hunting for the jetpack man i guess. In general with jetpacks and drones of all sizes, including human carrying, the airspace is to become more lively and entertaining with coming years - for example police in Japan is using drones with nets to catch drug carrying drones, so the drug traffickers started to use drones with nets to catch those police drones...
The route they took wasn't particularly close to where the jetbacks were spotted. I don't think it is that - although I don't know enough about aviation to know what they were doing or how rare of an occurrence they are.
As far as how rare they are - helicopters in LA are a daily occurrence. I used to live in Mar Vista, just a few blocks from Venice Beach, and they flew over our house every night. There were times when they flew so low they caused the water in our pool to ripple (though that was rare). Now I'm down in Westchester, and we get fewer, but they're still around frequently. I saw some yesterday, but think they were just regular LAPD, and not these particular ones. (And looking at the map of their route, they didn't fly over us.)
Helicopters are practically a native bird here, they are incredibly common. I've been working outside for the past hour and spotted my third flying overhead already in that time span. LAPD also always has at least two birds in the air for like 20 hours out of the day, but there are tons and tons of private operators and just plain old rich people who commute like this (most famously probably Kobe Bryant given he recently died commuting by helicopter).
The best part though, is not the initial response or the counter, it’s the fact the “commons” is so valued you have this sort of meta self-regulation taking place to rebalance to equilibrium. Super cool and wish, well basically everything else in life was like that.
Meta-comment: that is nice of you to check the OP’s submission history. It does add context and the response, while valid was maybe a little harsh in light of the poster’s newness. It might be nice if there were an easy way to tell if a poster is new (or a throwaway) for such context.
Having serendipitously dipped a toe into the avgeek waters, it doesn't seem so surprising to me. In a major metropolitan area, you can bank on people listening to ATC traffic and camping out near airfields with good-enough cameras at almost any time. In the avgeek world, one can earn both personal satisfaction and kudos for novel aircraft, so they are especially desirable.
Even a beginner is likely to have an imaging system that is plenty good, with a mechanical shutter. The atmospheric shimmer in the third image suggests that it was made with a longer lens; probably not a beginner.
Not really. Most interchangeable lens cameras do not have a purely electronic shutter, it's a very new feature.
Those that do, do not have it as the default mode. There is also the electronic first curtain shutter, but that is way closer to a mechanical shutter than to an electronic shutter.
Pretty much every single camera that has interchangeable lenses, and thus can mount a telephoto objective sufficient for taking good pictures of helicopters has a mechanical shutter. From the Sony alpha series, to Nikon DSLRs, to the Canon EOS line, and so on.
Its the middle of the day with no cloud, so there is plenty of light. That means we can up the shutter speed to the point where rolling shutter is negligible.
I have a nikon d7000, which has a rolling shutter. Its only really noticeable when I'm recording video, or when there is _lots_ of movement inside the shutter time. at 1/3200th of second, thats a lot of movement.
The D7000, like all system cameras, has a mechanical shutter it uses when taking photos. Even though technically ”rolling” as well, it is much faster than a typical electronic shutter due to the way a CMOS sensor must be read out. Phone cameras have no physical shutters and use e-shutter all the time, but your D7000 only resorts to it when shooting video.
As a rule of thumb, it takes several milliseconds for a mechanical shutter to traverse the sensor plane, but it takes several tens of milliseconds for an e-shutter to readout the sensor. Shutter speed does not affect this; even at 1/4000s or 1/8000s or whatever the time difference between the top and the bottom of a photo remains the same.
Now, just like every other conspiracy nut, I'd like to state upfront that I'm no conspiracy theorist. However, over the years "seeing black helicopters" has been an insult used by some. Yet I used to see them parked out in the open at the National Guard base along I-70 in eastern Indiana like 25-30 years ago. And here we have photos published by not-disreputable source. Make of it what you will.
I think it's pretty clear they are saying people would say you're a nutter for saying unmarked helicopters are used by government agencies yet he knew them to exist even back then. Not sure where you picked up that they were the same exact helicopters.
That sounds exactly like a Karen: The power company started the fires due to lack of maintenance! Why is the power company flying helicopters and disturbing me?
I don't think the utility had sent out any community notices. So when helis loiter around a little lower and slower than normal I think it's natural to be curious. Particularly when they show up on a daily basis for maybe a few weeks to a month.
These passengers were still subject to quarantine requirements (enforcement may be a different story). There are no direct flights between Toronto and Buffalo so the helicopter charters were filling this gap, while also skirting the physical border closures.
Given the up to 10k they are paying for flights and to have their RVs driven across the boarder (yes, commercial drivers can cross in RVs) a few hundred dollars for a covid test won't be an issue. Private covid tests in canada cost about 250$.
There’s an upper limit to testing capacity, and optimistically the government allocates that capacity in the way it thinks it will do the most good.
They’re worried about processing tests from care homes, healthcare workers, suspected positive patients, outbreaks, etc... not old people that want to go to Florida for vacation.
But that doesn’t preclude finding a private company that will test you, but the government isn’t going to pay for non-medically-necessary medical treatment and testing from a private company.
In the US I just went to a local er and got a 30 min response quick test for 25$ because I felt like my throat was a little itchy, not for any real reason. Are you saying that this wouldn't be an option in Canada? That seems really surprising to me
In case you're actually curious (even though this is like two weeks later): Despite never leaving the house I woke up with little to no smell/taste the other day and while it was likely some random sinus infection or something, given the vulnerable people I live with I isolated and immediately got tested.
Went online and scheduled an appointment for an hour later. (They had sooner, but I took that one.) Drive through test. Just had to provide my usual identification for healthcare (provincial health card), but there was no screening as far as whether I really needed it since the labs aren't really backed up right now.
About 20 hours later got a text with the result in the middle of the night.
From "Maybe I have covid?" to getting a PCR test result was 21 hours and $0. A antigen test would only take an hour or two, but be much less accurate. As far as PCR testing, no complaints here. Only had to spend one night sleeping on the couch in the basement before knowing I wasn't going to infect and kill my family.
Certainly it's an option in Canada. You call the 811 line and say "I coughed" and they have you in for testing later that day. I've done it twice since March. The only use-case for private testing I can imagine is if you need to schedule a test on demand for a border crossing or other specific situation.
A 30 minute rapid test (aka: lateral flow / antigen test) isn't a reliable way to test for Covid. These tests return a high rate of false negatives. You need to get a lab PCR test if you want an accurate result.
Most countries that require Covid tests before travel require a PCR test for that reason.
Most countries that I know of (even the ones with famously socialised health care) won't actually give you a certificate with the info you need for travel, like passport number and ID verification, for free even if general public testing is free.
He specified private COVID Test. I assumes that means that it is for someone who is not covered by the nationalized health system or that it is a situation not covered by insurance. Typically insurance in the US will only pay for testing if you have symptoms or known contact. If you require testing for travel or occupational purposes, you or your employer would usually foot the bill. Healthcare workers have special exceptions. Probably Canada is similar.
Many have also jumped the queue to get free COVID shots (Tampa had a recent news report). One couple said they booked shots (4 weeks in the future) for their friends who are still in Canada (they will travel down shortly). Not sure how this is permitted although it makes scientific sense (anyone can transmit).
The US is currently well ahead of Canada in per-capita COVID delivery.
> The US is currently well ahead of Canada in per-capita COVID delivery.
The US is actually well ahead of most of the world, especially when you factor population and geography [1]. Sure, Israel has crushed everyone, but I think we can all agree there are exceptional circumstances which make this easier in Israel than in most other countries. Other success stories have been largely small, wealthy countries.
It's a shame that the US media is so politicized as to not recognize Operation Warp Speed and the men and women - from researchers, to logisticians, to clinicians - who have made this possible. It has been an absolute miracle of human achievement and will hopefully be celebrated by historians, since the current generation refuses to do so.
It's probably a rounding error after one considers that there are probably some Americans in Canada, but Canada has three vaccinations (not just 3 doses) per citizen while the US only has 1 and change. It would be a bummer if Canadians were consuming the more limited US vaccinations in meaningful numbers. I'm "picking on" Canada here because while America has a lot of medical tourism from South America, it tends to be out of necessity (worse medical infrastructure and so on) as opposed to impatience.
But the vaccines are not getting into arms. In theory there are 3 vaccines and if others are approved and ramp up production (like Oxford) then the rate can increase. Right now, that is all theoretical and total coverage is scheduled for early September 2021. That does not include children (<16) since I am not sure there is a children's variant.
Nevertheless, it's still vaccines that other countries can't use, and presumably other countries weren't expecting to provide Canadians' vaccinations when they were purchasing their vaccination stock.
>but if they want to bring their car they need to ship it down
This is why the helicopter flights are so popular. They're literally just flying across the border with the shortest possible thing that could be called a flight, because air travel is allowed. And they're getting their car (or more often, RV) towed across the border, because cross-border towing is also allowed. The shortest possible flight means the shortest possible tow.
This was a similar ordeal in Minneapolis in 2020. When news choppers weren't circling the George Floyd memorial, it was National Guard and State Patrol scanning for civil unrest, or more recently, State Patrol's investigating carjackings:
I live next to the autonomous zone and the helicopter traffic frequenting our neighborhood always triggers me. During the protests on December 30th we had State Patrol lights shining in our windows.
With all the surveillance and military response to events happening in the country right now, I'm definitely curious to see what these choppers in Los Angeles are up to.
Portland didn't have helicopters that I'm aware of, but at the height of the multi-month riots over the spring, summer and fall, the Air Force was flying one of these[1] Special Operations Surveillance Planes that they denied were doing any "surveilling." It's interesting that the flight paths happened to coincide with the locations of where the riots happened to be occurring that day and Portland had a No-Fly Zone restriction in place.[2]
> multi-month riots over the spring, summer and fal
There were no multi-month riots this summer. Multi-month protests, yes. But not riots. The riots were much smaller in number and generally only lasted a few days at any one location prior to order being restored (here in NYC we had a few nights of looting that could be described as a riot). Even the infamous 1992 LA riots only lasted a week. Multi-month riots would be downfall-of-society level.
Not sure what media you watch but before I went to bed, I watched Portland livestreams of very violent "protests". These went on every night for weeks and I watched people throw Molotov cocktails and shoot mortars at law enforcement. Call it what you want, but this shit was happening for over 100 nights in a row.
Mortars or fireworks? That said, I agree that there were certainly protests that consistently became violent at night time for the span of at least weeks, maybe months.
Mortars are a hell of a lot more lethal any consumer firework. So, yes there is a difference. Mortars also need to be used at range (100s of meters to kilometers) to be effective. I highly doubt mortars were in use.
It's almost like, in the interest of clarity, we should use specific, non-overly-broad words that can't be misinterpreted. The use of the word "mortar" here is clearly causing problems, so how about "aerial firework" and "combat mortar"?
I think there might be a lot of people here (my self included) that literally didn't know that about fireworks in modern parlance. It's because talking about fireworks just doesn't ever come up in my life. But I think "mortar" is commonly known as a military kind of weapon even if you know nothing about fireworks.
What's the difference between mortars and fireworks? Damage. Suggesting people were dropping a plate, siting a mortar and undermining a building is a much stronger image than "Some bro threw an M-80 near some stuff." I am not downplaying the violence as I wasn't there, just pointing out the difference.
Well US Army mortars tend to be 60-107mm in calibre and designed for anti-infantry use while fireworks are generally designed for aesthetic effects. There is certainly some overlap in the capability of fireworks and mortars to render damage to individuals and groups but this is generally a very limited shared range of effect, with mortars being explicitly designed to kill or incapacitate human targets.
When someone says "I watched people throw Molotov cocktails and shoot mortars at law enforcement", the obvious implication is that we are talking about the type of military hardware pictured and described at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_(weapon) being used to intentionally injure or kill a group of people, not a toy version intended for making a celebratory burst of color being launched against the side of a building.
There was at least one molotov cocktail captured on camera in September landing in the street between a group of protestors and a line of cops, though it is not clear whether anyone was injured by it.
> When someone says “I watched people throw Molotov cocktails and shoot mortars at law enforcement”, the obvious implication is that we are talking about the type of military hardware pictured and described at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_(weapon) being used to intentionally injure or kill a group of people, not a toy version intended for making a celebratory burst of color being launched against the side of a building.
I…disagree.
If I heard “small arms and mortars”, I’d think of the military weapon. (Or “rockets and mortars”, without other context.)
If I hear “molotov cocktails and mortars”, though, I’d think of either the fireworks or some improvised device, but not miltary hardware unless there was some other contextual indication favoring the latter. While its obviously not impossible for a group to both be using Molotov cocktails and have access to military heavy weapons, that’s not really, to me, the normal association.
There was definitely some vandalism involved (and e.g. people shooting fireworks at the wall of a fortified building), but federal authorities were incredibly disingenuous in their descriptions of events and justifications of escalation.
Most of the dangerous violence was police-on-protestor.
Trying to compare Bellingcat, which publishes things like investigations into the downing of MH17, to Fox News. That is terrible.
Fox News has entertainment departments, fought in court to have Tucker Carlson lie to his followers with impunity. They republished incitement to ramming attacks.
Bellingcat.. They just do investigations.
If you want to try to break things down into black and white left vs right, at least try to do it with comparable organizations. Or even better, try to refute the substance of the article instead of going to a media bias site to see how you feel they land on the political spectrum.
Even the site you linked has them listed as "left-center" with "high factual reporting." How is this grounds to outright dismiss them? The slightest degree of "leftness" makes you want to exclude sources? Do you have any factual reason to be doing this, or is this your personal bias towards right wing content forcing you to seek means to exclude information you don't like the looks of?
Honestly, that comparison is very disingenuous just from the information on the site you just linked:
Fox News:
"Overall, we rate Fox News strongly Right-Biased due to editorial positions and story selection that favors the right. We also rate them Mixed factually and borderline Questionable based on poor sourcing and the spreading of conspiracy theories that later must be retracted after being widely shared."
Bellingcat:
"we rate Bellingcat Left-Center biased based on story selection and positions that moderately favor the left. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record."
These are vastly, vastly different forms and scales of "bias." They are nearly incomparable.
From your source, Fox is further right than Bellingcat is left, and Bellingcat is much better on factual reporting. I understand what you're saying about getting news about conflicts from a particular point of view, but your source seems to contradict the analogy.
This is the most disingenuous description of what was happening in Portland. I mean, anyone could follow the video on Twitter posted by Antifa. But you’re telling me it wasn’t a riot?
I didn't say there wasn't rioting involved (some smashed and burned buildings, some statues torn down, dumpsters set on fire, etc.), but based on what I have read and seen – as an outsider who has not visited Portland in years – most of the direct clashes between cops and protestors were instigated by the cops, and most of the violence was cop-on-protestor. As far as I know no cops were killed. Were any even seriously injured? I saw a news photo of a cop with a bruised shin where it was hit with a rock; another report mentioned a cop whose glove got burned by a firework.
The vast majority of the protestors in Portland were out during the day, and were peaceful and organized. There were undoubtedly some people who came out at night because they wanted to tussle with the cops, launch their fireworks at that federal building, and so on. My impression (again, second-hand, as an outsider) was that the cops (local and federal) did a terrible job of diffusing that energy.
“Tussle with the cops” and “launch fireworks at federal buildings” and of course who is to blame? “The cops who did a terrible job of diffusing that energy”.
Why are you framing it in such soft terms? I mean, cops had higher powered lasers aimed at their eyes. Molotov cocktails throw at officers and federal buildings (I think most people call that arson). Night, after night, after night.
Yet let me guess, you label the people that shoved their way into the Capitol building “seditionists” and “domestic terrorists”?
Why not couch their actions in the same soft terms? Why does one riot at the Capitol deserve such condemnation when dozens of nights of rioting in Portland are waved away? Why not blame the DC cops for not “diffusing the energy”?
I have no problem condemning what happened at the Capitol building. I’m just tired of hypocrisy when judging the other side.
> Why does one riot at the Capitol deserve such condemnation when dozens of nights of rioting in Portland are waved away?
For one thing, the MAGA insurrectionists' stated goal was to kill members of Congress and the Vice President, and overthrow the government. Their ranks included a bunch of highly trained ex-military and law enforcement people who were apparently prepared and equipped to carry out that plan.
The demonstrators in Portland had the goal of telling cops to stop murdering people, and then later also wanted federal authorities to leave their city alone. Instead of letting them tire themselves out shouting in the street and then go home, the cops shot rubber bullets and tear gas, violently rushed at them, and beat people up night after night.
Note again that a bunch of the most violent incidents in Portland were directly perpetrated or instigated by white supremacists.
Seeing how poorly their statements matched the situation, it seems likely that federal authorities directing officers in Portland (and perhaps the local cops as well) wanted to provoke an unending stream of violent clashes for the benefit of TV cameras.
> Why not blame the DC cops for not “diffusing the energy”?
The capitol police, DC police, and national guard (under the direction of the DoD) deserve a ton of criticism. Their leadership screwed up about as badly as can be imagined, and the result was a complete shitshow. A lot more people could have easily been killed or grievously injured. Hopefully a full investigation will get to the bottom of it.
If DC protestors had just wanted to march around outside the barricades shouting and waving signs, that would have been just fine (and that's all many of them did; those folks are unlikely to face charges). They could have stayed all day and night shouting themselves hoarse if they wanted. There would have been no need for police to use force in such a situation.
"MAGA insurrectionists' stated goal was to kill members of Congress and the Vice President, and overthrow the government"
Ok, I assume you "know" this based on tweets and comments on parler. But what did they do? Bust some windows and force their way in.
"The demonstrators in Portland had the goal of telling cops to stop murdering people,"
Ok, but what did they do? Flash lasers into cops eyes. Shoot fireworks and throw molotov cocktails at federal buildings. You claim "white supremacists" instigated this, but what proof do you have? All I hear is rumor.
So let's pause for a second. We have Trump supports forcing their way into the capitol building. And we have Antifa firebombing federal buildings. But in your eyes the first are "MAGA insurrectionists" and the second is "demonstrators in Portland had the goal of telling cops to stop murdering people". Yet the second group is far more violent. Why?
And nice dodge with the "The capitol police, DC police, and national guard (under the direction of the DoD) deserve a ton of criticism". You mention nothing about "diffusing the energy". Should they have done that? Were the Trump protestors deserving of "de-escalation"? It appears not.
If you judged each side the same way I'd have no problem (and I'm not saying each side is equal). Both sides are rioting and that's wrong (even if you said Trump supporters were more violent). Or if you said "both side are protesting and some are getting out of hand" (even if you said the Trump supporters were worse). I'd have no problem.
But you're not. You're giving Antifa/BLM every benefit of the doubt ("protestors") and assuming the worst about the Capital Rioters ("insurrectionists" and "domestic terrorists"). For two groups whose activities are not that far apart, your judgement has them miles apart.
Nobody firebombed the building. People shot consumer fireworks against a wall. The physical risk to either the building or the people inside was minimal.
"Antifa" had nothing to do with it. It is not clear that "Antifa" even exists, except as a weird right-wing fetish bogeyman (weird name to choose for it, implying their own support for fascism). "Antifa" has been found responsible for exactly 0 deaths across the USA; so a couple hours of MAGA militancy in one place has done vastly more damage than the entire history of "Antifa".
> I assume you "know" this based on tweets and comments on parler.
They were chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" at top volume. Once they got inside they were shouting "Where's Nancy?" among other things, and going door to door throughout the building looking for congresspeople. They literally built a gallows outside. A bunch of legislators' offices had the panic buttons removed (not clear yet by who). There were a bunch of ex-military goons carrying flexible handcuffs who broke into the chambers of Congress. etc.
Here is an FBI agent's affidavit which says that an informant who spoke with the MAGAs after the event says that they had planned to kill Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, or any other Congresspeople they could find, and are planning to try again on Jan 20: https://www.justice.gov/opa/page/file/1355186/download
> Were the Trump protestors deserving of "de-escalation"? It appears not.
Yes, in my opinion police should always be non-violent with non-violent protestors, and should avoid forcing direct confrontations.
A complete lack of force was in fact what the MAGAs got from the police. Police backing up, standing down, avoiding any use of physical violence except when the mob was literally hitting them, and largely letting the mob do what it wanted, including racking up hundreds of serious federal felonies with 20-year prison terms. The lady who was shot was literally climbing through a broken window into the House chamber while police with drawn guns shouted at her to stay back (I think some congresspeople were still in the chamber at that point?).
Thankfully all of the members of Congress were successfully removed to safe locations in the nick of time. If that one police officer hadn't tricked the crowd into following him the wrong direction, things might have gone much worse. Tragically a bunch of police officers and insurrectionists suffered serious injuries along the way, and even several deaths.
Eventually once the crowd realized its primary goal was thwarted and there was nothing to accomplish by sticking around, they went home.
The problem in this case was that the police did not have the numbers to block entry to the Capitol, and did not get any backup for hours, despite weeks of serious threats, the presence of dozens of people on the FBI's watchlist visiting town for the event, etc. This was a severe planning/mobilization failure, in my opinion substantially caused by Trump being on the side of the insurrectionists. A full investigation will hopefully uncover exactly what happened.
One of the biggest differences between Portland and the Capitol insurrection is that in Portland violent cops forced confrontations, whereas in DC violent MAGAs forced confrontations.
> If you judged each side the same way I'd have no problem
Now you’re just denying facts at this point.[1]. This is a federal court house. These are our courts they are setting fire to and you dismiss it with hand wave. No big deal.
And no deaths? What about the unarmed Trump supporter who was shot dead?[2]
And again you do the same thing. Trump supporters post some threat and it’s real and the police should swoop down and stop them.
The left posts threats and they are dismissed as “bad energy”, “they didn’t really mean it”.
Quoting from your source, "setting fires inside the fence" (what kind of fire?) and cutting through a fence is not the same thing as setting a building on fire.
To be frank, any statement by Bill Barr must be treated with skepticism. He has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to exaggerate, omit context, and just make things up in his public statements.
I don't know what happened with that Reinoehl guy. He sounded mentally unstable to me, and should not have had access to guns. But from what I have read he was a random independent dude who showed up to protests, not part of an organized group.
He claimed he shot the white supremacist in defense of his friend who was being held at knifepoint. Instead of investigating and charging him with a crime in a court of law, police went and assassinated him. We might never find out exactly what happened.
Alright dude. If you see nothing wrong with setting fires at a federal courthouses (does it matter if it’s inside or outside a fence) and shining lasers in cops eyes, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s clear that even if they burned the building down you’d find some way to weasel out of condemning it.
And surprise, surprise the initial reports about “kidnap and kill squads” during the Capitol riots turned out to be false.
No doubt the mainstream media will print retractions...right?
”The comments by Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin appeared to be an effort to walk back claims federal prosecutors in Arizona had made in a court filing late on Thursday, in which they alleged there was evidence that rioters intended “to capture and assassinate elected officials.””
No shit prosecutors don't want to make public statements that are even potentially stronger than what they can support in court, while in the middle of an active investigation. The DOJ has opened hundreds of investigations, arrested or put out warrants for dozens of people, and are still gathering evidence.
There is little doubt that some of the MAGAs intended to harm or kill civilians in the Capitol building, including the Vice President. They repeatedly said so on tape, shouted it to the public, bragged about it to each-other, etc.
Whether some groups of them constituted "kill squads" per se (whatever that means precisely) has not yet been proven out.
> you see nothing wrong with setting fires at a federal courthouses
Nobody said that. Literally every comment you make moves the goalposts and makes unfounded accusations, and you seem fundamentally incapable of admitting repeated misstatements.
I just said that "starting a fire inside the fence" is categorically different from your previous characterization that they "set the building on fire".
To be honest this conversation is going nowhere. I recommend you find some other interlocutor if you want to keep going.
No shit prosecutors don't want to make public statements that are even potentially stronger than what they can support in court, while in the middle of an active investigation.
But that's EXACTLY what they did. Turned out to be a massive exaggeration with no evidence to actually back it up. Didn't stop it from being covered broadly in the media and the "correction" getting no press at all.
I just said that "starting a fire inside the fence" is categorically different from your previous characterization that they "set the building on fire".
But why did you say that? And it's disingenuous when the article I linked to showed a burned out door to the building.
And I know exactly why you quibble over "inside the fence/outside the fence" because you're trying to split hairs in an effort to downplay what it is - arson committed against federal buildings.
Again, proving my point you're treating the antifa/BLM side with kid gloves, but believing (without question) every single rumor and innuendo about the Capital Riots and ready to slap labels on them like "seditionists" or "domestic terrorist" and use phrases like "kill squads".
This is a gross mischaracterization, like almost everything else you have written.
> But at a hearing for Chansley later in the day in Phoenix, another prosecutor, Todd Allison, struck the line from the memo.
> Allison said the statement may very well end up being appropriate at Chansley’s trial, but said prosecutors didn’t want to mislead the court and don’t have to rely on the stricken statement to argue that he should remain in jail. Ultimately, a judge on Friday ordered Chansley to be jailed until his trial.
* * *
> quibble [...] split hairs
There is a dramatic difference between "lit the building on fire" vs. "started a fire in the vicinity of the building". Using the former language to describe the latter is grossly misleading.
I don't really know the details here (maybe they did in fact light the building on fire?). I am just comparing the language you used vs. the language used in the source you linked, which do not agree.
If people get charged and tried for arson or attempted arson in Portland in open court, that seems entirely reasonable to me. Prosecutors and defense attorneys will present their evidence, and a judge and/or jury will decide the merits based on the evidence and the text of the relevant statutes.
> every single rumor and innuendo
When a huge crowd is chanting "Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!" near the gallows they just constructed that is not a "rumor".
> ready to slap labels on them like "seditionists" or "domestic terrorist" and use phrases like "kill squads".
I didn't use any of those labels above. However, I am happy to agree with you that what many of the MAGA insurrectionists did almost certainly meets the legal definitions of both
> If DC protestors had just wanted to march around outside the barricades shouting and waving signs
The DC protestors did exactly that.
A BLM/antifa associate, John Earle Sullivan, has already admitted to leading the entry inside the Capitol building. An investigative journalist, Michael Yon, identified several more BLM/antifa members.
So we know who the insurrectionists were, and it wasn't MAGA.
Violent protests that did not lead to the death of a single police officer.
I mean, how violent could they have been.
My personal experience (not as a participant, but rather someone who observed a few protests from a distance) was that they were peaceful until the cops would engage with the protestors to impose the curfews that many cities had established.
> Violent protests that did not lead to the death of a single police officer.
I did some quick fact checking, just for my own peace of mind. I view the George Floyd protests as overall peaceful, but it's good to question one's understanding. So for what it's worth Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests_in_Portl...) lists one casualty. I'm guessing that was the August 29th event, which wasn't a police officer.
So yeah, seems you're right, and that's an important fact to keep in mind. 7 months of protests with only one dead, in an area people keep arguing is the worst of the BLM protests.
>Violent protests that did not lead to the death of a single police officer.
Nice way to move the goalposts. How many people were killed in the protest? Aaron Danielson was ambushed and murdered by antifa Michael Reinoehl in Portland.
>I mean, how violent could they have been.
The "protestors" were using blinding laser weapons against the police. That's not even permitted in war, there's a 109 nation treaty against blinding laser weapons.
Anyway, there's a 22GB torrent of riot videos out there now if you need a memory refresher. The largest file in the torrent is 6.2 GB of Portland videos. Portland was months and months of violent riots and murders.
Can you show me a list of building and businesses damaged and looted for Jan 6 that exceeds this?
Remember, a woman was kidnapped, raped, and then murdered in the "mostly peaceful" protests that followed George Floyd there. Her name has never been released and her story went down the memory hole. Some of her last moments were captured on a doorbell cam when she was desperately trying to escape her attackers. We watched her die in realtime.
This whataboutism is unreal. Criminals taking advantage of chaos is not the same as an attempted coup.
That's why there are 20,000 national guard troops ringing the nation's capital right now, quartered in the Capitol Building for the first time since the Civil War. That's why corporations with trillions of dollars in market cap shut down communications. We are only at the beginning of an FBI investigation that may last years.
Maybe you won't believe any of it until you see some famous figures perp walked for sedition. I guess we'll find out.
The left has openly stated they are conducting a coup. Jan 20 is less than a week away, and Trump has put more troops in DC than in Afghanistan. I guess we will find out soon, yes.
A tweet versus an FBI press briefing[1] where they discuss charging hundreds of people with federal crimes, including conspiracy to commit sedition.
A tweet versus a statement from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that said, "The violent riot in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, was a direct assault on the U.S. Congress, the Capitol building, and our Constitutional process."[2]
It's somewhat amusing to me that you think this is evidence in your favor. The media narrative for impeachment was that Trump commanded his legion of protestors to go destroy the capitol building. A "coup"!
The reality is the planned attack began before his protestors could have moved from the ellipse at the end of his speech to the capitol.
The FBI is stating there was a seditious false flag conspiracy planned by BLM/Antifa activists to instigate an attack the capitol and place blame on Trump's protestors.
John Sullivan from Utah is a professional rioter and BLM/Antifa activist. Capitol police tried to let him off without charges:
> The FBI is stating there was a seditious false flag conspiracy planned by BLM/Antifa activists
"FBI Assistant Director Steven D’Antuono said Friday there is no evidence that antifa activists were involved in the violent riots in and around the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, debunking the baseless conspiracy theory propagated by several prominent Republican lawmakers and right-wing pundits that anti-fascist leftists—not a pro-Trump mob—were responsible for death and destruction at the Capitol."[1]
There's a live list of related filings on Law Fare[2]. Here are three excerpts:
> United States v. Nicholas Rodean (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:21-mj-28)
> Media coverage of these events showed one of the rioters who entered the Capitol building dressed in a red hat that appeared to have the word “Trump” on it, carrying a large red flag reading “Trump is My President,” and wearing an apparent badge from the individual’s place of employment. The individual appears to be a Caucasian male with a beard. The screenshots below of photographs posted on media sites show this individual in the halls of Congress. In the first image below, the individual is on the far right.
Rodean is currently in custody awaiting trial.
> United States v. Richard Barnett (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, no case number present yet)
> On the same date, BARNETT spoke to media outlets in a video recording. In the recording, BARNETT is wearing the same hat and plaid jacket as worn inside of the Speaker’s office except that BARNETT appears to have removed his shirt. BARNETT is asked by a person off camera how BARNETT obtained an envelope he is holding, which was addressed to The Honorable Billy Long 2453 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 with a return address of Office of the Speaker U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 and a digital signature of Nancy Pelosi. BARNETT states “I did not steal it. I bled on it because they were macing me and I couldn’t fucking see so I figured I am in her office. I got blood on her office. I put a quarter on her desk even though she ain’t fucking worth it. And I left her a note on her desk that says “Nancy, Bigo was here, you Bitch.”
Barnett is currently in custody awaiting trial.
> United States v. Jacob Anthony Chansley (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:21-mj-18)
> Several media outlets subsequently identified this individual as Jacob Anthony CHANSLEY, a.k.a. Jake Angeli. Your affiant has confirmed this identification of CHANSLEY. First, the photographs of CHANSLEY in the U.S. Capitol display unique attire and extensive tattoos covering his arms and the left side of his torso. Your affiant has viewed pictures posted to the Facebook account for Jake Angeli on December 13, 2020, in which CHANSLEY bears these same distinctive attire and tattoos. In addition, CHANSLEY has a YouTube channel under the name Jacob Chansley, on which a video posted of CHANSLEY from 2019 shows CHANSLEY with sleeve tattoos on the lower half of his arms consistent with the sleeve tattoos CHANSLEY displays in photographs taken in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Finally, CHANSLEY has also been identified by law enforcement through open source data bases, including his Arizona DMV driver’s license photo, as the person depicted inside the Capitol and on the Senate dais on January 6, 2021.
You're now ignoring what I've presented and talking past me. The justice.gov link explicitly states:
"SULLIVAN is the leader of an organization called Insurgence USA through which he organizes protests"
He is not a Trump supporter. He's a professional rioter and instigator. This is filed Jan 13, well after your supposed "debunking" media spin from Jan 8. The affidavit filed indicates Sullivan was there to instigate and turn a peaceful protest into violence.
Nobody is stating there were zero Trump supporters present. To the contrary, there's ample video evidence that capitol police opened the gates, waved Trump supporters in, and held the doors for them as they entered the capitol. That's a strange thing for police to do during a "seditious coup."
As multiple news reports will tell you -- if you have the courage to read -- D’Antuono is not the only person within the DOJ who has said that there is no evidence linking antifa to the insurrection.
You can't trust Fox News journalists, or any journalism from NBC, ABC, CBS, Forbes, WSJ... what's left?
Weird. I thought nicoffeine and I were having a pretty calm reasonable discussion there. I took no offense to anything that was said. I simply felt it was necessary to point out information that nicoffeine didn't seem aware of... like people do in normal discussions.
I didn't realize merely posting affidavits from the DoJ was considered political flamewars by anyone. It's a dry read, but it's unadulterated first party sourcing of fact.
They were professional fireworks. They were exploding at street and building level multiple times last year. The most recent was downtown on New Years.
Man if you think that's bad, you should've seen what many neighborhoods in major cities were like every night for a solid month leading up to July 4th last year. Aerial fireworks everywhere. There were even some structure fires as a result.
Not protest-related, mind you. Just idiocy-related.
There were a handful of events like what you describe, but the violence was overwhelmingly inflicted upon protesters by police. This came in the form of physical violence, aiming projectiles at protesters' heads, and of course the various chemical weaponry that was used in such quantities that it appeared on NASA weather satellites.
You see what you want to see. Classic confirmation bias. I watched the livestreams, and most of the time it was a lot of running and massive amounts of tear gas, and occasionally police brutally escalating violence against those protesting police violence. I think it's rather telling that you describe fireworks as mortars to try to make them sound more threatening.
I haven't seen any videos where a BLM protestor beats a fallen cop with an American flag, or kills a cop. Both of which happened during the violent far-right insurrection on January 6. I have seen many more credible stories about data and studies showing that violence from far-right extremism is a much more dangerous current problem than far-left extremism.
I will continue to call last year's protests what they were, remarkably peaceful world-wide protests against police brutality and for police reform. And I will call the Jan 6 event what it was, a deliberately stoked violent insurrection against the US government in an attempt to overturn the results of a democratic election, on the basis of nothing but lies and grievance. We should strive to accurately describe things as they are.
This thread is a great example of how totally isolated news bubbles create totally different realities, each honestly and sincerely believed by their proponents. How do we get out of this?
You specifically went looking for instances of violence at the protests, and you found a couple. This is the very definition of confirmation bias: you have a conclusion, and then went looking for supporting instances.
You didn't look for data about how much violence there was relative to other protests, or injury statistics, and you certainly didn't look at comparisons between right wing and left wing violence. You started with the conclusion you needed. You need the protests to be violent to confirm your world view, so you went looking for some instances to try and support your conclusion.
However, nothing in your paltry few examples refutes anything I said. Given the vast numbers of people participating in the protests, and the length of them, they were remarkably peaceful.
On the other hand, a tiny fraction of that number of right-wing violent lunatics concentrated in DC on Jan 6 and in one day committed more violence and slaughtered more law enforcement officers than at all the BLM protests combined. BLM protestors want police officers to stop killing people, the Jan 6 insurrectionists came looking to violently overturn the results of the election, and are feeling emboldened to commit more violence in the next week.
FWIW I think you may have confused me with the op of this thread. I don't actually disagree that most of the BLM protestors were peaceful, as BLM did not explicitly encourage property crime and violence. Antifa however did, and the worst crimes were mostly committed by antifa members and not BLM.
There is alot of odd cognitive dissonance in your comment which I appreciate proves your own point, you were presented with evidence that goes against your own world view, but instead of "stopping and thinking" you just decided to outright dismiss it instead of acknowledging it.
You stated you didn't see any evidence of violent assaults on police officers in portland, yet I gave you an example of a protestor assaulting a police officer with a hammer and instead of addressing it, you resorted to projecting a false narrative of ad-hominem and assumptions of my world view which are actually incorrect.
The funny thing about human biases is they actually effect us all, including you, and thank you so much for proving this. Its made my argument here easy.
Hopefully you take some time to "stop and reflect" how cognitive dissonance can corrupt your own world view when your presented with evidence that goes against it.
There were 30 riots declared by police in Portland alone between May and November (and many more since then). They have a detailed breakdown of riots, fires, projectiles thrown , arrests, ect.
Lot of riots got "declared" here in Seattle too, usually after the cops rushed a stationary peaceful group, and many breakdowns of projectiles and aggression by protestors were publicized by police. But a huge amount of it turned out to be fabricated, exaggerated, or embellished.
These were not fabricated events in Portland. In fact the mayor restricted what the police could do and how far things had to escalate before the police could do anything. Lasers, fireworks, fires, bricks...not much was off limits to the rioters every single night for months. You can claim the group was stationary and peaceful...but there were agitators mixed in and causing problems. There are tons of videos showing the violent tactics being used by rioters...but usually the only ones to make the MSM are when the police responded. Antifa...yes they exist...were well organized and restricted journalists from documenting everything unless they wanted them to. Even the local news reporters were harassed and assaulted by them.
A crazy city council member claimed fires were started by cops in Portland...without evidence and despite contrary evidence showing them being started by the protestors/rioters.
This is probably the most popular example, but there's plenty of YouTube videos showing people popping up at places to tear down window barricades, smash them and run. They aren't there to protest. They're there to stir shit up and exploit human psychology.
You see the bias inherent in trusting the police on this issue though, right? It's in their best interests to declare any protest against them a riot because it excuses more violent actions on their parts.
There were more than 120 days of protests detailed in the above link, only about 25% of which were classified as riots. There were live streams from these protests and riots every night, many of which include numerous incidents of explosives being hurled at police and fired being lit. Its not an issue of trust - the hundreds of archived videos containing thousands of hours of live footage of these many protests and riots is easily available to anyone who wants to examine the proof with their own eyes. This isn't an issue of ideology, its a matter of documented history and objective reality. One can argue about whether the riots were justified or not, but not over whether they happened - they did.
The push to change how the city responds to violence came after dozens of people vandalized businesses on New Year’s Eve, spray-painting buildings and breaking windows. At least three people were arrested and police declared the event a riot.
Wheeler was five minutes into a dinner at Cafe Nell with a friend when a small crowd began yelling obscenities at him and soon pushed their way into the outdoor tented area where he was seated, according to Jim Middaugh, the mayor’s communications director, who was briefed by the mayor on the incident.
The PPB were renting N50TV (FOX livery and all) for a while and using it to hunt people walking home for enhanced harrassment. The owners of that helicopter didn't feel great about being associated, so PPB moved on to other rentals out of Port Orchards, WA.
Through the summer it was possible to watch C172's on ADSB squawking as IDAHO33 and IDAHO44, circling at 3000ft. They haven't been visible on ADSB in months. I have a great view of the areas they often circle over. They're still active, they're just not squawking. As recently as yesterday afternoon, in fact.
I noticed the police helicopters in the bay area were only showing up as mlat reports on adsbexhange a couple months ago as well. Easy to spot but weird how they suddenly stopped squawking. Are they exempt now?
I live in inner southeast Portland. There were helicopters flying above my place many nights during the protests. Unsure how low they were flying given how really loud they were.
When I lived in Northern Virginia I saw a lot of helicopters flying over my apartment building, and not just the usual news and police helicopters. More than once I saw 4 uh-60s flying over in formation, and some uh-60s and uh-72s with a distinctive black and gold stripe color scheme. I did some research online and found that there were people in this region fascinated with identifying and cataloguing all of these aircraft, almost like bird watching. I found out they were likely stationed at the Pentagon. The black and gold ones are VIP transport helicopters, meant for transporting members of congress and cabinet members, particularly for evacuations in an emergency. I also saw marine one a couple times, though since it was alone I believe it didn't have POTUS in it at the time (when POTUS is actually in there they fly several identical helicopters in formation so you don't know which has the president). My apartment was roughly under the direct route between Andrews AB and DC, and pretty close to the pentagon, my guess is it was a convenient route for training and drilling.
There is no single Marine One helicopter. The squadron has several identical helicopters, but they only get the "Marine One" call sign when the President is on board. At other times they use different call signs.
Has anyone heard any more about the Los Angeles program to fly airplanes around the city during the day to record everything that happens, similar to what they did in Baltimore?
Reminder that with a ~$25 software-defined radio (SDR) dongle you can receive any aircraft’s ADS-B signal, complete with position, altitude, velocity, and flight ID:
I contribute ADS-B data grabbed with SDR to Flightradar24. It's pretty sweet because they give you their Business subscription plan (the highest one, $50/month) for free.
I think you may need at least a free account to see the stats, but in any case these are my two sites:
There were issues a while ago relating to the MLAT setting, but I set it up a month or so ago on the pi-aware distro feeding to FA first, and then just ran the FR setup utility after that with no issues.
Obviously I’ve no real need for either of them, but its nice to have for something I was going to run anyway!
Just want to second adsb exchange. I was using fr24 for a while and I think someone on here suggested adsb-e and it's a godsend. Living in the DC area, I see lots of fuckery where military helicopters that don't even show up on fr24 at least leave these weird artifacts on adsb-e.
Note I live on the flightpath between the WH and Camp David, and the Marines practice this run A LOT. I only found this out once I started WFH every day due to the pandemic.
Sometimes it's a lone helicopter, sometimes they are in a trio. But FR never shows anything and ADSB-E at least shows an artifact that essentially appears as a drone with no tail number.
Not at all. At home I have a cheapo Adafruit RTL-SDR ($22 at Microcenter https://www.microcenter.com/product/463176/adafruit-industri...) running on an unused Gigabyte Brix. At my parents' I have a similar SDR on a Raspberry Pi. They're both indoors on the highest floor.
I have a LimeSDR as well that I screw around with sometimes, but really any basic receiver will get the job done.
I'm planning on checking out adsbexchange and FlightAware based on the comments.
Do any informed US readers here know what are the implications of the FAA ADS-B privacy ICAO address program[0]? Will this reduce the possibility for hobbyists to have oversight over such flight operations?
I am amazed and appreciative at how quickly real, informative news hits the internet. Even if nothing comes from added aerial surveillance, the world knows it is happening.
Keep an eye on the helicopter colors. Are the unmarked helicopters circling the area black? Probably World Government. Not a good area for play that day.
Are they blue? That’s the Sheriff’s Secret Police. They’ll keep a good eye on your kids, and hardly ever take one.
Are they painted with complex murals depicting birds of prey diving? No one knows what those helicopters are, or what they want. Do not play in the area. Return to your home and lock the doors until a Sheriff’s Secret Policeman leaves a carnation on your porch to indicate that the danger has passed. Cover your ears to blot out the screams.
Welcome to Night Vale is a fiction podcast in the form of a radio show from a remote small town in which all sorts of strange things happen — aliens, vast conspiracies, mad cultists, supernatural beings, etc etc. Straddles the line between dryly funny and legitimately creepy. It's worth a listen if you enjoy that kind of thing.
Keep an eye on the helicopter colors. Are the unmarked helicopters circling the area black? Probably World Government.
We had a drug task force mass arrest staged a few years back. I swear the DEA and other agencies did everything they could to kick up the paranoia. It was unreal how they checked all the 'conspiracy nut' boxes in one operation.
They cut the internet and cell phones in the area. Real nice since we had an online class going. They drove around in black SUVs and, just so stupid, had black helicopters flying overhead. I guess they did arrest some people, but I question that too. I'm sure someone was super pleased with themselves.
I've definitely gotten the impression that some agencies really get a kick out of feeling like badasses on super-secret missions and the whole thing is just tax-payer playtime for bored cops who want to feel special.
The less useful they are the more they try and act important.
ATF, DEA, DHS, etc are always making big scenes because "look, we're doing things, we justify our budget" whereas the FBI just does their job without fanfare.
You gotta put on a good show for the "tough on crime" crowd plus how do you expect them to justify funding if they aren't geared up like they are staging a raid on a terrorist stronghold to arrest some 20 year old for a couple of grams of meth (or someone growing okra¹)? They are fighting the ”War on Drugs" after all.²
It shouldn't be that other worldly in socal. This is the land of the helicopter, where Kobe (may he rest in peace) used to commute to the staples center on helicopter. Where elon musk also commutes by air rather than by his own tesla car. Where the LAPD flies at least two helicopters between 8am-4am every single day regardless of what the radio calls for. In fact, I'm working outside and hear one above right now, by the looks of it, its a small grey personal helicopter. Just after I wrote this I am hearing a second one, navy blue with a yellow callsign on the tail, probably another personal craft.
For the past few years I've called Pasadena(I live in the general area) the "land of helicopters", but I didn't know that LA in general was seeing something similar recently. People keep telling me that Pasadena/SGV must be a good place to train helicopter pilots, but I don't buy it.
It's been a while since I've bothered to actually look at these helicopters, but a lot of them are pretty nondescript. Not obvious news or police helicopters. Multiple times a month I hear them circle around at night, but I never see anything in the news about an incident or a fugitive. When I ask on Nextdoor I never get replies despite it being loud enough to keep me up.
Then again, I just realized that "Helicopter Hell" is more alliterative. I think I'll call it that from now on.
The area above the SGV (Pasadena to Pomona area) is the Santa Fe Practice Area. A lot of first-time pilots, private plane or helicopter, practice and learn how to fly out of El Monte or Brackett (Pomona).
I've checked FlightRadar24 during the protests of June and it seemed like most of the tail numbers of the helicopters flying around the SGV were either Pasadena Police Department, LA County Sheriff, or a private (news?) helicopter. Lately the ones I've seen aren't showing up on FlightRadar24, oddly enough.
I'm down in south Orange county. We have helicopters near our neighborhood a few times a week. It surprised me a bit when we first moved here. One of our neighbors is a retired deputy and I've talked to him about it handful of times and he isn't sure what the deal is, either. I lived in East LA for a while, so I've had a fair bit of exposure to the things. It's weird for sure.
I am reminded of former Governor Jerry Brown who released a swarm of whirlybirds dumping chemicals from the air ... throughout many California cities AND suburban.
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[ 207 ms ] story [ 4048 ms ] threadWe want to foster a friendly community here.
Even a beginner is likely to have an imaging system that is plenty good, with a mechanical shutter. The atmospheric shimmer in the third image suggests that it was made with a longer lens; probably not a beginner.
The President of the United States can't fly over Britain on a secret trip without getting photographed by a semi-retired IT manager: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/27/air-force-on...
It is really great to see distributed citizen-journalism happening.
Those that do, do not have it as the default mode. There is also the electronic first curtain shutter, but that is way closer to a mechanical shutter than to an electronic shutter.
Citation needed.
Its the middle of the day with no cloud, so there is plenty of light. That means we can up the shutter speed to the point where rolling shutter is negligible.
I have a nikon d7000, which has a rolling shutter. Its only really noticeable when I'm recording video, or when there is _lots_ of movement inside the shutter time. at 1/3200th of second, thats a lot of movement.
As a rule of thumb, it takes several milliseconds for a mechanical shutter to traverse the sensor plane, but it takes several tens of milliseconds for an e-shutter to readout the sensor. Shutter speed does not affect this; even at 1/4000s or 1/8000s or whatever the time difference between the top and the bottom of a photo remains the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_helicopter
Now, just like every other conspiracy nut, I'd like to state upfront that I'm no conspiracy theorist. However, over the years "seeing black helicopters" has been an insult used by some. Yet I used to see them parked out in the open at the National Guard base along I-70 in eastern Indiana like 25-30 years ago. And here we have photos published by not-disreputable source. Make of it what you will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_helicopter#Fictional_rep...
There’s an upper limit to testing capacity, and optimistically the government allocates that capacity in the way it thinks it will do the most good.
They’re worried about processing tests from care homes, healthcare workers, suspected positive patients, outbreaks, etc... not old people that want to go to Florida for vacation.
But that doesn’t preclude finding a private company that will test you, but the government isn’t going to pay for non-medically-necessary medical treatment and testing from a private company.
Went online and scheduled an appointment for an hour later. (They had sooner, but I took that one.) Drive through test. Just had to provide my usual identification for healthcare (provincial health card), but there was no screening as far as whether I really needed it since the labs aren't really backed up right now.
About 20 hours later got a text with the result in the middle of the night.
From "Maybe I have covid?" to getting a PCR test result was 21 hours and $0. A antigen test would only take an hour or two, but be much less accurate. As far as PCR testing, no complaints here. Only had to spend one night sleeping on the couch in the basement before knowing I wasn't going to infect and kill my family.
Most countries that require Covid tests before travel require a PCR test for that reason.
The US is currently well ahead of Canada in per-capita COVID delivery.
The US is actually well ahead of most of the world, especially when you factor population and geography [1]. Sure, Israel has crushed everyone, but I think we can all agree there are exceptional circumstances which make this easier in Israel than in most other countries. Other success stories have been largely small, wealthy countries.
It's a shame that the US media is so politicized as to not recognize Operation Warp Speed and the men and women - from researchers, to logisticians, to clinicians - who have made this possible. It has been an absolute miracle of human achievement and will hopefully be celebrated by historians, since the current generation refuses to do so.
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[1] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
This is why the helicopter flights are so popular. They're literally just flying across the border with the shortest possible thing that could be called a flight, because air travel is allowed. And they're getting their car (or more often, RV) towed across the border, because cross-border towing is also allowed. The shortest possible flight means the shortest possible tow.
https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/more-than-40-arres...
I live next to the autonomous zone and the helicopter traffic frequenting our neighborhood always triggers me. During the protests on December 30th we had State Patrol lights shining in our windows.
With all the surveillance and military response to events happening in the country right now, I'm definitely curious to see what these choppers in Los Angeles are up to.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2020/07/23/air-force-surveillance-p... [2] https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-protest-flight-res...
There were no multi-month riots this summer. Multi-month protests, yes. But not riots. The riots were much smaller in number and generally only lasted a few days at any one location prior to order being restored (here in NYC we had a few nights of looting that could be described as a riot). Even the infamous 1992 LA riots only lasted a week. Multi-month riots would be downfall-of-society level.
Well, some mortars are. Other mortars are consumer fireworks.
That bothers you huh?
Hmmmm, maybe the protests are effectively proving their point then.
“Mortars” and “fireworks” are overlapping categories.
https://fireworks.com/products/aerial/reloadable-mortars
There was at least one molotov cocktail captured on camera in September landing in the street between a group of protestors and a line of cops, though it is not clear whether anyone was injured by it.
I…disagree.
If I heard “small arms and mortars”, I’d think of the military weapon. (Or “rockets and mortars”, without other context.)
If I hear “molotov cocktails and mortars”, though, I’d think of either the fireworks or some improvised device, but not miltary hardware unless there was some other contextual indication favoring the latter. While its obviously not impossible for a group to both be using Molotov cocktails and have access to military heavy weapons, that’s not really, to me, the normal association.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/07/20/what-you...
There was definitely some vandalism involved (and e.g. people shooting fireworks at the wall of a fortified building), but federal authorities were incredibly disingenuous in their descriptions of events and justifications of escalation.
Most of the dangerous violence was police-on-protestor.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/bellingcat/
Fox News has entertainment departments, fought in court to have Tucker Carlson lie to his followers with impunity. They republished incitement to ramming attacks.
Bellingcat.. They just do investigations.
If you want to try to break things down into black and white left vs right, at least try to do it with comparable organizations. Or even better, try to refute the substance of the article instead of going to a media bias site to see how you feel they land on the political spectrum.
Even the site you linked has them listed as "left-center" with "high factual reporting." How is this grounds to outright dismiss them? The slightest degree of "leftness" makes you want to exclude sources? Do you have any factual reason to be doing this, or is this your personal bias towards right wing content forcing you to seek means to exclude information you don't like the looks of?
Fox News: "Overall, we rate Fox News strongly Right-Biased due to editorial positions and story selection that favors the right. We also rate them Mixed factually and borderline Questionable based on poor sourcing and the spreading of conspiracy theories that later must be retracted after being widely shared."
Bellingcat: "we rate Bellingcat Left-Center biased based on story selection and positions that moderately favor the left. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record."
These are vastly, vastly different forms and scales of "bias." They are nearly incomparable.
The vast majority of the protestors in Portland were out during the day, and were peaceful and organized. There were undoubtedly some people who came out at night because they wanted to tussle with the cops, launch their fireworks at that federal building, and so on. My impression (again, second-hand, as an outsider) was that the cops (local and federal) did a terrible job of diffusing that energy.
“Tussle with the cops” and “launch fireworks at federal buildings” and of course who is to blame? “The cops who did a terrible job of diffusing that energy”.
Why are you framing it in such soft terms? I mean, cops had higher powered lasers aimed at their eyes. Molotov cocktails throw at officers and federal buildings (I think most people call that arson). Night, after night, after night.
Yet let me guess, you label the people that shoved their way into the Capitol building “seditionists” and “domestic terrorists”?
Why not couch their actions in the same soft terms? Why does one riot at the Capitol deserve such condemnation when dozens of nights of rioting in Portland are waved away? Why not blame the DC cops for not “diffusing the energy”?
I have no problem condemning what happened at the Capitol building. I’m just tired of hypocrisy when judging the other side.
For one thing, the MAGA insurrectionists' stated goal was to kill members of Congress and the Vice President, and overthrow the government. Their ranks included a bunch of highly trained ex-military and law enforcement people who were apparently prepared and equipped to carry out that plan.
The demonstrators in Portland had the goal of telling cops to stop murdering people, and then later also wanted federal authorities to leave their city alone. Instead of letting them tire themselves out shouting in the street and then go home, the cops shot rubber bullets and tear gas, violently rushed at them, and beat people up night after night.
Note again that a bunch of the most violent incidents in Portland were directly perpetrated or instigated by white supremacists.
Seeing how poorly their statements matched the situation, it seems likely that federal authorities directing officers in Portland (and perhaps the local cops as well) wanted to provoke an unending stream of violent clashes for the benefit of TV cameras.
> Why not blame the DC cops for not “diffusing the energy”?
The capitol police, DC police, and national guard (under the direction of the DoD) deserve a ton of criticism. Their leadership screwed up about as badly as can be imagined, and the result was a complete shitshow. A lot more people could have easily been killed or grievously injured. Hopefully a full investigation will get to the bottom of it.
If DC protestors had just wanted to march around outside the barricades shouting and waving signs, that would have been just fine (and that's all many of them did; those folks are unlikely to face charges). They could have stayed all day and night shouting themselves hoarse if they wanted. There would have been no need for police to use force in such a situation.
Ok, I assume you "know" this based on tweets and comments on parler. But what did they do? Bust some windows and force their way in.
"The demonstrators in Portland had the goal of telling cops to stop murdering people,"
Ok, but what did they do? Flash lasers into cops eyes. Shoot fireworks and throw molotov cocktails at federal buildings. You claim "white supremacists" instigated this, but what proof do you have? All I hear is rumor.
So let's pause for a second. We have Trump supports forcing their way into the capitol building. And we have Antifa firebombing federal buildings. But in your eyes the first are "MAGA insurrectionists" and the second is "demonstrators in Portland had the goal of telling cops to stop murdering people". Yet the second group is far more violent. Why?
And nice dodge with the "The capitol police, DC police, and national guard (under the direction of the DoD) deserve a ton of criticism". You mention nothing about "diffusing the energy". Should they have done that? Were the Trump protestors deserving of "de-escalation"? It appears not.
If you judged each side the same way I'd have no problem (and I'm not saying each side is equal). Both sides are rioting and that's wrong (even if you said Trump supporters were more violent). Or if you said "both side are protesting and some are getting out of hand" (even if you said the Trump supporters were worse). I'd have no problem.
But you're not. You're giving Antifa/BLM every benefit of the doubt ("protestors") and assuming the worst about the Capital Rioters ("insurrectionists" and "domestic terrorists"). For two groups whose activities are not that far apart, your judgement has them miles apart.
Nobody firebombed the building. People shot consumer fireworks against a wall. The physical risk to either the building or the people inside was minimal.
"Antifa" had nothing to do with it. It is not clear that "Antifa" even exists, except as a weird right-wing fetish bogeyman (weird name to choose for it, implying their own support for fascism). "Antifa" has been found responsible for exactly 0 deaths across the USA; so a couple hours of MAGA militancy in one place has done vastly more damage than the entire history of "Antifa".
> I assume you "know" this based on tweets and comments on parler.
They were chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" at top volume. Once they got inside they were shouting "Where's Nancy?" among other things, and going door to door throughout the building looking for congresspeople. They literally built a gallows outside. A bunch of legislators' offices had the panic buttons removed (not clear yet by who). There were a bunch of ex-military goons carrying flexible handcuffs who broke into the chambers of Congress. etc.
Here is an FBI agent's affidavit which says that an informant who spoke with the MAGAs after the event says that they had planned to kill Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, or any other Congresspeople they could find, and are planning to try again on Jan 20: https://www.justice.gov/opa/page/file/1355186/download
> Were the Trump protestors deserving of "de-escalation"? It appears not.
Yes, in my opinion police should always be non-violent with non-violent protestors, and should avoid forcing direct confrontations.
A complete lack of force was in fact what the MAGAs got from the police. Police backing up, standing down, avoiding any use of physical violence except when the mob was literally hitting them, and largely letting the mob do what it wanted, including racking up hundreds of serious federal felonies with 20-year prison terms. The lady who was shot was literally climbing through a broken window into the House chamber while police with drawn guns shouted at her to stay back (I think some congresspeople were still in the chamber at that point?).
Thankfully all of the members of Congress were successfully removed to safe locations in the nick of time. If that one police officer hadn't tricked the crowd into following him the wrong direction, things might have gone much worse. Tragically a bunch of police officers and insurrectionists suffered serious injuries along the way, and even several deaths.
Eventually once the crowd realized its primary goal was thwarted and there was nothing to accomplish by sticking around, they went home.
The problem in this case was that the police did not have the numbers to block entry to the Capitol, and did not get any backup for hours, despite weeks of serious threats, the presence of dozens of people on the FBI's watchlist visiting town for the event, etc. This was a severe planning/mobilization failure, in my opinion substantially caused by Trump being on the side of the insurrectionists. A full investigation will hopefully uncover exactly what happened.
One of the biggest differences between Portland and the Capitol insurrection is that in Portland violent cops forced confrontations, whereas in DC violent MAGAs forced confrontations.
> If you judged each side the same way I'd have no problem
This is a completely disingenuous statement.
And no deaths? What about the unarmed Trump supporter who was shot dead?[2]
And again you do the same thing. Trump supporters post some threat and it’s real and the police should swoop down and stop them.
The left posts threats and they are dismissed as “bad energy”, “they didn’t really mean it”.
[1]https://ktvz.com/news/crime-courts/2020/07/24/fires-set-insi...
[2]https://www.npr.org/2020/09/04/909515885/protester-suspected...
To be frank, any statement by Bill Barr must be treated with skepticism. He has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to exaggerate, omit context, and just make things up in his public statements.
I don't know what happened with that Reinoehl guy. He sounded mentally unstable to me, and should not have had access to guns. But from what I have read he was a random independent dude who showed up to protests, not part of an organized group.
He claimed he shot the white supremacist in defense of his friend who was being held at knifepoint. Instead of investigating and charging him with a crime in a court of law, police went and assassinated him. We might never find out exactly what happened.
And surprise, surprise the initial reports about “kidnap and kill squads” during the Capitol riots turned out to be false.
No doubt the mainstream media will print retractions...right?
”The comments by Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin appeared to be an effort to walk back claims federal prosecutors in Arizona had made in a court filing late on Thursday, in which they alleged there was evidence that rioters intended “to capture and assassinate elected officials.””
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-capitol-arrests...
There is little doubt that some of the MAGAs intended to harm or kill civilians in the Capitol building, including the Vice President. They repeatedly said so on tape, shouted it to the public, bragged about it to each-other, etc.
Whether some groups of them constituted "kill squads" per se (whatever that means precisely) has not yet been proven out.
> you see nothing wrong with setting fires at a federal courthouses
Nobody said that. Literally every comment you make moves the goalposts and makes unfounded accusations, and you seem fundamentally incapable of admitting repeated misstatements.
I just said that "starting a fire inside the fence" is categorically different from your previous characterization that they "set the building on fire".
To be honest this conversation is going nowhere. I recommend you find some other interlocutor if you want to keep going.
But that's EXACTLY what they did. Turned out to be a massive exaggeration with no evidence to actually back it up. Didn't stop it from being covered broadly in the media and the "correction" getting no press at all.
I just said that "starting a fire inside the fence" is categorically different from your previous characterization that they "set the building on fire".
But why did you say that? And it's disingenuous when the article I linked to showed a burned out door to the building.
And I know exactly why you quibble over "inside the fence/outside the fence" because you're trying to split hairs in an effort to downplay what it is - arson committed against federal buildings.
Again, proving my point you're treating the antifa/BLM side with kid gloves, but believing (without question) every single rumor and innuendo about the Capital Riots and ready to slap labels on them like "seditionists" or "domestic terrorist" and use phrases like "kill squads".
This is a gross mischaracterization, like almost everything else you have written.
> But at a hearing for Chansley later in the day in Phoenix, another prosecutor, Todd Allison, struck the line from the memo.
> Allison said the statement may very well end up being appropriate at Chansley’s trial, but said prosecutors didn’t want to mislead the court and don’t have to rely on the stricken statement to argue that he should remain in jail. Ultimately, a judge on Friday ordered Chansley to be jailed until his trial.
* * *
> quibble [...] split hairs
There is a dramatic difference between "lit the building on fire" vs. "started a fire in the vicinity of the building". Using the former language to describe the latter is grossly misleading.
I don't really know the details here (maybe they did in fact light the building on fire?). I am just comparing the language you used vs. the language used in the source you linked, which do not agree.
If people get charged and tried for arson or attempted arson in Portland in open court, that seems entirely reasonable to me. Prosecutors and defense attorneys will present their evidence, and a judge and/or jury will decide the merits based on the evidence and the text of the relevant statutes.
> every single rumor and innuendo
When a huge crowd is chanting "Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!" near the gallows they just constructed that is not a "rumor".
> ready to slap labels on them like "seditionists" or "domestic terrorist" and use phrases like "kill squads".
I didn't use any of those labels above. However, I am happy to agree with you that what many of the MAGA insurrectionists did almost certainly meets the legal definitions of both
"seditious conspiracy" https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384
and "terrorism" https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/6/101#18
* * *
I'm out. Have fun with yourself.
The DC protestors did exactly that.
A BLM/antifa associate, John Earle Sullivan, has already admitted to leading the entry inside the Capitol building. An investigative journalist, Michael Yon, identified several more BLM/antifa members.
So we know who the insurrectionists were, and it wasn't MAGA.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/utah-man-charged-federal-...
More details (video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIn-szOnqdU
Since Antifa isn't a group or person, it sounds like you're making up facts.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RoseCityAntifa
Molotov cocktail(fire bombs) thrown at officers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H86W82Bgpq4
Molotov cocktails(fire bombs) thrown at court building https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMkTfGlM-f0
Man hits a federal officer with a hammer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7vlKbR3Gcs
Protestor knifes a black trump supporter https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2020/07/man-knifed-in-back-...
I mean, how violent could they have been.
My personal experience (not as a participant, but rather someone who observed a few protests from a distance) was that they were peaceful until the cops would engage with the protestors to impose the curfews that many cities had established.
And then the violence was largely 1 sided.
I did some quick fact checking, just for my own peace of mind. I view the George Floyd protests as overall peaceful, but it's good to question one's understanding. So for what it's worth Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests_in_Portl...) lists one casualty. I'm guessing that was the August 29th event, which wasn't a police officer.
So yeah, seems you're right, and that's an important fact to keep in mind. 7 months of protests with only one dead, in an area people keep arguing is the worst of the BLM protests.
Nice way to move the goalposts. How many people were killed in the protest? Aaron Danielson was ambushed and murdered by antifa Michael Reinoehl in Portland.
>I mean, how violent could they have been.
The "protestors" were using blinding laser weapons against the police. That's not even permitted in war, there's a 109 nation treaty against blinding laser weapons.
Anyway, there's a 22GB torrent of riot videos out there now if you need a memory refresher. The largest file in the torrent is 6.2 GB of Portland videos. Portland was months and months of violent riots and murders.
https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/a-list-of-the-buil...
Can you show me a list of building and businesses damaged and looted for Jan 6 that exceeds this?
Remember, a woman was kidnapped, raped, and then murdered in the "mostly peaceful" protests that followed George Floyd there. Her name has never been released and her story went down the memory hole. Some of her last moments were captured on a doorbell cam when she was desperately trying to escape her attackers. We watched her die in realtime.
Kidnapped: https://i.imgur.com/md660xQ.jpg
Raped: https://twitter.com/CrimeWatchMpls/status/126610937944044749...
Murdered: https://kstp.com/minnesota-news/woman-found-dead-inside-car-...
Can you point me to such an event happening on Jan 6? No, you can't.
That's why there are 20,000 national guard troops ringing the nation's capital right now, quartered in the Capitol Building for the first time since the Civil War. That's why corporations with trillions of dollars in market cap shut down communications. We are only at the beginning of an FBI investigation that may last years.
Maybe you won't believe any of it until you see some famous figures perp walked for sedition. I guess we'll find out.
I believe you are now projecting
https://twitter.com/MarkSZaidEsq/status/826262311560216578
The left has openly stated they are conducting a coup. Jan 20 is less than a week away, and Trump has put more troops in DC than in Afghanistan. I guess we will find out soon, yes.
A tweet versus a statement from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that said, "The violent riot in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, was a direct assault on the U.S. Congress, the Capitol building, and our Constitutional process."[2]
The whataboutism continues to be unreal.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-and-fbi-lead...
[2] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/01/12/unprecedented...
It's somewhat amusing to me that you think this is evidence in your favor. The media narrative for impeachment was that Trump commanded his legion of protestors to go destroy the capitol building. A "coup"!
The reality is the planned attack began before his protestors could have moved from the ellipse at the end of his speech to the capitol.
The FBI is stating there was a seditious false flag conspiracy planned by BLM/Antifa activists to instigate an attack the capitol and place blame on Trump's protestors.
John Sullivan from Utah is a professional rioter and BLM/Antifa activist. Capitol police tried to let him off without charges:
https://twitter.com/Millie__Weaver/status/134772283302420070...
He has now been indicted by the federal government.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/page/file/1354781/download
Giuliani did a pretty good walkthrough with John Sullivan's own video if you care to watch that,
https://rumble.com/vcrzrr-january-6th-another-frame-up-rudy-...
The "violent coup" narrative was instigated by some of the same people who rioted all summer long.
"FBI Assistant Director Steven D’Antuono said Friday there is no evidence that antifa activists were involved in the violent riots in and around the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, debunking the baseless conspiracy theory propagated by several prominent Republican lawmakers and right-wing pundits that anti-fascist leftists—not a pro-Trump mob—were responsible for death and destruction at the Capitol."[1]
There's a live list of related filings on Law Fare[2]. Here are three excerpts:
> United States v. Nicholas Rodean (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:21-mj-28) > Media coverage of these events showed one of the rioters who entered the Capitol building dressed in a red hat that appeared to have the word “Trump” on it, carrying a large red flag reading “Trump is My President,” and wearing an apparent badge from the individual’s place of employment. The individual appears to be a Caucasian male with a beard. The screenshots below of photographs posted on media sites show this individual in the halls of Congress. In the first image below, the individual is on the far right.
Rodean is currently in custody awaiting trial.
> United States v. Richard Barnett (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, no case number present yet) > On the same date, BARNETT spoke to media outlets in a video recording. In the recording, BARNETT is wearing the same hat and plaid jacket as worn inside of the Speaker’s office except that BARNETT appears to have removed his shirt. BARNETT is asked by a person off camera how BARNETT obtained an envelope he is holding, which was addressed to The Honorable Billy Long 2453 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 with a return address of Office of the Speaker U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 and a digital signature of Nancy Pelosi. BARNETT states “I did not steal it. I bled on it because they were macing me and I couldn’t fucking see so I figured I am in her office. I got blood on her office. I put a quarter on her desk even though she ain’t fucking worth it. And I left her a note on her desk that says “Nancy, Bigo was here, you Bitch.”
Barnett is currently in custody awaiting trial.
> United States v. Jacob Anthony Chansley (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 1:21-mj-18) > Several media outlets subsequently identified this individual as Jacob Anthony CHANSLEY, a.k.a. Jake Angeli. Your affiant has confirmed this identification of CHANSLEY. First, the photographs of CHANSLEY in the U.S. Capitol display unique attire and extensive tattoos covering his arms and the left side of his torso. Your affiant has viewed pictures posted to the Facebook account for Jake Angeli on December 13, 2020, in which CHANSLEY bears these same distinctive attire and tattoos. In addition, CHANSLEY has a YouTube channel under the name Jacob Chansley, on which a video posted of CHANSLEY from 2019 shows CHANSLEY with sleeve tattoos on the lower half of his arms consistent with the sleeve tattoos CHANSLEY displays in photographs taken in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Finally, CHANSLEY has also been identified by law enforcement through open source data bases, including his Arizona DMV driver’s license photo, as the person depicted inside the Capitol and on the Senate dais on January 6, 2021.
Chansley is currently in custody awaiting trial.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/01/08/fbi-no-evi...
[2] https://www.lawfareblog.com/compiling-criminal-charges-follo...
"SULLIVAN is the leader of an organization called Insurgence USA through which he organizes protests"
He is not a Trump supporter. He's a professional rioter and instigator. This is filed Jan 13, well after your supposed "debunking" media spin from Jan 8. The affidavit filed indicates Sullivan was there to instigate and turn a peaceful protest into violence.
Nobody is stating there were zero Trump supporters present. To the contrary, there's ample video evidence that capitol police opened the gates, waved Trump supporters in, and held the doors for them as they entered the capitol. That's a strange thing for police to do during a "seditious coup."
> “We have no indication of that at this time,” said Ken Kohl, a senior official in the Washington DC US Attorney’s Office.
-Jake Gibson, DOJ Producer for Fox News
https://twitter.com/JakeBGibson/status/1347619781944467464
As multiple news reports will tell you -- if you have the courage to read -- D’Antuono is not the only person within the DOJ who has said that there is no evidence linking antifa to the insurrection.
You can't trust Fox News journalists, or any journalism from NBC, ABC, CBS, Forbes, WSJ... what's left?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I didn't realize merely posting affidavits from the DoJ was considered political flamewars by anyone. It's a dry read, but it's unadulterated first party sourcing of fact.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Mortars? Are you sure about that? What kind?
Edit: Oh "fireworks mortars". Ffs. Just say fireworks.
Not protest-related, mind you. Just idiocy-related.
They were police riots.
I haven't seen any videos where a BLM protestor beats a fallen cop with an American flag, or kills a cop. Both of which happened during the violent far-right insurrection on January 6. I have seen many more credible stories about data and studies showing that violence from far-right extremism is a much more dangerous current problem than far-left extremism.
I will continue to call last year's protests what they were, remarkably peaceful world-wide protests against police brutality and for police reform. And I will call the Jan 6 event what it was, a deliberately stoked violent insurrection against the US government in an attempt to overturn the results of a democratic election, on the basis of nothing but lies and grievance. We should strive to accurately describe things as they are.
Molotov cocktail(fire bombs) thrown at officers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H86W82Bgpq4
Molotov cocktails thrown at court building https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMkTfGlM-f0
Man hits a federal officer with a hammer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7vlKbR3Gcs
Protestor knifes a black trump supporter https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2020/07/man-knifed-in-back-...
You didn't look for data about how much violence there was relative to other protests, or injury statistics, and you certainly didn't look at comparisons between right wing and left wing violence. You started with the conclusion you needed. You need the protests to be violent to confirm your world view, so you went looking for some instances to try and support your conclusion.
However, nothing in your paltry few examples refutes anything I said. Given the vast numbers of people participating in the protests, and the length of them, they were remarkably peaceful.
On the other hand, a tiny fraction of that number of right-wing violent lunatics concentrated in DC on Jan 6 and in one day committed more violence and slaughtered more law enforcement officers than at all the BLM protests combined. BLM protestors want police officers to stop killing people, the Jan 6 insurrectionists came looking to violently overturn the results of the election, and are feeling emboldened to commit more violence in the next week.
I hope this helps you stop and think.
There is alot of odd cognitive dissonance in your comment which I appreciate proves your own point, you were presented with evidence that goes against your own world view, but instead of "stopping and thinking" you just decided to outright dismiss it instead of acknowledging it.
You stated you didn't see any evidence of violent assaults on police officers in portland, yet I gave you an example of a protestor assaulting a police officer with a hammer and instead of addressing it, you resorted to projecting a false narrative of ad-hominem and assumptions of my world view which are actually incorrect.
The funny thing about human biases is they actually effect us all, including you, and thank you so much for proving this. Its made my argument here easy.
Hopefully you take some time to "stop and reflect" how cognitive dissonance can corrupt your own world view when your presented with evidence that goes against it.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/article/765145
This is probably the most popular example, but there's plenty of YouTube videos showing people popping up at places to tear down window barricades, smash them and run. They aren't there to protest. They're there to stir shit up and exploit human psychology.
The push to change how the city responds to violence came after dozens of people vandalized businesses on New Year’s Eve, spray-painting buildings and breaking windows. At least three people were arrested and police declared the event a riot.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2021/01/mayor-ted-wheele...
Wheeler was five minutes into a dinner at Cafe Nell with a friend when a small crowd began yelling obscenities at him and soon pushed their way into the outdoor tented area where he was seated, according to Jim Middaugh, the mayor’s communications director, who was briefed by the mayor on the incident.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2021/01/mayor-ted-wheele...
Through the summer it was possible to watch C172's on ADSB squawking as IDAHO33 and IDAHO44, circling at 3000ft. They haven't been visible on ADSB in months. I have a great view of the areas they often circle over. They're still active, they're just not squawking. As recently as yesterday afternoon, in fact.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-sur...
Edit: Here's an example: https://fr24.com/2021-01-08/05:10/12x/EC20/2683abc3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillan...
https://www.rtl-sdr.com/adsb-aircraft-radar-with-rtl-sdr/
I think you may need at least a free account to see the stats, but in any case these are my two sites:
https://www.flightradar24.com/account/feed-stats/?id=5024
https://www.flightradar24.com/account/feed-stats/?id=23968
I'll definitely set that up.
Obviously I’ve no real need for either of them, but its nice to have for something I was going to run anyway!
Note I live on the flightpath between the WH and Camp David, and the Marines practice this run A LOT. I only found this out once I started WFH every day due to the pandemic.
Sometimes it's a lone helicopter, sometimes they are in a trio. But FR never shows anything and ADSB-E at least shows an artifact that essentially appears as a drone with no tail number.
Since if I had to make a choice, I would single out Flightradar24 too, since the (iPhone) app is just great.
https://www.adsbexchange.com/api/feeders/?feed=ndZezh8wKD8NV...
I have a LimeSDR as well that I screw around with sometimes, but really any basic receiver will get the job done.
I'm planning on checking out adsbexchange and FlightAware based on the comments.
The setup on the Brix: https://photos.app.goo.gl/dJmvM3R9u3eGpggP8
Project Loon balloons on Flightradar24: https://photos.app.goo.gl/b8wDkTn6XaRmUWGw6
I see on the Brix you're just using the stock antenna, which is encouraging given I have perennial issues with reception on other devices.
Now to buy some gear...
[0] https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/equipadsb/privacy/
Are they blue? That’s the Sheriff’s Secret Police. They’ll keep a good eye on your kids, and hardly ever take one.
Are they painted with complex murals depicting birds of prey diving? No one knows what those helicopters are, or what they want. Do not play in the area. Return to your home and lock the doors until a Sheriff’s Secret Policeman leaves a carnation on your porch to indicate that the danger has passed. Cover your ears to blot out the screams.
http://www.nightvalepresents.com/welcome-to-night-vale-trans...
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/New_World_Order_(conspiracy_theo...
We had a drug task force mass arrest staged a few years back. I swear the DEA and other agencies did everything they could to kick up the paranoia. It was unreal how they checked all the 'conspiracy nut' boxes in one operation.
They cut the internet and cell phones in the area. Real nice since we had an online class going. They drove around in black SUVs and, just so stupid, had black helicopters flying overhead. I guess they did arrest some people, but I question that too. I'm sure someone was super pleased with themselves.
ATF, DEA, DHS, etc are always making big scenes because "look, we're doing things, we justify our budget" whereas the FBI just does their job without fanfare.
https://www.democracynow.org/2004/9/30/longest_standing_pira...
[1]: https://time.com/3479728/marijuana-okra-police/
[2]: I say this with as much sarcasm as I can currently muster
http://www.scpwiki.com/top-rated-pages-this-month
It's been a while since I've bothered to actually look at these helicopters, but a lot of them are pretty nondescript. Not obvious news or police helicopters. Multiple times a month I hear them circle around at night, but I never see anything in the news about an incident or a fugitive. When I ask on Nextdoor I never get replies despite it being loud enough to keep me up.
Then again, I just realized that "Helicopter Hell" is more alliterative. I think I'll call it that from now on.
I've checked FlightRadar24 during the protests of June and it seemed like most of the tail numbers of the helicopters flying around the SGV were either Pasadena Police Department, LA County Sheriff, or a private (news?) helicopter. Lately the ones I've seen aren't showing up on FlightRadar24, oddly enough.