News of the Week for Mar. 21st<\/sup>, 2021<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chauvin Pre-trial Day 6 Midday: Civil Settlement Becomes An Issue, As Ninth Juror Seated<\/a> Portland’s Antifa Insurrection Continues: US Courthouse Under Siege, Media Nearly Silent<\/a> Chauvin Defense: Minneapolis Settlement With Floyd Family Could “Taint Jury Pool,” Demands Change Of Venue<\/a> Chauvin trial day 6<\/a> Minneapolis Business Owners in George Floyd Square Beg the Cops For Help<\/a> George Floyd Autonomous Zone Residents: HELP!<\/a> Chauvin trial day 7<\/a> Chauvin Pre-trial Day 7: Defense Burns Two More Strikes<\/a> Chauvin Pre-trial Day 8 \u2013 Breaking: Two Seated Jurors Excused for Cause Based On Civil Settlement Disclosure<\/a> Notorious Farrakhan Fan Tamika Mallory Promoted At Grammys \u2014 Issues “Demand” for “Equity”<\/a> Gulp: Judge Bounces Two Jurors From George Floyd Homicide Trial After City’s Settlement Announcement<\/a> Chauvin trial day 8<\/a> Chauvin Pre-Trial Day 9: Argument On Admissibility of Floyd’s Prior Drug Ingestion, As 10th Juror Seated<\/a> Chauvin Pre-trial Day 8: Judge Scolds Media for Trying to View Documents on Lawyers’ Tables<\/a> Minneapolis PD: We’ll Get Control Of The George Floyd Autonomous Zone \u2026 Soon. Maybe.<\/a> Will Derek Chauvin Receive Due Process in Floyd Case?<\/a> Chauvin trial day 9<\/a> Media peddles unsupported racial narrative on Atlanta “spa” shootings<\/a> Chauvin Pre-Trial Day 10 Motion Rulings: Portion of 2019 Prior Floyd Arrest Video Can Be Played At Trial<\/a> Chauvin Pre-Trial Day 9: Judge Lashes Out At Prosecutors, “let’s just stop right there”<\/a> Judge Denies Change-Of-Venue Motion In Floyd Homicide Trial, But Allows Defense Evidence On Cause Of Death<\/a> Chauvin trial day 10<\/a> Chauvin Pre-Trial Day 10: Thirteenth Juror Seated, 1 More Needed<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Major European nations suspend use of AstraZeneca vaccine<\/a> Behind the EU’s vaccine debacle<\/a> EU Drug Regulator: AstraZeneca’s Vaccine Is Safe, but We’re Putting a Warning Label on It Anyway<\/a> Justice Department, FBI Moving on Cuomo Nursing-Home Investigation<\/a> China Declares a Vaccine War on the World<\/a> The EU is behaving like a psychopath<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tennessee Senate advances ‘permitless carry’<\/a> New Zealand Crime Rates Spike Despite “Assault Weapon” Ban<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Montana, Texas, 19 Other States Sue Biden for Canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline<\/a> 21 States Sue Over Biden Executive Order Halting Keystone Pipeline<\/a> Toyota Warns (Again) About Electrifying All Autos. Is Anyone Listening?<\/a> How stalling growth hurts the planet<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Portugal Court Nixes Euthanasia, New Mexico Legislature Passes Assisted Suicide<\/a> National Review Prevails against Michael Mann<\/a> Judge Dismisses Michael Mann’s Lawsuit Against National Review<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n US Army may nix gender-neutral fitness tests as women overwhelmingly fail, says biological differences matter <\/a> How China is building nightmarish surveillance state with cameras checking emotions and tracking “social credit” with AI<\/a> China Hikes Defense Budget Again as US Weighs Flatlining Pentagon Spending<\/a> China Has Its Sites Set On Taiwan, Stopping It May Be Up To The Biden Administration<\/a> Defiant X: The U.S. Army’s New Stealth Helicopter?<\/a> Jet packs are on their way to a battlefield near you<\/a> US Air Force says it will test bizarre ‘hypersonic’ weapon this month<\/a> China Has Its Sites Set On Taiwan, Stopping It May Be Up To The Biden Administration<\/a> The Fight against Chinese Military-Linked Companies Enters New Arena<\/a> FBI Releases Conclusions On Nashville Christmas Day Bombing<\/a> Biden on His Afghanistan Policy: “It’s Gonna be, Like, Sanskrit to People Listening Here, But . . .”<\/a> The Fury of a Former Iran Hostage<\/a> Top NATO Scientist With Security Clearance Busted Spying for China<\/a> China to Restrict Tesla Use by Military and State Employees<\/a> After North Korea’s Taunt, Biden Defense Secretary Says U.S. Forces Ready to “Fight Tonight”<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Newsboy.jpg\" "\\"News")
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<\/a>Riots & Revolution<\/h1>\n
\nThree Jurors Profess Cannot be Fair & Impartial, Excused<\/p>\n
\nSome Insurrections are more equal than others.<\/p>\n
\nWhat a disaster, once again brought to the Twin Cities by Minneapolis’ deeply unserious city government. Rather than wait until the end of the trials this spring and summer, the city council announced a massive $27 million settlement in the wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the family of George Floyd. That landed right in the middle of jury selection in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, and now the defense wants a delay \u2014 and may move for a mistrial<\/p>\n
\nAt the end of the motion hearing yesterday morning, defense counsel Eric Nelson expressed his grave concern over the effect of the city’s world-beating $27 million wrongful death settlement in the civil litigation resulting from the death of George Floyd. Nelson cited prejudicial comments made by Mayor Frey and the members of the city clowncil in support of the settlement. With seven jurors selected and released until the beginning of the trial proper on March 29, he complained of the settlement’s “suspicious timing” and “unavoidable headlines.”<\/p>\n
\n“George Floyd Square” is a small quadrangle of city streets in Minneapolis that was renamed following the controversial death of Floyd while in police custody. Since then, a memorial for Floyd has gone up opposite Cup Foods on 38th Street. The city placed barricades on some streets surrounding the memorial to prevent cars from hitting demonstrators. Naturally, this has made it next-to-impossible for local businesses to operate.<\/p>\n
\nQuite the plaintive plea coming from the shining example of abolish-the-police populism in Minneapolis. Surprisingly, the Star Tribune published this cry for help and prayers by George Floyd autonomous zone resident Monica Nilsson prominently on its pages today. They explain that Nilsson represents “a collection of neighbors adjacent to ‘George Floyd Square,’ neighbors who apparently prefer to remain anonymous \u2026 for good reason.”<\/p>\n
\nIn the time reserved for motion hearings yesterday morning Judge Cahill heard defense counsel Eric Nelson’s offer of proof on George Floyd’s May 2019 encounter with the Minneapolis police. Floyd was high at the time and in medical distress. Previously ruled inadmissible, Judge Cahill indicated he would revisit the issue and took it under advisement. He indicated he would announce his ruling on Thursday, as I understood his comments. My assessment is that the evidence may be admissible in part insofar as it bears on the cause of death, but it is otherwise not coming in.<\/p>\n
\nDefense Asks Court to Presume Bias of Jurors, Return a Strike<\/p>\n
\n#20 & #36 No Longer Fair & Impartial After Settlement News<\/p>\n
\nThe music industry’s biggest event of the year hosted and normalized an unrepentant bigot. Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice, condemned Mallory and her Grammy’s spectacle as the work of a “clout chaser”.<\/p>\n
\nThe jury changes today in the trial of Derek Chauvin do not bode well for the city of Minneapolis, or the state of Minnesota. Two previously seated jurors have told Judge Peter Cahill that the city council\u2019s announcement of a $27 million settlement with the family of George Floyd predisposes them to think Chauvin is guilty.<\/p>\n
\nUnder the court-ordered arrangements for coverage of the trial, two seats are reserved for pool reporters inside the courtroom. The courtroom itself has been reconfigured to accommodate Covid-related public health recommendations. Participating media outlets rotate two reporters per day into the courtroom. These reporters provide on the spot coverage to members of the pool.<\/p>\n
\nState and defense joist re: expert testimony and Floyd’s prior drug ingestion<\/p>\n
\nJudge also angry about media disclosing court security arrangements, as two more jurors seated.<\/p>\n
\nThe return of law enforcement won’t come a moment too soon for those stuck in and around the so-called George Floyd autonomous zone. For months, the city of Minneapolis has allowed the area around the spot where Floyd died in police custody to fester, supposedly as a monument to Floyd. Instead, radical activists and criminals have taken over in and around the city-erected traffic barricades, and they’re finally fed up with the city’s dereliction of duty.<\/p>\n
\nAs NR’s Zachary Evans reported last week, the City of Minneapolis announced that it will pay $27 million to the family of George Floyd to settle a federal civil-rights suit arising out of his detention and death last May 25. The announcement was patently timed to prejudice the difficult, resource-intensive jury-selection process in the trial of Derek Chauvin, who is accused of murdering Floyd.<\/p>\n
\nIf the day didn’t exactly begin with a whimper, it ended with a cathartic bang of a sort. Stick with me here. In between the whimper and the bang three more jurors were seated, bringing the total to 12 so far. We should have 14 soon and adjourn until opening statements on March 29.<\/p>\n
\nMargaret Sullivan of the Washington Post has written a column with the unwieldy title “‘Not racially motivated’?: The Atlanta spa shootings show why the media should be wary of initial police statements.” Actually, the shootings demonstrate, for the millionth time, that the public should be wary of mainstream media statements.<\/p>\n
\nProsecution also cannot call expert on Floyd’s state of mind or PTSD during 2020 incident, denies defense request for change of venue or trial delay.<\/p>\n
\nJuror #90, who characterized police as “systematically racist” dismissed for cause, as to other jurors seated bringing the total to 12.<\/p>\n
\nThe defense won one and lost one today in the trial of Derek Chauvin. Despite an idiotic decision by the city council to announce a $27 million settlement admitting liability in the death of George Floyd, the trial will remain in Minneapolis, Judge Peter Cahill ruled a few minutes ago. That demand from the defense had been made once before, but after the publicity from the settlement disqualified two jurors, Chauvin’s team hoped Cahill would reconsider<\/p>\n
\nKTLK’s Jon Justice and Drew Lee have deputized me to act as their Chauvin case correspondent with regular appearances at the top of the show’s third hour at 8:00 a.m. (Central). We had a lot to talk about yesterday, including my preview of Judge Cahill’s rulings at 8:15. I thought some readers might find it of interest.<\/p>\n
\nEach Side Uses One Strike, Leaving State with 3 and Defense with 5<\/p>\n<\/a>Corona Virus<\/h1>\n
\nGermany, France, Italy and Spain became the latest countries Monday to suspend use of AstraZeneca\u2019s COVID-19 vaccine over reports of dangerous blood clots in some recipients, though the company and European regulators have said there is no evidence the shot is to blame.<\/p>\n
\nThe New York Times acknowledges that, whereas the U.S., the UK, and Israel are getting their populations vaccinated and seeing sharp declines in Wuhan coronavirus cases, the EU is a “mess” in this regard.<\/p>\n
\nSomehow, I don’t think the European Medicines Agency helped matters much with their decision today. In fact, they may very well have just enabled the worst of both worlds.<\/p>\n
\nThe New York Times reports that FBI agents have fanned out to conduct interviews of state and nursing-home officials in New York. At issue, as I’ve previously outlined, is an investigation of whether the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo misled the federal government when it provided data on COVID-19-related deaths of nursing-home residents.<\/p>\n
\nChina will allow foreigners to enter the country, but it has directed embassies around the world to only issue a visa if the traveler has gotten a COVID-19 vaccine that was made in China.<\/p>\n
\nIts incompetence, its vicious smear campaign and its lashing out are going to get people killed.<\/p>\n<\/a>Gun Rights<\/h1>\n
\nThe Tennessee Senate on Thursday advanced legislation that would allow most adults 21 and older to carry firearms \u2014 concealed or openly \u2014 without a license that now requires a background check and training.<\/p>\n
\nGun-related crime is spiking in New Zealand a full two years after the country instituted a nationwide ban on most semi-automatic firearms. The Parliament rammed through the ban and buyback (confiscation) program in the wake of the 2019 Christchurch attack, but the laws have had no positive effect on gun-related crime.<\/p>\n<\/a>Hide the Decline<\/h1>\n
Environment &
\n“Green Energy”<\/h2>\n
\nLegal Insurrection reports that 21 states are suing to block Joe Biden’s executive order that halted the Keystone XL pipeline.<\/p>\n
\n“The power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce belongs to Congress \u2013 not the President. This is another example of Joe Biden overstepping his constitutional role \u2026<\/p>\n
\nDepending on how and when you count, Japan’s Toyota is the world’s largest automaker. According to Wheels, Toyota and Volkswagen vie for the title of the world’s largest, with each taking the crown from the other as the market moves. That’s including Volkswagen’s inherent advantage of sporting 12 brands versus Toyota’s four. Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bugatti, and Bentley are included in the Volkswagen brand family.<\/p>\n
\nSome environmentalists and economists are pushing for “degrowth” \u2014 stabilizing or even shrinking the economy \u2014 to avert environmental catastrophe.<\/p>\n<\/a>Obamacare<\/h1>\n
Government in Healthcare<\/h2>\n
\nEuthanasia is always in the news these days, alas.<\/p>\n
\nThe D.C. superior court granted National Review’s motion to dismiss climate scientist Michael Mann’s long-running defamation suit.<\/p>\n
\nIt took nearly a decade but Michael Mann’s lawsuit against National Review has finally been dismissed.<\/p>\n<\/a>War & Terror<\/h1>\n
\nThe Pentagon may reverse the U.S. Army’s new “gender-neutral” physical fitness test for its male and female soldiers because more than half of female soldiers are failing the test.<\/p>\n
\nBIG Brother-like mass state surveillance is being developed by China with streets full of cameras that can monitor citizens’ emotions and track their “social credit” scores.<\/p>\n
\nTrying to preserve a veneer of democratic legitimacy, the Chinese government goes through the political theater of a meeting of its rubber-stamp Congress every March.<\/p>\n
\nChina’s takeover of Hong Kong has been a success as far as the CCP is concerned. The crackdown on protesters has put an end to protests and the demand that local elected officials be “patriotic” means there will be no real elections in the future. Considering how little price the CCP has paid for all of this, they are certainly thinking about the next island on their target list: Taiwan. Last week, a U.S. admiral warned that Taiwan was clearly on the agenda for China and that it could make a move much sooner than expected.<\/p>\n
\nThe Army is looking for a new helicopter and there is much talk about making it smoother and with a lower heat signature.<\/p>\n
\nIt’s 2021, and although I thought by now there would be flying cars, cities on the moon and the ability to teleport from my bed to my couch instead of walking, I guess I’ll settle for a jet pack, or as DARPA is calling it, a “Portable Personal Air Mobility System.”<\/p>\n
\nThe test has already been delayed, and there are real questions about the technology’s purpose.<\/p>\n
\nChina’s takeover of Hong Kong has been a success as far as the CCP is concerned. The crackdown on protesters has put an end to protests and the demand that local elected officials be “patriotic” means there will be no real elections in the future. Considering how little price the CCP has paid for all of this, they are certainly thinking about the next island on their target list: Taiwan. Last week, a U.S. admiral warned that Taiwan was clearly on the agenda for China and that it could make a move much sooner than expected.<\/p>\n
\nThe battle against tech companies with ties to the Chinese Communist Party picked up in the final days of the Trump administration. Much of the focus was on TikTok, but the White House also made use of an obscure and previously unused section of the 1999 National Defense Authorization Act, allowing the Pentagon to designate Chinese Communist military companies to be sanctioned (I wrote about the sanctions here).<\/p>\n
\nIt’s been a couple of months since we heard anything new about Anthony Warner, the maniac who blew himself up on Christmas morning in downtown Nashville. The FBI has been using this time to conduct a thorough investigation, sifting through tons of physical evidence from the blast site and interviewing hundreds of witnesses and people familiar with Warner. They also had to track down more than 2,500 tips that were received on a hotline they set up for that purpose. Last night they released their preliminary findings, describing their progress as representing “a significant portion” of the investigation.<\/p>\n
\nThe Biden campaign’s promise on Afghanistan: “Biden will end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, which have cost us untold blood and treasure. As he has long argued, Biden will bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan and narrowly focus our mission on Al-Qaeda and ISIS.”<\/p>\n
\nAt The Atlantic, Graeme Wood has an extraordinary interview with Xiyue Wang, the American academic who was held hostage by the Iranian regime for 40 months. Wang had been doing archival research in Tehran when he was taken into custody for allegedly spying on behalf of the U.S. government.<\/p>\n
\nChinese military intelligence recruited an Estonian national working at a NATO research institution focused on maritime and submarine research, The Daily Beast has learned.<\/p>\n
\nPeople familiar with the effort cite concerns Tesla cars could be source of national security leaks<\/p>\n
\nMove follows North Korea rejecting Biden’s diplomatic offer for talks.<\/p>\n