Global: Total confirmed cases: ~10,394,000; deaths: ~509,000
U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~2,624,000; deaths: ~128,000
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2020/06/30/day-1258/
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2020/06/30/day-1258/
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They couldnât make their intentions any more blatant if they went on national television and ASKED for foreign interference.
WaitâŚ
Senate strips provision from intelligence bill requiring campaigns to report foreign election help
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I think Trumpâs made it apparent which side heâs on here, and itâs NOT the ride side of history.
Trump calls Black Lives Matter a âsymbol of hateâ â a description heâs refused to use for Confederate emblems â as he digs in on race
Trump defends honoring racists in monument debate
The latest excuses for Trumpâs âwhite powerâ tweet reveal his weakness
Trump says painting âBlack Lives Matterâ on New Yorkâs Fifth Avenue would be âa symbol of hateâ
Trump calls the Black Lives Matter mural to be painted outside Trump Tower a âsymbol of hateâ
What Trump leaves unspoken carries consequences
Trumpâs silence emboldens those who reject messages on wearing a mask, systemic racism and Russia
Trump vows to veto $740 billion defense bill if Confederate-named military bases are renamed
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/01/confederate-military-base-renaming-trump/
Trump Is a Bad Joke That America Has Played on Itselfâand the World
Human rights groups turn their sights on Trumpâs America
Increasingly, the United States is being treated like a fragile state in need of help.
The Trump administration was in panic mode.
The United Nations Human Rights Council was debating launching a special investigation of racism in America after the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody. And the United States was determined to derail any such probe.
That the Trump administration cared so much was surprising: It had quit the council two years ago, calling it an anti-Israel âcesspool of political biasâ and denouncing its membership for including human rights abusing countries.
Publicly, U.S. officials kept their cool as the mid-June discussions played out. Behind the scenes, however, the State Department was scrambling to avert a public relations disaster, dispatching its diplomats to pull strings and call in favors.
Lana Marks, the U.S. ambassador in South Africa, reached out to top officials there, telling them a probe aimed squarely at the U.S. âwould be an extreme measure that should be reserved for countries that are not taking action in response to human rights issues, which is clearly not the case in the United States,â according to a diplomatic cable obtained by POLITICO. South Africa isnât on the council, but it chairs the African Union, and South African officials assured Marks that theyâd use their diplomatic heft to help the U.S. avoid embarrassment.
The pressure worked â the 47-member council didnât order a U.S.-focused probe, instead requesting a broader report on anti-Black racism worldwide. But that it came so close to doing so illustrates how international activists, groups and institutions are increasingly focusing on the United States as a villain, not a hero, on the subject of human rights. While the U.S. has never fully escaped such scrutiny â consider the post-9/11 fury over torture, Guantanamo Bay and drone strikes â former officials and activists say that, under President Donald Trump, American domestic strife is raising an unusual level of alarm alongside U.S. actions on the global stage. Some groups also flag what they say is an erosion of democracy in a country that has long styled itself as a beacon of freedom.
The enhanced scrutiny comes as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has created a commission tasked with rethinking the U.S. approach to human rights. Pompeo argues thereâs been a questionable proliferation of what counts as human rights. Critics fear the commission, whose report is due this summer, will undercut the rights of women, LGBTQ people and others.
Former U.S. officials say that, above all, what has put Americaâs human rights record in question is Trumpâs disregard for the issue and his affinity for authoritarian leaders. When Trump has condemned human rights abuses, itâs generally been in select situations that cost him little political capital or when it can bolster his electoral base â as in the case of Iran and Venezuela.
The void has exasperated advocates from both parties.
âThe Trump factor is huge, if not the determinative factorâ in the battered U.S. reputation, said David Kramer, a former assistant secretary of State for human rights in the George W. Bush administration. âPeople advocating and fighting for democracy, human rights and freedom around the world are disillusioned by the U.S. government and donât view the current administration as a true partner.â
âThe indispensable nationâ
In early June, the International Crisis Group did something its leaders said was a historic first: It issued a statement on an internal crisis in the United States. The ICG, an independent organization headquartered in Belgium, analyzes geopolitics with the goal of preventing conflict. It is known for issuing authoritative, deeply sourced reports on war-torn countries â say, how to end the brutal conflict in Yemen.
The ICGâs statement detailed the peaceful protests, occasional violence, police crackdowns and political reactions that followed the killing of Floyd, who died May 25 after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly 8 minutes. In language similar to how it might describe fragile foreign states, the ICG cast the âunrestâ as a crisis that âput the nationâs political divides on full display.â And it chided the Trump administration for âincendiary, panicky rhetoric that suggests the U.S. is in armed conflict with its own people.â
âOver the long term, the nation will need to take steps to end the policeâs brutality and militarization as well as structural racial inequality if it wants to avoid similar future crises,â the ICG said. âAt present, however, what the countryâs leadership most needs to do is insist that those culpable for Floydâs killing are brought to justice, stand in support of those local officials and community leaders who are calling for calm and reform, abandon its martial rhetoric and stop making the situation worse.â
Rob Malley, ICGâs president and CEO, was an aide to former President Barack Obama, but he said the idea for the statement came from colleagues. The ICG decided it saw a confluence of factors in America that it sees in far more troubled countries. One appeared to be growing militarization of the police. Another was the seeming politicization of the military. Also key: Some U.S. political leaders, including Trump, seem determined to exploit racial divisions instead of pushing for unity. The ICG is now debating whether to launch a program that focuses on U.S. domestic issues in a systematic way, Malley said.
Malley stressed that past U.S. administrations, Republican and Democrat, all had credibility gaps when it came to promoting human rights while protecting U.S. interests. Obama, for instance, was criticized for authorizing drone strikes against militants that often killed civilians.
But under Trump, those credibility gaps have turned into a âcanyon,â Malley said. âI think thereâs a qualitative difference with this administration, for whom human rights seems to be treated purely as a transactional currency,â he said.
The ICGâs statement came after head-turning moves by similar institutions.
In 2019, Freedom House released a special essay titled âThe Struggle Comes Home: Attacks on Democracy in the United States.â The Washington-based NGO, which receives the bulk of its funding from the U.S. government, was established in 1941 to fight fascism. Its report, which ranks how free countries are using various indicators, described a decline in U.S. democracy that predated Trump and was fueled in part by political polarization. Freedom House warned, however, that Trump was accelerating it.
âNo president in living memory has shown less respect for [U.S. democracyâs] tenets, norms, and principles,â the report said. âTrump has assailed essential institutions and traditions including the separation of powers, a free press, an independent judiciary, the impartial delivery of justice, safeguards against corruption, and most disturbingly, the legitimacy of elections.â
Other groups have slammed the Trump administrationâs dismantling of much of the U.S. refugee resettlement program, its aversion to accepting asylum-seekers, its travel bans on people from several Muslim-majority countries, and its treatment of migrants in general. Groups like Amnesty Internationalâs U.S. section have substantially increased their work on such migration issues under Trump, including hiring more staff and conducting more research missions along the U.S.-Mexico border, said Joanne Lin, Amnesty International USAâs national advocacy director. Amnesty is one of the few international human rights organizations that has a programmatic focus on the United States.
The international furor against the Trump administration was especially intense in mid-2018, as the U.S. was separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border, then putting the children in detention camps.
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights called the U.S. actions âunconscionable.â
Floydâs death recently spurred more than 30 human rights and related groups, many of which tend to focus their work outside the United States, to take out a full-page advertisement in the Minneapolis Star Tribune to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
âThe public is not an armed opposition group. Everyone has the right to speak up and to demonstrate peacefully,â the ad says. The signatories includ groups such as Save the Children, Mercy Corps and Refugees International.
Human rights leaders acknowledge that Americaâs troubles are nowhere near as worrisome as what they see in many other countries. They argue, however, that the U.S. deserves outsize attention.âThere is intense racism and law enforcement abuse of human rights in China, in Russia, in Brazil and a lot of other countries that the United Nations has a hard time mustering the will to condemn,â said Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), a former senior human rights official under Obama. âBut none of those countries is the indispensable nation. What human rights organizations and institutions are saying by focusing on the United States is something that they cannot explicitly admit, and that is that they believe in American exceptionalism. They understand that America falling short of its ideals has a far greater impact on the world than a Russia or a China doing what we all expect those authoritarian states to do.â
âWhat do they want?â
Trump was clear from the outset that he would not prioritize human rights. He used his 2016 campaign to call for bringing back torture and killing the family members of terrorists. He also showed little regard for international institutions meant to serve as a check on the behavior of governments. If he says anything meaningful in support of human rights, itâs often in a scripted format such as in a speech.
But abroad, those statements often are not taken as seriously as Trumpâs impromptu comments on Twitter and beyond.
Trumpâs about-face on North Korea is instructive. Early on, he repeatedly slammed countryâs human rights record,
calling its totalitarian leader, Kim Jong Un, a âmadman who doesnât mind starving or killing his people.â But once Kim agreed to meet with Trump for historic nuclear talks, the U.S. president stopped raising human rights. After their first meeting in June 2018, Trump declared that Kim âloves his people.âActivists hoped that if Trump didnât care about human rights, his subordinates might. On that front, theyâve found a mixed picture.
Trumpâs first secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said the United States should not let values â including views on how other governments treat their people â create âobstaclesâ to pursuing its national interests. Tillerson was nuanced in his statement, but his comments upset many U.S. diplomats.
A top State Department official, Brian Hook, later wrote a memo to Tillerson arguing that the U.S. should use human rights as a weapon against adversaries, like Iran and China. But repressive allies, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, should get a pass, it said. âAllies should be treated differently â and better â than adversaries. Otherwise, we end up with more adversaries, and fewer allies,â Hook wrote.
In hindsight, the memo appears to have laid out the policy approach the Trump administration has taken on human rights, even after Tillerson was fired in early 2018. His successor, Mike Pompeo, frequently weighs in on human rights but almost exclusively to bash governments hostile to the United States or, occasionally, ones with which the U.S. has limited strategic interest.
Itâs a notable change from previous administrations. Whether Republican or Democrat, top officials in the past would offer at least lip service â a condemnatory statement or maybe a small move, like limiting weapons sales â to express frustrations with abuses in U.S. partner countries. The Trump team rarely does even that minimum. If it does, itâs usually because of public pressure. Instead, it sometimes goes to great lengths to protect abusive U.S partners, as it has done by pressing ahead with arms sales to Saudi Arabia despite its assassination of a writer for The Washington Post.
âThe current administration doesnât think most of its supporters care about international violations of human rights broadly,â said Sarah Snyder, a human rights historian who teaches at American University. âAnd it rejects the idea that the U.S. needs to be a good citizen on these issues. ⌠Thereâs just a wholesale rejection of the idea that the U.S. should be bound by any of these international agreements.â
Trump aides dismiss such criticisms as unfair and unrealistic, routinely defending the president regardless of his own past comments on human rights.
âWhether itâs freedom for the people of Hong Kong, human rights for the Rohingya, all across the world, @realDonaldTrump has understood that itâs important for America to be a true beacon for freedom and liberty and human rights around the globe,â Pompeo tweeted June 23.
Privately, administration officials say they do a lot of excellent human rights work that doesnât get attention. They note that Congress has kept up funding for much of that work, even though Trump has tried to slash that funding. They also argue that the Trump teamâs objectives and priorities are clearer than those of past administrations, especially when distinguishing friend from foe. While Obama tried to engage Tehran and Havana, the Trump administration casts those regimes as irredeemable, and itâs willing to attack them on human rights to weaken them. On the other hand, while Obama kept Hungaryâs leader at a distance, Trump has welcomed him to the White House. Critics may see that as another example of Trump liking dictators, but his aides say it is a way to limit Russian and Chinese influence in Eastern Europe.
âHuman rights are a part, and an important part, of American foreign policy. But they are a part,â one senior State Department official said. âNational security is critical. Economic and commercial factors are also vital.â
Trump administration officials also say human rights activists are never satisfied, no matter who is in the White House. This is not an unfair argument: The groups routinely criticize even administrations most friendly to their cause. Bush was eviscerated over his handling of the war on terrorism, especially his decision to invade Iraq, even though he and his aides asserted that they were liberating and protecting people. Obamaâs human rights legacy was declared âshaky.â For U.S. officials who must make choices between bad and worse options every day, the endless criticism is frustrating.
âThe international human rights community â what do they want?â a second senior State Department official asked. âDo they want to make a symbol, in which case they can all feel good and go home? Or do they want to get down in trenches where we are and work?â
Pompeoâs disdain for the human rights community is one reason he created whatâs known as the Commission on Unalienable Rights. The secretary asserts that activists keep trying to create categories of rights, and that ânot everything good, or everything granted by a government, can be a universal right.â
Rights activists worry the panel will craft a âhierarchyâ of rights that will undermine protections for women, LGBTQ people and others, while possibly elevating religious freedom above other rights. Theyâve organized letters, testified before the commission and even sued to try to derail its work.
Asked if the panel will craft a âhierarchyâ of rights, the first senior State Department official downplayed the possibility but didnât rule it out. âIf thereâs any one idea to which every member on the commission is clearly committed, itâs the idea that the country is properly dedicated to human rights. Human rights are the rights that are inherent in all persons. The commission takes that as our starting premise,â the official said.
Sanctions and sacraments
Human rights leaders say there are two noteworthy bright spots in the Trump administrationâs record.
It has put significant resources into promoting international religious freedom â routinely speaking out on the topic, holding annual ministerial gatherings about it, and launching an international coalition of countries to promote the ideal. A few weeks ago, Trump issued an executive order instructing Pompeo to further integrate the promotion of religious freedom in U.S. diplomacy.
The administration also has used a relatively new legal tool, the Global Magnitsky Act, to impose economic sanctions on numerous individuals implicated in human rights abuses abroad. The sanctions have fallen on people ranging from Myanmar military officials suspected in the mass slaughter of Rohingya Muslims to an allegedly abusive Pakistani police official.
Human rights activists have welcomed such moves by the Trump administration, saying they have brought needed notice to people and areas that often donât get it.
âIn comparison to the remainder of its human rights record, the Trump administrationâs use of the Global Magnitsky sanctions has exceeded expectations,â said Rob Berschinski, a senior official with Human Rights First.
Still, rights activists say the initiatives appear somewhat politicized. The religious freedom alliance, for instance, includes countries such as Hungary, whose government the U.S. is trying to court but which traffics in anti-Semitic rhetoric. The religious freedom push also dovetails with a priority of Trumpâs evangelical supporters, who have long pushed for greater protection of Christian communities overseas.
As far as the Magnitsky sanctions, the administration has mainly kept the penalties limited to people in countries it considers adversaries or where the U.S. has limited interests. And because the sanctions target individuals, theyâre less likely to cause friction with governments. Under intense outside pressure, the administration imposed Magnitsky sanctions on more than a dozen Saudis for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi; but it spared the man the U.S. intelligence community considers responsible for the killing, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Trump has defended.
The dire situation of Uighur Muslims in China illustrates how both the Magnitsky effort and the religious freedom effort have collided with Trumpâs own priorities.
The Trump administration has long seen China as a U.S. foe, and relations with the ruling Communist Party have hit new lows since the coronavirus pandemic began. But Trump has sought to maintain a good personal relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, in part because heâs been trying to strike trade deals with Beijing. In recent years, the Chinese government has detained more than a million Uighur Muslims, putting them in camps from which ugly reports of abuse have emerged. China claims it is âreeducatingâ the Uighurs to stamp out terrorist thinking in the population. Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress are furious over the detention of the Uighurs.
Pompeo, meanwhile, has raised the Uighurs as an example of why the U.S. must promote religious freedom.
But Trump has been unwilling to use the Magnitsky sanctions on Chinese officials involved in the mistreatment of the Uighurs. He told Axios he doesnât want to impose the penalties because it might derail trade talks with Beijing, the success of which he sees as critical to his reelection. According to a new book by former national security adviser John Bolton, Trump even expressed support for the mass internment of the Muslims in talks with Xi. Trump denies this.Some foreign governments have seen the mixed U.S. messaging on human rights as a green light to pursue oppressive policies. Trumpâs diatribes against journalists â and his claims that many legitimate media outlets are âfake newsâ â are believed to have inspired some countries to impose tougher laws curtailing press freedoms.
U.S. adversaries also have used Floydâs death and its fallout as propaganda to try to convince their people that Washington has no business lecturing them on human rights when it canât solve its own problems. When the State Department spokesperson recently tweeted out criticism of Beijingâs treatment of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, a Chinese official tweeted back at her with some of Floydâs last words: âI canât breathe.â
Whoâs the hypocrite?
Rival countries have long sought to capitalize on racial strife inside the United States.
In 1957, when Arkansasâ governor used the National Guard to block nine Black students from attending an all-white
high school, the Soviet Union mocked the U.S. with headlines like âTroops Advance Against Children!â And when President Dwight Eisenhower sent troops from the 101st Airborne to escort the Black students into the school, he invoked Americaâs Cold War struggle to justify the move. âOur enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation,â he said.Publicly, the Trump team has shown little patience for international human rights criticism directed at the United States, especially when it comes from or U.N. bodies or rivals like China. Instead of ignoring the criticism, it often fires back.
In 2018, a U.N. envoy, Philip Alston, unveiled the findings of an investigation into poverty in the United States. Alston has said he was initially invited to study the topic under the Obama administration, but that the Trump administration â under Tillerson â had reextended the invite. Alstonâs report minced few words. The United States, he reported, was home to tens of millions of people in poverty, and that was likely to be exacerbated by Trumpâs economic policies.
Nikki Haley, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, fought back. She called Alstonâs work âmisleading and politically motivated,â insisted that the Trump administrationâs plans would lift people out of poverty, and argued that the U.N. should focus on poverty in less-developed countries.
More recently, the Trump administration has lashed out at the International Criminal Court over its efforts to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan, a probe that would cover actions by U.S. troops. The United States is not a member of the ICC, with many Democrats as well as Republicans unwilling to subject Americans to its jurisdiction. The Trump administration did more than refuse to cooperate: It threatened to impose economic sanctions on ICC staffers and warned it may bar them and their families from entering the U.S.
The Geneva-based Human Rights Councilâs consideration of an investigation into U.S.-based racism saw the Trump administration work multiple levers, even though it had walked away from its council membership.
The discussion was held at the behest of several African countries on the council and was backed by numerous human rights groups as well as Floydâs brother Philonise. It was unusual in that it was called an âurgent debateâ â a format the council doesnât often use. The initial request was for the council to establish a âcommission of inquiryâ â its most powerful tool of scrutiny â into the United States. U.S. rivals such as China and Russia, meanwhile, used the occasion to decry racism in America. In quotes sent to reporters, U.S. envoy Andrew Bremberg acknowledged âshortcomingsâ in the United States but insisted that, unlike some of its autocratic rivals, the U.S. government was being âtransparentâ and responsive in dealing with racism and police brutality.
When Marks, the U.S. ambassador in Pretoria, sought South African officialsâ influence in shaping the councilâs debate, she was repeatedly reassured, according to the diplomatic cable. One senior South African official emphasized that his countryâs leadership âwas committed to further strengthening and consolidating its partnership with the United States.â The official said South Africa would â presumably through its relations with African countries on the council â âseek to redirect the conversation away from a specific focus on the United States and towards a more general, universal discussion of racism.â
Ultimately, the African countries relented. The council instead requested a broader, more generic U.N. report on systemic racism and police brutality against Black people and also asked for information on how various governments worldwide deal with anti-racism protests. The resolution did, however, mention the Floyd death and the report is expected to cover the United States, among other countries.
That was too much for Pompeo.
In a statement titled, âOn the Hypocrisy of U.N. Human Rights Council,â the secretary of State pointed out that dictatorships like Venezuela were members of the multilateral body and said the results of the urgent debate had made the United States even more confident it was right to quit the council.
âIf the council were serious about protecting human rights, there are plenty of legitimate needs for its attention, such as the systemic racial disparities in places like Cuba, China, and Iran,â Pompeo said.
âIf the council were honest,â he added, âit would recognize the strengths of American democracy and urge authoritarian regimes around the world to model American democracy and to hold their nations to the same high standards of accountability and transparency that we Americans apply to ourselves."
I had to post this last article in its entirety, because itâs far more damning than I think people understand.
In mid-June the Trump regime barely avoided a full UN Human Rights Council investigation into its systemic racism through political maneuvering.
Its desperation to avoid the scrutiny of a council it quit speaks volumes.
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And now it is UNBLOCKEDâŚhow quickly things change. But there is a lower court appeal which needs address for the Temporary Restraining Order.
I like how the publisher is saying it needs to be read for the good of the county (not an exact quote!)
Simon & Schuster found not bound by authorâs secrecy agreement
Presidentâs brother sued to stop publication of tell-all book
The publisher of a memoir about President Donald Trumpâs family got a temporary restraining order against the book lifted by an appeals court that said the company doesnât appear to be bound by a confidentiality agreement signed by the bookâs author, Mary Trump, nearly 20 years ago.
The decision issued Wednesday by a New York state appeals court is a significant preliminary victory for the bookâs publisher, Simon & Schuster. But the restraining order against the author herself, the presidentâs niece, was kept in place. Both Simon & Schuster and Mary Trump were sued by the presidentâs brother, Robert Trump, over claims the book violated a secrecy deal that was part of a legal settlement over a will.
âWhile Ms. Trump unquestionably possesses the same First Amendment expressive rights belonging to all Americans, she also possesses the right to enter into contracts, including the right to contract away her First Amendment rights,â the appeals court said. âUnlike Ms. Trump, Simon & Schuster has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights.â
The appeals court judge, Alan Scheinkman, said the temporary restraining order against Mary Trump must also apply to her âagents,â though he declined to rule that Simon & Schuster is such an agent, citing a lack of evidence.
The decision is hardly the end the story. A lower-court judge is set to hear arguments on July 10 on Robert Trumpâs request for a longer-lasting preliminary injunction that could block the bookâs publication indefinitely while the case is litigated.
Theodore Boutrous, Mary Trumpâs lawyer, said he will file a response in the lower court on Thursday in which heâll seek to get the restraining order lifted again.
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This is huge.
The vacating of the restraining order against Mary Trumpâs book could open the door for others to tell their talesâŚ
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