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This evening's music features Irish blues rock guitarist Rory Gallagher. Enjoy!

"Contrary to popular belief, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 was not about an oppressive dictatorship but a society getting exactly what it asked for; people were so dumbed down by television that they voted for books to be burned because they didn’t want to be challenged or offended. Worth remembering as people are demanding more authoritarian lockdown measures and snitching on their neighbors for going on a second run."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

DNC Fraud Lawsuit Plaintiffs Petition Supreme Court

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit filed a petition last week with the Supreme Court to review the suit’s earlier dismissal in the 11th Circuit. The move is the latest development in the suit, which was initially filed in 2016 against the Democratic National Committee and former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz by members of the Democratic Party and supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders. ... The petition filed by Elizabeth and Jared Beck says that though the Eleventh Circuit upheld the district court’s dismissal, they “found the DNC donor plaintiffs (although not the Sanders donors) did satisfy the elements … for the fraud-type claims.” ...

Asked when a response to their petition could be expected, Beck replied that “the Supreme Court has canceled oral argument due to Covid-19, so I cannot say at this time when we can expect a ruling.” Elizabeth Beck’s husband and law partner, Jared Beck, also representing the plaintiffs in the case, added: “In ordinary times, the Supreme Court justices have weekly meetings with their clerks to discuss whether or not to accept the various certiorari petitions that are filed. I don’t know whether the Court is continuing to have these meetings at the moment, but it ordinarily takes about a month to two months before a petition is circulated for consideration by the Court.”

Addressing election interference, the petition filed by the Becks cites the 2-year investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigation into alleged Russian interference, which became the singular focus of Establishment media from November 2016 onwards. In contrast, as the Becks note, the documented election interference forming the basis of the DNC Fraud Lawsuit has seen no investigation or prosecution, with their suit standing as the single exception. The Becks said:

“No official investigations or criminal proceedings have been undertaken as a result of the DNC’s failure to maintain neutrality during the 2016 Democratic primaries; no one has gone to prison or been held accountable in a court of law or any other forum. Indeed, the instant civil action embodies the lone significant attempt to hold the DNC accountable for its biased conduct, and it was brought in the name of Sanders supporters who, as a class, contributed over $228 million to a campaign that the DNC was secretly working to undermine all along.”

... Drowned in the white noise of constant Covid-19 coverage, the latest development in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit is critical not only in terms of understanding a snapshot of election history, but in providing clarity regarding current and future presidential elections. From Senator Joe Biden’s primary victories in states where he failed to so much as open a campaign office, to consistent disparities in exit poll data compared with official vote-counts that repeatedly favored Biden in the official result, the DNC Fraud Lawsuit stands as pivotal evidence of the DNC’s real attitude towards its donors and primary voters.

Regardless of the legal outcome in this case, the proceedings have already served as invaluable evidence of the rot in the democratic system in the United States.

Leaked Amazon Memo Details Plan to Smear Fired Warehouse Organizer: ‘He’s Not Smart or Articulate’

Leaked notes from an internal meeting of Amazon leadership obtained by VICE News reveal company executives discussed a plan to smear fired warehouse employee Christian Smalls, calling him “not smart or articulate” as part of a PR strategy to make him “the face of the entire union/organizing movement.”

“He’s not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we’re trying to protect workers,” wrote Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky in notes from the meeting forwarded widely in the company.

The discussion took place at a daily meeting, which included CEO Jeff Bezos, to update each other on the coronavirus situation. Amazon SVP of Global Corporate Affairs Jay Carney described the purpose to CNN on Sunday: “We go over the update on what's happening around the world with our employees and with our customers and our businesses. We also spend a significant amount of time just brainstorming about what else we can do” about COVID-19. ...

Zapolsky’s notes from the meeting detail Amazon’s plan to deal with a wave of bad press and calls for investigations from elected officials following the firing of Smalls. They also show top Amazon brass wanted to make Smalls the focus of its narrative when questioned about worker safety.

“We should spend the first part of our response strongly laying out the case for why the organizer’s conduct was immoral, unacceptable, and arguably illegal, in detail, and only then follow with our usual talking points about worker safety,” Zapolsky wrote. “Make him the most interesting part of the story, and if possible make him the face of the entire union/organizing movement.” They discussed encouraging Amazon executives to use Smalls to discredit the wider labor movement at Amazon. Employees at the warehouse, known as JFK8, launched an effort to unionize in 2018.

'How Does It Feel to Sell Your Soul to the World's Richest Man?': Obama Aide Turned Amazon Exec Ripped Over Fired Workplace Organizer

Jay Carney, the former White House press secretary who now serves as Amazon's senior vice president of global corporate affairs, came under fire overnight for defending the retail behemoth's firing this week of a warehouse employee who had organized a worker protest demanding safer conditions amid the coronavirus outbreak.

In a tweet Wednesday night, Carney went after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a candidate for the Democratic Party's 2020 presidential nomination, after the Vermont lawmaker defended Chris Smalls, a team manager at a fulfillment center in Staten Island who was terminated just a day after helping stage a walkout at the facility. ...

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world, which observers noted in their tweets to Carney after his comments on Smalls' firing.

How does it feel to sell your soul to the world’s richest man?

— onekade (@onekade) April 2, 2020

"Your boss is the richest person on Earth, and he just became $3.4 billion richer last month dumping stock in anticipation of this pandemic," said Claire Sandberg, national organizing director for the Sanders campaign. "How much does he pay you to pretend he can't afford to give his workers PPE and a sane paid sick leave policy?"

A Chris Hedges classic:

Let's Get This Class War Started

“The rich are different from us,” F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, “Yes, they have more money.” The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway. The rich are different. The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and sycophants. Wealth breeds, as Fitzgerald illustrated in “The Great Gatsby” and his short story “The Rich Boy,” a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities. Colleagues, associates, employees, kitchen staff, servants, gardeners, tutors, personal trainers, even friends and family, bend to the whims of the wealthy or disappear. Once oligarchs achieve unchecked economic and political power, as they have in the United States, the citizens too become disposable. ...

The blanket dissemination of the ideology of free market capitalism through the media and the purging, especially in academia, of critical voices have permitted our oligarchs to orchestrate the largest income inequality gap in the industrialized world. The top 1 percent in the United States own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 80 percent own only 7 percent, as Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote in “The Price of Inequality.” For every dollar that the wealthiest 0.1 percent amassed in 1980 they had an additional $3 in yearly income in 2008, David Cay Johnston explained in the article “9 Things the Rich Don’t Want You to Know About Taxes.” The bottom 90 percent, Johnson said, in the same period added only one cent. Half of the country is now classified as poor or low-income. The real value of the minimum wage has fallen by $2.77 since 1968. Oligarchs do not believe in self-sacrifice for the common good. They never have. They never will. They are the cancer of democracy.”We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are,” Wendell Berry writes. “Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all — by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians — be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us. How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.”

The rise of an oligarchic state offers a nation two routes, according to Aristotle. The impoverished masses either revolt to rectify the imbalance of wealth and power or the oligarchs establish a brutal tyranny to keep the masses forcibly enslaved. We have chosen the second of Aristotle’s options. The slow advances we made in the early 20th century through unions, government regulation, the New Deal, the courts, an alternative press and mass movements have been reversed. The oligarchs are turning us — as they did in the 19th century steel and textile factories — into disposable human beings. They are building the most pervasive security and surveillance apparatus in human history to keep us submissive. ...

The seesaw of history has thrust the oligarchs once again into the sky. We sit humiliated and broken on the ground. It is an old battle. It has been fought over and over in human history. We never seem to learn. It is time to grab our pitchforks.

Iran hits back after Trump claims it is planning Iraq attacks

Iran’s military and diplomatic leadership has hit back at Donald Trump’s claims that its proxies were planning a sneak attack on US bases in Iraq, claiming Tehran only ever acts in self-defence and has no proxies in Iraq, only allies.

The US and Iran are already at loggerheads over the impact of US sanctions on Tehran’s ability to fight the coronavirus pandemic, and the threat of a military attack on the US is likely to widen the dispute. The Iranian army chief of staff, Mohammad Bagheri, said the recent spate of attacks on US bases in Iraq were nothing to do with Iran, but were “a natural response by the Iraqi people”. He said US forces were being closely monitored minute by minute and any US attack would produce the most severe response.

Trump on Wednesday said Iran or its proxies planned a sneak attack on American targets in Iraq, prompting the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, to hit back, tweeting: “Don’t be mislead [sic] by usual warmongers,” adding that “Iran has FRIENDS: No one can have MILLIONS of proxies. Unlike the US which surreptitiously lies, cheats & assassinates.”

Don’t be mislead by usual warmongers, AGAIN, @realDonaldTrump:

Iran has FRIENDS: No one can have MILLIONS of"proxies"

Unlike the US—which surreptitiously lies, cheats & assassinates—Iran only acts in self-defense. Openly

Iran starts no wars, but teaches lessons to those who do

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) April 2, 2020

Esmail Ghaani, the head of Iran’s expeditionary Quds force, started a visit to Baghdad this week, the first since his predecessor Qassem Suleimani was killed by a US drone. Ghaani is hoping to unite the Shia factions, and the visit is seen as a test of whether he can match the famed influence of Suleimani.

US Treasury is running ‘mafia racket’ against Venezuela- Ex UN anti-narcotics chief & mob expert

Experts warn of privacy risk as US uses GPS to fight coronavirus spread

A transatlantic divide on how to use location data to fight coronavirus risks highlights the lack of safeguards for Americans’ personal data, academics and data scientists have warned. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has turned to data provided by the mobile advertising industry to analyse population movements in the midst of the pandemic.

Owing to a lack of systematic privacy protections in the US, data collected by advertising companies is often extremely detailed: companies with access to GPS location data, such as weather apps or some e-commerce sites, have been known to sell that data on for ad targeting purposes. That data provides much more granular information on the location and movement of individuals than the mobile network data received by the UK government from carriers including O2 and BT.

While both datasets track individuals at the collection level, GPS data is accurate to within five metres, according to Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, a data scientist at Imperial College, while mobile network data is accurate to 0.1km² in city centres and much less in less dense areas – the difference between locating an individual to their street and to a specific room in their home. ...

The location data the CDC has acquired is pseudonymised, but not aggregated, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. That means that identifying data such as names have been removed from the dataset, but the data has been left in a format that allows for an individual to be followed over a period of time.

But, warns de Montjoye, such data is never truly anonymous. “The original data is pseudonymised, yet it is quite easy to reidentify someone. Knowing where someone was is enough to reidentify them 95% of the time, using mobile phone data. So there’s the privacy concern: you need to process the pseudonymised data, but the pseudonymised data can be reidentified. Most of the time, if done properly, the aggregates are aggregated, and cannot be de-anonymised.”

Krystal Ball: Millions lose healthcare, Biden doesn't care

This chart is a portrait of disaster. I have spent the last twenty years studying the labor market and have never seen anything like it. Unemployment insurance claims for the last two weeks are mind-blowing. 1/ pic.twitter.com/IoRYyraW0V

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) April 2, 2020

Coronavirus batters US economy as 6.65m file for unemployment last week

More than 6.65 million people filed for unemployment benefits in the US last week, the latest official figures to highlight the devastating economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the American economy.

The federal labor department announced that a new record number of people sought benefits after losing their jobs in the week ending 27 March as long lines formed at unemployment offices, phone lines jammed and websites collapsed under the weight of claims across the US.

Some 3.3 million had filed for unemployment the previous week, bringing total claims to 9.95 million for the two weeks. More people have filed for unemployment in the last two weeks than filed in the last 10 months.

The US now faces the sharpest rise in unemployment in its history, a surge that is already highlighting income inequality across the nation and comes as the global economy goes into a nosedive that is likely to exacerbate the situation in the months ahead.

Pelosi’s New Idea: Tax Cuts For The Wealthy!! WTF?!?!?

Policymakers twice missed the chance to avert widespread job loss, now they should act to avoid more layoffs

It is important to remember that mass unemployment as a result of the coronavirus did not have to happen—in fact, policymakers twice missed the chance to avert widespread job loss. First, the failure to take the coronavirus seriously early on and to implement rapid and accurate testing means we cannot now distinguish between those who are sick and need to be quarantined, and those who are healthy and could largely continue normal activity. This in turn means that to avert a much greater disaster, we have no choice but to enforce widespread lockdowns rather than more targeted quarantines. In other words, the lack of early response turned a public health threat into an economic recession, which will continue at least as long as our testing and tracing capability is insufficient.

Moreover, even after we failed to test for the virus on a sufficient scale and control its spread, we still could have protected jobs. Other countries have chosen to compensate coronavirus-impacted employers for close to the entire amount of their workers’ salaries, as long as they keep their workers on payroll. Making it possible for businesses to keep workers on payroll is crucial because at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, the threat of the virus will be over, and the economy will be able to restart. People who have been on lockdown will be very excited to go out to restaurants and do other things they have missed out on (count me among them!). But that sudden surge in demand could go one of two ways. If employers still have their workers on payroll, they will be able to turn the lights back on and deal with the rush of customers. But if they had to lay off workers, they will need to spend great deal of resources posting jobs, interviewing, hiring, onboarding, and training. This scramble to re-match workers with jobs will prolong the pain of the recession much longer than necessary. ...

Based on new GDP forecasts, we project that nearly twenty million workers will be laid off or furloughed by July as a result of the coronavirus shock. These lob-loss estimates are based on GDP forecasts by Goldman Sachs that, shockingly, include the impact of the $2 trillion relief package that was passed last week and also assume another relief package will be passed that will focus on aid to states, which is a particularly effective form of stimulus. In other words, far more than 20 million workers will be laid off or furloughed unless we get another relief and recovery package that includes a substantial amount of state aid.

Zach Carter: Dem leadership realizes they screwed up bailout

Bernie Sanders Calls for 'Boldest Legislation in History' to Halt Spiraling Covid-19 Catastrophe

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday released his demands for six key priorities that he said must be included in the next round of federal economic relief for suffering Americans as the coronavirus pandemic cripples the country's healthcare system and eviscerates the economy.

"We are in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic that could lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans and infect millions of others, and we are entering an economic downturn that could be worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s," Sanders said. "In this unprecedented moment in modern American history, it is imperative that we respond in an unprecedented way."

According to the Vermont lawmaker's office, Sanders wants the next bill to include six provisions that are aimed at helping working people in the U.S. weather the crisis:

• Addressing the employment crisis by ensuring workers remain employed and paid as well as providing social services for everyone in the country, regardless of citizenship or immigration status
• Guaranteeing a free at point of service Medicare for All single payer healthcaer system for everyone in the country
• Immediately using the Defense Production Act to manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and other needed healthcare equipment for frontline workers dealing with the pandemic
• Providing food for everyone in the country for the duration of the crisis
• $600 billion in aid to states and cities 
• An immediate suspension of collections of rent, mortgage payments, medical debt, and consumer debt for four months and a suspension of student loan payments through the duration of the pandemic

In a video posted to social media, Sanders said the pandemic presents an outright "emergency" for the nation's most vulnerable populations and for all working people, and that drastic measures must be taken to protect people's health and economic wellbeing:

I hope very much that out of this terrible tragedy we do some fundamental rethinking about the nature of American society. pic.twitter.com/r8NqGx0tq4

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 3, 2020

Sanders, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, announced the priorities Friday afternoon. Campaign co-chair Nina Turner, in a tweet, cited the need for ambitious thinking.

"We are entering a downturn that could be worse than the Great Depression," said Turner. "We must respond to this unprecedented challenge with the boldest measures: Sanders is outlining the most comprehensive set of priorities that will IMMEDIATELY provide relief and leave no one behind." ...

Meanwhile, Sanders' rival former Vice President Joe Biden continues to claim that universal healthcare is an unworkable solution to the insurance crisis in the U.S. and that a single-payer system would not have stopped the outbreak. As Common Dreams reported, estimates of workers losing coverage due to loss of employment in 2020 could top 35 million. ...

Sanders appeared on MSNBC Friday to promote his plan. During the segment, host Ali Velshi listed a number of longstanding priorities of the senator's, including Medicare for All and student debt relief, and wondered if the crisis was making Sanders' case for president for him.

Reality has endorsed Bernie Sanders. pic.twitter.com/5tSIVme5xU

— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) April 3, 2020

In Nation Without Medicare for All, 3.5 Million Workers May Have Lost Employer-Provided Insurance Over Last Two Weeks

A new analysis estimates that 3.5 million U.S. workers may have lost their job-tied health insurance in just the last two weeks.

"The COVID-19 pandemic lays bare the cruelty of tying health insurance coverage to employment," wrote Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), on Twitter Thursday.

3.5 million workers likely lost their employer provided health insurance in the past two weeks

The COVID-19 pandemic lays bare the cruelty of tying health insurance coverage to employment https://t.co/rozY7k7mb5 pic.twitter.com/Ug3X7OMZ6w

— Ben Zipperer (@benzipperer) April 2, 2020

The analysis from Zipperer and EPI director of research Josh Bivens came the same day data from the U.S. Department of Labor revealed that 6.6 million Americans filed jobless claims last week—more than double the previous record of 3.28 million claims filed the week before—as the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic continues to batter workers.

The analysis also provides fresh evidence for Medicare for All advocates' longstanding argument that the current healthcare system, in which roughly half of Americans rely on their employer for healthcare coverage, must be abandoned in favor of a system that guarantees coverage to everyone regardless of employment.

"It is especially terrifying for workers to lose their health insurance as a result of, and during, an ongoing pandemic," wrote Zipperer and Bivens. ...

Biden has reaffirmed his opposition to Medicare for All, even as new polling shows record high for such a system. 

Sanders, who's made Medicare for All a central component of his campaign, has said the need the current pandemic only serves to underscore his policy proposal.

In a Thursday tweet, Sanders said, "We need Medicare for All so that your health insurance is not tied to your job."

“Our Bodies Are On the Line”: NYC Nurses Demand Protective Gear as COVID-19 Death Toll Skyrockets

Tucker Carlson blasts companies putting profits over Americans in time of crisis

Why Is Congress on Recess in the Middle of a Pandemic?

As millions of Americans adjust to working from home and brace for more waves of coronavirus, Congress is MIA. They’re on an impromptu recess until at least April 20, with no real way to conduct business, because House and Senate rules demand in-person voting unless each lawmaker agrees to the legislation.

That leaves the White House — which most lawmakers, even Republicans, don’t trust -- in charge, and it’s why critics are decrying congressional leaders for their utter failure of imagination.

“To say that legislators can’t log votes remotely is ridiculous,” former presidential candidate Andrew Yang told VICE News. “It's going to be necessary at some point soon during this crisis as more and more legislators end up self-quarantining, so they should just get the show on the road right now.”

But there's resistance on both sides. In a rare case of bipartisanship from Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refuse to even entertain the idea of remote voting.

“Let’s not waste time on something that is not going to happen,” the speaker reiterated on a call with reporters when she was asked about remote voting this week. And McConnell agreed. “We’ll not be doing that. There are a number of different ways to avoid getting too many people together,” he said two weeks ago. Reached by VICE News this week, his office stood by his statement.

Renters Protest LA’s Mayor’s Home In Their Cars!

Ellis Marsalis, jazz pianist and father to Wynton and Branford, dies aged 85

Ellis Marsalis, the jazz pianist who fathered two of America’s most celebrated jazz performers in Wynton and Branford Marsalis, has died aged 85. He is suspected to have died from the Covid-19 virus, after being admitted to hospital with symptoms. His test results are pending. ...

Marsalis was an acclaimed pianist who helped bring the bebop style south to New Orleans, where swing and big-band jazz had dominated. He played alongside Ornette Coleman, featured on a recording alongside hard bop stars Nat and Cannonball Adderley, and recorded 20 solo albums. In 1987, he composed music for a recorded version of the King Midas tale, narrated by Michael Caine and featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

But he was most celebrated as a teacher, training, among others, Harry Connick Jr and Terence Blanchard, as well as mentoring his famous sons.

As DNC Postpones Milwaukee Convention From July to August, Critics Say 'Absolutely Foolish' to Hold Wisconsin Primary Next Week

The Democratic National Convention scheduled for this July in Milwaukee has been pushed back to August due to public health concerns about the coronavirus outbreak even as Wisconsin is forging ahead with plans to have statewide elections—including party primaries—next week on April 7 despite concerns raised by public health officials and voting rights advocates.

"The DNC is delaying a convention that was set to take place in Wisconsin in July," tweeted CNN national political reporter Eric Bradner. "But the Democratic governor and Republican legislature there won't move—or cancel the in-person portion of—a primary that's happening there next Tuesday."

So, @DNC is delaying the Democratic Convention in Milwaukee from July to August after frontrunner Joe Biden calls for a delay. But, DNC & Biden won’t move to delay the Primary in Wisconsin... scheduled in 5 days. Absolutely foolish & will result in many more #COVID19 infections.

— Ash Kalra (@Ash_Kalra) April 2, 2020

As the New York Times reported, the proposed August rescheduling is hardly more certain to be safe than July as there is no way to predict what stage the pandemic will be at by that point. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who currently enjoys a substantial delegate lead in the presidential primary over his remaining rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), on Wednesday night suggested delaying the convention to August would be necessary due to the outbreak. ...

On Wednesday, Sanders called on Wisconsin to delay its primary election in the interest of public health, as Common Dreams reported. ...

Wisconsin state officials appeared determined Thursday to go ahead with in-person voting despite calls for delay. A coming court ruling on the elections is seen as likely to be in favor of keeping the schedule—but Federal Judge William Conley on Wednesday nonetheless warned public health consequences of the vote could be disastrous and implied the ramifications were on state lawmakers.

"You don't get to go to a federal judge and say (conditions are) impinging on voting rights so you get to stop a statewide election," said Conley. "I'm sorry that's what the situation is, but this is a public health crisis that the state legislature and governor have refused to accept as severe enough to stop this statewide election."

Meanwhile, polling places around Wisconsin are closing—possibly dropping from 31 to four in Green Bay—leaving voters with limited options on where to cast a ballot and presenting a potential crush of people at voting locations at a time when social distancing is most important.

More bad news in Wisconsin's April 7 primary & state Supreme Court general election: The city of Green Bay may cut its 31 polling places down to just 4 as the coronavirus deters poll workers. This will lead to more voters crowding into fewer polling places https://t.co/VVNdL40K4x

— Stephen Wolf (@PoliticsWolf) April 2, 2020

Gov. Tony Evers on Wednesday ordered the National Guard to help at polling places, a move that is still expected be insufficient to meet the needs of the state's election.

Trump’s Fuel Efficiency Reduction Would Be Largest Anti-Climate Rollback Ever

Deep in the 2,000-page final rule rescinding greenhouse gas standards for passenger vehicles, the Trump administration makes a striking admission: Less efficient cars will mean a future of about 10,000 fewer auto industry jobs per year. That single statistic—especially jarring just days after the COVID-19 crisis caused the biggest spike in jobless claims in U.S. history—captures why the auto industry isn't exactly celebrating the Trump administration's most consequential retreat yet from climate action.

Instead, the industry's leading trade group responded cautiously that it would review the decision, adding that transformation to address climate change is inevitable. ...

The automakers agreed to the new standards as part of the $80 billion federal bailout that saved the industry from the brink of collapse. But by the time that Trump was elected, the automakers were seeking more flexibility to continue selling their most profitable vehicles—pick-up trucks and gas guzzling SUVs. They reached out to Trump days after his election in 2016, signaling they were looking for relief.

But carmakers did not want to upend the policy as drastically as the Trump administration sought to do. ...

Reporting by The New York Times and others indicates that the Trump administration was responding to a concerted campaign by the oil industry to rollback fuel economy.

EPA loses case seeking modeling behind Obama mileage rollback

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was wrong to withhold information about how it devised its new fuel efficiency standards, a panel of judges ruled just a day after the Trump administration rolled back Obama-era mileage standards. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday sided with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Environmental Defense Fund, which sued the EPA to gain insight into a controversial modeling technique that many said oversold the benefits for rolling back the Obama administration’s policy.

The new standards unveiled by the Trump administration Tuesday require automakers to produce a fleet averaging 40 mpg by 2026, rather than the previous requirement under the Obama administration to reach 55 mpg by 2025.

At issue in Wednesday's decision is the OMEGA modeling used to determine various outcomes from reducing mileage standards. Part of the modeling attempted to forecast consumer behavior, assuming people would resist buying as many new cars given the tougher Obama-era fuel standards would likely make them more expensive. If true, used cars would likely stay on the road longer.

But Jeff Alson, a former senior policy adviser at EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, which helps develop vehicle mileage and emissions standards, said the resulting analysis found a surge of roughly a trillion extra miles that would be driven by used cars. “The miles driven should be about the same,” Alson said, regardless of whether someone buys a new car or keeps driving an older one.

“If I have to go to work, I go to work; if i need to go to the store, I go to the store, but I'm not going to drive all of a sudden a lot more miles,” he said, adding the formula “went haywire.”

Pumas on the streets of Santiago: Wildlife takes to cities amid coronavirus lockdown

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

With Fake Hand Sanitizer and 12 Ventilators, Afghanistan Expects Millions of Coronavirus Cases

Chris Smalls: Dear Jeff Bezos, instead of firing me, protect your workers from coronavirus

Trump Labor Department Accused of Quietly 'Twisting the Law' to Slash Paid Sick Leave Amid Pandemic

Citigroup, an Admitted Felon with a History of Abusing Customers, Is Handling Billions from the Stimulus Bill

Fed’s Balance Sheet Blasts to $5.8 Trillion; Suggests Fed Is Back to Bailing Out Foreign Banks along with Wall Street

Navajo mount grassroots effort to tackle coronavirus

Privacy Experts Say Responsible Coronavirus Surveillance Is Possible

"We're Running Out of Time to Get This Right": Congress Urged to Move Swiftly to Protect 2020 Elections From Pandemic's Mayhem

Why Can’t Everyone in This Country Get Free COVID-19 Treatment?

Why Western Elites Are So Incompetent And What The Consequences Are

“The American Disease”: Only the Overthrow of the Oligarchy Will Cure It

Corporate Media Ignore International Cooperation as Shortcut to Coronavirus Vaccine

You Don’t Need to Believe China About China’s Coronavirus Success

Infections spike | Ultra-Orthodox Jews ignore govt lockdown

Saagar Enjeti: Pelosi's Joke Oversight Leaves Workers In The Cold Again

Striking InstaCart Worker: Risking our lives, making less than minimum wage

Krystal and Saagar: Leaked Amazon emails reveal smear campaign against fired warehouse worker

Michael Brooks: What's wrong with the intellectual dark web?

Someone’s Screwing You, And It Ain’t China: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Dealing With Quarantine Anxiety & Depression With Johann Hari, Plus Matt On Bailouts | Useful Idiots

Earliest known skull of Homo erectus unearthed by Australian-led team

A Little Night Music

Rory Gallagher - Blow Wind Blow

Rory Gallagher - Garbage Man Blues

Rory Gallagher - Pistol Slapper Blues, Too Much Alcohol

Rory Gallagher - Messin With the Kid

Jack Bruce & Rory Gallagher - Born Under A Bad Sign

Rory Gallagher - Toredown

Rory Gallagher & Frankie Miller - Walkin' The Dog

Rory Gallagher - Walk On Hot Coals

Rory Gallagher - Bullfrog Blues

Rory Gallagher - If The River Was Whiskey