The Quiet Hand of Conservative Groups in the Anti-Lockdown Protests

Groups in a loose coalition have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals and financed lawsuits, polling and research to combat the stay-at-home orders.


WHITE People protested at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia on Sunday. Organizers see the events as unifying social and fiscal conservatives as well as civil libertarians.Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

By Kenneth P. Vogel, Jim Rutenberg and Lisa Lerer NY TIMES April 21, 2020

WASHINGTON — An informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the White House, has been quietly working to nurture protests and apply political and legal pressure to overturn state and local orders intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Groups in the loose coalition have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals, dispatched their lawyers to file lawsuits, and paid for polling and research to undercut the arguments behind restrictions that have closed businesses and limited the movement of most Americans.

Among those fighting the orders are populist groups that played pivotal roles in the beginning of Tea Party protests starting more than a decade ago, such as FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots. Also involved are a law firm led partly by former Trump White House officials, a network of state-based conservative policy groups, and an ad hoc coalition of conservative leaders known as Save Our Country that has advised the White House on strategies for a tiered reopening of the economy.

The initiatives, powered by a mix of grass-roots activism and well-funded groups with ties to the White House, are emerging as President Trump is pushing governors to open their states, with one eye on his own re-election prospects.

The effort picked up some influential support on Tuesday, when Attorney General William P. Barr expressed concerns about state-level restrictions potentially infringing on constitutional rights, and suggested that, if that occurred, the Justice Department might weigh in, including by supporting legal challenges by others. Separately, in Wisconsin, Republicans in the state legislature sued to block the Democratic governor’s order extending stay-at-home rules through May 26.

Those helping orchestrate the fight against restrictions predict the effort could energize the right in the same way the Tea Party movement did in 2009 and 2010. But the cause has yet to demonstrate that kind of traction. Polls show a majority of Americans are more concerned about reopening the country too quickly than they are about the damage to the economy. And coronavirus protests have drawn smaller crowds ranging from a few dozen to several thousand at a rally in Michigan last week.

Conditions are hardly ideal for a protest movement related to the virus. In addition to the health risks, demonstrators potentially face legal exposure for violating the very measures they are protesting. Plus, some key Republican leaders have embraced the types of restrictions being targeted, while powerful grass-roots mobilizing groups, including those spearheaded by the billionaire activist Charles Koch, have so far not embraced the protests.


Still, the fight has emerged as a galvanizing cause for a vocal element of Mr. Trump’s base and others on the political right. Organizers see it as unifying social conservatives, who view the orders as targeting religious groups; fiscal conservatives who chafe at the economic devastation wrought by the restrictions on businesses; and civil libertarians who contend that the restrictions infringe on constitutional rights.

“Groups are united in purpose on this,” said Noah Wall, advocacy director for FreedomWorks, which in 2009 organized a Tea Party protest that drew tens of thousands of people or more to Washington. He described the current efforts as appealing to a “much broader” group. “This is about people who want to get back to work and leave their homes,” he said.

More than 10 protests are planned for this week, Mr. Wall said, adding that elected officials “are going to see a lot of angry activists, and I think that could change minds.”

Trump merchandise was for sale at a protest in Harrisburg, Pa., 

on Monday.Credit...Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters

The protests mostly appear to have been organized by local residents, and are framed primarily as pushback against what they view as government overreach. But some rallies have prominently featured iconography boosting Mr. Trump and Republicans and denouncing Democrats, as well the occasional Confederate flag and signs promoting conspiracy theories.

As was the case with the Tea Party movement, established national groups that generally align with the Republican Party have sought to fuel the protests, harnessing their energy in a manner that can increase their profiles and build their membership base and donor rolls.

Nonprofit groups including FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots have used their social media accounts and text and email lists to spread the word about protests across the country.

Most of FreedomWorks’s 40 employees are working remotely on the effort, helping to connect local protesters and set up websites for them. The group is considering paid digital advertising to further increase turnout, and has been conducting weekly tracking polls in swing suburban districts that it says show support for reopening parts of country. It is sharing the data with advisers on the president’s economic task force and other conservative allies on Capitol Hill.

While social media has been a key platform for organizing the protests, those efforts have drawn scrutiny. Facebook removed some posts devoted to the protests on Monday for encouraging violations of social distancing laws. And similarities in online organizing efforts behind different protests have sparked accusations that they are not, in fact, organic grass-roots campaigns, but “astroturfing” efforts that are manipulated by Washington conservatives to appear locally driven.

Organizers of recent protests in Oklahoma acknowledged that FreedomWorks helped arrange the events and said they hoped the “rolling protests,” which were intended to keep people in their vehicles, helped Mr. Trump politically. But they stressed that the events reflected real concerns from real people about the economic damage inflicted by mitigation measures.

Carol Hefner, an Oklahoma co-chair of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign who helped organize a protest last week in Oklahoma City, cited the state’s flat terrain as a factor in any decision to ease restrictions. “We have a lot of wind and the wind has pretty much helped us here,” she said. “We are in a much better position than many of the other states to go ahead and open back up.”

Ronda Vuillemont-Smith, an Oklahoma HVAC contractor who helped with the capital rally and another one on Monday in Tulsa, said she encouraged protesters to remain in their vehicles. But Ms. Vuillemont-Smith, who serves on FreedomWorks’s activist advisory council, added, “I see absolutely no risks whatsoever” for open-air protests. “We are adults. We assume personal responsibility for the decisions that we make,” she said.

The Oklahoma organizers and Mr. Wall, as well as the White House and the Trump campaign, said there was no coordination between the protests and Mr. Trump’s team.

Ronda Vuillemont-Smith, who helped with two protests in 

Oklahoma, said she encouraged protesters to remain in

 their vehicles.

Credit...Matt Barnard/Tulsa World, via Associated Press

But the protests coincide with messages from Mr. Trump, and have been helped and organized by his supporters, some of whom have begun new ventures to advance the cause.

One of them is Reopen America Political Action Committee, which aims to bring small business owners to Washington to lobby lawmakers to reopen, starting with a 24-hour rally at the White House on May 1 — the target Mr. Trump set for reopening.

The group, which was created this month, has yet to report any financial activity. But its founder, Suzzanne Monk, who is active on Twitter with the handle @Trumpertarian, called the idea for the rally “pushback against these governors who want to stay shut down far beyond their economic capacity to do so.”

Support for the protests features more direct ties to the White House than simply support for Mr. Trump. The administration recently formed an advisory group for reopening the economy that included Stephen Moore, the conservative economics commentator. Mr. Moore had been coordinating with FreedomWorks, the Tea Party Patriots and the American Legislative Exchange Council in a coalition called “Save Our Country,” which was formed to push for a quicker easing of restrictions.

At the same time, Mr. Moore was communicating with a group of local activists in Wisconsin involved in organizing a protest at the State Capitol set for Friday. On a conservative YouTube program that went online the day Mr. Trump named him to the task force, Mr. Moore said he had “one big donor in Wisconsin” who had pledged financial support for the protesters, telling him, “‘Steve, I promise, I will pay the bail and legal fees of anyone who gets arrested.’”

In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Moore declined to identify the donor, but said, “I do think you’re going to see these start to erupt.”

He said he would probably turn down an invitation to speak at the protest in Wisconsin, because “it’s important that no one be under the impression that it’s sponsored or directed by national groups in Washington.”

A legal offensive against the restrictions is also being waged by groups and individuals supportive of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Barr’s comments on Tuesday came a few days after a letter sent by groups including FreedomWorks, Tea Party Patriots and the anti-abortion-rights group Susan B. Anthony List urging the Justice Department to consider intervening to block restrictions that the officials said were unconstitutional infringements on civil liberties.

Lawyers aligned with socially conservative causes have filed their own lawsuits against governors.

Many are focused on allowing smaller churches to keep holding services, but the objections cover a range of other activities. In Michigan, a lawsuit is challenging provisions of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive order banning travel to vacation homes and gatherings of non-household members.


People protested from their cars outside California’s Capitol building in Sacramento on Monday.Credit...Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A law firm that advises the Trump Organization, Michael Best & Friedrich, is representing members of a new protest group in North Carolina called ReOpenNC. Michael Best’s ranks include the former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus, the former deputy White House counsel Stefan C. Passantino and the current senior counsel at the Trump campaign, Justin Clark.

ReOpenNC had told its members that a “generous donor” had arranged to pay for buses to bring protesters to Raleigh from around the state. But, in a sign of how loath the groups are to be viewed as “astroturf” creations, the group said it had scrapped the plan when a news station, WRAL, asked about it. (Afterward, a former defense contractor and perennial North Carolina political candidate, Tim D’Annunzio, stepped forward on Facebook to say he was the donor and was still hoping to run the buses.)

On Friday, Anthony J. Biller, a Raleigh-based lawyer with Michael Best, wrote to Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, on behalf of a ReOpenNC’s co-founder, Kristen Elizabeth, and a member who was arrested at a protest last week, seeking dismissal of the charges. In an interview, Mr. Biller said he hoped the state would agree to allow ReOpenNC to demonstrate safely without fear of arrest, adding, “What is sufficient safety to buy toilet paper at Costco should be sufficient safety to practice one’s fundamental rights, particularly about these issues.”

He said that he was working pro bono but that there was “no coordination with the Trump administration, as some bozos have implied.”

One force in conservative politics that has kept its distance from the stay-at-home protests is the network of groups backed by the billionaire Mr. Koch. The largest Koch-backed group, Americans for Prosperity, which played a leading role in facilitating the Tea Party movement, has remained on the sidelines of the coronavirus protests.

GoDaddy records show that a public relations firm tied to the Koch network, In Pursuit Of LLC, registered the domain name “reopenmississippi.com.” An official said the group had planned to use the site to highlight a nuanced approach being developed by the network to reopen the economy while balancing health concerns.

“The question is — what is the best way to get people back to work?” said Emily Seidel, the chief executive of Americans for Prosperity. “We don’t see protests as the best way to do that,” she said, adding that “the choice between full shutdown and immediately opening everything is a false choice.”

More on Protests Against Coronavirus Restrictions

Gretchen Whitmer Isn’t Backing DownApril 18, 2020

Trump Encourages Protest Against Governors Who Have Imposed Virus RestrictionsApril 17, 2020

What’s Driving the Right-Wing Protesters Fighting the Quarantine?April 17, 2020

Trump Says States Can Start Reopening While Acknowledging the Decision Is TheirsApril 16, 2020


Ken Vogel covers the confluence of money, politics and influence from Washington. He is also the author of “Big Money: 2.5 Billion Dollars, One Suspicious Vehicle, and a Pimp — on the Trail of the Ultra-Rich Hijacking American Politics.” @kenvogel • Facebook


Jim Rutenberg is a writer-at-large for The Times and the Sunday magazine. He was previously the media columnist, a White House reporter and a national political correspondent. He was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2018 for exposing sexual harassment and abuse. @jimrutenberg


Lisa Lerer is a reporter based in Washington, covering campaigns, elections and political power. Before joining The Times she reported on national politics and the 2016 presidential race for The Associated Press. @llerer

Stirrings of unrest around the world could portend turmoil as economies collapse

BEIRUT —As more than half the people in the world hunker down under some form of enforced confinement, stirrings of political and social unrest are pointing to a new, potentially turbulent phase in the global effort to stem the coronavirus pandemic.

Already, protests spurred by the collapse of economic activity have erupted in scattered locations around the world. Tens of thousands of migrant laborers stranded without work or a way home staged demonstrations last week in the Indian city of Mumbai, crowding together in defiance of social distancing rules.

In locked-down Lebanon, which was confronting financial collapse even before the coronavirus paralyzed the economy, angry people have swarmed onto the streets in Beirut and the northern city of Tripoli on at least three occasions. In Iraq, where a six-month-old protest movement demanding political reforms fizzled in the face of the country’s coronavirus curfew, there have been spontaneous but brief outbursts of rage in the city of Nasiriyah and the impoverished Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City.

For now, fears of infection are keeping most people indoors. Strict controls imposed by governments and security forces deter the kind of organized protests that were sweeping the world from Hong Kong to Chile before the pandemic struck. The health crisis has come as a boon for some authoritarian leaders, empowering them to introduce the kind of controls on their citizens they could only have dreamed of before the spread of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

In Kenya as of Saturday, as many people had died in police crackdowns on citizens defying curfew as of covid-19, according to human rights groups and government statistics.

But the restrictions aimed at halting the coronavirus are also causing new poverty, new misery and new rumblings of discontent among the world’s working poor, for whom hunger can appear to be a more immediate threat than being infected.

“I’d rather die of the virus than die of hunger, or see my son or my wife go hungry, but I can’t provide them with food,” said Hussein Fakher, 20, who used to earn a little less than $20 a day driving a tuk-tuk in a now-shuttered market in Baghdad. He got into a fight with police who tried to fine him for violating Iraq’s curfew when he went out to seek work. “What should I do?” he asked. “Beg? Steal?”

The United Nations and the International Monetary Fund are among those that have warned in recent days that the pandemic could unleash what U.N. Secretary General António Guterres called “a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security.”

With the IMF forecasting the worst global recession in nearly a century, there is a risk of “an increase in social unrest and violence that would greatly undermine our ability to fight the disease,” Guterres said.

Wealthier countries where workers are losing jobs by the millions are not immune. Conservative groups in the United States are organizing protests against lockdowns in several states, including Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia. In Germany, courts have ruled in favor of groups seeking to stage demonstrations in several towns and cities against coronavirus restrictions.

In Italy’s relatively impoverished south, the lifting of restrictions earlier this month led to a crime wave that obliged police to guard supermarkets targeted for robberies by hungry citizens.

But it is the world’s poorer nations, which can’t afford subsidies for those who lose jobs, that are most vulnerable to heightened unrest, said Cátia Batista, professor of economics at Lisbon’s Nova University. More than 2 billion people worldwide depend on daywork to survive, according to the International Labor Organization, and for many of them, not working often means not eating.

A recent study by a U.N. think tank, the World Institute for Development Economics Research, warned that 500,000 people could slide into absolute poverty as a result of the pandemic’s restrictions, reversing three decades of progress in the war on poverty.


“If people don’t work, they don’t get paid, and there is a risk of hunger,” said Batista. “The natural response is unrest.”


The emerging economies of Africa will also be badly hit, she said. Relatively few coronavirus cases have been reported there so far, largely because of the lack of testing, but many Africans will be questioning why they are unable to work when there appears to be no immediate threat to their lives.

The Middle East, already ravaged by war, could be a key flash point, analysts say. The Arab Spring revolts of nearly a decade ago are still playing out in the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya. A second wave of protests in Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria over the past year was tamped down by the restrictions aimed at halting the pandemic, but that quiet may not last.

Hardship has already triggered several individual acts of desperation. A video circulating on social media in Lebanon showed a man setting fire to his taxi after police ticketed him for breaking the lockdown. Another showed the flaming figure of a Syrian refugee running in a field, after he set himself on fire because he was unable to feed his family.

Another man died after setting himself on fire in Tunisia, where the spark of the Arab Spring was lit nearly a decade ago by the self-immolation of a fruit seller told by a police officer that he was not allowed to sell on the streets.

The next round of unrest in the Arab world could be uglier and more violent than the organized protest movements that have sought political reforms, said Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.

“I fear social explosions,” he said. “This will not be about democracy. This will be about abject poverty. This is where the danger lies. This will be about starvation.”






a group of people walking down the street: Several hundred Lebanese people protest in the northern city of Tripoli on April 17, despite the country’s coronavirus lockdown.3 SLIDES © Ibrahim Chalhoub/AFP/Getty Images

Several hundred Lebanese people protest in the northern city of Tripoli on April 17, despite the country’s coronavirus lockdown.

Much will depend on how long the coronavirus pandemic lasts, said Ali Fathollah-Nejad of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. Fathollah-Nejad studies Iran, where anti-government protests that erupted last fall have subsided in the face of the worst outbreak of the coronavirus in the Middle East. A report by Iran’s parliament publicized last week suggested Iran could have 10 times the official number of coronavirus cases, currently put at 79,494, and twice as many deaths as the 4,958 officially reported.

The dangers are deterring people from taking to the streets, and the authorities can point to the health risk posed by large gatherings to discourage people from participating. “But the root causes of the protests — the economy, poverty and corruption — are not going away,” Fathollah-Nejad said.

A second or third wave of coronavirus infections could rattle even authoritarian states such as China, where the ruling Communist Party has maintained a tight grip on its citizens for the past three decades by delivering soaring prosperity in return for political loyalty.

The announcement by the Chinese authorities on Friday that the Chinese economy had shrunk by 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020, marking the country’s first recession since capitalist-style reforms unleashed explosive growth in the 1990s, was a reminder that the social contract could be at risk, said Yasheng Huang, a professor with the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dozens of people in the city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus first emerged late last year, took to the streets to demand rent forgiveness after lockdown restrictions were lifted earlier this month. Violent clashes erupted between police and protesters on the border between the provinces of Hubei and Jiangxi after lockdown restrictions were lifted in Hubei and police in the neighboring province refused to allow Hubei residents to enter.

Trust in the government is key for maintaining the loyalty of citizens who are forced to endure severe setbacks to their livelihoods for the sake of quelling the spread of infections for the populace at large, Huang said. That trust was eroded by clear evidence that the government sought to hide the initial severity of the coronavirus’s spread, perhaps prolonging and deepening the economic costs to the country as a whole.

The struggle of the United States in managing its coronavirus outbreak, however, has tempered much of the frustration Chinese were feeling with their own government, he said. “The fact that the United States is failing at such a colossal level is actually helping the Chinese narrative, that they have the best system in the world to deal with this,” Huang said.

liz.sly@washpost.com

Mustafa Salim in Baghdad contributed to this report.

America has descended into coronavirus chaos because there is madness and incoherence at the top

 April 21, 2020 By Michael Winship, Common Dreams- Commentary

ALEX JONES FAN CLUB

As we all know, Donald J. Trump sees the entire world as one big television show—about him. Everything is weighed against the success of his former NBC reality show “The Apprentice,” and frankly, as far as Trump’s concerned, the world just isn’t measuring up.

Nearly 2.5 million afflicted globally, and 170,000 deaths? Nearly 750,000 sick in the United States and more than 42,000 dead? Faulty lines of supply and insufficient testing? No, no, no. Ignore or deny them. This is not the scenario—or the numbers—Trump had in mind.

Avoiding the tragic truth, shifting blame and lying, he instead brags about the ratings for the daily press briefings of his coronavirus task force. He refuses to believe or understand that the Nielsen points are not so much for him as they are because viewers are desperate for information about the pandemic. They want to know what to do and when it will end and they want to hear from the top medical experts who too often are ridiculously forced to stand silently on the dais behind Trump as he bloviates for most of the sessions, each usually more than two hours long.
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During this crisis, those doctors could be doing better and more helpful things with their time and so could we. I’ve actually stopped watching in real time these campaign rallies posing as news conferences, and you should, too. There came a point a few weeks ago when they made me so outraged and angry, my head and stomach ached. Healthier to see excerpts later on if you must and to read the Twitter recaps from CNN’s Daniel Dale than to have my head come to a point even sharper and more painful than it already is.

Dale believes Trump sees these daily exercises “as a vehicle for self-congratulation, self-defense, and deception.” And so they are, as Trump mangles the facts, wallows in self-praise, harangues the press and the nation’s governors, mocks those he sees as enemies and treats the White House like a sandbox where he’s Bully #1. And all the while, people die.

Remember that back in late 2017, The New York Times reported, “Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals. People close to him estimate that Mr. Trump spends at least four hours a day, and sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television, sometimes with the volume muted, marinating in the no-holds-barred wars of cable news and eager to fire back.”

For Trump, as the Times headlined in a separate 2017 story, “the reality show has never ended.” And so, with nauseating regularity, Trump makes appointments to government jobs based not on expertise but on how he thinks someone will appear on TV. And he makes major decisions that ignore policy recommendations from experts but embrace the latest dumbass thing he heard on Fox News.

(Note, as John Oliver did Sunday on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight,” how both “the cure is worse than the disease” trope that has fueled the rush to reopen America despite the pandemic, and Trump’s embrace of the lupus medication hydroxychloroquine as a miracle cure came fresh off the Fox airwaves.)

“This has exceeded what would have been allowed on ‘The Apprentice,’” Laurie Ouellette, a University of Minnesota communications professor, told the Times. “It’s almost a magnification. It’s like reality TV unleashed. Yes, he was good at it, but I always felt like he had to be reined in in order not to mess up the formula. Here, he doesn’t have that same sort of constraint.”

She said that two-and-a-half years ago and it’s only gotten worse. Much worse.

An aside: In late 2018, in The New Yorker, Patrick Radden Keefe wrote that while “The Apprentice” was still in production, “Sometimes a candidate distinguished herself during the contest only to get fired, on a whim, by Trump.” Video editors “were often obliged to ‘reverse engineer’ the episode, scouring hundreds of hours of footage to emphasize the few moments when the exemplary candidate might have slipped up, in an attempt to assemble an artificial version of history in which Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip decision made sense.”

One of those editors, Jonathon Braun, said, “I find it strangely validating to hear that they’re doing the same thing in the White House.”

In fact, the Washington Post reported on April 11 that in Trump’s pushing America back into business as usual, “One senior administration official worried that some in the White House are trying to reverse-engineer their desired outcome. ‘They already know what they want to do and they’re looking for ways to do it,’ this person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share candid insights. ‘They think it’s time to reopen because some thought it was never time to close, and they’ve made that up in their minds.’”


You don’t think some of those same geniuses aren’t involved in stirring up the current spate of angry demonstrations in state capitals around the country? The ones demanding a reopening of bars and beauty salons, science and health be damned? Sure, there is genuine rage and distress—the economy’s shot and 22 million people are out of work—but the numbers of these defiant protesters are small compared to the majority of Americans—Republicans and Democrats—who believe we must not rush back to our lives as they were before. More will sicken and die.

Much of the demonstrators’ ire has been roiled and ginned up by the extreme right, including militias, anti-vaxxers, Proud Boys, Alex Jones and other conspiracy theorists, gun groups, GOP politicians and assorted Astroturf efforts masquerading as grassroots. That includes three brothers—Ben, Christopher and Aaron Dorr—described as pro-gun “provocateurs” who are behind a number of bogus Facebook groups encouraging the protests. Together these groups have more than 200,000 members.




Reality TV isn’t real and a large amount of these protests aren’t real either. The guilty are leading the gullible. On April 17, The Washington Post noted, “[T]he right-wing media has amplified the protests and conservative groups have formed plans to jointly press for a reopening of the economy. The groups include several veterans of the tea party era, activism that was powered by a network of right-wing and corporate financiers interested in reducing taxes and regulations on industry.” These include at least one group linked to the family of Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, funds tied to the Koch Brothers and the Castle Rock foundation, initially funded by the Coors brewing family.

Add to this toxic mix overmagnification by a media eager for pictures, the disinformation of Russian troll farms plus the president’s own tweets and public remarks. He told his addled base to “liberate” Democratic states and egged on the demonstrators – even though their protests violate the very guidelines ordered by the White House under Trump’s name—social distancing, staying at home, avoiding gatherings of more than ten people, and on and on.

These ill-considered protests could trigger a second wave of illness and death that would make the economy even worse than it already is. ”Unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen,” Anthony Fauci said on “Good Morning America.” “So what you do if you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back.” And by the way, demonstrators, although the symptoms vary, if you know anyone who has been slammed by it, the virus is devastating, painful and debilitating beyond expectation. It could happen to you.

COVID-19 is Trump’s 9/11. And his Katrina. And his Charlottesville. Again. Because he has repeated the same thoughtless recklessness he displayed in 2017 in the wake of those racially charged and deadly demonstrations in Virginia. The “bigotry and violence,” he said, “was on many sides” as neo-Nazis attacked. There were “very fine people on both sides,” he declared as bigots marched and shouted, “Jews will not replace us!”

This year’s version—as Trump watches the marchers recreate TV’s “The Walking Dead” —“I’ve seen the people, I’ve seen the interviews of people. These are great people,” he said. “Look they want to get ― they call cabin fever, you’ve heard the term ― they’ve got cabin fever… “I think these people are ― I’ve never seen so many American flags.” But there were Nazi and Confederate flags, too, although Trump says he didn’t see them, and the tea party’s “Don’t Tread on Me.” And guns, although so far, the rallies have remained peaceful.

We’ve all been watching a lot of television during these housebound days—more than usual even for Teevee Trump, who is said to seethe as he views those like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo he believes unfairly are getting more favorable coverage than he.

One thing I just watched for the umpteenth time: The classic “Network,” written by the amazing Paddy Chayefsky. First released in 1976, it was on Turner Classic Movies the other night and remains stunningly prescient about what television would become.

Toward the end, I was struck by a speech William Holden’s character makes to Faye Dunaway, who plays a conniving and heartless TV executive. Holden – and Chayefsky – could have been talking about you-know-who.

“You are television incarnate,” Holden says, “… indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. The daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split-seconds and instant replays. You are madness… virulent madness, and everything you touch dies with you.”

We have descended into chaos because there is madness and incoherence at the top. This president makes an endless series of contradictory declarations because if you believe in nothing, you’ll say anything. If there is such a thing as a victory in this pandemic, it will have been achieved by the kindness and intelligence of most of our people, not the so-called commander-in-chief.

All that he touches, dies. Tune in tomorrow, as thanks to him, America continues its fade to black. Please don’t let him succeed.

Battelle awarded $415M to decontaminate N95 masks for reuse


Medical and fire department personnel distribute self-testing coronavirus kits to residents who made appointments near Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on March 28. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

April 14 (UPI) -- The Pentagon has awarded $415 million to Battelle Memorial Institute to decontaminate used N95 respirator systems amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the DoD, which awarded the contract on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services, the deal should allow Battelle to decontaminate up to 80,000 used N95 respirators per system per day -- allowing masks to be reused up to 20 times.

"I remain extremely proud of the selfless efforts of Department of Defense personnel who continue to do everything they can to help provide medical masks, test kits, medicine and meals to support America's military, medical, emergency services and law enforcement professionals who are on the front lines and need them most," Under Secretary of Defense Ellen Lord said in a statement. "This procurement includes a service contract to cover operations and maintenance."

Battelle -- which develops products across a range of disciplines including robotics and oil drilling and has already set up decontamination sites in several American cities -- announced last week that it would be providing decontamination services to healthcare providers at no charge.

RELATED DoD to spend $133M for 39M N95 masks under Defense Production Act order


According to its website, Battelle uses concentrated, vapor phase hydrogen peroxide to decontaminate masks, and is investigating using the same process to sterilize other medical equipment.

According to the DoD, six systems already deployed should provide health care systems the ability to sterilize 3.4 million masks each week -- reducing the demand for new masks by the same number.

By early May, a total of 60 systems should be available for distribution by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and HSS, allowing 4.8 million masks to be sterilized per day or 34 million per week.

RELATED Face masks intended to prevent COVID-19 spread, experts say

Over the weekend, the Pentagon announced a $133 million order meant to produce over 39 million N95 masks in 90 days.

The department has also pledged 10 million masks from its stockpiles to the Department of Health and Human Services.

USA BONFIRES OR MASS GRAVES

RIGHT TO LIFE EXCEPT
Tennessee anti-lockdown protester demands state ‘sacrifice the weak’ to reopen economy

THE POSTER IS CLEARLY A HOME SCHOOLING PROJECT

April 21, 2020 By Brad Reed


A woman protesting Tennessee’s COVID-19 lockdown this week carried a startling sign that recommended sacrificing “weak” people to reopen the state’s economy.

Local news station News Channel 9 has captured a photo of the sign, which read, “Sacrifice the weak — reopen TN [Tennessee].”

According to the station, “dozens” of protesters showed up in Nashville on Monday to demand that the economy be reopened as soon as possible, as many people are struggling without any kind of income and have been shut out of getting small-business loans.

“We have no problem being shut down, but we can’t afford to stay shut down if we don’t have some kind of an income coming in,” demonstrator Adrienne Hitch told News Channel 9.
The station also reports that many of the people at the rally were not practicing social distancing and were not wearing protective face masks, as has been recommended by public health officials as a way to slow down the spread of the disease.


TENNESSEE IN PROTEST: Even with the announcement to start re-opening the state's economy on May 1, Governor Bill Lee has been facing some sharp criticism for not starting the process immediately. https://t.co/Pn3jY7k85S
— WTVC NewsChannel 9 (@newschannelnine) April 21, 2020


Ohio COVID-19 recovery panel goes off the rails after businessman says the virus is a plot to ruin Trump


April 21, 2020 By Brad Reed


An Ohio state legislature hearing about recovering economically from the COVID-19 pandemic went off the rails after a local businessman said that the entire virus was a plot to harm President Donald Trump’s chances at winning the 2020 election.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Bill Bader Jr., owner of Summit Motorsports Park said that all of the public safety measures adopted during the pandemic were enacted for the sole purpose of hurting the president.

“This was a government overreach that was politically motivated, quite frankly, to derail our commander in chief’s ability to be re-elected for four more years,” Bader said during a discussion hosted by a GOP-controlled Ohio House panel. “It was more politically motivated than erring on the side of the health and safety and well-being of the citizens of this great country of ours. The media reaction incensed, scared, struck fear in the hearts of people to the point where it blinded people to their constitutional rights.”

Bader was then asked by Democratic Ohio State Rep. David Leland if he honestly believed that Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was part of a global plot to undermine the president.

“Yes,” Bader replied. “I think this was a well-constructed plan. I think the timing of it was unique.”

Bader also questioned the reported death tolls from the disease in the United States.

“I understood that every fatality that took place in the United States of America, there was a check box that it was mandated that they perish as a result of the coronavirus,” he said. “Are there truly 41,000 fatalities due to COVID-19?”

In reality, no doctors are required to say that everyone who dies under their care died from being infected by the coronavirus.

Texas Republican Dan Patrick gets hammered for bleak and macabre argument against coronavirus lockdowns

 April 21, 2020 By Alex Henderson, AlterNet


Far-right Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has been inundated with criticism for his recent assertion that if more coronavirus deaths is the price that the U.S. has to pay for reopening its economy, so be it. And instead of walking back that assertion, Patrick doubled down on it during an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program.

Social distancing, Patrick stressed to Carlson, is crushing the U.S. economy — and saving lives, Patrick insisted, isn’t the only thing to be concerned about.

Patrick told Carlson, “When you start shutting down society and people start losing their paychecks and businesses can’t open and governments aren’t getting revenues…. I’m sorry to say, I was right on this. And I’m thankful that we are now, Tucker, beginning to open up Texas and other states because it’s been long overdue.”

TX Lt Gov Dan Patrick: "There are more important things than living … I dont want to die, nobody wants to die but man we've got to take some risks" pic.twitter.com/dRTF8Moav4
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) April 21, 2020

The Texas Republican went on to say, “There are more important things than living, and that’s saving this country for my children and my grandchildren — and saving this country for all of us. And I don’t want to die. Nobody wants to die. But maybe we’ve got to take some risks and get back in the game — and get this country back up and running.”

Media Matters’ Andrew Lawrence tweeted a clip of Patrick making those assertions, and plenty of Twitter users have been slamming the Texas lieutenant governor.

@EdKamen posted, “Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick said, ‘There are more important things than living.’ Uh … what are they?” And @RogueSNRadvisor wrote, “Yeah he wants everyone else to take the risks.”

Australia-based Twitter user Suzie Calalesina, @SuzieGabriella, cited Patrick as a prime example of why so many people around the world view U.S. politics as a mess.

“Is this for real???,” Calalesina posted. “In Australia we went into lockdown in March and if our politicians spoke like this they would gone!!! I’m sorry but the US is in worse shape than is thought globally.”

@660Mary tweeted, “I don’t EVER want to hear another conservative Republican claim to be pro-life! EVER! @LtGovTX.” And @Panos_Iliop wrote, “This is, without a doubt, the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. What are these people on?”
important to clarify that when he says "we've got to take some risks" he means you…you've got to take some risks
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) April 21, 2020

I want those words shoved down his throat every time he backs any anti-choice legislation, lawsuit, etc. Some things are more important than life, huh? These rabid pro-lifers just aren’t very pro-life when it comes to their stock portfolios
— Dawn (@goldenheart1995) April 21, 2020

Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick said, "There are more important things than living."
Uh … what are they?
— Ed Kamen (@EdKamen) April 21, 2020
I think Dan Patrick meant that there are more important things to *him* than *other* people living.
— Kansas Grant (@KansasGrant) April 21, 2020

Stock portfolios, bank accounts, income statements…all exceedingly more important than breathing.
— Dave Soutter (@Delby2016) April 21, 2020

Is this for real??? In Australia we went into lockdown in March and if our politicians spoke like this they would gone!!! I’m sorry but the US is in worse shape than is thought globally
— Suzie Calalesina (@SuzieGabriella) April 21, 2020

This is, without a doubt, the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What are these people on?
— Panos Iliopoulos (@Panos_Iliop) April 21, 2020

There is quite literally nothing more important than staying alive.
— PupperMum (@pupper_mum) April 21, 2020

He doesn't get to choose. The virus chooses. Now ask him if he's willing to sacrifice one of his children or grandchild, just 1, & see what the answer is then.
— Elisa Spencer (@ElisafromCA) April 21, 2020

ALBERTA RESISTANCE NEWS

As we watch how the global health pandemic caused by COVID-19 is impacting our communities, we are monitoring responses from different levels of government, workplaces and approaches from different jurisdictions. The AFL wants to continue to share some of this work we are doing with you and keep you informed about how the crisis is being handled.

News

The UCP re-opening child care centres to help ensure essential workers can return or remain at work is a decision worth applauding. Yet, there are still key issues that have been left unaddressed for how essential workers will access the care they need, including high and inconsistent fees and a lack of spaces and hours. Some essential workers now have to pay higher fees than before the COVID-19 crisis. Read AFL secretary treasurer Siobhan Vipond's editorial.

The UCP government needs to step up and provide quality and accessible child care for essential workers now, and coming out of this pandemic quality child care needs to be expanded so that it is accessible to all Alberta families, ensuring that all working Albertans can fully participate in our economy.  Email your MLA.

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As workplace infections spread in Alberta, AFL calls on government to reassess its approach to keeping workers and the public safe

In light of news that workers have tested positive for COVID-19 at an oil sands worksite near Fort McMurray and at a meat-packing plant near Calgary, last week, Gil McGowan, the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, said the time has come for the provincial government to re-evaluate its list of “essential workplaces” and consider beefing-up inspection and enforcement on worksites that continue to operate during the provincial pandemic lockdown.

Read our news release.  Read the news story.

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Alberta needs inclusive health care for everyone, especially during a pandemic

The UCP government recently announced that beginning on April 1, 2020, Alberta Health will no longer pay physicians to treat anyone that does not have a provincial health card number. 

Provinces such as Quebec and Ontario have already acted to protect all residents in their province by removing barriers and ensuring free health care coverage of everyone regardless of status, including for COVID-19 assessments and care.

“The UCP needs to take public health during this pandemic seriously. If other provinces can act, so can Alberta. They need to immediately reverse their attacks on physicians, and ensure barrier free access to health care for everyone in Alberta," said Gil McGowan.

Read our news release.

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Decisions in a Crisis Determine the Fate of Public Education

How governments react during a crisis has long-lasting consequences for public services and especially public education.

Some governments prioritize the best interest of their citizens, and shore up public services to meet the needs of the most vulnerable, while others use a crisis as a way to advance destabilizing and unpopular policies.

Read our blog post.

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Alberta unions applaud federal support for oil and gas workers

"The money for orphan wells and methane reduction, announced by the federal government Friday, will help the environment and create jobs at a time when they’re desperately needed,” said Gil McGowan. McGowan says he’s also very happy with the work the federal government did to get input from a wide variety of stakeholders.

Read our news release.

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Action

Tell Kenney to STOP firing workers and start helping to save Albertans’ lives

Use our email tool to tell Kenney to STOP firing workers and start helping to save Albertans’ lives.  If you haven't yet, sign up for our #KenneysCuts campaign to join the fight.

Your weekly update on Alberta politics for April 21, 2020

Progress Report #213
Your weekly update on Alberta politics for April 21, 2020

Last week the NDP and UFCW 401 warned that a coronavirus outbreak was underway at the Cargill meat packing plant in High River, urging Cargill to immediately put the facility staff on paid leave and stop the spread of infection.

Jason Kenney and the UCP, siding with the plant owners over the plant workers, called these warnings alarmist and refused to act. UCP MLA Roger Reid, who represents the Livingstone-Macleod constituency that contains High River, ranted last Thursday that “the misinformation and fear-mongering being put out by the Leader of the Official Opposition is dishonest to hard working Albertans and denigrates the work being done by the Cargill facility to protect their employees.”

On Saturday, agriculture minister Devin Dreeshen said that he’d “directly communicated with workers to reassure them that their worksite is safe.”

Now only days after the UCP tried to shout down everyone warning about this outbreak, a worker from the Cargill plant has died and nearly 400 more are showing symptoms of the virus.

The massive outbreak at the Cargill plant makes up more than 15% of all of Alberta’s current coronavirus cases, and it’s getting out into the surrounding community. CUPE is reporting that employees at the Seasons retirement communities in High River are testing positive for the virus.

Sundries

• Doctors in more than 44 rural Alberta communities will be cutting their services as soon as July thanks to cuts to doctor pay brought in by the UCP.
   
• Owing to a precipitous drop in worldwide demand, Alberta’s bitumen oil--Western Canadian Select--dropped in price this weekend to negative dollars. You read that right: if you’d showed up to the distribution hub in Hardisty with a barrel, they would have paid you to take it away. Only two months ago, long after the coronavirus outbreak was known to be on the way, and in the face of already sinking demand, the UCP government rammed through a budget based on $58/barrel oil. The government itself estimates that by every dollar the price of oil is lower than estimated, the province is out about $350 million in revenue.
  
• Last week Jason Kenney made a big show of sending away Alberta’s high-quality PPE (personal and protective equipment) to help other provinces--all part of a media push to argue for policy changes that would benefit oil and gas owners. But now Albertan medical workers are reporting that the cheap replacement PPE the government procured for them instead doesn’t fit and doesn’t work.
  
• The UCP government is fighting back in court to stop hundreds of young adults from accessing benefits meant to help them transition out of the child intervention system. The UCP had sought to take these benefits away already, but were stopped by a constitution challenge brought forward by one of the impacted young people. According to Children’s Services minister Rebecca Schulz, the clawback would amount to over $14 million in cancelled benefits.
  
• One of Edmonton’s many empty hotels has finally been repurposed to safely house homeless folks during the pandemic. After weeks of foot-dragging by the city and the province, the move was finally made possibly by funding from the federal government. Just over a hundred people will be housed at the Coliseum Inn, which makes you wonder--if no one is renting the hotels for anything else, why are we letting anyone be homeless in Edmonton at all?

That's all for this week. Please share our newsletter with any friends or family who you think would like political news and commentary from a progressive point of view. If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, you can sign up for it here. 

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Jim Storrie
http://www.progressalberta.ca/