Author: Henry Taylor

Uncategorized

Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa admits they hid nursing home data so feds wouldn’t find out

By Bernadette Hogan, Carl Campanile and Bruce Golding

Read the full article from New York Post, here.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide privately apologized to Democratic lawmakers for withholding the state’s nursing home death toll from COVID-19 — telling them “we froze” out of fear that the true numbers would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors, The Post has learned. The stunning admission of a coverup was made by secretary to the governor Melissa DeRosa during a video conference call with state Democratic leaders in which she said the Cuomo administration had rebuffed a legislative request for the tally in August because “right around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump] turns this into a giant political football,” according to an audio recording of the two-hour-plus meeting.

COVID-19

Changes in Shooting Incidence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Between March and November 2020

By Jessica H. Beard, Sara F. Jacoby, Zoë Maher; et al

Read the full article from The Journal of the American Medical Association here.

“Firearm violence occurred more frequently in US cities in 2020 compared with previous years. Two major events of 2020 may explain this increase: enactment of containment policies to reduce the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and a national reckoning with systemic racism, including widespread protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd. This study evaluated independent associations between COVID-19 containment policies and the killing of George Floyd on firearm violence in one US city, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”

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An Atlanta Neighborhood Will Finally Own Property as a Community

By Adina Solomon

Read the full article from Next City here.

“The Guild’s model is a community real estate trust that allows for anyone in the building’s 30310 ZIP code to contribute $10-100 a month. That investment goes into shares of the trust. Resident investors get a return through an annual dividend and the share price, which is tied to property values in this gentrifying neighborhood. The idea is to shift returns from developers to the community.”

Selected Media

Surgery launches anti-racism, health care equity initiative with West lecture

By Ellen Goldbaum

Read the full article from UBNow here.

“Cornel West, Harvard University professor, bestselling author, political activist and public intellectual, will speak via Zoom at “Beyond the Knife,” the initiative’s first public event, from 4-5 p.m. on Feb. 18. This event is free and open to the public. Register and submit questions for the question-and-answer session online.”

Selected Media

Joe Biden is a White Supremacist War Hawk, Too

By Danny Haiphong

Read the full article from Black Agenda Report here.

“For one, Biden is a white supremacist and a war hawk but one would never know listening to the corporate media. The ruling class understands that Joe Biden is less popular than Bernie Sanders’ mittens and has thus focused all of its energy on the optics of his administration. However, endless celebrations of the “diversity” embodied in Joe Biden’s cabinet are nothing but hollow gestures for people under the crossfire of U.S. empire. As Nikole Hannah-Jones pondered the significance of Lloyd Austin being named the first Black Secretary of Defense , no one in the Biden camp has spoken out against the past, present, and future war crimes which will undoubtedly shape the administration.”

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Why Black Marxism, Why Now?

By Robin D.G. Kelley

Read the full article from Boston Review, here.

Black Marxism is neither Marxist nor anti-Marxist. It is a dialectical critique of Marxism that turns to the long history of Black revolt—and to Black radical intellectuals who also turned to the history of Black revolt—to construct a wholly original theory of revolution and interpretation of the history of the modern world.

Selected Media

The Chamber of Commerce Wants to Slash COVID-19 Relief Checks. We Can’t Let Them.

By Andrew Perez

Read the full article from Jacobin, here.

The nation’s biggest business lobby is pushing Democrats to slash COVID-19 relief checks for middle-class families, despite new census data showing that nearly half of those families have lost income because of the pandemic. Top Democrats are now reportedly considering excluding millions of those families from the checks, and President Biden himself has said he is willing to negotiate with Republicans on limiting eligibility for the checks.

Selected Media

St. Louis Considers Spy Planes to Survey the City 18 Hours a Day

By Eoin Higgins

Read the full article from The Nation here.

“The program’s detractors object to the way PSS technology has been used in other municipalities—Baltimore, Md., and Compton, Calif.—to target marginalized communities and violate the civil rights of city residents. Representative Cori Bush, who represents St. Louis and much of northern St. Louis county, told The Nation in an e-mail that the program, which she said “actively harms our communities,” will have dire consequences for the city.”

Selected Media

Bernie’s Mittens

By Bruce Jackson

Read the full article from First of the Month here.

“Bernie’s mittens. In that photo, surrounded by people in skin-tight black leather gloves, he wears a that look as if they’d been made from wool salvaged from an old sweater. The fingers he was relentlessly jabbing at every camera lens or audience when he spoke are wrapped in those mittens. Those fingers, for the first time since we’ve known him, are quiet. Bernie’s face mask: when addressing an audience, he never talked. He barked. A former Congressional colleague refers to him as ‘the scold.’ You can’t scold from behind a mask. Behind the mask, the barking scold was silent.”

Uncategorized

Cities Say They Want to Defund the Police. Their Budgets Say Otherwise.

By Fola Akinnibi, Sarah Holder, and Christopher Cannon

Read the full article from Bloomberg CityLab, here.

Disparities in policing came into full view on Jan. 6 as a predominantly white mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to overturn the results of the presidential election. Videos emerged of officers appearing to open barricades for rioters, offering a stark contrast to scenes from summer protests, where largely peaceful demonstrators were met at times with brutal force. Police budgets will expand this year even in cities like Atlanta, Omaha and Phoenix, where Democrats picked up more votes in the 2020 presidential race versus 2016. Out of 42 major cities where Democrats gained share, 24 increased police spending for fiscal 2021, while 18 made cuts.

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