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Dear Editor: In response to Dave Zweifel's "Plain Talk: The latest proof the world has been turned upside down: Rand Paul's objection to an anti-lynching bill":

Lynching is still not a federal hate crime in this country due to the objections that one senator, Rand Paul, had to the bill. His argument is that the definition of lynching is too broad. He says the breadth of the definition both cheapens the issue of lynching and could lead to miscarriages of justice by sentencing those tried to 10 years in prison for inflicting only minor injuries.

To require a threshold of how effectively a hate crime is carried out is to misunderstand the purpose and precedent of hate crimes. Hate crimes are about intent and motive. Indeed, this is the power of its legal status and what would differentiate this crime in many ways from murder and attempted murder. Ten and 20-year sentences for hate-based death threats and arson attempts are common.

Rand Paul's argument that you need to be lynched enough to use the term seems a textbook double-standard and a sinister example of the system telling Black people, "it's not that bad," "stop complaining," "get over it."

Confusing this double-standard slightly is that cross burning is a hate crime with origins tied up in much of the same white-on-black racial terror as lynching. Louie Revette was just sentenced to 11 years in federal prison in November 2019 for a cross burning carried out near the homes of African American residents. It seems we have managed to appropriately criminalize cross burning, but not the act its threatening presence implies.

Original post:
Annette Ritchie: Objection to anti-lynching bill sets a sinister double standard - Madison.com

SLAVERY POLITICS-Emancipation Day celebrations concluded this weekend, accompanied by significant talk among elected officials about finally recognizing Juneteenth as a national holiday.

However, the specter of the stalled federal Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Actshould remind us of the continuing struggle by Black Americans to obtain not only freedom, but also security.

After the Civil War, Black Americans enjoyed a precarious freedom in which extralegal violence was a common problem. For the newly freed, exercising their liberty could bring violent rebuke.

Juneteenth should not only be a commemoration of emancipation, but also a reminder of the work ahead in making the promise of freedom and equality that so many Black Americans fought and died for a reality.

Such was the case in July 1867 when Union War veteran William Obie Evans was lynchedin Delaware. Enslaved near Fredericksburg, Maryland, Evans initially asserted his freedom under the Emancipation Proclamation. Like nearly 180,000 other Black Americans, he later enlisted in the Union Army. He served in the U.S. Colored Troops and on July 30, 1864, was wounded during the Battle of the Crater outside of Petersburg, Virginia.

After mustering out of the service in 1865, Evans faced the same challenge as other Black Union veterans. They awaited payment on enlistment bounties without an immediate means of making a living. Evans travelled to Delaware, where he bartered with a local farmer by putting up his bounty papers in exchange for a cash loan that he would presumably pay off with his labor.

When he later learned that the bounties were being paid, Evans asked the farmer to release him from his bond so that he could claim his bounty and repay the loan. The farmer, however, was more interested in retaining Evanss labor and refused. A few days later, a mysterious fire destroyed one of the farmers barns and outhouses. Although no evidence connected Evans to the fire, suspicion immediately fell on him.

A few nights later, a party of masked men arrived on the farm to mete out their own form of justice. The next day, Evanss body was discovered dangling from the limbs of a willow tree a short distance from the farmers home. Despite his service to the Union Army, Evans was buried in a common grave. A Black woman with whom Evans was familiar was ultimately tried and acquitted for the arson.

Evanss murder predates the thousands of lynchingsthat occurred in the United States between 1882 and 1968 that normally occupy our attention. In a recent study, Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson documentedmore than 2,000 lynchings between 1865 and 1877, underscoring the longer history of such extralegal violence and its impact on Black communities.

Stevensons work demonstrates the importance of examining the long history of racial violence in America. The pain that comes from learning about unpunished and forgotten acts of terror like lynchings can be as impactful as witnessing acts of violence against Black and brown bodies in our own time.

It passed the House of Representatives in February after more than 100 years of efforts by a vote of 410 to 4, only to be obstructed in the U.S. Senate by a single lawmaker, Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul.This work of historical recovery can support activists efforts. In addition to honoring celebrations such as Juneteenth and pushing for police abolition, we must draw on history to push for the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act and demonstrate the necessity for such legislation in its strongest form.

The proposed bill, which would establish lynching as a federal crime, is now stalledin Congress. It passed the House of Representatives in February after more than 100 years of efforts by a vote of 410 to 4, only to be obstructed in the U.S. Senate by a single lawmaker, Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul.

Finding constructive ways to reckon with painful chapters in our history is also a powerful tool for addressing the underlying trauma that informs so many of our discussions of race, violence, and criminal justice in America. It can unite communities in the search for truth and invite conversations about changing values that should inform memorials that decorate the public spaces we share. In either case, historical recovery is a critical step.

Without the knowledge of what came before, it is difficult to assess and address what must be done now to reform and/or eradicate those barriers to equal justice that have allowed stories like William Obie Evanss to be lost. This is exactly why stories, like that of Evans, must be recovered and shared.

Evanss lynching is not currently recognized as an act of racial violence in Delaware. This means the state also does not formally acknowledge the murder of a veteran as a wrongdoing.

Let that sink in.

Juneteenth should not only be a commemoration of emancipation, but also a reminder of the work ahead in making the promise of freedom and equality that so many Black Americans fought and died for a reality -- which includes the passage of legislation like the proposed anti-lynching bill.

(Yohuru Williams is an education activist and professor of history at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. He is the author, editor,or co-editor of several books, including Black Politics/White Power: Civil Rights Black Power and Black Panthers in New Haven (Blackwell,2006), Teaching Beyond the Textbook: Six Investigative Strategies (Corwin Press, 2008), and Liberated Territory: Toward a Local Historyof the Black Panther Party (Duke, 2008). He also served as general editor for the Association for the Study of African American Life andHistorys 2002 and 2003 Black History Month publications, The Color Line Revisited (Tapestry Press, 2002) and The Souls of Black Folks:Centennial Reflections (Africa World Press, 2003).

Savannah Shepherd is the founder of the Delaware Social Justice Remembrance Coalition which works to discover and memorialize victims of racial violence in the state. She's a graduate of Sanford School and will attend Swarthmore College in fall 2020.) This piece appeared in Common Dreams. Photo: Photo: Ron Cogswell/flickr/cc. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

Read more here:
There's No Excuse for Blocking the Anti-Lynching Bill - City Watch

Todays SYSTEM UPDATE episode about this topic with guests Krystal Ball and Nathan Robinson can be viewed onThe Intercepts YouTube channelor on the player below.

A significant ideological split withinGOP politicsis as clear andvitriolicas the one within the Democratic Party. Andthat growing division meansthat, along with vehement differences, there is ample agreement on specific, consequential issues between the factions that identify as the populist left and populist right. Oftenthere is more agreement between them than either group finds with the establishment wing of the political party with which they most identify.

In 2016, Donald Trump campaigned on (though he most certainly did not ultimately govern) in opposition tonumerous long-standing Republican orthodoxies: he railed against job-killing free trade agreements, vowed to raise taxes on the rich and eliminate corporate lobbyist control over the legislative process, venerated the need to protect and even increase social programs, and most viciously scorned the Bush familys imperialism and regime change wars.That he won the GOP nomination against highly-funded, establishment-backed candidates such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio demonstrates that there is at least now tolerance, if not outright support, for those positions that had been taboo in mainstream Republican politics.

Polling shows that classic left-wing economic positions such as universal health care coverage and raising the minimum wage command majority support, proving those views extend beyond left-wing precincts.One of the political officials most devoted to and passionate about breaking up monopolistic power long a central left-wing goal is the right-wing Senator Josh Hawley, who also opposes international free trade organizations such as the WTO (the defining goal of the left-wing 1999 Seattle protests).

When Bernie Sanders wanted to impose limits on Trumps ability to bomb Yemen, he found key support with theright-wing Tea PartySenator Mike Lee; the same was true of Dennis Kucinichs partnership with Ron Paul to audit the Fed and Cory Bookers work with Rand Paul to usher in radical criminal justice reform. The host of the most-watched Fox News program, Tucker Carlson, has railed against the evils of predatory capitalism, supported AOCs efforts to impede tax breaks to Amazon, given a sympathetic hearing to a pro-Maduro journalist opposed to regime change in Venezuela, and played a significant role in stopping air strikes against both Syria and Iran.

The reason these two factions have different names left-wingpopulism andright-wing populism is that, in addition to these convergences, they have serious and meaningful divergences. Trump as President adhered to almost none of his orthodoxy-busting campaign rhetoric. Hawleys economic populistbranding can ring hollow when set next to his support for corporate tax cuts that benefit the rich and his opposition to liveable wage legislation. And Carlsons repellent-to-liberalism views led byhis support for authoritarian responses toprotesters and his racially divisive rhetoric are legion.

But none of those serious divergencesnegates the fact that the left which does not come close to claiming a majority of the population finds common ground with thepopulist faction of the right on some of its most important political positions. And there are millions of people across the country who identity as conservative or on the right due to their views on social issues and immigration but hold economically left-wing populist views.

The question then becomes: what should the left do in those cases? Should it work in conjunction with those on the right to build a majority and implement those policies, and engage in dialogue with opinion leaders and media figures on the right to reach more people who can be persuaded to think in trans-partisan, working-class terms? Or should it declare anyone associated with the populist right off-limits even for issue-by-issue collaboration on the ground that other views they hold are pernicious? And if holding pernicious views renders those on the populist right radioactive and off-limits, why is the same not true of establishment Democrats who have led the way to construct and champion the racist prison state, the drug war, jobs-destroying free trade agreements, regime change wars from Iraq to Libya, blind support for Israeli aggression, and a whole slew of other crucial policies utterly anathema to the left (all of which applies to Joe Biden, among others)?

This debate has been lurking for years as anti-establishment fervor and political realignment emerge not just in the U.S. but across the democratic world in the wake of the destruction wrought by the dominant neoliberal ideology. But in the U.S., it erupted over the last couple of weeks as the result of a vitriolic exchange between two smart, prominent left-wing commentators. Intwo separatearticles, Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson compared right-wing populist media figures such as Carlson and Rising co-host Saager Enjeti to Bolsonaro, Mussolini and even Hitler to insist that right-wing populism is simply a lie and nobody who is on the Left should have anything to do with it. That provokeda stinging response from one of the principal targets of Robinsonscritique, Enjetis Rising co-host Krystal Ball, who says the left should take yes for an answer as she argued that it is morally irresponsible not to find allies where one can and not to communicate with as many people as possible in order to implement a left-wing populist agenda.

Todays episode of SYSTEM UPDATE on The Intercepts YouTube channelis devoted to exploring this vital question, and I speak to both Robinson and Ball about their very different views on this question.

Continue reading here:
Should the Populist Left Work With the Populist Right Where They Have Common Ground, or Shun Them? - The Intercept - First Look Media

Note: This article includes offensive screenshots from Parler users.

As incendiary Twitter accounts have increasingly been held accountable by the enforcement of Twitters terms of service, some right-wing users have taken to crying censorship.

Here is what transpired. The accounts in question mademultipleoffenses. They appeared toviolate the rules. They werewarned. They weregiven explanations. Nevertheless,they persisted.

And now several Republican officials have taken notice and concluded that this is a grave constitutional issue. Free speech itself is in danger. For Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Devin Nunes, and others, ensuring that even the dregs of society can post with impunity is a priority without peer. A private company is putting a warning label on users who inject violent or racist material on its platform? Somebody call James Madison, the Constitution is on fire!

If you are like Ted, Rand, and Devin and are wondering whether Twitter is just a wee bit too politewhether it could be more welcoming of fringe viewpointshave we got good news for you.

These Republican leaders are pretending to leave Twitter, joining such intellectual luminaries as Dan Bongino, Jacob Wohl, Eric Trump, and Dinesh DSouza, in the Autonomous Safe Zone App, Parler.

The Parler website even has a Declaration Of Internet Independence slamming the Technofascism of Silicon Valley and Twitter and claiming that millionsyes, millionshave been banned for their political ideology. We The People have had enough! they cry, demanding Free Speech and Liberties and other good things with Randomly Capitalized Letters.

Doesnt that sound like a wonderful company?

In reality, the largest group of accounts targeted for suspension from Twitter have been bots and terrorists, like the tens of millions of fake accounts removed after the scale of Russian interference in the 2016 election became clear, or the roughly 250,000 accounts associated with ISIS/ISIL removed after the 2015 terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.

And when right-wing activists have gone to court to complain about getting kicked off Twitter, it hasnt gone well for themLaura Loomer sued in 2018 over having been banned from the platform and the court threw out her case. As Forbes reported at the time, The judges dismissed the claim that the tech companies violated their First Amendment rights, noting that the suit didnt show how those rights could have been violated since the First Amendment only protects against governmental infringement on speech. The facts dont care about your feelings.

But if your feelings are telling you youre still in danger of being silenced by the evil left-wing technofascist bros of the Bay Area, we figured you might have a few questions. So heres a quick peek at what itll look like when you pop into Parler, based on an eight-minute perusal of the app.

PARLER FAQ:

1) Do you have questions about whether the George Floyd murder is a false flag? If so, this is a good place to explore those theories.

2) Are you interested in exploring theories about Jewish history or Judaism?

3) Do you like to learn about history . . . and the influence of Judaism on key historical figures?

4) Are you interested in current events? . . . and, again, the influence of Judaism therein?

5) Have you felt that the existing social media platforms dont provide you enough opportunity to post pro-slavery memes?

6) Jesus was white and had blue eyes. Agree or Agree?

If youve gotten this far and are interested, we do have a bit of bad news. Most of the available user names containing the N-word have already been taken by the original settlers:

This looks like a grotesque hellscape of racist incels who have the emotional maturity of 13-year-old brats at a segregated boys prep school. And it reveals that the problem going forward for conservatives is deeper than just Donald Trump. Parler and the fanciful rage that supports it are symptomatic of a party and a movement that are overrun by grifters and intellectually bereft trolls championing constitutional illiteracy.

But for Ted and Rand and Devin, this is just what a web free from evil cEnSoRs looks like.

So enjoy, fellas, and congrats on your new neighbors and your freedom from @jacks oppressive hand.

See you back on Twitter in a few weeks (hours).

Go here to read the rest:
The Gross Hellscape That Awaits Ted Cruz on Parler - The Bulwark

The killing of George Floyd wrought riots in the streets, yet police shootings continue to mount.

And for all their efforts, the Founding Fathers never stopped to pose an obvious question: How can we save the nation from someday being destroyed by a large orange raccoon?

If it all feels rather apocalyptic, take solace, fellow citizens. All this misery seems to have delivered us a rare bout of introspection. Look beneath the hood, and youll find a seismic shift in public sentiment, suggesting we may have finally decided to mend our ways.

Here are six reasons for hope, by the numbers:

54

The percentage of Americans who believe protesters were justified in burning a Minneapolis police precinct.

Okay, so no one really likes torching government buildings, since it amounts to setting fire to our own property. Yet with police killings now caught on tape for all the world to see, the old tropes of dont get arrested, dont resist, and he probably deserved it are being roundly detonated on instant replay.

Five years ago, only half the country considered racism a big problem. Today its at 76 percent. Meanwhile, just 7 percent believe our police system is essentially sound. When an awakening arrives of this magnitude, things change quickly even in the most unlikely of places.

98-0

That was the vote in the Iowa House for a new law that bans chokeholds and bars officers from working again in the state if theyve been fired for misconduct. More surprising: It was approved by a Republican majority. Then theres Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Only a few weeks ago he was single-handedly holding up an anti-lynching bill. Now hes seeking a nationwide ban on no-knock warrants, the kind that put eight bullets into emergency room technician Breonna Taylor as she slept.

Even the Human Incendiary Device, Donald Trump, is feeling the pressure. He signed an executive order that would track police misconduct and raise standards for use of force.

Yes, its meaningless, since its nothing more than a series of guiding principles. But when a man with Ted Bundys sense of empathy feels obliged to feign compassion, you know the times are changing.

If Black Lives Matter was a presidential candidate, it would crush Trump in a landslide. BLMs current approval rating: 62 percent, nearly double what it was four years ago. Donald Trumps: 40.

1/3

The percentage of Tucker Carlson Tonight revenue propped up by a single advertiser, MyPillow.

Its hard to have a moderately sane country when top-rated news hosts are triggered by Sesame Street specials on racism. Combined with talk radio and an army of frothing websites, one could argue that Fear Thy Neighbor Television is the greatest propaganda force since the Third Reich, dispensing an alternate reality where the white mans besieged, the villain de jour is coming to take your riding lawn mower, and the only road to salvation is to give all our money to the job creators.

As Foxs resident blueblood recently put it:

This may be a lot of things, this moment we are living through. But it is definitely not about black lives. And remember that when they come for you.

Yet the boardroom caste has belatedly discovered theyre funding the wrong side of history. Carlsons show is hemorrhaging advertisers, an exodus that includes Disney, Papa Johns, T-Mobile, Pacific Life and Farmers Insurance.

When the Beast loses its primary source of nutrition, good things are in store. So the next time you see a Wendys commercial vowing nebulous solidarity, think of it not as another shallow attempt to ingratiate. Think of it as the dawn of a transformational moment in the executive suite.

They may not understand it all. They may not even agree. But theyre getting the distinct sense they can no longer be seen in polite society with the Tucker Carlsons of the world, lest they imperil their one true love money.

29

The number of states with surging Covid cases.

No, this is not actually a good thing. But its what happens when half the country believes its mastered epidemiology by glancing at a Facebook meme. And in a painful, backward way, it may be the one thing that spares the nation from Death By Gooberism.

The surge is concentrated in the sunbelt states, where governors fear that adhering to science makes them look weak and effete. (Point of order: Youre doing just fine with that on your own, pal.) So they pretended a global pandemic just went away.

Think of it as the All Lives Matter Except Grandmas Campaign. The peasantry was sent back to work, the job creators remained safely ensconced at home, and Trump could finally launch his much anticipated Risk Death to Celebrate Me summer tour.

If tens of thousands of more people died, so be it as long as the death part handled by a different department.

In many ways, weve become akin to the country that still uses bloodletting and leeches after the rest of the world discovers penicillin. Yet theres an upside to this self-inflicted agony.

Once upon a time less than half the nation thought climate change was real. Then Mother Nature sent hurricanes, rising seas and 100-year floods to the homelands of Gooberville, the sunbelt. Suddenly, climate change could no longer be dismissed as someone elses problem. Belief rose to 80 percent.

Consider the latest Covid surge another Pavlovian lesson, targeting the Disciples of Mean Jesus who wont make the smallest sacrifice for thy neighbor. And its carrying the gift of enlightenment.

1.4 percent

Joe Bidens lead among voters 65 and older.

No ones confusing Biden with the Second Coming. Or even a minor saint whos nonetheless pleasant at dinner parties. But when the alternative is the Worlds Most Vile Attempted Human , its a bit like saying, I know we should get rid of Stalin, but shouldnt we wait to find the perfect replacement?No. We must drive the serpent from the temple. Now.

And our elders may prove our saviors.

In 2016, Trump won in part by a 13-point lead with the elder vote. He did so with a Republican playbook thats worked for decades: Pound them with fear of changing world. Make them tremble at the immigrant hordes invading our shores. Promise that the country could be great again if only they elected an incompetent daddys boy, just like the great presidents of yesteryear.

It wasnt exactly a masters class in propaganda. But if youre old, isolated, and frame your worldview from the nightly prattle of Sean Hannity, you believed. This was especially important because about 70 percent of older people vote in presidential elections. By contrast, the under-30 crowd hasnt broken 50 percent in the last 40 years. (Want someone to blame for our odious leaders, Sweet Youth of America? Examine the mirror tomorrow morning.)

But Trumps handling of the coronavirus has made his intentions clear. In a choice between the Dow Jones Industrial Average or some 70-year-olds continued breathing, hes definitely going with the Dow.

Thats left older voters to bail en masse. Biden and Trump are now in a statistical dead heat. Weirdly enough, when the elderly must choose who to fear more a Mexican meatpacker or a president doing his best to make them dead the Mexican doesnt seem so scary anymore.

25 percent

Bidens current lead among women.

In 2016, Trump received just 41 percent of the womens vote, a nonetheless impressive showing for a serial sex offender. But among white women alone, he rose to 52 percent. This tragic figure led some to believe that women could eventually prove as dumb as men. Yet polling now shows a full recovery from this bout of madness. Bidens lead among women is the highest in polling history. Its not only enough to boot the man-child-in-chief, but may well portend the coming of female-dominant governance.

Judging by mans track record alone, we should already have a constitutional amendment barring anyone in possession of a penis from public office. Were the people who brought you school massacres, congressional gridlock, corporations as humans, the anti-Christ McConnell, and the most expensive health care in the world. And these are just the appetizers.

Even if women just decided to, say, value human life as much as the stock market, wed be rocketing toward a bold new world.

The numbers say that world is coming.

Go here to read the rest:
6 Reasons Why 2020 May Actually Be the Year of Hope - Cleveland Scene