Monthly Archives: June 2020

Last Sunday there was a tremendous rally and march in Bozeman against racism and police killing of black and native Americans. On my way home I passed two confederate flags that were prominently displayed. How sick is that! In 2020, after racism and white supremacy has been shown to be a flaw in the society some people feel the need to express their hatred.

If you display that symbol of white supremacy you don't believe in the true meaning of being an American. All people are part of the national fabric. There are no second class citizens.

The Civil War is long over. The period of white supremacy needs to end. All people need to be treated with respect.

Hatred can longer be accepted as freedom of speech. Hate speech is a relic of the past. It is time to put the symbols of white supremacy in museums where they belong. We have to work together to end the most divisive issue that confronts this country.

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Hatred can longer be accepted as freedom of speech - The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

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A thousand demonstrators marched quietly across the MacArthur Bridgeleading to Belle Isle, protesting the killing of George Floyd and urgently calling participants to civically engage, by votingin the upcoming elections and filling out the 2020 Census.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrenceand other state andlocal representatives spoke before the Belle Isle Freedom March, alongside organizers,and former Detroit Lions player,Joique Bell.

"We have to ensure this is more than a moment," Benson said, and urged the crowd to vote.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, third from the left, leads protesters arm and arm as they march across the MacArthur Bridge across the Detroit River to and from Belle Isle during a rally in Detroit, Friday, June 5, 2020, protesting police brutality and the death of George Floyd.(Photo: Kelly Jordan, Detroit Free Press)

"Indeed the only thing that has ever changed things and moved things forward was citizens, like you and me and everyone here today, turning out to vote and casting their ballots."

Booths, heldby the Detroit chapter of the NAACP and City of Detroit, carried voter registration forms and a chance to complete the census.

"My life matters, my children's life matters, the people of this community matter." said Lawrenceto the crowd. She called for America to "take its knee off the necks ofblack people."

With his son nearby, Bell spoke to the crowd through tears.

"I'm furious, I'm angry," he said to the crowd. "To have a conversation with my son about what's going on in this country, what we see on T.V. How do I protect my son?"

Former Detroit Lions player, Joique Bell, center leads protesters arm and arm as they march across the MacArthur Bridge across the Detroit River to and from Belle Isle during a rally in Detroit, Friday, June 5, 2020, protesting police brutality and the death of George Floyd.(Photo: Kelly Jordan, Detroit Free Press)

More:Protests, marches continue across Michigan: Here's a list

More:Ex-Detroit Lions RB Joique Bell to lead freedom march: George Floyd's death 'last straw'

The march began at around 4 p.m. at Gabriel Richard Park, next to the McArthur Bridgeleading to Belle Isle, which was closed off to vehicle traffic forthe protest. Participants were encouraged to stay six feet apart, wear masks and remain silent, although the beat of drums and singing could be heard as the procession walked back, after looping around the clock at the entrance of the park. This march, along with other protests in Michigan,comes at a time when much of the stateis under a loosening stay-home order.

Protesters march on the MacArthur Bridge across the Detroit River to and from Belle Isle during a rally in Detroit, Friday, June 5, 2020, protesting police brutality and the death of George Floyd.(Photo: Kelly Jordan, Detroit Free Press)

A diverse group of protesters, in age and race,carried signs as they walked over the Detroit River.Demonstrators intended to emulate landmark marches in 1965in Selma across the Edmund Pettus Bridgeto fightfor voting rights for African Americans.

Today's march honoredGeorge Floyd, who was killed last week whenMinneapolis police officerDerek Chauvinpressed his knee into his neck for nearly 9 minutes.

On Wednesday, Minnesota authorities upgraded his chargeto second-degree murder and three officers on the scene will be charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Protesters march on the MacArthur Bridge across the Detroit River to and from Belle Isle during a rally in Detroit, Friday, June 5, 2020, protesting police brutality and the death of George Floyd.(Photo: Kelly Jordan, Detroit Free Press)

Protests continue in cities across the country, including Detroit, where they've ended peacefully the last few nights, but tear gas and rubber bullets were used to disperse crowds during the weekend.

Nicole Brown, a 43-year-old lifelong Detroiter, brought her two children to the march, and was joined by her sister.

"I want them to understand what protest is, what's the real meaning of it. It's for peace. It's for equality," she said, noting that this march was her generation's time to protest. She wants to pass that message to her children too.

"We're here because my mom wants us to learn of how it was when they were children and how they had to live the struggle," said 7-year-old Cailey Brown.

"We're here because everybody doesn't get treated the same way and people are getting pulled over for no reason and killed for noreason. And everybody doesn't deserve that, but all cops are not like that. We're all people," added 10-year-old Caden Brown.

Protesters march on the MacArthur Bridge across the Detroit River to and from Belle Isle during a rally in Detroit, Friday, June 5, 2020, protesting police brutality and the death of George Floyd.(Photo: Kelly Jordan, Detroit Free Press)

ChanelleWhite, a 28-year old student at University of Michigan Dearborn and their aunt, said that she came to this protest her first so her niece and nephew don't have to encounter the racism she and family have had to dealt with.

"We're tired of having to worry, when my brother goes out the door, is he going to come home?" she said.

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Vote and fill out the 2020 Census, say Belle Isle Freedom marchers - Detroit Free Press

Sometimes crisis is an opportunity. Sometimes it's just destruction. And if you are wrong or too early, you can end up a loser.

The coronavirus has shut down wide swaths of the global economy. It's too soon to know exactly what kind of crisis it is opportunity or pure destruction.

Everybody wants answers today. We all find ourselves scrolling endlessly on our phones or perpetually watching cable news, trying to glean any bit of information that will help us see the future.

We know this is futile. So instead, let's step back from the crisis... away from the news, away from the virus, and out of the current moment.

Today, I want to reflect on one of my central philosophies one that's being reinforced and proven true by the events happening today.

It's a picture of how to invest for freedom and calm... and get through our current challenges.

When people think of Wall Street, they often picture a flurry of floor traders in color-coded vests barking bids at one another. Or they think of riding a hot tip they got from a guy who "knows something" and seeing an immediate windfall.

That's not how it works. Or rather, that's not how it should work.

You don't want excitement in your investment accounts. You don't want risk and drama and hours of analysis. (We love doing the analysis at Stansberry Research, but you don't want it to be your full-time job.)

We want to put our money to work for us. And we want a dependable employee who gets the job done with little fuss.

After all, we've got enough to worry about in times of crisis. We want our wealth to be a buffer against that, not another thing to worry about.

We want to invest for calm and freedom. And you need to do two things to make that happen...

First, you need to plan ahead and manage your risk.

You've probably seen these ideas often in DailyWealth: Buy the stocks of high-quality businesses... Diversify with low-cost funds... Allocate to stocks, bonds, and other real assets... Limit your speculations to sizes you can handle.

These ideas aren't original to us. They can be dull, and they can get repetitive.

But every panicked investor in March found himself wishing he had done those things three months ahead of time. The simple work of building a sturdy portfolio pays off in a crisis... even if it doesn't excite you in a boom.

The second thing you need to do to invest for calm and freedom involves your mentality...

You need to accept that stocks are volatile. You see, stocks build wealth over time. But they don't do it in a straight line. If you want the money, you've got to be willing to walk the path.

The market has returned about 7.7% a year since 1928... But it certainly didn't return that each and every year. Down years of 10%, 15%, or 20% happen with regularity. Take a look...

Drawdowns in stocks happen. It's the cost of admission.

Don't fool yourself into thinking you can avoid all of them when they hit. Crises like these are unpredictable. And if you sell at every sign of fear, you end up selling little dips, buying back in at a higher price, and missing the good parts of the market.

To quote legendary investor Peter Lynch, "Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves."

So this second step toward calm and freedom is a mental one... or one of temperament. You need to accept that your stock portfolio will give you a scare every so often. After all, history has shown us that stocks eventually come back.

At what point on the chart below was it a bad time to buy or hold stocks?

We don't know exactly what will happen with the coronavirus, how long we'll be isolated, or how long our economy will be shut down. We will see more bankruptcies, business closures, and economic pain. We could be entering a recession... maybe even a depression.

But this will not end society as we know it. During the financial crisis of 2008, the banking system nearly collapsed. The risk of ending the current economic regime and starting a new one was far more serious back then.

This time, the economy will come back... and the stock market will, too.

This acceptance of stock risk is embedded in our 25% stop loss strategy. We buy businesses we want to hold for a long time. And we commit to selling when the stock falls by a certain amount and not before.

My friend and colleague Steve Sjuggerud likes to use trailing stops, which follow stock prices as they move higher. That way, you would sell when the stock falls 25% from its highs.

If you're wrong and the stock falls 25%... you'll cut your losses and move on to another opportunity.

If you're right, the stock will rise. And as it rises, your wealth will grow.

Now, you can't hold just any stock for the long term. Some businesses will be permanently impaired by the crisis.

Rather, you should only do this with strong businesses and companies with the balance sheets to survive what lies ahead.

My advice is to own companies whose business models you could explain to a complete stranger. You should also own companies with lots of cash businesses that can survive a recession and even gain market share as competitors struggle.

This is how you invest for freedom and calm during a crisis... and sleep well at night, knowing you're on the steady path to building wealth.

Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,

Dr. David Eifrig

Editor's note: Selling whenever fear strikes is a recipe for disaster. That's why you need one more tool to help you sleep well at night. It sent out a warning signal to thousands of our subscribers ahead of the recent crash... And its radical system for determining the right time to buy and sell could revolutionize your portfolio. Watch our recent video discussion to learn more.

Further Reading

If your plan is to buy high-risk, high-return assets today, you could easily get burned. But if the market stays strong, this could be the perfect moment to buy high-quality business on the cheap... Learn more here: Don't Get Burned by "Bargain Hunting" Stocks Today.

"These kinds of returns shouldn't be possible in a rational, free market," Porter Stansberry writes. But human emotion usually leads people to pay insane sums for overpriced stocks. That's why you should always be on the lookout when companies with these specific attributes go on sale... Learn more here: The Only Sure Way to Get Rich in Stocks.

KEEPING THE WORLD INFORMED IN A TIME OF UNREST

Todays company has journalists around the world keeping track of crucial stories

With all the turbulence in the world today between the global pandemic, stay-at-home orders, and now protests and riots folks want to stay connected and up-to-date about whats going on. And with many of them stuck at home, they have more time to stay glued to the news. Todays company keeps us abreast of current events

New York Times (NYT) is a $7 billion media company. It has 150 million monthly readers around the world and more than 6 million total subscriptions. And that number is growing. The New York Times recently reported first-quarter earnings where it announced that it added 587,000 new digital subscriptions during the period a quarterly record.

As you can see, NYT shares are in a long-term uptrend. Theyre up roughly 130% over the past three years, including dividends. And they recently hit a new all-time high. As folks keep turning to the news to stay informed, this rally should continue

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How to Invest for Freedom and Calm Today - DailyWealth

BETWEEN EVERYTHING AND NOTHINGThe Journey of Seidu Mohammed and Razak Iyal and the Quest for AsylumBy Joe Meno

Even when the world seems to be at a halt, with many of us confined to our homes and essential workplaces, there are still people on the move. Global migration has slowed considerably owing to the coronavirus pandemic, but not completely. The lure of a better life is too seductive. The conditions left behind are too desperate. I have spent time with refugees in northern Uganda who were running for their lives but had gotten only as far as another part of the country; with refugees in Botswana who had fled the police state of Eritrea, propelled more by the prospect of liberty than out of fear of their safety; with Liberian refugees on Staten Island who had long since escaped a civil war and made New York their home. Their reasons for leaving were different in detail but all shared a relatable resolve: They were determined to survive at all costs.

In Between Everything and Nothing, the first work of nonfiction by the novelist Joe Meno, we follow the journeys of two Ghanaian men, Seidu Mohammed and Razak Iyal, who flee their home country for the United States. Both the journey and the destination were nothing like the men imagined: dangerous, unwelcoming. The book begins with the last leg of their odyssey as the men trudge for several hours through a snowstorm in North Dakota, at a windchill of minus 27 degrees Fahrenheit, to seek asylum in Canada. Their asylum requests in the United States, where they had each spent months in purgatory-like detention, had been rejected. The border crossing is so torturous that both men wind up in a hospital, eventually losing most of their fingers to frostbite. But they had finally made it to a country that would be friendlier to their plights; unlike the United States, which often criminalizes the refugees and undocumented immigrants who make it across its borders, Canada provides social assistance to many asylum seekers.

Seidu and Razak grew up in the same neighborhood in Accra, without ever meeting, and then both ended up in South America, where they separately began their monthslong treks to the United States. Meno vividly shows how migrants seeking refuge are inhumanely treated in many countries disappeared into jails and detention centers, forced to pay bribes to law enforcement, left without recourse if they are robbed, and threatened with death. But, disappointingly for a novelist, his writing is often clunky or jarring. In one passage, he writes: The United States is a poem, a song, an apparition. Its power resides in the fact that its largely imaginary. On paper it extends in a swath across the plains and mountains of North America, with its irregularly shaped states, its circles denoting major cities, its primary colors bisecting political districts by population, age, ethnicity, class. But its hills, its rivers, its valleys, all of them are essentially nameless, have gone for millennia without markers, without distinction.

Of the offerings at an American detention center, Meno writes, The food at Adelanto was caustic. And of Seidus time there, It was as if you had been pulled violently out of life and set down in the middle of some kind of nonexistent place, built by rule after rule. The imprecise descriptions often dilute the mens otherwise absorbing recollections of their journeys while black and undocumented.

Meno strives to make convincing cases for why Seidu and Razak had no choice but to leave Ghana his account of Razaks dissatisfaction with his countrys politics from an early age can seem especially strained yet their reasons for leaving are not the only point. Seidus identity as a queer man and Razaks dispute with his half siblings over inherited land could well have made their situations intolerable. But what matters just as much is that the men were willing to abandon everything that was familiar to risk the unknown, that the promise of greater opportunity became just as urgent as what was pushing them to go.

Its distracting, then, that Menos depictions of Ghana are marred by stereotypes and confusion: The nation seemed to be a collision of postcolonial failed state and 20th-century democracy, an explosive clash of modern politics and age-old traditions, of Western ideals and enduring tribalism, a country of dangerous, oftentimes irreconcilable paradoxes. Of Accra, he writes: The city, the country itself, resists resolution. You will not find its center anywhere on a map, because it exists in past, present and future tense, always changing, always going backward and forward at the same time.

Huh? By painting Ghana with clichs rife with irreconcilable tensions Meno ends up reducing the country to a stock villain. Its inequities and injustices, like its comforts and pleasures, are common through the world, including the United States and Canada; places are complex, inspiring some to leave and others to stay.

The two men tend to blur together as Meno toggles back and forth between their back stories and their experiences on the migrant trail; we dont get a clear picture of their distinctive personalities, tics and desires. Their similar reactions of fear, anger and disbelief along the way feel repetitive.

Seidus and Razaks paths intersect in Minneapolis, and they cross together into Canada, where they lie in hospital beds traumatized and ill, waiting to see if doctors will have to amputate their frostbitten fingers. Here, their ordeal is movingly and grippingly told. Both men must not only console the relatives they left behind, but also reckon with the sacrifices they have made to get to North America. Was it worth it? The answer depends on what happens next: the fate of their asylum requests, the results of their attempts to settle in a foreign land. Over the past several years, they had survived at all costs; now they would have to figure out how to live again.

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When the Price of Freedom Is Detention, Frostbite and Amputation - The New York Times

Actor Jamie Foxx energizes the crowd during a kneel-in protest at S.F. City Hall on Monday, June 1. Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

Whether we want to be or not, right now, were all part of a historic tidal wave bigger than each of us. In the current COVID era, when you might not be able to be out on the front lines taking a stand against police brutality, you might want to see what you can do from home. One answer: Watch as many films by, about and for black lives as you can.

Many people are sharing reading lists, stories and seconds-long protest videos but dont forget the crucial role that feature films have played in the past 100 years as testament, as education, as a builder of values of love and solidarity and struggle. Recent big-screen releases available for streaming include Oakland-born director Ryan Cooglers first feature film, Fruitvale Station, starring Michael B. Jordan as 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was fatally shot by a BART police officer in 2009, and Just Mercy, starring Jordan opposite Jamie Foxx as wrongfully convicted death row inmate Walter McMillian.

Here are several other options for movies to watch to better understand the newest chapter of the African American freedom struggle:

Probably the most energetic, brassy and mercilessly funny satire to make a splash in the mainstream in quite a while, Boots Riley (born to a family of Chicago social justice organizers who moved to Oakland) holds no quarter. His targets are multifaceted: telemarketers, labor strikes, Bay Area big tech, leftists (white and black) who talk a good talk but never walk it, the white voice that guarantees success even if the speaker is hopelessly mediocre, and the instant meme that people share without serious critical reflection. Its a film that would have left Richard Pryor, Frank Tashlin and Billy Wilder screaming their heads off in the front row at the theater.

Watch it: Streaming on Hulu.

French New Wave filmmaker Agns Varda (Clo From 5 to 7, Le Bonheur) was one of her generations premium documentarians. Here, Varda follows an Oakland protest against the imprisonment of Huey P. Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party. This nonfiction short is one of her typically remarkable glimpses at the mood of a powerful political moment, 1968, a year thats back with us today with a vengeance.

For supplementary viewing on the Panthers and their legacy, you might want to check out Howard Alk and Mike Grays The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971; rent or buy on Amazon) and Stanley Nelson Jr.s The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015; stream on PBS through July 4).

Watch it: Streaming on Criterion Channel.

The visionary Kathleen Collins is behind this recently rediscovered 1982 jewel, one of the first fictional features directed by a black woman. We follow a black philosophy professor, played by the luminescent Seret Scott, who feels stifled by her husband, played by the playwright/novelist/director Bill Gunn, while on the search for the ecstasy that she theorizes about in her latest essay. On an impulse that turns out to be her path to self-realization, she agrees to be the leading lady, Frankie, of a film by a young aspiring black director (her leading man, Johnny, is Duane Jones, the star of George A. Romeros 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead).

Collins film is a fluid, devastating study of disintegrating love, as well as a black womans profound meditation on what it means to create ones self again. What should have been a prolific career was cut tragically short in 1988, when Collins died from breast cancer in Manhattan.

Watch it: Streaming on Criterion Channel.

This 10-episode miniseries from Steve James (Hoop Dreams) is one of the most urgent pieces of U.S. nonfiction filmmaking to come out in the past few years a dispatch from the cultural front line, and an American epic on the scale of Robert Altmans Nashville or Frederick Wisemans In Jackson Heights.

James and a crew of directors follow a diverse cross section of kids black, white, Latino, biracial in the suburban Chicago public high school of Oak Park and River Forest. They track each student across the 2015-16 school year, mixing big, set events (homecoming, prom, sporting events, spoken word competitions, graduation) with spontaneous everyday interactions among teachers, students, staff and administrators and the misunderstandings, microaggressions and frustrations that arise as many push for more frank discussions of race and school equity. The conversations are wide-reaching: class, white privilege, black hair, biracial identities, interracial dating, artistic expression.

The driving question at the start of the first episode: Why does Oak Park and River Forest High School seem to function as two separate schools, one black, one white?

James and his team sprawl out to larger, knottier questions: namely, how can teachers overcome the inequities faced by their nonwhite students? How do we handle the discomfort unearthed by honest questions about race? And how are we failing the next generation in our inability to do so? By the end, you feel like youre just getting to know these incredible students and the teachers (Jessica Stovall, now at Stanford University) who run into soul-killing bureaucratic walls trying to reform a disgustingly failed system. It is an exhausting and engrossing experience.

Watch it: Streaming on Amazon Prime, Starz and DirecTV.

Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akermans unforgettable 1999 film is about anti-black brutality in the United States. Her jumping-off points are James Baldwins essay Nobody Knows My Name and the 1999 lynching of James Byrd Jr. by three white supremacists in Jasper, Texas.

For minutes, Akermans camera tracks the curves of the road where Byrds body was dragged by a pickup truck, which is heightened by her cinematic replication of the sinuous curves of Baldwins sentences. Its a film that has less to do with sensationalizing the murder than giving an accurate, foreigners report of the place where the crime occurred and the atmosphere of the people who come together to mourn yet another lost member of their family.

Deeply painful to watch, Akerman spiritually grapples with Americas countless sins against black flesh, sins whose magnitude she and her inspirations (Baldwin, William Faulkner) have proved time and again to be unable to confront fully.

Watch it: Streaming on Criterion Channel.

Perhaps the definitive film of the black independent film movement known as the L.A. Rebellion, Charles Burnetts 1978 masterpiece focuses on the lower-class, majority-black neighborhood of Watts in South Central Los Angeles during the later 1970s.

We follow a black family led by Stan (Henry G. Sanders), the father who works at a slaughterhouse, his unemployed wife (Kaycee Moore), and their two children, a quiet girl and a raucous boy. The memory of the 1965 Watts rebellion hangs over each scene. The smoke may have dissipated, but the pain has not.

Burnett focuses on a black familys quotidian doldrums in a radical respect for the burden of labor, in all the forms it assumes, that, for the poor, can often seem for nothing. Its a movie crafted out of felt observations rather than abstract, talky, empty projections of what the filmmakers think people should be.

Watch it: Available through Milestone Films.

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Films that shed light on the African American struggle for freedom - San Francisco Chronicle

Content Warning: Discussion of police brutality, violence, and racism.

Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, George Floyd, and Ahmaud Arbery. These are examples of Black people killed by racist and/or police violence whose names have been in the headlines within the last month alone. Taylor was a cis woman and McDade was a trans man, which highlights that those of us at intersections of multiple marginalized identities will likely not have our stories as widely shared,while at the same time being at greater risk of police violence.

Protests this past weekend have occurred across the country against anti-Black racism and for charging police officers who murdered Black people. Chicago itself is a place that has historically used police to murder Black residents.Rekia Boyd,Laquan McDonald, andHarith Augustusare a few of the victims of Chicago Police Department-involved deaths.

TheInvisible Institute and Forensic Architectureinvestigated the use of police violence leading to the murder of Harith Augustus, and wanted to also understand the historical context of policing in Chicago. They interviewed Adam Green, a historian at the University of Chicago, who began by discussing the1919 Race Riots. That summer at Bronzevilles 29th Street Beach, which was unofficially segregated into white and Black swimming areas, a white man threw a rock at a Black teen named Eugene Williams causing him to drown. Tensions escalated after police arrived and refused to arrest the white man who killed Williams, instead arresting a Black man. The ensuing racial violence lasted for nearly a week, after which 38 people were dead, 23 of them African-American, and about a thousand residents, mostly Black people, were left homeless after their homes were torched.

When discussing policing in the aftermath of the 1919 Riots, Green talked about the establishment of a dead zone around Bronzeville. That decision, a policy decision, which could objectively be understood in the moment as having some merits, was one that ultimately resulted in the first citywide scale example of differential policing. Green added that this led to differential policing becoming instituted, embraced, and coded into the CPD. This would be carried through to enforce and normalize segregation, from restrictive covenants to redlining tocontract selling. These policies have limited Black peoples mobility to move to different parts of the city and contributed to making Chicago an extremely segregated city.

Overpolicing of Black residents in Bronzeville would continue to play out in subsequent decades whenpolice heavily patrolled and punishedloitering and jaywalking around the housing projects that once lined State Street. This was also in evidence on the West Side, when CommanderJon Burges organized the arrests and tortureof mostly Black people. In more recent years, CPD allegedlyoperated an interrogation site out of a facility in the West Side Homan Square neighborhood with little oversight.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic,a Block Club Chicago study foundthat police only arrested people for social distancing violations on the majority-POC South and West sides, despite Mayor Lightfoot claiming police are enforcing the rules evenly across the city.

The upcoming Obama Presidential Center will be built within Jackson Park in the Woodlawn community, a historically Black neighborhood. Its a location that will not only be patrolled by the CPD, but alsothe University of Chicago Police Department,one of the largest private police forcesin the country. In a city where police have been known toforce large numbers of law-abiding Black teensout of downtown streets and parks and onto buses and trains to take them away from the area, having a cultural amenity in Woodlawn monitored by a private police force is counterintuitive to the idea of free and open public space.

Police have always discriminated against and harmed Black peoples mobility and freedom in public spaces. I cannot count how many times my friends and I have messaged each other to make sure we got home safe. We have thought twice about calling the authorities for help with mental health emergencies for fear that police might show up and potentially escalate the situation.

Chicago should continue implementing more equitable transit-oriented development, building more bus lanes, opening more streets and plazas to pedestrians these are all good things in a vacuum. However, Black people will not be able to fully benefit from these initiatives as long as we continue to be overpoliced while using public services and disproportionately locked up in Cook County Jail, and as long as Black trans and cis women continue to have their safety threatened by officers. But until Black people are free and safe in our own city there will be no mobility justice.

To work towards a mobility justice framework for Black residents, where we are safe in our streets and transportation networks, there must be less dependence on policing.Streetsblog Chicagohas previously discussed why overpolicing our transit system doesnt make residents safer. Tragically, the very day that Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a strategy to add dozens of police officers to the CTA in response to a string of violent robberies,officers shot and critically injured a manafter detaining him for walking between train cars. Streetsblog had previously argued thathiring civilians trained in de-escalationto monitor L cars would be more effective for promoting safety on the CTA.

There have also been recent movements to defund the police department, headed by Chicago activistsandalderfolk, so that the CPDs massive portion of the city budget can be reallocated to basic needs such as better transit in Black communities, more affordable housing, eradicating food deserts, reinvesting in neighborhood schools, and reopening closed mental health clinics. CPDs budgethas consistently increased over the past eight yearsfrom $1.3 billion in 2012 to this years almost $1.8 billion, so that police funding now makes up 40 percent of Chicagos total budget. Investing in these necessities would support low-income Black residents and reduce the need for police in our neighborhoods.

North Side, majority-white neighborhoods are not inherently safer than majority-Black and Latinx communities on the South and West sides. They are safer because their residents have the privilege of access to more resources. Rather than Chicagos current overpolicing tactics, leveling the playing field through equitable public policy is the best way to achieve safety in all neighborhoods.

The Chicago Readerhas discussed local campaigns forpolice abolition. In practice this would begin with having less reliance on cops, and more focus on community members protecting each other and working under a restorative justice framework to heal tensions. One such example in Chicago has been violence interruption groups that engage with residents and use eyes on the street tactics so that they are intertwined with the fabric of the neighborhood. Local interruption groups have proven effective, butlost their fundingduring the recent Illinois budget stalemate. While Mayor Lightfootearlier this yearannounced plans to fund community-based violence prevention, the budget of $6 million annually is not enough support.

This moment, when citizens are taking to the streets to protest police violence against people of color, is an opportunity to redefine the role of police and center Black lives,our freedom, and our movement through spaces. If youre a transportation professional or advocate looking for ways that you can support BIPOC (Black and Indigenous People of Color) within a mobility framework, check outStreetsblog USAs new post, POC Transportation Leaders Call for Antiracist Action from Their Community featuring statements from mobility justice leaders like Tamika Butler, Naomi Doerner, and Keith Benjamin.

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Police have always limited Black people's mobility and freedom in public spaces - Streetsblog Chicago

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Dutertes administration is upholding the freedom of speech and expression of every Filipino, but will not tolerate the spread of misinformation, especially amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) crisis, a Palace official said.

This government values every Filipinos freedom of speech and expression, knowing that they are truly vital toward a free flow of information and constructive and productive discourses, Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said in a statement.

In the same vein, it values, protects, and upholds press freedom by safeguarding the media environment and the media workers. Such freedoms clearly prove our thriving democracy, he added.

Andanar made the statement following the claim of United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet that Asian nations, including the Philippines, were using the Covid-19 crisis as an excuse to clamp down on freedom of expression and to tighten censorship.

Bachelete said people had been fined, arrested and attacked for allegedly spreading misinformation or criticizing the governments response in countries like the Philippines.

But the Palace official insisted the UN rights chiefs concerns were unfounded and uncalled for.

All operations that the government has undertaken regarding this matter are legal operations that are hinged on the respect for the rule of law and due process as provided by the countrys justice system, Andanar said.

Regardless of political or ideological positions, it is to be noted that we have undertaken such measures with transparency, impartiality and accountability; therefore, any arrests that were made were not targeted towards silencing the critics of this administration, he added.

Andanar lamented that Bachelet had opted to believe misinformation amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Without a doubt, global disinformation on matters relevant to social progress and development has created disorder, confusion, and division among communities. Furthermore, this generates effective spaces where corrupt individuals can flourish and exploit the publics fears and vulnerabilities if left unchecked, he said.

To combat the spread of misinformation, Andanar said that the government included a provision that penalizes a person and groups that create, perpetrate and spread false information about the coronavirus crisis under Republic Act (RA) 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act

He said the government would not tolerate those taking advantage of the crisis, especially those who are propagating false information.

It responds to cyber incidents that are taking advantage of the current pandemic situation to prey on the public through illegal activities, Andanar said.

When one uses information to deliberately mislead and deceive the general public on relevant matters, possibly leading them to harm, the complications caused by such actions need to be legally dealt with and rectified, he added.

RA 11469 states that people peddling false information about Covid-19 pandemic could face a two-month jail sentence or a fine ranging from P10,000 to P1 million, or both.

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Palace: PH values freedom of speech but won't tolerate misinformation The Manila Times - The Manila Times

The prattle from bureaucrats, politicians, business leaders and growth gurus about innovation incentives and programs continues, including this from the government of Canadas national innovation strategy: The innovation race is on! A bright future for Canadian businesses, creators, entrepreneurs and innovators starts with access to programs, services and tools that push ideas forward, create jobs and grow the Canadian economy.

If you have had enough of all these calls to harness the power of innovation through government action, there is now an antidote. A new and brilliant book by British author Matt Ridley offers a fresh world of understanding about a concept that has been bowdlerized into economic policy slush.

In How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom, Ridley delivers a highly readable history of human creation, from the adoption of fire to the founding of Facebook, from sliced bread to biotechnology, from steam power to mobile phones and the polio vaccine with little or no government programs, and often despite state meddling.

Above all, How Innovation Works is a powerful exploration of why human innovation happens, how it happens and the political and economic environments that have allowed innovators to deliver centuries of miraculous improvements in the human condition.

Ridley is a confident proponent of the idea of human progress. The themes of his 2010 bestseller, The Rational Optimist, are carried over into How Innovation Works with even greater flare. Ridleys technique is to entertainingly and informatively explore, via authoritative references and research, centuries of human innovation in search of the common elements that helped foster and obstruct the progress of innovation.

Innovation happens when people are free to think, experiment and speculate

Matt Ridley

The book is packed with fascinating illustrative anecdotes and revelations about the individual geniuses behind innovations and the myriad obstacles that are often thrown in their path.

Theres the longshoremens battle against the compulsive entrepreneur from inland Maxton, N.C., who created the ocean-going shipping container. Theres government resistance to mobile telephone development. And theres Indias regulatory stubbornness against the import of a wheat innovation from Mexico. The 50-year story of how dwarfing genes were first found in Japan, cross-bred in Washington, adapted in Mexico and then introduced against fierce opposition in India and Pakistan is one of the most miraculous in the history of humankind. The idea likely saved the Indian continent from famine.

In the context of our current obsession with the media power of Facebook, Google and Twitter to shape the world, Ridley has a few parallels from innovation history.

After Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century, the technology was transformed into a mass media of Facebook-like power by Martin Luther. Luther, writes Ridley, was the true innovator as he used the printing press to distribute versions of the bible and other materials that challenged Catholicism and led to the creation of Protestantism. By contrast, printing was banned in Islamic states for 200 years. Like Jeff Bezos at Amazon or Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, writes Ridley of Martin Luthers printing-press media revolution,he had realized the potential of a new technology on a huge scale.

Governments had little or no role in the massive explosion of innovation over the past three centuries

None of this is new. Ridleys achievement is to take the 10,000-year history of innovation from potato farming to artificial intelligence and turn it into a lively narrative that opens new perspectives on the underlying structures and forces that are most likely to lead to continued technological change.

As the books subtitle makes clear, the key element is economic freedom. What is the best way to encourage innovation? asks Ridley in his introduction. Should governments aim to set targets, direct research, subsidize science, write rules and standards; or to back off from all this, deregulate, set people free; or to create property rights in ideas, offer patents and hand out prizes, issue medals; to fear the future; or to be full of hope?

By the end of How Innovation Works, innovation seems less of a mystery as one aspect becomes clear: innovation is not the product of the machinations of politicians, bureaucrats and rent-seekers trying to manipulate economic activity. Ridley takes on such state innovation theorists as Mariana Mazzucato, the British economist whose book, The Entrepreneurial State, was a Financial Times Best Book of 2015.

Ridley essentially says the entrepreneurial state is a myth. Governments had little or no role in the massive explosion of innovation over the past three centuries. In an excerpt from his book also on this page, Ridley notes that America became the most advanced and innovative country in the world in the early decades of the 20th century without significant public subsidy for research and development of any kind before 1940.

On the contrary, Ridley in effect argues that the world today suffers from an innovation famine brought on by excessive government meddling. Innovation happens when people are free to think, experiment and speculate, he writes.

As an advocate for innovation freedom, Ridley holds views that will startle some. He opposes patents, dumps on big companies and he sees China as the home of an innovation engine that is leapfrogging into the future over the heads of Western policy leaders who wrongly see China as a techno copycat that is stealing patents and other intellectual property.

Chinas authoritarianism, he adds, will surely stifle the countrys innovation momentum. If Chinas political regime does not expand economic and political freedom, the driving work ethic behind recent innovation could easily be crushed by bureaucratic strangulation.

Its a risk that faces innovation around the world. Ridleys insightful and revealing book has the potential to liberate innovation from those who claim innovation starts with a government program. On the contrary, thats often where innovation ends.

More here:

Terence Corcoran: Bring back the freedom to innovate - Financial Post

Washington D.C., June 1, 2020 Local and state authorities in the U.S. must stop targeting journalists and media workers covering protests and ensure that the press is exempt from any curfew restrictions, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

We are horrified by the continued use of harsh and sometimes violent actions of police against journalists doing their jobs. These are direct violations of press freedom, a fundamental Constitutional value of the United States, said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. We call on local and state officials to explicitly exempt the news media from curfew regulations so that journalists are able to report freely.

Since May 29, at least 125 press freedom violations have been reported nationwide by journalists covering the demonstrations against the death of a black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis police custody. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a nonpartisan website of which CPJ is a founding partner, is investigating each report and will publish confirmed incidents to its database.

The violations under investigation, including 20 arrests, were collated from social media accounts, news reports, and direct contact with some of the journalists affected.

In one example, on May 29 in Las Vegas, Nevada, two photojournalists, Ellen Schmidt, who works for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and freelancer Bridget Bennett were arrested while working and charged with the misdemeanor of failure to disperse, before being released the next day, according to the Reno Gazette Journal.

Police have hit dozens more journalists with tear gas, pepper spray, or rubber bulletsin several cases even as the journalists displayed their press credentials, according to the same sources.

A journalist for Minnesota Public Radio told CPJ she had a gun pointed at her head by police who refused to lower their weapons after she identified herself as a member of the press.

NBC photojournalist Ed Ou told CPJ that on May 30 he was in a group of photographers and video journalists standing apart from protesters in Minneapolis when police fired tear gas, pepper spray, and concussion grenades at them.

Some cities and states have imposed curfews in a bid to contain the demonstrations, some of which have turned violent. Not all of the curfew orders have explicitly exempted members of the press, although some officials, including in Minneapolis, have said that media are exempt after the initial announcement. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has published a map tracking where curfew orders exempt the media.

Journalists can consult CPJs safety advisory on how to minimize the risks of covering the protests.

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At least 125 press freedom violations reported over 3 days of U.S. protests - CPJ Press Freedom Online