1. Joe Biden picks Sen. Kamala Harris to be his vice presidential running mate, making her the first Black woman on a major ticket
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/08/11/joe-biden-vp-pick-sen-kamala-harris.html
Former Vice President Joe Biden has chosen Sen. Kamala Harris of California to join him on the Democratic ticket, fulfilling his pledge to select a female running mate and making Harris the first Black woman ever to appear on a major party ticket.
Biden's selection of Harris, 55, lends racial diversity, gender parity and generational breadth to his campaign. It also represents a strategic decision by the 77-year-old former vice president to keep his ticket firmly within the more moderate wing of the Democratic Party.
"Back when Kamala was Attorney General, she worked closely with Beau," tweeted Biden, referring to his late son, Beau Biden. "I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I'm proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign."
Harris said in her own tweet shortly after Biden's decision, "Joe Biden can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he'll build an America that lives up to our ideals. I'm honored to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief."
Former President Barack Obama complimented his vice president's choice. "Joe Biden nailed this decision," Obama said in a statement. "By choosing Senator Kamala Harris as America's next vice president, he's underscored his own judgment and character. Reality shows us that these attributes are not optional in a president. They're requirements of the job. And now Joe has an ideal partner to help him tackle the very real challenges America faces right now and in the years ahead."
Harris (The State of Californias District Attorney for 6yrs and 1st time senator) has a uniquely American biography: Her mother was a widely respected breast cancer researcher who immigrated to the United States from India in the 1960s. Her father, Donald Harris, is an eminent economist who spent much of his career at Stanford University. Also an immigrant, Harris moved to the United States from Jamaica around the time his future wife came from India.
2. Trump admits he’s blocking postal cash to stop mail-in votes
https://apnews.com/14a2ceda724623604cc8d8e5ab9890ed
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump frankly acknowledged Thursday that he’s starving the U.S. Postal Service of money in order to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, which he worries could cost him the election.
In an interview on Fox Business Network, Trump explicitly noted two funding provisions that Democrats are seeking in a relief package that has stalled on Capitol Hill. Without the additional money, he said, the Postal Service won’t have the resources to handle a flood of ballots from voters who are seeking to avoid polling places during the coronavirus pandemic.
“If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo. “That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting; they just can’t have it.”
For Democrats, Trump’s new remarks were a clear admission that the president is attempting to restrict voting rights.
3. CORONAVIRUS IN JAILS AND PRISONS
https://theappeal.org/coronavirus-in-jails-and-prisons-42/
COVID-19 in prisons and jails, correctional healthcare experts warned that all the worst aspects of the U.S. criminal justice system — overcrowded, aging facilities lacking sanitary conditions and where medical care is, at best, sparse; too many older prisoners with underlying illnesses; regular flow of staff, guards, healthcare workers in and out of facilities — would leave detention facilities, and their surrounding communities, vulnerable to outbreaks. Despite those early warnings, even jails and prisons that believed they were well-prepared have seen a rapid spread of the virus.
3. Tarrant County, Texas, Sheriff Bill Waybourn told the Daily Caller that California leaders were releasing dangerous criminals because they “want to create more chaos in the country.”
But the L.A. Times story actually mentions only one person: Terebea Williams, who was released last month due to medical conditions that put her at risk of complications from COVID-19. In 1998, Williams, then 22, shot her boyfriend, Kevin “John” Ruska Jr., in the stomach, put him in the trunk of his car, and drove 750 miles to a Northern California motel where she tied him to a chair and left him. He died of an infection to the gunshot wound.
At trial, Williams testified that she killed Ruska in self-defense after he’d threatened and stalked her. Nevertheless, she was sentenced to 84 years to life.
Williams had served 19 years when she was released. The L.A. Times story notes that while she was in prison, Williams earned a college degree and mentored younger women. Prison administrators said she exhibited “exceptional conduct.”
Marc Levin, founder of Right on Crime, a conservative group that advocates for shrinking prison and jail populations through evidence-based reforms, said fear mongering over releases in response to COVID-19 has no basis in reality.
“There’s research showing that crime has continued to decline in the aggregate,” he said. “There’s been a spike in murders and shootings in some big cities, but that hasn’t been linked to people coming out of prison.”
Marc Levin, founder of Right on Crime, a conservative group that advocates for shrinking prison and jail populations through evidence-based reforms, said fear mongering over releases in response to COVID-19 has no basis in reality.
* Earlier this week, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods sent an email to his employees ordering them not to wear masks. “I can already hear the whining,” Woods wrote in the email, adding that there’s no clear evidence that masks prevent the spread of coronavirus. He made some exceptions, including for deputies who work in the Marion County Jail, though if a deputy needs to give an order, “the mask will be immediately removed,” the Ocala Star-Banner reports. Forty-three sheriff’s office employees and more than 200 people incarcerated at the jail have tested positive for coronavirus. On Monday, the Star-Banner reported that a nurse who worked at the jail, Charles “Dan” Manrique, died Aug. 8 from coronavirus-related complications.
* Staff at Oahu Community Correctional Center told the Honolulu Civil Beat that a recent outbreak in the jail resulted from protocols not being followed. Prisoners who should be quarantined are being placed in the general population, there’s no hand sanitizer in the facility, and masks distributed to staff are “flimsy.” According to the Hawaii Department of Public Safety, 16 people at the correctional center have tested positive for COVID-19 and 295 are in quarantine.
By Aug. 11, at least 95,398 people in prison had tested positive for the illness, a 10 percent increase from the week before.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/05/01/a-state-by-state-look-at-coronavirus-in-prisons
New cases among prisoners reached an all-time high this week after slowing down in June. The growth in recent weeks was driven by big jumps in prisoners testing positive in Florida, Texas, California and the federal Bureau of Prisons as well as outbreaks in Idaho, Iowa, Oregon and South Carolina.
The first known COVID-19 death of a prisoner was in Georgia when Anthony Cheek died on March 26. Cheek, who was 49 years old, had been held in Lee State Prison near Albany, a hotspot for the disease. Since then, at least 846 other prisoners have died of coronavirus-related causes. By Aug. 11, the total number of deaths had risen by 5 percent in a week.
Rocky Singh Kandola
RED DOT IMPORTS LLC
Hair Maiden India
BA in Philosophy/Pre Law
University of Alabama
Pace university
Business Management
International Businessman
He spent some time in prison ... with the current conditions of Covid 19 speading through prisons. We talk to my Kandola about prison conditions, release fear mongering, rehabilitation, biased sentencing and Covid in prisons.