Mayor Jacob Frey said he made the call to evacuate police officers from the 3rd Precinct before rioters set the building on fire Thursday night as protests continued to boil over in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd.
Police said officers were able to safely evacuate as rioters breached the perimeter and started a fire that spread through the building. Shortly after, city officials warned protesters to move from the building after receiving reports that gas lines may have been cut.
They urged people to move away from the building. In a tweet, Mayor Jacob Frey said the fire department is working to respond to the fires that have been set. However, he added, “We all need to work together to ensure the safety of our friends, family, and Minneapolis residents. And right now working together means clearing the area.”
Frey said he made the decision to sacrifice the building and call off officers as rioters moved in. He told reporters early Friday morning that the decision came down to safety for both officers but members of the public.
The consequences of electing weak leaders and using a culture war to divide us. As the “movement” spreads to other cities, the presence of antifa and BLM is being reported but not verified.
Are we still a moral country deserving a Republic?
Man, with the major pandemic and economic risks we all have to deal with, it’s so frustrating to have to waste time and energy addressing the plague of crap ‘science’ being dumped on us on a daily basis.
It’s so unnecessary. Our society knows how to do science well. But due to Big Pharma protecting its profits, or political agendas, or whatever the reasons may be — we are not getting rigorous trustworthy research findings at a time when we need them most.
Yet once again, we’re find ourselves forced to wade back in the hydroxychloroquine debate. This time to respond to (or more accurately, eviscerate) the most recent study on HCQ appearing in The Lancet. Whether or not its conclusions are accurate, who knows?
But its methodology is for certain shoddy as hell. Why are we still being given such poorly-constructed and shoddy results by our science ‘experts’? By this time, we should have a plethora of rigorous, peer-reviewed studies giving us clear, dependable answers we can use to create smart health policy decisions.
But instead, we’re still being fed a daily diet of garbage ‘science’:
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Gov. Tim Walz activated the Minnesota National Guard to restore order in the wake of protests, riots and looting following George Floyd’s death.
Walz’s order issued Thursday afternoon came after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s calls for assistance after widespread damage across Lake Street Wednesday night. Damage and looting has since spread to St. Paul.
“It is time to rebuild. Rebuild the city, rebuild our justice system, and rebuild the relationship between law enforcement and those they’re charged to protect,” Walz said in a statement. “George Floyd’s death should lead to justice and systemic change, not more death and destruction. As George Floyd’s family has said, ‘Floyd would not want people to get hurt. He lived his life protecting people.’ Let’s come together to rebuild, remember, and seek justice for George Floyd”.
In the last week 2.123 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits for the first time (versus the 2.10mm expected).
That brings the ten-week total to 40.767 million, dramatically more than at any period in American history
And as we noted previously, what is most disturbing is that in the last ten weeks, almost twice as many Americans have filed for unemployment than jobs gained during the last decade since the end of the Great Recession… (22.13 million gained in a decade, 40.767 million lost in 10 weeks)
Worse still, the final numbers will likely be worsened due to the bailout itself: as a reminder, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed on March 27, could contribute to new records being reached in coming weeks as it increases eligibility for jobless claims to self-employed and gig workers, extends the maximum number of weeks that one can receive benefits, and provides an additional $600 per week until July 31. A recent WSJ article noted that this has created incentives for some businesses to temporarily furlough their employees, knowing that they will be covered financially as the economy is shutdown. Meanwhile, those making below $50k will generally be made whole and possibly be better off on unemployment benefits.
Additionally, families receiving food stamps can typically get a maximum benefit of $768, but through the increase in emergency benefits, the average five-person household can get an additional $240 monthly for buying food.
But, hey, there’s good news… stocks are near record highs and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he anticipates most of the economy will restart by the end of August.
Finally, it is notable, we have lost XXX jobs for every confirmed US death from COVID-19 (100,442).
Was it worth it?
As Michael Snyder writes,if you tried to warn people in late 2019 that about 40 million Americans would lose their jobs by the middle of 2020, nobody would have believed you. Personally, I operate a website called “The Economic Collapse Blog”, and I wouldn’t have believed you either. Even though I have been loudly warning that this sort of an economic crisis was coming, I never imagined that we would lose so many jobs in such a short period of time. As I discussed the other day, more than a quarter of all jobs in the United States have already been wiped out, and the job losses just keep on coming. In fact, Boeing is currently in the process of laying off thousands of highly skilled workers…
Of course many unemployed workers are not exactly “deeply suffering” yet because of the huge weekly bonuses that they are getting from the federal government right now.
Earlier today, I was directed to a post on a popular Internet forum where a newly unemployed worker was describing how great his life has become now that he is unemployed…
Before COVID I was miserable.
I had a job working $14.75/hr and hated waking up most days. I’ve since been laid off (obviously) but am one of those who is making much more by NOT working.
I used to make $550-600 per week depending on my hours but since COVID began, I’m clearing just over $1000/week. My gf is in the same situation and she’s also clearing just over $1000.
Without any job to go to, he can now spend his days endlessly hanging out with his newly unemployed girlfriend, and he claims that he can’t even imagine ever going back to his old life…
As we told you back at the beginning of the month, the oil business isn’t going to bounce back. Probably not for near a decade.
The auto manufacturing business – and 400 ancillary industries – aren’t going to bounce back. Airline travel drop-off is going to kill some major carriers. Tourism, hotels, and everything related won’t be back for a year.
Hollywood is looking at the south end of a northbound worst-movie-summer-in-recorded-history since Thomas Edison invented the motion picture. TV production is on the longest hiatus since the last writer’s strike. People in the biz are losing their houses. Concerts? Gone. Trade shows? Gone. Sportsball? On life support. Farmers? Lucky to stay off of food stamps this year. Restaurants? This year will probably be the most closures and bankruptcies since 1929. Retail? Aloha. Malls are going to be the new ghost towns.
And all those employees? The ones not working anytime soon? They’ll be the exact ones NOT buying all of the above goods and services.
This isn’t going to be a V-shaped recovery. It isn’t going to be a U-shaped recovery.
Welcome to 2020: The Year Of the L-shaped Recovery™. (Anybody can use that one, but *I* said it first.)
A perfect storm is brewing across America’s inner cities of extreme wealth inequality, record-high unemployment, an economic crash, hatred towards cops, and months of lockdowns. All there needed to be was a trigger to ignite the unrest, that trigger could be the death of George Floyd.
No one knows what the trigger will be but it is the closest it has ever been. I have no doubt this will spread across the country and the civil unrest for which Trump has already prepared, will be seen as either prescient or provocative. Can you imagine the two national political conventions in Milwaukee and Charlotte (tentative)? Then again, I believe we will see this unfold very quickly and August is far away in this time frame.
The question for today: what are you doing in your community to address this new issue? Most people in flyover country are in good shape. Those of you in a city under lockdown with high food prices and unstocked shelves are in some serious trouble.
David DeGerolamo
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On Tuesday, cumulative US deaths from covid-19 crossed above 100,000. The worldwide casualties (that we know of) now exceed 350,000.
Whether or not we as a society can agree on the health risks of covid-19 or whether the national lockdowns it has triggered are worth the resulting economic damage, hopefully we can all agree that the global death toll from the pandemic is tragic.
Meanwhile, battle lines are being drawn between those arguing for vigilance against a second infection wave and those skeptical of the severity of the virus and the rationale for curtailing economic activity and personal freedom.
We’re entering a tense time when this discord and friction will increasingly manifest in arguments, shaming, mass demonstrations, and open resistance. More than ever, it will be important to keep a level head and seek out unbiased sources that focus on data vs pushing a narrative or inflaming emotions.
We here at PeakProsperity.com will keep doing our best to serve as such a trusted source.
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