Tag: statues

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign Updates

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Protests/Race Relations

  • Protesters faced tear gas and federal agents outside the central police precinct in Portland as Black Lives Matter demonstrations continued for a 56th consecutive day.
  • President Trump took a dig at Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D), mocking him for getting tear-gassed at protests in Oregon the previous night. 

“He made a fool out of himself,” Trump said. “He wanted to be among the people, so he went into the crowd. And so they knocked the hell out of him, so that was the end of him.”

  • A federal judge denied a request from Oregon’s attorney general to stop federal agents from arresting people in Portland as daily protests and demonstrations over systemic racism and police brutality roil the city.
  • The Air Force denied that a surveillance plane flew secret missions from an airport in Portland, amid ongoing protests in the city, gathered information about the demonstrations.
  • The U.S. Justice Department said it has arrested 18 people and charged them for alleged crimes committed during recent anti-racism protests in Portland.

Charges included assaulting a federal officer, trespassing, and creating a disturbance. 

  • Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) expressed agreement with President Trump’s plan to deploy federal police to the city during a Wednesday evening phone call with the president, according to the mayor’s office.
  • North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) slammed an anti-LGBT resolution that was passed by a majority of the state’s Republican Party delegates earlier this year, calling it “hurtful and divisive” after a top GOP official also apologized for the language.

“LGBT practices are unhealthy and dangerous, sometimes endangering or shortening life and sometimes infecting society at large,” reads part of the resolution, one of many policy statements that were passed in April.

  • A 900-pound bronze statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee and busts of seven other Confederates that had occupied places of honor in Virginia’s Old House Chamber for decades, including those of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, were removed.
  • Cops shouldn’t fear accidentally breaking the city’s new law restricting their use of chokeholds on criminal suspects because no city district attorney will prosecute them, the NYPD’s Chief of Department told a closed-door meeting of police brass.

“We can’t be afraid. We’ve got every D.A. come out and say they’re not going to charge that,” Chief Terence Monahan said

  • The official account of MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays tweeted: “Today is Opening Day, which means it’s a great day to arrest the killers of Breonna Taylor” Taylor was shot and killed in her apartment by Louisville plain-clothed police executing a “no knock” warrant. 
  • President Trump erupted last week after Defense Secretary Mark Esper issued a new military-wide directive that was a de facto ban on the display of the Confederate flag.

According to people familiar with his reaction, Trump was fuming over Esper’s carefully worded memo that did not mention the flag by name, but effectively banned it from being flown on military installations.

A senior White House official who declined to be named said, the “story is inaccurate. When the matter was raised to the President, he was not angry.”

Trump Administration

  • In a follow up to an earlier story about the president asking his Ambassador to the United Kingdom Woody Johnson to ask British officials to steer The British Open golf tournament to the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland, career diplomat Lewis Lukens, Johnson’s deputy in London, confirmed that he warned the ambassador that pressing British officials to boost Trump’s private business would be unethical. Lukens was later fired for making complimentary references about former president Obama.

A reporter asked the president whether he asked Johnson to do this. Trump replied:

“No, I never spoke to Woody Johnson about that, about Turnberry. Turnberry is a highly respected course, as you know, one of the best in the world. And I read a story about it today and I had never, I never spoke to Woody Johnson about doing that. No.”

The New York Times initially reported that complaints were raised with the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General. “The findings were submitted in February, and the complaints are expected to be included, according to one of the investigators. It is not clear why the review has not been made public.”

NBC News added that an IG report “was completed and marked classified as of May; an unclassified version has yet to be released.”

  • Tang Juan, a Chinese scientist who had been hiding in the country’s San Francisco consulate after accusations of visa fraud, is now in U.S. custody.  Government officials  also accused Beijing of using its diplomatic outposts to run an espionage network to steal intellectual property from US businesses, universities and research centers.
  • “PAW Patrol,” a cartoon about rescue dogs who protect their community, clarified on Friday that it had not been canceled after White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed it had been as a result of “cancel culture.”
  • President Trump this week signed a measure to allow U.S. defense contractors to bypass a 33-year-old arms treaty and sell more large armed drones to foreign militaries, a State Department official told reporters. 
  • President Trump signed four executive orders aimed at lowering drug prices. It is unclear when the moves can be finalized and take effect.
  • President Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former congressman and decorated runner Jim Ryun during a White House ceremony. Ryun was named Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year in 1966 and set records in the mile and 1,500 meters in 1967. He won a silver medal in the 1968 Olympics.
  • Trump told Barstool a detailed story about getting booed with Melania at the Robin Hood Foundation charity dinner around the night he announced his campaign in 2015.

They haven’t gone to that dinner since 2011. And the 2015 event was a month before he announced.

  • The president is spending the weekend at his golf club at Bedminster, NJ.

Presidential Campaign

  • William Evanina, Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said China, Russia and Iran are all working to influence the 2020 election.

They spread disinformation on social media to “undermine U.S. democratic institutions and divide the country in advance of the elections,” Evanina warned. 

“At the most basic level, we encourage Americans to consume information with a critical eye, check out sources before reposting or spreading messages, practice good cyber hygiene and media literacy, and report suspicious election-related activity to authorities,” Evanina said.

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign Updates

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Protests/Race Relations

  • The Fairfax County (VA) School Board voted to rename a high school named for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Effective this fall, the school will be renamed to honor the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis.
  • Washington’s NFL team announced Thursday that it would call itself the “Washington Football Team” until it adopts a new, permanent name for the football franchise. The team, formerly known as the Washington Redskins, said in a statement that new team uniforms reflecting the change will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
  • Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) signed a police accountability bill into law today that includes a ban on neck restraints like the one that was used on George Floyd before his death in Minneapolis.
  • After being tear gassed in a crowd, Portland’s mayor and police commissioner Ted Wheeler denounced federal officers for “urban warfare.”

Some protesters, recalling the city police’s past use of tear gas, chided him: “You better be here every night, Ted!”

  • A federal judge in Oregon has temporarily blocked federal agents deployed in Portland, Oregon from threatening to arrest, arresting, or using force against journalists and legal observers who are at the ongoing protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.
  • Chicago advocacy groups are filing a lawsuit to block the Trump administration from allowing federal agents to oversee peaceful protests in the city.
  • The Trump administration is sending a tactical border patrol team to Seattle, making good on President Trump’s pledge to use the full force of the federal government to protect property amid ongoing protests, The New York Times reports.

Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) had spoken with Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Chad Wolf who told her that the administration didn’t have plans to deploy a large force of agents to the city and wouldn’t do so without communicating with her first. Durkan said that she hadn’t been made aware of the incoming federal team.

The mayor made it clear to Wolf that Seattle did not need the assistance of federal officers. “Any deployment here would, in my view, undermine public safety.” 

  • Kansas City, MO Mayor Quinton Lucas (D) says he found out about President Trump’s plan to send federal law enforcement officers to his city over social media.

“I learned about Operation Legend from actually someone on Twitter who had notified me that it was occurring,” the Democratic mayor said in an interview Thursday. “Then I looked at a White House press briefing that had announced that it was, I guess, already in the works.”

  • The House and Senate passed the defense policy bill that sparked a veto threat from President Trump over its inclusion of a plan to rename bases named after Confederate figures, setting up a showdown with the president. 

Both chambers cleared the two-thirds threshold for a veto-proof majority on the legislation that sets policy for the military and has been signed into law 59 straight years.

  • President Trump joined republicans who criticized Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).

Trump tweeted: “Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars. I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs. They must, at least, treat us fairly!!!” 

  • DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced his office is investigating the actions of DOJ law enforcement at protests in Portland and Washington, D.C., in recent months.
  • Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has announced assault charges against a police officer Richard Paul Nicoletti who pepper sprayed Black Lives Matter protesters in June.

According to Krasner’s statement, Nicoletti sprayed the faces of two of the kneeling protestors “without provocation.” He pulled down the goggles one was wearing for protection to spray her again.  Nicoletti then approached a third seated protester, “reached down, grabbed and violently threw the protester onto his back, continually spraying him” with pepper spray.  “Unable to see,” that protestor swung at the officer, making no contact.

  • Prior to the playing of the national anthem, every player and coach on the Yankees & Nationals took a knee. The same occurred later at the Dodgers & Giants game.

Trump Administration

  • A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen to be released from prison and into home confinement, ruling that the Justice Department retaliated against him over his planned tell-all book about the president.
  • Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said he will vote against President Trump’s controversial nomination of Judy Shelton to the Federal Reserve Board. Romney is the first Republican senator to announce his opposition to Shelton, who will also likely be opposed by all 47 members of the Senate Democratic caucus, so the opposition of three more Republicans would effectively doom her nomination.
  • White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany argued President Trump’s well wishes for Ghislaine Maxwell were intended to convey that he wants to see justice served in the courtroom for the associate of Jeffrey Epstein facing sex crime and perjury charges.
  • President Trump once again defended his cognitive abilities in an interview by pointing – unprompted – to a test he took in 2018 that is designed to rule out cognitive impairment.

“Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV,” Trump said four times in an interview with Fox News, explaining that he was asked to recall and repeat a sequence of words at the beginning and end of the test. “If you get it in order, you get extra points.”

  • President Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone, discussing the novel coronavirus, arms control negotiations and other matters. Not discussed was the report of Russia paying bounties to Taliban members for the killing of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. 
  • In Retaliation for the Trump administration’s order to close China’s consulate in Houston, China announced on Friday that it had ordered the United States to shut its consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu.
  • The Trump administration is lifting its rule blocking New Yorkers from enrolling in Global Entry and other Trusted Traveler Programs. State residents were previously banned over New York’s law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.
  • President Trump announced that he will throw out a ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium next month.
  • President Trump said he would consider granting pardons for individuals implicated in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

“I’ve looked at a lot of different people. They’ve been treated extremely unfairly, and I think I probably would, yes,” Trump told Sean Hannity.

Presidential Campaign

  • In a Facebook ad this week, President Trump’s campaign used a picture from a 2014 protest in Ukraine to depict what it claimed was “chaos & violence” unfolding around the U.S.
  • In a surprising turnaround, President Trump announced that republicans have scrapped plans to hold convention activities in Jacksonville, Florida.

Trump had moved the convention to Jacksonville after North Carolina’s governor raised public health concerns about having massive gatherings in Charlotte, as the GOP had planned.

A scaled down convention in Charlotte will still be held, Trump said.

  • A convention official described chaos inside the Republican National Committee after President Trump pulled the plug on convention activities in Jacksonville.

The official described the situation as “a multimillion dollar debacle.” 

  • Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams and Mayor Lenny Curry (R) said in a joint statement they appreciate President Trump considering public health and canceling the convention.

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations and Trump Administration News

Read Time: 3 Minutes

Protests/Race Relations

  • Open Society Foundation, the philanthropic organization founded by billionaire George Soros, is investing $220 million in efforts to promote racial equality, including grants to Black-led organizations working to expand voting rights and advocate for police reform.
  • Residents in Norman, Oklahoma launched a petition this week to recall the city’s mayor and several members of its city council as they express outrage over its decision to vote to cut the police budget by over $800,000 in the wake of nationwide protests, accusing the city council of having “succumbed to an angry mob.”
  • In 1828, North Carolina Supreme Court Judge Thomas Ruffin wrote that a slave owner must have “uncontrolled authority over the body” of a slave to “render the submission … perfect.” Today Thomas Ruffin’s statue was removed from the NC Court of Appeals.
  • A man was recorded on video throwing red paint onto the Black Lives Matter mural that was recently painted on the street in front of Trump Tower, and which President Trump has sharply criticized as a “symbol of hate.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio later clapped back, tweeting: “To whoever vandalized our mural on 5th Avenue: nice try. [NYC Department of Transportation] has already fixed it. The #BlackLivesMatter movement is more than words, and it can’t be undone.”

Administration News

  • The Trump administration is moving forward with the end of a long-standing ban on the sale of gun silencers, also known as suppressors, to foreign buyers, handing a victory to firearm manufacturers after President Trump’s former deputy assistant and White House lawyer launched a campaign as a lobbyist for a gun silencer trade group.
  • President Donald Trump’s executive clemency to his longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone not only commuted the veteran Republican operative’s prison term but it also spared him a fine and two years of supervised release.

“I commute the entirety of the prison sentence imposed upon the said Roger Stone, Jr. to expire immediately,” according to Trump’s order.

“I also commute the entirety of the two-year term of supervised release with all its conditions, and finally, I remit any unpaid balance of the $20,000 fine imposed.”

  • A federal judge in Washington, D.C., again blocked the Trump administration from resuming executions just hours before the first federal death sentence since 2003 was scheduled to be carried out.
  • A private company that President Trump criticized over its efforts to construct a wall near the U.S.-Mexico border received $1.7 billion in federal contracts from the administration after lobbying the president personally on cable news, according to a new report.
  • More than 350 facilities nationwide have taken advantage of a temporary Environmental Protection Agency rule that lets companies forgo monitoring their water pollution during the coronavirus pandemic. The move is causing great concern among environmentalists: “Where facilities don’t monitor their own discharges and emissions, that can present significant environmental problems depending on what wasn’t reported that got into the environment.”
  • President Trump says the federal government may “take over cities” to combat rising crime: “Numbers are going to be coming down even if we have to go and take over cities.”
  • The United States budget deficit grew to a record $864 billion in June as the federal government continued pumping money into the economy to prop up workers and businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic
  • The Chinese government announced that it would impose sanctions on three American lawmakers and a diplomat in retaliation for similar moves last week by the Trump administration against four officials in China.

The sanctions targeted Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, all of whom are Republicans. Also named was Trump’s ambassador at large for international religious freedom, Sam Brownback.

The Trump administration banned four Chinese officials and a Chinese government agency last Thursday from accessing American banks and other financial institutions. It also restricted them from obtaining visas to the United States.

The sanctions are mostly symbolic on both sides, as neither the Chinese officials nor the Americans are known to have assets in each other’s financial systems.

  • A federal appeals court has ruled that the Trump administration cannot withhold federal grants from California sanctuary cities, affirming previous rulings in the state.

Sources:  ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign News

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Protests/Race Relations 

  • Gov. Gary Herbert of Utah declared a state of emergency Thursday in response to protests in Salt Lake City that erupted after the authorities said the fatal police shooting of a 22-year-old man in May was justified.

Protesters smashed windows and splashed red paint on the district attorney’s office in Salt Lake City after prosecutors cleared police in the fatal shooting.

The Salt Lake County district attorney, Sim Gill, announced that there would be no criminal charges against the two Salt Lake City Police Department officers who shot the man, Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal, on May 23.

  • State troopers folded the Mississippi flag at the Capitol for the last time last week, a turnabout that was powered by a coalition of seemingly unlikely allies, including business-minded conservatives, Baptist ministers and the Black Lives Matter activists.
  • The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was among those who emailed to criticize a Virginia town’s “Black Lives Matter” banner, telling city officials that protesters responding to the death of Black Americans in police custody “hate America.”

“BLM is a bit of a dangerous Trojan Horse and they are catching well-meaning people into dangerous posturing that can invite mob rule and property looting,” Thomas, who is white, reportedly wrote in a signed email that was shared with The Washington Post.

  • Police in St. Petersburg, Fla., said they will start fining protesters who block traffic during demonstrations this week following tense and dangerous standoffs between activists and drivers around the country.

Officers will be enforcing laws already on the books – and the St. Petersburg Police Department said Wednesday it would first begin a public awareness campaign by issuing warnings and handing out flyers.

After a few days, the department will begin issuing fines of $62.50.

  • Twitter suspended over 50 accounts operated by white nationalists Friday amid criticism over its handling of inflammatory posts on its platform.
  • Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst says she supports renaming military bases that are named after Confederate figures even though she’s “been getting heck” from her own party over her stance.
  • Two suspended Buffalo Police officers are now back on the city payroll despite being charged with felony assault.

Officers Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe were suspended last month after shoving 75-year-old protester Martin Gugino to the ground, leading to serious injuries for the protester.

Administration News

  • The president of Goya Foods went on Fox News on Friday to defend comments he made a day earlier praising President Trump during a visit to the White House. The company has since become the target of a boycott and considerable backlash.
  • President Trump told reporters Friday that he is “looking at” pardoning Roger Stone, as he continued to build suspense over whether he will intervene on behalf of his former aide and longtime confidant before he is scheduled to report to prison next week.

“Well, I’ll be looking at it,” Trump said. “I think Roger Stone was very unfairly untreated, as were many people.”

  • The House Appropriations Committee voted to block a controversial Trump Administration transparency rule that the Environmental Protection Agency’s own independent board of science advisers criticized. Scientists have decried the 2018 rule, which the administration sought to broaden in March, as an effort to block the EPA from being able to use significant amounts of research in its rulemaking.

“This rule would place new crippling limits on what studies can be utilized when EPA crafts new regulation,” said the amendment’s sponsor, Rep. David Price (D-N.C.).

  • A former top Department of Veterans Affairs official in the Trump administration improperly steered a $5 million contract to personal friends, according to a report released Thursday by the department’s Office of Inspector General. The OIG report found that the actions of Peter Shelby, who was then the VA’s assistant secretary for human resources and administration at the time, were not only unethical but resulted in the complete waste of government funds.
  • President Trump says he intends to sign an executive order on immigration within the next month that he said will include a “road to citizenship” for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
  • The president Tweeted: “Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education. Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status…and/or Funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues. Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!” 
  • President Trump commuted the sentence of his longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr. on seven felony crimes on Friday, using the power of his office to help a former campaign adviser days before Mr. Stone was to report to a federal prison to serve a 40-month term.
  • President Trump confirmed for the first time on Friday that the U.S. launched a cyberattack on the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) in 2018.

The cyberattack, first reported by The Washington Post in 2019 but not confirmed publicly by the Trump administration, involved U.S. Cyber Command disrupting internet access for the building in St. Petersburg that houses the IRA on the night of the U.S. 2018 midterm elections, halting efforts to spread disinformation as Americans went to the polls.

Presidential Campaign

  • President Donald Trump on Friday accused former Vice President Joe Biden of plagiarizing his economic policies, a day after the presumptive Democratic nominee unveiled a plan to promote American manufacturing and goods.

But despite some similarities in messaging between Biden’s “Buy American” and Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, the two candidates’ policy plans significantly diverge.

“He plagiarized from me, but he could never pull it off,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about Biden’s plan for the economy. “He likes plagiarizing. It’s a plan that is very radical left. But he said the right things because he’s copying what I’ve done, but the difference is he can’t do it.”

Trump did not specify what parts of Biden’s economic plans were plagiarized.

  • Amid ongoing concerns of small crowds, the Trump campaign canceled a rally planned for Saturday in New Hampshire, citing safety concerns about an incoming tropical storm.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden tore into President Trump as he prepared to visit a coronavirus-stricken Florida on Friday, blaming the president’s response to the pandemic for a sharp rise in cases and virus-related hospitalizations in the country’s largest battleground state.

“With over 232,000 cases in the state and over 4,000 deaths in Florida, it is clear that Trump’s response — ignore, blame others, and distract — has come at the expense of Florida families.”

Sources:  ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations News

Read Time: 2 Minutes

  • 90 percent of Americans surveyed in a new poll agreed that racism and police brutality are problems in the United States.
  • An Indiana woman was arrested in a hit-and-run crash that sent one woman to the hospital and caused minor injuries to a man during a southern Indiana protest over the assault of a Black man by a group of white men.
  • A Pennsylvania police officer who was seen kicking a seated protester on May 30 will not face criminal charges, Erie County District Attorney Jack Daneri announced Thursday, the Erie Times-News reported. 

Daneri also said that Hannah Silbaugh, the 21-year-old protester seen in the video of a protest in Erie, will not face charges.

  • Work on another Black Lives Matter mural in New York City started on Thursday — this one situated directly in front of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan. President Trump previously slammed plans to paint it.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the new mural will send a message that “Black lives, in fact, do matter.”

  • Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler doubled down on her attacks against the Black Lives Matter Movement after facing blowback for her stated opposition to the WNBA’s plan to let players wear warmups emblazoned with “Black Lives Matter” and “Say Her Name.” Loeffler, a co-owner of the league’s Atlanta Dream, claimed that the movement “seeks to destroy the American principles” and that she had to “draw the line.”
  • The top U.S. general said that the military had to take a “hard look” at symbols of the Confederacy, including the names of bases, and said he had recommended a commission to look at the issue even as President Donald Trump has ruled out renaming military bases that are named for Confederate leaders.
  • “The Confederacy, the American Civil War was fought, and it was an act of rebellion,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, told members of the House Armed Services Committee. “It was an act of treason at the time against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution, and those officers turned their back on their oath.”
  • Democratic Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms went off on GOP Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for issuing an executive order deploying state National Guard troops due to an escalation in violence in the city.

“The irony of that is that I asked Governor Kemp to allow us to mandate masks in Atlanta and he said no,” Bottoms said. “But he has called in the National Guard without asking if we needed the National Guard.”

Kemp’s emergency order allows as many as 1,000 National Guard troops to be activated.

  • In the last week alone, 179 NYPD officers have filed for retirement compared to 35 in 2019. Since May 25 — the day that George Floyd died while in Minneapolis police custody — 503 NYPD officers have filed for retirement, compared to 287 who filed for retirement during the same period last year.
  • Ahead of its first game since the coronavirus pandemic, a group of nearly 200 Major League Soccer players stood in midfield dressed in black to mark George Floyd’s death with 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence.
  • The House Appropriations Committee advanced a spending bill that would prohibit military construction projects on bases named for Confederate officers.

Sources:  ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations and Trump Administration News

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Protests/Race Relations 

  • An attorney representing Thomas Lane, one of the former Minneapolis police officers charged for his role in the arrest and death of George Floyd, has filed a motion asking for the case against the Lane to be dismissed for what he called a “lack of probable cause based on the entire record.”
  • Senegal’s Goree Island, which for centuries served as a way station in the Transatlantic slave trade, has changed the name of its Europe Square in response to the death of George Floyd in the United States and the global movement it inspired.

It will now be known as Freedom and Human Dignity Square, the municipal council decided.

  • A police officer in Illinois has reportedly been placed on leave and lost his badge after he told local media about his department’s alleged attempts to conceal footage of the arrest of Eric Lurry, a Black man who died in police custody earlier this year.
  • A detective with the King County Sheriff’s Office in Washington state was placed on leave after he made comments mocking two protesters hit by a car in Seattle — one of whom died of their injuries.

The detective, Mike Brown, reportedly posted a photo on Facebook of a vehicle hitting a group of people, according to NBC affiliate King-TV in Seattle. The image was captioned “All lives splatter” and “Keep your ass off the road.”

  • The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors statue in Richmond, Virginia, was removed Wednesday morning, adding to the growing list of monuments ordered to come down in the former capital of the Confederacy, according to the city’s mayor.

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney on July 1, citing his emergency powers declared in late May, ordered the removal of all city-owned Confederate statues.

  • The University of California Regents have appointed Michael V. Drake as the new head of the school system and become its first Black president. 

The Board of Regents unanimously approved Drake, a physician. He will oversee the renowned system of five medical centers, 10 campuses, three nationally affiliated labs, more than 280,000 students and 220,000 faculty.

  • Black protesters were charged with felonies at a rate quadruple that of white ones during demonstrations over the death of George Floyd in New York City, according to a preliminary report from state Attorney General Letitia James’s office.
  • New York City is moving ahead with its plans to have a mural of the words “Black Lives Matter” painted on the street in front of Trump Tower this week, despite pushback from the president. 
  • A Seattle man, Dawit Kelete, who the authorities said drove into a protest on a closed section of Interstate 5 over the weekend, killing one demonstrator, was charged on Wednesday with vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and reckless driving.

Two of the charges, vehicular homicide and vehicular assault, are felonies, a spokesman 

The Washington State Patrol and the F.B.I. were still investigating the matter, and Mr. Kelete could face additional charges, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office.

  • Amazon is pulling Washington Redskins merchandise from its website, with sellers given 48 hours to review and remove any products flagged by the company.

Administration News

  • The federal deficit in the first nine months of the fiscal year hit a record $2.7 trillion, nearly double the largest full-year deficit on record, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.

In June alone, the deficit hit $863 billion, more than 107 times the $8 billion deficit recorded in June of last year.

The deficit is on track to exceed $3.8 trillion, shattering the $1.4 trillion record set in 2009 as the global financial crisis led to the Great Recession.

  • The Supreme Court upheld a Trump administration regulation allowing employers with religious objections to limit access to free birth control.
  • Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key witness in President Trump’s impeachment inquiry, is retiring from the US Army after more than 21 years of military service because he determined that his future in the armed forces “will forever be limited” due to political retaliation by the President and his allies, his lawyer told CNN Wednesday.

Vindman has endured a “campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation” spearheaded by the President following his testimony in the impeachment inquiry last year, according to his attorney, Amb. David Pressman.

  • Facebook removed 50 personal and professional pages connected to President  Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone, who is due to report to prison next week.

The social media platform said Stone and his associates, including a prominent supporter of the right-wing Proud Boys group in Stone’s home state of Florida, had used fake accounts and followers to promote Stone’s books and posts.

  • U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper had approved Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman for promotion as part of a crop of new promotions due to be sent to the White House in the coming days, a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters on Wednesday.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Esper had approved the list on Monday with Vindman’s name.

  • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that his department “will work with Congress” in regards to the delivery of U.S. funds earmarked for the World Health Organization, as the Trump administration begins the formal process of withdrawing from the global health body.

The U.S. owes an estimated $203 million as part of its assessed contributions to the WHO for its two-year operating budget. The amount also includes funds that have yet to be paid for the 2019 operating year.

  • The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Justice Department are looking into allegations that popular app TikTok failed to live up to a 2019 agreement aimed at protecting children’s privacy.
  • A federal court has upheld a lower court decision reversing a Trump administration policy that eliminated protections for grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park.
  • Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador heaped praise on President Trump on Wednesday as the two leaders celebrated the official start of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) at the White House.
  • The top U.S. general in the Middle East predicts that a small amount of U.S. troops will remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

“I believe that going forward, they’re going to want us to be with them,” U.S. Central Command head Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told reporters Tuesday after he met with Iraq’s new prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, according to The Associated Press.

“I don’t sense there’s a mood right now for us to depart precipitously. And I’m pretty confident of that.”

  • Initial Jobless Claims fell last week, even as a slew of states hard-hit with COVID-19 reintroduced restrictions.For the week ending July 4, 1.3 million people applied for initial unemployment claims, down from 1.427 million the week before.

Sources:  ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations and Trump Administration News

Read Time: 4 Minutes

Protests/Race Relations

  • Lafayette County (Mississippi)  Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to keep its monument to Confederate soldiers.
  • “Enough is enough” was the headline in all capital letters across the front page of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday, repeating the frustrated words of Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms at a news conference on Sunday and echoing a sentiment shared in other parts of the country as a number of children have died in recent days in a surge of gun violence.

“The reality is this: These aren’t police officers shooting people on the streets of Atlanta, these are members of the community shooting each other,” Ms. Bottoms said in her news conference.

  • Work crews in Richmond, Virginia took down a monument to Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the third major statue to be removed  in the former Confederate capitol in less than a week. Richmond is rushing to remove symbols of oppression after protests.
  • The city council in a Mississippi city named after Andrew Jackson votes to move a statue of the former U.S. president from the city’s downtown to a less prominent place. Jackson owned enslaved people and oversaw the forced migration of Native Americans.
  • On Monday, Tucker Carlson criticized Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth for suggesting during a recent CNN interview that the US should consider arguments for removing monuments of George Washington. Carlson said,  “Most people just ignore her. But when Duckworth does speak in public, you’re reminded what a deeply silly and unimpressive person she is… These people actually hate America.”  

Duckworth, who lost both of her legs while serving in Iraq when the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents., replied by challenging Carlson to “walk a mile” in her legs. 

  • A car in Bloomington, Indiana on Tuesday struck demonstrators protesting an alleged attempted lynching captured on video earlier in the week, and the driver has yet to be identified.

Witnesses told NBC affiliate WTHR a passenger in the car had stepped out and thrown a scooter that had been left in the road, prompting the woman to attempt to intervene by putting her hands on the hood of the car, at which point the car accelerated.

  • Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) is coming under criticism from the WNBA Players Association after writing a letter saying that the league should not go forward with a plan to put the names of Black victims of police violence on player jerseys.

“The truth is, we need less—not more politics in sports. In a time when polarizing politics is as divisive as ever, sports has the power to be a unifying antidote,” Loeffler wrote to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert. “And now more than ever, we should be united in our goal to remove politics from sports.”

Loeffler has co-owned the Atlanta Dream, one of the WNBA’s franchises, since 2011.

  • The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office announced that Nichole Anderson, 42, and David Nelson, 53, both residents of Martinez, California, would be charged with three misdemeanor counts,  including a hate crime. The pair were caught on camera vandalizing a Black Lives Matter mural on July 4. Anderson covered up a Black Lives Matter mural with black paint and Nelson directly aided in her alleged criminal conduct.
  • Surveillance video released Tuesday shows a Michigan teenager being forcefully restrained by at least seven staff members in a youth facility before his death days later. 

16-year-old Cornelius Fredericks was pushed and held down by staff members at the Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo after he threw a sandwich in the cafeteria. 

The teenager screamed “I can’t breathe” as he was being restrained for about eight minutes on April 29. Fredericks went into cardiac arrest when being detained and died on May 1.

  • The U.S. Park Police has said that its radio communications system did not record any transmissions when the agency and other law enforcement officers dispersed a crowd of protestors gathered around Lafayette Square on June 1 ahead of President Trump’s visit to a nearby church. The episode is now the subject of investigation from Congress and the Interior Department’s internal watchdog.

Administration News

  • Top White House aides are reportedly narrowing in on a list of fewer than 10 potential Trump administration officials who could have leaked information about Russian agents providing funds to Taliban-linked militants to target American troops in Afghanistan.
  • President Trump is scheduled to receive his first intelligence briefing this month on Tuesday. It is his first “daily” intelligence briefing since June 30.
  • Some White House officials are privately expressing frustration over President Trump’s recent embrace of a message stoking racial and cultural divisions.

But Trump is “going with his gut” and “relying on instinct,” the two officials said. Instead of touting wins, Trump has opted to zero in on the national debate about race and side with supporters who view themselves as victims unfairly cast as racists in the renewed national discussion about discrimination targeting minorities.

  • The United States will leave the World Health Organization on July 6, 2021, the United Nations said on Tuesday, after receiving notification of the decision by President Donald Trump, who has accused the agency of becoming a puppet for China during the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Payday lenders won’t have to check whether borrowers can afford to repay their high-interest loans under a new rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Its director, Kathleen L. Kraninger, said the new provision will provide “access to credit from a competitive marketplace.”

The rule rolls back a 2017 provision by the Obama administration to protect consumers from taking out expensive payday loans, which can carry interest rates as high as 400%.  With the new rule, lenders will no longer be required to “reasonably” determine whether a consumer can repay the loan in a timely manner.

  • U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun met with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha in Seoul on Wednesday for wide-ranging talks, overshadowed by Pyongyang’s insistence that it has no intention of returning to denuclearisation negotiations any time soon.

Sources:  ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations and Trump Administration News

Read Time: 4 Minutes

Protests/Race Relations

  • A statue of Frederick Douglass, installed in 2018 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolitionist’s birth, was ripped from its pedestal in Rochester, N.Y., on Sunday.

The statue was found about 50 feet away from its base in Maplewood Park, just beyond a fence near the Genesee River gorge. It “had been placed over the fence to the gorge and was leaning against the fence,” Rochester police said.

  • NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace on Monday called for Americans to meet hate with love after President Trump attacked the top racing league’s only African American driver and falsely accused him of carrying out a “hoax” involving a noose found in his garage stall.
  • Trump criticized possible moves by the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians to change their team names as “politically correct,” writing in a Tweet: “They name teams out of STRENGTH, not weakness, but now the Washington Redskins & Cleveland Indians, two fabled sports franchises, look like they are going to be changing their names in order to be politically correct. Indians, like Elizabeth Warren, must be very angry right now!”
  • Authorities in Indiana are investigating after a Black man said he was attacked by a group of white people as he mistakenly walked through private property to get to a public lake shore on Saturday.

Videos of the incident show multiple white men holding Vauhxx Rush Booker’s body against a tree as a few white women stand next to them, telling the men to let him go.

In another video, a shirtless man is seen apparently yelling at a bystander, calling her a “nappy-headed bitch.” A third video shows the same man yelling at bystanders “you invaded us.”

“We were having a great time and you invaded us,” he says. “You stupid fucking liberal fucks.”

  • Police have identified a suspect, a Black man, 27-year-old Cedric Charles Moore Jr. and charged him with second-degree felony assault and first-degree child endangerment, after a 12-year-old White boy was attacked while he was dancing in downtown Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

The incident happened around 11:40 p.m. Friday. The boy was performing with his dance instructor and a fellow student on a sidewalk on Main Street. A man got out of a nearby vehicle, sneaked up behind the boy, hit him hard on the back of the head and fled back to his vehicle. The boy fell to the pavement, and he had to be taken to a local hospital. The incident was recorded in a Facebook Live video.

  • Disney is partnering with former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick to deliver “scripted and unscripted stories” exploring race and social justice, including a documentary series chronicling Kaepernick’s life. The deal will extend across Disney platforms, including ESPN, Hulu, Pixar and The Undefeated, a site dedicated to exploring the intersection of race, culture and sports.
  • Amy Cooper, a White woman who was caught on video calling the police on a Black man who was birdwatching in New York’s Central Park, is now facing charges of falsely reporting an incident in the third degree
  • Restaurant chain Jimmy John’s says it has fired workers who were seen in a viral clip laughing and playing with what appeared to be a noose shaped from dough at one its stores in Georgia over the weekend with a filter reading “Happy 4th of July.”
  • Philadelphia Eagle DeSean Jackson shared anti-semitic quotes attributed to Adolf Hitler on his Instagram story over the July 4th holiday, and continued to use the quotes as a conversation piece during several posts on the social media network on Monday afternoon.
  • The Pentagon is working on a policy that would ban the display of Confederate flags at military bases, according to multiple reports on Monday.

The draft policy, if put into effect, would ban the flag’s display in Department of Defense  workplaces or public areas by service members and civilian personnel.

  • Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has declared a state of emergency and called up the National Guard after what he said were “weeks of dramatically increased violent crime and property destruction in the City of Atlanta.”
  • Kanawha County, WV school board members have unanimously voted in favor of changing the name of Stonewall Jackson Middle School in Charleston.

Administration News

  • President Trump is expected to refile paperwork this week to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that offers protections for thousands of young immigrants after the Supreme Court ruled last month that the administration failed to give an adequate justification for terminating the program as required by federal law.
  • EU lawmakers overwhelmingly backed a proposal on Monday to allow the European Union to retaliate more quickly in trade disputes, with a clear eye on the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
  • The January U.S. drone strike in Iraq that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and nine other people represented a violation of international law, a U.N. human rights investigator said on Monday.
  • Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada confirmed he won’t attend a meeting in Washington this week with President Donald Trump and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico.
  • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said late on Monday that the United States is “certainly looking at” banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok.

“I don’t want to get out in front of the president, but it’s something we’re looking at,” Pompeo said.

Sources:  ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 6 Minutes

Protests/Race Relations News

  • NYC Mayor de Blasio said “Black Lives Matter” will be painted on Manhattan’s 5th Ave. in “a matter of days.” 

Whenever President Trump comes back to New York, “he’ll get a message that he still doesn’t understand. Maybe seeing it outside his doorstep will help him get the point.”

  • “NYC is cutting Police $’s by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue. This will further antagonize New York’s Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the….

….horrible BLM chant, “Pigs In A Blanket, Fry ‘Em Like Bacon”. Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them, won’t let this symbol of hate be affixed to New York’s greatest street. Spend this money fighting crime instead!”

  • President Trump has told people in recent days that he regrets following some of son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner’s political advice — including supporting criminal justice reform — and will stick closer to his own instincts, three people with direct knowledge of the president’s thinking tell Axios.

Behind the scenes: One person who spoke with the president interpreted his thinking this way: “No more of Jared’s woke shit.” Another said Trump has indicated that following Kushner’s advice has harmed him politically.

  • In response to this Axios report, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement, “President Trump is very proud of the historic work that he’s done to benefit all communities. The First Step Act made historic strides toward rectifying racial disparities in sentencing while his executive order to secure America’s streets works with our nation’s heroic police officers to ensure we have safe policing and safe communities.”
  • A vehicle carrying Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) on Tuesday hit a Des Moines Black Lives Matter protester who officials say intentionally stepped in front of its path.
  • Police in Seattle arrested thirteen people Wednesday as officers returned to a police precinct and an area of downtown that demonstrators had taken control of during protests last month following the police killing of George Floyd.

The arrests came after the mayor’s executive order directing all residents to vacate the area of downtown now known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone.

  • Selwyn Jones, one of George Floyd’s uncles, is pushing officials in Gettysburg, South Dakota, to remove the Confederate battle flag from the local police department’s logo, and has inspired a petition with over 4,000 petitions calling for its removal.

The mayor has pushed back, however, saying it won’t be removed because “the liberals and the press telling us we have to change it. People here do not feel it’s racism.”

  • The House Armed Services Committee has approved an amendment to ban the display of the Confederate battle flag at all Pentagon property, which includes bases, workspaces and front porches of military housing.
  • Dozens of investment firms and shareholders are calling on Nike, FedEx and PepsiCo to end their business relationships with the Washington Redskins unless the team changes its name.
  • Several students protested outside a Montclair, NJ woman’s home after footage went viral of her accusing her Black neighbors of building a stone patio without a permit and eventually calling the police.
  • The Los Angeles City Council voted to reduce their police department budget by $150 million amid local and nationwide activists’ calls to defund the police, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

The council voted 12 to 2 to bring the Los Angeles Police Department workforce down to 9,757 officers by next summer. The last time that level of police staffing was seen in the city was 2008.

  • The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday approved an immediate 35% cut to its school police force, a reduction of $25 million, in response to weeks of protests by student activists and community groups who had called for the elimination of the department.

In the wake of the decision, the department’s police chief, Todd Chamberlain, who has been in the job less than a year, resigned from his post Wednesday.

  • A whipping post was removed from the grounds of a historic Delaware courthouse on Wednesday after calls from activists to address its troubled, racist history. The removal was carried out by the state’s Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs.
  • Virginia’s capital city began taking down its statue of Stonewall Jackson after Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the immediate removal of multiple Confederate statues in Richmond.
  • A construction crew removed the massive Christopher Columbus statue from outside Columbus, Ohio’s City Hall on Wednesday morning, in one of the most dramatic cases yet of a city reshaping how its monuments reflect its sense of history and community identity.
  • The Dept. of Homeland Security says it will deploy personnel across the U.S. to carry out President Trump’s order to protect statues and monuments from vandalism amid ongoing protests for racial justice.
  • Clay County, Florida Sheriff Darryl Daniels says he will deputize every gun owner in his county to put down violent protests his deputies can’t handle alone.

Trump Administration News

  • The USMCA trade pact, which replaces NAFTA, went into effect Wednesday.
  • As Sen. Elizabeth Warren exited the Senate SCIF after what appeared to be a briefing on Russian bounties, she said, “There was no one there who had any information about what information was given to the president or when it was given to him.”She added: “That was NOT a briefing.”
  • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is accusing journalists of spreading misinformation related to reports that Russia offered bounties to Taliban-backed fighters to kill U.S. service members in Afghanistan, alleging reporters don’t have enough intelligence information but refusing to discuss what he knows of the issue.
  • Three NATO officials say they had been briefed on intelligence that Russian operatives were secretly offering cash bounties to Taliban-linked militants for US casualties in Afghanistan — as President Donald Trump claimed he was not, and dismissed news reports on the intelligence as a “possibly another fabricated Russia Hoax.”

The revelation that US intelligence had briefed the White House on the Taliban bounties had been a closely-held secret for several months, until US officials began briefing UK and other European allies last week.

  • “The Taliban have been paid by Russian intelligence for attacks on U.S. forces—and on ISIS forces—in Afghanistan from 2014 up to the present,” says Mullah Manan Niazai, who was formerly a senior figure in the Taliban.
  • Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said on Wednesday that after reading classified intelligence he believes the Trump administration should brief the Senate on reports that Russians offered bounties to Taliban-linked fighters to target U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
  • Senate Democrats are requesting a briefing on wire transfers intercepted by U.S. intelligence connected to reports of bounties being offered by Russian forces to incentivize Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
  • Afghan contractor Rahmatullah Azizi was named in a U.S. intelligence report as one of the key middlemen who delivered cash from Russia’s GRU to the Taliban to target American troops, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

American and Afghan officials reported that Azizi spent several years transferring money to reward Taliban-linked fighters for targeting American troops in Afghanistan.

  • CIA Director Gina Haspel and National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone will brief congressional leaders known as the Gang of Eight on intelligence related to suspected Russian bounties on U.S. forces on Thursday.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed at a press briefing that the classified briefing would take place on Thursday. The Gang of Eight includes the top Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate as well as the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Sources:  ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations News

Read Time: 4 Minutes

Protest/Race Relations News

  • “I have not heard a true, official apology to Colin Kaepernick on what he was going through and what he was trying to tell the NFL and tell the world about why he was kneeling when he was doing that as a San Francisco 49er,” LeBron James said. “I just see that to still be wrong. Now they are listening some, but I still think we have not heard that official apology to a man who basically sacrificed everything for the better of this world.”
  • Rep. Matt Gaetz plans to introduce legislation that would force U.S. Soccer players to stand for the national anthem. The proposal is, on its face, unconstitutional.
  • Sioux Rapids Police Chief Tim Porter may face disciplinary action over a social media post he made earlier this week.

In response to an image of a pickup attempting to drive through a crowd of protesters, Porter commented, “HIT THE GAS AND HANG ON OVER THE SPEED BUMPS.”

According to KCCI TV in Des Moines, issued the following statement Tuesday: “I have a huge apology to all that saw my Facebook page yesterday of myself making a comment about running over a person in the street holding a USA sign.”

Porter’s apology says he was working on another post when he “accidentally posted on the wrong post.”

  • The owner of a North Carolina racetrack advertised so-called “Bubba Rope” for sale this week, alluding to a noose that was found earlier this month in the garage used by NASCAR driver Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. at a different track in Alabama.

According to a report by ESPN, 311 Speedway owner Mike Fulp posted on Facebook Marketplace on Wednesday that he was selling “Bubba Rope” for just under $10 each.

“Buy your Bubba Rope today for only $9.99 each, they come with a lifetime warranty and work great,”

  • Newark, New Jersey removed a statue of Christopher Columbus from Washington Park.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka announced the removal in a press release and said it was taken down with city work crews to avoid the potential danger of people toppling it over. The statue will be kept in storage until the city decides what to do with it.

  • Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law the state’s first hate-crime law, which will give sentencing guidelines for anyone convicted of targeting a victim based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, mental disability or physical disability.

Georgia was previously one of four states in the country without a law explicitly against hate crimes.

  • Thomas Blanton, the last surviving Ku Klux Klan member convicted in the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Baptist Church in Birmingham that killed four little girls, has died in prison.
  • Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said Friday the Church of England and other religious institutions worldwide should “of course” reconsider portrayals of Jesus that depict him as a white man.

“You see Jesus portrayed in as many ways as there are cultures, languages and understandings,” Welby said. “You don’t see a white Jesus—you see a Black Jesus or a Chinese Jesus or a Middle Eastern Jesus, which is the most accurate.”

  • President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday to protect federal monuments after a rash of recent incidents involving the vandalism of statues memorializing the Confederacy and some of the nation’s Founding Fathers.

“I just had the privilege of signing a very strong Executive Order protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues – and combatting recent Criminal Violence. Long prison terms for these lawless acts against our Great Country!” Trump said in a tweet.

  • Showrunners of “The Simpsons” announced that the series would no longer use white actors to voice nonwhite characters, according to the Wall Street Journal.
  • Aurora, Colorado officials announced Friday that the three police officers involved in the death of 23-year-old Elijah McClain last year have been reassigned and are off the streets for their own protection as McClain’s case gains national attention.

McClain was stopped by police while walking home from a convenience store. Police had been called over “suspicious” activity as McClain was walking with a face covering on, something family said he did to aid in his social anxiety and keep him warm as he suffered from anemia.

McClain’s last words include him saying: “I’m an introvert. I’m just different. That’s all. I’m so sorry. I have no gun. I don’t do that stuff. I don’t do any fighting. Why are you attacking me? I don’t even kill flies! I don’t eat meat! But I don’t judge people, I don’t judge people who do eat meat. Forgive me … I’m so sorry.”

He was held in a chokehold before vomiting. Police then injected him with ketamine to sedate him, leading to a heart attack. He was pronounced dead three days later

  • The Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved a proposal that would amend the city’s charter to allow the city police department to be dismantled.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) has previously said he doesn’t support dismantling the police. He’s been criticized for that stance by people with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Sources:  ABC News, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post