Two good Samaritans in California were seen on video stopping an attempted carjacking last month after running at the suspects’ vehicle and busting its windows with what appeared to be wooden sticks.

The incident unfolded on Aug. 14 at 2:45 p.m. on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, according to surveillance footage obtained by FOX KTVU.

The victim is seen crossing a street to return to his parked car when another vehicle pulls up and two masked, hooded men jump out, the video shows.

As the suspects grab the victim’s car keys, the two onlookers race from across the street to help.

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The good Samaritans, who reportedly work as karate instructors nearby, are seen on video smashing the windshield of the suspects’ vehicle.

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The suspects appear to get scared, ignoring the victim’s car, and instead jump back into their vehicle and speed away.

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No further details about the incident were immediately available.

As of Aug. 27, citywide carjackings in Oakland year-to-date have seen a 21% spike in 2023 compared to the year prior, according to the latest crime data released by the Oakland Police Department.

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There have been a reported 455 citywide carjackings so far this year, up from a reported 377 carjackings in 2022 and 334 in 2021, statistics show.

Original article source: California karate instructors seen on video thwarting attempted carjacking, busting up suspects’ vehicle

Donald Trump is continuing to threaten the lives of his “enemies” and all others who oppose him. Trump has been doing this publicly and without contrition, pause or any apparent fear of repercussions or negative consequences. His behavior is a function of his depraved character, damaged personality, and diseased mind.

Despite how too many among the news media and political class, even after seven years of experience to the contrary, would like to believe, Trump is not going to pivot. Moreover, there are no “responsible” senior members of today’s Republican Party who are going to place country over party to finally stop Trump and his neofascist MAGA movement.

Trump’s threats of violence and acts of intimidation are so great that the Department of Justice is seeking a gag order in an attempt to protect the safety of the jurors, witnesses, and members of law enforcement who will be involved in the ex-president’s upcoming criminal trials, as Salon’s Areeba Shah reports:

Who is the target of Trump’s latest threats of murderous violence? Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley.

Here is what Trump said in a Friday post on his Truth Social disinformation propaganda website:

Of course, Trump is lying about these events. So what is the real reason why Donald Trump wants Gen. Milley to be killed?

Trump is enraged that Gen. Milley attempted to stop his coup and other attacks on democracy and civil society. Milley, as a responsible military officer, places loyalty to the Constitution and democracy and the American people over personal loyalty to the person who happens to occupy the White House. This was antithetical to Trump’s attempts, and now future plans, to be America’s first dictator.

The most immediate reason why Donald Trump is now threatening Gen. Milley’s life is in response to a recent Atlantic profile by Jeffrey Goldberg, which confirms, again, that the ex-president is an enemy of democracy and a neofascist, who possesses deep contempt for America’s soldiers.

Others have speculated that Gen. Milley may be a witness against the ex-president in the upcoming classified documents trial, which may also explain the disgraced president’s murderous rage towards him.

Army Captain Luis Avila was grievously wounded during his five combat tours in Afghanistan. Gen. Milley invited Captain Avila to sing at an Armed Forces Welcome Ceremony that took place in September 2019. Trump reportedly told Gen. Milley, “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.” Trump reportedly also told Gen. Milley to never let Captain Avila make an official public appearance again. As summarized by Goldberg in his Atlantic profile, “Trump’s attitude toward the uniformed services seemed superficial, callous, and, at the deepest human level, repugnant.”

Trump’s disdain towards Captain Avila, is also representative of a larger pattern of hostility towards disabled people by the ex-president, as Eric Garcia explains at MSNBC:

Like other white supremacists, eugenicists, and racial authoritarians, Trump is very proud of his “good genes”, believes that human beings can be bred like horses, and is contemptuous towards for those he views as being somehow inferior to his “superior” racial stock.

In a post on Twitter/X, political analyst and author David Rothkopf, correctly described Trump’s recent death threats against Gen. Milley in the following way:

At the Atlantic, political scientist Brian Klaas, who is an expert on authoritarianism, sounded this alarm about Trump’s most recent death threats and how they have been responded to by the news media and public:

Trump’s death threats against Gen. Milley are being echoed by other Republicans in Congress.

Focusing on the specific dangers embodied by Donald Trump in his role as leader of the neofascist MAGA movement, ex-president, coup plotter, and Republican frontrunner in the 2024 Election (who is now leading President Biden in at least one national poll) is critical if America’s democracy is to survive. Trump must be defeated both at the polls and in court. However, Trump’s pattern of threats and violence against his “enemies” is a problem that is much larger than any one person or leader or party. Trumpism and American neofascism and their violence

The United States is the richest country on the planet, but experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of people die here each year from poverty. These are largely preventable deaths and a type of choice by the country’s elites and policy makers. More than 1 million Americans have died from the coronavirus. President Trump and his regime and other Republican Party leaders engaged in an act of democide through their willful negligence and decisions to make “the economy” more important than saving lives during the pandemic.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The United States is structured by racism, white supremacy, sexism, classism, and other forms of social inequality. As social scientists and other experts have repeatedly demonstrated, social inequality is a type of structural and institutional violence.

The United States – especially Republicans and the “conservative” movement – refuse to enact the necessary policies to slow down global climate disaster. To that point, in a much-discussed 2017 interview on Democracy Now!, Noam Chomsky powerfully explained how today’s Republican Party and “conservative” movement are antihuman and an enemy of human civilization:

In an excellent new essay at Truthout, social theorist and cultural critic Henry Giroux locates Trump’s threats of violence and destruction within America’s larger culture of cruelty, violence, and neofascism.

Giroux’s essay merits being quoted at length:

Giroux continues:

National security experts have concluded that there are more than ten million Trump MAGA people and other members of the Republican fascist party and right-wing who support using violence to remove President Biden and the Democrats from power. Of those many millions, there are perhaps only a “few” hundred thousand who are willing to actually engage in direct acts of violence.

For those Trumpists and other neofascists who are unwilling (or unable) to take up arms or otherwise participate in direct acts of political violence, Trump and his MAGA movement represents a type of idea and permission function.

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Trumpism is a way for them to engage in the fantasy and ideation of violence as a way of getting power and “getting even” with their “enemies”, those Black and brown people, gays and lesbians, transgendered people, “liberals”, “the left”, “political correctness”, “Black Lives Matter”, “Woke”, “Critical Race Theory”, “illegal immigrants”, criminals, “intellectuals”, “socialists”, “feminists”, “Muslims”, or whoever in their minds has somehow “oppressed” “real Americans” like them by not staying in their place as a second class citizens who are to be subservient and obedient to White “Christian” Americans.

Ideation and fantasy and wish fulfillment of committing acts of violence against “the enemy” are well-documented steps in a process through which political violence up to and including genocide and eliminationism is normalized.

In an email to me, Giroux warned about where Trump and the “conservative” movement’s embrace of fascism and other forms of violence will almost inevitably lead the country.

The potential and reality of right-wing political violence in America as part of a plan to end multiracial pluralistic democracy is not some type of unknown unknown or mystery. The immediate question is, what to do about it?

As I and others have repeatedly implored, Democrats, liberals, progressives, Black and brown people, women, the LGBTQI community, and all others who believe in real democracy must vote and organize and resist like their lives and freedom literally depend upon it – because it does.

It’s not hard to imagine the headaches from a nightmare neighbor who loves nothing more than firing up their hog and blasting the community with the roar of their revving engine.

If that person also careens recklessly around, however, it goes beyond headaches.

A Redditor shared this dilemma recently, noting the “extremely loud” bike takes over the neighborhood for 10 to 20 minutes per day, usually around 4-6 p.m. but can start as early as 8 a.m.

To make matters even more dangerous, the Redditor says the biker then “takes a few spins around the neighborhood driving like an absolute madman.”

“It is aggravating but he has a right to work on his bike and start it to keep the battery charged,” one commenter wrote. “Riding it around the neighborhood, going faster than the posted speed limit and riding the bike like a mad man is something else.”

“That is something you can video and take to the police if he is consistent about the timing of the rides,” the commenter continued. “I understand wanting to ride the bike but putting other people and children in danger by riding it carelessly is not acceptable. If he hits someone or gets hit because he was being careless opens another set of issues.”

Another user said, “Ugh I’m sorry you have to deal with this. Inconsiderate, awful people!”

Though motorcycles are twice as fuel-efficient as four-wheel vehicles, they produce 10 times more pollution, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2014.

“These gases are what damage the atmosphere,” GearJunkie reported in 2022. “Catalytic systems can capture most [greenhouse gases], but the existing technology is too large and restrictive to implement on motorcycles.”

GearJunkie noted the United States Environmental Protection Agency does not measure motorcycle pollutants.

“This is a real issue because if the problem isn’t measured, you don’t know what to fix,” GearJunkie wrote.

GearJunkie reported that from 2008 to 2022, toxic gases produced by motorbikes fell by up to half in California, which has publicly available pollution data.

“While that sounds like great news, the volume of [greenhouse gases] from motorbikes in California has remained largely unchanged, which can only mean that more people are riding more miles on motorcycles,” GearJunkie noted.

And then there’s that annoyance factor of a revving engine. Idling is bad for vehicles and the environment, wasting gas and releasing toxic pollution into the air. It’s also illegal in some states, so there may even be recourse for a neighbor who idles excessively.

Personal vehicles produce about 30 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution per year by idling, according to the Department of Energy, which stated “eliminating the unnecessary idling of personal vehicles would be the same as taking 5 million vehicles off the roads.”

Since idling can also damage your engine, maybe that motorhead can be convinced to give it a rest.

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