Democratic congresswoman as red states beat out blue ones for small-business aid: ‘I smell a rat’ 

   'I’m hard pressed not to think that this is political,’ House member from California says of Paycheck Protection Program data

Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California speaking at a House hearing last year. Getty Images

Published: April 17, 2020 By Victor Reklaitis
‘I’m hard pressed not to think that this is political. Blue states like California got a pathetic number of loans issued. Nebraska got nearly 75% of loans requested. I smell a rat with orange hair.’— Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier

The line above came from Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California as she tweeted about data showing coastal blue states mostly lagging red states in receiving loans from the Paycheck Protection Program, the government’s new coronavirus aid program for small businesses.

Nebraska has fared the best among the 50 states as businesses there have been approved to receive enough PPP money to cover 75% of the state’s eligible payroll, according to an analysis from Evercore ISI economist Ernie Tedeschi. He used the Small Business Administration’s figures for PPP loans through Monday:

North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas also made out relatively well by that metric, while California, New Jersey and New York didn’t. That’s shown in the table above from Tedeschi, as well as in the Bloomberg News graphic below, which is based on the Evercore economist’s figures.

The loan program for small businesses initially received $350 billion in last month’s $2.2 trillion coronavirus package, known as the CARES Act, or Washington’s “Phase 3” legislation, to support the economy during the pandemic.

The SBA said the PPP ran out of money on Thursday, and Democrats and Republicans have been locked in a stalemate over replenishing it with an additional $250 billion.

The SBA didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment on Friday.

When it comes to industries and PPP loans, Tedeschi tweeted that by “potential maximum loan size, oil/gas/mining XOP, +10.11% PICK, +3.73% and accommodation/food service PEJ, +5.88% appear to be showing the strongest demand.” He said “where the SBA data get even more curious is by state,” adding that “what could be going on is that the PPP has proven more difficult for lenders to get off the ground in the hardest-hit areas so far.”

“Or it could be that states with closer community banking relationships saw an advantage in uptake in these early stages of the program when the contours and details of the program were more uncertain,” Tedeschi said on Twitter.

A NATION OF GRIFTERS

U.S. Pays High Prices for Masks From Unproven Vendors in Coronavirus Fight



Source: WS

The federal government, scrambling to find N95 masks to protect health-care workers from coronavirus infection, has placed more than $110 million in mask orders at high prices with unproven vendors, according to a Wall Street Journal review of federal contracting data.

Of the more than 20 million N95 masks the government ordered for full delivery by the end of May, at least 80% were ordered from suppliers that either had never done business with the federal government or had only taken on small prior contracts that didn’t include medical supplies, according to the data. Some of the vendors already have missed delivery deadlines or have backed out because of supply problems. The parent company of one supplier is in bankruptcy and its owners have been accused of fraud in lawsuits by multiple business partners.

The average price the government agreed to pay for masks from vendors offering quick delivery is close to $6 apiece, roughly six times the list price but in line with the current market rate. Most of the orders were placed with no-bid contracts, federal databases show. The government generally doesn’t pay for goods until they are delivered.

The Trump administration, facing criticism for its handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic, has signed more than $3 billion in pandemic-related contracts recently. That includes orders for 600 million N95 masks from major established producers like 3M Co. and Honeywell International Inc. for less than $1 each. Those orders stretch out until late 2021 but are starting to trickle in. 3M and other manufacturers are also selling many masks to hospitals through their normal distribution networks. Major vendors like these have previously been vetted and have shown their ability to deliver. A Trump administration spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

BEHIND PAYWALL
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-pays-high-prices-for-masks-from-unproven-vendors-in-coronavirus-fight-11587218400


THE ORIGINAL STORY THE WSJ  USED AS SOURCE MATERIAL

CORONAVIRUS IN TEXAS
Someone says they have 2 million N95 masks for sale. The asking price is six times the usual cost.
As health care professionals beg for supplies to protect themselves from COVID-19 infection, a Texas company found a seller with at least 2 million masks and quietly offered them for sale at $6 each. Before the pandemic, they cost around $1.

BY JAY ROOT AND SHANNON NAJMABADI MARCH 31, 2020

An N95 respiration mask. Photo credit: REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi

Editor's note: This story has been updated with an additional statement from Hatfield and Co.

In normal times, an N95 face mask would cost a big corporation a buck or less — particularly if it ordered a million of them.

But these aren’t normal times, and the pitch from industrial supplier Hatfield and Co. to sell as many as 2 million masks to a major U.S. oil company last week wasn’t your typical offer. The Texas-based supplier wanted $6.3 million for a minimum order of 1 million masks, with an option of buying 2 million for nearly $13 million, sales documents and interviews indicate.

At a time when the new coronavirus is rapidly spreading across the country and health care professionals are desperate for these face masks — which filter out at least 95% of airborne particles — to protect sick people and themselves, critics say a price like that smacks of profiteering and price gouging by someone in the supply chain.

“You’re not just marking it up like 50 cents. This is highway robbery,” said an industry salesperson familiar with Hatfield and Co.’s pitch, who is not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity. “It’s just disgusting to me.”

A sales quotation provided to an oil company by Hatfield and Co. shows an offer to sell 1 million N95 masks for more than $6.3 million cash, or $6.4 million if payment was made within 30 days.

Hatfield and Co. said it did not mark up the product excessively or engage in price gouging, telling The Texas Tribune that its own supplier set the “terms and conditions” for the sale. The company declined to identify the supplier or quantify how much it stood to profit, citing its contractual agreements.

Brad Lindeman, the Beaumont-based Hatfield and Co. salesman listed as the contact for the proposed sale, said in a brief telephone interview Sunday that the company had access to an undisclosed quantity of the N95 masks that are stored in warehouses all over Texas and other states.

“There are some in Houston, Dallas, Florida and you know, I guess you would say spread out all over,” Lindeman said. “The inventories are constantly moving, so it's kind of hard to explain exactly what the quantities are."

Lindeman said a "group of doctors" has the masks but did not elaborate. He cut off an interview with a Tribune reporter after a couple of minutes and declined further comment.

On Monday morning, Hatfield's president and chief operating officer, Scott Beeman, said the masks were provided by a reseller the company had not worked with before. He added that the reseller imposed a minimum order size of 1 million masks and that its costs were reflected in Hatfield and Co.’s quotation to the oil company.

Beeman declined to identify the reseller and said he had “no way of knowing ... the veracity of the statement that [Lindeman] was told regarding a doctor or a consortium of doctors owning or having access to this material.”

“I cannot release any information about our supplier; we do have a written quotation from that company,” Beeman wrote in an email. “We will be willing to disclose that to the State’s Attorney General and/or to the head of Purchasing for our customer, so that they can both verify that there was no ‘price gouging’ involved in our pricing to the customer.”

Beeman added that Hatfield’s profit margin was “historically low for our company and was priced that way in the spirit of cooperation.” He initially didn't reveal the company's profit for brokering a sale of the masks, but said in a letter Wednesday that it was less than 3%.

The company, based in the Dallas suburb of Rockwall, does not stock N95 face masks as part of its normal line of products, Beeman said. The company sells engineering products such as filtration devices and valves for clients in the oil and gas sector and the auto industry, and to refining and power companies, according to a Bloomberg profile. Beeman said the company found a supplier for the masks at the request of a customer who wanted them immediately.

Demand for protective equipment like masks has soared since the outbreak began, exacerbated by the disruption of overseas supply chains and a flood of purchases from panicked civilians. The U.S. surgeon general has told the public to save the N95s for health care professionals who need them — “Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS!” he tweeted in February — but demand has pushed prices for the masks to $10, $12 or even $15.

Entrepreneurial and civic-minded Texans — from amateur seamstresses to a chocolate factory owner — have begun churning out protective equipment for health care providers. And Gov. Greg Abbott has told potential suppliers, “We’ll cut you a check on the spot.”

The manufacturer Lindeman identified as the original source of the masks — Minnesota-based 3M, one of the largest manufacturers of N95s — did not immediately return calls and emails seeking comment. Its chief executive officer, Mike Roman, has encouraged federal and state officials to crack down on price gouging and said the company has not and will not increase the price it charges for the masks “being used to help address the pandemic.”

Under the state’s price-gouging laws, it is illegal to charge “exorbitant or excessive” prices for necessities during a disaster, and Attorney General Ken Paxton has said he won’t tolerate people and businesses using the pandemic to profit.

“No one is exempt from price gouging laws in Texas, and those who violate the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act will be met with the full force of the law,” the attorney general’s office tweeted.

The state sued a Houston-area company last week that was trying to auction more than 750,000 masks online, with listings as high as $180 for a package of 16. Price-gougers in Texas can face civil penalties and be required to reimburse consumers.

The Texas price-gouging law applies to items considered to be necessities during an official emergency, like food, medicine and construction tools. Abbott declared a disaster on March 13 due to the coronavirus, and President Donald Trump declared a federal emergency that same day — two weeks before Hatfield and Co. offered its price quote to the oil company.

Consumers and small businesses can sue under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act if they believe they’ve been the victims of price gouging. They can recover up to three times their damages and attorneys’ fees. Consumers, small businesses and large corporations like the oil company Hatfield was trying to sell masks to can also complain to the attorney general, who has broad powers to sanction profiteers.

Without knowing all the details about the transaction and the suppliers, experts say it’s impossible to know whether Hatfield and Co.’s offer, or one further down the supply chain, would amount to price gouging.

The statute doesn’t define what level a markup has to reach in order for it to be considered “exorbitant or excessive.”

But a price of over $6 a mask struck Professor Emeritus Richard Alderman, director of the University of Houston’s Consumer Law Center, as high given that the masks, according to numerous online offerings and published reports, could be obtained for a dollar or less before the outbreak began.

“If the costs of materials or doing business went up substantially, that, to me, would be a mitigating factor. But … start with just looking at whether that price is excessive or exorbitant,” he said. “And for me, six times normal cost — that's 600%. I view that as excessive and exorbitant — something that they can only do because of the emergency situation.

Health care and medical supply executives suggest there’s now a booming gray market of personal protective equipment filled with middle men and fake products, and stoked by desperation from health care providers already running low on the gear. Governors have said states are bidding against one another, driving up prices, and state attorneys general have reported being inundated with complaints about exorbitantly priced items like hand sanitizer and masks. More than 30 state attorneys general urged online marketplace operators to crack down on profiteering behavior last week.

But experts say the line between supply and demand forces and price gouging can be hard to define.

Rice University professor Utpal Dholakia said thoughtfully set prices should reflect how much customers value a product — and ethics aside, it makes sense that N95s would cost more “because consumers have a higher valuation for them at present.”

“Sure, you want to take advantage of the higher customer valuation, but you don't want to exploit or abuse the customer, and especially when it's something like” a global health crisis, said Dholakia, who teaches in the graduate business school.

According to sales documents provided to the oil company by Hatfield and Co., the cash price for a million masks was $6,310,000. If the oil company wanted to pay within 30 days, it would have to cough up another $100,000 — for a total of $6,410,000, according to the document. But the company could only use credit for one of the orders.

“The second order would need to be cash upon receipt of goods,” a Hatfield and Co. salesperson wrote in a letter of terms to the oil company.

REFERENCE Read a March 27, 2020 letter of transfer sent from Hatfield and Company.
(343.2 KB) DOWNLOAD

The company also offered to share “live video” showing the product in the warehouse, a provision that the industry salesperson with knowledge of the transaction found bizarre and unprecedented.

“That’s never happened,” the person said. “How do I know the video is real?”

The salesperson said whoever got a hold of the masks “found a way to make money and, you know, I mean, that is the American entrepreneurial way. I just feel like this is not the time to do it."

US Cattle industry losses expected to quickly outpace federal aid
By Jessie Higgins

Cattle producers are putting more cows to pasture and feeding them less energy-rich diets to slow their growth as demand for beef dries up amid the coronavirus pandemic. File Photo by Gary C. Caskey/UPI | License Photo

EVANSVILLE, Ind., April 21 (UPI) -- American livestock producers will receive the lion's share of the $19 billion federal Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, with $5.1 billion earmarked for American cattle producers.

But with cattle industry losses expected to surpass $13.6 billion, according to new research from Oklahoma State University, industry leaders fear the aid will not be enough to save struggling ranchers.

"The bottom line is there will be guys in cow-calf production that at this point probably will not be able to cover their production costs," said Derrell Peel, a professor of agribusiness and an Oklahoma State University Extension livestock marketing specialist, who lead the study.

"There are some producers that will not survive this," Peel said.

Falling consumer demand for meat from Americans staying home to slow the spread of the coronavirus is at the heart of the issue.

The demand for meat initially surged in early March, when governors started to close restaurants and schools and issued the first stay-at-home orders. Consumers flooded supermarkets and stockpiled staples like meat, bread and eggs.

But that initial demand fell dramatically in the final weeks of March. American consumers had stocked up, and nationwide restaurant closures wiped out 40 percent or more of the market for beef.

Live cattle prices have fallen some 30 percent since January, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, to about 85 cents a pound from $1.20.

Now, ranchers face yet another complication -- packing plants have been closing because workers contracted the coronavirus.

JBS, an international meat processing company, announced Monday it was closing its pork processing plant in Worthington, Minn. It is the third American plant the company has shuttered amid the pandemic. The other two were beef facilities.

Smithfield Foods closed its pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., last week. Meanwhile, National Beef Packing has closed its plant in Tama, Iowa, and Cargill closed a plant in Hazleton, Pa.

"We've seen more packing plants shut down or scale back production because of sick workers," said Colin Woodall, CEO of the Denver-based National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "Now, there's a backup of cattle in the system."

That backup means some producers are struggling to sell cattle.

"Producers have adjusted as much as they can to buy time," said Jim Petrik, a South Dakota rancher who raises cattle and hogs. "You can put cattle out to pasture to feed on grass, and reduce the energy in their diets so they grow slower. But at some point, they have to be harvested."

Petrik added that the coronavirus aid will be welcomed by ranchers, but that it won't make up for all the losses.

Details of how the program will be implemented are scant, but according to U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who is chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, ranchers might be compensated for 85 percent of their price loss between Jan. 1 and April 15.

They also might be able to claim 30 percent of their expected losses over the next six months.

Payments to producers will be capped at $125,000 per commodity, with an overall limit of $250,000 per individual or entity.

The payments are expected to begin arriving in late May or early June, Hoeven said.

"We're grateful, don't get me wrong," Petrik said. "But it's not like having our markets back. This year might be the worst we've had financially."

SEE  

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=SMITHFIELD

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=TYSON

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MEAT+PACKING

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=COVID19


https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=JBS

Virus-Addled Meat-Packing Plant in Colorado Had ‘Work While Sick Culture,’ Authorities Say

BEEFING HARD

JBS shut their beef processing operation on April 15, but not before dozens of workers became infected and at least four died.

JBS IS THE BRAZILIAN GLOBAL MEATPACKING MONOPOLY

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=JBS

William Bredderman Researcher Apr. 18, 2020 

Matthew Stockman/Getty

A “work while sick culture” may have turned a Colorado meat-packing plant into a COVID-19 cluster, a communication from local health authorities suggests.

The Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment sent a letter to the JBS USA facility in Greeley on April 4, and referenced warnings the agency made to company officials on April 2—five days before the first reported death of one of the facility’s employees on April 7. JBS idled the beef processing operation on April 15, but not before dozens more of its 4,500 workers became infected and at least four died.

The missive from County Health Officer Dr. Mark Wallace, obtained by The Daily Beast, noted that he had brought up in the April 2 exchange that some of the plant’s laborers had reported feeling pressured to keep attendance up even when they felt ill.

Nebraskans in Virus Hot Zone ‘Terrified’ by Guv’s Decision
‘JUST LIKE TRUMP’
Marcella Mercer, Tracy Connor


“These concerns expressed to clinicians included a perception by employees of a ‘work while sick’ culture that included managers and supervisors coming to work while sick,” Wallace wrote in the letter, first reported on by local Fox affiliate KDVR.

The doctor went on to order the company to take employees’ temperatures as they arrived on site, to implement social distancing protocols, and to direct the ailing and the potentially exposed to self-isolate at home. The letter ended with a threat should JBS fail to comply.

“If I find evidence of continued violations,” Wallace wrote. “I will seek assistance from the District Attorney to consider criminal actions against you and your staff and/or the Weld County attorney to seek injunctive relief against your company.”

In a statement to The Daily Beast, JBS denied obligating or encouraging workers to show up while exhibiting symptoms.

A Sioux Falls Meat Plant Is Now Worst Virus Cluster in U.S.
SHOCKING

Emma Tucker, Rachel Olding



“No one is forced to come to work and no one is punished for being absent for health reasons. If someone is sick or lives with someone who is sick, we send them home,” said spokesperson Nikki Richardson. “The health and safety of our team members is our number one priority.”

Still, Richardson noted that the federal government has sought to keep food supply chains running amid the pandemic, which she said imposed on JBS a “special responsibility to maintain normal work schedules.”

President Donald Trump acknowledged the scale of the JBS outbreak in his April 10 press briefing, in which he lauded the local response.

“We’re looking at this graph where everything’s looking beautiful and it’s coming down and then you got this one spike,” he said. “Many people, very quickly. And by the way, they were on it, like, so fast, you wouldn’t believe it.”

The Daily Beast previously reported on an outbreak at another of the company’s facilities in Grand Island, Nebraska.

The Brazilian-based food giant, which also controls the brand Pilgrim’s Pride, has been at the center of a number of controversies and scandals. Its two top executives Joesley and Wesley Batista, whose father co-founded the company in 1953, pleaded guilty in 2017 to paying millions in bribes to nearly 2,000 lawmakers in their home country—a major development in the “Operation Car Wash” scandal that rocked the South American country.

Earlier this year, news that the firm had received $67 million in U.S. tax dollars intended to bail out struggling farmers provoked outcry. And in March, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), accused the company of taking advantage of the pandemic to underpay beef producers.


Several meat plants have been crippled by the coronavirus outbreak, including a pork facility in South Dakota, owned by Smithfield Foods, which has become the largest single-source cluster in the country.

---30---

SEE  

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=SMITHFIELD

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=TYSON

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MEAT+PACKING

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=COVID19

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=JBS

Trump Called Ukrainians “Terrible People.” They Are Airlifting Tons Of Lifesaving Medical Supplies To The US With The Biggest Cargo Planes In The World.
LOTS OF BIG AIRPLANE PICTURESOver the course of the next month, planes owned by the state-run Antonov Airlines will carry medical masks and other supplies on 11 trips from Asian countries to the US.

Christopher MillerBuzzFeed News Contributor Posted on April 17, 2020

Noah Seelam / Getty ImagesThe Antonov AN-225 Mriya, at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, India, in 2016.

In May 2019, President Donald Trump described Ukraine as being full of “terrible people” who “tried to take me down.” Two months later, he was on the phone with his newly elected counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, asking him to “do us a favor.”

The favor Trump wanted — opening investigations into his political rival, Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president — never came, and Trump withheld important military aid to the war-torn country for months. The rest, as they say, is history.

But months later, as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the US, Ukraine is doing Trump a huge favor: The country is using its cargo planes — the biggest in the world — to ferry crucial personal protective equipment (PPE) from Asia to medical professionals on the front line of the health crisis in the US.

Over the course of the next month, Ukrainian state-run Antonov Airlines will send its giant An-225 Mriya and An-124 Ruslan planes on at least 11 trips from Asian countries to the continental US, Vitaliy Shost, Antonov’s deputy director, told BuzzFeed News from the company’s headquarters in Kyiv.

“Our first flight to the US is planned for next week — with a flight from Shanghai to Columbus, Ohio,” Shost said. The cargo consists mostly of medical masks, protective clothing, and disinfectant agents, he said.

Aivaras Abromavicius, CEO of Ukroboronprom, the Ukrainian state defense conglomerate that oversees Antonov, told BuzzFeed News from Kyiv that some flights could include ventilators.


Antonov Airlines/Tetiana Peklun
Vitaliy Shost looks at a calendar showing the dozens of booked Antonov Airlines flights in the coming weeks that will deliver medical aid.

The deliveries come as the coronavirus crisis in the US drags on and hospitals across the country continue to report shortages of basic medical supplies.

Shost declined to disclose commercially sensitive information such as how the flights to the US were paid for and how much they cost. He said the company operates “through brokers” and has “no direct contact or very limited connection with the cargo owners.” Use of the Mriya reportedly costs around $30,000 an hour and may run as high as $1 million in total, depending on the type of cargo carried and the distance needed to travel.
If you're someone who is seeing the impact of the coronavirus firsthand, we’d like to hear from you. Reach out to us via one of our tip line channels.

At 275 feet in length and weighing 310 tons completely empty, the Mriya — Ukrainian for “dream” — is the world’s largest and heaviest cargo aircraft. With six powerful engines on its 290-foot wings, it’s capable of carrying another 275 tons — strapped to its top, as it did with the Soviet Union’s Buran space shuttle, or in its cargo hold. To get a sense of just how big that space is, consider this BBC description: The length of its cargo hold is longer than the Wright brothers’ first flight, from takeoff to landing. It’s also the only Mriya ever produced; a second one remains unfinished in a hangar in Kyiv.

The slightly smaller Ruslan is anything but small; at 226 feet and weighing 200 tons, it is the largest military cargo plane in the world. And Antonov owns five of them, including one model that can carry 120 tons of cargo and a second that is reinforced and able to lift 165 tons.

Often the planes are used to transport oversize cargo, such as military tanks, plane engines, and even smaller aircraft fuselages. They are loaded on board through an opening in the nose of the planes.

Because of the enormity of the planes and the current health risks, Abromavicius said “the utmost care is needed in planning these flights, loading the cargo, following the flight instructions and quarantine instructions.” He said everything has to run with the “precision of a Swiss watch.”


Gleb Garanich / Reuters
People wearing protective masks board a renovated Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo plane on the tarmac of an airfield outside Kyiv earlier this month.


All models of the Antonov planes will be used in the US deliveries between mid-April and mid-May, Shost said. He said there is the possibility that more flights to the US could be made later as well.

The planes are in high demand elsewhere. Since March, Shost said, several countries have chartered either the Mriya or the Ruslans to shuttle supplies to their coronavirus-stricken nations. They include Canada, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Kuwait, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Slovakia, Spain, and Switzerland.

A video published on Tuesday shows the Mriya landing in Warsaw, where it delivered tons of medical supplies purchased from China by the Polish government. The livestream shared by Chopin Airport was watched by more than 80,000 people.

The departures and arrivals of the Mriya, which Shost boasted as being “part of our Ukrainian heritage,” are seen by aviation enthusiasts as big events. Heads of government and even royalty turn out to see the behemoth in action, Shost said.

The Mriya’s next medical supply delivery is in Paris on Saturday.

The global demand for the planes has translated to a 40% jump in orders for Antonov Airlines. That means all of its planes are booked through much of May.

“Thіs April, according to our estimates, is a record month in terms of the flight time,” Shost said. For instance, the Ruslan planes alone clocked 1,001 hours halfway through the month. “This is fantastic, but it’s not done magically,” Shost said. “Our relatively small team works really hard to arrange all the flights and requests.”


Paul Kane / Getty Images
The Antonov AN-225 Mriya landing at Perth international airport in Australia in 2015.


The US is also doing its part to help Ukraine in its fight against the coronavirus. Like the US, Ukraine has seen the number of infections within its borders increase exponentially since March. As of April 17, Ukraine had 4,662 recorded cases, with 125 related deaths. And medical supplies there are in short supply.

The State Department said in a statement Thursday that it is providing Ukraine with $9.1 million in health and humanitarian assistance to “help prepare laboratory systems, activate case-finding and event-based surveillance, support technical experts for response and preparedness, bolster risk communication, and more.”

It said the assistance will also prevent and control infection at targeted health facilities and support water, sanitation and hygiene interventions for the most vulnerable populations in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, eastern Ukraine. Six years of war between the Ukrainian military and Russia-controlled separatist forces has killed some 14,000 people and devastated the regions’ economies and infrastructure.

The US has invested nearly $5 billion in total assistance to Ukraine over the past 20 years, including nearly $362 million in health assistance, according to the State Department.

Also included in that total was $391.5 million in security assistance that Trump personally ordered to be held up in order to get Ukraine’s President Zelensky to bend to his will. He ultimately released the aid in September, but only after a whistleblower complaint that sparked the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

---30---

Here’s A Timeline Of How A Bill Gates, Reddit, and AMA Turned Into A Coronavirus Vaccine Conspiracy

In less than a month, the baseless claim went from an obscure biohacking blog to the New York Post and RT.

Jane LytvynenkoBuzzFeed News Reporter April 18, 2020

Jeff Pachoud / Getty Images

On March 18, at 1 pm EST, Bill Gates logged on to Reddit for an AMA — an interview in which people asked the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft their burning questions. Gates makes fairly frequent Reddit appearances, but this one was notable because most of the questions centered around the coronavirus and one of his philanthropic causes, global health.

Gates was asked about how businesses would change because of the virus. He responded by talking about supply chain issues and the need for basic necessities, like water and electricity.

“Countries are still figuring out what to keep running,” he wrote. “Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.”

His answer inadvertently kicked off an online frenzy. Gates has long been a target of conspiracy theorists, including those who falsely paint him as responsible for the global pandemic. It also fed into false anti-vaccination conspiracies theories, which have gained traction online and contributed to outbreaks of measles and deaths of children.

One of the first articles to pick up on Gates’s response was on a website on biohacking, Biohackinfo, which has only a few thousand followers on Twitter and Instagram. The day after the AMA, the site published a post titled “Bill Gates will use microchip implants to fight coronavirus.”


Reddit

Gates did not mention microchips at any point during his Reddit conversation. Nevertheless, the article falsely claimed he was referring to a December 2019 study funded by the Gates Foundation on quantum tattoos — invisible ink that could last five years and be read with a smartphone.

“These markings were developed to provide a vaccination record and there is no ability to track anyone’s movements,” one of the study’s authors told PolitiFact, which debunked the claim. “This technology is only able to provide very limited (e.g. non-personalized) data locally. These markings require direct line-of-sight imaging from a distance of less than one foot. Remote or continuous tracking is simply not possible for a variety of technical reasons.”

The conspiracy theory's biggest boost came from a March 21 YouTube video on the Law Of Liberty channel, which has 27,000 subscribers. The video, which has been viewed nearly two million times, cited the Biohackinfo article and compared quantum tattoos to what it called the “Mark of Satan,” while implying that Gates was the anti-Christ.

The conspiracy picked up more attention on April 13, when former Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone speculated on the Answer, a Salem, OR radio station, that Gates had created both the coronavirus and a vaccine with a microchip in it to track the global population. “Roger Stone: Bill Gates may have created coronavirus to microchip people,” read a headline from the New York Post from the same day. The Post made no attempt to challenge Stone’s false statements, and the article is now the second-most popular piece of content on Facebook about Gates and microchips, behind the Law Of Liberty YouTube video.


YouTube

Russian media has picked up on Stone’s comments, too. State-funded website RT translated Stone’s comments into its Spanish edition, citing the New York Post report. Like the Post, RT didn’t provide correct information to counteract Stone’s speculation, although it did say that Gates had dismissed the theory in an interview with CCTV. The story has received over 100,000 Facebook likes, shares, and comments.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, told BuzzFeed News that he was not aware of a microchip small enough to be injected in a vaccine.

“The whole idea of immunization certificates really is not the idea of a nanoparticle,” Dr. Benjamin said.

He said that there are valid human rights concerns about cellphone-based or ID-card vaccine tracking, adding that testing and vaccinating were the most sure-fire way of protecting people from the coronavirus.

Dr. Benjamin also stressed that while there are ongoing efforts to find a vaccine for the coronavirus, it could be anywhere from a year to 18 months before it could start being given to the public, once discovered. He said that risks with anti-vaccination disinformation “are enormous.”


New York Post

“Vaccines are safe and effective,” he said. “That vaccine — once produced and proven to be safe and effective — is going to be a lifesaver. It's absolutely a major part of our ability to go back out, leave our homes, go back to work, and go to big sports events.”

Nevertheless, the conspiracy has continued to spread, with the initial story receiving nearly 60,000 Facebook likes, comments, and shares, according to data from social media tracking tool BuzzSumo.

One reason the hoax may have spread so widely is that it tied into existing paranoia about Gates and his philanthropic foundation. Gates has long been accused of wanting to control the global population and other outlandish goals, including that he is the anti-Christ.

Theologian Paul Decock, an expert on the final book of the Bible who teaches at St. Joseph's Theological Institute in Cedara, South Africa, told BuzzFeed News that interpretation was inaccurate. In the Book of Revelation, not only those who follow Satan were said to receive marks or seals, he told BuzzFeed News, but “those who are faithful to God are also sealed [as] a sign of protection.”

He added that identifying Gates as the Anti-Christ was wrong.

“Almost anyone in history who stands out in one way or another has been identified as the Beast,” Decock said. “In the Book of Revelation, we cannot find a simple answer to our particular case of Bill Gates, as if the text had Bill Gates in mind. We have to discern whether Bill Gates [is] in the service of God or the service of the Devil. Therefore, it requires reflection, reasoning, discernment. In any case, for me, Bill Gates appears clearly to be on the side of God.”

Despite its scientific and exegetical inaccuracies, the Law Of Liberty YouTube post has 1.3 million Facebook likes, comments, and shares, primarily from Facebook groups, according to data from social media research tool CrowdTangle. Many of those Facebook groups tout their support for US President Donald Trump, promote conspiracy theories, and oppose vaccination.

“We have clear policies against COVID misinformation and we quickly remove videos violating these policies when flagged to us,” a YouTube spokesperson told BuzzFeedNews. “For borderline content, such as [this] video, we reduce recommendations.”

According to non-profit disinformation tracking organization First Draft, false allegations that Gates wanted to implant microchips through coronavirus vaccines have spread not only in North America, but worldwide. First Draft has found versions targeting Australians and Europeans in early April. Misinformation has also spread across WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages in Africa, with one post from a Congo-based page garnering over 8,000 shares.

“Conspiracy theories are harmful to people’s confidence in vaccines,” Dr. Benjamin said, adding, “This will not be the end of conspiracy theories around vaccines.”

9 OUT OF TEN DOCTORS AGREE

Trump is insane: And it’s time for leading Democrats to say that out loud


Published April 18, 2020 By Dave Masciotra, Salon - Commentary

Psychologists warn of the deadly consequences of the “silent partner” in abusive homes. When a father beats or sexually assaults a child, the family will often react by refusing to discuss the abuse, allowing silence to enable the predator and protect against confronting a reality that is too painful and frightening.

This article first appeared in Salon.

The United States of America is now an abusive household. Donald Trump is the lunatic authority figure stalking and traumatizing the victims — the American people — while the Democratic Party, along with the mainstream media, act as the silent partner.

It becomes increasingly evident, with Trump’s every social media post, public utterance and policy directive, that our president suffers from a severe form of mental illness. His insanity threatens millions of lives, and has become particularly dangerous during the most devastating public health crisis in the last 100 years.

For all the criticism that Democrats and pundits advance against Trump, their refusal to state the obvious forces the American public to feel as if we are the ones confined to a mental institution. It also emboldens Trump, even as he prioritizes his fragile ego, his compulsion to appear infallible and political expediency above the lives of countless human beings.

The most popular terms that Trump’s opponents use are “liar,” “un-American,” “egomaniac” and “malignant narcissist.” All of these labels are weak, which is why we watch as Trump peels them off like Band-Aids after a shower. Half the public probably doesn’t know what “malignant narcissist” means, while “un-American” is too vague and ideological to have any widespread resonance. “Liar” quickly collapses into the “all politicians lie” refrain, and “egomania” is borderline meaningless, considering that almost anyone who becomes famous in our consumer society — including most high-powered CEOs, Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes — obviously have massively swollen egos.

The reality that is too painful and frightening for many Americans to confront is that the wealthiest and most militarily powerful country in the world, during a pandemic, is under the leadership of someone who is certifiably nuts.

In December of 2019, 350 mental health professionals co-signed a letter to Congress stating that Donald Trump’s “deteriorating mental health” constituted a “threat to the safety of our nation.” It was merely a month later that Trump would begin to ignore multiple warnings regarding the coming COVID-19 epidemic, repeatedly announcing at rallies and on Twitter that media coverage of the virus amounted to a “hoax,” and making bizarre, unscientific statements that the potential pandemic would “go away like a miracle.”

One recent morning — again, while thousands are dying and the coronavirus ravaged numerous American cities — Trump tweeted 46 times in a few hours, mostly to mock House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whine about “fake news” and retweet conspiracy theorists arguing for the firing of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

If any of our loved ones behaved in a similar manner, we would plead for psychiatric intervention. One does not have to have the expertise of a psychiatrist at the Yale University School of Medicine to make that assessment, but Dr. Bandy X. Lee, who indeed holds that title, recently told Salon that Trump’s “pathological malice,” “mental pathology,” and “bottomless need to place his own psychic survival above any protection of the public” could “destroy the nation or the world.”

Lee was the principal editor of the 2017 bestseller, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” She has also organized a coalition of 800 mental health professionals who are “sufficiently alarmed that they feel the need to speak up about the mental health status of the president.”

A Change.org petition started by Dr. John Gartner, a psychotherapist and former professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, calls on Congress to remove Trump from office on the grounds of mental unfitness. It now has 70,602 supporters, most of them professionals with education or experience in the mental health field.

In the foreword to “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist who is one of the world’s leading experts on the psychological causes of war and terrorism, writes that the United States has entered a disastrous stage of “malignant normality”:

Judith Herman and I, in a letter to the New York Times in March 2017, stressed Trump’s dangerous individual psychological patterns: his creation of his own reality and his inability to manage the inevitable crises that face an American president. He has also, in various ways, violated our American institutional requirements and threatened the viability of American democracy. Yet, because he is president and operates within the broad contours and interactions of the presidency, there is a tendency to view what he does as simply part of our democratic process — that is, as politically and even ethically normal. In this way, a dangerous president becomes normalized, and malignant normality comes to dominate our governing (or, one could say, our antigoverning) dynamic.



Since the first printing of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” and the publication of the letter from 350 mental health professionals, the fatal consequences of Trump’s mental instability have become manifest. The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed a terrifying hypothetical into a catastrophe with effects that multiply by the hour.

Even as rates of infection and the daily body count escalate, while overwhelmed hospitals lack the equipment to properly care for their patients and protect their workers, Trump displays a horrific failure to empathize with victims, place public need above personal interest or even acknowledge reality. He continues to tout the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which so far has shown little if any positive effects on coronavirus patients, and is known to increase the risk of cardiac arrest.

Trump makes decisions that threaten more lives, such as the elimination of U.S. funding for the World Health Organization, which is not only on the front lines against the global spread of COVID-19, but is also central to the campaign against treatable diseases throughout the developing world. He boasted of the creation of a coronavirus website in partnership with Google — which does not exist and never will — and has likened his presidential powers to those of a dictator, telling a report that “the authority of the president of the United States is total.” (In an entirely typical Trumpian maneuver, he then retreated from that position without acknowledging he had ever said any such thing.)

Unlike other world leaders, who allow their chief medical officials to lead press briefings on the pandemic, the wannabe dictator hosts a surreal press conference nearly every afternoon. This has become a pathological national spectacle, in which Trump insults journalists, makes transparently false claims and answers simple questions, like “What do you say to the Americans who are scared?” with incoherent rage: “I say you’re a terrible reporter.”

In their cowardice, weakness and lack of imagination, the White House correspondents, the networks and publications they represent, and most Democratic officials offer a hideous illustration of “malignant normality.”

Most journalists, adhering to an institutional decorum that might have been appropriate during the Carter administration, ask Trump a question and then dutifully take notes while he blusters through an illiterate response.

Lenore Taylor, an editor with Guardian Australia, offered a reasonable perspective on Trump last year that still eludes her American peers. After attending a White House press conference, she wrote that she realized “how much the reporting of Trump necessarily edits and parses his words, to force it into sequential paragraphs or impose meaning where it is difficult to detect,” and concluded that most of journalism “masks and normalizes his full and alarming incoherence.”

Major newspapers and television networks largely refuse to publish or air consideration of Trump’s mental health, ignoring the consensus of hundreds of the most prestigious academics and doctors in the field.

Dr. Anthony Fauci was recently compelled to grovel before the Dear Leader, insisting that when he had said that earlier adoption of social distancing would have saved lives, he of course intended no criticism of the porcelain president.

For the sake of the country, millions of lives and everyone’s sanity, some political figure of national prominence needs to respect the consensus of mental health professionals, and publicly declare that President Donald Trump is mentally unstable and unfit for office. This must be stated in the simplest terms possible, and while making clear that he or she is not joking or issuing the statement for dramatic effect. It is time to liberate American discourse from its self-imposed restraints, and it is essential to the future of American democracy that Trump’s mental condition becomes a focal point of urgent investigation and discussion.

Shameless and dishonest operatives on the right have no reticence about making the health of a major Democratic figure part of public inquiry, even when they have to resort to baseless lies. In 2016, many Republican commentators – from Sean Hannity to Trump himself — warned that Hillary Clinton was near death, because she appeared wobbly at one public event. Four years later, she is still alive. Currently, discussions of Joe Biden’s “dementia,” without any clear evidence of cognitive decline, dominate right-wing chatter about the prospective Democratic nominee.

More than a thousand mental health professionals are now on the record declaring that Donald Trump is mentally unfit for office, but leading Democrats still refuse to discuss the issue openly. Amid this pandemic, Democratic cowardice regarding Trump’s insanity goes beyond the usual liberal pattern of bringing a pillow to a knife fight. It puts millions of lives at risk.

No Democratic governor, even one with considerable power and influence like California’s Gavin Newsom or New York’s Andrew Cuomo, can afford to gamble with the health of his or her people by alienating Trump. But a prominent U.S. senator — perhaps Chris Murphy of Connecticut or Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — or even Joe Biden himself, must level with the country about what anyone outside Trump’s cult following can see with their own eyes. The president is sick. It’s time to talk about it.

A recent profile in the New Yorker of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell quoted a staffer as claiming that behind closed doors McConnell has described Trump as “nuts.” Democrats should demand to know if the Republican Senate mastermind truly believes that the president is impaired, and force McConnell to choose between yet more lies and the future of his country.

Democrats should also get over their concerns about angering Trump supporters. Anyone who continues to applaud Trump’s weird and reckless disregard for humanity at this point is beyond the limit of rational persuasion. Trump supporters live in a hallucinatory dreamscape under the authority of a maniac. Let them have their anti-social distancing rallies, and allow them to believe that Barack Obama invented COVID-19 shortly after he was born in Kenya.

Rational Americans need to stop enabling this abusive and deranged presidency. Declare Donald Trump insane and, at long last, bring an end to our era of malignant normality.

"I Don't Want To Die Here!": Older ICE Detainees Fear The Worst As The Coronavirus Spreads

"I cry every night, every day. I feel helpless. I don’t know what’s going on."

Hamed AleazizBuzzFeed News Reporter Posted on April 17, 2020

Stephan Savoia / AP
An immigrant facing deportation to El Salvador returns to his cell at an ICE facility in Boston.
Mariela, one of hundreds of older immigrant detainees in government custody at local and private detention centers across the country, worries she will die in a jail.

The 60-year-old Colombian has been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for two months in El Paso, Texas, where she folds laundry and helps clean the facility, a job for which she says she is paid $1 a day.

Mariela is accused of violating her visa by working in the US — a charge she denies — and knows she’s at a higher risk of death than younger detainees if she contracts COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

“I am very afraid of getting the virus. That’s my life,” she said. “This shouldn’t exist at all — detaining people who are more than 60 years old. I came to the US with a visa. This is an injustice. I cry every night, every day. I feel helpless. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Medical experts and immigrant advocates have warned that the highly contagious disease puts everyone in detention at risk. But for the older detainees in ICE custody, the inherent problems within jails — like a lack of necessary space to accommodate proper social distancing guidelines — put them in even more danger, they say. Advocates have used these arguments as a way to push for more releases.

“These people are at increased risk of serious complications and death from [COVID-19],” said Marc Stern, a public health expert and faculty member at the University of Washington. Data from the CDC show there's increased risk to those who are 50 and older, he noted.

“So they should be among those people ICE prioritizes for consideration to release. The other — and from the public’s standpoint more important — reason for the public to be concerned about this is that it is more likely that these people will become infected if they are in a detention center than at home. And when they get sick, they’re going to be transported to a local community hospital where they may very well occupy a scarce hospital or ICU bed and ventilator,” Stern said.

Last month, ICE officials began assessing their inmate population to locate “vulnerable” detainees, including those who are over 60 or pregnant. So far, they have released nearly 700 detainees, and detention numbers are the lowest they have been in several years. As of Friday, there were more than 300 detainees over the age of 60 in ICE facilities, 93% of whom have either a record of criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, according to an agency official.



ICE spokespeople have said determinations on whom to release are based on the “person’s criminal record, immigration history, ties to the community, risk of flight, and whether he or she poses a potential threat to public safety.”

“Due to the unprecedented nature of COVID-19, [ICE] is reviewing cases of individuals in detention who may be at higher risk for severe illness as a result of COVID-19. Utilizing CDC guidance along with the advice of medical professionals, ICE may place individuals in a number of alternatives to detention options,” the agency wrote in a statement. “Decisions to release individuals in ICE custody occur every day on a case-by-case basis.”

Advocates, however, point to the older detainees still in custody as proof that ICE is not doing enough. Lawsuits filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Center for Constitutional Rights in recent weeks have asked a federal judge to force ICE to release a pair of 78-year old detainees and a 62-year-old asylum-seeker.

“It is very irresponsible to be detaining him in this situation. He is elderly. He has medical conditions that make him extremely vulnerable to COVID-19,” said Carlos Moctezuma Garcia, an attorney representing Raul Garza Marroquin, one of the 78-year-olds in custody.

Garza, who has hypertension, mixed hyperlipidemia, polyosteoarthritis, and prediabetes, has been in ICE custody at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas, for the last several weeks, according to the lawsuit. He alleges that he has been unable to get regular access to soap and hand sanitizer, a charge that others in detention centers across the US have also made.

Garcia attempted to get Garza out of custody in late March, but the request was denied by an ICE official. Garza, who is a permanent resident, has been arrested on multiple charges of driving while intoxicated, and, in 2016, an assault allegation.

Similarly, lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights sued the government last month for the release of Matilde Flores de Saavedra. The 78-year-old detainee, who like Garza is a permanent resident, was picked up by ICE officials in June after serving a sentence for conspiracy to transport undocumented immigrants, according to court documents.

In a declaration to the court, Saavedra said she has diabetes and high blood pressure.

“Tensions are running high as everyone in the dorm is worried that the detention center is doing nothing to prevent them from contracting the disease,” she wrote about the conditions at the LaSalle ICE Processing Center in Louisiana. “Neither the staff nor the detainees use gloves or masks around the dorm and neither the staff or ICE have said anything to any of us about coronavirus. All we know is what we see on television.”

ICE officials have not publicly offered the ages of the detainees who have tested positive for COVID-19. They have, however, provided the information to congressional officials. Thus far, among the 105 detainees who have tested positive for COVID-19, nearly a dozen have been over the age of 50.




Stern, the expert from Washington, said that ICE officials should change their assessment of the vulnerable population in agency custody by including those over the age of 50. Correctional health experts have found that those in detention are physiologically comparable to those in the community who are older.

“Many state departments of corrections and the Federal Bureau of Prisons therefore define ‘elderly’ or ‘older’ variously between 50 and 60 years of age,” he said. “No such scientific information exists for the immigration detention population. In the absence of such science, it is not unreasonable to extrapolate from the next most comparable populations, i.e., jails and prisons.”

In recent days, Mariela, who owns dental clinics in her home country, has called her attorney sobbing about officers showing up in full protective clothing to remove a sick detainee.

Her attorneys are worried that her stay in custody will last weeks if the government attempts to carry out the deportation. Government officials denied a request to pause her deportation order on Thursday.

“I am listening to a woman who knows what is going on, who runs a business in her home country, who should never have been detained, in freefall panic. Each time she calls, she is more anxious and more panicked,” her attorney, Heidi Cerneka at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, said. “She said, ‘I don't want to die here!’"

The NLRB Is Looking Into Claims That Amazon Violated Employees' Rights During The Coronavirus Pandemic

As employees, labor activists, and lawmakers decry Amazon’s firing of employees involved in labor protests, the National Labor Relations Board is looking at the company’s record of targeting people over social distancing violations

Caroline O'DonovanBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on April 18, 2020

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Former injured Amazon employees join labor organizers and community activists to demonstrate and hold a press conference outside of an Amazon Go store in the loop to express concerns about what they claim is the company's "alarming injury rate" among warehouse workers on December 10, 2019 in Chicago.

Federal labor regulators have indicated that they will be watching Amazon after workers in Chicago filed charges against the company alleging it retaliated against them for participating in protests about working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic, according to public documents filed this week.

The labor board’s inquiry, which experts say is unusual, comes as Amazon is under national scrutiny for firing at least four employees who engaged in walkouts and work slowdowns to protest worker safety during the pandemic.

Employees in Chicago allege that instead of responding to their petition asking for the closure of their warehouse after two workers tested positive for the coronavirus, Amazon instead retaliated against them. The company, they charged, is going after labor leaders on the pretext that they violated new social distancing rules. Workers in other places, including New York and Minnesota, have accused the company of similar tactics in recent weeks.

“They’re just trying to pressure us and intimidate us so that we don’t try to do this type of activity again."

“They’re just trying to pressure us and intimidate us so that we don’t try to do this type of activity again,” said Samir Quasir, an Amazon employee in Chicago who filed a charge with labor regulators this week alleging that the company retaliated against him after he participated in two protests and one walkout earlier this month. His bosses, he said, alleged that he had violated six feet of social distancing, a rule he said he may have inadvertently violated but that Amazon selectively enforces. “There’s a pattern here,” he said. “I do feel targeted.”

Regarding these claims, a spokesperson for Amazon declined to comment on individual employees, but said it “respect[s] the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so; however, these rights do not provide blanket immunity against bad actions, particularly those that endanger the health, well-being or safety of their colleagues.”

The workers’ allegations are part of an effort on behalf of workers in Amazon facilities across the country to push the country’s largest online retailer to offer higher wages and better working conditions. Amazon has previously settled at least one charge with the labor board, and dozens of other complaints have been withdrawn by workers or dismissed by the board in the last decade.



In Chicago, the effort is being led by a group called DCH1 Amazonians United, one of whose members, Ted Miin, filed a charge February alleging that his manager had singled him out for distributing pamphlets about workers rights. Such distribution is protected under federal laws that protect employees’ right to discuss working conditions.

On Thursday, the labor board’s regional director in Chicago announced in a written response that an Amazon manager had unlawfully interrogated Miin about his workplace organizing, but declined to punish Amazon because the incident was “isolated in nature”, and “because there have not been any meritorious charges against the Employer within the past several years.”

However, the regional director also said that he would consider levying punishments “If a meritorious charge involving other unfair labor practices is filed against” Amazon within the next six months.

Workers in Chicago are flooding the board with similar complaints. Already this week, three employees in Chicago have filed additional allegations of retaliation against Amazon with the National Labor Relations Board.

Among them is one from Quasir, who said he was called into a meeting with HR after participating in walkouts demanding improved coronavirus protections. Quasir said he was asked to sign a written statement about the walkouts, which Quasir said he feared could be used against him. After he refused, Amazon gave him a “final written warning” for allegedly violating six foot social distancing rules meant to protect employees from infection.

“Usually you get a verbal warning, and then a couple written warnings, and then a final written warning, and then they can terminate you after that. But I never got a verbal warning,” Quasir told BuzzFeed News. “[It was] straight to a final written warning.”

A second employee who requested anonymity out of fear of further retaliation said she was written up for entering the Amazon delivery station where she works without a badge when she and other protesters were delivering a petition to Amazon management during one of the walkouts.

A third employee also filed a charge of retaliation this week. The labor board is in the process of investigating those charges, and two additional employees are planning to file new charges soon, sources told BuzzFeed News.

Wilma Liebman, former chair of the National Labor Relations Board, said the decision in Chicago is an unusual one, and a sign that the regional director there is “leaving the door open that if there’s more conduct that occurs, that he would add this one in to other events to allege as unlawful.”

“To a certain extent, he’s invited them to file more charges,” Liebman said.

The Amazon employee terminations could be taken into account in the eventuality of a hearing before a labor board judge, Liebman said, but the board ultimately has little power to actually punish a company of Amazon’s size should its behavior be determined to be unlawful. “All they can do is get a slap on the hand,” she said.

As people on lockdown across the country turn to Amazon for household supplies and food while avoiding brick-and-mortar stores, Amazon's sales have skyrocketed. But employees say the company hasn’t done enough to protect them from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. As lawmakers and labor groups have called for Amazon to take better care of its employees, the company has scrambled to implement safety procedures including temperature checks and the distribution of face masks, and is experimenting with disinfectant fogging and even creating its own COVID-19 test.




On Friday Amazon Senior Vice President of Global Affairs Jay Carney told CNN that he doesn’t know how many Amazon employees have tested positive for COVID-19. But the Athena Coalition, an alliance of organizations focused on Amazon, claims employees at more than 75 Amazon facilities so far have tested positive for COVID-19. Amazon has declined to shutter the vast majority of these facilities for disinfection, and employees in New York, Chicago, and Michigan organized protests and walkouts in opposition to that decision.

At the end of March, Amazon fired Chris Smalls, a New York based employee who the company said terminated for entering an Amazon facility in violation of company orders to self-quarantine. Last week, the company fired Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, two Seattle-based corporate employees and organizers of the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice group who had spoken out in support of warehouse workers demanding better protections from Amazon. And an Amazon employee and workplace organizer in Minnesota, Bashir Mohamed, told BuzzFeed News on Monday that he’d been fired by Amazon after collecting signatures on a petition related to the coronavirus. Amazon said at the time that it respects workers rights to voice their concerns, and that all three of those employees were fired for violating company policies.

Though no Amazon employees in Chicago have been fired, members of DCH1 Amazonians United say they see a connection between the terminations at other facilities and the targeting and retaliation they’re experiencing following the four walkouts they held, one of which was captured on video and involved a caravan of community members whose cars temporarily shut down the delivery station and ultimately were dispersed by police.

“Management has been harassing and targeting individual DCH1 workers who participated in the four protest actions,” the group said in a petition published Friday evening. “. They are violating our rights, and are trying to intimidate us and bully us into submission.” The group is demanding Amazon clear the involved employees' records and reinstate fired workers in other states.

DCH1 Amazonians United credits their protests and petitions for what they say are somewhat improved safety conditions at Amazon: workers said they’re now provided with masks, their temperatures are checked before they start work, and while the building still hasn’t been closed for cleaning, the housekeeping crew has increased their efforts.

But they also said it’s difficult to adhere to six-foot social distancing rules while rushing to move packages as fast as Amazon expects them to, and workers who participated in the walkouts say those rules are being enforced selectively to target them.