*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Dear Readers, this is a very important list of demands crafted by the group, Socialist Resurgence, that appears at the end of their statement on the COVID-19 pandemic. The article itself is quite long but the most comprehensive statement I've seen and well worth reading at the URL below. Please circulate widely.
—Bonnie Weinstein
STATEMENT BY SOCIALIST RESURGENCE
ON COVID-19
https://socialistresurgence.org/2020/03/24/statement-by-socialist-resurgence-on-covid-19/
A program of action and solidarity
Capitalism stands totally disgraced. Even amidst a global pandemic and the coming ecological collapse, the ruling class in every country is trying to save its own profits at the expense of humanity. Workers have nothing at all to gain from supporting the capitalists, their programs, or their parties. Instead, working people must put forward our own solutions to the crisis and struggle with every weapon we have to achieve them. We call for:
- Centralized, international commissions of doctors and engineers to coordinate a global response to the pandemic!
- Retool all non-essential production to provide medical and safety equipment and begin a massive build-out of green infrastructure!
- No bans, no walls, amnesty for all immigrants and refugees, with full citizenship rights now!
- Democratic decision-making carried out through public discussion on all restrictions of movement!
- Free housing, food, and medical care throughout the crisis! Pay for it through the military budgets, with 100% tax on all income over $250,000!
- Hazard pay of at least 200% for all workers and full implementation of workplace safety measures! Completely free child care now! Stop all foreclosures, freeze all rents and mortgages, and stop all evictions for the duration of this crisis!
- Evacuate the prisons! Free all non-violent, immuno-compromised, and elderly prisoners, and provide quality housing!
- Drastically increase funding for domestic violence resources and education! No one stuck in quarantine with an abuser!
- Decrease hours without a decrease in pay for all who must work! All the necessities for those who are not working!
- Abortion is an essential service! Free and safe access for all who need it!
- Aid, not sanctions! Reparations for colonized countries now! Cancel all imperialist debt!
- Removal of all imperialist troops from the neo-colonial world; re-assign them for immediate use in aid efforts!
- No bailouts for big business or the banks! Nationalize production and finance under democratic workers’ control!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
|
|
|
|
|
To the initiators of the “Letter of
Dissent”: Antiwar Commemoration of the
Kent State Massacre, May 4, 2020
Dissent”: Antiwar Commemoration of the
Kent State Massacre, May 4, 2020
March 24, 2020
To the initiators of the “Letter of Dissent”
Dear Friends,
Much has happened since last September when we initiated the Open Letter Calling for an ANTI-WAR COMMEMORATION of the KENT MASSACRE, May 4, 2020. It’s an entirely new world - and not the most copacetic of times.
Yet even in the midst of the unfolding social and economic crisis, it’s heartening to see an organic, working-class solidarity begin to emerge. People are pitching in to help one another and are beginning to organize - demanding that human needs come before corporate profits.
Ultimately, overcoming the ongoing disasters will require all of society’s means – and for that we must dismantle the insatiable war machine and use those vast resources to heal the planet. We must continue the fight to end US wars, occupations and sanctions.
This letter goes out to the 59 original signers of the Letter of Dissent. Over 1000 additional antiwar activists have signed, making our initiative an authoritative statement from the antiwar community.
The KSU administration refused to respond to our concerns, proceeding instead with a corporate, celebrity-filled program designed to cover up the truth of the massacres and the war. The university has now cancelled the official planned program. An online event is being developed, but it will undoubtedly have the same sanitized character.
As antiwar activists under quarantine, we cannot use traditional marches, pickets and rallies - we will need to create new forms of struggle. That has already begun, with protests of empty shoes, spaced out picket lines, car caravans and internet actions.
I’m writing to ask you to help form an online commemoration of the massacres at Kent, Augusta and Jackson.
We can encourage groups and individuals to initiate memorial events or include May ‘70 in other planned actions. Some sites already exist, notably the Kent State Truth Tribunal, which has carried on activities for years and created a large video collection of personal narratives about May 4. They are here: https://www.truthtribunal.org/about
For my part, using a previously established blog, there is now a temporary site for individuals to contribute written experiences from May 1970, the national student strike, the GI antiwar movement and similar antiwar experiences.
This is an open venue for anyone and everyone to help write our rich history. You can share your stories on the Kent Massacre Wall (Click on Share Your Stories): https://kentmassacre.wordpress.com/author/mikealewitz/
Most importantly, this letter is also an invitation to help begin a new Facebook group, KENT MASSACRE ONLINE ANTIWAR COMMEMORATION – a place to post news of events, photos, articles, videos, comments and discussion related to the 50-year commemoration. Please join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2850853628362946/
Today’s social media discussions are focused on issues of staggering importance, such as the elections, pandemics and mass extinctions. But the civil rights, labor, antiwar and other great movements of the past contain valuable lessons of how to fight and win. We need to spread the collective consciousness and history of the massacres, the national student strike and the antiwar movement.
Humanity faces unprecedented challenges in the times ahead - but we know that the creative power of the working class is a mighty force when it is unleashed.
In Solidarity,
Mike Alewitz
- - - - - - - - - -
A slightly altered version of this letter will go out to the 1000+ signers on the Change.org site: http://chng.it/QTLkTvX6
____________________________________
MIKE ALEWITZ
Professor Emeritus
Art Department / Mural ProgramCentral CT State University
1615 Stanley Street/ New Britain, CT 06050
___________________________________
__________________________________
Art Department / Mural ProgramCentral CT State University
1615 Stanley Street/ New Britain, CT 06050
___________________________________
Red Square
116 Federal Street
New London, CT 06320
___________________________________
New London, CT 06320
___________________________________
Mobile: 860.518.4046
___________________________________
alewitz@gmail.com
___________________________________
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
 Dear Eleanor, Check out the following webinars that we will be hosting in the coming days/weeks:
|
This email was sent to eleanorlevinee@gmail.com. To unsubscribe, click here.
To update your email subscription, contact info@codepink.org.
© 2020 CODEPINK.ORG | Created with NationBuilder
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Chiapas: EZLN Closes Caracoles Due to
Coronavirus and Calls on People to Continue Struggle
https://sipazen.wordpress.com/2020/03/19/chiapas-ezln-closes-caracoles-due-to-coronavirus-and-asks-to-continue-struggle/
On March 16th, 2020, the EZLN published a communiqué about the actions that they are going to take against the Coronavirus and a strong call not to give up the struggle:
“CONSIDERING THE REAL, SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN THREAT TO HUMAN LIFE THAT COVID-19, ALSO KNOWN AS “CORONAVIRUS” PRESENTS;
CONSIDERING THE FRIVOLOUS IRRESPONSIBILITY AND THE LACK OF SERIOUSNESS OF THE BAD GOVERNMENTS AND OF THE POLITICAL CLASS IN ITS ENTIRETY, THAT MAKE USE OF A HUMANITARIAN PROBLEM TO ATTACK EACH OTHER, INSTEAD OF TAKING THE NECESSARY MEASURES TO CONFRONT THE LIFE-THREATENING VIRUS, WHICH ENDANGERS EVERYONE IRREGARDLESS OF NATIONALITY, GENDER, RACE, LANGUAGE, RELIGIOUS BELIEF, POLITICAL AFFILIATION, SOCIAL CONDITION OR HISTORY;
CONSIDERING THE LACK OF TRUE AND TIMELY INFORMATION ABOUT THE SCOPE AND GRAVITY OF THE VIRUS, AS WELL AS THE ABSENCE OF A REAL PLAN TO CONFRONT THE THREAT;
CONSIDERING THE ZAPATISTA COMMITMENT IN OUR FIGHT FOR LIFE;
WE HAVE DECIDED:
FIRST.- DECLARE A RED ALERT IN OUR VILLAGES, COMMUNITIES AND NEIGHBORHOODS, AND IN ALL THE ZAPATIST ORGANIZATIONAL BODIES.
SECOND.- TO GOOD GOVERNMENT COUNCILS AND AUTONOMOUS REBEL ZAPATISTA MUNICIPALITIES, WE RECOMMEND THE TOTAL AND IMMEDIATE CLOSURE OF THE CARACOLES AND CENTERS OF RESISTANCE AND REBELLION.
THIRD.- WE RECOMMEND THE SUPPORT BASES AND ALL THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE TO FOLLOW A SERIES OF SPECIAL RECOMMENDATIONS AND HYGIENE MEASURES THAT WILL BE SENT TO THE ZAPATIST COMMUNITIES, TOWNS AND NEIGHBORHOODS.
FOURTH.- IN THE ABSENCE OF THE BAD GOVERNMENTS, WE URGE EVERYONE, IN MEXICO AND THE WORLD, TO TAKE THE NECESSARY WITH SCIENTIFICALLY-BASED SANITARY MEASURES THAT WILL ALLOW US TO SURVIVE THIS PANDEMIC.
FIFTH.- WE CALL ON YOU NOT TO CEASE THE STRUGGLE AGAINST FEMICIDAL VIOLENCE, TO CONTINUE THE STRUGGLE IN DEFENSE OF TERRITORY AND MOTHER EARTH, TO KEEP UP THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DISAPPEARED, MURDERED, AND IMPRISONED, AND KEEP THE FLAG OF THE FIGHT FOR HUMANITY RAISED HIGH.
SIXTH.- WE CALL ON YOU NOT TO LOSE HUMAN CONTACT, BUT TO TEMPORARILY CHANGE THE WAYS WE RELATE TO EACH OTHER AS COMRADES, SISTERS, BROTHERS, SISTERS.
THE WORD, THE EAR, AND THE HEART, HAVE MANY ROADS, MANY WAYS, MANY CALENDARS AND MANY GEOGRAPHIES TO MEET. THIS FIGHT FOR LIFE MAY BE ONE OF THEM.”
For more information in Spanish:
POR CORONAVIRUS EL EZLN CIERRA CARACOLES Y LLAMA A NO ABANDONAR LAS LUCHAS ACTUALES, Enlace Zapatista, 16 de marzo de 2020
EZLN decreta “alerta roja” por coronavirus y cierra sus centros de autogobierno en Chiapas, Aristeguinoticias, 17 de marzo de 2020
EZLN cierra sus centros de reunión, por COVID-19, Chiapasparalelo, 16 de marzo de 2020
EZLN decreta “alerta roja” en sus pueblos, comunidades por Covid-19, La Jornada, 17 de marzo de 2020
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/3-16-2020---anniversary-of-betrayal-of-Al-Amin.html?soid=1109359583686&aid=pWjZtJNlqg8
Questions and comments may be sent to info@freedomarchives.org
|
To unsubscribe contact: http://freedomarchives.org/mailman/options/ppnews_freedomarchives.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Chelsea Manning Ordered Free From Prison
Chelsea Manning, photographed in Washington, D.C., in January 2018.
Photo: Jesse Dittmar/Redux
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
| |||||||
| |||||||
| |||||||
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Friday post
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The American way of life was designed by white supremacists in favor patriarchal white supremacy, who have had at least a 400 year head start accumulating wealth, out of generations filled with blood sweat and tears of oppressed people. The same people who are still on the front lines and in the crosshairs of patriarchal white-supremacist capitalism today. There's no such thing as equality without a united revolutionary front to dismantle capitalism and design a worldwide socialist society.
—Johnny Gould
(Follow @tandino415 on Instagram)
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Please forward widely
The Prosecution of Julian Assange and the Fight for Free Speech
Sunday, April 19, 2:00 - 5:00 pm Humanist Hall 390 27th Street, Oakland
Donation: $20 -$10 sliding scale; Student $5, No one turned away for lack of funds
Benefit for the Courage Foundation, for Julian Assange's defense
Join us for a panel discussion of leading attorneys, human rights defenders and social justice activists as the London trial of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is underway. If Assange is extradicted to the United States, he faces the first-ever charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 for the publication of truthful information in the public interest. Speakers will present the ctitical legal and policy issues involved as well as rebut government efforts to undermine the reputation and credibility of Assange. In these difficult times for civil liberties and democratic rights we demand: Free Julian Assange! Defend Free Speech and the First Amendment!
Panel Speakers: Jim Lafferty, Executive Director for three decades, National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles
Representative, Bay Area National Lawyers Guild
Jennifer Robinson, Julian Assange's London attorney (message)
Joe Lombardo, National Coordinator, United National Antiwar Coalition
Nathan Fuller, Executive Director, Courage Foundation*
Nozomi Hayase, author, contributor to the new book, In Defense of Julian Assange
Margaret Kunstler, editor, In Defense of Julian Assange (tentative)
Moderator: Jeff Mackler, author, Obama's National Security State: The Meaning of the Edward Snowden Revelations
*Courage Foundation www.couragefound.org, an international whistleblower support network, campaigning for the public and legal defense of Julian Assange and for the protection of truthtellers and the public's right to know, internationally.
Sponsors: Bay Area Julian Assange Defense Committee • National Lawyers Guild Bay Area • Courage Foundation • United National Antiwar Coalition
Initial co-sponsors: CodePink Bay Area • Social Justice Center of Marin • Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, US Section • Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance, advisory board, Courage Foundation, past Steering Committee member Chelsea Manning Support Committee, Venezuelan Embassy defender • Marin Peace and Justice Center • Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Contact information and to co-sponsor: Event coordinator, Jeff Mackler, jmackler@lmi.net
With video messages from Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky and Alice Walker
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
National Solidarity Events to Amplify Prisoners Human Rights
AUGUST 21 - SEPTEMBER 9th
To all in solidarity with the Prisoners Human Rights Movement:
We are reaching out to those that have been amplifying our voices in these state, federal, or immigration jails and prisons, and to allies that uplifted the national prison strike demands in 2018. We call on you again to organize the communities from August 21st - September 9th, 2020, by hosting actions, events, and demonstrations that call for prisoner human rights and the end to prison slavery.
We must remind the people and legal powers in this nation that prisoners' human rights are a priority. If we aren't moving forward, we're moving backward. For those of us in chains, backward is not an option. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Some people claim that prisoners' human rights have advanced since the last national prison strike in 2018. We strongly disagree. But due to prisoners organizing inside and allies organizing beyond the walls, solidarity with our movement has increased. The only reason we hear conversations referencing prison reforms in every political campaign today is because of the work of prison organizers and our allies! But as organizers in prisons, we understand this is not enough. Just as quickly as we've gained ground, others are already funding projects and talking points to set back those advances. Our only way to hold our ground while moving forward is to remind people where we are and where we are headed.
On August 21 - September 9, we call on everyone in solidarity with us to organize an action, a panel discussion, a rally, an art event, a film screening, or another kind of demonstration to promote prisoners' human rights. Whatever is within your ability, we ask that you shake the nation out of any fog they may be in about prisoners' human rights and the criminal legal system (legalized enslavement).
During these solidarity events, we request that organizers amplify immediate issues prisoners in your state face, the demands from the National Prison Strike of 2018, and uplift Jailhouse Lawyers Speak new International Law Project.
We've started the International Law Project to engage the international community with a formal complaint about human rights abuses in U.S. prisons. This project will seek prisoners' testimonials from across the country to establish a case against the United States Prison Industrial Slave Complex on international human rights grounds.
Presently working on this legally is the National Lawyers Guild's Prisoners Rights Committee, and another attorney, Anne Labarbera. Members of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), Fight Toxic Prisons (FTP), and I am We Prisoners Advocacy Network/Millions For Prisoners are also working to support these efforts. The National Lawyers Guild Prisoners' Rights Committee (Jenipher R. Jones, Esq. and Audrey Bomse) will be taking the lead on this project.
The National Prison Strike Demands of 2018 have not changed.. As reflected publicly by the recent deaths of Mississippi prisoners, the crisis in this nation's prisons persist. Mississippi prisons are on national display at the moment of this writing, and we know shortly afterward there will be another Parchman in another state with the same issues. The U.S. has demonstrated a reckless disregard for human lives in cages.
The prison strike demands were drafted as a path to alleviate the dehumanizing process and conditions people are subjected to while going through this nation's judicial system. Following up on these demands communicates to the world that prisoners are heard and that prisoners' human rights are a priority.
In the spirit of Attica, will you be in the fight to dismantle the prison industrial slave complex by pushing agendas that will shut down jails and prisons like Rikers Island or Attica? Read the Attica Rebellion demands and read the National Prison Strike 2018 demands. Ask yourself what can you do to see the 2018 National Prison Strike demands through.
SHARE THIS RELEASE FAR AND WIDE WITH ALL YOUR CONTACTS!
We rage with George Jackson's "Blood in my eyes" and move in the spirit of the Attica Rebellion!
August 21st - September 9th, 2020
AGITATE, EDUCATE, ORGANIZE
Dare to struggle, Dare to win!
We are--
"Jailhouse Lawyers Speak"
NLG EMAIL CONTACT FOR LAWYERS AND LAW STUDENTS INTERESTED IN JOINING THE INTERNATIONAL LAW PROJECT: micjlsnlg@gmail.com
PRISON STRIKE DEMANDS: https://jailhouselawyerspeak.wordpress.com/2020/02/11/prisoners-national-demands-for-human-rights/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Courage to Resist Newsletter
 Podcast: “I would not carry a weapon anymore” – Ray Cage
Ray Cage is a combat vet and Agent Orange vet. He deployed to Vietnam in 1969 and later participated in the illegal invasion of Cambodia. "I just started to have some misgivings about what I was doing as a human being. ... There was a big movement of that going on all amongst the ranks in the war machine in Vietnam, that people were refusing to participate.” Listen to Ray's story
Appeals court heard arguments on draft registration, congressional report coming March 25th
As Congress prepares to debate the issue of the military draft, Courage to Resist and other anti-draft activists and organizations are calling on Congress to enact legislation to end draft registration entirely. Learn more
Join the Pilgrimage to Close the Camps, June 5-7, Washington DC
Courage to Resist is a proud endorser of the National Pilgrimage to Close the Camps, “A chance to join thousands of Japanese Americans and other communities for programs, protest, and healing together,” lead by Tsuru for Solidarity. Learn more
"No regrets" for resister who dumped human dung on draft files
Nearly forgotten history: At his draft board, they asked where Barry’s other ten brothers were. When Barry and his parents got home they thought about what had happened. “Oh, you mean rest, as in residue? Like what’s left behind in a bathroom stall?" The family could oblige, they decided. For the next few days, all of the brothers collected their business in a pail. Learn more
The above Courage to Resist podcast was produced in collaboration with the Vietnam Full Disclosure effort of Veterans For Peace — “Towards an honest commemoration of the American war in Vietnam.” This year marks 50 years of GI resistance, in and out of uniform, for many of the courageous individuals featured. If you believe this history is important, please ...
|
COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT!
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559
www.couragetoresist.org ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559
www.couragetoresist.org ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
|
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Stop Kevin Cooper's Abuse by San Quentin Prison Guards!
https://www.change.org/p/san-quentin-warden-ronald-davis-stop-kevin-cooper-s-abuse-by-san-quentin-prison-guards-2ace89a7-a13e-44ab-b70c-c18acbbfeb59?recruiter=747387046&recruited_by_id=3ea6ecd0-69ba-11e7-b7ef-51d8e2da53ef&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=petition_dashboard&use_react=false 
On Wednesday, September 25, Kevin Cooper's cell at San Quentin Prison was thrown into disarray and his personal food dumped into the toilet by a prison guard, A. Young. The cells on East Block Bayside, where Kevin's cell is, were all searched on September 25 during Mandatory Yard. Kevin spent the day out in the yard with other inmates.. In a letter, Kevin described what he found when he returned: "This cage was hit hard, like a hurricane was in here .. .... . little by little I started to clean up and put my personal items back inside the boxes that were not taken .... .. .. I go over to the toilet, lift up the seatcover and to my surprise and shock the toilet was completely filled up with my refried beans, and my brown rice. Both were in two separate cereal bags and both cereal bags were full. The raisin bran cereal bags were gone, and my food was in the toilet!" A bucket was eventually brought over and: "I had to get down on my knees and dig my food out of the toilet with my hands so that I could flush the toilet. The food, which was dried refried beans and dried brown rice had absorbed the water in the toilet and had become cement hard. It took me about 45 minutes to get enough of my food out of the toilet before it would flush." Even the guard working the tier at the time told Kevin, "K.C.., that is f_cked up!" A receipt was left in Kevin's cell identifying the guard who did this as A... Young. Kevin has never met Officer A...... Young, and has had no contact with him besides Officer Young's unprovoked act of harassment and psychological abuse... Kevin Cooper has served over 34 years at San Quentin, fighting for exoneration from the conviction for murders he did not commit. It is unconscionable for him to be treated so disrespectfully by prison staff on top of the years of his incarceration. No guard should work at San Quentin if they cannot treat prisoners and their personal belongings with basic courtesy and respect................. Kevin has filed a grievance against A. Young.. Please: 1) Sign this petition calling on San Quentin Warden Ronald Davis to grant Kevin's grievance and discipline "Officer" A. Young.. 2) Call Warden Ronald Davis at: (415) 454-1460 Ext. 5000. Tell him that Officer Young's behaviour was inexcusable, and should not be tolerated........ 3) Call Yasir Samar, Associate Warden of Specialized Housing, at (415) 455-5037 4) Write Warden Davis and Lt. Sam Robinson (separately) at: Main Street San Quentin, CA 94964 5) Email Lt. Sam Robinson at: samuel.robinson2@cdcr.......................ca.gov
On Wednesday, September 25, Kevin Cooper's cell at San Quentin Prison was thrown into disarray and his personal food dumped into the toilet by a prison guard, A. Young. The cells on East Block Bayside, where Kevin's cell is, were all searched on September 25 during Mandatory Yard. Kevin spent the day out in the yard with other inmates.. In a letter, Kevin described what he found when he returned: "This cage was hit hard, like a hurricane was in here .. .... . little by little I started to clean up and put my personal items back inside the boxes that were not taken .... .. .. I go over to the toilet, lift up the seatcover and to my surprise and shock the toilet was completely filled up with my refried beans, and my brown rice. Both were in two separate cereal bags and both cereal bags were full. The raisin bran cereal bags were gone, and my food was in the toilet!" A bucket was eventually brought over and: "I had to get down on my knees and dig my food out of the toilet with my hands so that I could flush the toilet. The food, which was dried refried beans and dried brown rice had absorbed the water in the toilet and had become cement hard. It took me about 45 minutes to get enough of my food out of the toilet before it would flush." Even the guard working the tier at the time told Kevin, "K.C.., that is f_cked up!" A receipt was left in Kevin's cell identifying the guard who did this as A... Young. Kevin has never met Officer A...... Young, and has had no contact with him besides Officer Young's unprovoked act of harassment and psychological abuse... Kevin Cooper has served over 34 years at San Quentin, fighting for exoneration from the conviction for murders he did not commit. It is unconscionable for him to be treated so disrespectfully by prison staff on top of the years of his incarceration. No guard should work at San Quentin if they cannot treat prisoners and their personal belongings with basic courtesy and respect................. Kevin has filed a grievance against A. Young.. Please: 1) Sign this petition calling on San Quentin Warden Ronald Davis to grant Kevin's grievance and discipline "Officer" A. Young.. 2) Call Warden Ronald Davis at: (415) 454-1460 Ext. 5000. Tell him that Officer Young's behaviour was inexcusable, and should not be tolerated........ 3) Call Yasir Samar, Associate Warden of Specialized Housing, at (415) 455-5037 4) Write Warden Davis and Lt. Sam Robinson (separately) at: Main Street San Quentin, CA 94964 5) Email Lt. Sam Robinson at: samuel.robinson2@cdcr.......................ca.gov*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Eddie Conway's Update on Forgotten Political Prisoners
November 19, 2019
https://therealnews........com/stories/eddie-conway-update-forgotten-political-prisoners
EDDIE CONWAY: I'm Eddie Conway, host of Rattling the Bars. As many well-known political prisoners like Mumia Abu-Jamal continue to suffer in prison…
MUMIA ABU JAMAL: In an area where there is corporate downsizing and there are no jobs and there is only a service economy and education is being cut, which is the only rung by which people can climb, the only growth industry in this part of Pennsylvania, in the Eastern United States, in the Southern United States, in the Western United States is "corrections," for want of a better word. The corrections industry is booming. I mean, this joint here ain't five years old.
EDDIE CONWAY: …The media brings their stories to the masses.. But there are many lesser-known activists that have dropped out of the spotlight, grown old in prison, or just been forgotten.............. For Rattling the Bars, we are spotlighting a few of their stories........ There was a thriving Black Panther party in Omaha, Nebraska, headed by David Rice and Ed Poindexter...... By 1968, the FBI had began plans to eliminate the Omaha Black Panthers by making an example of Rice and Poindexter. It would take a couple of years, but the FBI would frame them for murder..
KIETRYN ZYCHAL: In the 90s, Ed and Mondo both applied to the parole board. There are two different things you do in Nebraska, the parole board would grant you parole, but because they have life sentences, they were told that they have to apply to the pardons board, which is the governor, the attorney general, and the secretary of state, and ask that their life sentences be commuted to a specific number of years before they would be eligible for parole.
And so there was a movement in the 90s to try to get them out on parole...... The parole board would recommend them for parole because they were exemplary prisoners, and then the pardons board would not give them a hearing. They wouldn't even meet to determine whether they would commute their sentence..
EDDIE CONWAY: They served 45 years before Rice died in the Nebraska State Penitentiary. After several appeals, earning a master's degree, writing several books and helping other inmates, Poindexter is still serving time at the age of 75.
KEITRYN ZYCHAL: Ed Poindexter has been in jail or prison since August of 1970. He was accused of making a suitcase bomb and giving it to a 16-year-old boy named Duane Peak, and Duane Peak was supposed to take the bomb to a vacant house and call 911, and report that a woman was dragged screaming into a vacant house, and when police officers showed up, one of those police officers was killed when the suitcase bomb exploded............
Ed and his late co-defendant, Mondo we Langa, who was David Rice at the time of the trial, they have always insisted that they had absolutely nothing to do with this murderous plot, and they tried to get back into court for 50 years, and they have never been able to get back into court to prove their innocence. Mondo died in March of 2016 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Ed is going to turn 75 this year, I think............. And he has spent the majority of his life in prison... It will be 50 years in 2020 that he will be in prison..
EDDIE CONWAY: There are at least 20 Black Panthers still in prison across the United States.. One is one of the most revered is H. Rap Brown, known by his Islamic name, Jamil Al-Amin.
KAIRI AL-AMIN: My father has been a target for many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many years of the federal government, and I think him being housed these last 10 years in federal penitentiaries without federal charges show that the vendetta is still strong. The federal government has not forgotten who he was as H.. Rap Brown, or who he is as Imam Jamil Al-Amin...
JAMIL AL-AMIN: See, it's no in between.. You are either free or you're a slave. There's no such thing as second-class citizenship.
EDDIE CONWAY: Most people don't realize he's still in prison. He's serving a life sentence at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson...
KAIRI AL-AMIN: Our campaign is twofold.. One, how can egregious constitutional rights violations not warrant a new trial, especially when they were done by the prosecution........ And two, my father is innocent. The facts point to him being innocent, which is why we're pushing for a new trial.. We know that they can't win this trial twice... The reason they won the first time was because of the gag order that was placed on my father which didn't allow us to fight in the court of public opinion as well as the court of law... And so when you don't have anyone watching, anything can be done without any repercussion..
EDDIE CONWAY: Another well-known political prisoner that has been forgotten in the media and in the public arena is Leonard Peltier. Leonard Peltier was a member of the American Indian Movement and has been in prison for over 40 years and is now 75 years old..
SPEAKER: Leonard Peltier represents, in a very real sense, the effort, the struggle by indigenous peoples within the United States to exercise their rights as sovereign nations, recognized as such in treaties with the United States.. For the government of the United States, which has colonized all indigenous peoples to claim boundaries, keeping Leonard in prison demonstrates the costs and consequences of asserting those rights.
EDDIE CONWAY: Leonard Peltier suffers from a host of medical issues including suffering from a stroke... And if he is not released, he will die in prison...
LEONARD PELTIER: I'll be an old man when I get out, if I get out.
PAULETTE D'AUTEUIL: His wellbeing is that he rarely gets a family visit. His children live in California and North Dakota. Both places are a good 2000 miles from where he's at in Florida, so it makes it time consuming as well as expensive to come and see him. He is, health-wise, we are still working on trying to get some help for his prostate, and there has been some development of some spots on his lungs, which we are trying to get resolved....... There's an incredible mold issue in the prison, especially because in Florida it's so humid and it builds up. So we're also dealing with that...
EDDIE CONWAY: These are just a few of the almost 20 political prisoners that has remained in American prisons for 30 and 40 years, some even longer. Mutulu Shakur has been in jail for long, long decades.... Assata Shakur has been hiding and forced into exile in Cuba......... Sundiata has been in prison for decades; Veronza Bower, The Move Nine........... And there's just a number of political prisoners that's done 30 or 40 years.
They need to be released and they need to have an opportunity to be back with their family, their children, their grandchildren, whoever is still alive. Any other prisoners in the United States that have the same sort of charges as those people that are being held has been released up to 15 or 20 years ago. That same justice system should work for the political prisoners also.
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Rattling the Bars. I'm Eddie Conway.....
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Letters of support for clemency needed for Reality Winner
Reality Winner, a whistleblower who helped expose foreign hacking of US election systems leading up to the 2016 presidential election, has been behind bars since June 2017. Supporters are preparing to file a petition of clemency in hopes of an early release... Reality's five year prison sentence is by far the longest ever given for leaking information to the media about a matter of public interest.............. Stand with Reality shirts, stickers, and more available. Please take a moment to sign the letter SIGN THE LETTER Support Reality Podcast: "Veterans need to tell their stories" – Dan Shea Vietnam War combat veteran Daniel Shea on his time in Vietnam and the impact that Agent Orange and post traumatic stress had on him and his family since... Listen now This Courage to Resist podcast was produced in collaboration with the Vietnam Full Disclosure effort of Veterans For Peace — "Towards an honest commemoration of the American war in Vietnam." This year marks 50 years of GI resistance, in and out of uniform, for many of the courageous individuals featured.. If you believe this history is important, please ... DONATE NOW to support these podcasts |
COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT! 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559 www.....................couragetoresist..org ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Mobilization4Mumia
215-724-1618 Mobilizatio4Mumia.com mobilization4mumia@gmail.com PRESS RELEASE Contact Sophia Williams 917-806-0521, Ted Kelly 610-715-6924 or Joe Piette 610-931-2615
215-724-1618 Mobilizatio4Mumia.com mobilization4mumia@gmail.com PRESS RELEASE Contact Sophia Williams 917-806-0521, Ted Kelly 610-715-6924 or Joe Piette 610-931-2615
Philadelphia, Jan. 30 - Mumia Abu-Jamal has always insisted on his innocence in the death of police officer Daniel Faulkner, blaming police, judicial and prosecutorial misconduct for his politically-tainted conviction. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is expected to announce his response this week to the legal briefs for Post Conviction Relief Act hearings and the request to remand Abu-Jamal's case back to Common Pleas court, filed by his attorneys in early September 2019. Abu-Jamal's supporters will rally outside DA Krasner's office at 4:30 on Friday, January 31, whether or not he challenges Mumia's appeals. We call for Mumia's release...
Recent exonerations of 10 Philadelphia residents unfairly convicted for crimes they did not commit reveal a simple truth - the Philadelphia police, courts and prosecutors convicted innocent Black men based on gross violations of their constitutional rights. The same patterns of constitutional violations plague the case of Abu-Jamal. Since Jan. 2018, Sherman McCoy, James Frazier, Dwayne Thorpe, Terrance Lewis, Jamaal Simmons, Dontia Patterson, John Miller, Willie Veasey, Johnny Berry and Chester Holmann III have all been exonerated by DA Larry Krasner's Conviction Integrity Unit. Philadelphia is not alone. The National Registry of Exonerations counted 165 exonerations last year. The registry has tallied 2,500 wrongful convictions since 1989, costing defendants more than 22,000 years of incarceration. Seven of the ten men released in Philadelphia were convicted by longtime district attorney Lynne Abraham, a "tough-on-crime" prosecutor who regularly sought maximum punishments and death spentences. Abraham as Common Pleas Court Judge arraigned Abu-Jamal in 1981and years later as District Attorney fought his post conviction relief hearings... Ineffective counsel, false witness testimony, witness coercion and intimidation, phony ballistics evidence, prosecution failure to turn over evidence to the defense as required by law, racist jury selections -- these and other legal errors led to the exoneration of these innocent defendants after decades in prison.. These are the same police, judicial and prosecutorial misconduct practices Abu-Jamal's attorneys and supporters have been citing since 1982. In the late 1970s and early 80s, Abu-Jamal was a daily radio reporter for WHYY and NPR who earned acclaim for his award-winning reporting. As a journalist who reported fairly on the MOVE organization's resistance against state repression, he drew the ire of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police and the notoriously racist Police Commissioner and later Mayor Frank Rizzo. On Dec. 9, 1981, while driving a cab to supplement his income, Abu-Jamal happened upon his brother in an altercation with Faulkner. Faulkner was killed. Abu-Jamal, who was shot and severely beaten by police, was charged in Faulkner's death, even though witnesses reported seeing another man, most probably the passenger in Abu-Jamal's brother's car, running from the scene. Imprisoned for nearly four decades, Abu-Jamal has maintained his innocence. He successfully won his release from Pennsylvania's death row in 2011.. In December 2018 he won the right to appeal his 1982 conviction because of biased judicial oversight by PA Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille In early January 2019, DA Krasner reported finding six boxes of previously undisclosed evidence held by prosecutors in the case and allowed Abu-Jamal's attorneys to review the files. In September 2019 Abu-Jamal's lawyers filed new appellate briefs, including a request that the case be returned for a hearing before the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court based on finding of concrete evidence of prosecutorial misconduct by the DA's office in his 1982 trial. A Sept.. 9, 2019 Abu-Jamal's attorneys Judith Ritter and Sam Spital filed a brief in PA Superior Court to support his claim that his 1982 trial was fundamentally unfair and violated the Constitution. They argue the prosecution failed to disclose evidence as required and discriminated against African Americans when selecting the jury. And, his 1982 lawyer did not adequately challenge the State's witnesses. The attorneys also filed a motion revealing new evidence of constitutional violations such as promises by the prosecutor to pay or give leniency to two witnesses. There is also new evidence of racial discrimination in jury selection. Attorney Ritter contends that the new evidence shows Abu-Jamal's trial was "fundamentally unfair and tainted by serious constitutional violations." https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZgI0jvcWY5soAh_DXKdNnJJZSY0HEftuRwthQMurgd8/edit?usp=sharing
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Mumia Abu-Jamal: New Chance for Freedom
Police and State Frame-Up Must Be Fully Exposed!
Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent. Courts have ignored and suppressed evidence of his innocence for decades.... But now, one court has thrown out all the decisions of the PA Supreme Court that denied Mumia's appeals against his unjust conviction during the years of 1998 to 2012!
This ruling, by Judge Leon Tucker, was made because one judge on the PA Supreme Court during those years, Ronald Castille, was lacking the "appearance of impartiality." In plain English, he was clearly biased against Mumia. Before sitting on the PA Supreme Court, Castille had been District Attorney (or assistant DA) during the time of Mumia's frame-up and conviction, and had used his office to express a special interest in pursuing the death penalty for "cop-killers." Mumia was in the cross-hairs. Soon he was wrongly convicted and sent to death row for killing a police officer.....
* * * * *
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning and intrepid journalist, a former Black Panther, MOVE supporter, and a critic of police brutality and murder. Mumia was framed by police, prosecutors, and leading elements of both Democratic and Republican parties, for the shooting of a police officer.. The US Justice Department targeted him as well... A racist judge helped convict him, and corrupt courts have kept him locked up despite much evidence that should have freed him. He continues his commentary and journalism from behind bars. As of 2019, he has been imprisoned for 37 years for a crime he did not commit.
Time is up! FREE MUMIA NOW!
* * * * *
DA's Hidden Files Show Frame-Up of Mumia
In the midst of Mumia's fight for his right to challenge the state Supreme Court's negative rulings, a new twist was revealed: six boxes of files on Mumia's case--with many more still hidden--were surreptitiously concealed for decades in a back room at the District Attorney's office in Philadelphia. The very fact that these files on Mumia's case were hidden away for decades is damning in the extreme, and their revelations confirm what we have known for decades: Mumia was framed for a crime he did not commit!
So far, the newly revealed evidence confirms that, at the time of Mumia's 1982 trial, chief prosecutor Joe McGill illegally removed black jurors from the jury, violating the Batson decision. Also revealed: The prosecution bribed witnesses into testifying that they saw Mumia shoot the slain police officer when they hadn't seen any such thing.... Taxi driver Robert Chobert, who was on probation for fire-bombing a school yard at the time, had sent a letter demanding his money for lying on the stand....... Very important, but the newly revealed evidence is just the tip of the iceberg!
All Evidence of Mumia's Innocence Must Be Brought Forward Now!
Mumia Abu-Jamal's trial for the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner was rigged against him from beginning to end........ All of the evidence of Mumia's innocence--which was earlier suppressed or rejected--must now be heard:
• Mumia was framed - The judge at Mumia's trial, Albert Sabo, was overheard to say, "I'm gonna help 'em fry the n____r." And he proceeded to do just that.... Mumia was thrown out of his own trial for defending himself! Prosecution "witnesses" were coerced or bribed at trial to lie against Mumia.. In addition to Chobert, this included key witness Cynthia White, a prostitute who testified that she saw Mumia shoot Faulkner... White's statements had to be rewritten under intense pressure from the cops, because she was around the corner and out of sight of the shooting at the time! Police bribed her with promises of being allowed to work her corner, and not sent to state prison for her many prostitution charges.
• Mumia only arrived on the scene after Officer Faulkner was shot - William Singletary, a tow-truck business owner who had no reason to lie against the police, said he had been on the scene the whole time, that Mumia was not the shooter, and that Mumia had arrived only after the shooting of Faulkner. Singletary's statements were torn up, his business was wrecked, and he was threatened by police to be out of town for the trial (which, unfortunately, he was)...
• There is no evidence that Mumia fired a gun - Mumia was shot on the scene by an arriving police officer and arrested. But the cops did not test his hands for gun-powder residue--a standard procedure in shootings! They also did not test Faulkner's hands. The prosecution nevertheless claimed Mumia was the shooter, and that he was shot by Faulkner as the officer fell to the ground. Ballistics evidence was corrupted to falsely show that Mumia's gun was the murder weapon, when his gun was reportedly still in his taxi cab, which was in police custody days after the shooting!
• The real shooter fled the scene and was never charged - Veronica Jones was a witness who said that after hearing the shots from a block away, she had seen two people fleeing the scene of the shooting.... This could not have included Mumia, who had been shot and almost killed at the scene. Jones was threatened by the police with arrest and loss of custody of her children. She then lied on the stand at trial to say she had seen no one running away.
• Abu-Jamal never made a confession - Mumia has always maintained his innocence. But police twice concocted confessions that Mumia never made. Inspector Alfonso Giordano, the senior officer at the crime scene, made up a confession for Mumia. But Giordano was not allowed to testify at trial, because he was top on the FBI's list of corrupt cops in the Philadelphia police force... At the DA's request, another cop handily provided a second "confession," allegedly heard by a security guard in the hospital......... But at neither time was Mumia--almost fatally shot--able to speak.. And an earlier police report by cops in the hospital said that, referring to Mumia: "the negro male made no comment"!
• The crime scene was tampered with by police - Police officers at the scene rearranged some evidence, and handled what was alleged to be Mumia's gun with their bare hands... A journalist's photos revealed this misconduct. The cops then left the scene unattended for hours.. All of this indicates a frame-up in progress....
• The real shooter confessed, and revealed the reason for the crime - Arnold Beverly came forward in the 1990s. He said in a sworn statement, under penalty of perjury, that he, not Mumia, had been the actual shooter. He said that he, along with "another guy," had been hired to do the hit, because Faulkner was "a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area"! (affidavit of Arnold Beverly).
• The corruption of Philadelphia police is documented and well known - This includes that of Giordano, who was the first cop to manufacture a "confession" by Mumia... Meanwhile, Faulkner's cooperation with the federal anti-corruption investigations of Philadelphia police is strongly suggested by his lengthy and heavily redacted FBI file......
• Do cops kill other cops? There are other cases in Philadelphia that look that way. Frank Serpico, an NYC cop who investigated and reported on police corruption, was abandoned by fellow cops after being shot in a drug bust. Mumia was clearly made a scape-goat for the crimes of corrupt Philadelphia cops who were protecting their ill-gotten gains.
• Politicians and US DOJ helped the frame-up - Ed Rendell, former DA, PA governor, and head of the Democratic National Committee--and now a senior advisor to crime-bill author Joe Biden--is complicit in the frame-up of Mumia. The US Justice Department targeted Mumia for his anti-racist activities when he was a teenager, and later secretly warned then-prosecutor Rendell not to use Giordano as a witness against Mumia because he was an FBI target for corruption..
* * * * *
All this should lead to an immediate freeing of Mumia! But we are still a ways away from that, and we have no confidence in the capitalist courts to finish the job. We must act! This victory in local court allowing new appeals must now lead to a full-court press on all the rejected and suppressed evidence of Mumia's innocence!
Mass Movement Needed To Free Mumia!
Mumia's persecution by local, state and federal authorities of both political parties has been on-going, and has generated a world-wide movement in his defense... This movement has seen that Mumia, as a radio journalist who exposed the brutal attacks on the black community by the police in Philadelphia, has spoken out as a defender of working people of all colors and all nationalities in his ongoing commentaries (now on KPFA/Pacifica radio), despite being on death row, and now while serving life without the possibility of parole (LWOP)...
In 1999, Oakland Teachers for Mumia held unauthorized teach-ins in Oakland schools on Mumia and the death penalty, despite the rabid hysteria in the bourgeois media. Teachers in Rio de Janeiro held similar actions. Letters of support came in from maritime workers and trade unions around the world.. Later in 1999, longshore workers shut down all the ports on the West Coast to free Mumia, and led a mass march of 25,000 Mumia supporters in San Francisco................
A year later, a federal court lifted Mumia's death sentence, based on improper instructions to the jury by trial judge Albert Sabo.. The federal court ordered the local court to hold a new sentencing hearing... Fearing their frame-up of Mumia could be revealed in any new hearing, even if only on sentencing, state officials passed. Much to the chagrin of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)--which still seeks Mumia's death--this left Mumia with LWOP, death by life in prison..
Mumia supporters waged a struggle to get him the cure for the deadly Hepatitis-C virus, which he had likely contracted through a blood transfusion in hospital after he was shot by a cop at the 1981 crime scene. The Labor Action Committee conducted demonstrations against Gilead Sciences, the Foster City CA corporation that owns the cure, and charged $1,000 per pill! The Metalworkers Union of South Africa wrote a letter excoriating Governor Wolf for allowing untreated sick freedom fighters to die in prison as the apartheid government had done. Finally, Mumia did get the cure.. Now, more than ever, struggle is needed to free Mumia!
Now is the Time: Mobilize Again for Mumia's Freedom!
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.laboractionmumia...........org
Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal | Mumia Abu-Jamal is an I.....
November 2019
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Board Game
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/race-for-solidarity
Solidarity against racism has existed from the 1600's and continues until today
An exciting board game of chance, empathy and wisdom, that entertains and educates as it builds solidarity through learning about the destructive history of American racism and those who always fought back. Appreciate the anti-racist solidarity of working people, who built and are still building, the great progressive movements of history.. There are over 200 questions, with answers and references.
Spread the word!!
By Dr.... Nayvin Gordon
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
50 years in prison: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!! FREE Chip Fitzgerald Grandfather, Father, Elder, Friend former Black Panther
Romaine "Chip" Fitzgerald has been in prison since he was locked up 50 years ago...... A former member of the Black Panther Party, Chip is now 70 years old, and suffering the consequences of a serious stroke. He depends on a wheelchair for his mobility. He has appeared before the parole board 17 times, but they refuse to release him.. NOW is the time for Chip to come home! In September 1969, Chip and two other Panthers were stopped by a highway patrolman..... During the traffic stop, a shooting broke out, leaving Chip and a police officer both wounded. Chip was arrested a month later and charged with attempted murder of the police and an unrelated murder of a security guard. Though the evidence against him was weak and Chip denied any involvement, he was convicted and sentenced to death. In 1972, the California Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty.......... Chip and others on Death Row had their sentences commuted to Life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. All of them became eligible for parole after serving 7 more years...... But Chip was rejected for parole, as he has been ever since. Parole for Lifers basically stopped under Governors Deukmajian, Wilson, and Davis (1983-2003), resulting in increasing numbers of people in prison and 23 new prisons. People in prison filed lawsuits in federal courts: people were dying as a result of the overcrowding.. To rapidly reduce the number of people in prison, the court mandated new parole hearings: · for anyone 60 years or older who had served 25 years or more; · for anyone convicted before they were 23 years old; · for anyone with disabilities Chip qualified for a new parole hearing by meeting all three criteria. But the California Board of Parole Hearings has used other methods to keep Chip locked up. Although the courts ordered that prison rule infractions should not be used in parole considerations, Chip has been denied parole because he had a cellphone.......... Throughout his 50 years in prison, Chip has been denied his right to due process – a new parole hearing as ordered by Federal courts. He is now 70, and addressing the challenges of a stroke victim. His recent rules violation of cellphone possession were non-violent and posed no threat to anyone. He has never been found likely to commit any crimes if released to the community – a community of his children, grandchildren, friends and colleagues who are ready to support him and welcome him home. The California Board of Parole Hearings is holding Chip hostage..... We call on Governor Newsom to release Chip immediately. What YOU can do to support this campaign to FREE CHIP: 1) Sign and circulate the petition to FREE Chip. Download it at https://www.change.org/p/california-free-chip-fitzgerald Print out the petition and get signatures at your workplace, community meeting, or next social gathering. 2) Write an email to Governor Newsom's office (sample message at:https://docs..google.com/document/d/1iwbP_eQEg2J1T2h-tLKE-Dn2ZfpuLx9MuNv2z605DMc/edit?usp=sharing 3) Write to Chip: Romaine "Chip" Fitzgerald #B27527, CSP-LAC P.O. Box 4490 B-4-150 Lancaster, CA 93539 -- Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863...................9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
On Abortion: From Facebook
Best explanation I've heard so far......., Copied from a friend who copied from a friend who copied..................., "Last night, I was in a debate about these new abortion laws being passed in red states. My son stepped in with this comment which was a show stopper. One of the best explanations I have read:, , 'Reasonable people can disagree about when a zygote becomes a "human life" - that's a philosophical question.... However, regardless of whether or not one believes a fetus is ethically equivalent to an adult, it doesn't obligate a mother to sacrifice her body autonomy for another, innocent or not..., , Body autonomy is a critical component of the right to privacy protected by the Constitution, as decided in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), McFall v.. Shimp (1978), and of course Roe v. Wade (1973).. Consider a scenario where you are a perfect bone marrow match for a child with severe aplastic anemia; no other person on earth is a close enough match to save the child's life, and the child will certainly die without a bone marrow transplant from you.. If you decided that you did not want to donate your marrow to save the child, for whatever reason, the state cannot demand the use of any part of your body for something to which you do not consent..... It doesn't matter if the procedure required to complete the donation is trivial, or if the rationale for refusing is flimsy and arbitrary, or if the procedure is the only hope the child has to survive, or if the child is a genius or a saint or anything else - the decision to donate must be voluntary to be constitutional.... This right is even extended to a person's body after they die; if they did not voluntarily commit to donate their organs while alive, their organs cannot be harvested after death, regardless of how useless those organs are to the deceased or how many lives they would save...., , That's the law.., , Use of a woman's uterus to save a life is no different from use of her bone marrow to save a life - it must be offered voluntarily.............. By all means, profess your belief that providing one's uterus to save the child is morally just, and refusing is morally wrong............ That is a defensible philosophical position, regardless of who agrees and who disagrees....... But legally, it must be the woman's choice to carry out the pregnancy..., , She may choose to carry the baby to term..... She may choose not to. Either decision could be made for all the right reasons, all the wrong reasons, or anything in between... But it must be her choice, and protecting the right of body autonomy means the law is on her side... Supporting that precedent is what being pro-choice means....", , Feel free to copy/paste and re-post., y Sent from my iPhone
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Celebrating the release of Janet and Janine Africa 
Take action now to support Jalil A. Muntaqim's release
Jalil A...... Muntaqim was a member of the Black Panther Party and has been a political prisoner for 48 years since he was arrested at the age of 19 in 1971. He has been denied parole 11 times since he was first eligible in 2002, and is now scheduled for his 12th parole hearing... Additionally, Jalil has filed to have his sentence commuted to time served by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Visit Jalil's support page, check out his writing and poetry, and Join Critical Resistance in supporting a vibrant intergenerational movement of freedom fighters in demanding his release. 48 years is enough. Write, email, call, and tweet at Governor Cuomo in support of Jalil's commutation and sign this petition demanding his release. http://freedomarchives.org/Support...Jalil/Campaign.html
|
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Funds for Kevin Cooper
https://www.gofundme.....com/funds-for-kevin-cooper?member=1994108 For 34 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.. Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here ..... In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov..... Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.. The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings ......... Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, paper, toiletries, supplementary food, and/or phone calls........ Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Don't extradite Assange!
To the government of the UK Julian Assange, through Wikileaks, has done the world a great service in documenting American war crimes, its spying on allies and other dirty secrets of the world's most powerful regimes, organisations and corporations. This has not endeared him to the American deep state.......... Both Obama, Clinton and Trump have declared that arresting Julian Assange should be a priority... We have recently received confirmation [1] that he has been charged in secret so as to have him extradited to the USA as soon as he can be arrested. Assange's persecution, the persecution of a publisher for publishing information [2] that was truthful and clearly in the interest of the public - and which has been republished in major newspapers around the world - is a danger to freedom of the press everywhere, especially as the USA is asserting a right to arrest and try a non-American who neither is nor was then on American soil. The sentence is already clear: if not the death penalty then life in a supermax prison and ill treatment like Chelsea Manning... The very extradition of Julian Assange to the United States would at the same time mean the final death of freedom of the press in the West..... Sign now! The courageous nation of Ecuador has offered Assange political asylum within its London embassy for several years until now. However, under pressure by the USA, the new government has made it clear that they want to drive Assange out of the embassy and into the arms of the waiting police as soon as possible... They have already curtailed his internet and his visitors and turned the heating off, leaving him freezing in a desolate state for the past few months and leading to the rapid decline of his health, breaching UK obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights. Therefore, our demand both to the government of Ecuador and the government of the UK is: don't extradite Assange to the US! Guarantee his human rights, make his stay at the embassy as bearable as possible and enable him to leave the embassy towards a secure country as soon as there are guarantees not to arrest and extradite him........... Furthermore, we, as EU voters, encourage European nations to take proactive steps to protect a journalist in danger... The world is still watching. Sign now! [1] https://www..nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/politics/julian-assange-indictment-wikileaks.....html [2] https://theintercept.com/2018/11/16/as-the-obama-doj-concluded-prosecution-of-julian-assange-for-publishing-documents-poses-grave-threats-to-press-freedom/ Sign this petition: https://internal.diem25.....org/en/petitions/1
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Words of Wisdom 
Louis Robinson Jr., 77 Recording secretary for Local 1714 of the United Auto Workers from 1999 to 2018, with the minutes from a meeting of his union's retirees' chapter.
"One mistake the international unions in the United States made was when Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers. When he did that, the unions could have brought this country to a standstill...... All they had to do was shut down the truck drivers for a month, because then people would not have been able to get the goods they needed. So that was one of the mistakes they made. They didn't come together as organized labor and say: "No.... We aren't going for this......... Shut the country down." That's what made them weak. They let Reagan get away with what he did. A little while after that, I read an article that said labor is losing its clout, and I noticed over the years that it did.. It happened... It doesn't feel good..." [On the occasion of the shut-down of the Lordstown, Ohio GM plant March 6, 2019.........] https://www.......nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/01/magazine/lordstown-general-motors-plant...html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*------------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Search for Coronavirus Vaccine Becomes a Global Competition
The United States, China and Europe are battling to be the first to find a cure, bringing a nationalist element to a worldwide crisis.
By David E. Sanger, David D. Kirkpatrick, Sui-Lee Wee and Katrin Bennhold
Bing Guan/Reuters
WASHINGTON—A global arms race for a coronavirus vaccine is underway.
In the three months since the virus began its deadly spread, China, Europe and the United States have all set off at a sprint to become the first to produce a vaccine. But while there is cooperation on many levels—including among companies that are ordinarily fierce competitors—hanging over the effort is the shadow of a nationalistic approach that could give the winner the chance to favor its own population and potentially gain the upper hand in dealing with the economic and geostrategic fallout from the crisis.
What began as a question of who would get the scientific accolades, the patents and ultimately the revenues from a successful vaccine is suddenly a broader issue of urgent national security. And behind the scramble is a harsh reality: Any new vaccine that proves potent against the coronavirus—clinical trials are underway in the United States, China and Europe already—is sure to be in short supply as governments try to ensure that their own people are the first in line.
In China, 1,000 scientists are at work on a vaccine, and the issue has already been militarized: Researchers affiliated with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences have developed what is considered the nation’s front-runner candidate for success and is recruiting volunteers for clinical trials.
China “will not be slower than other countries,” Wang Junzhi, a biological products quality control expert with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said Tuesday at a news conference in Beijing.
The effort has taken on propaganda qualities. Already, a widely circulated photograph of Chen Wei, a virologist in the People’s Liberation Army, receiving an injection of what was advertised to be the first vaccine, has been exposed as a fake, taken before a trip she made to Wuhan, where the virus began.
President Trump has talked in meetings with pharmaceutical executives about making sure a vaccine is produced on American soil, to assure the United States controls its supplies. German government officials said they believed he tried to lure a German company, CureVac, to do its research and production, if it comes to that, in the United States.
The company has denied it received a takeover offer, but its lead investor made clear there was some kind of approach.
Asked by the German magazine Sport 1 about how the contact with Mr. Trump had unfolded, Dietmar Hopp, whose Dievini Hopp BioTech Holding owns 80 percent of the company, said: “I personally didn’t speak to Mr. Trump. He spoke to the company and they immediately told me about it and asked what I thought of it, and I knew immediately that it was out of the question.”
The report of the approach was enough to prompt the European Commission to pledge another $85 million to the firm, which has already had support from a European vaccine consortium.
The same day, a Chinese company offered $133.3 million for an equity stake and other consideration from another German firm in the vaccine race, BioNTech.
“There has been a global wake-up call that biotechnology is a strategic industry for our societies,” Friedrich von Bohlen, the managing director of the holding company that owns 82 percent of CureVac.
And just as nations have insisted on building their own drones, their own stealth fighters and their own cyberweapons, they do not want to be beholden to a foreign power for access to the drugs that are needed in a crisis.
After two decades of farming out drug production to China and India, “you want the whole production process close to home,” Mr. von Bohlen said.
Some experts view the geopolitical competition as healthy, as long as any successes are shared with the world—which government officials routinely assure they will be.
But they do not say how, or more important, when. And many analysts recall what happened during the swine flu epidemic in 2009, when a company in Australia that was among the first to develop a single-dose vaccine was required to satisfy demand in Australia before fulfilling export orders to the United States and elsewhere.
That spurred outrage, conspiracy theories and congressional hearings into the reasons for the shortfall.
“You want everybody to cooperate, everybody to race as quickly as they can to a vaccine and the best candidates to move forward,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University.
But if those showing signs of success are wondering if their companies will be nationalized, he said, it creates a complication that “you don’t want to have when you are trying to get a vaccine made as quickly as possible.”
Executives of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies said on Thursday that they were working together and with governments to assure that a vaccine is developed as quickly as possible and distributed equitably. But they implored governments not to hoard a vaccine once it is developed, saying that to do so would be devastating for the broader goal of stamping out the coronavirus pandemic.
“I would encourage everyone not to get into this trap of saying we have to get everything into our countries now and close the borders,” said Severin Schwan, the chief executive of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche. “It would be completely wrong to fall into nationalist behavior that would actually disrupt supply chains and be detrimental to people around the world.”
Adding to the pressure is Mr. Trump’s near-daily assurance that breakthroughs are on the way. While antiviral drugs to treat the effects of the coronavirus may be tested under “compassionate use” guidelines that allow experimentation on desperately ill patients, a vaccine remains at least 12 to 18 months away, both American officials and the leaders of major pharmaceutical companies say.
“Vaccines are injected into healthy people, so we need to ensure safety,” a process that takes time, David Loew, an executive vice president of Sanofi Pasteur of France, said on Thursday. His firm is working with Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson in the United States, Roche and Takeda in Japan.
In normal times, there is always an element of national competition to the development of drugs. In the months before the coronavirus began breaking out in Wuhan, the F.B.I. began an effort to root out scientists they believed were stealing biomedical research from the United States, mostly focused on scientists of Chinese descent, including naturalized American citizens, on behalf of China. There were 180 cases under investigation last year.
But the fear is that the urgency to come up with a usable vaccine will inflame nationalistic tendencies.
China has made clear it is looking for a national champion—an equivalent to the role that Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications giant, plays in the race to build 5G networks around the world. If the Huawei pattern holds, China could make deals to increase its influence over poorer or less developed countries, which might otherwise might not get affordable access to a vaccine.
There are already signs that China is using the moment for geopolitical advantage, delivering help to countries that once would have looked to Europe or the United States. Its decision to ship diagnostic kits to the Philippines, an ally of the United States, and to help Serbia was a leading indicator of what may come with drugs and vaccines, when they are available.
Speaking in a teleconference on Thursday, executives from the five biggest pharmaceutical companies said they were working to increase the industry’s manufacturing abilities by sharing available capacity to ramp up production once a successful vaccine or antiviral is identified. They argued for multiple testing programs to increase the chances of success, and then for immediate licensing to allow a quick scaling up of production.
Once a vaccine is approved, “we’ll need to vaccinate billions of people around the world, so we are looking at alternatives to where and how we produce,” Mr. Loew said.
But it is governments that get to decide how a vaccine is approved, and where it can be sold.
“If countries say, ‘Gee, let’s try to lock up a supply so we can protect our populations,’ then it can be a challenge to get the vaccine to the places where it can make the most difference epidemiologically,” said Seth Berkley, the chief executive of GAVI, a nonprofit organization that supplies vaccines to developing countries.
Mindful of those dangers, though, several European governments and nonprofit groups have already taken steps to prevent either the United States or China from capturing a monopoly on a potential vaccine against the coronavirus.
In the aftermath of the Ebola plague that flared across West Africa from 2014 to 2016, Norway, Britain and other mostly European countries as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation began contributing millions of dollars to a multinational organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Initiatives, to fund vaccine research.
All of its funding agreements included provisions for equal access to assure that “appropriate vaccines are first available to populations when and where they are needed to end an outbreak or curtail an epidemic, regardless of ability to pay,” the organization said in a statement.
In the past two months, the coalition has funded research into eight of the most promising candidates to block the coronavirus—including CureVac, the Germany company.
All of which left unclear exactly what Mr. Trump sought from CureVac, if anything, and why the company ousted its American chief executive, Daniel Menichella, days after he met with the White House coronavirus task force, in a session where Mr. Trump dropped by. The White House declined to comment.
The company itself has issued carefully drafted denials of a takeover offer. “Maybe someone said something,” Mr. Von Bohlen said. “But there is no written offer from the United States.”
There did not need to be. The mere hint of it was enough to get European officials to offer more funding.
“The fact that other countries tried to buy that company shows that they are the front-runner in the research,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission. “It is a European company—we wanted to keep it in Europe, it wanted to stay in Europe. It was very important to give it the necessary funding, and that has happened.”*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) How Coronavirus Exposes the Great Lie of Modern Motherhood
For too long, mothers have been held responsible for every aspect of their children’s well-being.
By Jessica Grose, March 25, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/opinion/coronavirus-parenting.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Elizabeth Catlett, Mother and Child. lithograph, 1944.The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, via Art Resource, NY
I couldn’t sleep on the night of March 12. New York City public schools were still open, and many of my peers were choosing to pull their children out. I couldn’t decide whether to keep mine in class. My friends in Hong Kong had been home with their kids for months, but the schools never closed in Singapore.
Even though I was speaking to infectious disease pediatricians every day as part of my reporting, there wasn’t consensus among them about how parents should proceed. The local mom message boards were lit up with shaming and countershaming: You’re hysterical for pulling them out! No, you’re crazy for keeping them in!
I was relieved when the city announced schools were shuttering on March 15, so I didn’t have to decide.
Since that night, the other decisions I have made as a mother came rushing back — the ones I have been judged for getting wrong, either overtly or through brightly exclaimed, passive-aggressive jabs like, “Well, whatever works for you!” These are the kinds of choices that as a well-resourced white woman living in a big city, I am supposed to agonize over: Does that chicken really need to be organic? Do all these toys really need to be wooden, even though my toddler likes to use them to bludgeon her sister?
And then there are the more universal choices: Can I send my son to day care if he has a runny nose but no fever, knowing that keeping him home means I have to miss work? How much screen time is too much when there’s no other way to keep my kids calm while I put dinner together?
Even after a massive governmental failure like the water crisis in Flint, Mich., mothers blamed themselves. When LeeAnne Walter, a mom of four turned activist, found out that all of her children had been exposed to lead and that one of her children, whose immune system was compromised, had lead poisoning, her instinct was to castigate herself. “I was hysterical,” Ms. Walters told Mother Jones in 2016. “At first, it was self-blame. And then there’s that anger: How are they letting them do this?”
The coronavirus pandemic reminds us that mothers have been unfairly blamed for their children’s illnesses, even in the face of public health crises, for decades. Mothers are held responsible for every detail — large and small — of their children’s well-being. That didn’t happen overnight.
Women’s diaries from the pre-Civil War era, when raising children was a much more collective endeavor, tell a different story. Women did not write very much about child care and they did not blame themselves when children got sick, even though epidemics of diphtheria, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough and many other infectious diseases swept through communities without warning. (Almost all the diaries and letters we have from this time are from literate upper-class white women.)
The historians Nancy Schrom Dye and Daniel Blake Smith, in a paper published in 1986 and called “Mother Love and Infant Death, 1750-1920,” pointed out that the household structure in early America was “permeable” — neighbors, friends and relatives all helped with caretaking. Watching over children was not seen as an individual mother’s job. And though the child mortality rate was high, mothers did not feel a sense of personal responsibility for their children’s deaths. They felt it was God’s hand.
Of course, they grieved for their children deeply, sometimes permanently. But these women also accepted death as part of life, as something ultimately beyond their control. “It may with truth be said the ways of Providence are dark and mysterious far beyond our comprehension,” wrote one Louisiana mother, whose fourth child died after a brief illness in 1836.
But sometime in the middle of the 19th century, there was a marked change, Ms. Dye and Mr. Smith wrote. “Individual mothers slowly came to replace God as the most important guarantors of their children’s welfare.”
This was part of a larger shift in the conception of gender responsibilities in the 1800s, according to Stephanie Coontz, the author of “The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap.” As economic production moved outside homes and into cities and factories, middle- and upper-class women’s sphere of influence became entirely domestic. “Women began to be responsible for making the home a sanctuary,” Ms. Coontz told me. “Morally, emotionally and yes, physically.”
Though much of the American population was still deeply religious, mothers began to blame themselves when their children got sick. One woman, whose toddler died after a short illness thought to be brought on by teething in 1848, was forever “haunted by thoughts of what might have been avoided, the most pitiless of all.” There was nothing that mother could have done with the knowledge she had at the time. And yet she tortured herself for years after her child’s death.
In the early 1900s, mothers and activists banded together to pressure doctors, the federal government and public health officials to take action on infant deaths. They were relatively successful: In the 20th century, it became culturally accepted that the state had a role in keeping children healthy. But American society, Dr. Dye and Dr. Smith wrote, “has continued to define mothering almost entirely as an individual, private experience and to assign to individual mothers the primary responsibility for their children’s care and welfare.”
So what can we do? Some things are obvious. Children should be loved, have enough food to eat, clean water to drink and places to play outside; they should be vaccinated, and get enough sleep. Parents should heed public health recommendations about staying inside.
If nothing else, the pandemic teaches those privileged enough to worry about the little things the truth: We never had complete control in the first place. We have no way of knowing which of the tiny choices we’re making every day about what kinds of greens to buy and whether the kids watched an hour too much “Paw Patrol” yesterday mean anything in the long run.
Instead of worrying about the micro-decisions in our individual well-heeled families, we — dads included — should be putting our energies and efforts into keeping institutions accountable for everyone’s well-being.
To paraphrase that Louisiana mother, the pandemic is dark and mysterious far beyond our comprehension. But it also gives us the opportunity to make lasting moves away from the ethos of individual responsibility for children’s health and toward community support. We should take it.
Jessica Grose (@JessGrose) is the lead editor of NYT Parenting.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Seven Medical Leaders to Politicians: Save Lives, Not Wall Street
Don’t open businesses and schools. The economy won’t recover until this pandemic ends.
By J. Larry Jameson, March 24, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/opinion/social-distancing-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
I’m writing on behalf of six other leaders of large academic health systems in some of America’s Covid-19 “hot spots” to urge our national leadership to resist pressure to lift tough social restrictions intended to subdue this outbreak and save thousands of lives.
While some say the economic damage of these measures will cause more harm than the disease itself, these steps will actually ensure our economic health, since commerce cannot thrive until we have substantially contained the virus.
If we waver in our commitment to the public health, the consequences will devastate our families, friends, co-workers and neighbors, medically and financially.
The statistical modeling of the viral spread is highly predictable, locally and globally, as the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus map shows. Each of us has run best- and worst-case scenarios based upon the number of infected patients we have, the doubling time of viral spread, and the predicted number of patients who will be admitted to hospitals and require an intensive care unit and a ventilator. For example, if today we have 25 Covid-19 patients in the hospital, with two in intensive care and one on a ventilator, the model predicts that with a three-day doubling rate, there will be a surge of about 800 I.C.U. patients in 30 days.
The most important way to prevent an uncontrolled demand for hospital care is to slow the spread of the disease, lengthening the time it takes for infections to double.
Proper hand washing, disinfecting common areas and coughing into elbows are important. But physical separation is the best way to slow the spread. The fewer contacts, and the greater distance between people, the better. That’s why nonessential businesses need to be closed, especially in outbreak areas. This virus is spread person to person and it spreads explosively.
By acting now, we can buy time to amass resources, devise strategies to rebuild our health system and our economy, and develop treatments, vaccines and, ultimately, population herd immunity.
If we don’t, hospitals will be stretched beyond their capacity. In Italy and China, the health care providers were disproportionately infected because of their brave work on the front lines. When hospitals are short-staffed and undersupplied, we cannot save lives. We are setting up tents in the streets and preparing to reopen old hospitals to prepare for the predicted surge of patients if this viral spread goes unchecked.
We know the costs of social distancing are profound — these steps are rewriting the way we bond with friends and loved ones, the way our children learn, the way we work together in jobs of all kinds. But physical isolation does not have to mean total isolation.
Call your friends. Use social media. Spend time with family within your household. When you go out for essential reasons such as food, supplies and medicine, be smart about your distance from others and sanitize your hands before and after handling items.
Our doctors and nurses are ready to care for you. Our research teams are constantly working to find new treatments. But they need your help. Be a health care hero by respecting these recommendations for conscientious and sustained physical isolation.
The cure is not worse than the disease. Our country has made strides to enforce social distancing and this is not the time to let up.
The job before us as health care workers is clear: Save lives. Please, help us ensure that we can.
J. Larry Jameson is dean of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He wrote this in collaboration with Gianrico Farrugia, president and chief executive of the Mayo Clinic; Robert I. Grossman, chief executive of NYU Langone Health and dean of NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Sam Hawgood, chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco; Paul Klotman, president and chief executive of the Baylor College of Medicine; Paul Rothman, chief executive of Johns Hopkins Medicine; and Peter Slavin, president and chief executive of Massachusetts General Hospital.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) ‘Unworthy Republic’ Takes an Unflinching Look at Indian Removal in the 1830s
By Jennifer Szalal, March 24, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/books/review-unworthy-republic-claudio-saunt.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage
Unworthy Republic
The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
By Claudio Saunt
Illustrated. 396 pages. W.W. Norton & Company. $26.95.
The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
By Claudio Saunt
Illustrated. 396 pages. W.W. Norton & Company. $26.95.
The steamboat: For many Americans in the 19th century, it was a symbol of power and progress, a triumph of technology that ferried goods and people upriver with impressive speed.
But for certain passengers, it represented something less glorious and more terrifying. In “Unworthy Republic,” the historian Claudio Saunt describes how the boats functioned as instruments of American expansion and — for the slaves and Indigenous people forced to travel on them — “as floating prisons.” The policy known as Indian Removal was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1830. Transporting so many people up western rivers entailed squeezing them into cramped quarters, where diseases proliferated and a burst boiler could scald hundreds to death in an instant.
Saunt’s book traces the expulsion of 80,000 Native Americans over the course of the 1830s, from their homes in the eastern United States to territories west of the Mississippi River. This was one episode in a long history of colonial conquest that included waging war and spreading disease, but Saunt argues that Indian Removal was truly “unprecedented”; it was a “formal, state-administered process” designed to eliminate every native person to the east of the Mississippi — a systematic expulsion that would later serve as an ignominious model for other regimes around the world. The French in Algeria looked to it as an example, as did the Nazis in Eastern Europe. “The Volga,” Hitler announced in 1941, “must be our Mississippi.”
“Unworthy Republic” is a powerful and lucid account, weaving together events with the people who experienced them up close. President Jackson is an inevitable presence, but he’s relegated mostly to the background, expounding his policy in high-flown terms (“It will be my sincere and constant desire to observe toward the Indian tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy”) while gloating in his private letters (“I have in the chickisaw treaty destroyed the serpent”). Previously, as a general in the Tennessee militia and later the United States Army, Jackson had led brutal campaigns against the Creeks and the Seminoles. His election to the highest office, in 1828, meant that state governments in the South would get what they had long clamored for — federal resources to move Indigenous residents from the land, so that slaveholders could expand their cotton empire.
The entwined history of slavery and the expulsion of Indigenous people is a central theme in Saunt’s book. In antebellum America, both Native Americans and African-Americans were “subjects but not citizens.” Southern planters and politicians loudly declaimed states’ rights in defense of their “peculiar institution,” but they needed federal help to clear the land of native residents. Particularly enticing for slavers was the Black Prairie — a crescent-shaped swath of dark, rich soil through Mississippi and Alabama, where Chickasaws, Choctaws and Creeks lived.
But the unvarnished language of profits and exploitation wouldn’t be enough to get the Indian Removal Act passed in Congress, where some Northern representatives were already suspicious of Southern motives. Just as central to the cause of removal was the gauzy humanitarianism used to justify it. Essential to this effort was the work of Isaac McCoy, described by Saunt as a “sincere” and “naïve” Baptist missionary who envisioned a land uniting all the native peoples in “one body politic” called “Aboriginia.” Politicians learned to present expulsion as a protective policy, a benevolent program to rescue native people from “extinction.”
The Jackson administration had tacitly encouraged white settlers to move onto native land; having helped to stoke the problem, Saunt writes, the administration “was asked to provide a solution.” Jackson offered a “grand scheme,” but no proper plan. As Saunt meticulously documents, combing through government records and contemporaneous testimony, Indigenous people were caught in the teeth of a vast bureaucracy that combined penny-pinching austerity with terrible management, corruption and chaos on the ground.
Tens of thousands of people were supposed to be transferred “on the cheap,” with expired vaccines and imprecise maps. One drunken U.S. agent entrusted with the Choctaw removal recorded names on loose slips of paper that he then lost. During the ensuing war with the Seminoles, some officials became increasingly disillusioned; in the words of one Army officer, the treaty that arranged for the deportation of the Seminoles was made in “hard and unconscionable terms” that had been “extorted.”
Saunt doesn’t try to smooth over the knottier parts of his narrative, which include Northern financiers and Indigenous slave owners who profited from expulsion; families that withstood “compulsion, enticement and duplicity” to stay on their homelands in the east; and the violent punishments carried out by tribes in order to quell dissent. He’s also aware that the documentary record overrepresents the voices of those who left a paper trail. His account acknowledges the diverse experiences within and across Indigenous communities.
Having originally budgeted the meager sum of $500,000 for the enormous policy of Indian Removal, the federal government ended up spending about $75 million — the equivalent, Saunt says, of about a trillion dollars today. The cost to the government may have been dear, but for the native peoples who were moved to Indian Territory, being on the outside of the expanding republic proved to be deadly.
In 1869, after a spate of massacres of Indigenous communities in the West, Frederick Douglass told an antislavery audience: “The only reason why the Negro has not been killed off, as the Indians have been, is that he is so close under your arm that you cannot get at him.” Saunt has written an unflinching book that reckons with this history and its legacy. “Expulsion,” he writes, “was the war the slaveholders won.”
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Women Should Have to Register for Military Draft, Too, Commission Tells Congress
A commission appointed by Congress will recommend that expanding selective service registration to women is a “necessary and fair step.”
By sarah Mervosh and John Ismay, March 24, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/women-military-draft-selective-service.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=US%20News
Melissa Golden for The New York Times
Women have been serving the United States military for generations, sewing uniforms during the Revolutionary War and nursing the wounded during World War II. They have flown fighter jets, commanded warships and more recently fought in combat on the front lines.
But they have never been required to register for a military draft.
That could soon change. Under a new recommendation to Congress by a national commission, all Americans ages 18 to 25 — not just young men as currently required — would have to register with the government in case of a military draft.
The recommendation, part of a report that will be released to Congress on Wednesday, represents the final stage in a divisive debate that has been simmering for decades: Should the United States have a military draft, and should it include women?
“The biggest piece of opposition was, we are not going to draft our mother and daughters, our sisters and aunts to fight in hand-to-hand combat,” said Dr. Joseph Heck, chairman of the commission, which held dozens of public meetings and considered more than 4,000 public comments over the past two years.
But as women have increasingly taken on a larger presence in military life and culture — making up about 17 percent of active-duty troops — commissioners concluded that expanding the registration process to include all Americans in the event of a draft was a “necessary and fair step.”
It was not immediately clear when the House or Senate might consider such a measure. A representative for the Pentagon declined to comment.
Should Congress adopt the recommendations, it would mean that women ages 18 to 25, like young men, would be asked to register with the Selective Service System, the independent government agency that maintains a database of Americans eligible for a potential draft.
Instead of requiring a trip to the post office, registration today often happens automatically when a young adult applies for a driver’s license or federal financial aid. But no one can be required to serve unless a draft is enacted, a step that would require an act of Congress and approval by the president.
“Women bring a whole host of different perspectives, different experiences,” said Debra Wada, a former assistant secretary for the Army who served on the commission, noting that being drafted does not necessarily mean serving in combat. In a time of national crisis, the government could draft people to a variety of positions, from clerical work to cybersecurity.
“If the threat is to our very existence,” she said, “wouldn’t you want women as part of that group?” To many, the draft itself may seem moot: No one has been forced into military service in more than 40 years. The modern-day military has been successful as an all-volunteer force, with about 1.2 million active-duty troops.
Still, the draft has been a controversial topic since the Vietnam era, when thousands of young men were conscripted into military service, sparking protests as the war dragged on. President Trump himself received five draft deferments. Not registering with the Selective Service can come with a lifetime of penalties, including exclusion from student loans or the chance to work for the federal government.
“Congress should end draft registration for all, not try to expand it to young women as well as young men,” a group of activists who oppose the draft said in a joint statement on Tuesday. It added, “Even more women than men would resist if the government tried to draft them.”
The commission recommended that the United States keep a draft option in place as a “low-cost insurance policy against an existential national security threat,” Dr. Heck said.
The question of whether to include women in a potential draft became more urgent in recent years, after the Pentagon announced in 2015 that it would open all combat jobs to women. Since then, more than 2,000 women have served in Army combat positions, and today, more than 224,000 women serve on active duty.
“Women have proven themselves since 9/11 as pilots, medics, military police, engineers, and as part of the special operations and intelligence communities,” said Phillip Carter, a former Army officer and veteran of the Iraq war who is now a scholar at the RAND Corporation. “If America resorts to a draft to mobilize for war again, the experience of the past 18 years shows that the nation can and should rely on women to fight too.”
In 2016, some military leaders openly advocated for requiring women to register with the Selective Service. The same year, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said he supported making the change. The Senate briefly considered the question, but a provision for it was ultimately removed before it reached President Barack Obama.
While reinstating the draft is generally unpopular and seen as a last resort, polls show that the American public is split about whether women should be eligible, with about 52 percent of Americans in favor. More women than men were opposed to making the change, according to a 2013 poll by Quinnipiac University.
Mr. Heck, the commission chairman and a former Nevada congressman, said he was confident that the issue would be taken up in both the Senate and the House. “Where it goes from there,” he said, “is a matter of debate.”
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Venezuelan Leader Maduro Is Charged in the U.S. With Drug Trafficking
Federal prosecutors accused President Nicolás Maduro of participating in a “narco-terrorism conspiracy” in a major escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure him to leave office.
By Katie Benner, William K. Rashbaum and Benjamin Weiser, March 26, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/nyregion/venezuela-president-drug-trafficking-nicolas-maduro.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
Matias Delacroix/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela was indicted in the United States on Thursday in a narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking conspiracy in which prosecutors said he led a violent drug cartel even as he amassed power.
The indictment of a head of state was highly unusual and served as an escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to pressure Mr. Maduro to leave office after his widely disputed re-election in 2018. Mr. Maduro has led Venezuela’s economy into shambles and prompted an exodus of millions of people into neighboring countries.
Attorney General William P. Barr announced the charges on Thursday at a news briefing along with the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the top federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Miami.
Mr. Maduro condemned the charges, accusing the United States and its ally Colombia on Twitter of giving “the order to fill Venezuela with violence.” He declared that he would not be defeated.
In addition to Mr. Maduro, more than a dozen others were charged, including Venezuelan government and intelligence officials and members of the largest rebel group in Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, known as FARC, which has long drawn its financing from the cocaine trade.
The chief justice of Venezuela was also charged with money laundering and the country’s minister of defense with drug trafficking, Mr. Barr said. The charges were contained in four separate indictments, two filed in New York and one each in Miami and Washington, Mr. Barr said.
The State Department is offering rewards of up to $15 million for information leading to the capture or conviction of Mr. Maduro, who remains in Venezuela, said Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney in Manhattan.
One of the indictments unsealed in federal court in Manhattan included four counts, accusing the defendants of possessing machine guns and conspiring to possess machine guns in addition to the narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking conspiracy charges.
The charges come a month after President Trump, in his state of the union address, called the Venezuelan head of state “an illegitimate ruler, a tyrant who brutalizes his people,” and vowed that “Maduro’s grip on tyranny will be smashed and broken.”
Mr. Maduro helped run and ultimately led a drug trafficking organization called Cartel de Los Sols as he gained power in Venezuela, according to court papers. Under his and others’ leadership, the cartel sought to enrich its members, enhance their power and to “‘flood’ the United States with cocaine and inflict the drug’s harmful and addictive effects on users in this country,” an indictment said.
The cartel, under the leadership of Mr. Maduro and others, “prioritized using cocaine as a weapon against America and importing as much cocaine as possible into the United States,” the indictment charged.
Mr. Maduro negotiated multi-ton shipments of cocaine produced by the FARC, directed his cartel to provide military-grade weapons to the group and coordinated foreign affairs with Honduras and other countries to “facilitate large-scale drug trafficking,” according to the indictment.
Mr. Maduro came to power in 2013 following the death of his predecessor Hugo Chávez. He vowed to continue Mr. Chávez’s socialist-inspired revolution, which redirected the country’s vast oil revenues toward the poor with government-sponsored housing, education and health programs.
Instead, the country was hit by the largest economic collapse in its history, a result of falling oil prices and years of economic mismanagement by the left-wing government. The country’s hospital system collapsed, triggering the exodus of millions of Venezuelans. Many of those who remained began street protests against Mr. Maduro, who tamped them down with an iron fist.
Mr. Maduro’s increasing authoritarianism have prompted critics to label him a dictator. In January 2019, the leader of the opposition, Juan Guaidó, declared himself president, a move that the United States and most of Venezuela’s neighbors recognized. But Mr. Guaidó was unable to wrest power from Mr. Maduro, leaving the country with two men claiming to be president.
While the United States has imposed sanctions on many of Mr. Maduro’s allies in the past, it had avoided filing drug charges against some of them because they would rule out the possibility that Washington could work with them to negotiate Mr. Maduro’s exit, said Geoff Ramsey, the Venezuela director at the Washington Office on Latin America.
“The U.S. government has been willing to cut deals with anyone sanctioned for human rights abuses or corruption,” he said. “But not if they’re implicated in drugs.”
Noting that the indictments represent a shift in American policy, Mr. Ramsey said the Trump administration likely ended its chance to broker Mr. Maduro’s exit through his top allies and made a transition to a new government less likely.
“There’s now a better chance these figures will further entrench themselves than seek any kind of deal,” Mr. Ramsey said. “Any hope of a soft landing has been torpedoed.”
The indictments made clear that the Trump administration was going to try to resolve Venezuela’s problems without Mr. Maduro, Mr. Ramsey said.
For years, watchdog groups have accused Mr. Maduro’s close aides of working with drug lords to line their pockets and prop up the crumbling state. As the Venezuelan oil industry has collapsed, Mr. Maduro’s critics have said that the drug trade is playing an increasingly important role in keeping him in power.
Last year, Mr. Maduro’s former vice president, Tareck El Aissami, was indicted in federal court in Manhattan, accused of using his position of power to engage in international drug trafficking. He had been sanctioned by the United States following similar accusations two years before.
The Treasury Department has also accused Diosdado Cabello, the former president of the National Assembly and one of Mr. Maduro’s closest allies, of narcotics trafficking “and other corrupt activities.”
And two of Mr. Maduro’s nephews are serving prison sentences in the United States following convictions on drug charges. In that case, prosecutors said the nephews — sometimes called the “narcosobrinos” in Venezuela — attempted to bring in $20 million in drug money to assist their family in staying in power.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Under U.S. Aid Plan, C.E.O.s Could Still Receive Millions: Live Business Updates
Market Update, March 26, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus.html
Taylor Glascock for The New York Times
THE AID PLAN
Chief executives could still receive millions in compensation.
Lawmakers put some restrictions on the compensation of executives whose companies receive government assistance under the bill, in an effort to address one of the criticisms about bailouts of banks and other companies during the 2008 financial crisis. But the limits will not do away with multimillion dollar paydays for corporate bosses.
THE DETAILS Executives who made more than $3 million in 2019 could be awarded $3 million, plus half of any sum in excess of $3 million. As a result, a chief executive who earned $20 million in 2019 would be allowed compensation of $11.5 million, or $3 million plus half of $17 million per year. The restrictions would apply from the time the federal support begins to one year after it ends.
In addition, companies receiving assistance will not be allowed to increase the compensation of executives who earned between $425,000 and $3 million in 2019 until a year after government support ends.
THE CONTEXT Of course, senior executives and their boards of directors could decide on their own to pay themselves far less to show investors, employees and lawmakers that they, too, are making a sacrifice. But those who don’t would effectively have their compensation subsidized by taxpayers, said Sarah Anderson, a project director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive research organization based in Washington.
More than three million file unemployment claims, the most ever in a week.
Nearly 3.3 million people filed for unemployment benefits last week, sending a collective shudder throughout the economy that is unlike anything Americans have experienced.
The numbers, released by the Labor Department on Thursday, are some of the first hard data on the economic toll of the coronavirus pandemic, which has shut down whole swaths of American life faster than government statistics can keep track.
Just three weeks ago, barely 200,000 people applied for jobless benefits, a historically low number. In the half-century that the government has tracked applications, the most applications filed in a single week had been fewer than 700,000.
“In the whole history of initial claims, there’s never been anything remotely close to that,” said Ben Herzon, executive director of IHS Markit, a business data and analytics firm.
As staggering as the figures are, they almost certainly understate the problem. Some part-time and low-wage workers don’t qualify for unemployment benefits. Nor do gig workers, independent contractors and the self-employed, although the emergency aid package being considered by Congress would broaden eligibility. Others who do qualify may not know it. And the sudden rush of layoffs led to jammed phone lines and overwhelmed computer servers at unemployment offices across the country, leaving many people unable to file claims.
The worst could be yet to come. Mr. Herzon said he expected a similarly large number next Thursday, when the Labor Department releases its report on new claims filed this week.
Mnuchin says Thursday’s jobless claims are ‘not relevant.’
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday that the surge in weekly unemployment claims was “not relevant” and that hopefully many of those workers will be rehired now that Congress is on the cusp of passing a $2 trillion economic relief package.
“To be honest with you, I just think these numbers right now are not relevant,” Mr. Mnuchin said on CNBC. “The good thing about this bill is the president is protecting people.”
The Treasury secretary said that he was optimistic that the House would quickly pass the bill that cleared the Senate late Wednesday night. He said that he is coordinating closely with the Federal Reserve, speaking with Chairman Jerome H. Powell as many as 30 times per day to roll out new emergency lending programs.
Mr. Mnuchin also vowed to be fully transparent about how the government is lending to distressed industries and noted that those that receive loans will face restrictions on executive pay and stock buybacks. However, he said that the Trump administration could not force companies across the country not to lay off workers.
“We don’t believe in mandating and regulating certain big businesses,” Mr. Mnuchin said.
Wall Street climbs in early trading.
U.S. stocks rose on Thursday as lawmakers in Washington advanced a highly anticipated $2 trillion rescue package to bolster the American economy.
The climb came despite Labor Department figures released early Thursday that revealed a record number of unemployment claims, more evidence of the staggering economic toll of the coronavirus pandemic stacking up.
The number of people who sought jobless benefits last week was colossal — nearly 3.3 million — but had been widely anticipated by investors.
The S&P 500 was up more than 4 percent in early trading.
The gains added to a rally that began on Tuesday as the lawmakers negotiated a spending and support plan to help households and companies cope with the coronavirus outbreak. The Senate passed the plan late on Wednesday, and it was expected to get approval by the House and President Trump shortly after.
But questions remain about the timing of the support plan and whether lawmakers should do even more, and that left investors nervous. Prices for longer-term U.S. Treasury bonds were up, sending yields lower and suggesting investors were looking for safe places to park their money. Oil prices, a proxy for the outlook for the world economy because they indicate demand for fuel, fell on futures markets.
Fed chair: The virus’s spread will determine when economy returns to normal.
Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said during a rare television interview on Thursday that the United States “may well” be in a recession already, but that it should get the coronavirus under control before getting back to work.
“The first order of business will be to get the spread of the virus under control, and then to resume economic activity,” Mr. Powell said, speaking on NBC’s “Today” show. “The virus is going to dictate the timetable here.”
Mr. Powell’s comments contrast those of President Trump, who has suggested that he wants many Americans to get back to work as soon as Easter, less than three weeks away, and that efforts to slow the spread of the virus by shuttering large parts of the economy should not be worse than the disease itself.
Banks aren’t the focus, but they still get help.
Unlike the federal stimulus packages enacted in 2008 and 2009, the legislation passed by the Senate is not focused on the country’s biggest banks. Emergency relief measures enacted by the Federal Reserve have already given those companies access to short-term funding and added liquidity, or ease of trading, to the markets. So the role of banks in the rescue bill is to provide much-needed capital to businesses and taxpayers.
THE DETAILS Banks are widely expected to provide loans and other types of financing to distressed individuals and companies. To ensure that their own access to cash is not hampered by a raft of new client demands or market developments, the Fed has encouraged them to use the so-called “discount window,” its lending operation for big banks, and at least eight major financial institutions already have. As part of the stimulus package, banks can opt out of observing new federal accounting standards for estimating future credit losses during the period covered by the law.
THE CONTEXT Thanks to the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 and new regulatory requirements that have been placed on major market participants, the U.S. financial system is in a far better position than it was in 2008, when big banks relied too heavily on borrowed money to fund themselves and their future obligations. But the backstops the government is providing to troubled borrowers could benefit the banks too.
THE AID PLAN
Energy companies were largely left out.
The coronavirus outbreak has walloped much of the energy industry by driving down oil prices and making it harder to finance new renewable energy projects, which is why some industry executives were hopeful lawmakers would led them a hand. But the Senate bill does not do much for the industry.
THE DETAILS The legislation did not include $3 billion the Trump administration had requested to buy crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Such a purchase could have helped lift demand for oil somewhat, and thus its price, which in the United States has tumbled to less than $25 a barrel in recent weeks. And solar and wind businesses were upset that lawmakers did not make it easier for them to benefit from tax credits for renewable energy.
THE RESPONSE Industry representatives held out hope that their needs would be addressed in a future stimulus package. Frank Macchiarola, a senior vice president at the American Petroleum Institute, said the group had not sought “industry-specific relief” from Congress in this bill. “The fact that members of both parties have come together to address this public health crisis, support workers in need and provide broader, economywide relief sends an important signal during these challenging times,” Mr. Macchiarola said.
THE AID PLAN
An F.A.Q. on the stimulus bill and your pocketbook.
How much money will individuals get — and how will it be distributed? How are unemployment benefits changing? Are gig workers included?
The Senate unanimously passed a $2 trillion economic stimulus plan on Wednesday that will offer assistance to tens of millions of American households affected by the coronavirus. Its components include payments to individuals, expanded unemployment coverage that includes the self-employed, loans for small businesses and nonprofits, temporary changes to withdrawal rules from retirement accounts, and more.
The House of Representatives was expected to quickly take up the bill and pass it, sending it to President Trump for his signature.
We collected answers to common questions about what’s in the bill.
The oil keeps flowing. Where can it go?
The world is awash in crude oil it doesn’t need, and is slowly running out of places to put it.
The coronavirus pandemic has strangled the world’s economies, silenced factories and grounded airlines, cutting the need for fuel. But Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest producer, is locked in a price war with its rival Russia and is determined to keep raising production.
So storage facilities around the globe are filling up. Huge tankers filled with crude are anchored off coastlines, with no place to go.
As storage space becomes harder to find, the prices, which have already fallen more than half this year, could drop even further. And companies could be forced to shut off their wells.
India, on nationwide lockdown, unveils $23 billion relief package.
On the second day of India’s nationwide lockdown to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, the government announced a relief package of 1.7 trillion rupees, or $22.6 billion, to ease the economic pain that it will cause India’s 1.3 billion residents.
The centerpiece of the plan unveiled on Thursday is an increased ration of free food for the 800 million poorest Indians. The government will give each family an additional 5 kilograms of rice or wheat and 1 kilogram of pulses per person per month for the next three months. The food would supplement existing food allocations poor families already receive.
The most vulnerable people — poor women, farmers, widows, and senior citizens — will also receive small direct cash transfers to their bank accounts.
The extended lockdown is expected to be particularly hard on poor workers, most of whom feed themselves from their day’s earnings. With everyone ordered to stay inside and virtually all businesses closed, these workers no longer have a way to make a living.
Catch up: Here’s what else is happening today.
- The Transportation Security Administration screened just 240,000 travelers on Wednesday, about 11 percent of its typical volume. Alaska Airlines plans to cut its schedule for April and May by 70 percent, and Hawaiian Airlines said it would eliminate most long-haul flights next month, focusing instead on all-cargo flights.
- Ford Motor said it was aiming to restart production at some North American plants in early to mid-April. It said it planned to resume one assembly shift in Hermosillo, Mexico, on April 6, and aimed to resume some production by April 14 at several plants in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Missouri “while the company introduces additional safety measures to protect returning workers.”
Reporting was contributed by Niraj Chokshi, Vindu Goel, Kate Kelly, Peter Eavis, Neil Irwin, Tara Siegel Bernard, Ron Lieber, Clifford Krauss, Ivan Penn, Matt Phillips, Peter S. Goodman, Patricia Cohen, Tiffany Hsu, Kevin McKenna, Ben Casselman, Geneva Abdul, Amie Tsang, Carlos Tejada, Alexandra Stevenson, Su-Hyun Lee and Heather Murphy.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) After Considering $1 Billion Price Tag for Ventilators, White House Has Second Thoughts
A deal with General Motors and Ventec Life Systems to produce tens of thousands of the critical lifesaving devices seemed imminent. Then the announcement was pulled back.
By David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman and Zolan Kanne-Youngs, March 27, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators-trump.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
John Minchillo/Associated Press
WASHINGTON—The White House had been preparing to reveal on Wednesday a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems that would allow for the production of as many as 80,000 desperately needed ventilators to respond to an escalating pandemic when word suddenly came down that the announcement was off.
The decision to cancel the announcement, government officials say, came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it needed more time to assess whether the estimated cost was prohibitive. That price tag was more than $1 billion, with several hundred million dollars to be paid upfront to General Motors to retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Ind., where the ventilators would be made with Ventec’s technology.
Government officials said that the deal might still happen but that they are examining at least a dozen other proposals. And they contend that an initial promise that the joint venture could turn out 20,000 ventilators in short order had shrunk to 7,500, with even that number in doubt. Longtime emergency managers at FEMA are working with military officials to sort through the competing offers and federal procurement rules while under pressure to give President Trump something to announce.
But in an interview Thursday night with Sean Hannity, the president played down the need for ventilators.
“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” he said, a reference to New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo has appealed for federal help in obtaining them. “You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”
A General Motors spokesman said that “Project V,” as the ventilator program is known, was moving very fast, and a company official said “there’s no issue with retooling.”
A Ventec representative agreed.
“Ventec and G.M. have been working at breakneck speed to leverage our collective expertise in ventilation and manufacturing to meet the needs of the country as quickly as possible and arm medical professionals with the number of ventilators needed to save lives,” said Chris O. Brooks, Ventec’s chief strategy officer.
The only thing missing was clarity from the government about how many ventilators they needed—and who would be paid to build them.
The shortage of ventilators has emerged as one of the major criticisms of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus. The need to quickly equip hospitals across the country with tens of thousands more of the devices to treat those most seriously ill with the virus was not anticipated despite the Trump administration’s own projection in a simulation last year that millions of people could be hospitalized. And even now, the effort to produce them has been confused and disorganized.
At the center of the discussion about how to ramp up the production of ventilators is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House aide, who has told people that he was called in two weeks ago by Vice President Mike Pence to produce more coronavirus test kits and who has now turned his attention to ventilators.
He has been directing officials at FEMA in the effort. Two officials said the suggestion to wait on the General Motors offer came from Col. Patrick Work, who is working at FEMA. Some government officials expressed concern about the possibility of ordering too many ventilators, leaving them with an expensive surplus.
As the agency has sorted through offers, trying to weigh production ability and costs, hospitals in New York and elsewhere are reporting a desperate need for more ventilators, which are critical in treating respiratory problems in a fast-rising tide of severe coronavirus cases.
A spokeswoman for FEMA said Colonel Work presented information on each contract in such meetings but did not make any recommendations. A White House spokesman declined to comment.
The involvement of General Motors was first floated this month as the carmaker’s factory floor in Kokomo was grinding to a halt and workers were being sent home—partly because the market was collapsing but also because workers would otherwise risk exposure to the coronavirus.
Last week, General Motors, Ventec Life Systems and a coalition of business executives called StopTheSpread.org issued a statement saying that Ventec would “leverage G.M.’s logistics, purchasing and manufacturing expertise to build more of their critically important ventilators,” including some portable units.
By Sunday, Mr. Trump appeared to suggest on Twitter that a deal had been completed to mass-produce the ventilators, even though it was unclear who would pay to equip the General Motors plant or how long that process would take.
“Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! @fema,” he wrote. “Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are?”
Not for the first time has Mr. Trump jumped the gun.
Tesla officials had in fact met with engineers from the medical device company Medtronic in a separate negotiation, but no partnership has yet been announced. And while the chief executive of General Motors, Mary T. Barra, was enthused about the ventilator idea, Mr. Trump’s own aides had not embraced the G.M.-Ventec partnership—in part because they had not seen the specifics of the proposal.
Administration officials said Thursday that they were struggling to understand just how many ventilators the new venture could make.
The initial projection, one senior administration official said, was that after three weeks of preparation it could produce an initial run of 20,000 ventilators, or about two-thirds of what Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York recently said his state alone needed to cover the influx of coronavirus patients expected in two weeks, if not sooner.
That number then shrank to 7,500 ventilators in the initial run, or maybe 5,000, an apparent recognition that auto transmissions and ventilators had very little in common. Those numbers are in flux and so are the Trump administration’s because the White House cannot decide how many ventilators it wants.
Targets have changed by the hour, officials said, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, which approves the use of medical devices, and the White House try to figure out how many ventilators to request and how much they should cost.
Those issues appeared to come to a head on Wednesday afternoon, when FEMA told the White House that it was premature to make a decision.
The $1.5 billion price tag comes to around $18,000 a ventilator. And the overall cost, by comparison, is roughly equal to buying 18 F-35s, the Pentagon’s most advanced fighter jet.
So on Wednesday, despite the president’s tweet three days earlier, FEMA was still weighing competing offers in order to make a recommendation to Mr. Kushner. And it seemed clear to several officials that the agency would have to select multiple manufacturers, in part to avoid the risk that one production line runs into technical troubles, or that its workers contract the very virus the ventilators are being built to defeat.
David Sanger and Zolan Kanno-Youngs reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York. Ana Swanson contributed reporting from Washington.*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Why Is America Choosing Mass Unemployment?
European countries are paying to preserve jobs during the coronavirus crisis. Sadly for American workers, the United States is charting its own path.
By The Editorial Board, March 26, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/opinion/covid-economy-unemployment-europe.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Benjamin Norman for The New York Times
Thursday’s news that more than three million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, a total far higher than in any previous week in the modern history of the United States, has been greeted with surprising equanimity by the nation’s political leaders.
They appear to regard mass unemployment as an unfortunate but unavoidable symptom of the coronavirus. “It’s nobody’s fault, certainly not in this country,” President Trump said Thursday. The federal government’s primary response is a bill that passed the Senate late Wednesday night that would provide larger cash payments to those who have lost their jobs.
But the sudden collapse of employment was not inevitable. It is instead a disastrous failure of public policy that has caused immediate harm to the lives of millions of Americans, and that is likely to leave a lasting mark on their future, on the economy and on our society.
The pain will be felt most acutely in the least affluent parts of the nation, struggling even before the coronavirus crisis and even after a decade of steady though unequal economic growth.
The federal government’s first and best chance to prevent mass unemployment was to keep the new coronavirus under control through a system of testing and targeted quarantines like those implemented by a number of Asian nations. But even after it became clear that the Trump administration had failed to prepare for the pandemic, policymakers still could have chosen to prioritize employment by paying companies to keep workers on the job during the period of lockdown.
A number of European countries, after similarly failing to control the spread of the virus, and thus being forced to lock down large parts of their economies, have chosen to protect jobs. Denmark has agreed to compensate Danish employers for up to 90 percent of their workers’ salaries. In the Netherlands, companies facing a loss of at least 20 percent of their revenue can similarly apply for the government to cover 90 percent of payroll. And the United Kingdom announced that it would pay up to 80 percent of the wage bill for as many companies as needed the help, with no cap on the total amount of public spending.
Some countries only pay employers for workers who aren’t working. Under Germany’s Kurzarbeit scheme, the government chips in even for workers kept on part time. The German government predicts that 2.35 million workers will draw benefits during the crisis. In either case, the goal is to preserve people in existing jobs — to preserve the antediluvian fabric of the economy to the greatest extent possible, for the benefit of workers and firms.
“What we’re trying to do is to freeze the economy,” the Danish employment minister, Peter Hummelgaard, told The Atlantic. “It’s about preserving Main Street as much as we can.”
Preserving jobs is important because a job isn’t merely about the money. Compensated labor provides a sense of independence, identity and purpose; an unemployment check does not replace any of those things. People who lose jobs also lose their benefits — and in the United States, that includes their health insurance. And a substantial body of research on earlier economic downturns documents that people who lose jobs, even if they eventually find new ones, suffer lasting damage to their earnings potential, health and even the prospects of their children. The longer it takes to find a new job, the deeper the damage tends to be.
American companies have long fought to maximize their freedom to shed workers during economic downturns, and American economists have tended to agree, arguing that easy separation facilitates adjustments in the allocation of resources, allowing weaker businesses to shrink and stronger businesses to grow. This is a dubious argument even in normal times. The American economy has outpaced Europe, and the freedom to fire workers may well be a factor. But the benefits have accrued primarily to shareholders. The European model has been better for workers, who have experienced faster income growth than in the United States.
And this downturn is not an example of the kind of periodic free-market “creative destruction” that those who embrace this theory tend to celebrate — it’s a public-health crisis. The nation has taken ill, and it needs to go to bed for a while. But there’s no obvious reason to think the economy would benefit from the kinds of big economic shifts facilitated by mass unemployment. This economic contraction was not caused by too much housing construction or too much gambling on Wall Street. It was caused by the arrival of a virus, and preserving ties between companies and workers could help to accelerate the eventual economic recovery once the pandemic passes. Companies could keep trained and experienced employees, averting the need for people to look for jobs and for companies to look for workers.
The United States has made some efforts to preserve jobs, particularly at small businesses. The bailout bill includes $367 billion for loans to small businesses that would be forgiven if recipients avoid job and wage cuts. But that is less than a third of the amount that experts estimate would be required to provide comprehensive support for small businesses.
And the bill does not require big companies that get bailouts to make similar efforts.
Instead, the government agreed to give workers who lose their jobs an extra $600 a week.
We’d all be better off if the government had helped those workers keep their jobs instead.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) These Companies Enriched Themselves. Now They’re Getting a Bailout.
By Tim Wu and Yaryna Serkez, March 27, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/27/opinion/coronavirus-bailout.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Are taxpayers rewarding a decade of bad behavior? The $2 trillion coronavirus relief package making its way through Congress will yield payments to most Americans and protections for workers, but also special treatment — bailouts — for a number of industries and companies. The airline industry is expected to get some $50 billion in cash and loans; Boeing, which asked for $60 billion, is widely expected to receive some part of a $17 billion fund. And a general bailout fund of some $500 billion is expected to be used for other industries, like hotels and cruise lines, whose business has dried up.
To what degree are taxpayers being asked to bail out wealthy creditors, and to reward companies that, during years when they made enormous profits, spent their money propping up their own stock prices?
Few question the need to provide stimulus or emergency aid to an afflicted economy. But the case for aid to individuals is much different than for aid to specific companies. The companies that will be receiving the largest bailouts were, until recently, enjoying unprecedented levels of corporate profitability, thanks to large corporate tax cuts, industry mergers and the avoidance of significant wage increases for employees.
During the past decade, flush with cash, most of the companies in line to get taxpayer money did not prepare for a downturn. Instead, they spent enormous sums on stock buybacks, which reward shareholders and increase executive pay. For example, the airline industry, which is prone to booms and busts, collectively spent more than $45 billion on stock buybacks over the past eight years. As recently as March 3 of this year, with the crisis already beginning, the Hilton hotel chain put $2 billion into a stock buyback.
The expected bailouts, depending on how they are structured, would also save shareholders from losses that they would otherwise experience in a bankruptcy proceeding.
The past decade was also an “easy money” decade, thanks to federal monetary policy that favored liquidity and low interest rates. Many of the firms now asking for bailouts took advantage of low interest rates to borrow heavily. For their part, many creditors lent money at rates that did not fully reflect the risks to these industries. The debt loads have created their own fragilities during the economic downturn.
One consequence of a bailout, depending on how it is structured, would be to save private capital from large losses on these loans — loans that were, in retrospect, much riskier than they appeared.
The economy needs help, and fast. Yet it is hard to escape the conclusion that the $2 trillion aid package validates and indeed further rewards the questionable practices of the last decade. In a normal bankruptcy proceeding, equity holders and shareholders would incur significant losses based on the taking of risks that were not unknown. It is true that the $2 trillion aid package has a condition that would, going forward, temporarily bar further stock buybacks for companies that receive taxpayer loans. But viewed in context, the relief package still amounts to a bailout of private capital and the endorsement of a decade of self-enriching practices.
Tim Wu (@superwuster) is a law professor at Columbia, a contributing opinion writer and the author, most recently, of “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age.” Yaryna Serkez (@iarynam) is a graphics editor for Opinion.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) E.P.A., Citing Coronavirus, Drastically Relaxes Rules for Polluters
By Lisa Friedman, March 26, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/climate/epa-coronavirus-pollution-rules.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
David J. Phillip/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced a sweeping relaxation of environmental rules in response to the coronavirus pandemic, allowing power plants, factories and other facilities to determine for themselves if they are able to meet legal requirements on reporting air and water pollution.
The move comes amid an influx of requests from businesses for a relaxation of regulations as they face layoffs, personnel restrictions and other problems related to the coronavirus outbreak.
Issued by the E.P.A.’s top compliance official, Susan P. Bodine, the policy sets new guidelines for companies to monitor themselves for an undetermined period of time during the outbreak and says that the agency will not issue fines for violations of certain air, water and hazardous-waste-reporting requirements.
Companies are normally required to report when their factories discharge certain levels of pollution into the air or water.
“In general, the E.P.A. does not expect to seek penalties for violations of routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, and reporting or certification obligations in situations where the E.P.A. agrees that Covid-19 was the cause of the noncompliance and the entity provides supporting documentation to the E.P.A. upon request,” the order states.
It said the agency’s focus during the outbreak would be “on situations that may create an acute risk or imminent threat to public health or the environment” and said it would exercise “discretion” in enforcing other environmental rules.
The order asks companies to “act responsibly” if they cannot currently comply with rules that require them to monitor or report the release of hazardous air pollution. Businesses, it said, should “minimize the effects and duration of any noncompliance” and keep records to report to the agency how Covid-19 restrictions prevented them from meeting pollution rules.
“E.P.A. is committed to protecting human health and the environment, but recognizes challenges resulting from efforts to protect workers and the public from Covid-19 may directly impact the ability of regulated facilities to meet all federal regulatory requirements,” Andrew R. Wheeler, the E.P.A. administrator, said in a statement.
Environmental groups and former Obama administration officials described the policy as an unprecedented relaxation of rules for petrochemical plants and other major polluters.
Gina McCarthy, who led the E.P.A. under the Obama administration and now serves as president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called it “an open license to pollute.” She said that while individual companies might need flexibility, “this brazen directive is nothing short of an abject abdication of the E.P.A. mission to protect our well being.’’
Cynthia Giles, who headed the E.P.A. enforcement division during the Obama administration, said: “This is essentially a nationwide waiver of environmental rules. It is so far beyond any reasonable response I am just stunned.”
Other observers defended the move. Granta Nakayama, a partner at the law firm King & Spalding who served in the E.P.A.’s office of compliance under President George W. Bush, said the memo did not give companies a free pass to pollute, but rather provided guidance in a challenging situation where many industries are facing unique circumstances.
“It’s a very straightforward and sensible, in my view, guidance,” he said.
Agency officials said the new policy relaxes compliance for monitoring and reporting only so that facilities can concentrate on ensuring that their pollution-control equipment remains safe and operational.
“It is not a nationwide waiver of environmental rules,” said Andrea Woods, an E.P.A. spokeswoman. “For situations outside of routine monitoring and reporting, the agency has reserved its authorities and will take the pandemic into account on a case-by-case basis.”
The memo said the compliance changes were retroactive to March 13.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) A N.Y. Nurse Dies. Angry Co-Workers Blame a Lack of Protective Gear.
“I’m okay. Don’t tell Mom and Dad. They’ll worry,” he wrote to his sister. He may be the first nurse in New York City to die from the coronavirus.
By Somini Sengupta, March 26, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/nyregion/nurse-dies-coronavirus-mount-sinai.html?algo=top_conversion&fellback=false&imp_id=586163301&imp_id=185012600&action=click&module=Most%20Popular&pgtype=Homepage
A native of Michigan, Kious Kelly moved to New York over 20 years ago to pursue a career as a dancer.
Kious Kelly, a nurse manager at a Manhattan hospital, texted his sister on March 18 with some devastating news: He had tested positive for the coronavirus and was on a ventilator in the intensive care unit. He told her he could text but not talk.
“I’m okay. Don’t tell Mom and Dad. They’ll worry,” he wrote to his sister, Marya Patrice Sherron.
That was his last message. Ms. Sherron’s subsequent texts to him went unanswered. In less than a week, he was dead.
Mr. Kelly, a 48-year-old assistant nurse manager at Mount Sinai West, may have been the first New York City nurse to die from the virus.
His sister said he had asthma but was otherwise well.
“His death could have been prevented,” Ms. Sherron said on Facebook Wednesday. Later, she added: “I’m angry. He was healthy.”
Colleagues at the hospital were angry, too. Some complained on social media channels that they did not have an adequate supply of protective clothing or masks.
A nurse who worked with Mr. Kelly said the hospital had offered nurses one plastic protective gown for an entire shift, though normal protocol required a change of gowns between interactions with infected patients. The nurse, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the staff member was not authorized to speak to the media, said Mr. Kelly had not used protective equipment, even though he regularly helped nurses on his team with hands-on care.
As recently as March 10, he helped a nurse take off her protective gear after working with a patient who tested positive for the virus, the nurse said.
Several Mount Sinai West staff members, contacted for this story, said they had been told by hospital administrators not to speak to journalists. Mr. Kelly’s death was first reported in The New York Post.
Gia Lisa Krahne, an outside consultant who provided alternative Ayurvedic care to a patient at Mount Sinai West, said she last saw Mr. Kelly at work the week of March 9, interacting with patients and hospital staff, wearing neither a mask nor any protective gear.
Bevon Bloise, a registered nurse at Mount Sinai West, complained on Facebook that the hospital does not have sufficient personal protective equipment, or P.P.E. “I’m also very angry with the Mount Sinai Health System for not protecting him. We do not have enough PPE, we do not have the correct PPE, and we do not have the appropriate staffing to handle this pandemic. And I do not appreciate representatives of this health system saying otherwise on the news.”
“We lost a great fighter during this war,” a co-worker named Diana Torres said on Facebook. She posted a photo of co-workers tying bandannas over their faces in an effort to protect themselves. “NO THIS IS NOT PROPER PPE,” she wrote.
On its Facebook page, Mount Sinai West said it was “deeply saddened by the passing of a beloved member of our nursing staff,” without naming Mr. Kelly.
In an email, a hospital spokeswoman, Lucia Lee, disputed the claim that the hospital had not furnished protective equipment to its staff. “This crisis is straining the resources of all New York area hospitals, and while we do — and have had — enough protective equipment for our staff, we will all need more in the weeks ahead,” Ms. Lee said in the statement.
The New York Post article included a photo of hospital staff wearing garbage bags over what appeared to be scrubs. Two nurses, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being fired, said they were disposable scrubs made of permeable material, which is why nurses wrapped plastic garbage bags around them.
The photo, they said, was taken on March 17, at a time when there were many coronavirus patients at the hospital and others who had yet to be tested but who presented symptoms of infection.
In the emailed statement, Ms. Lee added that “the troubling photo circulating in the media specifically shows the nurses in proper P.P.E. underneath garbage bags.”
She did not respond to a question asking why hospital staff wore garbage bags.
Mr. Kelly lived a few blocks away from the hospital and was described by colleagues as a dedicated, good-humored colleague.
“He used to carry around a thick notepad holder that hides a box full of chocolates and candies so he can have it handy to give out to miserable/ grumbly nurses and doctors who are more likely than not ‘hangry,’” Joanne Loo, a nurse at Mount Sinai West, posted on Facebook on Wednesday.
But nursing was not his first vocation. A native of Lansing, Michigan, Mr. Kelly moved to New York more than 20 years ago to pursue a career as a dancer, his sister said. He then went to nursing school and worked as a nurse at Mount Sinai West, before being promoted to the post of assistant manager in the telemetry department.
His family is now trying to bring his body back to Michigan.
“We know we can’t have a service anytime soon, but we want him home,” Ms. Sherron said. “He died alone. We want him home now.”
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
tion: none; } #ygrp-sponsor #ov li { font-size: 77%; list-style-type: square; padding: 6px 0; } #ygrp-sponsor #ov ul { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 8px; } #ygrp-text { font-family: Georgia; } #ygrp-text p { margin: 0 0 1em 0; } #ygrp-text tt { font-size: 120%; } #ygrp-vital ul li:last-child { border-right: none !important; } -->
__._,_.___
| Reply via web post | • | Reply to sender | • | Reply to group | • | Start a New Topic | • | Messages in this topic (2) |
.
__,_._,___
