Politics and Current
Trump’s police “immunity” pledge could spell trouble for the black community
Donald Trump’s vow to offer police officers “immunity from prosecution” if re-elected to the White House signals a threat to Black and brown communities, legal experts and advocates warn.
The Republican presidential candidate has repeatedly vowed to permit law enforcement to do their job without restrictions, a stark contrast to the 2020 movement for Black lives that included mass protests demanding police accountability in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and other police activities -involved deaths.
“We will give power back to our police,” Trump told supporters at a rally last week in Waukesha, Wisconsin. “We will provide them with immunity from prosecution.” The twice-impeached and four-time-impeached former president made an analogous statement in December 2023 at a campaign event in Iowa, where he promised to “compensate” police officers to guard them from prosecutorial harm.
“If the police are not held criminally accountable for criminal behavior, then the fox is guarding the hen house and we are the chickens and we live in a country that is becoming a police state,” said Maya Wiley, a lawyer and civil rights attorney who served as counsel to the New York Commission Civilian Complaint Review Board, the police watchdog.
But she noted that Trump wouldn’t have the power he claims if he were elected president in November. She explained: “The president of the United States does not have the authority to tell states that they must exempt state-controlled police forces from crime.”
But critics warn that the US president’s support for police “immunity” doesn’t bode well for already vulnerable communities which were over-policed and mistreated in the past.
“Trump sees the darkest periods of police brutality and mass incarceration as hallmarks of the ‘good old days,’ and he intends to bring them back,” said Markus Batchelor, national political director at People For the American Way. “He has made clear his preference for state violence to silence dissent or achieve his political goals.”
Batchelor highlighted Trump’s tendency to condone police brutality and violence, including encouraging “violence at his rallies,” ordering the military to “assault peaceful protesters,” and inciting the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
While some police officers have been convicted lately of abusing or murdering unarmed, innocent Black victims — most notably six Mississippi state troopers who abused and brutally tortured two Black men in January 2023 — legal experts emphasize that law enforcement has already significant legal knowledge of security.
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“We still live in a system that does not sufficiently hold police accountable,” said Wiley, a former New York City mayoral candidate who has advocated for police reform. “As a nation, we need to do a lot more work and a lot more confronting what we all wanted to confront in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.”
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill intended to deal with police accountability, failed in the U.S. Congress in 2021 because of this of Republican lawmakers’ refusal to budge on reforming special legal protections for police officers, often called qualified immunity. Given the Republican Party’s lack of appetite, Democrats might want to regain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, maintain control of the U.S. Senate and re-elect President Joe Biden to have any real likelihood at federal police reform.
Despite the failure of the Floyd bill in Congress, Biden has taken executive actions to deal with police accountability, including making a nationwide database to record police misconduct, banning chokeholds and limiting no-knock warrants. However, the president’s actions are only enforceable against federal law enforcement agencies.
The Justice Department under Biden has filled gaps at the state and native levels by opening investigations into misconduct, called pattern or practice investigations. Since Biden took office, the Department of Justice has opened 11 such investigations into police departments, including the Minneapolis Police Department (responsible for Floyd’s murder), the Louisville Metro Police Department, the Louisiana State Police and the Memphis Police Department, following the brutal death of Tyre Nichols in 2023
Criminal justice advocates fear Trump will undermine the Justice Department’s work to carry police accountable. Especially given Trump’s vow to order a historically independent agency to prosecute his political enemies if re-elected, in addition to proposals for the next Republican president to interchange profession federal employees with political appointees.
“He would absolutely shut down (the investigation),” Blake said. “He is a man who claims that he himself should be above punishment. Why on earth would we believe he would want larger local investigations?”
Wiley recalled that while in office, Trump’s Justice Department, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, “withheld police oversight and types of reporting on patterns and practices and systemic police misconduct across departments.”
She said Trump “wants to be authoritarian” and every part he has proposed regarding law enforcement suggests he “wants to be a monarch” reasonably than a president who “will protect the constitutional limits of government.”
“Donald Trump is the same racist who entered public life by falsely accusing the Central Park Five and pushing for stop-and-frisk during his time in the Oval Office,” said Jasmine Harris, the campaign’s black media director. “In 2020, when the rest of the nation was broken and rallied to demand justice for George Floyd’s family, Donald Trump questioned his humanity.”
Politics and Current
Distraught mother of 13-year-old Texas boy who died on gymnasium floor – questions why school didn’t immediately get him help when he had trouble breathing
A grieving family is questioning the actions of administrators at a Texas middle school where their son died after falling during basketball practice.
According to KTRKXavier Thompson died at Thornton Middle School in Katy on November 15. His mother said he suffered an asthma attack that day, and immediately after her son’s fall, they immediately received calls from concerned teammates.
“I had to call a panicked student who kept asking me what to do,” said 13-year-old Xavier’s mother, Brittany Thompson. “It saddens me that no one called 911 when they saw my baby was having trouble breathing.”
Xavier coaches also quickly contacted Thompson and her husband, and the couple insisted that they call emergency services to the school. The family also noticed that there was a hearth station right round the corner.
When Xavier’s father arrived at school, his son was not breathing. Family members claim that he was the one who resuscitated their son, however the actions taken didn’t bring him back to life.
Xavier’s mother said that just the day before his asthma attack, her son was dancing within the lounge, thrilled to make the school’s basketball team. The next day he died.
“I don’t understand,” said the Thompsons’ lawyer, George Powell. “Without medical personnel present, calling parents will not help anyone who has been injured or has some form of respiratory distress.”
The family told KTRK that Xavier had suffered from asthma his entire life, but his condition was well controlled. They established an motion plan regarding his condition with the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District. The middle school also had two inhalers reserved for the teenager in case he needed medication.
“They have medical exams, we have medical insurance on file and they have all their emergency contacts,” Thompson said. “What’s the point if kids have to name it and say, ‘What do we do?’”
Thornton Middle School officials sent a letter to oldsters of all students notifying them of Xavier’s death and offering students counseling.
“I just want my son back. I’d give my life for him in a heartbeat. I’d go and breathe for him if I could,” Xavier’s mother said with tears in her eyes.
Xavier’s family said an autopsy was performed to find out the precise cause of death and is currently awaiting the outcomes.
A district spokesperson told KHOU 11 that Xavier’s death was asthma-related and there was no information on the medical treatment he received.
Another Houston-area family also experienced the same tragedy to the Thompsons three months ago when a student died at the center school.
Landon Payton collapsed and lost consciousness Aug. 14 at Marshall Middle School. Unlike young Xavier, the 14-12 months-old didn’t suffer from any breathing problems and was in good health, in response to his father, Alexis Payton.
Payton raised questions concerning the school’s response to Landon’s fall within the school gym after learning that the school nurse didn’t know how one can perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation or use the school’s automated external defibrillator (AED), a tool that emits an electrical shock to revive normal function. heart rhythm when someone suffers sudden cardiac arrest.
Two teachers’ unions later said the school’s defibrillator was defective or outdated.
A Southern California family can be questioning the moments surrounding the death of their 12-12 months-old son at middle school last 12 months. Yahshua Robinson collapsed during gymnastics practice at Canyon Lake Middle School during a heat wave when temperatures reached 107 degrees. Robinson’s parents learned that a teacher had told him to run away as punishment for wearing inappropriate clothes to class. His family says he collapsed at school and died of cardiac arrest.
Politics and Current
We need to have an uncomfortable conversation about America
We need to talk about cockroaches.
According to renowned entomologist Karlous Miller and John Whitfield Jr. (known for his groundbreaking research on a young fly): everyone has them. Although the mosquitoes could have killed more people throughout history than all of the wars, open borders, and Black Lives Matter protests combined, people they’re biological programmed to hate cockroaches greater than every other insect. Housefly it’s much dirtierbut cockroaches symbolize uncleanliness and misery. For many, a single dead cockroach on the lounge floor is more embarrassing than a fly within the kitchen, a mosquito in your skin, or a dead body within the basement.
Not I.
It’s not that I’m just not ashamed of them. I understand that there may be nothing I can do to erase the bulk those that survived prospered from the surface of the planet. The only thing I can do is solve the issue and forestall it from getting worse. Nobody really eliminates cockroaches, you only have to fight them every single day. But apparently there’s just one thing more embarrassing than being a cockroach hunter:
Being a part of a monoracial coalition.
According to experts, political analysts and folks who just say things, the 2024 election was a results of many aspects. For some, Trump’s genius was a matter of religion – proof of what can’t be seen. Wind bags stuffed with political opposites Joe Scarborough AND James Carville blamed Kamala Harris’ loss on the “woke era.” Others blamed the Democrats’ defeat on the party’s inability to attract white women, Latinos switching sides and the party’s lack of messaging. These may sound like different political theories, but they’re all based on the identical unspoken hypothesis. It is an unkillable pest that crawls out of its hiding place every election season. Even essentially the most progressive, outspoken experts are reluctant to address this. This shouldn’t be a theory. It is a fact hiding within the deepest, darkest recesses of each post-election postmortem. But in some way it’s
White can’t be defeated…
The unspoken concept of an invincible coalition of white voters is the breeding ground from which all political opinions are hatched. Experts not only base their analyzes on the existence of this hidden nest of Caucasian voters, but assume its inevitability… Progressive candidates will lose. A black woman cannot turn into president… it doesn’t deal with race… it doesn’t admit that trans people exist. It’s as if white persons are biologically programmed to vote against everyone else. And apparently the one way to defeat the good white cockroach of electoral politics is to pool our voting power through Black, indigenous, people of color washing their feet, eating spicy food, and playing tambourines in church, just like the BIPOCLGBTQIAvengers trying to stop white supremacist Thanos from straight finger snaps.
The tacit acceptance of white invincibility is the rationale and reason for the existence of the phrase “multi-racial coalition.” race is a greater predictor of electoral politics than sex, education and even religion. That’s why the information showing that Spanish male voters support Trump is even noteworthy. White invincibility explains why 53% white women I voted for a white woman opponent in 2016 and why 19% black men vote for white supremacist in 2020.
But what in the event that they’re fallacious?
What should you discover about it? most white women he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 and never got anywhere near that result 20% of the vote by Black men? What if Latinos hadn’t moved toward Trump? What if black voters didn’t stay home? What if that is all exit polls as fallacious as ever?What if there have been no “unless”? What if sometimes in some elections you only cannot beat white people?
Does this make you are feeling uncomfortable?
When 8 out of 10 white Georgians crawled out of their hiding places to vote, Trump’s victory was inevitable. The rappers who showed up to twerk at Harris rallies didn’t matter. The pantomime guy on the Trump microphone was irrelevant. The discussion about black male voters has turn into moot. More again. Harris has greater than Biden. But even when every non-white voter in Georgia voted for Kamala Harris, she would still lose the state.
Harris winning Georgia was mathematically inconceivable.
Another example comes from the much-discussed Berks County, Pennsylvania. Everyone was shocked once they came upon about it Trump won essentially the most Latino county within the state of Pennsylvania. However, when comparing the outcomes from 2024 counting votes in individual districts down 2020 election results and the US Census shows that Harris’ campaign won more votes than Biden in each of them majority-Hispanic census tract tract within the district. Harris lost because Trump simply accrued votes and increased turnout within the whitest areas and throughout the county 74% white.
Because few states release this sort of data, we cannot have a more complete picture of what happened across the country until we see more accurate data from studies like Verified Pew Voters or A study of cooperative elections. But explaining the 2024 election is awkward. The point is that 2020 was an anomaly. It is kind of possible that the person who won second essentially the most votes within the history of American presidential politics can only be surpassed by a nationwide pandemic that gave voters unfettered access to the ballot. It may simply be that they desire a lying, corrupt white supremacist as their leader, and there may be nothing the democracy can do to stop it.
As uncomfortable as it might be to admit, possibly that is what America wants and democracy has actually won. Maybe white supremacy is like cockroaches. It’s actually inconceivable to do away with it…
You have to fight it every single day.
Politics and Current
Trump chooses first black cabinet member, not Byron Donalds
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen the first African-American cabinet member. Scott Turner, shall be SSecretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Trump announced Turner’s placement in a press release. Highlights Turner’s past achievements. The future HUD secretary is an NFL veteran who also supported Trump during his first term. The former House Representative from Texas served because the first executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council (WHORC).
The release said Turner: “Put an unprecedented effort that has transformed our nation’s most vulnerable communities. These efforts, undertaken in collaboration with former HUD Secretary Ben Carson, were maximized by Scott’s guidance in overseeing 16 federal agencies that implemented greater than 200 policy actions to support economic development.
Turner thanked President-elect Trump and his mentor Ben Carson in X’s post.
Thank you, Mr. President. I’m excited to proceed the nice work we began during your last administration at HUD, with an incredible team. I’m deeply honored by your confidence in my nomination.
I might also like to precise my sincerest gratitude to my mentor, Secretary… pic.twitter.com/X2ZJLSrfGI
— Scott Turner (@sturnerofficial) November 23, 2024
The nomination seems to come back at the fitting time. Many media outlets and social media users are questioning the shortage of Black representation in the subsequent administration’s cabinet. Especially since many black surrogates sided with Trump through the presidential campaign.
Trump’s most significant vocal deputy was Florida Congressman Byron Donalds. CNN’s Laura Coates spoke with Donalds and asked if Trump had really useful him for a cabinet position. Donalds denied feeling disrespected and continued to support the GOP’s election. The Congressman believes that achievement trumps diversity. He argues that the Biden administration has sacrificed progress for diversity, despite the fact that it has many victories on economic and social policy.
“The election of Donald Trump is approaching bringing competence and reality back to DC. within the White House, ensuring that the work gets done on behalf of the American people, no matter race, no matter religion or creed,” he said.
Turner’s nomination could decelerate the conversation concerning the lack of Black people entering the White House. The conversation is interesting since the Republican Party is not known for supporting diversity, equity and inclusion in any workplace. Attacks on DEI in Republican legislatures across the state may lead one to imagine that diversifying current mandates is the ultimate piece of a really broad conservative agenda.
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