CAPITALISM IN SPACE
Three companies move forward in bid to bring astronauts to the Moon

Miriam Kramer AXIOS APRIL 30,2020

Artist's illustration of astronauts on the Moon. Photo: NASA


NASA today announced three companies — Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, Dynetics and Elon Musk's SpaceX — will continue developing their lunar landers designed to bring astronauts to the Moon.

Why it matters: In spite of the coronavirus pandemic, NASA is moving forward with its plans to send humans back to the surface of the Moon by 2024 as part of its Artemis program.

The big picture: These kinds of government contracts are key for space companies hoping to make it through the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Those types of funds could help them stay afloat as other means of financing dry up.

Details: Blue Origin's system also brings together Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper Labs — powerhouses in the space industry — to develop the key components to take astronauts down to the lunar surface.

SpaceX will use Starship — a craft currently in development that the company hopes to one day use to send people to places like Mars — to bring crew and cargo from orbit around the Moon to its surface.

Dynetics' design hinges on a structure that can both land on and ascend from the surface of the Moon.

NASA is awarding a combined total of $967 million to these companies.
“This is the first time since the Apollo era that NASA has direct funding for a human landing system, and now we have companies on contract to do the work for the Artemis program."— NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement

What's next: The companies will now continue to study and develop their plans over the coming months before NASA starts to make decisions about which landing systems will continue on in the process.

"We've got all the pieces we need," NASA's head of human spaceflight Doug Loverro, said during a press call Thursday.

Amazon calls Trump blacklisting a "personal vendetta"
TRUMP HAS BILLIONAIRE ENVY

Mike Allen AXIOS APRIL 30, 2020

Photos: Elif Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images; Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Amazon blasted an unusual accusation in an annual report by saying President Trump's trade office as a "purely political act" that's part of a "personal vendetta."

What happened: U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer's office put five of Amazon’s overseas domains (Canada, France, Germany, India and the U.K.) on a list of "notorious markets” where pirated goods are sold, AP reports.

Why it matters: Trump has clashed repeatedly with Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post.

Amazon's Jodi Seth said in a statement: "This purely political act is another example of the administration using the U.S. government to advance a personal vendetta against Amazon."
"Amazon makes significant investments in proactive technologies and processes to detect and stop bad actors and potentially counterfeit products from being sold in our stores."
"We are an active, engaged stakeholder in the fight against counterfeit."

Lighthizer's office didn't respond to a request for comment on Amazon's blast.

Employers split from health care industry over coronavirus demands

Bob Herman AXIOS APRIL 30, 2020

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Several large employer groups this week refused to sign on to funding requests they consider a "handout" for hospitals and insurers, according to three people close to the process.

The big picture: Coronavirus spending bills are sharpening tensions between the employers that fund a significant portion of the country's health care system and the hospitals, doctors and insurers that operate it.

Driving the news: The industry's most recent request — written primarily by the large hospital and health insurance lobbying groups — focused on a few items for the next coronavirus legislation.



Providing subsidies to maintain employer-sponsored insurance, which already receives a large tax break, as well as providing subsidies for COBRA for people who have lost their jobs. Some analysts predict 12 million to 35 million people will get thrown off their job-based coverage due to the pandemic.

Increasing subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans and creating a special ACA enrollment window.

Opposing the use of the industry's bailout funds to pay for uninsured COVID-19 patients at Medicare rates.

Between the lines: Employers know they get charged a lot more for health care services compared with public insurers, but many weren't keen about urging Congress to "set up a government program to pay commercial reimbursements," said an executive at a trade group that represents large corporations.

The demands "make perfect sense for hospitals who are trying to maximize their reimbursement and for insurance companies who are getting a cut when someone is in private insurance," said another employer group lobbyist. The sources asked not to be named to speak candidly.

Many employer groups still have a bad taste in their mouth after the industry torpedoed a fix to surprise medical bills last year.

The other side: Several health care groups that signed the letter dismissed the idea of any disagreement with employers.

"As far as I know, everyone is rowing in the same direction," said Chip Kahn, head of the Federation of American Hospitals, which lobbies on behalf of for-profit hospitals and is a prominent voice in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The coronavirus is exposing the holes in employer health insurance
Bob Herman AXIOS MARCH 30, 2020

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios


A record 3.3 million people filed for unemployment in one week, in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, but people didn't just lose their jobs. Many also lost the health insurance that came with the job.

Why it matters: U.S. workers, even those who feel relatively secure in their health benefits, are a pandemic away from falling into the ranks of the uninsured.

Many of the people losing their jobs right now may not have had coverage to begin with — which would make the coronavirus-related disruption smaller, but still highlights the very large holes in this system. Industries like retail, restaurants and hospitality, as well as small businesses, are less likely to offer coverage

The concern: People who get the virus but don't have insurance are susceptible to high medical bills, or even death if they avoid or are denied treatment.

The big picture: People who lose their jobs have some options.

COBRA: This option allows people to keep their employer coverage for up to 18 months, which is good for those who are getting treatment and don't want to switch doctors. 

However, people have to pay the full insurance premium — an average of $1,700 a month for a family plan — which will be unaffordable for most of the newly unemployed.

Medicaid: State Medicaid agencies determine eligibility on current income, so this may be the easiest, lowest-cost way for people to get health coverage.

Affordable Care Act plans: The health care law created marketplaces for coverage, and people who lose their jobs can sign up outside the standard enrollment window. People may be able to get subsidies, depending on income.

Short-term plans: These stopgap plans, promoted by the Trump administration, provide some coverage but often don't cover major hospitalizations.

Yes, but: All of these options have their own administrative hurdles.

The bottom line: "The ACA made health insurance more recession-resistant, but ... there's still significant disruption when you lose your job," said Cynthia Cox, a health insurance expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

USA Another 3.8 million Americans filed for unemployment last week

Courtenay Brown AXIOS APRIL  30, 2020

Data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics via FRED; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios


3.8 million people filed for unemployment last week, the Labor Department announced Thursday.

Why it matters: While the pace of unemployment filings has slowed since its peak in late March, the number of workers who have lost their jobs in recent weeks — as efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic slammed the labor market — tops 30 million.





Between the lines: State labor departments have been overwhelmed by the rush of people seeking unemployment benefits.

Economists warn that some jobless workers have been unable to apply for benefits, so the number of unemployed could be higher than the weekly figures suggest.

The bottom line: A staggering number of Americans are still losing jobs at historic rates.

TRUMPS HOOVERS DEPRESSION UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS 

Bolsonaro has Brazil headed for worst recession ever
Dion Rabouin AXIOS APRIL 30, 2020

Data: FactSet; Chart: Axios Visuals

Initially hailed as a savior of Brazil's economy as stock prices climbed to record highs after his election, President Jair Bolsonaro now has the country's markets on a crash course.

What's happening: Brazil's benchmark stock index has been one of the world's worst performers, down by nearly 30% in its local currency so far this year, and lower by 46% in U.S. dollar terms.

The country's real currency also has been among the world's weakest assets, down by around 25% against the dollar year to date.

In the first quarter, Brazil's stock market declined by 51% with its currency losing 37%, the steepest fall since 1994.

One level deeper: Brazil's economy is falling apart as it has become the Latin American epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak and Bolsonaro dismisses the pandemic as a "fantasy" or "a little flu."

The president also has fired or alienated powerful allies, including his most popular cabinet member, former Judge Sérgio Moro, who resigned on national television Friday while accusing the president of trying to tamper with ongoing police investigations.

The country's federal police are investigating two of his sons.

The state of play: Citing more widespread and lasting damage from the coronavirus outbreak, economists at Citi now expect "the worst annual contraction ever" this year for Brazil's economy, predicting a decline of 4.5%, versus an earlier forecast of a 1.7% decline.

Go deeper: Brazil and Ecuador emerge as Latin America's coronavirus epicenters

Global poll: Wide support for gender equality, except when jobs are scarce
Rashaan Ayesh AXIOS APRIL 30, 2020

Adapted from Pew Research Center; Chart: Axios Visuals
The vast majority of people across 34 countries surveyed by Pew Research Center say it's important for women to have the same rights as men — but majorities in many countries still believe men should take priority when jobs are scarce.

The big picture: Opinions vary widely across the countries as to whether men currently have better lives than women, with majorities in countries like France (70%), Sweden (62%) and the U.S. (57%) believing that is the case, but pluralities in Poland, Russia, Nigeria and India believing men and women have equally good lives.

Women are more likely to say men currently have better lives than women — particularly in Greece, Slovakia, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Hungary and Turkey.

In African countries like Kenya and South Africa, upwards of one-third of respondents believe women currently have better lives than men. That's nearly as many as believe men have better lives.

In Japan, 77% of men say women already have or will have the same rights as men, compared to 58% of women.

There are also major divides over whether men should have greater access to scarce jobs.
Most respondents across the Middle East, Africa and Asian-Pacific regions said men should have preferential treatment during a job shortage.

Just 13% in the U.S. feel that way, compared to 79% in India, 75% in the Philippines and 52% in South Korea.

Majorities in all four African countries surveyed believe men should take priority, as do many in Mexico (39%), Russia (45%) and Italy (40%).

The flipside: While majorities in many countries feel women have fewer employment opportunities, a median of 81% across the 34 countries believe women have equal access to a good education, and 63% that they have equal opportunities to express political opinions.

Worth noting: The U.S. is the only country surveyed where men (93%) were more likely than women (89%) to say gender equality is important.

Go deeper: Women's equality reframed

Shell cuts dividends for the first time since WWII amid coronavirus pandemic

Ben Geman AXIOS APRIL 30, 2020

Photo: Valery Matytsin\TASS via Getty Images

Royal Dutch Shell said Thursday that it's cutting shareholder dividends for the first time since World War II as the company reported a steep drop in quarterly profits.

Why it matters: The decision underscores how the coronavirus-fueled collapse in prices and demand is upending the oil landscape and forcing even the most powerful companies to scramble to protect their finances.

Shell, which like other companies is also steeply cutting capital spending, said in announcing the dividend cut that "the deterioration in the macroeconomic and commodity price outlook" due to COVID-19 is "unprecedented."

"The duration of these impacts remains unclear with the expectation that the weaker conditions will likely extend beyond 2020," the company warned.

Driving the news: Shell said it would reduce its first quarter dividend to 16 cents per share, a 66% cut. If that reduction is maintained all year, Shell will save about $10 billion, Reuters reports.

The company reported $2.9 billion in Q1 net profits, which is down 46% from the same period a year ago.

What's next: U.S.-based multinational giants Exxon and Chevron report their earnings Friday.

Go deeper: Oil industry has more bleak days ahead as coronavirus crushes demand

As U.S. and China fight, their scientists collaborate

Alison Snyder  AXIOS APRIL 30, 2020

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

All the tough talk and finger-pointing between officials in the U.S. and China about this pandemic belies cooperation among scientists in the two countries who are racing to understand the deadly virus.

Why it matters: Pandemics are a global problem that scientists say require a global solution. But scientific advances are increasingly seen as a national competitive advantage, creating tension that some experts warn could undercut global efforts to defeat COVID-19.

What's happening: Scientists in the U.S. and China are working together on testing COVID-19 treatments and drug candidates, developing vaccines, and understanding the origin and spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

• A new analysis for Axios by Pedro Parraguez of Dataverz, a data analytics startup in Copenhagen, found about 407 papers published so far this year are co-authored by researchers at institutions in the U.S. and China, out of roughly 7,770 published by researchers in the two countries. The analysis was run using the Dimensions.ai dataset and included mostly pre-print papers for this year.
• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of Hong Kong are the top bridges between institutions working on coronaviruses in the U.S. and China, based on another analysis by Parraguez, using co-authorship of papers as a metric for collaboration. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, China's CDC, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill feed those efforts and are important local and regional bridges.
• "There have been huge amounts of collaboration because of the bridges that were built, 10, 15, 20 years ago," says virologist Richard Kuhn of Purdue University, citing students from China studying in the U.S. and collaboration between scientists on past outbreaks.

The big picture: There are stark warnings of "vaccine nationalism" because if a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, there won't be enough at first to immunize the global population.

• The World Health Organization last week launched Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, an agreement of governments, companies and other organizations to collaborate on COVID-19 diagnostic testing, treatments and vaccines with an emphasis on making sure "no one is left behind."
• Political leaders from the U.S. and China did not participate in the launch but there is a rolling campaign to join.

The bigger picture: Atoms, bits and base pairs fuel the Great Powers race. The U.S. is trying to keep its top spot as China tries to establish scientific prowess.

• The next 5G, artificial general intelligence, quantum computing and now a vaccine for COVID-19 are seen by leaders as strategies for national security.

Yes, but: The country's scientific enterprises are intertwined.

• The U.S. collaborated most frequently with authors from China — about 26% of U.S. internationally co-authored articles in 2018, according to a report earlier this year from the National Science Board.

The U.S. and China both benefit from their collaboration, says Jenny Lee of the University of Arizona.

• China brings financial investment and the U.S., with its established scientific heft, extends the global reach of China's research, says Lee, who studies global higher education.
• At the same time, there are long-running concerns about IP theft and foreign influence in U.S. research, and some U.S. lawmakers have proposed limiting the areas of science that Chinese students can study.

The two countries worked together during the SARS outbreak in 2003, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and other epidemics over the past 20 years.

• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it offered to help its parallel institution in China when the COVID-19 outbreak began but, the FT reports, the CDC hasn't asked them to collaborate formally on research.
• China's initial communication of the emerging epidemic, which included delays and inaccuracies, led to criticisms and concerns about how much the U.S. and the rest of the world could trust Beijing.

For some, those concerns are even more reason to collaborate.

• "The more engagement we have, the more opportunities we have to build relationships and inform our understanding of this emerging infectious disease threat," says Margaret Hamburg, foreign secretary of the U.S. National Academy of Science and a former FDA commissioner.
• "There is a long tradition of science diplomacy," she says, pointing to the role of nuclear scientists in opening up the former Soviet Union and researchers in the U.S. and China working on biosecurity and biosafety today.

What to watch: "Nationalism and attacks can erode even good collaborations [among international colleagues]," says Kuhn, who is also the editor-in-chief of the journal Virology.

• "This can have a big impact on the advancement of science," he says.
• "Tensions between techno-nationalism and techno-globalism are unlikely to diminish in the future ... therefore, societies should not assume that international scientific collaborations will flow naturally, but rather should nurture them carefully — although urgently — through renewed diplomatic efforts, funding programs, and policy instruments," Rajneesh Narula and José Guimón wrote recently in Issues in Science and Technology.

The bottom line: Scientists are already multipolar, says Narula, a professor of international business regulation at the University of Reading in the U.K. "There can be three poles, which is what is happening: the U.S., Europe and China. Everyone is willing to accept that, except perhaps the poles themselves."

Go deeper:

• The next frontier for Big Science
• The stakes of a swift U.S.-China decoupling
• Axios' special report on pandemic science, part 1

U.S. intelligence community: Coronavirus "was not man made or genetically modified"

Jacob Knutson APRIL 30, 2020

Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell. Photo: Milos Miskov/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) announced in a statement Thursday that it is investigating whether the coronavirus pandemic began through human contact with wild animals in China or if it was the result of a laboratory accident in Wuhan.

Why it matters: The ODNI said it concurs with the scientific consensus that the virus was "not manmade or genetically modified." The statement comes after some U.S. officials have promoted an unsubstantiated theory linking the virus to an infectious-disease lab in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.

The big picture: Senior Trump administration officials have pushed U.S. spy agencies to find evidence supporting the theory, the New York Times reports.
China has denied the allegation, but senior Chinese officials have also pushed their own theories linking the coronavirus to a military laboratory in the U.S.
The coronavirus crisis has sent U.S.-China relations spiraling, alarming analysts who say the two countries are at their most dangerous point in decades, Axios' Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian reports.

Go deeper: What we know about the Chinese lab at the center of the coronavirus controversy

Karen Pence tells Fox News that Mike Pence didn’t know masks were required at Mayo Clinic

PENCE IS PATHETIC COWERING BEHIND HIS WIFE'S SKIRT WHEN CAUGHT

DOING THE BROWN NOSE DUTY OF KISSING TRUMPS ASS IN PUBIC THEN HAVING HIS WIFE ASK FOR PUBLIC FORGIVENESS FOR HIS DEMENTIA


April 30, 2020 By Travis Gettys


Karen Pence went on Fox News to explain why her husband failed to wear a required mask during a visit this week to the Mayo Clinic.

Vice President Mike Pence drew widespread condemnation when he declined to wear a protective mask during a tour of the medical clinic, and “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked his wife to explain.

“That’s a great question as our medical experts have told us wearing a masks prevents you from spreading the disease and knowing that he doesn’t have COVID-19, he didn’t wear one,” Pence said

That was the explanation offered by the vice president after facing criticism, but his wife offered a new excuse.

“It was actually after he left Mayo Clinic that he found out that they had a policy of asking everyone to wear a mask,” she said. “Someone has worked on this whole task force for over two months is not someone who would have done anything to offend anyone or scare anyone. I’m glad that you gave me the opportunity to talk about that.”

On Fox & Friends, Karen Pence defends her husband for not wearing a mask at the Mayo Clinic, claiming he didn't know they had a mandatory mask policy until after he left. pic.twitter.com/c6IgVhEqng
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) April 30, 2020

‘This is obscene’: Americans urge Congress to stop GOP’s ‘disgraceful’ effort to grant corporations immunity from COVID-19 lawsuits

April 30, 2020 By Common Dreams

A diverse coalition of nearly 120 progressive advocacy groups is urging Congress not to grant corporations sweeping immunity from coronavirus-related workplace safety lawsuits, warning that the Republican-backed proposal could have devastating consequences for both employees and customers.

In a letter (pdf) to Democratic and Republican congressional leaders on Wednesday, the groups said they “strongly oppose any legislation that would establish nationwide immunity for businesses that operate in an unreasonably unsafe manner, causing returning workers and consumers to risk Covid-19 infection.”

“When workplaces are not properly protected, patients, customers, clients, and the community are all at risk,” reads the letter, which was led by Public Citizen and the Center for Justice and Democracy. “This concern is not hypothetical. Some essential businesses have already put employees back in the workforce without ensuring their safety. As a result, infections have spread in and out of the workplace.”

The letter came after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that protecting corporations from coronavirus-related legal action by workers and customers is his “red line” for the next Covid-19 stimulus package.

“This is obscene,” Public Citizen tweeted Wednesday. “Mitch McConnell thinks the most pressing threat facing our nation right now is that people might need to take a company to court for doing something dangerous or illegal during this pandemic.”

President Donald Trump has also voiced support for shielding companies from legal responsibility for exposing their workers to Covid-19, a proposal pushed by the Koch network and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“We are trying to take liability away from these companies,” Trump said during a press briefing last week. “We just don’t want that because we want the companies to open and to open strong.”

According to the Washington Post, the Trump administration is considering issuing “a liability waiver that would clear businesses of legal responsibility from employees who contract the coronavirus on the job.”

Debbie Berkowitz, director of the worker safety and health program at the National Employment Law Project, condemned the idea as “one of the most appalling things I’ve heard in the context of this crisis.”

Read the progressive groups’ letter in full:

Dear Speaker Pelosi, Leader McCarthy, Leader McConnell, Leader Schumer:

The undersigned organizations fully support the nation’s safe economic recovery. For that reason, we strongly oppose any legislation that would establish nationwide immunity for businesses that operate in an unreasonably unsafe manner, causing returning workers and consumers to risk Covid-19 infection. Removing legal accountability for businesses not only would jeopardize the health and safety of workers, it would also jeopardize everyone who enters those workplaces. This would be extremely damaging to the nation’s economic recovery.

Any recovery requires the public to have confidence that businesses are operating as safely as possible. Establishing legal immunity for businesses that operate unsafely would do the opposite of instilling public confidence. Instead, it would introduce new anxieties to an already highly-anxious public. And it would have real-life consequences for every community, since legal liability is one of the most powerful incentives we have to ensure that businesses operate safely. When workplaces are not properly protected, patients, customers, clients, and the community are all at risk.

This concern is not hypothetical. Some essential businesses have already put employees back in the workforce without ensuring their safety. As a result, infections have spread in and out of the workplace. In some cases, this has led to renewed shutdowns, slowing the pace of recovery. From protecting the food supply chain to preventing needless deaths in nursing homes, it is clear that companies responsible for the health and safety of others must continue having every incentive to protect them. Many companies already had serious safety problems prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the pandemic cannot be an excuse for failing to protect workers and the public.

Moreover, greatly compounding the problem are recent trends toward deregulation and lax regulatory enforcement of workplaces. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has substantially stepped back from its role to protect the health and safety of workers during this pandemic, and is dangerously relying on employers to self-police. Under these circumstances, the specter of unsafe workplaces is a significant concern. Without adequate protective equipment and other safety measures, workers will be deterred from coming back to work. Immunity would only exacerbate these problems.

In sum, we strongly oppose any legislation that would immunize businesses that fail to ensure safe workplaces.

GILEAD IS DRIVEN BY PROFITS

Why Gilead's coronavirus drug is not a "silver bullet"

Bob Herman AXIOS APRIL 30, 2020

The release of #remde#remdesivir data  has been a mess.

 Photo: Ulrich Perrey/AFP via Getty Images

If you feel like you're suffering whiplash from the new, conflicting study data on Gilead Sciences' experimental coronavirus drug, remdesivir, you're not alone.

The big picture: Remdesivir could provide some help and lay the groundwork for more research, but this drug on its own does not appear to be any kind of "cure" for the novel coronavirus.

What's happening: Remdesivir helped coronavirus patients get out of the hospital modestly quicker, based on early reads of an important and rigorously designed trial run by the National Institutes of Health,

That could be encouraging for those who get sick.
Yes, but: Analysts and experts were cautious about drawing too many conclusions without the full data from NIH — especially considering the primary outcome was changed mid-trial, and a sepatate randomized trial concluded remdesivir does little, if anything, to combat the virus.
"Remdesivir is a real drug for COVID ... but again, not a silver bullet," Umer Raffat, a pharmaceutical analyst at Evercore ISI, wrote to investors on Wednesday.
And because the drug has limited efficacy and likely works best before the infection gets too serious, "its availability is not going to move the needle on social distancing relaxation," tweeted Peter Bach, a physician and drug researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

The bottom line: This near-constant back-and-forth over remdesivir reinforces how strong the science and data need to be for any treatment, or for the world's best hope: a vaccine.

Go deeper: The high stakes of low scientific standards

#SOSUSPS #SAVEUSPS
Calls mount for Congress to provide ‘robust relief’ to USPS as Covid-19 kills mail clerks and carriers

April 30, 2020 By Common Dreams


As one union leader put it: “The Covid pandemic is having a huge, devastating, dire impact on postal revenue.”

With the Senate set to return to Washington, D.C. next week and uncertainty over when the House will also reconvene, calls continued to mount Wednesday for Congress to provide significant relief to the U.S. Postal Service, the popular federal agency that is struggling financially in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a Wednesday morning interview on Democracy Now!, American Postal Workers Union (APWU) president Mark Dimondstein discussed how the public health crisis has impacted USPS operations, both in terms of revenue and workers. According to the union leader, at least 45 mail clerks and carriers have died from Covid-19.

While Dimondstein noted that a 2006 congressional mandate requiring the agency to fund retirees’ health benefits for several decades has hamstrung the agency, he focused his comments on the current crisis, warning that “the Covid pandemic is having a huge, devastating, dire impact on postal revenue.”

As Dimondstein explained:

There’s no taxpayer dollars that goes into the post office. It runs strictly on the revenue of postal and postal products. And that revenue has to be able to be enough to carry out the mission of what we call the universal service mandate—every address, every person, no matter who we are and where we live, a great small-d democratic right, getting mail, packages, six days a week now, sometimes seven.

And what’s happened in this pandemic, and its economic devastation throughout the entire country and world—but what’s happened specifically to the Postal Service is the mail has precipitously dropped off. …The Postal Service will actually run out of money, whether it’s this summer, whether it’s early fall. The revenue just isn’t there, strictly based on Covid.

So, what we’ve asked—and it’s not just the “we” of the postal unions. The postal Board of Governors, which sets policy, which is a majority-Republican board right now, has unanimously asked for robust relief, not a bailout—this is for the people of the country; this doesn’t go into any shareholders, any CEOs—but to make up that lost revenue, so the post office can weather this crisis and still, at the same time, serve the people of the country, both in ordinary times and in this time of crisis. So, it’s serious. It’s real. And again, it’s very focused on the Covid pandemic economic impact.

The union leader took aim at President Donald Trump, who on Friday declared that “the Postal Service is a joke,” and threatened to block all pandemic-related federal aid unless USPS quadruples its rates for package deliveries. Critics warn doing so could drive business away from the Postal Service and push companies to pass on price increases to customers.

“For a president of the United States to tell the people of this country and the postal workers who are on the frontlines that the postal workers, that the post office, is a joke—something that belongs to everybody in this country, it belongs to the people—that is the absolute insult of insults,” Dimondstein told Democracy Now!

Dimondstein added that there are ways that the Postal Service could expand in the future, such as banking and copying services, but “in order to get there, we have to make sure that we have a public Postal Service. And that now is really up for grabs, because, clearly, we have an administration that would like to… sell the public Postal Service off to private corporations, privatize it.”

As national radio commentator and author Jim Hightower explained in an op-ed forCreators Wednesday:

The U.S. mail service… is enormously popular and an essential part of our nation’s economic and social infrastructure, so Trump can’t just blatantly choke off its survival funds. Instead, he’s taking the agency hostage, offering to provide a $10 billion “loan” from the Treasury Department—contingent on the public entity agreeing to his draconian demands that it raise postal prices, gut postal unions and cut postal services.

Trump’s provisos are postal poison pills, for they would destroy the agency’s morale and service, undermine popular support, and clear the political path for profiteering corporations to seize, privatize, and plunder this public treasure.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who last week hosted a virtual town hall with the leaders of the nation’s top postal unions to discuss how to save USPS, reiterated his demand to provide support to the agency in a tweet Wednesday morning:

We will not allow Donald Trump to:

– Destroy 630,000 good-paying jobs
– Eliminate thousands of post offices
– Close hundreds of mail sorting plants
– Privatize and dismantle the Postal Service

If we can bail out Boeing, we can save the Post Office. https://t.co/uNRDNc6dpb
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 29, 2020

Sanders shared a Washington Post column by Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation. In the column Tuesday, vanden Heuvel argued that “the USPS is the quintessential American institution” and members of Congress “must stand up to the White House and deliver the relief the Postal Service needs—not only to survive but also to thrive.”

“As Americans across the country are following stay-at-home directives, they are relying on the USPS to deliver their prescription drugs, food, and other essentials,” she noted. “Tax refunds and stimulus checks arrive through the mail. So do absentee ballots—this year’s presidential election may indeed depend on the Postal Service to facilitate voting by mail.”

“As civil rights leaders caution against efforts that would require voters to pay for postage when mailing in ballots, the USPS has restated its previous policy to deliver every ballot, even those with insufficient postage,” vanden Heuvel added. “Can you imagine UPS or FedEx doing the same?”

On Democracy Now! Wednesday, Dimondstein noted that “the post office is the most trusted federal agency” and made the case that voting by mail—which is gaining popularity amid the public health crisis—is the best way to secure the 2020 election.

“This pandemic has brought home that if we’re going to have true access to the ballot box—or more access to the ballot box, because we really don’t have true access now—vote-by-mail is definitely the way to go,” he said. “It was before. Now it’s very, very clear. And postal workers are ready to continue to serve the people of this country in all sorts of ways, including that defense of our democratic right to vote.”

Famed economist Thomas Piketty explains how the coronavirus pandemic exposed the ‘violence of social inequality’

April 30, 2020 By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!

As nearly 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment in just six weeks and millions worldwide face hunger and poverty, we look at the global economic catastrophe triggered by the pandemic and its impact on the most vulnerable. As the World Food Programme warns of a massive spike in global hunger and more than 100 million people in cities worldwide could fall into poverty, can this crisis be a catalyst for change? We ask French economist Thomas Piketty. His 2014 internationally best-selling book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” looked at economic inequality and the necessity of wealth taxes. His new book, “Capital and Ideology,” has been described as a manifesto for political change

POTUS TRUMP AND HOOVER PRESIDED OVER DEPRESSION 
AND MASS UNEMPLOYMENT 

How the pandemic is a accelerating a worldwide shift to authoritarianism — especially in America

April 30, 2020 By LUKE READER - History News Network- Commentary

I’ve spent the past few semesters teaching seminars on democracy, populism, and authoritarianism. It is not an exaggeration to say that the coronavirus pandemic represents a fresh challenge to democracy, not just in the United States, but across the world.

Events of recent years – Brexit, the election of President Trump, and the rise of nativist, populist movements in countries as diverse as Hungary, Turkey, and Brazil – had already led experts like Tim Snyder and Yascha Mounk to warn that the norms upholding liberal democracy are globally at risk.

There are some similarities between modern-day authoritarian movements and their 20th century predecessors. They frequently promote illiberal us vs. them sentiments that champion an idealized citizenry, engage in ‘blood and soil’ nationalism, assert a racial or religious identity, engage in post-truth politics, and reject expertise. But contemporary authoritarianism prefers majoritarian democracy to totalitarianism. As Ece Temelkuran shows in her book How to Lose a Country (2019), this is because authoritarian leaders want the imprimatur of popular support for their plans to reshape institutions like courts, bureaucracies, parliaments, and the media.

The rise of authoritarianism has shown that liberal democracy is not as robust as its adherents once thought. In How Democracy Ends (2018), David Runciman, professor of politics and history at Cambridge University, argues that the democratic institutions of many countries are no longer fit for purpose. Anger at economic inequality, neglect, and continued rhetoric about the supposed inadequacy of government, have left the structures upholding liberal democracy vulnerable to attack

The coronavirus has accentuated this sense of fragility. Authoritarian leaders have seized the opportunity presented by the pandemic. The Chinese government has extended further the reach of its surveillance state. Vladimir Putin has used the pandemic as cover for his push to amend the Russian constitution and maintain his hold on power. In Israel, embattled prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the pandemic to shut down the courts and close parliament, maintaining his hold on power and delaying his looming trial for corruption. In Hungary, recently passed legislation granted prime minister Viktor Orban near absolute power. The Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro recently joined protests urging a military coup, continuing attacks on the nation’s courts and legislature he views as obstructions.

The lessons from these nations are germane for the United States.

Demands by the Trump administration for emergency powers to fight the pandemic, such as greater restrictions on border-crossings, immigration, and asylum claims, and requests by the Department of Justice for the right to detain people without trial or to suspend court proceedings in the event of a national crisis, have led to disquiet. In a recent podcast, Sarah Churchwell, professor of public humanities at the School of Advanced Study in London and the author of Behold America(2018), an intellectual history of America First, urged caution before granting emergency powers to an administration determined to hang onto power through the invocation of a wartime presidency.

Donald Trump has never hidden his authoritarian intentions. Indeed, the coronavirus seems to have amplified these tendencies. From the start, his administration sought to connect the pandemic to the wider interests of the White House. This process has played out in two different ways.

The narrative of the Trump presidency – the idea that it is under constant assault by the so-called deep-state – continues unabated. Initially, Trump claimed the coronavirus was a hoax designed to imperil an economy whose success he claims as his own and to sabotage his November re-election. Fear of fifth-columnists has guided decision-making. There has been a tendency to ignore expertise unless it reflects White House opinion. The federal government has not offered a unified response to the crisis. Task forces are mostly staffed by unqualified cronies. Nor is there a clear chain-of-command. The president speaks proudly of leading by gut-instinct, claiming he knows better than on-the-spot officials what different states and localities need.

But the coronavirus also gives the administration a chance to deepen the us vs. them narrative that characterizes the Trump presidency. The White House has continued its nativist culture-war policies, branding COVID-19 the ‘Chinese virus,’ and suggesting the pandemic is mostly a problem for urban centers and Democratic states. Daily press conferences offer the president a national platform for campaign boosterism and ritual denunciations of media opponents. States have had to compete with each other and the federal government for scarce ventilators and personal protective equipment like face-masks, goggles, and respirators.

Public opinion about the response to COVID-19 is beginning to reflect partisan divides. According to Pew Research, while most people support social distancing, 85% of Republicans believe the president had handled the crisis well; only 12% of Democrats think the same. Just 52% of Republicans consider coronavirus a major threat to public health, compared with nearly 80% of Democrats.

So does the handling of the coronavirus mark a failure of government policy? It depends what the administration wanted from the crisis. What appears a public health fiasco also resembles patterns of autocratic behavior seen across the globe long before the pandemic began: dismissal of expertise; railing against supposed enemies; and the exploitation of crisis to pursue self-interested goals.

Recent demonstrations against governors enforcing stay-at-home orders reflect these authoritarian patterns. This is not just because some protestors bear arms, wave Confederate flags and other white supremacist symbols, or carry presidential campaign banners. Supporters of the president fear the economic damage caused by the pandemic will undermine his 2020 reelection campaign. ‘Astroturfing’ by wealthy far-right activists, openly supported by Donald Trump and Fox News, is trying to create the illusion that there is popular support for overriding the advice of experts and reopening the economy, even if it sacrifices lives in the process.

Accelerating division is the point. If the pandemic has revealed America as a ‘failed state,’ as George Packer contends in the Atlantic, we only appear to be a failed state for some.

Luke Reader is a SAGES Teaching Fellow in the history department at Case Western Reserve University. He is writing a book about Brexit and popular culture. Luke Reader is on twitter @WritesReader.