ONLY WAY TO OPEN SCHOOLS

Chicago Public Schools to begin school year with remote learning

Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Chicago Public Schools announced Wednesday that schools will begin with remote learning when the school year begins in the fall.

CPS CEO Janice Jackson and Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the plan Wednesday, seeking to assure parents that while learning would take place exclusively online the schools would not be "cobbling things together" as Jackson suggested was the case when schools closed in March.

"There will be more of a traditional infrastructure that you see in a school setting; we're going to stand that up in a remote setting," Jackson said. "Teachers have to be available throughout the entire day to students."

Jackson said a final plan would be released Friday, but outlined that when schools reopen, attendance will be mandatory, the district will revert to normal grading and educators will be able to conduct classes from their classrooms in the schools.

RELATED U.N. chief: School closures have caused 'generational catastrophe'

The plan also includes a goal to move to a hybrid plan that would return students to school in November.

Officials originally planned to begin the school year using a hybrid plan in which students would attend in-person classes two days a week on a rotating basis, but said they opted to begin with online instruction after feedback from parents and public health guidelines.

CPS also faced pushback from the Chicago Teachers Union after they threatened to strike amid rising COVID-19 cases and its president, Jesse Sharkey, said last week Lightfoot did not "have the guts to close the schools."

RELATED Testing, tracing needed to prevent COVID-19 spread at schools, study finds

Sharkey on Wednesday praised the move as a "win for teachers, students and parents" while adding CTU members should be equal partners in improving the remote learning experience.

"We have a long way to go and a short time to get there," Sharkey said. "CPS must immediately start planning transparently and in partnership with our union to provide every student the educational, social and emotional supports they need to learn and grow."

IN URBAN COMMUNITIES WITH SUFFICIENT BROADBAND AND ACCESS TO COMPUTERS THIS WORKS

WHERE COMPUTERS ARE NOT AVAILABLE THEN EDUCATIONAL TV AND RADIO WILL HAVE TO BE IMPROVED ON

IN THE USA WITH DAPA YOU COULD MAKE ALL 

COMPUTER PROVIDERS DONATE ALL HARDWARE SOFTWARE TO LOCAL SCHOOLS. TAXPAYERS

FUND ONLY DAILY WAGES BENEFITS FOR WORKERS PRODUCING THE GOODS ALL ELSE IS PROFIT.

BY NOW ALL THOSE RIGHT WING IDEALISTS WHO CLAIM HOMESCHOOLING IS BETTER THAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE NOW FACING REALITY THAT HOMESCHOOLING IS A FAILURE. 

BECAUSE PARENTING IS NOT PEDAGOGY.

Trump makes pitch on Catholic TV: ‘Catholics like their Second Amendment so I saved the Second Amendment’

FOR TRUMP THERE IS BUT ONE AMENDMENT #2

HE HAS CONFUSED PAPISTS

PRO LIFE ANTI DEATH PENALTY ANTI WAR

WITH PROTESTANTS 

PRO LIFE PRO GUN ALL WHITE PRO DEATH PENALTY PRO WAR

 August 5, 2020 By David Edwards

President Donald Trump this week made a pitch to Catholic voters based on his assertion that he “saved the Second Amendment.”

In a Tuesday interview with the Catholic TV network EWTV, correspondent Tracy Sabol asked Trump if he had a message for Catholic voters.

“Well, I think anybody having to do with, frankly, religion, but certainly the Catholic Church, you have to be with President Trump when it comes to pro-life, when it comes to all of the things, these people are going to take all of your rights away, including Second Amendment,” the president said, “because, you know, Catholics like their Second Amendment. So I saved the Second Amendment.”

“If I wasn’t here, you wouldn’t have a Second Amendment,” Trump continued. “And pro-life is your big thing and you won’t be on that side of the issue, I guarantee, if the radical left, because they’re going to take over, they’re going to push [Joe Biden] around like he was nothing.”

The president also repeated the false claim that children are “virtually” immune to COVID-19.

“First of all, children are unbelievably strong, right? Their immune system,” he said. “So children just are, I guess I heard one doctor say, virtually they’re immune from it. They have a strong, they have a very strong something, and they are not affected.”

“And we have to open our schools,” he added. “And they’re also finding it’s wonderful to use computers, but it’s not a great way of learning.”

Watch the video below from EWTN.

There's Been A Major Increase In The Use Of Force Against Immigrants At ICE Detention Centers During The Pandemic

“We are numbers to them. We are not people.”

AMERIKA A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY 

THESE ARE REFUGEES NOT FELON'S

Hamed AleazizBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on August 5, 2020

John Moore / Getty Images
A guard escorts an immigrant detainee from his cell back into the general population at the Adelanto Detention Facility on Nov. 15, 2013, in Adelanto, California.

Jail guards pepper-sprayed the unit as immigrants lay down on the ground, screaming and coughing. The officers shot pepper ball rounds that ricocheted off jail tables, broken pieces striking a detainee’s eye. Fumes lingered in the air and made it hard for the detainees to breathe.

Immigrants who spoke with BuzzFeed News described the scene at the Adelanto ICE Processing Facility in Southern California on June 12 when private prison guards contracted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement pepper-sprayed and shot pepper balls against more than 150 detainees following a protest. Four detainees were taken to the hospital afterward.

Alejandro Ramirez said he and fellow immigrants were protesting rolling lockdowns of the jail in advance of a planned demonstration outside the facility by refusing the guards’ orders to return to their cells. In the weeks prior, demonstrators had broken a window and injured an Adelanto employee, according to the Victorville Press.

As a result of their protest, the detainees were pepper-sprayed. Another immigrant who spoke with BuzzFeed News said he saw multiple detainees pass out. A Los Angeles Times report described a detainee having a seizure, and another being hit by rubber bullets “as he told them he had leukemia.”

One of the pepper balls used struck a table, Ramirez said, and a broken piece cut his eye.

Ramirez told BuzzFeed News in July he couldn’t see out of one of his eyes for three days.

“We are numbers to them," he said. "We are not people. They are not going to listen to us. They are going to follow their rules. There is nothing we can do.”

He was later deported to Mexico.

The force used in Adelanto, which ICE said was needed to “preserve order” after multiple unsuccessful attempts to de-escalate, is the latest in a series of similar incidents since the beginning of the pandemic.

ICE officials do not proactively report these cases unless media outlets request the information, and the agency does not compile data from use-of-force incidents within detention centers nationwide. BuzzFeed News, however, reviewed internal government reports and has found that there has been a substantial increase in uses of force during the coronavirus pandemic.


John Moore / Getty Images
A blind detainee walks with a fellow immigrant at the Adelanto Detention Facility on Nov. 15, 2013, in Adelanto, California.

Since the end of March through the beginning of July, guards at detention centers across the country deployed force — pepper spray, pepper balls, pepper spray grenades — in incidents involving more than 10 immigrants at a time on a dozen occasions, according to a review of internal reports.

In total, more than 600 detainees have been subjected to these group uses of force. Other reports obtained by BuzzFeed News do not list how many detainees were affected. In one event, detention guards pepper-sprayed underneath a door after some detainees protested being isolated due to potential COVID-19 exposure, according to an internal report.

The recent figures stand in contrast to the period before the pandemic. In the six months prior to the health emergency — from September to March — there were two use-of-force incidents against more than 10 detainees, according to a review of the documents BuzzFeed News obtained.

ICE officials acknowledged the recent uptick, which they attributed to disruptive detainees.

“During the pandemic, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has seen more incidents where groups of detainees become confrontational with staff, sometimes acting in ways that are unsafe for the general population,” said Danielle Bennett, a spokesperson for the agency. “When such incidents occur, and staff is unable to deescalate the situation through other means, the use of OC spray is permitted and consistent with agency protocols, as described in the detention standards, to preserve order and maintain a safe environment.”

Medical experts, however, said the increased use of pepper spray during the pandemic in a closed space was concerning.

“It’s a bad idea. Pepper spray is an irritant of the respiratory system and often causes people to cough, and we know that cough increases the spread of virus,” said Marc Stern, a public health expert and faculty member at the University of Washington. “It comes with an additional risk that did not exist in pre-COVID times.”

Stern said guards should weigh whether using pepper spray could increase the risk of spreading the disease through the use of pepper spray inside the jails.

The incidents often follow a similar pattern, with force being used after detainees refuse commands from guards. Some incidents have been directly tied to the pandemic: detainees protesting conditions, resisting being quarantined, or being moved within the facility. ICE officials say that detainees involved were disruptive, disregarded orders, and in some cases were violent.

Immigrants and their advocates, however, believe the use of force is unjustified and excessive.

“The lack of transparency into these facilities have allowed guards to use force —including pepper spray, rubber bullets, and physical force — with impunity. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, this has only grown worse, due in part to the fear of people in detention as the virus continues to spread in facilities, sickening and killing people,” said Eunice Cho, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU.

Laura Rivera, the director of Southern Poverty Law Center’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative, said that detainees are advocating for “freedom” during the pandemic due to fears they will contract the disease in custody.

“In return, ICE routinely retaliates with ruthless force. Clad in riot gear, guards deploy pepper spray, pepper-ball ammunitions, and physical force,” she said.

Medical experts and immigrant advocates have warned that the highly contagious disease puts everyone in detention at risk. They’ve pointed out that detention centers have a lack of necessary space to accommodate proper social distancing guidelines. ICE has countered that the agency has ramped up testing and released many detainees who are medically vulnerable. As of late July, nearly 1,000 detainees had tested positive for COVID-19 and almost 4,000 had gotten the disease in custody.

In one incident, ICE medical officials held a meeting about COVID-19 at a detention center in Louisiana, according to a government document obtained by BuzzFeed News. During the class, a group of detainees began protesting and ignored the guards’ orders. Pepper spray was soon used to keep a group of detainees from escaping an area of the jail, the report stated.

In March, Mother Jones reported that an attorney representing a woman in the detention center said that she was told that "the women were coughing, crying, and that some fainted throughout the approximately one hour that they were locked in the room with tear gas.”

Later, in May, the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office used pepper spray on 25 detainees after they refused to be tested for COVID-19. Sheriff’s officials said that the immigrants “rushed violently” at correctional officers and broke windows in the facility. Advocate groups have denied the allegations. The ACLU has since sued to get video footage from the incident.

Rev. Annie Gonzalez Milliken, a minister at the First Parish in Bedford, said she got a call from one detainee the night the incident occurred.

He told her that the sheriff’s officials had grabbed him, and that the detainees had been sprayed in the face and in the mouth.

"They want to take us to the other unit to be tested, we don’t want to go on the other unit for cross-contamination, we want to be tested, but not moved,” she said the detainee told her.

The most recent incident came on July 1 at the Immigration Center of America in Farmville, Virginia, where more than 40 detainees were pepper-sprayed after they refused to return to their cells for a day population count. The detention center’s warden said in a federal court filing that the detainees had congregated in the center’s day room instead.

“Several officers and supervisors spoke with them and attempted to persuade them to return to their bunks in Dorm 7 on their own,” he said in the affidavit filed in federal court as part of a lawsuit filed by Capital Area Immigrants' Rights (CAIR) Coalition over the conditions in center. “After about thirty minutes, I authorized the use of pepper spray. Four of the detainees picked up chairs and used them as weapons against the officers. A total of 11 detainees became violent and are now isolated from the rest of Dorm 7 for disciplinary and safety reasons.”

The incident came as the detention center has seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases. As of early July, there were more than 250 detainees with the disease. Advocates have called the situation an “outbreak” and a “human rights crisis.”

In June, the detention center received 74 detainees from Arizona and Florida, 51 of whom tested positive for the disease.

“There's no doubt in my mind this egregious use of force had to do with the erupting COVID-19 outbreak that resulted from the ICE transfers. Our clients described feeling scared and sick, not getting adequate food or medical attention, people passing out in the dorms — they were simply trying to get answers and to be treated with dignity and respect,” said Sirine Shebaya, head of the National Immigration Project. “Instead, the guards attacked them with pepper spray and escalated a disastrous situation of their own making."


MORE ON THIS
The Trump Administration Said It's Not Expelling A Group Of Immigrant Children Held In A Hotel

Adolfo Flores · July 28, 2020

A Judge Blocked Trump's "Public Charge" Policy On Immigrants During The Pandemic

Hamed Aleaziz · July 29, 2020

Hamed Aleaziz is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

Rep. Ilhan Omar's challenger hit with campaign finance complaint

2020/8/4 ©Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks at a town hall meeting at the Colin Powell Center in Minneapolis. - Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Minneapolis Star Tribune/TNS

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party officials charged Tuesday that Antone Melton-Meaux, the top challenger to incumbent U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, skirted campaign finance laws by hiding some of his top political consultants in next week’s nationally watched Democratic primary.

A Federal Election Commission complaint obtained by the Minneapolis Star Tribune alleges that Melton-Meaux’s campaign violated federal election law by “conspiring to intentionally obscure” the identity of political consultants listed as limited liability corporations working on his challenge to Omar in a hotly contested race that has already seen each side raise more than $4 million.

“The campaign of Ilhan Omar’s primary opponent has gone against the values of the DFL Party by apparently working with vendors to set up mysterious shell companies to hide millions of dollars in spending,” DFL Chair Ken Martin said in a prepared statement.

Lee Hayes, a spokesman for Melton-Meaux’s campaign, called the FEC filing baseless and an attempt to distract from Omar’s own campaign finance issues, given her campaign has directed more than $1.6 million to a Washington, D.C., firm that employs her husband as a consultant.

That case is also before the FEC. “Her campaign money is coming into her own household and she is benefiting from that,” Hayes said.

The exchange was the latest in an increasingly bitter volley of campaign salvos in a race that has divided Democrats in a traditionally liberal district that includes Minneapolis and several western suburbs.

Melton-Meaux, an attorney-mediator, has sharpened his criticism of Omar’s turbulent first term in Congress, arguing that her national profile as an outspoken progressive has done little for the 5th Congressional District. Omar, running with the party endorsement, has questioned Melton-Meaux’s progressive credentials, citing a past critique of the Black Lives Matter movement and his legal work on behalf of companies in labor disputes.

Attacks between the two campaigns have intensified in recent weeks as the perception grows that Melton-Meaux is within striking distance of unseating Omar, the first Somali American in Congress. The primary is expected to all but decide the general election winner, even though Omar’s national profile as a foil for the political right has fueled fundraising for the top Republican in the race, north Minneapolis businessman Lacy Johnson. He also has raised more than $4 million.

Much of the money for all three candidates has come from out of state.

The new DFL complaint cites three companies that combined have provided nearly $1.7 million in services for what the Melton-Meaux campaign describes as direct mail, television advertising and strategic consulting.

The complaint notes that none of the three vendors provided services to any other federal candidate or political committee in the 2019-20 election cycle. Two of the three companies were registered as new businesses in the state of Delaware at the end of last year, according to a recent report in MinnPost.

The DFL filings quote an email that Melton-Meaux’s campaign sent to supporters Sunday that sought to explain why some of his consultants were listed as “LLCs,” or limited liability corporations. The Melton-Meaux email states that it was necessary because the Washington-based Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of the House Democrats, has a policy that “blacklists” political firms that work on behalf of campaigns against Democratic incumbents.

The Melton-Meaux campaign says the approach is legal. “The LLCs receiving payments are legitimate entities, and the described purposes for the payments were accurate,” said Scott Thomas, a former FEC chairman and campaign finance counsel for the Melton-Meaux campaign.

But the DFL argues in its complaint that it violates a federal election law provision which requires campaign committees to publicly identify any person that has received a campaign expenditure in excess of $200.

Omar herself was the subject of an FEC complaint by a conservative group last year following allegations in a divorce filing that she was in a romantic relationship with Tim Mynett. He’s a D.C. consultant whose firm, the E Street Group, is contracted to do political work for Omar.

Mynett and Omar revealed in March that they had married. Last Friday, she defended her campaign’s payments to his firm, saying that most of the money has gone directly to TV advertising and campaign literature. Unlike the firms in Melton-Meaux’s employ, the E Street Group is an established D.C. firm with Democratic clients around the country.

The FEC has lacked a quorum of members for much of the last year, making any rapid follow-up on complaints unlikely.

———

©2020 Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Antone Melton-Meaux is challenging Rep. Ilhan Omar for the DFL nomination in the Fifth Congressional District. He does much of his work online since the COVID-19 outbreak. - GLEN STUBBE/Minneapolis Star Tribune/TNS

‘This is a big deal’: Iowa Gov. ends voting ban for people with felony convictions
Published August 5, 2020 By Common Dreams


The new executive order means there is now no U.S. state categorically banning people with former convictions from voting.

In a development heralded as “a historic sea change,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed an executive order on Wednesday overturning the state’s policy of permanently banning those with felony convictions from voting.

“Today we take a significant step forward in acknowledging the importance of redemption, second chances, and the need to address inequalities in our justice system,” said Reynolds, a Republican, whose order (pdf) is expected to restore voting rights to roughly 40,000 people.

Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, welcomed the order.

“This is a big deal,” Gupta tweeted. “Iowa was the last remaining state that permanently and categorically banned people with former convictions from voting.”

Previously, those who’d completed felony sentences had to individually appeal to the governor for possible re-enfranchisement.

Eliza Sweren-Becke, voting rights and elections counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, responded similarly to the order, tweeting, “This is a HUGE—now NO state in the country has a policy of permanently and categorically banning people from voting because of past convictions—a historic sea change.”

BREAKING: Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds just restored voting rights to tens of thousands of Iowans with former convictions by executive order. This comes with no requirements to pay off fees and fines.
— Brennan Center (@BrennanCenter) August 5, 2020

The change is also good news for racial justice.

“This action will benefit people regardless of race or ethnicity, but with the grave racial disparities in our criminal justice system, it will very significantly benefit African Americans and other people of color,” Betty C. Andrews, president of the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP, said in a statement.

As KPBS reported:

Reynolds’ order restores voting rights to felons who have completed their sentence, including probation, parole, and special sentences that are associated with sex offenses. Reynolds’ order does not require payment of victim restitution or any other fines or fees as a condition of being able to vote, a point of contention in Florida that has been caught up in court.

The order doesn’t cover those convicted of felony homicide offenses—an exclusion lamented by ACLU of Iowa executive director Mark Stringer, who said his group would “continue to work to ensure that all Iowans who have completed their sentences can once again participate in the democracy that so profoundly affects them.”

Voting rights advocates also recognized that Wednesday’s win could be easily yanked away—they saw that happen in 2011 when then-Gov. Terry Branstad rescinded a 2005 executive order that had restored voting rights to Iowans who had completed sentences for felony convictions.

As such, said Stringer, “it’s important that we continue to pursue a more permanent fix to the problem of felony disenfranchisement in our state. Another governor could issue a different executive order to reverse this current executive order.”

“That’s why we’ll continue to advocate for an amendment to the Iowa Constitution,” he said.

Elizabeth Warren Wants To Know Why This Company Was Spying On BLM Protesters

A group of Democratic lawmakers is demanding answers about protester surveillance conducted by data broker Mobilewalla.

Caroline Haskins BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on August 4, 2020

Drew Angerer / Getty Images
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during a news conference.

Four lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, said Tuesday that they have "serious concerns" about data-mining company Mobilewalla following a BuzzFeed News story in June that showed the company had used cellphone location data to predict the race, age, gender, and home location of more than 17,000 Black Lives Matter protesters.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Mobilewalla CEO Anindya Datta, Warren, Sen. Ron Wyden, Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, and House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chair Carolyn Maloney demanded more information about the data that the company collects and how it’s used. They also asked which, if any, American and non-American governments have accessed the data.

The lawmakers, who said they were “concerned that data collected by Mobilewalla or other data brokers could be used to enable state-sponsored retaliation against protesters,” demanded Datta respond by Aug. 17.

“In June, your company released a report that disturbingly revealed that location data collected from cell phones was used to identify specific characteristics of American protesters at Black Lives Matter demonstrations around the United States,” the letter read. “We have serious concerns that your company’s data could be used for surveillance of Americans engaging in Constitutionally-protected speech.”

As BuzzFeed News reported, Mobilewalla analyzed location information data it collected from thousands of protesters' cellphones at protests in Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta between May 29 and May 31. Mobilewalla used this data to predict if protesters were male or female, young adult (18–34); middle-aged (35–54), or older (55+); and “African-American,” “Caucasian/Others,” “Hispanic,” or “Asian-American.” By using long-term location data, Mobilewalla also attempted to predict whether protesters were from the city of the protest or out of town. These findings were compiled in a report titled “George Floyd Protester Demographics: Insights Across 4 Major US Cities.”

Asked in June why Mobilewalla conducted this research, Datta offered little in the way of explanation. “It’s hard to tell you a specific reason as to why we did this,” he said. “But over time, a bunch of us in the company were watching with curiosity and some degree of alarm as to what’s going on.”

In their letter, the lawmakers said Mobilewalla had surveilled people who were “participating in First Amendment-protected activities." They also suggested that if the company gave cellphone data to a government agency, it may have violated a 2018 Supreme Court ruling which requires police to get a warrant first. There's currently no federal law that regulates how data brokers like Mobilewalla can buy, repackage, and sell people’s information.

In its privacy policy, Mobilewalla says it gets people’s information by purchasing mobile location data, browsing history, and device information from advertisers, data brokers, and internet service providers. Using artificial intelligence, the company then analyzes that information to predict people’s race, age, gender, zip code, and personal interests. It sells this information to advertisers to help them target people with ads.

However, Mobilewalla also has a history of working for political groups. As Motherboard reported, the company has worked with Republican super PACs, including efforts that targeted evangelical voters during the 2016 presidential election. Mobilewalla CEO Datta said in a podcast interview with Nathan Latka that the company monitored the movements of possible evangelicals on Election Day and told campaign workers how many of them were near a voting location.

Thousands of people in hundreds of cities have demonstrated against police brutality following the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, often demanding that cities defund their police departments and reallocate that money toward social services and education.

Police have sometimes retaliated against protesters violently, using weapons like tear gas, batons, mace, and their own police vehicles. In cities like Portland and New York, plainclothes federal offices have arrested demonstrators by sweeping them away in unmarked vans.

In their letter, the lawmakers asked Datta if Mobilewalla has collected and analyzed data from protesters in Portland, and if the company planned to put out a report or provide that data to law enforcement.


MORE ON THIS
Almost 17,000 Protesters Had No Idea A Tech Company Was Tracing Their Location

Caroline Haskins · June 25, 2020

Many Police Departments Have Software That Can Identify People In Crowds

Caroline Haskins · June 12, 2020

Here Are The Minneapolis Police's Tools To Identify Protesters

Caroline Haskins · May 29, 2020


Caroline Haskins is a technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

NEW POLICY 

THREE STRIKES YOU'RE DEAD
Nearly half of inmates at Arizona prison test positive for virus
BET NOT ALL OF THEM ARE IN THERE FOR MURDER
SOMETHING, SOMETHING, CRUEL AND INHUMAN TREATMENT

Issued on: 06/08/2020 

Los Angeles (AFP)

More than 500 inmates -- nearly half the population -- of a prison in the US state of Arizona have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officials said, while at a California prison the virus death toll hit 22.

The Arizona Department of Corrections said Tuesday that 517 inmates at the ASPC-Tucson Whetstone prison "have tested positive for COVID-19."

Those inmates "are currently being housed as a cohort together in separate areas and are receiving appropriate medical care. They will not be allowed back into the general population until they have been medically cleared," its statement read.


The coronavirus has severely afflicted US jails and penitentiaries, home to the world's biggest prison population, which comprises 2.3 million inmates.

Officials are unable to force adequate distancing in crowded cells and face shortages of medical personnel and personal protective gear.

Arizona, population 7.3 million, has reported more than 180,000 coronavirus cases, of which 1,429 are in prisons. Seven of its COVID-19 fatalities came in state prisons.

California however has reported 51 deaths among prisoners, including 22 in the notorious San Quentin prison just north of San Francisco.

The most recent victim "died August 4th at an outside hospital from what appear to be complications related to COVID-19," the California Department of Corrections said.

One day earlier prison authorities reported the death of a San Quentin prisoner on death row after contracting COVID-19, while five other inmates died between July 24 and 26.

California, population 40 million, has reported more than 524,000 coronavirus cases and 9,700 deaths.

In an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus in the close confines of prisons, since March 11 authorities in the state have released 15,683 inmates who were behind bars for minor crimes or were nearing the end of their sentences.

© 2020 AFP

US Border Patrol raids humanitarian aid camp, seizing phones and arresting migrants

AMERIKA IS  A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

Volunteers at Byrd Camp near Arivaca, Arizona managed to capture just a few images of the July 31, 2020 Border Patrol raid before agents seized their cellphones.

UNITED STATES / IMMIGRATION - 08/04/2020

At sunset on the evening of July 31, agents from the US Border Patrol and the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) raided a humanitarian aid station known as Byrd Camp near Arivaca, Arizona. Forces arrived with an armoured vehicle, two helicopters, and an estimated 24 other vehicles. More than 30 migrants were arrested, and many of the aid workers were detained. Agents arrived with a warrant to confiscate cellphones on the property, preventing most volunteers from documenting the raid.

Border Patrol agents had first entered the camp around 9am the morning of Thursday July 30 and detained one migrant receiving care. After the arrest, agents set up 24-hour surveillance around the camp’s property, with at least a dozen agents monitoring the camp at all times, aid workers said.

Byrd Camp offers medical treatment, water, and other resources to migrants crossing into the US illegally from Mexico. The region is known as one of the most dangerous desert passages along the 3,145-km border. In a statement, No More Deaths, a faith-based NGO that operates Byrd Camp, called the raid on their aid station a “military-style assault". BORTAC, known as the “SWAT team” of Border Patrol, is the same force that has recently been deployed in US cities like Portland to crack down on Black Lives Matter protests.


🚨🚨🚨 UPDATE — At sunset last night, in a military-style assault, Border Patrol raided our humanitarian aid camp, chasing and arresting 30+ people who were receiving care and detaining all aid workers, whose phones were confiscated along w/ any video footage of the raid. pic.twitter.com/yiGAB98KYi No More Deaths (@NoMoreDeaths) August 1, 2020
These are a few images volunteers managed to take of the raid before their phones were confiscated by Border Patrol agents.

“They confiscated all the cellphones they could find”
Hannah Taleb, a volunteer with No More Deaths, recounted the raid to the Observers team.
From all accounts it was a really hectic scene because they basically busted in with guns drawn. And they chased and terrorised and detained all of those people that were receiving care.

There were two helicopters circling overhead. They arrived with military vehicles. They brought a cameraman. The vehicles had the BORTAC insignia on them. And they had guns drawn. When volunteers approached asking to see a warrant for entry, they were detained and their cellphones were all taken. Two of the volunteers that approached first asking for a warrant were zip-tied and detained. We only have a little bit of video footage and camera photos from the incident because of that.

They searched the entire camp, and in doing so trashed it. They slashed tents. They destroyed medical supplies. They unhooked the power supply to our well. And we have built so much of our platform on why water is a right for people who are crossing.

They confiscated all the cellphones they could find, including the Red Cross phone that we have for people to make calls to their families and loved ones. They took them all: No More Death's phones, volunteers' phones, the Red Cross phone, and phones from those receiving care.

Border Patrol and BORTAC arrested people receiving care and ransacked the humanitarian aid station, ripping apart tents and destroying medical supplies. pic.twitter.com/jb5Ov4RwVJ No More Deaths (@NoMoreDeaths) August 2, 2020Images of destruction in the camp after the raid. Volunteers say the Border Patrol agents cut the power to the camp's well and destroyed medical supplies.

Especially with the current climate, they wanted to make sure that what they did was not documented in that moment. They were able to place those cellphones on the warrant, so they have some sort of legal backing for what they did. I think being able to have real-time, or close to live, video of what happened, would have looked really bad for them.

Border Patrol officials Aug. 4 told the group their cellphones would be held for at least a month, according to Taleb.

Although Border Patrol agents brought a cameraman, they had not released any images of the raid as of Aug. 5. Tucson sector Border Patrol Chief Roy Villareal published a brief statement on Twitter, writing that agents “executed a federal search warrant on the No More Deaths camp near Arivaca. Upon entry, over three dozen illegal border crossers were found in the camp".

In an earlier thread of tweets, Villareal wrote that agents had tracked a group of migrants in the desert “through remote mountains for two days” southeast of Arivaca. According to Villareal, Border Patrol EMT evaluated and detained a migrant “outside the perimeter of the camp” on July 30 and sent the migrant to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The 30+ people that were receiving care at Byrd Camp are listed as “items” to be seized during the raid; “illegal aliens” was placed at the end of a list including cell phones and documentation. pic.twitter.com/0XIfPFJd7X No More Deaths (@NoMoreDeaths) August 3, 2020
A copy of the warrant listing items to be seized, including "cellular phones" and "illegal aliens."
Representatives from No More Deaths dispute this account, saying the July 30 arrest occurred within the camp boundaries.

We know anecdotally and from the release of documents that when Border Patrol tracks people for as long as they say, they are trying to exhaust them [a tactic known as ‘chase and scatter’]. It's to make them not try to access resources, especially in this heat. I think it's really disgusting that their rationale for why they were surveilling and threatening to enter our camp was because they were tracking this group.

In a massive show of force, Border Patrol + BORTAC—the same militarized tactical unit recently mobilized against protestors in US cities—descended on the camp with an armored vehicle, three ATVS, two helicopters, and ~24 marked and unmarked vehicles. pic.twitter.com/z1MUlk7gad No More Deaths (@NoMoreDeaths) August 1, 2020
This video is one of the few recorded of the raid. Volunteers' cellphones were seized by Border Patrol and BORTAC agents.

A pattern of retaliation

Friday’s raid is similar to one that occurred at Byrd camp on June 15, 2017. On July 29, No More Deaths released documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that disclosed the involvement of BORTAC and the Border Patrol Union in the 2017 raid, Taleb said.

No More Deaths does have a really long history with raids unfortunately at this point.

A few days before the [July 31] raid, we released some FOIA-ed emails that showed that BORTAC was also involved with [the 2017] raid. I think that the move to confiscate cellphones was because of the media that we were able to do around the 2017 raid.
In 2017, volunteers from No More Deaths were able to post photos on social media as the raid was happening. They attached the phone number for US Customs and Border Protection in Arizona and a script for callers, asking people to call and demand that the surveillance end. Without cellphones, volunteers were unable to do so this time.


NEW PHOTOS:
One volunteer was able to get a few pictures from inside camp when BORTAC and Border Patrol entered.

Heavily armed agents drove straight into the humanitarian aid camp in a Bearcat tank as helicopters circled overhead. pic.twitter.com/Vnu9ecsQ9A No More Deaths (@NoMoreDeaths) August 2, 2020

The second, and currently only other, set of photos that a volunteer managed to take on July 31.

"Border Patrol has always worked hardest to suppress the narratives of those directly affected by the crisis they have created. We are simply an extension of that."

After the raid, the three dozen arrested migrants were loaded onto buses and sent to detention centres. The volunteers were released. The dangers for the arrested migrants are high, Taleb explains.

They detained and arrested over 30 people that night. They probably chose not to arrest our volunteers because they wouldn't get as much bad media for harming the lives of people migrating as they would for harming humanitarian aid workers. And they know that.

Immigration detention is a really deadly intervention in somebody's life. We know that Covid-19 is rampant in immigrant detention. We also know that there are many, many people that are being rapidly deported at this moment.

The M.O. of Border Patrol in the field every single day is violent. We saw kind of a microcosm of their tactics, just maybe with more guns and also with the Border Patrol cameraman on the scene standing on top of trucks and getting shots of people while they're getting pulled out.

Border Patrol has always worked hardest to suppress the narratives of those directly affected by the crisis they have created. We are simply an extension of that.

The people that have to bear the brunt of all of their actions against our organisation are the folks that are migrating.

People have been telling stories since the beginning of prevention through deterrence. It’s those narratives that tell the actual true story. It feels important to highlight this false reality that [Border Patrol agents] are rescuers in the desert, when they also create the crisis that causes people to die.

Article by Sophie Stuber

'Back to the Wild West': Gun ownership on the rise among anxious black Americans

WOULD THAT BE THE WILD WEST OF OAKLAND IN 1968 AND THE FOUNDING OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY 

Issued on: 05/08/2020 - 12:44Modified: 05/08/2020 - 12:46

A member of the Hudson Valley Nubian Gun Club in New York fires a weapon at a shooting range on July 30, 2020. © Reuters / France 24

Text by:Sam BALL|
Video by:Sam BALL

There has been a sharp rise in the number of black Americans buying firearms and joining gun clubs, according to the National African American Gun Association (NAGAA), purchases attributed to growing anxiety over the Covid-19 crisis and increased racial tensions following the death of George Floyd.

NAGAA says its figures shows gun ownership levels among black people has been growing in recent months, with the death of Floyd at the hands of white police officers in May and a subsequent spate of protests a particular driving factor. More than 2,000 people joined the group in the 36 hours after Floyd’s killing.

Damon Finch, president of all-black Hudson Valley Nubian Gun Club in New York, says he has also witnessed a similar trend.

He started the club earlier this year after noticing a spike in interest in firearms among the black community.

"Initially, we started off with just a couple of people getting together,” he told Reuters.





“And then all of a sudden, you start to get all these phone calls from people who were both firearm owners and also people who are looking to get firearms. And I figured, let's get together. Let's create a gun club.

“Our membership almost every night is doubling, tripling. It's just amazing how many people are now joining our group."

First-time gun owners include those who had never previously considered buying a firearm.

"At 61 years, I've not needed it, not ever thought of it. I would say 'Get the guns away. No, no, no!’ But now my views have changed because I guess the world is changing right before our eyes,” first-time gun owner Margaret Powell told Reuters.

"It's like we're going back in time to maybe the Wild, Wild West or something. Everybody has to have a gun.”

Some groups, such as Black Guns Matter, have advocated for black gun ownership as a means for self-protection in the wake of Floyd’s killing, the sometimes violent protests that have followed and other reports of police violence against black people.

Meanwhile, a newly formed and heavily armed black militia, the Not Fucking Around Coalition, has appeared at some recent protests.

"Self-preservation is universal law. We should be able to protect ourselves,” Gahiji Manderson, a member of the Hudson Valley Nubian Gun Club, told Reuters.

“We're not looking for trouble, but to be able to protect ourselves if trouble comes towards our way."

But it is not just black people buying weapons in growing numbers. Total US gun sales in June were the highest on record with 3.9 million firearms sold, according to figures from the Brookings Institute, in a country where firearms kill nearly 40,000 people a year.

US wants to eliminate Chinese apps from US app stores

MONOPOLY CAPITALISM
USA! USA! WE ARE (BULLY) NUMBER ONEIssued on: 06/08/2020 -

The targeting of app usage and cloud services expands the 5G Clean Path program the State Department unveiled on April 29

IT'S POLICY

Washington (AFP)

The US is expanding its China-targeted Clean Network program to include Chinese-made cellphone apps and cloud computing services that it claims are security risks, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Wednesday.

Pompeo said the US wants to ban untrusted Chinese apps from the app stores of US mobile carriers and phonemakers.

"With parent companies based in China, apps like TikTok, WeChat, and others are significant threats to the personal data of American citizens, not to mention tools for CCP content censorship," he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.


But he added that the US also wants to block American-made apps from being pre-installed, or made available for download, on Chinese-made phones and wireless equipment from global giant Huawei and other makers.

"We don't want companies to be complicit in Huawei's human rights abuses or the CCP's surveillance apparatus," the top US diplomat said.

Pompeo also said the US government will seek to limit the ability of Chinese service providers to collect, store and process sensitive data in the United States.

He cited specifically Chinese tech giants Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent.

His announcement came two days after President Donald Trump told Chinese tech company ByteDance to sell its hugely popular TikTok app to an American company or see it shut down by mid-September.

Washington says TikTok gleans massive amounts of personal data from hundreds of millions of users, which could be passed on to Chinese intelligence.

The targeting of app usage and cloud services expands the 5G Clean Path program the State Department unveiled on April 29.

At its core the program is a multi-country initiative to prevent Huawei and other Chinese telecom suppliers from dominating next-generation or 5G wireless telecom services.

The United States says Huawei technology could open the door for Chinese intelligence to easily tap communications in other countries.

The US government has banned Huawei equipment and strongly discouraged authorities and businesses around the country from using it.

China's ambassador in London Liu Xiaoming condemned on Wednesday the Clean Network program as bullying and called it contrary to free trade ideals.

"The US bullying on the issue of 5G not only undermines fair international trade rules, but also damages the environment of free global market. The US is not qualified at all to build so-called 'Clean Network,'" Liu said in a tweet.

© 2020 AFP