WHILE YOU WEREN'T LOOKING
Trump administration rolls back Obama-era healthcare protections for transgender people and abortion access with HHS ruling

Move comes in middle of Pride month


Alex Woodward New York

Donald Trump‘s administration has rolled back nondiscrimination healthcare protections for women and transgender people by reversing a rule that would prevent healthcare workers and insurance companies that receive federal funds from refusing to provide services like abortion or gender-affirming care.

The rule changes could allow health providers to deny coverage and care to women and transgender people, as the nation is in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic.

They also arrive in the middle of Pride month on the anniversary of the Pulse massacre, when 49 people were gunned down inside a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Invoking “religious freedom”, the Department of Health and Human Services had revised a rule under the Affordable Care Act to revert to “the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology”.

The changes revoke discrimination protections on the basis of ”gender identity” and sex, including patients seeking an abortion.
https://www.thefader.com/2017/09/08/church-of-satan-missouri-supreme-court

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They are likely to be challenged in court: the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign and other groups have already announced plans to sue the administration.

“In the middle of a global pandemic, with our nation in uproar over a systemic devaluing of Black lives, this administration chose to prioritise a rule change attempting to roll back anti-discrimination protections in health care,” said LGBT+ legal advocacy organisation Lambda Legal. “Despicable doesn’t begin to describe it.”

Human Rights Campaign president Alphonso David, said: ”LGBTQ people should not live in fear that they cannot get the care they need simply because of who they are. It is clear that this administration does not believe that LGBTQ people, or other marginalised communities, deserve equality under the law.”

Initial rules under former president Barack Obama‘s administration established civil rights protections in healthcare, barring discrimination on the basis of race, colour, national origin, age, disability or sex as well as gender identity. Health providers and insurers, under those anti-discrimination rules, would have to cover costs associated with gender-affirming care.

U.S. health agency reverses Obamacare transgender protections

Reuters•June 12, 2020

A sign on an insurance store advertises Obamacare in San Ysidro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule on Friday that would lift anti-discrimination protections under Obamacare for transgender people and women seeking abortions, drawing condemnation from Democratic lawmakers.

The rule reverses some provisions of the Affordable Care Act passed during President Barack Obama's administration, also known as Obamacare, that extended civil rights protections in healthcare to cover areas including gender identity and the termination of a pregnancy.

LGBTQ rights groups, Democratic lawmakers and Democratic-controlled states have decried efforts under the administration of Republican President Donald Trump to erode protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer citizens. One group said it planned to sue the administration over the new rule.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the decision a "shocking attack on the health and well-being of countless vulnerable communities, including women, LGBTQ individuals, and people of color."

The Trump administration has also sought to restrict access to abortion.

The Health Department, or HHS, said a regulation issued by the Obama administration in 2016 to implement the anti-discrimination Section 1557 of Obamacare had "redefined sex discrimination to include termination of pregnancy and gender identity, which it defined as 'one's internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.'"

That regulation was struck down by a federal court in October 2019.

"HHS will enforce Section 1557 by returning to the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word 'sex' as male or female and as determined by biology," the department said on Friday.

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, said it planned to "sue the Trump administration for exceeding their legal authority and attempting to remove basic health care protections from vulnerable communities including LGBTQ people."

(Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Tom Brown and Sonya Hepinstall)

Boris Johnson book depicts Jews as controlling the media

AND HIS TITLE IS ISLAMOPHOBIC

The 2004 novel Seventy Two Virgins, written by the Tory leader, is full of questionable portrayals of ethnic minorities
Jon Stone Monday 9 December 2019 

Boris Johnson depicted Jews as controlling the media and being able to “fiddle” elections in a little-known 2004 novel written while he was a Tory MP, it has emerged.

The Conservative leader was branded “unfit to be prime minister” over passages from Seventy Two Virgins, which also includes numerous other questionable portrayals of ethnic minorities.

While telling the story of a fictional terror attack on Westminster Mr Johnson deploys descriptions of Kosovan Muslims as having “hook noses” and describes a mixed-race character as “half-caste”.

The now prime minister also repeatedly uses racial slurs in authorial voice, introducing a group of characters as “pikeys”, an ethnic slur for travellers, and another as a “Chinaman”.

The context of the passage regarding Jews is a part of the story in which all the countries of the world are made to vote country-by-country on whether the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay should be released.

Describing the situation, Mr Johnson wrote: “And the news from the voting was still bad for America, though not as bad as it had seemed at first. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia were reporting almost 100 per cent insistence that the prisoners be sent home. But there were odd pockets of support for the President. He might have thought that Russia, after her humiliation in the Cold War, would take the chance to put her boot on the neck of the old adversary. But no, the Russians had their problems with Islamic terror. Maybe there was some kind of fiddling of the figures by the oligarchs who ran the TV stations (and who were mainly, as some lost no time in pointing out, of Jewish origin), but it seemed that Russia, one of the most populous countries in the world, was voting heavily for America."


The passage is just one of dozens of racially-charged and questionable parts of the novel. In a separate part introducing one of the terrorists, named Jones, Mr Johnson also appears to suggest that having “brown skin” is not compatible with being Welsh.

Mr Johnson wrote: “‘Quickly,’ said the one called Jones, coming back from the toilets. ‘The traffic wardens will be here.’ There was certainly something lilting and eastern about his accent; but if you shut your eyes and ignored his brown skin, there were tonic effects – birdlike variations in pitch – that were positively Welsh.” Notably, Jones’s ethnicity is referred to as an “Arab-type thing” by another character, a vague description that is largely unclarified by the end of the novel.


In 2016 Boris Johnson suggested that “part-Kenyan” US president Barack Obama had an “ancestral dislike” of Britain because of his ethnicity. His novel also makes repeated use of this line of thinking when discussing its ethnic minority characters.
The book was written while Mr Johnson was a Tory MP (Jon Stone)

Near the beginning of the book Mr Johnson uses an extended metaphor to depict a traffic warden working in Westminster as a “hunter-gatherer” because he is an African immigrant.

“He went down Horseferry Road, past the obelisks with their odd pineapple finials, past the bearded stone Victorians who had conquered the continent from which he came, and he, the colonial, became to hunt in the former imperial metropolis,” Mr Johnson also wrote of the character.

This theme continues in other parts of the novel. One of the main characters in the book is Roger Barlow, a bicycle-riding tussle-haired Tory MP who saves the day and who reviewers have interpreted as being a transparent cipher for Mr Johnson himself. In one bizarre racialised description of a phone call between the fictional MP and a journalist “with an Asian name”, Mr Johnson wrote:
Maybe there was some kind of fiddling of the figures by the oligarchs who ran the TV stations (and who were mainly, as some lost no time in pointing out, of Jewish origin)Boris Johnson, Seventy Two Virgins

“The reporter was a woman with an Asian name, and from the minute she introduced herself, Barlow feared her. He feared her as British soldiers on the Northwest Frontier once feared the Afghan daughters, and their knives, and their traditional knowledge of how to cut a live human being.”


Continuing, and apparently trying to approximate a stereotyped South Asian accent in eye dialect, Mr Johnson wrote: “‘I’m reely sorry,’ she said, after his initial evasions, ‘but I reely do feel you are going to be better off talking to me”.

In a separate section describing one mixed-race character’s thoughts about himself, Mr Johnson wrote: “The interesting thing about his half-caste looks, he decided, was that he didn’t look Negroid.” On another occasion Mr Johnson describes the same character as “the faintest coffee colour”.

One of the heroes of Mr Johnson’s book is a former Serbian paramilitary who Johnson introduces as having been a member of “Arkan's Tigers”, a real-life group whose commander was indicted for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing against Muslims. The character is one of the first in the book to realise the terror attack is taking place because of his instinctive distrust of Muslims, who he describes as “sneaky bastards”.


In a scene with the character, Mr Johnson wrote: “As soon as he had gasped ‘Where is the police?’ he saw their burning eyes, hook noses and hairy black eyebrows that joined in the middle. He knew who they were. They were Skiptars. They were Muslims, almost certainly from Pristina. And they knew who he was. He was a Serb.”

One recurring theme of the novel is that the terrorists carrying out the attack repeatedly get away with their attack because of political correctness and a refusal to racially profile them.

In one instance the French ambassador’s partner, described as a “Palestinian Arab” is nearly banned from the event where the terror attack takes place because of racial-profiling, but is ultimately allowed to attend after someone stands up for her – she later turns out to be a terrorist after all.

In another episode, an MP lets a group of terrorists through a locked door because he does not want to be seen as racist. On another occasion, a military sniper hesitates and misses his chance to shoot the terrorists because he is momentarily worried he might be racist.

"If these extracts from this novel are as they appear, this adds to the long list of people that Boris Johnson has insulted,” Christine Jardine, the Liberal Democrats’ equalities spokesperson, told The Independent.

“The rise of anti-Jewish hatred must be condemned, wherever and whenever, and in all its forms. Boris Johnson has once again demonstrated that he is not fit to be Prime Minister.”

Approached for comment on this story, Downing Street said the issue was for the Conservative party to address. The Conservative party has been contacted for comment but has not issued a response.

Boris Johnson said colonialism in Africa should never have ended and dismissed Britain's role in slavery

Jon Stone The Independent 13 June 2020

Boris Johnson will come out of the crisis a diminished figure following the Cummings scandal: Getty

Boris Johnson said colonialism in Africa should never have ended and downplayed Britain's role in the slave trade, an article written by the prime minister while he was a Tory MP reveals.

Critics are urging Mr Johnson to explain whether he still holds the views expounded in the 2002 piece, where he argued that Africans would not have grown the right crops for export without British direction.

"The continent may be a blot, but it is not a blot upon our conscience," he wrote. "The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more."

The prime minister this week argued for the retention of controversial statues of slavers and British colonialists in UK cities, which he said should stay up because they "teach us about our past with all its faults".

But the article, written while Mr Johnson was editor of the Spectator magazine, reveals that the prime minister in fact has held an active admiration for Britain's colonial activities on the continent.

"Consider Uganda, pearl of Africa, as an example of the British record. Are we guilty of slavery? Pshaw. It was one of the first duties of Frederick Lugard, who colonised Buganda in the 1890s, to take on and defeat the Arab slavers," Mr Johnson says in the piece.

"And don't swallow any of that nonsense about how we planted the 'wrong crops'. Uganda teems, sprouts, bursts with vegetation. You will find fruits rare and strange, like the jackfruit, hanging bigger than your head and covered with green tetrahedral nodules. Though delicately perfumed, it is, alas, more or less disgusting, and not even Waitrose is pretentious enough to stock it.

He continues: "So the British planted coffee and cotton and tobacco, and they were broadly right. It is true that coffee prices are currently low; but that is the fault of the Vietnamese, who are shamelessly undercutting the market, and not of the planters of 100 years ago.

"If left to their own devices, the natives would rely on nothing but the instant carbohydrate gratification of the plantain ... the colonists correctly saw that the export market was limited."

Suggesting that one way to boost the economy of African countries would be for British tourists to holiday in them, Mr Johnson wrote: "The best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty."

Boris Johnson's spokesperson declined to comment on the article when approached by The Independent.

Opposition MPs urged the prime minister to consider his comments and explain whether they still represented his views today.



The continent may be a blot, but it is not a blot upon our conscience. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more."

Boris Johnson

"Boris Johnson is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The history of the UK, Windrush, empire, colonialism should be told with sobering accuracy," Labour MP Dawn Butler told The Independent.

"In order to make sustainable progress we need the current PM who has power and privilege to reflect on what he has said and written.

"I urge the PM to review his previous articles, books and statements and to re-examine them through the brutal lynching that he watched of George Floyd and say whether he regrets anything of what he has said, done or written in the past."

Ms Butler said it was important not to "misrepresent or whitewash history", adding: "This Etonian attitude affects everyone who is not in that inner circle, no matter your colour. Instead of viewing history through rose tinted glasses maybe it is time to look at history through the lenses of a very visible modern day lynching."

Labour's shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, Marsha de Cordova said: "Boris Johnson's past comments are an example of why we need to educate people about the impact of colonialism.

"The legacy of British colonialism and its role in the slave trade is a scar on our society. To infer this is something to be proud of, and that African countries are worse off because they are no longer ruled by the empire, is an insult to millions."

Christine Jardine, Liberal Democrats' equalities spokesperson said: "It is vital that the Prime Minister today makes clear that the language he may have used and comments made in the past are no longer reflective of his views.


"Across the UK there is a collective discussion happening on how as a nation we deal with our history and the racism and prejudice that is part of that. It is the Prime Minister's duty to show leadership on this.

"We need to do more to tackle racism in the UK and if we truly want to change society, we must eradicate the existing injustice. Liberal Democrats are clear that we want to see a government-wide plan to tackle BAME inequalities be so that we can finally enact change for all those fighting for justice and equality."

New Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows profound disagreements between younger and older Americans on racial issues, police

Christopher Wilson Senior Writer, Yahoo News•June 12, 2020


New Yahoo News/YouGov poll finds support for Black Lives Matter has doubled among Americans

There are pronounced differences of opinion between older and younger Americans when it comes to the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, trust in the police and the prevalence of racism, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

Overall, Americans are far more supportive of Black Lives Matter than they were four years ago. They’re also much more supportive of former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s silent, bent-knee protests during the national anthem, which at the time were broadly unpopular.

But the support for the protests differs by age, with those 18-29 more likely to have a positive opinion of the demonstrations that have convulsed the nation in recent weeks than those 65 or older. And one of the starkest divides between the two groups is on trust in the police and how they’ve handled the protests.

Just 8 percent of the younger group said they had “a great deal” of trust in the police, versus 36 percent for the older group. Overall, 56 percent of the 18-29 group said they had little or no trust in the police versus 21 percent expressing the same sentiment from the 65+ group. 

Sixty-five percent of the younger group disapproved of the police response to the protests, compared to 39 percent disapproval from the older group. A majority of the older group also didn’t think police had been violent in response to peaceful protests: Just 31 percent said most or many officers had responded with violence, versus 60 percent of the younger group, who said most or many officers did get violent with peaceful protesters. 

WHERE ARE ALL THE ANTI VIETNAM WAR PROTESTERS,  FREEKS, HIPPIES, YIPPIES, FROM THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES 
WE ARE BOOMERS TOO 

Protesters in Salem, Mass., on Wednesday. (Matthew J. Lee/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

A narrow majority – 52 percent – of the 18-29 cohort said that police had been more violent than protesters over the last two weeks. Among the older group, meanwhile, 52 percent said the protesters had been more violent.

While videos of police violence against protesters racked up tens of millions of views on social media platforms beloved by younger American, traditional outlets like cable and local news focused on the looting, particularly in the early days of the demonstrations.

The younger group was far more likely to say their minds were changed on the issue recently, with 71 percent saying they had become more concerned about racial injustice in America since the protests began versus 46 percent of the 65+ group.

The older group was more likely to be against violent protests in general, with 81 percent agreeing with the sentiment “Violent protest is never justified in the U.S. as a way for a group to accomplish its goals,” versus just 48 percent of the younger group.

A recent protest against police brutality in Boston. (Barry Chin/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

When asked whether systemic racism in policing was a bigger problem than vandalism and violence during, 68 percent of the younger group said racism. For the older group, it was a slim majority (53 percent) saying vandalism and violence were a bigger problem.

A few other areas with a large divide:

· 67 percent of the younger group said it was OK for NFL players to kneel for the anthem to protest police killings of African-Americans, while 54 percent of the older group said it was not OK.

· Just 11 percent of the younger group said police departments don't need to be reformed, versus 28 percent of the older group.· Majorities of both groups either strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement “Racism is built into American society. The assumption of white superiority pervades schools, business, housing, and government.” However, the size of those majorities differed, with 72 percent of the younger group concurring versus 55 percent of the older group.

· 40 percent of the older group said it was appropriate to forcibly remove peaceful protesters away from the White House, versus 23 percent of the younger group.

· 57 percent of the younger group said the protests were motivated by a genuine desire to hold police officers accountable, while 50 percent of the older group attributed it to a long-standing bias against the police.

· 7 percent of both the 18-29 and 30-44 age groups replied yes when asked "Are you racist?" Just 1 percent of the 65+ group responded in the affirmative.
The numbers in this poll represent only a few hundred Americans in each group, but they are in line with the massive gap polls found in the Democratic presidential primary, where the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders attracted younger voters and older voters tended to prefer the more centrist former Vice President Joe Biden.

ABOLISH THE POLICE! 

ABOLISH THE STATE! 

DIRECT DEMOCRACY! 

MUNICIPAL SOCIALISM!

CONFEDERATION NOT FEDERATION!

Disorder at far-right linked UK protest to counter anti-racism rally

AFP 13 June 2020

A march by several hundred Black Lives Matter activists through the British capital went ahead at lunchtime Saturday, ending in Trafalgar Square near where counter protesters had gathered and amid a heavy police presence


Protesters at a demonstration linked to far-right groups clashed with police in central London on Saturday, after gathering to counter an anti-racism march despite officials urging people not to turn out due to coronavirus restrictions.




Thousands of people appeared to have defied the rules in and around Parliament Square, with footage on television news channels showing violent scuffles with police as some agitators threw punches and objects at officers.

Interior Minister Priti Patel called the chaotic scenes of violence and bottles, cans and smoke bombs being hurled at police "throughly unacceptable thuggery".

"Any perpetrators of violence or vandalism should expect to face the full force of the law," she said on Twitter, as footage of the disorder was shared widely on social media.

"Violence towards our police officers will not be tolerated," she added, noting COVID-19 remained "a threat to us all" and those assembled should "go home".

A protest by the Black Lives Matter group planned for Saturday had instead been held on Friday to avoid clashes with self-styled "patriots", who had vowed to turn out to protect memorials damaged at anti-racism demonstrations last weekend.

Paul Golding, the leader of fringe far-right political group Britain First, which has seen its members jailed for hate crimes and been banned from Facebook, was among the first to assemble in Parliament Square.

He told the domestic Press Association news agency they had turned out to "guard our monuments".

"Anyone who comes along today to try and vandalise them will probably be dealt with by all of these Englishmen that turned up, and they're fed up as well," he said.

A march by several hundred Black Lives Matter activists through the British capital still went ahead at lunchtime Saturday, ending in Trafalgar Square near where the counter protesters had gathered and amid a heavy police presence.

London's Metropolitan Police had said those who had ignored the pleas not to protest must comply with conditions imposed, including keeping to separate designated areas and dispersing by 1600 GMT.

"We are asking you not to come to London, and let your voices be heard in other ways," Bas Javid, a Met commander, said in a statement ahead of the events.



- 'Hijacked by extremists' -

Britain has seen a wave of protests prompted by the death during a US police arrest of George Floyd, an unarmed African-American, which has triggered outrage around the world.

The majority have been peaceful, but demonstrations in London last weekend latterly turned violent while crowds in Bristol, southwest England, toppled a statue to a 17th century slave trader Edward Colston and threw it into the harbour.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said the protests had been "hijacked by extremists" while criticising the targeting of statues as "absurd and shameful" and also urging people not to rally.

The comments drew criticism from some opposition MPs, with Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokeswoman Christine Jardine accusing him of "stoking division and fear in our communities by suggesting they have been hijacked by extremists."

Several central London memorials were boarded up as a precaution ahead of Saturday, including one of World War II leader Winston Churchill -- which was defaced with the word "racist" last weekend -- and the Cenotaph war shrine.

Former Conservative lawmaker Nicholas Soames, Churchill's grandson, said the "very, very small, extremely explosive group of people" responsible for the vandalism were "behaving in an unspeakable and cowardly manner".

But he told the Daily Telegraph: "The idea that the hard right should stand guard over Churchill is absolutely repulsive.

"It feels like a society that has lost its compass."

Anti-racism group Hope Not Hate warned ahead of Saturday's protests that hooligan gangs attached to some English football clubs intent on violence were planning to attend.

"For those in central London today, please be care(ful). Football hooligan gangs and far right activists are still planning to descend on the capital," said Nick Lowles, of the organisation.





London protests – live: Demonstrators attack police in violent clashes as thousands gather in capital

Chiara Giordano The Independent 13 June 2020



A man kicks a barrier as activists from far-right linked groups clash with police on Parliament Street, in London, on 13 June 2020: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Demonstrators have attacked police during violent clashes in central London, as football hooligans, veterans and far-right groups descended on the capital vowing to “defend” memorials.

People have reportedly hurled bottles and fireworks and attempted to storm through barriers as police hold them back, while footage showed others throwing punches at officers dressed in riot gear.

Home secretary Priti Patel condemned the “unacceptable thuggery” of protesters, while London mayor Sadiq Khan warned ”perpetrators will feel the full force of the law”.
Pictures are coming in of Black Lives Matter protests and activists surrounding memorials across the country
 
Pictures are coming in of Black Lives Matter protests and activists surrounding memorials across the country
 https://uk.news.yahoo.com/black-lives-matter-protests-live-101631851.html

Black candidates and political groups see a surge of support amid US protests

Daniel Strauss The Guardian 13 June 2020

Photograph: Bruce Schreiner/AP
African American candidates and political groups focused on racial justice have experienced a surge of donations and support amid ongoing national protests about police reform and anti-racism.

The country has been wracked by protests since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd’s death has also triggered an intense introspection on race relations and police brutality, especially against African Americans, and it seems black political candidates are getting more attention as a result.

Related: ‘Long overdue’: lawmakers declare racism a public health emergency

In Kentucky, state representative Charles Booker, said he’s raised $1m over the past month. Roughly over that same period he’s also been endorsed by top progressive Democrats: Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In New York, Democrat Jamaal Bowman, who is challenging New York congressman Eliot Engel in a tough primary, has surpassed fundraising benchmarks since the beginning of June, as he’s tried to capitalize on missteps by the incumbent congressman – including a hot mic incident at a Black Lives Matter event. Sanders has endorsed Bowman as well.

The Real Justice Pac, a group that works to boost progressive “reform-minded prosecutors”, said it had seen an influx of support amid the ongoing national discussion of reforming the police.

“Real Justice Pac is seeing a significant increase in the frequency and amount of donations – large and small,” said Chris Lazare, the group’s organizing director, in a statement. “We think people across the country are realizing that electing reform minded prosecutors is an integral part of achieving the change we want and holding police accountable.”

Real Justice Pac officials declined to give exact figures on their fundraising numbers.

Multiple factors are at play in each individual race and strategists are hesitant to attribute money flows to one single subject or force but the timing suggests that the general unrest throughout the country is an active factor.

“We know anecdotally that people across the country and in the district are moved by how Jamal has talked about this moment,” explained a Democratic operative involved in Bowman’s campaign. The operative added: “This period coincides with all of these other activities.”

A renewed and intense focus on race relations stretches all the way up to the presidential level where both Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and Joe Biden’s presidential campaign have attacked each other on their positions on policing and racial justice.

Biden also continues to face strong pressure to pick an African American woman as his running mate and vice presidential nominee.

Kentucky’s Booker, the underdog Senate candidate competing with Amy McGrath for the Democratic nomination to face Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, said in an interview on Friday his campaign raised $1m in the first week of June.

“With all the racial tension that has been growing in [not only] my state but across the country I think what you’re seeing is people are looking to ‘who’s going to lead in this moment,” Booker said.“We have seen a big surge in our fundraising. We’ve seen an outpouring of support from across Kentucky and across the country. And we have a very real shot to win this race.”

Booker added: “It’s come from this energy, this sense of resolve, this fire, this aggressive urge and plea from regular folks to [say] we gotta do things different and make sure that we don’t keep playing the status quo.”

Thousands stage rally in French capital against police brutality

Associated Press Reporters PA Media: World News 13 June 2020

Thousands of people have gathered in Paris to denounce police brutality and discrimination.

Shouts rose from the largely black crowd as a group of white extreme-right activists climbed a building and unfurled a huge banner denouncing “anti-white racism”. Others tried to tear the banner down.

Police have surrounded the area, braced for potential violence.

View photos

The march was organised by supporters of Adama Traore (AP)More

There have been several clashes at largely peaceful demonstrations around France, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and global protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

The march in Paris was led by supporters of Adama Traore, a 24-year-old French black man who died in 2016.

Mr Traore did not have his identity card on him and reportedly ran as the police approached.

A huge portrait showed half of Mr Traore’s face, half of Mr Floyd’s.

Residents of a building cut up a banner which was lowered

 from the roof of a building by far-right protesters (AP)

Mr Traore’s sister Assa told the crowd: “We are all demanding the same thing – fair justice for everyone.”

She said her brother was also handcuffed and held down by police before he died, much like Mr Floyd had been last month.

A final report released last month cleared three officers of wrongdoing, triggering renewed protests over Mr Traore’s death.

This week, the French government banned chokeholds.

Protesters take to Paris streets in fresh march for racial justice

RFI 13 June 2020

Thousands of people have turned out for fresh demonstrations against alleged police brutality and racism in central Paris and other major French cities. The protests come against a backdrop of mounting anger among police officers who reject the accusations.

At least 6,000 protesters gathered at Place de la République in Paris on Saturday to protest against alleged police brutality and racism.

The march, which is to head towards Opéra from 2:30pm, was organised by the Adama Traoré committee, created to call for justice for the young black man who died in police custody in 2016 in the Paris region.

How should France respond to protests against alleged racist policing?

Adama Committee

"We call on all the cities in France to come and demonstrate with us to demand truth and justice for Adama and all the victims of the police or gendarmerie," the committee said.

The Adama committee drew some 20,000 people on 2 June to the Paris court, and has become the spearhead of the fight against police violence.

Its discourse has broadened from denouncing police violence to denouncing alleged "systemic racism", finding a powerful echo after the death of George Floyd, an African-American killed on 25 May in Minneapolis by a white policeman, which sparked a worldwide wave of indignation.

Other marches for racial justice are planned in Marseille, Lyon, Montpellier, Nantes, Saint-Nazaire, Bordeaux and in Strasbourg on Sunday.
French police protests

French police staged protests for a second day Friday, angry at accusations of racism in their ranks. They slammed top officials for failing to defend the force against the allegations.

Several dozen officers blocked traffic in a wildcat march down the Champs-Elysées avenue in Paris, carrying banners proclaiming: "No police, no peace!" and "The police aren't racist."

Border police at Orly airport south of Paris and officers in Bordeaux, Marseille and other cities threw handcuffs, armbands and other equipment on the ground while standing in formation, with many shouting for the resignation of Interior Minister Christophe Castaner.

Castaner infuriated officers this week with a pledge of "zero tolerance" for police racism after 20,000 people massed at the Paris courthouse on 2 June in an echo of the Black Lives Matter protests in America.

He also said police would no longer be allowed to use chokeholds to detain suspects, a move derided by many officers as an unfeasible concession that could make their jobs more perilous.

"The police are not racist... they save people's lives no matter the colour of their skin," Fabien Vanhemelryck, head of the Alliance union, told journalists on Friday.

Castaner met police representatives on Thursday and Friday.

"It's not just the interior minister... the president must make sure the police are respected," Vanhemelryck said.

Some police unions have threatened to carry out only minimal duties, since France forbids strike action by law enforcement agents.

President Emmanuel Macron could address the heightened tensions in a TV speech on Sunday evening.

French hold protests against police violence

Sofia BOUDERBALA et Alice LEFEBVRE AFP 13 June 2020

Thousands of people turned out in Paris and other cities to protest against police violence amid calls for change

Thousands of people gathered across France on Saturday to protest at racism and police violence as public anger grows after a raft of complaints against officers and in the wake of the death of George Floyd in the United States.

Several thousand people congregated in central Paris mid-afternoon to answer a call to protest by a pressure group representing Adama Traore, a young black man who died in police custody in 2016.

The rallies came at the end of week when France's police watchdog said it had received almost 1,500 complaints against officers last year -- half of them for alleged violence.

Traore's sister Assa Traore called on those attending the rally to "denounce the denial of justice, denounce social, racial, police violence," renewing a call for an investigation into her sibling's death.

"The death of George Floyd -- this Afro-American killed on May 25 in Minneapolis by a white policeman -- is a direct echo of my brother's death. It's the same thing in France, our brothers are dying," she said, vowing to continue the fight for justice.

A number of marchers held aloft banners reading "justice for Adama".

Other banners read "In the country of human rights the police kill."

Binta Kamara, 18, said she had come "to support black people, minorities, to show solidarity. I am young and the future belongs to us. We have to change things."

Elisa, a 27-year-old student, said she did not routinely favour an "anti-cop discourse" but added it was "clear there is a problem of racism and fear of the police today."

Other rallies were being held in cities from Marseille and Montpellier in the south to Nantes and Bordeaux in the west.

- Amnesty appeal -

French President Emmanuel Macron, due to address the nation on Sunday, notably on the easing of lockdowns, had Thursday noted the need not to "lose the youth" as feelings run ever higher in the wake of the Floyd case.

Macron on Wednesday dubbed racism "an illness which touches all society."

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner has promised "zero tolerance" of racism in law enforcement, saying it is clear some officers "have failed in their Republican duty", citing several instances of racist and discriminatory remarks" that have come to light.

Amnesty International meanwhile appealed for "a systematic reform of police practices" in France.

"The seriousness of the situation requires a global response from the authorities," read a statement from the NGO.

Government spokesman Sibeth Ndiaye suggested in an interview with Saturday's Le Monde that there should be "constructive debate" regarding race with efforts redoubled against racial discriminations".

But some police have spoken out against the portrayal of the police as racist.

Frederic Lagache of the police union Alliance said he hoped Macron would receive a delegation as many officers felt their "honour had been injured" over the widespread criticism of the force.

This Tiananmen Protester Is Now Beijing’s Troll-in-Chief 
ANOTHER RE-EDUCATION CAMP GRADUATE

Brendon Hong,The Daily Beast•June 12, 2020

Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

HONG KONG—U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is comparable to Joseph Goebbels. Harvard University is a “third-rate intelligence agency dedicated to politics,” because academics at the institution tried to pin down when the coronavirus may have first appeared in China. And the Black Lives Matter Movement? It has been infiltrated and appropriated by protesters from Hong Kong.

These are cracks by Hu Xijin, the chief editor of Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party’s most devoted cheerleader within China’s state media network. He calls it his “sarcasm,” as he said during an interview with Hong Kong’s public broadcaster last week, smirking as he tried to explain the joke.

But nobody else is laughing.

Have no doubt: there is a propaganda war being waged in cyberspace as self-important public figures blast away at each other, their salvos delivered 280 characters at a time.
‘WOLF WARRIORS’

On this side of the Pacific, Hu’s missives are part of a campaign that, depending on how you squint, either provides insight about how the CCP processes world events, or gives momentum to conspiratorial ideas that travel fast in the digital ether.

There are the “wolf warrior” diplomats, so named after a movie franchise in which soldiers of China’s People’s Liberation Army Special Operations Forces save the day. These include the spokespersons for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who take a page from Donald J. Trump and spam our screens with lies, like how the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic was introduced to China by the U.S. Army.

China’s ‘Great Firewall’ Is Closing Around Hong Kong

And there are Chinese ambassadors stationed around the world who echo some of the more extreme views shared by their colleagues in Beijing, functioning as loudspeakers for the CCP’s tweet-form agitprop.

(Occasionally, the CCP even dreams up fantastical scenarios that are impossible to look away from, like sending 100,000 “duck troops” to Pakistan to consume locust swarms that are the size of cities. Never mind that this wouldn’t work, as a scientist at China Agricultural University explained to reporters in February, shortly after state media reported the plan. Now, four months later, new swarms are still forming, devastating fields in the Horn of Africa and South Asia, and the ducks recently resurfaced—on Twitter.)

Together, these diplomats and accounts run by personnel from Chinese state-run media outlets sent out 90,000 tweets in English, Chinese, and other languages between the beginning of April and mid-May—specifically to wage a propaganda campaign regarding COVID-19.

This escalation could be a response to the frequent, unhinged tweet storms that Trump whips up as slimy, rhetorical sleight of hand to distract, misdirect, or simply evade responsibility. But when Hu spouts off, he’s doing so as a member of state media, not as a representative of China’s diplomacy, which gives the country’s officials cover to put a little distance between Hu and themselves.
‘DEFINITELY TRUE’

On Twitter, which has been blocked in China since 2009, Hu has a mere 315,000 followers—a mixture of people accessing the site from China through VPNs, members of the Chinese diaspora, China-focused think tankers and researchers, and tankies who are his genuine die-hard fans.

It is within the Great Firewall where he wields incredible influence—he speaks to nearly 23 million followers through his Weibo account, the dominant platform for microblogging in his home country, and reaches multiples more through reposts by people who read his words or watch his videos.

Not merely the CCP’s most high-profile propagandist, Hu oversees the operations of a newsroom of 700 people in the Chinese capital. He is a walking nexus of information that bubbles up from all corners of the country or funnels down through the Chinese Communist Party’s hierarchy. Whether you recognize him as an oracle or a mouthpiece, tweets by Hu can move markets—much like the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Indeed, the Global Times chief is a lens through which outsiders may view the CCP’s stance on the trade war, its tech race with the United States, the world’s view of China as nations recover from the pandemic’s first wave, and just about every other matter of global importance. Last year, Hu told Bloomberg in an interview that if he adds the phrase “based on what I know” to what he posts, then it’s “definitely true.”

Yet between what Hu frames as levity in his eyebrow-raising comments and certainty about the party’s collective head space, serious moral breaches have surfaced. He is a vocal defender of the detention and “transformation” of Uyghur Muslims in indoctrination camps, and has called for Hong Kong’s police force to deploy snipers to kill the city’s protesters.

Hu’s fanaticism toeing the party line is in stark contrast with his own life experiences.
HU'S LONG MARCH FROM TIANANMEN

His path to editorship at Global Times began when he joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1986, the year he turned 26 and started studying Russian at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. The Tiananmen Square demonstrations broke out in April 1989, and he joined the many people who gathered daily in central Beijing. A fast, harsh military crackdown came in June. Many died. He made it out.

Five months later, Hu joined People’s Daily, the most widely circulated newspaper in China. Eventually, he was dispatched to Yugoslavia in the 1990s as a war correspondent. Hu spent three years covering the civil war, and cites this experience watching the blood-drenched breakup of Yugoslavia as the impetus behind his devotion to the stabilizing power and uniformity of the Chinese Communist Party.

In 1996, Hu was back in Beijing, and in the next year rotated to become the assistant chief editor of Global Times, an ultra-nationalistic rag that employs extreme language typically not found in People’s Daily. In 2003, he embedded himself in a conflict zone again, this time covering the war in Iraq. Two years later, he was promoted to editor in chief, and has been in charge of setting the Global Times’ tone since then.

Even within the CCP, Hu is a polarizing figure. Although his loyalty to the party is unquestionable, there are elements within the Cyberspace Administration of China that believe he takes things too far, eliciting scrutiny by Western media, governments, and other entities.

He is one of the few figures within China who has chronicled the country’s breakneck changes in the past three decades, all of them set against his abandoned passion for Chinese democracy.
MOLOTOV COCKTAILS

Last year, in the late summer, Hu visited Hong Kong to see the city’s anti-government protests up close for himself.

By his recent account, the city “has been in chaos for the past year.” Last September, donning a high-vis vest, Hu observed the black bloc in action, watching them build roadblocks and face off with riot police.

There was the smell of Molotov cocktails—gasoline vapors that gave away where they were stockpiled, then the hot sting of torched asphalt after the makeshift bombs were smashed to feed flames. Electricity shot through a crowd working toward a common, far-fetched goal. Broken teeth and skin were left on the street after beatings.

If Hu had encountered any of these things, they wouldn’t have been alien to him after stints in places where conflicts were far more destructive—or where similar struggles once took place, in his hometown of Beijing.

There are survivors of the Tiananmen Massacre who draw parallels between their protest movement in 1989 and Hong Kong’s current series of demonstrations. They see the same spirit unifying two events that happened three decades apart from each other.

During Beijing’s summer of optimism in 1989, Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” was painted on banners, in six Chinese characters, and hoisted by many young people in the crowd. The same line is invoked frequently in Hong Kong now.

There was a point in time when Hu saw the hope and ambition that is embodied in that quotation, and he even had the courage to join a million of his compatriots in a public square to demand political reforms, some degree of democracy, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and an end to corruption within the Chinese Communist Party.

Yet more than 30 years later, those aspirations have eroded completely. Today, Hu follows CCP leader Xi Jinping’s diktat for state media to “tell China stories well” and to “hold the family name of the party.” In other words, the CCP’s media organs must function like Pravda in the USSR to show the party’s will and make true the party’s pronouncements, at least in people’s minds.
‘POLITICAL VACCINE’

Last week, on June 4, when Hong Kong marked 31 years since the Chinese army cleared Beijing’s streets with tanks, Hu said, “The Tiananmen incident gave Chinese society a political vaccine shot.” The disease? Democracy. He followed up by juxtaposing videos of NYPD vehicles driving into a group of people blocking a road against the recognizable scene of a column of tanks stopped by a man in Beijing, in an attempt to suggest that American authorities are committing to a crackdown that is harsher than the CCP’s in Tiananmen Square, where many hundreds of people were killed.

With the American response to the pandemic lagging far behind much of the world, turmoil intensifying on the streets as a conduit for rage against systemic injustice, and Trump’s threats to mobilize the military, there is now plenty of material for Beijing’s party loyalists and propagandists to hijack, reinterpret, and recontextualize. Their message, no matter what issue it rides on, is uniform—that the American way, even its most meaningful ideals, are inferior to the superficial stability brought about by the CCP’s strictures on free thought and expression.

It may be easy to dismiss CCP shills’ presence on Twitter, but their message shows up in reputable American publications, too. According to our calculations based on documents filed by China Daily with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (PDF), The Washington Post has been paid more than $4.6 million by China Daily to run sponsored content, while The Wall Street Journal took nearly $6 million from Chinese state media. The Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The Boston Globe, and Chicago Tribune have all received payments from the CCP’s state media.

Has Beijing’s paid-for propaganda about Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative or China’s take on the trade war in American outlets had much of an impact on public opinion? The answer, it seems, is no. Outside of the Great Firewall, other opinions count too, and some of Hu Xijin’s abandoned ideals still matter to the rest of the world.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

WHO?US?!
Pentagon Denies Spying on Americans Protesting Police Killings

Eric Schmitt, The New York Times•June 13, 2020
 

Demonstrators raise their hands before holding a silent march in Seattle, June 12, 2020. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — A top Pentagon official has told Congress that the nation’s military intelligence agencies did not spy on American protesters during the wave of nationwide demonstrations against the police killings of African Americans.

In a letter Thursday to the House Intelligence Committee, Joseph D. Kernan, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, said he had received no orders from the Trump administration to conduct such surveillance, and he underscored citizens’ constitutional right to protest peacefully.

But he reminded lawmakers of the role of Pentagon intelligence agencies to help defend against foreign interference in U.S. domestic political affairs.

Without mentioning any specific role Pentagon spy agencies might have played in monitoring foreign activities during the recent protests, Kernan acknowledged that such clandestine efforts could be misconstrued.

“Given the complex and classified nature of foreign intelligence collection, it is not always readily apparent to the American public how lawful foreign intelligence collection and analysis differs from unlawful intelligence activities rightfully prohibited by U.S. law and DOD policy,” he wrote, using the initials for the Defense Department.

In the two-page letter, which the committee made public Friday, Kernan stressed that he had “not been asked by anyone in the administration or the Department of Defense to undertake any unlawful or inappropriate intelligence activities that could violate civil liberties in association with the domestic civil disturbances.”

Kernan said that the directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency “have all personally assured me they have not received or made any such requests” to spy on Americans.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., who leads the committee, asked the Pentagon this week to address concerns raised by some intelligence agency personnel in the Defense Department who feared they might be compelled to help conduct surveillance on Americans participating in demonstrations.

The letter came after the administration was roundly criticized for rushing thousands of National Guard and federal law enforcement personnel to the streets of the capital to help in the crackdown on mostly peaceful protesters and occasional looters after the death of George Floyd in the custody of the Minneapolis police.

The deployment of U.S. military intelligence units on American soil in support of domestic law enforcement operations is unusual, but it has happened before.

In 2002, at the request of the FBI, the Army deployed secret surveillance planes as part of a broadening effort to catch a sniper in the Washington area.

To do so in support of ferreting out foreign interference here — for example, to determine if another country was trying to provoke greater unrest on the streets — would be even more unusual. U.S. military officials said Friday that they were not aware that had happened during the recent protests.

Intelligence and Pentagon officials said they had been closely monitoring the protests for any sign of attempts by Russia or other foreign powers to seize on the racial tensions, but so far they have noted only public statements by Russian officials criticizing the United States for its handling of the demonstrations.

The Russian government has in recent months increased efforts to inflame racial tensions in the United States as part of its bid to influence the presidential election in November, including trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups and to stoke anger among African Americans.

Russia’s lead intelligence agency, the SVR, has apparently gone beyond methods of interference in 2016, when operatives tried to stoke racial animosity by creating fake Black Lives Matter groups and spreading disinformation to depress black voter turnout. Now, Russia is also trying to influence white supremacist groups, U.S. officials said.

“Our country faces a myriad of foreign bad actors attempting to interfere in our political process, and those threats are only likely to increase as we approach the 2020 elections,” Schiff said in a statement. “Constant vigilance, robust congressional oversight and greater transparency will be necessary to combat that interference.”

The militarized response to the protests, however, has prompted some military spy agency personnel to express fears of overreach.

During an unclassified virtual gathering last week, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley Jr., fielded questions from employees about whether they could be ordered to support domestic intelligence efforts to investigate protesters, according to an account first published by Yahoo News.

“The mission of the Defense Intelligence Agency is to provide intelligence on foreign militaries to prevent and win wars,” James M. Kudla, an agency spokesman, said in an email. “Any claims that DIA has taken on a domestic mission are false.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company