veteranstoday--2020-09-27--Addressing Racism, one newspaper ‘fesses up’

VT : VT is proud to have been attacked for being both virulent anti-Semites and by white supremacists as Zionist Jews .
This editorial by the Los Angeles Times is history , it is worthwhile and it is necessary .
VT has one rule , we hate bad people without regard to race , religion , sexual preference or species .
Every day we clean out comments loaded with racism , some by trolls but too many by those who should know better .
Racism is the biggest threat to the United States and the most powerful tool Donald Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advancement in not only human rights but mental health .
The headline was stripped across the top of the front page , “ Marauders From Inner City Prey on L.A. ’ s Suburbs.
” The story , published by The Times on July 12 , 1981 , described a “ permanent underclass ” in the city ’ s “ ghettos and barrios , ” fueling a crime wave that was spilling over from South Los Angeles into prosperous — and largely white — communities in Pasadena , Palos Verdes , Beverly Hills and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a two-part series , purported to be an ambitious look at a major social problem , and it cited a lack of education and jobs as underlying causes of inner-city distress .
But it also reinforced pernicious stereotypes that Black and Latino Angelenos were thieves , rapists and killers .
It sensationalized and pathologized the struggles of poor families and painted residents of South L.A. with a broad brush .
It quoted police and prosecutors unskeptically and implied that more aggressive policing and harsher judicial sentencing were the only effective responses to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ context , neglecting decades of government policies that had led to housing and school segregation and to the creation of ghettos and barrios , which were then provided with inferior public services .
And it failed to give any real sense that the vast majority of the area ’ s residents were ordinary , law-abiding citizens , just trying to raise families and get by .
The series drew prompt and deserved criticism that highlighted an insidious problem that has marred the work of the Los Angeles Times for much of its history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and important work highlighting the issues faced by communities of color , it has also often displayed at best a blind spot , at worst an outright hostility , for the city ’ s nonwhite population , one both rooted and reflected in a shortage of Indigenous , Black , Latino , Asian and other people of color in its newsroom .
Prompted by a pandemic , an economic crisis and a national debate over policing — all of which have spotlighted racial disparities in the United States — our nation now faces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We would be remiss , in the autumn of 2020 , a season of grief and introspection , if we did not take part in that self-examination .
This editorial is one part of that process .
A comprehensive and balanced history of Los Angeles journalism — a people ’ s history that tells the story of The Times from the perspective of its employees and its readers — has yet to be written .
But a deep look at the paper ’ s pages over time tells part of that story .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Los Angeles Times was an institution deeply rooted in white supremacy and committed to promoting the interests of the city ’ s industrialists and landowners .
No one embodied this aggressive , conservative ideology more than Harrison Gray Otis , the walrus-mustachioed Civil War veteran who controlled The Times from 1882 until his death in 1917 .
The modern notion that journalism ’ s core precepts include uncovering hard truths and exposing inequity would have been foreign to Otis and other press barons of the last Gilded Age .
Far from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and afflicting the comfortable , ” his newspaper stood for the raw exercise of power , and he used it to further a naked agenda of score settling , regional boosterism , economic aggrandizement and union busting .
Otis was a Lincoln Republican who had fought on the side of the Union and opposed slavery .
But his Times was a newspaper aimed at the mostly Protestant white settlers who migrated to California from the Midwest and the Plains in the decades after it was seized from Mexico in 1848 and admitted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all of his crusades , he enlisted the powerful voice of his newspaper .
During the early 20th century , as control passed from Otis to his son-in-law Harry Chandler and his heirs , The Times promoted the city ’ s explosive growth .
But even as Dust Bowl migration , the World War II arms industry and a vast movement of Black Americans escaping Jim Crow segregation transformed the city , the newspaper remained nearly entirely white in its staff , its readership and its outlook .
A tragic example of why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s support for wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans , one of the most egregious violations of civil liberties in our nation ’ s history .
( The Times apologized in 2017 for that editorial position . )
Here ’ s another example : In 1943 , sailors on leave from wartime service rampaged lawlessly in downtown Los Angeles , attacking young Mexican Americans fitted in so-called zoot suits — long coats and wide trousers pegged at the ankle .
The Times largely ignored the context — the social and economic upheaval brought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trope of threatened white womanhood — and blamed the victims instead of their assailants .
When First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt suggested that the rioting might have grown out of racial discrimination toward Mexican Americans , The Times vehemently denied that was possible , asserting in an editorial , “ We like Mexicans and we think they like us.
” After the war ended , The Times became an uncritical mouthpiece for Washington as it covered the Eisenhower administration ’ s Operation Wetback , which used military-style tactics to deport Mexican migrants — some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been invited north to perform agricultural labor during the war .
The most enlightened of the Chandlers was Otis , fourth and last of the patriarchs who controlled The Times for its first century .
The Times ’ standards and reputation improved under his tenure as publisher , from 1960 to 1980 .
He plowed what were then vast profits into the hiring of hundreds of journalists and reoriented the paper in a more politically neutral direction .
Famously , Chandler authorized the publication , in 1961 , of an investigation into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ included far-right white supremacists — and members of Chandler ’ s extended family ( though he also presided over the paper ’ s 1964 presidential endorsement of Barry Goldwater , who strongly opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act ) .
By the standards of his time , Chandler was a moderate , if not always consistent .
He endorsed most goals of the civil rights movement and in 1965 , during the Watts uprising , served as an informal mediator between Black protesters and the Police Department .
In 1969 , The Times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tom Bradley , a grandson of slaves who in 1973 would go on to defeat Mayor Sam Yorty , the divisive white incumbent .
But even as The Times moved in a more progressive direction , its newsroom did not come close to representing the city ’ s demographics .
The Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the August 1965 civil unrest in Watts , yet the reporters and editors on the story were nearly all white .
A 24-year-old Black advertising messenger , Robert Richardson , covered the disturbances @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in his reports .
Named a reporter trainee after the riots , he was given next to no support and left the paper the next year .
The Kerner Commission , impaneled to study the root causes of 1967 uprisings in Detroit , Newark , N.J. , and other cities , was prophetic in calling for the hiring of Black journalists .
“ The scarcity of Negroes in responsible news jobs intensifies the difficulties of communicating the reality of the contemporary American city to white newspaper and television audiences , ” the panel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Times .
It was not just that The Times saw fit to hire white men almost exclusively for its newsroom ; the stories it told were largely for and about white people , which meant Angelenos weren ’ t getting an accurate account of their city , region and state at a time of rapid change .
Typical of the paper ’ s attitude was a 1978 interview in which Otis Chandler airily dismissed Black and Latino readers : “ It ’ s not their kind of newspaper .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stuffy .
If you will , it ’ s too complicated.
” Chandler later stepped back from that , saying the paper was looking for readers in the “ broad middle class ” and “ upper classes ” regardless of race or ethnicity .
“ We are not a paper that ’ s sought after in the lower-class areas , ” he said .
Around that time , in 1979 , The Times was slow to cover the shooting of Eula Love , a 39-year-old Black homemaker who was shot to death by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ L.A. frontyard in a dispute over an unpaid gas bill .
L.A. ’ s afternoon daily , the Herald Examiner , played the story big , and Black residents were outraged at what they saw as an egregious example of police abuse .
After being hammered by other media outlets for underplaying the story , including in an Esquire article headlined “ Mr .
Otis Regrets , ” The Times ran a long story by media writer David Shaw about how it had “ muffed ” the story , and top editors began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As has often been the case in history , progress came from the bottom up .
After the “ marauders ” series , Black reporters met with Editor William F. Thomas to register their objections .
And in February 1982 , a pioneering group of Latino journalists , gathering for pizza and beer in Downey , began conceiving of a staff-led effort to tell a rich and deep narrative of their growing community .
“ We keep seeing the same damn stories in the paper : about crime , gangs , illegal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the editors on the series , recalls his co-editor , George Ramos , saying .
“ We want to tell our stories.
” The result was a landmark series , published in 1983 , about Latinos and how they were reshaping Southern California .
Latino journalists initiated and carried out the project , and presented the Latino community in all its complexity , featuring gang members and wealthy entrepreneurs , priests , police officers , university students and politicians .
It examined issues that impeded Latino progress and celebrated improvements .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pulitzer Prize for public service , the highest honor in American journalism .
The same year , The Times ’ parent company , Times-Mirror , established a Minority Editorial Training Program , or MetPro , which continues to this day .
Yet The Times remained a lonely place for journalists of color .
In December 1990 , Shaw , The Times ’ media critic , wrote a series lamenting the dearth of diversity in journalism .
He wrote of his own newspaper : “ The Times is widely regarded — particularly by blacks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as having one of the poorest records for minority advancement of any major paper in the country.
” The Times was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the disturbances , just as it was after Watts .
But in later years academics argued that The Times overemphasized the role of Black Angelenos in the riots ( half of those arrested by the LAPD were Latino ) and sensationalized Black-Korean conflict ( a Korean-born shopkeeper , Soon Ja Du , had killed a Black teenager , Latasha Harlins , the previous year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
Within The Times , newsroom tensions burst into the open .
“ When the riot spread and it became apparent that a number of white reporters could not gain access to the scene , minority reporters from the suburbs were shipped into the danger zone , ” Dean Takahashi , then a young Metro reporter and one of few Asian Americans on staff , wrote in a May 1992 article for Editor & Publisher that drew national attention .
“ A black colleague of mine mockingly called it the ‘ Los @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it had a decade earlier , The Times made some commitments to improvements .
It hired several journalists of color and established a zoned section known as City Times to cover neighborhoods of South Los Angeles and East Los Angeles that had long been neglected — “ the hole in the doughnut , ” as editors said at the time .
The effort lasted for only three years , folding in 1995 .
But even as the editorial staff pushed for broader and better coverage of the city ’ s diverse communities , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divisions within the extended Chandler family that still owned the paper , some of whom felt The Times had leaned too far leftward .
In 1994 , the top business executive , Publisher Richard T. Schlosberg III , directed the editorial board to endorse Gov .
Pete Wilson , a Republican , in his bid for reelection .
Wilson was the chief proponent of Proposition 187 , an initiative on the same ballot that would decide his reelection .
The measure sought to bar undocumented immigrants from access to state-funded healthcare and education @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were disgusted .
“ Under normal circumstances , I would quietly accept that decision and move on .
This time I can not , ” Deputy Editorial Page Editor Frank del Olmo wrote in a dissent that ran in the paper .
“ Because this is not just another political campaign .
And the Wilson endorsement is not — as a senior colleague whom I respect tried to convince me — just another endorsement.
” He continued : “ For me , a Mexican American born and reared in California and a journalist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this campaign is unprecedented in the harm it does — permanent damage , I fear — to an ethnic community I care deeply about and a state I love.
” The summer after voters adopted Proposition 187 ( it was later struck down by the courts ) , Janet Clayton was named editorial page editor , a Black woman and the first person of color to occupy that role .
During her nine-year tenure , the opinion pages of The Times evolved to reflect an optimistic , progressive and inclusive political vision .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ one in 2002 for a series on mentally ill people living on the streets , and the other in 2004 for a series on entrenched problems in California state government .
Halfway through Clayton ’ s tenure , The Times and its sister papers were sold to the Chicago-based Tribune Co .
The new owners brought in two nationally esteemed journalists — John S. Carroll , who had overseen newspapers in Baltimore and Lexington , Ky. , as editor , and Dean Baquet , the national editor at the New York Times , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a high point — proved short-lived .
Del Olmo , 55 , died of cardiac arrest after collapsing in his office at The Times in 2004 ; Baquet , who succeeded Carroll as top editor , was fired in 2006 after refusing to make more cuts ; Clayton , Hutchinson and Martinez all left in 2007 .
Since Baquet ’ s departure , The Times has seen a flurry of top editors and business executives come and go .
One of them — Davan Maharaj , who joined The Times in 1989 as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2011 to 2017 — was of Indian ancestry and an immigrant from Trinidad .
Maharaj , the first Asian American to lead The Times , presided over a depleted newsroom that had spent four years in federal bankruptcy protection , ending in 2012 .
Newsroom diversity improved , but the staff was shaken by multiple rounds of buyouts .
Nonetheless , it continued to do outstanding work , including a Pulitzer-winning expose of corruption in the city of Bell , a story co-written and uncovered by a Guatemalan-born journalist , Ruben Vives .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2018 , to the physician and pharmaceutical inventor Patrick Soon-Shiong , the paper was down to about 400 journalists , less than half of the 940 when Baquet left .
Where does The Times go from here ?
An organization should not be defined by its failures , but it must acknowledge them if it is to hope for a better future .
The brutal death of a Black man , George Floyd , on May 25 while in the custody of police in Minneapolis shocked the world .
It also prompted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on how they cover , frame and promote stories at a time when the 24/7 news cycle moves faster than ever .
Amid nationwide demonstrations over racial injustice , members of the Los Angeles Times Guild established caucuses for Black and Latino employees .
The caucuses have called for improvements in coverage , hiring and career development , a public apology for The Times ’ poor record on race , and equal pay .
They have insisted , rightly , on reframing and recentering our coverage of communities of color .
The Times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leaders , a new labor union representing its journalists and a new headquarters in El Segundo .
But the shadows of the past loom over our institution .
On behalf of this institution , we apologize for The Times ’ history of racism .
We owe it to our readers to do better , and we vow to do so .
A region as diverse and complex and fascinating as Southern California deserves a newspaper that reflects its communities .
Today , 38 % of the journalists on our staff are people of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nearly good enough , in a county that is 48 % Latino and in a state where Latinos are the largest ethnic group .
We know that this acknowledgment must be accompanied by a real commitment to change , a humility of spirit and an openness of mind and heart .
The Times will redouble and refocus its efforts to become an inclusive and inspiring voice of California — a sentinel that employs investigative and accountability reporting to help protect our fragile democracy and chronicles the stories of the Golden State , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mainstream press .
Being careful stewards of this new company , privately owned but operated for the benefit of the public , is our first obligation .
But that stewardship will also require bold and decisive change .
If we are to survive as a business , it will be by tapping into a digital , multicultural , multigenerational audience in a way The Times has never fully done .
We make this pledge in recognition of the many journalists who battled over the decades to make The Times a more inclusive workplace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Los Angeles in its pages .
As we reorient this institution firmly and fully around the multiethnic , interfaith and dazzlingly complex tapestry that is Southern California , we honor their contributions .

VT: VT is proud to have been attacked for being both virulent anti-Semites and by white supremacists as Zionist Jews. This editorial by the Los Angeles Times is history, it is worthwhile and it is necessary.
VT has one rule, we hate bad people without regard to race, religion, sexual preference or species.
Every day we clean out comments loaded with racism, some by trolls but too many by those who should know better.
Racism is the biggest threat to the United States and the most powerful tool Donald Trump has, trying to undo decades of advancement in not only human rights but mental health.
Racism is a form of insanity.
By THE LA TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD
The headline was stripped across the top of the front page, “Marauders From Inner City Prey on L.A.’s Suburbs.” The story, published by The Times on July 12, 1981, described a “permanent underclass” in the city’s “ghettos and barrios,” fueling a crime wave that was spilling over from South Los Angeles into prosperous — and largely white — communities in Pasadena, Palos Verdes, Beverly Hills and elsewhere.
The article, the first of a two-part series, purported to be an ambitious look at a major social problem, and it cited a lack of education and jobs as underlying causes of inner-city distress. But it also reinforced pernicious stereotypes that Black and Latino Angelenos were thieves, rapists and killers. It sensationalized and pathologized the struggles of poor families and painted residents of South L.A. with a broad brush. It quoted police and prosecutors unskeptically and implied that more aggressive policing and harsher judicial sentencing were the only effective responses to crime.
The story lacked nuance and context, neglecting decades of government policies that had led to housing and school segregation and to the creation of ghettos and barrios, which were then provided with inferior public services. And it failed to give any real sense that the vast majority of the area’s residents were ordinary, law-abiding citizens, just trying to raise families and get by.
The series drew prompt and deserved criticism that highlighted an insidious problem that has marred the work of the Los Angeles Times for much of its history: While the paper has done groundbreaking and important work highlighting the issues faced by communities of color, it has also often displayed at best a blind spot, at worst an outright hostility, for the city’s nonwhite population, one both rooted and reflected in a shortage of Indigenous, Black, Latino, Asian and other people of color in its newsroom.
Our reckoning with racism As the country grapples with the role of systemic racism, The Times has committed to examining its past. This project looks at our treatment of people of color — outside and inside the newsroom — throughout our nearly 139-year history. More stories
Prompted by a pandemic, an economic crisis and a national debate over policing — all of which have spotlighted racial disparities in the United States — our nation now faces a long-delayed reckoning with systemic racism. We would be remiss, in the autumn of 2020, a season of grief and introspection, if we did not take part in that self-examination. This editorial is one part of that process.
•••
A comprehensive and balanced history of Los Angeles journalism — a people’s history that tells the story of The Times from the perspective of its employees and its readers — has yet to be written. But a deep look at the paper’s pages over time tells part of that story.
Under Harrison Gray Otis, who controlled The Times from 1882 until his death in 1917, the newspaper stood for the raw exercise of industrialists’ and landowners’ power over Los Angeles.
For at least its first 80 years, the Los Angeles Times was an institution deeply rooted in white supremacy and committed to promoting the interests of the city’s industrialists and landowners. No one embodied this aggressive, conservative ideology more than Harrison Gray Otis, the walrus-mustachioed Civil War veteran who controlled The Times from 1882 until his death in 1917.
The modern notion that journalism’s core precepts include uncovering hard truths and exposing inequity would have been foreign to Otis and other press barons of the last Gilded Age. Far from a mission of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable,” his newspaper stood for the raw exercise of power, and he used it to further a naked agenda of score settling, regional boosterism, economic aggrandizement and union busting.
Otis was a Lincoln Republican who had fought on the side of the Union and opposed slavery. But his Times was a newspaper aimed at the mostly Protestant white settlers who migrated to California from the Midwest and the Plains in the decades after it was seized from Mexico in 1848 and admitted to the Union in 1850.
Again and again, The Times sought to shape and dominate the region instead of merely chronicling it. Using a trade group known as the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Assn., Otis spearheaded a campaign to prevent and impede unionization. He weighed in on the side of San Pedro over Santa Monica in an epic 1890s battle over where to locate a federally funded deepwater port. His family meddled in the politics of Mexico, where they owned a huge ranch, in an attempt to preserve their land rights. He was part of a powerful syndicate that pushed for the acquisition of water rights from farmers in the Owens Valley in 1913 — a decision fictionalized in Roman Polanski’s 1974 film “Chinatown” — and the annexation of the San Fernando Valley in 1915.
And in all of his crusades, he enlisted the powerful voice of his newspaper.
During the early 20th century, as control passed from Otis to his son-in-law Harry Chandler and his heirs, The Times promoted the city’s explosive growth. But even as Dust Bowl migration, the World War II arms industry and a vast movement of Black Americans escaping Jim Crow segregation transformed the city, the newspaper remained nearly entirely white in its staff, its readership and its outlook.
A tragic example of why that was a problem was the newspaper’s support for wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, one of the most egregious violations of civil liberties in our nation’s history. (The Times apologized in 2017 for that editorial position.)
Here’s another example: In 1943, sailors on leave from wartime service rampaged lawlessly in downtown Los Angeles, attacking young Mexican Americans fitted in so-called zoot suits — long coats and wide trousers pegged at the ankle. The Times largely ignored the context — the social and economic upheaval brought about by wartime mobilization and the racist trope of threatened white womanhood — and blamed the victims instead of their assailants. When First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt suggested that the rioting might have grown out of racial discrimination toward Mexican Americans, The Times vehemently denied that was possible, asserting in an editorial, “We like Mexicans and we think they like us.”
After the war ended, The Times became an uncritical mouthpiece for Washington as it covered the Eisenhower administration’s Operation Wetback, which used military-style tactics to deport Mexican migrants — some of them U.S. citizens — who had been invited north to perform agricultural labor during the war.
Coverage of the so-called Zoot Suit Riots and a congressional investigation into Japanese Americans appear in the June 7, 1943, edition of the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper blamed the zoot suit-wearing Mexican American victims of attacks by servicemen and supported the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. (Los Angeles Times)
The most enlightened of the Chandlers was Otis, fourth and last of the patriarchs who controlled The Times for its first century. The Times’ standards and reputation improved under his tenure as publisher, from 1960 to 1980. He plowed what were then vast profits into the hiring of hundreds of journalists and reoriented the paper in a more politically neutral direction. Famously, Chandler authorized the publication, in 1961, of an investigation into the anti-communist John Birch Society, whose members included far-right white supremacists — and members of Chandler’s extended family (though he also presided over the paper’s 1964 presidential endorsement of Barry Goldwater, who strongly opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act).
By the standards of his time, Chandler was a moderate, if not always consistent. He endorsed most goals of the civil rights movement and in 1965, during the Watts uprising, served as an informal mediator between Black protesters and the Police Department. In 1969, The Times endorsed the historic mayoral candidacy of Councilman Tom Bradley, a grandson of slaves who in 1973 would go on to defeat Mayor Sam Yorty, the divisive white incumbent.
But even as The Times moved in a more progressive direction, its newsroom did not come close to representing the city’s demographics. The Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the August 1965 civil unrest in Watts, yet the reporters and editors on the story were nearly all white. A 24-year-old Black advertising messenger, Robert Richardson, covered the disturbances, driving to the scene and phoning in his reports. Named a reporter trainee after the riots, he was given next to no support and left the paper the next year.
“The View From Watts,” an in-depth series The Times published in October 1965, chronicled pent-up frustrations in the Black community, and an accompanying editorial recommended summer jobs, improved police-community relations, stronger school nutrition programs and similar reforms. But the project too often took a patronizing view of Black Angelenos, most egregiously in a piece called “Police Brutality: State of Mind?” that used selective examples and unexamined quotes from police officers to heavily imply that police brutality was a thing of the past.
The Kerner Commission, impaneled to study the root causes of 1967 uprisings in Detroit, Newark, N.J., and other cities, was prophetic in calling for the hiring of Black journalists. “The scarcity of Negroes in responsible news jobs intensifies the difficulties of communicating the reality of the contemporary American city to white newspaper and television audiences,” the panel found. That was certainly true at The Times.
It was not just that The Times saw fit to hire white men almost exclusively for its newsroom; the stories it told were largely for and about white people, which meant Angelenos weren’t getting an accurate account of their city, region and state at a time of rapid change.
Typical of the paper’s attitude was a 1978 interview in which Otis Chandler airily dismissed Black and Latino readers: “It’s not their kind of newspaper. It’s too big, it’s too stuffy. If you will, it’s too complicated.”
Chandler later stepped back from that, saying the paper was looking for readers in the “broad middle class” and “upper classes” regardless of race or ethnicity. “We are not a paper that’s sought after in the lower-class areas,” he said.
Around that time, in 1979, The Times was slow to cover the shooting of Eula Love, a 39-year-old Black homemaker who was shot to death by Los Angeles police officers in her South L.A. frontyard in a dispute over an unpaid gas bill. L.A.’s afternoon daily, the Herald Examiner, played the story big, and Black residents were outraged at what they saw as an egregious example of police abuse. After being hammered by other media outlets for underplaying the story, including in an Esquire article headlined “Mr. Otis Regrets,” The Times ran a long story by media writer David Shaw about how it had “muffed” the story, and top editors began rethinking how the paper covered the LAPD.
Eula Love was shot and killed Jan. 3, 1979, by Los Angeles police officers in her frontyard. The Times’ coverage of the killing was lacking.
As has often been the case in history, progress came from the bottom up. After the “marauders” series, Black reporters met with Editor William F. Thomas to register their objections. And in February 1982, a pioneering group of Latino journalists, gathering for pizza and beer in Downey, began conceiving of a staff-led effort to tell a rich and deep narrative of their growing community. “We keep seeing the same damn stories in the paper: about crime, gangs, illegal immigration,” Frank O. Sotomayor, one of the editors on the series, recalls his co-editor, George Ramos, saying. “We want to tell our stories.”
The result was a landmark series, published in 1983, about Latinos and how they were reshaping Southern California. Latino journalists initiated and carried out the project, and presented the Latino community in all its complexity, featuring gang members and wealthy entrepreneurs, priests, police officers, university students and politicians. It examined issues that impeded Latino progress and celebrated improvements. The project was recognized with the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for public service, the highest honor in American journalism. The same year, The Times’ parent company, Times-Mirror, established a Minority Editorial Training Program, or MetPro, which continues to this day.
Yet The Times remained a lonely place for journalists of color. In December 1990, Shaw, The Times’ media critic, wrote a series lamenting the dearth of diversity in journalism. He wrote of his own newspaper: “The Times is widely regarded — particularly by blacks, inside the paper and out — as having one of the poorest records for minority advancement of any major paper in the country.”
The police beating of Rodney G. King in 1991, and the unrest that followed the subsequent acquittal of the four LAPD officers charged with assaulting him, exposed once again why that mattered. With 63 people dead, the 1992 uprising was far deadlier than the earlier Watts riots, in which 34 people died.
The Times was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the disturbances, just as it was after Watts. But in later years academics argued that The Times overemphasized the role of Black Angelenos in the riots (half of those arrested by the LAPD were Latino) and sensationalized Black-Korean conflict (a Korean-born shopkeeper, Soon Ja Du, had killed a Black teenager, Latasha Harlins, the previous year inside her family’s grocery store).
Within The Times, newsroom tensions burst into the open. “When the riot spread and it became apparent that a number of white reporters could not gain access to the scene, minority reporters from the suburbs were shipped into the danger zone,” Dean Takahashi, then a young Metro reporter and one of few Asian Americans on staff, wrote in a May 1992 article for Editor & Publisher that drew national attention. “A black colleague of mine mockingly called it the ‘Los Angeles Times busing program.’”
As it had a decade earlier, The Times made some commitments to improvements. It hired several journalists of color and established a zoned section known as City Times to cover neighborhoods of South Los Angeles and East Los Angeles that had long been neglected — “the hole in the doughnut,” as editors said at the time. The effort lasted for only three years, folding in 1995.
But even as the editorial staff pushed for broader and better coverage of the city’s diverse communities, the newspaper was being torn by political divisions within the extended Chandler family that still owned the paper, some of whom felt The Times had leaned too far leftward. In 1994, the top business executive, Publisher Richard T. Schlosberg III, directed the editorial board to endorse Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, in his bid for reelection.
Wilson was the chief proponent of Proposition 187, an initiative on the same ballot that would decide his reelection. The measure sought to bar undocumented immigrants from access to state-funded healthcare and education. Staff members, especially Latinos, were disgusted. “Under normal circumstances, I would quietly accept that decision and move on. This time I cannot,” Deputy Editorial Page Editor Frank del Olmo wrote in a dissent that ran in the paper. “Because this is not just another political campaign. And the Wilson endorsement is not — as a senior colleague whom I respect tried to convince me — just another endorsement.”
He continued: “For me, a Mexican American born and reared in California and a journalist here for more than 20 years, this campaign is unprecedented in the harm it does — permanent damage, I fear — to an ethnic community I care deeply about and a state I love.”
Frank del Olmo was the first Latino editor on the masthead of the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper’s 1994 endorsement of Gov. Pete Wilson, who was pushing Proposition 187, drew his vehement dissent in the pages of The Times. (Los Angeles Times)
The summer after voters adopted Proposition 187 (it was later struck down by the courts), Janet Clayton was named editorial page editor, a Black woman and the first person of color to occupy that role. During her nine-year tenure, the opinion pages of The Times evolved to reflect an optimistic, progressive and inclusive political vision. The section won two Pulitzer Prizes, one in 2002 for a series on mentally ill people living on the streets, and the other in 2004 for a series on entrenched problems in California state government.
Halfway through Clayton’s tenure, The Times and its sister papers were sold to the Chicago-based Tribune Co. The new owners brought in two nationally esteemed journalists — John S. Carroll, who had overseen newspapers in Baltimore and Lexington, Ky., as editor, and Dean Baquet, the national editor at the New York Times, as managing editor.
With Baquet overseeing the day-to-day operations of the newsroom, Clayton overseeing the opinion pages (before moving to the Metro section) and art director Joseph Hutchinson serving as deputy managing editor for design, the newspaper for a time had three Black editors on its masthead. Del Olmo was the first Latino on the masthead, and the Mexican-born writer Andrés Martinez was later the second, as editorial page editor.
That diversity — a high point — proved short-lived. Del Olmo, 55, died of cardiac arrest after collapsing in his office at The Times in 2004; Baquet, who succeeded Carroll as top editor, was fired in 2006 after refusing to make more cuts; Clayton, Hutchinson and Martinez all left in 2007.
Since Baquet’s departure, The Times has seen a flurry of top editors and business executives come and go. One of them — Davan Maharaj, who joined The Times in 1989 as an intern and oversaw the newsroom from 2011 to 2017 — was of Indian ancestry and an immigrant from Trinidad.
Maharaj, the first Asian American to lead The Times, presided over a depleted newsroom that had spent four years in federal bankruptcy protection, ending in 2012. Newsroom diversity improved, but the staff was shaken by multiple rounds of buyouts. Nonetheless, it continued to do outstanding work, including a Pulitzer-winning expose of corruption in the city of Bell, a story co-written and uncovered by a Guatemalan-born journalist, Ruben Vives.
By the time The Times was sold in 2018, to the physician and pharmaceutical inventor Patrick Soon-Shiong, the paper was down to about 400 journalists, less than half of the 940 when Baquet left.
•••
Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, left, addresses staffers in 2018 shortly after his purchase of the paper. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Where does The Times go from here?
An organization should not be defined by its failures, but it must acknowledge them if it is to hope for a better future.
The brutal death of a Black man, George Floyd, on May 25 while in the custody of police in Minneapolis shocked the world. It also prompted news organizations like The Times to reflect on how they cover, frame and promote stories at a time when the 24/7 news cycle moves faster than ever. Amid nationwide demonstrations over racial injustice, members of the Los Angeles Times Guild established caucuses for Black and Latino employees. The caucuses have called for improvements in coverage, hiring and career development, a public apology for The Times’ poor record on race, and equal pay. They have insisted, rightly, on reframing and recentering our coverage of communities of color.
The Times in 2020 has new owners, new leaders, a new labor union representing its journalists and a new headquarters in El Segundo. But the shadows of the past loom over our institution.
Newspapers are described as a first rough draft of history. But in truth, the first rough draft written by this newspaper — and those across the country — has been woefully incomplete.
On behalf of this institution, we apologize for The Times’ history of racism. We owe it to our readers to do better, and we vow to do so. A region as diverse and complex and fascinating as Southern California deserves a newspaper that reflects its communities. Today, 38% of the journalists on our staff are people of color. We know that is not nearly good enough, in a county that is 48% Latino and in a state where Latinos are the largest ethnic group. We know that this acknowledgment must be accompanied by a real commitment to change, a humility of spirit and an openness of mind and heart.
The Times will redouble and refocus its efforts to become an inclusive and inspiring voice of California — a sentinel that employs investigative and accountability reporting to help protect our fragile democracy and chronicles the stories of the Golden State, including stories that historically were neglected by the mainstream press. Being careful stewards of this new company, privately owned but operated for the benefit of the public, is our first obligation. But that stewardship will also require bold and decisive change. If we are to survive as a business, it will be by tapping into a digital, multicultural, multigenerational audience in a way The Times has never fully done.
We make this pledge in recognition of the many journalists who battled over the decades to make The Times a more inclusive workplace and a newspaper that reflected the real Los Angeles in its pages. As we reorient this institution firmly and fully around the multiethnic, interfaith and dazzlingly complex tapestry that is Southern California, we honor their contributions.


veteranstoday--2020-09-27--Should US Syrian sanctions targeting civilians be a war crime?

Muallem : U.S. sanctions inhumane , are aimed at suffocating Syrian people [ Editor ’ s Note : The US coalition plans to Balkanize Syria have ramped up , obviously as part of the Israelis establishing formal relations with the Arab states that lost in round one , hoping for better results in round two .
The Syrian Kurds are now in full bore betrayal mode , having joined in completely with the US plans to use them as a puppet state , carving off northern and eastern Syria with all of its oil reserves , water , hydroelectric power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ land .
The useless UN can do nothing , as it has no real power to take action on rogue members that have big militaries and nuclear weapons .
Weaker ones get punished , like Rwanda , whereas the US coalition can genocide Syria and Yemen and not even get a slap on the wrist .
Damascus claims to recover the Golan heights would require the defeat of the Israeli military , its nuclear weapons and the US military , something I don ’ t expect to see in my lifetime .
Syria @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being carved up and shared among the Gulf State thieves .
That the serving US military people are involved in this up to their eyeballs is a sad smear on the honor of the US military , which did not have an unblemished record before Syria .
We are at the point where there should be talks about a union for the volunteer military listing abusive and illegal operations they can not be deployed on .
That should be extended to some kind of official control over all military contractors ’ ‘ independent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into a ‘ murder for hire ’ pool of taxpayer trained thugs , a sad day for America indeed…JD ] Syria has slammed the continued US and Turkish presence on the country ’ s soil , saying that Damascus is determined to end the occupation Syrian territories .
Walid al-Muallem was addressing the UN General Assembly via a pre-recorded video .
Muallem slammed the US sanctions on the war-torn country , describing the measures as an inhumane attempt to suffocate the Syrian people .
He noted that the real purpose of US sanctions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , their livelihoods and their daily lives .
The top diplomat also condemned the Israeli occupation of Syria ’ s Golan Heights , stressing that the area has been a Syrian territory and that Damascus will fight to restore it completely .

Author with the Syria election commission just befor the 2014 vote – Jim Dean Archives
Muallem: U.S. sanctions inhumane, are aimed at suffocating Syrian people
by Jim W. Dean, VT Editor, …with PressTV, Tehran
[ Editor’s Note: The US coalition plans to Balkanize Syria have ramped up, obviously as part of the Israelis establishing formal relations with the Arab states that lost in round one, hoping for better results in round two.
The Syrian Kurds are now in full bore betrayal mode, having joined in completely with the US plans to use them as a puppet state, carving off northern and eastern Syria with all of its oil reserves, water, hydroelectric power, and half of the best farm land.
The useless UN can do nothing, as it has no real power to take action on rogue members that have big militaries and nuclear weapons. Weaker ones get punished, like Rwanda, whereas the US coalition can genocide Syria and Yemen and not even get a slap on the wrist.
Damascus claims to recover the Golan heights would require the defeat of the Israeli military, its nuclear weapons and the US military, something I don’t expect to see in my lifetime.
Syria will be doing well to survive its being carved up and shared among the Gulf State thieves.
That the serving US military people are involved in this up to their eyeballs is a sad smear on the honor of the US military, which did not have an unblemished record before Syria. We are at the point where there should be talks about a union for the volunteer military listing abusive and illegal operations they cannot be deployed on.
That should be extended to some kind of official control over all military contractors’ ‘independent’ operations, as they are turning into a ‘murder for hire’ pool of taxpayer trained thugs, a sad day for America indeed…JD ]
– First aired … September 27, 2020 –
Syria has slammed the continued US and Turkish presence on the country’s soil, saying that Damascus is determined to end the occupation Syrian territories. Walid al-Muallem was addressing the UN General Assembly via a pre-recorded video.
Muallem slammed the US sanctions on the war-torn country, describing the measures as an inhumane attempt to suffocate the Syrian people. He noted that the real purpose of US sanctions is to put pressure on Syrian people, their livelihoods and their daily lives.
The top diplomat also condemned the Israeli occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights, stressing that the area has been a Syrian territory and that Damascus will fight to restore it completely.


Judge Barrett

What goes around , comes around .
The Democrats have behaved disgracefully throughout Donald Trump ’ s first term and are trying to steal November ’ s election .
Nothing symbolised the Democratic Party ’ s contempt for pluralism and the US Constitution more than the deeply personal attacks on Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in 2018 .
President Trump has hit back by nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court .
Did the Democrats think that poor old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was going to last forever ?
One thing that all true conservatives ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t count ) can agree on is that the President has shown a real talent for picking Supreme Court justices .
Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were outstanding appointments .
The President has shown similar wisdom in appointments to the federal bench .
Judge Barrett was one of those appointments , to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017 .
She was Justice Scalia ’ s law clerk in 1998/99 and like him is an originalist .
I don ’ t like the term – I prefer constitutionalist .
What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accordance with its language and the intent of its framers , the Founding Fathers .
Living instrument theorists want to get around the amendment clause in Article 5 by having liberal judges do it instead .
The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing – many were barristers after all !
They would never have agreed to Article 5 being bypassed in this way .
The requirements for a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Congress and subsequent ratification by three-quarters of the States ( who can also propose amendments ) means in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bipartisan support to stand any chance of being adopted .
An amendment permitting the use of abortion as a form of birth control would never get through .
That ’ s why Roe v. Wade 410 US 113 is controversial .
Even the plaintiff , Norma McCorvey , who sadly died in 2017 , later said that the decision was wrong , although she switched positions yet again shortly she died .
( Ironically the case took so long her child was delivered long before it ended . )
The Democrats are in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be opposed to the majority view in Roe .
Since she ’ s a good lawyer the Democrats are probably right to be worried !
Roe v. Wade is bad law , period .
As I have observed on these pages before the idea that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson believed in baby-killing and thought that they were giving women in the new republic the right to abort their children only has to be stated for its absurdity to be apparent .
Judge Barrett ’ s Catholicism is a red herring – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would allow her private religious beliefs to affect her judicial rulings .
The problem with Roe ( Wade was the local DA in Texas , where McCorvey lived ) is that it ’ s a legal stretch , to put it mildly .
Reversing Roe wouldn ’ t mean that all abortions would become illegal – no one is arguing that a woman shouldn ’ t be allowed to have an abortion to save her life .
Some conservatives , mostly men , argue that abortion shouldn ’ t be allowed in cases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not President Trump ’ s view and it clearly goes too far .
No woman should be forced to bear a child when she has not consented to sex .
In practice the Supreme Court would probably leave it to the states .
In states controlled by baby-killing Democrats , no offense intended , reversing Roe might not make much of a difference .
In God-fearing states like Texas the number of dead babies would drop dramatically .
I make no apology for not drawing a distinction between foetuses and babies , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Technically a new human being only gets called that after a successful live birth , but life begins in the womb .
Abortion ends a human life and therefore should only be allowed when another life , that is to say the mother ’ s , is at stake .
The moral case against abortion on demand is clear .
The feminist argument that a woman has a right to control her own body contains a logical flaw – after conception another life is involved .
I ’ m gay and generally a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ line at killing babies .
The young need protecting and safeguarding and the younger they are the more protection they need .
Before birth the need is even greater .
The womb should be a place of safety .
I ’ m not much impressed by the argument that a foetus can be killed if it shows signs of abnormality .
If it can not survive so be it .
If it ’ s just a question of disability however then the pregnancy should go to term .
Judge Barrett had a child @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life over the ‘ easy ’ option .
I ’ m not saying by the way that pregnancy and childbirth are easy , or that having a disabled child is straightforward .
None of these things are easy .
All I ’ m saying is that these things are part of life , and that life isn ’ t always a bed of roses .
Having the DVD try to assassinate you isn ’ t easy either , in fact assassination attempts can be a real nuisance .
All y ’ all have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expressing a view !
Please don ’ t tell me that I ’ m not entitled to a view because I ’ m a man .
Around half of all babies are male .
We blokes have a stake in this debate .
I suspect that not all woman who have had unnecessary abortions live without regret .
Maybe those regrets will not come straightaway , but what about in later life ?
Always choose life over death .
The bad news for fiscal conservatives is that all this comes at a price @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the third trimester of pregnancy and families with young children need tax breaks and other forms of support .
A society which does not look after its young has no future .
Judge Barrett is a fine lawyer , with respect .
She writes well and has the good lawyer ’ s respect for precedent .
( Roe is not only a bad precedent of course , it conflicts with the Constitution . )
I can see why the late Antonin Scalia , whose death remains controversial , chose her as his law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if confirmed by the Senate Judge Barrett will make an excellent Associate Justice of the Supreme Court .
I entirely associate myself with the generous tributes paid yesterday to Associate Justice Ginsburg by the President and Judge Barrett .
Unhappily the Democrats are unlikely to be as gracious and generous during the confirmation hearings .
My sense is that they don ’ t have the numbers to block Judge Barrett .
They also have to be careful not to alienate voters further in the run-up to the election .
Many voters will not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treatment of Brett Kavanaugh .
No-one could say that President Trump hasn ’ t stuck loyally to his pre-election promise to appoint sound , conservative lawyers to the High Court bench .
Voters knew what they were getting when they backed Donald Trump in 2016 .
He ’ s a man who means what he says , with respect .
Some left-wing Democrats have resurrected FDR ’ s controversial plan in the late 30s to pack the court by increasing the number of justices to 11 or 15 .
Since the size of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Constitution this would technically be possible if the Democrats controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress .
It would however be wildly unpopular and would involve interfering with a settled constitutional principle , going back as far as 1837 , that there should be nine justices on the court .
Admittedly the court was reduced to seven for a while but that was in the context of the battles over slavery and the Civil War .
The court was restored to nine justices in 1869 and it ’ s remained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Democrats increased the court to say 11 in order to pack it with head-banging liberals there would be nothing to stop a future Republican Congress increasing it further , to say 15 , and appointing four sensible judges .
I suspect that whatever happens in November the court will stay at nine .
It ’ s a workable number , given the small number of cases which reach the court and the fact that traditionally it sits en banc , unlike say the European Court of Justice .
The ECJ of course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when you have activist judges .
The ECJ lost its legitimacy , indeed its antics went a long way towards turning British voters off the EU .
The UK Supreme Court has been equally short-sighted , taking political rather than legal decisions , for example , in its failed attempt to stop Brexit .
I see no reason to depart from the grand jury ’ s view of the case .
They would have had all of the evidence .
Left-wing demonstrators have been banging on about police brutality , but the facts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Kenneth Walker , had a gun and fired first .
His explanation – that he mistook police officers executing a lawful search warrant for Ms Taylor ’ s ex , Jamarcus Glover , wanted on drugs charges – seems a bit far-fetched .
Why would an ex use a battering ram ?
Since the search was abandoned after the exchange of shots we still don ’ t know whether Glover was storing narcotics on the premises or not .
Given the number of police officers shot in the States each year not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expecting a bit much .
The officers would not have known that Ms Taylor was unarmed and there is no suggestion that she tried to dissuade Walker from firing at the officers .
It ’ s not just in Louisville that police officers get shot , sadly .
Kiwi-born Sergeant Matiu Ratana has been shot this weekend in Croydon Police Station in South London , where he was the custody sergeant .
The chief suspect is a Sri Lankan , Louis de Zoysa , who decided to shoot himself as well .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as people who shoot themselves in the neck with their own revolver tend to be .
The shooting was unusual , in that Zoysa was handcuffed at the time .
With every respect to the special constables who searched him after his arrest this does rather suggest some weaknesses in their search procedures .
The media are confused as to what weapon he had managed to secrete about his person , some describing it as a revolver and others a semi-automatic pistol .
Since he reportedly ran out of ammunition after firing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ armed with a revolver .
We haven ’ t been given the caliber , but one would hope that police officers searching a suspect would manage to find even a small revolver .
( Given that poor Sgt Ratana was murdered by a single shot to the chest , albeit at close range , it doesn ’ t in fact sound like a particularly small caliber , unless it was a ‘ lucky ’ shot . )
I ’ m not sure that I buy the MSM suggestion that Zoysa shot himself deliberately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trying to shoot more officers , two of whom seem to have been trying to get his gun off him .
If someone is trying to shoot you whilst you ’ re grappling with him it ’ s always a good idea to turn the gun in his direction rather than yours .
I ’ m not sure that ‘ TV ’ is the right description for Netflix programs , most of which are not watched on a TV .
Unlike a traditional TV series of course , where you have to tune @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the entire series is released at once .
Away seems to have attracted a lot of interest , unsurprisingly , given the subject matter – mankind ’ s first mission to Mars – and Hilary Swank ’ s leading role .
It ’ s well-made , indeed very well-made , with high production values , and well-acted .
The plot closely follows NASA thinking .
Limited backups to crucial systems like water supply , using solar power and having only a single spacecraft make life easier for scriptwriters but more difficult for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cautionary tale about how not to go to Mars .
Why take months to get there when you could use nuclear reactors and ion engines and get there in weeks ?
For that matter why use solar power , except as a backup , when you could use fission reactors , possibly modified , modular versions of the reliable reactors already used for carriers and submarines ?
Why have only one backup to a mission-critical system ?
And what is the point of having your interplanetary spacecraft descend through the Martian atmosphere ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , plural , is in space , with shuttles for descent to the Martian surface .
Not having to navigate through atmospheres also allows you to hang tanks off your spacecraft for additional non-nuclear fuel , air and water .
I can ’ t see the point in only taking one spacecraft , either .
Why do it on the cheap ?
Away is worth watching , but should not be taken as a guide on how to get to Mars !
You might not get there if you did .

What goes around, comes around. The Democrats have behaved disgracefully throughout Donald Trump’s first term and are trying to steal November’s election. Nothing symbolised the Democratic Party’s contempt for pluralism and the US Constitution more than the deeply personal attacks on Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in 2018. President Trump has hit back by nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Did the Democrats think that poor old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was going to last forever?
One thing that all true conservatives (obviously Senators Mitt Romney and Susan Collins don’t count) can agree on is that the President has shown a real talent for picking Supreme Court justices. Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were outstanding appointments. The President has shown similar wisdom in appointments to the federal bench.
Judge Barrett was one of those appointments, to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. She was Justice Scalia’s law clerk in 1998/99 and like him is an originalist. I don’t like the term – I prefer constitutionalist. What it means is interpreting the Constitution in accordance with its language and the intent of its framers, the Founding Fathers.
Living instrument theorists want to get around the amendment clause in Article 5 by having liberal judges do it instead. The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing – many were barristers after all! They would never have agreed to Article 5 being bypassed in this way.
The requirements for a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Congress and subsequent ratification by three-quarters of the States (who can also propose amendments) means in practice that proposed amendments require broad, bipartisan support to stand any chance of being adopted. An amendment permitting the use of abortion as a form of birth control would never get through.
Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade
That’s why Roe v. Wade 410 US 113 is controversial. Even the plaintiff, Norma McCorvey, who sadly died in 2017, later said that the decision was wrong, although she switched positions yet again shortly before she died. (Ironically the case took so long her child was delivered long before it ended.)
The Democrats are in a panic because Judge Barrett is thought to be opposed to the majority view in Roe. Since she’s a good lawyer the Democrats are probably right to be worried!
Roe v. Wade is bad law, period. As I have observed on these pages before the idea that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson believed in baby-killing and thought that they were giving women in the new republic the right to abort their children only has to be stated for its absurdity to be apparent. Judge Barrett’s Catholicism is a red herring – I don’t believe that she would allow her private religious beliefs to affect her judicial rulings. The problem with Roe (Wade was the local DA in Texas, where McCorvey lived) is that it’s a legal stretch, to put it mildly.
Reversing Roe wouldn’t mean that all abortions would become illegal – no one is arguing that a woman shouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion to save her life. Some conservatives, mostly men, argue that abortion shouldn’t be allowed in cases of rape, but that’s not President Trump’s view and it clearly goes too far. No woman should be forced to bear a child when she has not consented to sex.
In practice the Supreme Court would probably leave it to the states. In states controlled by baby-killing Democrats, no offense intended, reversing Roe might not make much of a difference. In God-fearing states like Texas the number of dead babies would drop dramatically.
I make no apology for not drawing a distinction between foetuses and babies, which seems to me to be artificial. Technically a new human being only gets called that after a successful live birth, but life begins in the womb. Abortion ends a human life and therefore should only be allowed when another life, that is to say the mother’s, is at stake.
The moral case against abortion on demand is clear. The feminist argument that a woman has a right to control her own body contains a logical flaw – after conception another life is involved. I’m gay and generally a social liberal, but I draw the line at killing babies. The young need protecting and safeguarding and the younger they are the more protection they need. Before birth the need is even greater. The womb should be a place of safety.
I’m not much impressed by the argument that a foetus can be killed if it shows signs of abnormality. If it cannot survive so be it. If it’s just a question of disability however then the pregnancy should go to term. Judge Barrett had a child with Down’s Syndrome and chose life over the ‘easy’ option.
I’m not saying by the way that pregnancy and childbirth are easy, or that having a disabled child is straightforward. None of these things are easy. All I’m saying is that these things are part of life, and that life isn’t always a bed of roses. Having the DVD try to assassinate you isn’t easy either, in fact assassination attempts can be a real nuisance.
All y’all have done well to draw me out into expressing a view! Please don’t tell me that I’m not entitled to a view because I’m a man. Around half of all babies are male. We blokes have a stake in this debate.
I suspect that not all woman who have had unnecessary abortions live without regret. Maybe those regrets will not come straightaway, but what about in later life? Always choose life over death.
The bad news for fiscal conservatives is that all this comes at a price. Women have to be supported during the third trimester of pregnancy and families with young children need tax breaks and other forms of support. A society which does not look after its young has no future.
Legal ability
Judge Barrett is a fine lawyer, with respect. She writes well and has the good lawyer’s respect for precedent. (Roe is not only a bad precedent of course, it conflicts with the Constitution.) I can see why the late Antonin Scalia, whose death remains controversial, chose her as his law clerk. I have no doubt that if confirmed by the Senate Judge Barrett will make an excellent Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
Confirmation
I entirely associate myself with the generous tributes paid yesterday to Associate Justice Ginsburg by the President and Judge Barrett. Unhappily the Democrats are unlikely to be as gracious and generous during the confirmation hearings.
My sense is that they don’t have the numbers to block Judge Barrett. They also have to be careful not to alienate voters further in the run-up to the election. Many voters will not have forgotten the brutal and wholly unfair treatment of Brett Kavanaugh.
No-one could say that President Trump hasn’t stuck loyally to his pre-election promise to appoint sound, conservative lawyers to the High Court bench. Voters knew what they were getting when they backed Donald Trump in 2016. He’s a man who means what he says, with respect.
Packing the court
Some left-wing Democrats have resurrected FDR’s controversial plan in the late 30s to pack the court by increasing the number of justices to 11 or 15. Since the size of the Supreme Court is not fixed in the Constitution this would technically be possible if the Democrats controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress.
It would however be wildly unpopular and would involve interfering with a settled constitutional principle, going back as far as 1837, that there should be nine justices on the court. Admittedly the court was reduced to seven for a while but that was in the context of the battles over slavery and the Civil War. The court was restored to nine justices in 1869 and it’s remained at nine ever since.
Moreover if the Democrats increased the court to say 11 in order to pack it with head-banging liberals there would be nothing to stop a future Republican Congress increasing it further, to say 15, and appointing four sensible judges. I suspect that whatever happens in November the court will stay at nine. It’s a workable number, given the small number of cases which reach the court and the fact that traditionally it sits en banc, unlike say the European Court of Justice.
The ECJ of course is a prime example of what happens when you have activist judges. The ECJ lost its legitimacy, indeed its antics went a long way towards turning British voters off the EU. The UK Supreme Court has been equally short-sighted, taking political rather than legal decisions, for example, in its failed attempt to stop Brexit.
Breonna Taylor case
I see no reason to depart from the grand jury’s view of the case. They would have had all of the evidence. Left-wing demonstrators have been banging on about police brutality, but the facts are that Ms Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, had a gun and fired first.
His explanation – that he mistook police officers executing a lawful search warrant for Ms Taylor’s ex, Jamarcus Glover, wanted on drugs charges – seems a bit far-fetched. Why would an ex use a battering ram? Since the search was abandoned after the exchange of shots we still don’t know whether Glover was storing narcotics on the premises or not.
Given the number of police officers shot in the States each year not having them return fire seems to be expecting a bit much. The officers would not have known that Ms Taylor was unarmed and there is no suggestion that she tried to dissuade Walker from firing at the officers.
The murdered officer
The Croydon shooting
It’s not just in Louisville that police officers get shot, sadly. Kiwi-born Sergeant Matiu Ratana has been shot this weekend in Croydon Police Station in South London, where he was the custody sergeant. The chief suspect is a Sri Lankan, Louis de Zoysa, who decided to shoot himself as well. He is currently in hospital, rather unwell, as people who shoot themselves in the neck with their own revolver tend to be.
The shooting was unusual, in that Zoysa was handcuffed at the time. With every respect to the special constables who searched him after his arrest this does rather suggest some weaknesses in their search procedures. The media are confused as to what weapon he had managed to secrete about his person, some describing it as a revolver and others a semi-automatic pistol.
Since he reportedly ran out of ammunition after firing six shots it seems that he was armed with a revolver. We haven’t been given the caliber, but one would hope that police officers searching a suspect would manage to find even a small revolver. (Given that poor Sgt Ratana was murdered by a single shot to the chest, albeit at close range, it doesn’t in fact sound like a particularly small caliber, unless it was a ‘lucky’ shot.)
I’m not sure that I buy the MSM suggestion that Zoysa shot himself deliberately. It rather sounds like he was trying to shoot more officers, two of whom seem to have been trying to get his gun off him. If someone is trying to shoot you whilst you’re grappling with him it’s always a good idea to turn the gun in his direction rather than yours.
This week’s TV review: Away, Netflix (Airdate September 4th 2020)
I’m not sure that ‘TV’ is the right description for Netflix programs, most of which are not watched on a TV. Unlike a traditional TV series of course, where you have to tune in at the same time next week, the entire series is released at once.
Away seems to have attracted a lot of interest, unsurprisingly, given the subject matter – mankind’s first mission to Mars – and Hilary Swank’s leading role. It’s well-made, indeed very well-made, with high production values, and well-acted.
The plot closely follows NASA thinking. Limited backups to crucial systems like water supply, using solar power and having only a single spacecraft make life easier for scriptwriters but more difficult for astronauts!
Essentially it’s a cautionary tale about how not to go to Mars. Why take months to get there when you could use nuclear reactors and ion engines and get there in weeks? For that matter why use solar power, except as a backup, when you could use fission reactors, possibly modified, modular versions of the reliable reactors already used for carriers and submarines?
Why have only one backup to a mission-critical system? And what is the point of having your interplanetary spacecraft descend through the Martian atmosphere? The obvious place to assemble your spacecraft, plural, is in space, with shuttles for descent to the Martian surface. Not having to navigate through atmospheres also allows you to hang tanks off your spacecraft for additional non-nuclear fuel, air and water. I can’t see the point in only taking one spacecraft, either. Why do it on the cheap?
Away is worth watching, but should not be taken as a guide on how to get to Mars! You might not get there if you did.