James.galbraith

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01 Jun 16:38

How to more safely protest in a pandemic

by Eliza Barclay
James.galbraith

The measles vs cop murder point is an excellent one

Protesters are at risk of retaliation from police as well as of contracting Covid-19. | Stanton Sharpe/LightRocket/Getty Images

Tips for reducing the risk of spreading the coronavirus in a mass gathering, from public health experts.

As protesters take to the streets in dozens of US cities to mourn the death of George Floyd, resist police violence, and demand justice, many are wondering whether it’s possible to protest safely with the Covid-19 pandemic still spreading and taking lives.

On social media, there’s been a lot of discussion of the intersecting risks: how protesters risk retaliation from police, risk violence at the hands of counterprotesters, and risk Covid-19 infection, which they could then spread to others. And many have judged the protesters harshly for taking all of these risks.

But looming above these immediate risks is the long history of police violence as a wretched public health crisis of its own.

As the basketball legend and writer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote in the LA Times, “African Americans have been living in a burning building for many years, choking on the smoke as the flames burn closer and closer. Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands.”

August Nimtz Jr., who joined protests in Minneapolis on Tuesday, told Time, “I’m a 77-year-old African-American male. I’ve gotta be concerned [about catching COVID-19], but at the same time there’s the importance of coming out into the streets. We had to do this. If we don’t do it the cops will get away with it again.”

Fears that the protests may lead to more Covid-19 infections, and set the US back further in its fight against the virus, are understandable. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told CNN Sunday she was particularly worried the protests might fan outbreaks in communities of color already disproportionately impacted by the virus. “I’m extremely concerned we are seeing mass gatherings,” Bottoms said. “We’re going to see the other side of this in a couple of weeks.”

One obvious reason the gatherings may be risky is that it can be very hard, if not impossible, to maintain at least 6 feet of distance between yourself and others in large gatherings. Some health departments are still urging people to try:

The good news, according to epidemiologists and doctors, is that there are many ways (besides wearing a mask) to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus or being infected in the streets while exercising the right to protest. The risk will not be zero, but protesters can minimize harm to themselves and others.

Eleanor Murray, an epidemiologist at Boston University, summed up the tips in this Saturday tweet:

As they’ve disseminated this advice, Murray and several other health experts have been accused of hypocrisy — for condemning the anti-lockdown protests of April and early May as a Covid-19 risk, but not doing same for the police violence protests.

Murray clarified her position: “Yes, I condemned the anti-lockdown protests,” she wrote. “Yes, I support the #BlackLivesMatter protests. No, those aren’t contradictory views. COVID is a public health emergency. So is racism. We need to fight both.”

Here’s how Tara Smith of Kent State University put it:

Other health experts have been jumping in with additional helpful advice for protesters, who may be exposed to pepper spray and rubber bullets in confrontations with police:

To protect the eyes from rubber bullets, protections like face shields, umbrellas, safety glasses, and goggles are recommended:

As the protests gain momentum, some government officials and businesses are helping to mitigate the risks by supplying protesters with masks and hand sanitizer.

Meanwhile, some protesters are reminding each other that they should stay home if they feel ill or have a fever, helping to reduce the risk of spread for everyone.

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.

01 Jun 14:50

Police Inflame Protesters as Unrest Over Unarmed Black Man’s Death Rocks 75+ U.S. Cities for 5th Night: VIDEOS

by Andy Towle
James.galbraith

The cops have gone nuts

Protests sparked by the murder of unarmed black man George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers earlier this week continued into a fifth straight night and spread to more than 75 U.S. cities. Videos of the police response in many U.S. cities revealed aggressive tactics by law enforcement, including the use of tear gas, attacking journalists, ramming vehicles into crowds, and shooting paint canisters at residents on their own front porches.

National Guard troops have been activated in Minnesota, Ohio, Georgia, Colorado, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Texas, Utah, Washington state, Missouri, and Washington DC.

Minneapolis, Atlanta, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Nashville have imposed curfews.

There were also reports that the violence was being stoked by outside agitators.

The Minnesota Post reports: “Harrington, the public safety commissioner, said at the mid-morning press briefing that he now has evidence of calls by right-wing extremists and white supremacists to come to Minnesota to foster unrest. ‘We have watched these groups grow both in brazenness and also grow in challenging approaches that we’ve had to adapt to,’ he said.”

The AP reports: “…state and federal officials have offered differing assessments of who the outsiders are. They’ve blamed left-wing extremists, far-right white nationalists and even suggested the involvement of drug cartels. These leaders have offered little evidence to back up those claims, and the chaos of the protests makes verifying identities and motives exceedingly difficult.”

In New York City, more than 240 people were arrested Saturday into early Sunday. A disturbing video showed a police cruiser slamming into a crowd of protesters.

Police cruisers were later set on fire.

Officers were also filmed using pepper spray on protesters with their hands up.

CNBC adds: “Police in Philadelphia told NBC News that they had arrested 14 people and expected further arrests. Thirteen police officers were injured in Philadelphia, authorities said, including a bicycle officer who was run over by a vehicle.  In Pittsburgh, the Department of Public Safety said that “several dozens” of people were arrested and four police officers were hospitalized. Additionally, police told NBC News, ‘three local journalists were injured when protesters attacked them, but none were seriously injured.’ Miami police reported 38 arrests. Dallas police reported 74 individuals taken into custody.

In Denver, police began using tear gas shortly after curfews began.

Boston:

ABC News reports: “Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he has asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to send the National Guard into the county as protests turn to looting. Several local businesses were looted, as well as a Target and CVS in West Hollywood. Shops along glitzy Beverly Hills, where a curfew is in place, were covered in spray paint. Flight Club, a famous West Hollywood shop that sells collector’s edition sneakers for sometimes tens of thousands of dollars, was smashed in and people were seen carrying out boxes of the expensive footwear.”

More than 200 people were arrested in Houston, and in Dallas, police fired tear gas on protesters.

In Nashville, videos showed fire inside City Hall and a courthouse was set on fire by protesters.

Salt Lake City:

In Atlanta, police were filmed using a taser to get a driver out of a car.

Police in Louisville were seen destroying and confiscating water that had been brought in for protesters.

In Minneapolis, WCCO photographer Tom Aviles was struck by a rubber bullet.

Videos also emerged of people protesting outside the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Germany.

The post Police Inflame Protesters as Unrest Over Unarmed Black Man’s Death Rocks 75+ U.S. Cities for 5th Night: VIDEOS appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.


View attached file (nypd.jpg?fit=300%2C178&ssl=1, image/jpeg)
01 Jun 04:10

by Unknown
James.galbraith

yup


01 Jun 04:02

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s defense of the NYPD’s handling of protests revives old tensions

by Jen Kirby
James.galbraith

Umm no

U.S. Cities Continue To Shelter-In-Place As Coronavirus Spread Is Expected To Peak Mayor Bill de Blasio walks outside City Hall during the coronavirus pandemic on April 19, 2020, in New York City.  | Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

The mayor has said the police acted with restraint, but has also called for an investigation into the van incident.

A video of a New York City Police Department van driving into a group of protesters has ignited questions about the NYPD’s response to the demonstrations, and whether the city’s leadership — specifically Mayor Bill de Blasio — has the ability and will to hold the police force accountable.

Protests over the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, engulfed New York City for another night on Saturday, and some turned in violent, with reports of both protester and police aggression. But the police response to some of the demonstrations has drawn outrage from activists and elected officials, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

In particular, outrage has centered on a video showing a police van driving into protesters. In the clip, protesters surround an NYPD van and push a barricade up to its bumper, with some protesters flinging objects — what looked like water bottles and traffic cones — at the van. Another police van pulls up and begins to slowly make its way through the crowd, while the other all of a sudden accelerates, sending protesters flying. It is not clear if anyone was injured.

De Blasio, addressing the protests Saturday night, called the scene “a very tense one.”

“And imagine what it would be like, you’re just trying to do your job and then you see hundreds of people converging upon you. I’m not gonna blame officers who are trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation,” de Blasio said Saturday. “The folks who were converging on that police car did the wrong thing to begin with and they created an untenable situation. I wish the officers had found a different approach. But let’s begin at the beginning. The protesters in that video did the wrong thing to surround them, surround that police car, period.”

De Blasio’s initial comments drew criticism, and though he tempered his remarks the next day, he now faces pressure from both police and protesters. The mayor’s response was a reminder of the sometimes tenuous relationship he’s had with both cops and criminal justice advocates throughout his tenure.

De Blasio has softened his stance, but his more moderate tone may have come too late

De Blasio walked back the comments slightly at a Sunday morning press conference, saying he did not “ever want to see that again” and announcing an independent investigation into the incident, to “look at the actions of those officers and see what was done and why it was done and what could be done differently.”

That investigation will be led by the city’s chief lawyer, James Johnson, and the city’s watchdog, Department of Investigations Commissioner Margaret Garnett. The findings are expected in June. (New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo later Sunday announced that Attorney General Letitia James would also investigate.)

At Sunday’s press conference, de Blasio defended the police’s handling of the protests this weekend overall. “We saw tremendous restraint overall from the NYPD. There are always going to be some incidents we don’t like,” he said.

“I saw a lot of restraint under very, very difficult circumstances. I am going to keep saying, to anyone who is protesting for change, do not take your anger out on the individual officer in front of you.”

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, who took over as the top cop late last year, also backed up the police, although with far more forceful language. On Sunday morning, he told reporters that peaceful protests had been “hijacked” by a small number of agitators. Shea said he did not like what he saw in the van video, but he added, “I look at it fairly and I urge you to also: There are protests and there are mobs.”

Earlier in the day, Shea posted a lengthy Twitter thread that said what NYPD cops had endured in 2020 was “unprecedented.”

“In no small way, I want you to know that I’m extremely proud of the way you’ve comported yourselves in the face of such persistent danger, disrespect, and denigration,” he wrote. “What we saw in New York City last night and the night before was not about peaceful protest of any kind. It was not about civil disobedience. It was not about demonstrating against police brutality.”

There is no question that some protests escalated into violence and destruction. Banks in downtown Manhattan had their windows smashed, and some businesses were looted. The outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral was graffitied. Protesters set cop cars aflame, damaging 47 vehicles, according to police officials. Shea said nearly 350 people had been arrested, and more than 30 officers were injured.

There was no mention, however, of protesters who might have been hurt or injured in some of the chaos of the protests, or of those wounded by officers. De Blasio largely blamed outside agitators for much of the mayhem, calling them “people who came to do violence in a systematic organized fashion. That is a different reality we need to grapple with.” But he did not go into greater detail.

His failure to do so, and to fully acknowledge and condemn what seemed like clear examples of the NYPD’s excessive use of force, led to sharp criticism of the mayor.

“Considering that these protests are linked to policing, and communities who feel like there’s no accountability for misconduct even when documented....these types of broad overarching comments may be the absolute worst that could be made at this time,” Jumaane Williams, New York City’s public advocate, tweeted.

Ocasio-Cortez, who represents constituents from the Bronx and Queens, called de Blasio’s comments on Saturday “unacceptable.”

“This moment demands leadership & accountability from each of us. Defending and making excuses for NYPD running SUVs into crowds was wrong,” she tweeted.

Corey Johnson, the New York City Council speaker, called the clip of the van “outrageous.”

“Driving police vehicles into crowds of protestors is not deescalation,” he said. Johnson and other city officials have demanded an independent investigation in the protests, separate from the one the mayor has already promised.

As more protests are underway Sunday, fears persist that the failure to denounce the dangerous acts outright might cause tensions to boil over into violence again. And that possibility — and the police response so far — may be a reckoning for de Blasio, who ran for mayor on a platform of police reform and has had, at times, a strained relationship with the institution, despite his latest defense of the department.

De Blasio ran on police reform, but his relationship with the NYPD is complicated

A “tale of two cities,” was de Blasio’s broad campaign platform when he ran for mayor in 2013. The simple idea was of two New Yorks: one for the privileged, and another for the low-income and minority members of the city. As part of this theme, he embraced a platform of police reform, campaigning against such tactics as “stop and frisk.” In a famous campaign ad, de Blasio’s teenage son Dante, who is biracial, said his dad would end the stop-and-frisk era that “unfairly target[ed] people of color.”

But the reality was a lot more complicated, especially in New York, where mayoralties can rise and fall on how the public perceives public safety. For his first police commissioner, de Blasio hired Bill Bratton, who served as police chief in the 1990s under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Many criminal justice reform advocates denounced the pick for Bratton’s association with “broken windows” policing, a theory that cracking down on small crimes prevents larger ones.

One of the first big tests de Blasio faced in his tenure was the death of Eric Garner in July 2014, who died after an NYPD officer placed him in a chokehold, which was captured on video. (His plea, “I can’t breathe,” was the same made by George Floyd in his final moments.) “Like so many New Yorkers I was very troubled by the video,” de Blasio said at the time.

In December 2014, protests broke out in New York after a grand jury declined to indict the officer involved in the incident. (Also around this time, a separate grand jury declined to indict the officer in the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.) De Blasio expressed solidarity with some of the protests. “Black lives matter,” he said at the time. “They said it because it has to be said. It’s a phrase that should never have to be said. It should be self-evident, but our history sadly requires us to say it.”

Later that month, two NYPD officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were killed by a gunman while they were sitting in their cop car in Brooklyn. The 28-year-old gunman had explicitly targeted police officers, and in the aftermath, some criticized the protests as fomenting anti-police hatred. New York’s vocal police unions, in particular, blamed de Blasio. (De Blasio later called for a halt in the protests.)

At the funeral for the slain officers, cops turned their back on de Blasio. The reaction by the rank-and-file officers became symbolic of a lingering mistrust between New York’s police and the mayor. That image has been nearly impossible for de Blasio to shake, and one a lot of the police unions have continued to fuel. After a shooting in the Bronx earlier this year that seemed to target police, which de Blasio roundly condemned, one of the unions “declared war.”

And, again, it’s been hard for de Blasio to overcome this sense of antipathy, even if it does not fully reflect the relationship between the NYPD’s top brass and the mayor’s office. Which, in turn, has led to criticism from the left flank, who now see de Blasio as far too deferential to the NYPD and as failing to fully address the real, structural problems he had campaigned on.

New York’s record-low crime rate in the city (though murders did tick up in 2019) has largely continued under de Blasio, though that could be attributed to many factors. And police reform has happened, if imperfectly. The NYPD’s neighborhood policing initiative vastly expanded under de Blasio and then-NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill, which assigns police to specific blocks to strengthen relationships with the community. Shea, the current commissioner, is also a champion of this approach. The new strategy still has its critics, and studies are still being done on its effectiveness, both in improving relationships and in targeting crime.

The NYPD has also tried to put more emphasis on precision policing, which is intended to target repeat or violent offenders rather than blanket approaches like stop-and-frisk. There’s also been expanded rollout of body cameras.

But critics say it isn’t enough. There are questions on whether anti-bias claims against the police are being appropriately investigated. De Blasio has continued to back some “broken windows” policing, and he fought an attempt by the Manhattan district attorney to stop prosecuting those evading public transportation fares.

Of course, there are lots of nuances surrounding de Blasio’s record that both camps critical of him — that he’s anti-police or abandoned needed reforms — miss. But it helps explain why the mayor might face blowback regardless of how he responds to the protests in New York.

The response to the mayor’s comments also shows why police reform is so challenging, even in the nation’s most populous city. Both things can be true: Some protesters became violent, and some cops used inappropriate force and may have provoked protesters. Failing to acknowledge the gray areas of the turmoil in New York deepens the distrust. In the longer term, that makes it harder to work toward or implement reforms. And for now, it may make the protests, sure to continue, even more volatile.

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.

01 Jun 03:49

Images of police using violence against peaceful protesters are going viral

by Catherine Kim
James.galbraith

Cops are the problem here, not protestors

New York City police officers tackle a protester on May 30. Many officers were filmed using excessive force toward demonstrators. | Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Police responded to protests across the nation with excessive force.

Video footage is going viral of police officers responding to protests Saturday night with excessive force, including battering and pepper-spraying peaceful demonstrators.

Most of the nationwide anti-police brutality protests started peacefully Saturday afternoon, but many took a more volatile turn on Saturday night. Some images show protesters vandalizing property, including setting fire to police cars and businesses.

But other videos show officers aggravating lawful participants with batons and, in one case, driving a police SUV into a crowd.

The protests began in Minnesota last week in response to a video showing a white Minneapolis police officer killing a local black man, George Floyd. The protests have spread globally and taken on a broader call for an end to police brutality.

Some images in this article may be graphic.

Police pepper-sprayed protesters

In New York, a police officer pulled down the mask of a peaceful protester, who had his hands up, and pepper-sprayed him in the face. The police in the video had intentionally covered their badge numbers.

And in Seattle, a child was hit with pepper spray, too. In the video, she is screaming as other protesters pour milk on her face.

In Columbus, Ohio, Rep. Joyce Beatty, Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin, and Franklin County Commissioner Kevin Boyce were also pepper-sprayed by the police while trying to ease a conflict between protesters and the police.

A police SUV rammed into a crowd

In Brooklyn, a New York Police Department SUV rammed into a crowd of protesters, knocking them to the ground. It’s unclear whether anyone was seriously injured. In a press conference later in the day, Mayor Bill de Blasio blamed protesters for not getting out of the way and putting the police in an “impossible” situation.

Rubber bullets hit a bystander

In Dallas, a woman’s face was covered in blood after she was hit with a rubber bullet while walking home with groceries.

Officers appear to assault peaceful participants

In Salt Lake City, an older man walking with a cane was pushed to the ground by an officer.

In Brooklyn, a video captured multiple officers converging on a protester and hitting the individual with a baton.

In Atlanta, the police dragged a young couple out of a car while using a Taser. Officers also flattened the tires and broke the windows of their vehicle. Multiple officers were involved in the incident.

Police open-fired paint canisters at people on their own property

In Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Police Department and National Guard marched down the residential streets of Whittier neighborhood. Tanya Kerssen, who lives in the neighborhood, tweeted that the officers shot paint canisters at the residents while shouting “light ’em up.”

Excessively used tear gas

In Dallas, the police tear-gassed City Hall, where peaceful protests were being held.

In Denver, the police fired multiple tear gas canisters just minutes after the city’s 8 pm curfew passed.

Washington, DC’s Lafayette Square, just across from the White House, was also flooded 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.

01 Jun 03:27

Politico: States deliberately hiding or distorting COVID-19 data to abet Trump's push to reopen

by Dartagnan
James.galbraith

No surprise there

 
Politico confirms what should now be obvious to anyone paying attention: the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Trump administration has prompted several states—mostly those with Republican governors—to deliberately hide or distort their data on the number of fatalities occurring because of the virus, and to exaggerate the number of tests being administered within their states to detect it. Combined with the failure of the administration to set any uniform standards for states to report their data, this systematic falsification of the pandemic’s impact is, in practical effect, subjecting Americans to a nationwide life-and-death experiment in the consequences of denying science.

Federal and state officials across the country have altered or hidden public health data crucial to tracking the coronavirus' spread, hindering the ability to detect a surge of infections as President Donald Trump pushes the nation to reopen rapidly.

In at least a dozen states, health departments have inflated testing numbers or deflated death tallies by changing criteria for who counts as a coronavirus victim and what counts as a coronavirus test, according to reporting from POLITICO, other news outlets and the states' own admissions. Some states have shifted the metrics for a “safe” reopening; Arizona sought to clamp down on bad news at one point by simply shuttering its pandemic modeling. About a third of the states aren’t even reporting hospital admission data — a big red flag for the resurgence of the virus.

The Politico article specifically cites Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds’ indefensible move to hide from Iowa citizens the staggering of infection rates in the state’s meatpacking plants, Georgia’s inflation of testing numbers by including antibody testing in its mix (while undercounting the number of hospitalizations), and Florida’s efforts to hide the number of nursing home patients who have died as a result of the virus, and that state’s deliberate lowering of its death count, as reported by the Miami Herald. 

Politico gamely attempts to paint a “both sides do it” picture by pointing to Democrat-governed New Jersey’s downward revision of nursing-home deaths to maintain consistency with its non-nursing home-related tallies, quoting one GOP state legislator’s opportunistic criticism of that, but the fact is that New Jersey’s “alteration” of that data was done with complete transparency and is a far cry from Florida’s surreptitious distortions, or Arizona’s quiet abandonment of its modeling. Likewise, an erroneous  change in Illinois’ policy on reporting nursing home fatalities that was corrected within 24 hours hardly compares with suppressing infection data from meatpacking plants, notoriously one of the most virulent hotspots for COVID-19. The fact is that this systematic program of falsifying the data is almost entirely a Republican-driven phenomenon, whether Politico wants to acknowledge that or not.

As the article demonstrates, this willingness of GOP-led states to fudge their data, despite the misleading impression it provides to the public, derives directly from cues telegraphed by the Trump administration, which from the start has deliberately de-emphasized the severity of the virus by “selectively using scientific advice and models in their quest for a swift reopening.” Politico specifically cites the distortion of one report by former pharma lobbyist and current HHS director Azar, who deliberately misrepresented the research and recommendations  of scientists from the American Academy of Family Physicians, all to further the administration’s policy of swift reopening:

For instance, HHS Secretary Alex Azar warned during a recent Cabinet meeting that the U.S. could see 65,000 additional “deaths of despair” if the country does not get back on track to normalcy soon.

In reality, the study he cited explicitly warned against lifting lockdowns before health data showed it was safe to do so.

“Some might use this report to argue that this is why our economy needs to open up fast. But that’s NOT what we are saying,” wrote the authors of the report, which was published by the American Academy of Family Physicians and Well Being Trust...[.]

The consequence of this intentional (if not explicitly coordinated) Republican effort to downplay the pandemic’s lethality has been a confusing and contradictory “patchwork” of distorted information, bewildering to most Americans who are not particularly science-savvy, and leading to what one public health expert characterizes as an “unheard of level of chaos in the data, the protocols, [and] the information.” It has resulted in millions of Americans selectively filtering what they choose to believe regarding their own vulnerability to the virus, based on disinformation intentionally fostered by the GOP to spur efforts to reopen the economy for its own political ends, despite the potentially disastrous health consequences.

This, of course, is the Trump administration’s goal. If the economy remains in its current state of morbid hibernation by the close of summer, without a demonstrable uptick that Trump can point to, his chances for re-election are practically nil. Likewise, the fate of the Republican-dominated Senate is now in serious jeopardy, as it is directly tied to voters’ perceptions of Trump’s pandemic response and the trajectory of the economy. The abandonment of further efforts to assist individual Americans economically devastated by the losses of their jobs is also a calculated effort by Republican Senate Majority Leader McConnell to force citizens back into the workplace. The dysfunctional federal response to the crisis and the mirroring of that dysfunction by GOP-led states are really all of a piece in a massive political gamble being waged with American lives.

The problem for the GOP is that there is really no reason to believe these efforts will make any difference to their political fortunes. The science clearly affirms that this premature rush to reopen will simply result in more lives lost, which will in turn simply exacerbate the economic calamity as people continue to avoid businesses and public gatherings, no matter what assurances they receive from so-called leaders who put their own political fortunes ahead of their citizens.

It was probably too much to expect a polarized country, one that put two of its last three presidents into power with a minority of the popular vote, to respond with a unified voice to an unprecedented public health catastrophe such as this. Had this pandemic occurred during the Obama administration the protests would have dwarfed the pathetic (if highly publicized) demonstrations we have seen, the vilification of Obama would have reached hysterical levels, and the charge to “reopen” would have been louder, more dramatic, and probably impossible to stop.

As it stands today, though, everything that happens to this country between now and November is going to land on the heads of the Republican Party. They own this pandemic, and all the consequences that flow from it, and they’re taking their cues from a desperate White House whose only concern now is its own survival. When people start dying in droves after being forced back into the workplace, and when the economy fails to rebound as a result, there’s only one party they’re going to blame.


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01 Jun 03:26

Trump’s claim that DC police didn’t protect the White House from protesters is false

by Alex Ward
James.galbraith

Of course he's lying

Police officers hold up their shields outside the White House in Washington, DC, early on May 30, 2020, during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd. | Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images

The Secret Service and Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said the city’s police were there.

President Donald Trump claimed that police in Washington, DC, didn’t help the Secret Service defend the White House during the George Floyd protests on Friday night.

But based on statements from both the Secret Service and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, it looks like Trump flatly lied.

Thousands have taken to the streets across the country this week in response to the death of Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died Monday after a Minneapolis police officer pinned him by the neck with his knee for more than seven minutes.

On Friday, a demonstration took place near the White House, with some protesters trying to remove temporary barriers that had been set up to keep demonstrators far back from the presidential residence, and scuffling with the Secret Service. Agents made six arrests, and no demonstrators even came close to the 13-foot security fence surrounding the White House, let alone to storming the presidential mansion.

The next morning, as part of a Twitter thread mocking demonstrators and praising his security team, Trump accused DC Mayor Muriel Bowser — whom he alleged is “always looking for money & help” — of having refused to allow DC police to assist the Secret Service agents in protecting the White House.

It’d be quite the scandal if that were true, as DC police have often helped secure the president and government officials. And if Trump personally asked for assistance and Bowser told him to shove off, she could be accused of putting her animosity toward the president ahead of her duties.

But the only real scandal here seems to be that Trump is once again playing fast and loose with the truth.

About four hours after the president’s tweet, the Secret Service released a statement describing how it had defended the White House from some “violent” protesters. The statement clearly notes that “The Metropolitan Police Department” — that is, DC police — “and the US Park Police were on the scene.”

While the Secret Service regularly issues public statements, including through its Twitter account, it’s highly unusual for such statements to directly contradict the president.

About an hour after the Secret Service statement came out, Mayor Bowser held a press conference alongside DC Police Chief Peter Newsham in which she addressed Trump’s tweet.

“My police department in Washington, DC, will always protect DC and all who live and visit here. In fact, that’s exactly what we did yesterday and last night,” she said. “No one needed to ask the Metropolitan Police Department to get involved because we were already involved. Our police were doing their jobs from the start.”

It’s worth noting, however, that Bowser didn’t directly deny having had a conversation with Trump.

So it’s Trump’s word against that of both the Secret Service and the mayor of Washington, DC. Based on that alone, it looks like Trump needlessly made another false statement — at a time when clarity from the president is most needed.

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.

01 Jun 03:23

Trump’s policies have enabled police violence against black Americans

by Sean Collins
James.galbraith

There's a reason why this is happening now

Trump, in a dark suit and red tie, climbs his plane’s white stairs, looking at the viewer. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One after addressing protests over the killing of George Floyd. | Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

With pardons, abdication of oversight, harsh rhetoric, and executive orders, the Trump administration has encouraged violent policing.

The police violence currently being protested in dozens of cities around the United States predates President Donald Trump by decades — so do the sentiments that fuel it, by at least 401 years, to the start of American slavery.

But since his inauguration, Trump and his administration have worked to solidify a place for police violence in American life through both rhetoric and policy.

My colleague Matt Yglesias explained how on Twitter — noting that the president’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who was accused of perpetuating racist systems before and during his tenure, announced in February 2017 that the administration would no longer pursue civil rights lawsuits or investigations related to accusations of police misconduct.

Such work was aggressively pursued by the Obama administration, and resulted in at least 15 consent decrees — arrangements under which local governments consent to federal oversight in order to bring their policing in line with federal civil rights laws.

Sessions was notably against these decrees; in a speech about one of the last to be put in place, with Chicago, the former attorney general said, “Micromanaging the CPD through a federal court isn’t just unjustified — it is an insult.”

Refusing to pursue new decrees has left local governments struggling to improve their police forces on their own — and has allowed those unwilling to do so to continue ignoring violations of rights and other issues.

But the federal government has stepped in to aggravate a problem highlighted by the protests following Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson, Missouri: the militarization of the police force.

Again reversing an Obama-era policy, Trump signed an executive order in August 2017 allowing police departments to obtain and use surplus military equipment like grenade launchers, tactical vehicles, and bayonets either for free or with the use of federal dollars.

As Amanda Taub explained for Vox in 2014, the use of military equipment on the streets of Ferguson worsened an already tense situation as officers — not all of whom had received proper training on the use of the military equipment they were employing — who looked like “invading armies” performed their work using fear and force rather than community-building techniques.

Frustration with such tactics is apparent in the protests happening around the country right now. It is harsh tactics that led to the killing of George Floyd, the Minneapolis, Minnesota man who died after an officer placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.

Trump, however, has actively encouraged police to use forceful, even military-style tactics in the course of their work. Speaking to law enforcement officials in New York in 2017, Trump said, “please, don’t be too nice,” when arresting people.

“When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody,” the president said during that address. “Don’t hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?”

And he has continued delivering such rhetoric. Saturday, he praised what he characterized as rough tactics by Secret Service officials working to secure the White House amid the police brutality protests, writing on Twitter, “whenever someone got too frisky or out of line, [the Secret Service] would quickly come down on them, hard - didn’t know what hit them.”

“Nobody came close to breaching the fence,” the president wrote. “If they had they would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least.”

He also suggested members of the service were eagerly awaiting a chance to inflict violence on peaceful protests, tweeting, “Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action. ‘We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and good practice.’”

It is distressing to see the president advocating for the sort of law enforcement response that so many in the US are arguing is problematic, and that tens of thousands have demanded be declared unacceptable in recent days. But it is clear the president and members of his administration do not see harsh police tactics as a problem.

The Trump administration has shown law enforcement can operate with impunity

If there is something wrong with law enforcement in the US, the Trump administration has seemed to suggest, it is that there are too many restrictions placed on police without enough plaudits given to them.

The current attorney general, William Barr, has vocally wondered why communities — particularly the communities of color that most frequently suffer the often deadly consequences of police brutality — don’t respect officers. And he has suggested that perhaps those communities not inclined to show “the respect and support that law enforcement deserves” have their police protection taken away from them.

In his actions, Trump has gone beyond giving law enforcement the sort of support Barr advocated for — he has in fact, given them carte blanche to act lawfully or lawlessly as they see fit.

For instance, when a Trump ally and former sheriff, Joe Arpaio, was convicted of criminal contempt of court following his refusal to follow a federal order meant to protect immigrants from racial profiling, Trump pardoned him. Troops convicted of (and under investigation for) war crimes have been pardoned as well.

Separate from concerns the president has allowed unfairly violent and sometimes racist behavior are the reminders that one justice system exists for those like Floyd and another for those connected to Trump.

The president has suggested he’ll pardon his friend and former campaign adviser Roger Stone, despite Stone having been found guilty of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness, and obstructing an official proceeding. And amid speculation Trump would pardon former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn should he face legal consequences for admitting to lying to the FBI, Barr’s Department of Justice dropped its case against Flynn.

Although such actions do not necessarily perpetuate racist or overly harsh policing, they certainly add to the frustration many feel: that the police are not there for them, and there is little point to seeing justice through; that the president of the United States has no respect or use for the process of law, and that he believes aggressive, and even racially motivated, tactics to be the most effective.

In isolation, comments like Barr’s or Trump’s New York speech reflect a sort of ignorance or refusal to accept that there are issues with policing in the US. But in totality, it is clear that the Trump administration’s actions have actively created an atmosphere in which more dangerous, less just, and unconstitutional policing can flourish. Floyd’s death emerged from this atmosphere, and the protests are a reaction not just to that killing, but to the Trump administration’s words and policies that allowed it — as well as to the unjust policing of the past.

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.

01 Jun 03:19

Violent protests are not the story. Police violence is.

by Dylan Scott
James.galbraith

The underlying problem is beyond dispute, unless the GOP is talking. Amazing that they just can't find a problem here.

Protesters demonstrate in Brooklyn, New York on May 29 in response to the death of George Floyd. | John Lamparski/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The protests will eventually end. But state-sanctioned violence against black Americans won’t.

The protests over George Floyd’s killing by a white police officer have spread from Minneapolis across the country, revealing the pent-up anger over institutional racism nationwide.

In a way, this is not anything new. For all of America’s history, black people have been subjected to violence at the hands of the state, or agents of the state, or members of the white majority. Mass demonstrations against state violence have also been a fixture of US politics, from the civil rights movement to Ferguson, Missouri, to today. The scenes from Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Brooklyn last night are just the latest chapter in that story.

Scott Olson/Getty Images
A protester holds up a sign that reads “We Never Left Jim Crow” during a march in Minneapolis, on May 29.

And yet, already, the protesters’ legitimate grievances are being subsumed by political leaders and others questioning whether they are registering their anger appropriately. This is also a pattern in these moments: the demonstrations, so visible and visceral in the news coverage, become the story. The structural problems being protested start to fade into the background.

You can hear this pivot in President Donald Trump’s comments that protesters who showed up outside the White House on Friday night “had little to do with the memory of George Floyd.” He dismissed them as paid organizers.

But that’s wrong. Of course the protests are about George Floyd’s death. Political leaders fear violence at the protests — and any destruction of property or bodily harm is, of course, worrisome — but their concerns actually demonstrate the fundamental asymmetry that the protesters are pushing back against. The state has a monopoly on legitimate violence, and it is often directed at young black people like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice — the list goes on. When they die, the police officers responsible too frequently face no repercussions because they are protected by the law. If the men who killed George Floyd go to prison for their actions, they will be exceptions that prove that longstanding rule.

Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Protesters against police brutality gather in front of the White House on May 29.

Yet if the anger and frustration from centuries of racial oppression causes a peaceful protest to become “violent” — and most of the reported attacks have been directed against property, not people, though one man was tragically killed in Detroit — suddenly that other kind of violence becomes the dominant story so far as political leaders are concerned, a disruption to the natural order that must be corrected. The systemic racism that has led to so many black lives being cut short becomes secondary.

But it shouldn’t, because that’s the real problem America must grapple with. Otherwise, sooner or later, this will all happen again.

The racial prejudices of US criminal justice are well documented

In almost any way you measure it, the American criminal justice system is prejudiced against black Americans, and black people are much more likely to be subjected to state-sanctioned violence in the US compared to white Americans.

Researchers from Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, and Washington University in St. Louis tried to quantify the risk to black lives from law enforcement in a recent study. Their findings were stunning: black men, by far the most at-risk group, face 1 in 1,000 odds of being killed by the police over the course of their lives.

This chart succinctly summarizes the researchers’ findings of the risk across different races and genders:

PNAS

But that is only the most extreme form of discrimination. In ways both big and small, the criminal justice system is biased against black citizens. Radley Balko runs through much of the relevant research in a 2018 column in the Washington Post. Here is just a selection of the findings in the studies he cited:

  • Black people are about twice as likely as white people to be pulled over by law enforcement for a traffic stop
  • Black and Latino drivers are much more likely to be searched once they are pulled over by the police
  • The murders of white people are more likely to be solved than the murders of black people
  • White people make up less than half of America’s murder victims, yet 80 percent of the convinced murderers sentenced to death had killed a white person
  • Black Americans are much more likely to be arrested and charged for drug-related crimes, despite no significant disparity in how much those populations actually use narcotics
  • Potential jurors who are black are much more likely to be dismissed by prosecutors than potential white jurors
  • White defendants are substantially more likely than black defendants to have their most serious charge dismissed as part of a plea bargain
  • Even when black men and white men are convicted of the same crime, the black men can expect a prison sentence that is 20 percent longer

The list could go on. But the point is made. Racial discrimination is pervasive in American criminal justice, manifesting in every step from arrest to trial to conviction and incarceration. George Floyd’s killing is, sadly, only an extreme example of how the state exerts its power over black Americans. That is what the people protesting his death want to change.

Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Protesters in Charlotte, North Carolina on May 29.

And, of course, it’s not just America’s institutions that are racist. So are some of its white people, as in the vigilante killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. Black people deal with the kind of suspicion that led to Arbery’s death all the time: 65 percent of black people said in a recent Pew poll that somebody had acted suspicious toward them because of their race. Just 25 percent of white Americans said the same.

Those figures suggest a deep level of persistent prejudice. It is difficult to quantify racist attitudes, because many people usually don’t want to admit holding them. But a 2017 Pew Research Center survey provides a useful proxy: 54 percent of white Americans said that black people who can’t get ahead are mostly responsible for their own condition, while just 35 percent blamed racial discrimination. Among black Americans, the numbers flipped: 59 percent cited racial discrimination while 31 percent said people were responsible for their own problems.

If you want to understand the different worldviews of the protesters and the people who criticize the demonstrations for getting out of hand, that data is a good place to start.

Mass protests are one of the few tools people have to object to police violence

Among the other studies in Balko’s summary of the research on racism in US criminal justice were several that found black Americans were less likely to have their complaints against law enforcement officers sustained compared to complaints by white people. That was especially true for complaints of excessive force.

And there is a long track record that shows how rarely police officers are arrested, much less convicted, when they kill somebody in the line of duty. In 2014, amid the furor over the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, I reported for Talking Points Memo on new research that analyzed homicides committed by law enforcement. The authors found that from 2006 to 2011, 41 police officers were arrested for murder or negligent homicide in the line of duty — while, over the same period, more than 2,700 “justifiable” homicides were committed by police officers.

So either US law enforcement are almost always justified in the most extreme use of force, or there are systemic obstacles to holding police officers accountable when they kill one of their constituents.

Neal Waters/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Protesters marched in downtown Oakland, California on May 29.

Given how rarely complaints about police violence are taken up and prosecuted by the same criminal justice system that enables those law enforcement officers, protests of the kind seen in Minneapolis and across the US are one of the few tools available to people who wish to register their opposition to these institutional prejudices. It’s a tradition that goes back years and reached its zenith during the civil rights era. The forceful displays of police violence shown through cell phone videos and social media have energized a new era of civil action, starting with the Ferguson protests and continuing today.

Many, maybe even most, of these protests remain nonviolent, it should be noted. They operate on a philosophy pioneered by Mahatma Gandhi and adopted by Martin Luther King Jr. in the US: peacefully and publicly register one’s discontent with injustices and allow the response of the state, usually militant and sometimes violent, to speak for itself.

It can be difficult to maintain nonviolence across large groups, however, and it is not necessarily a surprise that huge demonstrations have resulted in some bad actors getting the attention. But before politicians seize on those incidents as representative of the entire movement against police violence, it should be noted that the full story is yet unknown. Minnesota officials stressed Saturday that they believe many of the violent protesters caught on news cameras, leading to comments like those made by the president, are not actually local residents.

That alone should be a warning against letting the protests overshadow the problem they are protesting. Sooner or later, these demonstrations will end. But the problem of America’s racist past and present will still be here.

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.

01 Jun 03:17

2018 'Hacking Attempt' Claimed By Georgia Was A Security Test They'd Requested Themselves

by EditorDavid
James.galbraith

Can't say I'm surprised

An anonymous reader quotes the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: It was a stunning accusation: Two days before the 2018 election for Georgia governor, Republican Brian Kemp used his power as secretary of state to open an investigation into what he called a "failed hacking attempt" of voter registration systems involving the Democratic Party. But newly released case files from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation reveal that there was no such hacking attempt. The evidence from the closed investigation indicates that Kemp's office mistook planned security tests and a warning about potential election security holes for malicious hacking. Kemp then wrongly accused his political opponents just before Election Day — a high-profile salvo that drew national media attention in one of the most closely watched races of 2018... The internet activity that Kemp's staff described as hacking attempts were actually scans by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that the secretary of state's office had agreed to, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Kemp's chief information officer signed off on the DHS scans three months beforehand. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also reports that the Democratic party's only role was apparently forwarding an email about vulnerabilities to two cybersecurity professors at Georgia Tech, who then alerted authorities: Richard Wright, a Georgia Tech graduate and Democratic voter who works for a software company...found that he could look up other voters' information by modifying the web address on the site, a flaw confirmed by ProPublica and Georgia Public Broadcasting before it was fixed....An election security vendor for the state, Fortalice Solutions, later concluded, however, that there was no evidence that voter information had been accessed, manipulated or changed by bad actors... While publicly denying Wright's claims about vulnerabilities, behind the scenes, Kemp's staff was working to correct them.... The secretary of state's firewall hadn't been set up to block access to the locations identified by Wright, according to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent's report. Election officials then "set up safeguards to restrict access to the vulnerable areas" on the last two days before the 2018 general election... This type of weakness, called broken access control, is one of the 10 most critical web application security risks, according to the Open Web Application Security Project, an organization that works to improve software security. In 2016 Kemp also accused the Department of Homeland Security of trying to breach his office's firewall. But a later investigation revealed the activity Kemp cited "was the result of normal and automatic computer message exchanges," apparently caused by someone cutting and pasting data into a Microsoft Excel document.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

01 Jun 03:10

As Coronavirus Hospitalizations Rise in the US, Many States Hide Their Data

by EditorDavid
James.galbraith

Deeply problematic

In America, "Federal and state officials across the country have altered or hidden public health data crucial to tracking the coronavirus' spread, hindering the ability to detect a surge of infections as President Donald Trump pushes the nation to reopen rapidly," reports Politico: In at least a dozen states, health departments have inflated testing numbers or deflated death tallies by changing criteria for who counts as a coronavirus victim and what counts as a coronavirus test, according to reporting from POLITICO, other news outlets and the states' own admissions... About a third of the states aren't even reporting hospital admission data — a big red flag for the resurgence of the virus... Nearly half the U.S., meanwhile, has registered rising caseloads as states press ahead with reopening the economy. While some of that reflects increased testing, an accompanying uptick in hospitalizations is worrying experts, including former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb... [He tweeted Sunday that "Daily covid hospitalizations showed sustained decline for two weeks but then over preceding week started to rise nationally."] In addition to pulling back from its historic role as the central health authority during public health crises, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has established few firm standards for how states should monitor Covid-19 and made little overt effort to coordinate its messaging with state and local health departments. That's created a patchwork system where key health information is collected and communicated with little uniformity, and amid rising concern over whether Americans are receiving reliable reports about the pandemic fight. At least a half-dozen states have admitted to inflating their testing figures by mixing two different types of tests into its totals, a practice widely derided as scientifically unsound. In Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp has been among the strongest proponents of reopening, the inclusion of antibody tests inflated the state's overall testing count by nearly 78,000 — a disclosure that came a few weeks after officials posted a chart of new confirmed cases in Georgia with the dates jumbled out of order, showing a downward trajectory.... Florida has weathered a string of controversies over its evidence to support GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis' boasts that the state is faring better than most, including an attempt to block access to information on nursing home deaths and the firing of a health department official who now alleges she was pushed out for refusing to manipulate the state's data.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

01 Jun 03:05

How the Supreme Court enabled police to use deadly chokeholds

by Ian Millhiser
James.galbraith

Yeah this is very important. Qualified immunity must go.

Protesters gather in a call for justice for George Floyd, a black man who died after a white policeman pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck for several minutes, at Hennepin County Government Plaza on May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. | Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images

When the Supreme Court turns its back on injustice, there are consequences.

The video is horrific.

George Floyd lies on the ground, facing the back end of a police SUV, as three cops kneel on his body. One of them, Derek Chauvin, has his knee on Floyd’s neck as the helpless man begs for his life.

“I can’t breathe, man. Please understand. Please, man.”

It’s a sadly familiar scene, and quite like one that played out in 1976 after Los Angeles police officers pulled over Adolph Lyons for a broken taillight.

Like Floyd, Lyons was black. The officers met him with guns drawn and ordered him to face the car, spread his legs, and place his hands on top of his head. Not long after Lyons complained that a ring of keys that he held in his hands was causing him pain, one of the officers wrapped his forearm around Lyons’s throat and began to choke him. Lyons passed out. He woke up facedown on the ground, covered in his own urine and feces. The officers released him with a citation for the broken taillight.

Lyons brought a federal lawsuit against the city and officers who assaulted him. But that case, City of Los Angeles v. Lyons (1983), did not end well for him. Decades later, the 5-4 decision still stands as one of the greatest obstacles to civil rights lawyers challenging police brutality in cases like George Floyd’s.

Lyons was a case about whether courts can prevent police violence before it happens

Adolph Lyons was not the only man choked by a Los Angeles police officer. Between 1975 and 1980, LAPD officers used chokeholds on at least 975 occasions.

As Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in his dissenting opinion, “the city instructs its officers that use of a chokehold does not constitute deadly force.” Nevertheless, “no less than 16 persons have died following the use of a chokehold by an LAPD police officer,” 12 of whom were black men.

According to Justice Marshall, “the evidence submitted to the District Court established that, for many years, it has been the official policy of the city to permit police officers to employ chokeholds in a variety of situations where they face no threat of violence.”

When Lyons sued the city, he wanted more than just a sum of money compensating him for his injuries. He sought an injunction — a formal court order that would have forbidden the LAPD from using chokeholds “except in situations where the proposed victim of said control reasonably appears to be threatening the immediate use of deadly force.”

But the Supreme Court held that Lyons could not obtain such an injunction unless he could show that he was personally likely to be choked by a Los Angeles police officer in the future. “Past exposure to illegal conduct,” Justice Byron White wrote for the Court, does not permit someone to seek an injunction. Rather, “Lyons’ standing to seek the injunction requested depended on whether he was likely to suffer future injury from the use of the chokeholds by police officers.”

It didn’t matter that nearly a thousand other Los Angeles residents were subjected to police chokeholds. To obtain a court order protecting future victims of police violence from being choked, Lyons would have to show that he was likely to be choked by an LAPD officer a second time.

Indeed, White’s opinion went even further than that. To obtain an injunction, White wrote for the Court, Lyons “would have had not only to allege that he would have another encounter with the police, but also to make the incredible assertion either (1) that all police officers in Los Angeles always choke any citizen with whom they happen to have an encounter, whether for the purpose of arrest, issuing a citation, or for questioning, or (2) that the City ordered or authorized police officers to act in such manner.”

As Justice Marshall pointed out in dissent, Lyons made it so difficult to obtain an injunction preventing police misconduct that “if the police adopt a policy of ‘shoot to kill,’ or a policy of shooting 1 out of 10 suspects, the federal courts will be powerless to enjoin its continuation.”

Why injunctions are necessary to stop police violence

Lyons did not foreclose lawsuits against rogue cops altogether. Someone like Adolph Lyons (or, for that matter, George Floyd’s survivors) may still sue cops who violate their constitutional rights, and they may potentially receive monetary damages from those cops.

But those lawsuits would face numerous barriers.

For one thing, cops benefit from a doctrine known as “qualified immunity,” which protects them from having to pay for violating the legal rights of another person, unless the police officer violates “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” As the Supreme Court explained in Malley v. Briggs (1986), qualified immunity “provides ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”

Even if a civil rights plaintiff overcomes qualified immunity, many jurisdictions have indemnity laws protecting police from civil suits. Under these laws, the government agrees to pay any damages awarded against an officer. Indeed, these indemnity laws are so common that a 2014 study by UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz found that “during the study period, governments paid approximately 99.98% of the dollars that plaintiffs recovered in lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement.”

So cops are unlikely to face financial consequences themselves if they violate someone’s civil rights. And, while the jurisdiction that employs them may be forced to pay for their actions, money damages won in civil lawsuits often are not painful enough to inspire policymakers to make lasting changes.

In most lawsuits, the primary purpose of money damages is to compensate the victim for the injury inflicted on them. That may be enough to cover hospital bills, lost wages, and the like, but it’s not always enough of a hit to state or municipal budgets to inspire the government to change its behavior.

In particularly egregious cases, a victim of police violence may also receive punitive damages — extra money awarded to a plaintiff to deter future bad behavior by the defendant. But the Supreme Court is reluctant to allow large punitive damage awards. Indeed, in State Farm v. Campbell (2003), the Court held that “few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process.” Thus, for every dollar that a plaintiff receives in compensation, they typically may not receive more than $10 in punitive damages.

Which brings us back to injunctions. When a court enjoins a particular defendant, they don’t just order that defendant to cease a particular behavior, they also can enforce that order with criminal sanctions or by imposing escalating fines until the defendant ceases their illegal conduct. A party subject to an injunction, in other words, can be squeezed so hard by court sanctions that they have no choice but to change their behavior.

Consider the case of Eric Garner, who was killed by a New York police officer’s chokehold in 2014. Although the NYPD had a formal policy barring chokeholds, it was frequently unenforced. The city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board received 219 chokehold complaints against NYPD officers in just one year.

If one of the victims of those chokeholds had obtained an injunction against the NYPD, then a court could have imposed strict sanctions on the city until police chokeholds ceased. And Eric Garner might be alive today.

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.

01 Jun 02:33

'I am permanently blind in my left eye': Police target reporters covering George Floyd protests

by Lauren Floyd
James.galbraith

MN is a mess, and the cops are thugs with badges at this point.

It was hard to miss the chaotic scenes of violence blasted across social media this weekend. Prompted by George Floyd’s death after a police officer was shown in viral video kneeling on his neck for more than eight minutes, protestors in at least 75 cities took to streets across the country, according to The New York Times. The National Guard was activated in at least 10 states as cars and buildings went up in flames and officials in more than two dozen cities imposed last-minute curfews. Police officers were injured in Philadelphia and Richmond, Va., and one person was even killed in Indianapolis when gunfire erupted at a protest there, The New York Times reported.

A most disheartening element of the violence is, however, that police often times contributed to it, targeting bystanders, reporters, and other journalists. (WARNING: This story contains violent video, photos, and language that may not be suitable for younger readers.)

NYPD officer just called a female protester a �stupid fucking bitch� and threw her to the ground pic.twitter.com/18YUHYmqQa

— Jason Lemon (@JasonLemon) May 30, 2020

Linda Tirado, a freelance photographer, was shot with a rubber bullet in the left eye and partially blinded Friday covering street protests in Minneapolis, where Floyd died.

Hey folks, took a tracer found to the face (I think, given my backpack) and am headed into surgery to see if we can save my left eye Am wisely not gonna be on Twitter while I�m on morphine Stay safe folks pic.twitter.com/apZOyGrcBO

— Linda Tirado (@KillerMartinis) May 30, 2020

“I am permanently blind in my left eye, and the docs absolutely refuse to let me go back to work for they say six weeks,” Tirado said in one tweet Saturday. “I’m definitely not allowed to be near smoke or gas. Usually if I had to stay home I’d spend a lot of time amplifying folk but reading hurts today.”

In an encounter with police in Atlanta, CBS 46 video captures officers pulling two local college students from their car and breaking the car’s glass windows. “We are working to secure the release of these two local college students who were ripped from a vehicle and tased tonight in Atlanta. This is the exact kind of policing behavior thousands have been protesting,” the Georgia NAACP said in a statement on Twitter.

We are working to secure the release of these two local college students who were ripped from a vehicle and tased tonight in Atlanta. This is the exact kind of policing behavior thousands have been protesting. pic.twitter.com/h0EbOvcHgx

— Georgia NAACP (@Georgia_NAACP) May 31, 2020

Katy Byron, a third-generation journalist, kept "a running tab" on Twitter of incidents in which police aggressively targeted news teams. Kaitlin Rust, a reporter with WAVE TV, and James Thomas, a photographer with the same station, were shot with rubber bullets in Louisville, Ky. Rust could be heard screaming on camera. “We were behind their line,” she said.

LIVE ON @wave3news - something I�ve never seen in my career. An armed officer shooting directly at our reporter @KaitlinRustWAVE and photographer @jbtcardfan during the protests in #Louisville. My prayers are going out to everyone tonight. Such a scary situation for all. pic.twitter.com/Ipg0DjFIXu

— Lauren Jones (@LaurenWAVE3TV) May 30, 2020

Molly Hennessy-Fiske, a Los Angeles Times reporter, said she had her notebook in her hand at the 5th Precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department when the Minnesota State Patrol targeted journalists. "We identified ourselves as press, and they fired tear gas canisters on us at point-blank range. I got hit in the leg. I'll post a photo of that," she said. "I was saying, 'where do we go, where do we go.' They did not tell us where to go. They didn't direct us. They just fired on us.”

Minnesota State Patrol just fired tear gas at reporters and photographers at point blank range. pic.twitter.com/r7X6J7LKo8

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske (@mollyhf) May 31, 2020

She said she and a photographer ended up scaling a brick wall and run into “a random building,” where she took shelter.

That�s the PG version of my leg courtesy of @MnDPS_MSP still going to report tonight and tomorrow pic.twitter.com/G2kIp00Rf1

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske (@mollyhf) May 31, 2020

WCCO reporter Christiane Cordero said Tom Aviles, an award-winning photographer with the same station, was arrested in South Minneapolis after being hit by a rubber bullet with veteran producer Joan Gilbertson. Cordero can be heard screaming in pain and calling “Joan, Joan, Joan get over here.”

She told her station a patrolman told her: ”You’ve been warned, or the same thing will happen to you. Or you’re next.” She said at one point she begged for cops not to shoot her. She had her hands up. “Don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me,” Gilbertson said.

Here�s the video: pic.twitter.com/5Ytm5AEDx5

— Christiane Cordero (@ChristianeWCCO) May 31, 2020

In another incident, CNN video shows a cameraman wearing a helmet clearly marked with “PRESS” shot by police in Minneapolis. 

A man with a video camera and a PRESS helmet runs after being hit by... something... apparently some sort of pellet fired by police pic.twitter.com/OpH2Q60ry4

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 31, 2020

And in yet another encounter with police, Michael Anthony Adams, a VICE News correspondent, said officers raided a gas station he sought shelter at with a family there to protect the gas station. "After shouting press multiple times and raising my press card in the air, I was thrown to the ground," Adams said. "Then another cop came up and peppered sprayed me in the face while I was being held down."

1/ Apologies it�s taken me so long to update this thread. A lot to process and more to report on, but I wanted to share this photo: this is Assad, Cindy, their children and people from the Powderhorn/Phillips community who have stayed with this family to help them protect pic.twitter.com/It3latCaVb

— Michael Anthony Adams (@MichaelAdams317) May 31, 2020

Adams tweeted a photo of the family he was with. He said the gas station had been looted twice and the family was staying behind to defend "what little was left, when marked SUVs and MetroTransit vans pulled up, officers jumped out, and immediately started shooting foam baton rounds and flash bangs."

"The officers then proceeded to walk around the gas station lot and pepper spray those on the ground," Adams added.  

This compilation just leaves you a bit speechless. pic.twitter.com/Tu1aaDhMvE

— Steve Mullis (Semi-Pro Social Distancer) (@stevemullis) May 31, 2020

From a woman maced and kicked by police in Pennsylvania to an elderly man with a cane shoved to the ground by Salt Lake City officers, the incidents of police violence seemed too numerous to count. 

Salt Lake City cops shove down an elderly man with a cane for the crime of standing along the street: pic.twitter.com/PCLkHqQtJg

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) May 31, 2020

"My security advisor and I were shot with rubber bullets tonight. He had PRESS labeled clearly and visibly on his bulletproof vest Before being shot, at a separate incident, I was directly aimed at. I took cover,” Reuters producer Julio-César Chávez tweeted from Minneapolis.

When Minneapolis Police Department spokesman John Elder was asked about the incident, he asked for a copy of the video footage “and made no immediate comment.”

Tonight I was shot in the arm and the back of my neck with rubber bullets in the middle of covering the Minneapolis protests. My security advisor was shot in the face; his gas mask protected him. Here�s what happened: https://t.co/fwwVLAxFIY Here�s what it looks like: pic.twitter.com/UwSBqpHv5N

— Julio-CÃ�©sar ChÃ�¡vez (@JulioCesrChavez) May 31, 2020


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01 Jun 02:05

White supremacy groups are hoping to leverage George Floyd's death into their longed-for 'race war'

by Mark Sumner
James.galbraith

Well that'll be interesting

The protests that have spread across the nation in the wake of the murder of George Floyd have attracted a diverse group of supporters that go beyond local Black communities and national organizations. At events in Washington, New York, Minneapolis, and elsewhere, community activists have been joined by allies, by groups supporting Latinos, Indian groups, and even groups of Mennonite farmers speaking out in support and showing up for protests.

But, with dozens of buildings burned and Donald Trump preparing to bring in the military, there’s a growing sense that the violence in many cases isn’t originating from within the local Black community. In multiple instances, there have been incidents that seemed to spring up on the periphery of peaceful protests, leading to violent confrontations and property destruction. And increasingly, there are reports that these events are not originating organically from the protests or from confrontations between protesters and the police. There is a very real feeling that white supremacists are using this moment to create incidents designed to justify still more violence and suppression.

Saturday, May 30, 2020 · 4:06:59 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Raw footage of who started the looting in Oakland at Walgreens. Had just seen them three blocks down hitting some other businesses. All prepared with hammers. Don�t let them say different. pic.twitter.com/DZu2t4Np43

— peanut butter cup (@deshawnieboy) May 30, 2020

With dozens of protests across the nation, not every event is the same. For example, it’s not hard to see what sparked this incident Atlanta, where a police officer slams a bicycle into a Black woman for having the audacity to wave a finger at him while saying “Don’t touch me.” It’s clear that the violence in this particular moment originated direct from the police.

WATCH: I was recording when the first clash between police & protestors broke out in Atlanta. @cbs46 #cbs46 #news #GeorgeFloydprotest pic.twitter.com/hrDBk1Plry

— Brittany Miller (@Brittm_tv) May 29, 2020

But in some of the most publicized incidents across the nation, there seem to be a singular nature to some of those involved, as in this recording in which what appears to be a young white man in camo pants and military boots paints graffiti on a federal building.

The protest then headed to in front of the White House. A protester was taken by the USSS in front of Pennsylvania Ave into an adjacent federal building. Unclear what he did.A couple men then splintered off from the group and spray painted �F*ck Trump� on the building. @cbsnews pic.twitter.com/OVwPu0PF6X

— Fin Gomez (@finnygo) May 29, 2020

Or this group which is, reportedly, shown attempting to smash store windows in Minneapolis, with the group initiating this action appearing to be led by a number of white people.

This from @Mikel_Jollett It shows the instigators clearly. They are white. Organized with walkie talkies. pic.twitter.com/zPhBoSg3fE

— Barbara Stiles (@Dovewoman1) May 30, 2020

And those on the ground reported similar events at other protests in many locations.

I was at Downtown Oakland protests a little while ago. Let me say something; the people breaking glass, breaking into windows & starting fires were WHITE men wearing all black. They had hammers and walkie talkies. They were organized. BLM protestors did not start the violence! pic.twitter.com/I2HOdzFoHd

— Asia (@AsiaJannelll) May 30, 2020

Repeatedly, from eye witnesses and from officials, have come claims that violence in the protests is originating not with those who live in the community, but with others who have appeared to take advantage of this moment.

Remarkable info coming out of this presser: Gov. Tim Walls, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and now MN attorney general Keith Ellison ALL alleging outside forces, domestic and possibly foreign, have post-Tuesday infiltrated the state, and are

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) May 30, 2020

And, as Vice reports, far right extremists are trying to use this situation in hopes of bringing about their much-desired “race war.” That effort involves both showing up at protests with guns, initiating violence, and taking to computers to urge everyone involved toward more tragic confrontations. Even the Hawaiian shirt-wearing “Boogaloo Bois” have appeared at some of the protests. The possibility of using these protests as a precipitating incident, and calls for white supremacist militias to confront protesters, are dominating discussion boards and social media for these groups. 

This is also generating some genuinely bizarre events.

Atlanta has deployed a child militia at Lenox Mall fitted with riot shields and batons. What the actual fuck is going on? pic.twitter.com/zTtmw5mDTN

— Fox Wound (@foxwoundband) May 30, 2020

The extent to which those trying to instigate more widespread violence are behind the incidents of property damage and physical clashes remains unclear. What is absolutely clear it that white supremacists are hoping to leverage yet another example of violence against an individual Black man as an excuse to carry out a campaign of expanded violence against the entire Black community.

Following closely on the heels of the police murder of Breonna Taylor and the recorded lynching of Ahmaud Arbery—as well as decades in which police violence has been repeatedly excused—there’s no doubt of the weight of grief in the Black community, or the justified anger. But there are definitely those who are seeking to turn this moment from one in which those suffering injustice are finally heard, to one in which that injustice is “justified” and made worse.

And with Donald Trump calling Nazis in Charlottesville “very fine people” and protesters in Minneapolis “thugs,” there seems little doubt about which side he is ready to join.

Saturday, May 30, 2020 · 3:48:56 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Mayor Carter said EVERY person arrested last night during the protests was from out of state. The governor said it is at least 80 percent, and that they will begin releasing the names. Dept of Safety Commissioner John Harrington says they are contract-tracing arrestees:

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) May 30, 2020


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01 Jun 01:31

[Josh Blackman] Are houses of worship "comparable" to secular businesses like grocery stores, banks, and laundromats?

by Josh Blackman
James.galbraith

No they're fucking not. Kavanaugh was just waving his "I'm a right-wing taliban" flag.

[Chief Justice Roberts said no. Justice Kavanaugh said yes.]

Early Saturday morning, the Supreme Court denied an application for injunctive relief in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom. (Eugene blogged about it here). A California church challenged state guidelines that limited "attendance at places of worship to 25% of build-ing capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees."

The Court split 5-4. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh would have granted the application. Chief Justice Roberts, as well as Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan would have denied the application.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote a two-page opinion, concurring in the denial of the application. Justice Kavanaugh wrote a three-page opinion, dissenting from the denial of the application. He was joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch. Justice Alito, who would have granted the stay, did not join Justice Kavanuagh's dissent.

Roberts and Kavanaugh disagreed on a basic point: what types of businesses are "comparable" to houses of worship?

Roberts said houses of worship are "comparable" to other "secular gatherings" that are subject to restrictive guidelines. But houses of worship are "dissimilar" from "dissimilar" secular businesses.

Although California's guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Similar or more severe restrictions apply to comparable secular gatherings, including lectures, concerts, movie showings, spectator sports, and theatrical performances, where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time. And the Order exempts or treats more leniently only dissimilar activities, such as operating grocery stores, banks, and laundromats, in which people neither congregate in large groups nor remain in close proximity for extended periods.

Justice Kavanaugh reached the exact opposite conclusion. His opinion quoted length from the Sixth Circuit's decision in Roberts v. Neace. (I wrote about a related Sixth Circuit decision here–and I am fairly confident that Judge Sutton wrote both opinions.)

The Church has agreed to abide by the State's rules that apply to comparable secular businesses. That raises important questions: "Assuming all of the same precautions are taken, why can someone safely walk down a grocery store aisle but not a pew? And why can someone safely interact with a brave deliverywoman but not with a stoic minister?" Ibid. [Neace]

The Church and its congregants simply want to be treated equally to comparable secular businesses. California already trusts its residents and any number of businesses to adhere to proper social distancing and hygiene practices. The State cannot "assume the worst when people go to worship but assume the best when people go to work or go about the rest of their daily lives in permitted social settings." [Neace]

Robert's concurrence may be read somewhat narrowly. The final paragraph of his decision highlights this appeal's unique posture:

That is especially true where, as here, a party seeks emergency relief in an interlocutory posture, while local officials are actively shaping their response to changing facts on the ground. The notion that it is "indisputably clear" that the Government's limitations are unconstitutional seems quite improbable.

In a run-of-the-mill case, Plaintiffs asserting a Free Exercise violation do not have to show an "indisputably clear" claim to relief. The standard is much more forgiving. I think Roberts is hinting at the fact that this case would come out differently on a petition for a writ of certiorari. Of course, these sort of emergency measures are unlikely to be appealed in the normal process. The Governor's closure order will probably be repealed in short order. Any possible claims for relief will be mooted. Perhaps a damages claims could keep the case alive, but I am not familiar with the specifics of the case.

I will draw three further conclusions about the Roberts concurrence in another post.

01 Jun 00:48

German government takes controls at Lufthansa with bailout

by Joshua Posaner
James.galbraith

Seems like a bit of a warning sign when bailout > market cap and still only results in 20% stake in the company (with the option to go to 25%)


BERLIN — Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking … the German federal government.

Berlin agreed to a €9 billion deal on Monday to save flag carrier Lufthansa, turning the German government into the single largest shareholder in Europe’s second-largest airline as it looks to restart flights next month following weeks of lockdown.

Underscoring the trouble facing airlines, Lufthansa’s current market capitalization is less than the size of the bailout. But as a strategic asset for an export nation, keeping its flag carrier flying is a no brainer in Berlin with broad political support despite some concerns from the opposition Greens and liberals.

That’s because a weakened Lufthansa would hurt Frankfurt’s position as a global aviation hub that has developed its intercontinental links over decades. It would also hand important destinations in North America and China for exporting high-value German-made goods, and the executives that run the companies that make them, to rival carriers.

The talks over the bailout, which includes a three-year €3 billion loan, were no secret, but the result is the largest airline rescue package and the biggest backstop yet from Germany’s massive Economic Stabilization Fund launched to keep the country’s economy from collapsing under the stress of the pandemic.

It’s also the largest airline rescue in Europe; Air France got a €7 billion loan from the French government while Alitalia has been renationalized for €3 billion.

The cash injection gets Berlin a 20 percent stake in Lufthansa and the option to boost that by an additional 5 percent — enough to allow the government to block any unwanted takeovers. Two supervisory board seats are included, and the deal also includes restrictions on management pay and not paying a dividend to shareholders.

“When the company is afloat again, the state will sell its shares,” Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said Monday, adding he hoped to do so with a small profit.

The deal still needs approval from the European Commission’s competition authorities, and Lufthansa’s own shareholders. Turbulence could come if Lufthansa is asked to give up some of its airport slots and routes by the watchdog in Brussels.

“The aid package for Lufthansa … must not be endangered by Brussels overregulation,” said Ulrich Lange, an MP for the ruling Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to the Christian Democratic Union. “The Frankfurt and Munich hubs must not be weakened in comparison with Paris and Amsterdam. ”

Lufthansa has been badly wounded by the coronavirus. Management said last month it is losing around €1 million an hour, and is carrying only about 1 percent of its normal passenger load.

Lufthansa Group, which also includes brands such as Austrian, Swiss, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings, was forced to ground almost all of its fleet and close its Germanwings subsidiary. The bailout puts wind behind Lufthansa’s plan to get flights going again to popular tourist hotspots such as Mallorca and Venice from next month.

The government has promised to appoint “independent experts” to its two board seats, which rules out politicians. In Germany’s multi-tiered corporate governance structure, which mandates worker representation on supervisory boards, keeping politicians out of the boardroom is important for executives who may need to make tough choices.

“Just because you get bailed out it doesn’t mean you won’t need to fire people,” said an industry official working in the German aviation industry, something that might be more difficult if politicians are on the board.

As with other airline rescues, the emphasis is on keeping the company going, and less on environmental goals like cutting emissions. The deal involves only a cursory reference to Lufthansa agreeing to continue with its “sustainability goals” but stops short of mandating a greener way forward.

“Retiring old aircraft is an easy win,” said Andrew Charlton, managing director of consultancy Aviation Advocacy. “Transferring traffic from short-haul sectors to rail has also been mooted. That will free up slots for long-haul flights, which of course, emit more emissions, but which are generally more profitable.”

The airline bailouts have attracted sharp criticism from the bosses of Europe’s low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, the Continent’s largest carrier, and Budapest-based Wizz Air.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has likened Lufthansa and other flag carriers to drunks at a wedding. “They’re just hoovering up state aid to give them unlimited firepower to distort the competition market once we’re all back flying again,” he told POLITICO.

“All these airlines have been poorly managed and poorly run and now they can turn to their governments to get bailed out and it is certainly distorting the market,” József Váradi, Wizz Air’s CEO, told POLITICO before the Lufthansa deal was agreed.

Matthew Karnitschnig contributed reporting.


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30 May 02:08

Missouri Resident Tests Positive for COVID-19 After Visiting Lake of the Ozarks on Memorial Day Weekend

by John Wright
James.galbraith

The first of many

lake of the ozarks

One of the thousands of people who visited Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, over Memorial Day weekend has tested positive for COVID-19, prompting the local health department to issue an advisory.

“Camden County Health Department has been notified of a Boone County resident who has tested positive for Covid-19 after being in the Lake area on May 23 & 24,” the department wrote Friday night on Facebook. “The case arrived here on Saturday and developed illness on Sunday, so was likely incubating illness and possibly infectious at the time of the visit. Due to the need to inform mass numbers of unknown people, we are publicly releasing the following timeline, which was provided by the case. Investigation is in progress by Boone County Health Department, with Lake Area Health Departments assisting with local contacts. There have been no cases reported in Camden County residents this week.”

According to the Columbia Daily Tribune, “The person, who is not identified by age or sex, was at the Blackwater Jack’s ‘Zero Ducks to Give’ party that drew national and international attention to Missouri for the large numbers who lounged at close quarters.”

After videos of the massive crowds at Lake of the Ozarks went viral on social media, the St. Louis County Department of Health issued a general advisory earlier this week.

“The St. Louis County Department of Health is urging everyone who was there this weekend and ignored social distancing guidelines to self-quarantine for two weeks or until they have been tested and the result comes back negative,” KMOV4 reported.

St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson denounced what she saw in the videos: “Now, these folks will be coming home to St. Louis and counties all over Missouri and the Midwest, raising concerns about the potential of more positive cases, hospitalizations, and tragically, deaths. It’s just deeply disturbing.”

The post Missouri Resident Tests Positive for COVID-19 After Visiting Lake of the Ozarks on Memorial Day Weekend appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.


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30 May 02:06

Judge orders Social Security to pay survivors benefits to previously disqualified gay couples

by Kerry Eleveld
James.galbraith

About fucking time

A federal judge Wednesday ordered the Social Security Administration to pay benefits to the surviving partners of same-sex couples who had been denied the opportunity to marry sooner due to state marriage bans. 

As Slate's Mark Joseph Stern notes, the ruling reversed “one of the last remaining vestiges of federal discrimination against same-sex couples.”

The case centered around Michael Ely and James A. Taylor, a committed Arizona couple of 43 years who wed shortly after the Supreme Court struck down same-sex marriage bans nationwide in June 2014. Six months later, Taylor died of cancer. But when Ely applied for federal survivor benefits, he was denied because federal law requires couples be married for at least nine months in order to qualify. The fact that the couple had been illegally banned from marrying sooner was deemed immaterial.

The case was brought in 2019 by the LGBTQ advocacy group Lambda Legal as a class action suit, arguing that the Social Security Administration "cannot rely upon unconstitutional state laws that have since been overturned to justify discriminating against same-sex surviving spouses today."

U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Macdonald agreed with that reasoning, writing that "reliance on an unconstitutional law" perpetuated an "unconstitutional infringement on Mr. Ely and Mr. Taylor’s fundamental right to marriage.”

Lambda Legal counsel Peter Renn called the ruling a "tremendous victory" for surviving same-sex spouses nationwide.  "No one should be penalized for being the victim of discrimination. The denial of access to these critical benefits can have dire consequences, with some of our class members experiencing homelessness," Renn said.


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29 May 22:56

Arrest report for officer charged with George Floyd’s murder has damning new piece of evidence

by Walter Einenkel
James.galbraith

Yeah, they all need to be locked up

On Friday, after a week of escalating protests, Hennepin County attorney Michael Freeman announced that former police officer Derek Chauvin had been arrested and would be charged with manslaughter and 3rd degree murder in the death of 46-year-old George Floyd. Floyd died after being arrested for possibly passing a fake $10 or $20 bill to buy cigarettes. The arrest made headlines as onlookers videotaped the assault by police. Floyd pleaded on video that he could not breathe and was in serious distress.

Four police officers, including Chauvin, were fired the following day, and only after days of increasing tensions and protests between city officials and citizens did the county finally arrest one of the individuals. The court filing however, was just recently released, and despite reports that Floyd is not believed to have died due to ”asphyxia or strangulation,” former officer Chauvin spent almost two minutes with his knee—behind the full weight of his body—on the neck of a handcuffed, unarmed, and unresponsive Floyd. But there is an even more damning piece of information in the report.

From the arrest report:

8:25:31 the video appears to show Mr. Floyd ceasing to breathe or speak. Lane said ”want to roll him on his side.” Kueng checked Mr Floyd’s right wrist for a pulse and said, “I couldn’t find one.” None of the officers moved from their positions. 

At 8:27:24, the defendant removed his knee from Mr. Floyd’s neck. An ambulance and emergency medical personnel arrived, the officers placed Mr. Floyd on a gurney, and the ambulance left the scene.

The Star Tribune reports that George Floyd “showed no signs of life” from the time that EMS arrived. This is based on a fire department report. Hennepin Healthcare EMS Chief Marty Scheerer told the Tribune that first responders and ER staff worked on trying to resuscitate Floyd for almost an hour before they officially called his death at 9:25pm. The fire department report begins when “Fire Engine 17 arrived without lights and sirens just after the ambulance pulled away.”

According to the Tribune, dispatch told them to meet the ambulance two blocks away to assist EMS workers. When the firefighters got there, things were clearly dire. Firefighters went into the ambulance to find EMS working on giving Floyd CPR. The firefighters assisted in attaching IVs and preparing medications. They then radioed ahead.

“I’ve got a red medical, we’ll be there in approximately six minutes,” a medic relayed, according to emergency dispatch audio. “Thirties, male, was being detained by PD … was on a … was a cardiac arrest upon EMS arrival, apparently doing CPR, getting access, getting vitals, bagging, calling ACLS [advanced cardiovascular life support], we’ll be there in six minutes, red medical, COVID symptoms are unknown.”

When police approached George Floyd on the street around 8 PM Monday evening, Floyd didn’t yet realize it, but he had only 90 minutes before he would officially be declared dead. And from what we can tell of the evidence so far provided, Floyd had less than a half hour before he would be killed beneath the weight of our white supremacist law enforcement.

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29 May 22:42

Trump plans to sell yet more armaments to his pal Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

by Meteor Blades
James.galbraith

JFC NO

As first reported by The Daily Beast Wednesday, U.S. officials are eager to sell more arms to Saudi Arabia despite continuing objections from both Democrats and Republicans over Riyadh’s killing of civilians in the six-year-long war in Yemen. Indeed, lawmakers were furious last year when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed 22 deals totaling $8.1 billion more in weapons to the Saudis after declaring a bogus emergency over Iran designed to circumvent the will of Congress. Donald Trump vetoed the congressional vote to block those sales. Two weeks ago, at Pompeo’s urging, Trump announced to Congress he would fire Steve Linick, the State Department inspector general who was in the final stages of investigating whether that “emergency” had been declared illegally. 

In January 2020, the White House informed Congress that it plans to sell $478 million worth of precision-guided missiles to the kingdom, and to approve licenses to allow missile-maker Raytheon to expand its manufacturing operations inside the kingdom. The foreign affairs committees of both houses of Congress have withheld support for the moves, which blocks them for now, but they fear the White House will complete the deal anyway.

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in a CNN opinion piece Wednesday that the emergency “was a fabricated tale to reward an eager and unsavory customer of US arms.”

The American people have the right to know that while the Trump administration cannot seem to be bothered to build a political coalition to combat the biggest pandemic in a century, the administration has recently managed to find a way to double down on President Donald Trump's repulsive embrace of Saudi Arabia's murderous regime. And as usual, it involves arms. The administration is currently trying to sell thousands more precision-guided bombs to the President's "friend," Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. [...]

As inconvenient as the President and the Secretary might find Congressional oversight or Inspectors General, we will continue doing our jobs. The question remains: why is the President and his top diplomat working so hard to prop up one of the world's worst despots? 

Perhaps, besides the money, the answer is that Trump is hoping for another big party like the one the Saudis gave him shortly after he lied the oath of office three years ago. 

The arms problem, however, predates the Trump regime. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States sells more armaments than any other nation. Between 2014 and 2018, more than one-half of U.S. arms exports went to the Middle East, where one-third of all the world’s arms exports wound up. The Saudis received nearly one-fourth of U.S. military exports in that period. There is no end in sight to this deluge. 

Not surprisingly, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who also likes to pal around with the Saudis (including the crown prince), is a big advocate of more arm sales, as is Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser. The New York Times reported two weeks ago that Navarro sees the arms trade as good for American jobs, never mind what the weapons are actually used for. Even that excuse falls apart given Raytheon’s plan to carry out manufacturing in Saudi Arabia.

Paul Pillar at Responsible Statecraft writes:

Arms transfers as a problem in regional destabilization are to be measured not just in the quantity of transfers but also the uses to which the arms are put. Arms from the United States have been used in the harsh crackdowns that have abused human rights in Egypt.  They have been used in the also abusive — and periodically very deadly — Israeli occupation of, and assaults on, the Palestinian territories. Most obviously in recent years, U.S. arms provided to Saudi Arabia have helped to turn Yemen into what is commonly described as the worst current manmade humanitarian disaster. The Saudi aerial assault on Yemen has been the biggest factor in making that disaster. According to the Yemen Data Project, the bombing campaign has killed or injured more than 17,000 civilians as of March 2019.

The U.S. arms provided to the Gulf Arabs have been destabilizing in other ways. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have given U.S.-made weapons to militias to buy influence in Yemen. Some of the arms have gone to radical Salafists, including ones with ties to Al Qaeda. Some have even made it into the hands of the Houthi rebels whom the Saudi-led war is supposed to be against.

The United States desperately needs to take a new path in foreign policy. The next administration could do worse than pick Saudi Arabia as the first stop on that journey.


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29 May 22:11

CDC says its testing fail didn’t hurt US response. Experts disagree

by Beth Mole
James.galbraith

Umm yeah, that's impossible.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), attends an event about coronavirus vaccine development in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 15, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Enlarge / Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), attends an event about coronavirus vaccine development in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty | Drew Angerer)

The botched rollout of COVID-19 testing did not cripple the country’s early response to the pandemic, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claimed Friday.

CDC Director Robert Redfield cited a new analysis published by the agency Friday. The analysis suggests the new coronavirus began spreading in the country in late January or early February—but only at low levels. The study appears in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

With the new data, Redfield argued that the level of spread was so low in those early days that additional testing would not have made a difference in detecting the spread of the pandemic virus. If the CDC had initially produced and scaled up a functional test for COVID-19—which it infamously failed to do—“it really would be like looking for a needle in a haystack," Redfield said, according to NPR.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

29 May 21:11

Something very interesting is happening in Wisconsin

by Greg Sargent
James.galbraith

That seems unlikely

Believe it or not, the state just took a real step toward making vote-by-mail much easier.
29 May 21:10

A third of Americans report anxiety or depression symptoms during the pandemic

by Brian Resnick
James.galbraith

Only 1/3? It seems a lot higher than that based on a purely anecdotal survey here

A person wears a mask and looks anxious in this illustrated photo. Busà Photography/Getty Images

Young adults are experiencing the highest rates of mental health strain during the pandemic, according to new CDC data.

How are Americans coping with the crushing realities of the pandemic and the economic crisis forming in its wake? Not well, according to a new survey from the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nationally, around a third of Americans have reported recent symptoms of anxiety and depression since late April. For comparison, in the first three months of 2019, just 11 percent of Americans reported these symptoms on a similar survey.

It’s a sign that along with all the sickness and death, the social distancing restrictions, separation from families, and the deteriorating economy, we’re facing a severe mental health crisis, too.

To be clear: The report isn’t saying a third of Americans have clinical depression or an anxiety disorder. But the survey — which was conducted to better understand the impacts of the pandemic on the American public — did include four questions taken from common depression and anxiety screening tools.

More than 260,000 people responded to questions like:

Over the last 7 days, how often have you been bothered by … having little interest or pleasure in doing things? Would you say not at all, several days, more than half the days, or nearly every day? Select only one answer.

Answers to screening questions that signal possible anxiety or depression would normally require follow-up with a mental health care provider for diagnosis.

The CDC and Census Bureau data also show some groups of people are suffering more than others. Namely: women, the young, and the less educated. Some ethnic minority groups are also reporting greater mental health strain.

The trend is most striking among the youngest people in the CDC survey. Upward of 46 percent of people ages 18-29 are feeling these mental health strains (the highest of any group in the survey). Each successive older age group is less burdened, according to the data.

These younger people, while not most heavily impacted by the illness, are facing extreme financial uncertainty and missed opportunities from the economic crisis that could shadow them for decades, as the Atlantic’s Annie Lowrey writes.

There are similar splits between people of differing levels of educational attainment. Forty-five percent of people without a high school diploma reported depression or anxiety symptoms the last week of April — contrasted with 30 percent of people who have bachelor degrees and higher. Latinos, black people, and people of multiple or other ethnicities also reported higher levels of mental stress compared to whites in the survey.

There’s also a big gender split. Thirty-one percent of men reported the symptoms, whereas nearly 41 percent of women did.

The pandemic is not over. The virus still has a great potential to infect millions more. It’s unclear what’s going to happen next, especially as different communities enact different precautions and as federal officials and ordinary citizens grow fatigued with pandemic life.

The uncertainty of this era is likely contributing to the mental health strain on the nation. As the pandemic wears on into the summer, some people may grow resilient to the grim reality they face, others may see their mental health deteriorate more.

What’s also concerning is that, even pre-pandemic, there were already huge gaps in mental health care in America. Clinicians have been in short supply, many do not take insurance, and it can be hard to tell the difference between a clinician who uses evidence-based treatments and one who does not.

If you’re reading this and need help, know there are free online mental health resources that can be a good place to start. (Clinical psychologist Kathryn Gordon lists 11 of them on her website.)

The Covid-19 pandemic has a knack for exacerbating underlying problems in the United States. The infection is hitting the poor and communities of color harder than white communities. And that’s also reflected here in the data on mental health strain.

As the pandemic continues, it will be important to recognize the growing mental health impacts for such a large portion of Americans — and to uncover who is being disproportionately impacted. Hospitalizations and infection rates are critical to note. But the mental health fallout — from not just the virus but from all of its ramifications — will be essential to keep tracking, too.

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.

29 May 21:09

SpaceX’s Starship underwent a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly—we do mean rapid

by Eric Berger
James.galbraith

oh my

Aftermath of SN static fire test on Friday.

Enlarge / Aftermath of SN static fire test on Friday. (credit: Screengrab from NASASpaceflight.com video)

On Friday, SpaceX prepared its latest iteration of the Starship prototype vehicle, known as Serial No. 4, or SN4, for a static fire test in Texas. The Raptor engine appeared to fire nominally for a couple of seconds at 1:47pm local time and then shut down as planned.

However, about one minute after engine shutdown there was some kind of uncontrolled gaseous leak, and one minute later the vehicle exploded almost instantaneously—a truly rapid Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.

The Starship prototype, fueled with liquid oxygen and methane, appeared to be mostly destroyed when the fire and smoke cleared. The test stand also sustained substantial damage. Some of the surrounding ground support equipment appeared unharmed, but it is possible the shock wave from SN4's demise may have also damaged those structures.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

29 May 21:08

The racist history of Trump’s “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” tweet

by Katelyn Burns
James.galbraith

Not an accident

US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office before signing an executive order related to regulating social media on May 28, 2020, in Washington, DC. | Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images

Several prominent segregationists have used the phrase while cracking down on black protesters since the civil rights era.

On Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump attempted to backtrack on a tweet that appeared to threaten violence against black Americans protesting the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Earlier in the day, Trump insinuated that he would bring in the military to quell any violence or looting if the situation wasn’t brought under control by Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz soon. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” the president tweeted Friday.

Twitter flagged the tweet for violating its rules against inciting violence.

About 13 hours later, Trump tried to walk back the phrase on Twitter by claiming he meant that when looting starts, people end up getting shot. “Looting leads to shooting, and that’s why a man was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday night - or look at what just happened in Louisville with 7 people shot,” he tweeted.

Trump tried to brush off those criticizing his use of the phrase as “haters” who are “looking to cause trouble.” Notably, he did not try to walk back the use of the slur “thugs” in the same tweet.

This change of course — and refusal to admit such change — is an attempt by the president to gaslight the American public. Nowhere in his original tweets did he mention anyone getting shot. He also threatened to bring in the military to get the uprising under control.

The phrase, as many people on Twitter noted Friday, has racist origins dating back to the civil rights era. It was first said by then-Miami police chief Walter Headley in a December 1967 press conference announcing a new, tougher policy for policing the city’s black neighborhoods.

“This is a war,” Headley said at the press conference in response to a recent rise in crime in the city. “We have the weapons to defeat crime. Not to use them is a crime in itself.”

Headley put in place an oppressive police regime, which included what we now call “stop and frisk” policies, extensive officer use of shotguns, and police dogs. “We don’t mind being accused of police brutality,” he was quoted as saying in the New York Times at the time. “They haven’t seen anything yet”

The brutal new tactics did initially result in a drop in crime, so much so that they were favorably cited in a House Select Committee report on Martin Luther King Jr.’s death (a portion of which blamed King for his own murder) in 1978.

But resentment over the oppressive police policy led to riots in the city after King’s death, and again in 1980 after a black man, Arthur McDuffie, was beaten into a coma by a white Dade County police officer.

Though Healey is often given credit for the phrase, professor Clarence Lusane of Howard University told WBUR that the phrase may have first been said by Eugene “Bull” Connor, a segregationist public safety commissioner in Birmingham, Alabama, who ordered the use of police dogs and fire hoses against black protesters.

Segregationist former Alabama governor and presidential candidate George Wallace also reportedly used the phrase.

Trump has a history of such tactics; several weeks ago, he claimed his comments about injecting disinfectant to kill Covid-19 were “sarcasm.” At a news conference in 2019, he lied so often — about everything from Labor Secretary Alex Acosta’s involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein case to whether Article II of the US Constitution gives him unlimited power — that Vox’s Aaron Rupar called it a “master class in gaslighting.”

This is the same president who flipped back and forth about white supremacist marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, saying there were “very fine people” among both the marchers and the counterprotesters.

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.

29 May 19:38

Trump Says US Will Terminate Relationship With WHO Today

by msmash
James.galbraith

Not your decision, asshole. Congress designated those funds.

President Donald Trump announced Friday that the United States is will be cutting ties with the World Health Organization later today. From a report: "China has total control over the World Health Organization despite only paying $40 million per year compared to what the United States has been paying, which is approximately $450 million a year," Trump said during a press conference. Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO's response to the coronavirus, which has hit the U.S. worse than any other country, amid scrutiny of his own administration's response to the pandemic. Earlier this month, Trump threatened to permanently cut off U.S. funding of the WHO. In a letter, he said that if the WHO "does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization." On Friday, Trump said WHO "failed to make the requested a greatly needed reform" and the U.S. "will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

29 May 19:38

Officer Kept Knee on George Floyd’s Neck for Nearly 3 Minutes After He Was Non-Responsive

by John Wright
James.galbraith

The others better be charged as accessories as well

minneapolis police officer

Authorities in Minneapolis on Friday afternoon released a criminal complaint against officer Derek Chauvin, who has been arrested and charged with third-degree murder in the death of unarmed black man George Floyd.

Among other things, the document reveals that Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for a total of eight minutes and 46 seconds. For the final two minutes and 53 seconds, Floyd was non-responsive.

“The defendant pulled Mr. Floyd out of the passenger side of the squad car at 8:19:38 p.m. and Mr. Floyd went to the ground face down and still handcuffed,” the complaint says. “[Officer] Kueng held Mr. Floyd’s back and [Officer] Lane held his legs. The defendant placed his left knee in the area of Mr. Floyd’s head and neck. Mr. Floyd said, ‘I can’t breathe’ multiple times and repeatedly said, ‘Mama’ and ‘please,’ as well. The defendant and the other two officers stayed in their positions. The officers said, ‘You are talking fine’ to Mr. Floyd as he continued to move back and forth. Lane asked, ‘should we roll him on his side?’ and the defendant said, ‘No, staying put where we got him.’ Officer Lane said, ‘I am worried about excited delirium or whatever.’ The defendant said, ‘That’s why we have him on his stomach.’ None of the three officers moved from their positions.

“BWC video shows Mr. Floyd continue to move and breathe. At 8:24:24, Mr. Floyd stopped moving,” the complaint continues. “At 8:25:31 the video appears to show Mr. Floyd ceasing to breathe or speak. Lane said, ‘want to roll him on his side.’ Kueng checked Mr. Floyd’s right wrist for a pulse and said, ‘I couldn’t find one.’ None of the officers moved from their positions. At 8:27:24, the defendant removed his knee from Mr. Floyd’s neck. An ambulance and emergency medical personnel arrived, the officers placed Mr. Floyd on a gurney, and the ambulance left the scene. Mr. Floyd was pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner (ME) conducted Mr. Floyd’s autopsy on May 26, 2020. The full report of the ME is pending but the ME has made the following preliminary findings. The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death. The defendant had his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in total. Two minutes and 53 seconds of this was after Mr. Floyd was non-responsive. Police are trained that this type of restraint with asubject in a prone position is inherently dangerous.”

Read the full complaint below.

Derek Chauvin Complaint by John Wright on Scribd

The post Officer Kept Knee on George Floyd’s Neck for Nearly 3 Minutes After He Was Non-Responsive appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.


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29 May 19:34

‘What a Bullsh-tter’: Trump Tries to Walk Back Racist, Violent Threat Against George Floyd Protesters

by John Wright
James.galbraith

Racist gets caught saying racist things, tries to convince marginal racists he's really not THAT racist.

President Donald Trump is attempting to walk back a tweet threatening violence against protesters in Minneapolis who are calling for justice in the police killing of unarmed black man George Floyd.

Trump’s tweet form Friday morning — in which he called protesters “thugs,” threatened to send in the military, and said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” — led to a notice from Twitter saying it violated the platform’s rules against “glorifying violence.”

On Friday afternoon, just before a scheduled news conference on China in the White House Rose Garden, Trump tried to claim the tweet had been misinterpreted. (He was expected to be asked about the tweet at the news conference, but he chose not to take any questions about Floyd’s death, the Minneapolis protests, the COVID-19 crisis, or anything else.)

“Looting leads to shooting, and that’s why a man was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday night – or look at what just happened in Louisville with 7 people shot. I don’t want this to happen, and that’s what the expression put out last night means,” Trump wrote. “It was spoken as a fact, not as a statement. It’s very simple, nobody should have any problem with this other than the haters, and those looking to cause trouble on social media. Honor the memory of George Floyd!”

A few reactions from Twitter below.

The post ‘What a Bullsh-tter’: Trump Tries to Walk Back Racist, Violent Threat Against George Floyd Protesters appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.


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29 May 19:25

Why millions of Americans are getting coronavirus stimulus payments on scammy-looking debit cards

by Rebecca Heilweil
James.galbraith

Of course they screwed this up

President Donald Trump’s signature can be seen twice as light shines through a letter printed in both English and Spanish that was sent to people who received a coronavirus economic stimulus payment as part of the Cares Act on April 29 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The federal government is sending out financial aid that looks like junk mail.

Open Sourced logo

They might look like a scam, but the white envelopes from an Omaha-based entity called “Money Network Cardholder Services” that many Americans received this week are surprisingly legit. Inside those envelopes, which are finally being delivered to millions of Americans, are Visa-branded debit cards loaded up with coronavirus stimulus payments from the federal government.

“It’s honestly due to sheer luck that I decided to open them, because inside one was a notice that my federal stimulus money was being disbursed to me on an enclosed prepaid debit card,” Alanna Okun, a deputy editor at Vox’s The Goods, told Recode in a message.

While she eventually activated the card and used it to purchase groceries, she said: “I am still nettled because nobody told me this was going to happen, and it just as easily could have ended up in the garbage.”

Some people aren’t so lucky. An untold number of Americans, believing the envelopes are junk mail or the debit cards are a scam, are ignoring them or throwing them out. And it’s understandable why they would be cautious: Credit-card-related schemes have been on the rise since the pandemic began, according to the Wall Street Journal, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been busy warning people about stimulus payment-related scams.

One person reported the official government debit cards to the Better Business Bureau’s Scam Tracker. “The letter states this is our Economic Impact Payment card and has a Department of the Treasury seal on the letter,” reads the complaint. “This has to be a scam!”

People have been calling their local officials, asking about whether the letter is a rip-off. Others have reached out to their local television stations. The North Carolina attorney general’s office told Recode it had received several calls from concerned constituents, including one from someone who had already thrown out their payment card.

Some people have even reported the stimulus debit cards to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), though when asked about the issue, the agency said it would not provide additional information.

Officials are now scrambling to spread the word to Americans that the debit cards are not, in fact, part of a scam. Hopefully, most of the millions of people meant to receive these cards get the message, but it seems likely that countless Americans will overlook or throw out those scammy-looking envelopes purporting to be from the federal government. They could also lose the coronavirus stimulus payments to which they are entitled.

It’s not clear why these problematic debit cards were needed

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced the first round of Economic Impact Payments being deposited in people’s bank accounts on April 11, leading to a storm of confusion over whether people should expect a direct deposit or wait for a paper check. Some six weeks after those first payments were disbursed, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced that close to 4 million Americans would not receive either direct deposit or a check. Instead, they would get their economic impact payments through prepaid Visa debit cards.

While 4 million sounds like a lot, those Americans receiving debit cards in the mail represent a small sliver of the total population receiving payments. The Treasury Department says it has already sent more than 140 million payments. The department also explained in a press release that people receiving prepaid debit cards would be those “without bank information on file with the IRS, and whose tax return was processed by either the Andover or Austin IRS Service Center.” It’s unclear what makes these centers exceptional, but if you’re from Massachusetts or Texas, pay extra-close attention to your mail.

At a press conference, Mnuchin said that the debit cards were an effort to “expedite money to people even quicker in a very safe way.” He also hinted that debit cards could be used in the future, saying, “Going forward, we think debit cards are a safe and secure way of delivering refunds.”

To debut the new cards, the government built a website — EIPcard.com — that says the debit card will arrive in a plain envelope from “Money Network Cardholder Services,” and would include “Visa” on the front and the name of the issuing bank, “MetaBank,” on the back. (MetaBank is a bank that the Treasury Department has used since 2016 to send people payments from federal agencies.) The site explains that to activate the card, recipients need to call an 800 number and confirm their identity with their address, name, and the last six digits of their Social Security number. There are also links to the cardholder agreement and a fee schedule.

The Economic Impact Payment (EIP) card itself features a generic-looking image of blue fabric with white stars, like an American flag. As with pretty much any debit card, there are some fees associated with using the EIP card. The first out-of-network ATM withdrawal, for instance, is free, but each subsequent withdrawal comes with a $2 fee. If you do a balance inquiry at an ATM, that carries an additional 25 cent fee, either in or out of network. A replacement card if it’s lost or stolen costs $7.50. Priority shipping for the replacement card costs an additional $17.

Still, there’s something suspicious-seeming about all of this. The website is branded as a “Money Network” site, and it’s only further down the page that it says, “The EIP Card is sponsored by the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service as part of the US Debit Card Program.” It doesn’t seem like this has been enough to clear up the confusion. On Wednesday, the IRS released a statement emphasizing that the agency “reminds” people about how the prepaid debit cards would arrive, while still warning people to be wary of scams.

“I don’t think that there’s any true explanation as to why they’re going out as a debit card,” Brian Streig, an accountant based in Austin, said of these stimulus payments. “I think that’s what the biggest confusion is.”

Streig added that he realized the perception problem seemed to be widespread after one of his neighbors posted in a community Yahoo group about whether the cards were legitimate.

There have been other issues, too. Some people have tried to transfer all the stimulus money into their traditional bank accounts, only to run into problems with the online system. For some households, the card might have combined two names on it, but only the person with the first name can activate it, which is what happened to one couple who spoke with Yahoo News. Others have complained that their names have been misspelled, making them hesitant to share their Social Security number on the EIP card website. Others have complained that using the MetaBank system is cumbersome, or that they need to transfer the money off the card to their bank accounts in increments.

And what about the people who already destroyed or trashed their cards? Well, there’s a $7.50 fee to replace it and that additional $17 fee if they want the replacement mailed back quickly. That assumes that this person even realized that a prepaid debit card loaded with hundreds or thousands of dollars of aid from the federal government had even arrived in the first place.

The government really screwed this one up

It seems as though the federal government’s communication strategy around the existence of the EIP cards and the delivery of the cards themselves have been a disaster. A slew of elected officials, from attorneys general to state representatives, have now posted online urging people not to throw out the plain white envelope containing a relatively unmarked debit card loaded with the coronavirus stimulus payment. They’re urging people to more dutifully inspect their mail, lest they don’t get the aid at all.

However, the letter inside does indicate that the debit card is from the Treasury Department. One also has to wonder why so many people would assume that this was a scam — so much so that they were being reported to federal officials. It certainly seems like the messaging around public awareness of these debit cards could have been better.

“There’s a big to-do about putting the president’s note on the check,” Streig explained. “So everybody started associating this, these payments, with a check if it wasn’t going to be direct deposited.” But then debit cards began to be sent out, he said, with “no fanfare, no kind of big announcement.”

It’s not as though the government hasn’t put effort into making people aware of how they would receive their coronavirus stimulus payments. In fact, the Social Security Administration made a $13 million contract with Crosby Marketing, a DC-area public relations firm, to increase public awareness of the Economic Impact Payment system and how to access the payments. A spokesperson for the agency told Recode that the outreach campaign funded by that contract was completed before the debit cards were made available to the public. They also said that questions related to the debit cards should be directed to the IRS.

Recode sent the Treasury Department several questions about the communication around these debit cards and never heard back.

Ironically, the federal government’s latest messaging that urged people to take the EIP card seriously might have made it easier for new scams to appear. Now that more people are eagerly expecting a debit card from the government, some worry that actual scammers will attempt to spoof the card or the website in some way. Streig notes that the EIP website is fairly simple and therefore easy to impersonate.

“I think my mom, if she got one in the mail now,” Streig wondered, “she would just assume it was a stimulus card, not a fake one, because now it’s in the news.”

So how much did the federal government screw this one up?

“I don’t think we could have done much worse of a job,” Streig said.

Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network. All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists.

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.

29 May 18:18

'That is unacceptable': Minnesota governor apologizes for arrest of CNN news crew

by Louis Nelson
James.galbraith

There had better be some fucking consequences for the racist cops


Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz apologized on Friday for the on-air arrest of a CNN news crew that was in Minneapolis covering riots sparked by the death of an African-American man who was detained by police.

"I take full responsibility. There is absolutely no reason something like this should happen. Calls were made immediately. This is a very public apology to that team," he told reporters at a press conference. "The issue here is trust. The community that's down there that's terrorized by this, if they see a reporter being arrested, their assumption is it's because something's going to happen that they don't want to be seen. And so that is unacceptable."

CNN reporter Omar Jimenez was live on CNN's "New Day" morning show just after 6 a.m. when he was arrested, handcuffed and led away even after he produced his media credentials.

Jimenez was quickly released and was back on CNN’s air less than 90 minutes later. The network’s chief, Jeff Zucker, had personally called Walz to demand the reporters’ release.

The CNN crew’s cameras were rolling as Jimenez, holding his microphone, negotiated with Minnesota State Patrol officers in riot gear. The reporter, holding his press badge in one hand as an officer held the other behind his back, could be heard negotiating with the officers and asking where they would like him to move.

Jimenez turned his attention to the camera, telling the network’s “New Day” audience that “this is part of the advance police presence that we saw come over the course of, really, minutes.” Seconds later, an officer informed Jimenez that he was being placed under arrest.


Officers refused to answer Jimenez’s question as to why he was being arrested as he was led away in handcuffs. The remaining three members of the CNN crew were arrested soon after.

Jimenez, who is black, was in Minnesota to report on protests and riots in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after being detained by a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for several minutes. Floyd was left motionless by the officer’s actions, was carried away on a gurney and later died.

The officers involved in Floyd’s death have been fired but no announcement has yet been made as to whether they will face charges. Floyd’s death has sparked days of protests in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, where rioters and looters set fire to multiple buildings, including a Minneapolis police precinct.


The reporters’ arrests were widely reported on multiple media networks and drew swift condemnation across social media. In a statement released via Twitter, CNN called the arrest “a clear violation of [the crew’s] First Amendment rights” and demanded that “the authorities in Minnesota, incl. the Governor, must release the 3 CNN employees immediately.”

The Minnesota State Patrol, in a post to its Twitter account, offered an explanation of the arrests.


“In the course of clearing the streets and restoring order at Lake Street and Snelling Avenue, four people were arrested by State Patrol troopers, including three members of a CNN crew,” the state patrol wrote online. “The three were released once they were confirmed to be members of the media.”

But that account does not match with the arrest that aired live on CNN, where the reporters could clearly be seen and heard identifying themselves as working members of the press.


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