William Barr sued in a personal capacity as protesters who were gassed seek damages for injuries

June 8, 2020 By Roger Sollenberger, Salon - Commentary

GIVING THE ORDER TO HIS FEDERAL TROOPS TO ATTACK

Protesters are suing President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr and a number of federal officials after they were tear-gassed to clear the way for an administration photo-op.

“This case is about the president and attorney general of the United States ordering the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators who were speaking out against discriminatory police brutality targeted at Black people,” the complaint reads.

The suit was filed on behalf of Black Lives Matter DC, along with a handful of individual protesters, by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia (ACLU), in conjunction with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Arnold & Porter LLP.

Along with Trump and Barr, the complaint names Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Army Gen. James McConville and the heads of the Secret Service, U.S. Park Police and D.C. National Guard, as well as dozens of anonymous officials who carried out the action.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks a court order declaring that the assault violated the protesters’ First and Fourth Amendment rights and affirming that administration officials engaged in a conspiracy to deny those rights.

It also demands a court order barring officials from repeating the action, as well as restitution “for trauma and injuries sustained from chemicals and physical blows.”

“What happened to our members Monday evening here in the nation’s capital was an affront to all our rights,” April Goggans, head organizer of Black Lives Matter DC, said in a statement.

“The death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers has reignited the rage, pain and deep sadness our community has suffered for generations,” she added. “We won’t be silenced by tear gas and rubber bullets. Now is our time to be heard.”

Approximately 10 minutes before the president addressed the nation in the Rose Garden last Monday — and nearly a half-hour ahead of the city’s 7 p.m. curfew — law enforcement officials backed by the National Guard unleashed tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang shells on peaceful protesters gathered in Lafayette Square, clearing a path for Trump to stage a photo-op as he held a Bible in front of historic St. John’s Episcopal Church.

“This appears to be grossly unjustified use of a chemical weapon on protesters and raises serious human rights concerns under international law,” the ACLU later posted to Twitter.
The White House and Trump campaign later denied that tear gas had been used, and no law enforcement agency has admitted to it. U.S. Park Police used the term “tear gas” in a statement, though it later walked back the use of the word as a “mistake.” At the same time, it admitted that pepper balls shot by officials cause tears. Reporters on the ground have produced canisters of natural and chemical tear gas agents collected at the scene.

Breaking: police canisters gathered by @wusa9 crews Monday night show federal police DID use artificial CS tear gas in addition to natural OC gas on #BlackLivesMatter #WashingtonDCProtests Asking @usparkpolicepio & @realDonaldTrump for response on statements claiming otherwise. pic.twitter.com/ouFi8NWC2s
— Nathan Baca (@NathanBacaTV) June 4, 2020

Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU’s Washington office, was frank in describing the gravity of the moment.

“It was an attack,” he told Salon. “Just a flagrant assault on our constitutional rights — on these people’s civil rights and liberties.”

“We average about 600-700 intakes per year, but that night we received 229,” he said, referring to requests for legal action filed with his office.

“The majority of them were connected to Lafayette and almost all of the rest to Swann Street,” he added, referring to the Washington neighborhood where protesters were gassed in a private home where they had been given refuge after curfew.

When asked whether there was case law precedent for such an injunction, Michelman pointed out that while it is not unusual for courts to issue stays on policies, this circumstances of this incident appear singular.

“I’m not sure anything like this has ever happened,” he said. “It’s something like I’ve never seen before.”
And the complaint itself makes the case.

“The peaceful assembly of people seeking systemic change in the criminal justice system, like the assembly of Plaintiffs and others on June 1, 2020, in Lafayette Square, is based on a decades-old history of civil rights activism in this nation,” it says, referencing a litany of landmark moments such as the 1965 march on Selma, Ala.

“The Lafayette Square assault was violence against black people and their supporters committed by state actors,” the complaint says. “What differentiates the actions here from the others is that the president and attorney general of the United States ordered the violence.”

The morning of the attack on the demonstrators, Trump, on a conference call with governors, pushed them to “dominate your city and your state.”

“In Washington, we’re going to do something people haven’t seen before,” he said.

On that call, the secretary of defense, also named as a defendant in the suit, told governors they needed to “dominate the battle space,” meaning the streets of the U.S.

Hours later, federal agents gassed peaceful protesters and helicopters performed counterinsurgency tactical maneuvers over the streets of the nation’s capital.

A Department of Justice spokesperson told The Washington Post that Trump had directed Barr to personally “lead” the response to the unrest.

“Bill Barr, the attorney general, the top law enforcement agent in the country, is going along, complicit,” the ACLU’s Michelman said.

Barr is the only defendant sued not only in his official capacity but also his personal capacity, which an ACLU spokesperson indicated in an email was reflected in the portion of the suit seeking damages for injuries and would also be the part of the suit most likely to come before a jury.

Barr personally ordered the protesters at Lafayette Square cleared, a pair of senior Justice Department and White House officials told ABC News. Barr “assumed that any resistance from the protesters of being moved would be met with typical crowd-control measures,” an official told The Post. Barr “basically said: ‘This needs to be done. Get it done,'” the official recalled.

A short while later, tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang shells were unleashed on protesters.

“This plan was happening, regardless of any plans of the president,” a DOJ official told The Post.

The ACLU’s complaint points out that Barr gave the order after several days of the president threatening violence against protestors, such as on the conference call and a tweet that Twitter masked for violating its policy against “glorifying violence.

The order was also given in conjunction with a Secret Service notice that the president would visit the church after his speech.

“President Trump has routinely been sympathetic to protesters whose views align with his own,” the complaint reads, citing the white nationalist protests that turned deadly in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.


The day before the assault, Trump invited demonstrators to Lafayette Square, urging supporters to form a counter-protest.

“The professionally managed so-called ‘protesters’ at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd. The @SecretService handled them easily. Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???” he tweeted.

The government has two months to respond to the suit.

Photos show famed hidden treasure found after 10-year search

CBS News•June 18, 2020

An eccentric art dealer announced earlier this month the famed treasure chest he hid in the Rocky Mountains more than a decade ago was finally found. Now he has posted photos of the treasure that he says proves it was indeed discovered.

Forrest Fenn posted three photos on a blog dedicated to the search, showing the bronze chest filled with gold, jewels and other valuables worth more than $1 million. He said he is respecting the finder's wish to remain anonymous and not disclose where the stash was found.

Fenn announced on June 6 that someone had finally found the chest he claims he hid in 2010 with only a cryptic poem to guide treasure hunters. But the 89-year-old Fenn provided very few details, other than the man who found the loot was from "back East."

Fenn posted three photos on his blog Tuesday. The first, he says, shows the bronze chest on a trail "not long after" it was found. It appears to show a variety of coins, gold nuggets and a rusted key.
key.jpg

A photo showing the treasure chest "not long after: it was found, according to Forrest Fenn. dalneitzel.com

The second photo shows Fenn wearing a tarnished silver bracelet from the chest.

bracelet.jpg
Forrest Fenn wears a silver bracelet he says was in the chest. dalneitzel.com

The third photo shows him going through the contents of the chest, which he said was "darker than it was ten years ago."

treasure-photo-fenn.jpg
Forrest Fenn inspects items from the treasure chest. dalneitzel.com

Other than the photos, Fenn did not disclose much new information about the person who discovered the famed chest.

"The treasure chest was found by a man I did not know and had not communicated with since 2018," Fenn wrote. "The finder wants me to remain silent and I always said the finder gets to make those two calls. Who and where."

Fenn posted clues to the treasure's whereabouts online and in a 24-line poem that was published in his 2010 autobiography "The Thrill of the Chase."

At least four people died searching for it, including a snowmobiler in March. In 2017, police in northern New Mexico recovered the body of a Colorado pastor who disappeared while searching for the treasure.

Countless others have gotten stuck in steep canyons and rushing rivers while searching for the treasure. Some of the people tasked with rescuing those treasure hunters told the Associated Press that they are relieved the hunt is over.

"We are very happy," said Dan Johnson, spokesman for Dinosaur National Monument.

INSIDE THE SEATTLE SOVIET

A RIGHT WING EDITORIAL QUOTES MARX ON THE PARIS COMMUNE AND GETS IT RIGHT



Getty Images

Matthew Continetti - JUNE 19, 2020 5:00 AM


"What," Marx asked, "is the Commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?"

In 1871 the Commune was the revolutionary government of Paris, a revolt against the newborn Third Republic of Adolphe Thiers. The communards, drawn from the ranks of city-dwelling laborers, overthrew the republican army and replaced it with an armed guard. The police were disbanded—or "defunded"—and reconstituted as an agency of the Commune. "It aimed to expropriate the expropriators." Churches were closed, judges were disestablished, and offices redistributed among the masses of the people.

"In a rough sketch of national organization which the Commune had no time to develop," Marx wrote in "The Civil War in France," "it states clearly that the Commune was to be the political form of even the smallest country hamlet, and that in the rural districts the standing army was to be replaced by a national militia, with an extremely short term of service." The Russian word for the form of social organization exemplified by the Commune is "soviet."

The Commune was crushed when Thiers organized a new regular army from the French provinces and retook Paris. Recent events in Seattle, though, drew me back to my Marx-Engels Reader. On June 8, after days of violent clashes with protesters, Mayor Jenny Durkan ordered police to abandon the East Precinct headquarters in the crunchy neighborhood of Capitol Hill. The demonstrators quickly established an "autonomous zone" within a six-block area devoid of police and governed, if that is the word, by decentralized and rotating groups of social justice warriors, anarchists, and armed men. The Seattle soviet was born.

It, too, has tantalized the bourgeois mind. To the left, Capitol Hill is, as one entranced New York Times correspondent put it, "now a homeland for racial justice—and, depending on the protester one talked to, perhaps something more." To the right, it symbolizes anarchy, danger, mob rule, and the breakdown of civil order. "This is no different than ISIS taking over cities in the Middle East," said the lieutenant governor of Texas.

Yikes. The truth, writes Seattle radio host Jason Rantz in National Review Online, is somewhere between utopian hopes and conservative fears. Rantz says that the neighborhood is "at times a street fair and at other times a social-justice workshop, with an unhealthy dose of violence and intimidation mixed in." It is a problem for a left-wing municipal government, not a prelude to civil war.

What is happening in Seattle also has a fantastic, satirical quality, a frivolity that illustrates the differences between earlier periods of upheaval and our own. Both activists and officials seem to be playacting, inhabiting the roles of revolutionary Jacobin and timid liberal, even as they haphazardly work to resolve the situation, in a tragicomic script written by Tom Wolfe. The occupiers have no leaders—"They’re treating me like I’m the f—ing mayor!" says recording artist Raz Simone—and can’t even decide on a name. First they rechristened the neighborhood "Free Capitol Hill," then the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone," or CHAZ. Recently, though, they seem to have dropped the call for autonomy, perhaps because authorities have been so accommodating. Thus the designation has been changed to the "Capitol Hill Organized Protest" or, depending on whom you ask, the "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest" (CHOP).

It is not clear what CHOP wants. Walter Duranty’s successor in the Times noted that one petition listed three demands, another five, and an online manifesto thirty. The consistent theme is abolition of the police.

But this is an issue on which CHOP and the city of Seattle may wind up agreeing to disagree. The autonomous zone is shrinking. On June 16, city transportation crews placed concrete barriers around the empty precinct, subtly limiting the space available to activists. They met no resistance. "Minor changes to the protest zone," wrote the mayor’s office, "will implement safer and sturdier barriers to protect individuals in this area, allow traffic to move throughout the Capitol Hill neighborhood, ease access for residents of apartment buildings in the surrounding areas, and help local businesses manage deliveries and logistics." That is not how Thiers would have handled things.

Nor are the leaders of CHOP as stalwart as the communards. They are negotiating with city officials for the return of police to the precinct. Until then, according to city hall, "The Seattle Police Department will dispatch to respond to significant life-safety issues in the area," including but not limited to "an active shooter incident, an assault, a structure fire, significant medical emergency (i.e., heart attack, stroke, trauma) and other incidents that threaten a person’s life safety." What type of rebellion allows the sovereign to peaceably supply materials, and to respond to criminal complaints? Not a very serious one.

Old Karl would be disappointed. "This is not a party," a local NAACP official scolded the CHOP the other day. "This is a mission and we have a mission to accomplish." But it is becoming more difficult to draw the line between carnival and campaign, especially when the mission of the campaign is so ill-defined. CHOP seems destined to go the way of Occupy Wall Street as revolutionary energies dissipate, boredom sets in, local property owners lose patience, and protesters' grievances are coopted by legitimate political structures. Enjoy the show while it lasts. Because the Seattle soviet, like its predecessors, is doomed to fail.


Matthew Continetti is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and founding editor of the Washington Free Beacon. The author of The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine (Doubleday, 2006) and The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star (Sentinel, 2009), his articles and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Atlantic, and Wall Street Journal. He lives in Virginia.

The deaths of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks have soured the already strained relationship between Black people and the police

INSIDER•June 18, 2020
  

A woman facing off against San Francisco police officers on May 31 in California.
Karl Mondon/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images

The recent police killings of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks and ensuing protests have focused a spotlight on the historically fraught relationship between Black communities and law enforcement.

Slave patrols morphed into police departments, and this painful history has translated into a persistent mentality that Black people are threatening or criminals, experts told Insider.

"Police misconduct can powerfully suppress one of the most basic forms of civic engagement: calling 911 for matters of personal and public safety," according to a study in the American Sociological Review.

Effective police reform and sustained changes rely on Black people having a say in the matter and an overhaul of the way the police are viewed and their departments are funded, experts said.

The police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis set off an American uprising against police violence and racism.

It's been less than a month since a bystander filmed the police officer Derek Chauvin pressing his knee on Floyd's neck for several minutes while the 46-year-old gasped for breath and became unresponsive. The disturbing video triggered massive protests and a global cry for justice. It also prompted conversations about defunding and abolishing police agencies or, at the very least, banning certain deadly-force techniques.

Less than two weeks later, Rayshard Brooks was killed. He fell asleep in his car in a Wendy's drive-thru line, which led to a 911 call and then to a cordial 40-plus minute interaction with two Atlanta police officers. But when the officers tried to arrest Brooks, 27, on suspicion of drunken driving, he resisted, snatched one of their Tasers, fired it at them, and tried to flee. That's when one of the officers, Garrett Rolfe, fatally shot him. (Rolfe was fired over the incident and on Wednesday was charged with felony murder.)

Floyd and Brooks were Black, and their untimely — and widely watched — deaths reignited conversations around a long-standing issue: police distrust in the Black community.

This sentiment was captured in stark relief last week when Eliah Pierre-Louis noticed a police cruiser while he was shooting hoops in the driveway of his Connecticut home. Home-security footage showed the 10-year-old hiding until the squad car passed. Asked why he reacted that way, Eliah told his father, "Because they killed George Floyd."

According to Delores Jones-Brown, a retired professor of law, police science, and criminal-justice administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, policing in the US goes back nearly 400 years and has its roots in slave patrols. That painful history has created rhetoric that she said rendered Black Americans "innately inferior" and "undeserving" of freedom and justice and had led to associations between them and criminality. And this isn't a mentality that spares the wealthy, she said, because "police see their Blackness first."
'Don't call the police to this house unless somebody's dying'

Jones-Brown called 911 during a dispute with a parking attendant in 2009 and was told by an officer, "I don't need you jumping over my shoulder while I'm talking to this guy." The assumption there, she said, was that Black women are aggressive and prone to becoming hysterical. Jones-Brown stepped away, per the police officer's order, but was so upset that she's able to recall the interaction verbatim more than a decade later.

By contrast, she said, her husband of 29 years, a Black journalist from Philadelphia, has had such "negative experiences" with police officers over the years that he views dialing 911 as "a last resort." His motto is "Don't call the police to this house unless somebody's dying," Jones-Brown said.
 

People gathered in front of city hall in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, during a June 5 rally to protest the death of George Floyd.  Charlie Riedel/AP Photo

Black people often balk at calling the police because they feel threatened by the same officers who are expected to help them — and cases like that of Atatiana Jefferson reinforce that fear. James Smith, of Fort Worth, Texas, called the police in October 2019 after seeing the 28-year-old woman's front-door open. An officer shot through a window and killed her.

"I'm devastated," Smith told WFAA. "People say, 'Well, James it's not your fault' … but I made the call."

Smith — or someone in Smith's position — will have a hard time calling the police again or will at least think long and hard before doing so, Jones-Brown said.

Frank Jude was beaten by off-duty Milwaukee police officers in October 2004, and, as The Atlantic reported, the attack was followed by a sharp decline in 911 calls.

Researchers with the American Sociological Review screened 1.1 million 911 calls made to Milwaukee's emergency dispatchers between March 1, 2004 and December 31, 2010.

"We find that residents of Milwaukee's neighborhoods, especially residents of Black neighborhoods, were far less likely to report crime after Jude's beating was broadcast. The effect lasted for over a year and resulted in a total net loss of approximately 22,200 calls for service," the authors wrote.

Fifty-six percent of that drop came from Black neighborhoods in the area, per the study.

"Police misconduct can powerfully suppress one of the most basic forms of civic engagement: calling 911 for matters of personal and public safety," the authors wrote.
'A conscious decision to use race to heighten sensitivity to the issue'

The police's relationship with Black communities has in some cases been "abusive" and in others, "violent and abusive," according to Shaun Gabbidon, a professor of criminal justice at Penn State Harrisburg.

Black communities feel uncomfortable around the police because they don't know whether the encounter "is going to get out of hand," Gabbidon said, adding that officers "may actually heighten the issue as opposed to de-escalating the situation." This "negative perception" and pervasive lack of trust force some in the Black community to handle problems themselves.

Added to that are the microaggressions and discrimination from community members who perpetuate the idea that Black people are a threat. The burgeoning trend strains racial relationships and also has policing implications, Gabbidon said.

The video of a white woman named Amy Cooper siccing the New York City police on a man named Christian Cooper in Central Park — in which she highlighted his race multiple times — revealed to Gabbidon, also a Black man, that "she understands the connection when you say it's a Black person — not just any person — who's doing something."

He continued: "It's a conscious decision to use race to heighten sensitivity to the issue and, in some ways, make it seem more ominous."

Relations with Black Americans will remain "very fractured and very distrustful" unless this inflection point brings about necessary changes, he said.

Every jurisdiction will need to choose its own path, but Gabbidon said he's in favor of defunding police forces and redistributing those funds to other critical social services.

Jones-Brown echoed her support of redirecting money from police departments and prisons to schools, housing, and recreational facilities that would "reduce the need for enforced contact of the police."

"This is the time to shift some of the money, the billions of dollars that's been spent on policing to control and contain people to whom we haven't made food available, we haven't made decent housing available, and we haven't made good educational systems available," she said.

Six-year-old Blue Scott, of Florissant, Missouri, assumed a prone position on June 7 as he participated with about 100 protesters in a die-in in the middle of Lindbergh Boulevard in front of the Florissant Police Station.Associated Press

'Are police departments fighting a war? Are civilians the enemy?'

Abolishing the police — as some are advocating — would leave people in the lurch if somebody were to commit a serious crime, but, Gabbidon said, "I do think that we can change the nature or maybe change the way we think about the police."

"There are police departments that are paramilitary," he added. "Why is that? Are police departments fighting a war? Are civilians the enemy?"

Also, meaningful change will depend on the way reforms are implemented, Gabbidon said, and hinge on Black people having a seat at the table.

"Black voices need to be heard in this particular moment," he said. "And I think that's the only way that they'll be comfortable with what happens going forward and be open to improving relationships with the police."

Gabbidon complimented state and local leaders for plans to be more transparent about misconduct in law enforcement.

"But that doesn't necessarily change the long-term relationship between the police and the community," he said. "That long-term relationship is going to be determined with a conversation ... about what the police should be doing in communities. What is their central role?"

Jones-Brown agreed, saying that "warrior training" made it so officers "rule the streets."

"Police were supposed to be public servants and they were supposed to be our friendly neighborhood officers. But when we turned them into warriors, we actually pitted them against the public," she said. "The police have to be retrained to get them out of warrior-mode where they are acting like occupied armies."

Fear is the biggest issue in policing today, but it goes both ways, according to Jones-Brown.

Brooks in Atlanta snatched an officer's Taser and ran away. Eric Garner, whose 2014 death in New York City was similar to Floyd's last month, had told police officers: "Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I'm tired of it. It stops today." He was wrestled to the ground in a chokehold by a police officer, and, like Floyd, said, "I can't breathe" until he lost consciousness and died.

"There's going to be a lot more of those incidents because now we've got a dual fear," Jones-Brown said. "The police are fearful, the community is fearful. We're going to have to work really hard to try to diminish the fear on both sides."

She suggested focusing on relational and humanistic models of policing.

"We have to take steps toward community wellness because the police have not made the communities well," Jones-Brown said. "They've made them afraid. They've made them die."

Expanded Coverage Module: black-lives-matter-module

Read the original article on Insider

UPDATED

Facebook takes down Trump-Pence ads featuring symbols previously used by Nazis

Published: June 18, 2020 By Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook has removed campaign ads by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence that featured an upside-down red triangle, a symbol once used by Nazis to designate political prisoners, communists and others in concentration camps.

Nathaniel Gleicher, the company’s FB, +0.17% head of security policy, confirmed at a House Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday that the ads had been removed, saying Facebook does not permit symbols of hateful ideology “unless they’re put up with context or condemnation.”

“In a situation where we don’t see either of those, we don’t allow it on the platform and we remove it. That’s what we saw in this case with this ad, and anywhere that that symbol is used, we would take the same action,” Gleicher said.

The ad began running on Wednesday.

In a statement, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said the inverted red triangle was a symbol used by antifa so it was included in an ad about antifa. He said the symbol is not in the Anti-Defamation League’s database of symbols of hate.

“But it is ironic that it took a Trump ad to force the media to implicitly concede that Antifa is a hate group,” he added.

Antifa is an umbrella term for leftist militants with no known organizational structure. Trump has blamed antifa for the violence that erupted during some of the recent protests, but federal law-enforcement officials have uncovered little evidence of this.


Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress in 2018 about the 87 million Facebook users who had their personal information harvested by Cambridge Analytica, the British-based political consulting firm linked to the Trump campaign. GETTY IMAGES

Gleicher appeared with representatives of Twitter TWTR, -0.90% and Google GOOG, -1.04% GOOGL, -1.26% at a hearing centered on efforts by the technology companies to police the spread of disinformation, tied to both the election and COVID-19, on the platforms. That is a significant challenge in a country facing potentially dramatic changes in how people vote, with expected widespread use of mail-in ballots creating openings to cast doubt on the results and even spread false information.

Facebook said Thursday that it is working to help Americans vote by mail, including by notifying users about how to request ballots and whether the date of their state’s election has changed.

The Vote By Mail notification connects Facebook users to information about how to request a ballot. It is targeted to voters in states where no excuse is needed to vote by mail or where fears of the coronavirus are accepted as a universal excuse.

In working to facilitate voting by mail during the pandemic, the company is stepping onto politically sensitive ground. Trump and other Republicans are trying to limit such voting, while Democrats are pushing it to boost turnout.

See:Biden supports nationwide voting by mail, calls Trump’s opposition ‘un-American’

Democrats pressed the Facebook and Twitter representatives on why certain content, including tweets by Trump referencing the shooting of looters and a video that was doctored to make House Speaker Nancy Pelosi look intoxicated, were not taken down and remained on their platforms. The questions were part of persistent criticism of Facebook by Democrats who say CEO Mark Zuckerberg has refused to take action on inflammatory posts by Trump.

See:Facebook launches voting information hub, but still won’t block Trump misinformation

The hearing came as Big Tech faces increasing pressure to monitor content and be transparent about the accuracy of information visible to users. Twitter has begun labeling tweets based on manipulated media that are attempting to confuse and mislead people, and has taken steps to prohibit paid political advertising, including by government-controlled news media entities.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, proposed this week rolling back legal protections for technology companies for material posted on their platforms.

Of particular concern heading into November are foreign influence operations, reliant on bogus social media accounts, aimed at swaying opinion. An investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller revealed a vast Russian effort to sow discord on the internet during the 2016 presidential election campaign by playing up divisive social issues.

Facebook said that two days before the 2018 elections, it dismantled more than 100 accounts linked to the same operation. Between January and March of this year, the company said it dismantled roughly 1.7 billion accounts.


Facebook Removes Trump Campaign Ads Containing Symbols Reminiscent Of The Nazi Era

Shivdeep Dhaliwal , Benzinga Staff Writer  June 19, 2020




Advertisements and posts from the Trump campaign that contained an upside-down red triangle, a former symbol used by Nazis to identify political opponents, were removed by Facebook Inc. FB citing a policy against hate.
What Happened

On Thursday, Facebook removed the Trump campaign materials featuring the offensive symbol saying, “Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group's symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol,” reported NPR.

One advertisement laid claim that dangerous “MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem.”

The Trump campaign responded in a tweet claiming the symbol is an emoji and widely used by Antifa. The campaign also said that it is not in the Anti-Defamation League Hate Symbols Database.

The League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, told NPR that the database is not a collection of historical Nazi imagery but rather “symbols commonly used by modern extremist groups and white supremacists in the United States.”

Greenblatt also took to Twitter to explain the offensiveness of the symbol.

The Nazis used red triangles to identify their political victims in concentration camps. Using it to attack political opponents is highly offensive. @POTUS' campaign needs to learn its history, as ignorance is no excuse for using Nazi-related symbols. https://t.co/7R7aGLD7kl

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) June 18, 2020
Why It Matters

According to NPR, the Trump advertisements had garnered more than a million impressions on Facebook, a social network with 2.5 billion users.

Media Matters For America, a left-leaning non-profit organization claimed that on Wednesday, the Trump campaign ran 88 advertisements on Facebook pages for Trump, Pence, and team Trump with the symbol.

While Twitter Inc. TWTR 0.03% has taken to moderating and fact-checking Trump’s tweets, Facebook has taken the opposite approach and refused to do the same.

Earlier in March, Facebook removed a campaign advertisement regarding the official United States Census that violated the social network’s policy on publishing fake or misleading information.

Price Action

Facebook shares traded 0.24% higher at $236.50 in the after-hours session on Thursday. The shares had closed the regular session 0.17% higher at $235.94.

Image: Screenshot of Facebook posts

© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Nazis used red triangles to mark political prisoners. 

That symbol is why Facebook banned a Donald Trump reelection campaign ad.

A red triangle that marked 'political prisoners' was the most common category of prisoners registered at the German Nazi #Auschwitz camp.

A red triangle was once a common sight at Nazi concentration camps, a part of history now thrust into the national spotlight by a banned political campaign ad.

Facebook moved Thursday to remove ads from President Donald Trump's reelection campaign that the company said violated its policies on "organized hate" and were a "banned hate group's symbol," an upside-down red triangle.

Joel Shannon, USA TODAY•June 18, 2020

The symbol is not listed in the Anti-Defamation League's database of symbols of hate and resembles an emoji that can be easily used. At particular issue currently: It may also be tied to antifa, an umbrella term for leftist militants.

In the historical context of Nazi concentration camps, however, the meaning of the symbol is well-documented.

Prisoners in concentration camps were identified using a system of symbols, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The practice of using triangles in that system started in the late 1930s, according to the 

.

Siegmund Sobolewski of the Auschwitz Awareness Society in Alberta, Canada, dressed in a uniform used by prisoners at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, rests during memorials marking the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp, Thursday, Jan 26, 1995. Sobolewski was a prisoner at the camp for over four years
NOTICE THE RED TRIANGLE WITH P IN THE CENTRE FOR POLITICAL PRISONER

Some examples of how the system would work, according to the sites:

Gay victims were forced to wear pink triangles.

Criminals, including those convicted of minor offenses, were given green triangles.

Jewish people were given yellow triangles arranged to form the Star of David. The top triangle in the star could be another color to mark them as an additional type of prisoner.

Political prisoners were forced to wear red triangles.

And those red triangles were common in the camps. The Auschwitz Memorial tweeted Thursday that 95% of prisoners at Auschwitz were accused of political crimes in August 1944. A letter could also be included inside the triangle to mark a person's nationality, the museum said.

A red triangle that marked 'political prisoners' was the most common category of prisoners registered at the German Nazi #Auschwitz camp.

In August 1944, political prisoners constituted 95 percent of camp prisoners'. A letter inside the triangle could mark the nationality. pic.twitter.com/jBuNn0xmL1
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) June 18, 2020

"Social Democrats, Communists, trade unionists and other persons regarded as political opponents by the Nazis wore red triangles. Often a joke about Hitler or a denunciation could suffice for someone to be arrested as a 'political,'" according to an article published by the International Center on Nazi Persecution.

Political opponents were among some of the first victims of Nazi concentration camps, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reports.

People considered "enemies of the state" were housed at various types of camps, some open for more than a decade, the museum says.

The term "concentration camp" can include a variety of incarceration sites, including forced labor camps and "killing centers" used for mass genocide, particularly of Jewish people, the museum says.

Contributing: Nicholas Wu, USA TODAY; The Associated Press.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nazis used red triangles. Are they a symbol of 'organized hate'?

Coronavirus update: U.S. case tally climbs above 2.2 million as Tulsa prepares for Trump’s indoor rally


Published: June 19, 2020 By  Ciara Linnan

Supporters of President Donald Trump sleep while lined up to attend a campaign rally planned for Saturday. GETTY IMAGES
The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus illness COVID-19 in the U.S. rose above 2.2 million on Friday, as Tulsa, Okla., geared up for President Donald Trump’s planned campaign rally on Saturday night.

A group of local business owners and residents, worried at the prospect of a fresh outbreak of infections at the 19,000-seat indoor arena if attendees do not observe the safety guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had sued the owner of the venue to block it, but a Tulsa County judge denied their request for an injunction. The group has appealed the decision with the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which is expected to make a ruling on Friday, as the Washington Post reported.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines for reopening safely last Friday, and identified the highest risk of spreading the virus as stemming from: “large in-person gatherings where it is difficult for individuals to remain spaced at least 6 feet apart and attendees travel from outside the local area.”

From the CDC:Considerations for Daily Life and Considerations for Events and Gatherings

Trump’s rallies tend to involve attendees queuing outside for hours before going through security and into arenas, where they cheer, shout and chant, all risk factors for spreading the droplets that contain the virus. The Trump campaign has acknowledged that risk by insisting that those who attend sign legal waivers absolving Trump and his staff of any blame, if people get sick or are injured.

Read: What we do know — and don’t know — about the coronavirus at Day 100 of the pandemic

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, reiterated in an interview with the Washington Post his message that Americans should continue to observe social distancing, frequently was their hands and cover their faces in public.

“When you have a congregation of people, you increase the risk. It doesn’t matter why they’re congregating or where they’re congregating. When you have a congregation of people in a setting in which there’s active virus circulating in the community, you are at risk. You need to wear a mask.”

For more on Tulsa, read:Trump rally attendees dismiss heat and coronavirus concerns as they line up outside Tulsa arena

Face masks have been caught up in a culture skirmish that has seen many resist wearing them, including President Donald Trump, who has theorized this week that some Americans are wearing them not for stemming the spread of a deadly virus but to express displeasure with him. The White House has been criticized for failing to push the message that masks are an important means of containing the spread of COVID-19, although local officials have stepped into the vacuum.

Read:Despite concerning data, White House continues to play down coronavirus worries

California Gov. Gavin Newsom made them mandatory for Californians when they’re in public on Thursday.

Fauci said the virus is “one of the most highly transmissible viruses that we know of,” and urged Americans to pull together and work to get the outbreak under control. “It’s tough for everyone. But remember, we are in this all together. We’re not just separate individual components. We’re in it together.”

Don’t miss:100 days of the COVID-19 pandemic: 5 critical mistakes that created the biggest public health crisis in a generation
Latest tallies

There are now 8.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, and at least 454,582 people have died, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. At least 4.2 million people have recovered.

The pandemic is actually accelerating, according to the World Health Organization, which said it received reports of a record of more than 150,000 new cases on Thursday. WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu told reporters that about half of those new cases came from the Americas.

“The world is in a new and dangerous phase,” Tedros said. “We call on all countries and all people to exercise extreme vigilance.”

The U.S. has the highest case toll in the world at 2.19 million and the highest death toll at 118,467, with 20 states still seeing daily increases in infections, including Florida, Texas and Georgia.

Brazil has 978,142 cases and 47,748 fatalities, the data show, the second highest death toll in the world.

Russia has 568,292 cases and 7,831 fatalities. India has 380,532 cases and 12,573 deaths.

The U.K. has 301,935 cases and 42,546 deaths, the highest death toll in Europe and now third highest in the world.

Spain has 245,268 cases and 27,136 deaths, while Italy, another early hot spot in Europe, has 238,159 cases and 34,514 deaths.

Peru moved past Italy by case number, with 244,388 cases and 7,461 deaths.

Chile, Iran, France, Germany, Turkey, Pakistan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and Canada are next and all ahead of China, where the illness was first reported late last year.

China has 84,494 cases and 4,638 deaths. China has shut down parts of Beijing after a fresh cluster of cases.




What are companies saying?
The IPO market continued to heat up with supermarket operator Albertsons Cos. ACI, +3.69% setting terms for its planned deal on Thursday. The company is planning to sell 65.8 million shares priced at $18 to $20 to share, to raise $1.3 billion at the top of the range.

Albertsons is profitable, earning $466 million in 2019 on sales of $62.5 billion. It has reported strong demand for delivery and pickup at its stores during the pandemic. The company has filed to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “ACI.”

Chinese oncology biotech Genetron Holdings Ltd. priced its IPO at $16 per American depositary share, above its $11.50-to-$13.50 price range. The company upsized the deal early Thursday, indicating strong demand for its paper. The shares, trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “GTH,” jumped 10% in their post-IPO debut.


‘We did not want to be drawn into a political controversy. We thought it might be counterproductive if we forced mask wearing on those people who believe strongly that it is not necessary.’— Adam Arom, CEO of cinema chain AMC

Elsewhere, companies continued to update investors on their reopening plans and post their latest earnings.

Here are the latest things companies have said about COVID-19:

• AMC Theatres, the biggest cinema chain in the U.S. that’s owned by AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. AMC, -1.95%, will require all guests to wear face masks when it reopens its cinemas across the U.S. on July 15. The Leawood, Kansas-based company made the decision after listening to its customers and to scientific advisers, who recommend face masks to stop the spread of the coronavirus illness COVID-19. The announcement comes after AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron told Variety on Thursday that the company would not force customers to wear face masks, as he did not want to become part of what is now a political hot potato. His comments “prompted an intense and immediate outcry from our customers, and it is clear from this response that we did not go far enough on the usage of masks,” the executive said on Friday. “At AMC Theatres, we think it is absolutely crucial that we listen to our guests. Accordingly, and with the full support of our scientific advisors, we are reversing course and are changing our guest mask policy.” AMC will continue to monitor the scientific community’s thinking on the efficacy of masks and will look at the varying case numbers around the country as it moves forward. It will make face masks available for a nominal price of $1.00 each.

What we do know — and don’t know — about the coronavirus at day 100 of the pandemicPublished: June 18, 2020 at 1:56 p.m. ET
By
Jaimy Lee


Does having antibodies provide immunity? When will herd immunity kick in? Will there be a viable vaccine?


IRF - Frederick 3/9/2020 10:05 110000 8.0 80 Imaging #2020-04-E SARS-COV-2 XpixCal=3.848812 YpixCal=3.848812 Unit=nm ##fv3 4096 3008 7.0.1.147 Blank1 Blank2 ##fv4 NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH

Scientists and infectious-disease experts are pushing hard to understand more about the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and how to treat patients suffering from the sometimes deadly illness and prevent transmission.

In the roughly three months since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared regional COVID-19 outbreaks a worldwide pandemic and hundreds of millions of Americans began to observe stay-at-home orders, much has changed. As of June 18, more than two million people in the U.S. have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 117,000 have died, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

We have a standard of care for hospitalized patients, though that is sure to evolve. We know that masks and physical distancing prevent transmission of the virus, though both practices have become politicized and aren’t always observed in Western countries where mask-wearing hasn’t been part of the culture. We know that investors overreact to mildly positive clinical news about COVID-19 treatments and vaccines and tend to ignore the bad news.

“The most important thing we’ve learned is that in the absence of a vaccine or therapeutic, aggressive public health action and individual public health practices can reduce transmission,” Dr. Brian Castrucci, an epidemiologist and president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, said in an email. “Mask-wearing, social distancing, and hand-washing are critical to mitigating the spread of the virus, reopening portions of the economy, and allowing us to return to some semblance of normalcy.”

Here’s what we know so far about COVID-19 treatments:

• Once-promising drugs have failed. Hydroxychloroquine, once lauded by President Donald Trump as a “very successful drug,” doesn’t reduce mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, according to studies conducted by Veterans Health Administration and the University of Minnesota, among others. Many clinical trials including the WHO’s Solidarity trial have stopped enrolling participants in their hydroxychloroquine trials, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week revoked the emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine.

• Gilead Sciences Inc.’s GILD, +4.63% remdesivir works; however, it’s no silver bullet. While the experimental drug hasn’t been proven to reduce deaths among severely ill patients, research found it can reduce the amount of time patients spend in the hospital, which in turn can help reduce capacity at overcrowded intensive care units in regions with severe outbreaks and allow patients to go home sooner.

• At least one drug can reduce death in severely ill patients, a finding announced this week on the heels of the FDA’s hydroxychloroquine decision. University of Oxford researchers said a clinical trial found that dexamethasone, a commonly prescribed steroid, can reduce mortality among hospitalized patients on ventilators and oxygen support.

• The growing clinical evidence behind remdesivir and dexamethasone matters for two reasons: having a widening range of viable treatments can reduce the number of deaths from COVID-19, reducing capacity in emergency rooms and intensive care units and can also create a safer environment for economies to reopen, according to Dr. Roger Shapiro, associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “It’s a lot better to be a patient today than in March,” he said.

Here’s what we know so far about how the virus behaves:

• The virus is more likely to spread by the droplets or aerosols we release when we speak, yell, or sing than on the shared surfaces we touch. Transmitting the disease becomes even more of a concern in enclosed indoor spaces than outdoors, especially in the presence of a super spreader. (“Everything we do outside is a lot safer,” Shapiro said.)

• COVID-19 has disproportionately sickened and killed certain groups of people, including people of color, men, the elderly, and those living in contained, crowded environments, like nursing homes and prisons. It is less likely to make children ill. More than one-third of the people who have died in the U.S. from COVID-19 lived in long-term care facilities. “COVID-19 has exposed the weakness of infection control programs in many of our nation’s long-term care and assisted living facilities,” said Ann Marie Pettis, a registered nurse and president-elect of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

• The U.S. has primarily focused on providing diagnostic testing to people who present with common COVID-19 symptoms but there are concerns about asymptomatic and presymptomaticindividuals, who may be inadvertently continuing to spread the disease. Experts want to see more random testing of the population. “People without symptoms can transmit the virus, making containment very challenging,” Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, wrote in an email.

• Wearing a mask or engaging in social distancing behaviors can prevent transmission of the virus. One reason why there may be fewer cases in China, Japan, and South Korea is that mask-wearing is more common in Asia. China, where the virus first emerged late last year, has about 84,000 cases, Japan has roughly 17,000 cases, and South Korea about 12,000 cases. “What we do know is that social distancing, hand washing and wearing a face mask in public are the ways people can help protect themselves and others,” Pettis said.

Here’s what we don’t know:

• Does having antibodies provide immunity for the people who have been exposed to or recovered from COVID-19? With other viruses, antibodies usually indicate a level of protection against re-infection with the same virus for a set period of time. People who had SARS, for example, had antibodies for about two years and weren’t thought to be susceptible to reinfection until three years after the first exposure to the severe acute respiratory syndrome. “How long does immunity last, and do you need a certain level of antibodies to be immune?” Wen asked.

• Will herd immunity kick in?And if it does, when? Some experts predict that about two-thirds of Americans would need to have antibodies to declare herd immunity in the U.S. But without practicing physical distancing, using masks, and developing a contract tracing system, “it’s impossible to flatten the curve,” said Dr. Bob Kocher, a partner at venture-capital firm Venrock and a member of California’s coronavirus testing task force. “The question is whether we have the desire and discipline to do that.”

• Will there be a viable vaccine? Vaccine development is moving at a record pace, with 13 vaccine candidates now in clinical trials worldwide. Moderna Inc. MRNA, +2.15% was the first company to release some clinical data from a Phase 1 study, finding that eight out of 45 participants in the first phase of its COVID-19 vaccine study developed neutralizing antibodies. However, vaccine development is notoriously difficult and time intensive — vaccines traditionally take up to seven years to be developed — and have to be both safe and efficacious.

Just 39 migrant kids avoided expulsion at the border in May

Camilo Montoya-Galvez,CBS News•June 18, 2020





The U.S. allowed just 39 unaccompanied migrant children at the southern border to stay and seek refuge in the country last month as immigration officials continued to expel most border-crossers, regardless of their age, under an emergency order the Trump administration says is needed to contain the coronavirus.

In May, officials at the southern border carried out 1,001 arrests of unaccompanied children, who are encountered without parents or legal guardians. However, only 39 of these migrant minors were transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement and avoided being expelled, according to unpublished government data obtained by CBS News.

The low number of referrals to the refugee agency in May is part of an unprecedented decline in the admissions of unauthorized migrant minors since March, when the expulsions policy was implemented. The Trump administration has argued that a directive by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) supersedes the laws that created a process for these minors to request asylum and other protections while in shelters overseen by the U.S. government.

After receiving 1,900 migrant minors in January and 2,273 in February, the Office of Refugee Resettlement reported 1,852 new admissions in March and just 62 in April. Since the agency has continued to release children to sponsors, who are typically family members in the U.S., the dwindling referrals from the border have fueled a dramatic drop in the number of minors in its care.

As of Thursday, the refugee agency had less than 975 migrant children in its custody — a 72% decline from late March. Through its current network of contracted shelters and other housing facilities, the agency has the capacity to care for more than 13,000 minors at a time.

Jennifer Nagda, a policy director at the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, said the U.S. can continue offering refuge to unaccompanied children during the pandemic, especially given the ample bed capacity the Office of Refugee Resettlement currently has.

"There were 1,000 children who came to our border and asked for help and — with 39 exceptions — every single one of them was turned away," Nagda told CBS News.

"If those children would have come into our system, large percentages of them would have been found to have claims for protection. They would be eligible for asylum. They would be eligible for protection as trafficking victims," she continued. "We are sending children back to traffickers, back to persecutors, back to abusers."

Since 2008, most non-Mexican unaccompanied migrant children have been protected from rapid deportations under a bipartisan anti-trafficking law that also requires border officials to transfer these minors to the refugee agency within three days, barring extraordinary circumstances. With the help of government-funded lawyers and child advocates, these children can apply for relief from deportation as they await to be released to sponsors.

Trump administration officials and immigration hawks have denounced this process as a series of "loopholes" that encourage teenagers and other minors to journey to the U.S. without proper documents in search of a better life.

Through the CDC directive, which has been extended indefinitely, the administration has largely shut this process down. Officials have defended the expulsions of children, saying that minors pose the same public health risk during a pandemic as adults and families.

So far, nearly 43,000 expulsions have been carried out under the CDC order, which officials have portrayed as a successful tool in blocking the entry of people who could spread the coronavirus in the U.S.

Customs and Border Protection carried out nearly 900 expulsions of unaccompanied minors in March and April, but has declined to provide figures for May. The agency has also not said how its officers determine whether to transfer a child to the Office of Refugee Resettlement during the pandemic.

"If this information were made public it would be exploited by human smugglers and activists, adding to cartel profits, and potentially raising the risk of infection within CBP holding spaces," spokesperson Matthew Dyman said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups filed two lawsuits on behalf of a 16-year-old Honduran teenage boy in U.S. custody and a 13-year-old Salvadoran girl who was expelled in April.

Though the relief sought in the lawsuits is limited to the two minors, advocates believe the court challenges can ultimately help them block the expulsions policy.

Magdalena, the mother of the 13-year-old girl, said she fears her daughter could be persecuted in El Salvador by the same gang members who prompted her to flee to the U.S. in 2013.

"It surprised me, filled me with sadness and disappointment," she said in an interview with CBS News, referring to her daughter's deportation. "Before being deported, they should have a fair trial. I think we all deserve that."

What Supreme Court? Trump's HHS pushes LGBT health rollback

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR,Associated Press•June 19, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration Friday moved forward with a rule that rolls back health care protections for transgender people, even as the Supreme Court barred sex discrimination against LGBT individuals on the job.

The rule from the Department of Health and Human Services was published in the Federal Register, the official record of the executive branch, with an effective date of Aug. 18. That will set off a barrage of lawsuits from gay rights and women's groups. It also signals to religious and social conservatives in President Donald Trump's political base that the administration remains committed to their causes as the president pursues his reelection.

The Trump administration rule would overturn Obama-era sex discrimination protections for transgender people in health care.

Strikingly similar to the underlying issues in the job discrimination case before the Supreme Court, the Trump health care rule rests on the idea that sex is determined by biology. The Obama version relied on a broader understanding shaped by a person's inner sense of being male, female, neither, or a combination.

Writing for the majority in this week's 6-3 decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch said, "An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex.

“Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what (civil rights law) forbids," wrote Gorsuch, who was nominated to the court by Trump.

The president thundered back in a tweet: “These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives.”

In the HHS rule, the department's Office for Civil Rights anticipated a Supreme Court ruling on job discrimination “will likely have ramifications” for its health discrimination rule.

But health care is different, HHS argued. “The binary biological character of sex (which is ultimately grounded in genetics) takes on special importance in the health context,” administration lawyers wrote. “Those implications might not be fully addressed by future (job discrimination) rulings even if courts were to deem the categories of sexual orientation or gender identity to be encompassed by the prohibition on sex discrimination in (civil rights law).”

Cornell University constitutional law scholar Michael Dorf says that doesn't sound like a persuasive argument to him.

“I don't think it works very well,” said Dorf. “In Justice Gorsuch's opinion he's not saying the word ‘sex’ is ambiguous. He's saying that when you do all the reasoning, it's clear that ‘sex’ includes sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Civil rights laws on employment and health care may be different in a technical sense, said Dorf, but “it seems to be a very short distance to say (the Supreme Court ruling) also applies” to sex discrimination in health care.

Not so fast, said Gregory Baylor, an attorney for the religious liberty group Alliance Defending Freedom. “Biological sex matters in many health care settings in a way that it doesn't matter in many employment decisions,” Baylor said. He cited the shortcomings of drug trials that use male patients but not women, when there can be differences in how medications affect both genders.

But gay rights and women's groups say their arguments against the health care rule have clearly been strengthened by the Supreme Court.

“The decision puts the (HHS) rule on even shakier ground than it ever was,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a lawyer specializing in health care with the LGBTQ civil rights group Lamba Legal.

Michelle Banker, an attorney for the National Women's Law Center, said the administration's timing raises process questions that could later become important in a court challenge. It was only last week HHS announced it had finalized the rule.

“Agencies are required to make reasoned, rational decisions when they make policy,” said Banker. “The Supreme Court just weighed in and said that the legal interpretation they are relying on is wrong, and they have not grappled with that.”

The Obama-era rule was intended to carry out anti-discrimination provisions in former President Barack Obama's signature health care law, which included a provision that barred sex discrimination in health care. The Trump administration says its predecessor went beyond what Congress authorized in protecting gender identity as well as biological gender.

Another provision of the Obama rule bars discrimination in health care against women on grounds of having or not having abortions. The Trump rule overturns that as well. Baylor said there's nothing in the Supreme Court decision that would affect the Trump administration's decision.

HHS rejects charges by Trump administration critics that it's opening the way for discrimination.

“HHS respects the dignity of every human being," said Roger Severino, head of the department's civil rights office. “We vigorously protect and enforce the civil rights of all to the fullest extent permitted by our laws as passed by Congress.”

Chick-fil-A CEO urged white people to take action against racism and said he does not blame looters after multiple locations were damaged last week

Business Insider•June 19, 2020
 

Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy.
Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post/Getty Images

Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy urged white people to repent and take action against racism during a roundtable discussion Sunday at Passion City Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

Cathy said a dozen Chick-fil-A restaurants had been vandalized in the last week.

"My plea would be for the white people, rather than point fingers at that kind of criminal effort, would be to see the level of frustration and exasperation and almost a sense of hopelessness that exists among some of those activists within the African American community," Cathy said in the discussion.

Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy urged white people to take action against racism amid a period of tension and protest in the US, following the death Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who died after a white police officer shot him last week.

In a Sunday roundtable discussion at Passion City Church in Atlanta, Georgia with Passion City founder Louie Giglio and Lecrae, a Christian rapper, the fast-food chain CEO spoke of repentance and understanding.

The CEO said that a dozen Chick-fil-A restaurants had been vandalized in the last week, but urged white people not to place blame on the vandals.

"My plea would be for the white people, rather than point fingers at that kind of criminal effort, would be to see the level of frustration and exasperation and almost a sense of hopelessness that exists among some of those activists within the African-American community that are so exasperated," Cathy said.

Read more: The exec behind the Nike and Petco apps reveals why Chick-fil-A's chicken sandwich giveaways are a brilliant strategy

The Cathy family, which owns Chick-fil-A, cites Christian values as part of their philosophy guiding their leadership of the company. Founder Truett Cathy, Dan Cathy's father, translated his faith into his business practices, which has helped contribute to the fast-food giant's success.

During the roundtable, Cathy mentioned that "conscious and unconscious biases" at the workplace and in corporate offices are not entirely uncommon, mentioning a conversation he had with a Black Chick-fil-A employee who said she had experienced injustice in her job.

Dan Cathy previously outlined his thoughts on the current events in the US via a LinkedIn post, which was shared on the Chick-fil-A website. In the post, Cathy described the ways Chick-fil-A is helping to rebuild and donate resources to what he described as "the most distressed zip code in Georgia."

While discussing the topic of repentance, Cathy got up and shined Lecrae's shoes on stage and said that the world needs to have a sense of shame, embarrassment, and "an apologetic heart."

"Our silence is so huge in this time," Cathy said during the roundtable. "We cannot be silent. Somebody has to fight."

Read the original article on Business Insider

Elderly Black Lives Matter protester injured by police and trolled by Trump in hiding after death threats

The Independent•June 19, 2020

A still from the video of two Buffalo police officers shoving Martin Gugino to the ground: WBFO NPR /AFP via Getty Images

Martin Gugino, the protester shoved to the ground by Buffalo police officers during the George Floyd protests, is recuperating in a secret location due to threats he's received.

Mr Gugino's attorney said on Thursday that his client had received "concerning and threatening messages and one letter" since he was assaulted by police officers in Buffalo.

The 75-year activist was seen in a viral video being shoved by a police officer. After hitting the ground, Mr Gugino lay unmoving, blood seeping from his ear. The officers marched by and ignored him, even after becoming aware of the blood. At one point, one officer actively prevents another officer from stopping to help.

Days after the video began circulating online, President Donald Trump tweeted out a conspiracy theory that Mr Gugino could have been an "antifa provocateur" who was trying to "scan police communications in order to black out the equipment."

The president's tweet – as well as other conspiracy theories alleging that Mr Gugino, a Catholic peace activist, was a plant or he was faking his injuries – has made the elderly activist a target of the far right.

Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
June 9, 2020

His lawyer said the seriousness of the threats was still being determined.

"It is not clear that these are credible death threats. In order to avoid the risk, Martin will be recovering in an undisclosed location when he is released from the hospital. We do not expect that to happen for a good week, so things could change," Kelly Zarcone said.

Mr Gugino has been hospitalised since his injury, with recent reports suggesting he suffered a brain injury and hasn't been able to walk.

The police officers who shoved him, Robert McCabe and Aaron Togalski, were suspended from the Buffalo police department and were charged with assault. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Following their suspension, 57 of their fellow officers resigned their assignments on the Buffalo police department's emergency response team. Originally the resignations were publicised as an act of solidarity by the police union representing the department, but officers later refuted that claim, instead attributing the mass resignations to fears that the union wouldn't cover their legal fees if they were sued over actions they took in the George Floyd protests.