Big Time News Blog: 07/10/20

Friday, July 10, 2020

New York State AG’s New Plan Would Strip NYPD Control from Mayor de Blasio: Report

Citing weeks of protests as having shaken faith in the NYPD, New York State attorney general Letitia James recommended stripping New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s authority in law-enforcement matters in a new report released Wednesday. James has called to end the mayor’s ability to appoint the police commissioner and to oversee the hiring and firing of officers. The state attorney general instead recommended granting that power to an independent panel made up of representatives appointed by the City Council, the mayor’s office, the city’s public advocate, and the city comptroller’s office. “It is impossible to deny that many New Yorkers have lost faith in law enforcement,” James told reporters, according to the New York Times. “I believe we need to bridge the undeniable divide between police and the public.”The 57-page report is the result of hearings on a series of incidents that occurred between protestors and police officers in weeks of unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s death. The state attorney general’s office had received more than 1,300 complaints of police misconduct at the protests, including one case where an NYPD officer can be seen on video shoving a woman to the ground, and another where an officer was seen pulling down the mask of a protester before pepper spraying him in the face. While the report notes that Detroit and San Francisco have independent commissions to oversee police, such a system in New York is likely to face opposition from City Hall, police unions, and leaders of the NYPD. Appointing police commissioners has been the responsibility of New York City’s mayors since the 19th century. James does not have the power as attorney general to institute her proposed changes, which would likely require actions by the city council and state legislature. The report also calls on the city’s police department to end its practice of "kettling," a tactic that police employed last month during protests which involves surrounding protesters and arresting them. James urged New Yorkers to stop relying on the police in situations such as traffic enforcement, school safety, homeless outreach, and crisis intervention and called on the city to legalize or decriminalize more minor “quality of life” offenses, which she says “are already not greatly enforced in predominantly white neighborhoods.” NYPD’s chief spokesman Richard Esposito said the report’s recommendations are unnecessary and called James’s investigation “political,” the Times reported. James, a Democrat, is an ally of Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has often squabbled with de Blasio. In June, Cuomo called de Blasio’s handling of rioting in the city a “disgrace” and threatened to “displace” the mayor if necessary. Freddi Goldstein, a spokeswoman for de Blasio, rejected the notion of removing the mayor’s control over police matters, telling the Times, “While we thank the attorney general for her investigation and look forward to reviewing the report in full and working together to further reform policing in this city, we do not believe creating a commission to oversee the N.Y.P.D. does that.”

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Hundreds gather for funeral of Palestinian shot by Israeli troops

Hundreds of people gathered in the occupied West Bank on Friday for the funeral of a Palestinian man shot by Israeli soldiers a day earlier. Israel's army said troops opened fire after the Palestinian and another man started throwing fire bombs at a guard post near the town of Nablus. Palestinian officials dismissed the report and said the man had been walking with friends when he was shot dead.

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Satanic Temple threatens lawsuit over Mississippi’s ‘in God we trust’ flag plan

The Satanic Temple has threatened to sue Mississippi over plans to include the phrase “In God We Trust” on its flag.In a letter addressed to state attorney general Lynn Fitch the Temple argued that not all Mississippians were represented by the phrase, which is the US national motto.

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The Fall of Florida’s Biggest Sham ‘Church’ Peddling Bleach as a ‘Sacrament’

The leader of Florida’s biggest sham “church” network peddling bleach as a miracle drug says he’s camped out in Colombia while his sons face arrest for allegedly selling a fake COVID-19 cure and threatening a judge with a “Waco”-style standoff.For years, the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing has been at the center of a lucrative, world-wide network that claims—falsely—that drinking glorified Clorox can cure you of virtually any illness. The “church” (which is not religious, by its own admission) has raked in the cash promoting “Miracle Mineral Solution,” a bleach solution first popularized in 2006 by an ex-Scientologist who claimed to be an alien god. Ludicrous as the scheme sounds, it’s seen a recent surge in visibility, gaining endorsements from conspiracy theorists and well-known conservatives. Now, four members of the family behind Genesis II are facing criminal charges for allegedly flouting an order to stop marketing MMS as a COVID-19 cure. Two have been arrested, while the family patriarch says he’s out of the country.Genesis II isn’t a real church. You can’t worship at a physical location, and its leader, “Archbishop” Mark Grenon, is not actually ordained. Instead, it’s a network of people peddling sodium chlorite, a bleach compound that the Food and Drug Administration warned in 2019 “can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and symptoms of severe dehydration.” Nevertheless, Genesis II has thrived in recent years. The church’s founder, Jim Humble, is a former Scientologist who claims to be a billion-year-old space god from another galaxy. Humble worked with Genesis II for years, before appearing to back away from the church after an ABC News investigation. QAnon-ers’ Magic Cure for Coronavirus: Just Drink Bleach!"There are certainly times I have said some things that I probably should have said differently,” he wrote in a 2016 blog post. “For lack of a better way to express things at the time— or because others put words in my mouth, in the past I have stated that MMS cures most of all diseases. Today, I say that MMS cures nothing!"The revelation didn’t stop Mark Grenon and his sons Joseph, Jordan, and Jonathan from peddling bleach. The family and their “church” raked it in for years, media investigations and criminal charges show. In one investigation, an undercover news crew attended one of Grenon’s $450 MMS seminars in a California hotel. There, Grenon hinted at the church’s lack of real religious convictions.“Everybody start a church and do it from there. You can sell them anything! Tell them Jesus heals you while you drink this,” Grenon said.Federal investigators apparently pursued those claims as the basis of a fraud charge. In a February 2020 interview, cited in the criminal complaint, Grenon told investigators he’d started a church in order to sell MMS.“Everything you do commercially is under the Universal Commercial code, okay?” Grenon said, according to the complaint. “A church is completely separate from that code, statutes, and laws. That’s why a priest can give a kid wine in church publicly and not get arrested. Because it’s a sacrament.[…] I knew this because . . . they tried to arrest us for proclaiming stuff on the street in Boston. They threw it out of court because we’re a church. You can’t arrest us from doing one of our sacraments, and I knew this. So that’s why . . . I said let’s do a church. We could have done temple. We could have done synagogue. We could have done mosque.” “So [the founding of Genesis] wasn’t really about religion?” the investigator asked. “It was in order to – to in a way, legalize the use of MMS?”“Right,” Grenon replied. “It wasn’t at all religious.” (On its website, Genesis II claims to be “non-religious but spiritual.”)Although the criminal complaint indicates Genesis II and the Grenons were under investigation by at least October 2019 (when they allegedly gave an undercover FDA investigator terrible cancer treatment advice), federal scrutiny on the church intensified when it started promoting MMS as a coronavirus cure. The FDA sent Genesis II an injunction, telling them to please stop doing that. But the church allegedly continued, advertising “testimonials” that promoted potentially virus-spreading activity. One reviewer, featured in a Genesis II newsletter, claimed to have “traveled to the Philippines and had to pass through Seoul, Korea and Tokyo, Japan airports where just about everyone was wearing the masks for coronavirus. We had no fear (and no masks) because we had MMS protection. We are back home and everyone is still healthy.”The Grenons also allegedly made violent threats against the judge who signed the injunction. In an April podcast, Mark Grenon and his son Joseph stated that they would not obey the restraining order.“You’ve got the 2nd [Amendment]. Right? When Congress does immoral things, passes immoral laws, that’s when you pick up guns, right?,” one said. “You want a Waco? Do they want a Waco?” In a later podcast, Grenon accused the judge of “treason,” and in a third podcast warned that the judge “could be taken out.”Grenon and his three sons were charged with “conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to violate the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, and criminal contempt.” Their Bradenton, Florida headquarters were raided on Wednesday, and Jordan and Johnathan arrested. It was not immediately clear whether either had lawyers.Mark Grenon, meanwhile, was at large as of Thursday morning. Genesis II has associates worldwide, particularly in Africa and South America. (Genesis II and other bleach sellers have faced particular scrutiny for giving bleach to African children.) None of the seven Genesis II chapters in the U.S., Canada, or Colombia that listed their phone numbers online answered the phone or returned The Daily Beast’s calls.In an “emergency” interview with the founder of a conspiracy theory-laden “health news” site after the raid, Grenon revealed that he was in Colombia, where he expected to be arrested and extradited.Questioned by an interviewer who called the FDA a “terrorist organization,” Grenon stuck to his old argument that Genesis II was a legitimate religious organization.“The FDA says we should stop giving our sacraments to the world. We just basically said no, we have the First Amendment,” he said. “It says we have free exercise of our religious beliefs.”Asked about his bleach’s medical validity, Grenon described MMS as “so real. I had projectile vomiting from bad sushi. I took it and within a couple of minutes, gone.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Edward Kleinbard, Tax Lawyer Turned Reformer, Dies at 68

By BY JESSE DRUCKER from NYT Business https://ift.tt/2OapXfM

Trump Commutes Sentence of Roger Stone in Case He Long Denounced

By BY PETER BAKER, MAGGIE HABERMAN AND SHARON LAFRANIERE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2Dw6Drm

Testing, Testing

By BY DAVE EGGERS from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2ZjbDYN

An End to Empty Seats on Canada’s Airlines

By BY IAN AUSTEN from NYT World https://ift.tt/38LFnAP

I Have Cancer. Now My Facebook Feed Is Full of ‘Alternative Care’ Ads.

By BY ANNE BORDEN KING from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/3fib4Ej

Delayed by the coronavirus crisis, tax day is almost here.

By BY ANN CARRNS from NYT Business https://ift.tt/3fdHkbv

Auctions get creative as the pandemic forces them online

By BY PAUL SULLIVAN from NYT Business https://ift.tt/3iQWYfi

U.S. judge hearing Flynn case asks appeals court to reconsider dismissal

The judge hearing the criminal prosecution against U.S. President Donald Trump's former adviser Michael Flynn on Thursday asked an appeals court to reconsider a recent decision dismissing the case. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan asked the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the June 24 decision that directed him to drop the Flynn case. The Justice Department sought to dismiss the case against Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser, following pressure from Trump and his allies, leading to criticism that Attorney General William Barr was using his office to help the president's friends.

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Letters to the Editor: Joe Biden is probably picking the 2024 Democratic nominee. Choose wisely

Biden's pick for vice president could be the Democratic nominee in four years. That person must be able to win then.

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Coronavirus: What are the numbers out of Latin America?

New cases have been rising sharply in Brazil and Mexico, along with other countries in the region.

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The Lincoln Project targets Senate Republicans in latest ad

On Thursday, the Lincoln Project, a conservative political action committee formed in late 2019, released an ad titled “Names,” which attacks several high-ranking Senate Republicans, including Mitch McConnel and Ted Cruz, for their complicity in alleged wrongdoing by the Trump administration. This is the latest in a series of attack ads produced and distributed by the committee, whose members include George Conway, Steve Schmidt and other prominent Republicans who oppose Trump. Yahoo News has assembled a compilation of some of the Lincoln Project’s most controversial advertisements.

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Dr. Bernice King and Mayor Michael Tubbs on How Universal Basic Income Can Help Address the Racial Wealth Gap

Dr. Bernice King and Stockton, Calif. Mayor Michael Tubbs discussed racial wealth gap and environmental injustice in a TIME 100 Talks panel

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US universities are charging full fees for 'virtual' class this fall. This is absurd

Schools with huge endowments are pretending remote learning is the same experience. Give students a break Colleges and universities are in an unprecedented bind. Coronavirus continues to rage in many parts of America, making the sort of communal gatherings that are hallmarks of collegiate life outright dangerous. Lecture halls, libraries, football games and dorm-room parties can all be superspreader events.Some educational institutions have already declared that almost the entire academic year will occur remotely, while others are forging on with in-person learning. Two of the schools I teach at, NYU and St Joseph’s College in Brooklyn, are attempting the latter, which will carry its own risks, depending on how New York City progresses in its continuing battle to keep infection rates low.For schools that have decided against most in-person instruction, the caution exercised is understandable. The University of California system, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Rutgers have all declared that the bulk of their course offerings will be online. But about 60% of schools nationwide are still planning an in-person start to the year.What they all aren’t doing is reducing tuition, even though a significant portion of the value these educational institutions provide is now lost indefinitely. Only Princeton has offered a 10% price cut. Harvard, with its $40bn endowment, is still charging full tuition. So are Rutgers and the University of California schools, both public universities.Though they charge less than private institutions, Rutgers or a University of California school aren’t cheap. In-state students at California public universities still pay about $14,000 a year to attend. At Rutgers, in New Jersey, in-state students pay a little more than $12,000. (At both schools, out-of-state tuition is far higher, more than $40,000 and $30,000 respectively.)Remote learning, no matter how well-intentioned, is a diluted product, and students deserve a tuition reduction for sitting at home and staring at a laptop screen. As someone who taught remotely this past semester, I strained to provide a comparable experience to what students were used to. Ultimately I could not. Professors cannot connect with students in the same way. And the ancillary benefits of college – making friends, networking with peers, joining clubs, playing intramural sports – are all lost.> College costs have soared, and now almost every institution, in the age of coronavirus, faces a reckoningThere is an argument that students, especially at prestige schools, are still getting the value of a degree and therefore should pay the full freight. Isn’t the diploma ultimately what matters? But that’s not how colleges and universities pitch themselves to unsuspecting freshmen.College life is not merely about scoring a dream job right after graduation. It’s supposed to be an experience. Behold our manicured lawns, our successful basketball team, our state-of-the-art fitness center, the newly revamped computer lab – and pay dearly for them. Part of the tradeoff of taking on crippling debt is supposed to be the creation of unforgettable memories, those four life-changing years you’ll never have again. Remote learning promises none of that.Public schools are in a tougher position than their wealthier private counterparts. Tuition is how they generate much of their revenue, particularly after decades of cost-cutting by state governments. Many states have left world-class public institutions begging for money; the cuts after the 2008 economic crash were especially deep. Without a massive federal bailout package, public universities and community colleges will be suffering for years to come, starved of tax revenue in the wake of the pandemic.Still, these public institutions can offer tuition discounts while seeking cuts elsewhere. Fun fact: who is the highest paid public employee in the history of New Jersey? It’s Greg Schiano, the Rutgers football coach, who makes $4m annually. Rutgers, like other universities across the country, has been in an athletics arms race to match powerhouses like University of Michigan and Ohio State, which also happen to be public institutions. The profligate spending led Rutgers to amass a $100m athletic budget in the 2018-19 school year, running up large deficits.Rutgers could offer a good faith tuition reduction to students while shrinking nonessential expenditures, like athletics. The same could be done at the University of California system, where the two crown jewels, UCLA and UC Berkeley, had massive athletic deficits during the 2019 fiscal year.College costs have soared over the decades for a variety of reasons – declining public aid, expensive athletics, increased demand, and the rising cost of staff, particularly those not tied to the faculty – and now almost every institution, in the age of coronavirus, faces a reckoning. They can continue to overcharge students. Or they can attempt a measure of economic justice at a time when, from the White House on down, it’s utterly lacking. * Ross Barkan is a writer based in New York City

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China rejects prospect of joining arms control talks with US

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No regrets: wounded Hong Kong police vow to keep enforcing law

Nine months ago he was burned by corrosive liquid hurled during anti-government protests, but Hong Kong police officer Ling says he has no regrets and remains devoted to being a law enforcer. Officers like Ling have formed the spear tip of Beijing's pushback against huge and often violent pro-democracy protests in the restless finance hub. Now the police have been given expanded powers under a sweeping new national security law imposed by Beijing that aims to crush the democracy movement once and for all.

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Gilead analysis shows remdesivir reduced coronavirus death risk, more studies needed

Remdesivir has been at the forefront of the global battle against COVID-19 after the intravenously administered medicine helped shorten hospital recovery times, according to data in April from a separate U.S. government trial. In the latest analysis, Gilead said it analyzed data from 312 patients treated in its late-stage study and a separate real-world retrospective cohort of 818 patients with similar characteristics and disease severity. Gilead's late-stage study evaluated the safety and efficacy of five-day and 10-day dosing durations of remdesivir in hospitalized patients.

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