally had to give into other protesters’ demands -- who knocked down his fence -- to let the suspect go to avoid “mayhem beyond mayhem," adding that both his son and some of the protesters were armed but no shots were fired.
Best said officers responded to the report and “observed the location from a distance.”
“They did not see any signs of smoke or fire or anything else and they did not see a disturbance,” she added. She said officers have written multiple reports about crimes in the area in the last two days and officers will enter the area if the situation is urgent. She said otherwise officers are meeting alleged crime victims outside of the CHOP.
The Seattle Fire Department said it’s investigating why no one from its department responded to McDermott’s call.
Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins said the department needs clearance from the police department to enter the area but should have been able to respond the McDermott's business because it's outside the CHOP.
City workers have been setting up barricades to improve emergency vehicle access to the area and city officials have been attempting to negotiate with protest organizers to get officers back in the abandoned East Precinct.
“There’s still a lot of concerns about what this is and how this operates,” Transportation Director Sam Zimbabwe said. “There’s a lot of complicated demands.”
Although President Trump claimed last week that “domestic terrorists” have taken over Seattle, The CHOP has been mostly peaceful and has been described as “festive” at times.
Anti-police brutality protests have sparked across the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man who died while in police custody in Minneapolis of May 25 after a white officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Political Stupid Leftist Cartoons

Media fast-track Trump’s slow walk, speculate about health

Now it’s the left’s turn to raise questions about a candidate’s physical stamina.
A simple walk down a ramp has led to a sea of speculation about Donald Trump’s health.
I have no idea whether there’s anything wrong with the president, but I find all the medical theorizing to be on, well, shaky ground.
I’ve watched the video of Trump descending the ramp after a speech to West Point graduates several times. What I see is a man, a day before his 74th birthday, walking cautiously, even gingerly down a ramp, determined not to fall. The chatter has gotten so loud that the president felt the need to respond on Twitter:
“The ramp that I descended after my West Point Commencement speech was very long & steep, had no handrail and, most importantly, was very slippery. The last thing I was going to do is ‘fall’ for the Fake News to have fun with. Final ten feet I ran down to level ground. Momentum!”
The Washington Post isn’t buying it: “Elements of Trump’s explanation strained credulity. Trump’s claim that the ramp had been ‘very slippery’ was inconsistent with the weather, which on Saturday in West Point, N.Y., was sunny and clear-skied...In addition, Trump wrote that he ‘ran down’ the final stretch of the ramp. Video footage of the episode shows the president picking up his pace slightly for the final two steps, but that would hardly be considered a run or a jog by any standard definition.”
The New York Times added a point that’s been kicking around in media circles for months:
“The videos again raised questions about the health of Mr. Trump, whose advisers have never fully explained his abrupt visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in November, saying at the time only that it was intended to get a jump on his annual physical.” The White House doctor has since pronounced Trump in good health “but provided little information beyond blood pressure” and his use of hydroxychloroquine.
Oh, and there’s another incident of water-gate proportions: Trump lifting a glass of water with his right hand, then using his left hand to steady it before he took a sip.
Now I have no idea whether there’s anything wrong with the man or not, other than advancing age, but this seems pretty thin gruel on which to mount a buffet of speculation.
I was sharply critical when some people on the right kept portraying Hillary Clinton in 2016 as practically on her deathbed, both when she got the flu and when she very shakily got into a car after a 9/11 remembrance ceremony. If liberals thought that was unfair, they shouldn’t slide into the same conduct now.
But here’s the thing: Trump and his allies were among those who took potshots at Hillary’s health in the last campaign, including an ad questioning whether she had the “stamina” for the White House. He said, among other things, “she actually could be crazy” and was “totally unhinged,” suggested she “took a short-circuit in the brain,” and “honestly, I don’t think she’s all there.”
And the president continues to question the mental acuity of “Sleepy Joe.” I’m sure that makes Trump’s critics feel that he’s getting a taste of his own medicine. But it doesn’t mean the press has to go down that road.
Some pundits, though, are endorsing the payback approach. “If Trump can openly question the physical and mental fitness of his Democratic opponents,” says CNN’s Chris Cillizza, “then when there is a moment where he looks frail, it is absolutely fair game to ask questions about his own well-being -- particularly given his age and how little we know about his medical past.”
It’s clear this president is sensitive to the physical image he presents, and that could be the main reason he won’t wear a mask in public during the pandemic.
Former CNN and ABC correspondent Jeff Greenfield says Trump is right about “just how damaging such a picture of weakness can be. It may sound trivial, and it’s often unfair, but when a modern president, or even a candidate, exhibits physical weakness, it comes with a political cost.”
In Politico, Greenfield recounts some of the lowlights of past administrations. Jerry Ford stumbling down the steps of Air Force One, leading to many Chevy Chase impersonations. Jimmy Carter collapsing during a six-mile race near Camp David, looking utterly drained and exhausted. George H.W. Bush throwing up on the Japanese prime minister during a state dinner. All of them lost reelection.
The reality is we have two septuagenarians running for president, and people that age have health problems. And the public has the right to know about those problems. But chatter about a downhill walk or grabbing a glass of water isn’t helping the situation.

Trump says he wants major troop reduction in Germany

President Trump on Monday appeared to confirm earlier reports that he intends on reducing the number of U.S. troops in Germany, which some experts say could damage Washington’s relationship with Berlin.
“We’re at 52,000 soldiers in Germany,” Trump said, according to Politico. “That’s a tremendous cost to the United States. Germany, as you know, is very delinquent in their payments to NATO.”
The report said Trump wants to reduce the number to 25,000, and put the number of troops currently in the country at about 35,000. (The  U.S. is allowed to station 52,000 troops in the country, according to the report.)
Politico challenged Trump’s claim that Germany is “delinquent” by billions in their payments to NATO.  The website said Germany does not owe that amount, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“We’re protecting Germany and they’re delinquent. That doesn’t make sense,” he said. Time magazine reported that Germany has yet to pay 2 percent of its  GDP on the military, which was agreed upon in 2014. Germany doled out 1.3 percent of its GDP in military spending in 2019, the report said.
The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. government officials, reported earlier this month that Trump ordered the Pentagon to reduce the 34,500 service members in the country.
A U.S. senior official told the paper that internal discussions have been continuing since September and the move is not in retaliation to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision not to attend the G-7 meeting in Washington.
Johann Wadephul, the deputy chairman of the Union’s parliamentary caucus, said at the time that the U.S.'s decision to withdraw troops without consulting with its NATO allies “shows once again that the Trump administration is neglecting basic leadership tasks.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Hannity describes four steps to fix police-community relations: 'Clear action does need to be taken'

Sean Hannity laid out a four-step plan Monday to fix the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve, saying "clear action does need to be taken" following the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta Friday night.
The first step of the host's plan was that "every police officer has got to have a body cam and dash cams."
"It keeps everybody honest and it lets people see what really happened," Hannity explained.
He then called for the use of chokeholds by police officers to be banned "except if an officer's life is at risk," Hannity said. "You've got to protect your life."
The third step the host called for was a nationwide restoration of "law and order."
"How much longer are we going to allow anarchists to take over cities [and] police stations [and] burn police stations and other buildings to the ground?" Hannity asked before slamming the leadership of cities struggling with demonstrations and calling them useless.
Hannity said the vast majority of law enforcement officers are seeing their names besmirched by the actions of a "few dirty cops."
"We keep demonizing the good people that defend law and order," he said. "We've got to protect them, too."
The host's final proposal called for the introduction of "new, advanced, non-lethal options and new advanced non-lethal weapons that don't kill but are effective."
Hannity noted the problems between police and minority communities are not new and have not been solved by past leadership.
"Bottom line is what happened to George Floyd can never happen to any other American again," Hannity said. "Sadly, that these cops did what they did in the Floyd case was not only reprehensible. Think of the damage that it has done and set back police-community relations decades."

Tucker: Black Lives Matter 'enjoys almost complete immunity from criticism,' US is at a 'dangerous moment'

Tucker Carlson opened Monday's edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" with a discussion of the popularity of the Black Lives Matter movement, describing it as the first political party that cannot be criticized without professional or personal consequences

"The media, in their relentlessly fawning coverage, usually describe Black Lives Matter as an activist group or protest movement," the host said. "But that's deception by understatement. Black Lives Matter is not a collection of marchers with signs. It's not a conventional political lobby like Planned Parenthood or the NRA ... It is working to remake the country and then to control it. It's a political party.
"As of tonight, Black Lives Matter may be the single most powerful party in the United States," Carlson contiued. "Nobody says that out loud but politicians understand it perfectly well. If nothing else, they understand power -- they can smell it at great distances. That is why they are lining up to bow before Black Lives Matter."
The host pointed out that Republicans, as well as Democrats, have been bowing to the new party, with none other than Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, taking part in a protest march in recent weeks.
"Republican leaders brag about their strong conservative convictions, but mostly they just want to be on the winning team, whatever that is," Carlson said. "That is why they pause before offending China. It's why when Black Lives Matter tells them to take a knee, they do.
"It's all pretty strange when you think about it. If the leaders of Black Lives Matter are political actors, and they are, then by definition you are allowed to have any opinion you want to have about them."
"Imagine a world," the host said later, "where you are punished for questioning the behavior of the president or for insulting your local mayor. You probably can't imagine that because it's too bizarre. It is un-American but that is where we are right now. Black Lives Matter has changed the rules and here is the first new rule: No criticizing Black Lives Matter.

"You can be fired from your job if you disobey. Many Americans have been," he said.
Those Americans include a Vermont principal who posted a status to her personal Facebook page about the importance of protecting both black lives and law enforcement. The local superintendent described the post as "outright racist." Similarly, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago cut ties with one of its scholars, a University of Chicago economics professor who claimed the movement had BLM "torpedoed itself" by backing the "hashtag [of] defund the police."
"Black Lives Matter now enjoys almost complete immunity from criticism," Carlson said. "This is unprecedented for an American political movement but Black Lives Matter is more powerful than that. It has singlehandedly revised our moral framework ..."
"Affirming the fundamental equality of all people is now considered hate speech," he added. "You can be fired for saying it. Again, many people have been. This is a dangerous moment."