BEWARE...SOME DAYS ARE NOT VERY PRETTY. I GET CRABBY LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE DO. AND I DO SPEAK MY MIND.
DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO TRUE, REAL, EVERYDAY FEELINGS LIKE MINE.(But I think you would enjoy it)
DON'T FORGET...FREEDOM OF SPEECH !
Speaking
on Tuesday, the president-elect said he and vice president-elect Harris
had taken Covid-19 vaccines publically to “instill confidence” in them,
when he misspoke.
Ms Harris had received her vaccine dose
publicly some hours earlier, as American lawmakers and officials try to
build public trust in the vaccine programme.
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“I
took it to instill confidence in the vaccine,” said Mr Biden, who was
speaking from Wilmington, Delaware. He received a vaccine dose last
week, also live on air.
“President-elect Harris took hers today
for the same reason,” he then added, while accidentally referring to his
running mate as the president-elect.
The 78-year-old has made the
same mistake in the past, saying on the campaign trail several months
ago that there would be a “Harris administration”.
Mr Biden, who
will assume the United States presidency on 20 January, went on to warn
that vaccines were being rolled-out too slowly by the Trump
administration.
And at the current pace, said the president-elect, “it’s gonna take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people.”
“As
I long feared and warned the effort to distribute and administer the
vaccine is not progressing as it should,” he added, while warning that
“things will get worse before they get better”.
According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday, around 11.4
million vaccine doses have been distributed.
Viral
video of Chicago house party reveals disconnect between black youth and
media during coronavirus. ‘Dialogue needs to happen about what we’re
going to do to keep black Americans alive.’
House parties are meant to be a thing of the past now that COVID-19 has turned into a pandemic.
But on April 25, a viral video showed a gathering of dozens
of people in the Northwest Side neighborhood of Galewood at a memorial
party for two friends who died of gun violence years ago. The video drew
such a level of nationwide vitriol on social media that Mayor Lori
Lightfoot blasted the revelers as “foolish and reckless,” and Gov. J.B.
Pritzker criticized the partygoers for “putting everyone around you in
danger.” (Tribune columnist, Dahleen Glanton,
wrote an open letter to the black kids who partied, citing the reality
of killing loved ones “without even knowing that you are carrying a
weapon.”) Chicago police have subsequently said they cited the homeowner
with disorderly conduct Monday.
A screenshot from the now viral Chicago house party in city's Galewood
neighborhood that occurred during the stay at home order. (YouTube)
With so much conversation about the event, The Triibe, a digital media
platform that tells stories of black Chicago, sought to find the
disconnect between local government officials, black youth and
traditional media outlets in conveying the serious nature of the
coronavirus. In her article, Veronica Harrison (aka Vee L. Harrison),
talks to a young woman at the party. The woman told Harrison she knows
COVID-19 is serious, but she’s not letting fear win out over her faith.
The partygoer told Harrison: “I get irritated with these celebrities
trying to tell us to stay in the house. Us people that aren’t as rich as
them, we don’t have nothing to do in the house. Sometimes this can
cause you to go into boredom and depression and you have to get out, you
have to get some air.”
Harrison said her phone has not left her hand since the Triibe story went live Tuesday night.
“The story’s momentum, we did not expect, and such vivid conversations
and the range of responses between age and socioeconomic categories,”
she said. “I believe that we are in a space and time where the
generational divide and the poison in that is really plaguing our
country, literally killing us. Because we can’t see eye to eye, it’s
hard to understand how people are surviving this. ... The boomers want
to blame the millennials and the millennials want to blame the folks
underneath them. We’re doing a lot of finger-wagging and we’re not
coming up with solutions and keeping people alive.”
Illinois State Rep. LaShawn Ford, in an attempt to find solutions, held
a Facebook Live conversation on Tuesday with the host of the house
party, Janeal Wright, 26. The intervention was seen as a teachable
moment, according to Ford. He supports Wright, even though he said it
wasn’t a popular move, because supporting him will make sure that he
doesn’t do something like it again when social distancing is necessary.
It’s all in the vein of “if you know better, you do better.”
“He’s a good young man; he just made a bonehead decision,” Ford said in
a phone interview. “Look, if the president of the United States can
make the stupid comments about bleach and
Lysol injecting and the vice president can go into a hospital without a
mask, but this young man who is less than a third of their age and
doesn’t have the experience that they have, we’re going to nail him? No.
Absolutely not. We’re going to help him and he’s going to be better
from it and we’re going to connect with the young population and not
further divide us with them.”
Ford said he and Wright are working on pointing party attendees to get
tested for the coronavirus at Loretto Hospital. Ford said he’s working
on creating a video with Wright to get the message out to the young
population about the importance of adhering to the stay-at-home order
and maintaining social distancing.
During the Facebook Live conversation, Wright told Ford that he, like
most young people, doesn’t watch the news because there’s a lot of talk
about people of color getting killed. Young people disengaged with the
news is one form of the disconnect between black youth and traditional
mediums of communication, says Harrison.
Sona Smith, executive director at Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health,
says residents in typically under-resourced communities were already in
survival mode prior to COVID-19, and the virus just adds another layer
that may seem less immediate.
“There is a historical and deep seated distrust that we have with
things related to government, the medical system, policing — you name
it,” said the Bronzeville resident. “The Lori Lightfoot memes and things
like that makes (coronavirus) more relatable and it connects to the
younger audience, but there’s so much healing that needs to take place
between all the people within those marginalized communities and these
systems that now we have to trust; that we have to rely on for our
updates and to tell us what to do next.”
Smith said trust doesn’t come because we are in the middle of a
pandemic. “You can get the message out in a million different avenues,
but if the people don’t trust the source of that message, it’s not going
to resonate.”
Ford saw the Facebook discussion as an opportunity to turn a negative
into a positive and to give youth like Wright and his partygoer friends a
voice. Harrison said she is brainstorming with people like Ford to
build a coalition to give black youth a place to vent their concerns,
since what exists now seems to be missing the mark.
Harrison said her article’s goal was to create a conversation.
It did.
“It’s creating this narrative that people were either afraid to
approach or people haven’t thought about, and, either way, I’m good with
that,” she said. “If we don’t move the needle in how we’re sharing
these stories, we’ll continue to lose lives specifically in Chicago,
specifically in black communities. I think right now, dialogue needs to
happen about what we’re going to do to keep black Americans alive.”
Black Women Democrats Are Pushing Joe Biden to Cancel $50,000 of Loan Debt per Borrower, Citing Increasing Racial Inequality
Anne Branigin
As
the nation waits for congressional lawmakers to reach a resolution on a
second stimulus bill—nine months after the coronavirus pandemic began
disrupting the lives of Americans around the country—a group of Black
female House Democrats is challenging President-elect Joe Biden to offer
more substantial relief to student loan borrowers.
The charge
comes in the form of a resolution, introduced by Reps. Ayanna Pressley
(D-Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alma Adams (D-NC) and Maxine Waters
(D-Calif.), reports Vox.
The resolution calls for the incoming Biden administration to take a
more aggressive stance on cutting student loan debt by forgiving up to
$50,000 in federal debt for student borrowers. A companion piece to a
Senate resolution put forward by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) earlier this year, the resolution makes the
case that student debt forgiveness is a critical tool in tackling racial
inequality.
“The
student debt crisis is a racial and economic justice issue and we must
finally begin to address it as such,” Pressley said in a statement.
“Broad-based student debt cancellation is precisely the kind of bold,
high-impact policy that the broad and diverse coalition that elected Joe
Biden and Kamala Harris expect them to deliver.”
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Pressley
argued that canceling student debt is “one of the most effective ways
to provide direct relief to millions, help reduce the racial wealth gap,
stimulate our economy, and begin to deliver an equitable and just
recovery.”
Waters,
chairwoman of the House Finance Committee, echoed the need for debt
forgiveness amid a pandemic and a lagging economy that has seen massive
job losses.
“I cannot overstate the importance of this resolution
and the need for the Biden Administration to take bold action and
deliver on this mandate from the people on day one,” said Waters.
As The Root
has reported over the years, student loan debt disproportionately
affects African American borrowers. The reasons are myriad: A 2016 Atlantic
article found Black grads had less debt compared to their non-Black
peers shortly after receiving their undergraduate diplomas. However,
their debt ballooned in the years after. Four years after graduating,
Black grads saw nearly double the amount of debt of white, Asian and
Latinx students.
This is in part because more Black graduates
continue their studies after receiving their bachelor’s degree, and
because they have a higher rate of attending predatory for-profit
institutions, which put them further in debt without actually advancing
their employment options. Graduates of historically Black colleges and
universities have also been found to accrue higher debt burdens than those who do not attend HBCUs.
Undergirding all of this is an increasingly disparate racial wealth gap, made possible in part by what National Employment Law Project Director Rebecca Dixon describes to The Root as a “Jim Crow job market,” in which Black workers disproportionately work lower-wage jobs than their white counterparts and—particularly for Black women—are paid less than their peers in those professions.
“Student
debt cancellation would be a massive economic stimulus at a time when
people desperately need it. It’s also a racial equity issue. Students of color
are more likely to take out federal student loans, and face higher
rates of default,” pointed out Rep. Omar, who worked with Pressley
earlier this on a plan to drastically reduce student debt.
“Over
90 percent of student debt is held by the federal government, which
President-elect Joe Biden can cancel with the stroke of a pen,” said
Omar.
As Vox notes, Biden has supported legislation to cancel
$10,000 in federal student loan debt, but lawmakers and activists who
helped put him in office are urging the president-elect to forgive
greater amounts of student debt—if not canceling it entirely.
Those
who oppose student debt forgiveness say such a policy wouldn’t actually
help the people who most need it, citing that much of America’s student
loan debt is held by households with graduate degrees, as the Brookings Institution
found. Policy experts also note that student loan forgiveness alone
cannot fix wealth and educational inequity, but must be coupled with
larger changes to higher education in order to prevent upcoming
graduates from sliding back into debt again.
But those reasons are
not enough to deny debt relief to millions of Americans who desperately
need it, say proponents of student debt forgiveness. Rep. Adams pointed
out that this debt has stymied the purchasing power and mobility of
many Americans.
“These loans are holding American families back
from buying houses, cars, and opening small businesses,” she continued.
“Student loan debt prevents young families from building and creating
wealth that they can pass down to their children and grandchildren—a
freedom that historically has been denied to Black Americans in this
country.”
A tip from a concerned citizen provided a pivotal break in a homicide case Friday that unnerved Nashville for nine days.
At dawn, members
of Metro Nashville Police Department’s SWAT team descended on an East
Nashville apartment complex and made an arrest in the fatal shooting of a
Nashville nurse who was driving to work when police say someone opened
fire on her SUV.
Devaunte Lewis Hill, 21, was taken into custody at 6:15 a.m. in the Dec. 3 slaying of 26-year-old nurse Caitlyn Kaufman, who worked in the intensive care unit at Saint Thomas West Hospital.
Nashville
police Chief John Drake said Hill, a Nashville native, was arrested
without incident at his Porter Road home in Berkshire Place Apartments.
Hill was charged with criminal homicide in Kaufman's evening slaying along Interstate 440 west in Nashville.
According
to an arrest affidavit, on Thursday a concerned citizen told police
they had information about the killing and identified Hill as the
person who shot Kaufman. It goes on to state the person also told police
about the possible whereabouts of the gun used in the shooting.
No
other suspects have been named in the case. Homicide Detective
Christopher Dickerson told reporters Friday morning that investigators
had not ruled out the possibility of more suspects or arrests.
"I
have a gamut of emotions right now, but I’m so relieved," Kaufman's
mother, Diane Kaufman, told The Tennessean by phone late Friday morning.
"A part of me is so relieved they got him. I just get chills every time
I think about it."
Dickerson
said he swore out an arrest warrant early Friday morning after getting
the tip from the concerned citizen. The unidentified person also
provided information about a gun that police later matched to three 9 mm
shell casings found at the crime scene.
Investigators said data from Hill's cell phone provider placed his phone in the I-440 area at the time of the shooting.
Dickerson
said Hill consented to an interview after he was taken into custody and
implicated himself in the slaying. He did not elaborate on what Hill
told police.
The detective said Hill was a stranger to Kaufman.
"I can confirm they did not know each other," Dickerson told reporters during a news conference at MNPD headquarters.
As of Friday, a motive in the killing had not been released publicly.
"While
it was a relief to be able to sign the arrest warrant, it was an
exceptional relief to be able to call Diane Kaufman, who is back in
Pennsylvania right now," Dickerson said. "She said that she was able to
get some closure before the funeral. I’m glad to be in the position we
are this morning."
“I
understand many of the persons involved in the rewards are dads who
have families in Nashville and love Nashville deeply, and I thank them
for their contribution," Drake said.
'My family will forever be grateful'
"If
it weren’t for the generosity of the Nashville community I fear it
wouldn't have ever happened this quickly," Diane Kaufman told The
Tennessean. "My family will forever be grateful to them, and Detective
Dickerson, Chief Drake and Don Aaron. I think I’m still in shock. I was
in shock with the shooting, but now I’m in shock with the arrest. I’m
just so thankful."
After
the slaying, Kaufman's mother traveled to Nashville from the family's
hometown in Western Pennsylvania to meet with detectives and plead with
the public for help in finding her daughter's killer.
"Please
help me find out who did this to my daughter," she said Monday
afternoon. "I need closure. Caitlyn was selfless.... She had a
contagious laugh. She had beautiful blue eyes, a heart of gold."
Police spokesman Don Aaron said homicide detectives have been working the case relentlessly since Kaufman died.
Detectives
believe the shooting happened sometime between 6:05 and 6:10 p.m. while
Kaufman was on her way to work for a shift that began at 7 p.m. Police
say the person who killed her fired at least six shots fired into her
Mazda CX-5 SUV.
Just
before 9 p.m., a Metro Parks officer said he saw her SUV on the right
shoulder of I-440 in between the West End Avenue and Hillsboro Road
exits. The vehicle was against the guard rail so police said he stopped,
thinking he'd come upon a single-car crash.
A medical examiner determined a single bullet that struck her shoulder and that she died within seconds of being hit.
Online
records show Hill was booked into the Davidson County Jail just before
9:30 a.m. and was being held without bond. Police said Hill has a
criminal history but would not elaborate.
Saint Thomas West Hospital released a statement after learning of Hill being charged.
"We
are hopeful that justice for Caitlyn's family will be served following
the announcement that a suspect has been arrested as part of the ongoing
investigation," the statement reads. "Those who knew Caitlyn Kaufman
witnessed the overwhelming compassion and kindness she showed for each
person she cared for and worked alongside."
A memorial service for Kaufman is set in her hometown for 7 p.m. Saturday.
Natalie
Neysa Alund is based in Nashville at The Tennessean and covers breaking
news across the south for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at
nalund@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.
21-year-old arrested in Nashville nurse slaying: Police
EMILY SHAPIRO
A
21-year-old man was arrested Friday morning in the slaying of Nashville
nurse Caitlyn Kaufman, who was shot dead while driving to work, police
said.
Devaunte Hill was arrested at his East Nashville apartment
and is being charged with criminal homicide, Nashville Police Chief John
Drake said at a Friday news conference.
"Hill gave a statement implicating himself in Caitlyn's murder," Drake said.
Hill did not know Kaufman, Drake said.
Kaufman, 26, was shot and killed on Dec. 3
while driving her gray Mazda SUV on I-440, the Metro Nashville police
said. Kaufman was on the way to St. Thomas West Hospital for a 7 p.m.
shift, police said.
Drake
said the "major break" came after Nashville business owners offered a
reward and a "concerned citizen" came forward Thursday afternoon
identifying Hill as a suspect.
The concerned citizen gave
information about the weapon and the gun was recovered Thursday night,
Drake said. Ballistics experts found it to be a match to the scene,
Drake said.
The investigation is ongoing and police said they are not ruling out the possibility of additional arrests.
St.
Thomas Hospital West said Kaufman "was a dedicated and much loved
member of our MICU [medical intensive care unit] team and a courageous
healthcare hero who was graciously called to serve our patients with
compassion and kindness."
