Election deniers get fresh cash from tech firms as they end bans
Some of the biggest technology and telecom companies jettisoned pledges made in the wake of the U.S. Capitol assault and gave money to reelect lawmakers who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory, according to filings reviewed by Bloomberg News.
The companies expressed horror after supporters of then-President Donald Trump went on a rampage Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to halt Biden’s certification. Citing the need to defend democracy, the firms said they would suspend campaign donations to the 147 Republicans who voted against certifying the presidential election results that day.
In some cases those suspensions only lasted a few months, according to the Bloomberg News review of hundreds of campaign finance disclosures covering the period from March 2021 to last month. Major companies including AT&T Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Intel Corp. quietly reopened the taps in time to help the GOP win control of the House of Representatives.
Other industries also resumed giving when it became clear Republicans were poised to retake the House — a tacit acknowledgment that election denial is still a powerful force in the party.
—Bloomberg News
Boston City Council approves reparations task force
BOSTON — The City Council unanimously approved a task force that would spend the next two years exploring reparations for Black people.
The council did so with an uncharacteristic lack of conflict, as no one really spoke against what’s a high-profile and societally controversial matter and councilors didn’t take even veiled shots at each other.
This task force, if signed into law by the mayor, will create a five-person body to first research history of the effects of American slavery and then other more recent discriminatory policies like “redlining” of access to cash in Boston, then to assess what the city’s done since to address those before coming up with yet-to-be-determined next steps.
“The objective of this task force is to both analyze and measure the severity of that harm, and then to analyze and measure what the severity of the cure to that harm should be,” City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, the government operations chair, said.
—Boston Herald
As hate crimes continue to rise, LAPD chief blames social media, Kanye West
LOS ANGELES — Hate crime reports across Los Angeles are up 13% over last year’s record-setting levels, according to LAPD Chief Michel Moore, who said he believes inflammatory rhetoric on social media was contributing to the increase.
The new statistics, presented at Tuesday’s Police Commission meeting, showed that with less than two weeks left in the year the city will almost certainly top 2021’s total of 615 reported hate crimes. That tally was the most among large U.S. metropolitan areas, and the third-highest annual total in any U.S. city since the 1970s.
So far in 2022, crimes against LGBTQ people have risen to 30 from 19 at this time last year, while those against Jewish people have jumped from 72 to 88. But as in other major cities, Black Angelenos remain the most targeted group, the department’s figures show. The number of hate-related incidents involving Black residents jumped 36% to 279, according to the department’s figures.
The only group to see a decrease in the number of attacks or other crimes was the city’s Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups, which were victimized in 20% fewer incidents compared with a year ago, when they experienced a sizable uptick in incidents. California Attorney General Rob Bonta referred to last year’s numbers as “an epidemic of hate.”
—Los Angeles Times
Peru to declare 30-day emergency to curb widespread unrest
Peru is set to declare a nationwide 30-day state of emergency, suspending basic rights, in a bid to restore order amid widespread unrest, Defense Minister Alberto Otarola said Wednesday.
Roadblocks and vandalism across swathes of the Andean nation “need a forceful response,” the minister told reporters at the presidential palace in Lima. A curfew is also under consideration, he said.
Protests and hobbled logistics are threatening exports from the key copper and agriculture sectors. Demonstrators have attempted to shut down a pumping station near the Camisea field that supplies natural gas to generate half the country’s electricity, and to seize airports, forcing four of them to shut down. The threat of looting has forced stores to close, according to local media in Arequipa, Cusco and Ica.
The violent protests erupted after congress a week ago impeached left-wing President Pedro Castillo, who attempted to illegally dissolve the legislature amid an ongoing political crisis in the country.
—Bloomberg News
