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Pandemic “Billionaire Bonanza” Swells as Unemployment Escalates
“While millions risk their lives and livelihoods as first responders and front line workers, these billionaires benefit from an economy and tax system that is wired to funnel wealth to the top.”
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Employers and Government Still Not Protecting Nurses and Patients
“Despite having months to produce more PPE, the Trump administration and Congress have refused to get us the protection we need to stay safe on the front lines of this crisis. Some 87% of nurses reported having to reuse a single-use disposable respirator or mask with a COVID-19 patient.”
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The Rise of Global Activism?
The COVID-19 Global Solidarity Coalition will launch on May 23, 2020, unveiling a manifesto signed by “thousands of people and organizations worldwide. The launch will take place over a live video streaming through Zoom, Facebook Live, and YouTube. The goal is to establish guidelines, principles, and priorities for dealing with the current coronavirus pandemic to end the neoliberal assault on the environmental and social structures that protect the health and well-being of billions around the world.
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Would Earlier Measures Have Saved Tens of Thousands?
The New York Times is reporting in “Lockdown Delays Cost at Least 36,000 Lives, Data Show” on a study from Columbia University disease modelers that found that if physical distancing measures had begun “on March 1, two weeks earlier than most people started staying home, the vast majority of the nation’s deaths — about 83 percent — would have been avoided, the researchers estimated.”
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War With China?
“Well before the outbreak of this pandemic, elements of the U.S. establishment have been itching in one way or another for increased conflict with China.” This includes the U.S. building “more and bigger military bases that ring China. You have the reconstitution of groups like the Committee on the Present Danger: CHINA with members like Frank Gaffney, Steve Bannon, William Bennett and the CIA’s Bradley Johnson.”
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Afghanistan: Will U.S. Finally Withdraw?
“With the recent spate of attacks in Afghanistan, the so-called ‘peace agreement’ between the U.S. and the Taliban signed just a few weeks ago seems to be in tatters. The purported truce that was to be had went to shreds the moment the negotiations ended in some resolution. The only provision that seems to have been implemented is a prisoner exchange.”
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Pandemic Exposes Agribusiness’ “Plantation Economics”
“We recently have been forced to recognize how essential these workers are, by actually giving them that official designation. ‘Essential’ means, ‘Without you, the whole thing doesn’t work.’ But there are asymmetries here. … There’s a mismatch of supply and demand.” Workers are brought in from outside the U.S. and are exploited and not paid “the fair value of their labor. So that’s the structure of our food system. It’s very much modeled on antebellum plantation economics.”
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Will Pelosi Let Barr Spy on You Without a Warrant?
“Thursday, the Senate passed the USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act (H.R. 6172), which would reauthorize three expired Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorities, including Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Wednesday, the Senate adopted the Lee-Leahy amendment, which established a meaningful privacy protection for the public, religious groups, and the media.”
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Schiff and McConnell Fail to Increase Barr’s Surveillance Powers
“The Senate just adopted the Lee-Leahy amendment to the USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act (H.R. 6172). The amendment creates critical safeguards that help address well-documented problems with FISA surveillance, for instance by ensuring independent review of applications targeting religious groups and the media.”
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“With a tiny staff, it has managed to place on the air and in newspapers, points of view otherwise excluded from the national debate.”
Howard Zinn