WaPo:
Congressional Democrats to unveil police reform package next week
Justice in Policing Act of 2020 includes measures aimed at boosting accountability, changing police practices and curbing racial profiling
The above is important not only for the subject content, but because Republicans have nothing to suggest or offer. Zero. Nada. No initiatives, other than hiding behind the same fence that Trump cowers behind. They are all prisoners of their emptiness. Not for the pandemic, not for the jobs loss, not for the racial injustice.
The November election is less than 5 months away. 148 days, more or less (early voting is sooner). Be there.
We are a bit twitter heavy today because of fast moving news.
Mitt Romney marching for Black Lives Matter is more important politically than Colin Powell announcing he’s voting for Biden.
Which of these things surprises you the most? They all happened.
See also Inside the Revolts Erupting in America’s Big Newsrooms (NY Times), a huge story about black reporters in an older white-run newsroom.
This is not the Onion.
I don’t know why it is so hard for people to accept: a lead that big nationally means a solid lead in e.g., MI (see below).
The polls are telling us something. Listen to what they say.
NY Times:
Pandemic Within a Pandemic’: Coronavirus and Police Brutality Roil Black Communities
The current civil unrest is deeply connected to the racial disparities exposed by the coronavirus crisis. “I’m just as likely to die from a cop as I am from Covid,” one organizer said.
As protests over police brutality continue to roil cities, this is an extraordinary moment of pain for the nation, especially for black Americans who are bearing the brunt of three crises — police violence, crushing unemployment and the deadliest infectious disease threat in a century — that have laid bare longstanding injustice. Public health experts, activists and lawmakers say the triple threat requires a coordinated response.
HuffPost:
Teen Girls Organized A 10,000-Person Black Lives Matter Protest In Nashville
Six teenagers pulled off the region’s largest protest against racism and police brutality in recent memory, local news reported.
The young women quickly bonded over their shared outrage over the death of George Floyd — the Black man who died last week in Minneapolis after a white police officer knelt on his neck.
“That’s what really opened people’s eyes to what’s been going on in our country,” Fuller told local news channel WSMV of the disturbing footage that’s led to worldwide protests.
Soon after meeting online, the young women began FaceTiming one another and decided to form the coalition Girls 4 Change, which is backed by Black Lives Matter Nashville. Their rally soon followed.
The kids are all right.
NY Times:
Why Most Americans Support the Protests
Never before in the history of modern polling has the country expressed such widespread agreement on racism’s pervasiveness in policing, and in society at large.
Driven by the Black Lives Matter movement, this shift has primed the country for a new groundswell — one that has quickly earned the sympathy of most Americans, polling shows. As a result, in less than two weeks, it has already forced local governments and national politicians to make tangible policy commitments.
In a Monmouth University poll released this week, 76 percent of Americans — including 71 percent of white people — called racism and discrimination “a big problem” in the United States. That’s a 26-percentage-point spike since 2015. In the poll, 57 percent of Americans said demonstrators’ anger was fully justified, and another 21 percent called it somewhat justified.
Black women, you say? 🤔 Wonder if that has any implication for who the next VP will be? 🤔🤔