OP-ED: Time to Act on Crime, Violence and Police Reform in America

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The truth is, crime is out of control in this country, especially in too many of our cities. While many choose to turn a blind eye, it is people of color who are the majority of the victims: People of color account for 73 percent of rape victims; 72 percent of robbery victims; and 80 percent of felony assault victims; and 68.7 percent of the people in prison are Black and brown and 44% percent of the people killed by police in the United States are Black and brown.

By Andrew M. Cuomo and Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.

charges are deliberately vague and are subject to discretion that can be abused by police, like loitering, vagrancy, trespass, or failure to pay a fine. In fact, some of the most horrific examples of police abuse occurred when a minor crime arrest escalated: Eric Garner killed for selling loose cigarettes; Rodney King beaten within an inch of his life for speeding; George Floyd killed for a bad $20 bill; Alton Sterling killed for selling CDs; Philando Castile killed for a broken taillight; and, Michael Brown killed for jaywalking.

Daniel Ellsberg’s Last Message...continued broke free and provided the Pentagon Papers to news media.

As he said in the CBS interview, “The fact is that secrets can be held by men in the government whose careers have been spent learning how to keep their mouths shut. I was one of those.”

Ellsberg’s mouth, and heart, never stayed shut again. For the 52 full years that followed his release of the Pentagon Papers, he devoted himself to speaking, writing and protesting. When the war on Vietnam finally ended, Ellsberg mainly returned to his earlier preoccupation — how to help prevent nuclear war.

During the profuse interviews that he engaged in during the last few months, what clearly preoccupied Ellsberg was not his own fate but the fate of the Earth’s inhabitants. He was acutely aware that while admiration for brave whistleblowers might sometimes be widespread, actual emulation is scarce. Ellsberg often heard that he was inspiring, but he was always far more interested in what people would be inspired to actually do — in a world of war and on the precipice of inconceivable nuclear catastrophe.

Andrew M. Cuomo is an American lawyer

2011 to 2021. Dr.

Jr

President served

Association (NNPA) and also serves as a National Co-Chair of No

America 2023: tumultuous times. Yes. Yet, amidst the greatest domestic challenges of American history, our nation has attempted to respond to the challenges through transformative public policy initiatives that have moved America toward a more perfect inclusive union.

Today there are new challenges to be sure, but also there are ongoing battles that have yet to be won. There are civil rights struggles and conditions that harken back to the 1960s that still abuse people of color every day, that still deny justice, equality and opportunity for all.

There’s an old saying: The first step to solving a problem is admitting it — and the first step can be painful.

There is still gross inequity in our education system, between rich school districts and poor districts. There is still inequality in access to healthcare, employment, to financial credit and there is a basic violation of civil and human rights in our criminal justice system.

Misguided pseudoprogressive policies such as “defund the police” and soft on crime procedures are literally contributing to the killing of hundreds of Black people and other people of color every day across America.

The truth is, crime is out of control in this country, especially in too many of our cities. While many choose to turn a blind eye, it is people of color who are the majority of the victims: People of color account for 73 percent of rape victims; 72 percent of robbery victims; and 80 percent of felony assault victims; and 68.7 percent of the people in prison are Black and brown and 44% percent of the people killed by police in the United States are Black and brown.

We do need police reform and reform of the entire justice system.

One: we need to change the culture and premise of policing. Our basic police system was designed in the mid-1800s — a different time and place. Today, it’s estimated that less than 10% of police officers’ time is actually fighting violent crime.

We need a different vision, we need to rethink how we police — 911 calls signal an emergency, and we need more specialized and better trained emergency responders for different needs: domestic violence, substance abuse, mental health, homeless issues, gang problems as well as violent crime in progress.

Second: We need dangerous guns off the streets and all guns away from dangerous and mentally ill people. By far, most gun crimes are committed in urban areas with handguns. We need to reduce not increase concealed weapons in our cities.

Padilla, Sanders Introduce Bill to Make College

Tuition- and Debt-Free for Working Families...

continued from page 2 college for all students and allow students from single households earning up to $125,000 a year, and married households earning up to $250,000 a year, to attend college without fear of being saddled with student loan debt. If passed, the College for All Act would also:

Double the maximum Pell Grant award: $7,395 to $14,790 for the 2024-2025 school year for students enrolled at public and private non-profit colleges;

Expand Pell Grant Eligibility to DACA, TPS, and DED students

Establish a $10 billion grant program for states participating in the federal-state partnership to scale evidence-based practices and strategies;

Triple Federal TRIO funding from $1.191 billion in FY23 to $3 billion in FY24; Double GEAR UP funding from $388 million in FY23 to $736 million in FY24; and Double mandatory funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and other MinorityServing institutions.

In addition to Padilla and Sanders, the legislation is cosponsored by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.),

Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Van Hollen (DMd.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.). Senator Padilla believes every student should have access to high-quality and affordable education opportunities so that they can pursue their dreams. Last year, Padilla cosponsored a resolution calling on President Biden to use his authority under the Higher Education Act to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt for federal student loan borrowers. During his first term in congress, Padilla introduced the Basic Assistance for Students in College (BASIC) Act to ensure college students are able to meet their basic needs while pursuing their education. Senator Padilla also led the bicameral, bipartisan introduction of the Hispanic Educational Resources and Empowerment (HERE)Act to close the enduring gap in college completion for Hispanic students. Padilla also cosponsored the Pell Grant Preservation and Expansion Act with Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to double the Pell Grant and expand access as well as the award for working students and families.

Governor

We need to keep guns out of the hands of anyone under 21. We need to fill gaps in the background check system so it’s universal and nationwide.

And we need to bring back the assault weapons ban because weapons of war have no place on our streets or in our communities. Assault weapons enable the horrific mass shootings that continue to plague our country.

Third: We need to reduce recidivism. The vast majority of violent crimes are repeated by a small number of people who keep hurting others over and over.

Fourth: We need to have more effective alternatives to incarceration, safer jails, but dangerous and repetitive violent people must be taken off the streets to protect all Americans, and in particular for the most vulnerable who are disproportionately victimized by violence and crime in Black and brown communities.

Fifth: We have to stop over criminalizing petty, non-violent acts. 80 percent of crimes are for misdemeanors, and many are petty non-violent acts. And some

We believe that the time to act is now. These specific categories of civil rights have been violated for too long and the time to make a difference is surely too short. As a nation we cannot afford to remain silent about extremists’ hatred, violence, crime, and the fear-filled deterioration of American cities and towns.

This is for us a sense of urgency and civic responsibility. We have decided to work and act together, and to speak out publicly with recommended commonsense solutions to crime, violence, guns, and police reform that we know the majority of the American people support.

Andrew M. Cuomo, American lawyer who served as the 56th Governor of New York from 2011 to 2021, Chair of the National Governors Association, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and former Attorney General of New York.

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr, President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), Executive Producer/Host of The Chavis Chronicles on PBS TV stations across the nation; former Executive Director and CEO of the NAACP, and today serves as a National Co-Chair of No Labels.

Daniel Ellsberg’s Last Message

By Norman Solomon COUNTERPUNCH

This spring, during the three months after diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, Ellsberg made the most of every day, spending time with loved ones and speaking out about the all-too-real dangers of nuclear annihilation. He left behind two brilliant, monumental books published in this century — “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers” (2002) and “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner” (2017). They illuminate in sharp ghastly light the patterns of official lies and secrecy about military matters, and the ultimate foreseeable result — nuclear holocaust.

Ellsberg was deeply determined to do all he could to help prevent omnicide. As he said in an interview when “The Doomsday Machine” came out, scientific research has concluded that nuclear war “would loft into the stratosphere many millions of tons of soot and black smoke from the burning cities. It wouldn’t be rained out in the stratosphere. It would go around the globe very quickly and reduce sunlight by as much as 70 percent, causing temperatures like that of the Little Ice Age, killing harvests worldwide and starving to death nearly everyone on earth. It probably wouldn’t cause extinction. We’re so adaptable. Maybe 1 percent of our current population of 7.4 billion could survive, but 98 or 99 percent would not.”

During the last decades of his life, standard assumptions and efforts by mainstream media and the political establishment aimed to consign Ellsberg to the era of the Vietnam War. But in real time, Dan Ellsberg continually inspired so many of us to be more than merely inspired. We loved him not only for what he had done but also for what he kept doing, for who he was, luminously, ongoing. The power of his vibrant example spurred us to become better than we were. In a recent series of short illustrated podcasts created by filmmaker Judith Ehrlich — who co-directed the documentary “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” — Ellsberg speaks about the growing dangers of global apocalypse, saying that nuclear war planners “have written plans to kill billions of people,” preparations that amount to “a conspiracy to commit omnicide, near omnicide, the death of everyone.” And he adds: “Can humanity survive the nuclear era? We don’t know. I choose to act as if we have a chance.”

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction. org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His next book, 'War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine', will be published in June 2023 by The New Press.

Grassroots Groups Push “Motor Voter” Bill Aimed at 100% Registration of California’s Electorate...continued

and of an eligible age.

Several states, including Alaska, Massachusetts, Oregon, Colorado, Delaware and the District of Columbia, have already passed similar legislation with overwhelmingly positive results. Members of the coalition and other supporters marched from the state capitol and circled the Secretary of State building twice at 10th and O streets in downtown Sacramento to rally support for the legislation.

SB 846 provides a path to 100% voter registration, supporters say.

The documents leaked by Daniel Ellsberg were known as the Pentagon Papers, outlining American involvement in Vietnam between 1945 and 1967. Credit: Shutterstock

When Daniel Ellsberg died on Friday, the world lost a transcendent whistleblower with a powerful ethos of compassion and resolve.

Ellsberg’s renown for openly challenging the mentalities of militarism began on June 23, 1971, when he appeared on CBS Evening News ten days after news broke about the Pentagon Papers that he’d provided to journalists. Ellsberg pointedly said that in the 7,000 pages of top-secret documents, “I don’t think there is a line in them that contains an estimate of the likely impact of our policy on the overall casualties among Vietnamese or the refugees to be caused, the effects of defoliation in an ecological sense. There’s neither an estimate nor a calculation of past effects, ever.”

And he added: “The documents simply reflect the internal concerns of our officials.

That says nothing more nor less that that our officials never did concern themselves with the effect of our policies on the Vietnamese.”

Ellsberg told anchor Walter Cronkite: “I think we cannot let the officials of the Executive Branch determine for us what it is that the public needs to know about how well and how they are discharging their functions.”

The functions of overseeing the war on Vietnam had become repugnant to Ellsberg as an insider. Many other government officials and top-level consultants with security clearances also had access to documents that showed how mendacious four administrations had been as the U.S. role in Vietnam expanded and then escalated into wholesale slaughter.

Unlike the others, he finally from page 3 engagement expertise with communities traditionally ignored by mainstream political campaigns, the California Grassroots Democracy Coalition (CGDC) says it promotes legislation that expands the electorate, builds up civic education, voter registration, and turnout in underrepresented communities, according to the group’s website.

“California is no stranger to making election improvements, from creating the first version of automatic voter registration, to making it possible for all registered voters to vote by mail. Now, we have the opportunity to take the next step in modernizing California’s elections,” Limón said in a statement. “SB 846 will broaden access to the ballot box for all eligible voters.”

Data shows that due to a lack of voter registration among traditionally hardto-reach communities, California’s current voter population is unrepresentative of its demographic, Limón and Menjivar explain.

According to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), 82% of California’s adults are eligible to vote, but only 64% are registered. As a result, younger, lower income, less educated and state residents who are renters are underrepresented during elections.

Leveraging its voter

CGDC comprises 140plus grassroots organizations that are committed to helping California’s most vulnerable communities become empowered through pro-democracy reforms. Organizations in the network have a range of priorities, including, criminal justice reform, immigrant rights, language access, low-income communities, environmental justice, religious rights, labor unions, etc.

Julius Thibodeaux, Executive Director for Movement 4 Life, spoke about his experience as a person who was formerly incarcerated and how it affected his access to voting. He also discussed the importance of investing in the development, health and wellbeing of youth in cities.

“In 2020, California voters restored voting rights for more than 50,000 people who are no longer incarcerated. But that’s only the first step,” Thibodeaux told California Black Media at the march and rally. “Now, the work begins to get folks informed, registered, and returning to the ballot box every fall and spring election.”