BIDEN/POTUS IS THE 'DEEP' STATE

Trump calls Biden 'enemy of the state' in speech at Pennsylvania rally


Issued on: 04/09/2022 -

01:07  Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 

Saturday, September 3, 2022. © Mary Altaffer, AP

Text by:  NEWS WIRES

Donald Trump branded Joe Biden an "enemy of the state" Saturday as he hit back at the US president's assertion that the Republican and his supporters are undermining American democracy, and slammed last month's FBI raid of his Florida home.

Making his first public appearance since the August 8 raid, Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania that the search was a "travesty of justice" and warned it would produce "a backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen."

"There can be no more vivid example of the very real threats from American freedom than just a few weeks ago, you saw, when we witnessed one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history," Trump claimed, despite long-standing protocols by which the Justice Department and the FBI act independently of the White House.

Trump told cheering supporters at the "Save America" gathering in the city of Wilkes-Barre that the "egregious abuse of the law" was going to produce "a backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen."

He also hit back at Biden's speech this week in which the president said his predecessor and Republican supporters "represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic."

Speaking in Philadelphia, the cradle of US democracy, on Thursday, the president launched an extraordinary assault on those Republicans who embrace Trump's "Make America Great Again" ideology -- and urged his own supporters to fight back in what he billed as a "battle for the Soul of the Nation."

Trump slammed it as the "most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president."




"He's an enemy of the state. You want to know the truth. The enemy of the state is him," Trump said. 00:17

"Republicans in the MAGA movement are not the ones trying to undermine our democracy," continued Trump, who has repeatedly claimed the 2020 presidential election, which he lost, was rigged; and whose party has made unfounded claims of voter fraud a central plank of their platform.

"We are the ones trying to save our democracy, very simple. The danger to democracy comes from the radical left, not from the right," Trump added.

He was appearing at the rally ahead of November's midterm elections, which could see Biden's Democrats lose control of both houses of Congress.

'Top secret' files

Even although Trump is not on the ballot, Biden, 79, is seeking to turn the vote into a referendum on his predecessor in a bid to hold on to the Senate and House of Representatives.

At the Wilkes-Barre rally -- where Trump took to the stage to support his candidate in the Senate race, TV physician Mehmet Oz -- Trump supporter Edward Young said he had been "disgusted" by Biden's speech.

"He declared war on me. He declared war on half of America," Young told AFP.

The duelling visits by Biden and Trump to Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, come as the Republican is under increasing legal pressure over the documents found by the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The Justice Department has said in court filings that highly classified government documents, including some marked "Top Secret," were discovered in Trump's personal office during the raid.

A detailed list of what was seized also showed Trump held on to more than 11,000 unclassified government records that he claims are his to keep -- but legally are owned by the National Archives.

Among the papers seized were 18 documents labelled "top secret", 53 labelled "secret" and another 31 marked "confidential."

Of those, seven top secret files, 17 secret files and three confidential files were retrieved from Trump's private office.

Agents also found several dozen empty folders labelled "classified" in the office, raising speculation that sensitive documents may have been lost, destroyed or moved.

Trump, who is keeping supporters and commentators guessing about whether he intends to run for president again 2024, has sued to have the documents turned over to a neutral "special master," a move that could slow the government's probe.

(AFP)

 

 

REACTIONARY NATIONALISTS

Tens of thousands take to streets in Prague to protest against Czech government

wionnewsweb@gmail.com (Wion Web Team) - 1h ago

About 70,000 took part in protests in Czech Republic capital Prague on Saturday (September 4). The people demanded action from the ruling coalition government towards controlling soaring energy prices. The protesters also voiced opposition to the European Union (EU) and NATO


Tens of thousands take to streets in Prague to protest against Czech government© Provided by WION

Organisers of the demonstration from a number of far-right and fringe political groups including the Communist party, said the central European nation should be neutral militarily and ensure direct contracts with gas suppliers, including Russia.

Police estimates said that by mid-afternoon the number of protesters reached the 70,000 mark by afternoon.

"The aim of our demonstration is to demand change, mainly in solving the issue of energy prices, especially electricity and gas, which will destroy our economy this autumn," event co-organizer Jiri Havel told iDNES.cz news website.

The protest was held a day after the governemnt survived a no-confidence vote. The Opposition is accusing the government of inaction against inflation and energy prices.

The vote showed how Europe's energy crisis is fuelling political instability as soaring power prices stoke inflation, already at levels unseen in three decades.

Czech Prime Minister Petre Fiala expressed displeasure at the protests and said the protesters did not have the country's best interests at heart

The protest on Wenceslas Square was called by forces that are pro-Russian, are close to extreme positions and are against the interests of the Czech Republic," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

Tens of thousands protest against Czech government

Sat, September 3, 2022 



PRAGUE (AP) — Tens of thousands of protesters from the far right and far left joined forces to rally against the country’s pro-Western Czech government in the capital on Saturday.

Police estimated that the crowd at Prague's central Wenceslas Square numbered around 70,000.

Some of the groups represented at the demonstration included the major anti-migrant populist Freedom and Direct Democracy party and the Communist Party.

The protesters demanded the resignation of the current coalition government led by conservative Prime Minister Petr Fiala, criticizing it for a number of issues, including its Western-oriented policies.

They condemned the government for its support of the sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine and accused it of not being able to tackle soaring energy prices. The demonstrators also criticized NATO, and the European Union and the 27-nation bloc's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reach climate neutrality. The country belong to both organizations.

Fiala said everyone has a right to demonstrate, but said those protesting are expressing pro-Russia views “that are not in the interest of the Czech Republic and our citizens.”

The Czech Republic firmly supports Ukraine in its battle against Russia's invasion and has donated arms, including heavy weapons, to the Ukrainian armed forces.

The government is planning to call an emergency meeting of EU countries next week to seek a united approach to the energy crisis. The Czech Republic currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency.

The Associated Press

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M ECOCIDE

Vale-BHP nearly double offer in mine disaster settlement

Bloomberg News | September 2, 2022 | 

Samarco’s dam burst killed 19 people, wiped out several towns and polluted rivers. 

(Image by Romerito Pontes | Flickr Commons.)

Samarco and its owners, Vale SA and BHP Group, agreed to almost double their offer in compensation for a 2015 mine waste disaster in Brazil, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.


The mining companies raised the proposal to more than 100 billion reais ($19 billion) after Brazilian authorities showed disappointment to the 52 billion reais ($10 billion) offered. The new value is closer to a 155 billion reais public civil action for reparation used by prosecutors as a benchmark.

Officials said last week the two sides were still far from a final settlement, and would undertake the necessary measures to obtain reparation if the companies did not bring to the negotiation table a “minimally worthy” offer to repair the collapse that killed as many as 19 people and contaminated waterways in two states.

The increase in the amount should mean additional provisions for the companies that already disbursed 23 billion reais through Renova Foundation, which was created to compensate for and repair damages.

Talks for a final multibillion-dollar settlement advanced since last week, the people said, but are depending on an agreement on the time frame for disbursement. The negotiation involves the federal government, Mina Gerais and Espirito Santo states, judicial authorities, Samarco and its two parent companies.

Brazil’s Environment Minister Joaquim Leite said in a radio interview this week the deal will involve the creation of a fund to be managed by Brazil’s development bank BNDES with the purpose to create a green economy in the region affected by the disaster, Agencia Brasil reported.

Vale said it remains committed to repairing the damage caused by the dam collapse, and to the negotiation process.

Samarco also said it remains open to dialogue to reach an agreement that promotes efficiency in repairing the damage caused by the rupture of the dam.

BHP said negotiations are ongoing.

(By Mariana Durao)

Mining title applications in Colombia to include stricter environmental considerations

Valentina Ruiz Leotaud | September 3, 2022 

Gold operation in Colombia. (Reference image by Adam Cohn, Flickr).

Colombia’s State Council, which is the supreme tribunal with jurisdiction over administrative issues, ruled that the national government and the National Mining Agency (ANM) must “correct the deficit in environmental protection that is evidenced in the mining-environmental regulation when it comes to the granting of mining titles.”


In order for this mandate to come into effect, the Council said that the ANM, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development and the Ministry of Mines and Energy have to update the paperwork required for the granting of mining titles. Such an update would imply adding to the paperwork the prohibitions and restrictions on the exploitation of underground resources established in Constitutional Court rulings C-339 of 2002, C-443 of 2009 and C-389 of 2016.

“This is one of the eight orders issued by the high court as a result of a popular initiative that exposed the violation of the collective rights to enjoy a healthy environment, the existence of ecological balance, the rational management and use of natural resources, the conservation of animal and plant species, the protection of areas of special ecological importance and the defence of public heritage,” the tribunal said in a media statement.

According to the State Council, these rights were breached as a consequence of institutional disarticulation between the mining and environmental sectors, which was spurred by a lack of information and mining-environmental planning throughout the country. Shortcomings in the way mining concessions are monitored were also pointed out as issues affecting the proper application of mining regulations.

The court’s decision was issued following a complaint by eight organizations and 30 individual citizens, who presented evidence showing a number of loopholes in the current procedure for the evaluation of proposals and inspection of mining titles. According to the complainants, such weak spots could lead to actions that would irreversibly affect the environment.

What’s next

Following the ruling, the ministries of environment and mines, together with the relevant agencies, will have to conduct a study that involves an in-depth evaluation of:The mining projects whose titles overlap with protected areas

The environmental impacts of the exploration projects whose environmental licenses are being processed but haven’t been approved

Unmonitored mining projects in the exploration phase

“Once this characterization is done, the ministries must make an inventory of mining environmental liabilities and implement preventive and corrective measures for such problems,” the ruling reads. “Some of the measures should be implemented in the short-term (one year), others in the medium-term (two years) and others in the long-term (five years).”

The ministries were also exhorted to formulate new bills and regulations meant to fill the gaps in the procedure for evaluating mining titles; the legal mechanisms to preserve biodiversity; the process of extracting resources from protected ecosystems; the regulation related to environmental liabilities and the possibility of requiring an environmental license during the exploration phase.

The ministries were also ordered to update their mining-environmental guides and terms of reference, to adjust them to the provisions of article 19 of Law 1753 of 2015.

“To present and execute specific actions aimed at improving the relationship between the mining and environmental sectors, the ministries of environment and mines must also set up an inter-institutional working group that involves delegates from regional autonomous corporations, sustainable development corporations, the National Authority of Environmental Licences, large urban centers, Colombia’s National Parks, of the ANM, the Government of Antioquia, the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Comptroller General,” the tribunal’s decision states.

GEOLOGY

Africa's oldest dinosaur found in Zimbabwe
Agence France-Presse
September 01, 2022

The skeleton of Africa's oldest dinosaur was found during two expeditions in 2017 and 2019

 Murphy Allen Virginia Tech University/AFP

Scientists in Zimbabwe have discovered the remains of Africa's oldest dinosaur, which roamed the earth around 230 million years ago.

The dinosaur, named Mbiresaurus raathi, was only about one metre (3.2 feet) tall, with a long tail, and weighed up to 30 kilograms (66 pounds), according to the international team of paleontologists that made the discovery.

"It ran around on two legs and had a fairly small head," Christopher Griffin, the scientist who unearthed the first bone, told AFP on Thursday.

Probably an omnivore that ate plants, small animals and insects, the dinosaur belongs to the sauropodomorph species, the same linage that would later include giant long-necked dinosaurs, said Griffin, a 31-year-old researcher at Yale University.

The skeleton was found during two expeditions in 2017 and 2019 by a team of researchers from Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the United States.

"I dug out the entire femur and I knew in that moment, that it was a dinosaur and I was holding Africa's oldest known dinosaur fossil," said Griffin, who at the time was a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech University.

His team's findings were first published in journal Nature on Wednesday.

Dinosaurs' remains from the same era had previously been found only in South America and India.

The paleontologists selected the Zimbabwe site for digging after calculating that when all continents were connected in a single land mass known as Pangea, it laid roughly at the same latitude of earlier findings in modern day South America.

"Mbiresaurus raathi is remarkably similar to some dinosaurs of the same age found in Brazil and Argentina, reinforcing that South America and Africa were part of continuous landmass during the Late Triassic," said Max Langer of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

The dinosaur is named after the Mbire district, northeast of Zimbabwe, where the skeleton was found, and paleontologist Michael Raath, who first reported fossils in this region.

"What this (discovery) does is it broadens the range that we knew the very first dinosaurs lived in," Griffin said.

Africa's oldest dinosaur found in Zimbabwe

By Shingai Nyoka & Oliver Slow
BBC News, Harare & London

PublishedShare

IMAGE SOURCE,ANDREY ATUCHIN / VIRGINIA TECH

Image caption,

An artistic reconstruction of the Mbiresaurus raathi

Scientists have unearthed in Zimbabwe the remains of Africa's oldest dinosaur, which lived more than 230 million years ago.

The Mbiresaurus raathi was one metre tall, ran on two legs and had a long neck and jagged teeth.

Scientists said it was a species of sauropodomorph, a relative of the sauropod, which walked on four legs.

The skeleton was discovered during two expeditions, in 2017 and 2019, to the Zambezi Valley.

"When we talk of the evolution of early dinosaurs, fossils from the Triassic age are rare," Darlington Munyikwa, deputy director of National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, and who was part of the expeditions, told the BBC.

He said that fossils from that era - which ended more than 200 million years ago - had been unearthed in South America, India and now Zimbabwe.

The find is expected to shed more light on evolution and migration of early dinosaurs, back when the world was one huge continent and Zimbabwe was at the same latitude as those countries, he said.

Zimbabwe has been aware of other fossils in the area for decades and Mr Munyikwa said there were more sites that needed further exploration in the area, subject to funding availability.

"It shows that dinosaurs didn't start out worldwide, ruling the world from the very beginning," Christopher Griffin, another scientist involved in the expedition, told the BBC.

"They, and the animals they lived with, seem to have been constrained to a particular environment in the far south - what is today South America, southern Africa and India."

IMAGE SOURCE,STEPHEN TOLAN/VIRGINIA TECH

Image caption,

Christopher Griffin in 2017, excavating part of the Mbiresaurus raathi skeleton

He added that the find was the "oldest definitive dinosaur ever found in Africa".

Prof Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan, a palaeontologist at the University of Cape Town, told the BBC that the discovery was important because it was part of the lineage that gave rise to the sauropod dinosaurs, which includes the diplodocus and the brontosaurus.

"It tells us that when dinosaurs were evolving, they were found on different continents, but they seem to have followed a hot humid environment rather than dry inhospitable one," she told the BBC. "We hope there is more coming out of that area."

She added that the area where the discovery took place had seen recent gas mining exploration.

"I hope that there is a strict policy in place to ensure that if they encounter fossils, they hand them over to the museums, so we don't lose that material," she said.

The near-complete skeleton of the Mbiresaurus raathi is stored in a room in a museum in Zimbabwe's southern city of Bulawayo. It is thought to date to the Carnian stage of the Triassic period, when today's Zimbabwe was part of the massive supercontinent Pangaea.

Dinosaurs were believed to be well adapted to the high latitudes where today's Zimbabwe is located, which were humid and had ample vegetation.

GEMOLOGY
Lucapa finds Angola mine’s sixth-largest white diamond

Cecilia Jamasmie | September 2, 2022 |

The 160 carat white Type IIa diamond. (Image courtesy of Lucapa Diamond.)

Australia’s Lucapa Diamond (ASX: LOM) has recovered a 160-carat white Type IIa diamond at its prolific Lulo mine in Angola, the sixth-largest recovered at the operation to date.


The diamond was found at the same alluvial mining block as the Lulo Rose, a 170-carat pink-coloured diamond believed to be the largest of its kind found in Angola in 300 years.

Lucapa has a 40% stake in the Lulo mine, which hosts the world’s highest dollar-per-carat alluvial diamonds. The rest is held by Angola’s national diamond company (Endiama) and Rosas & Petalas, a private entity.

The partners have now recovered 28 stones exceeding 100 carats, with the Lulo Rose the fifth largest, regardless of its colour, found at the mine.

In 2016, the operation yielded the largest ever diamond recovered in Angola — a 404-carat white stone later named the “4th February Stone.”

Chief executive officer Stephen Wetherall told delegates at a conference on Friday that his company was working to discover the source of the large stones in Angola.

“Over eight years of consistent commercial mining, we have been recovering large, irregular shapes and high value diamonds consistently. Size and shape matters. Why? Because it’s an indicator of proximity to source,” Wetherall said in his presentation.

He also said the diamond market fundamentals are strong and will remain so as supply continues to decrease.

According to Lucapa, 177 million carats were produced in 2005, compared to only 116 million last year. The 2020 closure of Rio Tinto’s iconic Argyle diamond mine, the main global source of high-quality pink diamonds over the past three decades, and the imminent closure of Canada’s Diavik and Ekati mines, will accentuate this trend, Wetherall said.

Lucapa estimates that, as no new mines are being developed to make up for lost production, 15% of the global diamond supply will disappear from the market by 2030.

Artificial intelligence takes centre stage at an opera in Dresden

DPA
September 02, 2022

The team behind a new opera taking the stage in the German city of Dresden are allowing artificial intelligence to take charge of one entire scene. Daniel Koch/Semperoper Dresden/dpa

The team behind a new opera taking the stage in the German city of Dresden are allowing artificial intelligence to take charge of one entire scene. Daniel Koch/Semperoper Dresden/dpa

When Dresden's opera house opens presents its latest show, one of the main characters on the stage will not be like the other ones.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will be centre stage, composing, texting and singing in a world first at the opening of the new season with a piece later travelling on to Hong Kong in November.

"Chasing Waterfalls" is the first ever opera in which AI creates parts of the music, text and interpretation at times, live and with full autonomy, the opera house says.

The character starring at the Semperoper Dresden will appear as an 8-metre kinetic light sculpture operated by AI.

In one of the seven scenes, the AI takes sole charge while in others, it interacts with human performers.

Director and media artist Sven Sören Beyer says he finds the interplay between people and machines fascinating. "Dancing points of light in the sky touch us emotionally, for example, whether they are shooting stars or are generated by technology," he says.

"We try to fathom these mechanisms artistically: When does technology become emotional, how can people be touched by the use of technology."

Beyer sees "Chasing Waterfalls" as an important contribution when it comes to debates about the future, and questions about how far people will let artificial processes make decisions that influence their lives.

AI already surrounds us today, making profiles of us, sending us tailored ads and making suggestions of what to listen to, watch and buy.

"The digital world has long been influencing real decisions," Beyer says. He is excited about possibility of making something new with AI, in what he sees as a major creative opportunity.

While AI apps to create works of art are proliferating, Beyer believes the same creative approach can be applied to music, in his view.

"It's exciting to take this step and no longer have everything in your hands," he says, referring to the scene in which artificial intelligence writes, composes and sings its own aria - about itself.

The piece was created with the help of Norwegian soprano Eir Inderhaug, who spent two weeks in a recording studio to provide the voice for the technology.

The AI then developed the content alone, after being given the following instruction: "Write an opera aria in which you reflect on yourself. You are allowed to be cynical and humorous."

The author of the opera's script, librettist Christiane Neudecker, initally had her doubts even though she has experimented with AI text generators in the past.

She later came to accept AI as a creative partner, however. "The exchange was surprisingly inspiring, also on a poetic and content level," says Neudecker.

The passage of text will be created shortly before the performance, though Beyer will sign off on each text the AI writes.

"We were surprised in one of the scenes as it now contains content that we weren't familiar with. That's the experiment," says Beyer.

That doesn't mean it has to apply to the whole of the opera though, he says. The team felt it was important to have a plot line. "The human ego winds up in an identity crisis, amid all its digital projection surfaces and representations of itself, and is forced to re-locate itself."

Soprano Inderhaug stars in the work, playing herself as well as her digital twin.

In all, the performance features six vocal soloists, a virtual voice and a chamber orchestra, in a piece that lasts 70 minutes.

The opera is a co-production of the Semperoper Dresden and phase7 performing.arts Berlin with the New Vision Arts Festival, Hong Kong.

Hong Kong artist Angus Lee, as co-composer and conductor, will be on the podium leading the musicians.

The work is then set travel to the New Vision Arts Festival in Hong Kong for a performance in November.

Val Demings says she supports abortion up to ‘time of viability’ after Rubio attacks

2022/09/02

Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/TNS

MIAMI — U.S. Rep. Val Demings said Friday she supports women or girls having the right to an abortion “up to the time of viability of the fetus,” a day after U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio attacked the Florida congresswoman for supporting “abortion on demand, taxpayer-funded at any point in a pregnancy.”

During a campaign stop at the University of Miami, Demings told the Miami Herald that while she knows fetus viability is widely considered to be at 24 weeks, she believes that every woman or girl should have the right to consult with a doctor to make a decision to end a pregnancy.

“Marco Rubio has a lot of damn nerve to talk about me. ... A woman or girl should have the right to an abortion up to the time of viability of the fetus. So which part of that does Marco Rubio not understand?” Demings said.

She went on to say that the conversation around abortion should be particularly nuanced when it comes to victims of abuse, and making individual and private decisions about their bodies.

“Yes, we’ve heard 24 weeks, but a medical professional should be able to help a family who’s having to make that tough decision, answer that question. So Marco can say whatever he wants to say. And his enablers can say whatever they want to say,” Demings said.

“A part of this whole discussion about a woman’s right to choose is also about her right to privacy, that she should be able to make that decision with her family ... based on her faith and with her doctor. I think that women, each woman, each child who may be the victim of abuse, sexual abuse, should be able to sit down with the doctor and let their doctor tell them what the point of viability is,” Demings added.

Last week, Demings gave a similar response on her position on access to abortion during an interview with CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede. When pressed on the issue, she said she supported access to abortion up to the point when a fetus becomes viable.

On Thursday, Rubio attacked Demings over her stance on abortion, an issue that has defined much of Demings’ campaign after the U.S. Supreme Court oveturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. During an event with religious leaders in Davie, Rubio said society should give precedence to “life” if the rights of a mother and a fetus are in conflict.

“You have the right of what happens to her (the mother) which she possesses from God, and a right of an unborn innocent human being to live, and these rights are in conflict, as rights sometimes are. A society has to decide which of these two rights are we going to give precedence. And I just believe with all my heart, that if you’re not a society that gives precedence to life, above every other right, then you’re headed in a very dangerous direction,” Rubio said.

When asked by journalists why he supports making abortion illegal despite broad support for access to abortion by most Florida voters, Rubio said the issue would now be up to the states to discuss.

“I would argue that people like Val Demings and others need to tell us what abortions do they think should not be allowed. Should we be allowed to abort a child in the ninth month? In the day they’re supposed to be born? I think that’s pretty egregious. They refuse to answer that question,” Rubio said.

Demings also reacted to Rubio’s comments on giving precedence to the life of a fetus, saying his position was “dangerous” and “un-American.”

“I’m just absolutely shocked and extremely disappointed,” she said. “Senator Rubio believes that there should be no exception, regardless of the circumstances of that conception. Regardless, if the person was raped, sexually abused the victim of incest, or regardless of the age. But then to say that the seed of the person’s rapist matters more than the person? The mother? I think that’s disgraceful.”

The steep decline in U.S. life expectancy raises questions most politicians want to avoid

Bob Hennelly, Salon
September 03, 2022

Funeral (Photo via Shutterstock)

The powers that be really want to turn the page on the COVID pandemic, even though the United States is still suffering hundreds of deaths a day and thousands of new hospitalizations. Evidently, that's a number of deaths and admissions Congress can live with. Two thirds of the country is vaccinated, and just about a third are boosted. And with the need to aid the defense of Ukraine, COVID is, evidently, so yesterday.

President Biden, in post–Labor Day campaign mode, has said that he wants to "save the soul" of America. But his administration and the Democratic-led Congress are risking a lot putting the health of the body politic on the back burner by letting COVID pandemic aid lapse.

ABC News matter of factly reported that with "COVID-19 funding drying up and no fresh cash infusion from Congress," the Biden administration announced it was suspending its offer of providing free at-home rapid tests.

"The administration has been clear about our urgent COVID-19 response funding needs," a senior administration official told ABC News. "We have warned that congressional inaction would force unacceptable trade-offs and harm our overall COVID-19 preparedness and response — and that the consequences would likely worsen over time."

Looking away

Meanwhile, there's been no post-mortem scrutiny of America's expensive, for-profit healthcare system, which limits both access to care as well as public health surveillance, and which likely contributed to our catastrophic COVID death toll. Our nation, which accounts for just 4.25 percent of the world's population, now has more than one million COVID deaths — which equates to over 14 percent of the world's COVID deaths.

"Prior to the COVID pandemic, we'd already seen a drop in life expectancy due to 'diseases of despair' — drug and alcohol overdose, complications of drug and alcohol use, and suicide," Gounder wrote.

And the deaths are only part of the pandemic misery index. A recent Brookings Institute analysis found that "around 16 million working-age (those aged 18 to 65) have long COVID today, of those, two to four million are out of work due to long COVID." More than two years into this pandemic, we still have no accurate assessment of the impact of COVID on the essential workforce, though such an analysis is pending at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Sadly, it's not just Congress that's down-shifting on this once-in-a-century public health crisis that is ongoing due to long COVID. Back on August 19, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration, through its Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), was already planning to end the free distribution of COVID tests and vaccines. "End of government underwriting of such medicines could lead to windfall for drugmakers," proclaimed the headline. Specifically, DHHS would be "shifting more control of pricing and coverage to the healthcare industry in ways that could generate sales for companies — and costs for consumers — for years to come."

Why, because that's worked so well?

Mind you this soft unwinding of the COVID response comes as we are getting the initial damage reports on just what COVID has wrought — with federal public health officials now saying that from 2019 to 2020, the U.S. saw the biggest drop in life expectancy in a century. The New York Times reported that in 2021, the average American could expect to live until the age of 76," which "represents a loss of almost three years since 2019, when Americans could expect to live, on average, nearly 79 years."

In the weeds

The National Vital Statistics Report , issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, found that in all 50 states and Washington D.C, the average life expectancy declined. The decline ranged from 0.2 years in Hawaii to three years in New York State, where the average life span fell from 80.7 to 77.7 years of age. The latest state-by-state statistics showed that the gender longevity gap, which favors women, now ranged from 3.9 years in Utah to 7 years in Washington, D.C.

According to the 50 state analysis, the "states with the lowest life expectancy at birth were mostly Southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia) but also included D.C., Indiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, and Oklahoma."

"The states with the lowest life expectancies are also the states least likely to have expanded Medicaid coverage."

"The states with the greatest decreases in life expectancy at birth from 2019 to 2020 included those in the Southwest and U.S.–Mexico border area (Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas), Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and D.C.," the researchers found. "Overall, life expectancy in the United States declined by 1.8 years from 2019 to 2020, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and increases in unintentional injuries (mainly drug overdose deaths)."

While the latest drop in life expectancy is the largest in decades, the U.S. has been slipping for years and in 2019, marked the third year in a row that we posted a decline. This is a significant shift from the years between 1959 and 2014, when life expectancy was consistently on the upswing. The last time the U.S. had a three year decline, was just before World War I, amid the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed 650,000 Americans.

Shailly Gupta Barnes is the policy director at the Kairos Center and helped research and write a county-by-county analysis that looked at COVID death rates, race, and income for the Rev. Dr. William Barber's Poor People's Campaign. Barnes saw the drop in life expectancy as a failure of American social policy.

"First, the decline in life expectancy is, as you noted, is not new," Barnes wrote to Salon. "The downward pattern was noted in 2015 and has continued since then, although the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this dramatically. A drop of three years in some parts of the country is shocking. It also directly confronts the idea that individual behavior could have changed pandemic outcomes. This change from 2019 to 2020 reflects a systemic failure in our health care system, including that, our peer countries experienced only one-third as much of a decline and then an increase, as they adapted a more effective COVID response."

Barnes continued: "Second, based on our pandemic study, 'A Poor People's Pandemic,' it is likely that this burden was inequitably distributed among poor and low-income communities. According to our research, poor and low-income counties experienced death rates that were twice as high as richer counties. At different phases of the pandemic, their death rates were up to 5 times higher. These counties are home to a disproportionate percentage of people of color, including 27 percent of all indigenous people, 15 percent of all Black people, 13 percent of all Hispanic people."

Barnes observes that from the CDC state-by-state tables we see that the two states "with the lowest life expectancy are West Virginia and Mississippi, with life expectancies four and five years less than the national average. These are two of the poorest states in the country, one whose population is more than 96 percent white, another whose population is more than one-third Black. Alongside the systemic health failures, we have to consider the systemic poverty and racism that is embedded in these disparities. This is also clear from the geography of the decline, with states in the south, south west and midwest among the worst off."

Want a second opinion?

Dr. Celine Gounder is one of the nation's leading public health physicians and infectious disease experts as well as the editor-at-Large for public health for Kaiser Health News. She continues to treat patients at Bellevue Hospital, one of New York City's municipal hospitals and served on President-Elect Biden's COVID transition team. She said there's a link between states that refused to expand Medicaid and their rates of declining life expectancy.

"The states with the lowest life expectancies are also the states least likely to have expanded Medicaid coverage," Gounder wrote in an email. "Medicaid is also the largest payor for mental health services, and Medicaid expansion would also expand access to mental health care. Settlements with companies like Purdue and Janssen are providing a much-needed influx of funds to address the opioid overdose crisis, giving state and local governments the opportunity to invest in effective evidence-based approaches that save lives."

But, Gounder argues declining life expectancy is not entirely the function of our healthcare system.

"Prior to the COVID pandemic, we'd already seen a drop in life expectancy due to 'diseases of despair' — drug and alcohol overdose, complications of drug and alcohol use, and suicide," Gounder wrote. "I think that much of this is tied to the decline of civil society, the loss of good jobs that didn't require a college degree, rising inequality, and disillusionment with the American Dream, or the idea that hard work pays off. These aren't challenges that can be solved by the health care sector or even public health, but much can be done to mitigate these trends."

Dr. Edward Zuroweste, is the founding director of the Migrant Clinicians Network, an international non-profit that serves migrant and immigrant workers. Zuroweste observed that states like Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and West Virginia, according to the CDC, were also some of the worst states to have a baby in. He says there is global scientific consensus that universal access to healthcare improves outcomes society wide.

Birth and death

"You can see that [that CDC data] is very close also to the list of the 50 states you referred to me," Zuroweste wrote in an email. "It has long been known in the primary healthcare and public health care world that mortality, morbidity worldwide can be linked to either strong or weak primary and public health care infrastructures. Where you have universal and accessible and affordable healthcare for all you have better morbidity and mortality statistics across the board and, I would argue that it makes total overall economic sense also, and the opposite is true."

"The understaffing of public health increased dramatically during the Great Recession and never recovered. Trump's administration pushed an already-crippled public health infrastructure (caused by neglect during the Obama administration) over the edge."

Zeroweste continued: "But, for some unknown reason the US has decided to ignore the obvious and continue to make this a state-by-state decision, and you can see the dramatic variations depending on where you live in our country.

"Overall, the US is lagging way behind other developed countries with regards to almost all health parameters," Zeroweste added.

Dr. Joseph Q. Jarvis is a long-time family and public health physician, and the author of "For the Hurt of My People: Original Conservatism & Better, Simpler Healthcare" in which he makes a case for a single-payer system. He observes that the U.S. spends $4 trillion on healthcare annually, by far the most of any country in the world, yet 68,000 people die every year due to a lack of healthcare.

As a consequence, he reasons, our profit-driven healthcare system results in millions of Americans missing out basic proven medical interventions, while both political parties are co-opted by the current system thanks to a steady stream of campaign contributions from the lobbyists for the very profitable — yet unhealthy — status quo. "Universal health care, with each American having a primary care home, would greatly enhance pandemic preparedness," Jarvis responded to a Salon query. "Communicable disease control depends upon case identification and reporting, which is only possible if the case gets competent health care, has the diagnosis established, and a report is sent to the public health department. Of course, if it is to be effective, that health department must be adequately staffed."

Bi-partisan betrayal

"Public health funding (and staffing) has been inadequate for communicable disease control throughout my entire public health career (which began in the 1980s)," Jarvis noted. "But the understaffing of public health increased dramatically during the Great Recession and never recovered. Trump's administration pushed an already-crippled public health infrastructure (caused by neglect during the Obama administration) over the edge, especially in terms of international health surveillance — exactly the kind of surveillance needed for worldwide pandemics."

If we were a "developing nation," non-governmental organizations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would characterize our steep decline in average life expectancy as an abysmal performance. (We might even get an improvement plan.) Sadly, you can count on a corporate media to continue to flatter the elites who profit off all of this scarcity to turn a blind eye to this fundamental failure of the state to buttress the longevity of its people. What good is the state, any state, if it can't deliver on that?

We'd be a much healthier nation if we paid more attention to our life expectancy and less to the Gross National Product. A big part of our lousy performance as a country is we measure the wrong things to plot our success. Sadly, whether it be education, healthcare or housing, our system is all about preserving and amassing great wealth — and if you happen to deliver on those three, well, that's just a happy coincidence.

As the climate crisis deepens and infectious diseases proliferate, as they are already, universal health care must be seen as a civil defense imperative. Whether we like it or not, the health of all of us, regardless of zip code or social standing, is intimately linked to our own individual well being. Premature death can be contagious.

Alabamans fuming after Hyundai supplier they incentivized is accused of 'oppressive child labor'

Ray Hartmann
September 03, 2022

Three Chlidren playing with blocks (Shutterstock www.shutterstock.com)

A company that sells parts for Hyundai has been the second one accused of hiring in Alabama by the Department of Labor – and leaders in the town where its located are demanding an apology.

SL Alabama, the largest employer in Alexander City, Ala., with more than 600 workers, was accused of “employing oppressive child labor” in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to a six-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, Al.com reports.

“That means the company is accused of employing children under the age of 16. The complaint gave no specifics regarding the charge,” Al.com reported.

Negotiations are underway between the company and Labor Department.

“According to court records, SL Alabama has offered a proposed settlement where it agreed to not hire underage workers, verify the ages of workers hired through a staffing agency and to fire or discipline any managers aware of the use of underage workers, reports the Outlook, Alexander City’s local newspaper.

“The proposed settlement hasn’t been approved by federal courts.”

Alexander City Mayor Woody Baird issued a joint statement with local economic development officials condemning the company’s actions and reminding it of the help it got when locating there in 2003, according to the Outlook.

“The reported acts in the Department of Labor’s complaint are egregious and unconscionable and demonstrate an utter disregard for the good faith support of all entities who worked to bring SL Alabama to the Lake Martin area. These actions unfairly tarnish the reputations of those who provided incentives to support SL Alabama, leaving SL a daunting task ahead to rebuild the relationships readily granted them and which they intentionally worked to undermine.”

The scandal comes on the heels of another accusation involving a Hyundai supplier in Alabama.

“Reuters reported that children as young as 12 have been recently employed at SMART Alabama in Luverne, which has supplied parts for Hyundai’s Montgomery plant since 2003, Al.com reported. This led to a class action lawsuit against Hyundai filed in California following the Reuters report. The U.S. Department of Labor and and the Alabama Department of Labor are investigating the story.

SL Alabama opened in 2003 and manufactures headlights, rear combination lights, and side mirrors for the automaker.

Ray Hartmann is a St. Louis-based journalist with nearly 50 years experience as a publisher, TV show panelist, radio host, daily newspaper reporter and columnist. He founded St. Louis alt weekly, The Riverfront Times, at the age of 24.