[guest post by Dana]

Good morning. Here are a few news items for you to chew over. Feel free to share any items that you think readers would find interesting. Please make sure to include links.

First news item

Wait. Didn’t he tell us he had met with black leaders before setting the date??:

We had previously scheduled our #MAGA Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for June 19th – a big deal. Unfortunately, however, this would fall on the Juneteenth Holiday. Many of my African American friends and supporters have reached out to suggest that we consider changing the date out of respect for this Holiday, and in observance of this important occasion and all that it represents. I have therefore decided to move our rally to Saturday, June 20th, in order to honor their requests. We have already had ticket requests in excess of 200,000 people. I look forward to seeing everyone in Oklahoma!

Second news item

Just stop with the visual stunts:

The announcement did not warrant such a visual stunt, but the Democratic Party, the party of optics and gesture, apparently could not resist. On Monday, members of Congress introduced the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, news that was bulldozed by the pageant antics accompanying it. Swathed in identical kente stoles, the lawmakers, intent on conveying solidarity with their constituents, only made themselves models of obtuseness.

Knock off the tokenism, dear Democrats:

I had to say something about the American politicians shameless and ignorantly using the Kente fabric as a prop in their virtue signaling.

*I’m usually more mild mannered than this so please forgive me, I’m upset. pic.twitter.com/aZMjgsHujS

— Obianuju Ekeocha (@obianuju) June 8, 2020

Third news item

Consider yourself warned:

For over 12 years, the Cornell cat did not pounce. Though there were frequent and aggressive attempts by outsiders to get me fired, including threats and harassment, it always came from off campus.

I made great efforts to keep this website separate from my work. I did not write about Cornell that frequently, and rarely about the law school itself. Nonetheless, the website and my political views were the elephant in every room, because the website is widely read, particularly by non-liberal students. Over the years, many students approached me privately and behind closed doors to express gratitude that someone was able to speak up, because they remained politically silent out of fear of social ostracization with the related possible career damage from falsely being accused of one of the “-ists” or “-isms.”

Not until now, to the best of my knowledge, has there been an effort from inside the Cornell community to get me fired.

From the law school Dean:

…. In light of this deep and rich tradition of walking the walk of racial justice, in no uncertain terms, recent blog posts of Professor William Jacobson, casting broad and categorical aspersions on the goals of those protesting for justice for Black Americans, do not reflect the values of Cornell Law School as I have articulated them. I found his recent posts to be both offensive and poorly reasoned…. But to take disciplinary action against him for the views he has expressed would fatally pit our values against one another in ways that would corrode our ability to operate as an academic institution.”

Fourth news item

City leaders want AG office to open investigation:

In 2006, Cariol Horne, a black Buffalo police officer, intervened when a white officer, Gregory Kwiatkowski, had a black suspect, David Mack, in a chokehold. Horne jumped on Kwiatkowski’s back to prevent him from harming Mack. In 2008, she was fired from the Buffalo Police Department for her intervention in that case and lost her pension.

Horne, who had been on the force for 19 years, was just one year away from earning her pension. The Buffalo Police Department investigated the incident and its final report said Horne’s actions put her fellow officers in danger.

…

“She’s a woman, and a black woman, and she broke the wall of silence,” she said. “So basically (the department said) let’s get rid of her because she’s somebody that we can’t depend on to be silent in matters like this.”

Fifth news item

Trump on police: ‘You’ll always have a bad apple…: [Yes, but one bad apple spoils the whole barrel. Ed]:

Dismissing police misconduct as the work of only a few “bad apples,” Mr. Trump strongly defended law enforcement agencies and made clear he had little interest in broader legislation being debated in Congress. At a round-table discussion he convened in a Dallas church before hosting a campaign fund-raiser, the president derided activists calling for defunding or dismantling police departments.

“Instead, we have to go the opposite way,” Mr. Trump said. “We must invest more energy and resources in police training and recruiting and community engagement. We have to respect our police — we have to take care of our police. They’re protecting us, and if they’re allowed to do their job, they’ll do a great job. You always have a bad apple no matter where you go. You have bad apples. There are not too many of them, and I can tell you there are not too many of them in the police department.”

Sixth news item

Let’s pray that they are right:

There is plenty of evidence that existing vaccines such as polio vaccines protect children against a wide range of infections and it’s worth trying them out against the new coronavirus, a team of experts wrote in Science magazine Thursday.

An oral polio vaccine is safe, cheap, easy to give and widely available, with more than 1 billion doses produced and used annually in more than 140 countries, according to the team, which includes one of the scientists who discovered HIV and a vaccine expert from the Food and Drug Administration. The vaccine has nearly eradicated polio worldwide.

“We propose the use of OPV (oral poliovirus vaccine ) to ameliorate or prevent COVID-19. Both poliovirus and coronavirus are positive-strand RNA viruses; therefore, it is likely that they may induce and be affected by common innate immunity mechanisms,” they wrote. ” … Oral poliovirus vaccine in particular, could provide temporary protection against coronavirus disease.”

–Dana