July 7, 2020

Confederate Statues Being Toppled in Richmond
Others slated to come down soon
By Jeremy M. Lazarus

A crane hauls away the massive, 100-year-old statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from its pedestal at Monument Avenue and Arthur Ashe Boulevard during a downpour Wednesday. PHOTO: Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Goodbye, “Stonewall” Jackson. So long, J.E.B. Stuart, Matthew Fontaine Maury and maybe A.P. Hill.

The removal of city-owned statues of those Confederates and other champions of slavery and White supremacy has begun with the bronze statue of Confederate Gen. Jackson hauled from the perch it has occupied for more than 100 years at Monument Avenue and Arthur Ashe Boulevard in Richmond, Va., the former capital of the Confederacy.

Cheers rang out from hundreds of people watching at the intersection as a large crane hoisted the statue from its granite base. Bells from a nearby church began to peal, the crowd jubilant even in the sudden downpour near the end of the three-and-a-half hour job to secure the heavy statue and carefully remove it from its base.

With the entire operation being livestreamed on social media, more than 250,000 people reportedly tuned in to see the statue being lifted and then lowered onto a flat-bed truck. It was taken to an undisclosed storage facility, where city officials said it will remain until a decision is made on what to do with it.

Chants of “Black Lives Matter” and “Take it down” erupted from the crowd.

The swift action marks a historic moment for the former capital of the Confederacy, where such oversized symbols of oppression seemed permanently affixed to the landscape. “Today is a monumental step in the history of the City of Richmond,” Delegate Lamont Bagby, chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said in a statement later Wednesday evening.

“The long overdue removal of these statues is an important step toward honestly and clearly addressing our city, our Commonwealth and our country’s past. This removal was an answer to the countless calls from our Virginia communities, our members and many others to take Virginia into a new, more just tomorrow.”

The prospect that Richmond would follow in the footsteps of other big and small localities that already had removed Confederate statuary had long seemed remote, but July 1 marked the city’s day of independence from such icons of the “Lost Cause.” The Virginia General Assembly, for the first time under Democratic control in more than two decades, voted earlier this year to give localities control over Confederate statues within their jurisdictions beginning July 1.

To get the city’s statues down quickly, Mayor Levar M. Stoney declared a public safety emergency early July 1 in his capacity as director of emergency management and authorized the city Department of Public Works to remove the statues and place them in storage to await a plan of disposal.

The only Confederate statue that is to remain is the largest, that of Gen. Robert E. Lee at Monument and Allen avenues. That statue is owned by the state, and Gov. Ralph S. Northam’s effort to remove it is now tied up in a court fight.

The exact timetable for removal of the other city-owned statues on Monument Avenue, including those of J.E.B. Stuart and Matthew Fontaine Maury, was uncertain at Free Press deadline July 1.

The city has been under a state of emergency since March 31 because of the outburst of protests sparked by a police officer’s killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The state of emergency is to continue now until the end of July.

Mayor Stoney told City Council on Wednesday morning that his emergency order to take the statues down “would remove a dark shadow” and enable the city “to begin to heal and allow us to focus our attention on the future.”

He said it is time for the city to take down Confederate shrines and begin the process of replacing them with “righteous cause symbols” that better reflect and embrace “the diverse and inclusive city that Richmond seeks to be.”

In a resolution he submitted to the council and in public remarks, Mayor Stoney justified the “temporary” removal of the statues based on the risk of injury or death to protesters who have previously sought to topple statues as part of their ongoing demonstrations over racial in- justice and police brutality. Five smaller statues in the city already have been pulled down by protesters, including one of Confederate President Jefferson Davis on Monument Avenue.

Mayor Stoney started the removal without the required approval of City Council, but only after most council members signaled their support at a special session held two hours before the removal began.

Council President Cynthia I. Newbille, 7th District, said she would call a special meeting, but then abruptly canceled it without explanation. That meeting was set for 1 p.m. Thursday, July 2.

Dr. Newbille could not be reached for comment.

The mayor appeared to have at least six of the nine council members supporting his resolution to remove the statues.

The governing body was warned against acting immediately because of the absence of 8th District Councilwoman Reva M. Trammell, who is still recovering from a severe injury. City Attorney Haskell C. Brown III advised Wednesday morning that all nine members had to vote to override a City Charter provision requiring 24-hours notice before the council could consider the resolution.

Mr. Brown said he is still of the opinion that the mayor and council cannot use the emergency provisions of state law to remove the statues, but he said that the council can override him.

On June 22, the council and the mayor halted efforts to begin removing the statues based on Mr. Brown’s opinion, though the current state law effective Wednesday includes a provision barring lawsuits against the city for removing statues and no longer makes mention of a potential felony charge that Mr. Brown cited.

Mayor Stoney said the city Department of Public Works would be allowed to spend $1.8 million on the statue removal, but anticipates much of the money could be reimbursed from a private campaign seeking to raise $2 million through the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust to cover the cost.

Before the removal process began, the council used the 11 a.m. meeting to introduce an ordinance to begin the 60-day clock for permanently remov- ing the statues and to introduce other ordinances and resolutions to usher in police reforms, includ- ing creation of a civilian review board to review complaints about police abuse and misconduct and a mental health alert system.

The introduced legislation also would seek to ban police from using tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper spray and other noxious chemicals on protesters and to shift funding from the Richmond Police Department to other city agencies addressing public health, mental health and social services issues.

The ordinance on statue removal relies on the new state law that went into effect on Wednesday and gives localities authority to take down and dispose of unwanted war memorials. The state law also spells out a 60-day process of advertisement and public hearings to accomplish that purpose.

The new statute also appears to remove any legal barriers to City Council action, including other state laws and local charter provisions. That would enable the council to bypass the city Planning Commission, which by charter controls city-owned statues, and the city Commission of Architectural Review, which under the city code governs city Old and Historic Districts. Monument Avenue and its statues are listed on the Old and Historic District that runs between Lombardy Street and Roseneath Road.

July 5, 2020

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Is Prison ‘A Death Sentence’ for Correctional Staff and Our Communities?

By Dr. Valda Crowder, M.D.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - What happens in prison does not stay in prison. The cell blocks and bars give us a false sense of containment.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  According to the Justice Department, “The average time served by state prisoners released in 2016, from initial admission to initial release, was 2.6 years, and the median time served was 1.3 years.”

As a former medical director in a jail, I know that a constant flow exists between a correctional facility and a community. This back and forth includes cultural trends like saggy pants which became fashionable in the 1990’s. It can also include diseases, such as COVID-19 and before that HIV, carried by people in prison and correctional staff.

What happens in the correctional setting during a pandemic?

Despite reports that the top five largest hotspots are in correctional facilities, it turns out the answer is not enough.

Our biggest tool to tackle coronavirus is social distancing. Creating space between people, wearing masks, washing hands and keeping them away from our faces can reduce the spread outside prisons. But inside the barbed wires, lawsuit after lawsuit documents the hurdles correctional facilities face with these tactics from overcrowding to shortages of personnel protective equipment and cleaning products, such as masks and soap.

There have been a few high-profile releases, such as former Donald Trump lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen and Ray Nagin, former New Orleans Mayor. Many more releases are needed. Too many people at high risk for COVID-19, due to age or underlying medical conditions, and with only months remaining on their sentence remain under lock and key.  For almost half of Americans, or 133 million people with a chronic disease, such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, arthritis, obesity or oral disease, the coronavirus may be deadly.

It is hard to understand why any taxpayer would want to be responsible for expensive COVID-19 medical care of a person who has not been found guilty of a crime and just could not pay 10 percent of bail money. If not for people behind bars, consider the safety of correctional staff, doctors, nurses, guards and their families.

On Facebook, head of the sheriff’s deputy union Randall Crawford posted that “Working in Wayne County Jail has now become a death sentence.” His comments followed the deaths due to COVID-19 of the medical director, emergency specialist and jail commander.

Among New York City’s 9,680 mostly black and brown officers, 1259 tested positive. These high rates of COVID-19 are reflected in their neighborhoods. The guards have a higher rate of infection than the population at Rikers. And that’s saying something.

New York City’s jail is a hotspot within a hotspot. Although the Empire State has the largest number of cases, this should not distract from the dizzying number of infections among people in correctional facilities.

As the number of COVID-19 deaths exceeded 100,000, “at least 43,967 people in prison” have the virus. This infected population is larger than the population of Selma, Alabama or Key West, Florida.

Five states – Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, California and New Jersey -- account for most of the infections in correctional settings. Estimates of COVID-19 cases and deaths are undercounts. Some states do not test regularly in prisons. Most have not tested people who do not show symptoms of the disease.

If nothing changes, prisons may become an unwitting ally and engine of community spread of the virus. To avoid this outcome, correctional administrators and the courts should strictly follow the CDC’s new guidelines.

“Ramping up cleaning and hygiene reminders” are a good start. Limit transfers between prisons. Screen everyone coming into a facility. Practicing social distance in prisons means managing distance in lines and staggering meals among other steps. Know the non-respiratory symptoms of the virus. And the last prevention step is to implement no-contact prison visits.

We need to demand full compliance with this guidance and personnel protective equipment for people in prison and correctional staff. We are all in this global pandemic together.

Valda Crowder, MD, MBA, is a board-certified emergency medicine physician who serves as chair of the Health Committee for Black Women for Positive Change.

July 7, 2020

Supreme Court Decision Jeopardizes Future of Consumer Financial Protection

By Charlene Crowell

U. S. Supreme Court Building

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A June 29 U.S. Supreme Court split decision represents a major setback to both the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the consumers who have come to rely upon the agency. Since 2010, more than 25 million consumers were helped by the agency’s efforts that returned over $11 billion.

Although the case known as Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was argued on March 3 of this year, its origins date back to 2017 when Seila Law, a California-based debt relief firm, asked the CFPB to set aside a civil investigative demand (CID) that sought information to determine whether it was engaged in illegal debt relief practices.

CFPB declined to set aside the CID and turned to a California federal court to pursue its interests. In response, Seila Law restated its challenge of the independence of the agency’s Director who could only be removed by a President for cause, seeking to have the entire agency abolished as unconstitutional."

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision refuted CFPB’s hallmark: its independent Director. By allowing for an agency Director to be removed for any reason, it now becomes possible for partisan interests to influence whether or not a full, 5-year term of office enshrined in the law will occur, or that powerful corporations will be held accountable.

The Court majority argued that CFPB is “unique”. “The CFPB Director has no boss, peers, or voters to report to,” wrote Justice Roberts in the majority opinion and was joined by Associate Justices Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas.

“Yet the Director wields vast rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudicatory authority over a significant portion of the U. S. economy. The question before us is whether this arrangement violates the Constitution’s separation of powers…“We therefore hold that the structure of the CFPB violates the separation of powers,” continued the Chief Justice …The agency may therefore continue to operate, but its Director, in light of our decision, must be removable by the President at will.”

The creation of an independent consumer agency was the legislative intent defined in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. Enacted in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis since that of the 1930s Great Depression, CFPB assumed direct responsibility for financial oversight and enforcement on a range of consumer issues that included mortgages, small dollar loans, student debt, credit cards and more.

This agency authority included the rights to conduct investigations, issue subpoenas and civil investigative demands, initiate administrative adjudications, prosecute civil actions in federal court, and issue binding decisions in administrative proceedings.

The dissenting opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan was joined by Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonya Sotomayor.

“Throughout the Nation’s history, this Court has left most decisions about how to structure the Executive Branch to Congress and the President, acting through legislation they both agree to. In particular, the Court has commonly allowed those two branches to create zones of administrative independence by limiting the President’s power to remove agency heads… If precedent were any guide, that provision would have survived its encounter with this Court—and so would the intended independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”

“The Court today fails to respect its proper role,” continued the dissenting opinion. “It recognizes that this Court has approved limits on the President’s removal power over heads of agencies much like the CFPB. Agencies possessing similar powers, agencies charged with similar missions, agencies created for similar reasons… Congress and the President established the CFPB to address financial practices that had brought on a devastating recession and could do so again. Today’s decision wipes out a feature of that agency its creators thought fundamental to its mission—a measure of independence from political pressure.”

It is noteworthy that while the case was under Supreme Court review, the current CFPB Director, made no effort to explain or defend the agency.

In the remaining few months in the current Congress, consumer advocates must now heighten their watchful role to ensure that as many other agency responsibilities can be preserved and pursued as legislatively intended.

Many reacted swiftly and directly.

“Though the consumer bureau remains intact, it is worrisome that the Court weakened its political independence from the preferences of any one administration or the political pressure of large financial institutions,” said Diane Standaert, Director of the Hope Policy Institute, a nonprofit focused on under-served communities of color and other low-income households.  “As laid bare by COVID, the underlying disparities in access to safe financial services creates the foundation for disparities in economic opportunity, particularly for communities of color.”

"The CFPB was created after the Great Recession to protect Americans from unscrupulous businesses that have too much power to wreak havoc on the public,” said Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG Education Fund’s Senior Director of Federal Consumer Programs  “Now, the Supreme Court has agreed with the CFPB’s director, who actively worked with the Trump administration and a debt collection law firm, of all things, to undermine the Bureau’s independence from politically-connected special interests.”

“The Seila decision therefore leaves the CFPB intact but weakens the Director’s independence, making it more likely that the Director will hesitate to cross the financial industry players that have the ear of the President — as has happened repeatedly under the current leadership of the CFPB,” noted Lauren Saunders, the Associate Director of the National Consumer Law Center.

“We have seen in this Administration how agency heads who dare to express independent views have been short-lived, and it is unfortunate that the consumer watchdog has lost the critical independence that Congress gave it when addressing the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis,” added Saunders. “Nonetheless, the CFPB survives as an agency with the rest of its critical consumer protection tools intact, and it will be up to the current and future CFPB directors to resist political pressure to favor corporations over consumers.”

“The Supreme Court’s decision to defang the CFPB’s for-cause removal provision will render the agency less effective and leave consumers vulnerable to bad actors on Wall Street,” said Will Corbett, Litigation Director with the Center for Responsible Lending.

“Predatory lenders and their allies in Congress have consistently tried without merit to weaken CFPB’s independence for political reasons. Today, the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has joined in that effort, ensuring financial damage for consumers for years to come”, Corbett concluded.

Charlene Crowell is a Senior Fellow with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

July 5, 2020

“Plan A: Don't Go In a Crowd. Plan B: If You Do, Make Sure You Wear a Mask.”

By Marc H. Morial 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Look at the guidelines. The leaders, the governors, the mayors, the local leaders at the county level - look at the guidelines. Many of the governors and the mayors are doing well, but it's the people that are out there that are not listening because, as you said, they're pent up. Please restrain that. If you follow the guidelines and do it slowly and discreetly and do it very carefully, we'll get through this.” -- Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health

Weeks ago, as some governors began to lift stay-at-home orders against federal guidelines, the National Urban League urged people to stay home. In a joint statement with other civil rights organizations, we said the governors’ actions showed “reckless disregard for the health and life of Black residents.”

Now, sadly, a surge in coronavirus infections has confirmed our worst fears. The United States set a record this week for the most infections confirmed in one day: 36,880. That brings the number of confirmed infections to more than 2.4 million.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that only about one in every 10 COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has been identified. That means more than 20 million people in the U.S. may have been infected.

Officially, more than 122,400 Americans have died from COVID-19 in just over four months. That is more Americans than died in all of World War I, or the Vietnam and Korean wars combined. It’s more Americans than died in the first wave of the deadly flu of 1918. And most experts agree the true death toll is much higher than the official count.

Contrary to the claims of the Trump administration, increased testing does not explain the surge in reported infections. The number of people testing positive is rising much faster than the number of people being tested. 20 states currently have a positivity rate above 5%. The World Health Organization recommends rates of positivity should remain below 5% for 14 days before states consider reopening.

Arizona reported that 21.15% of tests are coming back positive. Florida’s positivity rate is 12.22%.

There’s little question that the surge is related to the rush to reopen the nation’s economy without proper safety measures in place  Earlier outbreaks were linked to nursing homes, prisons, and meat packing plants – places where people had little choice but to be present. The current surge is linked to crowded bars, casinos, and churches – where there is little need for anyone to be present.

It has always been a dangerous fiction that our choice is between saving the economy or saving lives. The stock market tumbled in response to the surge in infections, and states are being forced to shut down businesses again. Our choice is between rebuilding the economy safely or risking thousands of lives and throwing the country into an even worse economic crisis.

Interestingly, at the same time infections are rising due to voluntary large gatherings, a study concluded that the demonstrations against police brutality did not lead to a spike in infections as many had feared. That is partly because a significant percentage of the demonstrators have worn masks.

As the nation’s leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress this week: “Plan A: Don't go in a crowd. Plan B: If you do, make sure you wear a mask.”