Can Lebanon Rebuild Not Just Beirut, but Its Broken Political System

World Politics Review

Patricia Karam

 

The devastating explosion that tore through Beirut earlier this month exposed the elite corruption at the heart of Lebanese governance. The blast itself, which was almost certainly caused by a stockpile of highly explosive ammonium nitrate that had sat unguarded at Beirut’s port since 2013, may not have been deliberate. But it had everything to do with Lebanon’s history of conflict and the elderly politicians, many of them former warlords, who still hold power in its dysfunctional, sectarian and clientelist political system. With the public mobilizing against the country’s kleptocracy, the survival of the status quo is in question. But whether a reformist alternative can take its place remains uncertain.

Since the 1970s, Lebanon’s political elites have eschewed the hard work of governing in favor of plundering the country’s resources and concentrating power among themselves. To date, as much as $100 billion have been squandered from the country’s banking system in corrupt deals. Now, with more than 200 people dead from the blast and thousands more injured and displaced, Lebanon’s leaders are once again determined to escape blame for a disaster of their own making by rejecting an international investigation into its causes and culprits.

Lebanon had already been seething before the explosion. In last year’s so-called “October Revolution,” a series of protests erupted over a new tax on the popular messaging service WhatsApp, in a sign of the increasing popular frustration with the old order. At the forefront of this uprising was a new generation of activists who recognized the serious problems facing Lebanese society and the failure of the political class to address them in any meaningful way. The fact that the recent catastrophe was caused by negligence has only sharpened their resolve for an alternative.

Demands to overhaul the entire governing system have also become synonymous with calls to disarm Hezbollah, the Shiite militia and political party that has seized on the state’s weakness to become a central player in Lebanon’s kleptocracy. Despite high rates of disaffection with the political establishment, the most recent legislative election in 2018—after nine years of political paralysis—yielded a Parliament dominated by incumbents from traditional parties, with more than 70 of the total 128 seats going to Hezbollah and its allies. This came as a surprise to many reformists who had counted on higher youth participation in politics to bring genuine change.

This shows that transforming Lebanon’s political culture will not be easy. Enacting needed reforms involves overhauling a system of perverse incentives that perpetuate kleptocratic practices, such as the unchecked and opaque network of patronage that controls appointments to public offices. Lebanon’s citizens feel the injurious impacts in myriad ways. In 2015, for example, mountains of uncollected trash built up in the streets as elites wrestled over lucrative waste management contracts. Still, the recent protests have had a minimal impact on the quality of governance, which attests to the need for more structured policy advocacy that not only mobilizes a wide spectrum of the Lebanese population, but also recruits reformist candidates and influences the platforms of political parties.

 But that is a long-term project. For now, the next phase will likely involve the appointment of a new technocratic government that will not be very different from the last one, led by Prime Minister Hassan Diab, which resigned after the explosion. Without altering the rules of the game, whoever takes Diab’s place will probably agree to concessions demanded by the International Monetary Fund for the bailout package required to extend a short-term lifeline for Lebanon’s economy, and perhaps even to early elections. Yet neither of these measures are sufficient to save Lebanon from further disintegration, nor are radical changes likely to be secured by the protest movement. And despite the popular outrage at Hezbollah, it remains the only party in Lebanon that is both part of the system and above it. Its military power is superior to that of the Lebanese Armed Forces, and if threatened, Hezbollah will resort to violence.

The disastrous state of the economy also presents serious challenges to political reform. For decades, the government kept its currency pegged to the dollar at a rate of 1,500 Lebanese pounds. That system amounted to a multi-billion-dollar pyramid scheme, subsidizing imports at the expense of domestic industries, while large businesses were allowed to qualify for loans in dollars at low rates. Deposits held in Lebanese pounds earned high interest, helping to attract remittances.

But the system came to its breaking point last fall, when the central bank ran perilously low on dollars and cut back on conversions, causing the currency peg to effectively implode. The Lebanese pound sharply depreciated; it is currently trading on the black market at a rate of around 7,000 to 7,500 per dollar. Monthly inflation reached 112 percent in July, as food prices soar and imports are scarce. The banking sector no longer functions, and the economy is expected to contract this year by 25 percent. Most importantly, Lebanon’s debt, at a staggering 170 percent of GDP, exceeds $92 billion. The millions pledged in international aid are nowhere close to meeting Lebanon’s needs.

For this reason, any financial rescue plan must be tied to concrete steps to enhance transparency and governance, introduce financial stability and clamp down on institutionalized corruption. As the international community sends emergency aid to rebuild following the explosion, it should ensure that its benefits are equally distributed, and that new divisions do not emerge among communities affected by the disaster. Local initiatives need to be strengthened as drivers of civic empowerment.

However, while the international community has an important role to play in encouraging reform, the Lebanese themselves must ultimately change their political culture. Given the resilience of the existing system and the limitations on what protests can achieve, the opposition needs to play the long game, and focus on using future elections as opportunities for new, reformist politicians to gain more political power. This includes building organizational structures and get-out-the-vote apparatuses to compete with established sectarian groups who rely on deep-seated clientelist networks for support. As part of this strategy, the positive momentum and energy of citizen-led responses to the explosion offer an opportunity. New and emerging networks of solidarity are mobilizing in response to the crisis, highlighting a sharp contrast with the government’s absenteeism.

Lebanon needs a new social compact grounded in democratic principles of accountability, fair play and the rule of law. The Lebanese need to be able to imagine a sovereign and prosperous future that rejects the scourges of sectarianism, corruption, and dependency. Despite the multiple crises it has suffered over the past year, the country is endowed with a wellspring of untapped potential, including a large pool of skilled workers who are eager to put their talents to use. Now, it is up to the Lebanese—with support from the international community—to undertake the daunting task of rebuilding not just the rubble-strewn streets of Beirut, but the crumbling foundations of their polity.

Navalny case poisons ties between Germany, Russia
BY DEBORAH COLE (AFP) 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced mounting pressure Thursday to toughen her ambivalent stance toward Russia following her announcement that Berlin has "unequivocal" proof that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a deadly nerve agent.

The Navalny case is only the latest in what Berlin has seen as a series of bitter provocations by Russian President Vladimir Putin that have damaged ties and called future cooperation into question.

But German politicians and media said a line had been crossed with the use on Navalny of military-grade Novichok, a poison first developed by the Soviet Union towards the end of the Cold War.

Merkel was confronted with insistent calls in particular to abandon the controversial German-Russian energy project Nord Stream 2, a multi-billion-euro gas pipeline nearing completion that has drawn the ire of US and European partners alike.

"Diplomatic rituals are no longer enough," the head of the German parliament's foreign affairs committee, Norbert Roettgen, tweeted.

"After the poisoning of Navalny we need a strong European answer which Putin understands: The EU should jointly decide to stop Nord Stream 2," said Roettgen, a candidate to be the next leader of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party.

The top-selling Bild daily issued a full-throated appeal to abandon the pipeline, saying that pursuing it was "tantamount to us financing Putin's next Novichok attack".

- 'Strategic weapon' -

Bild slammed Merkel for comments last week that Nord Stream 2 should be judged independently from Moscow's actions.

"Vladimir Putin views the gas pipeline as an important strategic weapon against Europe and as a vital source of funding for his war against his own people," it said.

Navalny fell ill after boarding a plane in Siberia last month, with aides saying they suspect he drank a cup of spiked tea at the airport.

He was initially treated in a local Russian hospital, where doctors said they were unable to find any toxic substances in his blood, before he was flown to Berlin for specialised treatment on August 22.

Navalny's poisoning comes a year after a daylight murder of a former Chechen rebel commander in a Berlin park, which German prosecutors believe was ordered by Russia.

Merkel had also revealed in May that Russia had targeted her in hacking attacks, saying she had concrete proof of the "outrageous" spying attempts.

Moscow has denied involvement in the string of allegations, with the Kremlin saying Thursday "there is no reason to accuse the Russian state" over Navalny's poisoning.

Russia has long been a divisive issue in German politics, and a deterioration in transatlantic ties under US President Donald Trump had revived sentiment that Berlin couldn't afford to alienate Moscow.

Wolfgang Ischinger, the head of the Munich Security Conference, often a forum for airing Russian-Western tensions, warned against cutting ties too abruptly.

"We can't put up a wall between us and Russia," he told public broadcaster ARD.

- 'Dark clouds' -

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas of the Social Democrats, junior partners in Merkel's government and typically strong advocates of maintaining close ties with Russia, said Berlin would now consult with EU and NATO allies about an "appropriate reaction" to the Navalny case.

In a speech earlier this week in Paris, Maas acknowledged that while "constructive ties" remained essential, "dark clouds" now hung over relations between the EU and Russia.

ARD commentator Michael Strempel noted that Merkel's statement Wednesday that "Navalny was meant to be silenced and I condemn this in the strongest possible terms" marked an unprecedented hardening of her tone.

"I have never seen the chancellor so determined on foreign policy," Strempel said. "Nor have I ever experienced her this critical and demanding of Russia."

Now Merkel's credibility is on the line, he said, calling for new economic and political sanctions against Moscow.

The EU has had sanctions targeting whole sectors of the Russian economy in place since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea.

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said the time had come to go further.

"A European response is vital, but if the usual suspects refuse to play ball then Germany will have to react bilaterally, too. We are talking about attempted murder after all."

 

Asphalt is a Major Summertime Source of Reactive Air Pollutants in Cities

2 September 2020

by: Shannon Kelleher

Asphalt rarely figures into urban air quality management plans, although it is a significant source of air pollutants in urban areas. | Steven Geringer

Asphalt rarely figures into urban air quality management plans, although it is a significant source of air pollutants in urban areas. | Steven Geringer

Emissions from asphalt produce greater quantities of small particles with public health effects under summertime conditions in California's South Coast Air Basin than on-road gasoline and diesel motor vehicles combined, according to a new study published in the September 2 issue of Science Advances.

Peeyush Khare, a Ph.D. candidate in chemical and environmental engineering at Yale University and colleagues found that the emissions, called secondary organic aerosols, are at their worst during hot, sunny weather, indicating that asphalt releases more secondary organic aerosol precursors into the air in the summer months. Secondary organic aerosols make up a large portion of fine particle pollution in the air, which has been shown to trigger lung and heart problems.

"We were surprised by how substantially solar exposure increased emissions from asphalt and changed their chemical composition, including large increases even after 46 hours of prolonged heating, which suggested both temperature-dependent and solar exposure-dependent emissions pathways," said Drew Gentner, an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering at Yale University and an author of the study.

The findings point to asphalt as a significant contributor to some types of air pollution — although one that generally flies under the radar. The asphalt industry states that emissions after application at ambient temperature are negligible due to the manufacturing process, and emissions from asphalt binder (which holds the material together) are not typically included in pollution inventories since the emissions themselves, factors that impact their emissions, and changes in their emissions over time are not well understood. While scientists and policy-makers use inventories to keep track of emissions from other products, such as paint, emissions from asphalt are not part of the product formulation itself and also result from interactions between the material and the environment, making them trickier to account for.

"The emissions we observed from asphalt were primarily intermediate- and semi-volatile organic compounds, which are larger molecules that emit over longer timescales, and have historically been more challenging to measure, and fall largely outside of regulatory frameworks compared to smaller volatile organic compounds such as benzene," said Gentner. "The importance of intermediate- and semi-volatile organic compound emissions from motor vehicles, for secondary organic aerosol formation, only became apparent within the last 15 years or so."

Intermediate and semi-volatile organic compounds, which form secondary organic aerosols, are types of volatile organic compounds or VOCs. As stricter air pollution controls have caused car and truck emissions to decline, the relative importance of VOCs found in solvents and chemicals from other sources, including home cleaning agents, personal care products, pesticides, and printing inks, has increased. A 2018 study published in Science found that such volatile chemical products now account for half of all fossil fuel VOC emissions produced by industrialized cities.

Khare and his colleagues decided to investigate emissions from asphalt, which they had identified as a source of interest during previous research. They chose California's South Coast Air Basin, which covers much of the Greater Los Angeles Area where about 18 million people live, as their study site since California maintains detailed emissions inventories and the region has evolved as a key case study site for megacity air pollution research.

The researchers heated commonly used road asphalt to a range of temperatures between 40°Celsius and 200°Celsius (104°Fahrenheit and 392°Fahrenheit) in a temperature-controlled tube furnace. They observed that asphalt emissions doubled when the temperature increased from 40°Celsius to 60°Celsius (104°Fahrenheit to 140°Fahrenheit) — temperatures the material typically reaches in the summertime — then climbed by an average of 70% per 20°Celsius (68°Fahrenheit) increase.

Since asphalt is mainly used outdoors, the researchers tested the impact of sunlight on asphalt-related emissions, subjecting the samples to UVA and UVB wavelengths of light within the same tube chamber. Artificial sunlight led to an almost 300% increase in total emissions, with sulfur-containing compounds skyrocketing by 700%.

In addition to collecting lab-based results, the researchers gathered three nighttime air samples at a site where road asphalt had been freshly applied, finding that the distribution of smaller compounds in emissions was consistent with those observed at 140°C after several hours of heating in the lab. The relative abundances of large compounds matched those at lab tests between 80° and 120°C. They also collected daytime samples at another roadway site, finding that emissions decreased after the first day after application but were sustained at similar levels two and three days later.

"A goal of this research is to help improve our understanding of the mix of urban sources of intermediate- and semi-volatile organic compounds, and ultimately emissions inventories," said Gentner. "This is important as the field tries to constrain the full, diverse range of non-combustion-related sources that are increasingly important for urban air quality, including volatile chemical products, which are also known to produce large quantities of secondary organic aerosols in urban areas."

The researchers suggest future studies may employ different methods to more fully capture the extent of the emissions released from a broader range of asphalt products over longer periods of time and under different conditions

Signs of life detected under rubble a month after Beirut blast, says rescuer

Reuters Sep 03, 2020 •

A view shows the damage at the site of the blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon August 7, 2020. PHOTO BY HANNAH MCKAY /Reuters

BEIRUT — Lebanese rescue workers detected signs of life on Thursday in the rubble of a building in a residential area of Beirut that had collapsed after a huge Aug. 4 explosion at the nearby port, a rescue worker said.

He was speaking after the state news agency reported a team with a rescue dog had detected movement under a destroyed building in the Gemmayze area of Beirut, one of the worst hit by the blast.


“These (signs of breathing and pulse) along with the temperature sensor means there is a possibility of life,” rescue worker Eddy Bitar told reporters at the scene.

Rescue workers in bright jackets clambered over the building that had collapsed in the blast, which killed about 190 people and injured 6,000 others.

The rescue team were setting up flood lights at the site as the sun set. One rescue worker carried a rescue dog onto the mound of smashed masonry.

Bitar said a civil defense unit had been called in to help with extra equipment to conduct the search.

Local media said any search and rescue effort, if it became clear that someone was still alive, was likely to take hours.

(Reporting by Beirut bureau; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Beirut: Pulse signal prompts search for blast survivor

Rescuers in Beirut have detected signals which could indicate a survivor under the rubble, a month after the massive blast ripped through the city. Even if their hopes are confirmed, the search is expected to take hours.


Beirut officials scrambled Thursday to investigate possible signs of life under the rubble caused by last month's immense port explosion, amid a surge of hope that someone might still be alive after the deadly incident.

Special sensory equipment was brought to the Gemmayze area of the city to investigate reports of a pulse signal, possibly indicating a survivor. A rescue team set up floodlights at the site as the sun set, with one rescue worker carrying a rescue dog onto the pile of debris.

Francesco Lermonda, a Chilean volunteer, said their equipment identifies breathing and heartbeats from humans, not animals. He said it was rare, but not unheard of, for someone to survive in those conditions for a month.

Every few minutes, the Chilean team would ask people surrounding the operation to turn off their cell phones and stay quiet so that it would not interfere with the sounds being detected by their instruments.

"These [signs of breathing and pulse] along with the temperature sensor means there is a possibility of life," said rescue worker Eddy Bitar at the scene.



Reporting from the scene, DW's Razan Salman said people gathered nearby "are waiting impatiently for a glimmer of hope to shimmer from the devastated area."

Read more: Will protests after Beirut blast bring reform to Lebanon?

Youssef Malah, a civil defense worker, said the rescue teams would continue searching throughout the night, but noted that the work was extremely sensitive.

"Ninety-nine percent there isn't anything, but even if there is less than 1% hope, we should keep on looking," Malah told the Associated Press.

Search dog detects possible life in Beirut rubble a month after blast

By Laura Italiano September 3, 2020 

The aftermath of the Beirut explosionJoseph Eid/Getty Images

A search-and-rescue dog detected a child’s heartbeat beneath the rubble of Beirut — a month after a massive explosion turned much of the city to ruins.

Rescue teams are gingerly sifting through the collapsed concrete in the upscale East Beirut neighborhood of Gemmayze, according to multiple reports.

“They detected a signal from a potential heartbeat for a second time – they are going in,” tweeted the BBC’s Claiure Reed shortly after noon New York time.

She also tweeted video of workers lowering a rescue worker into the rubble.

A team from Chile had been making the rounds in the neighborhood when their rescue dog alerted at one of the collapsed buildings, Beirut-based journalist Luna Safwan tweeted.

“It seems to be a small kid inside the building,” Chilean rescue worker Eddy Bitar of “Live, Love, Lebanon” told Al Jazeera. “We’ll do whatever it takes,” he said.

“This was an abandoned house but maybe some refugee or some worker was illegally inside,” he said.

The rescue dog — a five-year-old pooch named Flash” — had alerted at the building while walking by on Wednesday evening, he said.

“Yesterday when our dog just smelled that there was something under the debris we make sure in the early morning to bring all the equipment,” he said.

“We found that there was two possible corpse” in the rubble, he said. “One of them might be alive. We’re just making sure no one is in the house,” he said at 1:30 p.m New York time.

Reed said whispers of “Is it true? Could someone be alive??” wafted through a crowd that had gathered there.

Finding someone alive would be a miracle, Liz Sly, the bureau chief there for the Washington Post, tweeted Thursday.

“Rescue teams are digging. Let there be a miracle.”

Gemmayze is just a few blocks from the port where the Aug. 4 explosion at a chemicals storage warehouse killed 181 people.

Trump won't join a WHO-organized coronavirus vaccine development effort. That could leave the US in the lurch if domestic candidates fail.
Susie Neilson

President Donald Trump. REUTERS/Leah Millis

The Trump administration said the US wouldn't participate in COVAX, an international WHO-backed effort to develop and distribute coronavirus vaccines. 

Trump has pledged to withdraw the US from WHO entirely, calling the group's pandemic response "China-centric."

Health experts are concerned that the US's absence from COVAX could impede the country's access to vaccines developed in other countries.

When the World Health Organization announced COVAX last week — a major international effort to develop, manufacture, and distribute coronavirus vaccines — 172 countries had already signed on.

One was conspicuously absent: the US.

The US, historically a global leader in fighting infectious diseases like HIV and smallpox, has distanced itself from WHO since the pandemic began. In May, President Donald Trump announced the US would pull its funding and membership from the organization, an agency of the United Nations specializing in international public-health issues. Trump called WHO's coronavirus response "China-centric."

White House spokesman Judd Deere told Reuters on Tuesday that the US wouldn't join COVAX because the WHO is "corrupt." Instead, the Trump administration's focus is on funding vaccine research and development on its own, then striking deals to buy the resulting shots. In the US so far, vaccine candidates developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, Moderna, and a Pfizer-BioNTech partnership have reached phase-three trials.


But COVAX is the only global initiative working with multiple countries to develop, manufacture, and distribute a coronavirus vaccine — and to make sure it reaches vulnerable populations, like the elderly and healthcare workers. The project's larger goal is to have 2 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021. That effort, which involves both governments and manufacturers, also aims to help wealthier countries distribute vaccines to poorer ones, thereby discouraging vaccine hoarding and ensuring all countries get access to a vaccine.

A lack of US collaboration undermines these goals, according to public-health experts.

"The US has always been a leader in global health, going back to smallpox eradication, or polio eradication, or HIV," Bill Gates, who's helping to fund the GAVI Alliance, one of the organizations that's leading COVAX, told Business Insider in July. "Without the US, the coalition to stop the disease globally just doesn't come together."

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Fabrice COFFRINI/Getty Images

The US also needs the international community, experts say. Opting out of COVAX is a risky gamble, since it could limit the US's access to vaccine candidates developed by other countries and manufacturing facilities abroad. If domestic vaccine candidates fail, in other words, the US could be out of luck.


Plus, even if the US does make a successful vaccine on its own, some experts think that by staying out of COVAX, the country might hurt its own economy by not helping other countries get their populations properly protected and back to work.

"It's a double edged sword," Jennifer Huang Bouey, an epidemiologist and senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, told Business Insider. "It hurts the US, and it also probably hurts COVAX."
The US is betting on new, less-established types of vaccines

Globally, vaccine developers are testing at least eight different types of vaccine. The most established kind involves injections of weakened or inactivated virus to generate an immune response.

The two strongest candidates in this traditional vein so far are from Chinese companies SinoPharm and SinoVac. (China also hasn't signed on to COVAX, but gave the WHO a "positive signal" this week, according to Reuters.)


By refusing to participate in COVAX, Buoey said, the US "basically let go of the most traditional, most mature technology — that's a risk."

The US's two strongest candidates so far, from Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech collaboration, are mRNA vaccines, a type that's never been approved by the FDA before. These vaccines use a technology called messenger RNA to create doses using only a virus' genetic code.

A volunteer receives an injection of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by the NIH and Moderna on July 27 in Binghamton, New York. AP Photo/Hans Pennink

If successful, mRNA vaccines could be easier to produce and more effective than traditional ones, since they may prompt a stronger immune response and don't need to be incubated the way traditional vaccines do. But that's a big if — there's still a possibility the mRNA vaccines will trigger inadequate immune responses or come with harmful side effects.
The US could lose access to international manufacturing

A big question authorities around the world are still tackling is how a vaccine will be manufactured and distributed after it's proven to be safe and effective. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) — a foundation that funds vaccine research and is one of COVAX's main backers — announced in June that it had identified enough vaccine manufacturers to produce 4 billion doses in a year.


The US's refusal to participate in COVAX means it could lack access to that infrastructure, though the country is working to expand its own manufacturing capacity.

"It's really just US versus all these other countries," Buoey said. "The US will be left on its own."

Fujifilm received a $265 million grant to help expand US vaccine-manufacturing capacity. Reuters

The US's absence could limit COVAX's potential manufacturing capacity as well — the initiative could distribute more vaccines if it had early access to successful candidates and facilities in the US.
The US's economy and reputation could suffer

Even if the US does create a successful vaccine, it could suffer economic repercussions if it hoards all the doses to itself, or if its supply chain can't effectively distribute extra doses worldwide.

That's because countries without a vaccine would continue to struggle with the economic impacts of COVID-19, and their economic fates are intertwined with the US's.

"We will continue to suffer the economic consequences — lost US jobs — if the pandemic rages unabated in allies and trading partners," Thomas J. Bollyky, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Washington Post.

Then there are larger, long-term questions about the US's global reputation as a public-health leader, Buoey said, if the country stays out of international collaboration efforts.

"Even during the height of the Cold War, US and Soviet Union scientists were working collaboratively with WHO on eradicating polio in 1950s to 1980s," she said. "Right now, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, the US is really changing the track."


Hilary Brueck contributed reporting.

A Lawless Attorney General Hits New Lows
In a CNN interview, William Barr showed total willingness to bend, break, or deny the law on behalf of his boss.

By Joan WalshTwitter
TODAY 11:07 AM


Attorney General William Barr. (Charlie Riedel / AP Photo)

It’s tough to choose the worst thing Attorney General William Barr said in a shocking Wednesday interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. He claimed that Jacob Blake, shot seven times in the back by Kenosha police last month, was armed; he was not. He appeared to back up Donald Trump’s demented claim that thugs in black boarded planes headed to Washington bent on mayhem, and then dissolved in “I don’t know what the president was specifically referring to.” When Blitzer asked if Trump’s outrageous suggestion that North Carolina supporters vote twice—ostensibly to check whether voting by mail made it possible—was illegal, Barr repeatedly averred, insisting, “I don’t know what the law in the particular state says.”

I do, and I don’t have a law degree. In none of our 50 states, nor the District of Columbia, is it legal to vote or attempt to vote twice. (That’s actually federal law.) You’re welcome.

To his credit, Blitzer debunked all of those false claims and more. When Barr insisted voting by mail and other reforms make voter fraud rampant, Blitzer asked how many instances of voter fraud had he prosecuted in his 10 years as attorney general; Barr had to admit “I don’t know.” He wouldn’t rule out sending federal agents to polling places in November “if there was a specific investigative danger.” But even acting Homeland Security director Chad Wolf, no paragon of independence or integrity, said last month he has no authority to deploy federal law enforcement officers that way.

A sinister arrogance, the smirking sense that he’s above the law, pervaded Barr’s replies. As well as brazen racism. Like Trump, he refused to admit the country, or law enforcement particularly, suffers from “systemic racism.” Cops don’t treat black men differently from white men because of “discrimination,” he insisted. “If anything’s been baked in, it’s a bias toward non-discrimination.” Citing a comment the Rev. Jesse Jackson made 30 years ago about how even he sometimes feared young black men, Barr seemed to make the case that the disparity in their treatment by police stems from their own criminality, not police bias. Never mind that research shows that whether they’re obeying the law or breaking it, black men are much more likely than white men to suffer violence and abuse at the hands of police.

None of this should be shocking: Barr has been Trump’s toady, and not America’s lawyer, since his first hours on the job. From lying about the conclusions of Robert Mueller’s investigation to personally supervising the crackdown on peaceful protest in June, just so Trump could get a photo op with an upside-down Bible, Barr has been Trump’s Roy Cohn. Just last week, his Department of Justice took initial steps to investigate whether the Democratic governors of just four states—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—violated the civil rights of nursing home residents with their handling of Covid. Of course, nursing home residents, tragically, have borne the brunt of the disease in most states (along with prisoners, whose rights Barr seems strangely uninterested in representing). Two prominent disability rights lawyers pronounced the investigation “transparently political and plainly not undertaken in good faith” in Slate.

Though it’s hard to identify Barr’s worst moment in the Blitzer interview, his apparent willingness to back up Trump’s lies about voter fraud, and to use federal agents to investigate false claims on Election Day and after, was the most alarming. If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can prevail in November despite Trump and Barr’s attempts to thwart them, and to thwart democracy, I’d really like to see President Biden put Vice President Harris in charge of assembling some kind of Trump-Barr Crimes Commission (backed by Attorney General Sally Yates or Preet Bharara). There must be accountability for all the lawbreaking in this administration, including by the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Until then, we can’t get numb to Barr’s repeated willingness to bend, break, or deny the law on behalf of his boss. This election is going to require us to vote in record-breaking numbers. Use your outrage—“good outrage,” to paraphrase the late John Lewis—to get in “good trouble”: organizing energetically to put an end to the lawless Trump-Barr era.




Joan WalshTWITTER

Joan Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, is the author of What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America.

People not wearing face coverings could be forced to prove they have medical reason

A senior SNP MP said bus drivers and shop workers are exasperated by a "growing minority" of people who are refusing to wear a face covering despite having no medical excuse

Scottish people may soon have to prove they're exempt from wearing a mask in public (Image: Getty Images)

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People should be forced to prove they're exempt from wearing a face covering to protect against coronavirus in public, an MP has said.

Under current guidance from the Government, people do not have to provide any medical reason as to why they are not wearing a mask as required in shops and on public transport.

Senior SNP MP Christine Grahame has demanded that people should have proof of medical exemption and heftier fines should be issued for people caught maskless without an excuse.

At First Minister's Questions on Wednesday in Scotland, Grahame said: "Bus drivers, store managers, shop assistants and the public often feel helpless and exasperated by the flouting of the use of face coverings by a growing minority, in my view.

MP Christine Grahame claims a growing minority of people are refusing to wear a face covering for no reason (Image: Getty Images)

"Is the Scottish Government considering upping the ante by requiring individuals, if asked, albeit discreetly, evidence of their exemptions – I'm not suggesting GP notes by any means – together with stiffer fines?

"Both of which would deter non compliance, assist the police and provide that added protection for the travelling and shopping public and release shop managers, shop assistants and bus drivers from the pressure that's sometimes put upon them to do something."

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon replied that the rules around medical exemption must be approached sensitively but the wider guidance will always be kept under review.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says the government will consider changing how the mask mandate is enforced (Image: Getty Images)
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"The police have got to continue to act with discretion, as they have been doing," she said.

"In response to Christine Grahame's question about amending the enforcement regime, in a general sense we will keep that under review.

"We have changed the areas of enforcement on previous occasions and we will always consider doing that if we think that is necessary. Fixed penalty fines for non compliance will be something we consider.

People with certain health conditions and disabilities are exempt from wearing a face covering (Image: Getty Images)

"I think in terms of face coverings, people who have health reasons for not wearing one we have to continue to act sensitively to that. I know Christine Grahame does agree with that.

"Fundamentally we will have enforcement regimes in place, but all of us have a duty to do the right things for the right reasons."

She said the vast majority of people are complying with face covering requirements and anyone without a good reason should "really think about it" as a way to protect the rest of the community.

Ms Sturgeon says the vast majority of Scottish people are complying with the face mask rule (Image: AFP via Getty Images)


People with certain medical conditions or disabilities are exempt from wearing a face covering as are those communicating with a hearing-impaired person who lip-reads.

Official Scottish Government guidance states: "Those exempt under the guidance and regulations do not have to prove their exemption and should not be made to wear a face covering or denied access to public transport or shops.

"We ask for people to be aware of the exemptions and to treat each other with kindness."

Should people wear a face mask during exercise: What should clinicians advise?

Posted on June 12, 2020 by BJSM

Many community-based measures to control the spread of the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) are implemented, including social distancing, hand hygiene and wearing non-medical face masks in public areas. This recommendation is based on the concept of ‘source control’ to prevent droplets produced by the person wearing the mask from spreading to other people or onto surfaces. It is much easier to reduce droplet spread by blocking larger droplets as they come out of a person’s mouth, that it is to block them as they have dissipated and become much smaller1.

Compulsory wearing of face masks is observed in some countries, e.g. South Africa, Taiwan, Japan, and the Czech Republic, and coincides with a reduction in rates of transmission1. However, adhering to these measures becomes more challenging and confusing during an outdoor exercise session. Infection control remains an important consideration, but wearing a mask comes with issues of potential breathing restriction and discomfort in mind. Selecting an appropriate face-covering becomes an act of balancing benefits versus possible adverse events. Most people will be able to exercise safely wearing a face covering, but points to consider include:

Viral transmission from infected but asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic individuals is possible.2,3,4 Due to the increased rate and force associated with breathing during exercise, the risk of aerolisation and the spread of virus-containing droplets could theoretically be higher than when at rest.

Reserve filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) (e.g. N95/FFP1/FFP2) for specific work environments such as front-line healthcare workers. These should not be used by the public and also not for exercise purposes.

Airflow-restricting masks can increase the rate of perceived exertion and decrease performance during resistance training.5,6 Not much is known about the effect during aerobic activity. Surgical masks may increase perceptions of dyspnoea, but negative effects on aerobic performance have not been demonstrated.7

While there is no evidence showing the effects of cloth masks or buffs, they could potentially increase the breathing effort and cause accumulation of CO2. Wearing a mask may, in fact, simulate the physiological effect of altitude training, albeit on a smaller scale8. This is unlikely to be an issue for most people but could present a problem at higher intensities of exercise, particularly for those with underlying health concerns. It would be prudent for people with existing heart or lung conditions to exercise at a lower intensity than usual while wearing a mask, to prevent any adverse events. People must be cognisant of their breathing during exercise and somewhat slow down or take a break if they feel that their work rate is too high or if experiencing dizziness or light-headedness.

A more breathable material will aid in comfort but may have the cost of less effective viral source control. Two layers of material are considered sufficient to balance efficacy and comfort. Not having a tight seal around the sides of your face also allows for better air movement, but will subsequently increase the risk of droplet spread.

Due to the accumulation of moisture from our exhaled breath, cloth masks or buffs are likely to get wet during exercise. Breathing through dry cloth is easier as opposed to damp cloth. Hot and humid conditions can worsen the effect of strenuous breathing. Moisture-wicking material, such as polyester, is a good option but may cause skin irritation in sensitive individuals. Consider taking a second mask/buff along during exercise sessions for replacement of the damp one. This can be tricky as one should try to avoid touching your face. Therefore an attempt to maintain good hand hygiene before and after touching your face is advised and can be achieved by taking along travel-sized sanitisers in your pocket.
Theoretically, wet material may facilitate viral transmission. However, cloth masks are recommended for source control and are likely insufficient to prevent transmission of viral particles to the wearer even when dry.
Ensure that your face covering is comfortable and secure before leaving the house, to limit the need to readjust it and touch your face.
Although everything regarding COVID-19 is not clear yet, the rule not to exercise when suffering from febrile illness remains, due to the cardiorespiratory complications that may occur.9-10

Summary:
A face-covering is an effective way to prevent viral transmission in a community context, provided that compliance is high11.
This must be accompanied by social distancing during exercise and effective hand hygiene when you return home.
Remove the mask correctly after workouts by untying it from behind. Avoid touching the front area of the cover, particularly the inner layer.
After removing the mask, or in case of inadvertent touching it, wash or sanitise your hands.
Remember to wash your mask/buff regularly, preferably iron it dry, and do not re-use masks designed for single use.
Do not exercise with febrile illness.

Authors and Affiliations:

Jessica Hamuy Blancoa [MBBCh, DA (SA)]

Dina C (Christa) Janse van Rensburga, b [MD (PhD), MMed, MSc, MBChB, FACSM, FFIMS]

aSection Sports Medicine & Sport Exercise Medicine Lifestyle Institute (SEMLI), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

bInternational Netball Federation, Manchester, UK Medical Board Member, UK

Email: christa.jansevanrensburg@up.ac.za

ORCID IDs

Jessica Hamuy Blanco – ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8035-1438

Dina C (Christa) Janse Van Rensburg – ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1058-6992

Twitter:

Jessica Hamuy Blanco – @JHamuyBlanco

Dina C (Christa) Janse Van Rensburg – @ChristaJVR

References:
Greenhalgh T. Face coverings for the public: Laying straw men to rest. J Eval Clin Pract. 2020.
Rothe C, et al. Transmission of 2019-ncov infection from an asymptomatic contact in germany. The New England journal of medicine. 2020; 382(10):970-1.
Pan X, et al. Asymptomatic cases in a family cluster with sars-cov-2 infection. The Lancet. Infectious diseases. 2020; 20(4):410-1.
Kimball A, et al. Asymptomatic and presymptomatic sars-cov-2 infections in residents of a long-term care skilled nursing facility. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report. 2020; 69(13):377-81.
Motoyama YL, et al. Airflow-restricting mask reduces acute performance in resistance exercise. Sports (Basel, Switzerland). 2016; 4(4):46.
Andre TL, et al. Restrictive breathing mask reduces repetitions to failure during a session of lower-body resistance exercise. J Strength Cond Res. 2018; 32(8):2103-8. Person E, et al. [effect of a surgical mask on six minute walking distance]. Rev Mal Respir. 2018; 35(3):264-8.
Burtscher M, et al. Effects of intermittent hypoxia on running economy. Int J Sports Med. 2010; 31(9).
Phelan D, et al. A game plan for the resumption of sport and exercise after coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) infection. JAMA Cardiology. 2020.
Al-Qahtani AA. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2): Emergence, history, basic and clinical aspects. Saudi J Biol Sci. 2020.
Howard J, et al. Face masks against covid-19: An evidence review. 2020.

Iceland Has Very Good News About Coronavirus Immunity

Ferdinando Giugliano, Bloomberg News

Tourists visit The Sun Voyager (Solfar), a sculpture by Jon Gunnar Arnason, in Reykjavik, Iceland, on Monday, July 20, 2020. Foreigners returned to Iceland on Monday after a hiatus imposed by the Covid-19 outbreak, in a welcome sign for an island nation whose economy is reliant on tourism. , Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The emergence of a handful of people reinfected by SARS-Cov-2 — including individuals in Hong Kong, Italy and the U.S. — has sparked panic over the future course of the pandemic.

It’s not difficult to see why. One of the great hopes in tackling the new coronavirus is that partial herd immunity can slow its spread, as the number of cases continues to rise globally. A vaccine — seen as the real game changer in the fight against the pathogen — also relies on inducing some form of long-lasting antibody reaction in inoculated individuals.

But what if immunity wanes, plunging humanity into a never-ending cycle of relapses? This is the stuff of nightmares.

Fortunately, things may not be so bad. For now, there are very few cases of confirmed reinfections, suggesting they may be rare. Some doctors also believe that most relapses will be milder than the first infection. (That happened in the Hong Kong reinfection, although not in the U.S. case.) This weakening of the virus’s impact will depend on our body learning to fight it, for example via the development of suitable so-called T-cells.

A crucial question to gauge the risk of reinfection is how many individuals develop antibodies and how long they last. Some experts worry that only those who suffer the worst Covid-19 cases produce an immune response that’s both sizeable enough and protracted enough to build up adequate antibodies. If this is true, the lucky ones who escape the worst symptoms — including most kids and young adults — will be more vulnerable to reinfection. 

A study on the pandemic in Iceland published in the New England Journal of Medicine offers some evidence to dispel such fears. The researchers have looked at serum samples from 30,576 individuals, using six different types of antibody testing (since different techniques often produce conflicting results).

The paper’s central findings are that, out of 1,797 tested people who’d recovered from Covid, 91.1% produced detectable levels of antibodies. Moreover, these levels hadn’t declined four months after the diagnosis. The immune response was higher among older individuals — who are at greater risk of developing a more dangerous form of the coronavirus — and among those who presented the worst symptoms.

But the broader immune response is potentially good news for the efficacy of any vaccine and appears to confirm that reinfections, at least shortly after the first illness, may indeed be rare.

While it’s also theoretically good news for herd immunity, that doesn’t mean we’re anywhere near achieving that happy state. It is thought that about 70% of a population would need to have antibodies to effectively stop the spread of the virus. The study estimates that less than 1% of the Icelandic population came in contact with SARS-CoV-2. This is even lower than the corresponding estimates for Spain, the U.K. and Italy, and shows how far many countries are from group immunity.

It is also too early so say whether these antibody findings will hold over a longer time period. It’s possible that immunity will fade as time goes by, leaving us more exposed to the virus. But, for now, there’s no reason to fear the worst. The development of vaccines is happening at breakneck speed, and available evidence shows the human body is indeed developing some form of protection. In a year of overwhelmingly grim news, this is very welcome.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Ferdinando Giugliano writes columns and editorials on European economics for Bloomberg View. He is also an economics columnist for La Repubblica and was a member of the editorial board of the Financial Times.

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet in Donald Trump’s disinformation campaign

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 BY RICK SNEDEKER
PATHEOS 

Blatant deception and disinformation, by now, has become baked into the Trump administration.

But something along that inflamed vein that occurred yesterday somehow seemed different as we race headlong into the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election.

It seemed insidiously different. It crossed a bright line.

Caricature of U.S. President Donald Trump. (Christoph Scholz, Flikr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

What happened was that Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff, circulated a tweet of a video ostensibly showing Joe Biden sleeping during a recent television interview.


“Sleepy Joe,” ya know, a dismissive slur President Trump repeats ad nauseum, trying, without evidence, to slime his presidential rival as “low energy,” mentally vacuous and unfit to lead.

As far as anyone can tell in the real world, Biden is none of those things.

But when a friend of New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni first saw the slickly produced video, he was taken aback.

“Can this possibly be real?” the friend emailed Bruni.

No, in fact, it couldn’t.

Bruni reports that the whole film was a fraud — taking video from a long-ago interview with singer Harry Belafonte and stitching it together with a clip of Biden nodding off.

There was no Biden interview. Never happened. The clip of him was shot at totally different time and place, perhaps during a campaign rest break. In 2020, the Trump campaign is just willing to violate every standard of honesty and decency to try and gain a political edge on their rival, despite the president’s sweaty embrace of fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity, which has new moral issues of its own (i.e., Jerry Falwell Jr.).

Scum is a fair descriptor for anyone who does this sort of thing to get elected (or for any reason) — dirty tricks that the GOP is deservedly famous for. Remember Richard Nixon’s soulless campaign of lies before he was ousted for Watergate crimes?


The enormous implausibility of the new video was immediately apparent to Bruni when he watched it:

“I was pretty sure at first sight that I was looking at a fake, because Biden’s near motionlessness suggested that someone had captured a few seconds in which his eyelids were lowered and his head tilted forward just so. The sound effect of his snoring was suspiciously loud, as if grafted on after the fact. One top of which, Biden wouldn’t be alone during a television interview. There’d be at least one aide nearby, offscreen. That aide wouldn’t stand by idly as Biden slipped into public slumber. He or she would rouse him right away, even throw something at him if necessary.”

Unfortunately, More than two million people watched the fake video before Twitter ultimately shut it down for subterfuge. Scavino alone has more than 900,000 Twitter followers on his personal account. These are facts well know to Trump himself and the other people without scruples who run his political apparatus; you can get away with a lot of dirty dealing because of the time lag before the attacks on public integrity are noticed and, if the rest of the country is lucky, are ultimately removed from the web.


So, even if they’re made to disappear, their effect lingers.

What really disturbs me about this kind of bald-faced dishonesty that seeks to damage people’s ability to make fact-based, reasoned decisions about candidates, is that there doesn’t seem to be a damned thing any honorable person can do about it.

America’s vaunted free-speech ethos, which is on steroids in political campaigns, was originally created with the understanding (now increasingly shown to be nonsense) that the best disinfectant of dastardly speech is more speech. No. The best disinfectant would be laws making the willful dissemination of gratuitous and damaging disinformation illegal under any circumstance, with consequences strong enough to be deterrent.

I get nauseous when people say, “The American people are smart enough to know what’s what and to make reasoned decisions.”

Yeah. Like tens of millions of those “smart” Americans electing inarguably the most awful president and worse human being ever to sit in the Oval Office. A president who is now fomenting political violence across the country just because he thinks it will help his re-election chances.


Sure. Why try to mitigate dishonest speech that propagates dangerous unrest in the nation for reasons that don’t actually exist? Certainly more speech will solve that.

Right.

Because of this new fraudulent Trump video sliming Biden we can trust even less of what we see and hear in the country, and that was already at the vanishing point. Don’t forget that video technology exists now that can very convincingly seem to show someone saying things that they never said. I’ve seen some examples (it’s called “deep fake” technology), and it’s insidious and destructive portent is chilling. If you’re skeptical, watch this embedded video below and you no longer will be.

Don’t forget that the Trump administration’s purposeful assault on truth and veracity is exactly the same propaganda playbook Hitler used in grabbing absolute power and hijacking Nazi Germany for total war in the 1930s.

The tactic was that if you say a damn lie often enough for long enough, it begins to seem more and more like truth.

But the strategy was to create a chaotic environment of such uncertainty that people begin to doubt what they actually, irrefutably know — and then turn to their “Dear Leader” for truth.

That’s where we’re at in America at the moment.

That’s why a presumably very smart and well-informed friend of Frank Bruni momentarily wasn’t altogether sure whether the doctored video of Biden was real or not.

This stuff is very dangerous for a democratic republic, and for reason.

I mention it here in a nonreligious blog because this misrepresentation of reality in service to fantasy is what religious indoctrination is all about.