Here's a little ray of sunshine on a dark week: Fox News released polling this week that will make Bunker Boy Donald Trump spit out his Diet Coke while watching his favorite faux network.
The one good thing Fox does for real is polling. And the Fox numbers in the crucial states of Wisconsin, Arizona, and Ohio (!) do not look good for Trump, not to mention Senate Republicans.
In Arizona, which Trump won by four points in 2016, registered voters now prefer former Vice President Joe Biden over Trump by four points instead, 46%-42%. And in the race for Senate, Democrat Mark Kelly is also trouncing GOP Sen. Martha McSally 50%-37%.
In Wisconsin, which is one of three Rust Belt states that helped cement Trump's 2016 win, Biden is besting Trump by fully nine points, 49%-40%. That's partly because Trump's support among Republicans is dipping ever so slightly, but perhaps meaningfully.
"A big reason Trump trails Biden is lack of party support: 85 percent of Republicans back him, while 93 percent of Democrats support Biden," writes Fox. "Eight percent of Republicans defect to Biden. In addition, only 87 percent of those who approve of Trump’s job performance support his reelection."
That GOP defection to Biden is killing Trump. But also pay attention to the finding that Trump is getting the votes of less than 90% of those who say they approve of the way he is handling his job. If that continues to be true in November, he'll get slaughtered. That means the Trump camp isn't building on the 42%/43% that everyone has assumed—they're at an even lower starting point in some states.
Finally, Fox polled Ohio, which basically zero people expected to be competitive—including Democrats, Republicans, and the Trump campaign itself. Trump won it by fully eight points in 2016. But surprise!
Joe Biden: 45%
Donald Trump: 43%
Turns out, the Trump camp is freaking out about their internal Ohio numbers and spending money there, and in turn, some GOP lawmakers are alarmed to see the campaign putting resources into a state that was supposed to be a gimme.
Part of Trump's problem in Ohio is his handling of the coronavirus. While GOP governor Mike DeWine sits at an impressive 82% approval rating, largely because of his quick action to stem the spread of the pandemic, Trump is at 50% approval.
Daron Shaw, the Republican pollster who conducts the Fox News Poll with Democrat Chris Anderson, calls the contrast between DeWine and Trump "instructive."
“If Trump had responded to the coronavirus outbreak more along the lines of DeWine," Shaw says, "he might have emerged as unbeatable in Ohio and a slew of other battlegrounds.”
In fact, the more America saw of Trump's pandemic response, the less they liked him. Now Trump appears to be in the process of losing Americans on his indefensible response to the senseless murder of George Floyd too. Voters are taking note, even in states like Ohio.
An anti-corruption watchdog is pressing the US Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate executives of the biotech company Moderna after they cashed in about $90 million in company shares days after promoting “positive" but vague data from its early COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial.
The watchdog group, Accountable.US, called the timing of the trades suspicious and questioned whether executives coordinated their stock sales prior to the data release.
In a letter to the SEC that was released to CBS Moneywatch, Accountable.US President Kyle Herrig wrote, "This misconduct was particularly egregious because it involved not only financial fraud and manipulation of the financial markets, but also because it exploited widespread fears surrounding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.” In all, the executives' exploitation served to "boost the company's value, as well as their own bank accounts.
Hard to see why these thugs should be receiving public money and liability protection
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former presidential candidate Julián Castro are among those condemning the actions of NYPD officers shown in a viral video beating a bicyclist with batons on Wednesday night.
Horrifying. You start with the tiny possibility that two officers may be walking over to deescalate the abusive one.
Instead, they join in beating a man trying to get out of traffic.
This isn’t a problem of bad apples or incidents. This is an institutional and systemic crisis. https://t.co/eoBXXnNXZV
“Horrifying,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote above the video. “You start with the tiny possibility that two officers may be walking over to deescalate the abusive one. Instead, they join in beating a man trying to get out of traffic. This isn’t a problem of bad apples or incidents. This is an institutional and systemic crisis.”
“Breaking curfew is no excuse for senselessly beating someone on their way home,” Castro wrote.
The Daily Beast reports: The video shows a cyclist trying to get away from an officer wearing a helmet and wielding a baton, but the officer follows the cyclist and begins repeatedly striking the person’s upper right leg. Two other cops, also with batons, then start hitting the cyclist, forcing the person off the bike before the short video abruptly ends. The video doesn’t show the lead-up to the incident.
More from the New York Post: The video was taken by a driver stopped at a red light and posted to Twitter Wednesday night. It has received more than 8.5 million views as of Thursday morning. It’s unclear where the incident occurred and the video, which ends abruptly, doesn’t show what led up to it. A spokeswoman for the NYPD said, “We are aware of the video and it is under internal review.”
NYPD succeeded in surrounding the peaceful protest and charging from all 4 sides at an intersection with batons and bicycles. Their behavior is truly revolting. Not a badge number visible and @NYCMayor and @NYPDShea do not care. Black Lives Matter. pic.twitter.com/7aftfzVUo0
Crews expanded temporary security fencing around the White House on Thursday morning, to protect the building from ongoing protests over the murder of George Floyd.
“The temporary perimeter fence around the White House campus is being expanded and reinforced this morning,” Jackson Proskow, Washington bureau chief for Canada’s Global News, reported on Twitter.
CNN reporter Betsy Klein posted video of the fence expansion.
On Wednesday evening, the Washington Post reported that protesters breached a temporary fence outside the White House last Friday, which led to President Donald Trump being rushed to a bunker inside the building. WaPo‘s report came after Trump claimed earlier Wednesday that he only visited the bunker to inspect it.
The fortification of the White House continues this morning. New fencing and concrete barriers being put up at the Penn/17th street side. This is normally wide open for visitors. @PoPville #DCProtestspic.twitter.com/lVqlOEwDGB
Possibly this is just a Secret Service call but God this makes Trump look weak. Protesters and even Antifa are not fucking Osama Bin Laden or his plane hijackers. This is just pathetic. https://t.co/nSL9sOQtUx
A fitting image to mark the end of this presidency. A vain, confused, furious man alone in a bunker, under a darkened White House, surrounded—at last—by his fence and his wall. pic.twitter.com/52d2UW9UMr
President Donald Trump’s administration is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to allow religiously affiliated adoption agencies to discriminate against LGBT people, and refuse to place children with same-sex couples.
The Washington Blade reports: In a 35-page brief, U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco and other Justice Department attorneys maintain the City of Philadelphia has “impermissibly discriminated against religious exercise” under the First Amendment by requiring Catholic Social Services to abide by a contract requiring LGBTQ non-discrimination practices in child placement. “Governmental action tainted by hostility to religion fails strict scrutiny almost by definition,” the brief says. “This court has never recognized even a legitimate governmental interest — much less a compelling one — that justifies hostility toward religion.” The U.S. government isn’t a party to the case, known as Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, so the brief is completely voluntary. In justifying the brief before the Supreme Court, the filing makes the case the Justice Department has a compelling interest to intervene. “This case concerns the application of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the City of Philadelphia’s termination of a contract allowing Catholic Social Services to help place children in the City with foster parents, on the basis of Catholic Social Services’ unwillingness to endorse same-sex couples as foster parents,” the brief says. “The United States has a substantial interest in the preservation of the free exercise of religion. It also has a substantial interest in the enforcement of rules prohibiting discrimination by government contractors.”
More from Metro Weekly: Supporters of the city argue that a Supreme Court ruling in favor of CSS would have disastrous implications for the more than 400,000 children in foster care, some of whom will be denied opportunities to find more permanent placements because the pool of available foster parents has been decreased by excluding those who don’t conform to an agency’s stated religious beliefs. They also argue that it would open the door to discrimination in other government services, as any individual, business, or agency will be allowed to fabricate a set of religious or moral beliefs justifying their decision to discriminate against those seeking to access or utilize certain services. “The Trump administration submitted a brief to the Supreme Court on the side of a taxpayer-funded agency that is seeking a constitutional right to turn away people who fail to meet the agency’s religious criteria,” Leslie Cooper, the deputy director of the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project, said in a statement. “While this case involves rejecting LGBTQ families, if the Court accepts the claims made in this case, not only will this hurt children in foster care by reducing the number of families to care for them, but anyone who depends on a wide range of government services will be at risk of discrimination based on their sexual orientation, religion or any other characteristic that fails a provider’s religious litmus test.
There have been some good proposals for concrete change, and it's time to start implementing them instead of just vague platitudes
An anti-police brutality demonstrator in Washington, DC, on June 3. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
There have been uprisings against police brutality and racism before, but this is the country at its exasperation point.
Americans have come out nightly in nearly every US city to demonstrate for the past week. They’ve been attacked by police,tear-gassed, and arrested,and have marched shoulder to shoulder amid a deadly pandemic. Their demand: an end to racism, police brutality, and the attitudes and policies that allow both to exist.
We have seen uprisings over racism and police brutality before, the most famous being the civil rights movement of the 1960s. There was sometimes a sense that those uprisings had brought on a great deal of progress in a short period and that the eradication of systemic racism would be a long-term project from then on out, with incremental changes ensuring the arc of the moral universe bent toward justice. The recent protest movement — though nascent — seems to reject that idea. The protesters want change now.
And it is easy to see why: Systemic racism takes a physical, existential toll on communities of color.
Jim Vondruska/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Protesters block traffic in Chicago on May 30.
Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images
A man walks his dog in front of pro-Black Lives Matter graffiti.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
A black clad Minneapolis protester at a May 29 demonstration demanding justice for George Floyd.
There is the police violence itself — most recently, against George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a white police officer pinned him down by the neck with his knee for nearly nine minutes. Among Floyd’s final words were “I can’t breathe,” mirroring the last moments of Eric Garner, another unarmed black man who died after a white police officer squeezed his neck for 15 seconds in 2014.
Floyd’s killing followed the killing of Breonna Taylor by police in her own home, the shooting of Sean Reed in Indiana, the shooting of Tony McDade in Florida, and the extrajudicial killing of Ahmaud Arbery by a white father and son, the former a retired police detective, now charged with murder and aggravated assault.
Beyond the recent spate of police killings, there is, of course, Covid-19, a disease that has disproportionately taken black and Latinx lives and has had negative economic effects on black and Latinx workers. Environmental factors exacerbated by segregation(like heavily polluted air or water full of lead), health conditions created by those environmental factors (like heart disease, hypertension, and asthma), and constant stressors like the threat posed by police are contributing to poor health outcomes — outcomes that leave black Americans more susceptible to Covid-19.
Add to that economic losses: Disinvestment in black and Latinx communities as well as inequities in education, transportation, and opportunity have led black and Latinx Americans to bear an unequal share of pay cuts and job losses.
There is also a regression in policy that has stemmed from the country’s leadership. Policies instituted to protect black lives have been systematically rolled back in recent years, from the return of mandatory minimum sentences to the Department of Justice refusing to conduct oversight of police departments accused of civil rights violations and President Donald Trump signing an executive order once again allowing police easy access to military equipment.
The realities of illness, unemployment,polluted air and water, unequal access to education, and mass incarceration — compounded with the fear of being killed by one of your fellow Americans or by a mysterious and still unchecked disease — has life feeling particularly fragile and the world particularly dire. Many are fed up. They need to direct their rage. They cannot live and suffer any longer as they once felt they had to.
The protesters are fighting against history, present injustices, and hearts that refuse to be changed
At the core of this rage is a legitimate fear for black Americans: the sense that they can be killed anywhere at any time by anyone, but especially by law enforcement. It is a feeling black Americans have carried for all of America’s history. And the fact that the feeling has persisted for so long, that it has passed through so many iterations — the casual and common brutality of slavery, the lynching terrorism that followed, the assassinations of the civil rights era, the police killings of today — has created a feeling of futility. That no effort, no matter how herculean — not marching a million people through the nation’s capital, not placing a black man at the head of government — will be enough.
This sort of frustration can only build so long before it becomes anger. And it has.
Americans have left their homes where they were told to shelter in place for safety to express that anger, to rage in the ways that feel right to them — chanting, marching, rattling barricades, seizing goods, writing on walls, creating art, climbing vehicles, breaking glass, setting fires.
They have done so in masses that reflected the diversity of the country they hope will change, a positive development given racism and police brutality aren’t a problem black people have that they need support to solve; they are evils black people suffer with little control over — ills that can be destroyed only with the assistance of all those who make up society and those who consciously or unconsciously benefit from and perpetuate them.
In doing this, in acknowledging this, these protesters have begun to create a new movement — one that aims to rework society.
Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images
Protesters walked from Foley Square to Washington Square Park in New York City for a peaceful moment of reflection for those who have been killed at the hands of police.
The breadth and weight of what protesters are fighting for is why they are not slowing down. In Ferguson’s 2014 uprisings, the unrest quieted when Michael Brown’s family requested people not protest on the day of his funeral.In Baltimore, protests dissipatedin 2015 when charges were brought against the officers in Freddie Gray’s death. When charges were brought against former police officer Derek Chauvin — who has been charged with Floyd’s murder — on Friday, protests only ramped up. In fact, there were protests in cities from Atlanta to Chicago to San Diego only hours later. Over the weekend, despite nearly 20 percent of US citizens being under a curfew, people still took to the streets.
And those demonstrations happened not just in big cities but in towns and villages across the country, including ones that do not necessarily have large black populations: they happened in Normal, Illinois, and Laramie, Wyoming; Naples, Florida, and Bend, Oregon; and countless other places. These protests are a reminder that policing, systemic racism, and the legacy of slavery do not just affect cities and do not just affect black people — that there is something very wrong with American society, all of it, everywhere, and that people across the nation want something new.
Because of this, protesters are demanding life itself be changed — that policing be fairer and kinder, that biases be inspected and corrected, that lasting policies be implemented that erase inequality, and that all people be able to move through the country without experiencing existential dread.
President Trump’s policies have moved the US further from these goals. His rhetoric has been unhelpful as well, and his divisive words about the protests have been indicative of the divide between the protesters and what they are protesting.
He has encouraged law enforcement — celebrating their most aggressive tactics and tweeting that protesters who get too close to the White House would be met with “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons.” He has quoted segregationists in making further threats, ones he later tried to claim were not meant to be threatening at all.
Rather than make any attempt to engage with the protesters or understand their demands, Trump has accused them of representing the “depravity of the Radical Left,” and of being “looters and thugs,” while using his Twitter account to highlight the activities of agitators, promote increased National Guard deployments, and call for “LAW & ORDER!”
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump walks with Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark A. Milley, and others from the White House to visit St. John’s Church on June 1.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Secret Service in riot gear stand guard while President Trump visits St John’s Episcopal Church after peaceful protesters were tear gassed on June 1.
But perhaps the most illustrative example of how Trump typifies this divide is the manner in which George Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd described a call he had with the president.
“He didn’t give me an opportunity to even speak,” Floyd said on MSNBC. “It was hard. I was trying to talk to him, but he just kept, like, pushing me off, like, ‘I don’t want to hear what you’re talking about.’”
This is what the protests are pushing back against: a sense that many in power do not see the problem and do not want to hear it described — that despite so many shouts for change, no one who can make those changes is listening, be they policymakers or individuals with biases they won’t acknowledge, let alone address.
And whether the protests will make them listen is not yet clear.
Recent protests have brought limited change. Demonstrators hope this time will be different.
With the feeling of shouting into a void comes a hopelessness that has led to debate over the worth, effectiveness, and viability of the protests.
There have been many protests against police killing unarmed black men in recent years, some of which have gone on for weeks, like the 2017 St. Louis protests over the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith by former police officer Jason Stockley, and, of course, Ferguson. Out of those protests have come the Black Lives Matter movement, other advocacy initiatives, and even some changes to police department policies.
But the data shows that black lives continue to be taken, including by police who often face few to no consequences for doing so.
A recent analysis by the advocacy group Mapping Police Violence found that 99 percent of police killings from 2013 to 2019 did not result in officers even being charged with a crime. A recent study by researchers at Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, and Washington University in St. Louis — explained by my colleague Dylan Scott — found black men have a 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by police.
Statistics like these have led to questions over whether these latest protests can foster a change earlier demonstrations did not, and — as lawmakers of all ethnicities condemn the more aggressive approaches some have embraced, like setting fires and seizing property — whether some escalation in tactics would be wise.
Many, as Nikole Hannah-Jones of the New York Times did in a thread on Twitter, have argued that past protests that brought about change have involved violence, and that even the nonviolent protests of the 1960s relied on black Americans inviting violence to make their point:
Peaceful protest did not bring about the great civil rights legislation of the 1960s. Black people being firebombed, water-hosed, lynched, bitten by dogs, beaten to a pulp by police trying to march across a bridge is what brought the changes. Violence.
Those protests, Hannah-Jones wrote, showed that “Black Americans must *absorb* white violence in order to benefit from white sympathy. At some point, communities say no and face the consequences.”
Others, like Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, have called for more measured protests; after property was damaged across the city, Bottoms said, “This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. This is chaos.”
This tension exists among those out in the streets as well, as captured in a video that has gone viral, featuring two men discussing the protests:
— BlackCultureEntertainment (@4TheCulture____) May 31, 2020
It is a debate that has yet to be settled, and one that ties into another ongoing question about the protests: If no change comes, will they be sustained, or will they dissipate in the next few weeks, or even days?
On one hand, one of the things the protests are against — police brutality — has been a prominent feature of the demonstrations so far. Police and the National Guard, with the aid of military equipment, have left protesters and observers bloodied. They have been recorded pulling people from cars and throwing bystanders, including elderly ones, to the ground. Being confronted so directly with what they are protesting would seem to give demonstrators more reasons to continue their uprisings.
And given their broad scope, one conviction or arrest won’t calm anyone’s anger. Much has also been made of the demographics of crowds, of peaceful white protesters and of white agitators — a larger coalition would seem to be more self-sustaining than a smaller one.
On the other hand, however, it is not clear how long protesters will be willing to continue their demonstrations if nothing moves forward — if the officers involved with Floyd’s death are not convicted, if Breonna Taylor’s killer goes free, if the government continues its escalations of force, and if deaths like Floyd’s and Taylor’s and Reed’s continue.
This is clearly an important point in time, and one arrived at after decades of trauma. But we will have to wait and see if this is the point at which change actually happens.
Neal Waters/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Protestors in downtown Oakland join the nationwide protests that followed the death of George Floyd on May 29.
Support Vox’s explanatory journalism
Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.
YouTube has removed an anti-gay video urging Russian voters to back constitutional reforms that would ban same-sex marriage and extend President Vladimir Putin’s rule, following an outcry from LGBT advocates.
This video is going viral in Russia today.
The clip warns Russians that if they don’t vote to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, gay couples will start adopting children in Russia. pic.twitter.com/TDuZkq16ue
Reuters reports: The clip, posted online this week, shows a boy going from joy to heartbreak as he discovers his new parents are men. The ad had created an online furore that experts said could help garner support for the reform vote, which could let President Vladimir Putin extend his long rule. … “Here’s your new mum. Don’t be upset,” one of the new adopting parents tells the child as he introduces his partner, who promptly offers the boy a dress. A woman working at the orphanage watches on, then spits on the floor in disgust. “Will you choose such a Russia? Decide the future of the country – vote for amendments to the constitution,” a voiceover says, suggesting a vote for Putin protects traditional values.
More from CNN: At issue is a national vote that would amend the constitution and reset the clock on presidential term limits, allowing Putin to stay on as president past 2024, when his second consecutive term in office comes to an end, among other things. The set of changes also includes controversial amendments such as defining marriage as a “union between a man and a woman.” Russian law does not permit same-sex marriages or partnerships, and adoption laws generally bar same-sex couples from adopting.The vote was originally scheduled to take place on April 22, but those plans were scrapped amid the coronavirus pandemic, dealing a blow to the Kremlin’s plans to push through the changes.The video, released Tuesday, drew immediate condemnation online. Stimul, a group of LGBTQ activists, called for an investigation of the video, saying it “incites hatred and hostility” and violates Russian law on online communication.
Austin police critically injured a black college student on Sunday night when they mistakenly shot him in the head with “less-lethal ammunition” during a protest over the murder of George Floyd.
Justin Howell, a 20-year-old political science student at Texas State University, remains hospitalized with a fractured skull and brain damage. When some of Howell’s fellow protesters attempted to carry him to safety — as instructed by police — officers fired at the “human stretcher” they had created.
The Texas Tribune reports: In a media briefing, [Austin police Chief Brian] Manley said police cameras showed the critically injured protesterwas standing near police headquarters at around 11 p.m. when another man lobbed a water bottle, and then hurled his backpack, at officers guarding the building. Manley said the protester was hit by a bean bag round. Rubber bullets were also seen on the ground during Austin protests this weekend. Manley said after the man was shot, people nearby talked to officers about getting him medical attention and were given instructions to bring him toward police. Video shows a group of people carrying a man toward the officers on the steps of the police building and then being shot at themselves. Manley said it was reported that less-lethal munitions were again used, and one person at the protest providing medical attention was struck in the hand.
Howell’s older brother, Joshua, later wrote about the incident in Texas A&M’s student newspaper, The Battalion, where he works. By Thursday morning, the title of Joshua Howell’s op-ed, “His Name is Justin Howell,” was trending on Twitter.
Howell wrote: It’s also notable in his briefing how little effort Manley puts into taking responsibility for what happened. No, reader, I haven’t omitted the part of Manley’s statement where he seems contrite. There was no apology. Instead, he sat at his desk for three full minutes, gave us the details above and at no point apologized to my brother, my family or the five brave protesters who carried Justin to police headquarters under fire. (To those protesters: My family sees you, and we thank you.) And what is somehow worse, Manley concludes his remarks by saying: “We are praying for this young man and his family and we are hoping that his condition improves quickly.” To which my family, a deeply religious one, says this: We aren’t interested in your prayers. We are interested in you appropriately using the responsibilities with which the people of Austin have entrusted you. Prayer is not an excuse to abdicate responsibility.
More from the Austin Statesman: Austin police also shot a different person, 16-year-old Brad Ayala, in the head with a bean bag round, according to Manley. Ayala was also taken to the hospital with serious injuries. “That is not what we set out to do as a police department,” Manley said Monday, referring to the injuries to protesters. “That was not what we set out to do this weekend.” Protesters have called on the city to fire Manley since protests began last week.
There's no surprise this is Kentucky. Home of Rand Paul, the idiot obstructing the anti-lynching bill
Protesters gather on May 30, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky, in response to the killing of Breonna Taylor and other police violence in America. | Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
Taylor was killed by police in her apartment. Now a man is dead in Louisville after police opened fire.
Hundreds of people gathered in Jefferson Square Park in Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday, many wearing masks, some bearing signs with messages like “No More Excuses, No More Fear.”
They were there, like thousands around the country, to protest police violence in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. But in Louisville, protesters are also mourning deaths closer to home. In March, Breonna Taylor, an EMT, was fatally shot in her apartment by police who were looking for someone else. And late on Sunday night, David McAtee, the owner of a local barbecue restaurant, was killed when law enforcement opened fire on a crowd.
After McAtee’s death, Louisville Police Chief Steve Conrad was fired, and the FBI is investigating both McAtee’s and Taylor’s killings. And Louisville residents and others have continued to memorialize both. On Tuesday, they held a vigil at the corner where McAtee cooked, and his nephew has pledged to keep his business going. Meanwhile, some are planning to commemorate Taylor’s birthday on Friday by sending cards to the attorney general of Kentucky, demanding that he file charges against the officers who shot her.
Ok! I finally have something concrete to share. Below is the official list of action items for this Friday's #BirthdayForBreonna initiatives. Do as many as you can and share this widely so others can participate. Let's make sure to #SayHerName. https://t.co/uJr5qPK2YA
Campaign organizer Cate Young is also asking supporters to post art, music, or poetry in Taylor’s honor on social media — “anything that will remind people that she lived and her life mattered,” Young writes. “Let’s make June 5th Breonna Taylor Day.”
Breonna Taylor was an essential worker when she was killed in her home by police
An EMT who wanted to be a nurse, the 26-year-old Taylor was an essential worker providing health care as the coronavirus pandemic worsened earlier this year.
Her mother, Tamika Palmer, told her, “make sure you wash your hands,” Palmer recalled to the 19th, which partnered with the Washington Post to cover the story of Taylor’s death.
Palmer didn’t think Taylor would be at risk in her own home. But late at night on March 13, Taylor was fatally shot by police in her Louisville apartment. The officers were investigating two people suspected of selling drugs, neither of whom was Taylor.
Police said the officers knocked on the door to announce themselves. But multiple neighbors say the officers neither knocked nor identified themselves, according to the family’s lawsuit. They also weren’t wearing body cams.
When police arrived, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, says he woke up and believed someone was trying to break into the apartment. He fired a shot, hitting an officer in the leg. Police then fired more than 20 rounds into the apartment. Taylor was hit eight times and died at the scene.
Taylor’s family members, who are alleging excessive force and gross negligence in her death, filed suit on April 27 against the three officers involved in the shooting. Taylor’s family has retained Benjamin Crump, an attorney also working with the family of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man killed while jogging in February.
“If you ran for Ahmaud, you need to stand for Bre,” Crump told the 19th in early May.
Since then, Taylor’s death has gotten increasingly widespread national attention — especially after Floyd was also killed by police. As protests against police brutality spread around the country, demonstrators in Louisville have been remembering Taylor, as well as Floyd and others.
Louisville “community pillar” David McAtee shot after protest curfew
But authorities in Louisville, as in other cities, have also imposed curfews in response to protests in recent days. And on Sunday night, police and the National Guard were sent to a parking lot at 26th and Broadway in downtown Louisville on Sunday at about 12:15 am, according to NBC, to break up a crowd that had gathered after the 9 pm curfew.
Police say they began shooting after being fired on by the crowd. “Officers and soldiers began to clear the lot and at some point were shot at,” Conrad said in his statement on Monday. “Both LMPD and national guard members returned fire.”
McAtee, 53, was fatally shot. He owned a barbecue restaurant on the corner where the crowd had gathered. Riley, his mother, says he was a “community pillar,” known for giving free meals to police officers. “He left a great legend behind,” Riley told the Louisville Courier-Journal. “He was a good person.”
Several sources say the crowd in the parking lot was not actually protesting when police arrived. One bystander told reporters they were merely out past the city’s curfew. And McAtee’s sister told WAVE 3 News that McAtee and others meet in the area every Sunday night for food and music, and that her brother was serving food.
It is not yet clear who shot McAtee. In the wake of his death, his family called for officers’ body camera footage of the shooting to be released and for the National Guard to be pulled out of Louisville. But on Monday, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced that the officers had not recorded any footage. He also announced the firing of Conrad from his role as police chief. Conrad had already announced his upcoming retirement as attention to Taylor’s killing grew.
In addition to the FBI investigation, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has ordered an independent investigation by state police. And protesters in Louisville and around the country are honoring both McAtee’s memory and Taylor’s. On Tuesday, demonstrators marched on the University of Louisville to demand it cut ties with the police.
Group of protestors is marching through @uofl’s campus demanding the university cut ties with LMPD. pic.twitter.com/Zds0JDxj7t
On Monday, according to the Washington Post, people marched from the spot where McAtee was killed to Jefferson Square Park, with cars lined up honking in support — until police dispersed the crowd with tear gas.
Support Vox’s explanatory journalism
Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.
Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake published the Trump/Pence campaign’s latest "FOR PATRIOTS ONLY" email. In it, the campaign says it is assembling a "Trump Army." It is unconcerned with subtlety, directly extending Trump's own calls for, as he put it, "Second Amendment" responses to Americans protesting police violence. The "President," you see, is raising a brownshirt army:
"The President wants YOU and every other member of our exclusive Trump Army to have something to identify yourselves with, and to let everyone know that YOU are the President's first line of defense when it comes to fighting off the Liberal MOB."
The Trump campaign is fundraising off people being in the "Trump Army" and selling camouflage hats. "YOU are the President�s first line of defense when it comes to fighting off the Liberal MOB." pic.twitter.com/KIzxDmkDMg
During any period when a sitting president had not already encouraged his base, from the White House Rose Garden, to arm themselves and perhaps start shooting at other Americans, this emailed exhortation would be seen as merely crass. Today, at this moment, it is self-evident that Trump supporters who receive this email will be further convinced that they are an "Army," that they are Trump's "first line of defense," and that they should prepare for "fighting off" not attackers, not rioters, not even looters, but "Liberals."
The last line, imploring Trump's collection of paranoid Americans to "not pass this information on to anyone," is further meant to fire off conspiracy synapses.
Trump/Pence 2020: We're Raising A Private Army.
To attack liberals. "Metaphorically," the campaign will assuredly insist (again) when confronted.
This is not happening in a vacuum. In addition to Sen. Tom Cotton's latest treason against America, other Trump defenders are calling for violence against liberals.
That one is especially noteworthy because Washington, D.C., is currently being occupied by large groups of unidentified "federal" officers refusing to identify themselves and wearing a hodgepodge of unmarked, different uniforms and gear. Many have been inferred to be Bureau of Prisons riot teams called up by Attorney General William Barr and ordered to not reveal their federal department; in the mix of not-uniforms, however, it would be trivial for any militia-minded paramilitary person or group to wander D.C., armed, to impersonate federal officers and take violent action on their own initiative.
We are in a true moment of fascism. Fox News and other Trump allies are calling for the military occupation of America, over objections of individual states. Retired military officers are coming forward to give the boldest warnings they know how. Trump has now ordered at least one attack on peaceful protesters for the sole reason of gaining media coverage for that attack on live television. Far-right militias are mobilizing. The Republican-controlled Senate has already nullified itself, giving explicit permission for overt criminal behavior from "their" president if it is in service to his reelection, and therefore their own power.
And Donald Trump's campaign, filled with the dregs of criminal-minded scum that the Trump team could not plausibly put in even his ramshackle administration, is fundraising by selling camouflage-styled merchandise meant to identify wearers as members of an official "Trump Army," one that is the "line of defense when it comes to fighting off" liberalism.
By which they mean Black Americans and anyone allied with them—anyone who is currently defying Trump, on any street, for any reason.
If you’ve spent time in some parts of the world at certain periods—say Latin America—you’re familiar with the sight of so many armed people in uniform on the streets to keep authoritarian regimes in place. And even though the presence of such forces was often bolstered by U.S. policy, seeing such an array in the U.S. capital is incredibly rare. And discomfiting. In the past few days, however, as Devlin Barrett reports, Attorney General Bill Barr has overseen a motley assortment of police, agents from numerous federal agencies including the Bureau of Prisons, and the National Guard to “dominate” the situation with thousands of people in the streets protesting the death of George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of police in cities across the nation.
We got a whiff of what kind of action such forces can be expected to engage in under Barr’s orders when they cleared the area around Lafayette Square Monday with flash-bangs and tear gas ahead of Donald Trump’s walk from the White House to St. John’s Church, where he brandished a Bible in what the White House grotesquely called a “leadership moment” similar to Winston Churchill’s inspection of damage in London from the Nazi blitz during World War II. That show of force would be disturbing enough, as critics including Trump’s former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis have made clear, but some of those in uniform have either covered their badge numbers or are wearing outfits with no discernible insignia or individual identification. My colleague Kerry Eleveld reported on one such group Wednesday. No matter how officials try to justify this, the covering up of one’s identity has only one true purpose: to keep dissenters from identifying individuals who engage in brutality or otherwise step over the boundaries of acceptable law enforcement tactics so that accountability can be avoided.
Some of those on the front line were identified Wednesday as Special Operations Response Teams from the Bureau of Prisons, trained especially to handle inmate riots. No word on how much training they have received on handling protests outside prisons. Some Washington, D.C. metro police officers reportedly have taped over their badge numbers, a practice outlawed in some locales because of widespread abuses in the 1960s.
Ryan J. Reilly and Tara Golshan at HuffPo report that Michael Bromwich, the former inspector general of the Justice Department who oversaw internal investigations, said when federal law enforcement officers conceal their identities: “It completely undermines the ability to hold law enforcement personnel who engage in misconduct accountable. You’ve got to know who they are, and certainly which agency they represent.”
In a 2014 letter to Ferguson, Missouri police chief Thomas Jackson, Department of Justice official Christy Lopez wrote:
Officers wearing name plates while in uniform is a basic component of transparency and accountability. It is a near-universal requirement of sound policing practices and required under some state laws. Allowing officers to remain anonymous when they interact with the public contributes to mistrust and undermines accountability. The failure to wear name plates conveys a message to community members that, through anonymity, officers may seek to act with impunity. Further, the lack of name plates makes it difficult or impossible for members of the public to identify officers if they engage in misconduct, or for police departments to hold them accountable.
Some Democrats are vowing to stop this practice:
We cannot tolerate an American secret police. I will be introducing legislation to require uniformed federal officers performing any domestic security duties to clearly identify what military branch or agency they represent. pic.twitter.com/2kaFAlWUow
In addition, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C. and Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia are drafting legislation mandating that all uniformed federal law enforcement officers clearly show their names and agencies when on duty at protests protected by the First Amendment. That wouldn’t affect the National Guard or undercover officers. Beyer told the HuffPo reporters: “When you can’t tell who people are, then there is no accountability at all. You can go out and bust any heads you want to because who is going to hold you accountable if you are anonymous—especially with the big face masks.”
The Emmett Till Antilynching Act passed the Democratic House 410-4 on Feb. 26. It was identical to a bill called the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act that the Senate had passed already by unanimous consent in December of 2018 and February 2019. (Identical except for the title.) When the Senate tried to pass it this year with unanimous consent, Sen. Rand Paul objected.
His argument is that he wants to "make it stronger." The last two times it passed in the Senate, when the House was in Republican control and hadn't taken up the bill, Paul had no issues with the wording of it. No, it wasn't until it could actually pass both chambers of Congress and become law that he objected. Now if it's going to pass, it has to compete for time on the floor with Sen. Mitch McConnell's slew of judicial confirmations. But McConnell isn't going to do that any more than he's going to pass any House bill. Even one that would make lynching a human being a federal crime, covered as a criminal civil rights violation.
The bill says that "whoever conspires with another person to violate section 245, 247, or 249 of this title or section 901 of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3631) shall be punished in the same manner as a completed violation of such section, except that if the maximum term of imprisonment for such completed violation is less than 10 years, the person may be imprisoned for not more than 10 years." Paul says that the "bill as written would allow altercations resulting in a cut, abrasion, bruise, or any other injury no matter how temporary to be subject to a 10-year penalty," and that he wants "a serious bodily injury standard." Which is a big old red herring and absolutely unnecessary. No federal civil rights charges are going to be brought against a defendant for bruising someone.
Rep. Bobby Rush, who wrote the legislation with Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, tweeted that the "language of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act isIDENTICAL to the bill that was unanimously approved by the Senate." Twice, in fact. "The only conclusion I can draw from
[Paul's] sudden opposition is he has an issue with the House bill being named after Emmett Till." The other conclusion one could draw is that this time it counts—this time it could actually become law.
Paul's fellow Kentuckian, McConnell, could also just bring the damn bill to the floor for a roll call vote. It wouldn't take that much time, and it would pass with a large bipartisan vote. Because even most Republicans who aren't Rand Paul would find it ridiculous to oppose an anti-lynching bill. But right now McConnell and the rest of the them are hiding behind Paul. They're letting his punchable face be the one of white supremacy, protecting them from having to take this vote that could anger their racist base.
Businesses in Van Nuys and Hollywood, Los Angeles, were struck by looters with no apparent connection to the peaceful protests over George Floyd’s death on Monday. Dozens were arrested for burglary by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) as they took advantage of protests to loot and vandalize. "You've got a small group that infiltrated and, in fact, I believe used these peaceful demonstrators as a way to divert attention so they could go in and do illegal activity," Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said, NBC News reported.
But in addition to arresting those who vandalized and looted businesses amid the peaceful protests, the LAPD profiled and incorrectly handcuffed individuals protecting businesses from destruction and looters. A group of good samaritans who were standing guard outside of a Los Angeles liquor store were pushed to the wall and handcuffed by police who said they were confused upon arriving at the scene Monday.
The incident was captured live on FOX 11 by reporter Christina Gonzalez, who was outside the Van Nuys liquor store. The footage depicts a Black woman named Monet, “flagging down the police” in an attempt for help during an alteration taking place between alleged looters, store owners, and community members. As the officers arrived at the scene, some ran after the men who ran across the street while others approached Monet, her husband, and brother-in-law and began cuffing them.
Gonzalez is then heard trying to explain to the police officers that Monet and her family were protecting the store, not looting it. “We’re putting those in handcuffs right now!” one of the officers is heard saying. Gonzalez continues on in the footage to say that the police are losing the actual looters and handcuffing the wrong people. “This is the sum of some of the systematic issues that maybe some of those protesters are upset about,” the cameraman can be heard saying. The officers later released Monet and the other Black community members they profiled.
"I was handcuffed, thrown up against a wall with my husband and brother-in-law, and I'm like, 'What the hell?'" Monet said in an interview with FOX 11. Monet went on to explain that while she supports the movement and is “fighting for the same protest” she does not want people to come and destroy things that will have to be rebuilt.
Additionally, she said that she believes the police need to give a better response to the African American community. "I get it. I understand they're [the officers] tired. They're worn-out too. We've been worn out. I'm 55, we're tired too. The same injustice you did to us years ago, and my father and forefathers, you guys are doing to our young Black men and our young Black women, including Latinos," Monet said. While officers may have been tired, the action of assuming Monet and her family were the looters despite witnesses trying to clarify for police is inexcusable. Gonzalez can be heard frantically telling officers they are losing the looters as they respond that they are putting “all three of them” in handcuffs.
Despite the racial profiling and injustice she faced, Monet had a positive message for others. She told FOX 11 that she hopes people think about the impact their actions have on others. "I tell my children this all the time, 'One second of your thinking can cost you your life or someone else's life.' This white gentleman who was a police officer who was here to protect and serve, one second of his thinking cost someone else their life, which is about to cost your family their life, and costing people their business," Monet detailed.
But while the LAPD wrongfully cuffed Monet and her family and said they arrested dozens of others for looting Monday, many business owners expressed that their stores were looted and set on fire with no police officials in sight over the weekend, who unnecessarily focused their efforts on peaceful protestors instead, the Los Angeles Times reported. “Where are the police? They’re nowhere. There’s not a policeman in sight. It’s just like a free-for-all,” Aaron Landy, a store owner told the Los Angeles Times he remembered thinking Saturday. “It was just shocking. I was outraged.”
According to Landy, not one patrol vehicle came by the area despite several officers stationed by peaceful protests. Images of looting and vandalism were shared throughout social media and news outlets with no officers in sight Saturday. Additionally, on Sunday, the LAPD clashed with some protesters and acted aggressively shooting protestors with rubber bullets, many of which protestors said came without warning. Store and business owners, however, told the Los Angeles Times they felt officials did not take looting and vandalism as seriously as patrolling the peaceful protests that were occurring.
An LAPD spokesman, Josh Rubenstein, said, that while not every police officer was wearing a body camera during protests, thousands in areas with severe vandalism and looting were and have hours worth of recorded footage. The department plans to use this and footage provided by residents and business owners to investigate incidents. “Where it’s being brought to our attention, or where we are able to capture any evidence of people committing crimes, that is being captured for further investigation,” Rubenstein said. However, officials also emphasized that they will be prioritizing major crimes or multiple crimes committed by a single group.
Then the police forces need to be cleaned out and started over. The data is stark. That they don't see it is willful blindness, at best.
One important difference between the protests that have spread across the country for the past nine days and nights and other protest movements is their subject. The demonstrators who have taken to the streets in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers are protesting against police violence and the inequities of the criminal justice system, which as others have pointed out, call into question the role and neutrality of the law enforcement personnel who patrol those streets. The police officers firing tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets — and generally roughing up protesters — have seemed in many ways like counterprotesters more than peacekeepers.
In fact, a majority of America’s police officers strongly disagree with the core arguments of the protests. And that’s probably related to the fact that the police and the protesters are much different from each other in terms of politics and demographics. And these underlying differences over identity, politics and policy are creating a toxic and potentially dangerous dynamic as the protests continue.
Most police officers think they treat black people fairly
We don’t have much data on the views of police officers, but the Pew Research Center conducted an extensive survey of nearly 8,000 sworn police officers24 across the country in 2016.25
That was a few years ago, obviously, but well after the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and it offers some insight into how the views of law enforcement officers compare with the views of the general population.
In that survey, 67 percent of officers said they thought the deaths of black people in encounters with the police were isolated incidents, compared with 31 percent who said those deaths were part of a broader pattern. The public,26 by comparison, had almost exactly the opposite reaction — only 39 percent of Americans said the police killings of black Americans were isolated incidents, while 60 percent said they were part of a broader pattern. (More recent surveys of the public also indicate that around 60 percent of Americans think that these incidents are part of a broader pattern.)
Just 35 percent of officers in the 2016 survey said they thought protests against the killings of black Americans were motivated at least in part by a “genuine desire to hold officers accountable” for their actions. In separate questions, almost all officers (92 percent) said that these protests reflected at least some long-standing bias against the police, and 86 percent said that the attention surrounding high-profile incidents of police killings of black men and the resulting protests has made their jobs harder.
More anecdotally, police officers regularly speak in disparaging terms about Black Lives Matter activists, in particular.
“Policing has always been a dangerous profession, but groups like Black Lives Matter, by inaccurately demonizing police as racists who kill innocent people, have made policing more dangerous than ever before,” a police union leader in Boston wrote in a February letter27 to the local teachers union, as The Boston Globe reported.
“Officers reject the notion that their behaviors are affected by racial bias,” said Natalie Todak, a criminal justice professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who said she has interviewed hundreds of police officers for her work.
She added that “many police officers endorse the ‘differential involvement’ hypothesis.” Essentially, that’s the belief that the police are simply targeting criminal behavior and that black people are committing crimes at a higher rate than white people.
Todak also noted that beyond these racial issues, “throughout history, we can see a recurring pattern of officers and agencies resisting outside criticism and pressures to reform.”
Police officers don’t see much evidence of discrimination against black people
Most police officers also diverge from the protesters on the issues underlying these high-profile killings. Eighty percent of police officers said the country does not need to make more changes to ensure that black Americans have equal rights with white Americans, according to the 2016 Pew survey. That’s much higher than the share of Americans overall who held that view (48 percent).
“On a range of measures, white police officers are more racially conservative than white citizens,” wrote sociology professor Ryan Jerome LeCount of Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, in an academic paper published in 2017, based on responses to surveys conducted as part of the General Social Survey.29
White officers, according to LeCount’s research, are more likely than other white Americans to say that anti-black discrimination is not a major problem for black Americans. White officers are also significantly more likely than black officers and Americans overall to think that black people are more violent than white people.
Black and female officers often differ from officers overall
As mentioned above, black officers tend to have somewhat different views from white officers.30 For example, 69 percent of black officers said the protests against policing tactics reflected some genuine desire to hold the police accountable, compared with just 27 percent of white officers. And a majority of black officers (57 percent) said that the deadly encounters between black people and the police were part of a broader pattern — a view shared by only 27 percent of white officers. Black officers were also less likely than white or Hispanic officers to say that the public didn’t understand the risks and challenges they face on the job.
Most black officers — 69 percent — thought that America needed to make more changes for black Americans to have equal rights, putting the black officers fairly close to black Americans overall (84 percent per the Pew poll). White officers (6 percent) were much less likely to hold this view. According to LeCount’s research, the views of black officers on questions of both policing and broader racial issues in America were not much different from those of black Americans overall.
Female officers were also more likely to think that the protests over police violence were motivated by genuine concerns about holding the police accountable and that the police killings of black Americans reflected a broader pattern as opposed to being isolated incidents.
The police are more male and white than the country as a whole
The data above suggests that America’s police officers have views informed specifically by their jobs, so it makes sense that they have more pro-police views than the general population does. But the data also shows that law enforcement personnel are split along similar lines to Americans overall — women and black officers are more likely to have views associated with the Democratic Party than male and white officers are, similar to the splits among their counterparts in the general populace.
Which is why it’s relevant that the police are much more male than the overall population, and slightly more white.
About 88 percent of local sworn police officers are men, compared with around 12 percent who are women, according to data from the U.S. Department of Justice. (The country overall is about 51 percent women.) And about 72 percent of officers are non-Hispanic white, about 11 percent are non-Hispanic black and about 13 percent are Hispanic.31 By comparison, about 60 percent of Americans overall are non-Hispanic white, about 13 percent are non-Hispanic black and about 18 percent are Hispanic, per 2019 estimates by the U.S.Census Bureau.
The police tend to like Trump
About 60 percent of white men have voted for the Republican Party in recent elections, so it’s likely that America’s police officers have long leaned toward the GOP. That includes supporting President Trump. The Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, endorsed Trump in 2016.32 The FOP has not endorsed a Democratic presidential nominee since Bill Clinton in 1996, but Trump’s winning the union’s support was not a given — the FOP opted not to endorse either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney in 2012.
The protesters disagree with the police on the two major concepts — whether American society in general and the police in particular treat black people unfairly. And underlying those differing viewpoints are gaps in identity and partisanship: The police officers are more likely to be white, male and Trump-supporting than the protesters.
So the divides over Floyd’s death run along the larger political fault lines in U.S. society. Those fault lines seem at times intractable — and, right now, maybe even deadly.
Leave it to the southern white bigot to hold up the anti-lynching bill
The House-passed anti-lynching bill won’t pass the Senate without changes, Sen. Rand Paul said on Wednesday, raising the prospect that Congress may once again fall short of confronting the abhorrent practice.
The Kentucky Republican said he is talking to authors “about how to make the bill better.” In theory, the Senate could quickly unanimously pass the House bill and send the law to President Donald Trump, but Paul’s objection means that instead the Senate would have to use several days of floor time to hold a roll call vote and pass the bill.
“If they want to pass it the easy way, they have to talk to me about it,” he said.
The Senate passed its own anti-lynching bill in 2019, making lynching a federal crime. But the House bill, passed in February, is slightly different and Paul said it won’t move quickly without changes.
Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Speaker a Nancy Pelosi, said the two chambers’ bills “only differ with respect to the title and House resolution number."
“It’s unfortunate that procedural issues are being used to delay the passage of historic legislation. The House of Representatives has passed numerous anti-lynching bills. Unfortunately, the Senate again stands in the way of enactment,” he said.
The fact that Congress is still struggling to respond to the past atrocities of lynching black people highlights how difficult it will be for Washington to deal with misuse of police force and outrage over police officers killing unarmed black Americans. Everyone seems to agree lynching is terrible and must be condemned and outlawed, but not specifically on how to do it.
Paul said he’s concerned that the way the House bill is written, it might “conflate lesser crimes with lynching.” He said on Wednesday evening that he wanted to amend the legislation so that minor injuries could not be considered lynching and “ensure crimes resulting in substantial risk of death and extreme physical pain be prosecuted as a lynching.“
“Under the statute as written, bruises could be considered lynching. That’s a problem, to put someone in jail for 10 years for some kind of altercation. And it also I think demeans how horrible lynching actually was,” Paul said on Wednesday.
In an interview, one of the Senate bill’s authors said the easiest way forward is for the House to take up the Senate’s bill.
“The House could easily take the bill that we’ve already passed and [Trump will] sign it,” said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only African American Republican senator. “That’s where we should have been, could have been and still can be.”
National Journal first reported Paul's hold on the legislation, though his office declined to elaborate on his concerns.
It has been well documented that fiscal austerity was a catastrophe for the recovery from the Great Recession. New estimates show that without sufficient aid to state and local governments, the COVID-19 shock could lead to a revenue shortfall of nearly $1 trillion by 2021 for state and local governments. In lieu of substantial federal investments, budget cuts are certain. But I, for one, did not expect to see the losses as soon as April. As of the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), state and local government employment fell by 981,000, with the vast majority of losses found in local government. And the majority of those local government losses are in the education sector, with a loss of 468,800 jobs in local public school employment alone.
State and local government austerity in the aftermath of the Great Recession contributed to a significant shortfall in employment in public K–12 school systems, a shortfall that continued through 2019. The figure below shows that, as of early 2020, public employment in elementary and secondary schools had yet to recover the level it had reached prior to the losses of the Great Recession. Furthermore, employment levels in the public education system have failed to keep up with growth in public school enrollment since 2008. As of September 2019, the start of the most recent pre-pandemic school year, local public education jobs were still 60,000 short of their September 2008 level, and they were over 300,000 lower than they would have needed to be to keep up with public school enrollment.
Then, the pandemic hit and local education jobs dropped sharply. More K–12 public education jobs were lost in April than in all of the Great Recession. And that’s before any austerity measures from lost state and local revenue have been put in place. A look at the Current Population Survey reveals that losses in public education were concentrated in certain occupations. While some teachers were spared, namely elementary and middle school teachers, others were not. [...]
“We don’t need police officers who are soldiers. We need police who are guardians.”~~Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2015)
At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Crunch. Jobs report even worse than projected:
Analysts' expectations ahead of today's monthly jobs report were lowered this week after the release of troubling news about manufacturing, housing and retail sales. But they weren't lowered enough.
In its seasonally adjusted report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that only 54,000 jobs were added to the economy, far below the monthly average of 182,000 new jobs added in the first four months of 2011. The private sector added 83,000 jobs, less than a third of what it did in April. Layoffs of 28,000 public-sector employees by financially straitened state and local governments brought the overall numbers down.
The official unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Greg Dworkin says the polls say that Trump's bet on putting armies (real or created from gussied up Federales) in the streets isn't working. But he's sure it's a big hit, because Ivanka directed the show! Why do Dem allies often fail us on police reform?
As protests continue nationwide, some volunteers are coming together to clean up and rebuild areas affected by looting, arson, and vandalism. Worldwide, social media is being used to share images, resources, and views on the issues of racial injustice and the Black Lives Matter movement. Unfortunately, some people are using this time to gain social media popularity and pose as contributing to efforts to rebuild and care for the community.
A video of a woman in California pretending to help board up a store window went viral Monday after it was shared on Twitter. "This lady stopped someone boarding up a store in Santa Monica so she could hold the drill for a picture, then drove away. Please don't do this," the post read. Commenters including a staff member from The New York Times identified the woman as Fiona Moriarty-McLaughlin, a writer for the conservative Washington Examiner.
In the video, Moriarty-Mclaughlin can be seen taking a drill from a volunteer, posing with it to have her photo taken, then proceeding to run into her Mercedes-Benz. The video prompted extreme backlash, resulting in her deleting her social media account. Viewers are calling it an example of “performative activism,” a form of activism in which individuals post or pretend to support a cause in order to gain a following or make themselves look better to others. It's a form of hypocrisy, because these people don’t actually care about the cause.
"The problem here is that she's 1) using this terrible situation to promote herself instead of the man who's actually helping and 2) completely insensitive to racial / class tensions," a Twitter user wrote in a follow-up thread. "Influencers: use your platform for ACTUAL good, not the PERCEPTION of good."
Celebrities and social media influencers worldwide are being called out for posting images saying “Black Lives Matter” or blank black squares on their platforms while perpetuating racism or not actually being down for the cause. Those who actually support the issues in question are being asked to do more with their platforms. People are calling for them to share resources and vital information because of their level of reach.
Various celebrities have hopped on the performative activism bandwagon in an attempt to not be ostracized by posting a single image saying “Black Lives Matter” or, more recently, a black square to avoid being questioned about where they stand. But a black square is not enough. While the gesture is great for solidarity and spreads awareness to a point, more can be done. Instead of sharing a black square just to please followers, celebrities could share information like resources for those protesters, or actions for those who cannot physically attend a protest. In no way am I dismissing the posting of a black square during #BlackOutTuesday for those who wish to use it show sincere solidarity—but if you can do more, you should. This is the time to do more than flood social feeds with a black image.
While not the same as posting a black square on social media, Moriarty-McLaughlin’s action is a form of performative activism that’s far too common in this digital world. In order to gain likes, people have been attending protests solely to take photos, or posting quotes relevant to trending topics without knowledge of their history. In addition, many influencers have been accused of volunteering or donating online only to promote the image of being charitable. The viral video sheds light on the reality of how many people would rather post about a good cause on social media to create the illusion of involvement than actually participate.
Since its posting, the original video has received over 70,000 likes and has been reposted thousands of times by the public, celebrities, and activist organizations alike, with many questioning the intent behind the photo. "And notice that she's pretending to be part of the clean up crew. Not the protest," a user wrote on Twitter. “I wonder what her caption will be."
Just weeks after Republicans senators howled about the ”tyranny” of government overreach because they couldn’t get a haircut during a pandemic that has killed 108,000 Americans (and counting), they suddenly can’t find any words about Donald Trump using federal police to attack peaceful protesters in front of the White House for a campaign photo op.
MSNBC reporter Kasie Hunt asked senators one-by-one for reaction to the Trump-ordered violence on protesters and one by one, they slithered away. You can see a full list of their responses here, but below is a video that really sums up their reaction: cowardice and indifference.
Wow. This clip of MSNBC asking GOP senators if what the president did last night clearing the protestors was appropriate is something else. pic.twitter.com/TSBW82C4rb
� andrew kaczynski� (@KFILE) June 3, 2020
Nobody is asking these folks to do anything more than offer the weakest of statements saying they stand behind American principles of free speech and free protest and they can’t even do that. Their silence is complicity and the Republican party is no more. Donald Trump, with the help of Fox News, Alex Jones, and the darkest corners of right-wing extremism online have extinguished whatever small burning embers of unity and morality it once had.
The CDC wasted valuable time early in the coronavirus outbreak responding to White House requests for feedback on MAGA-branded face masks.
The NYT reports: “The C.D.C., long considered the world’s premier health agency, made early testing mistakes that contributed to a cascade of problems that persist today as the country tries to reopen. It failed to provide timely counts of infections and deaths, hindered by aging technology and a fractured public health reporting system. And it hesitated in absorbing the lessons of other countries, including the perils of silent carriers spreading the infection.”
What were they doing instead? “At one point that month, administration officials asked the agency to provide feedback on possible logos — including ‘Make America Healthy Again’ — for cloth face masks they hoped to distribute to millions of Americans. The plan fell through, but not before C.D.C. leaders agreed to the request, according to one person familiar with the discussions.”
As demonstrators across the nation participate in protests for justice for George Floyd, a Denver police officer is under an internal investigation after a photo and caption allegedly appeared on an Instagram account. What’s the big deal? The three officers in the photo reportedly had on riot gear and the caption of the post said: “let’s start a riot” as reported by local outlet Denver 7 ABC. The post allegedly appeared on the account of Thomas J. McClay, as reported by WSBTV.
After a screenshot of the post was shared to Reddit on Monday, Denver police said Police Chief Paul Pazen ordered an Internal Affairs investigation into the post, as reported by local outlet CBS 4 Denver. On Monday, Pazen linked armswith protestors and joined a demonstration.
� Alayna Alvarez (@alaynaEalvarez) June 1, 2020
Denver police also said the officers in the post will not work the protests and have been reassigned. McClay’s Instagram account has been removed. The original post is no longer available. The Instagram post was reportedly made on Sunday.
The Denver Police Department tweeted the following on the incident:
ALERT: Regarding the Instagram post featuring 3 DPD officers posing in riot gear -- The Chief has ordered an Internal Affairs investigation into the matter. All investigations are closely monitored by the Office of the Independent Monitor. #Denver
� Denver Police Dept. (@DenverPolice) June 1, 2020
Sonny Jackson, the spokesperson for the Denver police department, added to Colorado Politics that the department is taking the matter “very seriously.”
In the big picture, protesters across the nation report being handcuffed, detained, and met with tear gas. Some journalists have reported being targeted by police. On Monday night, dozens of demonstrators took overnight refuge in the home of a Washington, D.C. local after being blocked into a street by Washington police. It’s estimated that more than 4,000 people at protests have been arrested over the weekend.
Update: According to BuzzFeed News, Officer Thomas McClay was fired on Tuesday.
A police officer aims a rubber bullet gun at demonstrators at a Black Lives Matter protest in Long Beach, California, on May 31. | Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images
The dangers of “nonlethal” police weapons — like rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, and tear gas — explained.
Around the country, police and law enforcement agents are responding to the protests against police brutality with ... brutality.
Standard crowd-control weapons — including rubber bullets, chemical irritants, flash-bang grenades, and contraptions that combine aspects of all three — are being deployed against protesters and the journalists covering them to disperse crowds, sometimes seemingly unprovoked, and against peaceful protesters.
While these riot-control weapons are said to be “nonlethal” or “less lethal” by police and their manufacturers, they can still cause significant harm. In some cases, they can kill or cause lasting disability.
“These weapons are supposed to be used as a last resort, if there’s really an uncontrollable level of violence that threatens public safety,” Rohini Haar, an emergency room physician who has studied the impact of crowd-control weapons, tells Vox. “Without that level, that threshold, the use of weapons against unarmed civilians is pretty unjustified.”
As the protests percolate throughout the country, there have been many reports of serious injuries due to police using riot-control weapons. And health experts and doctors worry that there could be more injuries because of the weapons’ widespread use. Here are three of the more common crowd-control weapons being used on protesters. Let’s walk through them.
Rubber bullets are bullets. Bullets can kill.
Rubber bullets are not always made out of rubber. Technically, they are called “kinetic impact projectiles.” Some are made out of hardened foam or plastic. Others contain a metal core. Some are more like beanbags shot out of a rifle. Wooden bullets also are grouped into this category, and they are also dangerous and have been used against protesters in recent days.
Regardless of their composition, these projectiles are shot out of guns at speeds comparable to that of a typical bullet, and when they hit their target, they can maim, blind, or even kill. The rubber bullets are meant to be “nonlethal” or “less lethal” and used in crowd control. But research shows how brutal these bullets can be.
“It sounds like a Nerf gun or something, but it’s definitely much more dangerous than that,” Haar says. “From our research, we find that there’s really no safe way to use rubber bullets.”
In 2017, Haar, along with the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights and the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations, published a review paper in the BMJ looking at the impact these bullets can have on the human body. They concluded that “these weapons have the potential to cause severe injuries and death.”
The group found 26 studies on the use of rubber bullets around the world, documenting a total of 1,984 injuries. Fifteen percent of the injuries resulted in permanent disability; 3 percent resulted in death. When the injuries were to the eyes, they overwhelmingly (84.2 percent) resulted in blindness.
These weapons can also cause internal bleeding in the abdominal region, concussions, injuries to the head and neck, and skin and soft-tissue damage. Furthermore, these weapons are unwieldy and hard to aim at specific targets.
“At short range, they come out of the gun as fast as a bullet,” Haar says. “And so they can break bones. They can fracture skulls. If they hit the face, they can cause permanent damage and disability. At long distances, they ricochet, they have unpredicted trajectories, they bounce, and they’re quite indiscriminate. So they can’t possibly target either an individual or a safe body part of an individual.”
The BMJ paper may suffer from publication and selection bias and may overrepresent the most dramatic or notable injuries, the authors note. Regardless, it’s enough to know that these life-scarring impacts can occur with rubber bullets, and they’re being used against many citizens of our country in recent days.
“Police are not required to document their use of rubber bullets, so there is no national data to show how often they’re used,” USA Today reports. But rubber bullet injuries have been piling up during the protests.
A photojournalist reported being blinded in one eye after being hit by a rubber bullet in Minneapolis. In Los Angeles, a reporter posted pictures of the rubber bullet injury on his neck. A grandmother in La Mesa, California, was reportedly shot between the eyes. A teen in Sacramento, California, was shot in the face with a rubber bullet. His family reports he’ll need jaw surgery.
Flash-bangs, a.k.a. stun grenades, can burn and damage hearing
Rubber bullets are hardly the only problematic “nonlethal” weapon used against protesters. Flash-bang grenades, or stun grenades, are another tool being deployed by police that explode with a bright light and incredibly loud sound to get people to scatter from an area. How loud? 160 to 180 decibels, according to Physicians for Human Rights.
These noise levels are “not safe for any period of time” according to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. They can damage the eardrums and cause temporary deafness. The light can temporarily blind a person. Pieces of the grenade may fly off as shrapnel, injuring a person. These grenades can also burn people at close range. The North Carolina Supreme Court has even declared them a weapon of “mass death and destruction.”
There’s less research on other physical harms of flash-bangs. But in 2015, a ProPublica investigation found at least 50 Americans had been killed or maimed by them since the year 2000 and that they are particularly dangerous when used indoors. “That is likely a fraction of the total since there are few records kept on flash-bang deployment,” ProPublica noted. “When these modified hand grenades explode on the human body, they can cause severe injury or death. The flash powder burns hotter than lava.”
Here, Physicians for Human Rights sums up the damage these weapons can do.
Police lobbed flash-bangs into a crowd of protesters in Seattle, as you can see below. (Elsewhere in Seattle, an NBC News reporter was hit directly by one.) The use of flash-bangs was also reported in Virginia, Colorado, and Washington, DC.
These protesters in Seattle are literally chanting “we don’t see no riot here, take off your riot gear” & doing nothing else but standing peacefully when the police start throwing tear gas & firing into them pic.twitter.com/Bde3XQC27f
Tear gas is illegal in warfare, yet it can be used by police
Finally, there’s tear gas, or chemical irritants that affect the eyes, nose, mouth, lungs, and skin (there are several types of chemicals that fall under the “tear gas” category). These chemicals are banned internationally in warfare, yet they are still legal for domestic police forces — including in the US — to use to disperse crowds.
They cause immediate irritation to the eyes and lungs, but their long-term effects are less well understood.
“It’s still questionable what kinds of respiratory damage tear gas does,” Anna Feigenbaum, a journalism professor and the author of a book on the history of tear gas, told Vox’s Jen Kirby.
“We don’t really know what its impacts are in terms of different kinds of asthma and lung disease,” she continued. “What we do know is that for people who have any kind of preconditions, it’s incredibly dangerous for them to be in spaces that are tear-gassed. For anyone who’s very young or very old, it has increased dangers.”
Increasingly, Haar says, elements of different crowd-control weapons are mixed together. Tear gas can be put inside a projectile. Flash-bang grenades can also disperse chemical irritants. “All of those are also deeply concerning,” Haar says. A tear gas canister could injure someone as a rubber bullet would, if fired as a projectile. “Anything that’s a projectile that’s fired into a crowd can cause trauma,” she says. “So whether that’s a canister of tear gas, a stun grenade, or rubber bullets.”
On Wednesday morning, a person in Washington, DC, found an unexploded flash-bang grenade.
Very relieved that the unexploded flash-bang grenade that my daughter found and innocently picked up this morning didn't explode in her face. Beyond angry that it was left on the streets of our capital city. pic.twitter.com/ruAQ7dCotC
This particular model, according to the manufacturer’s website, “is a maximum effect device that delivers four stimuli for psychological and physiological effects: rubber pellets, light, sound, and OC,” i.e., pepper spray.
It’s worth noting, too, that these chemicals irritate the lungs. Meanwhile, we’re in the midst of a respiratory disease pandemic. The coughing that results from tear gas could spread Covid-19 in a protest area.
For Haar, the proliferation of these crowd-control weapons is part of the story of police brutality. “I strongly feel that the current reckoning with police violence should include discussion of how demonstrations and protests are met,” she says.
These weapons are often called nonlethal. “But these weapons are as dangerous as anything else that’s a weapon,” she says. “Consider them as dangerous weapons to be used only as a last resort.”
Support Vox’s explanatory journalism
Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.
James Mattis, the esteemed Marine general who resigned as secretary of defense in December 2018 to protest Donald Trump’s Syria policy, has, ever since, kept studiously silent about Trump’s performance as president. But he has now broken his silence, writing an extraordinary broadside in which he denounces the president for dividing the nation, and accuses him of ordering the U.S. military to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.
“I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” Mattis writes. “The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.” He goes on, “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”
In his j’accuse, Mattis excoriates the president for setting Americans against one another.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis writes. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”
He goes on to contrast the American ethos of unity with Nazi ideology. “Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that ‘The Nazi slogan for destroying us … was “Divide and Conquer.” Our American answer is “In Union there is Strength.”’ We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.”
Mattis’s dissatisfaction with Trump was no secret inside the Pentagon. But after his resignation, he argued publicly—and to great criticism—that it would be inappropriate and counterproductive for a former general, and a former Cabinet official, to criticize a sitting president. Doing so, he said, would threaten the apolitical nature of the military. When I interviewed him last year on this subject, he said, “When you leave an administration over clear policy differences, you need to give the people who are still there as much opportunity as possible to defend the country. They still have the responsibility of protecting this great big experiment of ours.” He did add, however: “There is a period in which I owe my silence. It’s not eternal. It’s not going to be forever.”
That period is now definitively over. Mattis reached the conclusion this past weekend that the American experiment is directly threatened by the actions of the president he once served. In his statement, Mattis makes it clear that the president’s response to the police killing of George Floyd, and the ensuing protests, triggered this public condemnation.
“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”
He goes on to implicitly criticize the current secretary of defense, Mark Esper, and other senior officials as well. “We must reject any thinking of our cities as a ‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate.’ At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.
When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
James Madison wrote in Federalist 41 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.
Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.
We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.
Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Next Web: Coatue's $350 million data-driven 'quant fund' made a swift exit from the market in early April -- having realized the coronavirus pandemic had rendered its algorithm unreliable, Business Insider reports. The tech-focused fund, launched by billionaire Philippe Laffont just over one year ago, joins a growing list of "quant funds" to have failed to turn a profit due to 2020's unpredictable nature. Quant funds use complex algorithms to find hidden trade signals in a hyperconnected web of data. While Coatue's quant fund mixes old-school stock picking with quantitative analysis (a method dubbed "quantamental"), execs were reportedly concerned that data farmed in the midst of COVID-19 would confuse its in-house trading program.
One example cited by Business Insider's sources highlighted the way Coatue's program interpreted ecommerce data. It reportedly showed surges in website traffic for certain retailers as COVID-19 lockdowns spread across the world -- usually a positive sign for stock -- but failed to consider their dwindling revenues and closed physical stores. But Coatue's quant fund had underperformed long before COVID-19 hit. In February, reports surfaced showing it had posted only 2% returns since its launch in May 2019, and had actually lost money (1.2%) in last year's fourth quarter. On the other hand, Laffont's human-led fund bested the industry average to return 10% profit last year. Bloomberg has since noted that those profits have taken a hit, bringing its losses the year to roughly 6%. While quant funds as a whole have had a really tough year, there were at least two that are doing just fine. "Toronto's Castle Ridge Asset Management, which trades some $100 million in assets, made 2.6% in March with its 'self-evolving' AI system that works with large-cap stocks," reports The Next Web.
"Over in Sweden, Volt Capital Management AB (in charge of roughly $30 million in assets) has returned a loin-tickling 24% to investors this year. Volt's fund was also reportedly prepared for those plunging oil prices."
He damages the military because they go along with it when led by a spineless child like Esper.
Police forces and National Guard vehicles block 16th Street near Lafayette Park and the White House on June 3 in Washington, DC. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
“The president is trying to associate our military with his dangerous policies,” an expert told Vox.
When President Donald Trump looks at the military he leads, he doesn’t see a diverse group of Americans doing their jobs to protect and defend the country. He sees a massive force at his disposal solely to satisfy his personal and political whims — even if it means tarnishing the reputation of the institution he claims to love.
Since protests sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police last week, the president has failed — or, more accurately, refused — to heal the nation. Larger and larger demonstrations sprang up in every American state and many cities, most dramatically outside the White House. Last Friday, Trump’s security detail rushed him to the mansion’s bunker for safety despite no immediate threat, prompting Trump to bristle that he looked weak in a crisis.
That’s perhaps no surprise, as he tweeted on Monday that Republican Sen. Tom Cotton was “100% Correct” for suggesting violent activists would cower before a US Army presence.
Trump, in essence, sees the military as his personal plaything, little toy soldiers to move around on the map of America. Granted, it’s his right to do so as the commander in chief, and he has yet to order the military to do anything illegal.
But just because he can deploy hundreds of troops to curb protests doesn’t mean he should, current and former troops say.
“As a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, it’s been heartbreaking to see President Trump using the military to intimidate protestors and inflame tensions,” Paul Scharre, a former soldier and Pentagon official now at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, told me. “The military exists to protect America against its enemies, which are not our own people.”
Should Trump follow through with employing active-duty troops in his protest response, some contend relations between Americans and their military could drop to a Vietnam-era low. “I’m worried about it really doing serious damage to the reputation of the military,” Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a House Armed Services Committee member and former top Pentagon official, told me.
“The president is trying to associate our military with his dangerous policies”
Trump’s actions are understandable in one sense: Polls show most Americans support using the military to help police control the protests. But Trump’s show of force has turned the military into a political tool, more than a policing one.
On Monday, as law enforcement outside the White House cleared a group of protesters with tear gas and pepper balls just so the president could later walk to a nearby church and pose for photos holding a Bible, Trump threatened to send active-duty military around the country to stop rioters.
“If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” Trump said in a short speech delivered from the White House Rose Garden.
He has the authority to do that using the Insurrection Act of 1807 which, when invoked, allows the president to deploy the military to put down civil unrest.
The law has been used several times before, most recently in 1992 when California’s governor requested the US military’s help to stop riots in Los Angeles. The irony, though, is most have presidents invoked the law to uphold civil rights, not work against them.
For example, in 1957, then-Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus refused to follow federal integration laws after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling three years earlier. As a result, President Dwight Eisenhower sent soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to escort nine black high school students into the all-white Central High School despite protests against them.
Even so, using the law is still seen as immensely controversial. After all, it’s the president brushing aside both state laws and the authorities of governors. As the Naval War College’s Lindsay Cohn told me, President George W. Bush made an offhand comment in 2005 about using federal forces to quarantine regions of the country suffering from avian flu. In response, “Everyone lost their minds,” she said.
In this case, Trump has gone much further than Bush did, publicly floating multiple deployments of American military power to subdue activists. Such a consideration could only come from someone with no appreciation for using armed forces as intended.
“The president is trying to turn the American military against American citizens who are peacefully protesting on domestic soil,” Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a Tuesday statement announcing a proposed amendment to prohibit the use of military force against peaceful protests. “This is not what the United States military is for.”
Indeed, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on Wednesday morning dramatically announced he wouldn’t support invoking the Insurrection Act, very openly breaking with Trump. Hours later, though, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters Trump “has sole authority to invoke the Insurrection Act” and that he’ll do so if he sees fit.
Big moment here: Two days after Trump threatened to send active-duty troops to deal with violent protests, Defense Secretary Mark Esper says he opposes the move pic.twitter.com/daKEK7YF8I
But that’s not all. Esper, with Trump’s support, requested for states by Tuesday to send hundreds of their National Guard personnel to perform law enforcement functions in Washington, DC, which already had about 1,300 activated members in the district. Those requests, which were denied by some governors and accepted by others, were made over the objections of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser.
“We don’t want the armed National Guard, armed military, and we don’t want any of those things on DC streets,” she told reporters this week. But she couldn’t stop the federal government from requesting such support because she isn’t a governor. That means Trump and his team have essentially unfettered authority to build up a National Guard presence in the city, despite Bowser’s wishes.
It’s unclear whether DC’s police forces even needed the extra assistance. But what is clear is that the Trump administration’s decision led to stunning scenes on Tuesday of National Guard members standing sentinel at the Lincoln Memorial to keep demonstrators out.
That was hard for many US military experts, like the American Enterprise Institute’s Kori Schake, to see. “It broke my heart to see military posted so aggressively at the Lincoln Memorial, a sacred place of racial protest in our country,” she told me. “This militarization of response to protests will taint public attitudes in ways so damaging to the institution of the military.”
“The president is trying to associate our military with his dangerous policies,” she continued.
Trump, however, wasn’t satisfied. On Tuesday night, top Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman announced Esper authorized the movement of active-duty military police and infantry to the “National Capitol Region” — a local term for DC and its surrounding areas.
Setting aside whether or not Washington needed such support — and, per Mayor Bowser, it didn’t — such a move reminded some experts of what the US military does ahead of invading a foreign city.
“That’s exactly what this looks like,” Van Jackson, a former Pentagon official now at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, told me. This is “how you prepare a battle space before you launch an invasion and occupation. It’s actual, no-shit war.”
It also worried others. “As a former active duty infantry soldier, I’m deeply disturbed by reports that the Pentagon has moved an active duty infantry unit to the national capital region,” CNAS’s Scharre said. “Deploying an active duty combat unit to an American city would be dangerous and unwarranted.”
The administration seems committed to keeping them around. The Associated Press reported on Wednesday — less than 24 hours after the Pentagon’s announcement — that some of the active-duty troops had already started to return to their home bases. But just hours later Esper reversed that decision, forcing them to stay nearby.
That the administration — namely, Trump — would even risk the optics of sending an invading force outside the nation’s power center shows he’d prefer to play war than deftly manage America’s military.
“He doesn’t seem to see a problem breaking with American norms and very cavalierly using active-duty forces in American cities,” Rep. Slotkin told me. “The fact that he doesn’t see a problem with it scares me more than anything.”
The Pentagon isn’t blameless during all this. During Monday’s photo op, Esper and Army Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, outfitted in his battle dress uniform, trailed Trump on the walk to the church.
Esper actually ended up standing next to the president and other top administration officials during the stunt, placing the nation’s top defense chief smack in the middle of a political moment. That was just hours after he labeled American cities a “battle space” during a call alongside Trump with state governors.
"I was not aware a photo op was happening"@EsperDoD right now.
Milley was also found walking Washington’s streets on Monday to check in on National Guard members as if he were some war-time commander. But he’s not: as Trump’s top military adviser, he isn’t in the chain of command and has no direct responsibility for the forces out in the city.
“These are images we cringe at in places like Hong Kong and Venezuela,” a former US Navy officer told me on the condition of anonymity to speak on a sensitive subject. “We are supposed to be more measured, more responsible than this.”
General Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, walking the streets of Washington DC right now. Briefly spoke to say he is observing the situation. pic.twitter.com/fHcYOTYMzN
But Trump, as commander in chief, is ultimately responsible for what he does with the nation’s military. It’s clearly being misused — mainly to soothe the president’s fragile ego — and this falls squarely on his shoulders.
“He’s trying to demonstrate strength by exercising the military,” said an active-duty Air Force pilot, who wasn’t authorized to speak on the issue publicly. “His moves are less powerful, more pandering. Less doctrine, more doctoring.”
Support Vox’s explanatory journalism
Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.
Totally impeachable Attorney General William Barr’s Department of Justice has reportedly authorized the wholesale surveillance by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of Black Lives Matter protesters. In a memorandum acquired by BuzzFeedNews, the attorney general has authorized the DEA to carry out surveillance of Americans connected with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor protests, as well as to “perform such other law enforcement duties as the Attorney General may designate.”
According to BuzzFeed News, Barr’s close confidant and acting administrator of the DEA wrote the memo, in which he lays out why the DEA should be allowed to infringe upon Americans’ First Amendment rights: “In order for DEA to assist to the maximum extent possible in the federal law enforcement response to protests which devolve into violations of federal law, DEA requests that it be designated to enforce any federal crime committed as a result of protests over the death of George Floyd. DEA requests this authority on a nationwide basis for a period of fourteen days.”
This means that on top of potentially illegally wiretapping and visually surveilling Americans, the DEA would also potentially have the unchecked power to make arrests and conduct interviews or interrogations of U.S. citizens under this new order. The DEA officially declined to comment on the story.
However, BuzzFeed reports that anonymous sources from inside of the DEA told the media outlet that they were “troubled” by the potential overreach on the part of the executive branch of the government, and the very real possibility that Barr and others would abuse this power. Attorney General Barr and President Trump have begun pushing forward the evidence-free storyline that escalating violence, looting, and fires connected with nationwide peaceful protests are being perpetrated by “far left” antifa groups.
Most telling here is that the top law enforcement officer in the land and the president of the United States have mustered all of their attention and force toward an unproven conspiracy theory as opposed to dealing with the source of the peaceful protests themselves. The call for racial justice and law enforcement accountability in the deaths of Black citizens like George Floyd remain ignored by Trump and Barr’s scapegoat tactics. BuzzFeed was not able to confirm whether or not other law enforcement agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms had been granted similar superpowers.
Once again, the anti-stay-at-home order Second Amendment patriots and the Don’t Tread on Me crowd continue to remain conspicuously silent in the face of real government civil rights and liberties abuses.
At 5 PM ET, President Barack Obama will address the nation on the need for change in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and far too many others.
With Donald Trump erecting walls between himself and the public and a nameless army occupying the nation’s capital, Obama’s speech is desperately needed by a nation sorely lacking in either practical or moral leadership. The speech promises to provide not just words of encouragement (needed) but “reforms to combat police violence and systemic racism within law enforcement” (even more needed). Join with us as a community to listen to President Obama’s address, and to discuss the steps needed not to end the protest, but to address the need for this protest.
Just seeing Obama up there at the top of the page for the moment is like a cool drink of water on a blistering afternoon. The coverage is about to begin ...
Okay, we’re past the time to start, but as usual with all things political … we haven’t started. So hang in there.
It’s unclear how much of this will be Obama directly addressing national concerns, and how much will be back and forth with the panelists. But one thing we should get is ideas that are not “Build higher walls! Bring in more troops! Hide in a bunker!”
Student leader Playon Patrick is up next with a moment of poetry … not something seen in many political events. But certainly eye -and ear-catching for those watching, and moving in its content.
“We have seen in the last several weeks, the last few months, the kind of epic changes in our country that are as profound as anything I’ve seen in my lifetime … Let me begin acknowledging that while all of us have been feeling pain and disruption, some of have been feeling it more than others … We grieve with you.”
“In a lot of ways, what has happened over the last several weeks is that challenges and structural problems here in the United States have been thrown into high relief. They’re the results of not just this moment in time but of a long history … of slavery and Jim Crow … And in some ways, as tragic as these last few weeks have been, they’ve also been an incredible opportunity for people to be awakened to some of these underlying facts.”
Obama speaking to the hope he feels from the way young people are turning out in this moment. “Dr. King was a young man …” Goes on to list those who have moved the needle in different ages and on different topics, and how many of them were young when they made those big accomplishments.
Obama speaking directly to young people of color. “I want you to know that your lives matter. That your dreams matter … You should be able to live and to learn and to live a life of joy without having to worry about what will happen when you go to the store, or go for a jog, or are looking at some birds ...”
Going back over the group he put together following the shooting of Michael Brown, Obama points out that much research toward necessary reforms has already been done—but the changes need to be actually implemented at the local level by mayors, police chiefs, and other officials.
Obama says that the already published reforms, if implemented, would save lives without causing an increase in crime. “Today I am urging every mayor in this country to review your use of force policy.”
“I’ve heard some people say that you have a pandemic, then you have these protests. This reminds people of the ‘60s, and the chaos, the discord, and distrust throughout the country. I have to tell you, though I was very young when you had riots and protests and assassinations … You look at these protests, and that was a far greater cross-section of America on the streets. … That didn’t exist back in the ‘60s.” Talks about how many people believe that the protests are justified and the change of mindset that represents.
In a typically lie-strewn White House press event, Trump Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany gave a completely nonsensical answer to questions about just who ordered the attack on protesters around and at St. John's Church in the minutes before Donald Trump announced he would be walking there. Did Trump give the order to attack? Did Attorney General Barr give that order? In a sign of just how very much nobody in the White House wants to be associated with what now seems self-evidently an illegal act, the empty-souled talking head McEnany was abstract about the precise details of who ordered that action.
McEnany, who lies repeatedly during each event, noted that Attorney General William Barr "decided that morning" to expand the perimeter around the White House. (Note: The United States attorney general is not in charge of the security configuration of the White House.) But she also confirmed that Trump gave "an order" indicating he wished to "go to the church."
"When the president gives an order, people act. It's not as if he needs to walk through every detail of how a plan goes about. He says 'I want to go to the church,' he goes to the church and everyone executes the plan and the order that the president puts into place."
But was, pressed a reporter, "the plan still for the president to walk out there, even if the protesters were still there?"
"I'm not aware of the determinations that the Secret Service had as they arranged for the president to walk out there," said McEnany, but "I would just note again that the decision to expand the perimeter was a decision made in the morning by Attorney General Barr." (Note: The United States attorney general is not in charge of the Secret Service and cannot give those orders, and something has gone extremely wrong if he has seized command of those forces. McEnany is either lying to the nation or confirming that a slow-rolling coup is currently taking place.)
Translation: Whatever the plan was, the plan turned out to be that in the minutes immediately after Trump's short speech was to start, when news networks had already turned their cameras on the Rose Garden, it was exactly then that forces around the White House began firing flash-bang grenades, tear gas, and rubber bullets at the crowd in order to clear the peaceful protest immediately. Numerous reporters at the scene confirmed that there was no violence at the location and no warning was given before the attack.
Because protesters were assembled at the church he "wanted" to stand in front of, Donald Trump, a fascist and traitor to his oath and nation, had multiple options available to him. He could have decided not to go. He could have decided to meet with the protesters, walking through them with a full contingent of troops and Secret Service officers if that is what the lifelong coward needed to feel safe.
Or he could have simply delayed his carnival side show for a mere 30 minutes or so—Trump has repeatedly kept reporters waiting for long periods for no reason, or possibly because he could not be pulled away from a particular television show—to allow officers to push protesting Americans back more slowly, less violently, and without engaging in a no-warning history-shaking show of dictatorial paramilitary force. That is all it would have taken.
Trump chose to do none of these things because the obvious Trump intent, in delaying his short speech after gaining network attention and only at that moment ordering the immediate clearing of the park and church, was for the networks to broadcast his attack. There can be no question about that. Trump “ordered” federal personnel to take action he knew would include violence, and timed the attack so that the nation would be watching. William Barr “executed” that order, as did whichever federal officers were in the actual, non-Barr chain of command.
Three months after losing a deal with Take-Two, Star Theory Games was out of business. From a report: One Friday evening last December, employees of game designer Star Theory Games each received the same unusual recruitment message over LinkedIn. It struck them as bizarre for two reasons. One, it came from an executive producer at the publishing company funding their next video game. Two, it said the game -- in the works for the previous two years -- was being pulled from their studio. "This was an incredibly difficult decision for us to make, but it became necessary when we felt business circumstances might compromise the development, execution and integrity of the game," Michael Cook, an executive producer at Private Division, a publishing label within Take-Two Interactive Software, wrote in the message, which was reviewed by Bloomberg. "To that end, we encourage you to apply for a position with us."
It was strange and disconcerting news to Star Theory's employees. Normally, an announcement like this would be delivered in a companywide meeting or an email from Star Theory's leadership team. The contract with Take-Two was the studio's only source of revenue at the time. Without it, the independent studio was in serious trouble. The LinkedIn message went on to say Take-Two was setting up a new studio to keep working on the same game Star Theory had been developing, a sequel to the cult classic Kerbal Space Program. Take-Two was looking to hire all of Star Theory's development staff to make that happen. "We are offering a compensation package that includes a cash sign-on bonus, an excellent salary, bonus eligibility and other benefits," Cook wrote. When employees returned to the office on Monday, Star Theory founders Bob Berry and Jonathan Mavor convened an all-hands meeting. The two men had been in discussions about selling their company to Take-Two but were dissatisfied with the terms, they explained.
The game's cancellation was a shock, but the founders assured staff that Star Theory still had money in the bank and could try to sign other deals, according to five people who attended the meeting and asked not to be identified, citing the risk of litigation. Berry and Mavor encouraged employees to stick together and stay at the company. The next few weeks were chaos, employees said. Take-Two hired more than a third of Star Theory's staff, including the studio head and creative director. By March, as the coronavirus pandemic choked the global economy, any hope of saving the business appeared to be lost, and Star Theory closed its doors.
(@aravosis) 
An anti-police brutality demonstrator in Washington, DC, on June 3. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
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Protesters gather on May 30, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky, in response to the killing of Breonna Taylor and other police violence in America. | Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
A police officer aims a rubber bullet gun at demonstrators at a Black Lives Matter protest in Long Beach, California, on May 31. | Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images
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Police forces and National Guard vehicles block 16th Street near Lafayette Park and the White House on June 3 in Washington, DC. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
