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millerco

Fueled by Trump's Tweets, Anthem Protests Grow to a Nationwide Rebuke - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-national-anthem-nfl.html

Us history Trump politics NFL eagles nation anthem protests

shared by millerco on 25 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Fueled by Trump’s Tweets, Anthem Protests Grow to a Nationwide Rebuke
  • On three teams, nearly all the football players skipped the national anthem altogether.
  • Dozens of others, from London to Los Angeles, knelt or locked arms on the sidelines, joined by several team owners in a league normally friendly to President Trump.
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  • Some of the sport’s biggest stars joined the kind of demonstration they have steadfastly avoided.
  • It was an unusual, sweeping wave of protest and defiance on the sidelines of the country’s most popular game, generated by Mr. Trump’s stream of calls to fire players who have declined to stand for the national anthem in order to raise awareness of police brutality and racial injustice.
  • “To have the president trying to intimidate people — I wanted to send a message that I don’t condone that,” Thomas said, echoing the opinion of most N.F.L. players. “I’m not O.K. with somebody trying to prevent someone from standing up for what they think is important.”
  • What had been a modest round of anthem demonstrations this season led by a handful of African-American players mushroomed and morphed into a nationwide, diverse rebuke to Mr. Trump, with even some of his staunchest supporters in the N.F.L., including several owners, joining in or condemning Mr. Trump for divisiveness.
  • But the acts of defiance received a far more mixed reception from fans, both in the stadiums and on social media, suggesting that what were promoted as acts of unity might have exacerbated a divide and dragged yet another of the country’s institutions into the turbulent cross currents of race and politics.
  • At Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, videos posted on social media showed some Eagles fans yelling at anti-Trump protesters holding placards.
  • many fans, a majority of them white, said they did not support the anthem protests but also did not agree with the president’s view that players should be fired because of them.
Javier E

How Insurers Exploited Medicare Advantage for Billions - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...vantage-fraud-allegations.html

medicare insurance industry fraud cheating overbilling

shared by Javier E on 09 Oct 22 - No Cached
  • The health system Kaiser Permanente called doctors in during lunch and after work and urged them to add additional illnesses to the medical records of patients they hadn’t seen in weeks. Doctors who found enough new diagnoses could earn bottles of Champagne, or a bonus in their paycheck.
  • Anthem, a large insurer now called Elevance Health, paid more to doctors who said their patients were sicker. And executives at UnitedHealth Group, the country’s largest insurer, told their workers to mine old medical records for more illnesses — and when they couldn’t find enough, sent them back to try again.
  • Each of the strategies — which were described by the Justice Department in lawsuits against the companies — led to diagnoses of serious diseases that might have never existed.
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  • But the diagnoses had a lucrative side effect: They let the insurers collect more money from the federal government’s Medicare Advantage program.
  • Medicare Advantage, a private-sector alternative to traditional Medicare, was designed by Congress two decades ago to encourage health insurers to find innovative ways to provide better care at lower cost.
  • by next year, more than half of Medicare recipients will be in a private plan.
  • a New York Times review of dozens of fraud lawsuits, inspector general audits and investigations by watchdogs shows how major health insurers exploited the program to inflate their profits by billions of dollars.
  • The government pays Medicare Advantage insurers a set amount for each person who enrolls, with higher rates for sicker patients. And the insurers, among the largest and most prosperous American companies, have developed elaborate systems to make their patients appear as sick as possible, often without providing additional treatment, according to the lawsuits.
  • As a result, a program devised to help lower health care spending has instead become substantially more costly than the traditional government program it was meant to improve.
  • Eight of the 10 biggest Medicare Advantage insurers — representing more than two-thirds of the market — have submitted inflated bills, according to the federal audits. And four of the five largest players — UnitedHealth, Humana, Elevance and Kaiser — have faced federal lawsuits alleging that efforts to overdiagnose their customers crossed the line into fraud.
  • The government now spends nearly as much on Medicare Advantage’s 29 million beneficiaries as on the Army and Navy combined. It’s enough money that even a small increase in the average patient’s bill adds up: The additional diagnoses led to $12 billion in overpayments in 2020, according to an estimate from the group that advises Medicare on payment policies — enough to cover hearing and vision care for every American over 65.
  • Another estimate, from a former top government health official, suggested the overpayments in 2020 were double that, more than $25 billion.
  • The increased privatization has come as Medicare’s finances have been strained by the aging of baby boomers
  • Medicare Advantage plans can limit patients’ choice of doctors, and sometimes require jumping through more hoops before getting certain types of expensive care.
  • At conferences, companies pitched digital services to analyze insurers’ medical records and suggest additional codes. Such consultants were often paid on commission; the more money the analysis turned up, the more the companies kept.
  • they often have lower premiums or perks like dental benefits — extras that draw beneficiaries to the programs. The more the plans are overpaid by Medicare, the more generous to customers they can afford to be.
  • Many of the fraud lawsuits were initially brought by former employees under a federal whistle-blower law that allows them to get a percentage of any money repaid to the government if their suits prevail. But most have been joined by the Justice Department, a step the government takes only if it believes the fraud allegations have merit. Last year, the department’s civil division listed Medicare Advantage as one of its top areas of fraud recovery.
  • In contrast, regulators overseeing the plans at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or C.M.S., have been less aggressive, even as the overpayments have been described in inspector general investigations, academic research, Government Accountability Office studies, MedPAC reports and numerous news articles,
  • Congress gave the agency the power to reduce the insurers’ rates in response to evidence of systematic overbilling, but C.M.S. has never chosen to do so. A regulation proposed in the Trump administration to force the plans to refund the government for more of the incorrect payments has not been finalized four years later. Several top officials have swapped jobs between the industry and the agency.
  • The popularity of Medicare Advantage plans has helped them avoid legislative reforms. The plans have become popular in urban areas, and have been increasingly embraced by Democrats as well as Republicans.
  • “You have a powerful insurance lobby, and their lobbyists have built strong support for this in Congress,”
  • Some critics say the lack of oversight has encouraged the industry to compete over who can most effectively game the system rather than who can provide the best care.
  • But for insurers that already dominate health care for workers, the program is strikingly lucrative: A study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research group unaffiliated with the insurer Kaiser, found the companies typically earn twice as much gross profit from their Medicare Advantage plans as from other types of insurance.
  • In theory, if the insurers could do better than traditional Medicare — by better managing patients’ care, or otherwise improving their health — their patients would cost less and the insurers would make more money.
  • But some insurers engaged in strategies — like locating their enrollment offices upstairs, or offering gym memberships — to entice only the healthiest seniors, who would require less care, to join. To deter such tactics, Congress decided to pay more for sicker patients.
  • Almost immediately, companies saw ways to exploit that system. The traditional Medicare program provided no financial incentive to doctors to document every diagnosis, so many records were incomplete
  • Under the new program, insurers began rigorously documenting all of a patient’s health conditions — say depression, or a long-ago stroke — even when they had nothing to do with the patient’s current medical care.
  • “Even when they’re playing the game legally, we are lining the pockets of very wealthy corporations that are not improving patient care,”
  • The insurers also began hiring agencies that sent doctors or nurses to patients’ homes, where they could diagnose them with more diseases.
  • Cigna hired firms to perform similar at-home assessments that generated billions in extra payments, according to a 2017 whistle-blower lawsuit, which was recently joined by the Justice Department. The firms told nurses to document new diagnoses without adjusting medications, treating patients or sending them to a specialist
  • Nurses were told to especially look for patients with a history of diabetes because it was not “curable,” even if the patient now had normal lab findings or had undergone surgery to treat the condition.
  • Adding the code for a single diagnosis could yield a substantial payoff. In a 2020 lawsuit, the government said Anthem instructed programmers to scour patient charts for “revenue-generating” codes. One patient was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, although no other doctor reported the condition, and Anthem received an additional $2,693.27, the lawsuit said. Another patient was said to have been coded for “active lung cancer,” despite no evidence of the disease in other records; Anthem was paid an additional $7,080.74. The case is continuing.
  • The most common allegation against the companies was that they did not correct potentially invalid diagnoses after becoming aware of them. At Anthem, for example, the Justice Department said “thousands” of inaccurate diagnoses were not deleted. According to the lawsuit, a finance executive calculated that eliminating the inaccurate diagnoses would reduce the company’s 2017 earnings from reviewing medical charts by $86 million, or 72 percent.
  • Some of the companies took steps to ensure the extra diagnoses didn’t lead to expensive care. In an October 2021 lawsuit, the Justice Department estimated that Kaiser earned $1 billion between 2009 and 2018 from additional diagnoses, including roughly 100,000 findings of aortic atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. But the plan stopped automatically enrolling those patients in a heart attack prevention program because doctors would be forced to follow up on too many people, the lawsuit said.
  • Kaiser, which both runs a health plan and provides medical care, is often seen as a model system. But its control over providers gave it additional leverage to demand additional diagnoses from the doctors themselves, according to the lawsuit.
  • At meetings with supervisors, he was instructed to find additional conditions worth tens of millions of dollars. “It was an actual agenda item and how could we get this,” Dr. Taylor said.
  • few analysts expect major legislative or regulatory changes to the program.
  • Even before the first lawsuits were filed, regulators and government watchdogs could see the number of profitable diagnoses escalating. But Medicare has done little to tamp down overcharging.
  • Several experts, including Medicare’s advisory commission, have recommended reducing all the plans’ payments.
  • Congress has ordered several rounds of cuts and gave C.M.S. the power to make additional reductions if the plans continued to overbill. The agency has not exercised that power.
  • The agency does periodically audit insurers by looking at a few hundred of their customers’ cases. But insurers are fined for billing mistakes found only in those specific patients. A rule proposed during the Trump administration to extrapolate the fines to the rest of the plan’s customers has not been finalized.
  • Ted Doolittle, who served as a senior official for the agency’s Center for Program Integrity from 2011 to 2014, said officials at Medicare seemed uninterested in confronting the industry over these practices. “It was clear that there was some resistance coming from inside” the agency, he said. “There was foot dragging.”
  • Last year, the inspector general’s office noted that one company “stood out” for collecting 40 percent of all Medicare Advantage’s payments from chart reviews and home assessments despite serving only 22 percent of the program’s beneficiaries. It recommended Medicare pay extra attention to the company, which it did not name, but the enrollment figure matched UnitedHealth’s.
  • “Medicare Advantage overpayments are a political third rail,” said Dr. Richard Gilfillan, a former hospital and insurance executive and a former top regulator at Medicare, in an email. “The big health care plans know it’s wrong, and they know how to fix it, but they’re making too much money to stop. Their C.E.O.s should come to the table with Medicare as they did for the Affordable Care Act, end the coding frenzy, and let providers focus on better care, not more dollars for plans.”
maxwellokolo

Colin Kaepernick Reportedly Will Stand for National Anthem Next Season - 0 views

bleacherreport.com/...or-national-anthem-next-season

shared by maxwellokolo on 03 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • maxwellokolo on 03 Mar 17
     
    San Francisco 49ers Michael Zagaris/Getty Images After kneeling during the playing of the national anthem throughout the 2016 season, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick will reportedly resume standing in 2017. According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, sources said Kaepernick will stand to avoid detracting from progress he believes has been made and the awareness brought to the issue of social inequality.
anonymous

China brings anthem disrespect laws to Hong Kong - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-china-41870206

politics asia china hongkong Culture policy law

shared by anonymous on 04 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • Hong Kong residents who boo the Chinese national anthem might soon face up to three years in prison.
  • The anthem has been booed at recent football fixtures in Hong Kong, where anti-Beijing sentiment has been rising.
  • Democracy activists fear the new law could be used to undermine freedom of expression in the territory, which enjoys freedoms not seen on the mainland.
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  • The new law, enacted by China in September, is expected to pass Hong Kong's legislature without difficulty.
  • Hong Kong, formerly a British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under an agreement which is supposed to guarantee the territory's people basic rights.
Javier E

NFL Protests Donald Trump, & I Understand Why | National Review - 0 views

www.nationalreview.com/...mp-nfl-protests-why-they-knelt

flag protest free speech trump politics values American idea polarization

shared by Javier E on 26 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Americans do not and should not worship idols. We do not and should not worship the flag. As a nation we stand in respect for the national anthem and stand in respect for the flag not simply because we were born here or because it’s our flag. We stand in respect because the flag represents a specific set of values and principles: that all men are created equal and that we are endowed with our Creator with certain unalienable rights.
  • These ideals were articulated in the Declaration of Independence, codified in the Constitution, and defended with the blood of patriots. Central to them is the First Amendment, the guarantee of free expression against government interference and government reprisal that has made the United States unique among the world’s great powers. Arguably, it is the single most important liberty of all, because it enables the defense of all the others: Without the right to speak freely we cannot even begin to point out offenses against the rest of the Constitution.
  • Now, with that as a backdrop, which is the greater danger to the ideals embodied by the American flag, a few football players’ taking a knee at the national anthem or the most powerful man in the world’s demanding that they be fired and their livelihoods destroyed for engaging in speech he doesn’t like?
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  • In the space of less than 24 hours this weekend, the president of the United States did more to politicize sports than ESPN has done in a decade of biased, progressive programming
  • The hypocrisy runs the other way, too. I was startled to see many conservatives who decried Google’s termination of a young, dissenting software engineer work overtime yesterday to argue that Trump was somehow in the right. Yet Google is a private corporation and Trump is the most powerful government official in the land. The First Amendment applies to Trump, not Google, and his demands for reprisals are ultimately far more ominous, given his job, than even the actions of the largest corporations.
  • Google, after all, has competitors. Google commands no police force. Everything it does is replaceable.
  • too many in our polarized nation have lately developed a disturbing habit of zealously defending the free speech of people they like while working overtime to find reasons to justify censoring their ideological enemies.
  • At one stroke, thanks to an attempted vulgar display of strength, Trump changed the playing of the anthem and the display of the flag from a moment where all but the most radical Americans could unite to one where millions of well-meaning Americans could and did legitimately believe that the decision to kneel represented a defense of the ideals of the flag, not defiance of the nation they love.
  • So, yes, I understand why they knelt. I understand why men who would never otherwise bring politics onto the playing field — and never had politicized sports before — felt that they could not be seen to comply with a demagogue’s demands. I understand why even owners who gave millions to Trump expressed solidarity with their players. I understand why even Trump supporters like Rex Ryan were appalled at the president’s actions.
  • If we lose respect for the First Amendment, then politics becomes purely about power. If we no longer fight to secure the same rights for others that we demand for ourselves, we become more tribal, and America becomes less exceptional.
  • When the history of this unfortunate, polarized era of American life is written, whether a man stood or knelt will matter far less than the values we all lived by. Americans who actually defend the letter and spirit of the First Amendment will stand (or kneel) proudly in the history books.
  • Those who seek to punish their political opponents’ speech, on the other hand, can stand or kneel as they wish — so long as they hang their heads in shame.
liamhudgings

What Are the Real Lessons of the U.K. Election for 2020? | The New Yorker - 0 views

www.newyorker.com/...ns-of-the-uk-election-for-2020

Britain Policy politics

shared by liamhudgings on 15 Dec 19 - No Cached
  • “Boris Johnson is winning in a walk,” Joe Biden told the attendees at a fund-raiser in San Francisco on Thursday night, referring to the Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader. “Look what happens when the Labour Party moves so, so far to the left.”
  • Several Labour Party veterans whom I spoke with on Friday insisted that the lousy result for Labour came down to Corbyn’s political persona proving anathema to the Party’s traditional working-class base—and there are some opinion-poll data that bear this out.
  • for every time Brexit was raised on the doorsteps, the leadership was raised four more—even by those sticking with us. There was visceral anger from lifelong Labour voters who felt they couldn’t vote for the party they had supported all their lives because of ‘that man at the top.’ 
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  • As the national-anthem example indicates, Corbyn isn’t a very skilled politician—or, alternatively, he is a man of such high principle that he refuses to trim his positions at all to win votes.
  • In 2015, shortly after he took over as Labour’s leader, he refused to sing the national anthem—“God Save the Queen”—during a memorial service for the Battle of Britain, the air war, in 1940, in which the Royal Air Force fought off Hitler’s marauding Luftwaffe.
  • Johnson and his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, sensed the intense public frustration and built their entire election campaign around the slogan “Get Brexit Done.”
  • Like Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” Johnson’s slogan was simple, catchy, and misleading.
  • Voters often say that they support individual policies of progressive and left-wing parties, but history suggests that getting the public to elect such parties to government requires a plausible, persuasive leader and a favorable environment.
nrashkind

Saints QB Brees draws ire of NBA's James over kneeling comments - Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...neeling-comments-idUSKBN23A3CC

shared by nrashkind on 04 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees drew the ire of NBA great LeBron James when he said on Wednesday he does not feel NFL players should kneel during the national anthem and called the gesture disrespectful to the American flag.
  • Brees was asked during an appearance on Yahoo Finance’s On the Move about the possibility of players protesting against racial injustice by kneeling during the anthem when the NFL’s 2020 season kicks off in September.
  • “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country,” Brees told the program before explaining that when he hears the anthem he thinks of his two grandfathers who served in the military.
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  • “WOW MAN!! Is it still surprising at this point. Sure isn’t! You literally still don’t understand why Kap was kneeling on one knee??” the Los Angeles Lakers forward posted on Twitter.
  • “Is everything right with our country right now? No, it’s not. We still have a long away to go. But, I think what you do by standing there and showing respect for the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity.”
  • Has absolute nothing to do with the disrespect of Flag of United States and our soldiers(men and women) who keep our land free.”
  • James also said his father-in-law fought for the United States and that he asked him questions about it and thanks him all the time.
  • “He never found Kap peaceful protest offensive because he and I both know what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong! God bless you.”
Javier E

Covid hospital bills arrive for patients as insurers restore deductibles and copays - T... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...tal-bills-insurance-deductible

hospital costs Covid-19 health care insurance

shared by Javier E on 19 Sep 21 - No Cached
  • Nationally, covid hospitalizations under insurance contracts on average cost $29,000, or $156,000 for a patient with oxygen levels so low that they require a ventilator and ICU treatment,
  • The calculus in place in 2020 changed with the advent of vaccines, which now makes most hospitalizations preventable,
  • Hospitals along the Connecticut River, the border between Vermont and New Hampshire, draw patients from both states. Vermont health plans are waiving deductibles and co-pays into 2022. In New Hampshire, where Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield has a dominant presence, insurance companies have reinstated cost-sharing.
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  • Marvin Mallek, a doctor who treats covid patients from both sides of the river at Springfield Hospital in Vermont, said New Hampshire covid patients are now facing business as usual from insurers, suffering the same sort of financial stress that routinely affects patients with cancer, heart disease and other serious ailments.
  • “The inhumanity of our health-care system and the tragedies it creates will now resume and will now cover this one group that was exempted,'' he said. “The U.S. health-care system is sort of like a game of musical chairs where there are not enough chairs, and some people are going to get hurt and devastated financially.”
  • Hospitals also are in the position of having to resume billings and collections for individuals who may have been laid off because of the pandemic or been too sick to work, experts said.
  • “These waivers ended in January as we all had gained a better understanding of the virus, and people and communities became more familiar with best practices and protocols for limiting COVID-19 exposure and spread,” the company said in a statement. “Also, at this time vaccines, which are proven to be the safest and most effective way to protect oneself from COVID-19, were starting to become readily available.”Anthem took in $4.6 billion in profits in 2020, compared to $4.8 billion in 2019.
  • The reintroduction of cost-sharing mainly affects people with private or employer-based insurance. Patients with no insurance can have 100 percent of their expenses covered by the federal government, under a special program set up by the government for the pandemic, with hospitals reimbursed for care at Medicare rates.
  • Covid patients with Medicaid, the government plan for lower-income people that is paid for by states and the federal government, continue to be protected from cost-sharing, insurance specialists said
  • Patients on Medicare, the federal plan for the elderly, could face out-of-pocket costs if they do not have supplemental insurance.
  • Last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 88 percent of people covered by private insurance had their co-pays and deductibles for covid treatment waived. By August 2021, only 28 percent of the two largest plans in each state and D.C. still had the waivers in place, and another 10 percent planned to phase them out by the end of October,
  • general, a person with Azar’s type of plan would have an in-network deductible of $1,500 and an in-network out-of-pocket maximum of $4,000,
  • “We still don’t know where the numbers will land because the system makes the family wait for the bills,” s
  • Bills related to her stay at the out-of-network rehab hospital in Tennessee could climb as high as $10,000 more, her relatives have estimated, but they acknowledged they were uncertain this month what exactly to expect, even after asking UnitedHealthcare and the providers.
  • In 2020, as the pandemic took hold, U.S. health insurance companies declared they would cover 100 percent of the costs for covid treatment, waiving co-pays and expensive deductibles for hospital stays that frequently range into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.But this year, most insurers have reinstated co-pays and deductibles for covid patients, in many cases even before vaccines became widely available.
johnsonma23

Up to 10 refugees to compete at Rio Games: IOC | MSNBC - 0 views

www.msnbc.com/...refugees-compete-rio-games-ioc

refugees rio games msnbc

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Up to 10 refugees to compete at Rio Games: IOC
  • A team of refugees that will compete at this year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics could number as many as 10 athletes, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach on Wednesday.
  • The team, which was officially approved by the IOC Executive Board and called Team of Refugee Olympics Athletes (ROA), will be made up from a pool of 43 prospective Olympians
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  • Nomination criteria included sporting level, official United Nations-verified refugee status and personal situation and background, the IOC said.
  • “It depends very much on the sporting qualifications. This team may end up between five and 10 athletes maybe.”
  • Hundreds of thousands of refugees, many from Syria, have crossed via Turkey and Greece into Europe.
  • “By welcoming ROA to the Olympic Games in Rio, we want to send a message of hope to all the refugees of the world,” Bach said.
  • “Having no national team to belong to, having no flag to march behind, having no national anthem to be played, these refugees will be welcomed to the Olympic Games with the Olympic flag and with the Olympic anthem
  • ROA will be housed in the athletes’ village along with all other national teams and will enter the stadium as the penultimate team at the opening ceremony, ahead of the host nation.
Javier E

Megan Rapinoe isn't here to make you comfortable - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...9-8d0a-5edd7e2025b1_story.html

role model civil disobedience anthem

shared by Javier E on 26 Jun 19 - No Cached
  • Patriotism is a complex concept, but for many, it is a sacrilegious act to behave in any manner deemed improper during the anthem and before the American flag.
  • As much as I love these international sporting events, they also make me feel queasy because of the potential for jingoism. There is no single way to be American
  • Rapinoe isn’t anti-American for refusing to smile and sing through her disappointment. She’s simply a disappointed American
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  • few ever ask why and listen to her concerns. Instead, they make ridiculous statements about waiting for a proper time to protest. When is the time right? When no one’s paying attention? When no one’s around to feel uncomfortable? The point of civil disobedience is to make the ignoring stop.
  • For those who want Rapinoe to shut up and kick because she makes a good living and enjoys a level of freedom that other countries don’t have,
  • Society cannot advance if the fortunate declares selfishly: “I’ve got it pretty good. Best wishes to the rest of y’all.”
  • It takes a privileged person to speak to privilege. “You’ve got it good” shouldn’t be a pacifier. It should be a motivator to help others have it better
Javier E

'Go back to your country,' Chicago teacher tells student who sat for anthem - The Washi... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...teacher-tells-student-go-back

teacher racism rhetoric bullying culture politics trump

shared by Javier E on 16 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • The students were assembled in the auditorium of their high school on Chicago’s North Side, there to celebrate Hispanic heritage — but first, their teachers told them, they had to stand for the national anthem.
  • When one student — a Latina and U.S. citizen — refused a teacher’s pointed direction to stand, she said he replied with an infamously racist line: “Go back to your country.” The same teacher turned to a black student, who was also sitting down, and asked whether she was part of the public school system’s free and reduced lunch program, telling her she should stand for the people who have died for the country, the students said.They were then told to leave the assembly.
  • The teacher’s alleged remark appears to be just the latest example of caustic rhetoric that began in the White House and seeped into schools, fueling attacks and bullying against students of color. Since 2016, President Trump’s words have been used to harass children and teens at least 300 times, according to a recent Washington Post analysis.
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  • Among the phrases often deployed: “Go back to where you came from” or “Go back to Mexico” or “Go back behind the wall” — all derivatives of Trump’s July 2019 tweet telling four congresswomen of color that they should “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
  • If the teacher’s alleged comments set a toxic example, Woods is hoping she and her classmates sent the opposite message.“I am glad we did the sit-in,” she said. “I wanted to teach the younger class that we all got a little fighter inside us. They give me hope that they will continue to call adults out and stand up for what they believe in. The students will always strike back.
millerco

Trump Attacks Warriors' Curry. LeBron James's Retort: 'U Bum.' - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-nfl-kaepernick.html

Us history Trump politics NBA Lebron James NFL Steph Curry

shared by millerco on 24 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Trump Attacks Warriors’ Curry. LeBron James’s Retort: ‘U Bum.’
  • President Trump took aim at two of the world’s most powerful sports leagues and some of their most popular athletes, directly inserting himself into an already fiery debate over race, social justice and athlete activism and stoking a running battle on social media over his comments.
  • In a speech on Friday and a series of tweets on Saturday, he urged N.F.L. owners to fire players who do not stand for the national anthem, suggested that football is declining because it is not as violent as it once was and seemed to disinvite the N.B.A. champion Golden State Warriors from the traditional White House visit because of their star player Stephen Curry’s public opposition to him.
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  • the president used an expletive to describe players who kneel or sit during the anthem to protest police brutality against black Americans and other forms of social injustice.
  • “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired,’ ” the president said at a rally for Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed to the Senate this year and is facing Roy Moore in a Republican primary runoff.
  • “U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain’t going! So therefore ain’t no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!” Mr. James wrote on Twitter.
  • The Warriors, who play in a league that sometimes promotes social issues and whose owners and players have been known to denounce the president, said in a statement they would use a visit to Washington in February to highlight issues of diversity and inclusiveness.
  • By midafternoon, a spokesman for the University of North Carolina national championship basketball team confirmed the team would not be going to the White House
  • Many athletes have been moved to comment on race and social justice more frequently in the past year after a series of police shootings of unarmed African-Americans and the support Mr. Trump has received from white supremacists.
  • “It’s unfortunate that the president decided to use his immense platform to make divisive and offensive statements about our players and the N.F.L.,’’ said Mark Murphy, the president and chief executive of the Green Bay Packers.
Javier E

Standing for National Anthem must be Voluntary, not Required | National Review - 0 views

www.nationalreview.com/...-anthem-voluntary-not-required

free speech flag patriotism censorship

shared by Javier E on 28 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • . I believe that the United States is a better country when not only the government protects the right of free speech but also the culture values that right. I believe that free speech is the essential liberty — the liberty that helps preserve all others — because without the ability to call out unconstitutional actions you cannot possibly maintain a free nation. Because I believe those things, I believe Americans should be tolerant of dissent, even when they believe dissenters are offensive and wrong, and that the best cure for bad speech isn’t censorship but rather better speech.
  • In 1943, with the Second World War still very much in doubt, the Supreme Court rendered its verdict — with words that have echoed through the generations: If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
  • To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous, instead of a compulsory routine, is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds.
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  • In other words, the power of the salute lies with the choice to salute, and the most repugnant form of censorship is compelled speech — the effort to force a person to state what they do not believe. Mandatory reverence isn’t reverence at all.
  • The Supreme Court’s words have a profound cultural meaning that resonates far beyond the letter of the law. The government cannot force a man to violate his conscience. Nor should it try to bully powerful, private entities into doing what the state cannot legally accomplish
  • Here’s the bottom line. If you’re participating in or justifying conduct you’d despise if the partisan roles were reversed, if you’re changing your views because “the people” have spoken and rejected an “elitist” embrace of individual liberty, or if you are not confident enough in your own views to embrace and defend a marketplace of ideas, then we’re just not on the same side. I’m not your culture warrior, and though we may have great respect for each other and agree on many things, on this issue I’m your opponent.
hannahcarter11

Teaching Children About Freedom Of Speech - 1 views

www.forbes.com/...ildren-about-freedom-of-speech

shared by hannahcarter11 on 15 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • freedom to protest
  • Meanwhile, government leaders both around the globe and right here in the U.S. are threatening to limit freedom of speech, with everything from legislation to litigation to violent force. 
    • hannahcarter11
      hannahcarter11 on 15 Sep 20
       
      To limit free speech is to silence all of those who may not have a voice in any other venue. It is incredibly disrespectful to try and limit the rights of your electors. These citizens deserve fair leaders who will engage in civil discourse with them instead of trying to completely shut them down or hurt them due to a difference in opinion.
  • Individuals can exercise their First Amendment rights in various ways—from writing a letter to a government or community leader, to marching in a protest, putting a sign on their lawn or kneeling for the national anthem. 
    • hannahcarter11
      hannahcarter11 on 15 Sep 20
       
      Protesting comes in many forms. Whatever action that you take is okay as long as you take some action. It is important that people begin to understand the importance of local government as well as federal. People often overlook taking issues to their community leaders though they are the ones who have the most direct effect on local politics.
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  • Malala, a 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner (at 17, she was the youngest recipient to receive the prize), began using her voice at the age of 10, standing up to the Taliban in Pakistan and advocating for the rights of girls to receive a safe, free quality education.
    • hannahcarter11
      hannahcarter11 on 15 Sep 20
       
      Malala is such an inspiration not only because she stood up for herself and others in the face of danger, but also because she continued to do so even when she became safe. She now uses the privilege that she has to uplift other young girls.
nrashkind

Malcolm Jenkins rips Drew Brees' comments in two social media posts - 0 views

nypost.com/...ents-in-two-social-media-posts

shared by nrashkind on 04 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • New Orleans Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins ripped Drew Brees’ national anthem comments in an interview about George Floyd’s death in two emotional social media posts on Wednesday.
  • In the first video post, which Jenkins later deleted, he said Brees has not “stepped up to the plate” on social issues and that his criticism of certain type of protests is not helpful.
  • “To stay silent when your peers are screaming from the mountain top that we need help, our communities are under siege and we need help and what you’re telling us is: ‘Don’t ask for help that way, ask for a different way.
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  • Jenkins — who was responding to comments Brees made to Yahoo Finance on Wednesday — said the veteran quarterback’s views were especially painful because he considered him “a friend.”
  • According to an ESPN report, Jenkins said the video was made just before Brees reached out to him to discuss his point of view, but that he still originally posted it “because it’s important for anyone who wants to consider themself an ally to know how these words and actions affect those you want to help.”
  • Brees elaborated further on his thoughts in an interview with ESPN, when asked if his comments will cause a fissure in the locker room with defensive leaders and social justice advocates such as Jenkins and Demario Davis, but he didn’t back down from his thoughts about standing for the national anthem
  • Teammate Michael Thomas and other sports stars, such as LeBron James, also ripped Brees for his comments.
  • Floyd, 46, died on May 25 in Minneapolis after police officer Derek Chauvin, 44, pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes after Floyd was suspected of spending a counterfeit $20 bill.
  • “They came back and got attacked for wearing their uniforms. They came back to … racism, to complete violenc
  • Jenkins also added that Brees comments show he doesn’t understand his “privilege.”
  • “Because when we step off this field, and I take my helmet off, I’m a black man walking around America and I’m telling you I’m dealing with these things. I’m telling you my community is dealing with these things.
  • “Even though we’re teammates, I can’t let this slide.”
maxwellokolo

How Black Lives Matter turned performance into powerful activism in 2016 - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...er-artists-20161218-story.html

shared by maxwellokolo on 15 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • maxwellokolo on 15 Dec 16
     
    On a warm summer night in July, artist Tanya Lucia Bernard stood in the middle of the cavernous galleries at the Museum of Contemporary Art's Geffen Contemporary and softly sang a refrain from a civil rights anthem: "We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes."
sarahbalick

Dilma Rousseff: Brazilian congress votes to impeach president | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ss-impeach-brazilian-president

brazilian congress votes president

shared by sarahbalick on 19 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Dilma Rousseff: Brazilian congress votes to impeach president
  • In a rowdy session of the lower house presided over by the president’s nemesis, house speaker Eduardo Cunha, voting ended late on Sunday evening with 367 of the 513 deputies backing impeachment – comfortably beyond the two-thirds majority of 342 needed to advance the case to the upper house.
  • “The fight is now in the courts, the street and the senate,”
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • s the crucial 342nd vote was cast for impeachment
  • the chamber erupted into cheers and Eu sou Brasileiro, the football chant that has become the anthem of the anti-government protest. O
  • pposition cries of “coup, coup,coup” were drowned out.
  • Watched by tens of millions at home and in the streets, the vote – which was announced deputy by deputy – saw the conservative opposition
  • 137 deputies voted against the move.
abbykleman

Trump and science: Protesters gather in Boston to "stand up for science" | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...trump-and-science

shared by abbykleman on 21 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • abbykleman on 21 Feb 17
     
    LYNYRD SKYNYRD'S "Sweet Home Alabama" is a strange choice of song to open a rally of scientists. Written in 1973, the southern anthem was a response to Neil Young's critique of the barbaric treatment of African-Americans in the South-it tells the Canadian songwriter to mind his own business.
nataliedepaulo1

What athletes know about Donald Trump (opinion) - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by nataliedepaulo1 on 23 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • What athletes know about Donald Trump
  • Now, however, at least three members of the Patriots have said they won't go to the White House to meet President Donald Trump. Defensive back Devin McCourty and tight end Martellus Bennett, both of whom were supportive of Colin Kaepernick's national anthem protest throughout the regular season, declared they would not accompany their teammates for the ritual photo-op with the president.
  • Sports are part of the political spectrum. And as Bennett, McCourty and Hightower are trying to demonstrate, it's important for us to listen to athletes for a change.
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