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"The challenges that young people are mobilizing against oppressive societies all over the globe are being met with a state-sponsored violence that is about more than police brutality. This is especially clear in the United States, given its transformation from a social state to a warfare state, from a state that once embraced a semblance of the social contract to one that no longer has a language for justice, community and solidarity - a state in which the bonds of fear and commodification have replaced the bonds of civic responsibility and democratic vision."

-- Henry Giroux

News and Opinion

New Amnesty Map Documents 'Shocking Extent' of US Police Violence Against Black Lives Matter Protesters

An extensive new report released Tuesday morning by human rights group Amnesty International finds that between May 26 and June 5, local, state, and federal law enforcement officials in 40 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. committed more than 125 separate acts of violence against demonstrators who gathered in the streets en masse to protest the police killing of George Floyd.

Law enforcement officials "consistently violated human rights out on the streets instead of fulfilling their obligations to respect and facilitate the right of people to peacefully protest," said Amnesty, which published an interactive map containing video evidence of police officers beating, teargassing, and firing rubber bullets at protesters.

"The analysis is clear: when activists and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement took to the streets in cities and towns across the country to peacefully demand an end to systemic racism and police violence, they were overwhelmingly met with a militarized response and more police violence," Brian Castner, senior crisis adviser on arms and military operations at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

BREAKING: @amnesty maps out the shocking extent of police violence against #BlackLivesMatter protests:

500 videos analyzed
#125 incidents mapped in
40 states & DC

See for yourself - interactive map now live https://t.co/6h84Jm1QNB

— Conor Fortune (@WritesRights) June 23, 2020

In the process of compiling its detailed report, Amnesty examined more than 500 videos and photos posted to social media in recent weeks as demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice spread across the U.S. and around the world following Floyd's killing on May 25.

"This digital content was then verified, geolocated, and analyzed by investigators with expertise in weapons, police tactics, and international and U.S. laws governing the use of force," Amnesty said. "In some cases, researchers were also able to interview victims and confirm police conduct with local police departments."

The resulting report documents what the group describes as a "dizzying array of violations by law enforcement across the country." ...

Ernest Coverson, End Gun Violence Campaign manager for Amnesty International USA, said in a statement that the new research "shows that the police will stop at nothing to squash protesters."

"Giving law enforcement weapons of war creates an endless cycle of violence that disproportionately affects Black people," said Coverson. "No one had to lose their eyesight, get sick, or forever fear the police because they wanted to say that Black lives matter. It's time to end these human rights violations once and for all."

Lawmakers Welcome IG Probe Into Violent Police Clearing of Lafayette Square

Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday welcomed news that an Interior Department watchdog has begun an official probe into law enforcement's violent attack on peaceful demonstrators in Lafayette Square outside the White House earlier this month.

"The Trump administration has had three weeks to offer a clear explanation of why it used excessive force against accredited journalists and peaceful, unarmed protesters, but we still have no good answers," Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said in a statement.

"The White House narrative is contradicted by video evidence, eyewitness accounts, and even its own past statements. Frankly, it has no credibility at this point," he said.

The statement from Grijalva, along with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), was in response to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announcement that it would review the U.S. Park Police's actions when they, and other forces, violently cleared away peaceful Black Lives Matters demonstrators on June 1 so that President Donald Trump could walk to St. John's Episcopal Church for a photo-op.

In his letter to the lawmakers, who'd requested the investigation, Interior Department Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt wrote, "Given the significance of the events, we have already begun collecting and reviewing information concerning the Park Police's activities."

"It is worth noting that the active presence of multiple federal law enforcement agencies operating in Lafayette Square at that time adds complex operational and jurisdictional challenges to our oversight efforts. Therefore, we will make an initial determination of which agency had command and control of the law enforcement operation and conduct a review of Park Police actions accordingly," Greenblatt wrote in the letter, dated June 18.

US police reform bills unlikely to pass amid partisan divide despite calls for change

Hopes of legislation on new police reforms being passed before the election were fading on Tuesday despite protests across the country calling for change following the recent police killings of Black Americans. Dueling bills put forward in Congress, one by Democrats in the House, where they have the majority, and the other by Republicans in the GOP-led Senate look increasingly doomed, amid deep partisan divides.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday sent a letter to majority leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell signaling they will block Republican senator Tim Scott’s police reform bill, describing the legislation as “woefully inadequate”, rather than debate and try to amend it. Senate minority leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer said “no bill will pass” if the Republicans bring it to the Senate floor on Wednesday and instead called for bipartisan talks.

Senate Republicans need seven of their Democratic colleagues to vote with them on the motion to proceed in order for the Scott bill to advance, so the Democrats have the ability to block the legislation if they are unified in opposition to it. Meanwhile a contrasting bill in the House written by Democrats is very likely to get enough votes to pass in that chamber later this week, but McConnell has said the Democratic legislation is a non-starter in the Senate. ...

The partisan standoff means it is less and less likely that Congress will approve any police reform legislation before the November election, despite loud calls for change and moves by some states and cities to advance their own reforms.

Revealed: police unions spend millions to influence policy in biggest US cities

Police unions and officers active in America’s three largest cities spend tens of millions of dollars annually to influence law enforcement policy and thwart pushes for reform, a Guardian analysis of local, county, state and federal campaign finance records found.

Reform advocates say the spending partly explains why police unions have defeated most reform measures in recent years, even as high-profile police killings of unarmed black men sparked waves of public outrage including the current national demonstrations against racism sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The Guardian identified about $87m in local and state spending over the last two decades by the unions. That includes at least $64.8m in Los Angeles, $19.2m in New York City and $3.5m in Chicago. Records show that most spending occurred during the last 10 years as contributions and lobbying dramatically increased in most jurisdictions.

At the federal level, police officers and their unions have spent at least $47.3m on campaign contributions and lobbying in recent election cycles, according to Maplight data and US Senate and US House records.

“The power of their money runs very deep,” said Hamid Khan, director of Stop LAPD Spying, a grassroots anti-surveillance watchdog group. “[Local governments] have become rubber-stamp bodies in which police power is never challenged.”

The totals include payments to city council members and state legislators, as well as lobbying costs. The amount that police unions have spent during these periods is probably even higher as incomplete state campaign finance data makes it nearly impossible to pin down the true figure.

Worth a read:

Revealed: millions of Americans can’t afford water as bills rise 80% in a decade

Millions of ordinary Americans are facing rising and unaffordable bills for running water, and risk being disconnected or losing their homes if they cannot pay, a landmark Guardian investigation has found. Exclusive analysis of 12 US cities shows the combined price of water and sewage increased by an average of 80% between 2010 and 2018, with more than two-fifths of residents in some cities living in neighbourhoods with unaffordable bills.

In the first nationwide research of its kind, our findings reveal the painful impact of America’s expanding water poverty crisis as aging infrastructure, environmental clean-ups, changing demographics and the climate emergency fuel exponential price hikes in almost every corner of the US. America’s growing water affordability crisis comes as the Covid-19 pandemic underlines the importance of access to clean water. The research shows that rising bills are not just hurting the poorest but also, increasingly, working Americans.

“More people are in trouble, and the poorest of the poor are in big trouble,” said Roger Colton, a leading utilities analyst, who was commissioned by the Guardian to analyse water poverty. “The data shows that we’ve got an affordability problem in an overwhelming number of cities nationwide that didn’t exist a decade ago, or even two or three years ago in some cities.”

Water bills exceeding 4% of household income are considered unaffordable. Colton’s 88-page report is published today at the launch of a major project on America’s water emergency by the Guardian, Consumer Reports and other partners. ...

Federal funding for water systems has fallen by 77% in real terms since its peak in 1977 – leaving local utilities to raise the money that is needed to upgrade infrastructure, comply with safety standards for toxic contaminants like PFAS, lead and algae blooms, and adapt to extreme weather conditions like drought and floods linked to global heating. For years, maintenance and clean-up projects were deferred by utilities, which has contributed to the current infrastructure and toxic water crisis.

Coronavirus has brought US 'to its knees', says CDC director

A US public health chief told Congress on Tuesday that coronavirus has “brought this nation to its knees” as America struggles with more than 2.3 million confirmed cases and more than 121,000 deaths so far. Dr Robert Redfield, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a hearing in Washington that core public health capabilities in the US had been vastly underfunded for a long time and needed urgent investment.

“We have all done the best that we can do to tackle this virus and the reality is that it’s brought this nation to its knees,” Redfield told the House energy and commerce committee. “We are probably going to spend $7tn because of one little virus,” he added. ...

Redfield said that the US at local, state and federal level has chronically underinvested in “the core capabilities of public health”, including data analysis, “laboratory resilience”, the public health workforce, emergency response capabilities and “our global health security around the world”, adding that “now is the time” to step up spending.

Seattle's Mayor Is Sending the Police Back Into the Autonomous Zone: ‘It's Time For People to Go Home’

The mayor of Seattle has had enough and is moving to reclaim the police-free autonomous zone known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP). Mayor Jenny Durkan announced on Monday evening that protesters would be encouraged to move out of the area — previously known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) — and that the Seattle Police Department would return to its abandoned East Precinct building “peacefully and in the near future.”

“It’s time for people to go home, it is time for us to restore Cal Anderson and Capitol Hill so it can be a vibrant part of the community,” Durkan said at a press conference on Monday night. “The impacts on the businesses and residents and the community are now too much.”

Durkan said “the night-time atmosphere and violence" inside the zone had led to the decision to end the occupation. Over the weekend three people were shot in the CHOP, and one of them, a 19-year-old man, died as result. On Sunday a 17-year-old was shot in the arm but refused to speak to police about the incident. ...

There is no clear deadline for when the protesters will be required to leave the area, but Durkan indicated that protests will be allowed to continue during the day.

NYPD commissioner: Officers who drove into protesters did not violate use-of-force policy

The New York Police Department (NYPD) commissioner on Monday defended the officers who drove into anti-policy brutality protesters late last month, saying they did not violate the department’s use-of-force policy.

Commissioner Dermot Shea testified in an online public hearing on the police response to the George Floyd protests, saying the officers shown in videos to be lurching into a crowd were complying with department standards.

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), who is investigating the police response, asked the commissioner about videos from May 30 that showed two police cruisers driving into a crowd in Brooklyn. 

“Was that in violation of your use of force policy?” she asked.

“No,” Shea answered, adding, “Our internal affairs bureau investigated this information and preliminarily we have an accounting of that incident where we have officers in a situation where they’re essentially being penned in by protesters.”

Police Turned Richmond Into a War Zone Last Night

Protesters occupied grounds outside Richmond, Virginia’s city hall Monday night before being attacked and chased away by police, who fired rubber bullets, pepper spray, and other weapons to disperse them. ...

About a hundred protesters set up several tents and an encampment outside City Hall, calling it “Reclamation Square.” In a solidarity statement shared on Facebook, the protesters demanded, among other reforms, the defunding of police and a reopening of the investigation into the 2018 police shooting death of 24-year-old Marcus-David Peters, a Black man and high school biology teacher who was shot while undergoing what protesters described as a “mental health crisis.” ...

Police fired rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, and other munitions at unarmed protesters and press alike, using violent tactics that have been widely condemned to break up an act of civil disobedience.

Monday marked the 25th straight day of protests in Richmond, which has become a hotbed for protests since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month. The unrest in Richmond is due in no small part to its status as the former capital of the Confederacy and the ongoing large role of Confederate history in the city, not to mention the death of Peters and others killed by police, and the city’s own history with police brutality.

Krystal Ball: Anatomy of a Tucker Carlson monologue

Trump Wants to Lock Up People Who Destroy Racist Statues for 10 Years

President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday morning that he wants the federal government to enforce an obscure law punishing protesters who remove statues with up to 10 years in prison. After protesters in Washington, D.C., made an unsuccessful attempt to topple a statue of former President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square, Trump tweeted that he had “authorized the federal government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison.” ...

The law Trump is referring to is the Veterans’ Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act, a law passed unanimously by Congress in 2003. It gives a 10-year maximum penalty to anyone who “willfully injures or destroys, or attempts to injure or destroy, any structure, plaque, statue, or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States.” ...

Jackson was the nation’s 9th president and a U.S. Army general in the War of 1812. He was a wealthy slaveowner, and both as president and as a military officer was responsible for the genocide of Indigenous people. Trump has described himself as a “fan” of Jackson, and has a portrait of him hanging in the Oval Office.

The Next AOC? Progressive Insurgent Jamaal Bowman Takes Big Lead Over Rep. Eliot Engel in NY Primary

Protest movements spark wave of progressive victories

Trillion-dollar investors warn Brazil over 'dismantling' of environmental policies

Investors managing trillions of dollars in assets have warned Brazil that escalating deforestation and the “dismantling” of policies to protect the environment and indigenous communities are “creating widespread uncertainty about the conditions for investing”.

Amazon destruction rose to its highest level in more than a decade last year, Brazil’s first under the leadership of Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right nationalist who has vowed to develop the region and slash environmental protections. And on Tuesday, in the latest chapter of an intensifying international pressure campaign, institutions from countries including the US, the UK, Norway and Japan told Brazil’s leaders the devastation – which has continued to increase this year – had to stop.

“It is with deep concern that we follow the tendency of increasing deforestation in Brazil,” the group, which manages $3.7tn (£3tn) in assets, said in a letter to the Brazilian government. “As financial institutions, who have a fiduciary duty to act in the best long-term interests of our beneficiaries, we recognize the crucial role that tropical forests play in tackling climate change, protecting biodiversity and ensuring ecosystem services,” the letter added. ...

The letter comes after seven European investment firms last week announced they would divest from beef producers, grains traders and even government bonds in Brazil. “The trends we’ve seen in Brazil are very concerning,” Daniela da Costa-Bulthuis, Brazil portfolio manager for Netherlands-based asset manager Robeco, told Reuters.

Judge Rules California Requirement of Cancer Warning Label for Glyphosate Violates Corporate 'Free Speech'

A U.S. federal appeals court judge ruled Monday that California cannot require companies like agrochemical giant Bayer to include a cancer warning on their glyphosate-based products, despite the World Health Organization's 2015 classification of the weed-killer as a probable human carcinogen.

U.S. District Judge William Shubb of the Eastern District of California wrote in his opinion (pdf) that mandating a cancer warning label on glyphosate products would violate companies' First Amendment rights by compelling them to echo a finding that Shubb characterized as "not purely factual and uncontroversial."

Bayer—which acquired the notorious agrochemical company Monsanto in 2018—has maintained that glyphosate is not carcinogenic even as it faces tens of thousands of lawsuits from plaintiffs alleging that the weed-killer Roundup caused their cancer.

Since last year, Bayer has been ordered by juries to pay out tens of millions of dollars in damages to cancer patients. Plaintiffs have accused the company of manipulating glyphosate research and failing to warn the public of Roundup's carcinogenic effects.

Shubb took Bayer's side in his ruling Monday, contending that "there is insufficient evidence to show" that glyphosate causes cancer in humans.

"California has options available to inform consumers of its determination that glyphosate is a carcinogen, without burdening the free speech of businesses, including advertising campaigns or posting information on the internet," Shubb wrote.

The ruling stems from California's 2017 decision to add glyphosate to its Proposition 65 list of chemicals "known to cause cancer." Approved by voters in 1986, Prop 65 requires businesses to "provide warnings to Californians about significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm."

DNC 'Snubs' Climate Movement Just as Greenpeace Endorses Democratic Panel's Visionary Plan

Despite mounting pressure on the party to craft a 2020 platform that includes ambitious climate policies, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez on Monday announced a drafting committee that, in the words of journalist Emily Atkin, "snubs progressive climate activists again."

Perez's announcement followed reporting that Democratic Party leadership was "irked" when the DNC Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis released policy recommendations for the platform on June 4 that are bolder than the proposals in presidential candidate Joe Biden's climate plan. Party insiders told Reuters the panel is an "insurgent" group that is not "taken seriously."

Several climate advocacy groups have endorsed the panel's recommendations, including Greenpeace USA on Tuesday. Charlie Jiang, a campaigner for the group, declared that "as we confront the interwoven crises of climate change, white supremacy, and Covid-19, we must demand nothing short of a visionary, transformative agenda from Democratic leadership."

Perez, for his part, said in a statement that "crafting our party platform is important work, and I'm confident that the members of this committee will engage Americans in a substantive dialogue of ideas and solutions that will articulate our party's vision for the country and mobilize voters in every community to elect Joe Biden."

However, the positions and backgrounds of those charged with drafting that Democratic Party's platform suggest the final version could fall far short of climate activists' demands. As Atkin detailed in her HEATED newsletter Tuesday:

[The] majority of people on the drafting committee are Gen Xers and Baby Boomers (average age: 55) who have either have no history of prioritizing climate; aren't on record as supporting the Green New Deal; and/or haven't signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge. There's only one person on the drafting committee who could credibly considered a climate-focused Democrat. There are more big bank executives on the Democratic platform drafting committee than there are climate activists or millennials.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will chair the drafting committee, Biden adviser Carmel Martin will be a non-voting member, and Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.) will be an ex-officio member. The other members are Tony Allen (Del.), Stuart Appelbaum (N.Y.), Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), Sen. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Rep. Sylvia Garcia (Texas), Heather Gautney (N.Y.), Don Graves (Ohio), Rep. Deb Haaland (N.M.), Analilia Mejia (N.J.), Josh Orton (Wis.), state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez (Fla.), Julianne Smith (D.C.), Richard Trumka (Penn.), and former Gov. Tom Vilsack (Iowa).

Atkin created a spreadsheet of all the committee members with identifiers such as age, gender, and race as well as parts of their political histories—including whether they endorsed Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who were the two most progressive 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidates before suspending their campaigns.

Haaland is the only elected official on the committee who has signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge, and she and Clark are the only two members who supported Warren's presidential run, according to the spreadsheet. Just Gautney, Mejia, and Orton backed Sanders—who, as Atkin noted, "had the most aggressive climate plan."

Atkin's analysis came after she reported for HEATED last month that Michelle Deatrick, who chairs the DNC climate panel, was worried that the platform drafting committee "would be filled with people who don't prioritize progressive climate policy like the Green New Deal." As Atkin put it Tuesday: "Her fears were founded."

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Twitter Censors Trump For “Threat Of Harm”, Has No Problem With Threats To Bomb Foreigners

As Teddy Roosevelt’s Statue Falls, Let’s Remember How Truly Dark His History Was

Is This the Broadest Popular Movement in US History?

Report on Broken Windows Spending Bolsters Call to Redirect $1 Billion of NYPD Budget to Harmed Communities

From Grandfather to Grandson: Lessons of the Tulsa Race Massacre

Racism, Yes, But What About Militarism and Materialism?

The Supreme Court Just Gave Corporations A License To Steal

House Dems Introduce Bill to Prevent Big Pharma Price-Gouging During Covid-19 Pandemic

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman’s Ouster: The Untold Story

Clean water is a human right. In America it’s more a profit machine

Democracy Now: How Black Lives Matter Protests Are Shifting Racial Justice Dialogues in Professional Sports

Democracy Now - Palestinian Scholar Noura Erakat: Israeli Forces Killed My Cousin on His Sister’s Wedding Day

Saagar Enjeti: Epstein accuser names former Israeli Prime Minister

A Little Night Music

J.T. Brown - Boogie Baby

J.T. Brown & Elmo James Broomdusters - Dumb Woman Blues

J.T. "Nature Boy" Brown - You Stayed Away Too Long

J.T. Brown & Elmo James Broomdusters - Sax Ony Boogie

J.T. Brown - Strictly Gone

J.T. Brown - Lonely (As a Man Can Be)

J. T. Brown - Short Dresses

J. T. Brown - Cheatin' and Lyin'

J. T. Brown - Walking Home

Fleetwood Mac w/J T Brown - Everyday I Have The Blues