May 12, 2024

Air Force airman shot by Okaloosa county deputy had gun when answering door, but it was pointed at the ground. “The deputy, whose name and race haven’t been released, bangs on [Roger] Fortson’s door, pauses, then knocks again, yelling that he’s from the sheriff’s office. Fortson eventually answers the door while holding what appears to be a gun by his side pointed at the ground. Within a few seconds, the deputy shoots Fortson six times, only then yelling for him to drop his weapon. ….Scott Lacey, a former Air Force Special Operations Command officer who served in the same squadron as Fortson, said he believes Fortson’s shooting was unjustified. ‘When he just opens the door, sees him with a gun and unloads six rounds on the senior airman, to me that just screams unjust right away,’ said Lacey, who spent time as an Arizona state trooper after leaving the military. ‘The airman didn’t raise his gun and showed no kind of hostile intent.'”   https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/experts-gun-justify-deadly-force-fatal-shooting-florida-110137002

May 11, 2024

Long history of blaming ‘outside agitators’ for organizing or directing protests. “This narrative of outsiders co-opting protests is not new. Here are times you may have heard it before:

• In 2020, during protests against the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
• During the 2014 Ferguson, Mo., protests after the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
• During the anti-Vietnam War protests.
• To describe Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement.

‘…it becomes a political risk to be seen as cracking down really harshly on folks who are sympathetic.’ But if authorities can make it seem like they are going after nefarious outside agitators, [Prof. Justin] Hansford said, it then goes over more smoothly politically.”   https://www.npr.org/2024/05/06/1198911419/college-protest-israel-gaza-new-york-eric-adams-outside-agitator   I think this term is used to imply that there would have been no protest unless people from outside the community came in and ‘stirred people up’.

694 Jewish faculty members urge Pres. Biden to veto Antisemitism Awareness Act. “The academics took issue with the act’s use of the International Holocaust [Remembrance] Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has raised concerns that legitimate criticisms of the state of Israel could be seen as antisemitic under the bill. ….’Criticism of the state of Israel, the Israeli government, policies of the Israeli government, or Zionist ideology is not — in and of itself — antisemitic,’ the letter to Biden and Senate leaders reads. ‘We accordingly urge our political leaders to reject any effort to codify into federal law a definition of antisemitism that conflates antisemitism with criticism of the state of Israel,’ it continues.”   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/nearly-700-jewish-professors-call-on-biden-not-to-sign-controversial-antisemitism-legislation/ar-BB1m49sm

Protesters arrested at Univ. of Pennsylvania, MIT, Univ. of Arizona and New Mexico State. “Protest camps have sprung up across the U.S. and in Europe in recent weeks as students demand their universities stop doing business with Israel or companies that support its war efforts. Organizers seek to amplify calls to end Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which they describe as a genocide against the Palestinians. ….At the University of Arizona in Tucson, campus police in riot gear fired tear gas at protesters late Thursday — the day before the school’s main commencement ceremony — before tearing down an encampment that included wood and plastic barriers.”   https://apnews.com/article/mit-arizona-pennsylvania-campus-protests-encampment-police-7d9cd0a1f4ac7eaca41b38de798a2217

University tells students to ‘shelter in place’ in response to peaceful protest. “Portland State University (PSU) has lifted a shelter-in-place alert less than thirty minutes after issuing one late Friday evening. They are currently monitoring a protest that university officials initially had over ‘concerns about violence’. PSU, meanwhile, asked people to avoid the area in front of Hoffman Hall around 10:12 p.m. A KGW reporter on scene reported a crowd of about 100, dressed in black, gathered north of Peter Stott Field. It appeared to be a peaceful gathering with a megaphone. Later, around 10:44 p.m., a PSU spokesperson told KGW in an email that it is ‘an ongoing protest on campus that we are monitoring’. ‘At one point, there were concerns about violence, which led us to issue a brief shelter in place. That shelter in place is now over.'”   https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/portland-state-university-issues-shelter-in-place-alert/283-39f32f03-5abb-4edc-a82d-7b00903f07c6

11 police officers open fire on fleeing suspect, who was likely unarmed. “The chaotic chain of events involving at least five law enforcement agencies began when Gary Porter, already wanted on a felony theft warrant, was discovered passed out in a chicken coop on Monday, arrested and taken to a hospital for evaluation, police said. ….Paris Police Chief Mike Dailey then took him to jail, and had stepped out of the pickup truck to escort him inside when Porter somehow slipped his handcuffs from behind his back, moved into the driver’s seat and drove off. ….They eventually deployed spike mats that blew the tires and caused Porter to crash into a ditch. ….With his hands still in cuffs, Porter circles around the truck and jumps into another police vehicle in full view of officers. Shots ring out as he climbs into the second cruiser with his back to police and takes off again. ….Authorities said he crashed again a short distance from there. By the end, 11 officers ultimately fired their weapons, and Porter was struck once by an officer’s bullet. ….the departments involved didn’t release key details of the confrontation, including whether Porter obtained a weapon or fired it. They also didn’t release information about the extent of his injuries.”   https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-theft-suspect-stole-2-police-vehicles-handcuffed-110118660

Univ. of Texas-Austin lecturer fired after protest arrest. “Richard Heyman, who has taught at UT for 18 years in the College of Liberal Arts, was arrested Wednesday by the Texas Department of Public Safety and charged with interfering with public duties, a Class B misdemeanor. The charge stems from Heyman’s participation in an April 29 pro-Palestinian demonstration in which authorities arrested around 80 protesters who had set up an encampment on campus. ….According to Heyman’s arrest affidavit, DPS troopers accused him of yelling expletives at law enforcement during the protest, pulling away a trooper’s bike and making a motion with a water bottle ‘as if he were going to swing it and hit’ a trooper. ….[His lawyer, Gerry] Morris said the officer initiated physical contact and pushed Heyman, which caused Heyman to grab onto the bike’s handlebar for balance. Morris said he plans to ask the Travis County Attorney’s office to dismiss the case.”   https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/10/texas-ut-lecturer-arrested-fired-palestinian-demonstration/

U.S. again votes ‘no’ on U.N. membership for Palestine. “A White House spokesman on Friday defended the United States’ decision to oppose a U.N. resolution declaring support for Palestinian statehood, saying that such a measure should be negotiated in the Middle East. The United States was among a handful of holdouts as the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution declaring that Palestinians qualify for full membership at the United Nations. ….’We continue to believe in the power and promise of a two-state solution, and an independent state for the Palestinian people,’ Mr. Kirby told reporters. ‘We also believe that the best way to do that is through direct negotiations with the parties and not through a vote of the U.N. of this kind.'”   https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/world/middleeast/united-nations-us-palestinian-membership.html   Dog catches bus, decides it’s not the right way to catch a bus, lets bus go. “The United States will be forced into another embarrassing veto at the U.N. Security Council after the General Assembly on Friday voted overwhelmingly to ask the Council to reverse its rejection of full U.N. membership for Palestine. ….In 2012, the Assembly voted overwhelmingly to make Palestine an observer state, giving it only the right to speak in the Assembly.  The resolution passed on Friday expands Palestinian rights to include being seated alphabetically in the Assembly, having the right to submit amendments and agenda items and to be elected as officers to U.N. committees. Full U.N. membership with voting rights can only be granted by the General Assembly after a recommendation from the Security Council. The General Assembly took action on Friday after the United States cast the lone veto against Palestinian membership at the Security Council, when ally France voted in favor and Britain abstained. The matter now goes back to the Security Council, where the U.S. said on Friday that it will veto it again on the basis of an erroneous argument that the issue before the U.N. is statehood rather than membership.”   https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/10/un-vote-was-for-palestinian-membership-not-statehood/

Russia launches offensive into Ukraine from the north. “Russian forces have made two cross border assaults inside northern Ukraine, according to information from Ukrainian sources and officials – in what President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling a ‘new wave of counter-offensive actions’ by Russia. In the first development, Russian soldiers penetrated at least one kilometre towards the town of Vovchansk, a Ukrainian military source told CNN. The aim, the source said, ‘was to get 10 kms deep and create a buffer zone at the border to secure Russian territory from feeling the war.’ In an official statement, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Russian soldiers supported by armored vehicles had moved across the border at about 5:00am Friday, following a day of stepped-up attacks on the border area with guided aerial bombs and artillery. The statement added that Ukrainian reserve units had been deployed to strengthen defenses in the area. A second Ukrainian source with direct knowledge of frontline developments told CNN Russian forces had also penetrated five kilometers inside Ukraine towards the village of Krasne, which lies [near the border] about 75 kilometers… west of Vovchansk. The source said the Russian ground assault towards Krasne was carried out by four Russian battalions – about 2000 men.”   https://www.wkow.com/news/international/russia-mounts-surprise-assault-on-northern-ukraine-in-most-serious-cross-border-offensive-in-two/article_69d55d72-1889-59ca-8cea-68c87432db7d.html

Death toll in Brazil floods rises to 126. “Storms and floods battering the state, home to some 10.9 million people, have also displaced almost 340,000 while another 141 people are still unaccounted for, civil defense said. Heavy rains have caused several rivers and lakes in the region to hit their highest levels ever, while floods blocked streets and disrupted logistics, triggering a shortage of essential goods in certain areas. Almost two million people have been affected so far, civil defense said in their latest update on Friday evening.”   https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/death-toll-floods-southern-brazil-hits-113-2024-05-10/

Protesters lay siege to Berlin-area Tesla factory. “About 800 people took part in the protest, according to the organizing group Disrupt Tesla, which claims the expansion would damage the environment. Tesla has attracted intense backlash since the company opened the factory in March 2022, and later announced plans to expand into a nearby forest to increase its production capability. ….The police confirmed that the protesters tried to enter the plant’s premises, but were stopped, with several people taken into custody, and that it received a few reports of injuries.”   https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/10/tesla-protest-germany-factory

Federal employees tell Attorney General Merrick Garland that arming Israel is illegal. “The letter, drafted by unnamed legal and policy staff at more than two dozen federal agencies, argues that the U.S. is violating domestic and international law by providing a steady stream of weapons to Israel despite evidence of war crimes in Gaza. Drawing comparisons to the infamous ‘torture memos’, which were drafted by government lawyers to provide cover to CIA waterboarding and other tactics, the letter reminded fellow attorneys of their binding duty to follow the law over political priorities. Multiple provisions in U.S. law restrict the sale or provision of weapons to other countries, including the federal Arms Export Control Act, the Foreign Assistance Act, and the Leahy Law. The open letter draws on evidence from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other watchdogs to argue that continuing to provide weapons to Israel blatantly violates these laws, in addition to international treaties. ….Attorneys and legal staff from departments including Justice, Homeland Security and Labor, among other agencies, drafted the letter. They did not include their names.”   https://theintercept.com/2024/05/10/biden-attorneys-legal-weapons-israel/

Hundreds killed by flash floods in Afghanistan. “The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said the floods have killed more than 300 people in the worst-hit province of Baghlan, where more than 1,000 homes have been destroyed. ….Heavy rains on Friday led to flooding in several areas of the country, with fears of the death toll rising. ….Apart from Baghlan, the provinces of Badakhshan in the northeast, central Ghor and western Herat were also heavily affected….”   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/11/more-than-150-killed-in-afghanistan-flash-floods-government-says

Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. flip-flops and waffles on abortion. “‘Abortion has been a notoriously divisive issue in America, but actually I see an emerging consensus — abortion should be legal up until a certain number of weeks, and restricted thereafter,’ Kennedy wrote on social media Friday. ‘Even in the reddest of red states, voters reject total abortion bans. And on the other end, almost no one supports gruesome third-trimester abortions except to save the life of the mother.’ ….Kennedy’s comments come after he told podcast host Sage Steele he opposed any government limits on abortion access, even keeping abortion legal up until shortly prior to the delivery date of a child.”   https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/10/politics/robert-f-kennedy-jr-walks-back-opposition-abortion-limits/index.html

Rights of workers are the human rights most frequently violated, say researchers. “The researchers rated 186 out of 195 countries in the world on a scale of 0 to 100 based on the level protections documented in human rights reports from governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Two-thirds of the countries rated received [an overall human rights] score of 65 or less — a D or worse on a student report card — while only 14% of countries received scores at or above 83, the traditional cutoff point for a B. The study authors also examined which rights are the most or least protected based on the scores of all governments in the study combined. They found workers’ rights — collective bargaining, working hours, safe conditions and child labor rights — were some of the least protected human rights globally. ….As for the state of human and worker rights in the United States, the study authors did not include the U.S. in its overall rating of countries because a significant portion of the data used in the study is derived from U.S. Department of State reports, many of which do not examine the U.S. itself. However, [lead author Prof. Skip] Mark said the researchers did combine other sources of human rights reporting to derive a rating for the United States — 64, a solid D.”   https://www.courthousenews.com/failing-grade-worker-rights-are-the-least-protected-human-rights-study-finds/

Federal appeals court hears lawsuit of Virginia mental patient claiming he was kept in restraints for two weeks and in isolation for 19 months. “Virginia administrative code generally forbids keeping an adult patient in restraints for more than four hours. Still, [Interim Commissioner Jack] Barber, at [Director of Central State Hospital Rebecca] Vauter’s request, signed an individualized exemption to restrain him beyond the maximum. Riddick challenged Vauter’s order, claiming that the order had no time limit in violation of Virginia law. Attorneys representing the official argued in their brief that their actions were reasonable. ….’We’re talking about restraint and seclusion orders of magnitude greater than the presumptive maximum set forth in Virginia’s regulations,’ attorney Jonathan Backer said, representing the U.S. According to Richard Katskee, a law professor and director of Duke’s appellate litigation clinic, another patient attacked Riddick, causing a scuffle. Two weeks later, Vauter ordered that Riddick be immobilized indefinitely using four-point restraints. ‘He was forced even to eat and sleep while in the restraints,’ attorneys representing Riddick wrote in their brief. ‘When he showered, Central State staff allowed him to remove only a single arm to wash himself.’ Only a day after sharing his concerns, he was moved into an empty ward where he would spend 577 days without human contact. Britt told the panel staff monitored him through a two-way mirror and video cameras.”   https://www.courthousenews.com/fourth-circuit-hears-challenge-to-mental-health-patients-19-months-in-seclusion/

Unions in Argentina hold second anti-government general strike. “Bus drivers, subway workers and train conductors across the country participated in Thursday’s strike, shutting down major public transportation services and preventing people from making it to their jobs. Teachers and students stayed home from schools, trash collectors took the day off and Ezeiza International Airport was eerily quiet as hundreds of flights were canceled. The country’s most powerful unions called for the 24-hour strike to protest [President Javier] Milei’s sweeping social, economic and political reforms now pending in Congress. Known as the omnibus bill, the package includes legislation that would privatize public companies, grant Milei expanded power to legislate and roll back protections for workers.”   https://www.courthousenews.com/argentinas-workers-stage-second-nationwide-strike-against-mileis-sweeping-reforms/

Federal appeals court to decide if police are liable when they destroy private property. “When a SWAT team destroys an innocent person’s property, should the owner be strapped with the bill? ….It remains to be seen where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit will fall as it evaluates the complaint from Mollie and Michael Slaybaugh, who are reportedly on the hook for over $70,000 after a SWAT team destroyed much of their home in Smyrna, Tennessee. ….The Slaybaughs are unfortunately not alone. The notion that ‘police powers’ immunize the government from liability is what doomed Leo Lech’s lawsuit, which he filed after a SWAT team did so much damage to his home—in pursuit of a suspect that broke in and had no relation to the family—that it had to be demolished. In 2020, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Similar claims are continuing to accumulate. The city of Los Angeles refused to compensate Carlos Pena after a SWAT team destroyed his North Hollywood print shop in pursuit of a suspect who barricaded himself inside, and the government in McKinney, Texas, turned away Vicki Baker after police ruined her home and much of its contents while, again, trying to catch a fugitive. After a legal odyssey of sorts, Baker was able to secure a judgment from a federal jury—though that was ultimately overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which ruled there was a ‘necessity’ exception to the Takings Clause. Most recently, the local government in South Bend, Indiana, rejected Amy Hadley’s pleas for help after police mutilated her home in search of a suspect she’d never met and who’d never been to her home. An officer’s botched investigation led law enforcement to her house, and she has been forced to pay the price of that blunder. Accountability should not just be for the little people. ‘The plain text of the Just Compensation Clause contains no exemptions for the police power, for public necessity, or for damage done by law enforcement. And the government bears the burden of establishing that any such exception is grounded in our nation’s history and tradition,’ Jeffrey Redfern, an attorney with the Institute for Justice representing the Slaybaughs, told the 6th Circuit yesterday. ‘But the government hasn’t even tried to meet that burden. Instead it asks this court to blindly follow decisions from other jurisdictions—decisions whose reasoning the government isn’t really defending.'”   https://reason.com/2024/05/10/a-swat-team-blew-up-this-innocent-couples-home-and-left-them-with-the-bill-was-that-constitutional/

Tennessee appeals court rules state wildlife officers can’t carry out warrantless surveillance on private property. “At issue is a state law allowing officers of the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency (TWRA) to ‘go upon any property, outside of buildings, posted or otherwise’, in order to ‘enforce all laws relating to wildlife’. In the case of Terry Rainwaters and Hunter Hollingsworth, TWRA officers not only entered their respective properties but also installed trail cameras to look for hunting violations, all without a warrant and ignoring ‘No Trespassing’ signs. A lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice (I.J.) on behalf of Rainwaters and Hollingsworth asked the court to declare the law unconstitutional and issue an injunction against the TWRA, barring it from carrying out any further unwarranted intrusions. ….In March 2022, a three-judge panel from the Benton County Circuit Court ruled in the homeowners’ favor, finding that the state constitution provided more protections than the Fourth Amendment. It determined that the state law allowing the TWRA practice created an ‘intolerable risk’ of abuse and was ‘facially unconstitutional’, but it stopped short of issuing an injunction. The state appealed the decision the following month. ….In a decision issued Thursday, the court of appeals ruled in favor of the property owners. ….’The TWRA’s contention is a disturbing assertion of power on behalf of the government that stands contrary to the foundations of the search protections against arbitrary governmental intrusions in the American legal tradition, generally, and in Tennessee, specifically,’ [Judge Jeffrey] Usman wrote [in a unanimous decision]. ‘What the TWRA claims is reasonable is not.'”   https://reason.com/2024/05/10/tennessee-appeals-court-rules-against-wildlife-agents-who-planted-cameras-on-private-land/

May 10, 2023

132 protesters arrested at University of Massachusetts – Amherst. “UMass Amherst student Arnesh S. was one of the 132 protestors arrested during an unauthorized encampment on the university campus on Tuesday. Students, faculty, and community members came together to protest the war in Gaza, demanding the university divest funding in war profiteers. Arnesh shared with Western Mass News what he witnessed while being detained, saying, ‘They kept us in the Mullins Center for like, four hours, where I saw people asking, begging, pleading to be allowed to use the bathroom or have the zip ties loose so they can feel their hand again and the cops were not listening.’ These actions lead the UMass Student Government Association to agree to a vote of ‘no confidence’ for chancellor Javier Reyes, writing a statement that reads in part: ‘Utilizing police force, violence, arrests, or threats thereof, to disperse peaceful protesters, is wholly antithetical to the promotion of the safety and well-being of students, faculty and all UMass community members.'”   https://www.westernmassnews.com/2024/05/09/umass-students-report-brutality-mistreatment-by-university-police/

Jerusalem office of UN’s Palestinian refugee agency is target of arson attacks. “‘This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem,’ the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, tweeted, lamenting that it was the second attack on the compound in a matter of days. …’A crowd accompanied by armed men were witnessed outside the compound chanting “Burn down the United Nations”.’ ….’While there were no casualties among our staff, the fire caused extensive damage to the outdoor areas,’ Lazzaroni said, adding that UNRWA staff had put out the fire themselves.”   https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/may/09/unrwa-jerusalem-hq-closed-after-israeli-extremist-arson-attack

FBI official encouraged agents to use Section 702 warrantless surveillance program more often on Americans. “[FBI Deputy Director Paul] Abbate’s email seems to argue that FBI employees should make frequent use of warrantless surveillance on US people in order to justify the continued existence of the program. ‘To continue to demonstrate why tools like this are essential to our mission, we need to use them, while also holding ourselves accountable for doing so properly and in compliance with legal requirements,’ Abbate wrote, according to Wired. Abbate oversees all FBI domestic and international investigative and intelligence activities. His email made reference to a new requirement that FBI personnel obtain prior approval from an FBI supervisor or attorney before making queries about US people. ‘I urge everyone to continue to look for ways to appropriately use US person queries to advance the mission, with the added confidence that this new pre-approval requirement will help ensure that those queries are fully compliant with the law,’ Abbate wrote.”   https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/fbi-urges-employees-to-look-for-ways-to-collect-americans-messages/

City of Fort Collins settles excessive force lawsuit with former college student. “The former [Colorado State University] student who filed an excessive force lawsuit against a Fort Collins police officer, and the city, after her 2017 arrest in Old Town Square received a $300,000 settlement from the city. The incident involving Fort Collins police officer Randall Klamser, and Michaella Surat, then 22, was recorded by bystanders and went viral online. She became involved in a heated interaction with Klamser while her boyfriend was being questioned by police. The bystander video and Klamser’s body-worn camera show Klamser throwing Surat to the ground, where her face hit the pavement and caused injuries including a cervical strain, concussion, contusion and bruising, according to the lawsuit. Surat was found guilty of misdemeanor charges of obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest by a jury and was sentenced to probation. Klamser was cleared of wrongdoing in the incident after an internal investigation. ….David Lane, attorney for Surat, said, ‘I would like to thank the taxpayers of Fort Collins for their generosity in giving us $300,000, and all they have to do to stop this in the future is to control their police.'”   https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2024/05/09/fort-collins-settles-michaella-surats-excessive-police-force-lawsuit/73633654007/   Video here:   https://metro.co.uk/video/shocking-video-shows-cop-body-slam-sorority-girl-1681350/

97% of Gaza protests have been peaceful, claim researchers. “An analysis of 553 US campus demonstrations nationwide between 18 April and 3 May found that fewer than 20 resulted in any serious interpersonal violence or property damage, according to statistics from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED). Over the same period, ACLED documented at least 70 instances of forceful police intervention against US campus protests, which includes the arrest of demonstrators and the use of physical dispersal tactics, including chemical agents, batons and other kinds of physical force. Nearly half of the campus protests that Acled categorized as violent involved protesters fighting with law enforcement during a police intervention, according to the group’s data. ….Since 18 April, when 108 students were arrested at Columbia University, the administrators of many schools have called in law enforcement to forcibly remove the encampments, resulting in more than 2,600 arrests across more than 50 US campuses, according to an ongoing tally by the Associated Press.”   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/10/peaceful-pro-palestinian-campus-protests

Donald Trump allegedly told oil executives that for $1 billion in donations he would reverse Biden climate rules. “Donald Trump dangled a brazen ‘deal’ in front of some of the top US oil bosses last month, proposing that they give him $1 bn for his White House re-election campaign and vowing that once back in office he would instantly tear up Joe Biden’s environmental regulations and prevent any new ones, according to a bombshell new report. According to the Washington Post, the former US president made his jaw-dropping pitch, which the paper described as ‘remarkably blunt and transactional’, at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago home and club. In front of more than 20 executives, including from Chevron, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum, he promised to increase oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, remove hurdles to drilling in the Alaskan Arctic, and reverse new rules designed to cut car pollution. He would also overturn the Biden administration’s decision in January to pause new natural gas export permits which have been denounced as ‘climate bombs’. ‘You’ll get it on the first day,’ Trump said, according to the Post, citing an unnamed dinner attendee.”   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/09/trump-oil-ceo-donation   Is this legal?

Are media outlets that publish criticism of Israel ‘providing material support for terrorism’? “One of the letters — signed by over a dozen state attorneys general — floated the theory that the outlets’ reporting could itself evidence support for Hamas. As the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker…. put it:

The letter also highlighted that ‘material support’ for terrorist groups — both a federal and state crime — can include ‘writing and distributing publications supporting the organization’. It did not elaborate on what would be considered support, potentially chilling any reporting that does not unequivocally condemn Hamas or unilaterally support Israel.

The attorneys general then warned the outlets that they would ‘continue to follow your reporting to ensure that your organizations do not violate any federal or State laws by giving material support to terrorists abroad’. The writers continued: ‘Now your organizations are on notice. Follow the law.’ Many of those same attorneys general recently argued that ‘First Amendment speech and associational freedoms do not protect persons who provide material support’ to terrorism.”   https://theintercept.com/2024/05/10/terrorism-bill-nonprofit-journalists-israel-hamas/

77% of climate scientists polled predict Earth will greatly overshoot 1.5 C global warming target. “Nearly 80% of top-level climate scientists expect that global temperatures will rise by at least 2.5°C by 2100, while only 6% thought the world would succeed in limiting global heating to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, a survey published Wednesday by The Guardian revealed. Nearly three-quarters blamed world leaders’ insufficient action on a lack of political will, while 60% said that corporate interests such as fossil fuel companies were interfering with progress. ….’I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years,’ Gretta Pecl of the University of Tasmania told The Guardian. ‘[Authorities] will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future.'”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/climate-scientists-2-5-world

Federal appeals court rules that blanket ban on former felons owning firearms is unconstitutional. “A Ninth Circuit panel Thursday ruled that a blanket prohibition on convicted felons possessing firearms violates their Second Amendment rights, at least when it comes to nonviolent offenders who served out their sentence. In a split decision, the three-judge panel threw out firearm possession conviction of a Los Angeles member of a street gang who had five prior felony convictions and was later sentenced to 51 months in federal prison for being a ‘felon-in-possession’. Writing for the majority, U.S. Circuit Judge Carlos Bea, a George W. Bush appointee, said the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen requires that the government shows that there is a historical tradition that supports the categorical prohibition on defendants such as Steve Duarte possessing a firearm. This, according to the judge, the government failed to do because there was no analogous law at the time of the Founding Fathers that someone like Duarte would have been deprived of their right to bear arms. In fact, the judge said, his offenses would have been considered misdemeanors rather than felonies or not even have existed at all in the 18th and 19th centuries. ‘We do not base our decision on the notion that felons should not be prohibited from possessing firearms,’ Bea wrote, noting that as a matter of policy the blanket prohibition may make a great deal of sense. But, citing preceding decisions, the judge said ‘the very enumeration of the Second Amendment right in our Constitution takes out of our hands the power to decide for which Americans that right is really worth insisting upon.'”   https://www.courthousenews.com/ninth-circuit-finds-that-convicted-felons-also-have-second-amendment-rights/   Could they permanently forfeit their 1st, 4th or 5th Amendment rights for breaking the law? Of course not.

Federal agencies have reportedly resumed advising social media platforms about mediation decisions and removal of ‘disinformation’. “Key federal agencies have resumed discussions with social media companies over removing disinformation on their sites as the November presidential election nears, a stark reversal after the Biden administration for months froze communications with social platforms amid a pending First Amendment case in the Supreme Court, a top senator said Monday. Mark Warner, D-Va., who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters in a briefing at RSA Conference that agencies restarted talks with social media companies as the Supreme Court heard arguments in Murthy v. Missouri, a case that first began in the Fifth Circuit appellate court last July. The case was fueled by allegations that federal agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were coercing platforms to remove content related to vaccine safety and 2020 presidential election results. The Supreme Court is expected to decide whether agencies are allowed to stay in touch with social media firms about potential disinformation. Missouri’s then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed the suit on the grounds that the Biden administration violated First Amendment rights pertaining to free speech online in a bid to suppress politically conservative voices. According to Warner, communications between agencies and social platforms resumed roughly around the same time that multiple justices appeared to favor the executive branch’s stance on the issue, he said.”   https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2024/05/cisa-fbi-resuming-talks-social-media-firms-over-disinformation-removal-senate-intel-chair-says/396360/   So exactly how did this start up again? People had a meeting? ‘Looks like the Supreme Court is leaning in our favor, should we start telling websites what to censor again?’ ‘I don’t know, it did get a little out of control, remember that time we claimed the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation? And it turned out it wasn’t, and people accused us of  protecting Joe Biden? If Ukraine continues to postpone elections indefinitely, when exactly does it become a dictatorship, and will people be allowed to point that out? If the president says protesters who want Israel to stop bombing civilians are antisemites, are we going to back him up and take all the anti-war posts down as hate speech? Things could go downhill really fast. And what happens if Trump gets re-elected? Does global warming become a hoax, and anyone who disagrees is locked out of their account for spreading disinformation?’

May 9, 2024

Witness claims Florida deputies didn’t identify themselves before entering black tenant’s apartment and fatally shooting him. “Deputies responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot a Black U.S. Air Force airman who was home alone when they saw he was armed with a gun, an attorney for the man’s family said Wednesday. Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, who was based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, was in his off-base apartment in Fort Walton Beach when the shooting happened on May 3. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement that Fortson was on a Facetime call with a woman at the time of the encounter. According to Crump, the woman, whom Crump didn’t identify, said Fortson was alone in his apartment when he heard a knock at the door. He asked who was there but didn’t get a response. A few minutes later, Fortson heard a louder knock but didn’t see anyone when he looked through the peephole, Crump said, citing the woman’s account. The woman said Fortson was concerned and went to retrieve his gun, which Crump said was legally owned. As Fortson walked back through his living room, deputies burst through the door, saw that Fortson was armed and shot him six times, according to Crump’s statement.”   https://apnews.com/article/police-shooting-airman-florida-8bcc82463ada69264389edf2a4f1a83d

House Speaker Mike Johnson survives leadership challenge after siding with Democrats on bills opposed by conservatives. “[Johnson] survived an attempt by hardline Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene on Wednesday to remove him as speaker, with the support of most of his party’s 217-213 House majority and from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Many Democrats also voted for Johnson to avoid a replay of October’s chaos. Since winning the speaker’s gavel, Johnson has dropped the narrow views of a relatively untried congressman from northwest Louisiana, serving his fourth term in the House, and embraced the political realities of national leadership. That evolution has angered enough party hardliners to seriously diminish his chances of remaining Republican House leader next year, regardless of whether the party holds its majority in the Nov. 5 election. ….As speaker, Johnson has come to rely on Democrats to help him avoid government shutdowns, safeguard U.S. efforts against terrorism, aid Ukraine’s struggle against Russian invasion – and now, save his job.”   https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-speaker-johnson-survives-ouster-attempt-future-uncertain-2024-05-09/   “[Rep. Marjorie Taylor] Greene had filed her initial motion-to-vacate resolution more than a month ago, after Johnson had championed legislation to fund the federal government through September. But she escalated the threat on Wednesday afternoon by forcing the proposal to the floor for consideration, which came as a surprise to many lawmakers in both parties after it appeared that the Georgia Republican was backing off her threat. ….Greene filed her motion to vacate in March as the House was voting on a sprawling government funding bill, which the Georgia Republican opposed. The firebrand’s ire with Johnson grew more pronounced after he backed a measure to reauthorize the U.S.’s warrantless surveillance powers. And it hit a boiling point last month when the Speaker muscled through a foreign aid package that included billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine.”   https://thehill.com/homenews/4652789-democrats-and-republicans-unite-to-save-speaker-mike-johnson/

Germany concerned about increasing political violence. “In 2022, there were 58,916 politically motivated crimes in the country, the highest number since authorities started keeping records in 2001. Of those, 4,043 involved violence. ….Last year, there were 234 physically violent attacks against politicians and representatives of political parties, a steep rise from the previous year, according to provisional statistics — though the number has been still higher in past years. ….In 2023… there were 86 violent attacks on [far right] AfD party representatives — more than any other party. Attacks on the far-right AfD’s politicians are usually perpetrated by people with a leftist ideology, according to the provisional figures. Representatives of the Greens were violently attacked 62 times, second after the AfD. When all types of criminal attacks are counted, including threats and defamation, the Greens are by far the most-affected party. They suffered 1,219 attacks in 2023 compared to the AfD’s 478.”   https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-politics-violence-attacks-election/

Hong Kong appeals court allows banning of pro-democracy song. “The [city’s] High Court had last year rejected the government’s request for ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ to be banned, saying it would have ‘chilling effects’ on free speech. But on Wednesday an appeal court overturned that ruling. The move is likely to deepen concerns about freedoms being further eroded in the city. ….In the court’s ruling on Wednesday, it said that the song can still be used for academic or news activities. But its melodies and lyrics can not be broadcast, performed, shared or reproduced in any setting where the user intends to ‘incite others to commit secession’ or is used ‘with seditious intention’ against the Hong Kong government. Those convicted of breaching the ban on the anthem could face up to life imprisonment.”   https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq5n1r300yjo

Declassified documents suggest U.S. has secret UFO reverse engineering program. “In late 2011, for example, the top scientist at the Department of Homeland Security met with [Sen. Joe] Lieberman, then chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and [Sen. Harry] Reid to discuss the establishment of an ultra-secret UFO program. As outlined in remarkable detail in newly released documents, the intent of the proposed [Kona Blue] program was to ‘gain access to and inventory’ UFOs secretly under ‘investigation in National Laboratories, government organizations and/or contractors.’ From there, the program would engage in ‘laboratory experimentation’ and ‘scientific investigation’ to foster ‘technology exploitation’ of the recovered materials. In short, Reid and Lieberman were advocating, ‘with some sense of urgency’, for the establishment of a formal UFO reverse-engineering program. Startling as it may be, the notion that shadowy elements of the U.S. government or defense contractors secretly possess retrieved UFOs is treated as fact in the documents. ….In a June 2023 interview with NewsNation, [Sen. Marco] Rubio made a series of startling UFO-related comments. According to Rubio, ‘smart, educated people with high clearances and very important positions in our government’ have informed Congress of the existence of secret UFO programs.”   https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4646417-top-senators-believe-the-us-secretly-recovered-ufos/

Extending Trump tax cuts will increase national debt by trillions. “When Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act during his first term, the initial estimated cost was $1.9 trillion. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that extending policies set to expire next year would cost $3.5 trillion through 2033. The new CBO report… says continuing the income, business, and estate tax cuts will now cost $4.6 trillion through 2034. ….Responding in a statement Wednesday, [Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden] cited an Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimate that ‘extending the Trump tax cuts would create a $112.6 billion windfall for the top 5% of income earners in the first year alone.’ They also slammed their GOP colleagues, who Whitehouse said ‘are awfully eager to shield their megadonors from paying taxes.'”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-tax-cuts

56% of Democrats polled agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. “Journalist Mehdi Hasan’s new media organization, Zeteo, partnered with progressive think tank Data for Progress to poll 1,265 U.S. voters from April 26-29 as Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah loomed, threatening more than 1 million Palestinians in Gaza who have been forcibly displaced since October. The poll released Wednesday found that 56 percent of Democratic voters believe Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in the enclave, where in addition to constant bombings and ground attacks, residents have faced Israel’s blockade on nearly all humanitarian aid. ….Nearly 40 percent of all voters believe Israel is committing a genocide, and 7-in-10 support a permanent cease-fire. ….Fifty-four percent said they support suspending all U.S. arms sales to Israel until it stops blocking American humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.”   https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/08/majority-of-democratic-voters-believe-its-genocide-poll/

Family of man killed by police after he refused to sign traffic ticket awarded $3.8 million settlement. “Johnny Hollman called 911 after he was in a minor traffic accident. But instead of helping, the responding officer beat and tased Hollman after he was hesitant to sign a ticket, resulting in the 62-year-old’s death. ….During the evening of August 10th, 2023, Hollman was driving home when he was involved in a low-speed collision with another vehicle. ….After more than an hour, Atlanta Police Department Officer Kiran Kimbrough arrived on the scene. Soon after, he decided that Hollman was at fault and wrote him a citation. However, Hollman was hesitant to sign the citation. ‘Deacon Hollman did not explicitly refuse to sign the citation,’ the suit states. (Hollman was a Deacon at his local church). ‘But in each instance when directed to do so, responded that the collision was not his fault.’ ….Over the next several minutes, [Officer] Kimbrough struck the back of Hollman’s head at least twice with his fist, tased him twice, and allowed another citizen to ‘assist’ him by sitting on Hollman’s head and neck, while ignoring Hollman’s frequent statements that he couldn’t breathe. Eventually, Hollman was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy later concluded that the cause of Hollman’s death was homicide.”   https://reason.com/2024/05/08/an-atlanta-cop-killed-this-man-for-refusing-to-sign-a-ticket/

President Biden finally suspends bomb deliveries to Israel. “President Joe Biden is holding up a shipment of 3,500 guided bombs to Israel after U.S.-backed negotiations for a ceasefire and an exchange of captives with Gaza broke down. It’s the most significant exercise of U.S. leverage over Israel in a long time—and comes after Biden spent months resisting the idea of any limits on how the Israeli military could use American taxpayer aid. For months, leaks had been coming out of the White House about how frustrated Biden was with the Israeli war effort. At the same time, the Biden administration pushed through weapons shipments to Israel without notifying Congress, reallocated weapons from Ukraine to Israel, rejected any conditions on that aid, and worked to pass several billion dollars in additional funding for Israel.”   https://reason.com/2024/05/08/is-americas-blank-check-for-israel-ending/

May 8, 2024

Bombs fall on Rafah. “Israeli strikes and bombardment across Rafah overnight killed at least 23 Palestinians, including at least six women and five children, according to hospital records. Mohamed Abu Amra said his wife, two brothers, sister and niece were killed when a strike flattened their home as they slept. ‘We did nothing. … We don’t have Hamas,’ he said. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry condemned the seizure of the Rafah crossing, calling it ‘a dangerous escalation’. It has previously warned that any occupation of Rafah — which is supposed to be part of a demilitarized border zone — or an attack that forces Palestinians to flee into Egypt would threaten the 1979 peace treaty with Israel that’s been a linchpin for regional security.”   https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-war-05-07-2024-113bf4ee5dad87dc5c003d76ed2785bf   Israeli troops surge into Rafah. “Israeli tanks entered the Gazan city of Rafah on Tuesday morning — despite months of warnings by allies and aid groups that a full-scale attack would be a humanitarian catastrophe. More than half of the population of Gaza — 1.4 million people, the majority of whom arrived having already been displaced from further north — are trapped in Rafah. ….On the same day, Israeli forces seized control of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt and closed another aid route, Kerem Shalom, in southern Israel — citing security reasons. ….’With Kerem Shalom and Rafah now closed, critical entry points for aid have been lost. Should these crossings face prolonged closure — it will have a significant impact,’ said a [World Food Program] spokesperson. ‘We have seen in the north of Gaza what happens when not enough aid can get through to hungry people.'”   https://www.politico.eu/article/israeli-invasion-rafah-gaza-josep-borrell-aid-routes/

‘Hundreds’ of Washington, D.C. police shut down GWU protest camp. “D.C. police began clearing out the pro-Palestinian protest encampment at the George Washington University early Wednesday and arrested demonstrators. Police deployed pepper spray on the streets of Foggy Bottom and demonstrators scrambled to clear it from their eyes with water. Some vomited. ….People were arrested for unlawful entry and assault on an officer, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said. They did not immediately say how many arrests officers made. Protesters said they believe dozens of people were arrested. ‘They came in full riot gear – hundreds of cops,’ demonstrator Mimi Ziad told News4. She said police shoved demonstrators and sprayed them with pepper spray.”   https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/dc-police-clear-out-george-washington-u-protest-encampment/3611269/

President Biden claims ‘ferocious surge’ in antisemitism in U.S. “His keynote remarks were part of a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum ceremony marking the Days of Remembrance to honor the memory of the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust as well as other victims of Nazi persecution. ‘”Never again” simply translated for me means never forget,’ Biden said before a crowd of Holocaust survivors, Jewish Americans and lawmakers gathered in Emancipation Hall. ….Biden did not directly comment on Gaza or the humanitarian crisis unfolding for Palestinians in his speech. On campus protests, Biden again emphasized the right to free speech but spoke out against [anecdotal] instances were Jewish students have been ‘blocked, harassed or attacked while walking to class’. ….’We remember what happened then and now today we are witnessing American universities quickly becoming hostile places for Jewish students and faculty,’ [House Speaker Mike Johnson] said. ‘The very campuses which were once the envy of the international academy have succumbed to an antisemitic virus. ….Now is a time for moral clarity and we must put an end to this madness,’ Johnson said.”   https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-set-deliver-major-speech-antisemitism-holocaust-remembrance/story?id=109967829   “‘Never again’ means never again for anyone.’ Yanis Varoufakis.

Most governors oppose Biden administration plan to force some state Air National Guard units to merge with Space Force. “[Colorado] Gov. Jared Polis is continuing his push to stop the Pentagon from unilaterally shifting Air National Guard units focused on space operations into the U.S. Space Force. ….’Many of them are also important people who work in our aerospace sector in their day jobs and help even in their civilian jobs improve military readiness,’ Polis told CPR News. ‘It’s a bit of a power play that they are engaged in, to the detriment of the National Guard, the governors, the states, and of course, readiness in the space domain which is so critical.’ Polis helped lead a letter from the National Governors Association, [of which] he is the vice-chair, opposed to the Department of Defense’s Legislative Proposal 480, which would allow the Space Force to absorb about 14 Guard units without following the current law that requires governors’ approval to make changes to the National Guard in their states. ….52 governors of states and territories also signed on. ….Only two governors did not sign – Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Texas’. Greg Abbott.”   https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/30/polis-push-to-stop-pentagon-plan-shift-air-national-guard-units/   Governors no longer have control over deployment of their National Guard units either, thanks to a 1990 Supreme Court ruling in Perpich v. Department of Defense.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpich_v._Department_of_Defense

Colorado’s proposed ban on semi-automatic weapons dies in Senate committee. “…at a sparsely attended committee hearing Tuesday, [the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Julie] Gonzales asked that the legislation be put to rest in the face of opposition from Senate Democrats. On that committee sits Democratic state Sen. Tom Sullivan, who would have been a “no” vote, along with Republican lawmakers who have decried the bill as an encroachment on Second Amendment rights. ….Sullivan said the weapons that the bill seeks to curtail are involved in only a small fraction of gun deaths and injuries. Those firearms include a long list of semi-automatic rifles, along with some pistols and shotguns, with certain characteristics, such as a threaded barrel or detachable stock. Their prohibition wouldn’t make much of a dent in gun violence, Sullivan argued, and the proposal takes up immense political oxygen in the state capitol — energizing the opposition and detracting from more effective and less controversial gun control measures. ….Democratic state Rep. Tim Hernández, one of the bill’s sponsors, said he’d had many discussions with Sullivan in the preceding months. ‘We both agree that an assault weapons ban is not a silver bullet to the epidemic of gun violence,’ Hernández said.”   https://apnews.com/article/colorado-semiautomatic-gun-ban-519bbc3271f148aa00e35e32530789d7   Banning the public from owning semi-automatic rifles [aka ‘modern rifles’], while allowing the police and military/National Guard to continue to use them domestically, turns the 2nd Amendment on its head.

Federal judge allows excessive force lawsuit over death of black bicyclist to advance. “The bulk of wrongful death claims against Las Vegas police officers accused killing a 50-year old Black bicyclist during an arrest five years ago will continue on after a federal judge ruled Tuesday that they may have used excessive force in the arrest and are not shielded by qualified immunity. In 2021, the family of Byron Williams sued the city of Las Vegas, Clark County, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the four officers who interacted with Williams the early morning of Sept. 19, 2019, when they stopped him for purportedly not having his bike lights on. During the subsequent pursuit and arrest, the family says two Las Vegas police officers, Patrick Campbell and Benjamin Vasquez, put their weight on Williams while handcuffing him and [continued to kneel] there even though Williams told them he couldn’t breathe. ….U.S. Senior District Judge James Mahan denied summary judgment to the officers on excessive force and battery claims, ruling that the officers’ conduct during the stop may not be reasonable because of how minor the offense was.”   https://www.courthousenews.com/excessive-force-claims-survive-in-case-of-unarmed-black-man-killed-by-las-vegas-cops/

Twinsburg, Ohio police accused of excessive force cover-up. “The lawsuit centers around a pursuit and arrest that occurred in October 2022. The officers’ claim a lieutenant violated department policy during a high-speed chase and used excessive force during the subsequent arrest. According to the lawsuit, Officer Matthew Pfeiffer, one of the plaintiffs, requested the dashcam footage of the incident through a public records request. He was allegedly told the footage did not exist. ….An anonymous source provided 19 Investigates with dashcam footage that appears to depict the arrest in question. The footage shows a police cruiser initiating a chase of a van. ….The van disappears from view during the pursuit, but the officer later locates it parked in front of a residence. The officer exits his cruiser and approaches the van, apparently recognizing the driver. Moments later, officers on the scene tase the man just ten seconds after he exits the vehicle with his hands raised.”   https://www.cleveland19.com/2024/05/08/excessive-force-twinsburg-officers-lawsuit-heats-up-with-leaked-body-dashcam-evidence/

Wealth gap between white Americans and other groups widens. “The wealth gap between white families and households of other races has widened by more than $1 million, startling new statistics show. The data comes straight from the Federal Reserve, and its Survey of Consumer Finances. The in-depth study is administered every three years, and tracks the difference in wealth held by white, Black, and Hispanic families. The results released this week pertain to the period of time between 2019 and 2022, during which the average wealth of white families reached $1.4 million. That was more than $1 million higher than the $211,596 average attributed to Black families, and the $227,544 attributed to Hispanics. Put another way, white families had three times the average wealth of both their Black and Hispanic counterparts put together – a cause for concern as the racial wealth gap continues to widen. ….White families have a median wealth of $284,310, the fed found – a number more than four times that of Latinos, pegged at $62,120. Moreover, the analysis found the wealth gap also widens as families age, with whites on average accumulating more wealth over their lives than Latino families in the same age bracket. It also found that Black and Hispanic families have far less retirement and emergency savings than white families, as well as drastically lower rates of homeownership.”   https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-13393667/US-racial-wealth-gap-widens-fed.html   Average values can be distorted by extremely high or low values (such as by extremely high wealth values for a small group of white families), while median values are the values in the middle of the data continuum, so they are generally more representative.

Boss hall of shame. “People from around the world have shared snaps from their toxic workplaces and Bored Panda collated the most shocking into an online gallery. They include a company, in the US, who charged employees $3 to wear… shorts to work in a heatwave. ….A skilled US tradesman, who claimed he was supposed to get a $3,000 bonus at the end of the year for making the company $150,000 profit, received socks instead. ….Elsewhere staff were forced to make this sign so customers would know where the tips were ending up: ‘Attention! We do not get our tips! Our boss takes all our tips!’ ….Another employee found a secret recording device under the break room table…. Meanwhile this company tried to get an employee to agree to work ‘unpaid overtime’ at the weekends.”   https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13392003/Employees-share-outrageous-policies-toxic-workplaces-including-company-charges-staff-wear-shorts-heatwave.html   I had a boss who deducted Social Security tax from my paychecks but didn’t turn it over to the government. I had to provide Social Security with copies of my check stubs to prove it had been deducted.

Brussels police violently remove climate protesters. “The climate action group Extinction Rebellion Belgium on Saturday decried what it called ‘disproportionate police violence’ against nonviolent demonstrators who were arrested during a protest in Brussels demanding an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion-led climate defenders blocked Rue Belliard in the European Quarter, the de facto European Union capital, during EU Open Day, when agencies of the 27-nation bloc open their doors to the public. In what Extinction Rebellion called an ‘unprecedented police response’, officers allegedly struck protesters with batons and used chemical agents against demonstrators. Brussels police said 132 activists—some of whom glued themselves to the ground—were arrested. ‘This police behavior toward nonviolent protesters exercising their freedom of assembly is illegal and authoritarian,’ Extinction Rebellion Belgium said in a statement Saturday.”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/brussels-climate-protest

April was 11th month in a row to break global heat records. “In April, the global surface air temperature was 0.67 degrees Celsius (1.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than average, making it the warmest April on record globally, the Copernicus Climate Service said in its latest report. Last month was 0.14 C (0.25 F) warmer than the previous April record set in 2016 when the planet was experiencing a similarly warm period. This extraordinary warm stretch made 2023 the hottest year on record and it is raising alarm over the effects of climate change. Besides heat waves, many regions around the planet have suffered flooding, drought, storms and wildfires.”   https://www.courthousenews.com/copernicus-record-breaking-heat-streak-extended-to-11-months-in-april/

May 7, 2024

64 arrested during clearing of Univ. of California-San Diego protest camp. “The Gaza Solidarity encampment on the UC San Diego campus was declared an unlawful assembly by local law enforcement early Monday morning, and officers proceeded to take down tents and arrest numerous protesters. ….According to UC San Diego officials, campus police reported 64 people were arrested Monday morning. ….Officials noted the students that were arrested ‘have been or will be placed under immediate interim suspension.’ The camp made up of pro-Palestine supporters has been on the campus for at least six days.”   https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/law-enforcement-officers-order-encampment-at-uc-san-diego-to-disperse

China still upset about that time NATO blew up one of its embassies. “U.S. jets dropped five bombs on the Chinese Embassy compound in the Serbian capital [Belgrade] on May 7, 1999, setting it ablaze and killing three Chinese nationals. Twenty other people were injured in the incident, which has burdened relations between the two powers ever since. ….The U.S. at the time apologized and said the embassy bombing was a mistake that happened due to faulty intelligence. The intended target, Washington said, was the headquarters of a Serbian state arms exporter located on the same street, a few blocks away. ….A Chinese cultural center now stands at the spot where the embassy was once located. The sprawling complex reportedly includes a Confucius Institute, workshops, exhibitions, offices, residential space and a hotel. It is seen as a symbol of China’s growing influence in Serbia and across Europe.”   https://apnews.com/article/serbia-china-nato-bombing-embassy-5b13db499f39721faf9c82b9f88f4dfa

Death toll in floods in southern Brazil hits at least 83, with dozens more missing. “The floods had killed at least 83 people in the state by early Monday morning, according to the civil defense agency, with dozens more missing and some 115,000 forced to leave their homes. Besides Porto Alegre, hundreds of towns and villages were hit, leaving thousands of people without access to drinking water, electricity, telephone service or internet.”   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/floods-southern-brazil-death-toll-rescue-efforts-continue-porto-alegre/

Republican senators send threatening letter to war crimes court. “A dozen Republican senators have warned the International Criminal Court against issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials over the nation’s conduct during the war in Gaza. In a letter led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the senators warn ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, citing reports that the court may be considering issuing international arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. Such actions are ‘illegitimate and lack legal basis’, the lawmakers wrote, warning they would result in severe sanctions against Khan and the ICC. ‘Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States,’ the senators wrote in the letter sent April 24. ‘You have been warned,’ the letter concluded.”   https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/05/06/congress/gop-senators-warn-icc-on-israel-00156232   This is not the first time U.S. officials have threatened the ICC. “White House National Security Advisor John Bolton called the Hague-based rights body ‘unaccountable’ and ‘outright dangerous’ to the United States, Israel and other allies, and said any probe of US service members would be ‘an utterly unfounded, unjustifiable investigation’. ….He said the US was prepared to slap financial sanctions and criminal charges on officials of the court if they proceed against any Americans. ‘We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States. We will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system,’ he said. ‘We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans,’ he said. ….Bolton pointed to an ICC prosecutor’s request in November 2017 to open an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by the US military and intelligence officials in Afghanistan, especially over the abuse of detainees.”   https://www.france24.com/en/20180910-usa-trump-threatens-arrest-icc-judges-american-soldiers-afghan-war-crimes   If I were the ICC, I think I’d charge these guys for threatening judges and for obstruction of justice.

FAA opens investigation into Boeing airliner inspections. “The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday it has opened an investigation into the Boeing 787 Dreamliner after the plane maker said some employees had committed ‘misconduct’ by [falsely] claiming some tests had been completed. The FAA said it is investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes ‘and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records.’ The agency said ‘at the same time, Boeing is reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet.'”   https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/faa-opens-new-investigation-into-boeing-wsj-reports-2024-05-06/

Israel accused of blowing up emergency medical services facility with U.S. precision bombs. “On March 27, Israel attacked a building in Hebbariye, southern Lebanon, which housed the Islamic Emergency and Relief Corps. The attacks killed seven volunteer paramedics and was deeply criticized internationally as a war crime. A new report from The Guardian revealed the bomb used in the attack was a US-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). Produced by Boeing, JDAMs figure prominently among the items Israel requests from the US. Though US law is meant to prevent arms transfers from going to nations that are committing war crimes, the US routinely provides JDAMs to Israel in large quantities. This is leading to growing international calls from major human rights groups to stop arms transfers to Israel. Amnesty International says that the civilian casualties inflicted ‘underscore the overall pattern of unlawful attacks‘ by Israel. ….Human Rights Watch officials also call for the halt of transfers, saying that ‘Israel’s assurances that it is using US weapons lawfully are not credible.'”   https://news.antiwar.com/2024/05/06/us-made-bombs-used-in-march-israeli-attack-on-lebanese-paramedics/

Map shows locations of Gaza protests and sites of mass arrests. “More than 2,400 people have been arrested at pro-Palestinian protests on at least 51 college campuses across the U.S. in recent weeks. ….The majority of arrests have occurred at encampments and sit-ins. Dozens of smaller-scale college protests haven’t seen altercations between demonstrators and police. More than 120 universities have had encampments or sit-ins.”   https://www.axios.com/2024/04/27/palestinian-college-protest-arrest-encampment

Man claims he killed hospitalized wife over medical bills. “A 75-year-old Missouri man strangled his wife to death in a hospital bed while claiming that he could no longer afford to pay for her ongoing kidney dialysis treatment, according to authorities. ….According to a statement that prosecutors published on Saturday, [Ronnie] Wiggs had accompanied his wife to a hospital in Independence, Missouri, so that she could receive a new medical port device allowing her to continue undergoing kidney dialysis. Wiggs then fatally strangled her – covering her nose and mouth to keep from screaming – while she was prone in bed, prosecutors and local news outlets reported.”   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/07/missouri-man-wife-medical-treatment

Police raid Jerusalem office of Al Jazeera TV, seize equipment, ban channel in Israel. “Police raided the Qatari broadcaster’s office at the Ambassador hotel in Jerusalem on Sunday. ….Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said equipment had been taken in the raid. A video posted by the minister on X shows police officers and inspectors from the ministry entering a hotel room. A BBC team visited the scene, but was prevented from filming or going into the hotel by police. ….Last month, the Israeli parliament passed a law giving the government power to temporarily close foreign broadcasters considered a threat to national security during the war against Hamas.”   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68961753   More likely, this is about controlling what the Israeli public sees on TV. If you don’t want bad press, don’t do bad things.

Protesters arrested at Columbia and CCNY reportedly denied food or water. “Students arrested during the police crackdown on protests at universities in New York City last week were denied water and food for 16 hours, according to two faculty members at Columbia University’s Barnard College who collected reports from students who were inside. Other students reported that they were beaten by New York City Police Department officers after their arrests and taken to the hospital for injuries before being returned to central booking. Photos of the injuries were provided to The Intercept. Police arrested 282 protesters at Columbia University and the City College of New York. According to the professors, they ended up at one of two jails downtown: NYPD headquarters or the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. Students arrested during the crackdown said at least two of them were put in solitary confinement for three hours and others reported much longer stays, according to Barnard College professor Shayoni Mitra and a tenured faculty member who asked for anonymity to protect their livelihood. The faculty members were working to support jailed students.”   https://theintercept.com/2024/05/06/columbia-student-protests-nypd-jail/

82 year-old Bernie Sanders to run for a fourth, 6-year U.S. Senate term. “Hailing from a Democratic stronghold, Sanders’ decision virtually guarantees that he will return to Washington for a fourth Senate term. ….Sanders has criticized President Joe Biden’s handling of the U.S. relationship with Israel even as he’s hailed much of Biden’s domestic agenda ahead of what could be a tough reelection fight for Biden against presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. ….Known for his liberal politics and crusty demeanor, Sanders has been famously consistent over his 40 years in politics, championing better health care paid for by the government, higher taxes for the wealthy, less military intervention and major solutions for climate change. He has also spent his career trying to hold corporate executives to account, something that he’s had more power to do as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. ….He sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.”   https://www.courthousenews.com/liberal-icon-bernie-sanders-is-running-for-senate-reelection-squelching-retirement-rumors/

Twenty states allow indefinite detention of sex offenders, with Minnesota using it the most. “Minnesota, which deploys that option against a larger share of its population than any other state, spends $100 million a year to detain about 750 individuals who are deemed ‘likely’ to commit sex offenses. Although those detainees are notionally eligible for release when they no longer pose a threat, that rarely happens. As of last September, just 21 of 946 people committed to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) had been fully discharged, while 94—more than four times as many—had died in custody. In effect, the MSOP, which is overseen by the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), imposes life sentences on its ‘clients’, not as punishment for crimes they have committed but in anticipation of crimes they might commit in the future. ….Until 2015, when a federal judge deemed the MSOP unconstitutional, no detainee had ever been fully discharged, even though the program at that point had been operating for two decades. ‘Since that time,’ Janus et al. note, ‘a slow trickle has begun, but releases are still outpaced by deaths in custody.’ As of September, nearly three-quarters of MSOP ‘clients’ had been detained for more than a decade, nearly half for more than 15 years, and about a fifth for more than two decades.”   https://reason.com/2024/05/06/minnesotas-indefinite-detention-of-sex-offenders-is-ineffective-as-well-as-unjust/

Murder rate falling sharply in most cities. “In data from over 200 cities, murder rates are down a little over 19 percent when compared to a similar time frame in 2023. Specifically, New York’s homicide rate is down about 18 percent, Washington, D.C.’s has declined 21 percent, Baltimore’s has dropped 39 percent, Philadelphia’s is down 40 percent, Chicago’s has decreased by about 9 percent, Detroit’s has fallen about 28 percent, and Cleveland’s is down by approximately 33 percent. The list goes on. There are a few outliers—Los Angeles’ rate, for instance, has increased by about 6 percent—but overwhelmingly the trend is highly encouraging. ….The situation could certainly take a turn for the worse. But should the data continue on the current trajectory, then the number of homicides seen in the U.S. will indeed be back to, or under, pre-COVID levels—a concession also recently made by Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute.”   https://reason.com/2024/05/06/murder-rates-are-plummeting-what-should-we-make-of-it/

May 5, 2024

Retired Columbia professor arrested while recording protester arrests. “By about 9 p.m., [Gregory Pflugfelder] estimated hundreds of police, donning helmets and batons, had formed lines on the street. He recorded students forced inside fraternity houses and dorm buildings, with video of them knocking on the windows. Then, he turned to look at the street, where officers formed lines ahead of their siege on campus. At most, he said, he stood 7 feet onto the street from the curb. Police ordered him inside, but he told them his address was about 300 feet down the block. They told him to go home, but he said he wanted to continue recording. An officer said, ‘OK, put him down,’ Pflugfelder recalled, though he was not forced to the ground. Nonetheless, he ended up cuffed in zip ties. ….At NYPD headquarters, he was in a holding cell with about 60 other men. He stayed there for about five hours. One person next to him on the bench said he was from Columbia and had been at Hamilton Hall, the occupied school building police raided using flash-bang grenades, and where police errantly fired a gunshot indoors. The man Pflugfelder saw was visibly bruised, including a black eye.”   https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2024/05/04/columbia-professor-arrested-nypd-protests-israel-gaza/73561493007/

68 arrested after setting up protest camp outside Chicago art museum. “Dozens of arrests were carried out on the grounds of the Art Institute Saturday afternoon, just hours after a small pro-Palestinian encampment was set up in the museum’s north garden, the Chicago Police Department said. At least 68 people were arrested are being charged with criminal trespass to property, police said. ….Chicago police said they negotiated for more than two hours before the Art Institute requested CPD remove the encampment at 3:30 p.m., after which officers gave protesters three warnings before going in to begin clearing the area. Demonstrators were given the opportunity to leave without arrest, which many of them agreed to. Others locked arms resisting as officers took each of them into custody.”   https://abc7chicago.com/art-institute-of-chicago-protest-pro-palestinian-held-in-downtown-university-campus-encampment-continues/14766246/

14-year old fatally shot outside Wisconsin school was armed with pellet rifle. “The [Wisconsin Dept. of Justice] says the weapon recovered was a Ruger .177 caliber pellet rifle. Officers were able to locate the person and directed them to drop the weapon. The person then pointed the weapon at officers, according to the DOJ. Officers then shot the person, life-saving measures were taken but the person died on the scene. The DOJ says that the person never entered the school. No law enforcement or witnesses were injured.”   https://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/update-mount-horeb-student-shot-by-police-after-reports-someone-with-a-weapon   Multiple sources reveal identity of student. “The Mount Horeb student shot and killed by police Wednesday after bringing a rifle to his middle school has been identified as Damian Haglund. More than six sources, who requested not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, confirmed Haglund’s identity to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Haglund, 14, was an eighth grader at Mount Horeb Middle School.”   https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/breaking/2024/05/03/mount-horeb-shooter-was-14-year-old-8th-grade-student/73555230007/

Death toll from rain and mudslides in Brazil hits 55. “Massive flooding and landslides triggered by days of heavy rain in Brazil’s southernmost state have killed 55 people, according to local authorities. Officials say another 74 people are missing in Rio Grande do Sul. Nearly 25,000 residents have been forced to leave their homes since the storms began last Saturday. At least half a million were without power and clean water, with further rainfall expected.”   https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0w03627kq4o

228 reported dead in Kenya’s floods. “The deluges have destroyed homes, roads, bridges and other infrastructure across East Africa’s largest economy. At least 164 people have been injured by the adverse weather, while 212,630 have been displaced, the ministry said.”   https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/death-toll-kenya-floods-rises-228-2024-05-05/

Auto workers ratify union labor contract with Daimler Truck. “Members of the United Auto Workers on Saturday ratified a new labor contract with Daimler Truck that includes at least a 25% general wage increase over the four-year deal. The vote was 94.5% in favor of the new contract, which covers more than 7,300 hourly UAW workers after a tentative agreement was reached in late April, averting a strike at the 11th hour. The contract covers hourly workers at six facilities in southern states where unionization has traditionally been low, including four factories in North Carolina and parts warehouses in Georgia and Tennessee. ….The deal also includes profit-sharing and cost-of-living adjustments for workers at the maker of Freightliner and Western Star trucks, and Thomas Built buses, as well as the end of wage tiers that paid those building buses less than those building heavy trucks. UAW President Shawn Fain said the pay hike matched what workers at the Detroit Three received in talks last fall. Workers will receive an immediate 10% pay raise, followed by 3% increases six months and 12 months later, Fain said.”   https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/united-auto-workers-ratify-contract-with-daimler-truck-2024-05-05/

Two student journalists reportedly arrested during Dartmouth protest crackdown. “[Prof. Annelise] Orleck, a former head of Dartmouth’s Jewish studies department, was grabbed by police, thrown to the ground and then dragged along the grass after she demanded that a police officer give her back her phone, which she had been using to record arrests. A video of the incident, which showed officers manhandling the white-haired older woman, went viral. For Orleck, who was teaching a US politics class on the civil rights movement hours before she became one of 90 people arrested at Dartmouth, the degree of violence that has accompanied the campus arrests has been shocking. ‘They’re sending a message to American students,’ she said. When Orleck was brought to a van after her arrest, she said, she found the other people arrested alongside her included a second grade teacher, a preschool teacher and two Dartmouth student journalists, both of them with their press credentials clearly displayed. ‘They were just stunned,’ she said. ….On 27 April, Steve Tamari, a 65-year-old historian of the Middle East at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, was also dragged to the ground by law enforcement while filming a demonstration at Washington University in St Louis. Being ‘body slammed’ and crushed by several St Louis County police officers left him in the hospital with ‘multiple broken ribs and a broken hand’, Tamari said in a statement posted on X.”   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/04/police-tactics-us-campus-protest-crackdowns

Are some disabled and poor Canadians choosing assisted suicide because they lack access to the resources they need? “Disability and other advocates have been warning us for years that MAiD [Medical Assistance in Dying] puts people at risk. They warned that the risk of people choosing death — because it’s easier than fighting to survive in a system that impoverishes people, and disproportionately does so to those who are disabled — is real. ….While MAiD may be defensible as a means for individuals to exercise personal choice in how they live and how they die when facing illness and pain, it is plainly indefensible when state-induced austerity and mismanagement leads to people choosing to end… lives that have been made unnecessarily miserable. ….It thus falls to proponents of MAiD to show how such deaths can be avoided, just as it falls to policymakers to build or rebuild institutions that ensure no one ever opts to end their life for lack of resources or support, which we could provide in abundance if we choose to.”   https://jacobin.com/2024/05/canada-euthanasia-poor-disabled-health-care

Jeremy Gong’s lessons from the 60s on how to build a movement. “1. Mass Action Gets the Goods …. In the 1950s…. People were afraid to speak out against militarism or racism. But over the next ten years, thanks in large part to massive student movements, millions of people’s consciousness was transformed. ….’Hundreds of thousands participated in militant civil rights and antiwar struggles that ignored the laws and challenged the ability of the social apparatus to function.’ These movements helped end Jim Crow segregation and made protest and dissent a normal part of American life again. ….Just as millions of workers won unions and a decent standard of living in the 1930s through the power of mass strikes, young people in the 1960s sat in, walked out, and shut things down to force important concessions. ….2. A National Organization Puts Movements on Firm Footing ….With the help of veteran civil rights leaders like Ella Baker and Martin Luther King Jr, 150 sit-in activists from fifty-six schools came together in April 1960 for a weekend-long conference that founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). At this early stage, the decentralized SNCC was most of all a place to support, spread, and coordinate the actions of local sit-in activists. But over a few years SNCC would evolve into a coherent group with a national strategy, becoming a key organization in the black freedom struggle. ….With proper coordination, students can make a big impact at the Democratic National Convention in August, at their schools when they return in the fall, and for the duration of the struggle for a free Palestine. ….3. Activists Must Reach Beyond Campus Occupations ….Graduate students were already planning for a strike on December 4, and [Free Speech Movement] activists rallied support for the strike from local labor unions, including campus unions, such as the Building Trades, Service Employees International Union, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, San Francisco Labor Council, and even the conservative Teamsters. FSMers met with Teamster officials and asked if they would respect students’ picket lines on the principle of ‘an injury to one is an injury to all.’ Teamsters agreed, wrote [Joel] Geier, that: Crossing our picket lines would be scabbing, and they would prevent all deliveries to the campus. Within an hour, no trucks bringing supplies or food entered the campus, helping to halt the normal functioning of the university. ….The strike was a success. Most students didn’t attend classes, and the FSM won a complete victory a few days later. As the FSM newsletter stated, ‘The sit-in was less of a threat to [UC president Clark] Kerr than the strike. He knew he could break the sit-in through mass arrests, but the strike was impossible to stop.’ ….4. A Long-Term Political Alternative Is Necessary ….While our movements today should aspire to have the power to push Joe Biden out of the race in 2024, we should also keep in mind the limits of a purely negative strategy, which in this case could improve the prospects of a Trump presidency. In the future, movements for peace and social justice will have to build toward a real political alternative to the ‘lesser evil’ Democrats. While a new left-wing independent party capable of winning the presidency is a long way off, activists have been debating how to build functionally and politically independent, party-like organizations to fight for progressive politics at the national level in the near term. As a new generation of students becomes radicalized by the genocide and the complicity of their schools and government, movement participants may start to see the need for a long-term alliance of progressive forces. 5. Non-sectarian Socialists Are Critical Movement-Builders By the end of the ’60s, ultra-radical sects descended into absurd infighting for control of the student movement and employed outrageous and alienating tactics. But before this anticlimax, radical cadres of one or another socialist group played productive and even essential roles in the movements described above. ….But socialist organizers did not simply use movements as a recruiting pool for their socialist organizations, the definition of sectarianism. Instead, their goal was to build transformative mass movements that could win. ….And today, as in the ’60s and ’70s, that requires full participation by many more people than will be in our socialist groups anytime soon. Unlike sectarians who can be seen at rallies today holding their group’s signs with slogans like “No Ceasefire Until World Revolution!” (a depressing sentiment if you believed it, since only their sect thinks revolution is imminent), effective ’60s radicals helped build broad movements on the basis of immediate, winnable demands. ….Through struggle over immediate issues, people’s consciousness changes, and radical changes start to seem more reasonable and achievable. ….A movement that focused last year on the more moderate demand of a cease-fire, [Joel Geier] said, is now demanding an end to apartheid and ‘asking questions that challenge the fundamental order of our society.’ Socialists, then, should try, when possible, to build broader movement organizations arm-in-arm with non-socialists. ….Doing this means that the democracy we build in our movements can include all sorts of people from different perspectives, some activated for the first time, who agree on little more than ending the genocide. Not only does that make our movements stronger, but it also opens up a space for socialists — who have earned respect as talented and committed builders of the movement, not just recruiters to our socialist groups — to win other activists to more radical ideas in the course of that struggle. ….Instead of vacating the campus and giving in to fear, intimidation, and violence, these activists are bringing the fighting spirit of ’60s movements to the twenty-first century. Having achieved that revitalization of the student movement, the next challenge is to win. The civil rights movement and other struggles of the 1960s can teach us how to transform this momentum into victory.”   https://jacobin.com/2024/05/five-lessons-for-palestine-activists-from-the-60s-student-left

May 4, 2024

Crackdown on Palestine supporters happening because they are a threat to power. “This shock-and-awe campaign was about smashing a rapidly expanding student movement whose bravery has captivated people around the world. It was about eliminating the threat that the pro-Palestine movement poses to business as usual. It was about showing university donors, Republicans, Democrats, and the White House that these schools knew which side they were supposed to be on. And it was about reminding these students—these kids who had the nerve to sit in tents—of who is in charge and who isn’t. The students at Columbia and City College and UCLA and the University of South Florida and all of the more than 70 Gaza solidarity protests that have emerged at campuses around the country committed the sin of believing that it is acceptable for them to try to influence what happens at their school or—heaven forbid—what happens in the world at large. The hope is that these protesters will learn who the world is really supposed to work for—that there is a sky-high price to be paid for questioning the natural order of things. You can feel the question thrumming through the violence and repression: How dare you? But here’s the lesson in all this: The people in charge are scared. They are terrified of the power of the movement for Palestine—of its size, moral righteousness, fearlessness, diversity, and love. And they are terrified that one of the key pillars of the American system—support for Israel no matter what it does—is being shaken.”   https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/columbia-ccny-cuny-protest-nypd-police-brutality/

Air Force Secretary takes ride in AI-controlled fighter jet. “The AI-controlled F-16, called Vista, flew [Sec. Frank] Kendall in lightning-fast maneuvers at more than 550 miles an hour that put pressure on his body at five times the force of gravity. It went nearly nose to nose with a second human-piloted F-16 as both aircraft raced within 1,000 feet of each other, twisting and looping to try force their opponent into vulnerable positions. At the end of the hourlong flight, Kendall climbed out of the cockpit grinning. He said he’d seen enough during his flight that he’d trust this still-learning AI with the ability to decide whether or not to launch weapons in war. There’s a lot of opposition to that idea. Arms control experts and humanitarian groups are deeply concerned that AI one day might be able to autonomously drop bombs that kill people without further human consultation, and they are seeking greater restrictions on its use. ….Future war scenarios envision swarms of American unmanned aircraft providing an advance attack on enemy defenses to give the U.S. the ability to penetrate an airspace without high risk to pilot lives. But the shift is also driven by money. The Air Force is still hampered by production delays and cost overruns in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which will cost an estimated of $1.7 trillion. Smaller and cheaper AI-controlled unmanned jets are the way ahead, Kendall said.”   https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-fighter-jets-air-force-6a1100c96a73ca9b7f41cbd6a2753fda

More arrests of Gaza protesters. “The New York Police Department began clearing encampments at New York University and the New School on Friday morning and took more than 50 demonstrators into custody. Pro-Palestinian protests and resulting police actions continued to roil the campus and many others across the country; more than 130 people were arrested at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and 17 were taken into custody at the University of Notre Dame late Thursday night. In Oregon, law enforcement officers cleared a library at Portland State University for a second time Thursday night, with the day’s arrests there reaching at least 30.”   https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/03/university-protests-ucla-columbia-college-news/   Number of arrests hits 2,400. “More than 2,400 people at dozens of U.S. colleges and universities have been arrested in recent weeks as police break up demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war, according to an Associated Press tally. Police in riot gear have dismantled tent encampments, cleared protesters from occupied buildings and made arrests, mostly for refusing orders to disperse, although some have been charged with vandalism, resisting arrest or other offenses.”   https://apnews.com/article/kent-state-ac60fdcb2a2dc852e49ee9fc2e6aaf31   Universities in Iran and Yemen offer scholarships to expelled U.S. protesters and jobs to fired professors. “On Thursday, dean of Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Seyed Mahmoud Aghamiri, encouraged any protesters in the U.S. or Europe who are facing discipline for their actions to apply to the school and even offered financial aid. ‘….we fully cover the cost of education, dormitory and accommodation.’ Shahid Beheshti University followed the earlier example set by Shiraz University, which on Wednesday had extended its invitation to any professors that may find themselves out of work. ‘Students and even professors who have been expelled or threatened with expulsion can continue their studies at Shiraz University and I think that other universities in Shiraz, as well as Fars Province, are also prepared,’ the head of school Mohammad Moazzeni told Iranian state-owned Press TV. On Friday, an official at Sanaa University in Yemen, which is run by the Iranian-backed Houthis joined the movement as well. ‘We are serious about welcoming students that have been suspended from U.S. universities for supporting Palestinians,’ an official with this school told Reuters.”  https://www.newsmax.com/us/gaza-israel-palestinian/2024/05/03/id/1163436/   But don’t try to organize or participate in any protests if you go – you might get shot, beaten or tortured.

White counter-protesters at Univ. of Mississippi accused of racism. “A pro-Palestine demonstration at the University of Mississippi was overtaken by counter-protesters Thursday, culminating with a viral clip of white students mimicking monkey noises and gestures in the direction of a Black woman. That gross clip was captured moments before police shut down the demonstration entirely and escorted the outnumbered pro-Palestine protesters from the scene. In the video, an unnamed white man in a light blue shirt is seen contorting his face to mimic that of a monkey while he motioned his arms back and forth—racist tropes historically used to dehumanize Black Americans in the south. Another man, in a blue and yellow shirt, can be seen and heard making similar monkey-like noises.”   https://www.thedailybeast.com/ole-miss-students-appear-to-mock-black-protester-with-monkey-noises

New Hawaii law gives communities power to ban short-term housing rentals. “In a pivotal step in addressing Hawaii’s housing crisis, Gov. Josh Green signed a bill into law Friday that gives the counties the power to convert short-term rentals into long-term housing. Senate Bill 2919 gives the counties the authority to see that vacation rentals are not allowed in communities that don’t want them. The governor said the Maui wildfire disaster escalated the need to house local families, and he emphasized this bill will change Hawaii for the better. ….Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi added that the measure will further efforts to help house locals and Native Hawaiians.”   https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/05/04/green-signs-bill-that-gives-counties-power-convert-short-term-rentals-into-long-term-housing/

Some conservative legislators opposed Antisemitism Awareness Act over possible banning of Bible as antisemitic. “A bill that overwhelmingly passed the House by a 320-91 vote Wednesday evening, would require the Department of Education’s division of civil right to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism when investigating discrimination claims on campuses that receive federal funding. That definition cites ‘claims of Jews killing Jesus’ as an example of ‘classic antisemitism’, which sparked opposition from some conservative Republicans.”   https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article288246510.html   Technically, the Romans crucified Jesus of course, but this was allegedly at the request of the local authorities. See Mark 14:53-65 and Mark 15:1-15.

Missouri abortion rights activists submit 380,000 signatures for ballot measure. “The coalition, called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, is hoping to put on the November ballot a measure that would legalize abortion up to the point of fetal viability. Since June 2022, nearly every abortion has been illegal in the state with the exception of medical emergencies. In order to put a citizen-led constitutional amendment before voters, the campaign had to collect signatures from 8% of voters in six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts. That total equates to more than 171,000 signatures. The campaign on Friday morning announced they officially turned in 380,159 signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office.”   https://missouriindependent.com/2024/05/03/missourians-signatures-abortion-amendment-viability/

ACLU files lawsuit over Univ. of Indiana campus bans. “It was filed Friday morning on behalf of three people who were arrested during the past week of protests on campus. Those three are part of a group of 57 people who were also arrested. All of them received a trespass ban from campus for at least a year. The lawsuit names IU professor Dr. Benjamin Robinson, IU graduate student Madeleine Meldrum, and Bloomington resident Jasper Wirtshafter as plaintiffs in the case.  The ACLU of Indiana says it could expand the lawsuit to include others who were also arrested and received trespass bans from campus.”   https://www.wthr.com/article/news/education/aclu-suing-iu-over-gaza-war-protest-arrests-pro-palestinian-indiana-university-student-professor-campus-ban/531-eb4323e7-f97f-4590-b529-ea3d3467f844

U.K. Conservative Party suffers many defeats in local elections. “When all is said and done, some analysts think the Conservatives could lose as many as 500 [local] council seats, a signal of serious trouble ahead for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s beleaguered Conservative Party. Around one-third of England’s council seats were contested, along with 11 mayoral seats in major English metro areas. While these elections were about local leadership, the results of Thursday’s vote serve as an important barometer of overall public opinion, and ultimately a test of whether the Conservative Party can retain power in a general election expected this fall. Labour won control of a number of key councils, including Hartlepool, Thurrock, Rushmoor, and Redditch, all of which were seen as battleground races that could gauge broader public sentiment. ….But Labour also faced some pushback, possibly as an effect of its staunch support for Israel in the war in Gaza and a delay in calling for a cease-fire, that could dampen the party’s gains in some northern places, a senior Labour figure, Pat McFadden, acknowledged to Sky News. Notably, the party lost control of the Oldham Council, where a large Muslim population seemed to shift its votes to independent candidates, he added.”   https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/world/europe/voters-england-elections-takeaways.html   Minor parties win seats too. “But in a warning sign for the main parties, there was also a strong showing for the Green party, which won more than 150 seats and narrowly missed out on overall control in Bristol, and independent party candidates, who won 260 seats amid disillusionment with Westminster politics and Labour’s stance on Gaza. George Galloway’s Workers’ party of Britain won four seats, while residents’ associations took 48 and the Women’s Equality party gained a councillor. A projected national share of the vote produced by the BBC on Friday suggested Labour was on 34% of the vote, the Conservatives on 25%, the Lib Dems on 17% and others on 24%.”   https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/03/tories-face-worst-local-election-results-40-years-sunak-sunak

U.S. falls 10 places in global press freedom ranking. “Press freedom is in decline around the over as a consequence of political pressure, disinformation, suppression of independent media and harassment of journalists, according to the latest World Press Freedom Index. The annual index is compiled by Reporters Without Borders, or RSF as it’s known by its French initials, an international nonprofit focussed on safeguarding the right to freedom of information. The 2024 index, published on Friday, ranks 180 countries on the ability of journalists to report freely and independently from the ground. ….While the US has slipped ten places to rank 55th on account of its ‘problematic’ press freedom situation, Israel has gone down four places to 101th. Argentina has seen the steepest drop of 26 places to rank 66th owing to president Javier Milei’s open hostility to the media which ‘poses a disturbing new threat to the right to information in the country’. ….’India is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media. Journalists who are critical of the government are routinely subjected to online harassment, intimidation, threats and physical attacks, as well as criminal prosecutions and arbitrary arrests.'”   https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-press-freedom-index-us-israel-b2539069.html

Judge considers sanctioning Google over deleted communications. “Google was accused of enacting a policy instructing employees to turn chat history off by default when discussing sensitive topics, including Google’s revenue-sharing and mobile application distribution agreements. These agreements, the DOJ and state attorneys general argued, work to maintain Google’s monopoly over search. According to the DOJ, Google destroyed potentially hundreds of thousands of chat sessions not just during their investigation but also during litigation. Google only stopped the practice after the DOJ discovered the policy. DOJ’s attorney Kenneth Dintzer told [US district judge Amit] Mehta Friday that the DOJ believed the court should ‘conclude that communicating with history off shows anti-competitive intent to hide information because they knew they were violating antitrust law.’ Mehta at least agreed that ‘Google’s document retention policy leaves a lot to be desired,’ expressing shock and surprise that a large company like Google would ever enact such a policy as best practice.”   https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/judge-mulls-sanctions-over-googles-shocking-destruction-of-internal-chats/

President Biden criticized for anti-protest comments. “President Joe Biden faced immediate backlash Thursday for characterizing pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have erupted on university campuses across the country as lawless and violent, a narrative likely to further alienate the thousands of students who have joined peaceful protests against Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza in recent weeks. ….’Dissent must never lead to disorder,’ the president said…. ‘There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos.’ ….Edward Ahmed Mitchell, a civil rights attorney and national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said Thursday that ‘President Biden’s claim that “dissent must never lead to disorder” defies American history, from the Boston Tea Party to the tactics that civil rights activists, Vietnam War protesters, and anti-apartheid activists used to confront injustice.’….At the end of his speech, a reporter asked Biden whether the mass demonstrations on college campuses have led him to reconsider his approach to Israel’s assault on Gaza, which to date has been unconditionally supportive even in the face of horrific Israeli war crimes. ‘No,’ Biden said in response to the reporter’s question.”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-campus-protests   And the Black Lives Matter protests.

Most Europeans living longer than Americans. “Last year, the average European lived to the ripe old age of 81 years and six months, an increase of nearly a full year from 2022, and more than two months longer than the average in pre-pandemic years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculate an average American life expectancy of 76 years and five months — the shortest in nearly two decades. Lifespans for people in 15 of the EU’s 27 member states average even higher. Spain reported the longest life with an 84-year average lifespan. Italians and the Maltese also tend to live beyond 83.”  https://www.courthousenews.com/europeans-still-live-longer-than-americans/

Police in Berlin arrest protesting Humboldt University students.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsgH3SyC61E

Donald Trump pledges to grant police ‘immunity from prosecution’. “Former President Donald Trump this week made his way to Wisconsin, a battleground state crucial to both his 2016 win and 2020 loss. The stakes, in other words, are high. So he made a few big promises to match. One such promise: ‘We’re going to give our police their power back,’ he told rallygoers in Waukesha, ‘and we are going to give them immunity from prosecution.’ Between police and prosecutors, law enforcement officers are arguably already the most powerful people in government, so it’s unclear what Trump means by giving them ‘their power back’. His second promise, though—immunity from prosecution—is more concrete, and a reminder of the former president’s views on government accountability. ….As president, Trump would be extremely constrained in immunizing anyone, including police officers, from prosecution, as most criminal proceedings are in state court where his power wouldn’t apply. And while it’s true that some officers are charged federally for alleged misconduct—where he could lobby the Department of Justice to refuse to charge any cop—those prosecutions are often in addition to state charges. As I’ve previously written, charging anyone, no matter how unsympathetic a defendant, in both state and federal court for the same alleged misconduct strains constitutional credulity. To put a stop to that, even temporarily, would be just. The reality remains, though, that no president, including Trump, can countermand state prosecutorial decisions. ….It is also true that police officers are rarely prosecuted to begin with, despite a handful of high-profile trials that have captured public attention. No one should be criminally charged because the political moment appears to demand it. Similarly, no one should be immunized simply because it plays well with a political constituency.”   https://reason.com/2024/05/03/trump-promises-to-give-police-immunity-from-prosecution/

May 3, 2024

Number of protest arrests in U.S. rises to over 2,000. “Police have detained more than 2,000 people nationwide in the past fortnight at college rallies and protest camps. That includes 209 arrests early on Thursday at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Hundreds of officers in riot gear moved on to UCLA’s main campus before dawn and cleared its pro-Palestinian camp. They set off flash bangs and flares, [shot protesters with projectiles],  loaded demonstrators on to police buses, and tore down the makeshift barriers and tents that had been erected on campus a week ago. In a statement, UCLA called the camp ‘both unlawful and a breach of policy. It led to unsafe conditions on our campus and it damaged our ability to carry out our mission. Demonstrators directly interfered with instruction by blocking students’ pathways to classrooms,’ it added, while their clashes with pro-Israeli counter-demonstrators ‘put too many [students] in harm’s way.'”   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68945049   Were students actually being prevented from reaching their classes, or just inconvenienced by having to take a different sidewalk? Did the protesters create a dangerous environment by launching attacks on counter-protesters, or did the counter-protesters start the violence? And if the latter, why weren’t THEY arrested?

Non-profit helps mobile home park residents transition to cooperatives. “In 2000, the number of homes in cooperative-owned communities was in the hundreds. Today, there are more than twenty-two thousand homes in ROC [resident-owned communities] USA communities. Not a single ROC USA community has ever closed, reverted to private ownership, or otherwise displaced its residents. ….Each time a park becomes a cooperative, a tiny bit more of the country’s affordable housing is taken out of the private market. And so, in a quiet way, each new cooperative proposes a radical concept: What if we stopped seeing housing as an investment? What if we simply saw housing as housing?”   https://jacobin.com/2024/05/trailer-park-cooperatives-roc-usa/

After weathering violent attacks by counter-protesters, UCLA Gaza protest broken up by police. “LAPD Interim Chief Dominic Choi confirmed a total of 210 people were arrested by the UCLA Police Department [on Thursday morning] ‘for failure to disperse’. ….Those who were arrested by authorities were taken to three facilities, including the LAPD Metro Detention Center and Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail.”   https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/210-people-arrested-from-ucla-police-chief-confirms/3403435/   “When counter-demonstrators attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment Tuesday night, they threw traffic cones, released pepper spray and tore down barriers. Fighting continued for several hours before police stepped in, though no arrests were made. At least 15 protesters suffered injuries. ….Speakers disputed the university’s account that 15 people were injured and one hospitalized, saying the number of people taken to the hospital was higher. One student described needing to go to the hospital after being hit in the head by an object wielded by counter-protesters.”   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ucla-tense-scene-police-order-protesters-to-leave-nationwide-pro-palestinian-protests/   “In addition to using tear gas and stun grenades, police officers fired non-lethal ammunition at the protesters in the form of rubber bullets, according to the Los Angeles Times. According to the outlet, one man was shot in the chest by a rubber bullet, after officers warned protesters to stop throwing objects at them. It is not clear if the man was among those launching projectiles at the police. In footage obtained by CNN, an officer tells the videographer to ‘Move back, for your safety,’ before turning and firing a weapon into the crowd at close range. Several videos posted to X by reporters showed officers firing what appeared to be rubber bullets at protesters. It is still unclear how many protesters were injured on Thursday morning.”   https://www.thedailybeast.com/police-fire-rubber-bullets-at-uclas-pro-palestine-protesters

Judge declares mistrial in Abu Ghraib torture lawsuit. “A judge declared a mistrial Thursday after a jury said it was deadlocked and could not reach a verdict in the trial of a military contractor accused of contributing to the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq two decades ago. The mistrial came in the jury’s eighth day of deliberations. The deliberations went far longer than the trial itself. The eight-member civil jury in Alexandria deadlocked on accusations the civilian interrogators who were supplied to the U.S. Army at Abu Ghraib in 2003 and 2004 had conspired with soldiers there to abuse detainees as a means of ‘softening them up’ for questioning.”   https://apnews.com/article/abu-ghraib-military-contractor-abuse-detainees-caci-3626690f14850075310a771d95ec5ab1

90 protesters and 1 journalist arrested at Dartmouth College. “Protesters put up a small grouping of four tents, and soon hundreds of people had gathered at the small encampment, singing songs and calling on the university to divest from companies that profit from war in Israel. By 8:30 p.m., about 30 state troopers and local police officers arrived on campus. ….Dartmouth history professor Annelise Orleck was thrown to the ground and arrested after yelling at the troopers and resisting. A student who identified herself as a journalist did not immediately comply when told to back farther away from the area, and was arrested. ….After the arrests Wednesday night, the ACLU of New Hampshire released a statement on X, formerly Twitter, saying: ‘Students have a First Amendment right to express and advocate for their political opinions and use of police force against peaceful protestors should never be a first resort.'”   https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/05/01/metro/before-pro-palestinian-encampent-begins-dartmouth-warns-students-they-could-be-expelled-participating/

Russia accused of using gas against Ukrainian troops. “In a statement on Wednesday, the US State Department said it had ‘made a determination … that Russia has used the chemical weapon chloropicrin against Ukrainian forces in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).’ It added that Russia had also used ‘riot control agents’, or tear gas, during the war in violation of the CWC. ‘The use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident, and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield,’ it said. ….Chloropicrin was widely used as a chemical warfare agent in World War I, but is no longer authorized for military use, and is now mostly used in agriculture, according to the CDC. It irritates the lungs, eyes, and skin, and can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea lasting for weeks, according to the CDC.”   https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/01/europe/us-russia-ukraine-chemical-weapons-intl-hnk/index.html   Little known fact: Tear gas U.S. police use on protesters is banned from battlefields. “We rate the claim that tear gas is banned in war but legal for law enforcement purposes as TRUE based on our research. Findings show that the Chemical Weapon Convention outlawed the use of riot control agents in warfare and it went into effect in 1997. The 1925 Geneva Protocol also prohibited the use of poisonous gases in war.”   https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/06/fact-check-its-true-tear-gas-chemical-weapon-banned-war/3156448001/

Death toll in Kenyan floods rises to 188. “Staff and visitors have been left stranded and buildings submerged at Kenya’s famous Maasai Mara nature reserve, as the death toll in catastrophic flooding in the country’s southwest rose to at least 188 people. ….Weeks of heavy rain and flash flooding has ravaged parts of Kenya for days, leaving dozens of people missing around the capital, Nairobi, and causing a devastating mudslide in the town of Mai Mahiu.”   https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/02/africa/kenya-flooding-maasai-mara-intl/index.html

Gaza doctor dies in Israeli custody. “A prominent surgeon in Gaza has died in an Israeli prison after being held for more than four months, according to Palestinian prisoners’ groups, which decried his death as part of a ‘systematic targeting’ of health care workers. Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, was declared dead by Israeli prison authorities on April 19, according to a joint statement Thursday from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society and the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs. Al-Bursh was arrested along with 10 other medical workers in December during the Israeli military ground invasion of the Jabalya refugee camp, CNN previously reported. He was taken away while treating patients in Al-Awda Hospital, according to the statement. ….[Dr.] Abu Saada was told that one of Al-Bursh’s fellow prisoners – who had since been released – said the surgeon had been tortured and was killed. CNN cannot independently verify the claim that Al-Bursh was tortured in detention. However, testimony from dozens of Palestinians who have been released by Israel in past months has alleged the widespread use of physical and psychological abuse of those detained by Israel during the war in Gaza.”   https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/03/middleeast/gaza-surgeon-adnan-al-bursh-israeli-prison-intl-hnk/index.html

WWII level of damage to Gaza housing, says U.N. “The world hasn’t seen anything like the unprecedented destruction of housing in Gaza since World War II, and it would take at least until 2040 to restore the homes devastated in Israel’s bombing and ground offensive if the conflict ended today, the United Nations reported Thursday. ….At least 370,000 housing units in Gaza have been damaged, including 79,000 destroyed completely, the report said, along with commercial buildings. ….The rough estimate for the overall reconstruction of Gaza is between $40 billion and $50 billion, [United Nations Development Program regional director Abdallah Al Dardari] said.”   https://apnews.com/article/un-report-gaza-destruction-housing-economy-recovery-4f61dcca7db3fd5eb3da5c6a25001e12

Record temperatures during south Asia heatwave. “On April 21, people in the eastern city of Bhagdora [India] sweltered as the mercury touched 114.8 degrees [F]. ….Several areas in Myanmar have recorded record high temperatures around 115 degrees, with a much higher heat index. The heat Index is a measure of what the temperature actually feels like, taking into account humidity, wind speed and other factors. ….In Thailand, authorities have urged people to remain indoors when possible with 30 deaths already blamed on heat stroke this year. In the capital Bangkok, authorities said the heat index Thursday was an ‘extremely dangerous’ 125.6 degrees. In Vietnam, where temperatures passed the 111 degree mark, the national weather agency warned of the risk of forest fires, dehydration and heat stroke. ‘Thousands of records are being brutalized all over Asia, which is by far the most extreme event in world climatic history,’ weather historian Maximiliano Herrera said in a social media post last week.”   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/heat-wave-asia-2024-deaths-india-severe-weather-climate-change/

Kent State’s official account of May 4, 1970 National Guard mass shooting. “Some authors (e.g., Stone, 1971; Davies, 1973; and Kelner and Munves, 1980) argue that the Guardsmen’s lives were not in danger. Instead, these authors argue that the evidence shows that certain members of the Guard conspired on the practice football field to fire when they reached the top of Blanket Hill. Other authors (e.g., Best, 1981 and Payne, 1981) do not find sufficient evidence to accept the conspiracy theory, but they also do not find the Guard self-defense theory to be plausible. Experts who find the Guard primarily responsible find themselves in agreement with the conclusion of the Scranton Commission (Report , 1970, p. 87): ‘The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.’ ….The May 4 shootings at Kent State need to be remembered for several reasons. First, the shootings have come to symbolize a great American tragedy which occurred at the height of the Vietnam War era, a period in which the nation found itself deeply divided both politically and culturally. The poignant picture of Mary Vecchio kneeling in agony over Jeffrey Miller’s body, for example, will remain forever as a reminder of the day when the Vietnam War came home to America.”   https://www.kent.edu/may-4-historical-accuracy

Turkey claims it has recently killed dozens of Kurdish leftists in Iraq and Syria. “Turkish security forces have eliminated 43 PKK/YPG terrorists in both northern Iraq and northern Syria over the past week, according to the country’s National Defense Ministry. The ministry’s spokesperson, Brig. Adm. Zeki Akturk announced during a weekly press briefing that a total of 843 terrorists have been eliminated since January 2024, with 376 in Iraq and 469 in northern Syria.”   https://www.turkiyenewspaper.com/defense/22600

UNESCO recognizes Palestinian journalists with World Press Freedom Prize. “Audrey Azoulay, director general at the UN organisation for education, science and culture, said the prize paid ‘tribute to the courage of journalists facing difficult and dangerous circumstances’. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 97 members of the press have been killed since the war broke out in October, 92 of whom were Palestinians. ….Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,596 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.”   https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-13377547/UNESCO-awards-press-prize-Palestinian-journalists-Gaza.html

Senate holds hearing on ‘greedflation’. “‘The fact that prices and corporate profits are going up at the same time is no coincidence. A study by the Kansas City Fed found that corporate profits drove half of the price increases in 2021,’ [Sen. Sherrod Brown commented]. ….’For some essential goods like household paper towels, shrinkflation accounted for roughly 10% of the price increase consumers experienced over the last four years,’ [witness Bilal] Baydoun added. ‘Indeed, big profits increasingly come in smaller packages.’ ….’Corporate profits have exploded since 2020, and a recent study by our partners at the Groundwork Collaborative found that for much of 2023, corporate profits drove 53% of inflation. Comparatively, over the 40 years before the pandemic, profits drove just 11% of price growth. In the final three months of 2023, corporate profits reached an all-time high of $2.8 trillion, according to Commerce Department data,’ [read a statement from Accountable.US]. ‘From Big Food to corporate landlords to Big Pharma, CEOs across industries keep raising prices despite bragging of bigger and bigger profits and stock rewards for wealthy investors,’ said Liz Zelnick, director of [the] Accountable.US Economic Security & Corporate Power program. ‘These executives clearly didn’t need to raise prices so high, but they did it anyway because they could.'”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/senate-shrinkflation-hearing

ICJ denies Nicaragua’s request for immediate ban on German weapons to Israel. “International Court of Justice (ICJ) judges voted 15-1 against the Nicaraguan motion on Tuesday, finding an absence of legal conditions for issuing an order blocking Germany from selling arms to Israel. ….However, the court did not grant Germany’s request for an outright dismissal and will hear arguments on the merits of the Nicaraguan case, a process expected to take months to complete. ….Nicaragua asserts that Germany—which provided nearly 30 percent of Israel’s exported arms last year—is complicit in Israeli war crimes and is enabling genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinian and international officials say that more than 123,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or left missing by Israel’s relentless 207-day onslaught and siege, which has also displaced around 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and driven at least hundreds of thousands of people to the brink of starvation.”   https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/02/on-the-icjs-refusal-to-stop-german-arms-to-israel/

Albuquerque police department tipped off to DWI corruption in 2022. “In December 2022, the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) received a tip that officers assigned to the APD’s DWI unit were getting paid to make cases disappear. The tipster specifically mentioned Honorio Alba, one of several officers who would later resign amid a burgeoning corruption scandal featuring that very allegation. Yet an internal investigation found no evidence to substantiate the tip. ….evidence of longstanding corruption within the DWI unit did not come to light until the FBI began looking into it. ….City Desk ABQ examined ’85 DWI cases dating back to 2017′ involving [attorney Thomas] Clear and [DWI unit officers]. It found that 14 percent of the cases ended with trial convictions or plea deals, which was ‘much lower than the Metro Court average of 56% convictions in DWI cases over the same years.’ The other 86 percent were dismissed, typically because officers did not show up at pretrial interviews or hearings. The ‘vast majority’ of the defendants were arrested by Alba or Montaño. ….According to the tipster, APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told City Desk ABQ, three bars in Northeast Albuquerque were alerting police to intoxicated patrons so they could be nabbed after they drove away. ‘They were targeting individuals, who then could get their cases dismissed,’ Gallegos said, describing the tip. ‘So they would arrest and charge them and then get their cases dismissed and there would be some sort of payment for that.'”   https://reason.com/2024/05/02/a-year-before-albuquerques-dwi-corruption-scandal-made-headlines-an-internal-probe-found-nothing/

May 2, 2024

California governor Gavin Newsom calls for investigation into slow police response to attacks on UCLA protesters. “‘The limited and delayed campus law enforcement response at UCLA last night was unacceptable – and it demands answers,’ a spokesperson from the Governor’s Office said Wednesday. ‘As soon as it became clear that the state assistance was needed to support a local response, our office immediately deployed CHP personnel to campus,’ the statement added. ….’Where is the security? We don’t see them here,’ NBC Los Angeles’ Robert Kovacik said during his live report Tuesday as a number of fights were breaking out before his eyes. Felicia Ford, a concerned resident of Los Angeles, said some of the people involved in the brawls appeared to be armed. ‘They were using bars, bats,’ Felicia Ford described. ‘Some people had knives. Some people had weapons.’ Ford also said when she called the LAPD to request police response to UCLA at around midnight, she was told that LAPD officers could not be dispatched because they ‘had not been called by campus police.'”   https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/delayed-police-response-at-ucla-unacceptable-newsom-says/3402121/   BBC reports that, rather than ‘fights breaking out’ between pro- and anti-Israel groups, the pro-Israeli groups were on the attack. “A masked pro-Israeli group assaulted a pro-Palestinian student camp, before officers were called to the campus. ….’Law enforcement simply stood at the edge of the lawn and refused to budge as we screamed for their help,’ UC Divest at LA, a group involved in the encampment, said in a statement. ….Footage online shows that, as midnight approached on Tuesday, a large pro-Israeli group donning black outfits and white masks arrived on campus and attempted to dismantle barriers. Campers, some wearing goggles and helmets, and others carrying placards and umbrellas, rallied to defend their makeshift space. Dylan Winward, a reporter with the Daily Bruin student newspaper, said the counter-demonstrators had thrown objects including ‘fireworks, a scooter, water bottles and tear gas’. The Bruin also said on social media that four of its reporters had been assaulted and sprayed with an irritant early on Wednesday morning by attackers who recorded the incident on their mobile phones.”   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68937775

Arizona’s legislature repeals 1864 abortion ban. “The repeal was passed by the Senate in a 16-14 vote and is expected to be quickly signed by Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat. Two Republican senators crossed party lines to vote in favor of repealing the ban. The Arizona House last week passed the measure after a handful of Republicans broke party ranks and voted with Democrats to send it to the Senate.”   https://www.reuters.com/world/us/arizona-senate-expected-vote-1864-abortion-ban-repeal-2024-05-01/

More than 1,600 Gaza protesters have been arrested across the country. “An Associated Press tally counted at least 38 times since April 18 [when] arrests were made at campus protests across the U.S. More than 1,600 people have been arrested at 30 schools.”   https://www.kmvt.com/2024/05/01/clashes-break-out-during-pro-palestinian-protests-ucla-after-police-clear-columbia-university/

Second Boeing-associated whistleblower dies. “Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems and one of the first whistleblowers to allege Spirit leadership had ignored manufacturing defects on the 737 MAX, died Tuesday morning after a struggle with a sudden, fast-spreading infection. ….He was 45, had been in good health and was noted for having a healthy lifestyle. He died after two weeks in critical condition, his aunt Carol Parsons said. ….Dean was represented by a law firm in South Carolina that also represented Boeing whistleblower John ‘Mitch’ Barnett. Barnett was found dead in an apparent suicide in March. He was in the midst of giving depositions alleging Boeing retaliated against him for complaints about quality lapses when he was found dead from a gunshot wound in Charleston, S.C., where Boeing has its 787 manufacturing facility. ”   https://www.seattletimes.com/business/whistleblower-josh-dean-of-boeing-supplier-spirit-aerosystems-has-died/

Police in Istanbul arrest 210 for attempting to join May Day march. “Police in Istanbul have used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters who tried to break through a barricade to reach the city’s Taksim Square in defiance of a ban on May Day rallies. Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 210 people were arrested on Wednesday. More than 40,000 police were deployed across the city, blocking even small side streets with metal barriers after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on the eve of May Day that the annual protests would not be allowed to take place in the square. Tall metal barriers were put up around the square – a traditional focal point of protests in Istanbul, where authorities have banned rallies since 2013, when it was the focus of demonstrations against Erdogan’s government.”   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/turkey-police-arrest-210-at-istanbul-may-day-protests   What’s May Day? “May Day, which falls on May 1, is observed to celebrate workers’ rights. It’s also an opportunity to air economic grievances or political demands. ‘Tax the rich,’ one banner in Germany read. ‘Don’t touch the eight-hour workday!’ another read in Sri Lanka. In Athens, several thousand protesters joined marches as labor strikes disrupted public transport and national rail services across Greece. The country’s largest union demands a return to collective bargaining after labor rights were scrapped during Greece’s 2010-18 financial crisis. ….’We want to send a message that workers say no to exploitation, no to poverty, no to high prices,’ [Nikos Mavrokefalos said]. …. In Kenya, President William Ruto called for an increase in the country’s minimum wage. In Iraq, protesters demanded better wages, the reopening of closed factories and the end to privatization of certain businesses. ….In Japan, more than 10,000 people gathered in Tokyo, demanding salary increases to set off price increases. Masako Obata, leader of the left-leaning National Confederation of Trade Unions, said dwindling wages have widened income disparities. In the Philippines, hundreds of workers and left-wing activists marched to demand wage increases and job security amid soaring food and oil prices. Riot police stopped them from getting close to the presidential palace.”   https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240501-workers-protest-streets-worldwide-may-day-labour-istanbul-france-demonstrations

Protesters riot in former Soviet republic of Georgia over law that would require groups receiving foreign financing to register. “Georgia’s parliament on Wednesday approved the second reading of a bill on ‘foreign agents’ that has been criticised as Kremlin-inspired, as police fired tear gas and stun grenades to clear a large crowd of protesters opposed to the draft law. The bill, which would require organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence, has sparked a rolling political crisis in the South Caucasus country. Ever-growing numbers of protesters have been taking to the street nightly for almost a month, with a heaving crowd tens of thousands strong shutting down central Tbilisi on Wednesday, the largest anti-government demonstration yet. ….Deputy Interior Minister Aleksandre Darakhvelidze, quoted by Georgian media, said protesters had tried to push their way into parliament using various objects and were attacking policemen. Darakhvelidze said police action on Tuesday resulted in 63 arrests and six police officers injured.”   https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/georgian-lawmakers-tussle-parliament-after-crack-down-foreign-agent-protesters-2024-05-01/

Saudi rights activist sentenced to 11 years in prison. “A young women’s rights activist in Saudi Arabia was secretly sentenced to 11 years in prison by an anti-terrorism court after being arrested for ‘her choice of clothing and support for women’s rights’. Saudi officials confirmed in a statement to the United Nations high commissioner for human rights that Manahel al-Otaibi was sentenced on 9 January for what the Saudi government called ‘terrorist offences’. Al-Otaibi… was found guilty of charges related to a Saudi anti-terror law that criminalises the use of websites to ‘broadcast or publish news, statements, false or malicious rumors, or the like for committing a terrorist crime’. …. Among other charges, Otaibi was accused by Saudi authorities of using a hashtag – translated to #societyisready – to call for an end to male guardianship rules. Her sister, Fouz al-Otaibi was also accused of not wearing decent clothing but was able to flee Saudi Arabia before her arrest. Another sister, Maryam, is a known women’s rights advocate who was detained, held, and eventually released in 2017 for protesting guardianship rules. ….Her case follows a slew of similar cases in which Saudi women, in particular, have been subjected to draconian sentences for using social media accounts to express themselves. They include women such as Salma al-Shehab, sentenced to 27 years, Fatima al-Shawarbi, sentenced to 30 years, Sukaynah al-Aithan, sentenced to 40 years, and Nourah al-Qahtani, sentenced to 45 years.”   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/may/01/manahel-al-otaibi-saudi-arabia-womens-rights-activist-sentenced-11-years-prison-anti-terrorism-court   It’s ok, they’re U.S. allies. (sarcasm)

1/3 of Americans’ medical data possibly compromised in UnitedHealth hack. “Two Congressional panels grilled CEO Andrew Witty about the cyberattack on the company’s Change Healthcare unit, which processes around 50% of all medical claims in the U.S. The breach has caused widespread disruptions in claims processing, impacting patients and providers across the country. ….Pressed for details on the data compromised, Witty said ‘maybe a third’ of Americans’ protected health information and personally identifiable information was stolen. ‘We continue to investigate the amount of data involved here,’ he added. ‘We do think it’s going to be substantial.'”   https://www.reuters.com/world/us/unitedhealth-ceo-testifies-before-us-senate-house-hack-2024-05-01/

Google lays off 200 more U.S. employees, moves jobs to India and Mexico. “Just ahead of its blowout first-quarter earnings report on April 25, Google laid off at least 200 employees from its ‘Core’ teams, in a reorganization that will include moving some roles to India and Mexico, CNBC has learned. ….At least 50 of the positions eliminated were in engineering at the company’s offices in Sunnyvale, California, filings show. Many Core teams will hire corresponding roles in Mexico and India, according to internal documents viewed by CNBC. ….Alphabet has been slashing headcount since early last year, when the company announced plans to eliminate about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, following a downturn in the online ad market. Even with digital advertising rebounding recently, Alphabet has continued downsizing, with layoffs across multiple organizations this year.”   https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/01/google-cuts-hundreds-of-core-workers-moves-jobs-to-india-mexico.html

FBI ‘Section 702’ inquiries involving U.S. persons fell in 2023 to about 57,000. “The number of searches about Americans conducted by the FBI in a controversial foreign intelligence database fell by almost half in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to a new report released Tuesday by the U.S. intelligence community. The FBI’s searches, some of which were deemed to be improper in the past, were a flashpoint in a months-long fight in Congress over the reauthorization of a surveillance program referred to as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The number of FBI queries of what the report terms ‘U.S. persons’ from December 2022 to November 2023 fell to 57,094 from 119,383 in the previous year, according to the Annual Statistical Transparency Report, which is issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.”   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/searches-on-americans-fbi-foreign-intelligence-database-fell-2023-fisa-section-702/

Judge rules that letting police dog maul woman for 40 seconds after she surrendered may have been excessive. “Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals precedent holds that excessive duration of a K-9 bite, or officers improperly encouraging a continued attack, could constitute excessive force and a constitutional violation, [U.S. District Court Judge Rita] Lin wrote, ‘regardless of whether the initial dog bite was justified.’ ‘Viewing the facts in [Tamilka] Bates’ favor, a reasonable jury could conclude that [Brentwood police officer Ryan] Rezentes violated the Fourth Amendment by allowing his dog to hold its bite on Bates’ head for 40 seconds after she indicated her surrender,’ Lin wrote. ‘A reasonable jury could conclude that the government’s intrusion was severe.’ ….Pictures from that day show her scalp [had] literally been ripped off her head.”   https://www.ktvu.com/news/siccing-a-k-9-for-a-long-time-constitutes-excessive-force-judge-rules-in-brentwood-police-bite-case   Story includes graphic photo of bite wounds.

Israeli prime minister: ICC arrest warrant would be ‘hate crime’. “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that if the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for him and other Israeli leaders over the genocidal campaign in Gaza, it would be an ‘antisemitic hate crime’. Reports first surfaced over the weekend that the ICC might issue arrest warrants for Israeli leadership. ‘If this does happen, it will be an indelible stain on humanity. It would be an unprecedented antisemitic hate crime that would add fuel to the antisemitic incitement that is already raging in the world,’ Netanyahu said. Netanyahu added that other world leaders should come out against the ICC’s investigation of Israel. ‘Israel expects the leaders of the free world to come out strongly against this scandalous step, a step that will harm the self-defense not only of the State of Israel, but of all democracies,’ he said.”   https://news.antiwar.com/2024/05/01/netanyahu-says-icc-arrest-warrant-would-be-an-antisemitic-hate-crime/

Federal bill classifies criticism of Israel as ‘antisemitism’. “The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a bill that conflates criticism of the modern state of Israel with antisemitism and will mandate that definition be used by the Department of Education when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws. The bill could be used to crack down on pro-Palestine protesters at college campuses across the country, who have been falsely labeled ‘antisemitic’ despite Jewish students participating in the protests. The legislation adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which lists ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ as an example of antisemitism. The IHRA also defines antisemitism as applying ‘double standards’ to Israel by ‘requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation’ and ‘denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination’ by ‘claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.’ The bill passed in a vote of 320-91, and received ‘no’ votes from 21 Republicans and 70 Democrats. [It] now heads to the Senate…. Opponents said they voted against the legislation because it threatened the First Amendment.”   https://news.antiwar.com/2024/05/01/house-passes-bill-that-conflates-criticism-of-israel-with-antisemitism/

Border towns reportedly using surveillance tech to track vehicles and devices. “Contracting records and notes from local government meetings obtained by NOTUS show that federal and state Homeland Security grants allow local law enforcement agencies to surveil American citizens with technology more commonly found in war zones and foreign espionage operations. At least two Texas communities along the U.S.-Mexico border have purchased a product called ‘TraffiCatch’, which collects the unique wireless and Bluetooth signals emitted by nearly all modern electronics to identify devices and track their movements. The product is also listed in a federal supply catalog run by the U.S. government’s General Services Administration, which negotiates prices and contracts for federal agencies. ‘TraffiCatch is unique for the following reasons: ability to detect in-vehicle wireless signals [and] merge such signals with the vehicle license plate,’ wrote Jenoptik, the Germany-based manufacturer, in a contracting solicitation obtained by NOTUS under Texas public records law.”   https://www.notus.org/technology/war-zone-surveillance-border-us

U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights warns U.S. about arrests of peaceful protesters. “We are troubled by a series of heavy-handed steps taken to disperse and dismantle protests across university campuses in the United States of America. Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental to society, particularly when there is a sharp disagreement on major issues, as there are in relation to the conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.”   https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/1/headlines/un_decries_widening_police_crackdown_on_student_protests_in_us

Haiti’s ‘transitional council’ chooses political unknown as acting prime minister. “Haiti’s new ruling, unelected transitional council has picked Fritz Bélizaire to be the country’s new prime minister. His appointment surprised many in Haiti. Some members of the transitional council admit they didn’t even know who he is. Bélizaire had served as Haiti’s sports minister from 2006 to 2011. Meanwhile, leaders of some of Haiti’s most powerful armed groups are demanding a greater role in Haiti’s transitional government. Over the weekend, Jimmy Chérizier… said, ‘It’s either we are all at the table, or the table gets destroyed with all of us.'”   https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/1/headlines/haitis_transitional_council_picks_little_known_ex_sports_minister_to_be_new_pm

Federal appeals court dismisses 2015 youth climate lawsuit. “The order handed down by a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel instructs an Oregon district court to toss Juliana v. United States for lack of standing, siding with the Justice Department’s emergency petition for a writ of mandamus—which the DOJ itself describes as ‘an extraordinary remedy’ that ‘should only be used in exceptional circumstances of peculiar emergency or public importance.’ ….Juliana v. United States was brought in 2015 by 21 young Americans who argued the federal government has violated their ‘fundamental constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property’ by continuing to allow the extraction of fossil fuels despite knowing their central role in destructive planetary heating. Three consecutive administrations have worked aggressively to prevent a trial, deploying emergency legal tactics to delay and derail the youth-led case even as climate impacts became increasingly devastating in the U.S. and around the world.”   https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-doj-youth-climate-case