Wednesday, June 03, 2020
WE ARE ALLIES, WE ARE COMRADES,
WE ARE FELLOW WORKERS TOO
MOST IMPORTANTLY WE ARE IN SOLIDARITY
WITH BLACK LIVES MATTER
WE CALL THAT SOLIDARITY UNIONISM
AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL
Responding to a request to protect black demonstrators, white demonstrators form a perimeter at City Hall in Baltimore on June 1. Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI | License Photo
AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL
Responding to a request to protect black demonstrators, white demonstrators form a perimeter at City Hall in Baltimore on June 1. Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI | License Photo
TRAFALGAR SQUARE LONDON
THE WHOLE MILLENNIAL WORLD HAS BECOME WOKE TO IMPERIALISM, RACISM, AND COLONIALISM
THAT THOSE THE EMPIRES HAVE EXPLOITED TO CREATE CAPITALISM HAVE STILL NOT SEEN REPARATIONS WORLD WIDE FOR THE CRIME OF COLONIALISM
BOSTON GENERAL HOSPITAL
ITALY
TRIBAL TERRITORIES
\
PLASTIC BOTTLES VS SWAT
THESE ARE THE DREADED PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES
THEY TERRIFY HEAVILY ARMOURED RIOT COPS
WHO RESPOND IN KIND WITH RUBBER BULLETS, TEARGAS, PEPPERBALLS, BATONS AND SHIELDS WHILE WEARING KEVLAR BODY ARMOUR, HELMETS,
GAS MASKS.
THEY TERRIFY HEAVILY ARMOURED RIOT COPS
WHO RESPOND IN KIND WITH RUBBER BULLETS, TEARGAS, PEPPERBALLS, BATONS AND SHIELDS WHILE WEARING KEVLAR BODY ARMOUR, HELMETS,
GAS MASKS.
YES FOLKS YOU AND I BOTH KNOW
THAT RIOT COPS FEAR OF
PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES,
FULL OR EMPTY,
IS JUST THEIR EXCUSE
FOR BOYS TO USE THEIR TOYS!
NBA coach Gregg Popovich says ‘if Trump had a brain, even if it was 99 percent cynical, he would come out and say something to unify people’
Spurs coach and other members of the sports world, like LeBron James and Michael Jordan, have been vocal supporters of protesters
Head coach Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs calls a play during an NBA game. CHRISTIAN PETERSEN
Head coach Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs calls a play during an NBA game. CHRISTIAN PETERSEN
Published: June 2, 2020
“It’s unbelievable. If Trump had a brain, even if it was 99 percent cynical, he would come out and say something to unify people. But he doesn’t care about bringing people together. ”
That’s future Hall of Fame basketball coach Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs, in an interview with The Nation addressing President Donald Trump’s reaction to the events surrounding the death of George Floyd.
“The thing that strikes me is that we all see this police violence and racism, and we’ve seen it all before, but nothing changes. That’s why these protests have been so explosive. But without leadership and an understanding of what the problem is, there will never be change,” Popovich said. “And white Americans have avoided reckoning with this problem forever, because it’s been our privilege to be able to avoid it. That also has to change.”
The Spurs coach has not been shy about vocalizing his political beliefs in the past, and has been an outspoken Trump critic for years.
See also: Michael Jordan and many current NBA players express their anger and frustration over the death of George Floyd
“It’s unbelievable. If Trump had a brain, even if it was 99 percent cynical, he would come out and say something to unify people. But he doesn’t care about bringing people together. ”
That’s future Hall of Fame basketball coach Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs, in an interview with The Nation addressing President Donald Trump’s reaction to the events surrounding the death of George Floyd.
“The thing that strikes me is that we all see this police violence and racism, and we’ve seen it all before, but nothing changes. That’s why these protests have been so explosive. But without leadership and an understanding of what the problem is, there will never be change,” Popovich said. “And white Americans have avoided reckoning with this problem forever, because it’s been our privilege to be able to avoid it. That also has to change.”
The Spurs coach has not been shy about vocalizing his political beliefs in the past, and has been an outspoken Trump critic for years.
See also: Michael Jordan and many current NBA players express their anger and frustration over the death of George Floyd
“It’s so clear what needs to be done. We need a president to come out and say simply that ‘black lives matter.’ Just say those three words,” he said.
In recent days, protests have erupted across the U.S. demanding justice for Floyd and calling for an end to racial discrimination in the country. Many athletes, from LeBron James to Michael Jordan, have voiced support for those protesting.
In recent days, protests have erupted across the U.S. demanding justice for Floyd and calling for an end to racial discrimination in the country. Many athletes, from LeBron James to Michael Jordan, have voiced support for those protesting.
U.S. sees calmest protests in days
AS ANGRY PROTESTERS RESPOND TO TRUMPS MILITARY ATTACK ON PEACEFUL PROTESTERS
AS ANGRY PROTESTERS RESPOND TO TRUMPS MILITARY ATTACK ON PEACEFUL PROTESTERS
Published: June 3, 2020 Associated Press
WHITE Protesters denouncing police brutality and systemic racism are kept in place on the Manhattan Bridge by police for hours during a citywide curfew in New York City on June 2, 2020. GETTY IMAGES
WASHINGTON (AP) — Protests were largely peaceful and the nation’s streets were calmer than they have been in days since the killing of George Floyd set off demonstrations that at times brought violence and destruction along with pleas to stop police brutality and injustice against African Americans.
There were scattered reports of looting in New York City overnight, and as of Wednesday morning there had been over 9,000 arrests nationwide since the unrest began following Floyd’s death May 25 in Minneapolis. But there was a marked quiet compared with the unrest of the past few nights, which included fires and shootings in some cities.
The calmer night came as many cities intensified their curfews, with authorities in New York and Washington ordering people off streets while it was still daylight.
A block away from the White House, thousands of demonstrators massed following a crackdown a day earlier when officers on foot and horseback aggressively drove peaceful protesters away from Lafayette Park, clearing the way for President Donald Trump to do a photo op at nearby St. John’s Church. Tuesday’s protesters faced law enforcement personnel who stood behind a black chain-link fence that was put up overnight to block access to the park.
“Last night pushed me way over the edge,” said Jessica DeMaio, 40, of Washington, who attended a Floyd protest Tuesday for the first time. “Being here is better than being at home feeling helpless.”
Pastors at the church prayed with demonstrators and handed out water bottles. The crowd remained in place after the city’s 7 p.m. curfew passed, defying warnings that the response from law enforcement could be even more forceful. But the crowd Tuesday was peaceful, even polite. At one point, the crowd booed when a protester climbed a light post and took down a street sign. A chant went up: “Peaceful protest!”
Pope Francis on Wednesday called for national reconciliation and peace.
Francis said that he has ‘’witnessed with great concern the disturbing social unrest’’ in the United States in recent days.
“My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life,’’ the pope said during his weekly Wednesday audience, held in the presence of bishops due to coronavirus restrictions on gatherings.
Trump, meanwhile, amplified his hard-line calls from Monday, when he threatened to send in the military to restore order if governors didn’t do it.
“NYC, CALL UP THE NATIONAL GUARD,” he tweeted. “The lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart. Act fast!”
Thousands of people remained in the streets of New York City Tuesday night, undeterred by an 8 p.m. curfew, though most streets were clear by early Wednesday other than police who were patrolling some areas. Midtown Manhattan was pocked with battered storefronts after Monday’s protests.
Protests also passed across the U.S., including in Los Angeles, Miami, St. Paul, Minnesota, Columbia, South Carolina and Houston, where the police chief talked to peaceful demonstrators, vowing reforms.
“God as my witness, change is coming,” Art Acevedo said. “And we’re going to do it the right way.”
More than 20,000 National Guard members have been called up in 29 states to deal with the violence. New York is not among them, and Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he does not want the Guard. On Tuesday, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo called what happened in the city “a disgrace.”
“The NYPD and the mayor did not do their job last night,” Cuomo said at a briefing in Albany.
He said the mayor underestimated the problem, and the nation’s largest police force was not deployed in sufficient numbers, though the city had said it doubled the usual police presence.
Tuesday marked the eighth straight night of the protests, which began after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck while the handcuffed black man called out that he couldn’t breathe. The officer, Derek Chauvin, has been fired and charged with murder.
The mother of George Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter, Gianna, said she wanted the world to know that her little girl lost a good father.
“I want everybody to know that this is what those officers took,” Roxie Washington said during a Minneapolis news conference with her young daughter at her side. “I want justice for him because he was good. No matter what anybody thinks, he was good.”
Some protesters framed the burgeoning movement as a necessity after a string of killings by police.
“It feels like it’s just been an endless cascade of hashtags of black people dying, and it feels like nothing’s really being done by our political leaders to actually enact real change,” said Christine Ohenzuwa, 19, who attended a peaceful protest at the Minnesota state Capitol in St. Paul. “There’s always going to be a breaking point. I think right now, we’re seeing the breaking point around the country.”
“I live in this state. It’s really painful to see what’s going on, but it’s also really important to understand that it’s connected to a system of racial violence,” she said.
Meanwhile, governors and mayors, Republicans and Democrats alike, rejected Trump’s threat to send in the military, with some saying troops would be unnecessary and others questioning whether the government has such authority and warning that such a step would be dangerous.
A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the president is not rushing to send in the military and that his goal was to pressure governors to deploy more National Guard members.
Such use of the military would mark a stunning federal intervention rarely seen in modern American history.
Amid the protests, nine states and the District of Columbia held presidential primaries that tested the nation’s ability to run elections while balancing a pandemic and sweeping social unrest. Joe Biden won hundreds more delegates and was on the cusp of formally securing the Democratic presidential nomination.
Also Tuesday, Minnesota opened an investigation into whether the Minneapolis Police Department has a pattern of discrimination against minorities.
___
Sullivan reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press journalists across the U.S. contributed to this report
WHITE Protesters denouncing police brutality and systemic racism are kept in place on the Manhattan Bridge by police for hours during a citywide curfew in New York City on June 2, 2020. GETTY IMAGES
WASHINGTON (AP) — Protests were largely peaceful and the nation’s streets were calmer than they have been in days since the killing of George Floyd set off demonstrations that at times brought violence and destruction along with pleas to stop police brutality and injustice against African Americans.
There were scattered reports of looting in New York City overnight, and as of Wednesday morning there had been over 9,000 arrests nationwide since the unrest began following Floyd’s death May 25 in Minneapolis. But there was a marked quiet compared with the unrest of the past few nights, which included fires and shootings in some cities.
The calmer night came as many cities intensified their curfews, with authorities in New York and Washington ordering people off streets while it was still daylight.
A block away from the White House, thousands of demonstrators massed following a crackdown a day earlier when officers on foot and horseback aggressively drove peaceful protesters away from Lafayette Park, clearing the way for President Donald Trump to do a photo op at nearby St. John’s Church. Tuesday’s protesters faced law enforcement personnel who stood behind a black chain-link fence that was put up overnight to block access to the park.
“Last night pushed me way over the edge,” said Jessica DeMaio, 40, of Washington, who attended a Floyd protest Tuesday for the first time. “Being here is better than being at home feeling helpless.”
Pastors at the church prayed with demonstrators and handed out water bottles. The crowd remained in place after the city’s 7 p.m. curfew passed, defying warnings that the response from law enforcement could be even more forceful. But the crowd Tuesday was peaceful, even polite. At one point, the crowd booed when a protester climbed a light post and took down a street sign. A chant went up: “Peaceful protest!”
Pope Francis on Wednesday called for national reconciliation and peace.
Francis said that he has ‘’witnessed with great concern the disturbing social unrest’’ in the United States in recent days.
“My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life,’’ the pope said during his weekly Wednesday audience, held in the presence of bishops due to coronavirus restrictions on gatherings.
Trump, meanwhile, amplified his hard-line calls from Monday, when he threatened to send in the military to restore order if governors didn’t do it.
“NYC, CALL UP THE NATIONAL GUARD,” he tweeted. “The lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart. Act fast!”
Thousands of people remained in the streets of New York City Tuesday night, undeterred by an 8 p.m. curfew, though most streets were clear by early Wednesday other than police who were patrolling some areas. Midtown Manhattan was pocked with battered storefronts after Monday’s protests.
Protests also passed across the U.S., including in Los Angeles, Miami, St. Paul, Minnesota, Columbia, South Carolina and Houston, where the police chief talked to peaceful demonstrators, vowing reforms.
“God as my witness, change is coming,” Art Acevedo said. “And we’re going to do it the right way.”
More than 20,000 National Guard members have been called up in 29 states to deal with the violence. New York is not among them, and Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he does not want the Guard. On Tuesday, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo called what happened in the city “a disgrace.”
“The NYPD and the mayor did not do their job last night,” Cuomo said at a briefing in Albany.
He said the mayor underestimated the problem, and the nation’s largest police force was not deployed in sufficient numbers, though the city had said it doubled the usual police presence.
Tuesday marked the eighth straight night of the protests, which began after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck while the handcuffed black man called out that he couldn’t breathe. The officer, Derek Chauvin, has been fired and charged with murder.
The mother of George Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter, Gianna, said she wanted the world to know that her little girl lost a good father.
“I want everybody to know that this is what those officers took,” Roxie Washington said during a Minneapolis news conference with her young daughter at her side. “I want justice for him because he was good. No matter what anybody thinks, he was good.”
Some protesters framed the burgeoning movement as a necessity after a string of killings by police.
“It feels like it’s just been an endless cascade of hashtags of black people dying, and it feels like nothing’s really being done by our political leaders to actually enact real change,” said Christine Ohenzuwa, 19, who attended a peaceful protest at the Minnesota state Capitol in St. Paul. “There’s always going to be a breaking point. I think right now, we’re seeing the breaking point around the country.”
“I live in this state. It’s really painful to see what’s going on, but it’s also really important to understand that it’s connected to a system of racial violence,” she said.
Meanwhile, governors and mayors, Republicans and Democrats alike, rejected Trump’s threat to send in the military, with some saying troops would be unnecessary and others questioning whether the government has such authority and warning that such a step would be dangerous.
A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the president is not rushing to send in the military and that his goal was to pressure governors to deploy more National Guard members.
Such use of the military would mark a stunning federal intervention rarely seen in modern American history.
Amid the protests, nine states and the District of Columbia held presidential primaries that tested the nation’s ability to run elections while balancing a pandemic and sweeping social unrest. Joe Biden won hundreds more delegates and was on the cusp of formally securing the Democratic presidential nomination.
Also Tuesday, Minnesota opened an investigation into whether the Minneapolis Police Department has a pattern of discrimination against minorities.
___
Sullivan reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press journalists across the U.S. contributed to this report
Trump appears to back away from sending military to quell protests
Associated Press Published: June 3, 2020
Members of the DC National Guard block an intersection on 16th Street as demonstrators gather to protest the death of George Floyd, Tuesday, June 2, 2020, near the White House in Washington. ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after threatening states that he would dispatch the military to quell protests, President Donald Trump appeared to be privately backing off his threat to deploy troops, with White House officials saying this week’s response to demonstrations across the country indicated that local governments should be able to restore order themselves.
The shift came as protests in Washington and other cities over police brutality against minorities proceeded Tuesday with relative calm, a striking contrast to the harsh crackdowns outside the White House on Monday night. The president wanted to make the aggressive action in the nation’s capital an example for the rest of the country, a senior White House official said Tuesday.
The Defense Department has drafted contingency plans for how to deploy active-duty military if needed. Pentagon documents reviewed by The Associated Press showed plans for soldiers from an Army division to protect the White House and other federal buildings if the security situation in the nation’s capital were to deteriorate and the National Guard could not secure the facilities.
But interest in exerting that extraordinary federal authority appeared to be waning in the White House. Though the crackdown on the Washington demonstrations was praised by some Trump supporters Tuesday, a handful of Republicans expressed concern that law enforcement officers risked violating the protesters’ First Amendment rights. The defense secretary also distanced himself from Trump’s decision to walk across Lafayette Park for a photo opportunity at a church after the demonstrators had been cleared.
Pentagon Chief Mark Esper, who walked with Trump to St. John’s Church on Monday evening, insisted he did not know the president’s destination.
“I didn’t know where I was going,” Esper told NBC News. He said he had expected to view damage to a bathroom facility that had been vandalized in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, and talk with National Guard troops positioned there.
Read:Democrats fail in effort to get Senate to condemn Trump for church photo-op
The protests have sprung up across the country following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him down and pressed Floyd’s neck with his knee. Violent demonstrations have raged in scores of American cities, marking a level of unrest unseen for decades.
The situation in Washington escalated Monday, becoming a potent symbol of Trump’s policing tactics and a physical manifestation of the rhetorical culture war he has stoked since before he was elected. Nearly 30 minutes before a 7 p.m. curfew in Washington, U.S. Park Police repelled protesters with what they said were smoke canisters and pepper balls.
“D.C. had no problems last night. Many arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination,” Trump tweeted Tuesday, after a night in which heavily armed military forces and federal officers swarmed the city. Trump added, “(thank you President Trump!).”
The clampdown on the protesters followed a weekend of demonstrations outside the White House. Trump had been furious about images juxtaposing fires set in the park outside the executive mansion with a darkened White House in the background, according to current and former campaign and administration officials. He was also angry about the news coverage revealing he had been rushed to the White House bunker during Friday’s protests.
He moved to respond aggressively Monday. In an evening address in the Rose Garden, he called on governors to ramp up the National Guard presence in their states to tamp down the protests. If they didn’t abide by those orders, Trump said, he would dispatch the military to their states — a step rarely taken in modern American history.
The federal government has provided all affected states with a list of National Guard resources available to them, the White House official said. The official added that Trump’s message to governors was that if they don’t use all the tools in their arsenal, they shouldn’t expect a sympathetic response to any request for federal dollars to help with cleanup and recovery down.
On Monday, 715 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in the capital area in case the situation in Washington escalated. They are now stationed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Two more 82nd Airborne battalions, totaling 1,300 soldiers, are on standby at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, according to the documents reviewed by the AP. The plan is named Operation Themis.
The soldiers on standby in the Washington area are armed and have riot gear and bayonets. After the AP first reported the issuing of bayonets Tuesday, orders came down that soldiers would not need the knife-like weapons that can be affixed to rifles, according to two soldiers from the 82nd who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear they would be punished for commenting publicly. The idea that bayonets could be used in confronting civilians provoked an outcry on social media and among some members of Congress.
Already administration officials were privately acknowledging that the Monday’s events didn’t serve the administration well. Some Republican lawmakers, who are typically in lockstep with the president or at least refrain from publicly criticizing him, said he had gone too far in appearing to use force to clear the way for his visit to the church.
“There is no right to riot, no right to destroy others’ property, and no right to throw rocks at police,” said Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse. “But there is a fundamental — a constitutional — right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said of Trump posing for photos holding up a Bible, “I just wish he opened it once in a while.”
Trump’s Cabinet also played a role in what appeared to be an orchestrated event.
It was Attorney General William Barr who gave the order for law enforcement to clear out the protest before Trump’s walk to the church and ahead of Washington’s 7 p.m. curfew. A person familiar with the matter said the decision was made earlier Monday, but had not been executed by the time Barr arrived in Lafayette Park to survey the scene Monday evening. He verbally gave the order at that time.
After the demonstrators had been pushed out of the park, Trump emerged from the White House with several officials, including Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Senior defense officials told reporters Milley was also not aware that the Park Police and law enforcement had made a decision to clear the square or that Trump intended to visit the church. They had been in Washington to coordinate with federal law enforcement officials but were diverted to the White House to brief Trump on military preparations, the officials said.
The White House, Defense, campaign officials and others with knowledge of Monday’s events all insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Members of the DC National Guard block an intersection on 16th Street as demonstrators gather to protest the death of George Floyd, Tuesday, June 2, 2020, near the White House in Washington. ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after threatening states that he would dispatch the military to quell protests, President Donald Trump appeared to be privately backing off his threat to deploy troops, with White House officials saying this week’s response to demonstrations across the country indicated that local governments should be able to restore order themselves.
The shift came as protests in Washington and other cities over police brutality against minorities proceeded Tuesday with relative calm, a striking contrast to the harsh crackdowns outside the White House on Monday night. The president wanted to make the aggressive action in the nation’s capital an example for the rest of the country, a senior White House official said Tuesday.
The Defense Department has drafted contingency plans for how to deploy active-duty military if needed. Pentagon documents reviewed by The Associated Press showed plans for soldiers from an Army division to protect the White House and other federal buildings if the security situation in the nation’s capital were to deteriorate and the National Guard could not secure the facilities.
But interest in exerting that extraordinary federal authority appeared to be waning in the White House. Though the crackdown on the Washington demonstrations was praised by some Trump supporters Tuesday, a handful of Republicans expressed concern that law enforcement officers risked violating the protesters’ First Amendment rights. The defense secretary also distanced himself from Trump’s decision to walk across Lafayette Park for a photo opportunity at a church after the demonstrators had been cleared.
Pentagon Chief Mark Esper, who walked with Trump to St. John’s Church on Monday evening, insisted he did not know the president’s destination.
“I didn’t know where I was going,” Esper told NBC News. He said he had expected to view damage to a bathroom facility that had been vandalized in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, and talk with National Guard troops positioned there.
Read:Democrats fail in effort to get Senate to condemn Trump for church photo-op
The protests have sprung up across the country following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him down and pressed Floyd’s neck with his knee. Violent demonstrations have raged in scores of American cities, marking a level of unrest unseen for decades.
The situation in Washington escalated Monday, becoming a potent symbol of Trump’s policing tactics and a physical manifestation of the rhetorical culture war he has stoked since before he was elected. Nearly 30 minutes before a 7 p.m. curfew in Washington, U.S. Park Police repelled protesters with what they said were smoke canisters and pepper balls.
“D.C. had no problems last night. Many arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination,” Trump tweeted Tuesday, after a night in which heavily armed military forces and federal officers swarmed the city. Trump added, “(thank you President Trump!).”
The clampdown on the protesters followed a weekend of demonstrations outside the White House. Trump had been furious about images juxtaposing fires set in the park outside the executive mansion with a darkened White House in the background, according to current and former campaign and administration officials. He was also angry about the news coverage revealing he had been rushed to the White House bunker during Friday’s protests.
He moved to respond aggressively Monday. In an evening address in the Rose Garden, he called on governors to ramp up the National Guard presence in their states to tamp down the protests. If they didn’t abide by those orders, Trump said, he would dispatch the military to their states — a step rarely taken in modern American history.
The federal government has provided all affected states with a list of National Guard resources available to them, the White House official said. The official added that Trump’s message to governors was that if they don’t use all the tools in their arsenal, they shouldn’t expect a sympathetic response to any request for federal dollars to help with cleanup and recovery down.
On Monday, 715 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in the capital area in case the situation in Washington escalated. They are now stationed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Two more 82nd Airborne battalions, totaling 1,300 soldiers, are on standby at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, according to the documents reviewed by the AP. The plan is named Operation Themis.
The soldiers on standby in the Washington area are armed and have riot gear and bayonets. After the AP first reported the issuing of bayonets Tuesday, orders came down that soldiers would not need the knife-like weapons that can be affixed to rifles, according to two soldiers from the 82nd who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear they would be punished for commenting publicly. The idea that bayonets could be used in confronting civilians provoked an outcry on social media and among some members of Congress.
Already administration officials were privately acknowledging that the Monday’s events didn’t serve the administration well. Some Republican lawmakers, who are typically in lockstep with the president or at least refrain from publicly criticizing him, said he had gone too far in appearing to use force to clear the way for his visit to the church.
“There is no right to riot, no right to destroy others’ property, and no right to throw rocks at police,” said Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse. “But there is a fundamental — a constitutional — right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said of Trump posing for photos holding up a Bible, “I just wish he opened it once in a while.”
Trump’s Cabinet also played a role in what appeared to be an orchestrated event.
It was Attorney General William Barr who gave the order for law enforcement to clear out the protest before Trump’s walk to the church and ahead of Washington’s 7 p.m. curfew. A person familiar with the matter said the decision was made earlier Monday, but had not been executed by the time Barr arrived in Lafayette Park to survey the scene Monday evening. He verbally gave the order at that time.
After the demonstrators had been pushed out of the park, Trump emerged from the White House with several officials, including Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Senior defense officials told reporters Milley was also not aware that the Park Police and law enforcement had made a decision to clear the square or that Trump intended to visit the church. They had been in Washington to coordinate with federal law enforcement officials but were diverted to the White House to brief Trump on military preparations, the officials said.
The White House, Defense, campaign officials and others with knowledge of Monday’s events all insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Barr Promises to Sic Terror-Hunters on Protesters
ANTIFA HOOLIGAN
The nationwide network of Joint Terrorism Task Forces aren’t built to go after property crimes committed by protesters. But, veterans say, the rule of law isn’t the point here.
Jun. 01, 2020
Doug Mills-Pool/Getty
YOU KNOW WHO ALSO CALLED ANTI-FASCISTS HOOLIGANS?
Attorney General Bill Barr told state governors on Monday that the Department of Justice was prepared to use the FBI’s regional counterterrorism hubs to share information with local law enforcement about “extremists” and “agitators” in the protests sweeping the country.
Barr said the Justice Department would tap Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs)—regional groups that ordinarily unite area FBI agents with state, local and federal law enforcement to monitor and pursue suspected terrorists—to “identify people in the crowd, pull them out and prosecute them.”
It’s an early glimpse of how the Justice Department plans to make President Trump’s legally dubious threat to treat protesters as terrorists a reality. According to a JTTF veteran, it’s a flagrant misuse of the task forces. And it’s a sign that the ever-expanding war on terror is jumping yet another guardrail.
Hours later, Barr left the White House premises and walked on to the square of Lafayette Park just to the north. He stayed roughly one block away from the gathering crowd of protesters who were stationed behind a barricade of fences and layers of armed policemen. Barr, in a suit but no tie, stood among what appeared to be advisers. He seemed to be studying the crowd ahead of him, occasionally pointing at them while talking to those beside him. He never ventured too close. And soon thereafter the police began pushing the protesters far back from the fencing.
Then they began tear gassing the protesters. Then the horses came in.
Earlier in the day, Barr told the governors, “It seems that some of the common dimensions are … we have the normal protesters. You have opportunistic people like looters. But in many places … you have this ingredient of extremists, anarchists...agitators who are driving the violence,” adding that the JTTF construction was a “a tried and true system.”
“It worked for domestic homegrown terrorists,” he said. “It already integrates your state and local people. It’s intelligence driven. We want to lean forward and charge … anyone who violates a federal law in connection with this rioting.”
Gov. Janet Millis, a Democrat from Maine, pressed Barr on who exactly was inciting violence in the protests.
“I’d be very interested in knowing the intel so we can prepare in advance for any insurgents or any professional instigators,” she said. “I would love to get the intel that you appear to have access to in regard to who these individuals are.”
‘Unhinged’ Trump Demands Mass Arrests, Flag-Burning Laws
Barr said all of the relevant intelligence would be shared through the JTTF. Before the call moved on, President Trump stepped in and suggested that governors, too, share intelligence they have gathered on violent protestors with the Department of Justice.
For the second day in a row, the FBI declined to comment. Late on Monday, it announced it was creating a tip line for people to inform on “violent instigators who are exploiting legitimate, peaceful protests and engaging in violations of federal law.” It assured in a press release, “The FBI respects the rights of individuals to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights.” It did not specify any federal laws citizens might notice protesters violating.
JTTFs targets are designated terrorist groups – typically foreign terrorist organizations, as certified by the State and Treasury departments. There is no domestic terrorism statute, but the JTTFs can also target violent domestic groups like white-supremacist militias, but those organizations typically have a record of extreme violence, to include murder.
RELATED IN POLITICS
Trump’s America Could Be on His List of Human Rights Abusers
O’Brien: Trump Shooting Tweet Was to ‘De-Escalate Violence’
“There’s a criteria you have to fit. Breaking windows and burning cars doesn’t fit,” said Ali Soufan, a retired FBI counterterrorism agent and JTTF veteran. “This is a divisive political message in an election year, trying to create an enemy.”
Soufan said he did not know how the Justice Department would be able to reconcile the president’s tweeted desire to designate Antifa as a terrorist group with the missions of the JTTF.
John Cohen, a former senior Department of Homeland Security official, said this “interesting” use of the JTTFs “was OK as long as they are targeting actual domestic violent extremist from both the far right and far left engaged in violent activity and not simply those engaged in protected speech.”
But Soufan noted that Trump was not remotely interested in applying the JTTF’s focus equally.
“If there’s no murder, no threat to the national security of the U.S., no divisiveness in the way Atomwaffen or the Base is doing, how do you want to do this? You’re working a couple guys getting together on social media to do this? You’re having a violation for graffiti?” Soufan said. “What is [FBI Director] Christopher Wray going to do? Are there going to be structural changes in the FBI to do this kind of work?”
Antifa is not an organization, but instead an ethic of antifascist confrontation. That’s permitted right-wingers to define Antifa broadly as hated, violent political opponents – and, now, to open the aperture of permissible state violence against Americans. “Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?” tweeted Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.) “[L]et's see how tough these Antifa terrorists are when they're facing off with the 101st Airborne Division,” added Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), an Iraq war veteran.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to a question about how, for legal purposes, the department is defining Antifa.
Within that amorphousness is an authoritarian opportunity, according to Jason Stanley, a Yale philosophy professor and author of How Fascism Works.
“It’s an open-ended, undefined target, and we know from the war on terror that many people were caught up by being family members, by being connected” to terrorist targets by a spiraling web of association, Stanley said. “First they came for the Muslims and I said nothing because I was not Muslim – the Neimoller poem all over again. It never stops at just the hated minority group, it always goes to opponents. History tells you that. To use the apparatus already misused once, against domestic political opponents, it’s incredibly dangerous.”
“If there’s no murder, no threat to the national security of the U.S., how do you want to do this? You’re working a couple guys getting together on social media to do this? You’re having a violation for graffiti?”
— Ali Soufan
Stanley also noted that aiming the counterterrorism apparatus at people protesting police unites the cops with Trump. “He wants to get law enforcement responding [to the protests] in a militarized way,” Stanley said. “If you’re an authoritarian, you want law enforcement on your side.”
And not only them. On the call, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper encouraged governors to increase their use of the National Guard to “dominate the battlespace.” His casual reference to American cities with a term used to describe theaters for military operations shocked the former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, retired Gen. Tony Thomas. “Not what America needs to hear… ever, unless we are invaded by an adversary or experience a constitutional failure...ie a Civil War,” Thomas tweeted. Trump also told the governors that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley – who, by statute, is not in the chain of command – was “in charge” of the response to the protests. A spokesperson for Milley did not immediately return a call seeking clarification.
When asked about the president’s comments Monday evening, one senior Department of Defense official told The Daily Beast: “I have no idea what is going on.”
As DC police tear-gassed peaceful protesters outside the White House late Monday afternoon, the president promised to stop “acts of domestic terror.” It was unclear if Trump had invoked the 19th century Insurrection Act, which empowers the president, in cases of “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States” to use the military “to suppress the rebellion.” But he said if the governors “refuse to take action” for that suppression “then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
Trump introduced Barr on the call with governors Monday by saying he would “activate” his attorney general. “And we will activate him strongly,” he said. “We are strongly for arrests. We do have to get much tougher. You have to arrest people and you have to try people. And they need to go to jail for long periods of time.” Trump called individuals involved in the protests who were stealing goods from stores and lighting cars on fire as “terrorists”, adding that “they are Antifa and they are the radical left.”
Barr hinted at the beginning of the call that the Department of Justice would begin to move forward with working with states to arrest and prosecute individuals who were involved in spreading violence during the protests.
“Two of the most common are anyone who crosses state lines …. to incite, participate in or encourage riots or anyone who is using any interstate facilities including telecommunications or whatever…in connection with participating in or encouraging riots,” Barr said. “But there are many others … conspiracies or any other things like that."
Barr appears to be referencing Title 18, section 2101 of the U.S. Code, which references “riots.”
But there do appear to be exceptions, including “for the purpose of pursuing the legitimate objectives of organized labor, through orderly and lawful means,” the law notes.
It’s unclear how the Department of Justice or the JTTF would go about identifying individuals who crossed state lines and then proceeded to incite violence. It’s also unclear whether there are such individuals participating in the current unrest.
Regardless, Barr said, states need to do a better job at controlling the protestors if only so the police can arrest and prosecute.
Trump Fears the Minnesota Chaos Makes Him Look Weak
“We have to control the crowds. And that requires a strong presence. In many places … it will require the national guard. The key is you have to have adequate force… to be more dynamic and go after the agitators,” he said. “The police are pinned back ….they are just standing in line watching the events. And when they disperse the crowds people are running off in different directions.
The reason we have to control the streets is not just to bring peace to that town but it is to catch the bad actors.”
However much Barr seeks to turn the JTTFs against “Antifa,” Soufan considered it a cynical distraction from the nationwide discontent on display over the past week.
“We forget about this grassroots movement fed up with the injustice and the racism in this society,” he said.
But by Monday night, U.S. Attorneys were beginning to respond to Barr’s call to deploy the JTTFs. “The criminals who have caused havoc in neighborhoods across Southern California appear to be exploiting a situation in which other citizens are exercising their First Amendment rights to assemble and express their viewpoints,” Nicola Hanna, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement. “We are confronting this outlaw behavior by providing federal resources and working closely with local police to identify cases in which federal charges could be appropriately filed.”
Erin Banco
National Security Reporter
Barr said the Justice Department would tap Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs)—regional groups that ordinarily unite area FBI agents with state, local and federal law enforcement to monitor and pursue suspected terrorists—to “identify people in the crowd, pull them out and prosecute them.”
It’s an early glimpse of how the Justice Department plans to make President Trump’s legally dubious threat to treat protesters as terrorists a reality. According to a JTTF veteran, it’s a flagrant misuse of the task forces. And it’s a sign that the ever-expanding war on terror is jumping yet another guardrail.
Hours later, Barr left the White House premises and walked on to the square of Lafayette Park just to the north. He stayed roughly one block away from the gathering crowd of protesters who were stationed behind a barricade of fences and layers of armed policemen. Barr, in a suit but no tie, stood among what appeared to be advisers. He seemed to be studying the crowd ahead of him, occasionally pointing at them while talking to those beside him. He never ventured too close. And soon thereafter the police began pushing the protesters far back from the fencing.
Then they began tear gassing the protesters. Then the horses came in.
Earlier in the day, Barr told the governors, “It seems that some of the common dimensions are … we have the normal protesters. You have opportunistic people like looters. But in many places … you have this ingredient of extremists, anarchists...agitators who are driving the violence,” adding that the JTTF construction was a “a tried and true system.”
“It worked for domestic homegrown terrorists,” he said. “It already integrates your state and local people. It’s intelligence driven. We want to lean forward and charge … anyone who violates a federal law in connection with this rioting.”
Gov. Janet Millis, a Democrat from Maine, pressed Barr on who exactly was inciting violence in the protests.
“I’d be very interested in knowing the intel so we can prepare in advance for any insurgents or any professional instigators,” she said. “I would love to get the intel that you appear to have access to in regard to who these individuals are.”
‘Unhinged’ Trump Demands Mass Arrests, Flag-Burning Laws
Barr said all of the relevant intelligence would be shared through the JTTF. Before the call moved on, President Trump stepped in and suggested that governors, too, share intelligence they have gathered on violent protestors with the Department of Justice.
For the second day in a row, the FBI declined to comment. Late on Monday, it announced it was creating a tip line for people to inform on “violent instigators who are exploiting legitimate, peaceful protests and engaging in violations of federal law.” It assured in a press release, “The FBI respects the rights of individuals to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights.” It did not specify any federal laws citizens might notice protesters violating.
JTTFs targets are designated terrorist groups – typically foreign terrorist organizations, as certified by the State and Treasury departments. There is no domestic terrorism statute, but the JTTFs can also target violent domestic groups like white-supremacist militias, but those organizations typically have a record of extreme violence, to include murder.
RELATED IN POLITICS
Trump’s America Could Be on His List of Human Rights Abusers
O’Brien: Trump Shooting Tweet Was to ‘De-Escalate Violence’
“There’s a criteria you have to fit. Breaking windows and burning cars doesn’t fit,” said Ali Soufan, a retired FBI counterterrorism agent and JTTF veteran. “This is a divisive political message in an election year, trying to create an enemy.”
Soufan said he did not know how the Justice Department would be able to reconcile the president’s tweeted desire to designate Antifa as a terrorist group with the missions of the JTTF.
John Cohen, a former senior Department of Homeland Security official, said this “interesting” use of the JTTFs “was OK as long as they are targeting actual domestic violent extremist from both the far right and far left engaged in violent activity and not simply those engaged in protected speech.”
But Soufan noted that Trump was not remotely interested in applying the JTTF’s focus equally.
“If there’s no murder, no threat to the national security of the U.S., no divisiveness in the way Atomwaffen or the Base is doing, how do you want to do this? You’re working a couple guys getting together on social media to do this? You’re having a violation for graffiti?” Soufan said. “What is [FBI Director] Christopher Wray going to do? Are there going to be structural changes in the FBI to do this kind of work?”
Antifa is not an organization, but instead an ethic of antifascist confrontation. That’s permitted right-wingers to define Antifa broadly as hated, violent political opponents – and, now, to open the aperture of permissible state violence against Americans. “Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?” tweeted Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.) “[L]et's see how tough these Antifa terrorists are when they're facing off with the 101st Airborne Division,” added Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), an Iraq war veteran.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to a question about how, for legal purposes, the department is defining Antifa.
Within that amorphousness is an authoritarian opportunity, according to Jason Stanley, a Yale philosophy professor and author of How Fascism Works.
“It’s an open-ended, undefined target, and we know from the war on terror that many people were caught up by being family members, by being connected” to terrorist targets by a spiraling web of association, Stanley said. “First they came for the Muslims and I said nothing because I was not Muslim – the Neimoller poem all over again. It never stops at just the hated minority group, it always goes to opponents. History tells you that. To use the apparatus already misused once, against domestic political opponents, it’s incredibly dangerous.”
“If there’s no murder, no threat to the national security of the U.S., how do you want to do this? You’re working a couple guys getting together on social media to do this? You’re having a violation for graffiti?”
— Ali Soufan
Stanley also noted that aiming the counterterrorism apparatus at people protesting police unites the cops with Trump. “He wants to get law enforcement responding [to the protests] in a militarized way,” Stanley said. “If you’re an authoritarian, you want law enforcement on your side.”
And not only them. On the call, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper encouraged governors to increase their use of the National Guard to “dominate the battlespace.” His casual reference to American cities with a term used to describe theaters for military operations shocked the former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, retired Gen. Tony Thomas. “Not what America needs to hear… ever, unless we are invaded by an adversary or experience a constitutional failure...ie a Civil War,” Thomas tweeted. Trump also told the governors that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley – who, by statute, is not in the chain of command – was “in charge” of the response to the protests. A spokesperson for Milley did not immediately return a call seeking clarification.
When asked about the president’s comments Monday evening, one senior Department of Defense official told The Daily Beast: “I have no idea what is going on.”
As DC police tear-gassed peaceful protesters outside the White House late Monday afternoon, the president promised to stop “acts of domestic terror.” It was unclear if Trump had invoked the 19th century Insurrection Act, which empowers the president, in cases of “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States” to use the military “to suppress the rebellion.” But he said if the governors “refuse to take action” for that suppression “then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
Trump introduced Barr on the call with governors Monday by saying he would “activate” his attorney general. “And we will activate him strongly,” he said. “We are strongly for arrests. We do have to get much tougher. You have to arrest people and you have to try people. And they need to go to jail for long periods of time.” Trump called individuals involved in the protests who were stealing goods from stores and lighting cars on fire as “terrorists”, adding that “they are Antifa and they are the radical left.”
Barr hinted at the beginning of the call that the Department of Justice would begin to move forward with working with states to arrest and prosecute individuals who were involved in spreading violence during the protests.
“Two of the most common are anyone who crosses state lines …. to incite, participate in or encourage riots or anyone who is using any interstate facilities including telecommunications or whatever…in connection with participating in or encouraging riots,” Barr said. “But there are many others … conspiracies or any other things like that."
Barr appears to be referencing Title 18, section 2101 of the U.S. Code, which references “riots.”
But there do appear to be exceptions, including “for the purpose of pursuing the legitimate objectives of organized labor, through orderly and lawful means,” the law notes.
It’s unclear how the Department of Justice or the JTTF would go about identifying individuals who crossed state lines and then proceeded to incite violence. It’s also unclear whether there are such individuals participating in the current unrest.
Regardless, Barr said, states need to do a better job at controlling the protestors if only so the police can arrest and prosecute.
Trump Fears the Minnesota Chaos Makes Him Look Weak
“We have to control the crowds. And that requires a strong presence. In many places … it will require the national guard. The key is you have to have adequate force… to be more dynamic and go after the agitators,” he said. “The police are pinned back ….they are just standing in line watching the events. And when they disperse the crowds people are running off in different directions.
The reason we have to control the streets is not just to bring peace to that town but it is to catch the bad actors.”
However much Barr seeks to turn the JTTFs against “Antifa,” Soufan considered it a cynical distraction from the nationwide discontent on display over the past week.
“We forget about this grassroots movement fed up with the injustice and the racism in this society,” he said.
But by Monday night, U.S. Attorneys were beginning to respond to Barr’s call to deploy the JTTFs. “The criminals who have caused havoc in neighborhoods across Southern California appear to be exploiting a situation in which other citizens are exercising their First Amendment rights to assemble and express their viewpoints,” Nicola Hanna, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement. “We are confronting this outlaw behavior by providing federal resources and working closely with local police to identify cases in which federal charges could be appropriately filed.”
Erin Banco
National Security Reporter
Trump is talking about using tanks to quell the George Floyd protests, but the Pentagon is getting cold feet
- President Donald Trump has said he's considering invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to try to quell violent protests. At least 17,000 National Guard troops are already deployed nationwide.
- He is also talking about using tanks on the streets.
- Several governors and military officials have voiced concern at the use of troops in civilian areas. The Pentagon is now reportedly distancing itself from Trump's wish to send in troops regardless of states' wishe
AWKWARD
Pentagon officials say it was the White House, not the Defense Department, pushing for military might in the streets—with Trump seeking details on “tanks” that could be used.
Erin Banco
Spencer Ackerman
Asawin Suebsaeng
Updated Jun. 03, 2020 DAILY BEAST
EXCLUSIVE
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty
Less than 24 hours after President Trump said he was prepared to send troops into cities across America, senior officials in the Pentagon began to try to distance themselves from those words and from the idea itself, underscoring that not one governor had requested additional military assistance from Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
Trump has for days pushed state leaders to take a tougher stance against “antifa” protesters, saying on a call with governors Monday that if they did not mass arrest protesters they would end up looking like “a bunch of jerks.” Then, Monday evening, the president took it a step further.
Police surrounding Lafayette Park in D.C. cleared protesters with tear gas as the president walked through to St. John’s Episcopal Church to pose for a photo op, with the Bible. He declared himself the “president of law and order” and said he would take all the necessary steps to suppress the unrest sweeping the country.
“I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the national guard in sufficient numbers. If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem,” he added.
Protesters Tear-Gassed for Trump ‘Law and Order’ Photo Op
WARZONE
Esper, along with other cabinet secretaries, stood next to the president during the remarks in the park after participating in an hour-long call with governors in which he said they needed to “dominate the battlespace” to quell the protests.
But three senior Pentagon officials who spoke with The Daily Beast said they viewed the secretary’s comments on the call as a way to publicly show support for the president. They did not expect the department to actually implement a plan that would reflect the president’s rhetoric and force additional troops upon the states. (More than 20,000 national guard troops already have been deployed to assist local law enforcement during protests.)
These Pentagon officials added that it was the White House, not the Defense Department, that was pushing for active military might in the streets. A senior DOD official said it was the White House that requested military helicopters fly low over protesters in D.C. and that it was part of a broader request from the Trump team that the national guard ramp up its presence in the city. The Associated Press was the first to report about the military flyover being connected to a request from President Trump.
Additionally, the president has pressed aides and Pentagon officials for graphic details on the kind of armored vehicles, military units, aircraft, and even “tanks” that they could potentially send to maintain order in U.S. areas rocked by protests and rioting, according to two people familiar with recent discussions.
One of the sources, a senior administration official, insisted that the president wasn’t ordering tanks to roll down the streets, but was inquiring about “the kind of hardware” that could be used in military shows of force, and at one point Trump threw out the word “tanks.”
“I think that is just one of the military words he knows,” this official said.
The Pentagon did not comment on the record for this story. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The discomfort from inside the Pentagon shows the extent to which Trump’s own Defense Department is trying to actively avoid direct involvement in the administration’s plans to force local authorities to accept active military personnel for increased protest control. It also raises questions about how Trump plans to carry out his promises of coercing states to accept military assistance when officials inside the Pentagon are rebuking the idea, claiming it circumvents the normal process for governors formally requesting assistance. (Normally, one senior Department of Defense official said, a governor files a formal request with the Pentagon asking for active-duty troops to assist. The Defense Secretary evaluates the request and either chooses to accept it, modify it, or reject it.)
RELATED IN POLITICS
Top General Blasted as ‘Prop’ for Trump’s ‘Fascist Stunt’
Barr Promises to Sic Terror-Hunters on Protesters
Kushner Screwed Up COVID-19 Jobs—Now He’s Got a Bigger One
“That would not be something the [Defense] Secretary would be in a position to do,” one senior official said, referring to Trump’s desire for the Pentagon to pressure states to accept active military troops for help in controlling their streets.
“This would go against the norms of how we normally handle requests for assistance during civil unrest,” another senior official said.
However, if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, he could unilaterally make the decision to send troops to states. The act empowers the president, in cases of “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States,” to direct the military “to suppress the rebellion.”
The idea of the president using the Insurrection Act was first proposed publicly by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), who seemed to introduce it on a whim on social media. Members of his team on Monday said he had not discussed it with the administration. Another defense official said the Defense Secretary’s team was unaware that the president would be announcing new measures to try to convince local and state officials to accept military deployments.
“There was no communication within the department that this was something we were going to be working on,” the second defense official said.
But less than eight hours later, Trump took to the podium in Lafayette Park, seemingly promising to invoke it if he felt it was necessary.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Trump had not invoked the Insurrection Act. And no states had formally requested assistance from the Defense Department.
But the threat of Trump enacting the Insurrection Act has some state officials on edge. Two officials with knowledge of the situation told The Daily Beast that at least three governors of states experiencing large-scale protests contacted the Trump administration requesting that it not push them to accept active military personnel, claiming it would only inflame tensions on the ground. In some instances, states have seen clashes between protesters and police slow. In Tennessee, for example, police put down their riot shields at the request of protesters as the group moved slowly toward them.
On Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he had pushed back on the president’s request that he take the step to deploy the national guard, saying there was no need for more forces on the ground when the New York City Police Department had enough officers to control the situation. And New York Attorney General Letitia James said the state was prepared to go to court to stop the administration from sending military forces to the state.
“In rare occurrences in this country has civil unrest resulted in the deployment of active duty military personnel. It has caused huge challenges because those individuals aren’t trained and equipped to deal with quelling civil disorder. And it can cause operational confusion,” said John Cohen, the former deputy under secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. “The military also operates under very different rules of engagement than police. Their job is basically to identify an enemy, engage that enemy and potentially kill that enemy. That’s not necessarily that philosophy you want individuals operating under when they are in the situation we’re in today.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) on Tuesday said he would offer an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would bar the federal government from using the military against peaceful protests.
“The President is trying to turn the American military against American citizens who are peacefully protesting on domestic soil, which they have every right to do. I’m not going to stand for it,” Kaine said. “I never thought we would have to use the NDAA to make clear that the U.S. military shouldn’t be used as an agent of force against American citizens who are lawfully assembling. I thought that would seem obvious to everyone.”
Even without an amendment, the Pentagon on Tuesday insisted that it does not want active-duty troops out on American streets.
Trump has described Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as “in charge” of the administration’s response to the protests, but a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday that Milley merely “remains an adviser to the president.” The official downplayed Esper’s jarring description of American cities as a “battlespace”—one that earned Esper a rebuke from a former Joint Special Operations Command chief—as reflecting no more than his tendency to use military terminology.
Pentagon officials also suggested that Milley and Esper were “not aware that park police and law enforcement had made a decision to clear the square” of protesters, as one put it to reporters. Esper later reiterated that in an interview with NBC News late Tuesday: “I didn’t know where I was going,” he said. He said he believed they were going to “see some damage” caused by the protests and “talk to the troops.”
In their telling of what happened at Lafayette Park, both men arrived at the White House on Monday afternoon after a meeting of a response task force hosted by the FBI that included Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Trump made the decision to inspect the National Guardsmen deployed to the park, a senior Pentagon official said, and “once they began to walk off the White House grounds, [Milley and Esper] continued with him.”
Both Milley and Esper have been slammed for taking part in the photo op. Milley was accused of acting as a “prop.” And a former defense official accused Esper of violating his oath to defend the Constitution by going along with Trump’s photo-op. James N. Miller, the U.S. undersecretary of Defense for policy from 2012 to 2014, announced in an op-ed Tuesday that he was resigning from the Pentagon’s science board and urged the defense secretary to “consider closely” his actions in the Trump administration.
“All of us would like to stay in a National Guard capacity,” a senior defense official said.
But Pentagon officials cautioned that active-duty forces—a mix of military police and engineering units from Forts Bragg and Drum—are on “shortened alert status” outside the Washington, D.C. area, though not in any states. Late on Tuesday, the Pentagon said those forces include an infantry battalion designated Task Force 504, bringing the troop total to 1,600. Chief spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said the placement of Task Force 504 was “a prudent planning measure,” as the task force is “not participating in defense support to civil authority operations.”
More than 1,200 Guardsmen, mostly from D.C., are currently deployed in the district. Pentagon officials anticipated another 1,500 arriving on Tuesday, with more to come. Additional states contributing Guardsmen to the D.C. protest response include New Jersey, Utah, South Carolina, Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Pentagon officials called the National Guard support to the police-led protest crackdown an “uncomfortable mission.”
Top General Blasted as ‘Prop’ for Trump’s ‘Fascist Stunt’
Barr Promises to Sic Terror-Hunters on Protesters
Kushner Screwed Up COVID-19 Jobs—Now He’s Got a Bigger One
“That would not be something the [Defense] Secretary would be in a position to do,” one senior official said, referring to Trump’s desire for the Pentagon to pressure states to accept active military troops for help in controlling their streets.
“This would go against the norms of how we normally handle requests for assistance during civil unrest,” another senior official said.
However, if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, he could unilaterally make the decision to send troops to states. The act empowers the president, in cases of “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States,” to direct the military “to suppress the rebellion.”
The idea of the president using the Insurrection Act was first proposed publicly by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), who seemed to introduce it on a whim on social media. Members of his team on Monday said he had not discussed it with the administration. Another defense official said the Defense Secretary’s team was unaware that the president would be announcing new measures to try to convince local and state officials to accept military deployments.
“There was no communication within the department that this was something we were going to be working on,” the second defense official said.
But less than eight hours later, Trump took to the podium in Lafayette Park, seemingly promising to invoke it if he felt it was necessary.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Trump had not invoked the Insurrection Act. And no states had formally requested assistance from the Defense Department.
But the threat of Trump enacting the Insurrection Act has some state officials on edge. Two officials with knowledge of the situation told The Daily Beast that at least three governors of states experiencing large-scale protests contacted the Trump administration requesting that it not push them to accept active military personnel, claiming it would only inflame tensions on the ground. In some instances, states have seen clashes between protesters and police slow. In Tennessee, for example, police put down their riot shields at the request of protesters as the group moved slowly toward them.
On Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he had pushed back on the president’s request that he take the step to deploy the national guard, saying there was no need for more forces on the ground when the New York City Police Department had enough officers to control the situation. And New York Attorney General Letitia James said the state was prepared to go to court to stop the administration from sending military forces to the state.
“In rare occurrences in this country has civil unrest resulted in the deployment of active duty military personnel. It has caused huge challenges because those individuals aren’t trained and equipped to deal with quelling civil disorder. And it can cause operational confusion,” said John Cohen, the former deputy under secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. “The military also operates under very different rules of engagement than police. Their job is basically to identify an enemy, engage that enemy and potentially kill that enemy. That’s not necessarily that philosophy you want individuals operating under when they are in the situation we’re in today.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) on Tuesday said he would offer an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would bar the federal government from using the military against peaceful protests.
“The President is trying to turn the American military against American citizens who are peacefully protesting on domestic soil, which they have every right to do. I’m not going to stand for it,” Kaine said. “I never thought we would have to use the NDAA to make clear that the U.S. military shouldn’t be used as an agent of force against American citizens who are lawfully assembling. I thought that would seem obvious to everyone.”
Even without an amendment, the Pentagon on Tuesday insisted that it does not want active-duty troops out on American streets.
Trump has described Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as “in charge” of the administration’s response to the protests, but a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday that Milley merely “remains an adviser to the president.” The official downplayed Esper’s jarring description of American cities as a “battlespace”—one that earned Esper a rebuke from a former Joint Special Operations Command chief—as reflecting no more than his tendency to use military terminology.
Pentagon officials also suggested that Milley and Esper were “not aware that park police and law enforcement had made a decision to clear the square” of protesters, as one put it to reporters. Esper later reiterated that in an interview with NBC News late Tuesday: “I didn’t know where I was going,” he said. He said he believed they were going to “see some damage” caused by the protests and “talk to the troops.”
In their telling of what happened at Lafayette Park, both men arrived at the White House on Monday afternoon after a meeting of a response task force hosted by the FBI that included Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Trump made the decision to inspect the National Guardsmen deployed to the park, a senior Pentagon official said, and “once they began to walk off the White House grounds, [Milley and Esper] continued with him.”
Both Milley and Esper have been slammed for taking part in the photo op. Milley was accused of acting as a “prop.” And a former defense official accused Esper of violating his oath to defend the Constitution by going along with Trump’s photo-op. James N. Miller, the U.S. undersecretary of Defense for policy from 2012 to 2014, announced in an op-ed Tuesday that he was resigning from the Pentagon’s science board and urged the defense secretary to “consider closely” his actions in the Trump administration.
“All of us would like to stay in a National Guard capacity,” a senior defense official said.
But Pentagon officials cautioned that active-duty forces—a mix of military police and engineering units from Forts Bragg and Drum—are on “shortened alert status” outside the Washington, D.C. area, though not in any states. Late on Tuesday, the Pentagon said those forces include an infantry battalion designated Task Force 504, bringing the troop total to 1,600. Chief spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said the placement of Task Force 504 was “a prudent planning measure,” as the task force is “not participating in defense support to civil authority operations.”
More than 1,200 Guardsmen, mostly from D.C., are currently deployed in the district. Pentagon officials anticipated another 1,500 arriving on Tuesday, with more to come. Additional states contributing Guardsmen to the D.C. protest response include New Jersey, Utah, South Carolina, Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Pentagon officials called the National Guard support to the police-led protest crackdown an “uncomfortable mission.”
Lawmakers Begin Bipartisan Push to Cut Off Police Access to Military-Style Gear
WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats in Congress have begun a new push to shut down a Pentagon program that transfers military weaponry to local law enforcement departments, as bipartisan urgency builds to address the excessive use of force and the killings of unarmed black Americans by the police.
With protests turning violent across the country, lawmakers are scrutinizing the Defense Department initiative — curtailed by former President Barack Obama but revived by President Donald Trump — that furnishes police departments with equipment such as bayonets and grenade launchers. The move comes after several nights when officers wearing riot gear have been documented using pepper spray and rubber bullets on protesters, bystanders and journalists, often without warning or seemingly unprovoked.
The push stands in stark contrast to the reaction of Trump, who has often encouraged rough tactics by law enforcement and spent Monday complaining privately to governors that they were not handling protesters aggressively enough.
“Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming presence until the violence is quelled,” Trump said in remarks from the Rose Garden on Monday evening. “If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
On Capitol Hill, however, where Republicans often take their cues from the president, most lawmakers had a different message as they focused on the immediate catalyst for the protests: George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who was killed after a police officer knelt on his neck for a prolonged period.
“In no world whatsoever should arresting a man for an alleged minor infraction involve a police officer putting his knee on the man’s neck for nine minutes while he cries out ‘I can’t breathe’ and then goes silent,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, said Monday. “Our nation cannot deafen itself to the anger, the pain and the frustration of black Americans. Our nation needs to hear this.”
Top lawmakers in both parties and on both sides of the Capitol moved quickly last week to announce their intention to hold hearings on the use of excessive force by law enforcement and racial violence.
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who has long pressed to limit the transfer of military-grade equipment to police departments, announced that he would move to include an amendment in the must-pass annual defense policy bill to shut down the program.
“It is clear that many police departments are being outfitted as if they are going to war, and it is not working in terms of maintaining the peace,” Schatz said in an interview. “This is not the only thing we need to do, but as our country sees these images on television that remind us of some countries far, far away, it’s time to recalibrate this program. Just because the Department of Defense has excess weaponry doesn’t mean it will be put to good use.”
Doug Stafford, Sen. Rand Paul’s chief strategist, responded on Sunday night to Schatz’s idea: “We’ve being doing this one for years. Happy to help,” he wrote on Twitter. Paul has also been a longtime proponent of the demilitarization of local police and has previously teamed with Schatz to reform the Pentagon program, known as 1033.
It is unclear how much support Schatz’s measure could receive in the Republican-controlled Senate. But in the House, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a former Marine, said Monday that he would introduce similar legislation, opening up the possibility that the measure could find additional traction in making its way into the final defense bill.
“As a combat veteran and proud Marine, very little of my equipment or training was relevant to policing Phoenix or other American communities,” Gallego said. “Our neighborhoods aren’t war zones.”
The program was created in the 1990s in an effort to offload surplus military equipment and aid police departments during the war on drugs. It expanded in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but came under heavy scrutiny in the aftermath of a string of high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of the police, including the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.
In response to stark images of heavily armed police confronting unarmed protesters in armored vehicles in Ferguson, Obama placed limits on that program in 2015, restricting the transfer of weapons, including battering rams and explosives, from the Pentagon to local police. The Pentagon reported in 2017 that 126 tracked armored vehicles, 138 grenade launchers and 1,623 bayonets had been returned since Obama prohibited their transfer.
But Trump rescinded those restrictions in 2017, opening the flow of equipment to police departments. He argued the gear was necessary for officers to protect themselves and their communities.
On his call with governors on Monday, the president appeared to applaud the National Guard’s handling of the riots in Minneapolis, pointedly remarking on their use of tear gas.
“They just walked right down the street, knocking them out with tear gas, tear gas,” Trump said. “These guys, they were running.”
Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper used military language on the same call with governors, telling them, “we need to dominate the battle space,” and that they would have his full support.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., on Monday laid out a framework for a series of reforms he said he hoped the Senate would take up. It included creating a national police misconduct registry, incentivizing states to adopt policies banning the use of chokeholds and reforming a legal doctrine known as qualified immunity that shields police officers from being held legally liable for damages sought by citizens whose constitutional rights were violated.
“Cities are literally on fire with the pain and anguish wrought by the violence visited upon black and brown bodies,” Booker said. “There’s no one singular policy change that will fix this issue tomorrow. We need an entire set of holistic reforms to improve police training and practices, and ensure greater accountability and transparency.”
Rep. Justin Amash, I-Mich., said he would introduce a similar measure to strike down qualified immunity.
A pattern of “egregious police misconduct” has continued, Amash said in a letter to colleagues, “because police are legally, politically and culturally insulated from consequences for violating the rights of the people whom they have sworn to serve. This must change so that these incidents of brutality stop happening.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company
POLICE ARE AN OCCUPYING FORCE OF THE STATE IN OUR COMMUNITIES
Catie Edmondson,
The New York Times•June 2, 2020
The New York Times•June 2, 2020
Police officers confront demonstrators protesting in Santa Monica, Calif., May 31, 2020. (Bryan Denton/The New York Times)
WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats in Congress have begun a new push to shut down a Pentagon program that transfers military weaponry to local law enforcement departments, as bipartisan urgency builds to address the excessive use of force and the killings of unarmed black Americans by the police.
With protests turning violent across the country, lawmakers are scrutinizing the Defense Department initiative — curtailed by former President Barack Obama but revived by President Donald Trump — that furnishes police departments with equipment such as bayonets and grenade launchers. The move comes after several nights when officers wearing riot gear have been documented using pepper spray and rubber bullets on protesters, bystanders and journalists, often without warning or seemingly unprovoked.
The push stands in stark contrast to the reaction of Trump, who has often encouraged rough tactics by law enforcement and spent Monday complaining privately to governors that they were not handling protesters aggressively enough.
“Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming presence until the violence is quelled,” Trump said in remarks from the Rose Garden on Monday evening. “If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
On Capitol Hill, however, where Republicans often take their cues from the president, most lawmakers had a different message as they focused on the immediate catalyst for the protests: George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who was killed after a police officer knelt on his neck for a prolonged period.
“In no world whatsoever should arresting a man for an alleged minor infraction involve a police officer putting his knee on the man’s neck for nine minutes while he cries out ‘I can’t breathe’ and then goes silent,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, said Monday. “Our nation cannot deafen itself to the anger, the pain and the frustration of black Americans. Our nation needs to hear this.”
Top lawmakers in both parties and on both sides of the Capitol moved quickly last week to announce their intention to hold hearings on the use of excessive force by law enforcement and racial violence.
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who has long pressed to limit the transfer of military-grade equipment to police departments, announced that he would move to include an amendment in the must-pass annual defense policy bill to shut down the program.
“It is clear that many police departments are being outfitted as if they are going to war, and it is not working in terms of maintaining the peace,” Schatz said in an interview. “This is not the only thing we need to do, but as our country sees these images on television that remind us of some countries far, far away, it’s time to recalibrate this program. Just because the Department of Defense has excess weaponry doesn’t mean it will be put to good use.”
Doug Stafford, Sen. Rand Paul’s chief strategist, responded on Sunday night to Schatz’s idea: “We’ve being doing this one for years. Happy to help,” he wrote on Twitter. Paul has also been a longtime proponent of the demilitarization of local police and has previously teamed with Schatz to reform the Pentagon program, known as 1033.
It is unclear how much support Schatz’s measure could receive in the Republican-controlled Senate. But in the House, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a former Marine, said Monday that he would introduce similar legislation, opening up the possibility that the measure could find additional traction in making its way into the final defense bill.
“As a combat veteran and proud Marine, very little of my equipment or training was relevant to policing Phoenix or other American communities,” Gallego said. “Our neighborhoods aren’t war zones.”
The program was created in the 1990s in an effort to offload surplus military equipment and aid police departments during the war on drugs. It expanded in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but came under heavy scrutiny in the aftermath of a string of high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of the police, including the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.
In response to stark images of heavily armed police confronting unarmed protesters in armored vehicles in Ferguson, Obama placed limits on that program in 2015, restricting the transfer of weapons, including battering rams and explosives, from the Pentagon to local police. The Pentagon reported in 2017 that 126 tracked armored vehicles, 138 grenade launchers and 1,623 bayonets had been returned since Obama prohibited their transfer.
But Trump rescinded those restrictions in 2017, opening the flow of equipment to police departments. He argued the gear was necessary for officers to protect themselves and their communities.
On his call with governors on Monday, the president appeared to applaud the National Guard’s handling of the riots in Minneapolis, pointedly remarking on their use of tear gas.
“They just walked right down the street, knocking them out with tear gas, tear gas,” Trump said. “These guys, they were running.”
Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper used military language on the same call with governors, telling them, “we need to dominate the battle space,” and that they would have his full support.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., on Monday laid out a framework for a series of reforms he said he hoped the Senate would take up. It included creating a national police misconduct registry, incentivizing states to adopt policies banning the use of chokeholds and reforming a legal doctrine known as qualified immunity that shields police officers from being held legally liable for damages sought by citizens whose constitutional rights were violated.
“Cities are literally on fire with the pain and anguish wrought by the violence visited upon black and brown bodies,” Booker said. “There’s no one singular policy change that will fix this issue tomorrow. We need an entire set of holistic reforms to improve police training and practices, and ensure greater accountability and transparency.”
Rep. Justin Amash, I-Mich., said he would introduce a similar measure to strike down qualified immunity.
A pattern of “egregious police misconduct” has continued, Amash said in a letter to colleagues, “because police are legally, politically and culturally insulated from consequences for violating the rights of the people whom they have sworn to serve. This must change so that these incidents of brutality stop happening.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company
Flight attendants see a very different future for airplane travel in the age of coronavirus
Gaby Levesque Producer,Yahoo News•May 9, 2020
“Recognize that there are going to be social distancing practices at the airport. So there’s no running to the gate at the last minute,” said Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA in an interview with Yahoo News.
From her remote location for this interview, Nelson sat with a photo behind her. “Over my shoulder is a picture of Paul Frishkorn. He was a longtime flight attendant and he was the first one to be taken from us with coronavirus,” she said through tear-filled eyes.
“Over my shoulder is a picture of Paul Frishkorn. He was a longtime flight attendant and he was the first one to be taken from us with coronavirus,” Nelson said through tear-filled eyes. (Zoom screenshot)
JetBlue was the first airline to make masks a must for travelers taking flights during the COVID-19 pandemic just last week, and now others are joining. “We need to have everyone wearing masks and now, even though the government didn’t mandate that, our airlines did step up and require that all passengers are now required to wear masks in the airport and on planes,” said Nelson. “They’re going to have to wear one to get through the whole check-in process.”
Flight attendants are living in a world of uncertainty at the moment, and Molly Choma, an attendant based in San Francisco and a photographer, has been capturing her experience working through this pandemic as an essential employee. “Being a flight attendant has changed a lot in the last two months. At first during the pandemic, we didn’t really know how this was going to end. We didn’t know, were they going to stop all flights? Were they going to stop some flights?” said Choma.
A flight attendant on an empty flight staying safe with a mask. (Molly Choma)
And her concerns are valid. There have been recent reports of flights getting canceled and suspended until the fall, which means a loss of not only business, but also jobs. “Everything has changed so much with coronavirus. We went from completely full airplanes and airlines celebrating profits just in February and talking about hiring over 100,000 people this year alone, to the point where the airlines really would have collapsed because it was down to just 3 percent demand for air travel in March,” said Nelson.
While nearly 95 percent of Americans faced stay-at-home orders from their state governments in the past month, the federal government seemed to miss the mark on requiring comparable safety measures for airline passengers. But now that is changing. With states beginning to reopen, there has been a slight spike in air travel, but flying is not exactly how it used to be.
“Flying right now is a really different experience, but what we’re trying to do is use this time to get these safety precautions in place so hopefully by the end of summer and fall we can actually get to some kind of normalcy,” said Nelson. Right now on flights, in addition to masks, attendants are attempting to space out passengers to uphold social distancing regulations; food and beverage service has been nearly completely suspended; and travelers are advised to bring their own sanitizing wipes and hand sanitizer. “It’s really important that travelers are arming themselves with the facts before they go,” said Nelson.
Being prepared for a different flight experience in the future is going to be crucial for the time being. “If someone asks you to put on a mask, you should just do it,” said Choma. “I want to remind people that air travel is a place where people are used to doing things they don’t do in any other places,” added Nelson.
Staying positive is what Choma is focusing on. As the daughter of a flight attendant, she has been looking to her mother for inspiration through this difficult time. “I feel like this is scary, but there’s a lot of other scary things too, and you just kind of have to keep going, and ... so the only way to keep going is to just take things one day at a time,” she said.
Gaby Levesque Producer,Yahoo News•May 9, 2020
“Recognize that there are going to be social distancing practices at the airport. So there’s no running to the gate at the last minute,” said Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA in an interview with Yahoo News.
From her remote location for this interview, Nelson sat with a photo behind her. “Over my shoulder is a picture of Paul Frishkorn. He was a longtime flight attendant and he was the first one to be taken from us with coronavirus,” she said through tear-filled eyes.
“Over my shoulder is a picture of Paul Frishkorn. He was a longtime flight attendant and he was the first one to be taken from us with coronavirus,” Nelson said through tear-filled eyes. (Zoom screenshot)JetBlue was the first airline to make masks a must for travelers taking flights during the COVID-19 pandemic just last week, and now others are joining. “We need to have everyone wearing masks and now, even though the government didn’t mandate that, our airlines did step up and require that all passengers are now required to wear masks in the airport and on planes,” said Nelson. “They’re going to have to wear one to get through the whole check-in process.”
Flight attendants are living in a world of uncertainty at the moment, and Molly Choma, an attendant based in San Francisco and a photographer, has been capturing her experience working through this pandemic as an essential employee. “Being a flight attendant has changed a lot in the last two months. At first during the pandemic, we didn’t really know how this was going to end. We didn’t know, were they going to stop all flights? Were they going to stop some flights?” said Choma.
A flight attendant on an empty flight staying safe with a mask. (Molly Choma)And her concerns are valid. There have been recent reports of flights getting canceled and suspended until the fall, which means a loss of not only business, but also jobs. “Everything has changed so much with coronavirus. We went from completely full airplanes and airlines celebrating profits just in February and talking about hiring over 100,000 people this year alone, to the point where the airlines really would have collapsed because it was down to just 3 percent demand for air travel in March,” said Nelson.
While nearly 95 percent of Americans faced stay-at-home orders from their state governments in the past month, the federal government seemed to miss the mark on requiring comparable safety measures for airline passengers. But now that is changing. With states beginning to reopen, there has been a slight spike in air travel, but flying is not exactly how it used to be.
“Flying right now is a really different experience, but what we’re trying to do is use this time to get these safety precautions in place so hopefully by the end of summer and fall we can actually get to some kind of normalcy,” said Nelson. Right now on flights, in addition to masks, attendants are attempting to space out passengers to uphold social distancing regulations; food and beverage service has been nearly completely suspended; and travelers are advised to bring their own sanitizing wipes and hand sanitizer. “It’s really important that travelers are arming themselves with the facts before they go,” said Nelson.
Being prepared for a different flight experience in the future is going to be crucial for the time being. “If someone asks you to put on a mask, you should just do it,” said Choma. “I want to remind people that air travel is a place where people are used to doing things they don’t do in any other places,” added Nelson.
Staying positive is what Choma is focusing on. As the daughter of a flight attendant, she has been looking to her mother for inspiration through this difficult time. “I feel like this is scary, but there’s a lot of other scary things too, and you just kind of have to keep going, and ... so the only way to keep going is to just take things one day at a time,” she said.
Choma and her mother, both center, are flight attendants. (Molly Choma)
And with everything in the world changing so quickly every day, there really is no other approach. While some experts predict that flying in the future could require travelers to submit blood test results, Nelson said that new regulations of any kind take a lot of time. In the meantime, she will work on getting regulations underway that will protect flight attendants and travelers as soon as possible.
On April 23, Nelson wrote to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar: “Since flight attendant ability to practice social distancing is challenging in the aircraft cabin and on most other forms of public transportation, it is essential that we wear masks as often as possible so long as COVID-19 remains a threat to public health. In addition, passengers on all modes of public transport should be encouraged to wear masks in the short term and mandated by emergency regulation as soon as practicable.”
“The reason that we are all wearing masks is that we don’t have the virus contained and we don’t have a vaccine that’s readily available for everyone. So I think [we] can expect that masks will be here until we have a vaccine readily available. But then once we have this virus fully under control and really eradicated as a threat, I expect that this is something that will go away and we will go back to smiling at each other and buying lipstick again,” Nelson said.
And with everything in the world changing so quickly every day, there really is no other approach. While some experts predict that flying in the future could require travelers to submit blood test results, Nelson said that new regulations of any kind take a lot of time. In the meantime, she will work on getting regulations underway that will protect flight attendants and travelers as soon as possible.
On April 23, Nelson wrote to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar: “Since flight attendant ability to practice social distancing is challenging in the aircraft cabin and on most other forms of public transportation, it is essential that we wear masks as often as possible so long as COVID-19 remains a threat to public health. In addition, passengers on all modes of public transport should be encouraged to wear masks in the short term and mandated by emergency regulation as soon as practicable.”
“The reason that we are all wearing masks is that we don’t have the virus contained and we don’t have a vaccine that’s readily available for everyone. So I think [we] can expect that masks will be here until we have a vaccine readily available. But then once we have this virus fully under control and really eradicated as a threat, I expect that this is something that will go away and we will go back to smiling at each other and buying lipstick again,” Nelson said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)