Daily Archives: February 4, 2021

Native American mascots are dwindling in NC schools, but some aren’t ready to give them up – The Fayetteville Observer

Posted: February 4, 2021 at 6:42 pm

Pride or appropriation? Two North Carolina towns are the sites of fierce battles over American Indian imagery.

The mascot for South Point High School Red Raiders is an American Indian man with an earring and a long feather running alongside a mohawk. Its an image Isabella Lanford would like to erase.

Lanford grew up in Belmont, a small cityin Gaston County near Charlotte. In the mid-2010s, she attended Belmont Middle School (nickname: the Wildcats) and thought shed join her classmates for the ninth grade at South Point High.

A home football game changed her mind. Lanford, a Lumbee Indian, saw South Point fans in face paint carrying fake tomahawks. Most of the crowd was white. When the Red Raiders scored, many cupped their hands over their mouths and released stereotypical Native American war cries.

It enrages my family when they hear that, she said of the chants that bear no resemblance to the actual sounds her relatives make at traditional ceremonies. When everyone was doing that around me, I was like, I dont think I should come back here.I think thats when I understood.

Her mother, an Indigenous rights advocate, requested Gaston County Schools transfer Lanford to another school. The district approved the request, but Lanford attended a magnet school instead. After graduating from the N.C.School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, Lanford, now 18, is a freshman at American University in Washington, D.C.

Though she never attended South Point, Lanford still feels compelled to help end the American Indian mascot at a school with few American Indian students.

Last summers protests for racial justiceescalated theperennial debate around American Indian nicknames, logos, and actions - like chants and tomahawk chomps - in schools and sports.

Facing pressure from corporate sponsors like FedEx and Nike, the professional football team in Washington, D.C.,abandoned Redskins, a slur according to most dictionaries. In December, the Cleveland Indians baseball team - which had already phased out its scarlet-faced cartoon mascot Chief Wahoo - announced it would play under a new name.

Many North Carolina schools made these changes years ago.

Since 2002 - the year the N.C. State Advisory Council on Indian Education called on all K-12 public schools to stop using American Indian mascots and imagery - districts have swapped out Indians for Wolves (Alamance-Burlington Schools), Braves for Bears (Craven County Schools), and Redskins for Ravens, Miners, and Knights.

According to the council, the number of North Carolina schools using Native American names and images in athletics fell by half from 2002 to 2017.

This summer, Catawba Countys Arndt Middle School became the latest school to ditch Redskins.In a message to families introducing Arndts new nickname of Warriors, principal Jennifer Stodden said, It is time for us to take this leap forward and show that we are a school of cultural responsiveness.

But some schools like South Pointhavent taken this leap.Local residents argue the nicknames and mascots are about pride,not appropriation -honor, not hate. They are symbols that bind their communities together, mascot defenders say, and altering them would be bowing to unchecked political correctness.

In a pair ofNorth Carolina counties, the mascot issue has splitschool communities,pitting alumni against alumni in a battle over tradition and identity.

'Dude, you're not going to change this'

Late last spring,Lanford joined Retire the Red Raider, a network of students, teachers, alumni, and Belmont residents that formed to push for a new mascot.

State data shows fewerthan 0.2% of students at Gaston County Schools identify as American Indian. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only one American Indian student was enrolled at South Point in the 2018-19 school year.

Its infuriating, and its sad because I know the children who go to that high school dont understand because no one tells them, Lanfordsaid. They just see it as a mascot, they see it as an image, and they see it as something of their own.

Laura Boyce, who graduated from South Point in 2003, started aRetire the Red Raider Mascot petition which has received 6,300 signatures.

Boyce, who now lives in Philadelphia, said she didnt think twice about the Red Raider logo when she attended South Point.

Thats a common experience weve heard from a number of our supporters that it took getting outside of Belmont to really understand the offensiveness of the name, she said. I look back and wince.

But many South Point alumni look back with pride.

A counter-petition supporting the Red Raider mascot, created by South Point alum Celeste Kitchen (Class of 79), has gained 3,500 signatures. I am getting sick of all this stupid political correctness, someone wrote on the petition website as their reason for signing. Enough is enough.

The Gaston Gazette reported that when Retire the Red Raider members spoke at the local school board meeting in July, Red Raider supporters showed up, too.

I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of citizens in the Belmont and South Point High School community when I say that we regret having to be here to defend our team name and logo, which takes away precious time from your agenda, Jason Rumfelt, a Belmont resident, told the board.

Jerry Denton, a Belmont resident who has watched South Point sports for decades, said it helps to be from the area to truly understand the mascots significance.

You would have to have lived the memories if you grew up in this city, he told the USA Today Network in a Facebook message.

Asked about the prospects of South Point getting a different nickname, Denton was blunt: Dude, you are not going to change this.

More: Students can wear Confederate symbol to school. Some Buncombe students want that to stop

Belmont isnt the first community to tussle over mascots.

In the late 1990s, Erwin High School in Asheville drew national attention after a parents complaint prompted a U.S. Justice Department investigation into whether Erwins use of American Indian imagery created a racially hostile environment.

The complaint came from Pat Merzlak, whose adopted son Richard was a Lakota Sioux Indian.

Classmates would ask Richard to ride his horse at home football games, which at first he agreed to do, but eventually grew resentful of Erwins pervasive Native references.

The boys teams were called the Warriors and girls teams were called the Squaws (an offensive term for American Indian women). A massive statue of an American Indian man loomed by the schools front entrance. A totem pole stood inside.

At Erwin games, opposing fans made ruthless references to American Indians, calling on their players to Scalp and Massacre the Warriors.

In the 1998-99 school year, fewerthan 0.5% of Buncombe County students were American Indian.

Speaking before the Buncombe County School Board in December 1998, Merzlak said, If just one Indian child suffers impaired self-esteem and is discriminated against because of a mascot, isnt that too many?

The Justice Department soon got involved, sending an American Studies professor from Yale to tour the school. Merzlak recalls the issue dividing the community, with some shouting Indian lover when they drove by her.

In March 1999, the district struck a compromise with the Justice Department, agreeing to terminate the Squaws nickname while keeping Warriors. The towering American Indian statue still stands on school grounds.

I think it educated some people and probably firmed up some beliefs both pro and con, Merzlak, who now lives in eastern Tennessee, said of the controversy.

Since Erwin retired Squaws,the number of K-12 schools using American Indian mascots, names, or images has dropped from 73 in 2002 to 36 in 2017. Community activists, not school boards, drove this decline according to Mary Ann Jacobs, a professor of American Indian Studies at UNC Pembroke and member of North Carolinas Lumbee Tribe.

You have to have a situation where organized groups - or at least one really determined individual - goes to the school board and says, You have to make this change, she said. Its very unusual for the school board to just do it on their own because people are really attached to their mascots and want to put ownership on that.

The nine-member Gaston County Board of Education hasnt decided on the fate of the Red Raider, district spokesperson Todd Hagans said in an email on behalf of board chair Jeff Ramsey.

We realize that people have strong feelings related to school mascots, Hagans said, referring both to South Point and East Gaston High School, which uses mascot imagery of an American Indian wearing feathers and sometimes a headdress.

Hagans suggested the board might abstain from ruling on the Red Raider mascot, noting the board doesnt have a mascot policy. Past decisions on school colors, mascots, and logos, he said, were left up to school and community leaders.

Gastons school board is elected, which adds a political component to how it addresses this divisive issue.

In an interview with the USA Today Network, board member Steve Hall said he wanted to hear from all concerned residents before deciding on the Red Raiders.

Born and raised in Gaston County, Hall said hes still trying to learn more about why many find Native American references in sports problematic.

The Washington Redskins, its been that way for years and now its not good enough, he said. Thats not my decision making, but a lot of it I just dont understand. I dont think it was called that to disgrace the American Natives.

More: U.S.-China rivalry reaches into NC classrooms through a controversial cultural program

Athletic teams at UNC Pembrokeare called the Braves and their mascot is an American Indian with a hawk hovering over their head.

Pembroke was founded in the late 1800s as a teaching school for American Indians. Its student body is 13% American Indian, as are many of its professors. The campus is in Robeson County, home to the Lumbee Tribe. Its this presence of actual American Indians, Mary Ann Jacobs said, that makes the nickname and mascot feel representative, not exploitative.

For schools without a significant American Indian population, Jacobs warned the use of tomahawks, war cries, and chieftain caricatures prevent students from understanding the real challenges facing Indigenous communities.

Mascots hurt because if your only experience with Native people is through mascots or cartoons, then its going to be hard for you to see us as real human beings, Jacobs said. You cant really understand all these other problems that were having in our community.

Unemployment, health inequalities, domestic violence, and other side effects of historical disenfranchisement are prevalent in American Indian communities, she said. Inequalities extend to the classroom.

In 2019, American Indians in North Carolina public schools trailed their white classmates by at least 15 points in every state tested subject. Their dropout rate is3%, nearly doublethat of white students.

More: NC revises history standards amid national debate on teaching America's past

This October, a video played before the Dare County Board of Education showeda procession of Manteo High School students and alumnistating their names and graduating classes before declaring they were proud to be a Redskin.

Located in the smalltown of Manteo on the Outer Banks,Manteo High is one of two schools in the state that carries on the controversial nickname that some American Indians call the R-Word.Supporters of the nickname say it honors the Croatan Indian chief Manteo, who lived in the area in the 16th century.

Please do not erase our identity because of the current trend to cancel the past, a Manteo High student said in the video to the school board.

Most of thepeople in the video, like most students at school, werewhite or Black. This year, only one American Indian student was enrolled in Dare County Schools, state data shows.

The Proud to be a Redskin video was a response to an effort started last year by The Change the Manteo Mascots Initiative which hopes the high school follows the lead of Washingtons professional football team and changes its nickname.

In September, the Change the Manteo Mascot group brought a petition with more than 12,000 signatures to the Dare County school board. In addition to the high school, the group of alum and Outer Banks residents Manteo Middle School reconsider its Braves nickname.

Redskin does not inspire pride in everyone, especially my people, Marilyn Berry Morrison, chief of the Roanoke-Hatteras Indians of Dare County, said in a video message to the board. Morrison called the nickname racist and said, If ever there is a time to make a change, it is now. Its past time to change.

Following the pro-Redskin video in October, the seven-member school board decided to keep Manteos nickname for now, with members not wishing to burden students with a mascot change during the pandemic. Severalboard members graduated from Manteo High andvoiced their pride in its nickname.

Board member Harvey Hess expressed disappointment in the schools and teamsthat have phased out "Redskins."

It is regretful that some localities and organizations have conceded to the pressure from people who are determine to make every effort to do away with the very idea of own American traditions and local traditions, he said.

Brian Gordon is a statewide reporter with the USA Today Networkin North Carolina. Reach him at bgordon@gannett.com or on Twitter @briansamuel92.

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Native American mascots are dwindling in NC schools, but some aren't ready to give them up - The Fayetteville Observer

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Opinion: How the Republican Party Can Find Its Way – Prescott eNews

Posted: at 6:42 pm

The inauguration is complete. Power has transferred. We are on to the next chapter of American political history. But as Republicans, are we? Do we have a way forward? If elections are the scores by which politics are measured, the last four years have been an unmitigated disaster. We lost the House, Senate, and White House. Somethings not working.

And while some in the party would say we need a more forceful version of the same, Id say not. Why dont we try different? Accordingly, I would offer five things that need radical change or what many Republicans would recognize as a return to things we once stood for.

One, adherence to the truth. Facts used to be stubborn things, but that was so 1980s. Now we have alternative facts. They represent madness. If I dont trust you, and if we cant even agree that there are things we legitimately disagree on, what are we doing? A debate between conservative and liberal answers to the problems that ail us cant even begin without facts to debate. Trump has done great damage here in legitimizing the idea that its ok to make up ones own facts or not tell the truth.

Two, a tone thats not tone deaf. I really dont care or hear what youre saying as long as youre yelling at me, would strike most as a pretty normal reaction to verbal hostility. Yet thats the place former President Trump seemed to live, and his actions have given license to rudeness and cruelty on both the right and left. Ive seen firsthand how singlehandedly the president turned off a lot of young voters in this. They dont always love mom and dad, but what they saw was so at odds with what they had heard from them about treating others, they turned away in droves.

Everyone has become so strident. We have lost the humility that allows one to believe something, but be willing to hear another view. Maybe its just a re-embrace of compassion or faith, but whatever it is we need it and we need it now. The French political philosopher Tocqueville observed in the 1800s that America was great because America was good. I still believe that of the American people, but we have lost that in what we see too often in politics today. So particularly in the Republican Party, given the coarseness of Trumps approach, we need to elevate the virtues of decency, patience, and kindness so that we can be heard again. The Faustian deal struck between the religious right and Trump in pretending these things didnt matter in exchange for good court appointments needs to go.

Three, a re-embrace of reason. Just as you cant have a debate of ideas without facts, you cant do it without reason as well. Our Founding Fathers gave us a reasoned-based republic, and two of its underpinnings were faith and common sense. Their idea of reason was based on the common sense of the farmer, not the aristocrat or the intellectual. In an age wherein many are tired of political correctness, Trumps common man language had appeal. But it wasnt reasoned. It was authoritarian. Do it because I said so has a short half-life in the system of checks and balances the Founding Fathers created. Reason should also mean looking past the next election and beyond ones immediate self-interest. To contemplate what a decision means for ones descendants will require leadership sorely lacking in todays politics but its precisely the thing that people would respond to.

Four, a re-embrace of science. As Republicans, we have simply lost our minds here. How can there be any logic in trusting the science behind the miracles of modern medicine, but when the same science is applied to our planet its fake science? We should embrace science, wherever it might lead and then look for conservative solutions in fixing the problems that science uncovers.

Finally, we need to re-embrace math. We have joined the arms race of upward spending with the Democratic Party, and in doing so robbed ourselves of what was once a distinction between Republicans and Democrats. Over the last four years, Republicans have been mute as the national debt spiraled upward by about $2 trillion a year. And if both parties have abandoned watching out for my financial future, why not grab a Bud rather than a Bud Light, must be the thinking of many as they compare Democrats and Republicans. Our collective financial amnesia has us walking each day one step closer to the most predictable financial crisis in the history of man, and its sad the Republican Party no longer leads here.

These five things wont fix all that ails the GOP, but theyre a start and they need your voice.

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Opinion: How the Republican Party Can Find Its Way - Prescott eNews

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After the Capitol Riot, Who Will Govern Speech Online? – JSTOR Daily

Posted: at 6:41 pm

The January 6 attack on the Capitol has transformed politics in the United States in ways that journalists, lawyers and politicians are still struggling to understand. It was at once the chaotic culmination of a right-wing movement before and during the Trump administration and a stunning symbol of a possible future. Like so many other political events in the past decade, it again revealed how social media has made once unthinkable political events possible. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, among other sites, amplified marginal conspiracy theories and far-right militia organizations, allowed a sitting president to delegitimize the election he lost, and permitted open planning for a violent attack on the seat of government.

Social media companies have faced sustained criticism for years about the negative impacts of speech on their platforms. These have ranged from national political conflicts such as the organization of genocide in Myanmar, to worldwide endemic personal harassment like the Gamergate scandal or revenge porn. But the attack on the Capitol appears to have crossed a line. Social media sites have responded accordingly by widely banning Donald Trump and many other right-wing activists and organizations.

Deplatforming on this scale would have been unimaginable just weeks earlier. It has provoked predictable complaints from the right. But the American Civil Liberties Union and other free speech organizations have also expressed concerns about a new standard for censorship without transparency or accountability for private companies. Others have noted that left-wing social media accounts have been getting banned for some time, and are also current targets of arbitrary shutdowns. There is already a national security-oriented response underway to investigate and surveil right wing movements as domestic terrorism. But this alone will not solve the social conditions that encourage fascist thought and activity, or prevent right wing activists from finding new ways to organize online.

Protecting democracy from the power of free speech seems like a paradox. However, free speech on the internet has never truly been free. The regulation of speech online is in fact framed by laws that allow private sites to censor content at will. Moreover, many factors affect the impact of online speech besides its mere existence or deletion. User algorithms and advertising demand can promote speech to different audiences, while metadata can inform users about the sources or reliability of that speech. Until this point, promoting right-wing propaganda and accompanying advertising with little metadata has been wildly profitable.

But with the Capitol attack, it seems as if the wild west era of monetized political speech online is reaching its end. There are two plausible futures for the industry. Either the tech monopolies will keep the power to arbitrarily restrict speech to prevent controversy and protect their bottom lines, or the government will better regulate the internet to mitigate the power of tech companies to profit from negative speech and political extremism. This is already provoking deeper questions about the meaning of the First Amendment and the publics rights and interests in the internet itself.

Establishment opinion about the role of online speech in society and politics has evolved rapidly over the past decade. Prior to 2000, the internet represented a forum that was alternative and even countercultural to mainstream political parties, business and media. In the following decade, the spread of social media seemed to affirm the eras neoliberal values of promoting Democracy in the world, culminating most obviously in the Arab Spring protests 10 years ago this month. When internet companies were smaller and fragmented, protecting them and their users against the censorship of governments worldwide seemed not just to defend free speech, but to transform the world for the better.

This is certainly the tone of Columbia University President and First Amendment scholar Lee Bollingers piece in Foriegn Policys 100 Top Global Thinkers of 2012, Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age. The issues of the day motivating Bollingers argument were China blocking access to The New York Times and the suppression of the right-wing anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims. Despite the gratuitous insult of the latter to more than a billion people and the political and social backlash Middle Eastern governments faced, Bollinger blithely expresses that the overall arc of freedom of speech on the internet was toward progress. When the number of people around the world who are engaged in the marketplace of ideas increases, we can expect a corresponding rise in the flow of innovation in both the academy and the economy, Bollinger writes. He argues that globalization thus directly fuels conflict between governments and internet publishers and social media sites.

The objects of Bollingers concern in 2012 were appropriate, but the economic and political dynamics around it have turned out to be rather the inverse of how he and many others saw them a decade ago. Rather than the United States First Amendment becoming a guiding principal for speech around the world, internet companies are in fact accepting a huge array of sovereign controls on speech, different in each country. This is leading more toward collaboration between the tech giants and governments to protect their profits rather than outright conflict. And of course, the marketplace of ideas has turned out to become as useful for the innovation of illiberal ideas and organizations, from ISIS to QAnon, as for science or education.

The social media business model is founded upon a legal collaboration between the industry and the US federal government. In the early days of the internet, corporations sued chat boards for the libel of individuals who had posted complaints about them, arguing they were publishers of the posts. With inconsistent judicial interpretations over whether internet hosts were moderating their content and thus counted as such, Congress stepped in with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

The law states no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. Moreover, it expressly allowed internet providers, as private companies, the discretion to ban content that they did not wish to carry. This extends to internet service providers or server farms banning entire platforms from using their services, as a judge has just ruled Amazon Web Services could do to Parler, a social media network heavily used by right wing activists.

Benjamin Cramer argues this creates a moral hazard in which the absence of future liability encourages ethical lapses and unaccountable behavior in the present. Rather than more frequently intervening in user content, social media sites until the present have chosen to leave all but the most egregious fraud or harassment alone in order to avoid accusations of infringing users free speech rights. As partisan politics has become more heated in recent years, the sites are often attacked for their perceived biases from both sides, further encouraging them not to intervene.

This would not be quite so bad, writes Jack Balkin, if the social media industry were not monopolized by Twitter, Facebook, and Google. At present, those companies have so much political and economic power, they effectively represent practically a new, private state that has subsumed the U.S. Constitutions protection of free speech to make a profit for themselves while providing their users no accountability. Governance by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube has many aspects of a nineteenth-century autocratic state, Balkin writes, one that protects basic civil freedoms but responds to public opinion only in limited ways.

Indeed, pressure for better governance have made social media companies establish independent tribunals to adjudicate managements decisions to ban content or block users. These include Facebooks Oversight Board, composed of famous politicians and journalists, which began meeting last month. In its first decision on January 27, it actually overturned Facebook executives decisions to block content based on hate speech, nudity and COVID misinformation. It will soon meet to review the decision to ban Donald Trump.

With public scrutiny now so heavily focused on the politicization of speech online, social media companies will not be able to plead inaction in the name of free speech any longer. Yet potential government regulators are still reluctant to intervene, both fearful of the power of the industry and of actually infringing the First Amendment. Who in the future will both determine the red lines on speech, or otherwise try to protect users from the long term negative externalities of unregulated content algorithms?

Past research available on JSTOR reflects less urgency than the present crisis demands. Cramer believes that a more rigorous application of Corporate Social Responsibility, in part to maintain public goodwill, would gradually move social media companies toward more ethical treatment of their users and the targets of their speech. Balkin believes the current Section 230 framework could be reformed by better enforcing companies user agreements and by treating a companys relationship to its users as an information fiduciary. In short, this means borrowing legal ideas from the financial, medical, and legal industries to force social media companies to be more transparent with their users and allow users to (genuinely) opt out of data surveillance and targeting.

Since January 6, however, there are increased calls to abolish Section 230 altogether, which would transform the internet as we know it. As anti-monopoly activist Matt Stoller points out, Congress is now reluctant to attack powerful corporations like Amazon because it has stood as a monolith, willing to keep right-wing and violent content off their platforms since the attack. Taking away the protections of Section 230 and demonopolization thus go hand-in-hand. If platforms shared at least some of the liability for the content they spreador the way they exponentially amplify and profit from itit would be possible to dismantle the vertical integration that now exists between internet service providers, server farms, and social media platforms. Facing true competition, the majority of new entities would seek responsible ways of selecting out or diminishing the impact of negative content as it passes between these stages of the internet infrastructure.

This is the turning point between continuing to allow the tech titans to treat the worlds communication networks as their private fiefdoms, or restoring democracy and transparency to what we have long considered the public sphere.

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After the Capitol Riot, Who Will Govern Speech Online? - JSTOR Daily

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Bad Precedents: Impeachment For The Exercise Of Free Speech, And Censorship By Social Media – wgbh.org

Posted: at 6:41 pm

There is an old, hoary saying among lawyers: Hard cases make bad law. This maxim has been drilled into the heads of law students for generations.

The pursuit of Donald Trump, reminiscent of the mob carrying pitchforks and torches while chasing the monster in Frankenstein, readily comes to mind while following the efforts by virtually all Democratic federal officeholders, a few Republicans, and the major politically liberal news outlets to impeach-and-convict Donald Trump for a second time.

This current impeachment effort is exceedingly unwise, even if Trumps conduct during and after the recent presidential election rightly horrifies all Americans devoted to the tenets of our democracy and to our assumptions about the peaceful transfer of power. One needs to recall that Joseph Biden was decidedly lukewarm, if not outright opposed, to a second impeachment, even though he was the one most directly affected by Trumps effort to reverse Bidens electoral victory. Biden will turn out to be viewed by history as wise, in contrast to House Speaker Nancy Pelosis and now-Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumers pitchfork-and-torch-laden pursuit of the Trump monster.

The story needs no detailed retelling. Anyone who was not comatose during the weeks between the election, the meeting of the electoral college, and the aftermath, knows the tale.

But the profoundly important question remains whether Trump, who stands impeached for a second time by the House vote taken on January 13, 2021, should be convicted when the Senate tries him on the impeachment. (Trumps trial in the Senate is scheduled to begin the week of February 8.)

The Democrats goal in this second impeachment-and-trial is quite clear: To prevent Donald Trump from occupying the White House again. The goal is not, of course, the usual goal of an impeachment to remove an errant public official from office since the American electorate accomplished that this past November. Put more bluntly, those who wish to impeach-and-convict Trump this time around are looking not only to punish our sociopathic ex-president for his conduct while in office, but to prevent the American electorate from ever putting him back into the White House, even if a majority of them would like to see him re-take the presidency.

They are also seeking to punish him for his speech that some claim incited the crowd to attack the Capitol building. These critics are simply wrong. Trumps speech lies within the definition of free speech, rather than unlawful incitement, as the Supreme Court has drawn the distinction in the famous 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio.

The bottom line is that this second impeachment attempt is fundamentally anti-democratic. It is also very foolish, which is likely why President Biden has tried to discourage the move. Biden has stated that, if we were six months out, we should be doing everything to get him out of office. Impeaching him again, trying to invoke the 25th Amendment, whatever it took. But I am focused now on us taking control as president and vice president on the 20th and to get our agenda moving as quickly as we can."

As if the Democrats attack upon democracy were not bad enough, the social media gurus in the private sector are acting in an equally worrisome fashion. While the Democrats seek to weaken the electoral system by barring Trump from subjecting his candidacy to democratic choice, the major actors in the social media world Facebook and Twitter have kept Trump from communicating to the American people on the two social networks with the broadest reach.

Due to Trumps inaccurate posts on election fraud and the sympathetic posts he shared for those who attended the Capitol riots, Facebook and Twitter decided to ban him from their platforms. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg contended that, "the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. While Facebook and Twitter have the right to do what they are doing they are, after all, private companies, even though each arguably has a near-monopoly it is doubtful that they are exercising their near-monopolistic power wisely. (In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed anti-trust lawsuits against Facebook previously for engaging in anti-competitive practices where Facebook acquired, or attempted to, weaker companies before they became serious competitors.)

It is one thing to have defeated Trump at the polls via democratic means, and thereby to force him into luxurious self-exile at his Florida estate. But it is quite another to cut him off from the major avenues of mass communication, through which he otherwise would be expected to make his case for re-election. Trump has often used Twitter to make posts about policy changes, his support and disapproval of certain officials, election fraud, the Capitol riots, and any other events that influenced his presidency. In short, Trump relied on social media to spread his views and maintain his connection with his supporters.

The life of our republic has relied upon the fundamental belief that the Supreme Court has dubbed the free marketplace of ideas - the most trusted, and surely the most peaceful, way of determining truth and of making political decisions via democratic rather than autocratic methods. The current move aiming to remove Donald Trump from this marketplace is not only anti-democratic, but verges on being authoritarian if not totalitarian. At the very least, it is incompatible with liberal democracy and the ban deprives us of knowing what is on the autocrats mind.

It would be healthier for American democracy, and for our political system, as well as for avoiding dangerous social and political unrest, for cooler heads to prevail. Trump should be acquitted at his upcoming impeachment trial, and Twitter and Facebook should re-think the burdens that their censorship of Donald Trump casts upon the concept of democratic engagement in the free marketplace of ideas.

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Govt That Spies Has Insatiable Appetite – KMJ Now

Posted: at 6:40 pm

The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of mans spiritual nature, of his feelings, and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men.Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941)

When Justice Louis D. Brandeis referred to the right to privacy as the right to be let alone, it was 1928. He was dissenting in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion called Olmstead v. United States, 277U.S. 438 (1928), in which federal agents tapped the telephone lines of Roy Olmstead and others and recorded their conversations about importing alcohol into the U.S. during Prohibition.

They did so without search warrants.

On the basis of the tapped conversations, Olmstead and his colleagues were convicted of conspiracy to violate federal law.

The Supreme Court upheld their convictions.

The issue in the case was whether the Fourth Amendments prohibition of searches and seizures without a warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause of crime includes surveillance.

When Brandeis dissented in Olmstead, telephones were novel and not in widespread personal use. It would be 39 years before the Supreme Court accepted Brandeis dissent as properly encapsulating the understanding of the Framers when it characterized surveillance as a search.

Stated differently, the language in the Fourth Amendment, which unambiguously prohibits the government from engaging in warrantless searches and seizures, was not interpreted so as to characterize government surveillance as a search until 1967, when the Supreme Court accepted Brandeis rationale.

Since then, it is commonplace that the government needs a warrant to engage in surveillance.

The warrant is a constitutional bulwark against fishing expeditions, and it requires the courts to defer to privacy.

I offer this brief constitutional history so as to address the abuse of the Fourth Amendment, and the consequences of that abuse.

Two weeks ago, the Defense Intelligence Agencyan arm of the Pentagon and one of 16 federal entities that spies on Americans acknowledged publicly that it uses commercial software to monitor the movements and conversations of those on whom it has chosen to spy.

And because it does so without warrants, it spies on whomever it wishes.

It claims that the language of the Fourth Amendment which protects the right of all people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects only restrains law enforcement and does not restrain the balance of the government.

Yet, the whole purpose of the Bill of Rights is to recognize that personal liberty stems from our humanity. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he referred to our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable from our human nature, and as gifts of the Creator.

The Bill of Rights, too, articulates that our rights are natural. The Ninth Amendment expressly commands that the enumeration of certain rights such as the freedoms of religion, speech and press shall not be construed by any government to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people.

Among the rights retained by the people never given away to the states or the federal government and thus protected by the Ninth Amendment, and since 1967 by the Fourth, is the right to privacy.

The Olmstead decision focused narrowly on whether listening to someones telephone conversations without a warrant is as unconstitutional as rummaging through the persons papers and effects without a warrant.

Brandeis understood that true happiness can only come from the exercise of personal liberty, and James Madison understood this when he wrote the Fourth Amendment.

This understanding, as recognized by the courts today, is that the right to privacy protects intellectual activities, beliefs, thoughts, emotions, sensations, and private communications about them.Who could be happy under a state of surveillance? Privacy is natural there are things we all do that are none of the governments business. Surveillance is totalitarian. It is the manifestation of the tyrants wish to know all about a potential opponent.

The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights is to keep the government at bay off the peoples backs, as Justice William O. Douglas wrote thereby protecting our natural state of freedom so that we can pursue happiness.

The Declaration of Independence underscores, and the Bill of Rights protects, the right to pursue happiness for individuals, not for governments.

Who can be happy while being observed by the government?

A watched person changes behavior and loses liberty on account of being watched.

The liberty to make unfettered choices, the right to shake a metaphorical fist in the tyrants face, the personal power to ignore what the government expects are all dissipated.

A watched person hesitates to exercise freedom.

The more the government gets away with surveillance without warrants, the more people will accept the servitude it brings.

Personal freedom is the unfettered power to exercise natural rights without the approval of the government or the consent of any other person. It is the means to happiness.

Yet, because we live in a society in which we need the governments permission to do nearly anything, is it any wonder that the government wants to know everything about us?

The government that spies continuously has large ears and insatiable eyes.

And on its face there is no smile.

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Notre Dame Law School, was the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of New Jersey. He sat on the bench from 1987 to 1995. He taught constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School for 11 years, and he returned to private practice in 1995. Judge Napolitano began television work in the same year. He is Fox News senior judicial analyst on the Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network. He is the host of Freedom Watch on the Fox Business Network. Napolitano also lectures nationally on the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, civil liberties in wartime, and human freedom. He has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications. He is the author of five books on the U.S. Constitution. Read Judge Andrew P. Napolitanos Reports More Here.

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No-knock search warrants began in Wisconsin, Rep. Myers wants to end them here – Wisconsin Examiner

Posted: at 6:40 pm

Rep. LaKeshia Myers (D-Milwaukee) has introduced a new bill to prevent the use of no-knock search warrants by Wisconsin law enforcement. The bill was named Breonnas Law after Louisville, Kentucky EMT Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old who was killed during such a raid in March 2020.

It is most appropriate for us to begin Black History Month 2021 by introducing Breonnas Law, Myers said in a press statement. Breonna Taylors life was taken while she was in the comfort of her own home, through the use of a no-knock warrant. While Taylor was not the subject of the warrant, her life was mercilessly ended through no fault of her own. It is because of this that we call on Wisconsin legislators to end the use of no-knock warrants.

Wisconsin became the first state to authorize no-knock search warrants in 1997. Since their introduction, no-knock raids have created controversy around police transparency and use of force.

No-knock warrants are harmful to civilians and law enforcement officers alike, said Myers. Milwaukee police officer Matthew Rittner was killed in the line of duty while his tactical unit executed a no-knock warrant in February 2019. Because of a no-knock search warrant, a wife lost her husband, Milwaukee lost a police officer and a child lost its father.

These searches are being reconsidered at the federal and state levels. In Congress last session, Senate Republicans wanted to track their use, while a Democratic House bill, endorsed by the Congressional Black Caucus would have banned them on a federal level in drug cases and withhold federal policing grants to states that permit them in drug cases.

In 2020, a package of Juneteenth bills on police reform was forwarded by Gov. Tony Evers, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and the the Legislative Black Caucus. It included a similar bill that prohibits no-knock search warrants issued under state law by requiring a law enforcement officer who is executing a search warrant to identify himself or herself as a law enforcement officer and announce the authority and purpose of the entry, before entering the premises.

The Legislature did not take any action on these bills, instead forming a study committee that continues to meet but has not come out with its recommendations.

Myers new bill, as described in her co-sponsorship memo accompanying it, requires that a law enforcement officer executing a search warrant must, before entering the premises, identify himself or herself as a law enforcement officer and announce the authority and purpose of the entry. Under the bill, a law enforcement officer may execute a search warrant only between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. unless a judge authorizes the execution of the search warrant at another time for good cause.

Given the increased focus on police reform and no-knock search warrants in particular the Wisconsin Legislative Council put out an Information Memorandum on the practice in Sept. 2020, reviewing its complicated relationship with the Fourth Amendment and case law. As a result, the no-knock search warrant, a product of the War on Drugs, is being reconsidered. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving citizens the right to be protected against unlawful search and seizure is replicated in the Wisconsin Constitution.

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Knock-and-announce requirements before police forcibly enter a persons home called the announcement rule in Wisconsin date back centuries to British common law, but exceptions to the rule have been carved out, including the no-knock search warrant, the memo states. Further, it notes, a 1995 case determined knock-and-announce was not a rigid, blanket rule, so no-knock searches are allowed as an exception that takes into account countervailing law enforcement interests.

The Wisconsin Professional Police Association Executive Director Jim Palmer has been quoted by multiple media outlets, as being open to reconsideration of no-knock warrants by police and by lawmakers. He told NBC-15 he doubts his group would fight for the warrants, as they are not used frequently in Wisconsin and can be dangerous for both police officers and residents.

Body camera use by law enforcement has made the public increasingly aware of no-knock search warrants, as more people are able to see footage of the technique in action.

The bills namesake, Taylor, was killed as law enforcement carried out a series of raids across the Louisville area. Police claimed they announced themselves when the raid began. Taylors boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, however, said officers did not do so, and he thought someone was breaking into their home as they slept. After a shot was fired by the boyfriend, wounding one officer, other officers fired numerous shots into the apartment, killing Taylor.

One of the detectives involved, Brett Hankison, was fired in June for wantonly and blindly firing his weapon, according to his termination letter. Taylors death brought to light the use of such raids, and place-based policing strategies that targeted areas being gentrified by the city.

As the state that created no-knock warrants, Wisconsin has the responsibility to be the state to end their use, Myers said. When you know better, you must do better, and this is a step in the right direction.

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Close the Gaps – East Bay Express

Posted: at 6:40 pm

When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn into office, it marked the first time in American history that Californians held two of the three highest offices in the federal government. No, President Biden is not from the Golden State, but Vice President Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi both hail from the Bay Area. And with Attorney General Xavier Becerra holding a key cabinet position, officials from California now have a sizable role in influencing the Biden agenda.

The incoming administration is rightly prioritizing economic relief and Covid-19 vaccine deployment. On other issues, they'll have to navigate narrow Democratic majorities in Congress, in which some progressive policies could be nonstarters. To avoid gridlock, these high-ranking Californians can identify policies with broad, bipartisan support, perhaps taking a page out of their home state's playbook.

In recent years, California has become a national leader on privacy rights. Oakland, San Francisco, and Santa Clara County, among other municipalities, have spearheaded strong local laws to oversee governmental use of people's private information and data.

Gaps in privacy protections remain, however, and top Californians in Washington, D.C. can help plug them at the federal level. This is especially true of the "smart city" programs sprouting up across the country. These programs enable local governments to collect troves of personal data with few safeguards in place to prevent it from being mishandled or abused. For example, my organization, Oakland Privacy, closely monitors a data-sharing protocol deployed by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) called Mobility Data Specification (MDS).

MDS is a massive data-collection system that LADOT spent millions developing. It requires mobility companies to provide the city with real-time location data for their vehicles, including each rider's origin, route and destination. Such granular data makes it easy to identify and track riders, and can reveal sensitive personal information with just a handful of data points. LADOT hasn't provided a concrete reason for requiring this individualized information over safer alternatives, like aggregated data, nor did it seek public input before adopting the system. Department leaders were even discovered using an encrypted messaging service to communicate with each other while developing MDS.

Real-time, re-identifiable data like the kind collected through MDS is particularly ripe for abuse. This could range from law enforcement accessing the data to perpetuate harmful surveillance practices against communities of color, to a city employee using it to stalk a former partner. These are grave consequences, which is why the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are suing Los Angeles to halt MDS for violating the Fourth Amendment.

But Los Angeles isn't alone in overlooking privacy rights. In Pasadena and in Long Beach, police used automatic license plate readers and shared the data with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, despite pledging not to. In San Diego, the city deployed "smart streetlights" to supposedly monitor traffic, but they were used by police more than two dozen times to surveil Black Lives Matter protestors. Examples like these undercut California's standing as the pacesetter in securing privacy rights and reinforce the need for a smart cities solution that incorporates strong local oversight and federal protections.

Efforts to build so-called smart cities are not limited to Californiathey're popping up nearly everywhere, from Seattle and Chicago to Columbus and New York. With their impending influence over multiple levers of power in Washington, D.C., our Bay Area leaders should spearhead legislation that reins in misguided smart city programs. High-profile members of both parties have already signaled their interest. Such opportunities do not come around often, and California officials now have the chance to make their presence known on this important issue.

Tracy Rosenberg is the Advocacy Director for Oakland Privacy, a nonprofit watchdog group that works to defend the right to privacy and enhance oversight regarding the use of surveillance.

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Is Americas Approach to Cannabis Racist? Study Shows Its Worse Than You Think – GreenState

Posted: at 6:40 pm

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A recently published study showed that Black people are 3.6x more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people in the United States, and the gap is growing. The research, conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and compiled by Joslyn Law Firm between 2010 and 2018, suggests War on Drugs racism still permeates cannabis law enforcement, even though 1 in 3 Americans now live in a state where marijuana is legal.

RELATED:Will Cannabis Become Legal in 2021?

The difference between white and Black marijuana arrests rose by over 300% in 20 U.S. counties between 2010 and 2018, according to the study. In Carter, Tennessee, racial disparity in this department increased by 977%, making Black people 14x more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites in 2018.

Of the 49 states reporting (Florida did not contribute to this study), the state with the highest racial disparity was Montana, where Black people were almost 10x more likely to be arrested for marijuana than white people. Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, and West Virginia followed close behind, with the chance of arrest for Black people above 7x what it was for white people.

Two of these states have since legalized recreational marijuana, indicating that the issue has little to do with overall attitudes toward marijuana use in these states. Cannabis became legal in Montana this November, and Illinois legalized it January, 2020.

Recreational marijuana is illegal in Kentucky, Iowa, and West Virginia. Though West Virginia has a medical marijuana program now, it had not gone into effect during the time this data was collected.

RELATED: Where is cannabis legal in the United States? (Medical marijuana and CBD included)

The states with the lowest racial disparities in cannabis arrests were Colorado, California, and Oregon. Recreational cannabis has been made legal in each of these states within the years this data was collected.

Brian Joslyn, Owner of Joslyn Law Firm, said areas of the country with the highest racial disparity in marijuana arrests also tend to record vague and bizarre reasons for other charges against Black people.

All too often I see suspicious police reports that justify traffic stops and detentions of black people with suspicious justifications ultimately leading to a search and seizure of their persons. Its these kinds of suspicious justifications that I rarely see as much when the individual is white, Joslyn told GreenState. I believe the data clearly shows that black people are being targeted by police. It would be impossible to suggest otherwise.

Every year, roughly 700,000 marijuana-related arrests are made in the U.S, meaning this problem is effecting thousands of people every day.

Joslyn said he believes legalizing marijuana would only be the first step in erasing racial prejudice from cannabis charges, since law enforcement would continue to unlawfully detain and search a disproportionate number of Black people for drug impairment or other violations of cannabis law. Therefore, he believes a kind of deep clean of law enforcement around the country to be imperative for racial justice.

RELATED: The Difference Between Cannabis Legalization and Decriminalization, and Why it Matters

What needs to occur are policy changes within the police departments that train and instruct officers to only pull over or detain individuals for well-established violations of law, Joslyn said. In addition, all officers should be equipped with both cruiser cams and body cams so their arrests can be reviewed and verified, and our state legislatures need to further work to protect individuals Fourth Amendment rights through the passage of laws that would raise the standards for law enforcement to search ones persons or property.

By CriminalAttorneyCincinnati.com

Elissa Esheris Assistant Editor at GreenState. Her work has also appeared in The Boston Guardian, Brooklyn Paper, Religion Unplugged, and Iridescent Women. Send inquiries and tips to elli.esher@hearst.com.

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Federal appeals court allows reporters to sue SWAT officer who tear-gassed them during Ferguson protests – JURIST

Posted: at 6:40 pm

The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled Thursday that a SWAT team member must face First Amendment and battery claims from reporters he tear-gassed while they were covering public unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in 2014.

SWAT team member Michael Anderson claims that the reporters had been ordered to disperse before he deployed the tear-gas. He also asserts that there wereprojectiles launched from the reporters area, leading him believe that there was an imminent threat to safety. He claims that he had arguable probable cause to believe that the reporters were refusing to disperse, obstructing officers performing their duties, and interfering with officers in a way that impacted officer safety. If this mistaken belief was objectively reasonable, Anderson wouldreceive qualified immunity.

However, in its opinionthe Eighth Circuit implied that this version of the facts is blatantly contradicted by video footage from the reporters, Ash-har Quraishi, Marla Cichowski, and Sam Winslade of the Al Jazeera America news network, as well as at least three other videos. The ruling affirms the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouris decision todeny Andersons motion for summary judgment and allow the plaintiffs to proceed:

The videos confirm the reporters version of the facts. They do not show dispersal orders or flying projectiles. They do not show orders to turn off the lights before the tear-gas. Rather, they show a peaceful scene interrupted by rubber bullets and tear-gas.Anderson presumes disputed facts in his favor, which this court cannot do because he moved for summary judgment. Taking the facts most favorably to the reporters, Anderson did not have arguable probable cause to use the tear-gas.

The video also contradicts Andersons claim that the Al Jazeera reporters were not engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment. The video supports the reporters claim that they were singled out by Anderson. A reasonable officer would have understood that deploying a tear-gas canister at law-abiding reporters is impermissible, the court said.

The court also ruled in favor of the plaintiffs regarding their state-law battery claims, noting that it was possible that Anderson acted with more force than [was] reasonably necessary to disperse the reporters, given that they were not engaged in unlawful activity.However, the court denied the reporters Fourth Amendment claims because it has not been clearly established that tear-gassing amounts to a seizure.

The Eighth Circuit remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings.

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Health Care Workers Hit Hard by the Coronavirus Pandemic – The New York Times

Posted: at 6:39 pm

Dr. Sheetal Khedkar Rao, 42, an internist in suburban Chicago, cant pinpoint the exact moment when she decided to hang up her stethoscope for the last time. There were the chaos and confusion of the spring, when a nationwide shortage of N95 masks forced her to examine patients with a surgical mask, the fears she might take the coronavirus home to her family and the exasperating public disregard for mask-wearing and social distancing that was amplified by the White House.

Among the final blows, though, were a 30 percent pay cut to compensate for a drop in patients seeking primary care, and the realization that she needed to spend more time at home after her children, 10 and 11, switched to remote learning.

Everyone says doctors are heroes and they put us on a pedestal, but we also have kids and aging parents to worry about, said Dr. Rao, who left her practice in October. After awhile, the emotional burden and moral injury become too much to bear.

Doctors, paramedics and nurses aides have been hailed as Americas frontline Covid warriors, but gone are the days when people applauded workers outside hospitals and on city streets.

Now, a year into the pandemic, with emergency rooms packed again, vaccines in short supply and more contagious variants of the virus threatening to unleash a fresh wave of infections, the nations medical workers are feeling burned out and unappreciated.

Over the last year, there have been the psychological trauma of overworked intensive care doctors forced to ration care, the crushing sense of guilt for nurses who unknowingly infected patients or family members, and the struggles of medical personnel who survived Covid-19 but are still hobbled by the fatigue and brain fog that hamper their ability to work.

Researchers say the pandemics toll on the nations health care work force will play out long after the coronavirus is tamed. The impact, for now, can be measured in part by a surge of early retirements and the desperation of community hospitals struggling to hire enough workers to keep their emergency rooms running.

Everyone wants to talk about vaccines, vaccines, vaccines, but for our members, all they want to talk about is work force, work force, work force, said Alan Morgan, chief executive of the National Rural Health Association. Right now our hospitals and our workers are just getting crushed.

Some health care experts are calling for a national effort to track the psychological well-being of medical professionals, much like the federal health program that monitors workers who responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

We have a great obligation to people who put their lives on the line for the nation, said Dr. Victor J. Dzau, president of the National Academy of Medicine.

Celia Nieto, 44, an intensive care nurse in Las Vegas, said many Americans had scant appreciation for the tribulations that she and her colleagues face day after day. There is the physical exhaustion of lifting and turning patients on their bellies so they might breathe easier, the never-ending scramble to adjust ventilators and pain medication, and the mental anguish of telling relatives she doesnt have the time to help them FaceTime with their loved ones.

It feels like were failing, when in actuality were working with what weve got and we dont have enough, she said. We feel quite helpless, and its a real injury to our psyches.

Dr. Donald Pathman, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he was struck by the early results of a study he has been conducting on the pandemics effect on clinicians who serve in poor communities. Many of the 2,000 medical, dental and mental health professionals who have participated in the survey so far say they are disillusioned.

There is a lot of personal trauma, Dr. Pathman said. Many people have been scarred by their experiences during the pandemic, and they will look to leave their practices.

In interviews, doctors who have recently left the field or are considering early retirement said the pandemic had exacerbated frustrations spurred by shifts in the business of medical care that often required them to work longer hours without increased compensation.

In a survey released in September by the online site Medscape, two-thirds of American doctors said they had grappled with intense burnout during the pandemic, with a similar percentage reporting a drop in income. A quarter of respondents said their experiences with Covid had led them to exit the medical field.

Another survey, by the Physicians Foundation, found that 8 percent of doctors in the United States had closed their offices during the pandemic, translating to 16,000 fewer private practices.

Feb. 4, 2021, 1:46 p.m. ET

Dr. Erica Bial, a pain specialist from suburban Boston who barely survived Covid-19 last spring, said she felt increasingly drained.

We put on our masks and come to work every day because we dont have the luxury of working from home in our pajamas, but the apathy and ennui thats taken hold of society just makes our job feel thankless, said Dr. Bial, who works full time despite struggling with the lingering effects of her illness. Its so demoralizing.

Staffing shortages have been especially acute at nursing homes and long-term care facilities. They were already struggling to retain employees before the pandemic, but many are now facing an existential shortage of skilled workers. According to a study released last week by the nonpartisan U.S. PIRG Education Fund, more than 20 percent of the nations 15,000 nursing homes reported severe shortages of nursing aides in December, up from 17 percent in May, a significant jump over such a short period.

As more and more medical staff members fall ill or quit, those who remain on the job have to work harder, and the quality of care invariably suffers, said Dr. Michael L. Barnett, assistant professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who served as a consultant to the study.

Its a recipe for a collapse in the work force, he said.

So far, the federal government has shown little interest in addressing what Dr. Dzau, of the National Academy of Medicine, writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, described as a parallel pandemic of psychological trauma among health workers.

He and other experts say the government should start by making a concerted effort to accurately count medical worker infections and fatalities.

There is no comprehensive federal government count of worker deaths. But according to a tally by Kaiser Health News and the Guardian, more than 3,300 nurses, doctors, social workers and physical therapists have died from Covid-19 since March.

Experts say the death toll is most likely far higher. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counts 1,332 deaths among medical personnel, which is striking given that its sister agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, lists roughly the same number of deaths just among nursing home workers a small portion of those employed by the nations hospitals, health clinics and private practices.

A number of studies suggest that medical professionals made up 10 percent to 20 percent of all coronavirus cases in the early months of the pandemic though they comprise roughly 4 percent of the population.

Christopher R. Friese, a researcher at University of Michigan, said the governments failure to track health care workers had most likely contributed to many unnecessary deaths. Without detailed, comprehensive data, he said, federal health authorities have been hamstrung in their ability to identify patterns and come up with interventions.

The number of health care worker deaths in this country are staggering, but as shocking and horrifying as they are, we cant be surprised because some very basic tools to address the crisis were left on the shelf, said Dr. Friese, who directs the schools Center for Improving Patient and Population Health.

Jasmine Reed, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., acknowledged the limitations of its coronavirus case data, noting that the agency relies on reporting from state health departments and that can vary according to the state. At least a dozen states do not even participate in the C.D.C.s reporting process, she said.

Many medical workers who have survived Covid-19 face more immediate challenges. Dr. Bial, the pain specialist from Boston, is still plagued by fatigue and impaired lung function.

The day before I got sick, I could comfortably run eight to 10 miles, said Dr. Bial, 45, who started a Facebook group memorializing doctors lost to Covid. Now I go out for a brisk walk and my heart is pounding. Im starting to wonder whether these effects could be permanent.

Dr. Andrew T. Chan, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who has been studying the pandemics disproportionate toll on health care workers, said his preliminary research suggested that long haulers in the medical field suffer greater health challenges than the overall population. That is in part because they are often exposed to increased levels of virus, which can lead to more severe illness.

Another factor, he said, is that the worsening staffing shortages in much of the country lead many Covid survivors to return to work before they have fully recovered.

Health care workers are likely to experience a greater risk of long-term complications, Dr. Chan said. Covid could impact our health care system for years to come by not only depleting our work force but by impairing the ability of survivors to do their jobs.

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