USA Protests/Riots

RichLB
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Re: USA Protests/Riots

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I think we all agree the problem in America extends far beyond police violence. The protesters are calling for a systemic cultural change. I agree such a goal is needed, but despair at what concrete changes (not a bunch of platitudes) should be implemented. I have a couple of ideas and would be interested in what thoughts others may have.

1. We hear all the time that education is the answer. That sounds good, but provides no real solution given the current educational model. Students, especially those from high stress environments, just aren't interest nor do they see the value in much of the curriculum they have to sit through. Frankly, neither do I. I can recall endless hours learning how to use logarithms, puzzling over secants and cosecants, memorizing the progression of English royalty, and tons of other stuff irrelevant to my life then or now. Teach the kids stuff they need to know and they will thirst for more knowledge. How to get rich and money management (the real cost of a credit card, the power of compound interest on savings, investment techniques, how to get a loan, etc.) come to mind. Throw in some entrepreneurial skills (selling stuff on ebay, setting up a co-op, etc.) Real sex education (although most probably resistant due to religious bias) should be taught at an early age. History, real history, that humanizes historical figures and not a mishmash of dates. And so on and so on.

2. Television and movies are powerful media to influence cultural change. Happily there are more and more minorities represented, but they often appear as stereotypes or white people with black skin. I suspect the black women idealized on our television screens are packaged to meet white tastes and not what most black men find attractive. I'd like to see that changed and more Queen Latifahs and Oprahs in our living rooms.

3. I've just reread this and realize it's way too long. I'll stop now and hopefully others will add their input.
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Re: USA Protests/Riots

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RichLB wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 5:10 pm hopefully others will add their input.
In my opinion one of the worst things ever to happen to education was textbooks. Who came up with textbooks in the first place? And who writes them? I always found most of them useless, boring, irrelevant, and by the time you get to the college level often difficult or impossible to understand. Someone handing out a textbook and saying read pages 136 to 147 and answer the questions on page 148 - that's not teaching.

I still remember the title of the textbook from my freshman chemistry class. "Introduction to Semi Micro Qualitative Analysis". Not only did I not (and still don't) understand the title of the book, but it was even worse trying to understand anything that was in it. Do I need to reveal just how well I did in chemistry class?

I do think some subjects that may seem irrelevant at the time, take on relevance later. But none of my teachers ever explained why we needed to learn some of these things. To this day I still have no idea why in high school I had to spend a semester learning geometric proofs. I've never needed that for anything in my life. Some say those kinds of things teach you how to think. All it ever taught me was figuring out how to copy off of Sally Hartman's test answers without getting caught.

It would have been much more relevant if they taught about how to use the stock market. I've never invested in the stock market for one simple reason - I never knew what to do or how to do it. To this day I understand almost nothing about the stock market.

If education is the answer, or at least part of the answer, the USA's dysfunctional education system needs major change. And the first thing they can do is get rid of Betsy DeVos and replace her with someone actually competent.
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Re: USA Protests/Riots

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While the world is focused on the Russia-Ukraine crisis, that is not the only thing going on. Today the three police officers involved in the George Floyd killing were convicted in Federal court.


Jun

Re: USA Protests/Riots

Post by Jun »

Gaybutton wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 5:50 pm I do think some subjects that may seem irrelevant at the time, take on relevance later. But none of my teachers ever explained why we needed to learn some of these things. To this day I still have no idea why in high school I had to spend a semester learning geometric proofs. I've never needed that for anything in my life. Some say those kinds of things teach you how to think. All it ever taught me was figuring out how to copy off of Sally Hartman's test answers without getting caught.

It would have been much more relevant if they taught about how to use the stock market. I've never invested in the stock market for one simple reason - I never knew what to do or how to do it. To this day I understand almost nothing about the stock market.
I can't comment on the US education system, other than being aware of poor results from schools and allegedly some of the best Universities in the world. Although the best Universities in these studies are always in English speaking countries, which is highly suspicious.

Regarding subjects, things like geometry can come in very useful, if erecting a shed or some other project. Although primary school maths is good enough for most of that.
Whilst subjects like Physics and Biology can be useful for everyday life, there is an element of educating everyone in order to identify those who ARE suitable for higher education. Which is very valuable for society.
Also a breadth of education is useful. Including for stock market investing.

I find it odd that schools don't have any subject that covers the basics of finance, budgeting, investing, scam avoidance and related topics like efficient living.
Meanwhile, they devote time to utter bullshit like religion. This reduces the credibility of the schools.
How can any non-believer have complete respect in their teachers when they are pushing religion ? Then once you have protestant schools, catholic schools, moslem schools etc it enforces division in society.
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Re: USA Protests/Riots

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Jun wrote: Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:29 pm Meanwhile, they devote time to utter bullshit
And it shows. When I see the utter ignorance so prevalent in the USA, I just cringe.


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Re: USA Protests/Riots

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In a plea deal Derek Chauvin gets 20-25 years.
_______________________________________
A federal judge accepts Derek Chauvin's plea deal and will sentence him to 20 to 25 year

By Omar Jimenez, CNN

May 4, 2022

(CNN) - The federal judge presiding over the cases of the four Minneapolis police officers implicated in the killing of George Floyd has accepted Derek Chauvin's plea deal and will sentence him to 20 to 25 years in prison.

That sentencing range was laid out in the plea filed months ago, which also mentioned Chauvin would be expected to serve between 17 and a little over 21 years, "assuming all good-time credit."

Chauvin was sentenced last June after the former Minneapolis police officer was convicted of murder in the 2020 death of Floyd.

Chauvin has asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals to overturn his conviction.

At the federal level, Chauvin pleaded guilty in December 2021 to violating George Floyd's civil rights.

Based on the plea filed, this sentence would be served concurrently with the 22.5-year sentence tied to his murder conviction at the state level.

https://us.cnn.com/2022/05/04/us/derek- ... index.html
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Re: USA Protests/Riots

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Antonin Scalia - Remember him? The Supreme Court Justice who proclaimed proof of innocence is not sufficient to release a person who was convicted for the crime? I can only assume Mr. Justice Scalia, that your expertise in the Constitution far exceeds that of a layman like me. I would have greatly appreciated understanding why someone proven to be innocent should not only be kept in prison anyway, but why he shouldn't be released - instantly. There must be something in the Constitution addressing that and certainly the Founding Fathers would have wanted innocent people kept imprisoned.

Looks to me that Justice Alito is using precisely the same absurd argument Scalia used about Roe vs. Wade, right down to the same words, many years ago.

By the way, when Roe vs. Wade was upheld by the Supreme Court, 5 of the justices voting in favor of it were Republicans. Times have definitely changed.





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Re: USA Protests/Riots

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Derek Chauvin sentenced to 21 years in federal prison for depriving George Floyd of his civil rights

By Paul Vercammen and Steve Almasy, CNN

July 7, 2022

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN)Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin will serve 245 months in federal prison for violating George Floyd's civil rights.

Senior US District Court Judge Paul Magnuson sentenced Chauvin to 252 months but subtracted seven months for time served.
US attorneys asked the court for Chauvin's sentence to run concurrently with his state sentence of 22.5 years.

"This sentence should send a strong message that the Justice Department stands ready to prosecute law enforcement officers who use deadly force without basis," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said. "While no amount of prison time can reverse the tragic consequences of Derek Chauvin's violent actions, we hope that this sentence provides some small measure of justice for the families and communities impacted."

As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Chauvin pleaded guilty in December to federal charges of depriving Floyd of his civil rights. He could have faced up to life in prison if he had been convicted at trial.

He also pleaded guilty and admitted that, in a separate case, he violated the civil rights of a 14-year-old in 2017 by using excessive force. That man filed a lawsuit in June against Chauvin and the city of Minneapolis.

Chauvin briefly addressed George Floyd's children in court.

"I wish them all the best in their life and that they'll have excellent guidance in the rest of their life," he said.

Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, attended the hearing and asked the court for the maximum sentence.
"I'm looking for closure, and I want to know why. That's what I want to know -- why?" Philonise said after the hearing.
He also said he wanted an apology, something Chauvin didn't give during his statement.

"I wish he would have just probably said how sorry he was, but that's not going to bring my brother back. No matter how hard I want him to say different things, it's not going to bring my brother back."

Prosecutors had asked for a 25-year sentence in prison for violating Floyd's civil rights, followed by five years of supervised release. His attorney had asked for 20 years.

The US Bureau of Prisons will decide what facility Chauvin will be housed in.

Sarah Greenman, an assistant criminology professor at Hamline University, said life in federal prison is considered to be better than at state facilities. "It's less crowded in federal prison, there's less safety concerns than in a state facility," she said, adding there are fewer violent offenders in federal prisons, which also have bigger budgets.

Chauvin was sentenced in June 2021 on state charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the May 2020 killing of Floyd, an assault caught on a video that sparked a national outcry over police brutality and a reckoning over racial justice in America. He has appealed his conviction.

The footage from a Minneapolis street showed Chauvin impassively kneeling on the 46-year-old Black man's neck and back while he was handcuffed and lying prone in the street for more than 9 minutes, gasping for air and telling Minneapolis officers, "I can't breathe."

According to a court document filed by his attorney in late June, Chauvin spends most of his life in solitary confinement at a maximum-security state prison.

Three other former officers were found guilty by a federal jury in February of violating Floyd's rights on May 25, 2020.

One man, Thomas Lane, has pleaded guilty to state charges. The trial of Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng is scheduled to begin in October.

https://us.cnn.com/2022/07/07/us/derek- ... index.html
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Re: USA Protests/Riots

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If he was beaten, stabbed, or whatever it was, good! I'm also glad he survived the attack. If he had been killed, then he would have gotten off too easy, in my opinion. I'm glad he will likely survive to serve the rest of his prison sentence.

Sorry, Derek - 22 years to go . . .
___________________________________________________________________________________

Derek Chauvin, former officer convicted in George Floyd’s killing, assaulted in prison, source says

by Evan Perez, Katelyn Polantz, Jamiel Lynch and Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN

November 24, 2023

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted in the 2020 killing of George Floyd, was assaulted Friday in a federal prison in Arizona, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Chauvin is in stable condition after the assault at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, the source said.

When asked about the report of Chauvin being harmed, FBI offices in Phoenix and Minneapolis said they were aware of an assault that happened at the federal prison on Friday, but did not identify a person and referred CNN to the Bureau of Prisons for more information.

Chauvin’s attorney Greg Erickson told CNN he was working on getting confirmation.

“An incarcerated individual” was assaulted at Tucson prison at approximately 12:30 p.m.,the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement Friday. Two sources confirmed to CNN the individual was Chauvin.

“Responding employees initiated life-saving measures for one incarcerated individual” and that person was transferred to a hospital for treatment, the bureau’s statement said. “No employees were injured during the incident,” the statement said.

https://us.cnn.com/2023/11/24/us/derek- ... index.html
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