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This evening's music features blues-rock musician Johnny Winter. Enjoy!

"What is currently unfolding in the U.S. is what happens when you develop a healthcare system predicated around extracting profit from sick bodies — one that continually attempts to drive down costs whenever possible. A system that only reacts to disease instead of preventing disease. Dr. Fauci stated that our “system is not built for this,” but healthcare workers dedicated to treating patients have been condemning this system for years. Our healthcare system has always been a complete disaster, but a pandemic like this just magnifies that fact. We not only need a new healthcare system, but a new economic system that values life over profit. Capitalism will never give us what we need. Hopefully, this wake-up call does not cost too many innocent lives."

-- Mike Pappas

News and Opinion

If you're looking for a villain, the banks never disappoint. There's lots more at the link.

Banks Pressure Health Care Firms to Raise Prices on Critical Drugs, Medical Supplies for Coronavirus

In recent weeks, investment bankers have pressed health care companies on the front lines of fighting the novel coronavirus, including drug firms developing experimental treatments and medical supply firms, to consider ways that they can profit from the crisis. The media has mostly focused on individuals who have taken advantage of the market for now-scarce medical and hygiene supplies to hoard masks and hand sanitizer and resell them at higher prices. But the largest voices in the health care industry stand to gain from billions of dollars in emergency spending on the pandemic, as do the bankers and investors who invest in health care companies.

Over the past few weeks, investment bankers have been candid on investor calls and during health care conferences about the opportunity to raise drug prices. In some cases, bankers received sharp rebukes from health care executives; in others, executives joked about using the attention on Covid-19 to dodge public pressure on the opioid crisis.

Gilead Sciences, the company producing remdesivir, the most promising drug to treat Covid-19 symptoms, is one such firm facing investor pressure. ... The drug, though developed in partnership with the University of Alabama through a grant from the federal government’s National Institutes of Health, is patented by Gilead Sciences, a major pharmaceutical company based in California. The firm has faced sharp criticism in the past for its pricing practices. It previously charged $84,000 for a yearlong supply of its hepatitis C treatment, which was also developed with government research support. Remdesivir is estimated to produce a one-time revenue of $2.5 billion.

During an investor conference earlier this month, Phil Nadeau, managing director at investment bank Cowen & Co., quizzed Gilead Science executives over whether the firm had planned for a “commercial strategy for remdesivir” or could “create a business out of remdesivir.”

Johanna Mercier, executive vice president of Gilead, noted that the company is currently donating products and “manufacturing at risk and increasing our capacity” to do its best to find a solution to the pandemic. The company at the moment is focused, she said, primarily on “patient access” and “government access” for remdesivir. “Commercial opportunity,” Mercier added, “might come if this becomes a seasonal disease or stockpiling comes into play, but that’s much later down the line.”

Former London bankers convicted after Germany's 'greatest tax robbery'

Two former London bankers were handed suspended jail terms and one a €14m fine for tax fraud in a landmark trial that is likely to unleash dozens of similar cases across Germany. The ruling is the first criminal conviction for what the judge, Roland Zickler, called “a collective case of thievery from state coffers”.

Martin Shields and Nicholas Diable managed to avoid jail by closely cooperating with German prosecutors and shedding light on a complex fraud scheme that siphoned €400m out of German state coffers. Known as “cum-ex”, the scheme involved trading shares at high speed on or just before the dividend record date – the day the company checks its records to identify shareholders – and then claiming two or more refunds for capital gains tax which had in fact only been paid to the state once.

On Wednesday the judge stated that the trades were illegal rather than merely exploiting loopholes in the law.

“Do we all want to live in a world where everyone is ripping each other off?” Zickler said, addressing the defendants at the regional court in Bonn. ...

State prosecutors across Germany are currently investigating at least 600 individuals, including bankers, traders, advisers and lawyers, for having practised similar schemes. At least 130 banks are under suspicion of having taken part in cum-ex trades. ... Estimates of the cum-ex scandal’s total financial damage to the German state range from €5bn to €55bn.

‘Corona Dictatorship’ | BiBi’s COVID-19 response is seen as power grab

Israeli spies source up to 100,000 coronavirus tests in covert mission

Israel’s secretive Mossad intelligence agency launched a covert international operation this week to fly in up to 100,000 coronavirus testing kits, although the effort may have been in vain as critical parts were reportedly missing. Domestic news outlets, citing government and health officials, reported that the secrecy of the operation was because the kits were acquired from at least two unnamed countries that do not have good diplomatic relations with Israel, meaning the government could not openly buy them. ...

The office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a statement appearing to confirm the operation. “We are fully utilising all the state’s capabilities to assist in dealing with the coronavirus, including Mossad and other bodies,” the statement said. ...

Israel is currently desperately trying to increase its testing capability to track and control the spread of Covid-19. The country of about 9 million people intends to carry out 3,000 coronavirus tests daily.

Those figures may have been based on the assumption that the Mossad operation would continue. The local broadcaster Channel 12, which first reported the operation, said Mossad had intended to bring in about 4 million kits from several countries.

US citizen accused of torture lifted out of Lebanon in helicopter

A US citizen detained in Beirut on accusations of overseeing torture and murder at a southern Lebanese prison during Israel’s occupation of the region has been spirited out of the country by helicopter.

A Lebanese military tribunal ordered earlier this week that Amer Fakhoury, 57, be released after it ruled too much time had passed since his alleged crimes. It was not immediately clear whether he had been released, and a military prosecutor filed an appeal against the decision the next day.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, announced on Thursday that Fakhoury was “returning to the United States where he will be reunited with his family and receive urgent medical treatment”. His family says he has stage-four lymphoma. The Guardian understands Fakhoury was picked up from the US embassy in Beirut’s northern suburbs early on Thursday afternoon by a US Marine V-22 Osprey helicopter.

He was a member of the South Lebanese Army, a militia that collaborated with Israel during its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon starting in 1982. He was accused of overseeing the notorious Khiam prison, where human rights groups say hundreds of opponents of the occupation underwent torture and at least 10 people were killed.

Doctor: As Coronavirus Cases Spike Worldwide, We Need Global Cooperation to Halt Spread

Bolsonaro’s son enrages Beijing by blaming China for coronavirus crisis

Beijing’s ambassador to Brazil has launched a stinging attack on the son of its far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, after he claimed the Chinese Communist party was to blame for the coronavirus crisis sweeping the world. On Wednesday, Bolsonaro’s influential politician son Eduardo – who many regard as Brazil’s de facto foreign minister and has close ties to Steve Bannon – enraged Beijing with an incendiary tweet about its role in the pandemic.

“It’s China’s fault,” Bolsonaro claimed on Twitter, retweeting a message that said: “The blame for the global coronavirus pandemic has a name and surname: the Chinese Communist party.” ...

Yang Wanming, Beijing’s top diplomat in Brazil, demanded an immediate retraction and apology for the “evil insult”, while his embassy accused Eduardo Bolsonaro of contracting “a mental virus” during a recent trip to the United States. ... According to reports in the Brazilian media Yang also retweeted a message that read: “The Bolsonaro family is the great poison of this country.” ...

The row coincides with a deepening diplomatic row over the disease between Beijing and Washington, which was exacerbated by Donald Trump’s insistence on referring to the coronavirus as “the Chinese virus”.

Expert: US sanctions on Iran, Venezuela during pandemic threaten genocide

America Has a New Coronavirus Testing Problem: We're Out of Chemicals

Nevermind the shortage of coronavirus test kits. The U.S. has a new problem: A lack of chemical ingredients needed to actually process the results.

The big international companies that make the chemicals, known as “reagents,” say they’re working overtime to crank out as much as they can. But demand is surging so wildly that seemingly no one to predict when, or whether, global supply will catch up.

The deficit is slowing down diagnostic operations and threatening to put a national speed limit on the country’s rate of testing for the indefinite future, according to lab specialists, medical experts and officials from Maryland to California and in Washington DC. ...

The U.S. stumbled through February with a series of scientific and administrative blunders that allowed the virus to spread undetected through American communities for weeks with negligible testing, a failure that stopped the U.S. from isolating early cases and containing the outbreak in its opening stages.

Now, test kits are heading out the door. But without reagents, those test kits are like “printers without ink,” California Governor Gavin Newsom told a press conference on Thursday.

Krystal Ball: Plutocrat Senators profit while fleecing the public

Demands for Resignations as More GOP Senators Accused of 'Smash and Grab' Stock Dumps Ahead of Coronavirus Crash

After news of Republican Sen. Richard Burr's stock sell-off ahead of the coronavirus-induced market crash prompted more digging into financial disclosure documents Thursday night, at least three additional GOP senators and one Democrat were found to have unloaded holdings just before the pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

Some of the sales that were highlighted on social media, such as those by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), appeared to be unconnected to the coronavirus crisis, analysts pointed out—while also urging that the transactions be closely examined.

But others looked far more suspicious on their face, sparking accusations of insider trading and demands for resignations. The Daily Beast reported late Thursday that Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), the newest member of the Senate, sold off millions of dollars worth of stock holdings following a private Jan. 24 Senate Health Committee meeting on the coronavirus threat.

Loeffler, according to The Daily Beast, "reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on the coronavirus."

Smash and grab https://t.co/cRFz5Hj3F3

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 20, 2020

Much like Burr, Loeffler publicly voiced optimism about the strength of the economy and the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus crisis even as she unloaded stock holdings. ...

After combing through financial filings, Cox Radio correspondent Jamie Dupree also flagged suspiciously timed sales by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.).

"It looks like Jim Inhofe also sold stock after receiving the briefing about the seriousness of coronavirus," said progressive commentator Erick Fernandez. "An endless, bottomless pit of corruption."

Thank you corporate America for a dysfunctional "health care" system:

Unable to Get Tested for the Coronavirus, Health Care Workers Fear They Are Infecting the Elderly

Dr. Jennifer Rhodes-Kropf has reason to fear that she might be infected with the new coronavirus. Just last week, her husband was sick with a dry cough after taking several flights and attending conferences. And this past weekend, her 8-year-old daughter had a high fever and cough. Rhodes-Kropf was able to get her daughter tested for the flu and cytomegalovirus, another common viral infection — and she was negative for both — but she hasn’t been able to get a coronavirus test for herself or anyone else in her family. And while everyone who hasn’t already had the viral illness now sweeping the world is now likely fearing for their health, Rhodes-Kropf has a particular reason to worry: She cares for 185 patients whose an average age is 91. And if she has the new coronavirus known as SARS CoV-2 and passes it onto them, it could be disastrous.

“They’re often very frail,” said Rhodes-Kropf, a geriatrician who practices in Boston. “If they do get the virus, a lot of them would not survive it.” A report released yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control confirms her fears, showing that 27 percent of 130 patients who contracted the virus in the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, had died as of March 9.

Rhodes-Kropf, who is now seeing urgent patients after being fitted with an N95 face mask, tried to get tested. She asked her daughter’s pediatrician first and then inquired at a local hospital. But, even after explaining that she was a doctor caring for many elderly patients and had reason to suspect she might have been exposed, she wasn’t able to find a site that would test her. CDC testing guidelines say that coronavirus testing should be done on people who are residents of affected communities and have symptoms. Nevertheless, many people who are already ill with fever and the dry cough that is a signature of the viral Covid-19 infection are finding it impossible to get tested. For the asymptomatic, it is virtually impossible, even though there is ample evidence that they can spread the disease.

The widespread shortage of tests throughout the U.S. has hobbled the country’s ability to respond to the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Because people can be infected and pass on the virus without having any symptoms, identifying positive cases is critical for slowing its spread. While some transmission is being stemmed by social distancing and shelter-in-place orders, exceptions are generally made for doctors and other essential workers. Yet many of these critical front-line providers are themselves unable to get tested, leaving their vulnerable patients at particular risk and the health care workers themselves in a seemingly impossible bind.

Coronavirus is exploiting an underlying condition: our epidemic of insecurity

As the global Covid-19 pandemic bears down on cities and towns across the country and the world, municipal and state leaders are scrambling to mitigate the spread and “flatten the curve”. To be sure, these social distancing interventions, including closing schools, eliminating mass gatherings – even shuttering small businesses – are necessary right now. Yet policymakers have been reticent to fully enact them because of the sweeping economic and social consequences they’ll have for so many in our society. Yet the very position in which we find ourselves – caught between slowing the outbreak to save lives and slow-walking our interventions to save livelihoods – suggests a deeper truth about our society right now. Indeed, Covid-19 isn’t the only epidemic we are suffering. The other is slower and more difficult to identify, though it has laid the groundwork for the coronavirus. It is an epidemic of insecurity. ...

Nearly 10% of Americans are uninsured. And for those who have insurance, the average deductible is over $5,000. Because it renews annually, a March pandemic means that fewer people will visit the doctor for the constellation of symptoms for Covid-19 – a fever and cough – so commonly experienced and necessarily ignored by people who can’t afford to pay for healthcare. Our lack of healthcare access means that we are less likely to seek healthcare, more likely to unknowingly spread coronavirus.

Too many Americans work gigs – like waiting tables or driving Uber or Lyft – that leave them uniquely vulnerable to the economic interruptions we’ll experience trying to slow Covid-19. With $1.5tn in collective student debt, losing a gig may mean defaulting on a loan. And soaring rents may leave millions at risk of eviction and homelessness. Living on the ragged fringe of economic viability leaves Americans insecure – afraid for our future because of the instability of our present. And our insecurity leaves us uniquely vulnerable to the social and economic consequences of this pandemic – and less likely to adhere to mitigation efforts to slow the spread of Covid-19. Insecurity makes us sick. ...

We cannot tackle the biological epidemic of Covid-19 without tackling the political epidemic of insecurity lest people have their lives saved by our interventions, only to have their livelihoods ruined by them. That means we have to tackle the epidemic of Covid-19 and the epidemic of insecurity at the same time.

Pelosi Is Blocking Direct Cash Payments To Citizens.WTF?

GOP Senators Erupt in Laughter After Suggestion to Call Corporate Bailouts "Freedom Payments" in Closed-Door Meeting With Mnuchin

Cognizant of the bad taste left in the mouths of many American taxpayers who saw Wall Street banks and corporate interests bailed out with trillions of dollars during the financial crash of 2008 while workers and homeworkers were left to fight for themselves, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin reportedly told Republican lawmakers during a closed-door meeting this week to avoid using the provocative word "bailout" and collective GOP laughter ensued when one senator in the room (jokingly or not) suggested using the term "freedom payments" instead.

Reminiscent of putting the word "freedom" in front of anything right-wingers want the American people to swallow without question—like "freedom fries" ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq after "french" became a dirty word due to France's vocal objections—the private exchange helped further elucidate that corporate interests and their Republican allies are very much aware that no-strings-attached bailouts of corporations and financial institutions will not sit well with the U.S. public, especially as working class families, small business owners, and whole communities suffer due to the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak. ...

The reported episode spurred both ridicule and anger on social media.

I wonder how many “freedom payments” this senator has gotten for his campaign from the corporations they are about to bail out? https://t.co/dgF4H9B1st

— Eli Lopez (@elopezgross) March 18, 2020

"God," said one user on Twitter, "could they show their contempt for us more clearly? They want to direct the aid solely to the corporations that own them...that couldn't be clearer."

With the battle of the scope of and conditions for federal bailouts of U.S. industries raging on Capitol Hill, economist Dean Baker at the Center for Economic & Policy Research argued in an op-ed Wednesday that any corporate rescue operation funded by taxpayers must come with strict provisions, including future caps on executive pay, putting shareholders last, and making sure industry workers receive full pay and benefits.

"This is not just a question of envy," Baker wrote. "More money for those at the top means less for everyone else."

Coronavirus credit crunch could make 2008 look like 'child's play'

A worldwide credit crunch triggered by the coronavirus will set in motion a wave of corporate bankruptcies that will make the global financial crisis look like “child’s play”, investors have warned. With the world’s most advanced economies all entering a shutdown that could last months, companies that have gorged on cheap money for the past decade face going out of business thanks to a huge spike in borrowing costs on international money markets.

The sudden loss of revenue faced by airlines, tourism-related businesses and carmakers make them extremely vulnerable, ratings agencies have said, with parts of the energy sector also at risk as the fall in the oil price to an 18-year low pulls the rug from under its feet.

The problems were underlined on Thursday when Australia’s national carrier, Qantas, cancelled all international flights and furloughed 20,000 staff. Dozens of companies in Europe and the US have issued profit warnings as they prepare for a massive hit to revenues. The financial position of the UK’s North Sea oil and gas industry was “paper-thin”. Currencies such as UK sterling and the Australian dollar were hammered as the clamour for safety sucked money into US dollar holdings.

US treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin said unemployment could rise to 20% in America in what the ratings agency Moody’s said was an “unprecedented” shock to the system. S&P warned this week that these factors would lead to a “surge” in corporate bankruptcies.

Angus Coote, of Jamieson Coote Bonds in Melbourne, said the crisis could soon explode the massive debt bubble inflated by years of low interest rates and cheap money.

Maybe it's not such a good time to order from Amazon ...

Amazon Warehouse Worker Tests Positive for Coronavirus Days After Employees Warn Company Isn't Taking Proper Precautions

Two days after 1,500 Amazon workers around the world publicly called on the trillion-dollar company to take better safety precautions to avoid the spread of coronavirus in its warehouses, Amazon said a worker in its Queens, New York fulfillment center had tested positive for the virus.

As The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, workers have been sounding the alarm that Amazon warehouses in the U.S. and Europe have not taken sufficient precautions to prevent contamination. One employee told the outlet that workers were still expected to meet high packaging quotas—making it difficult for them to take breaks to wash their hands and take other precautions.

The Queens warehouse was temporarily shut down Wednesday after the employee was tested so the facility could be disinfected. Workers who arrived for the night shift Wednesday claimed that they had been expected to work after the company had allowed just four hours for the warehouse to be sanitized.

"We know that everybody was expected to come in at 10:15 today when people knew that there was an issue with coronavirus," one worker, a member of Amazonians United New York City, said in a video posted to Twitter. "It's completely unacceptable."

"It does not take four hours to disinfect for this," said another. "You cannot possibly have disinfected every package after you've got a positive diagnosis." ...

Even after several workers in Spain and Italy tested positive for the virus, Amazon has sent employees home only after they begin coughing. The lack of precautions could endanger Amazon customers around the world, as well as the company's 800,000 global employees, as scientists say the coronavirus can still be detected on surfaces, including packaging, several hours after contamination.

Amazon said this week it plans to hire 100,000 more employees to keep up with demand as millions of people practice social distancing and rely more on placing online orders for necessities. The push concerns labor organizers including Matteo Rossi, who is attempting to organize workers in Europe with the Transnational Social Strike.

"Amazon warehouses are more crowded than before," Rossi told the Post—a condition that could make social distancing impossible for employees.

The company is particularly recruiting among workers who have been furloughed or laid off from their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 222,000 people worldwide including more than 10,000 in the United States.

"While 100,000 new Amazon jobs will have a minuscule impact on a soaring unemployment rate, it's what the shift symbolizes that's of note," wrote Brian Merchant at the Medium publication OneZero. "If restaurants, bars, and local shops close permanently while app-based monoliths hoover up the customers and the jobs, the trendline may be very difficult to reverse as we wade out of the wreckage. And this is not a future we want."

Solidarity Not Charity: Mutual Aid & How to Organize in the Age of Coronavirus

All Californians ordered to shelter in place as governor estimates more than 25m will get virus

California has extended its shelter-in-place order to cover the entire state, the governor announced on Thursday, in a dramatic escalation of efforts to battle the coronavirus outbreak. The order, which will go into force on Thursday evening, requires the state’s nearly 40 million residents to remain indoors and limit outdoor movement to what is “absolutely essential”.

The move came as Newsom on Thursday estimated that 25.5 million people – roughly 56% of California’s population – were likely to become infected with the coronavirus, an alarming projection offered by the governor in a letter to Donald Trump. Newsom called on the president to deploy a navy hospital ship, the USNS Mercy, and station it in the port of Los Angeles to help the giant metro area deal with a fast-moving health crisis.

“In the last 24 hours, we had 126 new Covid-19 cases, a 21% increase. In some parts of our state, the case rate is doubling every four days,” Newsom wrote, adding that evidence of community transmission had been found in at least 23 counties.

The nations biggest economy is closed. https://t.co/md9ip9F53H

— Richie Nakano (@linecook) March 20, 2020

Disgusting. I hope that the fellow in the red suit is saving J.B. Pritzger a warm spot by the fire.

Illinois Used Nearly 50 Facilities for Low-Income Seniors in Chicago as Polling Locations on Tuesday

In order to push forward with in-person elections on Tuesday, local election officials across Illinois relocated hundreds of polling locations due to concerns about exposing particularly vulnerable populations to the novel coronavirus. Guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ahead of the election were particularly stark.

“If you are an older person, stay home and away from other people,” the latest guidelines read. “If you are a person with a serious underlying health condition that can put you at increased risk (for example, a condition that impairs your lung or heart function or weakens your immune system), stay home and away from other people.”

Gatherings of more than 10 people were discouraged for everyone. Yet, despite precautions the state claimed it would take, counties and cities were left scrambling to move polling locations last minute. In Chicago, nearly 200 sites were relocated, causing confusion for voters. And nearly 50 housing facilities for low-income seniors were used as polling locations, according to the website of Chicago’s Board of Election Commissioners.

Noam Chomsky on the Primary, Plus Biden's Lies Dissected | Useful Idiots

The Great Bernie Bust

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? ... Sanders will still have a sizable bloc of delegates going into the Democratic national convention in July. But since he has promised to rally around whoever gets the nomination, he will have no choice but to pay homage to the odious Biden on bended knee. This is certainly a dramatic turnabout. Hillary Clinton messed up so badly in 2016 that even the most skeptical Marxists assumed that the nomination was Sanders’ for the asking. But they proved to be wrong. What happened? ...

It is a travesty of democracy every step of the way. Nonetheless, Sanders hoped to use a free and unbiased primary system to somehow leapfrog to a higher stage of development. He was wrong, not only because the party establishment turned against him at a crucial moment, but because primaries turn out to be shaped by moral assumptions that powerfully affect what voters say and do. David Brooks, a New York Times columnist blessed with occasional moments of insight into America’s unique political system, summed up the problem neatly in the wake of Super Tuesday. The primaries, he wrote, showed that:

“Democrats are not just a party; they’re a community. In my years of covering politics, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like what happened in the 48 hours after South Carolina - millions of Democrats from all around the country, from many different demographics, turning as one and arriving at a common decision. It was like watching a flock of geese or a school of fish, seemingly leaderless, sensing some shift in conditions, sensing each other’s intuitions, and smoothly shifting direction en masse. A community is more than the sum of its parts. It is a shared sensibility and a pattern of response."

All those geese and fish call to mind Edmund Burke’s famous description of the people as “thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak,” as they silently chew their cud. But Brooks is right: rather than rational and deliberative, political parties in America are indeed leaderless mobs, held together not by a common program and ideology, but by a shared sensibility. ... That is why the party leadership was able to turn the race around so neatly. The process began two days after Sanders’s impressive 47% win in the Nevada primary, when house majority whip Jim Clyburn intervened on Biden’s behalf. ... But it was Barack Obama’s phone call to Pete Buttigieg four days later that really did the trick. Despite Obama’s disastrous later years, Democrats remember his administration as a golden age, especially after Trump. Hence, his influence is overwhelming. After months of Yoda-like silence, therefore, all he had to do was make a single phone call to Buttigieg on March 1, telling him to withdraw in favor of Biden to trigger an avalanche. Suddenly, word was out that Sanders was getting ahead of himself and had to be reined in.

With that, David Brooks’ school of fish reversed course. As he says, the response was not deliberative or rational, but intuitive. Democrats felt that Sanders was heading in the wrong direction and that Biden would be the wiser course. So they acted on instinct -- and radical-left hopes were dashed.

Krystal and Saagar: Bernie, Yang don't seem so crazy now huh!

This is why I can not support Biden.

Despite a #pandemic, he is siding with Big Pharma over providing an affordable vaccine to #coronavirus patients.

If we do not hold our politicans accountable during a crisis, then when?#JEN2020 #MedicareForAllhttps://t.co/kwwEG9nKFY

— Jen Perelman For Congress (@JENFL23) March 20, 2020

As #WhereIsJoe Biden Trends, Sanders to Host Coronavirus Roundtable to Address Pandemic

While users on social media asked Friday why Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden appears to be missing in action on the coronvirus crisis—causing the #WhereIsJoe hashtag to trend— Sen. Bernie Sanders indicated his intention to remain focused on the global pandemic by announcing a virtual roundtable event focused on the crisis.

The campaigns of both remaining Democratic contenders have been dramatically curtailed by the infectious disease, but Sanders—who remains a sitting member of the U.S. Senate—has been much more active and vocal on the subject of how to manage the outbreak over the last week, even as his presidential hopes have been dashed by repeated primary losses to Biden.

On Tuesday, Sanders released a blueprint for what he believes is necessary to fight the pandemic while also protecting working families and the nation's most vulnerable from economic fallout. Called "An Emergency Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic," the plan sets forth a series of principles alongside detailed policies that guarantee healthcare coverage related to both testing and treatment of the virus be fully covered at no cost, would establish an Emergency Economic Finance Agency to manage the crisis, and create a separate oversight agency designed to protect consumers from price-gouging and corporate corruption.

While Biden also released a coronavirus action proposal—the "Plan to Combat Coronavirus (Covid-19) and Prepare for Future Global Health Threats"—the former vice president has been noticeably absent from the airwaves despite largely being seen as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Biden has pitched himself as the best candidate to take on President Donald Trump over his presidential mismanagement and crass leadership—a critique that others say is now more relevant than ever given Trump's egregious handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

As Peter Daou, Democratic operative and Sanders supporter, stated on Twitter:

People, I mean this sincerely: #whereisjoe?

Trump is in front of the cameras every day, reassuring people, putting on the appearance of "leadership."

Where is #Biden? Why isn't he dominating the airwaves???

— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) March 20, 2020

"While Bernie Sanders leads," wrote historian Christo Aivalis, "Joe Biden is hiding. In this crucial moment, Americans need leadership, and they aren't getting from the man already being crowned as the Democratic nominee."

Journalist and co-founder of The Intercept Jeremy Scahill, tweeted: "We were all told that we desperately need Joe Biden’s leadership and experience. Now all we have to do is find him."

How can anyone who is excited about Joe Biden being the nominee defend his remarkable lack of anything even vaguely resembling leadership at this crucial moment? And staffers posting tweets on his feed doesn’t count.

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) March 20, 2020

Joe Biden's STUNNING absence abdicates crisis leadership

Greenland's melting ice raised global sea level by 2.2mm in two months

Last year’s summer was so warm that it helped trigger the loss of 600bn tons of ice from Greenland – enough to raise global sea levels by 2.2mm in just two months, new research has found.

The analysis of satellite data has revealed the astounding loss of ice in just a few months of abnormally high temperatures around the northern pole. Last year was the hottest on record for the Arctic, with the annual minimum extent of sea ice in the region its second-lowest on record.

Unlike the retreat of sea ice, the loss of land-based glaciers directly causes the seas to rise, imperiling coastal cities and towns around the world. Scientists have calculated that Greenland’s enormous ice sheet lost an average of 268bn tons of ice between 2002 and 2019 – less than half of what was shed last summer. By contrast, Los Angeles county, which has more than 10 million residents, consumes 1bn tons of water a year. ...

Ice is being lost from Greenland seven times faster than it was in the 1990s, scientists revealed last year, pushing up previous estimates of global sea level rise and putting 400 million people at risk of flooding every year by the end of the century.

Seattle: When it rains, it pollutes

Amid Climate Crisis and Raging Pandemic, Trump Blasted for 'Morally Bankrupt' Multibillion-Dollar Big Oil Bailout

Climate advocacy groups responded with swift condemnation Thursday after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will recommend that President Donald Trump ask Congress for as much as $20 billion to purchase oil in what Barron's reported "would essentially equate to a bailout of the U.S. oil industry, because several U.S. producers would likely go out of business if demand and prices stay low."

"Let's go out and buy… Fill up the reserve," Mnuchin said in a Thursday morning interview with Fox Business Network, referring to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The secretary's comments about potential purchases that could fill the SPR for a decade came after Trump declared Friday that "we're going to fill it right up to the top."

The U.S. advocacy group Food & Water Action issued a statement Thursday denouncing the possible multibillion-dollar buys by the Trump administration as a "gross abdication of duty."

"It is often said that moments of crisis bring out the true colors of those in power," said Food & Water Action Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. "This could not be better exemplified than by Trump's new plan to spend tens of billions of dollars bailing out the fossil fuel industry instead of diverting every available resource to the overwhelming needs of our overburdened public health system trying desperately to tackle the virus outbreak."

"A $20 billion oil buy for the country's petroleum reserve is nothing more than a thinly-veiled handout to the fossil fuel industry at a time when its profits are suddenly declining from record highs," she said. "The last thing Trump should be doing in this time of generational crisis is allocating vital national resources to an industry that contributes to global environmental and human health instability." ...

According to Bloomberg, Brouillette told reporters Thursday that DOE is seeking $3 billion from Congress to cover the cost of those purchases.

Win for conservation as African black rhino numbers rise

Numbers of African black rhinos in the wild have risen by several hundred, a rare boost in the conservation of a species driven to near extinction by poaching.

Black rhinos are still in grave danger but the small increase – an annual rate of 2.5% over six years, has swollen the population from 4,845 in 2012 to an estimated 5,630 in 2018, giving hope that efforts put into saving the species are paying off.

The painstaking attempts to save the black rhino have included moving some individuals from established groups to new locations, increasing the species’ range and ensuring viable breeding populations, as well as protecting them through stronger law enforcement efforts. Numbers of all of the three subspecies of black rhino are now improving. ...

The outlook for the other African rhino species is still troubled, according to the update to the red list published on Thursday.

White rhinos are more numerous in Africa but categorised by the IUCN as near-threatened. The outlook for them has worsened in recent years, driven by high levels of poaching in South Africa’s Kruger national park. White rhinos have larger horns than their black counterparts, making them more attractive to poachers, and they are easier to find as they prefer more open habitats.

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