Wednesday, 12 August 2020

BLM activists march in support of protesters arrested overnight in Chicago

BLM activists march in support of protesters arrested overnight in Chicago

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BLM activists march in support of protesters arrested overnight in ChicagoiBlack Lives Matter (BLM) protesters marched in Chigaco in an act of solidarity with more than 100 people who were arrested during unrest and violence on Sunday night.More than 100 individuals were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, looting, and battery against the police on Sunday night into Monday, NBC Chicago reported.




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Trump and his aides reportedly think they have Democrats in a 'real pickle' with the COVID-19 aid stalemate

Trump and his aides reportedly think they have Democrats in a 'real pickle' with the COVID-19 aid stalemate

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Trump and his aides reportedly think they have Democrats in a 'real pickle' with the COVID-19 aid stalemateThe Democratic-led House passed a huge COVID-19 aid package in May, the Republican-led Senate began discussing its more modest alternative in July, but after talks between congressional Democrats and the White House negotiating team broke down last Friday, it may well be September before any relief package reaches President Trump's desk. "In fact, we are told it could be weeks before any serious talks resume barring any significant events like Wall Street sell-offs or a run of truly dismal economic data," Ben White reports at Politico."The impasse leaves millions of jobless people without a $600-per-week pandemic bonus jobless benefit that has helped families stay afloat, leaves state and local governments seeking fiscal relief high and dry, and holds back a more than $100 billion school aid package," The Associated Press reports. "Money for other priorities, including the election, may come too late, if at all."House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are all in Washington, though rank-and-file members of Congress have returned to their districts and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the other key member of Trump's negotiating team, "left Washington this week for an unspecified amount of time," The Washington Post reports.Talks are on hold for now because "Meadows is out for the week but mostly because the administration feels confident they have the upper hand politically," thanks to Trump's less-than-advertised executive orders, Politico's White reports. "One official said the White House feels it has Democrats in a 'real pickle.'" Pelosi and Schumer, meanwhile, "have adopted hardball negotiating tactics as they survey a tactical landscape that favors them," AP reports. "They have given some ground on the overall price tag, but say it's up to Republicans to acknowledge the scope of the crisis." Senate Republicans are sharply divided on whether more relief is even necessary.Schumer, Pelosi, and Mnuchin negotiated four huge COVID-19 relief packages in short order earlier in the pandemic, before Meadows took over as Trump's chief of staff, and Democrats largely blame his participation — and his pushing Trump to sidestep Congress with executive orders — for derailing the talks. "What the president doesn't understand is that Meadows knows how to do one thing — be a Freedom Caucus member," one senior administration official told the Post. "He isn't some consensus-builder or a dealmaker."More stories from theweek.com Trump has pretty much eliminated daily intelligence briefings. Biden has already started receiving them. Kamala Harris hammers Trump's coronavirus 'failure' in 1st speech as VP candidate The case against American truck bloat




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Black N.Y. City Council Members Claim Progressive Calls to Defund Police ‘Have Overshadowed Our Fight’

Black N.Y. City Council Members Claim Progressive Calls to Defund Police ‘Have Overshadowed Our Fight’

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Black N.Y. City Council Members Claim Progressive Calls to Defund Police ‘Have Overshadowed Our Fight’In the wake of calls to address racism and police brutality, some black and Latino lawmakers in New York and New Jersey are urging their colleagues to pump the brakes on proposals to slash police department budgets.City councilwoman Vanessa Gibson, a liberal Democrat who represents a West Bronx district where over half of residents are Hispanic and 40 percent are black, said her constituents “want to see cops in the community.”“They don’t want to see excessive force. They don’t want to see cops putting their knees in our necks,” Gibson said. “But they want to be safe as they go to the store.”New York City passed a new budget last month that cut $1 billion from the police department budget and re-purposed the funds for education and social services. The decision came amid calls from activists to slash even more funding from the police budget and as the city suffers a $9 billion revenue loss due to coronavirus lockdown measures."I don't want anyone to misunderstand and think that we don't care and that we have not been working our behinds off to get to a place of equity," Gibson said in early July when the city's new budget was passed, adding that communities must not be "left behind with crime, violence, illegal guns in our communities, no programs, no activities, and no hope for a better tomorrow."Laurie Cumbo, the city council's black Democratic majority leader who represents parts of several Brooklyn neighborhoods including Bedford-Stuyvesant, compared the demands of activists to “colonization.”"These are individuals that have never been seen before, active before,” she said. “This takeover is very similar to many of the movements that we’ve seen in colonization.”Alicka Ampry-Samuel, a black councilwoman who represents Brownsville, one of Brooklyn's poorest neighborhoods, expressed concern that the new voices pushing for reform could overshadow those in her community."We have fought for police reform and more funding every single budget cycle," she said. "This debate is not new to me. What is new are the additional voices of concern added to the conversation, which at times have overshadowed our fight.”Other black and Latino council members, including Antonio Reynoso of Brooklyn, who represents the more gentrified areas of Williamsburg and Bushwick, were more open to cutting funding to the NYPD.“We have wrongly been told our whole lives that police keep us safe,” Reynoso said.In New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, the state's largest city, dismissed calls to dismantle police departments as a “bourgeois liberal” solution to the problem of racism.“I think it’s kind of a knee-jerk reaction,” said the Democratic mayor, who is black.“I think there needs to be significant reforms," he continued. "To get rid of the police department — who would respond to calls for service for violence and domestic abuse?”“At the end of the day, I think that the city and the residents here need police officers in their communities,” Baraka said.




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Wave of evictions sweeps US amid impasse over coronavirus protections

Wave of evictions sweeps US amid impasse over coronavirus protections

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Wave of evictions sweeps US amid impasse over coronavirus protections* Moratorium in federal housing expired at end of July * Trump stopgap measures seen as of doubtful efficacyA huge wave of evictions is gathering pace across the US, with tens of millions of people facing the looming prospect of being ejected from their homes with the expiry of federal government protections.A moratorium on evictions from most federally backed housing, along with a $600-a-week unemployment benefit, helped ensure many Americans avoided being made homeless from an economic crash sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.But these protections expired at the end of July and a slew of evictions are starting to unfurl across the country, while party leaders are at an impasse over further economic relief and a slew of stopgap measures from Donald Trump are on an uncertain path.A picture shared widely on the internet described “eviction cairns” in New Orleans, showing belongings heaped beside the road, reportedly from a family of six that had been evicted from their home after being unable to pay rent.According to the Aspen Institute, a non-profit thinktank, at least 30 million Americans out of the 110 million who live in rental housing are at risk of eviction by the end of September.The organization warned the Covid-19 crisis will cause “long-term harm to renter families and individuals, disruption of the affordable housing market and destabilization of communities across the United States”.The lapsing of eviction protections means that many people, unable to afford rent or mortgages, have been plunged into a precariously vulnerable situation. “There’s tremendous urgency,” Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told NPR. “There are millions of renters who can’t sleep at night because they don’t know what they’re going to do if they become homeless.”The fresh disaster to stem from the pandemic is set to reach all corners of the US. A study by UCLA found that as many as 120,000 households in Los Angeles county, including up to 184,000 children, will probably become homeless when evictions resume.Meanwhile, in South Carolina, 52% of renters cannot afford their rent and risk eviction, with about 185,000 evictions possible across the state by the end of the year, according to Stout Risius Ross, a consultancy firm.“A lot of the safety net things that people relied on are gone,” said John Pollock, coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel. Stripped of federal assistance, and with many states also scaling back help, many people are having to rely upon savings or credit in order to retain their homes.On Saturday, Trump signed an executive order on evictions that the White House said would address the situation. In the action, the president vowed to defer payroll taxes, waive student loan payments and secure unemployment benefits, albeit at a lower rate of $400 a week. The order also pledged to help renters facing eviction, although all of the measures were provisional on other actions or studies, and sowed confusion and controversy about certainty and timescale.“I’m protecting people from eviction,” Trump said on Saturday. “You’ve been hearing a lot about eviction, and the Democrats don’t want to do anything having to do with protecting people from eviction.”However, the order doesn’t actually extend the moratorium on evictions, nor provide any rental assistance to those unable to pay. Instead, it orders federal agencies, such as the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, to look at options for protecting renters. Housing advocates attacked the order as a toothless gesture.“The president alluded to ‘stopping evictions’, but the executive order fails to provide any meaningful relief to the millions of renters who are at risk of losing their homes,” Yentel said. “President Trump failed even to use his existing authority to reinstate the limited federal eviction moratorium that expired on July 24, which covered 30% of renters nationwide.”Deferring evictions is only one part of the action required, advocates argue. Even though many landlords have been barred from removing renters unable to pay until now, the owed amount of rent has continued to accumulate, meaning that tenants will face a huge bill once protections are lifted. About half of landlords are small, family-run operations, meaning that they, along with renters, may require substantial financial assistance to avoid ruin.




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China: No U.S-Taiwan ties under any pretext

China: No U.S-Taiwan ties under any pretext

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China: No U.S-Taiwan ties under any pretext

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters during a daily briefing that "those who play with fire will get burnt".

U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar attacked China's response to the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday (August 11) and said that if such an outbreak had emerged in Taiwan or the United States it could have been "snuffed out easily".

Azar arrived in Taiwan on Sunday (August 9) as the highest-level U.S. official to visit in four decades, a trip condemned by China.

Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has vowed to bring it under its rule, by force if necessary.




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