Monday Reads: SCOTUS Decides
Posted: June 15, 2020 Filed under: just because 6 CommentsGood Day Sky Dancers!
There are some important Supreme Court Decisions that were announced today worth celebrating. We’ve finally got some good news while heading to Independence Day 2020. I was beginning to wonder if the birthday of our democracy/republic would be truly meaningful this year but it appears it still could be. Protestors of racial injustice have shown us our First Amendment is still alive.
This news comes the same day as the results of a new Gallup Poll show “U.S. National Pride Falls to Record Low”.
American pride has continued its downward trajectory reaching the lowest point in the two decades of Gallup measurement. The new low comes at a time when the U.S. faces public health and economic crises brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and civil unrest following the death of George Floyd in police custody.
Although a majority of adults in the U.S. still say they are “extremely proud” (42%) or “very proud” (21%) to be American, both readings are the lowest they have been since Gallup’s initial measurement in 2001.
At the same time, 15% of Americans say they are “moderately proud,” 12% “only a little proud” and 9% “not at all proud.”
These latest data are from a May 28-June 4 poll, which also found 20% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., and presidential approval fell back to 39%. The poll’s field period encompassed the arrests of the police officers charged in Floyd’s death as well as the nationwide protests that were sparked by the incident and President Donald Trump’s controversial responses to them.
And now for the Decisions:
From ABC NEWS:
The Supreme Court issued its opinion Monday on a historic case about LGBT employment discrimination, with the majority deciding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, also applies to gay or transgender people.
“In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. “We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”
It was a 6-3 decision, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Gorsuch joining the more liberal side of the court — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer.
Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, while Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas dissented.
Takiyah Thompson says she is taking responsibility for climbing on a ladder, putting a rope around a Confederate statue outside the old Durham County Courthouse and helping tear it down.
Yes, Joe Biden, this too is a big fucking deal. Here is some analysis via Politico: “Supreme Court finds federal law bars LGBT discrimination in workplace”.
Writing for the court’s majority, Gorsuch accepted arguments that the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s prohibition on sex discrimination in employment also effectively banned bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity, even though few if any members of Congress thought they were doing that at the time.
“Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren’t thinking about many of the Act’s consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees,” Gorsuch wrote.
“But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands,” he continued. “When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.”
LGBT activists were thought to face an uphill battle at the high court because Congress has spent more than four decades considering, but failing to pass, measures intended to expand the coverage of the 1964 law by explicitly adding sexual orientation to the list of protected traits.
Additionally, we have this one:
The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will not take up a legal battle over whether local governments can declare themselves sanctuaries and refuse to help federal agents enforce immigration laws.
As is the usual custom, the court declined to say why it won’t hear the issue. Two of the court’s most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, said they would have voted to hear the case.
The Trump administration asked the court to hear its appeal of lower court rulings that upheld a California law related to immigration. It bars police departments and sheriff’s offices from notifying federal agents when immigrants are about to be released after serving sentences for local crimes.
And Wait!!!! ONE more!!!!! From WAPO: “Supreme Court passes up challenges from gun groups on laws they say violate Second Amendment”. It’s a bad day to be a radical right wing reactionary which includes our AG, the Faux POTUS, and more than a couple of those SCOTUS judges.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up new cases for next term that gun rights groups claimed denied Second Amendment rights.
The court did not accept a batch of nearly a dozen cases that gun groups had hoped the court, fortified with more conservative members, might consider. Among them were cases involving restrictions in Maryland and New Jersey to permits for carrying a handgun outside the home.
The court earlier this term had dismissed a challenge from New York about transporting guns, and three justices objected, with the newest, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, adding that it seemed likely lower courts have been too quick to uphold state and local gun control measures.
Liberty Monument in New Orleans deface before its final removal.
And yes, Drunky MacDrunkFace is the worst thing on the court right now. So, the major focus beyond this next birthday of the signing of our Declaration of Independence is our voting the Orange Abomination out of office. We have to be especially vigilant.
From Marc Elias at Democracy Docket: “Republicans are Planning a Bigger, Much More Aggressive, Much Better-Funded Voter Suppression Program in 2020”.
Imagine having $20 million and using it to oppose voting rights. That is what the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Trump campaign announced they will do in response to voting rights lawsuits my firm and I filed on behalf of the Democratic Party and progressive groups such as Priorities USA. While normally candidates and parties insist that high voter turnout is good for them, the Republicans are bypassing that fiction and going all-in to shrink, rather than expand, the electorate. Already, signs point to a massive Republican effort to prevent voters of color and young voters from voting in 2020.
A Trump political advisor in Wisconsin was recently caught on tape bragging about the fact that “traditionally it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places” and advising Republicans to “start playing offense a little bit.” He alerted: “That’s what you’re going to see in 2020. It’s going to be a much bigger program, a much more aggressive program, a much better-funded program.”
Republicans are planning a “bigger,” “more aggressive,” and “much better-funded program,” because this November will be the first presidential election since 1980 that the RNC will be unencumbered by a court monitored consent decree prohibiting gross forms of voter suppression. Though voter suppression runs deep in the Republican Party, without this consent decree, the RNC can “start playing offense” and operationalize voter suppression like we haven’t seen in 40 years.
The clusterfuck primaries of Georgia and Wisconsin are only the beginning.
Anyway, it continues to be a year of shock and awe.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: Really Freaking Over It All
Posted: June 12, 2020 Filed under: Black Lives Matter, corruption, court rulings, COVID19 24 Comments
Good Day
Sky Dancers!
I’m just tired of the constant bombardment of absolutely outrageous actions, words, and plans coming out of the Trumpist Regime. There appears no end to what Trump and his cronies think they can get away with and still be considered fit to work and walk around in pubic.
Watching Trumpists downplay the dangers of a pandemic running rampant in many parts of the country is just one of these outrages that sets me off. Trump wants business as usual and so he’s getting it through mouthpieces like Larry Kudlow who has no business being employed by anyone, let alone our government. He’s also flouncing around the country spreading hate and discontent and furthering his profile as the nation’s racist-in-chief. This is from the AP.
At the White House, aides now routinely flout internal rules requiring face masks. The president’s campaign is again scheduling mass arena rallies. And he is back to spending summer weekends at his New Jersey golf club.
Three months after President Donald Trump bowed to the realities of a pandemic that put big chunks of life on pause and killed more Americans than several major wars, Trump is back to business as usual — even as coronavirus cases are on the upswing in many parts of the country.
While the nation has now had months to prepare stockpiles of protective gear and ventilators, a vaccine still is many months away at best and a model cited by the White House projects tens of thousands of more deaths by the end of September.
Amid renewed fears of a virus resurgence, financial markets — frequently highlighted by Trump as a sign of economic recovery — suffered their worst drop since March on Thursday. The market opened on the upside Friday morning.
At the White House, though, officials played down the severity of the virus surge and sought to blame it on factors beyond Trump’s forceful push to reopen the economy, which he’s counting on to help him win reelection.
“I spoke to our health experts at some length last evening. They’re saying there is no second spike. Let me repeat that: There is no second spike,” Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said Friday on “Fox & Friends.”
He said COVID-19 cases are increasing only in certain spots of the country, but that nationally, the rates of new cases and fatalities have flattened out. “There is no emergency,” Kudlow said. “There is no second wave. I don’t know where that got started on Wall Street.”
Yascha Mounk–a contributing writer at The Atlantic— wrote this today “The Virus Will Win. Americans are pretending that the pandemic is over. It certainly is not.” There is a huge list of what our country and our so-called leadership is doing wrong.
A second wave of the coronavirus is on the way. When it arrives, we will lack the will to deal with it. Despite all the sacrifices of the past months, the virus is likely to win—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it already has.
In absolute terms, the United States has been hit harder than any other country. About a quarter of worldwide deaths have been recorded on these shores. And while the virus is no longer growing at an exponential rate, the threat it poses remains significant: According to a forecasting model by Morgan Stanley, the number of American cases will, if current trends hold, roughly double over the next two months.
But neither the impact of mass protests over police brutality nor the effect of the recent reopening of much of the country—including the casinos in Las Vegas—is reflected in the latest numbers. It can take at least 10 days for people to develop symptoms and seek out a test, and for the results to be aggregated and disseminated by public-health authorities.
Even so, the disease is slowly starting to recede from the public’s attention. After months of dominating media coverage, COVID-19 has largely disappeared from the front pages of most national newspapers. In recent polls, the number of people who favor “reopening the economy as soon as possible” over “staying home as long as necessary” has increased. And so it is perhaps no surprise that even states where the number of new infections stands at an all-time high are pressing ahead with plans to lift many restrictions on businesses and mass gatherings.
I am horrified that bars in my neighborhood are opening tomorrow albeit at 25 % capacity and that the local AirBnbs are filling up with folks with license plates from CoVid Death Zones like Georgia, Alabama, Texas and the like. I’m just blessed most folks from Arizona don’t get this far east or they’d be here to spreading it merrily around our vulnerable population too so they can have a little Disneyfied Adult Entertainment at our expense.
Then, there’s the endless parade of current and former Trumpist Regime appointees that coulda whoulda shoulda done something but just sat there and let the chaos flow all over us and expect a voice in the criticism now. Oh, and a big pay check … they expect that too …
This outrage pretty well sums up my thoughts on Bloodless John Bolton and the release of his “tell all”. He should of told all when we could’ve impeached the ass and saved lives.
This is from Axios who have gotten an advance copy of the book. Like I said, it seems to me that we should all boycott buying it since he obviously didn’t care enough about the country to come forward with this out of patriotism instead of greed.
“Scoop: John Bolton to argue Trump misconduct”
John Bolton taunts President Trump, his former boss, on the back cover of his forthcoming book: “Game on.”
- In a memoir coming June 23 that the White House has tried to delay, former national security adviser Bolton will offer multiple revelations about Trump’s conduct in office, with direct quotes by the president and senior officials, according to a source familiar with the book.
Why it matters: Bolton, who was U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under President George W. Bush, is a lifelong conservative and longtime Fox News contributor who is well-known by the Trump base, the source pointed out.
- In “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” Bolton will go beyond Ukraine, and argue there was “Trump misconduct with other countries,” the source said.
- Axios agreed to grant anonymity to the source in order to give readers a window into the book ahead of publication.
Behind the scenes: People close to Trump have been worried about the book because Bolton was known as the most prolific note taker in high-level meetings, Jonathan Swan reports.
- Bolton would sit there, filling yellow legal pad after yellow legal pad with notes.
- In short: Bolton saw a lot, and he wrote it down in real time. And when he left, the White House never got those notes back.
Jordan Fabian and Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg have more to offer on this: “Bolton Book to Relate Trump Chaos, How Re-Election Drove Policy.”
“I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by re-election calculations,” Bolton writes in the book, titled “The Room Where It Happened,” the publisher said in a release.
The former top security aide, who was ousted last September, will argue the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry was too narrow and should have focused on more than Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden. Simon & Schuster promised Bolton will offer details on other similar moves by Trump across the full range of his foreign policy and the national security adviser’s efforts to stop them.
Bolton declined to testify in the House’s impeachment probe, and instead deferred to the federal courts if a subpoena would be legally valid. House Democrats did not issue a subpoena, saying a lengthy legal battle would unnecessarily prolong the impeachment process.Bolton said during a February speech at Vanderbilt University he did not regret his refusal to testify because it “would have made no difference to the ultimate outcome.”
“I sleep at night because I have followed my conscience,” he said, according to USA Today.
So glad he can sleep well at night. I sure as hell wish I could.
Bill Barr continues to dismantle democracy daily. Can this Judge stop him from setting Michael Flynn Free? From WAPO: “Court appears reluctant to order judge to immediately drop criminal case against Michael Flynn”.
A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday appeared reluctant to order a judge to immediately dismiss the guilty plea of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, suggesting courts have the authority to review whether Justice Department moves to drop a prosecution are “in the public interest.”
Flynn, joined by the Justice Department, had asked the appeals court to force U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to quickly close the case and put a stop to Sullivan’s examination of the government’s unusual decision to drop the charges against the retired three-star general.
But Judges Karen Henderson and Robert Wilkins of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit expressed skepticism of Flynn’s argument that Sullivan cannot conduct an independent evaluation or name an outside party to argue against the Justice Department’s May 7 motion.“If Judge Sullivan had just kept this motion waiting and languishing, that’s one thing,” Henderson told Flynn attorney Sidney Powell. “But he has set a hearing for mid-July. For all we know, by the end of July he will have granted the motion. You also know courts have said he’s not a ‘mere rubber stamp’ either. There’s nothing wrong with him holding a hearing — there’s no authority I know of that says he can’t hold a hearing.”
Wilkins agreed, citing two cases in which he said the Supreme Court upheld the authority of federal judges “to perform an independent evaluation” before granting a government motion to drop a prosecution.
“You’re saying the Supreme Court got it wrong,” he asked.“No,” Powell said, “I’m saying the independent review of the record consists of just that, and the record in this case is extremely well documented of prosecutorial misconduct, and suppression of [exculpatory] evidence which would warrant dismissal in any circumstance.”
So, one final scream on Trump, his rallies, and his plan to host his triumphal speech in Jacksonville Florida violating yet another sacred day in US History. So, of course, the first is holding a rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth which is the site of a horrific massacre of African Americans on May 31 and June 1, 1921.
https://twitter.com/CuriousGreg/status/1271200992747552768
And now this!
There is no end to his hateful racists actions, words, and sentiments.
So, I know all of this is depressing because living in our country right now is an ongoing nightmare. He has no respect for the US Constitution, our American laws and values, or any of us for that matter.
I hope you have a very peaceful weekend and that you’re fortunate enough that you can stay safe at home with your beloveds!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Rainy Day Monday Reads
Posted: June 8, 2020 Filed under: Black Lives Matter | Tags: John Lewis, Yamiche Alcindor 12 Comments
Good Day From Soggy New Orleans !
Tropical Storm Cristobal has left the area technically but we’re still getting plenty of rain and street flooding! Just another good reason to stay my fat ass home and find us some good reads today.
In a series of photos posted on Twitter by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser on Sunday, the Georgia Democrat is seen standing next to the mayor wearing a mask on the giant mural, which spans two blocks of 16th Street, a central axis that leads southward straight to the White House.
“We’ve walked this path before, and will continue marching on, hand in dihand, elevating our voices, until justice and peace prevail,” Bowser tweeted. “Thank you for joining me at Black Lives Matter Plaza, in front of the White House, @repjohnlewis.”
I was moved by this picture of 80 year old Civil Rights Legend Representative John Lewis standing shoulder-to-shoulder at Black Lives Matter Plaza with DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. Every time I feel like this country is on a road to no where and re-fighting the same fights with little result, Rep. Lewis pops up and reminds me I haven’t been at it long enough to be bone tired yet.
He’s a beacon of light in a long endless night that I wanted ended with an illegitimate grifting narcissistic White House Usurper in Federal Prison along with all of his evil enablers.
This interview with Rep. Lewis is from New York Magazine and Zak Cheney-Rice.
We have, in a lot of the cities where this unrest is happening today, progressive mayors, progressive city councils, and yet law-enforcement violence occurs regardless of who’s in office. I just wonder, Where should concerned Americans be directing their energy when voting the right people, or who they think are the right people, into office doesn’t seem to be solving the problem?
We must never ever give up, or give in, or throw in the towel. We must continue to press on! And be prepared to do what we can to help educate people, to motivate people, to inspire people to stay engaged, to stay involved, and to not lose their sense of hope. We must continue to say we’re one people. We’re one family. We all live in the same house. Not just an American house but the world house. As Dr. King said over and over again, “We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters. If not, we will perish as fools.”Do you have any advice or thoughts for communities that are looking for ways to reform how policing is done where they live?
It is my belief that we must work on a national level as well as a local level. That we need to humanize police forces, humanize the people, whoever is in charge of the police department at the local level but also at the national level.Can you tell me what you mean by “humanize”? Do you mean we need to understand that they are humans too?
Well, I mean that we all are human beings, and we must be treated like human beings and respect the dignity and the way of each other. What happened in Atlanta with the officer beating up two young students was uncalled for. And I think the mayor and the police chief did the right thing, and they didn’t wait — they did it right on the spot. Of course, officers of the law didn’t have a right to abuse other people’s right. You have to be human.Do you think there are major philosophical differences between the way that your generation viewed the struggle for civil rights and the way today’s younger generation views it?
Well, I wouldn’t say there are major differences. I think my generation of young people was greatly influenced by the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. and by individuals like James Lawson. And we dedicated ourselves to creating what we called the loving community. We wanted to do what we called “redeem the soul of America.” We wanted to save America from herself.
Read the rest of the interview at the link. This interview is also about “release of Good Trouble, a documentary about his life and work.”
Protesting never comes easy. Many folks believe that the act of protest is revolutionary and leads to violence and property destruction. It is quite American and Constitutional and should lead to peaceful change. There are many who do not want that.
From the CBS affiliate in Richmond, VA: “‘KKK President’ arrested for hitting protester with his truck
A hate crime investigation is underway.”
HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — The Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney said a hate crime investigation was underway against the self-proclaimed president of the Virginia KKK.
Harry Rogers appeared in Henrico Court Monday morning where he agreed to receive a court-appointed attorney.
Rogers, 36, of Hanover, was formally charged with attempted malicious wounding (felony), destruction of property (felony), and assault and battery (misdemeanor) after police said he drove his pickup truck into a group of protesters Sunday in Lakeside.
The destruction of property charged stemmed from a bicycle damaged during the ordeal.
A Henrico judge denied Rogers’ bond during Monday’s hearing.
Here’s more on “The Disturbing Appeal of Boogaloo Violence to Military Men” from Daily Beast. “The fringe movement is the latest in a long series of paramilitary scenes to court U.S. soldiers.” as reported by Kelly Weill. Here’s your outside agitators.
Fantasies of a violent tipping point feature prominently in the Boogaloo scene, which—while relatively new and not an ideological monolith—generally trends right-wing or fringe libertarian, with many of its memes and aesthetic markers borrowed from more explicitly racist alt-right and 4chan culture. The movement is broadly anti-government, and talks often of sparking a civil war.
In the midst of that are current and former service members talking about waging war on U.S. soil. Participation by military members in an anti-government movement might seem counterintuitive on its face, but the Boogaloo movement is only the latest in a long series of fringe paramilitary scenes that court American troops.
Parshall, 35; Andrew Lynam, 23; and William Loomis, 40, were arrested at a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas. But the trio weren’t there to protest the death of George Floyd, prosecutors say. Instead, they allegedly planned to throw Molotov cocktails and incite violence, in the hopes of sparking greater unrest.
Their Las Vegas cell came under investigation in April, when one of Parshall and Lynam’s associates contacted the FBI about what that person claimed was the two men’s interest in conducting a terror attack, prosecutors said. The person agreed to become a confidential informant in the group, and gathered with members as they allegedly discussed plots to commit violence and overthrow the government.
The trio allegedly went heavily armed to a “re-open” rally in Las Vegas—one of the largely conservative protests attended by people who wanted to end COVID-19 business closures. There, they allegedly talked of targeting government infrastructure, like a ranger station at a nearby lake.
During later meetings, they allegedly planned to blow up a power station and throw smoke bombs at a different re-open protest. (They allegedly went to the protest but got cold feet when they saw cops watching them.) Finally, on May 30, they allegedly attended the Black Lives Matter protest with Molotov cocktails and a plot to spark chaos. The FBI arrested all three on the spot.
And from Seattle: “Man drives into Seattle George Floyd protest, shoots one protester.A 27-year-old man was taken to hospital after being shot, police said.”
Video shared on Twitter by a bystander at the incident showed a man emerging from a vehicle that appeared to have struck a barricade at an intersection. The driver appeared to be carrying a gun in one hand as he ran into the crowd. The sound of what appeared to be gunshots could be heard on video of the incident from the scene.
One witness told NBC News’ local affiliate KING that the victim had tried to stop the vehicle from driving into the crowd before the driver shot him. NBC News was not able to confirm this account.
Police later tried to disperse the protesters and said some people had thrown projectiles and fireworks at officers, the department said on Twitter. Police said some demonstrators had shone green lasers in officers’ eyes.
Police said they were responding with pepper spray and blast balls. Police also authorized the use of tear gas.
We continue to find completely unacceptable behavior in many many police forces as they seem completely at a loss to deal with crowds of mostly peaceful protestors.
A NYT editor has been fired for publishing the authoritarian, hateful Op Ed written by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton who truly is represents the worst of American vicissitudes from the Trumpist Regime. This is from Vox and David Roberts: “The Tom Cotton op-ed affair shows why the media must defend America’s values. It cannot remain neutral when those values are under threat from racialized authoritarianism.”
Last week, the New York Times editorial page published an op-ed by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton calling for a wide-scale military crackdown on protests against police brutality.
It immediately caused an uproar both inside and outside the Times, as covered in the Times itself, the Washington Post, Slate, and here at Vox, by my colleague Zack Beauchamp. That was followed by a plaintive editorial from the head of the Times opinion page, James Bennet, attempting to explain the decision to run the piece, then an official apology from Times editors, and then, on Sunday, Bennet’s resignation.
In his excellent explainer on what happened and the history of tensions between the Times opinion and news sides, Beauchamp asks some questions that I want to pull out and mull over. They get at a core dilemma facing political media in the Trump era.
“Does every idea that’s popular in power, no matter how poorly considered, deserve some kind of respectful airing in mainstream publications?” he asks. “Or are there boundaries, both of quality of argument and moral decency, where editors need to draw the line — especially in the Trump era?”
There clearly are boundaries. The Times would not publish an op-ed advocating for a return to chattel slavery in the US. Presumably no mainstream US publication would. If it was found that a US senator (or a group of them) believed in the return of slavery, the Times would not give the senator space to make his casein the op-ed section. It would assign reporters to cover the story, like a scandal.
That slavery is abhorrent is taken as a background assumption informing coverage, not a subject of legitimate debate in which both sides deserve a hearing.
So the question is where are the boundaries and, just as importantly, who draws them? Who decides what is in bounds and out of bounds? Is it the press’s job to draw those lines and defend those boundaries?
These questions are at the heart of the Cotton affair, and they have haunted all of journalism since Donald Trump became president.
In deed, most Journalists seem at a loss still about what do about the radicalized authoritarianism of the Trumpist Regime. All except Yamiche Alcindor of PBS who is another Beacon of hope, truth and reason in these dark days. From the UK Independent: “Trump clashes with black female reporter again who asks about unemployment rates: ‘You’re something’. Reporter asked about rising minority unemployment despite overall declining joblessness as president sat down to sign a bill. He was not amused.”
He ignored a question about George Floyd, a black man killed by white police officers in Minneapolis last week. And he grew agitated with Ms Alcindor when she asked how, despite lower overall unemployment, rising joblessness among African-Americans and Asian-Americans could be considered positives.
“Excuse me, I’d like to sign this bill,” Mr Trump said before telling Ms Alcindor: “You are something.”
She soon defended herself on Twitter, calling her’s a “critical question.”
Yes. She is something! She is a journalist we should lift up as some one who does her job extremely well. She asks the tough and right questions and does it with grace.
So, there is a discussion about “defunding” the police which aims to completely redesign police departments. Christy E. Lopez from WAPO writes “Defund the police? Here’s what that really means” in an Op Ed today.
Be not afraid. “Defunding the police” is not as scary (or even as radical) as it sounds, and engaging on this topic is necessary if we are going to achieve the kind of public safety we need. During my 25 years dedicated to police reform, including in places such as Ferguson, Mo., New Orleans and Chicago, it has become clear to me that “reform” is not enough. Making sure that police follow the rule of law is not enough. Even changing the laws is not enough.
To fix policing, we must first recognize how much we have come to over-rely on law enforcement. We turn to the police in situations where years of experience and common sense tell us that their involvement is unnecessary, and can make things worse. We ask police to take accident reports, respond to people who have overdosed and arrest, rather than cite, people who might have intentionally or not passed a counterfeit $20 bill. We call police to roust homeless people from corners and doorsteps, resolve verbal squabbles between family members and strangers alike, and arrest children for behavior that once would have been handled as a school disciplinary issue.
Police themselves often complain about having to “do too much,” including handling social problems for which they are ill-equipped. Some have been vocal about the need to decriminalize social problems and take police out of the equation. It is clear that we must reimagine the role they play in public safety.
So, we continue to have a lot of listening, discussing, and marching to do.
I hope every on has a good week! Be kind and gentle with yourself and others and stay safe!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: The State of Our Union is Scary
Posted: June 5, 2020 Filed under: Black Lives Matter 15 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I wanted to share the protest art of New Orleans Artist Caroline Thomas who usually gets props from me for her marvelous work on Mardi Gras Floats and costumes. Thanks for letting me use these!!!
And you can find her work here: Instagram: @c_to_the_line (personal art) and @feastandfolly (Carnival research) Carolinemthomas.com
So, I feel like I’m in a bunker even though my city and state are gradually reopening after we’ve met criteria to move to stage two. We’re now facing down a Tropical Storm heading for us over the weekend. My friends and neighbors are still attending protests here in New Orleans supporting Black Lives Matter and Police Reform taking place despite the teargassing of protesters on the Crescent City Connection Wednesday Night. I’m no where near as hunkered down as the mad Russian potted plant occupying the White House but then I’m not delusional either.
Despite evidence that protests are peaceful and that it’s actually right wing agitation creating the chaos, the narrative from Right Wingers and their Trumpist Regime is that Cities in the US are a hotbed of Leftist activity. Of course, it’s the usual suspects inventing conspiracies where none exist.
“This is Nimali Henry’s daughter with a portrait painted by local artist Caroline Thomas. Art is an important part of the expression, questioning and adoption of ideas, and the struggles we as a society face today are no exception. We all have a role to play in this discussion. Thank you, Caroline for bringing your talent and being an important part of this conversation.” — via Aryanna Gamble
These folks might as well look for unicorns. (sigh)
Meanwhile in the real world Politico goes down the Bill Barr rabbit hole to figure out which collection of agencies in DC are sending shadowy forces to occupy the Washington DC. From Garrett M Graff: “The Story Behind Bill Barr’s Unmarked Federal Agents. The motley assortment of police currently occupying Washington, D.C., is a window into the vast, complicated, obscure world of federal law enforcement.”
To understand the police forces ringing Trump and the White House it helps to understand the dense and not-entirely-sensical thicket of agencies that make up the nation’s civilian federal law enforcement. With little public attention, notice and amid historically lax oversight, those ranks have surged since 9/11—growing by roughly 2,500 officers annually every year since 2000. To put it another way: Every year since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the federal government has added to its policing ranks a force larger than the entire Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Nearly all of these agencies are headquartered in and around the capital, making it easy for Attorney General William Barr to enlist them as part of his vast effort to “flood the zone” in D.C. this week with what amounts to a federal army of occupation, overseen from the FBI Washington area command post in Chinatown. Battalions of agents were mustered in the lobby of Customs and Border Protection’s D.C. headquarters—what in normal times is the path to a food court for federal workers. The Drug Enforcement Administration has been given special powers to enable it to surveil protesters. It is the heaviest show of force in the nation’s capital since the protests and riots of the Vietnam War.
As large as the public show of force on D.C.’s streets has turned out to be—Bloomberg reported Thursday that the force includes nearly 3,000 law enforcement—it still represents only a tiny sliver of the government’s armed agents and officers. The government counts up its law enforcement personnel only every eight years, and all told, at last count in 2016, the federal government employed over 132,000 civilian law enforcement officers—only about half of which come from the major “brand name” agencies like the FBI, ATF, Secret Service, DEA and CBP. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which serves as the general academy for federal agencies who don’t have their own specialized training facilities, lists around 80 different agencies whose trainees pass through its doors in Georgia, from the IRS’ criminal investigators and the Transportation Security Administration’s air marshals to the Offices of the Inspector General for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Railroad Retirement Board. Don’t forget the armed federal officers at the Environmental Protection Agency or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement, whose 150 agents investigate conservation crime like the Tunas Convention Act of 1975 (16 USC § 971-971k) and the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1982 (16 USC § 773-773k).
In and around D.C., there are more than a score of agency-specific federal police forces, particularly downtown where protests have played out over the past week, nearly every block brings you in contact with a different police force. A morning run around the National Mall and Capitol Hill might see you cross through the jurisdictions of the federal U.S. Capitol Police, the Park Police, the National Gallery of Art police, the Smithsonian Office of Protective Services, the Postal police, Amtrak police, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing police, the Supreme Court police, the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service, the Government Publishing Office police, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service. (Only recently did the Library of Congress police merge with the Capitol Police across the street into one unit.) Run a bit farther and you might encounter the FBI Police or the U.S. Mint police. And that’s not even counting the multistate Metro Transit police and the local D.C. Metropolitan Police.
Wow.
DC Mayor Bowser has had more than enough of this. From WAPO: ‘Black Lives Matter’: In giant yellow letters, D.C. mayor sends message to Trump”
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser renamed the street in front of the White House “Black Lives Matter Plaza” on Friday and emblazoned the slogan in massive yellow letters on the road, a pointed salvo in her escalating dispute with President Trump over control of D.C. streets.
The actions are meant to honor demonstrators who are urging changes in police practices after the killing in police custody of George Floyd in Minneapolis, city officials said.
They come after several days in which the mayor strongly objected to the escalation of federal law enforcement and a military response to days of protests and unrest in the nation’s capital.
Most importantly:
In a letter Thursday, Bowser formally asked Trump to “withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from Washington, D.C.”
So, why is the White House beginning to look like one of Saddam’s Palaces on a lock down? This also from WAPO with the top bylines belonging to Phillip Rucker and Ashley Parker. “With White House effectively a fortress, some see Trump’s strength — but others see weakness”
The security perimeter around the White House keeps expanding. Tall black fencing is going up seemingly by the hour. Armed guards and sharpshooters and combat troops are omnipresent.
In the 72 hours since Monday’s melee at Lafayette Square, the White House has been transformed into a veritable fortress — the physical manifestation of President Trump’s vision of law-and-order “domination” over the millions of Americans who have taken to the streets to protest racial injustice.
The White House is now so heavily fortified that it resembles the monarchical palaces or authoritarian compounds of regimes in faraway lands — strikingly incongruous with the historic role of the executive mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, which since its cornerstone was laid in 1792 has been known as the People’s House and celebrated as an accessible symbol of American democracy.
This week’s security measures follow nighttime demonstrations just outside the campus gates last weekend that turned violent. White House officials stressed that Trump was not involved in the decision to beef up security or to increase the fencing around the compound’s perimeter, with one senior administration official saying that the precautions are not unique to the Trump administration.
Nevertheless, the resulting picture is both jarring and distinctly political — a Rorschach test for one’s view of Trump’s presidency. His supporters see a projection of absolute strength, a leader controlling the streets to protect his people. His critics see a wannabe dictator and a president hiding from his own citizenry.
Trump — who has long gravitated toward strongman leaders abroad and has sought to bathe himself in military iconography — likes the images of police and troops enforcing order, believing they symbolize his toughness and communicate that his crackdown has largely controlled unrest in the streets of Washington, according to White House officials.
“Washington is in great shape,” Trump said Wednesday in a Fox News Radio interview. “I jokingly said, a little bit jokingly, maybe, it’s one of the safest places on earth. And we had no problem at all last night. We had substantial dominant force and it — we have to have a dominant force. Maybe it doesn’t sound good to say it, but you have to have a dominant force. We need law and order.”
So of course, the gullible and stupid Trumperz go on paranoid rampages and terrorize a family based on all of this crappy conspiracy stuff. This happened in Washington State: “Family harassed in Forks after being accused of being members of Antifa. High school students help them”
A multi-racial family of four from Spokane was accused of being members of Antifa, followed and prevented from leaving their campsite by trees felled to block the road, Clallam County Sheriff’s deputies said.
Four high school students cut the trees with chainsaws to allow the family to leave, said Sgt. Ed Anderson in a press release issued late Thursday.
The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office is actively conducting a criminal investigation into the incident and is seeking information regarding those involved, Anderson said.
Names of the campers or the high school students were not available Thursday.
As the weeks of protests continue, Amanda Terkel makes this important observation: “The Police Have Shown Their True Colors. When they say they don’t have too much power and don’t act with impunity, will you still believe them?”
The police have been out in full force responding to the anti-racist protests. And their overwhelming response to the accusations of violence and unchecked power has been more violence and unchecked power.
“People started this conversation by saying policing is out of control; they’re not making the situation better. They have not been reformed,” Alex S. Vitale, author of “The End of Policing,” said in a recent NPR interview. “Well, now all you have to do is turn on the nightly news and see how true that is. The level of aggression and unnecessary escalation is stark evidence of how unreformed policing is and I argue how unreformable it is.”Patrick Skinner, a former CIA officer who is now a Georgia police officer, says a central problem is that law enforcement sees itself fighting a “war on crime.” That mindset is contributing to the overreaction by the police to the peaceful protesters.
“Ninety percent of what we’re seeing are protests. Police should just sit back. They shouldn’t have overwhelming force. … That amps things up. Now granted a riot, when people are hurting ― I mean, police officers have been attacked, people have been killed, lot of damage. I get that. But we use that 1% and we treat the 99% like that. And that’s exactly what police training does,” he said. “Every situation is not just can be dangerous but will be dangerous, because we’re in a war on crime. Anybody can kill you.”
And everything is just hunky dory according to the Russian Potted Plant occupying Fortress White House.
And back here in the hood …
And from our police:
And Right Wing Nut Cases are out there shouting these Anitifa folks are going to destroy the Andrew Jackson statue and the Cathedral on Jackson square. It’s the usual list of dirtbags including both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers just so you know who comes along and mucks things up. They’ve put a call out to “patriots” to guard Jackson Square tonight. This doesn’t sound good.
What’s going on in your neck of the woods?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Stay Safe! Be gentle with yourself and others!
Monday Reads: U.S. is Burning
Posted: June 1, 2020 Filed under: Black Lives Matter 23 Comments
Photo by Xena Goldman
Good Day Sky Dancers!
It’s hard to know where to start today. There’s so much chaos from the Pandemic, the actions, words, and inactions of the Trumpist regime, and protests and disrupters triggered by the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer that making order of disorder is a challenge.
Trumperz took to his Bunkerz with his Big Macs and his bankie last not only to announce this morning that the state’s governors are weak and need to make more arrests. As usual, he has a weak understanding of the constitution, the law, and the path to justice and peace.
. I watched the coverage last night of fires burning in Lafayette Park. From the AP:
Secret Service agents rushed President Donald Trump to a White House bunker on Friday night as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the executive mansion, some of them throwing rocks and tugging at police barricades.
Trump spent nearly an hour in the bunker, which was designed for use in emergencies like terrorist attacks, according to a Republican close to the White House who was not authorized to publicly discuss private matters and spoke on condition of anonymity. The account was confirmed by an administration official who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
The abrupt decision by the agents underscored the rattled mood inside the White House, where the chants from protesters in Lafayette Park could be heard all weekend and Secret Service agents and law enforcement officers struggled to contain the crowds.
Child was maced by officer JARED CAMPBELL (SPD#8470) at the Seattle protests May 30, 2020.
Trump has made no public appearance lately but has been tweeting gas bombs that are igniting more fires. Michael Tomasky–of The Daily Beast–warns: “Trump Is Out of Control and Capable of Anything. IT GETS WORSE. He is so morally unfit to be president. If he were president of a bank, he’d have been fired ages ago. School principal—fired. Partner of a law firm—fired.”
He sits in the White House, which belongs to the people of the United States, and tweets out poison with no thought about any of this. I remember during the Lewinsky scandal, conservatives used to scream about how Bill Clinton sullied “our house.” Are you kidding me? Using the White House as a love nest is almost cute compared to how Trump soils the place on an hourly basis.
And after that looting/shooting tweet, it’s obvious that he will do and say literally anything to advance himself. Anything. He sort of half-apologized for that one, but he’s been tweeting more calls for violence, supposedly to restore order, ever since. The big worry I’ve had in the back of my mind since Trump took over the GOP back in 2016 and we started seeing those rallies is that Trump would literally raise a private army. Mad ny of his fervent backers own guns, and sometimes stockpiles of them. All it would take is a suggestion from Trump, in that on-the-one-hand-on-the-other noncommittal way of his: “I don’t know, if the police can’t handle it, maybe armed citizens should form their own patrols. Maybe they shouldn’t. But maybe they should, who knows? Thank you!”
That would be fascism, plain and simple. I used to think, or hope anyway, that Trump wouldn’t encourage that. And maybe he won’t. But after this past week, can anyone be confident that he wouldn’t?
He’ll spend the campaign vomiting out lies about how the “Democrat” Party is going to steal the election. He’ll spew out racist lies about voter fraud. Fox News will find one example of some small thing that they can make look suspicious and dishonestly blow into a scandal. Armed posses in black neighborhoods on Election Day—not an impossibility at all. The whole country will become 1950s Mississippi, if that’s what Trump thinks he needs to win.
And then if he loses, imagine what might happen. I shudder to think, and I don’t even have to spell it out. I know this is all hypothetical, and I don’t want to sound alarmist, but at the same time, being alarmist is less dangerous than being naive. We better think about these things. Trump is out of control. He’s capable of anything.
Not even Trump allies can reach his addled brain and dark heart any more. From NBC: “Trump dismissing advice to tone down rhetoric, address the nation.”
As the roar of police helicopters and chanting crowds reverberated through the White House grounds for a third night, Trump again opted against making prime-time remarks from the Oval Office, as other presidents have done in times of domestic crisis.
Instead, he spent the day on Twitter, doubling down on a strategy of calling for stronger police tactics, a move critics say is only worsening the situation.
Trump’s advisers have been divided over what role the president should take in responding to the widest unrest the country has seen in decades. Some say Trump should focus his message on Floyd, the black man who died last week at the hands of Minneapolis police, and urge calm. Others say the top priority is stopping the violence and looting that have taken place in some areas, arguing that the best path to that end is strong police tactics, not presidential speeches.
But exactly who is doing all this disruption? Is it Trump’s latest imaginary Hillary? Antifa? This is not what Police all over the country have indicated.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20011597/GettyImages_1216547897.jpg)
Hundreds marched at Trafalgar Square to protest the death of George Floyd in London on May 31. Hollie Adams/Getty Images
This is from News 4 Nashville. We’re waiting for more information but we’ll see what motivated him sooner or later. There have been much better responses. Take this missive at Medium from our last authentic President, Barrack Obama.
As millions of people across the country take to the streets and raise their voices in response to the killing of George Floyd and the ongoing problem of unequal justice, many people have reached out asking how we can sustain momentum to bring about real change.
Ultimately, it’s going to be up to a new generation of activists to shape strategies that best fit the times. But I believe there are some basic lessons to draw from past efforts that are worth remembering.
First, the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States. The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring. They deserve our respect and support, not condemnation — something that police in cities like Camden and Flint have commendably understood.
On the other hand, the small minority of folks who’ve resorted to violence in various forms, whether out of genuine anger or mere opportunism, are putting innocent people at risk, compounding the destruction of neighborhoods that are often already short on services and investment and detracting from the larger cause. I saw an elderly black woman being interviewed today in tears because the only grocery store in her neighborhood had been trashed. If history is any guide, that store may take years to come back. So let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it. If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.
Second, I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness, to put a spotlight on injustice, and to make the powers that be uncomfortable; in fact, throughout American history, it’s often only been in response to protests and civil disobedience that the political system has even paid attention to marginalized communities. But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.
Moreover, it’s important for us to understand which levels of government have the biggest impact on our criminal justice system and police practices. When we think about politics, a lot of us focus only on the presidency and the federal government. And yes, we should be fighting to make sure that we have a president, a Congress, a U.S. Justice Department, and a federal judiciary that actually recognize the ongoing, corrosive role that racism plays in our society and want to do something about it. But the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.
It’s mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Those are all elected positions. In some places, police review boards with the power to monitor police conduct are elected as well. Unfortunately, voter turnout in these local races is usually pitifully low, especially among young people — which makes no sense given the direct impact these offices have on social justice issues, not to mention the fact that who wins and who loses those seats is often determined by just a few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes.
So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.
Indeed, Police Reform is hard and necessary. We’re not perfect here in New Orleans but Katrina brought us to a better place. I watched Boston PD handle their protests last night too. It was a marked difference from New York City and LA where the historical worst examples still shine on. Today, we learned Mayor DiBlasio’s Daughter Chiara was arrested in NYC protests. There was also NYPD officers who took the knee with the protesters as seen in this pic below as well as video capturing a white NYPD officer flashing the white supremacy sign.
Here are some links to think on :
Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:
Trump Killed Obama’s Police Reforms. Now He’s Getting What He Asked For.
Last October, Minneapolis Police Union president Bob Kroll appeared at a Trump rally. Clad in his red “Cops for Trump” T-shirt, Kroll (who has been alleged to be affiliated with white supremacists) gloated that the president had unshackled his officers from the restraints imposed by Trump’s predecessor. “The Obama administration and the handcuffing and oppression of police was despicable,” he told the crowd. “The first thing President Trump did when he took office was turn that around, got rid of the Holder-Loretta Lynch regime and decided to start takin— letting the cops do their job, put the handcuffs on the criminals instead of us.”
We will never know if that unshackling emboldened Derek Chauvin to murder George Floyd. But the line between the relief demanded by Kroll on behalf of Minneapolis police, and the naked assassination committed on camera by one of his officers, is quite direct. The world around us, in which the streets of every major American city are filled with protesters, is the result of Trump granting the wishes of the most retrograde police officers. They are getting what they asked for.
The last few years of the Obama administration were one of the most productive periods of criminal justice reform in American history. The Obama administration changed sentencing guidelines to reduce the disparity in the treatment of drug crimes that had disproportionately harmed black defendants. As part of an effort to inculcate a “guardian, not a warrior” mindset, it restricted the transfer of surplus military equipment to police departments. Most importantly, it formed consent decrees with more than a dozen police departments to force them to change their practices.
This was the context for Trump’s nightmarish claims in 2016 that cities were being overtaken by bloodshed and carnage. Whatever wisps of data he could cite to support his wild rhetoric, Trump was drawing a picture borrowed from the imaginations of resentful police who experienced Obama’s carefully drawn nudges as intolerable oppression.
He reversed them swiftly. Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, ended the restriction on transferring military equipment to police, reviewed all consent decrees struck by his predecessor, and then restricted their use going forward. “It is not the responsibility of the federal government to manage non-federal law enforcement agencies,” he insisted.
Since the beginning of 2015, officers from the Minneapolis Police Department have rendered people unconscious with neck restraints 44 times, according to an NBC News analysis of police records. Several police experts said that number appears to be unusually high.
Minneapolis police used neck restraints at least 237 times during that span, and in 16 percent of the incidents the suspects and other individuals lost consciousness, the department’s use-of-force records show. A lack of publicly available use-of-force data from other departments makes it difficult to compare Minneapolis to other cities of the same or any size.
Police define neck restraints as when an officer uses an arm or leg to compress someone’s neck without directly pressuring the airway. On May 25, Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was captured on video kneeling on the neck of a prone and handcuffed George Floyd for eight minutes — including nearly three minutes after he had stopped breathing.
The story of many of these cities is they have silenced any discourse on racism and inequality and have continued the status quo which keeps minorities in their appointed neighborhoods, at the most underfunded schools, and then constantly show the worst wage and wealth gaps any where. I grew up in these places. The interstate systems were designed specifically to pen up black folks and to create as big as distance as possible without actual Jim Crow Laws.
Minneapolis used urban renewal money for this too. They have white flight communities still. It’s a stewpot for oppression in a way that keeps it hidden to the many and obvious to the few.
But then, live on CNN, we see an exchange between the young black police chief of Minneapolis and George Floyd’s brother facilitated by a reporter who is visibly moved. From Axios: “Minneapolis police chief to George Floyd’s brother: “Mr. Floyd died in our hands”. Will Minneapolis wake?
Philonise Floyd asked Arradondo if he plans to arrest all officers involved in his brother’s death. “Being silent, or not intervening, to me, you’re complicit. So I don’t see a level of distinction any different,” he responded, adding that “Mr. Floyd died in our hands, and so I see that as being complicit.” He noted charges would come through the county attorney office.
And in Omaha on Saturday: THIS!
A young black protester was shot dead outside a bar in Omaha as unrest across the nation engulfed the Nebraska city—and the white bar owner was reportedly in custody.
The victim was identified as 22-year-old James Scurlock, whose father called for justice as the city braced for another night of chaos.
I’m saving one topic we also need to discuss which I know will be covered well by BB. The police have not only been attacking protesters in some cities, they have been attacking members of the press.
These actions should create a tremendous amount of reaction on the part of people who want us to keep our democracy and our republic. These are those who work forces and want racist based police state. And here’s The Hair Furor arising from his FurorBunker. From USA Today: “‘Most of you are weak’: Trump rails at the nation’s governors, urges crackdown on violence.”
President Donald Trump went on an extended rant against the nation’s governors Monday, calling them “weak” for failing to quell the violence in the nation’s cities.
“You have to dominate or you’ll look like a bunch of jerks, you have to arrest and try people,” he told governors on a conference call. “If you don’t put it down it will get worse and worse.”
“Most of you are weak,” Trump said, according to audio of the meeting obtained by CBS News. “You have to arrest people.”
Attorney General Bill Barr, who was also on the Monday call, told governors they have to “dominate” the streets and control, not react to crowds, and urged them to “go after troublemakers.”
Trump’s remarks to the governors followed a sixth day of clashes Sunday between police and protesters in cities across the nation that erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.
This blurry video pic is of a NYPD officer flashing the White Power Sign on Saturday night
I think what former President Obama spoke to is a good strategy. Local officials–under guidance, resources, and a national strategy from Congress–need to start where they are and create plans to incorporate and redress the community in addition to take huge steps to deinstitutionalize racism.
You can see by the varying responses that our cities are on a spectrum of how far they need to go and it’s not going to be Trump or Barr that can judge that. Only those of us living in those communities can come together to change things on the ground by ensuring we know all of the issues and provide all of the support we can to correct these wrongs. We need a national conversation and very local action, input, and consideration of history on that ground where blood was shed.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
jjlo
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Recent Comments