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welcome to reality trivia
reality is the state of things as they actually exist
oct 18, 2020
Real News Today
*EXXONMOBIL MISLED THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE CLIMATE CRISIS. NOW THEY'RE TRYING TO SILENCE CRITICS(Oil)
*Alaska GOP senator routinely voted for policies that benefited family's chemical company(Corruption)
*How Native Americans’ right to vote has been systematically violated for generations(First Americans)
(for previous day's articles see "what's inside" below)
comment/tweet of the day
TRUMP’S PANDEMIC DEATH TRACKER:
dc report.com
Americans Killed by Inaction, Neglect, Incompetence and Corruption
219,286
(out of 8,106,384 current cases)
“It affects virtually nobody.” —Donald J. Trump, Sept. 21, 2020
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lex: you can always tell if a political is a lie if it is sponsored by a corporation or corporate front or ifby a republican.
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Republicans,
We're voting for Joe Biden.
We don't give a damn what garbage you toss out, what last-gasp scandals you manufacture, what nonsensical controversies you create.
You've spent four years desecrating this nation and you're going to pay.
Sincerely,
Decent Americans
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YET, 45 MILLION VOTE FOR GOP!!!
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A PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING!!!
|
proof of stupidity!!!
where facts don't matter
trump is not only the stupidest person in the headlines!
Few masks and no social distancing at church service Trump attended
President Trump attended service this morning at the International Church of Las Vegas. Most of the congregation did not wearing masks and definitely did not socially distance. In fact, a group of parishioners came to the front of the church jammed ... (CNN)
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Maskless clerk in Indiana doesn't back down despite COVID surge, warning from state
COVINGTON - When Secretary of State Connie Lawson called to encourage Paula Copenhaver and her poll workers to put on face masks while overseeing early balloting at the Fountain County Courthouse, the county clerk said she told Lawson what she's been ... (South Bend Tribune)
'It's not fair': workers in a poor Mississippi county pay more tax than Trump
Tax authorities find it easier to audit earned income tax credit, which
disproportionately affects poor communities of color, than to target billionaires
Sara Sneath in Belzoni, Mississippi - the guardian
Sun 18 Oct 2020 04.00 EDT
...But it is not entirely a forgotten southern backwater – at least, not to one government agency. Last year ProPublica reported that the Internal Revenue Service audits Humphreys county taxpayers at a higher rate than anywhere else in America.
About 12 out of 1,000 tax returns are audited each year in the county, according to the ProPublica analysis. That’s 53% higher than the national average and raises the question of why such a place is the subject of such IRS attention, rather than the haunts of millionaires and billionaires, like Manhattan and its one-time resident Donald Trump. But in the most heavily audited county in the US, the recent shock news that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 was no surprise, said Joe Jackson, who was elected mayor of Belzoni last month.
“Most people around here are kind of adjusted to the idea that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” he said. “That’s not surprising to people in our area.”
The local economy was already in a shambles when the coronavirus hit. The catfish industry was nearly wiped out around 2008 when restaurants across the US started buying cheaper fish imported from Asia. Ethanol demand drove up the price of corn, which is fed to catfish, at the same time. But the pandemic has made things worse. There are only a handful of restaurants in town, but they are now closed to discourage social gatherings, Jackson said.
Many of the storefronts on Hayden Street, the main drag in Belzoni, are closed and, the paint is chipping from the catfish sculptures outside the police station, city hall and pharmacy. Yet the county’s residents have been targeted by the IRS for claiming a tax credit that aims to lift working parents out of poverty.
The IRS audits about 300,000 taxpayers who claim the earned income tax credit, or EITC, each year. These taxpayers are targeted more often than high-income and high-wealth taxpayers because the audits of EITC claimants are easier to do, according to a 2019 letter written by the IRS Commissioner.
An analysis by Kim Bloomquist, who retired from the IRS Office of Research in 2018, found that the IRS’s policy has resulted in higher rates of tax audits in poor communities of color than the rest of the country. Eight of the most heavily audited counties in the country are in Mississippi. In Humphreys county, 76% of the 8,000 residents are Black.
The IRS audits most EITC claimants by mail, but wealthy taxpayers are typically audited in person and the audits require more training. In the 2019 fiscal year, about 80% of individual taxpayer audits were done by mail. But 52% of the $6.9bn recovered from these tax audits came from audits done in person, which are typically performed on wealthier taxpayers.
The IRS commissioner, Charles Rettig, wrote that the IRS needs more money to hire and train auditors in order to balance the number of audits across all income levels. Between 2010 and 2017, the IRS budget was cut by about $2bn. The budget cuts shifted the focus of IRS audits from high-income taxpayers to low- and middle-income EITC claimants, according to Bloomquist’s research.
Bloomquist acknowledged Rettig’s reasoning for why the IRS audits more EITC claimants, who tend to be more rural, lower-income taxpayers. Auditing millionaires and billionaires can take years, as in the case of Trump.
“It’s an excuse but it’s not a good excuse,” he said.
One of the few open establishments in Belzoni is the Catfish Museum. The museum includes placards about the height of the catfish industry, ceramic catfish sculptures and posters from the annual World Catfish Festival, which was canceled this year because of the pandemic. What was once a homage to the biggest industry in town is now a history museum.
Cotton and other row crops have started to fill in where catfish ponds once were. But there’s little stable work in the area, said Latoya Skinner, who runs a tax preparation service in Belzoni called Tax Genie. Most workers are self-employed and do side gigs to get by, which makes it difficult to produce the documentation necessary for the EITC.
“If 50% of the town doesn’t know how to produce the documentation, it doesn’t mean they didn’t have the business. It just means they don’t have the documentation,” Skinner said.
In 2016, the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, received 72% of the vote in Humphreys county. As the last day to register to vote approached in Mississippi, Humphreys county Democratic party chair, Joyce McNair, held registration events across the county.
McNair went through a tax audit about a decade ago. The audit was brought on by a paperwork mistake. The National Research Program estimates that about half of EITC returns have errors. Going through an audit was stressful, she said.
Most years McNair pays between $3,000 and $4,000 back to the federal government in taxes. That is far more than Trump’s $750. “I have an issue with someone who is making more than quadruple my income paying less in taxes,” she said of Trump’s federal income taxes. “The average American is paying more.”
But there are some signs of hope in Belzoni, despite what seems like tough times and an unfair treatment by a federal government that is meant to help, not hinder, such struggling communities.
Joann Wilson and her husband, Joseph Wilson, bought one of the local Belzoni restaurants about six months ago. The restaurant, previously called the Lunch Basket, was a buffet. But the couple ripped out the buffet table before they reopened as Da Soulfood Palace. Among Belzoni cooks making the best fried catfish is still “a competitive thing”, Joann Wilson said.
Wilson’s batter recipe is a tightly held secret that she doesn’t write down. “It’s just in my head,” she said.
They hope to put the buffet table back when it’s safe to do so.
“We’re turning a profit, but it could be a lot better,” Joseph Wilson said.
About 12 out of 1,000 tax returns are audited each year in the county, according to the ProPublica analysis. That’s 53% higher than the national average and raises the question of why such a place is the subject of such IRS attention, rather than the haunts of millionaires and billionaires, like Manhattan and its one-time resident Donald Trump. But in the most heavily audited county in the US, the recent shock news that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 was no surprise, said Joe Jackson, who was elected mayor of Belzoni last month.
“Most people around here are kind of adjusted to the idea that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” he said. “That’s not surprising to people in our area.”
The local economy was already in a shambles when the coronavirus hit. The catfish industry was nearly wiped out around 2008 when restaurants across the US started buying cheaper fish imported from Asia. Ethanol demand drove up the price of corn, which is fed to catfish, at the same time. But the pandemic has made things worse. There are only a handful of restaurants in town, but they are now closed to discourage social gatherings, Jackson said.
Many of the storefronts on Hayden Street, the main drag in Belzoni, are closed and, the paint is chipping from the catfish sculptures outside the police station, city hall and pharmacy. Yet the county’s residents have been targeted by the IRS for claiming a tax credit that aims to lift working parents out of poverty.
The IRS audits about 300,000 taxpayers who claim the earned income tax credit, or EITC, each year. These taxpayers are targeted more often than high-income and high-wealth taxpayers because the audits of EITC claimants are easier to do, according to a 2019 letter written by the IRS Commissioner.
An analysis by Kim Bloomquist, who retired from the IRS Office of Research in 2018, found that the IRS’s policy has resulted in higher rates of tax audits in poor communities of color than the rest of the country. Eight of the most heavily audited counties in the country are in Mississippi. In Humphreys county, 76% of the 8,000 residents are Black.
The IRS audits most EITC claimants by mail, but wealthy taxpayers are typically audited in person and the audits require more training. In the 2019 fiscal year, about 80% of individual taxpayer audits were done by mail. But 52% of the $6.9bn recovered from these tax audits came from audits done in person, which are typically performed on wealthier taxpayers.
The IRS commissioner, Charles Rettig, wrote that the IRS needs more money to hire and train auditors in order to balance the number of audits across all income levels. Between 2010 and 2017, the IRS budget was cut by about $2bn. The budget cuts shifted the focus of IRS audits from high-income taxpayers to low- and middle-income EITC claimants, according to Bloomquist’s research.
Bloomquist acknowledged Rettig’s reasoning for why the IRS audits more EITC claimants, who tend to be more rural, lower-income taxpayers. Auditing millionaires and billionaires can take years, as in the case of Trump.
“It’s an excuse but it’s not a good excuse,” he said.
One of the few open establishments in Belzoni is the Catfish Museum. The museum includes placards about the height of the catfish industry, ceramic catfish sculptures and posters from the annual World Catfish Festival, which was canceled this year because of the pandemic. What was once a homage to the biggest industry in town is now a history museum.
Cotton and other row crops have started to fill in where catfish ponds once were. But there’s little stable work in the area, said Latoya Skinner, who runs a tax preparation service in Belzoni called Tax Genie. Most workers are self-employed and do side gigs to get by, which makes it difficult to produce the documentation necessary for the EITC.
“If 50% of the town doesn’t know how to produce the documentation, it doesn’t mean they didn’t have the business. It just means they don’t have the documentation,” Skinner said.
In 2016, the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, received 72% of the vote in Humphreys county. As the last day to register to vote approached in Mississippi, Humphreys county Democratic party chair, Joyce McNair, held registration events across the county.
McNair went through a tax audit about a decade ago. The audit was brought on by a paperwork mistake. The National Research Program estimates that about half of EITC returns have errors. Going through an audit was stressful, she said.
Most years McNair pays between $3,000 and $4,000 back to the federal government in taxes. That is far more than Trump’s $750. “I have an issue with someone who is making more than quadruple my income paying less in taxes,” she said of Trump’s federal income taxes. “The average American is paying more.”
But there are some signs of hope in Belzoni, despite what seems like tough times and an unfair treatment by a federal government that is meant to help, not hinder, such struggling communities.
Joann Wilson and her husband, Joseph Wilson, bought one of the local Belzoni restaurants about six months ago. The restaurant, previously called the Lunch Basket, was a buffet. But the couple ripped out the buffet table before they reopened as Da Soulfood Palace. Among Belzoni cooks making the best fried catfish is still “a competitive thing”, Joann Wilson said.
Wilson’s batter recipe is a tightly held secret that she doesn’t write down. “It’s just in my head,” she said.
They hope to put the buffet table back when it’s safe to do so.
“We’re turning a profit, but it could be a lot better,” Joseph Wilson said.
Billionaire wealth rises to more than $10 trillion for first time ever amid pandemic: analysis
Rich get richer as millions of Americans fall into poverty and 100 million plunge into "extreme poverty" globally
IGOR DERYSH - salon
OCTOBER 17, 2020 2:00PM (UTC)
Billionaire wealth increased to $10.2 trillion through the end of July, setting a new record amid the coronavirus pandemic even as millions of unemployed people fall into poverty.
Wealth held by billionaires around the world rose to $10.2 trillion in July, up from the previous record of $8.9 trillion in 2017, according to an analysis by Swiss bank UBS and consulting firm PwC.
The number of billionaires also rose from 2,158 in 2017 to 2,189 this summer, according to the report.
Not all billionaires saw their wealth increase, though some saw their wealth rise by close to 50%. Health care billionaires, for example, saw their wealth increase by 50%. Technology billionaires saw their wealth rise by 42.5%. Billionaires in the entertainment, financial services, materials, and real estate sectors saw increases of 10% or less.
While the UBS analysis looked at billionaires around the world, a separate analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness found that billionaire wealth in the United States has grown by $792 billion, or 27%, since the beginning of coronavirus lockdowns in March. The combined wealth of American billionaires now tops $3.7 trillion.
Some prominent billionaires have done particularly well. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has seen his wealth rise more than 60% during the pandemic to $195 billion through late August, according to the analysis. Tesla CEO Elon Musk saw his wealth more than triple to $85 billion over that time frame.
The study pointed to President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts, which helped billionaires keep more of their earnings. The UBS study noted that Trump's desired capital gains tax cut, billed as a pandemic-related stimulus, would overwhelmingly favor the richest Americans.
"For billionaires, this is a heads-we win, tails-you-lose economy, boosted by Trump policies to funnel wealth to the top," Chuck Collins, the head of the Institute for Policy Studies' Program on Inequality, said in a news release.
"The pandemic profiteering of America's billionaires shows taxes on the wealthy must go up substantially to narrow the wealth gap and raise revenue vital for our big climb back from disaster," added Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness. "By demanding even more tax cuts for the rich at this crucial moment President Trump shows he is as out of touch with our nation's needs as America's billionaires are disconnected from our nation's misery."
Some executives, like Zoom CEO Eric Yuan and Bezos, have profited from a boom in business caused by the lockdowns. Others have profited directly from government aid distributed to their companies. But most billionaires saw their wealth increase due to rising investments, buoyed by a stock market surge propped up by government assistance.
The rising wealth amid an economically devastating pandemic threatens to deepen longstanding inequalities.
"Extreme wealth concentration is an ugly phenomenon from a moral perspective, but it's also economically and socially destructive," Luke Hilyard, the executive director of the High Pay Center, a think tank that focuses on excessive executive pay, told The Guardian. "Anyone accumulating riches on this scale could easily afford to raise the pay of the employees who generate their wealth, or contribute a great deal more in taxes to support vital public services, while remaining very well rewarded for whatever successes they've achieved. The findings from the UBS report showing that the super-rich are getting even richer are a sign that capitalism isn't working as it should."
UBS executive Josef Stadler also acknowledged that billionaires could face societal backlash over their growing wealth as many people face months if not years of struggles.
"We're at an inflection point," he told the outlet. "Wealth concentration is as high as in 1905, this is something billionaires are concerned about. The problem is the power of interest on interest – that makes big money bigger and, the question is to what extent is that sustainable and at what point will society intervene and strike back?"
But it's far from the first time that billionaires profited while millions suffered. The Institute for Policy Studies found that the wealthiest 400 billionaires in the US not only recovered from the 2008 recession within three years but increased their wealth by 80% over the following decade. By comparison, the bottom 80% of earners have still not recovered.
While government intervention has helped billionaires accumulate even more wealth, the lack of government action since the spring has resulted in an estimated 8 million Americans falling into poverty since May, according to a study from researchers at Columbia University. The lack of additional stimulus payments and the expiration of enhanced federal unemployment benefits has resulted in 6 million Americans falling into poverty over just the last three months, according to a study from researchers at the University of Chicago and Notre Dame.
The problem has been even worse globally. Between 88 million and 114 million people around the world have fallen into extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.90 per day, since the pandemic hit, according to the World Bank. There are now more than 700 million people living in extreme poverty and researchers expected that number to keep rising.
"This is the worst setback that we've witnessed in a generation," Carolina Sánchez-Páramo, the global director of the World Bank's Poverty and Equity Global Practice, told The Wall Street Journal.
World Bank Group President David Malpass argued in a speech this month that the problem is worse in developing economies because "rich countries" have the resources to expand sweeping "government spending programs" while poorer economies have few tools to mitigate the economic damage.
The US, by contrast, should be doing better if not for Republican reluctance to increased government relief. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned Congress last month that inaction in the face of growing inequality would be highly damaging to the economic recovery.
"Those are things that hold back our economy," he said at a news conference. "If we want to have the highest potential output and the best output for our economy, we need that prosperity to be very broadly spread."
Many analysts have also faulted Powell and the Fed for contributing to the growing inequality with policies "disproportionately benefiting stockholders," according to the Associated Press.
Just as the coronavirus has exposed longstanding health disparities between the richest and poorest Americans, the growing inequality is largely the result of a "catastrophic failure to tackle inequality" well before the pandemic struck, according to a report from Oxfam International.
"Governments' catastrophic failure to tackle inequality meant the majority of the world's countries were critically ill-equipped to weather the pandemic," said Oxfam interim executive director Chema Vera. "No country on earth was trying hard enough to reduce inequality and ordinary people are bearing the brunt of this crisis as a result. Millions of people have been pushed into poverty and hunger and there have been countless unnecessary deaths."
Wealth held by billionaires around the world rose to $10.2 trillion in July, up from the previous record of $8.9 trillion in 2017, according to an analysis by Swiss bank UBS and consulting firm PwC.
The number of billionaires also rose from 2,158 in 2017 to 2,189 this summer, according to the report.
Not all billionaires saw their wealth increase, though some saw their wealth rise by close to 50%. Health care billionaires, for example, saw their wealth increase by 50%. Technology billionaires saw their wealth rise by 42.5%. Billionaires in the entertainment, financial services, materials, and real estate sectors saw increases of 10% or less.
While the UBS analysis looked at billionaires around the world, a separate analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness found that billionaire wealth in the United States has grown by $792 billion, or 27%, since the beginning of coronavirus lockdowns in March. The combined wealth of American billionaires now tops $3.7 trillion.
Some prominent billionaires have done particularly well. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has seen his wealth rise more than 60% during the pandemic to $195 billion through late August, according to the analysis. Tesla CEO Elon Musk saw his wealth more than triple to $85 billion over that time frame.
The study pointed to President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts, which helped billionaires keep more of their earnings. The UBS study noted that Trump's desired capital gains tax cut, billed as a pandemic-related stimulus, would overwhelmingly favor the richest Americans.
"For billionaires, this is a heads-we win, tails-you-lose economy, boosted by Trump policies to funnel wealth to the top," Chuck Collins, the head of the Institute for Policy Studies' Program on Inequality, said in a news release.
"The pandemic profiteering of America's billionaires shows taxes on the wealthy must go up substantially to narrow the wealth gap and raise revenue vital for our big climb back from disaster," added Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness. "By demanding even more tax cuts for the rich at this crucial moment President Trump shows he is as out of touch with our nation's needs as America's billionaires are disconnected from our nation's misery."
Some executives, like Zoom CEO Eric Yuan and Bezos, have profited from a boom in business caused by the lockdowns. Others have profited directly from government aid distributed to their companies. But most billionaires saw their wealth increase due to rising investments, buoyed by a stock market surge propped up by government assistance.
The rising wealth amid an economically devastating pandemic threatens to deepen longstanding inequalities.
"Extreme wealth concentration is an ugly phenomenon from a moral perspective, but it's also economically and socially destructive," Luke Hilyard, the executive director of the High Pay Center, a think tank that focuses on excessive executive pay, told The Guardian. "Anyone accumulating riches on this scale could easily afford to raise the pay of the employees who generate their wealth, or contribute a great deal more in taxes to support vital public services, while remaining very well rewarded for whatever successes they've achieved. The findings from the UBS report showing that the super-rich are getting even richer are a sign that capitalism isn't working as it should."
UBS executive Josef Stadler also acknowledged that billionaires could face societal backlash over their growing wealth as many people face months if not years of struggles.
"We're at an inflection point," he told the outlet. "Wealth concentration is as high as in 1905, this is something billionaires are concerned about. The problem is the power of interest on interest – that makes big money bigger and, the question is to what extent is that sustainable and at what point will society intervene and strike back?"
But it's far from the first time that billionaires profited while millions suffered. The Institute for Policy Studies found that the wealthiest 400 billionaires in the US not only recovered from the 2008 recession within three years but increased their wealth by 80% over the following decade. By comparison, the bottom 80% of earners have still not recovered.
While government intervention has helped billionaires accumulate even more wealth, the lack of government action since the spring has resulted in an estimated 8 million Americans falling into poverty since May, according to a study from researchers at Columbia University. The lack of additional stimulus payments and the expiration of enhanced federal unemployment benefits has resulted in 6 million Americans falling into poverty over just the last three months, according to a study from researchers at the University of Chicago and Notre Dame.
The problem has been even worse globally. Between 88 million and 114 million people around the world have fallen into extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.90 per day, since the pandemic hit, according to the World Bank. There are now more than 700 million people living in extreme poverty and researchers expected that number to keep rising.
"This is the worst setback that we've witnessed in a generation," Carolina Sánchez-Páramo, the global director of the World Bank's Poverty and Equity Global Practice, told The Wall Street Journal.
World Bank Group President David Malpass argued in a speech this month that the problem is worse in developing economies because "rich countries" have the resources to expand sweeping "government spending programs" while poorer economies have few tools to mitigate the economic damage.
The US, by contrast, should be doing better if not for Republican reluctance to increased government relief. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned Congress last month that inaction in the face of growing inequality would be highly damaging to the economic recovery.
"Those are things that hold back our economy," he said at a news conference. "If we want to have the highest potential output and the best output for our economy, we need that prosperity to be very broadly spread."
Many analysts have also faulted Powell and the Fed for contributing to the growing inequality with policies "disproportionately benefiting stockholders," according to the Associated Press.
Just as the coronavirus has exposed longstanding health disparities between the richest and poorest Americans, the growing inequality is largely the result of a "catastrophic failure to tackle inequality" well before the pandemic struck, according to a report from Oxfam International.
"Governments' catastrophic failure to tackle inequality meant the majority of the world's countries were critically ill-equipped to weather the pandemic," said Oxfam interim executive director Chema Vera. "No country on earth was trying hard enough to reduce inequality and ordinary people are bearing the brunt of this crisis as a result. Millions of people have been pushed into poverty and hunger and there have been countless unnecessary deaths."
220,000 dead and a fool for the court!!!
Cops pull guns on unarmed Black woman during routine traffic stop – blame her car’s windows
October 16, 2020
By Sky Palma - raw story
Ohio’s South Euclid Police Department is under fire after it released dash cam video of an arrest where an officer held a Black woman and her child at gunpoint. According to police, people slamming the department for the officers actions are missing important context, WYKC reports.
Police say the woman initially failed to stop after getting pulled over for allegedly speeding, then the officer noticed her tinted windows and said he was unable to see inside the car. As the officer exited patrol car to approach the woman’s vehicle, she drove away, forcing the officer to follow her for half a mile before she finally pulled over again.
According to the officer, the woman’s previous actions prompted him to pull out his gun and order the woman to exit her car while he held her at gunpoint.
Police say the woman initially failed to stop after getting pulled over for allegedly speeding, then the officer noticed her tinted windows and said he was unable to see inside the car. As the officer exited patrol car to approach the woman’s vehicle, she drove away, forcing the officer to follow her for half a mile before she finally pulled over again.
According to the officer, the woman’s previous actions prompted him to pull out his gun and order the woman to exit her car while he held her at gunpoint.
How baseball’s first commissioner led a conspiracy of silence to preserve baseball’s color line
the conversation
October 16, 2020 7.02am EDT
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America recently announced that it would remove former Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis’ name from the plaques awarded to the American and National League MVPs.
The decision came after a number of former MVPs, including Black award winners Barry Larkin and Terry Pendleton, voiced their displeasure with their plaques being named for Landis, who kept the game segregated during the 24 years he served as commissioner from 1920 until his death in 1944. The Brooklyn Dodgers ended the color line when they signed Jackie Robinson to a contract in October 1945, less than a year after Landis’ death.
Landis has had his defenders over the years. In the past, essayist David Kaiser, baseball historian Norman Macht, Landis biographer David Pietrusza and the commissioner’s nephew, Lincoln Landis, have claimed that there is no evidence that Landis said or did anything racist.
But in my view, it’s what he didn’t say and didn’t do that made him a racist.
In my book “Conspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long Campaign to Desegregate Baseball,” I argue that baseball’s color line existed as long as it did because the nation’s white mainstream sportswriters remained silent about it, even as Black and progressive activists campaigned for integration.
However those who ran the league possessed far more power than sportswriters. Landis, along with the owners, knew that there were Black players good enough to play in the big leagues. If he wanted to integrate Major League Baseball, he could have.
Instead, he did all he could to prevent the rest of America from knowing just how talented Black baseball players were.
Petitions go ignored
By the time Landis became commissioner in 1920, baseball had been segregated ever since a so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” took place among team owners in the 1880s.
However, it was common practice in the 1920s for Major League teams to earn extra money in the off-season by playing Black teams in exhibition games. Landis put a halt to these games because he wanted to end the embarrassment of the Black teams’ winning so often.
It is worth noting that Black athletes competed with white ones in other sports in the 1920s and 1930s, including boxing, college tennis, college football and, for several years, the National Football League. Black athletes also represented the United States in the Olympics.
During the 1930s, Black sportswriters like Wendell Smith and Sam Lacy, along with white sportswriters for the Communist newspaper The Daily Worker, intensely campaigned for the integration of baseball.
In their editorials and articles, Worker sportswriters chronicled the accomplishments of Negro League stars and told readers that struggling Major League teams could improve their chances by signing Black players. Meanwhile, Communist activists organized protests and circulated petition drives outside the ballparks of New York’s three Major League teams – the Yankees, Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers – demanding that teams sign Black players.
The petitions, which had, according to one estimate, a million signatures, were then sent off to the commissioner’s office. They were ignored. The Daily Worker regularly focused on Landis as the person responsible for the color line, while the Black press derisively called him “the Great White Father.”
Don’t ask, don’t tell
Landis’ defenders say that he could not possibly have been a bigot because he suspended Yankees outfielder Jake Powell for making a racist comment during a 1938 radio interview.
Landis suspended Powell not because the ballplayer used a slur, but because it was heard by fans, and Black activists pressured the commissioner to do something. While Landis ended up punishing a racist player, he did nothing to end racial discrimination against Black players.
Furthermore, Landis refused to allow players and managers to speak on the issue. When Brooklyn manager Leo Durocher was quoted in a 1942 Daily Worker article saying he would sign Black players if he were allowed to, Landis ordered Durocher to deny that he made the statement.
The following year, Landis again subverted the campaign to end segregation in the sport.
Sam Lacy, who was then working for the Chicago Defender, repeatedly asked Landis for a meeting to talk about the color line. When Landis finally agreed, Lacy asked the commissioner if he could make the case for integration at baseball’s annual meeting.
Landis, without telling Lacy, invited the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association. Also invited to speak was Paul Robeson, the onetime college football star who had become an actor, singer, writer – and avowed Communist. Lacy was incensed that Robeson would be asked to address the conservative white owners about the sensitive issue of integration.
To Lacy, the presence of Robeson meant that Landis could plant seeds of suspicion with white owners and sportswriters that the campaign to integrate baseball was a Communist front.
Lacy wrote in a column that Landis reminded him of a cartoon he had seen of a man extending his right hand in a gesture of friendship while clenching a long knife that was hidden in his left hand.
Landis died in December 1944, and Lacy finally got a chance to address team executives in March of the following year. Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey ended up signing Jackie Robinson to a contract several months later, thus ending segregation in baseball.
Lee Lowenfish, Rickey’s biographer, was convinced that Landis would have tried to stop the Brooklyn executive from signing Robinson.
I believe it is no coincidence that baseball remained segregated during Landis’ reign as commissioner – or that it became integrated only after he died.
The decision came after a number of former MVPs, including Black award winners Barry Larkin and Terry Pendleton, voiced their displeasure with their plaques being named for Landis, who kept the game segregated during the 24 years he served as commissioner from 1920 until his death in 1944. The Brooklyn Dodgers ended the color line when they signed Jackie Robinson to a contract in October 1945, less than a year after Landis’ death.
Landis has had his defenders over the years. In the past, essayist David Kaiser, baseball historian Norman Macht, Landis biographer David Pietrusza and the commissioner’s nephew, Lincoln Landis, have claimed that there is no evidence that Landis said or did anything racist.
But in my view, it’s what he didn’t say and didn’t do that made him a racist.
In my book “Conspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long Campaign to Desegregate Baseball,” I argue that baseball’s color line existed as long as it did because the nation’s white mainstream sportswriters remained silent about it, even as Black and progressive activists campaigned for integration.
However those who ran the league possessed far more power than sportswriters. Landis, along with the owners, knew that there were Black players good enough to play in the big leagues. If he wanted to integrate Major League Baseball, he could have.
Instead, he did all he could to prevent the rest of America from knowing just how talented Black baseball players were.
Petitions go ignored
By the time Landis became commissioner in 1920, baseball had been segregated ever since a so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” took place among team owners in the 1880s.
However, it was common practice in the 1920s for Major League teams to earn extra money in the off-season by playing Black teams in exhibition games. Landis put a halt to these games because he wanted to end the embarrassment of the Black teams’ winning so often.
It is worth noting that Black athletes competed with white ones in other sports in the 1920s and 1930s, including boxing, college tennis, college football and, for several years, the National Football League. Black athletes also represented the United States in the Olympics.
During the 1930s, Black sportswriters like Wendell Smith and Sam Lacy, along with white sportswriters for the Communist newspaper The Daily Worker, intensely campaigned for the integration of baseball.
In their editorials and articles, Worker sportswriters chronicled the accomplishments of Negro League stars and told readers that struggling Major League teams could improve their chances by signing Black players. Meanwhile, Communist activists organized protests and circulated petition drives outside the ballparks of New York’s three Major League teams – the Yankees, Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers – demanding that teams sign Black players.
The petitions, which had, according to one estimate, a million signatures, were then sent off to the commissioner’s office. They were ignored. The Daily Worker regularly focused on Landis as the person responsible for the color line, while the Black press derisively called him “the Great White Father.”
Don’t ask, don’t tell
Landis’ defenders say that he could not possibly have been a bigot because he suspended Yankees outfielder Jake Powell for making a racist comment during a 1938 radio interview.
Landis suspended Powell not because the ballplayer used a slur, but because it was heard by fans, and Black activists pressured the commissioner to do something. While Landis ended up punishing a racist player, he did nothing to end racial discrimination against Black players.
Furthermore, Landis refused to allow players and managers to speak on the issue. When Brooklyn manager Leo Durocher was quoted in a 1942 Daily Worker article saying he would sign Black players if he were allowed to, Landis ordered Durocher to deny that he made the statement.
The following year, Landis again subverted the campaign to end segregation in the sport.
Sam Lacy, who was then working for the Chicago Defender, repeatedly asked Landis for a meeting to talk about the color line. When Landis finally agreed, Lacy asked the commissioner if he could make the case for integration at baseball’s annual meeting.
Landis, without telling Lacy, invited the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association. Also invited to speak was Paul Robeson, the onetime college football star who had become an actor, singer, writer – and avowed Communist. Lacy was incensed that Robeson would be asked to address the conservative white owners about the sensitive issue of integration.
To Lacy, the presence of Robeson meant that Landis could plant seeds of suspicion with white owners and sportswriters that the campaign to integrate baseball was a Communist front.
Lacy wrote in a column that Landis reminded him of a cartoon he had seen of a man extending his right hand in a gesture of friendship while clenching a long knife that was hidden in his left hand.
Landis died in December 1944, and Lacy finally got a chance to address team executives in March of the following year. Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey ended up signing Jackie Robinson to a contract several months later, thus ending segregation in baseball.
Lee Lowenfish, Rickey’s biographer, was convinced that Landis would have tried to stop the Brooklyn executive from signing Robinson.
I believe it is no coincidence that baseball remained segregated during Landis’ reign as commissioner – or that it became integrated only after he died.
Watchdog group accuses Amy Coney Barrett of “unconscionable cruelty” in teen rape case
Barrett decided to overturn a $6.7M jury award to a teen allegedly raped in a jail run by ex-Sheriff David Clarke
IGOR DERYSH - salon
OCTOBER 16, 2020 10:23PM (UTC)
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has been accused of "unconscionable cruelty" by a watchdog group over her role in an appellate court decision overturning a district court which found a Wisconsin county liable for millions in damages to a woman who alleged she had been repeatedly raped by a jail guard.
"After a 19-year old pregnant prison inmate was repeatedly raped by a prison guard, Amy Coney Barrett ruled that the county responsible for the prison could not be held liable because the sexual assaults fell outside of the guard's official duties. Her judgment demonstrates a level of unconscionable cruelty that has no place on the high court," Kyle Herrig, president of the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. "The only thing more concerning than the rush to confirm by Senate Republicans is what we are learning about Amy Coney Barrett's extremist record. It is hardly surprising that she has dodged question after question during her testimony."
Barrett was one of the three judges on a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel which reversed a $6.7 million verdict against Milwaukee County in 2018 after a corrections officer was charged with repeatedly raping a pregnant 19-year-old inmate.
Former corrections officer Xavier Thicken was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault in 2013 after the woman alleged that he had raped her during and after her pregnancy at a jail run by the controversial former Sheriff David Clarke. Those charges were dropped when he agreed to plead guilty to felony misconduct in public office in 2014.
The woman later filed a lawsuit against Milwaukee County. In her testimony, she alleged that Thicklen had raped her in different parts of the jail when she was eight months pregnant and demanded that she perform oral sex on him after giving birth.
A jury awarded the woman $6.7 million in 2017, which was upheld by District Judge J.P. Stadmueller before the Seventh Circuit Court overturned the ruling in September 2018.
Barrett joined Judges Daniel Manion and Robert Gettleman in reversing the district court ruling against the county, though it upheld the judgement against Thicklen. Mannion wrote in the unanimous opinion that the county was not responsible for the guard's conduct.
"Conduct is not in the scope if it is different in kind from that authorized, far beyond the authorized time or space, or too little actuated by a purpose to serve the employer," he said.
"Even when viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to (the woman) and the verdict, we hold no reasonable jury could find the sexual assaults were in the scope of his (Thicklen's) employment," the opinion stated. "The evidence negates the verdict."
Manion noted that the training materials stated guards were prohibited from having sex with inmates.
"The undisputed facts and reasonable inferences point ineluctably to the conclusions that Thicklen's abhorrent acts were in no way actuated by a purpose to serve county," he wrote. "He raped (the inmate) for purely personal reasons, the rapes did not benefit county but harmed it, he knew the rapes did not serve county, and the rapes were outside the scope."
With the ruling, the judge acknowledged that the woman "loses perhaps her best chance to collect the judgment. But (the law) does not make public employers absolute insurers against all wrongs."
In a similar case this year, however, Barrett joined a majority of the full Seventh Circuit Court to find that Wisconsin's Polk County was liable in a case where a jail guard sexually assaulted five women hundreds of times.
The case was filed after former prison guard Daryl Christensen was convicted of sexually assaulting the women hundreds of times over three years in 2016. Two of the victims, identified as J.K.J. and M.J.J., sued Christensen and Polk County in federal court, according to Courthouse News.
A complaint filed by one of the women alleged that the Polk County Sheriff's Department was liable, because it failed to protect her from Christensen and chose not to accept state-provided training materials on prison rape.
The lawsuit largely echoed the allegations in the criminal complaint, accusing Christensen of leading women inmates to areas of the jail where there were no security cameras before digitally penetrating them and forcing them to perform oral sex on him.
---
Emily Martin, the vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women's Law Center, expressed concerns that Barrett's description of the Education Department's efforts to go after campus sexual assault was evidence of discrimination against men.
Martin told The Washington Post that late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a champion of women's rights and lamented the prospect of "replacing someone like that with a judge who is eager to use the language of sex discrimination in order to defend the status quo and to use the statutes that were created to forward gender equality as swords against that very purpose."
Beth Barnhill, the executive director of the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, penned an op-ed this week warning that Barrett "holds extreme positions on areas of the law on which victims of sexual assault depend."
"Survivors want and deserve a Supreme Court that works for all of us, yet a previous ruling from Barrett made it easier for students who are held accountable for sexual assault to sue their schools for sex discrimination," Barnhill wrote. "She suggested that a school's commitment to taking sexual misconduct seriously is evidence of sex discrimination against the people who caused harm. This is deeply problematic and troubling for survivors."
"After a 19-year old pregnant prison inmate was repeatedly raped by a prison guard, Amy Coney Barrett ruled that the county responsible for the prison could not be held liable because the sexual assaults fell outside of the guard's official duties. Her judgment demonstrates a level of unconscionable cruelty that has no place on the high court," Kyle Herrig, president of the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. "The only thing more concerning than the rush to confirm by Senate Republicans is what we are learning about Amy Coney Barrett's extremist record. It is hardly surprising that she has dodged question after question during her testimony."
Barrett was one of the three judges on a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel which reversed a $6.7 million verdict against Milwaukee County in 2018 after a corrections officer was charged with repeatedly raping a pregnant 19-year-old inmate.
Former corrections officer Xavier Thicken was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault in 2013 after the woman alleged that he had raped her during and after her pregnancy at a jail run by the controversial former Sheriff David Clarke. Those charges were dropped when he agreed to plead guilty to felony misconduct in public office in 2014.
The woman later filed a lawsuit against Milwaukee County. In her testimony, she alleged that Thicklen had raped her in different parts of the jail when she was eight months pregnant and demanded that she perform oral sex on him after giving birth.
A jury awarded the woman $6.7 million in 2017, which was upheld by District Judge J.P. Stadmueller before the Seventh Circuit Court overturned the ruling in September 2018.
Barrett joined Judges Daniel Manion and Robert Gettleman in reversing the district court ruling against the county, though it upheld the judgement against Thicklen. Mannion wrote in the unanimous opinion that the county was not responsible for the guard's conduct.
"Conduct is not in the scope if it is different in kind from that authorized, far beyond the authorized time or space, or too little actuated by a purpose to serve the employer," he said.
"Even when viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to (the woman) and the verdict, we hold no reasonable jury could find the sexual assaults were in the scope of his (Thicklen's) employment," the opinion stated. "The evidence negates the verdict."
Manion noted that the training materials stated guards were prohibited from having sex with inmates.
"The undisputed facts and reasonable inferences point ineluctably to the conclusions that Thicklen's abhorrent acts were in no way actuated by a purpose to serve county," he wrote. "He raped (the inmate) for purely personal reasons, the rapes did not benefit county but harmed it, he knew the rapes did not serve county, and the rapes were outside the scope."
With the ruling, the judge acknowledged that the woman "loses perhaps her best chance to collect the judgment. But (the law) does not make public employers absolute insurers against all wrongs."
In a similar case this year, however, Barrett joined a majority of the full Seventh Circuit Court to find that Wisconsin's Polk County was liable in a case where a jail guard sexually assaulted five women hundreds of times.
The case was filed after former prison guard Daryl Christensen was convicted of sexually assaulting the women hundreds of times over three years in 2016. Two of the victims, identified as J.K.J. and M.J.J., sued Christensen and Polk County in federal court, according to Courthouse News.
A complaint filed by one of the women alleged that the Polk County Sheriff's Department was liable, because it failed to protect her from Christensen and chose not to accept state-provided training materials on prison rape.
The lawsuit largely echoed the allegations in the criminal complaint, accusing Christensen of leading women inmates to areas of the jail where there were no security cameras before digitally penetrating them and forcing them to perform oral sex on him.
---
Emily Martin, the vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women's Law Center, expressed concerns that Barrett's description of the Education Department's efforts to go after campus sexual assault was evidence of discrimination against men.
Martin told The Washington Post that late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a champion of women's rights and lamented the prospect of "replacing someone like that with a judge who is eager to use the language of sex discrimination in order to defend the status quo and to use the statutes that were created to forward gender equality as swords against that very purpose."
Beth Barnhill, the executive director of the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, penned an op-ed this week warning that Barrett "holds extreme positions on areas of the law on which victims of sexual assault depend."
"Survivors want and deserve a Supreme Court that works for all of us, yet a previous ruling from Barrett made it easier for students who are held accountable for sexual assault to sue their schools for sex discrimination," Barnhill wrote. "She suggested that a school's commitment to taking sexual misconduct seriously is evidence of sex discrimination against the people who caused harm. This is deeply problematic and troubling for survivors."
Donald Trump had it coming
October 2, 2020
By John Stoehr, The Editorial Board- Commentary
The last thing any of us should want is the president becoming some kind of QAnon martyr. Other than that, however, I reserve the right to feel however I want to feel about the president and his wife coming down with a case of Covid-19. My life and your life have been turned upside down—and we’re the lucky ones. Some of us are out of work. Some of us are getting sick or sicker. Some have buried mothers, uncles, cousins and sons. All of us have felt the empurpled rage of being lied to endlessly.
I’m writing this in a co-working space where I have to sign in every day (for contract tracing purposes), where I have to disinfect my desk every day, and where I have to wear a mask every day. I don’t shake hands anymore. I don’t hug anymore. My family’s income is rockier because universities are reeling and arts nonprofits are walking dead. We don’t invite friends over anymore. We are not invited over anymore. Our fourth-grader can’t go to school physically. She has to zoom into class six and half hours a day. She often curses the pandemic, painfully reminding her mother and me how powerless we are. My mother-in-law—more mother than my mother—is overcoming Covid. She’s asymptomatic, so far, thank God. Thank God. Thank God.
All of the above is a picture of good fortune by comparison. Nearly 213,000 Americans are never coming back, per Worldometer. More than 7.5 million more are infected. The economy will not return to normal until the new coronavirus is contained, and given how bad things are right now, it’s not going to be contained for a long, long time. One in four working-age Americans has filed for unemployment benefits, according to the Times. That’s 40,000,000 people. Public spaces have been turned into hot zones—churches, synagogues and mosques, theaters and concert halls, museums and nightclubs, restaurants and bars, sporting arenas, any place indoors where more than 20 people gather. Revenues are drying up, businesses going under, dignity being lost.
Amid all this, we’re bracing ourselves for bloodshed made inevitable when a president won’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power—when he refuses to condemn white-power vigilante groups, indeed orders them to “stand back and stand by,” and when he repeatedly extorts the American republic, saying “either I win or something real bad happens.” Amid all this, he repeatedly blames the sick and the dead for being sick and dead, or tells us we’re making up all this suffering, that it’s a hoax by the fake news trying to make him look bad, and that everything is for real super-duper jim-dandy.
That’s why I reserve the right to feel however I want to feel about the president’s health. The insult added to injury is too profound for me to tolerate exhortations by otherwise well-meaning people that no one say he had it coming to him. Let’s be clear: Donald Trump had it coming. The president deserves to get sick. He deserves to suffer for all the suffering he has caused millions of people knowing full well that millions of people were going to suffer. He lied, and he lied, and he lied, because nothing is more important than his desiccated fetish for winning, which isn’t winning at all. It’s the wounded pride of an empty man who can afford to deny for a lifetime he’s weak. This is the same man who mocked the disabled, women, people of color, Black people, anyone he considers beneath him, even people of integrity and honor doing the noble work of public service and trying to prevent the spread of a lethal virus. This is the same president who kidnapped babes-in-arms, banned Muslims, insulted war heroes, and pretended he was a big-shot when in reality he’s up to his eyeballs in debt. Why should I avoid taking a little pleasure in seeing what comes around going around?
That said, I hope he makes a full recovery. (I will not say the same for the hundreds of degenerates who have enabled him, turned an opportunistic blind eye, or tried grabbing as much as they can while they can; they all deserve the worst of the fate awaiting them.) I hope the president makes a full recovery. Too many Americans already believe the coronavirus plays a role in a conspiracy by radical leftists, under the influence of an international cabal of rich Jews, to prey on children sexually, even drink their blood, in an effort to bring down Donald Trump. It’s one thing to say he should suffer. It’s another to want him dead. If you thought Trumpism would be with us long after Election Day, wait till the president is a sainted martyr for the heavily armed white Christian nationalists prepared to sacrifice themselves—and who are already sacrificing themselves to the pandemic—to save “the real America.”
Most of all, I hope he makes a full recovery so voters can sit in judgment of him, so a majority of the people can stuff democratic consequences into his orange face, and so law and order with justice can be administered in the name of God and country.
I’m writing this in a co-working space where I have to sign in every day (for contract tracing purposes), where I have to disinfect my desk every day, and where I have to wear a mask every day. I don’t shake hands anymore. I don’t hug anymore. My family’s income is rockier because universities are reeling and arts nonprofits are walking dead. We don’t invite friends over anymore. We are not invited over anymore. Our fourth-grader can’t go to school physically. She has to zoom into class six and half hours a day. She often curses the pandemic, painfully reminding her mother and me how powerless we are. My mother-in-law—more mother than my mother—is overcoming Covid. She’s asymptomatic, so far, thank God. Thank God. Thank God.
All of the above is a picture of good fortune by comparison. Nearly 213,000 Americans are never coming back, per Worldometer. More than 7.5 million more are infected. The economy will not return to normal until the new coronavirus is contained, and given how bad things are right now, it’s not going to be contained for a long, long time. One in four working-age Americans has filed for unemployment benefits, according to the Times. That’s 40,000,000 people. Public spaces have been turned into hot zones—churches, synagogues and mosques, theaters and concert halls, museums and nightclubs, restaurants and bars, sporting arenas, any place indoors where more than 20 people gather. Revenues are drying up, businesses going under, dignity being lost.
Amid all this, we’re bracing ourselves for bloodshed made inevitable when a president won’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power—when he refuses to condemn white-power vigilante groups, indeed orders them to “stand back and stand by,” and when he repeatedly extorts the American republic, saying “either I win or something real bad happens.” Amid all this, he repeatedly blames the sick and the dead for being sick and dead, or tells us we’re making up all this suffering, that it’s a hoax by the fake news trying to make him look bad, and that everything is for real super-duper jim-dandy.
That’s why I reserve the right to feel however I want to feel about the president’s health. The insult added to injury is too profound for me to tolerate exhortations by otherwise well-meaning people that no one say he had it coming to him. Let’s be clear: Donald Trump had it coming. The president deserves to get sick. He deserves to suffer for all the suffering he has caused millions of people knowing full well that millions of people were going to suffer. He lied, and he lied, and he lied, because nothing is more important than his desiccated fetish for winning, which isn’t winning at all. It’s the wounded pride of an empty man who can afford to deny for a lifetime he’s weak. This is the same man who mocked the disabled, women, people of color, Black people, anyone he considers beneath him, even people of integrity and honor doing the noble work of public service and trying to prevent the spread of a lethal virus. This is the same president who kidnapped babes-in-arms, banned Muslims, insulted war heroes, and pretended he was a big-shot when in reality he’s up to his eyeballs in debt. Why should I avoid taking a little pleasure in seeing what comes around going around?
That said, I hope he makes a full recovery. (I will not say the same for the hundreds of degenerates who have enabled him, turned an opportunistic blind eye, or tried grabbing as much as they can while they can; they all deserve the worst of the fate awaiting them.) I hope the president makes a full recovery. Too many Americans already believe the coronavirus plays a role in a conspiracy by radical leftists, under the influence of an international cabal of rich Jews, to prey on children sexually, even drink their blood, in an effort to bring down Donald Trump. It’s one thing to say he should suffer. It’s another to want him dead. If you thought Trumpism would be with us long after Election Day, wait till the president is a sainted martyr for the heavily armed white Christian nationalists prepared to sacrifice themselves—and who are already sacrificing themselves to the pandemic—to save “the real America.”
Most of all, I hope he makes a full recovery so voters can sit in judgment of him, so a majority of the people can stuff democratic consequences into his orange face, and so law and order with justice can be administered in the name of God and country.
US tycoon who pledged millions for Black students admits tax fraud
October 15, 2020
By Agence France-Presse - RAW STORY
Billionaire businessman Robert Smith, who made headlines last year by promising to pay off school loans taken on by hundreds of Black students, has reached a deal with US authorities to stave off prosecution for tax fraud.
He will pay $140 million to tax authorities as part of the arrangement, the Justice Department said in a statement Thursday.
Smith, the Black CEO of the investment firm Vista Partners, is accused of hiding revenue from 2000 to 2015 to avoid paying millions in taxes.
He has admitted doing this with offshore accounts in Belize and St. Kitts and Nevis, in the Caribbean, the department said.
Smith, 57, who is worth more than $5 billion according to Forbes magazine, drew tears of joy last year when he promised the 400-member graduating class of historically Black Morehouse College in Atlanta that he would pay off all of their student loans. This amounted to an estimated $40 million.
In America, such loans tend to average tens of thousands of dollars and are a huge burden that many young people take years and years to pay off.
Smith admitted creating offshore entities to avoid paying some taxes in the US.
He has now agreed to pay $56 million in back taxes and fines on undeclared earnings, and $82 million for failing to report his offshore accounts.
He is also giving up a $182 million tax credit for charitable donations he made.
Vista Partners specializes in financing software and other tech sector startups. Smith founded it in 2000.
He will pay $140 million to tax authorities as part of the arrangement, the Justice Department said in a statement Thursday.
Smith, the Black CEO of the investment firm Vista Partners, is accused of hiding revenue from 2000 to 2015 to avoid paying millions in taxes.
He has admitted doing this with offshore accounts in Belize and St. Kitts and Nevis, in the Caribbean, the department said.
Smith, 57, who is worth more than $5 billion according to Forbes magazine, drew tears of joy last year when he promised the 400-member graduating class of historically Black Morehouse College in Atlanta that he would pay off all of their student loans. This amounted to an estimated $40 million.
In America, such loans tend to average tens of thousands of dollars and are a huge burden that many young people take years and years to pay off.
Smith admitted creating offshore entities to avoid paying some taxes in the US.
He has now agreed to pay $56 million in back taxes and fines on undeclared earnings, and $82 million for failing to report his offshore accounts.
He is also giving up a $182 million tax credit for charitable donations he made.
Vista Partners specializes in financing software and other tech sector startups. Smith founded it in 2000.
AND WE STILL HAVE "UNDECIDED" VOTERS??
Michigan Republican linked to organizer of rally where militia allegedly plotted to kidnap Whitmer
The rally drew numerous extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Bois and the alleged coup plotters
IGOR DERYSH - salon
OCTOBER 16, 2020 10:00AM (UTC)
Michigan Republican Senate candidate John James received campaign contributions and was photographed with the organizer of the rally where conspirators accused of planning to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer allegedly plotted with a militia to recruit more members.
James, along with Vice President Mike Pence, was photographed with Ryan D. Kelley, a Grand Rapids real estate agent who heads the American Patriot Council, in since-deleted social media images reviewed by Salon. President Donald Trump was also pictured with Kelley in a photo posted to his Facebook profile.
Kelley was the organizer of the "Well-Regulated Militia" rally at the Michigan capitol in June. The FBI alleged in court documents that the leader of the group who plotted the attack on Whitmer met with militia leader Ty Garbin and a confidential source at the rally to discuss a plan and recruit more members.
Federal Election Commission records also show that Kelley has donated thousands to James' campaign. James, who lost his 2018 Senate bid, is virtually tied with incumbent Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll.
Kelley's pro-gun rally drew "dozens of armed members from various militias, most of them white," to the state capitol where they met with "other fringe groups like Boogaloo Bois and Proud Boys," according to Bridge Michigan.
The FBI alleged that the rally was among the locations where members plotted to kidnap Whitmer, try her in a remote location in Wisconsin and execute her for "treason" after complaining that the state's coronavirus lockdown had shuttered gyms. The FBI charged 13 men, including members of the Wolverine Watchmen militia, in the alleged plot last week.
Kelley disputed a link between the rally and the plot, noting that one of the suspects was a Black Lives Matter supporter and another suspect posted an anti-Trump video.
"The June APC Rally was pro-law enforcement," he said in a statement to Salon. "We coordinated the entire rally with Michigan State Police [and] thanked them publicly for their service. To suggest our rally was a meeting place to discuss a plot against the [governor] is grossly inaccurate."
James' campaign did not respond to questions from Salon, but it sent over a statement the Republican previously made to reporters.
"That was insane. That's like the most 2020 headline I've seen this week," he told reporters after the news broke. "Under no circumstances should we have this at all. I condemn any domestic terrorism, and I hate it in all its forms. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and the individuals implicated in this should be prosecuted to the fullest extent."
"I took an oath to defend the Constitution and this nation against enemies foreign and DOMESTIC," the Army veteran added on Twitter. "Those who threatened our State must be prosecuted to the fullest."
Trump, who called to "liberate Michigan" in April and has been accused of emboldening militias, came under fire last month after he refused to denounce the Proud Boys and white supremacists in the first presidential debate. He also tweeted in support of protesters who stormed the Michigan capitol, some of whom were armed with guns, to condemn the state's coronavirus restrictions.
Trump's son Eric scrapped a campaign appearance on Monday at a Michigan gun shop where one of the plot suspects previously worked.
James, who has billed himself as a unity candidate, has also echoed the rhetoric from far-right Michigan groups who have criticized Whitmer's coronavirus restrictions, railing against "socialism" and suggesting that Whitmer was dictator at recent campaign stops. His campaign stops have drawn members of the Proud Boys, which the FBI has classified as an "extremist group with ties to white nationalism." James has also campaigned with NRA board member Ted Nugent, who has repeatedly espoused support for the militia movement.
Whitmer linked Republican rhetoric to the alleged plot against her over the weekend.
"I do believe that there are still serious threats that groups like this group — these domestic terrorists — are finding comfort and support in the rhetoric coming out of Republican leadership from the White House to our state House," she told CBS News. "And so I remain concerned about safety and integrity going up to this election."
The American Patriot Council denounced the alleged plot after the FBI announced the arrests.
"The American Patriot Council in no way condones violence as a form of political action. As the public is well aware, any actions taken by the American Patriot Council have been legal and lawful," the group said in a statement. "While we hold the view that many public officials are guilty of a litany of crimes, and it has been our goal to hold these officials criminally responsible, we must do so lawfully."
"The American Patriot Council believes in law and order across the board and that no American citizen should be deprived of their right to due process of law," the statement added. "We have no affiliation with any other groups, nor will we aid or abet anyone using threats or acts of violence. Please take note that we are on the side of law enforcement. To this point, we have not been made aware of any plans of violence, and we believe our members and followers to be patriots."
Trump, meanwhile, attacked Whitmer over the coronavirus restrictions after the arrests were announced. He also demanded that she thank him.
"Rather than say thank you," Trump tweeted, "she calls me a White Supremacist."
James, along with Vice President Mike Pence, was photographed with Ryan D. Kelley, a Grand Rapids real estate agent who heads the American Patriot Council, in since-deleted social media images reviewed by Salon. President Donald Trump was also pictured with Kelley in a photo posted to his Facebook profile.
Kelley was the organizer of the "Well-Regulated Militia" rally at the Michigan capitol in June. The FBI alleged in court documents that the leader of the group who plotted the attack on Whitmer met with militia leader Ty Garbin and a confidential source at the rally to discuss a plan and recruit more members.
Federal Election Commission records also show that Kelley has donated thousands to James' campaign. James, who lost his 2018 Senate bid, is virtually tied with incumbent Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll.
Kelley's pro-gun rally drew "dozens of armed members from various militias, most of them white," to the state capitol where they met with "other fringe groups like Boogaloo Bois and Proud Boys," according to Bridge Michigan.
The FBI alleged that the rally was among the locations where members plotted to kidnap Whitmer, try her in a remote location in Wisconsin and execute her for "treason" after complaining that the state's coronavirus lockdown had shuttered gyms. The FBI charged 13 men, including members of the Wolverine Watchmen militia, in the alleged plot last week.
Kelley disputed a link between the rally and the plot, noting that one of the suspects was a Black Lives Matter supporter and another suspect posted an anti-Trump video.
"The June APC Rally was pro-law enforcement," he said in a statement to Salon. "We coordinated the entire rally with Michigan State Police [and] thanked them publicly for their service. To suggest our rally was a meeting place to discuss a plot against the [governor] is grossly inaccurate."
James' campaign did not respond to questions from Salon, but it sent over a statement the Republican previously made to reporters.
"That was insane. That's like the most 2020 headline I've seen this week," he told reporters after the news broke. "Under no circumstances should we have this at all. I condemn any domestic terrorism, and I hate it in all its forms. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and the individuals implicated in this should be prosecuted to the fullest extent."
"I took an oath to defend the Constitution and this nation against enemies foreign and DOMESTIC," the Army veteran added on Twitter. "Those who threatened our State must be prosecuted to the fullest."
Trump, who called to "liberate Michigan" in April and has been accused of emboldening militias, came under fire last month after he refused to denounce the Proud Boys and white supremacists in the first presidential debate. He also tweeted in support of protesters who stormed the Michigan capitol, some of whom were armed with guns, to condemn the state's coronavirus restrictions.
Trump's son Eric scrapped a campaign appearance on Monday at a Michigan gun shop where one of the plot suspects previously worked.
James, who has billed himself as a unity candidate, has also echoed the rhetoric from far-right Michigan groups who have criticized Whitmer's coronavirus restrictions, railing against "socialism" and suggesting that Whitmer was dictator at recent campaign stops. His campaign stops have drawn members of the Proud Boys, which the FBI has classified as an "extremist group with ties to white nationalism." James has also campaigned with NRA board member Ted Nugent, who has repeatedly espoused support for the militia movement.
Whitmer linked Republican rhetoric to the alleged plot against her over the weekend.
"I do believe that there are still serious threats that groups like this group — these domestic terrorists — are finding comfort and support in the rhetoric coming out of Republican leadership from the White House to our state House," she told CBS News. "And so I remain concerned about safety and integrity going up to this election."
The American Patriot Council denounced the alleged plot after the FBI announced the arrests.
"The American Patriot Council in no way condones violence as a form of political action. As the public is well aware, any actions taken by the American Patriot Council have been legal and lawful," the group said in a statement. "While we hold the view that many public officials are guilty of a litany of crimes, and it has been our goal to hold these officials criminally responsible, we must do so lawfully."
"The American Patriot Council believes in law and order across the board and that no American citizen should be deprived of their right to due process of law," the statement added. "We have no affiliation with any other groups, nor will we aid or abet anyone using threats or acts of violence. Please take note that we are on the side of law enforcement. To this point, we have not been made aware of any plans of violence, and we believe our members and followers to be patriots."
Trump, meanwhile, attacked Whitmer over the coronavirus restrictions after the arrests were announced. He also demanded that she thank him.
"Rather than say thank you," Trump tweeted, "she calls me a White Supremacist."
Bites from Real News
*10/18/2020*
*Undoing the damage done
Undoing the damage done: What will it take to rebuild what's left of our government?
Trump's reign of corruption has left the federal government in ruins. Necessary repair work may take many years
*Courts' Republican Appointees Are Dismantling Voting Rights: Study
A study commissioned by a group that favors expanding the U.S. Supreme Court found that Republican-appointed judges and justices in 2020 have repeatedly ruled in favor of making it harder for Americans to vote. The “Anti-Democracy Scorecard” (MSN)
*Exposure to man-made chemicals influences genes controlling aging, immune system and metabolism
Today humans are exposed to thousands of man-made chemicals. Yet the effects on people’s health are still not fully understood.
Alexander Suvorov
*NYT editorial board lodges the definitive case against Trump — ‘the worst American president in modern history
*Who Decides When Vaccine Studies Are Done? Internal Documents Show Fauci Plays a Key Role.
Dr. Anthony Fauci will see data from government-funded vaccine trials before the FDA does. One caveat: Pfizer’s study, which is ahead of the others, isn’t included in his purview.
*PART THREE: THE NEO-CONFEDERATE IN CHIEF
*QAnon Timeline of violence linked to the conspiracy theory
In the past two years, kidnappings, car chases and a murder appear to have been fueled by belief in a fictional narrative
*LATEST ELECTION STUNT PROVES UBER AND LYFT ARE THEIR OWN WORST POLITICAL ENEMIES
One study found that if their drivers had been classified as employees in the last five years, Uber and Lyft would have paid more than $400 million into California’s unemployment insurance fund. Instead, California taxpayers have footed the bill for the significant wage and benefit gaps created by these companies and their crummy gig jobs.
*23 Million US Homes Remain Lead-Contaminated Years After Flint Made Headlines
...Now the Trump administration is extending governmental failure by cutting funding for responsible agencies, reducing requirements for lead abatement, and ignoring opportunities to save the Treasury large sums of money while preventing harm to children by cleaning up lead in homes, water pipes and soil.
*AS PAUL SINGER DONATED MILLIONS TO REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS ASSOCIATION, PUBLIC FUNDS FLOWED INTO HIS HEDGE FUNDS
FUNDS WERE INVESTED DESPITE THE FACT THAT SINGER’S FLAGSHIP HEDGE FUND HAS BEEN BADLY UNDERPERFORMING THE MARKET OVER THE PAST DECADE
*Racism is an essential tool for maintaining the capitalist order
Systemic racism survived in the post-Civil War United States partly because it helped to achieve that tolerability. Capitalism provided conditions for the reproduction of systemic racism, and vice versa.
*The Socialists and Progressives Working Outside of the Biden Campaign to Oust Trump
These grassroots groups may be reaching people the Biden campaign isn’t.
*AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY: THE PRESIDENCY OF DONALD TRUMP
PART TWO: ADMINISTRATION OF XENOPHOBIA
TRUMP HAS GOVERNED WITH HATE AND CRUELTY ON IMMIGRATION AND HE BUILT ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF HIS PREDECESSORS.
BUSTED: Fake Black Trump ‘supporters’ — with tens of thousands of followers — purged on social media
October 14, 2020
By Matthew Chapman - RAW STORY
On Wednesday, Forbes reported that Twitter is suspending several fake accounts posing as Black supporters of President Donald Trump, saying that they violate the guidelines on spam and account manipulation.
Many of these accounts used identical language over and over, like “YES I’M BLACK AND I’M VOTING FOR TRUMP”. Some used images of real Black people without their knowledge or permission. According to Clemson University communications professor Darren Linvill, two dozen of these fake accounts have been retweeted or promoted over 265,000 times.
“Social media platforms are scrambling to tighten and enforce policies on misinformation and disinformation in the runup to November 3, as they seek to avoid a repeat of the 2016 poll that saw Russia interfere through troll accounts, and other tactics, on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube,” reported Isabel Togoh. “Twitter has banned all political ads on the platform and is flagging misleading posts and content more prominently (including President Trump’s), while Facebook has succumbed to pressure from lawmakers and campaigners and made a lastminute U-turn on certain forms of misinformation spreading, including those related to Covid-19, Qanon, and Holocaust denial.”
Many of these accounts used identical language over and over, like “YES I’M BLACK AND I’M VOTING FOR TRUMP”. Some used images of real Black people without their knowledge or permission. According to Clemson University communications professor Darren Linvill, two dozen of these fake accounts have been retweeted or promoted over 265,000 times.
“Social media platforms are scrambling to tighten and enforce policies on misinformation and disinformation in the runup to November 3, as they seek to avoid a repeat of the 2016 poll that saw Russia interfere through troll accounts, and other tactics, on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube,” reported Isabel Togoh. “Twitter has banned all political ads on the platform and is flagging misleading posts and content more prominently (including President Trump’s), while Facebook has succumbed to pressure from lawmakers and campaigners and made a lastminute U-turn on certain forms of misinformation spreading, including those related to Covid-19, Qanon, and Holocaust denial.”
WORTHLESS MEDIA WILL DO ANYTHING FOR RATINGS!!!!
Employees livid at NBC after network ‘rewards’ Trump’s debate withdrawal with solo town hall: report
October 14, 2020
By David Edwards - RAW STORY
Staffers at NBC, CNBC and MSNBC were said to be angry this week after learning that President Donald Trump was offered the opportunity to hold a solo town hall event.
NBC announced on Wednesday that the network will host a 90-minute town hall event for Trump opposite a similar event for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, which will air on ABC.
The event was only scheduled after a debate with Biden was cancelled because the president, who tested positive for COVID-19, refused to participate virtually.
Reporter Yashar Ali said that he had been contacted by “over a dozen” staffers at NBC and its sister networks.
“I’ve heard from over a dozen NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC sources (talent and staff) and the frustration with and anger toward their employer for scheduling a town hall against Biden is palpable,” Ali revealed.
Krista D. Ball is banned from Google.
@kristadb1
Oct 14, 2020
Replying to @KikkiPlanet
The obsession with "being fair" and "both sides" continues to treat people like children.
It's interesting that the people who complain about "participation badges" are the ones who demand shit like this.
Kathleen Smith
@KikkiPlanet
Same network that ran The Apprentice and won’t release the tapes of Trump being disgusting. NBC out here treating this election like it’s February sweeps week.
7:50 AM · Oct 14, 2020
NBC announced on Wednesday that the network will host a 90-minute town hall event for Trump opposite a similar event for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, which will air on ABC.
The event was only scheduled after a debate with Biden was cancelled because the president, who tested positive for COVID-19, refused to participate virtually.
Reporter Yashar Ali said that he had been contacted by “over a dozen” staffers at NBC and its sister networks.
“I’ve heard from over a dozen NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC sources (talent and staff) and the frustration with and anger toward their employer for scheduling a town hall against Biden is palpable,” Ali revealed.
Krista D. Ball is banned from Google.
@kristadb1
Oct 14, 2020
Replying to @KikkiPlanet
The obsession with "being fair" and "both sides" continues to treat people like children.
It's interesting that the people who complain about "participation badges" are the ones who demand shit like this.
Kathleen Smith
@KikkiPlanet
Same network that ran The Apprentice and won’t release the tapes of Trump being disgusting. NBC out here treating this election like it’s February sweeps week.
7:50 AM · Oct 14, 2020
‘Where the Hell Did He Come From?’: Ex-Cop Charged with Murder of Jonathan Price Had History of Racial Profiling, Residents Warned Others to Be Careful
Ashley Turner | atlanta black star
October 14, 2020
Shaun David Lucas (above) was charged with suspicion of murder for the shooting death of Jonathan Price. (Photo: Hunt County Jail, Jonathan Price Facebook)
He was called “the worst cop Wolfe City ever had.”
Many Texans were shocked to hear of the fatal shooting of Jonathan Price, a Black man who was attempting to break up a fight between a man and a woman before he was shot by Officer Shaun Lucas in the tiny Texas town northeast of Dallas on Oct. 3.
However, the Black citizens of Wolfe City, a town of approximately 1,500 residents, had been keeping an eye on Lucas and the progressively hostile behavior he exhibited over time concerning issues as minor as a traffic violation, according to an Oct. 10 Washington Post report.
Locals told the newspaper that the arrival of the “new cop” brought about intimidating traffic stops, along with a clear focus on targeting Black residents. “Where the hell did he come from?” asked resident Veronica Brown.
According to the Post, in August, white and Black residents shared a cautionary Facebook post about “another mean police officer” stopping “everything that moves at night.” A former resident told the Post that she was reluctant to even visit her parents in the city because of Lucas.
City attorney Daniel Ray said he didn’t recall any complaints being filed against Lucas prior to the shooting. However, residents interviewed by the Post to relay their encounters with Lucas, such as 65-year-old James Alton Brown, who was walking home when Lucas arrested him for public intoxication. Brown had difficulty walking due to a serious limp.
According to Brown, he tried to show Lucas that he was only drinking a soda, but was then charged with resisting arrest. Records show that the public intoxication charge was dropped, but Brown must still deal with the resisting charges and court fees.
Residents were on alert after Brown’s arrest, warning others that Lucas’ “vibe was off,” and that Black people needed to “be careful when [they] came to town.”
On Thursday Lucas, who is now facing murder charges, was fired by Wolfe City for the shooting. Some friends of the former officer have come forward in his defense, saying that his behavior that night was out of character, and he is being judged too harshly.
Caleb Thomas, Lucas’s friend of 10 years, told the Washington Post, “Every time he saw an officer or a first responder, I can recall him stopping and saying, ‘Thank you,’” said “Shaun has never been racist. He may have made some jokes in high school when he was 15 or 16, but everyone jokes around.”
“I knew from the start that there was no way that this transpired because of someone’s skin color,” he said. “His biggest dream was to become a police officer. It’s now turned into his biggest nightmare.”
When Lucas and Price first encountered one another at the local Kwik Chek convenience store last Saturday, Price greeted the other man with a handshake, and repeatedly asked him, “You doing good?” according to a publicly released affidavit written by Texas Rangers investigator Laura Simmons. Lucas had arrived at the scene, pursuing a call concerning a “possible fight in progress,” and surveyed the area as Price apologized for some broken glass that was on the ground.
Price was deemed intoxicated and the officer tried to arrest him, Lucas told investigators. According to the affidavit, Price answered “I can’t be detained” and struggled, which caused Lucas to withdraw his Taser.
Simmons wrote that Price started toward Lucas as he was being tased, when he appeared to attempt to grasp the end of Lucas’ taser.
Lucas discharged his gun four times, with one bullet piercing Price in the upper torso, and three bullets penetrating the store’s ice freezer. Price was declared dead at the hospital.
In a rare move of condemnation, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Price “resisted in a nonthreatening posture” before the Taser and gun were used, and stated that Lucas did not act with “justifiable force.”
Lucas’s attorney, Robert L. Rogers, shot back, and labeled Price as “an aggressive assailant who was attempting to take his taser.”
Several residents spoke to The Post about Lucas’ behavior, describing it as abnormal for a city where people greet law enforcement officials by their first names. An officer would normally be familiar with someone like Price, a city employee of the town who family and friends say was not a danger to others.
Witnesses have reportedly told the family that Price raised his hands when Lucas responded to him aggressively, and was too far from the Taser to grab it, said attorney Blerim Elmazi.
“The situation already was calm. There was no problem” when Lucas arrived, said Elmazi. “Officer Lucas completely and unreasonably escalated a situation when there really was no situation to begin with.”
Following the Wolfe City council’s firing of Lucas, a recent meeting had numerous people urging them to make a practice of hiring officers with more experience.
The mayor and council said in a joint statement, “Wolfe City is a tightknit community, and we join you in mourning Jonathan’s death and the events of the last week,” There was no further comment from city officials about Lucas.
Many Texans were shocked to hear of the fatal shooting of Jonathan Price, a Black man who was attempting to break up a fight between a man and a woman before he was shot by Officer Shaun Lucas in the tiny Texas town northeast of Dallas on Oct. 3.
However, the Black citizens of Wolfe City, a town of approximately 1,500 residents, had been keeping an eye on Lucas and the progressively hostile behavior he exhibited over time concerning issues as minor as a traffic violation, according to an Oct. 10 Washington Post report.
Locals told the newspaper that the arrival of the “new cop” brought about intimidating traffic stops, along with a clear focus on targeting Black residents. “Where the hell did he come from?” asked resident Veronica Brown.
According to the Post, in August, white and Black residents shared a cautionary Facebook post about “another mean police officer” stopping “everything that moves at night.” A former resident told the Post that she was reluctant to even visit her parents in the city because of Lucas.
City attorney Daniel Ray said he didn’t recall any complaints being filed against Lucas prior to the shooting. However, residents interviewed by the Post to relay their encounters with Lucas, such as 65-year-old James Alton Brown, who was walking home when Lucas arrested him for public intoxication. Brown had difficulty walking due to a serious limp.
According to Brown, he tried to show Lucas that he was only drinking a soda, but was then charged with resisting arrest. Records show that the public intoxication charge was dropped, but Brown must still deal with the resisting charges and court fees.
Residents were on alert after Brown’s arrest, warning others that Lucas’ “vibe was off,” and that Black people needed to “be careful when [they] came to town.”
On Thursday Lucas, who is now facing murder charges, was fired by Wolfe City for the shooting. Some friends of the former officer have come forward in his defense, saying that his behavior that night was out of character, and he is being judged too harshly.
Caleb Thomas, Lucas’s friend of 10 years, told the Washington Post, “Every time he saw an officer or a first responder, I can recall him stopping and saying, ‘Thank you,’” said “Shaun has never been racist. He may have made some jokes in high school when he was 15 or 16, but everyone jokes around.”
“I knew from the start that there was no way that this transpired because of someone’s skin color,” he said. “His biggest dream was to become a police officer. It’s now turned into his biggest nightmare.”
When Lucas and Price first encountered one another at the local Kwik Chek convenience store last Saturday, Price greeted the other man with a handshake, and repeatedly asked him, “You doing good?” according to a publicly released affidavit written by Texas Rangers investigator Laura Simmons. Lucas had arrived at the scene, pursuing a call concerning a “possible fight in progress,” and surveyed the area as Price apologized for some broken glass that was on the ground.
Price was deemed intoxicated and the officer tried to arrest him, Lucas told investigators. According to the affidavit, Price answered “I can’t be detained” and struggled, which caused Lucas to withdraw his Taser.
Simmons wrote that Price started toward Lucas as he was being tased, when he appeared to attempt to grasp the end of Lucas’ taser.
Lucas discharged his gun four times, with one bullet piercing Price in the upper torso, and three bullets penetrating the store’s ice freezer. Price was declared dead at the hospital.
In a rare move of condemnation, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Price “resisted in a nonthreatening posture” before the Taser and gun were used, and stated that Lucas did not act with “justifiable force.”
Lucas’s attorney, Robert L. Rogers, shot back, and labeled Price as “an aggressive assailant who was attempting to take his taser.”
Several residents spoke to The Post about Lucas’ behavior, describing it as abnormal for a city where people greet law enforcement officials by their first names. An officer would normally be familiar with someone like Price, a city employee of the town who family and friends say was not a danger to others.
Witnesses have reportedly told the family that Price raised his hands when Lucas responded to him aggressively, and was too far from the Taser to grab it, said attorney Blerim Elmazi.
“The situation already was calm. There was no problem” when Lucas arrived, said Elmazi. “Officer Lucas completely and unreasonably escalated a situation when there really was no situation to begin with.”
Following the Wolfe City council’s firing of Lucas, a recent meeting had numerous people urging them to make a practice of hiring officers with more experience.
The mayor and council said in a joint statement, “Wolfe City is a tightknit community, and we join you in mourning Jonathan’s death and the events of the last week,” There was no further comment from city officials about Lucas.
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Miami Beach Lifts COVID Curfew, Bars and Clubs Now Open Late
HEAT WAVE
Barbie Latza Nadeau - Correspondent-At-Large
Published Oct. 18, 2020 8:36AM ET
DAILY BEAST CHEAT SHEET
Miami Beach club owners and revelers will soon have reason to celebrate. On Saturday, the lifting of a county-wide curfew was announced by Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales. “In light of the court ruling enjoining the county from enforcing the curfew and after consulting our city attorney, I have directed city staff to suspend enforcement of the curfew in Miami Beach, including the 8 p.m. closure of liquor stores,” Morales said late Saturday. This means bars and clubs can now stay open past the previous midnight curfew and serve alcohol after 8 p.m. The curfew was put in place last spring to mitigate the spread of coronavirus and drastically impacted bars, restaurants and night clubs.
Nancy Pelosi Says Tuesday is Deadline for Stimulus Deal With White House
COUNTDOWN BEGINS
Barbie Latza Nadeau - Correspondent-At-Large
Updated Oct. 18, 2020 11:53AM ET
DAILY BEAST CHEAT SHEET
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that a deal on any new stimulus package must be reached by Tuesday if Congress is to pass legislation by Election Day. She added that she and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had considerable differences on a potential package that is set to cost between $1.8 trillion and $2.2 trillion.
Stephanopoulos then asked her if she would be meeting with President Trump at any point, since she had not spoken with him directly. “You want to meet with him, you meet with him,” she fired back. “As far as I’m concerned the speaker of the House must be respected in terms of what the purpose of the meeting is, what the preparation is for, and what the likelihood of success would be.”
Pelosi met with Mnuchin for around 75 minutes on Saturday and they were said to plan to meet again Monday.
Stephanopoulos then asked her if she would be meeting with President Trump at any point, since she had not spoken with him directly. “You want to meet with him, you meet with him,” she fired back. “As far as I’m concerned the speaker of the House must be respected in terms of what the purpose of the meeting is, what the preparation is for, and what the likelihood of success would be.”
Pelosi met with Mnuchin for around 75 minutes on Saturday and they were said to plan to meet again Monday.
Larry Ellison Donated $250,000 to Sen. Lindsey Graham PAC the Same Day as Oracle-TikTok Deal Announced
TI¢K TO¢K
Blake Montgomery - Reporter
Updated Oct. 17, 2020 8:41PM ET
DAILY BEAST CHEAT SHEET
Oracle founder Larry Ellison donated $250,000 to a political action committee supporting Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) the same day his company was declared the first official U.S. partner for the short-form video app TikTok, currently owned by Bytedance in Beijing. Federal Elections Commission documents first reported by The Verge show that Ellison gave the money to the Security is Strength PAC, which buys pro-Graham ads, on September 14, hours after Oracle beat Microsoft to a deal with the Chinese company. Graham has said he personally called President Donald Trump to advocate for the sale of TikTok to a U.S. business in lieu of a total ban. “If TikTok is saved, you can thank me,” he said. And he later tweeted, “Great decision by President Trump to approve the sale of TikTok to Oracle and Walmart.” In a statement to The Verge, Graham’s campaign said, “By law, we have no affiliation with [Security is Strength].”
*What's Inside*
oct 15 - oct 17
✔THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ALLOWED AVIATION COMPANIES TO TAKE BAILOUT FUNDS AND LAY OFF WORKERS, SAYS HOUSE REPORT(CAPITALISM)
*SHE WAS A FARMWORKER. HER GRANDSON IS A LYFT DRIVER. A FIGHT FOR WORKERS' RIGHTS UNITES THEM(SLAVERY 21ST CENTURY)
*SCHOOLS OFTEN FAIL TO IDENTIFY GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS – ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE BLACK, LATINO OR NATIVE AMERICAN(EDUCATION)
✔ROBERT REICH: THE END OF TRUMP’S FIFTH AVENUE
(SUCKERS)
*TRUMP’S WILDLY EXAGGERATED HELP FOR BLACK VOTERS
(REALITY)
✔FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' DAY: WHEN IT COMES TO COVID-19, NATIVE AMERICANS ARE GETTING SCREWED OVER, AS USUAL BY THE RUE PUNDIT(COMMENTARY)
*AUTHORITARIANS FOR TRUMP: EXPERTS EXPLAIN WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE PRESIDENT’S STRONGEST SUPPORTERS(SUCKERS)
*MY SISTER DIED OF COVID-19 — AND RACISM
(REAL PEOPLE)
*FIFTH OF COUNTRIES AT RISK OF ECOSYSTEM COLLAPSE, ANALYSIS FINDS
(EARTH)
✔TRUMP’S EPA GIVES OKLAHOMA CONTROL OVER TRIBAL LANDS
(ENVIRONMENT )
*‘PROMISES MADE, WORKERS BETRAYED’: TRUMP GAVE $425 BILLION IN FEDERAL CONTRACTS TO CORPORATIONS THAT OFFSHORED 200,000 JOBS(PAYBACK)
*PROGRESSIVES UNVEIL 2021 AGENDA TO PRESSURE BIDEN
(PROGRESSIVES)
*late news of interest*
a blast from the past!!!
British Writer Pens The Best Description Of Trump I’ve Read
MICHAEL STEVENSON - The HOBBLEDEHOY.com
MARCH 8, 2019
Someone on Quora asked “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:
A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
‘My God… what… have… I… created?
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.
RELATED: Lucie Arnaz Shares Her Husband’s Letter to Trump; “All Tyrants End the Same Way –in Misery. That is Your Destiny…”
..."The people see all that you are doing to destroy the country that belongs to us. There are so many, many, many things you and your captive minions have done and are doing to change the people into your servants, slaves, even. The people can only tolerate the theft of their freedom for so long–but finally, as in our original Revolution, they will gather en masse to remove you and every one of your party from any position of power ever again."
A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
‘My God… what… have… I… created?
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.
RELATED: Lucie Arnaz Shares Her Husband’s Letter to Trump; “All Tyrants End the Same Way –in Misery. That is Your Destiny…”
..."The people see all that you are doing to destroy the country that belongs to us. There are so many, many, many things you and your captive minions have done and are doing to change the people into your servants, slaves, even. The people can only tolerate the theft of their freedom for so long–but finally, as in our original Revolution, they will gather en masse to remove you and every one of your party from any position of power ever again."
