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Kim Foxxs office has reduced incarceration rates by nearly 20% and taken major steps toward reform. Now, shes under attack.

To criminal justice advocates, the Smollett controversy has been an overblown distraction.

CHICAGOWith the Illinois primary set for Tuesday, one of the most heated races of the cycle is for Cook County states attorney. Progressive prosecutor Kim Foxx sits in a vulnerable position as the incumbent, as she faces a challenge from Bill Conwaya billionaire-backed candidateas well as continuing blowback from her handling of the controversial Jussie Smollett case.

The Cook County states attorneys office is the second-largest of its kind in the United States, employing more than 800 prosecutors who handle upwards of 30,000 felony cases and several times more misdemeanor cases per year. Meanwhile, Chicagowhich makes up much of Cook Countyhas the unsavory reputation of being the false confession capital. Between 1972 and 1991, police commander Jon Burge tortured more than 100 people, mostly African American, into giving false confessions, and it was only in 2011 that Burge was finally sentenced to prison. Chicago is also where African-American teenager Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by white police officer Jason Van Dyke, who was convicted of murder in 2018 in a rare win for criminal justice advocates.

It was this same case that, in large part, led to the ousting of former states attorney Anita Alvarez, who had waited 13 months to prosecute Van Dyke. Hastened by the activist-organized campaign called #ByeAnita, Alvarez lost the 2016 election to Foxx, a former assistant states attorney who became the first Black woman to hold the office. Since then, Foxxs office has reduced Cook County incarceration rates by 19%, released over six years of felony criminal case data on the Cook County Open Data Portal, and has started expunging the records of the tens of thousands of people with low-level cannabis charges.

You cannot overstate the impact of reducing frivolous prosecutions, says Jobi Cates, founder of Restore Justice Illinois, citing minor nonviolent crimes like shoplifting. When you're looking at a system that's so overwhelmed it can barely function on a good day to provide fair hearings for people, [then] removing that pressure on the system is going to allow every case to get more attention.

Foxx is not without criticism. Most of the five organizers interviewed for this piece were largely supportive of Foxx, but dont think shes gone as far as she could to protect Black and poor Chicagoans, citing her slow movement on some issues such as over-prosecuting some gun possession cases, not practicing restorative justice enough over punitive measures, and further criminalizing survivors of domestic violence who are up for clemency.

As a prison abolitionist, Westside Justice Center organizer Monica Cosby believes that the power of a progressive prosecutor is inherently limited. I don't believe that the criminal justice system can be reformed at all. . The most that [they] can do is harm reduction and stop sending as many people to jail, but as long as that mechanism exists to incarcerate people that is what's going to happen.

Theres also the issue of Jussie Smollett. In February 2019, the Empire actor was accused of staging a racist and homophobic hate crime against himself, and weeks later, Foxxs office dropped the 16 counts of disorderly conduct against him. Then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the case a whitewash of justice, while Foxx maintains that it's part of her greater strategy of decarceration. Having this type of diversion is something we offer to people who do not have his money or his fame, she told the Chicago Tribune.

To criminal justice advocates, the Smollett controversy has been an overblown distraction. Emmanuel Andre, executive director of Northside Transformative Law Center, says, Even if Kim Foxx had gone through the whole process of putting Jussie Smollett on trial, then we have to ask, what is it that we as a society want to achieve?

Nonetheless, the case has become a rallying cry foropposition from Foxxs challengers: Bill Conway, former assistant states attorney; Donna More, a 2016 candidate for states attorney who now represents casinos in private practice; and Bob Fioretti, former alderman and perennial candidate. Conway, considered the frontrunner among the challengers, says the case exemplifies the States Attorney [showing] that the politically connected get better deals than other people, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

However, even as these organizers have some misgivings about Foxx, none are ready to abandon her. Cates thinks that the other candidates see this race as an opportunity to appease law-and-order Democrats [and] the Fraternal Order of Police community, Cates says. They walk the line of sounding progressive while maintaining the status quo.

Writer and organizer Kelly Hayes offered the same assessment of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which helped cover up Burges reign of terror. The police saw the removal of Foxx's predecessor as a condemnation of the department, which it was, Hayes says. [They now] have less control over people's fates, and that's what they want back. The local FOP has endorsed Fioretti in the race.

Though Conway has come out in support of reducing prosecutions of low-level crimes, community organizer Tanya Watkins is not convinced of his progressive bonafides. I'm honestly offended by some of the things that he says. He has co-opted the message of organizers and activists who he has had no relationship with, Watkins says. He's basically saying that he is going to do all the things that Kim Foxx is already doing.

As a result of this sentiment, local racial justice organizers have mounted a #CancelConway campaign, cut from the same cloth as #ByeAnita. Backed by a progressive electoral group called Vote Liberation, the campaign is highlighting Conways campaign ties to figures such as Anita Alvarez, as well as the FOP. One digital ad on the groups website accuses the Carlyle Groupthe private-equity firm run by Conways billionaire father, and his main campaign contributorof war profiteering and owning part of the company that manufactured the tear gas used by police against Black Lives Matter protestors in Ferguson, Missouri.

Mark Clements, a Burge torture survivor whose conviction was overturned after he spent 28 years in prison and who now works at the Chicago Torture Justice Center says that while he doesnt believe the criminal justice system has significantly improved under Foxxs tenure, she still deserves a second opportunity. Clements says, I'm thankful for her being transparent in her handling of police torture cases, because most Cook County state's attorneys will not open the door to individuals that were once locked up inside of prisons.

This has been the most expensive race for Cook County states attorney to date. The four candidates have raised nearly $16.3 million in the race, according to data from the Illinois State Board of Elections. Conways campaign war chest exceeds $11.4 million, nearly all of it from his father.

The infusion of big money into the racea 180% increase from the 2016 electionhas upended the playing field for Foxx, who has relied on donations from labor unions and special-interest groups. But organizers who back the incumbent are undeterred by this flood of cash into the race.

As Watkins says, They are buying our criminal justice system, and its not for sale.

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In Chicago, a Billionaire-Backed Candidate and Police Are Trying To Oust a Progressive Prosecutor - In These Times

Pessimism runs deep in the Jewish psyche, with, tragically, good cause. Anti-Semitism goes back to the very beginnings of Jews as a people. Since biblical days, Jews have been seen as the other, outsiders, victims of conspiracy theories and myths that have no rational source. The pages of Jewish history are bloodstained from countless persecutions and pogroms. Jews have been accused of being too wealthy and too poor, too powerful and too weak, communists and financiers.

Anti-Semitism drove Jews to the New World, and it followed them there. In 1654, Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of the colony of New Amsterdam, sought to expel Jews as deceitful, very repugnant, and hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ. The Brandeis University historian Jonathan Sarna points out that Stuyvesant also railed against the Lutherans and the papists, noting that in America, the fate of Jews and the fate of other persecuted minority groups were, from the very beginning, entwined.

Even as Jews gained greater acceptance in American society, anti-Semitism persisted. During the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant moved to expel Jews, as a class, from the war zone he commanded. Leo Frank, an innocent man, was accused of murdering a 13-year-old girl in Atlanta in 1913. Two years later, when his death sentence was commuted, he was taken from jail by an angry mob and lynched.

In the 1920s, Henry Ford wrote a series of articles in his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, accusing Jews of being part of a worldwide conspiracy based on an anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In the 1930s, Father Charles Edward Coughlin, a Detroit-based precursor to todays talk-radio shock jocks, drew up to 30 million listeners to his weekly program, on which he spewed pro-Hitler and anti-Semitic vitriol, until the show was canceled in 1939.

During World War II, an estimated half million American Jews served in the armed forces, and many encountered anti-Semitic verbal attacks from fellow soldiers questioning their loyalty to the U.S. After the war, anti-Semitism was often more subtle but still present, with quotas on Jews in universities still in practice, and Jews restricted from many neighborhoods and professions.

In recent years, as overt anti-Semitism has declined, criticism of Israels policies from the left has often morphed from anti-Zionism into anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism from the right has been more direct, and violent; both of the men charged with the fatal synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway claimed that Jews are a threat to the white race.

Jews are contending with a growing effort on university campuses to demonize Israel as a racist, illegitimate state, and thus define Jewish students who support Israel as untouchable. As a result, such students are frequently excluded from liberal groups that support causes such as Black Lives Matter, gay rights, and combatting climate change. To distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and racism, the Soviet refusenik turned Israeli politician Natan Sharansky applies the three Ds: delegitimization, demonization, and subjecting Israel to a double standard. Among many on the left, Israel, once admired for boxing far above its weight in a chaotic region, is viewed now as a pariah state.

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Is It Still Safe to Be a Jew in America? - The Atlantic

Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Ann WarrenWinners andlosers from the South Carolina debate Five takeaways from the Democratic debate Sanders most searched, most tweeted about candidate during Democratic debate MORE (D-Mass.) was endorsed for president by Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza's Black to the Future Action Fund on Thursday.

Garza posted on Twitter that her political organization and think tank would back Warren in its first presidential endorsement.

At @BlackToTheFutu1, were all in for @ewarren, she posted, linking to an interview with Axios.

"Elizabeth has a clear, progressive plan to change the policies and practices that leave Black communities out and keep us falling behind," Garza added in a statement.

At @BlackToTheFutu1, were all in for @ewarren! https://t.co/MBP3pfP333

Warren celebrated the endorsement with a tweet, saying she was deeply grateful.

I will continue to listen and learn from you, and I ask that you continue to hold me accountable as we fight together for big, structural change, she posted.

Thank you, @AliciaGarza and @BlackToTheFutu1! Im deeply grateful for your endorsement. I will continue to listen and learn from you, and I ask that you continue to hold me accountable as we fight together for big, structural change. https://t.co/htU6aTTM3t

Warren added in a statement that she was "deeply humbled" and ready "to build a country and government that works for Blackfamilies and communities across the country."

Blacktothe Future Action Fund released a six-part black agenda for 2020 candidates to follow, including the most commonly mentioned issues from 30,000 black Americans around the countryafter the group conducted a2018 listening tour.

Warren also earned the endorsement of Black Womxn For, a group of more than 100 black female activists.

The Massachusetts senator has struggled recently in the Democratic presidential primary afterpoor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, but she had a great fundraising nightWednesday following a Las Vegas primary debate in which she repeatedly slammed former New York City Mayor Michael BloombergMichael Rubens BloombergWinners andlosers from the South Carolina debate Sanders most searched, most tweeted about candidate during Democratic debate Democrats duke it out in most negative debate so far MORE.

Although this is its first presidential endorsement, Black to the Future Action Fund has endorsed candidates lower on the ballot including Democrat Stacey Abrams, who ran for Georgia governor, and Rep. Lucy McBathLucia (Lucy) Kay McBathWarren endorsed by Black Lives Matter co-founder's Black to the Future Action Fund Democratic rivals sharpen attacks as Bloomberg rises The Hill's Campaign Report: Rising Klobuchar, Buttigieg face test in diverse states MORE (D-Ga.).

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Warren endorsed by Black Lives Matter co-founder's Black to the Future Action Fund | TheHill - The Hill

by: Hector Ramirez II, Brian Spyros, Sabina Kuriakose

WEST HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) The group Black Lives Matter organized a march Friday to remember Mubarak Soulemane, the 19-year-old man who was shot and killed by a state trooper in West Haven.

The march started near the Interstate 95 off-ramp in West Haven where the shooting happened.

The group walked behind a banner that read, Justice for Murbarak Soulemane.

Among those marching in the front where Soulemanes mother, other family members, friends and Eric Garners mother. Garner died at the hands of an officer in New York in 2014. He was the victim of a chokehold death.

The group chanted, No justice, no peace. No racist police, as they walked to the West Haven Police Department. They also shouted, What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! As well as, Justice for Mubarak and Lock him up referring to State Trooper Brian North.

Family said theyre thankful to have the support of the community.

I found the community very supportive, said Soulemans mother, Omo Klusum Mohammed. Theyve been with me, they march with me, theyve been with me since the day of the tragedy. I thank the community. They are very, very supportive.

She said she hopes justice will be served and that the investigation into her sons death will be impartial.

The march came on the heels of a lawsuit filed by the mans family. Soulemane is accused of carjacking a person at knifepoint in Norwalk and then leading state police on a chase into West Haven.

Thats when North fired his gun, killing Soulemane. All of it captured on body camera footage. The shooting remains under investigation as to whether the actions of the trooper were justified.

A legal expert News 8 spoke with says the case is not without its challenges:

You look at the fact that this man is 19-years-old, hes got a life expectancy of about 60 or 70 years, and you look at what his earnings potential he might be over the course of his lifetime and then typically in cases like this also because the police officers actions were intentional after the plaintiffs will ask for punitive damages.

RELATED: Black Lives Matter reps. stands with family of Soulemane as they announce filing of wrongful death lawsuit against the state and PD

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Black Lives Matter holds march for 19-year-old killed by trooper in West Haven officer-involved shooting - WTNH.com

When Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza took to the stage at Mondays Women for Warren event in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, shedescribed Elizabeth Warren as a partner in her fight for racial equality. The Massachusetts senator,Garza said, not only understands how race and gender shape the rules, but also has a plan to work with us to remake the rules.

I need somebody to get it when I say Im making 68 cents [for every dollar] the guy next to me is making, Garza told the 500-person crowd packed into a loft space of an old cotton factory. I need someone to understand that as a Black woman, I care about more than criminal justice reform.

The comment could have been aimed atBernie Sanders, the Democrats current frontrunner, who has put criminal justice reform at the core of his appeal to South Carolina Democrats, two-thirds of whom are Black. Last Friday, the Sanders campaign began running an ad, titled Justice, in the state, promising to address bail reform and focusing on the fact thatone out of three Black men are serving prison sentences. Ahead of Tuesdays debate, the campaign released a video featuring rapper and Sanders surrogate Killer Mike that heavily features images from the killing of Eric Garner, a Black man who had been choked to death by a New York City police officer.

I asked Garza whether that remark had been intended as a swipe against Sanders. She smiled but wouldnt say. Were not one-dimensional beingsBlack people care about a lot of different things, Garza said. And so often, when you get people on these debate stages, theyre talking to us, but theyre really talking at us. And theyre only talking atus about criminal justice reform.

Whoever Garzas intended target was, the fact of the matter is this: In June, after having released a number of different plans, Elizabeth Warren rose to second place in South Carolina polls with one-fifth of the Black support, but in the latest polls from the state, shes behind Sanders, former vice president Joe Biden, and billionaire Tom Steyer, both overall and with the states crucial Black voters. And for a campaign that was premised on removing the big, structural barriers to big structural changeparticularly for those who have been most victimized by government policiesthats bad news. In the lead-up to the first primary contest with a substantial Black population, the Warren campaign deployed high-profile African American women surrogates to remind voters of her commitment to addressing their priorities. And yet, it hasnt made much of a difference.

Garzaalong with her political organization, Black to the Future Action Fundendorsed Warren last week. Butin 2016, she and other Black Lives Matter movement leaders famously refused to back a candidate, opting instead to protest at Hillary Clintons and Bernie Sanders campaign stops for their unwillingness to connect the economic disadvantages the Black community faced to systemic racism. Sometimes you have to put a wrench in in the gears to get people to listen, Garza said of their tactics in September 2015.

For Garza, Warren has listened. In Charleston, Garza told the crowd about the times Warren had called her before announcing her candidacy, asking for guidance on how to unite her vision of rewriting the rules of the economy with removing the extra barriers facing women and people of color. Its a message Warrens Black women surrogates, such as Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.),have repeated throughout the campaign: Warren has prioritized personal outreach to Black women activists and has been responsive to questions shes received about how her proposals affect Black Americans.

Pressley delivered this message to a nearly all-Black audience gathered at a Horry County Democrats event held in Conway, South Carolina, on a Sunday stop during her four-day swing through the Carolinas on Warrens behalf. The plans are about the people, Pressley said from behind the pulpit of the Mason Temple Church Of God In Christ. Warrens agenda, Pressley continued, isnt an agenda for Black Americaits an agenda for America that includes Black people in every aspect, truly a racial justice lens. She elicited some knowing nods and appreciative smiles.

When I asked Pressley about her pitch to voters before the South Carolinas primary on Saturday, she told me she wanted to emphasize how Warren was a genuine partner to Black women. People like to talk about her being an extraordinary professor, but shes a better student of the people, truthfully, Pressley said. She remembers what [people have] shared, their lived experience, their story, their struggle, and their ideas, too. And then she responds with policies that prove shes actively listening.

When Elizabeth Warren entered the racelast January, she arrived with a precise analysis of how decades of government decisions have skewered the economic wellbeing of Americans of colorand women of color in particular. Her very first plan described how it would be possible to provide universal childcare for every child under five, a proposal that would allow mothers of colorroughly half of whom report childcare as a barrier to higher wagesto find another job, as well as increase the pay of millions of women of color who overwhelmingly compose the childcare workforce. Warren followed up with housing plan aimed at undoing the legacy of banking discrimination that kept Black borrowers from buying homes, and a proposal to cancel student loan debt, which Black borrowers disproportionately carry. When Warren presented this package of reforms to women of color at the She the People presidential forum in Houston last April, she received a standing ovation and attendees declared her performance the most impressive of all the candidates. We got a room full of people here who werent given anything, Warren said as she concluded her remarks to the ecstatic crowd, Weve got a room full of people here whove had to fight for what they believe in.

In November, Warren received Pressleys endorsement, as well as the backing of Black Womxn For, a group of more than 100 non-male identifying Black activists. At a marquee event at Clark Atlanta University, Warren was flanked by Pressley and Black Womxn For director Angela Peoples. Warren called upon the accomplishments of the Washing Societya union of Atlantas Black washerwomen who launched a massive strike in the 1880sto draw a straight line between their struggle and the premise of her candidacy. The lesson is clear: Racism doesnt just tear apart Black and brown communitiesit keeps all working people down, she said. Racism props up the wealthy and powerful, leaving them free to take more wealth and more power for themselves.

This message didnt translate into support in the Palmetto State. Her second place standing in June slipped in the fall, when a November Quinnipiac poll of South Carolina voters showed her in third place behind Sanders among Black voters.The downward trajectory has only continued:An NBC News/Marist poll conducted last week showed her at a distant fourth behind billionaire Tom Steyer.

Why didnt Warren take hold? Some local Democratic leaders say Warren didnt make enough stops in the state to build on the momentum of her She the People appearance nearly a year ago; others say she went about organizing the wrong way, favoring town halls over more intimate gatherings.

That was the criticism of Warren by Tameika Isaac Devine, a Columbia city councilwoman who had been the first Black elected to that body in 2002. But after her first-choice candidate, New Jersey senator Cory Booker, dropped out of the race in January, Devine gave Warren a second look. A lot of her policies are a bit more progressive than what I personally was comfortable with, Devine explained, and she raised concerns with Warren about her support for Medicare for All.

One of the things I really loved about her is that she listened, Devine told me, in a description that echoes Garzas experience. Devine says Warren didnt try to convince her of the merits of her proposal. She wasnt trying to convince me that her way was the right way, Devine recalls. She was like, Whats your concern? And Ill tell you how I think about some of those concerns.' Devine recalls.In contrast, Devine said Sanders never personally tried to connect with her as the other candidates did.

As she reflected on her encounter with Warren, Devine said, I love that approach because I feel like, to be an effective leader, you cant feel that your way is the only way to accomplish something.Its an approach that has worked in many ways, except, it seems, in the most important one for the 2020 Democratic primary.

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She has endorsements. She has plans. But Warren is in 4th place among Black voters in South Carolina. - Mother Jones