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“The mistake our politicians so often make with these industry leaders is in thinking they are interested in, or respectful of, the power of government. All they want is to keep stealing. If you can offer them the government’s seal of approval on that, they’ll take it. But if you can’t, well, they’ll take that too.”

-- Matt Taibbi

News and Opinion

Worth a full read:

Oil Price Collapse Delivers a Loud Warning

Yesterday, the price of the front futures contract for U.S. domestic crude oil, known as West Texas Intermediate or WTI, closed in negative territory for the first time in history. The reason was that no one wanted to take physical possession of that crude oil because they could not find any place to store it. There is now such a global oversupply of crude that traditional storage places, like tankers and storage tanks, are full for the most part. The May contract expires today and the price action in the new front month June contract does not look promising. At 9:25 a.m. this morning, the June contract was down by 29 percent with WTI trading at $14.50.

While the price action in crude yesterday was historic, it is far from the only commodity experiencing dramatic price declines. ...

There is growing evidence that all of this demand destruction leading to collapsing prices cannot be blamed on the coronavirus outbreak. Treasury yields were plunging in August and September of last year, long before there was a coronavirus outbreak anywhere in the world. The Federal Reserve had to step in on September 17, 2019 – four months before the first coronavirus case in the U.S. – to shore up a liquidity crisis on Wall Street. The crisis was so bad that the Fed had to pump hundreds of billions of dollars weekly into the trading houses on Wall Street for months on end. (See the more than six dozen articles we penned on that topic from September 17 onward.) ...

The U.S. had a previous warning of what causes this type of demand destruction. It is now known as the Great Financial Crisis of 2007 to 2010. The roots of that era of collapsing prices and today’s date back to November 12, 1999 when President Bill Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealing the Glass-Steagall Act. Clinton’s signature on that legislation ended the 66-year long ban against Wall Street trading houses owning federally-insured banks holding the deposits of moms and pops across America.

Today, just five Wall Street mega banks control the majority of assets of the more than 5,000 banks and savings associations that exist in the U.S. today. These same Wall Street banks are allowed to charge upwards of 17 percent or more on consumer credit cards while paying 1 percent or less to their depositors. Simply put, Clinton launched a massive wealth transfer system in America. ... Nine years later, the U.S. financial system collapsed along with iconic, century old names on Wall Street as the U.S. entered the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. This is round II.

Heh, a writer for The Atlantic rag has a surprisingly lucid epiphany. This failed state realization is starting to get around.

We Are Living in a Failed State

When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category. ... Despite countless examples around the U.S. of individual courage and sacrifice, the failure is national. And it should force a question that most Americans have never had to ask: Do we trust our leaders and one another enough to summon a collective response to a mortal threat? Are we still capable of self-government? ...

This is the third major crisis of the short 21st century. The first, on September 11, 2001, came when Americans were still living mentally in the previous century, and the memory of depression, world war, and cold war remained strong. On that day, people in the rural heartland did not see New York as an alien stew of immigrants and liberals that deserved its fate, but as a great American city that had taken a hit for the whole country. Firefighters from Indiana drove 800 miles to help the rescue effort at Ground Zero. Our civic reflex was to mourn and mobilize together.

Partisan politics and terrible policies, especially the Iraq War, erased the sense of national unity and fed a bitterness toward the political class that never really faded. The second crisis, in 2008, intensified it. At the top, the financial crash could almost be considered a success. Congress passed a bipartisan bailout bill that saved the financial system. ... All of the lasting pain was felt in the middle and at the bottom, by Americans who had taken on debt and lost their jobs, homes, and retirement savings. Many of them never recovered, and young people who came of age in the Great Recession are doomed to be poorer than their parents. Inequality—the fundamental, relentless force in American life since the late 1970s—grew worse. This second crisis drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. ...

This was the American landscape that lay open to the virus: in prosperous cities, a class of globally connected desk workers dependent on a class of precarious and invisible service workers; in the countryside, decaying communities in revolt against the modern world; on social media, mutual hatred and endless vituperation among different camps; in the economy, even with full employment, a large and growing gap between triumphant capital and beleaguered labor; in Washington, an empty government led by a con man and his intellectually bankrupt party; around the country, a mood of cynical exhaustion, with no vision of a shared identity or future. ...

The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don’t have to be in the military or in debt to be a target—you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we’ve tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected—the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president’s conservative allies—were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms. The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.

When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, “Perhaps that’s been the story of life.” Most Americans hardly register this kind of special privilege in normal times. But in the first weeks of the pandemic it sparked outrage, as if, during a general mobilization, the rich had been allowed to buy their way out of military service and hoard gas masks. As the contagion has spread, its victims have been likely to be poor, black, and brown people. The gross inequality of our health-care system is evident in the sight of refrigerated trucks lined up outside public hospitals. ...

We can learn from these dreadful days that stupidity and injustice are lethal; that, in a democracy, being a citizen is essential work; that the alternative to solidarity is death. After we’ve come out of hiding and taken off our masks, we should not forget what it was like to be alone.

Media Fail to Identify Xenophobia as Biden Says Trump ‘Rolled Over for Chinese’

As Covid-19 and its economic effects clearly dominate all else politically, ads for the Trump campaign are ramping up the anti-China rhetoric in an effort to deflect blame. The first attack ad Donald Trump launched since Joe Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee was titled “Biden Stands Up for China” (4/9/20), while a pro-Trump super PAC is airing multiple ads (4/16/20, 4/16/20) painting Biden as cozy with China. One ad warned China is “killing our jobs, stealing technology and putting us in danger with Covid-19”; the other concluded, “Now more than ever, America must stop China. And to stop China, you have to stop Joe Biden.”

Rather than respond by focusing blame for the crisis squarely where it belongs—on Trump’s incompetent, reckless and self-centered management—and working to beat back the dangerously rising anti-Asian sentiment in this country, Biden and some of his supporting super PACs are choosing to adopt rather than challenge the anti-China premise of the attacks.

The pro-Biden super PAC American Bridge released an ad (4/17/20) that announced in a menacing voiceover: “[Trump] gave China more than praise. He shipped China 17 tons of American masks and medical supplies. Our masks and supplies. Supplies we need now.”

The Biden campaign put out its own ad (4/18/20) accusing Trump of being the one who’s too cozy with China, saying he “rolled over for the Chinese” and “didn’t hold China accountable” for its own management of the pandemic.

As the Nation‘s Jeet Heer (4/20/20) pointed out, using the phrase “the Chinese” here is particularly problematic, as it conflates China’s government with Chinese people—many of whom live in the United States. And the obsession (shared by much of the media) with “holding China accountable”—i.e., making China a scapegoat—continues to prioritize aggressive us-vs.-them international posturing over international cooperation and looking for lessons from China’s ultimately successful drive to control the virus’s spread inside its country (FAIR.org, 3/24/20).

The responsible way for media to cover this campaign battle would be to call out these xenophobic Yellow Peril ads for what they are. But while some journalists are able to do so for the pro-Trump ads, far fewer are questioning the pro-Biden ads. After Trump’s April 9 ad, a team of New York Times reporters (4/10/20) managed to call the ad “xenophobic”—though its decision to characterize his rhetoric as merely “exploit[ing] racial discord” rather than fomenting it reveals the paper’s continued adherence to its executive editor’s insistence that it must not directly call Trump racist (FAIR.org, 11/22/19). The Washington Post‘s John Wagner (4/10/20), noting that the ad included an image of former Washington State Gov. Gary Locke, said it “appeared to be suggesting that Locke is a Chinese official at a time when Asian Americans face rising bigotry and blame for the coronavirus outbreak.”

But when media later included the pro-Biden response ads, criticism was in short supply.  While Trump’s xenophobia and racism are unparalleled in contemporary mainstream US politics, and therefore easy to identify, it’s certainly possible—and urgent—to point out xenophobia and racism from both major parties, without at the same time falling into the common media fallacy of creating a false equivalence between them.

Reporting a week later on both sides’ ads and rhetoric on China, a separate New York Times team (4/18/20) labeled the GOP strategy an attempt “to divert attention from the administration’s heavily criticized response to the coronavirus by pinning the blame on China.” But the reporters merely found it “striking” to see both Biden and Trump “attempt to portray each other as captive to Beijing.” The piece also described, without commentary, the American Bridge ad.

Meanwhile, in a Post followup  (4/18/20) about Trump’s efforts to link Biden to China, the team of reporters let the rival super PACs offer the only commentary on their ads. And a piece by the Post‘s Michelle Ye Hee Lee (4/19/20) on the American Bridge ad couldn’t get past bland press release-style descriptions in its more than 500 words: “Trump and his allies increasingly are seizing on China’s role in the spread of the novel coronavirus to attack Biden,” while the ad “aims to counter the Trump operation’s narrative.” ...

MSNBC‘s Joe Scarborough (4/18/20) went so far as to rave about Biden’s ad: “This is the most devastating political ad I’ve seen in years. It reveals the truth about Trump and China, and that truth is ugly.”

Over at NBCNews.com (4/18/20), Sahil Kapur laid out the issue for readers:

The back-and-forth shows the extent to which the deadly virus, which experts say originated in the city of Wuhan, has turned China into a powerful election-year issue, with both major party candidates scrambling to get on the right side.

It’s a classic media formulation, but of course it’s not the virus that turned China into a powerful issue—it’s political leaders, aided and abetted by their media accomplices. And unfortunately, the “right side”—the one that seeks to end both the pandemic and xenophobia—is largely missing from the media at the moment.

CDC chief warns of 'even more difficult' wave of coronavirus next winter

A leading US public health official warned on Tuesday that a new wave of coronavirus hitting the US next winter could be “even more difficult” for America to deal with than the current outbreak.

And in a double blow for the prospect of ending the coronavirus pandemic, a US trial of the controversial treatment Donald Trump has referred to as “like a miracle” has produced poor results.

Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) federal agency, warned that a wave of coronavirus next winter would coincide with the normal influenza season. ... Having two simultaneous respiratory outbreaks would put unimaginable strain on the healthcare system, he told the Post. ...

Also on Tuesday, a malaria drug frequently touted by Trump for treating Covid-19 showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in US veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine than those given standard care, researchers reported.

The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment. But with 368 patients, it is the largest study yet of hydroxychloroquine, with or without the antibiotic azithromycin, for Covid-19.

Dozens of National Chains Got a Piece of the Coronavirus Bailout

Dozens of massive, publicly traded companies took advantage of the government’s relief fund for the small businesses currently squeezed by the coronavirus pandemic, according to an analysis from the Associated Press. The AP found that at least 75 publicly-traded companies — some with market values of $100 million or more — applied for and received the low-interest emergency loans created through the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program.

That program, according to the Treasury Department, is largely intended for small businesses struggling to cover payroll and rent. It officially ran out of money last Thursday. The U.S. Small Business Administration will forgive the loans if the companies bring back furloughed or laid-off workers in the next few months.

The majority of the loans doled out in recent weeks were for less than $150,000, according to the AP, but eight companies, including their subsidiaries, received up to $10 million — the maximum loan amount.

The Associated Press did not disclose whether one of the companies was Shake Shack, the publicly-traded burger chain that announced it would return its $10 million government loan Sunday after widespread outrage. Businesses like Shake Shack are technically still eligible for the small business program — ideally set aside for businesses with fewer than 500 employees — if they have fewer than 500 employees “per physical location” and multiple locations in their portfolio, according to the New York Times.

For that reason, national chains like Potbelly, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, and Taco Cabana have applied for and received the maximum $10 million loan despite having thousands of employees.

Big Banks Sued for Putting Large Corporations Ahead of Main Street Small Business Owners for Covid-19 Rescue Loans

Small businesses filed class-action lawsuits against three large banks Monday, accusing them of manipulating the application process for a government program aimed at providing relief for smaller companies amid the coronavirus crisis.

According to the lawsuits, which were filed in California against Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase, the financial institutions allowed large public corporations to skip to the front of the line for benefits offered through the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

Court filings showed that a bank identified as "Lender 1"—thought to be JPMorgan Chase, according to the New York Times—gave out loans averaging over $515,000. The average sum is "well above the needs of the average small business," the plaintiffs said.

A recent report from the Small Business Administration (SBA), which began administering the PPP last month as the coronavirus pandemic forced millions of businesses across the country to shut down, many loans for $150,000 or less—likely going to small businesses—were processed three days after larger loans. The lawsuits allege the banks held off on processing small businesses loans and gave precedence to larger companies, in violation of the "first come, first served" system under which the PPP was meant to operate.

"With allegations that major banks shuffled Paycheck Protection Program applications to prioritize larger loan amounts and bigger businesses, Main Street businesses are furious," said small business advocacy group Main Street Alliance. "This possibility points to a clear design flaw in the program that tried to use the private lending market, already rife with discrimination and putting profits over all, as the mechanism for small business relief."

The lawsuits were filed as Congress was preparing to pass a new relief package including over $300 billion more for the PPP—an effort to replenish the fund several days after it ran out of money. The Senate passed the bill approving additional funds Tuesday afternoon.

Both the Associated Press and the Financial Times detailed the distribution of funds through the PPP in reports on Tuesday.

The AP found that companies with thousands of employees, many of which were risking financial failure long before the coronavirus pandemic spread across the U.S., were given loans through the PPP.

At least 75 companies that received loans were publicly traded, while eight companies received the maximum loan allowed of $10 million. More than 4,000 of the loans approved by the SBA were for at least $5 million.

According to the Financial Times, Hallador Energy, a coal company based in Indiana, was one of the companies that received $10 million—weeks after it laid off 60 workers. ...

As Congress passed the new relief package promising more funding for small business loans, the Main Street Alliance said the federal government must consider grants for struggling companies.

"Small businesses are demanding that any new funding must come directly to them via subsidies, not loans, and it must prioritize those who were left out," the group said.

Saagar Enjeti: Corporate Democrats, Republicans SCREW Working Americans AGAIN

US Senate passes $500bn small-business aid package

The US Senate passed a near $500bn coronavirus aid package on Tuesday for small businesses, including additional help for hospitals and virus testing. ... The aid package is the second for small business, which have been hit hard by the pandemic and shed millions of jobs. The first proved controversial, with big businesses including Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse receiving millions while many small businesses missed out. Shake Shack has now handed back the $10m loan it received. Ruth’s Chris – which had revenues of $468m last year – received $20m.

Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said that larger firms would now be blocked from using the new program.

Small businesses in hard-hit New York were skeptical that the new money would get to them in time, having missed out on the first wave of payments. “This is going to be the end of us all,” said Brian Colgan, who runs ACME, a props and furniture rental business in Brooklyn. He said none of his small business contacts had received funds. Nichelina Mavros, co-owner of Dépanneur, a Brooklyn grocery store, said it was clear the first bailout favored big business. “Ninety eight per cent of New York businesses are small businesses. In my network not one of them got the money.” ...

Donald Trump said he supports the measure. ... Trump said he was open to including in a subsequent virus aid package fiscal relief for state and local government – which Democrats had wanted for the current bill – along with infrastructure projects. Most of the funding, more than $300bn, would go to boost a small-business payroll loan program that ran out of money last week. An additional $75bn would be given to hospitals, and $25bn would be spent to boost testing for the virus, a key step in building the confidence required to reopen state economies.

Congressman Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, told a conference call with reporters that House votes would occur on Thursday.

House to Vote on Allowing Members to Use Proxies, Opening Door for Full Remote Voting

The House is expected on Thursday to vote on a measure allowing members to vote remotely via proxies for the duration of the coronavirus outbreak crisis, a proposal that could be a solution to legislative gridlock exacerbated by the House's extended recess due to the pandemic which has made it unsafe for Congress to meet.

Rules Committee chair Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) explained the proxy rules change to the New York Times in an interview last week.

"This is what we're comfortable with doing now that I think poses the least amount of risk," McGovern told the Times. "For those who feel they want to be here and engage in debate, they can come back, but for those members who are in states where they are instructed not to leave their homes or not to travel, they can still participate."

House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), in a letter to the chairs of the House Committee on Rules and the House Committee on Administration, said he sees the implementation of the new rule as a first step in virtual, remote voting for Congress.

"Beyond implementing the proxy voting as a first step, we ought to use this time as an opportunity to prepare for Congress to be able to work according to its full capabilities even with social and physical distancing guidelines in place," wrote Hoyer.

So much for entitled millennials – it’s billionaires such as Richard Branson who are begging for loans

Don’t fritter away your money on avocado toast. Stop buying frivolous flat whites. Live with 15 housemates. Subsist on beans and tap water so you can set aside money for retirement. Make sure you have three months of your salary saved in case of emergency. We have all seen variations of this financial advice, which is normally written by a “sensible grownup” and directed at feckless millennials. Young people are entitled, we are told endlessly. They need to learn good financial habits instead of demanding freebies. They need to fend for themselves.

Well, look who is demanding freebies now. Look who thinks they are entitled to be bailed out with taxpayer money. Look who thinks free markets are not such a good idea when it means their company might fail. Look who thinks we should overlook their irresponsible financial habits. It is not impoverished millennials. Sir Richard Branson, who is worth an estimated £4.7bn, is begging the UK government to give his Virgin Atlantic airline a £500m loan – and he is offering his private Caribbean island as collateral. Very generous of you, sir, but here is another idea: sell your damn island and bail out your company yourself. ...

I can understand why Branson thinks his aviation baby deserves a state bailout; many of the other airlines are getting one. ... It is not just the airline industry that is getting injections of cash, of course. Lots of bloated institutions are raking in taxpayer funds – even if they don’t need it. Harvard, for example, is getting nearly $9m in aid from the US government, despite having a $40.9bn endowment fund.
Meanwhile, Americans who earn under $75,000 are getting a one-off stimulus cheque of up to $1,200, plus $500 for each child. The treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, a former investment banker worth about $400m, told a reporter that he thought the government’s relief package – including expanded unemployment coverage, bailouts and business loans – would be sufficient to last 10 weeks. Common folk do not need much to live on, you see.

Trump Says He's Aiming to Shield Corporations From Legal Liability for Workers Who Contract Covid-19 on the Job

President Donald Trump said during a press briefing Monday evening that his administration is aiming to shield corporations from legal responsibility for workers who contract the novel coronavirus on the job, a move that the Chamber of Commerce and right-wing advocacy groups are aggressively lobbying for as the White House pushes to reopen the U.S. economy against the warnings of public health experts.

"We are trying to take liability away from these companies," Trump said in response to a reporter's question on the subject. "We just don't want that because we want the companies to open and to open strong. But I'll get you a legal opinion on that."

The president claimed that his administration had not previously discussed the issue of corporate liability, but the New York Times reported that business executives raised the matter with Trump in a conference call last week.

An "issue of great concern to the executives on the call," according to the Times, "was the need to address the liability companies could face if employees got sick after returning to work, given the possibility that workers who felt that they were brought back too soon—or were not placed in a safe environment—could sue en masse."

Additionally, the Washington Post reported earlier this month that Trump administration officials discussed including in the next stimulus package "a waiver that would clear businesses of liability from employees who contract the coronavirus on the job."

In Largest Strike Yet, Amazon Workers Call In Sick Over Unsafe Working Conditions

Hundreds of Amazon workers from across the U.S. on Tuesday called in sick to demand better safety standards at the ecommerce giant's warehouses in the largest coordinated action at the company since the coronavirus pandemic began.

The labor rights groups United for Respect, New York Communities for Change, and Make the Road New York organized the action. More than 300 employees joined the strike and refused to work. 

More than 75 Amazon employees have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in recent weeks as workers have sounded alarms about a lack of transparency and safety protocols at the company's 110 U.S. warehouses.

Athena, a coalition of groups dedicated to fighting injustices at Amazon, called on Americans to demonstrate solidarity with the striking employees, who work in at least 50 of the company's facilities throughout the country.

Amazon warehouse workers in Chicago successfully pressured the company in March to allow seasonal and part-time workers to request paid time off. But the company only offers the paid sick leave to employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 or who have to quarantine because of confirmed exposure. The policy is making the number of coronavirus cases as Amazon "likely to exponentially increase," experts say.

According to a report released last week by Athena and the Center for Popular Democracy, workers in Amazon warehouses are also facing mandatory overtime—which can cause overcrowding in the facilities—and the same quotas they normally face, forcing them to work quickly and making it difficult to practice hygiene that public health officials recommend, like frequent hand-washing. ...

"Today's actions show just how dangerous it is to work at Amazon," Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) said in a statement. "Workers have been desperately asking that Amazon do more to protect their health and safety at work. But instead of addressing their concerns Amazon has instead lashed out at worker leaders. This must stop. No worker should be subjected to unsafe conditions at work. And no worker should be retaliated against for standing up for their rights. Amazon continues to prioritize maximizing its enormous profits even over its employees' safety—and that is unacceptable. Enough is enough, Amazon."

hat tip jorogo:

Teenager allegedly threatened with jail over COVID-19 posts

A 16-year-old Wisconsin high school sophomore who had symptoms of the coronavirus and posted about it on social media was ordered by a sheriff’s deputy to delete the posts and threatened with being taken to jail, her attorney said Friday.

The teenager is a student in the Westfield School District in Marquette County. Her attorney, Luke Berg, wrote to both the county sheriff and district administrator, who called the posts a “foolish means to get attention,” asking for apologies. The girl also should be permitted to post on social media again without fear of being charged or taken to jail, said Berg, an attorney with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. ...

According to the girl’s attorney, she suffered a severe respiratory illness with symptoms matching those of COVID-19. She tested negative for the disease, but her attorney said that doctors told the girl’s family that she likely had the virus but missed the window for testing positive. ...

Her parents also contacted multiple staff at the school to warn other parents whose children had been on a spring break trip to Florida with her between March 7 and March 15.

Berg alleges that the school district administrator contacted the county sheriff, who then sent a deputy to the girl’s home on March 27 and said that if she didn’t remove the post, she and her parents could be cited for disorderly conduct and taken to jail.

[Further details here. -js]

Life and Death Inside New York’s Busiest Emergency Room

Rashida Tlaib Primary Challenger Took Illegal Campaign Cash From Donors Doing Business With the City of Detroit

Detroit City Council President and former U.S. Rep. Brenda Jones accepted campaign contributions that violate state rules against pay-to-play activity, according to a review of campaign finance records and interviews with ethics experts. During her 2017 bid for reelection to city council, Jones accepted $5,500 in campaign contributions from then-First Independence Bank Chair and CEO Barry Clay, and an additional $4,000 in campaign contributions from First Independence Bank board member Douglas Diggs. The donations occurred as First Independence had a contract with the Detroit police and fire pension fund, of which Jones, as president of the city council, is a trustee. First Independence runs a loan program for the pension fund.

State rules cap campaign contributions from senior leadership of contractors with public pension funds at $350 per election. For the 2017 primary and the general election combined, then, the cap was $700.

Now, Jones is running in a competitive race against incumbent Rep. Rashida Tlaib. In 2018, Jones, who was first elected to Detroit City Council in 2005, was elected to serve out the remainder of Rep. John Conyers Jr.’s term in Congress after his early resignation. In the primary, she faced off against Tlaib, who bested Jones by just 900 votes and went on to win that race and claim the seat. The rematch will take place on August 4.

Bernie Supporters Angry Over Campaign Donations

Warnings of 'Suspension of Democracy' in New York as State Officials Weigh Removing Sanders From Primary Ballot

New York state election officials are poised to remove Sen. Bernie Sanders from the ballot in June's primary election, a move that would deny the Vermont lawmaker's supporters the chance to cast a vote for him as president and would harm his chances of using his delegate count to influence the party's direction and push for reforms.

"Hard to imagine a pettier decision more perfectly calibrated to infuriate and depress younger and progressive voters," tweeted Jewish Currents editor David Klion.

As HuffPost's Daniel Marans reported Tuesday, Board of Elections co-chair Douglas Kellner and commissioner Andrew Spano, both Democrats, will meet Wednesday to decide on whether or not to remove Sanders' name from the ballot. Kellner believes that a provision in the 2019-2020 budget saying the board "may" remove a candidate from the ballot if they make clear they are no longer seeking the office in question rquires Sanders' removal.

Under Kellner's interpretation of the statute, Sanders, who suspended his campaign on April 8, falls under that category.

"It's not very controversial that Bernie Sanders has suspended his campaign," Kellner told HuffPost. "I anticipate that we will be removing him."

Such a decision by Kellner and Spano, under the statute, would have to be unanimous—both men would have to agree.

Progressives in New York had been anticipating such a move after Gov. Andrew Cuomo postponed the state's election due to the coronavirus outbreak and pushed for the inclusion of the language in the bill.

"We think this is a power play on the part of the governor who wants to control the entire delegation," said New York activist George Albro.

A letter (pdf) from a number of advocacy groups in the state said that removing Sanders from the ballot would constitute a "suspension of democracy" and warned that disenfranchising the Vermont senator's New York supporters was not a path to unity.

Krystal Ball: Young voters to Democratic party: SCREW YOU

The Biggest Environmental Disaster in U.S. History Never Really Ended

Ice-free Arctic summers now very likely even with climate action

The loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic is now very likely before 2050, new research shows, even if the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis are cut rapidly.

The result has alarmed scientists but they said slashing greenhouse gases remained vital as this would determine whether Arctic summer ice vanished permanently or could recover over time. If emissions remain very high, there is a risk the Arctic could be ice-free even in the dark, cold winter months, a possibility described as “catastrophic”.

The last global scientific assessment of Arctic ice was in 2013. It predicted a complete loss of ice in the month of September, when it reaches its annual minimum, would occur only if CO2 emissions from human activities remained high. The new results are based on 40 of the latest computer models and is the best assessment to date of the fate of the Arctic ice.

Since satellite records began in 1979, summer Arctic ice has lost 40% of its area and up to 70% of its volume, making it one of the clearest signs of human-caused global heating. In 2019, it shrank to its second lowest extent on record.

The loss of the ice exposes the dark ocean, which absorbs more of the sun’s heat and further ramps up temperatures. These changes are also being increasingly linked to more extreme weather including severe winters, deadly summer heatwaves and torrential floods at lower latitudes such as in Europe and the US.

Trump Orders Big Oil Bailout Just a Day After Historic Price Collapse

Democratic lawmakers and climate advocates on Tuesday condemned an announcement on Twitter from President Donald Trump that he had directed the U.S. Departments of Energy and the Treasury to make funding available to American oil and gas companies negatively impacted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

"This is the opposite of #PeopleBeforeProfit," the international advocacy group Global Witness tweeted in response to Trump. "This 'great' industry already receives billions from the government while costing lives and livelihoods by polluting communities and the global climate. Time to stop propping up Big Oil."

The president's order came just a day after the price of U.S. crude oil plummeted to below zero for the first time ever and amid mounting concerns that the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress will continue to ignore demands for a People's Bailout while providing support to giant climate-wrecking corporations.

Negative Prices Mark The End Of U.S. Shale

It costs about $45/bl to produce shale oil. No U.S. shale producer is currently in profitable territory. All are already highly indebted. They still hesitate to shut down their wells. Once shut down the wells tend to clog up. They will need expensive rework to be reopened. That is unlikely to be profitable during the next two to five years if ever.

The stone age did not end for a lack of stones. The oil age will not end for a lack of oil. Oil demand has probably seen its global peak. Alternatives have been developed. The pandemic will likely be with us for some two years. It will change the behavior of many people.

There is no reason to expect crude oil to ever again reach its previous peak price of more than $100/bl.

The total debt of U.S. shale oil producers is estimated to be above $200 billion. None will be paid back. The carnage may well lead to collapses in the banking system.

All countries which have their budgets depending on oil sales are now in deep trouble. As they lose their importance as producers and consumers the global policies around them will also change.

Bill McKibben on Earth Day at 50: We Must Stop Subsidizing Fossil Fuel Industry Wrecking the Planet

'Millions hang by a thread': extreme global hunger compounded by Covid-19

The warning from the World Food Programme (WFP) that an extra 265 million people could be pushed into acute food insecurity by Covid-19, almost doubling last year’s total, is based on a complex combination of factors.

WFP’s latest warning underlines the increasing concern among experts in the field that for many the biggest impact will not be the disease, but the hunger hanging off its coat tails.

While the majority of people suffering acute food insecurity in 2019 lived in countries affected by conflict (77 million), climate change (34 million) and economic crises (24 million people), the coronavirus has massively complicated existing crises and threatens to worsen others.

WFP sounded the alarm in concert with a report from the Global Network Against Food Crises – an international alliance working to address the root causes of extreme hunger – that disclosed that as 2019 ended, 135 million people across 55 countries and territories experienced the highest levels of acute food insecurity and malnutrition documented by the network since the first edition of the report in 2017.

The report identified a number of factors that could worsen food security in many of the 55 countries, classifying those dependent on food imports and oil exports (the price of oil collapsed to below zero this week) as particularly vulnerable, as well as those dependent and on tourism and remittances for income.

Also of Interest

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

Will America’s Corruption End on a Ventilator or in a Mushroom Cloud?

Trump Rejects South Korea Cost-Sharing Offer

'A New Roadblock': IRS Gives Social Security Recipients Until Wednesday to File for $500 Payments for Their Children

As Democrats Push Vote-by-Mail Measures, Local Governments Are Leading the Charge on Safe Voting

New Mexico hospitals junked essential protective gear just as Covid-19 began

Cenk Uygur explains how Progressives have failed to fight for power

Krystal and Saagar: NEW POLL reveals Democrats woke white liberal problems

Krystal and Saagar discuss: Tucker Carlson calls out Trump's big business sell out on immigration

Krystal and Saagar: The View's EMBARRASSING defense of Pelosi's let them eat cake moment

On That Leaked Report on UK Labour & Anti-Semitism

The Lesser Evil

A Little Night Music

Clarence Green & the Rhythmaires - Crazy Strings

Clarence Green & The High Type Five - Old Grandpa

Clarence Green & The High Type Five - Mary, My Darling

Clarence Green - Walking The Baby

Clarence Green And The Rhythmaires - What Y'all Waiting On Me??

Clarence Green - Tonk a Lonk

Clarence Green - Doin´ It

Clarence Green - The Giant Speaks

Clarence Green - Red Light