AH Datalytics Analysis Shows a Broad Decline in Murder Rates. Racists who Believe Crime Data is Proof of Black Inferiority Must Get a New Clogic to Prove “Differences" Among "Races” to Justify Racism

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Black criminals function as a negative reference group vital to maintaining the White American self-image. The Black criminal is used to support the White American community's self-serving, self-justifying judgments of itself. White America's preoccupation with Black criminality betrays its own need for reassurance; betrays its own basic insecurity regarding its projected moral purity. Consequently, the higher the incidence of reported Black criminality, the more exceptionally righteous White America feels itself to be. The more righteous it feels itself to be the more intensely and guiltlessly it promulgates and justifies its domination and exploitation of African peoples at home and abroad.” [MORE] the Only Purpose of Race is to Practice Racism.

From [HERE] New data from AH Datalytics shows “sharp and broad decline” in murder rates for 2023. In a recent article published in The Atlantic, Jeff Asher (pictured), a crime analyst based in New Orleans and co-founder of AH Datalytics, writes that the decline in murder rates across the United States is “one of the largest annual percent changes in murder ever recorded.”  

According to AH Datalytics, murder rates decreased by 12 percent in more than 90 cities that have released data for 2023. In Los Angeles, Houston, and Philadelphia, murder has dropped to more than 20 percent. Additionally, the data shows that murder has decreased by 30 percent or more in cities located in the southern and midwestern regions including, but not limited to, Baton Rouge, LA; Tampa, FL; Cincinnati, OH; Jackson, Mississippi; Atlanta, Georgia; Little Rock, Arkansas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Click here for sources).

In recent months, some elected officials or those running for political office have called for use of the death penalty to address a perceived rise in violent crime.  But studies, including Stephen Oliphant’s study on the death penalty’s effect on homicide rates, have reported “no evidence of a deterrent effect attributable to death penalty statutes.”  

[MORE]

Racists are obsessed with crime statistics in Black communities. According to the Sentencing Project, “Researchers have shown that crime reporting exaggerates crime rates and exhibits both quantitative and qualitative racial biases. This includes a tendency . . to exaggerate rates of black offending and white victimization and to depict black suspects in a less favorable light than whites.“

Under the pretense of being concerned about the well-being of Black people, the liberal white local media in urban areas in particular, sensationalize crime with overblown coverage and hyper alertness. To be explicitly clear, it is a guise because we live in a system of racism/white supremacy - a system in which most white people (or the most powerful white people) seek to dominate or control non-white people with master-servant relations in all areas of people activity and most white people project and maintain unequal power and conditions in a white over Black system. Racists, either self-described as liberal or conservative, have no intention of changing this arrangement because they are the permanent enemy of non-white people. White liberals and conservatives spare no cost when it comes to placing Black people in greater confinement.Dr. Amos Wilson states,

"Given the historical and contemporary virulence of White racism in America and the injustice toward Blacks that such racism engenders, the number of arrests, incarcerations, and in many instances, convictions of Black males should be viewed with a jaundiced eye. The willingness of White Americans to heavily tax themselves in order to finance accelerated and increased prison construction, rapidly expanding police forces and so-called criminal justice system personnel, burgeoning private police and security establishments; their willingness to finance the incarcera­tion of a Black male prisoner upwards of $30,000 to $40,000 per year, in sharp contrast to their unwillingness to tax themselves to provide for the appropriate funding of the education of Black children and to commit themselves to the ending of racist employment practices; to provide adequate housing medical care, food and clothing; clearly implies that alleged Black male criminality plays a very important role in defining the collective White American ego and personality.” [MORE]

Homicides are Falling in Major American Cities: Down 12% Overall in 9 of the 10 Most Populous Cities, according to police data

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From [HERE] Homicides in some of America’s largest cities are falling after soaring during the first two years of the pandemic.

So far this year, killings are down 12% overall in nine of the 10 most populous cities compared with the same time frame last year, according to local government data.

Homicides are down in six of those cities, including 27% in Los Angeles, 22% in Houston, and 16% in Philadelphia. In Texas, the cities of Dallas, San Antonio and Austin reported slight upticks. San Diego didn’t provide data.

The 2023 data available from the cities had different end dates, ranging from April to this week.

Local officials and criminologists say conditions that drove the violence up in 2020 and 2021, such as rise in domestic disputes and a pause in gang-violence prevention programs during the pandemic, as well as a pullback in police enforcement after racial-justice protests over the murder of George Floyd, are receding.

Last year, the number of killings dropped 5% in 70 of the largest U.S. cities from 2021, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents police chiefs from large cities. 

“Obviously, things got so bad, we’re slowly chipping away at it,” said Danielle Outlaw, Philadelphia’s police commissioner.

Philadelphia reported a record 562 homicides in 2021. Outlaw said the closing of courts and schools during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic and the wave of protests calling to defund police departments affected policing.

This year, drug-related killings are down 56% and domestic homicides are down 22% in Philadelphia. Outlaw credited a new team of detectives that investigates all shootings, as well as the return of community anti-violence groups and regular schooling. She said police morale is up with more public support.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation isn’t expected to release national crime figures for 2022 until later this year. Murders rose 4% in 2021 after spiking bynearly 30% in 2020, according to the agency’s most recent data.

Racist Cops in (liberal) Philadelphia who Previously were Disciplined for Posting Hundreds of Comments About Brutalizing Black People are Allowed to Sue City as Court Revives Their 1st Amendment Suit

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GOVERNMENT TRYING TO KILL YOU. From [HERE] A dozen [white] Philadelphia police officers take to Facebook and post offensive comments about protestors, refugees, police brutality, the LGBTQ community, transgender people, Muslims, families with incarcerated fathers, and more. Following media coverage, several officers are disciplined. A First Amendment violation? District court: Nope. Case dismissed. Third Circuit(link is external): Well, maybe, at least at the pleadings stage. The Pickeringbalancing test (the standard governing when public employees constitutionally can be disciplined for their speech) is pretty fact-intensive. On top of that, it's not actually clear which of the officers' (many, many) posts were the basis for the disciplinary proceedings. To discovery the case must go. Case undismissed. And to be clear, “This Court does not condone the Appellant officers’ use of social media to mock, disparage, and threaten the very communities that they are sworn to protect.”

The case is Fenico v. City of Philadelphia(link is external), No. 22-1326 (3d Cir. June 8, 2023).

Do Cops Serve the Public or Themselves? Police Interest Groups Defeat Proposed CA Law that Would Have Limited the Use of Police Dogs to Attack People [63% of K-9 Attacks are On Blacks and Latinos]

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The one with the right to rule is the master; the one with the obligation to obey is the slave. And that is true even when people choose to describe the situation using inaccurate rhetoric and deceptive euphemisms, such as “representative government,” “consent of the governed,” and “will of the people.” The notion of “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” while it makes nice feel-good political rhetoric, is a logical impossibility. A ruling class cannot serve or represent those it rules any more than a slave owner can serve or represent his slaves. The only way he could do so is by ceasing to be a slave owner, by freeing his slaves. Likewise, the only way a ruling class could become a servant of the people is by ceasing to be a ruling class, by relinquishing all of its power. “Government” cannot serve the people unless it ceases to be “government.” - Larken Rose

From [HERE] After May 2020, California’s Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a wave of new laws to change how cops do their jobs, from banning chokeholds to decertifying officers with misconduct records and increasing investigations into fatal police shootings. 

Despite those wins for progressives, law enforcement groups flexed their power last week by blocking two controversial measures and securing changes to other bills that aim to limit the scope of their work.

Their victories underscore the significant sway that police unions and similar organizations still have in the state Capitol, where moderate Democrats and Republicans regularly team up to kill bills that law enforcement dislikes, despite the continued push by activists for more sweeping reforms. 

Here are two bills that police organizations stalled and another two that they successfully watered down before a key June 2 deadline: 

Allegedly governmental power comes from the people. That is, we delegate our individual power to the government for it to act on our behalf. However, it goes without saying that people cannot delegate powers or rights that they do not possess. So if people have delegated their powers to lawmakers and lawmakers have empowered police officers to act on our behalf, then how did police acquire the moral right to commit acts of unprovoked violence on people?

Asked differently, if you don’t have the right to initiate unprovoked acts of violence against other people then how can you delegate or authorize police officers or anyone else acting on your behalf to do so? How did government representatives and police acquire such super-human powers?

Failed: restricting the use of police dogs

Law enforcement made a bill to restrict when officers can use police dogs their biggest priority this year, and lobbied hard over the last several weeks to ensure it failed. 

Assembly Bill 742 would have banned police from using canines to arrest or apprehend people, unless there’s a threat of imminent death or serious bodily injury. The proposal still would have allowed cops to use the dogs for search and rescue and to detect narcotics and explosives.

In an opposition statement included in an analysis of the bill, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said that while some restrictions were warranted, AB 742 “severely restricts an officer’s ability to employ a proven, effective, and less lethal force option that can de-escalate other potentially life-threatening situations.” 

Black and Latino people accounted for roughly 63% of canine use-of-force incidents in 2021, according to data from the state Department of Justice. Advocates supporting the bill, including the ACLU, argued that California should eliminate police use of canines in part because of their association with historic acts of racism, pointing to police dogs being used to hunt and capture slaves and against protesters during the civil rights movement.

Lawmakers were not persuaded. The bill failed to garner enough votes to pass, and Assemblymember Corey Jackson (D-Perris) pulled it from consideration. 

“At the end of the day, law enforcement is good at policing everyone but themselves,” Jackson said, adding that he’s received multiple death threats for authoring the bill. 

Failed: banning consent searches during traffic stops

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles) figured the third anniversary of when a Minneapolis police officer killed Floyd would be a good opportunity to pass a bill to prohibit consent searches by officers. 

Instead, Assembly Bill 93 fell several votes short of passage, with more than two dozen Democrats opposing the measure or withholding their vote. The bill would have prohibited officers from asking for consent to search people and their vehicles during traffic stops without a warrant or other legal justification.

Bryan cited data that show the searches are disproportionately used against Black and brown people, who often don’t feel safe saying no to a consent search even if they are not doing anything illegal. 

“Guess who always says yes,” Bryan said. “Guess what happens if you say no.” 

The proposal was a top priority for the Legislative Black Caucus, and among the recommendations made by a high-profile criminal justice panel that advises state lawmakers on ways to reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system and avoid longer prison terms. 

Law enforcement groups worked hard to block the bill, which they characterized as the removal of a vital public safety tool that people voluntarily agree to. 

California Police Chiefs Assn. President Alex Gammelgard said that AB 93 “was a dangerous approach that would have made our communities less safe.”

“We can continue to make improvements to public safety without these types of broad prohibitions against legitimate police work,” Gammelgard said in a written statement. [MORE]

Liberal SF Authorities Continue to Violate Court Order on Sweeps of Homeless People as DPW Workers Accompanied by Cops Destroy People’s Only Possessions, Court filing says

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From [HERE] Early in the afternoon in late April, Steven Garrett left the tent that was his home near Octavia and Waller and went to the General Assistance Office.

When he returned, according to a declaration filed in SF Superior Court,  Department of Public Works crew had taken all of his possessions and thrown them in a pickup truck.

“I asked the DPW worker for him to give me my things back. He said he could not because the things were already in the truck,” Garrett said. “He did not bag and tag my things.”

Among the things taken:

My paperwork, tools that I needed for my work, socket wrench set, allen wrenches, phone chargers, all my food and the cooler it was in, an inflatable mattress, blankets and pillow, and all my clothes.

That’s against the law: The city can’t sweep homeless people off the streets unless there’s adequate shelter available—and they can’t take people’s stuff unless they put it in bags, attach tags that will allow the owner to reclaim it, and bring it to a place where the unhoused can go and get it back.

Garrett is not alone.

A legal filing by the Coalition on Homelessness cites a long list of specific cases, from 26 witnesses, where the city is violating a court order and conducting illegal sweeps.

BLACK WARD LONDON BREED GOES HARD AGAINST PEOPLE WHO LOOK JUST LIKE HER TO MAKE HER WHITE MASTERS HAPPY. NO TIME TO BE PERCEIVED AS SERVING HER OWN PEOPLE BY DELIVERING TANGIBLE, MATERIAL BENEFITS TO THEM WHEN THE WHITE LIBERALS ARE WATCHING.

FUNKTIONARY STATES:

BLACK WARD – A SUBVASSAL (STRAW BOSS), WHO HELD WARD OF THE KING’S VASSAL (A SPECIES OF SLAVE WHO OWES SERVITUDE AND IS IN A STATE OF DEPENDENCY ON A SUPERIOR LORD). THE VASSAL HIMSELF MIGHT BE OVERSEER OF SOME OTHER VASSALS. BLACK WARD IS THE ENGLISH EQUIVALENT TO THE BOULÉ IN GREEK. (SEE: SIGMA PI PHI, INFORMANT & STRAW BOSS)

“I frequently witnessed City workers destroy unhoused peoples’ property,” Dylan Verner-Crist, an ACLU investigator who has been monitoring the sweeps, said in a court filing. “At the sweep operations I attended, I watched City workers throw out usable sleeping bags, mattresses, clothes, furniture, tents, food, backpacks, suitcases, and other belongings, even when the belongings were evidently neither trash nor abandoned.”

From  Verner-Crist’s declaration:

At the encampment sweeps I attended, numerous unhoused reported that the City had either failed to offer them shelter or had offered them shelter that did not meet their needs and that, as a result, they could not accept. For instance, some encampment residents reported that the [Housing Outreach Team] workers had never spoken to them. Others reported the HOT workers had only offered them shelter in congregate housing, adding that they had previously been sexually assaulted or had severe psychiatric symptoms in such restrictive or unsafe settings.

The city is still dispatching armed police officers to address complaints about homeless people, records obtained by the Lawyers’ Committee show. Between December, 2022, when the injunction was issued, and May, 2023, SFPD officers responded to 1,120 calls for people sitting on the sidewalk and 3,166 times for “homeless complaints.”

“It’s still a law-enforcement response,” John Do, a lawyer for the ACLU, told me.

This, as Mayor London Breed is demanding more money for cops to address drug dealing and retail crime.

Meanwhile, the records show that police and city officials are repeatedly putting out misinformation about the court injunction, blaming the unhoused and their advocates for a situation that the city has failed to address.

The coalition, with the legal support of the ACLU, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and the firm of Latham and Watkins, has asked a federal magistrate to appoint a special master to monitor the city’s compliance with a court injunction that bars the city from rousting unhoused people unless there is adequate shelter available or taking their possessions without a process for getting them back.

At this point, the filing notes, only the ACLU and the Coalition are monitoring the situation—and when an ACLU investigator or a Coalition staffer is on site, cops and city workers are much more likely to follow the law.

But the two nonprofits don’t have the resources to monitor every sweep all over the city. From Jennifer Friedenbach, the coalition’s director:

After the issuance of the Court’s preliminary injunction, the Coalition has assumed that it would no longer need to closely monitor the City’s conduct. Unfortunately, the Coalition quickly learned that Healthy Streets Operation Center (HSOC) displacement operations would be proceeding as scheduled, and that San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) would still be dispatched in response to complaints about homeless individuals sleeping in public. … Our budget and our resources are extremely limited. This ad-hoc, reactive monitoring work is not sustainable for the Coalition and its mission.

From the legal filing:

San Francisco is not complying with this Court’s preliminary injunction. While attempting to stay and ultimately terminate the Court’s injunction, the City has persisted in routinely criminalizing homeless individuals who have no access to shelter and has indiscriminately destroyed their personal belongings. Plaintiffs have diverted their extremely limited resources to uncover and document these ongoing and numerous violations whenever possible. But the City has made it impossible for Plaintiffs or this Court to assess the extent of the City’s non-compliance by failing to provide the thousands of dispatch reports, incident reports, and other enforcement and property logs that would show how many law enforcement interactions have violated the Court’s injunction to date. [MORE]

San Francisco Mall Turned Over to Lender as Downtown Struggles

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The owner of the Westfield San Francisco Centre said Monday it is turning the shopping mall over to its lender, in another blow to the city’s struggling downtown.

The decision comes six weeks after the mall’s main anchor, Nordstrom, announced it was shutting down the location.

San Francisco Centre owner Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield cited “challenging operating conditions” in downtown San Francisco, which it said have led to declines in sales, occupancy and foot traffic. There has been an exodus of retailers and other businesses from the mid-Market Street area of downtown amid rampant public drug use and homelessness.

“We have made the difficult decision to begin the process to transfer management of the shopping center to our lender to allow them to appoint a receiver to operate the property going forward,” the French mall operator said in a statement. “San Francisco Centre’s debt is non-recourse and this action has no impact on the rest of URW’s debt.” [MORE]

7 Decades After the Brown Case Fed Court Orders Mississippi Schools to Integrate. Should Racists Educate Black Children? [Racism can't be integrated. Racism can either be practiced or not practiced]

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A PUBLIC FOOL SYSTEM CREATING BLACK FOOLS. SHOULD RACISTS, WHO ARE THE PERMANENT ENEMIES OF BLACK PEOPLE, EDUCATE BLACK CHILDREN in the public fool system? FOR WHAT PURPOSEs ARE THEY BEING EDUCATED FOR? A RECENT LAWSUIT AGAINST THE DETROIT PUBLIC FOOL SYSTEM STATED, ‘Black children sit in classrooms where not even the pretense of education takes place, in schools that are functionally incapable of delivering access to literacy.’ [MORE]

THE “ARTILLERY” ABOVE IS FROM RASHID JOHNSON

From [HERE] Federal courts have issued desegregation orders for 32 school districts in Mississippi, the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division's assistant attorney general said Thursday.

The desegregation orders fit into a broader body of civil rights work launched in Mississippi that is examining jails, police departments and hate crimes in the state, according to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Referring to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation of public schools across the country, she said the Justice Department is ensuring school districts provide Black students in Mississippi with equal access to education programs.

"In our ongoing efforts to fulfill the promise of Brown vs. Board of Education, we currently have 32 open cases with school districts here in Mississippi," Clarke said. "And in each of those cases, we are working to ensure that these districts comply with desegregation orders from courts."

Clarke spoke to a small group of residents, local leaders and reporters Thursday at the Holmes County Circuit Court Complex in Lexington, about 62 miles (99.78 kilometers) from Jackson, the state capital. Mississippi is the latest stop in Clarke's "listening tour" throughout the Deep South.

The Justice Department is learning where to direct resources and where it might need to mount civil rights lawsuits, she said.

Mississippi has the highest percentage of Black residents of any state. It has been home, as have other states, to legal fights over desegregation. In 2017, a Mississippi Delta school district agreed to merge two high schools after nearly 50 years of litigation in which the district sought to maintain historically Black and white schools.

In addition to school districts, Clarke said at least five Mississippi jails and prisons have come under federal scrutiny. The department is looking into whether the facilities protect prisoners from violence and meet housing standards. The facilities include the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, the South Mississippi Correctional Institution, the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility and a Hinds County jail.

Clarke also said her division is investigating whether Rankin County sheriff's deputies used excessive force when they shot Michael Corey Jenkins in the mouth during an alleged drug raid. An Associated Press investigation found that several deputies from the department have been involved in at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.

Mississippi has the highest percentage of Black residents of any state. It has been home, as have other states, to legal fights over desegregation. In 2017, a Mississippi Delta school district agreed to merge two high schools after nearly 50 years of litigation in which the district sought to maintain historically Black and white schools. [MORE]

Racist Suspect NY Assembly Creates a Commission on Reparations [real purpose is to Divert Blacks from Dealing w/Present Economic/Political Conditions to Focus Them on an Illusory Pot of Gold]

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From [HERE] The New York State Assembly and Senate passed legislation Thursday to establish a state commission on reparations for slavery. If Governor Kathy Hochul signs the bill into law, New York will become the second state with such a commission, following the creation of California’s Reparations Task Force in 2020.

The legislation will establish a commission of nine members. Three members will be appointed by the state’s governor, three by the speaker of the assembly, and three by the temporary president of the senate. The commission will meet within 180 days of the legislation’s enactment. A report recommending possible remedies and reparations will be prepared within one year of the commission’s first meeting.

The legislation’s text contains a thorough history of racially motivated oppression in the State of New York, beginning in the 1600s. The goal of the bill is to examine the institutions of slavery and discrimination and to undo what it calls “a legacy of generational poverty.”

New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie praised the legislation was as “historic” and “an important step in changing a long history of systemic racism and discrimination.”

California’s own state reparations commission recently submitted a nearly 500-page report in early June with recommendations. California’s recommendations include repeals of certain provisions of the state penal code prohibiting incarcerated people from voting and to serving on juries as well as free tuition for qualifying African-American high school graduates.

COMPLETE CHART AND SOURCES IS HERE. ALSO A WASHINGTON POST-ABC NEWS POLL FOUND WIDE OPPOSITION TO REPARATIONS AND GALLUP FOUND THAT NEARLY 70% OF AMERICANS ARE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT PROVIDING CASH PAYMENTS TO SLAVES' DESCENDANTS. [MORE]

According to FUNKTIONARY:

Reparation(s) – satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it. Through this analytic-equation, now you know why our ancestors didn’t get an ass and 40 acres as you nor your posterior will ever likely receive any…so remember—Free Your Mind…Watch Your Ass, because this will never, in any substantive form, come to pass. One danger in reparations is the notion that white America can actually pay for what happened. They can never pay for the level of meta-genocide, mentacide, psycho-spiritual pain and suffering experienced by more than score plus four generations of African descendants dislocated in Amerikka. Reparations are a strategic diversionary tactic in the rebellion towards total liberation, because as the Afrikan People’s Intelligence Minister Steve Cokely aptly quips, “You cannot have reparation and exploitation at the same time.” (See: AfriCash, Rebellion, White Supremacy & Capital Punishment)

Liberal Authorities in NYC to Track Residents’ Food Purchases and Place ‘Caps on Meat’ Served by Public Institutions

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From [HERE] New York City will begin tracking the carbon footprint of household food consumption and putting caps on how much red meat can be served in public institutions as part of a sweeping initiative to achieve a 33% reduction in carbon emissions from food by 2030.

Mayor Eric Adams and representatives from the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy and Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice announced the new programs last month at a Brooklyn culinary center run by NYC Health + Hospitals, the city’s public healthcare system, just before Earth Day.

At the event, the Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice shared a new chart to be included in the city’s annual greenhouse gas inventory that publicly tracks the carbon footprint created by household food consumption, the Gothamist reported.

The city already produced emissions data from energy use, transportation and waste as part of the annual inventory. But the addition of household food consumption data is part of a partnership that London and New York launched with American Express, C40 Cities and EcoData lab, Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala from the NYC Department of Environmental Protection announced at the event.

Aggarwala — who founded Google smart city subsidiary Sidewalk Labs — celebrated the expanded data collection as forging “a new standard for what cities have to do” and a new way to shape policy.

He said the inventory also will measure greenhouse gas pollution from the production and consumption of other consumer goods like apparel, whether or not those items are made in New York City. It also tracks emissions tied to services like air travel and healthcare.

But Adams’ presentation at the event focused on food consumption, particularly meat and dairy.

“Food is the third-biggest source of cities’ emissions right after buildings and transportation,” Adams said. “But all food is not created equal. The vast majority of food that is contributing to our emission crises lies in meat and dairy products.”

He added:

“It is easy to talk about the emissions that’s coming from buildings and how it impacts our environment, but we now have to talk about beef. And I don’t know if people are ready for this conversation.”

Adams — a vegan who, according to a whistleblower, also eats fish, credits his “plant-based diet” for his recovery from diabetes. He is the author of “Healthy at Last: A Plant-Based Approach to Preventing and Reversing Diabetes and Other Chronic Illnesses,” a vegan cookbook.

Adams claims that changing New Yorkers’ eating habits will have both climate and health benefits. He said:

“We already know that a plant-powered diet is better for your physical and mental health, and I am living proof of that. But the reality is that thanks to this new inventory, we’re finding out it is better for the planet.”

But agricultural economists and regenerative farmers say that calculation isn’t actually that simple.

“Different meats have different kinds of greenhouse gas footprints” because of differences in the production systems and “all land is not created equal” Melissa McKendree, Ph.D., an agricultural economist at Michigan State University, told The Defender.

Land that is suitable for cattle production, such as rangeland and pasture, often isn’t suitable for other types of agriculture, and vice versa. And all of those different ecosystems for different plants and animals, when working well, work together to create a healthy ecosystem.

Alternative grazing systems, like the regenerative agricultural systems that McKendree researches, make it possible for pasture-raised beef “to sequester carbon, and to become a carbon sink” — actually reducing the greenhouse gas footprint of food production rather than adding to it.

Regenerative livestock farmer Will Harris told The Defender, “As a practitioner who has been regenerating depleted land for 30+ years I can tell you that regenerating land is about restarting the cycles of nature that have been broken by industrial farming — and restarting those cycles cannot be done cost effectively without animal impact.”

He continued:

“All ecosystems evolved with certain kinds of animal impact and to say we’ve misused technologies to break these cycles of nature and we are going to start them back by leaving out this essential ingredient that has been around for millennia is wrong.

“Sadly there is a percentage of the populace that for whatever reason has decided that animals in the ecosystem are bad and the way to have a healthier planet is to give up that animal impact.

“Many of us have proven that there is benefit, ecological benefit to having animal impact in the equation. It has to be done right, but when it is done right there is an ecological benefit, an ecological service that we provide.

“But this sector of society is so committed to the vegetarian vegan solution, that it doesn’t matter what we demonstrate, they are going to paint us with that same brush.

“They drown out our voices by screaming the same misapplied science over and over and over.”

Organization behind 15-minute city is mapping consumption-based emissions for New York and London

The partnership between American Express, New York, London and C40 Cities to map urban emissions was formally launched last week in a C40 press release. The groups will map the consumption-based emissions of both New York and London.

The press release does not make the purpose of emissions mapping inventories explicit. It simply states the inventories “will enable London and New York City to develop a suite of actions to incentivise more sustainable consumption in collaboration with people and businesses.”

It adds that the project “will also pioneer new ways for other cities to measure emissions from urban consumption,” adding that there is an “urgent need to reduce the emissions impact of urban consumption, especially what is eaten and the waste in food systems.”

To that end, “Building data inventories in partnership with city businesses (such as supermarket chains and retailers) is important for cities to measure, plan and act to ensure our cities become better places to live for all people and sustainable business can thrive.”

The press release bases its claims on a report by the University of Leeds and developer Arup Group.

Arup is a Rockefeller-supported, World Economic Forum-affiliated organization that uses “fourth industrial revolution” technologies to transform cities. They promise that immense quantities of highly detailed data,” can produce a “new level of control” making possible “more efficient and sustainable use of the world’s precious materials.” [MORE]

DoGooder Liberals Trying to Get Paid Off COVID: Large NYC Housing Provider for Mentally ill and Formerly Homeless People Evicting Hundreds of [mostly Black] Tenants to Collect $Millions in Back Rent

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From [HERE] One of the largest providers of housing for mentally ill and formerly homeless people in New York City has started hundreds of eviction cases in an attempt to collect millions of dollars in rent that its tenants failed to pay during the pandemic, according to a new analysis of housing court records.

The housing developer, Breaking Ground, has filed to evict the tenants in about 345 of its more than 4,300 apartments since January 2022, according to SHOUT, an advocacy group for low-income and formerly homeless tenants that compiled the data. The cases came after a pandemic-era moratorium on evictions was lifted.

The analysis captures a longstanding practice among nonprofit housing providers that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, legal experts said: threatening to evict low-income tenants who are behind on rent as a tactic to prod the city to give those tenants rental assistance more quickly. The lawsuits come at a time when the city is dealing with record-high homelessness and surging demand for shelter from migrant asylum seekers.

Very few of the cases have led to evictions, but critics of the approach say that the lawsuits are an unnecessary hardship for some of the most vulnerable renters in the city, many of whom have lived on the streets or in shelters for years. They are also emblematic, they said, of dysfunction within the city’s social safety net, at a time when budget cuts are straining numerous departments.

“It’s a startling number of cases,” said Jenny Akchin, a lawyer with TakeRoot Justice, a nonprofit legal services group. “This has been standard operating procedure,” she said, “but it doesn’t have to be, and it really shouldn’t be.”

Another developer, CAMBA, has petitioned to evict more than a quarter of residents from one of its buildings in Brooklyn, according to court records.

The housing providers say the lawsuits are necessary, as a last resort, to recoup rent they rely on to operate the buildings and pay down debt.

They acknowledge that the filings are designed to trigger actions in court that can speed up the process of receiving a so-called one-shot deal — a lump-sum payment of emergency rental assistance that tenants can receive from the city’s Human Resources Administration to cover back rent.

The agency is struggling to meet the demand for one-shot deals and other cash assistance grants for tenants. In early May, the Department of Social Services said that its caseload was up 43 percent since before the pandemic. Staffing shortages are hampering the department, according to a city comptroller report. [MORE]

Black Power or Powerless? Black Elected Officials Are at All Levels in NYC but Report Finds 58% of Black Households and 65% of Latinos Live Below the Cost of Living, Unable to Afford to Live in City

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Elected Black puppeticians and appointed strawboss authorities at all levels of government have not translated into power for Black people. Black people have no power to prevent racists from practicing racism and no power to force remedies even for the most egregious injustices. [MORE]

According to FUNKTIONARY:

BASSO – The Bait And Switch Sell-Out. The BASSO is a Neo-Negro shuffle performed by those who have bent over and touched their toes in order to be “loved” and accepted by the culture bandits. 2) the South Benders. (See: SNigger, Crossover, Criss-Crossover, Conservative Negro, Sambo, Uncle Tom-Tom, Hindlick Maneuver & Uncle Tom)

From [HERE] New York City is staring down the worst affordability crisis of the last two decades, according to a new report released on Tuesday. A full half of the city’s households did not have enough money to comfortably hold down an apartment, access sufficient food and basic health care, and get around, the report said.

The study is the latest piece of evidence to demonstrate the depth of the crisis, which is reshaping local demographics and culture in real time.

Public officials have been particularly alarmed by a significant drop in public school enrollment, which accelerated during the worst of the pandemic and is driven in part by Black families leaving the city over concerns about the cost of living. Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have both made tackling the lack of affordability a priority, but it is unclear whether they will be able to make meaningful changes, particularly around housing.

The city is experiencing an acute shortage of affordable housing, an enormous problem that shows few signs of abating. Ms. Hochul’s push to build more housing across the state appears to have failed in recent state budget negotiations. Nearly 80 percent of households that did not bring in enough to meet the minimum cost of living in the city ended up contributing more than 30 percent of their income to housing, the study found.

The report was released Tuesday by the Fund for the City of New York, which advises government agencies and was established by the Ford Foundation in 1968, and the United Way of New York City. The reports’ authors used U.S. Census data from 2021 along with a measure that calculates the baseline for affordability for New York City families.

The study found that New Yorkers are even worse off than after the nadir of the pandemic. The groups’ 2021 report found that just over a third of city households could not keep up with the cost of living at the time, a figure that has since risen. The findings in this year’s report may partially reflect the challenges that low-income New Yorkers have faced when pandemic-era safety net programslike stimulus checks and child tax credits expired.

The percentage of households struggling to afford basic needs in the city was higher than any other year in the report’s two-decade history of studying the cost of living. Households in all five boroughs needed to be pulling in at least $100,000 to afford housing, food and transportation, and to have a shot at being able to plan for the future, the study found. In southern Manhattan, home to some of the most expensive ZIP codes in the country, families with two adults and two children needed to make at least $150,000 combined.

The actual median household income in the city was hovering around $70,000, according to the most recent Census data.

At the same time, food prices have risen steadily amid stubborn inflation, and public transportation officials have warned of looming fare hikes.

What to Know About Affordable Housing in New York

A worsening crisis. New York City is in a dire housing crunch, exacerbated by the pandemic, that has made living in the city more expensive and increasingly out of reach for many people. Here is what to know:

A longstanding shortage. While the city always seems to be building and expanding, experts say it is not fast enough to keep up with demand. Zoning restrictions, the cost of building and the ability by politicians to come up with a solution are among the barriers to increasing the supply of housing.

Rising costs. The city regulates the rents of many apartments, but more than one-third of renters in the city are still severely rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than 50 percent of their income on rent, according to city data. Property owners say higher rents are necessary for them to deal with the growing burden of taxes and rising expenses for property maintenance.

Public housing. Thousands of people are on waitlists for public housing in buildings overseen by the New York City Housing Authority. But it has been years since the city’s public housing system has received enough funds to deal with the many issues that have made it an emblem of neglect, and plummeting rent payments from residents threaten to make things worse.

The report was released Tuesday by the Fund for the City of New York, which advises government agencies and was established by the Ford Foundation in 1968, and the United Way of New York City. The reports’ authors used U.S. Census data from 2021 along with a measure that calculates the baseline for affordability for New York City families.

The study found that New Yorkers are even worse off than after the nadir of the pandemic. The groups’ 2021 report found that just over a third of city households could not keep up with the cost of living at the time, a figure that has since risen. The findings in this year’s report may partially reflect the challenges that low-income New Yorkers have faced when pandemic-era safety net programslike stimulus checks and child tax credits expired.

The percentage of households struggling to afford basic needs in the city was higher than any other year in the report’s two-decade history of studying the cost of living. Households in all five boroughs needed to be pulling in at least $100,000 to afford housing, food and transportation, and to have a shot at being able to plan for the future, the study found. In southern Manhattan, home to some of the most expensive ZIP codes in the country, families with two adults and two children needed to make at least $150,000 combined.

The actual median household income in the city was hovering around $70,000, according to the most recent Census data.

Black Probotic MD Governor Grins A Lot but Delivers Little to Black Residents: 1/3 of Blacks and 46% of Latino Families Have Food Insufficiency and 80% of All households Behind on Rent are Non-White

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ABOVE SIR GRIN A’LOT WESLEY MOORE ALWAYS PROMOTES ON THE ONGOING SMILING FACE TO MAKE RACIST LIBERALS FEEL SAFER AROUND THEIR SERVANTS.

From [HERE] With the federal health emergency nearing its end in mid-May, low-income Marylanders are still struggling with food insecurity and the costs of everyday household items, according to a statewide hunger-relief non-profit.

“Between inflation and the end of government pandemic emergency aid, the need for food assistance in Maryland remains high as the rates of food affordability, financial hardship, and food insufficiency continue to trend upward across all income groups,” according to a press release from the Maryland Food Bank.

According to the Maryland Food Bank, 36% of Maryland families surveyed reported that their children were sometimes not eating enough due to the cost of food, which is 12% higher than the previous month. This data comes from an analysis of the Household Pulse Survey data from the U.S. Census as of April 19.

Food insufficiencies have risen drastically among low-income and struggling families. Between March and April, the percent of families with incomes between $35,000 to $50,000 that reported struggling with food insecurity increased from 33% to 56%.

Similarly, the share of families earning between $50,000 to $70,000 experiencing food insecurity increased from 6% in March to 26% in April.

In addition, the percent of Marylanders reporting financial hardship, meaning the ability to pay for usual household expenses, has gone up from 36% in March to 38% in April, according to the Maryland Food Bank analysis.

Specifically non-white families have been hard the hardest. According to the report, 31% of Blacks and 46% of Latino families struggle with food insecurity, food insufficiency and meeting routine household costs. Additionally, 80% of behind all households behind on rent are non-white.

“For so much of the last three years, Marylanders were able to rely on emergency aid from the government to get through the pandemic, but now that those programs have expired and costs for everything continue to rise, we’re seeing the true prevalence of hunger in our state,” Carmen Del Guercio, president and CEO of Maryland Food Bank, said in a written statement.

The press release points to the end of a temporary boost for people using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP benefits), as a factor for continuing food insecurity and unaffordability.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, people using SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps, received additional support throughout the COVID pandemic. But those emergency allotments ended in February, even as inflation remains a concern for the country.

Supreme Ct Rejects Alabama Congressional Maps as Racially Gerrymandered

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From [HERE] In a 5-4 vote, the US Supreme Court found Thursday in Allen v. Milligan that Alabama’s legislature violated the voting rights of Black Alabamians with the composition of the state’s congressional maps. Based upon section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the court found that Alabama’s newly redrawn congressional maps closed off the political process to minority voters, denying them equal opportunity in Alabama’s voting processes. Alabama’s legislature must now redraw the maps, which previously “packed” most of the state’s Black population into just one of Alabama’s seven congressional districts.

Plaintiffs filed the case in November 2021 because they claimed that the way the Alabama legislature drew the state’s congressional maps was “malapportioned and racially gerrymandered.” Despite Black residents accounting for 27 percent of Alabama’s population, the legislature “packed” nearly all of the state’s Black voters into one congressional district. The plaintiffs argued that this reduced Black voters’ right to equal voting power under the Voting Rights Act, especially when compared to the state’s other six majority-white congressional districts.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts relied upon Thornburg v. Gingles precedent which established a three-prong test to evaluate section 2 claims under the Voting Rights Act. The court reinforced the use of the three-pronged Gingles analysis: (1) the minority group bringing the section 2 claim must be “sufficiently large and…compact” enough to constitute a majority in one of the state’s districts; (2) the minority group must show it is politically cohesive; and (3) the minority group must show that the state’s white majority carries enough voting power “to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate.”

The court found that the plaintiffs satisfied all three prongs in this case, upholding the lower court’s decision. The court found no reason to disturb a district court finding in the case, which commented that “Black Alabamians enjoy virtually zero success in statewide elections.”

The court then rejected Alabama’s attempts to change the court’s approach to section 2 claims. Alabama first argued that their map, as opposed to maps generated by the plaintiffs, should win out because they adhered to an older version of the congressional map. The court disagreed, saying, “If that were the rule, a State could immunize from challenge a new racial discriminatory redistricting plan simply by claiming that it resembled an old racially discriminatory plan.” Alabama then argued that the court should instead adopt a “race-neutral benchmark” to resolve section 2 claims, wherein computer mapping software generates congressional maps without considering race at all. The court said such a benchmark would fail to account for the totality of the circumstances and found it “compelling neither in theory nor in practice.”

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen—the named defendant in Thursday’s decision—stated he was “disappointed” in the court’s decision. Nevertheless, Allen swore to “comply with all applicable election laws” moving forward in redrawing the state’s maps.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) labeled the decision a “historic win for voting rights,” and the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF) called it “a landmark moment to move the needle in the right direction.”

Plaintiffs from the case also released a joint statement, reading in part, “Today, the Supreme Court reminded them of that responsibility by ordering a new map be drawn that complies with federal law – one that recognizes the diversity in our state rather than erasing it.”

Black Non-Profit Organizations Oppose New Death Penalty Laws in Several States, Citing Disproportionate Effect on Black and Latino Communities

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From [HERE] Black-led organizations are opposing legislative efforts in several states to reintroduce or expand use of the death penalty.  Lawmakers in Illinois and New Jersey have introduced legislation to reinstate the death penalty, while other legislators in Tennessee and Florida have proposed bills which would increase its use. Tennessee Senate Bill 1112 would require an execution to be carried out within 30 days of sentencing. Governor DeSantis recently signed legislation that nullified jury unanimity by requiring only eight jurors to recommend a death sentence, and Senate Bill 1342 would prevent a Florida judge from reducing a jury’s recommendation for death sentence to life imprisonment.

In an article published in The Hill, Jamila Hodge, Executive Director of Equal Justice USA, said “If the death penalty is reinstated, or if we start seeing it applied more, we can expect it’s going to be applied in a disproportionate way and that those are the same racial disparities that we have seen over years. My concern is [the number of defendants of color sentenced to death] may even increase because the rhetoric lately has been so much stronger. We have to know that if we’re going to punish more, that it’s going to be disproportionately borne by Black and Brown communities.”

In addition to opposing the death penalty, Black-led organizations such as Equal Justice USA and REFORM are working to address the systemic inequities that affect many communities of color, including poverty, lack of opportunity, and inaccessibility to mental health resources. Robert Rooks (pictured, right), Chief Executive Officer of REFORM, stated, “There are many reasons why someone ends up in a criminal justice system…something happened, broke down. They are dealing with perhaps substance abuse, mental health issues, or frankly, they could be poor and not have a place to stay. I think you not only just help the individual, but you help the community when you find out what those root causes are and then you start working to address them.”

New Study Finds that Over the Past 2 Decades Higher Mortality Rates Among Blacks Have Resulted in 1.63 Million Excess Deaths Relative to Whites

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From [HERE] Research has long shown that Black people live sicker lives and die younger than white people.

Now a new study, published in JAMA, casts the nation’s racial inequities in stark relief, finding that the higher mortality rate among Black Americans resulted in 1.63 million excess deaths relative to white Americans over more than two decades.

Because so many Black people die young — with many years of life ahead of them — their higher mortality rate from 1999 to 2020 resulted in a cumulative loss of more than 80 million years of life compared with the white population, the study showed.

Although the nation made progress in closing the gap between white and Black mortality rates from 1999 to 2011, that advance stalled from 2011 to 2019. In 2020, the enormous number of deaths from covid-19 — which hit Black Americans particularly hard — erased two decades of progress.

Authors of the study describe it as a call to action to improve the health of Black Americans, whose early deaths are fueled by higher rates of heart disease, cancer, and infant mortality.

“The study is hugely important for about 1.63 million reasons,” said Herman Taylor, an author of the study and director of the cardiovascular research institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine.

“Real lives are being lost. Real families are missing parents and grandparents,” Taylor said. “Babies and their mothers are dying. We have been screaming this message for decades.”

High mortality rates among Black people have less to do with genetics than with the country’s long history of discrimination, which has undermined educational, housing, and job opportunities for generations of Black people, said Clyde Yancy, an author of the study and chief of cardiology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

Black neighborhoods that were redlined in the 1930s — designated too “high risk” for mortgages and other investments — remain poorer and sicker today, Yancy said. Formerly redlined ZIP codes also had higher rates of covid infection and death. “It’s very clear that we have an uneven distribution of health,” Yancy said. “We’re talking about the freedom to be healthy.” [MORE]

Fed Court Sentences “Well Financed" Assassin who Murdered Haitian President Jovenel Moïse - Killed Shortly After He Rejected COVID Shots and Sought Real Vaccines [Haiti was Never Impacted by COVID]

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From [HERE] Rodolfe Jaar was sentenced to life in prison Friday by Judge Jose Martinez of the Southern District of Florida for his role in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise. In Jaar’s March plea agreement, he admitted to “knowingly and willfully” providing weapons and personnel in furtherance of the plot.

Jaar’s original indictment alleges that a group of 20 Colombian nationals with military backgrounds were recruited to “assist in the execution of a purported Haitian arrest warrant for President Moise.” Jaar allegedly housed several of those recruited for the plot and was in charge of providing weapons to the group. The indictment goes on to allege that:

…Jaar was present when co-conspirator #1 secured the signature of a former Haitian judge on a written request for assistance to further the arrest and imprisonment of President Moise, as well as purporting to provide Haitian immunity for such actions.

Said assassins were reportedly “well financed” and included at least one highly decorated soldier who received training from the United States and another who has been implicated in the murder of Colombian civilians. [MORE]

One week after Haiti's president was assassinated, the country's first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines finally arrived. President Jovenel Moïse was allegedly shot a dozen times in his private residence on July 7. Prior to his murder Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, was the only nation that hadn’t vaccinated a single resident against Covid-19.

Haiti was among the 92 poor and middle-income countries offered doses under the Covax Facility. But the government initially declined AstraZeneca PLC shots, citing side effects and widespread fears in the population.

“Haiti did not reject the offer of vaccines from Covax,” Haiti Ministry of Health General Director Laure Adrien said in a telephone interview. “All we asked was that they change the vaccine they were providing us.” [MORE]

The indictment goes on to allege that at least some of the conspirators thought the plan was to assassinate, rather than merely “arrest” or kidnap, Moise. Several conspirators then entered Moise’s home on July 7, 2021, killing Moise and injuring his wife.

The US has arrested several other alleged conspirators in South Florida, the alleged location where the assassination plan was devised. Samir Nasri Salem Handal has also been accused of participating in the plot, but Türkiye has refused to extradite him.

Haiti has been in political turmoil for some time, with the US Department of State warning travelers to avoid the country due to violent crime, kidnappings and political unrest. The US has also designated several political figures as being “involved in significant corruption” including former Haitian Prime Minister and Minister of Planning and External Cooperation Laurent Salvador Lamothe and former President of the Haitian Chamber of Deputies Gary Bodeau.

The Organization of American States (OAS) General Secretariat on Haiti has called on the international community to better support Haiti, saying, “Without the basic conditions of democracy and security, the country today is suffering from the international community’s lack of ideas and real capacity, as well as from its own structural problems.”