Bits ‘n’ Pieces: August 6, 2020

By Lorraine H. Marie
Reader Columnist

East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact. A recent sampling:

The city council of Asheville, N.C., voted 7-0 in favor of reparations for descendants of slaves, ABC News reported. Reparations will include investing in Black communities, such as business opportunities, help with home ownership and addressing fairness within the criminal justice system.

Contrary to recent statements from the administration of President Donald Trump, “antifa” is not a dangerous threat to the nation.  According to a database compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a centrist think tank, antifa has no links to murder in 25 years. 

According to The Guardian, data for the report came from records of close to 900 attacks and plots deemed politically motivated. Over the same 25-year period, white supremacists and right-wing extremists engaged in attacks that left 329 people dead. The data included 21 deaths from so-called left-wing attacks, but CSIS indicated the term “left wing” is misleading, since it referred to black nationalists who may have more in common with right-wing ideologies: homophobia, misogyny and anti-Semitism. 

Meanwhile, a U.S. Justice Department task force released an anti-government extremists report that describes antifa as a “major threat,” but makes no reference to white supremacists. 

Busted: The mayor of Richmond, Va., mayor reported to WTVR.com that recent Black Lives Matter protests in the city were instigated into riots by white supremacists who carried BLM signs while breaking windows. Genuine BLM protesters pointed them out to police and they were stopped. There were six arrests. Similar reports about white supremacists posing as BLM supporters have been made at protests across the U.S.

According to reports in the Boston Globe, L.A. Times and govexec.com, Trump administration plans to slow mail deliveries via unprecedented operational changes to the U.S. Postal Service are founded on allegations that the agency, which has not relied on tax funds, is failing financially. That overlooks how the USPS was hampered by a 2006 Congressional requirement to pre-fund retirement by 75 years into the future. Sans the pre-funding, the USPS would have turned a profit and had funds for modernizing and upgrading facilities. 

The U.S. House voted to eliminate the pre-funding requirement in February, but it has not seen action in the Senate.

After five deaths and 15 arrests, analysts are scrambling to define the emerging Boogaloo Boi movement. The Department of Homeland Security calls the group’s members, who anticipate and look forward to a second American civil war, “violent extremists” that are both left and right wing. But, The Guardian reports, based on their actions and rhetoric, experts are identifying the Boogaloo Bois as “right wing” and “far right.” That’s based on their affinity for heavy weaponry and right-wing martyrs, such as Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City bombing fame, and Boogaloo Bois appearing at protests to protect business and corporate property.

Not all Boogaloo followers are white supremacists, analysts reported, but there is a faction that wants a race war and others that want societal breakdown via rebellion against the government. This has led some experts in extremism to conclude that the Boogaloo movement is a “broad anti-government movement that is full of white power activists.”

Trump has been “soft on Russia” at least 37 times, according to a recent CNN report. The allegations are renewed with his multi-billion dollar plan to withdraw 12,000 troops from Germany. Republicans on the Armed Services Committee said the president’s move is encouraging “Russian aggression,” ABC News reported.

Pandemics are a hidden cost of economic development, according to Kate Jones, chair of Ecology and Biodiversity at University College, London. She and other researchers identified 335 diseases that emerged between 1960 and 2004, with 60% from non-humans (while the human population ballooned from 2.5 billion to 6 billion after 1950). The university’s research is looking at how degraded habitats from extractive practices in remote areas results in exposure to more viruses. As well, population growth increasingly leads to sharing habitat with wild creatures, amplifying the risk of species-to-species migration of pathogens. Modern ways of life result in diseases traveling farther and faster.

Foreign countries are trying to hack U.S. political campaigns and “compromise our election infrastructure,” William Evanina, director of National Counterintelligence and Security recently warned. Democrats are asking for a full briefing for Congress.

Blast from the past: According to Article II, Section I, of the United States Constitution, “The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.”