theguardian--2020-06-06--America's top cop is a rightwing culture warrior who hates disorder. What could go wrong? | Lloyd Gr

America's top cop is a rightwing culture warrior who hates disorder. What could go wrong? | Lloyd Green

aybe the 1960s never ended .
Police , protesters and rioters once again fill our rage-filled streets and television screens .
Amid a pandemic that has already claimed over 100,000 lives , a cultural divide that burst into flames more than a half-century ago is back – and burning furiously .
Earlier this week , Donald Trump seemed to morph into Richard Nixon , America ’ s self-proclaimed “ law and order ” president who resigned in disgrace .
The cameras rolled as a Bible-brandishing president threatened to send US troops into America ’ s cities .
As Trump stood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the White House , teargas canisters and flash-bang grenades exploded nearby .
In his inaugural address in 2017 , Trump vowed to restore what he characterized as American greatness , strength , and safety .
In William Barr , the US attorney general , Trump has a powerful and determined partner .
It was Barr who personally ordered military police to clear peaceful protesters from around the White House , and Barr who is reportedly advocating an intense “ flood the zone ” show of authority .
“ The president sees Barr as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unleash if states and cities don ’ t get their act together , ” an administration official told the Daily Beast .
Both men aim to turn back the clock to a time when everyone “ knew their place ” .
But where Trump has been a bumbling , self-interested and ideologically erratic leader – a weak man ’ s strongman – Barr is smart , dedicated and disciplined .
He understands how to wield power and holds a consistent worldview .
He ’ s an aggressive advocate for executive power and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s top law enforcement officer at the same time as unrest roils the country .
“ Barr is vastly more intelligent than Donald Trump , ” Stuart Gerson , a former colleague of Barr ’ s , recently told the New York Times Magazine .
“ What Trump gives Bill Barr is a canvas upon which to paint .
Bill has longstanding views about how society should be organized , which can now be manifested and acted upon to a degree that they never could have before.
” ( Gerson was my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 .
Barr was head of the department from November 1991 to January 1993 . )
Trump and Barr are close in age .
Both grew up during the Vietnam war and the 1960s- and 1970s-era unrest .
But where young Trump ’ s “ personal Vietnam ” involved dodging syphilis , avoiding the draft , “ bone spurs ” and apprenticeship in his father ’ s growing real estate empire , Vietnam , for young “ Billy ” Barr , was different .
The war was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Barr ’ s older brother was in Vietnam , fighting in the navy .
Barr ’ s father had served in the army during the Second World War and was a member of the Office of Strategic Services , the forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency .
As a Columbia undergraduate , Barr stood fast against the anti-war protesters who sought to bring the university to its knees .
Back then , the operative divide was “ Staten Island v Scarsdale ” – conservative , often Catholic , students from the blue-collar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , often Jewish , students from affluent suburbs .
Barr , though far from working-class , was firmly planted in the first camp .
At the time , radical leftwing activists such as Berkeley ’ s Mario Savio argued that people of conscience must throw themselves against the machinery of the state .
Barr , in contrast , saw himself as holding the line against anarchy and disorder .
When protesters attempted to storm the university library , Barr and a group of counter-protesters blocked them .
The standoff , according to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a massive fistfight .
The counter-protestors won .
Ultimately , however , Barr ’ s side of the student culture war lost .
Nixon , though an anti-communist , knew the American public ’ s appetite for the war was rapidly depleting .
He pulled America out of Vietnam after 20,000 US soldiers were killed on his watch .
When Saigon fell and the draft ended , the two sides of the culture war retreated to their respective corners .
Leftist students started their “ long march through the institutions ” – academia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And Barr and the pro-Vietnam crowd started their own long march , too .
Barr briefly served in the CIA as an analyst and then in the agency ’ s legislative counsel ’ s office , where he met George HW Bush , then helming the agency .
When Bush was later elected president , in 1988 , Barr joined the administration and rapidly rose to the top of the justice department , where he served his first tenure as attorney general .
A profile at the time described Barr as a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a muted New York accent ” , and extremely effective .
During the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict , Barr argued that “ our system is fair and does not treat people differently ” .
He conceded that “ our national criminal-justice system is a diverse [ and ] broad one ” , with cases of individual bias , but that “ taken in its totality , the system seems to operate fairly ” .
He blamed the riots mainly on opportunistic gang violence .
After two days of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Insurrection Act at the request of California ’ s Republican governor , Pete Wilson .
The statute is a rarely-used provision that permits the president to use federal military forces for domestic law enforcement , which is normally illegal .
Together with the national guard , the US army and marines deployed to LA and helped restored order .
Today the US faces a situation akin to the 1992 riots , not to mention the 1960s clashes over Vietnam .
Barr and the pro-Vietnam crowd lost that battle , but hoped to win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump presidency , history has offered Barr a kind of do-over .
In the New York Times , Gerson , Barr ’ s former justice department colleague , characterized Barr as “ hierarchical ” and “ authoritarian ” in outlook , committed to the premise that “ a top-down ordering of society will produce a more moral society ” .
In speeches , Barr , a traditionalist Catholic , has railed against “ militant secularists ” , who seek “ to mitigate the social costs of personal misconduct and irresponsibility ” .
Barr @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 1960s cultural revolution as a kind of traumatic rupture in US history – a Pandora ’ s box that unleashed decadence , sexual permissiveness and rebelliousness , and led to the atomization of society and the decline of the family unit .
The results , as they see it , were leftist militancy , drug addiction , out-of-wedlock childbirth and a decoupling of religion from society .
For a certain kind of conservative , undoing that legacy has been a decades-long political project .
In the long term , Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stamp he puts on the federal judiciary .
The judges he has appointed – 193 so far , including two supreme court justices – are already wading into fierce legal disputes concerning abortion , immigration , sexual orientation and other issues .
Their rulings will reverberate long after Trump leaves office .
His judicial nominations are frequently drawn from the ranks of the Federalist Society , a conservative legal organization founded in the early 1980s at the Harvard , Yale and University of Chicago law schools as a counterweight to what its members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the leading law schools .
The Federalist Society and its supporters , including Barr , frame themselves as favoring strict readings of the constitution ; in practice , however , they have frequently pushed for the expansion of executive power .
One particular target of their hostility is the 1973 War Powers Act , Congress ’ s attempt to reassert itself after the debacle of Vietnam and rein in the war-making powers of the president .
In 2001 , looking back at the Gulf war and his advice as attorney general to then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ I believed that the president did not require any authorization from Congress , and I believed that the president had constitutional authority to launch an attack against the Iraqis.
” Now the battlefield is urban America .
Trump has threatened to use the US military to quell unrest .
This week an army airborne division was moved near Washington DC , for a possible deployment as a militarized adjunct to domestic law enforcement , though the Pentagon reversed the decision .
In his public statement about the current unrest , Barr @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to stop watching the violence and to confront and stop it.
” He added that “ violence instigated and carried out by antifa ” is “ domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly ” .
Perhaps everything has come full circle : for Barr , this is one last fight to get it “ right ” .

Maybe the 1960s never ended. Police, protesters and rioters once again fill our rage-filled streets and television screens. Amid a pandemic that has already claimed over 100,000 lives, a cultural divide that burst into flames more than a half-century ago is back – and burning furiously.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump seemed to morph into Richard Nixon, America’s self-proclaimed “law and order” president who resigned in disgrace. The cameras rolled as a Bible-brandishing president threatened to send US troops into America’s cities. As Trump stood in front of an Episcopal church near the White House, teargas canisters and flash-bang grenades exploded nearby.
In his inaugural address in 2017, Trump vowed to restore what he characterized as American greatness, strength, and safety. In William Barr, the US attorney general, Trump has a powerful and determined partner. It was Barr who personally ordered military police to clear peaceful protesters from around the White House, and Barr who is reportedly advocating an intense “flood the zone” show of authority. “The president sees Barr as the ‘bad cop’ he can unleash if states and cities don’t get their act together,” an administration official told the Daily Beast.
Both men aim to turn back the clock to a time when everyone “knew their place”. But where Trump has been a bumbling, self-interested and ideologically erratic leader – a weak man’s strongman – Barr is smart, dedicated and disciplined. He understands how to wield power and holds a consistent worldview. He’s an aggressive advocate for executive power and the police – who happens to be America’s top law enforcement officer at the same time as unrest roils the country.
“Barr is vastly more intelligent than Donald Trump,” Stuart Gerson, a former colleague of Barr’s, recently told the New York Times Magazine. “What Trump gives Bill Barr is a canvas upon which to paint. Bill has longstanding views about how society should be organized, which can now be manifested and acted upon to a degree that they never could have before.” (Gerson was my boss when I worked at the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992. Barr was head of the department from November 1991 to January 1993.)
Trump and Barr are close in age. Both grew up during the Vietnam war and the 1960s- and 1970s-era unrest. But where young Trump’s “personal Vietnam” involved dodging syphilis, avoiding the draft, “bone spurs” and apprenticeship in his father’s growing real estate empire, Vietnam, for young “Billy” Barr, was different. The war was part of his family’s reality.
Barr’s older brother was in Vietnam, fighting in the navy. Barr’s father had served in the army during the Second World War and was a member of the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency.
As a Columbia undergraduate, Barr stood fast against the anti-war protesters who sought to bring the university to its knees. Back then, the operative divide was “Staten Island v Scarsdale” – conservative, often Catholic, students from the blue-collar New York City outer borough versus liberal, often Jewish, students from affluent suburbs. Barr, though far from working-class, was firmly planted in the first camp.
At the time, radical leftwing activists such as Berkeley’s Mario Savio argued that people of conscience must throw themselves against the machinery of the state. Barr, in contrast, saw himself as holding the line against anarchy and disorder. When protesters attempted to storm the university library, Barr and a group of counter-protesters blocked them. The standoff, according to the New York Times, was resolved by a massive fistfight. The counter-protestors won.
Ultimately, however, Barr’s side of the student culture war lost. Nixon, though an anti-communist, knew the American public’s appetite for the war was rapidly depleting. He pulled America out of Vietnam after 20,000 US soldiers were killed on his watch.
When Saigon fell and the draft ended, the two sides of the culture war retreated to their respective corners. Leftist students started their “long march through the institutions” – academia, journalism and the cultural sphere.
And Barr and the pro-Vietnam crowd started their own long march, too. Barr briefly served in the CIA as an analyst and then in the agency’s legislative counsel’s office, where he met George HW Bush, then helming the agency. When Bush was later elected president, in 1988, Barr joined the administration and rapidly rose to the top of the justice department, where he served his first tenure as attorney general. A profile at the time described Barr as a “bookish-looking son of educators who speaks with a muted New York accent”, and extremely effective.
During the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict, Barr argued that “our system is fair and does not treat people differently”. He conceded that “our national criminal-justice system is a diverse [and] broad one”, with cases of individual bias, but that “taken in its totality, the system seems to operate fairly”. He blamed the riots mainly on opportunistic gang violence.
After two days of rioting, Bush and Barr invoked the Insurrection Act at the request of California’s Republican governor, Pete Wilson. The statute is a rarely-used provision that permits the president to use federal military forces for domestic law enforcement, which is normally illegal. Together with the national guard, the US army and marines deployed to LA and helped restored order.
In the Trump presidency, history has offered Barr a kind of do-over
Today the US faces a situation akin to the 1992 riots, not to mention the 1960s clashes over Vietnam. Barr and the pro-Vietnam crowd lost that battle, but hoped to win the war. Now, in the Trump presidency, history has offered Barr a kind of do-over.
In the New York Times, Gerson, Barr’s former justice department colleague, characterized Barr as “hierarchical” and “authoritarian” in outlook, committed to the premise that “a top-down ordering of society will produce a more moral society”.
In speeches, Barr, a traditionalist Catholic, has railed against “militant secularists”, who seek “to mitigate the social costs of personal misconduct and irresponsibility”.
Barr and many conservatives of his generation remember the 1960s cultural revolution as a kind of traumatic rupture in US history – a Pandora’s box that unleashed decadence, sexual permissiveness and rebelliousness, and led to the atomization of society and the decline of the family unit. The results, as they see it, were leftist militancy, drug addiction, out-of-wedlock childbirth and a decoupling of religion from society. For a certain kind of conservative, undoing that legacy has been a decades-long political project.
In the long term, Trump’s real legacy as president may be the stamp he puts on the federal judiciary. The judges he has appointed – 193 so far, including two supreme court justices – are already wading into fierce legal disputes concerning abortion, immigration, sexual orientation and other issues. Their rulings will reverberate long after Trump leaves office. His judicial nominations are frequently drawn from the ranks of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization founded in the early 1980s at the Harvard, Yale and University of Chicago law schools as a counterweight to what its members perceived as the liberal orthodoxies prevalent at the leading law schools.
The Federalist Society and its supporters, including Barr, frame themselves as favoring strict readings of the constitution; in practice, however, they have frequently pushed for the expansion of executive power. One particular target of their hostility is the 1973 War Powers Act, Congress’s attempt to reassert itself after the debacle of Vietnam and rein in the war-making powers of the president.
In 2001, looking back at the Gulf war and his advice as attorney general to then president George HW Bush, Barr recalled: “I believed that the president did not require any authorization from Congress, and I believed that the president had constitutional authority to launch an attack against the Iraqis.”
Now the battlefield is urban America. Trump has threatened to use the US military to quell unrest. This week an army airborne division was moved near Washington DC, for a possible deployment as a militarized adjunct to domestic law enforcement, though the Pentagon reversed the decision.
In his public statement about the current unrest, Barr has said: “It is time to stop watching the violence and to confront and stop it.” He added that “violence instigated and carried out by antifa” is “domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly”.
Perhaps everything has come full circle: for Barr, this is one last fight to get it “right”.


theguardian--2020-06-06--The George Floyd murder and Covid-19 have hurt Trump, but maybe not fatally

Voter disapproval of Donald Trump ’ s handling of the George Floyd protests and the Covid-19 pandemic , plus the accompanying economic meltdown , have undoubtedly hurt the president ’ s re-election chances .
But it ’ s unclear whether the damage is fatal .
Could Trump , despite everything , still stage a comeback and beat the Democratic nominee , Joe Biden ?
Things are looking bad for Trump right now .
His job approval rating has dipped sharply in recent days .
Based on an average of 12 polls taken since 25 May the day Floyd was killed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with 54 % disapproving .
Trump ’ s loyalist “ base ” is said to comprise 25-30 % of voters .
The remainder of the 46 % who backed him in 2016 will not necessarily do so again .
There are signs that key voter groups are less committed – or more fiercely opposed .
A recent survey of white Christian evangelicals showed a 15 % drop in support for Trump support .
Among white Catholics , it dropped by 27 % .
Many white suburban women deserted the Republicans in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ further alienated by the health crisis , economic uncertainty , and Trump ’ s divisiveness .
Older voters suffering the brunt of the pandemic are said to feel abandoned while the electorate as whole is getting younger .
And for the first time , a third of eligible voters are non-white .
Revived fury over racial injustice may galvanise the black vote – a crucial 12.5 % of the electorate – against the president .
In 2016 , black turnout declined for the first time in 20 years .
Biden ’ s appeal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , could reverse that trend and provide winning margins in swing states .
Among all voters , Biden ’ s current lead is 11 % .
Yet Trump has been written off before .
He has the advantage of incumbency and an enormous war chest .
He plays dirty .
By autumn , the economy may have revived , and the pandemic subsided .
And gaffe-prone Biden carries much baggage .
The protests may have scared as many Middle America voters as they energised .
Nobody knows how Trump ’ s Nixonian appeals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ law and order ” will play in Peoria .
One thing is certain : he ’ s a long way from beaten .

Voter disapproval of Donald Trump’s handling of the George Floyd protests and the Covid-19 pandemic, plus the accompanying economic meltdown, have undoubtedly hurt the president’s re-election chances.
But it’s unclear whether the damage is fatal. Could Trump, despite everything, still stage a comeback and beat the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden?
Things are looking bad for Trump right now. His job approval rating has dipped sharply in recent days. Based on an average of 12 polls taken since 25 May the day Floyd was killed, it stands at about 43%, with 54% disapproving.
Trump’s loyalist “base” is said to comprise 25-30% of voters. The remainder of the 46% who backed him in 2016 will not necessarily do so again. There are signs that key voter groups are less committed – or more fiercely opposed.
A recent survey of white Christian evangelicals showed a 15% drop in support for Trump support. Among white Catholics, it dropped by 27%.
Biden’s appeal among African-Americans could provide him with winning margins in swing states
Many white suburban women deserted the Republicans in the 2018 mid-terms. This group may be further alienated by the health crisis, economic uncertainty, and Trump’s divisiveness. Older voters suffering the brunt of the pandemic are said to feel abandoned while the electorate as whole is getting younger. And for the first time, a third of eligible voters are non-white.
Revived fury over racial injustice may galvanise the black vote – a crucial 12.5% of the electorate – against the president. In 2016, black turnout declined for the first time in 20 years.
Biden’s appeal among African-Americans, demonstrated in the primaries, could reverse that trend and provide winning margins in swing states. Among all voters, Biden’s current lead is 11%.
Yet Trump has been written off before. He has the advantage of incumbency and an enormous war chest. He plays dirty. By autumn, the economy may have revived, and the pandemic subsided. And gaffe-prone Biden carries much baggage.
The protests may have scared as many Middle America voters as they energised. Nobody knows how Trump’s Nixonian appeals to the “silent majority” and “law and order” will play in Peoria.
One thing is certain: he’s a long way from beaten.


theguardian--2020-06-06--Ivanka Trump complains of 'cancel culture' after university cancels her speech

Ivanka Trump has hit out at “ cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination ” after plans for her to give a virtual commencement speech to students in Kansas were canceled amid criticism of Donald Trump ’ s response to anti-police brutality protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd .
Administrators at Wichita State University and WSU Tech announced their decision just hours after they had said the US president ’ s daughter would be speaking to WSU Tech graduates .
Administrators of both universities , which are affiliated , said Saturday ’ s graduation for the technical university @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with a nursing graduate as the only speaker The move clearly angered Ivanka Trump , who is a top adviser in the White House and whose husband , Jared Kushner , is one of the most influential figures in the Trump administration .
She responded in a tweet , saying : “ Our nation ’ s campuses should be bastions of free speech .
Cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination are antithetical to academia .
Listening to one another is important now more than ever !
” She also released the video of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not mention the Floyd protests but did acknowledge the challenges of graduating amid the coronavirus pandemic , which has cratered the US economy .
Seeking to reassure students now facing mass unemployment triggered by widespread shutdowns to curb the virus , the daughter of a New York real estate billionaire opined : “ In my own life , I have found that my greatest personal growth has arisen from times of discomfort and uncertainty.
” The announcement of her speech drew immediate criticism , led by Jennifer Ray , an associate professor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sent a letter asking school administrators to cancel it .
It circulated on social media and garnered 488 signatures from faculty , students and alumni before the speech was canceled , the Wichita Eagle reported .
But others said the event should not have been canceled .
Republican congressman Ron Estes said in a statement he was “ disappointed ” and added : “ As Kansas faces many challenges recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic to get back to our booming economy , now is the time for us to be working together.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since Floyd , who was black , died in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee on his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air .
Much of the response to the protests by American police has been brutal and acts of violence against demonstrators and media have been common .
Trump has refashioned his election campaign as a “ law and order ” president but came in for widespread condemnation after police attacked a peaceful protest in Washington in order to clear a path @ @ @ @ @ @ @ church , where he held aloft a Bible .
Ivanka Trump was part of the procession that made its way to the church and reportedly carried the Bible that her father used in her purse .

Ivanka Trump has hit out at “cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination” after plans for her to give a virtual commencement speech to students in Kansas were canceled amid criticism of Donald Trump’s response to anti-police brutality protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.
Administrators at Wichita State University and WSU Tech announced their decision just hours after they had said the US president’s daughter would be speaking to WSU Tech graduates. Administrators of both universities, which are affiliated, said Saturday’s graduation for the technical university would be “refocused” on students, with a nursing graduate as the only speaker
The move clearly angered Ivanka Trump, who is a top adviser in the White House and whose husband, Jared Kushner, is one of the most influential figures in the Trump administration.
She responded in a tweet, saying: “Our nation’s campuses should be bastions of free speech. Cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination are antithetical to academia. Listening to one another is important now more than ever!”
She also released the video of the speech, in which she did not mention the Floyd protests but did acknowledge the challenges of graduating amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has cratered the US economy.
Seeking to reassure students now facing mass unemployment triggered by widespread shutdowns to curb the virus, the daughter of a New York real estate billionaire opined: “In my own life, I have found that my greatest personal growth has arisen from times of discomfort and uncertainty.”
The announcement of her speech drew immediate criticism, led by Jennifer Ray, an associate professor of photo media at Wichita State, who sent a letter asking school administrators to cancel it. It circulated on social media and garnered 488 signatures from faculty, students and alumni before the speech was canceled, the Wichita Eagle reported.
But others said the event should not have been canceled. Republican congressman Ron Estes said in a statement he was “disappointed” and added: “As Kansas faces many challenges recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic to get back to our booming economy, now is the time for us to be working together.”
Protests have broken out around the world since Floyd, who was black, died in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee on his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air. Much of the response to the protests by American police has been brutal and acts of violence against demonstrators and media have been common.
Trump has refashioned his election campaign as a “law and order” president but came in for widespread condemnation after police attacked a peaceful protest in Washington in order to clear a path to have a photo op at a church, where he held aloft a Bible.
Ivanka Trump was part of the procession that made its way to the church and reportedly carried the Bible that her father used in her purse.


theguardian--2020-06-06--'Selling off the future’: Trump allows fishing in marine monument

Donald Trump is easing protections for a large marine monument off the coast of New England , opening it to commercial fishing .
But ocean experts caution that the rollback to the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine national monument will hurt the environment and won ’ t help fishermen who are struggling during the Covid-19 pandemic and economic downturn to find buyers for what they already catch .
“ This rollback essentially sells off the future of the ocean and the future of the ecosystem for almost no present economic benefit , ” said Miriam Goldstein , the ocean policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Cap ) .
“ [ That ’ s ] why it ’ s so puzzling to do it at all and even more puzzling that the president is doing it now , in the middle of the pandemic and with police riots going on around the country.
” Trump ’ s announcement follows several others by the administration to weaken environment rules during the pandemic , including an executive order he signed yesterday to bypass reviews of big infrastructure projects that could threaten public health .
The president unveiled the decision in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discussion with commercial fisheries companies .
The White House said Trump ’ s proclamation would allow commercial fishing within the monument but would not alter its boundaries .
The protected area is about 130 miles from Cape Cod , Massachusetts , and it contains endangered right whales and sensitive deep sea corals .
It is one of five marine monuments in the country .
The other four are in the western Pacific Ocean .
After this rollback , less than .1 % of the US waters outside the western Pacific Ocean will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an analysis by Cap based on federal data .
“ Even fishing done well still has an impact , so for that reason it ’ s important to have special areas of the ocean set aside .
And this has been shown through a lot of science , that it is beneficial to ocean ecosystems , to biodiversity , to threatened and endangered species – and beneficial to those fisheries themselves , ” Goldstein said .
Environment groups quickly responded that they plan to sue .
The Natural Resources Defense Council is undertaking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opening up two Utah monuments , Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante , to mining .
The Utah monuments and the marine monument were established at the end of the Barack Obama administration .
Goldstein acknowledged that fishermen and aquaculture growers in coastal communities have been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn , but she said there are other actions the administration could take that would help .
The US Regional Fishery Management Councils on 29 May sent a letter to the commerce department arguing that “ the ban on commercial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a regulatory burden on domestic fisheries ” .
The group had been making that same argument since 2016 .
Rip Cunningham , the conservation editor at Saltwater Sportsman and former chair of the New England Fishery Management Council , criticized the move .
“ As a recreational fisherman , it troubles me to see the monument opened to commercial fishing , ” Cunningham said .
“ These are fragile and vulnerable resources , and I am concerned for their future health .
”

Donald Trump is easing protections for a large marine monument off the coast of New England, opening it to commercial fishing.
But ocean experts caution that the rollback to the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine national monument will hurt the environment and won’t help fishermen who are struggling during the Covid-19 pandemic and economic downturn to find buyers for what they already catch.
“This rollback essentially sells off the future of the ocean and the future of the ecosystem for almost no present economic benefit,” said Miriam Goldstein, the ocean policy director at the Center for American Progress (Cap). “[That’s] why it’s so puzzling to do it at all and even more puzzling that the president is doing it now, in the middle of the pandemic and with police riots going on around the country.”
Trump’s announcement follows several others by the administration to weaken environment rules during the pandemic, including an executive order he signed yesterday to bypass reviews of big infrastructure projects that could threaten public health.
The president unveiled the decision in Bangor, Maine, at a roundtable discussion with commercial fisheries companies. The White House said Trump’s proclamation would allow commercial fishing within the monument but would not alter its boundaries.
The protected area is about 130 miles from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and it contains endangered right whales and sensitive deep sea corals. It is one of five marine monuments in the country. The other four are in the western Pacific Ocean. After this rollback, less than .1% of the US waters outside the western Pacific Ocean will be protected from commercial fishing, according to an analysis by Cap based on federal data.
“Even fishing done well still has an impact, so for that reason it’s important to have special areas of the ocean set aside. And this has been shown through a lot of science, that it is beneficial to ocean ecosystems, to biodiversity, to threatened and endangered species – and beneficial to those fisheries themselves,” Goldstein said.
This rollback essentially sells off the future of the ocean and the future of the ecosystem for almost no present economic benefit Miriam Goldstein
Environment groups quickly responded that they plan to sue. The Natural Resources Defense Council is undertaking a similar lawsuit against the administration for opening up two Utah monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, to mining. The Utah monuments and the marine monument were established at the end of the Barack Obama administration.
Goldstein acknowledged that fishermen and aquaculture growers in coastal communities have been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn, but she said there are other actions the administration could take that would help.
The US Regional Fishery Management Councils on 29 May sent a letter to the commerce department arguing that “the ban on commercial fishing within Marine national monument waters is a regulatory burden on domestic fisheries”. The group had been making that same argument since 2016.
Rip Cunningham, the conservation editor at Saltwater Sportsman and former chair of the New England Fishery Management Council, criticized the move.
“As a recreational fisherman, it troubles me to see the monument opened to commercial fishing,” Cunningham said. “These are fragile and vulnerable resources, and I am concerned for their future health.”


theguardian--2020-06-07--Trump reaches for Nixon playbook after protests that have rocked America

They were 48 minutes of mayhem that shook the republic .
With a bizarre pageant of riots shields , a Bible and a designer handbag , they also represented what could be Donald Trump ’ s last best chance of clinging to power .
Before sunset last Monday , the US president stood in the White House Rose Garden , threatened to turn the American military on the American people and declared : “ I am your president of law and order.
” Beyond the perimeter fence , park police and national guard troops fired teargas and chased away peaceful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the fire-damaged St John ’ s church .
Trump was joined by officials including his daughter and senior adviser , Ivanka , clutching a $ 1,540 handbag .
The self-anointed strongman posed for the cameras while awkwardly holding aloft a Bible – or was it the Richard Nixon playbook ?
This was the moment that Trump finally found a re-election campaign strategy in his comfort zone .
Like his idol Nixon during the turmoil of 1968 , he promised to put out the fires in American cities and assuage the fears of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that portrays Democrats as soft on crime while selling Trump as the national security president – less “ Keep America Great ” than “ Keep America Safe ” .
“ The Radical Left Democrats new theme is ‘ Defund the Police ’ , ” the president tweeted .
“ Remember that when you don ’ t want Crime , especially against you and your family .
This is where Sleepy Joe is being dragged by the socialists .
I am the complete opposite , more money for Law Enforcement !
# LAWANDORDER ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump has found the electoral battleground constantly shifting beneath his feet .
Just a few months ago , he was painting the Democrats as radical socialists in thrall to Senator Bernie Sanders , but the party ’ s nomination was secured by the moderate Joe Biden .
He was also trumpeting the strength of the economy , but that narrative was shredded by the coronavirus pandemic – although there was some encouraging news at the end of last week to suggest that US jobs were returning after the lockdown was lifted in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China for the virus but polls suggested this gained little traction as voters scrutinised the president ’ s own sluggish response .
But then came the tragedy of George Floyd , an African American man killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his neck with his knee .
The subsequent social unrest , the most widespread in half a century , may now have thrown Trump a political lifeline .
The great majority of the protests , including that outside the White House on Monday , have been peaceful , highlighting the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ segregation .
Some have been met with vicious state-sanctioned force .
However , incidents of violence , including ransacking stores and burning police cars , received outsized TV coverage and handed Trump a cultural wedge issue to exploit .
Mandy Jenkins , a journalist , tweeted on Thursday : “ My friends and family in rural Ohio honestly believe large swaths of America ’ s cities are being destroyed by lawless bands of looters who are the same people that are protesting .
They get their news exclusively from TV .
I don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Like an autocrat in a teetering regime , Trump has staged a massive show of force in the humid capital , with Gen Mark Milley , the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff , strutting the streets in combat fatigues while military helicopters roared overhead .
The White House was fenced off , unidentified law enforcement patrolled and troops stood guard at the Lincoln Memorial , a shrine to democracy .
On Wednesday , a Republican party press release was headlined , “ President Calls For Law & Order , As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” while a Team Trump 2020 fundraising email read criticized members of Biden ’ s campaign for donating to a fund that helps arrested protesters pay bail in Minnesota .
Never likely to be accused of subtlety , the president himself repeatedly tweeted what may now be his three-word re-election manifesto : “ LAW & ORDER !
” The theme is calculated to enflame divisions rather than make new friends .
This week James Mattis , the former defense secretary , broke a long silence to describe Trump as a threat to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lifetime who does not try to unite the American people .
But there are doubts over whether such a pitch can work in a country facing its biggest public health crisis since 1918 , biggest economic crisis since 1933 and biggest race relations crisis since 1968 .
Michael Steele , former chairman of the Republican National Committee , said : “ It ’ s not the smartest strategy in the world , given not just the complexity but the volatility of the nation ’ s grappling with race and the death of this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police and now the response by the administration .
“ So I think that cooler heads will ultimately try to prevail .
I doubt they will be successful , at least completely , with Trump because he sees the law-and-order angle as his gate key to open up a new line of conversation .
For example , we ’ re not talking about Covid-19 and the failure of the administration to grapple with the enormity of that crisis.
” Some around Trump compare the moment to 1968 , when Nixon ran as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and won the White House .
Unlike Nixon , Trump is an incumbent , but seeking to shift blame for the violence to Democratic state governors and city mayors in places such as Minneapolis , New York and Washington .
Nixon vowed to represent the “ silent majority ” , a phrase Trump tweeted during the past week .
After the Watergate scandal , Nixon became the only US president in history to resign , yet it is his ghost with whom Trump is most likely to commune at dead of night .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Fox News last month : “ I learned a lot from Richard Nixon.
” John Farrell , author of Richard Nixon : The Life , said of Trump : “ The best single analogy of Trump ’ s behavior and Nixon ’ s comes from May 1971 when the justice department had a massive amount of protesters rounded up and deprived of their civil rights , huddled in stadiums , because Nixon had made the calculation that this would make him look strong to the country .
If you are a liberal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working against Biden , then 71 and 72 are the years that give you nightmares.
” Nixon and Trump came from very different starting points , however .
Jamelle Bouie , an opinion columnist at the New York Times , wrote this week : “ As former vice-president to Dwight Eisenhower – who led the nation at a time when the white American majority felt culturally and economically secure – Nixon could credibly claim to represent stability in the face of chaos , a steady hand in an uncertain time .
“ Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ built his entire political persona around discord and disruption .
Having promised to throw the system into disarray , Trump could not then sell himself as an avatar of order and control .
He can sell himself as an avatar of violence … but there ’ s no evidence that most Americans want that kind of ‘ leadership ’ .
” Recent polls show Biden leading Trump nationally and in swing states , and eating into his advantages among older voters .
The president ’ s law-and-order stance would seem calculated to win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Biden , who must strike a delicate balance between validating anger over police brutality towards African American while condemning violence as a response .
John Zogby , a pollster and author , said : “ Trump has seen some serious slippage among white voters over 65 .
That was a bedrock of his base , so this could be a way : these are people that are far removed from the violence in the streets and fairly one-dimensional in their view of both protesting and violence in the streets , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Now , will it work ?
It ’ s risky and it ’ s hard to see it working but then he has defied so many rules of engagement .
It ’ s really incumbent now on Joe Biden and the Democrats to win .
”

They were 48 minutes of mayhem that shook the republic. With a bizarre pageant of riots shields, a Bible and a designer handbag, they also represented what could be Donald Trump’s last best chance of clinging to power.
Before sunset last Monday, the US president stood in the White House Rose Garden, threatened to turn the American military on the American people and declared: “I am your president of law and order.”
Beyond the perimeter fence, park police and national guard troops fired teargas and chased away peaceful protesters so Trump could cross the road to the fire-damaged St John’s church. Trump was joined by officials including his daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka, clutching a $1,540 handbag. The self-anointed strongman posed for the cameras while awkwardly holding aloft a Bible – or was it the Richard Nixon playbook?
This was the moment that Trump finally found a re-election campaign strategy in his comfort zone. Like his idol Nixon during the turmoil of 1968, he promised to put out the fires in American cities and assuage the fears of white suburbs. It is a framing that portrays Democrats as soft on crime while selling Trump as the national security president – less “Keep America Great” than “Keep America Safe”.
“The Radical Left Democrats new theme is ‘Defund the Police’,” the president tweeted. “Remember that when you don’t want Crime, especially against you and your family. This is where Sleepy Joe is being dragged by the socialists. I am the complete opposite, more money for Law Enforcement! #LAWANDORDER”.
Trump poses with a Bible outside St John’s Episcopal church in Washington DC on Monday. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP
In a year of extraordinary tumult, Trump has found the electoral battleground constantly shifting beneath his feet. Just a few months ago, he was painting the Democrats as radical socialists in thrall to Senator Bernie Sanders, but the party’s nomination was secured by the moderate Joe Biden. He was also trumpeting the strength of the economy, but that narrative was shredded by the coronavirus pandemic – although there was some encouraging news at the end of last week to suggest that US jobs were returning after the lockdown was lifted in many states.
Trump pivoted to blaming China for the virus but polls suggested this gained little traction as voters scrutinised the president’s own sluggish response. But then came the tragedy of George Floyd, an African American man killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his neck with his knee. The subsequent social unrest, the most widespread in half a century, may now have thrown Trump a political lifeline.
The great majority of the protests, including that outside the White House on Monday, have been peaceful, highlighting the injustices of 400 years of slavery and segregation. Some have been met with vicious state-sanctioned force. However, incidents of violence, including ransacking stores and burning police cars, received outsized TV coverage and handed Trump a cultural wedge issue to exploit.
Mandy Jenkins, a journalist, tweeted on Thursday: “My friends and family in rural Ohio honestly believe large swaths of America’s cities are being destroyed by lawless bands of looters who are the same people that are protesting. They get their news exclusively from TV. I don’t think those things are unrelated.”
Like an autocrat in a teetering regime, Trump has staged a massive show of force in the humid capital, with Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, strutting the streets in combat fatigues while military helicopters roared overhead. The White House was fenced off, unidentified law enforcement patrolled and troops stood guard at the Lincoln Memorial, a shrine to democracy.
On Wednesday, a Republican party press release was headlined, “President Calls For Law & Order, As Democrats Turn Blind Eye To Violence,” while a Team Trump 2020 fundraising email read criticized members of Biden’s campaign for donating to a fund that helps arrested protesters pay bail in Minnesota.
Protestors at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Brooklyn, New York. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Never likely to be accused of subtlety, the president himself repeatedly tweeted what may now be his three-word re-election manifesto: “LAW & ORDER!”
The theme is calculated to enflame divisions rather than make new friends. This week James Mattis, the former defense secretary, broke a long silence to describe Trump as a threat to the constitution and the first president in his lifetime who does not try to unite the American people.
But there are doubts over whether such a pitch can work in a country facing its biggest public health crisis since 1918, biggest economic crisis since 1933 and biggest race relations crisis since 1968.
Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “It’s not the smartest strategy in the world, given not just the complexity but the volatility of the nation’s grappling with race and the death of this young man and the response by the police and now the response by the administration.
“So I think that cooler heads will ultimately try to prevail. I doubt they will be successful, at least completely, with Trump because he sees the law-and-order angle as his gate key to open up a new line of conversation. For example, we’re not talking about Covid-19 and the failure of the administration to grapple with the enormity of that crisis.”
Some around Trump compare the moment to 1968, when Nixon ran as the law-and-order candidate after a summer of riots and won the White House. Unlike Nixon, Trump is an incumbent, but seeking to shift blame for the violence to Democratic state governors and city mayors in places such as Minneapolis, New York and Washington.
Nixon vowed to represent the “silent majority”, a phrase Trump tweeted during the past week.
Richard Nixon campaigning for the presidency of the United States in 1968. Photograph: Dirck Halstead/Getty Images
After the Watergate scandal, Nixon became the only US president in history to resign, yet it is his ghost with whom Trump is most likely to commune at dead of night. The 45th president told Fox & Friends on Fox News last month: “I learned a lot from Richard Nixon.”
John Farrell, author of Richard Nixon: The Life, said of Trump: “The best single analogy of Trump’s behavior and Nixon’s comes from May 1971 when the justice department had a massive amount of protesters rounded up and deprived of their civil rights, huddled in stadiums, because Nixon had made the calculation that this would make him look strong to the country. If you are a liberal and you’re worried about this working against Biden, then 71 and 72 are the years that give you nightmares.”
Nixon and Trump came from very different starting points, however. Jamelle Bouie, an opinion columnist at the New York Times, wrote this week: “As former vice-president to Dwight Eisenhower – who led the nation at a time when the white American majority felt culturally and economically secure – Nixon could credibly claim to represent stability in the face of chaos, a steady hand in an uncertain time.
“Trump can do no such thing. He built his entire political persona around discord and disruption. Having promised to throw the system into disarray, Trump could not then sell himself as an avatar of order and control. He can sell himself as an avatar of violence … but there’s no evidence that most Americans want that kind of ‘leadership’.”
Recent polls show Biden leading Trump nationally and in swing states, and eating into his advantages among older voters. The president’s law-and-order stance would seem calculated to win them back while setting a political trap for Biden, who must strike a delicate balance between validating anger over police brutality towards African American while condemning violence as a response.
John Zogby, a pollster and author, said: “Trump has seen some serious slippage among white voters over 65. That was a bedrock of his base, so this could be a way: these are people that are far removed from the violence in the streets and fairly one-dimensional in their view of both protesting and violence in the streets, and the most conservative on matters of race.
“Now, will it work? It’s risky and it’s hard to see it working but then he has defied so many rules of engagement. It’s really incumbent now on Joe Biden and the Democrats to win.”


theguardian--2020-06-07--The Deviant's War: superb epic of Frank Kameny and the fight for gay equality

Eric Cervini ’ s story of one man ’ s struggle touches on many others and leaves the reader wanting 500 pages more Trained at Harvard and Cambridge , Eric Cervini is an LGBTQ historian .
His debut , subtitled The Homosexual vs the United States of America , falls short of perfection .
But not by much .
The book relates the 86-year life of Franklin Edward Kameny , an astronomer turned gay rights activist .
Primarily , it concerns a decades-long campaign to combat discrimination against gays in the workplace and US military .
Ultimately , by outlining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ others oppressed by prejudice and patriarchy , it does far more .
In 1957 , following arrest for “ lewd conduct ” in a San Francisco “ tea room ” , Kameny lost certification to work for the Department of Defense in Hawaii .
Ordinarily cautious , he made a risky decision .
He resolved to come out , in order to fight the federal government .
With spare prose and linear sequencing that recalls James Baldwin , Cervini chronicles this mission , unsuccessful appeal after unsuccessful appeal .
He takes the reader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bureaucratic tribunals , the supreme court , the halls of Congress .
An early ally is the black representative Robert Nix , of Philadelphia .
White House meetings follow demonstrations in the streets .
To convey respectability , Kameny ’ s marchers were strictly choreographed and costumed .
Among them , Ernestine Eppenger was conspicuously anomalous .
Sensing lesbians and the transgendered were not a priority , she soon left for the Black Freedom Movement .
Kameny ’ s fight was successful .
But winning came at a terrible cost .
Soon after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his special skills were needed .
But a charge that homosexuality made him vulnerable was exacerbated by the hysteria of McCarthyism .
Never again did the Harvard-trained scientist , the son of eastern European Jewish immigrants , gain long-term employment in his field , or even the barest financial security .
He was among the first Americans to insist that “ gay is good ” , to admit to being sexually active but well-adjusted , but he never found the fulfillment of an enduring relationship .
Kameny gained something else of value .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ consumed him .
Helping found the Washington branch of the Mattachine Society , he also orchestrated the Washington ACLU ’ s defense of innumerable discrimination cases like his own .
Initially , these court battles ended in failure .
But with tireless lobbying , strategically placed press , cross-country lectures and radio and TV appearances , he persevered .
Kameny ’ s endeavors went a long way towards challenging negative stereotypes while fostering pride .
His leadership led to victory .
Gays were up against the same societal disdain and hostile legal system @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by centuries of religious bigotry .
Loathed more than other groups , most gays were temporarily protected from worse treatment by an ability to deny their true identity .
But the threat of exposure , from police entrapment , scorned lovers , colleagues , neighbors or rivals , was ever-present .
Cervini shows how , again and again , Kameny ’ s homophile movement emulated African Americans ’ efforts to achieve civil rights .
Appearing in 2010 , the Harvard scholar Khalil Gibran Muhammad ’ s The Condemnation of Blackness : Race , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America , was a revelation .
From the end of slavery to the mass incarceration of today , African Americans were systemically scapegoated as a criminal class .
Jews and European immigrants , encountering genuine bias , were never defamed as harshly .
Sharing whiteness , they were gradually accorded civil rights , less due to merit than assimilation .
The Deviant ’ s War is a similarly epiphanic work .
That is due partly to Cervini ’ s admirable use of a wealth of material .
His sources included the Kinsey report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s newly declassified “ Sex Deviates ” computer program , and interviews with activists like Larry Kramer , who worked doggedly during this epoch of seismic change , toward the dawning of a better day .
Testimony from participants in the 1969 Stonewall riots brings that definitive act of gay defiance to life .
It was both more diverse and more bloody than the picture nostalgia , a half-century later , usually conjures up .
Stonewall shows how sometimes , after peaceful protests fail , destruction of property can focus attention and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ due to academic rigor that Cervini fails to mention Hoover ’ s long-rumored intimacy with his deputy , Clyde Tolson ?
Perhaps he felt most readers would already be aware of such speculations .
A more significant issue is the book ’ s end .
Reminiscent of Tom Wolfe ’ s The Bonfire of the Vanities , it is a summation in the form of an epilogue .
Snappily , one learns the resolution of the myriad lives populating The Deviant ’ s War .
But after earlier thoroughness , one yearns for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is America ’ s fatal malady .
No one is immune .
Once , a friend from a distinguished Chesapeake family , educated at Yale , remarked that African Americans , disproportionately arrested and jailed , were routinely poorer because we were “ more wicked and lazy than whites ” .
Faced with the stark black-white wealth gap , the terrible treatment of so many people of color by police , momentarily I wondered : “ Is he right ?
” That ’ s one way I know I have been harmed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ society of women who would make excellent presidents , gays who are outstanding footballers , blacks who are architectural historians , and more .
In my case it has led , at one time or another , to depreciation of all who are marginalized , including myself .
And so , each day , even while evaluating The Deviant ’ s War , I am vigilant against hidden unfairness .
Square jawed , film star-handsome , Cervini exhibits a facile charm .
Before reading The Deviant ’ s War , I wondered : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so attractive , have written a book that might be considered important ?
” My expectations were low .
I did not anticipate that in writing about Frank Kameny ’ s heroic stand , Cervini could also cover his own , mine and that of all LGBTQ America .
Certainly it was hard to imagine , beforehand , a work that grippingly told of the emergence from turmoil of a more perfect union that is now threatened anew .
Cervini ’ s is a singular accomplishment .
It proves one can not judge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outward identity .
Seeking always to treat others justly , we ought never to do so .
Happy Pride !

Trained at Harvard and Cambridge, Eric Cervini is an LGBTQ historian. His debut, subtitled The Homosexual vs the United States of America, falls short of perfection. But not by much.
The book relates the 86-year life of Franklin Edward Kameny, an astronomer turned gay rights activist. Primarily, it concerns a decades-long campaign to combat discrimination against gays in the workplace and US military. Ultimately, by outlining similar struggles among gays, blacks and others oppressed by prejudice and patriarchy, it does far more.
In 1957, following arrest for “lewd conduct” in a San Francisco “tea room”, Kameny lost certification to work for the Department of Defense in Hawaii. Ordinarily cautious, he made a risky decision. He resolved to come out, in order to fight the federal government.
With spare prose and linear sequencing that recalls James Baldwin, Cervini chronicles this mission, unsuccessful appeal after unsuccessful appeal. He takes the reader on an epic journey. One visits bureaucratic tribunals, the supreme court, the halls of Congress. An early ally is the black representative Robert Nix, of Philadelphia. White House meetings follow demonstrations in the streets.
To convey respectability, Kameny’s marchers were strictly choreographed and costumed. Among them, Ernestine Eppenger was conspicuously anomalous. Sensing lesbians and the transgendered were not a priority, she soon left for the Black Freedom Movement.
Kameny’s fight was successful. But winning came at a terrible cost.
Soon after Russia’s launch of Sputnik, his special skills were needed. But a charge that homosexuality made him vulnerable was exacerbated by the hysteria of McCarthyism. Never again did the Harvard-trained scientist, the son of eastern European Jewish immigrants, gain long-term employment in his field, or even the barest financial security. He was among the first Americans to insist that “gay is good”, to admit to being sexually active but well-adjusted, but he never found the fulfillment of an enduring relationship.
Kameny gained something else of value. More and more, gay rights activism consumed him. Helping found the Washington branch of the Mattachine Society, he also orchestrated the Washington ACLU’s defense of innumerable discrimination cases like his own. Initially, these court battles ended in failure. But with tireless lobbying, strategically placed press, cross-country lectures and radio and TV appearances, he persevered. Kameny’s endeavors went a long way towards challenging negative stereotypes while fostering pride. His leadership led to victory.
Gays were up against the same societal disdain and hostile legal system faced by blacks and Jews, buttressed by centuries of religious bigotry. Loathed more than other groups, most gays were temporarily protected from worse treatment by an ability to deny their true identity. But the threat of exposure, from police entrapment, scorned lovers, colleagues, neighbors or rivals, was ever-present.
Cervini shows how, again and again, Kameny’s homophile movement emulated African Americans’ efforts to achieve civil rights.
Appearing in 2010, the Harvard scholar Khalil Gibran Muhammad’s The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America, was a revelation. From the end of slavery to the mass incarceration of today, African Americans were systemically scapegoated as a criminal class. Jews and European immigrants, encountering genuine bias, were never defamed as harshly. Sharing whiteness, they were gradually accorded civil rights, less due to merit than assimilation.
The Deviant’s War is a similarly epiphanic work. That is due partly to Cervini’s admirable use of a wealth of material. His sources included the Kinsey report, the FBI director J Edgar Hoover’s newly declassified “Sex Deviates” computer program, and interviews with activists like Larry Kramer, who worked doggedly during this epoch of seismic change, toward the dawning of a better day.
Testimony from participants in the 1969 Stonewall riots brings that definitive act of gay defiance to life. It was both more diverse and more bloody than the picture nostalgia, a half-century later, usually conjures up. Stonewall shows how sometimes, after peaceful protests fail, destruction of property can focus attention and lead to lasting action.
Is it due to academic rigor that Cervini fails to mention Hoover’s long-rumored intimacy with his deputy, Clyde Tolson? Perhaps he felt most readers would already be aware of such speculations.
Frank Kameny in 2009. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
A more significant issue is the book’s end. Reminiscent of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, it is a summation in the form of an epilogue. Snappily, one learns the resolution of the myriad lives populating The Deviant’s War. But after earlier thoroughness, one yearns for 500 pages more instead.
White supremacy is America’s fatal malady. No one is immune. Once, a friend from a distinguished Chesapeake family, educated at Yale, remarked that African Americans, disproportionately arrested and jailed, were routinely poorer because we were “more wicked and lazy than whites”. Faced with the stark black-white wealth gap, the terrible treatment of so many people of color by police, momentarily I wondered: “Is he right?”
That’s one way I know I have been harmed by American inequality. Such illogic has robbed society of women who would make excellent presidents, gays who are outstanding footballers, blacks who are architectural historians, and more. In my case it has led, at one time or another, to depreciation of all who are marginalized, including myself. And so, each day, even while evaluating The Deviant’s War, I am vigilant against hidden unfairness.
Square jawed, film star-handsome, Cervini exhibits a facile charm. Before reading The Deviant’s War, I wondered: “How can someone so young, so attractive, have written a book that might be considered important?” My expectations were low.
I did not anticipate that in writing about Frank Kameny’s heroic stand, Cervini could also cover his own, mine and that of all LGBTQ America. Certainly it was hard to imagine, beforehand, a work that grippingly told of the emergence from turmoil of a more perfect union that is now threatened anew.
Cervini’s is a singular accomplishment. It proves one cannot judge a book by its cover, its outward identity. Seeking always to treat others justly, we ought never to do so. Happy Pride!


theguardian--2020-06-07--A week that shook a nation: anger burns as power of protests leaves Trump exposed

America has been here before , split by racial division that left its cities in flames and its citizens demanding a different country .
But not for half a century , and never with a president whose response to demands for basic justice were so belligerent and divisive that even his former top military officials have turned on him .
By the end of the week , Donald Trump , who promised to build a “ big , beautiful wall ” to protect America , had thrown up a large steel fence around the White House as the sense of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fires lit in Minneapolis by a police officer squeezing the life out of George Floyd , by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes , ignited the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and civil rights movement of the 1960s .
Most of the demonstrations were peaceful , and where they weren ’ t that was frequently down to the police .
But rioters left a five-mile long scar through southern Minneapolis as they burned and looted their way along one of the area ’ s main shopping thoroughfares after ransacking the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ storm over Floyd ’ s death .
From there , a surge of anger radiated across the country , driven in good part by the nature of the nine-minute video of Floyd ’ s killing , but also the frustration that for all the promises made with each police killing of an unarmed black man they do not stop .
When the traumatic video of Floyd begging for his life met the tinder of weeks of coronavirus lockdown , surging unemployment , and a tanking economy the fire raced through America .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Los Angeles and the south , and then London , Berlin and beyond .
Now , as 50 years ago , the national guard were called out to face down the demonstrators , although this time it was also to stand guard over the violent dispersal of a legal and peaceful protest to provide a photo op for Trump .
Now , as then , the president accused “ outside agitators ” – Trump called them terrorists – of stirring up trouble .
But this time , voices from the American establishment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and warned that the US is at an inflection point .
So , apparently , was Trump ’ s presidency , as he flailed while his tested tactic of divide-and-rule proved less effective .
The power of the nearly nine minutes of Floyd ’ s suffering as the police officer charged with his murder , Derek Chauvin , looked into the camera was taken as a statement of police contempt for African American lives and the Black Lives Matter movement .
It was the moment when many of the doubters in America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the police the benefit of the doubt , were confronted with the indisputable evidence that police treat black people differently .
If further evidence was required it came in the swirl of recordings of officers beating peaceful unarmed demonstrators that in some cities , including New York , drew accusations of a police riot .
By the end of the week , the entire culture and practice of policing in America was on trial and not just over Floyd .
But it was more than just policing .
Tim Walz , the governor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , described the uprising as a singular opportunity in his state ’ s history to break the chain of “ systemic racism and the lack of accountability up and down our society that led to a daytime murder of a black man on a street in Minneapolis ” .
“ I think this is probably our last shot as a state and a nation to fix this systemic issue , ” he said .
The Rev Al Sharpton , a central figure in America ’ s civil rights movement , put it more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Minneapolis memorial service for Floyd on Thursday .
White America , he said , needed “ to get off our neck ” .
“ The reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed of being is you kept your knee on our neck , ” he cried to shouts of agreement .
“ We could do whatever anyone else could do .
But we couldn ’ t get your knee off our neck .
What happened to Floyd happens every day in this country in education and health services and in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s time for us to stand up in George ’ s name and say : get your knee off our necks.
” There were signs that the rest of America is ever more willing to hear that message than ever .
Almost no one was willing to try to defend Chauvin ’ s abuse of Floyd .
Whereas construction workers turned on the anti-war protesters who marched through New York after the national guard shot demonstrators at Kent State University in 1970 , this week “ hard hats ” working in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demanding justice .
As the police teargassed and shot at people protesting legally from Portland to Kansas City , those on the receiving end included Americans not usually found marching to demand police accountability .
Even some Republicans normally quick to defend the police were alarmed enough by the video of Floyd ’ s death to turn out to march .
In many places , the violent police response to legitimate protest only strengthened the sense that the problem lies deep in the culture of militarised police departments that act like occupation forces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also glimpses of progress .
Police officers in other parts of the country – in Texas , Kentucky , Florida and other Trump states – went down on bended knee in a show of solidarity with the demands of demonstrators .
Among them was the police chief of Ferguson , Missouri – the birthplace of the Black Lives Matters movement six years ago following riots and protests over the police killing of Michael Brown .
The president instinctively lashed out over a crisis he couldn ’ t control , with his tested attempts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it proved to be the week when lines began to be drawn on the limits of Trump ’ s power to subvert .
The president has already neutralised the US justice department , freeing his allies from prison and compromising investigations .
The supreme court is weighted in favour of his agenda , thanks to the highly politicised nomination process placing ideology over competenceunder a Republican-run Senate afraid of Trump .
That left the military as the remaining branch of government over which his malign influence was not yet decisive .
Then came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lafayette Square , a small patch of park in front of the White House .
A large and noisy group of protesters had gathered there to make known their support for demands that all of the police officers involved in Floyd ’ s death be arrested .
Ever sensitive to criticism , Trump was feeling humiliated by a report that he ’ d bolted for a bunker under the White House a few days previously when demonstrators tried to climb its fence .
Driven by his inner Putin , Trump decided to prove @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Square to have his photo taken holding a Bible in front of a church .
That would have the added benefit of playing to the evangelical vote .
But first the peaceful protesters had to be cleared .
Trump ’ s attorney general , William Barr , ordered the police to empty the square , which they did with teargas and baton charges backed by soldiers of the national guard .
Not long after , the sight of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff , Gen Mark Milley , in combat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strode across Lafayette Square seemed to give a stamp of approval to Trump ’ s threat to turn out the military against those he was labelling domestic terrorists .
The president ’ s allies in Congress upped the ante , with Senator Tom Cotton proposing to send in the 82nd Airborne or “ whatever it takes ” against those he called “ insurrectionists ” .
Trump , as ever on Twitter , gave that idea the thumbs up .
The first to break cover was James Mattis , the marine general who resigned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ December 2018 and kept silent until now .
He described himself “ angry and appalled ” at Trump ’ s response to the protests and called him as a threat to the constitution .
“ Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to try .
Instead , he tries to divide us , ” said Mattis .
Mattis ’ s specific point of contention was Trump ’ s use of the military to clear protesters “ to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elected commander-in-chief , with military leadership standing alongside ” .
Admiral Mike Mullen , the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff , said he was “ sickened ” to see the national guard and other security forces used to “ forcibly and violently ” clear a path for the president ’ s “ stunt ” .
He accused Trump of disdain for the right of peaceful protest and said he was “ deeply worried ” that the military will be co-opted for political purposes .
“ I have to date been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Trump ’ s leadership , but we are at an inflection point , and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent , ” he said .
The head of the national guard , Gen Joseph Lengyel , felt it necessary to stake out a position just in case anyone thought he was siding with the president on the value of black lives .
He said he was “ sickened ” by Floyd ’ s killing and “ enraged ” at the deaths of unarmed black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brutality and extrajudicial violence ” .
Esper retreated .
On Wednesday , he disavowed the idea of sending the military in to control the streets of America ’ s cities .
Not long after , the Pentagon began pulling out 1,600 troops moved to the Washington DC area during the protests .
Few expect Esper to survive in his job for very much longer .
But the real damage was inflicted on Trump .
His chaotic handling of Covid-19 , with deaths close to 110,000 and rising , had already damaged his diminishing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also badly hit the one issue on which many Trump voters were prepared to forgive him all else : the economy .
More than 20 million jobs were lost in April .
May saw 2.5m of those return , although unemployment for African Americans kept rising .
Trump ’ s response to the employment numbers on Friday was to describe it as a “ great day ” for Floyd .
“ Hopefully , George is looking down right now and saying , ‘ This is a great thing happening for our country .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ great day for everybody , ” he said .
For his critics , the comment was another piece of the president ’ s casual callousness mixed with self-obsession .
But for all his boasts , Trump can no longer make claims for a booming economy , even if stock market growth did not translate into better standards of living for most Americans .
“ If 110,000 people have died and there ’ s been no response , if we can move the National Guard in a matter of hours but we can ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it goes to show what the priorities are , ” said Annie Isler , a middle school teacher outside the Floyd ’ s memorial in Minneapolis .
Opinion polls put Joe Biden , now officially the Democratic nominee , ahead by 10 points or more .
Confronted with this on Fox News , Trump said that four years ago the polls said Hillary Clinton was going to win and they were wrong .
In any case , he has his own numbers .
“ I have other polls where I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them , too , I guess , ” he said .
No one else appeared to know where these polls were .
As Minneapolis picked up the pieces , Al Sharpton led the memorial service for George Floyd .
Alongside his demand for white America to “ get off our necks ” , and the heart rending glimpses into Floyd ’ s life from his family , perhaps the most tortuous part for the mourners was when Sharpton asked them to stand in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds to understand just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down on the African American man ’ s neck .
“ As you go through these long eight minutes , think about what George was going through , laying there for those eight minutes , begging for his own life.We can ’ t keep living like this , ” he said .
But Sharpton is a preacher , and he was not going to leave his audience without a brighter future to cling to .
“ I ’ m more hopeful today than ever , ” he told the mourners .
“ When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were in some cases young whites outnumbering the black marchers , I know that it is a different time and a different season.
” Sharpton described an incident at a civil rights march years ago and being confronted by a white woman who looked him in the face and said : “ Nigger go home.
” This week he came face-to-face with a young white girl .
“ I braced myself and she looked at me and said : no justice , no peace , ” Sharpton recalled , to a roar of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the time .
We won ’ t stop .
We ’ ll keep going until we change the whole system of justice .
”

America has been here before, split by racial division that left its cities in flames and its citizens demanding a different country.
But not for half a century, and never with a president whose responses to demands for basic justice were so belligerent and divisive that even his former top military officials have turned on him.
By the end of the week, Donald Trump, who promised to build a “big, beautiful wall” to protect America, had thrown up a large steel fence around the White House as the sense of a presidency under siege grew.
The fires lit in Minneapolis by a police officer squeezing the life out of George Floyd, by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes, ignited the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Most of the demonstrations were peaceful, and where they weren’t that was frequently down to the police. But rioters left a five-mile long scar through southern Minneapolis as they burned and looted their way along one of the area’s main shopping thoroughfares after ransacking the police station at the centre of the storm over Floyd’s death.
From there, a surge of anger radiated across the country, driven in good part by the nature of the nine-minute video of Floyd’s killing, but also the frustration that for all the promises made with each police killing of an unarmed black man they do not stop.
05:16 What the George Floyd protests say about America – video explainer
When the traumatic video of Floyd begging for his life met the tinder of weeks of coronavirus lockdown, surging unemployment and a tanking economy the fire raced through America. It ignited protests and riots from New York to Los Angeles and the south, and then London, Berlin and beyond.
Now, as 50 years ago, the national guard were called out to face down the demonstrators, although this time it was also to stand guard over the violent dispersal of a legal and peaceful protest to provide a photo op for Trump. Now, as then, the president accused “outside agitators” – Trump called them terrorists – of stirring up trouble.
But this time, voices from the American establishment spoke up in support of those demands, and warned that the US is at an inflection point.
So, apparently, was Trump’s presidency, as he flailed while his tested tactic of divide-and-rule proved less effective. The power of the nearly nine minutes of Floyd’s suffering as the police officer charged with his murder, Derek Chauvin, looked into the camera was taken as a statement of police contempt for African American lives and the Black Lives Matter movement.
It was the moment when many of the doubters in America, the people always prepared to give the police the benefit of the doubt, were confronted with the indisputable evidence that police treat black people differently. If further evidence was required it came in the swirl of recordings of officers beating peaceful unarmed demonstrators that in some cities, including New York, drew accusations of a police riot.
By the end of the week, the entire culture and practice of policing in America was on trial and not just over Floyd. But it was more than just policing.
Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, where the protests began, described the uprising as a singular opportunity in his state’s history to break the chain of “systemic racism and the lack of accountability up and down our society that led to a daytime murder of a black man on a street in Minneapolis”.
“I think this is probably our last shot as a state and a nation to fix this systemic issue,” he said.
A woman in Washington on Friday holds a placard demanding justice for George Floyd. Photograph: Eric Thayer/Reuters
The Rev Al Sharpton, a central figure in America’s civil rights movement, put it more succinctly in a rallying cry at the Minneapolis memorial service for Floyd on Thursday. White America, he said, needed “to get off our neck”.
“The reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed of being is you kept your knee on our neck,” he cried to shouts of agreement. “We could do whatever anyone else could do. But we couldn’t get your knee off our neck. What happened to Floyd happens every day in this country in education and health services and in every area of American life.
“It’s time for us to stand up in George’s name and say: get your knee off our necks.”
There were signs that the rest of America is ever more willing to hear that message than ever.
Almost no one was willing to try to defend Chauvin’s abuse of Floyd.
Whereas construction workers turned on the anti-war protesters who marched through New York after the national guard shot demonstrators at Kent State University in 1970, this week “hard hats” working in the city were seen clapping the demonstrators demanding justice.
As the police teargassed and shot at people protesting legally from Portland to Kansas City, those on the receiving end included Americans not usually found marching to demand police accountability. Even some Republicans normally quick to defend the police were alarmed enough by the video of Floyd’s death to turn out to march.
In many places, the violent police response to legitimate protest only strengthened the sense that the problem lies deep in the culture of militarised police departments that act like occupation forces in minority communities.
Yet there were also glimpses of progress. Police officers in other parts of the country – in Texas, Kentucky, Florida and other Trump states – went down on bended knee in a show of solidarity with the demands of demonstrators. Among them was the police chief of Ferguson, Missouri – the birthplace of the Black Lives Matters movement six years ago following riots and protests over the police killing of Michael Brown.
The president instinctively lashed out over a crisis he couldn’t control, with his tested attempts to create division and mayhem. But it proved to be the week when lines began to be drawn on the limits of Trump’s power to subvert.
The president has already neutralised the US justice department, freeing his allies from prison and compromising investigations. The supreme court is weighted in favour of his agenda, thanks to the highly politicised nomination process placing ideology over competenceunder a Republican-run Senate afraid of Trump.
That left the military as the remaining branch of government over which his malign influence was not yet decisive.
Then came what was quickly tagged the Battle of Lafayette Square, a small patch of park in front of the White House.
A large and noisy group of protesters had gathered there to make known their support for demands that all of the police officers involved in Floyd’s death be arrested. Ever sensitive to criticism, Trump was feeling humiliated by a report that he’d bolted for a bunker under the White House a few days previously when demonstrators tried to climb its fence.
Driven by his inner Putin, Trump decided to prove his courage by wading manfully into Lafayette Square to have his photo taken holding a Bible in front of a church. That would have the added benefit of playing to the evangelical vote.
But first the peaceful protesters had to be cleared. Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, ordered the police to empty the square, which they did with teargas and baton charges backed by soldiers of the national guard.
Not long after, the sight of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, in combat fatigues marching behind the president as he strode across Lafayette Square seemed to give a stamp of approval to Trump’s threat to turn out the military against those he was labelling domestic terrorists.
The defence secretary, Mark Esper, had told state governors to “dominate the battle space” by which he meant up the use of force in their cities. The president’s allies in Congress upped the ante, with Senator Tom Cotton proposing to send in the 82nd Airborne or “whatever it takes” against those he called “insurrectionists”. Trump, as ever on Twitter, gave that idea the thumbs up.
Faced with this, America’s military establishment chose a side.
The first to break cover was James Mattis, the marine general who resigned as Trump’s defence secretary in December 2018 and kept silent until now. He described himself “angry and appalled” at Trump’s response to the protests and called him as a threat to the constitution.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” said Mattis.
Mattis’s specific point of contention was Trump’s use of the military to clear protesters “to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside”.
Trump holds his Bible in front of St John’s church. Photograph: Shawn Thew/EPA
Admiral Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he was “sickened” to see the national guard and other security forces used to “forcibly and violently” clear a path for the president’s “stunt”. He accused Trump of disdain for the right of peaceful protest and said he was “deeply worried” that the military will be co-opted for political purposes.
“I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump’s leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent,” he said.
The head of the national guard, Gen Joseph Lengyel, felt it necessary to stake out a position just in case anyone thought he was siding with the president on the value of black lives. He said he was “sickened” by Floyd’s killing and “enraged” at the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of “police brutality and extrajudicial violence”.
Esper retreated. On Wednesday, he disavowed the idea of sending the military in to control the streets of America’s cities. Not long after, the Pentagon began pulling out 1,600 troops moved to the Washington DC area during the protests. Few expect Esper to survive in his job for very much longer.
But the real damage was inflicted on Trump. His chaotic handling of Covid-19, with deaths close to 110,000 and rising, had already damaged his diminishing prospects for re-election.
The pandemic has also badly hit the one issue on which many Trump voters were prepared to forgive him all else: the economy. More than 20m jobs were lost in April. May saw 2.5m of those return, although unemployment for African Americans kept rising.
Trump’s response to the employment numbers on Friday was to describe it as a “great day” for Floyd.
“Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying, ‘This is a great thing happening for our country. A great day for him, a great day for everybody,” he said.
For his critics, the comment was another piece of the president’s casual callousness mixed with self-obsession. But for all his boasts, Trump can no longer make claims for a booming economy, even if stock market growth did not translate into better standards of living for most Americans.
“If 110,000 people have died and there’s been no response, if we can move the national guard in a matter of hours but we can’t keep people safe from a pandemic, it goes to show what the priorities are,” said Annie Isler, a middle school teacher outside the Floyd’s memorial in Minneapolis.
Opinion polls put Joe Biden, now officially the Democratic nominee, ahead by 10 points or more.
Confronted with this on Fox News, Trump said that four years ago the polls said Hillary Clinton was going to win and they were wrong. In any case, he has his own numbers.
“I have other polls where I’m winning, and you’ve seen them, too, I guess,” he said.
No one else appeared to know where these polls were.
As Minneapolis picked up the pieces, Al Sharpton led the memorial service for George Floyd. Alongside his demand for white America to “get off our necks”, and the heart rending glimpses into Floyd’s life from his family, perhaps the most tortuous part for the mourners was when Sharpton asked them to stand in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds to understand just how long Chauvin kept his knee pressing down on the African American man’s neck.
The Black Lives Matter mural in Washington. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters
“As you go through these long eight minutes, think about what George was going through, laying there for those eight minutes, begging for his own life. We can’t keep living like this,” he said.
But Sharpton is a preacher, and he was not going to leave his audience without a brighter future to cling to.
“I’m more hopeful today than ever,” he told the mourners. “When I looked this time and saw marchers were in some cases young whites outnumbering the black marchers, I know that it is a different time and a different season.”
Sharpton described an incident at a civil rights march years ago and being confronted by a white woman who looked him in the face and said: “Nigger go home.”
This week he came face-to-face with a young white girl.
“I braced myself and she looked at me and said: no justice, no peace,” Sharpton recalled, to a roar of approval from the mourners.
“This is the time. We won’t stop. We’ll keep going until we change the whole system of justice.”