VANDALISM IS NOT VIOLENCE

DURING WAR WE SAY PEOPLE 

ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROPERTY

WHY ISN'T THIS SO 

DURING PEACETIME TOO 

VANDALISM IS PROPERTY DESTRUCTION

VIOLENCE IS ASSAULT OF THE PERSON

Donald Byrd – Ethiopian Knights (1972)

:00 - 15:39 01 - The emperor 15:39 - 19:29 02 - Jamie 19:29 - 37:11 03 - The little rasti Bass – Wilton Felder Composed By – Donald Byrd Design – Dave Bhang Drums – Ed Greene (2) Engineer – Henry Lewy Guitar – David T. Walker, Greg Poree Liner Notes – Bill Quinn (4) Organ – Joe Sample Photography By, Art Direction – Norman Seeff Piano – William Henderson Producer – George Butler Remix, Engineer – Rudy Van Gelder Tenor Saxophone – Harold Land Trombone – Thurman Green Trumpet – Donald Byrd Vibraphone – Bobby Hutcherson

Opinion: Why government is the solution, not the problem, for a weary and worried post-pandemic world

Some countries will try to go it alone, but free trade and open economies are the sure path to growth

GETTY IMAGES

Published: June 22, 2020 By Kishore Mahbubani
Every nation faces a basic choice: Follow the North Korean economic model or the South Korean one.

My wife and I visited the Antarctic in early February. We were probably on one of the last boats to get there before COVID-19 shut down the global cruise industry. Today, thousands of cruise ships lie idle. Few people cross borders. Trade has become unreliable. Countries are clamoring for self-reliance. In this setting, the conventional wisdom is that the era of globalization is over and the world is entering an era of deglobalization.
Beware of conventional wisdom. During this extended period of lockdown the world is experiencing, physical travel is indeed rare. Yet being shut in has opened our minds; we’re spending more time in the digital universe than ever, and this digital world is borderless.
Life online has made people aware that we live on a small planet, where most corners are within reach. For example, in 2018, 134 million Chinese traveled overseas. By 2030, perhaps 300 million to 400 million will do so. Even for a seasoned global traveler like me, it’s striking that I have never lived in a houseboat in Kerala, visited Venice or trekked the Grand Canyon. Consider it done in the next five years. I will not be alone.
Similarly, when COVID-19 becomes a memory, as it surely will, countries will retreat from the impulse to be self-reliant. Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage still holds true: countries that try to produce everything themselves grow more slowly. In the end, every nation faces a basic choice: Follow the North Korean economic model or the South Korean one. North Korea closed its borders (and is relatively self-reliant). South Korea opened its borders. In 1960, both economies were about the same size. Today, South Korea’s economy is 48 times larger — a development story that is the envy of most developing countries.
The economic evidence of the past 40 years makes it clear what the real choice is. Just compare the two most populous countries, China and India (which also had the two largest economies of the world from the year 1 to 1820). In 1980, when Deng Xiaoping opened up the Chinese economy, both economies were about the same size. (China’s GDP then was $191 billion, while India’s GDP was $186 billion.) Now, China’s economy is five times larger. It’s curious that a communist party state has veered closer to the South Korean model than the world’s largest democracy.
Read: Investors could be looking at a ‘lost decade’ in the stock market, the world’s biggest hedge fund warns
Plus: Bank of America on the new world order: Bigger governments, tech wars, less privacy, and ‘health the new wealth’
Some of this is due to the fact that there has been a strong political movement in the Indian body politic to protect Indian industries from global competition. This is a strange response. Indians are among the most competitive people in the world. Indeed, in the most competitive nation, the U.S., the ethnic group with the highest per-capita income is the Indian community. Two of the world’s largest corporations, Alphabet and Microsoft, are run by Indians, not Chinese. When India finally decides to join the mainstream of globalization, the Indian economy could grow as fast as the East Asian miracle stories, including the most recent example of Vietnam.
Countries need to globalize intelligently and thoughtfully.
Yet the East Asian experience also teaches us that countries need to globalize intelligently and thoughtfully. Not all the barricades to trade can be brought down immediately. Some industries will need temporary protection. The key word here is “temporary.” At the same time, in one form or another, each East Asian economy has its own “industrial policy.” This doesn’t mean that bureaucrats choose the winners or losers. It means the state helps the winners thrive and phases out the losers.
The U.S., despite its vehement denials, has a similar industrial policy. When the Reagan administration arm-twisted the Japanese to reduce car exports to the U.S., this was an example of industrial policy in action. Sadly, it wasn’t a thoughtful one.
The most dangerous mindset the Reagan administration left behind was that markets know best. As Reagan famously said in his 1981 inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” What followed was several decades of defunding, delegitimization and demoralization of U.S. federal agencies. These structural weaknesses have been exposed in agencies such as the FDA and CDC during the Trump administration’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
What the U.S. needs now is an intelligent and thoughtful president who recognizes that today, “Government is not the problem, it is the solution.” Yet for government to be the solution, it must be an independent, neutral actor, serving the larger interests of a society, and not be captured by the industries or sectors it is regulating. For the U.S. this would be a massive and difficult undertaking, made more difficult by the fact that the congressional oversight committees watching these agencies are also bending to narrow industrial interests, not the larger public interests.
In the period immediately after COVID-19 is finally brought to a halt, there will be a lot of global confusion as countries struggle to manage the short-term impulses of fear and keeping borders closed against the long-term impulse to open up and jump-start their economies. No market forces are equipped to manage the careful navigation that will be required. Intelligent and thoughtful government is the only answer.
In this regard, East Asian societies are a model for the rest of the world. Virtually, every East Asian government knows that their economies will not revive their earlier dynamism unless they open up again. So they will — carefully, delicately and selectively. Pragmatism will rule the day. No Western leader has yet dared to say publicly that the West can learn from the East, but heads of state in the U.S. and Europe can and should. When countries learn from each other’s experiences, borders will open again, people and ideas will travel freely, and the pace of globalization will accelerate again.
Kishore Mahbubani is the author of Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (Public Affairs, 2020). He is a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. A former Singaporean diplomat, Mahbubani was president of the United Nations Security Council between January 2001 and May 2002.

Trump supporters compete for attention with protesters outside Tulsa arena

Just one arrest, say Tulsa police: apparently that of a local woman wearing an ‘I Can’t Breathe’ shirt; Trump claims ‘bad people’ outside the venue doing ‘bad things’ and potentially reducing attendance


The National Guard member stands outside the BOK Center in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday. ASSOCIATED PRESS

CAN'T TELL THE WHITE NATIONAL GUARD FROM THE WHITE MILITIA'S

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s supporters faced off with protesters shouting “Black Lives Matter” Saturday in Tulsa as the president took the stage for his first campaign rally in months amid public health concerns about the coronavirus and fears that the event could lead to violence in the wake of killings of Black people by police.

Hundreds of demonstrators flooded the city’s downtown streets and blocked traffic at times, but police reported just a handful of arrests. Many of the marchers chanted, and some occasionally got into shouting matches with Trump supporters, who outnumbered them and yelled, “All lives matter.”

Also see:Trump launches comeback rally in Tulsa amid empty seats and new coronavirus cases on his staff

Later in the evening, a group of armed men began following the protesters. When the protesters blocked an intersection, a man wearing a Trump shirt got out of a truck and spattered them with pepper spray.

When demonstrators approached a National Guard bus that got separated from its caravan, Tulsa police officers fired pepper balls to push back the crowd, said Tulsa police spokesperson Capt. Richard Meulenberg. Officers soon left the area as it cleared.

The Trump faithful gathered inside the 19,000-seat BOK Center for what was believed to be the largest indoor event in the country since restrictions to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus began in March. Many of the president’s supporters weren’t wearing masks, despite the recommendation of public health officials. Some had been camped near the venue since early in the week.

Turnout at the rally was lower than the campaign predicted, with a large swath of standing room on the stadium floor and empty patches in the seating decks. Trump had been scheduled to appear at a rally outside of the stadium within a perimeter of tall metal barriers, but that event was abruptly canceled.

Trump campaign officials said protesters prevented the president’s supporters from entering the stadium. Three Associated Press journalists reporting in Tulsa for several hours leading up to the president’s speaking did not see protesters block entry to the area where the rally was held.

While Trump spoke onstage, protesters carried a papier-mâché representation of him with a pig snout. Some in the multiracial group wore Black Lives Matter shirts, others sported rainbow-colored armbands, and many covered their mouths and noses with masks. At one point, several people stopped to dance to gospel singer Kirk Franklin’s song “Revolution.”

The protesters blocked traffic in at least one intersection. Some Black leaders in Tulsa had said they were worried the visit could lead to violence. It came amid protests over racial injustice and policing across the U.S. and in a city that has a long history of racial tension. Officials had said they expected some 100,000 people downtown.

A woman who was arrested on live television was seen sitting cross-legged on the ground in peaceful protest when officers pulled her away by the arms and later put her in handcuffs. She said her name was Sheila Buck and that she was from Tulsa.

Police said in a news release the officers tried for several minutes to talk Buck into leaving and that she was taken into custody for obstruction after the Trump campaign asked police to remove her from the area.

Buck was wearing a T-shirt that said “I Can’t Breathe” — the dying words of George Floyd, whose death has inspired a global push for racial justice. She said she had a ticket to the Trump rally and was told she was being arrested for trespassing. She said she was not part of any organized group.

Several blocks away from the BOK Center was a festival-like atmosphere, with food vendors serving hot dogs and cold drinks and sidewalks lined with people selling various Trump regalia.

There was also an undercurrent of tension near the entrance to the secured area, where Trump supporters and opponents squared off. Several downtown businesses boarded up their windows as well to avoid any potential damage.

Kieran Mullen, 60, a college professor from Norman, Okla., held a sign that read “Black Lives Matter” and “Dump Trump.”

“I just thought it was important for people to see there are Oklahomans that have a different point of view,” Mullen said of his state, which overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016.

Brian Bernard, 54, a retired information technology worker from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, sported a Trump 2020 hat as he took a break from riding his bicycle around downtown. Next to him was a woman selling Trump T-shirts and hats, flying a “Keep America Great Again” flag. Her shirt said, “Impeach this,” with an image of Trump extending his middle fingers.

“Since the media won’t do it, it’s up to us to show our support,” said Bernard, who drove nine hours to Tulsa for his second Trump rally.

Bernard said he wasn’t concerned about catching the coronavirus at the event and doesn’t believe it’s “anything worse than the flu.”

Across the street, armed, uniformed highway patrol troopers milled about a staging area in a bank parking lot with dozens of uniformed National Guard troops.

Tulsa has seen cases of COVID-19 spike in the past week, and the local health department director asked that the rally be postponed. But Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt said it would be safe. The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Friday denied a request that everyone attending the indoor rally wear a mask, and few in the crowd outside Saturday were wearing them.

The Trump campaign said six staff members helping prepare for the event tested positive for COVID-19. They were following “quarantine procedures” and wouldn’t attend the rally, said Tim Murtaugh, the campaign’s communications director.

Inside the barriers, the campaign was handing out masks and said hand sanitizer also would be distributed and that participants would undergo a temperature check. But there was no requirement that participants use the masks.

Teams of people wearing goggles, masks, gloves and blue gowns were checking the temperatures of those entering the rally area. Those who entered the secured area were given disposable masks, which most people wore as they went through the temperature check. Some took them off after the check.

The rally originally was planned for Friday, but was moved after complaints that it coincided with Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the U.S., and in a city that was the site of a 1921 race-related massacre, when a white mob attacked Black people, leaving as many as 300 people dead.

Stitt joined Vice President Mike Pence for a meeting Saturday with Black leaders from Tulsa’s Greenwood District, the area once known as “Black Wall Street” where the 1921 attack occurred. Stitt initially invited Trump to tour the area, but said, “We talked to the African American community and they said it would not be a good idea, so we asked the president not to do that.”

___

Associated Press reporters Ellen Knickmeyer in Tulsa, Ken Miller in Oklahoma City, Sara Burnett in Chicago, Adam Kealoha Causey in Dallas and Grant Schulte in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.

STEAL THIS BOOK
Pirated editions of John Bolton’s tell-all book pop up online

Publisher attempts to take down PDF versions ahead of book’s Tuesday release date

GET YOUR COPY HERE 

DON'T LET BOLTON PROFIT OFF HIS CRIMES

http://www.logicalpoetry.com/bolton.pdf
Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

A copy of "The Room Where It Happened," by former national security adviser John Bolton, is photographed at the White House. ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — John Bolton’s memoir officially comes out Tuesday after surviving a security review and a legal challenge from the Justice Department. But over the weekend, it was available in ways even his publisher is hoping to prevent.

A PDF of “The Room Where It Happened” has turned up on the internet, offering a free, pirated edition of the former national security adviser’s scathing takedown of President Donald Trump, who has alleged that the book contains classified material that never should have been released.

“We are working assiduously to take down these clearly illegal instances of copyright infringement,” Simon & Schuster spokesperson Adam Rothberg said Sunday.

Piracy has long been a top concern among publishers, especially in the digital age, although the actual impact on sales is undetermined. “The Room Where It Happened” has been No. 1 for days on the Amazon.com AMZN, 0.57% bestseller list. The Associated Press was among several news outlets that obtained early copies of the book and reported on its contents.

On Saturday, a federal judge ruled that Simon & Schuster, a unit of Viacom CBS Inc. VIAC, -1.69% , could publish the book despite the Trump administration’s contention that it compromised national security. “The Room Where It Happened” was originally scheduled for March, but was delayed twice as the White House reviewed the manuscript.

Bolton’s legal team has said that he spent months addressing White House concerns about classified information and that Bolton had been assured in late April by the official he was working with that the manuscript no longer contained any such material

Rather than jump-start reelection campaign, Tulsa rally highlights Trump’s vulnerabilities

Trump making no effort at national unity; low turnout reportedly leaves president fuming


President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, early Sunday after stepping off Marine One as he returned from a campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla. 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s return to the campaign trail was designed to show strength and enthusiasm heading into the critical final months before an election that will decide whether he remains in the White House.

Instead, his weekend rally in Oklahoma highlighted growing vulnerabilities and crystallized a divisive reelection message that largely ignores broad swaths of voters — independents, suburban women and people of color — who could play a crucial role in choosing Trump or Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

The lower-than-expected turnout at the comeback rally, in particular, left Trump fuming.

“There’s really only one strategy left for him, and that is to propel that rage and anger and try to split the society and see if he can have a tribal leadership win here,” former Trump adviser-turned-critic Anthony Scaramucci said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

The president did not offer even a token reference to national unity in remarks that spanned more than an hour and 40 minutes at his self-described campaign relaunch as the nation grappled with surging coronavirus infections, the worst unemployment since the Great Depression and sweeping civil unrest.

Nor did Trump mention George Floyd, the African American man whose death at the hands of Minnesota police late last month sparked a national uprising over police brutality. But he did add new fuel to the nation’s culture wars, defending Confederate statues while making racist references to the coronavirus, which originated in China and which he called “kung flu.” He also said Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who came to the U.S. as a refugee as a child, whom he said “would like to make the government of our country just like the country from where she came, Somalia.”

Trump won the presidency in 2016 with a similar red-meat message aimed largely at energizing conservatives and white working-class men. But less than four months before early voting begins in some states, there are signs that independents and educated voters — particularly suburban women — have turned against him. Republican strategists increasingly believe that only a dramatic turnaround in the economy can revive his reelection aspirations.

“It’s bad,” said Republican operative Rick Tyler, a frequent Trump critic. “There’s literally nothing to run on. The only thing he can say is that Biden is worse.”

But the day after Trump’s Tulsa rally, the president’s message was almost an afterthought as aides tried to explain away a smaller-than-expected crowd that left the president outraged.

The campaign had been betting big on Tulsa.

Trump’s political team spent days proclaiming that more than 1 million people had requested tickets. They also ignored health warnings from the White House coronavirus task force and Oklahoma officials, eager to host an event that would help him move past the civil rights protests and the coronavirus itself.

His first rally in 110 days was meant to be a defiant display of political force to help energize Trump’s spirits, try out some attacks on Biden and serve as a powerful symbol of American’s re-opening.

Instead, the city fire marshal’s office reported a crowd of just less than 6,200 in the 19,000-seat BOK Center, and at least six staff members who helped set up the event tested positive for the coronavirus. The vast majority of the attendees, including Trump, did not wear face masks as recommended by the Trump administration’s health experts.

After the rally, the president berated aides over the turnout. He fumed that he had been led to believe he would see huge crowds in deep-red Oklahoma, according to two White House and campaign officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

There was no sign of an imminent staff shakeup, but members of Trump’s inner circle angrily questioned how campaign manager Brad Parscale and other senior aides could so wildly overpromise and underdeliver, according to the officials.

Publicly, Trump’s team scrambled to blame the crowd size on media coverage and protesters outside the venue, but the small crowds of pre-rally demonstrators were largely peaceful. Tulsa police reported just one arrest Saturday afternoon.

It’s unclear when Trump will hold his next rally.

Before Oklahoma, the campaign had planned to finalize and announce its next rally this week. Trump is already scheduled to make appearances Tuesday in Arizona and Thursday in Wisconsin. Both are major general election battlegrounds.

At least one swing state governor, meanwhile, says Trump would not be welcome to host a rally in her state amid the pandemic.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said she “would think very seriously about” trying to block Trump from hosting a rally there if he wanted to.

“We know that congregating without masks, especially at an indoor facility, is the worst thing to do in the midst of a global pandemic,” Whitmer said in an interview before the Oklahoma event, conceding that she wasn’t aware of the specific legal tools she had available to block a prospective Trump rally. “I just know we have limitations on the number of people that can gather and that we’re taking this seriously.”

Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, seized on a fresh opportunity to poke at the incumbent president, suggesting that Trump “was already in a tailspin” because of his mismanagement of the pandemic and civil rights protests.

“Donald Trump has abdicated leadership and it is no surprise that his supporters have responded by abandoning him,” Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates said.

Germany Dares Lufthansa’s Billionaire Top Shareholder to Scuttle Bailout

Birgit Jennen and William Wilkes Bloomberg June 22, 2020

(Bloomberg) -- Germany stood by its 9 billion-euro ($10 billion) bailout plan for Deutsche Lufthansa AG, daring the airline’s disgruntled top shareholder to shoot it down at a pivotal vote this week.

With Lufthansa fighting for survival after the coronavirus outbreak punctured a decades-long global travel boom, billionaire Heinz-Hermann Thiele is threatening to block the rescue plan -- which would dilute his 15.5% holding and influence -- at a shareholder meeting scheduled for Thursday.

But with the government signaling it’s unwilling to alter the package, the onus is on the 79-year-old investor to decide whether to support a deal he considers faulty or potentially trigger its rejection. The alternative would lead Lufthansa into uncharted waters, forced to reconfigure its survival plan with cash reserves running low and the threat of insolvency looming.

The government stands firm on the agreed package, which will be the basis for the shareholder vote, German economy ministry spokesman Korbinian Wagner said Monday. The German government explained the terms of the rescue to Thiele in a meeting attended by Lufthansa Chief Executive Officer Carsten Spohr and the two ministers who brokered the bailout, according to a state official. The parties didn’t discuss what would happen if the package wasn’t approved by shareholders, the official said.

“Now the shareholder meeting must decide,” Wagner said at the government’s daily press conference in Berlin Monday.

Lufthansa shares traded 3% lower at 3:07 p.m. in Frankfurt, after tumbling as much as 9%. Its bonds sank to three-month low.

“We face a fateful week for our Lufthansa,” Spohr said Sunday in a letter to employees seen by Bloomberg, warning that it’s not at all certain the bailout package will gain approval at the extraordinary general meeting.

The carrier’s chances of securing backing for the proposal suffered a blow after only 38% of shareholders registered to vote by a deadline over the weekend.

That means Lufthansa’s management must secure two-thirds of votes to win the day, rather than a simple majority. That also means Thiele effectively has a blocking minority, assuming he registered. The airline declined to confirm.

Germany’s third-richest man has expressed dissatisfaction with the rescue, saying the state is profiteering, and was expected to press Finance Minister Olaf Scholz for last-minute changes, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing a private meeting.

State Stake

Terms of the package of loans and equity investment call for Lufthansa to issue a 20% stake to the government in Berlin at the nominal price of 2.56 euros per share, a change that needs to be approved at the online EGM.

“The federal government should confine itself to the financial aid packages, which are fundamentally very positive, and should not grow into the role of a return-oriented investor,” Thiele told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper last week.

It was unlikely that the government would give ground before the vote, as Scholz articulated earlier, having rejected other scenarios as unacceptable or impossible to deliver in time to meet Lufthansa’s cash requirements, one of the people said.

Analysts at Citibank Inc. see three scenarios for Lufthansa this week.

One would see the vote pass with Thiele’s support. The second envisages a failure of the deal, with the government then withdrawing its offer of a 20% stake, a relatively minor part of the deal in terms of the cash it would give to the carrier. The third scenario would see Thiele scupper the deal and then expand his holding as the share price fell.

Lufthansa on Monday fell out of Germany’s bluechip DAX index after its share-price decline this year. The decision to remove the airline was taken by Deutsche Boerse earlier this month.

Monday also marks Lufthansa’s self-imposed deadline for an agreement with unions on as many as 22,000 job cuts, though the sides may agree to a limited cost-reduction package to buy time as talks continue.

The group’s board is separately due to meet with Brussels Airlines, having threatened to put the unit into bankruptcy or up for sale if it fails to secure a bailout from Belgium to match rescues for Swiss and Austrian divisions. It wasn’t clear if the meeting would go ahead given the circumstances.



‘Balanced Offer’

Whether Thiele, a former army tank commander, is prepared to put his 750 million-euro stake at risk isn’t clear. Economy Minister Peter Altmaier has said previously that the airline will be saved at any cost -- perhaps giving the investor hope that Germany would ultimately revisit the basis of the bailout if left with no other choice.

Spohr said in his letter that Lufthansa is preparing for all scenarios, including ways to avoid grounding its jets and continuing communications with the German government should the vote be lost.

“The aim of the board, obviously, is to avoid an insolvency and all the consequences that would bring,” he said.

(Updates with discussions from meeting in fourth paragraph)

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Lufthansa set for showdown with billionaire investor Thiele over $10 billion bailout

Billionaire shareholder Heinz Hermann Thiele is set to meet Germany’s economics minister on Monday to discuss his objections to the $10 billion state rescue package

POST FRIEDMAN, HAYEK, ETC. 

STATE CAPITALISM SAVES MONOPOLY CAPITALISM

Published: June 22, 2020 By Lina Saigo

Lufthansa’s future is at stake after its biggest shareholder says he might vote against the €10 billion government bailout. GETTY IMAGES

Shares in Lufthansa dropped 5.8% on Monday, ahead of a crunch meeting between the German airline’s biggest shareholder, Heinz Hermann Thiele, and Germany’s economics minister on Monday to discuss a $10 billion rescue package.

Thiele, a 79-year-old billionaire, has built up a 15.5% stake in Lufthansa LHA, -3.34%, making him the carrier’s largest shareholder. Thiele has raised objections against the government’s bailout, which would see the state taking a 20% stake in the airline and two seats on its supervisory board.

Read:Lufthansa: Shareholders may not approve bailout

Thiele has pointed to other European airlines, such as Air France-KLM AF, -3.79%, which have received state aid in the form of loans rather than government shareholdings.

Thiele believes an indirect state participation via state-owned German development bank KFW, +0.52% could be an alternative to an outright government stake, according to Reuters.

On June 1, Lufthansa’s supervisory board approved the bailout, which would force it to transfer up to 24 coveted takeoff and landing slots at Frankfurt and Munich airports to some of its biggest rivals. The airline has also said it is looking to slash 22,000 full-time positions, as it struggles to cope with the unprecedented slump in air travel caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Read:German Airline Lufthansa to Cut 22,000 Jobs.

However, the bailout requires the support of more than two-thirds of its shareholders — who are due to vote on the package at an extraordinary shareholder meeting scheduled for June 25.

According to Citi analysts, only 38% of the shareholder base has registered to vote at this coming Thursday’s bailout-ratifying extraordinary general meeting. “Obtaining the two-thirds required to pass this bill is looking like a struggle. There are three possible outcomes on Thursday, in our view,” the analysts wrote in a note to clients on Monday.

Thiele will meet with Lufthansa Chief Executive and Chairman Carsten Spohr, Germany’s economics minister Peter Altmaier, and the two German ministers who brokered the rescue package in an online meeting on Monday, according to several news reports.

In a letter to employees on Sunday seen by Bloomberg, Spohr said “We face a fateful week for our Lufthansa,” and warned that it wasn’t certain the bailout package will gain approval at the EGM on Thursday.

According to Citi analysts, only 38% of the shareholder base has registered to vote at this coming Thursday’s bailout-ratifying EGM, effectively giving Thiele the ability to veto the proposed package. “Obtaining the two-thirds required to pass this bill is looking like a struggle,” they said.

The Citi team outlined its view on three possible outcomes on Thursday:

1) The bailout passes, the stock rises short-term and Lufthansa spends the next three years rebuilding the business in preparation for a significantly dilutive rights issue.

2) The bailout doesn’t pass, and the government quickly offers to remove its planned equity stake, which Citi believes is “arguably the best outcome for the shares & management team.”

3) The bailout doesn’t pass, no new terms are immediately offered by the government and management resignations follow. In this scenario, Citi predicts that the stock will fall significantly and Thiele could buy more equity and provide cash financing near-term, by collateralizing his stake in rail and commercial vehicle supplier Knorr-Bremse KBX, +2.08%, which would allow him to provide €5 billion plus loans to Lufthansa.

“The major shareholder ends up with a large stake in two German industrial names and enacts a multiyear turnaround plan at Lufthansa which includes the sale-and-leaseback of valuable unencumbered fleet and the spinoff of the much-discussed €3-5 billion MRO [maintenance, repair, and overhaul] business,” Citi wrote in the research note.

Lufthansa had discussed an initial public offering for shares in Lufthansa Technik before the coronavirus crisis.

Colin Kaepernick is a hero — like Pat Tillman — and deserves another chance in the NFL, says Brett Favre

Published: June 22, 2020 By Shawn Langlois

A Nike Ad featuring Colin Kaepernick GETTY IMAGES

‘I can only think of, right off the top of my head, Pat Tillman is another guy who did something similar. And we regard him as a hero. So, I’d assume that hero status will be stamped with Kaepernick, as well.’

That’s Green Bay Packers legend and Hall of Famer Brett Favre wading into the thorny Colin Kaepernick debate in an interview with TMZ Sports.

He was comparing Kaepernick, who was willing to sacrifice his NFL career to protest racial injustice, to Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals defender killed after leaving football to join the Army Rangers following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Tillman played four seasons in the NFL before leaving for Afghanistan.

Kaepernick was in his sixth season with the 49ers in 2016 when he began kneeling during the national anthem. He was cut after that season and ultimately filed a grievance that the NFL and its owners were colluding to keep him out of the league.

Favre says Kaepernick still has the skills to play.

“It’s not easy for a guy his age — black or white, Hispanic, whatever — to stop something that you’ve always dreamed of doing, and put it on hold, maybe forever, for something you believe in,” he said. “I thought he was a dynamic player when he was playing in his prime. He’s still young and hasn’t been hit in several years, so there’s no reason to think that he’s lost that much of a step.”

Watch the interview:

Kaepernick might finally get his chance at a return. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told ESPN last week he’d welcome Kaepernick back into the league and he’d encourage a team to sign him.

But not everybody is ready to embrace Kaepernick, and the comparison between him and Tillman also struck a nerve as Favre became a top-trending topic on Twitter TWTR, -0.93% . Of course, it quickly devolved into partisan bickering, like everything else on social media these days:

Tennessee newspaper apologizes for ‘horrific’ ad that warns ‘Islam’ will nuke Nashville

Published: June 22, 2020 By Shawn Langlois

THE TENNESSEAN

The ad began with “Dear Citizen of Nashville.” From there, it got dark in a hurry.

The Tennessean newspaper, the biggest in the Tennessee, on Sunday ran an ad from a prophecy group called Ministry for Future for America, which said its mission is to “proclaim the final warning message” from the Bible and warned that “Islam” would blow up a nuclear bomb in the city.


The eight-paragraph, full-page ad featured a photo of President Donald Trump and Pope Francis and careened between such topics as Vladimir Putin, the Democratic Party and 9/11. The group also warned of the likelihood of “another civil war.”

Read some of it in this tweet:
The Tennessean issued an apology on Sunday for the “bizarre, pseudo-religious” ad.

“Clearly there was a breakdown in the normal processes, which call for careful scrutiny of our advertising content,” said Michael A. Anastasi, vice president and editor, noting in the statement that news and ad sales divisions operate independently. “The ad is horrific and is utterly indefensible in all circumstances. It is wrong, period, and should have never been published,” he said.

The newspaper, which launched an investigation, said its advertising standards clearly forbid hate speech and the ad was immediately pulled from future editions.

Jeff Pippenger, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Future for America, stood by the content in the ad and on the group’s website, telling the New York Times that the newspaper owed the group a full refund and did not say how much the ad cost.

“It seems to me the criticism is more aimed at the editorial staff at the newspaper,” Pippenger said, “and the criticism about my religious convictions is simply what happens when you let your religious convictions out into the public arena.”

New York’s Museum of Natural History to remove Teddy Roosevelt statue

Statue symbolizes colonialism, museum says; Roosevelt’s great-grandson agrees

Published: June 21, 2020 By  Associated Press

Visitors to the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 2017 look at a statue of Theodore Roosevelt. ASSOCIATED PRES

NEW YORK — The American Museum of Natural History will remove a prominent statue of Theodore Roosevelt from its entrance after years of objections that it symbolizes colonial expansion and racial discrimination, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday.

The bronze statue that has stood at the museum’s Central Park West entrance since 1940 depicts Roosevelt on horseback with a Native American man and an African man standing next to the horse.

“The American Museum of Natural History has asked to remove the Theodore Roosevelt statue because it explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior,” de Blasio said in a written statement. “The City supports the Museum’s request. It is the right decision and the right time to remove this problematic statue.”

The museum’s president, Ellen Futter, told the New York Times that the museum’s “community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd.”

“We have watched as the attention of the world and the country has increasingly turned to statues as powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism,” Futter told the Times.

Officials said it hasn’t been determined when the Roosevelt statue will be removed and where it will go.

“The composition of the Equestrian Statue does not reflect Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy,” Theodore Roosevelt IV, a great-grandson of the president, said in a statement to the Times. “It is time to move the statue and move forward.”

Futter said the museum objects to the statue but not to Roosevelt, a pioneering conservationist whose father was a founding member of the institution and who served as New York’s governor before becoming the 26th president. She said the museum is naming its Hall of Biodiversity for Roosevelt “in recognition of his conservation legacy.”

In 2017, protesters splashed red liquid on the statue’s base to represent blood and published a statement calling for its removal as an emblem of “patriarchy, white supremacy and settler-colonialism.”

Opinion | Diplomacy That Will Live in Infamy - The New York ...

www.nytimes.com › 2009/12/06 › opinion

Dec 6, 2009 - Theodore Roosevelt, not F.D.R., had a greater effect on Japan's decision to ... In a secret presidential cable to Tokyo, in July 1905, Roosevelt ...

Taft–Katsura agreement - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org › wiki

The Taft–Katsura Agreement was a 1905 discussion between senior leaders of Japan and the ... The memorandum was not classified as a secret but no scholar noticed it in the archives ... President Theodore Roosevelt later agreed that War Secretary Taft had ... "Taft's Missions to Japan: A Study in Personal Diplomacy.

‎Details · ‎Context · ‎Korean reaction

Teddy Roosevelt's Secret Deal with Japan: An Interview with .. 

Teddy Roosevelt's Secret Deal with Japan: An Interview with James Bradley. Historians/ ... A hundred yea

Nonfiction: Some little-known tales of Teddy Roosevelt ...

 

In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Howard Taft on the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in history to Hawaii, Japan, the ...