November 18, 2021

Oklahoma inmate Julius Jones is scheduled to be executed today.

Vomiting and Convulsing, is that inhumane treatment?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/oklahoma-inmate-julius-jones-is-scheduled-to-be-executed-today-the-state-s-governor-still-hasn-t-decided-if-he-ll-spare-the-man/ar-AAQRGok?ocid=Peregrine

Oklahoma inmate Julius Jones is scheduled to be executed today. The state's governor still hasn't decided if he'll spare the man.

kmclaughlin@businessinsider.com (Kelly McLaughlin)

11/18/21
...snip
"Thousands of people across Oklahoma, the country, and the world have called on the governor to prevent Oklahoma from executing an innocent man,"Amanda Bass, one of Jones' attorneys, said in a statement shared with Insider on Thursday. "Our hope is that the Governor will ensure that this execution does not go forward given the many concerns about the execution process and Mr. Jones's case."
...snip

Dale Baich, another of Jones' attorneys, told Insider in March that evidence in the case was "flimsy," and, according to the City Sentinel, Jones' family has said Jones was home eating dinner at the time of the crime.

Jones' scheduled execution comes weeks after another Oklahoma inmate, John Marion Grant, vomited and convulsed as he was executed. Grant was the first execution in Oklahoma in six years.

Read the original article on Insider

November 6, 2021

Chinese journalist imprisoned for her ground-breaking coverage of the Wuhan COVID-19 pandemic

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/chinese-journalist-imprisoned-for-her-ground-breaking-coverage-of-the-wuhan-covid-19-pandemic-is-close-to-death-reports-say/ar-AAQoCsW

Business Insider

Chinese journalist imprisoned for her ground-breaking coverage of the Wuhan COVID-19 pandemic is 'close to death,' reports say

ashoaib@insider.com (Alia Shoaib)

11/6/21

Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison for her early coverage of COVID-19 in Wuhan.

Her family warned that Zhan is close to death from a hunger strike and will not survive the winter.

International groups have called for her release and said her sentence is a "shameful attack on human rights."

A Chinese citizen journalist jailed for her reporting in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic is at risk of dying from a hunger strike, reports say.

Zhang Zhan, a 38-year-old former lawyer, was sentenced to four years in prison in December after she traveled to Wuhan in February 2020 to document what was happening on the ground.

She had posted on social media about government officials detaining independent reporters and harassing the families of COVID-19 patients.
...snip

November 6, 2021

Opinion: Efforts to diagnose Democrats' biggest problem are off the mark

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/opinion-efforts-to-diagnose-democrats-biggest-problem-are-off-the-mark/ar-AAQoqx9

CNN

Opinion: Efforts to diagnose Democrats' biggest problem are off the mark

Opinion by Peniel E. Joseph

11/6/21

Efforts to diagnose Democratic defeat in Virginia, a state which has trended reliably blue in recent years due to its northern suburbs and which President Biden won by 10 points, have missed the mark.
...snip
Two US senators, West Virginia's Joe Manchin and Arizona's Krysten Sinema, have become the targets of vociferous criticism from within the Democratic Party for resisting efforts to end the filibuster, pass voting rights legislation or support the full measure of Biden's legislative agenda.

And then there's Critical Race Theory. The assaults against CRT are a 21st-century echo of the Lost Cause mythology that attacked Reconstruction as a failed effort to grant citizenship to formerly enslaved Black Americans long before they were ready or capable of such an awesome responsibility. The falsehood of this narrative made it no less effective. Public school textbooks and teachers, North and South, taught aspects of the Lost Cause for more than a century. Some are still teaching it.

Anti-CRT legislation successfully passed in states such as Texas and used as a wedge issue in the Virginia gubernatorial election, traffics in lies and falsehoods that are, nonetheless, stunningly effective. Teaching Black history is not Critical Race Theory, but it has been treated as such in hundreds of school districts where White parents are screaming that they don't want their children to be taught CRT. What are these White parents and voters so afraid of?

Videos of White voters and pundits of all colors attacking CRT while simultaneously being unable to explain what it is offer us potent clues to what's happening in America right now. Attacks on CRT, through legislation, threats and falsehoods, represent a modern-day extension of White backlash against any and all hopes of racial justice in America. This backlash now, just as during Reconstruction and the civil rights era, is marked by legislative efforts to roll back perceived gains by African Americans.
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