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A far-left volunteer group in Portland, Oregon, is offering a free, radical social justice camp that has promoted Black Lives Matter-themed material, taught indigenous land maps and called for the abolishment of police in past summers.

Budding Roses is hosting the two-week camp that will explore social justice issues, youth leadership and arts activism for kids in fourth through eighth grades from July 25 to Aug. 5. The previous two years were held virtually as youngsters discussed race, gender and youth activism in the wake of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

The groups curriculum for the coming session is unclear, but its 2020 camp curriculum featured a Black Lives Matter At School coloring book and a What is Police Abolition section that imagined communities without cops.

How can we keep each other safe? the groups website reads. What does a world without police look like?

Budding Roses GoFundMe page says camp activities also include talk about racism, gentrification, student activism, gender, climate change, and mental health issues that Portland youth are already engaging with.

The camps website contains information from a Tear Gas for Portlanders publication and usage of the irritant by Portland cops during the fervent summer 2020 protests.

Learn about what tear gas is, how it was used in Portland, and ways to keep yourself safe if you get tear gassed, the site states.

The camps 2020 curriculum also contained a section on teaching budding anarchists how protest using songs and drum.

They are a way to express anger, our joy and our power, according to Budding Roses website. Write your own songs and make your own protest drum too!

Radio host Ari Hoffman said he was shocked they didnt offer a course on Molotov cocktails, but noted how the camps participants are being shaped into little activists, Fox News reported.

What they do learn is how to hate the police, Hoffman told the network Wednesday. Your child, if they go to this Antifa camp, will be taught how to be a little activist. Theyll be taught how to deal with tear gas, how to protest thats what parents are sending their kids to.

Campers were previously shown videos and materials detailing White Supremacy Reflection, an Indigenous Land Map and a history of radical organizing in Portland.

Our goal was to promote collective problem solving on issues of policing, abolition, and community safety by providing supplies and guidance to our campers, Budding Roses website reads.

The camp was founded as a project of Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Foundation, according to its website.

We believe in empowerment through education, while also understanding that mainstream education often reproduces structural oppression and disempowers youth, particularly low income and youth of color, the website continues.

Multiple messages seeking comment from Budding Roses were not returned Wednesday. The camps Facebook page, which was active earlier in the day, was no longer visible as of Wednesday afternoon.

Hoffman, an associate editor at The Post Millennial, claims Antifa and other far-left antifascist advocates have a firm grip on Portland since taking over the city during the BLM protests two summers ago.

Portland right now is controlled by Antifa, Hoffman told Fox News. They defunded their police, you still have riots on a regular basis, you still have protests on a regular basis. And these people think that theyve won.

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Portland camp imagines life without cops, features BLM coloring book - New York Post

Republican attempts to gain political support by promoting racist fear and hatred, reflexively siding with police in confrontations with African Americans and denouncing Black Lives Matter demonstrations are a prominent feature of our political landscape. But they're also nothing new. In many ways, the battle lines of 2022 can be seen forming in 1964. A letter published 58 years ago this week in the New York Times can help explain the underlying issues, both then and now.

As President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on July 2, 1964, he called upon Americans to "close the springs of racial poison." Two weeks later, on the same night that Sen. Barry Goldwater accepted the Republican presidential nomination with an explicit endorsement of extremism, a 15-year-old African American was shot and killed in Harlem by a New York City police officer. The incident began after the white superintendent of a group of apartments turned a hose on a group of Black kids who often sat on the steps to the buildings. According to them, the superintendent shouted at them, "Dirty n***ers, I'll wash you clean." They responded by throwing bottles and garbage-can lids at the super, who retreated inside one of the buildings. A boy not involved in the original incident, James Powell, pursued him, and when Powell exited the building he was shot and killed by an off-duty policeman.

That led to an almost immediate confrontation between neighborhood young people and police. Over the following days, these clashes escalated into the first major urban "riot," or "uprising," of the 1960s. (Those two nouns were used by different sides to describe the same phenomena, the former by most white people, the latter by Black people and, as the decade went on, a growing number of whites on the left.)

By the night of July 18, thousands of Black people were in the streets of Harlem, breaking windows, looting stores and shouting at police, "Killers! Killers!" When a police officer tried to disperse one of the crowds by yelling, "Go home, go home," people in the crowd responded, "We are home, baby."

Over the next few weeks, northern urban uprisings spread to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn (then largely Black and low-income, today a zone of intense gentrification) to Rochester, New York; to Jersey City, Paterson and Elizabeth in New Jersey; and then to Chicago. At the end of August, immediately following the Democratic convention in Atlantic City, serious disorder erupted less than 60 miles west, in Philadelphia. As in the other cases, the underlying cause was a series of charges of police brutality, and the fraught or openly hostile relationship between cops and the African-American community. White policemen beating and killing Black people with impunity was, to be sure, nothing new in 1964. Nor was it unprecedented for such incidents to spark rebellion in the Black community, including property destruction and sometimes violence.

But street-level resistance by Black residents became much more common in 1964 and throughout the ensuing years of the '60s. As historian Elizabeth Hinton demonstrates in her 2021 book, "America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s," the vicious policing that remains a principal battle line today has been the cause of many outbursts of rebellion by African Americans. White police officers are almost never convicted of murdering a Black person, more than a half-century later. The 2021 murder conviction of the Minneapolis cop who killed George Floyd provides hope for change on this front, but the police killings of Black people have continued, during and after that trial.

The 1964 hopes of Republicans and fears of Democrats about the political effects of racial conflict are also strikingly familiar. President Johnson feared the riots could help Goldwater win the November election. "If we aren't careful, we're gonna be presiding over a country that's so badly split up that they'll vote for anybody who isn't us," White House press secretary George Reedy said to Johnson after the Harlem riot had been going on for a couple of days.

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Much as Democrats do today, Johnson felt the need to condemn the riots while simultaneously emphasizing the centrality of the pursuit of racial equality and justice. On July 20, he issued a statement on the situation in Harlem in which he declared: "In the preservation of law and order there can be no compromise just as there can be no compromise in securing equal and exact justice for all Americans."

The hopes of Republicans and fears of Democrats from 1964 are strikingly familiar. Lyndon Johnson feared the urban riots could elect Goldwater, and felt the need to condemn them while calling for racial justice.

The prospect that white "backlash" might turn the nation against Johnson and to Goldwater did not materialize in 1964 and Johnson was elected in one of the biggest landslides of American political history. It was to be the much larger uprising in the Watts district of Los Angeles in August 1965 which began five days after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law that would wind up producing the sort of dramatic political backlash that Johnson had feared in 1964.

The causes of the 1964 rioting were brilliantly explained by a Black woman in Brooklyn named Barbara Benson, who wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times after the outbreak. Benson wrote that she wept "at the damage done to this city and the world by the Harlem riots" and was especially concerned that "this rioting may have made a Goldwater victory more likely." But she felt the need to try to explain what leads to rioting. Her words sound all too contemporary more than a half century later:

All minorities recognizable by the color of their skin have experienced the irrational quality of the police force evident in the slaying of the 15-year-old boy. Many of us have been stopped by police and, yes, many frisked for no other reason than that a Negro in a certain neighborhood "seems suspicious."

If there is no "irrational" fear of the black man operating within many on the police force, why is it that intelligent, collegeeducated Negroes like myself simultaneously fear any possible involvement with the police, even for our own protection?

Let no one be deceived. Many Harlem police are sadistic in their administration of the law, insatiable in their beatings, unable to discern men from children, and irrational in their fear of the black man, as well as incapable of telling one black man from another.

There was really no need for the various commissions set up from 1964 through the end of the decade most notably the National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders, popularly called the "Kerner Commission," set up by Johnson in 1967 to earnestly search for the underlying causes of urban uprisings. Benson's letter, then as now, pretty much said it all.

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Racism, policing, politics and violence: How America in 2022 was shaped by 1964 - Salon

The Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) filed 'Racial Discrimination - Unequal Service' charges in two separate cases, one of which got national attention.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. We're taking a closer look at the racial discrimination complaints filed against the Grand Rapids Police Department.

The Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) filed 'Racial Discrimination - Unequal Service' charges in two separate cases: one of which got national attention back in 2017.

Honestie Hodges was 11-years-old when GPRD pointed their weapons at her, handcuffed her and put her in the back of a patrol car.

The incident led to a new "Youth Interaction Policy" at the department.

Honestie died from COVID-19 in 2020.

In the complaint, filed by Honestie's mother, Whitney Hodges, it alleges on Dec. 6, 2017, GRPD was pursuing a middle-aged white woman who was an attempted murder suspect.

Honestie clearly did not match the description as she was a juvenile and was African-American.

After the MDCR held a news conference Monday morning announcing the charges, Honestie's grandmother, Alisa Niemeyer, said she has been patiently waiting for the department to charge GRPD.

She's thankful and grateful steps are now being taken.

"Change," said Niemeyer. "Change has to come. No one has to be treated the way Honestie and the twins were or all of the other people involved in this investigation. None of them deserved it."

An African-American woman by the name of Melissa Mason filed the second complaint.

The traffic stop incident related to the complaint happened on Jan. 20, 2020 at Eastern Ave. SE and Hall St.

According to the complaint, Mason was stopped by GRPD for an alleged expired registration plate. She was wearing a shirt that said, "Black Lives Matter" and she also stated "Black Lives Matter" to the officers on scene.

"Even though reports show Mason was compliant with officers [and she was not under arrest], she was removed from her car, handcuffed and held in a police cruiser for approximately 20 minutes," said John Johnson, Executive Director of MDCR.

An officer stated to Mason when she was in the cruiser, "Well, since you stopped running your mouth, we'll let you go."

The officer gave Mason a citation for driving with an expired driver's license, a misdemeanor, and an expired registration, a civil infraction.

In both cases, Johnson claims GRPD was unable to demonstrate people of another race were treated in the same manner in similar incidents.

The Hodges family attorney wants there to be accountability and serious policy changes.

"Guns pulled on traffic stops when there's no reason to pull a gun. The way this affected Honestie for the rest of her life... the way it has affected two 11-year-old boys for the rest of their life is significant," said Stephen Drew, the attorney representing the Hodges family.

Both complainants are requesting monetary compensation.

The City of Grand Rapids stated it has received two matters from MDCR and a hearing has been requested.

Going forward, an administrative law judge will hold a proceeding and recommend if discriminatory action occurred and what penalties should be implemented.

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission will also do their own hearing to make their own findings which could include monetary damages or policy changes.

MDCR is currently investigating 28 complaints of discrimination filed against GRPD and more charges may be issued.

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A look at the racial discrimination complaints filed against the Grand Rapids Police Department - WZZM13.com

Bronx: As a rationale for overturning Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett bemoaned the decreased domestic supply of babies. Well, it turns out that Americans are continuing the decrease as more men are requesting vasectomies and more women are tying off their fallopian tubes.

Also, refusing abortions under any and all circumstances will guarantee the loss of lives of women with ectopic pregnancies in the states where medical personnel face prison for trying to save lives. Women who live with abusive partners may find themselves being beaten because of their pregnancy. It has happened before I guarantee it will happen again.

By the way, what happens to surviving children in a family if the mom is forced to carry a dangerous pregnancy and she dies? Are the pro-life people going to step up and assist the family?

Of course not. Carrying anti-abortion signs and arguing for the right to life may be valid in the ether but the reality is that pregnancy is not easy. Many things can go wrong, and men who refuse to understand biology, and women who say to just have the baby adopted are clearly imposing their beliefs and wishes on those who have to make one of the most important decisions of their lives. Its their business, not ours! Claudette Mobley

Pro life signs are seen outside the All Women's Health Center of Clearwater on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. (CHRIS URSO/AP)

Brooklyn: Its almost unbelievable that privacy rights such as access to birth control methods and gay marriage are now under serious threat. A growing cohort of Republican politicians and judges want to wrench away our rights to these and are quite vocal about their intentions. Its disgusting, its a misuse of religious beliefs in the public arena and anyone who is angered by these actions must remember to campaign for and vote for candidates who do support these rights. Dont become complacent. Ellen Levitt

Weehawken: To Voicer Jeffrey Baer regarding your remarks on the Sesame Place characters actions: Your ignorance is part of the problem! The issue is whether racism is involved. Jo Ann Cahill

Levittown, L.I.: Why dont we protest the Black Lives Matter founders and Rev. Al Sharpton, who dont live in Black communities? Hypocritical! Darlene Antonick

Manhattan: Nowhere in the Daily News coverage of the violent attack on New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin or in the editorial (Free to assault again, July 23) about how the violent attacker was released without bail do you mention that the district attorney of Monroe County (where the attack occurred) could have easily charged him with a Class C violent felony (allowing for bail) instead of the lesser Class E felony (no bail) they charged him with. You do not mention that the DA is Sandra Doorley (a Republican) who happens to be the co-chair of Lee Zeldins campaign. Why would a Republican DA who also works for the victim allow for this violent attacker to be released? The story has provided false talking points to dissembling politicians like Zeldin and editorial boards like yours to continue to mischaracterize how effective the states bail reform actually is. Oh, wait thats why. Eli Ganias

Huntington, L.I.: Lee, nice try at publicity, but I think most people read into it. I bet the story quickly fades away! Leonard Stevenson

Rosedale: It was interesting to hear in Saturdays Daily News that New York state GOP Chair Nick Langworthy is calling for Gov. Hochul to provide security for Lee Zeldin. Meanwhile, I cant remember Langworthy calling for security for President Biden while he was facing multiple stage invasions during the 2020 campaign after Trump endangered people with violent rhetoric. I also have heard crickets from Nick when AOC faces daily death threats from radical right-wing racists. Using the unacceptable actions of a disturbed military veteran for cheap political points is beneath the dignity of a major party chair as well as the nominee for our states highest office. If they truly cared about safety and our vets, they would concentrate on getting laws passed to help our brave veterans. Unfortunately, Zeldin has shamefully voted against helping his fellow vets while serving in Congress. David S. Pecoraro

Bronx: In response to Voicer Nancy Brenner: We almost were a Third World dictatorship but thankfully it was stopped when President Biden won. As for your assertion that the Jan. 6 committee members were unfairly appointed, please take your head out of the sand. As Rep. Liz Cheney said, do you really think that Republicans like Bill Barr and others who testified would have wilted under cross-examination? Donald Trump lost, and his actions after the election were traitorous. Just think, those Republican secretaries of state from Georgia and Arizona who testified, are they wrong? Martin Sandok

Brooklyn: The liberal press and liberal celebrities are having a field day gloating over Sen. Josh Hawley running from the MAGA mob on Jan. 6. Did any of them do the same to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who hid in a closet in a building 1,500 feet from the Capitol on Jan. 6 because she thought the mob was coming for her? Or when she was arrested wearing phantom handcuffs? Michael Massa

Weekdays

Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon.

Manalapan, N.J.: Steve Bannon threatened to go medieval on the court. Apparently, that means sitting there like a bloated bullfrog without saying anything. He called the Jan. 6 committee gutless for not being there and then declined to testify. Guess whos gutless? Joe Fontanelli

Lackawaxen, Pa.: It is honest for Voicer Darryl Easton to revive the question of our unjust occupation of the Mexican Cession and Texas Annexation: the U.S. used to have a southern border. Most of the people now stopped at the Rio Grande are likely descendants of natives of those areas. John A. MacKinnon

Manhattan: Voicer John Procida would seem to have a point: Why shouldnt electric vehicle owners be grounded to save electricity during the heatwave? But drive greenhouse-gas-emitting internal combustion cars instead?? The ones that have contributed to our global climate catastrophe with its frequent and prolonged heat waves? A better plan is to invest in our aging electric grid and move aggressively toward EVs. Gov. Hochul has dedicated $1 million to EV infrastructure and adoption. She must expand EV affordability for working-class people. Laurie Joan Aron

Ridgewood: Why are all Republican U.S. senators against taking action about climate change? Do they want more forest fires, hurricanes and droughts? Why are all these same senators against reducing drug prices? Why are they all against the U.S. making its own computer chips? If Taiwan stopped sending chips to the U.S., we couldnt make many new cars, phones, etc. Even if Trump was in favor of bringing industries back to the U.S. Our government needs help. John Sendlein

Rochdale Village: I wholeheartedly concur with Voicer Gene Tracy: The News not only gives short shrift to the Mets, but your hockey coverage is almost nonexistent. Its almost all from the AP, and what there is is practically all Rangers almost nothing on the Islanders or Devils. Youre a Yankees and Rangers paper through and through! Saul Rothenberg

Manhattan: Beware Vladimir Putins invitation to tea. The Russian tyrant has enveloped the eastern and southern borders of Ukraine much like a tea cozy. He keeps his coveted area of Ukraine simmering while busying President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and others with his come-for-tea chats. The world should not be fooled by such chicanery. Six months into Putins war, Ukraine still matters to us all. Susan A. Stark

Staten Island: I would like to know who it was that came up with the right to shelter law that says anyone from anywhere can come here to NYC and demand a bed. Meanwhile, our taxes are going through the roof. It is getting harder and harder each month to pay our ever-rising bills. Why should we be footing the bill for this insane law? How can we get this ridiculous legislation changed? Phyllis OCallaghan

Originally posted here:
Readers sound off on pro-life hypocrisy, Lee Zeldin and the right to shelter law - New York Daily News

Joe Malinconico| Paterson Press

Paterson swears-in a new class of recruits for the police academy

Paterson swears-in a new class of recruits of the police academy on Jan. 31, 2022.

Tariq Zehawi, NorthJersey.com

PATERSON Citypolice officersare participating inthe revival of a law enforcement reality television show that was canceled two years ago amid protests over George Floyd's death.

Mayor Andre Sayegh said he was honored and excited that Paterson is part of the police documentary-style show, On Patrol: Live,which will air on Fridays and Saturdays from 9 p.m. to midnight on the Reelz cable network.

Paterson police are scheduled to be part of the first broadcast.

We have an incredible team of men and women within our police department that every day work in service for our community, Sayegh said in a press release.I look forward to seeing Patersons Finest represent our great city.

But local social justice advocates are questioning Patersonsinvolvement intheshow.

Its sad that Paterson has chosen to be part of something that dehumanizes people, said Liza Chowdhury of Reimagining Justice, a local group that conducts violence intervention programs.

Chowdhury said theres a great deal of distrust among city residents because of the recent problems in the Paterson Police Department.

We should be trying to mend the relationship instead of utilizing Hollywood, she said.

Chowdhury predicted that in search of ratings, the show will depict Paterson in the worst possible light and feed the perception of the city as a dangerous place.

This just continues that stereotype, she said.

On Patrol: Live is being produced by the same host and analysts who worked on Live PD, the highly popular A&E network program taken off the air in June 2020. Numerous television critics have described the new show as a revival or rebranding of Live PD.

Subscriber exclusive:How NJ lost $850M to NY: A look inside the negotiations to split federal transit funds

Law enforcement is front and center in the national discussion, and our hope is that showing the work of police officers in a live format will provide viewers with direct access to the work they do,DanAbrams, the host of the show,said in a press release.

Abrams opposed the cancellation of Live PD two years ago, according to multiple news stories at that time.

Several years ago, the Paterson Police Department was featured on the Cops television show, and the city also provided the backdrop more than a decade ago for Cops episodes showing Passaic County sheriffs officers making drug busts in the city.

Paterson Press sent Sayegh a message Friday asking whether city officials discussed the participation in On Patrol: Live with community leaders. But the mayor did not respond.

What does this mean for you?: Patersons city budget infused with $46 million in COVID relief

Zellie Thomas, founder of Patersons Black Lives Matter group, said that in the two years since Floyds murder, the city has not gotten any substantial police reform. He said law enforcement reality shows rebrand police officers and put them in a better light.

Thomas called Patersons participation in the cop reality show testament to the administration of Paterson not being committed to social justice and racial justice.

Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press.

Email: editor@patersonpress.com

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Paterson NJ police to appear on new Reelz reality show - NorthJersey.com