ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

Blog

by

Why Did KAMALA HARRIS’S OFFICE STOPPED COOPERATING WITH VICTIMS OF CATHOLIC CHURCH CHILD ABUSE?

Fighting on behalf of victims of sexual abuse, particularly children, has been central to Harris’s political identity for the better part of three decades. Harris specialized in prosecuting sex crimes and child exploitation as a young prosecutor just out of law school. She later touted her record on child sexual abuse cases and prosecuting pedophiles in television advertisements, splashy profiles, and on the trail as she campaigned for public office.

But when it came to taking on the Catholic Church, survivors of clergy sexual abuse say that Harris turned a blind eye, refusing to take action against clergy members accused of sexually abusing children when it meant confronting one of the city’s most powerful political institutions.

When Harris became San Francisco district attorney in 2004, she took over an office that had been working closely with survivors of sexual abuse to pursue cases against the Catholic Church. The office and the survivors were in the middle of a legal battle to hold predatory priests accountable, and Harris inherited a collection of personnel files involving allegations of sexual abuse by priests and employees of the San Francisco Archdiocese, which oversees church operations in San Francisco, and Marin and San Mateo counties.

The files had been compiled by investigators working under the direction of Terence Hallinan, the radical district attorney who Harris ousted in a contentious election campaign. Hallinan’s team had prosecuted cases of abuse that had occurred decades earlier and had gathered evidence as part of a probe into widespread clergy sexual misconduct.

Just six months before Harris took office, a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned a California law that had retroactively eliminated the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution of child molestation cases. That shifted the focus to holding predators among the clergy accountable through civil cases and through a broader effort to bring attention to predators who had been shielded by the church.

Hallinan believed that the clergy abuse files were a matter of public record; Harris refused to release them to the public.

In her seven years as district attorney, Harris’s office did not proactively assist in civil cases against clergy sex abuse and ignored requests by activists and survivors to access the cache of investigative files that could have helped them secure justice, according to several victims of clergy sex abuse living in California who spoke to The Intercept.

“It went from Terence Hallinan going hundred miles an hour, full speed ahead, after the Catholic Church to Kamala Harris doing absolutely nothing and taking it backwards hundred miles an hour,” said Joey Piscitelli, a sexual assault survivor, who a jury found had been molested as a student while attending Salesian College Preparatory, a Catholic high school in Richmond, California.

Piscitelli had met with Hallinan’s office to discuss his case and the ongoing investigation into the church. But, he said, when Harris took over, his access to the office was shut off and his requests for clergy abuse files were ignored. Piscitelli resorted to handing out flyers and picketing outside the district attorney’s office on San Francisco’s McAllister Street.

Dominic De Lucca, a Burlingame, California, resident who says he was raped by a local priest when he was 12 years old, also said he was shocked that Harris declined to aggressively pursue clergy abuse cases and refused to release the files. “I remember Kamala Harris,” said De Lucca. “She didn’t want to have any meetings.” He went on, “She wanted the public to think this is an issue that happened years ago, that it doesn’t happen anymore. Let’s just move on.”

Terence McAteer, a resident of Nevada City, California, says he was raped as a child by Austin Peter Keegan, an infamous San Francisco priest. McAteer said he sees no value in Harris’s decision to conceal the clergy abuse files, which had been used to indict his abuser but remain secret to this day. “Why not tell the story?” said McAteer. “I have no problem with my file being released. I don’t have any great secrets. It’s already in the newspaper. I think the whole cloak of secrecy with the Catholic Church needs to be exposed.”

Kevin V. Ryan, the former U.S. Attorney for Northern California who worked with Hallinan’s office on the clergy abuse cases, also agreed that the files should be disclosed. “Credible allegations in my opinion should be released,” said Ryan. “I think they should be made public and I think it’s necessary not only for accountability but for the healing process to begin.”

Several survivors of clergy abuse said they believed that Harris had declined to release the files in deference to the Catholic Church, which has historically held sway as a major political force in San Francisco.

“The Roman Catholic Church is very powerful and I think they didn’t want to step on any toes, especially in San Francisco,” said De Lucca, citing the influence of former Archbishop William Levada, who oversaw the archdiocese when Harris was district attorney.

Harris’s presidential campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Intercept.

Mike Brown, director of communications at the San Francisco Archdiocese, said that his office has “cooperated with every district attorney and attorney general request for records every time.” Brown said he did not believe that the archdiocese attempted to influence the Harris’s decision not to release the clergy abuse files. He added that it was not his place to comment on her decisions. “What was in Kamala Harris’s head?” he said. “I don’t think I have any way of knowing that.”

The Catholic Church casts a long shadow over San Francisco politics, despite the city’s national reputation for social liberalism and counterculture. Generations of politicians have relied on the endorsement of the archdiocese, which maintained strong support among Irish, Italian, and Latin American immigrant communities.

David Talbot, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and longtime observer of city politics, said, “The San Francisco Archdiocese certainly — through Kamala’s days as district attorney and through the current day — wields significant influence in the city power structure.”

THE NATIONAL FOCUS on clergy sex abuse came in large part as a reaction to the shocking revelations of the 2002 Boston Globe series on clergy sex abuse in the Boston-area. The investigation revealed that, under the leadership of Cardinal Bernard Law, the Boston Archdiocese covered up for more than 70 priests accused of sexually assaulting children. Following the Globe’s report, media outlets across the country began investigations and found that local church leadership in various locations similarly failed to inform law enforcement of known pedophiles in the clergy and, in some cases, shifted abusers from parish to parish.

Hallinan, in his role as district attorney, responded to the story by requesting that the San Francisco Archdiocese provide 75 years of personnel files relating to sex abuse cases. “We want anything they have in their records,” Hallinan told reporters at the time. “We will see if there are enforceable cases, and if there are, we will prosecute.”

The effort made headlines — and engendered some criticism. The San Francisco Chronicle, for instance, editorialized that the investigation was merely a “fishing expedition.” Hallinan’s pursuit, though, also brought forward a wave of victims who said they had been raped or molested by clergy over the years. Just months after opening his inquiry, Hallinan used a grand jury to begin issuing indictments.

The Catholic Church personnel files collected by Hallinan were used to indict Keegan. The internal church records suggest that Keegan may have molested as many as 80 local children over the years. Keegan presided over the funeral of McAteer’s father, a prominent local San Francisco politician, who passed away in 1967. Over the following summer, Keegan brought McAteer to the Disneyland Hotel, where he allegedly molested and sodomized him.

The San Francisco Archdiocese spent $2.4 million defending Keegan from previous lawsuits over molestation accusations and continued paying the former priest a $900-per-month stipend after he left the priesthood. The former priest relocated to an orphanage in Mexico and was later apprehended by FBI agents to stand trial in San Francisco over Hallinan’s criminal charges.

While Hallinan was pursuing his investigation, McAteer spoke to Kevin Ryan, the former federal prosecutor, about the case. “It was Kevin who phoned me up,” said McAteer, “to tell me Hallinan had just gotten all the records from the archdiocese and they opened up the files, and — Kevin’s words, I can still hear them: ‘The fattest file was Peter Keegan.’”

During the investigation, Hallinan’s office issued an indictment for Salvatore “Sal” Billante, who had allegedly molested a teenager and allegedly witnessed the abuse against Piscitelli in Richmond before working as a youth pastor in San Francisco.

Rev. Patrick J. O’Shea, another former priest indicted by Hallinan, had faced decades of accusations that he groomed altar boys at various Catholic institutions across San Francisco, including Mission Dolores Basilica. O’Shea was accused of regularly bringing children to a lake house outside the city, where he would ply them with alcohol and molest them.

De Lucca, one of several men who accused O’Shea, said the former priest molested him on a trip to the lake house in 1978 when he was 12 years old. Other victims have said they were molested over 100 times by O’Shea at church facilities in the city and at the lake house.

THE WAVE OF criminal indictments meant that the San Francisco Archdiocese, under Levada, was suddenly facing repercussions. It could not have come as a total surprise to Levada, who had his own history of dealing with alleged abuses in the clergy’s ranks.

Levada had previously served as the archbishop of Portland, a role in which he had briefly removed Joseph Baccellieri, a priest accused of molesting a child, in 1992 — only to restore him two years later. According to the newspaper SF Weekly, Levada quietly provided payments to three male victims in exchange for their silence and a pledge not to sue the archdiocese. The Portland Archdiocese later became the first Catholic diocese to file for bankruptcy over child sex abuse scandals as it paid out over $50 million to settle hundreds of claims.

A few years later, in 1995, Levada left Portland to become archbishop of San Francisco. He learned in 1996 that a Marin County priest, Gregory Ingels, had been accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. Still, Ingels was allowed to continue working and the matter was not reported to police. Instead, Ingels’s career flourished as the priest became an adviser to Levada, helping the church leader shape his approach to clergy sex abuse issues. Ingels was later brought up on molestation charges, including molesting two teenagers in the 1970s.

Nonetheless, Levada’s star would continue to rise in the church. In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI named Levada as the guardian of church doctrine, elevating the archbishop to one of the most powerful posts in the Vatican.

Toward the end of Levada’s 10-year tenure in San Francisco, the church faced a reprieve from Hallinan’s investigations. As church officials and former clergy members faced a slew of criminal charges, prosecutors faced a setback when, in June 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 1994 California law that had extended the criminal statute of limitations in sex abuse cases — the law under which indictments had been issued against clergy members. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, hundreds of accused abusers across the state walked free, including priests and clergy indicted in San Francisco such as O’Shea, Ingels, Keegan, and Billiante. Because the criminal cases came to a halt, the accusations made against these clergy could not be tried, and no finding of guilt was ever made.

The high-court ruling closed the door on criminal prosecutions over abuse that occurred in the past, but a new avenue remained open for civil cases. As Hallinan’s investigations unfolded in 2002, state Sen. John Burton, who represented San Francisco, authored legislation to waive the statute of limitations in civil cases, allowing victims of childhood sexual abuse a chance to seek justice in court with a one-year window to file suit.

The church, then under the leadership of Levada, the archbishop, characterized the effort to extend the statute of limitations as a plot to line the pockets of trial lawyers. The archdiocese newspaper, Catholic San Francisco, responded to Burton’s law with an article warning of a “swarm of lawsuits” as “lawyers aggressively seek sex abuse business.”

But the law was quickly passed. In 2003, hundreds of survivors including Piscitelli filed civil lawsuits against their alleged abusers, under the condition that they could show that the employers of abusers had known of allegations of misconduct and failed to act.

AS THE DRAMA of the church sex abuse cases was unfolding in 2003, Kamala Harris waged a bitter campaign to win the district attorney’s office, alleging that Hallinan had been “soft on crime.” Much of the old guard of San Francisco’s political establishment, which had grown wary of Hallinan’s pugnacious style and investigations of political leaders and police misconduct, backed Harris. The election went to runoff, which Harris handily won.

As the dust settled over the election campaign, hundreds of survivors were shifting their focus to civil court, hoping that they could take advantage of Burton’s law to hold the Catholic Church responsible for shielding predators.

“We were told office policy was we can’t provide you with anything.”

Because Piscitelli, De Lucca, and other survivors had spoken with Hallinan’s investigators, they were surprised when the new district attorney’s office appeared to shift course and declined to meet with them. “My jaw just dropped,” said De Lucca, who was by then working with the activist group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. “SNAP was very upset about it.”

About a year after Harris took office, Piscitelli, whose lawsuit was already underway, wrote Harris to ask for assistance in his case against the Salesians of Don Bosco, the church institution that oversaw the school where he was abused. In the letter, which he shared with The Intercept, Piscitelli noted that his alleged abuser, Steven Whelan, was working at the Saints Peter and Paul Church in San Francisco, a position that placed him in an environment filled with children.

“I know you have files on clergy sex abusers in San Francisco, and you may have a file on him. Please send me that file,” wrote Piscitelli. “Several San Francisco Salesians, and other priests are being sued for sex abuse now, and you may be able to help their victims, and protect other kids from being new victims.”

When no response came, Piscitelli, who had become a volunteer activist with SNAP, began posting flyers and picketed the offices of the district attorney, accusing her of cozy ties with Levada, then the top Catholic official in the city.

Without any help from Harris, Piscitelli continued to pursue his case. During the trial, which took place in Contra Costa County in 2006, Piscitelli testified that when he was 14, Whelan, a teacher and vice principal at Salesian High School in Richmond, had masturbated in front of him while another priest, “Sal” Billante, had watched and expressed pleasure. The jury found that from 1969 through 1971, Whelan continued to molest and rape Piscitelli and told him that no one would believe him if he spoke out.

The trial made headlines as the church sought to discredit Piscitelli, but he won his case. In 2006, a jury awarded him $600,000 in damages. The Salesian order appealed the verdict, but an appellate court sided with Piscitelli.

By the time the judgment came down, Piscitelli had become a coordinator with SNAP and was continuing with his activism to highlight sexual abuse in the church. He picketed the church in San Francisco where Whelan had transferred and asked Harris to take action against other abusers he said were being sheltered by the church. Harris had under her control a tremendous cache of records related to abuse at the church, and even if criminal prosecution was no longer an option, Piscitelli felt that releasing them would ensure some measure of justice.

“It is not understandable that you have refused to release the documents that have been previously collected by DA Terence Hallinan, that spell out the names of the child rapists, and molesters who have wreaked havoc on children here,” Piscitelli wrote in a second letter to Harris in 2010, requesting the church personnel files.

Rick Simons, Piscitelli’s attorney, had served as a plaintiff’s liaison on the Clergy III consolidated lawsuit of over 100 similar cases. He said that he had received informal assistance from a number of district attorneys in the region, including Alameda County’s Nancy O’Malley, who had worked closely with victims and plaintiffs’ attorneys to suggest records to subpoena.

But Harris had stonewalled. Simons recalled phone conversations with Harris’s office in which no help was offered. He said, “We were told office policy was we can’t provide you with anything.”

SF WEEKLY, THE local alternative newspaper, pressed Harris to release the church abuse personnel files in 2005 and again in 2010. In both cases, her office refused. The newspaper revealed that shortly after being elected, Harris had worked with church officials and other prosecutors to conceal the clergy records, electing to only divulge clergy abuse files over the course of a criminal investigation, a possibility forestalled by the Supreme Court ruling.

Several California prosecutors signed a controversial protocol at the time with the Catholic Church to conceal similar sexual abuse documents. SF Weekly reported that the “protocol basically puts church officials on the honor system for turning over materials that they determine may be of relevance to the district attorney.”

Hallinan expressed outrage at the agreement and supported the effort to release the files. He told the magazine that he “wouldn’t do a deal like that for [the archdiocese] any more than I would if it were an Elks Club with a bunch of pedophiles. Those are the kinds of deals that have allowed the church sex scandal to go on as long as it has.”

In 2010, the files resurfaced as Harris sought statewide office as California attorney general. In a follow-up story, SF Weekly confirmed that Harris had the power to release the clergy sex abuse files as public record but had again refused.

“District Attorney Harris focuses her efforts on putting child molesters in prison,” Harris’s office responded in a statement to the paper. “We’re not interested in selling out our victims to look good in the paper. When this case was brought under Terence Hallinan, prosecutors took the utmost care to protect the identity and dignity of the victims. That was the right thing to do then and it’s the right thing to do now.”

The response baffled victims’ advocates and Hallinan, who reiterated his support for releasing the files. “It was just a flat-out insult,” said Piscitelli. “She could have redacted the names, blacked out the names and left them out.”

Joelle Casteix, founder of Survivors Taking on Predators, a national advocacy group for victims of clergy sexual abuse, said she was disappointed with the Harris statement. “Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant,” said Casteix. “Victims come forward because they are afraid that the person who hurt them is still out there, hurting other kids, or someone from the diocese is still lying about it. I haven’t met a single survivor who’s said, ‘Boy, am I glad they kept the documents for my case secret.’”

Elliot Beckelman, a former prosecutor in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office who initially oversaw the clergy abuse files and handled the criminal investigation of clergy abuse, said he did not recall that the attorneys for survivors requested the documents. He did remember opposing the effort to release the documents to the press. “The only thing I remember is the SF Weekly asking,” said Beckelman.

Still, he said, he believes that Harris made the right choice in declining to release the documents. “I don’t think a district attorney should float that out there if a person can’t defend themselves,” Beckelman continued. “It’s a very serious charge, a sex crime.”

“The Catholics, like other minorities, feel picked upon, and I thought for the integrity of the investigation that we don’t have running press conferences to make out that the Catholics are worse than the Jews — which I am — or worse than the Hindus,” Beckelman said. “There’s always a balance that comes to sexual assault investigations.”

Others in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, however, recall getting requests for files from victims. “I certainly remember receiving phone calls from attorneys representing victims and I can’t remember what we actually did,” said Erin Gallagher, a former investigator who worked with Beckelman on the clergy abuse cases at the district attorney’s office. “I don’t recall letters requesting documents, but as I said, but I do remember having a number of phone conversations. I don’t remember how those played out.”

The decision to conceal the San Francisco Archdiocese clergy abuse files stands in stark contrast to recent investigations into Catholic sex abuse across the country.

Over the last year, prosecutors have reopened wide-ranging investigations into systemic clergy sex abuse. Attorneys general in Iowa, New Mexico, Michigan, Illinois, and other states have asked the Catholic Church to produce internal files of clergy accused of sexual abuse.

Last August, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro released a 900-page report from a Pittsburgh grand jury listing 300 priests credibly accused of sexual misconduct. The report included internal church personnel documents, redacting the names of the victims, detailing dozens of cases of confidential letters making clear that incidents of clergy rape, molestation, and other forms of child sex abuse had been reported to high-level church officials. In case after case, church officials were made aware of misconduct and responded by moving the accused priests to parishes around Pennsylvania.

McAteer, one of the survivors who spoke to The Intercept, said his abuser had continued to rape children well after he had reported the incident. “I went to the church in ’77, wrote the archbishop, met with the archbishop, told him the story of what happened when I was raped by Father Keegan,” said McAteer. The church, he said, “covered it up” and allowed his abuser to continue raping children. With the church failing to report the abuse to authorities, Keegan was moved to Santa Rosa, California, where he was accused of raping or molesting at least 50 other children.

“I think the whole problem with this Catholic Church scandal is very rarely has anyone come clean. Finally, we saw in Pittsburgh — finally they said, ‘Let’s tell it like it is,’” McAteer said. “I know the San Francisco files are egregious as well. Why not tell the story so the Catholic Church can clean its act up?”

Piscitelli supports the Pennsylvania probe, as well as the other investigations of Catholic Church sex abuse in other states.

Last year, Piscitelli wrote a letter to current California Attorney General Xavier Becerra demanding that Becerra open an inquiry into clergy sexual abuse. Within weeks, Piscitelli received a response and a request to meet with state investigators. Becerra soon set up a tip line for other survivors to come forward and has demanded clergy abuse records from all 12 Catholic Church dioceses in California.

While previous prosecutions of clergy sex abuse have focused on individual priests or employees of the church, some are hoping the latest round investigations will lead to a more systemic look at the scandal. Kevin Ryan, the former federal prosecutor who worked closely with Hallinan’s office, said prosecutors could pursue charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a statute used to prosecute organized crime.

“There are still civil RICO potential charges, potential criminal RICO charges if there is a cover-up and it is ongoing,” said Ryan. “We need to know, we need accountability, and certainly we need to be prosecuting the cases we can and anyone involved in this activity should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

The San Francisco Archdiocese has told reporters that it is in discussions with an outside organization to review 4,000 personnel files over clergy abuse allegations, but has so far declined to release a list of priests accused of sexual abuse. Mike Brown, the spokesperson for the archdiocese, told The Intercept that he expects a list of names to be released over the summer this year.

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/kamala-harris-san-francisco-catholic-church-child-abuse/

by

Some Mask Increase Transmission of Coronavirus; Better To Wear No Mask

Some face coverings, like neck gaiters, are actually worse than going without a mask, breaking down large droplets into smaller particles and allowing them to escape, Duke University researchers discovered in a study released on Friday.

Researchers at Duke University examined several types of face coverings — from cloth masks to bandanas to neck gaiters — to review their effectiveness of stopping large respiratory droplets. Determining the effectiveness of masks, they said,  “is a complex topic,” in part, because “the infection pathways for COVID-19 are not yet fully understood and are complicated by many factors such as the route of transmission, correct fit and usage of masks, and environmental variables.”

Nonetheless, several states, local governments, and businesses have implemented mask mandates to help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, despite the lingering questions on the efficacy of homemade masks, which many Americans have embraced given the widespread call to reserve N95 masks for frontline medical workers.

The researchers tested 14 different face coverings, with the wearer speaking “into the direction of an expanded laser beam inside a dark enclosure.”

“Droplets that propagate through the laser beam scatter light, which is recorded with a cell phone camera. A simple computer algorithm is used to count the droplets in the video,” researchers explained.

While the study showed an N95 proving to be the most effective, it also found fleece coverings and neck gaiters to be worse than going maskless, as they break down larger respiratory droplets, creating smaller droplets which can escape.

Per the study:

We noticed that speaking through some masks (particularly the neck fleece) seemed to disperse the largest droplets into a multitude of smaller droplets (see Supplementary Fig. S5), which explains the apparent increase in droplet count relative to no mask in that case. Considering that smaller particles are airborne longer than large droplets (larger droplets sink faster), the use of such a mask might be counterproductive. Furthermore, the performance of the valved N95 mask is likely affected by the exhalation valve, which opens for strong outwards airflow. While the valve does not compromise the protection of the wearer, it can decrease protection of persons surrounding the wearer. In comparison, the performance of the fitted, non-valved N95 mask was far superior.

Bandana masks and knitted masks also proved to offer little protection.

“We were extremely surprised to find that the number of particles measured with the fleece actually exceeded the number of particles measured without wearing any mask,”Martin Fischer, an author of the study, told CNN.

“We want to emphasize that we really encourage people to wear masks, but we want them to wear masks that actually work,” he added.

While the study found surgical masks and cotton masks to be relatively effective in reducing respiratory droplets, the effectiveness of makeshift face coverings continues to remain largely inconclusive and a subject of heavy debate. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has failed to state definitively that homemade masks work to curb the transmission of the novel coronavirus, stating that it “may” help prevent the spread of the virus.

An April commentary from two experts on respiratory protection — both a retired and current professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago  — referenced the National Academies of Sciences Rapid Expert Consultation on the Effectiveness of Fabric Masks for the COVID-19 Pandemic (NAS 2020), which noted the lack of evidence of fabric masks filtering out smaller, aerosolized particles.

It stated:

The evidence from … laboratory filtration studies suggests that such fabric masks may reduce the transmission of larger respiratory droplets. There is little evidence regarding the transmission of small aerosolized particulates of the size potentially exhaled by asymptomatic or presymptomatic individuals with COVID-19.

“Wearing a cloth mask or face covering could be better than doing nothing, but we simply don’t know at this point,” the experts said.

While they said they made it clear that they support mask-wearing, they added that they:

…continue to conclude that cloth masks and face coverings are likely to have limited impact on lowering COVID-19 transmission, because they have minimal ability to prevent the emission of small particles, offer limited personal protection with respect to small particle inhalation, and should not be recommended as a replacement for physical distancing or reducing time in enclosed spaces with many potentially infectious people.

They added:

We are very concerned about messaging that suggests cloth masks or face coverings can replace physical distancing. We also worry that the public doesn’t understand the limitations of cloth masks and face coverings when we observe how many people wear their mask under their nose or even under their mouth, remove their masks when talking to someone nearby, or fail to practice physical distancing when wearing a mask.

However, the commentary was updated on July 16 with the following editor’s note:

The authors and CIDRAP have received requests in recent weeks to remove this article from the CIDRAP website. Reasons have included: (1) we don’t truly know that cloth masks (face coverings) are not effective, since the data are so limited, (2) wearing a cloth mask or face covering is better than doing nothing, (3) the article is being used by individuals and groups to support non-mask wearing where mandated and (4) there are now many modeling studies suggesting that cloth masks or face coverings could be effective at flattening the curve and preventing many cases of infection.

Similarly, a study from the New England Journal of Medicine titled, “Universal Masking in Hospitals in the Covid-19 Era” explicitly stated, “We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection,” and emphasized the psychological benefits of universal mask-wearing.

However, the study provided an update on June 3, affirming that the “intent of our article was to push for more masking, not less.”

The update read in part:

We did state in the article that “wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection,” but as the rest of the paragraph makes clear, we intended this statement to apply to passing encounters in public spaces, not sustained interactions within closed environments.

Nine out of ten Americans indicated that they have “always” or “sometimes” worn a mask in public over the course of the last month, a recently released Morning Consult survey showed. A Morning Consult/Politico survey released last month also revealed that the vast majority of voters would support their states implementing a mask mandate that threatened fines and jail time for violators.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/10/study-certain-face-coverings-increase-transmission-of-coronavirus-worse-than-going-maskless/

by

The Real Reason Chicago Is So Violent: Prosecutor Kim Foxx Has Dropped 25,183 Felony Cases

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has dropped over 25,000 felony cases, including charges of murder and the alleged hate crime hoax from former Empire star Jussie Smollett, according to an analysis released by the Chicago Tribune on Monday.

The Chicago Tribune reported:

During Foxx’s first three years as the county’s top prosecutor, her office dropped all charges against 29.9% of felony defendants, a dramatic increase over her predecessor, the Tribune found. For the last three years of Anita Alvarez’s tenure, the rate was 19.4%.

In all, a total of 25,183 people had their felony cases dismissed under Foxx through November 2019, up from 18,694 for a similar period under Alvarez.

[…]

For the three-year period analyzed, Foxx’s office dropped 8.1% of homicide cases, compared with 5.3% under Alvarez, the Tribune found. Under Foxx, the office dropped 9.5% of felony sex crime cases; the rate was 6.5% for Alvarez.

In a statement to the Tribune, Foxx, who is up for reelection in November, said of the figures: “It is always eye-opening to be able to look at our own data and compare it to my predecessor’s past. I can’t reconcile what her decision-making was, and how they chose to (dismiss) cases in the past. But I will say that this administration has been clear that our focus would be on violent crime and making sure that our resources and attention would go to addressing violent crime.”

Foxx garnered headlines in 2019 after she dropped charges against Smollett, who purportedly staged an assault against himself and claimed supporters of President Donald Trump were the perpetrators, using homophobic slurs and placing a noose around his neck.

Roughly two weeks before letting Smollett off the hook, Foxx branded him a “washed up celeb who lied to cops” in text messages to staff members. “Sooo……I’m recused, but when people accuse us of overcharging cases …16 counts on a class 4 (felony) becomes exhibit A,” Foxx wrote a staff member on March 8th, the same day Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts by a Cook County grand jury for filing a false police report on the January 29th incident.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/10/paper-chicago-prosecutor-kim-foxx-has-dropped-25183-felony-cases/

by

Fraud Obama Uses John Lewis Funeral To To Support Rioters

Former President Barack Obama used his speech at the funeral of John Lewis to issue a stunning rebuke of President Trump and Republicans hours after his successor in the White House floated an Election Day delay.

At the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Thursday, Obama condemned the federal response to violent riots in Portland, Oregon, and said people in power were targeting minorities to prevent voter turnout.

“George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators,” the Democrat began.

“We may no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to cast a ballot, but even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting, like closing polling locations, and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision. Even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick,” Obama continued.

Obama also called for a renewal of the Voting Rights Act, taking aim at Supreme Court decisions that he said enabled local officials to suppress minority turnout.

“There’s a better way than a statement calling him a hero. You want to honor John? Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for. Naming it the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. That is a fine tribute. But John wouldn’t want us to stop there, just trying to get back to where we already were,” Obama said, calling for every U.S. citizen to be automatically registered to vote and to keep protesting.

Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concerns about voting amid the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans are skeptical of mail-in voting, with some saying it could allow for voter fraud. Obama spoke hours after Trump proposed delaying the November election out of concern that mail-in voting would lead to the “most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history,” echoing his prior skepticism on universal mail-in voting. The day of the election is set by law and requires both houses in Congress to vote in favor of changing it.

Democrats have brushed off those concerns, often stating voters should not risk contracting the coronavirus and be given abilities to vote by mail.

During an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Attorney General William Barr said there is a “high risk” of potential voter fraud by utilizing universal mail-in voting, though he also said he has no expectation the election will be “rigged.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/obama-assails-those-attacking-our-voting-rights-at-john-lewis-funeral

by

What The Hell Is Joe Biden Talking About? “Voter Registration Physicians”?

By: The Doctor Of Common Sense

Joe Biden’s mind is gone. He can’t even do a simple interview without sticking his foot in his mouth.

Even if you give Joe the questions, and the answers. Hell you can throw in a Obama teleprompter, and he would still sound like an idiot.

This is the man that beat out about 28 other candidates to win the Democratic nomination.

What does that say about the Democratic Party?

Either Joe Biden is in early stages of dementia, or his brain is not cooperating with his mouth. 

Joe Biden has always made gaffes, and said dumb things.

The older you get it just becomes harder to catch your foot from going into your mouth.

Back in 2010 Joe was speaking at a reception for Brian Cowen.

Joe pronounced the mans mother as being deceased. But then he quickly caught himself and said “wait your mother is still alive”.  

So Joe’s latest blunder is we have “Voter Registration Physicians”.

I’m not sure what that is, but I’m guessing it is a democratic strategist that is hired to create fake ballots for the democrats.

You see even when Joe has friendly interviews from one of the alphabet channels.

Which are simple wings of the Democratic Party.

I don’t know how these News Stations can call themselves journalist.

When they interview Joe Biden, they never question him, like they would President Trump.

What if Donald Trump had said “The consensus is A), we must take back the streets,” Biden said, “It doesn’t matter whether or not the person that is accosting your son or daughter or my son or daughter, my wife, your husband, my mother, your parents, it doesn’t matter whether or not they were deprived as a youth. It doesn’t matter whether or not they had no background that enabled them to become socialized into the fabric of society. It doesn’t matter whether or not they’re the victims of society. The end result is they’re about to knock my mother on the head with a lead pipe, shoot my sister, beat up my wife, take on my sons.” 

This is Joe Biden’s speech while pushing the Crime Bill in 1993.

I don’t disagree with everything he says, but why is it that the Left-wing nut jobs are giving him a pass.

I think that criminals should be taken off the street. I don’t care what your race is, because if you are dangerous, law-abiding citizens should be protected.

But these “Woke” liberals pretend that you can’t call a person a criminal, if he or she happens to be a minority.

But wait, Joe Biden was not finished, he went on to say; “We have predators on our streets that society has in fact, in part because of its neglect, created,”

“They are beyond the pale many of those people, beyond the pale,” “And it’s a sad commentary on society. We have no choice but to take them out of society.” 

Are you telling me that if President Trump had made the same statements that Joe made, the media would not be talking about it none stop?

It would be 24/7 coverage on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, and even ESPN would have a segment on it.

But they must protect Joe Biden, because he is so damn pathetic.

He can’t remember what State he is visiting or campaigning in.

He was hiding in a safe house for over 2 months. He was not in the witness protection program. But they where protecting Joe Biden, from Joe Biden.

It is one of the worst kept secrets in News today.

Because even the liberal bias media know that Joe Biden is not qualified to be president.

But they don’t care that he has been in public office for over 44 years. They don’t care that he was the vice-president for 8 years, and has never really done a damn thing.

Joe Biden does not care about blacks. He does not care about the poor. He does not care about Climate Change. He does not care about the LGBTQ. He does not even care about America.

He cares about getting he, and his family rich.

That should be Joe Biden’s talking point.

“Joe what are you running on?” “I’m running on making billions for my family and friends.”

That is all Joe has ever done.

 If Hunter Biden was not is son, he would be in jail, for possession, or strung out somewhere on drugs.

His son Hunter is a drug addict. Joe Biden or his wife have not even recognized is new son by Lunden Alexis Roberts.

She is a stripper that Hunter got pregnant and the paternity DNA test proves he is the father.

She did not even have to go on the Jerry Springer Show.

But Joe Biden can’t even remember how many grandchildren that he has, let alone what to do as President.

But this proves how corrupt the so-called journalist, and News Station have become.

They have always been bias, but now they don’t even attempt to hide it.

No one with an education past the 6th grade should be arguing if Joe Biden is qualified.

If he is so qualified why is it that the left-wing media feel the need to protect him?

They don’t think he is capable of being the president. All they know is that the orange man is bad.

By Any Means Necessary they must remove President Trump out of office.

They say the hell with a duly elected president, if it does not fit our agenda. 

If you had a candidate that you had confidence in, would you not want him to speak to the people?

But Joe Biden is the first candidate to be in the witness protection program.

But he is not being protected from Mob Bosses, or Murders.

He is being protected from himself. But when you find out what Joe means when he says “Voter Registration Physicians”, please let me know.

by

Idiot Gov. Gavin Newsom Will Release 8,000 ‘Most Dangerous’ Prisoners to Prevent Virus Spread

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration on Friday green-lighted the early release of more than 8,000 state prison inmates in response to surging COVID-19 infections in California prisons, in essence conceding their inability to control the virus among the incarcerated.

The releases, set to occur on a “rolling basis” between now and the end of August, will involve low-level offenders and older inmates who officials say pose less risk to public safety. An as-yet-uncertain number of those may actually have the virus at the time of release and will be moved into quarantine; others will be infection-free but are being released because the state cannot guarantee their safety while in prison.

Newsom and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have been under intense pressure to take action after an explosive outbreak at San Quentin State Prison, which as of Friday accounts for 1,331 of the state’s 2,318 active COVID-19 prison cases.

“The decision today by Gov. Newsom to ramp up safe prison releases is a credit to the advocacy of people and organizations throughout the state who have demanded clear action to protect public health and safety,” Jay Jordan, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, said in a statement. “It’s ironic that California has a moratorium on the death penalty, yet people are being killed in prisons by way of COVID.”

It is not the first such action California has been forced to take, and it may not be the last.

Since the end of March, the state prison system has decreased its population from 126,000 to about 113,000, partially by releasing low-level offenders near the end of their sentences. Alameda County Chief Public Defender Brendon Woods contends that another 60,000 low-risk inmates can be released. He called the Friday news “a step in the right direction” but said it falls short of what is needed.

“It barely scratches the surface of the enormous problem of COVID in prisons,” Woods said. “I would go as far as saying it’s severely deficient.”

At least one advocacy group objected to Friday’s news for divergent reasons.

“The state has already released 10,000 so-called ‘non-violent’ inmates early, and to nearly double this is an afront to crime victims and a serious risk to public health and safety,” Nina Salarno Besselman, president of Crime Victims United, said in a statement. “There are no ‘non-violent’ inmates left to release — those were released long ago, or are now sentenced to local jails.”

San Quentin has recorded seven deaths to date, and about 70 inmates have been hospitalized outside the facility. The virus is also spreading from the prison into the community as workers come and go.

Dr. Matt Willis, Marin County’s public health officer, called the situation a “disaster” and said the prison is “set up for another outbreak.” The state Office of Emergency Services is constructing a 200-bed field hospital on the prison grounds to offset the impact on local hospitals.

According to state corrections officials and Willis, those eligible for early release will be tested for COVID-19 seven days before their exit date, and anyone who tests positive or is believed to be exposed to the virus will be given a hotel room in which to quarantine through the state-funded prison transition program Project Hope. Those who do not test positive are still being encouraged to quarantine, and if they don’t have a home, they are eligible for a room through Project Roomkey, a newer state program to protect unhoused people from the virus.

That’s a key concern for Marin County Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, who said the state completely “failed to plan” for a rash of infections it should have anticipated months ago.

“The Department of Corrections is in panic mode, but they also need to carefully evaluate each prisoner’s rehabilitation and chance for success — and as each prisoner is released, ensure that housing support and probation services are available to them immediately,” Levine said.

Prison and jail outbreaks have worsened as the state grapples with the pandemic’s worst fallout yet. California approached 305,000 cases as of Friday and hit all-time records during the week in average cases and average daily deaths, while hospitalizations have climbed upwards for nearly two weeks to more than 7,800 patients on Thursday alone.

Most of San Quentin’s COVID-19 infections surfaced in the past two weeks after 121 inmates, many carrying the virus, were transferred there in late May from the California Institution for Men in Chino. That decision was widely criticized and led to the demotion of the state prisons’ top medical officer and the installation of a court-appointed federal receiver to oversee that part of the system.

James King, a former San Quentin inmate and a state campaigner for the Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, has called for Newsom to tour the prison to see the dire conditions himself. At a news conference in front of the prison Thursday, he read a letter from an inmate who said he was bedridden and vomiting but only infrequently allowed to bathe. The letter described how sick inmates can be heard frequently shrieking in pain.

Since the formal declaration of the pandemic in early March, the state’s prisons have recorded 5,810 total coronavirus cases — including at least 31 deaths — across the system as of Friday. Most of the 8,000 state prison inmates eligible for release fall into one of four categories:

  • 4,800 inmates with 180 days or less left on their sentences for a nonviolent, non-sex crime
  • Nonviolent inmates over the age of 30 with a year or less left on their sentence, and who are being held in a prison deemed to be housing “large populations of high-risk patients,” including San Quentin
  • 2,100 inmates benefiting from a one-time 12-week custody credit for good behavior, excluding those on life-without-parole or death sentences
  • “High risk” inmates with serious health ailments that make them especially vulnerable to contracting or dying from COVID-19, including inmates over the age of 65

Woods, the Bay Area public defender, remains wary about whether the eligibility criteria will actually result in the 8,000-person goal forecast by CDCR.

“I’m deeply concerned that the estimates are exaggerated,” he said. “There are numerous carve-outs that should make one believe the numbers will be a lot smaller.”

Coronavirus: Upward of 8,000 state prison inmates to be released in wake of San Quentin outbreak