CHICAGO Black Lives Matter Chicago and other groups filed a lawsuit Thursday against the federal government, alleging the detailing of federal agents to the city is being done in an attempt to suppress free speech, while separately claiming in court that Chicago police are trampling on protesters rights.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that Chicago and other cities will see an influx of federal agents this week, in what he said is an effort to address rising violence. Additional Department of Homeland Security officers were already been deployed to Portland, Oregon, where reports of unidentified federal agents patrolling streets wearing camouflage uniforms have been denounced by local leaders and become a focus of national debate.

At a news conference Thursday in Federal Plaza announcing the lawsuit, activists pointed to ongoing unrest in Portland as evidence of what could come this weekend when federal agents are deployed to Chicago. But leaders say they will not be intimidated by these actions, calling on the community to continue to show up to protest.

We want to be clear that what is happening nationally is an attempt to stifle righteous rage and anger at the continued killing of Black people by police, said Aislinn Pulley, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Chicago. We have been fighting back consistently for two months and we will not stop.

The Chicago Abolitionist Network, Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, Good Kids/ Mad City, #Let Us Breathe Collective, and South Siders Organized for Unity and Liberation were also listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Thursday.

The suit alleges Trump is sending agents to the city in an effort to intimidate and falsely arrest civilians who are exercising their constitutional right to speak and to assemble.

Also on Thursday, lawyers for a coalition of activist groups sent City Hall a letter threatening separate legal action under a consent decree, a court order that required broad changes to the way Chicago police treat people. The letter calls on the city to stop what the activists lawyers described as the Chicago Police Departments brutal, violent, and unconstitutional tactics that are clearly intended to silence protesters.

The letter, also filed in federal court, cited a litany of alleged physical abuses during protests that have erupted sporadically since late May, just after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

The lawyers from groups including Black Lives Matter Chicago and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois accused officers of abuses including knocking out the teeth of 18-year-old activist Miracle Boyd during a protest around a statue of Christopher Columbus in Grant Park.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot denounced the deployment of federal agents earlier in the week, but changed her tone after speaking with U.S. Attorney John Lausch, who told her additional law enforcement would work collaboratively with Chicago cops against violent crime.

Federal officials have argued a recent increase in shootings points to a need for more law enforcement, but at Thursdays news conference, activists from the South and West sides decried this claim, arguing investments in the community, not more policing, will bring an end to the violence.

With protests planned for this weekend, including a demonstration at the Homan Square police facility, Frank Chapman of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression said everyone needs to be out in the streets.

Theres more of us than them, Chapman said. Weve got to put people in the streets. Weve got to keep this rebellion going.

Continued here:

Lawsuit against US government filed over move to bring feds to Chicago - The Courier-Express

ByMadison Allen

Public benefit programs are racist. They are also essential.

For decades, programs like Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) have provided essential support for families with low incomes. At the same time, these programs have reinforced structures of oppression. It is critical that we understand the history of the safety-net in the United States because, without recognition of past and present harm, we run the serious risk of complicity in upholding systems of white supremacy.

Many scholars have written at length about racism and the history of public benefit programs and welfare reform in America. From "mothers pensions" in the 1900s used to exclude Black women to Reagans "Welfare Queen" narrative in the 1980s to Clintons 1996 racialized welfare reform and workfare programs, false racist narratives have long been applied to people experiencing poverty. As Johnnie Tillmon noted in 1972, "we've been trained to believe that the only reason people are on welfare is because there's something wrong with their character." For decades, these narratives have served as dog whistles that are employed to garner support to cut funding and to restrict the eligibility for these programs with direct harms to both people of color and white people with low incomes.

Many of the white supremacist structures historically embedded in public benefit programs remain in place today. Disguised under terminology like "work requirements," "family caps," "drug testing," and "resource limits" these polices are fundamentally rooted in oppression, paternalism, and control of Black and Brown lives. The policies themselves reinforce misconceptions about beneficiaries, suggesting that individuals with low incomes must be coerced to work and avoid drug use. Although whites are the largest group of beneficiaries when it comes to government safety-net programs, policies which frame benefits access in terms of deserving versus undeserving rely upon and perpetuate false narratives about benefit recipients.

While many of these policies appear race neutral, in practice they discriminate by failing to acknowledge the skewed racial realities of the U.S. criminal justice system and labor market. For example, when racial discrimination in hiring prevails, work requirements necessarily place a disproportionate burden on people of color. When states agencies direct staff to consider an applicants criminal history as a basis for reasonable suspicion in drug testing, people of color suffer the consequences of disparate policing of drug use in their communities. And when agencies impose resource limits with exclusions for home ownership, again people of color experience compounded barriers due to historic and systemic racism that excluded Black people from home-buying opportunities.

With Black and Latinx people dying from COVID-19 at significantly higher rates than white people, public health data is manifesting generations of racial inequities. These disquieting statistics challenge the advocacy community to propose solutions which address the systemic and historic discrimination that have long driven policymaking and implementation of public benefit programs. Looking forward, we must ask ourselves: How do we not only reduce inequities but eliminate them?

At a time when systemic discrimination and a widening racial wealth gap make it increasingly difficult for families to thrive, now is the time for us to evaluate the ways in which our past efforts have failed, to think beyond incremental reform, and to actively dismantle racism in the safety-net. I hope that the advocacy community will consider all possibilities and continue these conversations in close partnership with people directly impacted by the outcomes. We must follow the direction of people with lived experience and affirmatively address the ways in which public benefit programs have been complicit in enabling suppression of Black people, Immigrants, and other communities of color. I look forward to the work ahead and to reimagining what is possible for the future of public benefit programs in our country.

Read more from the original source:

Racism in Public Benefit Programs: Where Do We Go from Here? - The Center for Law and Social Policy

Tod Lindberg, Opinion contributor Published 5:00 a.m. ET July 24, 2020

Before the Declaration, ideas were brewing along the lines of the 'unalienable rights' of all human beings, but the political world was the sport of kings and barons, chieftains and the strong.

Reports by government commissions arent generally known for their insight into basic questions about the human condition, nor can they typically be read for pleasure. The report of the State Departments Commission on Unalienable Rights, in circulation as of last week, is perhaps the exception that proves the rule: a lively and serious inquiry into the basic ideas that animated the founding of the United States and provided impetus to the global pursuit of human rights.

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo chartered his commission well before the tough six months America has just been going through, from pandemic to lockdown to protests, some of them violent. Yet current conditions make its message all the more timely.

Demonstrators demand justice and rail against past and present injustice. And whether they are aware of it historically or not, they mostly rely on claims introduced into the political world in the American Declaration of Independence. George Floyd had a right not to be slain by a police officer. Government is supposed to protect peoples lives and liberty. They should govern themselves as equals and be free to pursue happiness as they see it, without fear of capricious force under color of law.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, that is: Before the Declaration, ideas were brewing along the lines of the unalienable rights of all human beings, but the political world was the sport of kings and barons, chieftains and the strong. To most of them, the idea that government should be of the people, by the people and for the people, as Lincoln described it 87 years later, had never occurred. Yet the idea of these rights was so powerful and so liberating that it became not only a global beacon against oppression, but also the means by which Americans began to free themselves from the constraints of the times in which it arose.

Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776 painted by J. Trumbull and engraved by W.L. Ormsby, N.Y.(Photo: Library of Congress)

Thats because in saying all men are created equal, Jefferson and the other signers of the Declaration of Independence both meant it and did not mean it. Clearly, they didnt mean all men and women are created equal, a formulation that would come to the fore with the Declaration of Sentiments drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Nor did it apply to men, women and children who were slaves, including of some of the very signers. Nor did they mean it with regard to Native Americans being driven from their ancestral lands.

Nor did the all the abolitionists and early womens rights advocates themselves necessarily believe in universal human equality. Nevertheless, those five words formed the basis of 244 years worth and counting of demands for equality in the United States and beyond our own national borders.

The Founders did not finish the job of political equality with the Declaration and the Constitution, nor did Lincoln with the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation, nor did Susan B. Anthony when she illegally cast a ballot in the 1872 presidential election, nor the Supreme Court in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education by reversing its previous holding and declaring that the separate but equal justification for segregation was not equality.

July Fourth: Frederick Douglass found hope in our Declaration of Independence. So can we.

But the Founders did start the project of political equality by risking their necks on independence in the name of those five words. And the others mentioned here, and many more, continued the project against resistance, by relying on a history tracing back continuously and directly to all men are created equal as they demanded justice.

This is a story the Commission on Unalienable Rights tells with clarity and erudition. Likewise compelling is its account of the resonance of the principles of the American founding in the United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the little-remembered context in which other countries drew on their own national traditions in pursuit of the universal rights they delineated in UDHR.

My ancestors founded Brown University: Its connection to slavery isn't what you've heard.

The American story is woefully incomplete without an account of the injustice perpetrated here and the suffering it has caused. But it is also woefully incomplete in the absence of an account of how ideas about unalienable rights articulated at the time of the founding became an engine driving the pursuit of justice here and throughout the world.

Tod Lindberg is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author most recently of "The Heroic Heart: Greatness Ancient and Modern." Follow him on Twitter: @todlindberg

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'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness' these words set America on path to progress - USA TODAY

The stimulus package, announced on Thursday, is constructive in that it recognises the necessity of getting people into jobs or helping them stay there.

Other governments have also scrambled to introduce stimulus packages to reduce unemployment rates. Yet, whatever the short-term response is, governments everywhere will have to plan for certain sectors not to recover quickly, and some not to recover at all.

Hospitality and leisure depend on people congregating in groups and sufficient traffic to stay afloat. Only a vaccine will protect these sectors and, by the time it arrives, many individual businesses will have failed. The IMFs prediction that the Swedish economy will decline by more than its Nordic neighbours, despite its laissez-faire approach to the lockdown, only demonstrates how much anxiety about the virus influences current consumer behaviour.

In the context of global recession and this public anxiety about the future, the Irish Governments stimulus response is also underwhelming. It is less ambitious and visionary than policy proposals in other countries facing a worse economic and public health crisis.

For example, the Biden campaign in the US and a campaign in the UK driven by hundreds of civil society organisations and academics (as well as Trcaire here in Ireland) have adopted the slogan Build Back Better from the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The slogan refers to developing greater resilience after a crisis through new policy initiatives. Public investment should correspondingly go beyond temporary fixes to envisioning how improvements in infrastructure, human capital and collaboration at a community level can prepare a society for future shocks.

The pandemic has affected the US and the UK more than Ireland, and the Government here should be lauded for acting quickly. Those countries are also confronting the divisiveness of political polarisation and the repercussions of decades, if not centuries, of racism and oppression. Those two trends are fuelling confrontation between political leaders and on the street.

But these differences do not mean that policymakers in Ireland can avoid thinking about social and political divisions here, and the longer-term policy vision needed to overcome entrenched structural problems, such as low pay and precarity. Like the US, the UK and elsewhere, the fault lines in Irish society have been exacerbated by the pandemic, and recession and will not go away without new policy ideas.

In fact, there are two lessons the Irish Government should take from the US and the UK. The first is that a slogan such as Build Back Better evokes a brighter future, and implicitly tells young people to aspire and to trust that leaders are looking after their interests. The second, based on the friction caused by the cancel culture debate or perceived hardening of ideas amongst progressives, is that the Government has to connect open public debate to transformative economic and social policy. The victory in the Apple tax case represents in some ways the first foray into this debate. We should debate whether the status quo really represents effective economic policy for a small, open economy in a volatile world or, instead, if we should be engaging in more far-reaching and forward-thinking discussion about the economy we need for the future.

The stimulus package and the recent rejection of the Private Members Bill on protecting low-wage, precarious workers that the Social Democrats put forward suggest that the Government is pursuing the former strategy to create jobs first and consider their quality later. Yet, considering the combination of external pressures and internal problems policymakers must confront over the next few years, a bolder, more visionary alternative would also be more pragmatic. Waiting for the emergency to pass as this stimulus package seems to be predicated on may only make the long-term challenges more daunting.

This first economic litmus test for this new Government fails to impress because it does not give the sense that the new FF-FG-Green alliance is prepared to think big enough to move beyond Covid-19 to a new normal that is predicated on equality, and more profoundly hope for the future.

Instead of generating jobs for the sake of employment numbers, the stimulus package could have hinged on linking job creation to wellbeing, climate change and economic democracy.

Policy planning for the future should therefore not just aim to return people very often women to low-paid, precarious positions, but rather to better jobs that reflect recognition of the collective benefit of a more stable, more optimistic workforce. Critically, younger generations would feel like they have a stake in such an economy, where they can perceive a trajectory for themselves instead of a narrow, and sometimes depressing, set of choices.

The Government has a strong basis and mandate following the last election and the impact of Covid-19 for moving in this direction. During the pandemic, politicians asked us all to engage in a collective effort to care for each other. Improving the quality of work in sectors such as care, or renewable energy or any other sector that suggests responsible future planning, shows that the State recognises that to build a better Ireland, investing in economic recovery has to be good for society as well. This stimulus package aims to fulfil half this brief but the other half remains just as important.

Shana Cohen is director of TASC, the think tank for action on social change

Continued here:

Governments stimulus package falls short of the big thinking Ireland needs - The Irish Times

The time immediately following a crisis, whether it be a peace process, rebuilding after a natural disaster or seeing a new government come into power, creates a window of opportunity to reimagine what the next phase of life can look like. When the status quo has been upended, there is a feeling that normal can be redesigned. With COVID-19, this opportunity seems more pressing than ever before as the pandemic has highlighted the inequalities that have made the old normal not work for so many, particularly women. In every country, women face gender discrimination and often times, this intersects with other forms of inequity stemming from disability, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, creating additional barriers for accessing services, education, and employment. The surging Black Lives Matter movement around the globe has thrown into stark relief just how critically important it is, especially for women, and particularly women of color, that we do not just get back to normal, but that we actively build back better.

For women and girls living in humanitarian contexts, building back betterand taking into account multiple factors of oppression and discriminationis critical. Through the International Rescue Committees (IRC) nearly 90 years of humanitarian work, we know that women and girls continue to be disadvantaged in terms of access to education, employment, healthcare, safety, and more. COVID-19 has brought increased rhetoric around the different ways women and girls experience a crisis, yet we are still seeing old patterns being repeated, particularly in the absence of gender analysis, disaggregated data, and dedicated funding to support the most vulnerable, despite highlevel calls to action. As countries begin to reopen, we cannot sacrifice the necessary changes for the comfort of the familiar. The time is far past to have difficult conversations, to employ feminist approaches, and to use COVID-19, as terrible as it continues to be, as an opportunity to truly change the status quo for all women and girls.

Originally posted here:

When Returning to Normal Doesn't Work for Half the World's Population: How to Build Back Better - World - ReliefWeb

By Rose BirgenBy Eva Okoth

Laws are not always just. Ironically, the law can be used as a tool for creating social order and, at the same time, as an avenue for oppression. In many countries around the world, the law has been used to protect political and monetary interests at the expense of the most vulnerable in society.

In Kenya, this is demonstrated by the governments enactment of draconian and backward legislation, such as the Land Value (Amendment) Act, which is, to a great extent, oppressive to the ordinary citizen.

The Land Value (Amendment) Act came into force in 2019. Its objective is to provide guidance on the process of compulsory acquisition of private or community lands for a public purpose. It also describes the method of calculating the value of land acquired in order to estimate the amount of compensation.

The Act introduced amendments which are not only potentially unconstitutional but also likely to infringe the property rights of communities where compulsory acquisition takes place. It allows the government to compulsorily acquire land and pay individuals or affected communities as late as one year later.

The positive changes made to the law through this amendment Act are insignificant. Instead, it has legalised the governments usual tendency to acquire land illegally without compensating affected persons promptly.

To date, communities from Lamu County, including farmers in Kililana, Kwasasi, Sinambio, the Awer of Bargon and villagers from Bobo and Roka whose lands were acquired for the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopian Transport (Lapsset) corridor have not been compensated, even though the legal regime at the time of acquisition the government to compensate affected persons before possessing their land. Persons affected by the Standard Gauge Railway project, which the Court of Appeal recently declared illegal, are facing a similar predicament.

Failing to compensate these communities promptly has increased their vulnerability to human rights violations. This is particularly inevitable where communities are evicted from their ancestral lands, rendering them homeless and internally displaced years after the completion of these projects.

Perhaps the critical question to ask ourselves at this point is whose interests this law serves.

THE PROMPT PAYMENT BILL

To answer that question, let us draw our attention to the Prompt Payment Bill, introduced into Parliament on February 28, 2020 - just around the period when countries were going into lockdown due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The purpose of this Bill is to provide for the prompt payment for supply of goods, works and services procured by government entities at the national and county levels. This Bill, unlike the Land Value (Amendment) Act, places a mandatory obligation on the government to pay for goods, services or works provided within the date prescribed in a contract or, where no date is prescribed, within 90 days or less as prescribed by the Cabinet Secretary by way of delegated legislation. Failure to make a prompt payment attracts a criminal penalty and interest on the principal amount.

Arguably, just like any other commercial arrangement, compulsory land acquisition is a form of procurement. However, the difference in treatment between ordinary procurement transactions and compulsory land acquisition is glaring.

For instance, prompt payment in the context of the Act differs from the meaning it is given under the Bill. Similarly, the failure to pay for services in time attracts a criminal penalty under the Bill but not under the Act. Yet, in both instances, the government benefits in some way from the goods, services or rights acquired.

EQUAL TREATMENT

Community land is a valuable commodity for communities that depend on it for their livelihood. Its acquisition by the government must therefore be treated in the same way as other government procurement processes, specifically in terms of ensuring that:

This is the only way to ensure that as a nation we protect the integrity of our laws.

Legislators must, therefore, remember that Kenyas democracy can only succeed when the interests of the people, especially the most vulnerable persons, are placed at the centre of decision-making processes. This requires equal treatment of all people under the law.

Rose Birgen is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a senior programme officer with Natural Justice.

Eva Maria Okoth is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a programme officer with Natural Justice.

Continued here:

Prompt Payment Bill a ray of hope to victims of compulsory acquisition - Daily Nation

KUALA LUMPUR (July 22): The High Court here today ordered former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to pay the government, through the Inland Revenue Board (IRB), RM1.69 billion in additional taxes and penalties.

High Court Judge Justice Datuk Ahmad Bache read out his summary judgment today, ordering Najib to pay the amount to the IRB. The IRB was also awarded RM15,000 in cost.

The court holds that a summary judgment is entered against the defendant (Najib) for the amount claimed by the plaintiff (IRB) as in the plaintiffs statement of claims, that is RM1,692,872,924.83 with cost. Hence, an order in terms is granted to Enclosure (1), Order Accordingly, Ahmad read.

Bache stated that under the Income Tax Act, the court has no powers pertaining to pleas from individuals who are disputing tax assessments against them.

Such is the law because of the principle of revenue law that when there is a debt due to the government, the court shall not entertain any plea whatsoever, he said.

The yearly assessments, not inclusive of penalties, amounted to RM1,465,690,844, became due and payable to the IRB after they sent assessment notices to Najib dated March 20, 2019, the judge noted, adding Najibs camp has also admitted to receiving the notices at his address.

Furthermore, the fact that the defendant has filed an appeal to the Special Commissioners of Income Tax (SCIT) in relation to those notices, further reinforced the fact that said notices are properly served, Ahmad read, stating this was in accordance with the provision of the Income Tax Act 1967 in relation to the serving of notices.

Since the notices were properly served to Najib, the tax therefore becomes due and payable to the IRB, he said.

The court also held that the penalty of 10% for each year of assessment for failing to pay the outstanding sum is permissible by virtue of Section 103 (5) of the Income Tax Act 1967, which states that any sum not paid within 30 days of the receipt of the notice be subject to the penalty.

With the 10% penalty added to the total outstanding sum, the payable sum due becomes RM1.61 billion. Subsequently, Najib failed to settle the renewed sum within 60 days under the same act, which resulted in a compounded 5% hike of RM80.61 million. Which brings the total to RM1.69 billion.

Ahmad also said the imposition of the penalty is fair and permissible. Because if all other tax-payers are to be imposed with such penalties upon late payment of taxes due, it is only fair that the defendant, who is a former finance minister and former prime minister, be subjected to the same provision of penalty as everyone stands equal before the law, he said.

Ahmad also maintained that the court, in a civil proceeding brought by the government, has no power to entertain any plea on the amount, whether it is excessive, incorrectly assessed and under appeal as Najibs lawyers had claimed.

He said that this has to be taken up with the Special Commissioners of Income Tax (SCIT), who are judges of fact. This court holds that the merit of assessment which involve questions, should be heard by the SCIT, as the court is not the appropriate quorum to decide on issues of assessment. The SCIT are judges of facts, he said.

Najibs lawyer Farhan Shafee argued last month that the unpaid tax the IRB is seeking were from donations given to Najib, which he claimed were not taxable.

We have the RM2.6 billion Arab donation that went into Najibs account but after he used the money for elections, around US$620 million was returned to the Arabs. This has come out in Najibs other court cases and there is money trail proof in black and white of these transactions. So how can the IRB tax the amount that was returned to the Arab royalty? Farhan had questioned.

The judge further said today that all is not lost for Najib, as he can dispute the amount of assessment with the SCIT by filing an appeal, which has already been done.

In an immediate response to the summary judgment, Najib took to his Facebook account to express his dissatisfaction.

He claimed the issue was an act of oppression espoused by the Pakatan Harapan government against him. He also claimed that this was an abuse of power by the former government. Actually, I am not ordered by the judge to pay the tax but the judge gave a summary judgment to the IRB to go ahead with their claim against me, he added.

The government filed the suit against Najib on June 25 last year to recover the unpaid taxes.

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High Court orders Najib to pay RM1.69b in additional taxes to government - The Edge Markets MY

The provincial directive to end the "discriminatory practice" of birth alerts is a big step forward to keeping Indigenous and racialized families together, according to advocates in Ontario.

The directive, issued on July 14 by Ontario Associate Minister of Children and Women's Issues Jill Dunlop, ordered children's aid societies to stop issuing birth alerts by mid-October.

"For our community ... for Indigenous women across the province of Ontario ... this is a real sign of recognition of our rights as mothers, our rights as women but also, more importantly, this is going to improve the outcomes for Indigenous children and Indigenous babies across the province," said Dawn Lavell Harvard, president of the Ontario Native Women's Association (ONWA).

She added, "I'm absolutely over-the-moon happy with the current government for taking this all-important step to recognize the autonomy of Indigenous mothers, to recognize their right to mother their own children something that was taken away with residential schools, were taken away with the Sixties Scoop and has been taken away generation after generation by racist governments."

The practice of birth alerts where a children's aid society notifies hospitals when they believe a newborn may be in need of protection has long been reported to disproportionately affect Indigenous families in Ontario.

Its elimination was also a recommendation made bythe National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Lavell Harvard said the systemic discrimination seen in the practice of birth alerts is reflected more broadly in the child welfare system.

"We know that there are currently more children in the care of the child welfare system than were in the residential schools at the height of the residential school system. And this is a result of poverty, is a result of racism, discrimination and systemic racism within the child welfare system ... where Indigenous mothers and Indigenous families are unfairly targeted."

"We recognize that in most cases, birth alerts do not support our goal of protecting children while supporting families to stay together. Every new mother and father need to be treated with respect, not negatively impacted because of an alert that might result in judgment with discriminatory measures," said Thelma Morris, executive director of Tikinagan Child & Family Services, a "community-based" child welfare agency that serves30 First Nations in northern Ontario.

The executive director for the Children's Aid Society of Thunder Bay, Brad Bain, said he sees the directive as a "positive step" made by the provincial government.

Bain acknowledged "the role that the Thunder Bay agency has played certainly, as well as our sector, in contributing to systemic racism and oppression."

He estimated that in recent years, the agency has issued five birth alerts per year, although noted that no birth alerts have been issued in 2020.

"As an organization, we are committed to the elimination of systemic racism and have an internal, anti-oppressive practices committee and we work in concert with our local stakeholders to inform our practices and our policies," Bain added.

Lavell Harvard said there is a lot more work to be done to keep families together.

"Indigenous-run child welfare organizations are discriminated against in terms ... they're expected to do more to hold families together with significantly less resources and then they are blamed when they have poor outcomes."

She added more "upstream" investment is needed to ensure Indigenous families are supported.

"If one wants to talk bottom line in terms of investments ... we need to be investing in that prevention, investing in providing Indigenous moms and their families with the tools they need to survive and provide for our families."

More:

'Discriminatory practice' of birth alerts to end in Ontario, and that's good for Indigenous families says ONWA - CBC.ca

Graphic by Ferna Simbulan

Editor's note: All letters to the editor will be considered, but not every one will be published. Please allow 24 hours for a response regarding your submission.

We are a pro-Palestine organization, and we renounce the claims the Israeli government has on the land of my people, including the annexation of villages in the West Bank.

We are writing to address several things that were mentioned in a Letter to the Editor from a Zionist student regarding the protest we organized last week.

Palestinians are so rarely the focus in media pieces. Our voices are often ignored and disproportionately underrepresented. So we want to start by saying that the Alligator did its duty in upholding the core of journalistic practice, and that is the dedication to reporting the truth. The reporter was sent to cover a planned statewide protest for Palestine with more than 100 attendees, not a spontaneous group of about 10 pro-Israel students waving a flag across the street. The lack of Israeli perspective in the piece was not biased or malicious, it was true to the story that was unfolding. Its fine that just this once, ours were the voices that were centered. On that day, we felt heard. We felt seen.

Perhaps if a larger Israeli demonstration was coordinated, it couldve gotten more coverage.

The definition of Zionism provided in the Letter to the Editor was incomplete. No matter how you look at it, Israel was established by the literal expulsion of Palestinians from their homes. So to even say that Zionism does not equate to anti-Palestine, is not just wrong, it is the gaslighting of an entire nation.

Palestine mourns May 15, 1948, also known as Al-Nakba, or the Catastrophe, while Israel celebrates it as its independence day. On this day alone, Zionist forces conducted 33 massacres, destroyed 531 villages, and forced over 750,000 Palestinians out of the country as refugees.

One of our organizers families was one of the many forced to flee. Tantura, the small coastal village on the Mediterranean they called home, was wiped off the map.

Anti-Zionism rejects the colonial racism of Israels founding and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians within the occupied territories. It is the rejection of oppression and apartheid. It is NOT prejudice and discrimination toward Jewish people as individuals or as a group. That would be anti-Semitism.

In the letter, the writer claimed that nationally renowned, anti-racist author and professor, Paul Ortiz, was anti-Semitic when he compared the plight of Native Americans in the U.S. to that of Palestinians under Israeli colonization. For one, as we established above, criticizing Israeli colonialism does not equate to being bigoted towards Jewish people. European colonizers felt entitled to Native American lands and took them by force. The same can be said for Israel.

Within the letter, it was implied that equating Zionism and white supremacy was groundless.

So should we ignore that Richard Spencer called himself a white Zionist?

Or that both Zionism in Israel and white supremacy in the U.S. maintain their grips of power through the exploitation, subjugation and displacement of indigenous groups?

Because there is certainly a white ruling class in Israel and a population of Black Ethiopian Jews who disproportionately experience levels of brutality and discrimination that parallel the plight of Black Americans.

In addition, Palestinians are denied the freedom of movement in their own countries through military checkpoints, much like how apartheid South Africa upheld pass laws that forced Black South Africans to carry permits to enter white cities.

Time and time again so many Palestinians and allies have had to explain ourselves and what we advocate for. The student who wrote the Letter to the Editor, as well as so many other Zionist students weve met, insisted that resolution can only be reached if both sides truly listen to one another. But conversation cant happen if every Palestinian activist and ally is labeled anti-Semitic for actions that simply arent so.

So we want to say something we feel has not been expressed enough in these conversations, and we want to be very clear: to be effectively pro-Palestine, one must also stand unwaveringly against anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic bigotry has created generational trauma for Jewish people, just as all forms of oppressive ideology has done for so many other marginalized groups.

It was not hate that allowed Zionism to take residence in a land that already had people.

It was fear.

It was fear that drove an oppressed people to oppress others.

The reason why we stand so ardently against these accusations of anti-Semitism is because it has no place in this movement.

So when we say free Palestine, it means more than liberating Gaza, more than bringing back the generations of Palestinians scattered across the globe to their usurped homes, more than ending apartheid within the occupied lands. Freeing Palestine means ending the trauma of colonization for all oppressed people across the world.

It is why images of George Floyd, a black man mercilessly killed by U.S. police, are painted all over the occupied West Bank right beside murals of Razan al-Najjar, a Palestinian nurse murdered by the Israeli military.

Its why we protested on the corner of University Avenue a week ago. It's why we will continue to stand against oppression tomorrow. Its why we are here today.

We cannot be free until we are all free. And we know, within our lifetimes, we will be.

SJP is an independent organization that creates opportunities to learn about and participate in global movements for the freedom, justice, and equality of Palestinians and others.

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Letter to the editor: Palestine in the media - The Independent Florida Alligator

Since the murder of George Floyd, racism, police brutality, and the long history of inequality in our country, have been under a microscope like never before. People can no longer ignore what 400 years of oppression has done to the black community, and cities say its time for reparations. USA Today reports that local officials in cities like Providence, RI, and Asheville, NC are now proposing different measures to address these injustices, ranging from resolutions to support studying reparations and proposals funneling more funds into programs for Black communities.

Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, says that recent nationwide unrest finally brought the conversation to the forefront. Its always the right time to do the right thing. There is an appetite and an urgency to make the most of this moment and make sure there is real structural change that comes out of it.

Although the idea of reparations does have support like never before, there will always be opposition, and much of the debate is over what the reparations would actually look like. There has been talk about allocating funds to programs that would uplift Black communities and even some discussion about cash payments, though thats where most of the opposition lies. Some Senate Republicans argue that Americans alive today shouldnt have to pay the price for their ancestors choices, even though black Americans are still feeling the effects of the generational trauma inflicted on theirs. Its also important to note that no country has ever given monetary compensation to African descendants of the transatlantic slave trade. GOP members sayit would be too costly and point out that determining eligibility would pose a large problem.

Despite what the government says at a federal level, local officials like Providence Councilwoman, Nirva LaFortune, and other community leaders are promising residentstruth, reconciliation and municipal reparations. Asheville officials have also promised reparations to its Black residents. Last week the city council voted in favor of investing inmarginalized Black communities.City Councilwoman Sheneika Smith said the city is discussing how to tackle things like increasing minority homeownership and access to other affordable housing; increasing minority business ownership and career opportunities; closing the gap in healthcare, education, employment, and pay; and reforming the criminal justice system. They hope to create paths to generational wealth for Black people and will map out how to fund these efforts over the next year. California and North Carolina are also working on following suit.

Elorza notes that cities cant bear the entire burden of paying reparations to its residents and called for all levels of government to step up to the plate. William Darity, an expert and professor at Duke University,told USA Today that he believes slavery is the Federal governments doingso it should be up to them to right their wrongs. The federal government is the culpable party, and as a matter of principle, should foot the bill for reparations, but the federal government also is the only entity that can meet the bill,he said. Darity suggests using reparations as a way to eliminate the racial wealth gap between Blacks and whites. He estimates this would cost anywhere from $10 to $12 trillion.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he doesnt think reparations is a good idea, additionally, Donald Trump has said he doesnt see it happening. Newsweek reported Thursday that during a virtual town hall with the NAACP, Joe Biden said hes in favor of reparations if studies show that cash payments are, in fact, a viable option. Regardless of what happens in November, though, newly elected President of the U. S. Conference of Mayors, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, says, The timing is right for reparations discussions.

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Local Governments Say "The Timing Is Right For Reparations Discussions" - balleralert.com

The Martian Revolution pitting the human inhabitants of Mars against the Earthlings who stayed at home is coming. The only question is which side of it we should be on now, a century or two before it begins.

On Thursday local time, China launched one of three international missions set to head toward Mars this summer, each one marking a dramatic step forward in the scientific exploration of the Red Planet and the day that human settlement there becomes a reality. The purpose of the missions, the other two of which are being undertaken by the United Arab Emirates and the United States, range from unpacking the history of Mars' atmosphere to looking for signs of ancient life.

In building new outposts of human society, how do we keep from repeating all the injustices and broken power dynamics that have marked history on Earth?

While billionaire rocketeers like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others aren't directly involved in these missions, they are very interested in Mars. And nation-sponsored endeavors like those launching this week will plant the seeds that they hope will eventually grow into a long-term, large-scale human presence on Mars and throughout the solar system. Commercial space companies, like Musk's SpaceX, have had remarkable success building powerful, reusable rockets that shave the cost of reaching orbit and would help drive that Martian settlement.

But the progress also brings new and equally remarkable questions about the ethics of populating Mars, particularly when we are so acutely aware of the failures and devastation caused by humanity's earlier acts of colonization. Answers to these new questions may not only determine our future in space, but they may also shape the human future for centuries.

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There are important questions about the legitimacy and wisdom of colonizing Mars in the first place. But even if these concerns are overcome or simply ignored in the enthusiasm for a human future in space, we must think seriously about how to do it in the best way. The global outrage at George Floyd's death and the societal shortcomings it spotlights tell us we must ask ourselves now and not later: In building new outposts of human society, how do we keep from repeating all the injustices and broken power dynamics that have marked history on Earth?

That's where the Martian Revolution comes in.

Martian liberation movements are a staple of science fiction. First, people from Earth build tiny settlements on Mars. Then, after a century or so, the settlements grow into vibrant planetwide civilizations. Eventually, these new "Martians" fight to throw off the yoke of Earth's tyranny. In these stories, space represents an opportunity to create social arrangements that look profoundly different from what we've been locked into on Earth. In space, maybe, we could be more free.

The question that must come next is: Whose idea of freedom are we talking about? The broad discussion of systematic racism happening now is a recognition of just how deep and persistent inequality has been in most modern societies. Add to this the oppression of different sexual and gender identities and it's clear that there are forms of expression and well-being that lots of humans don't fully enjoy here on Earth.

So, if we want something different, how can we get there?

One vehicle is the growth of commercial space enterprises, because their premise is so new and their activities are so vibrant. SpaceX, Blue Origin and others deserve a lot of credit for what they have and can achieve technologically. But it's unlikely that the owners, a group of hyper-rich white guys small enough to fit into an elevator, can build the best new society on their own even if they really did have the very best of intentions.

But the economic engines they're creating can help bring many different kinds of people into the process, including those who suffer now under what we've built on Earth. That's because thriving long-term human settlements on Mars can exist only once we've built a healthy space economy, and that's going to happen only through collaborations between governments and commercial enterprises (i.e., public-private partnerships). Right now, for example, the U.S. government is a principal client for SpaceX. So, in the future, the moon bases, asteroid-mining facilities and deep-space exploration platforms that will make up a space economy will likely be built by consortiums of nations working with private companies.

We everyday citizens who represent the public side of the partnerships can require those companies to break with the past to be more inclusive and innovative; we have leverage. If a company wants to be part of a big moon base contract, then the governments allowing them to be involved have to set up rules and standards that benefit all humans, regardless of their place on the socioeconomic ladder. Creating economic structures for workers that can't devolve into versions of indentured servitude (something Musk seemed to unwittingly imply was possible) is one example.

But we could go even further. My colleague Jacob Haqq-Misra of the Blue Marble Space Institute has come up with one of the coolest ideas ever when it comes to this question. He argues that we can liberate Mars now by declaring any settlement there to be definitively Martian. Humans who leave Earth to permanently settle on Mars would have to relinquish their planetary citizenship as Earthlings. These new Martians wouldn't be able to represent the interests of any group on Earth and couldn't acquire wealth on Earth.

Just as important, in keeping with space treaties formed under the auspices of the United Nations, the Martian Constitution outlining the society the planet's new citizens would be joining would spell out the use of land on the Red Planet. In particular, land rights would be determined only by Martians; Earthlings wouldn't be able to make any demands for resources like water (for making rocket fuel). (Note that this means you could still make money on Mars, but you would have to do it as a citizen of the new world, with its new, more just and equal social arrangements.

If we do decide to populate Mars (and you can probably tell I really want us to), then we can ensure a future in space that would be something much better than what we have now something those back on Earth could eventually learn from. In that way, the Martian Revolution can begin today. It can be fought and won without grievance and without a shot, fully completed by that fateful day when human beings first set foot on the red soil of their new home.

Adam Frank, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, is the author of "Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth."

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The China Mars mission raises the question of how best to settle other planets - NBC News

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In Portland, Oregon, unidentified armed assailants dressed in military fatigues have been snatching people off the streets, piling them into unmarked vans, and taking them away.

Just as the founders intended.

No, seriously, the founders must have intended for that to happen. Otherwise the people who are always proclaiming their worship of rights, and freedom, and liberty people who are quite certain they know a lot more than you about what the founders intended would be condemning this assault on, well, rights, and freedom, and liberty.

And theyre not.

Any discomfort, any momentary tinge of cognitive dissonance, appears to be assuaged by whos in charge. The thugs dispatched to seize American citizens off the streets of a U.S. city, you see, are federal officers carrying out orders of the Trump administration.

The Oregon attorney general has filed a suit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Federal Protective Service. Oh, and the AG in Nevadas neighbor to the northwest has also sued John Does 1-10, who are so named, the suit explains, because the government has made it impossible for them to be individually identified by carrying out law enforcement actions without wearing any identifying information, even so much as the agency that employs them.

Aint that America?

The John Does and their cohorts have been conducting the aforementioned abductions of your fellow Americans without either arresting them or stating the basis for an arrest, since at least Tuesday, July 14, according to allegations in the suit.

Ordinarily, a person exercising his right to walk through the streets of Portland who is confronted by anonymous men in military-type fatigues and ordered into an unmarked van can reasonably assume that he is being kidnapped and is the victim of a crime, the suit notes. Which is true.

Defendants are injuring the occupants of Portland, the suit continues, by taking away citizens ability to determine whether they are being kidnapped by militia or other malfeasants dressed in paramilitary gear (such that they may engage in self-defense to the fullest extent permitted by law) or are being arrested (such that resisting might amount to a crime).

The abductions, in addition to creeping everyone out, are violations of the 1st, 4th and 5th amendments, says the suit, which seeks an injunction ordering the Trump administration to, well, stop being a bunch of lawless thugs.

Remember that one day when people who think fighting the covid is unconstitutional or something went to the Nevada governors office, with guns, to call him a dictator and shake their fists at the sky and yell about freedom?

Or remember that time a huge Blue Lives Matter march was supposed to be held in Las Vegas?

Imagine if, at such an event, federal officers started just cold grabbing protesters and hauling them away with no explanation whatsoever.

Imagine the outcry from the likes of, oh, Fox News, or Adam Laxalt, or Brobdingnagian Dan Rodimer, or Michele Fiore, or that one whosit carnival barker who used to have a column in the RJ. They would have had a cow (donated by Cliven Bundy no doubt).

So youd think those self-professed lovers of freedom and rights and liberty and the rule of law, those self-identified Real Americans, and their ilk would be pitching a fit over tyrannical and dictatorial federal actions designed to, as Trump likes to say, dominate the citizenry.

After all, as the Oregon AGs suit asserts, Citizens peacefully gathering on the streets of Portland to protest racial inequality have the right

Oh. Wait. It looks weve found the extenuating circumstances.

Its not as if people in Portland were making noise on behalf of some truly cherished American value, like the freedom to spread covid to others, or the right of a welfare cowboy to make taxpayers foot the bill to feed his cows.

Its not as if people in Portland were standing up to support the perpetuation of the traditional status quo, wherein police kill Black people and no one is held accountable.

No, the people in Portland have been protesting racial inequality.

Your freedom-loving, mask-despising patriots may, as a rule, view Big Guvment para-trooping a light military force into a state without giving notice to, let alone being requested by, that states duly elected officials or law enforcement as a violation of every star-spangled red white & blue value they hold so dear.

Unless the stormtroopers are violating the rights and liberty of people who are challenging North Americas 400-year legacy of cruelty, violence, theft, rape, and systemic oppression of people who arent white. When people are protesting that, kidnapping Americans is evidently OK. Even if the people being secreted away are white (seriously have you been to Portland?).

No one expects intellectual consistency, or intellectual much of anything, from Laxalt, Rodimer, Fiore & Friends.

And everyone, even and especially his supporters, know that law and order just means continued oppression and domination of everyone who isnt a Trump supporter when Trump says it.

Ah, but maybe these harsh and authoritarian tactics undertaken by the weak wannabe strongman will at least quell unrest or vandalism in Portland, and Dear Leader Trump will save the day after all.

Eh, not so much.

Their presence, the Oregonian reported Monday of Trumps invasion of Portland, has stoked the nightly strife in downtown, not tamped down tensions as professed by Trump or Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad F. Wolf, local and state leaders say.

Portlands mayor has said, well, a lot of things, as you can imagine. But this is the most important:

This could happen in your city.

As if on cue, Trump Monday blustered that hes going to send his American Gestapo to Chicago and several other cities all run by liberal Democrats.

No one would ever accuse Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman of being one of those. But she doesnt really run the metro area, the county commission does, and however to the left you may think they are, rest assured its more than enough to qualify as liberal Democrats in Trumps noggin. Laughable though it may seem, the same goes for Nevadas governor and Democrats who have majorities in the Legislature.

Trump hasnt targeted Las Vegas for unconstitutional and malicious military thuggery. Yet. But if and when he does, its a safe bet Nevada Trump supporters, states rights devotees all, will demonstrate their commitment to the nations founding principles of liberty and freedom by cheering him on.

Editor | Hugh Jackson has been writing about Nevada policy and politics for more than 20 years. He was editor of the Las Vegas Business Press, senior editor at the Las Vegas CityLife weekly newspaper, daily political commentator on the Las Vegas NBC affiliate, and wrote the then-groundbreaking Las Vegas Gleaner, which among other things was the only independent political blog from Nevada that was credentialed at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. He spent a few years as a senior energy and environmental policy analyst for Public Citizen, and has occasionally worked as a consultant on mining, taxation, education and other issues for Nevada labor and public interest organizations. His freelance work has been published in outlets ranging from the Guardian to Desert Companion to In These Times to the Oil & Gas Journal. For several years he also taught U.S. History courses at UNLV. Prior to moving to Las Vegas, he was a reporter and then assistant managing editor at the Casper Star-Tribune, Wyomings largest newspaper.

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There's never a states' rights hero around when you need one - Nevada Current