Trump: We Will ‘Totally Destroy North Korea’ if ‘Rocket Man’ Forces Us to Defend Ourselves

President Donald Trump said the U.S. will "totally destroy North Korea" if forced to defend itself during a speech before the United Nations on Tuesday.

Trump, who recently referred to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as "Rocket Man" in a tweet, used the term again during his first speech before the U.N. General Assembly. Castigating North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and belligerent behavior, he called on the body to unite against the rogue regime.

"No nation on earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles," Trump said. "The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime."

Hopefully, Trump said, such an action will not be necessary, calling on the U.N. to perform its stabilizing role. Trump thanked Russia and China for joining in recent unanimous Security Council votes to impose sanctions against the rogue country, but he said more has to be done.

"It is time for all nations to work together to isolate the Kim regime until it ceases its hostile behavior," he said.

"When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength," he said. "No one has shown more contempt for other nations and for the well-being of their own people than the depraved regime in North Korea."

Trump recalled the regime’s recent "deadly abuse" with the story of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who was detained in North Korea for a year-and-a-half and returned to the U.S. in a coma. He died a few days a later.

"If this is not twisted enough, now North Korea’s reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of human life," he said. "It is an outrage that some nations would not only trade with such a regime, but would arm, supply and financially support a country that imperils the world with nuclear conflict."

The Trump administration has called on China, as North Korea’s chief trading partner, to do more to press the Kim regime into coming to the negotiating table.

The post Trump: We Will ‘Totally Destroy North Korea’ if ‘Rocket Man’ Forces Us to Defend Ourselves appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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Manafort Wiretapping Revelations from CNN could roil Mueller investigation

If true, this is a blockbuster, that vindicates one of President Trump’s most famous and most roundly criticized tweets, and which may have far-reaching implications.  CNN is claiming in an exclusive report based on unnamed sources (which always means caution is necessary) that:

US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe.

The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump.

This seems to vindicate President Trump’s roundly ridiculed assertion of wiretapping in the Trump Tower.

Manafort not only spoke to Trump in this period, he lived in the Trump Tower. Also vindicated are Devin Nunes, who was forced to recuse himself from the Russia probe for revealing this to he president and public,  and Mark Levin, who was roundly criticized for being the source for Trump’s tweet about wiretapping in the Trump Tower.

The information was fed to Robert Mueller’s team that has been searching for a crime. It was the Comey-led FBI in the Lynch-led DoJ, in the Obama presidency, that reportedly used the FISA Court to obtain a warrant, quite possibly based on the phony dossier, that has provided material to get Manafort and pressure him to find something to squeal about and catch a higher-up. The legitimacy of that warrant now is in question. I am not a legal scholar, but it seems to my eyes that a fishing expedition powered by a phony warrant lacks legitimacy.

There could be legal trouble ahead for Comey and Clapper.  As Kristina Wong noted at Breitbart:

The Justice Department and the FBI denied that Trump was being wiretapped.

Comey later in March disputed Trump’s claims — in testimony that lawmakers could now find misleading.

He told the House intelligence committee, “With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI.”

The New York Times also reported that Comey had said Trump’s claim was false, and that he had asked the Justice Department to publicly reject it, according to the BBC.

James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, also told Congress that intelligence agencies did not wiretap Trump, nor did the FBI obtain a court order to monitor Trump’s phones, according to the BBC report.

The New York Times has just revealed some more details of the level of bullying being employed as Team Muller puts the squeeze on Manafort to squeal, and find some sort of Trump crime to trade for leniency in whatever charges they may be able to find against him.

Paul J. Manafort was in bed early one morning in July when federal agents bearing a search warrant picked the lock on his front door and raided his Virginia home. They took binders stuffed with documents and copied his computer files, looking for evidence that Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, set up secret offshore bank accounts. They even photographed the expensive suits in his closet.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, then followed the house search with a warning: His prosecutors told Mr. Manafort they planned to indict him, said two people close to the investigation.

The moves against Mr. Manafort are just a glimpse of the aggressive tactics used by Mr. Mueller and his team of prosecutors in the four months since taking over the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s attempts to disrupt last year’s election, according to lawyers, witnesses and American officials who have described the approach. Dispensing with the plodding pace typical of many white-collar investigations, Mr. Mueller’s team has used what some describe as shock-and-awe tactics to intimidate witnesses and potential targets of the inquiry.

Mr. Mueller has obtained a flurry of subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify before a grand jury, lawyers and witnesses say, sometimes before his prosecutors have taken the customary first step of interviewing them. One witness was called before the grand jury less than a month after his name surfaced in news accounts. The special counsel even took the unusual step of obtaining a subpoena for one of Mr. Manafort’s former lawyers, claiming an exception to the rule that shields attorney-client discussions from scrutiny.

The Times delicately presents this hardball as “set[ting] a tone.”

Professor Jacobson wryly observes:

 A 17th attorney was added, inching Team Mueller closer to the size of the entire U.S. Attorney’s Office for the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

 

If true, this is a blockbuster, that vindicates one of President Trump’s most famous and most roundly criticized tweets, and which may have far-reaching implications.  CNN is claiming in an exclusive report based on unnamed sources (which always means caution is necessary) that:

US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe.

The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump.

This seems to vindicate President Trump’s roundly ridiculed assertion of wiretapping in the Trump Tower.

Manafort not only spoke to Trump in this period, he lived in the Trump Tower. Also vindicated are Devin Nunes, who was forced to recuse himself from the Russia probe for revealing this to he president and public,  and Mark Levin, who was roundly criticized for being the source for Trump’s tweet about wiretapping in the Trump Tower.

The information was fed to Robert Mueller’s team that has been searching for a crime. It was the Comey-led FBI in the Lynch-led DoJ, in the Obama presidency, that reportedly used the FISA Court to obtain a warrant, quite possibly based on the phony dossier, that has provided material to get Manafort and pressure him to find something to squeal about and catch a higher-up. The legitimacy of that warrant now is in question. I am not a legal scholar, but it seems to my eyes that a fishing expedition powered by a phony warrant lacks legitimacy.

There could be legal trouble ahead for Comey and Clapper.  As Kristina Wong noted at Breitbart:

The Justice Department and the FBI denied that Trump was being wiretapped.

Comey later in March disputed Trump’s claims — in testimony that lawmakers could now find misleading.

He told the House intelligence committee, “With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI.”

The New York Times also reported that Comey had said Trump’s claim was false, and that he had asked the Justice Department to publicly reject it, according to the BBC.

James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, also told Congress that intelligence agencies did not wiretap Trump, nor did the FBI obtain a court order to monitor Trump’s phones, according to the BBC report.

The New York Times has just revealed some more details of the level of bullying being employed as Team Muller puts the squeeze on Manafort to squeal, and find some sort of Trump crime to trade for leniency in whatever charges they may be able to find against him.

Paul J. Manafort was in bed early one morning in July when federal agents bearing a search warrant picked the lock on his front door and raided his Virginia home. They took binders stuffed with documents and copied his computer files, looking for evidence that Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, set up secret offshore bank accounts. They even photographed the expensive suits in his closet.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, then followed the house search with a warning: His prosecutors told Mr. Manafort they planned to indict him, said two people close to the investigation.

The moves against Mr. Manafort are just a glimpse of the aggressive tactics used by Mr. Mueller and his team of prosecutors in the four months since taking over the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s attempts to disrupt last year’s election, according to lawyers, witnesses and American officials who have described the approach. Dispensing with the plodding pace typical of many white-collar investigations, Mr. Mueller’s team has used what some describe as shock-and-awe tactics to intimidate witnesses and potential targets of the inquiry.

Mr. Mueller has obtained a flurry of subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify before a grand jury, lawyers and witnesses say, sometimes before his prosecutors have taken the customary first step of interviewing them. One witness was called before the grand jury less than a month after his name surfaced in news accounts. The special counsel even took the unusual step of obtaining a subpoena for one of Mr. Manafort’s former lawyers, claiming an exception to the rule that shields attorney-client discussions from scrutiny.

The Times delicately presents this hardball as “set[ting] a tone.”

Professor Jacobson wryly observes:

 A 17th attorney was added, inching Team Mueller closer to the size of the entire U.S. Attorney’s Office for the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

 

via American Thinker Blog

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James Comey Tried to Discredit Trump’s Wiretapping Assertions That Proved True

James Comey Tried to Discredit Trump’s Wiretapping Assertions That Proved True

18 Sep, 2017
18 Sep, 2017

The FBI had wiretapped President Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort before and after the election, contrary to what former FBI Director James Comey suggested earlier this year.

CNN reported:

US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe.

The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump.

The CNN report also noted that Manafort has a residence in Trump Tower, although it said it was “unclear” whether the wiretapping took place there or not.

President Trump asserted in a series of Tweets on March 4 that the Obama administration had ordered a wiretap at Trump Tower during the election.

“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” he tweeted.

“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”

“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”

“How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

Later that month, then-FBI Director James Comey disputed Trump’s claims to the House intelligence committee.

“With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI,” he told the committee, according to the BBC.

Comey may have tried to skirt the question of wiretapping Trump’s campaign by denying wiretapping “directed at” Trump himself, since the surveillance warrant was on Manafort, according to the report.

However, it is clear from CNN’s report that the warrant targeted the Trump “campaign.” The report notes the warrant of Manafort “was part of the FBI’s efforts to investigate ties between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives.”

The report also notes that surveillance of Manafort occurred during a period of time when Manafort “was known to talk to” Trump.

Earlier this year, Comey had also asked the Justice Department to publicly reject Trump’s tweets, “senior American officials” told the New York Times.

The Justice Department issued a court filing on September 2 stating, “Both FBI and [National Security Division] confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets,” it said.

But about two weeks later, the FBI told reporters who had filed Freedom of Information Act requests that it could neither “confirm or deny the existence of records” pertaining to wiretapping of Trump Tower.

It is not the first time that Comey may have misled lawmakers.

He told the House Judiciary Committee last September that he had decided not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton until after the FBI interviewed her.

However, leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee last month obtained transcripts by two senior FBI officials that revealed Comey had drafted a statement exonerating Clinton months before the FBI interviewed her.

He also told senators in May that he had never been an anonymous source in news reports, but later told senators that he had made memos of his private conversations with Trump and given them to at least one friend to leak to the media.

Comey oversaw the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential elections and potential collusion with the Trump campaign, until he was fired by Trump in May.

via Breitbart News

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How Many Americans Can’t Name A Single First Amendment Freedom?

A poll published on September 12 by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) sought to gauge Americans’ civic literacy with some basic questions about the American Constitution. The poll was conducted between August 9 and 13, and 1,013 American adults were polled.

Below are some of its keys findings:

45 percent could not articulate a single freedom codified by the First Amendment.

39 percent “strongly” or “somewhat favored” congressional prohibitions on “news media [reporting] on any issue of national security without first getting government approval.” 49 percent “strongly” or “somewhat opposed” such a measure.

26 percent could not name any of the three branches of the federal government; consistent with previous years’ polls of the same question: 21 percent in 2016; 22 percent in 2015; 25 percent in 2014; 24 percent in 2013; 22 percent in 2011.

26 percent could name all three branches of federal governance; down from previous years’ polls of the same question: 26 percent in 2016; 31 percent in 2015; 26 percent in 2014; 28 percent in 2013; 38 percent in 2011.

“Americans are poorly informed about basic constitutional provisions,” concludes the APPC via its findings.

Read the questions and see the poll’s methodology here.

Democrats and the broader left typically refuse reforms of the educational apparatus, increasing competition and embracing market forces. Reforms, of course, that could improve Constitutional literacy.

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter.

via Daily Wire

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Mueller’s “Russian investigators” Come Equipped With Obama and Clinton Axes to Grind

“The Conservative Alerts-dubbed “probe-that-became-a-witch-hunt ” that is Robert Mueller’s FBI investigation into Russia collusion has mushroomed, or should we say ‘‘metastasized’ ,  into ‘Old Home Week’ for lawyerly Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton partisans.

These anything but ‘independent’ lawyers are zooming in to Mueller’s special counsel’ probe like flies to you-know-what.

via CanadaFreePress.Com

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ABC Whines Trump Using Latest London Attack to Push Travel Ban

In the wake of the latest terrorist attack on the London tube system on Friday, President Trump again spoke out in support of his administration’s temporary travel ban. And during ABC’s Good Morning America on Sunday, the cast was up in arms over the idea of Trump using the attack to back up his argument. “So, do you anticipate Trump trying to use the situation in Britain right now as ammunition to continue pushing his travel ban,” Co-Anchor Paula Faris asked George Stephanopoulos.

Well, that’s what we saw on Friday morning, just as this was breaking,” Stephanopoulos explained. The President had those tweets where he talked about that he did want a bigger, tougher travel ban even though he’s had so much trouble with the travel ban already in place.” The President did have problems with getting the travel ban off the ground initially, but the Clinton lackey failed to mention the legal successes Trump had had.

As The Hill noted in their travel ban timeline, the temporary travel ban has been in effect since June:

In late June, the Supreme Court decided to allow a limited version of the order to finally take effect, delivering a win to the administration after months of legal setbacks. The high court also agreed to hear the government’s appeal of the lower court rulings that froze the ban.

And after some more legal wrangling from Trump’s opponents, the liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals put a hold on the ban’s application to those in the U.S. resettlement program. But earlier this week, the Supreme Court’s swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy ordered that the ban remain in effect on those people until the Supreme Court could hear the case on October 10.

Stephanopoulos also took issue with how fast Trump tweeted about the attack and his claims that the attacker was known to police. “It appears he might have gotten that information from Fox & Friends,” he claimed, citing no evidence. And [British Prime Minister Theresa May] was actually quite riled by this. She said people shouldn’t be speculating about who is behind this and whether they were known to police.

This comment by Stephanopoulos proves just how little credibility he actually has as a “journalist.” He slammed Trump for speculating about the attack while speculating about where he got his information from. This is proven by the fact that his complaints came immediately after ABC London Correspondent Ian Pannell reported that local press were also saying the attacker was known to police.

Clearly, their criticism of Trump, which was disgustingly tacked onto the end of their report on the attack, was just desperate and poorly thought out swipes at their favorite target.

Transcript below:

<<< Please support MRC’s NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>>

ABC
Good Morning America
September 17, 2017
8:10:27 AM Eastern

PAULA FARIS: I know you got an exclusive with Britain’s Prime Minister, Theresa May. You’re going to be devoting much of the show to that. But we want to play a clip of that interview.

[Cuts to video]

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: President Trump also tweeted this morning that the solution is a bigger tougher travel ban. That’s an idea you have been against. Is it something you would reconsider?

THERESA MAY: I think what is important is that we’re able to have the powers to look into people, to identify people who may be wanting to cause us harm and are plotting to cause us harm. And to be able to take the necessary action when people do cause us harm. As it happens here in the United Kingdom, when I was home secretary, I banned more extremist hate speeches. I excluded more extremist hate speeches from coming to the UK than any other home secretary before.

[Cuts back to live]

FARIS: So, do you anticipate Trump trying to use the situation in Britain right now as ammunition to continue pushing his travel ban?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, that’s what we saw on Friday morning, just as this was breaking. The President had those tweets were he talked about that he did want a bigger, tougher travel ban even though he’s had so much trouble with the travel ban already in place. Unclear if he’s actually going to push this.

In fact, I’m going to ask his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster,– General H.R. McMaster about that this morning. But the President really did jump on this even before knowing fully happened. I also talked to the prime minister about the President’s tweet where he said these people were known to Scotland Yard. It appears he might have gotten that information from Fox & Friends. And she was actually quite riled by this. She said people shouldn’t be speculating about who is behind this and whether they were known to police.

(…)

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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NYT Reporter Sends Out Most Idiotic Tweet Ever

Look, we’re not going to beat around the bush here. This is the dumbest tweet ever posted on Twitter.

In case you missed the story, 11-year-old Frank “FX” Giaccio wrote a letter to President Trump offering to mow the Rose Garden for him. He told Trump, “I’d like to show the nation what young people like me are ready for.”

Trump, a rather successful businessman, invited Frank to drop by on Friday, meet the White House groundskeepers, and get out there with a mower. Frank, wearing work gloves and safety glasses, banged out the job in no time like a pro, drawing praise from the President.

“We’re lucky,” Trump said. “That’s the real future of the country.”

The understated Frank said: “It’s probably the biggest day of my life so far.”

The White House put out a wonderful little video on the day.

But we knew — knew, deep down in our bones — that liberals would find a way to nitpick even THIS, a wonderful story of a young entrepreneur catching the eye of the most powerful man in the world and being invited to the White House.

So, I tweeted out a bunch of made up reactions from liberals — and darned if I didn’t nail this one right on the head.

Greenhouse (as in gases) went on to tweet several more times, saying the “American Academy of Pediatrics says no one under 12 shud use power mower” and “People who don’t think about child labor or job safety don’t realize that young kids & mowers aren’t a great fit.”

Other Twitterers let him have it with both barrels.

While I often end these kinds of little stories with “You can’t make this up” — apparently, you can!

via Daily Wire

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Hillary Clinton Says Women Only Voted For Trump Because Their Husbands Told Them To

Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton claimed this weekend that she lost the election because women — in particular, white women — caved to pressure from the men in their life, and voted for Trump.

The quintessential modern feminist Clinton says women were too scared to stand up to their husbands, boyfriends, and fathers, who told them to vote Republican, and since, clearly, women have no agency or ability to think for themselves, they listened.

Clinton made the outrageous claim in an interview with NPR, where she also blamed the so-called “Bernie Bros” for bullying Democratic women into avoiding the more moderate Clinton in favor of progressive Bernie Sanders.

“You yourself in the book acknowledge that a good number of young women didn’t vote for you, which is presumably not a sexist choice. They just weren’t inspired by your message,” NPR’s Rachel Martin said during an interview with Clinton, out to promote her litany of excuses…er…recently released book, What Happened.

“I think it’s a lot more complicated than that,” Clinton answered. “I did win the women’s vote. I didn’t win the vote of white women, but I got more white women votes than Barack Obama did,” she said.

But, said Clinton, even though women liked and respected her — an observation American women might disagree with generally — they were too afraid to stand up to the oppressive Patriarchial hand that often forces them to hide their allegiance to womankind.

“Women will have no empathy for you because they will be under tremendous pressure — and I’m talking principally about white women — they will be under tremendous pressure from fathers, and husbands, and boyfriends and male employers, not to vote for ‘the girl,’” she said.

That is, of course, ridiculous. Women are not only capable of making decisions on their own, they’ve been doing it for decades. Centuries even.

The problem is, though, that women who are able to think for themselves eventually realize they are not bound to support candidates simply because they share a similar set of genitalia. The cause of “womankind” isn’t always furthered by every female politician that steps into the arena. And when it comes to the ballot box, women have routinely told pollsters that they vote for the candidate they feel will have the best positive impact for their families.

In the case of the 2016 election, women were looking for economic security and protection from foreign terrorists, things Clinton simply couldn’t provide.

But lest you think Clinton’s ire falls only on those dastardly, oppressed Republican women who live under the thumb of domineering fathers and partners, she extends blame to female Bernie Sanders supporters who she says were cowed into supporting the progressive septugenarian by online bullies.

“And we saw a lot of that during the primaries from Sanders supporters, really quite vile attacks online against women who spoke out for me, as I say, one of my biggest support groups, Pantsuit Nation, literally had to become a private site because there was so much sexism directed their way,” she said.

Pantsuit Nation, by the way, is far from a walled garden; its founder recently received a six-figure book contract, and the Facebook site has become a hub for women-led “resistance.”

But hey, it’s much easier to blame everyone but yourself, right? Feminism!

via Daily Wire

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Violent Animals Hit the Streets Again in St. Louis on Saturday Night

Saturday was another night of racial unrest in St. Louis as the protests/riots continued after the acquittal of a former police officer in the shooting of a black criminal.

The violence wasn’t as intense as it was on Friday when nine cops were injured and black thugs launched an attack on the mayor’s house but authorities were still forced to deal with vengeful mobs that refused to accept the decision of a judge.

The threat of trouble led the superstar rock band U2 to cancel their Saturday concert.

Leading up to last night’s events, Black Lives Matter troublemakers were joined by ANTIFA and white anti-capitalist activists who invaded a local shopping mall.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch provides an account of what went down “Protests turn violent in Delmar Loop late Saturday; second night of post-verdict strife”:

For the second consecutive night, peaceful daytime protests descended into late-night violence with broken windows and thrown rocks, water bottles and garbage can lids following Friday’s acquittal of a white former police officer in the shooting death of a black suspect.

Shortly before 11 p.m. at Leland and Delmar, a small group of protesters threw chunks of concrete at police and broke windows at numerous Delmar Loop businesses. A chair was thrown through the window of a Starbucks. One protester was seen hitting a police SUV with a hammer. Police made more than a half-dozen arrests witnessed by reporters, including a protester who was carried away by officers by his arms and legs.

As the chaos escalated, scores of police officers in riot gear pushed forward against the demonstrators just after 11 p.m. — about two hours after daytime protest organizers had congratulated their followers on keeping their demonstrations peaceful.

By 11:30, about 200 police officers had pushed most of the protesters out of the area and the violence and vandalism appeared to be dissipating. The sidewalks along the vibrant area of restaurants and shops were strewn with glass from broken windows.

AND

By shortly after 7 p.m. Saturday, more than a thousand protesters carrying “Black Lives Matter” signs and chanting things like “No Justice, No Profits” were blocking the major intersection at Skinker and Forest Park Parkway near Washington University.

Police later closed Delmar for the marchers, who were relatively peaceful going into the evening. Some yelled “F— the police!” while others shook officers’ hands.

Cori Bush, a social worker and activist who is running for Congress in Missouri’s St. Louis-based 1st District, helped lead the marchers early Saturday evening. At the intersection of Skinker and Delmar boulevards, she called for a six-minute “die-in” for the six years since the fatal police shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith.

Bush said city officials and media focused too much on the vandalism in the Central West End late Friday night.

“None of it could’ve happened at all, had there not been a dead body, had there not been a police officer who did something absolutely horrendous,” she said on loud speaker to the crowd.

“The message is simple: stop killing us,” she said. “Black folks say, stop killing us.”

One brush with violence came on Forest Park Parkway, when a car pulled up to the marchers and stopped just short of them. Some protesters responded by surrounding and banging on the car, until protest organizers got them to let the driver leave.

A sample of tweets from local reporters on the ground in St. Louis:

The police seem to be using a remarkable amount of restraint with these thugs, why not just break out the water cannons and be done with it?

via Downtrend.com

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