アメリカはいつも動いている。その速度は日本よりずっと速い。ここ加州では仕事が他州に移っていることが問題視されている。そこでこの記事は、本社が移転する理由と地域効果について若干触れている。いろんな見方をする人間がいることが分かる。
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With Broadcom exit, headquarters flight from Southern California continues
May29,2015.4:00am Los Angeles Times
Broadcom, which was started in 1991, is being bought by rival chip maker Avago for $37 billion. (Robert Gauthier, Los Angeles Times)
By Tiffany Hsu and Jerry Hirsch contact the reporters
Some experts say the loss of corporate headquarters rob the region of prestige
Irvine chip maker Broadcom Corp. is the latest of many corporate headquarters to exit Southern California, leaving the business community puzzling over the causes and effects.
The technology stalwart ― set to be sold for $37 billion in cash and stock to semiconductor rival Avago Technologies ― launched in Santa Monica in 1991 and then moved to Orange County in 1995.
After Thursday's transaction, the company will be incorporated in Singapore, mostly for tax reasons, but its principal operating headquarters will be in San Jose. A significant presence will remain in Irvine.
Some experts say the loss of corporate headquarters and their influential business leaders rob the region of prestige and hampers its ability to attract other companies and workers. Others counter that such losses mean little beyond bragging rights, especially in cases like Broadcom, where the merged company is expected to leave the bulk of its workforce in place.
"It's kind of an ego boost, almost a macho thing, counting the big wigs and headquarters in town," said Christopher Thornberg, founding partner of Beacon Economics.
Although business advocates and economists argue over the effect of lost headquarters, it's clear that Southern California has seen a run of major corporate departures in recent years. Whether that reflects poorly on the local business or regulatory climate is a more complicated question.
Corporate headquarters defect from Southern California for two reasons: by choice or by acquisition.
Last year, Toyota Motor Corp. said it would move its sales and marketing headquarters to suburban Dallas from Torrance, and Occidental Petroleum Corp. moved its headquarters from Los Angeles to Houston; and Irvine-based Botox maker Allergan Inc, was taken over by Irish firm Actavis and its headquarters eventually relocated to Dublin.
Earlier departures included DaVita Inc., which operates kidney dialysis service centers and decided in 2009 to move from El Segundo to Denver. The next year, Northrop Grumman Corp. said it would jump ship from Los Angeles to Falls Church, Va.
Companies that choose to move "are saying something negative about the business environment in Southern California," said Aaron Renn, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
But the loss of headquarters through acquisition, as with Broadcom, is just part of business. Big companies are buying and selling each other faster than ever before, thereby shifting their headquarters around the globe.
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Here are the biggest public companies in Southern California, based on revenue data from FactSet. (Research by Scott Wilson)
10: Jacobs Engineering Group, Pasadena
9: Edison International, Rosemead
8. Aecom Technology Corp, Los Angeles
7: Health Net, Woodland Hills
6: Western Digital Corp. Irvine
5: Amgen Inc. Thousand Oaks
4: Qualcomm Inc. San Diego
3: DirecTV El Segundo
2: Ingram Micro Inc. Santa Ana
1: Walt Disney Co. Burbank
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"The shelf life of a Fortune 500 company is shorter than it has ever been, so you are going to see a lot of transactions like the Broadcom one," said Greg LeRoy, head of nonprofit research center Good Jobs First.
A change in ownership at Broadcom does not mean that jobs and wealth are leaving, said Linda DiMario, senior director of economic development and tourism at the Irvine Chamber of Commerce. To the contrary, she said, Broadcom has pledged to continue with expansion plans in Irvine after the merger.
The company announced last year that it would build a new 1.1-million-square-foot campus in the massive Great Park Neighborhoods development.
Globalization is changing the role of headquarters as local corporate citizens, said Saskia Sassen, a Columbia University professor.
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Giant companies now operate far-flung operations with small corporate staffs, bringing in consultants, legal experts, accountants and other specialized vendors when they need them ― and not necessarily in the home city, she said. Cities such as Chicago, which bled corporate headquarters during in the 1980s and '90s, have remained vibrant economies, Sassen said.
Southern California is still home to business giants such as Walt Disney Co., Ingram Micro Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. In 2000, 28 Fortune 500 companies were headquartered in Southern California. In 2005, there were 26 companies.
Last year, 24 top companies were based in the region, including Broadcom, Allergan and Occidental.
Some economists see the departures as cause for alarm. The Southland could lose skilled workers, philanthropic benefits and business cachet that come with hosting Fortune 500 companies, said Esmael Adibi, director for the Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University.
-The major impact is civic -- loss of engaged civic business leadership and a hit to local charities because these companies often take their philanthropic arms with them when they leave. It is true that the actual impact on jobs and economic activity is minimal, but the PR impact is...-
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"A community that loses a headquarters faces pretty bad stigma," he said. "The types of jobs that are going to disappear are high-value-added, with wages and salaries usually above the average for the area."
Others are skeptical that such corporate moves signal regional business turmoil or a need for regulatory reform.
Southern California has long relied on small-to-medium-size businesses to drive its economy, said Robert Kleinhenz, chief economist with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
Last month, the government recorded 5.8 million nonfarm workers in the Los Angeles and Irvine metropolitan areas, 2.6% more than a year earlier. Despite being one of Orange County's major employers, with thousands of workers, Broadcom represents a tiny fraction of the total, and it may not even lose workers under new management.
Southern California also has several expanding businesses ― many of which fly under the radar because they aren't public companies ― which are stepping in as others fall to acquisitions or relocations.
SpaceX, the Hawthorne rocket company founded by L.A. entrepreneur Elon Musk, has grown in a decade to about 3,000 employees, most in Southern California. British engineering firm Meggitt established a new U.S. headquarters in Irvine last year and has grown rapidly to 420 employees. TrueCar.com, a digital auto sales portal in Santa Monica, has almost tripled its revenue in the last three years and grown to 500 employees.
"The fact is," Kleinhenz said, "many other indicators are telling us that this economy is at least doing well, if not thriving, and growing faster than other places around the country."
Bob Dylan Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature
By BEN SISARIO, ALEXANDRA ALTER and SEWELL CHANOCT. 13, 2016 New York Times
Bob Dylan, the poet laureate of the rock era, whose body of work has influenced generations of songwriters and been densely analyzed by fans, critics and academics, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.
It is the first time the honor has gone to a musician. In its citation, the Swedish Academy credited Mr. Dylan with “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
The choice of Mr. Dylan for the world’s top literary honor came as something of a surprise and was widely viewed as an expansion of the academy’s traditional notions of art. Mr. Dylan, 75, joins a pantheon that includes T. S. Eliot, Gabriel García Márquez, Samuel Beckett and Toni Morrison ― the last American to claim the award, in 1993.
“The old categories of high and low art, they’ve been collapsing for a long time,” said David Hajdu, a music critic for The Nation who has written extensively about Mr. Dylan and his contemporaries, ”but this is it being made official.”
In choosing a popular musician for one of the most coveted prizes in the literary world, the Swedish Academy dramatically redefined the boundaries of literature, setting off a debate about whether song lyrics have the same artistic value as poetry or novels.
“Most song lyrics don’t really hold up without the music, and they aren’t supposed to,” the poet Billy Collins said. “Bob Dylan is in the 2 percent club of songwriters whose lyrics are interesting on the page, even without the harmonica and the guitar and his very distinctive voice. I think he does qualify as poetry.”
In previous years, writers and publishers have grumbled that the academy seems to favor obscure writers with clear political messages over more popular figures ― last year’s prize went to the the Belarussian journalist Svetlana Alexievich, whose deeply reported narratives draw on oral history. But in choosing someone so well known and commercially successful, and so far outside of established literary traditions, the academy seems to have swung far into the other direction.
Sara Danius, a literary scholar and the permanent secretary of the 18-member Swedish Academy, which awards the prize, called Mr. Dylan “a great poet in the English-speaking tradition” and compared him to Homer and Sappho, whose work was delivered orally. Asked if the decision to award the prize to a musician signaled a broadening in the definition of literature, Ms. Danius responded, “The times they are a-changing, perhaps,” referencing one of Mr. Dylan’s songs.
The choice was hailed across the cultural and political spectrum. Rosanne Cash, the songwriter and daughter of Johnny Cash, wrote simply: “Holy mother of god. Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize.”
In the literary world, Mr. Dylan’s choice brought out a crosscurrent of dissent.
On Twitter, Salman Rushdie called Mr. Dylan “the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition,” adding, “Great choice.” But others, including the novelists Laila Lalami and Rabih Alameddine, took the academy to task for its choice. “Bob Dylan winning a Nobel in Literature is like Mrs Fields being awarded 3 Michelin stars,” Mr. Alameddine wrote on Twitter. “This is almost as silly as Winston Churchill.”
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Others said the academy’s decision smacked of baby boomer nostalgia.
“I’m a Dylan fan, but this is an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies,” the Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh wrote on Twitter.
In some ways, it was a typical response to Mr. Dylan’s work, who throughout his career has been hailed as a brilliant stylist and innovator and yet faced occasional bafflement from critics.
Mr. Dylan emerged on the New York music scene in 1961 as an artist in the tradition of Woody Guthrie, singing protest songs and strumming an acoustic guitar in clubs and cafes in Greenwich Village. But from the start, Mr. Dylan stood out for dazzling lyrics and an oblique songwriting style that made him a source of fascination for artists and critics. In 1963, the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary reached No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart with a version of his song “Blowin’ in the Wind,” with ambiguous refrains that evoked Ecclesiastes.
Within a few years, Mr. Dylan was confounding the very notion of folk music, with ever more complex songs and moves toward a more rock ’n’ roll sound. In 1965, he played with an electric rock band at the Newport Folk Festival, provoking a backlash from folk purists who accused him of selling out.
After reports of a motorcycle accident in 1966 near his home in Woodstock, N.Y., Mr. Dylan withdrew further from public life but remained intensely fertile as a songwriter. His voluminous archives, showing his working process through thousands of pages of songwriting drafts, were acquired this year by institutions in Tulsa, Okla.
His 1975 album “Blood on the Tracks” was interpreted as a supremely powerful account of the breakdown of a relationship, but just four years later the Christian themes of “Slow Train Coming” divided critics. His most recent two albums were chestnuts of traditional pop that had been associated with Frank Sinatra.
Since 1988, Mr. Dylan has toured almost constantly, inspiring an unofficial name for his itinerary, the Never Ending Tour. Last weekend, he played the first of two performances at Desert Trip, a festival in Indio, Calif., that also featured the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and other stars of the 1960s.
Mr. Dylan, whose original name is Robert Allen Zimmerman, was born on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minn., and grew up in nearby Hibbing. He played in bands as a teenager, influenced by the folk musician Woody Guthrie, the authors of the Beat Generation and modernist poets.
In 1962, soon after arriving in New York, Mr. Dylan signed a contract with Columbia Records for his debut album, “Bob Dylan.” He was only 22 when he performed at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, singing “When the Ship Comes In,” with Joan Baez, and “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” a retelling of the murder of the civil rights activist Medgar Evers, before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
“As the ’60s wore on,” Giles Harvey wrote in The New York Review of Books in 2010, “Dylan grew increasingly frustrated with what he came to regard as the pious sloganeering and doctrinaire leftist politics of the folk milieu.” He “began writing a kind of visionary nonsense verse, in which the rough, ribald, lawless America of the country’s traditional folk music collided with a surreal ensemble of characters from history, literature, legend, the Bible, and many other places besides.”
Mr. Dylan’s many albums, which the Swedish Academy described as having “a tremendous impact on popular music,” include “Bringing It All Back Home” and “Highway 61 Revisited” (1965), “Blonde on Blonde” (1966), “Blood on the Tracks” (1975), “Oh Mercy” (1989), “Time Out Of Mind” (1997), “Love and Theft” (2001) and “Modern Times” (2006).
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The academy added: “Dylan has the status of an icon. His influence on contemporary music is profound, and he is the object of a steady stream of secondary literature.”
Mr. Dylan’s many honors include Grammy, Academy and Golden Globe awards; he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. The Nobel comes with a prize of 8 million Swedish kronor, or just over $900,000. The literature prize is given for a lifetime of writing rather than for a single work.
“Today, everybody from Bruce Springsteen to U2 owes Bob a debt of gratitude,’’ President Obama said at the Medal of Honor ceremony. “There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music. All these years later, he’s still chasing that sound, still searching for a little bit of truth. And I have to say that I am a really big fan.”
Other 2016 winners
■ Yoshinori Ohsumi, a Japanese cell biologist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Oct. 3 for his discoveries on how cells recycle their content, a process known as autophagy, a Greek term for “self-eating.”
■ David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz shared the Nobel Prize in Physics on Oct. 4 for their research into the bizarre properties of matter in extreme states.
■ Jean-Pierre Sauvage, J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Oct. 5 for development of molecular machines, the world’s smallest mechanical devices.
■ President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for pursuing a deal to end 52 years of conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the longest-running war in the Americas.
■ Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom were awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday for their work on improving the design of contracts, the deals that bind together employers and their workers, or companies and their customers.
Correction: October 13, 2016
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the author of a 2013 Op-Ed essay arguing that Bob Dylan should receive a Nobel Prize. The author, Bill Wyman, is a journalist, not a former Rolling Stones bassist who has the same name.
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Ford, Criticized by Trump, Cancels Plans to Build Mexican Plant
By BILL VLASIC and NEAL E. BOUDETTEJAN. 3, 2017
DETROIT ― Donald J. Trump has promised to change the way American automakers do business. Less than three weeks before his inauguration as president, he has already knocked the companies on their heels.
In a stunning reversal, Ford Motor, the nation’s second-largest automaker, said on Tuesday that it would scrap plans to build a small-car assembly plant in Mexico that Mr. Trump has repeatedly criticized.
Just a few hours earlier, Mr. Trump threatened to impose tariffs on cars made in Mexico by General Motors, the nation’s largest automaker. His message forced the company to defend itself.
Both developments indicate how Mr. Trump is having an enormous impact on how American car companies run their operations, even before he takes office. They also illustrate that one of Mr. Trump’s particular points of criticism, manufacturing in Mexico, has become particularly sensitive.
Continue reading the main story
But the moves raise questions about how competitive the country’s auto industry can be if its manufacturing options shrink in Mexico, and what the implications will be for consumers. For now, at least, some executives are praising Mr. Trump’s economic plans.
“We are encouraged by the pro-growth plans that President-elect Trump and the new Congress indicate they will pursue,” Mark Fields, Ford’s chief executive, said at an event on Tuesday.
The decision by Ford to drop plans for a new plant in Mexico ― what would have been a $1.6 billion investment ― came at the same time the company announced it would add 700 jobs to build electric and hybrid vehicles at a plant in Flat Rock, Mich.
The new Mexican factory was to build Ford Focus sedans currently manufactured at another Michigan plant near Detroit. Now the company will build those cars at an existing plant in Mexico.
Ford officials said that the revised plans were tied to market conditions that have depressed small-car sales, and that they did not consult with the incoming Trump administration before making the decision.
They did, though, tell Mr. Trump about the change just before the announcement. And on Tuesday, Mr. Fields made clear that Mr. Trump’s policies were playing a role in the company’s thinking. He added in an interview that the president-elect’s emphasis on tax changes and cutting regulations should have an overall positive effect on automakers such as Ford.
“We have a president-elect who has said very clearly that one of his first priorities is to grow the economy,” he said. “That should be music to our ears.”
Ford has been a target of Mr. Trump’s criticism since last spring, when he singled the company out during his campaign for planning to create jobs in Mexico instead of pushing employment in the United States. After the election, Ford dropped plans to move production of a Lincoln S.U.V. to Mexico from Kentucky. That move followed discussions between Mr. Trump and William C. Ford Jr., the company’s chairman.
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One industry analyst, Ron Harbour of the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, said Ford was under intense pressure to alter its Mexican plans ― or risk a constant drumbeat of criticism from Mr. Trump.
“It was an embarrassment for them, and they said, ‘Let’s turn this thing around,’” Mr. Harbour said.
Now Mr. Trump has turned his attention to G.M. In a Twitter post early Tuesday, he attacked the company for making a hatchback version of a Chevrolet in Mexico for sale in the American market.
“General Motors is sending Mexican made model Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers tax-free across the border,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Make in U.S.A. or pay big border tax!”
A central tenet of Mr. Trump’s economic platform has been to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which allows for the free flow of manufactured goods between the United States, Canada and Mexico. Instead, he favors tariffs of up to 35 percent on products made in Mexico and sold in America.
Industry analysts have questioned whether automakers like G.M. and Ford can profitably build smaller vehicles in the United States instead of in Mexico, where wages rarely cross $10 an hour, compared with the $29 an hour earned by a majority of unionized American workers.
For consumers, those higher wages could add up to higher sticker prices. And that could potentially reduce sales.
But Mr. Trump is hardly backing off on his vow to scrap Nafta, and has found an unlikely ally in the powerful United Automobile Workers union, which represents hourly employees at G.M., Ford and Fiat Chrysler in the United States.
While the U.A.W. leadership supported Mr. Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton, in the presidential election, the union has consistently attacked Nafta for encouraging car companies to invest in Mexico.
“The U.A.W. has long believed that companies that sell in our country should build their products in our country,” the union’s president, Dennis Williams, said on Tuesday.
The hatchback made by G.M. in Mexico is a version of its Cruze compact car produced primarily at a factory in Lordstown, Ohio.
Sales of the Cruze, like many other passenger cars, have fallen in recent months because of low gas prices and shifting consumer demand toward more spacious sport utility vehicles. The Lordstown factory is among five American plants that G.M. will temporarily idle this month to reduce its growing inventories of slow-selling cars.
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G.M. officials declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s Twitter attack, other than to say in a statement that only a “small number” of Cruze hatchbacks were built in Mexico for the American market.
But G.M. has a large exposure to any potential changes looming on Nafta, having committed up to $5 billion in long-term investment in Mexico. Foreign car companies like Volkswagen and Toyota are also adding jobs and new products at their Mexican facilities.
With Nafta under fire from the incoming administration, Ford, in particular, has tried to adapt.
In a recent interview, the company’s chief financial officer, Robert L. Shanks, said the automaker was expecting changes in trade deals, and increasing its focus on expanding its manufacturing in the United States. “The bigger principle is we want to grow the U.S. economy,” he said.
On Tuesday, the company packaged a series of announcements on new electrified vehicles with a promise to invest $700 million in its Flat Rock assembly plants.
The addition of 700 jobs at the plant will help it build a new fully electric S.U.V. to debut in 2020, as well as a new autonomous vehicle that has no steering wheel and operates entirely by computer.
Ford’s vice president of global purchasing, Hau Thai-Tang, said the company chose the Flat Rock facility “to really show we are making a commitment to the United States and to technology.”
Mr. Fields, however, was more circumspect on why the company had dropped its plans for the new Mexican factory. “We didn’t need it anymore,” he said. “We just don’t need the capacity anymore given the demand for small cars.”
Still, the news about the Mexican plant and the new jobs in Michigan were conveyed directly to Mr. Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence before they were publicly announced.
“We called the president-elect and the vice president-elect this morning and gave them the news,” Mr. Fields said Tuesday. “They were very pleased, obviously, that we were making these investments in the U.S.”
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Technology
Google, in Post-Obama Era, Aggressively Woos Republicans
By CECILIA KANGJAN. 27, 2017 The New York Times
WASHINGTON ― Few companies have been as intimately tied to the Democratic Party in recent years as Google. So now that Donald J. Trump is president, the giant company, in Silicon Valley parlance, is having to pivot.
The shift was evident a day after Congress began its new session this month. That evening, about 70 lawmakers, a majority of them Republicans, were feted at the stately Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, where they clinked champagne and bourbon glasses and posed for selfies with the 600 guests assembled in their honor.
The event’s main host was not from the Republican establishment. Instead, the party was primarily financed and anchored by Google.
“We’ve partnered with Google on events before, but nothing like this party,” said Alex Skatell, founder of The Independent Journal Review, a news start-up with a right-leaning millennial audience, which also helped host the event.
The event was emblematic of an about-face by Google. Over the last eight years, the company was closely associated with former President Barack Obama. Google employees overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns and some later took roles in his administration. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, advised the Obama White House. And last year, Google employees gave $1.3 million to Hillary Clinton’s campaign to succeed Mr. Obama, compared with $26,000 to the Trump campaign, according to federal filings.
Now, the tech giant is scrambling to forge ties with Mr. Trump’s new administration and to strengthen its relationship with a Republican-dominated Congress. Most important, Google is trying to change the perception that it is a Democratic stronghold.
That has led to events like the party at the Smithsonian, which the institution said cost at least $50,000. Mr. Schmidt has embarked on an East Coast charm offensive of Republican political leaders, including twice visiting Mr. Trump and his advisers at Trump Tower. Last month, Google also posted an opening to fill a position for a “conservative outreach” employee in its Washington office.
“Google has a target on its back because it is fundamentally viewed as a Democratic company,” said Gigi Sohn, a former senior adviser to Tom Wheeler, who was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. “Even though it has reached out to Republicans, it can’t shake the image.”
Google said it had long had Republican lobbyists and had not changed its strategy.
“We’ve worked with both Republicans and Democrats for over a decade, advocating policies to encourage economic growth, innovation and entrepreneurialism,” the company said in a statement. “We’ll continue to do exactly that.”
A spokesman for Mr. Schmidt added, “Eric has a long record of working constructively and energetically on important technology issues with American and world leaders across the political spectrum.”
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Other Silicon Valley tech companies like Facebook are in a similar predicament. The perception is that they lean left and their executives backed Mrs. Clinton. Many are now also pledging to work with Mr. Trump and paid court to the new president at a December tech summit meeting.
Google has much at stake as it repositions itself. During the Obama years, Google avoided American antitrust charges, even as European regulators accused the firm of antitrust violations in search and in its mobile business. Google also successfully pushed a policy agenda that included the creation of net neutrality rules in 2015 and the defeat of online piracy laws in 2012.
Now warning shots against Google have been fired by those in Mr. Trump’s circle. Some of the president’s advisers have debated whether the tech behemoth deserved more antitrust scrutiny, according to two people briefed by the new administration’s transition team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist and Trump transition adviser, also compared the power that Google had under Mr. Obama to that which the oil giant Exxon Mobil had under President George W. Bush. Under President Bush, the administration largely agreed with Exxon’s skeptical stance on climate change policy.
Mr. Trump’s team is particularly wary of one Google executive ― Mr. Schmidt ― who has been allied with Democrats. During last year’s presidential campaign, Mr. Schmidt counseled Mrs. Clinton on strategy. A photo of him wearing a staff badge at her election-night party circulated widely in the conservative media.
Mr. Trump’s advisers, including his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, have complained about Mr. Schmidt’s funding of a start-up called the Groundwork that provided data and other technology for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. They also suspected Google was skewing search results in favor of Mrs. Clinton, said Barry Bennett, a former senior adviser for Mr. Trump’s campaign.
“Mr. Schmidt spent millions and millions of his personal money to defeat Donald Trump,” Mr. Bennett said. “It takes a particular amount of gumption to pretend that never happened.”
Google has denied it tweaked its search results, which are determined by algorithms, and the company declined to comment on Mr. Schmidt. White House officials did not respond to a request for comment.
For many years, Google’s support of Democrats was plain. Google’s PAC and employees ranked third in all donations to Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign at $804,240, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2008, Google’s PAC and employees were sixth with $817,855. The company did not rank in the top 20 for donations to Mr. Obama’s Republican opponents in either of those elections.
About five years ago, Google began diversifying its bets. The company forged ties with the Republican-dominated House of Representatives and started addressing the beginning of an antitrust investigation into whether the company was using its search dominance to suppress competing travel, map and restaurant sites.
In 2011, Google hired Stewart Jeffries, a former member of the House Judiciary Committee, to lobby Republicans on Capitol Hill. That same year, it quadrupled its number of outside lobbying firms ― including many with Republican lobbyists ― to 24, from six in 2010. In 2012, Google named a former Republican congresswoman, Susan Molinari of New York, to lead its Washington office.
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Google also sponsored conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. The company has hosted Republican lawmakers including the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy of California, and Darrell Issa of California at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
Google’s Washington office is now roughly split between Republican and Democrats. The company spent $15.43 million in lobbying in 2016, according to federal lobbying documents, making it among the top dozen firms in lobbying spending last year. For the first time last year, Google’s PAC gave more to Republican congressional candidates than to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Even so, Google’s Republican ties got little notice because of the company’s strong relationship with Democrats. Several Google employees joined the Obama administration while dozens of government bureaucrats were employed by the tech company. Google’s head of global public policy, Caroline Atkinson, was Mr. Obama’s former national security adviser. A former Google executive, Megan Smith, became the nation’s chief technology officer.
During his presidency, Mr. Obama also repeatedly supported proposals backed by Google, including net neutrality in 2015 and cable set-top box reforms last year.
“Google was very much treated as the golden child by the Obama administration,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, which has been critical of Google for privacy policies.
Since the election, Google has accelerated efforts to win over the Republican White House and Congress. Before his visits to Trump Tower, Mr. Schmidt met with Mr. McCarthy, the House majority leader, and John Thune, a Republican senator from South Dakota who is chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Days after Mr. Trump’s victory, Google also contacted The Independent Journal Review, which it had worked with on events during the Republican campaign debates. Google told the news start-up that it would provide the main funding for the party at the Smithsonian.
Google said the event was open to both parties. But pairing with the conservative site sent a clear message to attendees. “We definitely helped draw Republicans and people from across the spectrum,” said the site’s founder, Mr. Skatell.
At the party, several Republican lawmakers were positive about their tech host, brushing off questions about the company’s heft and power.
“When I think of technology and Google, I don’t think of dominance,” said Bradley Byrne, a Republican representative from Alabama. “I think of innovation.”
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting and Rachel Shorey contributed research.
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アメリカの草の根活動を社会的にも政治的にも支えている活動家たちの層の厚さはアメリカを語るときに無視できない。エリートずらした自称・活動家が新聞・雑誌・テレビで著作物の宣伝に駆け巡っているのが日本の風景である。アメリカと日本-人生とは、あるいは生きがいとは何か？大学教育を含めた教育の究極の目的をも考えさせられる記事である。
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When weary L.A. activists need relief from Trump, this is where they go
May29, 2017 Esmeralda Bermudez Contact Reporter / Los Angles Times
There are nights when Bryon Alvarez can’t get the stories of the immigrants he works with out of his head.
Dozens of men, women and children who have been physically or sexually abused are relying on his aid to get legal status. Now they’re panicked that instead they’ll be sent home.
“You want to help everyone,” said the legal assistant at the Central American Resource Center in Westlake. “But no matter how hard you work, it’s impossible.”
There are days when his colleague Susana Zamorano comes home so frustrated, she feels she’s going to break down.
“It’s like I’m in the middle of an endless ocean. I have to find strength,” said Zamorano, a program coordinator at the center, also called Carecen.
Many activists in Los Angeles have been in the trenches for years, fighting for immigrant rights and social justice. They know strategy. They know crisis.
But five months into the Trump presidency, they’ve never had their endurance so tested.
So, in need of relief themselves, they go to a longtime community organizer for help.
In his workshops and webinars, Victor Narro tells them to unplug, garden, hike, dance, volunteer, build altars at their cubicles and look at photos that bring them joy. They’re in it for the long haul, after all. President Trump still has nearly 200 more weeks in office.
Pic=Susana Zamorano, parent coordinator and organizer for the immigrants right organization Carecen, wipes away a tear during a workshop held by Victor Narro. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
He teaches them how to slow down and breathe deeply. He gets them to stretch, to close their eyes and meditate.
He also tells them to be vigilant.
“He wants to make you angry. He wants you to lose focus,” he says of Trump. “But we’re not going to let that happen.”
The project director at the UCLA Downtown Labor Center, who has organized immigrants on the front lines for decades, lately has dedicated himself to spreading the gospel of self-care to legions of overextended protesters, lawyers and outreach workers.
“If you’re going to be at your best for the people you’re trying to help,” Narro tells them, “you have to take care of yourself.”
As activists stand up again and again to Trump, a local organizer tries to prevent burnout
Four months into fighting the actions of President Trump, activits are learning how to relax. Video by Irfan Khan.
Other organizers ― fighting for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, the environment and education policy ― have been sharing a similar message.
Days after the election, some began to field calls from people doing similar work, who wondered how they would be able to sustain their efforts ― much less keep motivating their troops ― for four years.
“It was such a blow to so many people who had dedicated themselves to this lifetime struggle,” said Roberto Vargas, with New World Associates, a firm that provides leadership support for advocacy groups. “It left them feeling like, ‘Now what? How do I get up from here and how will I lift others with me?’”
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Vargas began hosting activist gatherings at his home in Ventura. Some nights, people talk until midnight.
Pic=A circle of friends ceramic piece from Peru is placed inside a reflection and healing circle during a workshop for members of the immigrants right organization Carecen in Los Angeles. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
At his workshops, Narro tries to offer practical tips.
At a recent one at Carecen, nearly 20 immigration lawyers and legal assistants sought his advice.
Founded in the 1980s by Salvadoran refugees, Carecen runs a youth center and a parent center, teaches immigrants English and organizes marches and protests.
Its legal team handles a mix of cases ― children who have crossed the border alone, persecuted immigrants in need of asylum, mixed-status families trying to stay together in America.
Fear of deportation runs deep now, even though there hasn’t been an increase in mass raids since Trump took over. Every arrest sends waves of anxiety through immigrant communities. Stories spread about individuals being picked up even though they’ve committed no serious crimes.
On its website Carecen declares in capital letters: “We will not allow a Trump administration to attack our communities.”
But living up to that promise is wearying.
As those at the workshop formed a circle, Narro arranged a small altar on the floor of Guatemalan serapes and a Peruvian clay statue of figures embracing. He beat a ceremonial drum and invited each participant to speak.
Alvarez, the legal assistant, said his caseload continues to grow. His phone starts to ring early in the morning. He hears panic in clients’ voices. They ask him to please speed up the process to get them visas; they want him to promise he can help.
“I tell them I can’t guarantee anything,” he said.
He told Narro he used to find joy in his work. Now, when the stress mounts, he seeks comfort in television.
“Lately I’m feeling less motivated, more powerless,” he said.
His co-workers complained of sore necks, clenched jaws, mood swings and bottled-up emotions. They said they struggled with feelings of defeat, anger and helplessness.
“I try to be strong because I have to,” said Zamorano, the coordinator of the parent program. “But I get home most days and I feel like my head is going to explode.”
The families she works with tell her that, because of deportation worries, their children may decide not to pursue college anymore.
“When they ask me, ‘What do I do?’ I struggle to encourage them,” Zamorano said.
Pic=Community members and activist go through some exercise and relaxing session held UCLA Labor Center so they not to burn out and relax and stay focused. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Narro listened to everything the group had to say. He told them their feelings were justified, but that they had more control than they thought. He told them about a dream he had a few weeks earlier.
In it, Trump attacked his older brother, Max, so Narro began to pummel the president.
“Then suddenly, I realized, I’m beating up a 70-year-old man,” he said. “And what did it do for me? Nothing.
“Send him positive energy,” Narro said as the group laughed. “You never know, it might make a difference.”
In recent weeks, through his webinars and social media, Narro has reached a mix of people nationwide ― a Bangladeshi organizer defending women’s rights in New Jersey, an Oregon law student fighting for the environment and Native Americans, a writer promoting Muslim social justice in Washington, D.C.
In January, he partnered with Law at the Margins, an attorney-led media group, to launch #faithjustice, an effort to remind activists to make time for some self care.
Narro could have used that advice himself a few years back. Instead, he hurtled toward a breakdown.
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Trained as a lawyer, he’s spent more than 30 years mobilizing vulnerable communities ― gardeners, garment workers, domestic workers ― mostly behind the scenes. He organizes marches, proposes legislation, coordinates policy campaigns.
Back in the mid-1990s, when Proposition 187 tried to cut off services to immigrants in the country illegally, day laborers were being harassed on street corners and some restaurants refused to serve them. Narro helped launch an organization to protect them.
He held workshops to groom day laborers into leaders who could safeguard and mobilize their work corners. He had them form soccer teams to build solidarity and connected them to the greater immigrant rights movement.
In 1999, when Narro found out that many carwash workers were getting paid only tips or below minimum wage, he helped them unionize. He pushed them to picket and confront their employers. Those who got fired, he turned into full-time labor organizers.
In 2003, Narro’s efforts helped pass a law regulating all carwashes.
He used to work 10 to 12 hours a day.
“I felt all this pressure to keep going all the time,” he said.
In 2012, he started having terrible headaches and losing weight. He wound up in the hospital.
“I knew then I had to change,” he said. “I had to find balance.”
So he slowly began to teach himself what he is now teaching others.
On a recent Saturday, he joined about two dozen activists in a movement workshop at the labor center across the street from MacArthur Park.
Malia Gallegos with TeAda Productions, a performance group that promotes social justice, asked everyone to breathe into their bellies and begin an exercise used in Butoh, a Japanese form of improvised dance.
“We’re going to go on a journey,” she told them.
And so they leaned back, let the weight of their bodies fall forward and began to move rhythmically from side to side, meditating, concentrating on their breaths.
Among the participants were 10 labor union organizers, including one named Cesar Chavez who had driven nearly four hours from Pismo Beach.
The union Chavez works for, United Domestic Workers, represents about 90,000 home health caretakers whose livelihoods could be hurt by some of Trump’s proposed healthcare changes. If clients lose access to Medicaid, caretakers could lose work hours.
So Chavez constantly reminds his members via email and social media to call elected officials and try to hold back Trump and his fellow Republicans. He and other organizers are also working to develop more union leaders and encourage them to engage politically.
“We’ve worked so hard to get here,” Chavez said. “And now it feels like we’ve got this huge John Deere bulldozer coming our way.”
When he comes home after a stressful day, Chavez said, he tries to unplug from the news. So does his girlfriend, who works for a congressman and spends hours fielding calls from constituents upset about Trump. She unwinds with yoga. The two joke a lot.
“We’ve learned that the best thing to do at the end of each day is to keep it light,” Chavez said. “And to leave all those worries at the door.”
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東京夏季オリンピック２０２０後の開催地が決定。パリ２０２４、ロサンジェルス２０２８。
******
L.A. officially awarded 2028 Olympic Games
By David Wharton /Contact Reporter Septemper 13, 2017, 10:35am LOS ANGELES TIMES
Image=International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, center, stands with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti during the 131st IOC session in Lima on Sept. 13. (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP / Getty Images)
Los Angeles’ rollercoaster campaign to host the Olympics ― an effort marked by early defeat and last-second negotiations ― reached its conclusion Wednesday when the city was formally awarded the 2028 Summer Games.
International Olympic Committee members, by a unanimous show of hands, voted their approval at a session in Lima, Peru, ending an unusual bid competition that resulted in two winners as Paris was simultaneously given the 2024 Games.
“Everyone connected with LA 2028 is thrilled to be part of this win-win-win scenario for the Olympic movement,” bid leader Casey Wasserman said in a statement. “Together, L.A., Paris and the IOC will demonstrate the Games’ enduring value to host communities.”
Immediately after the vote, Mayor Eric Garcetti signed the controversial “host city contract,” promising the city government will serve as a financial backstop, paying off any debts should the estimated $5.3-billion sporting event run over budget.
LA 2028 has sought to cut costs by using existing venues such as the Coliseum and Staples Center. Bid leaders estimate they can cover all expenses through revenues from broadcast rights, sponsorships, ticket sales and other sources.
“This is the moment Angelenos have been waiting for,” Garcetti said.
But critics have noted that a slew of previous hosts ― including Rio de Janeiro, which staged the 2016 Summer Games ― have ended up with substantial deficits.
LA 2024 releases new visuals of potential Olympic Games
“Despite the fact that the IOC has awarded L.A. the bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, the fight isn’t over,” the NOlympics LA group said in a statement. “The notion that ‘L.A. is going to have the Olympics, one way or another’ isn’t necessarily true, as many opportunities still exist to intervene and stop them entirely.”
Wednesday’s vote took place during a tumultuous session for the IOC, which is facing separate bid scandals involving 2016 Rio de Janeiro and 2020 Tokyo.
“The IOC Ethics Commission is following up on this matter,” the committee announced in a statement this week. “Where evidence is provided, we will act.”
Neither L.A. nor Paris has been implicated in any wrongdoing, so the host-city selection proceeded smoothly with the candidates giving brief presentations before the ratifying vote.
L.A.’s fait acompli presentation lasted 30 minutes with three videos and a series of eight speakers thanked each other, thanked the Olympic movement, thanked Paris and portrayed the self-congratulatory tone that has become the hallmark of some IOC meetings.
The delegation came to the stage wearing sneakers, which Wasserman talked about in his speech.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking…these LA guys seem pretty laid back,” Wasserman said. “… My grandfather told me the key to success was two simple things: Always be honest, and always stay true to who you are. Well, what you see onstage here today reflects who we are, and the unique brand of California-cool that we will bring to the 2028 Games.”
Larry Probst, U.S. Olympic Committee chairman of the board, came the closest to any negative tone when he said: “It has been a formidable journey to get here, but we never gave up hope or confidence in our ability to support and advance the Olympic Movement.”
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It was two years ago that L.A.’s effort appeared to be over after the city lost to Boston in a competition to become the sole American bidder.
But when the Massachusetts capital withdrew over cost concerns, L.A. quickly stepped into what eventually became a two-city race with Paris for the 2024 Games.
The competition, which appeared to be close, took a dramatic turn with talk of the IOC naming two winners, giving 2024 to one city and 2028 to the other.
The move made sense because there have been so few candidate cities, so with two viable bids, Olympic leaders warmed to the idea of locking up summer hosts for the next 11 years.
The only question was: Which city would agree to take 2028?
From the start, Paris insisted it could not wait around. Negotiations between L.A. and the IOC began in earnest last July and, by early August, the deal was done.
In return for going second, L.A. will not have to pay tens of millions in IOC fees and will receive a $180-million advance, most of which will go to funding youth programs citywide beginning as soon as next year.
The rechristened LA 2028 committee will also get a larger slice of IOC revenues and will not have to give the IOC a standard 20% of its surplus if the Games run under budget.
The Los Angeles City Council unanimously supported the agreement at a session marked by vocal protests last month.
“Today, LA 2028 is taking the final step in our bid, and preparing to begin our 11-year journey as an Olympic host city,” Garcetti said. “I am thrilled to begin the next chapter of this process.”
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Harvey Weinstein raped me, actress tells LAPD. Investigation launched
Oct 19, 2017 By Richard Winton and Victoria KimContact Reporters - Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles police are investigating new allegations against Harvey Weinstein after an Italian model-actress reported that the producer sexually assaulted her in 2013. (Al Powers / Associated Press)
Richard Winton and Victoria KimContact Reporters
An Italian model-actress met with Los Angeles police detectives for more than two hours Thursday morning, providing a detailed account of new allegations that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her at a hotel in 2013.
She is the sixth woman to accuse Weinstein of rape or forcible sex acts. Los Angeles police Capt. Billy Hayes confirmed that the department has launched an investigation into the matter.
It is the first case related to Weinstein to be reported in Southern California. New York police already have two active sex crime probes and London’s Metropolitan Police is investigating allegations made by three women.
The new allegation could be legally troubling for Weinstein because it falls within the 10-year statute of limitations for the crime that existed at the time of the alleged incident, legal experts say.
It could “open the door to a prosecution if the evidence exists,” said defense attorney Dmitry Gorin, a former L.A. County sex crimes prosecutor. Until now, most of the allegations against Weinstein that could lead to criminal charges concerned incidents that are more than a decade old.
Weinstein has “unequivocally denied” allegations of non-consensual sex, according to his representative, Sallie Hofmeister. On the latest allegation, she said: "I can't respond to some anonymous complaint."
The 38-year-old woman, who has asked not to be named because she is fearful of retaliation and concerned about protecting her children’s privacy, first contacted police on Tuesday, through her attorney, David Ring of the law firm Taylor Ring. Two detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division’s rape special section took her statement on Thursday.
She told the Los Angeles Times that the incident occurred at Mr. C Beverly Hills hotel after she attended the 8th annual Los Angeles, Italia Film, Fashion and Art Fest in February 2013. She had previously met Weinstein once, briefly, in Rome after being introduced by an acquaintance. At that time, he invited her up to his hotel room, but she said she declined. She said they spoke briefly at the film festival, but he didn’t appear to recall meeting her before.
Later, he showed up “without warning” after midnight in the lobby of her hotel, which she said surprised her because she didn’t tell him where she was staying. He asked to come up to her room. She said she told him no and offered to meet him downstairs, but soon, he was knocking on her door.
“He ... bullied his way into my hotel room, saying, ‘I’m not going to [have sex with] you, I just want to talk,’” the woman told The Times. “Once inside, he asked me questions about myself, but soon became very aggressive and demanding and kept asking to see me naked.”
She said Weinstein repeatedly bragged about his power and influence and told her not to fight him. She tried to show him pictures of her children and her mother, who was undergoing chemotherapy at the time, as she cried and begged him to go away, she said.
“He grabbed me by the hair and forced me to do something I did not want to do,” she said. “He then dragged me to the bathroom and forcibly raped me.”
When he left, she said he told her she was very beautiful, and that she could work in Hollywood.
“He acted like nothing happened,” the woman said. “I barely knew this man. It was the most demeaning thing ever done to me by far. It sickens me still. … He made me feel like an object, like nothing, with all his power.”
After the incident, he invited her to parties at his house. She did not attend.
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Throughout the interview with The Times on Thursday, she was calm and collected ― though her voice quivered when she spoke of her three children. It is because of them, she said, that she decided to report Weinstein to the police.
At the time, she said she was too afraid, but did tell a priest, a friend and a nanny what had happened.
“I feel responsible that I didn't talk for years, I feel responsible that I didn't react that night and I didn't call the police, I feel responsible that I wasn't brave enough," she said. “All these years I’ve been thinking why I didn’t call the police immediately. I regret that I opened the [hotel] door.”
About a week before the Weinstein story broke, her high-school-aged daughter told her about how she had been experiencing mistreatment from a boy for seven months. To comfort her, she told her about the incident with Weinstein and urged her to report what was going on.
"If I need to do that, why don't you stand up for yourself?" her daughter said, she recounted. And she said her son told her: “You just need to be strong, Mom.”
Her attorney, Ring, one of L.A.’s top sex-abuse attorneys, said the woman is fully cooperating with the LAPD.
The model-actress, who was 34 at the time, is well-known in Italy, where she appeared on the cover of Italian Vogue and as an actress in Italian films.
The woman was living in Italy with her three children at the time of the alleged attack, but has since moved to Southern California.
The allegations could also bolster a New York police investigation into a report that Weinstein forced an aspiring actress in 2004 to perform oral sex on him, as the L.A. case involves similar acts. Lucia Evans told the New Yorker that Weinstein assaulted her during a meeting at his Miramax office.
Since a New York Times article first revealed allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein earlier this month, more than 40 women ― actresses, studio workers and models ― have accused Weinstein of inappropriate behavior, ranging from harassment to rape. Actresses Asia Argento, Rose McGowan, Lysette Anthony and Evans have all publicly stated that they were raped or forced to perform a sex act by Weinstein. An unnamed woman also told the New Yorker that he allegedly raped her. Eight women have received civil settlements over the years from Weinstein or his companies related to his conduct, the New York Times reported.
In other developments Thursday, a group of Weinstein Co. staffers responded to sexual harassment and assault allegations against their company’s disgraced co-founder, saying they did not know he was a “serial sexual predator.”
“We all knew that we were working for a man with an infamous temper. We did not know we were working for a serial sexual predator,” about 30 staffers said in a letter sent to the New Yorker. “We knew that our boss could be manipulative. We did not know that he used his power to systematically assault and silence women.”
The memo also blasted nondisclosure agreements in their contracts that some have blamed for helping to keep allegations under wraps for years.
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1991年に起きたロス暴動と類似点が沢山ある。その暴動で何が変わったか？結果的には何も変わらない。いやむしろ地元住民には悪くなった。一度破壊されたら、その地域のビジネスは二度と同じ地に戻って来なかった。つまり働き口や仕事がなくなり、買い物も不便になっただけというわけ。スラム化がすすむのである。暴動はビジネスや住宅・賃貸アパートでもますます、口には決して出さないが差別が正当化される。だから暴動に参加する人間の中心は暴動プロであろう。混乱に乗じての個人の私利私欲の追及やグループの大きな目的の達成。そこには無政府主義、反資本主義、ギャングメンバーや反黒人思想や住民以外の派遣部隊が含まれるとみてもまったくおかしくないのである。
*****
There are anarchists': Minnesota officials say 'outside agitators' are hijacking peaceful protests
May 30, 2020 2:42pm Update 6:40pm ET Trevor Hughes/USA TODAY
MINNEAPOLIS — Drifting out of the shadows in small groups, dressed in black, carrying shields and wearing knee pads, they head toward the front lines of the protest. Helmets and gas masks protect and obscure their faces, and they carry bottles of milk to counteract tear gas and pepper spray.
Most of them appear to be white. They carry no signs and don't want to speak to reporters. Trailed by designated "medics" with red crosses taped to their clothes, these groups head straight for the front lines of the conflict.
Night after night in this ravaged city, these small groups do battle with police and the National Guard, kicking away tear gas canisters and throwing back foam-rubber projects fired at them. Around them, fires break out. Windows are smashed. Parked cars destroyed. USA TODAY reporters have witnessed the groups on multiple nights, in multiple locations. Sometimes they threaten those journalists who photograph them destroying property.
The mayor and governor say outside agitators are hijacking peaceful protests over the death of George Floyd and literally fanning the flames of destruction. And experts say things will likely get worse in Minneapolis and in other cities seeing similar peaceful protests that turn violent like Los Angeles; Louisville, Kentucky; Des Moines, Iowa; Detroit, Atlanta; and Washington, D.C.
“The real hard-core guys, this is their job: They’re involved in this struggle," said Adam Leggat, a former British Army counterterrorism officer who now works as a security consultant specializing in crowd management for the Densus Group. "They need protests on the street to give them cover to move in.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said protests in the city Tuesday were largely peaceful and organized by local residents, but that the "dynamic has changed over the last several days."
"I want to be very, very clear: The people that are doing this are not Minneapolis residents," Frey said Saturday.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, without providing specifics, said he believes 80% of the people now taking part in the overnight rioting are from outside Minnesota.
"There are detractors. There are white supremacists. There are anarchists," Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said Saturday afternoon.
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However, a civil arrest list provided by the public information officer of the St. Paul Police Department shows 12 of the 18 people arrested from Thursday through 6 a.m. Saturday were from Minnesota. Five of them are from St. Paul, three are from Woodbury (part of the Twin Cities metropolitan area), two are from Minneapolis, one is from Mankato and one is from St. Louis Park. Four are from out of state and two did not have cities of residence listed.
Leggat, the security consultant, said intelligence reports from his colleagues indicate most of the hard-core protesters in Minneapolis are far-left or anarchists, and that far-right groups have not yet made a significant appearance. He said looting is typically done by locals – usually people with no criminal record who just get caught up in the moment.
But direct conflicts with authorities come from a mix of both locals and outside groups who see these conflicts as a core part of their mission. Many of the anarchists, he said, target banks, chain-type businesses and even luxury cars as symbols of corrupt institutions. He said even a peaceful protest can turn violent if outside agitators decide to participate, hijacking the message.
"The difficulty is that you have no control over who turns up," he said. "If this was to continue to go on, more people will come. And potentially you could have people on the right turning up, which would make things far more complicated. If those guys turn up, they will claim to be there to protect business. But it means the police will have two groups to keep apart. And that uses up a lot of police resources."
Many protesters interviewed by USA TODAY reporters decried the violence, although some said it was a predicable result of generations of anger and suffering. Speaking to a large crowd on Friday afternoon, Minneapolis activist Kon Johnson, 45, said people who have subjugated for so long are finally lashing out. He said the violence has at least gotten the world's attention.
“What is it going to take to get people to listen?" Johnson said. "They say, 'don’t incite violence,' but no one is listening. What does it take to get them to listen? I mean, do we have to take this to the suburbs? To the capital? What’s it going to take to get them to listen? We can’t keep burning stuff down."
Johnson, an activist and performer, said the arrest of Derek Chauvin, the police officer seen kneeling on Floyd's neck for eight minutes, is a good first step. Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. But he said it's only the first step toward delivering justice to the community.
"I don't want to burn down sh-- either. I don't," Johnson said. "But guess what? It's gonna happen if this fool does not get life in jail."
Pamela Oliver, a sociology expert from the University of Wisconsin-Madison specializing in protests, said politicians sometimes blame outsiders for causing trouble as a way of pretending
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there's no real problem within a community. That's not what's happening here, she said: Political leaders acknowledge Floyd's death focused sharp attention on longstanding problems.
Instead, she said, many Minneapolis residents may see rioting and destruction as a legitimate way to push back on police repression.
"When the police aggressively punish peaceful protest by firing rubber bullets and tear gas, the protesters often escalate their tactics. In contexts in which the police or other authorities have been acting in repressive ways towards communities, there can be a celebratory air when rebellion occurs in what is called a riot," she said. "I have definitely read claims by Minneapolis residents that the police have been so bad that a rebellious response is appropriate."
But many Minneapolis residents appear to be growing weary of the violence and destruction, while still supporting peaceful protests. Clearing rubble from a burned-out Walgreens on Saturday, Daniel Braun, 34, said he was sad to see the damage to his neighborhood.
“There’s civil rights and then there’s burning things down," said Braun, an attorney. “During the day, everything is peaceful. It’s only at night when things happen. Once night falls, please, go home. When it’s dark out and you’re there, you’re not making anything better.”
A protester holding a sign in front of a burned-out building Minneapolis during protests over the death of George Floyd on May 28, 2020.
A protester who has been outside some of the most intense scenes this week – the Minnehaha Mall on the south side on Thursday and Uptown on Friday – said his experiences with riots and protests leads him to believe most violence demonstrators are not from Minneapolis or St. Paul.
Arsonists and people breaking into buildings are "definitely" not from the neighborhoods they are damaging, Augustine Zion Livingstone said.
"Ain't no black person burning down no damn barbershops in their hood," Livingstone, 23, said. "We're not doing that."
Some locals are participating in looting once buildings have been breached, but he said they're in the minority when compared with peaceful protesters.
"We're not destroying buildings, we're not burning buildings," said Livingston, who also was a main speaker during Friday's marches and protests at the Hennepin County Government Center.
