Tag archive: Damocles

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Here We Go Again – the Rayshard Brooks Murder

Late Friday evening, June 12, 2020, Atlanta police were called to a Wendy’s restaurant, where 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was passed out sleeping in his car, blocking the drive-through.  Police gave him a sobriety test, which he failed, and talked with him cordially for over half an hour, while he cooperated and consented to a weapons search of his car, which came up clean.  Brooks suggested he be allowed to walk the few blocks to his sister’s home, but the officers decided to arrest him for DUI.

 

At this point Brooks resisted, broke free of the officers as they attempted to cuff him, was tackled, struggled and grabbed an officer’s taser before breaking free once again and drunkenly lumbering across the parking lot.  At one point he turned and shot the taser wildly in the officers’ general direction, continuing to run away; Officer Garrett Rolfe shot him twice in the back, killing him.  As Brooks lay prone on the ground, struggling for his life, Rolfe approached and kicked him, asserting, “I got him!”, while his partner stood on Brooks’ shoulder; he then waited more than two minutes before offering medical assistance.

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The Murder of George Floyd

On Monday evening, May 25, 2020, Memorial Day, police were called to a small shop in Minneapolis, Minnesota following a report of a man trying to pass a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill.  Four officers took a black man matching the description of the suspect into custody, handcuffed him, then laid him down in the street, where one white officer held him prone with a knee on his neck for almost nine minutes, while he begged for air and called out to his deceased mother, and the other officers watched or assisted.

 

Passersby and EMTs pleaded with the officer to relax his stance, but he persisted, for almost three minutes after the man beneath him became unresponsive.  Taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, EMTs worked to revive him for almost an hour before he was pronounced dead at 9:25 PM CDT.  Protests began the night after the incident, escalating to violent confrontations with police and looting over the ensuing four nights, as demonstrations spread to urban centers across the country.  All four officers were terminated from their employment with MPD the following day, and four days later the arresting officer was himself arrested and charged with third degree murder and manslaughter.

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Asteroid Casefiles: Saturn Station Fallout

Recent pronouncements by 2020 presidential election contenders and a personal run-in with potential disaster sent me scrambling for the ephemeris lately, and while having that knowledge in hindsight didn’t change the reality, at least there was some comfort in confirming the timing of the cosmos is always perfect.

 

In all four instances, Saturn seems to have been a mover and shaker of the events, and with the planet of authority, restriction, limitation, career and status currently at station, that’s not surprising.  Saturn turned retrograde on May 11th, but has been energizing its station degree of 1 Aquarius since April 7, and will continue to do so until June 15, affording two months of saturnine shenanigans while it slows, changes direction, and picks up speed again.  So Saturn themes are emphasized throughout the period, which has also witnessed the height of the US death toll from coronavirus (about to top 100,000), with Saturn acknowledged by the ancients as Lord of Death.

 

Saturn also rules chief executives and the presidency, which is the chief focus of this article.  In particular, we’ll look at two statements from presidential candidate Donald Trump and one from rival Joe Biden, all of which garnered heightened attention or controversy.

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2020 Election Preview: A Stolen Democracy?

The date of posting this article marks six months exactly until the General Election which will decide Donald Trump’s (and the nation’s) fate. Typically I don’t comment this early on a fall election, particularly when the official Democratic candidate has yet to be named (though Joe Biden’s nomination appears to be just a formality, in the age of coronavirus, nothing can be taken for granted), but the popular acclaim for advanced analysis has been deafening of late. So here we go.

In this article, I’ll be focusing on peripheral factors unrelated directly to the candidates; we’ll save that for closer to the event itself. But there are several unalterable factors that independently impact the day. And an alarming number of them point to electoral fraud. So we’ll just be looking at the day itself in isolation, irrespective of the individuals’ winning potential (though we will discuss how the candidates’ PNAs factor into the patterns of the day).

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Coronavirus Case Notes: Boris & Bernie

Holy Week 2020 saw two major reversals for political figures on both sides of the pond, one medical, one political, both with COVID-19 connections. On Palm Sunday, 5 April, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hospitalized in ICU with coronavirus complications and given oxygen. The 55-year-old PM had been diagnosed positive for the virus ten days previously, and his condition had deteriorated to the point where the medical support at No. 10 Downing Street was insufficient to his need, and he was admitted to St. Thomas Hospital, London.

On Wednesday April 8, US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders withdrew from the race; the indefatigable Vermont Senator’s campaign, bloodied but unbowed in Super Tuesday primary contests, had finally succumbed to COVID-19’s isolationist tendencies. Unable to hold mass rallies or campaign effectively given coronavirus social distancing requirements, with most remaining primary elections postponed to the summer due to the virus’ impact, Sanders finally threw in the towel on his presidential aspirations.

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Michael Atkinson Fired

Late on April 3, 2020 US President Donald Trump did a little spring cleaning, throwing out some trash he’d been wanting to get rid of for some time. The offending object was Justice Department Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Michael Atkinson, the man whose judicious handling of the Ukraine whistleblower report eventually led to the President’s impeachment. Trump made no bones about his reason for relieving Atkinson of his position, citing the decision to pass the complaint on to Congress as the grounds for removal. With The Donald, everything is either confession or projection.

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