Tightrope act for Canada circus students facing unemployment

Anne-Sophie THILL, AFP•June 11, 2020



Canada's Cirque du Soleil, seen during a performance in January 2020, had to cancel 44 productions worldwide and lay off 4,679 acrobats and technicians
Canada's Cirque du Soleil, seen during a performance in January 2020, had to cancel 44 productions worldwide and lay off 4,679 acrobats and technicians (AFP Photo/Gints Ivuskans)

Montreal (AFP) - Students soon to graduate from Montreal's esteemed National Circus School expect months of uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has closed shows around the world and thrust their career prospects into doubt.

Head upside down, feet pointed to the sky, Antino Pansa balances on a slack wire strung in the courtyard of his apartment building, a few feet off the ground.

The makeshift installation allows the 20-year-old circus student to stay in shape despite the school's closure in early March, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Several months without training is a lot," Pansa tells AFP. "My only solution was to install a wire between two trees."

"It creates a lot of constraints: I can't do all my tricks on it," he says, complaining of too many trees, a nearby staircase and other physical obstacles.

Pansa had expected to join a circus troupe in Switzerland for a six-month gig upon graduating at the end of June, but the offer was postponed.

In the meantime he has been forced to take a job as a security guard.

- Sad clown, brave face -

The pandemic has similarly upset career plans of 60 other students at this internationally renowned school.

At the end of three years of study, each normally puts on a show in front of headhunters from around the world scouting new circus talent.

But the pandemic has forced the cancellation of the performances.

"It's unfortunate that we had to cancel, it's a big loss, because it serves as a launching pad for graduates to enter the labor force," said school director Eric Langlois.

Joaquim Verrier puts on a brave face, but says: "It is also very demoralizing to say that the culture and entertainment industry is at a standstill."

Going from 15 hours of training per week at school to three or four hours in his apartment, the cigar box juggler says it is "very difficult to stay motivated," but he considers himself "lucky" at least to be able to continue practicing.

Others cannot and worry about it. "I worked so much, so much, it's hard to get to my level," says tightrope walker Joel Malkoff.

The 25-year-old American, who used to train every day, is alarmed by the idea that he may not be able to practice his discipline again on a professional level: "That's what scares me."

- Circus is not hiring -

Cirque du Soleil, Canada's cultural flagship on the brink of bankruptcy, had to cancel 44 productions worldwide and lay off 4,679 acrobats and technicians, amounting to 95 percent of its workforce.

Aware of the grim job market, the National Circus School has implemented entrepreneurship training aimed at supporting students.

While 95 percent of its graduates normally find work at circus companies, in cabarets or aboard cruise ships, its director says nobody is hiring at the moment and the sector is not expected to bounce back for another 18 to 24 months.

This year's graduating class of 21 students is facing a total loss, Langlois said.

According to an April survey of 561 circus workers and organizations, 66 percent expect to have to retrain in another field.

At 23, Verrier brushes aside the idea of letting go of his passion.

"I trained for five years to become a circus artist and I would find it a shame not to be one," he said, refusing to let the pandemic "stop me from following my dream."

The extra $600 Americans get in weekly unemployment benefits ends next month — here’s what lawmakers are proposing to replace it

Published: June 11, 2020 By  Elisabeth Buchwald

Extending the extra $600 could create a disincentive to return to work, some lawmakers say

REPUBLICANS NEVER SAY THE SOLUTION IS THE BOSS TO PAY MORE

Last month, 2.5 million Americans returned to work, but more than 21 million remain unemployed and could have their benefits slashed by $600 if lawmakers fail to act before July 31. GETTY IMAGES

Americans who have been laid off from their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic have been able to collect an additional $600 a week in unemployment benefits on top of what they get from their state. That extra relief was part of the $2.2 trillion stimulus package known as the CARES Act.

But next month, if lawmakers fail to act, Americans who are out of work will see that $600 a week disappear from their unemployment checks.

The supplemental $600 Americans receive has been controversial, especially given that two-thirds of laid-off workers receive more money from their unemployment benefits than they did from their jobs. But at the same time, proponents of the extra $600 say that decreasing those benefits could cost the country even more jobs.

As lawmakers consider a new round of stimulus funding, there are three proposals on the table on how to replace the extra $600, two of which would allow unemployed Americans to receive additional funds on top of state unemployment benefits. But one calls for just the opposite — a return-to-work bonus.

Extending the supplemental $600 through Jan 2021

If these benefits were extended through January 2021, five of every six recipients would receive more in benefits than they would from working those six months, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Last month, the Democratic-run House passed the $3 trillion HEROS Act, which would, among other things, extend the extra $600 federal unemployment benefit to January 2021.

The Congressional Budget Office found that if these benefits were extended through January 2021, an estimated five of every six recipients would receive more in benefits than they would from working those six months.

“If the benefit of $600 per week was extended, fewer than one in thirty recipients would receive benefits — generally the maximum amount in their state — that were less than 50% of their potential earnings,” the CBO report states.

Some have argued those generous benefits will keep people from seeking new jobs. But extending the $600 unemployment benefit would mean that Americans would have more money to spend in stores, and that could ultimately lead to lower unemployment, Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank based in Washington, D.C., said.

“It’s not true that there’s a pool of jobs out there that people would fill if they weren’t receiving unemployment benefits,” she said.

Related: ‘We are saving every penny we can’: What life could look like for this 66-year-old man when he loses all his unemployment benefits next month


For every dollar spent on unemployment insurance, there’s a multiplier effect leading to a 1.64 increase in GDP, according to a 2008 study published by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics MCO, -6.69%. Meanwhile, for every dollar spent on infrastructure projects, U.S. GDP could be expected to increase by a multiple of 1.59.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last month that the HEROS Act “reads like the speaker of the House pasted together random ideas from her most liberal members and slapped the word ‘coronavirus’ on top of it.” He also referred to it as a Democratic “wish-list.”

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week that she thinks Senate Republicans will “catch the spark,” and that their “their tone is changing.”
A sliding scale of unemployment benefits tied to state unemployment rates

Unlike the HEROS Act, one Democratic proposal which has bicameral support calls for additional unemployment benefits that are tied to state unemployment rates.

The proposal, known as the Worker Relief and Security Act, would allow Americans to continue to receive the additional $600 benefit for as long as the national emergency or state emergency for COVID-19 is in effect. Once the national or state emergency is terminated, jobless Americans would receive benefits based on their state’s unemployment level.


‘We continue to push for inclusion of automatic stabilizers in relief legislation, and I feel it is a top priority because it would help to prevent some of the political obstruction that unnecessarily prolonged the Great Recession.’— Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat and sponsor of the Worker Relief and Security Act

For instance, in states where the total unemployment rate is below 7.5%, unemployed Americans would be eligible to receive $350 in weekly benefits on top of state unemployment benefits. After 13 weeks, if they’re still unemployed, they would receive an additional $200 a week.

“The goal of the Worker Relief and Security Act is to prevent political gridlock from interfering with relief efforts by tying financial support for workers to public health and economic conditions,” said Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat who is a sponsor of the bill and vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee.


‘Unemployment benefits should always be pegged to economic conditions.’— Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project

“We continue to push for inclusion of automatic stabilizers in relief legislation, and I feel it is a top priority because it would help to prevent some of the political obstruction that unnecessarily prolonged the Great Recession.”

This plan is the most logical, said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy organization focused on workers’ rights.

“Unemployment benefits should always be pegged to economic conditions,” she said. When the CARES Act passed in March, the economic impacts of coronavirus “didn’t seem like it would go on as long as it has or be as bad as it is.” So at that time, it seemed reasonable to provide the additional $600 through July. But even though 2.5 million workers went back to work last month, more than 21 million Americans are out of work, which is a sign that additional support is needed, Evermore said.

Also see: Some Americans who got laid off are going back to work — here’s which sectors are rehiring

Former Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen also support Beyer’s proposal.

“Such an approach delivers help quickly and automatically as needed, without Congress having to act, and likewise winds down extra assistance as conditions improve,” Bernanke said. “This approach would not only help the unemployed in a timely way, it would also tend to stabilize the broader economy by increasing purchasing power in times of high unemployment.”

“It’s essential to support an economic recovery,” Yellen said. “The Worker Relief and Security Act is important because it guarantees that the CARES Act’s critical unemployment benefits will remain in place for however long they’re needed.”
A return-to-work bonus

The most recent unemployment report was surprisingly positive and showed that 2.5 million Americans had gone back to work — a sign that there are more job openings as states reopen parts of their economy. Extending the $600 weekly benefit past July would disincentive Americans from returning to work if they receive more money from remaining unemployed, says Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio.

He’s proposing a back-to-work bonus, which would provide an additional $450 a week for Americans who return to work.

“Not only is the return-to-work bonus proposal the right policy in terms of incentivizing people to safely return to work and allowing businesses to reopen, but it could also benefit the American taxpayer through significant cost savings compared to the current money we’re spending on the CARES Act unemployment benefits,” Portman said in a statement to MarketWatch.


‘We need to be sure that there’s no financial disincentive for these individuals to get back into the workforce when those jobs become available to them again.’— Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio

“Moving forward, it is critical that we have a workforce that’s ready to step into their old jobs or newly available jobs now that the economy is safely reopening,” Portman said previously.

“Given that more than 15 million unemployed Americans are categorized as ‘temporary layoffs,’ we need to be sure that there’s no financial disincentive for these individuals to get back into the workforce when those jobs become available to them again.”

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said that the Trump administration is looking “very carefully” at Portman’s proposal, which Portman said he plans to introduce more formally this week.

Beyer said this proposal “inherently misunderstands the root cause of unemployment: a deadly pandemic, and also fails to look ahead to the looming demand crunch which will fuel new rounds of job cuts.”

The return-to-work bonus could end up incentivizing people to take “the wrong jobs,” Evermore said. “People will take the first job they get,” she said, which could mean settling for a job that pays less or one for which they’re overqualified.

Wichita State president’s job on line as former board member says cancellation of Ivanka Trump speech puts Koch money at risk

 

Published: June 10, 2020 By Associated Press

Faculty, students and alumni complained about the speech in light of the Trump administration’s response to nationwide protests against police brutality

Presidential adviser, and eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump looks on as President Donald Trump speaks about small businesses in August 2017. GETTY IMAGES
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Some donors are pushing the state higher education board in Kansas to fire Wichita State University’s president after he canceled a virtual speech by Ivanka Trump for its technical school’s graduation.

The Kansas Board of Regents scheduled a special meeting Wednesday to discuss what it called “personnel matters.” Its staff did not say more, but the meeting comes only two days after a former board member from Wichita said the regents should ask for President Jay Golden’s resignation.

The latest:Wichita, Kan.–based Koch Industries says financial commitments to the university are being honored

Golden canceled Trump’s speech after students and faculty protested. Students staged an impromptu rally Wednesday to support Golden.

Steve Clark, the former regent seeking Golden’s ouster, sent a letter Monday to board members saying Golden’s decision to cancel the speech by President Donald Trump’s daughter threatens a multimillion-dollar relationship with Koch Industries, the vast conglomerate led by billionaire and conservative political donor Charles Koch, the Wichita Eagle reports. A Koch Industries spokeswoman said Wednesday that financial commitments to the university are being honored and that it doesn’t tie funding to university employment actions.

Clark is the chairman and CEO of a Wichita investment firm who served as chairman of search committees for both Golden and his predecessor, John Bardo. Golden became president in January, after Bardo died in March 2019.

Clark told the regents that officials from Koch Industries and several longtime donors and supporters are “very upset and quite vocal in their decisions to disavow any further support.” He said canceling Trump’s speech damaged the school’s reputation with some high-profile donors.

“These relationships can only be restored by Dr. Golden’s departure,” he wrote the regents. “I would strongly encourage you not to let this linger.”

Steve Feilmeier, Koch Industries’ executive vice president and chief financial officer, said he’s been asked to serve on the Wichita State Foundation board and how the speech controversy is resolved will “weigh heavily” on his decision.

The university has said Koch Industries and its associated foundations have spent or pledged to spend more than $15 million there in the past seven years. Company spokeswoman Jessica Koehn said it respects “the university’s independence” in making employment decisions.

But she also said Koch Industries believes canceling speakers “cuts off the chance to engage, debate, and criticize.”

Wichita State has 14,000 students, including some 3,000 at its technical school, and is home to a national institute on aviation research. Parts of Wichita and its suburbs are politically conservative, and Donald Trump carried the county in 2016 by 18 percentage points. Ivanka Trump visited WSU Tech last fall to promote its training programs.

The university announced Thursday that she would give a virtual speech for WSU Tech’s graduation and canceled it hours later after a professor’s open letter of protest garnered nearly 500 signatures.

Days earlier, police under federal command in Washington used tear gas to force back a peaceful protests of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis while detained by police. The police action allowed the president to walk to a church near the White House and pose with a Bible, accompanied by his daughter. The president also threatened to use the military to quell violence.

WSU Tech President Sheree Utash later apologized, calling the timing of the announcement of Ivanka Trump’s speech “insensitive.” Golden has said that the university is committed to diversity and that he canceled the speech to avoid a distraction from celebrating the students.

Ivanka Trump responded by tweeting a link to her remarks and saying universities should be “bastions of free speech.”

“Cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination are antithetical to academia,” she said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former Wichita-area congressman, called the cancellation “shameful,” adding in a statement: “The losers here are freedom of thought, the students, and the central idea of universities as places of tolerance and learning.”

TRUMPS BORDER WALL WILL HALT COVID-19
White House eyes Mexico, rather than states reopening too early, for coronavirus surge

Published: June 11, 2020 By Associated Press

Task force looking into travel from Mexico as source of new outbreaks

WASHINGTON — The White House is exploring the possibility that travel from Mexico may be contributing to a new wave of coronavirus infections, rather than states’ moves toward reopening their economies.

The notion was discussed at some length Thursday during a meeting of the administration’s coronavirus task force in the White House Situation Room that focused on identifying commonalities between new outbreaks. Officials also considered how to surge response capabilities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was deploying teams to Arizona and other hotspots to try to trace the outbreaks and contain them.

In addition to Arizona, other states experiencing recent spikes of infections include California, Texas and North Carolina — particularly within the Hispanic community. As a result, the task force is looking at whether those spikes may be tied to legal travel between the U.S. and Mexico, which is experiencing an ongoing severe coronavirus outbreak.

Two officials familiar with the discussions described them to The Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly describe internal conversations.

While President Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to seal U.S. borders to both legal and illegal immigrants during the outbreak, American citizens and permanent residents are still allowed entry to the U.S., as are agricultural workers.

The White House task force was also looking at other causes for a recent uptick in numbers, noting that the issues likely differ by location. Delays in test reporting and the fact that some infected people take multiple tests in order to get an all-clear to return to work are among the other theories that are being explored.

Trump has long pointed to Mexico as a source of crime and disease in the U.S., and has used the crisis to push forward some of his most hard-line immigration proposals, including blocking asylum at the border and limiting the issuance of green cards to those living outside the country.

New Trump rule would redefine who qualifies for refuge in U.S.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez,
CBS News•June 11, 202



The Trump administration on Wednesday unveiled a series of proposed restrictions to the country's asylum system that would constitute one of the most far-reaching attempts yet to redefine who qualifies for safe harbor on U.S. soil.

A 161-page proposal by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security would establish additional barriers at all stages of the U.S. asylum process, granting officers and judges more power to deny requests for protections. It would make it more difficult, if not impossible, for foreigners to seek refuge from certain forms of persecution, including gender-based violence, gang threats and torture at the hands of "rogue" government officials.

The draft rule is slated to be formally published in the federal government's journal of regulations on Monday, after which the public will have 30 days to comment on it. The government will then work on publishing a final regulation that may or may not be altered in response to the public comments.

The impact of the rule on humanitarian programs at the southern border will be contingent on when it goes into effect because the administration has been rapidly expelling most unauthorized migrants from there since late March. If enacted, however, the proposed changes would rewrite multiple regulations and affect cases of new border crossers, as well as asylum-seekers already in the U.S.

"If this regulation is finalized and put into place, it would result in many legitimate asylum-seekers being denied the chance to seek refuge in the United States," Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, told CBS News. "There are so many provisions in here that make it impossible for even the most meritorious asylum-seekers to get through the U.S. asylum process."

Under U.S. law, foreigners can be eligible for asylum if they can prove they were persecuted — or have a well-founded fear of persecution — in their native countries based on their race, religion, political opinion, nationality or membership in a "particular social group." Migrants, including those who cross the border without authorization, can apply for asylum, as well as other lesser forms of protection, to block their deportation.

The Trump administration has argued that Central American migrants in search of better economic opportunities have exploited these humanitarian programs to gain easy entry into the U.S. Over the past three and a half years, the administration has implemented a series of restrictions to limit access to these protections, which officials have said are plagued with loopholes.

Implementing the proposed changes, the government said in its proposal, would help officials "screen out non-meritorious claims and focus limited resources on claims much more likely to be determined to be meritorious."

The rule would require immigration judges to generally reject asylum cases of people who fear being persecuted in their home countries because of their gender or resistance to being recruited and coerced by gangs, guerrillas, terrorists and other non-state groups.

The definition of persecution would be changed to "an extreme concept of a severe level of harm." Persecution would not include, among other threats and mistreatment, "every instance of harm that arises generally out of civil, criminal, or military strife in a country," nor "any and all treatment that the United States regards as unfair, offensive, unjust, or even unlawful or unconstitutional."

Even if migrants satisfy the burden of proof to receive asylum, the rule would encourage immigration judges to deny the relief to applicants who crossed or attempted to cross the border illegally, did not file taxes, worked without authorization or used fraudulent travel documents. Unlike the lesser forms of protection from deportation, asylum is discretionary, meaning a judge can deny the protection to anyone, even people who prove they could be persecuted if returned to their home countries.

Judges would also have to consider other adverse factors, including traveling through a third country to reach the U.S., living undocumented in the country for more than a year and having criminal convictions that were vacated or expunged.

Under the proposal, protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture would no longer be available to people who were tortured, physically or mentally, by "rogue" public government officials "not acting under color of law."

Other proposed changes in the rule include making it more difficult for migrants who are barred from seeking asylum to pass interviews that determine their eligibility for relief under the United Nations anti-torture convention or "withholding of removal," the other lesser form of protection. Over the past few years, the administration has rolled out several policies to disqualify most U.S.-bound migrants from asylum, including those who traveled through a third country, like Mexico, to reach the southern border.

The definition of a "frivolous" application would also be expanded under the proposal, giving judges and asylum officers more leeway to reject "manifestly unfounded or otherwise abusive claims."

Pierce, the immigration expert, said the regulation is one of several "layers" of asylum restrictions the administration has devised to mitigate unfavorable rulings in federal courts that have hindered its agenda. She said the proposed rule could be one of the tools the administration uses to deter migrants after the public health order under which officials are expelling most border-crossers is lifted.

The administration has said the expulsion directive by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is designed to block the entry of migrants who could spread the coronavirus inside the U.S. At an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday, acting Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said the directive, which has been extended indefinitely, would be the "order of the day for a while," citing the lack of a coronavirus vaccine.

Pierce said Wednesday's proposal would not achieve its stated purpose of curtailing meritless asylum claims. "If they sincerely wanted to deter less-than-legitimate asylum claims, they would look at processing asylum applications more fairly and efficiently, rather than just to put up barriers at every step along the way."

Trump administration proposes sweeping asylum restrictions

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed sweeping restrictions on asylum, seeking to align a legal framework with the president's efforts to limit immigration to the United States.

The moves are only the latest in a series of measures that Trump has taken to limit asylum — this time aimed at changing complicated guidelines and procedures governing immigration courts.

The changes, outlined in 150 pages of legalese, aim to redefine how people qualify for asylum and similar forms of protection to prevent them from being persecuted or tortured if sent home.

Judges will be allowed to dismiss cases without court hearings if supporting evidence is determined to be too weak. Rules will define when a claim may be declared “frivolous” and raise the threshold for initial screenings under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

The administration will propose new definitions for some ways people qualify for asylum, specifically “political opinion” and membership in a "particular social group.”

Asylum is for people who face persecution for their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group, a loose category that may include victims of gang or domestic violence. Narrowing those ways to qualify would mean more rejected claims.

The Justice and Homeland Security departments said asylum-seekers who clear initial screenings will have claims heard by an immigration judge in “streamlined proceedings,” according to a brief press release, replacing longstanding rules in immigration law.

Since the U.S. became the world's top destination for asylum-seekers in 2017, the Trump administration has made multiple attempts to make it harder to get, asserting that the system is rife with abuse.

The Justice and Homeland Security departments said the changes would bring more efficiency to a system with an immigration court backlog of more than 1.1 million cases.

The rules will “more effectively separate baseless claims from meritorious ones,” the departments said. “This would better ensure groundless claims do not delay or divert resources from deserving claims.”

Critics swiftly condemned the measure. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel for the American Immigration Council, said it was much more far-reaching than Trump's previous attempts to curb asylum and “would lead to the denial of virtually every claim except a lucky few.”

“The proposed changes would represent the end of the asylum system as we know it,” he said.

Details are expected to be published in the Federal Register on Monday with 30 days for public comment before they take effect. Lawsuits may delay or derail the effort.

The administration effectively put asylum out of reach for many people at the Canadian and Mexican borders in March under a 1944 public health law aimed at preventing spread of the coronavirus, but that move is described as temporary. It allows the government to immediately expel people from Mexico and Central America to Mexico without claiming asylum, usually within two hours.

HE WILL DECLARE A RACE WAR IN THE NAME OF LAWN ORDER

Trump may use executive order to address policing: White House

Reuters•June 10, 2020

McEnany: Trump 'appalled' by defund police effortWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump could take policy action on race and policing via an executive order, his spokeswoman told Fox News in an interview on Wednesday as lawmakers in Congress move forward with their proposals.

"We do believe that we'll have proactive policy prescriptions, whether that means legislation or an executive order," White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said. She declined to offer specifics, saying the Republican president was still weighing various possibilities.

The potential for executive action comes as both Democrats and Republicans in Congress push forward with proposals aimed at addressing police reform amid massive protests sparked by last month's death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who died while in police custody.

House Democrats on Monday unveiled a sweeping bill that would ban chokeholds, require body cameras for federal law enforcement officers and restrict the use of lethal force, among other steps, while Senate Republicans on Tuesday said were working on their own proposal.

Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary for Homeland Security, declined to provide details about what action Trump is considering.

"You will see a mix of legislative proposals that we can work on a bipartisan basis, just like the president did with criminal justice reform, and executive actions he can take on his own," Cuccinelli told Fox Business Network.

Trump signed bipartisan legislation in 2018 that changed sentencing requirements and the treatment of federal prisoners.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Trump suggests executive order on police use-of-force standards

Notably, Dallas’ mayor and three top law enforcement officials, all of whom are black, weren’t on hand for the roundtable discussion at the Dallas campus of Gateway Church.

Published: June 11, 2020 Associated Press

President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion Thursday in Dallas. 

‘We’re dominating the street with compassion,’ president says

DALLAS — President Donald Trump said Thursday he would pursue an executive order to encourage police departments to meet “current professional standards for the use of force,” while slamming Democrats for broadly branding police as the problem.

He also defended his calls on governors and mayors to aggressively quell violent protests that erupted across the country after the death of George Floyd, boasting, “We’re dominating the street with compassion.”

Trump offered few details about the yet-to-be-formalized order during a discussion on race relations and policing before a friendly audience in Dallas. The call for establishing a national use-of-force standard amounted to his first concrete proposal for police reform in response to the national outcry following Floyd’s death in a violent encounter with Minneapolis police.

The president also acknowledged that law enforcement may have some “bad apples,” but he said it is unfair to broadly paint police officers as bigots.


“We have to work together to confront bigotry and prejudice wherever they appear,” Trump said. “But we’ll make no progress and heal no wounds by falsely labeling tens of millions of decent Americans as racists or bigots. We have to get everybody together. We have to be on the same path.”

The president said the nation also needs to bolster its efforts to confront its long-simmering racial relations problems by focusing on inequality, redoubling on his contention that solving economic issues is the fastest way to healing racial wounds.

He said his administration would aggressively pursue economic development in minority communities, confront health care disparities by investing “substantial sums” in minority-serving medical institutions, and improve school choice options.

Trump made the comments in the city that has faced its own strained relationship between police and African American community in recent years.

In 2016, a sniper opened fire on police during a protest in downtown Dallas. The Army veteran fatally shot four Dallas police officers and one transit officer before authorities killed him using a robot-delivered bomb.

Last year, an officer was sentenced to a decade in prison for murder in the off-duty shooting of her neighbor. Amber Guyger killed Botham Jean in his home in September 2018. She later testified that after a long shift she mistook his apartment for her own and Jean, a 28-year-old accountant, for a burglar.

Notably, Dallas’ mayor and three top law enforcement officials, all of whom are black, weren’t on hand for the roundtable discussion at the Dallas campus of Gateway Church.

Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall, Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown and Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot did not receive invitations to the event, according to their offices. Mayor Eric Johnson was invited but did not attend because of prior commitments, according to an aide.

A senior administration official who briefed reporters ahead of Trump’s trip noted other law enforcement officials were in attendance but did not directly respond to a question about why the three officials weren’t invited.

Trump filled the roundtable with police union officials and allies from the African American community, including a member of Black Voices for Trump — many who spoke glowingly about the president.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have unveiled sweeping police reform legislation, including provisions to ban choke holds and limit legal protections for police. Congressional Republicans say they are also open to some reforms, including a national registry of use-of-force incidents so police officers cannot transfer between departments without public awareness of their records.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and senior adviser Jared Kushner have been discussing possible packages with GOP lawmakers, but it’s unclear what the president himself would be willing to accept.

Trump, for his part, lashed at some in the Democratic party who have called for “defunding the police,” a broad call to reframe thinking about how communities should approach public safety.

“”Unfortunately there’s some trying to stoke division and to push an extreme agenda, which we won’t go for, that will produce only more poverty, more crime, more suffering,” Trump said. “This includes radical efforts to defund, dismantle and disband the police. They want to get rid of the police.”

Glenn Heights, Texas, Police Chief Vernell Dooley urged Trump to increase resources to provide police with more training. “We need training,” Dooley said. “This is not the time to defund police departments.”

Activists say it isn’t about eliminating police departments or stripping agencies of all their money. They say it is time for the country to address systemic problems in policing in America and spend more on other things communities across the U.S. need, like housing and education.

Trump has publicly expressed sympathy for the family of Floyd and suggested that Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin, who prosecutors say pressed his knee down on Floyd’s neck for several minutes, must have “snapped.”

But Trump has also underscored that he believes that 99% of police are “great, great people.” Top advisers, including Attorney General William Barr, have rejected the notion that systemic racial bias is a problem in American law enforcement.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, dismissed Trump’s Dallas visit in advance as a “photo op” and charged that the president has “run away from a meaningful conversation on systemic racism and police brutality.”

Trump, whose campaign effort has been largely sidelined by the coronavirus, was also holding a high-dollar fundraiser during his visit to Dallas. The intimate event for about 25 supporters was expected to raise $10 million to be split between his campaign, the Republican National Committee and 22 state parties, according to a GOP official.

—-

Madhani reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg in Dallas and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

POLICE VIOLENCE 
AGAINST NON WHITE MINORITIES
IS NOT A CASE OF A ROTTEN APPLE
BUT A ROTTEN SYSTEM 

'I can't breathe,' Oklahoma man tells police before dying. 'I don't care,' officer responds.

Tim Stelloh,  NBC News•June 10, 2020


Newly released body camera footage from an arrest in Oklahoma City last year shows a suspect saying “I can’t breathe” before he died at a hospital.

In the May 20, 2019 footage, released this week by the Oklahoma City Police Department, three officers are seen restraining the man, Derrick Scott, 42, who can be heard asking repeatedly for his medicine and saying that he can’t breathe.

“I don’t care,” one of the officers, Jarred Tipton, can be heard replying at one point. “You can breathe just fine,” another officer can be heard saying a couple of minutes later.

Scott, who appears unresponsive several minutes into the footage, was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. An autopsy obtained by NBC News lists his cause of death as a collapsed lung.

Something Went Wrong

The incident began after officers were called to an area south of downtown Oklahoma City shortly before 2 p.m. after someone reported that a black man was arguing with people and brandishing a gun, Oklahoma City police Capt. Larry Withrow said in a statement.

The footage shows Scott running from officers after Tipton asks if he has any weapons. After the police tackle and restrain him, one of the officers can be seen removing a handgun from Scott’s pocket.

Later, an officer tries to administer CPR before paramedics arrive.

The autopsy said the police response did not result in “fatal trauma” and listed several other “significant” factors that contributed to his death, including physical restraint, recent methamphetamine use, asthma, emphysema and heart disease.

His manner of death was listed as “undetermined.”

Winthrow said an investigation into the incident by the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office cleared the three officers — Tipton, Ashley Copeland and Sgt. Jennifer Titus — of misconduct.

Winthrow attributed Tipton’s comments to the “heat of a conflict.”

“Certainly that may be something an officer says,” he told NBC affiliate KFOR. “Just understand — the officers are fighting with someone at that point.”

But local activists and Scott’s relatives have challenged authorities. Scott’s uncle, Ronald Scott, told KFOR that he was “bothered by how they treated his life.”

“There is a lack of a focus on humanity and civility,” added Rev. T. Sheri Dickerson, of Black Lives Matter OKC. Authorities released the footage after the group included it in a list of demands to city leaders after protests over the death of George Floyd earlier this month.

Floyd died after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes. In a video of the incident, Floyd could be heard saying, “I can’t breathe” — a phrase that became a protest chant after a bystander’s cell phone video captured the 2014 chokehold death of a Staten Island, N.Y. man, Eric Garner, who also said, "I can't breathe."

TV COPS UNION DENOUNCES POLICE UNIONS

SAG-AFTRA Leaders Call On Police Unions To Change “Or Lose All Support”

David Robb
Deadline June 11, 2020


Click here to read the full article.

SAG-AFTRA leaders today called upon police unions to change with the times “or lose all support from their fellow labor organizations and the public at large.”

In a joint statement, SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris and national executive director David White said: “We support convening a meeting of affiliate unions, including law enforcement unions, to discuss police reforms and necessary systemic change. We support working directly with affiliated police unions to achieve meaningful changes to the law enforcement culture of discrimination and brutality.”
Many critics believe that police union rules often prevent bad cops from being fired, and Carteris, who is a vice president of the AFL-CIO, said she presented several recommendations to its committees last week They include an expression of support for Black Lives Matter; a call for “all affiliate members of the AFL-CIO to explicitly and loudly demand that police unions disavow those officers who target black people”; and convening “all parts of the labor movement, including non-affiliated unions, to issue a public statement condemning racial injustice.”

Carteris and White stopped short of joining the WGA East in calling for the AFL-CIO to disaffiliate with the International Union of Police Associations, a labor organization that represents more than 100,000 police officers around the country.

WGA East Calls On AFL-CIO To Give Police Union The Boot

In their statement, Carteris and White also urged police unions to “dismantle the structures they have erected that have been used to protect officers who engage in racially targeted violence, racial profiling, and other racist and unlawful conduct towards Black and other citizens of this country. This includes all steps necessary to change collective bargaining agreement provisions, and other practices and protocols that stand in the way of police departments being strong defenders of all people as opposed to tools of oppression against Black people.”

They also noted that “As a labor union representing members and staff who have been personally and directly affected by police violence, we recognize the simplicity and simultaneous complexity of the challenges facing police unions at this time in our nation’s history.”
Here is the full statement from SAG-AFTRA’s Carteris and White:

As a labor union representing members and staff who have been personally and directly affected by police violence, we recognize the simplicity and simultaneous complexity of the challenges facing police unions at this time in our nation’s history. Accordingly, we assert the following:

Black Lives Matter.

We reject and denounce police brutality and the corrupt systems that for decades supported a culture of racism, injustice and brutality. We stand in solidarity with all who have experienced injustice and violence at the hands of law enforcement. Police organizations must change.

Real change is more than just talk. It is action. We call for real change and we are willing to work for it and fight for it.

Police Unions Must Confront Those Structures that Facilitate Racist, Unlawful Misconduct.

Last week, President Carteris, who is also a vice president of the AFL-CIO, presented several recommendations to its committees.

President Carteris’ recommendations were: 1) express public support for Black Lives Matter, 2) call upon all affiliate members of the AFL-CIO to explicitly and loudly demand that police unions disavow those officers who target Black people, and 3) bring together all parts of the labor movement, including non-affiliated unions, to issue a public statement condemning racial injustice.

To these recommendations we now add a fourth: police unions must dismantle the structures they have erected that have been used to protect officers who engage in racially targeted violence, racial profiling, and other racist and unlawful conduct towards Black and other citizens of this country. This includes all steps necessary to change collective bargaining agreement provisions, and other practices and protocols that stand in the way of police departments being strong defenders of all people as opposed to tools of oppression against Black people.

We Support Policing with Integrity. These Concepts are Not Inconsistent.

e recognize those brothers and sisters who are police officers and who work lawfully and tirelessly to serve us and protect us from harm. We do not believe that this demand for change in unions is inconsistent with celebrating police officers who do their work with integrity. We know from experience that unions do, and must, confront their problems, learn from their mistakes and evolve into better organizations and representatives of working people.

We believe that we have an opportunity to make tomorrow better than today. We call upon police unions to seize this opportunity and reform their culture and practice. Black lives matter and our police must support this truth in all ways.

Tomorrow Can Be Better Than Today. We are Prepared to Participate.

We support convening a meeting of affiliate unions, including law enforcement unions, to discuss police reforms and necessary systemic change. We support working directly with affiliated police unions to achieve meaningful changes to the law enforcement culture of discrimination and brutality.

We call on police unions to seize this opportunity. They must rise to the occasion or lose all support from their fellow labor organizations and the public at large.