ALL WE HAVE IS EACH OTHER
A Call to Action: 
Towards a General Strike to End 
the COVID-19 Crisis and Create a New World
— By Cooperation Jackson


March 31st, 2020
Cooperation Jackson

Greetings Comrades,

COVID-19 pandemic is changing the world before our very eyes. In less than 3 months, it has exposed the grotesque nature of the capitalist system to millions, ground the world economy to a halt, and revealed how truly interconnected our little planet really is.

As bad as this crisis is on its own terms, it is made considerably worse by the misleadership from the White House, Congress and many state and local governments. President Trump not only failed to heed the advice of the state’s intelligence services regarding the potential threat of the coronavirus, he downplayed its severity for months, and has refused to mobilize the vast resources at the disposal of the US government to address the crisis. He continues to deny the science and proven medical advice and is now threatening to retract social distancing orders and call for everyone to return to work by the end of April. A bipartisan Congress just passed the largest corporate bailout in history, that provided paltry relief to most working people in the form of a one time payoff that won’t cover most people’s rent and utilities for a month. The Governors of Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia have refused to shut their states down and give clear stay at home orders to halt the spread of the virus. And the Federal Reserve is doing everything it can to protect Wall Street, in total disregard of the real time needs of millions of people. If Trump and his political alliies in government, Wall Street, and the corporations are successful in forcing a considerable number of workers to go back to work before the pandemic has been brought under control, it will turn into an outright calamity in the US. We cannot afford to let this happen.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Disaster capitalism and white supremacy are running amok. The Trump alliance of the neo-fascist right, combined with sectors of finance capital, the fossil fuel industry and the religious right are exploiting this crisis to accelerate climate change, reshape society and redefine the geopolitical order. In the midst of this pandemic they have eliminated critical environmental protection standards (reducing already poor air quality giving new horrible life to the Black Lives Matter slogan borne of Eric Garner’s murder, “I cant breathe” as millions struggle for air). Trump has eliminated various health and safety standards to protect workers and consumers, undermining unions and other working class organizations. He has allowed genetically modified plants to be unleashed in protected lands, expanded roundup and deportation operations, and refused to provide adequate medical treatment of federal prisoners. Brutal bipartisan sanctions on Iran and Venezuela prevent millions of poor and working class from accessing critical life saving resources, and US intervention has blocked Venezuela from receiving an IMF loan to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Right now the federal response is being driven by finance ministers and corporations, rather than the medical experts and front line workers directly addressing the response to the pandemic, abandoning the potential power of a coordinated federal response. All this is just a sample of the crimes against humanity unfolding daily at the hands of the White House.

Despite the asymmetry of power between ourselves in the left and the organized working class and the forces of right, we have to do everything we can to intervene. We must stop the worst most deadly version of this pandemic from becoming a reality, and we have to ensure that we never return to the society that enabled this pandemic to emerge and have the impact it is having in the first place. We must do everything that we can to create a new, just, equitable and ecologically regenerative economy.

The question is how? To fight back we have to use the greatest power we have at our disposal – our collective labor.

We can shut the system down to break the power of the state and capitalist class. We must send a clear message that things cannot and will not go back to normal. In order to do this, we need to call for collective work and shopping stoppages, leading to a general strike that is centered around clear, comprehensive demands. We must make demands that will transform our broken and inequitable society, and build a new society run by and for us – the working class, poor, oppressed majority.

A general strike cannot be organized through online campaigns alone, or as the result of the mere expression of a desire or even great need for a general strike. A general strike is not organized through a list of demands, though demands are necessary

In order for a general strike to not only take place right now, but also be effective, we need to develop a broad united front organized around short-term and long-term aims. We need to assess connections between unions of all sorts and organized labor, and begin reaching out to other poor and working-class people from within our places of work, our places of living, our places of worship, and our places of leisure.

A general strike will also take resources to sustain. We cannot count on capital to support this effort; they will attack and undermine us at every turn. So, we are going to have to call for and reply upon our collective resources. This includes our own individual purchasing power, but also the mobilization of the collective resources at the disposal of our unions, civic organizations, mutual aid, and spiritual institutions. We need to make sure that we can provide aid to workers on the frontlines of the health struggle and the frontlines of the supply chain struggles. This means providing mutual aid where warranted, as well as strike funds to support workers from losing their homes, cars, medical care, and other essential expenses.

Those with the most experience in organizing strikes of all sorts – both young and old – must step up in this moment and provide general insights and strategies that can be utilized by the united front in tandem with organized labor groups that are on the same page, and these insights in addition to strategy must inform an open information campaign that not only brings attention to strike efforts, but brings in supporters from outside of our organized formations who can then employ a wide range of strategies to begin initiating mass actions without feeling isolated.

The capitalists and landlords win when we are divided, fearful, and/or fighting our own battles in isolation. All it takes is enough of us breaking for them to have their way. We stand a much better chance coordinating nationally and internationally, and with organizing networks and infrastructure that are fortified with centuries’ worth of cumulative experience between the organizers who comprise them. We also stand a better chance with global attention.

Those who control the land, the property, and the businesses want you to believe that this COVID-19 crisis is going to blow over soon, and that everyone will simply go back to work. They want you to believe that things will return to “normal” within a matter of months, and even weeks. Right now, poor and working-class people have an opportunity to make it clear to the ruling classes that not only was “normal” abnormal to begin with, but that we are not going to settle for a return to the social and economic conditions that created this pandemic to begin with.

We should take inspiration in that we are not alone in calling for and acting upon a call for a general strike. Workers throughout the country and the world are spontaneously taking matters into their own hands. Auto workers, chicken factory workers, nurses, drivers, grocery store workers, and more are all taking independent action. Calls for a rent strike are going viral, as working poor and homeless workers are starting to occupy hundreds of vacant homes to meet their needs and practice the necessary social distancing to ensure their survival. Things are in motion and we need to build upon this momentum, quickly.

This crisis changes everything.

We have an opportunity to take control now, and we are ready to fight for a society in which all people can live with full autonomy without having to worry about survival.

Below is the basic framing and list of preliminary demands that we think are essential to call for and act upon at this time.

*General Strike! No Work, No Shopping Friday, May 1st

People over Profit: Tell the Government and Wall Street that their priority must be to Save Lives, Not Profits. Returning to Work under this Pandemic is a threat to our Collective Health and Safety

We Need Systems Change, Not Just Relief and Reform. The Capitalist System Can’t Resolve this Crisis.

Our Demands:
Protect All Frontline Workers in the Hospitals, the Supply Chains, and the Farms and Fields to ensure that they have all of the equipment and disinfectant materials that they need to keep themselves and the general public healthy
Protect Asians and other vulnerable communities, including the homeless, migrants, and refugees from discrimination and attack in this time of crisis
Democratize the Means of Production, Convert the Corporations and Workplaces into Cooperatives to produce what we need and distribute equitably according to need
Institute Universal Health Care Now
Institute Universal Basic Services Now (Education, Childcare, Elderly Care, Water, Electricity, Internet, etc.) based on Economic, Social and Cultural rights guidelines
Institute Universal Basic Income Now
Democratize the Finance, Credit and Insurance Industries – Bailout the People, Not the Corporations and Wall Street
Decarbonize the Economy, Institute a Green New Deal based on a Just Transition, End the Fossil Fuel and Extractive Industries Now
Housing is a Human Right, Decommodify Housing Now, Open all available housing stock to those who need it now
Ensure there is clean drinking water for all communities, decommodify water now
Cancel Our Debts, Institute a Debt Jubilee Now
Close the Jails, Close the Prisons, Release the Prisoners
Close the Detention Centers, Reunite the Families, Stop the Raids and Deportations
Close all of the Overseas Military Bases, Cut the Military (Defense) and Spy (Surveillance) Budgets and Redirect these funds to Health Care, Social Services, Universal Basic Income and Greening Public Infrastructure and the Economy*

We are calling upon all who agree with this call to join us in calling for militant action to shut the system down. This is what we are asking you to do immediately:
Let us know if you agree with this call and this list of demands, or how you would add upon or strengthen them.
Let us know if you would be willing to participate in a coordinating body to help organize and advance this call. This coordinating body would take on the task of building out the base of the united front, help facilitate community between its constituent parts, and facilitate the calls to action.
Join us for our first zoom call on Monday, April 6th at 12 pm est/11 am cst/10 am mst/9 am pst to start building this front and advancing this call to action. To participate in the call and communicate your alignment and willingness help coordinate a broad, united front initiative email us at mayday2020generalstrike@gmail.com.

Finally, this initiative is not intended to negate any of the calls already issued for a rent strike, a people’s bailout, etc. We hope to unite all who can be united, while respecting the independence of initiative of the various forces that would comprise the front. We have to apply ceaseless, unyielding pressure on the system and the forces that enable it. Let’s do so with any eye towards employing maximum unity to end this crisis and create a new world in its aftermath.

Cooperation Jackson Tuesday, March 31, 2020

American Taxpayers paid millions to design a low-cost ventilator for a pandemic. Instead, the company is selling versions of it overseas.

As coronavirus sweeps the globe, there is not a single Trilogy Evo Universal ventilator — developed with government funds — in the U.S. stockpile.

BY Patricia Callahan, Sebastian Rotella and Tim GoldenPROPUBLICA APRIL 1, 2020

Image Credit: Zoltan Balogh/MTI via AP

Five years ago, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tried to plug a crucial hole in its preparations for a global pandemic, signing a $13.8 million contract with a Pennsylvania manufacturer to create a low-cost, portable, easy-to-use ventilator that could be stockpiled for emergencies. 

This past September, with the design of the new Trilogy Evo Universal finally cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, HHS ordered 10,000 of the ventilators for the Strategic National Stockpile at a cost of $3,280 each.

But as the pandemic continues to spread across the globe, there is still not a single Trilogy Evo Universal in the stockpile.

Instead last summer, soon after the FDA’s approval, the Pennsylvania company that designed the device — a subsidiary of the Dutch appliance and technology giant Royal Philips N.V. — began selling two higher-priced commercial versions of the same ventilator around the world.

“We sell to whoever calls,” said a saleswoman at a small medical-supply company on Staten Island that bought 50 Trilogy Evo ventilators from Philips in early March and last week hiked its online price from $12,495 to $17,154. “We have hundreds of orders to fill. I think America didn’t take this seriously at first, and now everyone’s frantic.”

A screenshot obtained by ProPublica of a Trilogy Evo portable ventilator, sold by a medical supply company on Staten Island.

Last Friday, President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to compel General Motors to begin mass-producing another company’s ventilator under a federal contract. But neither Trump nor other senior officials made any mention of the Trilogy Evo Universal. Nor did HHS officials explain why they did not force Philips to accelerate delivery of these ventilators earlier this year, when it became clear that the virus was overwhelming medical facilities around the world.

An HHS spokeswoman told ProPublica that Philips had agreed to make the Trilogy Evo Universal ventilator “as soon as possible.” However, a Philips spokesman said the company has no plan to even begin production anytime this year.

Instead, Philips is negotiating with a White House team led by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to build 43,000 more complex and expensive hospital ventilators for Americans stricken by the virus.

Some experts said the nature of the current crisis — in which the federal government is scrambling to set up field hospitals in New York’s Central Park and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center — underscores the urgent need for simpler, lower-cost ventilators. The story of the Trilogy Evo Universal, described here for the first time, also raises questions about the government’s reliance on public-private partnerships that public health officials have used to piece together important parts of their disaster safety net.

“That’s the problem of leaving any kind of disaster preparedness up to the market and market forces — it will never work,” said Dr. John Hick, an emergency medicine specialist in Minnesota who has advised HHS on pandemic preparedness since 2002. “The market is not going to give priority to a relatively no-frills but dependable ventilator that’s not expensive.”

The lack of ventilators has quickly become the most critical challenge to keeping alive many of the people most seriously sickened by the virus. Ventilators not only help people breathe but also can provide pressure that holds the lungs open so the air sacs don’t collapse.

Neither HHS nor Philips would provide a copy of their contract, citing proprietary technical information that would have to be redacted under a Freedom of Information Act request. But from public documents and interviews with current and former government officials, it appears that HHS has at times been remarkably deferential to Philips — and never more so than in the current pandemic.

From the start of its long effort to produce a low-cost, portable ventilator, the small HHS office in charge of the project, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, knew that it might need to move quickly to increase production in an emergency and insisted that potential partners be able to ramp up quickly in the event of a pandemic.

But the contract HHS signed in September 2019 gave Philips almost a year before it had to produce a single Trilogy Evo Universal, and two more years to fulfill the order of 10,000 ventilators.

On the same day in July that the FDA cleared the stockpile version of the ventilator, it granted the application of Philips’ U.S. subsidiary, Respironics, to sell commercial versions of the Trilogy Evo. Philips quickly began shipping the commercial models overseas from its Murrysville, Pennsylvania, factory.

Steve Klink, the company’s Amsterdam-based spokesman, said Philips was within its rights under the HHS contract to prioritize the commercial versions of the Trilogy Evo. An HHS spokeswoman — who insisted she could not be identified by name, despite speaking for the agency — did not disagree.

“Keep in mind that companies are always free to develop other products based on technology developed in collaboration with the government,” she said in a statement to ProPublica. “This approach often reduces development costs and ensures the product the government needs is available for many years.”

Just last month, HHS gave a very different impression to Congress, hailing the Trilogy Evo it funded as a breakthrough in its campaign for pandemic preparedness.

“This game-changing device, considered a pipedream just a few years ago, is now available at affordable prices to improve stockpiling and deployment” in an emergency, the agency told Congress in a budget document delivered on Feb 10.

But less than two weeks later, officials overseeing the Strategic National Stockpile approached Philips with an urgent appeal: Start making our ventilators. On March 10, Philips agreed to a modification of the HHS contract — one that called for the company to produce the Trilogy Evo Universal “as soon as possible,” a spokesperson said.

However, in a subsequent statement, the HHS spokeswoman said Philips is only required to deliver the ventilators “as they are completed.” Klink, the company spokesman, said Philips was only committed to meeting the original contract deadline of 10,000 ventilators by September 2022.

Had government officials insisted that Philips first produce the ventilators that taxpayers paid to design, the government could conceivably be distributing all 10,000 to hospitals now. Last year, Philips plants in Pennsylvania and California produced 500 ventilators of various models per week; they sped up to 1,000 per week earlier this year, Klink said. At that pace, the stockpile ventilators could have been completed even if Philips devoted only part of its lines to their production.

Klink said the reason the company is not producing the stockpile ventilator is because it has not yet been mass-produced and would require time-consuming trial runs. In the current crisis, it’s faster and more efficient to continue producing the versions it is already making, he said.

Asked if Philips could hand over its Trilogy Evo Universal design to another manufacturer, he argued that the fundamental constraint on production is not the company’s assembly lines but its dependence on more than 100 smaller companies around the world that make the 650 parts needed for a hospital ventilator.

“We cannot sell a ventilator with only 649 parts,” he said. “It needs to be the whole 650.”

It is difficult to assess how much profit motives might be driving Philips’ decisions about which ventilators to produce because the company does not disclose how much it charges different clients for commercial models.

Jeff Marshall, a senior marketing manager at Philips Respironics, demonstrates the commercial version of the Trilogy Evo in a HomeCare Magazine video filmed last year. (Obtained by ProPublica via YouTube)

The commercial version of the Trilogy Evo has had its own problems. Not long after it began selling the ventilators last summer, Philips sent out recall notices to customers in Europe and the U.S., alerting them to a software glitch that prompted the devices to shut down without sounding their alarm. The software has since been updated and the problem solved, the company said.

Klink said Philips hopes to be making 4,000 ventilators of all types each week in the U.S. by October, and that it would prioritize “those communities and countries that need it the most.”

But as the pandemic spreads, desperate global demand for the commercial models of the Trilogy Evo is driving up prices sharply, and evidence from the chaotic open market for the devices raises questions about Philips’ stated commitment to prioritize the neediest.

On Staten Island, a saleswoman at No Insurance Medical Supplies, who would give her name only as Jeanette, said the company was selling to “anyone who calls,” including doctors and individuals. The company’s first shipment of 50 devices sold out quickly, but an additional five ventilators arrived on Friday. The company requested 148 more, but Philips Respironics said it could only provide 11 ventilators by April 6, she said. The company’s prices are determined by what the manufacturer charges, she said.

The competition abroad is also intense. On March 12, the regional government of Madrid, one of the cities hardest hit by the virus, bought 10 Trilogy Evo ventilators from a Spanish medical supply company for about $11,000 each. In Budapest, Hungary, the Uzsoki Street Hospital announced that a local property development company had donated two “ultra-modern” Philips Trilogy Evo ventilators on March 18.

The struggle has grown so fierce that last week, a trade group representing ventilator manufacturers asked the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to decide for the manufacturers whom they should sell to first.

“We would appreciate the Administration’s leadership and the advice of clinical and other experts within the Administration in deciding how to allocate these products in the most effective way,” the Advanced Medical Technology Association wrote in a letter to FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor.

Medical experts and public health officials have believed for nearly two decades that they needed a less-expensive and simpler-to-operate portable ventilator that could be made and distributed quickly in an emergency.

“This is not a new problem,” said W. Craig Vanderwagen, a former senior HHS official who oversaw studies that led to the government’s early efforts to design and build a low-cost portable ventilator for such eventualities. “We knew back in the 2000s that ventilators were going to be critical in pandemic preparedness. That was a clear gap that we identified.”

In the early 2000s, American public health experts and government officials were gripped by a sense of urgency they had not felt before. The 9/11 attacks and the anthrax scare that followed underscored the need for sweeping new actions to keep the country safe. Outbreaks of Avian influenza — first reported in Hong Kong in 1997 — exposed the public health system’s vulnerability to new, highly fatal pathogens from overseas. The George W. Bush administration’s disastrously slow and inept response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 prompted widespread calls for the government to strengthen its ability to deal with a growing array of emergencies, from new, highly contagious diseases to previously unthinkable terrorist attacks.

One obvious vulnerability was to a viral pandemic or a chemical or biological attack that would ravage the lungs of its victims, setting off a cascade of cases of what doctors call Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, or ARDS.

“None of us expected an event on the scale of what we’re going through now,” said Dr. Lewis Rubinson, a pulmonologist who participated in several of the early government-sponsored medical studies. “We had to guess: What would the patients look like? What we predicted correctly was that we could face massive cases of ARDS.”

By the early 2000s, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had already begun working to stockpile a few thousand ventilators for such an eventuality, former officials said. But studies by medical experts and government scientists — including sophisticated models of what might occur in the event of various disasters, outbreaks or attacks — suggested a bigger problem. Hospitals could be crippled not only by shortages of complex and costly ventilators, but also by a lack of the trained respiratory technicians who are generally required to operate the machines.

The experts envisioned one important solution: a portable ventilator that was less complex than hospital machines and could be more quickly produced, safely stockpiled and widely distributed in emergencies. They envisioned a device that could be deployed in field hospitals like the ones that authorities are now rushing to create in Central Park and elsewhere.

Volunteers set up a field hospital in New York’s Central Park on Monday. Portable ventilators, like the Trilogy Evo Universal, would have been especially useful for field hospitals, medical experts said. (Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images)

The job of bringing such a device to life fell to BARDA, an innovative office of HHS that was established in 2006 to help the country prepare for pandemic influenza, new types of infectious diseases or an attack or accident involving chemical, biological or radiological weapons.

Much of BARDA’s work has been focused on developing potentially critical vaccines and other medicines that are not necessarily profitable for big pharmaceutical companies. The agency often works with medical researchers at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere, identifying promising therapies and other innovations, and then forms partnerships with private biotechnology or other companies to create the drugs and move them through various stages of regulation.

In 2008, BARDA began trying to find a company that could make a ventilator that would be inexpensive — ideally, less than $2,000 each — and could be simple enough to use that “inexperienced health care providers with limited or no respiratory support training” could operate the devices during a pandemic, according to the agency’s solicitation for bids.

BARDA also anticipated the shortage of parts and competing priorities that the ventilator industry now faces. Companies bidding for the contract had to show they could secure the parts needed to “ramp up production to supply at least” 1,700 ventilators per month and 10,000 in six months’ time. The companies also had to pledge that government “contracts will be honored during a pandemic,” the initial solicitation said.

With only a couple of bids, BARDA settled on a small, privately held ventilator company in Costa Mesa, California, Newport Medical Instruments Inc. BARDA and Newport signed a $6.4 million contract in September 2010, specifying that the money would be doled out incrementally as the company met various milestones.

But in May 2012, Newport was purchased by a larger Irish medical device company, Covidien, for $108 million. Covidien quickly downsized and asked Rick Crawford, Newport’s former head of research and development and the lead designer of the BARDA ventilator, to finish up the project without any staff assigned to him. Crawford said he took a job with another company.

“I don’t know how you finish a project when nobody reports to you,” he recalled thinking.

A former BARDA official who worked on the project said that Covidien began raising issue after issue and demanded more money. BARDA agreed, eventually tacking on almost $2 million more to the price tag, records show. Even so, Covidien abandoned the project.

A spokesman for the still-larger firm that acquired Covidien in 2015, Medtronic, said that the prototype ventilator created by Newport Medical “would not have been able to meet the specifications required by the government, nor at the price required.” In a statement responding to a story in The New York Times, Medtronic said it left the federal government with all the designs and equipment created in the project.

Several former BARDA officials said such outcomes come with their territory. Like big pharmaceutical companies, they had to take chances, especially in the development of vaccines.

“There are going to be risks like that when you partner with businesses,” said one former senior BARDA official, who, like others, asked for anonymity because she was not authorized to speak for the agency. “It’s a problem that we at BARDA had encountered before, where a company changed hands and changed priorities.”

In March 2016, less than two years after signing its ventilator contract with BARDA, Philips Respironics agreed to pay $34.8 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit under the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute. Justice lawyers accused the manufacturer of effectively paying kickbacks to medical suppliers to buy its masks for sleep apnea. The company also agreed to abide by a five-year Corporate Integrity Agreement with HHS inspector general that imposed a series of oversight measures on the company’s operations.

With BARDA’s continuing support, Philips finally won FDA approval for the Trilogy Evo Universal ventilator in July 2019. Klink, the Philips spokesman, said the $13.8 million from HHS covered only a portion of the design and development costs for the ventilator and that the company invested more.

Rubinson, now the chief medical officer of Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, New Jersey, praised the BARDA effort as essential, adding that if 10,000 ventilators seems like a small number in the COVID-19 crisis, it had to be understood in the context of government officials’ typical unwillingness to buy equipment it might only need in an emergency.

“They could have bought a million ventilators,” he said. “And then you would be writing about the boondoggle of all these devices that never got used.”

Today, the government’s failure to obtain the Trilogy Evo Universal is seen by some experts as the real game changer.

“Even if a few months ago we had taken dramatic action to develop these kinds of ventilators, it would have been better,” said Hick, the emergency medicine specialist in Minnesota. “If I had a ventilator that cost $4,000 rather than $16,000, I’d be in better shape. We can buy a lot more of them.”

Claire Perlman contributed reporting.

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APRIL FOOL NOT
Russia sends 60 TONS of medical supplies to the US after Vladimir Putin offers to assist during phone call with Donald Trump - but critics say it is a propaganda gift TO the Kremlin

• The supplies landed at JFK Airport Wednesday after Trump and Putin finalized a deal Monday night amid the coronavirus pandemic
• The move has been blasted by many in the US, who claim the President has ignored Russian's potentially nefarious motivations for the deal
• Meanwhile, critics of the Kremlin in Russia have criticized the fact that medical supplies are being shipped abroad as their own COVID-19 outbreak worsens
• Russia has reported  2,337 coronavirus cases with 17 deaths; the US has more than 215,000 cases and 4000 deaths

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8180393/What-Russias-coronavirus-supplies-United-States-spark-criticism-home.html

EMBARRASSING? NOT AT ALL

TRUMP & KUSHNER PLAN TO SELL IT ALL TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER  BEING THE PROFITEERING GRIFTERS THEY ARE 
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/04/taxpayers-paid-millions-to-design-low.html


A Russian Aerospace Forces plane carrying medical equipment lands at John F. Kennedy International Airport on April 1, 2020.TASS / TASS

April 1, 2020
By Reuters

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON - Russia sent the United States medical equipment on Wednesday to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, a public relations coup for Russian President Vladimir Putin after he discussed the crisis with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump, struggling to fill shortages of ventilators and personal protective equipment, accepted Putin's offer in a phone call on Monday. A Russian military transport plane left an airfield outside Moscow and arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy airport in late afternoon on Wednesday.

Emergency aid to Washington was a striking development. Usually, the United States donates supplies to embattled countries rather than accepting them. The origin of the gift was bound to revive criticism from Democrats that Trump has been too cozy with the Russian leader.

"Trump gratefully accepted this humanitarian aid," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited as saying by the Interfax news agency on Tuesday. Trump himself spoke enthusiastically about the Russian help after his call with Putin.

A U.S. official in Washington confirmed the shipment was a direct result of Trump's phone conversation with Putin. The official said it carried 60 tons of ventilators, masks, respirators and other items.

VIDEO
Russian medical supplies head to U.S. to help combat coronavirus APRIL 1, 202000

The official said the equipment would be carefully examined to make sure it comports with the quality requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Russia's Rossiya 24 channel on Wednesday morning showed the plane taking off from a military air base outside Moscow in darkness. Its cargo hold was filled with cardboard boxes and other packages.

Confirmed U.S. coronavirus cases have surged to more than 205,000, with 4,500 deaths.

In Russia, the official tally of confirmed cases is 2,337, with 17 deaths, although some doctors there have questioned the accuracy of official data.

STRAIN IN RELATIONS

Relations between Moscow and Washington have been strained in recent years by everything from Syria to Ukraine to U.S. election interference, something Russia denies. Trump spent two years battling a federal investigation into whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.

"Nothing to see here. Just a Russian military aircraft landing at JFK with 60 tons of medical supplies to support America’s #COVID19 response. A propaganda bonanza as our own government shrinks from America’s leadership role in a global crisis," said Brett McGurk, a former American diplomat for Trump and former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

Trump said on Tuesday he and Putin discussed the virus at length. "Russia is being hit pretty hard," he said.

Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said Moscow hoped the United States might also be able to provide medical help to Russia if necessary when the time came.

"It is important to note that when offering assistance to U.S. colleagues, the president (Putin) assumes that when U.S. manufacturers of medical equipment and materials gain momentum, they will also be able to reciprocate if necessary," Peskov was cited as saying.

Peskov complained that some U.S. officials had made it needlessly difficult to expedite the aid. He also was quoted as saying that Russia and China cooperated in a similar way because "at a time when the current situation affects everyone without exception ... there is no alternative to working together in a spirit of partnership and mutual assistance."

Russia has also used its military to send planeloads of aid to Italy to combat the spread of the coronavirus, exposing the European Union's failure to provide swift help to a member in crisis and handing Putin a publicity coup at home and abroad.

George Takei claims he'll be the final torchbearer to light the Olympic Flame in Tokyo next year in April Fool's Day Joke: 'A bit of levity in an otherwise dark time'

By ADAM S. LEVY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 2 April 2020

George Takei hasn't lost his sense of humor in these trying times.

The 82-year-old actor played an April Fool's Day Joke Wednesday, posting on social media that he would be the the final torchbearer to light the Olympic Flame in Tokyo next year.

'Friends! I’ve been sitting on some big news for quite some time now,' Takei, who played the role of Sulu on Star Trek, wrote. 'Unfortunately, given the current global situation, I haven’t been given the clear to announce it until now.'



The latest: George Takei, 82, played an April Fool's Day Joke Wednesday, posting on social media that he would be the the final torchbearer to light the Olympic Flame in Tokyo next year

Takei, a hit with audiences on The Howard Stern Show for years, said, 'I am honored beyond belief to have been selected to be the final torchbearer who will light the Olympic Flame in Tokyo in 2021!'

He continued: 'This will be such a unique moment, before the eyes of a billion people, lighting the torch as a symbol of hope for the future in 2021 in Tokyo.

'As a life-long runner, I’m especially grateful to have been chosen, and hope to do everyone in the US of A proud!'

The socially-conscious star later clarified that he was not serious with the initial post.

+4



Set-up: The actor first said he was going to take the ceremonial feat at next year's games


Admission: Takei later said it was a joke, as he sought to provide levity in tough times
George Takei of Star Trek poses for photos at premiere in 2015



Oh my! Takei was a hit with audiences as an on-air personality on The Howard Stern Show. He was snapped last year in NYC

'Yes, friends, I'm afraid this was an April Fools prank, a bit of levity in an otherwise dark time,' he wrote. 'And while I’ll not be lighting that fire myself, my eyes will look upon it as a symbol of our triumph over this invisible foe and a reuniting of the global community.'

The Tokyo Olympics were postponed March 24 amid coronavirus precautions and the International Olympics Committee later said that the new date for the games will be July 21, 2021.

The international pandemic has spread to a number of notable names in the show business world George has worked in for decades. They include Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Idris Elba, who have all tested positive for the virus, in addition to dozens of stars in the worlds of music, sports and politics.

As of Wednesday, the death total for COVID-19 - declared a public health emergency by World Health Organization - had soared to 4,774 people in the U.S., The COVID Tracking Project reported, with 212,695 total positive diagnoses.

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'I can’t believe we finally found it': Robert Irwin photographs a 'critically endangered species' in the wild amid the COVID-19 pandemic

By SHIVE PREMA FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA  2, April 2020

Robert Irwin has been taking care of the animals at Australia Zoo after it closed its doors amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

And on Wednesday, the 16-year-old ventured out into the bush on an expedition to photograph a 'critically endangered species' in its natural habitat.

Robert posted a video of his photography trip to Instagram, documenting the exact moment he made the rare sighting. 

Robert Irwin photographs a VERY rare sighting amid COVID-19 pandemic


'I can’t believe we finally found it': On Wednesday, Robert Irwin (pictured) photographed a 'critically endangered species' in the wild amid the COVID-19 pandemic

'I'm here in the natural habitat of a critically endangered species. It's very rare and I'm going to see if I can document it for the first time,' Robert said in the clip.

In the video, Robert then ventured through the bush while high-stakes music played.

'There it is! Stay calm, get down! Straight through there!' Robert said, before hilariously revealing that the endangered species was actually a roll of toilet paper.


Gold: 'There it is! Stay calm, get down! Straight through there!' Robert said, before hilariously revealing that the endangered species was actually a roll of toilet paper

The endangered species: Toilet paper and other sanitary items have been in short supply due to panic buying amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Toilet paper and other sanitary items have been in short supply due to panic buying amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

'How's that? It's in perfect condition! Critically rare and endangered! This is amazing. Wow! Can't believe it!' Robert said as he took photos of the toilet roll.

The camera then panned over to another in-demand supply, hand sanitiser.

'Hang on! Look over there, no way! It's even more endangered. I can't believe it! It's a close relative of this one, also critically endangered,' Robert said.


They need conservation! The camera then panned to another in-demand supply, hand sanitiser

'Hang on! Look over there, no way! It's even more endangered. I can't believe it! It's a close relative of this one, also critically endangered,' Robert said as he took photos

Robert then concluded the video, revealing that it was actually just a COVID-19-inspired April Fool's Day prank.

'This is one of the most incredible expeditions I've been on. Tough work, but we finally found them. April fools! Wash your hands, people,' he said.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to escalate in Australia.

As of Thursday night, there have been 5,136 confirmed cases, which have resulted in 24 deaths.


Pandemic: As of Thursday night, there have been 5,136 confirmed cases, which have resulted in 24 deaths

Robert Irwin photographs a 'critically endangered species' in the wild amid the COVID-19 pandemic

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden volunteers to prepare food boxes for homeless and vulnerable people amid concerns as the country takes the least restrictive approach in Europe to fighting COVID-19

• Princess Victoria of Sweden, 42, helped with food for vulnerable populations
• Royal worked with charity Stockholms Stadsmission as lost elderly volunteers
• Sweden has not introduced lockdown on population to curb COVID-19 spread
• Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, has urged Swedes to be responsible  

By CLAIRE TOUREILLE FOR MAILONLINE 2 April 2020

Meghan Markle has 'always dreamt of living the Hollywood lifestyle' and 'star-struck' Prince Harry's arm 'didn't need to be twisted', source claims

• Meghan Markle always had dreams of living the Hollywood lifestyle, an insider claiming to be a lifelong friend has said
• The Duchess of Sussex, 38,  has relocated to LA with Prince Harry, 35, and their son Archie, 11 months, 
• Actress reportedly always keen on living among the A-listers and earn herself
• Harry was reportedly so 'smitten' he was open to relocating, having his own 'fascination' with movie stars 

 By MAIL ONLINE REPORTER PUBLISHED:  2 April 2020

Trump’s new reporter-foe says he’s backtracking to save himself after downplaying the worst crisis in recent history

April 2, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris


During an MSNBC panel discussion, President Donald Trump’s latest reporter-foe, Yamiche Alcindor of PBS, explained that it’s clear he’s backtracking after he downplayed the coronavirus crisis.

The president’s greatest foe in the press room was once CNN’s Jim Acosta, but as the PBS reporter quotes Trump’s own words back to him, he’s twice singled her out, calling her question “nasty” and referring to her and a fellow African American reporter “you people.”

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said that referring back to Trump’s words downplaying the crisis have become his latest emotional triggers.

“I think the president in some ways is having to backtrack on some of the misleading information that was put out there,” Alcindor said.

Trump has lately decided to blame healthcare workers for the coronavirus crisis, alleging that they are somehow selling masks and ventilators “out the back door.” Or questioning their need for protective equipment.

“Dr. Wen made a great point, which is that we can’t build new doctors and nurses and health care professionals,” continued Alcindor. “But what the president was doing was openly questioning whether or not what they said they needed they actually needed. That goes for a tweet today where you point out, Nicolle, that he’s talking about insatiable appetites and some are complainers when the people we’re hearing from are emergency room doctors, nurses.”

Trump is likely getting this information from son-in-law Jared Kushner, who said in one meeting that he knows better about what hospitals need than the doctors on the ground do because he’s doing the math from his White House office, Vanity Fair reported.

“I have all this data about ICU capacity. I’m doing my own projections, and I’ve gotten a lot smarter about this. New York doesn’t need all the ventilators,” Kushner said, according to a person present at the meeting.

“The president has to deal with the fact that very early on he was saying this was like the flu and then yesterday and a few days ago decided to say, ‘it’s worse than the flu, it’s vicious,'” Alcindor recalled. “I think what the president is really dealing with is the fact that he was trying to downplay this virus and hope for the best and he said he was trying to be positive in his description. But at the end of the day he downplayed the worst health care and economic crisis Americans have faced and he has to deal with that every day as he tries to now get people to really believe that he’s telling them the truth this time around.”

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GOP’s separatist movement exposed

April 2, 2020 By John Stoehr, The Editorial Board- Commentary

COMMENTARY IS A CONSERVATIVE JEWISH RIGHT WING MONTHLY

I said during Donald Trump’s impeachment trial that the Republicans were acting less like a party and more like a separatist movement. A Republican president who breaks the law, as Trump did when he blocked congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine, is not only above it; he is it. A law-breaking Democratic president, on the other hand, “deserves the full-force of Congressional investigation, prosecution and removal.”

The common view is that the Republicans are so partisan they are willing to follow Trump to hell. But that explanation is unsatisfying. Partisanship is one thing. Surrendering to the enemy is another. That, to me, explains why Ted Cruz said, “If we call John Bolton, I promise you, we are calling Hunter Biden.” Cruz isn’t voicing ordinary partisanship so much as the political desperation of a suicide bomber.

I said yesterday the Republican Party is best understood as an insurrection. Perhaps “separatist movement” is a better phrase. That would communicate the binary thinking of the Republican value system. There are two, separate but not equal.

I think that theory holds up now that we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. Many Republicans still behave as if the virus that has now killed 5,000 Americans is part of a secret conspiracy to bring down Trump. Some GOP governors behave as if doing the right thing (shutting down state economies) is a sign of disloyalty. The president himself still behaves as if now’s a good time to reward friends and punish enemies

This article was originally published at The Editorial Board

One thousand Americans died Wednesday. One thousand more could die today. Six and a half million filed for unemployment insurance benefits in one week, on top of 3.3 million last week. Yet leading Republicans, like Senator Ron Johnson, are urging people to go back to work. Yet leading Republicans, like Senator Tom Cotton, are calling for revenge on China. All the while, Trump appears poised to divvy up the spoils of last week’s passage of the $2 trillion economic stimulus so friendly states like Florida get all the help they need while unfriendly states like New York get jack.

The legislation, called the CARES Act, sets aside half a trillion dollars in corporate loans. (That’s on top of $4 trillion in unlimited “quantitative easing” and direct borrowing by and from the Fed.) A provision requires the president to designate an inspector general to oversee accountability of the fund. But in a signing statement, the president said he will do no such thing. After all, acquittal means a president is no longer constitutionally bound to take care that the law is faithfully executed. Well, a GOP president, anyway. Separate but not equal means Democrats go to the wall.

The GOP is acting like a separatist movement.

The rich get richer. The rest get whatever’s coming to them.

Too much? I don’t see why. This state of affairs has been crescendoing for some time. I had occasion recently to reread Sam Tanenhaus’s canonical piece in The New Republic. Published more than a decade ago, parts of “Conservatism Is Dead” read like they were written last month. Here’s how the former New York Times Book Review editor characterized the debate among conservatives in the years after World War II:

On one side are those who have upheld the Burkean ideal of replenishing civil society by adjusting to changing conditions. On the other are those committed to a revanchist counterrevolution, the restoration of America’s pre-welfare state ancien regime. And, time and again, the counterrevolutionaries have won. The result is that modern American conservatism has dedicated itself not to fortifying and replenishing civil society but rather to weakening it through a politics of civil warfare (my stress).

What has been the target of such a strategy? Well, everything these “revanchist counterrevolutionaries” were against, Tanenhaus said in plain English: “Many have observed that movement politics most clearly defines itself not by what it yearns to conserve but by what it longs to destroy—‘statist’ social programs; ‘socialized medicine’; ‘big labor’; ‘activist’ Supreme Court justices, the ‘media elite’; “tenured radicals” on university faculties; “experts” in and out of government (again, my stress).

What did they stand for? Tanenhaus said “movement conservatives” always struggled with that question. But if Trump’s election is any indication—if Trump’s acquittal is any indication—conservatives, such as they are, no longer struggle. Why bother? To be against “the enemy” is enough, even if the enemy is American civil society itself.

To be sure, as Michael Harriot reminds us, that enemy has been Americans on the margins of civil society, specifically Americans of color. The margins are growing, though. Unemployment numbers are worse than they were in the Great Depression. Americans might die from the novel coronavirus in greater numbers than all the men who died fighting in World War II. In normal times, white Americans might not have noticed the Republican Party’s separatist movement. Normal times are history now.


Here’s how Christian Nationalists have shaped the federal government’s response to coronavirus

April 2, 2020 By Matthew Chapman


On Thursday, appearing on the Slate radio show “The Gist” with Mike Pesca, journalist Catherine Stewart outlined some of the ways the Christian Right is responsible for the federal government’s disastrous response to coronavirus.

“The coronavirus pandemic is real wrath-of-God type stuff, isn’t it?” said Pesca. “Well, there are some people who are waiting for this, who are ready for this, and who, quite scarily, have been tasked with the response.”

“It’s a complex question, and I think that Christian Nationalism, which is what we’re dealing with here, is not a religion,” said Stewart. “Many evangelicals are doing very positive things, many religious people are doing a lot of positive things in this situation with the coronavirus. But Christian Nationalism is not a religion, it’s a political ideology that cloaks itself in religious rhetoric. And it’s a movement that put Trump in power.”

“So there are a number of ways in which the movement bears some responsibility for the current incompetence in our national response,” continued Stewart. “First and foremost, the movement promotes an anti-science culture that rejects the evidence of science and rejects expertise and rejects critical thinking, and that has obviously contributed to our inability collectively to address this crisis in an evidence-based fashion. Misinformation is rife in those hyper-conservative and highly politicized religious communities that were all in for Trump.”

“I think another really important point that’s become incredibly obvious right now is that we have in our society a poorly developed collective infrastructure, and that’s a consequence of decades of right-wing economic policy,” said Stewart. “Remember, its representatives are constantly bashing government, demonizing it, some are even saying, you know, they call food stamps un-Biblical, things like that. So that really makes it hard to have a really strong, solid collective response.”

You can listen to the whole show here.