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Who’s Watching Below the Supreme Court?

Trump Has Already Changed Much of the Judiciary

Native Lawyer Won’t Miss Justice Kennedy

Trump’s Racist Statements Become Policy

Black-Press Group Warns That Tariffs Are a Threat

Lice Story Tops Family-Separation Heartbreakers

Journalist Links His Arrest by ICE to His Reporting

TV Reporters Out After False Representations

Has Netflix Revealed Who Killed Tupac?

2 Acquitted in ‘Huge Victory’ for Press Freedom

Short Takes

Trump Has Already Changed Much of the Judiciary

Amid the news media’s countdown Monday for President Trump’s 9 p.m. ET announcement that his choice for the Supreme Court would be federal judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report made an overlooked point on the “PBS NewsHour”:

“I think it’s also important to recognize that, while we’re going to put a whole lot of attention, as it should get, on the Supreme Court, because it’s obviously the highest court in the land, what the president has done at the lower court level also needs to be mentioned.

“All the other federal courts and the appellate courts.

“He has appointed more judges to the appellate courts than any other first-term president in history. The judicial — the actual structure of the judiciary has already been transformed. And, remember, most cases don’t make it to the Supreme Court. They get decided at this lower court level.

“So regardless of who’s picked up the Supreme Court, there is already generational change happening below that.”

Native Lawyer Won’t Miss Justice Kennedy

While some commentators lamented the decision of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy to step down because it would cement the high court’s rightward turn, a Native American law professor wasn’t shedding many tears.

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

My most enduring memory of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is watching him lean over the bench, red-faced and angry, lecturing attorney Neal Katyal during the Dollar General Corp. v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians oral argument,” Matthew L.M. Fletcher of Michigan State University College of Law and director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center, wrote Friday for High Country News.

“At issue in that case was whether tribal courts had jurisdiction over civil claims: Dollar General had opened a store on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians’ reservation and signed a lease saying that legal disputes would be tried in Choctaw court. When the store’s non-Indian manager made sexual advances toward a 13-year-old Choctaw boy, the boy’s family took the matter to tribal court. Dollar General decided that tribal court was unacceptable and took the matter to the Supreme Court.

“That day, I finally understood that Kennedy was so disturbed by tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians that he would angrily protect a sexual predator from the horror of being subject to a tribal court, a position completely in line with his previous stands on Indian cases.

“Kennedy, who announced his retirement in June, was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1988. He heard around 60 Indian law cases, and during his tenure, tribal interests won 15 cases and lost 40. Just under 30 percent of cases were won by tribal interests, making Kennedy’s time on the court a bad time for Indian people and Indian tribes. . . .” Fletcher is a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.

Trump’s Racist Statements Become Policy

It started during the campaign,” Annie Linskey reported Monday for the Boston Globe.

Donald Trump said ‘Islam hates us,’ he called Mexicans ‘rapists,’ and he tweeted a photo of a taco bowl to demonstrate his appreciation for Hispanic culture.

“As president, he said the crowd at the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., included ‘some very fine people.’ He dismissed majority black nations as ‘shithole countries.’ He mocked Senator Elizabeth Warren as ‘Pocahontas.’ He labeled an African-American member of Congress ‘low IQ’ and warned illegal immigrants will ‘infest’ the country.

“What’s emerged in recent months is the degree to which Trump has put some of those verbal sentiments into policy, crafting initiatives that critics call bigoted, dangerous, and sending a troubling signal to white, far right voters.

“The country is watching: Forty-nine percent of respondents said Trump is ‘a racist’ according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll of American voters. In that survey, 79 percent of blacks said he is ‘a racist’ while 44 percent of whites came to that conclusion.

“ ‘He reflects a 1950s culture and mindset that many Americans still hold on to,’ said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, who is black. ‘They still fight in so many respects battles that were lost a generation ago. . . . He’s found a way to tap into that vein and feed fears and concerns in a way that frees people up to act on those impulses and to speak aloud about those impulses.’

“And with Trump, pontification becomes policy. . . .”

Black-Press Group Warns That Tariffs Are a Threat

The trade association representing black-newspaper publishers is joining others in protesting the Trump administration’s moves to raise tariffs on Canadian newsprint, saying the survival of smaller newspapers is at stake.

Amid the rush to comprehend the ramifications of a full-scale international trade war initiated by the errant and backward tariff policies of the Trump Administration, there are results of the tariffs that need to be challenged by Black America,Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, wrote. “The financial sustainability of the Black Press of America is now facing a catastrophic and a possible deadly impact, because of these new tariffs.

“The current dispute over the rising costs of the paper product termed ‘newsprint,’ because of tariffs on Canadian newsprint threatens the future of member publishers of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and could further isolate and disenfranchise African American businesses and communities in cities and towns across the United States.

“Import duties the U.S. Commerce Department is now applying to Canadian-made newsprint is already increasing costs enough to prompt layoffs and scaled-back news coverage by some of the nation’s major dailies and weekly publications. If these tariffs remain in place, scores of newspapers with smaller circulations, notably those that serve African American communities, could be forced to cease publishing a print edition or close altogether. . . .”

Family separation lawsuit offers chilling details (Credit: PBS “NewsHour”) (video)

Lice Story Tops Family-Separation Heartbreakers

One of the children separated from his parents at the US-Mexico border was returned months later with lice, looking as if he hadn’t been bathed in weeks, and with irrevocable changes to his personality, his mother said, according to documents filed in a lawsuit against the Trump administration,” Jennie Neufeld reported Friday for vox.com.

“That detail comes from PBS’s Lisa Desjardins reporting for [PBS NewsHour]. The lawsuit, from 17 states and the District of Columbia, calls for an end to Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy and demands the administration reunite all families that were separated at the border. . . .”

Desjardins’ reporting was among an aggressive push by news outlets on the story of family separations.

Two weeks after arriving in the US seeking asylum, E, 23, found herself in a detention cell in San Luis, Arizona, bleeding profusely and begging for help from staff at the facility,” Ema O’Connor and Nidhi Prakash reported Monday for BuzzFeed. “She was four months pregnant and felt like she was losing her baby. She had come to the US from El Salvador after finding out she was pregnant, in the hopes of raising her son in a safer home.

“ ‘An official arrived and they said it was not a hospital and they weren’t doctors. They wouldn’t look after me,’ she told BuzzFeed News, speaking by phone from another detention center, Otay Mesa in San Diego. ‘I realized I was losing my son. It was his life that I was bleeding out. I was staining everything. I spent about eight days just lying down. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t do anything. I started crying and crying and crying.’

“Stuck in detention and having lost her baby, E says she wouldn’t have come to the US seeking a safer life if she’d known what would happen. . . . My soul aches that there are many pregnant women coming who could lose their babies like I did and that they will do nothing to help them,” she said.

“About a week after speaking with BuzzFeed News, E gave up her fight for asylum, accepted voluntary departure, and was deported back to El Salvador. . . .”

Mark L. Schneider, former director of the U.S. Peace Corps, wrote Friday in the Washington Post, “If you think the last few weeks of separating 2,300 children from their migrant parents along the southern border were heart-wrenching, imagine if 273,000 American-born children are separated from parents whose temporary protected status (TPS) is terminated.

“That is what could happen if the Trump administration’s decision to revoke TPS for Haitians, Salvadorans and Hondurans is allowed to take effect.

“Despite President Trump’s executive order reversing his policy of separating migrant families, most of those 2,300 children have not been returned to their parents. That is truly unconscionable.

“More than 100 times that number of children — all U.S. citizens — will be placed in similar jeopardy if the Department of Homeland Security begins programs to deport more than 58,000 Haitians on July 22, 2019, more than 262,000 Salvadorans on Sept. 9, 2019, and 86,000 Hondurans on Jan. 5, 2020. Parents will be faced with the decision of whether to take their children — most of whom speak mainly English and know only life in this country — back to countries deemed by the State Department as not safe for travel, some with the highest homicide rates in the hemisphere. . . .”

On Thursday, Neena Satija  reported for the Texas Tribune and Reveal of the Center for Investigative Reporting, “In the weeks since President Donald Trump’s now-rescinded family separation policy created chaos and confusion across the country, the messages from his administration and prominent Republican members of Congress have been clear: Seek asylum legally at official ports of entry and you won’t lose your kids.

“There may be armed Customs and Border Protection agents standing at the halfway points of bridges — but simply wait a few days, declare to them that you are seeking asylum, and you’ll get a fair shake.

“A recent Department of Homeland Security news release says it’s a ‘myth’ that the agency ‘separates families who entered at the ports of entry and who are seeking asylum — even though they have not broken the law.’ The release also says the agency ‘is [not] turning away asylum seekers at ports of entry.’

“But there’s ample evidence to suggest otherwise. Court records and individual cases discovered by The Texas Tribune indicate that a number of asylum seekers who came to international bridges in Texas and California were separated from their children anyway — or were not able to cross the bridge at all after encountering armed Customs and Border Protection agents on the bridge. And experts argue there’s no basis to the government’s claim that there aren’t enough resources to process asylum seekers. . . .”

Despite these stories, “It’s hard, . . . to escape the feeling that the spotlight has dimmed slightly on an ongoing human-rights crisis directly caused by the actions of the US government,” John Allsop wrote Monday for Columbia Journalism Review. “Much of this feeling isn’t to do with coverage of the border itself, but rather the tenor of what’s dislodged it from the top of the news cycle. Speaking with Brian Stelter on CNN’s Reliable Sources yesterday, Vox Editor-at-Large Ezra Klein, for example, complained that the media over-indulged repetitive attacks emanating from Trump’s rally in Montana last Thursday. ‘Whenever Donald Trump wants to change a subject, he just sets up a rally and goes and says a bunch of crazy stuff,’ Klein said. ‘What are we crowding out, when we let him decide what we cover?’ . . .”

Memphis police arrest Manuel Duran during a Memphis protest in April. (Credit: Jim Weber/Commercial Appeal)

Journalist Links His Arrest by ICE to His Reporting

What started out as a ‘just another day’ in Memphis-based journalist Manuel Duran’s life ended in his arrest by local police and transfer to Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Rachel Frazin reported Monday for the Daily Beast.

“The arrest, Duran claims, was retaliation for his reporting about local police actions.

“Duran, 42, who is sometimes listed as Duran Ortega, was covering a Memphis protest in April when he was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing a highway or passageway.

In a video taken of the incident, Duran appears to be wearing a press badge and was not the only journalist in the street.

“After the charges were dropped, Duran was released from the Shelby County jail and ICE agents were there waiting to arrest him, the county sheriff’s spokesperson Earle Farrell said. A Memphis Police arrest report claimed that Duran’s refusal to get out of the road ’caused a hazard.’ It also mentioned that he did not have a U.S. identification.

“Duran believes his arrest wasn’t over a simple hazard, but that he was targeted for his coverage of the Memphis Police Department in Memphis Noticias, the online publication he founded. . . .”

TV Reporters Out After False Representations

Esmeralda Cisneros

Two reporters for KYMA-TV in Yuma, Ariz., are no longer with the station, the general manager told Journal-isms Monday, after being accused by U.S. Customs and Border Protection of posing as translators in order to enter a processing facility.

While General Manager Dave Miller messaged that “Per company policy, KYMA does not discuss specific personnel matters,” the subscription-only website NewsBlues noted Monday, “The website bio page has been scrubbed of any mention of Esmeralda Cisneros (top) and Fernanda Robles (lower).

“Cisneros has been a reporter with the station for the past two years. Robles is a three-year veteran who worked primarily with the Telemundo sister station in the market.”

Fernanda Robles

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement June 26, “Yesterday, several journalists attempted to gain access to the Yuma Centralized Processing Center by representing themselves as translators during a previously-scheduled attorney-client privileged visitation. Two of them were identified as journalists and turned away at the door however, the third subject fraudulently gained access into the facility. . . .”

Two days later, the station apologized and said two of the journalists had been suspended.

“The employees did attempt to work through proper channels leading up to their arrival, but there is no excuse for them failing to be completely transparent once on site,” the station statement said.

Has Netflix Revealed Who Killed Tupac?

A former gang member claims to know who really killed legendary hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur and has spelled it out in a Netflix documentary series,Ryan Gaydos reported July 4 for Fox News.

Tupac Shakur

Duane Keith Davis, a former member of the Los Angeles-based gang The Crips, said in an interview for ‘Unsolved, the Tupac and Biggie Murders’ that it was his nephew Orlando ‘Baby Lane’ Anderson who killed Tupac in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1996.

“Tupac was shot four times and died six days later.

Davis, aka ‘Keefe D,‘ spoke about the murder under immunity from the prosecution, according to The Daily Mail.

“Davis said that earlier on the day of the shooting, his nephew, also a Crips member, had tried to steal a Death Row Records medallion from a member of Tupac’s entourage who was reportedly affiliated with the rival gang Bloods. Tupac and his team allegedly beat up Anderson after the incident.

“Davis went on to say that later that night he, Anderson and two other people waited around for Tupac to leave a boxing match. . . .”

Citing the documentary, Mahsa Saeidi of Las Vegas station KTNV-TV reported July 3, updated Friday, that an arrest was imminent in the case. But Matt Miller reported Thursday for Esquire, ” Las Vegas police, however, say that the case remains an open homicide case.”

Separately, Nancy Dillon reported Thursday for the Daily News in New York, “Keffe D gave an on-camera confession to BET’s ‘Death Row Chronicles’ documentary series, released in February. “ ‘Going to keep it for the code of the streets. It just came from the backseat, bro,’ Keffe D said in the interview when asked the identity of the shooter. . . .”

Nevertheless, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement, ‘We are aware of the statements made in a BET interview regarding the Tupac case. As a result of those statements we have spent the last several months reviewing the case in its entirety.’ ”

Rafael Marques (Credit: International Press Institute)

2 Acquitted in ‘Huge Victory’ for Press Freedom

A court in Luanda, Angola’s capital, today acquitted investigative journalist Rafael Marques and editor Mariano Bras on accusations of insulting the state, a huge victory for press freedom in a country where the media have often been targets of government repression,” Zenaida Machado reported Friday for Human Rights Watch.

“The two journalists were charged on June 21, 2017 with ‘outrage to a body of sovereignty and injury against public authority,’ under Angola’s Law on Crimes against State Security, after publishing an article about an alleged illegal land acquisition involving the attorney general, João Maria de Sousa.

“The article — first published on Marques’ website MakaAngola in November 2016 and re-published by O Crime, edited by Bras — alleged that de Sousa unlawfully acted as a property and real estate developer in addition to his official duties. It also suggested that former President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos supported the attorney general’s actions.

“State prosecutors argued that the journalists acted in bad faith and violated the ethical principles of journalism. But the judge disagreed.

“In reading the almost three-hour long verdict, judge Josina Ferreira Falcão highlighted the importance of public servants being exposed to criticism and scrutiny. ‘This court believes that we would be doing very bad as a society that wants to progress, if we punished the messengers of bad news,’ she said. . . .”

Short Takes

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