Protests Started Over A Month Ago, But The Fight For Black Lives Rages On

ELLY BELLE UPDATED 6 JULY 2020,

PHOTO: AL SEIB/LOS ANGELES TIMES/SHUTTERSTOCK.

It's been over a month since Black Lives Matter protests started after the police killed George Floyd in May. Since then, protesters in Minneapolis were able to push the city council to disband the police department and begin to reimagine what their security systems will look like. But the protests — and the actions that have come out of them — are not isolated to the city where George Floyd was suffocated and killed: Across America, protesters have continued to demand that officials defund and abolish police forces and change the country's systemised racism altogether.

But one month of civil unrest later and it doesn't seem that the movement to take action is slowing down by any means. On Monday 29th June, Democrats in Congress proposed legislation that aims to end excessive use of force by police, and get rid of protections that shield police officers who are accused of misconduct from being prosecuted.

While laws that protect police officers have already been undone in places like New York, a federal law would be an expansive intervention in the way policing works across the country. In cities like Portland and Minneapolis, student-led campaigns have pushed public school boards to cut ties with the police and take officers out of schools. For Portland schools, that means freeing up $1 million (£850,000) to be used on much-needed social services and more.

Despite individual wins and federal policy proposals, protesters and organisers in most cities are still fighting for officials to take real action around the main demand from protesters: defunding police departments and reallocating the funds to underfunded services like education and housing.

In Seattle, New York, Baltimore, Portland, and elsewhere, budgets remain in the high millions and billions even after cuts that might seem substantial at first glance. In Seattle, for example, protesters rejected a recent proposal by Mayor Jenny Durkan to cut the police budget by $20 million, which would only be a 5% reduction in funding. And in Los Angeles, council members approved a budget cut of $150 million to LAPD's $1 billion (£800m), still a small slash.

Advocates are also asking for real change, rather than symbolic gestures. While officials like DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have named plazas in honour of Black Lives Matter and had “BLACK LIVES MATTER” murals and words painted on streets, activists have said and shown that they want much more than PR stunts that don’t provide any material change. Still, the ever-growing size of the movement has continued to ignite people's passion to keep protesting and organising for real justice.
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Most recently, protests have taken the form of staged sit-ins at government buildings in response to moves for reforms and adjusted budgets rather than defunding plans. In New York, protesters have camped out at City Hall, waging Occupy City Hall for more than a week, in an attempt to pressure de Blasio and other officials in charge of the budget to cut NYPD funds by at least $1 billion (£850m), and reallocate it to social services.

On top of cutting the police budget, the #DefundNYPD campaign also demanded the city not increase NYPD budget lines in 2021, that no new policing-related initiatives are created, and more budget transparency. On the day of the budget vote, June 30, those occupying City Hall in Manhattan stayed the whole night watching the budget meeting from screens outside, with many disappointed in the budget outcome that failed to cut the $1 billion (£850m) demanded, provided $13 million to the NYPD (£10m) for "Special Expense," and further defunded necessary services like healthcare, affordable housing, and more.

"The City Council failed New Yorkers today. Instead of shrinking policing, the Council moved cops from the NYPD to other agencies, refused to institute a hiring freeze on police and failed to take meaningful steps to shrink the NYPD’s massive and abusive presence in our communities," Communities United for Police Reform said in a statement released on 1st July after the budget vote. "We will continue to fight for true justice for our communities, and for a budget that provides New Yorkers with the resources and services that we deserve.”

In Philadelphia, protesters have similarly asked city officials to reallocate police budgets into community services, homeless services, and libraries by holding a sit-in at the Municipal Services Building. This came as a last-ditch effort after weeks of protests achieved only a 4.3% reduction in the Philadelphia Police Department’s proposed 2021 budget.

Philadelphia has already proposed cutting the city's $19 million (£15.2m) increase to the police budget to $14 million (£11.2m). But according to Flan Park, an organiser in Philadelphia, this falls far short of what organisers demanded. Park said that allies called for at minimum, a $120 million (£96m) reduction to PPD — an amount equivalent to the total increase to police operating budgets since the current mayor began his first term in office, while other coalition organisations called for things like a 50% reduction and immediate abolition of the police department.

“Groups like Philly for Real Justice, Black Lives Matter Philly, and Black and Brown Workers Cooperative have been organising around the connections between police brutality and economic injustice toward Black Philadelphians for years before this summer," Flan says. "Their leadership has been pushing these issues for a long time. I don’t think that even a flat or no increase budget for the PPD would have happened this summer without years of groundwork coming to fruition as people rapidly mobilised. But this fight far from finished.”

The protests and demands won’t be dying down anytime soon. Over the last month, there have been protests in every state in America, with protests in major cities spanning Seattle to New York continuing each day since May 29. What started as individual protests to call for justice for those killed by police — including George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor — has quickly shifted into a nationwide movement to fundamentally end policing and transform communities.

Kandace Montgomery, an organiser with MPD150 in Minneapolis, who has been pushing to defund the police for years, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that this moment feels different from the early days of Black Lives Matter, as more people are joining the cause. “Folks in a very decentralised way are mobilising to the streets to demand justice. Organisers have been clear on this forever, but the general public is more clear that we need to eradicate systemic racism and abolish the police, and that is what feels different now.”

How Black Lives Matter fits into the long history of American radicalism

“Any movement that goes to the root of things is radical.”

By Sean Illing@seanillingsean.illing@vox.com Jul 2, 2020

Community organizations and activists demanding police accountability gathered for a rally and march at the clock in Grand Central Terminal on August 8, 2019, to commemorate the five-year anniversary of Mike Brown’s death by Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson. Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

Black Lives Matter was created in 2013 by three Black women — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman. Over the last seven years, it has evolved into something much bigger: a broad multiethnic liberation movement focused on criminal justice reform, racist policing, and adjacent causes.

During the course of this shift, the movement has not only expanded but become more radical in its demands for equality across the board. And yet, surprisingly, this has increased, rather than diminished, its appeal.

BLM had little support across the country as recently as 2017. But it has become steadily more popular, and in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, its popularity has surged to the point that it’s now supported by a majority of Americans. By any measure, that suggests BLM is succeeding — culturally and politically.

But how should we think of Black Lives Matter as a historical phenomenon? Is it the sort of radical social movement we’ve seen before in this country? Or is it something new, something different, without any precursors?

To get some answers, I reached out to Michael Kazin, a professor of history and American social movements at Georgetown University and also the co-editor of Dissent magazine. We discussed how BLM fits into the long tradition of American radicalism, what its proponents can learn from previous eras, and why he thinks BLM is both a political and a cultural struggle.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.
Sean Illing

As someone who studies the history of social movements in America, how do you view this moment?
Michael Kazin

It’s a remarkable moment in some ways, because we have a very unpopular right-wing president and a set of popular social movements on the left. Which is surprising, because usually social movements on the left get more popular when you have a liberal or progressive president in office. This is what happened in the ’30s and ’60s, for example. I think we might be witnessing the end of a conservative era.
Sean Illing

What does the end of a conservative era mean?
Michael Kazin

Well, we’ve had Democratic presidents in this era, Clinton and Obama, but the guiding ideas of the time have been conservative ideas about government and labor and race. And now that could be changing in a very radical way.

If Democrats are able to win the presidency and tip both houses of Congress, then you could see another major vault to the left in American history, the kind of vault we saw during Reconstruction and during the progressive eras in the ’30s and ’60s and early ’70s. But all of this energy doesn’t always translate to big legislative revolutions. For laws to pass, it’ll take a combination of left-wing social movements and politicians who are willing to accommodate those movements in important ways.
Sean Illing

The Black Lives Matter movement is at the forefront of this leftward push. Do you consider BLM a radical social movement, or does it just seem that way to those who are more invested in the current order?
Michael Kazin

Like all large social movements, it has its radical aspects and its more reformist aspects. That was true of the labor movement in the ’30s, which had a lot of communists and socialists in it. It was true of Reconstruction too, in which you had more radical Republicans like Thaddeus Stevens, who wanted to confiscate the land of anybody who had fought for the Confederacy and give it to African Americans, to freed slaves. We saw it in the ’60s as well, when the Black Freedom Movement had its reformist side pushing for integration of institutions and the Voter Rights Act, Civil Rights Act, and you had the Black Panthers and other Black Power groups who wanted one big revolution.

So you see this dynamic in every mass social movement. It’s hard to say what will become of BLM. You’ve got the different aspects to it. People can unite around some moderate demands like passing laws that will handcuff the police in terms of their capacity to use violence. The more radical aspects, like abolishing the police altogether, go much further. And there are conversations about reparations and restructuring the economy to ensure not just equal opportunities but equal outcomes.

As the movement gets larger, you’ll see more differences within it. But no single one of those manifestations will define the movement as a whole.
Sean Illing

What makes a “radical” movement radical? Is it more about the nature of the demands? Or how those demands are perceived by the power structure?
Michael Kazin

That’s a very good question. The power structure, of course, often perceives any movement that wants to change the fundamentals of how the country operates as radical. Martin Luther King Jr. was perceived to be a radical — and I think he was. But the demands he was making publicly, until the end of his life, really weren’t that radical. He simply wanted the 14th and 15th Amendments to be applied to Black people.

Any movement that goes to the root of things is radical. An anti-capitalism movement is radical. A movement which calls for reparations for African Americans is radical. There’s a radical ethics that diagnoses something wrong about the basic organization of society and seeks to undo that wrong, and conservative figures in power have always viewed these efforts as existential threats.

The New Deal was perceived as radically socialist by a lot of people in business and in the power structure, but in retrospect it was really just reformist.
Sean Illing

The shifting perception of these movements is fascinating to me, especially in this moment. In the case of Black Lives Matter, it’s remarkable to see just how popular it has become. In the last two weeks alone, I believe, support for BLM has increased as much as it has in the last two years.

What does that signal to you?
Michael Kazin

It signals that racial attitudes in America, which began to change after World War II and then took a big step forward in the 1960s with the success of the Black Freedom Movement and the Civil Rights Act, have really evolved. This has been a very long and hard road, with moments of backlash along the way, but this is what you’d expect because racism is so deeply woven into that fabric of American history and culture. Obviously, the horrific killing of George Floyd was a catalyst, but I think we’re seeing the results of young people coming of age and being much more open to racial equality than previous generations.
Sean Illing

And BLM, whatever one thinks of it, strikes me as the continuation of some of the most successful social movements in American history.
Michael Kazin

I think that’s right, and two of those movements, the Abolitionist movement and the Black Freedom Movement, were also organized around the demands of equality for African-Americans. Of course, you could say this is all part of one long movement, but it had various phases to it. I think what we’re seeing now is very much part of the Black Freedom Movement, which has had its ups and downs throughout its history. But the thread tying all of it together has always been the push for fundamental equality at every level of society and in every major institution.

What’s interesting about BLM is that it could be a catalyst to a reform movement in the same way the labor movement in the ’30s was essential to moving the Democratic Party to the left. A lot of people don’t know this, but it was really in the ’30s that the Democrats began to move away from Jim Crow. It took a long time, obviously, but that’s when it started, and it was because labor was interracial and labor was crucial to the success of the Democrats in the ’30s and ’40s.
Sean Illing

How were these previous movements greeted when they emerged? I ask because the goals seem, in retrospect, so sensible and obvious, but I imagine at the time they were seen as extremist and threatening.
Michael Kazin

Definitely. The great Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci talked about how social movements can change the common sense of society. What we all take to be normal or moral in society can change pretty quickly, and it changes because of the force and success of social movements. Black Lives Matter has been enormously successful in this respect. Any movement pushing for this level of change will be opposed by people who don’t support those changes — that’s just an axiom of politics. What’s astonishing about this movement is that it’s not provoking more backlash — at least not yet.
Sean Illing

Well, I wonder about the “not yet” part. I worry about movements like Black Lives Matter or “abolish the police” becoming so sprawling and disjointed that they lose their focus, or get overwhelmed by revolutionary spasms that may undercut the key goals.

Are there important lessons from the past on this front?
Michael Kazin

I was a New Leftist in the late ’60s. I was one of those people who went too far. I think I undermined some of my goals, even though in the end we were successful in winning our main demands, which were to fight for racial equality and an end to the Vietnam War. But along the way I did some stupid things.

I think one big lesson is that mass lawbreaking undermines a movement. As MLK used to say, you want the other side to be seen as the violent side, you want the other side reacting to your civil disobedience, to your respect for order. You don’t want to be seen as running amok without leadership, without discipline, because you’re trying to bring about change and people are scared of change. You don’t want people to be scared of you at the same time they’re scared of change. That’s one lesson.

Another lesson is the importance of building alliances. One of the reasons why I keep saying that leftists should support Biden and ally with Pelosi and Chuck Schumer this year is that we have to get as many Democrats as possible elected because only then will there be the political space to go further than they would like to go. There are limits to what a movement can create on its own. Eventually, you’ve got to get laws passed, and a movement can’t pass laws by itself.
Sean Illing

Is it better to view BLM or “abolish the police” less as political projects and more as cultural movements that shift the zeitgeist and therefore pave the way for political changes in the future?
Michael Kazin

It’s a great question, and I think it’s both for me. As I said before, it’s obviously helped to change the attitudes of a lot of white Americans and that’s a cultural change in consciousness. Without that change in consciousness, we can’t get real political changes because there would be too much resistance to them, and politicians are averse to doing things which are unpopular.

So it’s important to demand immediate change but also wise to not expect it to happen that fast. These things take a long time. If activists don’t have a longterm strategy, they’re going to fail. This isn’t easy, of course. On the one hand, you want movements to build on a sense of urgency when outrage happens, the way it did with George Floyd and with other Black Americans killed by the police. But at the same time, you can’t let that sense of urgency impede you from organizing for the long-term.
Sean Illing

My sense is that we’re still very much in the beginning of whatever this is, and so there’s a lot of symbolic activism and a lot of enthusiasm but not necessarily a clear strategy for seizing power. What do you think a movement like this can do to channel all this energy and goodwill into enduring, concrete changes?
Michael Kazin

I think it has to find ways to work with other movements on the left. The change these activists seek is one of economic equity as well as an end to racist treatment by the cops. That was true for the Black movement in Fredrick Douglass’s day as well as the freedom movement led, in part, by MLK in the 1960s. The fight to have the power over how the police treat you is necessarily a fight to gain more power and resources on the job, in one’s neighborhood, and in education. But Black people can’t win that fight by themselves. It will take allies from other races and a demand for universal programs in health care, the environment, housing, etc. — and interracial institutions like labor and, yes, the Democratic

AMERICA FIRST IS A KKK SLOGAN
The Logo On Trump's "America First Tee" Looks A Lot Like A Nazi Emblem
This isn’t the first time in recent weeks that Trump’s campaign has promoted imagery rooted in anti-Semitism.

By Johanna Silver
Published on 7/2/2020 

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is selling a T-shirt with a logo that many have condemned for its striking resemblance to Nazi imagery.

The “America First Tee” is available for $30 on the apparel section of Trump’s re-election campaign website, along with the description “Show your support for re-electing President Donald J. Trump! Let everyone know who you are voting for in 2020.”

“We finally have a President that puts AMERICA first,” the description continues.

Many people and groups, including a progressive Jewish organization and The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican PAC, were quick to flag the shirt’s logo. The imagery features an eagle with outspread wings holding a circular American flag in its talons, baring a stark resemblance to the national insignia of Nazi Germany.

The President of the United States is campaigning for reelection with a Nazi symbol. Again.

On the left: an official Trump/Pence “America First” tee.
On the right; the Iron Eagle, the official symbol of the Nazi party.
⁰It’s not an accident. Bigotry is their entire brand. pic.twitter.com/mSOBxwf7Wa— Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (@jewishaction) July 1, 2020


”America First” as a phrase has its roots in 1920s Klan history, but also in a 1930s pro-Nazi movement in America promoted by Charles Lindbergh.

Trump’s website is selling a tee shirt with the phrase on a graphic disturbingly similar to a Nazi symbol. pic.twitter.com/LCIZLeMLqk— Man With a Dog In the City (@meerkatrodeo) July 2, 2020



Come. On. pic.twitter.com/VtfgrM8hIW— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 2, 2020


This isn’t the first time in recent weeks that Trump’s campaign has promoted imagery rooted in anti-Semitism.

In June 2020, Facebook deactivated dozens of ads from President Trump’s reelection campaign against antifa and “far-left groups," that included a symbol that Nazis used in concentration camps to designate political prisoners.



Trump campaign runs ads with marking once used by Nazis to designate political prisoners via @isaacstanbecker https://t.co/iJDJidG2dD— Brandy Zadrozny (@BrandyZadrozny) June 18, 2020


In May, President Trump praised prominent anti-Semite Henry Ford for his “good bloodlines” during a visit to a Ford motor plant in Michigan, which many Jewish groups immediately condemned.

Trump has a history of making anti-Semitic remarks himself, as well as comments about eugenics. He infamously praised neo-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 as “very fine people,” discussing a “Unite the Right” rally in which a young woman named Heather Heyer was killed when a driver purposely plowed into a group of counter-protesters.

Other items for sale in Trump’s campaign shop include a “Defend The Police” T-shirt. A graphic on the shirt crosses out the word “defund,” which protesters across America have chanted in the streets in recent months. Another shirt bares the text “#YouAintBlack - Joe Biden,” referencing presumptive Democratic rival Biden’s comments in May to Charlamagne tha God about voting for him versus Trump on radio show “The Breakfast Club.” Biden later apologized for the remarks.

CAPITALISM HITS HOME WITH DR. HARRIET FRAAD
GEORGE FLOYD AND THE ERUPTION OF AMERICAN RAGE


On this part 1 of 2, America is a powder keg waiting to explode from 50 years of a class war in which we became the most unequal nation in the developed world. Our money equipped and paid the "public servants" who murdered George Floyd with depraved indifference. As a people, Americans have experienced our political leaders depraved indifference to our suffering as the rich got richer and all others felt the official knee in our necks. The old American dream was available to whites only. Now it has died. It was only a matter of time until the pain at privation for all exploded. George Floyd's murder stood for it all. We now have a moment to make class change. We cannot let this moment be used for a bit of police reform that allows capitalist class/race/gender exploitation to continue.



On this part 2 of 2, Dr. Fraad continues her discussion of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of "public servants." She argues that Americans have experienced our political leaders depraved indifference to our suffering as the rich got richer and all others felt the official knee in our necks. We now have a moment to make class change. We cannot let this moment be used for a bit of police reform that allows capitalist class/race/gender exploitation to continue.


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Truck Showing Trump 'Death Clock' For Coronavirus Circles White House On July 4th
The sign showed a running estimate of over 77,000 coronavirus deaths that could have been avoided had Trump acted earlier.

By Josephine Harvey, HuffPost US

A billboard truck showing the “Trump Death Clock” did laps around Washington, D.C., on Saturday, bearing a stark reminder of the number of deaths that might’ve been prevented had President Donald Trump taken earlier action to mitigate the coronavirus crisis.

As Trump pushed ahead with July 4th celebrations that brought crowds to the National Mall and White House South Lawn ― despite concerns that doing so would further the spread of coronavirus ― the truck circled through the capital. On the side of the truck was a running estimate of over 77,000 deaths that could have been avoided had social distancing measures been implemented on March 9, a week earlier than the White House acted.

The names of COVID-19 victims were also read over a loudspeaker, according to a press release from Death Clock co-sponsor Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group.

The Death Clock uses models from two leading epidemiologists that projected a 60% reduction in deaths had action been taken a week earlier. On March 9, Trump was still comparing coronavirus to “the common flu,” even though experts were sounding the alarm as early as January.

We've sent the @TrumpDeathClock to Trump's front doorstep during his reckless July 4th celebrations.

Experts have concluded that at least 77,000 of 132,000 US coronavirus deaths can be directly attributed to the president's incompetent COVID response.https://t.co/0OTgR83qyf— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) July 4, 2020

“Trump’s cruelty, casual indifference to the loss of human life and utter incompetence have combined to kill tens of thousands of Americans,” Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said in a press release.

“From the failure to act early to stop the pandemic to the refusal to implement mitigation guidelines and make personal protective equipment widely available, from the stunning dismissal of the importance of mask-wearing to his failure to take action to ensure a vaccine is available as soon as possible to everyone on the planet, Trump has worsened ― and continues to worsen ― the pandemic,” Weissman added.

The Death Clock billboard first appeared in New York City’s Times Square in May and has since been displayed in a number of cities across the country, including most recently in Tulsa, Oklahoma, ahead of Trump’s June 20 rally.

As a second wave of infections has surged around the U.S., Trump has continued to downplay the pandemic and host events for thousands of supporters.

To date, more than 2.8 million coronavirus cases have been recorded in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University’s running tally. There have also been nearly 130,000 deaths.

Heat waves have become more frequent and intense in most of the world since 1950s: study

The study comes as parts of the US face record heat over the holiday weekend

By Christopher Carbone | Fox News

Heat waves are increasing in intensity and frequency in most parts of the world since the 1950s, a new study has found.

Published on Friday in the journal Nature Communications, researchers found over the past 70 years, the total number of heat wave days worldwide was increasing and that all heat waves were getting longer.

“The time for inaction is over,” Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, the study's lead author who works at the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes, told The Guardian. “The dramatic region-by-region change in heat waves we have witnessed, and the rapid increase in the number of these events, are unequivocal indicators that global heating is with us and accelerating.”

Last week, parts of London were hit with record-breaking warmth. Scientists are increasingly alarmed about very high temperatures in the Arctic. A July 4th heat wave is set to pummel a huge swath of the United States, according to meteorologists.

Heat waves have become more frequent and intense over the last 70 years, a new study reveals. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

“The first half of July looks to have well-above-normal temperatures, at pretty high probabilities, beginning around the Fourth of July or slightly before,” Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch at the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, told NBC News.

The blast of heat could create a “ring of fire” pattern, in which storms circulating the edges of the heat dome spawn powerful thunderstorms, particularly over the northern Plains, Gottschalk told the network.


According to The Guardian, the most severe heat wave to hit the Mediterranean was in the summer of 2003, when it is believed that there were 70,000 deaths in Europe due to extreme heat. That season also led to billions of dollars in damage to forests and agriculture.

Palestinians file ICC complaint against Trump, Kushner and Netanyahu over annexation

BY BRETT WILKINS JULY 3, 2020

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP TALKS WITH ISRAEL PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU AND JARED KUSHNER IN JERUSALEM, MAY 22, 2017. (PHOTO: KOBI GIDEON/GPO)
A prominent Canadian human rights lawyer has submitted a request to the International Criminal Court ICC to investigate senior U.S. and Israeli officials for alleged war crimes committed against the Palestinian people.

William Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University in London, filed a lengthy Article 15 communication with the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor, or OTP on Tuesday asking for an investigation of the architects of the so-called “deal of the century,” also known as the Trump peace plan. The scheme would result in a nominally independent but effectively disjointed Palestinian “state” that would be established through land swaps with Israel and Israeli annexation. It would leave Palestinians cut off from each other in what some have called a “Swiss cheese state” and other have called “modern-day Bantustans.”The new complaint, filed on behalf of four Palestinians from the West Bank, names President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who was placed in charge of brokering the deal despite having no experience in foreign policy or the Middle East. The four Palestinians named in the filing are: Ahmad al-Khaldi, Gassan Khaled, Hasan M. Masan and Abderrahman F. Zaidan.

Palestine’s leaders and people have roundly rejected the U.S. plan. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called it the “slap of the century,” while chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called it the “fraud of the century.”

“The threatened annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel is an international crime defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” Schabas said at a virtual press conference announcing the new filing. “It is intricately linked to the war crime of changing the population of an occupied territory.” Schabas added that ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda “needs to address this as part of her ongoing investigation, casting the net beyond the Israeli leaders to their partners and accomplices in Washington, including Trump, Pompeo and Kushner.”

Under Article 15 of the ICC Rome Statute, any person or organization can send information regarding alleged war crimes to the OTP. The ICC prosecutor then determines whether the situation warrants a formal investigation. The new Article 15 communication asserts that the proposed U.S. plan will lead to an increase in crimes which the OTP is currently investigating. The new complaint states there is credible evidence that Trump, Pompeo, Kushner and other senior U.S. officials are complicit in what could be war crimes under international law, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies.”

A PALESTINIAN BEDOUIN LEAVES AN AREA FENCED OFF BY ISRAELI SETTLERS IN THE WEST BANK VILLAGE OF TUBAS, NEAR THE JORDAN VALLEY, ON NOVEMBER 9, 2010. (PHOTO: WAGDI ESHTAYAH/APA IMAGES)Since illegally occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in Palestine and the Golan Heights in Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War, over 200 Jews-only settlements have been built in the West Bank. There are currently more than 600,000 Israelis living in these settlements, in which Arabs cannot reside or often even enter, and which are also illegal under international law.

Israeli settlers continue to illegally seize land, expel inhabitants and destroy their homes. Settlers sometimes attack and brutally murder Palestinians, including children, who stand in their way. Palestinian movement is restricted by Jews-only roads, ubiquitously oppressive Israeli military checkpoints and a separation barrier — known to Palestinians as the apartheid wall — that cuts Palestinians off from each other, their land and their livelihoods.

Prominent international critics have called the ongoing Zionist colonization of Palestine an act of ethnic cleansing and the exclusively Jewish settlements a form of apartheid.

Last December, after years of delays and backtracking, the OTP announced it would investigate alleged war crimes committed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops against Palestinian civilians, including intentionally launching disproportionate attacks, willful killing and injury of Palestinians, intentionally attacking Red Cross and other medical personnel and facilities, unlawful transfer of Israeli civilians into illegally occupied Palestinian territory and construction and expansion of illegal Jewish-only settlements. In announcing its decision to investigate, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she believed that “war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.”

Netanyahu responded to the announcement by saying that the ICC “has no jurisdiction in this case” because the court “only has jurisdiction over petitions submitted by sovereign states,” and that “there has never been a Palestinian state.” Israel has not joined the ICC but the Palestinian Authority — which has limited autonomy under Israeli military occupation — is a member.

The Israeli government is pushing ahead with its own plan to annex up to 30 percent of the West Bank with or without coordinating with Washington. However, despite suggestions from Netanyahu that the imminent annexation would occur on July 1, the plan has apparently been delayed. “It seems unlikely to me that this will happen today,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told reporters on Wednesday.

Aside from the United States, most of the world opposes Israel’s annexation plan. A group of 47 experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council recently accused Israel of “profound human rights violations,” calling the annexation plan “a vision of 21st century apartheid.” Amnesty International condemned what it called Israel’s “cynical disregard for international law.” Last week, the Belgian parliament overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for punitive measures, including sanctions, against Israel if it annexes more of Palestine.

Meanwhile, President Trump continues to attack the ICC over its March decision to open an investigation into war crimes committed by all sides during the 19-year war in Afghanistan, including alleged torture, rape and other crimes by U.S. troops and intelligence agents. Last month, the Trump administration announced it would sanction ICC officials involved in probing U.S. crimes, imposing a travel ban on them and their families. The administration also said it would launch a counter-investigation into alleged ICC corruption.

Texas Mayors Hit Back At Trump’s Claim That 99% Of COVID-19 Cases Are ‘Harmless’

YES THE IDIOT SAID THAT

HOUSTON, TEXAS - November 1, 2017: Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner at Houston City Hall. (Photo by Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
By Summer Concepcion
|
July 5, 2020

The mayors of two Texas metropolitan areas on Sunday expressed their dismay with President Trump’s false claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless.”

Texas is currently considered a coronavirus hotspot, along with Florida and Texas, as it recently recorded six straight days of confirmed new cases above 5,000. The Lone Star state reported a record daily increase of 8,258 coronavirus cases and 7,890 hospitalizations on Saturday.

On Thursday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued a statewide rule requiring masks to be worn in public, marking a whiplash-inducing reversal after he long resisted taking the firm measures that other COVID-ravaged states adopted in light of surges in coronavirus cases.

During a Fourth of July event at the White House South Lawn on Saturday, the President claimed, without evidence, that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” thanks to testing almost 40 million people for the viral disease.

When pressed on Trump’s baseless claim the day before, the mayors of Houston and Austin highly disagreed with the President’s assertion.

Here’s what the Texas mayors had to say:
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner

When asked whether the President’s baseless claim that 99% of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless” holds up in Houston, Turner told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan that “no, that’s not the case.”

“I will tell you, a month ago one in 10 people were testing positive. Today, it’s one in four,” Turner said. “The number of people who are getting sick and going to the hospitals has exponentially increased. The number of people in our ICU beds has exponentially increased.”

Turner added that “if we don’t get our hands around this virus quickly,” Houston’s hospital system could be “in serious trouble” in about two weeks.

Watch Turner’s remarks below:


Houston Mayor Mayor Sylvester Turner says Trump's claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are "harmless" is "not the case” pic.twitter.com/uNproW8dLw

— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) July 5, 2020


Austin Mayor Steve Adler

Pressed on Trump’s false claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “completely harmless” during an interview on CNN, Adler said that the President’s remark “makes me angry” and that it’s “dangerous not to be sending a clear message to Americans.”

“We have the July 4 weekend, and we need everybody wearing masks,” Adler said. “And when they start hearing that kind of ambiguous message coming out of Washington, there are more and more people that won’t wear masks, that won’t social distance, that won’t do what it takes to keep a community safe.”

Adler argued that the President’s messaging is “wrong” and “dangerous.”

“I just have to hope that people aren’t going to listen to that, and they will stay focused on what they’re hearing here more locally,” Adler said, before adding that Austin is “standing ready” for another stay-at-home order due to being on a trajectory showing that intensive care units could be inundated within the next week.

Watch Adler’s remarks below:


Austin Mayor Steve Adler says Trump's claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are "harmless" makes him "angry" pic.twitter.com/7wDN5UoGXl

— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) July 5, 2020

FDA Chief Won’t Refute Trump’s Claim That 99% Of Coronavirus Cases

 Are ‘Harmless’

Stephen Hahn, commissioner of food and drugs at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), wears a protective covering during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on Jun... MORE
By Summer Concepcion
|
July 5, 2020 10:08 a.m.
FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn on Sunday wouldn’t push back on President Trump’s baseless claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” during a Fourth of July event at the White House South Lawn.
On Saturday, the President said, without evidence, that due to testing almost 40 million people for the coronavirus, “we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless.”
When CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Hahn on Trump’s comment the following morning, Hahn acknowledge the surging coronavirus cases in the country, but said that “it’s too early” and won’t “speculate on what the causation is there.”
After Hahn said that “the way out of this” is for all Americans is to follow the CDC and the White House Coronavirus Task Force’s guidelines, Bash circled back to the question of how Hahn feels about Trump’s baseless claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” as a member of the task force.
“I totally support the CDC and the information that they’re putting out with respect to this pandemic. I think it’s, again, really important,” Hahn said. “The guidelines that we’ve emphasized, the data that we have — again, it’s a rapidly evolving situation and we’re going to have more data. But we absolutely must take this seriously. We must institute these public health measures. We cannot back off from those. It’s a critically important for Americans to follow those guidelines and to protect the most vulnerable.”

Pressed again on Trump’s false claim, Hahn responded that he’s “not going to get into who is right and who is wrong.”
“What I’m going to say, Dana, is what I’ve said before: it’s a serious problem that we have,” Hahn said. “We’ve seen the surge in cases. We must do something to stem the tide, and we have this in our power to do this by following the guidance from the task force and the CDC.”
When Bash asked Hahn why he won’t say whether Trump’s claim was true or false, Hahn said that the White House Coronavirus Task Force has data showing “this is a serious problem” that “people need to take it seriously.”

Watch Hahn’s remarks below:


FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn won't say Trump is wrong when he claimed that 99% of coronavirus cases are "totally harmless" pic.twitter.com/GKaTnTdEnt

— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) July 5, 20
Key Coronavirus Crisis Links

TPM’s COVID-19 hub.
Josh Marshall’s Twitter List of Trusted Experts (Epidemiologists, Researchers, Clinicians, Journalists, Government Agencies) providing reliable real-time information on the COVID-19 Crisis.
COVID-19 Tracking Project (updated data on testing and infections in the U.S.).
Johns Hopkins Global COVID-19 Survey (most up to date numbers globally and for countries around the world).
Worldometers.info (extensive source of information and data visualizations on COVID-19 Crisis — discussion of data here).




Summer Concepcion is a newswriter for TPM based in New York. She previously covered the 2016 election for Fusion, conducted investigative research for The Nation Institute, and has written for NBC Chicago and the Chicago Reader.

Experts say coronavirus is spreading through ‘airborne transmission’ — and there could be major implications
Virginia Tech expert Linsey Marr said, “we’ve known since 1946 that coughing and talking generate aerosols.”


Published on July 4, 2020 By Bob Brigham


The World Health Organization was warned in an open letter sent by 239 scientists from 32 countries that COVID-19 is being spread through airborne transmission, The New York Times reported Saturday.

“If airborne transmission is a significant factor in the pandemic, especially in crowded spaces with poor ventilation, the consequences for containment will be significant. Masks may be needed indoors, even in socially distant settings. Health care workers may need N95 masks that filter out even the smallest respiratory droplets as they care for coronavirus patients,” the newspaper explained. “Ventilation systems in schools, nursing homes, residences and businesses may need to minimize recirculating air and add powerful new filters. Ultraviolet lights may be needed to kill viral particles floating in tiny droplets indoors.”

The debate is largely over the distinction between respiratory droplets or aerosols.
“The World Health Organization has long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets that, once expelled by infected people in coughs and sneezes, fall quickly to the floor,” the newspaper explained.

“Even in its latest update on the coronavirus, released June 29, the W.H.O. said airborne transmission of the virus is possible only after medical procedures that produce aerosols, or droplets smaller than 5 microns,” The Times explained. “Proper ventilation and N95 masks are of concern only in those circumstances, according to the W.H.O. Instead, its infection control guidance, before and during this pandemic, has heavily promoted the importance of handwashing as a primary prevention strategy, even though there is limited evidence for transmission of the virus from surfaces.”

The newspaper interviewed nearly 20 scientists for the story.

“Whether carried aloft by large droplets that zoom through the air after a sneeze, or by much smaller exhaled droplets that may glide the length of a room, these experts said, the coronavirus is borne through air and can infect people when inhaled,” the newspaper explained.

In Lebanon, single-concert festival serenades empty ruins

Issued on: 05/07/2020

Maestro Harout Fazlian conducts rehearsals ahead of the Sound of Resilience concert inside the Temple of Bacchus at the historic site of Baalbek in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, on July 4, 2020 - AFP

Beirut (AFP)

A philharmonic orchestra performed to spectator-free Roman ruins in east Lebanon Sunday, after a top summer festival downsized to a single concert in a year of economic meltdown and pandemic.

The Baalbek International Festival was instead beamed live on television and social media, in what its director called a message of "hope and resilience" amid ever-worsening daily woes.

The night kicked off with the Lebanese philharmonic orchestra and choir performing the national anthem.

They are expected to play a mix of classical music and tunes by composers ranging from Lebanon's Rahbani brothers to Beethoven.

The 150 musicians and chorists were scattered inside the Temple of Bacchus.

Festival director Nayla de Freige told AFP most artists were performing for free at the UNESCO-listed site.

The concert represents "a way of saying that Lebanon does not want to die. We have an extremely productive and creative art and culture sector," she said.

"We want to send a message of civilisation, hope and resilience."

Lebanon is known for its summer music festivals, which have in past years drawn large crowds every night and attracted performers like Shakira, Sting and Andrea Bocelli.

Other festivals have not yet announced their plans for this year.

Lebanon has recorded just 1,873 cases of COVID-19 including 36 deaths.

But measures to stem the spread of the virus have exacerbated the country's worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Since economic woes in the autumn sparked mass protests against a political class deemed irretrievably corrupt, tens of thousands have lost their jobs or part of their income, and prices have skyrocketed.

Banks have prevented depositors from withdrawing their dollar savings, while the local currency has lost more than 80 percent of its value to the greenback on the black market.

© 2020 AFP