Americans unleash speculation that Pentagon’s UFO report proves #AliensAreReal

April 28, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris - Commentary


“The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space,” wrote Carl Sagan in the 1985 book Contact. That has proven to be a topic the Pentagon has been investigating.

It was just three years ago that former US Naval officers reveal a 2004 encounter with possible a UFO in an extensive New York Times interview.


“I would hope somebody is checking it out!” physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson exclaimed in a CNN interview. “I hope there’s a program from our Defense Department to make sure they do not pose a threat. Sure enough, that’s what the program was.”

This week, the Pentagon released new footage of unidentified flying objects, which are technically just that, not necessarily space aliens trying to invade. But 80-year-old former Senate Leader Harry Reid warned: “The U.S. needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential national security implications. The American people deserve to be informed.”

Reid’s state houses the air force base Area 51, speculated by science fiction books, films and television shows to house evidence of UFO technology and extraterrestrial biological entities.

Americans responded to the news Tuesday by going full Fox Mulder and proclaiming “the truth is out there.”

You can see the best tweets below:


the aliens when they came to earth…
#aliensarereal pic.twitter.com/0tw8RKZ8Bv
— 𝑎𝑙𝑒⁷ 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 ° (@sunkissedmingi) April 28, 2020

The aliens after seeing us fail to free their people from Area 51:#AliensExist#aliensarereal pic.twitter.com/erXN34IMxA
— Benjamin ‘Camry’ Long (@realbcousin100) April 28, 2020

It looks like we are going to have an alien invasion anytime soon

 

#aliensarereal #ufo2020 pic.twitter.com/4jdjT8V9nr
— elbergalarga (@elbergalarga3m) April 28, 2020

Idk why y'all trippin now, we knew aliens were real #aliensarereal pic.twitter.com/CLnf7IbqDT
— That's right (@thatisright) April 28, 2020

Guys, seeing 2021 is becoming mission impossible. really #aliensarereal #ufo2020 #UFOs pic.twitter.com/SZ7It7ELt1
— Rishi (@rishi7357) April 28, 2020

When aliens visit earth in may#aliensarereal pic.twitter.com/nx1mcKQ0NK
— Sam (@_SamSdv) April 28, 2020

#aliensarereal this tweet did not age well

   

pic.twitter.com/pBC1GYS9Bi
— Nerd (@BiClownery) April 28, 2020


*Wake up*
Sees #AliensAreReal trending.
*Goes back to sleep*
I’m over 2020.
— Proud & Powerful

 

(@Santana_Proud) April 28, 2020


I'm getting an alien tattoo as a sign of loyalty… just incase #aliensarereal pic.twitter.com/77VdK9gVm6
— Haron Rono (@developerharon) April 28, 2020


Rare picture Of UFO leaked out.#UFO came to earth to take #KimJongUn with them.
That's why he is missing.
Two mysteries solved together.

#aliensarereal #AliensExist #ufo2020 pic.twitter.com/ptiGlSgiFh
— Priyank Sharma (@iPriyankSharma) April 28, 2020


2020 is something else

 

#aliensarereal pic.twitter.com/fq1aV4I72C
— simon (@Simon20442166) April 28, 2020


Do you think if I knock up a alien I can get a green card to live on their planet cause I hate it here. #aliensarereal pic.twitter.com/ILXbzKJV5k
— Martin Reyes

   

(@stagehand127) April 28, 2020

recovered audio from the pentagon UFO videos #aliensarereal pic.twitter.com/vV6eYGjFzI
— jordan mendoza (@jordypizza) April 28, 2020

ON WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY

Democrats press Trump administration on federal worker safety

The Democrats also repeated complaints from last week that the administration has been stonewalling Congress on its plans.

Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan. | Samuel Corum/Getty Images

By REBECCA RAINEY and DANIEL LIPPMAN 04/28/2020

Congressional Democrats are pressing the Trump administration to detail how it will protect federal workers from the coronavirus as it reopens federal agencies.

In a pair of letters dated April 27 but not made public until Tuesday, Senate Democrats posed a series of questions about how the government will reopen to Michael Rigas, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, and Russell Vought, acting director at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The Democrats also repeated complaints from last week that the administration has been stonewalling Congress on its plans.

"OPM has refused to provide regular and timely briefings to this Committee regarding its work to support the federal workforce," said a letter that six Senate Democrats on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee sent Rigas. "This is particularly important now in response to the coronavirus pandemic."

In the last month, Jonathan Blyth, the head of OPM’s congressional affairs shop and the former chief of staff at the agency, has twice declined congressional requests for information, citing “a very dynamic situation with our response to covid19.”

In a written statement, an OMB spokesperson said Tuesday, “It’s no surprise Senate Democrats continue to play politics, but the fact is agencies have been given clear and consistent guidance throughout this crisis to maximize telework, and they are now working to return to normal operations as conditions warrant across each state.”

The Homeland Security Committee letter requested more details on how OPM has worked to protect federal contractors as well as federal employees to make sure they have enough personal protective equipment, or PPE. "Which agencies are providing PPE to their frontline employees?," the letter asked. "Which are not, or have directed their employees to secure their own PPE?

The six Democrats who signed the letter were Sens. Gary Peters of Michigan, Tom Carper of Delaware, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Kamala Harris of California and Jacky Rosen of Nevada.

In the second letter, addressed to Rigas and OMB's Vought, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Patty Murray of Washignton, Peters and 19 other Democrats pressed for more information on how the Trump administration will maximize telework options and evaluate when it's safe for federal employees to return to work.

"Astonishingly," the letter said, "some federal employees who have jobs that can be done remotely are still not able to access telework," citing a news report that clerical workers in the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review were not permitted to telework "even after one had COVID-19 symptoms."

The lawmakers criticized a memo issued by OPM earlier this month that said its plans to reopen the federal government will parallel President Donald Trump's Opening Up America guidelines. The guidance encouraged federal agencies to “to allow Federal employees and contractors to return to the office in low-risk areas.”

"Public health experts have ... warned that there is still not sufficient testing, tracing, or personal protective equipment to know what, where, and when it is safe to relax certain social distancing and quarantine guidelines," the letter said. "As the number of coronavirus cases and the number of deaths — including deaths of federal employees — continue to rise, it is imperative that all federal employees are appropriately protected."

HISTORY DEPT.
The Time a New York Governor Disobeyed the Federal Government
When Al Smith had the chance not to enforce Prohibition, he took it.

New York Gov. Al Smith speaks in New York on Nov. 2, 1928. | AP Photo

By TERRY GOLWAY 04/25/2020 

Terry Golway is a senior editor at POLITICO. His most-recent book is “Frank and Al,” a dual biography of Franklin Roosevelt and Al Smith.

The coronavirus is pitting states against the federal government on issues ranging from testing to stay-at-home orders to how best to restart the economy. After President Donald Trump claimed to have “total authority” over how and when states should ease their restrictions, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo made it clear not only that the president had no such power, but that he would fight any premature orders to open up the Empire State.

He isn’t the first New York governor to thumb his nose at Washington. In fact, if Cuomo were looking for a precedent for such defiance, he need only glance at one of the several framed pictures of Al Smith that decorate his office.

Nearly a century ago, in 1923, Smith—then in the second of his four terms—shocked the country and delighted his supporters when he signed a bill that effectively ended his state’s enforcement of the 18th Amendment, which had made Prohibition the law of the land.

Of course, selective enforcement of the Constitution was not exactly new in the 1920s. The 11 states in the old Confederacy had essentially voided the 14th and 15th amendments through Jim Crow laws and state-sanctioned terrorism by white supremacists. The 14th Amendment’s right to equal protection under the law and the 15th Amendment’s abolition of whites-only voting laws were little more than cruel jokes in the South and in other states as well.

But Smith’s defiance of the 18th Amendment was of another order, in part because there was greater national support for Prohibition than there was for equal rights for African Americans, and in part because of who he was—a child of the city, a Roman Catholic, and the grandson of immigrants at a time when the country was about to close the country to most immigrants. A newspaper in upstate Auburn said of Smith’s flouting of federal law, “The opening gun at Fort Sumter did not echo a more outright defiance.”

Smith’s decision to flout a government order he despised transformed him from a regional curiosity to a national figure just as he was beginning to prepare for the 1924 presidential campaign. He would seek the White House three times—in 1924, 1928 and 1932—and while he never won the prize, he became a beloved symbol of the new America that was taking shape in the nation’s cities as the children of Ellis Island came of age, politically and culturally, in the 1920s. Breaking the rules worked for Smith.


***

The 18th Amendment, which outlawed the manufacture, transportation and sale—but not consumption—of “intoxicating spirits,” was ratified in January 1919 and took effect the following January. Congress then passed the federal Volstead Act, which gave Washington the power to enforce the amendment and set penalties for those caught in the act, and it defined “intoxicating spirits” as any beverage containing more than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume. It became law over Woodrow Wilson’s veto in October 1919.

After Republicans took control of Albany in the Warren Harding landslide of 1920, they passed several bills that mimicked most aspects of the federal Volstead Act, empowering police in New York to enforce Prohibition. Many considered the statute unnecessary, but the dry forces in New York were intent on making a statement, and indeed included even tougher language than the federal law. For example, the New York enforcement bills, known collectively at the Mullan-Gage Act, declared that possession of a hip flask containing booze was the “equivalent of carrying an unlicensed handgun.”

The legislation pleased the powerful Anti-Saloon League and rural portions of upstate New York, where evangelical voters and the Ku Klux Klan looked askance (to put it mildly) at the growing power of Catholics and Jews in the state’s urban areas, particularly New York City. The dry forces associated drinking with foreign cultures. Prohibition, they argued, would help Americanize these alien peoples.

Suffice it to say, this didn’t sit well with people like Al Smith, who embraced city life and all its racial, ethnic and religious complexities. He recaptured the governor’s office in 1922 after losing reelection two years earlier, and his fellow Democrats—many of whom were Catholics and Jews from the cities—won control of the Legislature, thanks in part to urban opposition to Prohibition.

Lawmakers did not waste time. A bill to repeal Mullan-Gage was introduced on January 3, 1923, as the new session was beginning and on the same day that the newly elected governor of Connecticut, Charles Templeton, declared that Prohibition was “one of the greatest sociological experiments ever undertaken by any nation.”

The repeal bill passed the Legislature in early May—the Senate’s back-slapping majority leader, Jimmy Walker, helped win over some crucial but wavering votes in his chamber—and was dispatched to Smith’s desk. And that’s when the eyes of the nation turned to the governor’s second-floor office in New York’s state Capitol.

Smith despised Prohibition—he continued to serve cocktails in his office in the state Capitol—and resented the self-righteousness of its advocates. Passage of the Mullan-Gage repeal would have sent a signal far and wide that New York would no longer enforce laws it detested.

But that’s precisely what worried Smith. Smith was a consensus-seeker who, as governor, found ways to work with Republican majorities in the Legislature. But there was no room for splitting the difference now. A Tennessee newspaper compared New York’s attitude toward Prohibition to South Carolina’s assertion in the early 1830s that it could void federal laws—more specifically, tariffs—it didn’t like. The bitter nullification crisis was a precursor to South Carolina’ secession in 1860, and most Americans knew how that ended. While nobody was predicting that Smith’s decision would lead to civil war, some feared repeal of Mullan-Gage would lead to more widespread defiance of the Volstead Act, leading to the kinds of bitter divisions Smith preferred to bridge rather than exacerbate.

There was another complication as well. Smith intended to run for president in 1924, and he would need support from the Democratic Party’s dry-as-dust factions in the South and West to win the nomination. Then again, his base in the cities of the Northeast and the Midwest expected him to sign the repeal. If he failed to stand up for those who saw him as their champion, they’d be unlikely to stand up for him at the convention.

There was little question that he wanted to sign, but he’d have to think it over.

During a month of deliberation, the national press focused intently on the looming rebellion in Albany, and some of the country’s leading political figures warned Smith of the stakes in play.

“This disposition of the Mullan-Gage repeal bill will show the mettle of the man,” Harvard law professor Felix Frankfurter wrote to Smith’s closest political adviser, Belle Moskowitz. “If he vetoes the repeal, he will be damned for a comparatively brief time … if he signs it, he would be damned for good.”

Franklin Roosevelt, who would one day succeed Smith as governor and would, as president, appoint Frankfurter to the Supreme Court, was more sympathetic to Smith’s dilemma. He wrote: “Frankly, it is going to hurt you nationally a whole lot to sign the Repealer Bill. … On the other hand I well realize that the vote in all the cities of this state will shriek to heaven if you were to veto the Bill.”

Ultimately, Smith took the advice of his political mentor, Tammany Hall boss Charles Francis Murphy, a saloonkeeper by trade—before, that is, his trade was declared illegal. “Al,” Murphy said at a summit meeting with the governor on Long Island, “you must sign this bill.” Murphy was a taciturn sort—he saw no reason to explain his reasoning because it was obvious. The people who put Smith back in the governor’s office knew they were voting for the wettest of the wet, and they expected him to act accordingly, the presidency be damned.

Smith went through the motions of holding a public hearing in the state Assembly chamber in Albany. The dry forces packed the house, some of them bringing along sandwiches and beverages—soft, of course—as they settled in for the political equivalent of a revival meeting. One of the many anti-liquor speakers said the governor had to choose between the “Star-Spangled Banner” and “The Sidewalks of New York”—a song celebrating New York City that was long associated with Smith.

Toward the end, though, a prominent Republican, Thomas Douglas Robinson, a nephew of Theodore Roosevelt, delivered an impassioned speech denouncing the Prohibitionists as bigots who claimed to have “a 100 percent mortgage on law and order and Americanism.” He had voted in favor of repeal, Robinson said, and did so as an American. Robinson’s rebuke was noteworthy given his lineage, for he was saying that the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who dominated the dry movement had no monopoly on the country’s values and culture.

Less than 24 hours later, on June 1, 1923, Al Smith signed the repeal bill. It contained the caveat that New York police would cooperate with federal agents if requested to do so, but officers would no longer enforce Prohibition on their own. In cities across the state, drinkers tripped the light fantastic long into the night. In the heartland, however, New York’s defiance inspired fear and resentment—law, order and the very foundations of what made America great were breaking down in the nation’s immigrant-filled cities. Smith, thundered the Kansas City Star, had “done an anarchistic thing.”

William Jennings Bryan, the spiritual leader of the Democratic Party’s influential evangelical faction, took to the pages of the New York Times to pronounce his judgment of Smith and his ilk in the cities he had made a career denouncing. Smith, Bryan said, should “expect resistance from the defenders of the home, the school and the Church.”

Smith had been uncharacteristically silent in the face of the onslaught from beyond the Hudson River, but he couldn’t resist taking Bryan’s bait. He issued a statement condemning the “narrow and bigoted” dry agenda, and then took note of Bryan’s three failed attempts at the presidency. Whenever the so-called Great Commoner presented himself to voters, Smith wrote, “a wise and discriminating electorate usually takes care to see that Mr. Bryan stays at home.”

Frankfurter’s bleak assessment of Smith’s future proved incorrect—for the most part anyway. While Smith did not become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in 1924, he was reelected as governor in a landslide over Theodore Roosevelt Jr. that year. And four years later, he won the prize that eluded him in 1924, becoming the first Catholic to win a major party’s presidential nomination. Herbert Hoover trounced him in the general election, but it was Smith’s religion more than his position on Mullan-Gage that became a defining issue of the campaign. Then again, urban Catholicism and defiance of the 18th Amendment were considered variations on the same un-American theme, at least in some portions of the country.

Smith is remembered today not only through the annual charity dinner in his name, but as one of the great governors of the 20th century, never mind that he was assailed as a virtual secessionist in 1923. The current governor, more than most of his predecessors, has kept Smith’s memory alive—and not just through a virtual shrine in his inner office.

During his decade in Albany, Andrew Cuomo has overhauled New York’s archaic restrictions on alcohol sales and production, leading to a tripling in the number of wineries, cideries, breweries and distilleries in the state.

And when he issued his stay-at-home orders last month, Cuomo not only declared liquor stores an essential business, but he allowed bars to serve drinks to go.

Al Smith would have signed that one, too.

Pentagon pulls money from overseas projects to pay for border wall

The move drew an angry response from Democrats, who say the administration is "trampling" on Congress' power of the purse.


Defense Secretary Mark Esper. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo


By CONNOR O’BRIEN and DAVID ROGERS 04/28/2020

Defense Secretary Mark Esper is restoring more than half a billion dollars in funding for military construction projects in the U.S. that were put on hold to help fund President Donald Trump's border wall, and instead will take money from projects that are primarily overseas.

The move, which is laid out in a memo dated Monday and obtained by POLITICO, drew an angry response from Democrats, who say the administration is "trampling" on Congress' power of the purse

Altogether, $545.5 million in previously withheld funds, all for projects in the U.S. with award dates in 2020, will be allowed to move forward.

"To enable the execution of certain projects scheduled for award in calendar year 2020, I direct you to release funding associated with 22 currently deferred projects within the United States totaling $545.526 million," Esper wrote in the memo to acting Pentagon Comptroller Elaine McCusker.

Esper removed 22 projects from the list of border-related deferrals, all of which have award dates in 2020. Of these, $160 million is for two projects at West Point, where Trump is slated to speak at commencement ceremonies. Another $62.6 million is for a middle school project at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is up for reelection in November.

To fill the hole left by restoring the $545.5 million, Esper proposes in his memo to substitute a new set of about 19 projects totaling an equal amount. Most of these projects are overseas and were funded by Congress from fiscal 2020 Overseas Contingency Operations appropriations outside the military base budget. The projects are in countries such as Germany, Japan, Norway, Spain and Jordan.

This is significant because lawmakers specify in the annual appropriations bills that OCO funds are to be spent for projects overseas, and here they will be used for a wall in the U.S. Moreover, the appropriations to fund the new list of deferred projects were approved by Congress after the president’s emergency border declaration.

A Pentagon spokesperson did not immediately comment.

In all, the Trump administration has funneled $3.6 billion from military construction coffers to fund barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have attempted to undo Trump's border wall gambit in annual defense policy and spending bills. They have rejected calls to replenish funding for the projects that were redirected to build barriers on the southern border, arguing the move would validate Trump's gambit.

The move by Esper drew quick backlash Tuesday from top Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee.

In a statement, Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey of New York and the Military Construction Subcommittee Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, accused the Trump White House of playing politics with national security and "making an end run around Congress by attempting to backfill these projects on its own."

"Even worse, Trump is doing this by canceling funding for critical European Deterrence Initiative projects that were designed to bolster real national security needs and prevent Russian aggression against American allies and partners in Europe," Lowey and Wasserman Schultz said

"Once again, the Trump administration is putting domestic political considerations ahead of national security, and Trump is trampling on Congress’ power of the purse in the process. The American people deserve better, but they will only get it when congressional Republicans join us and stand up to this out-of-control President," they added.

Trump so far has siphoned nearly $10 billion from the defense budget for the border using unobligated military construction funds and other accounts.

The Pentagon in February reprogrammed $3.8 billion from fighter jets, shipbuilding and National Guard equipment accounts for the border wall. Using money from weapons accounts already appropriated by Congress also drew the ire of some Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Esper has also taken heat from Democrats for deploying 540 additional troops to the border to assist the Department of Homeland Security during the coronavirus pandemic.

‘I love Diamond & Silk’: Trump backs Fox News personalities who spread coronavirus conspiracies
The conservative video-bloggers’ status at the network is unclear.

President Donald Trump with Lynette 'Diamond' Hardaway and Rochelle 'Silk' Richardson during a news conference at the White House on Feb. 27. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
By QUINT FORGEY 04/28/2020

President Donald Trump on Tuesday voiced his support for conservative video-bloggers Diamond and Silk, the pro-Trump duo who have promoted coronavirus conspiracy theories and been absent from their usual Fox News appearances.

“Haters keep saying they hate Diamond and Silk, but you can’t hate what you ain’t never loved!” the sisters, whose real names are Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, wrote on their shared Twitter account Monday evening.

Trump shared that message Tuesday morning, writing online: “But I love Diamond & Silk, and so do millions of people!”

The president’s social media post came after CNN reported Saturday that Fox Nation, Fox News’ digital streaming service, had not uploaded a new episode of Diamond and Silk’s weekly show since April 7, and they had not appeared on the network’s broadcast since March.

Diamond and Silk, who have spoken at Trump rallies and are regulars on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” morning show, have propagated various baseless coronavirus claims over the past month as the outbreak ravaged the United States. A Fox News spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment on their status with the company.

Although Fox News retains a stable of pro-Trump commentators, the president has grown increasingly frustrated with the network, despite its opinion hosts’ almost unflinchingly positive coverage of his administration.

“.@FoxNews just doesn’t get what’s happening! They are being fed Democrat talking points, and they play them without hesitation or research,” Trump wrote in a multi-part Twitter screed Sunday.

Diamond and Silk out at Fox News after they claimed coronavirus death toll is fabricated to hurt Trump: report

April 27, 2020 By Matthew Chapman


On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that Fox News is cutting ties with right-wing video-blogging duo Diamond and Silk, after they used their platform to promote conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic.

“After rising to prominence during the 2016 election, Lynette ‘Diamond’ Hardaway and Rochelle ‘Silk’ Richardson leveraged their newfound celebrity into regular sycophantic appearances on Fox News, resulting in President Donald Trump raving about their performances, featuring them at rallies, and treating them as ‘senior advisers,'” reported Lachlan Cartwright and Justin Baragona. “The social-media personalities were eventually tapped to provide weekly videos for Fox Nation after it launched as a subscription-based online video network. Their episodes, essentially 5-7 minute distillations of their freeform live-streams, appeared like clockwork on the streaming service until earlier this month.”

“Diamond & Silk have used their heavy social-media presence to be at the forefront of right-wing misinformation about the COVID-19 outbreak,” continued the report. “For instance, during their March 30 livestream, the duo claimed that the number of American coronavirus deaths has been inflated to make Trump look bad.” Diamond proclaimed “Where are the bodies?” and speculated the virus could be being “deliberately spread.” Silk has also suggested the virus could be a bioweapon manufactured by the “deep state.”

Fox News has been struggling for weeks to balance the pressures of right-wing allies of Trump who want to spread counternarratives on the pandemic, and the necessity to provide accurate public health information.

Recently, Fox Business host Trish Regan was cut after calling the pandemic an “impeachment scam.” However, some major Fox hosts who have sought to downplay the virus, like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, are still employed.

‘Unhinged grifters’: Internet reacts to Diamond and Silk being booted off of Fox News

April 27, 2020 By Matthew Chapman


On Monday, right-wing vloggers Diamond and Silk were reportedly ousted as Fox News contributors after promoting a series of conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic.

Commenters on social media had a number of reactions — including to ask why the president of the United States was not being held to the same standard — or, for that matter, higher-ranking TV personalities at Fox.

Fox News has reportedly canned controversial personalities Diamond & Silk aka Rock & Burlap. I never rejoice in anyone’s termination, however these Trump-loving siblings have been pushing some dangerous #coronavirus conspiracy theories. https://t.co/yItD2oPftD #DiamondandSilk
— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) April 27, 2020


Congrats to new OAN hosts Diamond & Silk. https://t.co/c8rKguotYF
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 27, 2020


FOX just fired Diamond & Silk for promoting disinformation about Covid-19.
Because Diamond and Silk are held to a higher standard than, y’know, America’s president.
— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) April 27, 2020

I mean think what kind of unhinged grifters you’d have to be for Fox News to nope out https://t.co/iXVCIL5O8Z
— shauna (@goldengateblond) April 27, 2020

Getting fired from Fox for espousing dangerous, unfounded theories about the coronavirus largely seems to depend on how big a star you are and how big your platform is.
Trish Regan, Diamond & Silk are small potatoes that don’t bring in many viewers, thus are easier to cut. https://t.co/kb2isTn7Kc
— Nathan McDermott (@natemcdermott) April 27, 2020

Was what Trish Regan said much different than what Sean Hannity has said? No, not really.
Is what Diamond & Silk have been saying much different than what Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham have said on their shows? No, not really.
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) April 27, 2020

Diamond & Silk “argued that the number of American coronavirus deaths has been inflated to make Trump look bad” on their livestream
So did Fox host Tucker Carlson and senior political analyst Brit Hume on Carlson’s Fox News show! https://t.co/pPsa8lHKgG
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) April 27, 2020

ON WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY

EDUCATION USA 

Teachers union: 'Scream bloody murder' if schools reopen against medical advice

Schools in most states have been ordered to stay closed the rest of the year or strongly urged to do so.


A sign taped to the front door of an elementary school. | Rick Bowmer/AP Photo

By NICOLE GAUDIANO 04/28/2020

The nation's two biggest teachers unions say they would consider strikes or major protests if schools reopen without the proper safety measures in place or against the advice of medical experts — raising the possibility of yet more school disruptions.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, previewing a reopening plan first with POLITICO, said funding is needed for a host of public health measures for schools, including personal protective equipment. Collective bargaining, strong enforcement of safety standards and protections from retaliation will be important for teachers and staff so they feel safe to speak up as schools try new approaches, she said.

If schools are reopened without proper safety measures, “you scream bloody murder,” Weingarten said. “And you do everything you can to ... use your public megaphones.”

Teachers are united after more than two years of strikes for more state funding and they have “tremendous power” as advocates for children's safety, said Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association. She didn’t rule out strikes if state leaders move prematurely on a reopening of schools, and she said she believes parents would protest too.

“You put all things on the table when it comes to student safety,” Eskelsen García said. "And ... I don't think we'll be alone."

Teachers are preparing for the possibility of staggered class times, temperature taking, physical distancing and other measures that will create an unrecognizable K-12 classroom experience for students when schools eventually reopen.

Governors in some states have already lifted some restrictions on small businesses like hair salons and elective surgeries. But the eventual reopening of schools will represent a major step, driving a return to normal life — or at least a new normal — perhaps unlike anything else. President Donald Trump said Monday that governors are preparing to reopen shuttered school systems, without citing specific states.



No large scale reopening is on the immediate horizon. Schools in most states have been ordered to stay closed the rest of the year or strongly urged to do so. Trump’s three-phased plan for reopening the economy calls for reopening schools, at governors’ discretion, after about a month of declines in cases along with other criteria. “You're seeing a lot of governors get out and they want to open it up,” the president said when asked for his advice to state leaders who are weighing an economic restart.

“Many are thinking about their school system. Not a long way to go in the school system right now for this season, for this year. But I think you'll see a lot of schools open up, even if it’s for a very short period of time,” Trump said.

Absent a vaccine, Weingarten said it’s important to proceed in a safe and coordinated way “so that people feel that they’re all in.” AFT’s plan is informed by countries that have cautiously reopened classrooms, including Denmark, Norway and Germany, she said.

The union in its reopening plan will encourage its affiliates to lobby districts for five conditions before opening schools: a decline in cases over 14 days; adequate testing, tracing and isolation; public health measures like temperature taking, cleaning protocols, personal protective equipment and physical distancing measures such as staggered school times; transparency and fidelity to safety measures and enforcement; and increased funding to implement the host of changes.

Already, AFT’s affiliate in New York City, United Federation of Teachers, laid down a marker, launching a petition calling for widespread testing, temperature checks, rigorous cleaning and protective gear in every school and exhaustive tracing procedures as conditions for reopening schools.

“In places where there's a strong commitment to worker voice, we're going to get that and in places where there isn't, we're going to have to use all sorts of other vehicles, or what's going to happen is the virus will reemerge,” Weingarten said.

Eskelsen García said NEA is connecting thousands of members so they can share ideas.

Some are raising questions about what it will take to reopen, such as how you social distance in overcrowded classrooms, she said. Do they use the gym or lunch room to spread out? Nearby buildings? Do they have or need protective gear?

Some say reopening will require a lot more time from teachers and support staff, but that can’t come free.

“There will probably be some instances where we will have to look at renegotiating contracts for teachers who may be asked to do some pretty heroic things to get those schools open,” she said.

State and local leaders have already butted heads with unions during the shift to remote learning. In California, disagreements cropped up over issues like grading and student access to computers. The Chicago Teachers Union clashed with Chicago Public Schools over its decision to send home third quarter report cards. In South Bend, Ind., the local NEA affiliate filed a complaint with the state accusing the South Bend Community School Corp. of unfair labor practices, the South Bend Tribune reported.

“The safety of students, teachers and staff is chiefs' top concern when deciding when and how to reopen school buildings. New precautions will be required to do so safely, and teachers will be an important partner in making those decisions," said Carolyn Phenicie, spokesperson for the Council of Chief State School Officers.


Thomas J. Gentzel, executive director and CEO of the National School Boards Association, said during an April 2 interview that he expects issues with collective bargaining if the school year needs to be extended or if schools reach the point of reopening.

“Even in districts where the relationship between the administration and the union is generally pretty good, there can still be disagreements about what the terms of the collective bargaining agreement mean,” he said, during a discussion about remote learning.

Both Weingarten and Eskelsen García say educators and school districts must collaborate on decisions concerning reopening schools.

It’s alarming, Eskelsen García said, that Trump’s task forces to reopen the economy do not include educators, who can speak up for themselves and students. Both national unions have endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden and have been outspoken against Trump.

“We have had educators who have died from exposure in a school or working at a school that was closed,” Eskelsen García said. “So we are worried about the big people and the little people and all the people that those folks go home to.”

By contrast, a National Governors Association road map says educators should be among those included in efforts to develop and implement the framework for reopening.

“In places where governors are taking this really seriously, they’re working closely with their state unions,” Weingarten said.

The unions are lobbying Congress for at least $175 billion to distribute to states for K-12 public education and higher education to fill budget gaps, $25 billion for Title I programs for low-income kids and programs for children with disabilities and $2 billion to help address internet access issues.

Also on NEA’s lobbying list is at least $56 million for personal protective equipment for teachers, education support professionals and other school staff who interact with students and families.

“We've got to convince Congress, no, they're not pumping the brakes. They're actually going to step on the gas, because they're the only ones that can help these states,” said Eskelsen García.

---30---

EUROPE
The next pandemic: Rising inequality
The coronavirus crisis will widen economic disparities.



Homeless wait to receive meals given by volunteers during the coronavirus confinement in Paris on April 23, 2020. | Christophe Ena/AP Photo


By CHARLIE COOPER

04/28/2020 10:57 PM EDT
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It took the coronavirus three months to change the world. And it’s only just getting started.

As Europe begins to emerge from the awful first wave of the pandemic — and absorbs the shock of a Continental death toll that has exceeded 100,000 — the fire-fighting stage of the crisis appears to be coming to an end.

Next up? A long, slow march to a vaccine. A successful candidate, reproduced several billion times over and distributed to everyone in the world who needs it, is — at best — anywhere between nine and 18 months away, according to most experts.

With social distancing here to stay for the foreseeable future, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the next stage of the pandemic is going to change many lives for the worse.

Specifically, it’s going to exasperate existing inequalities, as the privileged buffer themselves against its pernicious effects while the world’s most vulnerable struggle not to fall through the rapidly widening economic fissures.

Take schools. Even as some countries reopen classrooms — some with limited attendance, or alternated timetables — there’s still uncertainty about how and when a generation of young people, from nursery age to postgraduate, will be able to get their education permanently back on track.

“There are hopes that schools and universities could be open in the autumn, but there is no guarantee that they would get through another academic year without needing to move online again at some point, if there’s a second wave of the virus,” said Carl Cullinane of the U.K.’s Sutton Trust think tank, which has a particular focus on inequalities in education — something he says are being “highlighted and exacerbated” by coronavirus .

At every stage of the educational journey, the virus has hit, storing up potential problems — particularly for those already at a disadvantage (children from better-off families who might have their own personal laptop are able to enjoy the benefits of online learning much more easily than children from a family with only one laptop in the household, or none).

“We try to be positive, emphasizing the range of policies and mitigation strategies that can be taken,” Cullinane said. “But it will likely be difficult to avoid long-term harm being done to this current generation, particularly if the effects are on-and-off for the next year to 18 months.”

For educational institutions that rely on funding from parents or students — in the U.K., for instance, nurseries have found themselves in particular financial trouble — the long-term future of the business is now at risk, Cullinane said.

Never mind the dilemma of how you get a 4-year-old to wear a face mask or to social distance at nursery — there might not be a nursery for them to go to, something that would put many working parents in a bind.

Pupils stepping up from primary education to secondary are also at particular risk, said Cullinane. That’s “one of the big periods where [inequalities] open up.” This year, it’s possible we could see pupils entering secondary school in September, “not having been in a school room since early March,” he added.

“It is potentially extremely damaging for, particularly, disadvantaged pupils who may not have had the support over those few months at home that other pupils might have had,” he said. “The scars of the current crisis are going to still be showing in the long term.”

Then there’s jobs. The economic hardships of lockdown, furthermore, are hitting those low-pay sectors worse than high-pay.

While well-paid employees in the financial sector can telework from home, factory-workers, waiters and receptionists can’t. Lower-paid jobs are "hit hardest now and they may not come back as fully as white-collar jobs do,” said Ian Mulheirn, a former U.K. government economist and now an executive director at former prime minister Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change think tank.

“The tradeable nature of some of the high-skill services the U.K. specializes in won’t really be affected by this massively in the long-run, but lots of these other jobs will be,” he added.

The pain is expected to be particularly keen in the service sector, as bars, cafes, restaurants, nightclubs and hotels are potentially forced to stay under lockdown long after restrictions on other sectors have eased.

In Britain, the industry association UK Hospitality is drawing up protocols for different varieties of venue under different levels of social distancing restriction. Whatever happens, said chief executive Kate Nicholls, there is more economic pain coming down the track.

Evidence from Sweden indicates that even where there is no enforced lockdown in place, people’s behaviour has still changed. “Restaurants and hotels that some of our businesses operate [in Sweden] are reporting that there is a sort of self-imposed social distancing going on by their consumers,” she said. “The town and city center restaurants are by no means full, they’re operating at sub-50 percent.”

Meanwhile, the experience of post-lockdown China and other Asian countries, where restrictions have been imposed then lifted, is also worrying. "With hotels, occupancy and revenues were 20 to 30 percent [what they would typically be],” Nicholls said. “Restaurants, when they reopened with social distancing in place, saw immediately reduced capacity and revenue 30 to 50 percent of what you would normally expect.”

With the chances of a rapid bounce back looking remote, Nicholls believes governments will need to shift from economy-wide bailout measures to targeted support for sectors, like hers, that could take the worst hit.

“It will all have been for nothing if the support that was in place for the hard lockdown … was suddenly cut off,” she said. “That would just mean we’d postponed the pain of the job losses and the business failures rather than helping to allow those businesses to survive and play their part in the economic recovery.”

The economic disruption caused by the pandemic and the lockdowns means the coronavirus is more than an immediate threat to public health; it will likely cause suffering far into the future.

The financial crash of the last decade — and the austerity that followed — contributed to a stalling in life expectancy improvements in the U.K., according to Michael Marmot, a professor of epidemiology at University College London, who tracked the negative effects.

Marmot fears a similar scar could be left by coronavirus — only bigger: “In 2009, the year after Lehman Brothers collapsed, the global economy shrank by 0.1 percent,” he said.

“Now they’re projecting a 3 percent drop,” he added, citing the International Monetary Fund’s forecast for global growth earlier this month. “It’s huge. And the poorer you are the more likely you are either to have to work outside the home — you can’t socially isolate — or to lose your job.”

All the determinants of long-term health Marmot has spent decades studying — early child development, education, employment and working conditions, having enough money to live on, healthy places and communities — will all be impacted, he believes. “In the short term there will be increases in inequalities in social conditions, which will over time lead to inequalities in health.”

Compounding the problem will be the stored-up afflictions of millions of Europeans with underlying conditions — cancer, heart disease, diabetes and others — who have not received the diagnoses, treatments or surgery that they might have done because health systems have been consumed with the coronavirus response.

In the U.K. alone, around 200,000 people every week are no longer being screened for bowel, breast and cervical cancer, according to the Cancer Research UK charity. “There will be a significant number of early cancers left undetected before these programmes can be reintroduced,” they said.

Zooming out, international inequalities are another significant worry, and not just for poorer countries, said Catherine Rhodes, executive director of the Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.

Speaking at the beginning of April, Rhodes — whose academic discipline requires her to envision the worst-case scenarios — said the impact of coronavirus on developing countries was her biggest concern.

“Even the things that seem simple here, like social distancing, that’s not going to be possible if you’re living in a slum, or a refugee camp, or any intensely crowded setting,” she said.

“What understandably gets overlooked sometimes by governments is that, of course they need to look to what their national citizens are wanting and needing,” she added. “But in an outbreak like this, if we ... just try and limit what gets into our own country, it will just keep circulating.”

The development of a vaccine will, Rhodes predicts, present deep dilemmas for policymakers. If and when we get one, the immediate question will be: how and where to distribute it? “From the point of view of a national government ... its population is not going to be happy if it sees they could have had this vaccine and [the government] let it go to other countries,” Rhodes said.

But getting vaccines to vulnerable populations around the world is precisely, she added, “what a global response will most benefit from.”

Supporting an international vaccination effort could prove politically difficult for countries struggling to find the funds to support a recovery effort — or simply trying to stop the economic bleeding.

On the macroeconomic side, the immediate painful question is how long can the current, unprecedented state intervention in markets around Europe be maintained? With the state so heavily involved in the economy, at what point (and how) do governments start deciding which companies survive, and why?

If the hospitality sector, for instance, has to stay in deep freeze for months and months to come, or if ongoing border restrictions mean airlines can’t fly, how long can the taxpayer prop up businesses in these and other worst-hit sectors?

“For policymakers, I think the challenge is that there is an economic case for supporting those sectors to return to something like a sustainable normal,” said Mulheirn from the Institute for Global Change. “But policymakers obviously have no idea where that new normal will settle.”

Addressing growing inequality and defusing the health time bomb will require governments to resist cost-cutting austerity measures, said Marmot, the professor of epidemiology.

He noted that after the financial crisis, governments argued they had no choice but to cut health and other basic services. “And what happened when the COVID-19 pandemic hit?” he said. “They threw all of that orthodoxy out of the window and said, ‘Whatever it takes.'"

“If you can do it in a pandemic you can do it for the profound problem of inequalities and resultant health inequalities in society,” he added.

Governments will face defining choices about how to square the spending circle in the months and years ahead, said Mulheirn.

Not only will demands on social support systems be greater — with millions more unemployed — there could also be increased pressure for well-funded public services, as people’s admiration for health workers’ efforts to combat the pandemic converts into political support for them to be fairly paid and resourced.

“How are these expectations going to be met,” he asked, in a likely context of widespread business failure, falling business revenues and therefore a significantly shrunken tax base?

How all this shapes politics in the months and years to come is perhaps the biggest and most consequential unknown. Traumatized economies and unequal societies in the past decade proved fertile ground for unforeseen political movements: Trump, Brexit, rising European populism.

Polling by Ifop, in France, already suggests that those who are finding lockdown the most challenging are the poorest. If there is an ever-widening divide between those who were pummeled by the pandemic, and those who (thanks to their economic security, or the nature of their work) were able to weather the blows, that will at some point find a political outlet. The only question is how strong will that reaction turns out to be.

ON WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY

Trump orders meat plants to stay open as worker deaths rise

The president declares meat-processing plants as critical infrastructure amid fears of disruptions to the food supply.

By LIZ CRAMPTON and GABBY ORR
04/28/2020

President Donald Trump on Tuesday night ordered meat-processing plants to continue operating, declaring them critical infrastructure as the nation confronts growing disruptions to the food supply.



Meatpacking plants have become incubators for the virus as employees work side-by-side in dangerous conditions. Twenty meatpacking and processing workers have died from coronavirus, and at least 6,500 have been affected, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
At least 22 plants processing meat from pork to chicken have closed at some point after clusters of employees tested positive for Covid-19, according to UFCW. Trump is using the Defense Production Act to order the companies to stay open.

SOCIAL DISTANCING AT CARGILL BEEF PLANT, BROOKS ALBERTA

"Such closures threaten the continued functioning of the national meat and poultry supply chain, undermining critical infrastructure during the national emergency," the order says. "Given the high volume of meat and poultry processed by many facilities, any unnecessary closures can quickly have a large effect on the food supply chain."

The shutdowns have led to worries about meat shortages. Some economists warn that consumers could see fewer options at grocery stores starting in May if plants continue to shut down at the same pace.

But Trump played down any worries about lack of meat. "There's plenty of supply," he told the media earlier on Tuesday. "It's distribution."

Trump directed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to "take all appropriate action" to ensure that meat companies continue operating under guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.


Trump directed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to "take all appropriate action" to ensure that meat companies continue operating under guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.



The order did not detail additional precautions companies should take to protect workers, which has led to worries among unions and other worker groups.

The Agriculture Department has deferred to the CDC and OSHA instead of issuing its own rules. OSHA, however, has not imposed mandatory safety rules and instead only issued recommendations.

In a full page ad in The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Sunday, Tyson Foods warned “the food supply chain is breaking" and said the plant closings are leading to shortages at groceries.

The plant closings at Tyson and numerous other large meatpackers have jammed the food supply chain, leaving farmers with a backlog of hogs ready to be slaughtered and nowhere to put them. Many are euthanizing animals. House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson said Tuesday that he's heard estimates as many as 160,000 pigs a day need to be culled because of the backup at slaughterhouses.

In comments to the media earlier on Tuesday, Trump said he would also shield meatpacking companies from legal liability from worker claims of not being adequately protection, though the order didn't spell out any specifics.

The unlikely alliance trying to rescue workplace health insurance

As millions lose employer health plans, powerful Washington groups are uniting behind a bailout of the popular coverage.


Two people walk past a closed sign at a retail store in Chicago. | Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo

By SUSANNAH LUTHI 04/28/2020

Big businesses and powerful Democrats are aligning around a proposal to bail out employer health plans in the wake of staggering losses to the insurance industry, as some worry that a surge in uninsured Americans could give new life to a stalled push for “Medicare for All.”

The business and labor interests, who have strong economic motives to keep the current system of employer-based care, are rallying behind a Democratic effort to subsidize temporary extensions of newly unemployed Americans’ workplace health plans in Congress’ next coronavirus rescue package.

But to some progressives who cheered Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) Medicare for All plan, the crisis has exposed what they see as the folly of tying employment to health coverage. Sanders, who's advocating for an emergency version of his health plan during the pandemic, ripped the idea of propping up an expensive employer system in a POLITICO op-ed Tuesday.

"Not only would health insurance corporations make massive profits off the plan—profits that come at the cost of the American taxpayers—but it would still leave tens of millions uninsured or underinsured," the former Democratic presidential candidate wrote. "And during this pandemic, a lack of insurance means more Covid-19 transmissions and more deaths."

America’s health care system since World War II has relied on the increasingly costly employer insurance market. But with 26 million people rapidly losing their jobs amid a massive health crisis, the idea of tying coverage to the workplace is facing its biggest stress test yet.

Employers, health care groups and unions badly want the employer system to emerge from the health crisis unscathed, believing it would ward off any new expansion of government health care. Joe Biden’s rise to becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee was a relief to the health care industry, which has spent the past two years attacking Medicare for All. Health care groups also oppose other more incremental government expansions, like a public option Biden and other moderate Democrats support.

“This crisis will be over — not soon enough, but it will be over — and we need to fundamentally keep that highway back to jobs and job-provided health care open,” said Ilyse Schuman, senior vice president of health policy for the American Benefits Council, which represents major employers. “That’s what Congress needs to do now, and employer-sponsored insurance plays a big role in that.”

Experts estimate the job-based insurance market has likely already lost millions of customers as unemployment skyrockets, and a growing number of insurers hoping to retain business are offering grace periods on premium payments. Few people losing their jobs sign up for temporary workplace insurance, known as COBRA plans, unless they desperately need the coverage. And it's both complicated and extremely costly, since it comes without employer subsidies that typically cover the lion’s share of monthly premiums.

Newly unemployed people losing health insurance can often find cheaper or even free coverage through the Obamacare insurance markets or Medicaid. However, President Donald Trump’s refusal to broadly reopen the Obamacare markets or make enrollment easier for those eligible may limit the safety net’s reach. Many of the poor won't be eligible for Medicaid in the remaining 14 states that have not expanded the programs under Obamacare.

While the health industry and Democrats still want to bolster Obamacare, an unusual bloc is pressuring Congress to fully subsidize workplace premiums for the uninsured. Corporations would benefit because the employer-based system supplies a big tax break for benefits they can use as a recruiting tool. Unions would keep the generous coverage they have negotiated with corporations. And hospitals and doctors could maintain the big payouts from private insurance, which are far higher than the Medicare and Medicaid rates paid by government.

Such an idea could hit the political sweet spot on Capitol Hill. Workplace plans, which covered an estimated 160 million Americans before the pandemic, remain popular. Democratic leaders in Congress know Republicans have little appetite for broadly expanding government coverage, and Biden has endorsed temporarily subsidizing workplace plans. Republicans, despite railing against insurer “bailouts” in Obamacare for years, are friendlier to employer-based insurance and may be more receptive to a deal that could prevent millions of people joining the Medicaid rolls.

The health care industry is spooked by a widely circulated projection that between 12 million and 35 million people could lose their employer health plan in the economic fallout from coronavirus. The same analysis from consulting group Health Management Associates predicts the uninsured ranks could swell from 28 million to 40 million people, while Medicaid rolls in expansion states would also grow. That prospect worries the hospital industry, which endorsed COBRA aid on Tuesday, since the safety net program typically pays much less than Medicare.

Meanwhile, the health care industry is also trying to win back Americans’ trust about the affordability of the system, just months after hospitals and physician groups helped derail an effort to ban exorbitant “surprise” medical bills. Big insurance companies are waiving deductibles and copays for their commercial plans and the Trump administration is offering Medicare payments to hospitals so they don’t charge uninsured coronavirus patients.

Industry experts downplay the idea the pandemic poses an existential threat to employer insurance, noting that once the economy rebounds the same dynamics that have made the market attractive will remain unchanged.

Still, the market has already taken a hit. Additionally the yearslong trend of small businesses dropping employee coverage will likely accelerate, either because they will have shuttered or need to cut costs.

Ultimately, the future of employer-based insurance will be steered by large corporations that are the backbone of the market, said Linda Blumberg of the Urban Institute. The uncertain prospects for recovery from this crisis, however, remain a wild card.

“I think a lot remains to be seen with regard to how strongly the labor market bounces back and how long it takes,” she said.

Unions, major insurers, hospitals and the consumer advocacy group Families USA have banded together through a group called the Alliance to Fight for Health Care, and are lobbying Congress to subsidize COBRA through the next stimulus package.

Supporters said COBRA aid would provide a backstop to hospitals and physicians, whose finances have been hurt by the cancellation of elective procedures during the crisis. Congress has already approved $175 billion to health care providers with few strings attached.

“Hospitals and providers are seeing tremendous expense and increase in uncompensated care and uninsured individuals coming in, while also seeing drops in elective procedures, so I think it’s money well spent in protecting employees in a time of crisis,” said Katie Mahoney, vice president of health policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi first pitched COBRA subsidies a month ago in a proposed alternative to the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that was ultimately approved by Congress. House Education and Labor Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) earlier this month unveiled standalone legislation fully subsidizing employer premiums for laid-off or furloughed workers.

Support from unions puts pressure on progressive Democrats, the driving force behind Medicare for All, to back the policy.

Unite Here, representing mostly service workers, said Congress must subsidize workplace plans. The union’s international president, D. Taylor, estimates 95 percent of its members are unemployed during the crisis.

“The health care crisis of a lifetime requires full emergency health care coverage for those millions of hardworking Americans who, through no fault of their own, have become unemployed," Taylor said.

But the effort has raised eyebrows among some liberal policy experts, who say Democrats are overlooking the health care law they’ve spent the past 10 years defending. They said Democrats should be trying to expand that safety net at a time when health coverage independent from a workplace is more important than ever.

The law’s individual market plans are expensive but are still ultimately cheaper for the government to subsidize than employer coverage. Medicaid plans, which offer full coverage for lower-income adults in expansion states, are cheaper still. And analysts question whether the subsidies would be money well spent when they only buy temporary certainty for workers and their families, who may ultimately have to turn to the Affordable Care Act if the economy is slow to recover.

“At a time when you don’t know if people are going back to work, or where they’ll go back to work, getting them better ACA coverage would be more expedient,” said Arielle Kane, director of health policy at the Progressive Policy Institute.

Moreover, experts note, COBRA subsidies come with a huge price tag and ultimately help the middle- and higher-income people, rather than lower-income people more likely to work retail and service jobs affected by shutdowns.

“Almost no matter the employment outlook or time horizon, COBRA subsidies are unlikely to be the most cost-effective way of expanding coverage or relieving financial hardship,” said Matt Fiedler, former chief economist of the Council of Economic Advisers under the Obama administration. “They’re just not targeted on the right people.”

Congress subsidized COBRA in the last recession, before Obamacare was passed. The aid had limited reach — only about one-third of those eligible for subsidies signed up for coverage, according to a 2015 Labor Department review. Congress at the time agreed to a 65 percent premium subsidy. This time, groups are pushing to cover the entire amount.

Tom Leibfried, a health care lobbyist for AFL-CIO, acknowledged some progressives would rather expand government coverage through the crisis, but he stressed that it would be easier to work within the existing system to deliver faster relief.

“So as happened in 2009, during the Great Recession, it’s just more practical to turn to existing institutions and use those to make sure people get the care they need and don’t face financial hardship,” he said.