With working Americans' survival at stake, the US is bailing out the richest

Without significant oversight, Congress’s economic relief bill will leave millions of everyday Americans in financial peril

Morris Pearl and William Lazonick
Tue 14 Apr 2020

 

People wait for the San Antonio Food Bank to begin 

food distribution as need soars. Photograph: William Luther/AP
Amid a humanitarian crisis compounded by mass layoffs and collapsing economic activity, the last course our legislators should be following is the one they appear to be on right now: bailing out shareholders and executives who, while enriching themselves, spent the past decade pushing business corporations to the edge of insolvency.

The very survival of working-class households is now at stake. Yet the $500bn dollars of public money that Congress’s relief bill provides will be used for a corporate bailout, with the only oversight in the hands of an independent council similar to the one used in the 2008 financial crisis. While that body was able to report misuses of taxpayer money, it could do nothing to stop them.

Moving forward, we need a guarantee from Congress that public money will not help billionaire shareholders or corporate executives protect, and even augment, their personal wealth. As currently structured, there is nothing to keep this bailout from, like its predecessor, putting cash directly into the hands of those at the top rather than into the hands of workers. Without strong regulation and accountability, asking corporations to preserve jobs with these funds will be nothing more than a simple suggestion, leaving millions of everyday Americans in financial peril.

America’s working class, not corporate executives, are the ones on the frontlines

Productive work and consumer spending are the dual engines that keep our economy running, which is why this pandemic poses such an acute threat. Therefore, the purpose of further government support must be to keep as many employees working as long and as productively as possible.

Working people were not prepared for this disaster. There are still tens of millions of American households that haven’t recovered from the Great Recession; nearly 50% of Americans were already living paycheck to paycheck before millions lost their jobs in the last few weeks, and 40% did not have enough savings accrued to cover a $400 emergency. It’s imperative that they be given the lifelines that they desperately need to survive.

The inequality virus: how the pandemic hit America's poorest

Keeping Americans indoors to reduce their risk of spreading Covid-19 has almost completely shut down our massive service economy. It is fundamental that we ensure every company’s employees are able to be both productive and safe, and we can do that only by using every cent of corporate cash to put paychecks into their hands. America’s working class, not corporate executives, are the ones on the frontlines of America’s factories and service industries; they produce what these companies sell and make up the majority of our consumer economy. America’s workers will be the ones to resuscitate our economy long before excessively paid executives do.

When the House and Senate return to write the next stimulus package, they need to institute a total ban on share buybacks for any of the corporations that accept this bailout, rather than the temporary restrictions in last week’s bailout. “Buying back shares” is just another term for shareholders extracting value from a company. After Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect in 2018, corporations took the windfall and collectively spent over $1tn on buybacks, for the sole purpose of adding to the incomes of shareholders and executives.

Over the past five years alone, airline executives – who were first in line clamoring for a bailout – spent $52bn in corporate cash on buybacks, at the expense of employee wage increases, capital expenditures and investments in innovation. Now that these businesses are being handed government funds, we need to make sure that top executives and wealthy shareholders don’t do this again: channel money into their own bank accounts while leaving employees wondering how they are going to pay their bills.

If not properly managed, this economic disaster has the potential to be the worst in American history

If not properly managed, this economic disaster has the potential to be the worst in American history. Our country cannot allow a small number of executives and shareholders to profit from taxpayer funds that we have injected into these corporations for reasons of pure emergency. We need to stop this rot at the core of our economic system and realign the priorities of government with those of workers and consumers.

Even in normal times, America’s extreme economic inequality was a festering sore. Now, this previously unimaginable public-health disaster is pulling back the curtain to reveal how this inequality can make victims of all of us. As we join together in the struggle to defeat the coronavirus, it is vital that we protect vulnerable Americans against further harm.

Morris Pearl is chair of Patriotic Millionaires, which focuses on promoting public policy solutions that encourage political equality, guarantee a sustaining wage for working Americans, and ensure that wealthy individuals and corporations pay their fair share of taxes. He previously was a managing director at BlackRock, one of the world’s largest investment firms

William Lazonick is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, and president of The Academic-Industry Research Network.

• This article was amended on 14 April 2020 to update and clarify the positions held by William Lazonick.



'Coronavirus profiteers' condemned as polluters gain bailout billions

Leaders condemn backing of global sectors that disregard green economy goals

Polluter bailouts and lobbying during Covid-19 pandemic

Damian Carrington Environment editor
THE GUARDIAN Fri 17 Apr 2020
 

Plastic waste besides the Thames, Essex, UK. Environmentalists say only green sustainable societies could cope with climate change and pandemics. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Polluting industries around the world are using the coronavirus pandemic to gain billions of dollars in bailouts and to weaken and delay environmental protections.

The moves by the fossil fuel, motor, aviation, farming, plastic and timber sectors are described as dangerous and irresponsible by senior figures. Environmental campaigners describe some participants in these industries as “coronavirus profiteers”.

Economic and energy leaders say the unprecedented sums of money being committed to the global recovery are a historic opportunity to tackle the climate crisis and create a safer, more resilient, world. However, such action has been lacking to date, they warn.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said: “When I look at different parts of the world I have not seen yet a major emphasis on clean-energy technologies.” He warned of mistakes similar to those made after the 2008 financial crisis when stimulus packages led to the biggest leap in carbon emissions in 50 years, four times greater than the reduction initially seen.

“If we put the money in the right place, we can manage the [climate] risk, and have a much more modern, cleaner and safer energy system,” Birol told the Guardian. “But if you put the money in the wrong place we will lock ourselves in a dirtier energy system, making it much more difficult to reach our climate targets.”


Rachel Kyte, at Tufts University, US, a former UN special representative for energy and former World Bank Group vice president, said: “Covid-19 puts our economies at a fork in the road. Using public money to bail out firms that will take us on the road which doesn’t accelerate decarbonisation and doesn’t address inequality is not just unaffordable, it’s dangerous.”

Unlike in the US, where the Trump administration has rolled back environmental protections, the EU has backed a green recovery.

Frans Timmermans, executive vice-president for the Green Deal at the European commission, said: “[Tackling the Covid-19 emergency] cannot and will not throw us off course in our efforts to tackle the climate crisis that still looms large as one of humanity’s most daunting challenges.”

“Bailouts should all be linked with clear conditions that the money will be used for a green economy and a green society. The very least that should be done is to ascertain that none of our commitments are used to harm our climate goals.”

The nature of the global economic recovery is being shaped with meetings this week of G20 finance ministers and central bankers, and by the World Bank and IMF. Much of the initial financial aid from governments was rescue packages to prevent immediate economic collapse, but further huge sums are expected to build recovery.

Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation, who was France’s climate change ambassador when the global Paris climate deal was sealed in 2015, said: “We know speed is essential with so many lives and livelihoods at stake, but it would be irresponsible to knowingly lock in more human suffering by enabling more pollution.”

Lord Stern, a climate economist at the London School of Economics, UK, said: “The nature and shape of this recovery will determine our future. It is crucial [it] does not lock in our exposure to the great risks of climate change.” But he said it was important to distinguish between rescue packages and recovery packages and not, for example, to withhold support for the workers in high-carbon sectors.

Michael Liebrich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said the systems of the past were already failing the world before Covid-19. “As governments again load the helicopters with money to dump on the global economy … no fossil fuel-based businesses should be bailed out without committing to science-based, net-zero targets. No money should go to industries that have been living high on the hog on fossil fuel subsidies and tax loopholes, like the airline industry, unless they accept structural reform.”

Ben Backwell, CEO at the Global Wind Energy Council, said some governments had extended commissioning deadlines for new wind farms, including those of India, Germany and Greece. “But so far no government has explicitly included stimulus packages specific to the wind and other renewable sectors. Much diplomatic effort went into brokering the OPEC+ deal to stabilise oil prices but the discussion needs to move on now to ensuring that renewable energy is at the centre of economic recovery plans.”

The course of the recovery has yet to be decided, according to Tom Burke, chair of the E3G thinktank. “I think it is too soon to say that the battle for funds to rebuild our economy is being won by the polluting sectors of business, especially on climate change. There are some strong political forces already pushing hard to make it a recovery that is green.”

Timmermans said a sustainable society was the only way to create lasting growth and jobs. Birol, who highlighted energy efficiency for buildings and battery and hydrogen technologies as important goals, also said that the current low oil prices were an opportunity to abolish $400bn a year of consumer fossil fuel subsidies, boosting government budgets.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, was clear about the need to rebuild a different global economy. “Everything we do during and after this crisis must be with a strong focus on building more equal, inclusive and sustainable economies, and societies that are more resilient in the face of pandemics, climate change, and the many other global challenges we face.”

Coronavirus does discriminate, because that’s what humans do

People who face racism, sexism and inequality are more likely to get sick. Taking care of each other starts with understanding this

Rebecca Solnit THE GUARDIAN Fri 17 Apr 2020

A Las Vegas car park has been turned into a shelter for homeless people during the coronavirus pandemic. Photograph: David Becker/EPA

In theory, all of us are vulnerable to coronavirus, but in practice how well we fare has to do with what you could call pre-existing conditions that are not only medical but economic, social, political and racial – and the pandemic, which is also an economic catastrophe, has made these differences glaringly clear.

Age was the first factor most of us in the west heard about in the unequal impact of this virus. It seemed to affect older people the most and children hardly at all, with a lot of younger adults having mild cases. This was misread as young people having nothing to worry about. Then, March was full of stories of desperately ill and dying young people as cautionary tales warning that no one was guaranteed an exemption from this.

Perhaps the widespread attempts in recent years to try to think intersectionally – to understand how multiple factors affect each person’s identity and experience – has equipped us to understand how unequally affected we are by a disease and the measures taken to limit it. For example, the shutdowns that are meant to prevent its spread have wildly varying economic impacts. Some suddenly lost jobs. Some whose work was deemed necessary had to continue in the face of the danger of contagion – medical workers, firefighters, transport workers and food workers, from those on farms to supermarket stockers and cashiers. Some white-collar workers could work safely from home or were already based at home. Some of us are financially devastated; some are unchanged.


In many countries and most US states people were told to stay at home. What sheltering in place means for the impoverished, overcrowded majority in some parts of the world is hard to fathom. What does a family of eight do in two rooms with a dirt floor, little food on hand and no running water? Those who are in prison and other forms of detention find that lack of freedom means lack of freedom to take the necessary measures.

Some of us did not have homes – and some cities made an unprecedented effort to find safe housing for homeless residents, some did not. San Francisco continued to try to place homeless people in shared spaces where the disease had opportunities to spread, leading to 70 residents of one impromptu shelter testing positive for the virus. Oakland endeavoured to place unhoused people in hotel rooms where they would be at far less risk.

As schools were closed, the digital divide meant that more affluent families with computers, iPads and good internet connections had a very different home educational (and informational, social and entertainment) situation than families without these amenities. This newly intensified parenting meant very different things for two parents with one child and a single parent of three, for parents who were supposed to continue working full-time inside or outside the home and those who were suddenly out of work.

Some who live alone have been reporting devastating loneliness; people who live with others have reported everything from exasperation to fear

Universities that suddenly evicted their students and told them to “go home” seemed to proceed on the premise that every student had a loving pair of parents in a commodious home eager to receive them. Of course, some don’t have parents, others come from abusive households, or impoverished ones with no room for a sudden arrival, or no stable home, or ones in which parents are already overwhelmed or ill.

Some who live alone have been reporting devastating loneliness; people who live with others have reported everything from exasperation to fear, including fear of roommates, partners and adolescent offspring who refused to follow the recommended protocols for avoiding contagion. Warnings are emerging about a likely wave of mental health problems from these new situations. 

Domestic violence has risen dramatically in many places.
Gender assumed many roles in this pandemic. Cisgender men were more likely to die from the virus, which seemed to be about inherent vulnerabilities of those with XY chromosomes. Anecdotally, less effective self-care, from handwashing to avoiding contact to less responsiveness to early symptoms, was said to be a factor. Women, on the other hand, had other burdens. If they live with male spouses, children, or both, they are already likely to be saddled with what sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild calls “the second shift” – the housework, food preparation and childcare, all of which intensify when life takes place almost entirely at home.

We were encouraged to start making masks at home – sewing has no inherent gender, but I have yet to see a man making masks and I’ve seen many women producing everything from a few funky masks to hundreds to distribute to strangers. Masks in the US are widely understood as self-protection, while the Asian practice of people wearing masks while potentially contagious is intended to protect others. I also saw on social media someone complain that white men were refusing to wear masks with floral patterns because they were interested in protecting, first, their masculinity, and saw others note that for black men floral and festive patterns were desirable ways of defusing the racist perception of them as threatening. Other black men are afraid to wear masks at all, for fear it will heighten the racist perception of them as menacing or criminal.

It has also become clear that health disparities due to racism increased the chances of becoming severely ill or dying. From New Orleans to Chicago, black people were at disproportionate risk of death. Higher levels of diabetes and hypertension can be linked to the stress of racism; asthma and respiratory problems are tied to the polluted air of many urban and industrial areas; and lack of long-term access to good medical care and food sources (due to poverty and discrimination) play their part.

In the US, another kind of racism blamed the virus on Chinese-Americans, Chinese immigrants or – with the usual sloppiness of racists – those who looked Asian, in some sort of ugly fantasy of collective guilt. One’s ethnicity has nothing to do with whether or not one has been to China recently, and there is no biological difference in vulnerability or contagiousness. Undocumented residents were unable to access some resources and understandably reluctant to seek out others.

Nearly everyone on Earth is, or will be, affected by this pandemic but each of us is affected differently. Some of us are financially devastated, some are gravely or fatally ill or have already died; some face racism outside the home or violence within it. The pandemic is a spotlight that illuminates underlying problems – economic inequality, racism, patriarchy. Taking care of each other begins with understanding the differences. And when the virus has slowed or stopped, all these problems will still need to be addressed. They are the chronic illnesses that weaken us as a society, morally, imaginatively, and otherwise.

• Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist

WaPo reporter: tax provisions in coronavirus stimulus package help wealthy

4/17/2020

Jeff Stein, an economics reporter with the Washington Post, said on Hill TV’s “Rising” Friday that provisions in the coronavirus bill help millionaires in the U.S. through tax benefits.

Stein noted that Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation found that 83 percent of the tax benefits included in the CARES Act will benefit those making more than a million a year.

“A lot of the provisions, especially the tax cut provisions, flew under the radar,” Stein said. “And one of them was a change to what businesses can carry back in losses. Essentially what that means is that businesses who will take huge losses this year can use those losses to offset their tax deduction and their tax obligation in other years and other forms of payments.”

Stein said that those who qualify for these provisions can use this year’s losses to avoid paying taxes on capital gains and other income that was made in previous years, before the pandemic affected their operations.

“That is really a benefit for a very narrow slice of extremely rich people," Stein said. "...Quietly Congress snuck a ton of tax measures, many of which are really aimed at helping the wealthy, in this package that basically everyone had to vote for or they were going to deny unemployment benefits and the 1,200 checks and small business loans."

WHITE SUPREMACISTS IN DISGUISE (SIC)

This Is How A Group Linked To Betsy DeVos Is Organizing Protests To End Social Distancing, Now With Trump's Support

THESE ARE TRUMPS SHOCK TROOPS LIKE MUSSOLINI'S FASCISTI 

Thousands of demonstrators showed up in Michigan to protest the governor's stay-at-home order, and they're helping other groups organize across the country.

Salvador HernandezBuzzFeed News Reporter April 17, 2020

Paul Sancya / AP
A trailer carrying a "Trump Unity" sign is parked at a protest in front of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing.

While thousands of demonstrators swarmed the Michigan State Capitol to protest the governor's stay-at-home order Wednesday — honking horns, waving flags, and bringing traffic to a halt — dozens of Facebook groups were already springing up to organize similar rallies across the country.

"Indiana Citizens Against Excessive Quarantine," "Operation Gridlock Tennessee," and other groups with similar names drew people calling an end to stay-at-home orders, measures that health officials say are essential to stopping the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Protests against the guidelines are being planned across the country. The Michigan Conservative Coalition, the same organization that planned the Lansing protest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday, is helping organizers.

"You're going to see some massive protesting going on," Matt Seely, a spokesperson for the Michigan Conservative Coalition, told BuzzFeed News. "We've been asked to basically share our template with other groups to do the same thing, and we've done that."

Like the protest in Lansing, groups opposed to stay-at-home orders are pushing for businesses and public spaces to reopen and for public gatherings to be allowed.

But the protest in Lansing, and those being planned in other parts of the country, have also drawn right-wing organizations like militia groups that oppose stay-at-home orders, calling them a violation of civil liberties and warning supporters of the possibility of martial law being imposed.

WHITE PRIVILEGE TO GO OUT ARMED IN THE STREETS

Paul Sancya / AP 

ARMED FOR HUNTING HUMANS 

THESE GUYS ALWAYS WEAR FACE MASKS SO WHY THE BITCHIN'

DYSLEXIC SWASTIKA YOU WOULD THINK A FASCIST WOULD KNOW HOW TO DRAW ONE 

On Friday, President Donald Trump seemed to take a similar tone, airing support of groups protesting the orders and calling on people to "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!"

(TRUMP'S ADMONISHMENTS TO HIS TROOPS ARE AN ACT OF TREASON UNDER THE US CONSTITUTION)
Trump, who on Thursday introduced guidelines for states to begin opening up, wrote similar tweets regarding Minnesota and Virginia.


Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump

LIBERATE MICHIGAN!03:22 PM - 17 Apr 2020
Reply Retweet Favorite



Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump

LIBERATE MINNESOTA!03:21 PM - 17 Apr 2020
Reply Retweet Favorite


Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump

LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!03:25 PM - 17 Apr 2020
Reply Retweet Favorite

A Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that, despite the president calling for the liberation of states, the tweets did not violate its rules. "The use of ‘liberate’ in the Tweets you referenced is vague and unclear, and not something that allows us to reliably infer harmful physical intent," the spokesperson said.

Despite Trump's rhetoric, the three states' Democratic governors seemed uninterested in wanting to getting into war of words with the president.

"As the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I'm fighting a biological war," Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said during a press briefing Friday. "I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars. I will continue to make sure that I do everything that I can to keep Virginians safe and to save lives."

A spokesperson for Whitmer said the governor's focus was on addressing the safety of Michigan families.

"We are all on the same team when it comes to defeating COVID-19," Robert Leddy told BuzzFeed News. "As the governor has said, we're not going to reopen Michigan's economy via tweet."

As of Friday afternoon, Michigan has seen more than 30,00 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as well as more than 2,200 deaths. In the last 24 hours, 134 people who have contracted the virus have died in the state.

But protesters argue the financial hardship on people has also been heavy, prompting the demonstrations on Wednesday.

"People are at a breaking point," Seely said. "People put their own families' future on hold for 45 days for the better good of the country and their fellow man, and that is getting overlooked as if it was a trivial sacrifice."

Seely said he was not surprised by the turnout on Wednesday's protest nor the number of groups that have reached out hoping to duplicate the demonstration in their own communities. He said he knew of at least a dozen groups that the Michigan Conservative Coalition had helped to organize protests similar to its own "Operation Gridlock."

Organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, the protest has drawn criticism over its links to Betsy DeVos's family.

"I think it's really inappropriate for a sitting member of the United States president's cabinet to be waging political attacks on any governor," Whitmer said, referring to the education secretary.

The Michigan Freedom Fund was founded by Greg McNeilly, a political adviser to the DeVos family, who has provided financial support to the organization.

Seely said the DeVos family has played no role in the protests and that the Michigan Freedom Fund was independent of the DeVos family, calling the attack a deflection from Whitmer.

The protesters in Michigan have, nevertheless, already caught Trump's attention.

"I think they're listening to me," he said during a White House briefing. "They seem to be protesters that like me and respect this opinion, and my opinion is just the same as about all of the governors. They all wanna open."

Meanwhile, more groups organizing protests across the US continue to show up on Facebook. Some have garnered only a handful of supporters, while others have quickly built up hundreds of followers.

"Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine" has garnered more than 48,000 members, while "Minnesotans Against Excessive Quarantine" has more than 17,000.

Both groups have nearly identical descriptions.

"Politicians are on a power trip, controlling our lives, destroying our businesses, passing laws behind the cover of darkness and forcing us to hand over our freedoms and livelihood!" the pages for both groups state.

Meanwhile, another group called "Operation Gridlock Tennessee" notes that while "this has been an excellent reminder for everyone to practice hygienic diligence - wash your hands, stay home when you are sick," the pandemic "should not give any government body the right to mandate that we close our businesses and order us to 'shelter in place.'"

Across the country, "Operation Los Angeles" offers the same description for its protest.







Screenshot






And while some groups are receiving guidance from Michigan about how to organize their own protests against stay-at-home orders, they too are passing the playbook to other states, urging them to replicate the demonstrations.


Facebook

Despite concerns from health officials that lifting stay-at-home orders too early could usher in a new wave of infections, Seely said people needed to start living in a "new normal."

He echoed Trump's comments about reopening the country, saying outbreaks across the country could be addressed regionally if needed. But he said keeping the country's economy shut down was not an option.

"This isn't America," he said. "We need to resume life and get back to life while this plays out."

Americans 
ARMED WHITE MALE TRUMP FOLLOWERS

 protest US coronavirus lockdowns — with President Trump’s encouragement: ‘Live free or die’ 

Published April 18, 2020  By Agence France-Press


Hundreds of people demonstrated Saturday in cities across America against coronavirus-related stay-at-home rules — with the explicit encouragement of President Donald Trump — as resentment against prolonged confinement grew.

An estimated 400 people gathered under a cold rain in Concord, New Hampshire — many on foot while others remained in their cars — to send a message that extended quarantines were not necessary in a state with relatively few confirmed cases of COVID-19, an AFP photographer reported.

A similar rally outside Maryland’s colonial-era statehouse in Annapolis drew around 200 protesters. And more than 250 people showed up in the Texas capital of Austin, as such protests continued to spread.

They drew encouragement in certain Democratic-led states from tweets by Trump — who has said he favors a quick return to normal practices — though protests have also taken place in Republican-led states like New Hampshire.

In Concord, demonstrators carried signs with slogans like “The numbers lie” (ANTI MATH, ANTI STEM) or “Reopen New Hampshire.”

Their common demand was that the stay-at-home order for the state of 1.3 million people be called off before its scheduled May 4 end date.

‘Live Free or Die’

Others, amid a sea of American flags, chanted the state’s Revolutionary War-era slogan, “Live Free or Die.”

Among the demonstrators were several armed men wearing face-covering hoods, the AFP journalist noted.

“People are very happy on a voluntary basis to do what’s necessary,” one demonstrator, 63-year-old Skip Murphy, told AFP by phone.

He added, however, that “the data does not support the egregious lockdown we are having in New Hampshire.”

He said only the southeastern part of the state, near the Boston metropolitan area, had an elevated incidence of the disease, and he argued that the rest of the state, with far fewer cases, should be exempted from confinement orders.

As of Friday morning, New Hampshire had reported 1,287 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 37 deaths.

‘Free country’

“What about our constitutional rights?” Murphy said.

“All over the country, a lot of people are saying, ‘We will do our part, but at the same time this is supposed to be a free country.’

“When that gets transgressed, people start to say, ‘Wait a minute, this is wrong.'”

Most Americans — by a two-to-one margin — actually worry about virus restrictions being lifted too soon, not too late, a recent Pew survey found.

But demonstrators found encouragement Friday from the president himself, who in a series of tweets called to “LIBERATE” Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia — all states with Democratic governors — from stay-at-home orders.

Trump has repeatedly called for the earliest possible return to normality as virus-related closings have had a crushing impact on American workers and businesses.

But public health officials warn that too quick an easing of restrictions could allow a disastrous resurgence of the virus.

The largest protest against stay-at-home rules so far took place Wednesday in the Michigan capital of Lansing, where some 3,000 people demonstrated against confinement orders from Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Murphy said he had voted for Trump, but insisted his motives were not partisan. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu is a Republican, he noted.

“This has nothing to do with Trump or the Democrat and Republican governors,” Murphy said.

“It is a case of one size not fitting all — the lockdown should cease where it does not make sense.”

‘Students for Trump’ founder urges ‘peaceful rebellion’ against coronavirus shutdown orders

DOES PEACEFUL INCLUDE CARRYING ASSAULT RIFLES IN PUBLIC

April 18, 2020 By Bob Brigham


Right-wing rage against COVID-19 shutdown orders continues to escalate in America.
IT IS ESCALATING BECAUSE IT IS A FAKE PROTEST ORGANIZED BY TRUMP ALLIES ON THE RIGHT AND IN THE RIGHT WING PRESS

“During a virtual convention on Friday for Students for Trump, the college campus arm of Turning Point USA, the group’s founder Charlie Kirk urged members to launch a ‘peaceful rebellion against governors’ in states like Michigan and Wisconsin,” ABC News reported Saturday.

Michigan and Wisconsin have Democratic Party governors but are considered must-win for Trump to be reelected in November.

“Kirk, speaking to over 500 members of the conservative nonprofit organization geared at activating college students to reelect the president who tuned in to the event, derided governors like Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer for encroaching on their rights and urged them to join the protests around the country,” ABC reported.

“A day after his comments, Kirk appeared on a Trump campaign digital event Saturday night hosted by Lara Trump,” the network noted. “Two Trump campaign advisers, Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, and John Pence, the vice president’s nephew, appeared at the virtual convention following Kirk’s comments.”

The same day Kirk made his comments about rebellion, Trump retweeted him eleven times.
Great book. Get it and support Charlie! https://t.co/fG7YXOCk9R
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2020

U.S. governors feel heat to reopen from protesters, WHITE TRUMP SUPPORTERS and the president

Governors eager to rescue their economies and feeling heat from demonstrators and President Donald Trump move to ease restrictions, even as new hot spots emerge

People demonstrate against the government mandated lockdown due to concern about COVID-19 at the State House, Saturday, April 18, 2020, in Concord, N.H. AP
CORONAVIRUS IS A PATHOGEN IT IS NOT A COMMIE OR A REPUBLICAN
I GET IT THAT IS RIGHT WING POLITICALLY CORRECT CODE FOR CHINA

Stores in Texas can begin selling merchandise with curbside service, and hospitals can resume nonessential surgeries. In Florida, people are returning to beaches and parks. And protesters are clamoring for more.

Governors eager to rescue their economies and feeling heat from demonstrators and President Donald Trump are moving to ease restrictions meant to control the spread of the coronavirus, even as new hot spots emerge and experts warn that moving too fast could prove disastrous.

Protests against stay-at-home orders organized by small-government groups and Trump supporters were planned for Saturday in several cities after the president urged supporters to “liberate” three states led by Democratic governors.

But protests were planned in Republican-led states, too, including at the Texas Capitol and in front of the Indiana governor’s home. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has already said that restrictions will begin easing next week, while Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb — who signed an agreement with six other Midwestern states to coordinate reopening — said he would extend his stay-at-home order until May 1.

Meanwhile, infections kept surging in the Northeast.

Rhode Island, sandwiched between the hot spots of Massachusetts and New York, has seen a steady daily increase in the number of infections and deaths, with nursing home residents accounting for more than 90 of the state’s 118 deaths. The state’s death rate of around 10 people per 100,000 population is among the highest per capita in the nation, according to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project.

Massachusetts had its highest number of deaths in a single day on Friday with 159. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker said it would be premature for states to begin lifting restrictions when deaths are still climbing. Citing the advice of health experts, he said states should look for infection rates and hospitalizations to be on the decline for about two weeks before acting.

Trump, whose administration waited months to bolster stockpiles of key medical supplies and equipment, appeared to back protesters taking to the streets in several U.S. states to vent their anger with the restrictions.

“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, “ Trump said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, for criticizing the federal response. Cuomo “should spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining,’” the president said.

A few hundred demonstrators cheered and waved signs Saturday outside the Statehouse in New Hampshire, which has had nearly 1,300 cases of the virus and more than three dozens deaths through Friday.

“Even if the virus were 10 times as dangerous as it is, I still wouldn’t stay inside my home. I’d rather take the risk and be a free person,” said one of the protesters, talk show host Ian Freeman.

Trump is pushing to relax the U.S. lockdown by May 1, a plan that hinges partly on more testing.

Public health officials said the ability to test enough people and trace contacts of those who are infected is crucial before easing up on restrictions, and that infections could surge anew unless people continue to take precautions.

Some Asian nations that until recently appeared to have the outbreak under control, including Singapore and Japan, reported a fresh increase in cases Saturday.

Japan’s total case number rose above 10,000 on Saturday. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has voiced concern that people are not observing social distancing and announced a 100,000-yen ($930) cash handout to each resident as an incentive to stay home.

Singapore reported a sharp, one-day spike of 942 infections, the highest in Southeast Asia, mostly among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories. That brought the total to almost 6,000 in the tiny city-state of 6 million.

The issue of when — and how — to ease the restrictions designed to control the pandemic are vexing governments around the world after weeks of mandatory lockdowns that have brought widespread economic hardship.

In a joint statement Saturday, foreign ministers from 13 countries, including Canada, Brazil, Italy and Germany, called for global cooperation to lessen the economic impact of the pandemic.

“It is vital that we work together to save lives and livelihoods,” they said.

The statement was also backed by Britain, France Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, South Korea, Singapore and Turkey. It said the countries were committed to “coordinate on public health, travel, trade, economic and financial measures in order to minimize disruptions and recover stronger.”

Those efforts include maintaining “air, land and marine transportation links” to ensure the continued flow of goods including medical equipment and aid, and the return home of travelers, they said after a virtual meeting late Friday.

There have been tentative signs that measures to curb the outbreak are working, with the rate of new infections slowing across Europe.

France and Spain started dismantling some field hospitals, while in Germany the number of active cases has slowly declined over the past week as people recover.

France’s national health agency said Saturday that the number of virus patients in intensive care dropped for the 10th day straight, and the number of overall virus hospitalizations has fallen for three consecutive days. The country has seen almost 20,000 virus deaths.

The agency urged the French public to stick to the country’s strict confinement measures, which have been extended until at least May 11: “Together, we will vanquish the pandemic. Don’t relax our efforts at the moment when confinement is bearing fruit.”

Spain’s children have been confined to their homes for five weeks, prompting some parents to ask that they be to allowed to at least take a daily walk. The government says it is studying how to cautiously roll back lockdown measures, but that it is too soon to let kids out since they are a major source of transmission even if they rarely fall ill from the virus.

Fernando Simón, a leading Spanish health official, said Saturday: “For children to go outside, we need to see a sufficiently small number of new cases to ensure that the epidemic won’t explode again and so that we won’t be putting at risk our patients and our hospitals. … We are close, but we need to go day to day.”

Most governments and public health officials remain cautious about relaxing the shutdowns, despite the mounting economic toll.

“It’s wrong, sensationally wrong, to communicate that there is a kind of conflict with health and safety on one side and economic resumption,” said Domenico Arcuri, Italy’s extraordinary commissioner for the coronavirus emergency.

“Without health, the (economic) revival will disappear in the batting of an eyelash,” Arcuri told reporters Saturday.

The Italian government’s decree, shutting down nonessential industries and businesses, runs through May 3. Health experts are advising that any easing must be gradual in the country that’s seen the most deaths so far in Europe, with more than 23,000 fatalities and nearly 176,000 known cases.

Iran, hard hit by the virus and international sanctions, allowed some businesses in the capital and nearby towns to re-open Saturday after weeks of lockdown. Gyms, restaurants, shopping malls and Tehran’s grand bazaar will remain closed.

In Africa, one of the world’s poorest regions, the pandemic is only just getting underway. The continent has now recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths, among them the Nigerian president’s chief of staff, and more than 20,000 cases.

While most of those sickened by the virus recover, the outbreak has killed at least 155,000 people worldwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe.

The number all but certainly underestimates the actual toll. Authorities said that almost everywhere, thousands have died with COVID-19 symptoms — many in nursing homes — without being tested for the virus, and have thus gone uncounted.

The Memo: Culture war hits coronavirus crisis

BY NIALL STANAGE - 04/18/20

President Trump stoked the culture war on Friday with a series of fiery tweets calling for what he termed the liberation of three states, all of which have Democratic governors.

Trump was apparently backing protesters in Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia who have bridled against restrictions put in place in response to the coronavirus crisis.

His tweets were the latest — and starkest — example of how even the debate over the deadly virus is increasingly being strained by the centrifugal forces of a polarizing president and a polarized media.

The tweets were, even by Trump’s standards, a remarkable intervention by a president in the middle of a national emergency. In a four-minute stretch just before 11:30 a.m., he sent three all-caps tweets urging people to “LIBERATE” Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia.

Adding a further twist, Trump linked the situation in Virginia to gun rights. “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” the president urged.

Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam (D), signed several new gun control measures into law a week before.

“They did a horrible thing, the governor,” Trump added at his White House press briefing on Friday.

Trump’s tweets drew immediate outrage from Democratic politicians and liberal commentators.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) — whose state was the first to bear the brunt of the virus’s spread within the United States — accused Trump of “fomenting domestic rebellion” and giving encouragement to “illegal and dangerous acts.”

MSNBC anchor Joy Reid linked to a screenshot of Trump’s tweets, commenting, “So I guess we're just skipping directly to the Second Civil War chapter of this horror novel, huh?”

Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor who is himself suffering from the coronavirus, asked, “Is this trump ‘helping country heal’?”

The largest demonstration so far occurred on Wednesday in Lansing, Mich., where several thousand protesters rallied in “Operation Gridlock.” They were expressing their dismay with the strict social distancing measures put in place by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who has recently found herself in Trump’s rhetorical crosshairs.

The Wolverine State had, at the time, around 27,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. The total had swelled to more than 30,000 by Friday, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

For many, both for and against the protests, the demonstrations have called to mind the Tea Party rallies that arose during former President Obama’s first term. Among the many parallels, charges and countercharges have been leveled about whether the Lansing protests were an authentic expression of popular discontent or an effort ginned up by conservative groups.

In addition, news reports said that some of the protesters in Michigan chanted “Lock her up!” — the slogan with which Trump supporters assailed Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 — in relation to Whitmer.

“They seem like very responsible people to me,” Trump said about the protests when asked about the demonstrations at his Friday press briefing.

Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University professor who specializes in political communications, said that "the model for how coronavirus has infected the political environment is Lansing. It’s sort of the perfect test case."

"You have people who are upset and a governor who is trying to govern, and maybe those people have been riled up by outside forces, or maybe they are being wrongly accused of being riled up by outside forces. The bottom line is, again, everything is so politicized," he added.

Polling indicates that — for the moment — there is widespread acceptance of the need for social distancing measures in response to the coronavirus.

A Morning Consult poll on Friday asked whether people believed it was more important for government to address the spread of the coronavirus or the state of the economy. Seventy-five percent of Americans — and 65 percent of Republicans — said that the priority should be on fighting the virus.

A Monmouth University poll conducted earlier this month asked respondents whether the federal government's response to the spread of the virus had been appropriate, had gone too far or had not gone far enough.

The numbers who believed it had gone too far were tiny across the board — 8 percent of Republicans, 8 percent of independents and 4 percent of Democrats.Meanwhile, a Gallup poll earlier this week underlined the degree to which a return to normalcy will be determined as much by citizens’ attitudes as by pronouncements by the president or by governors.

Asked how soon they would return to their normal activities after the government lifts restrictions on social contact, only 20 percent of Americans said “immediately.” Seventy-one percent said they would “wait to see what happens.”
On that particular question, however, there was a partisan split that could be a sign of things to come.

Only 11 percent of Democrats in the Gallup poll said they would resume their normal lives right away. The figure among Republicans was almost three times as high, at 31 percent.

There is obvious potential for that kind of schism to be broadened, especially in a partisan media environment.

Tucker Carlson of Fox News on Wednesday interviewed New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and asked him by what authority he could “nullify the Bill of Rights” by imposing social distancing rules on religious services.

“The science ... says people have to stay away from each other,” Murphy responded.

The media divides are, as always, even more evident on social media than on the airwaves themselves.

On Friday, Fox News host Laura Ingraham tweeted her support of the president’s call for supposed liberation of certain states by drawing a comparison with the liberation of Iraq, while MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell called Trump “a sociopath.”

Those divisions seem much more likely to widen than narrow in the days ahead.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on Donald Trump’s presidency.

Newsom tells protestors he won't be swayed by politics

BY J. EDWARD MORENO - 04/18/20 THE HILL

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Saturday that he won’t be swayed by the protests that erupted in his state demanding an end to the stay-at-home order.

“We are going to do the right thing, not judge by politics, not judge by protests, but by science,” Newsom told the Los Angeles Times.

Newsom said he encourages residents to “practice your free speech” so long as they maintain social distancing guidelines while doing so.

“I just want to encourage people that when you practice your free speech — which I don’t [just] embrace, I celebrate — just do so safely. This virus knows no political ideology. It doesn’t know if you are Republican or Democrat, supporting the president, opposing the president, so practice physical distancing,” Newsom said.

Several protests have popped up in the California this week, including one in Huntington Beach against the governor's social distancing measures.

“Make sure that you are not infecting others. Even if you feel healthy and have no symptoms, you can spread this,” he added.

Growing unrest due to social distancing guidelines have resulted in dozens of protests across the country as groups demand an end to their state’s executive orders. The protests have mostly been spearheaded by local conservative groups.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said Thursday night that the protests in her state are the “kind of irresponsible action that puts us in this situation where we might have to actually think about extending stay-at-home orders, which is supposedly what they are protesting

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/04/protesters-decry-stay-at-home-orders-in.html

Coronavirus test delay came after contamination at CDC lab: report

TAL AXELROD - 04/18/20 THE HILL

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was delayed in quickly producing a test kit for the coronavirus after contamination was found at some of its facilities, according to a new report from The Washington Post.

The CDC facilities that manufacture the kits reportedly violated manufacturing practices, resulting in a contamination of one of the three components used in the testing process.

The contamination is believed to have occurred after chemical mixtures were assembled into the kits in the same lab space that was handling synthetic coronavirus material. The proximity of the chemicals and the synthetic material violated working procedures.


CDC officials were forced to take more than a month to resolve the testing mix-up, which worsened national delays in the production and distribution of kits, according to the Post’s examination of federal documents and interviews with more than 30 present and former federal scientists and others familiar with the events.

The production and dissemination of the test kits are currently the subject of an investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The CDC told the Post that its efforts “were not sufficient in this circumstance” and that the agency has “implemented enhanced quality control to address the issue.”

“As of March 23, more than 90 state and local public health labs in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico verified they are successfully using [the] diagnostic kits,” it added.

The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

Issues with the test were reportedly first noticed in January after the CDC distributed kits to 26 public health labs across the country. People with knowledge of the issue said false positives were reported at 24 of the 26 sites.

The false positives were reported during testing of “negative control’’ samples that contained highly purified water and no genetic material. That phase of testing is crucial in confirming if tests’ results are reliable.

“The bottom line is, if you have a negative sample, and it’s coming up positive, the only way for that to happen is cross contamination. ... There is no other explanation for it,” a scientist said.

The delay in testing prevented public health labs from performing the initial surveillance necessary to try to predict and blunt the coronavirus’s spread in the U.S. before it became more widespread.

An examination of the CDC’s testing kit by the Food and Drug Administration found no issues with its design but faulted the agency’s manufacturing practices in explaining the delay in distribution.

“I was just saddened and embarrassed when this test didn’t work out,” James Le Duc, a virologist and former CDC official who now is director of the Galveston National Laboratory in Texas, told the Post. “It’s really a terrible black mark on the CDC, and the impact was devastating to the country.”

There have been more than 700,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S., and more than 37,000 people have died. There is still no vaccine for the disease.

Trump ally LICKSPITTLE BOOTLICKER compares coronavirus protesters to Rosa Parks

Economist Stephen Moore, who is on President Trump's council tasked with reopening the country, said he is helping plan a protest of Wisconsin's state-at-home order and compared those protesting such directives to Rosa Parks.

HE IS NOT AN ECONOMIST HE PLAYS ONE ON TV

Moore said in a YouTube video posted by a libertarian think tank this week that he was working on a "drive-in" in Wisconsin to protest the state's stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Tony Evers (D). Evers extended the order this week until May 26.

“They’re going to shut down the Capitol. Shh. Don’t tell anybody,” Moore said of those protesting the order.
"This is a great time for civil disobedience. We need to be the Rosa Parks here and protest against these government injustices," he added later.

Moore made similar comments in an interview with The Washington Post published Friday.

“I think there’s a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded,” he told the newspaper.

“I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties,” he added.

Moore's comments drew pushback from some on social media.

"Could you have imagined the outcome if Rosa brought a gun to the bus?" panned Scott Huffman, a Democratic congressional candidate from North Carolina.

Conservative commentator and vocal Trump critic Bill Kristol called the remark "at once strikingly stupid and deeply offensive."

Could you have imagined the outcome if Rosa brought a gun to the bus?

White House adviser Stephen Moore repeatedly compared right-wing protesters who oppose coronavirus safety measures to Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon who fought for racial equality. https://t.co/u9ozzAtXpO— Scott Huffman For Congress (@HuffmanForNC) April 18, 2020


Congratulations to Trump adviser Stephen Moore on a comment at once strikingly stupid and deeply offensive.
“I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties.” https://t.co/2V1mhWFDC9 pic.twitter.com/TJIa4EZnap— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 18, 2020

Moore maintained during an interview on CBS News on Friday that the Trump administration has waited too long to reopen the economy.

"I think actually think we should have started this a week or two ago," Moore said. "I think we lean way too much in the direction of keeping the economy shut down to try to save every life, not realizing that we're causing huge hardship for citizens — again, people at the bottom and businesses — and we're going to suffer a big loss of living standards because of this."

Protesters against their states' stay-at-home orders took to the streets in several states this week. In Wisconsin, plans for a "Freedom Rally" were announced for April 24 after the governor extended his state's stay-at-home order this week.

Moore said in the YouTube video that he had been in talks with the protest organizers and noted that an unnamed donor had pledged to “pay the bail and legal fees” for anyone who gets arrested during the rally.

“We’re going to see a lot more of [the protests],” Moore said. “So this is a great time, gentleman and ladies, for civil disobedience."

Many health experts and state leaders, such as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), have repeatedly stressed that more widespread testing is needed before the country can reopen safely.

Moore's plan to support the protests comes after Trump on Thursday rolled out a three-phase strategy to reopen parts of the country. However, Trump took to Twitter on Friday, issuing a series of tweets calling to "LIBERATE" Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia, all states that are currently under stay-at-home orders with Democratic governors.

THE HILL 4/18/2020

Trump's trade policy under fire amid scramble for virus supplies

BY NIV ELIS - THE HILL 04/18/20 

The shortage of key medical supplies and equipment in the coronavirus pandemic has shined a light on President Trump's trade policy, which critics say lacks a clear strategy and has exacerbated an already difficult situation.

The shortages of N95 respirator masks, gowns, sanitizer and other protective gear exposed supply chain vulnerabilities that some experts say could have been avoided.

“What we have is chaos. What we need is a plan, and it starts by just figuring out what our domestic supply and demand are,” said David Kendall, senior fellow for health and fiscal policy at Third Way.

The administration has faced criticism from both the left and the right on individual actions it’s taken regarding trade policy and medical supplies, though the lack of a clear plan has been a recurring theme.

"Every government should be considering what are the essential needs in their countries for their residents and how to try to meet them," said Lori Wallach, the director of the left-leaning Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.

"That is why it was disconcerting to learn the Department of Commerce in January and February, knowing that COVID-19 was headed our way, was actually encouraging manufacturers to export them to China," she added.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who chairs the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, accused the Commerce Department of encouraging companies to take advantage of China's move to lower import restrictions at the time, even as the threat of coronavirus was ramping up.

When comparing exports of face masks to China this February and last February, for example, exports to China increased a staggering 2,179 percent, while imports dropped 24 percent, according to Public Citizen’s data.

Only more recently, Wallach says, did the government begin implementing export reviews based on public health needs

Wallach points to Germany as an example of how the system should function, with a national agency coordinating between public health agencies, states and manufacturers to assess and ensure supply.

"That level of supply management based on coordinating demands is how it’s done when it’s done right. That is not necessarily how it’s being done here in the U.S.," Wallach said.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has complained that states are bidding against one another and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, raising prices and hampering procurement efforts.

Just this week, the U.S. International Trade Commission said it would investigate key imported products and produce a report by April 30 at the request of Congress.

The announcement was in response to a request by House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) earlier in April.

"We are keenly aware that our challenges are being severely exacerbated by disruptions and deficiencies in our supply of equipment, inputs, and substances needed for treating and otherwise responding to the COVID-19 pandemic," Neal and Grassley wrote.

Another broader problem is that U.S. supply chains are brittle, often relying on key parts or materials from just one country.

More often than not, that country is China.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that new export restrictions from China have hampered face masks, test kits and other medical supplies from getting to the U.S. Among them were 1.4 million test kits.

The Journal cited a State Department report saying that Chinese policies "disrupted established supply chains for medical products just as these products were most needed for the global response to Covid-19."

China said some of the restrictions and delays were meant to ensure quality control, which has also been an issue plaguing import markets with the sudden spike in demand for new products.

The same is sometimes true of medications. Even when some generic drugs are imported from a variety of countries, Wallach notes, many of them get the main ingredient in the drug from one source country.

India, another major exporter, banned a variety of exports on personal protective equipment (PPE) in late January, though it has stepped back some of its export restrictions.

When Trump took similar steps earlier this month, blocking exports of some PPE as part of the Defense Production Act, some worried that it would invite retaliation.

"It’s just a massively shortsighted policy because it provides any country out there with an excuse to stop trade," said Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

3M, the company that produces the critical N95 masks doctors need while dealing with some COVID-19 patients, raised similar concerns.

"Ceasing all export of respirators produced in the United States would likely cause other countries to retaliate and do the same, as some have already done. If that were to occur, the net number of respirators being made available to the United States would actually decrease," the company wrote in a statement following the announcement.

It also noted the humanitarian implications for countries that do not produce their own masks.

Bown noted that tariffs Trump imposed as part of his trade war with China were still in effect on some key supplies until fairly late in the game.

“Their trade war tariffs on ventilators and masks were still in place until March 17. That’s when they got a tariff exclusion,” he said. “When you talk about the incoherence of the Trump administration’s trade policy in dealing with a pandemic, you’ve got to recognize that.”

Companies that make and sell hand sanitizer, thermometers and disinfectant wipes have called for relief from tariffs.

Neither the White House nor the U.S. trade representative’s office offered comment.

But all in all, says Kendall, the combination of errant, discordant trade policies is hampering the efforts to fight the pandemic.

“We are pissing off our trading partners because we panicked over what we’re exporting, and at the same time we’re not taking care of our own folks, which we absolutely should be,” he said.

“But there’s no plan," he added. "And without that, you can’t square the corners.”

FRACKQUAKE
West Texas Shaken by Magnitude-5 Earthquake, but No Damage Reported

By Sean Breslin March 26 2020 weather.com


At a Glance
A magnitude-5 earthquake struck West Texas on Thursday morning.
Residents in El Paso felt the shaking, some 200 miles from the epicenter.
It was one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded in Texas.

A magnitude-5 earthquake rattled West Texas on Thursday morning and was felt by hundreds of thousands in El Paso, west of the epicenter.

The tremor struck at 11:16 a.m. EDT about 26 miles west of Mentone, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At a depth of about 5 miles, the quake was felt in El Paso, nearly 200 miles from the epicenter, but no damage was reported.

It was only the third earthquake ever recorded at magnitude-5 or higher in the Lone Star State, according to KVUE.com.

(PHOTOS: Utah's 5.7 Magnitude Quake, in Pictures)

"It felt like the vibration of a train when it passes, but bigger," Guillermina Estrada told the El Paso Times. She's a resident of Clint, located southeast of El Paso.

Though there was no damage, the shaking forced the evacuation of the state's 2-1-1 call center that is located in El Paso.

It wasn't immediately clear if the quake was caused by plate tectonics or fracking, but the epicenter was located in an area where fracking has been widespread in recent years.

Citing USGS data, the Houston Chronicle said there have been 61 earthquakes recorded in West Texas so far in 2020, but Thursday's tremor was the strongest ever recorded in that region of the state.

In the hours that followed, the USGS measured at least three aftershocks ranging between magnitude-3 and 3.4. The main quake was also felt on the other side of the U.S.-Mexico border in the town of Juarez, the El Paso Times also said


Fracking may indeed be causing earthquakes in Texas, according to UT study

Rates of earthquakes in West Texas have grown dramatically over the past decade. 

Now, for the first time, studies from SMU and UT track the rise and suggest fracking could be to blame.

Oil pumpjacks line the horizon just west of Penwell, Texas in the 

Permian basin on Nov. 2, 2018. 

(Ryan Michalesko/The Dallas Morning News)

By Anna Kuchment Nov 11, 2019

Since Texas earthquake rates first picked up in 2008, academic scientists, regulators and oil and gas companies have publicly agreed on one thing: fracking was not to blame. Instead, studies tied the quakes to the disposal of wastewater from oil and gas production.

Now, a new study suggests for the first time that some Texas earthquakes — specifically, those in West Texas — may indeed be connected to hydraulic fracturing, the process of injecting fluid, sand and chemicals underground at high pressure to release oil and gas.

“However, it’s not the only cause,” said Alexandros Savvaidis, a research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology.

Savvaidis, who manages TexNet, the state-funded seismic network, identified the connection as he and colleagues worked to better pinpoint earthquake locations in the region, which is home to one of the world’s hottest oil plays. By 2023, oil production from West Texas’s Permian Basin is expected to double, surpassing the production of every OPEC nation except Saudi Arabia, according to at least one estimate.

As part of the TexNet program, seismometers have been placed all across the state. (Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer)

He linked earthquakes to hydraulic fracturing by matching earthquake times and locations with those of fracking operations.

Earthquake rates near Pecos, a city of 10,000 in Reeves County, soared from about two per year in 2008 to more than 1,400 in 2017, according to another new study led by researchers at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. The vast majority have been too small to feel, and several residents reached by phone in the Pecos area said they had never felt one.

“It very much mirrors how production spread across the Permian Basin,” said Heather DeShon, a seismologist at Southern Methodist University and a co-author of the second study.

The second paper was published Nov. 4 in the same journal as Savvaidis’s. In it, scientists led by UT senior research scientist emeritus Cliff Frohlich, examined data from one of the world’s most sensitive seismic arrays. The TXAR system in Lajitas was set up by SMU researchers and is used to detect nuclear explosions as far away as North Korea. By sorting earthquakes from quarry blasts and other disturbances, researchers were able to identify when quakes started near Pecos: in 2009, well before TexNet began operations in 2017.

Since 2008, Texas has seen a surge of small to moderate tremors. Scientists have linked those in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to the disposal of wastewater from hydraulic fracturing, but none in North Texas have been linked to fracking itself. Researchers believe that differences in the geology of West Texas and North Texas account for the different triggers.

While the earthquakes in West Texas have been small — the largest near Pecos registered 3.7-magnitude, just intense enough to feel, but not strong enough to cause damage — they could grow larger as production accelerates, researchers said.

To reduce the risk of larger earthquakes, operators should “be mindful of their rates of injection,” said Michael Brudzinski, a seismologist at Ohio’s Miami University who studies human-induced quakes. To help reduce the risk of earthquake damage, some companies have deployed their own seismic stations and implemented monitoring systems that quickly alert operators when small quakes take place.

The Railroad Commission of Texas, the agency that regulates oil and gas, has been monitoring wells more closely since implementing new rules governing disposal wells in 2014. In areas of historic seismicity, the commission has required operators to reduce maximum daily injection volumes and pressures, and to record that data daily instead of monthly.

“Commission staff work closely with academic researchers and industry professionals to ensure RRC policies and procedures are based upon the best available science,” Railroad Commission seismologist Aaron Velasco said in a statement.

On Tuesday, Nov. 12, companies, regulators and federal and academic scientists will gather at an industry-sponsored workshop in Dallas to share the latest research on human-induced earthquakes.

Researchers are still puzzling out how fracking triggers earthquakes large enough to be felt. Fluid pressure from the injections can travel to nearby faults and cause them to slip. That same pressure can physically alter rocks, pushing and pulling them like rubber bands. That “elastic stress” can travel through rocks until it reaches a fault and gives one side of it enough of a push to make it rupture. A similar mix of factors lies behind earthquakes caused by wastewater injection.

In North Texas, operators inject wastewater deeper into the ground than in West Texas, below the layer of rock that bears oil and gas. In West Texas, it’s often the opposite: operators dispose of wastewater above where hydraulic fracturing takes place. This difference may account for the different earthquake triggers, since deeper faults in older rocks can accumulate more stress and release more energy, Brudzinski said. He added that wastewater disposal and other factors likely also contribute to the earthquakes in West Texas.

A truck hauling wastewater from gas drilling operations drives through a rural Parker County neighborhood in December 2014. SMU researchers say two deep underground wells used to dispose of fracking fluids likely caused a series of earthquakes starting in November 2013 in Parker County. (Tom Fox - Staff Photographer)

Scientists say they believe that fracking poses less of an earthquake hazard than wastewater injection. The largest earthquake tied to fracking in the United States has been in the 3-to-4 magnitude range, said Brudzinski, while the largest earthquake tied to wastewater disposal was a 5.8-magnitude quake that struck Pawnee, Okla., in 2016, causing significant damage to buildings.

Residents in the Pecos area reached by phone and Twitter on Thursday said they were not troubled by the quakes. Joel Chavez, a former middle school teacher from Pecos, said he was initially concerned by the quakes but felt better once scientists like Savvaidis came and set up monitoring stations. “Most people felt at ease after the researchers came in,” he wrote in a Twitter direct message. “Over time, economic development continued and the town is getting so much better that it’s not that big of a concern.”

Joel Madrid, owner of the El Oso Flojo Lodge in Balmorhea, about 40 miles south of Pecos, said in a telephone interview that he hadn’t felt any earthquakes and equated the phenomenon with fake news. “I’ve heard on the radio about people feeling earthquakes,” he said. “In my book, that’s hearsay unless I feel it, hear it, and see it.”

He added that oil and gas development has been a boon to his area.

“I love it,” he said. “I’m a businessman. The more activity, the more money I make, the more business to my little city, to my little town. I wish there was more of it.”

Anna Kuchment is a staff science reporter for The Dallas Morning News. She’s also co-author of a forthcoming book about human-induced earthquakes and will speak about the public response to earthquakes related to oil and gas activity at the industry-sponsored workshop “Injection Induced Seismicity - The Next Chapter” in Dallas on Wednesday.

Anna Kuchment. Anna Kuchment covers science for The Dallas Morning News and for Scientific American, where she is a contributing editor. She previously worked as a senior editor at Scientific American and as a staff reporter, writer and editor at Newsweek magazine. She holds a Master of Science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.akuchment@dallasnews.com @akuchment

Bill Gates has a big problem with Trump’s ‘dangerous’ decision to defund the World Health Organization

Published: April 18, 2020 By Shawn Langlois MARKETWATCH.COM

Bill Gates Getty ImagesPresident Trump announced Tuesday, at yet another contentious White House briefing, that the U.S. would suspend funding to the World Health Organization, citing the group’s role in “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.”

While his supporters backed the move, Microsoft MSFT, +0.88% co-founder Bill Gates clearly didn’t, and he let his feelings be known on Twitter TWTR, +0.56% :

“Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds,” the billionaire wrote. “Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged up to $100 million to help contain the coronavirus just a week after the WHO declared the outbreak a global public health emergency at the end of January. The outbreak was declared a pandemic on March 11. A chunk of the foundation’s donation went to both the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gates has been vocal in recent weeks about the need for stricter social-distancing measures. Late in March, he made his case in an op-ed for the Washington Post.

“Despite urging from public health experts, some states and counties haven’t shut down completely,” he said. “In some states, beaches are still open; in others, restaurants still serve sit-down meals. This is a recipe for disaster. Because people can travel freely across state lines, so can the virus.”

As for the WHO, Trump blamed the group for failing to get experts in China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out the country’s lack of transparency. “The outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death,” he said at the briefing.

Last week, the WHO director-general responded to prior critiques from the president.

“If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. My short message is: Please quarantine politicizing COVID. The unity of your country will be very important to defeat this dangerous virus.”

Gates isn’t the only one airing concerns over the president’s move to pull the financing.

“During the worst public health crisis in a century, halting funding to the World Health Organization is a dangerous step in the wrong direction that will not make defeating COVID-19 easier,” American Medical Association President Patrice Harris said in a statement cited by CNN.

OMGUS Chamber of Commerce criticizes Trump decision on WHO
BY ALEX GANGITANO - 04/15/2020

© Greg Nash

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce criticized President Trump’s decision to halt funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday, saying it is not in the best interest of the country.

“The Chamber supports a reformed but functional World Health Organization, and U.S. leadership and involvement are essential to ensuring its transparency and accountability going forward,” Myron Brilliant, the Chamber's executive vice president and head of international affairs, said in a statement.

Brilliant added, “However, cutting the WHO’s funding during the COVID-19 pandemic is not in U.S. interests given the organization’s critical role assisting other countries — particularly in the developing world — in their response.”

Trump announced he will halt funding pending a review of the WHO for what he described as its mismanagement of the coronavirus outbreak at a White House briefing on Tuesday. He criticized the WHO for its opposition to travel restrictions and lack of quick, accurate information on the coronavirus.

Trump joins government officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in criticizing the international body. Pompeo slammed the WHO recently, saying that the organization needed to “do its job."

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) had previously called for a congressional probe into the health organization, saying, "When it comes to Coronavirus, the WHO failed. They need to be held accountable for their role in promoting misinformation and helping Communist China cover up a global pandemic."

The American Medical Association also criticized the president's announcement, calling the move a “dangerous step in the wrong direction” and urging Trump to reconsider.