23 June 20
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It’s a shame that raising what little we need absorbs so much of energy. That’s not right.
Pitch in a bit. It absolutely matters.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
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Reader Supported News
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23 June 20
Preet Bharara, The New York Times
Bharara writes: "President Trump has long made clear that, for him, 'rule of law' is a limited-utility slogan."
He has pressured individuals and institutions to pervert their usual independent government missions to comply with a mandate of pure self-interest to protect the president and his friends and pursue the president’s adversaries. This explains Mr. Trump’s ire at his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the Russia investigation; recusal made the protection part of the mandate harder to accomplish.
It also explains the president’s conduct at the heart of impeachment — using the diplomatic and financial levers of government to coerce Ukraine into announcing a damaging investigation of Joe Biden, his chief political rival. The episode is what the former Russia adviser Fiona Hill disparagingly referred to in her testimony as “a domestic political errand.”
Two police stand at their vehicle. (photo: Guardian Liberty Voice)
Tom Perkins, Guardian UK
Perkins writes: "Police unions and officers active in America's three largest cities spend tens of millions of dollars annually to influence law enforcement policy and thwart pushes for reform."
The Guardian identified about $87m in local and state spending over the last two decades by the unions. That includes at least $64.8m in Los Angeles, $19.2m in New York City and $3.5m in Chicago. Records show that most spending occurred during the last 10 years as contributions and lobbying dramatically increased in most jurisdictions.
At the federal level, police officers and their unions have spent at least $47.3m on campaign contributions and lobbying in recent election cycles, according to Maplight data and US Senate and US House records.
“The power of their money runs very deep,” said Hamid Khan, director of Stop LAPD Spying, a grassroots anti-surveillance watchdog group. “[Local governments] have become rubber-stamp bodies in which police power is never challenged.”
Several unions contacted by the Guardian did not respond to requests for comment. But Tab Rhodes, president of the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association (PPOA), wrote in a recent letter to its 8,000 members that the union needed more money to “establish collaborative relationships” with lawmakers.
Though the PPOA and sheriff’s department have spent more than $10.4m on political contributions in recent years, Rhodes is soliciting $2m more in annual donations from members.
Activists say political spending is partly to blame, and union money flows to lawmakers who are supposed to be reforming the department. The Guardian identified more than $21.6m in state and local political spending by the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL), which represents nearly 10,000 LAPD officers.
It and other Los Angeles county police unions strategically direct funding at key players, including Herb Wesson Jr, chair of the council’s ad hoc committee on police reform. Wesson has received at least $751,000 from police unions and faced heavy criticism for using his role to make it more difficult to hold officers accused of wrongdoing accountable. He did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.
Suraj Patel is challenging Representative Carolyn B. Maloney in a Democratic primary for the second time. (photo: Idris Solomon/NYT)
NY Democrats Brace for Primary Night Stunners
Jonathan Easley and Julia Manchester, The Hill
Excerpt: "House Democrats in New York are bracing for a turbulent election day, with incumbents feeling the heat from upstart primary challengers while open seats attract huge fields of candidates."
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Jonathan Easley and Julia Manchester, The Hill
Excerpt: "House Democrats in New York are bracing for a turbulent election day, with incumbents feeling the heat from upstart primary challengers while open seats attract huge fields of candidates."
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Demonstrators bring candles and flowers, June 13, 2020, around a tree where Robert Fuller was found dead June 10 in Poncitlan Square in Palmdale, California. (photo: VOA)
Five Black and Brown Men Have Been Recently Found Hanged in Public. Were Some of Them Lynched?
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "These hangings really come out of a climate in the White House in which there is intense vitriol and hatred that's being messaged, and people are being energized and activated around those messages."
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "These hangings really come out of a climate in the White House in which there is intense vitriol and hatred that's being messaged, and people are being energized and activated around those messages."
American artist, painter, and professor Aaron Douglas at his home in Tennessee in the 1970s. Douglas was one of several artists commissioned by the Works Progress Administration during the 1930s. (photo: Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images)
Artists Helped Lift America Out of the Great Depression. Could That Happen Again?
Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
Wilkinson writes: "In the 1930s, as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and its Works Progress Administration effort, the federal government hired more than 10,000 artists to create works of art across the country, in a wide variety of forms - murals, theater, fine arts, music, writing, design, and more."
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Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
Wilkinson writes: "In the 1930s, as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and its Works Progress Administration effort, the federal government hired more than 10,000 artists to create works of art across the country, in a wide variety of forms - murals, theater, fine arts, music, writing, design, and more."
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The reproduction number of the coronavirus in Germany has risen sharply. (photo: CNN)
Coronavirus: Germany Outbreak Sparks Fresh Local Lockdown
BBC
Excerpt: "More than 1,500 employees of the Tönnies plant have tested positive."
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BBC
Excerpt: "More than 1,500 employees of the Tönnies plant have tested positive."
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A view of an energy plant's dumpsite in Novosibirsk, a city in the Russian region of Siberia. (photo: Rostislav Netisov/Getty Images)
Hottest Arctic Temperature Record Likely Set With 100-Degree Reading in Siberia
Andrew Freedman, The Washington Post
Freedman writes: "A northeastern Siberian town is likely to have set a record for the highest temperature documented in the Arctic Circle, with a reading of 100.4 degrees."
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Andrew Freedman, The Washington Post
Freedman writes: "A northeastern Siberian town is likely to have set a record for the highest temperature documented in the Arctic Circle, with a reading of 100.4 degrees."
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