Criminal law, Politics

Trump Tweets Attack On Gugino As Possible “ANTIFA Provocateur”

Screen Shot 2020-06-09 at 1.00.06 PMPresident Donald Trump tweeted another inflammatory and reckless tweet in suggesting that man injured in the controversial Buffalo police abuse case, Martin Gugino, 75, might be an “Antifa provocateur.”  I previously discussed the case from a legal standpoint on the difficulty of proving assault in the second degree.  However, it is highly inappropriate for a president to be spreading such claims on a case pending trial and without confirmation.  We have discussed the loosely defined groups associated with Antifa but I have not seen proof that Gugino is one of those groups.  The tweet is particularly distasteful given that Gugino remains in critical condition.

Trump was repeatedly an allegation first posted on One America News Network, a conservative site that he clearly favors. He tweeted

“Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”

First, the defense will likely claim that the fall was harder than the push, as we discussed. However, there is no question of the very serious injury to Gugino, who was bleeding from the head after the fall.

Second, even if Gugino was a part of the anti-fascism or the anarchist movements, he was not acting violently. He may have disobeyed an order but this conduct would not warrant such an injury. This does not mean that the officers were criminally responsible, but the attack on Gugino is unwarranted.

As Attorney General Bill Barr has stated, they suspect not only Antifa involvement but also other anarchist and even right-wing groups.  Antifa was not mentioned in the first 22 criminal cases.

421 thoughts on “Trump Tweets Attack On Gugino As Possible “ANTIFA Provocateur””

  1. ” Second, even if Gugino was a part of the anti-fascism or the anarchist movements, he was not acting violently. ”

    What’s the playing dumb about ? He’s a known long time activist, it’s all over the web !
    Are you people not sentient ?

  2. “Martin Gugino is a Catholic peace activist, not an ‘Antifa provocateur,’ friends say”
    https://religionnews.com/2020/06/09/martin-gugino-is-a-catholic-peace-activist-not-a-antifa-provocateur-friends-say/

    “… Friends of the retired computer scientist describ[ed] Gugino as a devout Catholic and a graduate of Canisius High School, a private Jesuit school in Buffalo, who is a passionate advocate for multiple causes on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised. Gugino spent his retirement lending a hand to multiple causes, among them Black Lives Matter.
    “’Martin has a passion for social justice,’ said Mark Colville, who runs the Amistad Catholic Worker house in New Haven Connecticut, and has known Gugino for years. ‘When he sees wrong he wants to be involved in making it right.’
    “Colville said Gugino made multiple trips from the Buffalo suburb of Amherst to New Haven — a 6 and a half-hour drive — to help prepare and serve meals at Amistad House, which describes its mission as ‘follow(ing) Jesus in seeking justice for the poor.’ …”

    1. “He wuz jus a good boy going to church and as innocent as a new daisy or a unique snowflake….”

      LAUGHING

  4. Professor……….You wrote that it is highly inappropriate for a president to spread claims about a case pending trial.
    Witth all due respect…..Was there an outcry from the media, or legal community when Obama did this on national tv press conference at the White House? All I heard were crickets back then, but I knew it was highly and legally inappropriate.

    ******************************************************************************************************************************************
    Obama: Cambridge police acted ‘stupidly’

    By BEN SMITH

    07/22/2009 09:04 PM EDT

    After spending most of an hour patiently reiterating his arguments for changing the health insurance system, President Barack Obama turned his press conference sharply toward an iconic moment in American race relations: The arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. earlier this week by the Cambridge Police.

    Gates was arrested for allegedly disorderly conduct — a charge that was quickly dropped — after a confrontation with a police officer inside his own home. Though some facts of the case are still in dispute, Obama showed little doubt about who had been wronged.

    “I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts – what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two that he Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home,” Obama said in response to a question from the Chicago Sun-Times’s Lynn Sweet.

    2. “Professor……….You wrote that it is highly inappropriate for a president to spread claims about a case pending trial. Witth all due respect…..Was there an outcry from the media, or legal community when Obama did this …”

      There was no “case pending trial” for Henry Louis Gates, Jr. when Obama made his comments.

      Gates was arrested on 7/16/09.
      The charges were dismissed on 7/21/09.
      Obama commented on 7/22/09.

      Details, details.

      1. Commit– There was no pending trial but I think President Obama’s comment was very revealing about his intentions. After the arrest, at the urging of Bill Clinton, Gates and the officer met for a beer and talked things through. The officer explained that he wanted to go home that night to his wife and children, that this kind of burglary call was among the most dangerous, that he feared there was another man upstairs who might come down and shoot him. Once they had talked, Gates said he understood why the officer did what he did and I am sure the officer apologized to Gates. Gates asked for and got a DNA sample from the officer and later discovered that they were distant cousins.

        Instead of giving them the chance to talk it out, Obama immediately turned it into racial thing and called the officer “stupid.” Then, after the damage had been done to the officer’s reputation, Obama staged a repeat of the meeting between the two and as was his custom falsely basked in the glow of something he had no role in. To put it simply, as he would on so many other occasions, President Obama looked for something racist so he could gin up his weak minded followers.

        1. No, Obama did not “immediately turn[] it into racial thing and call[] the officer ‘stupid.'”

          Gates was arrested on 7/16/09.
          The charges were dropped on 7/21/09.
          Obama made his comments on 7/22/09, saying “I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry [to be arrested in that context]; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

          Saying that someone acted stupidly is not the same as calling the person stupid (I’ve sometimes acted stupidly, but I’m not a stupid person), and in no way was Obama waiting 6 days an example of him acting “immediately.”

          As for your note that “After the arrest, at the urging of Bill Clinton, Gates and the officer met for a beer and talked things through,” I looked it up, and I see that Gates noted that in an interview with Ken Burns in 2016. Did he make it public prior to the WH Beer Summit in July, 2009? If not, how would Obama have known unless one of them told him? According to you, when did it first become public?

          1. Commit–

            “No, Obama did not “immediately turn it into a racial thing…’”

            Obama: “we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

            “… or call the officer ‘stupid.”

            Obama: “the Cambridge police acted stupidly..”

            At the press conference, Obama said: “I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts –”, and yet, he proceeded to assume it was something racial between a white officer and Gates, and to conclude that the police acted stupidly. The fact is the officer followed protocol, something Gates himself understood after they had talked.

            Are you seriously suggesting that Obama’s staff was not told that Gates and the officer had already talked over a beer? That is just plain silly. Logically, it sounds more like they were told not to say anything about it so Obama could take the credit. They did not say anything until years later, and Obama did take the credit.

            If I recall correctly, this was the beginning of Obama’s recurring attacks on and race baiting of the police. Whenever there was an incident involving a black person and a white person, Obama and Holder automatically went along with an encouraged what turned out almost invariably to be false stories of racism. He squandered every opportunity to unify the country around race and actually made things worse. He and his Vice President failed at every opportunity to provide real assistance to African American communities, from criminal justice reform to economic growth. He invited Black Lives Matter to the White House after they had called for the killing of police. He polluted the White House with performances by a filthy mouthed rapper whose mouth should have been washed out with soap. His home town is a killing field but he cannot be bothered to lift a finger to help. And his loyal “please don’t call me a racist” foot soldiers and his lap dog media are repeating worn out democrat talking points blaming it all on Republicans and President Trump.

            2. I repeat: in no way was Obama waiting 6 days an example of him acting “immediately.”

              As for “Are you seriously suggesting that Obama’s staff was not told that Gates and the officer had already talked over a beer?,” I’m seriously saying that I don’t conflate conjecture and knowledge. Might Obama have known? Sure. Did he know for a fact? I have no idea. And you don’t either. The difference is: you pretend your conjecture is knowledge and I don’t.

    3. Two totally different things. The police did act stupidly then & they acted horrifically now. Obama didn’t spread disinformation about a civilian, he stated the fact that the police acted outside their authority. What Trump tweeted was baseless & without conscience. The man could die. All he did was protest. He did not loot, vandalize, pillage, or rob. Those police pushed a man old enough to be my father & if it WAS my father, I would pursue any recourse possible to get the officers who don’t belong in such positions, off the streets.

  5. Quote of the day:
    —————————————-
    Radical mobs on campuses call speech they don’t like ‘violence.’ Radical mobs in the streets call their violence ‘speech.’

  6. “As Attorney General Bill Barr has stated, they suspect not only Antifa involvement but also other anarchist and even right-wing groups. Antifa was not mentioned in the first 22 criminal cases.”

    Turley, as usual misrepresents the case. Barr has said nothing to implicate right-wing groups. Trump said, “Don’t let them blame anyone else,” while blaming ANTIFA. I have no idea what role ANTIFA may be playing in the organized violence associated with the protests. Being told the right-wing is absolutely not involved despite arrests and other evidence is ridiculous, those that believe that are willfully obtuse.

    1. “Turley, as usual misrepresents the case. Barr has said nothing to implicate right-wing groups.”
      ******************************
      You’re just plain wrong about this:

      Barr: “We’re dealing with a witches’ brew of different organizations a variety of ideological persuasions,” he said. “Some are Antifa-related. A lot of the extremists are involved in egging on violence and participating in violence.”

        1. You’re all a bad joke. The BLM / protesters movement needed no help from anyone to burn down and loot everything they did, and of course it was ____________________ doing it.

          The POTUS and AG decided giving the ________ folk a break was in order, and get rid of another thorn in US citizens sides.

          Instead, all you retards try to this moment to pretend no antifa and all nazis full of evil plots.

          YOU’RE ALL A RIDICULOUS JOKE. IT WAS YOUR PEOPLE. YOUR PEOPLE, THE PEOPLE YOU LIVE AND CLAIM AND BREATH AND CANNOT SHUT UP ABOUT. BLABBER BLABBER BLABBER BLABBER and I find out GF is a 5 time prison loser, a gun to the gut of the victim home invasion thief who deserved to die.

          IT’S YOUR PEOPLE. IT’S ALL YOUR PEOPLE. YOUR PEOPLE. YOUR PEOPLE. YOU AND YOURS, YOUR PEOPLE. YOUR PEOPLE.

          Another one I just love so much. ” OUR COMMUNITY. OUR COMMUNITY.. OUR COMMUNITY… !!!!

          Decades after desegregation, many many many years after – it’s all YOUR PEOPLE, YOUR COMMUNITY…

          I am so sick of hearing about you freaks. I’m sure things will switch and we’ll hear about the israeli freaks again, over and over and over and over…..

          Rest assured as soon as some moron blabbers about “our people, our community” I’ll be certain to oppose them 100%.

    2. enigma – at least 4 identified Antifa members have been arrested by the feds in different states.

      1. Unlike Trump, (and Mr. Kurtz) who deny the possibility of right-wing involvement. I am willing to accept the possibility of ANTIFA involvement and hope they face the whole weight of the laf if true. Whether this Jiustice Department and President is capable of telling the truth is highly doubtful.

        1. I denied that it was a fact, not that it is a possibility.

          it is also a possibility that my portfolio is up 20% today, but i suspect when i look it will be down, because I am in tune with other facts, which indicate to me what reality most likely is

          but soothe yourself with whatever beliefs comfort you!

      2. Once again, you provide no evidence. Are you going to? Or are you once again going to wimp out?

        Multiple people associated with right-wing groups have been arrested in different states this month:

        “Three Nevada men with ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to spark violence during recent protests in Las Vegas.” (Associated Press)

        “A self-described Ku Klux Klan leader has been arrested for allegedly driving his car into a group of Black Lives Matters protesters gathered on Sunday in the US state of Virginia.” (BBC)

        “An employee of Richland County Emergency Services has been arrested in the wake of last weekend’s street violence with the Sheriff’s Department saying he appears to be a member of the “Boogaloo boys,” an alt-right group that wanted to foment violence during demonstrations.” (Post and Courier, SC)

          1. Your claim, your burden of proof.

            You periodically ask me to provide evidence for my claims, but you’re a hypocrite when it comes to providing evidence for your own claims.

            1. Committ – honestlawyer posted about the three in Austin and at least a couple more have popped up.

              1. So link to it.

                Or don’t.
                I’ll just stop replying to you. It’s always a waste of time.

          1. You do realize that’s from last August, almost a year ago? Not exactly supporting Trump and Barr’s claims. If I had paid, I’d have to sue you for fraud.

            1. 8/7/18 is the date on the article.

              Allan’s article it almost TWO years old.

              2. Anonymous go home. Snow White and the 6 dwarfs have been looking for you. They need Dopey to return so they can be 7 dwarfs again.

            2. Enigma, you asked: “Can you point me to the ANTIFA members that have been arrested?”

              My only goal was to make sure you realized that ANTIFA members have been arrested. I provided you with the well known one’s from California whose mug shots were posted. As I said “If you want more research and pictures you will have to pay.”

              1. In my discussion with Paul (not you) he mentioned four specific arrests during the recent protests which I asked about. You pull out some arrests from almost two years ago. Even you must recognize that those aren’t the same thing. You might also stop trolling into other people’s conversations.

                1. Enigma, yes I recognized what was going on in the discussion with Paul, but I also remember your defense of ANTIFA long ago. In Paul’s case you left ithe question open and with the prior history of what you said I decided it was time to make sure that you finally understood ANTIFA was a violent group. I don’t even know if you will admit to their violence today so until you do I will continue on my present path.

          1. Thank you Paul! I’m more than willing to accept there was ANTIFA involvement in the carnage. I’ve also seen information regarding right-wing groups that somehow nobody from the White House, Justice Department, or Republican elected officials can acknowledge. Blaming the “far-left” and telling the public to “not let them place blame on anyone else” isn’t going to resolve the situation.

            1. enigma – peaceful protests are Constitutional. When you start staging weapons and bricks, and burning things down, that is too much for me. Seattle abandoned one of their precincts to Antifa today. Antifa is controlling a 7 block area of Seattle.

              1. Arrest anyone commiting violence, sentence them to the full capacity of the law. I don’t need the government lying to the public about who’s involved to score political points.

            2. “Paul! I’m more than willing to accept there was ANTIFA involvement in the carnage. ”

              Enigma, I guess that means you won’t be hiring me to do your research. This one was an easy task. I often wonder if you think you are special since you are always asking others for special favors.

              I hope you are at least starting to learn that your unsophisticated support of groups that can be violent is only perpetuating the violence and harm to those that are most in need. We have all seen the death and destruction that comes from some of these ideas. Perhaps the one that should be revered is not George Floyed but David Dorn.

              1. As usual, you totally, willfully misrepresent what I say. I have never supported ANTIFA, I disagree when other people make them out to be the worst possible thing while ignoring the Klan, Boogaloo Boys, Proud Boys, White Supremacists, Skinheads, and other groups you pretend both don’t exist and haven’t killed hundreds/thousands of people. I have called for ANTIFA members committing violence to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Something I haven’t heard you say about right=wing groups. Does your silence indicate support?

                1. ” I disagree when other people make them out to be the worst possible thing ”

                  Enigma, As usual you misrepresent what is on the table and what was clearly stated over and over again. The claim was that Antifa was violent, not that it was better or worse than other groups such as the Nazi’s. You also misrepresent the truth when you say I pretend those other groups don’t exist. What I have said is that some of those groups you don’t like have policies of the left rather than the right and look for more government rather than less. Check out Richard Spencer. We have something in common. I don’t like the Klan, White Supremacists, and Skinheads. I don’t know Boobaloo Boys or Proud Boys well enough to form an opinion one way or the other.

                  You would call the Nazi’s right wing but policially they were on the left and derived from communists. They were called National Socialists to give you a hint. Many of the main philosophers of the movement were from the left. I have never been silent about any violent group that I have reasonable information about. Once a protest becomes violent it is my belief that the true protester moves away and lets the police manage the problems. I also don’t advocate preventing free speech or protest as is continuously done by the left. In fact when the Naz’s wished to march on Skokie, as much as I hate the Nazi’s I never advocated preventing the march.

                  You have advocated certain things but refused to advocate against violence and an abridgement of speech except in the most general manner which is near meaningless.

                    1. Enigma, you are doing the same thing you did when you claimed Trump was a racist based on something that happened ~20 years before he was born. I pay very close attention to what you say even going to the news articles you suggested that proved you wrong, Another time I went to the official signed documents of another claim you made. This goes on over and over again so you can choose whether you want to say you aren’t paying attention or you are lying. Of course most likely it is both.

                      However, you can easily correct how one assesses you by simply relying on the truth and staying away from claims you can’t prove.

                    2. Everything I’ve ever said to you is in writing. Stop saying I said something and produce it! In the last week I’ve said a dozen times that violent protesters including ANTIFA should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

                    3. ” I’ve said a dozen times that violent protesters including ANTIFA should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

                      Enigma, I’ve heard you say that in recent days more than once. I apreciated your change in direction. I did remember a past question put to you and if I think of other things I might bring them up as well. I hope you tell me which landlord is the racist. Don’t tempt me to go back to old blogs. I might just have someone do that for me and copy some of your more ridiculous statements.

                    5. “Everything I’ve said to you is in writing. Feel free to dig deep.”

                      Enigma, after my last post I don’t think it is necessary. I have proved my point and you proved me right.

                    7. “Your victory is all in your mind. ”

                      There was no victory, Enigma. A victory would be if you and I could honestly discuss racism but you won’t go to square one. TDS prevails. Honest brought up how Trump has run Mar a Lago and his clubs. We all lost.

                      The question of the black and white landlord removes race from the question. You and I both know why you won’t answer the question.

                    8. Enigma, I just remembered, in one of our lengthy disputes you were running around the edges claiming all sorts of people were racists when race was not the underlying concern. I asked you a question then multiple times and you never answered it. Perhaps in the time that has passed you figured out an answer so I will ask it again though it is from memory so the words might be different.

                      We have a black and a white landlord owing identical buildings in identical areas in close proximity to one another. Neither one of the landlords meets the correct proportional racial numbers that the housing department demands. Which one is a racist.?

                    10. “Trump, because he marked his rental applications “C” for colored so he could reject them on the basis of race.”

                      Enigma, what you have is TDS. Apparently the authorities didn’t have the same opinion as you. They ran large companies with many employees. No one said an employee didn’t do the wrong thing.

                      I took it out of the realm of politics and you couldn’t answer the question as stated. That is why you can’t complain about my memory of the past because you made false claims and refused to answer any generic question. Here is the question again that was previously asked and left unanswered many times. You are doing the same thing today.

                      “We have a black and a white landlord owing identical buildings in identical areas in close proximity to one another. Neither one of the landlords meets the correct proportional racial numbers that the housing department demands. Which one is a racist.?”

                    11. Something I learned from Mespo, my answer is my answer. Trump intended to use racism to decide who he would and wouldn’t rent to. In your hypothetical, I have no idea about the intent of either landlord, Trump’s was obvious. I am not obligated to answer questions on your terms, it’s only occasionally I bother to respond to you at all.

                    12. enigma – I have not weighed in on this, but enough is enough. Trump is a delegator, he does not do it himself. So, he property managers might decide to not rent to blacks, but that is not a decision that Trump would make. That is too detailed for him. Money is money. If they can pay the rent, he rents it. He does not care about color or race or religion.

                    13. The Trump Organization isn’t hundreds of thousands of employees. If you get sued once by the Federal government for housing discrimination and then you get sued a second time for the same thing, you can’t blame it on the underlings.
                      https://www.npr.org/2016/09/29/495955920/donald-trump-plagued-by-decades-old-housing-discrimination-case

                      “The lawsuit was based on evidence gathered by testers for the New York City Human Rights Division, which alleged that black people who went to Trump buildings were told there were no apartments available, while white people were offered units.

                      Back then, Sheila Morse worked as one of those testers. When a black New Yorker was turned down for service and racial bias was suspected, Morse, who is white, would be dispatched to see if she received different treatment.

                      In this case, a black man in search of an apartment in Brooklyn in 1972 saw a sign on a building: “apartment for rent.”

                      “He met with the superintendent, and the superintendent said, ‘I’m very sorry, but the apartment is rented — it’s gone,’ ” Morse says. “So the gentlemen said to him, ‘Well, why is the sign out? I still see a sign that says apartment for rent.’ And the superintendent said, ‘Oh, I guess I forgot to take it down.’ ”

                      How The Man Created The Brand In ‘Trump Revealed’
                      POLITICS
                      How The Man Created The Brand In ‘Trump Revealed’
                      When Morse went to the building to ask about the same apartment, she says, “They greeted me with open arms and showed me every aspect of the apartment.”

                      Morse says she reported her experience to the Human Rights Commission, and then returned to the apartment building. After she was offered a lease, the black man who had tried to rent the apartment entered the office with a city human rights commissioner, and the three of them confronted the building superintendent.

                      “He said, ‘Well, I’m only doing what my boss told me to do — I am not allowed to rent to black tenants,’ ” Morse says.

                      The commissioner asked the building superintendent to take him to his boss. That turned out to be Trump Management.”

                      If you’d like to see some of the original depositions, feel free:
                      https://vault.fbi.gov/trump-management-company

                    14. enigma – it is clear from the stuff you sent me that Fred Trump was Trump Management and he ran the show. I am not seeing any C’s on anything and I am seeing tons of whiteout. It is like working with classified documents.

                    16. enigma – they buried the lede. The complaint against Fred Trump and Donald Trump was “dismissed against them in their personal capacity, with prejudice.”

                    18. enigma – it is pretty clear that Fred Trump ran Trump Management while he was alive, not Donald. And again, although they are fancy talking this article in HuffPo, the suit was against the management company, not Donald. The management company settled. HuffPo is trying to paint Donald with the same brush.

                    19. Donald Trump (the President of the Company) was named individually as well. He did what he always does, he stretched it out for two years until they settled which is almost all the government does in these types of “violations” that should be crime. It is pretty clear by this and hundreds of other examples in his lifetime who he is. Do you believe he isn’t racist?

                    20. enigma – actually I do. And Fred was in charge, not Donald. That is how family corporations work. Yes, he was named, means nothing. He was cleared both times.

                    21. He didn’t ackno0wledge guilt which is quite different from being “cleared.” Let’s say Fred implemented the policy and Donald just carried it out, wouldn’t he be an accomplice? This is one of hundreds of instances we know about with Trump. It would be nice to see the outtake videos from The Apprentice where Trump is allegedly on tape explicitly stating his views but his friend Mark Burnett won’t release them. Perhaps during the Summer Zervos depositions he was supposed to already have given, they will be part of the discovery.

                    22. enigma – if he didn’t do it, he wouldn’t have to acknowledge it.

                    23. He has never acknowledged anything in his life. I can think of some people he did and wouldn’t acknowledge, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. You may have noticed by now about Donald, he lies!

                    24. enigma – I have often said that if Trump bonk Stormy without a condom, he is the bravest man I know. 😉

                    25. “He didn’t ackno0wledge guilt which is quite different from being “cleared.”

                      Trump acknowledged innocence and proved it. If the government, after years of searching and wasting money and manpower , couldn’t find evidence of guilt then Trump is innocent. Can you prove yourself innocent of the bank robbery that occurred within the last two years somewhere on the east coast? No. That means you are not cleared of any of those bank robberies and that the only evidence we have that you are not the bankrobber is you didn’t acknowledge guit. Doesn’t that sound a bit foolish?

                    26. “He did what he always does, he stretched it out for two years until they settled which is almost all the government does in these types of “violations” ”

                      Paul, Enigma is twisting again. The individual doesn’t stretch the complaint out for years, the government does. The individual has to pay big bucks every week the case goes on while the government has unlimited funds and unlimited time. The government doesn’t need proof. All it needs to do is bankrupt the individual. [See the case of Howard Root if you haven’t already. https://www.howardroot.com/videos/ The large video at the bottom of the page.] How many people have millions of dollars to fight the government with? They don’t. Eventually they settle. Trump was picked because he was high profile and the government wished to intimidate the entire landlord population white and black. They could have just as easily picked a black landlord but that would have demonstrated that racism of landlords had little to do with the problem.

                      The settlement says it all. The government couldn’t prove its case. I provided the actual settlement papers with the signatures to Enigama along time ago but he is still peddling his old trash.

                      I repeat IMO all lawyers should listen to the video. https://www.howardroot.com/videos It is 49 minutes long but gets better and better. It’s like seeing fiction but it is true.

                    27. Allan – I watched the Root video before. He was very lucky his board was behind him.

                    28. Paul, I have actually seen this relatively close up in a variety of areas. Once government decides to start they don’t stop even when they know they never should have started. Though this is an anecdote I know of one case where everything the government said was proven wrong. The government wouldn’t stop because they want to show wins. That leads to the individual settling. In this one case the individual settled for literally a couple of dollars, basically the cost of a round or so of coffees at Starbucks. He couldn’t handle the time or the money. The government got their win so everyone walked away.

                    29. Enigma, how can we get to the truth if you keep arguing and then when the actual signed official documents are shown to you you run away only to start the same nonsense over and over again at successively later dates. Maybe the superintendent had other reasons that weren’t racial. Maybe the superintendent told the truth. We get back to the source of the problem with the following question.

                      We have a black and a white landlord owing identical buildings in identical areas in close proximity to one another. Neither one of the landlords meets the correct proportional racial numbers that the housing department demands. Which one is a racist.?

                    30. “Something I learned from Mespo, my answer is my answer.”

                      That is right Enigma, but it defines who you are. You can believe you are a different person than the one posting if you desire.

                      “Trump intended to use racism to decide who he would and wouldn’t rent to. In your hypothetical”

                      Did the black landlord have the same intentions? You don’t want to fix the problem of racism. You just want to talk about it and blame people for living in a world where some people refuse to look at reality. You don’t want to look at why a black landlord might act the same way as a white landlord. The cure to racism is to deal with racism and not mix it with all the other problems that exist. That is why your type of attitude enhances racism. That is what I find so bad about your postings.

                      I will now get back to the question and display why you cannot be trusted where race issues are involved.

                      “We have a black and a white landlord owing identical buildings in identical areas in close proximity to one another. Neither one of the landlords meets the correct proportional racial numbers that the housing department demands. Which one is a racist.?”

                      When you learn the answer to the question you will understand the problems of racism better. You are a big part of the cause.

                      Trump is probably one of the least racist persons we see in the public eye. His actions are based on things other than race.

                      [Correlation is not causation]

                    31. You either aren’t paying attention to my views or are lying, take your pick.
                      ______________________________________________
                      Allan is lying. He is always lying
                      It is all he knows how to do

                    32. Dopey, instead of running around pretending to be significant, why don’t you jump in and help Enigma argue his case. Maybe you can answer the question that Enigma is unable to answer and see if he will agree with you.

                      “We have a black and a white landlord owing identical buildings in identical areas in close proximity to one another. Neither one of the landlords meets the correct proportional racial numbers that the housing department demands. Which one is a racist.?”

                      Dopey, now is your chance to prove yourself of value. Don’t drop the ball again.

                2. I will say that enigma has never condoned Antifa violence in any post I have seen. And he has the good sense to answer the question as he sees fit without equivocating. Each position is admirable. Plus I don’t think he’s ever called me a racist which is an added bonus.

                  1. Thank you, Mespo. There are only two people on this board I’ve called racist, one of whom I actually like. In life, most of the time you have no way of really knowing unless they force you to finally believe them.

                    1. enigma:
                      Makes sense to me. As an aside, I do enjoy your commentary even on those days we fiercely disagree. You make me think — hard — and to me that’s the highest compliment I can give you or anyone.

                  2. Enigma– what you say about President Trump does not match what I know about him from having lived in West Palm Beach. When Mr. Trump purchased Mar-a-Lago he created quite a stir in very segregated Palm Beach by turning one-half of Mar-a-Lago into an exclusive country club and telling everyone that if you can afford the fee, you are welcome. As a result wealthy blacks, Jews and others who historically were not welcome in Palm Beach joined up. The same is true at all of his country clubs. I don’t doubt that the story is plausible but I do not believe that President Trump would tolerate it if he knew about it. Remember up until fairly recently, President Trump was a democrat and I do not recall Chuck Schumer or other New York democrats saying he was a racist before he became President.

                    Tonight I learned from NPR that we need to clear our bookshelves of colonialist books and should stop reading white authors until our minds are cleared of colonial, racist thinking. There really is a very fine line been leftist and fascists. I have marked NPR off my list.

                    And this morning I learned that Floyd’s death may have been the result of two men who could not stand each other, one of whom happened to be in a police uniform and the other who happened to be black. In other words, it seems that the killing of Floyd may have had nothing to do with either the “police” or with race.

                    I am very concerned for our country. I am afraid we are becoming something we will not like. On this blog, I may not agree with you very often but I listen to what you have to say and then decide whether I agree or not and if I don’t agree I try to leave open the possibility I may be wrong. My ego is such that leaving open that possibility is a struggle.

                  3. Mespo, I don’t think I ever said Enigma condoned violence. I said in the past Enigma defended Antifa. He sidestepped the issue of Antifa’s violence just like he did with the black and white landlord question. Enigma has been evasive on these issues but I said now that he was openly criticizing Antifa violence he had taken a new direction.

                    2. “True he skedaddles answers to tough questions but he’s never backed ANTIFA’s violence ”

                      Mespo, I never claimed enigma backed Antifa’s violence. If you or anyone can find a comment where I said Enigma ” backed ANTIFA’s violence ” and post it I will either apologize or explain. I guess the word “skedaddles” is as good a one word explanation of what Enigma does. All one has to do is remember how he handled all the questions involving Antifa violence. What he actually believed until his recent comment is unknown. He could have just as easily made that comment when discussions of Antifa violence came up long ago, but he didn’t.

                      To me that is a problem. Being afraid to say that Antifa is violent can indicate tacit support or fear. Take a look at what is happening in Seattle. That is a wake-up call. What is going to happen when some of the group holding that territory gets bored and wants to drink or smoke? Will they become predators on the civilians living in that area? Who has the guns? Of course there is a limited time span for this action to exist. The return to civilization can occur by settlement so everyone can walk away feeling they won. Alternatively it could lead to a forceful battle where not only police get killed but innocent citizens including children get killed as well. This is a result of people not wanting to recognize the violence of Antifa and stop it when it was smaller. [Note, the Seattle incident is not limited to Antifa but Antifa was the one that showed how these things could be done, did it elsewhere on a lesser scale and found out they could get away with it.]

                      I have no ill feelings towards Enigma. As an American his efforts should be to unite us rather than divide us into tribal groups. I don’t care that he doesn’t like Trump. I do care that TDS dominates his thinking and causes him to repeat a lot of lies he has heard. Understand, if he were my next door neighbor he would probably be over at my house for barbeque.

        3. are you asking me? recnetly, i would not know. i have studied their involvement in previous “protests” they staged that ended in riots. all years gone by. i am not up on their representation in the current spate of arrests

    3. there is no evidence of right wing anything. boogaloo bois are just anarchists in hawaiian shirts who like guns instead of the antifa pow-wows where they whine about the system

      boogers are just criminally inclined gun nuts. they also like to talk about snorting lines. does that mean they’re right wing? should we assume that they must be or they would prefer crack instead? they are nutters. there is precious little proof they are even racist nutjobs at all. i was following one booger for months on social media and he was carefully not-racist in all the crazy garbage he was saying.

      now if you actually know some racists, real ones, and yes I do know some, the very last thing on Earth they would have done was go out there with mobs of angry black people running wild on the streets. so don’t kid yourself about that Enigma.

      While there is no basis to call the boogers right wing at all. whereas, ANTIFA traces itself to the Left historically, the POUM militia of the Spanish civil war, and Bakunin’s theories of anarchy, which were derided and defeated at the first few Cominterns by Marx. this is historical fact, feel free to verify or disprove it.

      1. They weren’t running around with mobs of angry black people. They could easily blend in with all the white people in the streets. You need to get better news sources if you haven’t seen them

        1. One ?
          LAUGHING.

          Your brain is the exception to the rule.

        2. A person of sound mind cannot help themselves, you idiots use an exception to the large, wide, and obvious to everyone rule, and proclaim it the norm.

          Really the lying is up front and ridiculous.
          Aren’t you ashamed of yourself ?

        3. ok what about the other 10,000 skinny white punks in black, or the 50,000 or so rioters and looters? this is a pathetically weak position to stake out, but, feel free to make a fool of yourselves

        4. Must be the group Mespo and Kurtz belong to. They regularly promise or threaten armed conflict with their tormentors here.

          1. at first i found the “boogaloo” memers on the internet amusing, then i realized they were actually inclusive of actual psychopathic criminal types. i can’t find anything amusing about this mess or if any of them have participated in riot, that either.

            of course armed conflict may come to pass in any society if there is anarchy. only nutjobs really want to see it happen. I dont recall threatening or promising anybody anything in that regard, except that i promise to survive

            1. Mr. K:

              Do you have watch tonight or is it me? LOL Laughter aside, I’ve never seem you threaten anyone with violence. Am I missing out or is the troll bleating lies again?

      3. “there is no evidence of right wing anything. ”

        Next you’ll be saying that the KKK isn’t right-wing.

        “Police say a Virginia man has been arrested after driving through a group of protesters Sunday evening. … ‘The accused, by his own admission and by a cursory glance at social media, is an admitted leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a propagandist for Confederate ideology.'”
        https://www.whsv.com/content/news/Attorney-says-man-who-drove-through-Virginia-protesters-is-a-KKK-leader-571102971.html

        1. Lori Lightfoot told where to head in by Alderman Lopez

          https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/06/08/mayor-lori-lightfoot-and-ald-raymond-lopez-have-foul-mouthed-argument-over-looting-youre-100-full-of-s-mayor-says/

          “When downtown is in lockdown, our neighborhoods are next, and our failure to fully get ready for what’s going on in the neighborhoods, we’re seeing this destruction, and we’re thinking that it’s going to somehow end tonight. We have seen where, in other cities, this has gone on for days; and we need to come up with a better plan for days, at least for the next five days, to try and stabilize our communities,” Lopez said.

          The aldermen said parts of the Back of the Yards and Brighton Park neighborhoods in his ward had become “a virtual warzone.”

          “We can’t expect our police, and I don’t fault them at all, to be able to control this,” he said. “Half our neighborhoods are already obliterated. It’s too late.”

          Lopez said he feared looters would eventually start targeting homes after ransacking businesses throughout the city.

          “Once they’re done looting and rioting and whatever’s going to happen tonight, God help us, what happens when they start going after residents? Going into the neighborhoods? Once they start trying to break down people’s doors, if they think they’ve got something,” he said.

          “We know that people are here to antagonize and incite, and you’ve got them all pumped tonight, today. They’re not going to go to bed at 8 o’clock. They’re going to turn their focus on the neighborhoods. I’ve got gang-bangers with AK-47s walking around right now, just waiting to settle some scores. What are we going to do, and what do we tell residents, other than good faith people stand up? It’s not going to be enough,” Lopez added.

          When Lopez finished talking on the conference call, Lightfoot declined to respond, and tried to move on to another alderman, but Lopez demanded an answer.

          “It’s not something you ignore. This is a question that I have,” Lopez said.

          That’s when the call turned profane.

          “I think you’re 100% full of s***, is what I think,” Lightfoot said.

          Lopez was infuriated.

          “F*** you, then. Who are you to tell me I’m full of s***?” he said. “Maybe you should come out and see what’s going on.”

          The mayor vehemently denied protecting downtown at the expense of the neighborhoods.

          “If you think we’re not ready, and we stood by and let the neighborhoods go up, there’s nothing intelligent that I could say to you,” she said. “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I understand you want to preen.”

          “Mayor, you need to check your f***ing attitude. That’s what you need to do,” Lopez shot back.

          At that point, several other aldermen interjected in an effort to calm nerves, with one alderman telling Lopez, “Ray, cut it out, please. Calm down, please.”

          ALDERMAN LOPEZ HAS NOW MADE HISTORY TELLING A LOUSY BIGLAW HANDSELECTED LAME MAYOR WHAT WE ALL WANTED TO SAY

          ….SINCE SHE TOOK OVER AND HAS DONE SO POORLY MAKING EVEN RAHM EMMANUEL LOOK GOOD

          GIVE IT A LISTEN– LOPEZ MADE CHICAGO POLITICAL HISTORY

          1. Obama gonna fix it, with Rahm, they gots a decade plus goin’ for themselves in their own back yard. Obama gotta fly in from the flooded coast 15 million dollar mansion or his walled in DC compound home so take a break and wait for the private jet it gettin’ there !

            Expect video updates on all msm channels tonight showin’ ________ America how it’s done.

        2. what you know about KKK fits in a thimble

          KKK when, 1875, 1925, 1965, or 1985? oh wait, you had no idea these were totally different things. i wont bother to explain, it’s always and ever over your head.

          Suffice to say that since then it has barely even existed beyond one man operations, with a mailing list, just a clever yahoo here or there selling goofy outfits from a po box., they are a joke. they rely on the SPLC to gin up their donations via scare tactics. this tells you all you need to know, if you understand how anything works. in other words, they are a laughingstock, both among those who claim the name and those who are scared of it.

          I doubt that more than 20 kluckers have even met for beers since 2005. but you guys keep on worrying about the boogeyman-kkk and the boogerloooneys if it revs your engines.

          now i am sure some racists were watching it all unfold on tv and happy as clams about all the black people on video out there breaking windows, stealing, and incinerating businesses on the black side of town. as, this reinforces negative stereotypes about black folks in general.

          have you dealt with that? i’ll tell you what, the looters and rioters have done the work of ten thousand “kkk” that not one green-toothed loser had to rise up off the couch and try.

          but, no, they’re not so bold as to go try and do it themselves. you guys are off your rockers, drunk on your own moonshine, like you got a batch with methanol in it.

          1. Me thinks Kurtz is the guy to talk to in order to get squared away on the inner workings of white supremecy groups.

            1. a dubious qualification if it fits, and one that I would not willingly accept

              to understand the KKK not as a gaggle of one man po box mailing list operations, but as an actual organization, where it was circa 1970, and where it was by the mid eighties, you need only to look at the careers of two kluckers of note.

              one was roy frankhouser. a fat pig of a man who died in 2009. he was a big klucker in the 60s and locked up by the 70s for bombing a bus.

              strangely frankhouser was also out of jail super fast and off to infiltrate palestinian gang in canada. very notion a fat klucker could do that but he talked the usual antisemitic talk and so apparently the feds gave him the gig

              by the mid eighties he was Lyndon LaRouche’s “Security” detail and eventually again working for the feds as a witness against his former “boss” in a wire fraud case

              frankhouser was quoted once as saying “in the 60s half the klan were undercovers or informants.” in retrospect, as you say, Frankhouser should have known

              https://apnews.com/097e84cf6b3e5bd61340faab8dd06bef

              scratch ANTIFA deep enough, and you will find some informants who think they were operating with impunity too. er, I mean immunity. not to excuse the disorganized louts such as they are, nutty anarchists are sometimes psychopaths even if most are just petty criminals, but one wonders how they were suddenly so active and organized at their instigations of all these riots. i wonder.

              i will talk on klucker #2 next

              1. a racists named daniel carver rose to national fame on the “howard stern show” or maybe it was jerry springer before him

                https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=776554659480675

                the butt of jokes. a ridiculous figure. yet, long before that carver was a genuine robe wearing cross lighting klansman with one of the larger groups at some point.

                he was also the loser in a big civil case where he supposedly lead a small crowd of whites in pelting a larger crowd of civil rights protesters with bottles and rocks and such, in Georgia, 1987..

                now Carver was never charged with any such thing by police. but he was sued by the slickster from Montgomery Alabama, a direct mail millionaire turned ambulance chasing crusader, Morris Dees, who since then has also been proven to have been a racist himself all along, but I digress.

                At the trial of the civil suit related to the melee, the jury gave its verdict against Carver and company. But the evidence was not unequivocal. some evidence suggested that the people actually throwing the rocks were the civil rights protesters, at the handful of kluckers on site lead by Carver.

                rather like we have seen recently, the rioters in large numbers, pelting a pathetic gaggle of cops with bottles and rocks.

                and the jury believed that the small group of white goofballs, was boldly attacking the very much larger group of black civil rights protesters. ask me why I don’t believe this? well, I have brains that’s why. I tend to think Carver got his azz handed to him at the march and then sued and lost for good measure. Carver was lucky to get out of there alive. life experience tells me that the jury verdict could only go one way, regardless of the facts. The lawyer for the black civil rights protesters, Morris Dees, may have been a racist himself, and a fraudulent fundraiser, but, he prove many times over that he was a skilled advocate before a jury.

                Anyhow, years after after this dismal attempt at kkk protesting on the street, which quite possibly the last time the kkk actually tried to appear in public as a group without a group of riot cops protecting them, the hapless fool Carver at least got a sense of humor, along with a few paychecks, when he learned to go on shows like Springer’s and Sterns.

                in short, there is no kkk today nor even the past 30 some years, with any significance whatsoever, compared to whatever it was in 1965, 1925, or 1875.

                1. Fascinating, Kurtz.

                  There was a strong and active KKK in SW Ohio out on the farms when i was in elementary school. Never wanted to get caught out on a summer night out there. Some even painted sides of their barns to represent.

                  1. this article says that a kkk group had a may 2019 rally with “less than ten people” and “hundreds of anti-klan protesters”

                    one wonders how anyone could be so deluded to think that these events will scare anybody i have never understood. nor can i understand how anybody is scared by them. to me it is a farce on both sides.

                    https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/03/06/ku-klux-klan-banned-from-rallying-again-in-dayton-ohio/

                    yet observe the headline. the article proudly declares they were banned, Banned! Even though, even for pathetic much hated white nobodies like these characters, in theory even they have a first amendment right to rally and rally again. but subtleties of law ever evade “journalists”

                    1. “recently asked for a permit for a Sept. 5 rally in Dayton. At least 10 people wanted to speak publicly while defending “white Christian American rights,” the application stated.”

                      Oh. Not the klan.

                  2. yeah, sure thing H – out there somewhere on “the farms”

                    in 1945…

        3. So the white klan is against the protesters.

          Thanks for settling that !

  7. “it is highly inappropriate for a president to be spreading such claims on a case pending trial and without confirmation.”
    ***********************************************
    You mean like Obama did in the Henry Louis Gates and Trayvon Martin cases?

    2. Obama, and Holder, did more than that. They bused a mob into Sanford to surround public offices and demand Zimmerman’s prosecution when the state began to realize there was no case. The prosecution went ahead and was so weak that several parts of the state’s case looked like defense witnesses. He was acquitted. Then Obama turned his Stasi loose to try desperately to prove Zimmerman was a racist who must be guilty of something. Still no joy. Obama did much worse than only comment on the case.

  8. A former intelligence officer has said that the technique of pressing a phone near other electronics is a method he has used to gather information overseas using wifi or bluetooth. In one video Gugino is clearly seen pressing his phone against first one officer and then another. What would have happened to the officers if sensitive information from their equipment been harvested and published?

    Any unauthorized touching is a battery. Black letter law. Don’t walk up to policemen in tense, potentially hazardous, situations and lay hands (or cell phones) on them and not expect to be pushed back.

    If you land on your head, too bad. Assumption of risk.

    Obama went way beyond commenting on situations like this. I welome Trump’s standing up for the truth. Hardly anybody else seems willing to do it.

    1. Young, that’s quite the excuse. Problem is your comparison involves an actual intelligence agent using a device specifically to do that. This was just an old guy using his phone as if he was wagging his finger. Going for outlandish conspiracy theories is a poor excuse for the obvious.

      The officers didn’t need to shove him. All they had do do was ignore him.

      Making excuses for abusive tactics when they are not warranted is why police get away with it. Enabling it is part of the problem.

      1. Guess what would happen to you in a much less tense situation if you came up and put hands on me without permission.

        I have no problem with the police acting less proactively than I would.

  9. JT states “However, it is highly inappropriate for a president to be spreading such claims on a case pending trial and without confirmation.” Do you think it’s “appropriate” for the average citizen to make the claim? I ask because I’m already considered guilty of something (“privilege”) just for my color. Why should this man (waving his phone to read cops’ radio signals and refusing to follow cop direction) be given the benefit of the doubt but not me?

  10. Gugino assumed the risk of harm by disrupting the lawful action of the police in formation. Nobody would be complaining if he had ignored police at a football game, but what, now it’s a poltiical protest so there is no deference given to police attempting to do some modest crowd control? Please.

    When the police walk forward in formation, getting shoved is the least any sane person can expect in response.

    Disorderly protests will yield modest police responses, hopefully. Shoving Gugino is well within a reasonable non-lethal response for the police advancing in formation. It’s too bad the old fellow fell and got hurt but he did after all attempt to disrupt the police in the lawful execution of their duties as a group.

    End of story

    1. Kurtz, he wasn’t disruptive and the phone thing it’s not actually possible. Phones can’t scan frequencies like that. That’s pure BS. He was using his phone to point to his belt, tapping it as he was saying something. No different than using your finger.

      As for shoving him. That was uncalled for even if he was in front of the cops. That “common sense” a lot of conservatives say everyone needs was absent with those two cops. They didn’t need to use that kind of force on him. They could have just walked past him. Clearly he was no threats.

      Pushing him didn’t help the police’s image of being callous and indifferent. They wonder why people have such poor views of them, yet they can’t see what they are doing is what’s causing it.

      1. that’s your opinion. I do not agree but I celebrate your right to express yourself.

        for my part, i was taught as a youth that you never get in front of cops when they are doing crowd control or you will be beaten, arrested, and possibly dead. simple as that.

        I was taught never to self incriminate, but never to resist arrest or any police orders. lawful or not. I have always followed police orders to the T. I was taught if they err in their procedures, we can sort that out later in court, but we can’t bring me back to life if I resist arrest and die from it.

        I was taught that resisting arrest or police orders could get me killed. Not because my parents were anti-police. But because they understood how it works. In every country at every time on earth. Police do not form up and march forward and then stop because and old man wants to take pictures of their badges or whatever that codger was doing, protesting, whatevber.

        And I am not black, I am white, I was privileged in too many ways to count, including that my parents were both very well educated. But this is how i was taught.

        But i guess we come from different social circles. my family was “law and order” all the way.

      2. “the phone thing it’s not actually possible. Phones can’t scan frequencies like that. That’s pure BS.”

        Good argument (maybe) but you have no way of knowing that was only a phone. Neither did the policemen.

        If you don’t want to take a nap on the ground don’t walk up and put hands on a policeman.

        There’s is at least one video of a policeman being dragged in the streets by peaceful protesters. If you are a policeman you are usually outnumbered and you simply cannot allow a situation to degenerate like that. One person gets close enough to touch, the next grabs, another punches and next you are being dragged away.

  11. Once you reach 65, the doctor asks you how many times did you fall in the last year? As we get older, we seem to get less stable. I fell over on uneven ground trying to wrestle my garbage cans back to the house. My ribs still hurt.

    Trump is not the only person who thinks Gugino is a Antifa Provocateur, it has been posited by several people on this blog. Whether he is or not, I do not know, however, he should not have been where he was at his age. That is how you get hurt.

    1. It is mentally unhealthy for you at this age to harbor racist and fascist attitudes Pauli. That is why you support the moron, admit it. Get over it, you will feel better.

      1. Vlad – I have never harbored racist or fascist attitudes in my entire life. I am fine. 🙂

    2. Gugino is ONE YEAR older than Trump, but his disciples seem to ignore his age, just like they ignore his lying, narcissism and other faults.

      There is NO proof that Gugino was using his cellphone to jam police signals. I’ve never heard any explanation as to what he was saying to the police. He may have been using his cellphone to record his interactions with the police, in anticipation that he might be assaulted. Nowadays, you need to do this for your own protection, because police have no respect for those they are sworn to protect and serve and they lie all of the time and get away with it. They lied abut Gugino, saying that he tripped over his own feet, until the video came out. When you have someone occupying the Office of POTUS who lies every day and gets away with it, there is no hope that those charged with protecting and serving the public wouldn’t also lie. Trump has legitimized lying by public officials.

      In any event, Trump got this ridiculous charge from some extreme right-wing conspiracy theory website. Turley calls Trump’s lying about this man and his malign motivation for speaking to the police, with no proof whatsoever, “highly inappropriate” and “distasteful”, but only because Gugino is still in critical condition. I call it par for the course for this unfit person who cheated his way into our White House and who lies and incites division every single day. The police who pushed Gugino are guilty of some form of assault. The others who refused to attend to him, even to the point of pulling one of them up who had started to stoop down to assist, also should be fired. There is no privilege attached to shoving someone who isn’t a threat, especially an elderly person. Most strangers would at least stoop down to check on Gugino, instead of allowing him to lie there, bleeding from his ear (which is usually a sign of a skull fracture, given how rapid the bleeding was). These bully copies were not protecting and serving. They should have asked him to move aside. If he had refused, they could have gently moved him without harming him, or they could have arrested him. This is a prime example of police culture–grade-school bullies with guns. There is no doubt in my mind that part of what attracts some to being police officers is the ability to bully and hurt people and get away with it. These are people who want to be able to bully and boss around other people, but they lack the education and intellectual ability to start and run a business, so they become cops. How else do you explain a Derek Chauvin or these Buffalo cops? After the 2 involved in shoving down Gugino were arrested, when they were released on bail, they were applauded by their fellow cops, and the rest of the Rapid Response Team resigned from this assignment in protest. So much for concern about the welfare of those they are charged with protecting and serving. So, they’ll fight for the right to assault people, lie about it and get away with it. I have a feeling that big changes are coming because the American public is sick of these bullies with badges.

      1. Natacha – they didn’t lie, which is why the rest of the riot response team quit. 57 of them. That is statement of solidarity.

          1. Natacha – if you watch the video he stumbles back over his feet.

  12. Of course Trump did, He can say anything at all and his enablers will eat it up. By the way I called it the other day, I thought it would come from somebody here, didn’t count on the head moron.

  13. (music to tune of Hit The Road Jack)
    Hit the road Jack!
    And don’t ya come back no more no more!
    Hit the road Jack. Your head is bleeding and we think you’re wife’s a whore.

  15. Here’s slow motion video of what occurred:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N703XiJC_i0
    You can see that Gugino was pushed by 2 cops, the one of the left using his baton held horizontally between both hands, and the one on the right using his right hand. He

    A Jesuit priest’s response to Trump:

    James Martin, SJ:
    “#MartinGugino is a peace activist and volunteer with the Catholic Worker movement. Why spread rumors about someone who embodies the Beatitudes?
    “In case you’ve forgotten what’s in the Bible you were carrying, Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ not the rumormongers.”
    https://twitter.com/JamesMartinSJ/status/1270350603647057924

    Earlier, Father Martin noted:
    “#MartinGugino, the 75 year old man knocked to the ground by police in Buffalo, is a longtime peace activist and volunteer at the Catholic Worker, a movement dedicated to justice and peace, founded by Servant of God Dorothy Day, who also took to the streets to advocate for justice.”

    1. Maybe he should had his age tattooed on his forehead. It might have received a bit of special treatment. Sticking his face into the faces of.an columns of conditioned “peace officers” ordered to advance, Is hardly smart for a 75 year old. Not peaceful either.

      1. It’s easy for them to say this after the fact, but he could have just as easily pulled out a piece and started shooting. Could have had it in the helmet, an excellent cover for a gun. If he was black the new round of rioting would have already started.

        Good thing he wasn’t wearing a MAGA hat or we’d be hearing he got what he deserves. We’d also have 40,000 articles spun up on a shady past and an absolutely atrocious comment his fellow grade school attendees once heard him say.
        They’d play the sound of the skull hitting the pavement over and over and celebrate it then incorporate it into rap and other music they post and promote.

    2. Fr. Martin is the pastor to the Left. Hardly surprising he’d disagree with Trump and side with a Catholic anarchist. The old man shouldn’t have been toppled but he needed to follow lawful orders. Play anarchist games; get anarchist prizes.

      1. You’ve said that you’re a lawyer and even linked to your firm’s site. Does the bar exam test for logical reasoning and attention to whether you have evidence for a claim?

        I doubt you have any evidence for your assumption that Gugino is an “anarchist.” You certainly haven’t presented any.

        1. Committed to Something:
          He’s a member of the Catholic Worker’s Party, a well-known anarchist group. That you’re ignorant of it doesn’t surprise me. That you wouldn’t bother to look it up, does a little since you are committed to honest discussion. Yeah, right.

          1. mespo – Trump may be right. The Catholic Worker’s Movement does not have a house in Buffalo. What the hell was he doing there? And what was the deal with the phone?

            1. He lives around Buffalo and grew up there. The last of his siblings died in 2015. His nieces have decamped to Florida with their children.

              1. DSS – I do not say this to be mean, however he should have gone to Florida with his nieces.

          2. The Catholic Worker Movement certainly does have / has had some pacifist anarchists in it (Dorothy Day among them), but you’ve presented zero evidence that Gugino is an anarchist.

            If you’re assuming that all people who volunteer with the Catholic Worker Movement are anarchists, that would be another evidenceless assumption on your end.

            1. Commi-ted:
              ” … but you’ve presented zero evidence that Gugino is an anarchist. If you’re assuming that all people who volunteer with the Catholic Worker Movement are anarchists, that would be another evidenceless assumption on your end.”
              *********************
              Please don’t put your rudimentary thinking skills on me. I thought you knew that law and order folks don’t disobey the cops and rush their position. Since you didn’t you can live and learn as you did about the Catholic Worker’s party and not make the vapid assumptions of thought you foist on others.

              1. You insult instead of providing evidence for your claim.

                And now you add a false dichotomy between “anarchists” and “law and order folks.”

              2. The commentary on him from friends indicates he’s associated with cells within the Catholic Church which favor dippy sectarian politics. These people were common in the church-o-cracy and in Catholic institutions at one time but are being chewed up by the actuarial tables. There was never much of a component among ordinary laymen. Catholic institutions outside the diocesan architecture and religious orders are as we speak largely secularized de facto if not de jure, the legacy publications employ few people (Commonweal had fewer than 10 employees last I checked) and the religious orders who were infected with this sort of thing are facing vertiginous demographic decline. There are provinces of the Society of Jesus which are gnostic gay cults. The number of Jesuits taking their final vows is so low you can expect their number in this country to settle at about 900, or less than 1/10th of their peak force in 1965. The other orders are in worse shape. Some traditional orders are holding their own.

                In regard to the laymen, they didn’t pass on the faith to their children, or even a tendency toward organizational worship.

                1. To be more succinct, the Berrigan brothers are dead, and no one’s succeeding them.

    3. How Jesuitical.

      Let the Jesuit get back to the sacraments. The Catholic priests have become lazy during the pandemic lockdown and got used to sitting on their backsides when they used to have to at least perform their rituals several times a day.

      Martin should be silenced. but oh, the Jesuits can do whatever they like and the local bishops quite literally fear them and their tricks, for centuries.

      1. The nominal charism of the Jesuits is teaching, scholarship, and mission work, not congregational ministry. In actuality, they have more to do with single-malt scotch and sodomy.

  16. What was Gugino doing, anyway? He walked straight into an advancing troop of cops, and appeared to talk, touch some piece of equipment until he was pushed, quite roughly, and fell to the ground, injuring himself. But the whole scene is strange? Why did Brown later call him an “agitator”? It seemed the camera was ready to catch this moment, suggesting a pre-planned confrontation? Was it? Was he part of a group that set this thing up? Did the Buffalo police have any prior confrontations with him? These are all questions that aren’t going away, but Cuomo and {at first} Brown wanted “video justice” before asking them.

    1. He was being a posturing boomer pest. That’s his hobby.

  17. Sorry, but appalling to me that you treat this tweet by Trump as anything but the sign of a totally unfit and most likely insane President of the United States! Not so much Turley legal opinion but the comments. What is happening??? The guy whether Antifa or Bugaloo is a human being. Have we moved past that?

    1. My sympathy to the family members who have to contend with you in meatspace.

    2. Martha Martha Martha. Let the police do their work and don’t think that your praying is necessarily so much better than their work.

  18. Look, the video shows plainly that Gugino went up to the marching cops and shoved his face into that of one of the cops. That alone justifies the cop’s action of pushing him back. He fell back, stumbled and went down on his back. I’m almost 75 myself and I guarndamntee you that I wouldn’t put myself in such a position. As for Trump commenting about a legal issue, what about all of the rhetoric by people in power at all levels calling the Minneapolis cops murders? This is the age of Twitter, I’m on it and so are millions of others. We now have a much more personal view of our leaders than ever before, warts and all. Gugino may very well be part of Antifa but I suspect he’s just another stupid old man who doesn’t realize his personal vulnerability.

    1. Those same cops pushed, shoved, retained and restricted hundreds of other protesters and they all just came back for another shot. This 75 year old nut job was not up to the task and should have been staying home as per directions of the CDC for folk his age. There are other ways to show support for the protest besides marching amid a pandemic, like contributing, cleanup, Tweeting on Social media or writing a blog,

      1. Actually, no, they were enforcing a curfew that was just going into effect.

  20. but the attack on Gugino is unwarranted.

    The police should look at you superciliously and say ‘thanks for your input’

    That aside, Gugino toppled over because he’s a clumsy oaf, not because he was pushed. While we’re at it, why do you fancy he was carrying a helmet and waving his cell phone around?

    1. Absurd, he was pushed. Lying about an action that is clearly evident on video isn’t going to help your case.

      The attitudes that dehumanize this are exactly what the president promotes with those disgusting tweets.

      He robs you of the need to think and instead gives you an excuse to pretend you know something.

      1. Absurd, he was pushed. Lying about an action that is clearly evident on video isn’t going to help your case.

        Peter, almost no one would have toppled over under those circumstances and he was begging for trouble from the officers in question.

        Nothing you say has any value.

        1. Absurd, 75 years old. No idea what his state of health is and you assume he was as fit as a 20 year old.

          Still making an excuse for it doesn’t help your case. It only lends to the ugliness you are portraying.

          The cops weren’t advancing. He was clearly talking to them in non-threatening manner. One officer was concerned enough to stop and try to asses his condition before he was pulled away by another cop. He KNEW it was bad.

          Slandering the man as the president is debases anything you say. It’s utterly despicable.

          1. You’ll be 75 years old in about 15 years, Peter. Try experimenting then.

            Slandering the man as the president is debases anything you say. It’s utterly despicable.

            The term ‘slander’ does not mean what you fancy it means. That he was engaged in some sort of gamesmanship is plain from his movements. That he’s clumsy is plain from toppling over backward.

            What we know about the man is that he’s a childless bachelor, that he cadged a degree in mathematics from the local state university in 1966, and that he’s bounced back and forth between Buffalo and Cleveland over the years. He has no linkedin profile. His closest relatives are his nieces. They’re both doctors and live in Tampa, Fl. He’s been a public nuisance around Buffalo for a number of years at various witless ‘protests’.

Comments are closed.