Mod: Protest organizers are calling for 1 million protest demonstrators to show up in Washington DC tomorrow. Meanwhile, for those who seek meaning in ominous natural events, lightning struck the Washington Monument yesterday (video clip here). Go figure.As White House braces for largest protest yet, Pentagon sends troops home (
McClatchy Washington Bureaulink): The nation’s capital is bracing for the largest protest yet on Saturday since the death of
George Floyd, expanding a massive fenced perimeter around the
White House, even as the
Pentagon sent home hundreds of active duty troops positioned outside the city.
Over 10 days of protests, the security perimeter around the
White House has increased, and on Thursday morning extended to the far outskirts of a park complex known as the
Ellipse near the
National Mall with extensive fencing and barricades.
That was in anticipation of a major event on Saturday, according to the local police department.
“We have a lot of public, open-source information to suggest that the event on this upcoming Saturday may be one of the largest that we’ve had in the city,”
Peter Newsham, chief of police of the
Metropolitan Police Department of the
District of Columbia, said at a press conference on Thursday morning.
It was not immediately clear which groups were organizing the march, but
#1MillionDCSaturday was trending on
Twitter in a call for one million people to march on the capital to protest police brutality against
African Americans and the death of
Floyd, a black man who died in
Minneapolis police custody.
The
United States Park Police told
McClatchy that it was using “intelligence to monitor upcoming events,” but would not preview its planning as doing so could “pose a hazard to the public and police.” The
White House referred questions about Saturday’s march to the
Secret Service, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
74% of Americans view George Floyd's death as an underlying racial injustice problem (
ABC Newslink): Nearly three-fourths of
Americans view the death of
George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer as a sign of an underlying racial injustice problem, a new
ABC News/Ipsos poll finds, a significant shift from a similar question asked just six years ago. Only 32% of
Americans approve of
Trump's reaction in the aftermath of
Floyd's death, which has sparked thousands and thousands of protesters in dozens of cities demanding racial justice, while about two-thirds disapprove.
Mod: As always, more at the links.sierramadretattler.blogspot.com
