Music: Daniel Herskedal — ‘The Lighthouse’
Quiet opening
Mass protests around the globe in solidarity against police brutality and racism
The New York Times reports: They were warned by Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia against attending Black Lives Matter marches on Saturday because of the coronavirus risk, but tens of thousands would not be deterred. The health minister in Britain pleaded with residents not to gather for similar demonstrations in cities like London, Manchester and Birmingham to stop the virus’s spread. But throngs showed up anyway — despite the cold weather, the spitting rain and warnings by the police…
Minneapolis City Council member: We must disband the police
Steve Fletcher writes: When I ran for the Minneapolis City Council in 2017, I knew that the Police Department had a decades-long history of violence and discrimination. I ran on a platform of police reform informed by my experience seeing police persistently harass young black canvassers that I worked with as a community organizer, and by the police shooting of Jamar Clark in 2015, which prompted weeks of protest outside the fourth precinct. In 2017, the police shooting of Justine…
Protesters ‘defund the police’ rallying cry is gaining traction among public officials
The New York Times reports: After more than a week of protests against police brutality and unrest that left parts of the city burned, a growing chorus of elected officials, civic leaders and residents in Minneapolis are urging the city to break up the Police Department and reimagine the way policing works. “We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,” Jeremiah Ellison, a member of the City Council, said on Twitter this week. “And when we’re done, we’re not…
Police tactics during protests threaten public health across America
Politico reports: Mass arrests of protesters across the country — many held for hours in vans, cells and other enclosed spaces — are heightening the risk of coronavirus spread, according to public health experts and lawsuits filed by civil rights groups. As tens of thousands of people take to the streets to protest police brutality after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the arrest and detention of thousands further jeopardizes the health of demonstrators — and that of police…
U.S. military helicopters used to threaten American civilians in nation’s capital
Human Rights Watch reports: Police and other law enforcement officers have responded to largely peaceful protests across the United States with, in many cases, excessive force and other abusive tactics. This week they threatened demonstrators with military helicopters. On June 1 at around 10 p.m. in Washington, DC, a UH-72A “Lakota” helicopter from the District of Columbia National Guard bearing a Red Cross emblem and at least one other helicopter, a variant of the “Blackhawk,” hovered low above protesters out…
As Trump rekindles NFL fight, Commissioner Goodell sides with players
The NFL’s own social team went behind the league’s back, created this video with players, met with Goodell after doing it and then got the league to come out with an apology for its previous inaction. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. https://t.co/v5iWrbGm9V — Adam White (@FOSAdam) June 5, 2020 The New York Times reports: The protracted debate in the N.F.L. over players protesting racial injustice during the national anthem reignited with force on Friday…
How the People’s House was turned into Trump’s fortified bunker
The Washington Post reports: The security perimeter around the White House keeps expanding. Tall black fencing is going up seemingly by the hour. Armed guards and sharpshooters and combat troops are omnipresent. In the 72 hours since Monday’s melee at Lafayette Square, the White House has been transformed into a veritable fortress — the physical manifestation of President Trump’s vision of law-and-order “domination” over the millions of Americans who have taken to the streets to protest racial injustice. The White…
Music: Misha Mullov-Abbado — ‘Still, Hidden Morning’
Why Trump is so obsessed with antifa
Ben Zimmer writes: This nation has been roiled with anguish and anger this past week over the police and extrajudicial killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and yet the White House is engaging in the same old rhetorical tactics of divisive scapegoating. Only now that rhetoric comes in the service of ominous ends: President Donald Trump relies on the shadowy specter of “antifa”—a label for a diffuse militant movement unified by a drive to counter fascism through…
The story behind Bill Barr’s militia occupying Washington D.C.
Garrett M. Graff writes: Few sights from the nation’s protests in recent days have seemed more dystopian than the appearance of rows of heavily-armed riot police around Washington in drab military-style uniforms with no insignia, identifying emblems or name badges. Many of the apparently federal agents have refused to identify which agency they work for. “Tell us who you are, identify yourselves!” protesters demanded, as they stared down the helmeted, sunglass-wearing mostly white men outside the White House. Eagle-eyed protesters…
Buffalo police serve and protect each other
The Daily Beast reports: A video of Buffalo police officers shoving an elderly peace activist to the ground, then walking by him as a pool of blood collected around his head, shocked the nation. Their colleagues? Not so much. All members of the Emergency Response Team resigned from the unit on Friday in support of the officers who were suspended without pay for their aggression toward Martin Gugino, 75. “Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of…
Facebook employees said they were ‘caught in an abusive relationship’ with Trump as internal debates raged
The Washington Post reports: At an emergency town hall meeting Facebook held this week, days after President Trump posted, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” on his account, 5,500 Facebook employees had a demand for Mark Zuckerberg. Before the meeting, the employees voted in a poll on which questions to ask the chief executive at the meeting, according to internal documents viewed by The Washington Post. The question that got the most votes: “Can we please change our policies…
Law enforcement seizes masks meant to protect anti-racist protesters from Covid-19
HuffPost reports: Law enforcement agents have seized hundreds of cloth masks that read “Stop killing Black people” and “Defund police” that a Black Lives Matter-affiliated organization sent to cities around the country to protect demonstrators against the spread of COVID-19, a disease that has had a disparate impact on Black communities. The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) spent tens of thousands of dollars on the masks they had planned to send all over the country. The first four boxes, each…
Sweden had no lockdown. Did it work?
Sweden has become a model for staying open during the pandemic for lockdown opponents in the U.S. Yet comparing Sweden and the U.S. without context is misleading. Unlike the Scandinavian country, the U.S. was not equipped with a robust social welfare system. But most importantly, has Sweden even successfully contained COVID-19? And will Sweden reach herd immunity?
Jim Cramer: The pandemic led to ‘one of the greatest wealth transfers in history’
CNBC reports: The coronavirus pandemic and corresponding lockdown made way for “one of the greatest wealth transfers in history,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday. The stock market is rising as big business rebounds from state-ordered stoppage of nonessential activity, while small businesses drop like flies, the “Mad Money” host said. “The bigger the business, the more it moves the major averages, and that matters because this is the first recession where big business … is coming through virtually unscathed, if…