11 October 20
Right Now the Small Donors Are the Only Donors
At this point the only donors coming through are the very small donors. We need some larger donors to match that effort.
That would make a huge difference now.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Sure, I'll make a donation!
Update My Monthly Donation
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
10 October 20
It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News
WE CAN'T DO THIS WITHOUT MINIMAL FUNDING: We are able to produce Reader Supported News day in-day out, week in-week out on a (small) fraction of what commercial news agencies have to work with. After that the few donations that we need - must - be there. We are not getting those right now. We have to turn our full attention to finishing this funding drive at this time. In Earnest, Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News
Sure, I'll make a donation!
Bernie Sanders | Building and Strengthening Our Movement Around the Country
Bernie Sanders, Medium
Sanders writes: "We have just 25 days left until the most important election in the modern history of our country."
Yes — we all must do everything we can to defeat Donald Trump who is a threat to the very future of our democracy. But it’s not just the White House or seats in the U.S. Congress that are up for grabs in this election.
In every corner of the country, strong progressives are running at the state and local level to represent our movement and lead the fight to transform this country.
These races are incredibly important — that’s why I am endorsing progressive, down-ballot candidates across the country. If you can, I hope you’ll cast your ballot for them when you vote.
We need to continue building and strengthening our movement from the ground up by electing more progressives to state and local positions. Because the truth is that the victories we accomplish in this election will lay the groundwork for the future of our political revolution. With just 25 days to go, these candidates are counting on our support.
ARIZONA
- Andres Cano for State Representative, LD 3
- Athena Salman for State Representative, LD 26
- Melody Hernandez for State Representative, LD 26
- Diego Rodriguez for State Representative, LD 27
- Reginald Bolding for State Representative, LD 27
- Richard Andrade for State Representative LD 29
- Raquel Teran for State Representative, LD 30
- Juan Mendez for State Senator, LD 26
- Martin Quezada for State Senator, LD 29
- Adelita Grijalva for Pima County Supervisor, District 5
- Gabriella Cázares-Kelly for Pima County Recorder
- Laura Conover for Pima County Attorney
CALIFORNIA
- Kansen Chu for Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, District 3
- Abigail Medina for State Senate, District 23
- Alex Lee for State Assembly, District 25
- Ash Kalra for State Assembly, District 27
- Reggie Jones-Sawyer for State Assembly, District 59
- Fatima Iqbal-Zubair for State Assembly, District 64
- Lacei Amodei for City Council, Hayward
- Nestor Castillo for City Council, Hayward
- Elisha Crader for City Council, Hayward
- Cheryl Davila for City Council, Berkeley
- Carroll Fife for City Council, Oakland
- Nithya Raman for City Council, Los Angeles
- Suely Saro for City Council, Long Beach
- Tunua Thrash-Ntuk for City Council, Long Beach
- Cari Templeton for City Council, Palo Alto
- Jovanka Beckles for AC Transit Board of Directors, Ward 1
- Holly Mitchell for Board of Supervisors, Los Angeles County
- Al Clark for Vice-Mayor, Carpinteria
- George Gascón for District Attorney, Los Angeles County
COLORADO
- Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez for State Representative, District 4
- Alex Valdez for State Representative, District 5
- Emily Sirota for State Representative, District 9
- Monica Duran for State Representative, District 24
- Yadira Caraveo for State Representative, District 31
- Iman Jodeh for State Representative, District 41
- Alexis King for District Attorney, JD 1
- Alonzo Payne for District Attorney, JD 12
- Amy Padden for District Attorney, JD 18
- Ilana Spiegel for CU Board of Regents
FLORIDA
- Monique Worrell for State Attorney, 9th Circuit
- Harold Pryor for State Attorney, 17th Circuit
- Alton Edmond for Sheriff, Brevard County
- Marco Lopez for Sheriff, Osceola County
- Eliseo Santana for Sheriff, Pinellas County
MAINE
- Troy Jackson for State Senate, District 1
- David Miramant for State Senate, District 12
- Stacy Brenner for State Senate, District 30
- Patricia Kidder for State House, District 19
- Ben Collings for State House, District 42
- Jim Handy for State House, District 58
- Ken Morse for State House, District 71
- Lydia Crafts for State House, District 90
- Amy Roeder for State House, District 125
- Lillie Lavado for State House, District 147
MICHIGAN
- Abe Aiyash for State Representative, District 4
- Abdullah Hammoud for State Representative, District 15
- Chris Slat for State Representative, District 17
- Julia Pulver for State Representative, District 39
- Nicole Breadon for State Representative, District 43
- Yousef Rabhi for State Representative, District 53
- Felicia Brabec for State Representative, District 55
- Tamara Barnes for State Representative, District 58
- Lily Cheng-Schulting for State Representative, District 72
- Chokwe Pitchford for State Representative, District 79
- Brian Mosallam for Michigan State University Board of Trustees
- Eli Savit for County Prosecutor, Washtenaw County
NEW HAMPSHIRE
- Manny Espitia for State Representative, Nashua 4
- Carlos Cardona for State Representative, Belknap 3
- Sherry Frost for State Representative, Strafford 16
- Tim Smith for State Representative, Hillsborough 17
- Renny Cushing for State Representative, Rockingham 21
- Mackenzie Murphy for State Representative, Hillsborough 21
- Jan Schmidt for State Representative, Hillsborough 28
- Mark King for State Representative, Hillsborough 33
- Mark MacKenzie for Executive Council, District 4
- Mindi Messmer for Executive Council, District 3
NEW YORK
- Jessica González-Rojas for State Assembly, AD 34
- Zohran Mamdani for State Assembly, AD 36
- Ron Kim for State Assembly, AD 40
- Yuh-Line Niou for State Assembly, AD 65
- Anna Kelles for State Assembly, AD 125
- Dia Carbajal for State Assembly, AD 126
- Christine Pellegrino for State Senate, SD 4
- James Sanders for State Senate, SD 10
- Mike Gianaris for State Senate, SD 12
- Jessica Ramos for State Senate, SD 13
- Julia Salazar for State Senate, SD 18
- Jabari Brisport for State Senate, SD 25
- Luis Sepúlveda for State Senate, SD 32
- Patrick Nelson for State Senate, SD 43
- Samra Brouk for State Senate, SD 55
PENNSYLVANIA
- Sara Innamorato for State Representative, District 21
- Summer L. Lee for State Representative, District 34
- John Padora for State Representative, District 37
- Nicole Miller for State Representative, District 87
- Tara Shakespeare for State Representative, District 88
- Tara Zrinski for State Representative, District 138
- Elizabeth Fiedler for State Representative, District 184
- Rick Krajewski for State Representative, District 188
- Nikil Saval for State Senate, District 1
- Amanda Cappelletti for State Senate, District 17
- Shanna Danielson for State Senate, District 31
RHODE ISLAND
- Brandon Potter for State House, District 16
- Megan Cotter for State House, District 39
- Leonela Felix for State House, District 61
- Michelle McGaw for State House, District 71
- Kendra Anderson for State Senate, District 31
- Jen Volpe Douglas for State Senate, District 34
- Charmaine Webster for City Council, Woonsocket
- Marlene Guay for City Council, Woonsocket
- Vaughan Miller for City Council, Woonsocket
- Alex Kithes for City Council, Woonsocket
- Adamaris Villar for City Council, Central Falls
SOUTH CAROLINA
- Terry Alexander for State Representative, District 59
- Leon Howard for State Representative, District 76
- Ivory Thigpen for State Representative, District 79
- Justin Bamberg for State Representative, District 90
- Cezar McKnight for State Representative, District 101
- Wendell Gilliard for State Representative, District 111
- Krystle Matthews for State Representative, District 117
- Michael Rivers for State Representative, District 121
TEXAS
- Alex Annello for City Council, El Paso District 2
- Greg Casar for City Council, Austin District 4
- Erin Zwiener for State Representative, District 45
- José Garza for District Attorney, Travis County
VERMONT
- David Zuckerman, Governor
- TJ Donovan, Attorney General
- Jim Condos, Secretary of State
- Beth Pearce, State Treasurer
- Doug Hoffer, Auditor
- Chris Pearson, State Senate
- Cheryl Hooker, State Senate
- Anthony Pollina, State Senate
- Andrew Perchlik, State Senate
- Tanya Vyhovsky, State Representative
- Mari Cordes, State Representative
- Matt Birong, State Representative
- Jubilee McGill, State Representative
- Joseph “Chip” Troiano, State Representative
- Scott Campbell, State Representative
- Dennis LaBounty, State Representative
- Emily Hecker, State Representative
- Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, State Representative
- Selene Colburn, State Representative
- Taylor Small, State Representative
- Bob Hooper, State Representative
- Brian Cina, State Representative
- Martha Allen, State Representative
- Mike McCarthy, State Representative
- Dennis Williams, State Representative
- Jo Sabel Courtney, State Representative
- Dave Yacovone, State Representative
- Avram Patt, State Representative
- Susan Hatch Davis, State Representative
- Larry Satcowitz, State Representative
- Katherine Sims, State Representative
- Robin Chesnut-Tangerman, State Representative
- Mollie Burke, State Representative
- Kevin “Coach” Christie, State Representative
- Elizabeth Burrows, State Representative
- Heather Surprenant, State Representative
WEST VIRGINIA
- Rusty Williams for House of Delegates, District 35
WISCONSIN
- Kendra Anderson for State Senate, District 31
- Supreme Moore Omokunde for State Assembly, AD 17
- Sarah Yacoub for State Assembly, AD 30
- Kristina Shelton for State Assembly, AD 48
- Kriss Marion for State Assembly, AD 51
- Dan Schierl for State Assembly, AD 55
- Emily Berge for State Assembly, AD 68
- Samba Baldeh, Assembly District 48
READ MORE
Michael Null (L) and William Null (R) at a rally to demand the reopening of businesses in Michigan, 30 April 2020. The Nulls were charged for their alleged roles in the plot to kidnap the state governor. (photo: Jeff Kowalsky/Getty)
Michigan Terror Plot: Why Rightwing Extremists Are Thriving on Facebook
Lois Beckett, Guardian UK
Beckett writes: "In a year of escalating political violence in the United States, Facebook has served as a key organizing tool for violent extremists."
The platform provides tools for radicalization and coordinated violence, and critics say it’s been slow to ban dangerous groups
An alleged plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, was planned in part on Facebook, with one leader of the scheme broadcasting a video of his frustrations with Whitmer to a private Facebook group, and participants later sharing footage of their paramilitary exercises and bomb-making training, according to an FBI affidavit.
A related Michigan militia group facing terrorism charges also used Facebook to recruit new members, according to the Michigan state police.
Before Michigan, there was the militia group in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that used a Facebook event to encourage armed citizens to take to the streets, and the anti-government “boogaloo” cop-killer in California this May allegedly met his accomplice on Facebook. The deadly neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, was originally organized as a Facebook event.
Facebook has defended itself as working hard to keep users safe and to adapt to emerging threats on its platform, as well as coordinating closely with law enforcement. But evidence has mounted for years that Mark Zuckerberg’s goal of using Facebook to “bring the world closer together” and to “give people the power to build community” has also built powerful tools for radicalization and coordinated violence.
Facebook suggested this week that its conduct in the Michigan case had been “proactive” and exemplary, and that it had played an important role in flagging extremist content to law enforcement authorities. A spokesperson said the company had “proactively reached out and cooperated with the FBI” to provide information for the Michigan investigation more than six months ago.
“We remove content, disable accounts and immediately report to law enforcement when there is a credible threat of imminent harm to people or public safety,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
The FBI said in an affidavit that its Michigan investigation began when it “became aware through social media that a group of individuals were discussing the violent overthrow of certain government and law-enforcement components” in early 2020.
Matt Perault, a former Facebook public policy director who leads a center for technology policy at Duke University, argued that the Michigan case should be seen as an example of Facebook being part of the solution to dealing with extremist radicalization in the US.
“The data is pretty clear in this case that the ability of an informant to join a Facebook group to identify the conduct, and Facebook’s work with law enforcement, seems like it was pretty helpful,” he said, apparently helping “to head off a horrific event before it occurred”.
But federal authorities’ descriptions of a rightwing plot to kidnap a Democratic governor, put her on “trial” as a tyrant and instigate a civil war, have also renewed questions about whether Facebook’s current strategy for policing extremism on its platform is adequate, or whether the company needs to fundamentally rethink its approach, acknowledging that what’s good for Facebook may be bad for democracy.
While dangerous groups can and do organize across many different platforms, Facebook is “uniquely dangerous” because it is designed for “algorithmic recruitment”, Evan Greer, the deputy director of digital human rights group Fight for the Future, wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
Facebook has often framed the discussions of how its platform has been used by violent extremists as a question of “free speech”, but many critics say that misses the real issue about the ways in which the company uses its algorithms to recommend extremist content and extremist groups to its users.
“It’s one thing to provide a forum where people can say what they want, even if it’s controversial,” Greer told the Guardian. “It’s a totally different thing to actively help violent bigots recruit other violent bigots into their group using data harvesting and algorithmic recommendations.”
When researchers at the Network Contagion Research Institute began mapping the spread of anti-government “boogaloo” rhetoric on the platform in early 2020, the co-founder Joel Finkelstein said, Facebook began offering up advertisements for purchases relevant to their interest in a coming civil war.
“It started sending us ads for the boogaloo. Buy a boogaloo bag. Get a boogaloo AK-47 inscription on your gun,” Finkelstein said. “That was shocking.”
“We realized the algorithms of Facebook have never met an apocalyptic, militant cult set on killing cops that they didn’t like, and couldn’t merchandise.”
‘The chosen platform of the militia movement’
The Michigan kidnapping plot, and related charges against members of an anti-government militia, are a new case study in the role Facebook has played in emerging extremist threats. Authorities said they had arrested 13 men in connection with violent plots against elected officials and law enforcement officers.
Early details suggest at least some of the alleged Michigan plotters identified with “boogaloo” ideology, a nascent rightwing movement obsessed with civil war and insurrection, which spread rapidly on Facebook in late 2019 and early 2020. Officials described seven men facing terrorism charges as being part of an anti-government militia group, the Wolverine Watchmen, and said the “commander” of the group was known online as “Boogaloo Bunyan.”
Facebook has updated its policies related to violent extremist groups multiple times this year, including taking down a network of boogaloo groups as a dangerous organization in June, and then restricting militia groups in late August, as part of a crackdown on groups that did not meet the company’s criteria for being dangerous enough to ban, but that did “have demonstrated significant risks to public safety”.
As part of a “strategic network disruption” of boogaloo groups on 30 June, Facebook removed a group for the Wolverine Watchmen, the company said.
As companies like Facebook are pressured by activists to take down material from extremist groups, they may also be juggling requests from law enforcement “to leave up material that prosecutors could use to prosecute people”, Perault noted. Social media activity “makes information visible that might not otherwise be visible”, and can be crucial to building criminal cases.
“Tech companies are not going to be able to solve the issue of people doing terrible things,” Perault said. “People will do terrible things using any communication technology they have access to, including more traditional technologies like phones.”
But some analysts said Facebook’s action in addressing both the “boogaloo” groups and militia organizing this summer was starkly overdue.
Armed militia groups in the United States have an extensive, well-documented history of deadly violence going back to the 1990s.
“From 2008 to 2020, Facebook was sort of the chosen social media platform of the militia movement,” said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “That’s a solid 12 years that the militia movement thrived on Facebook.”
Facebook’s belated action to restrict the militia groups in late August had an effect on the broader movement: they “nuked” it, with many groups and pages taken down, Pitcavage said. “It really made a big crater.”
“It would have been better if they had done it in 2008,” Pitcavage said, but he appreciated that it was better that the company to take action now than “in 2022 or 2024”.
At times, Facebook has chosen not to significantly restrict or ban extremist groups on its platform until after a member of the group has killed someone, even when experts have sounded warnings about the group for months or years before an attack.
This was true of boogaloo groups on Facebook. A February 2020 report by the Network Contagion Research Institute warned about the growth of boogaloo rhetoric on Facebook, specifically that it included violent rhetoric about killing law enforcement that might translate into action. After the report was made public, Facebook told NBC News it was monitoring the groups for threats of violence, but did not take any immediate action to ban boogaloo groups, even through violent insurrection and killing law enforcement were central themes of boogaloo discussions.
The company finally announced a ban on a network of boogaloo groups on 30 June, four months after a clear public warning that a cop-killer ideology was spreading on Facebook, and nearly a month after two officers in California had already been shot to death: the federal security officer David Patrick Underwood, on 29 May in Oakland, and the California sheriff’s deputy Damon Gutzwiller, in a subsequent ambush attack.
Early details from Michigan suggest that one of the groups linked to the plot may have been active on Facebook for eight months before the company finally designated them as part of a dangerous network.
Michigan state police described the Wolverine Watchmen in an affidavit as a militia group that “engaged in firearms training and tactical drills to prepare for the ‘boogaloo’, a term referencing a violent uprising against the government or impending politically-motivated civil war,” and said that they had “recruited members using a social media platform, Facebook, since November 2019”.
Facebook took down the Watchmen group on 30 June 2020. A spokesperson said that if the Wolverine Watchmen group had been identified as a credible threat earlier, it would have been removed at an earlier time.
It was the “acts of real-world violence” by movement adherents in the spring of 2020 that led Facebook to designate a boogaloo network as a dangerous organization and ban it from the platform, a company spokesperson said in June, but it had been monitoring the movement closely since 2019. Facebook had been identified elements of the boogaloo movement “as far back as 2012”, a spokesperson said, and had been monitoring monitoring debates inside the movement over “whether to instigate violent conflict or be prepared to react when it occurs” for months before it finally announced a ban.
Some activists are now pressing Facebook not only to move faster in banning dangerous groups from its platform, but to fundamentally rethink the way it shares and promotes content, and suggests connections between different users.
Finkelstein, the Network Contagion Institute co-founder, said that Facebook did not currently have enough incentive to regulate itself, since extremist content was very engaging. “It’s not in their financial interest” to change, he said. “They’re creating social hazards in ways that we can’t police.”
READ MORE
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. (photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty
America Wants to Put the Brakes on Judge Amy Coney Barrett's Nomination. Senate Leadership Should Listen.
Southern Poverty Law Center
Excerpt: "This Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, under Republican leadership, is scheduled to begin hearings to fill the vacant seat of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg."
The rush to fill the vacancy with less than a month before the general election is nothing less than a power grab that ignores the unprecedented circumstances our nation faces.
By putting this nomination process ahead of the desperate needs of millions of American families who are being financially devastated during the pandemic, the Senate leadership is showing its true colors.
COVID-19 has killed more than 210,000 people in the United States, left millions unemployed and brought pain and loss to virtually every community – with experts predicting another surge of infections and deaths this fall. The pandemic has also revealed dramatic racial disparities in health care and housing, in the workplace, and in financial and educational systems. The American public needs relief and they need it now. Not after the general election. Not after the new Congress is seated. The need is immediate and urgent.
The majority of Americans agree. Not only do they want the Senate and White House to come back to the negotiation table and hammer out a relief package with the U.S. House of Representatives, they strongly believe that Ginsburg’s replacement should be selected by the winner of the presidential election.
The Senate Judiciary Committee should listen to the will of the people. Yet, instead of working to address the many hardships caused by the pandemic, Senate Republicans are single-mindedly mustering their majority to ram through a nominee whose record raises serious doubts about whether she can be trusted to safeguard the rights of everyone in the United States – particularly women, communities of color, and LGBTQ people – if she’s appointed to the high court for life.
In their race to confirm Judge Barrett, GOP senators have jettisoned their own recent precedent – denying a hearing to the Supreme Court nominee President Obama presented eight months before the 2016 election, stating “this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
It’s impossible to ignore their hypocrisy and lack of empathy for millions of suffering families, but there is far more to be considered.
First, by the time Senate Judiciary confirmation hearings begin Monday, millions of people will have already voted. With two senators on the committee having tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week, they should prioritize their own safety – and the health of those who work with them – cancel the hearings, and, when it is safe to do so, concentrate on passing legislation (as the House has already done) to address the pandemic’s devastation.
Second, Judge Barrett is the wrong nominee to replace Ginsburg. Barrett’s past actions, writings, and judicial rulings reveal her ultra-conservative judicial philosophy – threatening to reverse progress made in protecting the rights of women, people of color, and members of LGBTQ communities. Justice Ginsburg championed such protections.
Having Judge Barrett on the U.S. Supreme Court would have seismic consequences – putting millions in peril of losing access to health care and equal justice. It would endanger public education funding as well as health and safety regulations. It also would threaten protections against religious discrimination and safeguards for immigrant communities and lower-income Americans. In fact, many of these critical issues will come before the Court during its current term.
Further, Judge Barrett has made several appearances at advocacy and training events for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which we have designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group. ADF has supported the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ adults in the U.S. and its criminalization abroad. It has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad; contended that LGBTQ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia; and claimed that a “homosexual agenda” will destroy Christianity and society. The ADF also works to develop “religious liberty” legislation and case law that would allow business owners to deny goods and services to LGBTQ people, women and religious minorities on the basis of their own personal religious beliefs.
Finally, voting rights and immigrant justice issues are at stake. Another ultra-conservative justice could extend strict, discriminatory voter ID laws, and stop progress on mail-in balloting and the restoration of full voting rights for previously incarcerated people. Judge Barrett dissented from a ruling that struck down the Trump administration’s discriminatory “public charge” rule (which would have penalized immigrants for using benefits Congress had explicitly made available to them) and dismissed humanitarian asylum claims under the Convention Against Torture. Another crucial issue, whether noncitizens should, for the first time, be excluded from the Census, is on the Court’s docket.
These are unprecedented times and our nation needs leadership right now, not partisan politics. The majority of Americans agree that the person elected president on Nov. 3 should nominate the individual who will fill Justice Ginsburg’s seat. Ignoring the will of Americans and our democratic system of checks and balances to jam through this highly controversial nomination threatens to diminish faith in the Court for decades to come.
We must fight this desperate attempt to reshape our nation’s highest court against the will of the people.
READ MORE
A voter drops a ballot at a mail-in ballot drop off box location in Hoboken. (photo: Michael Nagle/Blooberg)
Inside the Trump Campaign's Strategy to Make Voting a Tooth-and-Nail Fight
Danny Hakim and Stephanie Saul, The New York Times
Excerpt: "When President Trump used the prime-time debate last week to urge his supporters to 'go into the polls and watch very carefully,' he wasn't just issuing a call for a grass-roots movement or raising the prospect of intimidation tactics at voting sites."
The campaign’s focus on Election Day operations has intensified, with aggressive plans for poll monitoring and other tactics that Democrats say are efforts at vote suppression.
He was also nodding to an extensive behind-the-scenes effort led by the lawyers and operatives on his campaign.
Over the summer, Mr. Trump named a new campaign manager, Bill Stepien, who was once a top aide to former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey before being fired amid the “Bridgegate” scandal. Mr. Stepien swiftly elevated a group of lieutenants focused on using aggressive electoral tactics, moves that led Marc E. Elias, the leading election lawyer for the Democratic Party, to tweet that Mr. Trump was “tripling down” on “opposing voting rights.”
One of the main architects of the effort is Justin Clark, whom Mr. Stepien promoted to deputy campaign manager. He has been viewed with suspicion among Democrats since he was recorded last year saying, “Traditionally it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places,” and adding that in 2020 the party would “start playing offense a little bit.”
READ MORE
Tracy Cole, mother of Alvin Cole, speaks outside the Milwaukee County courthouse in Milwaukee on Wednesday. (photo: Mike De Sisti/AP)
'Y'all Killed My Son': Mother of Black Teen Killed by Wisconsin Police Hospitalized After Arrest at Protest
Katie Shepherd, The Washington Post
Shepherd writes: "After being confronted in her car on Thursday by police enforcing a curfew intended to quash protests, Tracy Cole lay handcuffed in the street in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Cole, whose Black, 17-year-old son was killed at the hands of Wauwatosa police earlier this year, pleaded with officers between sobs."
“I can’t believe y’all did this to me. Y’all killed my son,” Tracy Cole said. “Can y’all help me? I can’t breathe. ... He hit me in my head and pulled my hair, one of these cops over here. And my head is bleeding.”
In a Facebook live stream posted by one of Cole’s daughters, an unseen officer responded, “Well, that’s too bad.”
Cole, 48, and her daughters were joining a second night of protests after Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm decided on Wednesday not to charge the officer who shot and killed Alvin Cole, 17, in February after Cole allegedly refused orders to drop a gun. Joseph Mensah, the Black police officer who shot Cole, has not faced charges in two other fatal shootings since joining the Wauwatosa Police Department in 2015.
Tracy Cole’s arrest came during a crackdown after a tense Wednesday night demonstration when police said protesters broke windows and threw rocks, before officers shot tear gas into the crowd. On Thursday, the National Guard joined police to monitor the protests, which were smaller and more peaceful.
Wauwatosa police said that after Tracy Cole’s arrest, first responders took her to the hospital. Kimberly Motley, a lawyer for the Cole family, said Cole hurt her arm and forehead. Cole’s daughters Taleavia and Tristiana Cole were also arrested, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“Tracy & Tristiana Cole just released from the hospital,” Motley said in a tweet just after 11 p.m. “Absolutely outrageous that they were attacked for peacefully protesting! Police refusing to give answer on where Taleavia Cole has been taken.”
Wauwatosa police didn’t immediately respond to a message from The Washington Post late on Thursday.
Alvin Cole was killed Feb. 2 after police responded to a call alleging he had flashed a handgun during an argument at a shopping mall. Police said the teen ran and that his gun fired in the commotion, striking him in the arm. Alvin Cole failed to drop the gun after officers ordered him to, officials said. Then, Mensah shot and killed him.
Chisholm on Wednesday said the evidence didn’t support charging Mensah. “I do not believe that the State could disprove self-defense or defense of others in this case and therefore could not meet the burden required to charge Officer Mensah,” Chisholm wrote in his report.
But a former U.S. attorney hired by the Wauwatosa Police and Fire Commission also recommended on Wednesday that Mensah be fired, saying the officer “creates an extraordinary, unwarranted and unnecessary risk to the Wauwatosa Police Department,” the Journal Sentinel reported.
“Joseph Mensah should not be working and should have never been working,” Taleavia Cole said at a news conference Wednesday. She added: “We’ve got to make sure Joseph is fired immediately. We’ve got to make sure he don’t get a job ever again as a police officer.”
The decision not to criminally charge Mensah has rocked a community just 45 miles north of Kenosha, Wis., where the police shooting of Jacob Blake sparked massive protests, riots and a fatal shooting in August.
In Wauwatosa, the protests shrank considerably on Thursday, with a little more than two dozen people gathered in the Milwaukee suburb. Tracy Cole gave a speech to the group where she questioned the heavy police and National Guard presence at the rally.
“We ain’t tearing down nothing,” she said, the Journal Sentinel reported. “The state troops are here with full-body gear ready to tear us down. But you know what? It’s just going to make us stronger.”
After her speech, the protesters violated a 7 p.m. curfew, police said in a Facebook post. Officials did not say whether the crowd broke any other laws, but the Wauwatosa Police Department posted an update at 8:35 p.m. saying officers had made “several arrests of members from a crowd violating lawful orders.”
The Cole family was inside their car when police approached them on Thursday night and told them they were violating the curfew. During the ensuing struggle, which was recorded by one of Cole’s daughters, Tracy Cole repeatedly told the officers not to touch her. One officer told her she is under arrest, and a physical struggle ensued.
“You’re going to get Tased,” an unseen officer shouted. “Get on the ground.”
“I’m Alvin Cole’s mother,” she responded.
Officers then arrested her, putting handcuffs on her as she lay in the street, according to the recording. Cole repeatedly told officers she was struggling to breathe and said her arm might have been broken.
When a man began interviewing Tracy Cole about her injuries several minutes after the arrest, she again said she was Alvin Cole’s mother. The man did not respond.
“They don’t care,” another woman said in the recording. “They done killed Alvin.”
READ MORE
River polluted with mine tailings in the Amazon rainforest. (photo: Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay
Mining Covers More Than 20% of Indigenous Territory in the Amazon
John C. Cannon, Mongabay
Cannon writes: "Mining, both legal and illegal, impinges on more than one-fifth of Indigenous territory in the Amazon, according to a new study."
ining, both legal and illegal, impinges on more than one-fifth of Indigenous territory in the Amazon, according to a new study from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network (RAISG).
Other research has shown that mining for gold and other minerals can wreak havoc on the local ecosystems on which these communities depend, increasing deforestation rates and sullying rivers. And the search for minerals often drags problems like drug use, alcoholism and prostitution into communities and creates destructive social conflict.
Mining’s reach has extended over 1,131 distinct territories across 450,000 square kilometers (174,000 square miles) of the six Amazonian countries included in the study — Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana and Peru — write the study’s authors. The analysis reveals that forests disappear up to three times faster in places with mining than in places without it, and the often toxic chemicals used by miners, including mercury, have touched 30 or more rivers in the world’s largest rainforest.
Michael McGarrell, the human rights coordinator for COICA and a representative of the Amerindian People’s Association in Guyana, who was not involved in the study, said the industry’s ubiquity isn’t news to Indigenous leaders. COICA is an organization that represents Indigenous groups in the Amazon.
“The new WRI research confirms what Indigenous leaders have been reporting to COICA from across the Amazon. Under cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has only gotten worse,” McGarrell told reporters in a Zoom call. “We’re under siege from legal and illegal mining, and our governments are doing little to help us protect and enforce the rights that do exist.”
The countries that the authors studied all have laws that at least notionally recognize Indigenous people’s rights to the land. In Brazil, all mining on Indigenous land is outlawed by the country’s constitution, though Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president, introduced a bill in Congress this year to change that provision. These six countries are also parties to international agreements on these rights. All have signed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and all but Guyana have signed the International Labour Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention.
But protecting Indigenous communities in the face of this onslaught of mining will require greater enforcement and broader participation from all sectors of society, Peter Veit, director of the Land and Resource Rights Initiative at WRI and one of the study’s authors, said on the call.
“Safeguarding Indigenous territories — including the sustainable development and environmental benefits they generate — will require stronger commitments and urgent actions from governments, companies, civil society leaders, nongovernmental organizations and others,” Veit said. “The new report details what these commitments and actions look like for all key actors so that Indigenous peoples can safely protect their lands and livelihoods.”
At the same time, services are lacking for Indigenous groups across the Amazon, said Eleodoro Mayorga Alba, the former minister of mines in Peru, on the press call.
“Indigenous peoples, for a long time now, do not benefit equally with regard to public services, education, water, electricity, health care, when compared to the other peoples and populations,” he said.
The study involved legal analysis looking at how laws translated into practices, a geographic information system (GIS) survey to determine the locations and extent of mining activities across the Amazon, and six case studies involving interviews and scientific literature reviews.
“Our research was designed to better understand and actually put some numbers behind the implications of this expansion for indigenous people,” Veit said.
Research by WRI and other scientists has shown that Indigenous communities are stalwart protectors of the forest, even as they depend on it for food, water, shelter and medicine.
“We now know that when our rights are strong, deforestation rates on our lands are two or three times lower than in forest managed by others,” McGarrell said. “This means we are the climate solution.”
But mining on Indigenous land erases much of that advantage. The researchers found that forest loss was three times higher on Indigenous lands with mining in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, and as much as two times higher in Colombia and Venezuela.
McGarrell said that, in some cases, Indigenous people themselves participate in the mining.
“Some Indigenous miners as well have decided, if people are going to come take away … our resources, why shouldn’t we get some of it as well?” he said. “We will get involved in mining because we also need money to pay for school things for our kids. We need to get food into our houses.”
More significant investment in these communities could make mining less attractive, said Patricia Quijano Vallejos, the lead author and a research analyst with WRI.
“They need to increase the capacity to access to their lands,” she said, “and they need tools for development — for example, the ability to monitor their lands — so that they can continue their struggle against illegal mining.”
The report also notes the need for well-resourced law enforcement in these territories and for strict environmental and social standards. McGarrell said that, in Guyana, impact assessments should be part of the process of deciding where mining concessions are sited, not just before exploitation.
“We have a system where mining concessions are granted willy-nilly without any proper environmental impact assessments,” he said. “This must stop. Responsibility starts in the allocation process as well.”
McGarrell said that Indigenous peoples could be valuable partners in protecting forests and the carbon they contain while also mining responsibly.
“WRI scientists call Indigenous peoples and rural communities the world’s secret weapon for preserving forests,” he said. “Rather than framing Indigenous peoples as poor and primitive, we invite political and economic actors to partner with our peoples. We invite you to strengthen what science suggests we have to offer a way of life that envisions humanity as one with the natural world.”
This article was originally published on Mongabay.
READ MORE
Grey reef sharks, seen in Fiji, are among the top species of sharks fished for their liver oil. (photo: Reinhard Dirscher/Getty)
A Coronavirus Vaccine Could Kill Half a Million Sharks, Conservationists Warn
Emma Bowman, NPR
Bowman writes: "A conservation group is warning that the development of an effective coronavirus vaccine on a global scale could ravage shark populations worldwide, as researchers race to produce a vaccine using an oil derived from sharks."
Squalene, a compound that is harvested from the livers of sharks, is a common moisturizing ingredient in cosmetics. It's also used in malaria and flu vaccines as an agent that boosts the immune system's response.
Shark Allies, a nonprofit that advocates for the protection of sharks, projects that some 500,000 sharks could be killed if a coronavirus vaccine with shark squalene proves to be effective. Already, an estimated 2.7 million sharks are killed annually for their squalene to make cosmetics, according to the group.
"The problem is that squalene, used as an ingredient in a COVID-19 vaccine, will be seen as something that's unavoidable, and then as it becomes tested, it becomes the normal ingredient, and nothing else will be tested," Shark Allies executive director Stefanie Brendl told NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday.
As of Oct. 2, there were 193 coronavirus vaccines in clinical and pre-clinical evaluation, according to data released by the World Health Organization. At least five of those vaccines contain shark squalene, according to Shark Allies.
There are more sustainable squalene alternatives, said Brendl. Squalene's nonanimal sources include olive oil, sugar cane, wheat germ, bacteria and yeast.
Nonanimal squalene's identical chemical nature to shark squalene should mean an indistinguishable effectiveness in vaccines, according to Shark Allies. However, the extraction of shark squalene has been a more attractive option for producers as it can cost less and yield greater quantities than nonanimal alternatives.
Brendl worries that a dependence on shark squalene in coronavirus vaccine trials is shortsighted and prevents the exploration of sustainable alternatives.
"Our ask is that we start testing the alternatives, because long term, we cannot rely on a wild animal resource for a global need of anything," she said.
When it comes to a potentially life-saving vaccine, Brendl isn't saying that shark populations are worthier of protection than humans. But conserving the ocean's top predators, she said, can in fact preserve the rest our ecosystem — humans included.
"They keep our fish stock healthy, they keep the food chain intact, they keep diseases out of other animal populations," she said. "Good luck trying to replace that when we lose them."
READ MORE
Contribute to RSN
Update My Monthly Donation
n the days before a violent mob of Trump supporters 
his week’s
