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lesbianfeminists · 4 years

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There’s More Than One Way to ‘Erase’ Women

On 28th May Hungary’s Parliament signed a bill into law which ends legal recognition for transgender people. The votes of rightwing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party pushed the legislation through by a majority in the context of a pandemic in which he is ruling by decree indefinitely. The changes to Hungary’s Registry Act will restrict gender to biological sex at birth, a status determined by primary sex characteristics and chromosomes. All other forms of identification are tied to birth certificates in Hungary so these too will reflect birth sex.

Trans advocacy and human rights groups argue that it will lead to more discrimination because Hungarians are required to produce identity cards on a frequent basis. This means that they will, in effect, be ‘outing’ themselves in everyday situations which may be humiliating, at best, and dangerous at worst. The government say they are merely clarifying sex within the law; a disingenuous claim in a political context in which the traditional family is increasingly being placed at the heart of a ‘white’, Christian nation.

Julie Bindel recently argued that it was unwise of Pink News to look at Orban’s policies in relation to transgender people in isolation. They should instead be conceived of as part of a broader attack on women’s rights and the rights of minority groups.

But Bindel’s advice applies equally to those gender critical feminists, albeit small in number, who are responding positively to the news from Hungary, on the basis that Orban recognises the immutability of sex. Whilst Baroness Nicholson might see no problem in adding Hungary to her list of causes for celebration, feminists shouldn’t lose sight of a much bigger picture.

In 2013, Orban introduced a constitutional reform which enshrined the idea of the family as the foundation of the nation in the Basic Law. Although abortion was legalised after the Second World War, since 2013 the Constitution has stated that “the life of the fetus must be protected from the moment of conception”. Orban has yet to move on abortion but he publically supports anti-abortion organisations and in 2017 he opened The World Congress of Families conference in Budapest. The WCF is a United States coalition is a virulently anti-abortion organisation which promotes Christian right values globally.

By 2018, he was setting out his plan for a new “cultural era” which included amending the kindergarten curriculum so that it would promote a “national identity, Christian cultural values, patriotism, attachment to homeland and family”. (5) In 2019, the government announced a series of pro-natalist measures which included a lifetime income tax exemption for mothers of four children and free IVF treatment for married heterosexual couples. These policies aim to reverse demographic decline and curb immigration, at one and the same time. Orban argues that “it’s a national interest to restore natural reproduction. Not one interest among others – but the only one. It’s a European interest too. It is the European interest”.

In essence, he subscribes to the white nationalist “demographic winter” theory, which claims that the “purity” of European civilisation is in peril due to the increasing numbers of non-white races, in general, and Muslim people, in particular. Orban’s draconian measures against migrants and refugees dovetail with this belief system.

Such policies also cast women in the role of wombs of the nation, echoing the eugenicist policies of Hitler, who also provided financial inducements to bribe Aryan women into motherhood. As Anita Komuves, a Hungarian journalist, tweeted, “Can we just simply declare that Hungary is Gilead from now on?”

Homosexuality is legal in Hungary, but same sex couples are unable to marry and registered partnerships don’t offer equivalent legal rights. Orban’s government has made the promotion of patriarchal family values so central to its cultural mission and policies that anti gay rhetoric amongst politicians has become commonplace. Last year, László Kövér, the speaker of the Hungarian parliament, compared supporters of lesbian and gay marriage and adoption to paedophiles. “Morally, there is no difference between the behaviour of a paedophile and the behaviour of someone who demands such things,” he said. (9) In 2017 the annual Pride event was attacked by violent right-wing extremists hurling faeces, acid and Molotov cocktails at the marchers and police.

Just as Orban has sought to eliminate the notion of gender identity within the law, so too has he gone to war against what he describes as “gender ideology”. In 2018 he issued a decree revoking funding for gender studies programmes in October that year. (10) At the time, this move was welcomed by some gender critical and radical feminists on the basis that postmodern feminism in the academy has contributed to a dogmatic sex denialism which is unable to analyse the basis of female oppression. (11) But, as with the changes in relation to the legal recognition of transgender people, Orban’s reasons were anything but feminist. As one government spokesman explained: “The government’s standpoint is that people are born either male or female, and we do not consider it acceptable for us to talk about socially constructed genders rather than biological sexes.” (12) Gender studies is seen as promoting too fluid an understanding of male and female roles in the place of a fixed social order in which women’s biological destiny is to be married mothers. The decision to withdraw funding from gender studies didn’t come out of nowhere. At a party congress in December 2015, László Kövér, one of the founders of the Fidesz party, stated:

“We don’t want the gender craziness. We don’t want to make Hungary a futureless society of man-hating women, and feminine men living in dread of women, and considering families and children only as barriers to self-fulfilment… And we would like if our daughters would consider, as the highest quality of self-fulfilment, the possibility of giving birth to our grandchildren.”

Orban’s war against “gender” also led to Hungary’s National Assembly recently passing a declaration which refused to ratify the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe’s Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.It was claimed that the convention promoted “gender ideology” and particular issue was taken with the section that defined gender as “socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men.” Hungarian politicians object to an understanding of gender which recognises that women’s ‘role’ can change, even improve (!), as societies change, an unwelcome thought to those wishing to uphold men’s power in the family and discourage homosexuality. As with a number of Orban’s other policy decisions, there was also a racist element to the refusal to ratify the convention. The fact that it would have afforded protections for migrant and refugee women was in direct contradiction to Hungary’s anti-immigration policies. As one far right, Hungarian blog put it:

“By refusing the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, Hungary, says ‘Yes!’ to the protection of women but ‘No!’ to gender ideology and illegal migration.”

(Women’s groups in the UK have long suspected that our government refuses to ratify the Convention as it would bind them to properly funding the VAWG sector.)

Orban’s concern about “gender” and “gender ideology” is shared by other states with a socially conservative programme for women. Some gender critical and radical feminists use this term, as well, which can be confusing when our respective analyses have so little in common. Here, it refers to a set of beliefs that conflate sex with gender and deny the material reality of sex-based oppression. This is a far cry from the definitions shared by the growing “anti gender” movements in Central and Eastern Europe.

These movements privilege biological understandings of what it means to be a man or a woman but only do so in order to insist that our biology should determine (and restrict) our lives.They want to hang on the man/woman binary because they believe that gendered roles and expectations, ones which place women below men, are determined by sex. In short, they deny that gender is a social construct. “Gender ideology”, as a term, has become something of a dustbin category, deployed variously to attack feminism, same sex marriage, reproductive rights and sex education in schools. Trump’s administration is engaged in an ongoing fight to remove the word “gender” from United Nations documents.

In this context, we need to remember that “gender” is still most frequently used as a proxy for women/sex in UN Conventions like CEDAW (The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women). The term is also increasingly – to our concern – conflated with gender identity with all the risks that this entails.

But that fact shouldn’t blind us to the main motivations of those who oppose the use of the word gender at UN level. When conservatives say they want to replace the term “gender” with “sex”, it’s invariably to oppose women’s equality with men and to enshrine patriarchal understandings of women’s place in society. Replacing the language of gender with the language of sex is, in their terms, a route to a biologically driven and restricted notion of reproduction as women’s only fate. Replacing the language of gender with the language of sex is not necessarily a feminist enterprise.

Unless we establish very clear lines between ourselves and rightwing, religious fundamentalists, we are in danger of being swallowed up and used by the most anti-women, global forces, the canniest of which offer themselves as ‘partners’ in the fight against gender ideology: witness several events hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a hugely powerful Christian Right think tank which has platformed radical feminists.

The Heritage Foundation has particular chutzpah. Whilst claiming to be an ally in the feminist fight to preserve female only spaces and sex-based rights, it opposes reproductive rights, lesbian and gay rights and any measures to counter discrimination against women, notably the Equal Rights Amendment. In fact, it blames feminists for the current state of affairs – though Ryan Anderson would never be rude enough to say so at their shared events. “Transgender theories are part of the feminist goal of a sexual revolution that eliminates the proprietary family and celebrates non-monogamous sexual experiences.”

When it’s not cynically partnering with (a small number) of radical feminists as ‘cover’, the Heritage Foundation enjoys the company of the Holy See, the universal government of the Catholic Church which operates from Vatican City State. (20) The Vatican has opposed the notion of gender since the early-2000s, arguing that males and females have intrinsic attributes which aren’t shaped by social forces. Recently, they published an educational document called “Male and female he created them”.

Woman’s Place UK has consistently stated an opposition to working with, or supporting the work of the religious right (and their female representatives). Not simply because it is strategically disastrous but because it is wrong in principle. (22) When we look at what is happening in Hungary it is well to remember that there is more than one way to ‘erase’ women. Andrea Pető, a professor at the Central European University of Budapest, commenting on the official reports that Hungary (and Poland) send to the UN CEDAW Committee, noted, “we see that they replace the concept of women with that of family, women as independent agents are slowly disappearing from public policy documents, behind the single word family.”

https://womansplaceuk.org/2020/06/18/womens-rights-under-attack-hungary/

#rightwing #gender

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dispatchesfrom2020 · 4 years

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2020

What stories was I sleeping on?

So, what stories did I definitely miss before this project? Well, Atlantic Hurricanes and the Belarussian protests, for sure. Here are some of the other news I skipped out on during the year - or my recaps.

Ben Curtis/AP

1. Locusts Swarm

An unusually wet 2019 led to swampy conditions across the Horn of Africa and western Asia - giving rise to a nearly biblical swarm of locusts. There are photographs where they literally seem to black-out the sun. The culprit? Climate change. The warming waters of the Indian ocean led to stormier weather - essentially more and bigger cyclones. It’s the worst outbreak of the crop-devouring pests in a quarter-century and it threatens food security across the region. The pandemic grinds international trade to a stop - obstructing many countries efforts to buy pesticides, equipment or bring in expert help to curb the infestation. Throughout the year, these swarms ballooned in size, stretching deep into Asia and across the Pacific ocean to Argentina and Brazil. An estimated 20 million people could face hunger and starvation and the UN’s World Food Program estimates that recovery could cost upwards of $9b USD in Africa alone.

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

2. The Tigray War

For three decades the Tigray people held the balance of political and economic power in the country, tightly controlled through the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF), a Tigray nationalist party. In 2018 the Ethiopian election People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, led by Oromo Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, won control of the country’s government.

Animosities boiled over when the Tigray province persisted with the 2020 election, despite government orders to postpone voting until 2021 due to the coronavirus. Prime Minister Abiy cut off funding to Tigray, incising local leadership. In November 2020, youth militias affiliated with the TPLF killed six hundred villagers in the border town of Mai Kadra - and allegedly attacked Ethiopian military bases.

The government responded by shelling the Tigray capital of Mekelle. Ethiopia’s armed forces quickly took control of the city and surrounding towns, with the militias retreating into the mountains where skirmishes have continued.

With Tigrayan people facing violent retaliation - they have faced furloughs from jobs, had bank accounts suspended, faced arbitrary raids on their homes, and been refused permission to board airplanes or travel overseas. Many have faced direct violence, especially from non-Tigray militias.

The conflict has seen incursions from Eritrean forces. Abiy was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his work mending the relationship with Ethiopia’s former colony-turned-neighbour. They share a common enemy now - Tigray. Eritrean forces slaughtered church-goers at a religious festival in early December, killing children and elders indiscriminately. These shadow forces of Fano militias and Eritrean soldiers have committed war crimes - including extrajudicial killings and rape. They even looted the church that allegedly houses the Ark of the Covenant.

The Tigrayan refugees have only one option: Sudan. One journalist writes: “Several [Tigrayan refugees] told me that they saw dozens of bodies along the route as they fled their shops, homes and farms and took to the long road to the border... in stifling heat.”

The New York Times series on Tigray was helpful in understanding more about the conflict and its historical and ethnic contexts. But I have to say - I feel unclear about what comes next. Will guerilla warfare between the Tigray militias and Eritrean-Ethiopian forces continue? Will the country face international consequences for their move towards genocide? I guess 2021 will decide.

A SolarWinds banner hangs outside the New York Stock Exchange on the company’s IPO day in 2018 - Brendan McDermid/Reuters

3. The SolarWinds hack

I chose to write about icebergs rather than this story for a reason. I wholly do NOT understand cyber security. Like, at all. My eyes glaze over when somebody tries to explain Wikileaks to me. I tried. I really did - I read like three articles trying to parse the details and make sense of anything and here’s what I got:

Hackers - almost certainly Russian - got into the US government secure networks. For a lot of departments. For months. It’s really, really bad. The government has a pretty blasé response to the disaster. Trump blames China. Agencies are turning directly to Microsoft for answers rather than their own cyber security people. It’s a blazing hot mess.

I’m going to continue to not understand this one, sorry.

Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters

4. Civil Rights in 2020

The expansion of civil rights in Central/South America, with the legalization of abortion in Argentina in December and the introduction of gay marriage in Costa Rica in May, gave us something to celebrate in 2020. These new rights are the result of years - and decades - of organizing by activists in these two countries.

Costa Rica is the sixth Latin-American country to legalize gay marriage. Argentina joins a short list of places in Latin America where abortion is fully legal - just Cuba, Guyana, Uruguay, and two Mexican states.

Some couples rushed to wed on the stroke of midnight - magistrates stayed up late into the night to marry couples. Marcos Castillo (L) and Rodrigo Campos (R) waited until the following morning - and celebrated with a masked kiss after their ceremony.

Other notable moments in civil rights? New Zealand officially revoked their antiquated anti-abortion laws (which they’d been effectively ignoring for years anyway), Bhutan decriminalized homosexuality, Switzerland passed legislation that will allow people to change the gender on their government IDs, and Croatia struck down laws forbidding gay couples from fostering children. Albania banned gay conversion therapy - as did the Yukon, actually - and Barbados made discrimination on the basis of sexuality illegal.

Nicky Kuautonga/The Guardian

5. Oceania crushed the pandemic

Virtually all of the countries reported to be COVID-free during 2020 were Oceanic nations and island territories. Turkmenistan says they didn’t have any cases but they’re lyin’. -Tuvalu Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Palau all ended the year with no cases, while Samoa and the Solomon Islands reported a few isolated cases in quarantine facilities as they re-opened the border to repatriate their citizens abroad.

Some combination of strict travel restrictions, new hygiene rules, curfews, and early lockdowns kept most of these countries relatively untouched. While New Zealand and Australia experienced several flare-ups throughout the year, their targeted lockdowns helped eradicate community spread quickly each time, returning them to schools, workplaces and boozy brunches quickly.

Honourable mentions to Vietnam and Thailand - with 100 million and 70 million citizens apiece both have charted under 100 deaths to COVID - and Taiwan with only nine casualties.

Gulalay Amiri, a pomegranate farmer, surveys his slim haul. Fighting as worsened in many parts of Afghanistan after the United States announced they would withdraw from the country in 2021 - Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

6. War in Afghanistan

In March the United States signed a peace-deal with the Taliban, promising to withdraw troops by May of 2021. The War in Afghanistan has lasted 19 years - the longest war in American history and the majority of my lifetime.

I don’t know how to feel about it.

During peace talks the Taliban refused to commit to recognizing the country’s elected government, disavowing Al-Qaeda or protecting women’s rights. They support limited education for girls - only up to the sixth grade.

I listened to a few podcasts by the Daily on the ground in Afghanistan with the current government’s security forces. Many of the young soldiers they interviewed were so young they’d never lived in a country governed by the Taliban - and they fiercely oppose the idea. It also appears that the Afghan government were often excluded from peace talks, finding out details of the American meetings with the Taliban through international news reports and Taliban statements on social media.

Since the Taliban’s deal with the United States, Taliban bombings and attacks have continued, targeting both security forces and civilians. The Afghan government has pointed the finger at the Taliban for mass shooting at a maternity ward in Kabul that killed 24 women and infants. “They came for the mothers”, said horrified eyewitnesses.

For almost two decades, the western world has supported the ‘new’ Afghanistan - but it feels very fragile. Will a withdrawal lead those people that assisted coalition forces vulnerable to retaliation? It feels likely. The fighting between the Taliban and the Afghan government has been fierce - and come with high civilian casualties. The year is punctuated, nearly monthly, with news of new attacks in Afghanistan.

It reminds me of the end of the Vietnam war. America withdrew and two years later the south was retaken by the North. In the final days of the Vietnam war the United States evacuated around 150,000 civilians who had worked with American on the ground. Nearly a million others left the country by boat, seeking asylum at refugee camps in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people who had collaborated with the US-backed South were sent to re-education camps where they were sometimes tortured or starved. Is this what Afghanistan will look like?

There’s no 'good’ solution - and for now the future of the war in Afgahnistan feels very opaque. I think I under-reported stories in the region as a result - it feels too complex to boil down into daily recaps.

Bobi Wine, 38, was detained by police for allegedly breaking COVID-19 restrictions while campaigning in Uganda’s upcoming presidential election - Abubaker Lubowa/Reuters

8. Ugandan election protests

Western media doesn’t seem to place a lot of importance on reporting in Africa - but what little attention they had for the continent focused on the anti-SARS protests in Nigeria throughout the fall. The attention on police violence in America raised the profile of these demonstrations - and the brutality of the government’s response, shooting at dozens of peaceful marchers gathered at the Lekki toll bridge.

But they were far from the only protests in Africa.

As Uganda prepared for an election early in 2021, the government forcefully cracked down on youthful dissidents - like presidential hopefuls Bobi Wine and Patrick Amuriat who were detained by police during the final campaign pushes in November.

Wine, a young musician, has been arrested numerous times since he announced his candidacy. One occasion police beat Wine so badly he temporarily lost his vision - they also killed his driver. They raided his offices, confiscating election materials, and arrested supporters. His bodyguard will later be killed after being struck by a military truck while helping an injured reporter escape tear-gas during December protests.

Police record 56 casualties as they violently put down the large-scale protests - though human rights group have suggested the real number could be dramatically higher.

Ariana Quesada holds a photo of her father, Benito. He died after an outbreak at the Cargill meat-packing plant where he worked. She filed a complaint with the RCMP, asking them to investigate conditions at the plant - Justin Pennell/CBC

9. Meat packing plants become coronavirus hotspots

Meat processing plants become super-spreaders - these often rurally-located factories see massive outbreaks across the United States and Canada. Their floors are crowded with employees working elbow-to-elbow, forced to shout over the loud din of machinery. The refrigeration - necessary for keeping the meat unspoiled - may allow the virus to live longer in the air.

By September of 2020, nearly 500 meat-processing plants had reported at least one case of COVID in the United States. And 203 had died.

At a Tyson Foods factory in Waterloo, Iowa, staff allege that management placed bets on how many workers would become sick - and die. Supervisors began avoiding the floor, relegating their responsibilities to untrained workers.

The plant reluctantly closed - by the time they re-opened two weeks later over a third of their 2,800 workforce had tested positive. Five workers died - including Isidro Fernandez, whose family is leading a lawsuit against the company.

In Canada, Cargill faces a similar lawsuit after an enormous outbreak in their High River facility that resulted in three deaths - two employees and one staffer’s 71-year-old father. They were: Hiep Bui, Armando Sallegue, and Benito Quesada. The company offered a $500 “responsibility” bonus for workers who didn’t miss any shifts - and discouraged employees from reporting any flu-like symptoms. Many of the factory’s workers are temporary foreign workers or new Canadians.

10. The Nazca Lines

I forgot about this and am shoehorning it in now, but Peruvian archaeologists discovered another ancient line drawing in the desert outside of Lima - this time in the shape of a kitty cat.

Of all the archaeology finds this year - remains at Pompeii, a mammoth graveyard in Mexico, and a wealth of sarcophagi in Egypt - this is my favourite.

#2020 recap #2020 in depth

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atheistforhumanity · 6 years

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Can There be Unity Around Mass Shootings?

Mass shootings have been continuing at a regular interval in America and everyone is confused in somewhat on why this keeps happening. Mass shootings have led to two conclusions: that we need more preemptive care for mental illness and that gun ownership should be controlled. Unfortunately, both of these issues are highly politicized and they really shouldn’t be. What we are talking about is a public health crisis and we need to agree to address these issues.

You may think that mental health is the easy fix, right? Doesn’t everyone understand that poor mental health contributes to mass shootings and other forms of violence? Don’t we all want to prevent these things?

Unfortunately, mental health falls under that category of social services, and the complicated category of healthcare. This has made the issue historically embattled where liberals want to spend big on social programs for the mentally ill, addicted, homeless, and education. In this case I’m referring to counselors and psychologists in school as well as programs that educate about mental health. As someone who has worked in the field of addiction and mental health in the past, I can tell you these areas are severely under funded. Unfortunately, Republicans have resisted spending in these areas, it was not until the 90′s that decent spending for addiction treatment began, but it was too late to head off the opioid crisis. Now that most people have accepted that the war on drugs didn’t work every politician is talking about spending on treatment services.

Haven’t the past couple years of mass shootings brought a change in attitude toward funding mental health? Well, not exactly. If you listen to politicians making statements after a tragedy you might think the problem was fixed, but the truth is that both our government and the public are still not very keen on spending big money on mental health. A recent study by John Hopkins revealed that after explaining either the barriers to treatment or the link to violence around mental health not even 60% of participants wanted to pay more taxes to help those in need. To make matters worse, Trump’s budget plans will be an overall loss for mental health. Here are 5 articles that talk about Trump’s budget and mental health.

How Trump's Budget Will Affect People with Mental Health Conditions

He should put his money where his mouth is

Trump’s budget cuts

Expanding mental health services?

Call for action, but budget cuts programs

The short version is that while he puts a lot of spending into the opioid crisis, funding for key programs in other areas gets cut and moved around leaving a net void for those with mental health issues. As is typical with Republicans, Trump will be putting a large amount of spending into defense and homeland security.

So while I think everyone acknowledges the idea that mental health is important to the issue of mass shootings, most people haven’t shown an abundance of willingness to fund any solutions, and this leads to zero action. If you look into the history of mental health care in this country, you’ll see that making promises and signing laws without the funding to back them is the norm.

Honestly, I think that a lot of people just assume mental health programs are well funded, and I don’t blame you. It makes sense, but it’s not true. I hope that if we can get a realistic view for where we stand on addressing mental health then we can actually unite to take action by paying a little more.

What about gun control?

This may surprise you, but there is generally more support for stricter gun laws than there is for spending on mental health. According to Politico, support for stricter laws has hit 68% and only 25% oppose. Also, if you check out that article you’ll see that support has largely been over 50%. Even many gun owners (which I am one of) support measures to restrict some access and reduce harm capability.

If we are going to reach any unity on this issue we need to get past some of the fear mongering that many politicians are doing. While you may encounter some people on the internet that would like to live in a country without guns, revoking ownership flat out and for all guns is not the real conversation that’s taking place. If you look at that Politico article it has a table of the reforms that are actually being talked about. They basically come down to better screening, more background checks, no guns for violent offenders, and restrictions on some guns and gun parts to reduce the harm capability. This is literally the very least we could do to curb access to guns for those with malicious intent.

We need to all acknowledge that access to guns is the issue. Most of the shooters used guns that they owned or their family owned. What’s frightening about that is that these events has been unpredictable. No one has been able to identify a mass shooter before they kill, to my knowledge. This means that the incredible prevalence of guns in our society is giving convenience to those who tempted to hurt people.

But won’t they find another way? Not necessarily. We have pretty strict laws that restrict or track access to substance that can be used to make significant explosives. Even fire crackers are illegal in many states, like mine. By making it difficult to gather powerful explosive materials you set a barrier between impulsive, opportunists and the temporarily disturbed and harm.

What we have to remember is that these people who committing mass shootings are not master criminals, they are not connected to the underworld, they are not going to elaborate ends to carry out their destruction. They basically pick up a weapon and drive to a location and start shooting. We need to come together behind the idea that it shouldn’t be that easy.

As someone who has worked in addiction and mental health, I can tell you that a suicide is far less likely to occur if the person does not have a convenient means to follow through. Many people who are suicidal will come to a tipping point, but if there is no clean and usually painless way to carry out there thoughts fear will keep them from going to extreme methods and the urges will pass.

I think that mass shootings and acts of violence by those that are mentally unstable work very similarly. So let’s get together behind the idea that we need stop making it so easy. These measures won’t stop hunters and hobby shooters, and it could make us all safer.

I think the people are more united on these ideas than our politicians would have us believe.

#politics #gun control #mass shootings #mental health

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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How Many Republicans Are Against The Wall

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-are-against-the-wall/

How Many Republicans Are Against The Wall

Tony Romm And Seung Min Kim Washington Post

WASHINGTON – The prospects for a bipartisan infrastructure reform deal dimmed even further on Monday, as Senate Republicans alleged the White House had agreed to narrow the scope of its $2.2 trillion plan – only to reverse course days later.

The dispute centers on President Joe Biden’s proposal to package new investments in roads, bridges and pipes with billions of dollars to help children and families. Republicans say that Biden agreed earlier this month to seek what they describe as “social” spending as part of another legislative effort, only to have his top aides take the opposite approach during the latest round of talks on Friday.

“We thought we had an understanding that social infrastructure is off – they didn’t take any of that off,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the party’s lead negotiator.

Republicans similarly had made clear to Biden that they couldn’t support tax increases to pay for the infrastructure package, Capito added, only to have the White House reaffirm its plan to raise rates on corporations when its submitted its latest counteroffer. Days later, the senator said the move had left her and her colleagues wondering, “Are you not hearing us?”

Asked about the GOP’s characterization of Biden’s position, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said the president is not going to “negotiate through the press.”

“We understood he would try to do the rest of it without us if that was the way they needed to do the rest of it,” he added.

– – – –

Partisans Differ Over Whether Shutdown Is A Very Serious Problem

About six-in-ten adults say the government shutdown is a very serious problem for the country today, while 22% view it as a somewhat serious problem; just two-in-ten say that it is not too or not at all serious a problem for the country.

Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to view the shutdown as a very serious problem for the nation: Nearly eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners say this, compared with just 35% of Republicans and Republican leaners.

Only about a quarter of conservative Republicans and GOP-leaning independents see the shutdown as a very serious problem facing the country, compared with 47% of moderate and liberal Republicans. Ideological differences among Democrats are more modest: 85% of liberal Democrats consider the shutdown a very serious problem, while 73% of conservative and moderate Democrats say the same.

Democratic Views On A Border Wall

One of the most outspoken and controversial topics of Donald Trumps election campaign and subsequent time in office has been his stance on border control. Most notably, there was much contention surrounding Trumps goal of constructing a border wall between the US and Mexico. In the past, Democrats supported measures to create a physical barrier between the US and Mexican borders. However, the lines were clearly drawn when Trump made the proposal for his wall. While Democrats support border security, Trumps border wall concept was not the route they were hoping for. Democratic views on a border wall are overall negative, though some Democrats have seen the issue as a point of negotiation for other matters, such as Trumps battle against DACA and the Dreamers.

Here Are The 41 Republicans Who Voted Against Securing The Us Border

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Forty-one House Republicans voted against a bill Friday that would have secured funding for President Donald Trumps border wall, addressed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and included E-verify, among other conservative provisions.

Members voted on an amended version of GOP Reps. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and Michael McCaul of Texass bill that provided more border security funding, only granted DACA recipients a temporary protected three-year legal status with no pathway for citizenship which moderate Republicans are fervently asking leadership to provide and included other features.

The bill failed in the House in a 193-231 vote Thursday.

Here the Republican members who voted against the bill:

Paul Gosar of Arizona Frank LoBiando of New Jersey Tom MacArthur of New Jersey Chris Smith of New Jersey Leonard Lance of New Jersey Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey Pete King of New York John Faso of New York Elise Stefanik of New York Tom Reed of New York John Katko of New York Michael Turner of Ohio Kristi Noem of South Dakota Louie Gohmert of Texas Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington David Reichert of Washington

Some of the members who voted against the bill did so because leadership altered the bill before the final vote, adding on amendments and provisions they deemed amnesty.

Medical Malpractice Law Reform

Paul has proposed radical changes in the way medical malpractice claims are handled. Under bills he has introduced multiple times beginning in 2003, a patient planning pregnancy, surgery, or other major medical procedures or medical treatment would be able to buy “negative outcomes” insurance at very low cost. If the patient were to experience a negative outcome in association with the medical procedure or treatment, he or she would then seek compensation through binding arbitration, rather than through a medical malpractice trial before a jury. Paul claims that “using insurance, private contracts, and binding arbitration to resolve medical disputes benefits patients, who receive full compensation in a timelier manner than under the current system,” as well as physicians and hospitals, since their litigation costs, and malpractice insurance premiums, would be markedly reduced.

Many Presidents Have Declared Emergencies But Not Like Trump Has

At stake is nearly $6 billion in federal funds that President Trump redirected in a Feb. 15 emergency declaration. The White House is seeking to take that money from accounts at the Treasury and Defense departments to build physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. The president made the order after Congress agreed on a bipartisan basis to provide $1.375 billion in wall funds for this fiscal year, but Trump said it wasn’t enough.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., initially counseled the president against invoking the national emergency out of concerns it would divide Senate Republicans and test the separation of powers, but he voted with the president on Thursday and defended his actions as lawful.

“He has simply operated within existing law, the National Emergencies Act of 1976, to invoke a narrow set of authorities to reprogram a narrow set of funds,” McConnell said. “If Congress has grown uneasy with this new law, as many have, then we should amend it.”

Democrats broadly oppose the wall, but have argued the resolution bends the intent of the law and the constitutional authority of Congress. “We’ve never had a president like this. We’ve had lots of presidents with lots of foibles but none of them seem to equate their own ego with the entire functioning of the government of the United States except this one. We can’t succumb to that,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Republicans Help Democrats Vote Against Trump’s Wall Funding Grab

The House voted Tuesday to revoke the national emergency President Trump declared in order to spend federal money to build a physical barrier on the southern border without congressional approval.

The joint resolution passed 245-182 with the help of 13 Republican votes. It now heads to the Senate, where many lawmakers predict it will pass with the help of at least four Republicans who oppose Trumps emergency declaration.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the Senate would vote on the measure by mid-March.

Trump has vowed to issue the first veto of his presidency if the resolution reaches his desk, and the House vote indicates there are not enough votes to override his veto. Democrats would need to find 290 votes to override Trump, 45 short of the total seen Tuesday.

The 13 Republicans voting with Democrats were Reps. Justin Amash of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Mike Gallager of Wisconsin, Jaime Hererra Beutler of Washington, Will Hurd of Texas, Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, Francis Rooney of Florida, Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, Elise Stefanik of New York, Fred Upton of Michigan and Greg Walden of Oregon.

Trump’s emergency declaration announcement came days after Congress appropriated $1.375 billion to erect physical barriers in the Rio Grande Valley. The money fell far short of the $5.7 billion Trump had been requesting.

Constitutional Rights: Limited Government

Term limits, 1970s: Paul was the first member of Congress to propose term limits legislation in the House, one of several bills considered “ahead of their time” by Texas Monthly magazine.

Market Process Restoration Act of 1999. H.R.Â 1789, 1999-05-13. Repeals United States antitrust law , with intent to restore market economy benefits.

To repeal the Military Selective Service Act. H.R.Â 424, 2007-01-11, originally H.R.Â 1597, 2001-04-26, cosponsored since H.R.Â 2421, 1997-09-05. Abolishes the Selective Service System, prohibits reestablishment of the draft, and forbids denial of rights due to failure to register.

See also the limited government and income tax abolition amendment.

Wall: Republicans Can Learn A Valuable Lesson From Democrats Rush To The Far Left

Since Joe Biden was sworn in as president, Democrats have taken advantage of their narrow majority in Congress and their control of the White House to ram through a radical agenda. From passing a $2 trillion socialist stimulus bill under the guise of pandemic relief, to enacting a flurry of job-killing executive orders, President Biden and his leftist allies in the House and Senate have abandoned their talking points urging unity in favor of pushing partisan legislation.

The policies promoted by Democrats in the few months have been extraordinarily destructive. President Biden and his allies have shown themselves to be catastrophically wrong on every important issue, ranging from tax policy to climate change, and Republicans can learn some crucial lessons from how the far left has governed.

Its clear that Democrats are attempting to consolidate as much power in the hands of the federal government as possible a goal antithetical to protecting individual liberty and the Constitution. While some of this change can be undone if Republicans regain their congressional majority, we know all too well that the GOP has failed to make good on promises to promote limited government and preserve freedom while theyve been in charge.

Noah Wall is an executive vice president at FreedomWorks.

Inflation And The Federal Reserve

In the words of the New York Times, Paul is “not a fan” of the Federal Reserve. In his own words, Paul advocates that we should “End the Fed“. Paul’s opposition to the Fed is supported by the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, which holds that instead of containing inflation, the Federal Reserve, in theory and in practice, is responsible for causing inflation. In addition to eroding the value of individual savings, this creation of inflation leads to booms and busts in the economy. Thus Paul argues that government, via a central bank , is the primary cause of economic recessions and depressions. He believes that economic volatility is decreased when the free market determines interest rates and money supply. He has stated in numerous speeches that most of his colleagues in Congress are unwilling to abolish the central bank because it funds many government activities. He says that to compensate for eliminating the “hidden tax” of monetary inflation, Congress and the president would instead have to raise taxes or cut government services, either of which could be politically damaging to their reputations. He states that the “inflation tax” is a tax on the poor, because the Federal Reserve prints more money which subsidizes select industries, while poor people pay higher prices for goods as more money is placed in circulation.

List Of Republicans Who Opposed The Donald Trump 2020 Presidential Campaign

This article is part of a series about

This is a list of Republicans and conservatives who opposed the re-election of incumbent Donald Trump, the 2020 Republican Party nominee for President of the United States. Among them are former Republicans who left the party in 2016 or later due to their opposition to Trump, those who held office as a Republican, Republicans who endorsed a different candidate, and Republican presidential primary election candidates that announced opposition to Trump as the presumptive nominee. Over 70 former senior Republican national security officials and 61 additional senior officials have also signed onto a statement declaring, “We are profoundly concerned about our nation’s security and standing in the world under the leadership of Donald Trump. The President has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term.”

A group of former senior U.S. government officials and conservativesincluding from the Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43, and Trump administrations have formed The Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform to, “focus on a return to principles-based governing in the post-Trump era.”

A third group of Republicans, Republican Voters Against Trump was launched in May 2020 has collected over 500 testimonials opposing Donald Trump.

Proposal To Eliminate Medicare

Paul proposes that all government funding of medical care be eliminated . His Plan to Restore America budget proposal would begin a phase out of Medicare starting in 2013, when workers younger than 25 would be able to opt out of participating in the program. He says that during the transition period, the commitments for coverage under Medicare that have already been made to older workers could be honored by cutting other government spending, such as by closing all US military bases overseas and ceasing to engage in foreign military “adventurism.”

Public Disapproves Of How Shutdown Negotiations Are Being Handled

Most Americans offer negative evaluations of the way that the nations political leaders in both parties Donald Trump, Democratic congressional leaders and Republican congressional leaders are handling negotiations over the shutdown.

Overall, just 36% of the public approves of how Trump is handling negotiations over the government shutdown, including 23% who say they strongly approve. About six-in-ten disapprove of Trumps approach to the negotiations, including 53% who say they strongly disapprove.

Views of how Republican leaders in Congress are handling shutdown negotiations generally parallel evaluations of Trump. Six-in-ten Americans say they disapprove of the way Republican congressional leaders are handling negotiations, while just 36% say they approve. However, fewer Americans characterize their views of GOP leaders handling of negotiations as strong approval or disapproval than say this about the president.

Public views of Democratic leaders handling of the shutdown talks are somewhat more positive than views of Trump or GOP leaders. Still, more disapprove than approve .

The 147 Republicans Who Voted To Overturn Election Results

When a mob of President Trumps supporters stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday, they forced an emergency recess in the Congressional proceedings to officially certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. The disruption came shortly after some Republican lawmakers made the first of a planned series of highly unusual objections, based on spurious allegations of widespread voter fraud, to states election results. The chambers were separately debating an objection to Arizonas results when proceedings were halted and the Capitol was locked down.

When the Senate reconvened at 8 p.m., and the House of Representatives an hour later, the proceedings including the objection debates continued, although some lawmakers who had previously planned to vote with the objectors stood down following the occupation of the Capitol. Plans to challenge a number of states after Arizona were scrapped, as well but one other objection, to Pennsylvanias results, also advanced to a vote. Here are the eight senators and 139 representatives who voted to sustain one or both objections.

Other Former Federal Government Officials

The Weekly Standard

Charles Fried, United States Solicitor General; Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

David K. Garman, Former Assistant Secretary and Under Secretary of Energy

Steve Baer, former president, United Republican Fund of Illinois

Juan Hernandez, political consultant, co-founder of Hispanic Republicans of Texas

Matt Higgins, former press secretary for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

Stuart Stevens, political consultant and strategist

Mac Stipanovich, strategist and lobbyist; former Chief of Staff to Bob Martinez

Rick Wilson, political consultant and former Republican strategist.

How Americans See Illegal Immigration The Border Wall And Political Compromise

A standoff between President Donald Trump and Democratic congressional leaders over how to address unauthorized immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border has led to a partial shutdown of the federal government one that is now the longest on record.

Learn about U.S. immigration through five short lessons delivered to your inbox every other day.Sign up now!

The United States was home to 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants in 2016, a 13% decline from a peak of 12.2 million in 2007, according to the most recent Pew Research Center estimates. This decade-long decline was driven almost entirely by a decrease in unauthorized immigrants from Mexico, even as the numbers from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras increased. Meanwhile, a growing share of unauthorized immigrants were not people who had entered the country illegally, but had arrived legally and then .

More recent data from the federal government show that 2018 saw an uptick in border apprehensions . There were nearly 467,000 apprehensions at the southwest border last year, the most in any calendar year since at least 2012. Still, the number of apprehensions in 2018 remained far below the more than 1 million apprehensions per fiscal year routinely recorded during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published Jan. 11, 2019.

Cabinet Members And Political Appointees

Richard Armitage: NAYArmitage, a former Navy officer who served as deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush and deputy secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, says he will vote for Hillary Clinton. If Donald Trump is the nominee, I would vote for Hillary Clinton, he told Politico. He doesn’t appear to be a Republican, he doesn’t appear to want to learn about issues. So, Im going to vote for Mrs. Clinton.

Condoleezza Rice: NAY George W. Bushs secretary of state blasted Trump in a Facebook statement and : Enough! Donald Trump should not be President. He should withdraw. As a Republican, I hope to support someone who has the dignity and stature to run for the highest office in the greatest democracy on earth.

Rice previously said she had no plans to get involved in the race or attend the GOP convention, a spokesman told Yahoo News. She also ruled out serving as Trumps running mate.

Brent Scowcroft: NAYThe retired lieutenant general and national security adviser, an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, has announced that he is endorsing Hillary Clinton. Scowcroft did not mention Trump in his statement.

Donald Rumsfeld: YEAIts now a known known: The former secretary of defense under George W. Bush is voting Trump. I’m a Republican, and there’s not any doubt in my mind how I’ll vote, he told the Daily Mail, adding that it was not a close call and I don’t believe Hillary Clinton is qualified to be President of the United States.

Republican Views On A Border Wall

It is a fairly well-known fact that the Republican party is in favor of protection, and therefore a Mexican border wall. In fact, 74 percent of Republicans support building a wall on the Mexican border. Promises to build this wall were a large part of President Donald Trumps campaign, and his supporters were front and center hoping that he stuck to this plan. More than just an immigration issue, the wall became Trumps signature promise and rallying cry during his campaign. The wall goes hand in hand with Republican views that border security should be heightened and that anyone crossing the border should be given a thorough background check. Republicans favor a far stricter immigration policy than Democrats, and want to take much stricter preventative measures against illegal immigration than have been taken in the past. Of course, this isnt to say that there arent differences within the party on this issue.

There’s Battle Lines Being Drawn

But what explains that nostalgic impulse in the midst of a revolution? It is the same emotion that animated the MAGA movement which, after all, stood for make America great, again. It is a desire to return to an earlier time that the members of the movement remember as better than today.

“There’s a feeling I sense across society that people want to go back to a simpler time,” LeGate said. “No one likes Covid. People don’t feel the economy is fair. Everything looks better in hindsight.”

And he argues that efforts to regulate trading will feel to Reddit traders more like suppression, and could fuel more anger.

“If someone on Main Street loses half their portfolio in a day, nothing’s going to happen. But if a hedge fund does, they literally stop the trading,” he said. “I myself question whether this is really about protecting the individual investor or protecting the hedge fund.”

Tax Credits For Healthcare Expenses & Children’s Health Insurance Program

Paul voted in 2007 and 2009 against reauthorization and expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program , which is a joint state-federal program to provide health insurance for children and pregnant women in low-income families who do not qualify for Medicaid.

He has been a consistent advocate for offering tax credits for healthcare expenses. In each Congress since 2000 Paul has proposed bills that would provide families with tax credits of up to $500 for the healthcare expenses of each dependent family member, and up to $3000 for the care of each dependent with a disability or serious disease such as cancer.

Since 2003, Paul has several times introduced into Congress proposals to provide tax credits for the cost of health insurance premiums, and to increase the allowable tax deduction for healthcare expenses . He has also advocated expanding the tax benefits of health savings accounts.

Academics Journalists Authors Commentators

Reuel Marc Gerecht, writer

Michael Gerson, columnist and speechwriter for George W. Bush

Peter Mansoor, military historian

Meghan McCain, commentator, daughter of Senator John McCain

Charles Murray, political scientist and commentator

Ana Navarro, strategist and commentator

Tom Nichols, national security affairs scholar

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape; founder of Andreessen Horowitz

Mike Fernandez, founder of MBF Healthcare Partners

James Murren, Chairman and CEO of MGM Resorts International

William Oberndorf, Chairman of Oberndorf Enterprises

Federal Power: We The People Act

We the People Act. H.R.Â 539, 2009-01-14, originally H.R.Â 3893, 2004-03-04. Forbids all federal courts from hearing cases on abortion, same-sex unions, sexual practices, and establishment of religion, unless such a case were a challenge to the Constitutionality of federal law. Makes federal court decisions on those subjects nonbinding as precedent in state courts, and forbids federal courts from spending money to enforce their judgments.

Because it forbids federal courts from adjudicating “any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion”, secularists have criticized the bill as removing federal remedy for allegations of state violation of religious freedom. As an example of potential for violation, of the Texas Constitution provides the requirement that office-holders “acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being”. The Democratic Underground online community published the holding that the bill would give state sexual-orientation laws special immunity.

Cosponsors include Roscoe Bartlett, Tom Tancredo, Sam Johnson, Walter B. Jones Jr., John A. Sullivan, John Duncan Jr., and Ted Poe.

New Poll: Senator Gardner Losing Colorado Independent Voters As Majority Of Voters Oppose Wall And Blame Shutdown On Republicans

If Elections Were Held Today, Majority of Colorado Voters Would Opt for Senator Gardners Unnamed Democratic Opponent

Washington, DC New polling from Public Policy Polling , commissioned by MoveOn and the Immigration Hub, shows that Colorado voters overwhelmingly oppose President Trump and congressional Republicans government shutdown and calls for the wall. In fact, the shutdown is hurting Senator Cory Gardners 2020 chances among critical Colorado voters.

With over 15,000 federal employees in Colorado are furloughed or working without pay, the majority of Colorado voters polled – including 62% of Independents – want Congress to vote to re-open the government without any funding for the wall. Other topline findings include

You can see the full polling memo here.

The 2018 elections clearly showed that Trumps immigration fear-mongering backfired — Mike Coffmans defeat was proof, said Tyler Moran from the Immigration Hub. Now Trump has backed himself into a corner with a shutdown that polling shows he and Republicans are overwhelmingly blamed for. If Senator Gardner doesnt move his colleagues past the tantrum and against a wall no one wants, 2020 results are going to look a lot like 2018.

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years

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Even in Red States, Colleges Gravitate to Requiring Vaccines and Masks

As students head to college this fall, hundreds of schools are requiring employees and students to be vaccinated against covid, wear masks on campus or both.

But at some schools, partisan politics have bolstered efforts to stymie public health protections.

Events at the University of South Carolina, in a deeply conservative state, demonstrate the limits of political pressure in some cases, even though “South Carolina is a red state and its voters generally eschew mandates,” said Jeffrey Stensland, a spokesperson for the school.

As the fall semester approached, Richard Creswick, an astrophysics professor at the University of South Carolina, was looking forward to returning to the classroom and teaching in person. He felt it would be fairly safe. His graduate-level classes generally had fewer than a dozen students enrolled, and the school had announced it would require everyone on campus to wear masks indoors unless they were in their dorm rooms, offices or dining facilities. For Creswick, 69, that was important because he did not want his working on campus to add to the covid risk for his wife, Vickie Eslinger, 73, who has been undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

But state Attorney General Alan Wilson weighed in early in August, sending a letter to the school’s interim president, Harris Pastides, that a budget provision passed by the state legislature prohibited the university from imposing a mask mandate. Pastides, who previously served as dean of the university’s school of public health, rescinded the mask mandate, although he encouraged people to still use them.

“We were very upset,” Creswick said.

After the university revoked its mask mandate, within days Wilson sent out a campaign fundraising letter touting his intervention in public health measures and stating, “The fight over vaccines and masks has never been about science or health. It’s about expanding the government’s control over our daily lives.”

Creswick and Eslinger, who felt strongly that the mask mandate was indeed about health, filed a lawsuit, arguing that the legislative provision cited by the attorney general did not prohibit a universal mask mandate. The state Supreme Court took up the case on an expedited basis and on Aug. 20 ruled 6-0 in their favor.

The school immediately reinstated its mask mandate and other colleges in the state followed suit.

After the court ruling, Creswick said he heard from professors at several other South Carolina colleges. “They’re calling me a hero,” he said, sounding bemused.

The attorney general’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone at colleges and universities wear masks indoors, even if they are fully vaccinated, in locales with substantial or high transmission of the coronavirus. Most of the country meets that standard at this point. The CDC also recommends that colleges offer and promote covid vaccines.

To be sure, many colleges and universities already require students to mask up or be vaccinated.

As of Aug. 26, the Chronicle of Higher Education had tallied 805 campuses that require at least some employees or students to be vaccinated. Most schools grant exemptions from the vaccine mandate, often for religious or medical reasons. And hundreds of colleges are requiring students and staff members to wear masks on campus this fall, according to a running tally by University Business.

Still, 12 conservative-leaning states prohibit vaccine mandates at higher education institutions, according to an analysis by the National Academy for State Health Policy. The rules vary, and some apply only to public institutions. The group is in the process of analyzing mask mandate bans that apply to colleges and universities.

At Indiana University, a group of students challenged the school’s vaccine mandate on the grounds it violated their constitutional right to “bodily integrity, autonomy and medical choice.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit refused to block the school’s policy. The court reasoned the universities can decide what they need to do to keep students safe in communal settings. The students then appealed to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who refused without explanation to block the mandate.

Red states with Republican leadership are hardly the only ones where colleges and universities are facing restrictions on their ability to put public health protections in place. But for teachers, whose professions are rooted in encouraging the pursuit of learning and knowledge, prohibitions that fly in the face of science and jeopardize public health can be tough to swallow.

“It’s completely demoralizing to realize that our health and safety has been trumped by politics,” said Becky Hawbaker, an assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa, who is president of United Faculty, the union representing 600 faculty members at the school. “It seems like you know a train wreck is coming and you’re sounding the alarm, and no one seems to listen.”

At the University of Georgia in Athens in August, a professor who made masks mandatory in his classroom because of his advanced age and health conditions promptly resigned when a student refused to don a mask. Georgia’s university system does not mandate masks or vaccines.

In May, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, signed a law prohibiting mask mandates at K-12 schools, and within city and county governments. A few days later, the Iowa Board of Regents, which oversees the University of Northern Iowa, the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, lifted emergency rules that had been in place the previous year requiring indoor masking and physical distancing at the colleges.

The University of Northern Iowa held classes in person throughout the past school year, without major problems, using those mask and distancing requirements, Hawbaker said. But with the rise of the delta variant and the increase in covid cases in the community, now is not the time to remove safety restrictions, the union asserts.

So far, more than 200 people have signed an August letter sent by the union to the Board of Regents requesting mask and vaccine mandates on campus, and classroom changes to allow physical distancing, Hawbaker said.

“Both the Board and our universities recommend and encourage individuals to wear a mask or other face covering while on campus, and anyone who wishes to wear a mask may do so,” Josh Lehman, a spokesperson for the board, wrote in an email. The board also supports students and staffers getting covid vaccines, which are available on campus.

At Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, associate professor Kimberly Paul planned a protest with other faculty members in August to push for a mask mandate. After the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of Creswick, Clemson announced a three-week mask mandate that started Aug. 17. That stretch covered the period of greatest covid risk, according to the school’s modeling.

Paul and her colleagues want a mask mandate for the entire semester, after which the need can be reevaluated, she said.

“I’m a biologist, and this hits close to home,” she said.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Even in Red States, Colleges Gravitate to Requiring Vaccines and Masks published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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stephenmccull · 3 years

Text

Even in Red States, Colleges Gravitate to Requiring Vaccines and Masks

As students head to college this fall, hundreds of schools are requiring employees and students to be vaccinated against covid, wear masks on campus or both.

But at some schools, partisan politics have bolstered efforts to stymie public health protections.

“We were very upset,” Creswick said.

The school immediately reinstated its mask mandate and other colleges in the state followed suit.

After the court ruling, Creswick said he heard from professors at several other South Carolina colleges. “They’re calling me a hero,” he said, sounding bemused.

The attorney general’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

To be sure, many colleges and universities already require students to mask up or be vaccinated.

Paul and her colleagues want a mask mandate for the entire semester, after which the need can be reevaluated, she said.

“I’m a biologist, and this hits close to home,” she said.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Even in Red States, Colleges Gravitate to Requiring Vaccines and Masks published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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orbemnews · 4 years

Link

Tech’s Legal Shield Appears Likely to Survive as Congress Focuses on Details WASHINGTON — Former President Donald J. Trump called multiple times for repealing the law that shields tech companies from legal responsibility over what people post. President Biden, as a candidate, said the law should be “revoked.” But the lawmakers aiming to weaken the law have started to agree on a different approach. They are increasingly focused on eliminating protections for specific kinds of content rather than making wholesale changes to the law or eliminating it entirely. That has still left them a question with potentially wide-ranging outcomes: What, exactly, should lawmakers cut? One bill introduced last month would strip the protections from content the companies are paid to distribute, like ads, among other categories. A different proposal, expected to be reintroduced from the last congressional session, would allow people to sue when a platform amplified content linked to terrorism. And another that is likely to return would exempt content from the law only when a platform failed to follow a court’s order to take it down. Even these more modest proposals to the legal shield, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, could ripple across the internet. The adjustments could give companies like Facebook and YouTube an incentive to take down certain types of content while leaving up others. Critics of the ideas also say there is a huge potential for unintended consequences, citing a 2018 law that stripped the immunity from platforms that knowingly facilitated sex trafficking, making some sex work more unsafe. “I think we are trying to say, ‘How can you narrowly draw some exceptions to 230 in a way that doesn’t interfere with your free speech rights?’” said Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who has introduced legislation to trim the law with a fellow Democrat, Senator Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii. The calls for change gained momentum after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which was carried out in part by people linked to QAnon and other conspiracy theories that thrive on social media. Critics say the shield has let the tech giants ignore criminal activity, hate speech and extremist content posted on their services. The law protects websites from many lawsuits over content posted by their users or the way sites choose to moderate that content. Passed in 1996, it enabled the rise of large online services because they didn’t need to assume new legal liability each time they added another one of their billions of users. Major tech companies have said they are open to trimming the law, an effort to shape changes they see as increasingly likely to happen. Facebook and Google, the owner of YouTube, have signaled that they are willing to work with lawmakers changing the law, and some smaller companies recently formed a lobbying group to shape any changes. Some small steps — like pushing for content to be taken down after a court order — could earn the support of tech companies. But others, like stripping immunity from all ads, would probably not. Many lawmakers say creating carve-outs to the law would allow them to tackle the most pernicious instances of disinformation or hate speech online without disrupting the entire internet economy, steamrollering small websites or running afoul of free speech rights. “There isn’t any legislation that deals with everything,” said Representative Anna G. Eshoo, a California Democrat who has proposed carving out certain content from the law. “When someone says eliminate Section 230, the first thing it says to me is that they don’t really understand it.” But there are many other unresolved issues. Lawmakers must decide how close they want to get to the core business models of the platforms versus just encouraging better moderation. One way to cut to the core would be to limit the shield when a post is amplified by the proprietary algorithms that rank, sort and recommend content to users, as Ms. Eshoo’s bill would in some cases. Or, as Mr. Warner’s bill does, lawmakers could simply say Section 230 shouldn’t apply to any ads at all. And they must grapple with the question of whether any changes should apply only to the biggest platforms, like Facebook and YouTube, or take effect across the entire internet. Smaller companies have argued that they should be exempt from many changes. “I think we want to take as modest of a step as possible,” said Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who researches misinformation. “Give it a year or two, see how it unfolds and make adjustments.” The lawmakers’ focus on targeted changes to the law is a familiar one. In 2018, Congress passed a law that removed Section 230 protections when platforms knowingly facilitated sex trafficking. But Mr. Trump was focused on repealing the law. In his final weeks in the White House, he pushed congressional Republicans to end the protections in an unrelated defense funding bill. His supporters and allies may not be satisfied by the targeted changes proposed by the Democrats who now control both the Senate and the House. The White House did not immediately offer a comment on the issue on Monday. But a December op-ed that was co-written by Bruce Reed, Mr. Biden’s deputy chief of staff, said that “platforms should be held accountable for any content that generates revenue.” The op-ed also said that while carving out specific types of content was a start, lawmakers would do well to consider giving platforms the entire liability shield only on the condition that they properly moderate content. Supporters of Section 230 say even small changes could hurt vulnerable people. They point to the 2018 anti-trafficking bill, which sex workers say made it harder to vet potential clients online after some of the services they used closed, fearing new legal liability. Instead, sex workers have said they must now risk meeting with clients in person without using the internet to ascertain their intentions at a safe distance. Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who co-wrote Section 230 while in the House, said measures meant to address disinformation on the right could be used against other political groups in the future. “If you remember 9/11, and you had all these knee-jerk reactions to those horrible tragedies,” he said. “I think it would be a huge mistake to use the disgusting, nauseating attacks on the Capitol as a vehicle to suppress free speech.” Industry officials say carve-outs to the law could nonetheless be extremely difficult to carry out. “I appreciate that some policymakers are trying to be more specific about what they don’t like online,” said Kate Tummarello, the executive director of Engine, an advocacy group for small companies. “But there’s no universe in which platforms, especially small platforms, will automatically know when and where illegal speech is happening on their site.” The issue may take center stage when the chief executives of Google, Facebook and Twitter testify late this month before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been examining the future of the law. “I think it’s going to be a huge issue,” said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the committee’s top Republican. “Section 230 is really driving it.” Source link Orbem News #Appears #Congress #Details #focuses #Legal #shield #Survive #Techs

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go-redgirl · 4 years

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The following month — amid sustained outrage over the March 25 directive, which was revoked on May 10 — the DOH issued a report blaming the spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes on asymptomatic staffers.

Cuomo has also repeatedly attacked The Post for its hard-hitting reports on the nursing-home crisis, suggesting the coverage was politically motivated to “kill all Democrats.”

And during spectacularly ill-timed appearances Tuesday on MSNBC and CNN, Cuomo tried to blame for COVID deaths on former President Donald Trump, offering one quote that seems to now apply equally to his own administration in light of the James report.

“Incompetent government kills people. More people died than needed to die in COVID. That’s the truth,” he said.

James’ report does not increase the number of overall deaths in the Empire State from the coronavirus, which stands at an estimated 42,887 confirmed and suspected COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University case tracker.

The state DOH puts the number at 34,579, but that tally only includes confirmed deaths.

New York’s nursing-home death toll from COVID-19 may be more than 50 percent higher than officials claim — because Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration hasn’t revealed how many of those residents died in hospitals, state Attorney General Letitia James announced Thursday.

In a damning, 76-page report, James also said that some unidentified nursing homes apparently underreported resident fatalities to the state Department of Health and failed to enforce infection-control measures — with more than 20 currently under investigation.

The bombshell findings could push the current DOH tally of 8,711 deaths to more than 13,000, based on a survey of 62 nursing homes that found the state undercounted the fatalities there by an average of 56 percent.

The report further notes that at least 4,000 residents died after the state issued a controversial, March 25 Cuomo administration mandate for nursing homes to admit “medically stable” coronavirus patients — which James said “may have put residents at increased risk of harm in some facilities.”

“As the pandemic and our investigations continue, it is imperative that we understand why the residents of nursing homes in New York unnecessarily suffered at such an alarming rate,” James said.

“While we cannot bring back the individuals we lost to this crisis, this report seeks to offer transparency that the public deserves and to spur increased action to protect our most vulnerable residents.”

_____________________________________________________

COMMENTS:

To: Oldeconomybuyer

In a sane world, Cuomo would be facing a death penalty sentence for mass murder and crimes against humanity. The communists tried to cover it up like a cat covering its turds in a sandbox. The stink was just too much, and when they went to empty the sandbox...well...someone was watching and there they were.

12posted on1/28/2021, 11:41:02 AMbylgjhn23

(Pray for America....)

_______________________________________

To: jimtorr

Cuomo and the legislature immunized them from both criminal and civil WuFlu liability in April’s budget.

BTW, Cuomo didn’t just send sick residents back to their facilities inspite of Fedzilla relaxing regs, Cuomo allowed sick staff to report to work until mid-May, when he abruptly ended the policy.

Nobody ever asks about that.

14 posted on 1/28/2021, 11:44:16 AM by mewzilla (Break out the mustard seeds. )

______________________________________________________________

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Cuomo, Newsom, and others should be INDICTED for their role in creating deadly conditions in nursing homes during this pandemic.They’re absolutely guilty of TENS OF THOUSANDS of criminally negligent homicides!

18 posted on 1/28/2021, 11:48:13 AM by 2aProtectsTheRest (The media is banging the fear drum enough. Don't help them do it.)

________________________________________________________________

To: 2aProtectsTheRest

It wasn’t negligence.

19 posted on 1/28/2021, 11:51:44 AM by mewzilla (Break out the mustard seeds. )

________________________________________________________________

To: Oldeconomybuyer

That figure was 56 percent higher than the numbers for those facilities published by the state Department of Health, which only published the number of people who passed away while still at the nursing homes at the time of their deaths, not those who were subsequently taken to a hospital and then died.This information was known back when it was happening. I read about it, probably here on FreeRepublic.

20 posted on 1/28/2021, 11:52:09 AM by Freee-dame

________________________________________________________________

To: mewzilla

Proving intent is difficult. Proving criminally negligent homicide when you force nursing homes to accept people known to be infected with a disease that kills elderly folks at extremely high rates (~18% for those over 80 years) is TRIVIAL. On its face, it’s a clear and obvious slam dunk case. Each of them. Times tens of thousands of cases. The question then becomes not IF they’re guilty, but HOW MANY cases can be attributed to them. As a prosecutor, your easy answer is to charge with the minimum number of lives lost directly because of the policy. Whether that’s 10,000 deaths or 40,000 deaths isn’t that critical as the punishments will be massive either way.And they DESERVE it.

posted on 1/28/2021, 11:56:04 AM by 2aProtectsTheRest (The media is banging the fear drum enough. Don't help them do it.)

_________________________________________________________________

To: Oldeconomybuyer“

As part of the report, James’ investigators surveyed 62 nursing homes across the state and found that 1,914 residents from those facilities either died there or at nearby hospitals after testing positive for coronavirus or exhibiting symptoms of the deadly disease.”That’s what we are experiencing. The nursing homes are holding patients until they start to crash and then calling EMS to transport them out so they die elsewhere.We transported multiple people with DNR’s one of whom crashed before we got out of the parking lot.It has slowed down in our area, but we were transporting 4-5/ambulance/day for several weeks.

24 posted on 1/28/2021, 11:56:57 AM by Clay Moore (Mega prayers, Rush )

________________________________________________________________

To: Oldeconomybuyer

CORONA VIRUS Cuomo Follows Newsom in Easing COVID Restrictions After Biden Inauguration!“Right on cue.”Published on 25 January, 2021 Paul Joseph Watson Pacific PressNew York Governor Andrew Cuomo has followed Michigan, Chicago and California in announcing plans to ease COVID restrictions, prompting many conservatives to allege that the timing is political.

The Governor said in a press conference that the situation in relation to new cases and hospitalizations was improving, meaning lockdown measures could be relaxed soon.“Cuomo didn’t give further details on what type of restrictions he might loosen or what cluster zones might be eliminated or changed,” reports Syracuse.com.

“The state Health Department is reviewing data on the zones now and Cuomo said expects to have announcements in the coming days.”Respondents to the story said the move was politically timed to help Joe Biden ultimately claim victory over COVID.“Yep. Right on cue after Trump is out of office!” remarked one.

In Buffalo holding a COVID briefing. Watch live: https://t.co/J50To0kTv9— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 25, 2021“Now they will reduce the unreported replication factor for the COVID test, and presto – no more COVID,” said another.“Amazing how it all disappeared a week after Trump’s gone,” added another.

As we highlighted earlier, California Governor Gavin Newsom is also set to lift the stay-at-home order across all regions tomorrow based on data that’s not publicly available.“Michigan, Chicago, now California. It’s almost as if the “science” changed, once Biden became president? How convenient for Whitmer, Lightfoot, and Newsom?” tweeted Steve Cortes.“Using small businesses, churches, schools, and citizens as pawns in a crass political game is evil,” he added.

Michigan, Chicago, now California.25 posted on 1/28/2021, 11:58:16 AM by Grampa Dave (Law & order took the last train out of DC and America on election/coup/night, Tues., Nov. 03, 2020!)[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

______________________________________

TOPICS: Breaking News; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: New York

KEYWORDS:

ccp; china; chinavirus; cuomo; govcuomo; mortality; nursinghomes; virus; wuhanchinavirus; wuhanvirus

______________________________________

___________________________________________________

OPINION: Andrew Cuomo is a suite wearing ‘thug’. He talks like a street ‘thug’ acts like a suite wearing ‘thug’ and is as ignorant as they comes.

Whats up with New York, it much be someone much better than Andrew Cuomo!

0 notes

patriotsnet · 3 years

Text

How Many Republicans Are Against The Wall

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-are-against-the-wall/

How Many Republicans Are Against The Wall

Tony Romm And Seung Min Kim Washington Post

“We thought we had an understanding that social infrastructure is off – they didn’t take any of that off,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the party’s lead negotiator.

Asked about the GOP’s characterization of Biden’s position, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said the president is not going to “negotiate through the press.”

“We understood he would try to do the rest of it without us if that was the way they needed to do the rest of it,” he added.

– – – –

Partisans Differ Over Whether Shutdown Is A Very Serious Problem

Democratic Views On A Border Wall

Here Are The 41 Republicans Who Voted Against Securing The Us Border

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The bill failed in the House in a 193-231 vote Thursday.

Here the Republican members who voted against the bill:

Some of the members who voted against the bill did so because leadership altered the bill before the final vote, adding on amendments and provisions they deemed amnesty.

Medical Malpractice Law Reform

Many Presidents Have Declared Emergencies But Not Like Trump Has

Republicans Help Democrats Vote Against Trump’s Wall Funding Grab

The House voted Tuesday to revoke the national emergency President Trump declared in order to spend federal money to build a physical barrier on the southern border without congressional approval.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the Senate would vote on the measure by mid-March.

Constitutional Rights: Limited Government

Term limits, 1970s: Paul was the first member of Congress to propose term limits legislation in the House, one of several bills considered “ahead of their time” by Texas Monthly magazine.

Market Process Restoration Act of 1999. H.R.Â 1789, 1999-05-13. Repeals United States antitrust law , with intent to restore market economy benefits.

See also the limited government and income tax abolition amendment.

Wall: Republicans Can Learn A Valuable Lesson From Democrats Rush To The Far Left

Noah Wall is an executive vice president at FreedomWorks.

Inflation And The Federal Reserve

List Of Republicans Who Opposed The Donald Trump 2020 Presidential Campaign

This article is part of a series about

A third group of Republicans, Republican Voters Against Trump was launched in May 2020 has collected over 500 testimonials opposing Donald Trump.

Proposal To Eliminate Medicare

Public Disapproves Of How Shutdown Negotiations Are Being Handled

Public views of Democratic leaders handling of the shutdown talks are somewhat more positive than views of Trump or GOP leaders. Still, more disapprove than approve .

The 147 Republicans Who Voted To Overturn Election Results

Other Former Federal Government Officials

The Weekly Standard

Charles Fried, United States Solicitor General; Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

David K. Garman, Former Assistant Secretary and Under Secretary of Energy

Steve Baer, former president, United Republican Fund of Illinois

Juan Hernandez, political consultant, co-founder of Hispanic Republicans of Texas

Matt Higgins, former press secretary for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

Stuart Stevens, political consultant and strategist

Mac Stipanovich, strategist and lobbyist; former Chief of Staff to Bob Martinez

Rick Wilson, political consultant and former Republican strategist.

How Americans See Illegal Immigration The Border Wall And Political Compromise

Learn about U.S. immigration through five short lessons delivered to your inbox every other day.Sign up now!

Note: This is an update of a post originally published Jan. 11, 2019.

Cabinet Members And Political Appointees

Rice previously said she had no plans to get involved in the race or attend the GOP convention, a spokesman told Yahoo News. She also ruled out serving as Trumps running mate.

Republican Views On A Border Wall

There’s Battle Lines Being Drawn

And he argues that efforts to regulate trading will feel to Reddit traders more like suppression, and could fuel more anger.

Tax Credits For Healthcare Expenses & Children’s Health Insurance Program

Academics Journalists Authors Commentators

Reuel Marc Gerecht, writer

Michael Gerson, columnist and speechwriter for George W. Bush

Peter Mansoor, military historian

Meghan McCain, commentator, daughter of Senator John McCain

Charles Murray, political scientist and commentator

Ana Navarro, strategist and commentator

Tom Nichols, national security affairs scholar

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape; founder of Andreessen Horowitz

Mike Fernandez, founder of MBF Healthcare Partners

James Murren, Chairman and CEO of MGM Resorts International

William Oberndorf, Chairman of Oberndorf Enterprises

Federal Power: We The People Act

Cosponsors include Roscoe Bartlett, Tom Tancredo, Sam Johnson, Walter B. Jones Jr., John A. Sullivan, John Duncan Jr., and Ted Poe.

New Poll: Senator Gardner Losing Colorado Independent Voters As Majority Of Voters Oppose Wall And Blame Shutdown On Republicans

If Elections Were Held Today, Majority of Colorado Voters Would Opt for Senator Gardners Unnamed Democratic Opponent

You can see the full polling memo here.

###

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poinblank · 4 years

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0 notes

dianaluis008 · 4 years

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0 notes

go-redgirl · 4 years

Photo

Hong Kong Bakery Decorates Cake with ‘Uncle’ Joe Biden Sniffing Anime Girl

The Villa Villa Cafe and Bar in Hong Kong published a photo of a custom cake it baked for a customer this week depicting American presidential candidate Joe Biden sniffing the hair of a distressed cartoon girl drawn in the Japanese anime style.

The Asian outlet Coconuts, which highlighted the bizarre cake order, described the image of Biden as one of “a handsy pedophile.” Though there is no evidence Biden is a pedophile, he has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women and has a reputation for being overly affectionate, even with children.

Villa Villa Cafe and Bar advertised the cake as available in multiple flavors and noted on their page that the photos printed on the cake are edible. Among the flavors listed are coffee, triple chocolate, almond walnut, and rose.

The image appears to be a reference to the reputation that Biden has developed of inappropriate or “creepy” behavior towards young women. Since his days as senator, reporters have photographed Biden sniffing the hair or neck of various women and girls, as well as appearing to touch them inappropriately. The Washington Post referred to Biden in 2015 as a “creepy uncle.”

Biden has also fielded several accusations of sexual assault, the most prominent being that of a woman named Tara Reade, who claimed that, while as a staffer for Biden in the 1990s, Biden digitally raped her in a hallway. Reade was the eighth woman to accuse Biden of sexual assault when she shared her version of the story in 2020.

Another woman, Lucy Flores, described being “mortified” during an encounter with Biden while he was vice president.

“I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, ‘I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual f*ck?'” Flores said.

Biden has dismissed accusations of inappropriate touching and sexual assault by insisting that it is his way of making “a human connection” and that it is his “responsibility” as a politician to do so. He has publicly joked about accusations of inappropriately touching children.

Coconuts noted that the Hong Kong protest movement has identified Villa Villa as a “yellow shop,” meaning that its owners support the pro-democracy movement against China. Hong Kong has experienced waves of regular protests attracting millions of people in the past year, opposing increased interference in Hong Kong affairs by China.

Hong Kong is officially part of China but governed under the “One Country, Two Systems” policy, which prevents Beijing from imposing Communist Party laws on the city. In exchange, Hong Kong cannot declare itself sovereign from China. The protests began last year when the Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo) attempted to pass a law that would have allowed China to extradite anyone present in Hong Kong if accused of Communist Party crimes.

The protests triggered extreme police brutality against otherwise peaceful protesters and global sanctions, including many supported by the United States. This May, the National People’s Congress (NPC), Beijing’s rubber-stamp legislature, passed a “national security” law that allows China to prosecute anyone in Hong Kong for crimes such as “subversion of state power.” While NPC laws applying in Hong Kong is a violation of “One Country, Two Systems,” Hong Kong police have enforced it.

The “yellow shop” system emerged as police attacks on peaceful protesters resulted in property damage and many protesters sought safe locations to flee to. Hong Kong protesters also sought to help businesses that supported their cause. Through word of mouth and custom Google Maps, protesters put together a “yellow economic circle” and attempted to help those businesses. Protesters also boycott “blue shops” — businesses that support the Hong Kong police and the Chinese communists.

President Donald Trump has supported the protest movement, signing an executive order to sanction repressors in the city in March and signing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act last year, which passed in Congress with bipartisan support. The Hong Kong protest movement has reciprocated this support. The Trump administration also revoked special trade status for the city, which was contingent upon it not being governed by communism. Last year, protesters held a “Thanksgiving” rally in appreciation of the Hong Kong Act, waving American flags and holding up photos of Trump. Interviews with dissidents in the city in early November indicated that many hoped to see Trump win a second term in office.

Villa Villa appears to cater to pro-Trump Hong Kong protesters. Two weeks ago, it published a photo of another custom cake its bakers had created, using a photo doctored to make Trump look like a champion boxer.

__________________________________________

OPINION: Joe Biden is one ‘SICK PUPPY’ something is seriously wrong with this Man. Even though thats him on a cake, however we all know thats how he conducts himself in public.

Every parent child that have been touched in this fashion by Joe Biden should press charges against him for foul play against a ‘minor’.

Joe Biden is mentality sick, sick, sick!

0 notes

megacircuit9universe · 4 years

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MOVEMENT

FRI JUN 12 2020

So, we’re nearing the end of week three, of the nationwide protests that began in Minnesota after the public execution of George Floyd and it has gone from scattered pockets of social unrest, to a full blown national uprising in which citizens of all 50 states have been clashing seriously with jack booted police in riot gear every single night... to a solidified movement against systemic racism and fascism in the US.

Officially known as the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) the latest battle cry has become, “Defund the Police,” and basically calls for law enforcement as we know it to to be disbanded and replaced with a much more compartmentalized system of different local agencies to deal with the multiplicity of different issues that, currently, all full under the blanket of gun-toting, badge brandishing cops.

And I fully support this idea.

One department to deal with homelessness. One to deal with domestic violence. One to deal with traffic violations. One to deal with mental illness. And, etc.

And the foundation of this infrastructure is already in place, with our current 911 emergency system. If your grandmother falls and can’t get up, you call 911, and they dispatch EMTs in an ambulance to take her to the ER. If your house is on fire, 911 dispatches the fire department.

And for decades, we’ve all been encouraged to call your local police department (rather than 911) for almost every COP related task other than a grave crime in progress, like a murder, or a home invasion.

If your neighbors are being too loud after midnight... call the local police department. Not 911. If you think you saw a shady character doing a drug deal down the block... police department. Not 911.

In truth, most of what police do is take reports after the fact, and file paperwork about crimes and complaints. Most of the arrests they make are either on the scene of a domestic abuse (arresting drunk guys) on the scene of a traffic stop (usually for expired or revoked credentials, drunk driving, or possession of contraband like drugs or guns) and... arrests for no other good reason than to harass minorities in poor neighborhoods.

That last one, however, has, over the decades gone from mostly intimidation and harassment, with brutality in small pockets... to widespread execution of black people on the streets in broad daylight in every major city, and some not so major cities.

It is true that smart phones have made this egregious conduct a lot more visible than ever, so yes, it probably was worse in past decades than I think it was, but there’s also no doubt that racists have gotten a lot more bold under the Trump administration... sensing they can act on their deadliest impulses without fear of repercussions.

Racism has always been a deadly flashpoint in America, since it’s founding, but over the second half of the 20th century, we did seem to have made some real progress at putting the worst of it behind us.

For a few decades there, racists... especially the violent ones... had to hide in the closet. In public, they had to behave themselves. And white supremacist groups, and neo-nazis seemed like extremely fringe groups who we laughed about... just powerless nut jobs whining from the sidelines of history... watching helplessly as the world moved on without them.

I feel like this began to change after 9/11. 2001... beginning of a new century... and an unprecedented attack on mainland USA. Not some Island we owned in the middle of the Pacific, like Pearl Harbor... but New York City, and Washington DC!

And who were to blame? The browns! The towel heads! The Muslims!

9/11 gave racists a reason to come out of the closet again. No, they couldn’t shit talk Jews, Mexicans, or Black Americans, but... they could spit their vitriol against the terrorist Muslims aloud without much push back.

And that breath of fresh air in their racist nostrils went a long way toward renormalizing the kind of open, flag waving jingoism society thought it had left behind with the McCarthy era.

Fox News, of course, was already around... and the internet too, was taking off it’s dial-up training pants and using the broadband like a big network. Racists found one another... began to establish new codes to present their agenda in public, while establishing new dog whistles to signal one another over the same airwaves.

All through the Bush Administration, these newly coded racist and nationalistic viewpoints were given the full benefit of the doubt by the mainstream media... just, another side, to our grand political discourse.

But the left, especially from my generation (X) were not idiots and not having it. We called them out, and we created push back. We created enough push back, in fact, that in 2008, we managed to get Barack Obama elected as our nation’s first black President... about fifty years earlier than anybody expected!

That was a MASSIVE slap in the face to the hardcore racists in the country who had only just begun to start feeling their oats again, and had all kinds of plans for how to wield the power they felt was nearly within their grasp.

They lost a lot of ground over the eight years of Obama... as Millenials grew up to wield social media in ways never before dreamt of... for normalizing very progressive social issues, from women’s rights, to black rights, trans rights, gay rights, decriminalization of marijuana, etc, etc... until we got the prize of the century, legal gay marriage in all 50 states overnight!.. again... about fifty years earlier than expected.

But while young Millennials proved themselves unmatched wizard masters of social media, putting old-hat conservatives, white nationalists, and xenophobes alike, completely to shame... they had one Achilles heel.

...They turned out to be totally useless in actual elections!

The young Millennial Left had done all of their magic under the protection of the Obama administration... and the technology it brought us... and the progressive political atmosphere it afforded us.

But it was a coalition of GenX and Boomers who, after having fought Bush for eight terrible years, gave them Obama, and reelected Obama again, while they were all still too young to go to the polls.

When 2016 came along, and it was their turn to actually show up and vote in the primaries for their boy Bernie... they didn’t show up, and Hillary took the nomination.

Then, in the generals, they again stayed home because... why are you making us vote for Hillary? Fuck you!

The older lefties also dropped the ball. After eight years of Obama, they’d become a bit overconfident, and a bit lazy. Many, I’m sure, assumed the Millennials would show up in numbers that were... far higher than zero.

Trump, meanwhile, had played to those disaffected dregs of humanity... the racists... the white nationalists... the old-hat conservatives... speaking their code, and using their dog whistles. Make America Great Again... not so much like the 1950s... but like the early 2000s... when they were respected!

He not only tapped into their racism, but their hatred of the left... those goddam Millenials who stole the stage from them, and got gay marriage legalized.

That’s how he edged out the nomination against all his more normal GOP rivals, and... when the generals came... of course they voted for him, because what did they have to lose?

Thus, the golden era of Obama, our first black President, was immediately answered by our worst white nationalist President since Andrew Johnson (who immediately followed Lincoln), and our worst President period.

And that brings us back to now... 2020.

Over four years, we tolerated all the repugnant tweets, the racist travel bans and caging of immigrants at the border, separating them from their children, then losing track of the children... the sympathy for Putin, and Kim Jong Un... the abandonment of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of natural disaster... because he didn’t respect the President of Puerto Rico (himself)... the lies, the hatred, the mass shootings condoned, the conspiracy theories, the crimes.

We tolerated, but we resisted, and we waited on the Mueller investigation.

In 2018, once again... Millennials failed to show up at the polls. Despite all their grievances, the nightmare, as it was, wasn’t bad enough to get their asses off the couch to go vote. Easier to stay home and bitch on Twitter and Tumblr.

The rest of us did at least show up and flip a ton of State Houses, and Senates, and Governorships... and the US House of Representatives... to put Trump on notice.

And this resulted, not only in the legalization of weed in several new states, but also... Trump’s impeachment. Not too shabby, for a salty resistance movement who couldn’t count on any support from the youngsters on election day.

In 2019, Bernie Sanders again, caught fire! This time, not only with GenX and Millennials, but also GenZ... who were finally hitting voting age in time for the primaries of 2020! It looked like we were finally gonna bust everything wide open!

But when the primaries came, in early 2020, not only did the Millennials not show up... but they’d passed on their apathy to the up and coming Zoomers, who, instead of going to the polls, stayed home to make TikTok Memes about, “Don’t make me vote for Joe Biden.”

Don’t make you vote for Joe Biden?

Don’t YOU make ME vote for Joe Biden, you spoiled, slack ass little TWERPS! What are you talking about? You have a vote now! Bernie doesn’t win the nomination without it! Without all of your votes, you... dancing to sound clip idiots!

Who taught you to think it was the old people’s job to hand you a general election candidate.... oh yeah. Right.... the Tumbler Blog, YouTubing idiots you grew up idolizing.

WE’RE FUCKING DOOMED!

But just then... SarsCoV2 came to town. It came to shut down the economy on the Millennials who were only just finally starting to get ahead after it shut down on them in 2008 (when they were graduating high school just like Z is now)... and it came to shut down the schools, to send all the Zoomers home for the spring... summmer... fall... eternity.

It also hit the elderly, minority, working, and poor communities especially hard, either by direct infections, or financial hardship, or the hardship of being a largely unprotected “essential worker” on the front lines.

And even as it became famous for forcing all Americans to wear masks... Covid19 also UNMASKED Americans in a way no calamity has in modern times... in their selfishness, as with the hoarders of toilet paper, and the protesters for haircuts... and in their science denying ignorance.

And it was only a matter of time before it would rend naked, the murderous culture of our police, in broad daylight, before a captive, nationwide audience with nothing else to distract them anymore.

No jobs to go to. No classes. No retail shopping to do. Fed up with quarantine. Fed up with Trump’s total failure of leadership on the pandemic. Fed up with his do-nothing Senate resisting any financial aid.

Fed up with all the bullshit of the past four years.

And fed... the fuck... UP... with systemic racism, police brutality, fascism in general... and those god damn confederate flag waving, racist grandchildren of the losers of the god damn civil war, and all their motherfucking confederate statues erected to glorify the treasonous traitors in their family trees.

This week, not just in America, but in many other western countries, statues dedicated to racist slave traders, and confederate generals alike fell. In some cases they were taken down by authorities, but in many others, they were toppled by mobs, beheaded, and rolled into the rivers.

The Black Lives Matter movement has become global now, and it’s got teeth.

Shark teeth.

Not only are racist statues dropping like flies, but the confederate flag is on it’s way to join the Nazi swastika flag in the halls of infamy... this week being banned by none other than NASCAR, as well as other organizations.

The US military is considering re-naming all bases currently named after confederate generals (we had those??? WTF???).

Laws are being passed to outlaw choke holds by police... to appease the angry populace, while full defunding and restructuring of law enforcement is totally on the table, and being taken seriously.

Across the country, governmental power is on the defensive, and in many quarters, conceding to demands... looking to negotiate... desperate to calm the storm that is the Black Lives Matter Movement... even while jack booted cops are still lobbing tear gas grenades and pepper balls at the protesters in the streets, beating them with clubs, and shooting rubber bullets at them.

Meanwhile, those gun-toting, 2nd Amendment ass hats who were protesting to get haircuts last month, are nowhere to be seen. They’ve gone back into hiding, and they’re quietly asking...

How are these lefties getting so much leverage, and so much change in such a short time? How? When we were winning?

The short answer?.. Numbers.

78% of the American public now supports the BLM movement.

This is damn near an 80/20 split now, against Trump, and against all levels of fascist bullshit, Federal, State, and Municipal.

The old, “silent majority,” they used to talk about in the Nixon era, presumed to be conservative... has now shifted much further to the left... and is also no longer silent, as of three weeks ago.

And never, did the silent majority of the Nixonian era come close to 80%.

NASCAR is scared. The cops are scared. Power... is scared. This is dynamite.

Nobody cares about 2nd Amendment loser with their guns. Clearly those idiots were brainwashed to vote against their own interests long ago... to hate science... revel in magical thinking... hate their countrymen based on superficial bullshit like skin color... child’s play to gaslight and manipulate that crowd.

But these other 80%? Angry and taking to the streets?.. fearless?.. fed up?.. wide awake and ready to go to the matt now, on everything? Fuck!

Old and Young alike? Fuck! No holds barred?.. just beheading confederate statues and telling the southerners to deal with the fact that they lost and get over it? Fuck!

Allies in every western country on the streets doing the same?

Even the Amish out there on their side?

FUCK!

HO-LY FUCK!

So... my first entry about this was entitled, “Civil Unrest.”

The next one was entitled, “Uprising.”

This one is entitled, “Movement.”

What they, in power, are now desperate to prevent... is a situation that I would end up telling you about in an entry entitled, “Revolution.”

We’ll see what comes.

Apologies for the long length of this entry, but... we’re living through interesting times.

Nonetheless...

It’s time for bed.

0 notes

xtruss · 4 years

Text

Minnesota’s Decades-Long Failure to Confront Police Abuse

— By Ricardo Lopez | June 10, 2020 | The New Yorker

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, in Minnesota, long-dismissed charges of systemic racism have been revived in a place that sees itself as one of the country’s most progressive states.Photograph by John Stanmeyer / VII / Redux

On July 7, 2016, Mark Dayton made a statement that no modern governor of Minnesota had uttered before, helping shift public opinion on the still-nascent Black Lives Matter movement. Dayton said that a black man who was killed the previous night by police would be alive if he were white. An officer in a suburb of St. Paul had shot Philando Castile, a thirty-two-year-old school-cafeteria worker, killing him during a routine traffic stop. “Would this have happened if those passengers, the driver and the passengers, were white? I don’t think it would have,” Dayton said at a press conference. “I’m forced to confront, and I think all of us in Minnesota are forced to confront, that this kind of racism exists and that it’s incumbent upon all of us to vow that we’re going to do whatever we can to see that it doesn’t happen, doesn’t continue to happen.”

The governor’s statement gave hope to black political leaders and local activists that their decades-old experiences of systemic racism had finally penetrated the state’s largely white upper echelons of political power. Castile’s death prompted the first widespread calls in modern Minnesotan history for the state legislature to pass wide-ranging policing reforms. The state’s handful of black lawmakers—a total of three in the State House and Senate at the time—began leading conversations in the legislature about the need for significant changes in local law enforcement. Four months later, in November, 2016, the effort foundered after Republicans, bolstered by Donald Trump’s candidacy for President, reclaimed control of the State Senate and expanded their House majority. Downplaying the need to reform police, Republicans introduced legislation to crack down on Black Lives Matter demonstrations, including allowing cities to sue protesters to recover the costs of policing their demonstrations.

Four years later, the state finds itself in a painful and familiar place. On Memorial Day, the police killing of George Floyd, like that of Castile, was captured on video and posted online. Floyd’s murder touched off the largest mass demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism in the United States in a quarter century. More than ten thousand demonstrators have been arrested in dozens of cities.

The turmoil in Minneapolis challenges the myth of Minnesotan exceptionalism, the widely held belief that the state’s innovative spirit and progressive policies have created a shining example for how other states should run. The Twin Cities region has long been described as a paradox. Minneapolis-St. Paul and its surrounding suburbs are home to more than 3.4 million people and one of the wealthiest metropolitan areas in the country, with good schools, verdant parks, well-paying jobs, and a low cost of living that all, theoretically, add up to a high quality of life. But academics, political leaders of color, and activists say this has primarily been true only for white Minnesotans. The state remains one of the least diverse in the country, and the Twin Cities metropolitan area has grown more racially segregated since the turn of the twenty-first century, despite a history of welcoming refugees and immigrants from East Africa, Vietnam, and Central America.

Off and on for the last decade, I’ve worked as a journalist in Minnesota, first as an intern for the St. Paul Pioneer Press during summer of 2010, before my senior year in college. For two months, I lived on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota campus, blocks from Cedar-Riverside, a largely Somali-American neighborhood. After growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada, one of the country’s most diverse cities, and graduating from the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2011, I reported for three years in Los Angeles, mostly covering business and the California economy for the Los Angeles Times. Eager to return to Minnesota, I took a job with the Star Tribune to cover state politics and government in 2014. The wide range of cultures represented here, as well as the beautiful summers, attracted me. I was sold on the promise of Minnesota.

But the longer I’ve lived here the more glaring the state’s racial blind spots have become, even among the most progressive-minded white Minnesotans. As many transplants learn, Minnesotans are tough to befriend. If you’re a person of color who grew up in less white environments, you might suddenly notice your race affecting how others treat you. During a press conference in 2015, a former State Senate majority leader responded to a question I posed by asking, “How long have you been here?” Capitol dwellers told me that I didn’t “look like a political reporter.” Once, a person seemingly lost in the complex mistook me for a janitor as I left work late one night and walked to my car. The moment caught me so off guard I barely had a chance to fully register what about my appearance—other than my skin tone—would have prompted it. The regularity of moments like these, some obviously racially rooted, others less so, made the Capitol’s gilded and marbled corridors feel like an uninviting and intimidating place to be a person of color.

Nonetheless, I endeavored to shed light on the experience of nonwhite Minnesotans through political reporting. I explored the various ways in which people of color, particularly black Minnesotans, have been historically excluded from the levers of power in state politics and government. Candidates of color, even those running as Democrats, face institutional hurdles from a political structure that favors white incumbents, for reasons ranging from lack of access to donors to the threat of political ostracism if they run against Party-endorsed candidates.

The demographic changes that have already occurred in other parts of the country arrived only recently in Minnesota. In 1990, Minnesota was ninety-four per cent white; three decades later, whites make up eighty-four per cent of the population. Even as people of color have arrived, they have failed to acquire political power commensurate to their numbers. Last year, the Minnesota legislature swore in its most diverse body ever. Yet lawmakers of color hold only twenty-one of the two hundred and one seats. All together, they could fit in a high-school classroom. Ninety per cent of the members of the legislature remain white. In recent years, the relationship between communities of color and the state’s largely white media have deteriorated, too. On January 22nd, black activists on a citizen advisory committee tried to bar journalists from covering a public meeting, citing the historical representation of their communities in the state’s media. The episode subsided after city leaders said that they would urge members of the advisory body that they should follow the requirements of the state’s public-meeting law.

Since the nineteen-sixties, black residents have been demanding a wide-ranging overhaul of law-enforcement agencies, including community policing, civilian oversight, improved training, and stronger accountability. Instead, policies enacted by G.O.P. governors and lawmakers have exacerbated mistrust of the police. In 1999, Rich Stanek, a former Minneapolis police captain and State House Republican, led a successful effort to revoke a law requiring Minneapolis and St. Paul police officers to live in the cities in which they worked. Nearly twenty years later, in 2015, about twenty-two per cent of St. Paul police officers called the capital city home, and, this year, roughly seven per cent of Minneapolis officers live in the city; many commute from largely white suburbs, such as Anoka, and exurbs, like the neighboring city of Hudson, Wisconsin.

When Democrats last took full control of the Minnesota government, in 2013, they enacted a series of progressive milestones, including the legalization of same-sex marriage, the passage of a tax on the wealthy, and the boosting of the minimum wage with future increases tied to inflation. Still, ambitious reforms championed by legislators of colors, ranging from policing to education, struggled to gain broad support—no major police reforms were enacted. Joe Soss, a University of Minnesota professor who studies poverty and racial inequality, said that progressive policies championed by Democrats failed to address bias. “What you had were generous policies that helped white people buy homes, help protect white people, invest in white communities, and lifted them up higher than people who were left out,” Soss told me. “When it comes to power in the state and in the Twin Cities, people of color have continued to be very marginalized.”

Two police shootings created public pressure for reforms. In 2015, a Minneapolis police officer killed Jamar Clark, a twenty-four-year-old African-American who worked for a local trucking firm. An officer claimed that Clark tried to take his weapon and, in the ensuing struggle, another officer shot Clark. Some witnesses said Clark was handcuffed at the time. Weeks of protests ensued. The Hennepin County Attorney, Mike Freeman, ruled the shooting justified and declined to press charges. In 2016, Philando Castile informed the officer who pulled him over, Jeronimo Yanez, that he had a handgun, which he had a license to carry, but Yanez panicked and fired seven shots at Castile. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was in the car with her four-year-old daughter, broadcast his final moments on Facebook Live. Reynolds said Castile was reaching for his wallet, not his gun. Yanez was later acquitted of all charges by a jury.

In 2016, the Minneapolis Police Department issued a new policy that officers had a duty to intervene when they saw a colleague use excessive force. The department also rewrote its use of force policy to prioritize the “sanctity of life,” and made changes in its hiring practices. The former Minneapolis mayor Betsy Hodges appointed Medaria Arradondo as the force’s first black police chief, in 2017. Arradondo enacted some reforms, but partisan division in the legislature blocked the passage of significant reforms statewide.

After decades of being protected by the political power of police unions, the Minneapolis P.D. faces growing public support for drastic change, including a complete dismantling of the department. In a series of speeches on Sunday, nine of the thirteen members of the Minneapolis City Council pledged to start the process of “dismantling” the city’s police force, without offering specifics. The pronouncement came after some council members said that police retaliated against them after criticizing the force. In a Twitter thread, the Third Ward councilman Steve Fletcher accused Minneapolis police of intentionally slowing 911 response times in his ward after he proposed cutting their budget.

Republicans continue to be skeptical of calls for wide-ranging reform. This January, four months before Floyd’s killing, Senate Republican leaders criticized an uptick in homicides in downtown Minneapolis and in crime on its light-rail trains, saying that those trends had caused residents to fear the Twin Cities. Senate Republicans proposed hiring more police officers, despite calls from black activists to instead focus efforts on reforming the departments. After Floyd’s killing, Senate Republicans dismissed claims of systemic racism, ahead of a potential special legislative session this month, in which police reform will be on the table. “It’s not a difficult question to say that there’s racism,” the G.O.P. Senate majority leader Paul Gazelka, said four days after Floyd’s killing. “To say it is everywhere, if that’s how you’re defining systemic, I’m not so sure I would go that far.”

Public attitudes about police in the state compound the challenge. A majority of Minnesotans back police in the state, according to public-opinion surveys, but strikingly different views exist along racial lines. A Star Tribune poll, in 2016, found that six in ten black Minnesotans believed police were more likely to use deadly force against a black person than someone who is white, nearly twice the rate of whites. The same poll found that a majority of Minnesotans also viewed the Black Lives Matter movement unfavorably. “You have this idea that Minnesota is a great place, but it’s only a really great place for white people,” Lena K. Gardner, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Minneapolis at the time, told me in 2016. “And then you have this Minnesota Nice which says we can’t really have open, honest, and frank discussions because they’re awkward, they’re uncomfortable, and conflict is a bad thing.”

Floyd’s death in broad daylight, on a busy Minneapolis street with multiple witnesses pleading with officers to let him breathe, reopened wounds left from earlier shootings. It’s possible Floyd’s death could prove different. People of color have recently begun to acquire more political power in the state. Those public officials include the Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a black Detroit native and longtime activist in Minneapolis. As a congressman from Minneapolis, from 2007 through 2019, Ellison played a key role in helping navigate the response of the state’s political establishment to Jamar Clark’s murder, in 2015. In the hours after Clark’s death, Ellison united different factions of the black community, and his stature in the mayor’s office helped him broker a sit-down between Governor Mark Dayton and the family of the victim, helping to ease tensions.

Five years later, Ellison now helms the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. On Wednesday, Ellison elevated charges to second-degree murder for Chauvin, and charged three other officers involved—Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane—with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. The rare prosecution marks a victory for black activists who have long mistrusted the Hennepin County Attorney, Mike Freeman, who has repeatedly declined to prosecute officers who used lethal force. Five years ago, Ellison’s appointment to the role would have been unheard of.

Governor Tim Walz is also the second Democratic governor in the last five years to surround himself with a diverse administration, building on the progress black leaders made with his predecessor, Dayton. In recent days, Walz and his administration have acknowledged and decried systemic racism. In an unprecedented action, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights last week announced a civil-rights investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department, the largest law-enforcement agency in the state, to determine if it has used “systemic discriminatory practices towards people of color.” On June 8th, the agency finalized a court-approved agreement with the city of Minneapolis banning chokeholds by police.

Walz, a Nebraska native and former congressman who represented Minnesota’s rural First Congressional District, chose the former Minnesota House member Peggy Flanagan to be his lieutenant governor, making her the highest ranking Native American woman holding executive office. “What is clear is that tragedies like the one that happened to George Floyd do not emerge from a few isolated bad actors, but from patterns of misconduct,” Flanagan said.

Major changes this year seem unlikely. Republicans retain control of the State Senate, and Senators have said that the prospects of major reforms being enacted during a special legislative session this summer are small. As in 2016, the passage of significant reforms will depend on the outcome of the 2020 election. If Democrats can hold the Minnesota House and win back the Senate this fall, next year’s legislature could enact laws and programs squarely centered on the racism that people of color in Minnesota have long pointed out. In a matter of days, Floyd’s death has forced a societal reckoning on racism that is shaking many progressive’s views of their liberal home state. Activists say that the country—and Minnesota—should heed voices previously shut out of the political power structure, even if it means finally confronting a difficult reality: that for black Minnesotans, and other people of color, the state was never the utopia it has been billed as.

I want to believe we are on the precipice of systemic change, but my decade of reporting in the capitol makes me pessimistic. Minnesota’s work starts with, once and for all, giving credence to the marginalized voices whose expertise, ideas, and truths have been excluded from its largely white institutions. Without that recognition, we may find ourselves here again, lamenting the glaring racial disparities that white Minnesotan political leaders have spent years decrying, without reflecting on the roles that they, too, have played in perpetuating them.

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