The world's nonsense keeping you awake in middle of the night? Good news. Go outside and see this two-tail comet

At 65 million miles away, that's what we call social distancing

Sat 11 Jul 2020  Katyanna Quach
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/11/neowise_comet_spotting/

A two-pronged comet with billowing tails of gas and dust will streak across the sky this month.

If you're in the northern hemisphere, and gazing up at the right moment – around 4am local time, July 10 to 15, looking northeast; and potentially an hour after sunset, July 14 to 23, looking northwest – you should catch a glimpse of the comet, C/2020 F3 NEOWISE. And local time really does mean the time wherever you are.

The glowing lump of ice and rock was discovered by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) probe on March 27 – hence the name. Astronauts onboard the International Space Station also clocked the comet.

Read the directions ... When to expect the comet when looking northeast. Click to enlarge. Source: Sky & Telescope. Used with permission

Solar radiation vaporizes the ice in the comet's nucleus. Gas and dust are freed as a result, and it all forms a cloud, or coma, around the comet’s body as well its two tails. One of the tails contains ionized gas, and the other, brighter, one is made up of dust. The comet made its closest approach to the Sun on July 3. Now, it’s making its way towards Earth and will eventually cross our planet’s orbit and return to the outer edges of our Solar System by August.

Go west ... When to expect the comet when looking northwest. Click to enlarge. Source: Sky & Telescope. Used with permission

The best chance of seeing the comet is a few hours before sunrise until about July 14. Find some place with a good open view of the sky and not too much light pollution. It’s best viewed with a telescope or binoculars, though the naked eye may do just fine. After July 14, you can look for it after sunset though bear in mind it may be too faint for the naked eye.

The trick to finding the comet is to locate Venus, the brightest planet in the eastern direction. After you’ve spotted Venus, find the star Capella... or use one of those free sky-mapping apps for smartphones.

“Look far to Capella’s lower left, by somewhat more than the width of your clenched fist at arm’s length,” Diana Hannikainen, observing editor of Sky & Telescope, America's venerable astronomy magazine, said this week. That’s roughly the spot where the comet will be.

It will appear in the sky as a fuzzy ball of light with a bright streak. “Across the same latitude, observers in both the US and the UK will see the same thing,” Hannikainen told El Reg.

“The difference in what viewers will see of Comet NEOWISE depends more on latitude than on longitude. For the UK, the comet is 'circumpolar,' which means it doesn't set.

“Nevertheless, the best viewing options in the UK are similar to [the US]: for the next few days, the best sights of the comet are those early in the morning, before the Sun rises, while after 14 July or so, the comet will be better placed in the evening, while still remaining visible throughout the night until dawn."

To find the comet in the second half of this month, look for the Big Dipper stars in the Ursa Major constellation, and search just below it, though, again, you may need some equipment to see it.

The comet will pass by Earth no closer than about 64 million miles (103 million kilometres), and is estimated to measure about three miles (five kilometres) across. ®

Genocide denial gains ground 25 years after Srebrenica massacre 

Even as remains continue to be identified, denialism is moving from far-right fringe into mainstream

by Shaun Walker in Srebrenica THE GUARDIAN Fri 10 Jul 2020 

A genocide survivor prays near the graves of his father and two brothers at the memorial centre near Srebrenica. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters

At the genocide memorial centre outside Srebrenica, thousands of simple white gravestones stretch across the gently inclined hillside for as far as the eye can see.

Nearby, over a number of days in July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces systematically murdered around 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys. It was the worst crime of the Bosnian war, and remains the only massacre on European soil since the second world war to be ruled a genocide.

Even today, remains of victims are still being found and identified. Owing to a cover-up operation to hide the crimes by digging up and dispersing the contents of mass graves, there are cases in which partial remains of the same individual have been found at as many as five sites several miles apart. At a 25th anniversary commemoration on Saturday, at least eight more victims will finally be laid to rest at the cemetery.

A quarter of a century after the events, however, the truth about what happened at Srebrenica is being subjected to a growing chorus of denial, starting in Bosnia itself and echoing around the world, moving from the fringes of the far right into mainstream discourse. 

Coffins containing remains of newly identified victims before their burial. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters

In Srebrenica, the denial starts with the mayor. The current population of around 7,000 is one-fifth of the pre-war total, and there are now more Serbs than Bosniaks, a reversal of the situation before the war and genocide. Four years ago, Srebrenica elected its first Serb mayor, Mladen Grujičić, and official rhetoric changed overnight.

Grujičić, 38, an energetic former chemistry teacher, has no time for talk of genocide. “No Serb would deny that Bosniaks were killed here in horrible crimes … but a genocide means the deliberate destruction of a people. There was no deliberate attempt to do that here,” he said in an interview at his office in the centre of Srebrenica.

He was 10 when the war started. His father was killed during the war in a village not far from Srebrenica. Grujičić pointed out that there were victims on all sides during the conflict, which tore apart multi-ethnic Bosnia after the collapse of Yugoslavia.

But what about the international courts that have forensically sifted the evidence and come to the conclusion that the systematic slaughter around Srebrenica in July 1995 did constitute genocide, unlike other crimes during the war? “Unfortunately, all these courts have been biased against the Serbs and this has only deepened divisions here,” he shrugged. He has not once during his time in office visited the genocide memorial, which is a five-minute drive from the town hall.

Mladen Grujičić, the Srebrenica mayor. Photograph: Elvis Barukcic/AFP/Getty Images

His views are in line with those of most Serb politicians in Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated entity that makes up half of Bosnia’s complicated post-war political system. Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, has called the Srebrenica genocide “a fabricated myth”, and the Republika Srpska authorities have set up a commission to investigate the events. Its report, due later this year, is expected to whitewash the crimes of Bosnian Serb forces.

“This is the next phase, even worse than genocide denial: to try to create a new historical reality,” said Serge Brammertz, who spent nearly a decade as chief prosecutor at the UN international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. The tribunal convicted the Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadžić and the military commander Ratko Mladić of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Mladić’s appeal is still under way.

The genocide has long been an inspiration for far-right extremists and Islamophobes. The Christchurch mosque attacker last year played a song glorifying Karadžić just prior to the assault, and years earlier Anders Breivik also sought inspiration in the Balkan wars and Serb ultra-nationalism.

Recently, however, questioning the genocide has been gaining more mainstream approval. Most infuriating for survivors was the award of last year’s Nobel prize for literature to the Austrian writer Peter Handke. He had delivered a eulogy at the funeral of the Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević and made a number of revisionist statements about the events of the Bosnian war that have led to accusations of genocide denial.
Remains found in a mass grave in the eastern village of Kamenica, believed to have been transferred from Srebrenica. Photograph: Danilo Krstanovic/ReutersIn a press conference before the prize-giving ceremony, when Handke was asked whether he accepted that the Srebrenica massacre had happened, he dodged the question, calling it “empty and ignorant” and comparing it to hate mail he said he had received containing soiled toilet paper.

Emir Suljagić, who runs the sombre genocide memorial centre at Potočari, just outside Srebrenica, said: “I am not a fan of cancel culture but if there’s one thing that should cancel you, surely it’s genocide denial, it’s speaking at Milošević’s funeral.”

The memorial centre is located in the former headquarters of the Dutch UN battalion that in July 1995 failed to protect the people gathered in Srebrenica, which had been declared a UN safe zone. Suljagić, who survived because he worked as a translator for the mission, spoke of the trauma for returnees who have to live in places where the crimes took place. He told a story from his years working as a journalist, covering war crimes trials in The Hague.

Suljagić was watching two former Bosnian Serb soldiers give evidence against their commander at one trial. The men testified under pseudonyms and with their voice and appearance altered, but as they recounted their role in a massacre, Suljagić pieced together their identities from information given to the court. He had been to school with both of them. He assumed they had been given immunity for their role in the massacre in exchange for testifying against their commander.

“Nine years later, I’m in the parking lot of the local supermarket and one of those guys comes out and recognises me and says: ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ They both live locally. And I’m thinking: ‘Do I tell him? Do I tell him I know?’ In the end, I said nothing, but I still see them occasionally.

” 

An aerial view of the memorial centre. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters
With survivors and perpetrators living side by side, and given the country’s divided politics, it is hard to imagine closure and reconciliation coming soon. Hasan Hasanović, who lost his twin brother and his father in the genocide, said it would be possible to talk about progress when school trips of Serb pupils come to tour the genocide memorial, where he works as a guide.

Schooling, like so much in Bosnia, is still divided along ethnic lines. Pupils are split into separate classes for “national subjects” such as history, and while the Bosniak textbooks cover the genocide, the Serb textbooks gloss it over. There is little hope of a unified curriculum in the country in the foreseeable future. “The main nationalist parties that continue to benefit from social division have no interest in changing a divisive status quo,” said Valery Perry, of the Democratization Policy Council in Sarajevo.

At Srebrenica’s elementary school, teachers avoid discussing the war at all, said the headmaster, Dragi Jovanović. “Even adults, when we sit together, we simply do not touch these topics ... We are trying not to hurt people’s feelings, and at this point you can’t educate the children without hurting their feelings,” he said.

How, then, would he respond to a pupil who asked why there was such a vast cemetery on the outskirts of town? “I have never been asked such a question,” he said.

25 Years After Srebrenica: No Peace or Reconciliation in West Balkans

Imagine it is 1970 — and still there is no peace or reconciliation between France and Germany. Fast forward to the present and consider the situation in the West Balkans.
By Denis MacShane, July 11, 2020 THE GLOBALIST


Credit: djstanek - www.flickr.com

Takeaways
Imagine it is 1970 and still there is no reconciliation between France and Germany. That’s where the West Balkans are 25 years after the Srebrenica massacre.

Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vucic, a longtime cheerleader of “Serbia über Alles,” earlier in his career was proud to play chess with Ratko Mladic -- the Srebrenica killer-in-chief.

Aleksandar Vucic -- who was Slobodan Milosevic’s Information Minister during the later genocidal attacks on Kosovan villages -- today is making nice with the Chinese.

In line with his love of China’s masters, Aleksandar Vucic has created an elected authoritarianism making Serbia a one-man-rule state.

It weakens Josep Borrell’s position that he cannot speak for a united Europe. Kosovo keeps looking to the US and is hoping for a Biden win.

Belgrade “no war, no peace” politics is keeping the West Balkans from integrating into the EU.

Imagine it is 1970 — and still there is no peace or reconciliation between France and Germany.

Now, fast forward to the present and realize that 25 years after the worst genocidal slaughter of Europeans since the World War Two, there is still no final peace or agreement on the most basic of relations between peoples and states in the West Balkans — the region of Europe between the Alps and the Aegean.
An indisputable war crime

25 years ago, on July 11, 1995 8,000 men and boys were taken out from the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. They were put to death one by one. Serb soldiers had prepared the mass graves with excavators.

They had exactly the right number of plastic handcuffs to fasten arms behind backs. The Serb executioners had been issued with enough bullets for their murder, and given regular coffee breaks in case they got tired.
Truly dark parallels

The world was outraged by Nazi killings in Lidice in what is now the Czech Republic. Then 173 were killed by the SS as revenge for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich — the Nazi ruler of occupied Bohemia.

In Oradour-sur-Glane in the summer of 1944 the Das Reich Division slaughtered 642 villagers as a reprisal for French resistance attacks on German soldiers hurrying north to take part in the Battle for Normandy.

Those two moments of Nazi murderous brutality are insignificant compared to the genocidal attacks at Srebenica. Yet, for years the political leadership as well as the military commanders responsible for the killings were protected by Serbia where politicians put every obstacle in the path of UN investigators.

The dirt on the hands of Serbia’s president today

A cheerleader for this approach of “Serbia über Alles” was a young politician, Aleksandar Vucic. Now Serbia’s president, he was then proud to play chess with the likes of “General” Ratko Mladic, the Srebrenica killer-in-chief.

Vucic was in the Serbian Radical Party and called for the creation of a Greater Serbia and proclaimed that “For every Serb killed we will kill 100 Muslims.”

Today, Serge Bammertz, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, set up by the UN Security Council argues that “a number of alleged genocidists have fled to Serbia and found safe haven there, including political leaders and military commanders.”

Meanwhile, Aleksandar Vucic dominates Serbian politics as President of his country. True to form, the man who then acted as Slobodan Milosevic’s Information Minister during the later genocidal attacks on Kosovan villages and farmers by Serbs during the Kosovo war of liberation 1998-99 today is making nice with the Chinese.
Milosevic’s long reach via his presidential understudy

At the time, Vucic banned foreign TV crews from Belgrade and took control of Serb media to pump out anti-Kosovan propaganda and whip up hate against the Kosovans as they sought their own independence and identity.

Vucic has copied his master, Slobadan Milosevic, in pumping up Serb nationalism as the main political force field in the country. He easily won an election in July which was boycotted by opposition parties.

A China lover

In line with his love of China’s masters, Vucic has created an elected authoritarianism making Serbia a one-man-ruled state. The question now is what he does with his supreme power.

This week, Vucic was received by President Macron and also held talks with the Kosovo prime minister brokered by the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.
A complete road block

In the 21 years since the end of the Kosovo war and expulsion of the Serb death squads and military from the small Balkan nation, the Serbs have refused to accept that Kosovo is no longer a province of Serbia ruled by Belgrade. It is this denial of reality that blocks any final peace settlement in this small corner of Europe.

Borrell’s predecessors in charge of EU foreign policy — first Britain’s Cathy Ashton then Italy’s Frederic a Mogherini — tried to bring Belgrade and Pristina together but everything foundered on Vucic’s Serb nationalism and refusal to accept the existence of Kosovo.
Also doing Putin’s bidding

Vucic has always had the backing of Putin who enjoys the sight of neither the United States nor the EU able to make a final peace in the West Balkans. Vucic is helped by the short-sighted policy of five EU member states who like Serbia refuse to recognize Kosovo.

Each of them has disputes with neighbors over territorial claims. Romania and Slovakia nonetheless recognize Hungary despite Hungarian irredentism.

Cyprus and Greece recognize Turkey despite opposing Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus. Spain has a problem with Catalonia but the comparison with Kosovo refusing to be ruled by Serbia is absurd.
Europe not united

It does however weaken Borrell’s position as he cannot speak for a united Europe. Kosovo keeps looking to the United States and is hoping for a Biden win. It pins its hopes on the fact that Joe Biden’s beloved late son Beau Biden (who died from cancer) had served in Kosovo and that Joe Biden as Vice President had visited Kosovo to offer U.S. support.

In the 1990s, the complaint laid at the EU’s door was that it failed to stop the Milosevic wars and stamp down on Serb aggression and nationalism which gave rise to Srebrenica.

In 2020, the EU still seems unable to face down Vucic’s Serb nationalism and get Belgrade to accept that its no war, no peace politics is keeping the Western Balkans as a whole from integrating into Europe.

More on this topic
A World of Twenty-Year Cycles?
Serbia and Kosovo — On the Road to Europe?
Letter from Serbia: The EU and the Western Balkans


About 

Denis MacShane is a Contributing Editor at The Globalist. He was the UK's Minister for Europe from 2002 to 2005 — and is the author of “Brexiternity. The Uncertain Fate of Britain” published by IB Tauris-Bloomsbury, London, October 2019. Follow him @DenisMacShane

The Quarantine Stream: ‘Starship Troopers’ is a Hilarious, Chilling Satire That Arrived a Few Decades Early

Posted on Friday, July 10th, 2020 by Jacob Hall

(Welcome to The Quarantine Stream, a new series where the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.)

The Movie: Starship Troopers

Where You Can Stream It: Netflix

The Pitch: 10 years after making his first blistering satire of American culture disguised as a silly action movie with RoboCop, director Paul Verhoeven topped himself. His big screen take on Robert Heinlein’s militaristic science fiction novel Starship Troopers is less of an adaptation and more of an evisceration, a shiny, big-budget middle finger to fascism disguised as a vapid blockbuster. Would you like to know more?

Why It’s Essential Viewing: I was too young too fully wrap my head around Starship Troopers when it first came out in 1997. As a youngster, it was clearly a big, bombastic action movie filled with violence and epic battles and dizzying visual effects. Watching armies of soldiers battle armies of giant bugs was a blast. But it was also lunkheaded, stupid, filled with wooden actors playing stock characters. It was all nonsense: lightweight fluff that was enjoyable enough as cinematic junk food. But Paul Verhoeven had proven himself ahead of the curve with RoboCop and he proved it again here, because Starship Troopers is the most damning, angry, brutal satire of authoritarianism ever made by a major studio. And it’s been smuggled inside of a different movie altogether. Would you like to know more?

Verhoeven famously read the novel of Starship Troopers when offered the film, found himself depressed by its right-wing politics, and decided to subvert the material rather than adapt it. The result is a movie that only bears a passing resemblance to the source material, “celebrating” its macho, fascist, idiotic politics by putting them in the spotlight and exposing them as the trite nonsense that they are. A high school teacher lectures about the failure of democracy. Only military veterans are allowed to vote. Only “citizens” (a status given to those who serve) have an easy route to having a child. Criminals are caught, tried and executed, on live TV, in a single day. The film’s cheery, cheesy tone – one part old-school propaganda film and one part teen soap opera – add both a humor and menace to all of this. It’s funny because it’s ridiculous. It’s chilling because all of the characters just accept that yep, this is the way things are and it’s pretty great. Would you like to know more?

The costuming and production design set the stage and plant the seeds early, whether you realize it or not. The Federation’s logo, a giant stylized eagle, could be representative of the United States, but it sure owes a thing or two to a certain political regime run by a terrible man with a tiny mustache. Those military uniforms sure are stylish. Do you know what other group was known for their stylish uniforms? And just when you think it could be a coincidence or that you’re overthinking things, Neil Patrick Harris shows up dressed in a literal SS uniform to take triumphant pleasure in an enemy’s fear. Would you like to know more?

Of course, Harris’ casting as a psychic military intelligence wunderkind was a joke back in 1997. He had not yet evolved into his final form, so here was Doogie Howser, space Nazi. The rest of the cast is also a big wink. Soap opera star Casper Van Dien: handsome, square-jawed, proudly blank. Denise Richards: gorgeous, wide-eyed, proudly blank. Verhoeven didn’t cast these young men and women because there were hot at the time – he cast them to reflect a society where everyone is blandly pretty, where everyone does what they’re told, where everyone reflects some kind of ideal master race. Sure, there are people of color in Starship Troopers, but not many of them. And most of the cast are white folks hailing from Buenos Aires, all of them with Latinx surnames. Where…where did all of the brown people in South America go? It’s chilling that Starship Troopers never addresses this. Would you like to know more?

Once you key into the fact that Starship Troopers is satire, a comedy, it becomes a rich and unsettling experience. In a “fist-pump” moment, one character threatens an alien leader with literal genocide. Ground forces wade into battle with no actual tactics, as if mass slaughter on both sides is the only way this society knows how to fight. And when it’s suggested that perhaps, maybe, peace is possible, a character declares “I say kill them all!” In a fascist regime, violence is fuel. Without war, without brutality, such a society loses its reason to exist. After all, Paul Verhoeven grew up in the Netherlands during World War II. He saw this firsthand. And he knows Americans will gobble down a big silly action movie rather than accept a lecture about how empty and grotesque fascism is. Would you like to know more?

That’s the dark secret of Starship Troopers: it’s a fun, funny, fluffy, and extremely entertaining science fiction action movie about something horrible, something that no one wants to talk about. It’s about how people trapped in the bubble of extremism annihilate themselves to further a needless and brutal cause. It’s about how happily we embrace darkness and self-destruction. It’s also a brilliantly staged action movie whose set pieces make its contemporaries look trite in comparison. Paul Verhoeven decided he wanted this movie to have it all. And he succeeded. The result is a film that was a curiosity 23 years ago and has now become vital. Unmissable. Important. Would you like to know more?

Sen. Duckworth Has Some Choice Words For Tucker Carlson About Patriotism

POSTED BY ELLEN - ON JULY 09, 2020  NEWSHOUNDS



Sen. Tammy Duckworth fired back at Tucker Carlson for attacking her patriotism, in a New York Times op-ed this evening. It could make you stand up and cheer.

As The New York Times reported yesterday, Duckworth is being considered as a running mate by Joe Biden. The Times also noted:

VoteVets, the liberal veterans organization that has pushed for Mr. Biden to choose Ms. Duckworth as his running mate, on Wednesday morning posted a video calling Ms. Duckworth “tough as hell” and accusing Mr. Trump of being scared to run against her.

“He sicced Tucker Carlson on a suicide mission to take her down,” the video’s narrator says.

Today, Duckworth came out with this:

Even knowing how my tour in Iraq would turn out, even knowing that I’d lose both my legs in a battlefield just north of Baghdad in late 2004, I would do it all over again. Because if there’s anything that my ancestors’ service taught me, it’s the importance of protecting our founding values, including every American’s right to speak out. In a nation born out of an act of protest, there is nothing more patriotic than standing up for what you believe in, even if it goes against those in power.

Our founders’ refusal to blindly follow their leader was what I was reflecting on this Fourth of July weekend, when some on the far right started attacking me for suggesting that all Americans should be heard, even those whose opinions differ from our own. Led by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and egged on by President Trump, they began questioning my love for the country I went to war to protect, using words I never actually said and ascribing a position to me that I do not actually hold.

She went through Carlson’s deceitful twisting of her comments about George Washington and Confederate statues (which I wrote about yesterday), then she went on offense – always a good idea with bullies.

They’re doing it because they’re desperate for America’s attention to be on anything other than Donald Trump’s failure to lead our nation, and because they think that Mr. Trump’s electoral prospects will be better if they can turn us against one another. Their goal isn’t to make — or keep — America great. It’s to keep Mr. Trump in power, whatever the cost.

It’s better for Mr. Trump to have you focused on whether an Asian-American woman is sufficiently American than to have you mourning the 130,000 Americans killed by a virus he claimed would disappear in February. It’s better for his campaign to distract Americans with whether a combat veteran is sufficiently patriotic than for people to recall that this failed commander in chief has still apparently done nothing about reports of Russia putting bounties on the heads of American troops in Afghanistan.

Mr. Trump and his team have made the political calculation that, no matter what, they can’t let Americans remember that so many of his decisions suggest that he cares more about lining his pockets and bolstering his political prospects than he does about protecting our troops or our nation.

Do read the rest of her op-ed. It will likely make your day.

I don’t know what Joe Biden thinks but I think this woman would make an excellent vice president.

You can watch VoteVets' great video defending Duckworth below.


NEWSHOUNDS

Showing 1 reaction
 scooter commented 17 hours ago ·
God bless Senator Tammy Duckworth, and God damn Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson.

Trump undercuts health experts — again — even as US hospitalizations and COVID-19 deaths keep climbing
By JILL COLVIN AND MIKE STOBBE
ASSOCIATED PRESS JUL 10, 2020

President Donald Trump listens during a "National Dialogue on Safely Reopening America's Schools," event in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, July 7, 2020, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP)

WASHINGTON — The White House seating chart spoke volumes.

When the president convened a roundtable this week on how to safely reopen schools with coronavirus cases rising, the seats surrounding him were filled with parents, teachers and top White House officials, including the first and second ladies.

But the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, usually the leader of disease-fighting efforts, was relegated to secondary seating in the back with the children of parents who had been invited to speak.

Intentional or not, it was a telling indication of the regard that President Donald Trump has for the government’s top health professionals as he pushes the country to move past the coronavirus. Whatever they say, he’s determined to revive the battered economy and resuscitate his reelection chances, even as U.S. hospitalizations and deaths keep climbing.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. hit the 3 million mark this week, with over 130,000 deaths now recorded. The surge has led to new equipment shortages as well as long lines at testing sites and delayed results.

States are responding.

At midnight Friday, Nevada was to enforce new restrictions on bars and restaurants in several areas including Las Vegas and Reno after a spike in cases. And New Mexico's Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said her state was halting indoor restaurant service, closing state parks to nonresidents and suspending autumn contact sports at schools in response to surging infections within its boundaries and neighboring Texas and Arizona.

Yet Trump paints a rosy picture of progress and ramps up his attacks on his government's own public health officials, challenging the CDC's school-reopening guidelines and publicly undermining the nation's top infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci.

“Dr. Fauci is a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes,” Trump told Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity in a call-in interview Thursday, pointing, in part, to changes in guidance on mask-wearing over time.

In his latest beef with the CDC, the president accused the Atlanta-based federal agency of “asking schools to do very impractical things” in order to reopen. The recommended measures include spacing students’ desks 6 feet apart, staggering start and arrival times, and teaching kids effective hygiene measures to try to prevent infections.

After Trump’s scolding comment, Vice President Mike Pence announced Wednesday that the CDC would be “issuing new guidance” that would “give all-new tools to our schools.”

But the agency's director, Dr. Robert Redfield, pushed back amid criticism that he was bowing to pressure from the president.

“I want to clarify, really what we’re providing is different reference documents. ... It’s not a revision of the guidelines,” he said the next day. Indeed, draft documents obtained by The Associated Press seem to confirm Redfield’s assertion, though officials stress the drafts are still under review.

DAS ASCHENKISSER

Dr. Robert Redfield, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testifies during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the plan to research, manufacture and distribute a coronavirus vaccine, known as Operation Warp Speed, July 2, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Saul Loeb/AP)
Deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere issued a supportive statement Friday: “The White House and CDC have been working together in partnership since the very beginning of this pandemic to carry out the president’s highest priority: the health and safety of the American public.”

But the flap has touched a nerve amid increasing concern over how the administration has sidelined, muzzled and seemed to derail the CDC. Repeatedly now, the administration has shelved or altered CDC draft guidance, or even told the the agency to take down guidance it has already posted. That includes in early March, when administration officials overruled CDC doctors who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the pandemic.

In May, officials removed some recommendations for reopening religious events hours after posting them, deleting guidance that discouraged choir gatherings and shared communion cups.

“Here we have at this time the 21st century’s biggest public health crisis, and the CDC has been shunted aside,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville. They have “been sidelined and their voices — their clear, consistent, transparent voices — have been muffled or even completely silenced.”

While Trump has led the way, he’s not the only one sending messages contrary to those of public health officials. At a briefing this week by the White House coronavirus task force, Pence’s message to those in states like Texas, Florida, California and Arizona where cases are rising, was simple: “We believe the takeaway from this for every American, particularly in those states that are impacted, is: Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Not so, said Dr. Deborah Birx, the task force’s response coordinator. She said those states should instead close bars, end indoor dining and limit gatherings “back down to our phase one recommendation, which was 10 or less.”


A health care worker carries a stack of clipboards at a COVID-19 testing site sponsored by Community Heath of South Florida at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Clinica Campesina Health Center, during the coronavirus pandemic, Monday, July 6, 2020, in Homestead, Fla. (Lynne Sladky/AP)
Experts warn the U.S. has suffered from a lack of clear, science-based messaging during the pandemic — typically provided by the CDC. But Trump and the White House have kept the agency at arm's length since the early days, when it botched development of a test kit, delaying tracking efforts.

Trump also grew enraged in late February when Dr. Nancy Messonnier — a CDC official who was then leading the agency’s coronavirus response but has since been sidelined — contradicted statements by other federal officials that the virus was contained.

“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when,” Messonnier said, sending stocks plunging and infuriating Trump, even though she proved correct.

Many outside the White House also fault Redfield, who was appointed two years ago, for failing to adequately assert himself and his agency. Redfield does not have a close personal relationship with the president and has rubbed some at the White House the wrong way.

This week, before his later, tougher comments, Redfield appeared to fold before Trump’s complaints, saying that the CDC guidelines should not “be used as a rationale to keep schools closed.”

“This is the opposite of good public health practice,” said Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington evolutionary biologist who studies emerging infectious diseases. “You put guidelines out there about what’s necessary to keep people safe and then you expect people to follow them — not act disappointed if people follow them.”

The school re-opening controversy is just the latest chapter in a depressing tale, said Jason Schwartz, a government health policy expert at the Yale School of Public Health.

“This reflects a failure on the part of the CDC director to defend his agency, his scientists and the science through the pandemic. And this is what has led to this crisis in the CDC’s public standing, and frankly will take years to recover,” Schwartz said.

Some others expressed more sympathy for Redfield.

Vanderbilt's Schaffner said that Redfield's commitment to public health is clear, but said he nonetheless lacks the standing and forcefulness needed to influence the president's thinking.

“His rhetorical style is nothing like what would be necessary for him to push back. And it’s unclear how much he could push back without being removed,” he said.

AP writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta, Susan Montoya Bryan in New Mexico and Michelle Price in Nevada contributed. Stobbe reported from New York.

7,000 Floridians hospitalized with COVID-19; state finally releases data by county


By NASEEM S. MILLER ORLANDO SENTINEL JUL 10, 2020


An entrance at Jackson Memorial Hospital is shown, Thursday, July 9, 2020, in Miami. Florida reported on Thursday the biggest 24-hour jump in hospitalizations, with more than 400 patients being admitted. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) (Wilfredo Lee/AP)

Nearly 7,000 Floridians are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, according to new county-by-county data released Friday by the state Agency for Health Care Administration.

The data, which for the first time breaks down the number of people in the hospital with coronavirus, was promised by the state two weeks ago.

It does not show how many patients are in general hospital beds or intensive care units.



CORONAVIRUS

Florida reports 120 COVID-19 fatalities, its deadliest day of pandemic

JUL 09, 2020 AT 7:18 PM



As of Friday, Miami-Dade had more than 1,500 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, the largest number reported in Florida, followed by Broward County at 970 and Palm Beach County at 600. Orange County had the fourth-largest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations at 478.


Up to now, Florida has been one of only three states to withhold current COVID-19 hospitalization data from the public. Experts have criticized the state for not releasing the data, which is a valuable metric for epidemiologists and researchers in assessing the spread of the disease. Hospitalizations provide a glimpse of what was happening two weeks ago when people were being exposed to the virus.
“Hospitalizations are a measure of severity [of the epidemic],” said Dr. Jason Salemi, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida College of Public Health, in a recent interview. “It not only can demonstrated the impact on people, but also on our health systems and how many cases they’re starting to see.”


Seminole County ranked 10th in the state with 164 hospitalizations.

Seminole has been one of the few counties in the state to post its current COVID-19 hospitalization data on a personalized dashboard, which currently shows 235 COVID-19 hospitalizations, a difference of 70 patients from what the state is reporting.

Seminole County officials said they get their data directly from the county’s four different hospitals and are constantly updating their dashboard. They weren’t sure what accounts for the difference with the state.



They said the number reported by hospitals in Seminole County is for all patients who are hospitalized and are isolated because they have COVID-19.

It’s not exactly clear what criteria the state is using to count current COVID-19 hospitalizations. It could be that the state is only counting patients who are hospitalized because of COVID-19 and not those who are diagnosed with the disease while hospitalized for other reasons.

The data also shows how many people are hospitalized in Lake and Osceola counties, information those counties had not released. With 183 COVID-19 hospitalizations, Osceola County ranked ninth in the state; Lake ranked 14th with 124 hospitalizations.

According to a dashboard by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 16% of Florida hospitals’ inpatient beds are currently occupied by COVID-19 patients.

So far, local health systems have said that their number of COVID-19 patients are growing, but they still have the ability to handle the cases and are not overwhelmed.

Naseem Miller is a reporter at the Orlando Sentinel, covering health care, medicine and science on multiple platforms, but she remains partial to the written word. She has a bachelor's degree in molecular & microbiology. Her master's degree is in multimedia journalism.

US Supreme Court decisions attack separation of church and state and workers’ rights

By Ed Hightower 9 July 2020 WSWS.ORG


In a pair of 7-2 decisions handed down Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court of the United States granted religious and religion-linked institutions unprecedented and unreviewable authority over their employees, undermining the democratic principle of the separation of church and state.


The court’s ruling in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru permits employment discrimination at religious schools, while the ruling in Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania deprives women workers at religion-linked institutions—including hospitals—of contraception and family planning services.


Wednesday’s rulings follow another major attack on the separation of church and state this term in Espinoza v. Montana, which sanctioned the use of tax-deductible scholarship donations to fund religious schools, further undermining public education.


The facts at issue in Our Lady of Guadalupe School, which consolidated two separate cases by lay teachers at Catholic schools, testify to the anti-working-class character of the resulting precedent.


One plaintiff—Kristen Biel—worked as a fifth-grade teacher at St. James School in Los Angeles. Prior to teaching at the Catholic school, she had no formal religious training, such as in a seminary. The school did not require her to be Catholic in order to teach there. She taught English, spelling, reading, literature, mathematics, science and social studies. Her religious duties were limited to telling students when it was time for prayers, though a student led the prayers, and making sure the students were orderly at chapel services.


After Biel advised school administrators of a recent diagnosis of breast cancer and her intention to undergo chemotherapy, the school declined to renew her employment contract for the next school year. She filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging discrimination for a disability (cancer) and was allowed to sue St. James School under federal law.


The other plaintiff in Our Lady of Guadalupe School taught at a Catholic school under similar circumstances, the main difference being that she alleged age discrimination when her employment status was downgraded from full- to part-time.


Under existing federal law, religious schools receive some deference in employment discrimination cases that concern leaders of a church or faith. This “ministerial exception” protects churches or other religious organizations in decisions about the hiring and firing of ministers or leading spiritual figures, especially those with theological training. Rabbis, priests, ministers, pastors and imams would all qualify for the ministerial exception.


Underlying the ministerial exception is the notion that the courts should not second guess internal religious decisions—perhaps firing a priest—that may hinge on interpretation of religious doctrine, dogma or belief. The church itself, so the logic goes, probably knows its own beliefs better than a court of law and stands in a better position to determine if a minister should be hired or fired for failing to conform to the church’s religious beliefs.


According to Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the court’s majority, a religious school could designate nearly anyone as a “minister,” and thus claim legal immunity from federal anti-discrimination laws. Notably, one of the plaintiff-teachers deemed to be a “minister” was not even a Catholic. As a result of this ruling, therefore, the law now sets the bar as to what constitutes a “minister” so low that virtually any employee of a religious school can be stripped of federal anti-discrimination protection.


The same tortured logic that converts a non-Catholic elementary school teacher into a Catholic minister could easily be applied to the school’s custodian, librarian, nurse or cook. Discrimination—whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation—can flourish under the fig leaf justification of the free exercise of religion. Employees of religious schools have essentially no job security or legal protection from discrimination.


While a dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, challenges this exception-turned-rule, Justices Steven Breyer (appointed by Bill Clinton) and Elena Kagan (appointed by Barack Obama) joined in Alito’s opinion in full. One could hardly offer better proof of the hollowness of their “liberal” credentials.


Kagan did write a concurring opinion in the second case, Little Sisters, which Breyer joined. That case concerns legal requirements under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) that employer-sponsored health insurance plans cover contraception and other women’s health care needs (known as the contraceptive mandate). Hiding behind the largely inscrutable minutiae of administrative law, Kagan in her opinion upholds the Trump administration’s decision to allow a broad exemption for religion-linked institutions.


She writes: “Sometimes when I squint, I read the law as giving HRSA [Health Resources and Services Administration] discretion over all coverage issues: The agency gets to decide who needs to provide what services to women. At other times, I see the statute [ACA] as putting the agency in charge of only the ‘what’ question, and not the ‘who.’ If I had to, I would of course decide which is the marginally better reading.”

Trump’s back-to-work diktat threatens teachers’ lives

WSWS.ORG  9 July 2020

On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump demanded that US schools reopen in the fall amid a raging pandemic, threatening the lives of thousands of teachers.

The move to rapidly reopen schools, which is taking place globally, is a strategic imperative for the ruling class in its homicidal drive to force workers back on the job amid the deepening COVID-19 pandemic. If students are not back in school, their parents will not be able to go back to producing profits for the ruling class.

Trump’s campaign to reopen schools escalated Monday, when he tweeted, “SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!” On the same day, the Florida Department of Education issued an emergency order requiring all schools to reopen in August, to facilitate “a return to Florida hitting its full economic stride.” The following day, the topic of reopening schools dominated multiple meetings at the White House, as well as an online call with governors from every state.

On Wednesday, hours before the White House Coronavirus Task Force held one of its rare press conferences, Trump tweeted, “In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS,” adding, “May cut off funding if not open!" He issued another tweet denouncing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for its supposedly “very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools.”

Under pressure from Trump, the CDC announced that its guidelines for reopening schools would be scrapped and replaced next week with less restrictive recommendations. CDC Director Robert Redfield provided the pseudoscientific justification for reopening schools, stating, “We really don’t have evidence that children are driving the transmission cycle of this.”

No credence can be given to this statement, made under open and public duress from the White House. In one recent study by researchers from Geneva University Hospitals and the University of Geneva, the vast majority of children who tested positive for COVID-19 carried the same amount of virus as adults, indicating that they serve as transmitters. The claims by Trump and Pence are only the latest in a string of lies aimed at justifying the end of all restrictions on the spread of the coronavirus.

In March, Trump asserted that “young people, people of good health, and groups of people, just are not strongly affected” by the virus. This was immediately contradicted by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Multiple teenagers died as early as April, and cases of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) became more prevalent.

Available data from the New York City Health Department shows that in a city with widespread community transmission, the mortality rate for children ages 10-19 is 0.2 percent, meaning the potential death toll for school-age children could be in the tens of thousands.

The potential dangers facing millions of teachers and other educators—nearly 30 percent of whom are 50 and older and thus at a much higher risk of dying from COVID-19—were dismissed by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who on Tuesday accused teachers of “making excuses” in an interview on Fox News.

As with each section of the working class, there has been no official tracking of the number of deaths of educators, but a list compiled by Ed Week documents over 200 that have died from the virus.

The rush to reopen schools is bound up with the decades-long assault on public education. The ruling class sees the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to get rid of older, higher-paid teachers by placing them in a situation where they must choose to retire early or risk death. If educators die, this is seen by the ruling class as a positive good, as it means another pension will not have to be paid.

The drive to reopen schools is guided not by science, but by the profit interests of the financial elite. As with the broader population, there will be no universal testing of educators and students, or anywhere near the level of contact tracing required to contain the spread of the virus.

Despite the claims of Pence and other officials, there is broad hostility among educators to the reopening of schools, with a recent survey finding that 65 percent are opposed to the push to reopen. This opposition finds no expression in official politics, however, as Democrats at every level have collaborated with Trump in the back-to-work campaign.

Comparable to the role played by the United Auto Workers (UAW) in helping to restart auto production, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA), and their state and local affiliates, are now working closely with the political establishment to enforce the reopening of schools.

Before the pandemic, teachers and education workers spearheaded the resurgence of class struggle in the US, beginning with the 2018 wildcat strike by West Virginia teachers. Since then, over 700,000 educators in over a dozen states have gone on strike, while hundreds of thousands more around the world have also struck to oppose similar attacks on public education. The mass closure of schools in mid-March took place only due to the opposition of educators, who were increasingly organizing independently of the unions, which sought to enforce the continuation of in-person instruction.

The attacks on teachers being carried out by the Trump administration is an attack on the entire working class. To carry out a genuine struggle, educators, parents and students must take matters into their own hands by forming a network of independent, rank-and-file safety committees in every school and neighborhood.

These committees should link up with autoworkers who have formed safety committees in the plants and fight to unify the entire working class to halt nonessential production, prevent the unsafe reopening of schools, and implement policies to contain and defeat the pandemic.

The following demands should be discussed and popularized by teachers and parents:

• No reopening of schools until conditions are safe, as determined by local rank-and-file committees in conjunction with scientists and public health workers. Where districts force the reopening of schools, universal testing and contact tracing, as well as personal protective equipment, must be provided to every educator and student. Any educator who chooses not to return for safety and health reasons must be provided with full pay and benefits, and allowed to teach remotely.
• A vast expansion of funding for education. All cuts that have been implemented must be reversed, and hundreds of billions diverted from propping up Wall Street to fully fund public education. Every household must be provided with high quality computers and high-speed internet access to facilitate online learning. Academic, physical and emotional support for students must be provided through a dramatic increase in school counselors, nurses, arts programs, special education staff, vocational programs and English-language learning made available both online and in-person in a safe manner.
• The modernization of all schools. Dilapidated school buildings must be rehabilitated or rebuilt for 21st-century learning, health and safety. A massive program of construction and infrastructure development is necessary, in line with the recommendations of health experts.

The struggles of educators must be connected to the fight of the entire working class against the homicidal back-to-work campaign, which is driven by the demand of the financial oligarchy that workers sacrifice their lives to pay for the trillions of dollars handed out to Wall Street.

As the Socialist Equality Party wrote in its May 21 statement, “Build rank-and-file factory and workplace committees to prevent transmission of the COVID-19 virus and save lives!”: “The SEP insists that the fight against the pandemic is inseparably linked to a struggle of workers against the ruling class—the corporate and financial oligarchy—and its dictatorship over economic and political life. It is, therefore, a fight against capitalism and for socialism, the restructuring of society on the basis of social need, not private profit.”

The SEP and the WSWS will provide all the assistance it can to teachers who want to establish rank-and-file safety committees. We urge all workers to study our program and make the decision to join the SEP and take up the fight for socialism.

Evan Blake

The collapse of the New York Times’ “Russian bounties” campaign

By Patrick Martin WSWS.ORG  10 July 2020

Less than two weeks after it kicked off a media frenzy with its front-page report claiming that the Russian military intelligence agency GRU had paid bounties to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan to kill American soldiers, the New York Times published an editorial effectively conceding that there was no factual basis for its reporting.

The editorial appeared on Wednesday, July 8, one day after General Frank McKenzie, the commander of Centcom, with overall responsibility for Afghanistan and the Middle East, told the press that there was no evidence that any US soldiers had been killed because of the alleged Russian bounties.

“I didn’t find that there was a causative link there,” McKenzie said, “the intel case wasn’t proved to me.” In any case, he continued, no additional precautions were required because the US military already takes “extreme force protection measures” in Afghanistan “whether the Russians are paying the Taliban or not.”

McKenzie was speaking Tuesday by telephone to a group of reporters including the Associated Press, which ran a report. The Times did not report his comments, which diametrically contradicted the newspaper’s own reporting of June 27.

But that night, the newspaper’s editorial page threw in the towel, publishing an editorial on the Times web site which appeared the next morning in the print edition, under the headline, “Don’t Let Russian Meddling Derail Afghanistan Withdrawal Plans.”

The editorial begins with the admission: “There’s a lot still missing from the reports that Russia paid for attacks on American and other coalition forces in Afghanistan. That’s why it’s critical that emotions and politics be kept at bay until the facts are in.”

This appeal for waiting “until the facts are in” is remarkable since the Times itself had claimed to be in possession of the facts about alleged Russian efforts to murder American soldiers, citing unnamed “intelligence officials,” and it gave the signal for a vast media campaign aimed at whipping up a very specific “emotion,” hatred of Russia.

Moreover, the Democratic Party—with which the Times is closely allied—immediately seized on this report to resurrect its long-discredited claims that Trump is a Russian stooge and does nothing without Vladimir Putin’s direction and approval.

This was the basis, first of the Mueller investigation and then of the impeachment inquiry, neither of which developed any credible evidence to back the McCarthyite howling about the White House doing the bidding of the Kremlin. Now the Times report has become the basis for demands by Democrats, and many Republicans, that Trump take immediate action that would, in the words of one senator, result in Russians going home “in body bags.”

The editorial further admits that there was no independent reporting to back the claims of Russian bounty payments. Instead, its articles “cite intelligence findings.” In other words, the Times served as a conduit for unnamed officials, apparently in the CIA, who leaked uncorroborated and disputed claims, allegedly based on the interrogation of prisoners captured in the war with the Taliban. The CIA did not divulge who these prisoners are, where they are being held, and what torture or other mistreatment they may have been subjected to.

The editorial goes on to say: “Then there’s the question of the motives behind the leaks and the solidity of the information.”

One might think that a first rule of journalism would be to question the motives of officials when they come forward with such inflammatory allegations, as well as to seek confirmation of claims made by an agency which specializes in lying and political provocations. However, that is not the relationship between the New York Times and the CIA.

On the contrary, the Times has been a willing stenographer and propagandist for the US intelligence services for many decades, going back to the “weapons of mass destruction” fraud that paved the way to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and well before.

The editorial continues: “Other questions abound: When did the reported payments begin? Were they payback for American support of Afghan militants against Soviet troops there in the 1980s, or something else? Were the payments a factor in the deaths of any American or other coalition troops? Was the intelligence tweaked by people seeking to hinder efforts to withdraw American troops?”

These are the questions that should, of course, have been addressed before the Times published its front-page “exposé.” The fact that they are only raised now, in an editorial 12 days later, is a declaration of journalistic bankruptcy.

As the last question in the list suggests, as well as the headline of the editorial, it now appears that CIA officials opposed to Trump’s decision to pull most US troops out of Afghanistan on a timetable geared to the November 3 election leaked the “bounties” claim to the Times to generate political pressure to overturn that decision. They were successful, as the White House has now delayed the final withdrawal, meaning that it can be more easily reversed by an incoming Democratic administration if Trump loses the election.

The Times is not the only “news” organization with egg on its face after the collapse of the “bounties” campaign. NBC News published a similar retraction on its web site, under the defensive headline, “US officials say intel on Russian bounties was less than conclusive. That misses the big picture.”

NBC admits that a “growing chorus of American officials” say that the evidence of Russian bounties is “less than conclusive.” But it argues that the “big picture” is the unsurprising news that Russian and American interests in Afghanistan do not coincide, and that Moscow has sought to cultivate relations with the Taliban in recent years, and even provide indirect support.

NBC casts some resentful blame on the Times for calling the report on the bounties a “finding” of the intelligence community, i.e., a consensus assessment, which turned out not to be true. The CIA drew its conclusion with only “moderate confidence”—a term of art that means, in effect, “we made it up”—while the National Security Agency, an arm of the Pentagon, said “it could not corroborate” the reports.

None of this alters the fact that the allegation of Russian bounties has entered the bloodstream of American capitalist politics like snake venom for which there is no antidote.

Hence the spectacle of Representative Jason Crow, a former Army special forces officer in Afghanistan, one of the CIA Democrats whose rise was analyzed and exposed by the WSWS in 2018, joining with Republican Liz Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president and unindicted war criminal, to co-sponsor an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act barring the Trump administration from withdrawing troops from Afghanistan until it has taken action over the allegations of “Russian bounties.”

There is little doubt that Democratic candidates, from Joe Biden on down, will be making an issue of Trump’s failure to “punish” Russia for killing American soldiers right through November 3, regardless of the abject disavowal of these bogus charges by the Times.