What A Day - Portland Authority

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

Civil rights activists Rep. John Lewis and Minister CT Vivian passed away on Friday. Democrats in Congress are urging lawmakers to honor Lewis by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020, which would restore voter protections struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013. Federal agents in camouflage are patrolling streets in Portland, Oregon,using tear gas and other violent means to control protestors. The agents reportedly came as a result of Trump’s order to have federal agencies protect federal property, statues, and monuments. And in headlines: a study found that older children spread Covid-19 at the same rate adults do, more info about the massive July 16 Twitter hack, and Minnesota police use drones to catch sunbathers.To read more about the Strike for Black Lives: j20strikeforblacklives.orgTo follow events out of Portland: oregonlive.com and opb.org

It's Monday, July 20th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What A Day, where we are now living off a diet of 100% NBA bubble content. Yeah, who knew a trip to Disney World would be a punishment, but they are really hating it there. It's a summer camp from hell for them, and I'm living off of it. On today's show, Oregon's Attorney General sues over arrests of protesters in Portland, then some headlines. But first, the latest.

Let's take a test. Let's take a test right now. Let's go down. Joe and I will take a test. Let him take the same test that I took. Incidentally, I took the test, too, when I heard that you passed it. Yeah. How did you do? Well, it's not the hardest test. No, but the last picture and it's an elephant. No, no. OK, so that was Donald Trump. He was bragging about his cognitive abilities and, you know, knowing what's an elephant and what's not an elephant to Chris Wallace on Fox News yesterday. The interview also included Trump lying about the coronavirus mortality rate in the U.S., so par for the course, continuing to support people who fly the Confederate flag and also suggesting that he might not accept the results of the election in November. So totally normal. Yeah, all in a day's work. But in very important and sad news,

civil and voting rights activist Representative John Lewis and Minister C.T. Vivian passed away on Friday. Tributes and remembrances poured in from every corner of the world over the weekend. Vivian was a minister that Martin Luther King Jr. called the greatest preacher to ever live, and both were leaders in the sit-ins, marches, protests, and direct actions that forced America to look in the mirror and actually legislate a few of the values that we claim to have. During his term, President Barack Obama honored both C.T. Vivian and John Lewis with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. These men were lucky to survive long enough to hear thank you from generations that actually benefited from their sacrifice, which is a beautiful thing. My favorite detail that I read, though, over the weekend was that Congressman Lewis asked Obama to sign a piece of paper for him after his, you know, first inauguration, I guess.

And of course, he signed it. But the note he left read, because of you, John. Yeah, what a great story. And here's John Lewis speaking at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. We are tired. We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again. And then you holler, be patient. How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now. That was Lewis, then chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, just 23 years old, being broadcast worldwide demanding an end to police brutality, the endless incarceration, the endless oppression at the hands of, or at least not deterred by, the government. At the time of his death, he was the last living member of the Big Six that organized the March on Washington. So clearly, our history is not so far apart.

Yeah, it's not that far apart at all. So Lewis, of course, lived to see the extension of his work in the protests following the police killing of George Floyd. Here's what he had to say in an interview from last month. This feel and look so different. It is so much more massive and all-inclusive to see people from all over the world taken to the streets, to the roadways, to stand up, to speak up, to speak out, or to do what I call getting in trouble. He went on to say that people now know what the struggle was about. So now that we can see that direct line from the civil rights marches of the 1960s to today,

it's pretty obvious why Barack Obama, the first Black president of this country, would credit John Lewis for helping him get there. John Lewis's legacy is long. I mean, the march in Selma on Bloody Sunday across the Edmund Pettus Bridge was a turning point in the civil rights movement. And there are currently petitions to change the name of the bridge from that of a Klan member to the John Lewis Bridge. And here's another legacy bit. So the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is easily the biggest federal legislation of civil rights in history. And John Lewis helped inspire it, expand it, and was there when Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law. But in 2013, the Supreme Court essentially nullified federal oversight that was written into the act, giving Southern states license to change voting laws as they

please. And, you know, they've taken real advantage of that. It's a longer discussion, but I guess suffice to say that it's horrible. And it's why people like Stacey Abrams are fighting so hard to stop the gerrymandering and rigging and loopholes that disenfranchise minority voters. Yeah, absolutely. And over the weekend, Congress members Karen Bass and Jim Clyburn urged lawmakers to honor John Lewis by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020. So the House passed this legislation under a different name in 2019, which would restore some of those protections that you mentioned, but the Republican Senate did not pass it. Yeah. And in the spirit of protest and making good trouble, as John Lewis called it, today is the strike for Black lives. So the strike is protesting racism on the job,

unsafe working conditions, unequal pay, and a lack of opportunities. So don't spend your money and tell your friends to visit j20strikeforblacklives.org. The link is going to be in the show notes. Full disclosure, one of the organizers of the strike, the SEIU, is an advertiser on our show. And there are still protests daily across the country more than 50 days after a police officer killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. In Portland, Oregon, these protests have taken a just terrifying turn. So Gideon, can you give us the latest? Yeah, so people might have seen or heard these disturbing anecdotes from over the past couple of days. And much of it can be attributed to these federal agents in

camouflage patrolling streets in the city using tear gas and in some cases becoming increasingly violent with protesters. In one high profile incident from early last Wednesday morning, an individual named Mark Pettibone said that four people in camouflage just jumped out of an unmarked van one night with no clear identification and threw him into the van, pulling his beanie down over his eyes. Just absolutely insane. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that these federal officers have been using these unmarked vehicles for arrests since at least July 14th. Pettibone said that he was held for two hours before being released and effectively had no idea who these individuals were for much of the time that he was in custody. Then in another incident, a protester named Donovan Labella was struck in the head with an impact munition outside of the

federal courthouse just over a week ago. His mother said that he required surgery and had skull fractures as a result, according to the Oregonian. Yeah, I mean, this was just terrible and scary to see all these unknown people arresting protesters, you know, not telling them why or where they were being taken. You know, at first it was just really unclear if these guys were even vigilantes or, you know, the unregulated militia folk. Like they had no way of knowing. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And we're only starting to learn a bit more about all of this through reporting over the last couple of days and weeks.

The agents are reportedly members of rapid deployment teams that were put together by the Department of Homeland Security and came as a result of President Trump's order to have federal agencies protect federal property, statues, monuments, things like that. The teams are made up of officials from Customs and Border Patrol, ICE, TSA, and the Coast Guard. And in the case of Portland, they're guarding things like the federal courthouse in the city. And they have fairly wide authority to make arrests if they think that some federal crime has been committed. But the things that they've been pointing to are things like damaging a building, spray painting graffiti, or throwing rocks at officers. And it's worth mentioning, too, that some are saying that some of these arrests have been made away from where the actual property is. And it's also worth noting that these agents are able to use tear gas in

these situations, something that courts have actually limited local police from using. And typically, this kind of federal presence would be a result of local officials asking for it and needing it. And in Portland, the opposite is happening, with the mayor, the governor, and members of Congress all objecting. Portland Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler, who has been subject to his own protests there, referred to the agents as Trump's, quote, personal army, and he and Governor Kate Brown have urged them to leave. Yeah, it's just it's wild that like the states rights people are kind of just not even mad about the fact that like, this is the federal government taking over. So I don't know, I just the hypocrisy

runs so deep. But what are they doing about this at this point? Like, is this just going to continue? Well, on Friday, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed a lawsuit contending that the federal government had violated civil rights of citizens in the state by doing these sorts of arrests, arresting protesters without probable cause, highlighting that Pettibone incident specifically. I talked to Rosenblum briefly yesterday about what is going on in the city, why the suit was filed, and her concerns about the possibility of this happening in other American cities. We're very concerned about what may be happening next and where. We don't know where that will be or when, but we fear that these teams that are being deployed all over the country from U.S. Customs, the U.S. Marshals, obviously Homeland

Security, all the agencies that are named in our lawsuit, that Portland is just, you know, if it can happen here, it's going to happen other places too. Yeah. And Rosenblum, who has over three decades of experience, called the arrests and actions in Portland, quote, among the most disturbing abuses of federal power she's ever seen in her entire career. Her office is also seeking a temporary restraining order to actually stop the arrest by the feds if they won't leave. And she opened a criminal investigation into that case regarding LaBella. So when we talked, she also said that the agents were causing more tensions in the city unnecessarily. Yeah. And to that point, the New York Times also reported this weekend that the agents who were on the ground in Portland

weren't trained in riot control or mass demonstrations. So it's like, why would they be dealing with protesters? Right. And both of Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have also drafted this letter to AG Barr and Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf to have these agents removed, calling their actions, quote, politically motivated authoritarian tactics. Merkley also said that they plan to add an amendment to an upcoming defense bill to prevent the administration from doing this in other cities. This is a developing story that will continue to follow. Protests are continuing into Sunday night as we go to record. Definitely check out reporting from Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian, though. We will include links in our show notes, but that's the latest we have for now.

It's Monday WOD Squad. And for today's temp check, we're talking about Disney again. So as we all know, Disney World is open, but they got rid of a loophole that let you take off your mask if you were eating and walking. Now, the rule says you may remove your face covering while eating or drinking, but you should be stationary. Giddy, is this enough to get you to go to Disney World? Absolutely not. But I'm also just imagining a lot of people like stopping in their tracks to just like shovel a sandwich in really quickly before putting their mask back on while they're stationary. And just how weird and bizarre that would look. But no, definitely not. getting into the nitty gritty of rules of when you can and can't have these masks on, I feel like

you're already at the point where you've recognized that you have a problem on your hands. Right, right. Like a mask is, it is like a great preventative measure, but it like clearly not being together would be safer. So I'm not sure what like, what they're, why are they doing this? Why do people go to Disney why is Disney open like yeah yeah and and what was the issue here that led this to become something that they had to inform people about clearly people are walking around and like ripping those babies off anyway so then it's like what's the point of walking in with a mask right yeah it's like I like to imagine there's someone just running through Hollywood studios, like

eating a turkey leg, just being like, it's fine, right? It's fine. Just breathing the turkey leg everywhere. Like, come on, man, sit down and stop. Yeah, it's just not a good situation all around. But outside of this, you get the opportunity to walk and eat food and do this act that we as Americans love. What is the best possible food to walk and eat at the same time?

Okay, so, like, my first response in my head was, like, a corn dog, but I'm like, it's a phallic thing. Like, you can't eat a banana or a corn dog in public. It's just not allowed. So I guess I would, like, pivot to, like, an ice cream cone. Anything that, like, you dispose of by putting in your body, I think is easiest because, like, I don't want to be touching think is easiest because like I don't want to be touching the trash can lid I don't want to be like dilly-dallying and that stuff I want to be able to

like put the food in my face and then be done with it so like no apples because then you got the little core you're walking around the core that's gross you're touching it with your hand I just want I think you should just yeah any food that was designed like I guess a corn on the cob is not especially phallic I I don't know. All the foods you can walk and eat with her. Yeah, if it's sideways, it's different. But yeah, I don't know. I think that that would be final answer.

Something that is like, you know, all in one go. I think that's a good answer. And I think also too, as a culture, now we're hopefully carrying hand sanitizer around a lot more frequently. So like my biggest concern previously would be like, you know, sticky hands after I eat the whole ice cream, but now I'm like, I'm good. I'm good to go. Right. Yeah. I mean, didn't even think about the fact that you'd have to go into a bathroom with

other people to wash your hands. Oh, well, just like that. We've checked our tips, stay safe, stay home from Disney. Maybe, you know, watch a Disney movie and we'll check in with you all again tomorrow. And now for some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Congress is back in session this week, and that means Republicans and Democrats have less than two weeks to agree on a relief package before enhanced unemployment benefits for millions of Americans are set to expire. Senate Republicans and the White House are already having trouble agreeing on what should be in their proposal. According to the Washington Post,

Senate Republicans wanted to allocate money to states for testing and contact tracing, as well as money for the CDC and the NIH. The Trump administration argued against extra funding for those things and pushed for things completely unrelated to the pandemic, like funding the construction of a new FBI building. Over the weekend, Trump also threatened to veto the next aid package if it didn't include a payroll tax cut, because the health crisis he's concerned about involves the health of rich guys' bank accounts. That is the damn truth.

A new study from South Korea found that older children are able to spread COVID-19 at the same rate that adults do. This contradicts earlier studies on COVID-19 in children, which suggested that young children are less likely to get and spread the virus. Experts say the new study from South Korea is by far the largest and most systematic one done so far, which implies that the findings are probably more accurate. It found that 10 to 19 year olds are just as likely to spread the virus as adults, while children under 10 are half as likely. This might be something for American schools to consider as they debate whether or not to reopen. An expert at the University of Minnesota warned that

transmission in schools is very likely and that school officials should be prepared to deal with infections. Just keep the schools closed. Okay, well, after an appropriate period of mourning for the verified tweets we lost on Wednesday, July 16th, we dug in and now have a better understanding of the biggest Twitter hack of all time. According to a report from the New York Times, the perpetrators were not government agents or sophisticated super hackers like some suspected, but they were members of a forum called OGUsers.com. The site is for fans of rare and early screen names, particularly names with one character, and it often functions like a marketplace where members can buy and sell those handles. That's how Wednesday's hack began, with a new user named Kirk showing up and saying

he had access to Twitter's backend. After making some good Bitcoin-selling usernames, Kirk apparently got greedy and started posting cryptocurrency scams from accounts like Elon Musk's. That's what eventually led Twitter to shut down the hack. All in all, Kirk targeted 130 accounts and gained access and tweeted from 45 of them. Would have been cool of him to retweet me or throw me a follow Friday, but you know what? I'm over it.

Yeah, whatever, Kirk. Police near Minneapolis recently used drones to check if sunbathers were breaking the law by going topless. Yeah, cops have gotten a lot of criticism lately, but without them, who would we call when we're in trouble and need to be creeped on by an airborne robot?

The suspects in question were at a lakeside beach where nude sunbathing is apparently common. When they realized they'd been filmed without their knowledge, they were upset, but the police department said that the drone surveillance was legal since the beach is public. Look, when you leave your home, you should just assume that between one and ten drones are watching you from above, and if it makes you feel better, the drones would probably rather be filming anything else, like parkour tricks or the Grand Canyon. Some pointed out that the law being enforced was discriminatory because it allows men to be topless but not women. That sounds true, but might be too complicated for our society to understand. We're too busy designing miniature

unmanned spaceships that fight crime. True. And those are the headlines. is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And good luck on your parkour trips. I believe in you and hopefully a drone will catch it. Yeah, you're going to land it and it's going to be on film. What a Day is a Crooked Media production. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer.

Our head writer is John Milstein and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Keshaka.