People of Color Exposed to More Air Pollution Than Whites

From [HERE]A new study out of the University of Washington has found that exposure to air pollution is greater among communities of color. In response, communities of color puts down their inhalers and said, "No shit."

Published this week in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, the study looked specifically at nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant primarily released by automobiles and power plants. Researchers found that between 2000 and 2010, while air in the US generally got cleaner, people of color were still exposed to nearly 40 percent more pollution than white populations.

The study didn't look into the reasons that communities of color are more polluted, but prior research—and looking around—tells us that non-white communities are disproportionately located near major roads and heavy industries, where nitrogen dioxide pollution tends to be higher.

Nitrogen dioxide has been linked to health problems like asthma and heart diseases, which people of color also disproportionately suffer from.

The study confirms what people of color have been saying for a long time. "I'm not surprised with the study's findings but I do wonder about the value of white researchers rehashing the same investigation time and time again, each time concluding what people of color already know," says Aura Bogado, a journalist who writes about environmental justice. "Moving forward, perhaps the academic community could instead focus on equitable policies that center the people who are most affected by poor air quality." [Poor Aura has missed the point of a system designed to function this way]

Mike Zielinski: Racism is absurd

From [HERE] Racism is a topic so hot you have to hold it with oven mitts.

The evil of piping-hot racism has been the curse of mankind seemingly forever.

It wraps around people like a wet towel and smothers their intelligence and literally colors their perception.

Racism creates foolish dissonance and discord. It populates us with a bunch of jammers who have no hope of ever morphing into a symphony orchestra tuned to the belief that all men are created equal.

All this molten hatred served in a cast-iron skillet is all so insane and such a colossal waste.

Humans think they are so smart.

Guess what?

Sometimes they are as dumb as a fire plug. Thicker than concrete.

Especially racist humans. Their myopic focus is only skin deep.

If you think about it, racism is totally absurd.

It is all based on skin pigmentation. Variations in human skin color are adaptive traits that correlate closely with geography and the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

Which is why people whose ancestors are from the tropics generally have darker skin.

People are people and skin color makes them no different from each other -- unless they see it as so.

All the racial hatred over generations comes down to negative attitudes toward people whose melanin levels differ from theirs.

In God's name, how stupid is that? And how tragic is that?

Maryland opens $35 million youth detention facility in Baltimore

Baltimore Sun

After community resistance stifled past plans, juveniles charged as adults in Baltimore will be held in a new $35 million detention center that state corrections officials say is better equipped to rehabilitate them.

“We intend to use this facility to help change the lives of our troubled youth,” Maryland Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Stephen T. Moyer said Friday during a media tour of the 60,537-square-foot, two-story Youth Detention Center at 926 Greenmount Ave.

He said the facility provides an “opportunity to get them back on the right side of the criminal justice system where they can be productive citizens in the city and not come back to this facility.”

The detention center’s opening comes as the number of youths charged as adults and held at such facilities has been dropping. While the new facility can house up to 60 youths — 50 males and 10 females — the city typically houses fewer than 15 on an average day, according to corrections department spokesman Gerry Shields. In fact, the average daily population has dropped from 44 in fiscal year 2013 to nine this past fiscal year, according to Moyer’s agency.

Many youth advocates and community leaders opposed spending money on a youth jail, urging the funds be directed to services like youth centers and summer jobs programs.

Melanie Shapiro, director of juvenile justice policy for the Office of the Public Defender, said the money could have been better spent helping to prevent young people from getting in trouble. [MORE]

House votes to curb asset forfeiture

Wash Post

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to curb federal asset forfeitures, a program that enables law enforcement officers to seize private property, often in cases where the owner was never even charged with a crime, much less convicted. The House bill passed by a virtually unanimous voice vote. It would defund a federal asset forfeiture program reinstated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, after Obama AG Eric Holder had previously taken steps to curb it:

The House voted Tuesday to curb the law enforcement practice of seizing cash and property from people who are suspected of illegal activity but who have not necessarily been charged.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers pushed an amendment to a government-spending package for 2018 that would prohibit the Trump administration from using funds to remove restrictions on the use of asset forfeiture. The practice allows law enforcement to seize cash and property and keep at least part of the proceeds.

Opposition to relaxing asset-forfeiture limits produced a strange-bedfellows effort by members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and liberal progressives. Sponsors of the amendment included Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.).

Their amendment would specifically restrict the use of what’s known as “adoptive forfeiture,” which allows the federal government to take assets seized by local authorities.

Critics say that the practice has allowed local authorities to circumvent state laws that were stricter than under federal statute. About two dozen states have laws that make it harder for authorities to seize property if a person has not been convicted of a crime.

The funding restrictions passed by a unanimous voice vote. Among the leaders in the effort to curb asset forfeitures were libertarian-leaning Republican Justin Amash and progressive Democrat (and longtime American University law professor) Jamin Raskin. [MORE]

Merriam-Webster dictionary is using Rep. Barbara Lee's words to explain what 'woke' means

LA Times

The brand new Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of "woke" includes a a quote from Rep. Barbara Lee as the example of how to use the word in a sentence.

The online dictionary defined woke on Monday as "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)."

The entry, which she proudly shared on her Twitter account, cites a passage from a June Essence article by Lee (D-Oakland).

"But we will only succeed if we reject the growing pressure to retreat into cynicism and hopelessness. ... We have a moral obligation to 'stay woke,' take a stand and be active; challenging injustices and racism in our communities and fighting hatred and discrimination wherever it rises." [MORE]

Supreme Court temporarily allows Muslim Travel Ban - blocking refugees w/o direct familial ties from entering US

NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court will temporarily allow the Trump administration to block many refugees from six mostly Muslim countries without direct familial ties in the United States from entering this country.

In a brief order issued Monday, Justice Anthony Kennedy delayed implementation of a ruling issued by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week that would have allowed entry to refugees with formal ties to resettlement agencies here.

Kennedy put that ruling on hold until lawyers opposing the travel ban can file their response to the administration's motion by noon Tuesday.

The action comes after an emergency request to set aside the appeals court ruling from the Trump administration which is seeking to enact the broadest travel ban possible before the full Supreme Court hears arguments on its constitutionality on October 10.

The appeals court also had ruled that grandparents and other relatives of people already living in the U.S. cannot be barred entrance under the president's travel ban. Lawyers for the Justice Department did not challenge that part of the ruling.

Kennedy's ruling Monday is the latest in the see-saw legal battle over the Trump administration's effort to block entry to travelers and refugees from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

In June, the Supreme Court partially backed the travel ban but said the administration could not bar people with "a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States." The high court did not define what it meant by a "bona fide relationship."

The administration initially allowed entry to parents, children, spouses, siblings and in-laws. But it excluded grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins from its interpretation of that ruling. The administration also excluded some 24,000 refugees with ties to resettlement agencies.

In July, the justices sided with a lower court ruling that grandparents and cousins of a person in the U.S. fit the definition of a close relationship. But they disagreed with the lower court which also ruled in favor refugees "with formal assurances" from a U.S. resettlement agency. The justices sent the case back to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for further consideration, setting the stage for last week's ruling.

Can Cops Force You to Unlock Your Phone With Your Face?

The Atlantic

Customers who shell out $999 for an iPhone X when it comes out in November will have a new party trick in their pockets: They’ll be able to unlock the phone with nothing more than a quick glance at the screen. When they look away, it will lock up again.

When new features like this one, which Apple is calling Face ID, make it easier to unlock a phone, they save time; Apple says iPhone users unlock their phones an average of 80 times a day. But make it too easy to get into a phone and people start to get nervous.

Apple executives emphasized the security of Face ID as they announced the latest generation of iPhones on Tuesday. Once a phone learns to recognize its owner, using a 3-D map made up of more than 30,000 infrared dots projected onto a person’s face, it’ll only unlock itself when it senses that the owner is looking straight at the device. The map can’t be fooled by photos or masks, said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president for marketing, at Tuesday’s event, and it’s stored locally in a secure part of the device. Locking the phone just requires closing your eyes or glancing away, so waving a phone in front of its sleeping owner won’t unlock it. [MORE]

Hurricane Irma Unleashes the Forces of Privatization in Puerto Rico

The Intercept

VULTURES CIRCLING THE wreckage of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Irma are closing in on a long-sought prize: the privatizing of the island’s electric utility.

Puerto Rico avoided the very worst of the storm, which darted just north of the U.S. territory. But it didn’t escape unscathed. Following a request from Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló, the White House declared a state of emergency. Three people were killed and more than 1 million were left without electricity in the storm’s wake.

The fragile body responsible for that power is the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, whose executive leadership warned ahead of the storm that parts of the island could be left without electricity for up to six months. Thanks to the change in the storm’s path and a crew of dedicated line workers, Prepa, the island’s sole electricity provider, now expects most towns to have their lights back on within two weeks and full power within a month. As of Monday, more than 70 percent of homes had already gotten electricity back.

But once the lights are turned on, Puerto Rican households will face a new threat. [MORE]

New York mayor considers Christopher Columbus statue removal

Guardian

Bill de Blasio, the New York mayor, has said he may order the removal of the landmark statue of Christopher Columbus that has overlooked Manhattan’s Columbus Circle since it was erected as part of the city’s 1892 commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the explorer landing in the Americas.

The review, which comes amid a national drive to remove dozens of controversial statues and monuments, has prompted a passionate response. Italian American groups have argued that Columbus “was essential in truly legitimizing our transition from Italians to Americans”. [MORE]

White Men who forced black man into coffin convicted of Attempted Murder in South Africa

Guardian 

A South African judge has found two white farmers guilty of attempted murder after they filmed themselves forcing a black man into a coffin and threatening to burn him alive.

Supporters of the victim celebrated in the courtroom after the judge, Segopotje Mphahlele, told the accused that “for attempted murder of Mr [Victor] Mlotshwa, I hereby find you both guilty.”

Willem Oosthuizen and Theo Martins Jackson were also found guilty of kidnap, intimidation and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

They had pleaded not guilty over the incident last year in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, saying they only intended to scare Mlotshwa after he allegedly stole copper cables from their farm.

Two clips of footage taken on their mobile phones showed the assailants shoving Mlotshwa down into the wooden coffin and pressing the lid closed with their boots as he begged for his life.

Rival activists from the ruling African National Congress, the main opposition Democratic Alliance and the radical Economic Freedom Fighters rallied outside court and attended each day of the trial.

When the first phone footage emerged several months ago, it triggered national outrage and led to the arrest of the two men.

“Please don’t kill me,” Mlotshwa begged the men while in the coffin, the footage shown.

“Why shouldn’t we, when you are killing our farm?” one replied.

Mlotshwa was in court to hear the verdicts against the two men, who had alleged that Mlotshwa had threatened to kill their families and burn farm crops before being forced into the coffin.

South Africa is beset by deep-rooted racial inequality 23 years after the end of white-minority apartheid rule, and cases of racism have erupted regularly on social media in recent years.

Outside the court on Friday, protesters carried mock coffins with pictures of the accused and called for them to be found guilty on all charges.

Mlotshwa said he was walking to the town of Middelburg to buy provisions for his mother and had decided to use a short cut when the two men spotted him.

The two men’s families told local media they were shocked over the verdicts.

The sentencing date was to be set by the court later on Friday.

Poll: Almost 60% of Votary say Trump Has Encouraged white supremacist groups

From [HERE] President Donald Trump’s response to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia has received a resounding thumbs down from US voters.

Americans overwhelmingly disapproved, 60 per cent to 32 per cent, of Mr Trump’s handling of the situation, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll.

Almost 60 per cent of voters said Mr Trump’s decisions and behaviour have encouraged white supremacistgroups, while only three per cent say he has discouraged these groups. The majority believe these groups pose a threat to the US.

In the wake of the Charlottesville rally – said to be the largest white supremacist gathering in the US decades – Mr Trump did make scripted remarks condemning white supremacist groups, including neo-Nazis and the KKK. One day later, however, he appeared to walk back those comments.

In a freewheeling press conference at Trump Tower, the President claimed that some “fine people” had attended the rally, defended statues of Confederate generals, and repeated his claim that “both sides” were to blame for the violence at the event.

Despite widespread backlash, Mr Trump defended his comments at a campaign rally this week, calling them "perfect”. The negative response, the President claimed, was engineered by the “fake news” media.

“They only take out anything they can think of, and for the most part, all they do is complain,” he said. “But they don't put on those words. And they don't put on me saying those words." 

But it appears Mr Trump has larger problems than his battle with the media: A record number of voters now say that prejudice against minority groups is a problem in America. Half of all voters say such prejudice is a “very serious” problem, while 31 per cent say it is somewhat serious. [MORE]

NAACP official: NFL should take our [unorganized, uncoordinated, random] boycott threat seriously

From [HERE] Colin Kaepernick, who ignited a national civil rights discussion when he knelt during the national anthem last NFL season in protest of racial injustice, still has no team. No club has signed Kaepernick since he became a free agent in March, the new season starts in two weeks, and the NAACP is outraged.

On Wednesday, the NAACP posted an open letter to the NFL demanding a meeting with commissioner Roger Goodell to discuss Kaepernick’s status. It also held simultaneous rallies in New York City (right outside NFL headquarters) and Atlanta.

To be clear: There is not, at this time, an NAACP boycott of the NFL. But the head of the Atlanta chapter tells Yahoo Finance unequivocally that the group is serious about initiating one if it doesn’t get a Goodell meeting.

“If there’s not a meeting before the start of the season, it’s my belief that the coalition will call for a boycott of the NFL,” says Gerald Griggs, an attorney and VP of the NAACP’s Atlanta chapter. 

Of course, Goodell can’t force a team to sign Kaepernick.

“We know the commissioner doesn’t have that power,” Griggs says, “But the fan bases that are parts of our organizations do. So at the same time we are demanding a meeting with Roger Goodell, we are also requesting meetings with the team owners in our local markets. And we have a branch in every city where there’s an NFL team.”

The NAACP has not officially heard from the NFL, but Griggs says that unofficially, “part of the response we heard was that he’s traveling. Well, we can meet him anywhere. Delta flies to most major cities.”

An NFL spokesperson tells Yahoo Finance, “We have yet to receive a letter.”

Last season, while Kaepernick was protesting, the NAACP “did not get involved vocally,” Griggs says, beyond supporting his First Amendment rights, which is an issue it always promotes. But now, officials feel compelled to act because, “we saw a pattern of preventing him from being employed. And now we are dedicated to the outcome of him pursuing employment.”

ACLU Challenges CA Voter Signature-Matching Law; Officials w/No Handwriting Expertise Can Discard Votes

From [HERE] The American Civil Liberties Union and Cooley LLP today sued California for invalidating the vote-by-mail ballots of tens of thousands of voters without warning.

At issue is a state law that allows election officials — who have no handwriting-analysis expertise — to reject a vote-by-mail ballot without providing notice if they feel the signature on the ballot envelope doesn’t match the signature on file for the voter.

“People should not be denied their right to vote because a government official doesn’t like their penmanship, but that’s exactly what is happening in California,” said Michael Risher, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California. “One disenfranchised voter would be too many, and we’re seeing tens of thousands of wrongly rejected ballots every election cycle in California alone.”

Nothing in the law tells voters they have to sign their ballot envelopes in any particular way, and election officials do not have to inform voters that their ballots are being thrown out or give them a chance to correct the signature problem. In California, thousands of eligible voters’ ballots are discarded each election cycle — with approximately 45,000 ballots discarded in the November 2016 general election alone due to a signature mismatch, disproportionately those of Asian American and Latino voters.

The suit asks that voters be notified of any signature concerns and given an opportunity to fix it before their vote is discarded.

“This disenfranchisement of eligible California voters is unconstitutional. Thousands more Californians stand to lose their vote in next year’s elections if this issue is not rectified now,” said Julie Ebenstein, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.

Nearly 60 percent of the votes cast in the 2016 general election were cast by mail, and more than half the state’s voters are registered to vote by mail permanently. This number has been steadily increasing and will likely increase even more in 2018, when some California counties will begin mailing every registered voter a ballot under a new state law.

“The principle that all votes should be counted is the cornerstone of democracy,” said William Donovan Jr., a partner at Cooley. “This is not a partisan issue, but rather the goal is to ensure that every voter gets his or her vote counted as more and more people vote by mail.”

The lawsuit, La Follette v. Padilla, was filed in the California Court of Appeals/First Appellate Division.

The complaint is at: https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/la-follette-v-padilla-complaint

This statement is at: https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-challenges-californias-voter-signature-matching-law

New Bill Would Force Arrested Protesters to Pay Police Overtime, Other Fees

The Intercept

A new bill introduced by seven Pennsylvania Republican state lawmakers could force protesters arrested at demonstrations to pay for police overtime and other fees related to the action.

The bill, SB 754, has been introduced by Rep. Scott Martin of Lancaster County; his district has been the site of anti-pipeline protests aimed at the Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline.

Under the terms of the bill, “a person is responsible for public safety response costs incurred by a State agency or political subdivision as a result of the State agency’s or political subdivision’s response to a demonstration if, in connection with the demonstration, the person is convicted of a felony or misdemeanor offense.”

In other words, they could be on the hook for costs, such as police overtime, medical or emergency response, or other basic public services associated with protests. Whatever felony or misdemeanor offense the protester was convicted of would come with its own independent penalty.

Elizabeth Randol, the legislative director at the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union, raised two separate concerns about the bill. First, she warned, it could end up punishing protesters for acts they didn’t commit. “People can be fined and charged, liable for costs associated with a particular crime they committed. That’s normal,” she noted. “What’s different is that it expands it … to allow the government entity, like say, a state or it could be the National Guard, it could be the police department, to determine, to leave it up to them as to whether or not they want to attempt to recover additional costs that are associated with the protest but that are not necessarily related to the specific crime that the individual was convicted of.”

She also warned that the legislation singles out protesters. After all, police and emergency personnel respond to all sorts of situations. “Public protests are very strictly protected in constitutional law,” Randol noted. “We’re all sensitive to costs and to what that does to a tax bill or the kind of stress and strain it puts on our first responders. But you can’t have those costs be borne on the back of people who are protesting and engaging in their First Amendment protected rights to speech and assembly.”

The text of the legislation is not subtle about being inspired by anti-pipeline protests. It includes a lengthy section laying out the costs associated with the demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota — citing specific figures, such as the “331,721 hours of response support” by local police and National Guard and a $38.2 million price tag for local and state taxpayers.

DeSmog Blog notes that Martin has close ties to pipeline lobbyists. Prior to joining the Pennsylvania Senate, Martin worked for a firm called Community Networking Strategies. CNS is a subsidiary of the lobbying firm, McNees, Wallace & Nurick — which lobbies for Gulf Oil Ltd, Industrial Energy Consumers of Pennsylvania, and Sunoco Logistics.

Sunoco Logistics is a company working on the Mariner East 2 pipeline, another Pennsylvania-based project that demonstrators have besieged. The company involved with the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline, Transco, hired the Pennsylvania Advocacy Group last year for consulting work; the Pennsylvania Advocacy Group was created in part by two lobbyists who worked at CNS.

Martin didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Top photo: A sign at the entrance to a small chapel built in the path of the proposed Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline by the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, a group of Catholic nuns that support environmental justice, in Columbia, Pennsylvania, July 30, 2017.

Racist Newt Gingrich: The left's opposition to Trump is "almost verbatim" reaction slave newspapers had to Lincoln

Media Matters

NEWT GINGRICH: Well, look, I think a very good friend of mine teaches Civil War history at Gettysburg College and he has made the case that the parallels between Trump's inaugural and Lincoln's inaugural and the reactions to them are amazing.

That if you go and you look at how South Carolina's slave newspapers responded to Lincoln and then you look at how the left responded to Trump. They are almost verbatim parallels. 

And you know, I wish we could all sing Kumbaya and come together but I don't think that's going to happen. I think what's going to happen is the left is going to get crazier and crazier.

U.S. police, cities have faced at least 435 wrongful death suits involving Tasers

Reuters

U.S. police departments and municipalities have faced at least 435 wrongful death suits involving Tasers, leading to at least $172 million in publicly funded payouts to estates and families of those who died, a Reuters examination found.

As Taser International Inc has issued increasingly expansive warnings about the risks associated with its weapons, a rising percentage of the liability claims has focused exclusively on police, while litigation against the manufacturer has grown rare. Behind the legal battles lies a troubling truth: Many police officers remain unaware that Tasers have the potential to kill.

Taser, which changed its name this year to Axon Enterprise Inc, says its product safety warnings are “strong and unambiguous” and that its advisories protect both the company and its police clients from liability.

DOJ drops Facist request for IP addresses from Trump resistance site

The Hill 

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is dropping its controversial request for visitor IP addresses related to an anti-Trump website. 

The government said in a brief released Tuesday that it has "no interest" in the 1.3 million IP addresses related to the website disruptj20.org. It says it is solely focused on information that could constitute evidence related to criminal rioting on Inauguration Day. 

“The Warrant — like the criminal investigation — is singularly focused on criminal activity,” the reply brief states. “It will not be used for any other purpose.” 

Privacy and civil liberties advocates were up in arms last week when the web hosting company DreamHost publicized a July 12 search warrant for information related to disruptj20.org, which was used to organize protests on Inauguration Day. 

DreamHost said complying with the request would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor IP addresses and other information about visitors to the site.

Lawyers for DreamHost opposed the warrant, arguing it raised First and Fourth Amendment concerns. 

“In essence, the Search Warrant not only aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website,” the company’s lawyers said in a legal argument opposing the request.

In response, the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., on Monday moved to amend the search warrant to DreamHost so that it specifies that the company should not disclose records that constitute HTTP request and error logs related to the website disruptj20.org. 

“What the government did not know when it obtained the Warrant — what it could not have reasonably known — was the extent of visitor data maintained by DreamHost that extends beyond the government’s singular focus in this case of investigating the planning, organization, and participation in the January 20, 2017, riot,” the reply brief states.  

The modified attachment to the search warrant also states that information requested from DreamHost should be limited to all records and information from between July 1, 2016, and Jan. 20, 2017. This information does not include content of unpublished draft publications for the website or records that constitute HTTP request and error logs that would reveal the IP addresses.

The brief also specifies that the information is being requested in connection with the ongoing investigation into the rioting that occurred on Inauguration Day. More than 200 people have been indicted on rioting charges related to the protests. 

“The government values and respects the First Amendment right of all Americans to participate in peaceful political protests and to read protected political expression online. This Warrant has nothing to do with that right,” the government states in the reply brief.

“The Warrant is focused on evidence of the planning, coordination and participation in a criminal act — that is, a premeditated riot. The First Amendment does not protect violent, criminal conduct such as this.” 

A lawyer for DreamHost celebrated the development as a win in a statement Tuesday evening, but said that the company still has First and Fourth Amendments concerns that it plans to address in a separate filing and at an upcoming hearing. 

"The government has now withdrawn entirely its unlawful and highly problematic request for any data relating to the visitors of the website and any unpublished data subject to the Privacy Protection Act," said Raymond Aghaian, the DreamHost counsel. "This is a tremendous win for DreamHost, its users and the public. There remains, unfortunately, other privacy and First and Fourth Amendment issues with the search warrant."

The government is asking the Superior Court of D.C. to compel DreamHost to produce the information requested in the warrant. A hearing on the issue has been schedule for Thursday morning before Chief Judge Robert Morin.

Congressional Black Caucus Tells Trump to Cancel the HBCU summit

CharlottePost

The White House has no plans to reschedule its conference for Historically Black Colleges and Universities scheduled for next month, despite calls from lawmakers and other leaders to postpone the event.

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, slammed the Trump administration in a call with reporters on Monday, noting that nothing has changed since HBCU leaders went to the White House in February.

“They brought all those HBCUs to town. They took a picture in the Oval Office and then they did nothing,” said Richmond. “If you look at President Trump’s budget he has a number of actions in it that actually hurt HBCUs.”

Instead of a conference, Richmond called for “substantive policies” to help HBCUs.

“I don’t think you need a conference in D.C. in order to do that,” Richmond told reporters. Further, he said, “This White House is not serious about improving our HBCUs, our institutions of advancement.”

President Trump signed an executive order in February establishing a White House Initiative on HBCUs. But despite fanfare surrounding the order and the White House-HBCUs listening sessions (at which there was “very little listening,” according to a subsequent blog post by Dillard University President Walter M. Kimbrough), no progress has been made, and Trump has not yet assigned someone to be in charge of the initiative.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported last month that the Trump administration is struggling to find someone willing to lead the effort. A spokesperson for the White House reportedly told the outlet that there are several finalists in the running for the position.

Meanwhile, Trump’s budget released in March proposed a 13.5 percent budget cut for the Education Department, going from $68.2 billion in 2017 to $59 billion in 2018. HBCUs and the Pell Grant Program were promised no additional funding, and the Pell Grant was set to lose its $3.9 billion reserve fund. Various programs that provide funding for students from low-income and disadvantaged backgrounds to attend school were scheduled for severe budget cuts or eliminated entirely.

Johnny Taylor, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, suggested in a letter to White House officials that substantive action be taken rather than hosting a conference, according to HBCU Digest.

“If the event is postponed, we request that the administration use the intervening period to hire an executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs and appointing the membership of the President’s Advisory Board on HBCUs; these appointments are necessary first steps for this administration to show its commitment to advancing the HBCU agenda,” the publication reported the letter as saying.

Citing “recent events” and inaction from the White House regarding HBCUs, U.S. Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.), chair of the North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus Foundation, said in a press release the event should not take place yet:

“Earlier this month, my colleagues and I asked the administration for an update on their progress regarding HBCUs. In February, the president signed an executive order outlining greater investments and additional resources for HBCUs. It has become painstakingly clear that these promises are not being kept. In this current environment, and with zero progress made on any of their priorities, it would be highly unproductive to ask HBCU presidents to come back to Washington.”

Adams did not explicitly mention Charlottesville in her statement. Following the violent rally that left a 32-year-old counter-protester dead at the hands of a 20-year-old white supremacist, Trump insisted there were “very fine people” on the neo-Nazi side of the rally and described violence “on both sides.”

According to Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, Lezli Baskerville, president and CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, directly addressed Trump’s remarks after Charlottesville in a letter to HBCU leaders.

Baskerville “made it clear that President Trump’s response to the ‘national disgrace that was Charlottesville and the false equivalency he made between the Nazis/white supremacists and those who opposed them’ have many people questioning his competence as president,” the publication reported.

Omarosa Manigault, director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison for the president, confirmed in a statement to BuzzFeed News that the conference would go as planned.

“President Trump’s commitment to the HBCU community remains strong and unwavering,” Manigault told the outlet. “Registration is currently at capacity and we are looking forward to welcoming HBCU presidents, students, and guests.”

“Though Manigault-Newman’s statement indicated that the White House would roll out announcements on the board and advisory committee during the conference, a source advising the White House on HBCUs said he’s talked to ‘multiple people’ in HBCU circles who have privately slammed Trump’s comments with disgust,” BuzzFeed reported.

The conference is scheduled for Sept. 17-19 in Arlington, Virginia.

Under Trump, white evangelicals show their true racist colors

LATimes

The statistics tell one story: 81% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. The deafening silence from leaders of the religious right in the wake of the neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Va., points to an even larger one, which places racism at the very heart of the movement.

On the face of it, evangelical support for Trump is anomalous. How can a movement ostensibly concerned about “family values” support a twice-divorced, thrice-married man who said that his “personal Vietnam” was avoiding sexually transmitted diseases? How could evangelicals vote for someone who flaunted his infidelities and who boasted about his tawdry behavior toward women?

The standard rejoinder is that evangelicals were so concerned about abortion and, therefore, judicial appointments that they were prepared to ignore Trump’s indiscretions to advance the one cause — opposition to abortion — that lay at the core of their political movement. That argument collapses, however, on historical examination.

Several evangelical leaders and evangelical organizations applauded the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. The late Paul Weyrich, architect of the religious right, was emphatic that abortion had nothing whatsoever to do with the genesis of evangelical political activism in the 1970s, a sentiment echoed by other conservative leaders, including Richard Viguerie and Grover Norquist. [MORE]