Barr: ‘I don’t think there are 2 justice systems’ for Black and white Americans

Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday rejected the notion that systemic racism exists in the criminal justice system, but acknowledged that “there are some situations where statistics would suggest” people of color are treated differently than white people.

“I think there are stereotypes. I think people operate very frequently according to stereotypes and I think it takes extra precaution on the part of law enforcement to make sure we don't reduce people to stereotypes, we treat them as individuals,” Barr told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

In the at-times contentious interview, the attorney general defended law enforcement officers against accusations of excessive force, arguing that rather than being motivated by race, an officer may be “scared for his life and is in a situation where a half a second can mean the difference between his life and his death, and he's wrestling with somebody.”

“They sometimes may do things that appear in hindsight to be excessive,” Barr asserted, but he cautioned that “it doesn't necessarily mean that it's racism.”

The attorney general’s comments come amid a spate of high-profile killings by police and shootings of unarmed Black Americans this year that have sparked mass unrest around the country. Fury over the May death of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer and the March killing of Breonna Taylor by Louisville, Ky., officers drove protests around the world, and fueled bipartisan calls for police reform within Congress, though those efforts ultimately fell apart.

A new wave of demonstrations was triggered last week when Kenosha, Wis., police shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back seven times as he leaned into his car with three young children inside.

But as some protests for police reform at times turned violent or destructive, the Trump administration has largely stood behind law enforcement, with President Donald Trump conflating violent demonstrators with peaceful ones, derisively referring to them broadly as “domestic terrorists,” “anarchists” and “thugs” while pledging to take a harder line on such activism to restore “law and order.”

Trump has been considerably more restrained when describing unofficial militias showing up in some cities to face off with protesters. After a violent night of protests in Wisconsin last week saw a 17-year-old police admirer and Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse shoot three protesters, killing two, Trump declined to condemn the shootings, which Rittenhouse's attorney has said were in self-defense.

Trump has also not denounced a pro-Trump caravan that clashed with protesters in Portland over the weekend, though he has said: "I’d like to see law enforcement take care of everything."

Trump, too, has rejected the idea that systemic racism exists within law enforcement.

On Wednesday, Barr decried “the demonization of the police and the idea that this is so widespread, an epidemic.”

He contrasted the number of unarmed African Americans shot by a white police officer with the number of Black men killed by other means each year, an argument often advanced by conservatives that has been dismissed by advocates as a red herring that ignores the disproportionate number of Black Americans versus white ones killed by police.

But though Barr asserted that “I don't think there are two justice systems,” for Black and white Americans — an accusation made by Blake's father when pointing to the treatment of his son versus that of Rittenhouse — he acknowledged what he said “appears to be a phenomenon in the country where African-Americans feel that they're treated when they're stopped by police frequently as suspects before they are treated as citizens.”

“I don't think that that necessarily reflects some deep-seated racism in police departments or in most police officers,” he added, wrongly implying that Black police officers are somehow incapable of racially profiling other African Americans.

“I think it takes extra precaution on the part of law enforcement to make sure we don't reduce people to stereotypes, we treat them as individuals,” he said.

Barr cautioned against “throwing the idea of racism around,” contending that while it certainly exists in the United States, it is not “as common as people suggest,” and insisted that there were sufficient safeguards to ensure than racial bias “doesn't really have an effect [on] someone's future.”

As far as police reform goes, while Barr explained that “there's more progress being made and more reform,” he appeared satisfied with where the institution is now, praising reforms made over the past six decades.

“To listen to the American left nowadays, you'd think we've gotten nowhere,” he said.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/3jJs4Fh
via 400 Since 1619

U.S. stands with European Union to push for new election in Belarus

The United States will work closely with the EU to raise pressure on embattled Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and bring about new elections in the country gripped by protests since a disputed vote last month, Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun said Wednesday.

"We are coordinating closely with our transatlantic partners, including reviewing significant new targeted sanctions to hold accountable anybody who is involved in human rights abuses and repression in Belarus," Biegun told reporters in a conference call.

Biegun, who visited Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine and Austria last week to discuss the upheaval in Belarus, noted that the U.S. already had sanctions in place against Lukashenko, the country's long-time strongman ruler, and other top officials. The EU lifted most sanctions against Lukashenko and his close allies in 2016, but is now working to reimpose punitive measures.

"We are working closely with the Europeans as they reimpose their sanctions so that we are marching in lockstep with our European and Canadian partners," Biegun said.

The EU sanctions were lifted in 2016 partly in response to Lukashenko's release of political prisoners including Nikolai Statkevich, a rival who ran against him for president in 2010.

But ahead of this year's election, Lukashenko resorted to the same tactics, suppressing the opposition and arresting several rival candidates including Sergei Tikhanovsky, who is still jailed and whose wife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya ultimately appeared on the ballot in his place.

Lukashenko's claim that he won 80 percent of the vote set off a wave of large protests, which his security forces have tried to squash with mass arrests and at times brutal violence.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement this week citing at least 450 documented cases of torture and calling on the Lukashenko government to end "forced disappearances" of demonstrators. At least six detained protesters remain unaccounted for, the U.N. said, although Tikhanovskaya and some other members of the opposition say the number is far higher.

In the conference call Wednesday, Biegun said the U.S. viewed the situation in Belarus as an internal conflict, not a confrontation between the West and Russia. He also demanded that Belarus release Vitaly Shklyarov, a U.S. citizen and political strategist, who had been working in the country.

"I want to emphatically state the Belarusian government needs to release Vitaly Shklyarov now and drop the charges," Biegun said. "He has been falsely accused, falsely charged and he is unjustly detained."

Biegun said it was clear Russia was seeking to exert influence in Belarus in support of Lukashenko but that after visiting Moscow, he believed the Kremlin too was tiring of the erratic Belarusian leader, who has appeared in public carrying a machine gun.

But Biegun said the U.S. would not seek to compete with Moscow for influence in Minsk, where Russian officials have reportedly been in talks about renegotiating huge amounts of debt owed by Belarus to prop up the regime.

"This is not a contest between the United States and Russia for the loyalties of Belarus," he said, adding: "Belarus, in fact, and the Belarusian people, have a long history and a deep inclination toward cooperative relations with the Russian Federation.

"The Russian government may or may not decide to renegotiate or forgive the substantial debt that has been accumulated by the mismanagement of Belarus under the current regime and that's their choice — that's their money and it's their money to give away and it's their money to waste," he said. "But I think in their heart of hearts, the Russian government knows exactly what we do: that this is not going to go one forever — that after 26 years the Belarusian people are clearly across the entire society, from labor unions to factory workers to students to intellectuals to medical workers to average citizens, parents and mothers, fathers, that they are demanding their rights in Belarus under their own constitution as well as under international charters.

"And no amount of debt relief, no amount of policing can overcome the cumulative courage of a population that's had enough," Biegun said. "The ruler of Belarus clearly still holds power but he has lost his people."

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/3biRaYw
via 400 Since 1619

Pastor John Gray apologizes for alleged emotional affair

Pastor John Gray apologizes to his wife and church after new allegations of an extramarital affair.

After new allegations of an extramarital affair, Pastor John Gray has issued apologies to both his wife and his church.

Read More: Oprah Winfrey Network cancels Pastor John Gray’s TV show

According to Greenville News, the faith-based author confronted rumors of an affair after a woman claimed she had been communicating with the pastor. During an almost hour-long virtual sermon, he shares plans for therapy. While he never explicitly confirms or denies the existence of an affair, Pastor Gray acknowledges the damage caused.

“Aventer, I am sorry for the pain I have caused you, and my prayer is that the life I live from this moment will be one worthy of the love that you extended that our family receives from. I am grateful for you and our children,” he said.

Read More: Woman at center of Pastor John Gray’s so-called ’emotional affair’ is spilling the tea

“To my church, I am sorry. You’ve gone through enough. From cars to meetings with leaders that have caused great pain and deep division among political ideologies to one thing after another. I want to tell you I’m sorry.”

According to Hip Hop Wired, Pastor Gray allegedly engaged in FaceTime and iMessage conversations with a woman identified as ‘Mary’ requesting photos, meals, and sending money.

https://ift.tt/3jDR0hi

His legal team insists that in this case, a physical affair was never alleged and Gray is the victim of extortion and blackmail. Attorneys Devon Puriefoy and Kimberly Thomason informed Greenville News the latest claims are alleged to be only phone calls.

“There are allegations that there were phone conversations between the two parties, and that’s essentially the extent of the allegations,” Puriefoy said to the news outlet. “When you take her own words, she says there was no affair, no physical contact, they never met each other, they never saw each other.”

Gray leads the Relentless Church in Greenville, South Carolina, and is an associate pastor for Joel Osteen‘s Lakewood Church in Houston. Gray says he is aware of the damage done to his reputation.

“There are people who may never listen to me preach again, and I am so very sad about that,”  he said in the video.

Have you subscribed to theGrio’s podcast “Dear Culture”? Download our newest episodes now!

The post Pastor John Gray apologizes for alleged emotional affair appeared first on TheGrio.

from TheGrio https://ift.tt/2QRkoUZ

Can anything change Americans’ minds about Donald Trump?

President Trump disembarks from Air Force One as lightning splits the sky at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on August 28. | Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

The eerie stability of Trump’s approval rating, explained.

On August 27, 2019, President Donald Trump held a 41.3 percent approval rating and a 51.2 percent disapproval rating, according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker. During the 365 days that followed, Trump became the third president impeached by the House of Representatives; America assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani; more than 200,000 Americans died from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus; the unemployment rate rose from 3.7 percent to 10.2 percent; the US banned incoming travel from Europe, China, and Brazil; an estimated 12 million people lost health insurance coverage; Trump pardoned Roger Stone, who was facing jail time for dirty tricks on the president’s behalf; and George Floyd’s murder sparked a nationwide movement protesting for racial justice — to which Trump responded by tear-gassing demonstrators in Lafayette Park so he could take a photograph holding a Bible.

That is, of course, a bitterly incomplete list of a grimly consequential year in American history. But you’d never know it simply by following Trump’s poll numbers. On August 27, 2020 — one year later, and the day Trump used the White House as a backdrop for his convention speech — FiveThirtyEight had Trump at 42.2 percent approval and 54.3 percent disapproval. Everything had happened, and politically, nothing had mattered. Or, at the least, not much had changed.

“It’s really remarkable,” says Jennifer Victor, a political scientist at George Mason University. “The stability of Trump’s numbers are almost unbelievable.”

They’re also unique. According to Gallup’s presidential approval database, President Ronald Reagan’s numbers bounced from a high of 68 to a low of 35 percent during his tenure. George H.W. Bush peaked at 81 and bottomed out at 29. Bill Clinton ranged between 73 and 37 percent. George W. Bush touched 90 percent and fell all the way to 25 percent. Barack Obama’s band was narrower but still stretched from 40 percent to 67 percent.

As for Trump, his highest approval rating is 49 and his lowest is 35 — a range of only 15 points across his presidency thus far. True, Trump has had less time in office than his predecessors. But he’s also had a more volatile first term than most of them, in world events, indicators of national health and happiness, and personal behavior. And even if you only look at first terms, Trump stands out:

This is the great irony of the Trump era: It has never felt like more is happening, and yet American political opinions have never been so immovable.

All this raises a few questions. First, should the eerie stability of Trump’s approval rating disturb or even surprise? Why do we expect presidential approval to bounce around in the first place? And second, what does it mean for American politics to be this locked in place, this insensitive to the rip and roar of events?

What would make you change your mind about Donald J. Trump?

When Michael Tesler, a political scientist at the University of California Irvine, tries to explain “the amazing stability of Trump’s approval” in his classes, he starts with a question. He asks his students if there’s anything Trump could do to make them support him. And he’s invariably met by a sea of shaking heads. “If you went into Trump’s presidency thinking he’s a racist, sexist, xenophobic, immoral, narcissistic, corrupt, and incompetent person — beliefs held by most Clinton voters — then there’s literally almost nothing he could do to change your mind,” says Tesler.

The same is true in reverse. “If you see Trump as ‘the protector of Western Civilization,’ as Charlie Kirk called him the other night at the RNC, or the protector of white America, as Desmond King and Rogers Smith have called him, defending cherished (white Christian) American values from atheist, left-wing socialists who want to take your guns and put Cory Booker in charge of diversifying your neighborhoods, then there’s almost nothing that would make you abandon him,” Tesler continues.

Six months ago, this was my explanation of Trump’s approval ratings, too. Trump is such a gleefully polarizing figure — so contemptible to those he offends, so heroic to those he defends — that minds were made up on him before he ever stepped into the Oval Office. Moreover, Trump is a limited figure: He doesn’t switch strategies, adopt new tones, adapt to new circumstances. Where past presidents made concerted efforts to shift course as their presidencies evolved, pursuing unexpected policies to win over skeptics and new messages to quiet critics, Trump is just Trump. He’s reliably, inalterably, himself. Your view of the man is your view of the presidency, and that’s the way he wants it.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Trump holds up a Bible outside of St John’s Episcopal church after tear-gassing protesters.

But pundits should be honest when reality surprises them. If you had told me, a year ago, that a pandemic virus would overrun the country, that 200,000 Americans would die and case numbers would dwarf Europe, that the economy would go into deep freeze and the federal government prove utterly feckless, I would’ve thought that’s the kind of systemic shock that could crack into public opinion. I’m not saying I would’ve predicted Trump falling to 20 percent, but I would’ve predicted movement.

The stability unnerves me because it undermines the basic theory of responsive democracy. If our political divisions cut so deep that even 200,000 deaths and 10.3 percent unemployment and a president musing about bleach injections can’t shake us, then what can? And if the answer is nothing, then that means the crucial form of accountability in American politics has collapsed. Yes, many of us are partisans, with a hard lean one way or the other. But the assumption has long been that beneath that, we are Americans, and we want the country governed with some bare level of competence, that we care more for our safety and our paychecks than our parties.

But how do we know if we’re being governed with a bare level of competence?

Coronavirus Rashomon

Trump’s ratings on the coronavirus largely track his broader approval ratings. On August 27, 38.9 percent of Americans approved of his handling of the coronavirus and 58 percent of Americans disapproved. That’s slightly worse than his overall approval spread, but only slightly.

That is to say, most Americans who approve of Trump broadly also think he’s doing a good job responding to the coronavirus. And who’s to say he isn’t? Few of us have true, firsthand knowledge of the government’s response to the pandemic. What we know of it is mediated by the information sources we choose and trust. “The nature of the crisis is perfectly set up for perception to matter a lot and be manipulatable,” says Marquette University political scientist Julia Azari. “Far more people know they had to stay home for two months than were directly affected by Covid-19 (so far, at least). Narratives that this has been a lie, a hoax, or an exaggeration, are very powerful for some people.”

My view, to be clear, is that Trump’s response to the coronavirus will stand as one of the great governance failures in American history. We are doing far worse than peer nations in controlling case rates and saving lives. Analyses suggest that upward of 70 percent of America’s coronavirus deaths could’ve been prevented by a faster, more capable response along the lines Australia, South Korea, Germany, and Singapore. And to write all this is to still give the White House too much credit — they have largely offered no response at all, shunting this crisis to the states and refusing to release a plan of their own or even follow their own guidelines.

Moreover, Trump has, himself, been a model of personal irresponsibility, fueling a culture war over face masks and packing supporters into arenas and the White House lawn. As a result, while 93 percent of Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump say face masks are effective, only 65 percent of those who strongly approve of Trump say the same. It is not, then, simply that Trump has done a poor job managing the federal government’s mobilization. Rather, he has been an active hindrance to the governors and mayors trying to fill the void he’s left.

Doug Mills/Getty Images

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive onstage where Trump delivered his acceptance speech for nomination to a second term as president.

Or so I’d argue. But in this era, what you believe depends on what you read. And if you watch Fox News — or, even more to the point, OANN, the White House’s favored network — the narrative is different. Democrats are overreacting, driving the economy into crisis in a bitter bid to drive Trump from office. Trump’s own rhetoric emphasizes what he did — namely, barring most travel from China — rather than the many, many things he refused to do, like setting up a national testing, contact tracing, and quarantining strategy.

“Millions of people are certainly feeling economic and psychological pain due to lockdowns and other measures,” says Larry Bartels, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University. “But the president seems to have been pretty successful in shifting the blame for those. He wants to reopen, but evil Democrats are dragging their feet. The obvious response is that reopening would lead to even more illnesses and fatalities, but those are hypothetical costs.”

Trump isn’t Teflon

I occasionally hear Trump described as the “Teflon president.” Many liberals are agog at how many scandals, disasters, and offensive comments Trump has survived. It can seem like nothing sticks to him.

But Trump isn’t Teflon. It’s simply that whatever will stick to him has already stuck to him. Absorbing this much damage and provoking this much loathing has not been a successful strategy. Stable poll numbers in the low-40s are hardly a political triumph. When the economy was strong, his approval ratings were far lower than the jobs and GDP numbers would predict. And while Trump’s approval ratings on the coronavirus are higher than what I think he deserves, they’re punishingly low in comparison to other world leaders.

According to Morning Consult data, France’s Emmanuel Macron is up 5 points since January, Canada’s Justin Trudeau is up 9 points, Germany’s Angela Merkel is up 16 points, and Australia’s Scott Morrison is up 25 points. Viewed in this way, Trump’s stability might be best understood as a tremendous political failure: He had the opportunity for a rally-round-the-leader effect that could have locked his reelection. His weak, erratic, ineffective response instead turned the pandemic into the central threat to his reelection: In Morning Consult’s polling, Biden held a 14-point advantage by the end of June when voters were asked which candidate they trusted on the coronavirus, up from a 3-point advantage in April.

It is also possible that the headline numbers hide smaller but electorally consequential shifts. “If there is one group Trump is leaking support from, it is older white people in Florida,” says Marc Hetherington, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina. “At least that is how I read the data coming out of Florida. The Covid-19 response is actually killing older people there. As this goes on, more and more of them actually know someone who has been affected in some serious way. According to our data, that appears to have the power to blunt partisanship. Republicans follow their leaders when they are not afraid of getting sick. They don’t follow those cues when they are afraid of getting sick.” Biden now leads by more than 4 points in Florida, up from a dead heat in April.

It is telling that Trump’s strategy for winning reelection doesn’t seem to be a new message or a new plan for controlling the coronavirus or restarting the economy. Instead, he’s running a racialized campaign against protests, riots, and disorder — even though that disorder is happening on his watch as president. “The GOP has no policies so they deal entirely in grievance and identity,” says Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at the University of Maryland. That has been enough for Trump to hold a bit more than 40 percent of the electorate. But a bit more than 40 percent of the electorate is not a winning coalition, and it is far less than a capable leader might now hold.

So perhaps, compared to a hypothetical Trump response that was commanding and competent, the political cost of the path Trump followed has been significant, and it may lose him the presidency and discredit him in history. It’s worth remembering that even Herbert Hoover got 40 percent of the vote in the 1932 presidential election — more than three years into the Great Depression and not far off from where Trump is polling now. Sometimes it’s easier for the country in general, and partisans in particular, to admit a leader’s failures after he’s lost than it is when he — and they — are still fighting to keep power.

But still: Forty-two percent of Americans look at Trump and believe he’s doing a good job, or at least a good enough one. And nothing they’ve seen over the past year has shaken that view.

---

Help keep Vox free for all

Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what’s happening in the news, from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is, quite possibly, the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers, your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work, and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world. Contribute today from as little as $3.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/3lBGf0R

Trump claims Joe Kennedy’s defeat proves Dems controlled by ‘radical left’

President Donald Trump on Wednesday pointed to Rep. Joe Kennedy’s defeat in a Democratic primary as evidence that the party has come to be dominated by the “Radical Left.”

Kennedy, a congressman for the state’s fourth congressional district, lost his primary challenge against incumbent Democratic Sen. Ed Markey.

Kennedy had been endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), while Markey had the backing of progressives including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

It was the first time in Massachusetts history that a member of the Kennedy family lost an election in the state.

“See, even a Kennedy isn’t safe in the new Radical Left Democrat Party,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. “Taxes up big, no 2A. Biden has completely lost control. Pelosi strongly backed the loser!”

With about three-quarters of ballots tallied late Tuesday night, Markey won 54 percent of the vote to Kennedy’s 46 percent.

Markey, who is 74, is perhaps best known for his work to advance Green New Deal legislation alongside Ocasio-Cortez.

It was the senator’s ties to his party’s progressive wing that energized support for him among young liberals and propelled his candidacy past the 39-year-old Kennedy.

But Trump’s assertion Tuesday ignores the fact that Kennedy also ran a significantly progressive campaign. The congressman has expressed support for the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.

In addition to the Kennedys, the president has previously reveled in the defeats of other political dynasties.

Trump memorably vanquished former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in the 2016 Republican presidential primary before his unexpected victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the general election.

In 2018, Trump equated his wins over Bush and Clinton to his battle against former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

“I’ve had to beat 17 very talented people including the Bush Dynasty,” he tweeted, “then I had to beat the Clinton Dynasty, and now I have to beat a phony Witch Hunt and all of the dishonest people covered in the IG Report...and never forget the Fake News Media. It never ends!”

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/2F0Ylso
via 400 Since 1619