The activity by a senior Trump campaign adviser, and former White House aide, reflects a broader movement by some Republicans to attack the protests against police brutality.

Mercedes Schlapp

Politico, by Marc Caputo, June 6, 2020

President Donald Trump and his allies for years have amplified racist messages on Twitter while simultaneously reaching out to black and Hispanic voters, a dissonant balancing act that’s now rocking the GOP amid nationwide racial-justice protests.

The two competing forces collided Saturday on the Twitter feed of Trump campaign senior adviser Mercedes Schlapp, when she boosted a tweet that lauded a man in Texas in a viral video as he yelled the n-word and wielded a chainsaw to chase away anti-racism demonstrators.

After POLITICO reached out to her and the campaign Saturday morning, Schlapp then retweeted another account that posted a version of the video that muted the racist slur. After this story published, she removed both her retweets and issued a written apology Saturday evening.

“I deeply apologize and I retweeted without watching the full video. I deleted the tweet,” Schlapp wrote. “I would never knowingly promote the use of that word. This is time for healing the nation and not division.”

Beyond Trump’s inner circle, Republicans have been under fire over racist social-media posts in Texas, where the chainsaw incident happened, triggering strife within GOP circles.

A dozen GOP county chairs in the state are under scrutiny for sharing racist social media posts commenting on the unrest and uprisings across the nation in response to the killing of a black man, George Floyd, by a white Minnesota police officer. One county chair juxtaposed a Martin Luther King Jr. quote next to an image of a banana, and another commented that “pandemic isn’t working. Start the racial wars.”

Against this backdrop, Schlapp‘s Saturday retweets highlighted how the Trump campaign operates in contradictory worlds of its own making. On one hand, Schlapp favorably promoted a man spewing anti-black racism and on the other she urged black people to vote for Trump just three days prior in an online campaign discussion on race. In that setting, she attacked Joe Biden’s tough-on-crime past while eliding Trump’s past record and rhetoric.

“Joe Biden supported the mass incarceration of black and Hispanic communities and has failed to lift them out of poverty,” Schlapp said. “In stark contrast, President Trump has delivered unprecedented opportunity for black Americans.”

The Twitter activity from Schlapp was part of a longstanding practice by Trump and his backers who occasionally use Twitter to amplify inflammatory messages that are at odds with the campaign’s appeals to black and other minority voters. Trump, who has fought accusations of racism for years, was in the midst of a black-voter outreach effort when Floyd’s killing changed the political dynamics.

The night before Schlapp’s retweet of the video to her 140,000 followers, the president retweeted a clip of conservative commentator Glenn Beck’s interview with a conservative black commentator, Candace Owens, who has taken a lead role in bashing Floyd.

“@RealCandaceO gave her thoughts: ‘The fact that he has been held up as a martyr sickens me,’” Beck tweeted on Wednesday. Trump boosted the post Friday with a retweet.

Trump has not personally criticized Floyd, called on the federal government to investigate his killing by Minneapolis police and has also used his Twitter feed to praise supporters who are black.

But after the looting erupted amid some protests over Floyd’s killing, Trump was criticized for denouncing “THUGS” in a Twitter post that warned “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a phrase traced back to a segregation-era Miami police chief. Twitter flagged the tweet for violating its rules against inciting violence. The White House then posted the message, getting flagged as well. Trump later claimed he didn’t know where the phrase originated.

Retweeting used to occupy a type of gray area on Twitter. The phrase “retweets are not an endorsement” was long a mantra of those who wanted to essentially repost content from another account on their own for a variety of purposes, from an interest in engaging in honest discussion to plausible deniability. But Twitter behavior evolved with new functionality to allow a person to comment on a retweeted post through “quote tweeting.” Now when campaign staff retweet messages, they generally lose the ability to credibly argue they weren’t reinforcing and broadcasting a message that aligns with their viewpoints.

The controversy with Trump surged again in April when the president was criticized for retweeting a message that said “fire Fauci,” concerning one of his top advisers on the coronavirus pandemic.

Before he became president, Trump came under fire for a wide variety of Twitter activity — from promoting the false “birther” conspiracy about President Barack Obama to retweeting a false message about “black on black” crime. The following year, he tweeted an image of a Star of David set on a field of cash, which many viewed as anti-Semitic. The latter tweet has been deleted.

The president’s son and namesake last year questioned the race of Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.), a candidate for president at the time who’s now on Joe Biden’s running-mate shortlist. He deleted the tweet after outcry.

In Schlapp’s case, she retweeted a quoted tweet of the viral video that had been viewed about 7.5 million times on Twitter as of Saturday afternoon. The video originated in McAllen, Texas, where demonstrators had gathered downtown, only to be confronted by a man with a chainsaw that he revved at them as they fled.

“Go home!” yells the man, who was arrested Friday. “Don’t let those f—— n—— out there fool you!”

The man’s use of racist language and violent threats were roundly condemned on social media, with some sarcastically referring to the cult classic “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” movie. A pro-Trump account from Texas, though, lauded the assailant on Twitter and said he is “a Mexican business owner.” Another pro-Trump account, called Latino Townhall, approvingly quote-tweeted the post Friday night and exclaimed: “That’s how to do it.”

Hours later, Schlapp retweeted that post. Schlapp, who is married to the prominent head of the American Conservative Union that hosts the popular CPAC conference, later retweeted it from another account that censored the racist comment but wrote the protesters had said “f— the police.” There is no evidence the demonstrators said that.

The man in Texas, identified as Daniel Peña by local press, exposed a little-discussed issue among Latinos: anti-black racism. The McAllen police department on Saturday confirmed Pena’s ethnicity as “White/Hispanic.”

The issue of anti-black sentiment among Latinos has surfaced as an issue in Schlapp’s original hometown of Miami, where Democrats and progressives fretted that support for demonstrations over Floyd have been under-represented by Hispanics in the community.

Juan Peñalosa, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, said his organization is trying to address the issue of racism among Hispanics while Trump’s is helping to fuel it.

“The Trump campaign strategy has always been to win through division. But Mercedes’ tweet shows they are taking it to the next level,” said Peñalosa.

“While most of us are having honest discussions on how to expose racism and eliminate it — the Trump campaign has moved beyond their 2016 dog whistles and passive nods to fringe racist groups,” he said. “Now they are giving racists a platform, retweeting them and actively amplifying their message. It makes my skin crawl.”

Laura Barrón-López contributed to this report.

Police Use of Force Project, Police violence, US Bureau of Justice Statistics, Vallejo CA, Vallejo Police

Vallejo Police Dept participating in national research project on police violence

June 7, 2020 Roger Straw

The Vallejo Police Department is one of 88 different police agencies out of an estimated 18,000 agencies nationwide, voluntarily providing their use of force data to a Seattle based research project.

Experts Track Data to Reduce Police Violence

A five-year research study headed by Seattle University shows that detailed tracking of law enforcement use of force incidents can reduce injuries and racial disparities. However no single federal or state agency tracks all that data.

NBC Bay Area News Investigative Unit, By Stephen Stock, Robert Campos and Michael Horn, June 3, 2020

Some prominent Bay Area law enforcement officials now say that in wake of the tragic death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, all law enforcement departments nationwide should be required to turn over data showing how often their officers use force to make arrests or otherwise control the public.

Currently no single agency, federal or state, tracks when, where, and how police use force to make arrests or who they use the force on. More than a dozen law enforcement officials agreed with data scientists at Seattle University in telling NBC Bay Area that centralized tracking of police use of force incidents can protect both police officers and the people they serve.

Currently the FBI only collects data on deadly use of force from individual police departments and sheriff’s offices from around the country, some 18,000 different agencies in all. Providing data on the deadly use of force to the FBI is voluntary.

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While some individual agencies do their own analysis of use of force data experts and social scientists say those individual or private analyses can be restrictive because they only have one department’s data and the sample size can be small and therefore the conclusions are non-instructive. In other cases, experts say other law enforcement departments don’t analyze or even collect this specific data at all.

Those experts say that should change.

They say police officials can learn about unrecognized bias and more effective techniques, achieving better, less violent results by precisely tracking each use of force incident.

“It’s one of the most critical pieces of information we can collect about the police,” said Dr. Matthew Hickman, Chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice at Seattle University. “We really do need systematic data collection to help establish the reality of police use of force.”

“With these data, we can start to understand … how use of force incidents evolve,” said Dr. Hickman. And we can learn “what are the characteristics of those incidents that are more or less likely to lead to injury. And hopefully lead to better policies and training so that we can try to minimize injury.”

Because of that in 2015, Dr. Hickman teamed with a private company, Police Strategies LLC, also based in the Seattle area, to begin tracking data, voluntarily provided by police departments from around the country, showing precisely how, when and where police use force.

“It [use of force data collection] should be nationwide,” said Dr. Hickman. “And that’s really the shame of all this, is that the federal government has been required for 25 years to collect data on the use of excessive force by police and report on it annually. And they’ve never done that.”

According to US Bureau of Justice Statistics an estimated 53.5 million people nationwide had contact with a police officer between 2014 and 2015, events including everything from home welfare checks to emergency calls, from traffic stops to car accidents, from criminal arrests to shootings.

The US Justice Department estimates only a small percentage of those interactions between police and the public involve use of force by the officers, either non-lethal or lethal.

Except for lethal use of force, no one really knows details about exactly how often, what kind of force and who the force is used against.

Dr. Hickman and his team want to change that, but right now, only 88 different police agencies out of an estimated 18,000 agencies nationwide, voluntarily provide their use of force data to this research project. Among those are Bay Area police departments in Daly City, San Jose, Capitola and, most recently, Vallejo.

“There’s no standardization either statewide or certainly not nationally,” said Bob Scales, founding partner and current CEO of Police Strategies LLC. “You can’t have an evidence-based policy or evidence-based training if you have no data to back it up.”

“Many agencies have put their officers through de-escalation training, but without the data to see a ‘before’ and ‘after’ of the training, we don’t know if the training has had any impact on how officers behave and how they use force,” Scales said.

Scales comes from a strong law enforcement background and perspective. He served as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for King County, was the Assistant Director for Public Safety for the City of Seattle and was the Director of Government Affairs for the Seattle City Attorney before leaving to build his start-up Police Strategies, LLC.

“What we do is we help agencies essentially unlock all of that data information and then we help, we analyze it and then we provide it back to the departments,” said Scales who also served as the Compliance Coordinator for the Seattle Police Department during its implementation of a Consent Decree with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve allegations of misuse of force.

One example of data’s impact on public safety: separate research conducted by the “Police Use of Force Project” shows that police departments which ban choke holds as acceptable techniques by their officers show significant reduction the number of use of force incidents that end in death for the public.

“Some agencies train their officers how to use this technique. And you have some agencies that prohibit the technique outright,” Scales said. “So we have this huge gamut of acceptable practices by police departments [around the country] for the same technique.”

“And [for] the agencies that do allow it, [the data shows] it’s a very effective technique,” Scales told NBC Bay Area. “It has risks. It has dangers. The Minneapolis situation was not an acceptable use of that technique.”

“We banned the chokehold … after, you know, after the unfortunate incident in New York with Eric Garner,” said San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia.

Chief Garcia says his department began giving Seattle University and Police Strategies, LLC their use of force data in 2015 to better track what his officers were doing right and what they could improve.

“To be able to see a transparent view of ‘this is what your officers are doing.’ ‘This is when they had to use force,’ ‘why they had to use force’ and ‘who they’re using force on.’ I think that’s incredibly important,” Chief Garcia told NBC Bay Area. And, you know, it’s about time that I think (this data collection) is legislated really not just in California, but throughout” the country.

Because of what the historical data showed about using baton and other hard objects to subdue suspect, Chief Garcia and his police training officers began asking his patrol officers to use tasers more frequently to subdue unruly people rather using than batons or nightsticks.

While tasers remain controversial, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area where critics say police officers tend to deploy Tasers too quickly to de-escalate volatile situations, sometimes, with deadly consequences.

But the data collected during the last five years shows clearly that in San Jose, actual injuries to the public are down where tasers replaced batons and nightsticks.

“We’re seeing fewer fractures and serious bodily injuries because they were using the Taser rather than a baton,” said Scales.

The Seattle University/Police Strategies LL” data analysis also shows San Jose Police Department’s saw use of force incidents dropped 13.4% from 2015 to 2019, the time period that the tracking has been taking place. And some racial disparities appear to be diminishing during the same time period as well. Five years ago, when San Jose police arrested a Hispanic man, there was an 11% greater chance they would use force than when they arrested a white man. Today that Hispanic person has a 2% lower chance than a white person of seeing force used on him by a police officer.

The same goes for Black and Asian suspects. The percentage who experienced force matched the percentage of their arrest population.

“We have a lot more work to do. But I think the expectation is that we are moving that needle in that, you know, that this tool absolutely helps us do that,” Chief Garcia said.

The Police Use of Force Project, agrees with those numbers, but still gives San Jose an “F” grade for its deadly use of force noting that in 2018 Hispanics were 3.4 times more likely to have deadly force used against them than white people.

Right now, experts say the biggest problem with trying to improve police/public interaction outcomes is that there’s not enough data analytics in enough police departments nationwide to say what works and what techniques are effective.

While some individual agencies do their own analysis of use of force data, Scales and Hickman say those analysis are restrictive because they only have one department’s data and the sample size can be small and non-instructive. Other departments don’t analyze or even collect this specific data at all.

Scales agrees with Chief Garcia in saying that only if law enforcement departments are required to turn over these specific data points tracking details of their officers’ use of force incidents will real police reform take place.

“You shouldn’t implement any reforms if you’re if you’re unable to measure the impacts,” said Scales. “It may be good training. It may be bad training or maybe a waste of money. We don’t know without the data.”

Ahmaud Arbery, Benicia CA, Benicia Herald, Benicia Youth Against Brutality, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Public protest, Racism

Benicia Herald coverage of Youth Against Brutality protest in Benicia

June 6, 2020 Roger Straw

Benicia High School students hold Youth Against Brutality protest and march on First St.

Protesters in Benicia call for an end to police brutality and justice for George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.

The Benicia Herald, by Galen Kusic, Editor, and Aleta Andrews, Correspondent, June 5, 2020

As the country continues to mourn in anger over the brutal police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week, activists and protesters have taken to the streets to call for justice and accountability for not only Floyd’s murder, but the countless other black and brown people that have been murdered by the police without repercussion or consequence.

BHS student and organizer Tyler Payne speaks about the need for more unity than ever to achieve equality for all.

While surrounding cities like Vallejo, Richmond, Oakland, San Francisco and others have experienced police violence toward protesters, Benicia thus far has experienced peace. As looting continues and curfew restrictions have been put in place county-wide, Benicia High School students organized a peaceful Youth Against Brutality Black Lives Matter march and protest on Sunday in honor of Floyd and the many other black people that have been killed at the hands of law enforcement or racists.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the country with over 105,000 deaths and nearly two millions positive cases, millions are also calling for justice for the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year old black man that was hunted down and shot by two men while jogging in Georgia in Feb. and Breonna Taylor, who was shot by police eight times while asleep in her bed as police unlawfully entered her home without a warrant looking for a man that did not even live at the residence.

Parent Kashana Lee speaks about the need for police to become more involved in combating racism within their own departments.

The outrage throughout the nation has sparked protests, arson and destruction of businesses, but it should be noted that much of this destruction is not caused by peaceful demonstrators. Movements for civil rights have historically been infiltrated by racist and anarchist groups in an attempt to draw attention away from the issue at hand.

While Benicia has thus far escaped looting or riots, it is up to the citizens and residents of the community to stand up to hatred, police terrorism and violence to create a more just and democratic society for all.

The demonstration began at 11 a.m. at the First Street Park near the Gazebo and marched down First St. to the waterfront. In an effort to make it known that Benicia does not support racism and that people are willing to fight for those that have lost and fear for for the lives, the marchers stood in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and oppressed people nationwide.

BHS student Lia St. Pierre quotes Huey P. Newton that you can’t jail a revolution.

Herald correspondent Aleta Andrews took photos and caught up with some of the protesters to get their take on the state of the nation and what can be done to make positive change for equality.

“We must find a way to escape this cycle of hatred and violence, we must take the lead for our brothers and sisters cause a cause without a voice or direction is a lost one,” said Benicia High student and organizer Tyler Payne. “The enemy is hatred – one of the devil’s greatest weapons. The true way to combat that is and will be found in unity. Great minds together can change so much.”

Activist Amon speaks out at the Benicia rally and protest.

As people marched down First St., students called for an end to ignorance and for people to stand up and fight for equality for all. White privilege was continually discussed, citing that white people must recognize their privilege and realize that just because an issue is not directly affecting them, that it is even more important to use that privilege for good and stand up for what is right through protest, civil action and a change in policy.

“People need to start texting those numbers for people to realize what privilege they have and make a list of all the possible ways to help– join a protest, be there as an ally, just listen to the voices that need to be heard, be active,” said BHS student Lia St. Pierre.

Benicia High students protest the police murder of George Floyd.

Later on during the protest, Benicia Police officers took a knee in the park to show solidarity with the protesters, but activists called on law enforcement to do more in the wake of these horrific tragedies.

“The most important thing that happened today was that the police eventually stood in solidarity with us after many conversations,” said BHS student Elijah Hahn-Smith. “This isn’t just a today thing, this needs to happen everywhere.”

BHS student Alexander Valencia speaks out that racism is taught, not born with.

Other protesters realized the fine line that many must walk, as members of their own families are literally torn apart by the civil unrest and anger from both sides. The consensus remained the same, law enforcement must do more to make a change and stand for what is right, instead of going with the status quo that has brought the nation to a boiling point.

“For me, I’m put in a hard spot because I have family members that are police,” said Adriana Bernasconi. “I want them to speak out more than ever to weed out the bad ones.”

Other BHS protesters noted they had been to protests around the area and relayed information that police had actually instigated tension amongst activists.

Protesters marched down First St. in Benicia to honor the life of George Floyd.

“We were at the protests in Oakland on Saturday and it started peaceful and then the police initiated the aggression,” said BHS student Alexander Valencia.

Students called for an end to racism and for people to look deep within themselves to realize who they really are and what is just. Without introspection and reflection from white people, law enforcement and lawmakers, many believe nothing will change and things will only get worse.

“We need to dismantle racism no matter how many generations it might take,” said BHS student Winnford Dela Torre. “We are here centuries later but we’re still in the same place.”

BHS student Winnford Dela Torre speaks out against systemic racism.

While many strides have been made through community activism throughout the nation to improve community policing practices and oversight, there is still a long way to go.

“What needs to happen now is that our local branches, our local police need to support us,” said parent Kashanna Lee. “I’ve had my own experiences with fear for me and my children. If they were marching with us today and made a clear statement saying, we are here for you, that would make a difference. This needs to happen on a national level and change legislation. Police are being treated better than civilians.”

While activists did see Benicia Police kneeling with protesters as a positive moment, they also saw it for what it was – a tactic to keep protesters peaceful.

“The big thing that is being missed is that this moment gave people hope that we can actually make a change,” said activist Amon. “It inspired people that were able to force them to bend to our will rather than it being the other way traditionally…so when things get tough as the revolution moves forward, they have something to look back on and hold on to as a reminder of how powerful we truly are united.”

Photos by Aleta Andrews and Teresa Van Woy.

Coronavirus, Covid 19, Solano County CA

Solano County reconfigures COVID-19 age-group data, reports 1 new senior death

June 5, 2020 Roger Straw

UPDATE: See today’s latest information

Friday, June 5: 1 new positive case, 1 new death. Total now 566 cases, 23 deaths.

Source: Solano County Coronavirus Information & Resources

Solano County Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Updates and Resources. Check out basic information in this screenshot. IMPORTANT: The County’s interactive page has more. On the County website, you can hover your mouse over the charts at right for detailed information.

Previous report, Thursday, June 4

The County does not archive its dashboard. Archives here: BenIndy’s Daily Count Archive.

Summary

Solano County reported 1 new positive case today, total of 566.
1 new death today, total of 23.
Active cases – 2 fewer than yesterday, 61 active cases..
Very little testing – reporting only 47 residents tested.
Youth – With today’s report, Solano County introduces a new way of listing cases by age group. Previously, we saw 3 age groups: 0-18, 19-64 and 65+. Today we see 4 groups: 0-17, 18-49, 50-64 and 65+. Although the additional age breaks are interesting and perhaps even helpful, we can no longer continue to track the upward trend among those 18 and under as we have been doing since May 4. Note that the new 17 and under age group shows 2 fewer cases today, indicating that 2 young people were actually 18 years old, now included in the 18-50 group. Anyway, reducing the count by 2, it is still noteworthy that there have been 28 new cases among those age 17 and under in the last 23 days, with only 6 new cases over the 5 weeks prior. (See table below).

BY AGE GROUP
(IMPORTANT TO NOTE that today, the GREEN bar in the County’s chart no longer represents “Non-severe” cases. Rather, it represents the TOTAL of all cases: non-severe cases, those hospitalized and deceased persons.)

Yesterday:Today:

Today the County is showing 2 fewer cases in the youngest age group, redefining that group as those 17 and under (rather than 18 and under), total of 33 cases, including one hospitalization. Our concern remains: cases among youth have increased over the last two weeks to 6% of the 566 total confirmed cases.
Persons 18-49 years of age total 256 cases, including 22 hospitalized and 2 deaths. This age group represents 45% of the 566 total cases. 22 of the 256 cases in this age group have been hospitalized at one time, almost 9% of total cases in the age group. (It is unclear whether the 2 deaths were ever hospitalized.)
Persons 50-64 years of age total 145 cases, including 28 hospitalized and 3 deaths. This age group represents 26% of the 566 total cases. 28 of the 145 cases in this age group have been hospitalized at one time, a little over 19% of total cases in the age group. (It is unclear whether the 3 deaths were ever hospitalized.)
Persons 65 years or older total 132 cases, including 38 hospitalized and 18 deaths. This age group represents just over 23% of the 566 total cases. 1 new death, total of 18. 38 of the 132 cases in this age group (29%) were hospitalized at one time, a substantially higher percentage than in the lower age groups. (It is unclear whether the 18 deaths in this age group were ever hospitalized.)

CITY DATA

Vallejo reported no new cases for the second day in a row today, remaining at a total of 310.
Fairfield added 1 new case today, total of 121.
Vacaville remained at 60 cases.
Suisun City remained at 31 cases.
Benicia remained at 23 cases.
Dixon remained at 11 cases.
Rio Vista and “Unincorporated” are still not assigned numerical data: today both remain at <10 (less than 10). The total numbers for other cities add up to 556, leaving 10 cases somewhere among the 2 locations in this “<10” category (same as last reported). Residents and city officials have pressured County officials for city case counts. Today’s data is welcome, but still incomplete.

HOSPITALIZATIONS: 89 of Solano’s 566 cases resulted in hospitalizations since the outbreak started, 1 more than yesterday. Cumulative hospitalizations is a most important stat to watch. On May 1 there were 51 hospitalizations, and the daily increase was relatively steady, adding 2 or less each day until a little over a week ago. On May 22, the County reported 4 new hospitalizations, on May 29 an additional 9, 3 more on June 2 and another 1 today. The County has seen 18 additional hospitalizations in just 14 days. Stay tuned!

ACTIVE CASES: 61 of the 566 cases are currently active, 2 fewer than yesterday. Note that the county does not report WHERE the active cases are. Below you will see that only 13 of the active cases are currently hospitalized, which leaves 48 of these 61 active cases out in our communities somewhere, and hopefully quarantined.

HOSPITAL IMPACT: The County shows 13 of the 89 hospitalized cases are CURRENTLY hospitalized, 2 more than yesterday. The County’s count of ICU beds available and ventilator supply remains at “GOOD” at 31-100%. (No information is given on our supply of test kits, PPE and staff.).
TESTING: The County reports that 13,141 residents have been tested as of today, an increase of only 47 residents tested since yesterday. Earlier this week, over 500 residents were tested on each of two consecutive days. Not sure why the slow-down, but it’s disappointing. We have a long way to go: only 2.9% of Solano County’s 447,643 residents (2019) have been tested. NOTE: State run testing sites in Vallejo and Vacaville are open to anyone.

Solano’s curve – cumulative cases as of June 5

This chart shows that the infection’s steady upward trajectory could be flattening a bit in Solano County. Still too early to tell. Our nursing homes, long-term care facilities and jails bear watching!

Still incredibly important – everyone stay home if you don’t need to go out, wear masks when you do go out (especially in enclosed spaces), wash hands, and be safe!

The Benicia Independent ~ Eyes on the Environment / Benicia news & views

Chainsaw-wielding racist gets boosted by a top Trump aide as race protests sweep the nation