SEATTLE — The majority of Seattle City Council is now backing proposals to defund Seattle’s police department by 50%, despite concerns from the mayor’s office and Seattle’s police chief that council members are moving too quickly and without enough widespread community engagement.
A coalition called Decriminalize Seattle presented a plan to the budget committee to redirect millions from the city budget to community organizations.
“The status quo is no longer acceptable,” Council President Lorena Gonzalez said Thursday, adding that while she previously believed in police reform, she now believes in rebuilding. “We have to take away the things that no longer and should have never belonged to law enforcement in the first place,” she said.
Goya Foods President and CEO Bob Unanue said on Friday that he is not backing down in the face of a boycott over his visit to the White House.
“We were part of a commission called the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative and they called on us to be there to see how we could help opportunities within the economic and educational realm for prosperity among Hispanics and among the United States,” Unanue told “Fox & Friends.”
Unanue said that the United States is the second-largest Hispanic country in the world behind Mexico.
Attorney General Bill Barr gave an update Thursday on the federal investigations into rioting that took place across the nation in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.
Barr had previously announced that the Justice Department had evidence that outside instigators — including individuals connected to Antifa — were behind some of the violence that appeared to spin out of peaceful protests against police brutality. The attorney general said that “legitimate demonstrations” were “hijacked” by these outside actors, and that federal law enforcement is “building up our intelligence” on the alleged instigators.
“We already arrested over 150 people on federal charges, and we have over 500 investigations underway going on across the nation focused on these hardcore instigators involved in this rioting,” Barr said during a federal and local law enforcement roundtable discussion in Arkansas.
On Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested on CNN that gatherings such as normal parades and fairs would be restricted in his city, but Black Lives Matter protests would not be shut down.
On Thursday, de Blasio helped paint a Black Lives Matter mural in front of Trump Tower in Manhattan, and yelled, “We are saying Black Lives Matter in New York City and Black Lives Matter in the United States of America! Let’s show Donald Trump what he does not understand; let’s paint it right in front of his building for him!” Later, the mayor appeared on CNN with host Wolf Blitzer, who asked him, “What about protests? If people want to march down Fifth Avenue, are they going to be allowed to do so?”
His people are now denying he agrees with this, but notice how this is what is from the far left Ady Barkan and Now This to try to get more of the leftist base aboard for Biden.
🚨 🚨🚨 Joe Biden says police have "BECOME THE ENEMY" and calls for CUTTING police funding: "Yes, absolutely!" pic.twitter.com/hV9KyuqhiX
— Trump War Room – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) July 8, 2020
I have just been made aware that the following traffic sign is being displayed on Main Street. I have ordered that it be taken down immediately and am taking steps to find out how this happened. I apologize to the residents of Melrose. pic.twitter.com/BMGmFYcWfd
The Melrose police chief has launched an investigation after one of his officers typed a message on a traffic sign that read, in part, “All Lives Matter.”
Mayor Paul Brodeur shared a photo of the traffic sign, which has since been changed, to his Facebook page on Wednesday. In that photo, the sign reads “The safety of all lives matter.”
“I have ordered that it be taken down immediately and am taking steps to find out how this happened,” Brodeur wrote in his post. “I apologize to the residents of Melrose.”
The traffic sign is still up in the area of 236 Main St., but no longer displays the message. The sign appears to belong to the Melrose Police Department.
The US Army is investigating how a handout distributed on a base in Alabama initially included a description that the phrase “Make America Great Again” was a form of “covert white supremacy” and therefore racist — which it says was “sent out in error and immediately recalled.”
Earlier this week, a graphic was included in a handout disseminated at the US Army’s Redstone Arsenal that suggested that President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan was a form of “covert white supremacy.”
On July 6 at Redstone, officials distributed a handout to personnel that “included two unapproved pages that were sent out in error and immediately recalled,” Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said in a statement.
The slides were to promote the Army’s so-called listening tour under a program it calls Project Inclusion, a new initiative to improve diversity and racial inclusion across the military.
Just one day after St. Pete police said they would start issuing fines to protesters who block traffic, a group of protesters in front of the police dept. refused to allow a fire rescue truck to pass — forcing them to re-route around the protest. STORY: https://t.co/emXsMdt6Copic.twitter.com/wQXjrntgam
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday around 3 million acres of land in eastern Oklahoma, including parts of Tulsa, is considered Native American land. Justices voted 5-4 in favor of the decision, with Justice Neil Gorsuch voting with the liberal justices and penning the court’s opinion.
The area in question is home to around 1.8 million people though only 15% of the population at most is considered Native American.
“Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law,” Gorsuch said. “Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word.”
Thursday’s decision revolved around the 1997 conviction of Native American Jimcy McGirt. McGirt was convicted in Oklahoma state court in the rape of a 4-year-old girl and was sentenced to 1,000 years, plus life, in prison for the crime. However, McGirt argued Oklahoma authorities overstepped their jurisdiction because the crime took place within the boundaries of the Muscogee Nation’s land.
McGirt filed multiple appeals in Oklahoma courts, which were thrown out, before appealing to the Supreme Court.
In two 7-2 opinions issued Thursday, the Supreme Court led again by Chief Justice John Roberts, determined that President Donald Trump is not immune from subpoenas requesting access to his tax returns from before he won the White House, but did not immediately hand over the financial documents to either New York City’s District Attorney or House Democrats, sending both requests back to lower courts for further litigation.
The Manhattan District Attorney had “subpoenaed Trump’s records as part of a criminal investigation into potential wrongdoing by the president and his organization. Multiple House committees had subpoenaed Trump’s records ostensibly as part of an effort at oversight and to inform potential legislation,” Fox News reported.
In both cases, though, the Supreme Court declined to simply force Trump to hand over the documents, instead remanding both cases to lower courts to review again in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump does not enjoy immunity from investigation for potential incidents that occurred before he was president.
