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This evening's music features r&b singer Wilson Pickett. Enjoy!

“When the rich wage war it's the poor who die.”

-- Jean-Paul Sartre

News and Opinion

A Pandemic Is Not a War

Though many public officials and media outlets seem increasingly convinced that we are fighting a war against Covid-19, framing the pandemic in military terms obscures what we need to know and how we can cope with this virus. ... On CNN (4/2/20), Eric Levenson explored the war frame, saying the “common metaphors” now used to characterize efforts to stop the virus as a military war “fit smoothly” in a number of ways. Like war, he said, the pandemic is about life and death, “an ‘enemy’ who can strike at any time, ‘battles’ on the ‘front lines’ and calls for the ‘home front’ to support the effort.” ...

War always has an enemy. Identifying the virus, Levenson calls it “an enemy who can strike at any time,” using the personalized who instead of the impersonal that. In war discourse, the enemy is a personalized target, not a virus. Enemies are always at fault. The communist, the illegal alien or the terrorist can never be negotiated with, for they are demonized and outside the bounds of our own humanity.

Like all the enemies identified in Trump’s lexicon of hate and xenophobia, Covid-19 is exoticized as the “China Virus.” The enemies of war are dehumanized, positioned on the other side of a wall between us and them. They are part of a vision of a world divided in conflict, at a time when the best way to deal with this pandemic is collectively, at the local and global levels. But instead of joining international efforts to contain the pandemic, the US is still targeting enemies, sanctioning Iran and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis there, engaging in regime change in Venezuela, cheered on by media, and bombing Iraq. While the World Health Organization has organized an international consortium called Solidarity, to advance as quickly as possible, global research needed to develop treatments, anti-viral drugs and a vaccine, Trump has vowed to cut off US funding for WHO. ...

Healthcare professionals openly admit being afraid; soldiers on the front lines rarely do. PBS (4/7/20) talked to two emergency medical technicians who transport those sick with the virus to hospitals in New York. Both spoke openly about feelings of fear and dread. They work for meager salaries, one $37,000 a year, and neither had medical insurance.

But in popular culture, soldiers have morphed into something other than human, with an ensuing loss of humanity. Thanks to the merging of Marvel Studios and the military/entertainment complex, soldiers are now frequently depicted as superheroes—men of steel— a trope used for recruitment. Soldiers, especially superhuman ones, are always brave, the antithesis of fearful.

The Washington Post has become particularly attached to war metaphors and soldier motifs. Alex Horton (3/27/20) wrote that the kind of praise doctors receive for “their dangerous and unforgiving work” has been mostly “reserved for combat troops and veterans.”

Stand with Doctors retweeted a Twitter post (2/4/20) by Faye M.D. that pushed back directly at such media framing. “If we are soldiers in a war, and dying in this war, don’t soldiers receive#HazardPay? Aren’t their families guaranteed some sort of benefit after death? We are needlessly sacrificing our lives w/o #compensation #GetMePPE #COVID-19 @andersoncooper @washingtonpost @cnnbrk

In calling for the “home front” to “support the [war] effort,” many journalists seem to forget that the battle for hearts and minds in war always leads to the closing down of information and the production of propaganda (FAIR.org, 5–6/03). When Captain Crozier was relieved of his duties for trying to protect his sailors, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly rebuked him, saying he was either “too naive or too stupid” if he thought his letter would not get “out to the public.” Though Modly resigned after a tape surfaced of his bungling of Crozier’s firing, Trump confirmed his support for censoring Crozier, saying he “shouldn’t have been writing letters,” even one attempting to save the lives of servicemembers (CNN, 4/7/20).

Instead of reporting on the danger of war censorship, media obscured what was at stake, and gave more column inches to the military. The New York Times (4/12/20) focused on a “Rift in the Military,” featuring Gen. John E. Hyten (vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) expressing “concerns about the possibility of more safety issues on warships.” The divisions-within-the-military theme was picked up by Alternet (4/13/20), which repeated another Hyten quote, “To think that it will never happen again is not a good way to plan.”

In this war miasma, the Washington Post (3/27/20) openly promoted persuasion as the best pathway to garner public support from the home front to “enlist” in the war effort, printing a number of redrawn, good old fashioned WWII propaganda posters to convince the public. But of what?

Examples of highly successful efforts to prevent the loss of human life from this virus underscore the essential role of open, truthful lines of communication and information. A CBC report (4/6/20) noted that British Columbia had flattened the Covid-19 curve. The report states that a key factor in BC’s success comes from dealing with Covid-19 early, because “they had open lines of communication to quickly scale up a unified response relatively early.”

The person who speaks at every Canadian news conference is Dr. Bonnie Henry, who oversaw Canada’s SARS and H1N1 outbreaks. Henry stays at press conferences and answers questions, “and doesn’t shade the truth. She’s frank and honest and emotional with people.” Her message of helping others is infused with humanitarian principles and concern for “people who we will never meet.” Having a leader who can articulate “how we’re all in this together, and make a convincing case for why you need to do your part” is essential. As a health official, Henry has now become one of the most famous and beloved people in Canada.

Another example comes from New Zealand, where Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her team “have spoken in simple language: Stay home. Don’t have contact with anyone outside your household ‘bubble’” (Washington Post, 4/7/20). Her message also taps into a collective, unified humanity: “Be kind. We’re all in this together.” She’s usually done this from the podium of news conferences, where she has discussed everything from wage subsidies to the price of cauliflowers.

We can also look to Germany, a country with a high number of infections but a low percentage of fatal cases compared to its European neighbors. In addition to early and widespread “testing and treatment and plenty of intensive care beds,” trust in government has led to a public embrace of social distancing guidelines (New York Times, 4/4/20).

The leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel, a trained scientist, may also account for the low fatality rate. Merkel “communicated clearly, calmly and regularly throughout the crisis,” wrote the Times. ...

Those on the frontline of this virus are actually the people themselves. Every time someone enters a public place, they literally risk their own lives and the lives of others, and ultimately, the overwhelmed, exhausted, healthcare professionals who will treat them. The public needs a fundamental understanding of how the virus is spread, and the importance of their behavior. They need truthful information based in scientific research. A leader who uses media to lie to a civilian population in the midst of the most deadly pandemic in a century skirts the United Nation’s definition of genocide.

British Columbia, New Zealand and Germany have all used truthful, clear messaging, based in collective themes of how we are all in this together—messages very different from assertions that hospital workers are “the soldiers who are fighting this battle for us,” as Governor Cuomo (3/27/20) put it.

Stopping this virus will not depend on superimposing the images of soldiers over doctors. If we have learned anything, it is that the virus thrives on division and conflict, especially politicized, discursive conflict. Trump does little else than create division, conflict, uncertainty and confusion. As Science editor H. Holden Thorp (4/3/20) pointed out, “The nationalism that now has flared up around the White House threatens to undermine the effort to manage a global crisis.” ...

The war frame directs our attentions toward all the wrong impulses of division, fear and security-based force, while it reinforces an ideological view condoning censorship and propaganda. These practices deflect critical journalism and the watchdog function of the press when it is needed most. As Mark Hertsgaard (CJR, 4/8/20) asserted, media should “expand their definition of what qualifies as a coronavirus story to include profiteering from the pandemic, whether financially or politically. Presenting Trump as a president at war makes it easier for the administration to usurp congressional oversight, and ironically, more difficult for the media watchdog to bark.

Continuing to present the pandemic within the usual frames of conflict and battlefields will only exacerbate its deadly effects and encourage its spread—as well as taking the country further away from the fundamental changes needed to restore American democracy after the pandemic.

May Day People’s Strike! Target, Amazon, Instacart Workers Demand Safe Conditions & Pandemic Relief

Stock markets surge as Fed pledges to continue corporate handouts

The US economy contracted at its fastest pace in the first quarter of this year since the end of 2008 and the onset of the Great Recession brought about by the global financial crisis.

Gross domestic product fell at an annual rate of 4.8 percent for the first three months of the year with indications of much worse to come in the second quarter.

But in another expression of the divorce between Wall Street and the real economy, financial markets celebrated the news—the Dow went up 532 points—because it provided the US Federal Reserve Board with the rationale for funnelling still more money into the markets on top of the trillions of dollars it has already handed out.

Following a two-day meeting of its policy-setting open market committee yesterday, the Fed made clear that its ultra-low interest-rate regime and its program of financial asset purchases, propping up all financial markets—stocks, bonds, municipal debt and corporate bonds—would continue virtually indefinitely.

“The Federal Reserve is committed to using its full range of tools to support the US economy in this challenging time,” it said.

The use of the term “economy” is a misnomer. The Fed, together with the Trump administration, is solely concerned with the profits of the major corporations and the hedge fund traders and financial speculators on Wall Street who are raking in money hand over fist in the crisis.

As Covid-19 Shoots US Unemployment to Great Depression Levels, Europe's Worker Safety Net Stems Mass Layoffs

Is the enormous surge in unemployment in the United States an inevitable consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic—or a deliberate policy choice?

Europe's success in staving off mass layoffs with ambitious government programs even as it sees economic shocks similar to those ravaging the U.S. appears to suggest the latter.

The Washington Post's Michael Birnbaum reported Thursday that while European economies been plunged into recession by the novel coronavirus, Europe has "managed to shield workers" far more successfully than the U.S., where more than 30 million people have filed jobless claims over just the past six weeks.

"The unemployment rate in Europe crept up only modestly in the first weeks of the coronavirus lockdowns—at a time when millions of Americans filed for jobless benefits," Birnbaum reported. "The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate across the European Union rose by 0.1 percentage point in March, to 6.6 percent."

"The philosophy in Europe is that the financial blow of the pandemic can be softened if workers are able to keep paying their bills and if businesses do not have to hire and train an entirely new set of employees as the crisis abates," Birnbaum wrote. "Many European governments have implemented a subsidy program, pioneered by Germany in the last global recession, under which they pay up to 87% of salaries for workers sent home but kept on payroll."

Denmark, which saw its unemployment rate rise just 0.2 percentage points between February and March, has agreed to pay up to 75% of the wages of private sector employees who would otherwise have likely lost their jobs.

Flemming Larsen, a professor at the Center for Labor Market Research at Denmark's Aalborg University, explained in an interview with The Atlantic in March that under the temporary policy, "if a company makes a notice saying that it has to either lay off 30% of their workers or fire at least 50 people, the state has agreed to take on 75 percent of workers' salaries, up to $3,288 per month."

Maria Hoejer Romme, a Danish business researcher, told the Post that the program is "definitely keeping our jobs alive for the moment."

France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Italy have implemented similar programs or expanded existing payroll subsidy policies to adjust to the coronavirus crisis.

Increase in unemployment from February to March:
EU: 0.1%
Denmark: 0.2%
Germany: 0.7%
United States: 11.5%

Newly uninsured people:
0
0
0
12,700,000

Solution: Guarantee paychecks to workers and health care to all. https://t.co/ZUoXpxP0dw

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 30, 2020

Last month, Sanders and three fellow senators introduced the Paycheck Security Act, which would "cover salaries and wages up to $90,000 for each furloughed or laid-off employee, plus benefits, as well as up to an additional 20 percent of revenues to cover fixed operating costs such as rent, utilities, insurance policies, and maintenance," according to a summary of the bill.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, introduced similar legislation in the House on April 10.

"Mass unemployment is a policy choice," Jayapal said at the time. "We can and should choose differently."

Unemployment Numbers Just Keep Getting Worse, and Worse, and Worse, and Worse

More than 3.8 million people filed initial claims for unemployment in the week ending April 25, the Department of Labor announced on Thursday, bringing the total number of unemployment claims since coronavirus-forced social distancing measures were enacted to a surreal 30 million. ...

The latest numbers come on top of news yesterday that the US GDP fell nearly 5 percent in the first quarter, and some economists are warning that GDP could fall as much as 30 percent in the next quarter. Friday will also offer the first full understanding of the number of total jobs lost across the country in March and April, when the Department of Labor releases its monthly jobs report. (The DOL reported earlier this month that 701,000 jobs were lost in March, although this is almost definitely an undercount.)

Although unemployment insurance claims continued to skyrocket, many states are struggling with an unprecedented caseload. A recent estimate from the Economic Policy Institute found that as many as nearly 12.2 million more Americans could have filed for unemployment between March 22 and April 18 had the process been easier or their state’s systems worked properly.

David Sirota reveals how Amazon quashed worker protection initiative

Amazon posts $75bn first-quarter revenues but expects to spend $4bn in Covid-19 costs

Amazon emerged as one of the big winners of the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday, announcing it had revenues of $75.4bn in the first three months of the year – over $33m an hour.

The boom in sales, 26% higher than the same time last year, came at a cost, as profit fell 29% from a year earlier to $2.5bn. And the company said there was more spending to come.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, said the company’s shareholders should “take a seat” because the company planned to spend $4bn or more in the next three months on coronavirus-related expenses, including getting products to customers and keeping employees safe.

Bezos said: “This includes investments in personal protective equipment, enhanced cleaning of our facilities, less efficient process paths that better allow for effective social distancing, higher wages for hourly teams, and hundreds of millions to develop our own Covid-19 testing capabilities.”

The $4bn spend will be equal to Amazon’s entire profit for the next quarter, and its shares sank on the news.

Progressives Urge Congress to Stop 'Disgraceful' GOP Effort to Grant Corporations Immunity From Covid-19 Lawsuits

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cashing In on Pandemic? Documents Show Lawmakers Made 1,500 Stock Transactions Worth $158 Million as Covid-19 Spread

A new analysis of financial disclosure documents found that Republican and Democratic members of Congress made nearly 1,500 stock transactions worth up to $158 million between February and April as the coronavirus spread across the U.S., heightening suspicions that elected officials in charge of the federal response to the pandemic have opportunistically cashed in on it.

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a non-partisan watchdog group, uncovered at least 127 purchases or sales in securities by senators and at least 1,358 transactions by members of the House between February 2 and April 8.

"Of those transactions, some members of Congress were strategically buying stocks in companies that might see a boost during the crisis, as well as selling stocks that seemed likely to tank," CLC said. "Public servants made purchases in remote work technologies, telemedicine companies, and car manufacturers that were shifting their production to ventilators. Sales were made in companies in the restaurant and hospitality industries."

Last month, as Common Dreams reported, Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) faced calls to resign after it was revealed that they sold off stock in late January and early February just before the market tanked due to the Covid-19 crisis.

The CLC analysis (pdf) shows that Burr and Loeffler—both of whom remain in the Senate—are not alone.

"The stock trading was bipartisan—27 Democrats, 21 Republicans, and 1 independent were making trades as the devastation that Covid-19 would exact on the U.S. crystallized," CLC said. "Most congressional members are millionaires and a number have investments in the tens of millions and far more likely to have investments in the markets." ...

While it is not clear whether any of the transactions were illegal, CLC said "the volume of trading during this short time period highlights a serious problem."

100,000 crew never made it off cruise ships amid coronavirus crisis

While most cruise ship passengers have now made it back to land, another crisis has been growing – with no safe haven in sight.

Around the world, more than 100,000 crew workers are still trapped on cruise ships, at least 50 of which have Covid-19 infections, a Guardian investigation has found. They are shut out of ports and banned from air travel that would allow them to return to their homes.

Many of these crew are quarantined in tiny cabins, and some have had their pay cut off. They have in effect become a nation of floating castaways, marooned on boats from the Galapagos Islands to Dubai port.

Many of the crew have only minimal communication with the outside world, making their situations hard to scrutinise. But at least 17 cruise ship workers are confirmed to have died from suspected Covid-19, and dozens more have had to be evacuated from ships and taken to hospital, the Guardian found.

Banks Seek Emergency Petition to Reinstate Mass Robocalling. Will It Be Limited to Financial Coronavirus Relief?

A window may soon open for banks and lenders to use robocalls during the coronavirus crisis. Backed by a push to provide consumers with economic relief, a more expansive exemption could lead to unsolicited debt collection and marketing.

A law passed in 1991 created a working definition of unsolicited robocalls. Last year, in response to outrage over hundreds of millions of unwanted robocalls, Congress passed a new law giving the Federal Communications Commission enhanced power to crack down on the practice with stepped-up penalties for spam callers. Generally, consumers can only receive lawful automated calls if they have opted in or provided their phone number for a financial service.

Now, the coronavirus crisis has sparked an unusual alliance of consumer advocates and the banking industry to come together to seek exemptions to the 1991 definition — and therefore the penalties that accompany enforcement. Together, the unlikely allies called for reinstating the limited use of automatic telephone dialing systems for prerecorded or artificial voice calls made without the consent of consumers. Normally political foes, the National Consumer Law Center and the American Bankers Association came together to ask the FCC for an expedited, limited exemption to anti-robocalling regulations to allow for automated calls designed explicitly for financial relief. The exemption would allow alerts to inform consumers of loan modifications or payment forbearance options during the Covid-19 epidemic.

“Importantly, the petition specifies that none of these calls would include debt collection or marketing messages,” wrote Margot Saunders, senior counsel to the National Consumer Law Center. ... On April 23, Saunders, along with the American Bankers Association, sent a follow-up letter to the FCC, clarifying that while the consumer-advocate community continues to support an emergency exemption, they “disagree with the financial trade associations on the scope of the interpretation of the ’emergency’ exception’ sought by the petition.” The letter stated the advocates’ hope that any agency rule would be narrowly tailored to protect the health of consumers and deal with other public safety issues.

Tara Reade’s Ex-Neighbor on Biden Sexual Assault Allegation: I Believed Her Then & I Believe Her Now

Joe Biden to break his silence on Tara Reade's sexual assault claim Friday

Joe Biden will publicly address for the first time a sexual assault claim against him during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday morning, after weeks of silence on the subject. Biden, the presumptive nominee, will “respond for the first time to the recent allegation of sexual assault”, the network announced in a tweet on Thursday.

Tara Reade came forward last month to accuse Biden of sexually assaulting her in the basement of Capitol Hill office building when she worked in his Senate office in the spring of 1993. Biden’s campaign has forcefully denied the allegation, but the candidate has not commented personally. ...

In recent days, Biden has faced mounting calls from some Democrats to make a public statement, even as the party’s leadership stands behind him. Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker on Thursday stressed her support for Biden’s nomination while Republicans seized the opportunity to attack Biden and his record ahead of a general election against Donald Trump, who has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct by more than a dozen women, all of which he has denied.

Chris Hayes has been one of the media's most virulent, relentless & arguably effective Trump critics -- an all-consuming loathing for the President -- but #FireChrisHayes was trending because he covered the sex assault allegations against Biden.

Shows what MSNBC has cultivated.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 30, 2020

Krystal and Saagar REACT LIVE: MSNBC presses Biden on allegation, misses the mark

'Biden Must Do Better,' Say Women's Groups as Former Vice President Denies Sexual Assault Allegation

In both a written statement and an appearance on MSNBC Friday morning, former Vice President Joe Biden denied that he sexually assaulted former Senate aide Tara Reade in 1993, the first time the presumptive Democratic nominee has personally addressed the allegation in public.

"No, it is not true," Biden said on MSNBC. "I'm saying unequivocally it never, never happened. And it didn't. It never happened... The claims are false."

Biden's denial came as he faced growing pressure to address Reade's allegation that he cornered her in the halls of the U.S. Capitol building and penetrated her with his fingers, a claim that was corroborated by a former neighbor of Reade's in an interview with Business Insider earlier this week.

In a written statement posted to Medium, Biden called on the Secretary of the Senate to request that the National Archives identify and "make available to the press" any complaint filed by Reade.

Reade said she submitted a complaint about Biden to a congressional human resources office.

"There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be—the National Archives," Biden said. "If there was ever any such complaint, the record will be there."

In reaction to Biden's denial, the women's group Time's Up Now, which advocates on behalf of sexual assault victims, said the former vice president's comments should be seen as a sign of progress but by "no means is the conversation about sexual assault and power in America over." ...

Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, said that the #MeToo movement's demand for Biden to address the accusation and demonstrate leadership on the crucial issue of sexual assualt and violence against women "is not in contradiction with our commitment to defeat Trump. It is, in fact, central to that effort." ...

"Biden must do better than what he demonstrated on Friday morning. This morning he spoke for the first time about the allegations by Tara Reade, and issued yet another blanket denial of the assault, without any reflections on how women, and survivors of all genders, are treated in our society," she said. "As someone seeking to govern the country, he has a responsibility to model how to hold the pain of survivors and speak about the reality of our collective experience, even as he denies the allegations against him. That is the role of a leader."

Bernie Secretly Agreed To Take Billionaire Money Says Former Staffer

Krystal Ball: Don't let establishment gaslight you into thinking Biden is our only choice

AOC Will Vote for Biden, But Doesn’t Know If She’ll Endorse Him: ‘I Don’t Necessarily Know If He’s Going to Move Us Forward’

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she will vote for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, but she stopped short of endorsing him in an interview with Shane Smith for VICE TV’s “Shelter in Place,” which airs Thursday night at 10 p.m.

“If the question is, can Biden win? I think Biden has the potential to win a general election,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who served as a top surrogate for Berne Sanders. “Whether he can offer deeper structural changes that get us to a healthier place, I don't necessarily know if he's going to move us forward, but I think people can see him as stopping the bleeding.” ...

"I personally draw a distinction between endorsement, endorsing a candidate and voting for them. I have not yet endorsed Vice President Biden, but I will be voting for him in November."

Pelosi Then: “Believe Women!”. Now: “Due Process!”. WTF?

Trump seizes on pandemic to speed up opening of public lands to industry

The Trump administration has ratcheted up its efforts amid the coronavirus pandemic to overhaul and overturn Obama-era environmental regulations and increase industry access to public lands.

The secretary of the interior, David Bernhardt, has sped efforts to drill, mine and cut timber on fragile western landscapes. Meanwhile, the EPA, headed by the former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, has weakened critical environmental laws and announced in March that it would cease oversight of the nation’s polluters during the Covid-19 crisis.

The rollbacks appear to follow a playbook put forth by influential conservative thinktanks, urging the White House to use the pandemic as justification for curtailing, or eliminating, environmental rules and oversight. President Trump should have “the ability to suspend costly regulations without extensive process”, according to a recent report by the Heritage Foundation.

Critics, such as Melyssa Watson, executive director of hte Wilderness Society, accuse the administration of using the pandemic as a smokescreen to further its pro-industry agenda. “From rolling back EPA’s pollution standards, to pushing for more oil and gas drilling and stifling the public review process, the federal government is fast-tracking rollbacks that deserve public scrutiny,” she said.

While millions of acres of public lands across the country have been shuttered to visitors, they remain open to oil and gas companies. And despite plummeting oil prices, the Bureau of Land Management has announced no plans to cancel, or even scale back, upcoming auctions that would make hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands across the western US available to energy companies.

Filmmaker Josh Fox responds to Michael Moore on bombshell climate film

Calls to Break Up 'Big Meat' as Nearly 900 Workers at Single Tyson Processing Plant Test Positive for Covid-19

As hundreds of workers at a Tyson meat plant tested positive Thursday for Covid-19—days after the president ordered meat processing plants to remain open—one advocacy organization demanded a break-up of the nation's "big four" meat producers, saying the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the deep-seated issues of a highly centralized food system.

The group, Nebraska-based Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM), says the current system in which four companies—Cargill, JBS, National Beef, and Tyson—control more than 80% of the nation's beef supply must be overhauled.

"What the COVID-19 pandemic response has shown us is that the biggest links in our food supply chain are the weakest," Ben Gotschall, interim executive director of OCM, in a statement  Thursday. 

"In the interest of our economic, food, and national security," he continued, "the United States needs to remove these weak links by breaking up the Big Four meatpackers and taking steps to ensure that we never again reach today's harmful level of market concentration."

Gotschall said the goal should be "a system based on fair, transparent, and competitive markets so that we can have more farmers and ranchers on the land, producing food with more value in more places."

"Consumers and producers alike can benefit from a system designed not to extract profits for a few large corporations, but to enrich our rural and urban communities and nourish our nation’s people," he added.

That critique echoes recent remarks from Raj Patel, a research professor at the University of Texas and author of books including Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. "The pandemic is exposing the big lie of industrial agriculture and its claim that this is the only way to feed the world," Patel told The Intercept. "When one big supply chain runs everything, the entire system becomes fragile. The reality is that smaller and more diverse networks of agriculture are the most resilient."

Stealth plunder of Argentinian waters raises fears over marine monitoring

An “armada” of more than 100 fishing vessels are illegally plundering south Atlantic waters close to Argentina, environmental groups say, raising concerns that the coronavirus lockdown has weakened already fragile marine protections. The incursion of the ships, mostly from east Asia, appears to have been carried out by stealth. The vessels waited until nightfall, shut down satellite tracking systems in coordination and then moved into the squid-rich waters of Argentina’s exclusive economic zone, Greenpeace said.

The ships were detected in Mar del Plata on the radar of a legal vessel, which reported the incident to coastguard officials and fishing authorities.

By one estimate, the ships – each capable of taking 50 tonnes per day – could in less than three weeks exceed the Argentinian fleet’s quota for the entire season.

The incident has prompted questions in parliament and underlined how commercial interests are trying to capitalise on the relaxation of environmental monitoring and enforcement during the pandemic. “Most people think that the global pandemic means that nature is finally having a chance to heal. But this is not what we are seeing in the unregulated waters of the South Atlantic ocean,” said Luisina Vueso, from Greenpeace’s Protect the Oceans campaign.

“Just one look at this shocking radar image shows you that this armada … is taking advantage of the lack of governance in the high seas to empty our oceans of life.”

Cleaner Air Because of Coronavirus Lockdowns Is Saving Thousands of Lives

About 11,000 fewer people have died in Europe in the last month alone because of cleaner air due to the coronavirus lockdowns, according to a new study.

With fewer people on the roads and economic activity grinding to a halt, pollution from fossil fuels has plummeted — and so have deaths attributable to pollution. The cleaner air during the pandemic means about 6,000 kids won’t develop asthma, 600 fewer babies will be born prematurely, and 1,900 emergency room visits have been avoided, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which published its findings Thursday. ...

The researchers used simulated computer models that combine historical data for air quality, weather conditions, population, and emissions to estimate the number of deaths that have been avoided due to air pollution.

But the actual number of lives saved due to the reduction of air pollution is likely way higher globally: The study only examined lives saved over the course of a single month in Europe, where the virus has killed more than 130,000 people in total. Some of the sharpest global declines in air pollution around the world have been recorded in densely populated regions of China and India, which have high levels of air pollution.

While Thursday’s study didn’t include how the drop in air pollution has affected coronavirus patients, dirty air does make COVID-19 cases worse: A Harvard study published earlier this month found that people who live in highly polluted areas are 15% more likely to die from the coronavirus.

Also of Interest

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

Late-Stage Racial Capitalism Opened the Door to the Killer Virus

Finance Capitalism vs Industrial Capitalism: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Are Destroying Us

Fed’s Powell Tells Reporters Fed Has Only “Lending Powers” – So How Does It Own $5.5 Trillion of Securities?

Boris Johnson’s Coronavirus Lies Are Killing Britons

Former police chief of Honduras accused of trafficking drugs to US

They Were Warned Not to Take Sick Days — Then Six Workers at Their Warehouse Died of Coronavirus

"Can't Pay, Won't Pay": Tens of Thousands Take Part in Covid-19 Rent Strike Across US on May Day

Civil Society Groups Celebrate 'Stunning Victory' in Effort to #SaveDotOrg From Private Equity Takeover

IEA Projects Demand for Renewable Energy to Surge Post-Pandemic While Fossil Fuels Collapse

Jimmy Dore: Air BNB Totally Tanking During Crisis Gets Bailout w/Dylan Ratigan

Saagar Enjeti: Pelosi's blatant HYPOCRISY shows why media, Dems should never be trusted again

Krystal and Saagar: May Day protester's epic rant about rich CEOs and Congress

Krystal and Saagar: Biden says his job is make sure Mayor Pete is future of Democratic party

A Little Night Music

Wilson Pickett - It's All Over

Wilson Pickett - Many Roads to Travel

Wilson Pickett - Funk Factory

Wilson Pickett - I'm Sorry About That

Wilson Pickett - Nothing You Can Do

Wilson Pickett - Funky Broadway

Wilson Pickett - Ninety Nine And A Half Won't Do

Wilson Pickett - Land of 1000 Dances

Wilson Pickett - Better Him Than Me

Wilson Pickett - In the Midnight Hour