*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
From Business Insider 2018
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The biggest block from having society in harmony with the universe is the belief in a lie that says it’s not realistic or humanly possible. —Johnny Gould (Follow @tandino415 on Instagram)
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
When faced with the opportunity to do good, I really think it’s the instinct of humanity to do so. It’s in our genetic memory from our earliest ancestors. It’s the altered perception of the reality of what being human truly is that’s been indoctrinated in to every generation for the last 2000 years or more that makes us believe that we are born sinners. I can’t get behind that one. We all struggle with certain things, but I really think that all the “sinful” behavior is learned and wisdom and goodwill is innate at birth.  —Johnny Gould (Follow @tandino415 on Instagram)
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Register for Thursday, April 9th Virtual Conference
COVID-19 Pandemic: Cuba Shows That International
Solidarity is the Answer!
Please join us for a special solidarity webinar to learn about the example Cuba is setting of putting human needs ahead of profits in the fight against COVID-19. Panelists will discuss Cuba’s history of medical internationalism; how Cuba is fighting COVID-19 on the Island based on providing health care as a right; learn how Cuba is developing effective new medications such as Interferon Alpha 2-B; and how Cuba is sending medical teams to Italy, the Caribbean and dozens of countries.
https://mailchi.mp/b103a4a00a4c/thank-you-for-endorsing-the-call-6437738?e=99431d0db8
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
We Call for the Immediate Release of the Political Prisoner and Afrobolivian Leader, Irene Elena Flores Torrez
April 14, 2020
We call for all the de facto government's charges against Elena Flores to be dropped immediately and for Flores, Choque, Hermosa, and all political prisoners to be released.Elena Flores, the elected union president of Adepcoca (the Departmental Association of Coca Producers) and the beloved eldest sibling in her family, has been harassed and jailed without cause by the racist, misogynist and anti-labor coup regime of Jeanine Añez.She has been imprisoned for more than a month under deplorable conditions. The regime has subjected her to a smear campaign with continued threats of violence.The de facto government is responsible for stealing a presidential election and ordering 36 deaths and at least 890 illegal detentions. They have carried out forced disappearances, rape by military and police, and three massacres in Sacaba, Senkata, and Ovejuyo. The Añez government censures media, attacks, and tortures journalists, and celebrates the violence of white supremacists who are granted immunity from prosecution.In the Yungas where the majority of Afrobolivians live, US interventionism disguised as anti-narcotics, together with illegal gold mining operations, has sown paramilitary violence.Who is Elena Flores?
Elena Flores is a highly respected Afrobolivian and union leader. She began union work in her youth, carrying out many leadership roles in the Association of 35,000 coca leaf farmers of the Yungas, 5,000 feet below the city of La Paz. Flores says she always dreamed of leading the Association, which since 1983 had been led only by men. When she was elected in August last year, she won on a platform of ousting paramilitaries and uniting the three regions of the Inquisivi and the North and South Yungas. She is a strong labor leader and profoundly dedicated to the wellbeing of women.Flores is the eldest of four siblings. They care for her elderly mother who is unwell and a brother has a severe disability. She would, of course, want to be protecting her family during the dangerous times of the coup regime and the coronavirus pandemic.She denounced the criminality of the former union leadership, who are trained in paramilitary tactics and bankrolled by the Bolivian right and the U.S. The former union leaders refused to leave office or hold elections. They created cocaine networks, and ran vast corruption schemes using the considerable income of the union.More recently, Flores’ enemies have served as paramilitaries under the direction of the army and police of the Añez regime. They enter the city of La Paz as one contingent of the right-wing "shock groups" and "pititas", made up of mobs of conservative neighbors. Añez calls them heroes and has taken smiling photos with them.Since the coup, Flores has been at the forefront of denouncing the Añez regime's militarisation, harsh repression and disregard for democracy. She vows to protect and unify her unionised, campesino, Indigenous and Afrobolivian region.The current situation of women political prisoners
Since March 4th Elena Flores has been imprisoned at the Centro de Orientación Femenino de Obrajes or Centre for Women's Guidance.MarÃa Eugenia Choque Quispe is also detained there, the 60-year-old president of the Supreme Electoral Board who was falsely accused by the coup regime of committing fraud (she is also a social worker and professor of Indigenous women's histories).Another Indigenous woman in that prison is Patricia Hermosa, a lawyer, and notary for Evo Morales. Hermosa has been imprisoned ever since she tried to file the formal papers for Evo's candidacy for the Senate. His candidacy is entirely legal but has been blocked by the de facto government.Numerous other political prisoners have been jailed since the November 10th coup that brought to power Jeanine Añez.The so-called crimes of Elena Flores
Flores led a takeover of a Health Centre, el Centro de Especialidades de Atención Integral, which rightfully belongs to the union of which Elena Flores is the elected president.The clinic had fallen under right-wing paramilitary control thanks to the previous union leader, Franklin Gutierrez. He installed corrupt networks and refused to hold elections, in complete contempt of Adepcoca's governing statutes.Elena Flores has been targeted by the regime because she is a Black woman leader, a key union organizer, and an elected leader in the coca-growing region. She appeared at the side of Evo Morales repeatedly during the months leading up to October elections. The Yungas has always been a strong base of the Movement toward Socialism (MAS).The coup government’s false charges
The regime’s court imprisoned Elena Flores for aggravated robbery, harming public property, forced entry, and preventing the State from exercising its services.They charge her for an offense they allege took place in July, 2019. More than six months later, the coup regime filed against her. Strangely, the legal team presented photographs taken in November as evidence, and the coup judge accepted them. Flores' lawyer argues that she was not given adequate notice of these charges and has been denied due process.The coup regime
The coup regime was launched by the United States, working with racist oligarchs and Luis Almagro's Organization of American States (OAS). They aim to protect multinational business interests and return the country to neoliberalism, racism and general misery.The civilian shock groups who built a climate of chaos for years before the coup, in 2019 attacked Indigenous women and cut off their braids, likewise tearing at Afrobolivian women's afros.In the months following the coup, the de facto government has institutionalized their hatred of women by dismantling social programs that were destined for young mothers. They have destroyed public health care that in the last 14 years had tremendously decreased infant and maternal mortality.Within days of the coup, Añez made evident her misogynist goals through systematic rape of women and girls by the security forces, including after they had murdered them.The Añez regime must release Elena Flores. She must return to her family, community, region and union work. Her people have been robbed of her leadership.We call for all the de facto government's charges against Elena Flores to be dropped immediately and for Flores, Choque, Hermosa, and all political prisoners to be released.
View complete list of endorsers here:
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Mumia Abu-Jamal Update
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mobilization4Mumia
215-724-1618
mobilization4mumia@gmail.com
PRESS ALERT
Contact: Sophia Williams 917-806-0521, Pam Africa 267-760-7344 or Joe Piette 610-931-2615
PA DOC cruel hoax
that Abu-Jamal was ill with COVID19
Breaking News: At 5:04pm on Wednesday, April 15th, a prison official inside the SCI Mahanoy Superintendents’ Office told a concerned advocate for Mumia on an official DOC phone that Mumia was being transported by ambulance for evaluation of COVID 19 symptoms and had trouble breathing. After hours of supporters repeatedly calling prison officials to demand an opportunity to speak with Mumia, they allowed him a call at almost 9PM. Mumia confirmed that the official report was false. “I am fine,” he said, “What I need is freedom.”
This is of grave concern because the COVID-19 pandemic imposes a death sentence on the incarcerated, including 66 year-old Mumia, who already suffers from cirrhosis of the liver. More striking is this whole incident points to how the Pennsylvania DOC response to the COVID 19 pandemic is doomed to failure. As of April 15th there have been a total of 53 tests out of 45,000 inmates with a 17% positivity rate and already we have seen one death. There simply are not enough tests to understand the full transmission of the virus. The prison reduction mitigation efforts are not at all commensurate with the epidemic. In the last month there has only been a reduction of 474 out of 45,000 prisoners.
It is time to release thousands of prisoners, especially the elderly and immunocompromised, like respected journalist and internationally recognized political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, that have homes, and caring families and are no risk to the community.
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
Questions and comments may be sent to info@freedomarchives.orgFreedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
To unsubscribe contact: http://freedomarchives.org/mailman/options/ppnews_freedomarchives.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
|
|
|
|
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Message to the People
A voice from inside Pennsylvania’s gulag
I trust everyone is well, healthy, and safe. I just got news that the federal judge denied my appeal to modify my federal sentence. I don’t classify the news of denial as either good or bad; it simply is what it is, a denial. It neither sets me back or pushes me forward. I am at the same spot that I’ve been at before that federal appeal, and that is, very close to being released from prison. Remember, we were simply trying to “expedite” release from prison. And that hasn’t change not one bit. The judge’s denial of my appeal is just a reminder of how most of the status quo view us—as less than—less than human, less than citizens, less than themselves, less than...you can fill in the rest.
People may be wondering how I’m feeling, so let me tell you all how I pretty much always feel and view situations like this one. I always have momentary mixed feelings of disappointment, anger, and sadness, but as quick as it comes it goes. Because my view in life is 1) they can’t keep a good person down for long, 2) be thankful for what you have, 3) always look at the positive in things that appear bad and take that positive position, and 4) have faith in the universal laws at play in the world. So, the way I see this situation is that I’m a good brother; I’m thankful for being near release from prison and for even getting the opportunity to have my federal appeal heard before a court because that rarely happens. I see the positives as being heard, meeting new friends, bringing family closer to me, and new paths revealing themselves to me; and I have unwavering faith in the law of cause and effect—that what we put into the world is what we get out of the world. Well I put in good works.
So, keep your eyes on the prize and fight like hell to get it! I know I will. And know of a surety, that in the end, we will win freedom, justice, equality, peace, happiness, family, good homes, health, and heaven on earth while we live. Stay safe.
Write to Shakaboona:
Smart Communications/PA DOC
Kerry Shakaboona Marshall #BE7826
SCI Rockview
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
You can watch the film here:
iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/movie/we-are-many/id1118498978
Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/We-Are-Many-Damon-Albarn/dp/B01IFW0WX4
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
LETTERS NEEDED FOR
LEONARD PELTIER
Dear Friends, Supporters, and Family,
In light of the provisions of the CARES Act meant to decrease the risk to prisoner heath, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Attorney General has delegated to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons the authority to release certain vulnerable prisoners to home confinement. Currently, the process for identifying appropriate candidates for home confinement have not been solidified but we believe it may help to write to the BOP Director and Southeast Regional Director and ask that Leonard be immediately considered and transitioned to his home on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.
Your letters should be addressed to:
Michael CarvajalDirector320 First Street NWWashington, DC 20534
J.A. KellerSoutheast Regional DirectorFederal Bureau of3800 Camp Crk Prk SW, Building 2000Atlanta, GA 30331
We have not drafted a form letter or correspondence. Your pleas should come from your heart as an individual who has supported Leonard for so many years. Say what you would like but we have put together some talking points that will assist you in your letter writing. Below are some helpful guidelines so your letter touches on the requirements of the Attorney General’s criteria for releasing inmates like Leonard to home confinement
OPENING:• Point out that Leonard is an elder and is at risk for example.” Mr. Peltier is 75 years old and in very poor health; his only desire is to go home to the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation and live out the remainder of his years surrounded by his family.”
MEDICAL:The AG and CDC guidelines for releasing inmates requires the health concerns cause greater risk of getting the virus. Leonard has the following conditions you can list in your letter• Diabetes• Spots on lung• Heart Condition (has had triple by-pass surgery)• Leonard Peltier suffers from a kidney disease that cannot be treated at the Coleman1facility and impacts as an underlying condition if contracting the virus.
RISK TO COMMUNITY:To qualify for release to home confinement we must show that Leonard poses no risk to the community.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT/RENTRY PLAN:To qualify for release to home confinement we must show that Leonard has a reentry plan. Leonard has support from the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Band and has family land on the reservation where he can live.
RISK OF COVID 19:To qualify for the release to home confinement must show that Leonard is at reduced risk to exposure of COVID 19 by release than he is at Coleman 1. Currently Rolette County, ND has no cases of COVID 19, Sumter County has at least 33 cases.
Questions and comments may be sent to info@freedomarchives.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
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
___________________________________
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
| |||||||
| |||||||
| |||||||
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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)
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*------------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
|
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Articles:
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) The Reason Hospitals Won’t Let Doctors and Nurses Speak Out
I know what it’s like to face a gag order after calling attention to life-threatening problems.
By Theresa Brown, April 21, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/opinion/coronavirus-doctors-nurses-hospitals.html?referringSource=articleShare
Kena Betancur/Getty Images
During the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s not just the risk of disease that has nurses and doctors worried. Across the country, thousands fear that speaking up about shortages of personal protective equipment and staff will lead to disciplinary action and possibly get them fired. Many hospitals have instituted gag orders to make it clear that publicly advocating for safer working conditions could lead to losing one’s job — and as Nicholas Kristof and others have demonstrated, dozens have already been punished.
I am a nurse, and while I am not currently working on the front lines, I know how those nurses and doctors feel. I was one of them: forced out of a job I loved because I wouldn’t agree to stop writing and speaking about the problems in our health care system.
I have never told this story publicly, and even now it is unsettling. I was naïve when I began writing as a nurse, for this newspaper. I thought that everyone involved in health care wanted all patients to receive the best care possible and that drawing attention to problems would lead to their being solved. Instead I was accused by administrators of “making the hospital look bad.” And even though I scrupulously adhered to federal privacy requirements, never named my hospital and de-identified staff members as much as possible, I finally received an ultimatum: If I wrote or spoke further, I would be fired.
The hospital’s chief nursing officer said that my writing was compromising care and that several oncologists — who were never named and supposedly would not meet with me — complained that they could not practice the way they wanted to with me on the floor. This came after a series of intimidating meetings I had with the chief nursing officer and a corporate lawyer. People who haven’t been through a similar gantlet of corporate suspicion have no idea how stressful it is: I was a floor nurse being repeatedly cold-called into meetings, while my job was to care for very sick bone-marrow-transplant patients. By the time I quit, I was having regular heart palpitations.
I kept this story to myself because I didn’t think my individual trouble with my employer mattered much beyond my personal story. I also worried about being branded a “disgruntled former employee,” a label that could have kept me from ever working as a nurse in Pittsburgh again. I simply had too much to lose.
The nurses and doctors being silenced now, though, have too much to lose if they do not speak up. They don’t want to infect their grandparents, spouses or children with the coronavirus. They don’t want to infect their non-Covid-19 patients. They don’t want to lose their jobs, but they also don’t want to lose their lives.
The real question here is, Why do they have to make such a choice? Why are hospital systems issuing gag orders? And why, when complaints about lack of personal protective equipment or poor management of Covid-19 patients come out, does a hospital representative so often deny everything, even when the evidence is damning? Why are hospitals so intent on defending their own images, rather than their nurses, doctors and patients?
One obvious explanation is money. Hospitals could be worried about being sued, by patients or staff members, for negligence during the Covid-19 pandemic. There may also be regulatory issues that hospitals worry about being dinged for that could lead to loss of income or threaten their accreditation.
But my experience suggests that restricting employees’ speech goes deeper and relates to the continuing corporatization of American medicine. Gag orders and representatives who come across like spin doctors waging a political campaign are the product of corporate health care systems focused on their “brand,” outselling the “competition” and making as much money as possible.
Controlling employee speech is the dark side of this branding and spin. The health system I worked in was very hierarchical, not just in the clinical setting, but also in terms of how management related to staffs. Information came from the top down. Questioning of policies and practices was disapproved of, at times even when that questioning addressed patient safety. No surprise, my former employer has issued a gag order for all of the staff during the pandemic. Clinicians who fear the virus and lack sufficient protective equipment must now work in an environment where they fear the hospital administration as well.
The biggest problem with this watertight approach to information and focus on hospital brands is that maximizing health care revenue does not mean patients receive the best possible care. The United States spends more on health care per person than any other industrialized country, but our patients overall do worse.
Silence is golden, I used to hear as a child, implying that holding one’s tongue has social value in and of itself. In some situations that may be true, but not with the Covid-19 crisis. Patients and nurses and doctors are dying. Prohibitions against speaking up about their clinical needs can only make the number of dead increase, because those clinical needs are real. Front-line workers lack adequate supplies, they do not have tests for the virus, and they keep losing staff members to sickness.
But they do have courage, commitment and their voices — of compassion and outrage intertwined. If the richest country in the world cannot care for its hospital workers, can’t we at least protect their speech? Their protest is a stark distress call in the middle of an already terrible emergency.
Theresa Brown is a clinical faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing and the author of The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) Trump Muses About Light as Remedy, but Also Disinfectant, Which Is Dangerous
At a briefing, the president promoted unproven treatments and asked Dr. Deborah Birx if she had heard of the success of sunlight as a tool against viruses.
By William J. Broad and Dan Levin, April 24, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/health/sunlight-coronavirus-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Al Drago for The New York Times
President Trump has long pinned his hopes on the powers of sunlight to defeat the Covid-19 virus. He returned to that theme at the White House coronavirus briefing on Thursday, bringing in a science administrator to back up his assertions and eagerly theorizing about treatments involving the use of household disinfectant that would be dangerous if put inside the body, as well as the power of sunlight and ultraviolet light.
After the administrator, William N. Bryan, the head of science at the Department of Homeland Security, told the briefing that the agency had tested how sunlight and disinfectants — including bleach and alcohol — can kill the coronavirus on surfaces in as little as 30 seconds, an excited Mr. Trump returned to the lectern.
“Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light,” Mr. Trump said. “And I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but we’re going to test it?” he added, turning to Mr. Bryan, who had returned to his seat. “And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, either through the skin or some other way.”
Apparently reassured that the tests he was proposing would take place, Mr. Trump then theorized about the possible medical benefits of disinfectants in the fight against the virus.
“And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute — one minute — and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?” he asked. “Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”
Experts have long warned that ultraviolet lamps can harm humans if used improperly — when the exposure is outside the body, much less inside. The link between ultraviolet light and skin cancer is well established. Bleach and other disinfectants may kill microbes but they also can kill humans if swallowed or if fumes are too powerful. That is why bottles of bleach and other disinfectants carry sharp warnings of ingestion dangers.
Mr. Trump’s comments prompted an explosion of warnings about the dangers of any improvised remedies. Emergency management officials in Washington State posted a warning on Twitter. “Please don’t eat tide pods or inject yourself with any kind of disinfectant,” they wrote, before urging the public to rely only on official medical advice about Covid-19. “Just don’t make a bad situation worse.”
The maker of the disinfectants Lysol and Dettol also issued a statement on Friday warning against the improper use of their products. “As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” the company said.
By Friday morning, the White House issued a new statement. “President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterday’s briefing,” said Kayleigh McEnany, the White House Press Secretary. “Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.”
At the Thursday briefing, Mr. Trump had assailed a reporter who expressed concern that people might “think they would be safe by going outside in the heat considering that so many people are dying in Florida.”
“I hope people enjoy the sun, and if it has an impact, that’s great,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump then turned to Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, and asked if she had heard of the success of sunlight as an effective tool against viruses, and more specifically the coronavirus.
“Not as a treatment,” Dr. Birx replied. “I mean, certainly fever is a good thing when you have a fever. It helps your body respond. But not as — I have not seen heat or ….”
Mr. Trump cut short her answer.
“I think that’s a great thing to look at,” he said. “I mean you know, OK?”
On Friday the White House also sent a corrected briefing transcript, which initially misrepresented Dr. Birx’s response. The Thursday transcript quoted Dr. Birx as saying, “That is a treatment”; the corrected version clarified that she indeed said, “Not as a treatment.”
Mr. Trump has long touted various ideas against the coronavirus despite a lack of scientific evidence, from sunlight and warmer temperatures to an array of drugs, including the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which he has promoted as a “what have you got to lose” remedy.
But some of his recommendations, however, have had disastrous effects. Last month, an Arizona man died and his wife was hospitalized after the couple ingested a chemical found in hydroxychloroquine.
As the pandemic has spread to countries experiencing hot weather, including Australia and Iran, some groups have investigated whether the warmer summer season would slow the virus. Early this month, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences looked exclusively at humidity and temperature and found that they would have a minimal impact on the virus.
At the Thursday briefing, Mr. Bryan said that the novel coronavirus dies rapidly when exposed to sunlight, high temperatures and humidity. He cited experiments the agency had conducted at a high-security laboratory in Frederick, Md.
“Our most striking observation to date is the powerful effect that solar light appears to have on killing the virus — both surfaces and in the air,” Mr. Bryan said. “We’ve seen a similar effect with both temperature and humidity as well, where increasing the temperature and humidity, or both, is generally less favorable to the virus.”
The sunlight finding was no surprise to life scientists who, for many decades, have reported that ultraviolet light — an invisible but energetic part of the sun’s electromagnetic spectrum — can damage DNA, kill viruses and turn human skin cells from healthy to cancerous.
For public health, the big challenge is widening such narrow laboratory findings so they take into account how the global environment and its changing weather and endless nuances can impact the overall result — most especially on the question of whether the virus that causes Covid-19 will diminish in the summer. This week, a pair of ecological modelers at the University of Connecticut reported evidence that balmy weather may indeed slow the coronavirus, but not enough to do away with the social-distancing measures advised by public health officials.
The inherent limitations of lab studies were driven home on April 7 in a letter to the White House from a National Academy of Sciences panel looking into research on the coronavirus. “With experimental studies,” the panel said, “environmental conditions can be controlled, but almost always the conditions fail to adequately mimic those of the natural setting.”
Katie Rogers contributed reporting.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) No One Deserves to Die of Covid-19 in Jail
But more than 100 inmates already have.
"This week, the Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio became the largest reported source of virus infections. There, 2,011 inmates, about 80 percent of the prison’s population, have tested positive. In addition, 154 members of the 350-person staff tested positive. In total, at least 2,400 inmates in Ohio’s prison system have tested positive. Ten have died in Ohio’s Pickaway Correctional Institution, which houses minimum- and medium-security inmates.
By The Editorial Board, April 23, 2020"
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/opinion/coronavirus-prisons.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Photo illustration by Calla Kessler
On March 28, Patrick Jones became the first inmate in a federal prison known to have died of Covid-19. He was a worker at a prison textile factory at the Oakdale Federal Correctional Complex in Louisiana, where he was serving time for a nonviolent drug offense. By the third week of April, seven more inmates at Oakdale had died. Meanwhile, prison factories around the country have stayed open, subjecting inmates who work there to packed conditions even as the virus spreads.
Social distancing in prisons is nearly impossible. The size of the inmate population in federal prisons exceeds their rated capacity by 12 to 19 percent, according to a report this year from the Justice Department.
No one deserves to die of Covid-19 in prison or jail. But more than 100 inmates already have, and thousands more could if prisons and elected officials do not take steps to protect the incarcerated now. A report from the American Civil Liberties Union predicted that an explosion of cases in jails could cause the total death count in the United States to double.
Two weeks ago, Cook County Jail in Chicago was the nation’s top hot spot for coronavirus cases, according to The Times. More than 230 inmates and 115 staff members had tested positive, even as the majority of inmates had not been tested. This week, the Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio became the largest reported source of virus infections. There, 2,011 inmates, about 80 percent of the prison’s population, have tested positive. In addition, 154 members of the 350-person staff tested positive. In total, at least 2,400 inmates in Ohio’s prison system have tested positive. Ten have died in Ohio’s Pickaway Correctional Institution, which houses minimum- and medium-security inmates.
Infection hot spots appearing in prisons is not a fait accompli. The spread of the virus can be curbed if prisons send home eligible inmates. The federal government and 49 states already recognize some form of compassionate release for the elderly and very ill. If ever there were a time to show compassion to vulnerable, nonviolent inmates, it is now. Parole boards in states with indeterminate sentencing also have the power to assess the list of inmates set to be paroled in the next six months and to consider releasing many of them as soon as possible.
Some states have already taken action to free inmates. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington this week commuted the sentences of 293 inmates whose release was set to come within 60 days. In Washington, another 600 inmates are reportedly being considered for a “rapid re-entry program” that would allow freed inmates to re-enter the community with electronic monitoring. Governors across the country should evaluate ways to use their clemency powers to save lives.
Releasing these prisoners during this crisis is not just an act of mercy to protect prisoners’ health, and the health of the prison staff. Fewer sick inmates means less strain on the already burdened prison hospital system. The system was ill equipped to provide proper care to the elderly and sick even before this crisis. A 2016 report from the Department of Justice found that 17 percent of medical positions in prison hospitals were unfilled, and that 12 Bureau of Prisons facilities were so understaffed that they were at “crisis level.” Releasing high-risk inmates will free up limited resources within the prison health care system to better treat those who remain.
A 2016 study from the Brennan Center for Justice found that there was no compelling public safety reason to incarcerate 39 percent of the inmates in state and federal prisons, about 576,000 people. Elderly Americans are especially unlikely to commit further crimes once released. The United States Sentencing Commission found in 2017 that offenders over the age of 65 had just a 13.4 percent chance of being rearrested in an eight-year period after release, compared to a 67.6 percent chance for those under age 21. The report concluded that “recidivism measured by rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration declined as age increased.” There are more than 10,000 people over the age of 61 in federal prison. Many elderly inmates have been in prison for decades after receiving long sentences in the tough-on-crime 1990s. Many would be good candidates for compassionate release now.
If prisons are unwilling to release some inmates outright, they could send eligible people into home confinement, at least for the duration of this crisis. Attorney General William Barr has the authority under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to expand the authority of the Bureau of Prisons to send people into home confinement. He has already ordered the Bureau of Prisons to make more inmates at federal facilities eligible for home confinement, prioritizing those at federal facilities with outbreaks of the coronavirus in Louisiana, Connecticut and Ohio. State and local prisons should follow suit.
State officials should also work together to limit the number of new inmates entering prisons during this crisis. Prosecutors can turn their focus away from low-level crimes. The police can issue citations for nonviolent crimes instead of arresting people. Governors can issue moratoriums on cash bail, ensuring that people do not get placed in overcrowded facilities just because they cannot afford to pay. That is a bad policy in normal times, and possibly a fatal one during this crisis.
When the pandemic has passed, there will be an opportunity for broader criminal justice reforms. But in the very short term, while inmates and staff members are dying, prisons need to release people immediately.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Some Companies Seeking Bailouts Had Piles of Cash, Then Spent It
They poured the money into stock buybacks and dividends. Now, those hurting from the pandemic want government aid.
"In the three years through 2019, spurred on by Mr. Trump’s tax cuts, companies in the S&P 500 stock index spent $2 trillion on buybacks, 30 percent more than what they spent over the previous three years, according to an analysis of data from CapitalIQ. Including dividend payments, S&P 500 companies spent $3.5 trillion in the most recent three years — an amount that was equal to their net income for the period."
By Emily Flitter and Peter Eavis, April 24, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/business/coronavirus-bailouts-buybacks-cash.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The Heads of State
Last month, the top executives of KFC, Wendy’s, Papa John’s and other large restaurant chains held an urgent call with President Trump about the coronavirus crisis.
The companies needed billions of dollars in aid to avoid mass layoffs, the executives said. The next day, their trade group asked government leaders, including Mr. Trump, for $145 billion in relief.
These companies had been highly profitable in recent years, yet they were seeking help from the federal government. Where had all their money gone? Like much of corporate America, the restaurant chains had spent a large chunk on buying back their own stock, a practice aimed at bolstering its price. Some were even more vulnerable to the economic shock because they had previously increased their borrowing — including to fund buybacks or pay dividends — and strained their credit in the process.
Few, if any, corporations could have been adequately prepared for this pandemic, and efforts to stem the spread of Covid-19 have hit certain industries particularly hard — especially restaurant companies that have been forced to close most of their locations.
Still, the crisis has exposed the potential failings of a strategy embraced by many big companies: aligning their priorities with the interests of shareholders, many of whom are narrowly focused on the performance of a company’s shares. Shareholders, wanting stock prices to go higher, pushed management to use up cash on buybacks and dividends. And senior executives, paid largely in stock and on the basis of how the stock performed, were happy to oblige. The result was that companies often didn’t have much spare cash, leaving them even more exposed to economic downturns.
“They should have built up some buffers against such sudden shocks and risk,” said Willi Semmler, an economics professor at the New School for Social Research in New York.
In the three years through 2019, spurred on by Mr. Trump’s tax cuts, companies in the S&P 500 stock index spent $2 trillion on buybacks, 30 percent more than what they spent over the previous three years, according to an analysis of data from CapitalIQ. Including dividend payments, S&P 500 companies spent $3.5 trillion in the most recent three years — an amount that was equal to their net income for the period.
Regulatory requirements prescribe how much cash banks and insurers need to hold, but there are few such rules for other companies.
They spend their cash as they see fit — on acquisitions, capital expenditures, payroll and, of course, buybacks and dividends. The more money a company spends buying back its shares, the less it has for other uses, making the practice controversial. Some giants, including Apple and Facebook, are sitting on mountains of cash despite intense criticism from investors who say the companies have a responsibility to return that cash to shareholders. But most don’t need to be prodded.
Over all, S&P 500 companies now have a smaller cash buffer to support their borrowing than they did nine years ago, according to one widely used measure: net debt to EBITDA, which stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The higher the ratio, the less cash the company has on hand and coming in to pay its debts. It was 1.8 as of March 30, according to FactSet, significantly higher than it was a year before the 2008 financial crisis.
The big-business trade group, the Business Roundtable, has long argued that distributing cash through buybacks helps improve the general economy by giving money to enterprising investors who can put it to use elsewhere.
“People act like buying back stock is a bad use of capital. No, it’s not,” JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, said at a Business Roundtable event in Washington in December 2018. “You buy back stock, that’s a redeployment of capital to a better and higher use.” He added that it was “beneficial for all of America.”
The investor Warren E. Buffett, whose company, Berkshire Hathaway, is known for its enormous cash pile, has also said stock repurchases are fine as long as a company “has ample funds to take care of the operational and liquidity needs of its business.”
Zion Research, which analyzes stocks for investors, recently ranked companies that pushed their stock buybacks to a point where any financial weakness might limit their ability to continue those programs. American Airlines and Boeing — both in line for taxpayer bailouts — were at the top.
“You look at some of the companies that are struggling and are potentially in need of the most help — they’d love to have some of that capital right now,” said David Zion, founder of the firm.
In the past five years, American Airlines spent $13 billion on stock buybacks and dividends, and Boeing nearly $53 billion. American could receive as much as $10.6 billion in grants and loans from the Treasury. The stimulus bill that Congress passed last month provides as much as $17 billion for companies considered crucial to national security, a category dominated by Boeing.
The restaurant industry lived particularly close to the edge.
During the five years that ended in 2019, McDonald’s and Yum Brands, which operates KFC and Taco Bell, made payments to shareholders that were equivalent to a third of the $145 billion in pandemic relief that the industry requested, an analysis by Hindenburg Research for The New York Times found. The industry did not secure the money it sought, but individual restaurant owners are expected to get funds from government programs.
Well before the pandemic, Yum repeatedly flagged the mass spread of diseases as a top “risk factor” in its annual reports, warning over a year ago that such outbreaks could “severely disrupt” operations and harm its business and finances.
Yum also returned cash to its shareholders, paying $15 billion to investors in buybacks and dividends over the past five years. And it didn’t just spend profits to make the payments; it borrowed to finance them. At the end of last year, Yum’s debt was more than twice the size of its assets, according to Hindenburg — a huge leap from 40 percent of assets five years earlier. During the same period, the compensation of Greg Creed, its recently retired chief executive, totaled $66 million.
To have more cash on hand during the pandemic, the company this month issued $600 million in bonds whose interest rates were almost twice what the company previously paid. It also drew $525 million from an existing credit line last month.
Virginia Ferguson, a representative for Yum, said a change in the structure of its business and the strong performance of its restaurants had provided much of the cash to pay for buybacks. The use of extra debt to fund the purchases was “measured,” she said in an email.
Yum, which said last month that it had suspended its buyback program, did not request government funds for itself, Ms. Ferguson said. She added that the small businesses that run Yum franchises would qualify for government relief. Owners of franchises in chains like Yum’s and McDonald’s can apply for aid made available through the legislation passed last month in response to the pandemic.
“McDonald’s Corporation has not, and will not, ask for assistance from any government entity, nor seek any deferral of our tax payments,” said Michael Gonda, a company spokesman. He said the company had halted share buybacks, cut spending by $1 billion and borrowed more money.
The situation is dire for some restaurant companies that pushed the financial envelope.
Dave & Buster’s, a chain of game-filled restaurants, warned this month that with all its locations closed, there was “substantial doubt” that it could remain a going concern. The company spent $627 million on stock buybacks and dividends in its last three fiscal years, nearly twice its net income for the period.
At the start of February, Dave & Buster’s had 15,908 employees. Because of the pandemic, all but 165 are on furloughs. In the annual report from a year ago, the company flagged the risk of illnesses, though it was not identified as a prominent risk factor.
Last week, Dave & Buster’s issued new stock to help it absorb the shock of the pandemic but did not disclose how much it had raised. The company declined to comment.
Investors, especially large asset managers, like BlackRock and Vanguard, that own big stakes in companies, could prod management to prepare for future pandemics. BlackRock’s chief executive, Laurence D. Fink, has warned about “short-termism,” writing in 2015 and 2017 annual letters that too many companies were failing to put money into research or expand their work forces for long-term growth. But Mr. Fink’s concern was limited to whether companies were leaving themselves enough cash to grow, and not whether they were prepared for unforeseen calamities.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Missouri Pork Plant Workers Say They Can’t Cover Mouths to Cough
A lawsuit filed against a Smithfield Foods plant claims it has created a public nuisance by failing to protect workers from coronavirus infection.
By Noam Scheiber and Michael Corkery, April 24, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/business/economy/coronavirus-smithfield-meat.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Business
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Workers at a Smithfield Foods pork plant in Milan, Mo., say that for years they have endured repetitive stress injuries on the meat processing line — and urinary tract infections because they had so few bathroom breaks.
But as the coronavirus pandemic has emerged, workers say they have encountered another health complication: reluctance to cover their mouths while coughing or to clean their faces after sneezing, because this can cause them to miss a piece of meat as it goes by, creating a risk of disciplinary action.
The claims appear in a complaint filed Thursday in federal court by an anonymous Smithfield worker and the Rural Community Workers Alliance, a local advocacy group whose leadership council includes several other Smithfield workers.
The complaint also seeks to test a novel legal question: whether health hazards at the plant present a public nuisance.
Coronavirus infections have emerged as a significant problem at meatpacking plants around the country, with some closing and many others operating well below capacity. At least 10 workers in meatpacking and three workers in food processing have died of Covid-19, leaders of the United Food and Commercial Workers union said on Thursday. About 6,500 employees either have contracted the virus, missed work because they had to self quarantine, or are waiting for tests or show symptoms, they said.
Officials of the union, which represents a vast majority of the workers in the pork and beef industries, said recent plant closings had reduced national beef production 10 percent and pork production 25 percent.
The court complaint about the Smithfield pork plant in Missouri, which is not unionized, says workers are typically required to stand almost shoulder to shoulder, must often go hours without being able to clean or sanitize their hands, and have difficulty taking sick leave.
“Since before the Covid-19, there was a problem with bathroom breaks,” said Axel Fuentes, the executive director of the workers alliance. But beginning in March, he said, “day after day, more people are concerned and scared about getting infected with the coronavirus.”
Mr. Fuentes said that some workers at the plant had shown symptoms like cough and fever but that few, if any, had been tested.
Smithfield said the complaint was without merit. “The health and safety of our employees is our top priority at all times,” said Keira Lombardo, the company’s executive vice president for corporate affairs and compliance. She cited a policy of not commenting on pending litigation, but she said the accusations “include claims previously made against the company that have been investigated and determined to be unfounded.”
Smithfield has shuttered a plant in Wisconsin and a plant in Martin City, Mo., in addition to a South Dakota slaughterhouse that employs hundreds of workers who have been infected by the virus. Tyson Foods has closed plants in Indiana, Washington and Iowa, one of which has reopened, and plants owned by other companies in Minnesota and Illinois have experienced outbreaks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which toured the South Dakota facility last week, recommended Thursday that Smithfield establish more social distancing barriers and possibly slow down the production line there to create more space between workers.
Beyond seeking to make workers safer, the complaint about the plant in Milan, Mo., is testing whether public nuisance law dating back hundreds of years can be used to protect workers on the job. The plaintiffs argue that Smithfield, by failing to take adequate safety measures, risks a coronavirus outbreak that could quickly spread to the entire community.
“It exists in any state — the idea of bringing the public nuisance,” said Karla Gilbride, a lawyer with Public Justice, a legal advocacy group that has worked with the Smithfield workers in Milan for several years and is helping to bring the complaint.
“If, whether it’s a private company or a private citizen, they’re operating something on their property and whatever they’re doing is unsafe and poses a danger to the entire community,” Ms. Gilbride said, “then the public has a right to safety and health.”
The lawsuit seeks to force Smithfield to change its practices at the plant but asks no monetary penalties or compensation. The case includes a second count under Missouri common law that requires employers to provide safe workplaces, but is being brought in federal court primarily because the parties to the complaint reside in different states. A public interest legal group called Towards Justice is also involved.
Thomas McGarity, a professor at the University of Texas Law School, said the public nuisance doctrine had been successfully applied more recently in environmental cases, including those where animal runoff or chemicals had polluted the local water supply. He said nuisance cases involving pathogens had historically been successful as well, though they typically involved pathogens that could be spread through insects or other animals.
In a Colorado case from the early 20th century, a judge ordered a defendant to stop operating a ranch in which he fed garbage and discarded meat to hogs, sickening them and risking the spread of disease throughout the community.
“The vector is not a mosquito, it’s a worker — that’s what distinguishes this case from a classic nuisance case,” Mr. McGarity said. “But if you think about the nature of this coronavirus and the fact that it you can be shedding the coronavirus without displaying any of the symptoms, it’s not so far different from a mosquito.”
He said that if the suit against Smithfield was successful, a judge would probably require the company to use the best available technology to reduce the risk of contagion, such as better protective equipment and spacing.
Mr. Fuentes, the director of the local alliance, said that before the pandemic, the question of bathroom breaks had been a top concern of workers.
Since the pandemic arrived, Mr. Fuentes said, the concern has shifted almost entirely to the risk of exposure and infection, especially once schools closed in the area. “After that, a lot of workers got really scared,” he said. “The workers said, ‘The kids are not going to school, but they’re making us go to work.”’
Several dozen workers signed a letter that was delivered to plant management during the week of March 30 complaining of cramped conditions and a lack of protective equipment and accommodations for sick leave. It cited the company’s policy of assigning workers a disciplinary point — a tally that can lead to dismissal — if they took a day off.
The letter asked the company to address these concerns and to slow down processing lines so that workers had time to cover their mouths while coughing or to clean their nose after sneezing.
The company later installed barriers between some workers on the line, but the complaint says the barriers, which hang from above, often aren’t low enough to shield their faces. The company also began providing masks last week and has carried out temperature checks. Its chief executive has said that Smithfield is following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and urged employees: “Do not report to work if you are sick or exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms. You will be paid.”
But according to the complaint, plant managers discourage workers from taking sick leave, and Smithfield has done little to address the other problems described in the letter.
And some company policies have added to safety concerns. In March, Smithfield announced that workers in Milan would receive a $500 bonus if they worked every shift they were scheduled for from April 1 to May 1. According to the complaint, this has given workers an incentive to show up “even when they are experiencing symptoms,” though the company later said that workers who missed time because of Covid exposure would still receive the money.
“Heroes come in many forms,” the company wrote in a poster advertising the bonus, a translation from the poster’s Spanish version. “At Smithfield we accept responsibility in everything we do. And we reward those who accept responsibility.”
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Trump’s Suggestion That Disinfectants Could Be Used to Treat Coronavirus Prompts Aggressive Pushback
Responding to the criticism from public health officials around the country, the president said he was playing a trick on reporters.
By Katie Rogers, Christine Hauser, Alan Yuhas, and Maggie Haberman, April 24, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/us/politics/trump-inject-disinfectant-bleach-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images
WASHINGTON — In Maryland, so many callers flooded a health hotline with questions that the state’s Emergency Management Agency had to issue a warning that “under no circumstances” should any disinfectant be taken to treat the coronavirus. In Washington State, officials urged people not to consume laundry detergent capsules. Across the country on Friday, health professionals sounded the alarm.
Injecting bleach or highly concentrated rubbing alcohol “causes massive organ damage and the blood cells in the body to basically burst,” Dr. Diane P. Calello, the medical director of the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System, said in an interview. “It can definitely be a fatal event.”
Even the makers of Clorox and Lysol pleaded with Americans not to inject or ingest their products.
The frantic reaction was prompted by President Trump’s suggestion on Thursday at a White House briefing that an “injection inside” the human body with a disinfectant like bleach or isopropyl alcohol could help combat the virus.
“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute,” Mr. Trump said after a presentation from William N. Bryan, an acting under secretary for science at the Department of Homeland Security, detailed the virus’s possible susceptibility to bleach and alcohol.
“One minute,” the president said. “And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.”
Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was sitting to the side in the White House briefing room, blinking hard and looking at the floor as he spoke. Later, Mr. Trump asked her if she knew about “the heat and the light” as a potential cure.
“Not as a treatment,” Dr. Birx said, adding, “I haven’t seen heat or light —” before the president cut her off.
Mr. Trump’s remarks caused an immediate uproar, and the White House spent much of Friday trying to walk them back. Also Friday, the Food and Drug Administration warned that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, two drugs that the president has repeatedly recommended in treating the coronavirus, can cause dangerous abnormalities in heart rhythm in coronavirus patients and has resulted in some deaths.
The F.D.A. said the drugs should be used only in clinical trials or hospitals where patients can be closely monitored for heart problems.
“Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines,” Kayleigh McEnany, the new White House press secretary, said in a statement criticizing the coverage of Thursday night’s briefing.
But the president later undermined her argument by insisting that his question to Mr. Bryan in fact had been an elaborate prank that he had engineered to trick reporters.
“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen,” Mr. Trump said on Friday to journalists gathered in the Oval Office. The president said he had posed his theory on cleaning the body with disinfectant “in the form of a sarcastic question to a reporter,” which also was not true — he had said it unprompted to Mr. Bryan.
With more questions likely at the Friday briefing, Vice President Mike Pence, the head of the White House coronavirus task force, abruptly ended it shortly after it began.
Several White House officials said they shared the view that Mr. Trump had been taken out of context, even as they acknowledged that his comments were problematic. They noted that the president had later directed the same comments to Dr. Birx, and suggested them as a course of study, as opposed to a recommendation of a course of action for the American public.
But they acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s delivery was too sloppy for a president in the middle of managing the response to a pandemic that has killed over 45,000 Americans. Some said it was one of the worst days in one of the worst weeks of his presidency.
Others inside the administration raised questions about why Mr. Bryan, whose background is not in health or science, had been invited to deliver a presentation. Mr. Bryan, whose expertise is in energy infrastructure and security, is serving in an acting capacity as the head of the department’s science and technology directorate.
Mr. Bryan served 17 years in the Army, followed by yearslong stints as a civil servant at the Defense and Energy Departments. The latter role led to a whistle-blower complaint accusing him, in part, of manipulating government policy to further his personal financial interests, and then lying to Congress about those interests.
The United States Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that investigates whistle-blower complaints, asked the Energy Department last year to investigate the accusations against Mr. Bryan. In January, the Senate returned his nomination to the White House.
Mr. Bryan was invited by the vice president’s office to coronavirus task force meetings on Wednesday and Thursday to talk about a study that his department had done relating to heat and the conditions in which the coronavirus can thrive or be dampened. On Thursday, Mr. Bryan presented a graphic to the room, according to four people briefed on the events.
Mr. Pence’s advisers wanted Mr. Bryan to brief the news media on his findings, but several West Wing staff members objected, partly because they were concerned the information had not been verified.
Before Mr. Bryan took the lectern in the White House Briefing Room, Dr. Birx and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a member of the coronavirus task force, made a few revisions to his presentation, officials said.
As he listened to Mr. Bryan, the president became increasingly excited, and also felt the need to demonstrate his own understanding of science, according to three of the advisers. So Mr. Trump went ahead with his theories about the chemicals.
Later in the briefing, Phil Rucker, a reporter for The Washington Post, asked the president why he had had that discussion because “people tuning into these briefings, they want to get information and guidance and want to know what to do — they’re not looking for a rumor.”
“Hey, Phil,” he responded. “I’m the president, and you’re fake news.”
The backlash was swift. A host of corporations, doctors and government officials quickly stepped forward to issue an identical warning: Cleaning products are extremely dangerous to ingest — potentially deadly — and no one should do so.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi ridiculed Mr. Trump’s comments as she criticized his priorities for coronavirus relief. “The president is asking people to inject Lysol into their lungs,” she said, calling it an indication that “Republicans reject science.”
And Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, added his own criticism.
“I can’t believe I have to say this,” Mr. Biden posted on Twitter on Friday afternoon, “but please don’t drink bleach.”
Dr. Jerome M. Adams, the surgeon general, also issued a warning through his Twitter feed — the closest he has come so far to walking back the president’s words.
“A reminder to all Americans- PLEASE always talk to your health provider first before administering any treatment/ medication to yourself or a loved one,” Dr. Adams said. “Your safety is paramount, and doctors and nurses are have years of training to recommend what’s safe and effective.”
Mr. Trump’s hopeful comments about disinfectant use coincided with an alarming rise in accidents with household cleaning products in recent weeks, according to doctors who monitor activity at poison call centers. On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a growing number of calls to poison control centers and a significant increase in accidental exposures to household cleaners and disinfectants.
The F.D.A. has moved to tamp down on merchants online that have encouraged the ingestion of products made with disinfectants and cleaning agents, including chlorine dioxide, a compound commonly used as a bleach. The products have found favor with conspiracy theorists and fringe activists online who peddle chlorine dioxide as “Magical Mineral Solution,” or M.M.S.
One such activist, Mark Grenon, claimed after the president’s briefing that “Trump has got the M.M.S. and all the info,” according to The Guardian. Mr. Grenon did not reply to an email seeking comment, nor did the White House. On Friday, a person familiar with the situation said senior administration officials were not familiar with Mr. Grenon or his letter.
Social media platforms have also moved to filter out the circulation of junk science and bad information online, using disinfectants as a prime example. Last month, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, specifically mentioned a bleach “cure” as an example of “misinformation that has imminent risk of danger.”
“Things like, ‘You can cure this by drinking bleach,’” he said. “I mean, that’s just in a different class.”
A spokesman for Twitter said on Friday that the president’s statements did “not violate our Covid-19 misinformation policy.”
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) How to Make (and Use) a Disinfectant Against Coronavirus
Here’s a guide to working with sprays, wipes and a bleach-based solution to clean surfaces of the pathogen.
By Tim Hofferman, April 24, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/article/disinfectant-coronavirus.html?algo=identity&fellback=false&imp_id=604222560&imp_id=361319984&action=click&module=Smarter%20Living&pgtype=Homepage
Michael Hession/Wirecutter
The coronavirus that causes Covid-19 may survive for several days on some surfaces. Estimates of its life span vary, but the virus can clearly hang around long enough to make disinfecting frequently touched surfaces a priority.
Normally, disinfectants, like Lysol and Clorox wipes, are available and would do the trick in cleaning most surfaces of contagions, but many of these items have been widely out of stock across the United States. If you cannot find any of these products, you can make an effective homemade disinfectant from a mixture of water and bleach.
Whatever you use, it’s crucial to know how to use a disinfectant properly — that means allowing enough time for a disinfectant to do its job, which can be as much as 10 minutes.
How to use common disinfecting products
When disinfecting a surface, by far the most important consideration is what’s known as dwell time: the amount of time the disinfectant needs to remain on a surface to kill pathogens, and in this case, specifically the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. No disinfectant works instantly; most of those sold to the public take several minutes. Different dwell times don’t indicate that one disinfectant is more or less effective than another. They’re just how long products take to eliminate the coronavirus, the result you want. But dwell time is not the only thing you need to pay attention to.
Complete disinfecting protocol includes four steps: Pre-cleaning, disinfecting (dwell time), wiping clean and rinsing with water. “But we’re lucky if we get two,” meaning dwell time and wipe-up, said Mark Warner, education manager at the Cleaning Management Institute, a provider of training and certification for professional cleaning services. Pre-cleaning is most important on heavily soiled surfaces, because dirt can shield pathogens underneath; it’s fine to use soap and water or a household cleaner. Disinfecting for the proper dwell time, of course, is nonnegotiable. Wiping afterward is essential because disinfectants can leave a sticky residue where pathogens can quickly resettle. And rinsing finishes the process.
Nonbleach Options: Nonbleach disinfectants are usually safe on fabric and other soft materials, though they are generally rated to “sanitize” rather than disinfect.
For example, Clorox Disinfecting Wipes are rated to eliminate the virus in a relatively quick four minutes. Lysol Disinfecting Wipes employ the same type of nonbleach disinfectant but take longer to work: 10 minutes. Don’t let that be a concern: If you have them, use them.
Lysol Disinfectant Spray and Lysol Disinfectant Max Cover Mist also use the same type of nonbleach disinfectant, a class of compounds known as quaternary ammonium, or simply “quats.” They’re safe on hard surfaces and most fabrics, gentler on the skin than bleach and produce fewer harsh fumes. Both eliminate the coronavirus in 10 minutes on hard surfaces but only sanitize (kill most but not all pathogens) on soft surfaces.
Lysol Kitchen Pro Antibacterial Cleaner is fabric-safe, because it uses quats instead of bleach. It eliminates the coronavirus in two minutes on hard surfaces; on soft materials, it may only sanitize.
Bleach-based Disinfectants: Clorox Multi-Surface Cleaner + Bleach eliminates the coronavirus in one minute on hard surfaces such as you find in kitchens and bathrooms — sinks, faucets, toilets, tile and synthetic countertops. Any bleach-based spray like this is for use only on hard surfaces. It will damage fabrics, feel harsh on skin and produce fumes that can irritate mucous membranes. Take precautions like ventilating the room and wearing gloves. Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner + Bleach is similar, but takes five minutes to disinfect hard surfaces.
How to make your own
Assuming you cannot get any of the above products, you can disinfect hard surfaces of the coronavirus using a solution of regular household chlorine bleach and water. If you have bleach, you can make your own mixture and dispense it with a spray bottle or with paper towels. But please be careful and read instructions when dealing with bleach as with all chemical products.
Multiple sources give different bleach-to-water ratios for use with regular bleach. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that “unexpired bleach will be effective against coronaviruses” in a 1:48 solution (⅓ cup of bleach per gallon of water, or 4 teaspoons per quart). Clorox recommends a slightly stronger 1:32 ratio (½ cup per gallon or 2 tablespoons per quart). Mark Warner recommends a much stronger 1:10 ratio (about 1½ cups per gallon of water, or about ⅓ cup per quart). Some medical disinfectants are basically the same solution.
Whichever ratio you use, let it sit on the surface for 10 minutes: Warner told us that this is the Environmental Protection Agency’s guideline for any new or unknown pathogen, and it is also the dwell time listed for the regular household bleaches on the E.P.A.’s List N, which means it is approved to eliminate the coronavirus when properly used.
Don’t mix up more than you will use within a day or two. Bleach degrades fairly rapidly once taken from its original storage container, becoming less effective each day. Storing the container away from light can prolong its useful condition. If your bottle of bleach is expired, add a bit extra to the mixture, and try to find a fresh bottle when you can.
Be careful
Bleach mixtures can be used only on hard surfaces — they will permanently damage most fabrics and many other soft materials — and are unpleasant to work with. Wear gloves. Ventilate the space as well as possible. “Bleach is corrosive, even the vapors,” Warner said. “Gives you a sore throat, you don’t taste dinner, and you wake up the next day with a weird taste in your mouth.”
You also need to wipe it off after the 10-minute dwell time, because left to sit indefinitely, bleach can damage even resilient materials like stainless steel. And it can cause some plastic containers to break down over time. (I used to keep some in an industrial spray bottle, for bathroom use; the screw-top fell apart after about a year, though the bottle itself, made of a different type of plastic, was fine.)
But in this moment, those are secondary concerns. “As you know, disinfectants are high demand and low supply,” Warner told me. “Apply a disinfectant and give it a 10-minute dwell time. Or mix some bleach up at 1-to-10. That gives you your best shot.”
Before you begin preparing any bleach solutions, especially if you’re new to this, please thoroughly read over the entire warning label on the bottle of bleach and exercise an abundance of caution in storage, handling and cleaning up afterward. Information on avoiding “irreversible eye damage and skin burns” is worth your time.
And never, ever mix bleach with ammonia or anything containing ammonia (like many window cleaners), or with anything acidic (like white vinegar and many lime scale/rust removers, including CLR and Bar Keepers Friend). Doing either will produce highly dangerous and even deadly gases.
Finally, Warner said, it’s best to dispose of prepackaged wipes or paper towels that you’ve used to disinfect surfaces. Reusable cloths and mops “should be exchanged for a new one often during a cleaning process, then laundered.” In medical facilities, he said, they are used for a maximum of three rooms before being washed. With a paper towel shortage, reusable cloths might be the way to go at home, too — let’s just hope you can still find some laundry detergent.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) The Tax-Break Bonanza Inside the Economic Rescue Package
As small businesses and individuals struggle to obtain federal aid, the wealthiest are poised to reap tens of billions of dollars in tax savings.
By Jesse Drucker, April 24, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/business/tax-breaks-wealthy-virus.html?referringSource=articleShare
Joshua Bright for The New York Times
As the federal government dispenses trillions of dollars to save the economy, small businesses and out-of-work individuals are jostling to grab small slices of aid before the funds run out.
But another group is in no danger of missing out: wealthy individuals and big companies that are poised for tax windfalls.
As part of the economic rescue package that became law last month, the federal government is giving away $174 billion in temporary tax breaks overwhelmingly to rich individuals and large companies, according to interviews and government estimates.
Some of the breaks apply to taxes have long been in the cross hairs of corporate lobbyists. They undo limitations that were imposed to rein in the giveaways embedded in a $1.5 trillion tax-cut package enacted in 2017. None specifically target businesses or individuals harmed by the coronavirus.
One provision tucked into the federal economic-rescue law increases the amount of deductions companies are permitted to take on the interest they pay on large quantities of debt. Only companies with at least $25 million in annual receipts can qualify for that break.
Another change lets people deduct even more of their businesses’ losses from any winnings they reaped in the stock market, sharply reducing what they owe in capital gains taxes. Only households earning at least $500,000 a year — the top 1 percent of American taxpayers — are eligible.
And yet another provision in last month’s rescue package allows companies to deduct losses in one year against profits that they earned years earlier. The tax break most likely won’t put any extra cash directly into the hands of companies hit by the current crisis for at least a year.
The bottom line is that, barely two years after congressional Republicans and President Trump lavished America’s wealthiest families and companies with a series of lucrative tax cuts, those same beneficiaries are now receiving a second helping.
Many of the tax benefits in the stimulus are “just shoveling money to rich people,” said Victor Fleischer, a tax law professor at the University of California, Irvine. While the 2017 tax-cut package was a bonanza for big companies and wealthy individuals, in order to keep the law’s overall costs down it imposed a number of restrictions on who could take advantage of certain tax breaks and how much those taxpayers could reap.
Now, with the 2020 stimulus package, Congress has temporarily repealed a number of those limitations.
“Under the cover of the pandemic, they are undoing the perfectly sensible limitations” that moderated the size of the 2017 tax cuts, said H. David Rosenbloom, a corporate tax lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale and head of the international tax program at New York University’s law school. “And taking into account the giveaways in that act, it’s a joke.”
Senator Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, defended the changes. The stimulus law “threw a much-needed financial lifeline to businesses of all sizes, types and industries to give them the best chance to survive,” he said. He added, “The attempt to paint these bipartisan tax provisions as a boon for particular industries or investors completely misses the mark.”
One of the breaks temporarily rolls back the 2017 restriction on how much debt some companies can deduct from their taxes. That restriction was the subject of lobbying for the last two years by big companies, including Coca-Cola and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, according to federal lobbying records. The National Association of Manufacturers, whose board includes executives from Exxon Mobil, Raytheon, and Caterpillar, has pushed lawmakers for similar changes.
Earlier this month, the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan congressional body, found that the two other breaks — those that allow people to deduct only-on-paper losses from their tax bills — would go largely to people making at least $1 million a year.
That analysis came in response to requests by the Democratic lawmakers Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. On Tuesday, Mr. Doggett introduced legislation that would roll back major chunks of the tax breaks. Among other things, it would no longer let people who earn more than $500,000 to immediately deduct all of that year’s business losses from their capital gains.
“Tax giveaways for a wealthy few shouldn’t have come near a coronavirus relief bill,” said Senator Whitehouse, who plans to introduce a Senate version.
The biggest tax break permits wealthy investors in, say, the real estate or energy businesses to use only-on-paper financial losses — such as from writing down, or depreciating, the value of assets — to reduce the taxes they owe on profits from stock market investments.
The provision does not single out real estate. But the industry is well known for generating tax losses from depreciation even in profitable years.
The 2017 tax-cut law limited the ability to use those losses. A married couple could shelter only the first $500,000 of their nonbusiness income — such as capital gains from investments — in the year that the loss was generated. Any leftover losses would be rolled over into future years.
The stimulus undoes those restrictions for this year and, retroactively, for 2018 and 2019 — meaning that wealthy households will be able to shield far more of their capital gains from taxation.
The 2017 law also restricted the ability of companies to use so-called net operating losses — which are losses that companies report on their tax returns, even if they are otherwise profitable — to reduce their tax bills. (Net operating losses can include expenses that are only for tax purposes and that don’t reduce profits reported to shareholders.) No longer could such losses from one year be used to retroactively cancel out profits accumulated in previous years, thus generating tax refunds.
The new law temporarily undoes that restriction, enabling companies to use losses in one year to get refunds for previous profitable years.
Big companies, including Morgan Stanley, have lobbied on issues relating to such tax losses as recently as the first few months of this year, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Among the problems with this tax break, critics say, is that it isn’t aimed at the companies hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Under the new law, companies that will suffer big losses in 2020 won’t be able to use those losses to obtain refunds until they file their tax returns at least a year from now.
The provision will quickly put cash into a company’s pockets if it had tax losses from 2019 or earlier — well before the pandemic — that can be applied against profits from preceding years.
“There’s no reason to send money in a blanket form to all the companies that have net operating losses,” said Mr. Fleischer. “We have some amazingly successful companies that don’t pay tax and have net operating losses, and there’s no reason to be subsidizing these companies or expect that money will find its way down to the employees.”
The tax breaks for companies that report losses are likely to be especially lucrative because the 2017 tax law created new deductions that could generate large paper losses — for tax purposes only — for otherwise profitable companies in 2018 and 2019. For example, the 2017 law permitted companies to fully write off certain types of investments in the first year, instead of stretching those deductions over several years. That, in turn, meant companies could report profits to their shareholders but losses on their tax returns.
A third break, worth more than $13 billion over a decade, temporarily loosens 2017 restrictions on how much interest big companies can deduct on their tax returns. Private equity firms, which rely on borrowed money to generate big profits, have been urging the Treasury Department to write favorable rules governing the restrictions on how much interest on their debt companies can deduct from taxes.
The private equity industry is poised to benefit from the rescue package. Companies with at least $25 million in annual revenue are now eligible to deduct more interest from their tax bills — a change that will make the private-equity business model even more lucrative. Private equity firms amplify their profits by using borrowed money to finance their investments. Deducting even more of the interest on that debt from their taxes would further boost their profits.
The tax break “allows private equity to swoop in and scoop up struggling businesses,” said Matthew Rappaport, a tax lawyer who specializes in private equity at Falcon Rappaport & Berkman in New York.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) American billionaires have gotten $280 billion richer since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic
Their net worth is rising at a time when millions and millions of people are finding themselves out of work.
By Kristin Toussaint, April 23, 2020
https://www.fastcompany.com/90494347/american-billionaires-have-gotten-280-billion-richer-since-the-start-of-the-covid-19-pandemic
[Source Image: Yulia Ogneva/Stock]
Though the coronavirus itself may not discriminate in terms of who can be infected, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from a great equalizer. In the same month that 22 million Americans lost their jobs, the American billionaire class’s total wealth increased about 10%—or $282 billion more than it was at the beginning of March. They now have a combined net worth of $3.229 trillion.
The initial stock market crash may have dented some net worths at first—for instance, that of Jeff Bezos, which dropped down to a mere $105 billion on March 12. But his riches have rebounded: As of April 15, his net worth has increased by $25 billion. Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom, was one of the few to see an increase in net worth even as the markets crashed, and he’s now up $2.58 billion.
These “pandemic profiteers,” as a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, calls them, is just one piece of the wealth inequality puzzle in America. In the background is the fact that since 1980, the taxes paid by billionaires, measured as a percentage of their wealth, dropped 79%.
“We’re reading about benevolent billionaires sharing .0001% of their wealth with their fellow humans in this crisis, but in fact they’ve been rigging the tax rules to reduce their taxes for decades—money that could have been spent building a better public health infrastructure,” says Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies and coauthor of the new report, titled “Billionaire Bonanza 2020: Wealth Windfalls, Tumbling Taxes, and Pandemic Profiteers.”
The Institute for Policy Studies put out its first Billionaire Bonanza report in 2015; since then, the report has continued to quantify the state of wealth inequality in the country, though each iteration may focus on different specifics (the 2018 report highlighted the issue of wealth dynasties). That this report could highlight billionaires profiting from the coronavirus pandemic was, in part, due to good timing. To compile the report, Collins and his coauthors refer to Forbes’s annual World’s Billionaire List, as well as daily trackers from both Forbes and Bloomberg.
Forbes has to pick when to take a snapshot of net worths for that list, and they picked March 18; the list then came out April 7. “We started to immediately look at it and realize, even three weeks later, the story was changing quickly,” Collins says. “Their story was, ‘Hey, the pandemic is really affecting even the billionaires; their wealth is down from last year globally and in terms of the U.S.’ What we found was, wait three weeks and they’ve now surpassed last year’s collective wealth and now they’re surging to new heights.”
This stark example of inequality in the time of a pandemic also serves to reiterate some points the institute has long been making about how deep these inequalities go and how far-reaching they really are. “Inequality is America’s pre-existing condition,” Collins says. “We went into this pandemic very polarized already, and unfortunately we don’t want to come out of it more polarized.” Another key finding of the report is that after the 2008 financial crisis, it took less than 30 months for billionaire wealth to return to its pre-meltdown levels. That wealth then quickly exceeded pre-2008 levels. But as of 2019, the middle class in America has not even yet recovered to the level of its 2007 net worth. “People went into the pandemic with the economic hangover from the Great Recession,” he says.
To solve the problem, the authors call for a Pandemic Profiteering Oversight Committee, a Corporate Transparency Act to discourage wealth hiding, and an emergency 10% Millionaire Income Surtax, among other actions.
Collins is particularly interested in the idea of a Charity Stimulus, which would help funnel the estimated $1.2 trillion sitting unused in private foundations, and another $120 million in donor-advised funds, to those actually in need. Private foundations are required to pay out just 5% each year, and that percentage can include overhead expenses; donor-advised funds have no such requirement, and thus no incentive to move money to charities on the ground.
“Wealthy donors have already taken the tax breaks and now the money is just sitting there. . . . If they’re saving the money for a rainy day, they should look out the window. It’s raining very hard,” he says. “It’s time to fulfill the second part of the promise. They got the tax break; now let’s move the money not to a donor-advised fund, not to foundation overhead to pay your kids—move the money to the active community charities that are solving problems right now who are fearful they’re going to have to close their doors.”
Some billionaires have made large donations during the pandemic, but Collins says we can’t let that philanthropy distract from the larger conversation of inequality. “Philanthropy is really not a substitute for a fair tax system and an adequately funded public safety net,” he says.
For the millions of Americans struggling to pay rent, buy groceries, and just trying to survive this pandemic, Collins notes that times of disaster do especially highlight the “unseemly underbelly of inequality.” But he also sees this time as somewhat of an awakening. “The good news is most people understand this. They actually support the public policies that would move us in the other direction,” he says, such as a wealth tax or progressive inheritance tax, or even a $15 minimum wage for grocery store employees and other workers. “Our politicians might catch up to where the general public is when it comes to addressing these inequalities.”
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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) |
.
__,_._,___
