Rep. Pramila Jayapal says Trump's rhetoric is fueling the rise in threats to Congress members after an armed man showed up to her home and shouted 'go back to India, I'm going to kill you'

Hannah Getahun

Sat, September 10, 2022

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wa.) at her home on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022, in Seattle, WashJovelle Tamayo/ forThe Washington Post via Getty Images

• Rep. Pramila Jayapal says former President Trump's rhetoric encourages violence against Congress members.

• Jayapal released voicemails on Thursday that included threats to "go back to India."

• Capitol Police data shows that threats to members of Congress have increased 144% since 2017.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who was harassed and threatened outside her home by a man with a gun, says the increase in threats to Congressional members is linked to rhetoric about the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and other members of the GOP.

In July, an armed man was arrested and charged with felony stalking after camping outside Jayapal's neighborhood and threatening her. One neighbor told police she heard the man shout: "Go back to India, I'm going to kill you."

Jayapal told MSNBC's Ali Velshi on Saturday that she wanted people to understand the connections between stolen election rhetoric and the increased threats that Congressional members are facing.

"I think that what has changed is there's a sense that everything is so unfair and it's been propelled by Donald Trump," Jayapal said. "'The institutions are unfair,' and that the only recourse is to violence and that is an extremely dangerous thing. And we saw it come to fruition on January 6, and now in ways that you know, I've seen outside my door."

On Thursday, Jayapal released voicemails of threats against her and her family. The person in the recording tells Jayapal she is going to get "exactly what you deserve" and tells her to "go back to India."

"Typically, political figures don't show their vulnerability," Jayapal wrote. "I chose to do so here because we cannot accept violence as our new norm. We also cannot accept the racism and sexism that underlies and propels so much of this violence."

Threats to lawmakers in congress have increased by 144% since 2022, according to Capitol Police data shared with Axios. In the first three months of 2022, nearly 2,000 threats made to Congress members resulted in the Capitol Police opening cases.

Congress members like California Rep. Eric Swalwell and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who is on the House Committee Investigating Jan. 6, have also released threatening voicemails targeting them and their families.

In a Washington Post profile released Thursday, Jayapal recounted her experiences dealing with harassing and threatening voicemails. She said she often wanted to hide the threats because she didn't want people to know how they emotionally affected her.

"But at the same time," Jayapal told the Post, "it's important people understand how ubiquitous this is, and how much a part of our psyche it is taking up."

Muslim Americans see their political clout grow 20 years after 9/11


Shirin Ali and Sarakshi Rai
Sun, September 11, 2022 

Story at a glance

In the years following 9/11, anti-Muslim sentiment grew in the United States.

From 2000 to 2009, hate crimes against Muslims spiked 500 percent.

Muslim Americans coalesced and in 2020 out of the 1.5 million registered to vote, 71 percent cast a ballot.

The political and cultural power of Muslim Americans has grown in the past 20 years as a result of an expanding voter base and record numbers of candidates running for office at both at the local and national level.

But the rise in political power has come with its difficulties.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks carried out by Al Qaeda on American soil, Muslims living in the U.S. have experienced political and cultural firsts along with an exponential rise in hate crimes, bullying, harassment and racial profiling.

In the years following 9/11, anti-Muslim sentiment grew in the United States.

Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage, a Muslim American civic group, explained to Changing America that Muslim Americans could have stayed silent in the aftermath of 9/11 as a “way to defend their interests and their freedoms” because of hostile rhetoric.

But eventually, Alzayat said, the community warmed to a more affirmative agenda, engaging in political discourse and becoming an active voter block in U.S. elections.

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

By 2020, a record number of Muslim Americans voted and were running for elected office.

Emgage found there were 1.5 million registered Muslim American voters in 2020 and that well over half — 71 percent — cast a ballot. The figure was four percentage points higher than the national average of about 67 percent.

The country has also seen an increase in the number of Muslim candidates and elected officials.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) was the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2007.

In addition, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) became the first Muslim women to be elected to Congress. The progressive “squad” members are two of the most prominent Muslim voices in American politics, elected in the “blue wave” 2018 midterms during the Trump administration.

A record 81 Muslim American candidates ran for office in 2020 across 28 states and Washington, D.C., according to a report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

But these milestones have been accompanied by a growing rise in Islamophobic incidents in the U.S.

Data from Brown University revealed that from 2000 to 2009, hate crimes against Muslims spiked 500 percent.

Beyond former President Obama’s presidency, critics contend that former President Trump’s policies exhibited animosity toward the community including his travel ban, which included predominately Muslim countries.

In 2020, the Justice Department (DOJ) found there were 110 anti-Muslim incidents in the U.S., the second highest after anti-Jewish acts.

The DOJ also found that religion was the second-most common reason for single-bias incidents in the U.S.

A Pew Research survey found Republicans increasingly associated Muslims and Islam with violence, with 72 percent of Republicans in 2021 believing Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence.

Among Democrats, 34 percent felt the same.

Abdullah Hammoud, the first Muslim American mayor of Dearborn, Mich., told Changing America that there was a sense of urgency among members of the Muslim American community to step up and push back against Islamophobia in a post 9/11 America.

Before becoming mayor, Hammoud ran for a seat in Michigan’s state legislature. He shared that doors were “slammed in his face” when he introduced himself.

Hammoud, a Michigan state lawmaker has won the Dearborn mayoral race, making him that city’s first Arab American mayor. (Robin Buckson /Detroit News via AP)

“I knocked on a neighbor, who was a primary Democratic voter, two blocks from my house at the time. And when I said, ‘I’m Abdullah Hammoud and I’m running for office, he replied, ‘I’m disgusted that you’re my neighbor,’ and slammed the door in my face.”

Hammoud told Changing America that one of the first questions his parents asked him when he shared his intentions to run for elected office was if he would run on the name “Abdullah”.

“Many told me I would never win with a name like Abdullah and told me to change my name to Abe Hammoud,” he shared.

Tlaib and Omar have previously shared that they’ve received violent threats during their brief time in Congress.

During a press conference, Omar played a voicemail she received in which the caller characterized her as a “f—ing Muslim piece of shit” — one hellbent on “taking over our country.”

Omar has also received attacks from congressional colleagues including Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who described her as a member of the “jihad squad” and even suggested she was a “terrorist sympathizer.”

The Minnesota Democrat published a statement last year that called out the Republican party for not holding their members accountable for anti-Muslim hate and harassment.

“This is not about one hateful statement or one politician; it is about a party that has mainstreamed bigotry and hatred. It is time for Republican Leader McCarthy to actually hold his party accountable,” the 2021 statement said.

Hatem al-Bazian, Director, Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at University of California, Berkeley said that both Omar and Tlaib experience “constant assault” on their status, personhood and more.

“The attacks are not only from the Republicans but sometimes even from centrists or establishment Democrats, so you can see this in how Islamophobia is the ‘big elephant’ or the ‘big donkey’ in politics and has no party affiliation,” he said.

Attacks on both Omar and Tilab fit into this sense of defining “who is an American” and who’s not, according to al-Bazian.

“It’s constantly trying to delegitimize who they are and in essence their religion and constant demonization because of their religion,” he added.

But despite these challenges, Muslim Americans are not only increasing their presence in politics but also in American pop culture.

Marvel Studios showcased its first Pakistani-American character in its Ms. Marvel series while Netflix has featured Palestinian-American comedian Mo Amer’s scripted show and Indian-American Hasan Minhaj’s stand up specials.

Al-Bazian said that despite representations in cinema and entertainment, they are not a sign prejudice against Muslims has been eradicated.

“For any community to have the space to be able to articulate and narrate stories about themselves is a positive development,” he said. “But if we take inclusion on the screen, and in different settings, as a sign that racism and Islamophobia is at an end, then the Black and Jewish community’s strides in cinema would show that the strong currents of racism still persist.”

He added that there’s still an “avalanche” of negative content out there in both television shows and movies where Muslims are portrayed as terrorists.

Hammoud says that he hopes these “firsts” of Muslim representation are not the last.

“The hope is that they’re not the last to hold that office or to have their own TV shows and films. What I hope is that if my daughter Maryam decides to run for office, I hope that her name is welcomed and it’s not challenged because of who she is,” he added.

“That if somebody with an accent runs for office, people aren’t apprehensive. I think that there’s no office that’s out of sight for Muslim Americans,” he said.

Trump-Appointed Judge’s ‘Originalist’ Claim Is Absurd

David R. Lurie
Sat, September 10, 2022

Photo Illustration by Erin O'Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty, Rmesanic/Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Commons

During her confirmation hearing to become a federal judge in July 2020, Aileen Cannon, like virtually every GOP nominee, described herself as an “originalist.” Originalists claim to be paragons of judicial restraint, devoted to limiting the scope of their rulings, thereby not veering into the role assigned to the democratically elected branches of government to make laws and decide political and social policy. But Judge Cannon’s recent ruling in Donald Trump’s case against the United States government—ordering the partial shutdown of an investigation into the purloining of national security materials by the former president who appointed her—demonstrates that conservative jurisprudence has devolved into a brazen power grab, at direct odds with our democratic system of government, and the constitutional separation of powers.

Cannon's order may ultimately be voided; but the fact that she issued it will remain as a stark warning about just how far Trump judges and other similarly minded GOP nominees—hundreds of whom have been installed, at all levels of the federal judiciary—are willing to take the very judicial “activism” they claim to abhor to serve radically anti-democratic goals.

In recent decades, GOP judges have (i) selected a president, (ii) remade the electoral process, including by gutting campaign finance laws, as well as the heart of the Voting Rights Act; and (iii) trashed a constitutional fundamental right generations of Americans relied upon.


Now, avowed originalist Judge Cannon, installed during the waning days of the Trump administration, has engaged in one of the most audacious acts of right wing judicial overreach to date: Directly interfering with the current president’s performance of his core, constitutionally assigned, duties to protect national security and enforce the criminal laws enacted by Congress. It is hard to imagine a more brazen act of judicial supremacy.

Cannon's ruling is a very good subject for legal realist analysis. Legal realism was a theory of judicial decision-making developed in the first half of the 20th Century, and initially associated with liberal scholars, who posited that judicial rulings purportedly grounded on abstract legal principles are inevitably actually products of the political and normative views of the judges who issue them.

While not an exponent of realism, Felix Frankfurter, a Harvard Law School professor, and later appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin Delano Roosevelt,, shared realists’ skepticism about the often unacknowledged motives underlying judicial decisions.

Frankfurter had been perhaps the leading liberal lawyer and scholar of his generation.He courageously led the unsuccessful effort to obtain due process for alleged anarchist terrorists Sacco and Vanzetti during the height of the racially tinged Red Scare that overtook the country during and following World War I. But after joining the Supreme Court in 1939, and initially voting to uphold FDR’s New Deal reforms as enacted by Congress, Frankfurter became an increasingly squeaky wheel on a liberal post-World War II Supreme Court–most notably where issues of school desegregation were concerned.

Frankfurter’s view was that judges must hesitate to move into the purview of the political branches, and therefore he spent much of his career on the bench seeking to police what he viewed as the danger of judicial overreach.

Cannon’s ruling exemplifies just that danger. A realist would say Cannon apparently issued her ruling for career reasons, and that her audience is a future GOP president who might elevate her to a higher court.

In this regard, Cannon appears to be following the strategy employed by some Trump appointees to the Supreme Court, including Neil Gorsuch, who famously argued, in a lower court dissent, that a “textual” reading of a federal safety law permitted an employer to fire a trucker for leaving his damaged trailer during subzero weather to avoid dying of hypothermia. Gorsuch’s dissent was absurdly cruel and nonsensical, but it sure got him noticed by Trump’s judge pickers.

Similarly, Cannon is likely betting that—even though her opinion is being rightfully mocked as sloppy and at odds with the law—it will please, and ensure she is noticed favorably by, those who matter to an ambitious Trump judge: those who select appellate 

There is a dark irony to this development, because concerns about the risk of judicial overreach were also a purported foundation of the “original understanding” theory initially advocated by conservative judicial luminaries Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia. And, purportedly, adopted by Judge Cannon herself.

In an odd parallel with realists (who favored empirical approaches to judicial decision-making), originalists purported to ground their rulings on historically driven inquiries into the prevailing “understanding” of a given law or constitutional provision at the time of its enactment. Originalists claimed that their historical approach to adjudication would limit the risk of judicial overreach, by preventing judges from inserting their own normative and political views in their decisions, thereby leaving it to voters and the officials they elect to do heavy lifting of governance and public policy, as they should. Realists are skeptical of such claims, and in the case of self-described originalists on the right, such skepticism has proven to be merited.

Cannon’s claim to be an originalist goes to show how absurdly unmoored supposed originalists, like Cannon and Alito (who was once nicknamed Scalito) have become from the original rationale for originalism. They’re now brazen opportunists, willing to use the thinnest of analytic and factual bases to reach the results they want.

In Alito’s case, his plain goal is to impose reactionary social and political policies on the entire nation, voters’ preferences be darned. In Cannon’s case, the likely goal is simply personal aggrandizement. But, in both cases, the damage to the democratic system, and to the separation of powers that is fundamental to our constitutional system of government, is equally grave.

Frankfurter would be shocked to see how the principle of judicial restraint he hewed to—at the cost of being regularly criticized by his past liberal allies—has been betrayed by right wingers who disingenuously employ rhetoric of restraint to engage in judicial overreach.

It is hard to believe, however, that Antonin Scalia, the patron saint of all right wing originalists, would share the same unhappiness. Scalia was never a particularly principled adherent to the judicial philosophy he championed. He had a curious tendency to consistently “find” that the original understanding of constitutional provisions matched up exactly with his own favored right wing social policies. Scalia’s most outrageous departure from his own originalist theory was in the Bush v. Gore case, where he and four other right wing justices on the Supreme Court employed the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause—which Scalia and others had devoted decades to undermining—as a basis to install George W. Bush in the White House (don’t ask me to explain how). The Court’s “reasoning” was so embarrassingly flimsy that the majority opinion expressly warned against lower courts relying upon it in the future.

Before issuing the decision effectively declaring Bush the winner of the election, the Court ordered a halt to the recount of votes in the state of Florida. Scalia, in a concurrence to that earlier decision, observed that it was important to end the counting of votes, because it risked “casting a cloud upon what [Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of his election.” Put otherwise, the recount risked demonstrating that Gore received more votes.

In her Trump ruling, Cannon curiously echoed Scalia’s reasoning, stating that she was blocking the criminal investigation of Donald Trump in part because of the risk that a review of the evidence could lead to an indictment that could inflict grave “reputational harm” to the former president. Of course it is true that a meritless indictment does great damage to the defendant (and I, as a lawyer, have proudly sought to vindicate the rights of wrongfully accused persons). But assuming that the use of evidence obtained pursuant to a properly issued search warrant will lead to a wrongful indictment, an argument concerned about reputational harm to Trump—like Scalia’s assumption that counting duly cast votes would undermine the “legitimacy” of Bush’s claim to the presidency—is not only absurd, but more than a little disturbing.

Both judicial remarks are emblematic of the now routine overreach that has come to permeate the right wing judiciary, at grave cost to our nation, and its constitutional and democratic order. There is every reason to be concerned that the worst is yet to come.

‘Albino Hunters’ Accused of Kidnapping and Butchering  Children

Philip Obaji Jr. 

Mon, September 12, 2022 

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Alamy

ABUJA, Nigeria—Some five hundred villagers gathered in front of a police station in Madagascar’s southeastern district of Ikongo, armed with sticks and machetes.

It was Aug. 29, and they had just learned that four people suspected of kidnapping an albino child and killing the child's mother were to be transferred from the local police station—where they’d been held since the incident occurred a week earlier—to the Tsiafahy maximum security prison in the capital.

Scenes of violence and bloodshed ensued.

“We believed that if these people were taken to Tsiafahy or even left in the [Ikongo] police station, they'll eventually be released and not made to face justice because the police and some of those working in the prison are corrupt,” said one protester, Nomena, who The Daily Beast is choosing to identify by his first name to protect him from possible retribution. “We wanted the police to hand these people [the suspects] to the villagers… or to the military, who we know can handle the matter without being biased.”

But the demonstration in Ikongo turned chaotic as policemen, who said they had “no choice but to resort to self-defense,” opened fire on the protesters. As many as 21 demonstrators were killed and 30 others injured.

“Criminals cannot continue to kill albino children in Ikongo while adults like us just keep quiet and not do anything about it,” Rajo, a 31-year-old auto mechanic who took part in the protest, told The Daily Beast. “We don't trust the police to do what is right because some officers have been bribed by these criminals.”

Reports of abductions, attacks and killings of children with albinism are far too common throughout Madagascar. In the past two years, more than a dozen attacks and killings of albino children have been recorded across the impoverished country in incidents the United Nations said probably occur more often than is being officially reported. According to the UN, the attacks are expected to increase as dangerously false beliefs that the body parts of albino people can be used in rituals to bring wealth and protection continue to grow.

In recent months, according to a number of locals, numerous albino people—some as young as 4—have been kidnapped or killed in and around Ikongo, based on the myth that concoctions mixed with their body parts bring good fortune. Their butchered bodies are often found later without parts like skin, hair, breasts, limbs, nose, eye or genitals depending on the nature of the rituals. In some cases, grave robbers have dug out corpses to retrieve dead bodies of albinos.

One such attack occurred early this year when a 4-year-old albino boy was kidnapped one afternoon while playing with his peers outside his family's compound, according to locals who said his mutilated body was later found lying on a street in an area outside Ikongo. The incident, they said, was reported to police who claimed to have arrested a male suspect but later said the suspect was let go because they couldn’t prove he was responsible for the abduction.

“We don’t believe anyone was arrested at all because there were some officers who told us in confidence that they never saw the suspect at the station,” said Rajo.

The attacks, according to those with knowledge of how they are carried out, are often blatant. In some cases, kids are seized from their parents in broad daylight while walking on the streets. Compounds are attacked and people are kidnapped regardless of the hour. In a few instances, fingers have been pointed at family members and close friends. Even police officers have been accused of such crimes.

Most of the attacks on people with albinism, a genetic disorder that prevents the skin from producing enough melanin, occur in impoverished areas with low education levels and strong superstitious beliefs.

“Attacks on albinos even happen right in front of security officers who look the other way,” Dorion, a 40-year-old welder in Ikongo who took part in the Aug. 29 protest, told The Daily Beast. “No one is bothered about protecting albino people here.”

Albino Black Market Body Part Crimes in Africa Seeing Justice

In March, according to Darion, the 6-year-old albino daughter of his close friend was snatched while standing right in front of her home outside of Ikongo. Her parents allegedly tried to fight the three unarmed attackers off, but without success. “Policemen stood just 50 meters away watching without making any attempt to intervene,” Darion alleged.

The Madagascar National Police did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast's request for comments.

A Madagascan woman, who once lived in Ikongo with two of her albino daughters, told The Daily Beast that people with albinism, a condition that is said to affect as many as 1 in every 1,400 people in Africa, are often forced to remain indoors in order to avoid attacks. “If you get noticed as an albino, your home could be visited by kidnappers,” said Marie Ramanantsoa, who said her daughters narrowly escaped being kidnapped after she and her neighbors fought off body-part hunters who came for her girls two years ago.

The kidnapping of albino children, according to Ramanantsoa, who now lives in Nigeria, has become a lucrative business for hunters who traffic dismembered body parts to other parts of East Africa, where they are also used in similar witchcraft rituals.

“Someone in Ikongo told me I could make thousands of U.S. dollars if I sold my daughter to a body-part trader in Malawi, where the demand is high,” said Ramanantsoa. “If these body-part hunters can't steal your child, they'll offer you money to take them away.”

For Madagascans who are against the continued killing of albino children for rituals, the best way to fight the crime is to ensure that those who are caught in the act are immediately made to face justice.

“The police have to act transparently if they don't want people to seek mob justice when a suspect is arrested,” Jérôme Fontaine, a human rights activist in Antananarivo, told The Daily Beast. “If suspects are charged to court immediately after their arrest, the people will be confident that justice will be done.”

Move over, Iron Man: The Army has a

new suit to solve soldier back pain

The Washington Post Sat, September 10, 2022 

Futuristic military dreams of an Iron Man exoskeleton suit might be giving way for something simpler: a lightweight wearable to help with back pain.

The new suit, which weighs just three pounds, is a soft harness that soldiers strap around their shoulders and legs. Soldiers can press a button on the suit by their left shoulder, which activates the straps running along their back to help ease the burden when lifting heavy objects like artillery rounds, boxes or guns.

Its name is a mouthful, dubbed the Soldier Assistive Bionic Exosuit for Resupply, or SABER. It is developed by the U.S. Army and Vanderbilt University, and slated to be deployed in the field in 2023.

SABER is a departure from the clunky, robotic "warrior suits" the military has designed in the past, and is instead a lightweight, flexible accessory soldiers can wear while moving heavy machinery or artillery around. Creators say this approach is better, because it solves a specific problem soldiers have while not getting in the way.

"[The Army] initially tried to create Iron Man," Karl Zelik, a lead designer for SABER and associate professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University, said. "They had these full-body robotic systems that hoped to do everything but ultimately effectively did nothing because they [were] too bulky and heavy and complex and costly . . . This exosuit is about as far away from Iron Man as you can get."

Back pain is widespread in the Army and has a significant impact on operations. Lower back injuries result in more than 1 million lost, or limited, service days for soldiers each year, according to the U.S. Army Public Health Center. Roughly 460 soldiers are diagnosed with back overuse injuries every day, U.S. Army data shows.

To solve that, the military turned to its Pathfinder project - which aims to innovate Army operations by having soldiers collaborate with universities - and invested $1.2 million into creating the SABER prototype suit.

To date, roughly 100 soldiers have tested the suit at three different Army bases. In May, 11 soldiers with the Army's 101st Airborne Division used the SABER exoskeleton suit while on a training mission at Fort Knox, which required them to lift heavy boxes of ammo and move a howitzer gun multiple times a day, Zelik said.

"Lifting 60-pound rounds you get worn out," Dale Paulson, a private first class with the 101st Airborne Division who tested the suit, said in a statement. "Wearing the suit really helped a lot, especially with getting the rounds out of the back of the truck."

Now, the design of the suit moves from Vanderbilt University and the Pathfinder project to a spinoff corporation called HeroWear that will manufacture the device, Zelik said.

The challenge ahead, Zelik added, is getting the product approved through the Army's "very complicated" acquisition process. If that happens, the effects could be significant.

"You have a lot of people who are getting hurt," he said. "We have the opportunity to help prevent some of those injuries."

In a win for gun control advocates, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express plan to start separately categorizing sales at gun stores

Isabella Zavaris

Sat, September 10, 2022 

TINLEY PARK, ILLINOIS - APRIL 08: A customer purchases a gun at Freddie Bear Sports on April 08, 2021 in Tinley Park, Illinois. President Joe Biden today announced gun control measures which included stricter controls on the purchase of homemade firearms, commonly referred to as Ghost Guns and he made a push for national Red Flag legislation and other measures.Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

• Visa, Mastercard and American Express will separately categorize sales at gun shops.

• The decision is a win for gun control advocates who say it will help track gun sales.

• Until Friday, gun store sales were considered general merchandise.

Visa, Mastercard, and American Express will separately categorize purchases at gun shops in a win for gun control advocates who say the decision will help alert law enforcement to potentially illegal firearm sales.

According to The Associated Press, the payment processors announced the change on Saturday, after the International Organization for Standardization, a Geneva-based nonprofit, approved the creation of a merchant code for gun retailers.

Until Friday, gun store sales did not have a unique code and were considered "general merchandise," according to a spokeswoman for the ISO.

"Following ISO's decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules," the company said in a statement to Insider.

AmericanExpress said it will work with its third-party processors and partners to implement the new merchant category codes.

"It is important to note that MCC codes are one of many data points that help us understand the industries in which our merchants operate," the company said in a statement.

Reuters reported the ISO was influenced by gun control advocates, including US Senator Elizabeth Warren, w\ho urged the CEOs of Mastercard, American Express, and Visa to make the change.

"Mass shooters have repeatedly financed deadly massacres using credit cards, and bank CEOs need to step up to save lives," Warren said.

In a statement to Insider, Mastercard said: "We understand and appreciate the significant policy imperative in reducing gun violence and see the recent bipartisan action in Congress as a positive step. We believe it is that type of effort that will meaningfully address the tragic gun violence facing the country."

The AP reported gun rights advocates argue that tracking gun sales unfairly targets legal gun purchases.

Lars Dalseide a spokesman for the National Rifle Association told Insider that the ISO's decision to create a firearm specific code is "nothing more than a capitulation to anti-gun politicians and activists bent on eroding the rights of law-abiding Americans one transaction at a time. This is not about tracking or prevention or any virtuous motivation – it's about creating a national registry of gun owners."

Sen. Warren did not respond to Insider's request for comment

NRA slams credit card company code to track purchases at US gun shops, claiming it's 'creating a national registry of gun owners'

Sam Tabahriti

Sun, September 11, 2022 

Machine guns displayed in a shop.Getty Images

• Visa, MasterCard, and American Express will categorize the purchase of firearms in US shops.

• Gun control activists support the move, while the NRA is calling it an attempt to create a national database of gun owners.

• The International Organization for Standardization approved the creation of the new code on Friday.

Visa, MasterCard, and American Express will use a new code for gun shop purchases in US stores in a win for gun control advocates that has angered the NRA.

The merchant category codes are four-digit numbers used to classify businesses, indicating the types of services or goods being sold, according to Investopedia. The merchant code does not affect the gun purchase itself, but would allow for more transparency.

Gun-control activists say the new code will help track large or suspicious weapons purchases, while gun rights advocates argue that the new code is unfair to those buying firearms legally since it tracks the type of merchant — stigmatizing all gun shop purchases — not the actual items purchased, Mint reported.

"The ISO's decision to create a firearm specific code is nothing more than a capitulation to anti-gun politicians and activists bent on eroding the rights of law-abiding Americans one transaction at a time," a spokesman for the National Rifle Association said in a statement Sunday.

"This is not about tracking or prevention or any virtuous motivation — it's about creating a national registry of gun owners," the spokesman continued.

The payment giants' decision follows the approval on Friday of the new merchant code by the International Organization for Standardization, a group of standards bodies from more than 160 countries.

Reuters and other outlets first reported the news.

The new code will apply to all purchases at gun and ammunition stores, though gun sales at other types of retailers won't be captured separately, Bloomberg reported.

Following the news, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said the move would help financial institutions flag suspicious activity at these stores and help save lives.

Visa, the world's largest payment processor, acknowledged the change in a statement Saturday, and said it would "protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules."

MasterCard announced Friday that it would protect customers' privacy while focusing on "how it will be implemented by merchants and their banks as we continue to support lawful purchases on our network," per Reuters.

Meanwhile, American Express also said in a statement that it will meet regulations and work to "prevent illegal activity on our network," according to Bloomberg.

A 71-year-old Black woman who won $20,000 at a casino is now suing Michigan bank for racial discrimination after employees refused to cash her check

Taylor Ardrey Sun, September 11, 2022

Lizzie Pugh, a retiree of Detroit Public Schools, alleges that employees at Fifth Third Bank refused to cash her check, claiming that it was "fraudulent."Courtesy of Deborah Gordon Law

• Lizzie Pugh, 71, hit the jackpot and won thousands of dollars at a Michigan casino earlier this year.

• When she tried to cash in her check at Fifth Third Bank, she said that she was turned away by employees.

• Now she is filing a lawsuit against the bank. Fifth Third Bank denies her allegations.

Growing up in the Jim Crow South, Lizzie Pugh is no stranger to racism.

But, decades later and now living in Michigan, the 71-year-old never thought she'd be disdainfully turned away by a bank for trying to cash in honest winnings she collected from Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort during an April trip with her church group.

"I won 20,000, and I was very excited," Pugh told Insider. "The first time for me."

Pugh said she went to a Fifth Third Bank branch in Livonia, Michigan — in the Detroit metropolitan area — to open a new savings account but waited for a long time before anyone helped her. Once Pugh, a retiree of Detroit public schools, was finally assisted, she handed over the check and a valid driver's license.

But, she said, the bank told her the check was "fraudulent" and that she would not be able to make the deposit.

After being accused of trying to cash in a fake check, Pugh said it sent her into a tailspin — conjuring up old memories of racism growing up in Alabama.

Now, Pugh is suing Fifth Third Bank for racial discrimination, saying the incident caused her physical and emotional distress

'It's just overwhelming'

The check, according to the lawsuit, included the casino's logo and address. The complaint alleges that there was no evidence to back up that the check was not real. But after she handed over the check, the bank refused to give it back.

"They said they couldn't give me the check back because it was the bank policy to keep checks that were fraudulent," Pugh said. "And I said, 'Well, how it's fraudulent?' And she said, 'Oh, we get two or three checks a week like this."

Pugh said she called her son and a friend during the incident because she was concerned, and even offered to call the police. Ultimately, the employees gave her back the check. She was then able to deposit her check at another bank without any issues, per the complaint.

"It's just overwhelming that I have to go through all of this," Pugh said.

Pugh recalled to Insider that it reminded her of the kind of experiences she faced as a kid in Alabama. For instance, she said she has vivid memories of white students beating on their desks in the classroom during the days of school desegregation.

"That frightened me really bad because I really didn't know why they were beating on their desk," Pugh said, recalling the incident. "I found out years later that they were demonstrating monkeys hitting on the table."

'They're gonna give you your respect one way or the other'

"We're seeking damages, monetary damages with regard to what Ms. Pugh has had to go through," Deborah Gordon, Pugh's attorney, told Insider, noting that Michigan has a law prohibiting this kind of discrimination.

Fifth Third Bank did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment but told CNN: "We are committed to fair and responsible banking and prohibit discrimination of any kind. From our review of the claims, we believe the facts to be different than what is alleged. Our employees are trained to help every customer with their banking needs, and our employees follow procedures to facilitate the opening of any new account."

The bank, which denied the allegations in a court record this week, added that their employees' actions "have been misinterpreted," according to the outlet.

"That said, we regret Ms. Pugh has come away feeling mistreated after her interactions at our branch, as our employees' actions were consistent with our process and the dual goals of serving our customers while also preventing potential frauds that can victimize both the bank and our customers," the bank told the outlet.

Pugh's allegations, however, highlight a phenomenon called "Banking while Black," in which Black Americans often face discrimination while merely trying to cash a check or open a bank account.

Last year, a Black man in Minnesota reached a settlement with US Bank for being racially profiled after an employee accused him of trying to cash a fake check, resulting in him being handcuffed by police. In March, "Black Panther" director Ryan Coogler was detained after a Bank of America employee thought he was trying to rob the bank in Atlanta, Georgia.

Pugh's niece, Yolanda McGee, told Insider that the emotional toll that her aunt has faced is clear.

"She called me on the day of this incident, I heard it in her voice. She was very scared and had a lot of anxiety," McGee said.

"Being the target of discrimination stirs up a lot of emotions for her, some anger for past incidents, sadness, she's really embarrassed and cries a lot. And that is what she's been through back in Alabama, she feels like it's her fault or that's what the rule is."

She continued, "I encouraged her. You're gonna stand up for yourself. They're gonna give you your respect one way or the other. They're gonna figure out a way to make her whole and give her back her dignity. And that's what she feels that she lost... her dignity in that bank."

Steve Bannon said being arrested on money laundering and conspiracy charges was 'one of the best days of my life

Yelena Dzhanova
Sat, September 10, 2022 

A handcuffed Steve Bannon is led to his arraignment in Manhattan Supreme Court on September 8, 2022.Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, said getting arrested was "one of the best days" of his life.


Bannon earlier this week was arrested and charged with money laundering and conspiracy.


Prosecutors alleged Bannon had conspired to commit fraud through a sham crowdfunded charity to build a US-Mexico border wall.

Steve Bannon, who was arrested earlier this week in connection with a scheme to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border, said the experience of being handcuffed marked one of his favorite days.

"It was a very powerful, spiritual day for me," he said in a segment of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk's podcast on Friday. "A lot of things came into high clarity."

He then called the event "one of the best days of my life."

"I was totally in the zone — as you say in sports — the entire time. They're not gonna shut me up," he continued.

Bannon, who served as an advisor to former President Donald Trump in the White House, was indicted Thursday on money laundering and conspiracy charges in connection to his role in the "We Build the Wall" organization, as Insider's Laura Italiano reported.



An indictment from the Manhattan district attorney's office alleged that Bannon had conspired with three men — Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, venture capitalist Andrew Badolato and Colorado businessman Timothy Shea — to launder money and commit fraud through a sham crowdfunded charity.

Back in 2020, federal prosecutors alleged that Bannon scammed people who donated with the intention of helping to erect a wall between the US and Mexico — the crux of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Millions of dollars poured in, and Bannon and the three men pocketed the money instead, prosecutors said.

"As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction," acting Manhattan US attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement at the time.

"While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle."

Earlier this year, Kolfage and Badolato pleaded guilty in federal court. Neither has been sentenced yet. And Shea will be re-tried in October after his first trial ended in a hung jury.

"It's a crime to turn a profit by lying to donors, and in New York, you will be held accountable," Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement, adding that Bannon and the three others defrauded thousands of people across the country.

Bannon received a pardon from Trump in the remaining days of his presidency. But as Insider's Tom Porter notes, presidential pardons are only applicable when it comes to federal crimes, meaning state prosecutors can investigate and file separate charges if they choose to do so.

Steve Bannon said being arrested on money laundering and conspiracy charges was 'one of the best days of my life

Yelena Dzhanova
Sat, September 10, 2022 

A handcuffed Steve Bannon is led to his arraignment in Manhattan Supreme Court on September 8, 2022.Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, said getting arrested was "one of the best days" of his life.


Bannon earlier this week was arrested and charged with money laundering and conspiracy.


Prosecutors alleged Bannon had conspired to commit fraud through a sham crowdfunded charity to build a US-Mexico border wall.

Steve Bannon, who was arrested earlier this week in connection with a scheme to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border, said the experience of being handcuffed marked one of his favorite days.

"It was a very powerful, spiritual day for me," he said in a segment of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk's podcast on Friday. "A lot of things came into high clarity."

He then called the event "one of the best days of my life."

"I was totally in the zone — as you say in sports — the entire time. They're not gonna shut me up," he continued.

Bannon, who served as an advisor to former President Donald Trump in the White House, was indicted Thursday on money laundering and conspiracy charges in connection to his role in the "We Build the Wall" organization, as Insider's Laura Italiano reported.


Scroll back up to restore default view.

An indictment from the Manhattan district attorney's office alleged that Bannon had conspired with three men — Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, venture capitalist Andrew Badolato and Colorado businessman Timothy Shea — to launder money and commit fraud through a sham crowdfunded charity.

Back in 2020, federal prosecutors alleged that Bannon scammed people who donated with the intention of helping to erect a wall between the US and Mexico — the crux of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Millions of dollars poured in, and Bannon and the three men pocketed the money instead, prosecutors said.

"As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction," acting Manhattan US attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement at the time.

"While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle."

Earlier this year, Kolfage and Badolato pleaded guilty in federal court. Neither has been sentenced yet. And Shea will be re-tried in October after his first trial ended in a hung jury.

"It's a crime to turn a profit by lying to donors, and in New York, you will be held accountable," Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement, adding that Bannon and the three others defrauded thousands of people across the country.

Bannon received a pardon from Trump in the remaining days of his presidency. But as Insider's Tom Porter notes, presidential pardons are only applicable when it comes to federal crimes, meaning state prosecutors can investigate and file separate charges if they choose to do so.

DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS

Killing of Mexican public workers reflects cartel brutality

Thu, September 8, 2022 

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The killing of two utility workers in northern Mexico may be related to the scorched-earth tactics of warring drug cartels, Mexico's president said Thursday.

Drug cartels in Mexico have increasingly targeted civilian communities in their turf battles, isolating towns that don’t support them by cutting off roads and electricity, or forcing residents to leave.

On Tuesday, assailants opened fire on two trucks carrying workers from the state-owned electrical power company on a highway. Two workers escaped and two were killed.

On Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the area in the northern border state of Sonora was the scene of fighting between gangs, who had cut electricity to two villages as “reprisals.”

“There is fighting between groups there,” López Obrador said of the area around the village of Onavas, where the attack occurred.

While he said the attackers might have mistaken the utility trucks for those of a rival gang, López Obrador noted “there is another hypothesis that suggests they were performing their duties by going to reconnect electricity to two villages that had been cut off by one of the groups as reprisals.”

In the western state of Michoacan, warring drug cartels have periodically cut off villages that appear to support a rival gang, by downing power lines or digging trenches across roadways.

But the attack Tuesday was unusual, because up to now cartels have largely avoided going after public workers trying to reconnect roads or power lines. Moreover, resuscitating the debt-strapped state-owned utility, the Federal Electricity Commission, has been one of López Obrador's main policy initiatives.

Drug cartels — including the La Linea gang based in Ciudad Juarez and factions of the Sinaloa cartel — have been fighting over the lucrative drug-producing and shipping zones of Sonora state for years.

The cartel conflict may have played a role in the 2019 ambush slayings of nine U.S.-Mexican dual citizens in a rural area relatively near Onavas.

The three women and six children from the extended Langford, LeBaron and Miller families were ambushed and slain by suspected drug gang assassins on Nov. 4, 2019.

Initial investigations suggested a squad of gunmen from the La Linea gang had set up the ambush to kill members of the rival cartel. However, relatives of the victims say that at some point, the gunmen must have known who they were killing.