Kudos to the organizers of and participants in Monday night’s and Wednesday’s peaceful protest over George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis law enforcement. This was a tragic and completely unnecessary outcome to a simple arrest, the tragedy of which has been compounded nationwide when peaceful, law-abiding and respectful protests have turned ugly and been hijacked by agitators and non-local instigators of violence and property damage. This does the memory of George Floyd and others who have suffered from mistreatment, discrimination and outright racism an injustice. One final note: we are fortunate in the Mother Lode to have the quality of peace officers and leadership such that this type of event has never and should never happen here.
The administration is correct to be willing to provide assistance to the states but only to address the impacts of covid-19 restrictions and not to address the long term sistemic problems of poorly managed state and local finances with their unfunded pension liabilities and pet projects like California's bullet train to nowhere.
