Azar says Trump family 'is a different situation than the rest of us' on COVID safety measures


Alexander Nazaryan National Correspondent, Yahoo News •October 2, 202


WASHINGTON — Testifying on Capitol Hill on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar faced questions about President Trump’s coronavirus illness and his refusal to compel his family and staff to wear face masks to Tuesday’s debate at Case Western University.

“The first family is a different situation than the rest of us,” Azar, who had not testified before Congress since February, said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar testifies before the House Oversight subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis on Friday. (Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)

During his testimony before the House Oversight coronavirus subcommittee, Azar was at pains to defend not only the administration’s response, but the president’s behavior, which has included downplaying, misrepresenting and mocking the advice of his own public health experts. Carefully choosing his words, Azar urged people to exercise “individual responsibility,” including by wearing face masks and practicing social distancing.

Azar wore a face mask as he spoke, as did the subcommittee’s Democrats. Republicans in Congress have generally declined to do so, leading to clashes in committee hearings. Trump has maligned both social distancing and mask wearing, but Azar — who has been at odds with Trump over the pandemic response — tried to downplay that highly inconvenient fact.

Asked by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., about the president’s large campaign rallies, Azar reiterated generic advice on handwashing, social distancing and wearing face masks. “That applies to any setting,” the former pharmaceutical executive said.

Trump’s rallies routinely contravene that advice, and Trump has mocked his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, for following the guidance of public health officials.

Pressed by Waters, Azar stayed on message. “Our advice is always the same,” he replied, declining to say whether he had ever personally discussed safety precautions with the president.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., at the House Oversight coronavirus subcommittee hearing on Friday. (Michael A. McCoy/Reuters)

A lawyer by training, Azar was circumspect in his answers, though he also sometimes showed irritation with Democrats who wanted to know about possible political influence by the White House over the administration’s scientific guidance on the pandemic response.

To coincide with the hearing, Democrats released a report that described 47 instances in which scientific action or advice was altered at the behest of the White House. The instances of alleged interference were, the Democrats’ report said, evidence of Trump “repeatedly overruling and sidelining top scientists and undermining Americans’ health to advance the President’s partisan agenda.”

The president’s illness, which Trump announced early Friday morning, cast an urgency over the proceedings. It was a development that could not be ignored, despite how much Republicans sought to talk about China or New York state.

Azar’s assertion that the first family was in a “different situation” than ordinary Americans was correct, to a degree. Members of the White House staff have recourse to rapid coronavirus tests. Most Americans must wait days to receive results of their coronavirus diagnostic tests. Given how quickly the virus spreads, that makes those results effectively useless.

ICE reverses COVID-19 measure, says it will resume arresting non-criminal migrants

Monique O. Madan, Miami Herald •September 29, 2020


U.S. immigration officials quietly announced they would resume regular apprehension and detention practices, an apparent reversal from an earlier temporary suspension of non-criminal enforcement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Late Friday afternoon, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement updated its COVID-19 information webpage to say that the agency is “confident that our officers can properly and safely carry out operations.”

The statement continued: “To help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, we have taken several precautionary measures — from ensuring that our front-line operators have adequate personal protective equipment, maximizing telework for agency personnel whose duties do not require them to be in the office, completing temperature checks before removal, and requiring the isolating of detainees as appropriate to prevent the spread in detention facilities.”

The announcement — which was not sent out to media outlets, a break in the usual protocol — replaced an agency statement that ICE publicly announced in March, when it said it would “adjust its enforcement posture.” The new statement no longer talks about using more “discretion” when arresting non-criminal undocumented migrants, an attempt to help stem the spread of the coronavirus.

In an email this week, ICE said the agency “does not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”

During the pandemic, the agency had said it would focus its enforcement on “public safety risks and individuals subject to mandatory detention based on criminal grounds.” Examples included investigations into child exploitation, gangs, narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, human smuggling and terrorism. For people who aren’t a subject of those investigations, the agency said it would “delay enforcement actions until after the crisis.”

Unlike its prior announcement, ICE’s new statement omits information about any immigrant population it would avoid arresting and detaining.

In an email, Andrea Flores, deputy immigration policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Miami Herald: “The pandemic is very much still ongoing, and disproportionately impacting Black and Brown communities.”

“More than 205,200 people in the United States have died from COVID-19, and more than 7.15 million people in the country have been diagnosed with the disease,” she said. “By resuming civil enforcement, ICE is increasing the likelihood that more immigrants and [Department of Homeland Security] staff will be exposed to this virus, not only in enforcement operations, but also in detention facilities.”

Over the weekend, a 56-year-old man held at a New Orleans ICE detention facility died from COVID-19, making him the eighth known person to die in immigrant detention after testing positive for the virus.

“ICE has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to provide safe and sanitary conditions — even in the best of circumstances. This is an overtly political decision 35 days from Election Day that will lead to even more avoidable deaths and COVID-19 infections,” Flores said. “ICE should be suspending civil immigration enforcement and reducing the number of people in immigration detention, not increasing the population with new arrests.”

Anger as Brazil revokes mangrove protection regulations

BBC•September 29, 2020

Mangroves are an important protection against climate change

The Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro has revoked regulations that protect tropical mangroves and other fragile coastal ecosystems.

Environmental groups have called the move a "crime".

Mangroves are an important protection against climate change.

President Bolsonaro's policies and rhetoric on the environment have caused widespread alarm, and the far-right leader has been accused of encouraging illegal activity.

The decision removed so-called "permanent protection zones" created in 2002 to preserve Brazil's many tropical mangroves and the sand-dune scrublands. It was taken by the National Environmental Council, led by controversial Environment Minister Ricardo Salles.

Environmental groups say the removal of the regulations will allow property developers to clear large areas of natural habitats for tourism, which could lead to their destruction.

"These areas are already under intense pressure from real-estate development," said Mario Mantovani, head of environmental group SOS Mata Atlantica.

"The 2002 regulations at least protected them from further destruction," he told the AFP news agency, calling their repeal "a crime against society".


Photography award winners show the fragility and beauty of mangrove forests


Surge in deforestation in Brazil's Amazon

One acre (4,000 sq m) of mangrove forest absorbs nearly the same amount of carbon dioxide as an acre of Amazon rainforest.

Since Mr Bolsonaro took power in January 2019, Brazil has been hit by environmental crises including an escalation of deforestation and wildfires.

This is not the first time Environment Minister Ricardo Salles has been involved in controversy since taking the job.

In a leaked recording of an April cabinet meeting with the president, Mr Salles said the coronavirus pandemic was a chance to roll back environmental regulations "now that the media's only talking about Covid".

"Even as we witness record environmental devastation and Brazil is in flames, Salles dedicates his time to promoting even more destruction," environmental group Greenpeace said in a statement on the new measures.

AMLO NEO-LIBERRAL
Thousands flock to Mexico City protest against President Lopez Obrador

Reuters•October 3, 2020

Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador delivers his second state of the union address at National Palace in Mexico City

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters marched through central Mexico City on Saturday in one of the biggest demonstrations against President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador since he took office nearly two years ago.

Many of the demonstrators who flocked to the massive main square of the capital's historic center waved Mexican flags while some chanted "Lopez out," according to video footage on news sites and social media.

Though polls show the leftist  NEO LIBERAL TRUMP COLLABORATOR president remains popular, his management of the economy and record on security have upset many Mexicans, as has his tendency to polarize political debate between his supporters and critics.

Before becoming president in December 2018, Lopez Obrador was renowned for leading massive protests against the government and he said this week such displays of discontent by "conservative" critics showed he was shaking up the country.

Estimates of the number of demonstrators at Saturday's peaceful protest varied.

Authorities in Mexico City, which Lopez Obrador's party governs, said 8,000 took part, while one of the opposition groups behind it, which has called for Lopez Obrador to resign, said more than 150,000 participated.

‘It Was a Purposeful Trap.’ NYPD Planned Attack and Mass Arrests of Protesters, Human Rights Group Says

Melissa Chan, Time•September 30, 2020

Demonstrators after being detained by police officers during a protest against the death of George Floyd in Mott Haven, the Bronx, on June 4

Demonstrators after being detained by police officers during a protest against the death of George Floyd in Mott Haven, the Bronx, on June 4, 2020 Credit - Gabriela Bhaskar—The New York Times/Redux

Dr. Mike Pappas was marching through the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx with hundreds of peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters on June 4 when he noticed a shift in behavior among the dozens of police officers who had been trailing them for the last hour.

About 10 minutes before the start of an 8 p.m. citywide curfew, Pappas says a swarm of New York City police officers in riot gear rushed to form a wall at the end of the street. They held bikes against their bodies as barriers to prevent the 300 protesters from moving forward, while another line of officers closed in on them from behind.

“We had nowhere else to go,” Pappas says. “People started to realize they were trapped.”


Panic set in as police began pushing the protesters back and arresting them en masse. Some officers got on top of police cars and swung their batons downward as penned-in protesters crashed into each other and tried jumping over one another in an attempt to escape, according to Pappas and footage captured by several other witnesses.

“It was a purposeful trap,” Pappas says.

On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report claiming the NYPD had planned the June 4 assault and mass arrests of the demonstrators in Mott Haven, a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood of the city. More complaints about use of force by police have been made in the neighborhood’s precinct than in any of the city’s other 76 precincts, HRW says. After interviewing 81 protesters and analyzing 155 videos, the global advocacy group said the crackdown was among the most aggressive police responses to protests in the U.S. since George Floyd’s May 25 death, and that it violated international human rights.

“It came out so clearly through the footage how unjustified and totally unnecessary this was,” says Ida Sawyer, the report’s lead researcher and acting director of HRW’s Crisis and Conflict division. “There was no provocation, no warning.”

Citywide, dozens of protesters testified in June about being shoved, kicked and violently wrangled by police, during a three-day public hearing held online by the New York attorney general. Some displayed cuts and bruises as they told investigators they were kicked in the jaw, thrown against brick walls and pushed off bikes. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea testified that hundreds of police officers were injured during the first few nights of protests as some demonstrators looted and threw bottles, bricks, trash cans and rocks at them. Others set fire to police vehicles and attacked precincts.

Sophia Guida

@sguida2010

A peaceful protest in Mott Haven last night ended in violence as police trapped the marchers on a side street and refused to let them leave. Besides protestors, members of the media, bystanders and legal observers were also arrested.

11:58 AM · Jun 5, 2020

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“This was some of the worst rioting that occurred in our city in recent memory,” Shea said, adding that it’s difficult for officers to avoid interacting with peaceful protesters while dealing with violent ones. At a June news conference addressing the Mott Haven crackdown, Shea said the NYPD had received information ahead of the protests, “regarding the intent to destroy property, to injure cops, to cause mayhem.” He said the NYPD “had a plan, which was executed nearly flawlessly in the Bronx.” In a statement to TIME about HRW’s report, the NYPD said it has reviewed its response to protests and has “enhanced training,” but it did not elaborate.

Despite identifying himself to police as a medic and wearing green scrubs, Pappas, 30, was among the more than 260 people arrested in Mott Haven on June 4. The Bronx District Attorney’s office told TIME all summonses for violating curfew issued that night have been dismissed and any order to appear in court for an arraignment will also be thrown out. “None of this had to happen,” says Pappas, who was arrested for violating curfew.

Nationwide, dozens of people have been beaten with batons, hit by cars, doused in pepper spray and critically wounded by rubber bullets, beanbag rounds and other non-lethal but dangerous weapons. More than 93% of Black Lives Matter protests across the U.S. have been peaceful, according to an analysis of more than 7,750 demonstrations between May 26 and Aug. 22 by the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Yet at least 115 protesters were shot in the head, face and neck with various projectiles, including bullets and tear gas canisters, between May 26 and July 27, according to a report by Physicians for Human Rights. The nonprofit health advocacy group compiled its data from news and medical reports, social media posts and lawsuits.

Advocates warn the Mott Haven crackdown and other instances of alleged police misconduct could cost taxpayers millions of dollars in settlements from lawsuits. During the 2019 fiscal year, New York City taxpayers alone spent $220 million to settle more than 5,800 lawsuits filed against the NYPD, according to the latest data released by the city comptroller. That number could increase exponentially in 2020, a year which has seen the largest sustained mobilization in modern U.S. history. At least 98 Mott Haven protesters and observers have so far filed notice of their intent to sue the city, according to HRW.

“It just seems like an utter waste of a massive amount of resources in addition to, more importantly, the harm done to the protesters,” Sawyer says.

Left Voice

@left_voice

Mike Pappas, a doctor, was arrested by NYPD earlier in the Bronx while working as a medic during the #FTP #BlackLivesMatter protest.Frontline workers like Mike were called "heroes" by Cuomo and DeBlasio a little over a week ago. #FTP #BlackLivesMatter #FreeHealthcareHeroes

7:35 PM · Jun 4, 2020

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They Protested at a Police Station. They’re Charged With Trying to Kidnap Cops.

Kelly Weill, The Daily Beast•September 29, 2020

Courtesy Jade Crosbie, Liberation News

The July 3 protest in Aurora, Colorado, seemed, at least on the surface, like just another of the hundreds of racial justice protests that have swept the nation this year. Demonstrators sat outside a police station chanting and playing music. Although they said they wouldn’t leave until their demands were met, the protesters were cleared out by police around 4:30 a.m.

But several of the protest leaders are facing felony attempted kidnapping charges for allegedly imprisoning police officers in their own precinct during the protest—charges their fellow activists are calling absurd.

Lillian House, Joel Northam, and Whitney “Eliza” Lucero are among a group of Denver-area activists facing a slate of charges related to their protest activities this summer. Local prosecutors say the activists tried to kidnap police by holding a short-lived “occupation”-style protest outside the precinct and blocking its doors. But activists allege a crackdown on the most visible members of their movement, leading to terrifying SWAT arrests and the threat of years in prison.

“This characterization that someone quote-unquote kidnapped officers is absolutely ridiculous,” Ryan Hamby, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Marxist group with which House, Northam, and Lucero are affiliated, told The Daily Beast.

“It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious,” he added.

The July 3 protest was one of many that called for the termination of officers involved in the killing of Elijah McClain, a young Black man who died in Aurora Police custody last year. McClain was not accused of any crime but became the subject of police suspicion while walking home from the convenience store when someone called 911 to report him “look[ing] sketchy.” Police placed McClain in a now-banned chokehold, causing him to vomit and lose consciousness. Paramedics later injected him with the sedative ketamine.

An autopsy did not conclusively identify a single cause of death, and two of the three arresting officers have not been fired. The third arresting officer was fired for responding “ha ha” to pictures of other officers re-enacting and mocking McClain’s death. (That officer is suing the city over his termination.)

The firings of the police who re-enacted McClain’s death were announced July 3, the same day as the protest outside the police precinct where demonstrators believed the remaining officers worked. Media reports—and even police tweets from most of the night—characterize the demonstration as peaceful, with some 600 protesters sitting around. Police ordered protesters to disperse at 2:30 a.m., tweeted a half-hour later that protesters were throwing things, and had cleared out the site by 4:30, the Denver Post reported at the time.

But a statement from the Adams County district attorney this month accused protesters of holding cops hostage. Protesters “prevented 18 officers inside from leaving the building by barricading entrances and securing doors with wires, ropes, boards, picnic tables and sandbags,” the statement read. (The district attorney was unavailable for comment. In a call with Denver’s 9News, defendant Lillian House said she was unaware of the alleged barricade.)

Those allegations come alongside serious criminal charges for six protest leaders, including three who are accused of attempted kidnapping, inciting a riot, and inciting a riot by giving commands, all of which are felonies.

The protesters and prosecutors both point to a mid-protest phone call between activist Lillian House and Aurora’s interim police chief Vanessa Wilson, which House broadcast to protesters over a microphone. House called on Wilson to fire the remaining officers involved in McClain’s death; Wilson said she didn’t have the authority to do that but thanked the protesters for not trying to enter the precinct.

“I appreciate that you haven’t breached the building and I hope that you continue to keep that promise,” Wilson said.

Activists like Hamby have pointed to the call as evidence that protesters stayed within their rights.

“Like, why would you even say that?” Hamby said of Wilson’s call. “She’s basically admitting on the phone that we have not done any of the things that they’re now claiming we did in this affidavit.”

On the phone call, House, who is also accused of a felony count of attempting to influence a public servant, affirmed that the protesters wouldn’t enter the building. But they wouldn’t leave, either, until the two remaining officers in McClain’s killing were fired.

“I just want to make it perfectly crystal clear that everyone here has agreed that we are going to sit here,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re not going in, we’re not going out, we’re sure not going out, and neither are these pigs that are inside the building. So we’re not doing anything wrong. We’re standing here.” (The protesters did, in fact, reportedly leave before sunrise, when police advanced on them.)

House’s statements appear to be part of the basis for the prosecution’s claims that the protest was actually a kidnapping attempt. What followed, fellow activists allege, was a heavy-handed roundup of the protest’s most visible faces.

Hamby, who organizes with House, Northam, and Lucero, claimed the busts were an attempt to “strike fear into organizers, strike fear into the movement.”

House and Lucero were arrested by multiple squad cars—House while driving and Lucero while in her apartment—and detained in jail for eight days, Hamby said. Fellow organizers have accused corrections officers of verbally abusing the two women and failing to provide adequate COVID-19 protections. Another protester, John “Russel” Ruch, was followed from his home in unmarked cars and scooped up in a Home Depot parking lot around dawn by officers who gave him “no information” about the cause for his arrest, Hamby claimed.

In the most aggressive instance, multiple organizers claimed a SWAT team showed up to arrest protester Joel Northam, allegedly banging on the door and refusing to slide a warrant underneath. Aurora Police did not return a request for comment.

“He was on the phone with a lawyer the entire time, and the lawyer ended up telling him, ‘You need to comply with what they’re saying,’” Hamby said. “Because at that point we were worried that they were going to bust down the door and kill him.”

If convicted on all counts, the activists accused of attempted kidnapping could face decades in prison. The charges come as other activists associated with Black Lives Matter protests face heavy-handed charges, including a Utah protester who faced life in prison for allegedly purchasing paint that was used in a demonstration (the most aggressive charging enhancements in that case have since been dropped).

Hamby said protesters planned on further mobilizing around a call to drop the charges. “If anything, the fight-back will be strengthened and emboldened,” he said.