US offers belated 'concern' over Philippine journalist case

WIMP OUT

MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press•June 16, 2020



Philippines Convicted Journalists
Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa, left, talks with former Rappler reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr., right, during a press conference in Manila, Philippines on Monday June 15, 2020. Ressa, an award-winning journalist critical of the Philippine president, her online news site Rappler Inc. and Santos were convicted of libel and sentenced to jail Monday in a decision called a major blow to press freedom in an Asian bastion of democracy. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has offered a muted and belated expression of “concern” over the convictions of two Philippine journalists on criminal libel charges.

A one-sentence State Department statement titled “On Press Freedom in the Philippines” and released on Tuesday nearly 48 hours after a Manila court pronounced the convictions may raise new questions about the U.S. commitment to supporting press freedom abroad.

In the statement, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus called for the Philippines to resolve the case but pointedly did not take issue with the legal process or the guilty verdicts rendered against award-winning journalist Maria Ressa and her former colleague Reynaldo Santos Jr. of the Rappler online news site.

“The United States is concerned by the trial court’s verdict against journalists Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos and calls for resolution of the case in a way that reinforces the U.S. and Philippines’ long shared commitment to freedom of expression, including for members of the press,” she said.

Ressa and Santos were convicted Monday of libeling a wealthy businessman in a decision that human rights activists called a major blow to press freedom in an Asian bastion of democracy. The verdict was announced Sunday night Washington time and repeated requests for U.S. comment about the case beginning on Monday morning in Washington went unanswered.
Ressa, the site's founder and former CNN reporter who was one of Time magazine’s Persons of the Year in 2018, and Santos were convicted for a May 29, 2012, Rappler story that cited an intelligence report linking businessman Wilfredo Keng to a murder, drug dealing, human trafficking and smuggling. The site’s lawyers disputed any malice and said the time limit for filing the libel complaint had passed.

Rappler’s lawyers said the story was based on an unspecified intelligence report and that Philippine penal law requires a libel complaint to be filed within one year. Keng filed his lawsuit in 2017, five years after the story was published.

The cybercrime law, which the Rappler journalists allegedly violated, was enacted in September 2012, or four months after the story written by Santos was published. Rappler’s lawyers said Philippine penal laws cannot be retroactively applied.

Ressa was sentenced to up to six years in prison, but her lawyer, Theodore Te, said the jail terms and other penalties imposed could not be enforced unless all appeals were rejected. She posted bail for the case last year and will study possible appeals in the next 15 days, Te said.

Human rights and press freedom advocates have condemned the convictions, which they say are symptomatic of an erosion in journalists' ability to independently report news in the Philippines specifically and around the world more generally. Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Freedom House were among those to denounce the ruling,

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, whom President Donald Trump has said he admires, and other Philippine officials have said the criminal complaints against Ressa and Rappler were not a press freedom issue but a part of normal judicial procedures arising from their alleged violations of the law.

Like Trump, Duterte has openly lambasted journalists and news sites who report critically about him, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a leading daily, and ABS-CBN, the country’s largest TV network, which was shut down by the government’s telecommunications regulator last month.

Opinion: If you're worried about political violence, look to the right, not just the left


THE LEFT HAS NOT ENGAGED IN ARMED STRUGGLE SINCE THE WEATHERMEN IN THE SEVENTIES AND ANTIFA DOES NOT COME TO PROTESTS ARMED

Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times Opinion•June 16, 2020

Investigators examine the wreckage of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, which was bombed by right-wing domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh. (David J. Phillip)

While the nation has focused on the widespread demonstrations and marches protesting police brutality against people of color — particularly the killings of unarmed Black men — a parallel story has been unfolding in a series of violent incidents involving armed far-right extremists.

Federal officials announced Tuesday that a man in jail in connection with the killing of a Santa Cruz County sheriff’s sergeant is also implicated in the murder last month of a federal security officer in Oakland. Federal officials said the man — Air Force Sgt. Steven Carrillo — is linked to the loose-knit boogaloo movement that anticipates a new civil war in the United States.

Meanwhile, an armed counter-protester in Albuquerque shot and critically wounded a man who was part of a group demanding the removal of a statue of a 16th century conquistador, Don Juan de Oñate, who has a legacy of atrocities against native peoples.

In Bethel, Ohio, southeast of Cincinnati, armed counter-protesters engaged in violent encounters with Black Lives Matter demonstrators, though no shots were fired.

In Las Vegas, police detained three white right-wing extremists who allegedly assembled Molotov cocktails in a plot to instigate violence during a planned peaceful protest against the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.

And in March, the FBI shot and killed an anti-government extremist whom they confronted during an investigation into a suspected plan to blow up a Kansas City hospital — a plot that seems to have been inspired by Timothy McVeigh's 1995 truck bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.

And let's not forget the armed militants who stormed the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, demanding that the state's stay-home orders be lifted, or the groups that took to patrolling streets in parts of Idaho in response to internet rumors that antifa protesters were on their way.

And President Trump thinks antifa is the problem.

Far-right and anti-government extremists have been among us for decades. They moved into a low level of prominence in the 1980s with The Order, the Aryan Nations and Posse Comitatus, groups that committed a series of murders and robberies as they sought, in part, to create a white homeland in the Pacific Northwest. Several died in violent confrontations with police.

The militia movement faded under legal challenges by the Southern Poverty Law Center and other rights advocacy groups and after the Oklahoma City bombing, which horrified the nation. But the far-right extremists continued in other forms.

With the election of President Obama, the first Black man to serve in the Oval Office, far-right groups began bubbling up again, and with the advent of Trump, they have become emboldened to the dangerous degree we see today. Even Trump’s FBI director, Christopher Wray, has pointed out to Congress that his agency views the threat of violence from the far right to be a more immediate risk than attacks from foreign terrorists.

This is not an easy problem to resolve. Romanticized notions of defending America from excesses of a tyrannical government course through the Second Amendment movement, something Trump likely fanned by blustering that he would send in the military to control unruly protests on city streets. But it's a problem that must be addressed.

Israel Hawks Are Scrambling To Save Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel

Daniel Marans HuffPost June 17, 2020

Hawkish pro-Israel groups are pouring money into the reelection of Rep. Eliot Engel, a Bronx, New York, Democrat and influential Israel hawk facing a spirited challenge on his left from middle school principal Jamaal Bowman.

An Engel loss in Tuesday’s primary would not only deprive the pro-Israel activist community of a staunch ally atop the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but also threaten the bipartisan support for Israeli policies on Capitol Hill that has long inoculated the Israeli government from tougher criticism and stricter conditions on U.S. aid.

“The stakes are very big,” said Ben Chouake, a New Jersey physician and president of NORPAC, a big-spending pro-Israel political action committee. “If the Squad members can take out a member like Engel, they’re going to be very emboldened. It’ll send shivers through the Democratic Party.”

NORPAC has bundled nearly $634,000 in donations for Engel this cycle out of Engel’s total campaign haul of $2 million.

The volume of money that pro-Israel groups are spending indirectly to reelect Engel ― as opposed to campaign donations ― is also considerable. The Democratic Majority for Israel PAC, a super PAC known for spending $1.4 million on TV advertisements blasting Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during the 2020 presidential primary, has ratcheted up its investments in TV ads, digital ads, campaign literature and paid phone-banking. The group has now spent over $732,000 in support of Engel’s reelection.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) faces a robust primary challenge from Jamaal Bowman. New York primary voters head to the polls on Tuesday, June 23. (Photo: Bill Clark/Getty Images)More

But DMFI’s latest TV ad doesn’t mention Israel at all, choosing instead to blast Bowman for failing to pay some of his New York state taxes in the early 2000s.

“Shouldn’t Mr. Bowman pay his own taxes before he tries to spend ours?” the narrator asks.

Asked about the ad, Bowman said in a statement that he had struggled with debt as a young father trying to make ends meet. As of the ad’s airing, Bowman had paid off all of his tax debts except for an outstanding $2,000 bill from 2004, which he learned about from the ad and paid off on Wednesday.

A new @DemMaj4Israel PAC TV spot blasts Jamaal Bowman for unpaid state taxes from early 00s. “Shouldn’t Mr. Bowman pay his own taxes before he tries to spend ours?”

Bowman paid off a $2k debt from '04 today after learning about it from ad. Was result of $ troubles, he said. pic.twitter.com/4srhAT2RKk
— Daniel Marans (@danielmarans) June 17, 2020

“This attack by a group funded by Donald Trump’s donors to paint me as some sort of criminal is ugly and desperate,” Bowman said.

Bowman’s statement references the fact that DMFI PAC received $100,000 from the super PAC Americans for Tomorrow’s Future, which the Center for Responsive Politics lists as “Republican/Conservative.” As The Intercept first reported, Americans for Tomorrow’s Future’s treasurer was an aide to former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.), and some of its top donors have also maxed out to Trump.

DMFI PAC President Mark Mellman maintains that Americans for Tomorrow’s Future is a “bipartisan pro-Israel PAC,” claiming two out of three of its board members are registered Democrats and the third is an independent.

Perise Practical and Avacy Initiative, two dark-money groups whose legal structure allows them to conceal their agendas and donors, are also spending heavily to reelect Engel. As The Intercept notes, the only other candidate that the pair of groups have intervened to assist is Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat running to represent New Mexico in the House. Fernandez defeated Valerie Plame in the state’s Democratic primary earlier this month. Plame, a former CIA operative with Jewish heritage, had faced criticism for anti-Semitic tweets in 2017.

The “pro-Israel” groups ― and activists ― backing Engel generally hail from the right wing of Israel’s base of support. J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group that encourages U.S. leaders to pressure the Israeli government to end the occupation of Palestinian territories, has not endorsed in the race.

According to Engel and the hawkish Israel supporters backing him, Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands captured in 1967, which renders millions of people stateless, is almost entirely the fault of Palestinians and their nonsovereign governing bodies for tolerating violent attacks against Israeli civilians and rejecting previous compromises. Unlike many mainstream foreign policy experts, and former President Barack Obama, these advocates want the U.S. government to play the role of Israel’s protector and benefactor with few strings attached.
“I am of the opinion, as noted by others, that there is no country anywhere facing the same threats as Israel, that has a better human rights record,” Rabbi Avi Weiss, a prominent rabbi in the district and right-leaning Israel activist, wrote in an open letter to Bowman picked up by Jewish news outlets. In some versions of the letter, Weiss noted that his daughter and her family live in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, where Jews enjoy Israeli citizenship and full political rights, but Palestinian residents do not.

Still more controversial figures like former New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) and Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, a right-wing alternative to more mainstream pro-Israel groups, have flocked to defend Engel, even as they conceded to HuffPost that Engel is to their left.

Hikind, who has come under fire for fundraising for West Bank settlements and dressing in blackface for the Jewish holiday of Purim, called out Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for abandoning Israel with his refusal to endorse Engel.

Although Klein’s group, ZOA, is adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state and hosted former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in 2017, Engel spoke at ZOA’s advocacy day in Washington in 2019. A spokesman for Engel did not respond to a request for an explanation of why he chose to address ZOA activists.

“Eliot Engel has been a strong supporter of U.S.-Israel relations,” Klein told HuffPost, while emphasizing that due to ZOA’s nonprofit status, neither he nor his organization have endorsed in the race.

It’s easy to see why Engel’s appeals to Israel hawks. Whenever more dovish Democrats veer left, he sticks to a hard-line pro-Israel approach. He opposed the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal in 2015 and the Obama administration’s parting rebuke to the right-wing Israeli government over settlement expansion in 2016, and welcomed the Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

For his part, Bowman, who now enjoys the backing of virtually every prominent progressive in the country, has steered clear of some of the third-rail issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He supports a two-state solution that would preserve Israel’s Jewish character, and does not support the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.


What we see of Jamaal Bowman is typical of where the Democratic Party is likely to go, particularly in more progressive and urban areas.Peter Beinart, CUNY

Instead, NORPAC, DMFI PAC and Weiss all cited Bowman’s call to “seriously consider” placing tougher conditions on the United States’ annual $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel, in light of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s expansion of West Bank settlements, which entrench the Israeli occupation, and plans to permanently annex some of the Palestinian territories.

“U.S. assistance to Israel reflects not only a moral commitment to an ally with shared interests, it helps Israel defend itself from very real enemies, and assurances of such aid would need to be in place for any viable peace process between Israelis and Palestinians,” DMFI PAC’s Mellman said.

Mellman also claimed that Bowman’s stance was “out of touch with the vast majority of Democrats.”

In fact, 71% of Democrats ― and 56% of the American public as a whole ― support conditioning aid to Israel on Israeli compliance with U.S. opposition to settlements, according to a poll released in October. The Center for American Progress, which commissioned the poll, is the preferred think tank of the Democratic establishment, not the party’s more progressive wing.

What is true is that it has been almost three decades since the U.S. seriously leveraged aid to Israel to get it to change its behavior. In 1991, then-President George H.W. Bush (R) threatened to deny Israel loan guarantees unless Israel provided ironclad assurances that it would not use the funds on Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

If Bowman were to unseat Engel, it would not fundamentally shift Democratic Party policy toward Israel, let alone that of the country. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s victory over Sanders, who is more critical of Israel, in the 2020 presidential primary, attests to the endurance of a bipartisan pro-Israel consensus.

But what it might mean is that the influence of the Israeli government’s defenders in Washington is no longer so strong that it can decide an election in one of the more liberal and racially diverse House seats in the country.

New York’s 16th Congressional District, a solid Democratic seat in the Bronx and Westchester County that Engel has represented since 1989, is now home to more Black and Latino residents than white residents. Rather than focus on U.S.-Israel policy, Bowman has cast himself as a more faithful representative of the racially and economically divided district’s needs. Engel, Bowman is fond of noting, sat out the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in his home in a Maryland suburb of Washington.

“What we see of Jamaal Bowman is typical of where the Democratic Party is likely to go, particularly in more progressive and urban areas,” said Peter Beinart, a political science professor at the City University of New York and author of “The Crisis of Zionism.” Beinart advised Bowman on Middle East policy at the start of his campaign.

While not making the Israeli-Palestinian conflict their main focus, progressive Democrats like Bowman are likely, Beinart predicted, to “try to align the principles that inform their foreign policy views with those boldly progressive principles that they apply to American politics.”

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Jamaal Bowman greets voters outside a Bronx subway stop on Wednesday, June 17. He has cast himself as a better representative than Engel for the diverse district. (Photo: Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)
The election is also a test of shifting views within the Jewish community. The district is 12% Jewish and contains significant numbers of Modern Orthodox Jews, whose views on Israel tend to be closer to Engel’s than Bowman’s.

But a growing number of more liberal Jews, who are disproportionately younger, have been eager to show that organizations like NORPAC and DMFI PAC do not speak for them. Bowman has picked up the endorsements of IfNotNow, a left-wing Jewish group committed to opposing the Israeli occupation, and the Jewish Vote, the political arm of the left-leaning group Jews for Economic and Racial Justice.

Leaders of the Jewish Vote, which boasts 150 active, dues-paying members in Engel’s district, were not sure whether they were going to endorse in the race at all until after Engel’s endorsement interview in December.

Multiple people present during the interview described Engel reacting incredulously to the fact that the group’s questionnaire did not ask directly about Israel. In response to a question about the diversity of voices he would consult when seeking input from the Jewish community, Engel went on something of a tirade about Palestinian obstruction of peace efforts dating back to their rejection of the United Nations partition plan in 1947. One attendee, who asked for anonymity for professional reasons, recalled squirming at Engel’s descriptions of “Arab violence” and subsequent insistence that his support for U.S. intervention in Kosovo was evidence that he was not Islamophobic.

Members of the Jewish Vote’s endorsement panel were particularly irked that Engel circled back to his Israel talking points multiple times in response to questions about unrelated topics.

“Whenever you lash out, you sound like you’re defensive,” said Henry Moss, a retired trade school administrator from the Riverdale section of the Bronx, who participated in the meeting.

A spokesman for Engel did not respond to a request for comment on details of the endorsement interview.

Regardless, the interview appears to have cost Engel some support.

Moss is generally opposed to primary campaigns against incumbent Democrats, but he came away dissatisfied with Engel’s answers to questions about his membership in the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition. And though Moss is unsure if Bowman has exactly the right prescription for Israel, he is certain that Engel, whom he described as “basically arm-in-arm with Netanyahu,” does not.

“It strikes me that Engel is perhaps trapped in his pro-Israel world,” Moss said.

Trump obsessed with sending CD of Elton John's 'Rocket Man' to Kim Jong-un, ex-aide Bolton claims

THE HOMOSEXUAL COURTSHIP HAS ITS OWN SONG


Justin Vallejo,The Independent•June 17, 2020

Getty

Donald Trump was reportedly obsessed with sending a CD of the song Rocket Man, signed by Elton John himself, to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to a new book that the White House is trying to block.

Former US national security adviser John Bolton makes the claims of Mr Trump "inordinate interest" in his upcoming book The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.

While the White House has sued to stop the publication of the book, The Washington Post obtained a pre-publication version of the tome, which says Mr Trump wanted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to hand over the CD to the North Korean dictator in 2018.

Calling Kim "Little Rocket Man" was one of Mr Trump's favoured insults during a time when the two exchanged threats over North Korea's nuclear programme.

A summit on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula was held in Singapore in June 2018, and Mr Trump wanted Mr Pompeo to deliver the CD during a trip to North Korea in October of that year in an apparent attempt to convince Kim that "Little Rocket Man" was a term of affection meant as a compliment rather than an insult.

"Trump didn't seem to realise Pompeo hadn't actually seen Kim Jong Un [during the trip], asking if Pompeo had handed" the CD, writes Mr Bolton. "Pompeo had not. Getting this CD to Kim remained a high priority for several months."

Mr Trump was reportedly determined to make friends with the North Korean leader, and his desire to give gifts like the Elton John CD violated US sanctions that eventually had to be waived.

Mr Bolton said that Mr Trump cared little for the details of the denuclearisation effort, and that he saw the Singapore summit as merely "an exercise in publicity".

"Trump told . . . me he was prepared to sign a substance-free communique, have his press conference to declare victory and then get out of town," Mr Bolton wrote.

U.S. General Throws Mike Pompeo’s Iran Policy Under the Bus

Matthew Petti, The National Interest•June 15, 2020


The commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said that there is “actually no military component” to the maximum pressure campaign against Iran, reversing comments made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in January.

U.S. forces killed Iranian spymaster Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani as he arrived in Baghdad on January 3, kicking off a round of direct U.S.-Iranian clashes.

Pompeo advertised the assassination as part of his signature “maximum pressure” campaign, which is aimed at forcing Iran to change a host of its domestic and foreign policies.

“It has a diplomatic component, it has had an economic component, and it has had a military component,” he told reporters on January 7, referring to the pressure policy.

But Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, pulled back Pompeo’s claims during a speech at the Middle East Institute last week.

“We actually do not directly contribute to the maximum pressure campaign,” said the four-star general, who commands U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia. “Instead, what our responsibility is as U.S. Central Command, is to deter Iran from taking actions either directly or indirectly against the United States or our allies and partners in the region.”

State Department officials have sold the killing of Suleimani as a way to “restore deterrence” against Iran.

McKenzie warned that Iran could act “either directly or indirectly against the United States or our allies and partners in the region” in retaliation to diplomatic and economic pressure.

But he was clear that “there's actually no military component of what's known as the maximum pressure campaign.”

Suleimani’s killing and the Iranian retaliation was the last direct confrontation between Iranian and U.S. forces. Congress voted to restrain President Donald Trump’s war powers soon after, sending a signal that the U.S. public would not endorse any further military escalation.

Iranian and U.S. forces have clashed several times since the beginning of the maximum pressure campaign, before and after Suleimani’s death.

U.S. naval forces began massing in the Persian Gulf in the summer of 2019 after several oil tankers exploded off the coast of Iran. Iranian forces shot down a U.S. surveillance drone they say entered Iranian airspace, and Trump came within minutes of ordering an armed retaliation.

Iranian-backed Iraqi militias were blamed for a rocket attack that killed an American translator in December 2019, causing a spiral of escalation that culminated in the Suleimani killing. Iran then launched ballistic missiles at a U.S. airbase in western Iraq, injuring over 100 troops.

The same Iranian-backed militias killed two more U.S. service members in a rocket attack in March.

Iraq’s parliament has asked U.S. forces to leave the country in light of the U.S.-Iranian clashes.

More rockets struck a U.S. base last week as Iraqi and U.S. officials met for a strategic dialogue, where the two countries agreed on the need to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

McKenzie, however, maintained that killing Suleimani has deterred Iran from further action.

“I would assess that right now we're in a period of what I would call contested deterrence with Iran,” he said. “I think the Iranians have had to recalculate because they did not believe that we would actually take that action.”

Matthew Petti is a national security reporter at the National Interest. Follow him on Twitter: @matthew_petti.

Image: Reuters.

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China toys with a new propaganda technique: Irony

MY FAVORITE WEAPON

WEIXIANG WANG OANA BURCU


Screen shot from the “Once upon a virus” video released by China’s state news agency Xinhua

Published 11 Jun 2020

As the world struggles with the Covid-19 crisis, the US and China have been locked in a heated propaganda warfare over the handling of the virus. Hitting back at President Donald Trump’s claim that “China let it spread”, Chinese official media angrily accused the US of “groundless accusation” and “nefarious plotting”. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian’s twitter post incited an equally unsubstantiated claim that the virus was a bioweapon of the US military.

Amid this public condemnation, conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns, an unconventional animation video released by the state news agency Xinhua stood out in China’s propaganda arsenal.

Featured in Lego figures taking part in a play act, the one-and-a-half-minute video suggestively entitled “Once upon a virus” presents a series of interactions over Covid-19 between China and the US, represented by a group of terracotta warriors and the Statue of Liberty. The video opens with a mask-wearing warrior informing World Health Organisation (WHO) of a “strange pneumonia case”. The ensuing conversation takes place between the warriors, all equipped adequately with masks and hazmat suits, and the “bare” Statue of Liberty.“We discovered a new virus”, the warriors say. “So what? It’s only a flu”, the Statue of Liberty replies. “Wear a mask”, “don’t wear a mask”, “stay at home”, “it’s violating human rights”, “build temporary hospitals”, “it’s a concentration camp” are the back and forth lines along which the debate develops.

The Statue of Liberty constantly defies whatever the warriors say and hence is portrayed as undermining the efforts of fighting the virus, while China’s advice and “achievements” are underlined. As the Statue of Liberty is too busy engaging in this war of words, her condition worsens. The video ends with her eventually wearing a mask and being attached to an intravenous drip, still blaming China and insisting that “even when we contradict ourselves, we are always correct”, to which the warriors ironically retort “That’s what I love about you Americans, your consistency”.

Three aspects of this video are important to highlight: communication strategy, symbolism of content and targeted audience. China’s sarcastic and light-hearted effort of fixing its already-damaged reputation stands in sharp contrast to the party-state’s previous approaches in conducting foreign propaganda, defined generally by charm offensive on the one hand and “fire and fury” on the other. Solemnity, dignity and formality are hailed as the rule of thumb of conducting politics in Chinese culture and are in turn reflected in propaganda materials.

China’s willingness to engage with the criticisms received sits in stark contrast with traditional propaganda approaches of denial and reaffirmations.

The party-state tends to distance itself from such political satire, reflected in one of the Global Times editorials response to South Park’s innuendo of Xinjiang’s detention of Uighurs as “knowing too little about China”. This time, however, China seems to be at ease to use some stereotyped charges against it, such as “violation of human rights” and “concentration camp”, as an irony to vindicate itself. While China presents the charges the US put forward, it does so in a way that portrays them linked to the Covid-19 policy in the US, making it easier to highlight the flaws and contradictions within both.

China’s willingness to engage with the criticisms received sits in stark contrast with traditional propaganda approaches of denial and reaffirmations of its own positions which generally paid little attention to what the interlocutor had said. The Xinhua video instead of bluntly reiterating the official position or all of governments’ arduous efforts so far, sarcastically ridiculed the US for engaging in a “blaming for blaming’s sake” game.

Markedly, China did not use more internationally renowned images such as a panda or dragon to represent itself. The choice of terracotta warriors symbolises the eternal power of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of unified China endorsing legalism as the official state doctrine. In his lifetime, he used his military might to brutally conquer neighbouring territories; in his afterlife, the 8,000-warrior terracotta army was meant to protect his emperorship into perpetuity. Adopting this symbol, China might imply that its draconian measures of effectively containing the virus are the manifestation of the disciplined Qin’s rule under legalism; parallels with President Xi Jinping’s rule, with lifted restrictions on his mandate and characterised by a harsh clampdown on critics and an aggressive foreign policy inevitably come to mind.

The Statue of Liberty is equally symbolic. Its “liberty enlightening the world” is mocked for its reverse effect in times of crisis, implying that human lives are traded for “liberty”, and as a consequence the freest country in the world is now the worst hit by the virus. Moreover, all characters are made from Lego parts which is ironic given the company’s controversial decision back in 2016 of not fulfilling Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s order due to concern that the bricks will be used to make a political statement; in line with its apolitical stance, the company denied any involvement in the production of this video.

The video, produced in English, was not disseminated by domestic media but targeted a foreign audience. Nonetheless, it was picked up by Chinese social media, recording over 11 million views since 2 May.We can only suspect that the state is cautiously sounding out the public’s reactions on such undertakings. This would be in line with Xi’s administration interest in combining information technology with propaganda. In 2013, a video called “How Leaders Are Made”, similar to “Once upon a virus” in style, though far less sarcastic in tone, showcased how high-profiled politicians raise to power in China and the West. The production studio “Fuxing Road” (复兴路上) remained a mystery, though some lined it back to CCP’s International Department.

For now, it remains to be seen whether China is truly turning a new creative page in its propaganda manual.

With Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Butterworth’s and Uncle Ben’s set to disappear from American kitchens, a look back at their racist origins

‘The Aunt Jemima caricature was a product of the white imagination and the minstrel shows of 19th-Century America’

Common household products such as Aunt Jemima pancake mix, Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup, Cream of Wheat and Uncle Ben’s rice all feature racist imagery that dates back to the Jim Crow and slavery era. MARKETWATCH PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/ISTOCKPHOTO

For 131 years, Aunt Jemima syrup and pancake mix have been breakfast staples in Americans’ homes. But behind the smiling face featured prominently on these products is a history of slavery and African-American oppression.

In the wake of the international protests over the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks, PepsiCo PEP, +0.06% announced Wednesday that it will remove the image of Aunt Jemima from its packaging and change the name of the brand, acknowledging its racist origins.

‘Aunt Jemima, like other Mammy representations, portrays African-American women as one-dimensional servants. Despite this, many Americans nostalgically associate her with fond familial memories. For me, I see the vestiges of enslavement and segregation.’— David Pilgrim, the director of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia

On Wednesday afternoon, Mrs. Butterworth’s CAG, +0.14% announced it has “begun a complete brand and packaging review on Mrs. Butterworth’s,” according to a statement made by its parent company, Conagra Brands. “The Mrs. Butterworth’s brand, including its syrup packaging, is intended to evoke the images of a loving grandmother,” it stated. “We stand in solidarity with our Black and Brown communities and we can see that our packaging may be interpreted in a way that is wholly inconsistent with our values.”

Cream of Wheat BGS, -0.08% did not respond to MarketWatch’s request for a comment in regard to whether they will make any changes to their branding.

Quaker Foods North America stopped short of using the word racist in its official statement. “We recognize Aunt Jemima’s origins are based on a racial stereotype,” said Kristin Kroepfl, vice president and chief marketing officer for the company. “While work has been done over the years to update the brand in a manner intended to be appropriate and respectful, we realize those changes are not enough.”

Kroepfl added, “We acknowledge the brand has not progressed enough to appropriately reflect the confidence, warmth and dignity that we would like it to stand for today. We are starting by removing the image and changing the name. We will continue the conversation by gathering diverse perspectives from both our organization and the Black community to further evolve the brand and make it one everyone can be proud to have in their pantry.”

Hours later, Mars Inc., the parent company of Uncle Ben’s rice, said it will be “evolving the visual brand identity.”

“As we listen to the voices of consumers, especially in the Black community, and to the voices of our associates worldwide, we recognize that now is the right time to evolve the Uncle Ben’s brand, including its visual brand identity, which we will do,” Caroline Sherman, a Mars spokeswoman said.

PepsiCo’s elimination of the Aunt Jemima character is long overdue, said David Pilgrim, the director of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich. The museum features Pilgrim’s own collection of over 2,000 racist artifacts including white-only signs, commemorative postcards of lynchings and an entire section dedicated to Mammy caricatures.

Dating back to slavery through the Jim Crow era, white Southerners, in an effort to justify having slaves, designed propaganda which displayed black women in particular as happy and filled with laughter ‘as evidence of the supposed humanity of the institution of slavery.’

Dating back to slavery through the Jim Crow era, white Southerners, in an effort to justify having slaves, designed propaganda which displayed black women in particular as happy and filled with laughter “as evidence of the supposed humanity of the institution of slavery,” Pilgrim stated in an online blog post.

“The caricature portrayed an obese, coarse, maternal figure. She had great love for her white ‘family,’ but often treated her own family with disdain. Although she had children, sometimes many, she was completely desexualized. She ‘belonged’ to the white family, though it was rarely stated.”

One of the most well-known Mammy figures is Aunt Jemima, a fictional character that the brand is based on.

“The Aunt Jemima caricature was a product of the white imagination and the minstrel shows of 19th-Century America,” said Gregory Smithers, a history professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. “Aunt Jemima was also part of the ‘blackface’ tradition that, in the decades after the Civil War, harkened back to a simpler time of plantations and ‘happy slaves’.”

In the late 19th century, marketing agencies began to commodify racism and make it profitable, Smithers, who co-authored the book “Racism in American Popular Media: From Aunt Jemima to the Frito Bandito.” That dynamic “harkens back to the racial and economic order of the early 19th Century when slave markets were ubiquitous in the United States.”

The brand model featured on Aunt Jemima products was replaced two times. Once in 1933 with Anna Robinson, a heavier and darker in complexation model than Nancy Green, a slave from Kentucky who was the original Aunt Jemima brand figure. After Robinson came Edith Wilson in the 1960’s, who played Aunt Jemima on radio and TV shows. Wilson has remained on Aunt Jemima products to current day though in recent years “has been given a makeover: her skin is lighter and the handkerchief has been removed from her head. She now has the appearance of an attractive maid — not a Jim Crow era Mammy,” Pilgrim wrote.

In the late 19th Century, marketing agencies began to commodify racism and make it profitable. That dynamic ‘harkens back to the racial and economic order of the early 19th Century when slave markets were ubiquitous in the United States.’— Gregory Smithers, a history professor at Virginia Commonwealth University

“Aunt Jemima, like other Mammy representations, portrays African-American women as one-dimensional servants,” Pilgrim, a former sociology professor, told MarketWatch. “Despite this, many Americans nostalgically associate her with fond familial memories.”

“For me, I see the vestiges of enslavement and segregation,” said Pilgrim, who is black and grew up in Mobile, Ala., where he first began collecting racist artifacts at age 12.

“Any object that reduces African-Americans to a caricature, with accompanying stereotypes, is problematic,” he said. That applies to Uncle Ben’s Rice, Mrs. Butterworth’s and Cream of Wheat, which have similar racist connotations to Aunt Jemima.

The Black figures featured on these products “are carryovers from the ugly days when black people were relegated to servant roles,” Pilgrim said. “There is nothing inherently wrong with serving others, but when those were the dominant images of black people, it was easier to dismiss African Americans as real people.”

Aunt Jemima brand to change name, remove image that's 'based on racial stereotype'

Ben Kesslen, NBC News•June 17, 2020



The Aunt Jemima brand of syrup and pancake mix will get a new name and image, Quaker Oats announced Wednesday, saying the company recognizes that "Aunt Jemima's origins are based on a racial stereotype."

The 130-year-old brand features a Black woman named Aunt Jemima, who was originally dressed as a minstrel character.

The picture has changed over time, and in recent years Quaker removed the “mammy” kerchief from the character to blunt growing criticism that the brand perpetuated a racist stereotype that dated to the days of slavery. But Quaker, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, said removing the image and name is part of an effort by the company “to make progress toward racial equality.”

“We recognize Aunt Jemima’s origins are based on a racial stereotype," Kristin Kroepfl, vice president and chief marketing officer of Quaker Foods North America, said in a press release. “As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we also must take a hard look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect our values and meet our consumers’ expectations."

Kroepfl said the company has worked to "update" the brand to be "appropriate and respectful" but it realized the changes were insufficient.

Aunt Jemima has faced renewed criticism recently amid protests across the nation and around the world sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

People on social media called out the brand for continuing to use the image and discussed its racist history.

The company's own timeline of the product says Aunt Jemima was first "brought to life" by Nancy Green, a black woman who was formerly enslaved and became the face of the product in 1890.

In 2015, a judge dismissed a lawsuit against the company by two men who claimed to be descendants of Anna Harrington, a black woman who began portraying Jemima in the 1930s, saying the company didn't properly compensate her estate with royalties.

Quaker said the new packaging will begin to appear in the fall of 2020, and a new name for the foods will be announced at a later date.

The company also announced it will donate at least $5 million over the next five years "to create meaningful, ongoing support and engagement in the Black community."

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Uncle Ben's rice to change brand as part of parent company's stance against racism

The announcement from Mars Inc. comes after a similar decision from Aunt Jemima's parent company, recognizing the racial stereotypes in the brands' origins.

Uncle Ben's parboiled rice has been sold in the United States under that name in 1947.Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

June 17, 2020, By Doha Madani NBC

The parent company of Uncle Ben’s rice said Wednesday that "now was the right time to evolve" the brand, including visually, but did not release details of what exactly would change or when. The move follows a similar announcement earlier in the day by Quaker Oats, the company that owns Aunt Jemima’s syrup.

Mars Inc., the parent company, said in a release that as a global brand, "we know we have a responsibility to take a stand in helping to put an end to racial bias and injustices."


“Racism has no place in society. We stand in solidarity with the Black community, our Associates and our partners in the fight for social justice,” Mars said. “We know to make the systemic change needed, it’s going to take a collective effort from all of us — individuals, communities and organizations of all sizes around the world.”

Uncle Ben’s was founded as Converted Brand Rice by co-founders Erich Huzenlaub and Gordon Harwell, according to the brand’s website. The name “Uncle Ben’s” began being used in the 1940s after Harwell and his business partner discussed a famed Texas farmer, referred to as Uncle Ben, known for his rice.

The image of the Black man on the box was modeled after Frank Brown, a waiter at the Chicago restaurant where Harwell had the idea, according to the website.

Aunt Jemima image to be removed and brand will be renamed, Quaker Oats announces JUNE 17, 2020

Critics have pointed out the problematic use of a Black man to be the face of a white company, noting that Black men were often referred to as “boy” or “uncle” to avoid calling them “Mr.” during the country's Jim Crow era.

Uncle Ben’s had a re-branding in 2007, when Mars portrayed the “Uncle Ben” character as a businessman, according to The New York Times.

Quaker Oats said Wednesday that it plans to change its Aunt Jemima syrup brand after acknowledging the character’s roots in racial stereotypes. The 130-year-old brand features a Black woman who was originally dressed as a minstrel character.

Brands have faced intensified scrutiny in recent weeks as protests have sprung up around the world following the death of George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. Consumers have been vocal in their expectations that companies take a moral stance on racism and systemic injustices against Black people.

'Unorthodox,' 'abuse of power': ICE is hitting lawful asylum-seekers with a new obstacle

Carmen Sesin,NBC News•June 16, 2020


SEE Executive Overreaching in Immigration Adjudication PDF 
  TULANE LAW REVIEW APRIL 2019 AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE

Karina Serrano Rodríguez was being escorted to a computer terminal at the South Louisiana Detention Center two weeks ago to prepare for her asylum case before an immigration judge when she learned that she would finally be paroled.

Rodríguez, 27, an asylum-seeker from Cuba, had spent eight months at the detention center, located in Basile, after having waited three months in Ojinaga, Mexico, for her turn under the Trump administration's Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the Remain in Mexico policy.

Rodríguez was ecstatic when she learned the news — until she found out that the parole came with a $10,000 bond.

"It was like a bucket of cold water over my head," said Serrano, who is now living with relatives in Tampa, Florida. "I was desperate, because I didn't know where my family would come up with the money."

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics

Lawyers and advocacy groups say Serrano is part of a small but growing number of asylum-seekers in Louisiana detention centers who are being paroled with condition of bonds — something unusual for "arriving aliens," the official term for immigrants who present themselves at ports of entry and request asylum from authorities.

Karina Serrano Rodriguez (Courtesy Rolando Lopez Turruellas)"It's an unorthodox move," said Mich Gonzalez, a staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center who has been working on litigation against the New Orleans field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for its constant refusal to parole asylum-seekers.

"Now that they're granting some paroles, they're placing as many hurdles as possible," Gonzalez said.

Immigration judges and ICE officials routinely require bonds for people with specific circumstances, like criminal histories or having entered the country in unauthorized ways, Gonzalez said.

They are not traditionally issued as a condition for releasing lawful asylum-seekers on parole, according to a 2009 ICE directive. Immigration judges have no jurisdiction over the custody of such asylum-seekers, and only ICE decides whether they get parole.

"The 2009 Parole Directive explicitly states that absent adverse factors, such as an indication that someone is a flight risk, ICE should grant release on parole," Gonzalez said.

But ICE officials are issuing bonds from $10,000 to $30,000, a hefty price for relatives and friends of detainees to come up with.

Asylum-seekers and lawyers say they are not telling detainees why they are being released with a bond.

In an email, Bryan Cox, the public affairs director for ICE's Southern region, told NBC News that he is not sure whether ICE tracks that type of data, and he said that if it does, he is not sure he could provide it because of ongoing litigation.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union have brought a slew of cases against the New Orleans ICE field office for what they call a "blanket policy" of keeping asylum-seekers locked up. The groups won an injunction in September, when a federal judge ordered ICE to report each month the number of asylum-seekers paroled in the New Orleans field office.

Although ICE began releasing numbers after the lawsuits, Gonzalez criticized it, saying it is inconsistent. "We don't think they're accurate. We feel they're underreporting the number of applications they're receiving," Gonzalez said.

The New Orleans ICE field office has become notorious for being at a virtual standstill with the number of parole approvals.

In 2016, over 75 percent of asylum-seekers under its jurisdiction were granted parole. The number dropped dramatically, to 1.5 percent, in 2018, and in 2019, it paroled three people out of thousands in detention.
'It's extremely unusual'

There are no recent figures for the number of asylum-seekers who have been released on bond. The evidence is anecdotal, based on interviews with attorneys and people who have been released.

When Serrano was notified of her parole, three other women were granted parole, as well, also on $10,000 bonds. According to Serrano, the three women, like her, were Cuban, had no criminal histories and had family in the U.S. claiming them.

Homero López, executive director of Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy in New Orleans, said he has seen some asylum-seekers paroled with high bonds.

"It's extremely unusual," said López, who said he has seen it only a handful of times in his 10 years of experience.

He recently handled what he called a strong case for an LGBTQ person from El Salvador with family and friends in the U.S. She was released on $15,000 bond, which a nonprofit in Texas helped pay.

A detainee sits in a room to use a telephone inside the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, La., on Sept. 26, 2019. (Gerald Herbert / AP file)

Lara Nochomovitz, a private lawyer with a large client base in Louisiana who helps coordinate post-release services, told NBC News, "I see an uptick in releases, but most are coming with a bond attached."

Nochomovitz said she has seen up to a dozen paroles in Louisiana with $10,000 and $15,000 bonds. "That's obviously a lot of money for people to have to come up with," she said.

Coming up with money is complicated. With many people out of work because of the coronavirus pandemic, families are finding it difficult to gather the money. Bond funds have been depleted across the country and now have very limited resources.

"The National Bail Fund Network's referral system currently has $1.5 million of requests that no bond fund can meet at this time," said Elizabeth Nguyen, the immigration bond coordinator for the National Bail Fund Network.

Nguyen added that no matter how strong the fundraising is, bond funds cannot get everyone out because of the large number of people in detention whose paroles come with bonds.

Yaneici Peña Torres, 29, from Cuba, was paroled from South Louisiana Detention Center on June 3 after 10 months in detention and having been denied parole twice.

Peña Torres signed a contract with a bond company to pay the $10,000 that was attached to her parole.

Peña Torres, now in Miami, is filing paperwork so she can start looking for a job, but she worries that with the pandemic, she will not be able to find one. She owes the bond company $300 a month.

"This is an abuse of power. They don't care about us," Peña Torres said. But her mind is also on the detainees she left behind. "There are women who have been detained for over a year that are going crazy in that hell."

TULANE LAW REVIEW

VOL. 93 APRIL 2019 No. 4

Executive Overreaching in Immigration Adjudication

Fatna E. Marouf*

        PDF  https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?         article=2304&context=facscholar

While Presidents have broad powers over immigration, they have traditionally shown restraint when it comes to influencing the adjudication of individual cases. 

The Trump Administration, however, has pushed past such conventional constraints.  

This Article examines executive overreaching in immigration adjudication by analyzing three types of interference.

First the Article discusses political interference with immigration adjudicators, including politicized appointments of judges, politicized performance metrics, and politicized training materials. 

Second the Article addresses executive interference with the process of adjudication, examining how recent immigration decisions by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions curtail noncitizens 'procedural rights instead of making policy choices and promote prosecution rather than fair adjudication. 

Third the Article examines executive policies that prevent aitudication from taking place, such as turning asylum seekers away at ports of entry, criminally prosecuting them if they enter illegally, and separating them fimm their children.

After discussing how these forms of executive interference threaten constitutional and statutory rights, the Article explores how the judiciary, Congress, and agencies can help protect against presidential influence in immigration adjudication.

Mississippi official: Black people 'dependent' since slavery

THIS IS THE AMERICAN WHITE SUPREMACIST ARGUMENT AGAINST WELFARE MOTHERS, 
IDENTIFYING THOSE IN NEED AS BLACK FOLK
WHEN IN REALITY IT'S PO'R WHITE TRASH

EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press•June 16, 2020



Confederate Symbols Mississippi
Lowndes County supervisor Harry Sanders listens as Bishop Scott Volland, unseen, asks the county to consider removing a Confederate monument from the courthouse lawn during a Lowndes County Board of Supervisors meeting, Monday, June 15, 2020, in Columbus, Miss. After rejecting a proposal to move the monument, Sanders said this week that African Americans “became dependent” during slavery and have had a harder time “assimilating” into American life as other groups who have been mistreated have. His remark has prompted calls for his resignation. (Claire Hassler/The Commercial Dispatch, via AP)


JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — After rejecting a proposal to move a Confederate monument, a white elected official in Mississippi said this week that African Americans “became dependent” during slavery and as a result, have had a harder time “assimilating” into American life than other mistreated groups. Critics said his remarks were outrageous and called on him to resign.

Confederate symbols are being debated in many states amid widespread protests across the U.S. against racism and police violence. Monuments that have stood for more than a century outside courthouses and on other public property have been removed or relocated in other Southern states in recent days, and supervisors in several Mississippi counties are discussing the matter.

In northeastern Mississippi's Lowndes County, supervisors voted along racial lines Monday against moving a Confederate monument that has stood outside the county courthouse in Columbus since 1912. The monument depicts a Confederate soldier and says the South fought for a “noble cause.” Three white supervisors voted against the proposal and two black supervisors voted for it.

At one point during the meeting, a white supervisor, Harry Sanders, said moving the monument would solve nothing and would be an attempt to erase history.

“We need to be reminded of some atrocity that happened," he said. “If we are not reminded about it, we are going to have a tendency to forget it and (the history) is going to repeat itself.”

After the meeting, Sanders, a Republican, was quoted by the Commercial Dispatch as saying that other groups of people who had also been mistreated in the past — he cited Irish, Italian, Polish and Japanese immigrants — were able to successfully “assimilate” afterward.

“The only ones that are having the problems: Guess who? The African Americans,” Sanders said. "You know why? In my opinion, they were slaves. And because of that, they didn’t have to go out and earn any money, they didn’t have to do anything. Whoever owned them took care of them, fed them, clothed them, worked them. They became dependent, and that dependency is still there. The Democrats right here who depend on the black vote to get elected, they make them dependent on them.”

Democratic State Rep. Kabir Karriem of Columbus, who is African American, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Sanders should resign. Karriem called Sanders' remarks “appalling.”

“It's really unforgivable how outlandish they were, knowing that he has black people in his district,” Karriem said. “His revisionist history is not accurate at all. Our ancestors didn't want to be slaves.”

Sanders did not immediately respond to a message the AP left on his cellphone voicemail Tuesday.

A Mississippi law enacted in 2004 says no war monument may be “relocated, removed, disturbed, altered, renamed or rededicated.” But the law also says: “The governing body may move the memorial to a more suitable location if it is determined that the location is more appropriate to displaying the monument.”

Lowndes County is 53% white and 45% black. Several black and white residents asked supervisors on Monday to move the Confederate monument. One of the two black supervisors, Democrat Leroy Brooks, said people were not trying to change history, but wanted to “rechannel some things that are offensive."

“We are not saying tear it down," Brooks said. "We are saying relocate it, so when people come to the courthouse and they look at it from a certain angle, they don’t see something that looks like a Ku Klux Klan.”

In Mississippi's second-largest city, Gulfport, officials voted Tuesday to stop flying the state flag on city property because it includes the Confederate battle emblem that critics say is racist. Workers quickly removed the banner from City Hall.

Mississippi is the only state with a flag that includes the emblem: a red field topped with a blue X with 13 white stars. White supremacists embedded it in the upper left corner of the flag in 1894.

Several other Mississippi cities and counties and all eight of the state’s public universities have stopped flying the state flag in recent years, saying that the Confederate symbol does not properly represent a state with a 38% black population. People who voted in a 2001 statewide election chose to keep the symbol on the flag, but recent protests are reviving debate about changing the design.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has said that if the flag is going to be changed, it should be done in a statewide referendum.

____

Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter: http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus.

Bail Denied To Murder Suspect In Alberta Metis Hunters' Deaths

Anthony Bilodeau is charged with killing Jake Sansom and Morris Cardinal.

By Brandi Morin, On Assignment For HuffPost Canada


BRANDI MORIN/HUFFPOST CANADA

Sarah Sansom hugs her daughter on the steps of the Edmonton courthouse.

EDMONTON — Sarah Sansom cherishes the last time her husband of 10 years kissed her before he left for a hunting trip in northern Alberta in late March. And she said she felt the moment he died, like a punch in the stomach.

“I knew when it happened,” Sarah told HuffPost Canada in an interview. “I felt it. I had pain and knew something was wrong. He was my soul mate.”

Jake Sansom, 39, was killed on the evening of March 27, along with his uncle Morris Cardinal, 57. RCMP said a verbal confrontation turned physical, and the pair were shot dead on a rural road near Glendon, northeast of Edmonton.

The three Sansom children haven’t slept alone since his killing. Two of them pile in with Mom at night, while the oldest sleeps on the floor next to the bed.
Bail denied to murder suspect

Anthony Bilodeau, 31, was charged with two counts of second-degree murder in April. Over the weekend, Roger Bilodeau, 56, was also charged with the same offences. RCMP confirmed the two, who are from Glendon, are related but have not revealed how.

The younger Bilodeau applied for bail Tuesday for a second time, and was denied.

Sarah drove almost six hours north from her home in Nobleford to be at the Edmonton courthouse Tuesday to try to make sure the accused remains behind bars.

“Do I wish them harm? No. But I’d love for them to sit there in jail for the rest of their lives and think about what they did,” she said of those responsible for her loved ones’ deaths.
BRANDI MORIN/HUFFPOST CANADA

From left to right: Michael Sansom in the back, Ruby Smith, left, Sarah Sansom, centre, and her daughter were at the Edmonton courthouse on Tuesday to oppose the bail request by the accused.

Sansom and Cardinal, who were part of the Metis Nation of Alberta, had designated hunting rights, including out of season. They had gone into the woods to go moose hunting after Sansom was laid off as a heavy equipment operator at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sarah Sansom believes her husband, who was also a volunteer firefighter, and his uncle were killed because of racism.

“My husband was killed over it. It’s disgusting. It destroys families. To look at someone and take their life because of the colour of their skin,” said Sansom.

The RCMP have said they have no evidence at this point that the killings were racially motivated.

Byron Carr, who is part of the Métis Nation of Alberta, was among dozens of supporters outside the Edmonton courthouse Tuesday morning.

“It’s such a tragic loss. Everyone who has harvesting rights should be able to harvest in our own lands free of worry. We hunt in order to feed our families bellies and not get a bullet for it. I hope justice is served,” said Carr.
BRANDI MORIN/HUFFPOST CANADA

Father Mark Sych was at the Edmonton courthouse in support of Anthony Bilodeau and his family.

There were also people outside the courthouse in support of the two accused.

“There’s no racism in any of these hearts, not one ounce,” said a woman who identified herself as Anthony Bilodeau’s godmother.

Father Mark Sych added that the family “prayed for their souls” of the two dead Metis men.

Some of those opposing bail for Anthony Bilodeau shared their feelings through a megaphone.

“We all know too well the process you guys are going to go through,” Jade Tootoosis told the Sansom and Cardinal families on the courthouse steps. “And we know it’s not kind to Indigenous people. So we pass along our strength.”

We’re broken into pieces.Ruby Smith, Jake Sansom's mother

Tootoosis is the sister of Colton Boushie, 22, from Red Pheasant First Nation, who was shot and killed by a white farmer on his property in 2016. Gerald Stanley was acquitted of second-degree murder, which sparked protests across the country.

“We’re broken into pieces,” said Ruby Smith, who lost her brother as well as her son. “We won’t be able to put those pieces back again because Morris and Jake are those pieces.”

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, no funerals have been held. But Sarah is planning a celebration of life for Jake that will include traditional powwow singers, dancers and room for hundreds of people to attend.

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