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"When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder."

-- Simone Weil

News and Opinion

CNN’s pandemic “postmortem”: The anatomy of a “social murder”

On Sunday night, CNN aired a two-hour special on the COVID-19 pandemic featuring interviews with the public health experts who nominally led the country’s response to the disease under the Trump administration. The interviews are a devastating indictment of a government and political establishment that deliberately allowed hundreds of thousands of people to die in order to protect the interests of the financial oligarchy. According to the two leading figures interviewed in the program—White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci—almost the entire US public health response to the pandemic took place in defiance of science and the advice of public health experts.

In the defining moments of the pandemic, according to the officials’ own admissions, the Trump administration was either actively engaging in a massive cover-up or pursuing a deliberate policy of allowing the pandemic to spread unchecked throughout the population. If, in the words of CNN host Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the program is a “postmortem” on the pandemic, the cause of death must be deemed, in the words of the BMJ medical journal, “social murder.” ...

Birx and Fauci claim the Trump administration seriously listened to their advice on only two occasions: when it initiated the development of vaccines in January and when it advised the public to “work or engage in schooling from home whenever possible” for 45 days beginning in March. Within a matter of days, however, Trump began to advocate for the abandonment of these basic measures under the slogan, coined by the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, that “the cure can’t be worse than the disease.” This campaign led the White House to release a set of guidelines entitled “Opening Up America Again.” While these guidelines nominally set out a set of criteria for states to reopen non-essential businesses, they in fact sent a political signal that all measures to contain the disease were to be abandoned. ...

The most highly cited passage from the CNN program came with the admission by Birx that nearly half a million deaths in the United States were preventable. As Birx put it, “The first time, we have an excuse, there were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original search, all of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.” ... While CNN calls its program a “postmortem,” the crime is still ongoing. Even as Fauci and Birx condemn the Trump administration’s premature reopening of schools and businesses, the Biden administration is carrying out the same policies, with the same results. ...

The catastrophic consequences of the pandemic are the product of the fact that the response of governments, led by the United States but repeated throughout the world, were dictated not by social need and public health, but by private profit. A solution to the pandemic, therefore, was and remains not primarily a medical issue.

US Wants Taliban Approval to Extend May 1 Deadline

The United States reportedly asked the Taliban to agree to the continued presence of American forces for three or six months in Afghanistan after the May 1 deadline, sources close to the Taliban have said.

According to the sources, the Taliban has so far not made their final decision about the request; however, the group has apparently insisted that first their 7,000 prisoners should be released, and names of Taliban officials should be dropped from the UN blacklist.

Under the US-Taliban peace agreement signed on February 2020, all US forces stationed in Afghanistan must leave the country by May 1. But sources close to the Taliban have said that the Biden administration has asked the Taliban to agree on the presence of the US forces for another three or six months.

Bloody Crackdown in Burma Since Feb. 1 Military Coup Kills 500+ Amid Resistance from Youth, Women

Brazil on edge as three military chiefs resign after Bolsonaro fires defense minister

Jair Bolsonaro’s crisis-stricken administration has been rocked by the sudden sacking of Brazil’s defence minister and the subsequent resignation of the heads of all three branches of the armed forces.

The commanders of the Brazilian army, navy and air force – Gen Edson Leal Pujol, Adm Ilques Barbosa and Lt-Brig Antônio Carlos Bermudez – met with the president’s new minister on Tuesday morning and reportedly tendered their resignations during a dramatic and heated encounter. On Tuesday afternoon the defence ministry confirmed all three would be replaced, a political earthquake that rattled a country already grappling with one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks.

The Folha de São Paulo newspaper said that never before in Brazilian history had the heads of all three branches of the military resigned out of disagreement with a president.

The historic upheaval, which left many Brazilians on edge, came after Brazil’s far-right president fired defence minister Gen Fernando Azevedo e Silva on Monday during what one media report called a chilly three-minute encounter. “I need your job,” Bolsonaro told the General, a longstanding friend, according to the Estado de São Paulo newspaper.

Eliane Cantanhêde, a prominent journalist for that broadsheet in the capital Brasília, claimed Gen Azevedo e Silva had left government after making it clear to the president – a former army captain who is notorious for his praise of authoritarians – that the armed forces owed loyalty to the constitution and were not Bolsonaro’s personal force. Bolsonaro had reportedly been demanding the removal of Gen Pujol, who, to the president’s apparent consternation, has publicly rejected the politicization of Brazil’s military and pushed for tougher restrictions against Covid, which has killed more than 314,000 Brazilians. Earlier this month Bolsonaro – whose handling of the pandemic and opposition to lockdown have been internationally condemned – sparked outrage by issuing a veiled threat to declare a “state of siege”.

Brazil military chiefs quit as Bolsonaro seeks their support

US court sentences Honduran president's brother to life in drug case

The brother of the Honduras president, Juan Orlando Hernández, has been sentenced by a US court to life in prison after he was convicted over what prosecutors described as “state-sponsored drug trafficking”. Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, a former Honduran congressman, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by US district judge P Kevin Castel, who also ordered him to forfeit $138m.

Hernández was convicted in October 2019 of charges that carried a mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years in prison.

Assistant US attorney Matthew Laroche told the judge that Hernández for 15 years fueled a flood of cocaine shipments into the United States by paying millions of dollars to top Honduran officials like his brother. “[Tony Hernandez] conspired with his brother, the president of Honduras. He caused brutal acts of violence. He funneled drug money into National party campaigns in exchange for promises of protection … this is state sponsored drug trafficking,” Laroche said.

Hernández’s lawyer, Peter Brill, had argued for leniency, saying the US should focus anti-drug trafficking efforts on the voracious appetite of its citizens for drugs. ...

In court on Tuesday, Tony Hernández looked pale and downcast. When the defendant was given a chance to speak, he tried to convince the judge that he’d been denied a fair trial due to an inadequate defence team who barely responded to his emails.

As US continues New Cold War, Russia and China forge new ties

Top banks could be investigated over $20bn fire sale of hedge fund assets

UK and US regulators are looking into whether global investment banks breached rules by holding group discussions shortly before launching a fire sale of nearly $20bn worth of assets belonging to the distressed hedge fund Archegos Capital Management, according to reports.

The Securities Exchange Commission is said to have requested further information from major US banks Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, as well as Japan’s Nomura and Swiss lender Credit Suisse about a meeting with Archegos founder Bill Hwang on Thursday.

It is understood that the Financial Conduct Authority has also contacted the lenders’ UK operations as part of its own inquiries.

The meeting with Hwang was reportedly part of final efforts to unwind the hedge fund’s investments in an orderly fashion, according to the Financial Times. The lenders, which served as prime brokers to Archegos, were allegedly trying to avoid a fire sale that would reduce the value of the assets they were trying to dispose of after Archegos defaulted on a series of margin calls.

Big Chunks of Corporate Tax Cuts End Up in Executives’ Pockets

“This new law will provide tax incentives for companies to expand and create jobs by investing in plants and equipment,” proclaimed President George W. Bush in 2002 as he signed the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act. “This measure will mean more job opportunities for workers in every part of our country.” As Bush promised, the bill included significant corporate tax cuts. Further reductions in corporate taxes would follow with the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The rhetoric in each instance was the same: Purportedly, these tax cuts were not for the sake of enriching corporate management but for employing American workers — hence the word “jobs” in all three titles. These companies would take the extra money and invest it in the workforce, creating new and better opportunities for regular people.

That is not what happened. In reality, a new academic study finds, a significant fraction of recent corporate tax breaks simply went to increased pay for top corporate executives. The paper, currently undergoing peer review before publication, is the first comprehensive academic examination of its kind. Its author, Grinnell College assistant professor of economics Eric Ohrn, used a database of top-level compensation at publicly traded U.S. firms to analyze the tax cuts’ impact on executive pay. If Ohrn is correct, the reductions in the corporate income tax over the past two decades will reward America’s corporate royalty with hundreds of billions of dollars between now and 2030. Ohrn attributes this extraordinary payday to executives’ successful use of “rent-seeking,” an economic concept that describes individual and corporate use of power to capture wealth without adding any new value themselves. 

Ohrn examined the pay of 31,879 executives at 2,794 publicly traded companies from 1998 to 2012. His results showed that for every dollar in reduced corporate taxes from two types of tax cuts, compensation for the top five executives at the companies increased by 15 to 19 cents. ...

American business has for decades been conducting a war against corporate taxation. The rationale for cuts is always the same: Companies and their favored politicians claim that they have opportunities to make investments in new technologies and plants that would lead to better jobs and higher pay for workers. Unfortunately, thanks to overbearing corporate taxes, they simply can’t afford to do it. Neither part of this story is true. There is no discernible connection between levels of corporate profits and investment. ... But the fact that the case for corporate tax cuts makes no sense has not impeded its success. During the 1960s, the federal government took in an average of about 3.7 percent of the gross domestic product via corporate income taxes. By the late 1990s, it had fallen to 2.1 percent. The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that it will average 1.3 percent from 2021-2030 — that is, 0.8 percentage points of GDP less than 20 years ago.

AT&T said Trump's tax cut would create jobs – now it's laying off thousands of workers

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, the telecoms giant AT&T has announced permanent closures of hundreds of retail stores around the US and laid off thousands of workers. The closures and losses include 320 company-owned retail stores announced in November and December 2020 and 250 stores announced in June 2020, including an estimated 3,400 cuts in technician, clerical, managerial and executive roles.

The moves come despite the company’s keen support for a major corporate tax cut under Donald Trump, which it claimed would spur it to create jobs – not cut them.

AT&T is also closing dozens of retail stores this spring around the US, including three stores in the Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota, area where workers and their union, the Communications Workers of America Local 7250, are pushing back against the cuts. “It’s a move that will erase living wage jobs replaced by non-union, substandard jobs in terms of wages, benefits and safety,” said the CWA Local 7250 president, Kieran Knutson. “It’s an attack on this group of workers, the communities that they’re in and on our union.”

AT&T lobbied aggressively in favor of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, promising to create 7,000 new jobs and invest $1bn in capital expenditures if it passed. AT&T saved an estimated $21bn when the tax cuts passed and the company saved an estimated $3bn annually due to the lower corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Since the tax cuts, AT&T eliminated more than 42,000 jobs even before the first retail store closures in June 2020 went into effect.

Krystal Ball: New Poll Shows Americans UNITED In Hatred Of Billionaires

Amazon union vote count set to start for Alabama warehouse workers

Vote counting is set to begin in an election to determine whether Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, will form a union in what is viewed as one of the biggest and most consequential unionization drives in recent America history.

The contest has pitted America’s labor movement – backed by a slew of Democrat politicians and some Republicans – against one of the most powerful companies in the world.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will start to tally the votes to see if the Bessemer workers will form a union with the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). If successful, the warehouse would be the first union at Amazon in the US, as many Amazon workers in Europe are already unionized. ...

The results could take a while to be finally counted and the process could be legally fraught. The NLRB said it will not have an estimate for how long the vote count will take until counting begins. The union estimated it will take about a week for results.

During the vote count, the union and Amazon will have the opportunity to challenge the veracity of ballots and file objections within five business days of the vote count. The results could also be delayed if enough ballots are challenged to affect the outcome of the election, at which point a hearing officer with the NLRB will determine whether a challenged ballot will be counted.

Former Obama Spox, Amazon VP GOES TO WAR With Bernie Over Unionization

New Covid-19 Cases Plummet 96% in Nursing Homes After Vaccinations: Report

New Covid-19 cases have plummeted by 96% in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities since late December, a report published Tuesday by the industry group American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living revealed. 

AHCA/NCAL reports (pdf) a decline in new U.S. weekly nursing home cases from 33,540 on December 20 to 1,349 on March 7, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Widespread coronavirus vaccinations began in early January, when new nursing home cases dropped precipitously. 

The inudstry groups also said there has been a 91% decline in coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes, dropping from over 6,000 in December to 547 this month.

"We are not out of the woods yet, but these numbers are incredibly encouraging and a major morale booster for frontline caregivers who have been working tirelessly for more than a year to protect our residents," said Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of AHCA/NCAL, in a statement. 

Journalists allowed inside facility for migrant children at US-Mexico border

The Biden administration for the first time on Tuesday allowed a limited pool of journalists inside its main detention facility for migrant children at the US-Mexico border. The visit revealed a severely overcrowded tent structure where more than 4,000 migrants, including children and families, packed into pods and the youngest kept in a large playpen with mats on the floor for sleeping.

Joe Biden has been under pressure to bring more transparency to the process of handling the current increase in undocumented migrants crossing into the US compared with previous months. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) allowed two journalists from the Associated Press and a crew from the TV network CBS to tour the facility in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley at the eastern end of the US-Mexico divide.

The facility has a capacity of 250 but more than 4,100 people were being housed on the property Tuesday.

Most were unaccompanied children, processed in tents before being taken to shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services and then placed with a family member, relative or sponsor.

New York Ordered to Vaccinate Incarcerated People; Will Gov. Sign Bill Curbing Solitary Confinement?

No convictions for St Louis officers who beat Black undercover colleague at protest

No convictions were returned for three white St Louis police officers accused of beating a Black undercover colleague so severely during a protest over another officer’s acquittal that he had to undergo multiple surgeries. A jury on Monday acquitted officer Steven Korte of charges of deprivation of rights under color of law and of lying to the FBI in connection to the attack on officer Luther Hall.

It happened when Hall was mistaken for a protester during demonstrations that erupted after former police officer Jason Stockley, who is white, was found not guilty in the 2011 death of Anthony Lamar Smith, who was Black. ... The verdicts reignited criticisms that an all-white jury was picked to decide the case. ...

Hall, who had been recording criminal activity during the protests, became separated from his partner while fleeing officers who were firing pepper-spray pellets and bean bag rounds into the crowd. The assistant US attorney Carrie Costantin told the jurors that as Hall was complying with orders to get on the ground, he was knocked down, hit, picked up and knocked down again before being attacked with fists, feet and a baton. Hall said he did not push, fight or pull away from the officers. He said he was stunned. ...

Prosecutors have said two of the officers, Myers and Boone, were motivated by an eagerness to harm protesters, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Hall didn’t tell officers he was undercover because he did not want to ruin his chances of working undercover at future protests. A sergeant later recognized Hall and had him pulled aside. Hall suffered a hole in his lip that had to be stitched closed, injuries to his jaw and injuries to his neck that would later require spinal fusion. He also was unable to eat solid food for weeks, causing him to lose 20lbs.

More detail of testimony at the link:

Teen who filmed killing tells court George Floyd was 'begging for his life'

The woman who recorded the shocking video of George Floyd’s death that prompted mass protests for racial justice around the world has told the Derek Chauvin murder trial of her feelings of guilt at being unable to intervene to save his life. Darnella Frazier, who at times sobbed as she gave evidence on the second day of Chauvin’s trial in Minneapolis, said that she still loses sleep over the killing of the 46-year-old Black man.

“I ended up apologising and apologising to George Floyd for not doing more,” she said.

But, Frazier added, it is not about what she should have done.

“It’s what he should have done,” she said in apparent reference to the Chauvin.

Frazier was 17 when she recorded the video as a bystander. ... Frazier, who is now 18, said she began recording the incident because Floyd looked “terrified and scared, begging for his life”.

She was so horrified by coming across the scene that she told her younger cousin to go into a food store so she would not have to see it, the court heard. ... Frazier said that despite the appeals from the crowd, Chauvin did not ease up as he pinned Floyd down. “He had like, this cold look,” she said. “It seemed as if he didn’t care.”

At another point, Frazier said Chauvin reacted to appeals from the crowd by increasing the pressure on Floyd. “If anything he was kneeling harder, like he was shoving his knee into his neck,” she said.

Frazier denied defence claims that the police were threatened by the growing crowd. She said they wanted to intervene to help Floyd, who was in distress. “Anytime anyone tried to get close, they [the police] were defensive,” she said. Frazier said she felt threatened by the police officers, including Chauvin, who put their hands on the containers of mace spray that officers carry.

New details revealed of Cuomo’s ‘VIP’ Covid list for members of his inner circle

New York’s beleaguered governor, Andrew Cuomo, faces further allegations that his administration provided preferential treatment to members of his inner circle after seven people with knowledge of coronavirus testing practices in the state came forward with new details of a so-called “VIP” testing program.

The individuals, who spoke anonymously to the Washington Post, described several instances of preferential treatment offered to family and friends of the governor, including his brother, the TV presenter Chris Cuomo, and his brother-in-law, the fashion designer Kenneth Cole. ...

The allegations include that during the early days of the pandemic when testing was scarce in New York, health officials fast-tracked testing for those labelled “inner circles”, “specials” or “criticals” and kept a separate testing priority database for about 100 individuals at one of New York’s first Covid-19 response hubs.

According to two sources who spoke to the Post, a senior state physician also tasked with coordinating testing at nursing homes was dispatched to Chris Cuomo’s house in the Hamptons on a number of occasions to conduct testing during visits that took hours. One nurse alleged that fast-track testing offered to Cole was then driven by state troopers to a testing facility in the state capital, Albany, in order to get results as quickly as possible.

Briahna Joy Gray: UNDERSTANDING Latest AOC Controversy

Scientists to Biden: Slash Emissions 50% Below 2005 Levels by 2030

Over 1,000 scientists urged President Joe Biden on Tuesday to pursue a "robust target" of slashing the nation's "emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030 and transitioning to a net-zero emissions economy no later than 2050."

"This goal is both technically feasible and necessary—now we need action," the experts write in an open letter to the White Hoiuse.

The letter was released by research and advocacy group the Union of Concerned Scientists, which plans on delivering the letter next month ahead of the president's April 22 climate summit with other world leaders.

Ahead of that meeting, the administration "is expected to announce what the White House called 'an ambitious 2030 target,'" Reuters reported, referring to what is known as a Nationally Determined Contribution or NDC to the 2015 Paris Agreement. ...

Five specific actions, touching on methane emissions, new vehicle fleets, and building soil health, are detailed. The letter calls for Biden to:

• Aim for a transition to a 100% carbon-free power sector by 2035, through supportive policies and increased investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy, a modernized electricity system, transmission, energy storage, and clean energy research and development.
• Set strong long-term standards that reduce carbon pollution from passenger cars and trucks by at least 60% and ensure at least 50% of new vehicles sales are electric by 2030. Also increase investment in sustainable, equitable transportation infrastructure.
• Enact strong pollution standards that put us on track to have all new trucks and buses be zero-emission by 2040, which will also reduce dangerous air pollution.
• Sharply limit methane emissions from oil and gas production, processing and distribution.
• Enable farmers and eaters to be part of the solution by investing in equitable research and assistance programs that advance sustainable farming systems, build soil health, sequester carbon, and reduce food and farm emissions.

California relocates mountain lions making a meal of endangered sheep

The California department of fish and wildlife is in the process of moving mountain lions over 100 miles away from struggling populations of bighorn sheep, which are unique to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The herbivores were first listed as endangered in 1999, when their population was estimated at only 125 individuals, according to researchers.

“There’s no expectation that any of the lions we move are going to stay where we put it, regardless of age or sex,” acknowledged Danny Gammons, an environmental scientist for the sheep recovery program. “The goal is to get it away from bighorn sheep.”

While sheep numbers have risen to almost 600 animals, recovery has been slow and stymied by mountain lions, which eat the sheep primarily in the winter months when the bighorn migrate down from the high country. The sheep are dispersed between 14 small herds, and just a single mountain lion can stop a herd from growing or even wipe it out completely.

The agency’s initial response to the sheep-eating lions was lethal removal. But the state’s fish and game code has been revised to require that non-lethal methods be attempted first.

In spring 2020, a young female mountain lion who had been feeding on sheep and was living close to a small, sensitive herd became the first to be relocated as part of the sheep recovery program. After relocation over 100 miles away, her movements were erratic, Gammons said. But today, the lion is still alive and appears to have settled down in a new territory far from the sheep.

Also of Interest

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

LETTER FROM LONDON: A Troubling Decision

Need a Quote From an Official Enemy Denouncing Democracy? Do Like the New York Times and Make It Up

Iran Rejects Ending 20% Enrichment for Some Sanctions Relief

This is what ‘Jewish democracy’ looks like

Congress looks to rein in Biden's war powers

20 Senate Dems, Sanders Urge Recurring Stimulus Payments in Biden's 'Build Back Better' Plan

Amazon Tries To Block Vote On Worker Safety Initiative

Amazon’s Twitter Army Was Handpicked for “Great Sense of Humor,” Leaked Document Reveals

Descendants of FDR and His Cabinet Urge Biden to Embrace 'New Deal-Scale' Public Jobs Program

It’s Time To Talk About Ivermectin

Pressed by Sanders, Democrats Aim to Lower Medicare Eligibility Age in Recovery Package

US vaccine distribution: track your state's progress

Freedom Rider: Andrew Cuomo and the Black Political Class

Caitlin Johnstone: The Problem Isn’t Human Nature, The Problem Is A Few Manipulative Sociopaths

Jimmy Dore: AOC Calls Biden Critics "Bad Faith Actors" To Shield Establishment

Rising: AOC BLASTS Biden's 'Inadequate' Infrastructure Proposal

The Funky Academic: How To Know If An Election Is 'Sham' Or Not?

Krystal and Saagar: Cruz BORDER CONFRONTATION Shows Total Hypocrisy Of Media, Dems On Border

Krystal & Saagar: EVERYTHING We Know About Underage Sex Trafficking Investigation Against Matt Gaetz

Giant mural depicting Assange nailed to a cross unveiled in Berlin

A Little Night Music

Ray Charles - (Night time Is) The Right Time

Ray Charles - Unchain my Heart

Ray Charles - Hallelujah I Love Her So

Ray Charles - Leave My Woman Alone

Ray Charles - I Believe To My Soul

Ray Charles - Them That Got

Ray Charles - Twist it

B B King & Ray Charles - Sinner's Prayer

Willie Nelson - Seven Spanish Angels