UK
Home Office may use nets to stop migrant boats crossing Channel
Nets could be used to clog propellers and halt boats, says former Royal Marine in charge

Migrants on a boat in the Channel in August. The total number of asylum applications received by the UK between April and June nearly halved compared with the first three months of the year. Photograph: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images

Jamie Grierson Home affairs correspondent Sun 11 Oct 2020 THE GUARDIAN 

The Home Office is considering permitting the use of nets to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel in small boats to the UK to claim asylum, according to a former Royal Marine tasked with preventing the journeys.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, the Home Office’s clandestine channel threat commander, Dan O’Mahoney, said nets could be used to clog propellers and bring boats to a standstill as they attempt the crossing over the Dover Strait.

O’Mahoney told the Telegraph: “It’s that type of thing, yes. So, safely disabling the engine and then taking the migrants onboard our vessel.”

The tactic is the latest tactic reported to be under consideration by ministers and officials alongside locking migrants up on oilrigs, sending them more than 5,000 miles away to Ascension Island in the south Atlantic and using water cannon to create waves to push back vessels.

While the number of people arriving in the UK in small boats has increased nearly four-fold this year to more than 7,000, the total number of asylum applications received by the UK government between April and June nearly halved compared with the first three months of the year as the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

O’Mahoney told the Telegraph nets were one of a number of methods “which we may deploy over the next few months. But given that we’re not using them yet I’m not at liberty to go into detail about them … We are working with maritime security departments across law enforcement and military, everywhere across government [to] come up with new tactics to tackle this problem”.

He added: “We definitely are very, very close to being able to operationalise a safe return tactic where we make an intervention safely on a migrant vessel, take migrants onboard our vessel and then take them back to France.”

O’Mahoney used the interview to unveil a four-stage plan to tackle the issue of undocumented migration: using social media to attempt to stop the flow of migrants from Africa and the Middle East into northern France, reducing the number of asylum seekers leaving the region for the UK, physically preventing entry to the UK and reforming Britain’s asylum system.

The final strand was touched upon by the home secretary, Priti Patel, in her speech to the virtual Conservative party conference last week. She called the asylum system “fundamentally broken” and promised new laws to deny asylum to those using unofficial routes to enter the UK.

Speaking at the Conservative party conference, the home secretary said she would bring in legislation next year to stop “endless legal claims” from refused asylum seekers and was willing to face “being unpopular on Twitter” in order to bring down the number of claims.

Donald Trump claims coronavirus immunity despite lack of medical evidence

Donald Trump has claimed he is now immune from coronavirus despite a lack of medical evidence. Source: AAP

The US president has declared himself immune from COVID-19 while suggesting his Democratic rival Joe Biden could be sick.

US President Donald Trump has declared himself immune to COVID-19 and ready for a fight as his White House race against surging rival Joe Biden enters its critical final weeks.

Mr Trump's doctors gave him the all-clear on Saturday to return to the campaign trail after he was ruled no longer a coronavirus transmission risk - although he has yet to be declared virus-free, and his immunity claim is unproven.

"It looks like I'm immune for, I don't know, maybe a long time and maybe a short time, it could be a lifetime, nobody really knows, but I'm immune," Mr Trump told Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures in his first TV interview since his coronavirus diagnosis.

"The word immunity means something, having really a protective glow.

"So now you have a president who doesn't have to hide in a basement like his opponent," Mr Trump added - in a jab at Democratic challenger Mr Biden, who has taken a far more cautious approach to campaigning in a pandemic.

But it is not yet clear to what degree contracting COVID-19 confers immunity, with early studies suggesting a few months while newer ones have indicated it could last longer.

Twitter on Sunday hid a tweet from Trump in which he claimed he was immune, saying the post violated its rules about misleading and potentially harmful misinformation.

A total and complete sign off from White House Doctors yesterday. That means I can’t get it (immune), and can’t give it. Very nice to know!!!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2020

The tweet was still visible once users clicked through the warning.
Trailing in polls

Mr Trump, 74, was treated with an experimental antibody cocktail made by Regeneron that may give immunity for just a few months when taken as a treatment rather than as a vaccine.

"In some cases, vaccines can last for decades. (But) if you get it in the form of natural immunity, that isn't known yet," Regeneron CEO Leonard Schleifer told CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday.

"If you get it in our vial, if you will, that's probably going to last you for months," he said.

Badly trailing Mr Biden with just weeks until the 3 November vote, Mr Trump has been counting the days until he can hit the trail again.

The Republican leader rallied hundreds of supporters for a comeback event at the White House on Saturday, and is planning back-to-back rallies this week - in Florida on Monday, then Pennsylvania and Iowa - in a bid to salvage his struggling campaign.

During his phone interview on Fox News, Mr Trump suggested that his White House rival could himself be sick.

"If you look at Joe, he was coughing yesterday horribly and grabbing his mask, as he's coughing," Mr Trump said. "And I don't know what that was all about, and it didn't get much press."
'Never endorsed a candidate'

The Biden campaign has been publishing daily coronavirus tests for their 77-year-old candidate since Mr Trump tested positive on 1 October - landing him in a military hospital for three nights and derailing his campaign.


READ MORE

Joe Biden issues blunt message to Donald Trump's supporters over president's decision to resume campaign



There has been less transparency surrounding Mr Trump's own state of health, with his medical team repeatedly refusing to say when he last tested negative for the virus. That has fuelled suspicions that he may not have been tested for several days prior to his diagnosis.

COVID-19 has killed more than 214,000 people in the United States - but the president has brushed the concerns aside, insisting America has the upper hand against the virus.

But Mr Trump's message hit a bit of a snag Sunday, when top government scientist Anthony Fauci said a new reelection ad was edited to make him seem to endorse the president's handling of the pandemic.

"In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate," Mr Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement sent to AFP.

Dr Anthony Fauci points to faults with White House virus precautions

Mr Trump defended the clip, and his handling of pandemic, and rebutted the doctor's criticism.

"They are indeed Dr Fauci's own words. We have done a 'phenomenal' job, according to certain governors," the president wrote in a tweet.

Mr Biden has slammed Mr Trump's determination to rally huge crowds during the pandemic, on Sunday tweeting: "There is no excuse for President Trump's reckless behaviour."

Barack Obama's former vice president is currently close to 10 points ahead in national polls with a solid lead in some key battleground states.

Parents: Online learning program has racist, sexist content

As parents help their children navigate remote classes during the coronavirus pandemic, they’re more aware of what’s being taught

By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER, Associated Press
Published: October 11, 2020

This photo provided by Charles Timtim shows his daughter, name withheld by parents, doing schoolwork from home in Waipahu, Hawaii, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020. Timtim's mother doesn't think it's safe for her daughter to be back at school but she also doesn't want her exposed to an online learning program called Acellus that misspelled and mispronounced the last queen to rule the Hawaiian kingdom. Parents spotting questionable content on Acellus is forcing some school districts across the country to reconsider the program or stop using it. (Charles Timtim via AP) Photo Gallery


HONOLULU — Zan Timtim doesn’t think it’s safe for her eighth-grade daughter to return to school in person during the coronavirus pandemic but also doesn’t want her exposed to a remote learning program that misspelled and mispronounced the name of Queen Lili?uokalani, the last monarch to rule the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Timtim’s daughter is Native Hawaiian and speaks Hawaiian fluently, “so to see that inaccuracy with the Hawaiian history side was really upsetting,” she said.

Even before the school year started, Timtim said she heard from other parents about racist, sexist and other concerning content on Acellus, an online program some students use to learn from home.

Parents have called out “towelban” as a multiple-choice answer for a question about a terrorist group and Grumpy from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” described as a “woman hater.” Some also say the program isn’t as rigorous as it should be.

As parents help their children navigate remote classes, they’re more aware of what’s being taught, and it’s often not simply coming from an educator on Zoom. Some schools have turned to programs like Acellus to supplement online classes by teachers, while others use it for students who choose to learn from home as campuses reopen. And because of the scramble to keep classes running during a health crisis, vetting the curriculum may not have been as thorough as it should have been, experts say.



Thousands of schools nationwide use Acellus, according to the company, and parents’ complaints are leading some districts to reconsider or stop using the program.

“We wouldn’t have had this visibility if it weren’t for all of us at home, often sitting side by side and making sure: ‘Is this working for you?'” said Adrienne Robillard, who withdrew her seventh-grade daughter from Kailua Intermediate School after concluding Acellus lacked substance and featured racist content.

When school officials said her daughter could do distance learning without Acellus, Robillard reenrolled her.

Acellus officials didn’t respond to multiple calls from The Associated Press seeking comment. In an online message to parents, founder Roger Billings called the controversy “an organized attack” and said “they have not found anything in our content that is really racist or sexist.” An automated closed-captioning system misinterpreted some words, he said.

Kansas City, Missouri-based Acellus was created in 2001, according to its website, which says it “delivers online instruction, compliant with the latest standards, through high-definition video lessons made more engaging with multimedia and animation.”



In a video on his website, Billings responds to criticism about his credentials by saying he earned a bachelor’s degree in “composite fields” of chemistry, physics, engineering and other subjects from a university he doesn’t name. He says he started a company focused on hydrogen energy technology and that he later earned a “doctor of research and innovation” degree at the International Academy of Science, the nonprofit that develops Acellus courses.

Hawaii selected Acellus based on an “implementation timeline” as well as “cost effectiveness” and other factors, Superintendent Christina Kishimoto said in a memo.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that price was the main factor,” said Charles Lang, visiting assistant professor of learning analytics at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York City. “And to some extent, you do get what you pay for in terms of content.”

Vetting educational programs takes time, but with the pandemic, districts needed to quickly find remote learning platforms, said Eric Hirsch, executive director of EdReports, which helps schools review instructional materials.

“So this spring, we saw a scramble, a dash,” he said.

And evaluating curriculum is like the “Wild West” — it varies across school systems, Lang said.

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“We were in some serious situations with the pandemic, and we had to figure something out,” Hawaii school board member Kili Namau?u said at a recent meeting. “And I think schools made some pretty quick decisions. Maybe they weren’t the most accurate decisions.”

She later said in an interview that it would be more problematic to pull Acellus in the middle of the quarter.

But as a Native Hawaiian, she wants to ensure Acellus has corrected “appalling” and inaccurate information about Hawaiian history: “I’m particularly dismayed with that particular module.”

Seeing the queen’s name misspelled and information that the Hawaiian islands were “discovered” by Europeans was enough for Timtim and her husband to decide their daughter should join Waipahu Intermediate School’s hybrid remote and in-person program despite their concerns about COVID-19.

Then most of Hawaii’s public schools, which began virtually on Aug. 17, extended remote learning until mid-October.

“I just pray we figure out what to do if she does have to go to school once or twice a week,” Timtim said.

The Hawaii Department of Education, the nation’s only statewide school district, is considering what to do about Acellus, but some schools decided on their own to stop using it. Other U.S. districts, like Alameda Unified in California, quickly dropped the program after complaints surfaced.

In a recent memo, the California Department of Education said it “has learned through examples shared that Acellus lessons may contain highly inappropriate content and may not meet state legal requirements surrounding instructional materials.” The memo to superintendents and school administrators cited “racist depictions of Black Americans” and “at least one question that perpetuates Islamophobic stereotypes.”

A Sept. 17 memo Hawaii’s superintendent sent to the school board said education officials were working with Acellus to address inappropriate content.

Mariko Honda-Oliver heard concerning things from other parents but didn’t find anything she considered racist. She was troubled, however, that her son, a second-grader at Makalapa Elementary, blew through more than a week of material on his first day.

Similarly, Cassie Favreau-Chung said her son, a freshman at Mililani High School, was looking forward to the independence of remote learning but found he wasn’t getting a quality education because the program had no writing assignments.

“He hasn’t found anything on his own that he thought was racist or sexist,” she said. “However, I will also say that a lot of kids, it’ll go over their heads.”

For example, “towelban,” Favreau-Chung said.

She switched her son to the hybrid program next quarter to avoid Acellus, hoping the school will let him keep learning from home.

The experience has made Favreau-Chung lose faith: “It’s the first time that I have not been proud to have my kid in public school.”

Honda-Oliver, whose military family has experienced schools worldwide, also is disappointed.

“This experience of having to see how other districts and other states are doing distance learning compared to Hawaii has kind of reinforced that Hawaii really is not the place to come if you want to give your children a good education,” she said.

Belarus: Dozens of arrests in Minsk as police use water cannon to break up anti-Lukashenko protests

By Euronews with AP, AFP • last updated: 11/10/2020 - 

Police use a water cannon truck to disperse demonstrators during a rally to protest against the Belarus presidential election results in Minsk on October 11, 2020. - Copyright STRINGER / AFP  

VIDEO https://www.euronews.com/embed/1257116

Riot police detained protesters in Minsk on Sunday as thousands rallied for the ninth consecutive Sunday rally against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

The interior ministry said water cannon and stun grenades were used to disperse demonstrators who gathered in the capital to protest against his controversial re-election in August, widely seen as rigged.



Independent media still operating from Belarus shared images of people being detained in brutal fashion, in what has been described as the most violent repression of a demonstration in Minsk for two months.

Rallies also took place in other cities, including Brest, Vitebsk and Grodno.

Dozens of protesters sustained injuries, according to a human rights group. Viasna released a list of protesters detained across the country on its website that by Sunday evening had more than 300 names on it.

“This has been the harshest dispersal of a Sunday march since August,” Viasna leader Ales Bialiatski told The Associated Press. It estimated that around 100,000 people took part in the demonstration in Minsk.


Black-clad masked police violently disperse demonstrators at Belarus protest march

Military and crowd control vehicles were seen entering the Belarusian capital in the morning to prepare for the rally. Videos of the protests show thousands of people marching in columns through the city, waving flags and chanting slogans.

At least 35 journalists were detained during protests on Sunday, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

On Saturday, Lukashenko visited a prison to talk to opposition activists, who have been jailed for challenging his reelection. Commentators said the move was an attempt to imitate a dialogue.

Ales Bialiatski of the Viasna centre said that “instead of a dialogue, Belarusians received another strong-arm dispersal (of a protest) with the beaten and the injured.”

Lukashenko's main election challenger Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, in exile in Lithuania after leaving Belarus in fear for her safety and that of her children, said on Sunday that any dialogue with the authorities should start only after they stop detentions and release political prisoners.

“We are all working together to stop forceful detentions, release political prisoners and set a time and a place for talks. If these demands are not met, then they are trying to deceive us," Tsikhanouskaya said in a statement.

She encouraged Belarusians on Sunday to continue peaceful protests.

As #EndSars trends online, Nigerian police squad disbanded
Amnesty International listed an alleged 82 cases of torture and execution carried out by SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) 

Renee G October 11, 2020

The Grio Top 3 10/9

Following days of widespread protests against police brutality, Nigeria’s police chief has announced the dissolution of a notorious anti-robbery unit.

As previously reported in theGrio, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) has long been accused of harassing and extorting young people and targeting those who have dreads, are dressed in nice clothing, or driving nice cars.

Read More: Nigerians rally against police brutality with #EndSARS campaign

Along with unlawful arrests, SARS has also been accused of being responsible for kidnappings, inflicting torture, and even murdering innocent people.

While #EndSars trended online in Nigeria for several days, thousands of people marched across Nigerian and in multiple cities across the world this week to demand the unit be disbanded.

Hello @PoliceNG. You have told US that SARS has been dismantled. But have you told THEM??
— Anto Lecky (@AntoLecky) October 11, 2020

In a statement on Sunday, Muhammed Adamu, inspector general of police, said the unit had been abolished “with immediate effect,” a move that was “in response to the yearnings of the Nigerian people.”

However, according to Adamu, the unit would be redeployed to other police commands, formations and units, which sparked outrage and condemnation by some activists online who vowed to keep up their campaign, demanding accountability and justice for the victims of police brutality.

The “disbanding” of SARS is step 1. This has happened before. We have to build a form of community safety that actually makes Nigerians feel safe. Let this be a battle that’s part of a larger movement against corruption to demand a government that truly serves us 🇳🇬#EndSARS
— Jidenna (@Jidenna) October 11, 2020

Adamu added that the Nigerian police force intended to investigate cases of alleged human rights violations by working with civil society organizations and human rights groups.

In a Twitter post, the Nigerian presidency promised that the police unit, which was founded in 1992 in an attempt to combat robbery, would be disbanded immediately.

Read More: South Africa ruling opens way for apartheid-era prosecutions of police who tortured and killed activists

In June, a report by Amnesty International listed an alleged 82 cases of torture and execution carried out by SARS under the supervision of high-ranking officers. The report accused the squad of “systematic use of torture” and alleged the existence of torture chambers within the Nigerian Police Force.

NZ ELECTION
Sam Neill Is Team Legalize Marijuana

By Kristy Puchko | Celebrity | October 9, 2020 |


Election day is coming! Not just in the U.S., but also for New Zealand. That not only means a chance to vote for politicians who support causes Kiwis care about but also the chance to vote on referendums. This year, that includes “Cannabis legalization and control referendum,” which as you might guess is about whether or not the recreational use of marijuana should be legal in New Zealand.

Among those supporting the referendum is national treasure Sam Neill, who took a break from posting about wine, pigs, and Jeff Goldblum to share this on Twitter:


NEW ZEALANDERS everywhere! Make sure to VOTE in this critical election. Have YOUR say. And while you’re at it, let’s get sensible and finally LEGALISE cannabis .Decriminalise it, regulate it, tax it- the whole community benefits( not gangs) #makeitlegal #VoteYesOnCannabis #CBD pic.twitter.com/ETeyr6paK3— Sam Neill (@TwoPaddocks) October 9, 2020

OK. While we’re at it, here’s the pigs and Goldblum content that Neill offered up this week.

First up: Please enjoy a #badpig scratching himself.

No wonder my fences are shagged. Even the rams are shocked #BadPig . pic.twitter.com/0d9C6C7i52— Sam Neill (@TwoPaddocks) October 8, 2020

Then, the best Pence/fly joke on the internet.

We say it again: Follow Sam Neill on social media. It is basically self-care.

Trump slight against Gold Star families adds to military woes

BY REBECCA KHEEL - 10/11/20 

President Trump has sparked a new wave of criticism over his treatment of members of the military after suggesting he may have caught the coronavirus from Gold Star families.

The latest row comes after a series of scandals in which Trump was accused of disparaging service members, giving his political rivals an opening and calling into question whether he can hold on to a bloc of voters seen as central to his base.

With the presidential election now less than a month away and Trump trailing in both national polls and key battleground states, the president can ill afford more incidents that generate negative headlines and risk alienating any service members, veterans or other military supporters.

“If the polls can be believed, he’s in the stop-the-bleeding phase of the operation,” said Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who was a White House adviser to former President George W. Bush. “And he keeps nicking himself, sometimes with paper cuts, sometimes with deeper slices. But whatever it is, it's not the thing that he needs.”

The latest self-inflicted wound came when Trump said he thinks an event at the White House that honored families of slain service members could be the source of his COVID-19 infection.

“I figured there would be a chance that I would catch it,” Trump said in a phone interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday. “Sometimes I'd be with, in groups of, for instance, Gold Star families. I met with Gold Star families. I didn't want to cancel that. But they all came in, and they all talked about their son and daughter and father.”

“And I can't back up, Maria, and say, ‘Give me room. I want room. Give me 12 feet. Stay 12 feet away when you talk.’ They come within an inch of my face sometimes,” he added.

“They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And frankly, I'm not telling them to back up. I'm not doing it. But I did say it's like — it's obviously dangerous. It's a dangerous thing I guess if you go by the COVID thing,” he said.

Trump appeared to be alluding to a Sept. 27 event at the White House for Gold Star families. One person who was at that event is known to have since tested positive for the virus: Coast Guard Vice Commandant Adm. Charles Ray.
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None of the Gold Star families are known to have since tested positive as of Friday.

Doctors have not disclosed how or when Trump may have gotten the virus, and White House officials have repeatedly refused to answer questions on when his last negative coronavirus test was.

“Considering it has been 13 days since the event, all Gold Star family are all doing well and exhibit no symptoms of COVID-19,” Timothy Davis, president and chief executive of the Greatest Generations Foundation, a nonprofit that helped families attend the event, said in a statement.

All Gold Star family attendees were tested by the White House medical team before entering the building and tested negative, he added.

The White House has sought to clean up Trump’s comments. Communications director Alyssa Farah told reporters he was not blaming Gold Star families for his infection but rather laying out a timeline of events within the period in which he might have been exposed.

“His point was merely that in the time frame that he was potentially exposed, there were a number of different venues he'd been at and individuals he had interacted with that it could have come from — and by no means are blaming anyone who was present,” Farah said. “And we did take a lot of precautions for that event. So based on contact tracing, the data we have, we don't think it arose from that event."

But Trump did not call out any other recent event specifically, such as the Sept. 26 White House ceremony where he announced his latest Supreme Court nominee. Dozens of attendees and their contacts have tested positive for COVID-19 since that event, which top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci referred to as a “superspreader” Friday.

Nor was it the first time Trump appeared to blame military-connected individuals for the White House outbreak.

After close aide Hope Hicks tested positive at the beginning of the month, Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that “it’s very, very hard when you are with people from the military or from law enforcement.”

“And they come over to you, and they — they want to hug you, and they want to kiss you because we really have done a good job for them. And you get close, and things happen,” he said.

After Trump’s Gold Star families comments, congressional Democrats pounced.

“Can you believe that he would say such a thing?” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked at her weekly press conference.

The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, called the remarks “a shocking statement even for this president.”

“Instead of casting aspersions on the families of the fallen for infecting him, President Trump should be transparent about his own actions, who he met with and when, and release detailed medical information including a timeline and do some real contact tracing to help stop the spread,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said in a statement. “Stop blaming, deflecting and denying, Mr. President, and start leading.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), an Army veteran who lost both her legs when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq, tweeted that Trump “has no shame,” while Marine veteran Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) tweeted that Trump blaming Gold Star families “when he has been flouting medical advice since day one of the pandemic would be laughable if it weren't so reprehensible.”

“The President who refused to stand up to Putin in defense of our troops is now offloading blame on Gold Star families, who've sacrificed everything for our nation,” Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in his own tweet. “It’s time for this President to show respect for our military & take responsibility for his failed #COVID response.”

Warner appeared to be alluding to an alleged Russian plot to offer the Taliban bounties for killing U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan. Reports about the bounties over the summer caused a firestorm for Trump, who has said he never raised the issue in calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump also faced a scandal last month over allegations first reported by The Atlantic that he called U.S. troops who died in battle “suckers” and “losers.” He has denied the reporting but fanned the flames of that scandal by then accusing Pentagon leaders of deciding to send forces into war to appease defense contractors.

The successive scandals have given the Biden campaign ammunition to attack. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden hit Trump over the “suckers” and “losers” comments at the first presidential debate, though Trump quickly pivoted to attacking Biden’s son Hunter.

At the vice presidential debate on Wednesday, Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), cited all of those scandals — as well as Trump dismissing troops’ brain injuries in Iraq earlier this year as “headaches” and his repeated criticism of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for being a prisoner of war — to argue Trump has a “pattern” of disparaging the military. Vice President Pence defended Trump against “slanders” he described as “absurd.”

Trump has weathered controversies over his treatment of the military and veterans before. His criticism of McCain dates back to the 2016 election, and during the same cycle, Trump also feuded with a Gold Star family.

But Trump’s political situation is more precarious now, Feaver said.

“It's hard for anything to penetrate and sink in nowadays,” he said. But the White House “went to some length to try to walk that statement back, clarify what the president meant to say, etc., etc., which they don't bother for many of his other equally offensive comments. And so that tells you that the White House political people understand that this is toxic in a way so that even though it's hard for anything to sink in, it may still matter.”

Remembering Ruben Salazar, pioneer Latino journalist
BY RAUL REYES, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 08/29/20 

© Getty Image

Fifty years ago, journalist Ruben Salazar, 42, set off to cover an anti-war protest in East Los Angeles and never returned.

The march, known as the Chicano Moratorium, drew over 25,000 people on Aug. 29, 1970. It was a largely peaceful gathering until law enforcement moved in, drawn by reports of looting. Then the rally descended into chaos and violence. By the end of the day, hundreds had been arrested and three people were dead, including Salazar. He died after being struck by a canister fired by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy.

On the anniversary of his death, Salazar’s legacy deserves to be remembered and celebrated. He was a pioneering Latino journalist whose impact is still felt today. His killing was a seminal moment in the Mexican American civil rights movement. And the issues that he cared about matter now as much as they did half a century ago.
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Salazar was born in Juarez, Mexico, in 1928 and grew up in El Paso. In an age when opportunities for Latino journalists were extremely limited, he carved out an exceptional career. He was a foreign correspondent and one of the first Latino reporters at the Los Angeles Times. He interviewed President Eisenhower, Cesar Chavez, and Robert F. Kennedy. Later he became news director for a Spanish-language television station, while continuing as a columnist for the L.A. Times. He illuminated the lives of Latinos for his readers, explaining in a 1970 column that “A Chicano is a Mexican-American with a non-Anglo image of himself.”

The circumstances around Salazar’s death have long been viewed as suspicious among activists of his generation. Prior to his death, he had confided to his friends that he was worried about being targeted by law enforcement. But the 1970 coroner’s inquest did not result in any criminal charges against the deputy who killed him, and a 2011 review of Salazar’s case by an independent watchdog agency found that Salazar’s killing was neither intentional nor targeted.

Fast-forward 50 years: Police violence against Latinos continues to be a significant problem. Research from the Washington Post has found that, since 2015, Latinos are the second-highest demographic killed by police, after African Americans. Just this year, James Porter Garcia, 28, was killed by Phoenix police in July as he sat in a parked car; Andres Guardado, 18, was fatally shot in the back by a Los Angeles County Sheriff‘s deputy in June; and Carlos Ingram Lopez, 27, died while being pinned down by police officers in Tucson in April. Like Salazar’s case, none of these incidents has received sustained national attention. So Latinos have much to learn from the Black Lives Matter movement about amplifying the need for justice in our communities.

Salazar forged his career before the concept of “diversity” existed. Yet even as the U.S. Latino population has grown to nearly one-in-five Americans, Latinos remain under-represented in the media. A 2018 Pew Center report found that newsrooms were 77 percent white. Ironically, the lack of Latino representation continues to be an issue at the L.A. Times, where Salazar once worked. In July, a caucus of Latino employees wrote an open letter to management calling for better community coverage and representation.

Salazar’s death is also relevant because Americans are living under an administration that is generally hostile to Latinos, immigrants, and journalists. The ideals that Salazar believed in, like freedom of the press, seem under siege. Consider that Latinos were among the many journalists who reported experiencing excessive police force this summer while covering the George Floyd protests. Or that President Trump has labelled the news media “the enemy of the American people.”

True, Salazar likely would never have seen himself as a martyr for a cause. He was not a political figure or an activist. But his reporting on immigration, racial profiling, and Latino identity was ahead of his time. He achieved success despite his facing discrimination. His death led to the formation of a professional organization for Latino reporters in California, which paved the way for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. It’s no wonder that he was known as la voz de la Raza, the voice of the people.

Ruben Salazar was dedicated to seeking the truth and to accurately depicting the Mexican American experience. His story is a reminder of how far Latinos have come in the struggle for visibility and justice – and how far our community still has to go.

Raul A. Reyes is an immigration attorney and member of the USA Today Board of Contributors. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School, he is also a contributor to NBCNews.com and CNN Opinion. You can follow him on Twitter at @RaulAReyes, Instagram: raulareyes1.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

Kaepernick: Abolish police, prisons
BY JOSEPH CHOI - 10/11/20 

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Former NFL player Colin Kaepernick called for the abolition of police and prison systems in a new essay, abandoning his former demands for reform as ineffective and incapable of solving the issues of police brutality and high incarceration rates in the U.S.

The essay is part of a new series called "Abolition for the People" which is created through a partnership with Kaepernick Publishing and "LEVEL", a publication by Medium that concentrates on the lives of Black and Brown men. Kaepernick's essay is the first of 30 that will be published in the next few weeks.

In his piece, "The Demand for Abolition," Kaepernick argues that institutions of justice should concentrate more on the well-being of people instead of controlling them. He laments the lack of progress and the continued killing of unarmed black people by the police that has occurred since he began protesting in 2015.

Kaepernick said reform was unviable during the ongoing discourse.

"Ultimately, I realized that seeking reform would make me an active participant in reforming, reshaping, and rebranding institutional white supremacy, oppression, and death," Kaepernick wrote.

"To be clear, the abolition of these institutions is not the absence of accountability but rather the establishment of transformative and restorative processes that are not rooted in punitive practices," he writes. "By abolishing policing and prisons, not only can we eliminate white supremacist establishments, but we can create space for budgets to be reinvested directly into communities to address mental health needs, homelessness and houselessness, access to education, and job creation as well as community-based methods of accountability."

Police reform and spending has become a central issue in a year filled with protests against police brutality amid a renewed Black Lives Matter movement. In Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, the city council vowed to "dismantle" the police department and set up a "transformative new model of public safety" in its place.

Kaepernick first made national news when he kneeled during the national anthem in 2015 to protest police brutality against Black people in the U.S. At the time he was a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, though he has gone unsigned since 2015. His silent protest began a nationwide trend of players kneeling during the national anthem.

These acts of protest have been become highly divisive with many calling for players to be kept from playing if they protest. The NFL initially required players to stand or remain in the locker room, but Commissioner Roger Goodell has since said the league was wrong to oppose players' peaceful protests.

Void the police contracts
BY ANDREW KOPPELMAN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 09/13/20 




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Police unions all over the United States have negotiated contracts that protect officers from discipline for misconduct. The result is that, so long as these deals are in force, cities are stuck with officers who are uncontrollably reckless and violent. But a body of forgotten law from the 19th century shows that states can free themselves from these fetters.

In most large urban departments, the contracts thwart misconduct investigations by protecting officers from being interrogated immediately after an incident. Often the officer is given all the information that the questioners have before the interrogation, including any videos, making it easier to lie about what happened. Complaints are voided unless they are filed within a very short time. Anonymous complaints are prohibited. Investigations that are not concluded quickly are automatically ended. They are not recorded in the officer’s personnel file.

In Chicago, Officer Jason Van Dyke had more than 20 complaints against him, but the union contract prohibited the city from placing them in his file. So, his pattern of bad behavior went unnoticed until he shot Laquan McDonald 16 times. Van Dyke claimed self-defense, asserting that McDonald threatened him with a knife. No action was taken until the public release of a video showing that Van Dyke was lying and that he started shooting while McDonald was walking away. Van Dyke was subsequently convicted of second-degree murder. Absent the union contract, he might have been taken off duty before he could kill anyone. Better discipline of the worst officers would have a huge effect: The 1 percent of officers who have the largest number of civilian allegations against them generate almost five times the number of payouts and over four times the total damage payouts in civil rights litigation as police as a whole.

Discipline of police officers should not be a subject of collective bargaining. Yet the contracts are there, and some of them will not be revisited for years to come. They are the reason why unionized police are more likely to engage in violent misconduct and more likely to kill civilians, particularly nonwhite ones. The foolish concessions of past governments protect that small minority of cops who are as bad as Van Dyke.

America has faced this kind of problem before. When that happened, the Supreme Court empowered states to escape contracts that threatened the public — and that power still exists.

In the early 19th century, the nation experienced a religious revival. Its most momentous consequence was the new antislavery movement that led to the Civil War. But it also targeted other moral failings, notably gambling.

States had for many years funded public works by contracting with private corporations to run lotteries, typically for a term of years or until a given sum of money had been raised. By the late 1820s, there were hundreds of such grants.

The Constitution prohibits states from “impairing the obligation of contracts.” In the 19th century, the Supreme Court cited the Contracts Clause in nearly half of the cases in which it struck down state laws. No agreement between a legislature and a private entity could be undone. In one notable case, a legislature could not reverse a corrupt land deal enacted by its predecessor.

So, states that wanted to abolish gambling had their hands tied. Courts held that opponents of lotteries had to wait until the existing grants expired.

Eventually, however, the courts took a different view, one that remains the law today. In 1879, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a state law rescinding a 25-year grant of the right to operate a lottery. It declared, in a decision that has never been overruled:

“No legislature can bargain away the public health or the public morals. . . . Government is organized with a view to their preservation, and cannot divest itself of the power to provide for them. For this purpose the largest legislative discretion is allowed, and the discretion cannot be parted with any more than the power itself.” The agencies of government “can govern according to their discretion . . . but they cannot give away nor sell the discretion of those that are to come after them.”

Kaepernick: Abolish police, prisons

If states can abolish lotteries, even when past legislatures have contracted away that right, then they must have the power to abolish contractual terms that endanger the safety of their citizens. The problem might be addressed by a simple state law declaring that discipline of police officers may not be a subject of collective bargaining, and that any contractual limitation on such discipline is void as against public policy. There are notorious political obstacles to reform, but in some states, the police unions will be less powerful at the state level than when dealing with individual cities.

Discussions of police misconduct today tend to focus on broad remedies such as abolishing qualified immunity or criminal prosecution of officers. But before reaching for this heavy artillery – tools that are only likely to have any effect in the most egregious cases, leaving most police misconduct untouched – states should consider reclaiming their power of ordinary supervision, the capacity to get rid of employees who cannot do their jobs competently and safely.

Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University, is the author of “Gay Rights vs. Religious Liberty? The Unnecessary Conflict” (Oxford University Press, 2020).